The Daily - Who Else Is Culpable in George Floyd’s Death?

Episode Date: February 7, 2022

This episode contains depictions of violenceAlmost two years ago, a shocking nine-minute video was released showing a Minneapolis police officer, Derek Chauvin, fatally kneeling on the neck of George Floyd.Mr. Chauvin is now serving a long sentence for murder.A few weeks ago, a trial began in the case of the three other officers who were on the scene that day. They are charged with violating Mr. Floyd’s civil rights during the arrest that caused his death.Guest: Kim Barker, an enterprise reporter for The New York Times.Have you lost a loved one during the pandemic? The Daily is working on a special episode memorializing those we have lost to the coronavirus. If you would like to share their name on the episode, please RECORD A VOICE MEMO and send it to us at [e-mail]. You can find more information and specific instructions here.Background reading: The three former officers are accused of failing to intervene when they saw Mr. Chauvin using excessive force against Mr. Floyd.The case centers on a crucial issue in American policing: the duty of officers to act against colleagues when they witness misconduct.Want more from The Daily? For one big idea on the news each week from our team, subscribe to our newsletter. For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily. Transcripts of each episode will be made available by the next workday. 

From New York Times, I'm Michael Barbaro. This is The Daily. Almost two years ago now, a nine-minute video was released that rocked the country, showing a Minneapolis police officer, Derek Chauvin, fatally kneeling on the neck of George Floyd, even as Floyd and others called for help. Chauvin is now serving a 22-year sentence for murder. But a few weeks ago, the trial began

in the case of the three other officers who were on the scene that day, who are now charged with violating Floyd's civil rights and aiding and abetting his murder. Today, my colleague Kim Barker has the story of one of them. It's Monday, February 7th. Kim, tell us how you first came to this reporting. Sure. So I'm an investigative reporter at The Times.

But after George Floyd was killed, I was sent to Minneapolis to cover the aftermath of the killing. And, you know, while there, naturally, almost every journalist is focused on Derek Chauvin, the officer who had actually killed George Floyd. The former police officer known as Derek Chauvin is now in police custody. The fired police officer now facing charges of third degree murder and manslaughter for the death of 46-year-old George Floyd. This morning, we're learning that police records show Derek Chauvin, the officer who had his knee on Floyd's neck for several minutes, has faced more than a dozen complaints over the course of his 19-year career with the Minneapolis police. Discipline for two of them. But my job is often to look in another direction. And I decided to take a look at the other three officers who are on the scene

and see whether there might be a story that I could tell there that maybe nobody else was looking at. And those three officers were a Hmong officer by the name of Tu Tao, who was kind of doing crowd control at the scene. And it was also two men by the names of Thomas Lane and Alex King. And those were the officers who helped hold George Floyd down. So then on June 4th, I believe that was a Thursday, those three officers appeared in court and it was their first court appearance. And that was the first chance any of us got to hear about their backgrounds and about what their lives were like. And what stood out to you, Kim? I mean, what stood out to me about two of the officers, being Lane and King, is that they were rookies. And they weren't just rookies.

They weren't just like on their first year of being police officers. You know, King had only been on the force and sort of been on his own as a police officer for three days. And Lane had only been on the force as a real officer for four. Wow, so entirely brand new. Yes. And, you know, as of that point, you're wondering, okay, what's the backstory here? So first I started looking at Thomas Lane

because he was older, you know? He's 35 years old when he decides to become a police officer. And that's older old when he decides to become a police officer. And that's older than most people decide to become a police officer, right? Right. And so in looking at his background, you know, it was hard to find people who were willing to talk about him. But this was a guy who had not graduated from high school. He had been charged with some petty crimes, like when he was much younger. And it's

clear that something happens at that point. And he decides to get his life together and go in a completely different direction because he gets his GED and he goes to school at the University of Minnesota and graduates. And then he becomes like a probation officer and a corrections officer and ends up volunteering to help Somali youth and also elementary school kids. And then he ultimately enters the police department. And so all of that is really interesting to me. But then I start looking into King. And I realize this young man is not just a rookie. He's also the only black man involved in

