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Linguist’s analysis of body cam footage of George Floyd in Derek Chauvin trial

47 points by tazjin 6y ago

tazjin 6y ago
I did not entirely keep the original title (verbatim: '"I ATE TOO MANY DRUGS": ARE YOU KIDDING ME?!") and instead edited it to explain what this is about, hopefully that's okay :)
grumpyautist 6y ago
"I ain't do no drugs" acceptable english to this author "I ate too many drugs" something nobody says according to this author. I have spent time in drug harm reduction. The phrase "I ate too many drugs" I have heard more than once. Especially in online drug communities This author tries really hard to prove that he didn't say "I ate too many drugs" to the point of absurdity. Who knows what he said? Nobody really. There isn't a reason to conjure reasons to pidgenhole a dead man's words to fit a narrative Especially considering one of the two things isnt even factual if you read the autopsy. Floyd definitely was incredibly intoxicated
- neolog 6y ago
  I can't find the phrase on google. https://www.google.com/search?q=%22I+ate+too+many+drugs%22+-Floyd https://www.google.com/search?q=%22I+ate+too+many+drugs%22+-...
  - Proven 6y ago
    Maybe that's because don't want to find it (which is why you have that "I" in the query) https://vidmax.com/video/103748-car-stopped-on-highway-driver-ate-too-many-drugs https://vidmax.com/video/103748-car-stopped-on-highway-drive...
  - argvargc 6y ago
    Maybe time to switch? Loads of results on DuckDuckGo
    - tom_mellior 6y ago
      Loads of results on both Google and DuckDuckGo. But they all seem to reference the alleged George Floyd quote, so meh. Strangely, limiting the search by date doesn't work for me on either Google or DuckDuckGo: Limiting the search to before May 24, 2020 still shows tons of obviously current news sites and tweets. This is surprisingly useless.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  - FreshFries 6y ago
    I get "About 8’370 results (0.71 seconds)" when I click your link. Seems something is broken on your side.
    - neolog 6y ago
      Did you look at the actual pages?
- Ar-Curunir 6y ago
  I have literally never heard anyone say "I ate too many drugs". Also, even if Floyd said that, he did not deserve to be killed. In this position the police literally have guns and tasers. They have the physical and tactical advantage over a "intoxicated" person. To then kill the person they're supposed to detain is incompetence at best (unlikely), and malice at worst (much more likely).
  - austincheney 6y ago
    > he did not deserve to be killed. Nobody is suggesting anything remotely close to that.
    - WA 6y ago
      Many people (on Twitter) are suggesting exactly that. They say "see, he was an erratic intoxicated drug addict, he didn't die because of the police officer. He died because of an overdose."
      - throwaway894345 6y ago
        You can find any ridiculous opinion on Twitter. Why rebut Twitter opinions out of the blue in the middle of an HN thread?
      - austincheney 6y ago
        Don't care, this isn't Twitter. Twitter is a mosh pit.
      - Leparamour 6y ago
        Death as a consequence from a self-inflicted drug overdose isn't a question of morals. The fentanyl surely doesn't care if the user is black and underprivileged or not. Besides that, Floyd almost killed himself with an overdose of opioids a month earlier. This was cofirmed by his partner with the telling nickname "Momma".[1] Also there is the bodycam footage from 2019 during which Floyd cadmitted he swallowed his stash of drugs to hide them from the cops. Suffering from an overdose once more.[2] There appears to be a pattern. [1]https://apnews.com/article/derek-chauvin-trial-day-4-live-updates-c07446515f2bf6b8b45d56cdf6810d67 https://apnews.com/article/derek-chauvin-trial-day-4-live-up... [2]https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-race-georgefloyd-idUSKBN2B82AO https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-race-georgefloyd-idUS...
- Cthulhu_ 6y ago
  New account coming in to explain what a murder victim may or may not have said and whether or not he was on something. Devil's advocate? Does it matter whether he was under the influence? Is that an offense punishable by summary curbside execution through suffocation? What's your angle? What's your actual opinion on the case?
