To Defend Chauvin, “Alpha News” Smeared a War Hero for Honest Testimony.

Assistant Chief Katie Blackwell—a decorated combat veteran and longtime Minneapolis officer—told the truth at great personal cost. Alpha News smeared her anyway.

This article has been adapted into a YouTube video essay, linked below:

Prologue: a Pardon for Derek Chauvin

Ben Shapiro and Charlie Kirk are now campaigning for President Trump to pardon Derek Chauvin, the former police officer convicted of murdering George Floyd. Elon Musk, unsurprisingly, is intrigued by the idea as well, but I’d recommend he spend his mental energy elsewhere. How did we get here? Why are two of the most powerful figures in modern media working to exonerate a man who abused his power as a police officer to commit murder? Well, here’s your answer: social media is a hellscape where people are rewarded for shameless dishonesty because algorithms will feed lies to the people most likely to believe lies, creating a media environment which tears our communities into increasingly insular and radical sub-groups which functionally exist in different realities and makes it impossible for us to agree on anything at all. Article over! You’re welcome.

On an unrelated note: ever heard of “The Fall of Minneapolis?” It’s a documentary produced by a small conservative outlet called “Alpha News.” Yes, really. Alpha News. If you share my distaste for the campaign to pardon Chauvin and were hoping to hear a more practical answer than “social media bad,” here it is. The film’s apologists will tell you it shares valuable police perspectives and sheds light on the 2020 Minneapolis riots. Unfortunately, anything potentially valuable within the film is undercut by its main goal: erasing George Floyd’s murder and establishing that Derek Chauvin is innocent. The film’s producer, Liz Collin, and director, J.C. Chaix, are happy to ignore annoying constraints like honesty and journalistic integrity in their pursuit of this goal. The title of my first article about this film was “The Fall of Minneapolis is Full of Shameless Lies,” so I wasn’t surprised when Alpha News, Collin, and Chaix were sued for defamation in October of 2024.

Because the film has effectively erased George Floyd’s murder within the minds of millions of Americans, you might expect that Floyd’s family is behind the lawsuit, but no—it’s actually Katie Blackwell, the Assistant Chief of Operations for the Minneapolis Police Department. This article is about her.

1. Who is Katie Blackwell?

Katie Blackwell has been a Minneapolis police officer for the entirety of her career, starting as a community response officer and recently becoming the assistant chief of police. You’d think Alpha News would appreciate a loyal and successful officer like her, especially considering that her service doesn’t stop there. Blackwell has served in the Army National Guard for 27 years, two of which were served in Iraq. She was the Convoy Escort Team Non-Commissioned Officer in Charge and scout vehicle truck commander on 168 combat escort missions, and received a Purple Heart, Bronze Star, and Combat Action Badge during her deployment. Oh, and she’s an ordained minister who provides free weddings for the homeless.

Above: Katie Blackwell with her numerous combat medals.

As far as any reasonable person should be able to tell, this is an impressive, upstanding, accomplished individual. Despite all she’s experienced during decades-long careers in policing and the military, Blackwell reports in her affidavit (which I recommend you read in full) that fulfilling her responsibility to testify truthfully during the state and federal trials of Derek Chauvin was the most difficult time in her professional life.

“I would have preferred going back to Iraq and redoing the over 160 combat missions, ambushes, and IED attacks, and suffering again through all the fear, pain, and anguish I experienced in those situations rather than go through what I knew would put me in a position of being subjected to the criticism of many of my peers for violating the golden ‘unwritten rule’ of policing: cops do not snitch on cops.”

She knew she had to do the right thing, to testify honestly, and she did—all the while knowing retribution would come from those who defend the policing status quo at all costs. Just as she feared, retribution arrived: Liz Collin’s book “They're Lying: The Media, The Left, and The Death of George Floyd” was released in 2022, the book was adapted into “The Fall of Minneapolis” in 2023, and both works portray Blackwell as having committed perjury during Chauvin’s trial. Blackwell didn’t lie, but given the immense popularity of the film online (10M+ views across all platforms) and within her communities, she lives as though she did every day.

