A New York high school teacher is under fire after giving students an assignment saying George Floyd died as a result of a heart attack and drug overdose rather than because a police officer knelt on his neck for nine and a half minutes.
The assignment asked Saugerties High School students to write a paragraph with a bold “thematic” statement in the format given by the state exam using two examples. One example stated that Floyd did not die because former Minneapolis officer Derek Chauvin put a knee of Floyd’s neck, but rather because of a heart attack and drug overdose.
Chauvin was convicted of second- and third-degree murder, as well as second-degree manslaughter last month and has since filed a motion for a new trial.
The assignment’s other example asked whether Chauvin should get a new trial because new “evidence” found juror Brandon Mitchell “could not have been forthcoming in his statements” in whether he had “racially provoked” negative feelings to police officers and his involvement with Black Lives Matter.
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