Judge sets three former Minneapolis officers' federal civil rights trial for August
A federal trial is scheduled to begin Aug. 2 for three former Minneapolis police officers charged with abusing their positions of authority to violate George Floyd's civil rights.
The new timetable, set by U.S. District Magistrate Judge Tony N. Leung on Friday, means the officers will face trial for the federal allegations before the trial begins for the state's charges of aiding and abetting murder and manslaughter in Floyd's May 25 killing.
A grand jury indicted J. Alexander Kueng, Thomas Lane and Tou Thao last week on federal charges of "deliberate indifference to [Floyd's] serious medical needs" while acting under the "color of the law."
"Specifically, the defendants saw George Floyd lying on the ground in clear need of medical care, and willfully failed to aid Floyd, thereby acting with deliberate indifference to a substantial risk of harm to Floyd," the charges state. "This offense resulted in bodily injury to, and the death of, George Floyd."
Kueng and Thao face an additional charge for assisting in restraining Floyd while ex-Officer Derek Chauvin pinned Floyd by the neck, even after Floyd became unresponsive, and the two failed to intervene.
Chauvin has also been charged with civil rights violations for the killing of Floyd, but will go to trial separately from the others. He faces an additional two-count indictment alleging he willfully deprived a 14-year-old Minneapolis boy of his civil rights during a 2017 arrest. Chauvin pinned the teenager down and struck him on the head with his flashlight, then grabbed him by the throat and hit him again, according to court documents.
A Hennepin County jury found Chauvin guilty on murder and manslaughter charges last month. He is currently awaiting his June 25 sentencing in Oak Park Heights prison. Earlier this week Hennepin District Judge Peter Cahill found several aggravating factors to support a sentence exceeding state guidelines.
Those factors are that Chauvin "abused a position of trust and authority" as a police officer, that he "treated George Floyd with particular cruelty," that children were present when Floyd was pinned to the pavement at 38th and Chicago for more than nine minutes until he died, and that he committed the crime with the "active participation" of others, namely three fellow officers.
The Justice Department's cases run parallel to the state's. Kueng, Lane and Thao, who are not in custody, appeared at a virtual hearing in U.S. District Court last Friday morning on the federal charges.
The state's trial for the three men was supposed to begin Aug. 23, but Cahill postponed it earlier this week, citing the federal indictments. Kueng, Lane and Thao will now stand trial on March 7, 2022. Cahill said the federal case should proceed first and that the state trial needed "space" from events this summer, including Chauvin's sentencing.
Andy Mannix • 612-673-4036
