Former Minneapolis police officers J. Alexander Kueng and Tou Thao have been sentenced to prison after they were convicted in the death of George Floyd.
KTTC reports that Kueng was the first of the two officers to be sentenced on Wednesday, and was ordered to serve three years in federal prison followed by two years of supervised release. Thao was sentenced during a second hearing in U.S. District Court in St. Paul, Minnesota, and was ordered to serve three and half years in federal prison.
28-year-old Kueng and 35-year-old Thao were convicted for their involvement in the death of George Floyd earlier this year. The two officers, alongside their former colleague 39-year-old Thomas Lane, were convicted for violating Floyd’s civil rights during the fatal arrest on May 25, 2020.
Lane was sentenced to two and a half years in prison last week, although federal prosecutors had asked for the maximum sentence of six and a half years. The three officers were accused of failing to act when former officer Derek Chauvin kneeled on Floyd’s neck over nine minutes, killing him. Chauvin was found guilty and sentenced to 21 years in prison.
As ABC News reported, assistant U.S. attorney Manda Sertich said that Kueng admitted he knew it was his duty as an officer to intervene. “All he had to do per MPD policy was attempt to intervene,” said Sertich, who noted that Kueng failed to do so.
"The facts of this case do not amount to second-degree murder under federal law," said U.S. district court judge Paul Magnuson in a ruling last week. "Defendants Kueng and Thao each made a tragic misdiagnosis in their assessment of Mr. Floyd." Magnuson said the two officers sentenced on Wednesday believed Floyd was having a drug overdose at the time of the arrest.
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