George Floyd's girlfriend has told the Derek Chauvin murder trial that the couple shared an addiction to opioid painkillers that they struggled to overcome in the weeks before his death.
Courteney Ross said Mr Floyd had been clean for a while after she took him to hospital when he overdosed, but that he started using again about two weeks before his arrest by Mr Chauvin, a former Minneapolis police officer, last May.
The bulk of Ms Ross’s often tearful testimony on the fourth day of the trial focused on the pair’s opioid use, as the prosecution sought to head off defence claims that Mr Floyd was killed by drugs because he had opioids and methamphetamine in his system.
The death of Mr Floyd triggered off a national reckoning over race in the United States, including a summer of protests and civil unrest aimed at tackling structural racism. The trial of Mr Chauvin – who kept his knee on Mr Floyd's neck as he died during the arrest – is seen as one of the US's biggest murder trials in recent history.
Ms Ross’s account helps establish that Mr Floyd built up a tolerance to opioids, and that the relatively small amount recorded in the official autopsy would not have been enough to kill him.
The prosecution is also seeking to undermine defence claims that the level of force used by Mr Chauvin in kneeling on Floyd’s neck for about nine minutes was justified because the detained man was high on drugs.
Ms Ross, who dated Mr Floyd for about three years, said they both became hooked after being prescribed opioids to treat chronic pain. “We got addicted and we both tried to break that addiction many times,” she said.
Mr Chauvin (45), who is white, has denied charges of second- and third-degree murder, and manslaughter, over the death of the 46-year-old Mr Floyd, who was black. He faces up to 40 years in prison if convicted of the most serious charge.
Black market drugs
Ms Ross said sports injuries led to Mr Floyd's addiction to prescription pills obtained legally before the pair started buying black market drugs, including from Maurice Hall, the man who was in the car with Mr Floyd at the time of his death.
These included oxycodone pills, including the powerful prescription opioid OxyContin.
Ms Ross told the trial she also believed Mr Floyd bought heroin from a female friend, Shawanda Hill, who is expected to be called as a witness. She said Mr Hall was also among those who supplied Mr Floyd with pills. “I didn’t like Maurice very much,” she said.
Mr Hall’s lawyers have told the court that he intends to exercise his right against self-incrimination and will decline to testify at the trial.
Two months before his death, Ms Ross said she took Mr Floyd to hospital when he overdosed after taking a new pill that appeared to be more powerful than the rest. She said he complained of severe stomach pain and she noticed a white substance around his mouth.
In its cross-examination, the defence returned to that part of Ms Ross’s testimony, apparently because at the time of his arrest Mr Floyd repeatedly complained that his stomach hurt and had white foam around his mouth.
Mr Chauvin’s defence has claimed Mr Floyd was overdosing at the time and that it contributed to his death from heart failure.
The state medical examiner’s report on Mr Floyd’s death recorded that he had the powerful opioid fentanyl and methamphetamine in his system when he died, but it did not list them as a cause of his death.
Mother’s death
Although the prosecution steered Ms Ross's testimony to focus on Mr Floyd's addiction, she also spoke about how they met in August 2017 when he was working as a security guard at a Salvation Army homeless shelter. He was also working as a guard at a night club.
Ms Ross said Floyd had been devastated by his mother’s death in 2018. “He seemed kind of like a shell of himself, like he was broken,” she said. “He seemed so sad. He didn’t have the same kind of bounce that he had.”
On being shown a selfie taken by Mr Floyd, Ms Ross reached out and touched the screen and cried.
Seth Zachary Brabinde, a paramedic who treated Mr Floyd at the scene testified that his ambulance was called to the scene for "someone with a mouth injury". He said the call was a "code two" that suggested it was not a life-threatening emergency, which did not require lights and sirens. But less than two minutes later, the call was upgraded requiring a more urgent response.
On arrival, he saw Mr Chauvin and other police officers on top of Mr Floyd. “I didn’t see any breathing or movement,” he said.
Mr Brabinde said his partner checked for a pulse, did not detect one and said he thought Mr Floyd had suffered a cardiac arrest, a term he said is used for anyone whose heart has stopped. He said they tried to resuscitate Mr Floyd but failed.
The trial was shown police body-camera footage showing that Mr Chauvin continued to kneel on Mr Floyd’s neck even as the paramedics attempted to revive him. The police officer only removed it immediately before Mr Floyd was lifted on to a stretcher and moved to the ambulance.
The trial continues. – Guardian