I have spent the last 35 years of my life working with and advocating for law enforcement officers. During that time I’ve developed a profound appreciation for the work that they do for all of us - work that is dangerous, stressful and for the most part extremely unpleasant. Because of my unusual access to the people who work in this inaccessible profession and the fact that most people’s experiences with police officers are negative (either they are a victim of a crime and the cops didn’t show up or they were arrested for something they don’t think is warranted) perception of cops among most Americans is not a positive one. Because I was fortunate to work with them closely over three decades and saw the remarkable work that they do, I feel I have an special obligation to share that information.
In my twenties, I accepted a part time job working on an early community policing project with the Boston Police Department. Bill Bratton who would go on to become the chief in Boston, New York City and Los Angeles, was my boss. It was the mid-70’s and the relationship between the Department and the residents of the city was tense. A federal court ruled Boston schools were unconstitutionally segregated and ordered students bused to schools outside their neighborhoods to correct the situation. Anger, particularly, in the white neighborhoods, resulted in near-riots and numerous incidents of violence.
My job was in a busy police station (I had never known a cop or stepped foot in a police station) in one of the city’s most crime-ridden areas. At that time there were very few women or minorities on the force. There were 200 cops assigned to the station where I worked most of whom were Irish, Catholic and very outspoken about their conservative views on everything from the Vietnam War, to women’s rights (one cop didn’t think “girls” should have driver’s licenses) to homosexuality. It was quite a culture shock for a liberal-minded young woman who came of age in the 60’s to find herself plopped down in the middle of this strange world.
I worked there for three years, facilitating meetings, cajoling cops to attend and hear the concerns of the residents, buying coffee cakes, and making coffee. During that time I had an opportunity to see first hand what police officers do for us day in and day out, an experience that left me with a profound admiration and respect for the difficult job they do and the restraint, humor and humanity I saw them show day after day as they dealt with the homeless, the mentally ill, rapists, armed assailants, drug dealers, gangs and a whole range of garden variety crooks.
Despite the right wing rhetoric, I saw more acts of human kindness and sacrifice than I had ever witnessed among my liberal, Volvo-driving, wine sipping neighbors in my exclusive Cambridge neighborhood near to the Harvard campus where my husband Jim was a professor of economics at the Harvard Kennedy School. I will never forget the time I came back to the station and an older officer was sobbing – the kind where your whole body heaves – after returning from a call where he found a three month old baby dead in a bathtub. The day of Christmas eve the first year I worked there I saw one officer take home a particularly violent 11 year old (boy was black officer was white) so he wouldn’t have to spend Christmas eve in a cell. This cop had six children of his own. Then there was the policeman who was reading the book, Against Our Will, Men, Women and Rape, Susan Brownmiller’s seminal history of the crime of rape, after he responded to a brutal sexual assault of an older woman near a church. When I asked him about it, he seemed a little embarrassed. He told me, “I’m just trying to figure out why it would happen. My daughter told me to read this book.”
Along with getting to know these wonderful people, most of whom became close friends, I loved the action. