Jurors in the trial of Derek Chauvin, the Minneapolis police officer accused of killing George Floyd, heard horrifying testimony from witnesses describing the "cold, heartless" look on Chauvin’s face as he knelt on the 46-year-old father’s neck.
Yesterday, March 30, the court was shown a video of Mr Floyd's last moments as Chauvin knelt on his neck. Darnella Frazier, the teenager who filmed the incident, said that the accused "had this cold look, heartless".
She said: "He didn't care what we were saying, it didn't change anything he was doing."
Recalling the events of that day, she told jurors she was walking to a shop with her nine-year-old cousin to buy snacks when she saw "a man terrified, scared, begging for his life".
Ms Frazier claimed officer Derek Chauvin was digging into Mr Floyd’s neck and pressed even "harder" as onlookers pleaded with him to stop.
Asked how he was reacting to the public, she said: "If anything, he actually was kneeling harder, looked like he was shoving his knee in his neck.
"I feel like he was feeding off our energy. He just stared at us, looked at us."
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Ms Frazier tearfully told the Hennepin County Court in Minneapolis that the only violent behaviour on show was "from the cops" and she described how a firefighter asked Chauvin "multiple times" if she could check Floyd’s pulse but the officer "remained kneeling on his neck".
In an interview with the Star Tribune in June, Ms Frazier's attorney Seth Cobin said she suffered a massive social media backlash after her video went viral. He said his client hadn’t set out to be a hero and is "just a 17-year-old high school student, with a boyfriend and a job at the mall, who did the right thing".
Ms Frazier’s young cousin also went on to give evidence, reports the MirrorOnline, and told how the ambulance crew had to push the officer off Mr Floyd’s neck.
She said: "The ambulance had to push him off of him. They asked him nicely to get off of him. He still stayed on him. They just had to pull him off, 'get off of him'."
Asked how it affected her, she said: "I was sad and kinda mad because it felt like he was stopping his breathing and it was kind of like hurting him."
Firefighter Genevieve Hansen also gave evidence in the trial on Tuesday.
She testified that police officers had prevented her from giving medical assistance to George Floyd on the scene.
She claimed she was worried Chauvin would not let her help and said: "There was no medical assistance on scene, I got there and I could have given medical assistance, that's exactly what I should have done.
"Had they let me into the scene I already had decided what his level of consciousness was so I would have requested additional help, I would have wanted someone to call 911 for fire and paramedics to come.”
This incident sparked Black Lives Matter protests around the world, with millions demonstrating against police brutality and racism. As the trial began, Mr Floyd's family, civil rights lawyers and activists knelt outside the heavily fortified Minneapolis courthouse for the length of time that Chauvin kept his knee on Mr Floyd's neck.
The trial continues.
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