response. he does not let up and even when mr. floyd doesn't have a pulse, it continues on and it continues on, ladies and gentlemen, even after the ambulance arrives on the scene. >> jerry blackwell for the prosecution, but we also heard from defense lawyer eric nelson asking the jury to consider all of the evidence in the case not just the widely circulated video. >> common sense tells you that there are always two sides to a story. common sense tells us that we need to examine the totality of the circumstances to determine the meaning of evidence and how it can be applied to the questions of reasonableness, of actions and reactions. there is no political or social cause in this courtroom, but the evidence is far greater than nine minutes and 29 seconds. >> nbc's jack brewster is in minneapolis. let's talk first of all, about what we heard from the prosecution and the defense today and what you are seeing around you. i know there was a news conference earlier with the "today" show interview with george floyd's brother. >> yeah, andrea. in the past two hours we've gotten essentially a preview of what the next two or three weeks will look like as this trial is under way. you heard up first on the prosecution who played that video. they first previewed that video and set a new time. we heard eight minutes and 46 seconds and they said george floyd was under the knee of that police officer derek chauvin for nine minutes and 29 seconds. you see how crucial this video will be as part of their case. they played this full video and after three weeks of jury selection and after jury questioning, most of the jurors in that courtroom have not seen this entire video. there was one juror who said he hasn't seen the video at all and for them to play the entire video and something that we as a network have avoided playing the entire video and that will go into the strategy of what the prosecution is trying to do here. we also got a sense of the key witnesses the prosecution will bring up. we heard that the police chief, the minneapolis police chief will come up and say this was excessive force. we heard that there is a 911 dispatcher who was watching what was taking place and will also come up and testify and say that she was disturbed by what she was seeing. you get a sense that the prosecution is building its case around that video, but we also know, andrea, there is lots of other video and that is what eric nelson and the defense was pointing out in his opening statement. the defense made clear that they don't want jurors to just focus on that full-length video of which there are many videos, by the way, body camera videos and the surveillance video. they want the jury to look at the entire context, they want to know how we got to the point of when the video started and george floyd passing the counterfeit bill to the clerk with the struggle before they got to the police vehicle and when the police were over him and had him pinned down to the ground there. so we got a preview of what was to come and that is what the opening statements will be and you saw the prosecution go on for about an hour and the defense was shorter about 20 minutes and later this afternoon, if this follows the typical pattern of what we expect during trials and you expect to start hearing some witnesses and in these opening statements they previewed who we'll be hearing from in this case. a big day to set up what we'll see over the next weeks to come. andrea? >> shaq, thank you so very much. we have our experts with us to talk about what we have seen and heard. civil rights attorney former prosecutor david henderson, former u.s. attorney joyce vance and chuck rosenberg who served as attorney in the southern district of virginia and texas. chuck, let me go to you in terms of what you heard today from both sides that was, you think, new and important as they presented their first -- their first arguments to the jury? >> yeah. i thought it was predictable on both sides, andrea. it doesn't mean it wasn't important. the prosecution did what prosecutors do in linear faction. they tell the story of the crime and they tell the jury what they should expect to see and hear from witnesses including from medical experts and toxicologists and the like because so much of this case is going to turn on the cause of death. what was the reason that george floyd died? the prosecution, of course, will say the reason was derek chauvin, a bad cop. the defense, i imagine will say it was the fact that mr. floyd was unhealthy and had drugs in his system and that it wasn't chauvin who directly caused his death. on the other hand, we got exactly what we would expect from the defense attorney which was reasonable doubt, ladies and gentlemen and keep in mind that they, the prosecution has to prove this case beyond a reasonable doubt and oh, by the way, this is a much more complicated story than the prosecution led you to believe. for instance, he told the jury you will hear this story from other perspectives, from other cops, from other witnesses and that we, the defense, will contest a lot of the toxicology evidence that the prosecution is going to put into evidence, and so again, not to say that it wasn't important. it was important, but it was entirely predictable. both sides did what both sides do in criminal cases. >> and david henderson, where do you see going into this case? the balance here between the defense, obviously trying to create reasonable doubt talking about mr. floyd's ongoing, his chronic heart condition and his opioid addiction and they're going bring in a past case that the judge has apparently said he will allow, but also the prosecution showing 27 times him