The Daily - Special Episode: The Latest From Minneapolis

Episode Date: May 30, 2020

As protests spread over the death of George Floyd, the former officer at the center of the case has been charged with murder. We listen in on the demonstrations, and examine why this tragedy — though too familiar — may be a turning point. Guest: Audra D. S. Burch, a national enterprise correspondent for The Times. For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily.Background reading:Derek Chauvin, a former police officer, was charged with third-degree murder and second-degree manslaughter for kneeling on the neck of Mr. Floyd for nearly nine minutes as he repeatedly pleaded “I can’t breathe.”In the year before their fatal encounter, Mr. Floyd and Mr. Chauvin worked at the same nightclub.Protests over racism and police violence have erupted across the U.S. Follow the latest updates.

From The New York Times, I'm Michael Barbaro. This is a special episode of The Daily. As protests spread over the death of George Floyd at the hands of the Minneapolis police, the former officer at the center of the case has been charged with murder. My colleague Audra Bir, on the latest developments. It's Friday afternoon, May 29th. Hey, Audra. Hey. Hey. Can you guys hear me?

Yes, and I think we can also hear the news behind you. I was just in Canada for 37 years. Okay. Apologies ahead of time for how frazzled I am. We are grateful that you're making time to talk to us in the middle of this unfolding story, so thank you. Thank you for having me. So Audra, it is 2.30 p.m. on Friday afternoon, and we know your time is really limited because you're in the middle of reporting this story. So just to start, what do we know about the two men

at the center of this story? The two men that are at the center of this fatal encounter, a police officer, a veteran police officer named Derek Chauvin, and the man who ultimately dies, and his name is George Floyd. In our reporting, we found coincidentally that they had actually worked at the same club. It's not quite clear if they knew each other, but we know that Mr. Floyd worked as a bouncer and that Mr. Chauvin was an off-duty security person. And what we know is that even if they didn't know each other in that line of work, they would come to be on the same corner in Minneapolis on Memorial Day around 8 p.m. The staff that called the police when he identified the bill was fake, the patron was out of the establishment. Why he was still there, we're not sure. There's been a 911 call that there's a forgery in progress.

And Mr. Chobin comes there. And the next thing that we know is that Mr. Floyd has been approached. He's sitting on a blue vehicle. And then the next thing we know is he's on the ground. And the officer's knee is in his neck. We know that he was on the ground for anywhere from seven to ten minutes. Wow. We know that he was crying.

We know that at some point he even asked for his mother, who had passed two years earlier. So you have to think that that is a moment of hopelessness, of feeling like you're not possibly going to make it. And as this was happening, it was being videotaped. And the scene is becoming more and more chaotic as the bystanders are watching this. At some point, you even hear the bystanders begging for the officer to please release his knee. That does not happen until his body falls to the ground. And he was carried away on a stretcher by the paramedics. Audra, tell us about the reaction to that video when it was published.

It was visceral. I mean, I think everybody was shocked by precisely how graphic it was. But I think that a lot of people's reaction depended on what they brought to it. There were the common universal tears, frustration, anger, how did this happen? But then there was also this sense of maybe this particular tape, this particular video will be a witness, a central witness in this case. And what happened on the ground in Minneapolis as the people there absorbed this video? You know, it wasn't long after that, see people bringing these sort of hastily hand

scrawled signs that said I can't breathe which are the words that you hear Mr. Floyd say in the video. Just tired of this keep happening and the police get the get away with it not nothing's happening and the guy sat on his neck even after he died. After he took his last breath, he kept his knee on his neck. And the day after this happens, the officers, the four officers that were there are all fired. What we've seen over the last two days is the result of so much built up anger and sadness. Very quickly, the mayor starts making comments. He talks about anger and sadness that has been ingrained in our Black community, not just because of five minutes of horror, but 400 years. This is a level of frustration that's built upon 400 years of injustice.

I oversaw the largest police department in this country, and I can tell you the video is sickening. And he's joined by others who condemn it really, really quickly. Based on what we've seen, we don't see how they cannot be facing charges that can range anywhere from murder to manslaughter. Police departments across the country actually condemn it. Chattanooga's police chief says there's a police chief in Tennessee that talked about any officer who does not have an issue with his officers didn't see anything wrong with that video needs to turn their badge in and turn their badges in. And that's very uncommon to see that level of response so quickly.

Other officers, if you're going to be an officer that's going to stand there and not help when things go wrong, come on, like you don't see that? That's the reason I got behind this badge, right? Because I want them officers that's afraid to step up, I want to be the one to step up. If I see wrong happening, wrong is not happening in my presence, right? What do you make of that, Audra? Because that is very unusual to hear police officers, police chiefs from around the country speaking out so forcefully about an incident outside their jurisdiction and doing lasts for such a long time. It's, you know, six to 10 minutes is an exceptionally long time to watch someone who's laying on the ground. And I also think that, you know, we've been having these conversations for quite a long time about building relationships between Black communities and the police in those communities. I think all of this sort of feeds in

to this response, but frankly, I've never seen it before. So what happens next back in Minneapolis? In Minneapolis, these protests are growing. We know that there have been crowds that are all over the city, including outside of the ex-officer's home. What we're seeing now, though, is that third night turned into something else. though is that third night turned into something else. And it wasn't just the protests that you saw, but you also saw people who were looting and they were damaging buildings. And I don't know that those are the same groups of people, but that's what we know happened. And by the end of last night, That's what we know happened.