  - Thorentis 6y ago
    The article posted goes out of its way to "prove" he said something that meant he didn't do drugs. So clearly it does matter very much.
- bArray 6y ago
  > This author tries really hard to prove that he didn't say "I ate too many drugs" to the point of absurdity. Who knows what he said? Nobody really. There isn't a reason to conjure reasons to pidgenhole a dead man's words to fit a narrative Yeah, I don't think anybody can reasonably interpret exactly what Floyd said under the influence of drugs, given the quality of the video. Hearing it two different times I came to two different conclusions, depending on the setup following up the clip. Many people I've asked have heard it both ways too - it's simply too borderline. > Especially considering one of the two things isnt even factual if you read the autopsy. Floyd definitely was incredibly intoxicated Exactly. I think the number was something like four times the lethal amount and there is video evidence that he was foaming at the mouth. In any case, if he said "I ain't do no drugs", it was clearly a lie given the drug dealer in his car (refusing to be a witness) and the high levels of drugs found in his bloodstream - the same type that almost killed him previously. If he said "I ate too many drugs", then it's just an admittance of the state he was clearly in from the evidence seen so far. In any case, I don't see how it helps the prosecution in the Floyd trial. I'm going to wait out for more evidence of course. In any case, I will be annoyed if after having had the opportunity to present all available evidence and an independent jury has reviewed it - if there are violent protests/riots in reaction to whatever the verdict is.
- monkeydreams 6y ago
  So a man, while he is being crushed by police, will suddenly think "Wow, my head is spinning, it must have been all those drugs I ate." and then verbalise the thought? Or was he denying the rationalisation used for his suffucation? I think context matters here a lot, and occams razor suggests that a man being attacked by police officers because he is supposedly on drugs will deny the drug taking, rather than invent a whole new category of problem for himself.
  - grumpyautist 6y ago
    Attacked by police? He was out of the car by his own request. Also have you seen the footage from the store? There is no alleged about his intoxication level.
    - monkeydreams 6y ago
      OK, my mistake. But let's review that context - when faced with police officers is an offender going to increase their culpability and add a new culpability into the mix or are they going to seek to keep their punishment exposure to a minimum? "I ate too" vs "I ain't do".... The linguist actually has a point here. It is more likely the second option, again, because to assume the first is to imagine a new entity (in this case, a separate rationalisation outside of the context of the interaction). As to why you might be seeking to dispute such a moot point (as the question of the case isn't whether Floyd was intoxiated)... I leave that as a problem for the reader.
andyxor 6y ago
He had a lethal dose of fentanyl in his system so it’s irrelevant anyway https://www.hennepin.us/-/media/hennepinus/residents/public-safety/documents/floyd-autopsy-6-3-20.pdf https://www.hennepin.us/-/media/hennepinus/residents/public-...
- grumpyautist 6y ago
  The article talks about the plausibility according to linguistics while entirely ignoring the reality according to toxicology. Occam's razor suggests that he said "I ate too many drugs" because that is the logical thing for someone to say if they were panicking that they overdosed
  - nkurz 6y ago
    I disagree. I think a simpler explanation is that someone being arrested would continue to deny having done anything illegal. While it may be true that he "ate too many drugs", and it's not impossible that he would suddenly speak the truth, it's far from "logical" to spontaneously confess an illegal act to an arresting officer. Even if Occam suggests preferring the simplest explanation, logic would suggest preferring the self-interested explanation, even if this is a lie. Responding to your other comment here to keep things compact, I also disagree with your statement that the author of the article believes "I ain't do no drugs" is acceptable English. What he claims, apparently as an expert, is that the grammar of this phrase fits a standard pattern in the particular dialect known as African American English (AAE). Given the relatively flawless academic English of the article, I'm almost certain the author distinguishes what is standard in AAE from what is acceptable in (unmodified) English. That said, your personal experience of hearing the phrase "I ate too many drugs" is a very useful datapoint, and does undercut this part of the authors argument.
