By Jonathan Allen
MINNEAPOLIS (Reuters) – A Minneapolis firefighter whose offers of medical aid to George Floyd during his deadly arrest last May were rebuffed by police was due to return to the witness stand on Wednesday in the trial of Derek Chauvin, the former policeman charged with Floyd’s murder.
The third day of testimony in the Chauvin trial comes after jurors on Tuesday heard a series of bystanders describe in searing detail how they watched Floyd’s arrest on May 25, 2020, and screamed at Chauvin to get off Floyd’s neck.
Among the witnesses on Tuesday was the teenager who recorded a video viewed by millions worldwide that shows Chauvin, who is white, using his knee to pin the neck of Floyd, a 46-year-old Black man in handcuffs, to the ground.
Darnella Frazier’s footage, which prosecutors say shows excessive force, led to one of the largest protest movements seen in the United States in decades, with daily marches against disproportionate rates of police violence against Black people.
Lawyers for Chauvin, 45, say he followed his police training and is not guilty of the charges brought by the Minnesota Attorney General’s Office of second-degree murder, third-degree murder and second-degree manslaughter.
Frazier, an 18-year-old student who told the court she suffers from social anxiety, broke down in tears as she described her feelings of guilt and anger after witnessing Floyd’s arrest.
Genevieve Hansen, who was off duty when she arrived at the scene of the arrest, can be heard on the video screaming at the police to check Floyd’s pulse.
“I pled and was desperate,” she testified on Tuesday, dressed in her Minneapolis Fire Department uniform. She said another officer at the scene told her: “If you really are a Minneapolis firefighter, you would know better than to get involved.”
After her increasingly combative exchanges with Eric Nelson, Chauvin’s lead lawyer, Hennepin County District Judge Peter Cahill sent out the jury and chastised Hansen, warning her not to argue with the court or with lawyers.
Donald Williams, a professional mixed martial arts fighter, earlier testified about his increasing agitation as he watched the prone Floyd struggle for breath, and was heard on a 911 call trying to report Chauvin for murder.
(Reporting by Jonathan Allen; Editing by Peter Cooney)
