In the criminal proceedings of Derek Chauvin on Thursday, George Floyd’s girlfriend testified that he was a kind, caring, athletic man who fought opioid addiction.
In August 2017 when he was working for the Salvation Army as a security guard Courteney Batya Ross, 45, stated she met Floyd. She told us in her emotional testimony that she liked to explore the local garden of sculptures and eat together.
Floyd wanted to exercise every day and raise weights, sit-ups and pull-ups, but never complained about breathlessness, she said. After his mother died in 2018, he was a mommy boy who described his well-known photo as “dad selfie.” She described it.
Both were also dependent on opioids. Like many Americans, she testified that opioid painkillers were prescribed to treat chronic pain, ultimately leading to addiction and the use of road drugs.
She found Floyd doubling in pain in March 2020 and brought him into the emergency room, she told us. Due to an overdose, she said, he was in the hospital several days.
The fourth day of testimony in Chauvin’s criminal trial was Floyd’s personal description. His friend’s story was about a sharp shift from the harrowing body camera footage of four former police officers in Minneapolis who arrested Floyd on Wednesday last May.
Chauvin, 45, was accused of second degree assassination, third degree assassination and second degree assassination.
The prosecutors recognized Floyd’s history of opioid addiction in opening statements but said it was irrelevant to why he died in May last year. But defense counsel, Eric Nelson, argued that drug usage and many pre-existing health problems were the true causes of Floyd’s death.
Laura Coates, a senior CNN legal analyst, explained that prosecutors often decide to deal directly with “bad facts,” instead of letting the defense do so.
“You want to present these bad facts, and to address them, as a prosecutor. You don’t want the defense to say, ‘Hey, jury, why haven’t they tell you? Here’s the things you don’t want to know,’ “Coates said. Coates said.
Paramedic Seth Bravinder of Hennepin County testified Thursday to the treatment of Floyd on 25 May 2020. on 25 May 2020.
For a mouth wound, he and his partner were called first for a Code 2, but around a minute and a half later the call was upgraded to Code 3 — which means that the ambulance uses light and sirens.
Bravinder testified that when he arrived at the scene, Floyd didn’t seem to breathe or to move. Bravinder’s partner checked the pulse of Floyd and his pupils – Chauvin kneels still – and thought his heart had stopped. Then they moved him to a stretcher, and Bravinder bent down and asked Chauvin to lift up Floyd’s knee.
Bravinder drove the medical center with Floyd inside several blocks to leave the crowd, then stopped to treat him, he testified.
Floyd was “Asylum,” which means he was flat and there was no activity in his heart. They tried with chest compression to restart his heart and to create an airway, but he didn’t recover.
The first days of testimony in the trial focused largely on the audience watching Chauvin knelt impassively on the neck for about 9 minutes and 29 seconds and watched and noticed in horror. Many have been guilty, including that of the corner shop cashier whose interactions with Floyd have brought the police onto the scene.
The prosecutors played for the first time on Wednesday afternoon body cameras from the officers’ body cameras to jurors. The narrow and severe prospects show that Floyd is claustrophobic, that he is unable to breathe, that he can call on his mother until he becomes silent.
Only a moment after Floyd’s limp body left the scene in an ambulance, a clip from Chauvin’s own body camera revealed him to defend his actions.
“That’s one person’s opinion,” Chauvin responded as he got into his squad car. “We had to control this guy because he’s a sizable guy. It looks like he’s probably on something.”
This was the first time jurors or the public heard Chauvin’s comment, which could be the last. His lawyer has not said if he is going to testify for himself.
Although much of the video on the body camera has been published before, its crude power remained clear. After watching part of the stand Charles McMillian, a 61-year old witness, broke into tears and led to a short break in trial.