what happened to George Floyd that day, other than George Floyd himself. Initially, the Minneapolis police had put out a statement or had said that there were four officers on the scene. One was Hmong, which was Tu Tao, and then three were white. So I think that in the beginning, nobody realized that Alex was indeed black. So we started looking into it, and it was myself and a researcher by the name of Susan Beachy. And we just started pulling string on who he was, how he grew up, who his siblings were. And we found out that he was raised by a single white mom named Joni. His father was a Nigerian man who had not really been present in either Alex's or Joni's life. And we also found out that Alex had four siblings who seemed to be adopted and all of whom are black.

And so that's what we were able to find out just through research. And then I started to reach out to Alex's classmates, to his friends and to his family. And after some time, I was actually able to convince Alex's mom, Joni, to sit down with me. And we talked for like three hours. And I also got one of his sister's radiance to talk to me. And what emerged was this really intimate story of a family. And it was the kind of story I had never been able to tell before. Well, tell us about that. Let's start with his childhood.

Okay. Alex grew up, like, again, with a single mom, Joni. And, you know, he was, by all accounts, this kid who was very, very, very close with his mom, who was very engaged with the world, who wanted to give back. It was a family that had this idea of service, like Joni was a teacher, and her parents traveled to Haiti and other countries, you know, and worked as missionaries and tried to help orphans and, you know, this idea of really trying to give back. And that as a child, he started asking his mom for siblings, you know, and like kids do that, right? So she, at the same time, is like this teacher that works in districts that often have kids coming from troubled homes. And so she decides, like, I've got this big home,

I can take in more kids. So she brings in a baby brother and eventually brings in four siblings. And she creates this little family of her, Alex is the oldest, and the four younger adopted siblings. Growing up, Alex is really well liked by his classmates. He met this other kid, Darrow Jones, who was black, and who became his best friend. And in Darrow's telling, he was having a hard time with his math homework. And so Alex offered to help, and they became very close. And then after Darrow's mom died, Joni became like his second mom. And so he would stay with the family for like up to a month at a time.

And he just described it as like, she had a lot of love for everyone. In talking to her and to Radiance though, it was race was not a subject that was discussed much. What do you mean? It sounds like all of the children are Black, the mother is white, but race is never really discussed? Nope. And that was something that Radiance talked about and Joni also mentioned.

And she felt like it wasn't her place to bring it up. It was that whole idea, you know, of like, I'm raising my children in a colorblind environment. And I think that that used to be a thing, right? Where this idea that you could raise your kids in a colorblind world, this ideal of a utopia that in America just doesn't, it doesn't exist. We're not a colorblind society. And I think Radiance wanted to talk about race. And I think for her, that became a real wedge issue between her and her mother. And you had Radiance and her siblings are all sort of increasingly becoming involved with Black Lives Matter. You can see this on their Facebook posts. You can see this on, you know, what they're talking about and the stories that they're sharing publicly.

Alex's views on race seemed more complicated. He obviously grew up with a white mom, and he, I think, embraced some of her ideas of like trying to be colorblind. Darrow tells a story that they went on a road trip together and they went out west. It was Alex. It was a white friend. It was Darrow, who is much more dark complected than Alex. And it was Alex's girlfriend, who is Mong. And so, you know, these four young people going on a road trip out west and they end up in a very white area of Utah and go into a convenience store at the gas station and getting some funny looks. You know, Alex is confused. Alex is saying, why are people looking at us funny? And Darrow has to explain to him, like, it's because of me,

man. You know, they're looking at us because I'm different. I'm Black. For Alex, that was kind of confusing. He didn't see the world that way. He saw the world more like his mom, I think, where race didn't matter. And it sounds like maybe this is a difference between these two friends, in that Darrow thinks, I don't have the privilege of seeing the world that way. Yeah, for sure.

