![Former Minneapolis police officer Kueng pleads guilty to aiding and abetting second-degree manslaughter of George Floyd](https://www.jurist.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/jurist-white-text.png)
Former Minneapolis police officer J. Alexander Kueng Monday pleaded guilty to aiding and abetting second-degree manslaughter for his involvement in the death of George Floyd, the Associated Press reported. At a later date, Kueng will be sentenced to 42 months in prison served concurrently with his existing three-year federal sentence for violating Floyd’s constitutional rights.
Kueng aided and abetted the second-degree mansalughter of George Floyd when he “helped to pin George Floyd down as he gasped for air under the knee of” Derek Chauvin, another former Minneapolis police officer. Chauvin was sentenced in July to 21 years in prison after he plead guilty in May to two counts of deprivation of rights under color of law.
Kueng’s accepted the plea deal on the first day of scheduled jury selection in his trial. While Kueng accepted a plea deal, former officer Tou Thao agreed to a stipulated evidence trial. Though Kueng’s plea deal states prosecutors will only ask the judge to issue a verdict against him for aiding and abetting second-degree manslaughter, “they could theoretically reinstate the murder charge.”
The fourth former Minneapolis officer involved in George Floyd’s death is Thomas Lane. In May, Lane pleaded guilty to second degree murder and was sentenced in September to three years while already serving an 18-month “federal sentence for violating Floyd’s civil rights.”