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A jury has awarded $14 million in damages to protesters over the actions of police in Denver throughout demonstrations over the killing of George Floyd two years in the past.
One of many protesters’ attorneys, Timothy Macdonald, had urged jurors to ship a message to police in Denver and elsewhere by discovering town liable throughout closing arguments.
“Hopefully, what police departments will take from it is a jury of standard residents takes these rights very severely,” he mentioned after the decision.
Final 12 months Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin, who’s white, was convicted of homicide and jailed for 22 years over the demise of African American George Floyd throughout an arrest.
Floyd’s demise, which was filmed by a bystander in a video that went viral, sparked months of protests towards racial injustice and police brutality in the US and world wide.
Three former Minneapolis cops had been discovered responsible on Thursday of depriving Floyd of his rights by failing to offer support to the handcuffed Black man pinned beneath a colleague’s knee.
Additionally learn | George Floyd’s 4-year-old niece shot in her Houston residence
The jury additionally discovered that the conduct of officers Tou Thao, 36; J. Alexander Kueng, 28; and Thomas Lane, 38, brought on Floyd’s demise, a discovering that may have an effect on the severity of their sentence.
Talking to reporters after the decision, Brandon Williams, Floyd’s nephew, referred to as it a “small victory.”
“Typically instances, you already know, officers kill Black and brown women and men and we get little to no penalties,” Williams mentioned. “A whole lot of instances, we do not even get costs, not to mention a conviction.”
The case hinged on questions on when an officer has an obligation to intervene in one other’s misconduct. It’s a uncommon occasion of cops being held criminally answerable for a colleague’s extreme power.
All three males will stay free on bail pending their sentencing listening to, which has but to be scheduled.
Federal prosecutors argued in US District Court docket in St. Paul that the lads knew from their coaching and from “primary human decency” that they’d an obligation to assist Floyd as he begged for his life earlier than falling limp beneath the knee of the defendants’ former colleague, Derek Chauvin.
(With inputs from businesses)
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