On May 25, 2020, the world learned of the brutal killing of George Floyd by Minneapolis police thanks to cell phone footage filmed by Darnella Frazier of Floyd’s last moments. Police-worn body camera footage of the whole incident, later filed in court, with the transcript made public on July 8, contains every bit of the horror of Frazier’s video. The eighty-two-page transcript shows that Floyd told the police at least twenty-seven times that he couldn’t breathe, to which Derek Chauvin responded: “Then stop talking, stop yelling. It takes a heck of a lot of oxygen to talk.”
The footage was filed by Thomas Lane, one of the officers charged with aiding and abetting murder who aims to have these charges dismissed. It remains to be seen whether this evidence will strengthen his case. But it’s clear that its existence is a big positive for Axon, the company whose camera captured it and whose name is plastered at the foot of each transcript page.
During the peak of June’s Black Lives Matter protests, Axon’s share price had risen to its highest ever level of $101, and today, it still stands 10 percent higher than its price the day before Floyd’s death.
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