A former Minneapolis police officer, Tou Thao, has been sentenced to 57 months (almost five years) in prison for his involvement in the death of George Floyd. Thao was found guilty of aiding and abetting manslaughter by a Minnesota judge in May.

During the trial, Thao testified that he acted as a “human traffic cone,” trying to hold back bystanders while his fellow officer, Derek Chauvin, knelt on George Floyd’s neck for nearly 10 minutes. George Floyd’s death on May 25, 2020, ignited widespread protests and demonstrations across the United States against police brutality and racial injustice.

All four former police officers involved in George Floyd’s death were convicted on federal civil rights charges in addition to state murder charges. Thao’s co-defendants, Thomas Lane and J Alexander Kueng, pleaded guilty to aiding and abetting second-degree manslaughter.

Thao received a sentence of three and a half years for his civil rights conviction, and the 57-month prison term will run concurrently with that sentence. Thao had chosen to waive his right to a jury trial in the manslaughter case and allowed Judge Peter Cahill to determine the verdict. He also chose not to testify or question witnesses.

In his ruling in May, Judge Cahill highlighted that Thao’s actions, including shielding Chauvin and the other officers from the crowd, prevented a trained emergency medic from providing aid to George Floyd. The judge noted that Thao’s actions were objectively unreasonable from the perspective of a reasonable police officer and that they were even more unreasonable given his duty to intervene and his training to provide medical aid.

*The views and opinions expressed on this website are solely those of the original authors and contributors. These views and opinions do not necessarily represent those of Spotter Up Magazine, the administrative staff, and/or any/all contributors to this site.