George Floyd Body Cam Footage Is Out. The Story Is Far More Complicated Than Media Led Us To Believe.

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Two months after footage of George Floyd’s death went viral, sparking an epidemic of rioting and violence that killed dozens of people and caused untold damage to countless communities across the country, body cam footage of the incident has finally been made available. Published by the Daily Mail after being leaked to the outlet, the additional video (below) lends crucial context to the fatal encounter between Floyd and Officer Derek Chauvin, and gives insight into the states of mind of both men.

Given that this tragic episode and the reaction to it has been the most significant story in the country for two months, and one of the most significant of the past decade, you might think that the media would treat the new evidence as a rather big story. But so far the opposite has been the case. The news media, for the most part, has had a noticeably muted reaction to the footage. One might say suspiciously muted. Perhaps that’s because the story the new footage tells is, at the very least, far more complicated than the one the media and activists have been screaming into our ears since May. That story, with which we are all extremely familiar, is that George Floyd was a compliant and peaceful man who was strangled to death by a racist, anti-black, sociopathic cop. It was straightforward, we were told. Quite literally black and white. And the only opinion one can really have about it is the kind of opinion that is easily expressed on a protest sign.



Of course we’ve known from the beginning that some of this was, to put it gently, not quite accurate. However Floyd was or wasn’t acting on the day of his death, it strains credulity to use a word like “peaceful” to describe a man who once forced his way into a woman’s home and robbed her at gunpoint in front of her child. As for the racism claim, there was perhaps no evidence to disprove it, but neither was any evidence ever presented to support it. It is merely assumed that any white police officer who kills a black suspect no matter the circumstances is motivated, at some level, by racism. Some of them may be so motivated, but the burden of proof is on those who make the claim. Yet those who make the claim rarely acknowledge that there is any burden to meet, much less make any honest attempt to meet it. 

Also, anyone following the story has known for sometime that, according to the medical examiner’s report, Floyd was not strangled to death and did not die from asphyxiation as the media had so confidently declared in the immediate aftermath. It was found that Floyd — who had a pre-existing heart condition and three illicit drugs in his system, including fentanyl, which is 50 times more potent than morphine and known to cause respiratory distress — died of “cardiopulmonary arrest complicating law enforcement subdual, restrain, and neck compression.” A medical examination performed by an examiner hired by Floyd’s family contradicted those findings, claiming that Floyd did in fact die of asphyxiation.  

That was the status of things prior to this week’s developments: we had a disturbing video without prior context, a bunch of assumptions, and not much more. And those assumptions were considered reason enough to burn our cities. The new footage does not necessarily clarify things — in fact, it does the opposite, adding complications and nuances to an issue that was once assumed to be utterly straightforward. 

The body cameras worn by officers Alex Kueng and Thomas Lane, the first two cops on the scene, show Floyd agitated and uncooperative from the first moment that officers arrive in response to a call from a business owner who accused Floyd of trying to pass off counterfeit bills. Floyd is in his car when law enforcement first shows up. One of the officers draws his weapon because Floyd is initially hesitant to show his hands. Once Floyd places his hands on his head, the gun is holstered. After much coaxing, he is eventually removed from his car and taken over to the police cruiser.

Floyd appears to have trouble walking on his way over to the police car. He shouts “ow” and seems to be in pain even though he is only being grabbed by the arm. Once at the vehicle, he repeatedly refuses to get inside, saying that he’s “claustrophobic,” though he’d just been sitting in his own car without any apparent difficulty (on the contrary he was extremely reluctant to get out of his own vehicle). At one point, as officers try to convince him to get in the car, Floyd says he’d rather lay on the ground. He also says several times that he’s “going to die” and that he can’t breathe — all before he was on the ground. He ends up on the ground because he either falls or pushes himself out of the other side of the police cruiser as officers struggle to get him inside. From that point, the scene unfolds as we all saw on the initial video two months ago. 

