March 29, 2021, 12:56 p.m. ET
The Rev. Al Sharpton and Ben Crump, a lawyer for George Floyd Jr.’s family, told supporters on Monday that the world is focused on the trial of former police officer Derek Chauvin in the death of Mr. Floyd as witnesses began to give testimony.
“America is on trial to see if we have gotten to the place where we can hold police accountable if they break the law,” said Sharpton, the civil rights activist, outside the Hennepin County Courthouse. “The law is for everybody. Policemen are not above the law. Policemen are subject to the law, and that’s what’s going on in this courtroom.”
Mr. Crump said that the trial would be a moment for America to show the rest of the world that remains the “standard bearer when it comes to liberty and justice for all.”
“George Floyd galvanized cities all across America, and all across the world, when that video, that video of torture was viewed millions and millions of times,” Mr. Crump said. “The whole world is watching.”
Mr. Crump was among the lawyers who represented Mr. Floyd’s family in their lawsuit against the city of Minneapolis. Earlier this month, the city agreed to pay $27 million to the family, a settlement that is one of the largest of its kind.
March 29, 2021, 12:51 p.m. ET
When the attorneys want to discuss something out of earshot of the jury, the court turns on white noise, and the lawyers put on headphones and talk about whatever issue has come up.
March 29, 2021, 12:46 p.m. ET
The first witness to take the stand in the murder trial of Derek Chauvin on Monday was Jena Scurry, a 911 dispatcher in Minneapolis who alerted a police supervisor in May after she watched officers pin George Floyd to the ground live on a surveillance camera.
Seemingly concerned by the officers’ actions, she had called the supervisor to say that officers “sat on this man” and asked whether they had notified the supervisor that they had used force.
“You can call me a snitch if you want to,” she said before relaying what she saw on the cameras by Cup Foods, the convenience store outside of which Mr. Floyd was arrested.
Prosecutors called Ms. Scurry to the stand, and they will most likely use her testimony to make a case that even Ms. Scurry, who works with law enforcement, was worried about how officers were treating Mr. Floyd. In his opening statement, Jerry W. Blackwell, one of the prosecutors, said Ms. Scurry had done something “she had never done in her career: She called the police on the police.”
March 29, 2021, 12:41 p.m. ET
When questioning witnesses, especially experts, lawyers tend to start with seemingly boring, technical details about their jobs. This is so they can establish that the witness is credible, before asking questions relevant to the case and evidence.
March 29, 2021, 12:44 p.m. ET
They have to show that the witness has a reason to know what they are testifying about, and that it isn’t simply hearsay or their own opinion.
March 29, 2021, 12:39 p.m. ET
From the pool report filed by the print reporter inside the courtroom: Jurors watched intently and took notes while the prosecution gave its opening and played the video, but none seemed visibly upset -- although it was hard to tell because they are all wearing masks.
March 29, 2021, 12:44 p.m. ET
Because the pandemic has limited attendance, just two journalists -- one who works for a digital or print outlet, and one from broadcast media -- are allowed in the court each day on a rotating basis. They are called pool reporters, and will file notes during breaks to the rest of the media. Because the trial is televised, the notes focus on things that are not caught on camera, such as the reactions and body language of jurors.
March 29, 2021, 12:37 p.m. ET
In his opening statement, Jerry Blackwell described this witness’s experience: After seeing the arrest of Mr. Floyd on a police camera, “She did something that she had never done in her career. She called the police on the police.”
March 29, 2021, 12:39 p.m. ET
We will also hear later from the supervisor whom she called, Sgt. David Ploeger.
March 29, 2021, 12:32 p.m. ET
After the drama of the opening statements, now, with the first witnesses, the trial will settle into a slower pace, which we can expect to continue in the days ahead.
March 29, 2021, 12:28 p.m. ET
Ms. Scurry, a 911 dispatcher, was able to remotely view camera footage of Mr. Floyd’s death as it happened and is expected to testify that she found what she saw unusual and disturbing.
March 29, 2021, 12:25 p.m. ET
Before prosecutors called their first witness, lawyers for both sides made opening statements to jurors in the trial of Derek Chauvin, the former Minneapolis police officer charged with murder in George Floyd’s death. Here’s what happened.
