Police chief says Derek Chauvin ‘absolutely’ violated policy

"The View" co-hosts discuss Minneapolis Police Chief Medaria Arradondo testifying that Derek Chauvin violated numerous use-of-force and ethics policies in the fatal arrest of George Floyd.
10:42 | 04/06/21


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Transcript for Police chief says Derek Chauvin ‘absolutely’ violated policy
After a week of heartbreaking eyewitness testimony of ex-cop Derek chauvin's brutality towards George Floyd, Minneapolis police chief arandado took the stand yesterday to talk about whether it is police protocol to kneel on someone's neck for more than nine minutes. Be warned. The trial images will really upset you. Take a look. Was this a trained Minneapolis police department defensive technique? It was not. Once Mr. Floyd had stopped resisting, and certainly once he was in distress and trying to verbalize that, that should have stopped. I mean, I have so many questions. Starting with why did they take George Floyd out of the police car in the first place? I don't understand that, and when I listen to these people try to justify and say, well, he was a drug addict, and he was this, listen. He did not exhibit like he was going -- having an O.D. There was a man sitting on his neck which will kill you, and they are still trying to say, well, no. It wasn't his sitting on George Floyd's neck that caused his death. I mean, it's crazy, but let me ask you, sunny. How much of an impact will the police chief's testimony have for this? I'll start with you, joy. Oh. Oh, okay. You know, I worry about these cases very much because history shows that juries are very reluctant to convict these abusive police officers. I mean, the blue wall seemed to be crumbling from what I can see from the trial so far because it's such an open and shut case, it's impossible to really justify what this guy chauvin did. You know, like you say, you have questions. It's, like, once you put the guy in handcuffs, I don't see why he has to be then on the ground also with your knee in his neck. That seems to be abusive and overkill, and then to put it there for nine minutes, outrageous. We all saw with our own eyes what happened there, but I watched the Rodney king thing also, and other situations like this, and the cops are taken -- are proven not guilty or something. They just get away with it. The other thing is this guy had many complaints against him, chauvin. So obviously there's a systemic failure in that police department also because he should have been stopped before this, and what about the people who are -- the observers? The police who were watching. They need to be maybe held accountable also. So your question is, will this make a difference? I hope so, but I worry about it. Yeah. Sunny, should -- we should be celebrating of course, that finally a police officer is saying, hey. This is not how we do things do you think this trial could be a bit of a tipping point for police reform? I mean, we have been here before, but -- Yeah. Is it possible that his testimony could help change something? I do. You know, I do think that this case is different because, you know, George Floyd's death mobilized the world, not just this country. I mean, we saw solidarity across the world. We saw protests in New Zealand, in South Africa, in China. Not only here in the united States, and so I do think that this could certainly be a real change moment, whoopi, and in my view, you know, in all my years prosecuting cases, I have never seen evidence against a police officer this strong, and the prosecution here came out swinging, came out so strong and told these jurors, you can believe your eyes. You can believe your eyes because the world saw officer -- former officer Derek chauvin kill, murder George Floyd with a knee on his neck for over nine minutes, and now you have other the chief of police testifying. This is not police protocol. This man was not trained to do this, and to joy's point, what is just so horrible if you look at chauvin's record, he was involved. He shot one suspect, was involved in the fatal shooting of another, and received at least 17 complaints during his nearly two decades with the department. 16 of those complaints were closed without any discipline. So there's just no question that there's a systemic problem in this police department, and we know that there's a systemic problem across police departments all over the country, and the George Floyd policing act was passed in the house, and the senate only needs ten Republicans to join them in passing that law federally, and I pray, I hope that that will lead to real change, real change in police reform. Meghan, what's your reaction to how this trial is being played out so far? Do you think having the police chief say, this isn't what we do was a good thing for the possibility of seeing real change happen? Yeah. I tried to watch the trial, and I watched bits and pieces of it on our hiatus, and the George Floyd video I think is one of those paradigm cultural moments that will resonate with Americans forever. It just is one of the most graphic and egregious killings of an unarmed black man by a police officer, and if you watch the video, it's -- it's incredibly graphic. It's incredibly heart-wrenching and you're seeing a man murdered in cold blood in front of cameras. There were things when the witnesses were testifying, some of the people I've seen, they're so emotional and they're so overcome with distraught and with anguish because they all seem to be haunted by the fact that they didn't do enough to stop him from being killed. There was one woman who was an emt who yelled at Derek chauvin and the other police officer who was standing next to him saying, I'm an emt. Let me help. Let me come in and let me try and save him. It was evident. I didn't realize there was a huge group of people around him at the time as well. It was horrific. If any person was standing there and watched that happen, you would be haunted with it for the rest of your life. So it's not just what's going on in the world which is huge and not just what happened to George Floyd which is evil, but there's a lot of lives that have been ruined and deeply impacted and a lot of trauma from this experience. So I do hope it creates a lot of systemic change across the board that needs to happen with the police forces in the country. I will also say I didn't realize it was 9:30 minutes. Segments on this show normally range around seven before a commercial break. That's a really, really long time to have someone's knee on someone's neck and not do anything about it. The other police officer that was next to Derek chauvin was also asking and checking and trying to get him to stop as well and clearly didn't do the details of the case, I don't know how anybody in America doesn't think that Derek chauvin should be in jail for the rest of his life, if not, worse. I don't know how you're going to find a jury that disagrees. The most conservative, red state blue lives matter people in my life think that Derek chauvin is a murderer and should be in jail. I have a lot of people in my life in law enforcement, and a lot of people tend to come from military, and I have a lot of people in my life that served in the military. I deeply respect and appreciate and love law enforcement, but that doesn't mean there shouldn't be systemic change and a real reckoning with things like putting your knee on somebody's neck and all these trainings that are clearly outdated and lethal, and I think the use of extreme force is something that I know that I -- I take a second look at and I'm not in law enforcement, but this is a rough one, and it's very, very hard for me to watch the trial as I think it is for many Americans. Yeah. But I think it's important to if you can. Sara, what about you? I mean, we've talked on this show about the insanity of all of this that we saw happen. As you're seeing the trial, what's going through your mind? What's very crystal clear is that this was beyond gross negligence. There was a complete disregard for George Floyd's health, the humanity. It was inexcusable and absolutely needs to be punished. There were moments that jump out at me and I blame the officers that were there too. I know they are being charged as -- I think accomplices is the right word or -- but anyone who didn't speak up in watching this that was sitting right there that could say, dude, it's okay. Get off of him is accountable. They're part of this. Once George Floyd stopped resisting and he was in the handcuffs, it's actually a rule that they're supposed to turn them on their side once they're cuffed or sit them up because the way their hands are held, it compresses their breathing and they can't breathe. Not only was his knee in his neck. He was not turned over while handcuffed and they didn't even attempt cpr when he was unresponsive, and I wouldn't think that even just a fellow human would need to be told to do that when you see it, but these are police officers. They're there -- that's their actual job to do that. So I think that this showcases this case, the work that needs to be done with police officers, the community, and it's beyond just showing them what they can't do going forward. Maybe we need to train them on what they have to do when someone is laying there unresponsive. Yeah, and it also would be helpful if we could train people to remember that -- don't assume that someone is guilty because they're black, you know, as the police chief said, you know, this offense, passing a bill that could or might have been fake was not an arrestable offense, and all of this could have been avoided if Derek chauvin had realized that he was talking to a man, another human being, but when people don't think that you're human, that's when they do. They sit on your neck or they choke you or they do all kinds of other stuff. You see it. It's right there.


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