Police chief: Kneeling on Floyd’s neck not policy
The Minneapolis police chief testified yesterday that now-fired Officer Derek Chauvin violated departmental policy – and went against “our principles and the values that we have” – in pressing his knee on George Floyd’s neck and keeping him down after Floyd had stopped resisting and was in distress.
Continuing to kneel on Floyd’s neck once he was handcuffed behind his back and lying on his stomach was “in no way, shape or form” part of department policy or training, “and it is certainly not part of our ethics or our values”, Police Chief Medaria Arradondo said on day six of Chauvin’s murder trial.
Arradondo testified not only that Chauvin should have let Floyd up sooner, but that the pressure on Floyd’s neck did not appear to be light to moderate, as called for under the department’s neck-restraint policy; that Chauvin failed in his duty to render first aid before the ambulance arrived; and that he violated policy requiring officers to deescalate tense situations with no or minimal force if they can. His testimony came after the emergency room doctor who pronounced Floyd dead said he theorised at the time that Floyd’s heart most likely stopped because of a lack of oxygen.
Dr Bradford Langenfeld, who was a senior resident on duty that night at Hennepin County Medical Centre and tried to resuscitate Floyd, gave evidence as prosecutors sought to establish that it was Chauvin’s knee on the black man’s neck that killed him.
Under questioning by prosecutors, Langenfeld said, based on the information he had, that it was “more likely than the other possibilities” that Floyd’s cardiac arrest was caused by asphyxia, or insufficient oxygen.
Chauvin, 45, is charged with murder and manslaughter in Floyd’s death May 25. The white officer is accused of pressing his knee into the 46-year-old man’s neck for 9 minutes, 29 seconds, outside a corner market where Floyd had been arrested on suspicion of trying to pass a counterfeit US$20 bill to pay for cigarettes.
The defence has argued that Chauvin did what he was trained to do and that Floyd’s use of illegal drugs and his underlying health conditions caused his death.
Nelson, Chauvin’s attorney, asked Langenfeld whether some drugs can cause hypoxia, or insufficient oxygen. The doctor acknowledged that fentanyl and methamphetamine, both of which were found in Floyd’s body, can do so.
The county medical examiner’s office ultimately classified Floyd’s death a homicide – a death caused by someone else.