DAY 10 CHAUVIN MURDER TRIAL OF GEORGE FLOYD: Forensic Pathologist Testifies No Evidence Floyd Would Have Died without Restraint from Officers

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By Jose Medina and William McCurry

MINNEAPOLIS, MN – Two forensic pathologists testified Friday here on Day 10 of former cop Derek Chauvin’s murder trial of George Floyd, and detailed their findings on the autopsies – they asserted that low oxygen from restraint by Chauvin and other officers was the primary cause of Floyd’s death.

The first witness to testify Friday was forensic pathologist, Dr. Lindsey Thomas. Most of her work includes working with deceased people. She handles unnatural deaths, unexpected deaths, and potentially suspicious deaths.

Dr. Thomas testified that she has completed about 5,000 autopsies and approximately 1,000 more that they assisted on. Along with the autopsies that she has completed and assisted on, there are “way more” cases that she has determined the cause of death.

Dr. Thomas is a member of the National Association of Medical Examiners (NAME). Thomas testifies that NAME is the “professional organization of medical-legal death investigators, specifically forensic pathologists and medical examiners.” She also provides that they provide support, information, and guidelines to medical examiners.

Dr. Thomas also has a professional teaching career. She’s been a clinical instructor at the University of Minnesota in the department of pathology. She’s taught numerous trainings to law enforcement officers through the bureau of criminal apprehension.

“You name the organization that comes into contact with death investigation and I’ve probably talked to them at some point,” said Thomas.

Thomas testified that she is not being paid for her time and services for this case. “Well, I didn’t ask to be paid,” Thomas claims. She continues by stating, “I knew this was going to be
important and I felt like I had something to offer and I wanted to do what I could to explain what happened.”

Thomas, in this case, reviewed the Hennepin County Medical Examiners’ materials including the autopsy report, the toxicology report, and other photos that were provided of Floyd. She also looked at Floyd’s past medical history and many videos and interviews.

“What was absolutely unique in this case was the volume of materials I had to review, I’ve never had a case like this that had such thorough documentation,” Thomas testified.

Thomas told the jury that she agreed with Dr. Andrew Baker’s cause of death. The primary cause of death of George Floyd is “cardiopulmonary arrest complicating law enforcement subdual, restraint, and neck compression.”

Thomas states that an autopsy is “great” for ruling causes out. She testifies that it’s great because it shows that he didn’t have an aneurysm, a heart attack, or a stroke.

She provides that in an autopsy, medical examiners look at the muscles and arteries in the heart and this can show if someone has had a heart attack. If someone had a heart attack recently there will be damage that is apparent to the arteries, but if there has been some time passes there will be scarring. None of this was apparent in Floyd’s autopsy.

“Likewise this was not the type of death that has been reported in fentanyl overdose; for example, where someone becomes very sleepy and then just gradually, calmly, peacefully stops breathing. This is not that kind of death, so I felt comfortable ruling out those as causes of death,” noted Thomas.

While Floyd was prone on the ground with officers on top of him, he did not have room for his lungs to expand, or perform the “bellows function.” Thomas testifies that the bellows function “is what your diaphragm does along with the muscles in between your ribs do, so when you take in a deep breath what’s happening is your ribcage is expanding and that then forces the lung to open up.”

As has been stated in the court previous to Friday, Thomas provides that Floyd’s movements after he stopped breathing were caused by an anoxic seizure, from the lack of oxygen to the brain.

Prosecutor Jerry Blackwell asked Thomas, “do you have an opinion, to a reasonable degree of medical certainty, if Mr. Floyd would’ve died that night had he not been subject to the subdual and restraint by the police?”

And, directly and firmly, Thomas responds, “There’s no evidence to suggest he would’ve died that night, except for the interactions with law enforcement.”

Floyd’s manner of death was ruled as a homicide. Thomas provides that homicide is a death in a hands of another. “Homicide occurs when death results from a volitional act committed by another person to cause fear, harm, or death.”

