Minneapolis Cops Who Watched Officer Derek Chauvin Kill George Floyd Convicted On Federal Charges

It's not often you see a cop face criminal charges for injuring or killing someone they're attempting to arrest. It's even rarer still to see a cop convicted. Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin is a unicorn. He knelt on George Floyd's neck for nearly nine minutes, choking the life out of the unarmed black man, who was suspected of nothing else than passing a bogus $20 bill at a local store. He did this for three minutes after another police officer told Chauvin he couldn't detect a pulse.

Chauvin's violence provoked protests around the nation targeting routine police violence that has gone unaddressed pretty much since law enforcement organizations were formed in the 1800s primarily to hunt down escaped slaves.

For this, Chauvin was convicted of murder and handed a twenty-two year sentence by a Minnesota judge who noted the officer's actions abused his position of authority and were deployed with particular cruelty."

But what about the other officers present during Chauvin's cruel and abusive display of force? Well, we have more unicorns to add to the list of anomalies. The three officers who watched and assisted Chauvin's murder of George Floyd have all been convicted on federal charges.

Three former Minneapolis police officers were found guilty on Thursday of violating the civil rights of George Floyd, the Black man whose death at the hands of police in 2020 spurred protests against systemic racism around the world.

The former officers, J. Alexander Kueng, Thomas Lane and Tou Thao, all were convicted of depriving Floyd of his civil rights while acting under government authority when they failed to give him medical aid. Kueng and Thao, additionally, were convicted of not intervening to stop their fellow officer Derek Chauvin from using excessive force.

Some justice finally. I mean, at least up until the appeals, during which anything could happen. The NBC News report notes each conviction contains the possibility of a life sentence but also points out sentences this lengthy are unlikely,

But, hey, we have the convictions! This is a good thing and will hopefully start moving towards being the new normal, rather than something that only happens when an entire nation starts burning following a killing of an unarmed black person by police officers. And these officers are still facing state charges for aiding and abetting the murder of George Floyd, which means these might not be the only convictions they'll obtain for standing idly by while one of their own took the life of a Minneapolis resident.

If anything has the potential to change the law enforcement attitude that the people they serve are expendable, it's convictions on serious criminal charges that will force them to rub elbows with people they've always considered to be less than human.

The path to these convictions ran through some truly gobsmacking defenses deployed by the accused officers. Officer Tou Thao actually claimed he didn't believe George Floyd was being killed by Officer Derek Chauvin because other officers on the scene didn't express any concern for Floyd's wellbeing while Chauvin knelt on Floyd's neck for nine uninterrupted minutes.

Thao testified that he never saw the officers reposition Floyd or begin rendering medical aid.

Asked by his attorney Robert Paule if he found their lack of medical intervention significant," Thao said this shaped his view that Floyd wasn't in any medical danger because of department policy that requires officers to begin CPR when someone in their custody or care doesn't have a pulse.

If they are not doing CPR, then I assume he's still breathing and fine," Thao said. It indicated that Mr. Floyd was not in cardiac arrest."

Ah, the elliptical defense. Thao assumed Floyd wasn't in medical distress because no officer had acted on Floyd's repeated statement that he couldn't breathe. Well done, Thao. Please remember that defense when your fellow prisoners deliver a savage beating and the guards claim they didn't realize you were being injured because no other guard had attempted to determine whether you were in medical danger."

I am not here to praise the carceral state. I am only here to observe how rare it is for the justice system to deliver something approaching justice when it's cops accused of criminal acts. And I'm also here to note with more than a little enjoyable schadenfreude that the cheerily dismissive platitudes offered by law enforcement officers (i.e., if you can't do the time, don't do the crime," etc.) now apply to some of their own. Let's hope these unplanned field trips to the dehumanizing hellholes we ridiculously refer to as correction facilities" will educate the cops that happen to pass through him and serve as a serious deterrent against future atrocities committed by officers.