The testimony of the police chief of Minneapolis (Minnesota), Monday, April 5, during the trial of Derek Chauvin, the police officer accused of the death of George Floyd in May 2020 will remain one of the highlights of these hearings, scheduled until at the end of April. Without a shadow of hesitation, his voice deep and confident, Medaria Arradondo has repeatedly ruled that his former subordinate had “Broken the rules” of the city police.
The force of his words reinforced the exceptional character of the hearing of a police chief in this type of case. These damning statements are added to those of two superiors of Mr. Chauvin, heard last week, and going in the same direction. They all break with the solidarity traditionally observed in the ranks of the police when an officer is prosecuted for excessive use of force, suggesting in this specific case behavior outside the norm.
By keeping his knee on the handcuffed victim’s neck and lying on his stomach for more than nine minutes, the officer did not act accordingly. “To ethics, values and training” ongoing in the institution, insisted the “boss” of the police, an African-American in his fifties who, in more than thirty years of career, has climbed all the ranks.
Questioned for four hours by the two parties, he described at length the training followed by the officers before and after their start of their career, the circumstances which justify the use of force or the de-escalation measures taught at the police academy. Medaria Arradondo also recalled the main principles of the police, supposed “Protect with courage and serve with compassion” respecting “The sacredness of human life”. “De-escalation techniques” must be the priority of the police, he insisted.
A duty of help which did not apply
The police chief apparently saw none of this in the behavior of Mr. Chauvin, filmed by passers-by and the cameras worn by his colleagues, during the arrest of Mr. Floyd on suspicion of having purchased a pack of cigarettes with a fake 20 dollar bill. The physical restraint employed by the police officer “Could be reasonable in the first few seconds [de l’interpellation] to control it, but not when Mr. Floyd no longer offered any resistance, and certainly not when he was unconscious ”. He therefore rejected “Vehemently” the idea “That there was an appropriate use of force”.
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