The Derek Chauvin Case Is Worse Than Ben Shapiro Knows
DC Medical Examiner Bragged About How He Changed the Autopsy Reporrt
“Mob law does not become due process of law by securing the assent of a terrorized jury,” Oliver Wendell Holmes, 1913.
Kudos to conservative commentator Ben Shapiro. Shapiro risked his reputation for prudence by sending an open letter to President Trump, writing accurately, “Make no mistake—the Derek Chauvin conviction represents the defining achievement of the Woke movement in American politics. The country cannot turn the page on that dark, divisive, and racist era without righting this terrible wrong.”
Chauvin, of course, is the former Minneapolis police officer convicted in both state and federal court of killing chronic felon and drug abuser George Floyd. Floyd’s death in May 2020 led to a $2 billion paroxysm of death and destruction that scared even conservative America into silence.
Shapiro’s overture was greeted with shock by liberal commentators and dismay even by Trump supporters. “Why did Ben Shapiro want to start this conversation right now?” asked black Turning Point associate Rob Smith. “Who does this benefit? Doesn’t benefit Trump, doesn’t benefit America, doesn’t benefit race relations, doesn’t benefit anything.” Smith’s position makes strategic sense, but in dismissing the fate of a man serving 22 years in prison for a crime he did not commit, Smith does the MAGA movement no justice.
Although Shapiro knows Trump cannot overturn Chauvin’s conviction by the State of Minnesota, the conversation needs to start. A good place for it to begin is with the role of former DC Chief Medical Examiner Roger Mitchell, a politically wired black activist who also served as DC deputy mayor. In November 2020 an exhibit surfaced in the case of Chauvin colleague Tou Thao that have should resulted in a new trial for Chauvin and the release of Thao and the other two arrested officers, Thomas Lane and Alexander Kueng.
The exhibit, a memorandum, was that powerful. It memorialized a November 2020 conference between Mitchell and several prosecutors, all but one from the Minnesota attorney general’s office. This should not surprise. Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison, whose affiliation with the Nation of Islam cost him a shot at becoming DNC Chair, had all but taken over the case from the Hennepin County prosecutors. Gov. Tim Walz gave the whole charade his blessing.
The memorandum detailed Mitchell’s effort to coerce Hennepin County Medical Examinet Andrew Baker into altering his diagnosis of Floyd’s death. Baker conducted an autopsy on Floyd on May 26, 2020, the day after Floyd died. Baker reported that same day to the Hennepin County prosecutors, “The autopsy revealed no physical evidence suggesting that Mr. Floyd died of asphyxiation. Mr. Floyd did not exhibit signs of petechiae, damage to his airways or thyroid, brain bleeding, bone injuries, or internal bruising.”
Thanks to documents filed by former Hennepin County prosecutor Amy Sweasy in a sexual harassment suit dating from August 2021, we know more about Baker’s state of mind. “I called Dr. Baker early that morning to tell him about the case and to ask him if he would perform the autopsy on Mr. Floyd,” said Sweasy under oath. “He called me later in the day on that Tuesday and 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,” Sweasy added.
By day two, Baker knew the risks involved in telling the truth. Sweasy continued, “He said to me, ‘Amy, what happens when the actual evidence doesn’t match up with the public narrative that everyone’s already decided on?’ And then he said, ‘This is the kind of case that ends careers.’”
For the time being, Baker held firm. Four days after Floyd’s death — Friday, May 29 — the state filed its initial complaint against Derek Chauvin. According to the complaint, “The full report of the [medical examiner] is pending but the [medical examiner] has made the following preliminary findings. The autopsy revealed no physical findings that support a diagnosis of traumatic asphyxia or strangulation.” Without a diagnosis of asphyxia, however, the state could not accuse Chauvin and the police officers of committing or abetting “Murder-2nd Degree.” This is where Mitchell came into play.
