Live Updates: Trial Over George Floyd’s Killing : NPR

Former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin’s defense attorney called on Shawanda Hill to testify on Tuesday morning. Chauvin is on trial for the murder of George Floyd.

Hill told the court that she was at the Cup Foods store on May 25, 2020, when she ran into Floyd, whom she knew. She described his behavior as “happy, normal, talking, alert.”

She said Floyd offered to give her a ride to her house, and she went with him to his car.

They sat in the car, chatting and talking about what they were about to do, she told the court. Then, she said she got a phone call from her daughter and while she was on the phone, Floyd fell asleep.

Store employees then approached the car about the counterfeit $20 bill that Floyd had used earlier. Hill said she, the store clerks, and a friend of Floyd’s tried to wake him up. Floyd would wake up momentarily and say something or make a gesture, then nod off again, Hill testified.

Hill told the store clerks that she would wake Floyd up and send him into the store. She tried again to wake up Floyd, and then took another phone call.

Police officers then walked up to the car. Hill said she hurriedly woke up Floyd and said the police were at the car about the $20 bill.

An officer tapped on the passenger window with a flashlight, Hill recalled. When she and Floyd looked at the window again, she said an officer had a gun drawn. Floyd put his hands on the steering wheel and said, “Please please don’t kill me, please please don’t shoot me,” according to Hill.

Under questioning from prosecutor Matthew Frank, Hill affirmed that while Floyd was leaving Cup Foods and sitting in the car, he seemed normal, other than being sleepy, and did not complain of shortness of breath or chest pains.

Did he seem startled when an officer pulled a gun on him?

“Very,” Hill said.

Hill described Floyd as her “ex” in police body camera footage shown in Tuesday’s court session. She was one of two people sitting in the car with Floyd outside Cup Foods before the deadly incident with Minneapolis Police officers.

A lawyer for the man who has been identified as the other person, Morries Hall, has filed court papers saying he would invoke his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination. As NPR’s Bill Chappell reported, previous testimony depicted Hall as the person who allegedly first tried to use the counterfeit bill in the store.