Jerry W. Blackwell, one of the prosecutors, played the lengthy bystander video of Mr. Chauvin kneeling on Mr. Floyd’s neck, noting repeatedly that Mr. Chauvin did not “let up” or “get up” for about nine minutes and 30 seconds. He began to indicate to jurors that, in the prosecutors’ view, Mr. Chauvin used more force than was reasonable, given that Mr. Floyd was handcuffed and on the ground. Mr. Blackwell said to jurors, “You can believe your eyes, that it’s homicide — it’s murder.”
On the other hand, Mr. Chauvin’s lawyer Eric J. Nelson noted that there were more than 50,000 pieces of evidence in the case and said there was much more to what happened than the length of time that Mr. Chauvin had knelt on Mr. Floyd’s neck. Mr. Nelson argued that Mr. Floyd’s death was caused by his underlying heart disease, use of fentanyl and “the adrenaline flowing through his body.”
He also began to lay the groundwork for an argument that Mr. Chauvin’s force had been within the bounds of his training and that Mr. Floyd had resisted, saying that “this was not an easy struggle.”
Now that opening arguments have concluded, prosecutors will next call the first witness to the stand: a 911 operator for the City of Minneapolis.
March 29, 2021, 12:23 p.m. ET
Matthew Frank, the head of the criminal division for the Minnesota attorney general’s office, is questioning the first witness, a 911 operator who received calls from bystanders as officers were struggling with Mr. Floyd.
March 29, 2021, 12:08 p.m. ET
The medical examiner classified the death as a homicide and said the cause was “cardiopulmonary arrest complicating law enforcement subdual, restraint and neck compression” — essentially, that the physical restraint of Mr. Floyd was a significant factor.
Independent pathologists hired by the Floyd family attributed the death to asphyxia. The prosecution said there were no physical findings of “traumatic asphyxia or strangulation” and seemed to be planning to argue that Mr. Chauvin’s neck restraint cut off the flow of blood, causing Mr. Floyd to have a heart attack.
But in their opening statement on Monday, prosecutors took a different tack, saying that they would make a case that Mr. Floyd died of asphyxia and would present evidence that asphyxiation was difficult for forensic pathologists to detect.
Jerry W. Blackwell, the lawyer for the prosecution, giving the opening argument, seemed to suggest that the medical examiner’s finding was not especially significant: “All human beings die of cardiopulmonary arrest because the heart stops and the lung stops — it’s just another way of saying death,” he said.
In the opening statement by the defense, the lawyer Eric J. Nelson, countered by saying that Mr. Floyd had numerous medical issues including heart disease, an enlarged heart, and that his death was caused by multiple factors including “the adrenaline flowing through his body.”
March 29, 2021, 12:00 p.m. ET
Now that opening arguments from Derek Chauvin’s lawyer and the prosecution have ended, the court is taking a break until 11:15 Central Time.
March 29, 2021, 11:58 a.m. ET
In summary, the defense is arguing that Mr. Floyd’s death was caused by his underlying heart disease, drug use and “adrenaline.”
March 29, 2021, 11:58 a.m. ET
Both sides have highlighted that Dr. Andrew Baker, the local medical examiner, will be testifying. It’s unlikely there will be any fireworks during his testimony, which will focus on what caused George Floyd’s death, but it could be one of the most important moments of the trial for jurors.
March 29, 2021, 11:58 a.m. ET
Nelson refers to interviews Dr. Baker gave to law enforcement officials that could be problematic to the state. In one FBI interview, according to court filings, he suggested Mr. Floyd’s death was caused by the struggle to get him inside the squad car, not being on the ground under Mr. Chauvin’s knee.
March 29, 2021, 11:54 a.m. ET
There's a noticeable difference between Mr. Nelson’s demeanor during his opening right now compared to jury selection. When questioning jurors, he appeared friendly and tried to get jurors to relax, asking them about their hobbies. Today he is serious, stern, blunt and in command of the case as he sees it.
March 29, 2021, 11:53 a.m. ET
The prosecution will argue that the officers acted unreasonably, and in violation of their training and police procedure. Mr. Nelson is trying to head this off, emphasizing the fluid nature of police deicison-making in changing conditions: “You will learn that Derek Chauvin was doing exactly what he had been trained to do during the course of his 19-year career.”
