Stubblefield spent the past 11 years on Dana Altman’s staff at Oregon and was promoted to associate head coach before this past season.

DePaul on Tuesday hired longtime Oregon assistant Tony Stubblefield as head coach to rebuild a basketball program that has struggled in recent decades.

Stubblefield, who agreed last week to take the job, is the first major hire for DePaul athletic director DeWayne Peevy since he took over in August after 12 years in Kentucky’s athletic department. It will be up to him to restore a program with a proud history.

“I’m very familiar with the tradition of success this program has achieved, and I know we can achieve it again together,” Stubblefield said in a statement. “The challenge ahead is the most exciting part.”

Stubblefield takes over after Dave Leitao was fired last month six years into his second tenure.

“Relationships, recruiting and vision were everything with this hire,” Peevy said. “We knew we had to find the right person for where our program is right now. Tony quickly demonstrated his eagerness to begin rebuilding this program to national prominence. That, coupled with over 28 years of Division I college coaching experience, extensive college basketball relationships, an elite history of recruiting and his alignment with our vision for the future, made him quickly rise to the top of our candidate list.”

Peevy said DePaul, with help from Chicago-based executive search firm DHR International, vetted and interviewed more than 30 candidates.

Stubblefield spent the past 11 years on Dana Altman’s staff at Oregon and was promoted to associate head coach before this past season. Oregon made seven NCAA Tournaments in that span, with a Final Four appearance in 2017 and a Sweet 16 run this year. The Ducks also won four Pac-12 regular-season championships and three conference tournaments.

Stubblefield helped assemble recruiting classes that included Troy Brown Jr., Louis King and Bol Bol. He was Cincinnati’s recruiting coordinator from 2006 to 2010 and spent six years at New Mexico State, serving as interim coach when Lou Henson missed the 2004-05 season due to health reasons.

Now, he will try to restore a program that once ruled winters in Chicago.

The Blue Demons went 5-14 overall in a season that started about a month late because of COVID-19 issues. They finished last in the Big East Conference for the fifth consecutive year at 2-13.

Leitao was 127-146 over nine years at DePaul. He led the Blue Demons to a 58-34 record from 2002 to 2005 and their most recent NCAA Tournament appearance, in 2004. But his second stint was nowhere near as successful.

DePaul plays in the powerful Big East, in a sparkling arena and in a city known for producing talented players. One of Stubblefield’s most important tasks will be keeping some of Chicago’s elite high school players home.

The Blue Demons have finished last in the Big East 11 of the past 13 seasons and have been upstaged in recent years by Loyola, another Catholic school on the city’s North Side.

The Ramblers made the Final Four in 2018 and advanced to the Sweet 16 this year in their return to the NCAA Tournament. They beat ACC Tournament champion Georgia Tech and Illinois — the No. 1 seed in the Midwest Region — before losing to Oregon State. Loyola has a new coach, with Porter Moser leaving for Oklahoma and assistant Drew Valentine getting promoted to replace him.

DePaul President A. Gabriel Esteban said Stubblefield is the right person to lead the Blue Demons.

“With more than 20 years of coaching experience at the college level, I know Coach Stubblefield will be an excellent mentor for our student-athletes,” Esteban said. “In my conversations with him, Tony expressed his admiration for the DePaul community, specifically our Catholic, Vincentian mission.”

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The shooting happened the day Vice President Kamala Harris was expected to visit Chicago to speak about COVID-19 vaccine equity.

A 2-year-old boy was in critical condition after he was shot in the head while he traveled in a car late Tuesday morning on Lake Shore Drive near Grant Park.

Witnesses reported hearing gunshots about 11 a.m. in the 300 block of South Lake Shore Drive, Chicago police said in a statement. The car then crashed in the northbound lanes of the 100 block of Lake Shore Drive, police said.

A female passenger in the car was seen exiting with the child and then being driven by a citizen to Northwestern Memorial Hospital, police said. The child, shot in the temple, was expected to be transferred to Lurie Children’s Hospital in critical condition, police said.

Police initially said the child was 3 years old, but later clarified he was 2 years old.

Ashlee Rezin Garcia/Sun-Times

It wasn’t immediately clear if the gunshot came from inside or outside the car, a police spokeswoman said. A bullet hole could be seen in the rear passenger window of the crashed vehicle. Northbound Lake Shore Drive was closed until about 1:30 p.m. for a police investigation.

Additional details about the shooting were not immediately released.

The shooting happened the day Vice President Kamala Harris was expected to visit Chicago to speak about COVID-19 vaccine equity.

Police have responded to at least five other shootings this year in the Loop.

Ashlee Rezin Garcia/Sun-Times

Last weekend two men were wounded in separate shootings on Lower Wacker Drive. On Easter, an 18-year-old man was shot about 7:10 a.m. while driving with his girlfriend in the first block of North Lower Wacker, police said. Struck in the neck, he was hospitalized in critical condition. Before dawn Saturday, a 29-year-old man was shot in his knee as he traveled in a vehicle on Lower Wacker, police said.

On March 19, three people were arrested for allegedly firing gunshots shortly after midnight in the first block of East Lake Street, police said. A hotel security guard gave a vehicle description to police, who found the car on Wacker Drive.

In October 2020, prosecutors said Lake Shore Drive became a “shooting gallery” when someone shot out the eye of a 19-year-old woman in a vehicle at Jackson Boulevard, just south of where the child was shot Tuesday.

Chicago police’s 1st District, which covers the Loop and South Loop, has seen two other shootings this year through March 28, according to police statistics. Overall crime in the district has fallen 35% over the same period last year, according to the numbers. Meanwhile, reports of sex assault and vehicle thefts have increased over the last year.

This is a developing story. Check back for updates.

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“I want to see the Yermin fans, the Yerminator fans” at home opener, Mercedes said. The feeling is probably mutual.

If there’s a White Sox Opening Day roster projection out there with Yermin Mercedes’ name on it, we want to see it.

The truth is, it probably doesn’t exist.

Projecting what Mercedes did in his first four games this season? Not a chance.

Mercedes’ track record as a good-hitting catcher in 10 seasons of minor league ball, as well as his throwing skills exhibited during spring training notwithstanding, most Sox roster forecasts had Yasmani Grandal and veteran Jonathan Lucroy as the 1-2 punch, with former first-round draft choice Zack Collins having a shot as the backup or a third catcher because of his left-handed bat.

Collins was the talk of spring training, even though Mercedes also had another good spring after hitting a team-high four Cactus League homers while batting .346 in spring training last year. All that got him was one plate appearance during the regular season.

Mercedes not only made the team this year after the Sox released Lucroy, who was the Nationals’ Opening Day starter Tuesday, he has done things nobody has done in the history of baseball. He is one of the best stories in the game in the first week of the season.

“Hollywood golden ridiculous,” is how broadcaster Jason Benetti called it.

It’s Mercedes’ golden world right now and we’re just along for the fascinating ride, for however long it lasts. The ride stops at Guaranteed Rate Field for the home opener Thursday, and if you want to see Mercedes in the lineup.

And he wants to see you.

“I want to see my fans over there on Opening Day in Chicago,” Mercedes said Monday after going 3-for-4 in the Sox’ 6-0 win over the Mariners, raising his average to .667 (12-for-18). “I want everyone to talk to me. I want to see my people. I want to see the Yermin fans, the Yerminator fans. I’m so excited, I can’t wait.”

Manager Tony La Russa never expected to use Mercedes as much as he has. But the 5-11, 245-pound 28-year-old rookie, often with his shirt tail hanging out, became the first player to start a season going 8-for-8 as his designated hitter. After starting him in the Sox’ second game, La Russa hasn’t been able to keep him out of the lineup.

Mercedes’ 12 hits through Monday were the most by any player in the modern era over his first four career starts. He was the first player with three-plus hits in a game three times in his first four career starts since Brooklyn Dodgers Hall of Fame catcher Roy Campanella in 1948.

Mercedes’ 12 hits were the most by any Sox player over his first four games of a season, surpassing Ducky Holmes’ 11 in 1904.

