'Believe Your Eyes, It's a Homicide': Key Quotes From Day One of the Chauvin Trial

By Joanna Walters and Joan E. Greve, Guardian UK

30 March 21

Prosecutor says ex-officer betrayed police principles in killing of George Floyd while defense argues Chauvin followed his training

pening arguments got under way on Monday morning in the trial of the white former police officer Derek Chauvin, charged with the murder of George Floyd, a Black man, in Minneapolis last May, after Chauvin kneeled on his neck during an arrest.

The Minnesota prosecutor Jerry Blackwell began, saying Chauvin betrayed his police principles. He also played the entire bystander video that showed Floyd begging for his life and then passing out as he is pinned to the street by officers, including Chauvin who presses on his neck for more than nine minutes.

Then Chauvin’s lead defense lawyer, Eric Nelson, set out his case, focusing on Floyd’s use of illicit drugs and his underlying health conditions. He argued that Chauvin followed his police training and should be found not guilty.

Key quotes from the first morning:

Blackwell, holding up a Minneapolis police badge: “It’s a small badge that carries with it a large responsibility and large accountability to the public. You will learn that on May 25 of 2020, Mr Derek Chauvin betrayed this badge.”

Blackwell: The prosecution will show that Chauvin pinned down Floyd and “put his knees upon his neck and his back. Grinding and crushing him until the very breath – no, ladies and gentlemen – until the very life was squeezed out of him”.

Blackwell: “What was this all about in the first place? It was all about a counterfeit $20 bill at a convenience store … They [police] could have written him a ticket. Even if he did it on purpose it’s a minor offense.”

Voice of the late George Floyd in bystander video: “I can’t breathe. I can’t breathe, man, please. The knee in my neck … I can’t move … Mama.”

Unnamed bystander off camera, of and to Chauvin: “He’s enjoying this. You’re enjoying this … he’s not even resisting arrest, you are stopping his breathing, you think that’s cool?”

Blackwell: “You can believe your eyes, that it’s a homicide, that it’s murder.”

The defense lawyer Nelson on the prosecution’s focus on the period Chauvin knelt on Floyd: “This case is clearly about more than nine minutes and 29 seconds.”

Nelson describes attempts to restrain Floyd: “This was not an easy struggle … The use of force is not attractive, but it is a necessary component of policing.”

Nelson: “You will learn that Derek Chauvin did exactly what he had been trained to do over the course of his 19-year career.”

The White House press secretary, Jen Psaki, on Joe Biden keeping an eye on the trial: “He certainly will be watching closely … at the time of George Floyd’s death he talked about this as being an event that really opened up a wound in the American public … racial injustice and inequality that many communities are experiencing every single day.”