The other victims in George Floyd’s death
One after another, witnesses to the death of George Floyd took the stand this week in the trial of Derek Chauvin, the former Minneapolis police officer charged with his murder. The 19-year-old cashier who waited on Floyd that terrible day wondered whether he was at fault for reporting Floyd’s use of a fake $20 bill.
The teenage girl whose video of Floyd’s dying moments shocked the world spoke of being haunted by not doing more. The 61-year-old man who had begged Floyd to just cooperate with police broke down in tears as video played in court of Floyd calling for his mother as officers held him down. “I couldn’t help but feel helpless,” sobbed Charles Mcmillian.
The trial that opened Monday is in its early stages. But already it is painfully clear that Floyd was not the only victim that May day in Minneapolis. Those who were forced to stand by helplessly and watch as the 46-year-old Floyd died, gasping for breath, despite their desperate pleas to police, have been forever changed.
“When I look at George
Floyd, I look at my dad, I look at my brothers, I look at my cousins, my uncles, because they are all Black,” testified Darnella Frazier, who was 17 when she recorded the cellphone video of the May 25 events and posted it on Facebook, igniting a national reckoning over racism and police abuse. “I have a Black father. I have a Black brother. I have Black friends. And I look at that and I look at how that could have been one of them.” Describing the lingering anxiety she suffers from Floyd’s death, she said, “It’s been nights I stayed up apologizing and apologizing to George Floyd for not doing more and not physically interacting and not saving his life.”
Frazier was accompanying her 9-year-old cousin to the corner grocery store for snacks when they saw police confront Floyd. “I was sad and kind of mad,” the little girl testified. Nine years old and forced to watch someone die. Equally helpless and traumatized were the off-duty firefighter whose offer of medical assistance for the clearly distressed Floyd was spurned by police and the mixed martial arts fighter with a background in security work who warned Chauvin about the danger of the hold he had on Floyd.
The power that day was with the phalanx of police who responded to a call about a counterfeit $20 bill. As is too often the case when police interact with minority communities, their response was not to listen, not to help, but to respond to an imagined, nonexistent threat. Indeed, Chauvin’s attorney even suggested that it was the bystanders who were responsible for Floyd’s death. The crowd was hostile and posed a threat, Eric Nelson told the court, that diverted police’s attention from Floyd.
“Disbelief and guilt” is how store clerk Christopher Martin described what was going through his mind as he watched Chauvin kneel on Floyd’s neck heedless to cries he couldn’t breathe. He and other onlookers became victims as the police officer drove home their helplessness with his indifference and contempt. And Chauvin left many of them feeling guilty or ashamed, though Frazier had it exactly right when she testified, “It’s not what I should have done, it’s what he should have done.”