Testimony has resumed with another police official on the stand Tuesday in the trial of Derek Chauvin, the fired police officer charged in George Floyd’s death. It comes a day after Minneapolis Police Chief Medaria Arradondo testified Chauvin’s actions violated department policy.
Chauvin, who was seen in disturbing videos kneeling on Floyd’s neck for more than nine minutes, is charged with second-degree murder, third-degree murder and second-degree manslaughter. He has pleaded not guilty.
Minneapolis Police Sergeant Ker Yang was testifying Tuesday about how the department’s crisis intervention team responds to people suffering behavioral or mental health crises. He said officers are trained to de-escalate a situation whenever “safe and feasible.”
On Monday, testimony focused on training and department policy. Arradondo testified Chauvin’s restraint should have stopped once Floyd stopped resisting, and “certainly once he was in distress and trying to verbalize that, [Chauvin] should have stopped.”
“….Clearly when Mr. Floyd was no longer responsive and even motionless, to continue to apply that level of force to a person prone out, hands cuffed behind their back — that in no way, shape or form is anything that is by policy,” Arradondo said. “It’s not part of our training and it’s certainly not part of our ethics or values.”
Arradondo said Chauvin “absolutely” violated the department’s de-escalation policy, which requires officers to seek to minimize the use of physical force. Of Chauvin’s restraint against Floyd, he said, “That action is not de-escalation.”
“When we talk about the framework of our sanctity of life [policy] and talk about principles that we have, that action goes contrary to what we’re taught,” he said.
Earlier in the day, the emergency doctor who tried to resuscitate Floyd took the stand and was asked about how he believed Floyd died. He said oxygen deficiency, or asphyxia, “was one of the more likely possibilities.” Prosecutors have said Floyd died of oxygen deprivation underneath the pressure of Chauvin’s knee, but defense attorney Eric Nelson said Floyd’s drug use caused a fatal heart arrhythmia.
