Spike Lee posts a powerful short film that links the deaths of George Floyd and 'Do the Right Thing' character Radio Raheem

• Spike Lee has posted the short film "3 Brothers - Radio Raheem, Eric Garner And George Floyd."
• The powerful one-and-a-half-minute short links the death of Lee's Radio Raheem character from "Do the Right Thing" with the deaths of Eric Garner (in 2014) and George Floyd (in 2020).
• The short comes in response to the death by Floyd, who died on May 25 after a police officer in Minneapolis knelt on his neck for over eight minutes while arresting him.
• Floyd's death has sparked nationwide protests.

As several parts of the country are protesting the death of George Floyd, Spike Lee is reminding everyone that this is hardly an isolated case.

Lee's short film "3 Brothers - Radio Raheem, Eric Garner And George Floyd" was posted on his Twitter and Instagram accounts and connects the death of Floyd, Eric Garner, and Radio Raheem, the character in Lee's 1989 film "Do the Right Thing."

Floyd died on May 25, 2020, after Minnesota police officer Derek Chauvin, who is white, kneeled on his neck for over eight minutes. An independent autopsy found that Floyd's cause of death was "asphyxia due to compression of the neck and back." Chauvin has been charged with third-degree murder and manslaughter.

In 2014, a white New York City police officer administered a chokehold on Garner as officers tried to arrest him. Cell phone footage which later went viral showed Garner saying "I can't breathe" over and over again. He later died on the way to the hospital and a medical examiner called his death a "homicide," with the report specifying that "the compression of [Garner's] chest and prone positioning during physical restraint by police" lead to his death. The incident sparked a protest nationwide with the rallying cry, "I Can't Breathe." The white police officer was not indicted by a grand jury.

At the conclusion of Lee's own film "Do the Right Thing," Radio Raheem (played by Bill Nunn) is chocked to death when police try to detain him. It leads to a riot in the neighborhood.

Lee begins the short with words in red letters that read: "Will History Stop Repeating Itself?" It then cuts back and forth from the final moments in the lives of Floyd, Garner, and Raheem.

—Spike Lee (@SpikeLeeJoint) June 1, 2020

The Oscar-winning writer-director based the death of Radio Raheem on real-life incidents. "Do the Right Thing" is dedicated to Eleanor Bumpurs, Michael Griffith, Arthur Miller, Edmund Perry, Yvonne Smallwood, and Michael Stewart, six black New Yorkers who had been killed leading up to Lee making the movie.

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