George Floyd was not in the best of health when he encountered police officer
Derek Chauvin on a South Minneapolis street corner shortly after 8 p.m. on May 25.
At 46, Floyd had three severely narrowed coronary arteries, including one that was 90 percent blocked, autopsies show. His heart was slightly enlarged, probably the result of long-term high blood pressure.
Floyd was a smoker, and he had spent years using street drugs. On that evening, the autopsies reveal, Floyd had a large amount of fentanyl, a small amount of methamphetamine and THC — the active ingredient in marijuana — in his blood.
The video of Floyd gasping for breath and dying beneath Chauvin’s knee that evening
ignited a social justice movement and nationwide demand for policing reform. But when Chauvin’s trial for his alleged role in Floyd’s death begins, much of the argument will center instead on the autopsy details, most specifically whether fentanyl and underlying health conditions — not the police officer’s actions — stopped Floyd’s heart and lungs.
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Seven experts in toxicology, cardiology and illegal drug use consulted by The Washington Post largely disagreed with that idea, most of them strenuously. All but one said the autopsy findings and other court documents, coupled with the well-known chain of events that evening, made death by a fentanyl overdose unlikely to impossible. (One expert, Craig Beavers, chair of the American College of Cardiology’s cardiovascular team section, said he did not have enough information about all the circumstances to form a final conclusion.)
“From my review of the video and the autopsy report, I see nothing that makes me think he died of an opioid overdose,” said Kavita Babu, chief opioid officer and chief of the Division of Medical Toxicology at UMass Memorial Health Care in Worcester, Mass. Instead, she and others said, the defense uses events out of order and medical findings out of context to deflect blame from Chauvin to Floyd.
Two autopsies — one by a county medical examiner and another by a private medical examiner hired by Floyd’s family — as well as a review by military experts conducted for the federal government, reached the conclusion that Floyd died of cardiopulmonary arrest as the officers subduing him compressed his neck and chest.
Andrew Baker — the medical examiner in Minnesota’s Hennepin County, who is expected to be a key witness in the trial — formally declared Floyd’s death a homicide in June, listing “cardiopulmonary arrest complicating law enforcement subdual, restraint, and neck compression” as the cause of death.
The report listed heart disease, fentanyl intoxication, recent methamphetamine use and Floyd’s bout with the coronavirus as other “significant conditions.”
The analysis also found other health issues, including sickle cell trait. People who inherit one gene for sickle cell disease and one normal gene have sickle cell trait. They generally do not have any symptoms of the disease but can pass the trait to their children, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Those findings have given Chauvin’s attorney, Eric J. Nelson, an opening to argue that Chauvin is not responsible for Floyd’s death. The trial could begin as soon as March 29.
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“Combined with sickle cell trait [and] his preexisting heart conditions, Mr. Floyd’s use of fentanyl and methamphetamine most likely killed him,” Nelson wrote in an Aug. 28 court filing that unsuccessfully sought dismissal of the charges against Chauvin, which include second-degree murder. “Adding fentanyl and methamphetamine to Mr. Floyd’s existing health issues was tantamount to lighting a fuse on a bomb.”
The defense strategy rings of earlier, successful attempts to blame drugs in police violence against African Americans. In 1992, when four Los Angeles police officers were acquitted of the videotaped beating of motorist Rodney King, one testified of fears that King was on PCP, a drug the officer contended gave King “hulk-like strength.” No PCP was found in King’s system.
“Using drugs to justify harsh policing has a long history in the United States,” said Jon Zibbell, a senior scientist at the think tank RTI International, who studies illicit drug use and public health. “And it’s worked.”
The effects of fentanyl and methamphetamine
Citing footage from Officer Thomas Lane’s body camera for most of his argument, Chauvin’s attorney recounted in court papers that the well-known events from last spring began when Lane and his partner, J. Alexander Kueng, approached Floyd’s car. The rookie officers were investigating a complaint that Floyd had allegedly passed a counterfeit $20 bill in a nearby convenience store, Cup Foods.
Nelson declined a request for an interview.
“A white object was visible in Mr. Floyd’s mouth,” Nelson wrote. “At one point, Mr. Floyd turned away from officers, and when he faced them again, the white object was no longer visible.”
Two other people in the car with Floyd, which was parked outside Cup Foods, told police that Floyd was a habitual drug user, and both later said they believed Floyd “was under the influence of narcotics,” according to the court papers. Floyd had been previously arrested for drug possession.
One of the car passengers, Morries Lester Hall, said Floyd quickly fell asleep in the driver’s seat upon returning from the minimart, according to Nelson’s filing. That could have been a sign of use of illegal fentanyl, a fast-acting sedative and powerful painkiller that produces feelings of euphoria.
The police also suspected that Floyd was using drugs. As Lane and Kueng walked Floyd from the car to a sidewalk, they observed him “acting erratically” and repeatedly asked whether he was drunk or “on something,” according to the court papers.
Police were a part of George Floyd’s life from beginning to end
They also saw foam coming from Floyd’s mouth, which he explained by saying he had been “hooping earlier.” Nelson, citing the online Urban Dictionary, contended that this is an admission by Floyd that he had ingested drugs rectally.
During court proceedings on another matter Monday, Nelson asserted for the first time that fragments of a pill with Floyd’s DNA on it were found in the back of the squad car. The fragments contained methamphetamine and fentanyl, he claimed.
Prosecutors acknowledged the existence of the pill fragments and that they contained methamphetamine, but they did not address the other claims.
The Minnesota attorney general’s office, which is prosecuting Chauvin, has a very different view of events. If Floyd had anything in his mouth, it was probably chewing gum, Assistant Attorney General Matthew Frank and private attorney Neal Katyal wrote in a Sept. 18 response to the defense’s claims.
The “foam” around Floyd’s mouth was probably spittle, they said, and “hooping” was a reference to playing basketball, which Floyd often did. They also noted Nelson’s conflicting claims that Floyd had taken drugs orally and rectally. The prosecutors did not respond to a request for an interview.
George Floyd had long seen sports as his path out of the poverty, crime and drugs of Houston’s Third Ward.
The biggest problem for the defense argument is that events that evening don’t fit a fentanyl overdose, experts said.
“I’m skeptical of the notion of opioid overdose as the cause here,” said David Juurlink, head of the Division of Clinical Pharmacology and Toxicology at Sunnybrook Health Sciences Center in Toronto. “The sequence of events isn’t characteristic of opioid overdose.”
Fentanyl kills by shutting down the part of the brain that controls respiration. Breathing slows, then stops, followed by the heart.