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.
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.
“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, rank-and-file officers, elected officials, and community can do to bring about true justice in law enforcement and true trust and safety in all communities.”Lawyers for the Floyd family called the verdict “another measure of accountability for his death.
Unlike the other three former officers, Thao maintained he did nothing wrong. When he rejected a plea deal in state court last August, he said “it would be lying” to plead guilty. His body camera video showed he told onlookers at one point, “This is why you don’t do drugs, kids.” When an off-duty, out-of-uniform Minneapolis firefighter asked if officers had checked Floyd’s pulse, he ordered her, “Back off!”
The judge wrote that under Minneapolis Police Department policies, “it was objectively unreasonable to : encourage fellow officers to engage in a dangerous prone restraint for 9 minutes and 24 seconds; encourage those officers not to use a hobble; actively assist their restraint by acting as a ‘human traffic cone’; and prevent bystanders from rendering medical aid.”