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As George Floyd told Minneapolis police officers that he couldn’t breathe more than 20 times in the moments before he died, the officer who pressed his knee against Floyd’s neck dismissed his pleas, saying “it takes a heck of a lot of oxygen to talk,” according to transcripts of body camera video recordings made public Wednesday. (Forliti, 7/9)

As officer Derek Chauvin had Floyd pinned under his knee, face-down to the pavement and complaining that he could not breathe, Lane, who was holding Floyd's legs, asked Chauvin whether the suspect should be moved. (Neuman, 7/8)

The transcripts make clear that Floyd was trying to cooperate with police but was deathly afraid of them, at times telling them that he had had covid-19 and was worried that he was going to die because he couldn’t breathe while in their custody. As one of the officers — Derek Chauvin — pressed a knee into his neck and held Floyd on the ground, he told Floyd that he must be okay because he was able to speak, saying that he was using up a lot of oxygen pleading for help. (Bailey, 7/8)

The mayor of Chicago said there's "no question" that the coronavirus pandemic, and the way it has impacted policing and jailing, is a factor in the recent violence her city has experienced. "We had to rethink what policing meant in the middle of this horrific pandemic for which there was no — there still is no cure. So that absolutely affected it," Mayor Lori Lightfoot, a Democrat, told ABC News' "Powerhouse Politics" podcast. (Scanlan, 7/8)

Little Rock became the first city in Arkansas to pass a measure with increased penalties specifically for hate crimes that target people based on their race, national origin, religion, sexual orientation, gender identity or disability. (7/8)

Officers in the narcotics section of the Springfield, Mass., Police Department routinely violate the constitutional rights of citizens by using excessive force without accountability, the Justice Department said Wednesday in announcing the findings of an investigation into the police department’s practices. (Gurman, 7/8)

As a national protest movement formed around the police killings of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor in recent weeks, local activists have also rallied around Sean Monterrosa and Erik Salgado, two Latino men in their early 20s killed by Bay Area law enforcement just days apart in June. Vallejo police officer Jarrett Tonn shot Monterrosa, a San Francisco resident, through his car’s windshield while Monterrosa was on his knees with his hands up. (Voynovskaya, 7/8)