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Yesterday, Derek Chauvin’s murder trial saw more vivid and stark testimonies from eyewitnesses expressing the survivor’s guilt and helplessness for witnessing George Floyd, a 46-year-old black man, die under the knees of the former white police officer. in Minneapolis.
Charles McMillian, a 61-year-old eyewitness who testified Wednesday, was shattered by watching video of the incident and explained why he confronted Chauvin after the immobile Floyd was taken away in an ambulance after 9 minutes and 29 seconds. knee-to-neck support under which he placed Floyd last May.
As prosecutors showed McMillian a video, the witness sobbed in pain on the stand, put his head in his hands for several moments and searched for tissues, after recalling Floyd calling for his dead mother as he struggled to stay alive. .
“I feel powerless,” McMillian told the court. “I don’t have a mom either. I understand it.”
Meanwhile, in recently released police body camera footage, shown to the jury on the third day of testimony, Chauvin can be heard interacting with McMillian.
The footage, from Chauvin’s body camera, marks the first time the former Minneapolis police officer has been heard in public offering any explanation for his actions in immobilizing Floyd on the street during an arrest.
Chauvin denies murder and manslaughter charges in downtown Minneapolis trial, nearly a year after Floyd’s murder sparked an outbreak of protests, not just in Minnesota, but across the United States. and internationally in a resurgence of Black Lives Matter. movement and a widespread racial reckoning.
The video shows Chauvin briefly interacting with McMillian, who testified Wednesday. As McMillian disagrees with Chauvin’s use of restraint, the former officer responds, “That’s one person’s opinion.” He adds: “We had to control this guy because he’s a sizeable guy. It looks like he’s probably taking something, ”referring to Floyd taking illicit drugs.
When asked by prosecutors why he confronted Chauvin after Floyd was taken away in an ambulance, McMillian replied, “Because what I saw was wrong.”
The third day of the trial was marked by the presentation of a series of heartbreaking body camera videos, some of which had previously been released to the public, along with further testimony from bystanders, including McMillian’s. In the videos, Floyd can be heard begging for his life and calling for his mother before seemingly losing consciousness when Chauvin’s knee remains pressed against his neck.
In a video played in court, another officer involved in Floyd’s restraint, Thomas Lane, asks if Floyd’s body should be rolled after he weakens. Officers do not. Later, another officer, Alex Kueng, tells Chauvin that he can no longer feel Floyd’s pulse, but Chauvin keeps his knee pressed on Floyd’s neck for at least two more minutes.
Many of the witnesses during the first three days of the trial have offered vivid testimony, many crying and some expressing the survivor’s guilt for seeing Floyd’s death without being able to save him.
On Wednesday, a corner store clerk who visited Floyd prior to his interaction with police described his “disbelief and guilt” over his involvement in the case. Christopher Martin, 19, had been a cashier at Cup Foods and Floyd presented him with an allegedly counterfeit $ 20 bill, prompting him to interact with the police.
“If he just hadn’t accepted the bill, this could have been avoided,” Martin told the court on Wednesday. He said that he had stopped working at the store shortly after the incident because he no longer felt safe.
During eyewitness testimony Tuesday, 18-year-old Darnella Frazier, who was 17 when she recorded the video of an eyewitness that went viral last year of Chauvin kneeling on Floyd’s neck told the court that he still loses sleep remembering the incident and wondering what else he could. Have done.
“It has been nights that I have stayed up apologizing to George Floyd for not doing more and not interacting physically and not saving his life,” he told the court. “But it’s not what he should have done, it’s what he [Chauvin] I should have.”
And Minneapolis firefighter Genevieve Hansen burst into tears when she told the court Tuesday that she crossed the scene while off duty and was prevented from intervening by the four police officers present, led by Chauvin.
She had emergency medical training and was kept at bay as she urged the police, with increasing agitation, to allow her to treat Floyd or that they should treat him.
The trial continues.
