George Floyd told the police officers who arrested him that he couldn’t breathe, was claustrophobic and afraid of being killed by police before being pinned to the ground by officers, according to court filings that provide new details of his May 25 killing.
The filing came from an attorney representing Thomas Lane, one of the officers charged in the killing, who asked a Hennepin County judge Tuesday to dismiss charges of abetting second-degree murder against his client, saying the officer didn’t play an intentional role in the slaying.
Mr. Lane said the officers had pinned Mr. Floyd to the ground after he struggled while being arrested, including smashing his head against glass inside the squad car until he bled.
The filing includes transcripts of body camera footage and interviews with Mr. Lane who said he believed Mr. Floyd was in medical distress and repeatedly asked his more senior officer, Derek Chauvin, if they should roll Mr. Floyd on his side.
In videos that emerged after Mr. Floyd’s May 25 killing, Mr. Chauvin is seen kneeling on Mr. Floyd’s neck for around 8 minutes. Mr. Lane is holding down Mr. Floyd’s feet while another officer is on his back. A fourth keeps concerned bystanders away.
Mr. Chauvin has been charged with second-degree murder and the other three, including Mr. Lane, have been charged with aiding and abetting second-degree murder.
When officers first approached Mr. Floyd—who was sitting in his car—on suspicion of using a counterfeit $20 bill, he wouldn’t immediately show his hands, so Mr. Lane drew his weapon, but put it away after Mr. Floyd complied, according to the filings. Still, Mr. Floyd wouldn’t get out of the car.
“Please don’t shoot me, Mr. Officer. Please, don’t shoot me man,” Mr. Floyd said, according to a transcript of body camera footage.
“Step out and face away. I’m not shooting. Step out and face away,” Mr. Lane said.
“Okay, okay, okay. Please. Please, man. Please. Please,” Mr. Floyd said.
“Get out of the car,” Mr. Lane said.
“Stop resisting Floyd!” said one of the other passengers in the car.
As officers tried to get Mr. Floyd to walk to a squad car, he repeatedly said he couldn’t breathe and was claustrophobic. When officers finally got him inside the car, Mr. Floyd began to thrash and hit his head against the glass inside the squad car, causing his mouth to bleed, the new filing says.
Officers called an ambulance because of the bleeding and then held Mr. Floyd down on the ground because they believed he would injure himself further if he wasn’t restrained, according to the filing.
“I can’t breathe,” Mr. Floyd said at one point while he was on the ground.
“You’re fine, you’re talking fine,” said officer J. Alexander Kueng, according to a transcription of body camera footage.
“I’m through, I’m through. I’m claustrophobic. My stomach hurts. My neck hurts. Everything hurts. Need some water or something, please. Please? Can’t breathe officer,” Mr. Floyd said, adding later: “You’re going to kill me, man.”
“Then stop talking, stop yelling, it takes a heck of a lot of oxygen to talk,” Mr. Chauvin replied.
When Mr. Floyd stopped kicking, Mr. Lane, a rookie, asked if they should move him on his side, speculating that he was in a state of “excited delirium,” according to the documents.
Mr. Lane didn’t have a “clear view” of Mr. Floyd’s neck and therefore couldn’t know what Mr. Chauvin, his superior, was doing, according to the motion, filed Tuesday by his attorney, Earl Gray.
Mr. Lane, however, said in his police interview that he could see that Mr. Chauvin had placed his knee “along the back or the neck area at the bottom of the base of the neck.”
According to the criminal complaint filed by prosecutors in June, “None of the officers moved from their positions” on top of Mr. Floyd, even after Mr. Floyd stopped breathing or speaking and after Mr. Kueng checked Mr. Floyd’s wrist for a pulse and found none.
Mr. Lane, 37 years old, became a police officer assigned to the Third Precinct in December 2019. The day he arrested Mr. Floyd was his fourth shift.
Mr. Lane attempted to give Mr. Floyd CPR in the ambulance and was just following Mr. Chauvin’s lead, according to the filing.
“Our argument is that he had no knowledge that a crime was committed, if in fact a crime was committed,” which he doesn’t believe is the case, Mr. Gray said in a brief telephone interview. “And he did not willfully assist in committing any crime.”
In court documents, Mr. Gray says the decision to restrain Mr. Floyd was reasonably justified and that a coroner’s report didn’t find any physical findings of asphyxia to indicate that Mr. Chauvin was substantially kneeling on Mr. Floyd’s neck.
The county medical examiner did, however, rule the death a homicide and found the cause of death was “cardiopulmonary arrest complicating law enforcement subdual, restraint, and neck compression.” Its autopsy results also indicated heart disease, fentanyl intoxication and recent methamphetamine use.
Private medical examiners hired by Mr. Floyd’s family also ruled the death a homicide, but said the cause was mechanical asphyxia, the result of Minneapolis police officers compressing Mr. Floyd’s neck and back.
—Julie Wernau contributed to this article.
Write to Joe Barrett at joseph.barrett@wsj.com
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