MINNEAPOLIS — The federal civil rights trial against three former Minneapolis police officers was postponed until Monday after one of the officers tested positive for COVID-19.
Just as court was to start Wednesday, Judge Paul Magnuson announced that one of the defendants had tested positive for COVID-19. There was no official confirmation of which defendant had the virus, but pool reports from the courtroom said both J. Alexander Kueng and Tou Thao were seen Wednesday morning and Thomas Lane was not.
It's not the first time a COVID-19 diagnosis has interrupted a federal trial in Minnesota. In 2020, a juror tested positive with the virus in the middle of proceedings for a man who orchestrated the bombing of Bloomington's Dar al-Farooq Islamic Center in 2017. Judge Donovan Frank suspended the trial for two weeks to allow the juror to isolate.