saying he couldn't breathe, asking for help, calling for his mother and the change in his demeanor and then as they show in the tape, the video that was shown, of course, that the knee was still, they say, on his neck and another knee at times on his back when his breath stopped, when he had no pulse and that bystanders, as you heard were all calling for him to get off. >> after those opening statements, the balance is overwhelming in favor of the prosecution and that's not to say that it might not shift as the case goes on. what you have to remember, the way we assess the law in an environment like this is different than the way it plays out in a courtroom. we just went through an extended jury selection process where the lawyers picked who they want and don't want on the jury. it's easy to forget that the jury is also picking a lawyer. the way the opening statement was given by the prosecution. a basic, simple trial theme and no way you come out of it without remembering nine minutes and 29 seconds and it was argumentative without drawing an objection and it took the wind out of the sails of the events in trying to perform character assassination on george floyd and it was actually overkill based on how long it went on and it was overkill in the right way and it puts them in a very effective position moving forward. >> joyce, walk us through the three different charges that chauvin faces. >> so chauvin has been charged with three different kinds of homicide, andrea. first off, there's this murder second degree charge. it's called felony murder. that means that because a death occurred while a felony assault was being committed, a murder charge is appropriate and we heard prosecutors in their opening statement reference that assault. i think the meat of the charges against chauvin is the murder 3 charge, this is a depraved mind charge in minnesota and essentially it alleges that there was such recklessness towards human life on the part of the defendant that he can be charged with murder, that it's tantamount to having an intent to kill, and so when we see the video, the most powerful centerpiece of the prosecution's opening statement, we see bystanders who are qualified medical personnel repeatedly trying to get chauvin's attention. this will feed into that charge and finally, there is a manslaughter charge. this is the charge that carries the least penalty, but it's still very significant charge and the allegation here is that chauvin created an incredibly dangerous situation and then permitted the death to occur. we heard prosecutors talk about the duty of care police have. so all of these charges feed into the prosecution's theme which is that chauvin didn't let up and he didn't get up. there are alternative possibilities for the jury to convict on. >> i wanted to play also some of the jerry blackwell's statement in the opening statement about the bystanders which, joyce, you just referenced. >> what they all had in common is they were going about their business is that they saw something that was shocking to them, that was disturbing to them and it made them stop and take note. you can see any number of them pulled out their cameras to document what was happening. such that it would be memorialized, such that it would not be misrepresented or such that it would not be forgotten. all they knew is they came upon an individual which they saw was under serious distress under the knees of mr. chauvin. >> david henderson, how important is it to focus on the bystanders, arguably, average people going about their daily business and people that the jury can relate to? >> it's important because it emphasizes what you're seeing on the video and the way that this opening statement developed was well crafted on the video and then you see the video and then the focus on the bystanders and you have to remember, trial law is theater. some don't like the arguments that they're not correct and if not presented in the right way, you lose at trial and it's always risky. it does beg the question why derek chauvin is not facing a more serious charge in light of some of the evidence that we are going to hear and of course, this trial. i know that's an unreasonable point of view before i fully express it, but after the opening statement it's something worth re-visiting. >> paul butler, joining us, as well. paul, let's talk about what the burden is on the defense now, the burden of proof, of course, is on the prosecution's side, but up against the video and the eyewitnesses and the medical examiner and the toxicology reports what is the burden on the defense to create reasonable doubt? >> in theory the defense has no burden. the defense does not have to prove a thing. government has the heavy obligation to prove guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. as a practical matter what that means is if the defense can poke holes in the prosecution's case to create reasonable doubt, then they've won. all they need is one juror to hold out and that gives them a hung jury which defense counts as a mistrial and so the strategy typically is to put the victim on trial. at the end of the defense we don't know whether it's chauvin who is being tried or floyd. so in the first ten minutes of the defense opening statement who we learned that george floyd is a very large man who suffered from addiction, who tried to use a counterfeit bill and then tried to get his friends to help him commit this crime and then resisted arrest, and so this is just the beginning of a strong strategy to make mr. floyd less sympathetic and make the jury believe that the officer's use of force was reasonable to combat somebody like the way they're portraying george