He is also the first Sox player with three-plus hits in a game three times in his first four games of a season.

La Russa has been trying to get at-bats for the left-handed hitting Jake Lamb, but he was committed to Mercedes as the DH only for the first two games of the Mariners series with two left-handers pitching.

Mercedes jerseys are being manufactured for purchase to keep up with expected demand, Mercedes is capturing the fancy of the baseball world with his bat and boyish good nature and his at-bats have become appointment television.

La Russa knows he almost has to play him Thursday.

“I’d be booed in the introductions,” he said.

With Eloy Jimenez out, Mercedes’ offense has been a welcome, needed boost. Mercedes’ phenomenal run is not sustainable, but he does own a .302/.366/.491 career hitting line in 2,128 minor league at-bats. He has a sound two-strike approach and possesses power.

As Grandal told him, just keep doing what you’re doing and be yourself.

“He said, ‘Keep it Yermin,’ ” Mercedes said Monday. “I’m Yermin so I don’t want to do another thing. Just be the same guy all the time. Don’t change anything.

“I tried to do another thing but it wasn’t working much. But then I came back, and I do Yermin.”

Which has been more than enough, and all that everybody wants.

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Gallup Poll finds that, for the first time, most Americans don’t belong to a congregation.

On May 11, 1833, “Chicago’s first reformer,” Rev. Jeremiah Porter, arrived here to find “a wide, wet prairie, as far as the eye could reach, on a muddy river winding south over a sand-bar to the Lake with a few scattered dwellings.”

The Presbyterian minister also found, to his horror, a priest, John M. I. St. Cyr, who arrived 10 days earlier, and got busy raising a Catholic church, St. Mary’s, at State and Lake.

Not one to accept fate passively, Rev. Porter knelt beside St. Mary’s late at night and prayed for its destruction. Setting the tone for interdenominational relations for centuries to come.

That prayed-for doom has been slow in arriving. But a milestone was sailed past, almost unnoticed, last week, as the Gallup Poll reported that for the first time in its 80-year history of prodding the American soul, most people in this country don’t belong to a religious congregation.

Only 47%t of Americans are members of a church, mosque or synagogue. In 1999, it was 70%.

That figure will only dwindle, since, like using a handkerchief, regularly sliding your keister into a pew is an elderly practice. The Gallup Poll found 66% of those born before 1946 belong to a congregation, but only 36% of millennials do.

The press is supposed to be the dread Beast, dancing around the bonfires of pagan secular humanism. But the story barely made a ripple.

Could all those naysayers be right? Does the media really ignore good news?

Is the decline of organized religion good news? Scratch any act of meanness, cruelty or spite and half the time you’ll find a religious person nodding vigorously, explaining how his big imaginary friend in the sky demands acting in an otherwise indefensible manner. Look at all the evil that faith has endorsed and it’s hard not to view religion as an engine of suffering, like disease.

How did Harriet Beecher Stowe put it In “Uncle Tom’s Cabin,” marveling at the vigorous gymnastics ministers went through boosting slavery? Clergy, she wrote, will “warp and bend ethics and language to a degree that shall astonish the world at their ingenuity; they can press nature and the Bible and nobody knows what else into the service” of supporting slavery.

So good riddance, right?

Not so fast. Religion does good too. The metaphor I use for religion is that it’s like a hammer. You can use it to build a house. Or to hit somebody in the head. Neither is the hammer’s fault. Same for religion. It can expand you, send you to Zambia to teach villagers to dig wells. Or it can — as some Yeshiva boys who stopped by my office once did — cause you to refuse to touch a book that hasn’t been approved by your rabbi. You can use religion to argue that covering your face is an offense to God — that would be consistent with anti-Muslim caviling. Or you can be one of those churches showing up with sandwiches to greet the Night Ministry medical bus. Both exist.

My fond hope is that the decline might eventually bring a dawning awareness of the diversity of belief. Despite all the pretensions of multiculturalism, there is still an default assumption of monolithic Christianity, reflected even in the headline on the Gallup story delivering the news: “U.S. Church Membership Falls Below Majority for First Time.”

