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Recap
In Part One, Thomas Lane was the first officer to encounter George Floyd. The encounter didn't go as badly as Lane suspected it might, but it could have gone better.
Twice, Lane had a reasonable suspicion that Floyd might attack him. The first time, Lane took the precaution of covering Floyd with his sidearm, for about forty seconds. Floyd became terrified that Lane meant to shoot him.
Floyd had been using Fentanyl, and he appeared to suffer from mildly altered mental status, specifically confusion or attention deficit. This contributed to the misunderstanding between him and Lane.
As it turned out, neither man had any violent intentions, but both were badly rattled. Floyd experienced an episode of acute anxiety; the psychological effect on Lane would be subtler, but no less consequential.
After an eventful couple of minutes, Lane was able to handcuff Floyd without anyone being hurt. Lane told Officer Kueng to "Take 'im!" and moved to make sure the two passengers in Floyd's car would not flee. The narrative in this part starts with Lane's interview of these two people.
Before rejoining the narrative, there are a couple of concepts to explain.
Assessment and Plan
Police and other first responders are formally trained in a thought process for dealing with dynamic situations. In its simplest expression, the process can be described as Assessment and Plan.
Assessment refers to gathering information: asking questions, making observations, using powers of deduction, inference, etc. to gain understanding of the situation and be aware of any problems that need to be addressed.
Plan refers to actions taken: to address problems, resolve the situation, and generally make the world a better place. Note that Plan, in this context, does not refer only to the act of planning; it also refers to the condition of having a plan and executing it.
Of course, the same basic concept applies to all voluntary human activity. What can a person possibly do, that doesn't entail noticing some situation that could be improved, and acting to improve it? And if this process is so fundamental, so axiomatic, why is it necessary to formally train it? Because humans mostly prefer to commit to a plan, not switch plans in the middle. Commitment to a plan is usually what brings success. To discard a plan you’ve worked on feels like failure; to make a new plan is stressful. But in a dynamic situation such as a police response, it may be necessary to switch plans in a heartbeat. As the situation evolves, many iterations of assessment and plan may go by. Any reluctance to switch plans, any failure to timely assess new information, can be fatal.
Fighter pilots and other combat officers employ the proven model of the "OODA Loop" (Observe, Orient, Decide, Act, Repeat). Commercial pilots and ATCs use the more passive language of Perception, Comprehension, Decision, Execution. All these concepts are ways of adapting to a work environment where stakes are high, information load is heavy, the situation is subject to rapid change, and some possible developments are not merely unexpected but actually novel: never-before-seen and impossible to anticipate.
There are various indications that a new cycle of assessment and plan is due, including:
A significant change in the situation
Plan not working
Something unexplained or unsure about the situation
Plan is complete; no further action on the current plan
Situation stable; nothing has happened for several minutes
By reflexively going back to assessment in conditions such as these, the first responder avoids locking-up in a tense situation; avoids being blindsided in a dynamic situation; and avoids being complacent in a stress-free situation.
Incident Command
When officers work as a team, one officer takes on the role of on-scene commander. The commander will do most of the thinking and most of the talking. Other officers work to the commander's assessment and plan.
The incident commander may not have a complete assessment or a perfect plan. Other team members can alert him to information and possibilities he may have overlooked. There is always at least some scope for individual initiative and leadership, but only within limits. Suppose an officer conceives of a plan that is better than the commander's plan. Should he communicate his plan to the commander? Should he assume command in his own right?
Maybe not; probably not. The commander's plan doesn't have to be perfect; it doesn't have to be the best possible plan. It only has to be good enough. An interruption or breakdown of leadership is usually worse than a merely sub-optimal plan. There is great value in teamwork; in presenting a united front and a consistent vision. To give up any of that value, there had better be a very compelling reason. Time is of the essence; the perfect is the enemy of the good. For a scene commander to be effective, the other officers must, to some extent, take on the role of soldier.
