Paramedics say Floyd was unresponsive when they arrived

The fourth day of the trial of former Minneapolis policeman Derek Chauvin featured testimony from George Floyd’s longtime girlfriend as well as first responders who attempted to resuscitate him after his fateful encounter with the police.

Jurors heard from five witnesses Thursday, including paramedics and other rescue workers called to the scene where Chauvin pinned Floyd to the sidewalk with a knee on his neck.

In all, 17 people, most of whom witnessed Floyd’s death on May 25, 2020, have testified so far.

Chauvin, 45, is charged with second degree murder, third degree murder and second degree manslaughter in Floyd’s death. His murder trial is expected to last several weeks.

Here are the main takeaways from day four.

Floyd’s girlfriend speaks; Floyd family lawyer speaks out

Floyd’s girlfriend Courteney Batya Ross said she and Floyd were struggling with opioid addiction and Floyd used drugs while mourning the death of his mother.

A prosecution witness, Ross testified in cross-examination that Floyd was hospitalized with an overdose in March 2020, two months before his own death. Ross said she took Floyd to the hospital because he complained about not feeling well and his stomach ached. She later learned that Floyd had overdosed, but never found out which drugs caused it.

On May 25, 2020, Floyd’s death was declared a homicide by the Hennepin County Medical Examiner’s Office, which concluded that the 46-year-old had died from a “cardiopulmonary arrest complicating the application. of the law, restraint and compression of the neck ”. The report also listed “other important conditions” including heart disease, fentanyl poisoning and “recent methamphetamine use.”

As Ross gave his testimony, Ben Crump and Antonio Romanucci, lawyers for the Floyd family, released a statement to reporters criticizing the defense team for trying to “build the narrative” that fentanyl uncovered in the system. Floyd was the cause of his death.

The story continues

“We want to remind the world who witnessed his death on video that George was walking, talking, laughing and breathing very well before Derek Chauvin held his knee to George’s neck,” the lawyers said in a statement to the reporters as Ross testified.

Ross also testified that at the time of his death, Floyd was still mourning the loss of his mother, who had died two years earlier. Earlier in the trial, prosecutors released a video filmed by passers-by in which Floyd shouts “Mom!” as Chauvin applies pressure to Floyd’s neck with his knee.

After returning from his funeral in Houston in May 2018, Ross said that Floyd, whom she described as a “mommy’s boy” looked like “a shell of himself.”

“He was broken,” she said.

During cross-examination of defense attorney Eric Nelson, Ross said that Floyd also called her “mum”, raising the possibility that Floyd had called his girlfriend – rather than his mum – during his final moments as a child. life.

Paramedics say Chauvin remained on Floyd’s neck after they arrived

Seth Zachary Bravinder, a local emergency medical service paramedic who treated Floyd, testified that he asked Chauvin to get off Floyd’s neck so they “can move the patient” to begin resuscitation.

When he arrived, Bravinder had assumed there was potentially a fight going on because the cops were still on top of Floyd.

But Bravinder and his partner soon discovered that Floyd was “unresponsive”, had no pulse, and appeared to be in cardiac arrest.

According to Bravinder, paramedics loaded Floyd into the ambulance in part to get away from the crowds of passers-by who appeared angry.

Bravinder’s partner Derek Smith testified that he checked Floyd’s pupils and determined that they were dilated and that he also did not detect a pulse.

“Put simply, I thought he was dead,” Smith said.

Smith later said there was no reason Minneapolis police could not have started the chest compressions before rescuers arrived. “Any layman can do chest compressions,” he says.

Minnesota police sergeant thinks detention on Floyd went too far

Former Minneapolis Police Sgt. David Pleoger, a shift supervisor at the time of the incident, told prosecutor Steve Schleicher he believed the use of restraint on Floyd should have ceased when he no longer resisted.

“Based on your review of the body-worn camera images,” Schleicher asked Pleoger, “do you have any thoughts on when Floyd’s detention should have ended in this encounter?

“Yes,” Pleoger said.

“What is that?” Schleicher asked.

“When Floyd no longer offered any resistance to the officers,” Pleoger said.

Pleoger also said he didn’t know Floyd was dead until he and the other officers involved in the incident went to Hennepin County Medical Center. This is where Chauvin told Pleoger he knelt at Floyd’s neck, according to Pleoger’s testimony.

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