The high viewership doesn’t completely capture this film’s success—it’s become incredibly influential. After Chauvin was convicted of George Floyd’s murder, some people on the right expressed sporadic disagreement with the verdict, but Collin’s works provided a centralizing force—an opportunity for the right-wing media machine to rewrite history. Most left-leaning people probably don’t spend much time on Rumble or watching online conservative pundits. If they did, they would have heard about “The Fall of Minneapolis.” In the YouTube video version of this article, I made a compilation of clips from Collin and Chaix’s media tour spanning 10-15 right-wing shows/podcasts, but here you’ll have to settle for a link to their website which tracks their news appearances.¹

The film’s influence doesn’t stop there. Since the film’s release, Coleman Hughes wrote two articles arguing Chauvin was wrongfully convicted, YouTuber Tyler Oliveira decided to travel to Minneapolis to piggyback off the documentary’s success, and most recently, of course, we have Ben Shapiro’s latest embarrassing stunt, where he leverages the entirety of his reputation and resources to persuade Trump to pardon Derek Chauvin. “The Fall of Minneapolis” laundered and popularized the ideas foundational to these efforts, so I’m going to focus on Alpha News and their film in this article.

Because she felt strongly enough to sue, I want to examine everything Alpha News said about Katie Blackwell. As far as I can tell, she doesn’t have a history of pursuing defamation cases against critics. Why would a police officer spend her valuable time and resources pursuing a defamation case against the media? She’s a private person, they’re a pretty popular regional media company, and she said returning to a warzone was preferable to the abuse they’ve thrown at her. She doesn’t have a platform. Alpha News is leveraging their audience to rally support, sharing their perspective, calling their fans to attend hearings, even waiting for Blackwell outside of her workplace to interview her about the lawsuit. While mainstream outlets like the Minnesota Star Tribune are doing a great job reporting about the case’s major events, Blackwell’s side of the story deserves more attention—especially now that her lawsuit has been dismissed.²

I’m not a lawyer, so I obviously won’t be trying to prove defamation. I’ll just describe why I think Alpha News lied about Katie Blackwell, a dedicated public servant and seemingly honorable person.

^{Update 4/9/25: Katie Blackwell’s lawsuit against Alpha News was dismissed. Because I know how unfairly Blackwell was treated within TFOM, I was happy to see her explore whether legal justice could be served, but never took a position on whether Alpha News defamed Blackwell in a legal sense due to my lack of legal expertise. Plenty of rightfully protected speech is still morally reprehensible, and it’s now more important than ever to establish why Alpha News’s coverage of Blackwell should be considered as such. I’ve made a few edits to reflect the dismissal, but any remaining references to the lawsuit in the present tense or as “ongoing” should be considered out-of-date. None of my arguments are affected by the dismissal, which is why I released this article deliberately before the Judge’s decision was due. I’ll be publishing more on this soon.}

2: The Misrepresented Maximal Restraint Technique

Alpha News’s foundational claim is that the officers were performing a “textbook example” of a restraint maneuver called the Maximal Restraint Technique at the time of George Floyd’s death.³ Alpha News shows the transcript of the FBI’s interview with Thomas Lane, one of the officers who was convicted of aiding and abetting Chauvin, and points out that the MRT was an approved MPD technique with its own section within the contemporary use of force policy manual. Understanding the MRT is incredibly important to understanding this case. A good place to start is the policy’s definition of MRT:

MRT is a technique (a set of physical maneuvers to perform on a subject) with a set purpose (securing a subject’s feet to their waist). The combination of technique and purpose is a universal characteristic of acceptable police use of force. Police can only use force which is objectively reasonable in light of the facts and circumstances known to an officer. Of course, force must always comply with current departmental training as well. Those points come straight from the MPD policy manual.

Considering this definition and the “Use” section of the policy (pictured below), I’d expect an application of the MRT aligned with MPD policy/training to proceed roughly as follows: officers restrain a handcuffed subject in the prone position temporarily, long enough to apply the hobble restraints and bind feet to waist, at which point they end their prone restraint and roll the subject to their side.

We’ll dive into more policy specifics in a bit, but let’s first examine the actions of the officers.⁴ They initially brought Floyd to the ground when they attempted to put him into the back of the police car. He doesn’t cooperate, starts to struggle, and is pulled through the police car and brought to the ground on the other side. Officer Lane says “let’s take him out and MRE (meaning MRT).” The officers then start to search for their hobble devices, which are restraints used to perform the MRT.

Based on those initial actions, we can all agree that it seems that the officers intended to perform the MRT when they first brought a handcuffed Floyd to the ground. If they had, George Floyd may not have died.

Unfortunately, the officers abandoned their search for the hobble devices, and as former officer Lane reported in his interview with the FBI, they decided to "just kind of hold" him while they waited for the ambulance to arrive. The weight of all three officers pressed a handcuffed George Floyd face-down against the asphalt for nine and a half minutes while he and a crowd of bystanders begged them to let him go.

