Ex- Minneapolis police officer, Tou Thao, who kept bystanders at bay while Derek Chauvin knelt on George Floyd’s neck for more than nine minutes during a fateful encounter in May 2020, has been accused of aiding and abetting second-degree manslaughter, according to CBS News.
Hennepin County, Minnesota, Judge, Peter Cahill, in a 177-page pronouncement released on Monday, said that his ruling stemmed from transcripts from Chauvin’s murder trial. During the trial, Thao testified that he acted as “a human traffic cone” controlling the crowd as the other officers restrained Floyd on the ground.
“Thao knew that this prone restraint was extremely dangerous because it can cause asphyxia- the inability to breathe- the exact condition Floyd repeatedly told the officers he was suffering.” Cahill wrote in his ruling. “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, declining to render medical aid to Floyd, not instructing any of the other officers to render medical aid to Floyd, and not permitting any of the bystanders to render medical aid to Floyd, including the Off-duty Minneapolis firefighter on the scene trained in CPR.”
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“In this case,” Cahill continued, “the evidence overwhelmingly proves that Tou Thao aided and abetted manslaughter in the second degree on May 25, 2020,” noting earlier that, under Minnesota law, “a person is liable for aiding and abetting manslaughter in the second degree when he knowingly and intentionally aids a principal’s grossly negligent act that results in death.”
Among the four officers involved in Floyd’s killing, Thao has never pleaded guilty to any charge and has strongly sustained that he committed no crime during the fatal accident. After rejecting an initial plea deal, Thao said that if he pleaded guilty “it would be lying.”
In 2022, he was sentenced to 3.5 Years in state prison for civil rights violations. All four ex-officers will serve their state and federal sentences simultaneously.
