Witnesses: Onlooker anger increased as Floyd stopped moving

By STEVE KARNOWSKI and AMY FORLITI Associated Press
MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — Witnesses testified Tuesday that onlookers grew increasingly angry as they begged Minneapolis Officer Derek Chauvin to take his knee off George Floyd’s neck.

But they say Chauvin refused to back off and another officer forced back bystanders who tried to intervene.

The teenager who shot the widely seen video of Floyd’s arrest testified that Chauvin “just stared at us” and didn’t react to bystander pleas. Eighteen-year-old Darnella Frazier says Chauvin and another officer on the scene put their hands on their Mace when bystanders wanted to intervene.

She says she began recording because “it wasn’t right, he was suffering, he was in pain.” Frazier’s video sent waves of outrage around the globe and led to a national reckoning on racial injustice.