Prosecutors trying the former Minneapolis police officer charged with murder in George Floyd’s death appeared to distance themselves last week from the medical findings on his cause of death, issued by the only doctor who performed an autopsy.
Special Prosecutor Jerry Blackwell told jurors last Monday that while Hennepin County Chief Medical Examiner Dr. Andrew Baker ruled Floyd’s cause of death cardiac arrest, prosecutors would prove he died of asphyxia, or, lack of oxygen, while Chauvin knelt on his neck for more than nine minutes.
“This was … not a fatal heart event,” Blackwell said in his opening statement. “He died one breath at a time over an extended period of time.”
