When three former Minneapolis police officers emerged from a hearing in a downtown courthouse Friday afternoon, hundreds of protesters, who minutes earlier had been line dancing in the street, instantly transformed into an aggressive mob, screaming “Murderer!” as they followed two of the men to their parked vehicle.

The protesters swarmed around a truck as former officer Thomas Lane got into the front passenger seat and his one-time partner, J.

The ex-officers did not react or engage with the crowd as they walked through a gauntlet of protesters who extended their middle fingers and yelled at the men.

On Friday, however, one courtroom was the site of a pretrial hearing for the state’s case against the four former officers charged in the death of George Floyd outside Cup Foods in south Minneapolis on May 25.

Elizer Darris of Minneapolis took off his face mask bearing the name of Breonna Taylor, a Black woman killed by police in Kentucky, and encouraged others to keep up the pressure beyond Friday’s hearing.

His message, like that of many of those on the street Friday, was that the trial must be held in Minneapolis — not moved elsewhere in the state as defense lawyers have sought.

One woman carried a sign in the image of a blue Minneapolis police logo reconfigured to read, “Murderous City of Lakes Police.” Another sign read, “If you think they did it by the book, then we’ll have to burn every page.”.

When the hearing wrapped up and reporters gathered in a fenced pen awaiting the lawyers, the protesters played N.W.A.’s profane anti-police anthem from its 1988 “Straight Outta Compton” album.

But Lane, 6-foot-4, towered above the crowd and instantly caught the attention of protesters, who converged on him and his silver-haired lawyer as they walked with Kueng and Plunkett, who tends to wear distinctive hats.