WITNESSES IN GEORGE FLOYD MURDER TRIAL WEEP IN COURT

The Minneapolis teenager whose cellphone video of Derek Chauvin’s deadly arrest of George Floyd sparked worldwide protests began weeping as she was shown an image from the video at the former policeman’s murder trial on Tuesday (Wednesday, March 31, 2021, in Manila), Jonathan Allen reported for Reuters.

Prosecutors have begun their case by calling witnesses to the arrest on May 25, 2020: a Minneapolis 911 dispatcher; a young woman who worked at the gas station across the street; a mixed martial arts fighter who was passing by.

Over the first two days of witness testimony, prosecutors have shown the jury video taken from several angles, including the teenager’s video of Chauvin, who is white, pressing his knee into the neck of a dying Floyd, a 46-year-old Black man in handcuffs, for about nine minutes.

The footage, which prosecutors say shows excessive force, horrified people around the world and 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.

Darnella Frazier, 18, was walking her 9-year-old cousin to buy some snacks at Cup Foods, where a worker had moments before accused Floyd of using a fake $20 bill when she saw police arresting Floyd on the road outside. She told the jury she saw “a man terrified, scared, begging for his life,” and so ensured her cousin was safely inside the store, out of sight, before pulling out her cellphone.

Frazier’s voice quavered when prosecutors brought up a still from her video, showing the moment when Chauvin, his knee on Floyd’s neck, appears to look directly into Frazier’s camera lens.

She said Chauvin had “this cold look, heartless.”

Minutes later, Frazier’s young cousin, her hair in braids, took her place in the witness stand, saying in a small voice she recognized Chauvin as the man she saw kneeling on Floyd. “I was sad and kind of mad,” the girl said.

Donald Williams, a professional mixed martial arts fighter, can be heard on the videos of the arrest of Floyd screaming insults at Chauvin and demanding that police check for Floyd’s pulse. He told jurors he believed that Chauvin was using his knee in a “blood choke” on Floyd, a wrestling move to knock an opponent unconscious, and a “shimmy” move to tighten pressure on Floyd’s neck.

“You can see that he’s trying to gasp for air,” Williams, 33, said of Floyd. A 911 call Williams made after the arrest was played. Williams dabbed his eyes with a white tissue as his distressed voice filled the courtroom.

“I believe I witnessed a murder,” Williams told the jury. “So I felt I needed to call the police on the police.”

WEEKLY FEATURE : BONNER DYTOC SHOWS THE WAY IN STOCK PLAY