Which would make the casual reader think the story is about churches, right? Places where Christians go to worship. But then you read the article, it points out, “in 2020, 47% of Americans said they belonged to a church, synagogue or mosque.”

I can’t speak for Muslims, but I know Jews don’t say, “I’m going to church for Max’s bar mitzvah.” Yes, headlines compress a story, but lumping all religious institutions under the “church” label, well, that’s the whole problem in a nutshell, isn’t it?

As organized religion dwindles, maybe at some point true believers look up, blink furiously, and think, “Oh wait, there’s other people? And they believe other things?”

Wouldn’t that be something?

Nah. As they dwindle, the faithful will work more furiously toward imposing their fading religion on the growing body of unwilling unbelievers. It’s like the Republican model of government: Yell loud enough and some will believe you are still in charge.

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After a sweaty workout, how about a beer with electrolytes versus water or Gatorade?

After a sweaty workout, what do you grab to quench your thirst and replenish your body? How about a beer?

Many of us reach for Gatorade or water, but brewers want you to consider their libations, too. In fact, a growing number of beer makers are taking a cue from sports drinks and are adding electrolytes into their brews.

These beers are usually lower in alcohol, so whether or not you drink them after a workout, you won’t feel sluggish. And many other fitness-centric beers are using unique ingredients you might not expect to quaff in an ale or lager.

For instance, Massachusetts-based Harpoon Brewery’s Rec. League is a hazy pale ale that weighs in at 3.8% ABV and 120 calories, and is made with ingredients including chia seeds and a whole grain cereal called buckwheat kasha — both add minerals and B vitamins — and Mediterranean sea salt, which yields electrolytes.

At Mispillion River Brewing, the Milford, Delaware brewery has a line of fruity and tart, but not hoppy beers called the War series, infused with electrolytes “that … reaches a demographic that is very different from the typical craft beer drinker,” said brewery president and founder Eric Williams.

Harpoon Brewery

While women don’t make up the majority of craft beer drinkers, Williams has noticed that demographic has taken a liking to the offering that includes the mixed berry-flavored War Llama and War Possum —think strawberry lemonade — and both have 5% alcohol by volume (equal to Budweiser).

“We are not saying it’s a healthy beer, but we are saying it’s a beer you should drink after you run,” Williams said.

Beer taps into health-consciousness

Health-conscious beers aren’t totally new. Low-calorie and light beers have grown in popularity since the ‘80s, when Bud Light arrived to battle Miller Lite. Michelob Ultra, a lower calorie beer, from Budweiser, is currently the No. 2 selling beer in the U.S. and the fastest-growing beer over the past year, according to retail sales data from NielsenIQ.

“Performance” ingredients such as electrolytes, vitamins or antioxidants have become popular but are not found in all the beers targeting “the more health-conscious consumers,” says Dave Williams of Bump Williams Consulting of Shelton, Connecticut, which services the beverage alcohol industry.

The skyrocketing growth in hard seltzers — now being offered by Anheuser-Busch InBev, Boston Beer Co. (parent of Samuel Adams beers and Truly Hard Seltzers), Coors and New Belgium Brewing — is a sign that consumers are seeking health-conscious options, he says.

So are non-alcoholic beers: Athletic Brewing Co., a non-alcoholic craft brewery founded in 2017, saw its business increase fivefold in 2020, co-founder Bill Shufelt says.

Low alcohol, flavor fit consumer thirsts

An active lifestyle is important to Geoff Pedder, who in 2015 founded Zelus Beer Co. in Medfield, Massachusetts. A triathlete, runner and marathoner, Pedder “was always quite confident there was a market” for lower-alcohol, health-conscious beers. Most of the brewery’s beers, including Weekender, a German-style lager, Race Pace New England IPA and Light Into Dark porter are made with calcium, potassium and sodium salts.

Zelus saw sales rise 25% in 2020 and is expanding its distribution.

“Our brand is a lot about building an active lifestyle community, a bit like Michelob Ultra does,” Pedder says. “They try to build a community around it, too.”

Are performance beers a good, post-workout option?

