Derek Chauvin, 44, requested that his murder charges in the death of George Floyd be dismissed on Friday.
Derek Chauvin, the former Minneapolis police officer accused of killing George Floyd, has requested a judge dismiss the murder charges as prosecutors push for longer prison sentences than normally called for with these charges.
On Friday, an attorney for Chauvin filed a motion in court that argued there was no probable cause to support the second-degree murder, third-degree murder and second-degree manslaughter charges pinned to his client.
The motion claimed that Floyd’s death was caused by drugs in his system, not Chauvin pressing his knee into Floyd’s neck for an extended period.
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MR. FLOYD OD’D?
If you read the autopsy, the evidence points to a possible, perhaps likely, drug overdose.
The filing also noted Floyd’s pre-existing conditions and argued that Chauvin did not realize Floyd couldn’t breathe properly
A viral video showed Chauvin kneeling on Floyd’s neck for eight minutes and 46 seconds during an arrest
He was charged with murder and manslaughter in June.
Officers J. Alexander Kueng, Thomas Kiernan, and Tou Thao were charged with aiding and abetting.
State prosecutors on Friday revealed their intentions to ask for longer prison sentences for all four men.
The family commissioned an autopsy by Dr. Michael Baden, a TV doctor-for-hire. He said that George Floyd died from asphyxiation. The medical examiner, Dr. Baker said there is no evidence of asphyxiation.
Dr. Andrew Baker had told prosecutors that the level of fentanyl of Floyd’s system would be enough to categorize his death as an overdose.
“If [Mr. Floyd] were found dead at home alone and no other apparent causes, it would have been acceptable to label his death an overdose,” the motion said, reports WSJ.
The motion filed on Chauvin’s behalf also declared that Chauvin had assumed Floyd was simply resisting arrest and did not realize he could not breathe, despite Floyd saying so several times.
“What Mr. Chauvin saw was a strong man struggling mightily with police officers, which seemed contradictory to Mr. Floyd’s claims about not being able to breathe,” it said.
Then officer Chauvin kept his knee on Mr. Floyd’s neck for almost nine minutes. How much pressure he exerted has not been revealed, if known. It wasn’t enough to asphyxiate him.
THE UNDERLYING CONDITIONS
“Mr. Chauvin could not have known about Mr. Floyd’s underlying issues when he arrived on the scene.”
Additionally, Chauvin’s attorney cited Dr. Baker’s remarks that he had found no physical evidence of asphyxiation with Floyd.
He instead listed the death was “cardiopulmonary arrest complicating law-enforcement subdual, restraint, and neck compression.”
The defendants added to the motion that the medical examiner found no bruising on Floyd’s back or neck, which they argued showed Chauvin had not meant to harm him.
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