Ask yourself why you know the name and face of the Black cop who distracted the nazis on the stairs but you can’t recall the names or faces of any other cops involved in the events of that day.

Do you know the names of the cop who took the selfie? The cop who gave the nazis directions? No? Why do you suppose that is?

How about the supervisor of the Black cop from the stairs? The one in charge of that squad? The one who somehow let a Black cop get stuck by himself?

How did that Black cop’s name get released to the public? Who released it? Did he want his name public? Is that helpful to him or his family?

Does it help someone else? A large group of people perhaps, who the public increasingly despises and says they’re all bastards?

Have you found it just a little harder to say ACAB since then? Have you started “ACAB except…”?

Whom does that help?

I’m just asking questions.

It also misses the point and is incorrect. Can a cop do their job correctly for five minutes in a televised national emergency and still spend the rest of their career doing what cops do? Letting other cops off the hook for crimes because of the system? https://twitter.com/cecconi140/status/1351287565018607617

Imagine you’re a police chief. Reporters keep calling you asking for explanations about this, y’know, COUP. You dodge them for hours as footage appears on TV of your coworkers helping nazis find their way to assassinate congresspeople. WHAT TO DO?

And then… a miracle. A video surfaces, of a Black cop leading nazis up the stairs. Confusing at first glance, doesn’t look good, but someone explains that hallway layout to you, and you recognize what’s happening. That cop is a HERO. The new face of the Capitol Police force!

You call back that last TV reporter. You tell them you have a video clip they’re gonna love. You explain the context. It’s a great story. They run with it. They ask for the cops’s name. Being a hero is a good thing, right? You tell them his name without hesitation.

You spend the next hour on the phone, calling back every news agency that asked for a quote. You tell them about the HERO COP. They eat it up.

“No one can say ACAB now,” you think, satisfied. “Not today. Not for a long time.”

But some pesky reporters still want to know about the other cops. The white ones. The ones who didn’t do so much. And who was in charge. You send them a dramatic forward-facing still image of the HERO COP, wearing a mask, smart, selfless, bravely fending off attackers.

This story is fiction. I made it up. I’d tell you what really happened if I knew. If I had access to the information. If it had been reported and repeated sufficiently for me to learn it.

Why wasn’t it?