The defense’s first witness was retired Minneapolis Police officer Scott Creighton, who testified that he approached Floyd on the passenger side of a red Ford Explorer on May 6, 2019. He ordered Floyd to show his hands and put them on the dash, and he said Floyd was unresponsive and non-compliant to his demands.
In body-camera footage of the incident, Creighton offers increasingly loud commands with curses at Floyd, who appears distressed and tells the officer he doesn’t want to get shot. Creighton pulled his service weapon in the encounter.
“He keeps moving his hands around. He won’t listen to what I have to say,” Creighton says in the footage.
The officers on scene handcuff Floyd, and he walks with them away from the vehicle.
The second witness, retired paramedic Michelle Moseng, testified that she treated Floyd medically after the arrest. He told her he was addicted to opioids and had been taking multiple Percocet pills every 20 minutes that day, including as an officer walked up to the car.
She found Floyd had a high blood pressure reading of 216 over 160 and recommended he be taken to the hospital.
Floyd was taken to the hospital and not jail. A CNN search through Hennepin County District Court records shows that he was not charged in relation to the 2019 arrest.
However, Floyd’s drug use and arrest in May 2019 could unfairly bias the jury, so Judge Peter Cahill allowed limited evidence of the incident only to show the physical effect of opioid drugs on Floyd.
“This evidence is being admitted solely for the limited purpose of showing what effects the ingestion of opioids may or may not have had on the physical well-being of George Floyd,” Cahill told the jury on Tuesday. “This evidence is not to be used as evidence of the character of George Floyd.”
Chauvin, 45, has pleaded not guilty to second-degree unintentional murder, third-degree murder and second-degree manslaughter charges. The defense’s case is expected to last only a few days, and closing arguments are expected for next Monday, Cahill said Monday.
On Monday night, police fired tear gas and stun guns to disperse demonstrators defying a curfew outside the Brooklyn Center Police Department, while protesters threw “bottles, fireworks, bricks and other projectiles at public safety officials,” according to a tweet from Operation Safety Net.
Passenger says Floyd was sleepy
Shawanda Hill, Floyd’s friend and a passenger in the vehicle when he was arrested last May, testified that Floyd was “happy, normal, talking, (and) alert” when she saw him at the Cup Foods corner store. He offered to give her a ride, so she got into the back passenger side of the vehicle he was driving.
Store employees came to the vehicle to discuss a suspected counterfeit $20 bill Floyd had used, but he was sleepy, hard to wake up and wasn’t that coherent, she testified. When police arrived to the vehicle, she again tried to wake up Floyd, she said. He was “very” startled by the officer with his gun out, she said.
Floyd did not complain of shortness of breath or chest pains and was not acting abnormal, she testified.
The prosecution’s case in three parts
Altogether, the prosecution’s case against Chauvin came in three distinct phases. First, bystanders and extensive video of their interaction explained Chauvin’s actions toward Floyd last May. Afterward, police experts said Chauvin violated police use-of-force policies and medical experts then said that Chauvin caused Floyd’s death.
The first week of testimony largely focused on Floyd’s final moments and the distressed bystanders who watched Chauvin pin Floyd to the street. Video from the bystanders and police body camera footage showed Floyd’s gasps for air and calls for his “mama” over those excruciating minutes, leaving several witnesses in tears.
“That in no way shape or form is anything that is by policy. It is not part of our training, and it is certainly not part of our ethics or our values,” Arradondo said.
The medical testimony on Thursday, Friday and Monday, particularly from Dr. Martin Tobin, laid out the mechanics of how Floyd died. The renowned pulmonary critical care doctor testified Thursday morning that Floyd died from a “low level of oxygen” when Chauvin pinned him to the street and restricted his ability to breathe.
Floyd’s preexisting health conditions and drug use were not relevant to his death, Tobin said.
“A healthy person subjected to what Mr. Floyd was subjected to would have died,” he said.
“He was so much of a leader to us in the household, he would always make sure we had our clothes for school, make sure we would get to school on time,” Philonise Floyd said. “He just was like a person that everybody loved around the community. He just knew how to make people feel better.”
He described how his brother was a big mama’s boy who was distraught by her death in 2018.
“It was so unique how they were with each other. He would lay up onto her in the fetus position like he was still in the womb,” he said. “Being around him, he showed us how to treat our mom and how to respect our mom. He just — he loved her so dearly.”
CNN’s Brad Parks contributed to this report.