Paul (MN) native and former coworker/current friend of mine, who's living only miles away from the epicenter of the current civil unrest.Īs is pointed out by my friend and BuzzFeed, the city tried to curb the baser instincts of officers by steering them away from training that teaches them to treat everyone they run into as a violent threat. Melissa Segura has written a piece about Bob Kroll's involvement in making the Minneapolis PD worse (along with the general terribleness of police unions), but my first exposure to Bob Kroll's awfulness came via a St. But he is locally infamous as the face of police misconduct - a man who aligns himself with President Trump and his glorification of cops and their violence. Police Officers Federation of Minnesota leader Bob Kroll may not be as nationally famous as Pat Lynch or Ed Mullins. And it's led by someone on par with those fronting the NYPD's police unions - the unions that have routinely disparaged the public, the press, and city leaders for daring to criticize any officers' actions. Should they manage to somehow get fired, they head directly into arbitration, arguing for their reinstatement against city officials who have to work with at least one arm legally tied behind their back. They also have union-appointed legal reps at their disposal and a contractual burial of paperwork detailing their previous misdeeds.
The average cop accused of a crime usually has a day or two free from tough questions to get their story straight. The average perp is dragged downtown and sweated down by interrogators until they crack. Police unions - which have little in common with the labor unions that have put some employees on more equal ground with their employers - have ensured officers are extended a ton of extra rights to help them escape accountability for their abuses of power. Whitewashing police misconduct is par for the course. But that's no guarantee he won't end up a cop again, even if he ends up convicted. Officer Derek Chauvin, whose brutal killing of a black man has provoked a national civil uprising, may be criminally charged at the moment. The biggest impediments to serious police reform are the shields erected around them, preventing officers from being held responsible for just about anything.