The prosecution called George Floyd’s brother to the stand Monday in the trial of a former Minneapolis police officer accused of killing Floyd last May.
Philonise Floyd is the second “spark of life” witness to testify. Jurors have already heard from Floyd’s girlfriend, Courteney Ross, who testified that like so many Americans, they had a shared struggle with opioid addiction.
“Both Floyd and I, our story, it’s a classic story of how many people get addicted to opioids,” Ross said. “We both struggled from chronic pain. Mine was in my neck and his was in his back.”
The “spark of life” testimony is intended to humanize Floyd and to give jurors a fuller view of who he was. In calling Ross to the stand, prosecutors sought to control the narrative around his struggle with drugs.
Derek Chauvin is charged with second- and third-degree murder and second-degree manslaughter. Prosecutors have said Chauvin knelt on Floyd’s neck for 9 minutes, 29 seconds.
A widely viewed bystander video of Floyd, a Black man, saying he couldn’t breathe as onlookers yelled at Chauvin, who is white, to get off him sparked international protests against racism and police brutality.
Chauvin and three other Minneapolis police officers who were at the scene were fired a day after Floyd’s death.
The prosecution has argued that Floyd’s death was caused by asphyxia, or insufficient oxygen, from Chauvin kneeling on his neck. The defense has said that Floyd’s use of illegal drugs and his underlying health conditions caused his death.
Dr. Andrew Baker, the Hennepin County medical examiner who performed an autopsy on Floyd and declared his death a homicide, said Floyd died of “cardiopulmonary arrest, complicating law enforcement subdual, restraint, and neck compression.” Baker testified last week that fentanyl and heart disease had contributed to Floyd’s death, but that the police officers’ actions were the main cause.
“In my opinion, the law enforcement subdual, restraint and the neck compression was just more than Mr. Floyd could take by virtue of those heart conditions,” Baker testified.
To convict Chauvin of murder, the jury needs to find that his restraint of Floyd was a “substantial causal factor” to his death.
Under “other significant conditions,” the autopsy report said, Floyd suffered from hypertensive heart disease and listed fentanyl intoxication and recent methamphetamine use. Baker said Floyd had an overdose-level amount of fentanyl in his system but witnesses have refuted that. The testimony of other medical experts, including a world-renowned pulmonologist, has bolstered prosecution claims that Floyd died from being held down by Chauvin.
“A healthy person subjected to what Mr. Floyd was subjected to would have died,” said Dr. Martin J. Tobin, a pulmonologist and critical care physician, who testified Thursday.
Tobin said Floyd died from a low level of oxygen. He said it was not a sudden death.
Almost 40 witnesses were called to the stand, including the Minneapolis police chief and other experienced officers who openly condemned Chauvin’s treatment of Floyd.
“To continue to apply that level of force to a person proned out, handcuffed behind their back, that in no way, shape or form is anything that is by policy,” Minneapolis Police Chief Medaria Arradondo said. “It is not part of our training, and it is certainly not part of our ethics or values.”
Source: | This article originally belongs to Nbcnews.com
