Chilling body cam transcripts show George Floyd cried out, "They'll kill me," as police held him down.
As he lay dying, George Floyd cried out "I can't breathe" more than 20 times, according to newly released transcripts from police body cam footage.
Floyd, 46, not only called for his dead mother, he called to his children as well. “Momma, I love you. Tell my kids I love them. I’m dead," he said.
The chilling transcripts were included in a court filing by one of the officers on the scene, Thomas Lane, 37, to have charges that he aided and abetted Floyd's killing be thrown out of court.
Lane and J. Alexander Kueng, 26, were both rookie officers in the May 25 encounter with Floyd in Minneapolis. Another officer, Tou Thao, 34, was charged with aiding and abetting Floyd’s murder.
Derek Chauvin, 44, pressed his knee on Floyd’s neck for more than eight minutes. The 19-year veteran is charged with second-degree murder and second-degree manslaughter. All four officers have been fired. None have entered pleas.
As Floyd pleaded that he couldn't breathe, Chauvin said, "Then stop talking, stop yelling, it takes a heck of a lot of oxygen to talk," according to the transcript.
At one point, Lane, who was holding Floyd's legs, asked if the man should be moved, according to the transcript. Floyd was being held face-down on the pavement by the officers, who had responded to a call from a store owner who reported Floyd had passed a counterfeit $20 bill.
Floyd: My face is getting it bad.
Lane: Here, should we get his legs up, or is this good?
Chauvin: Leave him.
As Floyd was heard speaking for the last time, Lane asks again.
Floyd: Ah! Ah! Please. Please. Please.
Lane: Should we roll him on his side?
Chauvin: No, he's staying put where we got him.
Lane: OK. I just worry about the excited delirium or whatever.
Chauvin: Well that's why we have the ambulance coming.
Lane's attorney, Earl Gray, said in an interview Wednesday that the court should make the video from the body cameras public.
"I think the public should see it," he said. "That shows the whole picture. If they watch the whole thing, people ... couldn't cherry-pick parts of it."
"It's not a case where he's standing by watching another cop pound on somebody's head," Gray said. "This is a case where my client twice — twice — asked if we should turn him over and the answer from [Chauvin] was no."
The court filings contained 82 pages of body camera transcripts and the 60-page transcript of Lane's interview with officials from Minnesota’s Bureau of Criminal Apprehension.
Lane was asked whether he thought Floyd was having a medical emergency. “Yeah, I felt maybe that something was going on.”
Floyd's death unleashed demonstrations and protests across the country. His pleas of "I can't breathe," became a rallying cry of protesters.
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