Spike Lee Releases Short Film on Police Brutality, Comparing George Floyd and Eric Garner to Radio Raheem

Filmmaker Spike Lee debuted his latest short film on Sunday night during the CNN special I Can’t Breathe: Black Men Living and Dying in America, which showed a compilation of scenes from his 1989 film Do The Right Thing and of the fatal arrests of Eric Garner and George Floyd.

Do The Right Thing, a film that addresses police brutality in New York, showed the murder of fictional character Radio Raheem, who similarly to Garner and Floyd, died while being restrained by white police officers.

Lee’s film, which opened with the question “Will History Stop Repeating Itself?” was aired during his interview with CNN’s Don Lemon, where he addressed the protests across the United States.

“Every time something jumps off and we don’t get our justice, people are reacting the way they feel they have to to be heard,” Lee said. “What we’re seeing today is not new.”

He defended the demonstrations, explaining that people are angry and tired of the continued killing of black Americans, especially at the hands of the police.

“That’s why I’m wearing this shirt,” Lee said referring to his “1619” shirt, which marks the year slavery started in America. “It’s been the same thing. Now we have cameras. But the attack on black bodies has been here from the get-go.”

“No one should be destructing property, and that sort of thing, but I understand the anger,” Lemon said before playing Lee’s short film — which you can watch below.

Lee explained he made the film because he has consistently seen black men dying the same way, unable to breathe at the hands of white police officers. “This guy we got in the White House, he ain’t helping,” he later added.

Watch the interview and short film above, via CNN.