By Don Sweeney
The Sacramento Bee
SANTA ROSA, Calif. — Vandals splashed blood and left a severed pig’s head at the former California home of an expert witness at the trial of Derek Chauvin in the death of George Floyd, Santa Rosa police say.
But Barry Brodd, a former Santa Rosa Police Department officer who testified in Chauvin’s defense, hasn’t lived in the community in years, police wrote on Facebook. In fact, he’s no longer a California resident at all.
“Because Mr. Brodd no longer lives in the city of Santa Rosa, it appears the victim was falsely targeted,” police wrote.
Residents of the home called 911 at 3 a.m. to report intruders dressed in black had thrown a pig’s head on the porch and splashed blood on the doorway.
About 45 minutes later, the same group splashed blood on a giant sculpture of a hand outside Santa Rosa Plaza mall and left a sign reading “oink oink” with a picture of a pig, police say.
“It appears the suspects in this vandalism were targeting Mr. Brodd for his testimony,” police wrote on Facebook.
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Floyd, 46, died while in police custody May 25 and his death sparked an avalanche of protests across the nation. He died after Chauvin, a now-fired Minneapolis police officer, pressed his knee into Floyd’s neck for at least eight minutes, as three other officers didn’t intervene.
A 17-year-old bystander took video of the incident, in which Floyd can be heard saying, “Please, please, please, I can’t breathe.”
Chauvin is now on trial facing charges of second-degree murder, third-degree murder and second-degree manslaughter.
Brodd, testifying as an expert witness, said Chauvin “was acting with objective reasonableness following Minneapolis Police Department policy and current standards of law enforcement in his interactions with Mr. Floyd,” ABC News reported.
But several other experts testified at the trial that Chauvin’s actions were not in keeping with law enforcement standards and policies on the use of force.
Following Brodd’s testimony, Santa Rosa Police Chief Rainer Navarro said in a statement that his comments did not “reflect the values and beliefs” of his department.
https://www.facebook.com/SantaRosaPoliceDepartment/posts/3630216243767546
Police asked that anyone with information on the vandalism contact the department’s tip line.
(c)2021 The Sacramento Bee (Sacramento, Calif.)