While most state laws allow the police to use the amount of force necessary to affect a

lawful arrest; the knees of the Minneapolis, Minnesota police officer on the neck under
the watchful eyes of other officers of Mr. George Floyd, in my opinion was grossly
negligent and indifferent. Mr. Floyd was handcuffed with his hands behind his back.
The video shows a police officer who could have weighed 3oo pounds with his knee and
bodyweight on Mr. Floyd’s neck for at least 7 seven minutes as he lay on the street
asking to be allowed to breath. You could hear Mr. Floyd who was 46 years old asking
for his mother. At that point whatever struggle that may have happened was over. Any
movement after that by Mr. Floyd was an attempt to breathe, to survive. This was a very
disturbing encounter that resulted in a death and it should be rejected by law
enforcement leaders, by officers and even the most steadfast supporters of the police.
Since 2014 the death of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, many communities have
viewed incident after incident of questionable use of force by their police; unfortunately
these kinds of incidents keep happening; even though we are under a microscope.

I am a longtime member of the North Carolina Association of Chiefs of Police (NCACP)

and International Association of Chiefs of Police (IACP. Both organizations issued
official statements rejecting this incident. A part of the statement from the NCACP
states “the untimely death of Mr. George Floyd of Minnesota is deeply disturbing to the
police executives of this state and should be of great concern to every citizen across this
nation. The NCACP fully supports the swift and timely actions by Chief Medaria
Arradondo of the Minneapolis Police Department to terminate the officers involved in
this case. The actions of the officers involved appear without merit, justification, and
displayed an absence of the very basic sense of compassion and empathy for the life of
Mr. George Floyd.” A part of the statement from the IACP states “law enforcement
officers are trained to treat all individuals, whether they are a complainant, suspect, or
defendant, with dignity and respect. This is the bedrock principle behind the concepts of
procedural justice and police legitimacy. That is why incidents involving the use-of-
force are never the desired outcome in any given situation; moreover, it is the
responsibility of police leaders to hold officers accountable for incidents when use-of-
force is not aligned with agency policy or appropriate to the given circumstance.”
In regards to this video, many people are asking why does it seem like some officers are
ready to use excessive force with little or no provocation. Increasingly, people who don’t
trust the police point to what is called the warrior mindset. This is a belief by many that
some officers, regardless of the nature crime, think the streets in the communities they
serve are battlefields; that they are surrounded by potential enemies; and every
encounter is a struggle to be won. I can say that very few officers have this mindset; the
best of us do not. But those who do can cause indelible damage to our profession. In an
incident like this, silence can be viewed as complicit; as approval. So I feel obligated to
speak up about this. This was excessive unnecessary force under the circumstances. This
was bad police work. I believe every community would expect an experienced police
officer to be able to get himself under control in much less than seven minutes. And I
think citizens would expect others officers who are on the scene, regardless of how much
experience they have to intervene. Why was it in 2020, to be more concerned about
blocking the view of citizens who have a right to record the incident and ignore the pleas
of the person in custody asking for help? The vast majority of men and women in law
enforcement are dedicated, mindful, law abiding, compassionate officers who reliably do
an excellent job on a daily basis. So I apologize for what is seen on this video.