Derek Chauvin had ‘heartless’ look as George Floyd pleaded for his life, teen who shot viral video testifies
MINNEAPOLIS — The teenager who brought before the world’s eyes the events leading to George Floyd’s death last spring testified Tuesday in Derek Chauvin’s murder trial that the ex-minneapolis police officer had a “cold look, heartless” as Floyd pleaded for his life.
Darnella Frazier began her testimony late Tuesday morning in Hennepin County District Court and immediately fought to keep her emotions in check during questioning about what brought her to that south Minneapolis intersection on May 25, when Floyd was detained before dying that evening.
Now 10 months later, the 18-year-old Frazier was asked in court how being on the scene that night and seeing a white officer pinning a Black man to the pavement has affected her life.
“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. I have a Black father, I have Black brothers, I have Black friends. I look at them and how it could have been one of them.”
She added that there have been nights since then when “I’ve stayed up apologizing and apologizing to George Floyd for not doing more and not physically interacting
and not saving his life. It’s not what I should have done, it’s what (Chauvin) should have done.”
Many of the jurors had visibly sympathetic expressions when Frazier spoke about apologizing to Floyd. Frazier wept at times, allowing her tears to flow without wiping them away.
Frazier also testified that she viewed Chauvin that night as having a “cold look, heartless. It didn’t seem like he cared.”
The young woman said she was walking with her 9-yearold cousin to the Cup Foods and soon saw Floyd and the police presence. She said he was “terrified, scared, begging for his life.”
She sent her cousin into the store and stood closer to where Chauvin had Floyd pinned. Frazier then took out her cellphone and recorded Chauvin on Floyd’s neck as another officer kept watch over a growing crowd of increasingly angry bystanders.
Asked what she witnessed as she trained her phone on Floyd and Chauvin, Frazier replied: “I heard George Floyd say, ‘I can’t breathe. Please get off me.’ ... He cried for his mom . ... It seemed like he knew it was over for him. He was suffering.”
Special Prosecutor Jerry Blackwell then showed Frazier a still image of Chauvin from her video as he knelt on Floyd’s neck. He asked her if she recognized him.
“Yes,” whispered Frazier, dressed in a blue pantsuit, her medium-length air worn straight down. “This was the officer that was kneeling on George Floyd’s neck.”
Defense attorney Eric Nelson was brief in his crossexamination, crafting his questions to set the scene as becoming increasingly hostile to the point of creating a potential threat to the officers.
Frazier agreed with Nelson that bystanders were getting louder and more angry, but she added that she didn’t think anyone was ever threatening to Chauvin.
Another bystander who recorded the arrest echoed much of what the other witnesses said they saw, but she also noted that Chauvin added more of his weight onto Floyd’s neck as he struggled under the officer’s knee.
Alyssa Funari, now 18, testified Tuesday afternoon that “I kind of saw him move his knee down more ... down onto Mr. Floyd’s neck.”
Funari said she told Chauvin he should get off Floyd while “expressing that I was upset. He wasn’t able to breathe.”
She added that Chauvin was still kneeling while a paramedic checked Floyd’s neck for a pulse and didn’t find one. Assistant Attorney General Erin Eldridge played video Funari filmed with her cellphone as she pleaded with officers to get off Floyd. At one point during testifying, Funari grew emotional.
“Alyssa, why is this difficult for you to talk about?” Eldridge asked.
“It was difficult because I felt like there wasn’t really anything I could do,” she said. “As a bystander I was powerless there, and I was failing to do anything.”
Eldridge asked her why she was so vocal, shouting that Floyd hadn’t moved in “over a minute.”
“I knew time was running out or it had already,” she said. “That he was going to die.”