Floyd’s brother sheds tears on stand

MINNEAPOLIS — Prosecutors’ case against former Officer Derek Chauvin drew toward a close Monday with tender memories from George Floyd’s younger brother and testimony from a police use-of-force expert who said no “reasonable” officer would have done what Chauvin did.

Seth Stoughton, an associate professor at the University of South Carolina School of Law, judged Chauvin’s actions against what a reasonable officer in the same situation would have done, and repeatedly found that Chauvin did not meet that test.

“No reasonable officer would have believed that that was an appropriate, acceptable or reasonable use of force.” Stoughton

said of the way Floyd was held facedown with a knee across his neck for up to 9 minutes, 29 seconds.

He said, too, that the failure to take Floyd out of the prone position and render aid “as his increasing medical distress became obvious” was unreasonable.

He said it was unreasonable as well to think that Floyd might harm officers or escape after he had been handcuffed to the ground. And in yet another blow to the officer’s defense, Stoughton said a reasonable officer would not have viewed the bystanders as a threat while they were restraining Floyd.

Earlier in the day, Philonise Floyd, 39, took the witness stand and lovingly recalled how his older brother used to make the best banana mayonnaise sandwiches, how George drilled him in catching a football, and the way George used to mark his height on the wall as a boy because he wanted to grow taller.

He shed tears as he was shown a picture of his late mother and a young George, saying, “I miss both of them.”

His testimony at Chauvin’s murder was part of an effort by prosecutors to humanize George Floyd in front of the jury and make the 46-year-old Black man more than a crime statistic. Minnesota is a rarity in allowing “spark of life” testimony during the trial stage.

Philonise Floyd described growing up in a poor area of Houston with George and their other siblings.

“He used to make the best banana mayonnaise sandwiches. And he used to make the best syrup sandwiches because George couldn’t cook, he couldn’t boil water,” he said.

He said Floyd also played football and deliberately threw the ball at different angles so Philonise would have to practice diving for it.

Earlier Monday, the judge refused a defense request to immediately sequester the jury, the morning after the killing of a Black man during a traffic stop triggered unrest in a suburb just outside Minneapolis.

But Judge Peter Cahill said he will not sequester the jury until next Monday, when he anticipates closing arguments will begin. He also denied a defense request to question jurors about what they might have seen about Sunday’s police shooting of 20-year-old Daunte Wright in Brooklyn Center.