Fuck the police?

 "Fuck the police," one of my daughters is shouting on the streets of Oakland.

But "the police" are not all alike.  They are not a monolith.

This story on the front page of today's New York Times shows that each of the four cops who took park in the lynching of George Floyd on May 25 is a unique person with a complicated history.

Two had been on the street as officers less than 4 days.  They both had BA degrees from the University of Minnesota in sociology of law, criminology, and deviance. 

Criminology.  When you really study criminals and deviance, you find out that the line between regular people and criminals is not that clear.  It's easy to step over into a crime, to become a deviant.  And there are a lot of factors that go into making a criminal--causing someone to consider committing a crime and maybe even "just do it."

Both of these rookies during that 8 minutes and 46 seconds told Derek Chauvin more than once, "You shouldn't do this." 

But they understood that he was their training officer, and they didn't go further to stop him.

In retrospect, I'm sure they wish they had shoved him off George Floyd.  Now they are charged with a serious crime--aiding and abetting in a second-degree felony murder.

Lane didn't graduate from high school but later did volunteer work with Somali youth.  

After stocking shelves at Target, 26-yr-old Kueng attended the University of Minnesota, as did Lane.  He is in part African-American.  He took classes in Russian and in World Religions.


Thao, a Hmong ethnically, has held a job since he was 14 years old.  He had six complaints filed against him during his eight years as an officer.

Thank you to the reporters who did the interviews and writing for this article: Kim Barker, John Eligon, Richard A. Oppel Jr., and Matt Furber.  Just as "the police" are not all evil, these members of "the media" are each working hard to give us the information we need.  

Thomas Lane

 Here's info on Thomas Lane.

Read more on the NYT website: "This Case Is Already Different: The Police Are Breaking Ranks."

J. Alexander Kueng

Instead of yelling, "Fuck the police," we could increase the educational levels, training, and hiring standards of the police.  

We could address the social and mental causes of persons breaking the law, rather than expecting police to handle everyone who steals or kills someone or causes a public nuisance or destroys public property.

We could even abolish the police--defund them partly or totally, creating other social systems to take on all their responsibilities.

But it's irresponsible just to shout on the street or on social media, "Fuck the police."

Tu Thao

Paragraphs on Thao,
and below, on Chauvin.

Derek Chauvin