“This is dispatch. How can I help you?” “Patient is Covid-19 positive.” “I had conversations with people from when this was first starting. And you know, I was telling people like, ‘I think it’s just the flu. I think everyone’s full of shit,’ you know, kind of like, all right, like, no big deal, you know? Like, it’s another thing.” “Code 1 for possible Covid.” “Well, I’ve been in E.M.S. over 20 years. I knew coming into it that there would be tragedies, there’s a possibility of an epidemic, pandemic. But I honestly never thought we would see days like this.” “Call volume is much higher. A lot of people are a lot more sick than we normally deal with. The hardest role is talking people through these emergencies. We’re kind of making these big decisions now. Are we staying home and potentially letting them die at home? Or are we taking them in and they’re dying by themselves? It’s kind of terrible that you’re put in that position. But it’s what the reality is now.” [patient coughing] “Again.” “[coughing] Now.” “All right, it’s OK.” [coughing] “All right, your lung sounds are a little diminished. But your oxygen saturation is low. I’m going to put you on oxygen, OK? Ma’am, would you be willing to go to the hospital? You need continuous oxygen, and I, and we can’t provide that for you right now.” “When the paramedics showed up in my house, that’s when it was like, hey, 3,000 more people got infected. Hey, 500 people just died last night.” “Everything you would hear on the news and social media about the hospitals being at capacity and ready to explode, it was true.” “I like to make calculated decisions. And to think of going to a room where the doctors are going to tell me, ‘You’re most likely going to die.’ That was ridiculously frightening, yeah.” “Yes, ma’am.” “Sometimes we’re put into a difficult situation, where you feel that a patient needs to go to the hospital. And you try to give them worst-case scenario. You try to give them best-case scenario. And they still, they’re hesitant to go.” “I can’t get oxygen, I can’t get air, and I’m trying to make all of these decisions. And I told them, ‘Hold on. Let me talk to my brother. I need another brain.’” “Hmm.” Medic: “She’s going to go, Dr. Spalding.” “I just hope I don’t have to be there long. I’m just so grateful to God that I’m still here.” “I tested positive. First six days were rough, fevers on and off. It was difficult even just to get out of bed. It’s scary. You look at a lot of the people in the I.C.U.s, and a lot of them are a lot younger than me and in a lot better shape than me.” “And we’ve had a lot of E.M.S. workers pass away from this. Someone that worked with us, you know, was in the hospital on a ventilator, and it was devastating. And that’s when I think it got real, at least for me.” “You do have to have a discussion with these patients and with their families. As nicely as possible, you have to let them know the reality because they still have a choice. Why is she hesitant to go to the hospital to have this checked out?” “Oh.” “For being alone.” “That’s understandable.” “Have you ever had one of us come to the house before?” “I had you guys come last time, and they made me go to the hospital.” “OK, so we’re going to try to avoid that today.” “No, no, no hospital.” “Your body temperature is 97 degrees.” “Ninety-seven, there you go.” “That’s good.” “That’s very good, my dear.” “Mm-hmm. I’m cooking. I’m cooking.” “You’re cooking?” “Mm-hmm.” “Well, you’re not cooking, which is good.” [laughter] “Thank you.” “You’re welcome, very welcome. It’s a pleasure to see you, again.” “Very good seeing you, too.” “Hi, Duke.” “There you go. I think the most rewarding thing is actually being able to treat non-Covid patients at home, and give them peace of mind. But at the same time, you’re trying to keep everyone you can home. But you know when they need to go.” “She has been feeling like this for about two weeks, pretty much achy pains, fevers on and off. Then they checked — they did an X-ray to check to see if she has pneumonia.” “So as far as medical problems, only dementia?” “Yes, only that.” “So right now, her oxygen levels are 85 percent, which is not very good. You can’t really hang out in that range for too long. So what I’m going to do is I’m going to put her some oxygen right now.” “OK.” “What are your views as far as her going to the hospital?” “If we need to, we’ll take her the hospital.” “OK, all right. Any contact with anyone that’s been sick at all?” “Well, her caregiver.” “OK.” “Her patient had Covid. But she hasn’t been confirmed because she hasn’t been able to get a test.” “Gotcha, so we don’t know if there’s a potential that she —” “Yeah.” “— has it as well. But other than that, no one else has been around?” “No one else is showing any type of symptoms or anything like that, yeah.” “OK, not a problem.” “If it is Covid-related, I