Thomas Lane, Officer Charged in George Floyd’s Death, Released on Bail

One of the four former Minneapolis police officers involved in the arrest and resulting death of George Floyd has been released on bail. Thomas Lane posted $750,000 bail and was released on Wednesday afternoon, having served precisely one week behind bars, according to E! News.

“Thomas has bailed out,” attorney Earl Gray told the outlet. “We are happy that he’s out. It’s much easier to defend a client who’s out of jail. Now we can defend the case as we intended to.” Lane was arrested on June 3, along with Tou Thao and J. Alexander Kueng, who were also present during Floyd’s arrest on Memorial Day. All three are all currently facing charges of aiding and abetting. Derek Chauvin, who pressed his knee against Floyd’s neck for nearly nine minutes, was previously arrested on May 28 and is currently facing charges of second-degree murder and manslaughter.

Lane’s family had also set up a crowdfunding site in an attempt to raise money for him to post bail. The fundraiser site notes that Lane had only been on duty for four days before to Floyd’s death, and was simply deferring to Chauvin, his superior. It also claims that Lane “used his voice not once, but multiple times, to plead with senior officer Chauvin and the other officers to roll Mr. Floyd to his side,” as well as claiming he tried to revive Floyd in the ambulance later. In the video, he was seen holding Floyd down at one point.

Gray, the attorney for Lane, had a heated exchange with Piers Morgan during Monday’s episode of Good Morning Britain. Morgan had repeatedly pressed Gray on why the former officer didn’t do more to help Floyd. “You know, it’s really too bad you’re so opinionated. Because you’re wrong,” Gray fired back. After the host confirmed that he does, in fact, have an opinion on the issue of another black man dying while in police custody. “Oh really, now you bring the race issue into it,” Gray went on. “There’s no race issue here. Two of the four officers — one is black, the other is Asian. Answer that one.”

Floyd’s death on May 25 has since sparked nearly two weeks of protests in cities across the U.S. and the world, calling for an end to police brutality and a radical transformation of police forces in general. Some cities, including Minneapolis, have already begun to implement these changes.