Brewers and other beverage makers are trying to make alcoholic beverages “more ‘functional,” Ginger Hultin, a nutritionist and owner of Champagne Nutrition, said.

In doing so, there is a wide range of products on the market right now; some are alcoholic, some aren’t. Regardless, many are geared toward athletes for recovery and hydration.

“What I’m seeing on the market is additives and ingredients like chia seeds, bee pollen, lemongrass or other herbs/spices, black currant, lime, or other fruits or berries and added electrolytes like salt,” Hultin said, noting those elements are common in sports drinks but new to the beer category.

While the thought of a cold beer after a Friday afternoon jog might be enticing, it might not be the optimal choice for rehydration.

“The most important thing for recovery from an endurance activity is definitely hydration with water (and electrolytes if needed depending on the activity) and food,” Hultin said. “My advice is to focus on those basic aspects of fueling your sport and to enjoy a beer — regular or ‘performance,’ if you enjoy it.”

Hultin added that enjoying in moderation is key.

Even though its beers contain electrolytes, Zelus Beer Co. doesn’t tout the replenishing aspect, founder Pedder says: ”Beer is a diuretic. The reality is, you have to get to very low alcohol level to remove the diuretic effect of the alcohol. We don’t get down to those levels.”

Brewing beer lovers’ loyalty

Craft breweries, too, are catering to fitness-minded drinkers. In 2017, Dogfish Head Craft Brewery of Delaware released SeaQuench Ale, made with sea salts and minerals including calcium, chloride, magnesium, potassium and sodium to help sate thirst and replace lost electrolytes.

Released about a year later, Slightly Mighty IPA, a low-alcohol ale (4% ABV) with only 95 calories and 3.6 grams of carbohydrates — rivaling Michelob Ultra — is the top-selling low-calorie IPA, with sales more than doubling in the last year, according to NielsenIQ. A typical IPA can have as many as 200 calories or more.

Dogfish Head Craft Brewery

Brewery co-founder Sam Calagione said that Dogfish Head made its first “active life style beer,” a 4.8% Belgian-style white ale called Namaste, more than a decade ago, initially to serve after brewery yoga sessions.

Harpoon released its Rec. League hazy pale ale in 2019 as an option for health-conscious drinkers, with sales up nearly 50% in the last year, according to NielsenIQ.

A recent consumer survey commissioned by the brewery validated its strategy. Better-for-you ingredients were more important than a year ago for nearly one-third (31%) of the 949 consumers surveyed. Healthier ingredients were more important to millennials, those aged 27-41 (52%), than to GenXers, aged 42-56 (26%).

Factors consumers considered important for healthier options: calorie count (28%), carbs and sugars (28%), nutritional ingredients (27%), and alcohol strength (27%).

“Performance beers are a growing trend that shows no signs of slowing down any time soon,” said Steven Pauwels, brewmaster for Boulevard Brewing in Kansas City, Missouri, which released 4.1%, 99-calorie, electrolyte-infused Easy Sport Rally Ale after its brewing manager made a small batch for his running group. “There is a clear evolution among young consumers to live an active and healthy lifestyle, while also enjoying an affinity for craft beer.”

Read more at usatoday.com

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It would be nice to believe that once the redistricting process is completed, you and I will be able to look at the map and exclaim, “I can see patterns that are logical!” I don’t think it’s going to happen.

I was going to start this paragraph in one direction and then suddenly change course in another and just as quickly zip off to some seemingly unrelated topic so distant from its beginnings your mind would reel.

That would be confusing. You would lose interest. And that would be the point.

My topic today is legislative redistricting, the process by which public officials undermine democracy and predetermine the outcome of most elections.

Illinois, along with all the other states in the Union, is in the process of legislative redistricting. This happens every 10 years following the U.S. Census.

This year, the Democrats who control the Illinois Senate and House claim they are holding hearings to obtain public input and that the process will be more open than ever before because former House Speaker Mike Madigan, the longtime political tyrant who dominated the redistricting process, is gone.

It would be nice to believe that once the process is over you and I and everyone else in this Land of Lincoln will be able to look at a map of this state and exclaim, “I can see geometric patterns that are logical.”

