Floyd addicted to opioids after chronic pain: Girlfriend
George Floyd was back on drugs after a long struggle with opioid addiction at the time he died while being restrained under a police officer’s knee, his girlfriend told a court yesterday.
Courteney Ross, 45, said Floyd became addicted after taking prescription drugs and returned to illicit opioids two weeks before his death, despite having suffered an overdose from similar pills that required hospital treatment two months earlier.
After telling the court how ‘‘devastated’’ Floyd, 46, was by the death of his mother in 2018, Ross said that his pet name for her was ‘‘mama’’. As Floyd lay dying on May 25, struggling to breathe, he called out for ‘‘mama’’.
Derek Chauvin, 45, is charged with second-degree murder and manslaughter and third-degree murder after kneeling on Floyd’s neck for nine minutes and 29 seconds in Minneapolis.
The case led to protests across the US and other countries.
Chauvin’s defence team argue that the policeman ‘‘did exactly what he had been trained to do over his 19-year career’’ and that Floyd died as a result of a heart attack brought on by drugs combined with heart disease, high blood pressure and adrenaline.
Ross, a coffee shop assistant who also struggled with opioid addiction, wept as she told Hennepin County district court about her three-year relationship with Floyd. ‘‘It’s a classic story of how many people get addicted to opioids,’’ she said. ‘‘We both suffered from chronic pain. Mine was in my neck and his was in his back. We both had prescriptions but after prescriptions that were filled . . . we got addicted and tried really hard to break that addiction many times.’’ Floyd was shown on video earlier in the day he died acting erratically and Chauvin was recorded telling a bystander: ‘‘We gotta control this guy ‘cause he’s a sizeable guy . . . and it looks like he’s probably on something.’’ The defence is building a case that Floyd was already in mortal danger from the drugs to minimise Chauvin’s role.
Ross confirmed to Eric Nelson, for the defence, that Floyd had bought drugs illicitly about a week before he died that resembled those he overdosed from in March, requiring five days’ treatment in hospital. ‘‘We got pills in May that reminded me of the same feeling, I don’t know if they were the same pills [as in March],’’ she said.
Nelson asked: ‘‘Do you recall telling the FBI that when you had that, you felt like you were going to die?’’
Ross said: ‘‘I don’t remember saying that but I did see it in the transcript.’’
Nelson said: ‘‘Do you recall telling the FBI that at times Mr Floyd was up and bouncing around and at times unintelligible?’’
Ross said: ‘‘That is in the transcript.’’
Earlier Ross told the court how she met Floyd, a father of two, when he was a security guard at a Salvation Army hostel where the father of her son was staying. ‘‘May I tell the story?’’ she asked.
She said that she had become upset because the father did not come to the lobby to discuss their son’s birthday. Floyd had come over to check on her.
‘‘Floyd has this great southern voice, raspy. He was like, ‘Sis, you OK, sis?’’’ Ross recalled. ‘‘I was tired. We’ve been through so much, my sons and I, and [for] this kind person just to come up and say, ‘Can I pray with you?’ . . . it was so sweet.’’
Morries Hall, who was in the car with Floyd when he was initially approached by police for trying to use a fake US$20 note, refused to testify by pleading his fifth amendment right not to incriminate himself. He was named in court as a supplier of some of the drugs Floyd bought illegally.
Chauvin denies the charges and the trial continues.