Video transcript:
this is nbc news just a day of raw emotion from two of the witnesses in the murder trial of former police officer Derek Chauvin that’s the man accused of murdering George Floyd tears spilled as one witness recounted what she saw and felt that day in minneapolis one witness described how chauvin was unmoved by the crowd many pleading for chauvin to remove his knee the teenage girl who recorded the video of the arrest testified that the former officer gave onlookers a cold and heartless stare it’s been nights i stayed up apologizing and apologizing to George Floyd for not doing more in court Chauvin’s lawyer tried to show that the crowd was getting angry causing the officers to feel tense and distracting them from their jobs joining us now nbc legal analyst Enrique L1 Latoison and Enrique thanks for being here again we appreciate it that kind of emotional testimony today that we saw from young witnesses describing the trauma they still live with in fact after watching George Floyd die what kind of effect do you think that has on the jury well i think it has a very big effect what they were doing was they were showing putting themselves in what the jury would feel showing them what it felt like to be hopeless to see what happened to envision it to have that trauma of not being able to help and to be in that situation i mean i think it was a very smart strategy of the prosecution to make that jury feel that to feel the moment as if they were there and what it felt like to be in that situation now we heard from a few witnesses including an off-duty firefighter who told the jury they dialed — and essentially called the police on the police here’s the part of her testimony i was concerned to see a handcuffed man who was not moving with officers with their whole body weight on his back will that testimony be difficult for the defense to overcome well i mean let’s let’s just say this it’s going to be difficult for the defense no matter what takes place in this trial but it was a very smart strategy the prosecution for the second part of what they were doing was they were showing the jury that just ordinary people and people with training and people that were there were witnessing all the same thing they were all having the same type of feeling of that what they were seeing was wrong and what was taking place was not right that’s been the first and second day of testimony that’s kind of the prosecution’s theory at this point it’s just to show that other people who were not police officers all saw the same thing they all witnessed the same thing they all felt the same thing calling — was to say hey what we just saw what just happened was wrong here and this is what they were trying to show today in the first couple witnesses and also today and we know this is the prosecution’s turn if you will they get to present first so we’re only hearing from the defense right now Enrique on cross-examination would you say though it’s a good bet based on what we’ve seen so far that the defense is going to try to focus more on George Floyd’s actions and others who were out there that day when the defense has its turn to call witnesses so today when i was watching the trial so i watched the opening statements originally i thought that the two points were that this was officer chauvin’s training and was that this is what’s not killed uh mr Floyd um that’s not what happened so today what i started noticing was this kind of third component component of their defense which was this that the crowd the crowd was interfering and what they were doing was distracting the police for what they were doing the defense also was able to point out that the paramedics when they showed up did a load and go and they got the uh emt firefighter to testify that a load and go takes place when you’re not you don’t feel safe and you feel as though you can’t give someone the actual treatment you need to do at the time so you load them and you go and i think that this was a very clever tactic of the defense at this point to try to paint the crowd as part of the reason that mr Floyd did not get the medical attention that he needed nbc legal analyst Enrique L1 Latoison thank you for helping us recap this day true of the trial we appreciate it see you soon
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