The black and the blue A cop reveals the crimes, racism, and injustice in America's law enforcement

Matthew Horace

Book - 2018

"Matthew Horace was a law enforcement officer at the federal and local levels for twenty-eight years, working in nearly every state in the country. Yet it was after seven years of service, when Horace found himself with a gun pointed at his head by a white fellow officer, that he fully understood the racism seething within America's police departments. Using gut-wrenching reportage, on-the-ground research, and personal accounts garnered by interviews with police, government officials, and law experts around the country, Horace presents an insider's examination of America's police culture and policies, which he concludes is an "archaic system" built on "a toxic brotherhood." In this deeply revelatory b...ook, Horace dissects some of the nation's most highly publicized police shootings and provides fresh analysis of issues that drive disproportionate numbers of black men to be killed by police and incarcerated in cities such as Ferguson, Baltimore, Cleveland, New York City, Tulsa, and Chicago. Horace uncovers what has sown the seeds of rage and violence. Timely and provocative, [this book] sheds light on what truly goes on behind the blue line."--Dust jacket.

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Subjects
Genres
Autobiographies
Published
New York : Hachette Books 2018.
Language
English
Main Author
Matthew Horace (author)
Other Authors
Ron Harris (author)
Edition
First edition
Physical Description
xvi, 238 pages ; 24 cm
Bibliography
Includes bibliographical references (pages 227-236).
ISBN
9780316440080
  • The boogeyman
  • Being black in blue
  • Who matters most?
  • The system
  • The conspiracy
  • We can't be made whole
  • A culture of criminality
  • Culture versus strategy
  • A murder in Chicago
  • The cover-up
  • Damage control
  • The journey forward
  • At the end of failing systems
  • Epilogue.
Review by Booklist Review

*Starred Review* Horace, a contributor to CNN and the Wall Street Journal, has the hard-earned credibility to write about the racism and injustice endemic to policing since he, an African American, had a decades-long career in law enforcement. Horace started as a street cop in Arlington, Virginia, in 1986, learning firsthand about how bias infects police work. An opening anecdote in which Horace learns about his own biases during a domestic-violence call is especially gripping. Horace's career in law enforcement was wide ranging, including stints serving as a special agent and, later, senior executive with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives. For this hard-hitting, convincing indictment of the biases in today's law enforcement, Horace, with coauthor Harris, conducted interviews with approximately 100 cops, officials, community advocates, and survivors of police shootings between 2015 and 2017. The book skillfully weaves together Horace's own harrowing and enlightening experiences with the stories and reflections of those interviewed. Police shootings get special attention, with Horace showing how bias escalates danger. A must-read for anyone interested in understanding and solving these problems, which, Horace emphasizes throughout, start with unearthing our own implicit biases. The book ends with one of Horace's favorite quotes: Nobody can do everything, but everybody can do something. --Fletcher, Connie Copyright 2010 Booklist

From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review

The hidden dysfunctions in American policing are laid bare in this searching exposé. Horace, a former agent with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives and a CNN analyst, explores the "implicit bias" and overt racism that makes black people the targets of profiling, harassment, beatings, and unjustified gunfire from cops. He surveys a horrific litany of recent police killings of unarmed, unthreatening African-Americans, revisiting notorious cases like the Michael Brown shooting in Ferguson, Mo. (he doesn't opine about the killing, but probes the abusive ticketing of black citizens to drum up city revenue that preceded it and the leaving of Brown's body in the street following it), and the Laquan McDonald shooting in Chicago, after which public outcry forced officials to release damning video evidence that revealed a police cover-up and led to an officer being indicted for murder. Horace adds his own fraught experiences: as an officer for 28 years, trying to defuse violent situations and almost getting shot by a white cop who assumed that he was a perp; as a civilian, getting mauled by a police dog and stopped, while driving, for spurious reasons that his white friends never experienced. Horace and coauthor Harris write sympathetically of the dilemmas of policing, but are uncompromising in their indictment of abuses. Horace's street cred and hard-won insights make this one of the best treatments yet of police misconduct. Agent: Carol Mann, the Carol Mann Agency. (Aug.) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.

(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Review by Kirkus Book Review

An impassioned memoir focused on policing's fraught relationship with communities of color and other marginalized groups.Writing with Harris, CNN and Wall Street Journal security contributor Horace vividly depicts the surreal challenges faced by African-Americans in law enforcement following a distinguished career: "I've been part of the best and worst that my noble profession represents." Writing with deep knowledge and concern, the author argues that unequal policing based on ingrained racial bias and the drug war is even more pervasive than the attention paid to the Black Lives Matter movement and flashpoints like the killing of Michael Brown would suggest. "Despite claims to the contrary," writes Horace, "Black Lives Matter is not anticop." Rather, it is an outgrowth of long-term alienation that white communities fail to perceive, due to disparate approaches to policing that often come to light in cases of brutality. The author focuses on the evolution of tactics relative to the post-1960s war on drugs, agreeing with many scholars that a narrative of punitive enforcement followed by mass imprisonment crippled minority communities following the civil rights era. While his tone is knowing and restrained, he appears anguished by the long-term arc of mistreatment and mistrust within black communities; he looks at specific policies and places, creating a somewhat meandering structure. He notes how Ferguson cops used aggressive tactics to generate revenue for years prior to the Brown killing. He also examines New Orleans to illustrate entrenched departmental corruption that culminated in several notorious police-involved murders. In Chicago, he explores a city in crisis due to intractable violence in segregated neighborhoods and an egregious excessive-force killing followed by a political coverup. There, as elsewhere, he concludes, "African-Americans and Latinos want a leader who will bring more fairness to policing." Horace includes interviews with other cops, emphasizing diverse outlooks and deepening his perspective effectively.An astute, unvarnished account that should stand out from the crowd of pro- and anti-law enforcement books. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.