♪♪ thank you for joining us tonight for this special live coverage of the pivotal closing of the derek chauvin murder trial. the minneapolis police officer who killed george floyd. i'm ari melber, and i'll be with you live tonight for the next hour. this is the eve of closing arguments as the nation and really much of the world awaits the jury deliberation and ultimately the expectations for a verdict from the 12 jurors who have been listening to every

hour of testimony, over 40 witnesses spanning 14 days. now this all culminates tomorrow as the prosecution has its moment to tie it all together, to tell the jury why it should do something that is very rare in the american justice system, convict a police officer for murder committed on the job. and the defense has its final plea to try to save chauvin's liberty by arguing that or reasonable doubts about his guilt. we do not know what the jury will do. nothing that i'm going to report to you tonight, none of our special experts can tell you what the jury will do in the future. that's the point of a system that ultimately puts a person's guilt not in the hands of the government or of professional judges but in the hands of fellow citizens. now from our reporting, we do know what the lawyers will focus on tomorrow. we can tell you all about that, because closing arguments must draw on the evidence and testimony presented in the trial itself.

so that means the prosecution's closing will indeed hit on these key points. >> mr. chauvin was anything other than innocent on may 25th of 2020. >> the defendant violated our policy in terms of rendering ate. >> 9:29, the most important numbers you will hear in this trial, 9-2-9. >> i believe that mr. george floyd's death was absolutely preventible. >> he put his knees upon his neck and his back, grinding and crushing him until the very breath, no, ladies and gentlemen, until the very life was squeezed out of him. >> i offered to walk them through it or told them if he doesn't have a pulse, you need to start compressions, and that wasn't done either. >> do you need a minute? >> you can see his eyes, he's conscious. and then you see that he isn't.

that's the moment the life goes out of his body. >> to many listeners, to viewers, to potentially the jurors, much of that may be very compelling evidence. when we turn to what we know about the defense, well, their closing will service some of their different rationales for what they argued is reasonable doubt. >> derek chauvin did exactly what he had been trained to do. what was mr. floyd's actual cause of death? the evidence will show that mr. floyd died of a cardiac arrhythmia. >> in my opinion, mr. floyd had a sudden cardiac arrhythmia or cardiac arrhythmia due to his atherosclerosisic hypertensive. >> i thought derek chauvin was

acting with reasonableness. >> you believe that fentanyl is a respiratory depressant? >> there was a crowd, and yes, the crowd was becoming more loud and aggressive. >> there was no evidence that mr. floyd's airflow was restricted. >> now what can we draw from these arguments? well, they reveal there is no doubt that george floyd was not accused of any violent act that day, that he was not an patient deadly threat. he died in police custody. those things aren't much in doubt. the reasonable debate over reasonable doubt has turned quite a bit on his medical condition, the scientific cause of death, as well as legally the nature of the force used. an offense focused on poking holes, they called just seven witnesses. think about this in context. compare that to the prosecution that was so thorough, they called 38 different witnesses. the jury never heard from the defendant at the center of it

all. chauvin exercising his right legally not to testify. so this sequestered jury will decide his fate based on what they learned about his actions, about the evidence of his actions, and based on the instructions they received in their understanding of the law. they have been strictly instructed to focus only on those points. that's important. and to legally under their obligation put aside the protests and the movement catalyzed by what did occur that day. our special coverage live right now on the eve of these arguments. begins with former federal prosecutor jami hajj and david henderson. thanks to both of you for joining me. >> thanks for having us. >> thank you. >> i want to -- thank you. i want to begin with david. we're at this key point. the reason we have special live coverage tonight is we are on the eve of the closing arguments and then the deliberation. many different moments have

occurred. we asked each of you for your key moment. and david, let's play yours about the sort of the paramedic discussing the whole situation and the chance at life. take a look. >> were you actually working on him the whole time? >> yes, he remained in his, quote/unquote dead state and we continued on cardiac arrest and i was trying to give him a second chance at life. >> second chance at life. david, why was that moment important to you? >> ari, it's important to me for two reasons. it's important in the context of the case, but it's also important for personal reasons. in the context of the case, it puts exactly what chauvin's intent was. it dovetails very nicely with the 9-year-old who said he wouldn't take his knee off of george floyd's neck, not even when the paramedics asked him nicely. and it puts in perspective exactly what we can expect to hear in context to the rest of the prosecution's argument. and then for me personally,

listening to the bystander testimony, what weighs heavily is people saying things like they felt hopeless, they felt like you just can't win. it was meaningful to see someone in a position of authority say listen, this man could have been saved and had they done what he recommended, george floyd might still be alive today. >> jami, you pointed to the pulmonologist testimony. let's take a look. >> so we see here that he reaches a level of zero of oxygen at 20:25.41. at that point there is not an ounce of oxygen left in his body, his entire body, at 20:25.41. >> so was the knee lifted off his neck at the point there was no more oxygen in his body? >> no, the knee remained on his next for another 3:02, after we reached the point where there is not an ounce of oxygen left in

the body. >> jami, scientific and expert testimony at times can be dry or even hard for the jury to always grasp, because we're not all specialists. you point to this moment where if you knew nothing else about this case, or if there were no video, and you the medical experts say we think about, we all know air to breathe, not an ounce of air left in his body, and it continued for three more minutes. walk us through why that was important to you. >> i'm a former prosecutor. i know how much the burden really lies on the prosecution to prove all the elements. and from the very beginning, one of the hardest parts of this case was going to be causation. we knew from the defense opening that they were going to contribute that there were other factors that led to george floyd's killing. but dr. tobin did such a thorough job of walking through the testimony and showing really clearly that this was

asphyxiation. this was a loss of oxygen, and going point by point, even to the point where he lost his life. to me his testimony is critical for one, to make sure that a jury has what it needs to get that top charge. and then also just really recognizing that this was a tragic killing of a person in a way that just was unnecessary. the fact that it went on three more minutes even after that point of loss of life just shows how tragic this was. and hearing that from a medical expert i think is really compelling for the jury. >> and jami, as a former prosecutor, i'm curious your view of the way this prosecution was able to summon police testimony. we know from our reporting on trials that juries tend to be very differential to police. and while race has been infused throughout this trial for good reason, we know that when people

make too many assumptions, you usually end up with misleading stereotypes. for example, we have heard from jurors of all backgrounds that absent overwhelming evidence to the contrary, often there isn't a presumption of legitimacy to police. and yet here that presumption was shifted away from a blue line or defending police to actually having police testimony, including the mpd chief going against chauvin's maneuvers. take a look at this, the mpd chief. >> once there was no longer any resistance and clearly when mr. floyd was no longer responsive and even motionless to continue to apply that level of force that in no way, shape or form is anything that is by policy, is not part of our training, and it is certainly not part of our ethics or our values.

>> jami? >> no, i can't underscore enough how different this is to have this many police officers testifying for the prosecution. this is not just police experts but his own supervisor, his own training officers, people who know the policies and what is required for the minnesota police department, minneapolis police department. so is to me a big deal that you have officers saying. because what the jury has to understand, and why there is often deference in police killings is because it's not from a reasonable person standard. it's a reasonable officer. were the actions reasonable for an officer. so here we have this many officers saying this was not reasonable. this was not consistent with our training. this went way too far and was unnecessary helps demonstrate that even from a reasonable officer's standard, this is not -- this was not necessary.

and i also think it's really important that the other takeaway from this is that it's going to require more than training to resolve these issues. this is not a training issue. this is much more deeply rooted in understanding the history of policing. most people don't know that the forefathers of what is our modern day policing were slave patrols. so it's going to require deep systemic transformation to prevent the next black person, person of color from being killed at the hands of law enforcement. i also think the police testimony helps underscore that point. training is not enough. it's now how we're going to solve this issue. >> and david, on the flip side, what the defense kept pushing is well, whatever his other officers thought, something can look, as they got one witness to say, something can look, quote, awful and still be lawful. take a look. >> sometimes the use of force,