During Chauvin’s trial, world-renowned pulmonologist Dr. Martin Tobin explained that Floyd was unable to take deep breaths because officers held him handcuffed in the prone (face-down) position with their knees on his side and back. Deep breaths allow oxygen to reach the alveoli, where it transfers into the bloodstream, but the weight on Floyd’s torso prevented him from fully expanding his lungs. As a result, he was forced to take increasingly shallow breaths, causing a dangerous drop in oxygen levels.

The officers’ prolonged restraint further restricted Floyd’s ability to contract his diaphragm and expand his chest, worsening his oxygen deprivation and leading to cardiac arrest. Officer Lane suggested rolling Floyd onto his side, but Chauvin refused. After several minutes, Officer Keung informed Chauvin that Floyd no longer had a pulse. Chauvin did not move, did not prompt the other less experienced officers to act, did not start CPR or provide medical care, and maintained his position for minutes longer until paramedics arrived.

So. Is that the maximal restraint technique? Somehow I don’t think that’s what I’ll find in the Minneapolis Police Department training manual. Here’s MPD use of force policy section 5-316, governing the MRT:

You may have noticed the first red flag: the purpose is “to establish a policy on hobble restraint devices,” but the officers never used a hobble device on George Floyd. Remember the definition of MRT? Technique used to secure feet to waist? The officers never secured Floyd’s feet to his waist, which is the only reason you’d perform the MRT—and remember, all police use of force needs to be objectively reasonable!

When you check the “Use” section of the policy, which outlines how MRT is performed, you’ll see that two hobble devices are required. The officers didn’t use any. Minneapolis Police Department training confirms this—here’s a training slide that describes the MRT steps exactly as they appear in the policy.

The hobble device is so essential to MRT that officers often just call it “the hobble.” In fact, Officer Lane, in the very FBI interview Alpha News features in TFOM, calls MRT “the hobble.” You can see it on-screen within the film, highlighted orange in the photo below:

What’s more, if you examine the full FBI interview with Lane—just to see the sentences preceding those shown within the film—you can see how he’s clearly describing the MRT exactly the way I do, or any reasonable person would after reading the policy. Collin and Chaix had to have seen this line within the interview, it’s the same sentence they partially showed in the film, but they act as though it doesn’t exist.

Considering Lane, Keung, and Chauvin performed exactly zero steps of the Maximal Restraint Technique, it’s safe to say they did not perform the MRT. They thought about it, they started it, and then they gave up. Thomas Smith of the Serious Inquiries Only podcast captured this perfectly with an analogy: If a priest says, “I am going to baptize you,” dunks you underwater, and holds you there until you drown—would you still call that a baptism?

“Yes,” Alpha News bravely declares, “sounds like a textbook baptism to me!”

Alpha News claims that the officers were following their training and following the procedure—which is bizarre, considering Liz Collin’s book and TFOM both show the full MRT procedure I showed you. How could they miss the MRT definition and Use section? Remember that training slide describing the steps of the MRT? I took that picture straight from Liz Collin’s book—page 211! They know everything I’ve told you so far, but for some reason, have acted as though they do not.

Speaking of the book, it gives a much clearer picture of their creative interpretation of MRT policy. Collin points out a couple lines where the policy says:

She claims that there’s an issue here, incredulously asking, “What are they supposed to do if the officers don’t use a hobble device???” — as if we can’t all drag our eyeballs three inches up the page and read that every single step of the MRT requires a hobble device. I mean, it’s right in the name; Collin is pretending to believe one can perform the maximal restraint technique without actually maximally restraining them (i.e., binding feet to waist). If we were discussing a handcuffing technique instead of MRT, would Collin claim the policy is incomplete because it doesn’t describe how to perform it without handcuffs? She also missed the fact that this line appears in the Safety section of the policy—not the Use section, which actually describes how the technique is performed.

Thanks to Radley Balko, an investigative journalist who wrote an incredible takedown of TFOM (and cited my first video, thank you Mr. Balko), we know why the policy is structured this way: an older version used to allow another kind of restraint—the “wrap—” and they deleted that option from the safety section without changing the phrasing of the section header which seems to precede a list of possible restraints (see slide 30 within the linked presentation). Even without that context, though, it just doesn’t make any sense to claim Chauvin, Keung, and Lane were performing the MRT. It’s an indefensible position—which is why it’s my opinion that they’re either being dishonest or they’re so committed to their own narrative that they’re detached from reality.

I know that was a lot of detail, but I hope you see why it was important. Now that I’ve thoroughly discussed the MRT, we’ll be able to discuss the rest of Alpha News’s claims about Katie Blackwell a lot more easily.

