The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Police video captures Floyd’s final moments
Bodycams show officers’ views of distraught suspect.
MINNEAPOLIS — Body-camera footage made public Wednesday from two Minneapolis police officers involved in George Floyd’s arrest captured a panicked and fearful Floyd pleading with the officers in the minutes before his death, saying, “I’m not a bad guy!” as they tried to wrestle him into a squad car.
“I’m not that kind of guy,” Floyd says as he struggles against the officers. “I just had COVID, man; I don’t want to go back to that.” An onlooker pleads with Floyd to stop struggling, saying, “You can’t win!” Floyd replies, “I don’t want to win!”
A few minutes later, with Floyd now facedown on the street, the cameras record his fading voice, still occasionally saying, “I can’t breathe” before he goes still.
The recordings from Officers Thomas Lane and J. Kueng are part of the criminal case against them and two other officers in Floyd’s May 25 death. Derek Chauvin, who held his knee against Floyd’s neck for more than eight minutes, is charged with second-degree murder. Lane, Kueng and another officer, Tou Thao, are charged with aiding and abetting.
All four officers were fired a day after Floyd’s death. Journalists and members of the public were allowed to view the footage Wednesday by appointment. Judge Peter Cahill, without explanation, has declined to allow publication of the video.
The footage shows the officers’ view of a death already widely seen on a bystander’s cellphone video, which set off tumultuous protests in Minneapolis that quickly spread around the world and sparked a national reckoning on race and policing.
Floyd appears distraught from the moment officers ask him to step out of his vehicle near a south Minneapolis corner grocery, where he was suspected of passing a counterfeit $20 bill. When Floyd did not immediately display his hands, Lane pulled his gun, leading Floyd to say he had been shot before.
Floyd’s hands are soon handcuffed behind his back, and he grows more anxious, telling the officers that he’s claustrophobic and pleading with them not to put him in the back of a squad car.
In the struggle, Floyd loses a shoe.
What appears to be Chauvin’s chest-mounted body camera winds up underneath the squad car, and
Floyd eventually winds up on the pavement with the officers holding him down.
Chauvin and Kueng each grip one of Floyd’s handcuffed hands to hold them in position behind his back, with Kueng’s knee appearing to press on Floyd’s bottom or just below. Lane is at Floyd’s feet.
The officers sound clinical as the minutes tick by. “I think he’s passing out,” one officer says. “You guys all right, though?” someone asks. “Yeah — good so far,” says one. Another — apparently Lane — says: “My knee might be a little scratched, but I’ll survive.” Kueng reaches out with a free hand to pull a pebble from the police SUV’s tire tread and toss it to the street.
Lane did not sound particularly worried the first time he asked Chauvin whether they should roll Floyd on his side and suggested that Floyd might be in delirium.