The transcript of a deposition in a workplace retaliation and discrimination lawsuit has revived debunked claims that George Floyd died of a fentanyl overdose, not from police restraint.
Floyd, 46, died in Minneapolis in May 2020 after a white police officer pinned his knee against Floyd’s neck for several minutes. Floyd was Black; his death became a flashpoint in the national discussion over police brutality and inspired widespread racial justice demonstrations. The officer was convicted of second-degree murder.
But now an Oct. 27 Instagram video falsely claims that a former Hennepin County, Minnesota, prosecutor’s August deposition in an unrelated case shows Floyd didn’t die from a homicide.
"So, it actually turns out, … that (officer) Derek Chauvin didn’t kill George Floyd," the man in the video said. "It was either China or Mexico, because new court documents reveal that George Floyd died of a fentanyl overdose and not from asphyxiation or strangulation."
The man in the video cited a 2022 lawsuit filed by Amy Sweasy Tamburino, who goes by Sweasy professionally. The case accuses Hennepin County of violating settlement terms in a prior retaliation and discrimination case.
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(Screenshot from Instagram.)
This claim is unsubstantiated. Fentanyl was found in Floyd’s system, but two autopsies concluded that Floyd died by homicide, not a fentanyl overdose.
At Chauvin’s trial in April 2021, Hennepin County Medical Examiner Dr. Andrew Baker testified that Floyd’s other conditions, including heart disease and drug use, were "contributing causes," but "not direct causes" of Floyd’s death.
"I would still classify it as a homicide today," he said.
Where do the claims originate?The video clip is a truncated segment of an Oct. 24 episode of the "PBD Podcast," which features actor and comedian Vincent Oshana.
In the episode, Oshana referred to a portion of Sweasy’s Aug. 21 deposition related to her November 2022 discrimination lawsuit.
"During her deposition, she discussed a conversation she had after George Floyd’s death when the Hennepin County Medical Examiner Dr. Andrew Baker spoke about the autopsy," Oshana said in the episode, before he appeared to read a few quotes and paraphrased statements from the deposition.
Using Minnesota Court Records Online, PolitiFact found the 313-page rough-draft transcript of Sweasy’s deposition and the parts of Sweasy’s testimony that Oshana referred to. That transcript includes neither the words "fentanyl" nor "overdose."
Sweasy said in her deposition that she called Baker on the Tuesday after Memorial Day — which would have been May 26, 2020, the day after George Floyd was killed — "to ask him if he would perform the autopsy on Mr. Floyd."
Baker did the autopsy, Sweasy said, and then called her later that Tuesday. This was Sweasy’s recollection of the conversation, according to the deposition transcript:
"He told me that there were no medical findings that showed any injury to the vital structures of Mr. Floyd’s neck. There were no medical indications of asphyxia or strangulation.
