This archive report was first published on 9 July 2020.
On May 25, George Floyd, a 46-year-old black man, died after a white police officer knelt on his neck for nearly nine minutes in Minneapolis, Minnesota. The incident sparked widespread protests against systemic racism and police brutality in the United States and around the world.
Video footage of Floyd's death showed him shouting 'I can't breathe' and calling for his mother as he struggled to breathe. However, a recently released transcript of the police officers' body camera footage has shed new light on Floyd's final moments.
According to the transcript, Floyd begged the officers not to put him in the police car, citing his claustrophobia and physical distress. As they tried to force him into the car, Floyd cried out that he couldn't breathe and was 'going to die in here.'
Throughout his arrest, Floyd repeated 'I can't breathe' more than 20 times, while the officers told him to 'relax' and that he was doing 'fine.' At one point, Officer Derek Chauvin shouted, 'Then stop talking, stop yelling, it takes a heck of a lot of oxygen to talk.'
Floyd's last words, as revealed in the transcript, were 'They're going to kill me. They're going to kill me. I can't breathe.'
The transcript was submitted by Officer Thomas Lane to have the charges against him thrown out. Lane, along with the other three officers involved in Floyd's death, was fired from the Minneapolis police force and charged in his murder. They each face up to 40 years behind bars.
