Former Minneapolis policeman Derek Chauvin squeezed the life out of George Floyd while joining other officers in arresting him last May, a prosecutor told jurors in his opening statement at Chauvin’s murder trial in a heavily fortified courthouse on Monday.
The deadly arrest was captured on bystanders’ cellphones, surveillance cameras and police body-worn cameras, sparking global protests against racial injustice, and footage from at least two different angles was played for jurors.
Chauvin’s lead attorney, Eric Nelson, said in his opening statement that the videos forming the heart of the prosecutions’ case showed the former officer followed his police training.
But before him, Jerry Blackwell, a prosecutor with the Minnesota attorney general’s office, told the racially diverse jurors that officers who wear the Minneapolis police badge pledge to never use “unnecessary force or violence.”
“You will learn that on May 25, Mr. Derek Chauvin betrayed this badge when he used excessive…