it looks really bad, right? >> yes. >> and sometimes it may be so -- it may be caught on video, right? and it looks bad, right? >> yes. >> but it's still lawful. >> yes, based on that department's policies or based on that state's law. >> david, what are they trying to do there in chipping away at the prosecution case in the eyes of the jury? >> ari, what i think they're doing is trying to incorporate in the broader argument that they've made throughout the course of the trial. in that regard, the trial is like any other conversation. the defense had to wait patiently for their chance to talk, and then when they got it, the first thing they did, despite they said they were going to focus on medical causation primarily in terms of trying to rebut the prosecution's theory. >> the first thing they did is play the 2019 arrest video of george floyd which showed prior drug use in connection with an

arrest. it was character assassination flat-out. but when they're talking about the fact that use of force can be lawful but awful, what they're trying to do is confuse the jury on the issue of whether or not derek chauvin's knee was a substantial causal factor in causing george floyd's death. and they're just hoping that if they can tap into bias that some jurors may have, it creates enough confusion for that person to hold out and cause a hung jury. don't think we're likely to see an acquit until this case. i think we'll see some form of conviction, or someone juror holding out and hanging up the process. >> i'm running over on time, but i'll let you both answer that david says he doesn't see an outcome where there would be 12 votes to acquit in his view. so he sees either a hung jury or a conviction of some kind. jami, briefly, your take? >> i think the prosecution did their job. the jury has more than enough to do its job and render a conviction on all accounts, but

unfortunately, we've been down this road before. and we can't rely on a system that is inherently racist to give us justice. so i'm not -- i'm not for sure. i'm not certain that the jury will come back with what we all believe would be the right verdict. >> and you think thus -- you think acquittal is still possible? >> i think, yes. unfortunately. i mean, i think anything is possible, right? i don't think anyone would have thought it would be possible that we'd have an officer with his knee on the neck of a man for nine minutes to kill him. so anything is possible. you know, but again, if the jury is looking at the elements and looking at the evidence, they have mother than what they need for conviction on all counts. >> and for viewers, as we do this special coverage, what we're leaning to here are two very experienced experts having a good faith disagreement about the spectrum of what's possible in the trial, which is a reminder why when you put 12

people in a room, even if they are inform and even if they're trying hard, you may get a lot of different views, which is how this process works. i want to thank jami and david, really kicks us off with food for thought. thank you. we have a lot more. how george floyd's killing sparked, how what we all witnessed and lived through those protests. coming up, one of the leading activists joins me live tonight was we go into the closing arguments. but up next, another officer indicted for killing an unarmed black man. we look at how rare arrests are in these instances. please stay with us. >> can you explain what you're feeling in this moment? >> i feel helpless. (vo) ideas exist inside you, electrify you. they grow from our imagination, but they can't be held back. they want to be set free.

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welcome back to our sunday night special coverage of this chauvin murder trial. we are on the eve of closing arguments. even though this case about a minnesota police officer killing an unarmed black man has not yet been resolved yet, the community was suddenly rocked during this trial by a new incident of a

minnesota police officer killing an unarmed black man, daunte wright, ten miles from this courtroom. graphic body camera captured what happened, and the officer who killed him, kim potter, was charged with manslaughter three days after the incident. which is unusually fast for police-involved killings. here's what the lawyer for both floyd and wright's families told me. >> i was at reverend al's national action network convention having a panel with the mothers of the movement, trayvon's mother, michael brown's mother from ferguson, eric garner's mother from here in new york, and stephon clark's mother, and we found the news that the officer was going to be charged in the killing of daunte wright. and it was profound because when you really think about it, or it was the blood of their children who helped us get to this point in america. because none of them got due process. these other mothers never got their day in court.

>> mr. crump reminding us there is a history to this. i'm joined now by minnesota state representative john thompson, who has been all too close to some of this tragic history. his own friend, philando castile was killed by police, and he says that's what motivated him to get involved in civil representation. thanks for being here, tonight, sir. >> thank you for having me. >> yes, sir. and i know you're joining us from within your weekend activities and joining us by phone from the car. so i hope you can hear me okay. my first question straight forward, what is important to you and your community heading into closing arguments and jury deliberation tomorrow? >> um, pray for us. pray for us here in the state of minnesota. because right now we're

