Thread by @deenafaywinter

Derek Chauvin's trial continues today with testimony continuing from Donald Williams, the pro fighter who tried to get officers to get off George Floyd. His testimony yesterday was interrupted by technical difficulties. #DerekChauvintrial

"I just was really trying to keep my professionalism and make sure I speak out for Floyd’s life because I felt like he was in very much danger," Williams said. "I seen another man like me, being controlled... I was totally scared for my safety and people around me."

Williams went forward at one point, but officer Thao pushed him back.

Williams said a female Minneapolis firefighter showed up at the scene at one point, and urged the officers to check Floyd's pulse. #DerekChauvinTrial

After Floyd's body was put on a gurney and taken away by an ambulance, Williams called 911 saying, “I did call the police on the police. I believe I witnessed a murder.” #DerekChauvintrial

Williams wipes tears away as the 911 call is played & he incredulously explained what he just witnessed, saying Floyd wasn’t resisting arrest, had stopped breathing, was handcuffed and eventually unresponsive. “Y’all murderers, bro” he kept repeating as the call was transferred

Williams is heard saying on the 911 call “Y’all murderers, bro” but he was talking to Officer Thao, whom he said stuck his body camera in Williams’ face to intimidate him. The call ended abruptly; Williams isn’t sure why, “I may have felt threatened” by Thao.

Chauvin's attorney Eric Nelson is now cross-examining Williams, starting with his "flow wrestling" background.

Nelson is delving deep into the training Williams has on chokeholds, rendering his opponents unconscious, etc.

Nelson seems to be trying to show that sometimes fighters can be rendered unconscious and "come to" again later.

The tension between Nelson and Williams is palpable. Williams became emotional while talking about calling 911 to report what he believed was a murder by the police officers.

Nelson accuses Williams of assuming the blood coming from Floyd’s face was from having his head pressed into the pavement; Nelson has said it happened during the earlier struggle inside the squad car.

Nelson asks Williams if he called Chauvin a tough guy, a real man, such a man, bogus, a bum at least 13 times, a fucking bum, a fucking pussy ass bitch… Williams says “If that’s what you saw in the video."

Judge says he has to answer yes/no, he looks at Chauvin directly while confirming. He told Thao he'll shoot himself within the next 2 years; he said Thao intimidated him.

Nelson is making the point that Williams yelled at the officers "over and over and over again" and Williams replies, "Yes, because I wasn't being heard." Denies he was angry; says he stayed professional throughout.

On redirect, the prosecutor gets Williams to acknowledge that in his fights, his opponent isn’t handcuffed or fighting three people. Williams says he witnessed more of a “shit show” than a fight.

Nelson asks Williams if he is ever able to have a “conversation” with his opponent while being rendered unconscious during a fight. Williams says, no “we don’t talk.” On redirect, he explains that they “tap out” to prevent it from going too far.

Williams' testimony is over. Next up are 4 minors whose testimony will be restricted to conceal their identity.

Ie: there will be no video of their testimony and their names won't be released. One of them is likely the young girl whose cellphone video went viral. kansascity.com/news/nation-wo…

This witness was 17 when she walked to Cup Foods with her 9-year-old cousin to get snacks — a trek she's made “hundreds, maybe even thousands” of times.

Frazier walked her cousin to the store, let her go inside and walked back to where she saw officers kneeling on Floyd outside the store. She didn’t want her cousin to see it because Floyd was “terrified, scared, begging for his life.”

Frazier started recording with cell phone, testifying that she saw George Floyd and “He was in pain. It seemed like he knew… he was terrified. He was suffering. This was a cry for help.”

Darnella Frazier is very emotional and sounds as if she's crying as she identifies Chauvin in the courtroom.

She said the crowd that gathered was not unruly but people were yelling things like "He's not moving." "His nose is bleeding." "You're a bum." etc.

Off-duty firefighter/paramedic Genevieve Hansen came on the scene and repeatedly asked the officers to check Floyd’s pulse; Frazier testifies that they didn’t.

