STOP YELLING!
Transcripts reveal accused officer told Floyd it takes ‘a lot of oxygen to talk’
‘You are going to kill me’
The policeman accused of killing George Floyd told him to ‘stop yelling’ because it takes ‘a lot of oxygen to talk’.
Damning police transcripts released yesterday reveal Derek Chauvin knelt on his neck for nearly nine minutes and ignored his pleas that he was dying.
As the handcuffed 46-year-old gasped for air, he cried out: ‘Momma, I love you. Tell my kids I love them. I’m dead.’
Seconds before he suffocated he warned Chauvin: ‘You are going to kill me, man.’
But the 44-year-old officer kept him pinned down and replied: ‘Then stop talking, stop yelling, it takes a heck of a lot of oxygen to talk.’
Mr Floyd’s last words were: ‘Ah! They’ll kill me. They’ll kill me. I can’t breathe, can’t breathe. Oh! Ah! Ah! Please. Please. Please.’
The chilling transcripts from police body camera recordings provide the most detailed account yet of what happened after Mr Floyd was arrested on May 25 on suspicion of using a fake bank note.
Chauvin faces charges including second-degree murder while three other officers, Thomas Lane, J Alexander Kueng and Tou Thao, are charged with aiding and abetting murder.
Transcripts of their body camera footage were given to Minnesota state court yesterday by Lane, who is trying to have the charges against him thrown out.
Bystander video of Mr Floyd’s death had been widely disseminated on social media but the conversations between the four officers taking him into custody had not been made public. The death of the African American unleashed a wave of anti-racism protests and demonstrations against police brutality across the United States, which spread around the world.
The tapes show that Mr Floyd co-operated throughout with the police officers, telling them he was feeling unwell as he was being restrained.
When officers first approached him over a report that he had attempted to use a counterfeit $20 bill to buy cigarettes, Mr Floyd appeared afraid, saying: ‘I’m sorry, I’m sorry.’
he told Lane, who had his gun drawn: ‘Mr officer, please don’t shoot me. Please, man.’
The officers can be heard telling him to ‘relax’ and that he was doing ‘fine’ and ‘talking fine’ as he protested about not being able to breathe.
Seconds before he passed out, he told them: ‘I’m through, through. I’m claustrophobic. My stomach hurts. My neck hurts. everything hurts. I need some water or something, please. Please. I can’t breathe, officer.’
After Mr Floyd fell silent, onlookers asked whether he had a pulse: ‘he’s not even breathing right now, bro, you think that’s cool?’
Lane was holding the suspect’s legs and Kueng was at his midriff as Chauvin knelt on his neck. But Chauvin kept his knee on Mr Floyd even as the other officers repeatedly tried to find a pulse. The recordings show that with Mr Floyd still pleading he cannot breathe, Lane asks Chauvin: ‘Should we roll him on his side?’
Chauvin replies: ‘No, he’s staying put where we got him.’
Lane then says: ‘OK. Just worried about the excited delirium or whatever.’ Chauvin responds: ‘Well that’s why we got the ambulance coming’ and Lane says ‘OK, I suppose’. Lane was a recruit only days into the job when the incident happened in Minneapolis. his lawyer earl Gray, who filed the transcripts, argued that it was ‘not fair or reasonable’ for his client to stand trial on murder charges.
he said all of the evidence – including Lane’s interview with state investigators – exonerated his client.
The four officers face up to 40 years behind bars if convicted.
All have since been fired from Minneapolis Police.