Yes, they did nothing to address the distress of the victim when he clearly indicated he was in difficulty.
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That's awful to watch and a lot more than we've seen on our news (understandably).
It does seem like Floyd was a complete pain in the arse, resisting arrest and refusing to get in the police car. He was obviously under the influence, how much of that was due to alcohol, who knows, there were reports of Fentanyl and I think something else, from the autopsy. We don't know if Floyd lashed out at all, whether he'd been violent. But certainly a pain in the arse, saying he couldn't get in because he was 'claustrophobic' when it was clear he just didn't want to go with the cops.
It seems like Chauvin lost his rag with him and had had enough. Interesting to see his response when Floyd was later on the ground and became quiet and unresponsive (and he would have felt Floyd go limp)...a concerned bystander calls out to Chauvin from a distance, he's not under threat (which can happen of course, ugly mobs gathering around an arrest are hardly unusual), yet his face becomes angry and he pulls his baton. Why? This was a female voice, unthreatening, and a few metres away.
There'll be lots of police bodycam footage to look at too, obviously we're not privy to that, and this will give a clearer picture of the role the other three played. Interestingly, there is audio on that clip, from the police radio system though, re: the call for medical back-up. So it seems like the police have released some stuff, in this case to prove an ambulance was called.
Of the other three cops the Asian guy is on 'crowd-duty', we can't see the other two most of the time but they were directly assisting Chauvin for at least part of the time. I guess the critical time is from when it became clear Floyd was unconscious, you could say that at this point, at least the other two should have been intervening, and even if Chauvin himself resisted that, they should have forcibly intervened on Floyd's behalf. Seeing all that it seems clear to me that from the moment Floyd fell on the ground (whether that was part of his non-compliance, who knows), Chauvin was directly involved and the prime mover at all times. For the other three it will become a legal fight over what they were individually aware of at what point in time, and whether they should individually have taken their own initiative at any point. Cetainly all three are to some degree culpable, whether a Jury will decide that culpability extends to actually assisting in Floyd's demise (even by their own inaction) remains to be seen.
The whole thing is tragic and disgusting in equal measure though, truly awful. One thing that seems relevant here, is that Floyd is built like a man-mountain, he's a big guy (and not fat), he's resisting arrest, he's clearly under the influence of something. But apparently he also had a heart condition, and it probably played a part in his death. This is something coppers are (or certainly should be) trained to understand though...don't judge a person or a situation by how it looks, stay rational, and sometimes under extreme provocation. Saw an interesting thing about how short police training is in some US States, I think it can be as little as 8wks or something? That seems crazy.
It does seem here though, that Chauvin is a nasty piece of work. I'm trying to understand why even when it was clear Floyd was unresponsive, and the ambulance had arrived, he didn't take his knee off Floyd's neck until the paramedic told him to because he wanted to get him on the gurney. That's just weird. Was Chauvin trying to make a (false) point that he still believed Floyd to be a danger, or by this time had he realised he'd fucked up badly and was almost in shock himself?
