All of the following is IMO, of course, and I’m not going to brag about my credentials so take it as one pede’s opinion.

I don’t know cop stuff, but I do know a thing or two about medicine. Watching the newly leaked Floyd body cam footage, my spider sense starts tingling just as they get him out of the car. George Floyd was obviously upset, but too coherent and compliant (believe it or don’t) to be excited delirium. Besides, a dude that size with excited delirium would be tossing those cops around. Also if he’s overdosing on fentanyl the effects are being masked by the meth- opiate ODs become unconscious before their breathing slows to a stop.

If I had a patient like GF, I’d be thinking of three outcomes. Dude’s either having a major anxiety attack, a heart attack or a pulmonary embolism. By the time he’s getting shoved into the cop car he has started acting like every respiratory or cardiac crash patient I’ve ever run into - all that agitation is his body realizing something’s majorly wrong and trying to survive it, and his conscious mind is superimposing it onto the experience of arrest.

(pros in the building, feel free to chime in- think of that patient you could barely get an EKG on because they couldn’t lie down.)

But cops usually aren’t EMTs, and they’re hardly ever doctors. I assume there’s an unhealthy skepticism built up over years of dealing with every faker. So maybe they don’t realize Floyd is crumping until he crumps.

Here’s the part I’m not so sure of. I think A murder case is going to ride on GF’s health and the long-shot allegation that he was fine before and that the arrest was proximate cause for his death. A manslaughter charge could instead be alleged based on when they noticed something was wrong and called medical for him.

Thoughts are welcome.