7/8/2023 0 Comments Chauvin trial day one![]() ![]() "Then they jumped on my head and my neck and my back. "Then they tried to slam me on the ground, but I was about 240 pounds," Braddock said, adding that although he still was unsure why he was stopped, he complied to avoid injury. Two officers then tried to pull him from the car before he got out on his own. Thao acknowledged he heard onlookers becoming more anxious about Floyd’s condition and that he could hear Floyd saying, “I can’t breathe.” But Thao said he didn’t know there was anything seriously wrong with him even as an ambulance took him away.When he hesitated to get out of the car, the officer aggressively hit the driver's side window with a flashlight, Braddock said. ![]() His body camera video showed he told onlookers at one point, “This is why you don’t do drugs, kids.” When an off-duty, out-of-uniform Minneapolis firefighter asked if officers had checked Floyd’s pulse, he ordered her, “Back off!” He said it was clear to him, as the other officers tried to put Floyd into a squad car, “that he was under the influence of some type of drugs.” Thao said that when he and Chauvin arrived, the other officers were struggling with Floyd. Thao testified during his federal trial that he was relying on the other officers to care for Floyd’s medical needs while he served as “a human traffic cone” to control a group of about 15 bystanders and traffic outside a Minneapolis convenience store where Floyd had tried to pass a counterfeit $20 bill. Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison, who led the prosecution team, said Thao’s conviction “brings one more measure of accountability in the tragic death of George Floyd” while calling on Congress to enact a sweeping police overhaul named for Floyd. Alexander Kueng and Thomas Lane - pleaded guilty to state charges of aiding and abetting manslaughter and were convicted with Thao in their federal case. The killing, captured on bystander video, touched off protests around the world and prompted a national reckoning with police brutality and racism.Ĭhauvin, the senior officer at the scene, was convicted of murder and manslaughter in April 2021 and later pleaded guilty in the federal case. “There is proof beyond a reasonable doubt that Thao’s actions were objectively unreasonable from the perspective of a reasonable police officer, when viewed under the totality of the circumstances,” Cahill wrote in a 177-page ruling that was filed Monday night and released Tuesday.įloyd, 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 as he pleaded for air. 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. Tou Thao, who already had been convicted in federal court of violating Floyd’s civil rights, was the last of four former officers facing judgment in state court in Floyd’s killing. ![]() MINNEAPOLIS (AP) - 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.
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