Chauvin Supervisor: ‘Officers Could Have Ended Their Restraint’

Retired Minneapolis Police Sergeant David Pleoger, who was Derek Chauvin’s supervisor during the George Floyd killing, testified that the officers’ use of force against Floyd could have ended sooner.

Pleoger testified that he called Chauvin after receiving a concerned call from a 911 dispatcher who watched the arrest on surveillance camera. He told the court that Chauvin could have stopped using force as soon as Floyd stopped resisting.

“When Mr Floyd was no longer offering up any resistance to the officers they could have ended their restraint,” he said.

Chauvin kept his knee on Floyd’s neck for nearly four minutes after he stopped moving. Hiss knee remained on his neck even while paramedics showed up and checked his pulse.

Chauvin faces charges of second and third-degree murder and manslaughter over Floyd’s death. The most serious charge carrying a sentence of up to 40 years behind bars.

Pleoger shared that officers in the department are trained to restrict the amount of time a suspect can be held down in a prone position while being restrained.

He explained that once in the probe position, officers are trained to “Put him in the side-recovery position,” Pleoger said. “Basically roll them up on their side to ease their breathing rather than leaving them laying on their stomach or chest.” He added that this is important because “It helps them breathe better rather than have all the weight on their chest. It gets them up on their side so they can breathe easier.”

On Monday, 911 dispatcher Jena Scurry testified that she was the dispatcher who called Plegoer.

“You can call me a snitch if you want to,” Scurry told Pleoger on the call. “I don’t know if they had used force or not. They got something out of the back of the squad, and all of them sat on this man.”

In court, she said, “My instincts were telling me that something’s wrong. Something’s not right,” Scurry testified. “I don’t know what, but something wasn’t right.”