I think Alex didn't see the world through the same lens as Darrow and as his siblings. We'll be right back. So, Kim, you've learned that Alex grows up occupying this kind of in-between space when it comes to race, raised by his white mother with his black siblings and friends thinking he doesn't quite understand the world the way they do. Tell us how this leads to his path toward being a police officer. So, meanwhile, Alex is thinking about what he wants to do with his life and what he wants to be when he grows up. And in high school, he just sort of is flirting with the idea of maybe becoming a police officer. But what he really wanted to do is become a soccer player, a professional soccer player. So he had mentioned the idea of becoming a police officer, but it was nothing like that he was really driven towards.

In fact, he graduates from high school and he decides to go very far away from home for the first time and move to the Bronx and enroll in college there and try to be on the soccer team. And it just doesn't work. And it just doesn't work. He had blown out his ACLs, I think both ACLs, and had surgery. And he just wasn't able to be the soccer player that he once was. And he doesn't know what he wants to do with his life as well. So he packs up and he moves back home to Minneapolis and back home with his mom. And he starts going to the University of Minnesota. and he starts going to the University of Minnesota.

And at the same time, he starts working a part-time job at Macy's looking for shoplifters and working as kind of a security guard and meets like some police officers and former police officers who tell him, hey, this could be a great career for you. You'd be a natural fit. And he starts thinking much more seriously about the idea of

becoming a police officer. And keep in mind, this is in Minneapolis, a place that has been basically like ground zero for Black Lives Matter protests nationally. You know, you had Philando Castile, you had Jamar Clark, you have all these incidents that really have roiled people up in the movement up nationally happening in Minneapolis. And this is when he's deciding to become a police officer. And this doesn't sit well with some people, especially Darrow, his good friend growing up. and Darrow's out on the street. He's protesting, and, you know, they start having these conversations where Darrow's like, you cannot become a police officer, you know. And meanwhile, Alex is saying, yes, I can. I want to become a police officer, and I want to change the force from the inside, and I want to make it better, you know, I want to make it sort of a kinder, gentler police force,

one that will treat my siblings and my friends with respect. And Darrow's saying you cannot change the police force from the inside. The police force will change you. But despite the concerns of his friends and some of his family members, Alex does join the police academy. and some of his family members, Alex does join the police academy. And this causes a rift in their friendship, the friendship between Darrow and Alex. I mean, I don't think it was ever like spoken like this is why we have a rift. But Darrow went from talking to Alex very, very regularly and seeing him often to just talking on the phone. And when Darrow had a negative interaction with the police, he didn't even tell his friend Alex about it,

even though Alex was in the academy. What was the experience? So in August of 2019, Darrow was riding his bike home from work. He worked as a bike mechanic. And he drove by these two police squad cars that were parked right next to each other, sort of blocking part of the road. And I'm a bicyclist. I can't stand like when people are blocking the bike lane. It's really annoying and it's very dangerous. And so he sees these two police cars doing it parked side by side, and he yells at them

that they're blocking the road. And the police then follow him and demand that he dump out his bicycle bag on the ground and then made him pick up the contents. And he felt very humiliated by this. And he also felt like harassed, you know. And he didn't even tell Alex about that. He just felt like Alex was too far gone and that he wouldn't understand and that he would take the side of police. And around the same time, there's another interaction that happens between law enforcement and somebody close to Alex. This time, it's his sibling, Taylor, and he does find out about what happened. Taylor and a friend were in downtown Minneapolis, and they observed sheriff's deputies interrogating and moving to arrest a couple of homeless guys who were allegedly publicly intoxicated. So they move up there. Taylor starts videoing the interaction. No! No!

And Taylor's friend starts, you know, saying, what are you doing and trying to intervene. And... Stop touching me. Stop touching me. You're hurting me. You're hurting me. You're hurting me! You're hurting me! You're hurting me! You're hurting me! The sheriff's deputies pretty aggressively throw Taylor's friend to the ground. Wow.

