Second physician testifies that George Floyd died of asphyxia, not drugs or heart attack

MINNEAPOLIS — George Floyd died of asphyxia in Minneapolis Police Department custody, not a drug overdose, heart attack or excited delirium, an emergency medicine and toxicology expert testified Wednesday in the federal civil rights trial of three former officers.

Vik Bebarta, a professor of emergency medicine and pharmacology at the University of Colorado in Denver, said Floyd died "from a lack of oxygen to his brain" when he was "suffocated and his airway was closed, he could not breathe."

"When the airway is blocked, you pass out, stop breathing and your heart stops," Bebarta said. He determined the cause by reviewing medical records and watching videos of Floyd before and during police restraint on May 25, 2020, at Cup Foods in south Minneapolis.