Video shared in Chauvin's murder trial
MINNEAPOLIS — After the ambulance took George Floyd away, the Minneapolis officer who had pinned his knee on the Black man’s neck defended himself to a bystander by saying Floyd was “a sizable guy” and “probably on something,” according to police video played in court Wednesday.
The video was part of a mountain of footage — both official and amateur — and witness testimony at Officer Derek Chauvin’s murder trial that all together showed how Floyd’s alleged attempt to pass a phony $20 bill at a neighborhood market last May escalated into tragedy one video-documented step at a time.
A security-camera scene of people joking around inside the store soon gave way to the sight of officers pulling Floyd from his SUV at gunpoint, struggling to push him into a squad car as he writhed and screamed that he was claustrophobic, and then putting him on the pavement.
When Floyd was finally taken away by paramedics, Charles McMillian, a 61-year-old bystander who recognized Chauvin from the neighborhood, told the officer he didn’t respect what Chauvin had done.
“That’s one person’s opinion,” Chauvin could be heard responding. “We gotta control this guy ‘cause he’s a sizable guy ... and it looks like he’s probably on something.”
Floyd was 6 feet, 4 inches tall and 223 pounds, according to the autopsy, which also found fentanyl and methamphetamine in his system. Chauvin’s lawyer said the officer is 5-foot-9 and 140 pounds.
Chauvin, 45, is charged with murder and manslaughter, accused of killing the 46-year-old Floyd by kneeling on Floyd’s neck for 9 minutes, 29 seconds, as he lay face-down in handcuffs. The most serious charge against the now-fired white officer carries up to 40 years in prison.
Floyd’s death, along with the harrowing bystander video of him gasping for breath as onlookers yelled at Chauvin to get off him, triggered sometimes violent protests around the world and a reckoning over racism and police brutality across the U.S.
Jurors were shown police bodycam video of the approximately 20 minutes between when police approached Floyd’s vehicle and when he was loaded into the ambulance.
When Officer Thomas Lane confronted Floyd in his SUV, drew his gun and demanded with a few expletives that he show his hands, a panicky-sounding Floyd said: “I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” and “I got shot before.” Seemingly crying, he begged repeatedly, “Please don’t shoot me, man.”
Then, when told to get into the squad car, Floyd repeatedly yelled, “I’m not that kind a guy!” and “I’m claustrophobic!” As officers shoved his upper body and then his legs into the car, he writhed and screamed, “Please! Please! I can’t breathe!”
Officers were clearly exasperated as Floyd braced himself against the squad car and arched his body while the police tried to get him inside. At one point, he threw his upper body out of the car, and officers tried to push him back in.
Officers eventually pulled him out and brought him to the ground. Floyd thanked officers as they took him out of the squad car.
Once Floyd was on the ground — with Chauvin’s knee on his neck, another officer’s knee on his back and a third man holding his legs — the officers talked calmly about whether he might be on drugs.
Lane was heard saying officers found a “weed pipe” on Floyd and wondered if he might be on PCP, saying Floyd’s eyes were shaking back and forth fast.
“He wouldn’t get out of the car. He just wasn’t following instructions,” Lane was recorded saying. The officer also asked twice if the officers should roll Floyd on his side, and later said calmly that he thinks Floyd is passing out.
As Floyd was pinned down by Chauvin and other officers, McMillian, the bystander, could be heard on video saying to Floyd, “You can’t win” and “Get up and get in the car.”
Floyd replied, “I can’t.”
The defense has argued that Chauvin did what he was trained to do and that Floyd’s death was not caused by the officer’s knee, as prosecutors contend, but by Floyd’s illegal drug use, heart disease, high blood pressure and the adrenaline flowing through his body.
