‘I witnessed a murder’, recalls man at trial over Floyd’s death
During the witness testimony, prosecutors played videos of the arrest to the jury taken from multiple angles, including teenager Darnella Frazier’s video that shows Derek Chauvin pressing his knee into the neck of Floyd for about nine minutes.
Prosecutors in the trial of the former Minneapolis police officer charged with killing George Floyd have begun their case by calling several people who witnessed Floyd’s arrest on May 25, 2020 for allegedly passing a counterfeit $20 bill.
During the witness testimony, prosecutors played videos of the arrest to the jury taken from multiple angles, including teenager Darnella Frazier’s video that shows Derek Chauvin, who is white, pressing his knee into the neck of Floyd, a 46-year-old Black man, for about nine minutes. Frazier, 18, said she began recording because “he was suffering, he was in pain”.
Frazier grew emotional at times, breathing heavily and crying as she viewed pictures of Chauvin kneeling on Floyd. “I knew it was wrong. We all knew it was wrong,” she said.
Donald Williams, 33, who was among the onlookers said he called 911 after paramedics took Floyd away. The 911 call Williams made after the arrest was played to the jury.
Williams dabbed his eyes with a tissue as his distressed voice filled the room. “I believe I witnessed a murder,” Williams told the jury. “So I felt I needed to call the police on the police.”
The footage, which prosecutors say show excessive force, led to one of the largest protest movements seen in the United States in decades. Many have held up Floyd’s death as an example of the brutality they say is routinely doled out by US law enforcement in encounters with people of colour.
Lawyers for Chauvin, 45, argue that the policeman followed his training and is not guilty of the charges of second-degree murder, third-degree murder or second-degree manslaughter.
