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[Editor's note: This is a follow-on to the story George Floyd Dead - Officers Fired and Charged - Discuss it Here that we ran on June 2, 2020. With 385 comments, it was the 5th-most-discussed story in the history of SoylentNews. All four of the officers involved were fired from the police force and are facing charges for the death.
New body-cam footage has come to light, exclusively on DailyMail.com. The two videos there fill in gaps from the previously-released footage.
In light of the interest when we first ran the story, the continuing "Black Lives Matter" protests, and the information this brings to light, I have decided to run this story.
NOTE: Each news organization has their own "take" on the killing. This coverage from DailyMail.com is no exception; read it with a heaping helping of the proverbial "grain of salt". It has been excerpted here without elision so as to not add any additional "spin".
WARNING: Please be aware the video content is disturbing; viewer discretion is advised. --martyb]
Submitted via IRC for SoyCow1234
Police Bodycam Footage Shows George Floyd Arrest In Detail:
WARNING: DISTURBING CONTENT. DailyMail.com has obtained video from the body cameras of two officers involved in the arrest of George Floyd that ultimately led to his death on May 25 in Minneapolis.
[...] Bodycam footage from two cops accused in the murder of George Floyd is revealed exclusively by DailyMail.com today — and it shows a rookie officer terrifying Floyd by pointing a handgun at his head and another callously picking a pebble from the squad car tire just inches from the dying man and seconds before he draws his last breath.
The tapes show in minute detail how a very distressed Floyd begs 'Mr. Officer, please don't shoot me. Please man,' before the struggle that ended with his death on May 25.
It also shows how belligerent cops cursed at and manhandled the sobbing suspect, ignoring his pleas for compassion.
Floyd resisted as the cops tried to force him into the back of the car, telling them he suffers from claustrophobia and anxiety and how Officer Derek Chauvin knelt on his neck for nearly nine minutes, leading to his death, ignoring Floyd's repeated cries of 'I can't breathe.'
Floyd is even heard predicting his own death. 'I'll probably just die this way,' he says.
Transcripts from the videos were released in mid-July but a judge in Minneapolis had ruled the video could only be viewed in the courthouse, meaning few people have had the chance to watch the powerful images.
But the footage has now been leaked to DailyMail.com so the world can finally see the tragedy of Floyd's last minutes as the cops were mindless of Floyd's anguish.
The footage includes more than 18 minutes from Officer Alex Kueng's bodycam and 10 minutes from Officer Thomas Lane. They were the first two cops to arrive on the scene after a complaint that Floyd had attempted to pass a fake $20 bill to buy cigarettes at Cup Foods, a store in the Powderhorn Park section of Minneapolis.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Wednesday August 05 2020, @07:12PM (5 children)
Like a choke hold - you would use such a procedure to subdue someone. You don't continue to choke for ten minutes. One of the cops was concerned enough to ask his superior about turning Floyd over. Bystanders are shouting to check his pulse. The senior cop wasn't concerned enough to have Floyd's pulse checked - any person standing nearby could have done so. "Hey, this guy has no heartbeat, you can stop kneeling on his neck!" The large solid looking cop who looks almost Asian could have checked the pulse, or the guy who asked about turning Floyd on his side.
Sorry, this protocol won't sway me, and I don't think it will sway a jury.
(Score: 3, Informative) by darkfeline on Thursday August 06 2020, @03:48AM (4 children)
>procedure to subdue someone
No, it's to restrain someone, big difference.
It sounds like you're still operating under the lie that the officer was applying all of his weight onto George's neck. if you read my link, you would know that the protocol is to use light to moderate force on the neck, only to prevent the person from getting up and not to choke them, obviously, and the video evidence along with studies of the force applied by knee to neck restraint indicates that the officer was not applying very much force to George's neck.
So no, I don't care for your "fake news" (god, I loathe the term, but there's so much false or misleading information flying around) of the officer grinding his knee into George's neck with the force of a thousand suns. All that happened was that the officer put George on the ground (at his own request, no less, as shown by the bodycam footage) and prevented him from getting up, per protocol.
Also, cops are not EMTs. Them checking George's pulse or rotating him would have done no good in this case, and in the general case I don't want cops without medical training moving me if I am suffering from a medical condition. I'd rather the EMTs that will arrive soon do that.
>One of the cops was concerned enough to ask his superior about turning Floyd over.
The protocol is to keep people exhibiting excited delirium on their stomach, in prone position.
In response to your other comment, perhaps the protocol is bad. I won't contest that point. But it is not the duty of the cops to write protocol, it is the politicians and policy-makers. And it certainly isn't the duty of the cop out in the field to rewrite the protocol.
If we truly cared about justice, we wouldn't be trying to punish the cops at the scene, but rather the policy-makers. But as always, those at the bottom of the totem pole get sacrificed to the lynch mob of public opinion.
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(Score: 2, Informative) by khallow on Thursday August 06 2020, @05:16AM (2 children)
If you're so aware of "protocol", you would be aware that particular protocol was not a protocol [as.com].