Higher-ranking and senior officers have the prerogative to assume command of a scene, but the highest-ranking officer on scene is not always the commander. For instance, a junior officer may have been first to arrive at the scene, and his assessment and plan may be that much further along. It behooves a late-arriving officer to defer to the scene commander, while also conducting his own assessment, which includes asking questions of the junior officer in command. If the senior officer deems it best to assume command himself, he does so with the benefit of the previous commander's understanding and assent, so there is no interruption.
Better still is when the senior officer doesn't bother to assume command. He may ask a few questions, note any concerns that may not have occurred to the scene commander, but never actually tell anybody what to do. The junior officer, the one in command, can take a hint, remedy his plan, and go on to conclude a successful command of the scene. The senior officer may even assume the role of soldier, once he is satisfied with the junior officer's leadership. To the junior officer, the training and morale value of such an experience is inestimable.
Junior officers don't get many opportunities to be in command. When a new police officer is certified, he may not command a patrol unit until he has completed about five hundred hours as partner to a more-senior officer. Even once this is done, he will usually be the junior partner in his patrol unit, with the senior being in command by default. Some senior officers are alert to training opportunities; they will put a junior in command, while retaining a supervisory role. Other senior officers are more concerned with rank and with being in control, and the junior may find himself stuck in the soldier role indefinitely. This isn't all bad; a soldier can learn a lot about teamwork, leadership, and the value of loyalty.
With just four months on the job, Thomas Lane was in command of his own patrol unit. Four months is plenty of time to put in five or six hundred hours, but it's a meager fund of experience for a unit commander's responsibility. A patrol unit must respond to any possible call that can come in; Lane could have found himself in a dire situation with no senior officer to turn to. Lane's junior partner, J. Alexander Kueng, was working his fourth day on patrol. Thus Lane was barely rated for his command, and Kueng was barely rated even to show a badge. It might be exceptional to have a police unit on call, in an urban service area, with just four months plus four days' worth of street experience on board.
Kueng, the raw rookie, was cast in the soldier role: to wait on Lane's guidance, defer to Lane's judgment, faithfully execute Lane's commands, and speak when spoken to. Unless he was first to notice a falling piano, Kueng's initiative and leadership were unlikely to be helpful to Lane.
Here we resume the narrative.
Shawanda Hill and Morries Hall
In Part One, it was mentioned that George Floyd had been in his car, partying with an ex-girlfriend and a man dressed like a drug dealer. "Partying with" is not quite right: Floyd was partying, and he was with the other two, but the other two do not seem to have partaken.
The ex-girlfriend's first name was Shawanda. She was in the back seat of Floyd's car. She may have tried to warn Floyd, when she saw the police approaching. Shawanda was the person who yelled at Floyd to "stop resisting" when Lane rushed him.
The man who was dressed as a drug dealer was named Morries. He had been in the passenger seat. Officer Kueng was first to approach Morries, at the same time Lane approached Floyd. Even as the heavy drama between Lane and Floyd played out, Morries calmly got out of the car and faced Officer Kueng. If Morries was perturbed by having Lane's pistol pointed in his direction, he didn't show it. In stark contrast to Floyd, Morries never evinced the slightest trace of confusion or anxiety in his movements, demeanor, or voice.
When Kueng moved around the vehicle to assist Lane, Morries picked up his travel bag and strolled towards the street corner. Seeing this, Lane shouted at Morries "Hey! Come back!" Morries stopped near the street corner. Lane handcuffed Floyd, told Kueng to "Take 'im!" and dashed around to the sidewalk, where he encountered Shawanda Hill.
Shawanda did not give trouble, but she was not immediately inclined to be cooperative, and Lane was not immediately inclined to be patient. The tension between them seemed to increase, until Morries strolled back to the scene. Morries made placating gestures to Shawanda, then took his place by the wall as Lane had requested. Seeing this, Shawanda also complied.
Lane spoke to Morries first, but Shawanda was first to reply. In the transcript, Shawanda is identified as FP (Female Passenger) and Morries is identified as MP (Male Passenger).
