George Floyd's family has previously requested to conduct an independent autopsy to look into his death. The results showed that Floyd died of asphyxiation, which revealed that his death was a result of compression of his neck and back, which led to a lack of blood flow to his brain.
The independent examiner who conducted the autopsy also stated that the weight placed of Floyd's back, as well as the handcuffs that bound him and his position as he was placed on the ground, impaired him from breathing through his diaphragm correctly, as reported by ABC News.
An attorney for the victim's family, Ben Crump, said that that the ambulance became the hearse during a news conference where they announced the findings of the observations.
Contradicting results
On Monday, the Medical Examiner's office of Hennepin County released its initial findings of the autopsy they conducted, and they said that Floyd's death was a homicide.
The county believes the death was due to cardiopulmonary arrest, which means he died of a heart attack while police officers were arresting him.
According to CNN, the medical examiner did not mention asphyxiation, as ruled by the independent professional that Floyd's family hired. The official findings by Hennepin County stated that heart disease caused the man's death.
The county also said that fentanyl and methamphetamine use was also a factor but did not indicate the amount that they found of either drug within Floyd's system or how it caused the death.
Crump said that Floyd essentially died on the spot on May 25 as local authorities were arresting him for a suspected forgery.
Several videos of the scene show Officer Derek Chauvin kneeling on Floyd's neck and his colleagues kneeling on his back.
The criminal complaint against Chauvin stated that the officer knelt of Floyd's neck for a total of eight minutes and 46 seconds and he stayed in that position for two minutes and 53 seconds after the victim became unresponsive.
Also Read: George Floyd Video: Three Footages Put Together Shows Final Moments Before His Death
Firm stance
One of the private medical examiners, Dr Michael Baden, said that there was no other health issue that could result in or contribute to his death. "Police have this false impression that if you can talk, you can breathe. That's not true," he added.
Between 1978 and 1979, Baden worked as New York's medical examiner. He was the professional that conducted autopsies on Eric Garner, a man who police officers killed in 2014 at Staten Island, and Michael Brown, who law enforcement shot to death in Ferguson later that year.
The private examiners added that Floyd was in good health before his police officers apprehended him. They also noted that the footage of the arrest made the compression on Floyd's neck and back very noticeable.
Another of the private examiners, Dr Allecia Wilson, said their investigation is still ongoing and that since they did the autopsy after the county had already done so, Floyd's tissues were not in their original state.
Wilson, however, reassured that these items would not change the outcome of the observations or contribute to a different cause of death.
BBC reported that Chauvin has been arrested and charged with third-degree murder as well as manslaughter. The police officer had Floyd on the ground and knelt on his neck for nearly nine minutes,
The Minneapolis Police Department has also fired the other three officers on the scene but placed no charges on them as of Monday afternoon.