floyd. >> and joyce vance, so the prosecutor then has to make sure that he rebutts all of those instances by trying to say that is doesn't matter what he was doing, whether he knew it was a counterfeit or not counterfeit bill, the point of unreasonable force is what he has to establish. >> that's right, andrea, and paul is describing the prosecutor's dilemma really well. i have lost more than one case that we indicted on a police excessive force theory because the problem prosecutors start out with is this notion that the victim was in the situation that led to either their death or to damage that was inflicted upon them because they were violating the law, and so in each of these cases, the defense strategy is to put the victim on trial and to let the defendant, the police officer, be the good guy who was only doing his job. this, though, is as good of a case for the prosecution as one can imagine in that regard. we see the video and the evidence will come in clearly, but prosecutors will still have to prove both the cause of death and that was a big issue this morning in opening statements and they have to convince every juror of mr. chauvin's guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. if even one juror is persuaded that this somehow occurred due to mr. floyd's fault or his medical condition, that one juror refusing to convict will be enough to make sure that there is no conviction of mr. chauvin. >> chuck rosenberg, let's talk about the makeup of the jury. you have nine women, five men and eight identify as white and two identify as mixed race and they tried to move the venue out of minneapolis and it has had considerable controversy when this happened and over the summer and even today. so how does this jury stack up for you as a prosecutor? in a city where there has been so much agony over this case? the one thing that all of the jurors have in common is that they say they can put aside anything they knew or presumed to know about the case listened to the evidence fairly and impartially and follow the instructions of the judge. they're good jurors. to me, as a former prosecutor i was happy to have anybody on my jury, black, white, male, female, young, old, as long as they were impartial and arc ply apply the instructions as given by the judge. they changed venue. i agree with the judge and there's been so much publicity about this all throughout minnesota and all throughout the country and that hennepin county is as good a place for anyone to try it. as for the recent $27 million civil settlement, again, as long as jurors can put that aside, that will not be the evidence in this case and follow the instructions on the judge then it's a good jury. so i don't really over index on what race they are, what gender they are, how old they are. just whether or not it's plausible and they told the judge it was, but they will follow his instructions and weigh the evidence impartially and that's a good jury. >> shaq brewster, we want to talk also about george floyd the man which the prosecution is also trying to create, a man who had friends, who had family and who had children. talk to me about his family today and their attorney ben crump who spoke out today. >> we heard from the family about an hour before the trial started or before the opening statements began and you know, one thing that you heard from benjamin crump is they are watching this closely and this is essentially a test of the criminal justice system in the united states of america. they're putting the spotlight on what is happening in that courtroom. something you heard from his brother, though, who we know was in the courtroom or at least told craig melvin on the "today" show that he would be the one family member allowed in the physical courtroom. he expressed how emotional it was for him. we played out the full nine-minute video and it is a very disturbing video for anyone watching it, but just imagine if you are a family member watching that, and i think that's something he made clear he said he would struggle through this trial and it would be painful for him and that's something you can expect to hear and feel for the family there. you heard this point being raised by the family attorney especially when you hear the arguments coming from the defense, talking about george floyd's drug use and the amount of drugs in his system when he died. those details and that's something that the family attorney is suggesting shouldn't matter in this case, but that's something that will come up repeatedly. hours of testimony from those witnesses that the defense previewed and that's definitely going to be an emotional trial and we got a sense of that today, andrea. >> who else -- who are the other observers allowed in the courtroom? how is this court set up and i know we only see the prosecutor, the defense, the judge and obviously not the jury. >> that's right. you have legal teams on both sides, the judge, the jury all spaced out and socially distant. you see a lot of plexiglass in that courtroom. there's someone from the family or -- someone allocated from the family of derek chauvin and there are only two reporters allowed in the courtroom. someone from the family of derek chauvin allowed in and someone from the family of george floyd and a very limited seating in the actual courtroom and there are overflow areas as well. one of the things you can expect to see and this is from covid restriction, you see everyone wearing the mask and sometimes there are sidebars when the judge will put on a headset and talk with confer with the lawyers and instead of a sidebar when you see the lawyers go up to the bench and that's another one of those covid