    - washadjeffmad 6y ago
      "I ain't done no drugs" or "I ain't doin ne drugs" are still uncompelling. People, especially those used to constant policing, aren't so afraid of the them that they wouldn't tell them they needed medical help. When you're used to the police, you behave a certain way around them, but it's not fear of authority. There's wariness, but you know what the police, at least the ones you know, are there for and what they do. It's not just blind fear and animosity. Wealthy people are worried about their credit and what probation would mean for their reputations and careers and would do anything to avoid engaging with the court and criminal justice systems. When you have no expectation of generational wealth, when engagement with the system is the norm and none of this is new to you, your family, or anyone you know, you don't worry about maintaining plausible deniability or not giving police evidence. You're in, your out, that's life. I don't think anyone who doesn't already understand what that's like would be able to model how someone could possibly do something that wasn't in their best interest like tell a police officer they're about to OD.
AndrewUnmuted 6y ago
I would like to address just one point made in this article. The author claims that the phrase, "I ate too many drugs," is > highly implausible I disagree. In numerous parts of the US the act of "eating drugs," would typically refer to taking a pharmaceutical pill with recreational value, taking an illicit "ecstasy" pill, or orally ingesting amphetamine/methamphetamine. I've heard this phrase used in the northeast, the south, and the south-east, in both privileged communities and inner-city neighborhoods. This [0] is a recent thread from Quora demonstrating the commonality of "eating meth" in drug-user parlance. Meth was one of the drugs found in Floyd's system, at amounts that suggest he had recently consumed it. [0] https://www.quora.com/Does-eating-meth-get-you-just-as-high-as-injecting-it?share=1 https://www.quora.com/Does-eating-meth-get-you-just-as-high-...
- thakoppno 6y ago
  > I have known plenty of people who have experience with drug use, and none have ever referred to it as "eating drugs." Anecdota of me and all, but eating drugs was normal and understandable parlance to my friend group growing up.
- msrenee 6y ago
  I don't get the point of either argument. Whether he said he took too many drugs or not, you shouldn't kneel on someone's neck, chest, or back for longer than it takes to get restraints in place. If someone's so fucking high that they can't explain what's happening, they need to be restrained and transported to the hospital. If someone's obviously high and combative, they need to be restrained and transported to the hospital. No one deserves to die because they abuse drugs. And even if they did, that's the judicial system's call to make. I hope that the police involved did not intend to kill him. But they behaved in a way that they should have known would lead to his death.
  - AndrewUnmuted 6y ago
    The only thing that the argument clarifies is whether George Floyd told the truth or a lie at that particular moment in time. The drugs were in his system, and the amount of fentanyl in particular was not an insignificant dose, even for a person of his body weight. > No one deserves to die because they abuse drugs. Perhaps, but people do die due to their drug abuse often - whether through first- or higher-order outcomes of those choices. If someone ODs on drugs and dies, I'm not sure saying they "deserved," it would be appropriate or fair, but it would not incorrect to state that their own actions did not lead directly to the fatal outcome. Is it appropriate or fair to force people to conduct themselves in such a way that arguably avoids a fatal outcome in the special case of drug abusers? What about in the case of self-defense or law enforcement? I've watched the full unedited body cam footage. Cops approached Floyd in a running car, making his intoxication a significant public safety risk that could have led to injury/death. Especially after several viewings of the footage, there's no reason to believe that was not the origin of the heightened tensions and the anxieties that led to the chaotic police work carried out by Chauvin and his buddies.
