The police officers who assisted in the murder of George Floyd have been found guilty.
A jury has found three former Minneapolis police officers guilty of violating the civil rights of George Floyd Thursday afternoon. All three officers were found guilty on all counts.
Tou Thao, the officer who held back bystanders when George Floyd was killed, was convicted of depriving Floyd of his right to medical care and willfully failing to intervene. J. Alexander Kueng, who helped restrain Floyd by kneeling on his back, was convicted of the same charges.
Thomas Lane, who held the 46-year-old Black man’s feet, was found guilty of depriving Floyd of his right to medical care as well.
It’s a good start. Now let’s see changes in the culture of the police in Minneapolis.
A precedent like this would’ve been helpful during the Freddie Gray case in Baltimore. Most of the officers stood by as an obviously injured man was tossed into the back of a paddy wagon and likely given a circuitous and very rough ride to the police station.
There won’t be changes in the culture of the police in Minneapolis until they start hiring decent people, who aren’t assholes or racists. No amount of “training” can make this happen.
The only thing that can fix the MP is to fire all of them and rehire the ones that don’t have complaints on their records. Redo the training from the ground up. Require personal liability of the cops, and mandatory therapy* sessions once per month. Have open records of all complaints and the punishment that they received for it. After that, we might see changes. Until then? They see themselves as a beset army against a horde.
*Yes, mandatory. Too many wouldn’t take it if it wasn’t required. And the therapy isn’t to fix their racism and authoritarianism (though it might help) the therapy is because the job under the best of circumstances is still traumatic, and that does need to be recognized.
Let them rot in prison.
I still wanted murder charges for the lot, but this is better than nothing.