Ex-Minneapolis officer unrepentant as he gets nearly 5 years in George Floyd killing

Tou Thao leaves the courtroom after his sentencing hearing in Hennepin County District Court on Monday, Aug. 7, 2023, in Minneapolis, Minn. (AP)
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Updated 08 August 2023
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Ex-Minneapolis officer unrepentant as he gets nearly 5 years in George Floyd killing

  • Thao's sentence will run concurrently with a 3 1/2-year sentence for his separate conviction on a federal civil rights charge, which an appeals court upheld on Friday

MINNEAPOLIS: Tou Thao, the last former Minneapolis police officer convicted in state court for his role in the killing of George Floyd, did not show any repentance or admit any wrongdoing as he was sentenced Monday to 4 years and 9 months.
Thao had previously testified that he merely served as a “human traffic cone” when he held back concerned bystanders who gathered as former Officer Derek Chauvin, who is white, knelt on Floyd’s neck for 9 1/2 minutes while the Black man pleaded for his life on May 25, 2020.
A bystander video captured Floyd’s fading cries of “I can’t breathe.” Floyd’s murder touched off protests worldwide and forced a national reckoning of police brutality and racism.
At his sentencing hearing, Thao said he never intended to hurt anyone that day. He spoke at length about his growth as a Christian during his 340 days behind bars but denied any responsibility for Floyd's death. In rambling remarks full of biblical references, he drew parallels with the sufferings and false accusations endured by Job and Jesus.
“I did not commit these crimes," Thao said. "My conscience is clear. I will not be a Judas nor join a mob in self-preservation or betray my God.”
Hennepin County Judge Peter Cahill, who found Thao guilty in May of aiding and abetting second-degree manslaughter, said he was hoping “for more than preaching” from Thao on Monday.
“After three years of reflection, I was hoping for a little more remorse,” he said.
Cahill then sentenced Thao to 57 months — the top end of the range recommended under state guidelines, where the standard sentence is 48 months, an even four years. The sentence was more than the 51 months that prosecutors had sought and the 41 months requested by Thao’s attorney, Robert Paule.
Thao's sentence will run concurrently with a 3 1/2-year sentence for his separate conviction on a federal civil rights charge, which an appeals court upheld on Friday. Thao will be returned to federal prison to finish that sentence before he is transferred to a Minnesota state prison to serve out the remaining few months with credit for time served.
Paule, who called Thao “a good and decent man with a family” in court, said afterward that they will appeal in both the state and federal cases. He declined further comment.
Assistant Attorney General Erin Eldridge said during the hearing that Floyd’s final words “reverberated across the globe.”
“George Floyd narrated his own death over the course of a restraint that lasted more than 9 long minutes until he lost consciousness, stopped breathing and his heart stopped beating,” she said.
Thao facilitated Floyd's death, she said, because he “stood by and allowed it to happen” and stopped others from helping the dying man, including a Minneapolis firefighter who was a trained emergency medical technician and could have performed CPR on him.
“He knew better, and he was trained to do better,” Eldridge said.
The hearing, which lasted just over half an hour, reflected how the legal cases flowing from Floyd’s murder are winding down. While Floyd family members were a frequent presence during earlier proceedings, none were in the courtroom for Thao's sentencing. Eldridge told the court they wanted to grieve in private. Apart from four relatives or friends of Thao, most of the people in the courtroom were journalists.
Prosecutors left the courthouse without commenting to reporters.
In his 177-page ruling that Thao was guilty, Cahill said Thao's actions separated Chauvin and two other former officers from the crowd, allowing his colleagues to continue restraining Floyd and preventing bystanders from providing medical aid.
“There is proof beyond a reasonable doubt that Thao’s actions were objectively unreasonable from the perspective of a reasonable police officer, when viewed under the totality of the circumstances,” Cahill wrote. He concluded: “Thao's actions were even more unreasonable in light of the fact that he was under a duty to intervene to stop the other officers' excessive use of force and was trained to render medical aid.”
Thao had rejected a plea bargain on the state charge, saying “it would be lying” to plead guilty when he didn't think he was in the wrong. He instead agreed to let Cahill decide the case based on evidence from Chauvin's 2021 murder trial and the federal civil rights trial in 2022 of Thao and former Officers Thomas Lane and J. Alexander Kueng.
That trial in federal court ended in convictions for all three. Chauvin pleaded guilty to federal civil rights charges instead of going to trial a second time, though he plans a long-shot appeal of his state conviction to the U.S. Supreme Court. Lane and Kueng pleaded guilty to state charges of aiding and abetting manslaughter.
Lane and Kueng received 3 and 3 1/2-year state sentences respectively, which they are serving concurrently with their federal sentences of 2 1/2 years and 3 years. Thao is Hmong American, while Kueng is Black and Lane is white.
Minnesota inmates generally serve two-thirds of their sentences in prison and one-third on parole. There is no parole in the federal system but inmates can shave time off their sentences with good behavior.

