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Witness Says He Told Floyd 'You Can't Win' With Police at Derek Chauvin Trial
Posted
March 31, 2021
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A witness who talked with George Floyd while he was being arrested openly sobbed after he watched body camera video of Floyd struggling with police officers.
Charles McMillian, 61, said he was driving past the area and stopped when he saw police activity.
He was heard on a body camera telling Floyd — who was becoming frantic and saying he was claustrophobic — to cooperate with officers trying to push him into the car.
"You can't win," McMillan told Floyd.
Eventually, Chauvin and Thao arrived on the scene, and Floyd thanked officers as they pulled him out of the car and put him on the ground.
McMillian, through tears, testified, "I feel helpless" as he explained why the video made him emotional.
The court took a short break.
McMillian said he recognized Chauvin from the neighborhood and talked to him five days earlier, telling him that at the end of the day, everyone wants to go home to their families safe.
On Tuesday, a parade of witnesses testified that they and other bystanders in a group of about 15 people on the sidewalk became upset as they repeatedly begged Chauvin to take his knee off Floyd's neck.
But Chauvin refused to ease up, and Thao kept back those who tried to intervene, including a Minneapolis firefighter with EMT training.
The testimony from the prosecution witnesses was apparently aimed at showing that Chauvin had multiple opportunities to think about what he was doing and change course.
But Chauvin attorney Eric Nelson also repeatedly sought to bring out evidence that the onlookers were becoming agitated, in an apparent attempt to show that the police were distracted by what they perceived as a growing and increasingly hostile crowd.
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