The chief of Minneapolis police has testified that former officer Derek Chauvin violated the policy on force during the arrest of George Floyd.
Chief Medaria Arradondo said the way Chauvin restrained Floyd was not in line with training and “certainly not part of our ethics and our values”.
He told the court that the officers should not restrain Floyd in the manner used by them after he stopped resisting, “and certainly once he was in distress”.
He said the type of restraint Chauvin was using came “once there was no longer any resistance and clearly after Floyd was no longer responsive – and even motionless”.
“That is, in no way, shape or form, by policy, is not part of our training, and is certainly not part of our ethics and our values.”
Arradondo also noted it would be rare for officers to take into custody a suspect accused of passing a counterfeit bill, as Floyd was.
He said “talking your way out of a situation” was always better than using force, adding that officers may seek the “community’s help” when available.
Defence lawyer Eric Nelson asked about officers brandishing a weapon to defuse a situation, as Chauvin did by holding up pepper spray to onlookers.
“Sometimes an officer has to take out his gun, and say hey if you don’t listen to me I’m going use force,” Nelson said.
Chief Arradondo agreed it was in line with policy to sometimes gesture in such a way to get a suspect to back down.
When shown different angles of footage of the arrest by the lawyer, Arradondo also noted that right before the paramedics arrived, it appeared that Chauvin had shifted his knee onto Floyd’s shoulder blade.Arradondo had fired Chauvin and the three other officers involved days after Floyd’s death last May.
Chauvin is on trial for murder and has denied the charges against him.
Chief Arradondo joined the force in 1989. He became the city’s first African-American police chief in 2017.
Last June, he said that Floyd’s “tragic death was not due to a lack of training – the training was there”. He called Floyd’s death “murder”.
Arradondo has testified in 2017 against patrolman for the killing of Australian woman Justine Damond.
