A federal grand jury indicted the four former Minneapolis police officers who were on-scene at the time of George Floyd’s murder.
The three-count indictment alleged that former officers Derek Chauvin, Thomas Lane, J. Kueng, and Tou Thao willfully disregarded Floyd’s constitutional rights. Kueng, Thao, and Chauvin violated Floyd’s right to be free from unreasonable search and seizure and excessive force, while all four failed to provide him with medical aid when they saw him in need, according to the indictment.
The three officers, Chauvin excluded, appeared in court Friday.
Chauvin, who was found guilty April 20 on charges of second-degree unintentional murder, third-degree murder, and second-degree manslaughter, exercised unreasonable force in using his knee to pin Floyd to the ground for over eight minutes, with the pressure applied to Floyd’s neck, the first count of the indictment alleged.
Kueng and Thao willfully allowed Chauvin to violate Floyd’s rights, the second count alleged, while the third count accused all four officers of willfully failing to provide medical aid to Floyd, who was unresponsive.
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Chauvin also faces a separate, two-count indictment from a 2017 incident. Around Sept. 4, 2017, Chauvin allegedly hit a 14-year-old with a flashlight multiple times in the head and held his knee on the neck and upper back of the teenager even after the suspect was “lying prone, handcuffed, and un-resisting,” according to the indictment.
The other three officers were previously charged with aiding and abetting second-degree murder, though the trials haven’t started.
