Former police officer gets 3.5 years in prison in George Floyd case

In the US, former police officer Alexander Kueng was sentenced to 3.5 years in prison for his involvement in the violent death of George Floyd. He died in 2020 in the city of Minneapolis after a colleague of Kueng pressed his knee on the black American’s neck for minutes. Floyd’s death has sparked global protests against racism and police brutality.

Kueng was one of four officers involved in Floyd’s arrest. He helped his colleague detain the 46-year-old American.

Kueng, 29, pleaded guilty to complicity in manslaughter in October. In return, the charge of complicity in manslaughter was dropped.

Kueng and three colleagues responded to a report about Floyd on May 25, 2020. He allegedly bought the cigarettes with a counterfeit $20 bill.

Upon arrest, Derek Chauvin pushed Floyd’s neck with his knee for over nine minutes. Kueng and his colleague Thomas Lane helped Chauvin hold Floyd down. The fourth officer, Tou Thao, stopped the bystanders.

The four officers were fired shortly after the fatal crash. Chauvin was sentenced to 22.5 years in prison last year. A 21-year prison sentence was added in July for violating Floyd’s civil rights. The former agent serves those sentences concurrently.

His three former colleagues, including Kueng, were also convicted of civil rights abuses earlier this year. They were sentenced to prison terms of between 2.5 and 3.5 years. Kueng can simultaneously serve the 3.5 years in prison he was sentenced to today.

A similar construction applies to Lane. He was sentenced to 3 years in prison in September for complicity in manslaughter. The lawsuit against the fourth agent, Thao, is still pending.

After Floyd’s death in Minneapolis, fierce protests erupted in that city, which then spread to the rest of the United States and the world. At those rallies, protesters chanted slogans such as I can’t breathe, no justice, no peace, but most of all: Black lives matter.

Here is the story behind that tagline: