Co-worker who claimed George Floyd and Derek Chauvin 'bumped heads' at nightclub changes story: 'It was a mix-up'
A man who previously worked with George Floyd and had claimed that the 46-year-old had "bumped heads" with his killer Derek Chauvin has changed his story and said he confused Floyd with another African-American man. MEA WorldWide (MEAWW) previously reported Floyd had worked as part-time security man at a Minneapolis nightclub called El Nuevo Rodeo, where Chauvin had been the off-duty police officer for 17 years. David Pinney had revealed that he worked security at the club alongside Floyd and the two men knew each other "pretty well."
"I knew George on a work basis," he had told CBS News. "We were pretty close. When it came to our security positions, he was in charge and I worked directly below him as a security adviser." Floyd died on Memorial Day in police custody after Minneapolis Police officers Chauvin, Tou Thao, J. Alexander Kueng, and Thomas Lane confronted him over a counterfeit $20 bill that he had allegedly used to purchase cigarettes.
In a heartbreaking video that has now been viewed hundreds of millions of times on social media, Floyd could be seen pleading for his life, gasping "I can't breathe," and calling for his mother as Chauvin knelt on his neck for almost nine minutes. He eventually lost consciousness and became unresponsive, and was declared dead later the same evening.
Pinney had claimed that the relationship between Floyd and Chauvin at the nightclub was tense and that he had to act as a mediator between the pair because the former did not want to interact with the police officer owing to his aggressive behavior. "He always showed aggression to, you know, George," he had said. "So George, to keep it professional, George had me intervene and – interface with him instead of himself, just to be – just to get away from the conflict and keep it professional."
"I can relate to George, how he felt. And I think that's what makes that personal bond between him and I, dealing with Derek," he added.
However, on Wednesday, June 10, Pinney recanted his claims and said he had confused Floyd with someone else. "There has been a mix up between George and another fellow co-worker," he said in a statement. "She [the club's owner, Maya Santamaria] specifically said she was unable to give detail information about George because she did not have a close relationship with him as I did," he continued, before stating that confusion was what led to the mistake. "I apologize for not doing my due diligence and placing you in a very uncomfortable situation."
But he stood by his characterization that Chauvin was "aggressive," something Santamaria herself confirmed in an interview last month. "He sometimes had a real short fuse and he seemed afraid," she had shared. "When there was an altercation he always resorted to pulling out his mace and pepper-spraying everybody right away, even if I felt it was unwarranted."
Chauvin has been charged with second-degree murder in Floyd's death and made his first court appearance on Monday, June 8, where a judge raised his unconditional bail amount to $1.25 million.