'Disbelief,' 'guilt' from cashier over Floyd death
The cashier who took what appeared to be a fake $20 bill from George Floyd at a convenience store last May, triggering Floyd's arrest and subsequent death, said he felt guilty over the whole incident.
Lisa Bernhard has more.
[UPSOUND OF PROSECUTOR AND WITNESS, CUP FOODS CASHIER CHRISTOPHER MARTIN, OVER A STILL SECURITY CAMERA IMAGE] A cashier who was one of the last people to speak with George Floyd alive last May testified at former Minneapolis policeman Derek Chauvin's murder trial on Wednesday that he regrets accepting the fake $20 bill that led to Floyd's deadly arrest.
[CUP FOODS CASHIER CHRISTOPHER MARTIN]: “Disbelief, and guilt.” [PROSECUTOR, OFF CAMERA]: “Why guilt?” [CUP FOODS CASHIER CHRISTOPHER MARTIN]: “If I would have just not taken the bill, this could have been avoided.” Jurors on Day 3 of the trial watched video that showed a cheerful-looking Floyd in his final minutes inside a grocery store, during which Christopher Martin, the cashier, said Floyd made friendly conversation and seemed to be under the influence of drugs.
Martin said he sold Floyd a pack of cigarettes, then noticed the $20 bill he took from Floyd appeared fake.
As instructed by his manager, Martin said he twice went to the vehicle Floyd was in to ask him about it.
“He just kind of shaking his head and putting his hands in the air, like, 'Why is this happening to me?'" Martin said his manager told a coworker to call the police after Floyd and the other passengers in his car refused to come back inside the store.
He said he was upset later to see Floyd on the ground outside the store with Chauvin on top of him.
“At this point, I was kind of emotional, and I went to the African-American who was standing there on the curb and I was like, ‘They’re not going to help him.
This is what we have to deal with.’” Martin’s testimony comes one day after Genevieve Hansen, an off-duty firefighter and paramedic who was near the scene of Floyd’s arrest, cried on the witness stand, saying Chauvin and other officers prevented her from giving medical help to Floyd.
[PROSECUTOR, OFF SCREEN]: “Were you frustrated?" [HANSEN]: “Yes [Hansen cries and wipes her eyes with a tissue].
[PROSECUTOR, OFF SCREEN]: "How were you doing that?
Trying to get the officers to focus on you and get help?" [HANSEN]: “I think, in my memory I tried different tactics of calm and reasoning and tried to be assertive.
Um, I, I pled and was desperate." Chauvin has pled not guilty to murder and manslaughter charges.
A central dispute in the case is his lawyers' contention that Floyd's death, which was ruled a homicide, was instead a drug overdose.
