MINNEAPOLIS — Two paramedics took the witness stand Thursday afternoon in the murder trial of former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin. Jurors listened to their testimony and watched body camera footage from an officer inside the ambulance. On Wednesday, they sat through hours of police body camera videos. They told jurors George Floyd appeared to be in medical distress or dead when they arrived at the scene.
When viewing the video of Floyd’s final moments, bystander and witness Charles McMillian, 61, broke down sobbing on the witness stand as he recounted his memories of last Memorial Day. Videos shown to the jurors reveal McMillian confronted Chauvin as the ambulance carrying Floyd pulled away from the scene, sirens blaring. McMillian told Chauvin he didn’t respect what Chauvin had done.
“That’s one person’s opinion,” Chauvin said from inside his squad car to McMillian on the sidewalk, according to body-camera video. “We gotta control this guy ’cause he’s a sizable guy … and it looks like he’s probably on something.”
Floyd, a Black man, died in police custody on May 25, 2020, after Chauvin, who is white, pinned his knee against Floyd’s neck for more than nine minutes. Chauvin is charged with second-degree murder, third-degree murder, and second-degree manslaughter. Stay updated on the Derek Chauvin trial: Follow USA TODAY Network reporters on Twitter, sign up for text messages of critical updates, or subscribe to the Daily Briefing newsletter.
Latest updates:
- Sgt. David Pledger, a recently retired Minneapolis police officer, testified Thursday afternoon.
- A Minneapolis Fire Department captain, Jeremy Norton took the stand Thursday afternoon.
- Derek Smith told jurors he thought George Floyd “was dead” Thursday afternoon, a paramedic with Hennepin County EMS.
- Seth Bravender, Smith’s partner paramedic, testified Thursday morning.
- Minneapolis native Courteney Ross, 45, also testified Thursday morning about her three-year relationship with Floyd.
- Philonise Floyd, George Floyd’s brother from Houston, was in court Thursday.
- Jurors have heard from 17 witnesses to the death of George Floyd, and several have cried on the stand describing their attempts to intervene on his behalf.
- Witnesses include an off-duty firefighter, a 911 dispatcher, a cashier across the street, the teenager who recorded the now-viral video of Floyd’s death, and her 9-year-old cousin.
- The prosecution on Wednesday played videos from the body cams of former officers Alexander Kueng, Thomas Lane, and Tou Thao and part of Chauvin’s video.
‘They could have ended their restraint,’ says MPD cop who reviews officers’ use of force
After serving as afternoon sergeant for Minneapolis’s third police precinct, David Pledger, recently retired, took the stand Thursday afternoon. He was the supervising officer the day George Floyd died and the one who 911 dispatcher Jena Scurry, who testified Monday, alerted to the possible use of force incident after seeing officers on top of someone through city surveillance cameras. As a sergeant, Ploeger would review officers’ services of force, but he did not do a use of force review in the May 25, 2020 incident, as it involved death in police custody and elevated to internal affairs, he said.
On Thursday, Prosecutor Steve Schleicher replayed Scurry’s call to Pleoger — the second time jurors have heard it played in court. After receiving that call from Scurry, Pleoger said he rang Chauvin on his cell phone to inquire about what had happened. “We just had to hold a guy down. He was going crazy,” Chauvin told Pleoger on a body-camera recording.
The conversation was not recorded because Chauvin turned off his body camera, as allowed per policy. Ploeger tried to remember the rest of his discussion with Chauvin that day, saying he believed Chauvin told him officers had tried to put Floyd in the car, and he became combative. “I think he mentioned either his nose or his mouth. A bloody lip, I think,” he said.
Ploeger said Chauvin told him Floyd suffered a medical emergency, and they had called an ambulance. Ploeger said Chauvin said nothing about placing a knee on Floyd’s neck. After the call with Chauvin, Pleoger said he went to the scene for the use of force review. When he arrived, he became the senior officer on the scene. He instructed Chauvin and another officer to come to Hennepin County Medical Center “to check on the party’s condition” and told the two officers to get witness information.
Schleicher played a segment of police body-cam video in which Pleoger asks Chauvin to talk to witnesses. “We can try,” Chauvin said. “They’re pretty hostile.” Once he arrived at the medical center, Pleoger said he was told by staff that Floyd was “doing poorly” and, later, that Floyd had died. Ploeger said he called the lieutenant in charge of the city at night to inform him of the critical incident. That lieutenant prodded Pleoger to ask the officers involved if they used additional force.
Only then did Chauvin tell Pleoger that “he knelt on Floyd or knelt on his neck,” Ploeger said? Asked if that was the first time he became aware force had been applied to Floyd’s neck, Pleoger said, “Yes.” He said he helped arrange rides to send the officers to city hall to be interviewed. “Would you agree that a person may be restrained only to the degree necessary to keep them under control,” Schleicher asked. “es and no more restraint,” Ploeger said.
