Updates from Day 2 of the Derek Chauvin trial: 9-year-old, teen who recorded video of George Floyd's death among witnesses

Follow Wednesday's live updates here: Minneapolis firefighter says she would have checked George Floyd for a pulse

MINNEAPOLIS — Six witnesses took the stand Tuesday in the trial of former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin, and several broke down in tears recounting their memory of the day George Floyd died.

The witnesses included a mixed martial arts fighter, the teenager who recorded the now viral video of Floyd's death, the teen's 9-year-old cousin, two high school seniors who said they were headed to the store to get an auxiliary cord and a Minneapolis firefighter who witnessed the incident while out on a walk.

Two other witnesses – a 911 dispatcher and a cashier working across the street – testified Monday, and lawyers for the defense and prosecution opened the trial by laying out their case. Here's what you missed.

Floyd, a Black man, died in police custody on May 25, 2020, after Chauvin, who is white, pinned his knee against Floyd’s neck for more than nine minutes as Floyd cried out "I can’t breathe" more than 20 times. Chauvin is charged with second-degree murder, third-degree murder and second-degree manslaughter.

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Latest updates:

• Court was expected to resume at 9 a.m. CT Wednesday.

• Genevieve Hansen, 27, a Minneapolis firefighter who went through EMT training and witnessed the incident while out on a walk, testified Tuesday afternoon.

• The court heard from high school student Alyssa Nicole Funari, 18, on Tuesday afternoon. She said she was going to Cup Foods to get an auxiliary cord with a friend that day. She recorded three videos of the incident with her friend's phone. The court also heard from her friend, now 17.

• A 9-year-old girl who wore a shirt with the word "love" on it the day George Floyd died testified Tuesday morning.

• Darnella Frazier, the teenager who recorded the infamous video showing the arrest and death of George Floyd, also testified, saying the incident changed her life.

• Judge Peter Cahill denied a state motion first thing Tuesday to keep all audio and video of four key witnesses from being made public.

• While Cahill said the witnesses, including the now-18-year-old woman who was 17 at the time and filmed the bystander video that went viral, would be allowed to be referred to by first name only, they would not speak or spell their names on camera or audio.

Minneapolis firefighter Genevieve Hansen testimony: She would have checked for a pulse, called 911

Genevieve Hansen, 27, a Minneapolis firefighter with state and national EMT certifications, testified Tuesday afternoon. Hansen said the vast majority of the calls she's assigned are medical calls. She said she had been working as a firefighter for a little over a year and was off-duty on a walk last Memorial Day when she saw flashing lights and heard a bystander yelling.

"I was concerned to see a handcuffed man who was not moving with officers with their whole body weight on his back and a crowd that was stressed out," said Hansen, who appeared in court in her dress uniform, with a tie and badge on.

Hansen said that as she approached the scene, she recognized Chauvin from a call the day before. She said she didn't know Chauvin or interact with him on the call. Chauvin "seemed very comfortable with his weight on Mr. Floyd" and had his hand in his pocket, Hansen said.

Hansen said she was immediately concerned about Floyd because "he wasn't moving" and "his face looked puffy and swollen." She also noticed he was in an altered state, no longer responding to painful stimuli – the knee on his neck with body weight behind it.

She said she immediately identified herself because she thought Floyd "needed medical attention," and she might be able to help. Hansen said she would have checked for a pulse, called 911, begun chest compressions and had someone bring over an external defibrillator from the gas station to help restart his heart.

She is heard on video begging officers to check Floyd's pulse. "I could have given medical assistance, and that's exactly what I should have done," she said. "(But) the officers didn't let me into the scene."

"Were you frustrated?" prosecutor Matthew Frank asked.

"Yes," Hansen said as she teared up, touched a tissue to her eyes and took a drink of water. "I was desperate to help."

Hansen said she began recording the scene "because memories of witnesses are never going to be as good as a video."

In a 911 call Hansen made following the incident, she said, "I literally watched police officers not take a pulse and not do anything to save a man," according to a recording played for the jury.

On cross examination, lead defense attorney Eric Nelson asked Hansen if the crowd of bystanders was "angry" and "upset" while Floyd was under Chauvin's knee, building on his earlier suggestions that the crowd was threatening and distracting to officers. Hansen said: "I don't know if you've seen anybody be killed but it's upsetting."

Nelson tried to impeach her testimony by citing potential errors in the statement she gave to investigators after Floyd's death. That led to argumentative exchanges between Hansen and Nelson, and prompted Judge Cahill to send the jury out and admonish her to answer the questions without arguing with either Nelson or the court. He told Hansen to return Wednesday morning.

Protesters outside courthouse call for justice for George Floyd

Outside the courthouse, high school English teacher Kaia Hirt, 48, sat wrapped in blankets and heavy chains locked to the security fence surrounding the building.

