She called their opioid addiction "a classic American story".

They both suffered from chronic pain: Courteney's was in my neck, his was in his back.

Ross and Floyd met three years before his death.

Prosecutors put Ms Ross on the stand as part of an effort to humanise Mr Floyd in front of the jury and portray him as more than a crime statistic.

"Mine was in my neck and his was in his back", 45-year-old Courteney Ross said on the fourth day of former Officer Derek Chauvin's murder trial.

The most serious charge against him carries up to 40 years in prison.

With the murder trial of former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin underway, prosecutors and defense attorneys will ask jurors to consider in great detail the events that led to the death of George Floyd during his encounter with Minneapolis police on May 25. He based his argument on the fact that traces of fentanyl and methamphetamine were found in his body during the autopsy.

Under cross-examination by Chauvin lawyer Eric Nelson, Ms Ross said Mr Floyd's pet name for her in his phone was "Mama" - evidence that called into question the widely reported account that Mr Floyd was crying out for his mother as he lay pinned to the pavement.

In some of the video, Mr Floyd can be heard calling out, "Mama!" repeatedly and saying, "Mama, I love you!".

George Floyd's girlfriend tearfully told a jury Thursday the story of how they met - at a Salvation Army shelter where he was security guard with "this great, deep Southern voice, raspy" - and how they both struggled mightily with an addiction to opioids.

Ms Ross, a 45-year-old mother of two who works in a coffee shop, said she had been Mr Floyd's girlfriend since August 2017.

George Floyd, 46, repeated 27 times that he could not breathe before going into cardiac arrest and dying in May of a year ago.

In March 2020, Ross drove Floyd to the emergency room because he was having extreme stomach pain, and she later learned he had overdosed.

But she suspected he began using again about two weeks before his death because his behaviour changed: she said there would be times when he would be up and bouncing around, and other times when he would be unintelligible.

Nelson has subpoenaed Hall to testify when the defense presents its case, and has told the jury that Hall and a woman in the vehicle would tell them that they saw Floyd swallow two pills before police arrived on May 25 and that he fell into a deep sleep.

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"I heard him keep trying to ask them to let him up, because he can't breathe". She said: "It's one of my favourite stories to tell".

She says the couple were separated for awhile, but from March to May 2020, they spent every day together.

She said she became upset because the father was not coming to the lobby to discuss their son's birthday.

"It's been nights, I stayed up apologizing and apologized to George Floyd for not doing more, and not physically interacting, and not saving his life", Darnella Frazier, the teen who recorded the video of Floyd's death that went viral and inspired millions to protest, said at the trial on Tuesday. "I had lost a lot of faith in God".

Minnesota is a rarity in explicitly permitting such "spark of life" testimony about a crime victim at trial.

"They were still on top of him", Bravinder told the jury. All four officers were later fired.

Bystander and police bodycam video showed officers pulling Floyd from his SUV at gunpoint, then struggling to put him in the back of the squad auto as a panicky-sounding Floyd writhed and cried, "I'm claustrophobic!"

At one point, Mr Floyd bucks forward, throwing his upper body out of the vehicle. Mine was in my neck and his was in his back.

"He wouldn't get out of the auto".

"Please officer!" Floyd says before the clip ends. They have also said that his drug use overall is irrelevant to Chauvin's charges.

Bravinder's partner felt the patient's neck for a pulse and looked at his pupils, he said.

One of the newly-released videos is from Chauvin's body camera and there is audio of an exchange between him and a bystander immediately after Floyd is put in an ambulance and taken away from the scene.

Hennepin County EMS Seth Zachary Bravinder testified that he was aware that Floyd was dead at the scene and told his partner as much. "We gotta control, gotta control this guy because he's a sizable guy". Chauvin's lawyer said the officer is 5 foot 9 inches and 140 pounds.

"I was aware that a man had been killed in police custody and I wanted to notify my supervisors to notify the appropriate people above us in the city, in the fire department and whomever else and then I also wanted to inform my deputy that there was an off-duty firefighter, who was a witness at the scene", he said.

"We're learning that Floyd is not a ideal person, as none of us are", said David Schultz, a law professor at the University of Minnesota.