Firefighter and Store Clerk Take Stand in Chauvin Trial

Much of Wednesday morning’s testimony came from Christopher Martin, who was 19 and living above Cup Foods on Memorial Day when Floyd came into the store, where Martin worked as a cashier. 

He said he’d recorded part of the incident, but deleted it from his phone because he didn’t want to be questioned about the incident or have to show his video.

After seeing an ambulance take Floyd down 38th Street, rather than north on Chicago Avenue towards Hennepin County Medical Center, he assumed the man was already dead. 

“That made it clear to me that he was no longer with us,” Martin testified.

He also recalled having a conversation with another Black man at the scene. “They’re not going to help him. This is what we have to deal with,” he said. That, too, was stricken from the record. 

Frank used video aids to walk him through the events of that day. Martin said he had a conversation with Floyd, asking if he played baseball --- Floyd responded that he played football --- and noticing his height and that he appeared to be intoxicated before Floyd went to the store’s cellphone service counter. Another man attempted to pass a counterfeit $20 bill, Martin said, but he recognized it and the man tore it up. The man appears on video to be Morries Hall, who was shown in the car with Floyd on body-camera videos released early in the case. 

When Floyd bought cigarettes with a similar bill, Martin said, he immediately recognized it but opted at first to give the man a break. Counterfeits, he explained, came out of employees’ tabs at Cup Foods. Questioned by Nelson about this, he said he thought Floyd hadn’t realized the bill was fake. Having second thoughts, he brought it to his manager. The manager sent him and another younger co-worker out to an SUV Floyd and some companions were sitting in, telling them to get Floyd inside to talk to him. 

The boys took two trips out to the car, talking with Hall about coming into the store. During those interactions, Martin said, Floyd didn’t speak but was clearly awake, shaking his head and putting his hands on his face. Asked by Nelson whether the interaction ever got aggressive, he denied it.

“It wasn’t, in any way, shape or form, aggressive. It was just pretty annoying,” Martin said. 

After the second attempt, Martin said, he went back in the store and the manager called the police. He said he didn’t pay much attention to Floyd until he heard a commotion outside the store and saw him pinned to the ground. 

Floyd’s level of intoxication was also a point of interest for both attorneys. Martin said Floyd was happy, friendly and talkative inside the store. “He seemed to be having an average Memorial Day, just living his life. But he was high,” he said. 

Frank asked whether this appeared to be impacting Floyd’s balance, noting that he seemed to be doing a dance at some point in the video. Martin said he hadn’t seen the dance, but that Floyd wasn’t stumbling or falling over. 

Like many other witnesses, Martin grappled with guilt about the incident. 

“If I could have just not taken the bill, this could have been avoided,” he said. 

He said he quit the store shortly afterwards because he didn't feel safe. Cup Foods closed shortly after Floyd’s death, and an attempt to reopen in June quickly failed. The store reopened again in August with an announcement that it had changed policies about when employees should call the police. Martin has since moved to Bloomington, a Twin Cities suburb. He didn’t say whether his mother and sister, who lived with him above the store, moved with him. 

Martin was followed by another eyewitness who caught only fragments of Floyd’s arrest. Christopher Belfrey, a Southside native, said he had driven up to Cup Foods with his fiancé to pick up some food. He parked behind the SUV Floyd, Hall and Shawanda Hill were in and was surprised to see an officer draw his gun after approaching the car. He started recording a video with his cellphone, and eventually drove to the other side of the street to pick up his fiancé and continue recording. 

“They brought him out, walked him over to the sidewalk, sat him down, walked over to the people on the other side of the vehicle, and started asking them questions,” he said. 

Once police had put Floyd into their squad car, Belfry said, he figured the matter was over. 

“They went to walk him across the street, then when we went to turn to go back home, we saw them putting him in the police car… I thought it was over, I thought he was detained, and we went on home," he said.

Nelson declined to cross-examine Belfrey as well.

Much of the rest of the afternoon was spent on body-camera footage, interspersed with conversations with Lt. Jeff Rugel of the Minneapolis Police Department. Rugel, the head of the MPD’s Police Business Technology unit, answered several questions about the operation of and data storage for the department’s body-worn and fixed security cameras. A “foundational” witness, Rugel’s testimony served largely as a vehicle for the display of footage from Chauvin’s camera, along with those of fellow officers Thomas Lane, J. Alexander Kueng and Tou Thao. 

That testimony also revealed a possible reason Chauvin’s camera footage hasn’t been in the public eye: Shortly after the officer arrived at the scene, as he was pulling Floyd out of the squad car, the camera drops to the ground. It can be seen in Lane’s camera footage, but the next several minutes of Chauvin’s footage is a close-up view of asphalt with muffled voices behind. 

At an earlier break, a pool reporter had a chance to talk with Floyd’s cousin, Shareeduh Tate, who was in the courtroom. A registered nurse from Houston, Tate was making her second visit to the courtroom. A rotating group of Floyd’s family have been in the one seat allocated for them throughout the proceedings.

“Yesterday went well for us,” she told New York Times reporter Shaila Dewan.

Asked about defense efforts to paint the crowd as angry and interfering with Chauvin and his fellow officers, she dismissed it.

“I think they had to find something,” she said. “When you can’t use the facts you have to do something different.”

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