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The Guardian - US
The Guardian - US
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Joanna Walters in New York

Derek Chauvin trial: police expert witness says ‘excessive force’ used on George Floyd – as it happened

Lt Johnny Mercil testifies on seventh day of Derek Chauvin trial on Tuesday.
Lt Johnny Mercil testifies on seventh day of Derek Chauvin trial on Tuesday. Photograph: Jane Rosenberg/Reuters

Closing summary

Judge Peter Cahill, presiding over the trial of white former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin who is charged with murdering George Floyd, a 46-year-old Black man last May, just wrapped proceedings for the day.

Al Sharpton (L), George Floyd’s brother Philonise Floyd, attorney Ben Crump (4th L), Eric Garner’s mother Gwen Carr, and NYC mayoral candidate Ray McGuire walk outside the Hennepin County Government Center this morning.
Al Sharpton (L), George Floyd’s brother Philonise Floyd, attorney Ben Crump (4th L), Eric Garner’s mother Gwen Carr, and NYC mayoral candidate Ray McGuire walk outside the Hennepin County Government Center this morning. Photograph: Stephen Maturen/Getty Images

That was a little unexpected. Court normally goes for at least another hour. But it’s been a demanding day for the jury in terms of attention span and stamina to remain attentive through hours of mostly dry, technical testimony from police training and medical experts.

The prosecution will continue its case tomorrow as it continues to call witnesses.

On Day Seven of testimony, here were the highlights.

  • Police expert witness, Jody Stiger, a sergeant in the Los Angeles Police Department and a former Marine, testifying for the prosecution, said Derek Chauvin used ‘excessive force’ on George Floyd when he arrested him on May 25, 2020.
  • Minneapolis police medical support coordinator Nicole Mackenzie described how police officers have a number of obligations to render first aid and try to resuscitate a person who’s stopped breathing, none of which Chauvin did despite his training. Next week she’ll testify for the defense.
  • When the prosecutor asked her “Do you train officers that if a person can talk it means they can breathe?” She said no. She explained:“That would be incomplete to say...because somebody could be in respiratory distress and still able to verbalize it. Just because they are speaking does not mean they are breathing adequately.”
  • George Floyd cried out repeatedly that he couldn’t breathe during his arrest by the defendant, Derek Chauvin, and three other officers last year.
  • A Minneapolis Police Department use-of-force trainer, Johnny Mercil, testified that the kind of neck restraint (since banned in the department) that Chauvin used on Floyd was not authorized.
  • One of the biggest takeaways from external commentators over the last few days has been that the string of police officers testifying against Chauvin, led by Minneapolis police chief Medaria Arradondo yesterday, signifies a cracking in the usual “blue wall of silence” from other officers around colleagues’ wrongdoing - and that this may be a landmark shift in American policing and criminal justice.
From left: George Floyd’s sister-in-law Keeta Floyd, her husband Philonise Floyd and lawyer Ben Crump outside court yesterday in the Minneapolis murder trial of former police officer Derek Chauvin
From left: George Floyd’s sister-in-law Keeta Floyd, her husband Philonise Floyd and lawyer Ben Crump outside court yesterday in the Minneapolis murder trial of former police officer Derek Chauvin Photograph: Nicholas Pfosi/Reuters

Prosecutor Steve Schleicher just played a disturbing clip of police body camera footage.

George Floyd has resisted being forced into a police car by two officers, shouting out that he’s can’t breathe, and seeming to be panicky.

Derek Chauvin gets involved, we see the officers take Floyd back out of the car and force him to his knees, at which point Floyd says “thank you”.

He now has his hands handcuffed behind his back.

The prosecutor asks expert police witness Jody Stiger to tell the jury some of what else he sees and hears on that clip.

Stiger says Chauvin can be heard calling for “the hobble” restraint, where a suspect’s ankles are bound and hitched back, to control the person.

Stiger points out that as one of the other officers goes to grasp Floyd’s legs, Floyd kicks out fiercely.

The prosecution invites Stiger to confirm that that was the only aggressive act of resistance he saw from Floyd.

Then Stiger is shown a text book training picture of a person in the hobble position, showing they are bound but are on their side in a version of the recovery position, to allow them to breathe.

Floyd was ultimately lain on his front before being pinned to the street.

