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Floyd had Coronavirus
before his death –
Autopsy
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20 hours ago
The Guardian Nigeria.
Positive For
Coronavirus, Autopsy
RevealsGuardian Life
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20 hours ago
Premium Times Nigeria.
Floyd tested positive
for coronavirus
According to Dr. Andrew Baker, the chief medical examiner at Hennepin County, Floyd tested positive for coronavirus weeks before his death.
Floyd was likely no longer symptomatic when four Minneapolis police officers killed him during the arrest, according to the 20-page document.
Baker said the type of test performed for the autopsy, called PCR, can show a positive result “for weeks after the onset and resolution of clinical disease.”
“Since … positivity for [COVID-19] can persist for weeks after the onset and resolution of clinical disease, the autopsy result most likely reflects asymptomatic but persistent … positivity from previous infection,” Baker wrote in the report.
The report maintains that Floyd’s death was a homicide — that he died when his heart stopped while officer Derek Chauvin compressed his neck in the widely viewed video of his arrest. A previous report from the county autopsy had claimed that Floyd died from the combined effects of being restrained, possible intoxicants and underlying health issues including heart disease.
The medical examiner’s office’s findings included “other significant conditions” of Floyd’s: heart disease, fentanyl intoxication and recent methamphetamine — details released in the initial report that angered Floyd’s family attorney, Benjamin Crump.
George Floyd’s death has sparked a wave of protests and condemnation in the United States and in some countries across the globe.
Chauvin, Lane, and the two other officers who assisted in the arrest, J Alexander Kueng and Tou Thao have all been fired and charged with felonies.
I’ll always remember the fear in his face’: Witness who was in George Floyd’s car says his friend did not resist
Maurice Hall is key witness in state’s investigation into four officers who apprehended Floyd A longtime friend of George Floyd’s who was in the passenger seat of Floyd’s car during his fatal encounter with a Minneapolis police officer said on Wednesday night that Floyd tried to defuse the tensions with police and in no way resisted arrest.
“He was, from the beginning, trying in his humblest form to show he was not resisting in no form or way,” said the friend, Maurice Lester Hall, who was tracked down on Monday in Houston, arrested on outstanding warrants and interviewed by Minnesota state investigators.
“I could hear him pleading, ‘Please, officer, what’s all this for?’” Mr Hall said in an interview on Wednesday night with the Times.
Mr Hall recounted the last moments with Floyd on Memorial Day, 25 May, after they had spent part of the day together.
“He was just crying out at that time for anyone to help because he was dying,” Mr Hall said. “I’m going to always remember seeing the fear in Floyd’s face because he’s such a king. That’s what sticks with me, seeing a grown man cry, before seeing a grown man die.”
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Mr Hall is a key witness in the state’s investigation into the four officers who apprehended Floyd, including Derek Chauvin, who knelt on Floyd’s neck for nearly nine minutes, even after he became unresponsive.
But Mr Hall — who had outstanding warrants for his arrest on felony possession of a firearm, felony domestic assault and felony drug possession — provided a false name to officers at the scene of Floyd’s arrest, according to a Minnesota official.
Mr Hall left Minneapolis and hitchhiked to Houston two days later, after visiting a memorial at the site of the police encounter.
“When the whole world was finding out that they murdered George Floyd,” he said, “I went and said a prayer where I witnessed him take his last breath, and I left.”
Mr Hall said he had left dinner with his family late on Monday evening when their car was surrounded by at least a dozen law enforcement officers. After his arrest, he was questioned for hours by a Minnesota state investigator about Floyd’s death — not about his warrants. Mr Hall was then transferred to the Harris County Jail in Houston, and Tuesday, he returned to his home in the city, after his lawyers fought for his release.
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“When Hall’s family found us, he had been isolated in jail for 10 hours after being interrogated until 3 am,” said Ashlee C McFarlane, a partner at Gerger Khalil Hennessy & McFarlane, who is representing Mr Hall. “This is not how you treat a key witness, especially one that had just seen his friend murdered by police. Even with outstanding warrants, this should have been done another way.”
[floyd-protest.jpg]
There have been protests in the US and countries around the world since the death of George Floyd (Getty)
“I knew what was happening, that they were coming. It was inevitable,” Mr Hall said in the interview with the Times. “I’m a key witness to the cops murdering George Floyd, and they want to know my side. Whatever I’ve been through, it’s all over with now. It’s not about me.”
Mr Hall and Floyd, both Houston natives, had connected in Minneapolis through a pastor and had been in touch every day since 2016. Mr Hall said that he considered Floyd a confidant and a mentor, like many in the community, and that he went back to Houston because the “only ties I had in Minnesota that had me Houston-rooted was George”.
Agents of the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension, which is building the state’s case against Chauvin and the three other officers involved in the Floyd case, “attempted to contact Hall numerous times to no avail,” said Bruce Gordon, a spokesman for the bureau.
Mr Hall said that he was distraught and working through his trauma with his family and was not taking phone calls in the days immediately after.
The bureau asked law enforcement agents in Texas to arrest Mr Hall because it believed he was not cooperating with its investigation. Mr Hall and Ms McFarlane, his lawyer, said that he cooperated fully with the Minnesota official’s interview.
Read more
A multilayered view of the George Floyd protests
“They got a testimony, and that’s what they were after,” Mr Hall added. “They came and saw, and left me to fighting for my freedom.”
Passengers in the car with Floyd, a man and a woman, had remained unidentified until Mr Hall spoke with the Times on Wednesday. Mr Hall said that he did not know the woman’s name.
Minnesota officials said on Wednesday that the state had upgraded the charges against Chauvin to second-degree murder from third-degree murder and manslaughter. They also charged the other three officers who took part in the fatal arrest — Thomas Lane, J Alexander Kueng and Tou Thao — with aiding and abetting murder.
All four officers were fired the day after Floyd died and video of his death went viral online.
“I walk with Floyd,” Mr Hall said. “I know that I’m going to be his voice.”
New York Times
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George Floyd’s Car,
Maurice Lester Hall,
Says His Friend Did Not Resist Arrest
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1 day ago
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who was in the car with
him found out about
his death on social media, he says
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2 hours ago
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George Floyd when he
was killed is
interviewed by investigators
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1 day ago