Washington Post Deletes Tweet Wrongly Declaring George Floyd Was ‘Shot’ by Police

Kipp JonesMay 23rd, 2022, 10:51 pm
 

The Washington Post falsely stated on Monday George Floyd died two years ago this week after he was “shot and killed” while in the custody of the Minneapolis Police Department.

At 9:42 p.m. ET, the paper tweeted a blatant rewrite of history which was quickly taken down.

“On May 25, 2020, George Floyd was shot and killed in police custody,” the person running the Post’s Twitter account wrote. “His death sparked outrage, wide scale protests and calls to change policing. Two years later, what has — or hasn’t changed?”

A very alert Mediaite editor took a screenshot of the tweet, which was deleted moments later.

According to Curtis Houck with the conservative Media Research Center, the erroneous reporting was not isolated to social media. It appears as though the reporting was pulled straight from the body of a Washington Post page.

The page, which asks readers to share their stories, was quickly corrected.

Floyd did die on May 25, 2020, and his death did spark outrage and protests nationwide.

But a jury concluded the death occurred after former Minneapolis cop Derek Chauvin callously put his knee over Floyd’s neck for roughly nine minutes as he begged for air.

Chauvin was convicted of murder, but never used his service weapon.

The Post has yet to share a screen grab of the errant tweet with a note about what it said, and why it was deleted – as is standard.

Within minutes of deleting the initial tweet, the paper did share another post about Floyd.

The paper vaguely noted, “We’ve deleted a previous tweet for this form that included language that was changed after publish.”

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