After emotional opening week, week 2 begins in murder case against former Minneapolis police officer

MINNEAPOLIS — Jurors will return to the courtroom Monday morning to listen to extra testimony from witnesses in the trial of former officer Derek Chauvin, charged with George Floyd’s murder.

Last week, jurors heard from 19 folks together with several who witnessed Floyd’s death and broke down in tears on the stand as they described their makes an attempt to intervene on his behalf. Several Minneapolis police officers, together with Chauvin’s supervisor on the time of Floyd’s demise, testified about what they noticed on the scene after Floyd was arrested, police coaching and the officers’ use of pressure on Floyd.

Veteran officer Lt. Richard Zimmerman told the court Friday that kneeling on the neck of a suspect is probably deadly and there may be “absolutely” an obligation to supply medical intervention as quickly as needed. Zimmerman known as Chauvin’s use of pressure on Floyd (*2*)

The intersection where Floyd died has become a metaphor for the city as a whole: Still grieving, and with no consensus on exactly how to move forward. City officials want to reopen the intersection when the trial’s over. Activists worry allowing that to happen could permit Floyd to become just one more Black man killed by the cops.

Downtown, the fortified government center and courthouse complex is ringed with razor wire and soldiers. For many protesters and reform advocates, the razor wire, armored cars and camouflaged soldiers with rifles are the ultimate expression of the yawning chasm between the government and the people it’s supposed to be representing.

It’s clear from the security precautions that authorities are scared of what might happen if angry crowds once again rampage through the streets demanding justice and reform.

Lake Street bore the brunt of the destruction, as angry residents first attacked the 3rd Precinct police station where Chauvin and his colleagues were based, and then spread out to liquor stores, pharmacies, the Target and Cub foods stores. 

Today, rebuilding is underway for some. Target and Cub have reopened, as have most of the liquor stores. While the broken glass has been swept away and the burned-out buildings demolished, scars linger from last summer’s civil unrest and riots.

Floyd opioid drug addiction highlighted in Derek Chauvin trial

Like millions of Americans, George Floyd lived with the torment of drug addiction. 

He and his girlfriend, Courteney Ross, became addicted to opioids four years ago after they were both prescribed for chronic pain. When the prescriptions ran out, they turned to illegal drug use. They tried to go clean, then failed. They tried again, but could not stop for long. 

As the COVID-19 pandemic spread across the United States, Floyd, the father of two young daughters, started using again: he lost his job as a nightclub security guard because of quarantine shutdowns, he was hospitalized for several days after an overdose, he found out he had the coronavirus. On the day he died, his neck trapped under the knee of former Minnesota police officer Derek Chauvin, he had fentanyl and methamphetamine in his system, toxicology reports later showed.

“We got addicted and tried really hard to break that addiction many times,” Ross said tearfully Thursday during testimony in the Chauvin trial over Floyd’s death. 

Floyd’s death helped launch a global civil rights movement over racial injustice and police violence. His trial could similarly shape how Americans view drug addiction at a time when Black people continue to overwhelmingly be denied medical treatment for addiction compared to white Americans even as they suffer from disproportionately high rates of fatal opioid overdoses. 

Chauvin’s defense attorney, Eric Nelson, has sought to persuade jurors that drugs – not Chauvin’s knee clamping down on Floyd’s neck as he cried “I can not breathe” while handcuffed on the ground – contributed to Floyd’s death. 

Prosecutors, family members and medical experts have said Floyd’s history of addiction does not explain how he died. Chauvin, who is white, is charged with second-degree murder, third-degree murder and second-degree manslaughter in the death of Floyd, a 46-year-old Black man.

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