UNITED STATES—Former Minneapolis Police Department Officer, Thomas Lane, 37, was dismissed from the Hennepin County Jail at 4:08 p.m. on Wednesday, June 10, according to the jail’s roster. Lane was placed in custody on Wednesday, June 3. He was dismissed on a $750,000 bail with conditions including supervision, no firearms, and no law enforcement work. Lane’s bail was set at $1 million without conditions.
Lane was one of the four former Minneapolis Police Department Officers involved in George Floyd’s arrest. It was the rookie’s fourth day at the time of the incident.
The four officers including Lane, Derek Chauvin, 44, Tou Thao, 34, and J. Alexander Kueng, 26, arrested Floyd, 46, on May 25. During the arrest, Chauvin used a knee-to-neck restraint for a total of 8 minutes and 46 seconds which resulted in Floyd’s death. Floyd was arrested on suspicion of using a counterfeit $20 bill. The other three officers, including Lane, were charged with aiding and abetting second-degree unintentional murder and aiding and abetting second-degree manslaughter. The other officers involved in the incident are still in custody with Chauvin’s bail set at $1.25 million. If convicted, Lane could face 40 years in prison under Minnesota law.
During an interview with The Sun on Tuesday, June 9, Thomas Lane’s attorney, Earl Gray said, “You’ve got a 20-year cop in the front, and my guy’s [Lane] back there with four days, ‘Shall we roll him over?,’ and he [Chauvin] says ‘No, we’ll wait for the ambulance’ twice, and then he [Lane] says ‘He’s suffering from a delirium.’ I don’t know, I don’t know what, what you’re supposed to do as a cop.” Gray continued to defend Lane by saying, “He was helping the officer on a guy that was resisting the arrest.”
According to a news release from the City of Minneapolis, the Minneapolis City Council sanctioned the proposal of a restraining order “outlining immediate changes that must be implemented by the Minneapolis Police Department and a framework for systemic change as part of the long-term investigation underway by Minnesota Department of Human Rights” on Friday, June 5.
On Wednesday, June 10, Minneapolis Police Chief Medaria Arradondo announced that the force would be withdrawing from contract negotiations with the police union. In response, Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey tweeted: “We don’t just need a new contract with the police. We need a new compact between the people of Minneapolis and the people trusted to protect and serve – and we need to go farther than we ever have in making sweeping structural reform.”
Lane is scheduled for a hearing on June 29. According to the Star Tribune, Gray said Lane will be motioning to have the charges dismissed.
