- Hey, so today is different and horrible.
It is horrible because of what we're about to talk about,
but we need to talk about it,
and it's different because essentially
today's "Philip DeFranco Show" is
having to be broken up into two videos.
This is out of necessity since
what we're gonna be talking about today
is truly horrible.
YouTube is going to rightly rate this mature content.
It will likely not pop up
in your Recommended or on the Home page.
Stuff like this often gets suppressed
so by splitting it into two videos
with a second video, if that is not suppressed,
then it can lead you to this video.
And that video will be out in two, three hours
but with that said,
we need to talk about the killing of George Floyd.
And this has a lot going on with the story,
that there are a lot of moving parts.
But let's start with the first piece of information
that was given to the public.
And that is a statement from the
Minneapolis Police Department released on Monday titled
"Man Dies After Medical Incident During Police Interaction."
And according to that statement,
police had responded to a report of a forgery in progress
just after 8 pm, and that the suspect
appeared to be under the influence.
It then goes on to say that
two officers arrived on the scene,
located the suspect in his car,
ordered him to step out.
The suspect then allegedly physically resisted officers,
but they managed to get him into handcuffs,
with the statement going on claiming that during the process
the officers noted that he appeared
to be suffering medical distress
and they called for an ambulance and added:
"He was transported to Hennepin County Medical Center
"by ambulance where he died a short time later."
And here we also see the MPD noting that
no weapons were used by anyone involved in the incident.
But then, a few hours after that,
a bystander by the name of Darnella Frazier,
who witnessed the event, posted a video
that she took of the incident on her Facebook page.
And by early morning yesterday it went viral,
and notably the video told a wildly different story
from the police report.
The ten minute video filmed outside a grocery story
in Minneapolis begins with a black man
now identified as 46-year-old George Floyd
pinned down beside a police car by a white police officer
who has his knee on Floyd's neck.
Three other officers were also at this scene
and while police have not identified them,
an attorney for the officer that is seen here
with his knee on Floyd's neck
later identified him at 44-year-old Derek Chauvin.
Now before we show this video,
I really do wanna make clear,
what you're about to watch is incredibly disturbing,
consider this a content warning.
In the video we hear Floyd crying out repeatedly,
begging the officer to stop.
- [George] Please, please I can't breathe.
Please, man.
- [Philip] We then see an officer go up to the police
and say, "You got him down man,
"let him breathe at least man."
Floyd, again, saying he can't breathe,
but one of the officers standing by says he's fine.
You have the officer telling Floyd to relax,
but Floyd again and again says he cannot breathe.
At one point Floyd calls out for his mother
and then we see him say--
- My stomach hurts.
My neck hurts.
Everything hurts.
I need some water or something.
Please, please.
I can't breathe, officer.
They're gonna kill me, they're gonna kill me man.
- We then hear more bystanders
telling the police officer to stop
while Floyd keeps saying he can't breathe.
- [Man] Bro, with your feet on his neck, man,
you get off of him.
- [Darnella] His nose is bleeding, like c'mon now.
- [Bystander] That's wrong right there
with his feet on his neck.
- [Darnella] Look at his nose.
- [Man] Man, he just said your
knee's on his neck.
- [Bystander] Yeah, you've got your feet
right on his neck officer.
- [Man] He ain't even resisting arrest.
- [George] I cannot breathe.
I cannot breathe.
- This goes on for a little while
and then we see bystanders start to escalate
their calls for the officer to stop.
- [Man] Officer, why're you just sitting there?
He ain't doing nothing else.
Just put him in the car!
- [Darnella] How long y'all gotta hold him down?
- You then see one of the other police officers
repeatedly say that he's fine because he can talk.
- He's still talking he's fine.
- [Man] Bro, he ain't fine, bro.
You're fucking stopping his breathing right there, bro.
- I can't breathe.
- [Thao] Okay, he's talking.
It's hard to talk when you're--
- [Man] Bro, but you can get him off the ground.
You're being a bum right now,
you could get him off the ground bro.
You could get him off the ground,
you're being a bum right now.
He enjoying that!
He enjoying that shit!
- And then about four minutes into the video,
Floyd becomes unresponsive,
with the people watching yelling even louder now
and the officer seeming to pull something out of his pocket.
- [Man] ...at how he's breathing right now.
- [Woman] Look at him, what the fuck!
- [Man] The dude's about to go out right now, bro!
