Girlfriend recalls their addiction struggles
MINNEAPOLIS >> George Floyd’s girlfriend tearfully told a jury Thursday the story of how they met — at a Salvation Army shelter where he was a security guard with “this great, deep Southern voice, raspy” — and how they both struggled mightily with an addiction to opioids.
“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 get them to empathize with what he went through.
The defense has argued that Chauvin did what he was trained to do and that Floyd’s death last May was caused by his illegal drug use, underlying health conditions and his natural adrenaline. An autopsy found fentanyl and methamphetamine in his system.
Ross’s testimony could help prosecutors blunt the argument that drugs killed Floyd. Medical experts have said that while the level of fentanyl in his system could be fatal to some, people who use the drug regularly can develop a tolerance to it.
Chauvin, 45, is charged with murder and manslaughter, accused of killing Floyd by kneeling on the 46-year-old Black man’s neck for 9 minutes, 29 seconds, as he lay face-down in handcuffs, accused of passing a counterfeit $20 bill at a neighborhood market.
The case triggered scattered violence around the U.S. and widespread soulsearching over racism and police brutality. The most serious charge against the now-fired white officer carries up to 40 years in prison.
In her testimony, Ross described how both she and Floyd struggled with 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.
“Addiction, in my opinion, is a lifelong struggle . ... It’s not something that just kind of comes and goes. It’s something I’ll deal with forever,” she said.
In March 2020, Ross drove Floyd to the emergency room because he was in extreme stomach pain, and she learned he had overdosed. In the months that followed, Ross said, she and Floyd spent a lot of time together during the coronavirus quarantine, and Floyd was clean.
But she suspected he began using again about two weeks before his death because his behavior changed: She said there would be times when he would be up and bouncing around, and other times when he would be unintelligible.
Chauvin attorney Eric Nelson drove hard at Floyd’s drug use in cross-examining Ross, asking questions aimed at showing the jury that it was dangerous. He pointed out that she supposedly told the FBI that she believed Floyd had overdosed on heroin in March and that the couple used pills in May that made her feel as if she was going to die.