preparing for the worst and hoping for the best with regard the safety of the people in this state. but we're here because of bad policing. so, you know, there is a lot of decisions that have been made that could have saved george floyd's life, could have saved philando's life, you know. and we're here again. and by all means do i not mean to sound psychic. i'm just back here in the state of minnesota and i know there is going to be another police-involved killing here again, probably before the end of this summer. >> you know, representative, part of what we are covering and discussing requires clarity. it requires blunt language. so what everyone can understand what's happening, and part of what's happening is black people, and especially black men are treated very differently by

the criminal justice system from first contact, which is police where you can end up in a shooting where it can be looked like an extrajudicial killing, all the way through grinding through the rest of the system and what it takes to get justice. and i say that to my job, not prejudging what's happening this week but based on our legal reporting of these issues. i want to play a little bit of what mr. crump said. just reminding everyone in plain english how quote/unquote hard a case like this might be if it happened to someone else. take a listen. >> we know if george floyd was a white american citizen and he suffer this painful, tortuous death where a police officer kneel on his neck, nobody, nobody would be saying this is a hard case. >> representative, your thoughts.

>> i think that -- i wasn't -- you know, after philando was murdered, i was out in the streets with the activists, and i was a protester, you know. that was 2016. we had legislation pass that provide de-escalation training and implicit bias training, and those were like buzz words here in this state. but if you think about the field training officer that killed diante was pardoned. the field officer that killed george floyd, officer chauvin. so what are you training these officers is what i'm saying to you. and then we have legislation that does not want to move on police reform in our senate. they will not hear any reform. i put bills together, yo, to end

the statute of limitation on how these murders and the body cam policy, and yo, it's so much policy that would make sense to end this. legislation plays a huge role in what we're seeing right now. so for me, we probably need president bush and vice president kamala harris to come here and actually see what's happening to our people, come from behind those oval offices, man. you have to come and see what's happening to our people here in this state. real quick, i lost my friend in 2016, and you don't know that july 5th of 2016, me and philando talked about the murder of sterling that happened on that day. and the very next day we lost philando that me and philando discussed outside this store. we keep getting increments of reform here. this is almost like a police

state. everybody from the chiefs association, the minnesota peace officers association, they get to dictate what reform looks like in this state and not the legislators. it's almost like the ppp, the police and public politicians here in this state. i show up to one of the officer's home because he has 56 service complaints, 11 successful lawsuits filed against him. and they promoted him to a sergeant and he is the president of minnesota peace officers, minneapolis peace officers association. so that shows you what's ingrained in the culture of policing here in this state. and if you allow me to just say one more thing, make no mistake, the proud boys, the oath keepers, the 3 percenters, they have infiltrated police departments all across this state. so it's kind of like an ideal job for some of these white supremacists with this ideology. if they can infiltrate these

police departments, that i can actually do exactly what you see happening to black men right now in this state. there is no way we have two back-to-back murders. we can't heal. we're trying to heal from george floyd, and here we are again with daunte. and that's why i said we'll be here again until we get what reform really looks like is not the peace officers association, like, telling us what it looks like. >> representative, yeah, i hear you on all that, which is why we wanted to give you the floor tonight. >> these are hard conversations to have. >> yeah. i have to -- my job here, i have to fit in a break because i have dre mckesson coming up. but i hear you what your saying. i agree. it is a hard conversation. you're there in the community, in minnesota which is why i wanted to hear from you tonight. i appreciate you making time within your busy weekend, sir, and i hope we can speak again. thank you. representative john thompson from minnesota joining us tonight.

as mentioned, we're fitting in a break because we have more coming up, including how testimony from witnesses at times quite emotional might shape the jury's perception going into these closing arguments tomorrow. the floyd killing, of course, also fueled and catalyzed an escalation of the blm movement. we're going get into that with civil rights activist deray mckesson, right after this. stay restless with the icon that does the same. the rx crafted by lexus. lease the 2021 rx 350 for $439 a month for 36 months. experience amazing at your lexus dealer.

