Bodycam footage from two cops accused in the murder of George Floyd is revealed exclusively by DailyMail.com today.
It shows a rookie officer terrifying Floyd by pointing a handgun at his head and another callously picking a pebble from the squad car tire just inches from the dying man and seconds before he draws his last breath.
The tapes show in minute detail how a very distressed Floyd begs ‘Mr. Officer, please don’t shoot me. Please man,’ before the struggle that ended with his death on May 25.
It also shows how belligerent cops cursed at and manhandled the sobbing suspect, ignoring his pleas for compassion.
Floyd resisted as the cops tried to force him into the back of the car, telling them he suffers from claustrophobia and anxiety and how Officer Derek Chauvin knelt on his neck for nearly nine minutes, leading to his death, ignoring Floyd’s repeated cries of ‘I can’t breathe.
Floyd is even heard predicting his own death. ‘I’ll probably just die this way,’ he says.
Transcripts from the videos were released in mid-July but a judge in Minneapolis had ruled the video could only be viewed in the courthouse, meaning few people have had the chance to watch the powerful images.
But the footage has now been leaked to DailyMail.com so the world can finally see the tragedy of Floyd’s last minutes as the cops were mindless of Floyd’s anguish.
The footage includes more than 18 minutes from Officer Alex Kueng’s bodycam and 10 minutes from Officer Thomas Lane. They were the first two cops to arrive on the scene after a complaint that Floyd had attempted to pass a fake $20 bill to buy cigarettes at Cup Foods, a store in the Powderhorn Park section of Minneapolis.
The video obtained by DailyMail.com comes from the bodycams of Lane and Alex Kueng, the two cops who were originally called to the scene by Cup Foods’ owners. Chauvin (far left) and a fourth officer Tou Thao (second from left) were called in to assist. All were fired the day after Floyd’s death. The videos start with Lane, 37, (far right) and Kueng, 26 (second from right) — both in their first week as Minneapolis police officers
It is clear from the video that Floyd was not trying to run away – he had plenty of time to leave the scene before police arrived. But instead he decided to sit in his car with two friends, giving the cops the opportunity to approach.