Florida Rep. Donna Shalala: "I'm terrified for the first time in my career"
19 July 2020
Rep. Donna Shalala (D-Fla.) said on ABC's "This Week" Sunday that she has asked Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) to issue another stay-at-home order, and that she's "terrified" for the first time in her career because of the lack of leadership during the coronavirus crisis.
Why it matters: Florida is the new global epicenter of the pandemic, reporting a record number of daily new infections for any state and twice breaking its own record for daily deaths all in the last week.
- Florida reported more than 10,000 new cases for the fifth day in a row on Sunday, bringing the total number of infections to over 350,000.
- Hospitals across the state have reached or are close to reaching their ICU capacity, and some have said they are in "desperate need" of the antiviral drug remdesivir to treat patients.
What she's saying: "We have community spread, which means the virus is out of control," said Shalala, a former Health and Human Services secretary under President Clinton.
- "The lack of leadership in the White House and in our governor's office — they simply have not hit this with a hammer, which what we needed to do to starve the virus. They opened too soon and they misunderstand what you need to do, or they understand it and they're not willing to do it," she continued.
- "The residents here are terrified. I'm terrified for the first time in my career, because there's a lack of leadership and we simply have not gotten our arms around this."
Transcripts show George Floyd told police "I can't breathe" over 20 times
Section2Newly released transcripts of bodycam footage from the Minneapolis Police Department show that George Floyd told officers he could not breathe more than 20 times in the moments leading up to his death.
Why it matters: Floyd's killing sparked a national wave of Black Lives Matter protests and an ongoing reckoning over systemic racism in the United States. The transcripts "offer one the most thorough and dramatic accounts" before Floyd's death, The New York Times writes.
The state of play: The transcripts were released as former officer Thomas Lane seeks to have the charges that he aided in Floyd's death thrown out in court, per the Times. He is one of four officers who have been charged.
- The filings also include a 60-page transcript of an interview with Lane. He said he "felt maybe that something was going on" when asked if he believed that Floyd was having a medical emergency at the time.
What the transcripts say:
- Floyd told the officers he was claustrophobic as they tried to get him into the squad car.
- The transcripts also show Floyd saying, "Momma, I love you. Tell my kids I love them. I'm dead."
- Former officer Derek Chauvin, who had his knee on Floyd's neck for over eight minutes, told Floyd, "Then stop talking, stop yelling, it takes a heck of a lot of oxygen to talk."
Read the transcripts via DocumentCloud.