HARROWING body-camera footage from two Minneapolis police officers involved in George Floyd’s deadly arrest has emerged showing the critical moments leading up to his death as he pleaded with officers to let him go. “I’m not a bad guy!” Floyd, 46, says as he pleads with officers to take him seriously. One bystander tells Floyd, “You can’t win.” “I don’t […]
HARROWING body-camera footage from two Minneapolis police officers involved in George Floyd’s deadly arrest has emerged showing the critical moments leading up to his death as he pleaded with officers to let him go.
“I’m not a bad guy!” Floyd, 46, says as he pleads with officers to take him seriously.
One bystander tells Floyd, “You can’t win.”
“I don’t want to win, I‘m claustrophobic, and I got anxiety, I don’t want to do nothing to them,” Floyd replies, in the footage viewed by The Sun.
“Man, I’m scared as f**k man.”
The recordings were captured on the body cameras of former officers Thomas Lane and J. Kueng, who were fired and subsequently charged – with two other officers – in Floyd’s death.
Derek Chauvin, who pinned his knee on Floyd’s neck for nearly nine minutes faces a second-degree murder charge. Lane, Kueng and Tou Thao are charged with aiding and abetting.
The footage was released in July but only available for viewing by appointment and publication was prohibited.
One clips shows the officers approaching Floyd in his vehicle outside a convenience store, where he was accused of trying to pass off a counterfeit $20 bill. When he didn’t display his hands, Lane pulls his weapon, causing Floyd to say he had been shot before.
Floyd is handcuffed but pleads with the officers not to put him in a squad car because of his claustrophobia.
“I’m claustrophobic man, please man, please,” he can be heard pleading.
“Please, I’m not that kind of guy, Mr. Officer. Please!”
“I don’t have nothing. Why y‘all doing me like this Mr Officer? Please crack the window for me and stuff. I am claustrophobic for real, Mr Officer.”
Floyd then begs for an officer to “stay” with him and promises he’s about to get into the police car but asks for a moment.
“Please stay with me man, thank you, he says.
“God, man. I didn‘t know all this was going to happen man. Please man [inaudible]. l don’t want to do nothing to y’all man, nothing.
“Y‘all I’m going to die in here! I’m going to die, man!”
He then winds up on the ground during a struggle while the officers attempt to hold him down.
Chauvin and Kueng each grip one of Floyd’s handcuffed hands to hold them in position behind his back, with Kueng’s knee appearing to press on Floyd’s bottom or just below. Lane is at Floyd’s feet.
Floyd stated “I can’t breathe” more than 20 times during the May 25 arrest as Chauvin pressed his knee into his neck.
“Then stop talking, stop yelling, it takes a heck of a lot of oxygen to talk,” Chauvin responded.
At one point, Floyd cries for his mother, repeatedly yelling: “mama, I love you… I can’t do nothing”. He also calls for his children, saying, “Tell my kids I love them. … I’m dead.”
Bystanders can be heard expressing concern for his condition. Kueng checks for Floyd’s pulse but doesn’t find one.
Lane’s camera shows an unresponsive Floyd on an ambulance stretcher where he is instructed by EMTs to perform CPR. Lane performs chest compressions with no response, the video shows.
The ambulance parks a few blocks away for several minutes while Lane and an EMT attend to Floyd.
Floyd was later pronounced dead.
He is survived by five children, including his estranged son, Quincy Mason Floyd, his daughter Connie Mason and little Gianna Floyd, 6.
The Hennepin County Medical Examiner confirmed Floyd died from a cardiac arrest “complicating law enforcement subdual, restraint and neck compression” – and that he was positive for COVID-19.
According to findings from an independent autopsy at the request of his family, Floyd died as a result of “asphyxia due to neck and back compression that led to a lack of blood flow to the brain.”
The examination, conducted by Michael Baden and Allecia Wilson, determined Floyd’s death to be “homicide.”
The video’s release came on the same day Floyd’s family announced a lawsuit against the city and the police officers.
“This complaint shows what we have said all along, that Mr. Floyd died because the weight of the entire Minneapolis Police Department was on his neck,” Ben Crump and other lawyers representing Floyd’s family said in a statement.
Media outlets and lawyers for Lane and Kueng have pushed to make the body camera footage video widely available, arguing that it would give a complete picture of the events leading up to Floyd’s death.
Floyd’s death sparked nationwide protests against police brutality and racial injustice that has unleashed a reckoning over police tactics and the appropriate use of force. As a result, a number of local governments, including Minneapolis, have begun efforts to reform their law enforcement agencies through budget cuts and removing officers from public schools.