Legislative districts in the shapes of squares and rectangles, for example.

Or, perhaps, you might look at a map and recognize that entire communities in Chicago share the same state representative, state senator and congressman. Suburbs would not be cut in half or, more the norm, divided into jigsaw puzzle shapes that make no sense at all.

That would be nice. I don’t believe it is going to happen.

That’s because, in large part, the shapes of districts are intended to confuse voters. Ask most folks what state legislative district they live in and they shrug their shoulders. Maybe they can come up with their ward or congressional district.

Who is your state senator? Dick Durbin. Tammy Duckworth. Heck, that’s what Google says.

I have discovered most people don’t know they have a state senator and, if they do, they couldn’t give you a name.

I used to blame folks for that. I would call them ignorant. Lazy. Eventually, I came to realize they were ordinary people who were deliberately misled by a political process intended to control and discourage voter turnout.

Gerrymandering is a time-tested method to predetermine the outcome of elections. Why do the same people stay in office for decades? Why do the same political parties seem to control states all the time?

Because the political majorities in legislatures have become adept at drawing district boundary lines that keep their people in office and make it almost impossible for any challenger to win.

You’ve heard about analytics in baseball, football and basketball? Well, the politicians who control legislative district boundaries have been using computer algorithms to draw their maps now for better than 20 years.

It’s a science. I have seen maps drawn with a line separating one side of a city block from another. Why? So, a certain politician’s house can remain in a district that is considered “safe.”

But the process of gerrymandering is nearly as old as our country.

The word was coined by critics reviewing a Massachusetts redistricting map in 1812. All the the districts looked like salamanders, as a result of the political influence of the Republican governor at that time, Elbridge Gerry.

Most of the legislative districts in Illinois, and particularly in Cook County, don’t resemble anything.

There are any number of good government groups, civic organizations and newspapers that have attempted to influence the process. I commend them for their efforts. Even reputable scholars have had a whack at it.

But trying to get support from the average voter is difficult because the arguments start out at one point, go to another, move from the past to the future and leave you standing in the middle of a directionless highway with a map that defies description.

This is the Picasso of democratic politics. A work of art.

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According to the Bulls guard, he would not have his success if not for big brother, and the Ramblers program made the right decision in promoting Drew Valentine to head coach.

Denzel Valentine is obviously biased when it comes to Loyola basketball and its new head coach.

Little brothers usually are.

But the way the Bulls guard sees it, he wouldn’t be where he was if it wasn’t his older brother, Drew, and neither would the Ramblers program over the last four years.

Drew became the program’s new head coach with the departure of Porter Moser to Oklahoma, and on Tuesday, Denzel was raving about the school’s decision.

“He knows his analytics, he knows X’s and O’s, he knows how to talk to people,’’ Denzel said in a Zoom meeting after the morning shootaround. “Even when we go on vacations and stuff like that, he’s just organized and stuff. We always look to Drew, ‘Drew, what should do? What restaurants should we go to?’

“Probably wouldn’t be where I’m at right now if he wasn’t [a graduate manager] at Michigan State, helping me out. So I give a lot of credit to him for my success, and I think he’s going to push those guys and that team to a new level and I think he’s ready to take on this job.’’

As an assistant at Loyola, Drew was the de facto defensive coordinator, but according to Denzel, he’s much more than that as a coach. Not only does he feel big brother has some old school coaching DNA in him, but because he’s only 29, also relates to today’s players.

Denzel even went onto say that a with a Final Four appearance in 2018 for Loyola, and then a Sweet 16 run this year, it’s easy to connect the dots. The program’s recent success came once Drew joined the staff at the start of that 2017-18 campaign.

“It doesn’t surprise me because he puts in the work, he has incredible knowledge for the game, and he just has that ‘it’ factor,’’ Denzel said. “And I think when he came to Loyola, he brought that ‘it’ factor to this team and to that program, and I think he has a lot to do with their success and I’m glad he got the job.’’

As far as Denzel following in the footsteps of big brother, as well as his father, Carlton, who also coached, that’s a discussion for another day.

