Follow-up was given today, Thursday, April 1st, at trial of the police officer charged with his murder George Floyd, which for many people is a “referendum” on Justice in the US. The turn of the undefeated African-American’s partner took over.
The woman smiled in tears as she told jurors how the two first met when he offered to pray with her, less than three years before his fatal arrest, and described how they both struggled with their opioid addiction.
Courtney Ross was the first person to know the deceased personally and testify as a witness in the trial of Derek Chovin. of the white policeman who knelt for almost 9 minutes in the neck of the unfortunate African-American, on May 25, 2020, in Minneapolis.
“It’s a classic story about how many people are addicted to opioids,” Ross, who wore a heart-shaped pin on her black jacket, told jurors. “We both suffered from chronic pain: mine was in the neck, his was in the back,” he added.
Chovin pleaded not guilty to three counts of third-degree murder and manslaughter. His lawyers claim that Floyd’s death, which has been ruled a homicide by police, was in fact due to an overdose of fentanyl in his blood.
Prosecutors from the Minnesota Attorney General’s Office have told jurors they will hear a medical report to refute the allegation and that Floyd’s drug use is not related to the charges against Chovin.
“It’s one of my favorite stories I like to tell,” he saidRoss said, smiling at jurors, when asked by a prosecutor how she first met Floyd in August 2017, at a Salvation Army homeless shelter where the 46-year-old African-American worked as a security guard.
She waited in the waiting room to see her son’s father, tired after closing the cafeteria where he worked. Floyd approached her. “He had that awful, deep, southern accent, hoarse,” Ross said, “and he said, ‘Brother, are you okay?'”
He felt that she felt alone and offered to pray with her. “It was so sweet,” Ross told APE-MPE, adding: “At that time I had lost a lot of my faith in God.”
They kissed for the first time that night in the waiting room and – with the exception of a brief separation after a love affair – were together until his death. They went for walks in the parks and around the lakes of Minneapolis, a new city for Floyd who grew up in Texas.
“He was big,” Ross continued, describing how he exercised daily by lifting weights. He adored his mother, who died in 2018 and his two young daughters.
From time to time they received prescription painkillers. Other times they were taking opioids illegally. Sometimes they overcame their addiction, other times they relapsed. “Addiction, in my opinion, is a lifelong struggle,” Ross said.
“It’s not something that comes and goes, it’s something I will face forever,” added his partner, George Floyd.
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