Tou Thao is already in prison serving a previous sentence
MADRID, 8 Ago. (EUROPA PRESS) –
The United States Justice has sentenced this Monday to four years and nine months in prison the former Minneapolis police officer Tou Thao, involved in the death of George Floyd and who is already in prison for a previous sentence.
Thao, already serving a three and a half year sentence for depriving Floyd of his civil rights and failing to intervene to prevent excessive use of force, has now been convicted of aiding and abetting second degree manslaughter, as published by CNN.
The former agent was in charge of containing the crowd that was observing the event that claimed Floyd’s life.
“Obviously, on that day, I had no intention of doing any harm or anything like that, or harming anyone. That was never my intention. I did the best I thought I could. Things didn’t turn out the way I intended.” Thao has testified in court.
Along with Derek Chauvin, J. Alexander Kueng and Thomas Lane are the four Minneapolis Police officers involved in Floyd’s fateful arrest. Chauvin was already sentenced in June 2021 to 22.5 years in prison by a state court charged with multiple counts of murder. A state court also upheld a 21-year prison sentence.
Kueng was also convicted on federal charges for the murder and found guilty on charges of violating Floyd’s civil rights and failing to intervene to detain Chauvin during his arrest efforts.
Lane, the fourth officer who held Floyd’s legs during the arrest, pleaded guilty to aiding and abetting second-degree manslaughter in the summer and was sentenced to three years in prison in September. He is serving that concurrently with a two-and-a-half-year federal sentence in Colorado.
Floyd was arrested in May 2020 at the exit of an establishment for having used a counterfeit bill to pay for a pack of cigarettes. During the operation, he was handcuffed and placed on the ground on his chest.
Chauvin stuck his knee into the victims’ necks for nine minutes, despite warnings that he couldn’t breathe. His death, recorded in a video that went around the world, generated a wave of global outrage.
The mobilizations and marches that sometimes led to riots, and put systemic racism back on the table within the institutions of the United States.
