A US FEDERAL grand jury has indicted the four former police officers involved in George Floyd’s arrest and death, accusing them of violating his constitutional rights as he was restrained face-down.
The three-count indictment names Derek Chauvin, Thomas Lane, J Kueng and Tou Thao.
Chauvin, Thao and Kueng are charged with violating George Floyd’s right to be free from unreasonable seizure and excessive force. All four officers are charged for failing to provide him with medical care.
Chauvin was also charged in a second indictment, stemming from the arrest and neck restraint of a 14-year-old boy in 2017.
Lane, Thao and Kueng appeared by videolink in US District Court in Minneapolis. Chauvin was not part of the court appearance.
Chauvin was convicted last month on state charges of murder and manslaughter in Floyd’s death and is in Minnesota’s only maximum-security prison as he awaits sentencing.
The other three former officers face a state trial in August, and they are free on bail. They were allowed to remain free after today’s federal court appearance.
Floyd, 46, died on 25 May after Chauvin pinned him to the ground with a knee on his neck, even as Floyd, who was handcuffed, repeatedly said he could not breathe.
Kueng and Lane helped restrain him — state prosecutors have said Kueng knelt on Floyd’s back and Lane held down his legs.
State prosecutors say Thao held back bystanders and kept them from intervening during the nine-and-a-half-minute restraint.
Chauvin’s lawyer, Eric Nelson, argued during his murder trial that Chauvin acted reasonably in the situation and Floyd died because of underlying health issues and drug use.
He has filed a request for a new trial, citing many issues including the judge’s refusal to move the trial due to publicity.
Floyd’s arrest and death, which a bystander captured on video, sparked protests nationwide and widespread calls for an end to police brutality and racial inequality.
To bring federal charges in deaths involving police, prosecutors must believe an officer acted under the “colour of law”, or government authority, and wilfully deprived someone of their constitutional rights, including the right to be free from unreasonable seizures or the use of unreasonable force.
Roy Austin, who prosecuted such cases as a former deputy assistant attorney general in the Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division, said prosecutors have to prove the officers knew what they were doing was wrong in that moment but did it anyway.
Conviction on a federal civil rights charge is punishable by up to life in prison or even the death penalty, but such sentences are extremely rare and federal guidelines rely on complicated formulas that indicate the officers would get much less if convicted.
In Chauvin’s case, if the federal court uses second-degree murder as his underlying offence, he could face anywhere from 14 years to slightly more than 24 years, depending on whether he takes responsibility, said Mark Osler, a former federal prosecutor and professor at the University of St Thomas School of Law.
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