New footage shows delayed medical response to Floyd
Nearly 11 weeks after George Floyd was killed by police in Minneapolis, inciting a wave of protests across the United States, a Minnesota county court has released police body camera footage of the episode to the public for the first time.
The New York Times has reviewed the full 65 minutes of footage, which was previously viewable only by appointment, and selected crucial moments that offer new information.
The footage was taken from the body cameras of officers Thomas Lane and J. Alexander Kueng, who detained Floyd on May 25. The camera of a third officer, Derek Chauvin, who appeared in widely viewed footage kneeling on Floyd’s neck, fell off during the arrest, and its footage has not been released. Lane, Kueng and a fourth officer, Tou Thao, have been charged with aiding and abetting murder, and manslaughter, while Chauvin was charged with second-degree murder, third-degree murder and second-degree manslaughter. The officers were all fired after Floyd’s killing.
Escalation
At 8:09 p.m., Lane can be seen approaching a car containing Floyd and two companions, Shawanda Hill and Maurice Lester Hall. Lane’s footage shows how quickly he seems to escalate the situation.
Floyd sits in the driver’s seat, and Lane taps his flashlight on the window. He asks Floyd to show his hands and taps again when Floyd does not comply.
When Floyd — who appears to be looking toward the passenger side where Kueng is standing — does not comply with the order, Lane taps again.
Floyd is visibly taken aback and then apologizes while opening the car door.
Lane tells Floyd to show his hands three more times. Six seconds after the door opens, he draws his gun, points it at Floyd and says, “Put your [expletive] hands up right now.” Without explaining the reason for the stop, he pulls Floyd out of the car.
Restraint
Before the release of the body camera footage, it was unclear how Floyd exited the squad car after being forced inside and exactly what happened after the officers had him pinned.
The new footage shows that as Lane and Kueng try to force Floyd into the back seat, Floyd shouts that he cannot breathe, says that he has injured his nose and appears to use his legs to push himself out the other side, repeating, “I’m going to lay on the ground.”
After about a minute of struggle to push Floyd back into the car, Thao, who is watching from the side, says, “Let’s lay him,” and Chauvin and Kueng move Floyd onto the pavement.
Lane’s and Kueng’s videos provide the first clear evidence of the time Chauvin places his knee on Floyd’s neck, changing the widely known narrative that Chauvin held his knee there for eight minutes and 46 seconds. Prosecutors initially gave this duration, then changed it to seven minutes and 46 seconds. The footage shows that neither was correct: Chauvin actually keeps his knee on Floyd’s neck from 8:19 until 8:28 p.m., for nine minutes and 30 seconds. That is nearly two minutes more than the prosecutors’ amended time.
Delay in medical care
The body camera footage also shows delays by the officers and the paramedics who respond.
“This is a cascade of everything going wrong,” said Rohini J. Haar, a medical expert at Physicians for Human Rights, who reviewed the footage for the Times. “And they never recorrected course, even inside the ambulance.”
Six minutes after Chauvin, Lane and Kueng put Floyd facedown, and only after bystanders have shouted at the officers to attend to Floyd’s health, Kueng checks for Floyd’s pulse and tells Chauvin and Lane that he cannot feel it. All three of the officers continue to hold Floyd in a position that restricts his breathing, and none checks to see whether he is getting air.
Two minutes later, emergency responders arrive and check Floyd’s pulse but do not assess his breathing. Instead of repositioning Floyd to assess or treat him on the scene, the medics load him into the ambulance as Lane joins them.
It takes three minutes after their arrival on the scene — and four more pulse checks — before Lane begins first chest compressions. It is five additional minutes before a medic ventilates Floyd — 10 minutes after Kueng first reported Floyd did not have a pulse. Lane eventually leaves the ambulance when the fire department arrives.