Teen testifies Floyd was in pain, distress

ST. PAUL, Minn. — A woman who was 17 when she came upon Minneapolis police pinning George Floyd to the street testified Friday at a federal trial for three officers that she knew instantly the Black man was “in distress,” as he screamed in pain and shouted that he couldn’t breathe.

Former officers J. Alexander Kueng, Thomas Lane and Tou Thao are charged with violating Floyd’s civil rights while acting under government authority. All three are accused of depriving Floyd, 46, of medical care while he was handcuffed and facedown as then-officer Derek Chauvin pressed his knee onto Floyd’s neck for 9½ minutes. Kueng knelt on Floyd’s back and Lane held down his legs while Thao kept bystanders back.

Kueng and Thao are also accused of failing to intervene to stop the

May 25, 2020, killing, which triggered protests worldwide and a re-examination of racism and policing.

Also Friday, prosecutors showed snippets of bystander and police video with timelines and transcripts as Matthew Vogel, an FBI special agent, described what was being shown. The materials explain the sequence of events and show jurors exactly who said and did what and when.

Earlier in the day, Alyssa Funari, now 19, testified that she lived about a mile from the intersection where Floyd was killed and went up to the corner store to get a phone charger. She drove past and saw three officers on top of a man in the street. She said she parked her car, left it running, got out and started recording because she had a “gut feeling” something was wrong.

She said she heard screaming and yelling. “I instantly knew that he was in distress. … He was moving, making facial expressions that he was in pain,” she said. “He was telling us that he was in pain.”