Pride goeth before the fall. He was trying to impress the rookies as to how you handle a difficult offender (and Floyd was). When the crowd started yelling at him to let Floyd up, that just reinforced his determination. Ask most cops and ex cops like my retired son in law (27 years DeKalb GA SWAT, canine, narcotics undercover, auto theft), they'll just shake their head. The guy was way out of control and that nullified the fact that Floyd was guilty of petty theft, resisting arrest and drug use.

He was certainly going down for manslaughter. The rest, I chalk up to being a not very smart cop. They do walk among us.