Cop/Substitute Teacher Reenacts George Floyd Murder With Black Student, Says ‘Police Brutality Isn’t Real’

Not all cops are terrible people, but a whole lot of terrible people seem to be cops.

For some reason, a police officer (who has not been officially identified by the district) has a side gig as a substitute English teacher. I don’t know what qualifications this officer brings to that job, but absolutely none of them were on display last week, when he earned himself a permanent ban from the district for “teaching” anything but English to an English class at Woodbury High School. (h/t Chris Ingraham)

A substitute teacher has been banned from a Twin Cities metro area school district after reportedly using a student to reenact the police actions that led to the murder of George Floyd.

The teacher also reportedly made racist and sexist comments to students at Woodbury High School on Monday, among other actions that prompted school officials to remove him from the school.

“It was very disturbing to us as a school district that something like that would ever occur in one of our classrooms,” South Washington County Schools Superintendent Julie Nielsen told MPR’s Minnesota Now on Wednesday, adding that in more than 30 years as an educator, “I have never heard of such poor judgment in a classroom.”

We’ve always taken the position that putting cops in schools is a generally terrible idea, but that was in the context of cops handling the disciplinary issues that have been historically handled by teachers, parents, and school administrators. Going forward, we will be taking the position that putting cops in classrooms as instructors is generally a terrible idea, pretty much entirely because of this guy: Officer Steven Dwight Williams of the Prescott, Wisconsin police department (as reported by the Minneapolis Star-Tribune) has been outed by his employer, which has placed him on administrative leave. What he was doing offering his dubious English teaching skills to a school in a suburb of St. Paul, Minnesota is anyone’s guess.

That being said, the reporting from MPR leaves something to be desired in terms of its cop-washing of the most eye-grabbing part of Officer Williams’ teaching methods: “reenact the police actions that led to the murder of George Floyd.” No, he absolutely performed the very act that murdered George Floyd, using a Black high school student to represent the Black adult murdered by Minnesota police officer Derek Chauvin. Much like Chauvin, Officer Williams’ reenactment of a murder performed by a police officer was captured by a bystander’s phone:

But even that line is better than the phrase used in the Woodbury News Net’s coverage of this debacle:

Substitute Teacher Banned After Allegedly Reenacting George Floyd Restraint At Woodbury High

First, there’s footage of the incident and the verification of every student in the class. There’s also the letter sent to parents of students at the school, which affirms this did, in fact, happen. Finally, calling a murder a “restraint” may be technically accurate, but it downplays the insanity of this reenactment, which was performed by a cop, utilizing a Black student. It’s like teaching history by “reenacting” a lynching — but at least in that case, it might have something to do with the subject being taught. This ain’t English. And neither is anything else that fell out of that cop’s mouth during what is hopefully his final substitute teacher job ever.

This is from the letter/email sent to parents by the district, which includes a long list of other terrible things Officer Williams did during the four classes he taught that day.

During class time, some of the things students reported were that the substitute teacher:

● Put a student on the ground in front of the class as part of a reenactment of the police actions that resulted in the murder of George Floyd.
● Twisted a student’s arm behind the student’s back and showed pressure points on the chin and face.
● Spoke about a bar fight and fake punched a student with his fist “really close” to the student’s face.
● “Invaded students’ space” and mimicked holding up a gun and pointing it at students.
● Repeatedly made racially-harmful comments.
● Told sexist jokes.
● Spoke in disturbing detail about dead bodies he had seen, and shared explicit details about two sexual assault cases he investigated.
● Shared specific names of people he arrested.
● Stated that “cops would be the best criminals” and that “they know how to get away with stuff,” stating that he once got an “A” on a paper about how to get away with murder.
● Spoke at length about his gun collection.
● Stated that “police brutality isn’t real.”

That’s insane. Unless the purpose of the class was to instruct students that cops are terrible, untrustworthy people, there’s no way anyone came away from these classes with a better understanding of the subject matter. And I can only imagine how horrified the person Officer Williams replaced must be at this development, if only because it’s clear he didn’t follow the lesson plans they left for him.

How this guy has held down this side gig for multiple years is beyond my comprehension. This can’t be the only time he decided to regale classes with his cop-centric view of the world. Or maybe this was just the day he decided he wanted to get fired and decided to drag four consecutive classes down with him. Either way, more schools should probably start running background checks on their substitute teacher rosters. Administrators probably assumed someone with a law enforcement background would be a solid pick for open teaching slots. That assumption has now been completely undermined by one officer’s actions. Maybe no other cop/sub would do things this officer did. But as cops themselves will tell you when they’re trying to impose their will on you, better safe than sorry.