3: The Mangled Testimony of Katie Blackwell

The film moves on to other topics for a couple minutes, then they arrive at Blackwell’s testimony within the Chauvin Trial, where she is asked about exhibit 17: a screenshot from the viral bystander video of George Floyd’s murder, pictured below:

The jurors were shown the footage from which this screenshot was taken, as well as the full officer body-cam footage of Floyd’s arrest, so this photo was frequently used throughout the trial to represent Chauvin’s use of force. Here’s Blackwell’s testimony about ex. 17 as portrayed by Alpha News.

Prosecutor: I’d like to show you what’s been received as ex. 17. Is this a trained technique that’s by the MPD when you were overseeing training?

Blackwell: It is not.

Prosecutor: And how does this differ?

Blackwell: I don’t know what kind of improvised position that is. So, that’s not what we train.

Immediately after that clip, Former MPD Chief Arradondo is then shown saying the exact same thing: presented with ex. 17, he says it's not a trained technique. They cut to the interview between Collin and Derek Chauvin's mother, Carolyn Pawlenty, where Collin says that "several of those Witnesses testified that MRT or the maximal restraint technique was not a part of Minneapolis Police policy," a clear reference to and characterization of the immediately preceding testimonies of Blackwell and Arradondo. Pawlenty says Arradondo told a "fricken lie—" a silly yet direct accusation of perjury, which would also apply to Blackwell. A couple minutes later, interviewing Chauvin himself, Collin asks:

"During the trial, several witnesses—including Chief Arradondo and Inspector Blackwell—testified that they didn't recognize the technique you and the other officers were using as if it was not a part of Minneapolis police training, but was MRT—the maximal restraint technique—part of training and policy?"

Again, the characterization of Blackwell's testimony could not be more clear: Collin asserts that Blackwell testified that the MRT was not a part of Minneapolis police policy—that she should have understood and in fact did understand Chauvin’s actions as the MRT, and in saying the “technique” was not MPD-trained, lied.

It's already a ridiculous framing of Blackwell's testimony, requiring one to accept that the officers were indeed performing a recognizable version of the MRT. As we've established, they were not—and as a consequence, Blackwell doesn't see the MRT when she looks at ex. 17. How do I know what Blackwell's thinking here? The Fall of Minneapolis’s edit removes a sentence in which Blackwell explicitly identifies Exhibit 17 as a neck restraint—not the MRT. To make this even clearer, let's look at a transcript of the same moment within Blackwell’s testimony I provided above, but this time I’ll include the sentences removed by Alpha News in bold text.

Prosecutor: I’d like to show you what’s been received as ex. 17. Is this a trained technique that’s by the MPD when you were overseeing training?

Blackwell: It is not.

Prosecutor: And why not?

Blackwell: Well, use of force according to policy has to be consistent with MPD training, and what we train are neck restraints, the conscious and unconscious neck restraint. So, per policy, a neck restraint is compressing one or both sides of the neck using an arm or a leg, but what we train is using one arm or two arms to do a neck restraint

Prosecutor: And how does this differ?

Blackwell: I don’t know what kind of improvised position that is. So, that’s not what we train.

Remember how Liz Collin told Chauvin’s mother, referencing Blackwell’s testimony: “several of those Witnesses testified that MRT or the maximal restraint technique was not a part of Minneapolis Police policy?” That’s a lie. Collin had to surgically remove one specific answer, where Blackwell confirms that she’s not seeing the MRT at all. She describes Exhibit 17 as depicting a neck restraint, and describes why the neck restraint we see wasn’t aligned with MPD training. She never said anything close to “MRT is not a part of Minneapolis police policy,” and when Collin claims that she did, she’s falsely portraying Blackwell as having committed perjury during one of the most high-profile trials of the century. What’s more, it almost seems like they strategically disguised their editing. The image of ex. 17 was placed on screen over the cuts from one part Blackwell’s testimony to another, and they sequenced the cuts so Blackwell’s answer to the prosecutor’s first question (“it is not”) leads right into the prosecutor’s last question (“and how does this differ?”). The audience is clearly not supposed to know there was an edit here.

4: The Manuals from Derek Chauvin’s Mom

Luckily, this point of the film is where the dishonesty ends. TFOM only makes good points for the rest of its runtime. Just kidding! The very next sentence is the start of the next lie.

Derek Chauvin’s mom brought her son’s original training manuals to the interview and holds them up to the camera. Collin asks "MRT is in there?" Pawlenty says "yes, it's in there" and the photo below from the training manual is placed on the screen—we’ll call it the “film’s manual photo”.

