By Steve Karnowski | Associated Press
MINNEAPOLIS — A former Minneapolis police officer who held back bystanders while his colleagues restrained a dying George Floyd has been convicted of aiding and abetting manslaughter.
Tou Thao, who already had been convicted in federal court of violating Floyd’s civil rights, was the last of four former officers facing judgment in state court in Floyd’s killing. He rejected a plea agreement and, instead of going to trial, let Hennepin County Judge Peter Cahill decide the verdict based on written filings by each side and evidence presented in previous cases.
“There is proof beyond a reasonable doubt that Thao’s actions were objectively unreasonable from the perspective of a reasonable police officer, when viewed under the totality of the circumstances,” Cahill wrote in a 177-page ruling that was filed Monday night and released Tuesday.
Floyd, a Black man, died May 25, 2020, after officer Derek Chauvin, who is white, pinned him to the ground with his knee on Floyd’s neck for 9 1/2 minutes as he pleaded for air. The killing, captured on bystander video, touched off protests around the world and prompted a national reckoning with police brutality and racism.
Chauvin, the senior officer at the scene, was convicted of murder and manslaughter in April 2021 and later pleaded guilty in the federal case. Two other officers — J. Alexander Kueng and Thomas Lane — pleaded guilty to state charges of aiding and abetting manslaughter and were convicted with Thao in their federal case.
Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison, who led the prosecution team, said Thao’s conviction “brings one more measure of accountability in the tragic death of George Floyd” while calling on Congress to enact a sweeping police overhaul named for Floyd.
“While we have now reached the end of the prosecution of Floyd’s murder, it is not behind us.” Ellison said. “There is much more that prosecutors, law-enforcement leaders,…
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