According to a report from NBC News, a former police officer from California who was a defense witness in the Derek Chauvin murder trial was a target of intimidation after a pig’s head was found at his former home this past weekend.
Testifying that Chauvin’s use of force on George Floyd was “an incident of deadly force”, former Santa Rosa Police Officer Barry Brodd was the target of the intimidation tactic similar to horse head found in the bed of the entertainer on The Godfather, but this was solely because of Brodd’s testimony.
The problem is that Brodd no longer lives at the residence where the pig’s head was found this past Saturday(April 17).
“Mr. Brodd has not lived at the residence for a number of years and is no longer a resident of California,” police stated. “Because Mr. Brodd no longer lives in the city of Santa Rosa, it appears the victim was falsely targeted.”
Besides the pig’s head being found, the front of the house was smeared in blood by a mob dressed in black. The mob left the scene after an eyewitness called 911, but allegedly covered a nearby statue in blood and left a sign that read, “Oink, oink.”
In Brodd’s testimony, his conclusion was that George Floyd’s death was accidental, then compared Chauvin’s neck restraint to an officer firing a stun gun at a suspect who then falls and fatally hits their head.
“I felt that Officer Chauvin’s interactions with Mr. Floyd were following his training, following current practices in policing and objectively reasonable,” Brodd said. “That isn’t an incident of deadly force. That’s an incident of an accidental death.”
With all of the media and public attention drawn to the Chauvin case, the Santa Rosa Police Department has tried its best to distance itself from Brodd’s testimony, with Santa Rosa Police Chief Rainer Navarro stating, “the former officer’s comments do not reflect the values and beliefs of the Santa Rosa Police Department.”
