Wednesday, FNC’s Tucker Carlson examined the circumstances around the Derek Chauvin murder trial set to begin and questioned whether or not Chauvin could have a fair trial given how the incident had played out in the media and nationally.
Carlson argued Chauvin’s right to a fair trial was in peril.
Transcript as follows:
CARLSON: There are a lot of things going on in the world right now, but we thought this was significant. Jury selection has just begun in the murder trial of Derek Chauvin. Chauvin is one of the officers who has been accused of murdering George Floyd in Minneapolis last Memorial Day.
Now on one level, this trial is a local crime story, one of many unfolding right now. But of course, it’s also incalculably more than that.
The death of George Floyd changed the United States profoundly and forever. George Floyd, we were told wasn’t simply an individual, he was every African-American in the country. Derek Chauvin wasn’t just a cop, he was the physical embodiment of America’s institutions.
When Chauvin murdered George Floyd, he was doing to one man what our country has done to all African-Americans. Many people told us this, including Joe Biden.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JOE BIDEN (D), PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I just want to say a few words about the horrific killing of George Floyd in Minnesota, and it sends a very clear message to the black community and black lives that are under threat every single day.
They speak to a nation where too often just the color of your skin put your life at risk.
George Floyd’s last words spoke to a nation where a color of your skin dictates the safety and your future.
I’m a white man. I think, I understand, but I can’t feel it.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CARLSON: George Floyd murdered because he was black. That’s what they told us. They demanded that we believe that, and if you doubted it in any way, if you had any questions about the facts of the case, then you were effectively as guilty as the racist cop who killed George Floyd.
One Theology teacher at a Catholic High School in Columbus, Ohio learned that lesson the hard way. During a virtual class, teacher Deborah DelPrince noted that the cause of George boy’s death was, quote, “disputed.”
Now that’s literally true. The trial hadn’t even begun yet. A dispute is at the core of every trial.
But for the crime of observing the truth, the Catholic Diocese of Columbus fired Deborah DelPrince. According to the Diocese, DelPrince had made quote, “unsupported personal assertions and opinions” about the death of George Floyd.
Tonight, we’re going to do what you are not allowed to do in Catholic high schools in Columbus or anywhere else in America. We’re going to assess calmly and as honestly as we can what happened to George Floyd on Memorial Day.
George Floyd’s death was sad. Every death is sad, as we often point out. But the question is, was it murder? That question matters deeply because George Ford’s death has been used to reshape how we live in this country. Because he died, we have something called equity.
And under the pretext of equity, our leaders have enshrined open racism in nearly all of our institutions. You see it everywhere, from corporate hiring quotas to woke kindergarten lesson plans.
Americans have been told that George Floyd’s death was a racist murder, and they’re responsible for it.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DON LEMON, CNN ANCHOR: It is not incumbent upon black people to stop racism. To stop this, it is incumbent upon people who hold the power in this society to help to do that, to do the heavy lifting. And guess who that is? Who is that, Chris?
CHRIS CUOMO, CNN ANCHOR: White people.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CARLSON: “White people,” quote, are responsible. CNN said that out loud, but many others joined them.
Now that assertion led to rioting that killed at least 19 people and may kill more. It destroyed hundreds of businesses.
Minneapolis, where all of this began, may never return to normal. This is what the city looked like last year.
[VIDEO CLIP PLAYS]
CARLSON: That was last summer before the City Council of Minneapolis cut funding for the police. The city hasn’t gotten any safer then.
In the first weeks of January this year, Minneapolis saw a 250 percent increase in gunshot victims compared to last year. The neighborhood where George Floyd died is now more dangerous than ever. Businesses are boarded up. Residents call it George Floyd Square.
We visited that neighborhood a few weeks ago and walked around just to see what it was like, got lunch at the convenience store where George Floyd passed his fake 20.
The whole place was awful. It was not improved. It was much worse. Nothing BLM has done in the City of Minneapolis has improved the lives of the people who live there. On Saturday night, a man was shot to death in that neighborhood.
A reporter from “The Washington Examiner,” Joe Simonson, tried to get to George Floyd Square to find out what had happened. He’s a reporter, but he couldn’t. He was informed that no white people were allowed in.
So that is a snapshot of the equity that George Floyd’s death has been used to justify. No fault of George Floyd’s, but that’s what’s happened.
The second reason we’re going to assess what exactly happened to George Floyd is that it’s likely that Derek Chauvin won’t receive a fair trial.
Now, you may not care but you should care. That should matter to you, regardless of who you voted for. Every American deserves a fair trial. Period. That’s the whole point of this country. Equal justice under the law. There is no other point.
But will Chauvin have a fair trial? Hundreds of activists, some dressed in all black have been staring down National Guard troops outside the courthouse in Minneapolis all week. They shut down streets outside the courthouse on Monday.