Lane: "We're figuring out what's going on Drop the bag." (unpunctuated as written, the second part to MP)
FP: "Figuring out what's going on? Somebody set us up (here) man, ain't us. I just got my phone fixed. This is my ex-man." (gesturing towards Floyd) "That's my ex."
MP: "Adam (unintelligible). We was gettin' a ride, sir. You can ask Adam (on) us. Adam knows us, Adam knows me."
When MP mentions "Adam", he gestures across the street, in the direction of Cup Foods.
Later...
MP (cumbersomely pocketing his wallet): "You can ask Mr. Adam. You can ask Mr. Adam about me."
Lane: "Do you have ID?"
MP (in frustration): "Oh, man..."
MP fumbles for the wallet he just pocketed.
Later...
MP: "You can ask Mr. Adam about me. Mr. Adam knows me, Sir."
Without being asked, Shawanda said George Floyd was her ex-boyfriend, with the wistful pride of a woman who is still in love. Then Lane asked Shawanda about Floyd (the transcript lists Shawanda as FP):
Lane (referring to Floyd): "What's his deal?"
FP: "I don't know! That's my ex, I don't know."
Lane: "Why is he getting all squirrelly and not showing us his hands and just being all weird like that?"
FP: "I got no clue. Because he's been shot before."
Lane: "Well I get that, but still when officers say, get out of the car...is he drunk? Is he on something?"
FP: "No. He's got a thing going on..." (points her right index finger at her head with a rotary motion. "crazy")
Lane: "What's that mean?"
FP: "I'm telling you, about the police. We have problems all the time when they come, especially when that man stick that gun like that, it's been, what..."
With her right arm, FP mimics Lane's high-elbow posture when he was covering Floyd.
As mentioned in Part One, both Shawanda and Morries had nice things to say about Floyd:
Lane: "What's his first name?"
FP: "His name's George Floyd."
Lane: "What is it?"
MP: "He's a good guy. He's...George Floyd, she said."
Lane: "Can you spell that?"
MP: "I don't know how to spell George, Sir."
Later...
MP: "He's alright, Sir. Mr. Adam..."
FP: "Yeah, he's okay."
Later…
Lane: "Okay, well here's the thing. Someone passed a fake bill in there."
FP: "Oh!"
FP's eyes widen; her hands go up in front of her, palm-forward; she turns away from Lane. In the background, near the sidewalk corner, Kueng assists Floyd to a standing position.
Lane: "We come over here, he starts grabbing for the keys and all that stuff, starts getting weird, not showing us his hands, I don't know what's going on, so you're coming out of the car. So just hang tight right here, stay right here, please."
During this speech, MP makes placating, palm-down gestures with his left hand. As Lane turns to move away, MP attempts a word with Lane, gesturing as though to accost Lane. MP can be seen to be speaking, but his words are inaudible. Lane brushes past MP; joins Kueng and Floyd.
During these interviews, Kueng and Floyd can occasionally be seen in the background:
Keung escorts Floyd towards the sidewalk corner, passing near Lane. Floyd's upper-body posture is asymmetric, both wrists near his right hip; Kueng appears to be controlling Floyd's movement by way of the handcuffs.
Kueng: "(You're going to) get in my car!"
Floyd: (pleading) "...that's it, man..."
Later...
Out of frame, Floyd can be heard sobbing and pleading with Kueng.
FP (in tones of wonder, with a rising note on "God"): "Oh my God, he didn't even do nothing."
Later...
Floyd is briefly visible sitting slumped on the sidewalk against the wall, near the sidewalk corner. His feet are tucked in tightly to his buttocks. Floyd's face is turned up to Kueng with an expression of terror; Kueng stands over Floyd with his back to the camera. Floyd's cowering posture makes Floyd look small; the top of Floyd's head is no higher than Kueng's inseam.
Later...
Lane (calling to Kueng): "Yeah, just put him in the car."
Later...
