Former Owner Says George Floyd and Fired Officer Overlapped Security Shifts at South Minneapolis Club

A Minneapolis news outlet reported that a former club owner in South Minneapolis says the now-fired police officer, Derek Chauvin, and George Floyd, who died in his custody this week both worked security for her club.

In the interview with the reporter, the club owner, Maya Santamaria, said about Chauvin, who worked there for 17 years before she sold it a few months ago, “He sometimes had a real short fuse and sometimes seemed afraid when there was an altercation.”

“He always resorted to pulling out his mace and pepper spraying everyone right away even when I felt it was unwarranted,” she continued. It is unclear why he didn’t lose his job if she felt he wasn’t doing it properly.

She said that Floyd had worked there for about a year on some of their busiest nights and was among 20 or 30 people who would be brought in. She also said that Chauvin worked outside and Floyd worked inside.

From the report:

Although the two overlapped working security on popular music nights within the last year, Santamaria can not say for certain they knew each other because there were often a couple dozen security guards, including off-duty officers.

Santamaria says she did not recognize either one of her security guards in the video showing Chauvin kneeling on Floyd’s neck not far from where they used to work.

“My friend sent me (the video) and said this is your guy who used to work for you and I said, ‘It’s not him.’ And then they did the closeup and that’s when I said, ‘Oh my God, that’s him,'” Santamaria said. “I didn’t recognize George as one of our security guys because he looked really different lying there like that.”