1. George Floyd was not fully cooperative and clearly intoxicated.

2. The officers were calm and reasonable for most of the interaction.

3. George Floyd claimed that he couldn’t breathe and was going to die well before he had a knee on his neck.

4. The officers never did or said a single thing that any reasonable person could construe as racist. 

Point three in particular warrants further consideration.

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Police misconduct, but nothing..NOTHING…that ever suggested racism. It’s was just cherry-picked like Trayvon and Brown because it was white on black.

That said, police have to follow rules, and the law.

#Floyd19

It is quite possible had law enforcement never been called, he might have eventually died on his own from the excessive level of drugs in his system. That being said, defense attorneys could argue his death was self inflicted.

George had what would have been a fatal sized dose of Fentynal (sp?) in his system at autopsy.
Perhaps if left alone that would have killed him that day anyway.
But addicts are always scheming how to get their next fix even while still high on their present fix.
Passing phony funny money was classic.
Constant lying throughout a police encounter also appears to be common as we also saw that during the police interview of Rayshard Brooks at the Wendy’s parking lot.
Haven’t two of the 4 police there when George Floyd died been exonerated and charges dropped for them???

The new footage does not necessarily clarify things — in fact, it does the opposite, adding complications and nuances to an issue that was once assumed to be utterly straightforward.

Well… straightforward if you want to believe that racist cops is a systemic problem and they go around picking out random black guys and killing them… and Chauvin just got caught. Otherwise, what we continue to learn is what some of us suspected was the case all along; that Floyd put up a struggle which resulted in force being used to subdue him, which was likely excessive but complicated by Floyd’s drug use. NO, Chauvin and the others don’t get to walk because Floyd took drugs. NO, they don’t get to walk because Floyd resisted. BUT, there was never anything racial about it. NEVER. And that’s the key.

The racial aspect of this has been invented, and it was invented for the purpose of creating chaos, unrest and violence which the Democrats will tell us THEY can solve. They can’t; first, there is no solution to a problem that doesn’t exist, or isn’t nearly as bad as they would tell us and Democrats never solve anything… they CREATED the problem.

Oh, and to prevent the actual body cam of the actual incident from calming heightened emotion, people like ABC do all they can to keep tensions high.

https://newsbusters.org/blogs/nb/nicholas-fondacaro/2020/08/03/abc-spikes-leaked-video-floyd-arrest-cbsnbc-edit-out-stop

The truth just isn’t that simple. It rarely is. And that’s a lesson we would all do well to remember for the future.

Yeah, well this is a lesson that should have been learned as far back as Trayvon Martin, but you learn, I guess, only the lessons you want to learn. It should be logical to anyone that has any consideration for human life to wait for facts before drawing harsh, racist conclusions that incite violence. The one and only reason to divert from that practice is if you WANT to incite violence.

The M.S. Media always hide the truth from us it never fails just how dishonest they are at the M.S. Media its no wonder their losing the trust of the American People

There’s a complete transcript of the Floyd/police encounter.
In it Floyd admits to carrying drugs as a mule INSIDE his rectum!
So, there’s some question as to whether he took the fatal dose on purpose or OD’ed because of that.
Police tell him he is foaming at the mouth, which is an OD or poisoning sign.
Floyd killed himself.
Perhaps if he’d gotten to an ER in time he might have pulled thru.

Look, I take no pleasure in this guy’s death or anything about his life that was tragic. He’s dead because he’s a serial criminal. Period.

@Nathan Blue:

Don’t forget these two things; there was a huge bust of counterfeit money in Minneapolis just months before the Floyd incident, and Floyd was a career criminal.

Why is anyone drug across the United States having multiple funerals and much cow towing by elected officials who was a career criminal?

Who Killed George Floyd?

If they get a fair trial, a questionable proposition at best, Minneapolis police officers charged with murdering George Floyd should be acquitted.

Let’s consider new, undisputed evidence, beyond the initial bystander’s video that we’ve all seen, to understand why.

