Kneeling on Floyd totally unnecessary, top cop tells jurors
POLICE are not taught to kneel on suspects’ necks to subdue them, the George Floyd murder trial was told yesterday.
Lieutenant Richard Zimmerman told the court that if somebody was in handcuffs and the prone position like Mr Floyd then putting a knee on their neck ‘can kill him’.
The homicide detective was one of 14 officers who published a public letter condemning Derek Chauvin in the wake of the death last May, saying ‘this is not who we are’ as police.
Minneapolis police has never trained its officers to use force the way Chauvin did, he told the jury, as he labelled the handling of the arrest ‘totally unnecessary’. Lieutenant Zimmerman, a 30-year veteran, told the Hennepin County Court yesterday that Chauvin should have removed his knee the
‘Could have ended their restraint’
moment that Mr Floyd stopped resisting and was in handcuffs.
But the court has heard the nowsacked officer, 45, kept the suspect pinned to the floor for more than nine minutes despite 27 pleas from the black father-of-five that he could not breathe.
New images played to the jury showed an anxious-looking Chauvin waiting in a hospital corridor for news of Mr Floyd after the 46-year-old was taken there by ambulance.
Nervously biting his lip, Chauvin – and another officer involved in the arrest over a fake $20 bill – were seen on body camera footage outside the stabilisation room in the Hennepin County Medical Centre, where doctors tried in vain to save the patient.
Paramedics called to the scene had already told the court the former security guard had no pulse when they arrived and that he ‘flatlined’ in the ambulance.
Lieutenant Zimmerman told the court that kneeling on the neck of someone who is handcuffed and in the prone position is ‘top-tier, deadly’ force.
If somebody is on the floor face down you need to ‘get them out of the prone position as soon as possible’ because it can restrict their breathing, he added in the court.
A person in your custody is your ‘responsibility’ and their ‘wellbeing is your responsibility’, the detective said.
Prosecutor Matthew Frank asked Lieutenant Zimmerman what he thought about Chauvin’s use of force, to which the officer replied: ‘Totally unnecessary. First of all holding him down to the ground face down and putting your knee on your neck for that amount of time is just uncalled for.
‘I saw no reason why the officers felt they were in danger if that’s what they felt – and that’s what they would have to have felt – to use that kind of force.’
His view was echoed by David Pleoger, shift supervisor in the Minneapolis Police Department’s third precinct on the day of the incident. The now-retired sergeant said: ‘When Mr Floyd was no longer offering up any resistance to the officer, they could have ended their restraint.’
When prosecutor Steve Schleicher asked whether that meant when the suspect was in handcuffs on the ground and no longer resisting, Mr Pleoger replied: ‘Correct.’
Mr Pleoger was called by Chauvin in the aftermath, as Mr Floyd was on his way to hospital and an angry crowd swarmed around the scene. Body camera footage recorded Chauvin saying: ‘I was just going to call you and have you come out to our scene here. We just had to hold a guy down, he was going crazy. [He] wouldn’t go in the back of the squad car.’
Mr Pleoger told the court that during their conversation ‘I believe he [Chauvin] told me that he had tried to put Mr Floyd in the car, he’d become combative’. The witness said: ‘[Chauvin said Mr Floyd had] injured his nose or his mouth and eventually after struggling with him he’d suffered a medical emergency and an ambulance was called.’
Only when Mr Pleoger arrived at the hospital did Chauvin finally tell him he had put his knee on Mr Floyd’s neck, the jury heard.
Chauvin has pleaded not guilty to murder and manslaughter charges over the death of Mr Floyd which caused worldwide condemnation.
The trial, which is expected to last three more weeks, continues. Three other former Minneapolis police officers are due to stand trial in August for aiding and abetting Chauvin, which they deny.
‘We just had to hold a guy down’