Expert: Cop never took knee off Floyd’s neck
Officer Derek MINNEAPOLIS — Chauvin had his knee on George Floyd’s neck and — was bearing down with most of his weight the entire — 9 1/2 minutes the Black man lay facedown with his hands cuffed behind his back, a use-of-force expert testified Wednesday at Chauvin’s murder trial.
Jody Stiger, a Los Angeles Police Department sergeant serving as a prosecution witness, said that based on his review of video evidence, Chauvin applied pressure to Floyd’s neck or neck area from the time officers put Floyd on the ground until paramedics arrived.
“That particular force did not change during the entire restraint period?” prosecutor Steve Schleicher asked as he showed the jury a composite image of five photos taken from the various videos of the arrest.
“Correct,” replied Stiger, who on Tuesday testified that the force used against Floyd was excessive.
Chauvin attorney Eric Nelson sought to point out moments in the video footage when, he said, Chauvin’s knee did not appear to be on Floyd’s neck but on his shoulder blade area or the base of his neck. Stiger did not give much ground, saying the officer’s knee in some of the contested photos still seemed to be near Floyd’s neck.
In other testimony, the lead Minnesota state investigator on the case, Senior Special Agent James Reyerson, agreed with Nelson that Floyd seemed to say in a police body-camera video of his arrest, “I ate too many drugs.”
But prosecutor Matthew Frank later said that Floyd actually said, “I ain’t do no drugs.”
Chauvin, 45, is charged with murder and manslaughter in Floyd’s death May 25. Floyd, 46, was arrested outside a neighborhood market after being accused of trying to pass a counterfeit $20 bill.
A panicky-sounding Floyd struggled and claimed to be claustrophobic as police tried to put him in a squad car, and they pinned him down on the pavement.
Bystander video of Floyd crying that he couldn’t breathe as onlookers yelled at Chauvin to get off him sparked protests and scattered violence around the U.S. and triggered a reckoning over racism and police brutality.
Nelson has argued that the now-fired white officer “did exactly what he had been trained to do over his 19-year career,” and he has suggested that the illegal drugs, including a lethal dose of Fentanyl, in Floyd’s system and his underlying health conditions are what killed him, not Chauvin’s knee.
On Wednesday, Chauvin’s lawyer asked Stiger about uses of force that are commonly referred to by police as “lawful but awful.” Stiger conceded that “you can have a situation where by law it looks horrible to the common eye, but based on the state law, it’s lawful.”