This archive report was first published on 4 June 2020.
On May 25, George Floyd, a 46-year-old man whose fatal encounter with Minneapolis police sparked a global outcry over racial bias, was pronounced dead at a hospital after being restrained by police for nearly nine minutes.
According to the full 20-page autopsy report made public on Wednesday by the Hennepin County Medical Examiner's Office, the official cause of death was cardiopulmonary arrest while Floyd was being restrained by police.
The coroner ruled the manner of death to be a homicide, and four police officers who were involved in the incident have since been fired from their jobs and are being held on criminal charges, including one officer accused of murder.
On April 3, nearly eight weeks before his death, Floyd had tested positive for COVID-19, but the infection was not listed as a factor in his death, according to the autopsy report.
Dr. Andrew Baker, the county's chief medical examiner, concluded that the post-mortem test result 'most likely reflects asymptomatic but persistent … positivity from previous infection.'
Dr. Michael Baden, one of two medical examiners who conducted a private autopsy for Floyd's family, told the New York Times that county officials never told him or the funeral director that Floyd had tested positive for COVID-19.