March 29, 2021, 11:56 a.m. ET
Juries, and officials, have typically given the police the benefit of the doubt when officers have to make split-second decisions, like when a suspect appears to be reaching for his waistband. But it will be a hard argument to make here because of the sheer duration of the episode.
March 29, 2021, 11:51 a.m. ET
Nelson says the anger of the growing crowd of bystanders diverted officers from attending to Mr. Floyd.
March 29, 2021, 11:53 a.m. ET
Interesting argument. Nelson is essentially saying that the crowd was somewhat at fault for Chauvin’s actions.
March 29, 2021, 11:49 a.m. ET
Eric J. Nelson is one of a dozen defense lawyers in Minneapolis who represent police officers charged with misconduct and work on a rotation basis. Mr. Nelson, 46, took charge of the former police officer Derek Chauvin’s defense over the summer, after his first lawyer retired.
Before taking on Mr. Chauvin’s case, Mr. Nelson’s most famous client was Amy Senser, the wife of the former Minnesota Vikings tight end Joe Senser. She was convicted of vehicular homicide for a hit-and-run accident in 2011 that left a man dead near a freeway exit ramp and was sentenced to 41 months in prison.
He has also defended a former high school basketball star for his role in a bank robbery, and a pastor who was charged with soliciting a prostitute after getting caught in a sting operation.
Over his career, Mr. Nelson has developed a specialty in defending clients accused of driving while intoxicated and has lectured on D.W.I. law and the manufacturing of methamphetamine, according to his bio on his law firm’s website.
Over the past three weeks of jury selection, Mr. Nelson appeared in court each day with Mr. Chauvin and an assistant, Amy Voss. The three people on the defense side of the courtroom are a sharp contrast to the multiple lawyers who have so far appeared for the prosecution, including Minnesota’s attorney general, Keith Ellison, and several high-powered outside lawyers who are working pro bono for the state, including Neal Katyal, a lawyer from Washington, D.C., and the former acting solicitor general during the Obama administration.
Yet, Mr. Nelson has not been working alone: Other lawyers who regularly represent police officers in Minneapolis have been helping him behind-the-scenes, including the defense lawyers for the other three officers involved in the incident that led to Mr. Floyd’s death. Those officers face aiding and abetting charges, and their trial is scheduled in August. Mr. Chauvin’s defense is paid through the legal defense fund of the Minnesota Police and Peace Officer’s Association.
March 29, 2021, 11:49 a.m. ET
Mr. Nelson, building an argument that the use of force against Mr. Floyd was reasonable, is saying jurors will see video of the squad car he was put in before the neck restraint by Mr. Chauvin rocking back and forth. “This was not an easy struggle.”
March 29, 2021, 11:46 a.m. ET
The defense is saying that Mr. Floyd was passed out in a car before the police showed up, and his friends were trying to wake him up. This would support the defense argument that he was on a high dose of drugs.
March 29, 2021, 11:42 a.m. ET
Jurors — and the public — will at some point see surveillance video from inside the Cup Foods convenience store where George Floyd was accused of using a counterfeit $20 bill to buy cigarettes, a lawyer for Derek Chauvin says. It has never been played publicly before.
March 29, 2021, 11:40 a.m. ET
Eric Nelson, the lawyer for Mr. Chauvin, says there are more than 50,000 items in evidence. “This case is clearly more than about 9 minutes and 29 seconds,” he says. That’s a direct response to prosecutors’ arguments that the time Derek Chauvin knelt on George Floyd’s neck is the “most important” number in the case.
March 29, 2021, 11:38 a.m. ET
“There is no political or social cause in this courtroom,” Mr. Chauvin’s lawyer, Eric Nelson, says. He is trying to focus the jury on the specifics of the evidence and steer them away from the wider issues of race and policing in America that the case symbolizes to the world outside the courtroom.
March 29, 2021, 11:36 a.m. ET
Mr. Chauvin’s lawyer begins his opening arguments with the notion of “reasonable doubt.” He needs one juror to buy in to the idea that drugs killed Mr. Floyd, not Mr. Chauvin’s knee, to hang the jury and force a mistrial.
