“I felt that Derek Chauvin was justified, was acting with objective reasonableness, following Minneapolis Police Department policy and current standards of law enforcement in his interactions with Mr. Floyd,” Barry Brodd, a use-of-force expert brought in by Chauvin’s lawyer Eric Nelson, stated in the Hennepin County Courthouse in Minnesota.
Questioned if Chauvin’s force was deadly, Brodd responded it was not.
“I’ll give you an example that I used to teach my academy classes. So, officers respond to a domestic violence situation, and the suspect is still there, and he fights with the officers and the officers are justified in using a taser to overcome this person’s non-compliance. They tase the individual and [the] individual falls to the ground, strikes their head, and dies. So that isn’t an incident of deadly force. That’s an incident of an accidental death,” Brodd continued. “In my review, I would look to see whether the suspect’s resistance to justify the use of the taser was objectively reasonable.”
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Police officers are permitted to overcome resistance on the part of subjects by resorting to an escalating level of use of force choices, the former officer, who is a certified protective tactics instructor, stated.
Once a subject is restrained, officers should lessen their force but have to have control.
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Brodd further explained that possible drug influence has “quite a large impact” on how officers analyze how much force to use.
Brodd was one of Nelson’s first witnesses as the prosecution rested its case near the beginning of transactions on Tuesday after questioning more than a dozen witnesses.
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Chauvin knelt on Floyd’s back and neck on May 25, 2020, after officers got a 911 call about a possible counterfeit bill in Cup Foods in Minneapolis. Floyd had opposed being put into a patrol car and requested to be placed on the ground.
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Prosecutors claim the power used by Chauvin and other officers led to Floyd’s death while the defense maintains the drugs Floyd ingested, as well as his heart conditions, were the reason he died.
Use-of-force experts and officers testifying for the prosecution earlier in the trial have said that Chauvin’s force was “unreasonable” and “totally unnecessary.”
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Minneapolis Police Chief Medaria Arradondo announced last week that Chauvin’s actions broke the department’s policies.
Furthermore, Dr. Andrew Baker, the Hennepin County medical examiner, testified that Floyd’s death was caused by law enforcement restraint. Baker did state that drugs and the enlarged heart were adding factors.
Chauvin was charged with second-degree murder, second-degree manslaughter, and third-degree murder. The three other officers involved in Floyd’s arrest will go on trial for aiding and abetting murder charges later this year.
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