ONE of the police officers charged over the death of George Floyd isn’t to blame because he didn’t “have a real good view” of what was going on and bystanders should have intervened, according to his attorney.
Former Minneapolis police officer Thomas Lane is one of three officers charged with aiding and abetting second-degree murder.
Earl Gray, the attorney representing Mr Lane in the matter, appeared on “Cuomo Prime Time” on Monday night to discuss Mr Floyd’s May 25 arrest.
Mr Gray argued that Mr Lane didn’t “have a real good view” of what was going on because he was busy holding down Mr Floyd’s feet and another officer was positioned between him and officer Derek Chauvin.
Chauvin, who knelt on Floyd for more than eight minutes, has been charged with second-degree murder.
Mr Gray argued that any bystanders filming the arrest should have intervened.
“If the public is there and they’re so in an uproar about this, they didn’t intercede either,” he told CNN.
Cuomo immediately interrupted: “Two things — one, you’re laying on a man’s legs, you’ve got a fine view of what’s going on with that man,” the host said.
“The other officer is literally a foot in front of you on his neck.
“Two, I understand that he has a senior officer telling him what to do, but there’s also a duty to intervene. And if that officer is doing something that is dangerous to a civilian, you have a duty to intervene, and he did not intervene.
“And the idea that the civilians should have rushed in to a policing situation in the inner city of Minneapolis against four police officers that have weapons and are kneeling on the neck of a man — don’t you think that’s asking a little much of civilians and a little too little of your client?”
Mr Gray appeared to then back pedal on the statement, saying: “Absolutely. I’m not, I just brought that up.”
Backlash on social media was swift with one user noting “death is not consequence for resisting arrest”.
“If bystanders rushed Derek Chauvin, they would have been shot,” another wrote.
“What an absolutely ridiculous thing to say.”
One person said: “Earl Gray wants to hold bystanders to a higher standard to intervene with police brutality, than… *wait for it*… the trained law enforcement professionals to NOT murder people”.
During the interview, Mr Gray also said Mr Lane twice asked whether Mr Floyd, 46, should be rolled over onto his side when Mr Chauvin, a more senior officer, knelt on the victim’s neck and killed him. He claimed Mr Lane showed compassion by calling the ambulance and performing CPR on Mr Floyd.
The complaint against Mr Lane notes that he asked about rolling Mr Floyd on his side and wondered about delirium, but went on to say that he “took no actions to assist Mr Floyd, to change his position, or to reduce the force the officers were using against Mr Floyd”, AP reports.
Mr Gray also insisted bodycam footage will clear his client of culpability over Mr Floyd’s death, which sparked protests across the world.
He was still on probation when he was fired on May 26 and had only worked four shifts with the force, CBS reports.
However, public records show that Mr Lane racked up more than a dozen criminal charges and traffic citations and was convicted of seven charges, Insider reports.
Four of the charges were relating to traffic violations and two were parking-meter violations, according to the outlet.
In October 2001, Mr Lane was reportedly charged with two counts of obstructing legal process, damaging property, unlawful assembly and disorderly conduct.
He was convicted of one count of obstructing legal process and one charge of damaging property.
Then in March 2007, Mr Lane faced misdemeanor charges of hosting a noisy party and disorderly conduct and was found guilty of the noise-gathering charge, the outlet said.
