Video of George Floyd’s ‘murder’ shows cop Tou Thao ignoring bystanders’ pleas for help

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Horrifying new footage shows Minneapolis officer Tou Thao ignoring pleas for help from bystanders as George Floyd gasped for air under the knee of Derek Chauvin for nearly nine minutes before his death. 

The video was released Sunday morning by Ben Crump, a civil rights attorney representing Floyd’s family. 

The footage appears to be a slightly wider angle than the initial video released last month and shows bystanders desperately pleading with Thao to help Floyd. 

‘This is beyond disturbing, even harder to watch than the first video,’ Crump warned in the caption of the video. 

Crump then wrote: ‘Tou Thao stood guard as Derek Chauvin MURDERED George Floyd … while witnesses of the execution tried to stand up for JUSTICE, tried to save George’s life!

‘The protest of those bystanders, who refused to just stand by and let it happen, has reverberated around the world — fueling our protest against injustice and police brutality!! 8 minutes 46 seconds.’

Crump then called for Chauvin, Thao and two other officers who have been arrested, Thomas Lane and J. Alexander Kueng, to be convicted of murder.

‘The four ex-officers MUST be convicted of MURDER for this hideous atrocity! They MUST all be held accountable!’

In the video, a man and a woman are heard urging the officers to check Floyd’s pulse before more bystanders are heard pleading with the officers to help Floyd. 

‘You think that’s okay? Check his pulse!’ a man is heard yelling as Thao argued with a woman nearby. 

‘The ain’t moved yet bro,’ the man continued. ‘He has not moved not one time!’

The man then asked Thao: ‘You’re going to let him kill that man in front of you?’ 

The woman then yelled: ‘Tell me what his pulse is right now!’ Another woman is heard asking in the background: ‘Did they just f**king kill him?’ 

As a crowd gathered, others are heard shouting, ‘Get off of his neck!’ and ‘He’s not moving!’  

Despite their pleas for help, not once did Thao try to get Chauvin off Floyd’s neck. 

Instead, he continued to argue with the witnesses, yelling for them to remain on the sidewalk and not come any closer. 

A short time later, paramedics arrive and lift Floyd’s lifeless body off the pavement and onto a stretcher. 

Thao, Chauvin, Lane and Kueng have all been fired from the police department. 

Chauvin was fired from the Minneapolis Police Department and arrested just days after Floyd’s death. He was initially charged with third-degree murder before that charge was upgraded to second-degree murder. 

Last Monday, Chauvin’s bail was set to $1.25million. The three other officers have been charged with aiding and abetting second-degree murder. 

Immediately following Floyd’s death, Black Lives Matter protests erupted globally. 

While the majority of protests remained peaceful, buildings, businesses and police departments have burned after some demonstrations turned violent in major US cities.  

Protesters have not only demanded justice for Floyd, but they’ve called for justice for Breonna Taylor, Tony McDade and most recently Rayshard Brooks. Demonstrators have also marched for Ahmaud Arbery, who was shot dead by a white man in Georgia in February. 

Floyd was laid to rest last Tuesday in Houston, Texas, just days before the world witnessed another black man die at the hands of police. 

Brooks was shot dead by an officer in the parking lot of a Wendy’s in Atlanta on Friday night. 

Officer Garrett Rolfe was fired from the force after firing the shots that killed Brooks.

Investigators say Brooks, 27, fought with officers and took one of their Tasers before fleeing and pointing the stun gun at Rolfe as he ran away. Rolfe had been a member of the department since 2013.

Officer Devin Bronsan, who was also present but did not fire, has been placed on administrative leave pending an internal investigation. Bronsan joined the department in 2018.

The shooting led to the resignation of Atlanta Police Chief Erika Shields, and the Wendy’s where Brooks was shot was engulfed in an arson attack as protests turned tense on Saturday night. 

Bodycam footage was also released showing Rolfe and Bronsan’s full interaction prior to the shooting of Brooks, whom Bronsan found on the scene asleep in the driver’s seat of a car blocking the Wendy’s drive-thru lane. 

Protesters erupted across the US once again on Sunday as thousands were seen taking to the streets to demand justice for Brooks. 

New Yorkers held placards that read, ‘stop defending a broken system’ and ‘Black Lives Matter’.  

Meanwhile, in California, the words ‘All Black Lives Matter’ were painted on a street in Hollywood ahead of an LGBTQ+ and Black Lives Matter solidarity march.

In Atlanta, protesters stood outside a burned out Wendy’s where Brooks was shot dead as they demonstrated against police brutality.

Protesters also started gathering outside the White House on President Donald Trump’s 74th birthday 

Shocking bodycam footage shows Rayshard Brooks talking to Atlanta officers just moments before he was shot and killed in a Wendy’s parking lot  

The bodycam footage that was released shows the full interaction prior to the shooting between Brooks, Officer Garrett Rolfe and Officer Devin Bronsan.

In the video, Brooks is seen speaking with Rolfe as Bronsan stands nearby. Brooks seems visibly intoxicated, and is unable to correctly identify the city he is in, saying he is in Forest Park, an Atlanta suburb about 10 miles away from the Wendy’s. 

As the bodycam footage shows, Brooks cooperates with the officers initially, agreeing to be searched for weapons and to complete a field sobriety test. 