March 29, 2021, 11:33 a.m. ET
The prosecutor is trying to head off arguments from the defense that George Floyd’s size had anything to do with his death — “his size is no excuse,” he said. George Floyd was already more than six feet tall in middle school and he rapped under the name Big Floyd with popular DJs and rappers in Houston.
March 29, 2021, 11:31 a.m. ET
Mr. Floyd told the officers he did not want to get into their squad car because he was claustrophobic. The prosecution will say that we will see Mr. Chauvin with his hands around Mr. Floyd’s neck in the squad car.
March 29, 2021, 11:30 a.m. ET
As Blackwell started discussing cause of death, Chauvin started furiously taking notes on a yellow legal pad. Periodically during jury selection, Chauvin would put his head down and scribble away.
March 29, 2021, 11:26 a.m. ET
Less than an hour into the trial of Derek Chauvin, the former Minneapolis police officer charged with killing George Floyd, prosecutors played the bystander video of Mr. Chauvin holding his knee on Mr. Floyd’s neck that brought international attention to the case in May.
The lengthy video footage, captured outside the Cup Foods convenience store, will most likely be a major part of prosecutors’ strategy. As difficult as it may be for jurors to watch Mr. Chauvin kneeling on Mr. Floyd’s neck for more than nine minutes, it is probably far from the last time that the video will be played at the trial.
“You can believe your eyes that it’s a homicide — it’s murder,” Jerry W. Blackwell, the prosecutor delivering opening arguments, said shortly after playing the video.
March 29, 2021, 11:23 a.m. ET
The defense will try to argue that Mr. Floyd took a fatal amount of fentanyl, but now Mr. Blackwell is saying that is not true, that he had built up a tolerance and was not exhibiting signs of overdose. “Mr Floyd had lived with his opioid addiction for years…he was struggling, he was not passing out.”
March 29, 2021, 11:21 a.m. ET
Prosecutors want the jurors focused on what they saw in the video. The defense will try to convince them that what appears simple is more complicated – that Mr. Floyd died of a drug overdose and an underlying health condition.
March 29, 2021, 11:19 a.m. ET
He tells jurors that the video says it all: “You can believe your eyes, that it’s homicide, it’s murder.”
March 29, 2021, 11:18 a.m. ET
Mr. Blackwell is talking about police training, especially the “side recovery position.” Even if officers have to restrain someone on their stomach, they are supposed to move them to their side as soon as possible.
March 29, 2021, 11:16 a.m. ET
The 12-member jury for the murder trial of Derek Chauvin in the death of George Floyd includes two white men, four white women, three Black men, one Black women and two women who identify as mixed race, according to information provided by the court.
The racial makeup of the jury has been closely watched.
Mr. Chauvin is white, and Mr. Floyd was Black. The pool of potential jurors in Hennepin County is whiter than the population of Minneapolis and has grown more so during the pandemic.
But the jury will be more diverse than Minneapolis, which is 20 percent Black.
The Minnesota Rules of Criminal Procedure say that the alternates will be the last three jurors chosen, two white women and a white man in his 20s. Only two of them will be seated when the trial begins.
From the start, many worried that it would be impossible to seat an impartial jury in Minneapolis for a case that provoked wide-scale unrest and reverberated around the world.
Prospective jurors were asked about answers they provided on a 14-page questionnaire that asked their views on a wide range of topics including Black Lives Matter, Blue Lives Matter and whether the criminal justice system is racially discriminatory. Those who expressed opinions said they could set them aside and rule according to the evidence presented at trial.
Jury selection was set to take three weeks, and jurors that had already been chosen had to be called back and questioned again after the city announced a $27 million settlement with Mr. Floyd’s estate. Despite that delay, jury selection ended several days ahead of schedule.
March 29, 2021, 11:11 a.m. ET
As painful as the video is to watch, expect to see it again during the trial. A few weeks ago I asked a former Minneapolis prosecutor now in private practice what her strategy would be. She told me, “I would play that video in the beginning of the case, at the end of my case and as many times in the middle of the case that the judge would allow.”
