MINNEAPOLIS – Newly released video camera footage of a third officer involved in the arrest of George Floyd shows for the first time the growing terror of viewers who repeatedly pleaded with the officers to get Floyd away.
The video made available Thursday comes from fired Officer Tou Thao, one of the four former Minneapolis police officers accused in the death of Floyd, a handcuffed Black man. Floyd died after a white officer, Derek Chauvin, pressed his knee against Floyd’s neck for nearly eight minutes on a southern Minneapolis street on May 25, because Floyd repeatedly said he could not breathe. The deaths caused massive protests in the U.S. and beyond against racial injustice and police brutality.
Thao held a crowd of nearly a dozen bystanders, many tapping the scene with their cell phones, when Chauvin Floyd settled down with his knee. Two other officers, Thomas Lane and J. Kueng, arrested Floyd, who was suspected of passing a $ 20 counterfeit note at a convenience store.
In Thao’s video, a Black man in a Northside Boxing Club sweatshirt calls on Chauvin to “get out of his (explosive) neck, Bro” and asks Thao, “Do you want to keep him that way?” while I rode to Floyd.
George Floyd died May 25 after a meeting with four police officers in Minneapolis. A Minnesota judge on Friday ordered the release of images of two police cameras capturing her encounter with Floyd.
“Are you going to kill that man for you, bro?” he asked Thao. “Bro, he’s not even moving (explosively) now, bro.”
Thao orders the audience on the sidewalk. At one point, he tells viewers, “This is why you do not do drugs, children.”
When a woman who identifies herself as a Minneapolis firefighter arrives in uniform, Thao yells at her, “Back!” She wonders if the officers checked Floyd’s pulse.
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“Show me a pulse,” she asked the police.
‘Check his pulse,’ says the man. ‘You’re wrong, bro. ‘Do not do drugs,’ bro? … You name what he does OK? “
The club grows more annoyance.
“What are you doing (explosive)?” a young woman cries. “He’s dying.”
This combination of file photos provided on June 3 by the Sheriff’s Office of Hennepin County in Minnesota, shows Derek Chauvin, from left, J. Alexander Kueng, Thomas Lane and Tou Thao. (Hennepin County Sheriff’s Office via AP)
As the man approaches Thao with his phone, Thao steps back to the sidewalk and shouts, “Go out into the street!”
Prosecutors earlier this week submitted Thao’s body camera footage. On Monday, body cam video of two of the other officers, Lane and Kueng, was released on the orders of a judge. That footage, along with Thao’s video, shows Floyd pleading with the officers as they struggle to place him in the squadron in the moments before his death.
AG A GEORGE FLOYD CASE WANTS TO REMIND ALL FOUR LANGUAGES IN SLAYING
Floyd said several times he could not breathe and cried for his mother before coming out. He was pronounced dead at a hospital that evening, causing his death to protest against racial injustice and police brutality around the world.
Chauvin is charged with second-degree murder, third-degree murder and manslaughter. Lane, Kueng and Thao are accused of abuse and mistreatment of both second-degree murder and abuse. All four officers were discharged and are scheduled for trial in March.
Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison, whose office is prosecuting the case, has asked the judge to visit all four officers together. Defense attorneys must meet by Sept. 8. Respond.
The next court hearing for the four is scheduled for Sept. 11.