restrictions and we saw that several times during the questioning process. lots of precautions in place for the pandemic that we're under. >> and the court -- the trial has resumed with its first witness, the first of hundreds of witnesses. jena scurry. she's a 911 minneapolis dispatch operator. let's hear what she has to say. >> -- on sending them their calls and prioritizing those and the police officers on their off-duties and lost children and there are about four different positions that we work. >> maybe i should start first with, you know, what all is involved in your job as a dispatcher? what are the kinds of things you do? >> specifically, as a dispatcher i take the calls that are from 911 as they are prioritized and send them out to the police officers or the firefighters to handle. >> and do you also, for instance, have to answer provide help? >> yes. >> is this just for police calls or fire calls or what kinds of calls are involved? >> we have two different dispatchers. we have police dispatchers who will take the call from 911 and the information and give it out to the officers over the radio and we have fire dispatchers who will then do that specifically for the fire department. >> so four different aspects to your job, right? >> correct. >> what -- can you just describe for us what those are. >> the first one, 911 call taking where the citizens will call in giving their emergencies. we help with prioritizing those or giving them to non-emergencies lines. we then have fire dispatch where those dispatchers are sent over fire rigs to fires or medical runs. channel 7 would be where we log in our off-duty officers, deal with lost children reports, warrants, it's called our information channel because it is a lot of where information questions happen and then our police dispatch where we take those calls from 911 and then send them out on priority. >> getting a call from somebody and getting a call to the police officer and there's more to it than that? >> a lot more to it. >> and when you are working a typical shift -- describe to jurors, what does the office look like when you are a dispatcher? >> my office -- our center is currently located in a basement. we have calls similar to like this covered with carpet. it's a large center. you will have all of the call takers together similar to how the jurors are set, but you'll have five to six different screens around you and in another room you'll have fire dispatchers to give them some silence so they can work around that and be on the radio and listen to the firefighters. across the room you will have our channel 7 that is closely located to our dispatch group which is approximately four people that are giving out all of the calls to the officers. >> so you say the fire dispatchers are somewhere different. why is that? >> it's just the layout of our center. i mean, police dispatch is across the room away from the call dispatchers and it gives them the ability to be louder if they need to if someone is hard of hearing or anything like that, and the chat center gets pretty loud and we have the different areas to be with the ability to be on the radio without the background noise. >> in any particular shift there are some people taking calls and some people dispatching calls? >> correct. i am not taking a 911 call and then dispatching it? >> why is that? >> minneapolis is very busy. we have dedicated 911 call takers at that time. we wouldn't be able to do it all at the same time. >> and then fire dispatches their own fire units for a particular call? >> correct. >> you mentioned having five or six screens in front of you. what are all those screens about? >> those screens have different resources on them. one of my screens is a telephone that has hundreds of numbers in it that i can use to call whoever i need to for any given reason. i also have a city computer that i can utilize if i need to find an address because someone may not know it, i can use google or any other resources i need from the internet. i then have a radio screen that has all of our radio channels on it along with other public answering points so we can listen to their chatter in case something is coming into minneapolis that we need to be aware of and then i have three screens dedicated to the calls that are coming in, the calls that are assigned to police or fire and it will tell me all of the units that have available or who is signed in for different things. >> sounds like a lot of information. >> it is a lot of information. >> how long did it take you to become a master of your job? >> every day is a learning day and i can tell you that i can learn something new that i didn't know yesterday. to be completely comfortable with police dispatching it took me about three years to get comfortable there. >> and as part of the training for that job did you have to learn how the minneapolis police department divides up the city for coverage? >> yes. that's all geography for us based on the precincts and how the precincts break down into different sectors. >> can you describe for the jurors then -- and by police coverage you're talking about how officers are assigned, correct? >> correct. >> and so how is the city of minneapolis divided up for police coverage? >> there are five different precincts in minneapolis, one through five. within those precincts they all have different sectors. those sectors are given to the officers. they have specific sectors that they belong to, and based off of the geography of the call you would assign a certain unit to a different call or to that call, and if you don't have a unit to cover that area then you would have to take a unit from a different sector to cover