•  J Alexander Kueng entered a guilty plea to a state charge of encouraging second-degree homicide.
• He was one of four officers involved in the 46-year-arrest, old’s which was seen on camera by onlookers.
• When Mr. Floyd was handcuffed and lying on his back, police shot and killed him in May 2020.

For his part in George Floyd’s death, a former Minneapolis police officer who knelt on Mr. Floyd’s back was given a three-and-a-half year prison term.

In October, J Alexander Kueng entered a guilty plea to a state charge of encouraging second-degree homicide.

He was one of four officers involved in the 46-year-arrest, old’s which was seen on camera by onlookers.

When Mr. Floyd was handcuffed and lying on his back, police shot and killed him in May 2020.

His passing caused widespread indignation and a surge of protests against racial injustice and excessive force by the police.

Kueng will serve his new state-related sentence alongside a prior federal sentence for Mr. Floyd’s civil rights violation.

Derek Chauvin, a former police officer, was found guilty in April 2021 of state murder and manslaughter for putting his knee to Mr. Floyd’s neck for more than nine minutes and was given a 22-and-a-half-year prison term. In addition, he is currently serving a 20-year term for federal civil rights violations for which he entered a guilty plea in December 2021.

Thomas Lane and Tou Thao, two other responding policemen, and Kueng were all found guilty of federal civil rights violations in February. During the attempted arrest, the cops were accused of displaying “deliberate indifference to [Mr Floyd’s] significant medical needs.”

Kueng and Lane are shown assisting Chauvin by helping to hold Mr. Floyd down in the arrest video. In the meantime, Thao kept curious onlookers away. Lane and Kueng each had a field training officer named Chauvin.

Along with Chauvin, the other cops involved received terms for the federal offences that ranged in length:

Due to his inaction, J Alexander Kueng received a 36-month sentence.
Tou Thao received a 42-month prison term. He is still the target of the state’s investigation.
Thomas Lane is currently serving a three-year state sentence for second-degree manslaughter while also serving a two-and-a-half-year term.

Prosecutor Matthew Frank stated in court prior to the sentencing that Kueng “was not merely a bystander in what happened that day,” but rather played a “active part.”

Kueng chose not to address the court personally, but Thomas Plunkett, his defence lawyer, contended that both city and police officials had “failed” Mr. Floyd, Kueng, and the neighbourhood.

The sentencing, according to the lawyers for George Floyd’s family, was “yet another piece of justice for the Floyd family.”

Although the family will be spending yet another holiday season without George, they continued, “We hope that moments like these continue to provide them a measure of peace, knowing that George’s death was not in vain.”

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