It looks pretty similar to what Derek Chauvin was doing in ex. 17, so they’re the same thing, right?

Alpha News and their goons have seemingly not reached the stage of human development where one realizes that two things which look very similar can actually be very different. Consider the example below and you’ll see exactly what I mean

Obviously two restraint maneuvers which look similar aren’t necessarily the same thing, but that doesn’t mean they can’t be the same thing. However, I’m here to tell you that it’s impossible—literally impossible—that these two pictures depict the same technique. The film’s manual photo from Chauvin’s training manual shows the third step in a handcuffing maneuver called the "Pump Turn Over." In ex. 17, Floyd was already handcuffed, so there’s no way Chauvin was employing a handcuffing technique. What’s more, it’s impossible for the film’s manual photo to depict the MRT: if we quickly go back to the MRT policy, it’s clear that MRT can only be carried out on suspects who are already handcuffed!

One is a handcuffing technique, the other is a technique only applicable to already-handcuffed subjects. These are mutually exclusive and completely different maneuvers. Alpha News does not care about any of these pesky details, they’re happy to claim ex. 17, the MRT, and the Pump Turn Over are all the same exact thing because they look vaguely similar in a couple pictures. But it’s not just carelessness—they seem to have intentionally misrepresented the page from the original manual.

Remember how Collin asked "MRT is in there?" Pawlenty says "yes, it's in there" and the film’s manual photo of the Pump Turn Over is shown. They unambiguously call the tactic depicted here the MRT. You might notice that the film’s manual photo is unlabeled, and wonder how I knew it was a handcuffing technique. Well, I’ve been looking for that training manual for more than a year, because I had a hunch they weren't representing it accurately. My suspicions were confirmed when, thanks to Blackwell's lawsuit, Collin released the full manual to the court as a supporting document to her affidavit, which is how we all now know that the film’s manual photo does not depict the MRT (see pg. 13 within the linked document). In the original manual, there's text above the picture - the name of the technique, the “Pump Turn Over.” More importantly, there are instructions under the picture, which read "from a kneeling power stance, the officer controls the subject using a wrist-lock/arm bar. He can now proceed with ease to handcuffing." I’ll call the photo below the “actual manual photo.”

This text makes clear that the image above does not depict the MRT, because as I mentioned before, the MRT can only be used on already-handcuffed individuals. The name of the technique being “Pump Turn Over” and not “Maximal Restraint Technique” doesn’t help Collin and Chaix’s case either. Alpha News showed the picture of the officer and subject, presented it as if it were the MRT, and blurred the original text. Look again very closely at the bottom of the film’s manual photo I showed earlier and compare it to the actual manual photo from the original training manual. You can clearly see how Alpha News obscured the text when they displayed this page of the manual, likely because they knew it'd expose their lie. They say “MRT is in the training manual,” when it isn’t, knowing full well the photo their audience sees actually depicts a completely different technique. Not a good look for “journalists” who claim their “dedication to uncovering the truth is persistent and unwavering.”

5: Madel Moves the Goalposts

Before I proceed, it must be clarified that Alpha News’s argument has always been, up until the exact point at which they were sued, that Floyd’s arresting officers were specifically performing a textbook example of the MRT, not a neck restraint. They smear Blackwell solely on this basis—Blackwell should have recognized the MRT, but instead called Chauvin’s “technique” an improvised neck restraint, so she lied. We know this because they posted as much on their website in mid-June 2024:

In the context of the ongoing defamation lawsuit, however, Alpha News’s lawyer, Chris Madel, has essentially abandoned their sole reliance on the claim that Blackwell should have recognized Exhibit 17 as the MRT. It seems Alpha News is only eager to clean up their arguments when threatened with monetary and reputational damages. Instead, they now emphasize that MPD officers—including Blackwell herself—have previously trained and used knee-on-neck and knee-on-upper-back restraints. They’re spreading the below photo of Blackwell performing an arrest because, again, they’re happy to claim that two techniques which look similar must be the same thing—even when they aren’t.

The fact that I just explained two mutually exclusive techniques (MRT & Pump Turn Over), both of which feature knee-on-neck restraints, shows that a knee on a neck is a feature of many different maneuvers police can use only if the circumstances make it reasonable for them to do so.

