A week of Derek Chauvin trial, here’s what we have got so far

MINNEAPOLIS: Lt. Richard Zimmerman, on Friday, termed Derek Chauvin’s kneeling on George Floyd’s neck as a “totally unnecessary” violation of department policy.

The longest-serving officer in the Minneapolis police force testified that “pulling a person down to the ground with his face down and then putting your knee on his neck for that amount of time, is just uncalled-for.” 

Police officers, in this trial, have been accused of knitting together on questions of misconduct, so the sworn testimony against Derek Chauvin by a high-ranking officer was nothing less than extraordinary.

His comments marked the end of week 1 of the Derek Chauvin trial, the police officer charged with the murder of Mr. Floyd in a Minneapolis street last May.

In the second week of the trial, Medaria Arradondo, the city’s police chief, who has termed Mr. Floyd’s death a “murder,” will also condemn Mr. Chauvin’s actions in the witness box.

Another police official, only a day earlier, testified that Mr. Chauvin and his two officers should have stopped putting pressure on Mr. Floyd sooner. This statement came from the offer who had directly supervised Mr. Chauvin. 

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Jurors have so far heard more than a dozen witnesses including a teenager who filmed the video of his brutal murder and the shop owner who said that Floyd appeared “high” and had given a fake currency note for a cigarette. 

Floyd’s death was the result of Chavin kneeling on his neck for almost nine minutes during an arrest. 

The public response to Floyd’s death was mass protests across the US, which was the largest US civil rights movement ever since the 1960s. Floyd’s death brought a renewed life to the Black Lives Matter movement. US saw the protesters calling for police reforms and broader changes in the criminal justice system to address racial disparities in prosecution, arrests, and punishment.