Moments from death, Floyd uses fake note in store
Clip shown at cop’s trial
CCTV footage showing George Floyd inside a shop minutes before he was pinned to the ground by the neck under the knee of a police officer was shown to a jury yesterday.
The previously unseen film captured Mr Floyd using a fake $20 note to buy cigarettes – the incident that led police to arrest him.
Film from inside the Cup Foods store was played at the trial of former police officer Derek Chauvin, who is accused of killing the father- of-five. A store assistant said he thought Mr Floyd, 46, was ‘high’ at the time and the video showed him moving erratically.
‘He seemed to be high’
Staff called police after they realised Mr Floyd had used the counterfeit note. The court has heard during the arrest Chauvin put his knee on Mr Floyd’s neck for more than nine minutes, even after he pleaded he could not breathe 27 times and passed out. He was later declared dead in hospital.
The footage is the first time the jury have seen Mr Floyd’s conduct before police arrived at the scene in Minneapolis. The arrest outside the shop in May last year was captured on mobile phone footage by passers-by and led to race riots in the US and Black Lives Matter protests around the world.
Shop assistant Christopher Martin told the jury that when former security guard Mr Floyd walked in the first thing he noticed was his size at more than 6ft tall and weighing 15 stone.
Mr Martin, 19, said: ‘When I asked him if he played baseball it took him a little long to get to what he wanted to say. It would appear he was high.’ But he added that when he ordered cigarettes he did not have difficulty understanding him. The CCTV footage showed Mr Floyd leaving, coming back and repeatedly fiddling with something in his pocket.
At one point he laughed loudly, put his arm on the counter and then around a woman.
As Mr Floyd waited at the counter he was seen rocking back and forth on his feet, running his hand over his head and jumping up and down. Mr Martin told Hennepin County Court in Minnesota he noticed the $20 note Mr Floyd used had a ‘blue pigment like a $100 had’ and he assumed it was fake. He said he ‘thought that George didn’t really know it was a fake $20 bill so I was trying to do him a favour’ by accepting it,
Mr Martin planned to pay the
$20 himself as the store policy was that if an assistant accepts counterfeit cash, it comes out of their pay. But he informed his manager and twice went outside to Mr Floyd, who was now in his car, to ask him to come back in and discuss the matter.
The jury heard that a passenger in the car had earlier tried to give Mr Martin a similar fake $20 and he refused it. He said: ‘I notified them they needed to come back to the store and that the bill was fake and my manager wanted to talk to them.’
Mr Floyd refused to return to the store so the manager asked for police to be contacted.
Mr Martin said when he saw Mr Floyd being arrested he called his mother, who lived above the shop, and told her not to come downstairs. He added: ‘I was emotional. I was like “They’re not going to help him. This is what we [black people] have to deal with”.’
Mr Martin said he felt ‘disbelief and guilt’ as he stood on the kerb later, with his hands on his head, as he watched the arrest. He said if he had not challenged the counterfeit note ‘this could’ve been avoided’ – joining a list of onlookers who said they felt a sense of helplessness and lingering guilt. The teenager said he stopped working at Cup Foods because he ‘didn’t feel safe’. Chauvin, 45, denies murder and manslaughter.
Three other former policemen face a trial in August accused of aiding and abetting murder. The case continues.