MINNEAPOLIS (AP) – The case of prosecutors against former officer Derek Chauvin closed on Monday with fond memories of George Floyd younger brother, along with another look at the disturbing video and testimony of a violent expert who said no “reasonable” officer would have done what Chauvin did.
Seth Stoughton, a professor at the University of South Carolina School of Law, judged Chauvin’s actions against what a reasonable police officer would have done in the same situation, and repeatedly found that Chauvin did not pass the test.
“No reasonable officer would believe this was an appropriate, acceptable or reasonable use of force,” Stoughton said of the way Floyd was held with a knee over his neck for up to 9 minutes, 29 seconds.
He also said that the failure to overthrow Floyd and provide assistance “as his increasing medical distress became clear” was unreasonable.
He said it was also unreasonable to think that Floyd could harm officers or escape after being handcuffed to the ground. And in another blow to Chauvin’s defense, Stoughton said a reasonable officer would not view the screaming bystanders as a threat.
The issue of what is reasonable carries a lot of weight: police officers are allowed to use lethal force at a certain latitude when someone is endangering the officer or other people. However, legal experts believe that an important question for the jury will be whether Chauvin’s actions were reasonable in those specific circumstances.
During cross-examination, attorney Eric Nelson of Chauvin questioned Stoughton’s opinion that he should have placed Floyd on his stomach in the first place, was unreasonable and excessive.
“Reasonable spirits can not agree, agree?” Ask Nelson.
“At this particular point, no,” the witness said.
Prosecutors are expected to rest their case on Tuesday, after which the defense will present its side. During 11 days of testimony, prosecuting experts, including the Minneapolis police chief and medical professionals, said the now-fired white officer violated his training and used excessive force and that Floyd died from a lack of oxygen due to the way he breathed. was limited. .
Earlier in the day Monday, Philonise Floyd, 39, took the witness stand and lovingly remembers how his older brother made the best banana mayonnaise sandwiches, how George drank him to catch a football, and the way George used his highlight. the wall as a boy because he wanted to grow taller.
He shed tears when he showed a photo of his deceased mother and a young George and said, “I miss both.”
His testimony during the murder trial of Chauvin was part of an attempt by prosecutors to humanize George Floyd before the jury and make the 46-year-old Swartman more than a crime statistic. Minnesota is a rarity to allow ‘spark of life’ evidence during the trial stage.
Philonise Floyd described growing up with George and their other siblings in a poor area of Houston.
He said Floyd played football and deliberately threw the ball from different angles, so Philonise would have to practice for it. ‘I always thought my brother could not throw. But he never intended to throw the ball to me, “he said with a smile.
Earlier Monday, Judge Peter Cahill dismissed a defense request to immediately sequester the jury the morning after the murder of a black man. during a traffic stop caused unrest in a suburb just outside Minneapolis.
Chauvin’s attorney argued that the jurors could be affected by the prospect that could happen as a result of their verdict.
But the judge said he would not sequester the jury until next Monday, when he expects closing arguments to begin. He also refused a defense request to question jurors about what they may have seen about Sunday’s shooting at 20-year-old Daunte Wright in Brooklyn Center.
In the aftermath of the shooting, protesters broke into about 20 businesses, jumped on police cars and hurled stones and other objects at officers in Brooklyn City Center, about 10 miles from the heavily fortified courthouse in Minneapolis.
Brooklyn Center police chief later accidentally mentioned the shooting, saying the officer who fired was apparently intended to pull a Taser, not a handgun.
Stoughton, the violent expert, said the officers who subjugated Floyd should have known he was not trying to attack them when he was struggling and said wildly that he was claustrophobic when they tried to put him in a group car.
“I do not see him posing a threat to anything,” Stoughton said, adding that no reasonable officer would come otherwise.
Stoughton also pointed to cases where Chauvin needed to know about Floyd’s growing need: after one officer suggested Floyd should roll to his side, Chauvin said no. The 19-year-old police veteran ignored bystanders shouting that Floyd was not responding. And when another officer said Floyd did not have a pulse, Stoughton said, Chauvin’s response was “Huh.”
Mike Brandt, a local defense attorney who is closely monitoring the case, said Philonise Floyd’s testimony was irrelevant or caused Chauvin Floyd’s death, “but it certainly plays on the jury’s sympathy.” He said Stoughton’s testimony gave prosecutors the opportunity to leave the jury “with another image of the video” of Floyd pleading his life.
“It was the farewell shot by the state,” Brandt said.
Earlier Monday, dr. Jonathan Rich, a cardiology expert at Northwestern Memorial Hospital in Chicago, told previous witnesses that Floyd died of low oxygen levels due to the way he was oppressed by police.
He rejects defense theories that Floyd died of a drug overdose or a heart condition. According to previous evidence, Floyd had fentanyl and methamphetamine in his system, high blood pressure and narrowing of the coronary arteries.
“It was really the inclined control and positional constraints that led to his suffocation,” Rich said.
In fact, the expert said, “Every indication is that Mr. Floyd actually had an extraordinarily strong heart.”
At cross-examination, Nelson tried to shift the blame on Floyd and asked if Floyd would survive if he ‘just climbed on the back seat of the group’.
But Rich rejects the argument: ‘If he had not kept pace with the way he was, I think he would have survived the day. I think he would have gone home, or wherever he would have gone. ”
Chauvin’s Attorney will be expected to call his own medical experts to state the case that it was not the officer’s knee that killed Floyd. The defense did not say whether Chauvin would testify.
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Find AP’s full coverage of George Floyd’s death at: https://apnews.com/hub/death-of-george-floyd
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Webber reported from Fenton, Michigan.