Sandy MaloneDurham, NC – Duke University has launched an investigation after somebody pinned a copy of George Floyd’s real toxicology report on a dormitory bulletin board that featured a picture of Floyd for Black History Month calling it “an anonymous act of bias” that violated school policy.
“Mix of drugs presents in difficulty breathing! Overdose? Good man? Use of fake currency is a felony!” was written on the toxicology report in pink ink, according to the university’s newspaper The Chronicle.
The names of the multiple drugs found in Floyd’s system were underlined throughout the report in pink.
“The thing that stuck out to me the most was the whole ‘good man’ thing,” Duke University freshman Matt Mohn told The Chronicle. “It wasn’t mirroring what was put up on the board. It wasn’t a play on words. It was literally just the author voicing their own opinion that he wasn’t a good man because he had a counterfeit 20-dollar bill.”
The trial of former Minneapolis Police Officer Derek Chauvin for the murder of Floyd on May 25 is scheduled to begin in Hennepin County District Court in Minnesota on Monday.
Chauvin is facing charges of second-degree and third-degree murder, and second-degree manslaughter.
Three other former Minneapolis police officers are facing charges of aiding and abetting Floyd’s murder and will stand trial together in August.
Attorneys for the former officers have argued that Floyd’s death was a result of an overdose and not the fault of the officers who were arresting him.
The officers had responded to a call about a counterfeit $20 that Floyd had allegedly used to make a purchase at a deli on May 25.
Store employees pointed out the suspect to police and they arrested him.
The complaint used to charge Chauvin said Floyd actively resisted arrest and then fought being put in the back of a police car once he had been handcuffed.
Viral cell phone video showed then-Officer Chauvin and three other officers holding Floyd on the ground.
The video showed Officer Chauvin held his knee on Floyd’s neck for almost nine minutes, during which time the suspect lost consciousness.
Chauvin remained on Floyd’s neck for almost three minutes after he was unresponsive.
Prosecutors charged him with murder on the basis that Floyd died of asphyxiation.
However, two other memos that were entered into evidence on Aug. 25, 2020 painted a very different picture of Floyd’s cause of death, according to KMSP.
A May 26 memo written by the Hennepin County Attorney’s Office the day after Floyd’s death said Hennepin County Medical Examiner Dr. Andrew Baker had told them he didn’t think Floyd had died of asphyxiation.
“The autopsy revealed no physical evidence suggesting that Mr. Floyd died of asphyxiation,” Baker told prosecutors, according to the memo.
But at the point, he hadn’t gotten the toxicology results back.
A second memo entered into the prosecutor’s file against former Minneapolis Police Officer Derek Chauvin showed that the medical examiner said he thought it was likely that Floyd had died from an overdose, KMSP reported.
Baker told prosecutors on June 1, 2020 that Floyd had a “pretty high” and potentially “fatal level” of fentanyl in his system when he died.
“[Dr. Andrew Baker] said that if Mr. Floyd had been found dead in his home (or anywhere else) and there were no other contributing factors he would conclude that it was an overdose death,” the prosecutor’s memo about the conversation with the medical examiner read.
Attorneys for two of the former police officers have filed motions attempting to dismiss the charges against their clients on the basis that Floyd’s death was an overdose.
Mohn explained to The Washington Post why he was so outraged by the real toxicology report posted on the bulletin board at Duke.
“The entire message was that he was responsible for his own demise,” Mohn said. “That because he tested positive for drugs or because he had one $20 bill that was counterfeit that he deserved to be executed. I think it was racist in a way that absolved the white police officer that had been kneeling on him.”
George Floyd’s autopsy showed he had 11/mL of fentanyl in his system, a fatal level.
He shared a picture of the bulletin board on social media and that set off a firestorm in the university community, CNN reported.
“I remember shaking in that moment,” freshman Michael Manns recalled about seeing the image. “That happened right down the hall from where I sleep, from where I’m supposed to be safe… The thought that it could be someone I’ve lived with all these months really terrified me.”
Despite the narrative that has plagued the mainstream media since Floyd’s death, legal experts have said that a conviction of Chauvin will not be a slam-dunk for the Attorney General’s Office leading the prosecution, the Associated Press reported.
Holly Matkin
