Lol no. An officer cannot justify what would otherwise be considered an unlawful or improper use of force because a crowd was demanding that he stop doing that very thing. I don't even know where to begin explaining how ridiculous this is. I am sure that's exactly the sort of 'thinking' that went through Chauvin's mind- and that's why he, and not every cop in America, is behind bars. Cops have to deal with 'hostile crowds' all the time.
Yes, and while Floyd was resisting it was reasonable to use that force to stop him. But the reasonableness of that force is proportional to the resistance that must be overcome. When someone is laying on the ground, not moving (or breathing) the same amount of force is no longer reasonable. Knowing when force is no longer reasonable is just as important as knowing when to apply it. At the end of a use of force report, these are the words you want to see: "Once (active\passive) resistance was overcome, force was ceased." Here there was no resistance for minutes on end. They were no longer trying to get him in the car, he was handcuffed and was not trying to get up. He was literally just laying there. There was nothing he could have done at that point to be any more compliant. And yet he was still being knelt on.
Again, I hate that people are now acting like this is standard procedure. It's fucking not. Cops are not all this stubborn