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THE APPEARANCE: The photo shows Derek Chauvin sitting with his hands on George Floyd, who is handcuffed. The police officer in the foreground is Alexander Kueng. Photo: MINNEAPOLIS POLICE DEPARTMENT / Reuters
When Derek Chauvin pressed his knee against George Floyd’s neck for nine minutes and 29 seconds, it was “completely unnecessary.” That’s the opinion of the commander of the Minneapolis Police Homicide Unit.
– Police are not trained to kneel on a person’s neck, Richard Zimmerman said when he testified Friday in the case in which Chauvin is charged with Floyd’s murder.
An incident that took place last spring sparked a violent engagement around police violence against blacks, not just in Minneapolis, where it occurred, but across much of the world.
– can kill them
Zimmerman, who according to CNN has run the Minneapolis police homicide section for more than 12 years, believes that sitting with your knee pressed against the neck of a man who has been arrested and handcuffed is “completely unnecessary.”
“Because if your knee presses against someone’s neck, you can kill them,” he said.
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From the witness stand, the police chief rhetorically asked how someone who has been handcuffed can be a threat to you, and therefore harm you, as a police officer.
– As soon as the person is handcuffed, the threat level drops completely, he gave in response to his own question.
He added that the chances of you, as a police officer, being injured are very small in such a situation.
– I don’t see any reason why police officers should have felt they were in danger, it was their crushing verdict against Chauvin and his colleagues that arrested George Floyd, according to the Washington Post.
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IN COURT: Richard Zimmerman has more than 35 years of law enforcement experience. Photo: Court TV Pool
Difficulty breathing
Zimmerman himself says that he has never been trained in such a method, and thinks it is obvious that someone who lies with his chest against the floor with a person on top, as Floyd did, will have difficulty breathing.
– As soon as a person is handcuffed, you should put them aside or make them sit down. You have to remove them from your chest because the muscles retract when you are handcuffed, and if you lie on your chest it prevents you from breathing even more.
Zimmerman said he believes the method Chauvin and his colleagues used is in violation of police guidelines. When asked by the prosecutor if they should stop the use of force against Floyd as soon as he was handcuffed, Zimmerman was as clear as possible:
– Absolutely!
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INSIDE THE STORE: George Floyd is the man in the black T-shirt. The photo was taken with a surveillance camera in the store where it was suspected that he had paid with a false bill. Photo: Court TV Pool
During the arrest, George Floyd himself said that the police were about to kill him, before they left him lifeless on the ground. According to the prosecutor, Derek Chauvin will have continued to sit with his knee on Floyd’s neck for almost four minutes after this.
Later, Floyd was pronounced dead.
Following this, Zimmerman himself was asked to come to the scene that day in May last year.
According to the defender
When it was Chauvin’s defender Eric Nelson’s turn to ask questions, Zimmerman agreed that an unconscious person can behave belligerently when awakened to life again.
Nelson also tried to point out that the way police work on the street has changed since Zimmerman himself patrolled the police, noting that Zimmerman at his job has little experience of having to use force as the police in the street sometimes has to. .
Zimmerman also said in cross-examination that police officers fighting for life can use whatever tools they need.
