Good morning and welcome to The Independent’s rolling coverage of the trial of Derek Chauvin, the former Minneapolis police officer accused of murdering George Floyd during an arrest last May.

The trial of Derek Chauvin, a former Minneapolis police officer accused of killing African American nightclub bouncer George Floyd last May, is to resume for a second day at 9.30am EST (3.30pm GMT) on Tuesday at Hennepin County Courthouse in the Minnesota city following an emotional opening day of witness testimony.

Mr Chauvin has pleaded not guilty to three charges: second-degree unintentional murder, third-degree murder and manslaughter over the killing of Floyd, whose death sparked worldwide Black Lives Matter protests against police brutality and systemic racism. The murder charges could carry 40 and 25-year sentences, respectively.

Donald Williams, a professional mixed martial arts fighter who witnessed the fatal arrest of Floyd outside of a local convenience store, will return to the stand to give further evidence after describing the victim’s death in graphic detail on Monday.

Williams can be heard on a bystander’s phone screaming at Chauvin, who held his knee on Floyd’s neck for approximately nine minutes during the arrest on 25 May 2020, shortly after Floyd was accused of attempting to pay for cigarettes with a counterfeit $20 bill at Cup Foods.

Williams calls Chauvin a “bum” in the video, accuses the white officer of “enjoying” his restraining of Floyd and told jurors on Monday he believed that Chauvin was using his knee in a “blood choke” on Floyd, a wrestling move intended to knock an opponent unconscious.

Chauvin’s lawyers are expected to counter that Williams has no knowledge of police manoeuvres.

Let’s recap yesterday’s events from the beginning, which commenced with opening statements from the prosecution and defence teams.

“Derek Chauvin betrayed his badge when he used excessive and unreasonable force upon the body of George Floyd,” prosecutor Jerry W Blackwell said in his opening remarks. “He put his knees upon his neck and back, grinding and crunching him until the very breath, no ladies and gentlemen the very life, was squeezed out of him.”

The central questions during day one of the trial – and probably in the weeks to come – was not whether an encounter took place between the two men on 25 May, or whether Chauvin knelt on Floyd’s neck, for which amble video exists, from police body cameras, bystanders’ phones, security footage and police surveillance video.

Instead, after months of worldwide anger about institutional racism in policing, the trial appears likely to centre on two narrow lines of inquiry: whether the force Chauvin used against Floyd was reasonable given the circumstances and whether it directly caused his death.

Josh Marcus has this report.

For their part, Chauvin’s lawyers said the use of force is an “unattractive” but “necessary” part of police work.

“Derek Chauvin did exactly what he had been trained to do over his 19-year career,” his attorney Eric Nelson argued.

“The evidence is far greater than nine minutes and 29 seconds,” he added. “Evidence will show that when confronted by police, Mr Floyd put drugs in his mouth in an effort to conceal them from police.”

Josh Marcus has this one too.

Witness Jena Scurry, a 911 dispatcher, testified on Monday and said she believed a video she saw capturing George Floyd’s death had frozen because officers had remained on top of him for so long.

Scurry told jurors she watched Floyd’s arrest unfold on a video feed from city security cameras last year, however, what she saw made her so concerned that she called her supervisor, a police sergeant, to show him the footage.

“They were still on the ground. That whole situation was still the same,” she testified in court. “I first asked if the screens had frozen because it hadn’t changed,” she added.

Stuti Mishra has this report.

Scurry also said she instinctively knew the apprehension of Floyd was not going according to plan as she watched the live footage of him pinned to the pavement play out.

The state’s second witness, Alisha Oyler, who works at a Speedway gas station across from the arrest site outside Cup Foods, followed Scurry and told the court she saw police “messing with someone” when she began taking cell phone footage.

Josh Marcus has this report.

The aforementioned Donald Williams, returning to give further testimony today, yesterday provided commentary on Chauvin’s use of a “shimmy” manoeuvre while kneeling on the neck of Floyd and described watching the victim “slowly fade away”.

“His eyes slowly rolled to the back of his head. You see the blood coming out of his nose. You heard him tell them before he stopped speaking ‘my stomach hurts’,” Williams said.

“From there on, he was lifeless, he didn’t move, he didn’t speak. He didn’t have no life in him no more on his body movements.”

Graeme Massie has some useful background on state attorney general Keith Ellison’s team, from Matthew Frank to Jerry Blackwell.

The Floyd family attorney appeared on CNN’s New Day this morning to rubbish the defence’s argument that Derek Chauvin was only follow his training in pinning the arrested man to the curb for nine minutes and 29 seconds until he could no longer breathe.

The deceased’s brother Philonise meanwhile told Alisyn Camerota the defence team was trying to “assassinate” his sibling’s reputation.

The trial is back underway at the Hennepin County Courthouse in Minneapolis for Day Two, with Donald Williams back behind the witness stand.

You can follow it via the live video feed below or at the top of this blog and we’ll be bringing you all the latest updates right here as they happen.