(Saint Paul) “I assumed they were taking care of him”: one of the police officers tried for his passivity in the murder of George Floyd on Tuesday denied any responsibility in the drama, taking care to distinguish himself from his colleagues.
Posted at 5:08 p.m.
Dressed in a dark suit, Tou Thao testified in a federal trial opened on January 20 in Saint Paul, in the northern United States, against three police officers involved in the death of the black man in his forties.
The first of the defendants to take the stand and speak publicly, the son of Laotian refugees insisted that during George Floyd’s agony he kept his distance.
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Defendants J. Alexander Kueng, Thomas Lane and Tou Thao. Thao claims his role in the arrest of George Floyd was to stand on the corner to prevent an accident while his colleagues sought to subdue the African American.
“I had a different role to play,” he explained, posing as “a human traffic cone” positioned around the corner to prevent an accident, while his colleagues sought to master the Afro- American.
On May 25, 2020, Alexander Kueng and Thomas Lane, two new Minneapolis police recruits, were called by a shopkeeper who suspected George Floyd of using a counterfeit $20 bill to pay for a pack of cigarettes.
As they struggled to get this imposing man into their vehicle, they were joined by two experienced agents, Tou Thao and Derek Chauvin.
“In eight years of career, I had never seen such a fight”, declared Tou Thao, assuring that George Floyd had “superhuman strength” and “was under the influence of drugs” which, according to him, justified to pin him to the ground, handcuffed.
Derek Chauvin then knelt on his neck, the two new ones at his side, while Tou Thao kept the panicked passers-by at a distance. The four men had not moved despite the groans of the forties.
The scene, filmed and posted online, sparked huge protests against racism and police violence across the United States.
In June, Derek Chauvin was found guilty of murder and sentenced to 22 and a half years in prison by a Minnesota state court. His three colleagues will be tried in this context from June 13 for “complicity in murder”.
At the same time, federal justice has opened proceedings for “violation of civil rights” of George Floyd. In December, Derek Chauvin pleaded guilty in this part, admitting for the first time a share of responsibility in the drama.
His three colleagues have therefore been appearing without him for nearly three weeks. They are notably accused of not having brought the necessary help to the forties despite the signs of medical distress.
At the helm, Tou Thao said he “had no idea” of the seriousness of George Floyd’s condition before help arrived. Pressed by the prosecution, he repeated that he “assumed” that his colleagues were taking care of it.