_q3gx 6y ago
I am sorry, but as much as I support BLM I wish Elijah McClain[0] was the person we talked about. He was never in prison (unlike George Floyd) and he played the violin to cats in a shelter. Mr. McClain died from a police restraining while after being injected with ketamine, and he was a friggin saint. [0]: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-53182122 https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-53182122
- adamnemecek 6y ago
  Does having ketamine in your blood stream mean you deserve to die?
  - e9 6y ago
    Police injected him with ketamine to sedate him and he died from that.
    - trs8080 6y ago
      Not according to the prosecution.
      - michaelmrose 6y ago
        This is just not true. >Paramedics were called and injected McClain with ketamine, but they incorrectly estimated his weight, giving him more than 1½ times the dose he should have received. He got 500 milligrams because they thought he weighed 220 pounds, but he weighed only 140 pounds and should have received 315 milligrams. https://www.latimes.com/world-nation/story/2020-08-22/ketamine-thats-injected-during-arrests-draws-new-scrutiny https://www.latimes.com/world-nation/story/2020-08-22/ketami... It is a matter of record that they injected him with 50% more than he ought to have received. As for your claim. It's not merely that this isn't true it isn't so far as I can discover even claimed by the police. It's not even clear what you mean by the words "the prosecution" he didn't get tried for anything whatsoever by dint of being already dead because they screwed up and provably killed him.
greenwich26 6y ago
This is like using general relativity to prove that your team did deserve that penalty kick in the cup final. Cringe.
torstenvl 6y ago
I am unconvinced. His interpretation seems to require assuming a morphological error. The contrary hypothesis assumes an odd word choice. Among native speakers, odd word choices are far more common than morphological errors. (Note: I only have a BA in linguistics and only took one class on American dialects. Unlike the OP, I am not an expert in AAVE.) We are given the choice between two phrases that most seem to fit the audio. Both phrases are marked, i.e., not particularly common, and potentially indicative of an idiolect. - I ate too many drugs. - I ain't do any drugs. "I ate too many drugs" is only marked in terms of word choice, not grammar. A different verb (e.g., "took") would be perfectly acceptable across a wide array of dialects. A further problem with OP's objection here is that people do sometimes use the verb "to eat" with regard to drugs. On the other hand, I believe "I ain't do any drugs" is ungrammatical in AAVE, which requires negating both the verb and the noun phrase (cf. "I ain't do nothin" rather than "I ain't do anything"). So what's more plausible? That Floyd used a word in a way the OP is unfamiliar with? Or that Floyd - a native AAVE speaker - uttered a linear, clear, yet ungrammatical sentence?
- Cederfjard 6y ago
  You say > On the other hand, I believe "I ain't do any drugs" is ungrammatical in AAVE But the OP says > "I ain't do any drugs" is a normal, grammatical sentence in AAE And you concede that the OP is an expert and you are not. For what it’s worth, and it’s not much because I’m neither a linguist nor a native speaker of any kind of English, I consume a lot of content made in AAE and have friends who speak it, and I would not bat an eye at seeing or hearing ”I ain’t do any drugs”. I think your interpretation of the grammar is too strict.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  - luckylion 6y ago
    Not proof either way, but searching for "I ain't do any drugs" and excluding floyd and chauvin gives like two dozen results on Google. Doing the same with "I ain't do no drugs" gives a few thousands, including song lyrics and memes.

