Tag Archive for: Fentanyl

Tammy Nobles on the Border Crisis: ‘I Don’t Want Any Other Parent to Live the Nightmare I Am Living’

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Illegal immigration is no longer an issue that only impacts people in border states. According to a recent Harvard CAPS-Harris poll, it has passed inflation as the #1 issue facing the nation. Communities across the country are feeling the detrimental effects of migrant crossings on their schools and businesses, and it’s contributed to a tremendous increase in drug trafficking, human trafficking, and crime.

Last Thursday, two mothers spoke on Capitol Hill before the House Homeland Security Committee, sharing their heartbreaking stories about how they lost their daughters due to the actions of illegal immigrants — two criminals that, before 2021 when the Biden administration took over, most likely would have been stopped at the border and not allowed into the United States.

Tammy Nobles from Maryland and Josephine Dunn from Arizona testified at the committee’s impeachment hearing for Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas. Both of these grieving mothers believe that their daughters’ deaths were the result of Secretary Mayorkas’s refusal to follow the laws and secure the border. While Mrs. Dunn took the long trip from Arizona to Washington, D.C. to share her story, Mayorkas did not even show up to the two days of hearings to listen to her or Mrs. Nobles or look them in the eye.

Tammy Nobles’s daughter, Kayla Hamilton, was brutally raped and murdered on July 27, 2022 by an MS-13 gang member who strangled her with her phone cord and robbed her of $6.00. Kayla’s life would have been spared if this known violent MS-13 gang member had been stopped at the southern border. But he was not. Instead, according to Nobles:

“Among other neglectful actions, DHS employees failed to visually inspect the assailant by lifting his shirt to check for gang-related tattoos. Had DHS employees performed a visual inspection of the assailant’s body, they would have seen MS-13 gang related tattoos on his body, disqualifying him from entering the U.S. DHS employees failed to make a simple phone call to the El Salvador government to verify if [the] assailant was on an MS-13 gang affiliation list. Had they done so, El Salvador government officials would have confirmed that the assailant was a known MS-13 gang member with a prior criminal history. DHS supervisors had failed to train and supervise DHS employees to properly screen minors attempting to enter U.S. soil from El Salvador.”

As Nobles told Fox News’s Harris Faulker, the detectives who were working on Kayla’s case asked U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) if they could hold the suspect, a minor, until the DNA evidence came back, and ICE refused to. So the detectives had Child Protective Services (CPS) hold him, and CPS told the detectives that they were going to put him in a secure location. They later found out that officials put him in an unsecured children’s home where he had issues with other children. Finally, CPS put him into a foster home.

Chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, Congressman Mark Green (R-Tenn.), joined Nobles for that FOX News interview. Astounded, Faulkner asked Green, “He’s still illegal right? … Why does he get the same rights of ‘innocent until proven guilty’ in this country? … This guy gets to roam and gets put into homes where there are children.”

Green shared her frustration replying, “It’s insane. In fact, this individual gets more rights than an American citizen. An American citizen, under the [Department of Justice] right now, if there’s a court hearing pending, they report that information. They’ll say when the court date is. For illegals, they don’t even advertise or tell us the court dates for these people. It’s insane. They get more rights than we do.”

Faulker asked, “If he’s part of a gang, doesn’t he get a special designation of terror? I just don’t get it.”

Green responded, “They’re supposed to.”

At the end of her heart-wrenching testimony at Mayorkas’s impeachment hearing, Nobles said:

“For me this not a political issue — this a safety issue for everyone living in the United States. This could have been anyone’s daughter. I don’t want any other parent to live the nightmare that I am living. I am her voice now, and I am going to fight with everything I have to get her story told and bring awareness of the issue at the border.

“If we had stricter border policies, my daughter would still be alive today. Nothing will bring my daughter back nor fix the pain of not having her here, but I want to prevent this from happening to someone else’s child. This isn’t about immigration, this is about protecting everyone in the United States.”