Put your hands behind your back. For what? And arrest the friend, arrest Taylor. And the sheriff's deputies actually book the two and charge them and take them to the jail. And from the jail, the first person Taylor calls is Alex, who gets Taylor out of jail and sees the video and says that what these sheriff's deputies did was wrong and says that this is not the way that the police and sheriff's deputies should conduct themselves, but makes a distinction that this is the sheriff's office. I'm becoming a Minneapolis police officer. We do things differently. And this is exactly the kind of scenario that I want to stop. This is not the sort of police officer that I am going to be.

So all around Alex King, faith in policing is sort of collapsing. Meanwhile, he is in police training. How does that go? So he has to go to a police academy. And a police academy is where new recruits and cadets are taught the basics of being a modern police officer. And this includes a lot of, you know, the most modern policing techniques. It's going to include de-escalation. It's going to include how do you deal with a mentally ill person that you're responding to? How do you use a taser? All these sort of things.

This is where you're allegedly supposed to be learning how to be a cop. But what I found is the real training takes place after the police academy. Hmm. When a new recruit like Alex is assigned a field training officer or FTO. And like most large police departments across the country use this model. And the idea is that you partner a brand new cop up with a field training officer or FTO who sort of works with them every single day, who grades their performance,

who talks to them, who says, this is what you did well, this is what you did wrong on that particular call. Shows them the ropes. Shows them the ropes. And in the very beginning, the various sort of recruits that I talked to, you're basically told your FTO is God. Forget everything you've learned in the academy. Your FTO is God. And this FTO single-handedly has the ability to say whether you're going to become a police officer or not.

Wow. They can say you've washed out. And in fact, I talked to two people who did wash out at this particular stage in Minneapolis, who both were told that they weren't aggressive enough, that they didn't seem like they would resort to force quickly enough. That's really interesting as a reporter, hearing those kinds of things, that like this idea that you can go through with the academy and the academy can teach you all these different, the most modern sort of policing techniques. This is how you de-escalate.

This is how you deal with a mentally ill person. But then you get to the police force, and there is this one person who can say whether you're going to actually become a police officer or not. Mm-hmm. And for Alex King, his main FDO was Derek Chauvin. Wow. And what did you learn about that relationship?

Well, what I was told is that new recruits have usually three rounds of FTO training, right? And they typically move around to different precincts and work with different FTOs. But King ended up getting Derek Chauvin as his FTO most of the time. He ended up getting Derek Chauvin twice. So more than usual. More than usual. We also learned from Alex's mother that at one time Alex called her quite upset about an interaction he had had with his FTO. What Alex described was doing something that displeased his FTO and being dressed down and being very worried about what that was going to mean. We also learned that Derek Chauvin actually did exercise his authority over when and if Alex King would become a police

officer by delaying the end of his training. And the reason he did that was because he felt like Alex King was responding to too many calls with another rookie. Now, we don't know for certain why that's a problem, but through other reporting I've done on the police, sometimes you're partnered with somebody else if you're an officer. Sometimes you're riding along solo and you've got to respond to calls on your own. And it could be that Chauvin felt like Alex King and the other rookie were not showing enough initiative to respond to calls on their own, right? But the other rookie who also got his probation extended and had to wait before becoming a full-fledged officer was Thomas Lane. Hmm. Who was obviously the same officer that King was partnered with the day that they responded to a

call that somebody had used a counterfeit $20 bill at a corner store. And that, of course, was George Floyd. Right. And that scene was one that Chauvin would soon arrive at as the senior officer. Correct. And King was on his third official day as an officer, and Lane was on his fourth. Well, take us through that scene now, that scene that is so

familiar when it comes to those almost nine minutes when Derek Chauvin is kneeling on George Floyd's neck. But take us through it as it unfolds for King and Lane. So Lane and King show up that evening on a report that a $20 counterfeit bill had been used at a corner store. This is a fake bill from a gentleman, the driver in there. They show up and they go inside and they, you know, find out

that the guy who's suspected of doing so is sitting outside in a car. Man, do you know why we're here? Why? We're here because it sounds like you gave a fake bill to the individuals in there. Yeah. You understand that? Yes. And do you know why we pulled you out of the car?

