A white Minneapolis police officer and the black man he's charged with killing both worked as security guards at the same Latin nightclub as recently as last year, but its former owner says she’s not sure if they knew each other, the AP reports. What she is certain of is how aggressive Officer Derek Chauvin became when the club hosted events that drew a mainly black clientele, responding to fights by taking out his mace and spraying the crowd, a tactic she told him was unjustified "overkill." "He would mace everyone instead of apprehending the people who were fighting," said Maya Santamaria, former owner of El Nuevo Rodeo club in Minneapolis. "He would call backup. The next thing you would know, there would five or six squad cars."
Chauvin became the focus of outrage and four days of street protests across the nation this week after he was seen kneeling on the neck of George Floyd for more than eight minutes during an arrest; Floyd died in custody and Chauvin was fired Tuesday and arrested Friday on charges of third-degree murder and manslaughter. Santamaria said she doesn’t believe the two men knew each other prior to their fateful encounter Monday night. She said Chauvin got along well with the club's Latino regulars, but his tactics toward unruly customers on what she referred to as "African American" nights led her to speak to him about it. "I told him I thought this is unnecessary to be pepper-sprayed," Santamaria said. "The knee-jerk reaction of being afraid, it seemed overkill."
(More
George Floyd stories.)
,
uBlock 
,
and
Ghostery 
)
