True Crime Podcast 2026 - Police Interrogations, 911 Calls and True Police Stories Podcast · True Crime Podcast 2025

Killer Cop Choked An Innocent Man With His Knee

·1 hr 40 min·5 clips

Tu Tao says he decided the restraint was “pointless” and told officers to stop and call an ambulance.

1. True Crime Podcast 2026 focuses this episode on Tu Tao’s interview about the June 2, 2020 BCA investigation into George Floyd’s arrest near 38th and Chicago. 2. Special Agent Brent Peterson leads the interview with FBI Special Agent Blake Hostetter present, and attorney Robert Pauly sits with Tu Tao during the voluntary statement. 3. The episode functions as a recorded account of what Tao says he saw, why he kept driving after a canceled backup, and how he describes the scene escalating. 4. Tao says he joined the Minneapolis Police Department as a community service officer in 2008 after earning an Associate of Arts in law enforcement from North Hennepin Community College. 5. He says the academy taught policy, defensive tactics, scenario-based training, firearms, first aid, CPR, and crisis intervention training that he later completed as a mandatory departmentwide course. 6. Tao describes field training officer work as about six months long, rotating through precincts including the 4th, 1st, and 3rd precincts. 7. He says his most recent assignment was third precinct middle watch, roughly 4 p.m. to 2 a.m., with Sector 3 bordered by Hiawatha, Highway 62, 35W, and 42nd Street. 8. Tao says he worked with Officer Chauvin regularly on middle watch and that they were not social outside work. 9. He describes his uniform as navy pants, a sky-blue shirt, an outer sky-blue vest, and standard police equipment including a handgun, mace, handcuffs, radio, flashlight, gloves, and a taser. 10. He says his body-worn camera and squad-car MVR were both used during the incident, and that he reviewed the video at the BCA with his lawyer present. 11. Tao says he and his partner were at lunch when Squad 320 called for backup from a forgery complaint at Cup Foods, which he describes as a place with shots fired, fights, warrants, and hostility toward police. 12. He says he continued to the call after dispatch canceled his unit because Officers King and Lane were very new and the area was a place he considered high-risk. 13. Tao says he was driving, and that he and Chauvin arrived while he saw an officer trying to place Floyd into a squad car after Floyd said he was claustrophobic and resisted getting inside. 14. He says Floyd stiffened his body, flung himself out of the car door, and appeared unable to be reasoned with, which led Tao to call the effort pointless. 15. Tao says he told the officers to stop forcing the issue, call an ambulance, and consider a hobble only if needed, but then changed focus to crowd control when bystanders gathered. 16. He says he positioned himself like a “human traffic cone” between the crowd and officers on the ground, while also watching for passing vehicles on Chicago Avenue. 17. Tao describes the scene as loud and hostile, with officers breathing hard and EMS arriving while he monitored the crowd instead of the restraint itself. 18. He says fire crews were initially sent to the wrong location, then redirected to 36th and Park, where he learned CPR was underway and the incident had become critical. 19. Listeners interested in Minneapolis policing, body-camera interviews, and the George Floyd arrest account would find the episode relevant. 20. Listeners looking for a fast-paced cold open or a self-contained mystery may skip the procedural detail and repetition.

As heard by us

A procedural back-and-forth turns the minutes after Floyd's restraint into a careful record.

This episode stays close to the minute-by-minute aftermath of Mr. Floyd's restraint, with officers sorting out who called for help, what to do with the vehicle, and how to respond once the fire department arrived and CPR had begun.

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Why you'd press play

Listen if you want a procedural account of how a police stop turned into a medical response.

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