The attorney for a former Minneapolis police officer who held back bystanders while his colleagues restrained a dying George Floyd said in court filings Tuesday that his client is innocent of criminal wrongdoing and should be acquitted on state charges of aiding and abetting murder and manslaughter.
But prosecutors argued in their filings that Tou Thao "acted without courage and displayed no compassion" despite his nearly nine years of experience and that he disregarded his training even though he could see Floyd's life slowly ebbing away.
Tuesday was the deadline for prosecutors and defense attorneys to file final written arguments in the case of Thao, the last of the four former officers facing judgement in Floyd's killing.
The state and federal cases against Derek Chauvin and the two other officers involved have largely been resolved, except for Chauvin's appeal of his murder conviction. But Thao asked Hennepin County Judge Peter Cahill to decide, based on stipulated evidence, whether he is guilty of aiding and abetting murder and manslaughter in Floyd's killing, rather than going to trial.
Floyd, a Black man, died May 25, 2020, after Chauvin, who is white, pinned him to the ground with his knee on Floyd's neck for 9 1/2 minutes. A bystander video captured Floyd's fading cries of "I can't breathe." Floyd's murder touched off protests around the world and forced a national reckoning with police brutality and racism.
Unlike the other three former officers, Thao has maintained that he did nothing wrong. When he rejected a plea deal last August, he said "it would be lying" to plead guilty.
Defense attorney Robert Paule argued in his written closing argument that the state has failed to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Thao knew that Chauvin was committing a crime, nor that Thao intended to aid in a crime.
"The death of George Floyd was a tragedy," Paule wrote. "Yet the fact that a tragic death occurred does not transfer it into a criminal act. Thao is innocent of the charges against him because he did not intend that his specific actions were done to assist in the commission of a crime. Every one of Thao's actions was done based upon the training he received from the Minneapolis Police Department."
Paule argued that Thao "reasonably believed" that Floyd was experiencing a controversial set of symptoms known as "excited delirium" and that the actions he took at the scene were with the intention of helping to get Floyd medical attention faster because he was trained to view excited delirium as life threatening. He said Thao was not aware that Floyd was not breathing or had no pulse.
Prosecutor Matthew Frank disputed that defense, writing that even witnesses who believe excited delirium exists testified previously that Floyd displayed none of the symptoms.
"Thao was aware that his three colleagues were on top of Floyd, and were restraining Floyd in the prone position," Frank wrote. "Thao knew that this prone restraint was extremely dangerous because it can cause asphyxia -- the inability to breathe -- the exact condition from which Floyd repeatedly complained he was suffering. Yet Thao made the conscious decision to aid that dangerous restraint: He actively encouraged the other three officers, and assisted their crime by holding back concerned bystanders."
Cahill has 90 days to rule and hand down a sentence if he finds Thao guilty. He'll base his decision on evidence agreed to by both sides -- exhibits and transcripts from Chauvin's 2021 murder trial in state court and the federal civil rights trial of Thao, J. Alexander Kueng and Thomas Lane last year. Thao was specifically convicted then of depriving Floyd of his right to medical care and of failing to intervene and stop Chauvin.
Thao testified during his federal trial that he was relying on the other officers to care for Floyd's medical needs while he served as a served as "a human traffic cone" to control the crowd and traffic outside a Minneapolis convenience store where Floyd tried to pass a counterfeit US$20 bill.
Thao told the court that when he and Chauvin arrived, the other officers were struggling with Floyd. He said it was clear to him, as the other officers tried to put Floyd into a squad car, "that he was under the influence of some type of drugs."
His body camera video shows that at one point he told the onlookers, "This is why you don't do drugs, kids." When an off-duty, out-of-uniform Minneapolis firefighter arrived and asked if officers had checked Floyd's pulse, he ordered her, "Back off!"
Thao acknowledged he heard onlookers becoming more anxious about Floyd's condition and calling on officers to check his pulse. But he said his role was crowd control; there were about 15 bystanders. While he acknowledged hearing Floyd saying, "I can't breathe," he said he didn't know there was anything seriously wrong with him even as an ambulance took him away.
Cahill is already familiar with much of the evidence, having presided over Chauvin's trial. But the evidence in this case will also include details from the federal trial about Thao's training and work history, as well as his interview with investigators from the state Bureau of Criminal Apprehension.
