Jury Finds 3 Ex-Cops Guilty Of Violating George Floyd’s Civil Rights

All three officers testified during the trial. During his testimony, Thao said it had not been his “role” to monitor Floyd’s condition because he was focused on the crowd and was serving as a “human traffic cone” to protect the officers from the bystanders.

Thao, who was Chauvin’s partner that day and the second-most-senior officer at the scene, said he’d believed Floyd was “fine” because the officers were not administering CPR on him.

Both Kueng and Lane testified that they were rookies at the time and deferred to Chauvin, an 18-year veteran of the Minneapolis Police Department.

Kueng told the court that Chauvin was his field training officer and that he followed his lead during Floyd’s arrest.

“He was my senior officer, and I trusted his advice,” Kueng said.

He also said he wasn’t trained in the neck restraint Chauvin was using and therefore believed that Chauvin was acting according to the department’s policy when he choked Floyd with his knee.

Lane, who at the time of the arrest was on his fourth day as a full-fledged officer with the department, said he suggested moving Floyd from his facedown position twice, but that Chauvin refused. He also testified that he’d believed Floyd was still breathing because he “could see his chest rise and fall.”

Prosecutors have argued that the men were trained to step in and stop other officers from using excessive force — and to offer immediate medical care to someone in custody if they showed signs of medical distress.

They also said the distressed group of onlookers who pleaded with the officers to stop restraining Chauvin and to check his pulse had “no special training,” but they were acutely aware that the officers were killing him.

In a statement, civil rights attorney Ben Crump, who has been representing Floyd’s family, and his co-counsel said the guilty verdict “should serve as a guiding example” for why police departments across the country need to “prioritize instruction on an officer’s duty to intervene.”

“Nothing will bring George Floyd back to his loved ones, but with these verdicts, we hope that the ignorance and indifference toward human life shown by these officers will be erased from our nation’s police departments, so no other family has to experience a loss like this,” the attorneys said.

Thao, Kueng, and Lane were released on bail conditions after the verdict was handed down Thursday because they face another state trial later this year. All three men will be tried on state charges of aiding and abetting murder and manslaughter in Floyd’s killing in June.