47 points by tazjin 6y ago

I did not entirely keep the original title (verbatim: '"I ATE TOO MANY DRUGS": ARE YOU KIDDING ME?!") and instead edited it to explain what this is about, hopefully that's okay :)

grumpyautist 6y ago

"I ain't do no drugs" acceptable english to this author "I ate too many drugs" something nobody says according to this author. I have spent time in drug harm reduction. The phrase "I ate too many drugs" I have heard more than once. Especially in online drug communities This author tries really hard to prove that he didn't say "I ate too many drugs" to the point of absurdity. Who knows what he said? Nobody really. There isn't a reason to conjure reasons to pidgenhole a dead man's words to fit a narrative Especially considering one of the two things isnt even factual if you read the autopsy. Floyd definitely was incredibly intoxicated

neolog 6y ago
I can't find the phrase on google. https://www.google.com/search?q=%22I+ate+too+many+drugs%22+-Floyd https://www.google.com/search?q=%22I+ate+too+many+drugs%22+-...
- Proven 6y ago
  Maybe that's because don't want to find it (which is why you have that "I" in the query) https://vidmax.com/video/103748-car-stopped-on-highway-driver-ate-too-many-drugs https://vidmax.com/video/103748-car-stopped-on-highway-drive...
- argvargc 6y ago
  Maybe time to switch? Loads of results on DuckDuckGo
  - tom_mellior 6y ago
    Loads of results on both Google and DuckDuckGo. But they all seem to reference the alleged George Floyd quote, so meh. Strangely, limiting the search by date doesn't work for me on either Google or DuckDuckGo: Limiting the search to before May 24, 2020 still shows tons of obviously current news sites and tweets. This is surprisingly useless.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- FreshFries 6y ago
  I get "About 8’370 results (0.71 seconds)" when I click your link. Seems something is broken on your side.
  - neolog 6y ago
    Did you look at the actual pages?
Ar-Curunir 6y ago
I have literally never heard anyone say "I ate too many drugs". Also, even if Floyd said that, he did not deserve to be killed. In this position the police literally have guns and tasers. They have the physical and tactical advantage over a "intoxicated" person. To then kill the person they're supposed to detain is incompetence at best (unlikely), and malice at worst (much more likely).
- austincheney 6y ago
  > he did not deserve to be killed. Nobody is suggesting anything remotely close to that.
  - WA 6y ago
    Many people (on Twitter) are suggesting exactly that. They say "see, he was an erratic intoxicated drug addict, he didn't die because of the police officer. He died because of an overdose."
    - throwaway894345 6y ago
      You can find any ridiculous opinion on Twitter. Why rebut Twitter opinions out of the blue in the middle of an HN thread?
    - austincheney 6y ago
      Don't care, this isn't Twitter. Twitter is a mosh pit.
    - Leparamour 6y ago
      Death as a consequence from a self-inflicted drug overdose isn't a question of morals. The fentanyl surely doesn't care if the user is black and underprivileged or not. Besides that, Floyd almost killed himself with an overdose of opioids a month earlier. This was cofirmed by his partner with the telling nickname "Momma".[1] Also there is the bodycam footage from 2019 during which Floyd cadmitted he swallowed his stash of drugs to hide them from the cops. Suffering from an overdose once more.[2] There appears to be a pattern. [1]https://apnews.com/article/derek-chauvin-trial-day-4-live-updates-c07446515f2bf6b8b45d56cdf6810d67 https://apnews.com/article/derek-chauvin-trial-day-4-live-up... [2]https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-race-georgefloyd-idUSKBN2B82AO https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-race-georgefloyd-idUS...
Cthulhu_ 6y ago
New account coming in to explain what a murder victim may or may not have said and whether or not he was on something. Devil's advocate? Does it matter whether he was under the influence? Is that an offense punishable by summary curbside execution through suffocation? What's your angle? What's your actual opinion on the case?
- Thorentis 6y ago
  The article posted goes out of its way to "prove" he said something that meant he didn't do drugs. So clearly it does matter very much.
bArray 6y ago
> This author tries really hard to prove that he didn't say "I ate too many drugs" to the point of absurdity. Who knows what he said? Nobody really. There isn't a reason to conjure reasons to pidgenhole a dead man's words to fit a narrative Yeah, I don't think anybody can reasonably interpret exactly what Floyd said under the influence of drugs, given the quality of the video. Hearing it two different times I came to two different conclusions, depending on the setup following up the clip. Many people I've asked have heard it both ways too - it's simply too borderline. > Especially considering one of the two things isnt even factual if you read the autopsy. Floyd definitely was incredibly intoxicated Exactly. I think the number was something like four times the lethal amount and there is video evidence that he was foaming at the mouth. In any case, if he said "I ain't do no drugs", it was clearly a lie given the drug dealer in his car (refusing to be a witness) and the high levels of drugs found in his bloodstream - the same type that almost killed him previously. If he said "I ate too many drugs", then it's just an admittance of the state he was clearly in from the evidence seen so far. In any case, I don't see how it helps the prosecution in the Floyd trial. I'm going to wait out for more evidence of course. In any case, I will be annoyed if after having had the opportunity to present all available evidence and an independent jury has reviewed it - if there are violent protests/riots in reaction to whatever the verdict is.
monkeydreams 6y ago
So a man, while he is being crushed by police, will suddenly think "Wow, my head is spinning, it must have been all those drugs I ate." and then verbalise the thought? Or was he denying the rationalisation used for his suffucation? I think context matters here a lot, and occams razor suggests that a man being attacked by police officers because he is supposedly on drugs will deny the drug taking, rather than invent a whole new category of problem for himself.
- grumpyautist 6y ago
  Attacked by police? He was out of the car by his own request. Also have you seen the footage from the store? There is no alleged about his intoxication level.
  - monkeydreams 6y ago
    OK, my mistake. But let's review that context - when faced with police officers is an offender going to increase their culpability and add a new culpability into the mix or are they going to seek to keep their punishment exposure to a minimum? "I ate too" vs "I ain't do".... The linguist actually has a point here. It is more likely the second option, again, because to assume the first is to imagine a new entity (in this case, a separate rationalisation outside of the context of the interaction). As to why you might be seeking to dispute such a moot point (as the question of the case isn't whether Floyd was intoxiated)... I leave that as a problem for the reader.

