Derek Chauvin And Three Former Minneapolis Cops Charged With Violating George Floyd’s Civil Rights

By Clarissa-Jan Lim

Chauvin, Thomas Lane, Tou Thao, and J. Alexander Kueng alleged­ly vio­lat­ed Floyd’s con­sti­tu­tion­al rights dur­ing a dead­ly arrest in 2020.

Chauvin, Thomas Lane, Tou Thao, and J. Alexander Kueng alleged­ly vio­lat­ed Floyd’s con­sti­tu­tion­al rights dur­ing a dead­ly arrest in 2020.

Four for­mer Minneapolis police offi­cers were indict­ed by a fed­er­al grand jury Friday on charges that they vio­lat­ed George Floyd’s civ­il rights dur­ing an arrest last year in which Floyd was vio­lent­ly restrained and killed. Derek Chauvin, who crushed Floyd’s neck with his knee, is charged with vio­lat­ing Floyd’s con­sti­tu­tion­al right to be free from unrea­son­able seizure and unrea­son­able force by a police offi­cer. Tou Thao and J. Alexander Kueng are charged with vio­lat­ing Floyd’s right to be free from unrea­son­able seizure after fail­ing to inter­vene on Chauvin’s use of unrea­son­able force. The three men and Thomas Lane, anoth­er for­mer offi­cer, are also charged with fail­ing to pro­vide Floyd with med­ical care.

Chauvin also faces sep­a­rate fed­er­al charges for a 2017 inci­dent in which he alleged­ly held a 14-year-old by the neck, beat them with a flash­light, and pressed his knee on their neck and upper back as they were hand­cuffed and not resisting.

Eric Nelson, Chauvin’s defense attor­ney, declined to com­ment on the fed­er­al charges.

A police offi­cer for near­ly two decades, Chauvin was con­vict­ed of mur­der­ing Floydin a high-pro­file state tri­al last month and is cur­rent­ly await­ing sen­tenc­ing in prison.

Lane, Thao, and Kueng are fac­ing a joint state tri­al in August.

Floyd was killed dur­ing an encounter with the four offi­cers on May 25 last year, after a gro­cery store employ­ee alleged that he used a fake $20 bill. Bystander video cap­tured Chauvin push­ing his knee into Floyd’s neck for more than nine min­utes as Floyd repeat­ed­ly begged for air and said he could not breathe.

The graph­ic video sparked a nation­al out­cry against police bru­tal­i­ty and racial injus­tice that rever­ber­at­ed around the world, and the four offi­cers were fired from the Minneapolis Police Department.