Here's part of MN's 1st Degree Murder Statute:
609.185 MURDER IN THE FIRST DEGREE.
(a) Whoever does any of the following is guilty of murder in the first degree and shall be sentenced to imprisonment for life:
(1) causes the death of a human being with premeditation and with intent to effect the death of the person or of another;
As I noted earlier, premeditation occurs when Chauvin realizes he is killing Floyd. Chavin realizes this because he hears Floyd saying he cannot breathe and the crowd around him is telling him he is killing Floyd.
At that point, Chauvin's mind is processing that he is stopping Floyd from breathing, which is killing Floyd (humans w/o oxygen = dead). That happens very early in the process. Despite processing this, and being under no fear of attack from Floyd or the crowd, as he is surrounded by fellow officers, some of whom are holding down Floyd, Chauvin calmly, deliberately continues to choke out Floyd.
As I noted earlier, each time Chauvin hears Floyd or the crowd tell him that he is making it impossible for Floyd to breathe, he is reaffirming an intent to stop Floyd from breathing, which = intent to kill.
Then you come to the end of the video, where Floyd is no longer speaking. At this point, Chauvin knows Floyd has been incapacitated as a result of not breathing. To incapacitate a person by stopping him from breathing is called strangling. And yet Chavin sits on Floyd for at least two minutes while Floyd is silent. All while the crowd is telling him that he has choked Floyd to death.
Of course Chauvin will argue he didn't believe Floyd or the crowd, and that he didn't think he was killing him. But kneeling on a man's neck for eight minutes gives one eight minutes to think about what he's doing. Eight minutes to listen to people telling him to stop.
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