Police expert witness says Chauvin used 'excessive force' on George Floyd

A sergeant, Jody Stiger, from the Los Angeles Police Department is now on the stand for the prosecution, employed in this context as a “retained expert for the state” as a use-of-force expert.

He said he was currently on vacation and has come to the courthouse in downtown Minneapolis to testify in the trial of former police officer Derek Chauvin, charged with murdering George Floyd.

Stiger was shown the now-infamous Exhibit 17, which is the image of Chauvin kneeling on Floyd’s neck.

Stiger said of the use of force by Chauvin on Floyd last May 25: “The force was excessive”.

The officer is asked what he saw in the picture, Exhibit 17.

He replied: “I see an officer with his knee on the neck of George Floyd.”

Stiger said he has reviewed body camera, reports, training and policy manuals involving the case.

Updated

The court it taking a short break and witness Nicole Mackenzie has been excused for the day but told to come back next week to testify for the defense.

No time was given. The judge, Peter Cahill, said he’s update her but to be ready to come back on Tuesday morning. That indicated the trial will be on to the defense witnesses by then. With Mackenzie testifying both for the prosecution and the defense.

There was another hint at defense strategy just now as attorney Eric Nelson again explored whether a noisy crowd can distract a police officer to the point where they aren’t able to figure out if a person is, in effect, not able to breathe properly and in need of medical attention.

Again, this feels like a reach - but getting a conviction here is far from a “slam dunk”, even if George Floyd’s family has opined that it is and their supporters hope and believe it is.

Updated

'Just because they are speaking doesn't mean they are breathing adequately' - police medical trainer

Minneapolis police medical support coordinator Nicole Mackenzie had a key exchange with prosecutor Steve Schleicher moments ago.

He asked her: “Do you train officers that if a person can talk it means they can breathe?” She said no. He asked her to expand on that.

“That would be incomplete to say...because somebody could be in respiratory distress and still able to verbalize it. Just because they are speaking does not mean they are breathing adequately,” she said.

George Floyd kept crying out: “I can’t breathe” while he was pinned to the street by then-police officer Derek Chauvin’s knee pressed into his neck.

Chauvin refused to release the pressure and kept kneeling on Floyd for nine minutes 29 seconds, until he was unconscious and ultimately had no pulse.

Floyd was declared dead after being taken to hospital, last May 25.

Updated

Defense attorney Eric Nelson is asking whether an officer might delay starting CPR on a person/suspect or may stop if the environment around them is unsafe.

Nelson doesn’t mention the bystanders who were watching George Floyd dying under the officers, led by defendant Derek Chauvin, who were pinning him but it’s not hard to work out what he’s implying and is going to make a focus again later on.

As members of the public were filming Chauvin with their phones, many were calling out, criticizing the police, cursing them, and urging them to stop pinning Floyd down as he cried out many times that he couldn’t breathe.

Meanwhile, here’s a screen shot put up in court earlier of some of the people watching the encounter.

The red marks added indicate phones out recording the incident.

'Incomplete to say that someone can breathe if they can talk' - police medical expert

Minneapolis police department medical support coordinator Nicole Mackenzie told the jury that it is “incomplete to say that someone can breathe if they can talk...they could be in respiratory distress”.

She has not referred to George Floyd specifically, but she’s talking about police medical training - training that she said defendant Derek Chauvin received.

Chauvin knelt on Floyd’s neck from more than nine minutes - including for several minutes after Floyd lost consciousness and then had no detectable pulse, the court in Minneapolis has heard.

Mackenzie said that if police are dealing with a person, if that person has no pulse, police training specified that the officer should “immediately begin CPR”.

Prosecutor Steve Schleicher asked Mackenzie, if an officer is administering CPR [ie heart compression and mouth-to-mouth resuscitation], when should they stop?

She responded: “When they are relieved by someone with a higher level of [medical] training than you, if there are obvious signs of death or if you are just physically exhausted from doing CPR.”

Of course this is an academic exercise by the prosecution because far from trying to resuscitate George Floyd or having to figure out if they should stop those efforts, it’s been shown that defendant Derek Chauvin ignored pleas and offers from bystanders to administer first aid to Floyd and continued to press down on Floyd even when he was lifeless and paramedics had arrived and were attending to his prone body.

