St. PAUL, Minn. – Thomas Lane, a former Minneapolis police officer who held George Floyd’s legs as he breathed as he died under another officer’s knee, was sentenced Thursday to two and a half years in prison.
A federal judge in St. Paul handed down the sentence to Mr. Lane several months after a jury found him guilty of violating the rights of Mr. Floyd by not providing him with medical attention after Derek Chauvin, the other officer, knelt on his neck for more. more than nine minutes. The sentence means that Mr. Lane, who is also awaiting sentencing on a charge of involuntary manslaughter, will be the second officer jailed over Mr. Floyd’s death, which sparked a summer of protests in the United States in 2020 .
Mr. Lane, 39, was in his first week on the job as a full-time officer when he and three other officers arrived at a convenience store in south Minneapolis on May 25, 2020, in response to a caller to 911 who said that Mr. Floyd had used a fake $20 bill to buy cigarettes. Officers handcuffed Mr Floyd and then forced him to the ground when he resisted being put into the back of a police car and said he was claustrophobic and unable to breathe.
Mr. Floyd continued to say he couldn’t breathe as officers placed him face down on the sidewalk and Mr. Chauvin began to kneel on his neck. Mr. Lane held onto his legs as the third officer, J. Alexander Kueng, also held Mr. Floyd with the knee. When emergency medical workers arrived, they were unable to detect a pulse from Mr. Floyd.
The four Minneapolis police officers who were at the scene were charged with various crimes. Mr. Chauvin is serving a 21-year prison sentence after a jury found him guilty of murdering Mr. Floyd; later pleaded guilty to violating the rights of Mr. Floyd. Mr. Lane and Mr. Chauvin are white, while Mr. Kueng is black and a fourth official, Tou Thao, who prevented bystanders from intervening, is Asian-American. Mr Floyd, 46, was black and a former security guard who had lost his job at the start of the coronavirus pandemic.
During the arrest, Mr. Lane twice asked Mr. Chauvin if they had to shoot Mr. Floyd by his side so he could breathe easier, but Mr. Chauvin turned him down. Prosecutors had charged him with fewer crimes than the other officers, and asked the judge to sentence Mr. Lane to between five and six-and-a-half years in prison, less than they have asked for in the other cases .
Mr. Lane pleaded guilty to a state charge of aiding and abetting second-degree murder in May and is expected to be sentenced in September. His lawyers and state prosecutors have agreed to recommend a three-year prison sentence, though a judge will ultimately decide.
A video of the police pinning Mr. Floyd to the ground — recorded by Darnella Frazier, who was 17 at the time — challenged the police’s initial narrative that Mr. Floyd had died of a “medical incident” and initiated you quickly protest to the Twin. Cities and, shortly after, throughout the country. The movement soon became one of the largest protests in US history, as millions marched to oppose racism and police abuse in thousands of cities. In some cities, the protests turned destructive; hundreds of buildings in Minneapolis were damaged, and a police precinct in Minneapolis was among the burned buildings.