MINNEAPOLIS — The jury selection in the trial of Derek Chauvin, the former Minneapolis police officer accused of murdering George Floyd, was paused for at least a day on Monday, after his defense team appealed a decision to the Minnesota Supreme Court regarding the additional charge of third-degree murder against the former officer.
Shockingly, it was also revealed that months after the incident, Chauvin’s defense team found methamphetamine and fentanyl in the police car that had Floyd’s DNA on it. That evidence had apparently been overlooked by police investigators.
During routine motions Monday afternoon, Chauvin’s attorney Eric Nelson revealed that investigators apparently missed something in the back of the police car officers tried putting Floyd into the evening he died, KARE11 reported.
“It was very apparent what was in Squad 320 was controlled substances,” Nelson said.
The Minneapolis Police Department squad car has been in storage at the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension garage pending this trial. One day a couple months ago, Nelson, along with the other defense attorneys and some staff members, went there to look over the car.
Inside, Nelson said they spotted some chewed up pills and a full pill. And the state tested them.
“They are in fact methamphetamine and fentanyl, and they contain the DNA of George Floyd,” Nelson said.
The implication is that the drugs were in Floyd’s mouth, and he spit them out when the former officers were trying to place him in the police car.
The state has given no explanation how the BCA could have missed that potential evidence, according to KARE11.
Nelson brought it up Monday in the course of arguing for the 2019 arrest of Floyd to be allowed as evidence, which Judge Peter Cahill said he most likely will not allow it.
Drug use will certainly be a focus by Chauvin’s defense team as Floyd had a lethal dose of fentanyl in his system at the time of death along with “multiple natural diseases” including “severe multifocal arteriosclerosis heart disease,” “hypertensive heart disease” and COVID-19 according to the autopsy.
Floyd was complaining about not being able to breathe during the initial encounter with police and asked to be taken out of the police car and placed on the ground.
Following a 2018 training curriculum on excited delirium by the Minneapolis Police Department, Chauvin along with other officers removed Floyd from the police car and subdued him on the ground as they waited for paramedics to arrive.
– MINNEAPOLIS DISASTER: FENTANYL, METHAMPHETAMINE & EXCITED DELIRIUM