It’s not flashy, but it’s powerful for the prosecution.

Mackenzie is now under cross by the defense.

Updated

Here’s a quick recap of another point covered when use-of-force trainer Johnny Mercil was on the stand this morning.

This tweet and clip speak for themselves in assessing police persistence in pinning George Floyd to the street last May even after he lost consciousness and, eventually, lost his pulse.

Testimony continues after lunch with another police officer appearing as a witness for the prosecution

The afternoon’s proceedings continue with the next witness for the prosecution - another police officer.

The latest cop on the stand is Nicole Mackenzie, who as been with the Minneapolis Police Department for six years and is the medical support coordinator for the department.

She said that defendant Derek Chauvin was her trainer for one day during some training she was undergoing, when her regular trainer was away, and also that she has trained him during some medical instruction.

Mackenzie said she trains officers in the department’s “Narcan program”. Narcan is a brand name for a kind of nasal spray containing prescription medication used to mitigate the effects of an opioid overdose.

Mackenzie also said officers are training in CPR resuscitation.

The prosecution has been at pains to demonstrate that former officer Derek Chauvin acted outside the policy, training and values of the Minneapolis Police Department when he violently arrested George Floyd last May - even though if he was pure lone wolf he’d still been allowed to serve in the department for 19 years.

And police chief Medaria Arradondo worked hard to show that Chauvin not only went rogue in some abstract way but that he specifically went against extensive policy details spelt out in the department’s manual and training.

But, outside of testimony, commenting in the media, civil right attorney and former prosecutor David Henderson had an interesting thing to say about the police department and about how Chauvin’s defense should be attacking the police department (perhaps rather more than its tactic of attacking George Floyd and the still-traumatized bystanders who witnessed his killing?).

Henderson has noted that - and this was a surprise at the time - while jury selection was underway, the city of Minneapolis suddenly announced on March 12 that it was paying what’s believed to be a record settlement to Floyd’s family of $27 million.

Floyd family lawyer Ben Crump called it the biggest known pre-trial wrongful death lawsuit payout.

If Henderson was advising Chauvin’s defense, he would argue that they should put the police department on trial.

“They didn’t pay $27 million to the Floyd family to be nice. They paid it because they were sued, and in the lawsuit, it alleged that Derek Chauvin was acting pursuant to their policies, which included being violent specifically towards Black men like George Floyd,” he said late last week.

Updated

Civil rights lawyer David Henderson, commenting in the media, has called Minneapolis police chief Medria Arradondo’s testimony yesterday, which was deadpan and pretty devastating, “another nail in the coffin” for former police officer Derek Chauvin’s defense.

“The fact that he is a key witness is an understatement. ... The window for the defense to mount an effective presentation for this jury is quickly closing, if it hasn’t already shut, with the chief’s testimony,” the former prosecutor told CNBC’s “The News with Shepard Smith.”

He told CNBC that Chauvin’s defense missed the opportunity to make two important points while the police chief was on the stand.

“They should have demonstrated that problems with policing are systemic, not individual, and to the extent that Derek Chauvin has been painted as a lone wolf, they should have made the point that lone wolves don’t roam in packs,” Henderson said.

Henderson has also added to the debate that’s going on about cracks in the so-called “blue wall” of silence, where police go silent about the topic of misconduct by one of their own.

He’s been talking about it on TV.

He told MSNBC that in his years of prosecuting, he’s never seen multiple police officers cross the infamous “blue line” and testify against one of their own.

“No, I’ve never seen something like this before,” said Henderson, as the Minnesota Spokesman-Recorder related it, “and I think George Floyd is going to continue to transform the world in more ways than one. I think there is going to be a clear line drawn between how these cases are tried prior to George Floyd’s death … and after.”

But Henderson was also wary of the “bad apple” positioning by police. “At the same time,” he continued, “this is met with a degree of skepticism from me because I don’t want the police to exchange one bad habit for another. I am thankful that they’re being honest with the fact that what Derek Chauvin did was wrong. At the same time, police problems are systemic and not base on individual behavior. ”

Updated

Midday summary

The trial of Derek Chauvin is taking its lunch break. The former Minneapolis police officer is charged with murder and manslaughter in the killing of George Floyd last May. He denies the charges. We are on Day Seven of testimony, hearing prosecution witnesses.

