UPDATED 6/11, 2:00 p.m. ET: David Pinney said he mistook George Floyd for another African American employee at the club in question, CBS News reports.
"There has been a mix up between George and another fellow co-worker," he wrote in an email to the outlet.
He explained that the club's former owner, Maya Santamaria, was "unable to give detail information about George because she did not have a close relationship" with him. "I apologize for not doing my due diligence and placing you in a very uncomfortable situation," he added.
See original story below.
Derek Chauvin, the Minneapolis police officer who is charged in George Floyd's death alongside three other officers, allegedly had a history with his victim, CBS News reports. Both Floyd and Chauvin previously worked security at a nightclub in the city at the same time, and a coworker of theirs said that they "bumped heads" before Floyd's death.
"It has a lot to do with Derek being extremely aggressive within the club with some of the patrons, which was an issue," coworker David Pinney told CBS News. The Floyd family previously said that they had reason to believe Chauvin "knew who George Floyd was," and as a result, they called for him to be charged with first-degree murder. "Is there any doubt in your mind that Derek Chauvin knew George Floyd?" Pinney was asked, to which he responded, "No doubt in my mind, he knew exactly who George was." In fact, Pinney claimed that Chauvin knew Floyd "pretty well."
The owner of the now-torched nightclub, Maya Santamaria, said that Chauvin interacted with black patrons differently than he did with white patrons. "I think he was afraid and intimidated," Santamaria said. She added that Chauvin "worked outside," while the security guards, including Floyd, worked inside the club. She wasn't sure if the pair knew each other, however.
In an earlier interview with Face the Nation, Floyd family lawyer Ben Crump said he believes Chauvin purposefully went after Floyd. "We think that [Chauvin] had intent, based on not the one minute, two-minute, but over eight minutes, almost nine minutes he kept his knee in a man's neck that was begging and pleading for breath," he explained. "At what point does it not be about detaining a man who is face-down with handcuffs, not posing any threat, to an intentional will to cause bodily harm?"