andyxor 6y ago

He had a lethal dose of fentanyl in his system so it’s irrelevant anyway https://www.hennepin.us/-/media/hennepinus/residents/public-safety/documents/floyd-autopsy-6-3-20.pdf https://www.hennepin.us/-/media/hennepinus/residents/public-...

grumpyautist 6y ago
The article talks about the plausibility according to linguistics while entirely ignoring the reality according to toxicology. Occam's razor suggests that he said "I ate too many drugs" because that is the logical thing for someone to say if they were panicking that they overdosed
- nkurz 6y ago
  I disagree. I think a simpler explanation is that someone being arrested would continue to deny having done anything illegal. While it may be true that he "ate too many drugs", and it's not impossible that he would suddenly speak the truth, it's far from "logical" to spontaneously confess an illegal act to an arresting officer. Even if Occam suggests preferring the simplest explanation, logic would suggest preferring the self-interested explanation, even if this is a lie. Responding to your other comment here to keep things compact, I also disagree with your statement that the author of the article believes "I ain't do no drugs" is acceptable English. What he claims, apparently as an expert, is that the grammar of this phrase fits a standard pattern in the particular dialect known as African American English (AAE). Given the relatively flawless academic English of the article, I'm almost certain the author distinguishes what is standard in AAE from what is acceptable in (unmodified) English. That said, your personal experience of hearing the phrase "I ate too many drugs" is a very useful datapoint, and does undercut this part of the authors argument.
  - washadjeffmad 6y ago
    "I ain't done no drugs" or "I ain't doin ne drugs" are still uncompelling. People, especially those used to constant policing, aren't so afraid of the them that they wouldn't tell them they needed medical help. When you're used to the police, you behave a certain way around them, but it's not fear of authority. There's wariness, but you know what the police, at least the ones you know, are there for and what they do. It's not just blind fear and animosity. Wealthy people are worried about their credit and what probation would mean for their reputations and careers and would do anything to avoid engaging with the court and criminal justice systems. When you have no expectation of generational wealth, when engagement with the system is the norm and none of this is new to you, your family, or anyone you know, you don't worry about maintaining plausible deniability or not giving police evidence. You're in, your out, that's life. I don't think anyone who doesn't already understand what that's like would be able to model how someone could possibly do something that wasn't in their best interest like tell a police officer they're about to OD.

AndrewUnmuted 6y ago

I would like to address just one point made in this article. The author claims that the phrase, "I ate too many drugs," is > highly implausible I disagree. In numerous parts of the US the act of "eating drugs," would typically refer to taking a pharmaceutical pill with recreational value, taking an illicit "ecstasy" pill, or orally ingesting amphetamine/methamphetamine. I've heard this phrase used in the northeast, the south, and the south-east, in both privileged communities and inner-city neighborhoods. This [0] is a recent thread from Quora demonstrating the commonality of "eating meth" in drug-user parlance. Meth was one of the drugs found in Floyd's system, at amounts that suggest he had recently consumed it. [0] https://www.quora.com/Does-eating-meth-get-you-just-as-high-as-injecting-it?share=1 https://www.quora.com/Does-eating-meth-get-you-just-as-high-...

thakoppno 6y ago
> I have known plenty of people who have experience with drug use, and none have ever referred to it as "eating drugs." Anecdota of me and all, but eating drugs was normal and understandable parlance to my friend group growing up.
msrenee 6y ago
I don't get the point of either argument. Whether he said he took too many drugs or not, you shouldn't kneel on someone's neck, chest, or back for longer than it takes to get restraints in place. If someone's so fucking high that they can't explain what's happening, they need to be restrained and transported to the hospital. If someone's obviously high and combative, they need to be restrained and transported to the hospital. No one deserves to die because they abuse drugs. And even if they did, that's the judicial system's call to make. I hope that the police involved did not intend to kill him. But they behaved in a way that they should have known would lead to his death.
- AndrewUnmuted 6y ago
  The only thing that the argument clarifies is whether George Floyd told the truth or a lie at that particular moment in time. The drugs were in his system, and the amount of fentanyl in particular was not an insignificant dose, even for a person of his body weight. > No one deserves to die because they abuse drugs. Perhaps, but people do die due to their drug abuse often - whether through first- or higher-order outcomes of those choices. If someone ODs on drugs and dies, I'm not sure saying they "deserved," it would be appropriate or fair, but it would not incorrect to state that their own actions did not lead directly to the fatal outcome. Is it appropriate or fair to force people to conduct themselves in such a way that arguably avoids a fatal outcome in the special case of drug abusers? What about in the case of self-defense or law enforcement? I've watched the full unedited body cam footage. Cops approached Floyd in a running car, making his intoxication a significant public safety risk that could have led to injury/death. Especially after several viewings of the footage, there's no reason to believe that was not the origin of the heightened tensions and the anxieties that led to the chaotic police work carried out by Chauvin and his buddies.

