Hello Guardian live blog readers, it is Day Five of testimony in the trial in downtown Minneapolis of the white now-ex police officer Derek Chauvin, charged with murdering George Floyd, a 46-year-old Black man last May.
We are going to have a dedicated live blog on this today, with a live stream of the proceedings, separately from our daily hit blog on US political news, which Joan Greve is helming and which you can follow here.
In court in Minneapolis we’re expecting senior police officers to testify today. It’s never absolutely certain until a witness actually appears on the stand, but there is a strong likelihood that the Minneapolis police chief Medaria Arradondo will testify today.
That’s a rare occurrence in a trial of a police officer, serving or former. Chauvin, 45, was fired after he pressed his knee into Floyd’s neck for more than nine minutes as he pinned him to the street during an arrest last year. He denies the murder and manslaughter charges against him.
Here’s what we expect in court today:
- Minneapolis police chief, known informally as Rondo, and police lieutenant Richard Zimmerman are expected to take the stand today as witnesses for the prosecution. We don’t know for certain and we don’t know which order they will appear in, so stay tuned.
- Court is understood to be sitting only for half a day today. The trial will get underway at 9am CT/10am ET, with testimony expected to begin around 15 to 30 minutes after that.
- Opening arguments were presented in the trial on Monday and it’s been a highly-emotionally charged week. The devastating bystander videos of Floyd’s slow death were played from the start, as well as images of Chauvin kneeling on Floyd. Much other never-before-seen footage has been shown.
- Witnesses spoke of their guilt at not being able to save Floyd.
- Floyd’s girlfriend Courteney Ross spoke powerfully about how she and Floyd became addicted to opioids after being prescribed the powerful painkillers and later turning to illicit channels. Floyd had fentanyl and meth in his system when he died, although the official autopsy concluded he was killed in a homicide by the police, he didn’t die primarily from his drug us (as the defense will argue).
- The trial is expected to last for another two or three weeks.
