An independent autopsy into the death of George Floyd, requested by his family, has ruled his death a homicide as a result of “asphyxiation from sustained pressure.”
According to CNN, the autopsy determined that compression to Floyd’s neck and back cut off the blood flow to his brain, leaving him essentially “dead on the scene,” family attorney Ben Crump noted.
Video footage from the incident that went viral, prompting outrage and protests, showed officer Derek Chauvin causally and callously putting his knee on Floyd’s neck for more than eight minutes. A different video that later surfaced showed other officers kneeling on his back.
All four officers that were on the scene at the time of the incident were fired. Chauvin has since been arrested and charged with murder.
This ruling from the independent medical examiners comes after the Hennepin County Medical Examiner claimed, in preliminary results, that there were “no physical findings” to “support a diagnosis of traumatic asphyxia or strangulation.”
That autopsy said that Floyd died from the combined effects of being restrained, any potential intoxicants in his system, and underlying health issues, including heart disease, as CNN notes.
Dr. Michael Baden, one of the independent medical examiners, refuted those results.
“There is no other health issue that could cause or contribute to the death,” Baden said. “Police have this false impression that if you can talk, you can breathe. That’s not true.”