Thao, Kueng and Lane got federal sentences ranging from 3 1/2 years for Thao to 2 1/2 years for Lane and are serving their time in prisons in otherstates, as is Chauvin, who pleaded guilty to a federal civil rights charge and is serving a 21-year sentence that will keep him in prison longer than the 22 1/2-year sentence Cahill gave him on the state second-degree murder charge because he would qualify for parole earlier in the state system..
Thao is Hmong American, Kueng is Black and Lane is white.
If Thao is convicted of aiding and abetting manslaughter, a more serious murder count with a presumptive sentence of 12 1/2 years will be dropped. Minnesota guidelines recommend four years on the manslaughter count. He would serve his state term concurrent with his federal sentence.
India is pulling its high commissioner after accusing Canada of endangering their safety 'in an atmosphere of extremism and violence.'
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The European Union on Monday imposed sanctions on Iran's deputy defence minister, senior members of its paramilitary Revolutionary Guard and three airlines over allegations that they supplied drones, missiles and other equipment to Russia for use in its war against Ukraine.
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The father of a 10-year-old girl found dead in her home in England fled to Pakistan and called U.K. police from there to say he had killed her, a jury heard Monday.
U.S. Vice-President Kamala Harris is announcing a plan to give Black men more economic opportunities and other chances to thrive as she works to energize a key voting bloc that has Democrats concerned about a lack of enthusiasm.
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India is pulling its high commissioner after accusing Canada of endangering their safety 'in an atmosphere of extremism and violence.'
Three in four Canadians support defence spending on new submarines, according to a new survey from Nanos Research and Â鶹´«Ã½.
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Ariana Grande performed one of her greatest hits on the latest episode of 'Saturday Night Live' – her famed Celine Dion impression.
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Â鶹´«Ã½ will be livestreaming the Oktoberfest Thanksgiving Day parade.
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A major American retailer has stopped selling its new winter-themed candle over backlash from shoppers who said its design resembled Ku Klux Klan hoods.
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The Ontario Provincial Police says the number of fatal collisions caused by distracted driving on the roads it patrols has increased by 40 per cent compared to this time last year.
Provincial police remind motorists about the importance of buckling up after an officer discovered a passenger sitting on a kitchen chair inside the vehicle during a traffic stop in the Town of the Blue Mountains.
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A plaque was unveiled at Veterans' Memorial Park Sunday morning to honour the friend of a cadet who died in a historic Orillia tragedy.
Chatham-Kent police say a 37-year-old Merlin man has died after a two-vehicle collision.
A member of the Ontario Colleges Athletic Association Hall of Fame and former Windsor firefighter who stayed active in the community despite being paralyzed in a fire truck rollover nearly two decades ago has died.
The Ontario Provincial Police says the number of fatal collisions caused by distracted driving on the roads it patrols has increased by 40 per cent compared to this time last year.
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Vicki Huntington says two things are critical to be elected as an Independent member of the legislature in British Columbia — trusted name recognition and an angry constituency.
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Dave Lindsey began growing giant pumpkins to bring a bit of magic to his grandkids' Halloween.
A U.S. District Court judge in Montana has sentenced a 27-year-old man from Kelowna, B.C., to 18 months in prison for using fake names to buy guns with the aim of selling them in Canada.
Nearly two years after a man was stabbed to death in downtown Kelowna, RCMP have made an arrest in the case.
The Vancouver Giants scored late to force overtime before winning 4-3 over the Lethbridge Hurricanes Friday night.
If you’re looking for something to do this long weekend, the Lethbridge Corn Maze is open and hosting its annual fundraiser on Monday.
Local photographers were amazed by the aurora borealis display in the night sky over Lethbridge on Thursday night.
Provincial police in Hearst, Ont., stopped an unlicensed northwestern Ontario driver for a morning traffic infraction.
A 32-year-old woman has been charged in connection with the death of an 18-year-old man this past January, according to Ontario Provincial Police.
Two people are facing multiple charges after a dead person was brought to North Shore Health Network in Blind River this summer.
A five-hour drive from St. John's, N.L., and well off the beaten path, Point Leamington seems an unlikely spot for a one-of-a-kind tourist attraction.
A Conservative MP from Newfoundland and Labrador says some small towns in his rural riding are overrun with crime, but police say they haven't received reports to that effect.
As millions in federal funding flow into a Labrador group whose claims of Inuit identity have been rejected by Indigenous organizations across Canada, a national Inuit leader worries the Liberal government is putting the rights of Indigenous Peoples at risk.
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