March 29, 2021, 11:09 a.m. ET
This video. This is what the Rev. Al Sharpton meant when he said last night at a local church here in Minneapolis, with members of the Floyd family: “This family will go through a very painful and very tumultuous few weeks.”
March 29, 2021, 11:04 a.m. ET
And now jurors are seeing a portion of the 10-minute bystander video that has been viewed by millions. They are hearing Mr. Floyd cry out and say, “I’m through.”
March 29, 2021, 11:06 a.m. ET
Now Mr. Chauvin is watching intently as the video shows bystanders yelling at him to get off Mr. Floyd because he has stopped breathing.
March 29, 2021, 11:05 a.m. ET
Mr. Chauvin is looking up as the video is shown and back at his desk to take notes.
March 29, 2021, 11:04 a.m. ET
Most of the jurors had seen at least clips of this video; few if any said they had seen the entire thing.
March 29, 2021, 11:03 a.m. ET
Cup Foods and Dragon Wok — Mr. Blackwell is showing a map of the intersection that began as a crime scene and has been transformed into George Floyd Square.
March 29, 2021, 11:02 a.m. ET
Blackwell says he will show the video of Officer Chauvin restraining George Floyd shortly, and warned that it is graphic — as the jurors, and most of the world, well knows.
March 29, 2021, 11:00 a.m. ET
Blackwell has been listing the experts and witnesses the state will call over the course of the trial. This is what an opening statement is for: laying out a roadmap for jurors of what to expect over the coming days and weeks.
March 29, 2021, 10:58 a.m. ET
The prosecutor making opening arguments is making it clear that the prosecution is not trying to put police, or even the Minneapolis Police Department, on trial. “This case is about Derek Chauvin,” he says, not the police in general.
March 29, 2021, 11:00 a.m. ET
A number of the jurors expressed generally favorable views of the police, even though they also said things like the “bad behavior police need to go.”
March 29, 2021, 10:55 a.m. ET
A prosecutor just showed the counterfeit $20 bill that a clerk at Cup Foods said George Floyd had tried to use. That teenage clerk’s 911 call is what brought the police to the scene in the first place.
March 29, 2021, 10:56 a.m. ET
Use of force by the police is supposed to be relative to the severity of the alleged offense. Blackwell mentions the fake $20 bill and calls it a minor offense. Chauvin’s lawyer has tried to get the judge to instruct jurors that Floyd was suspected of a serious felony
March 29, 2021, 10:52 a.m. ET
While there may be surprises over the course of the trial for viewers, the lawyers on both sides know exactly what is coming and what witnesses will say. Minnesota has strict rules that require both sides to turn over evidence and testimony before trial. (This may be why Mr. Chauvin’s lawyer is not furiously scribbling notes during the state’s opening.)
March 29, 2021, 10:49 a.m. ET
Even as public officials were still saying last year that Officer Chauvin knelt on George Floyd's neck for 8 minutes and 46 seconds, our Times colleagues on the visual investigations team were able to determine in August that the correct time was closer to 9 minutes and 30 seconds.
March 29, 2021, 10:49 a.m. ET
The lawyer making opening arguments for the prosecution is Jerry W. Blackwell, a lawyer who has represented a series of large companies and joined the attorney general’s office just for this case on a pro bono basis, meaning he will not be paid.
In private practice, Mr. Blackwell has represented corporations including Walmart, 3M Company and General Mills, according to the website for his firm, Blackwell Burke, which is based in Minnesota. He has defended companies against lawsuits by people who said they were injured by asbestos, benzene and other potentially harmful chemicals. He has also represented companies in cases involving claims of false advertising.
Mr. Blackwell is known for his ability to untangle complicated legal issues for jurors, the website says, which could be vital in the prosecution of Mr. Chauvin, where jurors will have to evaluate the elements of second-degree and third-degree murder.
Last June, Mr. Blackwell won a posthumous pardon for Max Mason, a Black circus worker who was wrongly convicted of rape in 1920, months after three of his colleagues were lynched as a result of the false accusations. Keith Ellison, the Minnesota attorney general overseeing the prosecution of Mr. Chauvin, had encouraged Mr. Blackwell to apply for the pardon, and he brought him on board for the Chauvin trial a month later.
