Chauvin trial hears from George Floyd’s girlfriend
GEORGE Floyd’s girlfriend cried in court as she told the story of how they first met in 2017 at a Salvation Army shelter where Mr Floyd was a security guard.
Courteney Ross also recounted how they both struggled with opioid addiction on day four of former officer Derek Chauvin’s murder trial.
“Both Floyd and I, our story, it’s a classic story of how many people get addicted to opioids. We both suffered from chronic pain. Mine was in my neck and his was in his back,” Ms Ross said. “We both had prescriptions, but after prescriptions that were filled and we got addicted and tried really hard to break that addiction many times.”
Prosecutors put the 45-year-old in the witness box as part of an effort to humanise Mr Floyd in front of the jury and portray him as more than a crime statistic, and also apparently explain his drug use to the jurors and perhaps get them to empathise with what he went through.
Chauvin, 45, is charged with murder and manslaughter, accused of killing Mr Floyd by kneeling on the 46-year-old’s neck for nine minutes, 29 seconds as he lay face down in handcuffs last May in Minneapolis. The most serious charge against the now-fired officer carries up to 40 years in prison.
The defence has argued that Chauvin did what he was trained to do and that Mr Floyd’s death was not caused by the officer’s knee but by Mr Floyd’s illegal drug use, underlying health conditions and the adrenaline flowing through his body. A post-mortem examination found fentanyl and methamphetamine in his system.
Ms Ross began by telling how the two of them met. She asked: “May I tell the story? It’s one of my favourite stories to tell.”
Ms Ross said she had gone to the shelter because her sons’ father was staying there. She said she became upset because the father was not coming to the lobby to discuss their son’s birthday. Mr Floyd came over to check on her.
“Floyd has this great Southern voice,” Ms 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. At the time, I had lost a lot of faith in God.”
The state of Minnesota is a rarity in explicitly permitting such “spark of life” testimony ahead of a verdict. Defence lawyers often complain that such evidence allows prosecutors to play on jurors’ emotions.
The testimony came a day after witness testimony on Wednesday showed how Mr Floyd’s alleged attempt to pass a counterfeit $20 note at a neighbourhood store last May escalated into tragedy.
Events span out of control that day soon after Mr Floyd allegedly handed a cashier at Cup Foods, 19-yearold Christopher Martin, a counterfeit note for a pack of cigarettes.
Mr Martin said he watched Mr Floyd’s arrest outside the store with “disbelief – and guilt”.
“If I would have just not taken the bill, this could have been avoided,” Mr Martin said, joining a burgeoning list of witnesses who expressed a sense of helplessness and lingering guilt over Mr Floyd’s death.
Mr Martin said he immediately believed the $20 note was fake, but he added that he initially accepted it because he did not think Mr Floyd knew it was counterfeit and “I thought I would be doing him a favour”.