What are the facts surrounding the death of George Floyd?
George Floyd died on 25 May 2020, while in police custody, after an officer knelt on his neck for 7 minutes and 46 seconds.
Derek Chauvin has been identified as the officer pinning down Floyd in a viral video, which shows Floyd saying he can’t breathe repeatedly before losing consciousness. Floyd later died.
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George complained about being unable to breathe long before Derek Chauvin knelt on his neck (suggesting the problem was drug intoxication).
At the 9:36 timestamp of longer (18-min) footage showing George Floyd's encounter with the police, he’s in the police car and says, “I can’t breathe” for the first time. He is not restrained, except for the cuffs.
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George Floyd refused to get in the police car because he's claustrophobic.
At the 5:26 timestamp of footage showing George Floyd's encounter with the police, Floyd tells the officers that he is “claustrophobic”—this was presumably to suggest that he does not want to get into the police SUV.
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George Floyd's claimed that he was too claustrophobic to get in the police SUV—but he was in a car when accosted by the police.
The supposedly claustrophobic Floyd had been pulled out from behind the wheel of his own car (this can be seen at the 15-second timestamp of the video showing his encounter with the police). George is not so afraid of confined spaces that he can’t stand being in a car.
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Police officers resorted to force when dealing with George Floyd, only after he repeatedly disobeyed orders.
The knee-in-the-neck procedure was only deployed by Derek Chauvin after Floyd's repeated refusal to comply with police orders simply to get into the police car. Early on in the encounter, The police tell Floyd repeatedly to get out of the car, but he refuses to comply.
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George Floyd denied to the police multiple times that he was on drugs, even though this was a lie.
At the 3:57 and 5:38 timestamps of the video showing Floyd's encounter with the police, Mr Floyd denies to the police that he is on drugs. An autopsy would later show that Mr Floyd's system had fentanyl and methamphetamine in it.
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George Floyd appeared to be intoxicated and displayed erratic behaviour even before the police arrived on the scene.
In a call to 911, the employee who flagged Mr Floyd's use of a fake bill told the operator he had demanded the cigarettes back but "he [Floyd] doesn't want to do that". The employee also said the man appeared "drunk" and "not in control of himself".
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Derek Chauvin and Tou Thao, both officers who were involved in George Floyd's death, had histories of violence.
Chauvin, the officer who knelt on Floyd's neck, had been with the police for 19 years, and been involved in several shootings. Thao went through the police academy in 2009, was laid off, then re-joined the Minneapolis Police Dept in 2012, and was sued for use of force in 2017.
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George Floyd was intoxicated on several drugs at the time of his arrest, and those contributed to his erratic behaviour and death.
An autopsy revealed that Floyd had fentanyl and methamphetamine in his system at the time of his death. The autopsy also found that Floyd, 46, had “severe” heart disease, and that fentanyl intoxication and meth might have contributed to George Floyd's fatal heart attack.
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An employee of a convenience store called the police on George Floyd for using a fake $20 bill as payment.
A report was made on the evening of 25 May 2020, when Mr Floyd bought a pack of cigarettes from Cup Foods, a grocery store in Minneapolis. A store employee reported the transaction to police, believing to be counterfeit the $20 bill used as payment.