The Minneapolis Parks Police Department released bodycam footage relating to the incident in which African-American man George Floyd was choked to death by a policeman. The video features bodycam footage of an officer who arrived on the scene during the incident.
Floyd died after a white Minneapolis Police officer, identified as Derek Chauvin, knelt over his neck for several minutes. In a video of the incident that has been widely circulated on social media, Floyd can be heard saying that he "can't breathe" shortly before becoming unresponsive even as bystanders urged the officer to get off the man. He was rushed to a nearby hospital where he was declared dead, as previously reported by International Business Times.
Four police officers involved in the incident have been fired and the FBI is now investigating the encounter. Floyd's death has caused nationwide outrage, with thousands taking to the streets holding signs that read "can't breathe" and chanting slogans of "Black Lives Matter" in Minneapolis and Los Angeles.
New Bodycam Footage
The Minneapolis Park Police Department released body camera footage captured by one of the police officers at the scene, but said the officer was not in a location to witness or intervene in the incident involving Floyd.
The footage doesn't exactly provide much insight into the events that led to Floyd's death. All it captures is the interaction between the responding police officer and Floyd's acquaintances. At one point, the officer tells the occupants of Floyd's car not to interfere with the car and to stay on the sidewalk until the arrest was completed.
"I don't want you touching anything from the car," the unidentified officer says in the video, "Just stay put, alright, until my partners and them are done over there and they can figure things out. We'll figure things out alright. Right now, we're grabbing an ambulance for your buddy." Check out the footage below:
Audio Removed, Parts Blacked Out
A majority of the bodycam video has been muted and identities of those involved concealed. People are far from satisfied with the bodycam footage, with many complaining that most of the video has either been blacked out or the audio has been removed from certain parts of the clip.
"These scumbag cops released a bodycam video with nothing but huge black squares blocking everything and half the audio removed," wrote a user on Twitter. "Why even bother?"
"Someone's insane, thinking people are entitled to privacy in public! Watching THIS was worse than having nothing! No one could be seen, and the audio is cut up. Transparency? No way!, commented another user on a YouTube video of the footage.
"Why is most of it redacted? This is not raw footage," said another angry user. "Whats the point of the body cam then if the public cant watch these power hungry fiends committing civil rights crime against the American citizens."
Minneapolis police had claimed Floyd was held down after he "physically resisted officers" but surveillance cameras at the location where Floyd was detained showed Floyd did not resist arrest in the moments leading up to his death, as claimed by the police.