While Nobles lost her daughter to a rapist and murderer who should have been caught at the border, Mr. and Mrs. Dunn lost their daughter due to the actions of a drug dealer that DHS should have stopped from coming into our country. Dunn talked about her daughter, Ashley, who would have turned 29 on January 19 — the day she offered her testimony. Instead, Ashley died as a result of fentanyl poisoning when she was 26 years old. With deep emotion, Dunn tearfully explained:

“In the same five minutes that I get to share her story, someone else’s loved one in the United States will die from fentanyl. Over the next 24 hours, 190 loved ones will die. Today, in my state, the beautiful state of Arizona alone, five people will lose their lives to this weapon of mass destruction.”

Ashley’s murderer is a convicted, repeat drug distribution offender, a 44-year-old career drug dealer and trafficker. She has 14 prior convictions for drug sales. Dunn stated that one half of one pill that contained five milligrams of fentanyl killed Ashley. She went on to explain:

“Her dealer cannot be prosecuted for Ashley’s death. Nor can she even be charged. Ashley’s son, her father, and I are not even considered victims of ‘Dawn the Dealers’ actions. We do not even have the ability to provide a victim impact statement in Ashley’s trafficker’s case. The evidence is clear in Ashley’s phone. Toxicology report states five milligrams of fentanyl. Nothing can be done. She knowingly sold poison to our daughter which caused her death. Yet she will not be charged.”

According to The Heritage Foundation, fentanyl is often disguised as other medication. It kills before the victim even realizes what is happening to them. In addition, most illicit fentanyl today is manufactured in Mexico and brought across our southern border.

Heritage explains, “The American public needs to understand these fentanyl deaths aren’t classic overdoses among addicts. These aren’t broken kids with ‘substance use disorder.’ The overwhelming majority aren’t actively seeking fentanyl at all. Rather, in an age where medication is advertised wall-to-wall on our TVs, radio and social media, kids (like adults) think they can take a pill to fix anything, including stress and anxiety — conditions rampant among young people.”

Opioids, largely fentanyl, are now the number one killer of Americans aged 18-45 years old. Secretary Mayorkas and the Department of Homeland Security should do everything it can to put a stop to this epidemic and secure our borders immediately. And yet, Mayorkas didn’t even show up to listen to Dunn’s testimony, where she said:

“I understand that the mission of [the] Department of Homeland Security is to secure our nation’s air, land, sea, and borders to prevent illegal activity while facilitating lawful travel and trade. In my humble opinion, Mr. Mayorkas is partially responsible for my daughter’s death. His wide-open border policy allows massive quantities of poisonous fentanyl into our country. Arizona is the fentanyl superhighway into the United States. I personally feel Mr. Mayorkas is guilty of aiding and abetting the enemy who uses 10 million illegal border crossings since February 2021 to supply fentanyl, the weapon of mass destruction that has killed over 100,000 Americans on our soil for two years in a row.

“This is an invasion, a weapon of mass destruction, and unimaginable death and damage to our country [has been] facilitated by Mr. Mayorkas. His participation in all of this, what I believe is a war, is clearly intentional support of the enemy, which disqualifies him from his position. Our country deserves a secure border. We need to close the fentanyl superhighway. Thank you.”

AUTHOR

Kathy Athearn

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EDITORS NOTE: This Washington Stand column is republished with permission. All rights reserved. ©2024 Family Research Council. 

The Washington Stand is Family Research Council’s outlet for news and commentary from a biblical worldview. The Washington Stand is based in Washington, D.C. and is published by FRC, whose mission is to advance faith, family, and freedom in public policy and the culture from a biblical worldview. We invite you to stand with us by partnering with FRC.

EXCLUSIVE: Chinese Drug Dealers Use Risqué Ads To Sell Narcotics, Fentanyl Ingredients On U.S. Social Media

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Accounts claiming to represent Chinese drug manufacturers are using provocative images of women to advertise narcotics and fentanyl precursors on U.S. social media, according to a Daily Caller News Foundation review of hundreds of English and Chinese-language social media posts.

The DCNF identified several dozen LinkedIn accounts claiming to be saleswomen representing China-based manufacturers primarily located near Beijing or Wuhan. The accounts often featured images of women and teenage girls in advertisements for a wide variety of controlled substances including 4-piperidone, which is used to manufacture fentanyl.

