George Floyd reiterated more than twenty times that he could not breathe, speaking of his children and his mother and saying that the police who kept him on the ground were going to "kill" him, just before he died during his arrest in Minneapolis, according to court documents. George Floyd, a 46-year-old black American man, died on May 25 when a white policeman pressed his knee to his neck for almost nine minutes while he was handcuffed on his stomach. His death sparked numerous protests in the United States and around the world against racism and police brutality.
"Tell my children that I love them. I am dead"
On a video filmed by a passer-by, which went viral after his death, we can see the victim and hear him shout "I can't breathe". But a transcript taken from the individual cameras of the police officers involved, filed Tuesday with a Minnesota court by one of them, reveals new details about this drama. At the time of his arrest, Floyd begged the officers not to place him in the police vehicle because, he said, he was claustrophobic and in physical difficulty. As they tried to force him into it, Floyd shouted that he could not breathe and that he was going to "die in there".
Then, from the transcript, he said, "Mom, I love you. Tell my kids that I love them. I'm dead." He mentioned his mother and children several times afterwards and repeated "I can't breathe" more than twenty times. The police then told him to "relax", that he "is fine" and that he "is talking normally". When he says they are going to kill him, Derek Chauvin (charged with murder for kneeling on Floyd's neck) retorts by shouting: "So stop talking, stop shouting, it takes a hell of a lot of oxygen to speak. "
Transcript filed by accused police officer
The victim's last words: "They will kill me. They will kill me. I cannot breathe." This transcript was filed by police officer Thomas Lane in an attempt to get the judge to drop the charges against him for complicity in the murder. Identical charges lay against the other two police officers, Alexander Kueng and Tou Thao. The four police officers were dismissed the day after Floyd's death. They all risk up to forty years in prison. Floyd had been arrested that day for trying to use a counterfeit $ 20 bill.