Lost Policy Release: Fill & Download for Free

I don't know about all-time, but I can't think of a president who screwed over more of their own base more quickly than Joe Biden did his.How many factory and energy jobs were directly lost in the first week of Biden's presidency because of his misguided environmental policies? (I'm all for saving the environment (sans draconian communistic policies) and Biden's policies actually do the opposite of that.) I've read tens of thousands of jobs were lost due to factories and mines closing as a direct result.From there, how many supportive jobs were lost when these companies no longer needed things like transportation and salesmen? And, how many teachers and store clerks, etc., lose their jobs when whole towns turned into ghost towns overnight? I've seen numbers in the millions.I've seen several unions that initially endorsed Joe Biden later release strongly worded statements of their disapproval of him just weeks after he took office.But, Orange Man wrote mean tweets!

NOTE: 8/6/20 The police bodycam footage became available. I am adding commentary at the end of this answer to reflect the new footage.As a (former) police officer, when I see accounts and footage of situations, I try to apply it to my own career and I ask what would I have done if I were in that situation.Sometimes, I have been in EXACTLY a certain situation, although it can be argued that no two situations may be EXACTLY the same.But nevertheless, when you are in law enforcement for a long time, you get to a point where you have done a lot, and seen a lot. You start to get a pretty good idea of how you might have reacted when you see certain footage.Now, I am also keeping in mind that hindsight is 20/20. BUT… in the Floyd case, I was anxious to see what had happened, exactly, that resulted in them needing to drag Floyd to the ground in the first place. This footage, which I expect is only on the bodycam(s) so far, is what we have yet to see. (We have now seen the surveillance camera footage before Floyd was on the ground, during which my opinion is he did no resisting, and we have seen the bystander cell video. We just lack what happened in between those.)But let’s jump ahead to when he is on the ground. There have been times I have had to restrain a person severely because they were literally behaving as a dangerous wild animal. That would be the only reason for what was on that video. I would have to see that Floyd was headbutting, spitting, biting, kicking, all while handcuffed, to possibly explain why they had to bring him down while handcuffed and restrain him so severely.BUT, even if that were true, and now I am hearing that Minneapolis is saying Floyd was not resisting arrest, there is a point where you back off. That point is when Floyd says “can you take your knee off my neck” (or something to that effect).That’s the moment.Even if he did all the above (which it sounds like he did not), this is the moment when you communicate with him and say: “If I get off your neck, will you sit up and stop (doing whatever)?”My experience is that a subject usually (but not always) agrees to be compliant after that. And it is also my experience that if they get violent again, it is relatively simple to put them right back in the uncomfortable position.So, THAT is what I was thinking.I did not “get” the leaving your knee on his neck thing. It seemed persistent and mean spirited.I don’t know about other cops and ex-cops, but after you struggle with a person, to me, there becomes a kind of “understanding” with them. Does this make sense? You were just fighting with them and now you’re talking to them. It’s weird. I don’t really understand the idea of fighting police, it makes me think of children testing their parents’ boundaries in some way, because after you show them where the boundaries are, usually (not always), they come to terms with it. They comply.Even IF Floyd was fighting (and we have more information pointing to him NOT fighting than we have seen saying he was), he was clearly resigned, on the ground and was complying. It was time to talk to him, come to terms about under what conditions you are going to let him back up. I have been there, as a cop, many times. He agrees, and you sit him up. You might offer him water now. You might ask him what hurts, etc. It’s weird, I know.Maybe it’s basic humanity?So, in the Floyd video, I didn’t sense that. There was just this mean spirited thing, pinning him down like an insect. Staying at it.That is what I was, and am, thinking.Update 8/6/20.I have watched the police bodycam footage. This is my conclusion.I would definitely call Floyd’s behavior “resisting arrest”. He is acting childish, maybe he is high or mentally ill. He is not accounting of himself in an adult, manly, way.So this explains why the police may have felt the need to hold him on the ground.It may also explain what Chauvin, the senior officer at the scene, was trying to do. In light of the fact that Minneapolis P.D. (amazingly) had it in their written policy that neck holds for the purpose of rendering a suspect unconscious (and apparently this has been done 44 times to suspects since 2015), I believe Chauvin had made the decision to render Floyd unconscious in order to overcome his strange and difficult behavior.I am left with a few policy questions, and a few practical questions.Policy question: Is it policy to arrest a person for an attempt to pass a counterfeit bill? In addition to federal violations, it may constitute misdemeanor “attempted deceptive practices”, but usually, a part of that law requires it to be “knowingly”. If the bill was a good fake, it may be hard to prove they passed it “knowingly”. In such cases during my career, we seized the bill, sent it to the Secret Service, and just took the suspect’s information. It was hard to win misdemeanor cases like that in our very busy urban/suburban court district, so we usually passed on it (if the transaction was halted before it was completed). If the Secret Service wants to, they can go talk to the suspect on their own, later. They can charge him with a Federal offense if they need to.Policy question: WE had access to a “prisoner transport vehicle”. A van, basically. (I didn’t want to call it a “Paddy Wagon”, that is racist.) (In case you didn’t know, a “Paddy” is a derogatory term for an Irishman.) If a guy is freaking out like Floyd was, we could get the van, it’s much more roomy.Policy question: I wouldn’t have walked a handcuffed suspect across the street. I would have sent a guy over to get the vehicle to be used, and had him drive it to the curb. I think it is undignified and unprofessional to parade a handcuffed man across a busy street in a busy intersection, if you had a more subtle way to do it. Not a big deal. Just my preference.Policy question: Actually this one is not a policy question. It is a policy statement. According to links available on the internet, it is (recently removed) actually IN the Minneapolis policy that trained personnel may use neck hold to cause unconsciousness. Why the Chief of Police left that in there, when he could have removed it with the stroke of a pen, after the Garner case in NY, is a mystery to me.Practical question: Ok, so you’ve made the decision to arrest him. He’s being difficult. You put him on the ground. APPARENTLY, you made the decision to put a hold on his neck to render him unconscious. So far, so “good”, and, apparently, within Minneapolis P.D. guidelines. Your knee is on his neck, he passes out. Again, if that’s your decision and your policy, so far so good. I don’t like it, we were not allowed to do that, but ok. But NOW, we have the PROBLEM. The PROBLEM, was that his knee STAYED on his neck AFTER he lost consciousness. Why?Practical question(s): Was Chauvin trained in neck holds? Had he ever performed one on the job? How many of those 44 Minneapolis cases since 2015 were by Chauvin? Why did he not lift his knee when Floyd went unconscious? How did he not know that he could cause brain damage or death if he did not immediately release the knee after Floyd lost consciousness? What, exactly, did Chauvin THINK was going to happen to Floyd?In summary, based on a number of factors, from the videos, from the publicly available Minneapolis policies, it appears to me that Chauvin made the decision to render Floyd unconscious, to complete the arrest, because of Floyd’s crazed behavior. It appears to me that for reasons I do not comprehend, that Chauvin, due to maliciousness or gross incompetence, failed to release the hold, and thus brain damage or death was the only result that a thinking person (including a number of people in the crowd) would have expected.

Obama deported many more illegal immigrants than Trump. He also managed to avoid a humanitarian crisis on the border despite there being many more people crossing illegally then.The camps, the lost children, the deaths, the sickness, the release of illegal immigrants to bus stations in the dead of night. All this is a sign that Trump’s policies and implementation are an embarrassing, incompetent disaster.