Many of the posts included suggestive language like “hot sale” to advertise the chemicals, as well as contact information on encrypted messaging apps and Chinese phone numbers. The companies these accounts claimed to represent included six of the Chinese chemical manufacturers indicted by the Department of Justice (DOJ) in June and October for crimes related to trafficking fentanyl precursors and other substances.

It’s not clear if the LinkedIn accounts identified by the DCNF have any official relationship with the Chinese drug manufacturers they claim to represent. Neither the accounts nor the Chinese manufacturers responded to the DCNF’s request for comment.

After the DCNF reached out to LinkedIn for comment, the social media platform immediately removed the accounts that had been flagged.

“Whenever we see posts, ads or accounts that don’t meet our policies, we remove them, as we did in this case,” a LinkedIn spokesperson told the DCNF by email.

‘Foreign Attack’

Approximately 50 times more potent than heroin, fentanyl is a synthetic opioid, which is a drug class that was involved in almost 70 percent of the approximately 110,000 U.S. overdose deaths in 2022, according to the Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA).

China is the “primary source of fentanyl and fentanyl-related substances trafficked through international mail” as well as the “main source for all fentanyl-related substances” trafficked into the U.S., according to the DEA.

“Chinese drug traffickers are successfully taking advantage of deliberate American policy weakness on both fronts [physical and virtual] with regard to fentanyl precursors and the products they become in the U.S.,” Steve Yates, America First Policy Institute senior fellow and China Policy Initiative chair, told the DCNF. “It is the single most significant foreign attack on the American family in history, with my family standing among the hundreds of thousands of other families who have suffered unspeakable injury and loss as a direct result.”

“I lost my daughter in October after she ingested a fentanyl-laced street version of Xanax,” Yates told the DCNF.

Many of the LinkedIn advertisements featured numeric identifiers for the chemicals on offer, known as Chemical Abstracts Service (CAS) registration numbers. For instance, the National Institutes of Health identifies “23076-35-9” as the CAS number for xylazine hydrochloride, whose active ingredient, xylazine, is illicitly used to cut fentanyl, according to the White House’s Office of National Drug Control Policy.

Xylazine also happened to be among the most frequently advertised products by the LinkedIn accounts reviewed by the DCNF.

In one such instance, a LinkedIn account for a saleswoman claiming to represent Hebei Ningnan Trade Co., Ltd. advertised 1019.5 grams of xylazine hydrochloride in an April 2023 post featuring an image of a bag of white powder on a scale.

“New date with strong effect,” the caption read.

In April 2023, the Biden administration designated fentanyl combined with xylazine as an emerging threat to the U.S. “because xylazine combined with fentanyl is being sold illicitly and is associated with significant and rapidly worsening negative health consequences, including fatal overdoses and severe morbidity.”

“Xylazine and fentanyl drug mixtures place users at a higher risk of suffering a fatal drug poisoning,” according to a 2022 DEA report. “Because xylazine is not an opioid, naloxone (Narcan) does not reverse its effects.”

“People who inject drug mixtures containing xylazine also can develop severe wounds, including necrosis — the rotting of human tissue — that may lead to amputation,” the DEA report stated.

The LinkedIn accounts reviewed by the DCNF also advertised a range of controlled substances, including those from the Schedule I category — such as the synthetic opioid, protonitazene, and the synthetic cathinone, eutylone. Schedule I substances have a “high potential for abuse” and “no currently accepted medical use in treatment,” according to the DEA.

In March 2023, a LinkedIn account for a saleswoman claiming to represent Henan Ruijiu Biotechnology Co., Ltd. advertised “eutylone” in a post featuring substances of several colors.

In 2020, eutylone was involved in at least 343 overdose deaths in the U.S., many of which co-involved “illicitly manufactured fentanyls,” cocaine or methamphetamines, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

In addition to Schedule I substances, the LinkedIn accounts that the DCNF reviewed also advertised various chemicals used to manufacture controlled substances, like PMK.

