Derek Chauvin’s Trial Today – Testimony of Police Lt: Unnecessary Force used on George Floyd

Derek Chauvin, the former Minneapolis police officer who was charged in the May 25^th, 2020 death of George Floyd. His trial continues today with the Doctor who provided emergency care to George Floyd on the day he died giving testimony. 

He stated that he tried to resuscitate Floyd in the emergency centre. The Doctor reported that he knew that Floyd had a Cardiac Arrest, and he prepared a room with critical resources and had a team to take care of the him.

A CPR device was used, as he tried to resuscitate him, but his heart was not beating enough to sustain life. There was no mention of Floyd having previous heart problems or of him using drugs before his death. 

However, the Paramedics who took Floyd to the emergency department had reported that they had already tried to resuscitate him before but they were unsuccessful. 

Lt. Richard Zimmerman, Minneapolis Police Homicide who is a senior officer also testified, last week that he saw no reason why the officers who were trying to arrest Mr Floyd needed to use what he thought was excessive force since George Floyd was in handcuffs and he was placed face down on the ground. 

However, the lawyer for the defence pointed out that he is not on actively arresting criminals anymore and he might be out of touch with recent officer training information.

It is felt that his testimony was damning. The prosecutors have a strong case so far and the defence might find it hard to prove that the training their client got, caused him to kneel on Floyd’s neck for over 8 minutes, as he tried to restrain him.