Skip to main content

Officer Charged in Floyd’s Death Hasn’t Committed Suicide

Quick Take
A viral story shared on social media is falsely claiming that Derek Chauvin, the former Minneapolis police officer charged with killing George Floyd, committed suicide in his prison cell.

Full Story 
As national tensions surged over the death of George Floyd in police custody, a dubious website published a story on May 31 falsely claiming that the former Minneapolis police officer charged with killing Floyd had committed suicide.

“Minneapolis Police Officer who killed George Floyd, Derek Chauvin commits suicide in prison cell,” reads the erroneous headline on w24n.com.

The website sources the story to WCCO in Minneapolis, but that station has not reported as much, and the story also claims the information had been “reported” by “U.S media.” There have been no such credible news reports.
Instead, news coverage has tracked Chauvin’s whereabouts: After he was arrested on May 29, he was initially held in the Ramsey County Jail, then Hennepin County Jail, and then transferred to a maximum-security state prison, the Minnesota Correctional Facility – Oak Park Heights. A TMZ story, citing an unnamed source, said Chauvin was “effectively” on suicide watch while in Ramsey County.

Regardless, the false w24n.com story about Chauvin racked up nearly 100,000 Facebook engagements, according to CrowdTangle analytics data. It was also spread separately through screenshots of the headline.

The website is registered to someone in Kenya and describes itself as a “world leader in online news and information” and claims that it has “almost 200 journalists” around the world, even though there is no staff list on the website.

The site has previously pushed an unsubstantiated claim that former President Barack Obama tested positive for the novel coronavirus; we’ve seen no evidence to support that assertion. It has also republished content from other outlets without attribution, such as a story about the COVID-19 death toll in Italy that was reported by Reuters and a story taken from TMZ about a tornado in Arkansas.

Chauvin, a 44-year-old white police officer, was arrested on May 29 on charges of third-degree murder and second-degree manslaughter. Chauvin was seen in a viral video kneeling on Floyd’s neck, while the 46-year-old black man repeatedly said he could not breathe. Three other officers involved in the May 25 arrest have also been fired.

According to the criminal complaint, Chauvin had his “knee on Mr. Floyd’s neck for 8 minutes and 46 seconds in total. Two minutes and 53 seconds of this was after Mr. Floyd was non-responsive.”
“Police are trained that this type of restraint with a subject in a prone position is inherently dangerous,” the complaint said.

Editor’s note: FactCheck.org is one of several organizations working with Facebook to debunk misinformation shared on social media. Our previous stories can be found here.

Sources
Gottfried, Mara H. “Ex-Minneapolis officer charged in George Floyd’s death held in Ramsey County Jail.” Pioneer Press. 30 May 2020.

Hennepin County Attorney’s Office. “County Attorney Mike Freeman to announce new developments in Floyd death.” Facebook Live video. 29 May 2020. 

State of Minnesota vs. Derek Michael Chauvin | Complaint. Hennepin County Attorney’s Office. 29 May 2020.

Thiede, Dana. “Former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin transferred to Oak Park Heights state prison.” KARE 11. 1 Jun 2020

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Black Adam Can Be The DCEU’s Wolverine

The upcoming Black Adam movie could position its title character as DC's equivalent to Wolverine. Though Black Adam has taken quite a long time to get rolling, the first day of DC FanDome gave a peak at what audiences can expect, from name-dropping several Justice Society of America members who make appearances to Dwayne Johnson stressing the harsh origins of the title character. Johnson's description of Black Adam himself also may offer a sense of just what role he'll occupy in the world of the DCEU. Johnson would place particular emphasis on Black Adam having been a slave who achieves his freedom after being granted power from the gods and who now seeks to unleash his own brand of justice on the world. Aside from the moral ambiguity of Black Adam, Johnson has also repeatedly spoken of him as a game-changing figure in the DCEU with the power level that he operates at. Meanwhile, with the way Black Adam is being presented as a character, he could carry some notable parallel...
Post a Comment
Read more

Epic Games asks court to stop Apple's 'retaliation' after App Store ban

Epic Games said late on Friday that it has asked a court to stop what it saw as Apple Inc's retaliation against the "Fortnite" creator after the iPhone maker terminated Epic Games' account on its App Store. Epic Games filed for a preliminary injunction that would put its game back in the App Store and restore its developer account. The filing was made in the United States District Court for the Northern District of California. It argued that Epic Games is "likely to suffer irreparable harm" in the absence of a preliminary injunction and that "the balance of harms tips sharply in Epic's favor". The filing described the iPhone maker as a "monopolist" that maintains its monopolies by "explicitly prohibiting any competitive entry". Late last week, Apple terminated Epic Games' account on its App Store amid a legal battle over the iPhone maker's in-app payment guidelines and accusations they constitute a monopoly. Apple sa...
Post a Comment
Read more

Who will be the next James Bond? Eight candidates for 007 after No Time to Die

Helen Barlow considers the chances of the actors mentioned as potential successors to Daniel Craig, considered the best incarnation of 007 since Sean Connery James Norton, who tells her he likes to explore ‘the inner conflict’ of his characters, and Outlander’s Sam Heughan, a Scot, are the current favourites The announcement of which actor will next play James Bond is still some way off, but that hasn’t stopped the speculation about who it will be. Daniel Craig leaves big shoes to fill after his fifth and final turn as the British special agent in  No Time to Die.   Whether the lucky actor will be well known or a surprise pick, as Craig was, remains to be seen. Age is another factor, given that actors can spend a decade playing 007. As we wait for news, it is interesting to cast our minds back to a time when the film series was in the doldrums – before Pierce Brosnan came along it had been failing, propelled downwards by Timothy Dalton’s  License to Kill  (1989), the least successful o...
Post a Comment
Read more