 


Indian troops kill 2 suspected rebels in disputed Kashmir

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Indian troops kill 2 suspected rebels in disputed Kashmir

  • Indian soldiers intercepted a group of militants in a forested area in southern Anantnag district on Saturday, leading to a gunbattle
  • India and Pakistan each administer a part of Kashmir, but both claim the territory in its entirety
SRINAGAR, India: Two suspected militants were killed in a gunfight with government forces in Indian-controlled Kashmir, officials said Saturday, while troops also exchanged fire in the disputed region’s main city.
India’s military in a statement said soldiers intercepted a group of militants in a forested area in southern Anantnag district on Saturday, leading to a gunbattle that killed two rebels.
In a separate incident in the region’s main city of Srinagar, police and paramilitary soldiers exchanged fire with at least one militant after troops cordoned off a neighborhood on a tip that he was hiding in a house.
Residents said the troops torched the home where the rebel was trapped, a common tactic employed by Indian troops in the Himalayan region. There was no independent confirmation of the incident.
India and Pakistan each administer a part of Kashmir, but both claim the territory in its entirety. The nuclear-armed rivals have fought two of their three wars over the territory since they gained independence from British colonial rule in 1947.
Militants in the Indian-controlled portion of Kashmir have been fighting New Delhi’s rule since 1989. Many Muslim Kashmiris support the rebels’ goal of uniting the territory, either under Pakistani rule or as an independent country.
India insists the Kashmir militancy is Pakistan-sponsored terrorism. Pakistan denies the charge, and many Kashmiris consider it a legitimate freedom struggle. Tens of thousands of civilians, rebels and government forces have been killed in the conflict.

Spain braces for more flood deaths, steps up aid

Updated 4 min 52 sec ago
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Spain braces for more flood deaths, steps up aid

  • Hopes of finding survivors more than three days after torrents of mud-filled water submerged towns and were slim
  • Officials have said that dozens of people remain unaccounted for, but establishing a precise figure is difficult

VALENCIA: Rescuers resumed a grim search for bodies on Saturday as Spain scrambled to organize aid to stricken citizens following devastating floods that have killed more than 200 people.
Hopes of finding survivors more than three days after torrents of mud-filled water submerged towns and wrecked infrastructure were slim in the European country’s deadliest such disaster in decades.
Almost all deaths have been recorded in the eastern Valencia region where thousands of soldiers, police officers and civil guards were frantically clearing debris and mud in the search for bodies.
Officials have said that dozens of people remain unaccounted for, but establishing a precise figure is difficult with telephone and transport networks severely damaged.
Interior Minister Fernando Grande-Marlaska on Friday told Cadena Ser radio station that 207 people had died and that it was “reasonable” to believe more fatalities would emerge.
It is also hoped that the estimated number of missing people will fall once telephone and Internet services are running again.
Restoring order and distributing aid to destroyed towns and villages — some of which have been cut off from food, water and power for days — is a priority.
Authorities have come under fire over the adequacy of warning systems before the floods, and some residents have also complained that the response to the disaster is too slow.
Susana Camarero, deputy head of the Valencia region, told journalists on Saturday that essential supplies had been delivered “from day one” to all accessible settlements.
But it was “logical” that affected residents were asking for more, she added.
Authorities in Valencia have restricted access to roads for two days to allow emergency services to carry out search, rescue and logistics operations more effectively.
Thousands of ordinary citizens pushing shopping trolleys and carrying cleaning equipment took to the streets on Friday to help with the effort to clean up.
Camarero said some municipalities were “overwhelmed by the amount of solidarity and food” they had received.
The surge of solidarity continued on Saturday as around 1,000 people set off from the Mediterranean coastal city of Valencia toward nearby towns laid waste by the floods, an AFP journalist saw.
Authorities have urged them to stay at home to avoid congestion on the roads that would hamper the work of emergency services.
Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez chaired a meeting of a crisis committee made up of top cabinet members on Saturday and is due to address the country later.
The storm that sparked the floods on Tuesday formed as cold air moved over the warm waters of the Mediterranean and is common for this time of year.
But scientists warn that climate change driven by human activity is increasing the ferocity, length and frequency of such extreme weather events.


