I’ll get to the George Floyd hoax, but let’s start with a lesser hoax.

Over lunch a friend told me, “George Clooney has come out as gay.” (So what! Celebrity sexuality doesn’t interest me—unless it’s Travis and Taylor.)

Wow! Really?! Where did you see that?

On my phone.

I rolled my eyes, figuratively.

When I got home I consulted Snopes, an online fact-checking service. Snopes explained how the Clooney rumor started and how it got legs. The verdict: False.

I informed my (usually savvy) friend. He admitted he’d been duped.

Haven’t we all. From time to time.

(The Vietnam War and Saddam Hussein’s WMD come to mind.)

Many of us thought George Floyd was murdered. But according to a recent compelling documentary called The Fall of Minneapolis, he wasn’t. It alleges that Floyd died from a fusion of drugs and cardiac fragility and says that in the trial, that information was marginalized.

Furthermore, body cam video clearly shows that what the world saw wasn’t the whole picture. Floyd had asked to be put on the ground instead of in the back of the cruiser because he was claustrophobic. The police accommodated his wishes and immediately called for an ambulance.

That was news to me.

Alas, it seems the police were victims of a guileful crusade propelled by the (“fake news”) media and Democratic politicians (Mayor Frey, Governor Walz, Speaker Pelosi, Presidential candidate Biden) to fuel the fledgling Black Lives Matter movement.

It worked.

Floyd was lionized. The police demonized. The world mobilized.

I don’t know whether Floyd was murdered. I wasn’t there. I didn’t see it. But I believed he was. My friends did too. We trusted the media. Besides, it fit the woke (formerly, “liberal”) narrative: Police kill Black men disproportionately.

I participated in a Black Lives Matter demonstration in Charles Town. I chanted “Black lives matter.” I knelt for nine minutes and 29 seconds.

Was I duped?

Was south Minneapolis torched and vandalized for a big lie?

I asked a friend. Floyd was not murdered, he said.

I asked Snopes. Floyd was murdered.

A 12-person jury thought so too. I know juries are not infallible. Justice can be thwarted. Still, I believe the verdict in this case. I believe, but I really don’t know for certain.

I once was certain of many things. These days, I’m living with uncertainty and wondering: Who can we trust?

* * *

You’ll find a link to the documentary in this article by Deena Winter, a reporter for the Wall Street Journal at the Derek Chauvin trial: “I watched ‘The Fall of Minneapolis’ so you don’t have to”