“That’s too far down the road right now,’’ Denzel said. “I don’t know. We’ll see. I’m just excited for [Drew].’’

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Sgt. Ker Yang, the Minneapolis police official in charge of training officers on handling crises, became the latest member of the department to take the stand as prosecutors try to prove that Chauvin failed to follow his training when he put his knee on Floyd’s neck.

MINNEAPOLIS — Former Officer Derek Chauvin underwent training in 2016 and 2018 on how to defuse tense situations with people in crisis and how police must use the least amount of force necessary to get someone to comply, the jury at Chauvin’s murder trial was told Tuesday.

Sgt. Ker Yang, the Minneapolis police official in charge of crisis-intervention training, and use-of-force instructor Lt. Johnny Mercil became the latest department members to testify as part of an effort by prosecutors to demolish the argument that Chauvin was doing what he was trained to do when he put his knee on George Floyd’s neck last May.

Yang said officers are taught to make critical decisions in dealing with people in crisis, including those suffering mental problems or the effects of drug use, and then de-escalate the situation. Prosecutor Steve Schleicher said records show that Chauvin attended a 40-hour course on the method in 2016.

“When we talk about fast-evolving situations … a lot of the time we have the time to slow things down and reevaluate and reassess and go through this model,” Yang said.

Records also show that Chauvin took in-service training in the use of force in October 2018. Mercil said those who attended were taught that the sanctity of life and protection of the public are the cornerstone of the department’s use-of-force policy.

He also said officers were taught that restraint is considered force and that they must use the least force required because “it’s safer and better for everybody involved.”

Schleicher showed a still image taken from bystander video of Chauvin with his knee on Floyd’s neck — one that jurors have seen several times — and asked Mercil: “Is this a use of force?”

“Yes sir,” Mercil replied.

Mercil said officers are trained in how to get control of a suspect by using their arms on the side of a person’s neck to slow blood flow to the brain. He said officers are not taught to use their legs or knees, though a knee on the neck can happen depending on a person’s resistance.

Schleicher asked if the neck restraint could be used if the person was under control and handcuffed.

“I would say no,” Mercil said.

He said that if officers are applying handcuffs on someone in a prone position, they are taught to use a knee on the person’s shoulder to isolate the arm.

Chauvin, 45, is charged with murder and manslaughter in Floyd’s death May 25. The 46-year-old Black man was pinned to the pavement outside a neighborhood market after being accused of trying to pass a counterfeit $20 bill for a pack of cigarettes.

Floyd’s treatment by the white officer was captured on widely seen bystander video that sparked protests around the U.S. that descended into violence in some cases.

Floyd, who had taken drugs, frantically struggled with officers who tried to put him in their squad car, saying he was claustrophobic. Prosecutors said Chauvin continued to kneel on Floyd’s neck for 9 minutes, 29 seconds, after he was handcuffed behind his back and lying on his stomach, even though Floyd said 27 times that he could not breathe.

Chauvin’s lawyer, Eric Nelson, has argued that Chauvin “did exactly what he had been trained to do over his 19-year career” and that it was Floyd’s use of illegal drugs and his underlying health conditions — not the officer’s knee — that killed him.

Nelson has further argued that police at the scene were distracted by what they perceived as a growing and increasingly hostile crowd of onlookers.

Under questioning from Nelson, Yang testified that people watching an arrest may also be in crisis and that officers have to take in the situation around them as well.

Instead of protecting a fellow officer in what is sometimes called the “blue wall of silence,” some of the most experienced members of the Minneapolis force – including the police chief and the head of the homicide division — have taken the stand to openly condemn Chauvin’s treatment of Floyd.

On Monday, Police Chief Medaria Arrondondo, who called Floyd’s death “murder” soon after it happened, testified that Chauvin had clearly violated department policy on a number of counts and used excessive force.

Arrondondo said continuing to kneel on Floyd’s neck once he was handcuffed behind his back and lying on his belly was “in no way, shape or form” part of department policy or training, “and it is certainly not part of our ethics or our values.”

Arradondo, the city’s first Black chief, fired Chauvin and three other officers the day after Floyd’s death.

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