Teen bystander says she knew instantly Floyd was `in 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.
Alyssa Funari, now 19, said that when she drove past officers on top of a man in the street on May 25, 2020, she got out of her car and started recording because she had a “gut feeling” something was wrong.
“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.”
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 Officer Derek Chauvin pressed his knee onto Floyd's neck for 9 1/2 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 Floyd's killing, which triggered protests worldwide and a reexamination of racism and policing.
Prosecutors told the court that they will rest their case Monday after three weeks of testimony from law enforcement officials, doctors and eyewitnesses.
The announcement came after prosecutors showed snippets of bystander and police video with timelines and transcripts as Matthew Vogel, an FBI special agent, described what the materials.
The timelines and transcripts are meant to help jurors sort out sometimes confusing videos that show a chaotic scene from various angles and capture different pieces of the officers' conversations, Floyd's fading cries of, “I can't breathe,” and frantic pleas by bystanders to check his pulse.
The footage included video of Kueng and Lane talking to a sergeant about what happened, but saying incorrectly that Floyd was still breathing when paramedics arrived, and mentioning nothing about their inability to find Floyd's pulse. The head of the Minneapolis homicide unit testified Thursday that he noticed similar problems with what they told him.
On-cross examination, Thao's attorney, Robert Paule, noted that some of the dialogue in the videos can't be made out — or that people might hear things differently. He asked about a statement from Floyd about drugs that was a matter of dispute Chauvin's state murder trial last year. Attorneys had argued about whether Floyd yelled, “I ate too many drugs” or “I ain't do no drugs.” Vogel said: “It was unintelligible to me.”
One of the prosecution's key arguments has been that the officers were trained to provide medical aid in emergencies, and that Floyd's situation had become so serious as police held him down that bystanders — even children with no medical training — knew something was wrong.