Kneeling on George Floyd’s neck violated values, says police chief

Derek Chauvin violated the police department’s training policies and its ‘values’ by kneeling on George Floyd’s neck after he had stopped resisting arrest, the Minneapolis police chief has testified.

George Floyd’s brother Philonise raises his fist as he leaves court in Minneapolis on Tuesday. Picture: Getty Images

Derek Chauvin violated the police department’s training policies and its “values” by kneeling on George Floyd’s neck after he had stopped resisting arrest, the Minneapolis police chief has testified.

Medaria Arradondo said the use of force against Floyd was reasonable during the “first few seconds” of his May 25 arrest but it should have ended quickly.

“It is contrary to our training to indefinitely place your knee on a prone, handcuffed individual for an indefinite length of time,” the police chief told Mr Chauvin’s murder trial on Tuesday.

“That in no way, shape or form is anything that is by policy. It is not part of our training and it is certainly not part of our ethics or our values.

“Once Mr Floyd had stopped resisting, and certainly once he was in distress and trying to verbalise that, that should have stopped.”

Mr Chauvin, 45, was seen in a video taken by a bystander kneeling on the neck of a handcuffed Floyd for more than nine minutes as the 46-year-old African-American man complained repeatedly that he “can’t breathe”.

Police Chief Arradondo sacked Mr Chauvin and the three other officers involved in the ­arrest that led to Floyd’s death.

The harrowing video of Floyd’s arrest touched off protests against racial injustice and police brutality in the US and around the world.

Mr Chauvin has pleaded not guilty to charges of murder and manslaughter.

His lawyer, Eric Nelson, introduced video on Tuesday that he said showed Mr Chauvin’s knee on Floyd’s shoulder blade and not on his neck. Prosecutors countered that the video depicted the moment when paramedics had arrived and Chauvin had removed his knee from Floyd’s neck to get up.

Also testifying was the doctor who treated Floyd when he was brought to the emergency room at a Minneapolis hospital.

Bradford Wankhede Langenfeld said Floyd was in cardiac arrest when he arrived and 30 minutes of ­efforts to revive him were unsuccessful. He said a lack of oxygen was the most likely reason Floyd’s heart had stopped beating.

Prosecutors are seeking to prove that Floyd’s death was due to asphyxiation while Mr Chauvin’s defence lawyer claims it was due to illegal drugs in his system.

AFP