BCA Scientist Testifies About Pills Found After George Floyd’s Killing

ST. PAUL, Minn. (AP) — A forensic scientist with the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension testified Thursday at the federal trial of three former officers charged with violating George Floyd’s civil rights about drugs investigators found in the squad car officers had tried to put him in before restraining him on the pavement.

McKenzie Anderson oversaw the processing of the squad car that officers had tried to put Floyd in outside a convenience store where he allegedly tried to pass a counterfeit $20 bill. Under questioning from defense attorneys, Anderson acknowledged that pills and fragments recovered from the squad car months after the initial search tested positive for methamphetamine. A pill also tested positive for Floyd’s DNA.

Anderson testified at the trial of former Officers J. Alexander Kueng, Thomas Lane and Tou Thao, who are accused of depriving Floyd, 46, of his civil rights by failing to give him medical aid while he was handcuffed, facedown with Officer Derek Chauvin’s knee pressed onto his neck. Kueng and Thao are also accused of failing to intervene in the killing, which triggered protests worldwide and a reexamination of racism and policing.

A toxicologist testified Wednesday that drug use did not cause Floyd’s death.

Anderson said Thursday that investigators first searched the squad car as well as the Mercedes SUV that Floyd was driving on May 27, 2020, two days after his death. They did not take pills or pill fragments from Mercedes vehicle and have them tested until Dec. 9, 2020, she said, adding that initially she didn’t know for sure they were pills. They tested positive for fentanyl and methamphetamine.

The bureau conducted a second search of the squad car on Jan. 27, 2021. Anderson told Lane’s attorney, Earl Gray, that only the three biggest items were tested.

Gray asked if Floyd was “chewing up the pills or spiting them out,” and Anderson responded, “I can’t say how it got there.”

Dr. Vik Bebarta, an emergency physician and toxicologist and professor at the University of Colorado in suburban Denver, testified Wednesday that Floyd did not die from the low levels of fentanyl and methamphetamine in his system. He said that on video from inside a convenience store before his fatal encounter with police, Floyd did not appear to be seriously intoxicated or experiencing an overdose. But he did not dispute a store clerk’s earlier testimony that Floyd seemed high.

“He was awake, walking, communicating, walking quickly at times,” Bebarta said.

Bebarta said he concluded that Floyd “died from a lack of oxygen to his brain” and that he had suffocated because his airway had been closed off. That was consistent with testimony Monday from a lung specialist who said Floyd could have been saved if officers had moved him into a position to breathe more easily.

Previous testimony also has established that Chauvin — the most senior officer on the scene — told his fellow officers after Floyd became unresponsive, and they couldn’t find a pulse, to wait for an ambulance that was on its way. Officers kept restraining Floyd until the ambulance got there, according to testimony and video footage.

Kueng, who is Black, Lane, who is white, and Thao, who is Hmong American, are charged with willfully depriving Floyd of his constitutional rights while acting under government authority. The charges allege that the officers’ actions resulted in Floyd’s death.

Chauvin, who is white, was convicted of murder and manslaughter in state court last year and was sentenced to 22 1/2 years. He pleaded guilty in December to a federal civil rights charge.

Lane, Kueng and Thao also face a separate state trial in June on charges alleging that they aided and abetted murder and manslaughter.

Source: CBS Minnesota