How the Right Has Reshaped the Narrative Around George Floyd
(Original published by The New York Times)
Shaila Dewan, May 24, 2025
When the world saw the video of George Floyd taking his last breath under the knee of a police officer while onlookers pleaded for his life, the outrage was universal.
Republicans and Democrats agreed it was horrific, as did police chiefs and rank-and-file officers, and protesters of every race in towns large and small.
“It is important to recognize that everyone should be on the same side of this,” Ben Shapiro, the prominent conservative commentator, said back then, adding, “It’s police brutality, obviously.” In a televised trial, the officer, Derek Chauvin, was convicted of murder and sentenced to 22.5 years in prison.
Five years later, that consensus has disintegrated. The right-wing reshaping of the narrative of that day is in full swing, to the point where Mr. Shapiro is calling on President Trump to pardon Mr. Chauvin.
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Another Chauvin defender was Liz Collin, a former Minneapolis news anchor who is married to Robert Kroll, the former head of the Minneapolis police union. Mr. Chauvin’s first public comments appeared in Ms. Collin’s documentary, “The Fall of Minneapolis,” released in 2023. He called the trial “a sham.”
In an interview, Ms. Collin said the idea that George Floyd was a victim of racist brutality had caused unnecessary strife. She blamed officials who she said were slow to disclose information, and what she called the media’s failure to emphasize elements of the narrative, such as the fact that one of the officers who arrested Mr. Floyd was Black. These gaps, she said, created a “dangerous and divisive narrative that we’re still living with the consequences of to this day.”