PebHmong Discussion Forum
General Category => General Discussion => Topic started by: theking on June 28, 2020, 10:37:56 PM
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The Black Officer Who Detained George Floyd Had Pledged to Fix the Police
MINNEAPOLIS — There were two black men at the scene of the police killing in Minneapolis last month that roiled the nation. One, George Floyd, was sprawled on the asphalt, with a white officer’s knee on his neck. The other black man, Alex Kueng, was a rookie police officer who held his back as Mr. Floyd struggled to breathe.
Mr. Floyd, whose name has been painted on murals and scrawled on protest signs, has been laid to rest. Mr. Kueng, who faces charges of aiding and abetting in Mr. Floyd’s death, is out on bail, hounded at the supermarket by strangers and denounced by some family members.
Long before Mr. Kueng was arrested, he had wrestled with the issue of police abuse of black people, joining the force in part to help protect people close to him from police aggression. He argued that diversity could force change in a Police Department long accused of racism.
He had seen one sibling arrested and treated poorly, in his view, by sheriff’s deputies. He had found himself defending his decision to join the police force, saying he thought it was the best way to fix a broken system. He had clashed with friends over whether public demonstrations could actually make things better.
Joni Kueng, mother of Alex Kueng, one of the police officers arrested in the death of George Floyd, held a photo of Mr. Kueng and his siblings when they were younger.
(https://static01.nyt.com/images/2020/06/28/us/28unrest-kueng-p1/merlin_173379090_b4abd1d3-c5f5-4f72-9a99-d2cb3d676c46-jumbo.jpg?quality=90&auto=webp)