1y ago

Tou Thao: Ex-officer in George Floyd case gets 57 months for role in killing

www.bbc.co.uk Tou Thao: Ex-officer in George Floyd case gets 57 months for role in killing

Tou Thao was convicted of manslaughter charges for his part in George Floyd's death in May 2020.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.zip/post/1175741

Archived version: https://archive.ph/iGl8S
Archived version: https://web.archive.org/web/20230807194307/https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-66429735

25 comments

Not enough. Let’s remember Floyd got a death sentence with no trial or jury but simply because these cops thought of themselves as judge, jury and executioner.
- What did this guy do? Just not stop the other guy? I'm not American.
  
  He prevented citizens from coming to George Floyds aid. He essentially protected the cops killing Floyd from people trying to save him.
  
  4 officers on scene. Iirc 2 normal officers, 2 rookies like first week. He was a normal officer and went on crowd control while the other officer knelt on the guy's neck. The 2 rookies looked on.
- he didnt die from being choked He died from Fentanyl. The cop that did the knee DEFINITELY she be locked up ! The other two kicked off the force maybe. But not jail time
  
  Weird that he died from fentanyl at the exact same time was he was being choked to death

Good, but it kinda ticks me off the he gets to serve this sentence at the same time he’s seeing a 3-year for the civil rights conviction.. like rather than 8 years, it maxes out at 5, and that’s some bullshit.
All four former police officers involved in the incident were convicted on federal civil rights charges, in addition to state murder charges for Mr Chauvin. Ex-officers Thomas Lane and J Alexander Kueng pleaded guilty to aiding and abetting second-degree manslaughter. Thao, who was sentenced to three and a half years over his civil rights conviction, will serve the 57 months at the same time.

He is doing 57 months because he is serving for multiple crimes simultaneously.
Police who violate the law should not be allowed anything but the maximum sentence non-concurrent with other crimes.
But cops protect those who have power and those who have power. Don't want to piss off the cops so here we are.
- I don't even understand why concurrent sentences exist. if you do multiple crimes you should serve time for them all, regardless of who you are.
  
  It makes some sense when multiple crimes were committed but it was one event. Robbing a liquor store becomes several different crimes with their own max sentences. Sure there were multiple laws broken but they only did one thing. The issue is how grey that line becomes and how much authority a judge has over a crime's punishment and when you factor in things like if the robber shot the clerk.

This is the best summary I could come up with:
A former Minneapolis police officer has been sentenced to 57 months (almost five years) in prison for his role in the death of George Floyd.
The officer, Tou Thao, was found guilty of aiding and abetting manslaughter by a Minnesota judge in May.
Ex-officers Thomas Lane and J Alexander Kueng pleaded guilty to aiding and abetting second-degree manslaughter.
Thao, who was sentenced to three and a half years over his civil rights conviction, will serve the 57 months at the same time.
The former officer had waived his right to a jury trial in the manslaughter case, opting instead for Judge Peter Cahill to determine the verdict.
Judge Cahill added that Thao's actions "were even more unreasonable in light of the fact that he was under a duty to intervene to stop other officers' excessive use of force and was trained to render medical aid".
I'm a bot and I'm open source!
- Good bot.

He should've gotten life

He probably didn't see THAT coming

he got off easy. hopefully justice will served when he is in the slammer
- He has the biggest gang in the world to protect him, and they run the joint.

Imagine someone dying from a drug overdose and you get the blame for it when he was a danger to himself and everyone around him thrashing around
- Should've just pulled himself up by his bootstraps I suppose, right?

25 comments