Ex-officer Thao convicted of aiding George Floyd’s killing

@ap.news FILE – This photo provided by the Hennepin County Sheriff’s Office in Minnesota on June 3, 2020, shows former Minneapolis Police Officer Tou Thao. U.S. District Judge Paul Magnuson handed J. Alexander Kueng and Thao a victory when he ruled that the complex formulas for calculating their sentences will use the crime of involuntary manslaughter, rather than murder, as a starting point. Magnuson will sentence the men in back-to-back hearings Wednesday, July 27, 2022, after they were convicted of violating George Floyd’s civil rights when Officer Derek Chauvin pressed his knee into Floyd’s neck for 9 1/2 minutes as the 46-year-old Black man was handcuffed and facedown on the street on May 25, 2020. (Hennepin County Sheriff’s Office via AP, File)

MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — A judge has found a former Minneapolis police officer who held back bystanders while his colleagues restrained a dying George Floyd guilty of aiding and abetting manslaughter. Tou Thao was last of the four former officers facing judgment in Floyd’s killing. He rejected a plea agreement last summer. Instead of going to trial, he let Hennepin County Judge Peter Cahill decide the case based on written filings by each side and stipulated evidence presented in previous cases. Thao already had been convicted in federal court of violating Floyd’s civil rights.