- [Darnella] Look at him.
Get off of him now!
- [Woman] Look at him, what is wrong with y'all?
- [Darnella] What the fuck?
He got mace, he got mace.
- You then see a woman come forward
saying she's a firefighter,
telling the police to check this man's pulse,
other people joining in.
- [Firefighter] Does he have a pulse?
- [Man] No bro look at him,
he's not responsive right now, bro!
- [Firefighter] Check for a pulse.
- [Man] Bro, are you serious,
you just gonna let him sit there with that on his neck?
- [Firefighter] Let me see a pulse!
- [Man] Is he breathing right now,
check his pulse!
- [Thao] How long are we gonna have this conversation?
- [Man] Check his pulse, check his pulse!
Check his pulse Thao, Thao check his pulse.
- [Thao] Okay.
- They then continue to yell at the police
for the next few minutes, saying that he's not moving,
that the officer is killing him.
Meanwhile, Chauvin has still kept his knee
on Floyd's neck the whole time,
and he continues to keep in there
for almost four minutes after Floyd becomes unresponsive.
And it's only when the ambulance arrives
that he takes it off,
and then Floyd's loaded onto a stretcher
at about eight minutes into the video.
And ultimately, according to the medical examiner,
Floyd was pronounced dead at 9:25 pm on Monday
at Hennepin County Medical Center.
Okay, so, one of the things that that video shows
is that clearly, this is drastically different
from what the police statement said.
Right, that statement said that Floyd appeared
to be suffering medical distress,
but it doesn't say anything about the fact that
his medical distress appeared to be either caused
or made worse by a police officer putting his knee
on Floyd's throat for at least eight minutes.
And, in fact, that statement says nothing at all
about the officers restraining Floyd other than that
they eventually managed to get him into handcuffs.
And in fact later, on Tuesday night,
we learned more thanks to more footage.
This, thanks to the Washington Post
publishing security footage provided
by the owner of a nearby restaurant,
and this video appearing to contradict
the claim that Floyd resisted arrest
at least at the beginning of this encounter with police.
In that footage, we see police walk up to a car,
two people seemingly sitting both in the passenger seat
and the back seat get out, they go stand on the sidewalk.
Shortly after that, we see
the police removing Floyd from a car handcuffed
with an officer then walking him to the sidewalk,
sitting him down against a wall.
And while there is no audio,
so, you know, we can't hear what's being said,
in no way does it appear that he's resisting arrest here.
We then see another police car pull up,
and then after a few minutes the cops
walk him across the street
and appear to open a door on a police car
parked over there before the footage cuts out.
Right, and so all of that is the basic background
of what went down,
or at least what we know went down thus far.
So after this initial video goes viral,
we saw a ton of outrage.
After a few hours we saw Minneapolis mayor Jacob Frey
announcing on Twitter,
"Four responding MPD officers involved
"in the death of George Floyd have been terminated.
"This is the right call."
Frey also posting a statement on Facebook saying,
"Being Black in America should not be a death sentence.
"When you hear someone calling for help,
"you're supposed to help.
"This officer failed in the most basic, human sense."
And adding, "What we saw is horrible.
"Completely and utterly messed up.
"The man's life matters.
"He matters.
"He was someone's son.
"Someone's family member.
"Someone's friend.
"He was a human being and his life mattered."
And around the same time we saw
the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension
say in a statement that the FBI was conducting
a federal civil rights investigation.
Also saying the state bureau was conducting
its own investigation at the request of MPD,
and in a separate statement,
the Hennepin County Attorney's office
said that it was helping with the investigation
and "At the end of the investigation,
"the findings will be presented to our office
"for consideration of prosecution."
Right so there we see the official response,
what the runway for this situation is supposed to be.
But of course, there were many other responses
to this as well.
We saw Minnesota politicians
like Governor Tim Walz tweeting,
"The lack of humanity in this
"disturbing video is sickening.
"We will get answers and seek justice."
Ilhan Omar, the representative for Minneapolis
and its surrounding areas, wrote on Twitter:
"Black lives matter isn't just a chant,
"it's call for justice.
"It's a call for our humanity to be recognized.
"This must stop.
"There needs to be an immediate
"DOJ investigation into this."
But then also saying in a post later
that she, along with two Minnesota senators
and another Representative have written a letter
to the US Attorney for Minnesota
"calling for an investigation into the death of George Floyd
"at the state, county, and federal levels."
