There was a Black man "terrified, scared, begging for his life" as a white police officer pressed his knee into the man's neck, Frazier said during emotional testimony on Tuesday in the murder trial of Derek Chauvin, the former Minneapolis police officer charged with killing George Floyd.
"When I look at George Floyd, I look at my dad. I look at my brothers, I look at my cousins, my uncles, because they are all Black," Frazier said when Jerry Blackwell, chairman of Blackwell Burke PA who's working pro bono for the prosecution, asked how the incident changed her life.
"Some nights, I've stayed up apologizing to George Floyd for not doing more, and not physically interacting and not saving his life," Frazier added. "But it's not what I should have done, it's what he should have done."
Frazier was one of several bystanders who testified during the second day of trial on Tuesday about witnessing Floyd's arrest and worrying that Chauvin was killing Floyd.
She was 17 years old when she recorded the cell phone video of Floyd's death that was viewed by millions. It showed Chauvin pinning Floyd's neck down for about nine minutes, as Floyd — who was being arrested for allegedly using a counterfeit $20 bill — begged Chauvin to stop, said he couldn't breathe and eventually lost consciousness.
The image of a Black man gasping for breath under the knee of a white police officer rekindled a nationwide racial justice movement last summer. But attorneys for the prosecution and defense have strived to remind jurors and the public watching a live broadcast of court proceedings that this trial is about whether Floyd's death meets the legal standard of murder, not the racial justice issues it has come to represent.
That required curbing the witness testimony of Donald Williams, a bystander with martial arts training who told Chauvin he was doing a "blood choke" on Floyd.
When Assistant Attorney General Matthew Frank asked him how he felt watching Chauvin that day, Williams, who is Black, said he worried for Floyd's life.
"Seeing a man like me being controlled in a way …" he began to say, before defense attorney Eric Nelson of Halberg Criminal Defense, objected.
Judge Peter Cahill told the jury to disregard his answer.
Over the past two days, jurors have heard testimony from such bystanders, who, as Blackwell said during opening statements, come from "the broad spectrum of humanity."
"What they all had in common as they were going about their business, they saw something that was shocking to them, disturbing to them," Blackwell said on Monday.
On that first day of trial, they heard from a clerk at a gas station who watched and filmed the arrest from across the street, and a 911 dispatcher who saw the arrest from a police security camera live feed, and grew concerned enough to call her supervisor, something she'd never done in her six years on the job.
On Tuesday, they heard from Williams, who used his security, wrestling and martial arts experience to testify that he recognized that Chauvin was pinning Floyd with a "blood choke," which is meant to constrict the flow of blood in the arteries of the neck.
Nelson challenged his expertise, noting during questioning that in wrestling matches, contenders come from the same weight class. During opening arguments, Nelson had noted that Floyd was six inches taller than Chauvin and 83 pounds heavier.
Nelson also cast Williams as growing "angrier" as time went on, a characterization the witness rebuffed, saying he was professional, and "you can't paint me out to be angry."
"You grew more and more upset," Nelson said. "You called him 'such a man,' you called him 'bogus,' you called him a 'bum' at least 13 times."
Nelson was likely trying to back up an assertion he made during opening statements, that the onlookers were perceived as a "growing threat" to officers and distracted them from attending to Floyd.
When Floyd was taken away in an ambulance, Williams called 911. He teared up and wiped his eyes as audio of his call played. He could be heard telling officers, "Y'all are murderers," as he waited to be patched through.
The jury also heard from Frazier's young cousin, who testified that Chauvin never took his knee off of Floyd's neck. When the ambulance came, she said, EMTs "asked him nicely" to get off Floyd, but he didn't move. They "had to push him," she said. She was not cross-examined.
A high school senior, Alyssa Funari, who also stopped to take cellphone footage of the arrest, shared her own memories from that day in tearful testimony. She can be heard in her videos reading the badge number of Tou Thao, one of the officers on the scene that day who kept the crowd from getting close to Floyd and Chauvin.
Nelson asked her if she had told investigators afterward that she was angry that day, and she agreed she had. On redirect, she explained, "I was upset because there was nothing we could do as bystanders except watch them take this man's life in front of our eyes."
Jurors also heard the testimony of Genevieve Hansen, a firefighter who was off duty on the day of Floyd's death. She testified Tuesday that Floyd's face was puffy and swollen, that he appeared to have urinated, that he seemed to be in a state of altered consciousness. She wanted to check for spinal cord injury, to check Floyd's pulse and do chest compressions, but officers wouldn't let her.
Tearfully, she said she felt "totally distressed" that she couldn't help.
"I tried different tactics. Calm reasoning. I tried to be assertive. I pled," she said. "I was desperate to help."
Nelson countered by asking about her job. If she were on duty and called to a medical emergency where police were already on the scene, he said, she would have to wait for officers to give her the all-clear before she could administer medical care. He also noted the difference between the expertise of police and fire.
"Ever been outside of a burning building and you are spraying hose on the fire? Has anyone ever tried to come up to you and said you're doing it wrong?" he asked. "Do you think it would make it harder for you to fight a fire if someone was yelling at you?"
The witnesses who told Chauvin to get off of Floyd may be a key part of the prosecution's case. During his opening statement, Blackwell said the evidence of Chauvin's intent to harm Floyd would be proven by, among other things, the multiple warnings he received.
Blackwell told jurors on Monday that their evidence of intent wouldn't come in like a sandwich board that said on the front "This is our evidence of intent," and said on the back, "Yeah, you saw it."
"We will bring it to you, ladies and gentlemen, through the totality of all the evidence."
--Editing by Nicole Bleier.
Update: This story has been updated to include reporting on Genevieve Hansen's testimony.
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