A toxicologist testified at the federal trial of three former officers charged with violating George Floyd s civil rights that it wasn't drug use, heart disease nor an agitated state known as “excited delirium” that caused Floyd's death after officers pinned him to the pavement in May 2020.
In testimony Wednesday, Dr. Vik Bebarta, an emergency physician and toxicologist and professor at the University of Colorado in suburban Denver, bolstered the prosecution’s contention that Floyd died because of how Officer Derek Chauvin pressed his knee down on the Black man's neck for 9 1/2 minutes as he pleaded “I can't breathe.” He also backed up other experts who have faulted officers for failing to roll Floyd on his side, as they had been trained, so that he could have breathed freely.
