Dr. David Fowler, former head of the medical examiner’s office in Maryland, said he believes that Floyd, due to his underlying heart issues, had a “sudden cardiac arrhythmia” while being restrained and subdued by police.

Several witnesses for the prosecution previously said Floyd died from low oxygen due to law enforcement restraint. However, the chief medical examiner for Hennepin County who conducted the autopsy told jurors Floyd’s heart disease was a contributing cause of his death.

“The law enforcement subdual and neck compression is just more than Mr. Floyd could take by virtue of his heart conditions,” Dr. Andrew Baker said last week.

A medical expert testifying for the defense took the witness stand Wednesdayin the murder trial of former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin, charged in the death of George Floyd.

Dr. David Richard Fowler, a retired forensic pathologist and former head of the medical examiner’s office in Maryland for 17 years, testified for the defense Wednesday.

Fowler said the plaque built up inside Floyd’s arteries and his hypertensive heart disease were the direct cause of death, in his opinion, noting that Floyd had a “sudden cardiac arrhythmia” due to those heart issues while being restrained and subdued by police.

Former police chief Tim Gannon, who also resigned Tuesday, said he believed Potter mistakenly reached for her firearm instead of her Taser when she shot Wright, a 20-year-old Black man, during a traffic stop Sunday.

Wright’s family has called for Potter to be held accountable and said they could not accept police’s account of the incident as “an accident.”

Kim Potter, the 26-year veteran of the Brooklyn Center Police Department who fatally shot Daunte Wright, resigned this week as a prosecutor weighed whether to bring charges against her.

Potter is being represented by Earl Gray, an attorney who also represents Thomas Lane. Lane is a former Minneapolis police officer charged with aiding and abetting second-degree murder and manslaughter in the death of George Floyd.

In 2014, Potter and other officers were awarded the Medal of Merit for their response in a house fire, according to KARE-TV.

Potter is seen pulling out her firearm and aiming at Wright as she shouts “Taser” multiple times. After she fires and Wright drives away, she said, “Oh (expletive), I just shot him.”

The newspaper, citing an investigative report from the Hennepin County Attorney’s Office, reported Potter told two officers involved in the shooting to “exit the residence, get into separate squad cars, turn off their body worn cameras, and to not talk to each other.”

“Prayers are not enough. Daunte Wright should still be with us. While an investigation is underway, our nation needs justice and healing, and Daunte’s family needs to know why their child is dead—they deserve answers.” Vice President Kamala Harris said on Twitter amidst protests.

The Twin Cities metro area was under a curfew and hundreds of Minnesota National Guard troops were in the streets to attempt to keep the peace on Monday night, a day after a

Crowds began gathering outside the Brooklyn Center police station Monday afternoon, with hundreds there by nightfall despite the governor’s dusk-to-dawn curfew. A drum beat incessantly, and the crowd broke into frequent chants of “Daunte Wright!” Some shouted obscenities at officers.

Tensions between protesters and police intensified for the second night in a row Monday around the nation, a day after a Brooklyn Center police officer fatally shot Daunte Wright, a 20-year-old Black man, during a traffic stop.

A candlelight memorial for Wright, including a raised fist statue, was also erected where he was shot Monday night.

About 90 minutes after the curfew deadline, police began firing gas canisters and flash-bang grenades in an attempt to drive them away, sending clouds wafting over the crowd and pushing some back at least briefly. Some protesters, wearing gas masks, picked up smoke canisters and threw them back toward police. At least one arrest was made.

In a statement, NAACP National President Derrick Johnson said Wright “should be alive today.”

“Whether it be carelessness and negligence, or a blatant modern-day lynching, the result is the same. Another Black man has died at the hands of police,” Johnson said.

There’s no indication that in November 1935, a year before the marker was placed there, two African American teenagers were taken to the tree by a mob and lynched. In a New York Times article, “Texas Prosecutor Condones Lynching,” the elected official says it was “an expression of the will of the people.”

 A faded photograph, a ghostly negative taken at night, shows two bodies suspended from what is still known as the Hanging Tree. Benny Mitchell was 16. Ernest Collins was 15. 

There’s a huge oak tree in the middle of a quiet rural intersection just a mile or so outside of downtown Columbus, Texas. Its branches reach over the roads on all sides. At its base, a state historical marker notes the centennial founding of Colorado County. 

In the classic old Westerns, hangings were part of frontier justice, much like the retribution against murderous bandits in Larry McMurtry’s novel “Lonesome Dove.” Today, though, you’d have to be not paying attention to be unaware of the rope as part of the persecution of Mexican Americans and African Americans in Texas. 

None of this history is hidden. Numerous books detail these crimes. These include “The Injustice Never Leaves You” by Monica Muñoz Martinez, “Forgotten Dead” by William Carrigan and Clive Webb, and “Cult of Glory: The Bold and Brutal History of the Texas Rangers” by Doug Swanson.

After widespread reaction about his remarks, Roy decided to double down. “We need more justice and less thought policing,” he said, and finished: “No apologies.” 

It’s hard to know what he was thinking, whether he knew the implications of his reference, whether this was just an attempt to get a media reaction, or what was in his heart. But his seeming ignorance of this sorry history in Texas, and what “get a rope” represents, does not mean that we also have to remain ignorant. 

While there was no immediate claim of responsibility, suspicion fell immediately on Israel, where its media nearly uniformly reported a devastating cyberattack orchestrated by the country caused the blackout.

Iran on Sunday described a blackout at its underground Natanz atomic facility as an act of “nuclear terrorism,” raising regional tensions as world powers and Tehran continue to negotiate over its tattered nuclear deal.

If Israel was responsible, it further heightens tensions between the two nations, already engaged in a shadow conflict across the wider Middle East. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who met Sunday with U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, has vowed to do everything in his power to stop the nuclear deal.

“While condemning this desperate move, the Islamic Republic of Iran emphasizes the need for a confrontation by the international bodies and the (International Atomic Energy Agency) against this nuclear terrorism,” Salehi said.

However, Natanz has been targeted by sabotage in the past. The Stuxnet computer virus, discovered in 2010 and widely believed to be a joint U.S.-Israeli creation, once disrupted and destroyed Iranian centrifuges at Natanz amid an earlier period of Western fears about Tehran’s program.

“It is very difficult to explain what we have accomplished,” Netanyahu said of Israel’s history, saying the country had been transformed from a position of weakness into a “world power.”

On Tuesday, an Iranian cargo ship said to serve as a floating base for Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard forces off the coast of Yemen was struck by an explosion, likely from a limpet mine. Iran has blamed Israel for the blast. That attack escalated a long-running shadow war in Mideast waterways targeting shipping in the region.