I have lived through too many high profile murder trials to allow myself a scintilla of hope that Derek Chauvin will be convicted of killing George Floyd. Despite that, I feel compelled to watch the trial, just as I felt compelled to watch the O.J. Simpson trial back in 1995. It is history in the making and I believe the outcome will determine whether this country is finally ready to address the problem of racial violence at the hands of the police.
My first observation is how quickly this trial is proceeding. The opening statements were short and sweet and they’re flying through the witnesses with very few objections and sidebars. Because of the COVID-19 protocols, the sidebars are conducted with the attorneys sitting in their seats with headsets on. No more huddling in front of the judge’s bench. The prosecutor has been allowed to lead the witnesses throughout their testimony with no objection from the defense.
The first part of the case is being presented through eyewitness testimony and has covered the events starting from when George Floyd walked into Cup Foods at approximately 7:35 p.m. to when the 911 call was placed by an employee of Cup Foods to report the use of a fake $20 bill at 8:02 p.m., all the way to when the ambulance finally arrived at 8:29 p.m.
Since many of the witnesses videoed the events in question, there is little room to call into question their memories of the events. This is one of those rare cases where everything was videoed by many people from different angles. There are also videos from street cameras and body worn cameras from all the officers involved. No detail is left to the imagination.
There are not only videos, but also audio recordings of people reacting to what is happening to Mr. Floyd as he struggles under the weight of three police officers, cries out 27 times over the course of four minutes that he can’t breathe, cries out for “mama” repeatedly, and then stops breathing and goes limp.
I had never seen the entire video taken by Darnella Frazier until I saw it during the prosecution’s opening statement. I hadn’t seen Mr. Floyd appear to stop breathing four minutes and 45 seconds after the three officers first pinned him face down on the ground. I’d never before seen how they stayed in that position for an additional four minutes and 44 seconds until the paramedics arrived and Mr. Floyd was rolled like a large rag doll onto the stretcher, placed on the gurney with the handcuffs still on, and finally put into the ambulance where emergency medical assistance was performed on Mr. Floyd’s dead body.
One after another, each witness broke down in tears reliving the experience and regretting that they hadn’t done more to save Mr. Floyd. The young man who took the fake bill will forever regret taking the bill and live with the guilt for the rest of his life. The anguish and frustration was palpable from the witnesses that ranged in age from nine to 61. The off-duty firefighter was the most compelling as she is heard begging and pleading for the officers to administer CPR to Mr. Floyd, in anguish over the fact that she couldn’t intervene to do what she was trained to do and has done for two years as a firefighter. Officer Thao refused to believe she was a firefighter.
In his opening statement, prosecuting attorney Blackwell, who is the only Black attorney in the courtroom, described the bystanders as a “veritable example of humanity” from a broad spectrum of races, genders, ages and experiences. “They tried to intercede with their voices . . . to exhort . . . to get into what we call good trouble.” Blackwell was quoting Congressman John Lewis, which for me was the first indication that the prosecution understood that this case is about racial injustice. I can only hope the jury, which is racially diverse for a change, recognized the reference to John Lewis.
Meanwhile, the defense attorney in his opening statement described the crowd as growing larger in numbers and getting angrier and louder, causing the officers to consider them a threat. He wants the jury to believe that the officers were afraid of the “unruly mob” and that is why they kneeled on Mr. Floyd until the paramedics arrived. He also wants the jury to believe that because Mr. Floyd was “resisting arrest,” Chauvin had the right to hogtie him. Will the jury agree that Mr. Floyd was “resisting arrest” or merely “resisting death?” Ultimately, the defense is going to hang their hat on the theory that the cause of death was hypertension, drugs and adrenaline, not Chauvin’s conduct.
The most emotional testimony was from Mr. Floyd’s girlfriend for the past three years, Courteney Ross. She humanized Floyd (that’s what she called him) and admitted that they both were addicted to opioids and struggled with it during their relationship. The prosecution is hoping to take the wind out of the sails of the defense’s argument that Mr. Floyd died as a result of an overdose, pointing out the subtleties between use and misuse.
The final witness of the week was Lt. Richard Zimmerman, chief homicide detective with the Minneapolis Police Department, who has seniority having served 36 years with the department. In all of his professional career he has never put his knee on a person’s neck and was never trained to do so. In his opinion it was “totally unnecessary” for Chauvin to keep his knee on Mr. Floyd’s neck after he had stopped resisting. He saw no reason for the officers to feel danger at that point, which would have justified the continued use of deadly force. It was “uncalled for,” he said. This is one of those rare cases where police officers are coming forward willingly to testify against a “fellow brother.”
It is not unusual to feel as though the prosecution’s case is going swimmingly at this point, because the defense has not really scored any points on cross-examination or called any of the witness’s credibility into question. But the case is far from over. The last thing the jury heard was that an experienced police officer said what Chauvin did was unnecessary and uncalled for. My hope is that Chauvin is also hearing this testimony and will be consulting with his attorney about pleading guilty and cutting a deal, so he doesn’t spend the next 40 years in jail. The longer the trial goes on, the longer his sentence could potentially be. Pleading guilty would begin the road to healing.
(Susannah Colt lives in Whitefield and blogs at susannahcoltwriter.com.)