George Floyd’s girlfriend recounts couple’s drug use

MINNEAPOLIS — George Floyd’s girlfriend cried on the witness stand Thursday as she told the story of how they first met in 2017 at a Salvation Army shelter where Floyd was a security guard with “this great Southern voice, raspy.” She also recounted how they both struggled with opioid addiction.

“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,” 45-year-old Courteney Ross said on Day Four of former Officer Derek Chauvin’s murder trial.

She said they “tried really hard to break that addiction many times.”

Prosecutors put Ross on the stand as part of an effort to humanize 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 empathize with what he went through.

Chauvin, 45, is charged with murder and manslaughter, accused of killing Floyd by kneeling on the 46-yearold Black man’s neck for 9 minutes, 29 seconds, as he lay face-down in handcuffs last May. The most serious charge against the now-fired white officer carries up to 40 years in prison.

The defense has argued that Chauvin did what he was trained to do and that Floyd’s death was caused instead by his illegal drug use, underlying health conditions and the adrenaline flowing through his body.

An autopsy found fentanyl and methamphetamine in his system.

Under cross-examination by Chauvin attorney Eric Nelson, Ross said Floyd’s pet name for her in his phone was “Mama” — testimony that called into question the widely reported account that Floyd was crying out for this mother as he lay pinned to the pavement.

In some of the video, Floyd can be heard calling out, “Mama!” repeatedly and saying, “Mama, I love you! ... Tell my kids I love them.”

In her testimony, Ross described how both she and Floyd struggled with their addiction to painkillers throughout their relationship. She said they both had prescriptions, and when those ran out, they took the prescriptions of others and also used illegal drugs.