The guardian
George Floyd’s girlfriend shared his pain opioids – Derek Chauvin refused to see it
Courteney Ross’s testimony shows police departments failing in their duty to protect those fighting addiction Chauvin trial, week one: live testimony and focus on violence Of all the reports of George Floyd’s life and death in a courtroom this week heard in Minneapolis, perhaps the least expected was his girlfriend’s description of their shared battle with opioid addiction. Courteney Ross’s cruel testimony gave a very human look in the relentless search for a solution and a mutual struggle to shake off drug addiction. It was a story that would be recognized by millions of Americans who were sucked into the biggest drug epidemic in their country’s history by the pharmaceutical industry to flood the US with opioid painkillers. The defense attorney for Derek Chauvin, the former Minneapolis police officer on trial for murder, also saw something in Ross’ account. An opportunity. Ross told of her boyfriend’s death shot due to an overdose a few weeks before he took his last breath under Chauvin’s knee in May last year. He takes a pill she does not recognize. “His stomach really hurt,” she said. “He doubled in pain.” Ross said she noticed a white substance around Floyd’s mouth and took him to the hospital, where he stayed for a few days after apparently overdosing. This was not the first time. Chauvin’s lawyer, Eric Nelson, draws attention to the similarity between Ross’ description and the police report on Floyd’s condition when they arrest him: a man who complains that his stomach hurts and with white foam around his mouth. Nelson’s intention was to undermine the allegation that Chauvin killed Floyd by holding his knee on his neck for more than nine minutes while Floyd lay on the ground. The defense made a simple calculation. Sowing doubts in just one juror about the cause of death – after all the official autopsy showed that Floyd had a mixture of drugs in his system – and Chauvin was able to walk free. But if the defense alleges that Floyd apparently had overdose, or at least under the influence of drugs, why did Chauvin and his fellow officers not act on it at the time? From a video shown in court, it is clear that Floyd was in distress even before Chauvin put his knee on his neck. He was shaky and confused when officers arrived on the scene. The cashier who sold Floyd cigarettes shortly before his arrest told the trial that he was apparently tall, though friendly and not threatening. A portrait of George Floyd hangs on fortresses in the Hennepin Government Center, where Derek Chauvin is on trial. Photo: Nikolas Liepins / Rex / Shutterstock Even though the police did not immediately realize that Floyd was under the influence of drugs or had the risk of overdose, it is clear that he had some kind of crisis, perhaps with his mental health. Chauvin and his fellow officers overhear Floyd repeatedly over stomach pains and see foam around his mouth. Yet his cries for help were rejected. There was apparently an indifference to his well-being. Chauvin just told his supervisor that Floyd was “going crazy”. Why did the police not admit that the man in their detention was in crisis? Was it because the officers did not want to see? Or because they are not trained? Either way, those few minutes might have had a much less tragic outcome if they had treated Floyd as a medical emergency. The paramedic who treated Floyd said that upon arrival, none of the police officers offered the dying man any first aid, although he was not breathing. Floyd consistently remained just a suspect who had to be subjected. One reform that protesters demanded following Floyd’s death was that a lot of police budgets be spent on placing social workers with officers. From the video recordings, it appears that Chauvin and his fellow officers wanted to force Floyd into a group car, that he was handcuffed and sitting against a wall. He was not a threat to anyone and his arrest was not a matter of urgency. This was the moment when a social worker could be consulted or asked to the scene if there was such a policy. The outcome would almost certainly have been different. Other police departments have learned the value of social workers and mental health experts in dealing with drug crises. One of the pioneers was the city of Huntington in West Virginia, a state plagued by the opioid epidemic that had the highest overdose in the country for years. The presence of a social worker in the police dealt with, among other things, people who had overdoses or some other form of drug distress, helped officers see people who were addicted to opioids in a different light. A former provincial police chief in Huntington told me that the presence of social workers changed his thinking and that of many of his officers, who previously could not see the point of rescuing someone from an overdose, just to see how they do it again. The former chief compared it to the revelation brought about earlier in his career by learning why some women remain in abusive relationships even after police have been repeatedly called. There is enough concern about Floyd’s state of mind and health on video footage played in court for Chauvin and the other officers to seek medical help. Instead, it was just the determination to arrest – even if Chauvin could only write Floyd a ticket for using a counterfeit $ 20 bill. But maybe, like many other officers who put drug users in a crisis encountered, Floyd was seen as an ‘addict’ who was to blame for his own condition. Ross told another story of Floyd being sucked into the trap of opioids by sports injuries and prescribing oxycodone for pain. The drug contains the powerful anesthetic OxyContin, which has done so much to propel the opioid epidemic. The manufacturer, Purdue Pharma, has been releasing mass prescribing of painkillers for two decades on a scale not seen in any other country. “We became addicted and we both tried many times to break the addiction,” Ross said. Eventually, Floyd failed to make the break, and was condemned for it. Chris McGreal is the author of American Overdose, the Opioid Tragedy in Three Acts