Despite the crowd's pleas, Frazier says Chauvin didn't let up: "If anything, he actually was kneeling harder — looked like he was shoving his knee in his neck," she testifies. As she starts to say it looked like Chauvin was feeding off the crowd's energy, judge calls for break

We are back. Prosecutor asks if Chauvin responded to the crowd's pleas. She says no, “He had this cold look; heartless. He didn’t care; it seemed as if he didn’t care what we were saying. It didn’t change anything he was doing.”

Darnella testifies that Derek Chauvin didn’t take his knee off Floyd’s neck until an ambulance arrived and paramedic motion for him to get up.

Darnella says her video went viral, surprising her and changing her life. Asked how, she says, “When I look at George Floyd I look at my dad. I look at my cousins, my uncles… because they’re all black. And I look at that and … how that could’ve been one of them.”

"Nights I’ve stayed up apologizing to George Floyd for not doing more and not physically interacting – not saving his life," Darnella testifies, her voice breaking. "It’s not what I should’ve done. It’s what he should’ve done."

That concludes her testimony. The next state witness is coming.

The next witness is Darnella's 9-year-old cousin (soon to be 10). She is in third grade.

She testifies to seeing police with knee on Floyd's neck. She did not recognize Chauvin in the courtroom until they had him stand & take off mask.

"The ambulance had to push him off him,"she testifies. "They asked him nicely to get off him. He still stayed on." She said this made her sad because it seemed like it was stopping Floyd from breathing; seemed like they were hurting him. Defense does not cross-examine her. Recess

CLARIFICATION: I'm not in the courtroom, but from when I was, it seemed Williams was looking at Chauvin. Pool reporter says "Williams looked off to the side but not directly at Chauvin."

For those wondering why reporters are using Darnella's name even though the audio of them stating their names is not being aired, the prosecutor used Darnella's name and according to the pool reporter, "Pool reporters can report their full names."

Pool reporter says George Floyd's brother Terence is in the courtroom today. He said he’s just “trying to get by.”

The pool reporter writes that the 9-year-old girl was shocked to see Chauvin when he stood up and took off his mask. She hadn't recognized him before that.

Sorry had to do a quick interview. Now an 18-year-old girl who recorded the incident said at one point "His eyes were closed and he was just laying there, no longer fighting or resisting" and "At that point, I kinda knew that he was dead or not breathing"

“At that point I felt like all I could do was catching what was going on with the camera," she said. "That’s why I was moving around a lot.”

The girl said she was kind of numb afterwards, didn’t run to the Internet with her video, but hasn’t been to Cup Foods since because “I don’t wanna be reminded.”

The next witness is her friend who was with her that day. She is a 17-year-old senior from St. Paul. They were going to get snacks at Cup Foods.

She said as they arrived she heard Floyd yelling for his mom, saying he can’t breathe and saw 3 officers on top of him. She initially stayed in the car and gave her friend Alyssa her cell phone to record it. When the voices got louder, she got out of the car and went to scene.

The last two girls to testify - aged 17 and 18 - are the two in tank tops in this photo now being shown to jury:

The 17-year-old girl testifies that Chauvin didn't remove his knee until the ambulance arrived and a paramedic motioned for him to "get off."
“He looked kind of like purple, like he wasn’t getting enough circulation," she said. "He was really limp.”

She said her gut feeling was that he was dead. The defense chooses not to cross examine her. Now they're taking a break.

The next witness will be Genevieve Hansen, an off-duty firefighter who happened upon the scene and asked the officers multiple times to check Floyd’s pulse.

Before she testifies, they're playing video where you can hear her urging officers to check George Floyd's pulse. Officer Thao didn't seem to believe her at first that she's a Minneapolis paramedic. "You guys are on another level!" she yells.

Now they're playing her 911 call, in which she says, "I literally watched this police officer not take a pulse and not do anything to save a man."

