Former Police Officer Charged In George Floyd’s Death Posts $750,000 Bond
Three of the four ex-Minneapolis police officers charged in the death of George Floyd have now been released from jail, after Tou Thao posted $750,000 bond.
The 34-year-old left custody on Saturday, July 4, at around 11am, as per Hennepin County jail records. All four officers involved in Floyd’s death have been fired from the department and face an array of criminal charges.
Thao – alongside J. Alexander Kueng and Thomas Lane, both of whom posted $750,000 bond to leave jail – is facing charges of aiding and abetting second-degree murder and aiding and abetting second-degree manslaughter with culpable negligence.
Derek Chauvin, who was videoed kneeling on Floyd’s neck, has been charged with second-degree murder, third-degree murder and second-degree manslaughter with culpable negligence. He’s still being held at Oak Park Heights prison on $1.25 million bail, as reported by the Minneapolis Star-Tribune.
Thao had been held on $1 million bail with no conditions or $750,000 bail with conditions. It is not currently known how the former officer managed to amass the funds to post bond.
After joining the police department in 2009, he was laid off due to budget cuts before being reinstated in 2012. He had six conduct complaints, one of which was still open at the time of his firing.
Thao and another officer were also the subject of a police brutality lawsuit back in 2017, which alleged they had assaulted a plaintiff and broke his teeth while arresting them. The city eventually settled the case for $25,000.
Lane managed to pay the large bail via a fundraising page set up for him upon his arrest, which cited the bail amount as ‘unfairly high’ and asked for money via PayPal donations. It has since been taken down.
4 months agoLane’s attorney, Earl Gray, previously said that he ‘did everything he could’ to try to save Floyd. ‘Now we can watch what happens next from outside,’ he said, adding that he plans to bring a motion to dismiss and ‘hopefully it will be granted’.
Gray also said the case against Lane is ‘weak’, telling CBS Minnesota: ‘If three cops are trying to restrain somebody and one doesn’t agree, well that one cop should go beat up the other two cops and let the guy go? That’s absurd.’
Thao is set to appear in court at 9am on September 11. He has not yet entered a plea.
If you have been affected by any of the issues in this article and wish to speak to someone in confidence, contact Stop Hate UK by visiting their website www.stophateuk.org/talk
Topics: News, Bail, Black Lives Matter, Derek Chauvin, George Floyd, Minneapolis, Now, US
