Fact checking right-wing media’s claims about George Floyd and Derek Chauvin

A new narrative is taking root in the story of George Floyd and the former police officer convicted of murdering him.

It is manifesting on online message boards, where Floyd is called a “drug addict” and “career criminal” who died of an overdose, not by the knee of Derek Chauvin. Social media posts say Chauvin was a victim of mob justice and a corrupt legal system. Earlier this year, Elon Musk, one of Donald Trump’s closest allies, elevated a petition asking the president to pardon Chauvin.

A Minnesota Star Tribune analysis found this counternarrative is shaped by reports from conservative media stars like Tucker Carlson, Ben Shapiro and others, along with Minnesota-based right-wing site Alpha News. Some of the claims central to the new story were first raised at trial and are now getting renewed attention. Others are blatantly false or lacking critical context. (Read the full story on the evolution of these claims and their veracity here.) Below is a fact check on some of the popular assertions propelling the revisionist story of Floyd‘s murder and the aftermath.

In the days after Floyd‘s killing, Lt. Bob Kroll, then the head of the Minneapolis police union, sent a letter to rank-and-file members lamenting that the media would not report on Floyd‘s “violent criminal history.” Days later, political commentator Candace Owens published a video referring to Floyd as “an example of a violent criminal his entire life — up until the very last moment." Floyd‘s history of criminal convictions has since become a pillar of the right-wing media’s version of the Floyd story, including in a documentary produced by Liz Collin of Alpha News, who is married to Kroll.

Though some posts exaggerate the extent, the central claim is true. From 1997 to 2009, Floyd had criminal convictions in his former home of Harris County, Texas, for felony robbery with a deadly weapon, theft and multiple drug-related cases, according to the county’s court database. He had no serious criminal convictions since living in Minnesota.

Some claims about Floyd‘s history are not true, including a meme that purports to show a photo of a pregnant woman beaten by Floyd. The woman in this photo is not Aracely Henriquez, as the post claims. It is a woman named Andrea Sicignano, who posted these images of her injuries after being assaulted in Madrid.

Floyd was convicted in a 2007 case of robbing a woman named Aracely Henriquez at gunpoint. However, there is no mention in court documents that she was pregnant, a claim made by Owens that has appeared in several viral posts.

In an October 2023 video viewed more than 23 million times, Tucker Carlson said: “George Floyd, according to the official autopsy, was not murdered.” The popular right-wing host claimed that records show “conclusively” that Floyd died of a drug overdose, not by Chauvin’s knee. Carlson and others have since repeated this and similar claims. But this is false. The official medical examiner‘s report lists the manner of Floyd‘s death as a “homicide”— the medical term for a death caused by another person — and a jury convicted Chauvin of murder in April 2021.

The report does list fentanyl, methamphetamine and heart disease as “significant conditions.” But the same document says the cause of death was “cardiopulmonary arrest complicating law enforcement subdual, restraint, and neck compression.”

In court, Hennepin County Medical Examiner Andrew Baker, who conducted the autopsy referred to by Carlson, stated definitively that drugs and other factors “did not directly cause the death.”

“Mr. Floyd‘s use of fentanyl did not cause the subdual or neck restraint; his heart disease did not cause the subdual or the neck restraint,” Baker said.

Alpha News’ “The Fall of Minneapolis” documentary begins with a provocative claim: “Here‘s what politicians and the media didn’t want you to see ...” It then shows body-camera footage from officers Thomas Lane and J. Alexander Kueng first encountering Floyd, who is acting erratically. Carlson also ran a segment suggesting the media suppressed these videos from the public, part of a larger “media blackout” of information that didn’t fit the “official narrative.”

In fact, both local and national news published these videos three years before “The Fall of Minneapolis.” Several news outlets, including the Star Tribune, argued in court for the videos to be available for publication after a judge initially limited viewing to computer terminals in the courthouse.

In a video titled “Derek Chauvin’s Trial Was Nothing Short of MOB RULE,” Ben Shapiro says prominent politicians made public comments on the case before the jury rendered a verdict. This is true. President Joe Biden told reporters he was “praying for the right verdict,” calling the evidence “overwhelming.” U.S. Rep. Maxine Waters urged protesters to “get more confrontational” if the jury reached a not-guilty verdict.

Judge Peter Cahill, who presided over the case, expressed intense frustration with the commentary, saying in court he “wished public officials would stop talking about this case.” He criticized Waters’ comments as “disrespectful to the rule of law.” But Cahill rejected a defense motion for a mistrial.

Shapiro claims these comments, along with news of a record settlement to Floyd‘s family while jurors were being seated, contributed to undue influence on the verdict. Jurors have rejected the notion they were intimidated into the decision. In a joint interview with CNN, a panel of jurors described how they carefully weighed the evidence and testimony and reached a verdict free of outside influence, pushing back on “misconceptions.”

“It wasn’t an easy task,” said one juror. “We took this very seriously.”

“I just want the truth out,” said another. “People are saying we were pressured to give that verdict that day. Like, there was pressure on us to convict. Which was not true. We went through everything … before we made our decision.”

“Fall of Minneapolis” repeatedly draws attention to Kueng’s race as a Black man, with Collin asking why this is “rarely ever mentioned,” while “practically everyone” focuses on Chauvin being white. Kueng notes in the movie that one of the other officers on scene, Tou Thao, is Asian, meaning half of those charged in the case were not white. “I think that was something they just didn’t want to admit,” says Kueng. “Specifically my race — because, again, it goes really counterintuitive to the way the narrative goes. They couldn’t backpedal.”

This is false. Kueng’s race played significantly into his story as it unfolded in the media and courtroom. In June 2020, a month after Floyd‘s killing, the New York Times published an article titled “The Black Officer Who Detained George Floyd Had Pledged to Fix the Police‚” which focused on Kueng’s ethnicity and background and how he fit into the larger conversation about law enforcement and race in America. The story featured interviews from Kueng’s family, including two siblings who had called for their brother to be arrested. Opinion columnists used Kueng as an example of how hiring minority officers isn’t a “silver bullet” for police reform. News articles regularly specified Keung’s race and included his mugshot or other images of him.

At his federal trial, Kueng spoke about growing up with a Black father and white mother. “All my siblings are all minorities,” he told jurors. “We’re all African American.”