It’s a self-protective aspect of human nature to put aside painful memories, and that’s what most of us have done about the murderous riots in the summer of 2020 that were sparked by George Floyd’s death in Minneapolis.

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A brilliant new crowdfunded documentary, “The Fall of Minneapolis,” aims to remedy our collective amnesia about the events of May 25, 2020 {snip}

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“The Fall of Minneapolis” reveals a shocking tale of injustice and perfidy, and a ruthless political operation that contained the seeds of the January 6 Capitol riot eight months later and the consequent hyperbolic crackdown on Trump supporters.

The film was produced by Liz Collin, a former anchor at a CBS affiliate in the Twin Cities who was taken off air during the riots and demoted because her husband, Bob Kroll, was the Minneapolis police union chief at the time.

Their house was besieged by angry mobs yelling abuse over megaphones and beating piñata effigies of the couple throughout the trial of police officer Derek Chauvin.

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From false testimony in Chauvin’s trial to police bodycam footage of Floyd’s arrest that was withheld for two months, to the autopsy report that was altered after the FBI got involved, Collin presents a damning forensic record that needs avenging.

Collin draws on new evidence unveiled last month in a sexual harassment lawsuit, filed by former Hennepin County prosecutor Amy Sweasy, against then-County Attorney Mike Freeman.

Sweasy’s complaint details a revolt in the Hennepin County Attorney’s Office over the decision to charge Chauvin’s fellow officers Tou Thao, Alexander Kueng and Thomas Lane with aiding and abetting second-degree murder. Lane and Kueng, who is black, were fresh out of the academy.

Sweasy and three other prosecutors refused to work on the case because it “violated professional and ethical rules.”

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The original autopsy report by Hennepin County Medical Examiner Dr. Andrew Baker the day after Floyd died found there was “no physical evidence suggesting that Mr. Floyd died of asphyxiation.

“Mr. Floyd did not exhibit signs of petechiae, damage to his airways or thyroid, brain bleeding, bone injuries, or internal bruising.”

Sweasy claims that Baker also told her that day that “there were no medical findings that showed any injury to the vital structures of Mr. Floyd’s neck. There were no medical indications of asphyxia or strangulation.”

But then she claims Baker told her: “Amy, what happens when the actual evidence doesn’t match up with the public narrative that everyone’s already decided on? … This is the kind of case that ends careers.”

On May 31, 2020, Sweasy said Baker shared the results of toxicology tests with prosecutors, which showed that Floyd, 46, had a “fatal level of fentanyl” in his blood, along with methamphetamine.

Floyd also had COVID and severe “arteriosclerotic heart disease,” with one artery 75% obstructed, and “hypertensive heart disease.”

But Ben Crump, the ambulance-chasing attorney who represented the Floyd family and secured them a $27 million payout from the Minneapolis City Council, told the media: “George Floyd was a healthy young man.”

The private forensic pathologist he hired, Dr. Michael Baden, declared, without seeing Floyd’s body or slides of the autopsy, that “there was no underlying medical problem that caused or contributed to his death.”

The documentary says the FBI met with Baker after Baden’s review and soon after the official autopsy report was changed to find Chauvin was to blame. Floyd’s cause of death had become “cardiopulmonary arrest complicating law enforcement subdual, restraint, and neck compression.”

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