In April 2023, a LinkedIn account for a saleswoman claiming to represent Wuhan Xiju Biotechnology Co., Ltd. posted a video advertisement for a brown liquid that the clip identified as “PMK oil,” which is “important to the manufacture of the Schedule I controlled substance 3,4-methylenedioxymethamphetamine (MDMA) and other ‘ecstasy’-type substances,” according to the Federal Register.

An image of a teenage girl sticking out her tongue and the company logo of Wuhan Xiju Biotechnology were superimposed over the video advertisement, which was set to electronic dance music.

The DCNF also identified accounts purportedly representing several of the Chinese chemical manufacturers on various other U.S. social media platforms.

For example, Facebook accounts purportedly representing Wuhan Mulei New Material Technology Co., Ltd. and Wuhan Kairunte New Material Co., Ltd. advertised xylazine and other substances.

Likewise, a YouTube account purportedly representing Hubei Amarvel Biotech Co., Ltd. advertised controlled substances like PMK. One ad stated that the company offered “customized packages” for its products including dog food bags, tubs of nuts and other “creative designs.”

A Meta spokesperson told the DCNF by email that the social media platform had reviewed the accounts that the DCNF had flagged and “removed them for violating our policies.”

A YouTube spokesperson also told the DCNF by email that they’d “terminated” the accounts the DCNF had flagged, citing various platform policy violations including “marketing the sale of regulated pharmaceuticals without a prescription.”

“Channels that repeatedly violate our policies are subject to termination, which is what happened in this case,” the YouTube spokesperson said.

‘A Weapon Of Mass Destruction’

In November 2023, President Joe Biden met with General Secretary Xi Jinping in San Francisco, during which the White House announced “the resumption of bilateral cooperation on counternarcotics, with a focus on reducing the flow of precursor chemicals fueling illicit fentanyl and synthetic drug trafficking.”

“The PRC is now taking law enforcement action against illicit precursor suppliers, has issued a notice to industry warning Chinese companies against illicit trade in precursor chemicals and pill presses equipment and has committed to restart key law enforcement cooperation,” the White House stated at the time.

Fentanyl and its precursors that originate in China follow a number of routes to enter the U.S., according to a 2020 DEA report.

The substances are sometimes shipped from China-based manufacturers through mail services to Canada or Mexico, whereupon they’re processed and frequently mixed with heroin, before entering the U.S. drug market, the 2020 DEA report states. Other times, Chinese fentanyl and its precursors are simply sent by mail directly to the U.S.

Mexican drug cartels also take advantage of lax U.S. border security by using migrant volunteers “to smuggle drugs to reduce their debt from the tax required to move through their territory,” according to a 2023 America First Policy Institute research report.

Many clandestine laboratories in the U.S. are closely tied to Mexican drug cartels, Ammon Blair, Texas Public Policy Foundation senior fellow and former Border Patrol agent, told the DCNF.

“There are some organizations in the U.S. that are capable of synthesizing fentanyl and opioids independently of the Mexican cartels, but they may be limited by regional market conditions and law enforcement efforts,” Blair said. “However, the exact number and size of such organizations are not clear.”

In 2022, law enforcement “reportedly found chemicals or other items, indicating the presence of either clandestine drug laboratories or dumpsites” at over 130 locations in the U.S., according to a national clandestine laboratory registry maintained by the DEA.

Yates told the DCNF that the U.S. government must secure our “physical and cyber borders,” disrupt the illicit chemical supply chains and launch “comprehensive political and economic warfare against all responsible governments and entities.”

“We have done no less against the threat of terrorism,” Yates said. “This is a weapon of mass destruction detonated on American families.”

DOJ and DEA did not respond to multiple requests for comment.

AUTHOR

PHILIP LENCZYCKI

Daily Caller News Foundation investigative reporter, political journalist, and China watcher. Twitter: @LenczyckiPhilip

RELATED ARTICLE: Biden To Lift Sanctions On Chinese Human Rights Abuser In Exchange For Xi’s Latest Promise To Combat Fentanyl: REPORT

EDITORS NOTE: This Daily Caller column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

All content created by the Daily Caller News Foundation, an independent and nonpartisan newswire service, is available without charge to any legitimate news publisher that can provide a large audience. All republished articles must include our logo, our reporter’s byline and their DCNF affiliation. For any questions about our guidelines or partnering with us, please contact licensing@dailycallernewsfoundation.org.

