MINNEAPOLIS – The woman with George Floyd when he was first confronted by police the day of his fatal arrest testified Tuesday in Derek Chauvin's murder trial that she awakened Floyd to warn him that a Minneapolis officer was at his window with his gun drawn.
Shawanda Hill testified in Hennepin County District Court that she and Floyd crossed paths at Cup Foods on May 25, and he appeared normal, and was talking and alert. But when they went to his SUV after he offered to give her a ride home, "he fell asleep," she said, in her first public statements about his friend's arrest, under defense questioning.
When store employees approached the vehicle about Floyd passing a fake $20 bill, according to Hill, "they were trying to wake him up, trying to wake him up over and over. He woke up, he'll say something, made a little gesture and nodded back off."
She added that Floyd told her "he was tired because he had been working."
Several minutes later, the police arrived and Floyd awoke at her urging, she said.
Defense attorney Eric Nelson ended his questioning there, and prosecutor Matthew Frank began his cross-examination roughly where Hill's account left off.
Hill said Floyd woke up the second time she tried to rouse him and told him, " 'The police is here. It's about the $20 bill that wasn't real.'"
She testified that she went on to tell Floyd, " 'Baby, that's the police. Roll down the window.' ... The man had a gun at the window. [Floyd] instantly grabbed the wheel, and he said, 'Please, please don't shoot me.'"
Hill said she saw nothing to indicate Floyd was having any health problems such as shortness of breath or chest pains.
"Did he seem startled when the officer pulled the gun on him?" Frank asked. "Very," Hill said.
For more than two weeks during their freshly concluded case, prosecutors have spelled out in numerous areas where it is beyond a reasonable doubt that Chauvin is responsible for the death of the handcuffed Floyd, who remained pinned for more than nine minutes under the defendant's knee until rendered motionless on the pavement at 38th and Chicago on May 25.
Minneapolis Park Police officer Peter Chang testified next as the jury saw for the first time his perspective of the incident through body camera video. Chang said he was stationed at a nearby park when he responded to assist. When he arrived, Floyd was handcuffed and seated on the sidewalk. He was asked to run Floyd's information on the computer. He then returned to the squad car where Officers Thomas Lane and J. Alexander Kueng were struggling with Floyd. They told him instead to watch Floyd's SUV.
Chang said he then spoke with Hill and Morries Hall, another person with Floyd who saw the initial struggle but later could not see his friend being held to the pavement.
"Damn, he still won't get in the car; just sit down, George," Hill was heard saying on the officer's video. "He's fighting to get out, what is he doing? Now he going to jail."
According to Chang's video:
The park officer continued to talk with Hill and Hall, asking them how they knew Floyd. At one point Hall gave his name as "Ricardo."
They attempted to look on as witness Donald Williams and others can be heard yelling at the officers to get off of Floyd.
"Something's going on. They're taking pictures over there," Hill said.
"Everybody recording this sh--, man." Hall said.
By the time the ambulance arrived, Hill walked to the corner to attempt to see what happened.
"Can I just see what y'all did to him? He on the ground and everything? Oh my god."
"Shawanda, you're not helping," Chang said. "Once my partners get over here they can explain to you guys."
After the ambulance left, Hall and Hill tried to get Floyd's phone from the Mercedes, but witness Charles McMillian told them they needed to call Floyd's family. "He's (messed) up!" McMillian said, using an expletive.
"They kept ... on his neck," he said gesturing.
"What?" Hill asked?
Asked by Nelson about why Chang moved away from Floyd's car, he testified, "I was concerned for the officers safety because of the crowd, so I wanted to make sure the officers were OK."
People were at every corner of the intersection, he said, testifying earlier that the crowd was "very aggressive toward the officers, yes."
Chang agreed under cross examination that his attention while Floyd struggled with the other officers was on Hill, Hall and the SUV.
While the crowd became more aggressive he kept his focus did not change because there were four officers dealing with Floyd? Frank asked. Chang concurred.
"You assumed they were OK?" Frank asked. Chang said, "Yes."
"They never radioed for help, did they?" Frank continued.
Chang said his radio would have aired such a call, and he replied, "No," they never called for additional officers to come to the scene.
The defense has contended all along during the trial that Floyd died from heart problems and recent illicit drug use. Nelson started his case with two witnesses who testified in connection with Floyd's drug-related arrest a year earlier in Minneapolis.
