Former Minneapolis police officer Tou Thao was sentenced to almost five years in jail on Monday for his role in the death of George Floyd. Thao was at the scene that day doing crowd control and is essentially being charged for not doing anything to stop it.
Thao was indicted by a federal grand jury along with his fellow officers in 2021.
The Washington Examiner reports:
Final Minneapolis police officer sentenced to almost five years for death of George FloydThe final Minneapolis police officer involved in the death of George Floyd has been sentenced to almost five years in prison, adding to his current incarceration time.Tou Thao, the officer who held back bystanders during Floyd’s fatal arrest in May 2020, was handed a 4.75-year sentence, or four years and nine months, on Monday by Hennepin County Judge Peter A. Cahill. It comes over a year after his conviction on Minnesota state charges.Thao was convicted last year on federal charges and is serving a 42-month prison sentence. Monday’s jail sentence will run concurrently, instead of consecutively, with the federal sentence, so he already received credit for 340 days.“Mr. Thao, to be perfectly honest, after three years of reflection, I was hoping for a little more remorse, regret, acknowledgment of some responsibility, and less preaching,” Cahill said in court on Monday. “Suffice it to say that I think your culpability is less than Mr. Chauvin, but well above Mr. Kueng and Mr. Lane, as an experienced senior officer who was in the best position to save George Floyd.”
The judge sounds a little preachy himself, doesn’t he?
Brittany Bernstein of National Review has more:
Cahill found wrote in his 177-page ruling in May that Thao’s actions separated Chauvin and two other former officers from the crowd, including a an emergency medical technician. The judge said this allowed the officers to continue restraining Floyd and prevented bystanders from rendering medical aid.“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.“Thao’s actions were even more unreasonable in light of the fact that he was under a duty to intervene to stop the other officers’ excessive use of force and was trained to render medical aid,” he added.
It’s too bad for Mr. Thao that he wasn’t one of the civilians who helped burn down the city of Minneapolis in the wake of Floyd’s death. He would probably be a free man today.
Featured image via YouTube.
CLICK HERE FOR FULL VERSION OF THIS STORY