As Fentanyl Overdoses Rise, a Child in New York Dies of Exposure

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Records concerning the fentanyl epidemic started being kept in 2020, and the latest numbers show that the issue is getting worse. According to Breitbart, August marked a new record of overdose deaths in San Francisco, with approximately three deaths per day due to fentanyl. As reported by The San Fransisco Chronicle, the city “is on track to see 845 overdose fatalities this year.”

London Breed, the mayor of San Francisco, declared the fentanyl crisis a “state of emergency” in 2020, and since then the problem has continued to worsen across the U.S. This week, in an at-home day care in New York City, a one-year-old boy, Nicholas Dominici, died due to drug exposure, with three other children hospitalized. While the tragedy is still under investigation, the presence of fentanyl has been confirmed. Grei Mendez and Acevedo Brito, the owner and tenant of the day care where the deaths took place, have been charged for murder, manslaughter, and assault and “ordered to be held without bail.”

Ashwin Vasan, the City Health Commissioner, said in a news conference, “I’m very sorry, but one of the things that my child care inspectors are not trained to do is look for fentanyl. But maybe we need to.” Otoniel Feliz, the father of Nicholas Dominici, shared, “In what mind does it make sense that you’re going to mix narcotics with children?”

In 2021, the U.S. witnessed more than 100,000 people across the nation being killed by drug overdose — the highest it had ever been in a single year. According to BBC News, over 66% of those deaths were directly related to fentanyl. As reported by BBC, a recent study revealed “virtually every corner of the US, from Hawaii to Alaska to Rhode Island, has been touched by fentanyl.” Experts say nearly “300 individuals a day [are] dying from overdose, and almost all of those are fentanyl related.”

Joseph Backholm, senior fellow for Biblical Worldview and Strategic Engagement at Family Research Council, commented to The Washington Stand, “Certainly the consequences of sin have often lead people to medicate their pain through drug use. That’s not a new phenomenon, but it is evidence of sin.”

He continued, “The problem with fentanyl is that it’s killing people who aren’t trying to use it, like the children in New York.” For Backholm, this tragedy can be traced back to homeland security issues. “We have a completely open southern border,” he said. “Virtually anyone from anywhere can walk across the border into the U.S. … [It] is killing a lot of Americans and enriching cartels who are able to benefit tremendously from the human and drug trafficking opportunities it provides.”

In a reflection on how to respond to the fentanyl crisis earlier this year, The Christian Post’s Matthew Barnett wrote, “Light shines brighter when darkness hovers. We can see farther at night, out into the expanse of stars surrounding us than we can during the day. These truths remind us that we must hold onto hope during [the] fentanyl crisis.”

AUTHOR

Sarah Holliday

Sarah Holliday is a reporter at The Washington Stand.

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EDITORS NOTE: This Washington Stand column is republished with permission. ©2023 Family Research Council.

The Washington Stand is Family Research Council’s outlet for news and commentary from a biblical worldview. The Washington Stand is based in Washington, D.C. and is published by FRC, whose mission is to advance faith, family, and freedom in public policy and the culture from a biblical worldview. We invite you to stand with us by partnering with FRC.

Mike Lawler’s New Bill Would Impose Attempted Murder Charges On Fentanyl Traffickers

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Republican Rep. Mike Lawler of New York will introduce a bill to make fentanyl trafficking an offense of attempted murder under federal law, according to a copy of the bill obtained exclusively by the Daily Caller News Foundation.

Concern about the proliferation of fentanyl, a highly lethal synthetic opioid that is widely used across the United States, has prompted bipartisan calls in Congress to crack down on fentanyl trafficking, much of which occurs across the U.S. border with Mexico. Lawler’s bill, known as the Fentanyl Kills Act, would enable federal prosecutors to charge drug traffickers who “produce, manufacture, distribute, sell, or knowingly finance or transport” with attempted murder charges, according to the bill’s text.

