The medical examiner who performed the autopsy of George Floyd testified on Friday that although Mr. Floyd’s heart disease and drug use contributed to his death, it was police officers to squeeze his neck together and restrain his body.
The testimony of Dr. Andrew Baker, who has been the chief medical examiner in Hennepin County since 2004, was perhaps the most important yet for prosecutors hoping to convince judges that Derek Chauvin Floyd was killed when he knelt on him for longer than nine. minutes last May. Chauvin’s lawyer suggested that Floyd’s heart disease, or fentanyl and methamphetamine in his system, might have caused his death.
Dr. Baker testified that Mr. Floyd’s narrowed arteries, high blood pressure and drug use probably made him more susceptible to deaths due to the fact that he was pinned to the ground by three police officers. But he said Floyd’s health and drug use were not direct causes.
“In my opinion, law enforcement, self-control and neck compaction were just more than Mr. Floyd could take, based on these heart conditions,” said Dr. Baker said.
Dr. Baker said he believes Mr. Chauvin’s knee mr. Floyd’s neck compressed. Mr. Chauvin’s lawyer suggested that the knee of Mr. Chauvin closer to mr. Floyd’s shoulder blade or back could be.
The testimony of medical experts became crucial in the trial of Chauvin, who is facing charges of second-degree murder in Floyd’s death. The prosecution and defense have suggested jurors who say Chauvin should be considered the cause of Mr. Floyd’s death if he was a ‘material causal factor’, even if there were other contributing causes.
Prosecutors have called a series of medical experts to the witness stand over the past two days. This includes a pulmonologist who testified that even a healthy person under Mr. Chauvin’s knee would die and a forensic pathologist who Dr. Baker trained and said that the actions of the police led to the death of Mr. Floyd caused. The lawyer of mr. Chauvin is expected to call his own medical experts after prosecutors settle their case.
Although dr. Baker was clear that he was restricting and oppressing Mr. Floyd was found by police officers as the main causes of his death, he suggested more strongly than previous experts that Mr. Floyd’s heart disease and drug use would put him at greater risk. He said Mr. Floyd has an enlarged heart and a very serious underlying heart disease. ‘
“He has a heart that, due to its size, already needs more oxygen than a normal heart, and this is limited in its ability to provide more oxygen when there is a need to shrink its coronary arteries,” said Dr. Baker. said.
But, he later added, it was the confrontation between the police and Mr. Floyd who ‘let him tilt over the edge’.
During the testimony of Dr. Baker has a prosecutor for the second time autopsy photos of Mr. Floyd’s body shown. Dr Baker said they showed marks on his wrists that probably came from handcuffs, scratches on one of his cheeks and on his forehead, a cut on his lip and bruises on his nose that matched the pressure against the street.
The medical examiner said he was deliberately not watching the bystander video of Mr. Arrest’s arrest. Floyd watched before doing the autopsy, because he did not want any preconceived idea about what happened when he found the body of Mr. Floyd did not investigate. But he said he watched the video after the autopsy and considered it and other video evidence before determining the cause and manner of death.