[tag=193194]@SuspiciousFish[/tag] bro calm down.
Editing this for complete and subjective opinion with objective facts. Buckle up folks.
All pictures are from the county autopsy.
County autopsy basically said drugs plus heart disease caused his death. Private autopsy said otherwise. What's obvious in the video is he passes out at about 2min into the 8min before he is loaded into the ambulance. Did he go into respiratory arrest then? Cardiac arrest? Neither until in the ambulance? Given the lack of trust and initial response by the department surrounding his death, I wouldn't be to quick to trust their report. The video speaks volumes and the officer on his neck and pressure on his diaphragm directly and negligently and probably criminally contributed to his death without question.
If I had to guess, he either went unconscious due to lack of blood flow to the brain or due to hypoxemia. Either way, the officer continued to kneel there. Any temporary problem just became more permanent as the minutes ticked by. I'm at work so can't re-watch the video but from what I remember there didn't appear to be any visible chest rise indicating breathing. So I would guess he passed out at 2min and went into respiratory arrest and or cardiac arrest shortly after. You don't have a heart beat long after stopping breathing so he probably was in cardiac arrest when they felt for a pulse but that's all speculation. I'm leaning towards this being true though because of how they reacted when they were "treating him". He clearly was incapacitated. Likely not breathing. Possibly in arrest. They then put his limp body onto the bed and put in him the ambulance. At that point his GCS was clearly 3. EMS probably would have intubated him at the scene or provided bag mask ventilations. Airway is #1.That's the first thing they would have done. Not spend precious minutes loading him in a truck. The complacency in their response should honestly be investigated too. OK so that's the subjective video breakdown.
Now to the first autopsy. Atherosclerosis, mild cardiomegaly, and hypertension history. Could stress cause a response that induces cardiac arrest? Idk. Maybe. Roll some dice. Next is the tox report below:
View attachment 965888
-Fentanyl 11ng/mL (mind altering but functioning)
-Methamphetamine 19ng/mL (insignificant)
-Ignoring the rest because they're irrelevant to this point.
Fentanyl: a C2 drug commonly used recreationally and medically. Fatal serum concentrations are much higher than the level he had. His level was definitely higher than analgesic levels up to 2ng/mL however he likely had tolerance to be able to function normally. High but not dead. Unconsciousness from fentanyl in opioid-naive (which he was not) patients doesn't occur until 35ng/mL. Opioid users are not infrequent like Marijuana for example. He likely had some sort of tolerance built up. Also the issue of are fentanyl post mortem results reliable as blood levels can increase as a result of redistribution: Google "Andresen et al, 2012 fentanyl". In lamens terms he might not even have been high....
Methamphetamine: actually a C2 drug. Not that they use it anymore but pediatric dosing is 25mg/day. His blood level was much lower than levels found in fatal cases; 10 times less. And usually people who overdose do so with other drugs too so while there's an additive effect with opiates, I wouldn't expect this to make a huge difference in his respiratory status. The point is, his methamphetamine level was not a toxic level. Essentially it was a level that you'd see after a normal safe dose for children. The minimum known lethal exposure for adults is 140mg.
View attachment 965889
Also consider that drug abusers develop tolerance. The serum concentrations they can handle are impressive. His meth and fentanyl blood levels are not unusually concerning.
Covid-19: his disease was mild if not asymptomatic. While he had congestion on the autopsy, he had no edema which is what would cause the most issues. Regardless, him saying "I can't breathe" in combination with any disease should not be overlooked. A disease or illness or symptom of not breathing is not something that you can ignore and get away with.
View attachment 965890
Conclusion: so what does this say? Was he a drug user? Yes. Was he so high that it caused him to go into respiratory arrest or cardiac arrest? Unlikely even with the additive effect and cardiac disease and known serious side effects of both drugs. Could him possibly being impaired contributed to his inability to protect his airway when challenged by 100+ lbs on it? Absolutely but it is still no excuse. In fact he struggled a bit and would indicate he wasn't sky high on the charts. It seemed subjectively obvious that the police officer restricting his airway caused him to not be able to adequately ventilate and he subsequently went into respiratory and then cardiac arrest. The officer was made aware of concerns and ignored. Negligence. He went unconscious and still no immediate aid. Criminal.
Kinda interesting just found this after I typed all of this up about the drug issue and sums it up
View attachment 965891
Last thing. You alluded to a conflict of interest with private autopsy. First off, both autopsies had conflicts. The county had a highly political situation and could easily have pressured the pathologist into giving the autopsy as he did (which he later changed ^^^, still I respect and trust in his autonomy). The private autopsy used two different pathologists who both concluded the same thing. Their only conflict of interest is money and pleasing the family. They get paid regardless of the results. This isn't a black and white science but I would wholeheartedly trust two independent physicians over a county medical examiner (also physician) who for him this is just another body. The extra attention to detail might not be there. Tbh it could have been an honest mistake and he missed a sign. I highly doubt the independent pathologists would stake their reputation, oaths, and future income to falsify results that don't benefit them. Get real man.
**This post was edited on Jun 6th 2020 at 5:25:43am