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.’
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
A woman and another man who witnessed the horrifying incident asked officers to get help
But when help finally came, it was too late for Floyd (left and right, on a stretcher)
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.
‘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 yet 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.
Shocking bodycam footage shows Rayshard Brooks talking to Atlanta officers just moments before he was shot and killed in a Wendy’s parking lot
Rayshard Brooks, 27, was killed by police in Atlanta after a fight in the parking lot of a Wendy’s restaurant
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
A Wendy’s burns following a rally against racial inequality and the police shooting death of Rayshard Brooks
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.