It seems like a really long time since the murder of George Floyd by police sent the whole world into a state of protest/anarchy (depending on how you look at it), but today the police bodycam footage from the day of his arrest has been leaked (The Daily Mail paid someone for it) and well, it kinda puts the whole thing in a bit of a different perspective.

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There’s eight and a half minutes of this stuff and I should probably say how distressing and upsetting it is before you press play below. Obviously you’re seeing a scared black man essentially get killed by a cop, so if you think that’s going to not be something you want to see then you probably shouldn’t watch it:

OK, so he’s clearly resisting arrest on a basic level there, but he’s hardly attacking the cops or doing anything that warrants them sitting on his head for ten minutes and literally killing the guy. It’s probably also fairly clear that he’s terrified to sit in the back of the police car because he knows that if he ends up locked in there then it’s only a short stop to jail which he clearly doesn’t want to be visiting, even if he was guilty of the alleged forgery of a $20 note.

If we’re gonna be fair to the cops here (as much as I hate it), I imagine that they probably see stuff like this every day with people refusing to get into their cars and listen to their demands (perhaps correctly), so they have no real choice but to escalate the situation. However, that shouldn’t come to the point where someone ends up dead for this shit and also it’s probably indicative of how terrible the situation is in the United States that the guy is literally doing everything in his power to avoid getting in the back of the car. The system really does need to change.

Interestingly, the left used this video to say all the cops involved in the murder were guilty, whereas the right said that it completely exonerated them from any wrongdoing. Crazy how two sets of people can see the same video and come up with completely different conclusions:

It doesn’t matter if George Floyd was on drugs or whatever, he was a human being and he was scared. And rightly so. He didn’t deserve to be suffocated. End of. pic.twitter.com/iaj3BYKAE9

— Witchy 🌛🌕🌜 (@weegiewitch13) August 4, 2020

george floyd had a gun pointed at him for a $20 NOTE and these dumb conservative white supremacists think it’s cool to blame him for his own death. it was over a $20 NOTE pic.twitter.com/GqjGCRAFqx

— ayan (@7ringxs) August 4, 2020

#GeorgeFloyd so the spoiled cartons of milk…are trying to justify the MURDER of George Floyd because he had a panic attack? TUH. it’s the caucasity for me… pic.twitter.com/GGxm7dnwDi

— da bratttt✨ (@boujeelilbarbie) August 4, 2020

Facts about George Floyd:

New footage shows him resisting for multiple minutes prior. He was high on fentanyl. He said “I can’t breathe” prior to police touching him.

The media was successful. They played into our emotions and we took their words as Gospel.

Manipulation.

— Shekinah (@supitsshekinah) August 4, 2020

George Floyd told cops his mom just died. She’d been dead for two years. He said he’s too claustrophobic to get in the police car. He was just sitting in a car. He said he couldn’t breathe and was going to die while he was still standing.

— Matt Walsh (@MattWalshBlog) August 3, 2020

The Minneapolis police did not kill George Floyd. The body cam footage exonerates them. Police were trying to calm him down while he experienced Excited Delirium.

— Ian Miles Cheong (@stillgray) August 3, 2020

Here is body cam footage of #GeorgeFloyd resisting arrest. He was obviously drugged out if his mind, & was having a massive panic attack. This video completely fucks up the narrative that he was compliant. https://t.co/Dg8GwPD48e

— Aubrey Huff (@aubrey_huff) August 3, 2020

In light of the new #GeorgeFloyd bodycam footage: I’d like to thank all of the racist, murder-apologists out there for pointing out that George Floyd deserved to be killed because he had a panic attack before a police officer choked him to death for 8+ minutes.

— Aimee Carrero 🌈✊🏽 (@aimeecarrero) August 4, 2020

I think my take on this comes somewhere in between the two. Yeah, George Floyd seems like he was clearly on drugs – apparently it was fentanyl, which also can lead to trouble breathing and also contributed to his death – and wasn’t exactly compliant with the cops, but that shouldn’t have led to Derek Chauvin putting a knee on his head, pushing his face into the ground and murdering him. It does seem that stuff like this only happens when people don’t fully co-operate with cops and act erratically, but it does also seem like this only happens when it’s a black man/POC involved as well. How many videos have you ever seen of white men off their faces on drugs and ‘resisting’ arrest and ending up getting murdered?

That’s why even though George Floyd probably wasn’t the saint that some people are making him out to be – I don’t even think that many people were though to be honest – his treatment was still indicative of systemic racism within the United States police force and why the organisation needs to be reformed and all the recent protesting has very much been necessary. Cops should be there to help people, not to attack and murder them and even though he wasn’t co-operating, at the very worst he was being belligerent and on drugs and didn’t pose enough of a threat for what happened to him. He doesn’t deserve to die for that and neither does anyone else. Hopefully his death will have some impact on the system over there.

For more of the same, check out this woman confronting one of George Floyd’s murderers in a supermarket. Awkward.