George Floyd’s death last year sparked the largest wave of civil rights uprisings across the US since the 1960s and an ongoing societal reckoning over racial inequity and racism in the origins and history of the United States of America up to the present day.

It initially unleashed huge protests, spilling over into violence on the fringes, in Minneapolis and more widely the resurgence of the Black Lives Matter movement.

Here’s what we’ve learned so far today in the trial:

  • Police use-of-force trainer Johnny Mercil told the jury that Derek Chauvin used an unauthorized style and practice of neck restraint on George Floyd.
  • Police trainer Ker Yang said officers should de-escalate situations where a suspect is suffering some sort of personal crisis, and should render first aid if that is needed.
  • A friend of George Floyd’s, Morries Hall, may be obliged to testify at trial even though he’s invoked the Fifth Amendment to the US Constitution aimed at avoiding the risk of self-incrimination by being forced to give evidence in a criminal case. There will be another hearing on Monday about this.
  • The last four days of testimony has seen a string of Minneapolis police officers, including the department chief, give evidence against the defendant, in a rare move that some suggest is a significant crack in the “blue wall of silence” usually put up around police wrongdoing.
  • Gwen Carr, Eric Garner’s mother, has been spotted in the courthouse today, accompanied by Ben Crump, Al Sharpton and relatives of George Floyd.

Updated

What about the other three officers who were with Derek Chauvin when they arrested George Floyd?

Left to right: Chauvin, Thao, Kueng, Lane.
Left to right: Chauvin, Thao, Kueng, Lane. Photograph: Hennepin County Jail/AFP/Getty Images

Derek Chauvin was the most senior officer of the four and was in command in the situation where they tried to take Floyd into custody.

The other officers were Alexander Kueng and Thomas Lane, who were both rookies who had been on the job for less than a week, and Tou Thao.

While Chauvin pinned Floyd to the ground by his neck, Kueng leaned on Floyd’s back and Lane on his legs.

Thao stood close to Chauvin and George Floyd’s head and warned off bystanders who were filming the officers, criticizing them and begging them, variously, to stop holding Floyd down and to allow members of the public to help him.

Keung, Land and Thao were all fired the day after Floyd was killed, as was Chauvin. They were arrested and jailed, later released to await trial.

While Chauvin is being tried first and alone, the other three are due to be tried together in August, charged with aiding and abetting murder and manslaughter.

The Minnesota Spokesman-Recorder reminds us that Minneapolis police chief Medaria Arradondo, who testified yesterday, criticized all four former officers last summer:

Arradondo fired all the officers involved in Floyd’s arrest within 24 hours of the incident. At the time he said, “The officers knew what was happening—one intentionally caused it and the others failed to prevent it. This was murder—it wasn’t a lack of training.”

[Yesterday on the stand, Arradondo said of Chauvin’s knee restraint that such an action] is not de-escalation. And when you talk about the framework of the sanctity of life…that action goes contrary to what we’re taught,” he said.

“We are oftentimes the first face of government that our community will see,” said Arradondo. “And we often meet them at their worst moments. It’s very important that for us to make sure we meet community in that space. Treating them with dignity; being their guardians.”

Updated

Minneapolis police use-of-force trainer, Lieutenant Johnny Mercil, is again under cross-examination by defense attorney Eric Nelson, who represents defendant Derek Chauvin.

Nelson is once again steering testimony towards a focus on the idea that Chauvin may have kneeled with his shin and bodyweight across George Floyd’s shoulder blade, not with his knee in an unauthorized restraint on Floyd’s neck.

Nelson also posited that a suspect who was resisting arrest can pretend to have a medical emergency or having difficulty breathing.

You can see where the defense is trying to take the jury with this. It would appear to be an uphill struggle, except that they only need to persuade one juror to refuse to convict former officer Chauvin, and to stick to that in the face of further guidance by or admonishment from the judge, and the trial will implode with a hung jury.

Mercil has given a number of answers prior, including that a knee restraint (under policy that allowed such a hold then, last May, but since banned) should end when a subject is handcuffed and not resisting.

Mercil also said that using a neck restraint on a suspect will render them unconscious in 10 seconds. Chauvin knelt on Floyd for nine minutes and 29 seconds.