On Memorial Day, around 8 PM, Minneapolis Police are called to a local convenience store. Two suspects passed a fake $20 bill to buy cigarettes. When police arrived, the shop manager pointed across the street, where three suspects sat in a parked vehicle. George Floyd sat behind the wheel.

When the officers crossed the street to investigate, two other suspects, another man, and a woman, both black, stepped from the car and politely cooperated.

But George argued and disobeyed ten separate commands from officers to keep his hands up. After the tenth order, he finally put his hands on the steering wheel as instructed.

As George protested, police walked him across the street to the police cruiser, the vehicle shown in the bystander’s video.

That bystander’s video, isolated alone, implies that the officer cruelly forced George onto the ground, then callously put his knee on George’s neck, causing George to cry out, pitifully, “I can’t breathe.”

But when a Minnesota judge authorized the release of police body cam footage, a completer and more different story emerged. First, the police never wanted George on the ground at all, and frantically tried getting him into the back of their squad car.

But Floyd, a strong six-feet-eight-inches tall, fought police every second, and tried pushing his way out. Police video shows George repeatedly saying, “I can’t breathe” long before he was on the ground, and before Officer Chauvin employed the infamous knee-restraint tactic.

This is crucial.

Claiming to be “claustrophobic” as they ordered him into the back seat, George Floyd demanded to be placed on the ground. So, the officers did not thrust him down to the ground and then put their knee on George’s neck, as the bystander’s video suggests.

Let’s delve into the evidence.

From Officer Thomas Lane’s body camera, at 8:09 PM, officers approached George’s vehicle, tapped on the window, instructing him to either put his hands up or put his hands on the steering wheel. But George refuses.

Ten separate times, police either instructed George to let them see his hands, or to put his hands on the wheel. Finally, George puts his hands on the wheel, protesting he had “not done anything.”

At 8:17 PM, officers walk George across the street. He keeps arguing, as they order him into the back of the squad car.

“I’m claustrophobic,” he claims, twice, resisting as they again order him to sit in the back seat. He screams, fights and resists getting in the squad car.

At 8:18:08, still standing beside the car and fighting the officers, he says, for the first time, with no knee on his neck, “I can’t breathe, officer!” At this point, police are still ordering him into the back seat.

A bystander urges George to stop fighting. “You can’t win,” the bystander says.

George fights anyway.

Police push him in the back seat. He keeps resisting.

Nine seconds later, fighting from the backseat of the police car, George says three times, in rapid succession, beginning at 8:18:19, “I want to lay on the ground! I want to lay on the ground! I want to lay on the ground!” He repeats it a fourth time, five seconds later, ““I want to lay on the ground!”

Then, as if he knows he is dying, says, “I’m going down.”

At 8:18:39, fighting in the backseat, he again says, three times in rapid succession, “I can’t breathe!” Then again,” I can’t breathe.” And then, again, at 8:18:50 repeats, “I can’t breathe!”

At this point, George had demanded to be laid on the ground four times and said “I can’t breathe” at least six times, while in the back seat of the squad car, with no knee on his neck.

At 8:19:06, he again says, “I can’t breathe,” for the seventh time.

Of course he can’t breathe. A fentanyl overdose stops a man from breathing.

George fought the officers non-stop for over ten minutes before officers finally removed him from the car and put him down on the ground, beside the squad car, as George himself demanded.

Bystanders then film George on the ground, declaring, “I can’t breathe,” as if this was the first time George said, “I can’t breathe,” and as if Officer Chauvin’s knee (not the fentanyl) caused George’s breathing problems.

Fox 9 in Minneapolis reported that Chief Hennepin County Medical Examiner Dr. Andrew Baker, in a memorandum filed May 26 concluded, “The autopsy revealed no physical evidence suggesting that Mr. Floyd died of asphyxiation.”

In other words, Dr. Baker initially ruled out Chauvin’s knee as causing George’s death.

In a second memorandum filed June 1, Baker described Floyd’s fentanyl level as “pretty high,” and a potentially “fatal level.”

