Court will reconvene at 1:15 CDT, 2:15 EDT, 12:15 MDT, and 11:15 PDT. At the speed with which Nelson is running through witnesses, he could be finished at 1:17 CDT.
Morning session had some house cleaning regarding admission of video from the Park Police Officer. Judge ordered admissible in part — redact footage of Chang looking at computer screen in his vehicle and any footage after Fire Rescue leaves.
First witness was retired police officer Scott Creighton. He was on duty for a May 6 2019 incident with Floyd. Body cam footage is extremely unhelpful to the defense. Cops, approach vehicle guns drawn, Floyd puts hands up, ordered to put on the dashboard, ordered to take off his seatbelt, ordered to put his hands on his head with cop screaming fuck this and fuck that. Reinforced for some white people what Black people have to go through every time there’s a stop.
Next witness was retired paramedic Michelle Mosing. She was very nervous but very helpful — for the prosecution. Her contribution added zero to what we already knew — Floyd was an admitted opiod addict. Her testimony revealed that when she treated him after the May 6, 2019 arrest, he was coherent, could walk, alert, answered questions. Her concern was his blood pressure. He spent 2 hours at the hospital and then was released.
Next witness was Shawana Hill who was in Cup Foods and the vehicle Floyd was driving. Her big contribution was that Floyd, after telling her he was tired from working long hours, fell asleep in the vehicle and was hard to wake — but became immediately alert, put his hands on the steering wheel when the cops approached with guns drawn. She definitely didn’t want to be there.
Next witness was Park Police Officer Peter Chang. He was there to authenticate his body camera footage. If you were interested in video of his drive from the park to Cup Foods (a few minutes), his putting on his siren and lights and then shutting them off prior to hearing the Code 4 (scene secure), parking his car, crossing the street, and chit chatting with Shawanda Hill and Morries Hall, then this was your pre-lunch entertainment. He provided shite-all other than bullshite about “crowd aggression” which he couldn’t fucking see and didn’t alarm him enough to leave his beat with Hall and Hill.
Next witness was Nicole McKenzie, MPD medical trainer who previously testified for the prosecution. She explained the controversial excessive delerium notion cops love to use. As pointed out previously, none of the symptoms applied to Floyd. She said, on cross, that she wasn’t in the position to make a diagnosis — that was up to the ER doctor.
And lunch! So, the morning consisted of a bit of a lengthy discussion re: admission of video and five witnesses. None of the witnesses made a dent in the prosecution’s case.
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