In this image from video, witness Christopher Martin answers questions Wednesday in the trial of former police officer Derek Chauvin in Minneapolis. Chauvin is charged in the death of George Floyd. (Court TV via AP, Pool)
Martin didn't know Floyd but said he seemed like a "friendly, approachable" person. Martin took the bill, then reported it to his manager, he said.
Within an hour, Floyd was on the pavement in front of the store. Three police officers were holding him down. One of them, Chauvin, was pressing his knee into Floyd's neck.
On security camera footage, Martin can be seen watching the arrest from the sidewalk with his hands on his head. He testified Wednesday he was experiencing "disbelief and guilt."
"If I would have just not taken the bill, this could've been avoided," he said, his voice cracking.
One bystander that day recorded the arrest that ended with Floyd's death. The cellphone footage she posted online went viral. The video showed Chauvin pinning Floyd's neck down for about nine minutes, as Floyd 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, and is now the subject of a four-week-long murder trial being broadcast live and watched by spectators around the world.
On Wednesday, the jurors who will decide the case learned how all of that started with a bluish $20 bill.
Martin had only been working at Cup Foods a few months when he was on the job last May.
Earlier in the day, another man had tried to use a similar counterfeit bill, and Martin had refused to take it, he said. Martin testified Wednesday that he felt that man was "scheming."
But Martin thought Floyd "probably didn't know the bill was fake," he said. "I thought I'd do him a favor."
Martin and Floyd talked a little in the store, he said. Martin asked Floyd if he'd played baseball. Floyd said he hadn't, but that he had played football when he was younger. Martin said Floyd spoke very slowly, which made him think that Floyd was probably intoxicated.
"He seemed very friendly. Approachable," he said. "He was talkative. He seemed to be having an average Memorial Day, living his life. But he did seem high."
Martin knew that the store's policy was that if a clerk accepted a fake bill, the difference in the cash register was deducted from that person's pay, he said. Once Floyd left, he showed the manager the twenty that Floyd had given him.
Through the store window, Martin and his manager could see Floyd sitting with two friends in a car parked across the street. The manager told Martin to go out and talk to Floyd, to ask him to either give back the cigarettes or come back into the store.
Martin approached the car twice with different co-workers, and spoke mostly to a passenger in the car — the same "scheming" man who had tried to use a counterfeit bill earlier in the day, he said.
Floyd, who was in the driver's seat, kept shaking his head as though he couldn't believe this was happening, Martin said.
After they refused to come into the store, Martin's manager told another employee to call 911. He did, and Martin heard him tell the dispatcher that Floyd was intoxicated.
Martin said he didn't learn that Floyd was in distress until he heard the commotion coming from a group of bystanders just outside the store. By then, he said, Floyd was "motionless" and "limp" under Chauvin's knee.
Martin testified that he quit his job at Cup Foods soon afterward. He said he "didn't feel safe" there.
Over the course of questioning, attorneys for each side tried to highlight points that backed their versions of the story.
Chauvin's attorney, Eric Nelson of Halberg Criminal Defense, will try to prove that Floyd died of a drug overdose, not from asphyxiation. During opening statements Monday, Nelson said that Floyd was so high, he was falling asleep in the car just before officers reported to the scene.
But prosecutors have argued that because of Floyd's size and tolerance level, the amount of narcotics in his system weren't life-threatening. Assistant Attorney General Matthew Frank noted through his questioning Wednesday that Floyd was "awake" both times Martin approached the car.
And while Martin himself testified that Floyd seemed intoxicated, Frank noted that surveillance footage showed Floyd doing stretches in the store.
"During that, Mr. Floyd did not fall down, didn't lose his balance at all?" he asked, and Martin agreed. "We saw you grab a pack of cigarettes, and you gave them to him. He provided you money and he took the change. He was able to complete that whole translation, correct? You didn't have to guess what cigarettes he wanted."
On cross-examination, Nelson asked Martin about Floyd's level of intoxication, saying Floyd had "some trouble with certain words, was delayed in his speech."
Nelson also emphasized a point he's highlighted before — that some witnesses consider the intersection where Floyd died to be a high-crime area. He noted Martin had told investigators Cup Foods sits on a "hot block."
And Nelson used Martin's testimony to back up an assertion he made in his opening statements — that the gathering crowd of outraged bystanders telling Chauvin to get off of Floyd were perceived by the police as a "growing threat" and distracted them from attending to Floyd.
He asked Martin if the crowd was "angry," and "yelling and screaming." He noted that at one point, Martin had stopped one of the bystanders from walking toward police.
Jurors also heard from two witnesses who stopped to watch the arrest.
The first was 45-year-old Christopher Belfrey, who had pulled up behind Floyd's car just before the first two officers arrived at the scene.
Belfry said one officer immediately pulled his gun on Floyd, while he was still in the car. That startled Belfry, and so he started recording them with his cellphone.
"I heard him asking him, 'Let me see your hands,'" Belfrey said of the officer, "and [Floyd] saying something about having been shot before, him saying, 'Please don't.'"
When he heard more sirens, Belfry moved his car and parked across the street. He continued recording from there. He said he felt nervous, because he could see one of the officers staring at him. Once he saw Floyd in handcuffs, he said, he drove off.
The other witness was Charles McMillian, 61, who was driving by when he saw police taking Floyd out of his car. McMillian said that he's "nosy" and so he stopped to watch the arrest. He testified that he had his own experiences with police officers, and he wanted to advise Floyd that his best option was to comply. McMillian said he didn't think Floyd was being violent or fighting with officers
Jurors got their first glimpse of police body camera footage during his testimony. The cameras picked up McMillian's voice as he called to Floyd, telling him to get in the squad car.
"You can't win," he called to him.
Floyd replied, "I'm not trying to win," and said he didn't want to get in the car because he was claustrophobic.
In the police body cam video, Floyd is shoved into the back of the squad car but is eventually dragged out of the other side by Chauvin. Officers could be heard on video discussing whether to "hobble" hold Floyd, who was crying out for his mother.
McMillian began to cry as he watched the video. He said watching it made him feel helpless.
McMillian could be heard on the video telling Floyd to "get up and get in the car." He believed Floyd was talking to him when he said, "I can't," and complained of the knee on his neck.
After Floyd was taken away in an ambulance, McMillian approached Chauvin. He could be heard in body camera footage telling Chauvin that he didn't respect what he'd done.
Chauvin replied, "I had to control this guy. He's a sizeable guy."
--Editing by Aaron Pelc.
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