In his testimony against one of his own former officers, Arradondo, who became chief in 2017, made frequent references to community relations and his concerns about public perception of the police department.
"Of all the things we do as peace officers for the Minneapolis Police Department, the thousands of calls our men and women respond to, it is my firm belief that the one singular incident we will be judged forever on will be our use of force," he said. "So sanctity of life — it is vital that is the pillar for our use of force."
Chauvin is accused of killing Floyd last Memorial Day while arresting Floyd for allegedly using a $20 counterfeit bill at a convenience store. Floyd lay handcuffed on the ground, pleading and saying he couldn't breathe as Chauvin pressed his knee into Floyd's neck for nine minutes.
"That violates our policy," Arradondo said of Chauvin's use of neck restraint. "That is not what we teach."
Arradondo was the latest in a parade of department management called to testify in Chauvin's trial. Last week, the former officer's direct supervisor, Sgt. David Pleoger, said Chauvin should have known from his training that the way he pressed his knee into Floyd's neck could cause positional asphyxia. And Lt. Richard Zimmerman, head of the homicide division and the most senior member of the force with more than three decades of experience, condemned the way Chauvin restrained Floyd as "totally unnecessary."
At issue in the case is whether Chauvin's use of force was deadly and whether it was reasonable.
Zimmerman testified on Friday that Chauvin's restraint hold on Floyd "would be top-tier deadly force," because "if your knee is on a person's neck, that can kill him."
But police are permitted to use deadly force in some situations, and whether that is permissible under the law requires asking what a "reasonable officer on the scene" would have done. Under the Supreme Court's 1989 Graham v. Connor
decision, the key factors for that analysis are the severity of the crime involved, whether the suspect poses a threat to officers or others on the scene, and whether the suspect is resisting arrest.Arradondo said on Monday that using a counterfeit bill "would not rise to the level in terms of severity of the crime." He said that crime didn't even call for an arrest because it's not considered a violent felony.
"In coordination with our courts, there's been a shift over the years to make sure the individuals going to jail are those who, from a public safety standpoint, need to be in that facility," he said. "If it's not a violent situation, we can always issue a complaint."
Arradondo also testified that the department's policies make it clear officers should aim to deescalate a situation, even if they initially decide to use force.
"The goal is to resolve the situation as safely as possible," he said. "You want to always have deescalation layered into those actions of using force."
Steve Schleicher, a partner at Minneapolis law firm Maslon LLP who is working pro bono for the prosecution, also used the chief's testimony to introduce the Minneapolis Police Department's policy and procedure manual, which Schleicher noted is "fairly extensive" and "pretty thick."
Chauvin, like all officers in the department, had signed an acknowledgment in 2001 saying he'd read the manual and would continue to review it.
The manual included a 2016 addition that members of the public could video-record officers so long as they didn't get in the way of the officers' duties. That was likely introduced to counter arguments by Chauvin's attorney, Eric Nelson of Halberg Criminal Defense, that outraged bystanders filming Floyd's death on their cellphones were perceived as a "growing threat" and distracted officers from attending to Floyd.
The manual also included an extensive section on deescalation measures. Arradondo said such tactics are key to police policies now, but when he was trained as a cadet in 1989, "it was not mentioned." He attributed the change to the number of botched mental health calls in the late '90s and early 2000s.
But now, Schleicher noted, the policy's use-of-force language includes the word "shall," which makes deescalation mandatory.
"Seeking to minimize physical force, that can be happening while physical force is being employed," Schleicher said. "An officer can be using physical force and during the course of that still be making attempts to deescalate and diffuse the situation."
On cross-examination, Nelson noted there was also hedging language in the manual that said to deescalate "if reasonable" and "if feasible."
"Use of force has no singular rule," he said. "It's different in each case."
Nelson also pointed out that it had been a while since Arradondo walked the beat, and that he was not "out on the street day to day, arresting people." Bystanders record police regularly with their cameras now, Nelson said, adding that's "something you didn't have to deal with back in 1989," when Arradondo first joined the department.
He also said that policing is "a pretty dangerous profession," and that a minor incident like a traffic stop for a busted taillight "can grow into something major," if, for example, the suspect begins to behave violently. He said someone is "not threatless" just because they're handcuffed, noting that they could bite or kick.
The prosecution noted that when suspects don't comply with police, officers are required to consider whether that might reflect an inability to comply due to medical conditions, mental impairments, language barriers, or the influence of drugs or alcohol.
"The research says people can react differently when under the influence of alcohol or drugs," Arradondo said.
That point is particularly important, since key to Nelson's defense is the possibility that Floyd died of an overdose and chronic heart disease, not asphyxiation. Floyd's autopsy found he had both fentanyl and methamphetamines in his system when he died.
Those medical issues came up earlier Monday during the testimony of Bradford Wankhede Langenfeld, a doctor at Hennepin County Medical Center who administered emergency care to Floyd and eventually pronounced him dead.
Langenfeld testified that when paramedics reported to hospital staff as Floyd was admitted, they mentioned nothing about an overdose or a heart attack. They also said nothing about officers administering CPR to Floyd.
Bystander and police-worn body cam videos show that Chauvin continued to pin Floyd's neck for several minutes after he lost consciousness. He only removed his knee when the paramedics arrived.
Arradondo testified that officers had a duty to administer medical care, and Langenfeld said that the speed with which CPR is administered "informs the likelihood of survival."
"Any amount of time that a patient spends in cardiac arrest without immediate CPR markedly decreases the chance of a good outcome," the doctor testified. "There's approximately a 10 to 15% decrease in survival for every minute CPR is not administered."
On cross-examination, Nelson noted that Langenfeld had tested Floyd's blood gas level and found his carbon dioxide level was twice the healthy amount. He asked about whether toxins like fentanyl and methamphetamine could contribute to elevated carbon dioxide, and the doctor said they both could.
"When someone has a high carbon dioxide level, it causes that person to have the sensation of shortness of breath," Nelson noted, likely a nod to Floyd's cries that he couldn't breathe while Chauvin pressed his knee into Floyd's neck.
Toward the end of the day, jurors heard from Commander Katie Blackwell, who ran training for the Minneapolis Police Department and has known Chauvin for 20 years.
She testified about training on use of force, medical intervention and defensive tactics, as well as which classes Chauvin attended. Blackwell said Chauvin worked as a field training officer mentoring rookies on the force — a role that required extra training in addition to the annual refresher courses mandated for all officers.
Schleicher used Blackwell's testimony to introduce records of Chauvin's training history.
Blackwell was shown a still from a bystander video of Chauvin pressing his knee into Floyd's neck, and testified that it was not a move taught in the academy.
"I don't know what kind of improvised position that is," Blackwell said. "That's not what we train."
On cross-examination, Nelson pointed out that officers train in eight-hour blocks, but may cycle through several hourlong trainings during that time. He noted that in response to his subpoena for what topics Chauvin was trained in, he received 30,000 pages of documents on the training offerings for all four of the officers involved in Floyd's fatal arrest.
--Editing by Alanna Weissman.
Update: This story has been updated to include the cross-examination of Arradondo and the testimony of Blackwell.
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