5 Years On, What the Media Need to Know About George Floyd » The American Spectator | USA News and PoliticsThe American Spectator

For the last five years, the legacy media reported the death of George Floyd no more honestly than they did the health of Joe Biden. The conservative media have only lately attempted to set the record straight, but few among them know the story well enough to counter leftist propaganda. (RELATED: Who Killed George Floyd?)

Saturday, May 25, marks the fifth anniversary of Floyd’s death. The legacy media will take the lead in reviving this story and spinning it. The conservative media — and the White House — need to know how to respond. Some food for thought.

Floyd Was Not “Murdered.”

Five years ago, on May 25, the chronic felon and drug abuser George Floyd died following a prolonged struggle with four Minneapolis police officers — Derek Chauvin, his partner Tou Thao, and their two rookie colleagues, Alex Keung and Thomas Lane. (RELATED: Chauvin Did Not Murder George Floyd)

Yes, Chauvin was convicted of unintentional second-degree murder, third-degree murder, and second-degree manslaughter, but in light of the evidence that has surfaced since his trial, it does Chauvin an injustice to speak of him as a “murderer.”

The Initial Autopsy Report Cleared the Officers.

On May 26, 2020, Senior Assistant Hennepin County Attorney Patrick Lofton documented a virtual meeting via Microsoft Teams on the cause of Floyd’s death. Hennepin County Medical Examiner Andrew Baker told the participants, who included four FBI agents, “The autopsy revealed no physical evidence suggesting that Mr. Floyd died of asphyxiation. Mr. Floyd did not exhibit signs of petechiae, damage to his airways or thyroid, brain bleeding, bone injuries or internal bleeding.” In sum, there was no evidence of a homicide. (RELATED: How George Floyd Actually Died)

“Mr. Floyd,” Baker added, “had preexisting health conditions including heavy heart and some coronary artery disease, including at least one artery that was approximately 75 percent blocked.” As I have documented on these pages in some depth, it was Floyd’s heart that did him in. He died of cardiac arrest.

Floyd Did Not Die of a Drug Overdose

On May 26, Baker had yet to receive the toxicology report. That report would reveal further complications, namely the presence in Floyd’s autopsy blood specimen of Fentanyl, a potent opiate, and methamphetamine, a potent stimulant. The meth may have contributed to Floyd’s agitation, but the drugs did not kill him. 

From day one, Baker was running scared.

As documented in Assistant County Attorney Amy Sweasy’s deposition testimony in a separate sexual harassment suit, Baker called Sweasy later on the day of May 26 and affirmed, “There were no medical indications of asphyxia or strangulation.”

In her deposition, Sweasy recalled Baker asking, “‘Amy, what happens when the actual evidence doesn’t match up with the public narrative that everyone’s already decided on?’” By midday on May 26, thousands had already gathered in Minneapolis to protest Floyd’s “murder.” The riots started that night. ‘This is the kind of case that ends careers,” Baker told Sweasy, and he was righter than he knew.

The Threat Level Deformed the Case.

In his deposition for the Sweasy suit, Patrick Lofton attested to the anxiety all participants felt, “There was extreme premium pressure, yes. The city was burning down.” The pressure from outside the office, he noted, was “insane.” (RELATED: Why Has the Right Let the Floyd Cops Fry?)

On May 28, rioters sacked and burned a Minneapolis police station. On May 29, the State filed its initial complaint against Derek Chauvin. Despite the threats, Baker hung tough. It read, “The full report of the [medical examiner] is pending but the [medical examiner] has made the following preliminary findings. The autopsy revealed no physical findings that support a diagnosis of traumatic asphyxia or strangulation.” Again, there was no evidence of a homicide.

Baker Yielded to Coercion.

On May 29, upon seeing the autopsy report, Dr. Roger Mitchell, the well-connected D.C. medical examiner and deputy mayor, called Baker. Baker told Mitchell “he didn’t think the neck compression played a part.” Unsatisfied, on Monday, June 2, Mitchell called Baker back and threatened to run an op-ed in the Washington Post critical of Baker.

Mitchell, a black activist, warned Baker, “You don’t want to be the medical examiner who tells everyone they didn’t see what they saw. You don’t want to be the smartest person in the room and be wrong.” There was a way out of the jam, Mitchell told Baker — “Neck compression has to be in the diagnosis.” Without it, Baker did not need to be told, there could be no ruling of homicide and thus no murder charge.

Late on that same Monday, Baker’s office sent out a press release that began, “Cause of death: Cardiopulmonary arrest complicating law enforcement subdual, restraint, and neck compression.” (Italics added). Following that declaration was “Manner of death: Homicide.” The man who “didn’t think the neck compression played a part” on May 29 suddenly realized on June 2, after explicit threats by Dr. Mitchell, that it did.

The State Attorneys Concealed Mitchell’s Threat.