In a cross from Chauvin’s attorney Eric Nelson, he provides Dr. Thomas with a hypothetical situation about Floyd’s existing heart conditions – Nelson asked many hypothetical questions:

“Let’s take the police out of this…let’s assume you found Mr. Floyd dead in his residence, no police involvement, no drugs the only thing you found would be these facts about his heart, what would you conclude would be the cause of death?”

Thomas concludes that, minus all these facts, she would probably rule the cause of death was his heart disease.

In Blackwell’s redirect, he attacks Nelson’s hypothetical by asking “from your standpoint of a forensic pathologist and your analysis of manner and cause of death, would you ever approach an assessment of manner and cause of death by taking out of it the facts that you found relevant and highly pertinent to assessing and determining the manner and cause of death?”

Thomas states that she would not do this.

As the court has seen multiple times, there are certain symptoms that someone goes through when they are overdosing from fentanyl, which Floyd did not have.

“If there’s no signs of fentanyl overdose, then it makes no sense to conclude that there was an overdose from fentanyl,” said Thomas.

The second witness was Hennepin County Chief Medical Examiner Dr. Andrew Michael Baker. He performed an autopsy on Floyd and conducted a death investigation.

He made it clear to the court that, as a chief medical examiner, his main goal is to find the cause of death, the manner of death, and the cause of injury in unnatural deaths.

The jury was shown photographs of Floyd’s autopsy as Dr. Baker walked the court through his findings. He drew attention to Floyd’s aversions and bruises on the left side of his face in the photographs noting that his bruises are consistent with Floyd’s face being pinned to the asphalt as seen in the videos of his restraint.

Dr. Baker also detailed the autopsy procedure he conducted on Floyd making it clear that he thoroughly examined his body, head, hands, and including his heart where he revealed that he observed his coronary arteries being narrowed and his heart weighing more than a normal heart.

The court was also shown Floyd’s death certificate that Dr. Baker had presented after completing Floyd’s death investigation. In bold letters, the certificate read “immediate cause of death as cardiopulmonary arrest, occurring in the setting of law enforcement subdual neck compression.” and he ruled Floyd’s death a homicide.

Blackwell then asked Dr. Baker to clarify what cardiopulmonary arrest means to which he said it’s a medical term for the lungs and heart ceasing to function.

Blackwell followed up by asking how a law enforcement subdual neck compression could have led to Floyd’s death.

Dr. Baker started off by saying that Floyd “had what was called hypertensive heart disease, meaning his heart weighed more than it should” and that therefore “his heart needs more oxygen than a normal heart would by virtue of size.”

He further explained that Floyd’s heart was “limited in its ability to step up to provide more oxygen when there is demand for it because of the narrowing of his coronary arteries.”

Dr. Baker then took Floyd’s heart conditions into the context of the May 25, 2020 incident, noting that in “an altercation with other people that involves things like physical restraint, that involves things like being held to the ground, that involves things like the pain you would incur from having your cheek pinned to the asphalt those events are going to cause stress hormones to pour into your body

He then defined those stress hormones as adrenalin, informing the court that “what that adrenalin is going to do is that it’s going to ask your heart to beat faster it’s going to ask your body for more oxygen so that you can get through that altercation.”

Dr. Baker concluded with “in my opinion, the law enforcement subdual restraint neck compression was more than what Floyd could take by virtue of those heart conditions.”

He asserted that this conclusion “was my top line then. It would stay my top line now.”

William McCurry is a fourth year at Sacramento State, majoring in Criminal Justice. He is from Brentwood, California.

Jose graduated from UC Davis with a BA in Political Science and has interned for the California State Legislature. He is from Rocklin, CA.


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About The Author

The Vanguard Court Watch operates in Yolo, Sacramento and Sacramento Counties with a mission to monitor and report on court cases. Anyone interested in interning at the Courthouse or volunteering to monitor cases should contact the Vanguard at info(at)davisvanguard(dot)org - please email info(at)davisvanguard(dot)org if you find inaccuracies in this report.

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