The Minneapolis convenience store where George Floyd used a counterfeit bill moments before he died is drawing in customers by playing a live stream of Derek Chauvin’s murder trial.
A television mounted above an ATM at Cup Foods broadcasted the view from inside the Hennepin County Courthouse on Wednesday as a former employee took the witness stand.
The employee, Christopher Martin, testified about how his co-worker called the police on May 25, 2020, after he raised alarm about a fake $20 bill Floyd used to buy cigarettes.
Martin told the court how Floyd appeared ‘high’ and struggled to make a conversation as the prosecution released never-before-seen video from inside the store.
Speaking to the New York Times during Martin’s testimony, Cup Foods owner Mike Abumayyaleh said: ‘This is the first time I’ve seen this footage — it was seized the morning after.’
Derek Chauvin’s murder trial is seen on a TV inside Cup Foods – the Minneapolis convenience store where George Floyd used a counterfeit bill moments before his death last spring
New video showing Floyd (center in a black tank top) inside Cup Foods on May 25, 2020, was played in court on Wednesday
Derek Chauvin (right) looks on during day three of his murder trial on Wednesday
Abumayyaleh, who owns the store with his brothers, said he and his employees were keeping a close eye on the trial that thrust Cup Foods into the international spotlight last spring.
‘We’d like to know the outcome,’ Abumayyaleh said, however he declined to specify what he hoped the outcome would be.
He said the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension ‘asked us not to comment until after the trial is over’.
Across the street from the store, about two dozen activists and volunteers gathered for a meeting at the Speedway gas station, just a few yards from where Chauvin and two other officers pinned Floyd to the ground.
Some of the attendees told the Times they were keeping track of the trial, which others said they found it too draining to watch.
Cup Foods clerk Christopher Martin (pictured), who was working on May 25, 2020, took the stand on Wednesday to testify about how staff called the cops on Floyd because they believed he used a counterfeit $20 bill
Martin, the Cup Foods clerk who was working on the day Floyd died, testified in detail about the events leading up to the black man’s fatal arrest.
It was Martin who had accepted Floyd’s $20 bill before realizing that it was fake.
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.’
Across the approximately ten minutes of surveillance footage played in court, Floyd could be seen meandering through the small store where he had dropped off his cell phone to be fixed.
He rifled through his pants pockets, counting and recounting bills, taking them out and replacing them.
At times in the video, which did not have audio, Floyd appeared to be talking to himself or randomly at other customers.
After briefly exiting the store, knocking a piece of fruit to the ground as he left, he returned and again appeared agitated, high and distracted.
At one point he hopped on the spot, shuffled backwards before putting his arms over his head and jigging once more where he stood.
Twitchy and unable to stand still he made his way to the front of the store once more to buy cigarettes with the $20 bill that store clerk Martin immediately believed to be fake.
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 anyways and was planning to just put it on my tab – until I second guessed myself and eventually told my manager.’
The manager then instructed Martin to go outside and bring Floyd back, he said. When Floyd refused, a co-worker called police. One of the responding officers was Chauvin.
Questioned by Minnesota Assistant Attorney General Matthew Frank, Martin said that the two things he noticed about Floyd were his ‘size’ and he appeared to be ‘high’.
However he said that he did not find Floyd’s demeanor 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.’
An autopsy found Floyd had fentanyl and methamphetamine in his system at the time of his death. Chauvin’s lawyers have argued that his true cause of death was a drug overdose, despite the county medical examiner ruling it a homicide resulting from the police restraint.
Floyd is seen holding the $20 bill he used to buy cigarettes before a Martin noticed it was fake
Floyd could be seen rifling through his pants pockets, counting and recounting bills, taking them out and replacing them
Martin then narrated a second video showing him speaking with Floyd and his acquaintances in a car parked outside Cup Foods. 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 officers arrived and spoke to the manager while Martin went back to manning the cash register.
Under continued questioning by Frank, Martin told how, as the store emptied, he became aware of a commotion at the front of Cup Foods. He went outside and was confronted by the already 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.’
A second video from outside the store showed Martin (above in gray) talking to Floyd inside a car parked at Cup Foods
Martin is seen (bottom right) standing outside the store as police restrained Chauvin on the other side of a squad car
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 from this 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 aftermath.
Asked how he had felt as he absorbed what he had just witnessed, Martin said ‘disbelief and guilt’.
Martin, who had earlier told jurors 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.’
The image above shows a makeshift memorial for Floyd at the spot of his fatal arrest last May