understand. But the thing is our concern is just not being able to visit her, not even to be near her because, you know, she’s —” [crying] “A lot of patients, they are asking me if they’re going to end up on a ventilator, asking me if they’re going to be OK. And sometimes you kind of lie to them to kind of comfort them. Everything’s going to be fine. And you kind of know that, that might not be the case.” “We’re all good? You want to say bye before we go?” [crying] “I love you, OK.” “In the moment, you don’t realize that you’re asking someone to make these — essentially — could be life-or-death decisions.” “You ready? One, two, three.” [crying] “Bye, Mommy. Love you.” [crying] “It’s OK.” “It’s hard thinking about it. And you just have to reflect on your own family and like, would I be OK with my parents going to a hospital and never seeing them again?” “This is such a big decision to make. To this day, I even question myself if I made the right choice, so … I feel like we abandoned her at the hospital. So we did the Zoom call. And then she just stopped breathing during the call. I wanted to at least hold her hand.” “More than 100,000 lives have been lost to the coronavirus nationwide.” “As the loss of life mounts, the C.D.C. director warns of a potential second wave.” “The whole pandemic definitely changed people’s thought process. Six months ago, I think if some people woke up in the morning and they were short of breath or if they had a really high fever, I don’t think they would hesitate at all to go see their doctor or go to a hospital.” “Being able to help families navigate those end-of-life decisions, I think that’s something big that we’ve done during this time.” “Thank you for all your hard work and your dedication for coming into work. And let’s get out there and do what we know how to do.” “Later down the line, it’s all going to hit us. The number of people that we’ve watched pass away, the number of people that we couldn’t save. And you kind of wrap it up, and put it in the box and save it for later. But it definitely takes a toll on you.”

It’s a Monday evening in Minneapolis. Police respond to a call about a man who allegedly used a counterfeit $20 bill to buy cigarettes. Seventeen minutes later, the man they are there to investigate lies motionless on the ground, and is pronounced dead shortly after. The man was 46-year-old George Floyd, a bouncer originally from Houston who had lost his job at a restaurant when the coronavirus pandemic hit. Crowd: “No justice, no peace.” Floyd’s death triggered major protests in Minneapolis, and sparked rage across the country. Four officers have been fired and put under investigation. One of them, Derek Chauvin, has been arrested and charged with murder and manslaughter. The Times analyzed bystander videos, security camera footage and police scanner audio, spoke to witnesses and experts, and reviewed documents released by the authorities to build as comprehensive a picture as possible and better understand how George Floyd died in police custody. The events of May 25 begin here. Floyd is sitting in the driver’s seat of this blue S.U.V. Across the street is a convenience store called Cup Foods. Footage from this restaurant security camera helps us understand what happens next. Note that the timestamp on the camera is 24 minutes fast. At 7:57 p.m., two employees from Cup Foods confront Floyd and his companions about an alleged counterfeit bill he just used in their store to buy cigarettes. They demand the cigarettes back but walk away empty-handed. Four minutes later, they call the police. According to the 911 transcript, an employee says that Floyd used fake bills to buy cigarettes, and that he is “awfully drunk” and “not in control of himself.” Soon, the first police vehicle arrives on the scene. Officers Thomas Lane and J. Alexander Kueng step out of the car and approach the blue S.U.V. Seconds later, Lane pulls his gun. We don’t know exactly why. He orders Floyd to put his hands on the wheel. Lane reholsters the gun, and after about 90 seconds of back and forth, yanks Floyd out of the S.U.V. A man is filming the confrontation from a car parked behind them. The officers cuffed Floyd’s hands behind his back. And Kueng walks him to the restaurant wall. “All right, what’s your name?” From the 911 transcript and the footage, we now know three important facts: First, that the police believed they were responding to a man who was drunk and out of control. But second, even though the police were expecting this situation, we can see that Floyd has not acted violently. And third, that he seems to already be in distress. Six minutes into the arrest, the two officers move Floyd back to their vehicle. As the officers approach their car, we can see Floyd fall to the ground. According to the criminal complaint filed against Chauvin, the officer