It was clear that prosecutors were taken aback by Wednesday’s testimony, even as the witness later reversed course.
Prosecutors at Derek Chauvin’s murder trial in Minneapolis seemed jolted Wednesday when one of their most important witnesses initially testified that during George Floyd’s detention by police, while he appeared to be in fear for his life, Floyd stated, “I ate too many drugs.” Floyd, who was later pronounced dead, could be heard speaking on an audio/visual recording. The witness, Agent James Reyerson of the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension, acknowledged during cross-examination by Chauvin’s counsel, Eric Nelson, that he could hear Floyd say, “I ate too many drugs.”
It was clear that prosecutors were taken aback by this testimony. On re-direct examination, prosecutor Matthew Frank pressed Reyerson, who was the lead investigator in the probe of Floyd’s death, whether he’d ever carefully reviewed the audio before Nelson asked him to do it on cross. Reyerson said he had not. Then, after a break when he would have had an opportunity to meet with prosecutors, the witness abruptly reversed course. Under further questioning by Frank, Reyerson claimed, upon further review, that he now believes Floyd actually said, “I ain’t do no drugs.”
It is difficult to understand why prosecutors were thrown for a loop and why Reyerson was obviously unprepared for Nelson’s questioning. Earlier on Wednesday, in cross-examining one of the state’s use-of-force experts, Sergeant Jody Stiger of the Los Angeles Police Department, Nelson played the same recording and asked if Stiger could hear Floyd say, “I ate too many drugs.” Stiger, who also had not carefully reviewed the audio before being asked about it by Nelson, said he could not make out exactly what was said.
Prosecutors thus knew Chauvin’s defense is intent on highlighting this evidence, and that Nelson would surely be asking other witnesses about it. Yet, Reyerson plainly did not know the question was coming.
Floyd’s drug use is clearly a huge issue in the case. The defense is claiming that it was the principal cause of Floyd’s death. An autopsy by Hennepin County’s own medical examiner found that Floyd had ingested fentanyl and methamphetamine, and that the amount of fentanyl would be a “fatal level” for the average person. In its opening statement, the state conceded this but countered that Floyd was not the average person because he had built up a tolerance over years of opiate abuse. Needless to say, that is not an enviable position for prosecutors to have to take.
In addition to the fentanyl Floyd had ingested, agents recovered pills that contained a mixture of methamphetamine and fentanyl – what, as Nelson observed, is referred to as a “speed ball” – which had Floyd’s saliva on them. The pills were found in both the Mercedes Benz SUV Floyd had been in and the squad car in which the police had tried to detain him – where Floyd engaged in violent resistance of arrest during which the pills may have fallen onto the rear seat.
Judge Peter Cahill has ruled that Chauvin’s defense will be permitted to introduce some evidence of an arrest of Floyd in May 2019, a year before he died in police custody last Memorial Day. It’s been proffered that Floyd, upon being confronted by police, quickly ingested opiates in his possession. This resulted in his blood pressure soaring, such that paramedics feared he’d have a heart attack or stroke. Consequently, he was taken to the hospital, rather than into police custody.
The defense will claim that, in his 2020 confrontation with police, Floyd ingested drugs that were sufficiently powerful to kill him in hopes that, as in 2019, he’d be treated as a medical patient rather than taken into police custody. Nelson points out that, in the 2019 arrest, Floyd also struggled with police, cried out for his mother, and claimed to be anxious because he’d previously been shot.
It would obviously help the defense case if Floyd indicated, while he was detained by Chauvin and the other police, that he’d taken “too many drugs.” Whether he made such a statement or not is not settled by Agent Reyerson’s self-contradictory testimony. It is an issue of fact for the jury to resolve. During deliberations, jurors will be able to listen to the recording for themselves if they wish to do so.