Given his track record, Mr. Kueng thought he had the ability to bridge the gap between the black and white worlds, Jones said. I often did not see the same level of racism that friends felt. Mr. Jones, who is black, recalled a road trip a few years ago to Utah with Mr. Kueng, a white friend, and Mr. Kueng’s girlfriend, who is Hmong. Mr. Jones said he had to explain to Mr. Kueng why people were looking at the group.
“Once we got to Utah, we walked into a store and literally all eyes were on us,” recalled Mr. Jones, whose skin is darker than Mr. Kueng’s. “I said, ‘Alex, that’s because you’re walking here with a black person. The reason they are looking at us is because you are here with me. “
By February 2019, Mr. Kueng had made a decision: He signed up as a police cadet.
Just a few months later, his brother Taylor, a former Black Lives Matter advocate who had volunteered as a counselor at a black heritage camp and as a mentor to black youth at risk, had a confrontation with police.
Taylor Kueng and a friend saw local sheriff’s deputies questioning two men in a downtown Minneapolis shopping district about drinking in public. They intervened. Taylor Kueng used a cell phone to record a video of the agents who put the friend, in a striped summer dress, on the ground. “You’re hurting me!” shouted the friend.
As the confrontation continued, a deputy turned to Taylor Kueng and said, “Put your hands behind your back.” “For what?” Taylor Kueng asked several times. “Because,” said the deputy, threatening to use his Taser.
Taylor Kueng called home. Mr. Kueng and his mother rushed to get bail and then to jail. “Don’t worry, I have you,” Mr. Kueng said to his brother, hugging Taylor, his mother recalled.
Mr. Kueng reminded his brother that they were sheriff’s deputies, not the force in the city he joined, and criticized their behavior, his mother recalled.
