MINNEAPOLIS _ The attorneys representing George Floyd's family and Hennepin County officials have now released competing autopsy results, agreeing that the death is a homicide but disagreeing over the precise cause.
Attorneys for the Floyd family said Monday afternoon that a private autopsy conducted by two doctors found he died of asphyxia, which happens which pressure is placed on certain parts of the body, limiting the flow of oxygen to the brain and shutting down organs.
Hours later, the Hennepin County medical examiner's office issued a report expanding on its initial release, classifying the manner of death as "homicide" and finding Floyd died of "cardiopulmonary arrest complicating law enforcement subdual, restraint, and neck compression."
The medical examiner's report also listed "arteriosclerotic and hypertensive heart disease," as well as fentanyl intoxication and recent methamphetamine use as "other significant conditions."
It was the most extensive description released yet of the autopsy performed by the examiner's office on the 46-year-old Floyd, who died May 25 after his curbside detention at East 38th Street and South Chicago Avenue by officers who suspected him of passing fake currency at a store.
Hours before the medical examiner's second disclosure, Floyd family attorneys laid out their case for why they think Floyd died of asphyxia _ and why they think Derek Chauvin should be charged with a count more serious than third-degree murder and why the other officer should also be charged.
"George died because he needed a breath, a breath of air," family attorney Ben Crump said during a news conference Monday afternoon. "For George Floyd, the ambulance was his hearse."
Crump added that Floyd "was living, breathing, talking until we see those officers restrain him while he's facedown in handcuffs with Officer Chauvin having his knee lodged into his neck for over 8 minutes, almost 9 minutes, and the other officer having both his knees lodged into his back. And the doctors will explain the significance of that, as to the cause and manner of death."
Crump's co-counsel, Antonio Romanucci, said that not only was Chauvin's knee on Floyd's neck, "but so was the weight of the other two police officers on his back. ... That makes all of those officers on scene criminally liable, and without a doubt, civilly responsible."
Dr. Allecia Wilson, director of autopsy and forensic sciences at the University of Michigan and one of two examiners on behalf of the family, said, "The evidence is consistent with mechanical asphyxia as the cause of death and homicide as the manner of death."
Private autopsies do have their limitations, Wilson said, including that "we are not seeing the tissues in their original state and some items may have been kept by the original pathologist. With that acknowledgment, we feel those items will not change or alter the primary cause of death of mechanical asphyxia."
Dr. Michael Baden, also working for the family, said the second autopsy shows that Floyd "had no underlying medical problem that caused or contributed to his death. ... He was in good health. The compressive pressure of the neck and back are not seen at autopsy because the pressure has been released by the time the body comes to the medical examiner's office.
Baden said the belief that someone is breathing if they can talk "is not true. I am talking and talking and talking and not breathing in front of you." Floyd repeatedly said "I can't breathe" while on the pavement.
Crump said that all the evidence to date points to Floyd having died at the scene and not later that night, when he was at Hennepin County Medical Center.
"The medics, based on the EMT report that we have in our possession, performed pulse checks several times finding none and delivered one shock by their monitor, but George's condition did not change," he said. "They delivered him to the hospital, continued ventilation, but that last report was the patient was still pulseless."
Crump said last week that relatives sought their own autopsy because the first examination's findings "do not address in detail the effect of the purposeful use of force on Mr. Floyd's neck and the extent of Mr. Floyd's suffering at the hands of the police."
He added that the family and its attorneys "are not surprised, yet we are tragically disappointed in the preliminary autopsy findings. ... We hope that this does not create a false narrative for the reason George Floyd died. Attempts to avoid the hard truth will not stand."
The criminal complaint, filed Friday and citing the medical examiner's first disclosure of autopsy results, said the examination "revealed no physical findings that support a diagnosis of traumatic asphyxia or strangulation" in connection with Chauvin's knee pressed against Floyd's neck.
Instead, the charges continued, Floyd died from a combination of being restrained, potential intoxicants in his system along with various underlying medical conditions including heart disease and hypertension.
"What we know is clear," said Romanucci, Crump's co-counsel. "George Floyd was alive before his encounter with police, and he was dead after that encounter. We believe there is clear proximity between the excessive use of force and his death."
It's too early to tell whether the family's autopsy will play a role in Chauvin's criminal case.
"I don't even know how this goes," said Bradford Colbert, a practitioner in residence at Mitchell Hamline School of Law. "It's not exactly clear to me, because in a criminal case, it's the state vs. the defendant. Theoretically, the victim does not have the right to be involved. That's how it rolls."
If they find the results favorable to their case, either the prosecutor or a defense attorney could choose to enter the results of the family's autopsy into evidence at a criminal trial, Colbert said. The results could also be used in a civil trial, if Floyd's family decides to sue.
Floyd's family and their attorneys are using the new findings to amplify their call for the other officers to be charged, though they did not specify with which particular crimes. They also asked that Attorney General Keith Ellison, who has taken over the case, pursue a first-degree murder charge against Chauvin.
Ellison can upgrade the most serious charge to second-degree murder, but a first-degree count would have to come from a grand jury.