We know about the threat from a memorandum that documented a Nov. 5, 2020, meeting — likely online — that involved four attorneys from Attorney General Keith Ellison’s office, one from Hennepin County, and Mitchell. Mitchell volunteered the information cited above. (RELATED: George Floyd Revisited: Derek Chauvin Was Wrongfully Convicted)

Although the state attorneys interviewed Mitchell months before Chauvin’s trial began in March 2021, the memorandum only came to light in a July 2021 motion filed by Officer Tuo Thao’s attorney, Robert Paule. The State buried the Mitchell memo in a last-minute document dump during the trial. Chauvin’s attorney Eric Nelson never had a chance to process its contents. If he had seen the memorandum, Nelson surely would have raised the issue of Mitchell’s coercion at trial, but he did not.

Three Key State Witnesses Likely Committed Perjury at Trial.

By Mitchell’s own account, he threatened or induced Dr. Andrew Baker to alter critical medical information regarding the cause of death. During his trial, under oath, Baker would finesse the lies enshrined in his autopsy report.

As I documented in a recent article, in rejecting a defamation lawsuit brought by Assistant Minneapolis Police Chief Katie Blackwell, Hennepin County Judge Edward Wahl all but accused Blackwell of perjury. Blackwell had testified at Chauvin’s trial that the restraint technique Chauvin used on Floyd was unauthorized and improvised. MPD Chief Medaria Arradondo made nearly the identical claim about Chauvin’s technique. Testified Arradondo at trial, ‘That is not part of our policy, that is not what we teach and that should not be condoned.”

Said Wahl of Blackwell’s testimony, “That impression is undermined by evidence in the record showing that MPD training materials from 2018-2019 — the period of Blackwell’s tenure — included images of officers applying knees to the neck or upper back.” Judge Peter Cahill did not allow the jury to see these images. In a phone interview, Chauvin described Blackwell’s testimony as “outright perjury.”

Trump Should Resist an Immediate Chauvin Pardon.

On May 7, 2021, the U.S. Department of Justice indicted Chauvin and his colleagues for constitutional civil rights violations resulting in Floyd’s death. After initially pleading not guilty, Chauvin yielded to the inevitable and entered a guilty plea in December 2021. At that stage, he had resigned himself to securing a less dangerous prison environment. Even that backfired. In November 2024, an inmate at the Federal Correctional Institution in Tucson stabbed him 22 times.

Of course, President Trump could pardon Chauvin on the federal charges. Minnesota Governor Tim Walz, the point man for the Democrats, would love to see Trump do just that. As the New York Post points out, Walz has been “fanning the flames of speculation that President Trump is planning to pardon Derek Chauvin.” What better way to distract from the Democrats’ current woes?

Trump, of course, has no authority to pardon Chauvin on state charges. Knowing this, Walz would welcome the civic unrest that would follow a federal pardon. Said Walz, “If Donald Trump exercises his constitutional right to do so, whether I agree — and I strongly disagree with him — if he issues that pardon, we will simply transfer Derek Chauvin to serve out his 22 and a half years in prison in Minnesota.”

Trump Should Immediately Pardon Thao, Keung, and Lane.

Thao, a Cambodian-American, is still in prison. His crime was to protect his three colleagues from the angry mob that was harassing them. Keung, a Nigerian-American, and Lane, who is white, had been on the job less than a week. (RELATED: Derek Chauvin’s Real Crime — ‘Being Born White’)

Hennepin County attorneys Amy Sweasy and Patrick Lofton were so appalled that the state planned to indict the three officers that they withdrew from the case. “I can tell you that everyone that I associate with to any degree, professionally or personally, agreed with our decision,” Lofton said under oath. With these pardons, the White House will give America a glimpse of the horrific injustice all four officers endured.

The DOJ Should Convene a Grand Jury.

Once the injustice to the three officers has been exposed, the grand jury would investigate the civil rights violations suffered by all four of them, including Chauvin. These violations include three suspected perjuries — Baker, Blackwell, Arradondo — one coercion of perjury — Mitchell — the subornation of these perjuries by the State Attorney’s office, the enabling of these perjuries by Judge Peter Cahill, and the failure of the state attorneys to provide exculpatory evidence to Chauvin’s defense team in a timely manner.

There is a clear paper trail for every step along the way. That trail will inevitably lead to Attorney General Keith Ellison and, quite possibly, to Walz himself. If it reaches Tampon Tim, I suspect he’ll be ready to negotiate.

Assisting me on this article has been my frequent collaborator, Dr. John Dunn, a physician for 50 years and an attorney for 40 years, board-certified in legal medicine. Dr. Dunn is a frequent author/lecturer on medical and legal matters.

READ MORE from Jack Cashill:

Derek Chauvin’s Real Crime — ‘Being Born White’

Woke Justice at Its Most Horrifying — the Ahmaud Arbery Case

How COVID Mania Inspired the Events of January 6