_q3gx 6y ago

I am sorry, but as much as I support BLM I wish Elijah McClain[0] was the person we talked about. He was never in prison (unlike George Floyd) and he played the violin to cats in a shelter. Mr. McClain died from a police restraining while after being injected with ketamine, and he was a friggin saint. [0]: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-53182122 https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-53182122

adamnemecek 6y ago
Does having ketamine in your blood stream mean you deserve to die?
- e9 6y ago
  Police injected him with ketamine to sedate him and he died from that.
  - trs8080 6y ago
    Not according to the prosecution.
    - michaelmrose 6y ago
      This is just not true. >Paramedics were called and injected McClain with ketamine, but they incorrectly estimated his weight, giving him more than 1½ times the dose he should have received. He got 500 milligrams because they thought he weighed 220 pounds, but he weighed only 140 pounds and should have received 315 milligrams. https://www.latimes.com/world-nation/story/2020-08-22/ketamine-thats-injected-during-arrests-draws-new-scrutiny https://www.latimes.com/world-nation/story/2020-08-22/ketami... It is a matter of record that they injected him with 50% more than he ought to have received. As for your claim. It's not merely that this isn't true it isn't so far as I can discover even claimed by the police. It's not even clear what you mean by the words "the prosecution" he didn't get tried for anything whatsoever by dint of being already dead because they screwed up and provably killed him.

greenwich26 6y ago

This is like using general relativity to prove that your team did deserve that penalty kick in the cup final. Cringe.

torstenvl 6y ago

I am unconvinced. His interpretation seems to require assuming a morphological error. The contrary hypothesis assumes an odd word choice. Among native speakers, odd word choices are far more common than morphological errors. (Note: I only have a BA in linguistics and only took one class on American dialects. Unlike the OP, I am not an expert in AAVE.) We are given the choice between two phrases that most seem to fit the audio. Both phrases are marked, i.e., not particularly common, and potentially indicative of an idiolect. - I ate too many drugs. - I ain't do any drugs. "I ate too many drugs" is only marked in terms of word choice, not grammar. A different verb (e.g., "took") would be perfectly acceptable across a wide array of dialects. A further problem with OP's objection here is that people do sometimes use the verb "to eat" with regard to drugs. On the other hand, I believe "I ain't do any drugs" is ungrammatical in AAVE, which requires negating both the verb and the noun phrase (cf. "I ain't do nothin" rather than "I ain't do anything"). So what's more plausible? That Floyd used a word in a way the OP is unfamiliar with? Or that Floyd - a native AAVE speaker - uttered a linear, clear, yet ungrammatical sentence?

Cederfjard 6y ago
You say > On the other hand, I believe "I ain't do any drugs" is ungrammatical in AAVE But the OP says > "I ain't do any drugs" is a normal, grammatical sentence in AAE And you concede that the OP is an expert and you are not. For what it’s worth, and it’s not much because I’m neither a linguist nor a native speaker of any kind of English, I consume a lot of content made in AAE and have friends who speak it, and I would not bat an eye at seeing or hearing ”I ain’t do any drugs”. I think your interpretation of the grammar is too strict.
- deleted 6y ago
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- luckylion 6y ago
  Not proof either way, but searching for "I ain't do any drugs" and excluding floyd and chauvin gives like two dozen results on Google. Doing the same with "I ain't do no drugs" gives a few thousands, including song lyrics and memes.