Hirt, who has two kids, said she has been locked to the fence for almost 24 hours, with a few breaks. Tuesday afternoon, she was one of only about 10 people quietly calling for justice for Floyd.

"These fences that the city erected are representative of their inability to build a relationship with the community," she said, gesturing at the razor-and-barbed wire barricades. "If I have to sit out here with these silly chains on to get you to listen to me, I will. It’s the one thing I can do. This is a choice that I am making for my kids to experience one tough day in hopes of making some small difference against racist policing."

'I was scared of Chauvin,' teen witness says

A 17-year-old high school senior testified Tuesday afternoon. She and her friend, Alyssa Nicole Funari, 18, said they were going to Cup Foods to get an auxiliary cord on the day Floyd died. When they pulled up to the store in Funari’s grandfather’s car, the girl said she could "hear George Floyd’s voice yelling out for his mom and saying he can’t breathe."

The girl told prosecutor Erin Eldridge she got out of the car because "it sounded serious."

"I got out of the car and walked up, and that's when I saw George Floyd unconscious," she said. "He wasn't talking anymore, and he was talking when we pulled up."

The girl said she saw Chauvin pushing his knee into Floyd’s neck. She said she saw Chauvin reach for chemical spray. "He did grab his Mace and started shaking it at us." Asked by Eldridge how she felt about that, she said, "scared."

"I didn’t know what was going to happen," she said, adding, "I was scared of Chauvin." The girl said she did not threaten or attack the officers. The defense did not cross-examine her.

Witness Alyssa Funari says she wanted to intervene but 'there was nothing I could do'

Tuesday afternoon, the court heard from Funari. She recorded three videos of the incident with her friend's phone.

"He looked like he was fighting to breathe," Funari told Eldridge, adding, "I slowly knew that if he were to be held down much longer he wouldn’t live."

Funari, crying, said she felt like she was failing because she wanted to intervene but was unable to because "there was a higher power there" – an officer was pushing the crowd back. "There was nothing I could do as a bystander there," she said, adding, "I couldn't do physically what I wanted to do."

As Chauvin continued staring down at Floyd, she said, "I saw him put more and more weight on him. I saw his leg lift off the ground and his hands go in his pocket."

As she continued filming, Funari called out to Chauvin, a composite video shown to the court showed. She said, "Why are you kneeing him more," and "he's about to knock out," the video showed. Asked to explain the statements while she was on the witness stand, she said: "I could see he was going unconscious, his eyes rolled to the back of his head."

When Floyd was no longer struggling, she said. "At that point, I kind of knew," she said. "You knew what?" the prosecutor asked. "That he was dead, or not breathing," she said. Funari said "he didn't look alive" when the paramedics arrived.

"At that point, I felt all I could do was show everything that was going on with the camera," she said. Funari said she initially kept to herself after the incident and "felt numb." Funari said she has not since returned to Cup Foods.

Funari told prosecutors that she did not see officers check for Floyd's pulse. But on cross examination, defense attorney Eric Nelson said Funari initially told agents, in the wake of the incident, she had seen officers check for a pulse multiple times. When asked by Nelson if she had been "angry" that day, Funari she said "yes."

On redirect examination, Funari told Eldridge she was angry, but did not distract or try to attack the officers. "I was upset because there was nothing we could do except watch them take a life in front of our eyes."

9-year-old testifies about witnessing George Floyd's death

A 9-year-old girl who wore a shirt with the word "love" on it the day George Floyd died testified Tuesday morning. She's the cousin of Darnella Frazier, the teen who took video of the incident.

"I saw an officer put the knee on the neck of George Floyd," the girl said, referring to Chauvin. "The ambulance had to push him off of him. ... They had some guys take him off of him."

When prosecutor Jerry Blackwell asked the girl how she felt about what she saw, she said she was "sad and kind of mad."

"And tell us why were you sad and mad," Blackwell said.

"Because it feel like he was stopping his breathing and it was kind of like hurting him," she said.

The defense did not ask her any questions, and she was excused within five minutes of taking the stand.

Darnella Frazier, teen who recorded video, 'stayed up apologizing to George Floyd for not doing more'

Darnella Frazier told jurors Tuesday she was on the way with her cousin to Cup Foods – where she's been "hundreds, maybe even thousands" of times – when she saw a man "and a cop kneeling down on him." She said she quickly ushered her cousin into the store.

"It wasn't right. He was suffering. He was in pain," she said. "He cried for his mom."

Frazier recently turned 18, and only the audio of her testimony was livestreamed from the courtroom. She could be heard crying. "It seemed like he knew. It seemed like he knew it was over for him," Frazier said in a comment that was stricken from the record because she isn't allowed to testify about what Floyd was thinking.

