(Newswire.net— June 8, 2020) — One of the three former police officers accused of killing George Floyd had a number of crimes and traffic violations on his record before he became a police officer, Daily Mail reports.
Thomas Lane, 37, has been convicted so far on a total of seven charges, including evading court proceedings and damaging property, speeding, obstruction of traffic and two violations of parking measures were among the four related indictments with traffic violations, but he also faced more serious criminal charges on several occasions.
When he was 18, Lane was charged with two counts – obstruction of legal proceedings, damage to property, illegal assembly, and disorderly conduct, but details of the incidents are not available.
Lane’s personal file was published by his former employer, the Minneapolis Police Department.
His file states that Lane left high school before graduating, and then held at least ten jobs between 2010 and 2017.
During that time, he earned a GED and a college degree, working as a laborer, a telemarketer, a server, a bartender, a security guard, and a sales associate.
In 2017, according to the file, he started working as a correctional officer for juveniles and an assistant probation officer.
The murder of African-American George Floyd, in which Lane participated along with three other colleagues, put him at the top of the indictment for aggravated murder, which means that he will face a sentence of 40 years in prison.
In addition to the first accused police officer Derrick who was kneeling on Floyd’s neck, Lane is accused of aiding and abetting a second-degree murder – unintentionally.
Floyd was killed by a police officer who knelt on his neck for several minutes during the arrest, the coroner concluded.
Four police officers were fired and charges were filed against them, including a murder charge.
A video of the arrest that appeared in the media provoked a wave of violent protests in the USA against police brutality and racism. It shows a policeman kneeling on Floyd’s neck who at the time was tied up, grunting and saying “please, I can’t breathe”.
The autopsy report also cites “complicated apprehension, restraint and pressure on the neck” as the cause of death.
Mass protests erupted in the United States after Floyd was killed, and cases of police brutality were reported. The racial protests that followed Floyd’s death spread to about 150 cities in the country, but also to numerous capitals around the world.