When people say “I can’t breathe,” they can, by definition, breathe. You can’t talk without breath. They mean that they are having great difficulty breathing. If they die shortly afterward it’s often due to cardiac failure. 1/

Cardiac distress can be caused by prolonged pressure to the vital arteries and veins in the neck. Which is why I never expected Floyd’s autopsy to say that he was strangled and/or asphyxiated. People are, IMO, making way too much out of that line. 2/

I should also point out that it doesn’t matter, legally speaking, if Floyd had underlying cardiac conditions. One of the primary principles of criminal law is “you take your victim as you find him.” 3/

If you take an unlawful action that would not cause death in a young, healthy person but does cause death in your victim due to some health condition, even if you don’t know about it, you are still liable. 4/

Just in case anyone is of the erroneous opinion that the medical examiners report exonerates the cops in the Floyd case. It does not. Indeed it specifically lists “the effects of... being restrained by police” as a likely contributor to his death. 5/