The real issue has never been simply that Chauvin put his knee on Floyd’s neck. The real issue is that Chauvin kept his knee there for nine and a half minutes—long after Floyd had stopped resisting, stopped breathing, and even after his heart stopped beating. Chauvin was required by policy to de-escalate his use of force and provide medical care, but he did not do so. Even as his fellow officers suggested rolling Floyd to his side and advised that Floyd’s heart was no longer beating, Chauvin maintained his hold. If Blackwell had handcuffed this subject, called over two other officers to pin him down, and remained on his back for nine and a half minutes while he slowly died, only then could we meaningfully compare her actions to Chauvin's. Since she simply arrested the suspect without murdering him instead, these two photos have nothing meaningful in common—just a superficial similarity and Alpha News’s cynical attempt to falsely equate them.

6: Softball With Derek Chauvin

Let’s get back to “The Fall of Minneapolis—” we’re almost done with what they say about Katie Blackwell. Collin provides Chauvin with the softest of softball interviews, asking the same question I noted earlier.

"During the trial, several witnesses—including Chief Arradondo and Inspector Blackwell—testified that they didn't recognize the technique you and the other officers were using as if it was not a part of Minneapolis police training, but was MRT—the maximal restraint technique—part of training and policy?"

As we’ve already established, Blackwell and Arradondo never testified that MRT wasn’t a part of training, and Chauvin and the other officers weren’t performing the MRT. Chauvin, of course, doesn’t mind Collin’s misrepresentation. Instead, he eagerly replies, “Absolutely, I’m looking at it right now! 5-316, Maximal Restraint Technique, right in their written policy manual!”

They then highlight a line in the MRT policy that states "Officers shall monitor the restrained subject until the arrival of medical personnel." And I have to ask—what exactly is their point here? Are they suggesting that kneeling on an unconscious man for minutes after his heart stopped was "monitoring" him? Was "monitoring" supposed to include starting chest compressions when Floyd stopped breathing? The most reasonable explanation I can imagine for highlighting this line is that Collin mistook the word "monitor" for "murder," which would actually explain a lot.

Collin then asks Chauvin about an MRT photo that Judge Cahill, the judge responsible for Chauvin’s trial, did not allow to be admitted as evidence.

“Was this a key piece of evidence?” She asks. “I think it certainly is important!” Chauvin replies, and I agree with him. Well, not completely. I agree that this photo is an important tool we can use to learn about the MRT, but not that it should have been admitted into Chauvin’s trial as evidence. After all, Chauvin couldn’t ever demonstrate that he saw this photo or participated in a training where this photo was used, which is why Judge Cahill excluded it. The court of appeals agreed with Cahill’s exclusion, and noted that the text on the slide warns about the dangers of positional asphyxia when performing the MRT, which “would have further shown that Chauvin failed to follow the MPD training and used unreasonable force.”

Yes, it’s not just a 'photo'—it’s a training slide, and the slide’s text actively undermines Chauvin’s case. So of course, Liz Collin conveniently calls it a 'photo' instead. Here’s the full slide:

Alpha News, unsurprisingly, breezes past the content of the slide and never tells the audience why the slide was actually excluded from the trial. Instead of engaging with the actual content of the appeal verdict, they interview Chauvin’s appeal lawyer, who says the following:

“From what I've seen of the videotape was done at the scene—with George Floyd and the photograph and the police training manual—they look pretty identical.”

Good Lord. Again, we see Chauvin’s defenders demonstrate an inability to distinguish techniques just because “they look pretty identical.” This is how a toddler perceives the world— ‘these two things look the same, they must be the same!’ I don’t think they’re all suffering from the same rare developmental disorder; they’re simply trying to defend indefensible positions by making silly arguments. I’d be embarrassed.

And that’s pretty much everything relevant to Katie Blackwell within The Fall of Minneapolis. I wrote this article not just because I want to draw more attention to her lawsuit, but also because I wanted to demonstrate the dishonesty of these arguments. Other common points used to delegitimize the Chauvin verdict—about Floyd’s drug use, jury bias, the autopsy report, the supposedly dangerous crowd of bystanders, countless others—are equally ridiculous, yet annoyingly time-consuming to adequately address.

If you’ve read this far (thank you, by the way!), I request that you reflect on every detailed concept I’ve had to describe just so we can understand George Floyd’s murder accurately enough to dismiss a select few lies about it. It’s so easy to create and spread a false narrative based on misrepresentations of key concepts, and destroying those false narratives requires immense effort. Luckily, I enjoy doing it! That’s what Due Diligence is all about. :)

7: J.C. Chaix: Winning in Court, Losing Support

When I pointed out earlier how embarrassing it’d be to be a Chauvin defender, I want to clarify that it’s not embarrassing to ask questions about the trial or to have believed people who lied about it. Case in point: Glenn Loury and John McWhorter. They’re both well-respected academics, who, to my horror, initially praised TFOM without question. Unsurprisingly, their support for the film couldn’t survive the combination of a conversation with the film’s creators and the release of Radley Balko’s articles. Loury and McWhorter have since denounced the film completely. J.C. Chaix looks especially bad in this interview, completely failing to answer the questions he’s asked and visibly frustrating the hosts. Again, if the YouTube video version of this article is ever released, you’ll see a fun compilation of the most embarrassing moments.

