The Shakerite VOL 91 ISSUE I

the FBI would be joining the investigation. Before
the video was seen by the public, Chauvin and the
police officers who stood by and did not intervene
were placed on administrative leave, but the video
forced further investigation and the firing of all
four officers.
In addition to saying Floyd resisted arrest,
the MPD’s original statement also claimed Floyd
“appeared to be suffering medical distress” and
made no mention of the officer’s knee on his neck.
On Floyd’s autopsy, the cause of death is listed as
“cardiopulmonary arrest complicating law enforcement
subdual, restraint, and neck compression,”
and the manner of death is listed as a homicide.
The video, recorded by a 17-year-old bystander,
proved essential to achieving accountability for
Floyd’s death. But the video did not have to be
viewed millions of times for the officer to be held
accountable.
Watching a person being killed is very distressing
and can cause emotional trauma. Tweets
of the video of Floyd’s death were viewed around
1.4 billion times between May 25 and June 5. It is
not possible to know how many of those 1.4 billion
views were those of Black people, for whom the
trauma is immeasurably worse.
The trauma and anger that emerged after
watching Chauvin murder Floyd is nothing new,
however. Since 2014, videos of police killing Black
citizens have appeared online steadily, and in the
last year, increasingly often.
On Feb. 23, 2020, Ahmaud Arbery, a 25-year-old
Black man, was shot and killed by two white men
in Brunswick, GA while jogging through the men’s
neighborhood. A bystander’s footage was posted on
social media and spread widely. The two men were
not arrested at first. A lawyer who had informally
consulted with the suspects leaked the video May
5, and the shooters were arrested and charged with
murder and aggravated assault May 7.
Videos of police killing Black men have been
circulating through social media since a video
depicted Eric Garner, a
Poster held up by protestors
at BLM march
in Cleveland on May 30.
Photo by David Vahey.
43-year-old Black man, being
killed by Staten Island police
while in custody in 2014. A
Spring 2021 THE SHAKERITE 37