According to court documents filed Monday, a Minnesota judge has found former Minneapolis police officer Tou Thao guilty of aiding and abetting second-degree manslaughter for his role in the May 2020 killing of George Floyd.
Judge Peter Cahill wrote in a 177-page verdict that Thao “actively encouraged his three colleagues’ dangerous prone restraint of Floyd” despite being trained that the positioning could cause fatal asphyxia.
“Like the bystanders, Thao could see Floyd’s life slowly ebbing away as the restraint continued,” Cahill wrote in the verdict. “Yet Thao made a conscious decision to actively participate in Floyd’s death: he held back the concerned bystanders and even prevented an off-duty Minneapolis firefighter from rendering the medical aid Floyd so desperately needed, CNN quotes. “Thao knew, as the minutes passed and the restraint continued unimpeded, that Floyd had stopped talking and fallen silent, had stopped moving altogether, and had become totally unresponsive. In fact, by about six minutes into the restraint, Floyd stopped breathing, lost consciousness, and became pulseless.”
Attorney General Keith Ellison, whose office led the prosecution of the four fired officers, released a statement this Tuesday saying “The conviction of Tou Thao is historic and the right outcome. It brings one more measure of accountability in the tragic death of George Floyd. Accountability is not justice, but it is a step on the road to justice.”
Ellison went on to note that “while we have now reached the end of the prosecution of Floyd’s murder, it is not behind us. 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.”
Thao remains in custody ahead of sentencing, which is scheduled for Aug. 7.
More On What Happened To George Floyd
As we previously reported, on the evening of May 25, 2020, white Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin killed George Floyd, a Black man, by kneeling on his neck for almost 10 minutes. The death was recorded by bystanders and sparked the largest protest movement in U.S. history.
Floyd, who was a father of five, was attempting to purchase cigarettes at a Minneapolis convenience store when a clerk suspected that Floyd had used a counterfeit $20 bill in the transaction. The store manager called the police and when officers arrived, they pulled a gun on Floyd, who initially cooperated as he was arrested.
However, Floyd resisted being placed in the police car, saying he was claustrophobic. Officers eventually pulled him from the car and Chauvin pinned him to the ground and kneeled on his neck for nine minutes and 29 seconds. Floyd was unresponsive when an ambulance came and was pronounced dead at a local hospital.
Mr. Chauvin and the three other officers involved in Mr. Floyd’s death — Thomas Lane, Tou Thao, and J. Alexander Kueng — were fired and charged with a variety of crimes.
Last month, the Minnesota Court of Appeals rejected former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin’s petition to throw out his 2022 conviction for the murder of George Floyd.