‘Begging for His Life’: Teen Who Took Viral Floyd Video Cries at Ex-Officer’s Trial
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…
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.
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 multiple 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.
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 or second-degree manslaughter.
Here is some of the main testimony heard by the jury on Tuesday:
DARNELLA FRAZIER, EYEWITNESS
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.”