New bodycam footage of the George Floyd arrest has been leaked
Traumatising footage as well as transcripts of the critical moments before George Floyd’s fatal arrest have just been leaked to the MailOnline.. The 46-year-old African American father is seen repeatedly apologising to officers and saying “I didn’t do nothing” before US police officer Derek Chauvin aggressively restrained him by the neck for almost nine minutes against the ground, as Floyd gasped for air barely managing to say “I cant breathe.” What the new bodycam footage shows is what led to this horrific moment from the officer’s point of view.
Since the first video emerged, society’s attitude towards racism has been blown into outrage. In turn, the event sparked the world wide Black Lives Matter protests. Until recently, footage of Floyd’s last moments were only available from the bystanders’ perspectives but these newly leaked recordings were captured by the body cameras of former Minneapolis police officers Thomas Lane and J. Alexander Kueng, who have since then been fired and charged for their involvement in Floyd’s death.
Floyd tells the officers that he’s “not a bad guy” and that he has just recovered from COVID-19. As he struggles to make both his hands visible quickly enough, Lane pulls his gun on Floyd to which he admits to being shot before. The New York Times describes Floyd as “visibly shaken, with his head down, and crying, as if he were in the throes of a panic attack.”
The harrowing video shows Lane tap on the window of Floyd’s car, saying “Let’s see your hands,” as Floyd begins to open his car door. Floyd immediately starts to repeat “I’m sorry” and cry “please Mr officer” and beg “I didn’t do nothing” and “I just lost my mum.”
A woman is asked by the officers why Floyd was “acting squirrely” and she replies fearfully that he had been shot before. A second passenger tells the officer that Floyd is a “good guy.”
All four officers involved have argued that Floyd was resisting, which according to the footage appears to be because of how afraid and claustrophobic Floyd was as he tells the officers over and over “I can’t breathe,” “I don’t want to go in there,” “Please man. Don’t leave me by myself man, please. I’m just claustrophobic.”
Kueng shouts in response for him to “Stand up. Stop falling down,” as Floyd falls to the ground. The New York Times reports that “Throughout the video, he never appeared to present a physical threat to the officers, and even after he was handcuffed and searched for weapons, the officers seemed to be more concerned with controlling his body than saving his life.”
After Floyd gets into the back seat of the car and escapes out the other side door, the officers wrestle him to the ground. When Floyd says he cannot breathe, it has been reported that Chauvin responds with “takes a heck of a lot of oxygen to say that.”
The bystanders’ concern grows rapidly as Floyd’s body begins to fall limp. Kueng then looks for a pulse, to find none. The officers and EMT services attempt chest compressions for several minutes instead of taking him to the hospital with the ambulance that was parked blocks away from the scene, even though the audio now reveals that they all knew Floyd was in full cardiac arrest.
This new footage brings vital evidence to Floyd’s case, as the officers involved face charges for the killing. Evidence does not bring Floyd back, but it shows that his neck was under the weight of not just the Minneapolis Police Department, but the weight of corruption and the lack of education through the entire world.