Kueng's right hand grips the inside of Floyd's right elbow. Kueng's left hand appears to be on the handcuffs.
Kueng: "(unintelligible) you gotta walk (work?) with me."
Floyd: "Oh! Ow! Ow! Ouchie, man!"
Lane: "Are you on something right now?"
Floyd: "No, not, no, nothing."
Kueng: "'Cause you're acting real erratic."
Floyd: "Man I'm scared, man! God, man!"
Lane: "Let's go let's go."
Time to take stock. Lane asked Shawanda, "Is he on drugs?" Shawanda said "No, he's crazy." Lane asked Floyd, "Are you on drugs?" Floyd said, "No, I'm scared."
Floyd certainly did seem crazy and scared. But why? "Because I got shot," said Floyd. "Because he got shot," said Shawanda. They both agreed that Floyd was crazy and scared, because of something to do with being shot. Floyd had begged Lane not to shoot him, again and again, for no reason. Shawanda even reminded Lane he did "point a gun like that" and showed him how he did it. It's almost as though a pattern was emerging, something that might explain all this, tie it together somehow.
In view of this information, Lane stuck with his assessment: Floyd must be on something.
Lane wasn't wrong, of course. Floyd was on something, and to say otherwise was untrue. But Shawanda and Floyd both honestly told Lane what Lane really needed to know. Floyd's strange conduct wasn't because of drugs. He had acute anxiety, and he knew it. He said it again and again. He was self-aware and mostly able to master his fears, but he couldn't always mask the outward signs of the terror he felt inside.
Lane would continue to check Floyd for signs of intoxicants. Lane never did figure out that Floyd was on opioids.
The stress of his initial contact with Floyd appears to have put Thomas Lane into a "downshift". To oversimplify: humans are endowed by evolution with not one brain, but two. The "reasoning brain" is responsible for the brain functions which make humans so special - logic, creativity, etc. Anatomically, this roughly corresponds to the cerebral cortex: the uppermost, outermost, most-recently-evolved part of the brain. Then there is the "reacting brain", or primal brain, which roughly corresponds to the brainstem and associated structures. Among other things, the primal brain hosts an impressive repertoire of survival reflexes. So if you have something to think about, the functions of the cerebrum will be employed. But if someone dumps a can of worms over your head, your primal brain will instantly take over. The primal brain is unencumbered by indecision or confusion and its reflexes are extremely fast. If you've ever reacted "without thinking" and saved the day, that was your primal brain in operation. (Real brain anatomy and function are nowhere near this straightforward; don't quote me!)
In a fight-or-flight situation, the brain begins to prioritize signals from the primal brain over signals from the reasoning brain. This can cause the higher cognitive functions to degrade: a "downshift". Similar effects are sometimes seen when the stressor is alcohol or sleep deprivation; it seems almost like a change in personality. Later, as Lane recovered from his stress reaction, he revealed some personality not seen before. But there was a period of several minutes when Thomas Lane's brain wasn't firing on all cylinders.
During this time, Lane's demeanor was impatient. His responses to inputs were very quick, often in the nature of "snap decision". And he failed, repeatedly, to make sense of the situation. He had critical, credible information on which he tragically failed to act.
Lane's assessment was that Floyd was on drugs, and his plan was to put Floyd in the car. That plan soon ran into a snag, however, because Floyd was deathly afraid to get in the car. Floyd had no intention of resisting, but the thought of being locked in a black plastic box, alone and handcuffed, literally made his legs weak. This annoyed Kueng, who yelled at Floyd to stop being afraid.
Floyd probably could have gotten into the car without trouble, but he needed to pull himself together. This he did, several times, and he managed to move himself in the right direction. But it was never quick enough for Lane and Kueng, who manhandled and scolded Floyd continuously, in voices ever-rising with anger and impatience.
Lane told Floyd to shut up, several times:
Floyd: "(unintelligible) let me come on down now. I'm feelin' much better now."
Lane: "Keep walking."
