On Thursday, the Minneapolis police sergeant on duty the night George Floyd was killed testified in the prosecution of Derek Chauvin—the ex-cop charged with murder in the case that helped touch off a national reckoning over racism and police brutality last year. (Chauvin has pleaded not guilty.) On the stand during day four of the trial, David Pleoger, who has since retired, suggested that even if Chauvin was justified in restraining Floyd, he did so far longer than was warranted. “When Mr. Floyd was no longer offering up any resistance to the officers,” he said, “they could have ended the restraint.” It was yet more damning testimony against Chauvin, and all the more noteworthy because it came from within the police department.

But Pleoger won’t be the only Minneapolis police leader to testify for the prosecution. The chief, Medaria Arradondo, is also expected to be called to the stand against his former officer—an exceedingly unusual occurrence that could play a big role in the case against Chauvin. “It’s a pretty remarkable move on the part of the prosecution,” former DeKalb County, Georgia, police chief Cedric Alexander told the Guardian on Friday. “It’s very rare that you’re going to see a chief either appear for the defense or the prosecution.”

The forthcoming testimony from Arradondo, and that of Pleoger and Sergeant Jon Edwards, also of the Minneapolis police force, underscores the unique nature of the case. It was obviously going to be an emotional trial—the nine minutes it took to kill Floyd embodied centuries of trauma under a racist, oppressive system—and it has, indeed, been gut-wrenching to watch. “That could have been me or my brother or my father at that particular time in that particular situation,” Justin Miller, an attorney for the Floyd family, told CNN on Thursday. “It’s really sad because that is the feeling that I think a lot of Black Americans are feeling when they watch this.” But there has also been something singular about watching that grief and frustration play out in the context of the courtroom. “[Floyd] has been humanized in a way, he has been empathized with in a way, that I have never seen in my lifetime for a Black person who was killed by the police,” Morgan State University professor and MSNBC contributor Jason Johnson said Thursday.

It has been powerful to watch the prosecution preempt any attempt by the defense to attack Floyd’s character by emphasizing his humanity. The participation of the Minneapolis police chief, given departments’ longstanding reflex to protect those in their ranks, is also heartening. The question, beyond whether or not it all results in a conviction, is if this is a one-off, or the beginning of a necessary shift. “It’s a good thing that [Arrdondo is] going to testify against Chauvin, but at the same time we need justice,” DJ Hooker, a Black Lives Matter organizer in Minneapolis told the Guardian. “Getting Chauvin convicted, that’s a way to get justice. Getting the other three killer cops convicted, that’s another way to get justice. But also, getting systemic change. That’s also justice, and that’s also what we need to work on getting.”

— Inside the Messy Breakup of an OnlyFans Model and Her Über-Wealthy Boyfriend
— Wyoming Tells Donald Trump Jr. to Sit Down and STFU
— A Wave of Displaced New Yorkers Is Upending the Hamptons Social Order
— How a Group of Rich Memphians Acted on Trump’s Big Lie During Capitol Attack
— Prosecutors Are Lining Up Witnesses in Trump Investigations
— Republicans Brave Plan to Stop Mass Shootings: Do Nothing
— Next-Level Harassment of Female Journalists Puts News Outlets to the Test
— Six Photographers Share Images From Their COVID Year
— From the Archive: American Nightmare, the Ballad of Richard Jewell
— Serena Williams, Michael B. Jordan, Gal Gadot, and more are coming to your favorite screen April 13–15. Get your tickets to Vanity Fair’s Cocktail Hour, Live! here.