that, leaving the sector they came from available. >> so can you describe for the jurors, let's take, for example, the third precinct. are you familiar with the third precinct? >> i am. >> describe for the jurors, generally, what the third precinct is? >> the third precinct has four sectors in it. the first one being 310, that is the top of the precinct that goes down to lake street and then the middle would be 320, and the lower half being 330, the east side being 340. >> and so what general area of minneapolis are we talking about? >> for the third precinct would be south minneapolis east of 35w. and when you use these terms like 310 or 320, what is that referring to? >> it refers to their sectors to correspond with the call signs that they use. >> so on a typical shift, how many officers would you assign to each sector? >> typically, you have one per sector and then you have a sector squad or a precinct-wide squad that would be assigned to the whole precinct. >> and so when officers are assigned that sector they're known by that sector number and not their names or badge number or anything like that? >> correct. >> when you are dispatching you dispatch a 320 because they're the 320 car? >> correct. >> and so if you dispatch a call and that sector car is not available, what's the process there? >> you move to that 360 number. it is a precinct-wide squad. if there is not one available then you move to the most closest available squad. >> so somebody has to go out of their sector to respond to that? >> correct. >> and what's a priority call? >> a priority call is an incident where someone calls in within ten minutes of the situation happening or there's the suspect that is still on scene. >> so what's the significance of calling out a priority call in terms of dispatch? >> the significance -- we would want to get someone there as soon as possible. it's no longer -- it falls still into the -- how would i say this? it's still happening. there's a possibility of someone still being on scene and not a report call that they would go -- not code 2. >> and so describe for us what code 2 means. >> as far as i understand code 2 would be not using lights and sirens. they're going without those. >> so it sort of makes sense for a call to be priority if the suspect is still there, you'd want to get an officer there right away. >> correct. >> so code 2, from your training and experience means proceeding without lights and sirens. are there other codes that are used as part of the dispatch process or the policing process? >> we have code 4, which would be a scene is safe. if we're working with other agencies such as ems and there's staging in the area which means they're not going in unless police have deemed it safe for them, police would let us know that the scene is code 4 and then they would proceed in. >> so between 2 and 4, is there a code 3? >> there is a code 3. >> and what does that mean? >> code 3 means emergent. we need them as quick lean as possible. >> i want to back up, in your career as dispatcher you are getting calls and is there also things that you can do visually in terms of what's going on outside of the city of minneapolis? >> the majority of our job is all through listening from the first call that comes into us, from dispatching through radio dispatch and the responders. sometimes we do have cameras avail to us. they can be up simply for the fact to know what time of the day it is, to know what the weather might be out at that time, to keep us as up-to-date so we can understand how or what questions to ask our callers depending on the day or what it looks like, but we do have cameras available to us if needed. >> explain that to us. what do you mean that there are cameras? >> as far as i know, they are around the city. i don't specifically know where each one of them is, but they are up and we do have access to them. not specifically to dispatchers, but there are cameras that are available for usually camera operators and some are police officers that operate cameras and we can use them, as well. >> how do you see them when working as a dispatcher, how do you view the video from those cameras? >> just like the tvs in this room. they're on the wall for us to use. there are approximately, i believe, six tvs. >> and so it's a way for you to see what's going on out in the streets? >> uh-huh. >> and how often in your job do you think you look up at those and see what's going on? >> it depends. it depends on how busy we are. sometimes we're going from call to call to call and you start at 5:00 and somehow it's already 9:00 in the afternoon and you don't know how you got there. sometimes we can look up and see what it's like outside and you can watch the people walking by. it all depends on the day. >> so in communicating with police officers who are out working, there are different ways you can communicate with them and talk to them. >> correct. what are the different ways that you can do that? >> first, we use our radio. that is our formal way of communication with giving out calls and information. we also have our cad system and that is the computer system that allows us to take the calls from 911 operators. they come over to us at dispatch and then when we dispatch the call we are also giving that same call to the officers or the firefighters to their computers so that they have the same information that we're giving out. through that we also have what would seem as a -- an email system and we can use that to send messages, too, if needed. >> you can also make phone calls to officers? >> we can. >> and so -- you may have sort of already answered my question and just to be clear about it, tell us a typical process