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Chauvin’s defense starts calling witnesses
Defense begins calling witnesses in ex-officer’s trial
A use-of-force expert testified the former cop was justified in pinning George Floyd to the ground because of his frantic resistance.
MINNEAPOLIS — Former Officer Derek Chauvin was justified in pinning George Floyd to the ground because of his frantic resistance, a use-of-force expert testified for the defense Tuesday, contradicting a parade of authorities from both inside and outside the Minneapolis Police Department.
Taking the stand at Chauvin’s murder trial, Barry Brodd, a former Santa Rosa, California, officer, said police don’t have to wait for something bad to happen; they need only have a reasonable fear that there’s a threat and act accordingly.
“It’s easy to sit and judge ... an officer’s conduct. It’s more of a challenge to, again, put yourself in the officer’s shoes to try to make an evaluation through what they’re feeling, what they’re sensing, the fear they have, and then make a determination,” Brodd said.
He also said he doesn’t believe Chauvin and the other officers used deadly force when they pinned Floyd on his stomach, with his hands cuffed behind his back and Chauvin’s knee on his neck or neck area for what prosecutors say was about 9 ½ minutes.
Brodd likened it to a situation in which officers used a Taser on someone fighting with officers, and the suspect fell, hit his head and died: “That isn’t an incident of deadly force. That’s an incident of an accidental death.”
Several top Minneapolis police officials, including the police chief, have testified that Chauvin used excessive force and violated his training. And medical experts called by prosecutors have said that Floyd died from a lack of oxygen because of the way he was restrained.
But Brodd said: “I felt that Officer Chauvin’s interactions with Mr. Floyd were following his training, following current practices in policing and were objectively reasonable.”
Under cross-examination by prosecutor Steve Schleicher, Brodd agreed that the use of force must always be reasonable and that officers must stop or lessen that force until it becomes reasonable.
“Because that’s really the standard ... reasonability, right?” Schleicher asked. “Yes,” Brodd replied. The witness said it appeared to him that Floyd was still struggling while he was on the ground.
The matter of what is reasonable is important: Police officers are allowed certain latitude to use deadly force when someone puts the officer or other people in danger. Legal experts say a key question for the jury will be whether Chauvin’s actions were reasonable in those specific circumstances.
After Brodd initially said Chauvin’s knee was on Floyd’s neck area, top of the spine or upper back, Schleicher showed Brodd a still image from a body camera and got him to concede that Chauvin’s left knee was on Floyd’s neck.
Under questioning by Chauvin attorney Eric Nelson, Brodd also testified that the bystanders yelling at the officers to get off Floyd complicated the situation for Chauvin and the others.
“The crowds started to grow in size, start to become more vocal. So now officers are always trained to deal with, right, so what threat is the biggest threat?” he said.
“Is it the suspect on the ground in front of me in handcuffs that we have relatively controlled? Or is it the unknown threat posed by the crowd that could go from verbal to trying to interfere with my arrest process in a matter of seconds?”
Brodd appeared to endorse what prosecution witnesses have said is a common misconception: that if someone can talk, he or she can breathe.
“I certainly don’t have medical degrees, but I was always trained and feel it’s a reasonable assumption that if somebody’s, ‘I’m choking, I’m choking,’ well, you’re not choking because you can breathe,” he said.
Chauvin, a 45-year-old white man, is on trial on charges of murder and manslaughter in Floyd’s death last May after his arrest of suspicion of passing a counterfeit $20 at a neighborhood market.
Nelson has argued that the 19-year Minneapolis police veteran did what he was trained to do and that Floyd died because of his illegal drug use and underlying health problems, including high blood pressure and heart disease. Fentanyl and methamphetamine were discovered in his system.
As the defense began presenting its case on Tuesday after the prosecution rested following 11 days of testimony and a mountain of video evidence, Nelson sought to deflect blame away from Chauvin.
He brought up a 2019 arrest in which Floyd suffered from dangerously high blood pressure and confessed to heavy use of opioids. And he suggested that the 46-year-old Black man may have suffered last May from “excited delirium” — what a witness described as a potentially lethal state of agitation and even superhuman strength that can be triggered by drugs, heart disease or mental problems.
Another defense witness Tuesday was Shawanda Hill, who was in the SUV with Floyd before his ill-fated encounter with Chauvin.
When he saw an officer at the window with a gun, Floyd “instantly grabbed the wheel and he was like, ‘Please, please, don’t kill me. Please, please, don’t shoot me,’ ” Hill testified.