Teen bystander says she knew instantly Floyd was ‘in distress’

By Amy Forliti and Steve Karnowski

The Associated Press

ST. PAUL, MINN. » A woman who was 17 when she came upon Minneapolis police pinning George Floyd to the street testified Friday at a federal trial for three ocers that she knew instantly the Black man was “in distress,” as he screamed in pain and shouted that he couldn’t breathe.

Alyssa Funari, now 19, said that when she drove past officers on top of a man in the street on May 25, 2020, she got out of her car and started recording because she had a “gut feeling” something was wrong.

“I instantly knew that he was in distress. ... He was moving, making facial expressions that he was in pain,” she said. “He was telling us that he was in pain.”

Former O cers J. Alexander Kueng, Thomas Lane and Tou Thao are charged with violating Floyd’s civil rights while acting under government authority. All three are accused of depriving Floyd, 46, of medical care while he was handcu ed and facedown as Of- ficer Derek Chauvin pressed his knee onto Floyd’s neck for 9 ½ minutes. Kueng knelt on Floyd’s back and Lane held down his legs while Thao kept bystanders back.

Kueng and Thao are also accused of failing to intervene to stop Floyd’s killing, which triggered protests worldwide and a reexamination of racism and policing.

Prosecutors told the court that they will rest their case Monday after three weeks of testimony from law enforcement officials, doctors and eyewitnesses.

The announcement came after prosecutors showed snippets of bystander and police video with timelines and transcripts as Matthew Vogel, an FBI special agent, described what the materials.

The timelines and transcripts are meant to help jurors sort out sometimes confusing videos that show a chaotic scene from various angles and capture different pieces of the officers’ conversations, Floyd’s fading cries of, “I can’t breathe,” and frantic pleas by bystanders to check his pulse.

The footage included video of Kueng and Lane talking to a sergeant about what happened, but saying incorrectly that Floyd was still breathing when paramedics arrived, and mentioning nothing about their inability to find Floyd’s pulse. The head of the Minneapolis homicide unit testified Thursday that he noticed similar problems with what they told him.

On-cross examination, Thao’s attorney, Robert Paule, noted that some of the dialogue in the videos can’t be made out — or that people might hear things di erently. He asked about a statement from Floyd about drugs that was a matter of dispute Chauvin’s state murder trial last year. Attorneys had argued about whether Floyd yelled, “I ate too many drugs” or “I ain’t do no drugs.” Vogel said: “It was unintelligible to me.”

One of the prosecution’s key arguments has been that the o cers were trained to provide medical aid in emergencies, and that Floyd’s situation had become so serious as police held him down that bystanders — even children with no medical training — knew something was wrong.

Biden climate damage cost estimate struck down

By Matthew Brown, Matthew Daly and Kevin McGill

The Associated Press

WASHINGTON » A federal judge on Friday blocked the Biden administration’s attempt to put greater emphasis on potential damage from greenhouse gas emissions when creating rules for polluting industries.

U.S. District Judge James Cain of the West - ern District of Louisiana sided with Republican attorneys general who said the administration’s action to raise the cost estimate of carbon emissions threatened to drive up energy costs while decreasing state revenues from energy production. The judge issued an injunction that bars the Biden administration from using the higher cost estimate, which puts a dollar value on damages caused by every ad - ditional ton of greenhouse gases emitted into the atmosphere.

President Joe Biden on his first day in o ce restored the climate cost estimate to about $51 per ton of carbon dioxide emissions after the Trump administration had reduced the figure to about $7 per ton. Former President Donald Trump’s estimate included only damages felt in the U.S. versus the global damages captured under the higher estimate.

The Biden administration’s revival of a higher figure initially set under the Obama administration would be used to make future rules for oil and gas drilling, automobiles, and other industries. Using a higher cost estimate would help justify reductions in planet-warming emissions by making the benefits more likely to outweigh the expenses of complying with new rules.