when a citizen makes a 911 call how that comes through the call center and becomes a call to police officers for assistance? >> everything is -- the first question we ask is what is the address of the emergency. that's the most important thing so we can send help right away if needed, but it allows the calls to be coded to the correct dispatcher. we have three dispatchers working all at the same time and they're in charge of different precincts. my channel, which was channel 1, is in precinct 3 and 2 and the other channels involved have different precincts. so the address allows us to give it to different dispatchers so they can disseminate that information. >> so a call goes to a call taker. they give information to you to do the dispatch out? >> correct. >> and so when were you working on may 25th of last year? >> i was. >> what was your shift. do you remember that day? >> my shift was a middle shift. i started at 14:30 which is 2:30 in the afternoon and i worked until midnight:30 which is 12:30 at night. >> and your responsibilities were which areas of minneapolis? >> channel 1 which is precinct 2 and precinct 3. >> so then the other channels would have the other precincts? >> correct. >> all right. and so what was your assignments? what were your job duties on may 25, 2020? >> as a police dispatcher it was to take the calls that came in from 911 and to dispatch them to the police officers. >> and incidentally, i may have forgotten to ask you, is there always a sergeant on duty when you're serving as a dispatcher? a sergeant on duty out in the streets in each precinct? >> yes. how many sergeants are there generally on? >> it depends on the shift. minimal, one. >> and as part of your duties do you often have contact with those sergeants about calls and other matters? >> yes. on that date, may 25 of 2020, did you dispatch a call to officers to a location known as cup foods? >> yes. >> and did you receive that 911 call? >> i did not. >> but you dispatched a call about that? >> correct. >> are you familiar with that location, cup foods? >> yes. >> and what do you know the intersection where that's located? >> 38th and chicago. >> and is that in the city of minneapolis? >> yes. >> do you know what county that's in? >> hennepin? >> and why are you familiar with that location. >> it's a place where i've been in the area before. sorry. and also it's part of our geography to know certain landmarks that stick out. it's a place where we have to be ready to understand where it is. so if someone tells me that cup foods, i know where that is, it's 38th and chicago and i can use my computer system to get that address. >> you're fairly familiar with the city of minneapolis? >> yes. >> and were you aware at the time if there were one of these street cameras for that area? >> i did not. >> did you subsequently learn that there is, in fact, a camera there that would show the incident for which you were called? >> yes. >> at some point did you look at video for this incident at that location? >> yes. >> we'll come back to that in a little bit. prior to coming into court, did you have a chance to look at what we've marked as exhibit 151? you don't know that, but it's the cad printout from part of this call, correct? >> yes. >> your honor, can we turn on just the witness' screen, please? can you put on 151, please? >> i'm showing you what has been marked as exhibit 151. do you see that on your screen? >> no. >> now do you see it? >> yes. i'm using the judge's computer. >> first of all, do you recognize what this document is? >> yes. >> how would you refer to it so i get it right? >> it is the printout version of the call that it came in from 911. >> so as calls are processed through the center a record of that is made that looks like this? >> yes. >> and is this kept in the ordinary course of the business of a call center in keeping track of what it does? >> yes. >> and have you on prior occasions relied on something like this to recall what happened during a call? >> yes. >> and something that you are able to see even sometimes during your shift? >> yes. >> would this come up on one of the multiple screens that you have if you wanted to? >> yes. everything looks different. it would take a lot of explaining, but yes, we see all of this information. >> your honor, i would offer exhibit 151. [ inaudible ] >> and right now they are showing an exhibit. they're trying to get the computer up so they can show it online, as well, to all of us. you've been hearing from jena scurry who is the dispatcher and she's been describing her experience. let's see how they proceed. >> now, miss scurry, i will ask for 151 we put up on the screen so we can all see it, and starting here on this first page of this document and i will present to you that we have not included the entire document. this is just a portion, correct? >> correct. >> what i will ask you to do her on this first line is tell us and run us through that first line and tell us the information on that very top line. >> the first line is from the call taker. it is a query of the plate that's in the call and then we use a lot of abbreviations for quick hand information to the dispatchers and it would say outside on 38th street reporting that there is a male who provided a counterfeit bill to a business. the suspect is a black male, 4 4' taller and sitting on top of a mercedes and the license plate boy, robert, john, 0, 2, 6. >> i will hold this up so it is easier for everybody to read along with you. at least the first couple of lines. just so that it's bigger for us all to see. so the first on the left, self-explanatory. that's the date. >> correct. >> and then the time, also probably