Last of ex-officers implicated in Floyd’s killing found guilty on state charge

Last of ex-officers implicated in Floyd’s killing found guilty on state charge - The Washington Post

MINNEAPOLIS — The last of the four former Minneapolis police officers facing state charges in the killing of George Floyd was found guilty of aiding and abetting second-degree manslaughter nearly three years after Floyd’s 2020 death.

In a 177-page ruling made public early Tuesday, Cahill wrote that Thao ignored his training and actively discouraged the other officers from using a “hobble” device to restrain Floyd’s arms and legs as they sought to arrest him — a decision that he said “would have saved Floyd’s life.”

Instead, Cahill wrote, Thao “encouraged” the other officers to maintain their positions atop Floyd’s body and blocked bystanders, including an off-duty firefighter, from rendering medical aid.

“Thao’s actions contravened his training and were objectively unreasonable under the circumstances,” Cahill ruled, citing “overwhelming” evidence in the case.

Thao, 37, was convicted last year of violating Floyd’s federal civil rights and is already serving a 42-month prison sentence. He could face additional jail time on the state conviction, which he is expected to serve concurrently with his federal sentence.

The bench ruling comes less than a month before the third anniversary of Floyd’s May 25, 2020, killing and resolves one of the last pending cases against the former officers charged in Floyd’s killing, which sparked worldwide protests and spurred a reckoning on issues of race and policing that continues to roil America today.

Floyd died after former officer Derek Chauvin pressed his knees into the man’s neck and back for more than nine minutes as officers sought to arrest him for allegedly passing a counterfeit $20 bill at a local market. Two other officers at the scene — J. Alexander Kueng and Thomas K. Lane — restrained Floyd’s back and legs, while Thao, who was Chauvin’s partner that day, held back increasingly frantic bystanders, who urged Thao and the officers to check Floyd’s pulse as he went limp.

Chauvin, 47, was later convicted of second-degree murder and manslaughter charges and sentenced to 22½ years in prison— a conviction upheld by the Minnesota Court of Appeals last month. He later pleaded guilty to violating Floyd’s federal civil rights and was sentenced to 20 years in prison, which he is serving concurrently with his state sentence.

Kueng, Lane and Thao were convicted last year on federal civil rights charges in Floyd’s death. Kueng and Lane later pleaded guilty to aiding and abetting manslaughter charges in state court, avoiding a trial. Kueng was sentenced to 42 months in prison, which he is serving concurrently with a 36-month federal sentence. Lane, 40, was sentenced to 36 months in prison, which is he serving concurrently with a 30-month federal sentence.

Unlike the other three former officers, Thao has continued to deny any wrongdoing in Floyd’s death. Last August, the former officer told Cahill during a hearing over plea offers that it would be “a lie and a sin” for him to plead guilty in the case.

Thao later asked Cahill to decide his fate through a bench trial based on stipulated evidence, rather than proceeding with a jury trial. In January, the prosecution and defense filed written arguments and evidence — including exhibits and transcripts filed in Chauvin’s 2021 trial, which Cahill presided over, and the federal civil rights trial of Kueng, Lane and Thao.

In the federal trial, Thao testified in his own defense, claiming he was unaware of what was happening behind him because he was focused on his role as being a “human traffic cone.”

Presented with footage from his own body camera that showed him looking back at Chauvin and the other officers several times, Thao acknowledged he saw Floyd appear to lose consciousness but insisted he thought Floyd was “fine” because the other officers weren’t performing CPR as required by their police training.

Thao, who testified that he thought Floyd was on drugs, acknowledged hearing bystanders screaming at the officers to check Floyd’s pulse. “But I don’t think they were directing that to me,” Thao testified.

In written arguments in the state case, Robert Paule, Thao’s attorney, echoed arguments he previously made at the federal trial, insisting his client was not aware that Floyd had stopped breathing or lost a pulse and was merely following his police training.

Paule said the prosecutors had not proven Thao knew what Chauvin was doing was a crime — pointing to photos of training sessions at the Minneapolis police academy that showed instructors using a similar knee-to-the-neck restraint technique that contradicted department officials who insisted what Chauvin was doing was never taught to police recruits or officers.

“The death of George Floyd was a tragedy,” Paule wrote. “Yet the fact that a tragic death occurred does not transfer it into a criminal act.”

But prosecutor Matthew Frank said in his written closing argument that Thao broke the law when he failed to stop Chauvin from restraining Floyd and failed to render medical aid.

Even if Thao believed Floyd was on drugs, Frank argued, the ex-officer ignored training that tells officers to reposition a handcuffed suspect on their side to prevent issues with breathing. “Rather than providing Floyd with medical aid, Thao mocked Floyd’s condition, telling bystanders: ‘This is why you don’t do drugs, kids,’” Frank wrote.

“Tou Thao acted without courage and displayed no compassion. Thao was an experienced police officer with nearly nine years on the job. He knew that the officers’ prone restraint could kill,” Frank wrote. Thao could see Floyd’s life slowly ebbing away. Yet Thao made a conscious decision to actively participate in Floyd’s death.”

In a ruling issued late Monday but made public early Tuesday, Cahill sided with prosecutors, finding that Thao’s explanation of his “callous” behavior that night was “inconsistent and not credible.”

Because of Thao’s conviction on the manslaughter charge, prosecutors agreed to drop a more serious charge of aiding and abetting second-degree murder as well as a request for a tougher sentence because of Floyd’s pain and suffering.

According to sentencing guidelines read in court last fall, when the bench trial was agreed to, Thao faces between 41 and 58 months in prison if convicted on the manslaughter charge. Cahill scheduled a sentencing hearing for August 7.