J. Alexander Kueng And Thomas Lane Are Going Down

     Derek Chauvin and Tou Thao are fucked, quite simply. Derek Chauvin has been convicted and sentenced to 22.5 years in prison for the state murder charges in Minnesota. He is preparing a guilty plea in federal court for the civil rights charges related to George Floyd's death and the severe injuries he caused to a black child he assaulted; this will land him 30 years and make him spill the beans on his history of violence. He also faces state tax charges. Thao had six police brutality investigations in six years, was Chauvin's partner that day, had the only view of the life literally leaving Floyd's eyes, and was mostly responsible for people not being allowed to save Floyd in his role in crowd control. I believe he will be convicted and face anywhere from 10 to 20 years in prison. I have written commentary on these cases (here and here), and it has proven relatively accurate thus far. 

     J. Alexander Kueng and Thomas Lane were both much newer to the Minneapolis Police Department. Kueng graduated from UM in Minneapolis in 2018 and joined the department soon after, having only done a few days of active police work before his firing and arrest for George Floyd's murder. Lane worked as a salesman and server at numerous businesses while volunteering to help Somali youth in the city. After receiving his degree in criminology in 2016, he worked as a youth probation officer. He was also new to the MPD, losing his job after being on it for four days.

     That does not mean that Kueng and Lane deserve to or will get off easily. Lane had a lengthy criminal history: he was convicted of obstruction of justice, property damage, and disorderly conduct as well as numerous traffic offenses in addition to having several other of each of these charges dismissed, all in different incidents between 2001 and 2015. Lane may have asked Chauvin to roll George Floyd onto his side, but this only demonstrates that he knew what was happening was dangerous and refused to intervene to stop the murder. At the end of the day, Thomas Lane held George Floyd's legs, and this is what he has been charged with. He must and will be convicted and punished appropriately, and the same goes for Kueng, who knelt on George Floyd's back. Neither performed CPR, neither intervened to save Floyd's life, neither allowed others to intervene, and both are guilty of aiding and abetting in a murder.