George Floyd’s relatives to hire former NYC medical examiner for private autopsy they can ‘trust’
The black man who died after a white cop pressed a knee to his neck in Minneapolis is due to get an “independent” autopsy from a former New York City medical examiner, his family’s lawyer said Friday.
The private exam is needed because video makes clear George Floyd was walking around “just fine” before he was pinned to the pavement, pleading “I can’t breathe” in the eight-minute assault on his airway, lawyer Benjamin Crump said.
“We’ve just spoken recently with the district attorney. We’re going to take custody back of George Floyd’s body, and we’re bringing in Dr. Michael Baden to perform an independent autopsy because we saw in the Eric Garner case and so many other cases where they have these people who work with the city come up with things that are such an illusion,” Crump said during a press conference.
“They’re going to have their own autopsy,” Crump said of Floyd’s family. “We’re not going to rely on this DA or this city to tell us the truth. We already saw the truth.”
Garner is the black man who uttered the same final words — “I can’t breathe” — before dying on Staten Island in 2014 due to a police chokehold caught on video.
Baden, meanwhile, was the chief medical examiner of New York City from 1978 to 1979 who recently conducted a private autopsy on Jeffrey Epstein at the behest of Epstein’s brother.
He testified for the defense at O.J. Simpson’s murder trial and investigated the deaths of model Anna Nicole Smith, comedian John Belushi and actor David Carradine.
Crump said Friday he has to anticipate someone might ultimately try to blame Floyd’s death on something other than what was seen in the video.
“We don’t want to begin to speculate about what their narrative is,” he said, cautioning it could run the gamut from “You didn’t know he had a heart condition?” to, “Oh, he had asthma.”
He said such underlying medical conditions are “completely irrelevant” in cases of excessive force.
“They were living, breathing, walking just fine until the police accosted them and assaulted and battered them,” he said.
Reached by the Daily News on Friday, Dr. Baden confirmed he’d been contacted about the case.
“I’m awaiting their call to make the arrangements,” he said by phone. “I would go to Minneapolis.”
Crump, meanwhile, said Floyd’s family simply “does not trust anything coming from the Minneapolis police department” after the first official description of his death on Monday night was that he resisted arrest and died from an apparent medical condition.
“They’re going to have their own autopsy,” he said. “We’re not going to rely on this DA or this city to tell us the truth. We already saw the truth.”
In the third-degree murder complaint filed Friday against former Minneapolis Police officer Derek Chauvin, the officer who pressed his knee to Floyd’s neck, prosecutors revealed the preliminary findings of the medical examiner following Floyd’s official physical autopsy conducted Tuesday.
According to the complaint, the initial exam “revealed no physical findings that support a diagnosis of traumatic asphyxia or strangulation."
Still, “the combined effects of Mr. Floyd being restrained by police, his underlying health conditions and any potential intoxicants in his system likely contributed to his death,” it said.
The complaint listed the underlying conditions as coronary artery disease and hypertensive heart disease.