I'll point out that in addition to the absence of protocol for this particular hold, it also provides a plausible way to kill someone in front of a bunch of video cameras. It's quite a coincidence that for a time over the past year, Floyd worked in the same place [newsone.com] as the police officer who killed him. Perhaps that happened because Chauvin and his fellows needed to hush up Floyd. Murder is a great way to do that, but most such ways look pretty lousy and incriminating in front of a bunch of cameras. But if you're merely "holding" Floyd, because he is "resisting arrest", due to showing signs of "excited delirium", you just might be able to get away with first degree murder.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by darkfeline on Thursday August 06 2020, @06:42AM (1 child)
I'd be laughing if I weren't crying from the sheer amount of misinformation in your post.
Here's the actual Minneapolis manual: https://www.sanfranciscopolice.org/sites/default/files/Documents/PoliceCommission/minneapolis%20ced%20policy.pdf [sanfranciscopolice.org]
5-311 USE OF NECK RESTRAINTS AND CHOKE HOLDS
Neck Restraint: Non-deadly force option. Defined as compressing one or both sides of a person's neck with an
arm or leg, without applying direct pressure to the trachea or airway (front of the neck). Only sworn employees who
have received training from the MPD Training Unit are authorized to use neck restraints. The MPD authorizes two
types of neck restraints: Conscious Neck Restraint and Unconscious Neck Restraint. (04/16/12)
Conscious Neck Restraint: The subject is placed in a neck restraint with intent to control, and not to render the
subject unconscious, by only applying light to moderate pressure. (04/16/12)
PROCEDURES/REGULATIONS II.
A. The Conscious Neck Restraint may be used against a subject who is actively resisting. (04/16/12)
The MPD deleted that page from their website shortly after the event. It seems like Minneapolis is trying to push an agenda.
>Perhaps that happened because Chauvin and his fellows needed to hush up Floyd.
Right, that's why they hypnotized George and made him overdose on drugs, and then hypnotized someone to call 911 to report someone under the influence attempting to operate a car, and then performed a maneuver that would look suspicious to a misinformed person when George was already claiming he couldn't breathe for minutes before he was laid on the ground by George's own request.
But you know, if I were Chauvin and trying to hush George, you know what I would've done? I would've just waited for him to die from the drug overdose I hypnotized him into. There'd be no way I could've been implicated while doing a neck restraint as described by section 5-311 from the MPD manual.
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(Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday August 06 2020, @02:46PM
Perhaps, they were fine with him breathing and such, until he started passing bad $20s and generating 911 calls - attention to their schemes in other words. Sure, you find it remarkable that the first police to respond to the scene included someone who probably knew Floyd from outside work and then killed him? But I guess a lot of things appear legit to the misinformed person, eh?
There's some indications that murder wasn't intended. For example, Floyd allegedly was still breathing when the ambulance arrived. It would have been easy to kill him prior to that point with that kind of hold. OTOH, maybe Chauvin thought he had already killed him and just did it wrong.
On that last phrase from your quote:
Was George's death also at his request? Laying someone on the ground doesn't require putting a knee on their neck and Floyd certainly wasn't requesting his own death. You're bullshitting us.
This isn't a normal restraining of a suspect who is experiencing excited delirium. Normal restraining doesn't result in the person dying. It's time to consider what went wrong.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Thursday August 06 2020, @02:21PM
Historically, who writes all these protocols and procedures, policies and regulations? Do citizens have any opportunity to influence these things? Have you ever seen or heard of a referendum at the county level, in regards to police procedure? No, neither have I.
Now, you may, if you wish, research any number of policies and protocols. It would likely take a lot of time, with a lot of spinning your wheels in circles. Where do they come from? How do these things evolve?
Bottom line, police write police procedure, policy, regulation, etc ad nauseum.
How about that 21 ft rule? It says that an armed assailant within 21 feet can close the distance and attack in something like 1 second, faster than an armed cop can react to the threat. That "policy" was written, demonstrated, justified, and justified again and again with TRAINED ASSAILANTS. That is, military level special forces types with a knife can attack and overcome an armed police officer in just a second or so from a range of 21 feet. And, that factoid has been used to justify the shootings of hundreds of stupid/stubborn/ignorant American citizens over the years.
Fear. Cops are scared, so they found a justification to react to that fear with force.
Don't like that particular example? Pick your own. Pick a procedure, a policy, whatever, and find out where it came from. Did the citizenry have any input into it? I'll bet dollars to donuts that your community had nothing to say about whichever policy you choose. The police, the police unions, ex-military all had input. As a rule, they just write this shit for themselves. If that doesn't work, they lobby the capital, mostly talking to gullible politicians who don't come from the ghettos and poor neighborhoods. When a cop talks, the politician mostly just accepts his word as gospel. Just like in court, the judge almost always believes the cop, and never the defendant.
Policy, protocol, whatever - I don't accept that they can't be improved on.
As for the individual cop's liability when following protocol - well, sorry, THE COP IS RESPONSIBLE.
No matter how we twist, turn, and try to avoid responsibility, George died while these cops had him under their control. He died. Three cops had their hands on him, and he died. They weren't concerned enough to check his pulse - they had to follow some bastard protocol?
This is where that callous disregard for human life comes in. We need to redifine "police" to be less "law enforcement" and more "peace keeper".
If some cops get burned unjustly in the process, well, I'm sorry. How many American citizens have been killed unjustly over the years? Time to balance the ledger, I think.