George Floyd death: federal grand jury indicts four ex-Minneapolis police officers with US civil rights charges
- The three-count indictment unsealed on Friday names Derek Chauvin, Thomas Lane, J. Kueng and Tou Thao
- Floyd died last year after Chauvin pinned him to the ground with a knee on his neck
A three-count indictment unsealed on Friday names Derek Chauvin, Thomas Lane, J. Kueng and Tou Thao.
Specifically, Chauvin is charged with violating Floyd’s right to be free from unreasonable seizure and unreasonable force by a police officer. Thao and Kueng are also charged with violating Floyd’s right to be free from unreasonable seizure, alleging they did not intervene to stop Chauvin as he knelt on Floyd’s neck. All four officers are charged for their failure to provide Floyd with medical care.
Floyd’s arrest and death, which a bystander captured on mobile phone video, sparked protests nationwide and widespread calls for an end to police brutality and racial inequities.
Chauvin was also charged in a second indictment, stemming from the arrest and neck restraint of a 14-year-old boy in 2017.
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Lane, Thao and Kueng made their initial court appearances on Friday via videoconference in US District Court in Minneapolis. Chauvin was not part of the court appearance.
Floyd died on May 25 after Chauvin pinned him to the ground with a knee on his neck, even as the 46-year-old , who was handcuffed, repeatedly said he couldn’t breathe.
Kueng and Lane also helped restrain Floyd – state prosecutors have said Kueng knelt on Floyd’s back and Lane held down Floyd’s legs. State prosecutors say Thao held back bystanders and kept them from intervening during the 9 1/2-minute restraint.
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Nelson had no comment on the federal charges Friday. Messages left with lawyers for two of the other officers were not immediately returned, and a lawyer for the fourth officer was getting in a lift and disconnected when reached by Associated Press.
To bring federal charges in deaths involving police, prosecutors must believe that an officer acted under the “colour of law”, or government authority, and wilfully deprived someone of their constitutional rights, including the right to be free from unreasonable seizures or the use of unreasonable force.
That’s a high legal standard; an accident, bad judgment or simple negligence on the officer’s part isn’t enough to support federal charges.
Roy Austin, who prosecuted such cases as a former deputy assistant attorney general in the Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division, said prosecutors have to prove that the officers knew what they were doing was wrong in that moment but did it anyway.
Conviction on a federal civil rights charge is punishable by up to life in prison or even the death penalty, but those stiff sentences are extremely rare and federal sentencing guidelines rely on complicated formulas that indicate the officers would get much less if convicted.
In Chauvin’s case, if the federal court uses second-degree murder as his underlying offence, he could face anywhere from 14 years to slightly more than 24 years, depending on whether he takes responsibility, said Mark Osler, a former federal prosecutor and professor at the University of St. Thomas School of Law.
Osler said the guidelines clearly state that any federal sentence would be served at the same time as a state sentence – the sentences wouldn’t stack. Chauvin is due to be sentenced on the state charges on June 25.