Floyd: "OK. Can you do me one favor, man?"
Lane: "No."
Floyd: "Please!"
Lane: "When we get to the car. Let's get to the car man. Come on."
Floyd: "God dang man, oh man, god oh me, man, please man..."
Later...
Floyd: "...man, I just want to talk to you man! Please let me talk to you!"
Lane: "No."
Kueng: "You ain't, we're listening and nothing understand so we're not going to listen to nothing you're saying."
Later...
Floyd: "I'm claustrophobic!"
Kueng: "I hear you but you are going to face the door right now!"
Lane: "Listen up stop!"
Later...
Floyd: "I'm (leaving)! I'm (leaving) I'm telling you man! I'm not resisting man! I'm not! I'm not you can ask him. They know me in there. God man! I won't do nothin like this y'all. Why is it going on like this?"
Floyd (calms himself): "Look at my face, Mr. Officer. I'm not that kind of guy! Mr. Officer, Mr. Officer, I'm not that kind of guy!"
Lane: "Stop."
Floyd: "Please! I'm not that kind of guy Mr. Officer. Please. God Please man."
Some of the most heroic police you'll ever see are the detectives who interrogate criminal suspects. These highly-trained professionals spend hours locked in a small room with a manipulative psycho at any time of the day or night, waiting for the suspect to say something which will be helpful to the prosecution. Detectives employ sophisticated psychological and analytical techniques: they carefully assess the suspect's language and stress reactions at every phase of the interview, and keep exhaustive notes plus audiovisual documentation. If anyone knows exactly when to tell a criminal suspect to stop talking, it would be a police detective; so don't ask me.
At one point, Lane may have sensed that something screwy was going on. He momentarily adopted the idea of listening to Floyd:
Lane: "I'm listening."
Floyd: "I understand dat dat dat dat dat people do stuff, and and and and and you gotta (move em)"
Kueng: "Take a seat!"
Here is a good place to look at the conduct of J. Alexander Kueng. Kueng was a raw rookie, and he should have been taking his lead from Thomas Lane. In this and other instances, Kueng interfered with Lane's plan. Apparently things weren't moving fast enough for Kueng, so he took the initiative and put a stop to this "listening" nonsense. Who's in command here?
You will recall that Lane left Floyd alone with Kueng, while Lane interviewed the passengers in Floyd's car. Kueng and Floyd are visible at several points during this time. At no time can Floyd be seen resisting Kueng. Every time Kueng is seen, he is hurting and/or berating Floyd. Remember that Lane, who had to scuffle with Floyd before the handcuffs were on, never hurt Floyd. Remember that best practice is to de-escalate once the cuffs are on. But the moment Kueng found himself alone with a vulnerable person, his immediate impulse was to experiment with pain-compliance techniques. Kueng was the first officer to deliberately hurt Floyd.
Shawanda and Morries both saw what Kueng was doing with Floyd, and they both expressed concern. Lane made no effort to calm or reassure Shawanda; without Morries's calming influence, the Shawanda situation might have escalated. Morries then tried to intercede with Lane, and Lane brushed him off. Say what you will about Morries's sartorial and career choices, he at least wore his pants at a respectable height and his interest in George Floyd was not merely mercenary. In the face of Kueng's aggression, Morries was willing to put his ass (and his travel bag) on the line for his friend.
Kueng’s conduct didn’t injure Floyd, and it’s not the kind of thing that would normally get an officer in trouble. But it looked terrible. Floyd cowered, cried and pled as Kueng gratuitously worked him over. From a law-enforcement perspective, this is impractical. Offending the public, even in small ways, adds up to a loss of faith and trust over time. In this case, Kueng's mistreatment of a handcuffed person, while inconsequential, was disgusting to witness.
All physical escalations, however minor, entail costs and risks that must be weighed in the balance with the intended benefits. Other things being equal, de-escalation is always preferable. The time to escalate is when less-forceful options have been exhausted, not when a force plan has succeeded. A case could be made that de-escalation is an officer's primary responsibility in all situations: you might need to escalate first, but the overall plan should always be to de-escalate, to restore order, to settle things down.