Derek Chauvin, 45, takes copious notes in court. He wears a suit and tie each day and mostly when seen on camera is wearing a face mask.

Sometimes he removes it. Each of his former police colleagues were asked to identify him in the court room, in the course of their testimony.

Chauvin has been largely impassive in his expressions, as far as could be seen when the cameras relay his image and in relation to the face mask. He seems to occupy himself closely with note-taking.

Sometimes he glances around the court room rather hurriedly.

To recap: Chauvin denies second degree and third degree murder and second degree manslaughter, in the death of George Floyd last may. Chauvin, who is white, was fired the following day and later arrested.

Floyd, who was 46, was declared dead in hospital in Minneapolis after Chauvin kneeled on his neck for more than nine minutes during an arrest on suspicion of committing the misdemeanor of using a fake $20 bill in a store.

Floyd was laid to rest in Houston, where he lived for most of his life before moving to Minneapolis, last June.

Here’s Chauvin on the right, with his defense lawyer Eric Nelson on the left, in a screen shot taken by Minneapolis civil rights lawyer and activist Nekima Levy Armstrong.

You can read some of Armstrong’s views in this Guardian article, after she spoke to journalist Amudalat Ajasa, who is reporting for us on various issues relating to the trial.

There are 14 jurors in court every day, which constitutes a minimum jury of 12, and two “alternates” in case any juror has to discontinue.

They sit in a socially-distanced way, unlike a normal bench where they did side by side, each has a chair and a small desk with a notepad.

Judge Peter Cahill told them last Monday, on the first full day of the trial, with opening arguments and first testimony, that there would not be a transcript of the trial provided to them, so they needed to take any necessary notes.

The court pool report describes the jury (whose identities remain undisclosed to the press or public), as made up of six white females, two white males, one Black female, three Black males, two mixed-race females.

Minneapolis has a 429,000-strong population that is approximately 19% Black people, 64% white people, according to census data.

Here’s a detailed piece from the Washington Post about the make-up of the jury, including the pressure on the panel.

“What’s happening in this trial is not just a statement or a judgment on the criminal process in Hennepin County, Minnesota,” said Irene Oritseweyinmi Joe, a law professor at University of California at Davis. “There are people all over the nation, all over the world, that are looking at this to get a sense of how much they can believe in our system of justice.”

Because the case is so high-profile, the jurors will be cloaked in anonymity, shielded from public view and shuttled to and from Courtroom 1856 under armed guard.

Updated

Police use-of-force trainer talks of unauthorized neck-restraint

Minneapolis police lieutenant Johnny Mercil is discussing techniques taught by the police department, in relation to neck restraints.

Neck restraints were banned by the police department some weeks after George Floyd was killed in May last year, but at the time then-police officer Derek Chauvin arrested Floyd, certain types of neck restraints were permitted by police policy in the city.

Once again, the court room is subjected to the stills image from Darnella Frazier’s bystander video that shows Chauvin kneeling on Floyd’s neck.

“Is this a Minneapolis Police Department-trained neck restraint?” prosecutor Steve Schleicher asks Mercil.

Mercil: “No.”

Policy manual rules from the time, stated earlier, say that a neck restraint was permitted if a suspect was actively aggressive (“which means assaultive,” Mercil clarified), not if they were passive.

Also Mercil described how such a restraint was made using an arm or leg, by way of inner thigh, not a knee, such as was employed by Chauvin for more than nine minutes.

Here’s commentator and author Keith Boykin’s tweet:

The court is taking its mid-morning break.

Updated

Yet another serving Minneapolis police officer is now on the stand for the prosecution. Lieutenant Johnny Mercil is testifying now. He’s a use-of-force instructor.

Meanwhile, Judge Peter Cahill is going to arrange future sessions to decide whether George Floyd’s friend Morries Hall will be obliged to testify (after taking the 5th) and, if so, within what parameters.

Hall was in the car with Floyd when police turned up to question (and ultimately arrest) Floyd over the alleged use of a possibly-fake $20 bill to buy cigarettes at the Cup Foods corner store in south Minneapolis last May 25, the Memorial Day holiday.

Hall has refused to testify, in fear that he will incriminate himself in relation to any possible future prosecution relating to third degree murder - a charge that can be used in a case against someone accused of supplying illicit drugs to someone who later dies as a result.

