FLOYD MURDER TRIAL: Confrontation with Feisty Witness Brings Chauvin’s Defense into Focus.

Hansen is one of those people who is often mistaken but never in doubt — the toughest kind of personality for a litigator to prep for testimony. Once defense counsel Eric Nelson began confronting her with errors in her prior statement, she obviously realized she was unprepared and looked foolish. Clearly, saying “I did not review my statement” wasn’t going to do the trick. So, in her frustration, she started arguing with Nelson and defensively adding details that were not responsive to his questions — such as the explosive conclusion that she was angry at the time of the events in question because she had just watched the police murder Floyd. That, of course, is the central issue in the case, and one on which she is not competent to render an opinion, lacking both medical training and non-hearsay knowledge of what happened before she arrived on the scene just four minutes before the ambulance took Floyd away.

Hansen also has a service-rivalry chip on her shoulder. As a trained first responder, she perceives that the Floyd situation was botched. She has convinced herself that if 9-1-1 had been called, her fire department would have had responders on the scene within three minutes, the paramedics would have been close behind, and Floyd would have been saved. She therefore blames the police department and its dispatcher for mishandling the situation, with the result that the medics arrived too late. Hansen is emotionally invested, and self-restraint is not her strong suit, so she leaps to the conclusion that the police killed Floyd, and she wants the world to know that’s what she thinks — regardless of whether it’s admissible testimony.

Earlier: Justice for Derek Chauvin.