‘I’M GOING TO DIE, MAN’
Floyd in leaked cam footage
George Floyd was begging for his life from the get-go.
Newly leaked body-camera video of the Memorial Day arrest of Floyd in Minneapolis shows cops whipping out a gun and pointing it at the bewildered Black man. They then ignored his pleas of claustrophobia and anxiety as they tried to cram him into the backseat of a squad car, according to leaked video of the early moments of his arrest.
Minutes later, the Black man would be dead under the knee of then-officer Derek Chauvin, who kneeled on his neck for close to nine minutes – long after Floyd had gasped, “I can’t breathe,” cried out for his mother and stopped moving.
Chauvin was fired, then later arrested and charged with seconddegree murder. The three officers with him, Tou Thao, Thomas Lane and J. Alexander Kueng, are also charged with aiding and abetting murder.
The video, leaked Monday by The Daily Mail, is part of the case against the four officers who are facing criminal charges in Floyd’s death, NBC News reported.
The footage showed a startled Floyd in a parked car as a cop pulled his weapon almost immediately, NBC News recounted.
“Please don’t shoot me. Please, man,” Floyd said, clearly frightened.
“Please, man. I just lost my mom, man. Please don’t shoot me, Mr. Officer, please.”
The cops commanded him to put his hands, already visible, on the wheel, while he kept asking why.
“God dang, man,” he can be heard saying.
“This is how I got shot before.” They told him to put his hands on top of his head and step out of the vehicle.
“I’m not gonna shoot you,” one cop said.
They eventually extracted Floyd from the car, cuffed him and tried to get him into the back of the cruiser.
He resisted, citing his claustrophobia and anxiety.
The cops were responding to a call from a nearby convenience store owner alleging that Floyd had passed a counterfeit $20 bill.
“I am claustrophobic,
Floyd said.
“I’m going to die in here. I’m going to die, man.”
After officers tried and failed to shove him into the squad car, Floyd could be seen sitting in the cruiser’s backseat with his legs sticking out of the car.
He kept pleading with the officers not to stoke his claustrophobia.
They tried pulling him inside, to no avail.
Soon after, Floyd could be seen on the now infamous video of his death, lying face down on the ground with Chauvin’s knee grinding into his neck. for real,”