3 officers in George Floyd murder found guilty of civil rights violations

3 Officers Found Guilty Of Violating George Floyd’s Civil Rights During Murder

Source: Stephen Maturen / Getty

George Floyd should be alive right now. He should be with his family and friends and living a good life. Unfortunately, that isn’t the case. George Floyd is dead because he was murdered by the police, Derek Chauvin to be specific. However, Chauvin isn’t the only cop culpable for Floyd’s death and that isn’t an opinion. Today, it became a legal fact that Tou Thao, J. Alexander Kueng, and Thomas Lane are guilty of violating Floyd’s civil rights during his murder. According to CNN, 12 jurors (4 men, 8 women) found that the 3 former cops are all responsible for what they failed to do while Chauvin was getting his bloodlust fix.

So how long will these bacon boys sit in the bing for their heinous crimes? Well…

Violating a person’s civil rights “is punishable by a range of imprisonment up to a life term, or the death penalty, depending upon the circumstances of the crime, and the resulting injury, if any,” according to the Department of Justice. Federal sentencing guidelines suggest the officers could receive a lesser sentence.

The charges that the men were found guilty of today are of the federal variety. They will still face state charges in a trial that is set to being in June.

“It wasn’t a split-second use of force like a gunshot,” Assistant US Attorney Manda Sertich said during closing arguments, referring to Thao and Kueng’s extra charge of not intervening to stop Chauvin. “Not 30 seconds, not a minute, several minutes — 569 seconds.”