08/09/2020 / By JD Heyes
There is always two sides to every story, and we suspected that it would be no different regarding the death of Minneapolis resident George Floyd at the hands of police.
Body cam footage from one of the officers involved in Floyd’s arrest clearly shows that the hulking man was resisting cops’ instructions and behaving in a manner that made it difficult for them to control him.
That said, the footage is still difficult to watch.
Bodycam footage of George Floyd’s arrest by Minneapolis police — which has been hidden from the public by Minneapolis Attorney General Keith Ellison for over 2 months — was just leaked to the Daily Mail and it shows Floyd resisted arrest for over 8 minutes and 22 seconds, claimed he couldn’t breathe while standing up breathing, asked to be put on the ground and lied to police about not being high on drugs.
To remind readers, police were called after Floyd reportedly attempted to pass a counterfeit $20 bill. The body cam footage shows him initially sitting in the driver’s seat of a Mercedes SUV (not a cheap vehicle), but immediately after police officers tap on his window he protests, “I didn’t do nothing!”
Afterward, Floyd would not show Officer Thomas Lane both of his hands before begging him not to shoot after Lane raised his firearm. Lane repeatedly says he won’t shoot but that Floyd has to show his hands.
The video shows Floyd, who was 46, crying almost right away — before cops ever touched him — and then fought them nearly every step of the way, refusing their orders.
Floyd also said that he wasn’t taking any drugs, a claim that would be proven false by the official autopsy report indicating he had so much fentanyl in his system it could kill someone. He also had heart problems, including “severe” multifocal arteriosclerotic heart disease, hypertensive heart disease, an enlarged heart and clinical history of hypertension.
Not only that, the autopsy found that Floyd had methamphetamine on board, THC from smoking pot, and cotinine from caffeine and cigarettes. Not a picture of health by any means.
As the video progresses, Floyd continues his refusal to comply with officers’ orders to get in the back of a patrol SUV because he’s “claustrophobic” — as if that’s a reason not to follow an officer’s order when you’re under arrest. And again, just minutes earlier, he was seated comfortably in his own SUV.
Also, Floyd told officers that his mom had died very recently though she passed away some two years ago.
One other important fact: Floyd claimed he couldn’t breathe before he was placed into the police SUV and while he was standing. And this: He asked to be put on the ground.
Now, none of this is to suggest that Floyd ‘deserved to die.’ Of course not. But the body cam footage most certainly does add a great deal of context to the events that took place that fateful May 25 evening.
And now that we know what actually transpired before the man took his last drug-addled breath, we ought to reflect on what’s happened since, especially in Minneapolis, where police have been neutered, crime is through the roof, citizens themselves are patrolling their neighborhoods, and some 1,500 buildings and homes were damaged, destroyed, or looted.
Just in one city.
If ‘Black Lives Matter’ had any dignity and any sense of fairness, the leaders of the organization would have already issued a statement apologizing for overreacting and causing others to overreact, destroy American cities, and get people beat up and killed.
But of course, they won’t do that, because the BLM movement isn’t about ‘black lives’ like George Floyd. His death was just a convenient way for the group to morph into the new mafia.
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Tagged Under: arrest, autopsy, body cam, drugs, Fact Check, fentanyl, footage, George Floyd, heart condition, marijuana, Minneapolis, Police, pot, resist
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