Dr. Baker reported Floyd had 11 ng/mL of fentanyl in his blood, adding, “If he were found dead at home alone and no other apparent causes, this could be acceptable to call an OD. Deaths have been certified with levels of 3.”

In other words, while levels of 3 ng/mL have caused fatal fentanyl overdoses. George ingested nearly four times that amount, or 11 ng/mL of fentanyl, in his bloodstream. In another document, Dr. Baker said, “That is a fatal level of fentanyl under normal circumstances.”

Granted, mounting political pressure led to subsequent private autopsy reports, paid for by the family, showing the cause of death as a combination of both fentanyl and asphyxiation from the officer’s knee.

Of course they do.

But the prosecution, to obtain a conviction, must prove guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. They must prove that the officer’s knee, and not the massive fentanyl dosage, killed George Floyd.

That’s a tall order.

Not only that, but the infamous, “knee-technique,” which should be banned, was authorized by the Minneapolis PD. Officer Chauvin followed authorized procedure, a technique for keeping a suspect on the ground, after George Floyd had fought officers for over ten minutes, and after, only — and this is the kicker — George requested, repeatedly, to lay on the ground.

But Chauvin’s knee is a red herring. The issue here is fentanyl.

Here’s how the respected website, WebMD, describes the effects of fentanyl:

“[F]entanyl has rapid and potent effects on the brain and body, and even very small amounts can be extremely dangerous.

“It only takes a tiny amount of the drug to cause a deadly reaction,” … “Fentanyl can depress breathing and lead to death. The risk of overdose is high with fentanyl.”

Here’s what the CDC says about fentanyl. “It is 50 to 100 times more potent than morphine.” https://www.cdc.gov/drugoverdose/opioids/fentanyl.html

Of course George couldn’t breathe — because fentanyl, mixed with methamphetamines, kills breathing. Despite the bad optics, “I can’t breathe” was not because of the officer’s knee.

The medical examiner’s statement on lethal fentanyl, and the previous protestations of “I can’t breathe,” even before he got into the back seat of the squad car, and long before Chauvin applied the notorious “knee” technique, shows that George was already dying from the lethal fentanyl overdose before officers put him in the back seat of the car. That fentanyl, with methamphetamine ingestion, and cannabinoids — that’s right, George popped some meth alongside the fentanyl, plus a little reefer too — raises more than a reasonable doubt in favor of these policemen.

Here’s the prosecution’s problem – proving beyond a reasonable doubt that it was the officer’s knee, and not the massive fentanyl overdose, that killed George.

No one can prove, beyond a reasonable doubt, not in this case, that Chauvin killed Floyd, not with any intellectual honesty. George overdosed on fentanyl, and mixed it with meth, and reefer. That’s why he’s dead. Without the overdose, George Floyd would still be alive. The officers should be acquitted.

Which begs the question, who killed George Floyd?

Sadly, George Floyd killed himself.

Don Brown, a former U.S. Navy JAG officer, is the author of the book “Travesty of Justice: The Shocking Prosecution of Lieutenant Clint Lorance.” He is one of four former JAG officers serving on the Lorance legal team. Lorance was pardoned by President Trump in November of 2019. Brown is also a former military prosecutor, and a former Special Assistant United States Attorney.

@July 4th American:

But the prosecution, to obtain a conviction, must prove guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. They must prove that the officer’s knee, and not the massive fentanyl dosage, killed George Floyd.

I hate to break this to everyone, but Chauvin is to be a sacrificial lamb. There is no way he is going to be found not guilty of any charge. They might as well give him the pistol with one round in it right now.

I saw a business owner that was burned out on television yesterday and he is not rebuilding until after the trials; he doesn’t want to be burned out twice. Maybe he sees the facts and evidence and doubts Chauvin and the others will be convicted or he realizes that no matter what the outcome of the trial, the violent riots and looting are going to return… just, ‘cuz.