Month: February 2022

On Thursday, the three former Minneapolis police officers involved in the killing of George Floyd were found guilty of violating his civil rights by a federal jury. The jury — made up of four men and eight women — found Tou Thao, 36, J. Alexander Kueng, 28, and Thomas Lane, 38, guilty of depriving Floyd of his civil rights by displaying deliberate indifference to his medical needs as former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin knelt on Floyd’s neck for more than 9 minutes in the May 25, 2020, killing. Thao and Kueng were also found guilty of an additional charge of failing to intervene to stop Chauvin. Lane did not face the additional charge.

Chauvin was found guilty of second-degree manslaughter, second-degree murder and third-degree murder in April 2021.  He waived his right to trial by pleading guilty to one count of violating Floyd’s rights. Prosecutors said the three officers ignored their training as they failed to intervene with Chauvin and mocked and refused to help Floyd as he lay dying under the officer’s knee. They also noted the trio had the ability and duty to render aid to Floyd as he repeatedly complained he couldn’t breathe as Chauvin had him pinned down with a knee on his neck — but chose not to.

The Justice Department states that violating a person’s civil rights is “punishable by a range of imprisonment up to a life term, or the death penalty, depending upon the circumstances of the crime and the resulting injury, if any.”  However, federal sentencing guidelines suggest the officers could receive a lesser sentence.

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The Group of Seven economic powers announced economic sanctions on Thursday in an attempt to stop President Vladimir Putin’s assault on Ukraine. Thursday’s measures did not target the Russian president personally, but Biden said sanctioning Putin is “on the table”. The US move comes after Russia launched a large-scale military operation in Ukraine late on Wednesday.

European countries began imposing sanctions on Russia over the invasion on Thursday, with the United Kingdom announcing measures targeting dozens of Russian banks, businesses and wealthy elites, and banning Russia’s national airline Aeroflot from the country’s airspace.

At an afternoon news conference from the White House on Thursday, President Joe Biden announced new sanctions against Russia, vowing to impose a “severe cost” on the country for its invasion of Ukraine. Biden voiced support for Ukraine and said the sanctions package will limit international trade with Moscow and penalize Russian President Vladimir Putin’s inner circle. “Putin is the aggressor; Putin chose this war, and now he and his country will bear the consequences,” Biden said. The sanctions target four Russian banks that hold more than $1 trillion in assets, including the country’s largest bank, Sberbank. Biden also said the United States will halt more than half of Russia’s tech imports and sanction more Kremlin elites.

Ukrainian officials have said fighting also is taking place on the ground, with Russian forces on Thursday capturing the former nuclear power plant in Chernobyl, in the country’s north. Biden said American forces will not fight in Ukraine, which is not a NATO member, underscoring that the U.S. had sent additional troops to Europe over the past weeks, announcing the deployment of forces already on the continent to “NATO’s eastern flank allies, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland and Romania”.

https://abcnews.go.com/Business/wireStory/eu-plans-harshest-sanctions-package-russia-83079403

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