Alexander Kueng and Thomas Lane's bodycam was NOT on when Sgt Jon Edwards arrived on the scene of George Floyd's arrest
MINNEAPOLIS, MINNESOTA: Jurors heard testimony from two Minneapolis police officers during the ongoing Derek Chauvin trial on Friday, April 2. One of them was police sergeant Jon Curtis Edwards, who was sent to Cup Foods to secure the crime scene after George Floyd’s death in May last year after police officers pinned him to the ground.
At the time, Edwards was working as an overnight sergeant at the Minneapolis Police Department’s third precinct. He told the court that he reached the crime scene at around 9.35 pm on May 25, where he found J Alexander Kueng and Thomas Lane. He claimed that when he arrived, his body camera was on, but the two officers’ body cameras were not activated at the time.
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Edwards told jurors he immediately directed the two cops to turn on their cameras and also asked them about the spot where the interaction between them and Floyd took place. The sergeant then said he ordered Kueng and Lane to put crime scene tape around the area to preserve potential evidence. Edwards also mentioned that he called two more police officers to the scene for a door-to-door “canvass” looking for witnesses since most of the bystanders were not present there when they arrived. Besides, Kueng and Lane’s police car as well as Floyd’s vehicle were secured till the time investigators came and towed them away. “I guess we were just trying to get lucky. Maybe there was somebody still there that was willing to talk to us,” Edwards said, who later talked to one of the witnesses identified as Charles McMillian.
The 61-year-old Black man has also given his testimony earlier this week in the case. As per reports, while testifying in the court on Wednesday, March 31, McMillian went into tears after a video was played that showed him witnessing Floyd screaming in pain, “I can't breathe” in police custody. The video also showed the man telling Floyd repeatedly to get up from the ground and get in the police van, while saying, “You can't win, man”. McMillian was questioned in court about what he meant when he said “You can't win”, he replied: “Once... the cops on you, you can't win. Just cooperate, get in the car, go with them, and you can win.” He also claimed to hear the 46-year-old African American man saying, “I can't.”
During the Wednesday trial, another video was played in front of the jurors in which McMillian was seen having an interaction with Chauvin after Floyd was taken away in an ambulance. The witness said that in that conversation he told the officer in question that he took issue with what he had done to Floyd. To which Chauvin replied, which was heard in the clip, “That’s one person’s opinion. We gotta...control this guy because he’s a sizable guy, looks like he’s probably on something.”
McMillian told the court that at one point, he urged the cops and asked them, “Man, let off of him — he can't breathe.” But in response, he got, “He keeps talking, he can breathe." He also added that after the ambulance arrived, he knew something bad had happened. "I knew that in my mind... it was over for Mr. Floyd. He was dead,” McMillian added.