No, I would not agree with that. The police chief should know more about policy (an administrative duty) than the trainers themselves. Police chief saying Chauvin was not trained to do what he did is pretty damning to people not already biased a million ways from Sunday.
I disagree with this. The police chief is just a figure head, he isn't in the academy training anyone. It's like talking to a restaurant owner and asking him how to cook a steak. You'd ask the chef, not the owner. And let's not forget he was appointed by Jacob Frey 3 years ago and would probably be canned immediately if he served any use to the defense, but that's just speculation which I openly will admit.
It seems like the defense was more intent on arguing Chauvin was trained to do what he did, which is implicit acknowledgement that his actions caused Floyd's death in the first place. To lose that angle in front of the jurors and then move on to the drugs thing seems disingenuous, but when has that mattered.
It's because he was trained to do this, to some extent. The 3 minutes when Floyd went unresponsive is questionable. And I saw the Lt. testify today which you quoted above. Did you see the cross examination? It was damning.
Here's the transcript -
https://www.rev.com/transcript-editor/shared/OPG07O1TTJMVnDDr2nrBbga9WYtk87t-Rw11NfbIYNGFZVbn_hrAUh3ZKGULZAjdalEIYZSGZ6Uvqop1DUVEBacYeXk?@5:17, the Lt. openly admits the knee is not on the back of the neck, but rather the shoulder blade. And that is completely allowed by MPD policy according to the Lt. to gain control.
And @7:38, the knee is still on the shoulder blades in another photo that was time stamped a couple minutes after the first picture. And yesterday, there was a side by side bystander video/BWC exhibit shown which showed that the bystander video angle looked as if the knee was on the back of the neck. The BWC was played simultaneously which showed his knee on the shoulder blade.
Also confirmed @9:47.
Lt. also confirms that you can use bodyweight to hold someone down until EMS arrive @13:56.
Further down Eric Nelson talks about considering the totality of the circumstances and their decision to hold someone down. So to render Floyd aid, Chauvin was thinking about the crowd, was thinking about how much Floyd fought with police prior (which is something that they're trained on), was thinking he was on drugs and could regain consciousness and begin fighting again, was thinking that he had to remove the cuffs as well. Remember from the body cam video -- Chauvin had told one of the officers to hop in the EMS car and strap Floyd in.
But set that aside. Looking at the knee. There are two questions. Where was it placed, and what was the pressure that Chuavin used. We know the knee was on Floyd's neck or at the very least, was not on Floyd's neck for a 2-3 minutes confirmed by the still photos, and we don't have evidence that the neck was being drilled down by Chauvin and all of his 140 pounds onto 230 lbs, 6'3 George Floyd.
This Lt., in contrast with all the other witnesses, had to concede that the neck restraint used was justified and permitted, but the disagreement is about *how long* the knee was used. And if we're considering the totality of the circumstances and *not* using 20/20 hindsight bias, was it reasonable for Chauvin to believe that shoulder restraint was needed given that the crowd was hostile, the cuffs would need to be removed in order to do CPR, Floyd regained consciousness and could begin fighting again, Floyd was extremely agitated, kicking his legs, just prior to being restrained...I'm inclined to believe "probably". I wasn't in their shoes so it's hard to know for sure. I get the luxury of using hindsight bias, they don't have that luxury. And Nelson makes this exact point too.
And just a quick point on the homicide aspect of this. Homicide is not murder. If Floyd died because of the stress of the situation on his heart, something that would not normally kill but for drugs in his system, that isn't the officer's fault. Homicide here means but for the actions of the officers, Floyd would be alive. Meaning had not police been called to the scene, Floyd's heart rate would not have skyrocketed, therefore he would not have died. That's all homicide means. That doesn't mean drugs were not the main contributing factor of death, or the deciding factor of death.