Thomas Lane is one of the three officers who were with Derek Chauvin when George Floyd died. Lane was fairly new to police work when the Floyd incident occurred, having been working as an unsupervised officer for only four days. He twice asked to reposition Floyd but was denied by Chauvin both times. Lane also went into the ambulance to assist with CPR on Floyd.
All three officers were brought up on state charges and federal charges, which meant two trials: one in federal court and one in state court. All three officers were found guilty in the federal trial which I sketched this past February.
In the state case, Lane broke from the other two officers and decided to plead guilty. He agreed to accept a sentence for “aiding and abetting second-degree manslaughter” in exchange for the state dropping the murder charge against him. As a result he was sentenced to only serve two years behind bars. He has a newborn baby, which factored into his decision to accept the plea deal rather than to risk being found guilty in trial and receiving a longer sentence.
On July 21, 2022 Lane was sentenced to two-and-a-half years in Federal court, to be served concurrently with his two-year state sentence. The sentencing lasted about an hour. I was able to crank out two sketches:
