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8 Minutes, 46 Seconds Became a Symbol in George Floyd’s Death. The Exact Time Is Less Clear.

Prosecutors said they were wrong by a minute when they described, in court papers, how long a police officer pinned Mr. Floyd to the ground. Videos show it was at least eight minutes and 15 seconds.

At the site where George Floyd was killed while in police custody in Minneapolis, a memorial on Monday was filled with flowers, signs and messages.Credit...Caroline Yang for The New York Times

MINNEAPOLIS — After prosecutors said that a Minneapolis police officer pressed his knee on George Floyd’s neck for eight minutes and 46 seconds, that number became a grim symbol of police brutality. At memorials for Mr. Floyd, mourners stood in silence for eight minutes and 46 seconds. Activists have walked and run 8.46 miles in Mr. Floyd’s memory, and lawmakers knelt for eight minutes and 46 seconds.

The precise length of time that Mr. Floyd was pinned beneath the officer’s knee, however, is no longer as exact.

This week, prosecutors in Hennepin County said they had misstated by one minute the amount of time that had passed as the officer, Derek Chauvin, held his knee to the neck of Mr. Floyd. The misstatement had come in as part of the criminal complaint against Mr. Chauvin, who has been fired; the actual time, a spokesman for the prosecutor said, was seven minutes and 46 seconds.

Yet the revised time provided by prosecutors conflicts with videotapes obtained by The New York Times after the May 25 killing along a Minneapolis street. The videos show Mr. Chauvin’s knee on Mr. Floyd’s neck for at least eight minutes and 15 seconds.

The precise time element, activists said, is irrelevant; the act was horrific.

“It makes no difference,” said Jamar Nelson, who works with the families of crime victims in Minneapolis. “The bottom line is, it was long enough to kill him, long enough to execute him.”

Chuck Laszewski, a spokesman for the Hennepin County attorney’s office, said on Thursday that prosecutors did not intend to again address the timing question. “It’s not something that affects the case,” he said. “We’ve got bigger fish to fry.”

Mr. Laszewski stressed that the revised timing would have no effect on the prosecution of Mr. Chauvin, who is charged with second-degree murder, or of three other officers at the scene, who are accused of aiding and abetting in the killing.

The prosecution’s interpretation of timing has been based in part, documents show, on an assertion that Mr. Chauvin no longer was pinning Mr. Floyd after the time at which an ambulance arrived at the scene. But video from a witness shows that the former officer continued to hold his knee on Mr. Floyd’s neck for more than a minute after the ambulance arrived.

Evan Hill and Haley Willis contributed reporting from New York.

Nicholas Bogel-Burroughs reports on national news. He is from upstate New York and previously reported in Baltimore, Albany, and Isla Vista, Calif. More about Nicholas Bogel-Burroughs

A version of this article appears in print on  , Section A, Page 18 of the New York edition with the headline: 8 Minutes, 46 Seconds Became Symbol. Exact Time Is Less Clear.. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe

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