Former Minnesota Police Officer Tou Thao was convicted Monday night of aiding and abetting manslaughter in the death of George Floyd.
Thao was one of three officers who have already been convicted in federal court of violating Floyd’s civil rights.
The trio were on the scene and did not stop then-fellow officer Derek Chauvin from kneeling on Floyd’s neck for nine and a half minutes while detaining him in May 2020. Chauvin was sentenced to more than 20 years after pleading guilty to federal charges that he violated Floyd’s civil rights.
Thao was the last of the four former officers to face judgment in state court in Floyd’s killing. He had rejected a plea agreement, and in lieu of a trial he allowed Hennepin County Judge Peter Cahill to decide his verdict.
Hennepin’s 177-page ruling from Monday night was released Tuesday.
“Thao’s actions were not authorized by law,” Cahill wrote, adding, “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.”
Prosecutors had argued in January filings that Thao, who was a nine-year-veteran officer when Floyd was killed, “acted without courage and displayed no compassion” while he disregarded his training to watch Chauvin gradually take the man’s life.
In the aftermath of Floyd’s murder, the Minneapolis City Council in March approved an agreement with the state of Minnsota to overhaul its policing system. The deal includes numerous changes in policing, including to the use of force; to stops, searches and arrests; using body-cams and dashboard cameras; officer training and wellness; and responding to mental health and behavioral calls.
Nationally, meanwhile, some U.S. Senators who had hoped to pass police reform legislation after Floyd’s death in 2020 have been hoping to revive talks in the wake of the police beating death of Tyre Nichols in Memphis this past January.
In January, Senate Judiciary Chair Dick Durbin (D-IL) said he had begun discussions with Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC), the committee’s ranking Republican, about one of the major sticking points that ultimately led to the “George Floyd Justice in Policing Act,” which had passed the then-Democratic-led House in March 2021 but failed in the Senate: qualified immunity for police officers.
And while Minnesota’s state-level investigation into the death of Floyd, who was Black, has wrapped, the U.S. Department of Justice is still investigating whether Minneapolis police engaged in a pattern of discrimination against people of color.
