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 last of the four former officers facing judgement 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. His Monday ruling was released Tuesday.
Prosecutors argued in their filings in January that Thao “acted without courage and displayed no compassion” despite his nearly nine years of experience, and that he disregarded his training even though he could see Floyd’s life ebbing away.
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. Bystander video captured Floyd’s fading cries of “I can’t breathe.” Floyd’s killing touched off protests around the world and forced 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.
Unlike the other three former officers, Thao maintained that he did nothing wrong. When he rejected a plea deal in state court last August, he said “it would be lying” to plead guilty.
However, prosecutor Matthew Frank wrote that Thao knew that his fellow officers were restraining Floyd in a way that was “extremely dangerous” because it could stop his breathing – “the exact condition from which Floyd repeatedly complained he was suffering.”
“Yet Thao made the conscious decision to aid that dangerous restraint: He actively encouraged the other three officers, and assisted their crime by holding back concerned bystanders,” Frank added.
Defense attorney Robert Paule argued that the state had failed to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Thao knew that Chauvin was committing a crime or that Thao intended to help in a crime.
“Every one of Thao’s actions was done based upon the training he received from the Minneapolis Police Department,” Paule wrote.
He argued that Thao “reasonably believed” that Floyd was experiencing a disputed condition known as “excited delirium” that some medical examiners have attributed as a cause of other in-custody deaths, particularly when someone has taken drugs. Paule said the actions Thao took were aimed at helping to get Floyd medical attention quickly. He said Thao was not aware that Floyd was not breathing or had no pulse.
But Frank noted that witnesses who believe excited delirium is a real condition testified previously that Floyd displayed none of the symptoms.
The judge was expected to order a presentence investigation and set Aug. 7 as the sentencing date. Minnesota sentencing guidelines recommend four years on the manslaughter count. He will serve his state term concurrent with his 3 1/2-year federal sentence.
The agreement between the prosecution and defense specified that if the judge convicted Thao of aiding and abetting second-degree manslaughter, the state would drop a more serious aiding and abetting second-degree murder count with a presumptive sentence of 12 1/2 years.