Chaix is a smart person, but also a complete buffoon. I’ve watched every interview I can find with this guy. He has a PhD, constantly brags about all the “empirical evidence” he’s reviewed, and loves taking subtle shots at his critics. You’d think an academic and truth-seeker like him would have the confidence to defend his work, but he’s completely refused to engage with serious criticism of TFOM (besides, of course, his collapse with Loury and McWhorter).

Because I, like Chaix, am “a huge fan of irony,” I find his obvious insecurity about the weakness of his ideas strangely compelling—like watching a car wreck or a collapsing house. The interview linked here is titled “Fall of Minneapolis director debunks critics, raises new questions 4 years after George Floyd” but contains absolutely no responses to any serious points against the film. It’s worth a watch if you’d like to see what I mean. This interview was posted after Alpha News’s initial response to Radley Balko’s articles, which may be the most pathetic response to public criticism I’ve ever seen:

They’re attempting an indirect response to Radley Balko here—they used the word “retcon” in a reference to Balko’s series titled The Retconning of George Floyd, but they don’t use it correctly. Balko never claimed to “retcon” the documentary, that wouldn’t make any sense, because to “retcon” means “to revise retrospectively,” not “to debunk.” Considering their apparent inability to even understand the title of Balko’s work, perhaps it’s best they didn’t try to engage with its content. On the other hand, if they’d been able to respond to Balko, maybe McWhorter and Loury wouldn’t have publicly called Collin and Chaix “misleading” and “dishonest.” Dr. Chaix, supposedly the brains of this operation, clearly isn’t pulling his weight in his partnership with Collin.

Don’t feel too bad for him, though—he’s got a mean streak. Not only does he openly brag about deliberately excluding footage of George Floyd’s murder from TFOM in his interview with Loury and McWhorter, but his affidavit includes a bizarre section detailing all the personal information they supposedly uncovered about Blackwell.

This reads like a thinly veiled threat—implying that if Blackwell doesn’t back down, these ‘embarrassing stories’ might find their way into the public eye. He even congratulates himself for NOT publishing these stories, saying:

After seeing how they portrayed Blackwell, do you think she should be thanking Collin and Chaix? Should she be grateful they only accused her of perjury and didn’t spread even more baseless lies? What kind of a person says something like this—not only about a person currently suing them for defamation, but in their affidavit submitted to the court for the case? Classy, J.C—I’ll meet you where you’re at, and let the people know that during the course of my research for this article, I heard a TON of embarrassing stories about Dr. Chaix—for the sake of decorum, I will not repeat that information here. I expect a public gesture of gratitude soon.

Chaix’s mobster cosplay puts him in good company with his new lawyer. Current MPD Chief Brian O’Hara wrote an op-ed in the Minnesota Star Tribune, defending Blackwell and describing again why Chauvin’s actions are indefensible while maintaining a charitable and straightforward tone. Chris Madel, the attorney representing Collin and Chaix for Blackwell’s lawsuit, wrote a bizarre response op-ed for Alpha News, where he says the following:

“I know where you eat, and I know who you talk to?” Are we serious? It’s almost cute that most of this little team engages in gleeful cartoon villainy until you remember they’ve banded together as Derek Chauvin’s personal media advocacy group.

8: Charitability for Liz Collin

Collin, by contrast, appears quite calculated at all times. She seems motivated—at least in part—by a personal vendetta against the Black Lives Matter movement. She’s married to Bob Kroll, who was the president of the MPD police union from 2015-2021. I won’t get too deep into Bob’s history. Let’s just say I certainly wouldn’t want to have his wikipedia page, which speaks for itself, as does the fact that he’s currently banned from serving as a police officer in Minnesota’s most populous counties. After Floyd’s murder, Collin’s marriage to Kroll prompted calls for her to be fired from her job as a WCCO reporter. According to her book, she received a death/bomb threat in the mail, sent to the home she shared with her seven-year-old son. Soon after, protesters gathered outside, carrying piñata effigies of Kroll and Collin, which they would proceed to bash with sticks.

