With the body footage of the events that led up to the death of George Floyd now public, Fox News host Tucker Carlson believes its contents were purposely shielded from the public.
Carlson made the speculation on Tuesday after leaked footage, first published Monday by the Daily Mail, depicted Floyd’s arrest in Minneapolis after he was confronted by police officers. In it, Floyd can be heard begging police not to shoot him, and officers asked him if he is “on something.” The video captured the moments before now-fired officer Derek Chauvin was seen in a separate video kneeling on Floyd’s neck for nearly nine minutes.
“Why haven’t we seen the rest of the video until right now?” Carlson said on his show. “The video seems relevant, particularly considering all that has happened next. And the answer to why we haven’t seen it is simple. Because Keith Ellison — he’s the attorney general in Minnesota — hid the video from the public. He refused to release the footage, and he admitted it.”
Carlson then showed a clip of Ellison saying he wasn’t sure about a timeline on releasing the body camera footage ahead of Chauvin’s trial. Chauvin was charged with second-degree murder and manslaughter while three other officers involved with Floyd’s detainment, Thomas Lane, Tou Thao, and J. Alexander Kueng, were charged with aiding and abetting the charges.
Ellison said he was not the source of the leaked footage.
“‘I’m a firm believer in transparency and the public’s right to know,’ says Keith Ellison,” Carlson said. “But apparently, that’s not true. Videos like this are released all the time by authorities. In this case, it was hidden. And in fact, if it weren’t for a leak to a foreign newspaper, we wouldn’t have seen that video.”
Carlson also criticized the vast national reckoning on racism and police brutality that followed Floyd’s death, including calls to defund law enforcement departments.
“The catechism has been written, and it’s in stone,” he said. “George Floyd is a martyr, period. That’s all you need to know, shut up. But in America, that’s not good enough. It’s not a real answer. In free societies, citizens have a right to know why things are changing so quickly.”