Bearing in mind here, also, that although Floyd had illicit opioids in his system when he was arrested, and the defense wants to blame those for his death, his official autopsy concluded that Floyd’s death was caused by homicide, after the police subdued him. Former police officer Derek Chauvin denies murder.

Updated

The courthouse in downtown Minneapolis is heavily barricaded with a variety of concrete barriers, high fences and razor wire. Entry to the building and especially the court room where Derek Chauvin is on trial is heavily restricted.

Gwen Carr, the mother of Eric Garner
Gwen Carr, the mother of Eric Garner Photograph: Mike Segar/Reuters

Only two reporters in a rotating, select pool, have access to the court room itself and are pre-agreed to share their reporting with select media.

We have news today that Gwen Carr is in the courthouse. She’s the mother of Eric Garner, who was killed in New York City in July 2014 after Daniel Pantaleo, a New York City Police Department (NYPD) officer, put him in a prohibited chokehold while arresting him. Five years later, Pantaleo was fired, but there has been very little else by way of justice served or seen to be served in Garner’s killing.

My colleague Oliver Laughland interviewed Carr shortly before Pantaleo was fired.

Carr was seen outside the court room alongside New York civil rights activist Al Sharpton and civil rights attorney, who is representing George Floyd’s family, Ben Crump. The group was accompanied by some relatives of Floyd, although we have received no details yet.

As Garner was held upright in a chokehold, with Pantaleo’s arm wrapped around his neck, and then taken to the ground, Garner cried out “I can’t breathe.”

George Floyd cried out with the same words last May as he was pinned to the street with Chauvin’s knee on his neck.

Floyd’s brothers Terrence and Philonise have attended court since testimony began and his sister Bridgett has previously spoken outside court and has been volunteering in the city in recent weeks.

Updated

'If somebody is in need of medical attention then you give them medical attention' - Minneapolis police trainer

Police trainer Ker Yang has described the Minneapolis Police Department’s crisis intervention training program that officers are supposed to utilize to handle situations where a member of the public is having some sort of crisis.

Yang said now-former police officer Derek Chauvin had a 40-hour crisis intervention training course in 2016, along with other officers.

The training is supposed to give officers habits that allow them to de-escalate encounters with suspects or other individuals and, when things are tense, “slow things down”, as Yang said.

He also said that officers are trained that “if somebody is in need of medical attention then you give them medical attention”.

When Derek Chauvin and three other officers arrested George Floyd last May and pinned him to the street, they did not move him when he said he couldn’t breathe and Chauvin and two other officers continued to hold him down after he lost consciousness and after he failed to have a pulse.

Yang is now being cross-examined by Chauvin’s main defense attorney, Eric Nelson.

Interestingly, Nelson invites Yang to affirm, which he does, that what police have to do when dealing with suspects “may be lawful even if it looks bad” and that, if bystanders “start to gather and what was a police officer is doing, that can become a crisis”.

Nelson talked a lot last week about how distracted and threatened Chauvin and his three officers - armed with pistols and canisters of mace and dressed in uniform next to a marked police cruiser - might have been by a group of bystanders that included children, an old man, an off-duty firewoman and a martial arts guy who were upset that, as they testified, they were witnessing a man being killed right in front of them and were afraid to physically intervene.

He tried to portray those members of the public who were filming Floyd’s death while begging the officers to let up as an angry mob.

Updated

The trial is resuming. The prosecution is calling its next witness.

Minneapolis sergeant Ker Yang just took the stand. He’s the crisis intervention training coordinator for the police department, where he has worked for 24 years.

Yang is dressed in plain clothes, a grey suit, white shirt and blue tie. This is in contrast to police chief Medaria Arradondo and inspector Katie Blackwell yesterday, who wore their uniforms on the stand.

To wit, apologies from your blogger, who thought Blackwell was going to continue testifying today. In fact, she wrapped up last night.

Yang is now telling the court that he has experience in his policing of arresting suspects, as well as dealing with, as prosecutor Steve Schleicher put it, “struggling” suspects.

Updated

It’s striking to have so many police officers testifying for the prosecution against former officer Derek Chauvin, who was a Minneapolis cop for 19 years before he was fired and arrested last year after George Floyd was killed.

