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Tou Thao, one of the four ex-Minneapolis police officers charged with the death of George Floyd, has officially been sentenced to four years and nine months behind bars.
CNN reports that the decision came on Monday (Aug. 7). Ahead of his sentencing, Thao is described as remarking, “I did the best I thought I could.”
“I didn’t intend on doing any malice or anything like that, or try to hurt anyone. That was never my intent.”
He added, “Obviously the outcome didn’t come out the way I wanted it, so I’ll leave it at that.”
During the sentencing, Thao reportedly spent 20 minutes discussing how he experienced a religious awakening since Floyd’s passing. In fact, he even provided his courtroom audience with a sermon.
However, Judge Peter A. Cahill responded by declaring that he was “hoping for a little more remorse, regret, acknowledgement of some responsibility and less preaching.”
While addressing Tou Thao, the judge slammed him for not taking sufficient action when he was “an experienced senior officer who was in the best position to save George Floyd.” Fox 9 also reports that Judge Cahill gave Thao a six-month-longer sentence than the 51-month punishment that state prosecutors recommended.
However, Thao received credit for 340 days served, reducing his sentence by nearly a year.
We should also add that Thao is already serving a three-and-a-half-year sentence over federal charges related to the case. His federal and state sentences will be served concurrently.
Tou Thao’s state sentencing comes three months after he was found guilty of aiding and abetting second-degree manslaughter, as The Shade Room previously reported. Additionally, Thao and fellow ex-officers Thomas Lane and J. Alexander Kueng were federally charged with violating George Floyd’s civil rights for not intervening while Derek Chauvin kneeled on his neck.
Specifically, as Chauvin kneeled on Floyd, Lane and Keung respectively held him down by his legs and torso. Meanwhile, Thao held back bystanders, with AP News reporting that he described himself as serving as “a human traffic cone.”
Notably, the conviction occurred about three years after Floyd’s passing, which sparked a series of protests across the U.S. while calling attention to racial injustice, police brutality, and the #BlackLivesMatter movement.
