Derek Chauvin’s trial opened on Monday morning with a clever zoom out. On the screen of the Hennepin County courtroom, in the heart of Minneapolis, as on those of the Americans – the hearing is filmed and broadcast live on television, a first for Minnesota – the jurors were able to see the ex-policeman, charged with the murder of George Floyd, in close-up. The video effect gradually revealed his position, one knee on the African American’s neck, during his arrest on May 25 for buying cigarettes with a fake $20 bill, handcuffed and pinned to the ground.
It then took only a few minutes for the central piece of the prosecution to be shown in its entirety to the jurors: the video, filmed by a passerby, of Floyd’s agony. The very one where we hear him repeat “I can not breathe” 27 times, before passing out. Having gone viral, these images had sparked a historic wave of protests across the country, helping to make Floyd’s death a symbol of police brutality once morest black people in the United States. “You can believe your eyes : it is a homicide, it is a murder”, insisted prosecutor Jerry Blackwell in his opening statement.
9 minutes and 29 seconds
After three weeks of jury selection, opening arguments marked the start of a high-stakes trial. Potentially explosive if Chauvin were to be acquitted, as evidenced by the gates surrounding the court and the armored vehicles of the National Guard. Even President Joe Biden “will follow the debates with attention”, the White House said on Monday. Derek Chauvin, 45, was fired the day following Floyd’s death and arrested shortly following. Incarcerated for four months, he was released on $1 million bail. In almost twenty years of service, the ex-policeman has been the subject of at least 22 complaints. He pleaded not guilty and appears free, between Plexiglas plates and without an audience, due to the Covid-19 pandemic. We only saw him take notes often.
The 9 minute and 29 second video of «torture» of Floyd in support, the prosecution wants to convince the jurors that the police officer has “betrayed” his oath and done “excessive and unreasonable use of force”. “He did exactly what he was trained to do in his nineteen-year career” to apprehend a recalcitrant suspect, the African-American forties refusing to board the police car, retorted Chauvin’s lawyer, Eric Nelson. “This case is clearly much larger than 9 minutes and 29 seconds”, he said, indicating that there was “more than 50 000 rooms” placed on file.
The testimony of medical experts, whom both parties have promised to call to the stand, should be at the heart of the trial. The line of defense of Chauvin’s lawyers is clear: try to prove that it was Floyd’s addiction to opiates and heart problems that caused his death, and not the brutality of the police officer. The Hennepin County medical examiner admittedly found traces of fentanyl, a powerful opiate, during Floyd’s autopsy, but does not consider the substance to be the cause of death. His report concluded that a death “by homicide” because of “pressure exerted on his neck” by the policeman’s knee which led to a “heart failure”.
«Overdose de force excessive»
The verdict is expected in late April or early May. Convictions of police officers for violence committed in the exercise of their functions are very rare in the United States. Especially since the twelve jurors will have to decide unanimously, under penalty of canceling the trial. The three other police officers involved in the drama, Alexander Kueng, Thomas Lane and Tou Thao, will be tried in August for “complicity in murder”.
Jerry Blackwell may well circumscribe the trial as “that of Derek Chauvin, not that of the police”, or Eric Nelson, to assert that there was “no politics or social cause in this court”, outside, demonstrators and relatives of George Floyd took it upon themselves to say the opposite. Recalling, a few minutes before the start of the hearing, the expectations and the national, if not global, scope of this exceptional trial. “Chauvin is in the dock, but America is on trial,” launched the Reverend Al Sharpton, figure of civil rights in the United States. “If George Floyd were a white American citizen, no one would tell us this is a tough trial,” pressed Ben Crump, the Floyd family attorney. In mid-March, she obtained compensation from the city of Minneapolis of $27 million, putting an end to her civil complaint.
Defense “will try to smear” Floyd’s memory, Crump anticipated. “But what killed him was an overdose of excessive force,” he hammered. For this essential defender of the relatives of black victims of the American police, this trial is a «jalon» in the history of the country. One “referendum on the road traveled by America, in its quest for equality and justice for all”.
