Breaking Rank (21 page)

Yet my cops had told the truth. That should count for something. It was a hopeful sign. Maybe the real progress of the Kolender administration up to that point had been to cultivate a deeper level of honesty—essential to combating racism. (True, the Southeast cops had been promised no discipline, that the investigation was less an inquisition than an inquiry, an effort to learn what was really going on in our police department.) In any event, we were now in possession of
facts,
not speculation. There would be no “King's X” for offending officers, no excuse or free pass in the future. The kind of behavior these cops described would, from that point on, land them in the unemployment line. Or in jail.

Tom was wrong. Our efforts would not be for nothing. We would root out racists, overhaul our policies and procedures, make systemic changes in training and supervision and accountability. The “Southeast Investigation” was, I thought, not the worst but the best thing to happen to our police department since the invention of the two-way radio.

The first order of business was to let the world know what we'd found. At the end of my 114-page report, I wrote:

            
Having concluded its investigation, the department must now make a decision. Should the results be made public? I think that the circumstances argue for release. What will come as
news
to the public is not that problems exist (the minority community is acutely aware of them) but, rather, that we care that they exist and are doing something about them. We have nothing to be ashamed of, or defensive about. This is probably the only police department in the country that has undertaken such an exhaustive process of
self
-examination in the field of race relations.

I never thought the case for making our findings public would turn into a battle, but it did. And I lost it. Kolender ordered all copies of the investigation rounded up and all lips sealed. When I asked him why, he replied, “Because we'd look like fifteen cents if we put that information out.”

“We'll look like a dime if we don't,” I said. “And it's bound to get out.”

The article that appeared in the
Evening Tribune
a year later wasn't that bad. It was obvious the reporter, Ozzie Roberts, had gotten hold of someone's executive summary, not the whole fifteen-cent can of worms. What he wrote was hardly flattering, though certainly more benign than it might have been. It did not, for example, repeat the litany of racial epithets. And, he did give us credit for taking on the problem ourselves.

Of course, we would have gotten a lot more mileage out of it if we'd only been as forthcoming as our cops.

The Southeast Investigation was conducted over thirty years ago. Three decades may sound like a long time, but in the parallel struggles for racial justice in America and for the “professionalization” of policing it's little more than the blink of an eye. The fight for racial equality has taken forever in this country, and the battle is far from won, especially in policing.

What would we find today if such an investigation were replicated in San Diego? Or New York, Philadelphia, Chicago, Omaha, Cincinnati, Miami, Houston, Los Angeles, Seattle? What have these and other agencies done to combat racism in the ranks? What makes chiefs and mayors believe today's police officers are all that different from those of the seventies? Do their cops provide equitable service in all communities? Do they respond rapidly and vigorously to crime in black neighborhoods? Do they follow proper procedures in stop-and-frisks, collecting evidence, making arrests? Do they refrain from excessive force? Have they dropped the unwritten law against “BBN”?

Not likely. The Neanderthal spirit is alive and well in America's police
departments. Los Angeles cops, for example, used their MDTs (mobile data terminals) to send car-to-car messages about “gorillas in the mists” at the time of the Rodney King incident (1991). After O. J. Simpson was acquitted, one of my veteran cops in Seattle was inspired to use his own MDT to enlighten peers about the differences between white and black juries. (I took him off the streets and “constructively terminated” him, meaning he quit before I could fire him.) The King beating, the Diallo and Louima incidents in New York, the profiling cases on the New Jersey turnpike—all make it clear that racism continues to thrive in policing.

But what of the higher echelons of police leadership? Just two years before the Southeast Investigation, Kolender's predecessor, Chief Ray Hoobler, had this answer to a subordinate's sycophantic suggestion that he run for mayor: “Can't do it. I don't like the niggers and the Mexicans don't like me.” A commander, years after that same investigation, sat a captain down in his office and told him he wanted something done about the “nigger whores” downtown.

I know several white police chiefs who are authentic, effective leaders in the effort to combat racism in their departments and within their local communities, but I know just as many who are either overt or closet racists. Or who are numbingly ignorant of their own insensitivity to racial issues. They give themselves away when they make Daryl Gates–type statements (who can forget his comparison between blacks and “normal” people?). They let slip a “good-natured” slur at an all-white Rotary meeting. They get defensive if not combative when one of their own shoots an unarmed black man and the community demands answers.