“We need justice, people,” one shouted, justice by any means necessary. In other words, if you vote to acquit Derek Chauvin, the mob is saying, the community will burn because we will burn it. It’s like something from Mississippi in the 1920s.
Where is the Justice Department in the middle of all this? Where is the so-called Civil Rights Division to protect the Civil Rights of Derek Chauvin, who, by the way, has Civil Rights? Yes, even accused cops have the right to a fair trial. Your Civil Rights are not suspended when you’re accused. This is America.
But of course, the Civil Rights Division is nowhere to be found. They’re doing nothing. So not surprisingly, during jury selection yesterday, several jurors expressed a reluctance to have anything to do with the case.
Would you want to be a juror? I don’t think so.
One prospective juror explained the threats he would face.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
QUESTION: Can you tell us why you weren’t sure?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It’s is more from a safety security standpoint. As far as I’m concerned, I feel comfortable and safe, but I just wouldn’t want any, you know, any issues or harm to come to my wife or my family.
If I had to meet certain individuals that were — were out to — to intimidate or cause harm. I mean, they — if they knew where I lived, I mean, it’s a potential they could, you know, do damage to the house or scraping the house or garage door break a window.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CARLSON: So the jurors are intimidated. That’s the point of mob justice. It was the point of mob justice a hundred years ago in the American South, it’s the point of mob justice in Minneapolis today.
The thugs outside the courthouse don’t want jurors to focus on the evidence they know that evidence might not help their case. Much of that evidence hasn’t been seen by most of the American population. The effort to hide it began immediately after George Floyd died.
Everyone has seen the footage of Derek Chauvin with his knee on George Floyd’s neck. It’s horrible. It’s also confusing.
As you watch it, you ask yourself, why would a police officer act like that? Of course, it must be illegal. No one in the media thought to tell us that in fact, using a knee to restrain an uncooperative suspect is the official policy of the Minneapolis Police Department.
In fact, it’s taught at the Police Academy.
You’re seeing a slide from training from the academy on your screen right now.
But you didn’t see that slide last summer because our media were busy building a murder case against Derek Chauvin and using it to transform this country, which they successfully have.
Nor did anyone in the press think to report what happened before Derek Chauvin put his knee on George Floyd’s neck.
Authorities in Minnesota made certain that no one could see the bodycam footage that showed it. Body cams exist so that we can know what happened, but they hid this footage, and we only saw it because The Daily Mail, which is from Great Britain and therefore slightly less terrified and dishonest than our own media are, got a copy of it.
The bodycam video showed officers working for about 20 minutes trying to detain a man who they believe had just committed a crime, passing a fake $20.00 bill, a man who clearly had lost all sense of reality.
The footage showed George Floyd begging officers to stay with him. He was clearly suffering. The tape is wrenching to watch. It really is and by the end, you are filled with sympathy for George Floyd. But it’s not the picture of a murder.
The incident began around 8:00 p.m. on May 24 when a grocery clerk called police to report that George Floyd had used a counterfeit bill. Officers found Floyd in a car nearby. Immediately, it was very obvious that something was very wrong with George Floyd.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Hands-on top of your head. Step out of the vehicle and step away from me, all right.
Step out, face away. Step out and face away.
GEORGE FLOYD: Please, don’t shoot me. Please, man.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I’m not going to shoot you. Step out and face away.
FLOYD: Please, I am going to get out. Please don’t shoot me, man.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I am not going to shoot you.
FLOYD: Please, man. I just lost my mom, man.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Step out and face away.
FLOYD: I’m so sorry.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Step out and face away.
FLOYD: Please, don’t shoot me, Mr. Officer. Please, don’t shoot me, man.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Step out and face away.
FLOYD: Please, can you not shoot me, man?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I am not shooting you. Step out and face away.
FLOYD: Okay, okay. Okay. Please, please. Please, man. Please. Please. I didn’t know, man. I didn’t know.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Get out of the car.
FLOYD: I didn’t know, Mr. Officer. I didn’t know.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CARLSON: So George Floyd was emotionally out of control, and that’s why you feel so deeply for George Floyd, some of us did. I did, as you watch that video. He’s panicked. He’s terrified. He’s hysterical.
The question is why? The Minneapolis Police Department does not have some fabled history of police brutality. It just doesn’t. And this certainly wasn’t George Floyd’s first encounter with law enforcement.
From 1997 to 2007, Texas Police arrested George Floyd a total of nine times on charges ranging from drug possession to theft. Then on August 9, 2007, George Floyd barged into a woman’s home and held a gun to her abdomen in front of her toddler. It was a home invasion and George Floyd got five years in prison for participating in it.
So he’d been in custody before. Why was George Floyd on the verge of hysteria? The police officers wondered the same thing. “You’ve got foam around your mouth,” said one cop to Floyd. A bystander looking on said to George Floyd, “You’re going to die of a heart attack.”
