Derek Chauvin ‘betrayed his badge by grinding and crushing George Floyd to death’, opening statements begin in murder trial

In an opening statement at Chauvin’s trial on murder charges on Monday, Jerry Blackwell, a prosecutor with the Minnesota attorney general’s office told jurors that former Minneapolis policeman Derek Chauvin squeezed George Floyd‘s life out of him when he was arrested last May.

He told jurors that officers who wear the Minneapolis police badge pledge to never use “unnecessary force or violence.”

Blackwell said that Mr Derek Chauvin betrayed this badge when he used excessive and unreasonable force upon George Floyd’s body and you will learn that on May 25.

In the opening statement, Chauvin’s lead attorney, Eric Nelson said that the former officer followed his police training.

Eric Nelson said at Chauvin’s murder trial on Monday that George Floyd popped “what are thought to be two Percocet pills” before his fatal encounter with police. He said during the opening arguments that Floyd’s friends told police that they had trouble waking him up after he took the drugs on May 25, 2020, the day he died while in police custody.

Nelson said that fentanyl and methamphetamine — a narcotic concoction known as a “speedball” was found in Floyd’s system after the autopsy.

The lawyer said that the evidence will show that Mr. Floyd put drugs in his mouth in an effort to conceal them when confronted by police.

A still image from a bystander’s cellphone video of Chauvin, with his knee on the neck of Floyd, a 46-year-old Black man in handcuffs was displayed by Blackwell, saying it showed Chauvin “grinding and crushing him until the very breath — no, ladies and gentlemen — the very life was squeezed out of him.”

Floyd’s death erupted a global protest movement. 

Philonise Floyd, brother of George Floyd, said that he had faith in Minnesota attorney general’s office prosecutors and would see Chauvin convicted. “The video is the proof,” he said.

The 45-year-old Chauvin has pleaded not guilty to second-degree murder, third-degree murder, and second-degree manslaughter, with his lawyers arguing that he followed his training and that a drug overdose is the main cause of Floyd’s death. He faces up to 40 years in prison if convicted on the most serious charge.

Tiffany Jeffers, a former Maryland Prosecutor, and a Georgetown law professor said that she saw the defendant’s case as a hard battle in part because of the widely seen video. Already all members of the jury have said that they saw at least snippets of the video.

The trial will focus mainly on the medical evidence and on the viral video of the deadly encounter.