The teenage store clerk who was working at the store where George Floyd allegedly tried to cash in a fake $20 bill moments before he was killed, testified on Wednesday during the trial of former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin.
Christopher Martin, the 19-year-old who worked at the Cut Foods where Floyd visited prior to his fatal encounter with police, said that he felt a great deal of guilt when he came out of the store and witnessed Chauvin's knee pressed on Floyd's neck. He lamented over not being able to cover the bill himself.
"If I would have just not taken the bill, this could have been avoided," Martin told the court, according to Newsweek.
According to a Twitter thread posted by PBS reporter Yamiche Alcindor, the teenager explained that the store had a policy stating if an employee accepted a counterfeit bill, then the money would be deducted from their paycheck.
“The Cup Foods cashier who sold George Floyd cigarettes and handled the alleged fake $20 bill, testified that his pay would have been docked by his manager for accepting a fake bill and that his manager made him go talk to Floyd instead of going out himself,” Alcindor tweeted.
Striking: Christopher Martin, the Cup Foods cashier who sold George Floyd cigarettes and handled the alleged fake $20 bill, said he told his manager that he could dock his pay $20 to pay for the alleged fake bill. But the manager decided to have police called on Floyd instead.
— Yamiche Alcindor (@Yamiche) March 31, 2021
According to Newsweek, the 19-year-old clerk approached the car with another co-worker and asked Floyd to return to the store. When Floyd refused, Alcindor tweeted that Martin said he went back and told his manager he would take care of the $20 himself but was instructed to try again. After another unsuccessful attempt, the manager instructed his employees to call the police on Floyd.
When the police arrived, Martin said he came out of the Cut Foods to make sense of all the commotion.
"I saw people yelling and screaming," he told the jury on Wednesday. "I saw Derek with his knee on George's neck."
Martin said, at the time, he had been living above the store where he worked for four months with his mother and sister.
Martin recalled urging his mother to remain out of the fray, before recording the incident on his phone. Later, the teenager acknowledged erasing the footage from his phone that night because he assumed that Floyd had died when the ambulance took the longer route to the hospital, Newsweek reports.
Cup Foods clerk Christopher Martin testifies he heard a commotion and went outside the store, where he saw Chauvin on top of Floyd: "George was motionless, limp. And Chauvin seemed very … he was in a resting state. Meaning like, he just rested his knee on his neck." pic.twitter.com/tFGD4ahUXa
— CBS News (@CBSNews) March 31, 2021
Earlier this week, two other teens who witnessed Floyd's arrest and untimely death also testified about feeling guilty that they weren't able to help or save Floyd as he struggled to breathe under the weight of Chauvin's knee.
As Blavity previously reported, Darnella Frazier, the 18-year-old whose recording of the altercation circulated online, shared with attorneys on Tuesday that she has lost sleep pondering what more she could have done for Floyd.
"When I look at George Floyd, I look at my dad, I look at brothers, I look at my cousins, my uncles because they are all black. ..I have black friends & I look at that & I look at that how that could have been one of them,” Frazier said, according to a tweet from Alcindor.
Martin revealed this week that he quit his job at Cut Foods shortly after Floyd's death because he didn't feel safe working there any longer.
