By Jonathan Allen
ST. PAUL, Minn. (Reuters) -Two former Minneapolis police officers, Tou Thao and J. Alexander Kueng, told a U.S. judge on Monday they planned to testify in their own defense against federal charges that they violated George Floyd’s civil rights during a deadly 2020 arrest.
A lawyer for Thomas Lane, the third police officer on trial at the U.S. District Court in St. Paul, had previously said Lane would also testify in his own defense, but told Judge Paul Magnuson on Monday that Lane was still considering his decision.
Derek Chauvin, the white police officer convicted at a separate state trial last year of murdering Floyd, has already pleaded guilty to federal charges of violating the 46-year-old Black man’s civil rights by failing to give medical aid.
(Reporting by Jonathan Allen; Editing by Leslie Adler and Jane Wardell)