Thao has long insisted that he was largely unaware of the deadly peril of what was going on a few feet behind him as he stood between a dying Floyd and the increasingly worried and vocal crowd gathered at the curb.
"I respectfully disagree with the decision, and I think it expands the doctrine of aiding and abetting beyond what we've seen at the appellate level." Robert Paule, Thao's attorney, said he plans to appeal the verdict. Thao remains in custody ahead of sentencing, scheduled for Aug. Alexander Kueng, who also were convicted in Floyd's death. The prosecution and defense agreed on stipulated evidence from the previous state trial of Chauvin and the federal civil rights trial of Thao and ex-officers Thomas Lane and J. Thao asked for a bench trial, letting the judge determine his guilt or innocence rather than a jury. Yet Thao made a conscious decision to actively participate in Floyd's death: He held back the concerned bystanders and even prevented an off-duty Minneapolis firefighter from rendering the medical aid Floyd so desperately needed." "Like the bystanders, Thao could see Floyd's life slowly ebbing away as the restraint continued.
"Like the other officers, Thao had been trained specifically to turn an individual onto his side to avoid positional asphyxia, the very thing that several eminent medical specialists who testified at trial concluded caused Floyd's death. He knew that the officers' prone restraint could kill," Cahill wrote. "Thao, Chauvin's partner on that night, was an experienced Minneapolis police officer with almost a decade's experience. Floyd's death was decried globally as an especially brazen act of police brutality. The verdict by Hennepin County District Judge Peter Cahill came in the last case to be prosecuted in either state or federal court in the trials of the four officers who had roles in the killing at 38th Street and S. Tou Thao, the ex-Minneapolis police officer who nearly three years ago kept back concerned bystanders as George Floyd died under the knee of convicted cop Derek Chauvin, was found guilty Tuesday of aiding and abetting manslaughter.
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