"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 as she broke down in tears again. "I look at how that could have been one of them."

Frazier said she has stayed up some nights "apologizing and apologizing to George Floyd for not doing more and not physically interacting and not saving his life. (But) it’s not what I should have done. It’s what he (Chauvin) should have done."

Answering a question from prosecutor Jerry Blackwell, Frazier said she would not characterize the group watching from the sidewalk as unruly. She said no one threatened the police officers or became violent with them. The only violence she witnessed, she said, was "from the cops, from Chauvin and Officer (Tou) Thao." Thao was the officer who stood between Chauvin and the crowd, warning them to stay back.

Frazier said she felt in danger because officers placed their hands on their chemical spray when she or others in the group tried to move closer to Chauvin and Floyd. "I didn't understand why the Mace was even needed at all," she said. According to court filings, Chauvin reached for his Mace repeatedly.

Donald Williams takes stand again, becomes emotional in courtroom

Prosecutors called their third witness, Donald Williams, back to testify Tuesday morning after a technical glitch cut his testimony short Monday. A reporter in the courtroom said Williams appeared to be wearing a Black Lives Matter T-shirt under his white dress shirt.

Williams told the court Monday that he was on his way to Cup Foods, where Floyd was arrested, when he encountered Floyd "pleading" for his life. Williams told the court he asked officers to stop the "blood choke," which is a form of chokehold that renders someone unconscious.

Williams became emotional in the courtroom Tuesday and wiped away tears as he listened to the 911 call he made once officers left the scene. "He just pretty much killed this guy who was not resisting arrest," Williams said in the call.

Williams told the court Tuesday: "I did call the police on the police because I believed I witnessed a murder."

In a tense cross examination by lead defense attorney Eric Nelson, Williams acknowledged that he didn't know that the officers had been dealing with Floyd for 15 minutes before he arrived at the scene. He also conceded he did not know that an ambulance had been summoned to the scene three minutes before he arrived.

Nelson told Williams that he "got angry" and was "threatening police." Nelson listed off several profanities that Williams called the officers, according to video of the incident.

"Those terms turned more and more angry, right?" Nelson said.

"Those terms turned more to pleading for life," Williams responded, adding, "You can't paint me as angry."

When prosecutor Matthew Frank spoke to Williams again, Williams said he was concerned Floyd "was in the process of losing consciousness."

"So you were concerned about Mr. Floyd losing his life?" Frank asked.

"Correct," Williams said.

Prosecutors call three witnesses: 911 dispatcher, cashier, MMA fighter

Prosecutors called their first three witnesses Monday: A 911 dispatcher who was on call that day, a cashier working across the street who captured videos of the incident and a mixed martial arts fighter who witnessed Floyd's death.

► Jena Lee Scurry, a 911 dispatcher who was working the day of Floyd's death, told the court she alerted a police department supervisor that something was awry in the Floyd's arrest, which she was able to watch via a livestream from a city street camera. "I became concerned that something might be wrong," she said. "It was a gut instinct of, in the incident, something's not going right."

► The second witness, Alisha Oyler, was working as a cashier at Speedway across the street on the day George Floyd died. She took seven videos on her phone. She told Steve Schleicher, a special assistant attorney general, that she started recording after she noticed police "messing with someone."

► The third witness, Donald Williams, is a wrestler trained in mixed martial arts who said he has been put in chokeholds dozens of times in MMA fights. Williams was on his way to Cup Foods, where Floyd was arrested, when he encountered Floyd "pleading" for his life. Williams told the court he asked officers to stop the "blood choke," which is a form of chokehold that renders someone unconscious. Chauvin was doing a "shimmy" to make the choke tighter, he said.

Prosecutors play disturbing video of George Floyd's final minutes

Prosecutors opened their case Monday by showing jurors the disturbing video depicting Chauvin on George Floyd's neck for more than nine minutes. The video, lasting 9 minutes and 29 seconds, played on several screens in the courtroom, complete with audio of Floyd gasping, "I can't breathe" 27 times and witnesses growing angry as they urged Chauvin to get off Floyd's neck.

Prosecutor Jerry Blackwell said Chauvin "put his knees upon his (Floyd's) neck and his back, grinding and crushing him until the very breath ... until the very life was squeezed out of him."

The case is not about the difficult "split-second decisions police must make," Blackwell said. "There are 569 seconds, not a split-second among them."

In his opening statement, lead defense attorney Eric Nelson told jurors the evidence in the case is "far greater than 9 minutes and 29 seconds." He described a scene in which Floyd was on drugs and resisting arrest. Read more.

Contributing: Trevor Hughes

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Derek Chauvin trial day 2: Teens give emotional testimony Tuesday