Former Minneapolis police officers Tou Thao, J. Alexander Kueng and Thomas Lane have been found guilty of violating the civil rights of George Floyd, the black man whose death at the hands of police in 2020 sparked protests against systemic racism around the world.
The 12 jurors – four men and eight women – found Lane, Kueng and Thao guilty of depriving Floyd of his civil rights as former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin choked Floyd with his knee for more than 9 minutes on May 25, 2020, until causing his death.
These officers tried to devise any excuse that could let them wash the blood from their hands, but following these verdicts George’s blood will forever stain them,” Ben Crump and other attorneys representing Floyd’s family said in a statement after the verdict was announced.
“Today’s guilty verdicts should serve as the guiding example of why police departments across America should expand and prioritize instruction on an officer’s duty to intervene and recognize when a fellow officer is using excessive force.”
Prosecutors’ arguments against the former police officers
In the resolution, prosecutors said the defendants had “front row seats” to Floyd’s murder and “chose to do nothing” to help him as Chauvin knelt on Floyd’s neck.
They chose not to aid George Floyd as the window into which Mr. Floyd’s life could have been saved slammed shut,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Manda Sertich said Tuesday.
The case quickly gained national attention two years ago, when a bystander’s video showed Chauvin kneeling on Floyd’s neck as the black man claimed he couldn’t breathe. Floyd’s last words became a rallying cry against police brutality and racial injustice.