Because you was not listening to anything we told you. Right, but I didn't know what was going on. You listened to us and we will tell you what's going on, all right? When you're moving around like that, that makes us think way more is going on that we need to know. Right. And that's all I had was obviously was an issue. Gotcha, all right. I'm gonna put you in the back of a squad, all right?

Can I talk to you? Yeah, we're gonna sort all this out, all right? And so they pull him out and they deal with him for quite a while, several minutes. Oh, ouch! Are you on something right now? No, I'm not. Because you act real erratic. Man, I'm scared, man. And George Floyd is obviously under some distress.

Man, I'm scared as f***, man. Oh, man. I can't breathe. He talks about already how he was having a hard time breathing. He talks about his issues with the police. He says he doesn't want to, you know, be arrested. And they're trying to put him in the back of the car. And he's not going.

I got the boomers. I was in the car. Okay, man, okay. I'm not a bad guy, man. In the car. I'm not a bad guy, man. I'm not a bad guy. That is when Derek Chauvin and Tu Tao show up. Chauvin immediately takes over, and it's pretty quick that there is a takedown of Floyd. He will not get in the back of the car.

And so Chauvin and the other officers get Floyd on his stomach, and Chauvin proceeds to put his knee near the back of Floyd's neck. We've all seen this image, right? But to look at it from the perspective of the other officers on the scene, you've got Tao, who's very much doing crowd control, and he's not really involved with what's happening with Floyd at this time. He's just dealing with everybody who's crowding around and saying, like, the man has said he cannot breathe. Get off his back. You've got Alex King, who's controlling, like, the midsection of Floyd, sort of like on his back, making sure that he's not moving around.

And you've got Lane who's on his feet. And, you know, you've got a man who's lying face down, who's continually saying he cannot breathe, who's saying, please. He was calling for his mother, calling mama. Right. And pretty soon he's not saying anything at no point does alex king ever question derrick chauvin he doesn't ask him if this is okay what is happening he doesn't suggest like lane does that they turn george

floyd over on his side king does not challenge derrick chauvin the only thing that he does is help hold down george floyd and tell chauvin that George Floyd has no pulse. And that is it. And then, you know, these officers are all arrested. Darrow Jones talked to Alex King the next night. They talked for a long time. Darrow will not say what they talked about. It was a private conversation, but he cries every time he brings it up.

And Darrow, he went to the protest after George Floyd's death, but he couldn't find it in himself to actually participate because he's so conflicted. Because his friend is one of the cops who's accused of murder. Well, aiding and abetting, yes. Mm-hmm. At least two of Alex's siblings were less conflicted. Radiance and Taylor both participated in the protests that followed George Floyd's death. Hmm. Radiance also said that as a black man, he should have known better and he should have intervened and she said that she planned to change her last name because she did

not want to be associated with her brother's actions so please introduce yourself I'm Taylor Taylor King Taylor appeared in a press conference with the head of the local NAACP chapter to talk about what happened that night with George Floyd. I am the sibling of one of the four officers involved in the murder of George Floyd. My pronouns are they, them, I am, non-binary. Taylor acknowledged being related to Alex, but never mentioned him by name. Hmm. Almost a year ago to the day was May 31st.

Myself and a friend of mine was arrested by sheriffs of the Hennepin County Department. Mm-hmm. Wrongfully so, I must add. And Taylor also acknowledged their own history with the Sheriff's Department and mentioned that taped encounter from 2019 and what it felt like to have this happen just a year later with their brother. It shows, like, on one hand, it shows how much things haven't changed. Mm-hmm.

I mean, I see, like, the things changing now that he has been murdered, but it was, like, the fact that it was allowed to happen, that it was allowed to get up to that point shows that in 2020, how much things haven't changed. Kim, I'm really interested in the question of culpability here, especially now that King is on trial. This is a rookie officer, trained by Derek Chauvin,

and really, in a way, by Derek Chauvin alone. And three days into the job, he ends up in a situation in which his training officer is kneeling on the neck of a man over a petty alleged infraction. He doesn't intervene. In fact, he helps to hold George Floyd down. And of course, Floyd dies as a direct result. What do you make of all those combination of factors? I mean, I think that that's what the federal jury is going to be wrestling with and be deciding. And if you look at what's happening in the courtroom and what's happened so far, everything we've talked about today is pretty much what's played out in the trial so far. You've got the prosecution arguing that these young officers should have

known better, that they were trained in the academy to speak up, to say that what's happening is not right, to do something. And then you have the defense saying, that's not where the real training happened. The real training happened under the FTO, and the FTO was Derek Chauvin. So they're going to be wrestling with that. And I think it goes to the whole idea that if you watch this video, for many people, it seems very cut and dried. And I think it's very easy in the inclination of most people to say, all of these officers bear some culpability for this. They seem complicit. And the jury is going to have to decide to balance these ideas and decide what sort of level of

culpability that there is. But I think that it's just more complicated than you initially think when you watch that video. When you know the backstory and you know that this man, Derek Chauvin, for King, this man held his career in the palm of his hand just a week before. And that makes things a little bit more complicated. And the jury's going to have to sort through all of that. You know, ultimately, King's background, of course, is not what's on trial here. His identity as a Black man who joined the police force in the hope of changing it from within.

But even so, Kim, it too is part of what feels very complicated about this story, that someone who had wanted to make a difference, whose family and friends warned him that he couldn't change policing and that policing would instead change him, that just three days into the job, that prediction turned out to be even more true, more harrowingly true than perhaps anyone could have ever imagined. Yeah. I mean, that's certainly not on trial here. It's just very, very sad. Hmm. You know?

Explain that. It's just, it's just very sad. It's just sad. And it doesn't play into these charges. It doesn't play into what's going to happen to Alex King, you know? Well, it suggests that the people around Alex understood something about policing that he didn't or couldn't. I think that's right. I think that he was very much an optimist, very much a person who was like, sure, I can do this. I can change policing from the inside. But how many people have told themselves that over the last 50 years? How many people have been like, I'm going to be the one to stand up and I'm going to change things from the inside? I mean, in any institution, it's quite difficult to do that. And his friends certainly were more cognizant of that and his siblings.

But I don't think anybody, I mean, nobody would have foreseen this happening so quickly on the job. Something so terribly tragic. Oh, Kim. Thank you very much. We appreciate it. Thanks for having me. The federal trial of the three other officers involved in George Floyd's murder continues this week.

They face charges of willfully failing to intervene against Chauvin or to help Floyd. All three are also facing charges in state court of aiding and abetting murder in a trial scheduled for June. We'll be right back. Here's what else you need to know today. Over the weekend, the U.S. death toll from COVID-19 surpassed 900,000, fueled by the highly contagious Omicron variant and the ongoing unwillingness of many Americans to vaccinate themselves against the virus. The grim milestone came as the overall direction of the pandemic improves.

milestone came as the overall direction of the pandemic improves. New infections in the U.S. are plummeting, having fallen by more than half since mid-January. And U.S. officials have told Congress that a Russian invasion of Ukraine could result in the death of as many as 50,000 civilians and 35,000 soldiers, and could trigger a refugee crisis that could send more than one million people fleeing into Europe. The officials believe that Russia would wait until later this month to act and say the country has assembled 70% of the military forces it would need to pull off a full-scale invasion. In response, Russian officials called the U.S. predictions, quote, madness and scaremongering. Today's episode was produced by Jessica Chung, with help from Sydney Harper.

It was edited by Lisa Tobin, contains original music by Chelsea Daniel and Marion Lozano, and was engineered by Chris Wood. Our theme music is by Jim Brunberg and Ben Landsberg of Wonderly. That's it for The Daily. I'm Michael Barbaro. See you tomorrow.