An incredible documentary by Alpha News came out last year called “The Fall of Minneapolis,” which reveals what really happened in the death of George Floyd. Reporter Liz Collins, who produced the film and also wrote a bestselling book about it, interviewed key people involved, including police officers. Collins was fired afterwards from her longtime job at WCCO-TV, a CBS affiliate in Minneapolis/St. Paul, which she believes was due to her fair coverage of police incidents (she is married to the former president of the Minneapolis Police Officers Federation).
The documentary obtained bodycam footage from the officers who responded; Derek Chauvin, Alex Kueng, Thomas Lane and Tou Thao. The mainstream media downplayed the fact that one of the officers was black and another was Asian. Kueng, who is black, arrested Floyd and spent more time with him than Chauvin, who arrived on the scene later. All four were sentenced to prison, with Chauvin receiving 22.5 years.
Floyd can be seen in the bodycam footage repeatedly disregarding the officers’ commands. Lane told him to get out of his car eight times. Floyd lied to the officers, said he wasn’t on any substances, and said he got shot the last time he was arrested, which wasn’t true. After he was placed in handcuffs, he continued resisting. He never stopped talking back to the officers, and refused to get into the patrol vehicle. The officers tried to push him in. He can be seen kicking Lane.
Floyd forced his way out of the vehicle and ended up lying on the ground. Chauvin used the Maximal Restraint Technique (MRT) on him, which was approved by the Minneapolis Police Department. As Floyd continued to yell, Lane called for an ambulance. A firefighter who happened to be at the scene, off duty, testified during the trial against Chauvin that the medical team took a long time to respond, considering it was located only two blocks away. Bodycam footage revealed there was a miscommunication between the fire department and Emergency Medical Services.
One expert said from reviewing the bodycam footage, she could see that the paramedics failed to properly attach the oxygen to Floyd, “that’s a big mistake.” But officials claimed the paramedics did everything right.
The chief of the Minneapolis Police Department testified during the trial that Chauvin’s knee appeared to be on Floyd’s shoulder blade, not his neck. However, he claimed MRT wasn’t a trained technique. Chauvin’s mother showed Collins his training manuals which included that technique. Other officers told Collins they were all trained on MRT. A black officer told Collins, almost in tears, that Chauvin was one of the top two or three recruits he ever trained.
However, Hennepin County District Court Judge Peter Cahill refused to allow evidence of MRT training to the jury. Cahill also refused to allow evidence of the miscommunication and Floyd’s drug arrests. Floyd had a lengthy criminal history, which included aggravated robbery with a firearm. The jurors were asked by the judge about their opinions of Black Lives Matter and they had favorable responses.
Collins interviewed an officer who had arrested Floyd in a previous incident, who relayed how Floyd’s behavior was exactly the same, resisting the officers.
The documentary revealed that prominent politicians lied about how long Floyd was restrained — it was only 7 minutes and 46 seconds.
The autopsy was performed by Hennepin County Medical Examiner Andrew Baker. The report about the autopsy from the district attorney said it found there was “no physical evidence suggesting Mr. Floyd died of asphyxiation,” and he had “preexisting health conditions” including “coronary artery disease” with “at least one artery that was approximately 75% blocked.”
Further notes from the medical examiner stated that “most cases of untreated hypertension can put you at risk for death.” Another memo from the district attorney based on speaking to the medical examiner found that stimulants in his system combined with the hypertension and his violent fighting with the police likely caused his death.
More notes from the conversation with Baker stated that Floyd had no bruising and “Chauvin’s knee is on the side of his neck, not where the structures are.” Baker told investigators that there were no findings of injury to the vital structures of Floyd’s neck, or signs of asphyxiation or strangulation.
The toxicology report found that Floyd had 19 ng/mL of methamphetamine and 11 ng/mL of fentanyl in his system, which the memo described as “a fatal level of fentanyl under normal circumstances.” People die from just 3 ng/mL of fentanyl.
A forensic pathologist who was hired for an “independent autopsy” claimed Floyd “had no underlying medical problem that caused or contributed to his death.” This was widely touted in the mainstream media.
Dr. Tom Haney reviewed the autopsy report, and said it appeared prosecutors were trying to hide Floyd’s medical situation. He noted that the independent forensic pathologists never even examined his body.
The documentary covered how Minnesota politicians, including Governor Tim Walz and Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey, surrendered the police precinct to the violent riot, leaving some of the officers in danger of being injured by the protesters who were throwing bricks and shooting mortars at them. They can be seen running out of the police station with violent rioters chasing them, who burned the precinct down. Officers watched them loot businesses but were ordered not to do anything.
Some of the Minneapolis Police officers Collins interviewed said they were so disillusioned that they left the profession. There were 892 officers when Floyd died. By October 2023, that had decreased to 513. Officials assert that crime has gone down since Floyd’s death, but one of the officers told Collins that’s not true. The documentary showed statistics revealing steep increases in violent crime. Homicides have almost doubled since 2020.
Some thought Ben Shapiro was seeking attention by calling for President Donald Trump to pardon Chauvin. But this documentary proves otherwise. Shapiro has started a petition requesting the pardon and his own docuseries about the case.
Reprinted from Townhall