Kueng's escalation was not in service to any known plan. Thomas Lane did not order it, George Floyd did nothing to justify it, and it served no purpose. That may not be a crime, but it provides the first of many clues that Kueng was not only a sadistic moron; he was insubordinate and disloyal to Thomas Lane.
Was Floyd Concsious of Guilt?
George Floyd does not seem to have self-identified as a criminal. Six times he protested, "I'm not that kind of guy!" Floyd begged to speak, to be heard and believed, to be looked in the face. If Floyd was conscious of guilt, he must also have been a world-class actor. A person with something to hide doesn't beg to be heard and seen.
Floyd had, in fact, passed a counterfeit bill in the Cup Foods, and when confronted, he declined to return his purchases. He returned to his car and, once there, became even more stoned than he had been in the store. At least one store employee approached Floyd in his car, only to find Floyd semi-conscious and unable to muster a proper response. Shawanda told the employee that once Floyd was feeling better, she would remind Floyd to go in the store and make things right.
Neither Shawanda nor Floyd seemed to anticipate the involvement of police. As mentioned before, Floyd startled when he first saw Lane. Shawanda didn't know what Lane wanted, at first. She thought it was a case of mistaken identity. When Lane told Shawanda that someone had passed a fake bill, she reacted with surprise. Why? Wouldn't that fake bill be the obvious reason why the police were called? Apparently neither Floyd nor Shawanda felt anxious about him passing that counterfeit bill.
Had Floyd feared the consequences of his deed, he could have just driven away (or tried to). It's weird to commit a crime, be confronted by multiple witnesses, and then hang around the scene. What the hell was going on, here?
The critical clue came from Morries. When Lane interviewed Morries, Morries mentioned "Mr. Adam" nine times. "Mr. Adam knows us, he knows me," Morries said. Later, Floyd said something similar: "You can ask him. They know me in there."
Mr. Adam was the street name of Mr. Abumayyaleh, proprietor of Cup Foods. He was specifically the man whom George Floyd defrauded with the fake bill. He was the man George Floyd wanted to see, the man Floyd wanted the officers to see. If a suspect requests to confront his accuser, that's usually not consciousness of guilt.
Did Mr. Adam, in fact, know George Floyd? Yes, he did. When he found out Floyd had died in a confrontation with police, Mr. Adam was heartbroken and instituted a store policy of not contacting law enforcement to report non-violent crimes. In his tight-knit, high-trust community, Mr. Adam knew how to settle delinquent accounts without calling the cops. This is why George Floyd was unconcerned; he did business with Mr. Adam regularly and enjoyed a measure of community privilege.
When Morries tried to explain the situation to Thomas Lane, Lane blew him off. Lane didn't listen to Floyd either.
Floyd was afraid to be shot, he was afraid to be handcuffed, and he was afraid to get in the squad car. But he wasn't afraid of the police. He didn't expect the police to show up; he didn't expect them to escalate; he was surprised every time they did. He continued to insist it was all just a misunderstanding.
Charles
Near the end this part, we hear the voice of a man named Charles. In the transcript, Charles is identified as Bystander 1.
Floyd: "Look at this, look at it look at it."
Floyd looks towards his own left upper chest/shoulder, then at the officers as though to show them something. It's not clear what Floyd expects the officers to see.
Lane: "We can fix it but not while you're standing up."
Floyd: "OK OK God y'all do me bad, man."
Bystander 1 (out of frame, never seen, voice of older black male): "You're not going to win!"
Floyd: "Man I know, I don't want to try to win, I don't want to try to win I don't want to win! I'm claustrophobic!"
Bystander 1: "You ain't gonna win!"
Floyd: "I'm claustrophobic I got anxiety I don't wanna do nothin to them!"
Lane: "I'll roll the window down!"