A Black Power fist statue, flag and flowers adorn “George Floyd Square”, April 5, 2021 in Minneapolis, Minnesota. The unofficial shrine to Floyd and other Black Americans killed by police, which is currently a community space.
A Black Power fist statue, flag and flowers adorn ‘George Floyd Square’ in Minneapolis, Minnesota. The unofficial shrine to Floyd and other Black Americans killed by police, which is currently a community space. Photograph: Kerem Yucel/AFP/Getty Images

The Minneapolis Star Tribune newspaper is talking this morning about the significance of the cracks in what it called “the ‘blue wall of silence’ that usually protects police wrongdoing”.

And especially the highlight of police chief Medaria Arradondo testifying yesterday. Even if the only motivation was to throw Chauvin under the bus, even that is all-too rare.

The Star Trib writes:

Arradondo’s unequivocal and historic testimony condemning now-former officer Derek Chauvin’s actions that led to George Floyd’s death is seen by some veteran lawyers as a fresh crack in the longstanding “blue wall” code of silence by police.

“What could be the possible interest in the police trying to defend that?” civil rights attorney Al Goins said. “Their best defense as a department is to try to say this is wrong, this is not who we are, and that’s not who we want to be in the future.”...

It is incredibly rare for a police chief to take the stand against one of his own former officers, so Arradondo’s remarks immediately ricocheted around social media and were rebroadcast on TV news outlets across the country in one of the most extraordinary moments of the trial. But his comments also took on broader implications for a department whose culture has long discouraged officers from criticizing a colleague’s conduct — at least publicly.

Some watching the trial saw Arradondo’s testimony, coupled with that of other police witnesses — homicide Lt. Richard Zimmerman, Sgt. Jon Edwards and David Pleoger , a retired MPD sergeant — as striking a blow to the “blue wall of silence” that usually protects police wrongdoing.

Goins said the video of Floyd’s death made it harder for police officials to defend the actions to the public.

He said he frequently faced resistance when representing victims of police brutality, and not only from fellow officers, but also sheriff’s deputies, prosecutors and other criminal justice representatives who tried to cover up bad police behavior.

“In those cases where there were close calls, I think they had no incentive to try to say, ‘Nope, we’re gonna root this out.’ Their incentives operated the other way, to try to close ranks,” Goins said.

Arradondo has previously called Floyd’s death a “murder.”

Some critics on social media said that Arradondo’s testimony was self-serving and that by painting his former officer as an outlier, or “bad apple,” he was deflecting attention from the aggressive tactics that the department trains its officers on. Others pointed out that Arradondo disciplined an officer who spoke as an anonymous source for a GQ magazine article criticizing the department’s “toxic culture.”

Last week, Zimmerman, the longest-tenured officer in the department, testified that he saw Chauvin’s actions kneeling on Floyd’s neck as “totally unnecessary.”

...The officers’ testimony in Chauvin’s trial is in line with administrative attempts to shift the culture of policing, both in Minneapolis and elsewhere.

You can read the full report here.

Updated

Minneapolis police inspector Katie Blackwell will resume her testimony shortly.

She was the commander of police training in the city until the end of January this year. She now runs a city precinct.

She has contradicted the idea that Derek Chauvin, who was fired then arrested after George Floyd was killed last May, was following policy when he held Floyd down with a knee to the neck for more than nine minutes.

Last summer, police chief Medaria Arradondo called what Chauvin did to Floyd “murder”.

Yesterday Blackwell called Chauvin’s prolonged pressure on Floyd’s neck an unofficial “improvised position”.

Court is on a short recess before the jury comes in and testimony continues today, with the evidence of former training commander of the Minneapolis Police Department, Katie Blackwell.

Meanwhile, there was a lot of testimony yesterday, with examination, re-examination and cross-examination about police policy on restraining a suspect by the neck, which is no longer permitted in the city since George Floyd was killed last May.

This is disturbing stuff, but is absolutely crucial to arguments between the prosecution and defense about what is within the rules (and discretion around those rules).

The Associated Press brings this explainer:

A critical factor for jurors to consider is whether Derek Chauvin violated the police department’s policy on neck restraints when he knelt on Floyd’s neck.