Police then asked Floyd if he had taken drugs.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
FLOYD: Ouch, man.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Are you on something right now?
FLOYD: No, nothing.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Because you’re acting a little erratic.
FLOYD: I am just scared, man.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Let’s go. Let’s go.
FLOYD: Man.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CARLSON: “Are you on something right now?” The police officer asked. “No,” says George Floyd. But that wasn’t close to true.
According to the Hennepin County Medical Examiner’s Office, George Floyd wasn’t simply high, he had a lethal dose of fentanyl in his system. He also had methamphetamine.
The autopsy report showed that Floyd had 11 nanograms of fentanyl per millimeter of blood in his system when he was tested at the hospital. How much is that? It’s more than three times the amount of fentanyl required to kill a healthy person.
Again, that’s not our judgment. That’s directly from the autopsy report, the one that people didn’t see until after the riots. Quote, “Signs associated with fentanyl toxicity include severe respiratory depression, seizures, hypotension, coma and death. In fatalities from fentanyl, blood concentrations are variable and have been reported as low as three nanograms of fentanyl per millimeter of blood.”
Now, no one is denying this. The Floyd family’s own lawyer admits that it’s true quote: “It’s true that the Hennepin County Medical Examiner’s autopsy showed that Floyd had fentanyl in his system,” he conceded. But then he insisted that George Floyd was actually killed by racism.
In fact, the medical examiner — and you can read this online — found that George Floyd’s heart was diseased. On Memorial Day, it finally gave way.
According to a press release from the Medical Examiner’s Office, Floyd’s quote, “cause of death” was cardiopulmonary arrest complicating law enforcement subdual, restraint and neck compressions.” Contributing factors included, quote, “arteriosclerotic and hypertensive heart disease, fentanyl intoxication, recent methamphetamine use.”
According to the report, George Floyd also was infected with COVID. That’s a lot.
In August, after months of rioting, documents related to the autopsy were finally released in court. One was a memo detailing a conversation the prosecutor’s office had with Andrew Baker. Baker was the Chief Hennepin County Medical Examiner.
Baker told prosecutors that quote, “Mr. Floyd, if he had been found dead in his home or anywhere else, and there were no other contributing factors, we would conclude it was an overdose death.”
The memo noted that Baker said Floyd’s fentanyl levels were quote, ” … pretty high,” and that, ” … it is a fatal level of fentanyl under normal circumstances,” end quote.
In a separate memo, Baker announced, quote: “The autopsy revealed no physical evidence suggesting that Mr. Floyd died of asphyxiation.”
Well, Mr. Floyd was having trouble breathing, of course, the most noted part of the tape. What explains that? Why was George Floyd telling officers, “I can’t breathe”?
Well, here’s one possible explanation. One of the primary symptoms of fentanyl overdose is, quote, “slowed or stopped breathing, leading to unconsciousness and death.” That might also explain while George Floyd was saying “I can’t breathe” long before any police officer’s knee was anywhere near him.
In fact, George Floyd was complaining that he couldn’t breathe as cops tried to get him in a police car as he resisted.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I’ll roll the windows down, okay.
FLOYD: We will see, man. Please don’t —
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Take a seat.
FLOYD: I am going in. I am going to go in.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: No, you’re not.
FLOYD: I am going to go in.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: No you’re not.
FLOYD: I am going to go in.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Take a seat.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Have a seat, man.
FLOYD: Why don’t you all believe me?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Take a seat.
FLOYD: I am not that kind of guy. I’m not that kind of guy, man.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Take a seat.
FLOYD: Yo, I’m going to die in here.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Take a seat.
FLOYD: I am going to die, man. Can I be in the front? Please?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: No, you’re not sitting in the front. We are in the dark.
FLOYD: OK, man. Okay. I am not a bad guy, man.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Get in the car.
FLOYD: I’m not a bad guy. Please, officer. Please.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Please seat. Please, take a seat.
FLOYD: Please, please.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Take a seat.
FLOYD: OK. Please.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CARLSON: Again, no one can watch that footage without feeling sympathy for the man in handcuffs. He is terrified. But does that footage amount to a murder? No, it doesn’t. It so clearly doesn’t.
The problem is that nobody saw that footage during the riots last summer or before them, they weren’t allowed to see it. And that could be why last June, 60% of respondents in the USA Today/Ipsos poll described George Floyd’s death as a murder. That was then.
More facts have emerged from behind the media blackout, including the tape we just showed you. And that perception has changed accordingly, and it has changed dramatically.
The percentage of Americans who believe George Floyd was murdered has now dropped by double digits, it’s down to 36 percent. In other words, the question of whether George Floyd was murdered is in fact disputed by a majority of Americans.
The bad news is, you’re still not allowed to say that out loud.
Follow Jeff Poor on Twitter @jeff_poor
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