MINNEAPOLIS (CN) — George Floyd’s brother took the stand Monday afternoon during the murder trial of former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin to tell jurors about his brother’s life and relationship with the mother he cried out for before his death last May.
His testimony and that of a use-of-force expert closed out prosecutors’ case against Chauvin as Minneapolis reeled from the police killing of another Black man in one of its suburbs.
Philonise Floyd, 39, grew up with his older brother George Perry Floyd, Jr., in Houston in the 1980s with two older sisters and a younger brother. Philonise said his family called George “Perry,” and that he was a “mama’s boy” who loved playing basketball and football and taught the neighborhood kids to play.
“He was so much of a leader to us in the household. He would always make sure that we had our clothes for school. He made sure that we all were gonna be to school on time. And like I told you, George couldn’t cook, but he made sure you had a snack,” Philonise said, choking back tears. A favorite, he said, were banana and mayonnaise sandwiches.
He also discussed their mother Larcenia Jones Floyd’s 2018 death. He confirmed what Floyd’s girlfriend Courteney Ross said in her testimony early in the trial: that the loss of the woman most called “Miss Sissy” had hit his brother hard.
“When George, he found out that my momma was passing, because she was in hospice with us — he talked to her over the phone but she perished before he could come down,” Philonise Floyd said. Jurors were shown a picture of George Floyd sleeping on his beaming mother’s chest as a toddler. At her funeral, Philonise Floyd said, mourners had to coax Floyd away from his mother. “He didn’t wanna leave the casket,” he said.
After the funeral, his brother returned to Minnesota, Philonise said, and he never saw him in person again.
Prosecutor Steve Schleicher also took the opportunity to confirm with Philonise that his brother used the word “hooping” to refer to playing basketball. Floyd told officers that he was “hoopin’ earlier” to explain foam around his mouth. Chauvin’s attorney Eric Nelson has asked various witnesses whether they are familiar with another definition, which refers to consuming drugs rectally.
Nelson declined to cross-examine the younger Floyd brother. He was followed by the prosecution’s last witness: Seth Stoughton, a University of South Carolina law professor and former police officer who has written several texts on the use of force.
Stoughton, a regular expert witness, was the subject of a tense dispute before the jury arrived on Monday. Nelson argued that, after hearing from several witnesses from the Minneapolis Police Department and an expert witness from the Los Angeles Police Department, any testimony Stoughton could offer was cumulative. Prosecutors disputed that, saying that as an academic who took a nationwide view on police uses of force, Stoughton was important to show that Chauvin’s conduct would be considered unreasonable even outside Minneapolis.
Judge Peter Cahill ultimately decided to allow Stoughton to testify, but put Schleicher on a tight leash for questioning him. “In motions in limine, I said, ‘we’re not going to call every cop and ask what would you have done differently,' and basically I think the state has almost done that,” he said. “We now have opinions from the chief, the inspector who was in charge of training, a lieutenant who was in charge of training, Lieutenant Zimmerman … and the sergeant. I think the state has made its own bed here by deciding to ask all of those people what their opinion was as opposed to sticking with their experts.”