Mr. Blackwell earned his law degree from the University of North Carolina School of Law in 1987, his website says, and was one of the founders of the Minnesota Association of Black Lawyers.
March 29, 2021, 10:48 a.m. ET
I’ve already lost count of how many times the prosecutor has said “9 minutes and 29 seconds.”
March 29, 2021, 10:49 a.m. ET
Blackwell is now saying that a police response that’s reasonable in the first minute may not continue to be reasonable in the second, third or fourth minute — in other words, even if Mr. Floyd was resisting, the restraint went on far too long.
March 29, 2021, 10:44 a.m. ET
Mr. Blackwell is now making a medical point: Just because you can talk doesn’t mean you are getting enough air. It’s called “agonal breathing.”
March 29, 2021, 10:39 a.m. ET
A helicopter whirred overhead on a sunny, yet chilly and windy morning on Monday in downtown Minneapolis, where the streets were largely empty and calm ahead of the big trial.
A scrum of reporters gathered on the lawn just south of the courthouse, where members of Mr. Floyd’s family and their lawyers held a news conference ahead of opening statements. Terrence Floyd, one of Mr. Floyd’s brothers, reflected on experiencing the emotions of another high-profile police killing when Sean Bell was fatally shot in Queens, near where Terrence Floyd lived.
“To see no justice in that situation, it made me furious,” Mr. Floyd said, referring to the acquittal of all of the officers in that case. He hoped that things would be different in the case involving the death of his brother.
“They say trust the system,” he said. “Well this is your chance to show us we can trust you.”
In the distance, you could hear the faint chants of a few protesters. Several people lined up behind the Floyd family holding signs of the support.
“We got your back” and “stronger together,” the signs read.
A national guardsman paced in the distance on a balcony outside of the courthouse that overlooked the lawn. There were temporary concrete and metal barricades encircling some of the government buildings downtown, and national guard members stood alongside state police officers. There were also sand-colored armored vehicles sitting outside.
“We need to pray that America can live up to its high ideals,” said Benjamin Crump, a lawyer representing the Floyd family.
At 8:46 a.m., the Floyd family and supporters took a knee for 8 minutes 46 seconds in recognition of the approximate amount of time that Mr. Chauvin knelt on Mr. Floyd’s neck.
March 29, 2021, 10:25 a.m. ET
The trial of Derek Chauvin, the former Minneapolis Police officer charged with murder in the death of George Floyd, began in earnest on Monday morning, commencing what is expected to be one of the most closely-followed trials in recent years.
“We’re on the record,” Judge Peter A. Cahill said at about 9 a.m. Central Time before going over a motion and the schedule with prosecutors and Mr. Chauvin’s lawyer.
He said that court will generally begin at 8:30 a.m. each day, with discussions between the lawyers and judge over any legal issues that arise. Then the jury will be brought into the courtroom around 9:30. There will be a one-hour lunch break at 12:30 and the proceedings will generally last until 4:30 p.m., though they could be extended if it allows a witness to finish testifying.
March 29, 2021, 10:10 a.m. ET
Derek Chauvin had been a police officer with the Minneapolis Police Department for more than 19 years before George Floyd’s death. During that time, he was the subject of at least 22 complaints and internal investigations. One of the episodes led to two letters of reprimand — his only formal discipline.
Mr. Chauvin, 44, worked in one of Minneapolis’s busiest precincts on its most difficult shift, from 4 p.m. to 2 a.m., long after many officers his age had moved to different positions. He earned several awards, including two medals of valor after separate confrontations in which he shot at suspects, one of whom died.
Mr. Chauvin, who is white, was filmed on May 25 last year holding his knee on the neck of a Black motorist, George Floyd, for more than nine minutes as Mr. Floyd pleaded with him and repeatedly said, “I can’t breathe.”
Mr. Chauvin was fired the next day, along with three other officers who had arrived at Cup Foods, a convenience store, after a teenage clerk called 911 to report that Mr. Floyd had used a counterfeit $20 bill. In October, Mr. Chauvin was freed on bail while awaiting trial, having posted $100,000 through a bail bond agency. He was initially required to remain in Minnesota, but later was allowed to live in any of the four bordering states (Iowa, Wisconsin, North Dakota and South Dakota) because of concerns for his safety.