The Minneapolis Police Department banned all forms of neck restraints and chokeholds weeks after Floyd’s death, but at the time of his May 25 arrest by Chauvin and other officers, certain neck restraints were permitted — provided certain guidelines and conditions were followed.

The department policy, in place for at least eight years at the time, divided permissible neck restraints into two categories, according to court filings and testimony.

Neck restraints were defined in the policy as a “non-deadly force option.”

One, called a “conscious neck restraint,” was for light pressure applied to the neck to help control a person without rendering unconsciousness. It was permitted for a person actively resisting.

The other was an “unconscious neck restraint,” in which officers could use their arms or legs to knock out a person by pressing carotid arteries on either side of the neck, blocking blood flow to the brain.

The policy called for it to be used only for a person “exhibiting active aggression” or actively resisting when lesser attempts to control the person had failed or were likely to fail.

Police guidelines also instructed officers, at the first possible opportunity, to turn people on their sides once they were handcuffed and under control to avoid “positional asphyxia,” in which breathing becomes labored in a prone position and can lead to death.

The city had pledged to emphasize to officers the dangers of positional asphyxia as part of a $3 million settlement in the 2010 death of David Smith. Minneapolis officers subdued Smith with a Taser and pinned him face down on the floor for several minutes with their knees on his back.

Training manuals also instructed officers to be attentive to whether a suspect was having difficulty breathing. Chauvin and the other officers never turned Floyd on his side, even as he said he couldn’t breathe 27 times before his body went limp.

The full AP report is here.

Updated

Legal arguments over whether friend of Floyd will testify

The jury is not in court yet. The judge is debating with lawyers whether Morries Hall, a friend of George Floyd’s, should testify.

Here’s a quick report from a local CBS station:

Before the jury comes in today, the judge is hearing motions about the testimony of George Floyd’s friend, Morries Hall.

Hall was with Floyd when he was arrested, and the defense has asked several questions about Hall potentially selling opiates to Floyd.

Last week Hall pleaded the fifth, saying he will not testify in the trial. The Fifth Amendment allows someone the right not to self-incriminate.

Trial of Derek Chauvin charged with murder of George Floyd

Hello Guardian live blog readers, it’s Day 7 of testimony in the historic trial in Minneapolis of white former police officer Derek Chauvin, who is charged with murdering George Floyd, a 46-year-old Black man last May.

As the state of Minnesota has allowed an unprecedented televising and live-streaming of proceedings, because of severe restrictions in court to prevent the spread of coronavirus, we’ll be bringing you that livestream at the top of this blog from 10am ET/3pm BST.

But we’ll also be blogging the top lines in “real time”, or as close as we can, with selected analysis, relevant social media and other commentary.

For regular readers of our inimitable US politics live blog, that is continuing as usual, separately, with our Joan Greve at the helm. You can follow that here.

In Minneapolis today there will be plenty of interesting testimony so do tune in.

  • The prosecution will get to more of the meat this morning of Inspector Katie Blackwell, who until January of this year was the commander of the training program for Minneapolis police officers. She was on the stand for about 90 minutes yesterday and we expect her to address details of the events of May 25, 2020, when George Floyd was killed during his arrest by Derek Chauvin and three other officers.
  • We found out yesterday that Blackwell and Chauvin were community officers together, so they go way back in his 19-year career with the department before being fired a day after Floyd’s death.
  • Blackwell now runs the Minneapolis Police Department’s Fifth Precinct.
  • Prosecutors have now wheeled out a procession of police officers to testify against Chauvin and undermine his defense arguments about his actions on May 25 when he knelt on Floyd’s neck for more than nine minutes while he was handcuffed and pinned face down on the street.
  • Minneapolis police chief Medaria Arradondo gave understated but powerful testimony yesterday that sought to paint Chauvin as not only stepping outside written policy in restraining Floyd the way he did and in not rendering first aid when Floyd was fading, but also going against the values and principles of the department - trying to focus on the idea that Chauvin alone is on trial, not the department or policing and societal racism in America more widely.
  • At least one other officer is expected to follow Blackwell onto the stand, to talk about the department’s crisis intervention program for officers.
  • Derek Chauvin is charged with second degree murder, third degree murder and second degree manslaughter. He denies all the charges.

Updated

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