George Floyd did not die of a drug overdose. Why does misinformation about his death persist?
Five years ago, on May 25, 2020, a white Minneapolis police officer killed George Floyd, a 46-year-old Black man, during an arrest.
A bystander’s video showed officer Derek Chauvin kneeling on Floyd’s neck for about nine minutes as Floyd pleaded that he couldn’t breathe. The footage sparked weeks of global protests against police brutality and racism. It contributed to a jury’s murder conviction against Chauvin and a federal investigation into the police department.
Although ample evidence showed that Chauvin and police misconduct were to blame for Floyd’s death, another narrative quickly emerged — that Floyd died because of a drug overdose, not because of Chauvin’s actions.
Five years later, that falsehood is central to calls for President Donald Trump to pardon Chauvin.
Related Knowledge Center: Fact-checking and its detractors
Fact-checking has become a familiar tool for political reporters to hold office-holders and candidates accountable. But critics ask if fact-checkers sometimes miss the forest for the trees, and if the practice often struggles with false equivalency the way conventional political coverage does.