‘You Can Call Me A Snitch’: 911 Dispatcher Alerted Supervisor To George Floyd’s Arrest

A Minnesota police dispatcher flagged George Floyd’s arrest to her supervisor last month, telling him “you can call me a snitch if you want to,” according to audio of her call released by the city Monday.

The unidentified dispatcher said she had just watched real-time footage of Floyd’s May 25 arrest, during which an officer pinned him to the pavement by his neck for nearly nine minutes. She appeared to wonder if a supervisor was needed at the scene.

“I don’t know if they had to use force or not, but they got something out of the back of the squad and all of them sat on this man, so I don’t know if they needed you or not, but they haven’t said anything to me yet,” she says.

“Yeah, they haven’t said anything yet. It’s just a takedown, which doesn’t count, but I’ll find out,” her supervisor responds.

“No problem. We don’t get to ever see it, so when we see it we’re just like, well, that looks a little different,” she replies.

With few exceptions, a supervisor is required under department policy to be notified whenever an officer uses force. They also usually respond to the scene, according to the Minneapolis Star Tribune.

During Floyd’s arrest, the first supervisor to the scene arrived 14 minutes after the dispatcher’s call to her supervisor ended, according to the Tribune.

Her voice of concern was one of many heard during the arrest of Floyd, who’d been accused of using a counterfeit $20 bill.

“He’s not fucking moving,” a bystander was recorded telling one of the officers at the scene as Floyd was pressed to the ground by then-officer Derek Chauvin.

“You just killed that man,” someone shouted at the officer.

Those words were echoed by a man identifying himself as an off-duty firefighter in a 911 call reporting the incident.

“I literally watched police officers not take a pulse and not do anything to save a man, and I am a first responder myself, and I literally have it on video camera,” said the man, according to a Star Tribune review of the call’s transcript. “I just happened to be on a walk so, this dude, this, they fucking killed him.”