Mr. Chauvin said the officers had to restrain Mr. Floyd because he would not stay in the back of a police car. “He was going crazy,” he said.
Derek Chauvin told a supervisor that George Floyd had been “going crazy” before police officers pinned him to the ground, and indicated only later that he had applied pressure to Mr. Floyd’s neck, according to new body camera footage and testimony in court on Thursday. The supervisor, retired Sgt. David Pleoger, said that he had spoken with Mr. Chauvin moments after Mr. Floyd was taken away in an ambulance, and that Mr. Chauvin had not mentioned the pressure to Mr. Floyd’s neck in that conversation. Sergeant Pleoger also testified that he thought police officers should have stopped holding Mr. Floyd down once he became unresponsive. “When Mr. Floyd was no longer offering up any resistance to the officers, they could have ended their restraint,” Sergeant Pleoger said. In response to a question from a prosecutor, he agreed that police officers should not restrain someone who is handcuffed and no longer resisting.
