The federal trial of three former Minneapolis police officers who are charged with failing to stop Derek Chauvin from killing George Floyd resumed today. Much of the testimony presented by the prosecution has focused on the legal duty to prevent a fellow officer from using excessive force. The defense argues that the three officers, two of whom were rookies at the time of Floyd's arrest in May 2020, understandably deferred to Chauvin, the senior officer at the scene, as he pinned Floyd facedown to the pavement for nine and a half minutes.
The crucial question for the jury is whether J. Alexander Kueng, Thomas Lane, and Tou Thao "willfully" deprived Floyd of his constitutional rights by failing to intervene and/or render medical aid. But the trial also raises the broader question of how police officers can be encouraged to stop their colleagues from violating people's rights, especially when the perpetrator outranks them and is presumed to know more about proper procedure. A training program that has taken off in the wake of Floyd's death aims to answer that question by providing officers with the practical skills they need to intervene in situations like this.