who’s later arrested, Floyd says he is claustrophobic and refuses to enter the police car. During the struggle, Floyd appears to turn his head to address the officers multiple times. According to the complaint, he tells them he can’t breathe. Nine minutes into the arrest, the third and final police car arrives on the scene. It’s carrying officers Tou Thao and Derek Chauvin. Both have previous records of complaints brought against them. Thao was once sued for throwing a man to the ground and hitting him. Chauvin has been involved in three police shootings, one of them fatal. Chauvin becomes involved in the struggle to get Floyd into the car. Security camera footage from Cup Foods shows Kueng struggling with Floyd in the backseat while Thao watches. Chauvin pulls him through the back seat and onto the street. We don’t know why. Floyd is now lying on the pavement, face down. That’s when two witnesses began filming, almost simultaneously. The footage from the first witness shows us that all four officers are now gathered around Floyd. It’s the first moment when we can clearly see that Floyd is face down on the ground with three officers applying pressure to his neck, torso and legs. At 8:20 p.m., we hear Floyd’s voice for the first time. The video stops when Lane appears to tell the person filming to walk away. “Get off to the sidewalk, please. One side or the other, please.” The officers radio a Code 2, a call for non-emergency medical assistance, reporting an injury to Floyd’s mouth. In the background, we can hear Floyd struggling. The call is quickly upgraded to a Code 3, a call for emergency medical assistance. By now another bystander, 17-year-old Darnella Frazier, is filming from a different angle. Her footage shows that despite calls for medical help, Chauvin keeps Floyd pinned down for another seven minutes. We can’t see whether Kueng and Lane are still applying pressure. Floyd: [gasping] Officer: “What do you want?” Bystander: “I’ve been —” Floyd: [gasping] In the two videos, Floyd can be heard telling officers that he can’t breathe at least 16 times in less than five minutes. Bystander: “You having fun?” But Chauvin never takes his knee off of Floyd, even as his eyes close and he appears to go unconscious. Bystander: “Bro.” According to medical and policing experts, these four police officers are committing a series of actions that violate policies, and in this case, turn fatal. They’ve kept Floyd lying face down, applying pressure for at least five minutes. This combined action is likely compressing his chest, and making it impossible to breathe. Chauvin is pushing his knee into Floyd’s neck, a move banned by most police departments. Minneapolis Police Department policy states an officer can only do this if someone is, quote, “actively resisting.” And even though the officers call for medical assistance, they take no action to treat Floyd on their own while waiting for the ambulance to arrive. Officer: “Get back on the sidewalk.” According to the complaint against Chauvin, Lane asks him twice if they should roll Floyd onto his side. Chauvin says no. Twenty minutes into the arrest, an ambulance arrives on the scene. Bystander: “Get off of his neck!” Bystander: “He’s still on him?” The E.M.T.s check Floyd’s pulse. Bystander: “Are you serious?” Chauvin keeps his knee on Floyd’s neck for almost another whole minute, even though Floyd appears completely unresponsive. He only gets off once the E.M.T.s tell him to. Chauvin’s kept his knee on Floyd’s neck for a total of 8 minutes and 46 seconds, according to the complaint filed against him. Floyd is loaded into the ambulance. The ambulance leaves the scene, possibly because a crowd is forming. But the E.M.T.s call for additional medical help from the fire department. But when the engine arrives, the officers give them, quote, “no clear info on Floyd or his whereabouts,” according to a fire department incident report. This delays their ability to help the paramedics. Meanwhile, Floyd is going into cardiac arrest. It takes the engine five minutes to reach Floyd in the ambulance. He’s pronounced dead at a nearby hospital around 9:25 p.m. Floyd’s preliminary autopsy report, cited in the complaint against Chauvin, found that the combined effects of being restrained by the police and underlying heart disease likely contributed to his death. The widely circulated arrest videos don’t paint the entire picture of what happened to George Floyd. Crowd: “Floyd! Floyd! Floyd!” Additional video and audio from the body cameras of the key officers would reveal more about why the struggle began and how it escalated. The city quickly fired all four officers. And Chauvin has been charged with murder and manslaughter. But for many, none of this has been enough, and outrage over George Floyd’s death has only spread further and further across the United States.

