“[George] Floyd’s death changed everything,” Fox News’ Tucker Carlson told viewers two nights ago, calling it “a pivot point in American history.”
Given “the significance of the event, it’s striking how little we really know months later about how exactly George Floyd died,” argued Carlson, before playing bits of the 18-minutes of police cam video obtained by Britain’s Daily Mail. “The official storyline … couldn’t be clearer. Established news organizations state as a matter of factual certainty that Floyd was … murdered by a Minneapolis police officer.”
“But does it reflect what really happened?” Carlson asked.
“Floyd had a number of narcotics in his system, including enough fentanyl to die of an overdose,” the Fox host advised. “One of the best-known symptoms of fentanyl overdose, by the way, is shortness of breath. In the video, Floyd complains that he is having trouble breathing, famously, but says that long before the police officer kneels on his neck.”
Writers at The Wrap and The Huffington Post quickly took Carlson to task for suggesting that the new video evidence in any way altered the media narrative of events, pointing out that two separate autopsies determined Floyd’s death to be a homicide.*
Neither a medical doctor nor a criminologist, Carlson is right about two things:
(1) “The American people should have been allowed to see police body camera footage … much sooner than this week.”
(2) “You can decide for yourself what you think of that video.”
The point of police wearing body cameras is to give the public as clear a picture as possible. Had the full video been seen earlier, some of this summer’s violence may have been forestalled.
It should not take someone violating a court order to hit play for the public.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
* Later in the program, Carlson expressed his opinion that the tape fails to exonerate Officer Derek Chauvin, who held his knee on Floyd’s neck for eight minutes.
—
See all recent commentary
(simplified and organized)