George Floyd's death and subsequent global civil unrest will be described in history books as one such event if they're ever accurate.
You already know the mainstream account of what happened. If you value objectivity and are opposed to bias in the media...I reccomend you view the video again under a different context.
One, George Floyd was never afraid of the police at any point. He was a hardened criminal, had served years in prison, lived a decent portion of his life around LEOs. He was not afraid of the cops or being arrested. He says please don't shoot, and then asks matter of factly, "You're not going to shoot me are you Mr. officer man?" People who are afraid of getting shot don't sit there and ask that several times. They're going to be silent and follow directions to a "T."
Two, he was extremely afraid during the altercation....afraid for his life...afraid of dying from an overdose. He had enough fentanyl in him to kill a small elephant, was also high on meth, and drunk. I doubt he was unaware that he's been caught using a counterfeit bill, and he could've easily fled the scene, but instead he waited there in his car for what had to have been ten to fifteen minutes before the police arrived. The store clerk called the police after stepping outside and seeing Floyd parked across the street. Several minutes had to have elapsed, the time it took the cashier to walk back in the store, call the police, dispatch to send out the call, and the officers to get there. Seeing Floyd parked was unexpected. He had more than ample time to leave. Anyone else in that situation would've left...immediately. The only reason why anyone would do something as foolish as sitting parked directly across the street from the place that they just used a counterfeit bill at is if they weren't able to drive.
Three, Floyd stayed at the scene because he realized he was OD'ing and was panicking...he feared death...he was freaking out. He knew he was going to die. All the inferences he makes to his death during the altercation were sincere but weren't directed at the officer's or their actions. View it under the context of a man who is extremely inebriated and under the chemical influence of the most hardcore of all hard drugs, a fentanyl-speedball, at an insane volume he had ingested...while being intoxicated from alcohol on top of it. Floyd was incorrectly viewed under the context of being a siver man deathly afraid of the officers. He needs to be viewed as a man inexplicably more fukced up than any of us can even begin to understand who's realized he overdid it and is starting to feel the effects of the overdose kicking in and his body shutting down.
Four, Floyd first says, "Please, I can't breathe," while upright in the back of the squad car trying to get out with none of the officers touching him (shown on recently released leaked body cam footage). He will utter this phrase repeatedly afterwards. Again, he's ingested a drug cocktail in a fatal dose and isn't in his right mind and also panicking....so I'm not sure what he was hoping would be done as a result of these pleas, but they were absolutely never directed at Chauvin to mean he wanted him to get off his neck. He started making this prior to Chauvin ever kneeling to restrain him.
Five, Floyd was laying prone in the spot seen in the video because that's what he wanted to do and that's the spot he chose. That actually wasn't even the first time he chose to go to the ground. On the way to the squad car he dropped to the ground very briefly before getting up and making it to the squad car. Once there he starts freaking out because he doesn't want go in the back. He states that he's claustrophobic. He asks if can ride in the front instead.
Another thing to keep in mind is that Floyd is freaking out but still avoiding telling the officers that he was overdosing. When you believe you might be overdosing and panicking you absolutely don't want to be alone. You'll go somewhere where you're in the presence of someone you trust, like your parents, and you'll tell them something is wrong with you but you won't tell them you're overdosing. If you've used hard drugs like fentanyl and/or meth you've thought you were overdosing on numerous occasions....when you were just really high. If you mix this level being high with the adrenaline that comes with the fear of overdosing it makes you very schizo. So you do stuff that doesn't make a lot of sense. You avoid yelling people you're overdosing because you've thought this before and gotten through it fine. So you don't say anything believing the same thing is going to happen. You don't want to cop to something that you don't have to.