Derek Chauvin, the officer who murdered George Floyd in the streets of Minneapolis by holding his knee into the back of Floyd’s neck for nearly 9 minutes while he screamed and begged for air, was finally arrested, jailed, and charged with murder in the midst of protests and demonstrations across the country, demanding justice.
However, as protests continue to rage from coast to coast demanding justice for so many others like Floyd, Chauvin himself is already trying to weasel his way out of paying the price for murdering an innocent human being.
According to a new report from The Wall Street Journal, as prosecutors continue to push for a heftier prison sentence, Chauvin is now requesting that a judge completely dismiss the murder charges against him altogether.
Currently, the former officer is being charged with second-degree murder, third-degree murder, and second-degree manslaughter. However, an attorney for Chauvin has now filed a motion in court, arguing that there is no probable cause for such charges because Chauvin was allegedly on drugs at the time of his death.
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The motion ultimately claims that it was the drugs that served as Floyd’s demise, not Chauvin’s knee in the back of his neck for nearly 9 minutes as he begged for air.
The Wall Street Journal reports the filing saying, “Put simply, Mr. Floyd could not breathe because he had ingested a lethal dose of fentanyl.”
It goes on to argue that Floyd’s various preexisting conditions, such as heart disease, COVID-19, and sickle cell trait, also contributed to his death.
Since Floyd’s murder autopsy reports have had quite the discrepancy — with the Hennepin County Medical Examiner report claiming that Floyd’s high amount of Fentanyl in his system could have contributed to his death, while a private autopsy conducted by the family determined that mechanical asphyxiation as a result of Chauvin’s knee on his airway for a prolonged amount of time was the ultimate cause of death.
The motion is hinging on these discrepancies.
The court motion filed on Chauvin’s behalf asserts that the officer assumed that Floyd’s cries for help were merely a result of him resisting arrest and did not realize that he actually could not breathe, despite the fact that Floyd clearly stated as much multiple times during the arrest.
“What Mr. Chauvin saw was a strong man struggling mightily with police officers, which seemed contradictory to Mr. Floyd’s claims about not being able to breathe,” the motion reads. “Mr. Chauvin could not have known about Mr. Floyd’s underlying issues when he arrived on the scene.”
The Floyd family attorney, Ben Crump, called the motion “a desperate attempt with charlatan tactics.”
“The whole world saw what happened, and that video speaks for itself,” Crump’s statement to WSJ says.
You can read the full report here.
Featured image via screen capture