Brooks then insisted that all he’d had to drink was ‘one and a half daiquiris’.

The officers then administer a breathalyzer test, as Brooks continues to insist that he is fine to drive home. The breathalyzer reading comes back as .108.

About 30 minutes into the interaction, Rolfe tells Brooks that he believes he is too drunk to operate a motor vehicle and that he is being placed under arrest. 

As the officers begin to handcuff him, Brooks begins to struggle, knocking the body-camera to the ground. 

Little else is seen of the interaction, but the officers are heard shouting ‘stop fighting, stop fighting,’ a taser is heard being deployed, and three shots are heard seconds later.

Video from other angles has already shown that Brooks swung punches at the officers, stole a taser, and fled, turning to point what appears to be the stolen taser at Rolfe before Rolfe unholsters his gun and shoots Brooks.

After nightfall on Saturday, flames broke out at the Wendy’s fast food restaurant where the shooting took place. 

Around 10pm, a fire was seen inside the Wendy’s, and thick smoke billowed through the air, as multiple smaller fires burned in the parking lot outside of the building.

The building was engulfed in flames which shot through the air from the roof, and no emergency responders were on the scene after nearly an hour. 

Atlanta fire officials said that they were unable to send trucks through the crowds of protesters blocking the roads around the Wendy’s, in fear of endangering both the firefighters and the protesters. 

As the fire grew, fears mounted that it could ignite a neighboring gas station, but by midnight the fire had burned out without spreading further.

Demonstrators also shut down all lanes of Interstate 75 near the Wendy’s for more than an hour.

Police in riot gear were seen advancing on the protesters and making arrests at around 10pm. 

Protesters gathered outside the Wendy’s Sunday to protest Brooks death. 

Louisville council votes to BAN no-knock warrants in honor of Breonna Taylor who was shot eight times and killed by cops

Breonna Taylor was a 26-year-old EMT who was fatally shot by Louisville Metro Police inside her home in the early hours of March 13. 

Police had been attempting to serve a search warrant with a no-knock clause at her South End apartment as part of a drugs probe when the fatal incident occurred. 

Officers entered the apartment and were fired upon by Taylor’s boyfriend, Kenneth Walker, who believed a robbery was in progress. Police returned fire, striking Taylor eight times, who had been sleeping in bed moments before.  

No-knock search warrants were banned in Louisville following a unanimous vote of the Metro Council on Thursday night. 

Following the council’s vote Thursday, Louisville Mayor Greg Fischer vowed to sign Breonna’s law ‘as soon as ‘it hits his desk’.

‘I suspended use of these warrants indefinitely last month, and wholeheartedly agree with (the) council that the risk to residents and officers with this kind of search outweigh any benefit,’ Fischer wrote on Twitter. 

Before the vote was held, Taylor’s mother, Tamika Palmer, told the council that all her daughter ‘wanted to do was save lives’.

‘So it’s important this law passes,’ Palmer continued, ‘because with that, she’ll get to continue to do that, even in her death.’

Councilwoman Jessica Green called the legislation the most important she’s ever worked on.

‘We are committed to making sure that she lives on forever,’ Green said, according to the Courier Journal. 

In addition to no-knock orders being banned, the ordinance also requires that any officer serving a search warrant must wear a body camera. 

Officers must activate the cameras at least five minutes before the warrant is issued and they must not turn it off until at least five minutes after it has concluded. 

Black trans man Tony McDade was shot dead by Florida police just two days after George Floyd was killed

Though the details surrounding Tony McDade’s death are murky, he was killed on May 27, two days after George Floyd died under the knee of Derek Chauvin. 

McDade, 38, was shot and killed by police in Tallahassee, Florida, after being approached by police as a suspect in a stabbing. 

According to the Tallahassee Police Department, McDade was in possession of a handgun and a bloody knife that was found at the scene. 

But videos shared on social media by witnesses appear to tell another story.

According to Rolling Stone, one witness said on Facebook: ‘They said “Stop moving, n****r,” and then they shot him after he stopped moving.’

Witness, Clifford Butler, told WFSU: ‘I never heard, “Get down, freeze, I’m an officer.” I never heard nothing. I just heard gunshots.’

The identity of the officer who shot McDade has not been released due to Marsy’s Law. The officer has been placed on administrative leave. 

Demonstrators continue to demand justice for Ahmaud Arbery who was shot dead by white men while jogging in a Georgia neighborhood 

Before Brooks’ death on Friday, Georgia was already reeling from the murder of Ahmaud Arbery. 

Arbery, 25, was killed on February 23 while jogging on a residential street just outside the port city of Brunswick. 

He was shot dead by Travis McMichael after he and Greg McMichael armed themselves and chased him down when they saw him running in their neighborhood.

But it wasn’t until May 7 that the McMichaels were arrested and charged with murder, more than two months after Arbery’s death. 

The elder McMichael told police he suspected Arbery was responsible for recent break-ins in the neighborhood. 

But local police said at the time that there had been no break-ins in the area for a couple of months.

Video that showed Arbery collapse on the pavement after being shot three times fueled a national outcry not just over the killing but also that more than two months passed before arrests were made.  

Earlier this month, Special Agent Richard Dial of the Georgia Bureau of Investigation revealed that Travis McMichael allegedly said ‘f**king n*****’ at Arbery after the fatal shooting took place. 

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