self-explanatory. what does user mean? >> user would be how you identify different persons involved. this person, you can tell, is a call taker. it's the first two letters there and then it has their i.d. number. we all have our own i.d. numbers. >> and so what's your i.d. number? >> mine is 123096. >> but this first user number that starts with a ct, are you familiar with who was assigned that number or generally who has that number? >> yes. >> and how do you know that? >> it -- it's given to our certain -- everybody has their own specific one. if i needed to query that to find out who it was it would tell me who their name is, but i also know that's a call taker based off of the first two letters. >> and then type -- what does type mean? >> it's the response. >> so that's outgoing information? >> yes, i believe. i'm not -- i can't -- i don't exactly know what that means actually right there. >> so that first line, query, someone is asking to run a license plate, correct? >> correct. >> so then the next line, can you describe for the jury then what we are seeing here and all of that that's in capital letters. >> everything we write is using capital letter, but the first capital letters are ots and it's our short term for outside, and just on 38th street. it's providing the information of where. we try to be as clear as possible and paint a picture. outside on 38th street reporting that there is a male provided a counterfeit bill to the business. >> and so is this the information that the call taker provided to you to make the dispatch to officers? >> yes. >> and as part of this process, does that information also go to the officers in writing? >> yes. all of this information is sent to them when they're assigned a call. >> so this is available to them in their squad car, as well? >> correct. >> and we see then there's a description of the vehicle, correct? >> blue mercedes? >> yes. >> and then there's an address. >> yes. that is the query information that goes in there so we can -- sometimes plates don't match vehicles. it is the reason why we ask along with the license plate what kind of vehicle are you seeing so when we run that plate we can say this is a stolen vehicle, and it doesn't match or the plate doesn't match because it might just be wrong. so here clear to 2819 ilion av. >> that is the vehicle owner's axe dress. >> and no screening questions asked. what does that mean? >> due to the pandemic, we have certain questions that we ask and there were no screening questions asked based off of the person not being the person they're calling about. so the caller, as far as we know, they're not going to have contact with. no screening questions were asked to let the officers know that we don't know if they've had any covid contact or symptoms. >> so then taking this information, then, did you dispatch a squad car to respond to this call? >> yes. >> and who did you -- well, first of all, if you could tell us, which sector of the third precinct -- i assume this was the third precinct. which sector does this fall in? >> this falls under the 320 sector? >> did you dispatch the 320? >> i originally dispatched this to 330. >> and why is that? >> 320 was not available. >> and you knew that from your work previous that day? >> yes. >> and so then you -- did you make an actual dispatch to 330 to respond this call? >> yes. >> and so when you do that, make that oral dispatch, do you base it off this information that you're reading right here? >> correct. >> all right. and prior to coming to court, did you have an opportunity to listen to a copy of that call? >> yes. >> and we played that for you? >> yes. >> that appeared to be an accurate records of the actual call that you made? >> yes. >> and we've marked that as exhibit 10 and your honor, we would offer exhibit 10 at this time. >> any objection? [ inaudible ] >> can you play exhibit 10, please? [ indiscernible ] >> available audio sector to 59 chicago. there is a person who used a counterfeit bill at a business. suspect is a black male, 6 feet or taller. ? just so we're clear that's not quite the end of the call, is it? >> no. >> we will try again and see if we can get the whole thing to play. >> can i take a moment? >> and for the second time they've had a technical problem. they were trying to play the dispatch call from jena scurry when she was dispatching. let's see -- as they try to play it. >> you pass along essentially the same information as in the written part of exhibit 151? >> correct. >> slightly different based just on what you're reporting out, correct? >> correct. [ inaudible ] >> they still have not managed to play the part of the tape. they are listening to it on their headsets, i believe, electric watching the screen. what they are trying to establish is how they initially responded to the call. what you heard her say briefly was to get someone had passed a $20 -- a counterfeit $20. we didn't hear the completed part of it. watching along with me, of course, is our panel, civil rights attorney, david henderson and joyce vance. joyce, take us through this. you are a prosecutor. you are trying to play an audio set. >> this happens to prosecutors all the time. if you are not prepared for technical malfunctions, then you haven't tried very much cases. it's made more difficult because of covid and some of the restrictions in place. what this looks like is a decision made about whether what the prosecution wants to play will actually be admitted or whether the defense might have possible objection to it being played. >> we will try exhibit 10 again. >> matthew frank is resuming. let's listen. >> first thing that records is not your voice. that's just an electronic voice