Surveillance tape from a local business showed George Floyd did not resist arrest moments before a fatal encounter with Minneapolis Police Officer Derek Chauvin on Memorial Day.
The video was captured from Dragon Wok, a local restaurant. Rashad West, the owner of the eatery, told the outlet he released the tapes to help his community.
In the video, an officer walks a cuffed Floyd from the driver’s side of an SUV to a sidewalk. The 46-year-old appeared to be uncomfortable, but he did not resist the officer’s actions. Floyd is lowered to the ground and speaks with the officer for several moments as other officers arrive at the scene. The cop eventually stands him up and Floyd winces a bit, as if he were in pain. The video ends with Floyd being walked across the street to a vehicle. At one point, he falls to the ground before the cops stand him up again.
The Dragon Wok footage doesn’t have audio, and it did not show the moments of Floyd’s fatal encounter with Chauvin.
Floyd died on Monday night after Chauvin pressed his knee into Floyd’s neck for several minutes until he passed out.
The footage is an apparent contradiction of a statement from police spokesman John Elder, who claimed Floyd appeared to be intoxicated and resisted the officers after he left his vehicle.
“After he got out, he physically resisted officers,” Elder said on Tuesday. “Officers were able to get the suspect into handcuffs and officers noticed that the man was going into medical distress.”
First responders told The Minneapolis Star-Tribune Floyd was unresponsive when they arrived. They worked for almost an hour to save Floyd’s life, but he was pronounced at 9:25 p.m. that night, about 90 minutes after he encountered MPD. An incident report stated witnesses told firefighters the police “had killed the man.” The author also noted the “bystanders were upset but not unruly.”
Floyd’s death sparked days of unrest in Minneapolis. Chauvin and three other officers who participated in Floyd’s arrest were fired Tuesday, and the incident is under investigation. Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey wants Chauvin arrested for Floyd’s death.
“I’ve wrestled with, more than anything else over the last 36 hours, one fundamental question: Why is the man who killed George Floyd not in jail?” Frey said Wednesday. “If you had done it, or I had done it, we would be behind bars right now. And I cannot come up with a good answer to that.”
