Witness: Chauvin purposely shifted weight on neck
Unable to breathe, George Floyd died
MINNEAPOLIS — Attorneys in the Derek Chauvin murder trial on Monday each made their case before jurors who will decide the fired Minneapolis police officer’s fate in the killing of George Floyd 10 months ago.
Prosecutor Jerry Blackwell began shortly before 9:40 a.m. in front of a global livestream audience in downtown Minneapolis in the heavily guarded Hennepin County Government Center and explained how the state will prove that Chauvin killed Floyd and should be convicted of murder and manslaughter.
In his nearly one-hour address to jurors, Blackwell turned to what could be prosecution’s most crucial piece of the evidence — the viral bystander video of Floyd’s arrest — and showed it in full to the jurors, others in the courtroom and millions watching on the livestream.
“I can’t breathe,” Floyd said repeatedly, a phrase that quickly became a rallying cry for activists around the world. As millions saw within hours of Floyd’s death, the cellphone video captured bystanders’ increasingly agitated calls for intervention while Chauvin remained with his knee on Floyd’s neck.
Nearly an hour later, defense attorney Eric Nelson followed with his opening statement and declared that Chauvin acted precisely as his training taught him.
A crucial witness for the state was Donald Williams II, who saw much of Floyd’s time on the pavement and who implored with Chauvin to let the handcuffed Floyd get up. His voice was strongest one among the witnesses heard in the nowfamous bystander video of the arrest.
Williams, who is a longtime mixed martial arts fighter, said he was familiar with how Chauvin had Floyd pinned to the pavement in what Williams recognized from his training as a “blood choke.” He said it can lead to someone falling unconscious.
Floyd was distressed as he pleaded with Chauvin, “‘My stomach hurts, I can’t breathe, my head hurts, I want my mom,’ “the 33-year-old Williams testified. “He said the wanted to get in the car, he said he’s sorry for what he did.”
Williams compared watching Floyd gasp for air to a fish he had caught earlier that day with his son.
“You see Floyd fade away like the fish in the bag,” he said. “He vocalized that he can’t breathe and ‘I’m sorry.’ His eyes rolled back in his head.”
As Williams watched the viral video shot by a fellow bystander, he told the court that Chauvin was shifting his weight on purpose repeatedly to tighten the hold on Floyd’s neck, what the witness called a “shimmy.” At one point, he said Floyd was trying to fight “through the torture.”
Late in the afternoon, Judge Peter Cahill reminded Williams to keep his testimony to what he witnessed and how his martial arts experience makes him better understand the circumstances. He was told to cease offering conclusions or express opinions while testifying.
Moments later, Cahill recessed for the day because the video feed being viewed by Floyd family members outside the courtroom failed, prompting the judge to end the day’s proceedings close to the time when he would have anyway.
The state’s first witness was the 911 dispatcher who handled the call that resulted in Chauvin and the other officers responding to the intersection where Floyd was detained.
Jena Scurry detailed under questioning by prosecutor Matthew Frank how she was troubled by seeing on wall-mounted dispatch screens how Floyd’s arrest played out on city surveillance cameras.
The seven-year dispatch veteran said she glanced up at the screens between taking other calls and saw a police squad moving “back and forth” as officers dealt with Floyd, then moments later take him to the pavement.
Multiple times she looked away and then back to see the same image of the officers keeping Floyd on the pavement. “I first asked if the screens were frozen,” Scurry testified. “I was told that it was not frozen.”
It was then that “something was not right. It was an extended period of time. … It was a gut instinct, now we can be concerned.”
Scurry said she called a supervisory sergeant and reported what she saw. The audio of that call was played in court.