Floyd and Chauvin had both been employed as security/bouncers at a Latin nightclub. The former owner of the nightclub has said that she doesn’t know if they knew each other, since their employ overlapped only briefly. She also said that on nights when the crowd was mostly black, “He would mace everyone instead of apprehending the people who were fighting,” said Maya Santamaria, former owner of El Nuevo Rodeo club in Minneapolis. “He would call backup. The next thing you would know, there would five or six squad cars.”
She said Chauvin got along well with the club’s Latino regulars, but his tactics toward unruly customers on what she referred to as “African American” nights led her to speak to him about it.
“I told him I thought this is unnecessary to be pepper-sprayed. The knee-jerk reaction of being afraid, it seemed overkill,” Santamaria said. “It was a concern and I did voice my opinion, but police officers have a way of justifying what they do.”