(11 Mar 2021) FOR CLEAN VERSION SEE STORY NUMBER: 4315378

Jury selection resumed Thursday for the third day for the trial of former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin as attorneys grappled further with the challenges of seating an impartial and diverse jury in such a high-profile case.
By day's end, the jury included five men and one woman. Cahill said three are white, one is multiracial, one is Hispanic and one is Black.
The sole juror picked Thursday described himself as an outgoing, family-oriented soccer fan for whom the prospect of the trial was "kind of exciting."
The man, who said his favorite team is the Spanish powerhouse Real Madrid, said he's also a fan of true crime podcasts and TV shows.
He acknowledged under questioning from defense attorney Eric Nelson that he had a "very negative" impression of Chauvin.
The man wrote on his questionnaire that he had seen the widely viewed bystander video of Floyd "desperately screaming that he couldn't breathe" even as other officers stood by and bystanders shouted that Chauvin was killing Floyd.
Yet asked whether he could set his opinions aside and stick to the evidence presented in court, he said he can.
A judge on Thursday granted prosecutors' request to add a third-degree murder count against a former Minneapolis police officer charged in George Floyd's death, offering jurors an additional option for conviction and resolving an issue that might have delayed his trial for months.
Hennepin County Judge Peter Cahill reinstated the charge after the former officer, Derek Chauvin, failed to get appellate courts to block it.
Cahill had earlier rejected the charge as not warranted by the circumstances of Floyd's death, but an appellate court ruling in an unrelated case established new grounds.
Floyd was declared dead on May 25 after Chauvin, who is white, pressed his knee against the Black man's neck for about nine minutes.
Floyd's death sparked sometimes violent protests in Minneapolis and beyond, leading to a nationwide reckoning on race.

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