USA TODAY International Edition

‘ Reckless disregard for life’ or accident? Chauvin goes on trial

- Tami Abdollah

A video of George Floyd taking his last breath under the knee of Minneapoli­s police officer Derek Chauvin is at the center of a murder trial in a death witnessed by tens of millions of people.

The question at the heart of the case, which is scheduled to start Monday with jury selection, is whether what people saw on the video was murder or a terrible tragedy. Prosecutor­s contend Floyd, 46, was killed by Chauvin’s knee, compressed against Floyd’s neck for more than nine minutes while he was handcuffed and pinned to the pavement. The defense is likely to argue that Floyd’s death was the result of his struggle with police, the drugs in his system and health issues such as heart disease.

Video filmed by a bystander went viral, followed by months of protests over racism and police brutality.

“The video of Chauvin murdering George Floyd was powerful enough to do what the other videos did not do, which is to get close to an estimated 15 to 20 million white people, out of 25 million who marched across the country,” said Connie Rice, a civil rights attorney.

“The video will be everything in this trial,” she said.

Chauvin and Floyd crossed paths after a convenienc­e store employee called 911 alleging Floyd had used a counterfei­t $ 20 bill. As he lay on the ground under Chauvin, Floyd cried out, “I can’t breathe” more than 20 times. He called for his mother, who had recently died, nearly a dozen times.

Chauvin, 44, is charged with seconddegr­ee murder and manslaught­er and may face a third- degree murder charge, too. An appeals court ruled Friday that the trial court judge should not have refused to reinstate a third- degree murder charge. It’s unclear whether that will affect the trial schedule.

Three other officers involved in the incident, J. Alexander Keung, Thomas Lane and Tou Thao, are charged with aiding and abetting. They were all fired last year.

Two autopsies

Among the evidence are two autopsies, one conducted by the Hennepin County medical examiner and another by independen­t forensic pathologis­ts at the request of Floyd’s family.

Both concluded Floyd’s death was a homicide.

The county medical examiner said Floyd’s death was the result of cardiopulm­onary arrest complicate­d by “law enforcemen­t subdual ( being subdued), restraint and neck compressio­n.” A toxicology report showed fentanyl and methamphet­amine in Floyd’s system.

The federal Armed Forces Medical Examiner System, which reviewed that autopsy, said the “subdual and restraint had elements of positional and mechanical asphyxiati­on.”

The family’s autopsy found Floyd died of asphyxiati­on because of neck and back compressio­n.

Though the medical examiners agree Floyd’s death was a homicide, the “mechanism” of death is still a big question, said Mary Moriarty, a former Hennepin County chief public defender.

“Did he get asphyxiate­d because of the knee, because of the position? Did the knee cut off blood to his brain?” she said.

Somil Trivedi, a senior staff attorney at the American Civil Liberties Union, expects a “battle of the experts” around the autopsies, in which the defense will probably argue Floyd died from a drug overdose, not from Chauvin’s knee on his neck.

Ted Sampsell- Jones, a professor at Mitchell Hamline College of Law in neighborin­g St. Paul, said the defense is likely to say Chauvin was trying to subdue Floyd and wasn’t aware he was in danger.

“If I were the defense attorney,” he said, “I’d be saying, ‘ This was a really tragic accident and horrible, but this was not a result that Chauvin wanted.’ ”

Moriarty said the defense will have trouble proving a drug overdose caused Floyd’s death.

“Under the law, you take your victim as you find them,” she said. “It doesn’t matter if George Floyd ( might have) later died of an overdose. What matters is Chauvin’s knee on him, and the position of it, caused his death.”

The prosecutio­n needs to show that Chauvin “knew better,” Moriarty said. The prosecutio­n needs to prove that Chauvin knowingly committed a felony – an assault on Floyd – that unintentio­nally caused his death, experts said.

A court filing by prosecutor­s describes bystanders, including children, watching and pleading with Chauvin to stop, but he “rolled his knee back and forth, pressing it into Floyd’s neck and maintainin­g pressure on Floyd’s breathing” even after he went limp.

The prosecutio­n plans to introduce body camera videos from the four officers. One, according to a court filing, shows Chauvin dismissing Floyd’s pleas, telling him, “You’re doing a lot of talking, a lot of yelling. It takes a heck of a lot of oxygen to say things.”

Chauvin ignored calls from the crowd to check whether Floyd was breathing. Instead, he asked whether Lane, who was restrainin­g Floyd’s legs, was “all right.”

A body camera captured Floyd’s last words: “I can’t breathe.”

‘ Cameras matter’

John Burris, a civil rights attorney, represente­d Rodney King, a Black man who was beaten by white Los Angeles police officers 30 years ago while a neighbor recorded it with his Sony camcorder. The four officers were acquitted of criminal charges; within hours, five days of rioting in Los Angeles began.

Burris said Chauvin’s mental state will be an important issue.

“Whether this is criminal, it’s really a function of Chauvin’s attitude toward Floyd and the manner in which he held him down and looked very disinteres­ted in the person,” Burris said. “It really goes to the heart of what kind of crime it is ( because) reckless disregard for human life is a second- degree murder charge.”

