By Steve Karnowski, Amy Forliti and
Tammy Webber

Associated Press

MINNEAPOLIS — George Floyd’s girlfriend tearfully told a jury Thursday the story of how they met — at a Salvation Army shelter where he was a security guard with “this great, deep Southern voice, raspy” — and how they both struggled mightily with an addiction to opioids.

“Our story, it’s a classic story of how many people get addicted to opioids. We both suffered from chronic pain. Mine was in my neck and his was in his back,” 45-year-old Courteney Ross said on Day Four of the murder trial of former Officer Derek Chauvin for digging his knee into Floyd’s neck.

She said they “tried really hard to break that addiction many times.”

Prosecutors put Ross on the stand as part of an effort to humanize  Floyd  in front of the jury and portray him as more than a crime statistic, and also explain his drug use.

The defense has argued that Chauvin did what he was trained to do when he encountered Floyd last May and that Floyd’s death was caused by drugs, his underlying health conditions and his own adrenaline. An autopsy found fentanyl and methamphetamine in his system.

In other testimony, David Pleoger, a now-retired Minneapolis police sergeant who was on duty the night Floyd died, said that based on his review of the body camera video, officers should have ended their restraint after Floyd stopped resisting.

He also said officers are trained to roll people on their side to help with their breathing after they have been restrained in the prone position.

“When Mr. Floyd was no longer offering up any resistance to the officers, they could have ended the restraint,” Pleoger said.

“And that was after he was handcuffed and on the ground and no longer resistant?” prosecutor Steve Schleicher asked.

Yes, Ploeger replied.

Chauvin, 45, is charged with murder and manslaughter, accused of killing Floyd by kneeling on the 46-year-old Black man’s neck for 9 minutes, 29 seconds, as he lay face-down in handcuffs, accused of passing a counterfeit $20 bill at a neighborhood market.

The case triggered large protests around the U.S., scattered violence and widespread soul-searching over racism and police brutality. The most serious charge against the now-fired white officer carries up to 40 years in prison.

Earlier, Ross said she and Floyd first met in 2017 and struggled with addiction to painkillers throughout their relationship — testimony that could help prosecutors blunt the argument that drugs killed Floyd. Medical experts have said that while the level of fentanyl in his system could be fatal to some, people who use the drug regularly can develop a tolerance to it.

Ross said they both had prescriptions, and when those ran out, they took the prescriptions of others and also used illegal drugs.

“Addiction, in my opinion, is a lifelong struggle. … It’s not something that just kind of comes and goes. It’s something I’ll deal with forever,” she said.

In March 2020, Ross drove Floyd to the emergency room because he was in extreme stomach pain, and she learned he had overdosed. In the months that followed, Ross said, she and Floyd spent a lot of time together during the coronavirus quarantine, and Floyd was clean.

Chauvin attorney Eric Nelson drove hard at Floyd’s drug use in cross-examining Ross, asking questions aimed at showing the danger of overdose and death.