Daily US Times: The defense for Derek Chauvin, a former Minnesota police officer charged in George Floyd’s death challenged the heart of the case against the officer. The defence team called a use of force expert who testified that Derek Chauvin was justified in using force in pinning Floyd to the ground and said it might have gone easier if Mr Floyd had been “resting comfortably” on the pavement.
Barry Brodd, a former Santa Rosa, California, officer, and an expert of use of force, stoutly defended Chauvin’s actions at his murder trial, even as a prosecutor pounded away at the witness, banging the lectern at one point during cross-examination and growing incredulous over Brodd’s use of the “resting comfortably” phrase.
Brodd testified: “It’s easy to sit and judge … an officer’s conduct. It’s more of a challenge to, again, put yourself in the officer’s shoes to try to make an evaluation through what they’re feeling, what they’re sensing, the fear they have, and then make a determination.”
He said he does not believe Derek Chauvin and the other officers used deadly force when they held the Black man down on his stomach, his hands cuffed behind his back and Chauvin’s knee on Mr Floyd’s neck or neck area for what prosecutors say was 9 1/2 minutes.
Brodd said: “That isn’t an incident of deadly force. That’s an incident of an accidental death.”
Several top Minneapolis police officials, including the police chief, have testified that Chauvin violated his training and used excessive force. And medical experts called by prosecutors have said that George Floyd died from a lack of oxygen because of the way he was restrained.
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