Burris said the defense will probably say Chauvin’s knee- on- neck restraint, which was included in the Minneapoli­s Police Department’s handbook, was necessary. Though the public is predispose­d to believe police, he said, “the cameras matter. They’re the one equalizer.

“The defense has to work very hard to slow that camera down,” he said, “like they did in Rodney King.”

That means finding moments that show Floyd doing something that required officers to react even while he was being held down. The defense can argue Floyd “is not cooperatin­g, that he’s being forceful, that he’s a big, bad dude,” Burris said.

Chauvin’s lawyers will have to address why Chauvin kept his knee on Floyd’s neck for three minutes after he became unresponsi­ve.

“Once the resistance or aggression has subsided, you are supposed to stop that level of force,” said Christy Lopez, former deputy chief in the special litigation section of the Civil Rights Division at the Justice Department. “That’s not what we saw happening here.”

Ken Cooper, director of THT ( Technical Handgun Training) of New York, which trains law enforcemen­t and civilians, said jurors will have to examine the “necessity” to use force.

“Nine minutes is about 12 lifetimes,” Cooper said. “The question would be why. Why, officer, did you feel you had to have your knee on this man’s neck that long? ... If it’s not necessary, it was reckless.”

Lopez said she expects prosecutor­s to focus not just on how long Chauvin had his knee on Floyd’s neck but on how dangerous that move is.

Bystanders screamed that Floyd was unresponsi­ve. An off- duty firefighter offered to provide medical assistance, repeatedly urging the officers to check Floyd’s pulse and begin chest compressio­ns, according to a court filing by prosecutor­s and the video. There were plenty of indication­s the officers understood “how dangerous this use of force is,” Lopez said.

The prosecutio­n plans to call that firefighter as a witness, along with other bystanders such as a former mixed martial arts fighter, paramedics and the person who recorded the video, according to court filings. Some of Chauvin’s fellow police offers may testify.

According to court filings, the firefighter approached Floyd to offer help, but she was warned back by Chauvin, who held chemical spray in his hand. “She believes that if she intervened, she could have saved Mr. Floyd,” prosecutor­s wrote.

Chauvin’s attorney challenged the firefighter, saying her testimony would be “speculativ­e” in a court filing.

The former profession­al fighter is heard on video exclaiming that Chauvin had placed Floyd in a “blood choke” and pleading with him to stop. The blood choke has that name because it “cuts off circulatio­n,” the prosecutio­n wrote in a filing.

Jurors will hear from a member of the Floyd family, though it hasn’t been decided which one, Ben Crump, the family attorney said. Chauvin’s defense attorney, Eric Nelson, declined to say whether he would put Chauvin on the stand.

Police allowed neck restraint

Though the neck restraint is dangerous, it was allowed by the Minneapoli­s Police Department.

The department’s use- of- force manual says “sanctity of life and the protection of the public” are cornerston­es. It requires officers to try to de- escalate a confrontat­ion before using force and to consider whether a person is actually resisting or cannot comply because of other factors, including medical conditions, mental impairment or the influence of drugs or alcohol.

“It’s extremely problemati­c, the amount of time that none of the officers did anything after he became unresponsi­ve,” Moriarty said. “After you know he’s unresponsi­ve and doesn’t have a pulse, what are you doing? Why are you still holding him down?”

According to the department’s policy, a “conscious neck restraint” could be used only on a person who is “actively resisting.” The department requires officers to place a restrained person on his or her side as soon as possible to facilitate breathing.

If someone is unconsciou­s, the manual says, officers must check his airway and breathing and begin CPR if necessary. None of that was done.

“All those officers were trained about this, and so they had knowledge,” Moriarty said.

Floyd’s death spurred the Minnesota state Legislatur­e to pass a law banning chokeholds and neck restraints nearly two months later. Wednesday, the U. S. House of Representa­tives passed a bill named after George Floyd, which would ban chokeholds and neck restraints at a federal level.

Burris said that what happened to Floyd is so outrageous that the prosecutio­n has a good chance of a conviction.

“I can see second- degree, and I can see manslaught­er,” Burris said. But “whenever the police is involved, I’m never shocked that it’s ‘ not guilty.’ ”

 ?? JACK GRUBER/ USA TODAY ?? A vigil is held at the George Floyd memorial at the Cup Foods Market in Minneapoli­s on June 1. Floyd died in police custody at this site.
JACK GRUBER/ USA TODAY A vigil is held at the George Floyd memorial at the Cup Foods Market in Minneapoli­s on June 1. Floyd died in police custody at this site.
 ??  ?? Chauvin
Chauvin
 ?? RICARDO B. BRAZZIELL/ USA TODAY NETWORK ?? Thousands of people gather in front of the Texas Capitol in Austin about two weeks after George Floyd’s death, chanting, “Black lives matter” and “Justice.” Similar protests happened across America.
RICARDO B. BRAZZIELL/ USA TODAY NETWORK Thousands of people gather in front of the Texas Capitol in Austin about two weeks after George Floyd’s death, chanting, “Black lives matter” and “Justice.” Similar protests happened across America.

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