TKings police present and who remained passive during the arrest of George Floyd in 2020 have been found guilty in federal court of failing to intervene while the man was dying in front of them. The death of George Floyd, filmed and posted online, sparked huge protests against racism and police brutality across the United States and beyond in the summer of 2020. Tou Thao, 36, Alexander Kueng , 28, and Thomas Lane, 38, were on trial in Saint-Paul, twin city of Minneapolis where the tragedy took place, in the north of the United States. The jury returned its verdict after two days of deliberations, following a month-long trial.
A fourth police officer, Derek Chauvin, was already found guilty in June of murder and sentenced to twenty-two and a half years in prison by the justice of the State of Minnesota. It was he who had maintained for long minutes, on May 25, 2020, his knee on the neck of George Floyd, causing him to asphyxiate. Alexander Kueng was on George Floyd’s back and Thomas Lane was holding his legs. Tou Thao, meanwhile, kept shocked passers-by at bay.
On Thursday, the three officers were found guilty of failing to bring the necessary medical aid to the African-American, who was clearly showing signs of vital distress. Constables Thao and Kueng were also found guilty of failing to intervene to deter Derek Chauvin from “exerting unreasonable force”. Thomas Lane, who had twice suggested putting the African-American on his side, in a lateral position of safety, was not targeted by this charge. The three police officers will also be tried by the justice of the State of Minnesota, for “complicity in murder”, from the beginning of June.
“They were doing something wrong”
“They had the possibility, the authority, the opportunity and the means” to intervene, prosecutor Manda Sertich insisted on Tuesday during her final indictment. They “knew they were doing something wrong, but did it anyway.” “The passers-by actually acted more than the agents,” she added, referring to the witnesses of the scene who tried, in vain, to intervene.
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Alexander Kueng and Thomas Lane, two new Minneapolis police recruits, had been called by a shopkeeper who suspected George Floyd of using a counterfeit $20 bill to pay for a pack of cigarettes. As they struggled to get this imposing man into their vehicle, they were joined by two experienced agents, Tou Thao and Derek Chauvin.
During the trial, the defense had insisted on the lack of experience of agents Kueng and Lang, deployed in the field for only a few days, and on the ascendancy taken by Derek Chauvin in the face of the situation. The latter pleaded guilty in December in this federal component, then admitting for the first time a share of responsibility in the drama. The images of the death of George Floyd, in the street face against the ground, and after he had repeatedly repeated that he could no longer breathe, had shocked the whole world. His name had thus become, alongside others, an emblem of the Black Lives Matter movement (black lives matter) during the major anti-racist demonstrations of 2020.
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