A George Floyd video circulates after police spokesman John Elder stated Tuesday, that he was resisting arrest and appeared to be suffering medical distress after he was put in handcuffs. The George Floyd video shows the officers fired after they pinned him down to the ground.
According to Minneapolis police, the encounter between Floyd and officers happened just after 8 p.m. Monday, when police were called to the 3700 block of Chicago Avenue South due to a report of a man attempting to use forged documents at Cup Foods. WCCO asked a store manager about the police call, but they declined to comment.
Officers found Floyd in a car at the scene. He appeared intoxicated, police say. Officers ordered him to get out of the car.
An ambulance brought Floyd to Hennepin Healthcare, where he later died, police say.
The George Floyd video Posted by Darnella Frazier on Facebook, began to later circulate. The nine-minute video shows a white officer pressing his knee into Floyd’s neck behind a squad car. While lying facedown on the road, Floyd repeatedly groans and says he can’t breathe.
“He’s not even resisting arrest right now, bro,” one bystander tells the white officer and his partner, in the video. “You’re f—ing stopping his breathing right now, you think that’s cool?”
After about five minutes, Floyd stops moving and appears unconscious. Pedestrians surfacing the incident pleaded for the officers to check Floyd’s pulse but the officer on Floyd’s neck does not lift his knee until medical personnel arrive and carry him to an ambulance.
Charles McMillan says he saw it all happen.
“There’s a black man who died and it could have been prevented, because all he had to do was get his feet off his neck,” McMillan said.
Another witness, 9-year-old Judeah Reynolds, spoke to WCCO with her mother present, Diva Reynolds.
“All the adults kept saying, ‘Get off him,’” Judeah Reynolds said.
“They came and woke me up, and the only thing my daughter could tell me is, ‘Mom, they had his knee on his neck and they killed him,’” Diva Reynolds said.
CBS News posted the George Floyd video showing the initial arrest, stating that it seems to contradict the claim that he resisted arrested, at least in the early stages of their encounter.
The four Officers involved have since then been fired.