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to stop the state's racist executions of black people. >> i watched a white officer assassinate a black man. and i know that tore your heart out. >> charge the cops. charge all the cops. >> these young black men being killed, can you blame my son or anyone else from being scared of the police? >> charge them in every city across america where our people are being murdered. >> now is the time to plot, plan, strategize, organize, and mobilize. >> i want to make something very clear tonight as we reflect on this trial. if you've seen our coverage during the trial, you may have heard me reference the legal limits on the jury. they have a legal duty to decide only the facts of whether this was a murder or not. they have a duty not to bring in

other views about policing or racism. they have a duty to look at only what happened that day. and i can tell you, as a lawyer, as a journalist, that is how it's supposed to be. now let me tell you something else. that is just for those 12 people. the rest of the population may tackle these wider issues. may decide whether it's time for a fuller overdue reckoning of the racist roots of the prison system as it operates today, or demand policy responses to what happened that day. and i can tell you, some of this is already occurring. there are states that have passed new laws, making police more accountable in court with fewer automatic immunity protections. the democratic house did pass the police reform bill literally named after george floyd. but as with so many measures and steps, that was only a small one. it has not gotten anywhere yet in the divided u.s. senate.

joining me now for this broader conversation is civil rights and blm activist deray mckesson, co-founder of campaign zero. thanks for being here. >> it's good to be here. >> deray, you, like me, frankly, work around a lot of these legal issues, so i know you understand the clear contrast i'm drawing between what the jurors are instructed to do and everybody else. your thoughts on what everybody else can do taking this all in. >> in some ways, ari, this feels like deja vu. and you remember back in 2014 when we started to have these conversations as a country. in 2014 we were convincing people this is an issue. nope, it's not just ferguson, this is everywhere. people didn't necessarily believe us. now people believe. the question like then, now, what do we do? remember, 2020, police killed every year this year. in 2021 alone police have killed over 300 people as of today. daunte wright is just the first story that people have known

nationally. we know that training is interesting. the research even says that training changes police officer attitudes. does not change their behavior. body cameras. the research says it might change police officer attitudes. it doesn't change their behavior. imagine if you had a job, ari, you can do whatever you wanted and the worst case scenario was a training. i mean, that's where we are today. so this is the moment for a real scale back of police power in their scope. and that is one local politicians. it is. it is a mayor's, governors, legislators and city council people. that's where the power. >> i appreciate what you're saying. so much of it is so deeply rooted both at the structural level of how local government and local funding and local stuff works, but also deeply rooted in our minds. as you say, in 2014, the notion of saying is there even a problem here, and people that might think they would want to come to the table with you. i don't know, democratic politicians, certain types of

liberals, whatever, they still need convincing, let alone the wider system. reverend sharpton spoke though this very, very clearly at the memorial. i want to play a little bit of that. take a listen. >> george floyd's story has been the story of black folks. because ever since 401 years ago, the reason we could never be who we wanted and dreamed of being is you kept your knee on our neck. it's time to stand up in georgia's name and say get your knee off our necks. >> deray? >> yes, i think he is right. i think the question becomes how. the devil is in the details on this stuff. so you look at maryland. and maryland, the police reform package there is one of the most aggressive in the united states.

what they did in maryland is their ban on no-knock raids is truly the best set of laws about this that has existed in american history. they also developed a new way of disciplining that is citizen-rooted and community-based that doesn't exist anywhere else in the country. we think of new jersey. use of force, policies apply to all in the state and that is immediate and swift and that is a good thing. then you look at places like missouri. missouri is about to pass a police officer bill of rights that is going to give police more power. after they played rashard brooks, after they passed the new bill, they gave police more power. we've seen dozens of states criminalize the right to protest. i worry that in these moments, people see the energy and they're like well, the change in conversation must mean a change in structures. and let me tell you, i'm in a lot of rooms. the police have never been more organized, that they deal in fear. and even people on our side get nervous because the police will be like communities are unsafe. and if you take away our power to do this, crime -- so we need

more elected officials willing to stand up. and the last thing i'm say, the biden administration can do a lot today around the federal government. the presidency isn't really a big game player, or game-changer when it comes to local police outside of money, but border patrol, 20,000 officers. atf, the dea, i.c.e. tomorrow biden could release an executive order reining them in, and he is not. tomorrow that could happen. no commission, no task force, no legislation. >> all important points, deray mckesson. thank you for being part of our special coverage tonight. i'll see you again. i want to fit in a break. coming up, we have something very important. i want to share with you more of my big picture thoughts. a little bit of a special report on why the chauvin trial could indeed be a wider turning point. stay with us. (mom vo) we fit a lot of life into our subaru forester. (dad) it's good to be back. (mom) it sure is. (mom vo) over the years, we trusted it to carry and protect the things that were most important to us.