Now, as much as I despise Collin’s work, death/bomb threats are obviously never acceptable. For what it’s worth, I personally dislike the threatening tactics of the protesters who went to Collin and Kroll’s home. At the time, Kroll was obviously a person deserving of public condemnation, but it’s a dubious claim that anything meaningful could have been achieved by showing up to his house. One could describe such a protest as a community’s expression of righteous anger, but when piñatas depicting Kroll and his wife are destroyed outside of their family home, the endeavor becomes an obvious exercise in intimidation. If you read Chaix and Madel’s statements above and agreed they were threatening, the protest outside Collin’s home is an even less ambiguous case, and for that she has my sympathy.

These experiences, though, are what cause Collin’s recent actions to reflect so poorly on her character. She’s willing to accuse Blackwell of perjury in front of millions of people, knowing the possibility that Blackwell could very well face the same kind of terrifying treatment Collin herself once endured. In her affidavit, Blackwell says:

“The shame and fear of being attacked or having one of my family members attacked, not only physically but on social media platforms with a state and national following, is immense. Every strange vehicle that drives by my home triggers some type of fear or concern of being someone casing my home to possibly do further harm to me or my family.”

If anybody should understand that fear and hesitate before weaponizing public opinion against others, it’s Collin. Instead, she chose to smear Blackwell as a liar—one who perjured herself to falsely imprison a fellow officer—in a documentary watched by millions. It makes me sad.

Conclusion: Why?

You might say “why write this article? Every smart person knows TFOM is garbage.” I don’t think so. If there’s anything I’ve learned from the past few years, it’s that I shouldn’t assume people will see things the way they are, especially when they’re being actively deceived by liars like Alpha News. Assuming the truth is obvious allows lies to flourish. I know so many people personally who I respect and care about—mostly from my small hometown—who fell for everything in this film, and I think that’s why I care about taking its arguments seriously.

I also hope that I can make analysis like this into engaging content on its own. Social media rewards the most shocking, emotionally charged content, which is one of the reasons TFOM spread so quickly. But the way Alpha News lied is just as shocking—maybe even more so. I hope exposing them can be just as engaging as the lies themselves.

And no, Alpha News fans: I’m not getting paid, nobody asked me to do this, I’m not a democratic operative, and I’m not Jewish (great fans you have, Alpha News). I did this because I’m a normal person who hates to see my fellow citizens deceived. If you're inclined to support me financially, thank you, but I am not requesting donations in response to this article. Instead, I encourage you to consider donating to this Minnesota student, who has been wrongfully detained and jailed by ICE, or to another student facing unjust detention.

I don’t expect to change the discourse here, and while I’d like Alpha News to lose its monopoly over detailed coverage of this story, I don’t expect that to change either. I just wanted this information to be here for anyone who’s looking. If that’s you, thank you for caring—and for reading.

Afterword: Recommended Resources

After watching TFOM, I decided to learn about the Chauvin trial the only way that made sense—by watching the whole thing. I wish I had found Matt Orchard’s video first. His 2-hour breakdown of George Floyd’s murder and the key moments from Chauvin’s trial is one of the most thorough and fair explanations you’ll find. If you do plan to watch full testimonies from the trial, I recommend using the Law and Crime Network YouTube channel, as they always place the exhibits visible in the courtroom on the screen.

Deena Winter, writing for the Minnesota Reformer, wrote an article called “I watched ‘The Fall of Minneapolis’ so you don’t have to.” Winter actually covered the trial as a reporter for The Wall Street Journal, and her clear and quick explanations of everything Alpha News ignored made me want to dig deeper and write my own article.

Radley Balko wrote a 3-part series dissecting TFOM. He released his first article right after mine, and—just as I mentioned—he even used my video as a reference. You cannot imagine how delightful it was to see a journalist with real expertise and connections take this film apart right after I had attempted to do the same. I’ve been a paid subscriber to his Substack, “The Watch,” ever since - I recommend you do the same!

1. Very sadly, my YouTube channel was completely banned shortly after posting this article. I did not break any of YouTube’s community guidelines, but so far have not been able to recover my channel.

2. I’ll be publishing more about the dismissal soon.

3. The MRT link is to the Sonoma County Sheriff’s policy for two reasons: the first that it describes the MRT well, and the second to corroborate my understanding of the MRT with a non-MPD definition.

4. This link connects to the point during the Chauvin Trial where officer body-cam footage of Floyd’s arrest is shown in full—not only depicting the actions of the officers, but demonstrating that this footage WAS shown to the jury, contrary to Collin and Chaix’s numerous claims to the contrary.