Kyiv comes under heavy Russian drone attack

Updated 19 min 5 sec ago
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Kyiv comes under heavy Russian drone attack

  • Ukraine said on Saturday Kyiv had come under heavy drone attack overnight, as fresh explosions were heard in the capital and other regions were struck

Kyiv: Ukraine said on Saturday Kyiv had come under heavy drone attack overnight, as fresh explosions were heard in the capital and other regions were struck.
“Unfortunately, the attack by Russian drones caused damage and casualties in various districts of Kyiv,” President Volodymyr Zelensky said.
He said that the “constant terrorist attacks on Ukrainian cities prove that the pressure on Russia and its accomplices is not enough.”
AFP reporters heard new explosions in Kyiv on Saturday afternoon amid an air raid alert.
In the morning Ukraine’s air force said it had shot down 39 out of 71 drones launched from Russia overnight.
The drones targeted the Kyiv region surrounding the capital, the Sumy border region as well as the central Kirovograd and Poltava regions.
Twenty-one drones were lost and five returned to Russia, the air force said, adding that the drone attack was continuing.
The air force said debris from downed drones had damaged houses and blocks of flats in four regions including Kyiv, Sumy and the Black Sea Odesa region.
Kyiv’s military administration said that debris from air defenses shooting down drones fell in six districts of the capital, damaging blocks of flats and cars and sparking several fires in buildings that were extinguished.
A policeman was injured, the administration said.
In the Kyiv region outside the capital, an 82-year-old woman suffered head wounds from shrapnel, officials said.
In a village near the southern city of Kherson, a 40-year-old woman was pulled dead from rubble after Russian troops fired artillery and four were injured including three children, the governor Oleksandr Prokudin said.
The health ministry said that a hospital in Kherson was struck, damaging two wards and a laboratory.
The medics and patients were uninjured as they had taken shelter.
Ukraine’s military commander-in-chief Oleksandr Syrsky warned on Saturday that his troops on the ground were “holding back one of the most powerful Russian offensives since the beginning of the full-scale invasion.”


Greek police arrest man over Athens apartment blast

Updated 02 November 2024
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Greek police arrest man over Athens apartment blast

  • Man shared the keys of the flat with the couple involved in the blast but denied any involvement in the explosion

ATHENS: Greek police have arrested a 31-year old man for his role in an strong home-made bomb explosion which killed one man and seriously injured a woman in an apartment in Athens this week, police said on Saturday. The case, according to police officials, is linked to anti-establishment guerrilla groups. Anti-terrorism police suspect the blast occurred while the bomb was being made.
The Greek man arrested had testified regarding the case on Friday night. According to police sources, he said he shared the keys of the flat with the couple involved in the blast but denied any involvement in the explosion.
He is expected to appear before a prosecutor later on Saturday.
Several left-wing and anarchist guerrilla groups, declaring war on all forms of governments, have emerged in Greece over the past two decades after the dismantling of its most lethal group, “November 17.”
Small bomb and arson attacks against politicians, police, judges and businesses were frequent during the country’s 2009-18 debt crisis. They have abated in recent years but still occur.


