Former Minneapolis police officer Tou Thao was sentenced on Monday to 4-3/4 years in prison for aiding and abetting manslaughter in the 2020 killing of George Floyd, a Black man whose neck was pinned to the ground by another officer’s knee during a botched arrest.
The sentence, meted out by Hennepin County District Judge Peter Cahill, was more than the 4-1/4 years requested by Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison.
Thao held back a small crowd of bystanders while Chauvin and two other officers were subduing Floyd, who police suspected of using a counterfeit $20 bill at a nearby store.
The other two officers at the scene, Thomas Lane and J. Alexander Kueng, restrained Floyd’s knees and buttocks while Chauvin knelt on his neck. Lane and Kueng last year pleaded guilty in state court to aiding and abetting second-degree manslaughter. Lane was sentenced to 3-1/2 years in prison. Kueng was sentenced to three years
I wonder why he got the longest sentence out of the other two. I feel like actually restraining him is worse than holding a crowd back.
He didn’t take a plea deal. The others did.
I also read that he showed no remorse and that pissed the judge off.
Those three years will be concurrent with his federal sentence, which I don’t really think is justice.