Most white chiefs fall in the middle, of course. They think things are fine, and they see no racial divide. To them, policing is “color-blind.” To them, I say take off your blinkers and have a look around. If they're open to it these chiefs will see evidence of racism within their departments. If this troubles them they'll set nonnegotiable standards for performance and conduct—at all levels. They'll provide “diversity” training, “cross-cultural relations” training. But they'll also let it be known that they will
fire
cops, including ranking officers, who use racial and ethnic slurs or who engage in racist practices.

I'm proud of the actions my old department took on the heels of the
Southeast Investigation. The first thing Kolender did was reissue a statement he'd made when he became chief: “These walls have heard for the last time the ‘N' word. You will treat
everyone
with dignity and respect. If you can't do that, Convair's hiring.”
Most
people got the message.

At that point in my career I'd been a cop for ten years. I decided to trade my captain's authority for greater influence within the broader institution of policing, thinking I'd wind up teaching and consulting. I resigned my police officer commission at the conclusion of the Southeast Investigation. But the city manager and the chief hired me back—as the PD's ombudsman, and it was in that capacity that Kolender assigned me to oversee and facilitate organizational changes designed to root out racism.

I headed up two groups, one of rank-and-filers, the other of department brass. We examined policies, procedures, training, equipment, supervision, discipline, performance evaluations, and promotions—and sought the kind of deep
systemic
changes required to give spine and muscle to our good intentions. Here's what we came up with.

       
•
  
Modifications to the recruitment, testing, and screening of new officers to specifically target racial attitudes and behavior;

       
•
  
All-new academy curricula on cross-cultural relations, interpersonal relations, and communications skills—much of it taught by teams of police, academic, and community experts;

       
•
  
A program that put police recruits into social service agencies in the black community for two weeks at a time,
sans uniform,
to experience life through the eyes of the residents;

       
•
  
Ongoing in-service training in performance expectations for supervisors and veteran cops;

       
•
  
Debriefings for officers involved in traumatic incidents;

       
•
  
Analysis and reporting of suspected individual and organizational patterns of racial discrimination;

       
•
  
A “beat tenure” program that examined officers' ongoing fitness for duty in ethnic minority communities;

       
•
  
Systematic and spot inspections of arrest quality, crime reporting, and courtroom testimony;

       
•
  
A requirement that supervisors investigate all instances of rumored or suspected excessive force;

       
•
  
A department-wide program of physical fitness, combined with a requirement that officers meet job-related standards of physical strength and agility;

       
•
  
Training to help internal investigators distinguish between “discourtesy” and racial discrimination;

       
•
  
Outfitting every patrol car with a shotgun; and, of course:

       
•
  
The discharge of employees who used racial slurs, or who otherwise demonstrated contempt for the rule of law in policing ethnic minority communities.

Shotguns?
How, you may ask, does providing cops with twelve-gauge shotguns foster improved relations between a predominantly white PD and a black community?

One of the things we had wanted to learn from the Southeast Investigation was whether our cops had the confidence needed to work effectively in a black community. So we asked questions about training, one-versus two-officer patrols, equipment, and so forth. When it came to the question of equipment the cops let me have it with both barrels: feeble police cars, too many miles on them; broken-down seats; bare retreads; filthy interiors; catalytic converters that produced excessive heat in the passenger compartment; an absence of light bars and handheld spots; not enough walkie-talkies to go around; no semiautomatic pistols, no canines, no saps, no tape recorders, no binoculars, no night-viewing devices, no photographic equipment, no print kits, no this, no that. But the biggest no was no shotguns.

There are good reasons in both urban and rural communities for cops to carry shotguns, locked and loaded, in their patrol cars—and no good reason not to. But my department had for years nurtured a list of pathetic excuses for not providing them: They were bad for our image; they were too costly; and, most telling: you couldn't trust the cops. Our officers had heard all these excuses for years. I figured the purchase of shotguns would buy
much-needed credibility for an administration poised to come down hard on police racism and other misconduct. Besides, it was the right thing to do.