And by the end of last night, the police third precinct was on fire and burning to the ground. With hundreds of people outside watching as it happened. We've seen protests all over the country after police killings, but I don't think we've ever seen a government building taken over like that, which feels like a pretty forceful kind of political statement.

I have never seen a government building, I have never seen a police building on fire ever, regardless of how intense demonstrations have been. I've never seen that before. And what did you make of that? You know, just about every single person that I spoke with wanted justice for Mr. Floyd, but they also wanted a better way of living. You know, when you go to Minneapolis, it is one of the most racially unequal cities in the nation. There are great gaps between whites and Blacks' income, education, educational attainment, unemployment. It's a very stark divide. And there's a professor

in the University of Minnesota who calls it the Minnesota paradox. He is talking about the city's reputation as being very progressive. It has a beautiful way of life. But just under the surface, what you see is a stark racial divide. And that gap has not closed in any significant way. So what you're hearing from protesters is, I call it sort of an entrenched pain. You know, it is a pain that has been there for a very long time, this idea that my life is so much different than some of my neighbors' lives. And how does that get changed? How do I see a change in my life that's meaningful? And is there a specific protester that you talked to who addressed these kinds of frustrations? One of the people I talked to is a gentleman named Mike Griffin.

And, you know, in the course of talking to him, he became very emotional. He just kept saying to me over and over that we're tired. We're so exhausted that it felt like every victory for them had been long fought, that this was this ongoing daily struggle to find a good way of living in this city. And then this thing happens. He described Mr. Floyd's death as representative of what has been this daily struggle for Black Americans in Minneapolis. Mm-hmm.

I mean, I'm mindful of the fact that we're in the middle of a moment that has disproportionately traumatized Black America, and that is a pandemic. And I wonder how much in your conversations with protesters and in your reporting you feel like that may be factoring into this. I think it absolutely is. I talked to another person who was out of work because of COVID-19. We know from reporting that, you know, African-Americans are much more likely to be essential workers or to not have paid leave or to have pre-existing conditions that makes

African-Americans much more vulnerable to the virus. So it was already a pain that was not shared equally, if you will. And then you layer that on top of this death, this horrific death, and feeling like there is a racial connotation to it. And for them, I think it just feels too much. You know, I heard the term over and over, enough is enough. So that gives me a sense that, you know, there's an energy to try to mobilize, but there's also a weariness that they've been down this road before, that getting reform is long and exhaustive work. Mm-hmm. Maybe this sounds like a naive question, but much of what you described here has about it the feeling of some kind of a turning point.

The fact that police departments across the country, without reservation, condemn this. The fact that these protesters so quickly escalated to taking over a police precinct, burning it down. a police precinct, burning it down. Does it feel like something is fundamentally different here than these awful familiar cases that are like this that we've all experienced in the past? It does. You know, I can't put my finger on it, but this feels absolutely like a turning point. And I can't tell you what's on the other side, you know, when you turn the corner, but I've never seen, you know, the confluence of these things that we're talking about, entrenched disparity, a pandemic that is disproportionate for a particular group of people. This visceral video, I think when you add it all together,

you're looking at an explosive moment in American history. add it all together, you're looking at an explosive moment in American history. And Audra, how are you yourself thinking about this and feeling about it? I'm tired. You know, I would be lying if I didn't tell you that this is hard work. I've done it before. I cover the Trayvon Martin case and many others. And I've thought a lot about sort of what this means in America, what this means in my own life, what this means for African-American families, how we should be thinking about who has the right to justice. We want to think everybody does. But I don't know. I just have been thinking a lot about it and frankly have not come up with any really good answers. But I do know that we deserve better and more honest conversations about sort of where we are. And I think all of us need to be honest and allow ourselves to feel things. I think that's absolutely okay. I think that it has the, it informs our reporting. And I think that, I think we all should be

sitting with this just for a moment and deciding what this means. Thank you, Audra. Thank you, Audra. Sorry. You okay over there? Yeah. I feel like you took your own advice and you just sat there with it for a minute. You know, I can't think of anything more important to do, I think, when these things happen. Sometimes it's just sitting still.

I fight for clarity. I think that's just the only thing you can fight for after something like this happens. On Friday afternoon, Derek Chauvin, the officer seen using his knee to pin down George Floyd, was arrested and charged with third-degree murder and second-degree manslaughter. third-degree murder and second-degree manslaughter. Floyd's relatives said they were disappointed by the decision not to pursue first-degree murder charges, which require proving an intent to kill. Minneapolis and St. Paul are on fire. The fire is still smoldering our streets. In an emotional speech on Friday, the governor of Minnesota, Tim Walz, expressed sympathy for the protesters, recalling past episodes of police misconduct in the state.

Much like we failed to hear George Floyd, as he pleaded for his life as the world watched, by people sworn to protect him, his community, our state. Philando Castile, silenced, unheard. So many other friends, brothers, sisters, mothers, fathers senselessly died in our street. Their voices went unheard and now generations of pain is manifesting itself in front of the world.

And the world is watching. A few hours later, at the White House, President Trump spoke about the situation, offering a very different message than what he has on Twitter, where he had called the protesters thugs and had warned they could be shot. I want to express our nation's deepest condolences and most heartfelt sympathies to the family of George Floyd. The president said he had watched the video of Floyd's arrest and that he was alarmed by it. We all saw what we saw, and it's very hard to even conceive of anything other than what we did see. It should never happen, should never be allowed to happen, a thing like that.

Minneapolis will be under curfew on Friday night, with the National Guard patrolling the streets. That's it for now. I'm Michael Barbaro. See you on Monday.