“Any individual who has [been] found to [have] trafficked fentanyl shall be deemed to have attempted to perpetrate murder,” the bill reads.

Text of the Fentanyl Kills Act by Daily Caller News Foundation on Scribd

Lawler’s co-sponsors for the bill are Republican Reps. David Valadao of California and Jim Baird of Indiana.

The bill goes on to define “trafficked fentanyl” expansively — including any efforts to manufacture fentanyl outside the United States that is intended for transportation to the United States. It also expands the penalty of attempted murder charges to the manufacturing of precursor chemicals that are used to produce fentanyl.

“The fentanyl crisis that is gripping our country and local communities is a serious problem, and requires serious consequences for those who peddle this dangerous drug,” said Lawler in a statement to the DCNF. “The Fentanyl Kills Act takes drug traffickers head-on, imposing serious penalties for these criminals who know exactly what they are doing.”

Fentanyl is the most lethal drug in the United States and is responsible for approximately two-thirds of all 107,081 overdose deaths nationwide in 2022, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. It is “100 times more potent than morphine and 50 times more potent than heroin,” according to the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA).

A fatal dose of fentanyl may be as little as 2 milligrams, per the DEA. Drug dealers who sell other drugs often mix fentanyl with their products to increase their potency and fuel drug addictions by customers.

Because of its lethality, several groups have mounted efforts to make fentanyl trafficking an offense of homicide, such as Drug-Induced Homicide, a California-based organization that campaigns for “Alexandra’s Law” to enable repeat fentanyl offenders to be charged with homicide.

Left-wing groups have often opposed strengthening criminal penalties on drug traffickers and argued that such measures will disproportionately hurt racial minorities.

“Seventy-five percent of those sentenced in fentanyl cases are people of color, which means Black and brown communities are going to lose the most,” an ACLU representative wrote after Congress passed a bill to make fentanyl a Schedule I drug under the Controlled Substances Act.

Lawler’s bill would require Democratic votes to pass the Senate.

AUTHOR

ARJUN SINGH

Contributor.

RELATED ARTICLE: Biden Admin Weighing Lifting Of China Sanctions To Broker Fentanyl Deal

EDITORS NOTE: This Daily Caller column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

All content created by the Daily Caller News Foundation, an independent and nonpartisan newswire service, is available without charge to any legitimate news publisher that can provide a large audience. All republished articles must include our logo, our reporter’s byline and their DCNF affiliation. For any questions about our guidelines or partnering with us, please contact licensing@dailycallernewsfoundation.org.

Mass Fentanyl Poisoning In One State Leaves Three Children Dead

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Children have been poisoned by fentanyl for weeks, resulting in three deaths and even more hospitalizations in one area of Texas, according to The Dallas Morning News.

Three young students attending Carrollton-Farmers Branch schools near Dallas are dead and six others have been hospitalized as a result of fentanyl exposure linked to one home in the area, where minors picked up drugs to later sell to their peers at school, according to The Dallas Morning News, which obtained a criminal complaint. Fentanyl, which is made mainly by the Mexican drug cartels using chemicals from China, is largely responsible for the more than 100,000 overdose deaths that happened in 2021, according to Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) data.

“To deal fentanyl is to knowingly imperil lives. To deal fentanyl to minors — naïve middle and high school students — is to shatter futures,” U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Texas Leigha Simonton told The Dallas Morning News.

One of the victims was a 14-year-old girl, who overdosed and almost died twice on an “M30” tablet, which can mimic oxycodone, hydrocodone, alprazolam (Xanax) and Adderall, according to the Drug Enforcement Administration. A 13-year-old is also one of the nine victims.

The young girl overdosed first on Christmas Eve, when she was taken to the hospital, and later on Jan. 16 when she was temporarily paralyzed from the incident, according to The Dallas Morning News.

Law enforcement pursued the case with surveillance at the supplier’s home, where a student was dealt drugs, according to The Dallas Morning News. A school resource officer later detained a student after hearing them “making a ‘snorting sound’” in the bathroom.

