by WorldTribune Staff, January 8, 2025 Real World News
Minneapolis Assistant Police Chief Katie Blackwell lied when she testified in the trial of Derek Chauvin that the department did not train the “knee-on-neck” restraint used by Chauvin on George Floyd, according to 14 current and former Minneapolis Police Department officers.
The officers signed sworn declarations attesting to their belief that Blackwell committed perjury during the trial of Chauvin over the May 20, 2020 death of Floyd. Blackwell testified “that’s not what we train” when asked about the method of restraint used by Chauvin.
The officers said in the signed declaration that the “knee-on-neck restaint Chauvin employed was trained under the maximal-restraint technique (MRT), a restraint the MPD taught and allowed until 2023.”
Related: No, Policeman Derek Chauvin did not get a fair trial in Minneapolis, April 30, 2023
The officers “swore that this training was well known — indeed, common knowledge — and omnipresent,” Alpha News reported on Jan. 7.
The officers’ statements were among declarations submitted by lawyers representing Alpha News in a defamation lawsuit filed by Blackwell last October against Alpha News reporter Liz Collin, producer J.C. Chaix, and a publishing company. In her lawsuit, Blackwell alleged that the Alpha News documentary “The Fall of Minneapolis” and a book authored by Collin wrongly accused her of lying.
This week, lawyers for Alpha News filed a motion to have the case dismissed with prejudice.
“With this motion, 33 former MPD officers who served with Blackwell, and one who currently serves with her, have sworn that MPD trained this restraint as part of the ‘maximal-restraint technique’ (‘MRT’) and otherwise. Indeed, 14 of these officers have sworn — under oath — their belief that Blackwell perjured herself,” attorney Chris Madel wrote in the motion.
“Blackwell remarkably claims that Collin and Chaix defamed her when they opined that it ‘seemed’ like Blackwell lied. In reality, this opinion was far more generous than necessary. It is a fact,” says the motion.
Former MPD officer Ken Tidgwell, who signed a declaration saying he believes Blackwell perjured herself, said he was trained to use the MRT when he was a member of the MPD:
“Specifically, we were trained that when two officers were trying to handcuff a person that was resisting arrest, one officer should use his or her knee to employ a knee-to-neck/upper shoulder restraint to control the subject’s head, and the other knee should be used to control one of the subject’s arms during handcuffing.”
Describing how Blackwell said “that’s not what we train” when examining images of Chauvin restraining Floyd, Tidgwell wrote:
“If by ‘we’ Katie Blackwell referred to the MPD, then I believe that she perjured herself. Every MPD officer knows that restraint was trained, and every MPD officer knows it was trained as part of the MRT process. We were trained that ‘where the head goes, the body will follow.’ ”
In his declaration, Tidgwell produced a photo which he said depicts Blackwell arresting a man in 2014, writing: “It appears that Katie Blackwell was employing the knee-to-neck/upper shoulder restraint that I described in this declaration in the picture I included in paragraph 5 above.”
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