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This week began the trial against former police officer Derek Chauvin accused of murdering African-American George Floyd, an emblematic case of police and racist violence in the United States that generated massive demonstrations last year. in which the last day the victim’s girlfriend, Courtney Ross, testified.
George Floyd’s girlfriend gave her testimony on the fourth day of the trial – which began on Monday – and disclosed that both suffered from an addiction to opiates and explained that the experience with drugs is “the classic story of many addicted people” to this substance.
“We both suffered from chronic pain -detailed-, mine was in the neck and his (Floyd) in the back, we both had recipes, But once it was over, we got addicted, and we really tried hard to end that addiction many times, “he said.
The prosecution was the first to ask about Floyd’s use of opiates, although it is Chauvin’s defense attorneys who are interested in this aspect of his life, since they want to argue that he died from previous health problems and from taking drugs.
Along these lines, Ross revealed that months before his death, in March, Floyd was hospitalized for an overdose. “I took him to work, but he didn’t feel well, his stomach ached, he was shrunken from the pain, I don’t know he felt well and he told me that he needed to go to a hospital, so I took him straight to the hospital. story.
Defense attorney Eric Nelson then asked her if she learned later that it was due to an overdose, to which the witness answered yes.
Faced with the defense’s strategy of focusing on Floyd’s addiction, the African-American’s family issued a statement on Thursday, read by his lawyers, to criticize this tactic: “We fully hope that the defense bring George’s character and his fight against addictions to trial because this is a tactic when the facts are not on your side, “noted lawyers Ben Crump and Antonio Romanucci, on behalf of Floyd’s relatives.
Floyd lost his life last May when four officers tried to arrest him for having used a counterfeit bill to pay at a store. During his arrest, Chauvin pinned him to the ground by pressing his knee against his neck until he stopped breathing.
