It came out today in court that the Hennepin County Medical Examiner said on June 1st that George Floyd had fatal levels of fentanyl in his system and that under normal circumstances his death would have been ruled and overdose:
FOX 9 – New exhibits filed in the case against the four former Minneapolis Police Officers accused of murdering George Floyd suggest the Hennepin County Medical Examiner thought George Floyd’s fentanyl levels were at a potentially “fatal level”, but his and other medical examiner’s findings showed he died of a combination of factors.
Six pieces of evidence were filed in the case Tuesday one day after former officer Tou Thao’s attorneys requested the release of the full autopsy reports from the Hennepin County Medical Examiner, the Armed Forces Medical Examiner and the private medical examiners hired by George Floyd’s family.
The Armed Forces Medical Examiner filed a memorandum agreeing with the Hennepin County Medical Examiner’s final conclusion that Floyd’s death was a homicide, saying, “His death was caused by the police subdual and restraint in the setting of severe hypertensive atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease, and methamphetamine and fentanyl intoxication.”
Got that? The final conclusion was homicide.
But this is where it gets interesting…
However, two other memos filed Tuesday from the Hennepin County Attorney’s Office about conversations with Chief Hennepin County Medical Examiner Dr. Andrew Baker paint a different picture about the nature of Floyd’s death.
In one memorandum filed May 26 after a virtual meeting with Baker, the Attorney’s Office said Baker concluded, “The autopsy revealed no physical evidence suggesting that Mr. Floyd died of asphyxiation.” Baker told the attorney his investigation was incomplete pending a toxicology report, however.
The other memorandum filed June 1 by the Attorney’s Office indicated Baker said Floyd’s level of fentanyl was “pretty high,” and a potentially “fatal level.”
“[Dr. Andrew Baker] said that if Mr. Floyd had been found dead in his home (or anywhere else) and there were no other contributing factors he would conclude that it was an overdose death,” the June 1 memo said.
So if he didn’t die of asphyxiation and had fatal levels of fentanyl in his system, why is the ruling that he died because of police restraint? Notice they have to couple “police restraint” with “in the setting of severe hypertensive atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease, and methamphetamine and fentanyl intoxication.”
Based on what we saw in the video, where Floyd was saying that he couldn’t breathe long before he was on the ground with a knee on his neck, it sounds like to me that Floyd would have likely died either way. That’s not to say that the restraint didn’t contribute to it in keeping Floyd on his stomach. Perhaps it may have hastened it a little. But it honestly seems like the restraint was more like a contributing factor than the cause. How this plays out in court remains to be seen, but I don’t know how they are going to get a 2nd degree murder charge from this.