By KARA FOWLER
Staff Writer
Picture from Reuters, FILE
The Minneapolis federal jury has finally convicted all three cops of George Floyd’s death. This took place at St Paul, Minneapolis courthouse. The former cops’ names are Thomas Lane, Alexander Kueng, and Tou Thao. The charges are on the behalf of violating Floyd’s civil rights. This was from the failure of intervening and providing medical aid. The senior officer of these cops was officer Derek Chauvin who handcuffed him and proceeded to kneel on Floyd’s neck for over 9 minutes. All of these former police officers are convicted of using the “color of the law” and abusing their positions of power. The maximum sentence they would be facing is a lifetime.
On Jan. 24 all three defendants were pushing the blame to Chauvin. Chauvin was a 19-year veteran police officer. Thao believed that he didn’t need to get in the way due to the man being a veteran police officer. Lane said that Chauvin deflected his request of handling the situation to help Floyd. Kueng said that he was his former senior officer and he trusted whatever advice was given from him. Judge Paul Magnuson ordered pre-investigation Lane and Kueng which allowed them to remain free on bail until their sentencing date. This date hasn’t been set. Kueng is going on to another trial in June.
Chauvin pleaded guilty to the federal civil rights charges from the Floyd death and physical abuse from the handcuffing of a 14-year-old boy in 2017. He was convicted in the state last year of second-degree unintentional murder, third-degree murder, and second-degree manslaughter. The sentence he faced was more than 22 years.