Now Hansen is testifying about how her training as a Minneapolis firefighter, what kind of training she had:

Hansen works at a busy fire station “with a lot of overdoses” and regularly sees unconscious, “pulse-less” people in her job, she testifies. She lives within walking distance of Cup Foods, and on May 25 was going for a walk when she came upon the scene.

She saw police lights by Cup Foods and figured some of her firefighter coworkers might be there, so she walked toward the scene, walking in a circle around the scene to see what was going on. As she got closer, a woman across the street was screaming that they were killing him.

The off-duty firefighter said she went to the scene “because I was concerned to see a handcuffed man who was not moving, with officers with their whole body weight on his back and a crowd that was stressed out.”

This is a shot from a police video of Hansen now recording the scene with her cell phone (left-most person):

Hansen appears to be emotional/crying while watching the video of the ambulance arriving & officers & paramedics putting George Floyd's lifeless body in the ambulance.

Hansen said once she got to the front of the officers, she recognized Chauvin’s face from a call probably the day before, the shift she’d just worked.

Hansen said she was concerned at the scene because “he wasn’t moving and he was cuffed” and "three grown men putting all their weight on somebody is too much." His face was like, smashed into the ground, appeared swollen.

Hansen said it didn’t take her long to realize Floyd had an “altered level of consciousness,” his face was puffy and swollen and fluid was coming from his body. She couldn't recall if he was speaking when she first arrived.

“I had already assessed that he had an altered level of consciousness; I needed to know whether he had a pulse anymore," she said. Chauvin “seemed very comfortable” with most of his weight on Floyd’s neck, Hansen said.

Hansen said had they let her into the scene, she would’ve called 911, run to gas station to look for an AED, checked his airway for obstructions, checked for a pulse and if didn’t find one, would’ve started compressions at a rate of 100/minute until help arrived.

When the police officers wouldn’t let her help, Hansen said she felt “Totally distressed.” At this point, she breaks down, crying, wiping tears, stops to take a drink of water.

“It’s what I would’ve done for anybody,” Hansen says. She began raising her voice and using foul language “because I was desperate to help.”

After Floyd’s body was taken away by ambulance, Hansen said firefighters showed up and went into Cup Foods to look for the victim. She said it was “unique for there to be that much miscommunication" that they didn't know Floyd was already en route to hospital in ambulance.

On cross-examination, Chauvin’s attorney is asking Hansen if she’s ever had someone come up while she’s fighting a fire and say “You’re doing it wrong” or start filming her, yelling at her, calling her names or threatening her.

Nelson has repeatedly tried to show that the bystanders were distracting officers. Hansen is firm that she could continue to do her job.

Hansen says it wasn’t medics’ “normal response time” and she didn't understand why firefighters didn’t respond sooner, since there’s a station a couple blocks away, a few minutes away.

“That’s totally abnormal," she said. "Fire would’ve been added to that call because we go to calls like that all the time.”

So basically, this off-duty firefighter is saying something was wrong because firefighters could’ve responded much sooner than medics. I *think* she's implying police did not want firefighters to respond.

After Chauvin's attorney notes she called the officer a bitch, Hansen says “I got quite angry after Mr. Floyd was loaded into the ambulance and there was no point in trying to reason with them anymore because they had just killed somebody."

When asked about how the crowd was vocal, etc. she said "I don't know if you've seen anybody be killed but it's upsetting" before judge cautions her

Earlier Hansen testified that Officer Thao told her, “If you’re really a firefighter, you should know better.”

As Chauvin's attorney picks apart the statement she gave BCA investigators, and Hansen gets increasingly agitated, judge is doing a sidebar. Judge advises Hansen not to argue with the court or judge. "They have the right to ask questions," Cahill says. She'll return tomorrow morn

Hansen leaves the courtroom, obviously annoyed after Judge Peter Cahill was very stern in telling her not to volunteer information but just answer the questions.

The judge calls woman named Rachel Jackson after deputies seized her phone as she was taking a photo near the elevator outside the courtroom of Darnella Frazier talking to @AGEllison. She says she was “keeping the press off of” Frazier. He returns phone with a stern warning.