“We are having peaceful speeches, we have a reverend —” Protesters gathered outside in Minneapolis on Saturday, for the fifth day in a row. This group was demonstrating outside the city’s Fifth Police Precinct. “I can’t stand the fact that some people in our society can’t walk around without feeling scared that a cop is not going to come to them with a death sentence.” Just after 8 p.m., police came out to enforce the city’s curfew. “You are in violation of Minneapolis city curfew ordinance.” They began firing pepper spray and tear gas to disperse the group. [screams] “I swear to God! I swear to [expletive] God —” Protesters here told us why they were out on the streets. “Honestly, the world is watching the United States, and more specifically Minneapolis itself, to see how we’re going to react and get justice for Mr. Floyd. And for me, being out here is a huge thing.” “The Minneapolis Police Department is notorious for their racism here. Black men are about 13 times more likely to be killed by cops than white men in the city. And I think that people just finally had enough.” “They tortured him, right? What else is there to do but get their attention?” Since George Floyd’s death, peaceful protests have mixed with looting and rioting at night. Most protesters we spoke with oppose the violence, but many said they understood the frustration and anger people are feeling. “No justice, no peace! No justice, no peace!” “We are here for justice for George. We’re sick and tired of being abused and oppressed by the police. They’ve been doing that [expletive] for years and years.” “Man, we’ve got to come together as a people, as a one. This racism’s been going on for too long.” “All four hundred years or more.” “Too long.” “All this [expletive] can be replaced. The body cannot be replaced.” “The body can never be replaced.” “I don’t want to see businesses burned down. But, I mean, we’re in kind of a war zone out here. And so, that’s kind of, I think, the least of our worries in a lot of ways.” “Bring him, bring him, bring him one block. Bring him one block to a medic.” “What happened? Someone hit him with a bat?” “You’ve got to calm down. We’re on the same team.” “You’ve got to calm down.” “Calm down — what happened, what happened? We’ve got about 12 medics here. We’re going to do the best we can. We’ve got a combat medic here, OK? But we’ve got to dial it down —” “We’ve got to keep it down.” “— because they’re looking for any reason to kill us.” One protester described the violence that broke out after she confronted a group of rioters in the neighborhood. “There was a group of guys who started screaming at the police, throwing things. I asked them, ‘Who are you? Who are you to come in here and do this?’ They ran up on me with big steel pipes. They got in my face. And one guy came at me, holding the pipe, and he stepped in, and he took it.” “You’re going to be all right —” “What message are we sending by destroying what is ours? How does that, how does that get the message out about how we need change in our city if all we’re doing is destroying it and burning it down?”

“Hello.” “Don’t know what’s going on with that. I’m going to try to fix this. We’re ready, I think.” “Hi. I’m Dua, and I’ll be your instructor today.” “Nothing was a no-go. We were just experimenting and playing. Everything was just fun.” [music for “Physical”] Singing: “Come on.” “It just makes you want to go. We can’t go outside right now, I guess. But if I could, I’d go dance in the middle of the street.” Singing: “Let’s get physical. Lights out, follow the noise. Baby, keep on dancing like you ain’t got a choice. So come on, come on, come on. Let’s get physical.” “I wanted to get away from the anxiety and the pressures of making a second record. Because everyone’s like, oh, it’s a scary album. Just trying to constantly recreate that success.” Singing: “One, don’t pick up the phone. You know he’s only calling ’cause he’s drunk and alone. Two, don’t let him in. You’ll have to kick him out again.” “The Grammy goes to —” “Dua Lipa.” [applause] “I wanted to make something that I felt I wasn’t hearing on the radio. I wanted it to be upbeat. I wanted it just to be fun.” “What was the day in the studio like when you created ‘Physical’?” “We went to Jason’s studio in Tarzana, which is like a weird, mystical land of its own.” “Thirty fruit trees. My wife’s garden over there. Hey, Midnight.” “They’re ridiculously cute. They look like giant poodles.” “It’s this kind of magical little garden, and inside here is like a spaceship, so you kind of get all the worlds here. A lot of times, songwriting sessions are hard because you’re on like a blind date, basically. And this was cool because it just felt like instant party-family zone.” “Sarah, Coffee and I have been working together for a really long time.” “I’ve written songs with Katy Perry, Nicki Minaj.” “Sarah, any time she gets into a session, she has to set up her altar, basically.” “I have, like, 5,000 tarot decks. I collect them. It’s a good icebreaker to a session.” “How do Dua’s cards usually turn out?” “She always gets the Queen of Wands, which is a card that’s saying, this is her destiny and this is where she’s supposed to be.” “Do you just pull the same cards for all of your artists?” “No! You never — no! I would be