Victoria Harkless
Assistant Editor-In-Chief
On March 29th, 2021 Officer Derek Chauvin’s murder trial began. For more context, Officer Chauvin is the officer accused of the murder of George Floyd in late May of 2020. Due to the nature of this case, after this point there will be the talk of police brutality and death, which some readers may find upsetting.
Officer Chauvin is being represented by attorney Eric Nelson. In his opening statements, Nelson presented that he intends to argue that Mr. Floyd died as a result of drug abuse, an underlying heart condition and adrenaline, not as a result of his client’s actions. His statement in full is available on Youtube and does not include any footage of the actual incident. The charges being brought upon Officer Chauvin are second-degree murder, third-degree murder and second-degree manslaughter.
The prosecutor responsible for the opening statement is Special Assistant Attorney General Jerry Blackwell. His statement was approximately 25 minutes long and featured the whole video of the incident, which included all of the events that happened. He made it very clear the prosecution intends to prove that Mr. Floyd died as a result of Officer Chauvin’s actions. Mr. Blackwell spoke openly about the people that would be coming in to testify and what their qualifications were. He emphasized that the case is not intended to be all of one group versus all of another and that the focus was the events between Mr. Floyd and Officer Chauvin.
The team of prosecutors consists of five lawyers, among those are the Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison, Steve Schleicher, and Minnesota Assistant Attorney General Matthew Frank who is the lead prosecutor. According to MSN.com most of the attorneys have taken this case on as a pro bono (free) case.
In the three days, about four people have testified. The people have ranged from witness to the crime to people acting as character type witnesses for Officer Chauvin. There are supposed to be many more people taking the stand, some being medical professionals explaining what they think the cause of death was, and some being witnesses speaking about police training and the way training should have prevented this.
In conclusion, with the case just beginning there is a lot of attention on it and there will continue to be. Here at the Eagle’s Eye, we encourage you to look into the case’s details and draw your own conclusions about what happened.
Image Credit: minnesota.cbslocal.com
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