Fentanyl continues to threaten young Americans, including babies who are sometimes exposed in utero and in their early years, experts recently told the Daily Caller News Foundation.

“The country has never experienced anything like this and we need a greater sense of urgency to cut off the supply from the Mexican Cartels,” former head of the Drug Enforcement Administration’s Special Operations Division Derek Maltz told the DCNF.

AUTHOR

JENNIE TAER

Investigative reporter.

RELATED ARTICLE: ‘Devastating’: How The Drug Crisis Is Hurting America’s Youngest People

EDITORS NOTE: This Daily Caller column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved. All content created by the Daily Caller News Foundation, an independent and nonpartisan newswire service, is available without charge to any legitimate news publisher that can provide a large audience. All republished articles must include our logo, our reporter’s byline and their DCNF affiliation. For any questions about our guidelines or partnering with us, please contact licensing@dailycallernewsfoundation.org.

Who [Or What] Killed George Floyd?

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If they get a fair trial, a questionable proposition at best, Minneapolis police officers charged with murdering George Floyd should be acquitted.

Let’s consider new, undisputed evidence, beyond the initial bystander’s video that we’ve all seen, to understand why.

On Memorial Day, around 8 PM, Minneapolis Police are called to a local convenience store.  Two suspects passed a fake $20 bill to buy cigarettes.  When police arrived, the shop manager pointed across the street, where three suspects sat in a parked vehicle. George Floyd sat behind the wheel.

When the officers crossed the street to investigate, two other suspects, another man, and a woman, both black, stepped from the car and politely cooperated.

But George argued and disobeyed ten separate commands from officers to keep his hands up. After the tenth order, he finally put his hands on the steering wheel as instructed.

As George protested, police walked him across the street to the police cruiser, the vehicle shown in the bystander’s video.

That bystander’s video, isolated alone, implies that the officer cruelly forced George onto the ground, then callously put his knee on George’s neck, causing George to cry out, pitifully, “I can’t breathe.”

But when a Minnesota judge authorized the release of police body cam footage, a completer and more different story emerged.  First, the police never wanted George on the ground at all, and frantically tried getting him into the back of their squad car.

But Floyd, a strong six-feet-eight-inches tall, fought police every second, and tried pushing his way out. Police video shows George repeatedly saying, “I can’t breathe” long before he was on the ground, and before Officer Chauvin employed the infamous knee-restraint tactic.

This is crucial.

Claiming to be “claustrophobic” as they ordered him into the back seat, George Floyd demanded to be placed on the ground. So, the officers did not thrust him down to the ground and then put their knee on George’s neck, as the bystander’s video suggests.

Let’s delve into the evidence.

From Officer Thomas Lane’s body camera, at 8:09 PM, officers approached George’s vehicle, tapped on the window, instructing him to either put his hands up or put his hands on the steering wheel. But George refuses.

Ten separate times, police either instructed George to let them see his hands, or to put his hands on the wheel. Finally, George puts his hands on the wheel, protesting he had “not done anything.”

At 8:17 PM, officers walk George across the street. He keeps arguing, as they order him into the back of the squad car.

“I’m claustrophobic,” he claims, twice, resisting as they again order him to sit in the back seat. He screams, fights and resists getting in the squad car.

At 8:18:08, still standing beside the car and fighting the officers, he says, for the first time, with no knee on his neck, “I can’t breathe, officer!”  At this point, police are still ordering him into the back seat.

A bystander urges George to stop fighting. “You can’t win,” the bystander says.

George fights anyway.

Police push him in the back seat. He keeps resisting.

Nine seconds later, fighting from the backseat of the police car, George says three times, in rapid succession, beginning at 8:18:19, “I want to lay on the ground!  I want to lay on the ground! I want to lay on the ground!”  He repeats it a fourth time, five seconds later, ““I want to lay on the ground!”

Then, as if he knows he is dying, says, “I’m going down.”