And of course online we say a lot of people
drawing comparisons between Floyd
and other black men who have been in the news
who have been killed.
Most notably people comparing this to Eric Garner
who of course was a black man who died
in New York police custody back in 2014.
This after a white police officer had him in a chokehold
with Garner, who was being filmed at the time,
repeatedly saying, "I can't breathe."
People also bringing up Colin Kaepernick of course,
the NFL player who kneeled during the national anthem
to protest police brutality against African Americans.
With people sharing a photo of Kaepernick
kneeling on the field trying to raise awareness,
right next to a photo of Chauvin kneeling on Floyd's neck.
Right, and understand more than just Twitter
is calling for the officers involved here to be charged.
Right, as of recording they have not been arrested,
and to that point, we saw Frey calling
on the Hennepin County Attorney to charge Chauvin.
George's family and their attorney
have demanded that the four officers on the scene
be charged with murder.
And Tuesday we saw Floyd's cousins saying--
- They need to be charged with...
Because what they did was, was murder.
And, almost the whole world has witnessed that because
somebody was gracious enough to record it.
They need to pay for what they did.
- This morning George's sister Bridgett
said something similar.
- I feel like those guys need to be put in jail.
They murdered my brother.
- With the family also retaining the legal services
of Ben Crump, and if that name sounds familiar,
it's because he's also representing the family
of Ahmaud Arbery.
And he's really hit on how long Floyd
was under that officer's knee.
- Because remember, it was nine minutes.
Not one minute, not two minutes, not three minutes,
not four minutes, not five minutes, not six minutes,
not seven minutes, not eight minutes--
nine minutes on his neck.
Just imagine, take a stopwatch and put nine minutes
and set the timer on your cellphone,
and just imagine what George Floyd endured
for those nine minutes,
begging for breath, begging for life.
- And as far as what the reaction's been locally
on the ground in Minneapolis,
we just saw massive protests taking place
yesterday afternoon and evening.
People coming out with signs demanding
justice for George Floyd and that the police
be held more accountable for their actions.
And for a while, it was a peaceful protest.
Hundreds of demonstrators came out
with some saying that these rival the protests
back in 2016, when Philando Castile was killed
by an officer.
The protest starting at the intersection
where George was killed,
where they chanted "I can't breathe"
and "No justice, no peace."
- [Crowd] I can't breathe!
I can't breathe!
No justice, no peace.
Prosecute the police.
- And at around 6 pm, the protest turned into a march
with the crowd moving to the third police precinct
where many of the protestors believed
that the officers involved were based out of.
And when they arrived things quickly escalated.
We've seen many outlets and the police claiming that
a small group of people began to vandalize the precinct,
and from there more joined.
And saying it's that that led to police
showing up in riot gear to fire teargas and flash grenades
into the crowds to disperse them.
And so the teargas, rock throwing, flash bangs,
and all-around mayhem went on until the evening.
And in the end, it doesn't look like it was actually
the police that largely dispersed the crowd,
but rather the pouring rain.
But ultimately, with all of that said,
that is where we are with this story now.
Understand things are still developing,
we're obviously gonna keep our eyes on this.
And I...
I don't know what also to say.
This isn't a story that we should be having to talk about.
It should've never happened.
We shouldn't know who George Floyd is.
And when we see stories like this,
do we even think, "Oh wow, I can't believe
"something like that happened again."
Or do we go, "Oh, well thank God
"someone once again was able to film it."
Does it always make you ask how many other George Floyds
have there been?
How many other George Floyds will there be,
but there's just no camera?
And actually, speaking of cameras, we may know more soon.
It's being reported that their body cameras
were rolling the whole time,
but it raises the question of what could be on that footage
in any way that would justify laying a knee
into a man's neck, who also had other people on him?
All those minutes, and I'll repeat
what the lawyer said, right,
set a timer for eight to nine minutes,
imagine that knee on your neck,
imagine the helplessness that he must've felt
because, who is supposed to help him?
The person doing it and the others enabling it
were the people that were actually
meant to protect and serve.
But hey, with all that said of course,
that's the story as we know it now.
Any and all thoughts you have on this,
I'd, of course...
I'd of course would love to see your comments down below,
what you think about this, what do you think should happen.
But, that's gonna be it for this part one, I guess,
of "The Philip DeFranco Show."
I have another episode coming out in a few hours.
I love your faces and I will see you then.