
George Floyd died of asphyxia, private autopsy finds - jhow15
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-52885964
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Chilinot
It is just staggering to believe that they tried to hide the real cause of
death amidst all this protesting. Like they genuinely thought they could get
away with just sweeping it under the rug.

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meristem
<sarcasm> There were no ligature marks from a rope, so therefore could not
have been asphyxia </sarcasm>.

Depending on people's willingness to be blind, the rug is HUGE.

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jedimastert
Wait, was that in question?

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headsupernova
the cop's autopsy blamed underlying health conditions, unsurprisingly. They'll
protect their own at all costs and lie to us in broad daylight. Abolish the
police.

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yoavm
I'm sorry if it's a stupid question, but I'm not American and not a native
English speaker. What do you mean when you say "Abolish the police"? You think
there shouldn't be police at all? Or that it needs a reform? Do you disagree
with the idea of having laws? I'm genuinely asking because I'm seeing this
phrase more and more now and I'm not sure what people actually mean when they
say that.

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currymj
the argument is that there shouldn't be police forces as we know them today --
that the whole issue of crime and punishment should be handled completely
differently, with communities organizing themselves to prevent malicious
activity. typically this argument goes along with the idea of abolishing
prisons as well, and ending incarceration as punishment for crimes.

it's not a completely ridiculous idea -- there have been many societies
throughout history that didn't have formal professional police forces, but
still had functioning legal systems. it's also particularly appealing in the
US because the police and prison systems here have such severe problems and
seemingly cannot be reformed.

(unclear whether it could actually work at a large scale in the modern world,
but I can see some of the appeal.)

police and prison abolition have also just become buzzwords, so sometimes
people just use them to express frustration, or to describe what are really
reforms.

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yoavm
Thank you very much for this detailed explanation. What societies do you have
in mind that had a legal system but no formal policing force? Would be
interesting to learn more about it. I remember the concept of police appears
even in the bible, so I assumed it was pretty much always there.

~~~
currymj
One example is England up until the 19th century, which had a well-established
court system but no formal police departments, just unpaid constables, local
militias, etc. I think it was probably similar in many other parts of Europe.
I'm not an expert on the history by any means, though.

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VieEnCode
Why is this flagged?

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maest
From
[https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html):

Off-Topic: Most stories about politics, or crime, or sports, unless they're
evidence of some interesting new phenomenon. Videos of pratfalls or disasters,
or cute animal pictures. If they'd cover it on TV news, it's probably off-
topic.

Also, I suspect the non-US HN users are slowly getting fed up with this one
topic capturing a large part of the online conversation.

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bergstromm466
> Also, I suspect the non-US HN users are slowly getting fed up with this one
> topic capturing a large part of the online conversation.

Hmmm no I can't imagine that, could you describe your view more? Why would
they be fed up, in your view?

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pacamara619
> Hmmm no I can't imagine that

Holy motherflipping cow the amount of Selbstgefälligkeit is insane. How about
you guys _actually use_ your second amendment for once if you're so upset with
the police.

Get your shit together. Get it all together. And put it in a backpack. All
your shit. So it’s together.

And if you gotta take it somewhere, take it somewhere, you know, take it to
the shit store and sell it… Or put it in a shit museum, I don’t care what you
do, you just gotta get it together. Get your shit together!

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chasd00
so which one is right? is a third autopsy planned?

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throwaway6497
Can someone comment on what the official police report said and how it differs
from the private report? If you can provide references that will help too. My
search abilities failed me to get a succinct answer.

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Chilinot
There are several comments here that explains the difference. Summarized,
previous autopsy blamed pre-existing heart condition for the death. While this
new independent autopsy determined it to be asphyxiation.