marking the time of the call. correct? >> correct. >> we will try exhibit 10 again. >> tape 0423, may 25, 2020. >> the only available audio sector to cup foods. on 38th, they are reporting there's a person who used a counterfeit bill. suspect is a black male, six foot or taller, sitting on the hood of a blue mercedes. possible intoxicated as well. >> squad 320. >> copy. >> copy. >> that is the total dispatch regarding this incident with the officers out on the street, correct? >> correct. >> back up a run through this a little bit. if you can tell us, cup foods is in this sector? >> it's in sector 320. >> you initially called this out to 330, correct? >> correct. >> do you recall who was working in 330 that day? >> i don't specifically know. >> when you start your shift, you just know there's a car out there that's 330. you are calling to them? >> correct. >> after that 330 called back and said, copy, correct? >> correct. >> what does that mean? >> it means they acknowledge that they have been given a call. >> subsequent to that, there was a call from 320, correct? >> yes. >> what was the substance of that call? >> they said they would take their call. >> so based on what you knew about 320 being busy, what did you take from that exchange that 320 was now calling in? >> they were able to at least put their call in pending and they could come back to it and then take their call. >> they also mentioned pending priority nine. what does that mean? >> that i didn't clear them from their call. sometimes i will clear a squad for whichever reason, if it's report, advised, sent, there's a multitude of different reasons. i instead just put it back in pending so they could pick it up later to finish whatever they needed to do. >> 330 ended up calling and saying, cancel, thanks 20, correct? >> correct. >> what did that mean? >> they were no longer going to be going to the call and to thank them. >> so when you are making -- when you are doing that dispatch, at some point did you ask to send additional officers there? >> in the initial one, no. >> but did you eventually? >> yes. >> so if we can go back do 151, please. again, we will expand that first page so we can see it easier. you will see a line at 20:10:08. that would be 8:10:08? >> correct. >> that's your identification number. >> correct. >> so tell us what that line is about. >> these are the actions that i did to back the squad 320 up with 330 and then 830. >> so when you are saying backed up 320 with 330, what does that mean? >> additional squads are en route. >> did you request that or was that information you got that they were going to back up 320? >> i backed them up. >> do you recall why? >> i believe i don't remember specifically that i heard something loud in the background and asked for additional squads. >> you did that as well with 830, correct? >> correct. >> what does that refer to? >> 830 is a park squad. they're a minneapolis park officer. >> the park police working for the city of minneapolis as well? >> correct. >> they can respond to calls in minneapolis, even though it's not in a park? >> correct. >> can you tell us a few lines down at 20:11:02, do you see that line? >> yes. >> describe for us what is listed there. >> they are taking one out. >> what does had a mean? >> they are taking a person out of the vehicle. >> is that customary for officers to call that in? >> yes. >> right below that is a license plate number. correct? >> yes. >> we have removed the identifying information from that. that's why there's a gap there. there's a street address in minneapolis, correct? >> yes. >> that's ilion avenue? >> yes. >> where is that? >> in fourth precinct. >> which side of minneapolis? >> the north side of minneapolis. >> this information has gone out to the officers as well, that address? >> correct. >> following down to 20:12:21, do you see that entry? >> yes. >> can you describe for the jurors what's depicted on that line? >> it is squad 320 is code four. >> that means what to you? >> scene safe. >> this 20:12 is military time? it's 8:12, correct? >> correct. >> i suspect you are more accustom to translating that than the rest of us. >> very much. >> the next line down, can you describe for the jurors what's there? >> it says 830 is out with squad 320. that's when the squad arrived. >> that's when -- >> 830 park squad is now with squad 320 at that location. >> if we move down to the next line, a bunch of stuff there. not really concerned. that's just all coding for some information requested? >> yes. that's 830 put something in the call. >> then we will move to the next page. we will expand this so we can see it. there's two pages. we will probably pull up both at the same time so we can look at them as we go along. drawing your attention to the second line at 20:20:11, do you see that? >> yes. >> can you describe what's listed there, what that line is about? >> i believe i heard ems code 2 for a mouth injury requested by the squad. >> that's 320 calling in for that, correct? >> correct. >> code 2 means what? >> non-emergent. >> describe 20:21:35. >> squad 330 requested ems code 3. >> this is upgrading the call to code 3. >> mm-hmm. >> is that question? >> yes. >> they are asking for the ambulance to come quicker. >> yes. >> ems, that's an ambulance? >> correct. >> the next line at 20:27:21, can you describe for the jurors what's depicted there? >> information that the please had the male restrained on the ground. >> are you able to tell who called that in, whether it was -- which squad it was? >> i would be able to if i read the portable number. i did not. >> not on this printout, correct correct? >> correct. >> the next line down at 20:28:36? do you see