Who is Christopher Martin? George Floyd seemed high but friendly as he used fake bill, Cup Foods cashier says
New footage of George Floyd inside a Minneapolis convenience store moments before his fatal encounter with former police officer Derek Chauvin was played in the court during his trial on Wednesday, March 31. The witness who appeared in the video gave shocking details, saying that Floyd's hands were shaking, he was unable to make conversation and he appeared to be under the influence of drugs.
Cup Foods clerk Christopher Martin, who attended Floyd in the convenience store on May 25, 2020, testified about how staff called the cops on Floyd because they believed he used a counterfeit $20 bill. Looking back, Martin said he wished he'd never raised alarm about the bill because he believes Floyd might still be alive if he hadn't, telling the court: "This could have been avoided."
RELATED STORIES
The surveillance footage from the convenience store's camera showed Martin speaking with Floyd as he used the fake bill to purchase cigarettes. Floyd then walked outside as Martin held the bill up and examined it. Martin told the court that he became suspicious of the bill because it had an unusual "blue pigment so I assumed it was fake". "The policy was if you took a counterfeit bill you had to pay for it out of your pay-check," Martin explained. "I took it anyway and was planning to just put it on my tab - until I second-guessed myself and eventually told my manager."
The manager then asked Martin to go outside and bring Floyd back. When Floyd refused to come back, a co-worker called the police. One of the officers who responded to the scene was Chauvin. When interrogated by Minnesota Assistant Attorney General Matthew Frank, Martin stated that the two things he noticed about Floyd were his "size" and that he appeared to be "high." However, he added that he did not find Floyd's behavior to be threatening, saying: "He seemed very friendly, approachable, talkative, he seemed just to be having an average Memorial Day living his life. But he did seem high."
According to Floyd's autopsy report, he had fentanyl and methamphetamine in his system at the time of his death. Chauvin's lawyers have argued that his actual cause of death was a drug overdose, despite the county medical examiner ruling it a homicide resulting from the police restraint.
In the ten-minute footage, Floyd can be seen roaming around inside the small store where he had dropped off his cell phone to be fixed. He can be seen rifling through his pants pockets, counting and recounting bills, taking them out and replacing them. At times in the video, which didn't have audio, Floyd can be seen talking to himself or randomly to other customers. After briefly exiting the store, knocking a piece of fruit to the ground as he left, he returned and appeared agitated, high and distracted. At one point he hopped on the spot, moved backward before putting his arms over his head and jigging once more where he stood. Unable to stand still he went to the front of the store once more to buy cigarettes with the $20 bill.
In a second video, Martin can be seen speaking with Floyd and his acquaintances in a car parked outside the store. He said he took two trips out to the vehicle, bringing co-workers with him the second time. "I notified them that they needed to come back into the store and the bill was fake and my boss wanted to talk to them," Martin said. He recalled Floyd sitting in the driver seat "kind of shaking his head, putting his hands on his head. Like: 'Why is this happening?' kind of thing." Floyd repeatedly refused to come back into the store, at which point Martin said his manager instructed a co-worker to call the police.
He said police came and spoke to the manager while Martin went back in. Under continued interrogation by Frank, Martin told how, as the store emptied, he became aware of a disturbance at the front of Cup Foods. He went outside and witnessed the escalated situation. "I saw people yelling and screaming I saw Derek [Chauvin] with his knee on George's neck on the ground," he said. "George was motionless, limp and Chauvin seemed very…he was in a resting state, meaning like he just rested his knee on his neck." Martin, who lived above the store, said: "I pulled my phone out first and called my mom and told her not to come downstairs. Then I started recording. Later on that night I deleted it because when they picked George up off the ground the ambulance went straight down 38th and the quickest way to get to the hospital is straight down Chicago Avenue."
Martin said he assumed that Floyd was already dead and deleted his recording as he didn't want to have to show it to anybody or answer questions about it in the future. Asked how he felt as he absorbed what he had just witnessed, Martin said "disbelief and guilt." Martin, who earlier told jurymen that he had almost not reported the fake bill and only done so after second-guessing himself, said: "If I would have just not taken the bill this could have been avoided." Asked if he still worked at Cup Foods, Martin's voice cracked as he said: "No. I didn't feel safe."