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THEME GRAMMATICAL ON RACISM

Le Monde, 6 April 2021

At the trial of Derek Chauvin, accused of killing George Floyd, a

police officer overwhelmed by his superior
In his testimony, the Minneapolis police chief said that his former subordinate had
"violated the rules" of intervention.

By Stéphanie Le Bars

The testimony of the Minneapolis (Minnesota) police chief on Monday 5 April during the
trial of Derek Chauvin, the officer accused of the death of George Floyd in May 2020, will
remain one of the highlights of these hearings, scheduled until the end of April. Without a
shadow of a doubt, with a deep and confident voice, Medaria Arradondo repeatedly judged that
his former subordinate had "violated the rules" of the city's police force.

The force of his words reinforced the exceptional nature of the hearing of a police chief in this
type of case. These damning statements are in addition to those of two of Mr Chauvin's
superiors, heard last week, which are along the same lines. They all break with the solidarity
traditionally observed in the police ranks when an officer is prosecuted for excessive use of
force, suggesting in this case behaviour that is outside the norm.

By holding his knee on the neck of the handcuffed and prone victim for more than nine minutes,
the officer failed to act in accordance with the "ethics, values and training" of the institution,
insisted the police "boss", an African-American man in his fifties who has risen through the
ranks in a career spanning more than 30 years.

Questioned for four hours by both parties, he described at length the training that officers
undergo before and after starting their careers, the circumstances that 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 force, which is supposed to "protect with courage and serve with
compassion" while respecting "the sanctity of human life". "De-escalation techniques" must
be the priority for the police, he said.

The police chief apparently saw none of this in Mr Chauvin's behaviour, as captured by passers-
by and the cameras worn by his colleagues, during the arrest of Mr Floyd on suspicion of
buying a packet of cigarettes with a counterfeit $20 note. The physical restraint used by the
officer "may have been reasonable in the first few seconds [of the stop] to control him, but not
when Mr. Floyd was no longer resisting and certainly not when he lost consciousness. He
therefore "vehemently" rejected the idea that "there was an appropriate use of force".