What did the official autopsy reports list as the cause and manner of George Floyd's death?

1. What the official (county) autopsy actually states

The Hennepin County Medical Examiner’s report lists the immediate event as cardiopulmonary arrest “while being restrained by law enforcement officer” and classifies the manner of death as homicide; it also records “other significant conditions” such as arteriosclerotic and hypertensive heart disease and toxicology findings including fentanyl intoxication and recent methamphetamine use ^{[2] [1]}. The office did not textually say drugs were the cause; it framed drug findings as concurrent conditions rather than the proximate cause ^{[1] [2]}.

2. What the family-funded autopsy found and how it worded cause

Independent forensic pathologists hired by Floyd’s family concluded he died of mechanical asphyxiation—or suffocation—caused by sustained pressure to the neck and back during restraint. That report explicitly attributed death to lack of oxygen from compression and labeled the death a homicide ^{[2] [4]}.

3. Why reporters and the public perceived disagreement

Coverage initially emphasized different phrases in the two reports: the county’s use of “cardiopulmonary arrest complicating law enforcement subdual, restraint and neck compression” versus the private autopsy’s plain statement of “asphyxiation” led many to think the exams conflicted ^[2]. Forensic experts quoted by FiveThirtyEight and others say the difference is largely semantic—two medical ways of describing how restraint led to collapse and death—so the practical conclusion (restraint caused death) aligns between exams ^[3].

4. Where the toxicology findings fit into interpretations

The county autopsy listed fentanyl and methamphetamine in Floyd’s system and noted heart disease as other significant conditions, facts that some commentators seized on to suggest overdose or natural causes ^{[2] [5]}. But multiple credible outlets and experts clarified that the county report did not rule drug use the cause and still classified the death as homicide due to restraint ^{[1] [5] [6]}.

5. How courts and experts treated the reports

During legal proceedings, the Hennepin County medical examiner and other experts defended the homicide finding and emphasized restraint as central; defense and prosecution argued over the role of underlying health or intoxicants, but the medical examiner’s homicide label and link to restraint remained part of trial testimony and media reporting ^{[6] [3]}.

6. Broader context: misinformation and political uses

The presence of fentanyl in the county report became ammunition in misinformation campaigns asserting Floyd “died of a drug overdose,” a narrative repeatedly debunked by fact-checkers and news outlets; conservatives at times amplified that framing despite both autopsies calling the death a homicide ^{[1] [7]}. Journalistic accounts and forensic commentators warned that selective quoting of autopsy language can distort public understanding ^{[3] [8]}.

7. Limitations and remaining questions in public reporting

Available sources show both autopsies and expert commentary but do not settle every forensic nuance—debates about the precise physiological mechanism (e.g., positional asphyxia, compression causing cardiac arrest, or rare reflexes) continued in specialized literature and commentary ^[9]. Current reporting documents the official findings and how experts interpreted them, but it does not — in the cited reporting — provide a single universally agreed microscopic mechanism beyond restraint causing cardiopulmonary arrest or asphyxia ^{[2] [3] [9]}.

8. Bottom line for readers

Both the official Hennepin County autopsy and the independent family-commissioned autopsy labeled George Floyd’s death a homicide; the county report described cardiopulmonary arrest while restrained and noted intoxicants and heart disease as contributing conditions, while the family’s report described death as asphyxiation from sustained pressure — experts and multiple news outlets have said these are two ways of describing the same causal chain implicating police restraint ^{[2] [1] [3]}.