She had gone out for a simple run with her eight-year-old cousin.
She finally witnessed a scene that “definitely” changed her life.
And upset the whole world.
Darnella Frazier, the young girl who filmed the viral video of the black forty-something's agony, on Tuesday delivered a moving testimony at the trial of the white police officer accused of having killed him on May 25, 2020 in Minneapolis, in the north of the States. United.
"Some nights, I stay awake and I apologize to George Floyd for not having done more, for not having intervened, for not having saved him," she said in particular.
Flattened to the ground by a policeman, George Floyd gasps, moans, begs.
One knee on his neck, Agent Derek Chauvin remains impassive.
"It was not fair, he was in pain," according to the teenager who has the reflex to take out her phone and film the scene.
His video, posted on the Internet, quickly toured the world, prompting millions of people to demonstrate against racism and police violence.
But, at the time, Darnella Frazier is just trying to convince the policeman to let go.
"It could have been my father, my brothers"
"I am someone who keeps everything in me, I have social anxiety, I am not comfortable when it is necessary to be heard," she told the jurors.
“But when I saw what I saw, I got loud.
"
Like her, other witnesses questioned Derek Chauvin and his three colleagues, in vain.
"As soon as someone tried to approach," the police pushed them aside.
“They were on the defensive,” she said.
After more than nine minutes, an ambulance arrived.
Too late to revive George Floyd.
And Darnella Frazier still hasn't recovered.
“When I think of George Floyd, I see my father, my brothers, my cousin, my uncle.
They are all black, ”she confided in her voice broken with emotion.
"It could have been them."
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So sometimes, she has insomnia and apologizes to George Floyd for not "having done more" to try to save him.
"But it was not for me to do it, it was for him," she concluded, addressing the accused, before giving way to her little cousin.
The schoolgirl, called to the stand by the prosecution, did not testify for long.
She detailed what she saw and said she felt “sad and a little angry”.
"A blood strangulation catch"
Before them, another witness to the scene had told how he, too, failed to convince Derek Chauvin to release his pressure.
Don Williams, a fan of combat sports, immediately thought of witnessing a "blood strangulation", a technique that allows you to control an opponent by cutting off the flow of blood.
He told Derek Chauvin, who looked at him without moving.
Frustrated "by the lack of response," Don Williams admitted to raising his voice.
Finally “I called the police to report the police because I thought I witnessed a murder.
"
During his cross-examination, Derek Chauvin's lawyer insisted on the insults uttered by Don Williams against the police.
“You called them assholes 13 times,” “you got angrier and angrier,” he insisted.
The day before, in his opening remarks, Mr. Nelson had estimated that the cries of the crowd had led his client "to divert his attention from the fate of Mr. Floyd to focus on the growing threat" created by passers-by.
The police officer's lawyer will plead the acquittal
Derek Chauvin, 45, faces up to 40 years in detention.
Released on bail, he appeared free.
Me Eric Nelson intends to plead acquittal.
“He did exactly what he was trained to do in his 19-year career,” he said in his opening remarks Monday.
According to him, George Floyd died of an overdose of fentanyl, of which he was a user, and of health problems.
But for prosecutors, the policeman displayed a clear disregard for the African American's life by holding his pressure for nine minutes and twenty-nine seconds.
He "betrayed" his police oath and made "excessive use of force" until "extracting the last breaths of life," assured prosecutor Jerry Blackwell in his opening statement.
The parties have three to four weeks to convince the jurors, who are expected to deliver their verdict in late April or early May.
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The three other police officers involved in the tragedy, Alexander Kueng, Thomas Lane and Tou Thao, will be tried in August for "complicity in murder".