MINNEAPOLIS (AP) â Body-camera footage made public Wednesday from two Minneapolis police officers involved in George Floydâs arrest captured a panicked and fearful Floyd pleading with the officers in the minutes before his death, saying âIâm not a bad guy!â as they tried to wrestle him into a squad car.
âIâm not that kind of guy,â Floyd says as he struggles against the officers. âI just had COVID, man, I donât want to go back to that.â An onlooker pleads with Floyd to stop struggling, saying, âYou canât win!â Floyd replies, âI donât want to win!â
A few minutes later, with Floyd now face-down on the street, the cameras record his fading voice, still occasionally saying, âI canât breatheâ 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 Floydâs May 25 death. Derek Chauvin, who held his knee against Floydâs neck for nearly 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 Floydâs 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 officersâ view of a death already widely seen on a bystanderâs 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.
Floydâs hands are soon handcuffed behind his back, and he grows more anxious, telling the officers that heâs 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 Chauvinâs 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 Floydâs handcuffed hands to hold them in position behind his back, with Kuengâs knee appearing to press on Floydâs bottom or just below. Lane is at Floydâs feet.
The officers sound clinical as the minutes tick by. âI think heâs passing out,â one officer says. âYou guys all right, though?â someone asks. âYeah â good so far,â says one. Another â apparently Lane â says: âMy knee might be a little scratched, but Iâll survive.â Kueng reaches out with a free hand to pull a pebble from the police SUVâs 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. People in the crowd can be heard expressing fear for Floydâs condition, asking whether he had a pulse and was breathing.
A couple of minutes later, Lane sounds a bit more concerned when he asks again about rolling Floyd onto his side. The officers go quiet but show no apparent urgency as Kueng checks for a pulse and says he cannot find one.
Laneâs camera shows him following an unresponsive, shirtless Floyd on a stretcher into an ambulance, where EMTs instructed him to perform CPR. The video shows Lane performing constant chest compressions by hand with no visible results.
The ambulance parks a few blocks away from the store for several minutes while Lane and the EMTs work on Floyd, rather than heading straight to the hospital, even though they all know that Floyd is in full cardiac arrest, as indicated by dispatcher audio.
A coalition of news organizations and attorneys for Lane and Kueng have said that making the videos public would provide a more complete picture of what happened when Floyd was taken into custody.
The viewing of the video took place place on the same day Floyd family attorney Ben Crump was announcing a lawsuit against the city and the police officers involved in his death.
The body camera videos and transcripts were filed in court last week by Laneâs attorney, Earl Gray, as part of a request to have Laneâs case dismissed. Gray said at the time that he wanted the videos to be made public, telling the Star Tribune that they would show the âwhole picture.â Gray said the bystander video shows just the last piece of what happened and âis not fair.â
Grayâs request highlighted portions of the body camera video that show Floyd âactively resisting and acting erraticâ with officers. It also noted Floydâs ârequestâ to be put on the ground. Gray also argued that Lane did not have a clear view of what Chauvin was doing.
Kuengâs attorney, Tom Plunkett, has also asked that the video be made public.
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Associated Press Writer Amy Forliti contributed to this report.