Thread by @doctorow

If you're following the wave of uprisings against racist police violence, you've probably heard that Derek Chauvin, the cop who murdered George Floyd, had a long history of criminal conduct, but was still carrying a gun, wearing a badge, and billing the taxpayer.

#acabspring

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Chauvin was no aberration. Minneapolis, like many cities, has a police crime problem - that is, a problem addressing the crimes committed by its own police force, thanks to a combination of impunity, white supremacy, opacity, and militarization.

pluralistic.net/2020/05/29/min…

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Even where police reforms are enacted, the forces ignore them...and get away with it. That happened in Minneapolis. As @MarshallProj documents, a half-decade after the DoJ investigated problems with Minneapolis's police, virtually nothing has changed.

themarshallproject.org/2020/05/28/bef…

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In Minneapolis, policing was supposed to be moderated by use-of-force guidelines (which officers ignored), "coaching" programs (which were inconsistent and chaotic), and automated misconduct detection (whose data the public can't see).

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As to why the cops got away with it, consider that the police union boss Lt Bob Kroll kept his job even after he showed up for work with a white power badge on his uniform.

files.courthousenews.com/2007/12/04/Mpl…

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You might have wondered why Chauvin's colleagues stood idly by as he committed murder in broad daylight. It's a little easier to understand when you know that some of those cops also had long histories of committing violent crimes with impunity.

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Like Officer Tou Thao, who knocked out Lamar Ferguson's arrest in 2017, but got to keep his job, even as the taxpayers of Minneapolis shelled out $25,000 to settle with Thao's victim.

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Minnesota's state legislature has failed to pass even one of the dozen+ police reform bills tabled in the state house. Meanwhile, the state's Peace Officers Standards and Training Board is a toothless tiger, with no power to sanction or remove criminal officers.

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There's a bipartisan consensus on impunity for criminal cops. Think of @BilldeBlasio blaming protesters after #NYPD officers drove their cruisers through a protest, re-enacting the murder of Heather Heyer.

theintercept.com/2020/05/31/nyc…

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Or consider how @amyklobuchar, who, as Minneapolis's top prosecutor, declined to prosecute Derek Chauvin, giving him license to commit a string of crimes that culminated in the daylight murder of George Floyd.

theguardian.com/us-news/2020/m…

eof/