When Derek Chauvin pressed his knee on George Floyd’s neck, his colleague Thomas Lane just watched. For this reason, a US court finds the ex-cop guilty of aiding and abetting manslaughter. It is the second conviction in the case against him.
More than two years after the killing of African American George Floyd in a police operation in the United States, one of the ex-police officers involved has been convicted again. Thomas Lane pleaded guilty in court under the law of the state of Minnesota to assisted manslaughter in a particularly aggravated case and received a three-year prison sentence, as US media unanimously reported.
Lane is already serving a two-and-a-half-year sentence based on a federal conviction for violating Floyd’s civil rights. Both sentences could be served at the same time, it said. The death of African American Floyd on May 25, 2020 in a brutal police operation in Minneapolis triggered demonstrations against racism and police violence in the United States. Videos documented police officers pinning the unarmed man to the ground.
White police officer Derek Chauvin pressed his knee on Floyd’s neck for a good nine minutes while Floyd begged him to breathe. His colleagues Alexander Kueng, Tou Thao and Thomas Lane did not intervene despite Chauvin’s actions. According to the autopsy, Floyd lost consciousness and died. Chauvin was sentenced to 22 years and six months in prison for murder by a Minneapolis court. He’s already serving that sentence. In July, a federal court sentenced the 46-year-old to a further 21 years in prison.