Floyd: "Man I'm scared as fuck man! When I start breathing, when I start breathing, it's going to go off on me man."
Floyd sits on the edge of the back seat of the squad car. His head and feet remain outside the vehicle.
Lane: "Pull your legs in."
Floyd: "OK OK OK let me count to three. Let me count to three I'm going in. Please."
Bystander 1: "You can't win!"
Floyd: "I'm not trying to win! I'm not trying to win! I'll get on the ground, anything!"
What Floyd wanted the officers to see, was the bullet scar near his left collarbone. You can't see it in the video, but it is noted in the ME report.
Floyd said, "When I start breathing, it's going to go off on me." That indicates a history of acute anxiety with hyperventilation. Of course we have the benefit of hindsight; this connection might not be so obvious in the heat of the moment. As mentioned before, hyperventilation generally isn't dangerous but it's still considered a medical emergency, and it hurts. If Floyd was at real risk of hyperventilation in the squad car, he was right to be afraid. Thomas Lane also had an interest in preventing that emergency, if only to avoid the hassle of a combined law-enforcement/medical response.
Lane did not completely ignore Floyd's condition, or refuse Floyd accommodation; he was quick to offer to open the window, turn on the air, etc. A little too quick; Floyd could not catch up with Lane's speed of response, and Lane did not slow down to make sure Floyd understood him. It can't possibly have helped that Kueng was yelling in Lane's ear every two seconds. In any case, the accomodations Lane offered did not break the impasse with Floyd.
It is routine for arresting officers to accommodate an arrestee who has special, i.e. medical needs. But there is no routine way to accommodate a person with anxiety. Their needs may be weird and unpredictable, which creates a whole new level of risk. How can you tell the difference between a real anxiety case, and a person who is just extremely manipulative? How far can you trust an anxiety case to take control of the situation? Where do you draw the line?
Whether Thomas Lane inwardly pondered these risks is anyone's guess; his outward reactions were consistently rapid and defensive/risk-averse: downshifted. His limit to accommodate Floyd did not extend beyond adjusting the airflow in the rear compartment of the squad car. What more could he reasonably have done?
Floyd made an heroic effort to break the impasse. He struggled to keep his cool, and he almost got his feet into the car. At the critical moment, Charles interrupted him, and Floyd lost his focus. He wouldn't get another chance.
Note that Charles, a black man, did not remonstrate with the police; he remonstrated with Floyd. Like the police, Charles seemed to regard Floyd's inability to cooperate as defiance or worse. Floyd denied any violent intention, repeatedly saying he didn't want to hurt anyone, he wasn't trying to win. Floyd offered to "get on the ground, anything," as a token of submission. He just couldn't get in the car; his limbic system malfunctioned every time he thought about it.
From the point of view of anybody other than George Floyd, there was nothing scary or threatening or dangerous about this scene. But Thomas Lane really had lost control. Kueng was out of ideas other than "get angrier", and his worsening mood affected everyone. Charles butted in at just the wrong moment. There were many clues Lane had failed to pick up on. And the trend of the scene was negative: compared to just three minutes previously, the social-emotional tone was more chaotic, more antagonistic, more upset. Lane was desperately overdue for a re-assessment.
If Thomas Lane had only had a couple more minutes to get his act together, he might have done it. He could have told Kueng and Charles to stand down, and ordered Floyd to take a deep cleansing breath and pull himself together. That probably would have been enough. Floyd didn't require princely accommodations. He needed a minute to calm down, and he needed a rapport with Lane; a rapport he had been struggling to establish. Floyd said he was afraid to be alone; he thanked Lane for promising to stay with him. Lane had a duty of care to Floyd, and Floyd just needed some assurance that Lane would, in fact, take care of him; would not let him come to harm.
In the background, officers Derek Chauvin and Tuo Thao rounded the sidewalk corner by the door of cup foods, and leisurely approached the scene. As he approached, Chauvin donned a pair of black gloves.
(Forward to Part Three: Chauvin On The Scene)