Former Minneapolis law enforcement officer Thomas Lane, who was found guilty in the death of George Floyd, has been released from federal prison.
In 2022, Lane, then 41, was found guilty of violating Floyd’s civil rights after he was brutally arrested by police officers on May 25, 2020. Floyd, a 46-year-old Black man, was handcuffed and held on his stomach for over nine minutes, despite repeatedly saying “I can’t breathe.”
During the arrest, Lane, a new officer on his fourth day, held down Floyd’s legs while Chauvin, another officer, applied pressure to Floyd’s neck and back and Kueng, another officer, restrained Floyd’s torso. Thao, the fourth officer, held back an angry crowd of onlookers.
Lane was sentenced to two and a half years in federal prison in July 2022. Later that year, he was sentenced to an additional three years in prison for aiding and abetting involuntary manslaughter in Floyd’s death, to which he pleaded guilty.
Lane was initially charged with aiding and abetting second-degree manslaughter, but that charge was dropped as part of a plea agreement, according to the office of then-Attorney General Keith Ellison.
Lane served his sentences simultaneously at the Englewood prison in Colorado, a low-security federal penitentiary with around 1,000 inmates, as per the Federal Bureau of Prisons.
Lane’s attorney did not immediately respond to CNN’s request for comment.
All four former Minneapolis police officers were found guilty on both state and federal charges in relation to Floyd’s death.
Chauvin, responsible for the state charges of second-degree manslaughter, third-degree murder and second-degree manslaughter, was sentenced to 22.5 years in prison in April 2021. The U.S. Supreme Court rejected Chauvin’s appeal of that ruling in November 2023.
Chauvin subsequently pleaded guilty to violating Floyd’s civil rights and received an additional 21 years in prison, to be served concurrently with his state prison sentence.
While incarcerated at a federal prison in Arizona, Chauvin was stabbed to death in November last year and was transferred to Big Spring Federal Prison in Texas on Tuesday, the federal prison confirmed to CNN.
A federal jury found Kueng and Thao guilty of violating Floyd’s civil rights and sentenced them to prison terms of three years and three years and six months.
In December 2022, Kueng pleaded guilty to aiding and abetting involuntary manslaughter, while Thao was sentenced to nearly five years in prison for the same state charges in August 2023.
CNN’s Dave Alsup contributed to this report.
Following the trial, Lane stated that he felt remorse for his role in Floyd’s death and hoped that his prison sentence would bring some closure to the Floyd family and community. As part of the legal process, “we” (Lane, Chauvin, Kueng and Thao) were all