A well-connected black political activist, Mitchell boasted of his involvement in Baker’s diagnosis to the attorneys present. Their summary of that interaction reads in part: “When the preliminary result came out via the criminal complaint, Mitchell found the statement was bizarre. Mitchell was reading and said this is not right. So Mitchell called Baker and said first of all Baker should fire his public information officer.”
The memo continues: “Then Mitchell asked what happened, because Mitchell didn’t think it sounded like Baker’s words. Baker said that he didn’t think the neck compression played a part and that he didn’t find petechiae. Mitchell said but you know you can not have petechiae and still have asphyxia and can still have neck compression.”
Mitchell first called Baker on Friday, May 29. He “thought about it more that weekend” and on Monday he called Baker back telling him he was about to send an op-ed to the Washington Post critical of Baker’s findings. “In this conversation,” the memorandum continued, “Mitchell said, you don’t want to be the medical examiner who tells everyone they didn’t see what they saw. You don’t want to be the smartest person in the room and be wrong.”
By that Monday cities across America had gone up in flames, none more catastrophically than Minneapolis. The ever thoughtful Mitchell showed Baker a way out of the jam. According to the memorandum, “[Mitchell] said there was a way to articulate the cause and manner of death that ensures you are telling the truth about what you are observing on the body and via all of the investigation. Mitchell said neck compression has to be in the diagnosis.”
Late on that same Monday, Baker’s office sent out a press release that began, “Cause of death: Cardiopulmonary arrest complicating law enforcement subdual, restraint, and neck compression.” (Italics added). With a stroke of the pen and the complicity of the prosecutors, Baker turned four innocent cops into murderers and justified the self-destructive social revolution that followed.
“There was extreme premium pressure, yes. The city was burning down,” Sweasy’s former colleague Patrick Lofton said in his deposition. He and Sweasy withdrew from the cases against Chauvin’s three colleagues on June 3, 2020, just a week after Floyd’s death. They did not believe the three officers should be criminally charged. “I can tell you that everyone that I associate with to any degree, professionally or personally, agreed with our decision,” Lofton testified. He described the pressure on the prosecutors as “insane.” Walz and Ellison thought otherwise. They would send all three of Chauvin’s fellow officers to prison.
Lofton wrote his letter of withdrawal, he said, “because I have to sleep at night.” He and Sweasy might have slept better had they gone public with what they knew, namely that Chauvin and his colleagues were being tried for a crime they did not commit.
How did Floyd die? I asked my consultant on this case, Dr. John Dale Dunn, a veteran emergency physician and lawyer with expertise in matters of cause of death. Dunn is in a position to know. He wrote a chapter on forensic evidence for the American College of Legal Medicine. “Derrick Chauvin didn't kill Mr. Floyd,” he told me. “His bad heart did.”
Dunn believes that Baker did an “assiduous and thorough autopsy.” His findings, he argues, “did exonerate the police officers--there was no evidence of asphyxiation or strangulation, not any evidence of damage or compromise of the airway of breathing of Mr. Floyd from the prone restraint.” In fact, Dunn made a video recreating the final minutes of Floyd’s life. His conclusion, “The prone position restraint is not harmful or lethal.” The Minneapolis Police Department had trained its officers in the very technique Chauvin employed.
There was, of course, evidence of methamphetamine and opiates in Floyd’s system but not enough to kill. Floyd was a user. He had acclimated to fentanyl. There was compelling evidence, however, “that Mr. Floyd had three-vessel coronary artery disease of the heart” as well as an “enlarged heart from high blood pressure.” The methamphetamine use increased the risk of Floyd having a sudden heartbeat regularity problem. “Mr. Floyd was upset and anxious,” concludes Dunn. By resisting arrest, he set himself up for “sudden death from cardiac arrest, a sudden heart stoppage.”
As fate would have it, Dr. Mitchell played a critical role in enabling the mass injustice that followed January 6. For more than 100 days, until forced out by a Judicial Watch law suit, his office suppressed the autopsy of Capitol Police Officer Brian Sicknick. To learn more, please read The Most Ghoulish Hoax in American Political History. The rot is deeper than even President Trump knows.