Harris, Trump go toe to toe in frenzied final campaign weekend

Updated 02 November 2024
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Harris, Trump go toe to toe in frenzied final campaign weekend

  • Kamala Harris is bidding to become the country’s first woman president
  • Opinion polls continue to show a tied race, particularly in the seven battleground states

WASHINGTON: Kamala Harris and Donald Trump enter the final weekend of the most tense US presidential campaign of modern times with a flurry of swing-state rallies that will test their stamina — and ability to persuade the country’s last undecided voters.
Harris, bidding to become the country’s first woman president, will use rallies in Georgia, North Carolina and Michigan to drive home her message that Trump is a threat to US democracy.
Trump — seeking a sensational return to the White House after losing in 2020 and then becoming the first presidential nominee to have been convicted of crimes — promises a radical right-wing makeover of the government and aggressive trade wars to promote his policy of “America first.”
The 78-year-old, who rallied in Milwaukee, Wisconsin late Friday just miles from Harris’s event there, will all but cross paths with her again as Trump makes whistle-stops in North Carolina, Virginia, Pennsylvania and Georgia.
Their frenetic schedule will run right into Monday, culminating with late-night rallies — in Grand Rapids, Michigan, for Trump and Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, for Harris.
Election Day is Tuesday but Americans have been voting early for weeks, with more than 70 million ballots already cast — including a record four million in Georgia, where Democrats seek to pull out all the stops to keep the state in their column.
Opinion polls continue to show a tied race, particularly in the seven battleground states likely to determine the result in the US electoral college system, leaving the Republican businessman and his 60-year-old Democratic rival fighting hard to peel off even slivers of support from one another’s camps.
Harris, currently President Joe Biden’s vice president, is doing that by appealing to centrist voters and propelling her base to the polls with a robust ground game and get-out-the-vote effort.
And by painting Trump as a toxic authoritarian, she is also encouraging voters to “finally turn the page” on the former president.
“He is someone who is increasingly unstable, obsessed with revenge, consumed with grievance — and the man is out for unchecked power,” she told supporters in Little Chute, Wisconsin.
Trump, meanwhile, has doubled down on his already extreme rhetoric in hopes of firing up his loyal base to turn out in massive numbers.
“Kamala’s closing message to America is that she hates you,” Trump fumed on Friday night in Warren, Michigan, where he trashed the economy under Biden and Harris as a disaster — which economists say it clearly is not — and warned that “a 1929-style economic depression” would ensue if Harris were elected.
Citing her hawkish foreign policy views, Trump earlier had conjured the image of former Republican representative turned Harris supporter Liz Cheney being shot.
“She’s a radical war hawk. Let’s put her with a rifle standing there with nine barrels shooting at her, OK? Let’s see how she feels about it, you know, when the guns are trained on her face,” Trump said.
Despite the rhetoric, Trump waxed nostalgic on Friday about how his experience campaigning over the past nine years has been “the thrill of a lifetime.”
“And now we want to take that thrill and turn it into ‘let’s do business,’ right?“
Harris, the nation’s first Black and first Asian-American vice president, meanwhile has sought to harness celebrity star power like Beyonce and Bruce Springsteen in the campaign’s waning days.
Jennifer Lopez, a pop icon of Puerto Rican heritage, joined Harris onstage Thursday, amid a firestorm triggered by a Trump rally warm-up speaker branding the US territory a “floating island of garbage.”
Grammy-winning rapper Cardi B appeared with the candidate Friday night, asking the crowd in Milwaukee, “Are we ready to make history?“
With the election just days away — and Trump refusing to say whether he would accept its results if he loses — businesses in the capital Washington have begun boarding up shop fronts as city authorities warn of a “fluid, unpredictable security environment” in the days after the polls close.
Trump is already alleging fraud and cheating in swing states such as Pennsylvania, laying the groundwork for what many fear will be more unrest, following the violence that erupted at the US Capitol in the wake of the 2020 vote.