As both teams in Derek Chauvin’s trial rested their respective cases this week, Rolling out caught up with attorney J. Wyndale Gordon in advance of closing arguments. Gordon offered legal insight to help us understand the case and the potential outcome ahead of the verdict.
As we await the verdict, what should we be telling ourselves so that we don’t continue to be traumatized?
Well, first of all, we should separate ourselves from the “cop-aganda” [propaganda]. Everything that we are hearing is straight out of the “defensive police playbook” and they are going according to plan. I call it the “Three D’s” — deny, discredit and destroy.
But at the end of the day, you have that video, and no one’s really gonna convince you. The video speaks for itself.
People have heard me say, on multiple occasions, “This case is going to be a beauty contest.” When I say beauty contest, I mean, who’s got the best experts? Whose experts can convey the best message?
What is the issue with resisting arrest?
If somebody is applying pain, obviously, you’re going to try to adjust yourself to resist the pain. If somebody throws somebody in the pool of water, what do they do? They struggle. So if he says [he] can’t breathe, he’s struggling to breathe. He’s not struggling to resist your arrest.
And for them to perceive one’s struggle just to grab a gasp of air, to me it’s appalling. When you have patients in the hospital and they can’t get enough oxygen, what do they do? They pull the tubes out of their face and things of that nature. They’re struggling. They’re not resisting anything or anybody. They’re just trying to breathe.
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