The morning's final defense witness, Minneapolis police medical support coordinator Nicole Mackenzie, was questioned about "excited delirium," a syndrome in dispute among health professionals that is taught to MPD cadets. Officer Lane, who helped Chauvin during the restraint, and raised this condition as a potential explanation for Floyd's behavior.
Mackenzie said the training points out that the syndrome leads to psychotic behavior, agitation, incoherent speech, superhuman strength and hyperthermia.
She said cadets are trained to have an ambulance stage at a safe distance from the scene where a suspect might be experiencing excited delirium. She said an ambulance is needed because a "suspect can rapidly go into cardiac arrest." Nelson has contended that Floyd's ailing heart led to his death along with illicit drug use and not from any of his client's actions.
Frank's questions focused on excited delirium's training emphasizing that the suspect should be put in the side recovery position, which did not happen during Floyd's arrest. Mackenzie, who testified earlier during the prosecutions case, also said that CPR is also taught under this situation. Floyd was not given CPR on May 25 until after he was in an ambulance on the way to the hospital.
Nelson first called retired Minneapolis police officer Scott Creighton to the stand to introduce portions of body camera video from a May 2019 traffic stop, during which Floyd would not obey commands to show his hands.
"The passenger was unresponsive and noncompliant to my commands, I then had to physically reach in and I wanted to see his hands because I couldn't see his hand," he testified. "I reached in to grab his hand and put up on the dash and that individual was taken from the vehicle and handcuffed," Creighton said. "In my mind his behavior was very nervous anxious."
The jury then saw a clip of video, during which Floyd said "Don't shoot me, man!" before he was pulled from the car and handcuffed.
Under cross-examination by prosecutor Erin Eldridge, Creighton admitted that Floyd was given conflicting commands on where to place his hands. She also pointed out that Floyd didn't go to the ground as he did during his arrest in 2020, and he survived that encounter, and Creighton agreed.
Next to testify was Michelle Moseng, a retired HCMC paramedic who tended to Floyd at the Police Department's Fourth Precinct in north Minneapolis.
Moseng said Floyd's blood pressure was extremely high, and she wanted him to go the hospital because she was concerned that he was at risk of a stroke. She said Floyd explained that "he had a history of hypertension and hadn't been taking his medication."
She also said Floyd told her he had been taking multiple opioid pills every 20 minutes that day.
Under cross-examination, Eldridge's line of questioning had Moseng acknowledge that Floyd was alert, obeying commands, and his respiration and pulse rates were normal. She said her records indicated he had taken about seven percocets.
"I asked why and he said it was because he was addicted," Moseng said.
"He was able to walk, correct? He was able to stand up?" Eldridge asked.
"I know he was real resistant to get on our bed. It was hard to tell exactly what he was upset about," Moseng said, prompting an objection from the prosecution and the answer ordered stricken.
Floyd "didn't have a stroke while you were with him?" Eldridge asked. "No," Moseng said.
"Didn't stop breathing?" Again, Moseng said no.
She asked Moseng whether she knew that Floyd was sent to the hospital and was released two hours later. She said she did not know that.
In the case of both witnesses, Judge Peter Cahill ordered jurors to consider the witnesses testimony as to what impact "the ingestion of opioids may or may not have on the physical well-being of George Floyd." The evidence, he said, was not to determine Floyd's character.
Prosecutors say the testimony and evidence presented during their case have shown that Chauvin ran afoul of his police training, kept Floyd detained knowing he was going to die and failed to provide medical aid as he gasped for air.
Nelson has argued that the 46-year-old Floyd died from serious problems with his heart and the use of the illicit drugs fentanyl and methamphetamine, rather than a lack of oxygen as the prosecution has said. Nelson will call witnesses over the next several days in support of his position with the goal of raising enough doubt in the minds of the jurors that they will acquit his client.
Cahill ended Monday's proceedings by telling jurors that the defense could finish its case by Thursday, adding that the court would likely take Friday off and resume next Monday with closing arguments from both sides.
"So, pack a bag" and bring it to court on Monday, the judge told the jurors, who will be sequestered throughout their deliberations.
Chauvin is charged with second-degree unintentional murder, third-degree murder and second-degree manslaughter in the killing of Floyd. Three other fired officers who assisted in Floyd's arrest — Kueng, Lane and Tou Thao — are scheduled to be tried in August on charges of aiding and abetting murder and manslaughter.
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(Star Tribune staff writers Chao Xiong and Rochelle Olson contributed to this report.)