Schleicher asked when the restraint of Floyd should have ended. Ploeger replied, “hen Mr. Floyd was no longer offering up any resistance to the officers, they could have ended their restraint.”Under the medical assistance provision, officers must render medical aid and request EMS if necessary. Asked by Schleicher if the dangers of positional asphyxia are ” generally known” in the department, Pleoger said “yes.””””f you restrain somebody or leave somebody on their chest and stomach for too long, their breathing can become compromised. Hence, you want to get them up out of that position after a while,” Pleoger said, adding that the prone position can be dangerous even if there is no additional pressure.
On cross-examination, Nelson asked if Pleoger had ever been in a situation as an officer where a crowd starts to “ell” “or become “volatile.” Ploeger said yes. Asked if it had ever caused him, “oncern,” Pleoger said yes. If somehadving a medical emergency at the same tiPloegeroger said, officers would have to “eal with both kinds of simultaneously.” Nelson appeared to compare a crowd of bystanders with a ” un battle,” asking Pleoger how he would handle a situation when there was greatest” and someone in need of medical assistance, such as CPR. “I’dmitigate the threaPloegeroger said. Later, Schleicher asked Pleoger, based on his review of police body camera video of the incident, ” You ddidn’tsee a gun battle?” o,” Ploeger said.
crew members did continual pulse checks until the ambulance reached the hospital. Asked if they ever managed to get a pulse from Floyd, Norton told prosecutor Erin Eldridge ” o, ma’am. “Afterward, Norton told his crew to return to Cup Foods to check and check on Hansen – who testified as a prosecution witness against former Minneapolis Police Officer Derek Chauvin earlier this week – and “make sure she was OK.”””” understood the justification for her coercion,” he said. Norton said he and his crew did a short debriefing after the incident. He filed a fire department report on the incident. “I was aware that a man had been killed in police custody, and I wanted to inform my supervisors at the Fire Department,” he said.
activity on the way to the hospital during a periodic check-in. “t just delivered a shock, and he remained in his quote-unquote dead state. I was trying to give him a second chance at life.”Smith referred to Floyd as “deceased” when he was dropped off at the hospital.
Smith said he saw Chauvin when he first checked for a pause on the scene, still ” t the head of the patient.”As for why an officer rode with Smith to the hospital and ordered that officer to do chest compressions, he told defense attorney Eric Nelson: ” ny layperson can do chest compressions,” he said.
Memorial Day, took the witness stand Thursday morning. BBravendersaid he was initially answering a non-urgent code 2 call for someone with a mouth injury, but within a minute-and-a-half, it was upgraded to an urgent code 3, and they were on their way with lights and sirens.
Bravender parked the ambulance while his partner checked FFloyd’scarotid pulse and pupils. When paramedics arrived, Bravinder saw multiple officers on the side of the road on top of “ur patient lying on the ground next to a squad car.”He said he “assumed there was potentially some struggle still since they were still on top of him.”
“rom what I could see where I was at, I didn’t see any breathing or movement or anything like that,” Bravender said. He said Floyd appeared unresponsive, in handcuffs. Bravender asked his partner,” ‘is he in cardiac arrest?” — Floyd was unresponsive, not breathing, and without a pulse. “He said, ‘I think so.'”
Bravender said a crowd had gathered on the sidewalk, and they appeared very “upset” and yelling. “We wanted to get away from that” because trying to resuscitate someone can be difficult and requires focus, he said. Prosecutor Erin Eldridge played a clip of Officer Thomas Lane’s body camera video, which shows Floyd lying handcuffed, flat on the ground, on his stomach, and unmoving as the paramedics bring over a stretcher.
Bravender gestures with his hand, indicating that Chauvin needs to move his knee so that Floyd can be put on the gurney. According to the video, Bravender also tries to ensure Floyd’s head doesn’t slam into the ground while he’s moved because his body is limp. Bravender parked the ambulance about two blocks away. Once in the back of the ambulance, he saw the cardiac monitor showing a flat line – indicating no heart activity.
An officer’s body camera video shows Floyd lying shirtless on his back on the gurney in the ambulance as Bravinder places a large device on him to do compressions. Bravender puts another device in Floyd’s mouth to help deliver oxygen. Meanwhile, Bravinder’s partner is working on an IV for Floyd to give him medications like epinephrine, which is a treatment for cardiac arrest because it helps restart the heart.
Bravender said Floyd’s condition never changed, despite efforts to pump blood to his organs and restart his heart. Bravender said that once there is no pulse, it’s essential to begin resuscitative efforts like chest compressions, breathing aid to the patient, and IV medication as quickly as possible. A delay “is not good for the outcome,” Bravender said.
Floyd was never revived, Bravender said. On cross-examination, the lead defense attorney had Bravinder parse the qualifications of a CPR certification, which police have compared to an EMTs chest compression. Bravender agreed the EMTs underwent more training.