a fraud. [laughs]” “We’re like, all right, let’s do something really crazy, ’80s, Flashdance-y. This is the way we’ll ease into the week. Once we get something really crazy out of us, then we can just kind of carry on.” “She was like, I want to get some crazy, world-sounding instruments in here, and I pull up a Persian flute sample and —” [flute sounds] [flute music] “As soon as he did it, he was like — we all kind of perked up, and we were like, yes, this is it!” “They’re the best hype team ever. They’re like, that’s amazing! Which is so important in a room, by the way for producers, because we’re all insecure, trying to make ideas in front of you guys.” “And we all were kind of laughing and like, this is crazy. What are we doing?” “In my mind, her with her deep voice, that kind of, almost Depeche Mode-y, but like a pop version of it, like midnight driving in a Corvette.” “So Jason’s sitting at his synth, whipping up the track, and what are you guys doing?” “Me, Sarah and Coffee, we just, we’re writing. It really is like a puzzle. You’re constantly putting little bits together, and you work as a team.” “Someone says a word that leads to a line, that leads to a melody.” “Anything we throw out, I write it down, and I write it in all caps.” Singing: “Common love isn’t for us.” “I need it to scream at me because if it screams at me and I don’t like it, then maybe we change it.” Singing: “We created something phenomenal, don’t you agree?” “Asking a question to the audience also feels a little bit nostalgic.” “Dua gets right into the booth, man. When she’s excited about something, she just goes for it.” “You’ll never mistake Dua’s voice for somebody else. It’s very thick, warm, sexy. Her low range is insane.” Singing: “You got me feeling diamond rich. Nothing on this planet compares to it. Don’t you agree?” “I speak very good Lorna. She would tell me that she could hear a smile.” “Do you hear a smile in ‘Physical’?” “I do. I hear I’m ear to ear. Honestly, we were just being so ridiculous in the studio, so I just kind of went on in the room mic, and was like, what if I just do this?” Singing: “Who needs to go to sleep when I got you next to me?” “It allows everything to sort of drop out before it hits again, right?” “Yeah. It’s the ‘suction’ effect. You pull it back, and then you release it.” Singing: “All night, I riot with you, I know you got my back, and you know I got you.” “The verses are like this moody vibe, and then it blasts into this anthemic chant.” Singing: “Let’s get physical.” “It’s almost like you’re at a rally.” “Remember ‘Care Bears’?” “Yeah.” “To me, that’s what the chorus is. It is a Care Bear shooting out a beam of light into the world.” “Dua came up with that bridge melody, just messing around. So the fact that the song can even go from the big chorus to the next level is pretty wild.” Singing: “Let’s get physical. Hold on just a little tighter, come on. Hold on.” “It’s a roast to sing. It’s the climax of the song, but you have to do that twice through after verse-bridge-chorus, verse-bridge-chorus, double-middle-eight, back into a double chorus. It’s a roast. It’s so hard.” Singing: “Tell me if you’re ready, come on. Baby, keep on dancing.” “Yeah, really, just like ‘Aaaah!’ I just see ‘Flashdance,’ like ‘Maniac.’ It’s just so feel-good.” Singing: “Let’s get physical.” “I didn’t know how anybody else would react to it. So when I sent it to my manager, I was like, oh, it’s a bit over the top, but I bloody love it.” “The flute almost didn’t make it. I had to fight for this flute. I think Koz might have saved the day.” “There was a lot of debate on the flute. The original demo of the flute was blazing off the top. You press play, and then it’s just — this really loud flute. So my solution was to just filter it down. No one ever really said anything after that, so I assumed that it was OK. It’s all about the flute to me. It’s about the flute, and that drive. You just never want to lose that energy of when they made it because sometimes that’s so hard to recreate.” “Dua Lipa, ooh!” “Ah, this chorus!” “So impressed!” “Come on. Come on, Dua!” “I believe in divine timing, and I believe that we needed this record.” “I imagine everyone dancing around their living rooms, and wailing and flailing their arms in the air.” “It’s OK to let your mind run away for a second and have some fun, and try and see the good in everything. A little something to just help you get out of bed a bit easier, which I felt like was something that I needed myself.” “So we’ll start with a breathing exercise. Inhale. And exhale.” “The ‘Physical’ workout video, where did that idea come from?” “That’s just playing and being — I wanted to have my own Jane Fonda workout video.” “I feel like with the virus now, an at-home workout video is oddly relevant.” “I wish it was otherwise.” “Did you have a favorite of the moves?” “The Fonda because it’s an ode to that, and also the Crybaby is just hilarious and silly, and I would never ever do it in any other situation other than that.” Singing: “Phy-phy-phy-physical!” Singing: “I got the horses in the back.” Singing: “Di, di, di, di, di.” Singing: “The debt I owe, got to sell my soul, ’cause I can’t say no, no, I can’t say no.” Singing: “Man, what’s the deal? Man, I’m coming through. It’s your girl, Lizzo.”