Given the sheer cyber-tonnage of commentary on Day #1 of the Derek Chauvin trial, I think it’s safe to say, Minnesota has never had as big a moment in the international spotlight as this one.
There are a half-dozen primary lines of thought based on what this will all mean when it comes to, you know, actually doing something to rein in police violence. But to date none of those lines have included the facet of the case that keeps flaring up in my mind.
It goes like this: Alerted that a guy … may … have tried to pass a bogus $20 bill, three cars and six cops (four MPD and two Park Police) roll up in response. Within seconds of confronting the “perp”, one of the cops, a rookie, a high school drop-out with seven convictions on his own criminal record and fresh off recent employment as a bartender and telemarketer among nearly a dozen other, shall we say, “low expertise” jobs, is dropping raging f-bombs and waving a gun in the man’s face.
But leading this pack of public servants protecting the city from bad $20 bills is the alpha dog who at that moment is engaged with his wife in a $460,000 fraud against the IRS, a.k.a. other citizen-taxpayers of the US of A.
And that guy, sunglasses stylishly perched on his head, grinds his knee into the then suspected $20-passer … until he kills him.
The deceased, George Floyd, had fentanyl in his system. And that has been accepted as valid evidence. It’s suggestive of a reckless life-style. But I haven’t been able to find where Officer Alpha Dog, Mr. Chauvin’s, hefty tax fraud, a crime in straight monetary terms 23,000 times larger than Mr. Floyd’s has been allowed in as a statement of Chauvin’s character.
I’ve belabored this point before, but if this trial leads to any improvement in the quality of police work, a basic, fundamental issue is attracting, vetting and training … a better quality human to be cops.
Forget Chauvin for a second. Are guys like Thomas Lane, the ex-bartender/telemarketer waving a gun and cosplaying a Joe Pesci sidekick from “Goodfellas”, or Mohammed Noor, feaked out, trigger-on-the-finger assassin of a nice lady in her pajamas, or Jeronimo Yanez, panicked, finger-on-the-trigger killer of a guy out riding with his girlfriend and daughter really the best we can come up with?
Is police work — with loaded guns — really no more consequential than bartending, hawking extended car warranties, or patrolling warehouses after dark? If you can handle one of those you can be a cop?
If so … well cities are going to have to get used to paying out $20 million, $27 million on a fairly regular basis. Put another way, characters like Noor, Chauvin, Lane and on and on … and on and on … are without question the most expensive employees on any city’s payroll.
If higher salaries and better benefits are needed to attract better quality people, which is to say people with qualifications for something other than telemarketing, bartending and mall cop(pery) to become licensed and armed law enforcers, how much would $47 million cover?
As I say, this is just me and it doesn’t even seem to be a facet of the case thus far.
But I’m having a hard time ignoring it.
Brian, you are right on. Why don’t you send this as a letter to the editor of the Strib? It should be put more into the collective subconscious of the population! Thanks!
The Strib and I live on different planets. But I appreciate the thought.
As always you make me think. Spend those millions up front for better pay and training. Cops teachers healthcare workers grocery workers sanitation workers all those people out front doing hard with with the public should be paid what Wall Streeters are paid and vice versa.
Even if they never get to the pay of hedge fund managers — who contribute SO MUCH to social welfare — what better quality person could you get if you offered 20% more, and much more serious psychological vetting?
On the money, as usual, Man. “characters like Noor, Chauvin, Lane and on and on … are without question the most expensive employees on any city’s payroll.” Cities should think about how much they pay teachers and how carefully they vet cops.
It’s gob-smacking how often the cops involved in these kinds of things have more or less the same resume. It’s like policing is “employment of last resort.”