MINNEAPOLIS (AP) – The county’s chief forensic doctor who ruled George Floyd dead in a homicide was set to stand trial on Friday for the murder of former officer Derek Chauvin, saying he did not see the crazy video of the arrest before to examine Floyd so that he was not partial. from what he saw.
“I was aware that at least one video had gone viral on the Internet, but I deliberately decided not to watch it until I had examined Mr. Floyd,” Dr. Andrew Baker said. “I didn’t want to skew my exam with preconceived ideas that could lead me down one path or another.”
Baker, the forensic doctor in Hennepin County, concluded last year that Floyd died of a cardiopulmonary arrest, meaning his heart stopped, complicated by the way police detained and beat him. compressing his neck while the 46-year-old black man remained on the pavement. May.
Another medical expert blamed Floyd’s death on Friday on the way, police detained him, while Chauvin’s lawyer pressured the witness with hypothetical questions and other means to suggest that drug use or Floyd’s heart disease killed him.
The testimony of Dr. Lindsey Thomas, a forensic pathologist who retired in 2017 from the Hennepin County Medical Office, reinforced the findings of other prosecution experts who have positioned themselves at the Chauvin murder trial.
Thomas, who did not work on Floyd’s case, said the “main mechanism of death” was suffocation or insufficient oxygen, a conclusion he said came mostly from a video showing that Floyd struggled to breathe while Chauvin knelt on his neck and two others Minneapolis. the cops helped keep him stationary.
“It’s a death where the heart and lungs stopped working. The issue is that it is due to the subduality of law enforcement, restriction and compression, ”Thomas said.
The autopsy itself ruled out a heart attack, aneurysm and other causes, and Thomas said it wasn’t a drug overdose death either.
“There is no evidence to suggest that he died that night, except for interactions with law enforcement,” he said.
Thomas said he agreed with Baker’s findings, but went further by specifying that Floyd died of asphyxiation. He said there was nothing in Floyd’s autopsy to point it out, but he said it’s not uncommon.
Chauvin, 45, is charged with murder and homicide on Floyd’s death on May 25. Floyd was arrested outside a neighborhood market after being accused of trying to pass a $ 20 fake bill.
Video of Floyd shouting that he could not breathe while spectators shouted at the white officer to take him down provoked protests and dispersed violence across the United States.
Chauvin’s lawyer, Eric Nelson, argued that the white officer, already fired, did what he was trained to do and was not responsible for Floyd’s death. Floyd had high blood pressure and heart disease, and an autopsy found fentanyl and methamphetamine in his system.
In Nelson’s cross-examination, Thomas said he believed Floyd’s heart was “slightly” enlarged.
Nelson asked Thomas about what could make a heart stop beating suddenly and noted that Floyd’s larger heart needed more blood and that he was working hard in a time of stress and adrenaline and that one of his arteries had a 90% lock.
Thomas said any blockade between 70% and 75% could be used to explain the death, in the absence of another cause. But he also said some people can live well with a completely blocked artery.
Defense counsel pressured Thomas by asking a hypothetical question.
“We assume he found Mr. Floyd dead at his residence. No police involvement, no drugs, right ?. The only thing you found would be these facts about his heart. What would be the conclusion that would be the cause of death? Nelson asked.
“In this very narrow set of circumstances, he would probably conclude that the cause of death was his heart disease,” Thomas replied.
He also accepted that fentanyl can slow a person’s breathing and that methamphetamine can make the heart work harder and cause cardiac arrhythmia, a potentially lethal heart rhythm alteration.
In response to another hypothetical raised by Nelson, he agreed that he would certify Floyd’s death as an overdose if there were no other explanations.
But during the new interrogation, prosecutor Jerry Blackwell ridiculed the defense attorney’s hypotheses and quickly had Thomas repeat that the cause of Floyd’s death was police restraint.
“These questions aren’t very similar to asking ‘Mrs. Lincoln, if we get John Wilkes Booth out of this …'” Blackwell began before Nelson objected.
Floyd’s death certificate listed certain conditions that contributed: reduced arteries, high blood pressure, fentanyl poisoning, and recent methamphetamine use. But Thomas said they did not cause his death directly and that these factors are usually included in death certificates to inform public health officials.
Instead, Floyd died because the position of his body, lying on his stomach, his hands handcuffed on his back and the agents pressing on his body weight, made it impossible to breathe, said Thomas, who described Floyd’s death from “so well documented” due to numerous video tests.
For the first time, a woman occupied a seat for Chauvin’s family on Friday. She was not identified immediately. Chauvin’s marriage ended in divorce in the months following Floyd’s death.
Also on Friday, Judge Peter Cahill summoned a jury and asked her if she had been subjected to outside influences. She replied that she watched TV briefly with the sound turned off and said her mother-in-law had sent her a text message: “Looks like it was a bad day,” but she didn’t respond.
The judge allowed him to remain on the jury.
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Find full AP coverage of George Floyd’s death at: https://apnews.com/hub/death-of-george-floyd
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Webber reported from Fenton, Michigan.