FILE PHOTO: Former Minneapolis police officers (clockwise from top left) Derek Chauvin, Tou Thao, Thomas Lane and J. Alexander Kueng poses in a combination of booking photographs from the Minnesota Department of Corrections and Hennepin County Jail in Minneapolis, Minnesota, U.S. Minnesota Department of Corrections and Hennepin County Sheriff's Office/Handout via REUTERS.
(Reuters) – The former Minneapolis police officer charged with the May 25 killing of George Floyd, and three other former officers charged in the case are expected to appear in court on Monday.
Derek Chauvin, 44, was arrested on May 29, four days after he pinned his knee into Floyd’s neck for nearly nine minutes, causing his death. He is facing a second-degree murder charge.
Three other former Minneapolis police officers, J. Alexander Kueng, Tou Thao and Thomas Lane, have been charged with aiding and abetting in the case. None of the officers have entered a plea.
Bail for Chauvin was set at $1.25 million or $1 million under certain conditions, while bail for the other three officers was set at $1 million each or $750,000 under certain conditions.
Chauvin and Thao, 34, remain in custody, while Kueng, 26, and Lane, 37, have been released on conditional bond, according to jail records.
Monday’s court proceedings in Minneapolis will not be broadcast following a judge’s ruling on Friday. Chauvin will attend the hearing remotely via a video link, while the other three defendants will appear in person, according to the court’s website.
The death of Floyd, 46, sparked nationwide protests calling for racial justice and police reform.
Earlier this month, the Minneapolis City Council unanimously passed a resolution to pursue a community-led public safety system to replace the police department.
The move came days after a veto-proof majority of the council voted to disband the police department in the wake of Floyd’s death.
The movement to “defund the police,” as some advocates have termed it, predates the current protests but it has won new support after a spate of recent killings of African Americans by white police officers that were caught on video.
In Atlanta, a white former police officer is in custody after he was charged with the murder in the shooting death of Rayshard Brooks, a Black man.
One of three officers involved in the shooting death of Breonna Taylor, a Black woman killed in a hail of gunfire when drug investigators burst into her home in Louisville, Kentucky, three months ago was dismissed from the police department last week.
(Reporting by Maria Caspani in New York and Nathan Layne in Wilton, Connecticut,; Editing by Marguerita Choy)
