George Floyd: New bodycam video shows panicked witnesses begging officers to check his pulse – CNN:
The footage begins as Thao and Chauvin approach the scene, where Kueng and Lane are trying to get a handcuffed Floyd into the back of a patrol car.
Thao watches the other three officers struggle with Floyd, who is audibly and visibly distraught. Chauvin appears to have his arm around Floyd’s neck. By this time, Floyd can be heard yelling that he can’t breathe several times.
Seconds later, the officers lay Floyd on the ground beside the patrol car and restrain him in the same position he was in when a 17-year-old bystander began filming Floyd’s final moments. It’s known from other videos that Chauvin is kneeling on Floyd’s neck, though it’s not explicitly seen in the video captured by Thao’s bodycam.
Bystanders gather on the sidewalk, watching the incident unfold. Some film the arrest with their phones, while others confront the officers and express concern for Floyd, who cries out for his late mother and soon says his final words: “I can’t breathe.”
“This is why you don’t do drugs, kids,” Thao says.
“He’s talking, so he’s fine,” Thao tells the crowd, later adding, “It’s hard to talk when you’re not breathing.”
One bystander, a Black man named Donald Williams, insists that Floyd is not okay. “Bro, he’s not even f**king moving right now, bro.”
This seems like such callous disregard for human life. I don’t know Minnesota criminal law, but this is assuredly a murder in some degree. You’ve got to think that Chauvin at least should be looking at whatever plea deal the District Attorney might be willing to offer.
A woman approaches, says she’s a firefighter and asks Thao if Floyd has a pulse. Thao yells at her to “back off” and get on the sidewalk.
The bystanders become increasingly upset after Floyd stops speaking and moving, pleading with the officers to check for a pulse. More people begin gathering on the sidewalk, until about a dozen people are watching the arrest.
“What are you doing?” one woman says. “He’s dying.”
The back-and-forth between Thao and the crowd continues — at times becoming physical as Thao pushes bystanders back onto the sidewalk — until about 13 minutes into the footage. At that point, Chauvin appears from off camera. Floyd has already been loaded into an ambulance.
“You just really killed that man, bro,” Williams says to Chauvin.
Floyd was taken to a hospital, where he was soon pronounced dead.
This is footage from former officer Tou Thao’s body cam. Hard to see how he’s not guilty of at least aiding and abetting second-degree manslaughter if not not second-degree murder. Again, I don’t know Minnesota criminal law, but my God, he’s morally guilty of something heinous regardless of what the law specifies.