- Prosecutors said Chauvin's use of force caused Floyd's death; the defense said it was "necessary."
- The jury viewed video footage of Floyd's last minutes alive during opening statements.
- The trial is expected to last four weeks.
A 911 dispatcher testified, during the trial of ex-Minneapolis police officer
Dispatcher Jena Scurry, who has worked as a dispatcher in Minneapolis for nearly seven years and was called as the first witness in Chauvin's trial, said she never made a similar call to a police sergeant before in her career.
Scurry said she was watching police take Floyd into custody on May 25, 2020, through a video feed playing on one of the TVs at the dispatch center where she worked, looking at the TV as well as her computer screen while she was working.
At one point, when she looked back at the TV, she said she first thought her screen was frozen upon seeing officers hold Floyd to the ground for an extended period of time, but when she saw people moving in the background, she thought "something might be wrong."
"They had come from the back of the squad car to the ground and my instincts were telling me that something's wrong, something is not right," Scurry said.
She testified that she called the sergeant with the purpose of "voicing my concerns" of the actions of the police officers because she didn't "know if they had to use force or not."
"They got something out of the back of the squad and all of them sat on this man," Scurry said she told the police sergeant during her testimony. "So I don't know if they needed to or not but they haven't said anything to me yet."
Jerry Blackwell, one of the prosecutors in the trial, said he wants the jury to know that George Floyd is more than just an "object of the excessive use of force of police."
In his hour-long opening statement Monday morning, Blackwell told jurors that Floyd, who was called "Perry" by his family, was a 46-year-old father, brother, cousin, and friend who moved from Houston, Texas to Minneapolis for a "fresh start."
Floyd was working as a security guard at a Salvation Army location before losing his job due to the COVID-19 shutdown, Blackwell said, calling him "a Covid survivor."
"The point of all of this is that we want you to know something about who George Floyd was as a person because he was somebody to a lot of other bodies in the world," Blackwell said.
Chauvin, the former police officer who was captured on video kneeling on George Floyd's neck for more than nine minutes in May 2020, is charged with second-degree murder, third-degree murder, and second-degree manslaughter.
Floyd's death rocked the US, prompting global anti-racism and anti-police brutality protests and unrest.
Blackwell made clear from his opening statement that the most important piece of evidence in the case is the "9 minutes and 29 seconds" that Floyd was pinned to the ground outside Cup Foods. The jury viewed video footage of Floyd's last minutes alive during Blackwell's opening, and they'll likely see it again during the trial, which is expected to last four weeks.
The prosecutor used a mix of emotion, science, and witness accounts in his opening statement to drill into the minds of the jury that no matter what preexisting conditions Floyd suffered from, it was Chauvin's actions on May 25 that killed him.
"Mr. Derek Chauvin betrayed this badge when he used excessive and unreasonable force upon the body of Mr. George Floyd," Blackwell said. "That he put his knees upon his neck and back, grinding and crushing him, until the very breath, no ladies and gentleman, the very life, was squeezed out of him."
Blackwell said that Chauvin was well aware Floyd was unarmed at the time and wasn't threatening anyone. While pinned to the ground, Floyd called out 27 times that he could not breathe.
Despite those warnings, Blackwell said, Chauvin continued to press his knee into Floyd's neck beyond when Floyd fell unconscious. Chauvin didn't let up even when paramedics arrived to take Floyd's pulse, Blackwell said.
Floyd "was completely in the control of the police," Blackwell said. "He was defenseless."
Chauvin's attorney, Eric Nelson, painted a different picture of Floyd in his opening statement.
Nelson told the jurors that police were called to the scene after Floyd attempted to use a fake $20 bill to buy cigarettes. Floyd refused to cooperate with clerks when they came out to the car he was in and asked him to either return or pay for the cigarettes, Nelson said.
He said the clerk called 911, describing Floyd as "drunk" and "not acting right."
People who were in the car with Floyd, Nelson said, realized he couldn't stay awake, and one of them even called her daughter to pick her up.
The first two officers, J. Alexander Kueng and Thomas Lane, who arrived on scene tried to get Floyd into a squad car, Nelson said. He added it was a "struggle" to get Floyd handcuffed and out of the Mercedes he was in.
Floyd then put drugs in his mouth in an effort to conceal them from police, Nelson said. A toxicology report showed Floyd had methamphetamines and fentanyl in his system.
When Chauvin arrived on the scene, Nelson said, he took control of the arrest from newer officers, Nelson said.
When Floyd ended up on the ground, Nelson said the officers used a "maximum restraint technique" called the "hog tie" to take control. During this time a crowd began to gather around the area and grew angry, he said, adding officers perceived the bystanders as a threat.
"You will learn that Derek Chauvin did exactly what he was trained to do over his 19-year career," Nelson said. "The use of force is not attractive, but it is a necessary component of the job."
Blackwell, though, had said he will call Minneapolis Police Department officers, command staff, and policing experts who will testify that Chauvin's behavior that day was inappropriate and not something he was trained in.
It became clear from the opening statements that Floyd's drug use and cause of death will play a significant role in the case.
The defense will argue that Floyd's heart condition and drug use were factors in his death.
The prosecution will argue the opposite.
"You're going to hear obviously that he struggled with drug addiction, that he had high blood pressure. They'll talk about heart disease, and we will tell you about that heart disease that he had," Blackwell said. "What you will learn is that George Floyd lived for years - day in and day out, every day - with all these conditions, until the one day, on May 25, when he ended the 9 minutes and 29 seconds, and that was the only day he didn't survive."