An unpublished video and an emotional testimony shake on the first day of the trial for the death of George Floyd

The first day of the trial against former police officer Derek Chauvin for the death of George Floyd began with the exhibition of the video in which the victim, a 46-year-old black man, begs to be allowed to breathe while the accused officer presses his neck with the knee.

Prosecutor Jerry Blackwell was quick to show the jury the recording as he presented his opening arguments.

The number to remember, the prosecutor emphasized, is 9 minutes 26 seconds: the time that then-officer Chauvin subjected Floyd to the pavement on May 25 in Minneapolis, Minnesota. 

The white cop "didn't budge," even though Floyd told him 27 times he couldn't breathe

, Blackwell recalled of the case that sparked protests against police brutality and racism across the country and other parts of the world.

Former Minneapolis cop Derek Chauvin sitting in front of a photo of George Floyd that was shown during the trial against Chauvin for Floyd's second degree murder;

in Minneapolis, Minnesota on March 29, 2021.

"He put his knee on his neck and back, grinding and crushing him, until he took his breath away ... no, ladies and gentlemen, until life itself was squeezed out of him," the prosecutor stated.

Chauvin's attorney, Eric Nelson, denied that the former cop was to blame for Floyd's death and responded by arguing: "Derek Chauvin did exactly what he had been trained to do during his 19-year career."

Floyd was resisting arrest, and Chauvin arrived to help other officers who were struggling to get Floyd into a police car as an increasingly hostile crowd gathered around him, Nelson said.

Floyd did not show any of the signs that he was choking and was intoxicated with fentanyl and methamphetamine, said Nelson, who attributed his death to a disturbance in his heart rhythm caused by the combination of drugs he had used, his high blood pressure and the adrenaline that flowed through her body.

"There is no political or social cause in this courtroom," Nelson said, "but the evidence is much greater than 9 minutes and 29 seconds."

The prosecutor rejected the argument that Floyd's drug use or any underlying health conditions were to blame, claiming that Chauvin's knee was the one that killed him.

Chauvin, 45, is charged with second degree manslaughter, third degree manslaughter and manslaughter.

The most serious charge, the second-degree murder charge, carries up to 40 years in prison.

The first witness in the first trial that has been televised in the state of Minnesota was an operator of the emergency number 911, Jena Scurry, who alerted the police about the behavior of other police officers when she saw the degree of violence with which he was subjected Floyd.

"He did something in his professional career that he had never done before: he called the police to [alert on the behavior of] the police," Blackwell said.

Scurry said he was concerned that officers were still on Floyd's body after several minutes.

The second witness appeared on the stand at the moment in which the prosecutors showed a video made from several recordings of Floyd's arrest that had not been seen before, in which it is observed how was the reaction of the officers to the beginning of the incident, when there were still few spectators on the street.

Alisha Oyler, a 23-year-old woman, recorded part of the scene with her cell phone.

When asked by prosecutor Steve Schleicher why she had recorded the police interaction with Floyd, she responded:

“It's always the police, they are always picking on people.

And it is not correct and it is not good ”

.

The third and final witness the prosecution called to the stand was 33-year-old Donald Williams, a person with professional wrestling experience and mixed martial arts who saw up close as Chauvin pinned Floyd to the ground.

Williams described to the jury how he had begged Agents Chauvin and Tou Thao to check Floyd's pulse before he passed out.

"The more he pressed his knee to his neck ... the more you saw Floyd fade, slowly fade like a fish in a bag, and you saw his eyes slowly turn pale and he rolled them back," Williams said, remembering how Floyd gasped. for air and begging for his life.

Hennepin County District Judge Peter Cahill concluded the first session of the trial, which was being broadcast live, a little earlier than planned Monday due to "major technical problems."

Hearings will resume on Tuesday.