MINNEAPOLIS – A paramedic testified yesterday that George Floyd was already dead when he arrived at the scene and Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin, who is being tried for murder, still had his knee on the neck of the 46-year-old Black man.
“When I showed up he was deceased and I dropped him off at the hospital and he was still in cardiac arrest,” paramedic Derek Smith said on the fourth day of Chauvin’s trial on murder and manslaughter charges.
Chauvin, 45, was captured on video kneeling on the neck of a handcuffed Floyd for more than nine minutes during Floyd's May 25, 2020 arrest for passing a counterfeit US$20 (RM83) bill.
The video of Chauvin, who is white, restraining Floyd went viral and sparked protests against racial injustice and police brutality around the world.
Prosecutors are seeking to prove that Chauvin’s actions led to Floyd’s death while the ex-officer's attorney claims that he died due to illegal drug use and underlying medical conditions.
Smith said Chauvin and other police officers were still on top of Floyd when he and fellow paramedic Seth Bravinder arrived on the scene in an ambulance.
Smith said he checked the carotid artery in Floyd’s neck to see if he had a pulse. “I did not feel one,” he said. “In lay terms, I thought he was dead.”
Smith said Floyd was loaded into the ambulance and they tried to revive him using chest compressions and a defibrillator.
Their efforts were unsuccessful.
“He’s a human being and I was trying to give him a second chance at life,” Smith said.
Bravinder also told the court that when he and Smith arrived Floyd was “unresponsive”.
“I did not see him moving or breathing,” he said. “He was limp.” – AFP, April 2, 2021