At 8:18:39, fighting in the backseat, he again says, three times in rapid succession, “I can’t breathe!” Then again,” I can’t breathe.” And then, again, at 8:18:50 repeats, “I can’t breathe!”

At this point, George had demanded to be laid on the ground four times and said “I can’t breathe” at least six times, while in the back seat of the squad car, with no knee on his neck.

At 8:19:06, he again says, “I can’t breathe,” for the seventh time.

Of course he can’t breathe. A fentanyl overdose stops a man from breathing.

George fought the officers non-stop for over ten minutes before officers finally removed him from the car and put him down on the ground, beside the squad car, as George himself demanded.

Bystanders then film George on the ground, declaring, “I can’t breathe,”  as if this was the first time George said, “I can’t breathe,” and as if Officer Chauvin’s knee (not the fentanyl) caused George’s breathing problems.

Fox 9 in Minneapolis reported that Chief Hennepin County Medical Examiner Dr. Andrew Baker, in a memorandum filed May 26 concluded, “The autopsy revealed no physical evidence suggesting that Mr. Floyd died of asphyxiation.”

In other words, Dr. Baker initially ruled out Chauvin’s knee as causing George’s death.

In a second memorandum filed June 1, Baker described Floyd’s fentanyl level as “pretty high,” and a potentially “fatal level.”

Dr. Baker reported Floyd had 11 ng/mL of fentanyl in his blood, adding, “If he were found dead at home alone and no other apparent causes, this could be acceptable to call an OD. Deaths have been certified with levels of 3.”

In other words, while levels of 3 ng/mL have caused fatal fentanyl overdoses. George ingested nearly four times that amount, or 11 ng/mL of fentanyl, in his bloodstream.  In another document, Dr. Baker said, “That is a fatal level of fentanyl under normal circumstances.”

Granted, mounting political pressure led to subsequent private autopsy reports, paid for by the family, showing the cause of death as a combination of both fentanyl and asphyxiation from the officer’s knee.

Of course they do.

But the prosecution, to obtain a conviction, must prove guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. They must prove that the officer’s knee, and not the massive fentanyl dosage, killed George Floyd.

That’s a tall order.

Not only that, but the infamous, “knee-technique,” which should be banned, was authorized by the Minneapolis PD.  Officer Chauvin followed authorized procedure, a technique for keeping a suspect on the ground, after George Floyd had fought officers for over ten minutes, and after, only — and this is the kicker — George requested, repeatedly, to lay on the ground.

But Chauvin’s knee is a red herring. The issue here is fentanyl.

Here’s how the respected website, WebMD, describes the effects of fentanyl:

“[F]entanyl has rapid and potent effects on the brain and body, and even very small amounts can be extremely dangerous.

“It only takes a tiny amount of the drug to cause a deadly reaction,” … “Fentanyl can depress breathing and lead to death. The risk of overdose is high with fentanyl.”

Here’s what the CDC says about fentanyl, “It is 50 to 100 times more potent than morphine.”

Of course George couldn’t breathe — because fentanyl, mixed with methamphetamines, kills breathing.  Despite the bad optics, “I can’t breathe” was not because of the officer’s knee.

The medical examiner’s statement on lethal fentanyl, and the previous protestations of “I can’t breathe,” even before he got into the back seat of the squad car, and long before Chauvin applied the notorious “knee” technique, shows that George was already dying from the lethal fentanyl overdose before officers put him in the back seat of the car. That fentanyl, with methamphetamine ingestion, and cannabinoids — that’s right, George popped some meth alongside the fentanyl, plus a little reefer too — raises more than a reasonable doubt in favor of these policemen.

Here’s the prosecution’s problem – proving beyond a reasonable doubt that it was the officer’s knee, and not the massive fentanyl overdose, that killed George.

No one can prove, beyond a reasonable doubt, not in this case, that Chauvin killed Floyd, not with any intellectual honesty. George overdosed on fentanyl, and mixed it with meth, and reefer. That’s why he’s dead. Without the overdose, George Floyd would still be alive. The officers should be acquitted.

Which begs the question, who killed George Floyd?

Sadly, George Floyd killed himself.