In the weeks after Mr. Chauvin was fired, protesters gathered at his house in the St. Paul suburbs, his wife of 10 years filed for divorce. Interviews with his acquaintances depicted him as an awkward and rigid workaholic who had a tendency to overreact.
Examples of Mr. Chauvin’s police work will most likely be presented at his trial. Prosecutors are expected to tell jurors about his arrest of a Black woman who has said that Mr. Chauvin kept his knee on her body while she was handcuffed and facedown on the ground and pleading, “Don’t kill me.”
In another interaction considered relevant, Mr. Chauvin saved a suicidal man’s life by placing him on his side and riding with him to a hospital.
The Police Department commended Mr. Chauvin for the latter action, but prosecutors have argued that it shows he knew it was important to avoid creating breathing problems for people who were restrained.
March 29, 2021, 9:48 a.m. ET
Philonise Floyd, the younger brother of George Floyd Jr., urged the jury in the trial of Derek Chauvin to find the former police officer guilty for his brother’s death.
“I have a big hole in my heart,” he said Sunday at a news conference. “It can’t be patched up. No amount of money that you give, none of that, can patch that. I need justice for George. We need a conviction.”
The city of Minneapolis settled a lawsuit with Mr. Floyd’s family before the trial, agreeing to pay them $27 million in connection to Mr. Floyd’s death, one of the largest such settlements on record.
The younger Floyd has been one of the most visible family members advocating for justice in his brother’s death, including testifying to Congress in July on police brutality and systemic racism. His brother was the eldest of five siblings.
March 29, 2021, 9:25 a.m. ET
Michael Barbaro, the host of “The Daily,” speaks with Shaila Dewan, a reporter covering criminal justice for The New York Times, about what we know about the prosecution, the defense and the jury ahead of the opening statements in the trial of the former police officer accused of killing George Floyd in Minneapolis.
Listen to ‘The Daily’: The Trial of Derek Chauvin
What we know about the prosecution, defense and jury in the trial of the former police officer accused of murdering a Black man in Minneapolis.Listen to more audio stories about the movements fueled by Mr. Floyd’s death:
March 29, 2021, 8:49 a.m. ET
On May 25, Minneapolis police officers arrested George Floyd, a 46-year-old Black man, after a convenience store employee called 911 to report that Mr. Floyd had bought cigarettes with a counterfeit $20 bill. Seventeen minutes after the first squad car arrived at the scene, Mr. Floyd was unconscious and pinned beneath three police officers, showing no signs of life.
By combining videos from bystanders and security cameras, reviewing official documents and consulting experts, The New York Times reconstructed in detail the minutes leading to Mr. Floyd’s death. Our video shows officers taking a series of actions that violated the policies of the Minneapolis Police Department and turned fatal, leaving Mr. Floyd unable to breathe, even as he and onlookers called out for help.
March 29, 2021, 8:15 a.m. ET
The trial of Derek Chauvin in the death of George Floyd will be unusual for many reasons: It will be livestreamed from Minneapolis, attendance will be severely limited because of the coronavirus, and the public’s interest in the case may make this one of the highest-profile trials in recent memory.
The trial can be watched on nytimes.com, via a livestream provided by Court TV. Opening statements are expected to begin around 10:30 a.m. Eastern on Monday. Witness testimony and lawyers’ presentation of evidence should last several weeks before the jury begins to deliberate over the verdict.
Among the people allowed in the courtroom, on the 18th floor of the Hennepin County Government Center, are the judge, jurors, witnesses, court staff, lawyers, Mr. Chauvin, and only a handful of spectators. The judge, Peter A. Cahill, wrote in an order on March 1 that only one member of Mr. Floyd’s family and one member of Mr. Chauvin’s family would be allowed in the room at any time. Two seats will be reserved for reporters, and various journalists, including from The New York Times, will rotate throughout the trial.
The lawyers, spectators, jurors and witnesses will be required to wear masks when they are not speaking. Spectators are prohibited from having any visible images, logos, letters or numbers on their masks or clothing, according to Judge Cahill’s order.
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