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as closing arguments begin

tomorrow in the chauvin murder trial, it's vital to keep in mind the wider problems in american racism, which is why activists say their protests continue, urging everyone to see policing within america's broader problem and original sin. sometimes the big question is worth asking. how did we get here? a short answer is as depressing as it is enraging. we have been here in this position for a long time. when a society is fundamentally unjust, its injustices build and fortify themselves over time. new developments that occur can routinely then flow into the existing systems. so take these three flash points right now, the police, the economy, and the pandemic. the first two operate on years of inequality. the third, this coronavirus of course arrived as a new phenomenon, but it swiftly ground its way through old inequalities, american housing,

health care, and economics, all unequal. and that swiftly turned this technically blind virus into a discriminating killer. black americans dying at roughly triple the rate of white americans from it. the economy reinforcing the dynamic. we can all see tens of millions of jobs were eliminated from the virus shutdown. it's obviously not the worker's fault. i ask you tonight, can we see black workers are almost twice as likely to be laid off during the pandemic? and while yes, everyone may be feeling the recession in different ways, i ask you tonight to look at this. can we see 17% of white-owned businesses face a decline in this pandemic. the number is more than double that for black-owned businesses. and months into this, i have another question. can we also see that congress has taken your money for pandemic relief. and while some of it did go to health care and employment relief, a significant majority

of the $450 billion in relief bills have benefitted large corporations with these huge payoffs with very little accountability. and the 1% is profiting right now as people go hungry and march tonight. billionaires have grown $434 billion richer in the pandemic. hundreds of billions. as we try to understand all this as it keeps going, protesters know about these facts as i'm telling you. you know about the fax. people know where the money goes. people know how the powerful reward themselves and control capital. and as we have a larger debate about a reopening by essential workers who do essential labor, can we address the fact that they find their treatment by corporations and the government to be anything but essential. that's why this is also a night to study and listen to people who have been pressing these injustices long before they took over the headlines or shut down our streets. >> if you can only be tall

because somebody is on their knees, then you have a serious problem. and my feeling is white people have a very, very serious problem. and they should stop thinking about what they can do about it. take me out of it. >> toni morrison speaking to america's foundations. or take the author james baldwin, who urged american society, white and black to really face the violence that creates these scenarios where america's racist roots are fortified by modern law and policing. baldwin arguing you must understand it to see violence in its proper context, be it police brutality or violence by the state or murders that ended the lives of a generation of leaders from king to malcolm x to medgar evers to fred hampton. >> we're still governed by the slave codes. what is called the civil rights movement was really

insurrection. so one can say that the latest slave rebellion was brutally put down. we all know what happened to malcolm. we know what happened to martin. we know what happened to fred hampton and mark clark. and so many more. >> that's a little bit of the history as we watch more history unfold tonight. and this admittedly incomplete report has thus far briefly touched on the economy and the pandemic. now as for the police conduct that set off these wider protests, that history has been with us a long time. the repeated use of excessive force and killing, which begins as incidents but then, worse, becomes formally legitimized in a u.s. criminal justice system that allows and defends it. now we can report that to you

tonight as a fact because the facts show a vast majority of the allegations against police in these instances result in no firings let alone criminal charges. in the few cases that do lead to a charge, take roughly 15 per year over ten

riots in the uconn text of injustice. >> i will continue to condemn riots. continue to say to my brothers and sisters that this is not the way. in the final analysis, a riot is

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thanks for watching our special coverage tonight. here's what's next in the chauvin murder trial. there will be closing arguments, the judge will provide instruction for the jury, they will are sequestered. trials can end in a verdict, guilty or not guilty or in the absence of a verdict with a hung jury and mistrial. msnbc will have full coverage of opening arguments tomorrow. you can always catch me on "the beat" on week nights. more msnbc coverage is coming up after this break. c coverage is u after this break

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tonight my conversation with democratic congresswoman barbara lee. plus biden says america's forever war is coming to an end. i'll speak to the amiral that oversaw the lead of osama bin laden. and that's all coming up tonight.