Bravender told Nelson that police could respond to overdose calls with EMS because when people are resuscitated from an overdose, they can become violent or aggressive. Bravender said, “It can happen sometimes,” and he has personally seen it happen.
Courteney Ross, who dated Floyd, recounts the meeting: ‘We had our first kiss in the lobby.’
Minneapolis native Courteney Ross, 45, who had a relationship with George Floyd for about three years, took the witness stand for the prosecution Thursday morning. She gave jurors their first glimpse at Floyd’s life, including times of excellent and evil. Ross said she met Floyd in August 2017. “It’s one of my favorite stories,” she said, getting emotional and stifling tears as she recounted the romantic beginning.
The day they met, Ross had gotten off work at the coffee shop where she had worked part-time for 22 years. She went to see her son’s father, who was staying at a shelter, and was waiting in the lobby for him. Floyd worked there as a security guard.
“Floyd came up to me. Floyd had this great deep Southern voice, raspy. ‘You OK, Sis,’ he said. I wasn’t OK. He said, ‘Can I pray with you?’ And this kind person asks if he can pray with me. We’d been through so much, my sons and I. It was so sweet. …We had our first kiss in the lobby.”
Ross said that in early 2020, they had separated for a while. But from March to early May, they were together every day. She stifled tears again after being shown a photo of Floyd. Ross acknowledged that drug use was part of their relationship. “Floyd and I both suffered from opiate addiction,” she said. “We both suffered from chronic pain. Mine was in my neck. His was in his back. We both had prescriptions. After prescriptions were filled, we got addicted and tried very hard to break the addictions many times,” she said.
On cross-examination by lead defense attorney Eric Nelson, Ross agreed that she and Floyd went through ups and downs during which one or the other of them, or both of them, used pain pills. On redirect examination, Frank tried to show that Floyd had not been in immediate danger of dying from the drugs he’d taken weeks before. “He had a lot of energy. He was playing football, eating, hanging out,” Ross said.
videos provide a clear 360-degree view of the encounter and what happened before and after the actual struggle with police.
First to be shown was the body-cam video from Officer Thomas Lane, who can be seen walking over to Floyd’s SUV on video. Lane quickly drew his firearm and yelled at Floyd through Floyd’s closed car window to raise his hands. The video became more intense as Floyd appeared only to grow one hand to the steering wheel, seemingly angering Lane, who had been on the job only four days by the May 25 incident.
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” Floyd cried. “Let me see your hands,” Lane said. “Put your f*** hands on the wheel.” Soon, Floyd pleads, “Officer, please don’t shoot me.” Officers then take Floyd over to sit on the sidewalk, according to the video from Officer J. Alexander Keung, showing a different angle of the same moments. The incident grew tense as the officers tried to force Floyd into the squad car Fl.oyd pleaded with the officers, saying he was claustrophobic and anxious.
Lane can be seen with what looks like the equipment for a hobble restraint, which is part of the “maximal restraint technique” for a resisting person. Body-cam video from Officer Tou Thao shows Floyd sliding across the back patrol car’s back seat out the other side. Then, Floyd is forced to the ground, and nearby bystanders hear warning officers Floyd will have a heart attack.
“He’s got to be on something,” one of the officers said, sometimes guessing if it was PCP because Floyd’s eyes were shifting back and forth. As Floyd shouts that he can’t breathe, Lane says, “You’re talking fine, man. Deep breaths.” “I’m through, I’m through,” Floyd says. “You’re doing a lot of talking … it takes an awful lot of oxygen,” an officer says.
Rodney Floyd, George Floyd’s brother, shook his head from side to side and, at one point, gla, red briefly at Chauvin. He sat through the second, third, and fourth videos of the incident, all from different angles. When prosecutors played the first video, Floyd looked stoic and sad, hugging his midsection lightly and swiveling in his chair.
According to the videos, Lane is the first person to escape Floyd. Chauvin keeps his knee on Floyd while a paramedic checks his neck for a pulse. He appears to ease up and press the sure slightly but does not take his knee off until the paramedics are ready to load Floyd onto the gurney.
video showing Floyd struggling with police and calling out for his mother. “I feel helpless,” McMillian said, struggling to regain his composure in court. “My mom died June 25.”
Almost everyone who has testified in Chauvin’s trial became choked up on the witness stand Tuesday and Wednesday as they described watching Floyd go unconscious and lose his pulse. Many expressed regret that they couldn’t help Floyd.
Sometimes survivors of traumatic events hold a “false belief” about their role – for example, that they could’ve saved Floyd from dying, said Nadine Kaslow, a psychiatry and behavioral sciences at Professor Emory School of Medicine.
WitnShe said that witnessingeverely traumatic events – such as Floyd’s death – in person could have “profound” psychological effects, both short and long term, it will impact them for the rest of their lives,” Kaslow said. “When people tell the story, it’s almost like they relive many memories.” Read more.
Contributing: Trevor Hughes
