Former Minneapolis police officers J. Alexander Kueng, Thomas K. Lane and Tou Thao were at the scene with Derek Chauvin and are accused of violating Floyd’s civil rights

Opening statements began Monday in the federal trial of three former Minneapolis police officers charged in the killing of George Floyd.

Former officers J. Alexander Kueng, Thomas K. Lane and Tou Thao were at the scene with Derek Chauvin during the May 2020 arrest that led to Floyd’s death and stand accused of violating the Black man’s federal civil rights. The trial is likely to test the question of what responsibility police officers have in reining in the behavior of colleagues.

It is the first of two expected trials this year for the ex-officers, who are also facing state charges of aiding and abetting murder and manslaughter in Floyd’s killing. That trial is scheduled to take place in June.

Kueng, Lane and Thao have each pleaded not guilty in both cases. All three have signaled through their attorneys that they are likely to place the blame for Floyd’s death on Chauvin, who was convicted in April on state charges of second-degree unintentional murder, third-degree murder and second-degree manslaughter and sentenced to 22½ years in prison.

Chauvin pleaded guilty last month to separate federal charges that he violated Floyd’s constitutional rights when he knelt on the man’s neck and back for about 9½ minutes as Floyd begged for breath. He is awaiting sentencing in that case.

A federal grand jury indicted Chauvin, Kueng, Lane and Thao in May on charges that they violated Floyd’s constitutional rights when he was restrained and handcuffed face down on a Minneapolis street during an investigation of an alleged counterfeit $20 bill.

Kueng, Lane and Thao were charged with failing to render medical aid to Floyd. Kueng and Thao were also charged with violating Floyd’s right to be free from unreasonable seizure by not intervening as Chauvin knelt on Floyd’s neck and back.

The federal case is expected to be dominated by evidence that has already been introduced in the state case — including extensive footage of Floyd’s final minutes taken from bystander video and police body cameras. Many of the same witnesses who appeared in the Chauvin trial are expected to testify — including Darnella Frazier, who was 17 when she recorded the viral video of Floyd’s final minutes, and medical personnel who responded to the scene.

Kueng and Lane had been full-time officers for less than a week when they encountered Floyd as they responded to a 911 call about a counterfeit $20 bill that had been passed at Cup Foods, a local market. Body-camera video from the scene showed Lane pull a gun on Floyd within 15 seconds of encountering the man in a parked car, without announcing who he was or what he was investigating.

Chauvin arrived on the scene a few minutes later with Thao as Lane and Kueng struggled to place Floyd, who was handcuffed, inside a squad car. Body-camera video shows Floyd complaining of claustrophobia and ultimately being placed face down on a city street, with Chauvin pressing his knees into Floyd’s neck and back, Kueng atop Floyd’s back and Lane holding the man’s legs. Thao stood a few feet away, pushing back bystanders who increasingly pressed the officers to get off Floyd as he began to lose consciousness.

Video shows Floyd complained at least 25 times of not being able to breathe — cries the officers dismissed even as the man went limp.

Lawyers for Kueng and Lane have argued that their clients were following orders from Chauvin, a 19-year member of the department who had been Kueng’s field training officer and informally advised Lane during his probation period.

Lane, who was holding Floyd’s legs, twice asked Chauvin whether they should reposition Floyd — requests that his lawyer says prove that he tried to intervene with a senior officer but was rebuffed. Kueng later checked Floyd’s pulse — twice telling Chauvin that he couldn’t detect the man’s heartbeat. But Chauvin did not remove his knees from Floyd’s body until nudged by a responding paramedic.

Thao claimed in a 2020 interview with state police investigators that he was unaware of what was going on behind him because he was too focused on the growing crowd. But his body-camera video appears to show him turning to look back at the other three officers atop Floyd several times.

A major question as the trial begins is whether Chauvin will be called as a witness in the case.

In his plea agreement last month, Chauvin said he heard Kueng tell him that Floyd no longer had a pulse. Chauvin also said he heard Lane ask him whether Floyd “should be rolled onto his side.”

But Chauvin said he “did not observe” Kueng, Lane or Thao “do or say anything” to get him to lift his knees from Floyd’s body — a claim that could prove pivotal in the cases against those former officers.

Last week, U.S. District Judge Paul A. Magnuson, who is overseeing the federal case, told prospective jurors to completely put aside their personal views and what they knew about Chauvin and the charges against him. “That is a completely different case,” the judge told jurors.

A panel of 12 jurors and six alternates was picked for the case Thursday — a selection that took just one day, compared to the two weeks it took to seat a jury in the Chauvin murder trial. The seated jury included seven women and five men. The six alternates included three men and three women. While the federal court did not release demographic information about the jury, pool reporters inside the courtroom said the panel appeared to be majority White.

The jury pool was picked from across Minnesota — a region that is more conservative and White compared to the state’s Hennepin County, where Chauvin’s trial was held. Most on the seated panel come from counties in and around the Twin Cities, but there are also jurors from places including Jackson County, along the state’s southwestern border with Iowa, and Olmsted County, in southeastern Minnesota.

Prosecutors are expected to take about a half-hour to deliver their opening statement. That will be followed by opening statements from the attorneys for Kueng, Lane and Thao, who each told the judge last week they planned to speak for about 20 to 30 minutes apiece.

Unlike Chauvin’s state trial, which was live-streamed, the latest proceedings won’t be televised because of a federal ban on cameras in the courtroom. The trial is being held in a seventh-floor courtroom inside a heavily fortified federal courthouse in downtown St. Paul. Layers of security fencing have been erected around the building, and surrounding roads have been closed amid concerns over protests.

Magnuson has repeatedly urged lawyers on both sides to act with speed, citing concerns about the spread of the coronavirus. Earlier this month, the judge said he hoped to finish the case in two weeks, though he later estimated a four-week trial during jury selection.