Article by Kim Baker, “The Black Officer Who Detained George Floyd Had Pledged to Fix the Police,” tells the story of Alex Kueng. He was one of two black people along with the victim in case of the death of George Floyd. Though he aspired to work in the police force precisely because he wanted to fight police abuse of Blacks, he did not stop the actions, the result of which was the death of George Floyd. It subsequently led to the condemnation of Keung by society, his family, and friends (Baker). Thus, the article allows concluding that the police system cannot be reformed from within.
Keung went from trying to fix what he perceived as a racist and broken police system from within to facing charges of second-degree murder and second-degree manslaughter because he was trapped in police culture. Specifically, Baker cites Michelle Gross, president of Communities United Against Police Brutality, that a person cannot change the system because police culture suggests that a junior officer impermissible to interfere with a senior. In addition, police critics have argued that the fact that any junior officer’s failure to obstruct Chauvin’s actions shows that the police system needs a significant overhaul (Baker). As a consequence, I think that the police system cannot be changed from the within, as Keung originally aspired to but failed.
To summarize, the police department cannot be reformed from within. To overcome the issue of police brutality against Black people, it is necessary to act from the outside, namely to develop legislation, which will prevent such cases in the future. In particular, laws of this nature have recently been passed in some states, and others should follow them to finally solve the problem of incidents of racism in the US police.
Work Cited
Baker, Kim. “The Black Officer Who Detained George Floyd Had Pledged to Fix the Police.” The New York Times, 2020.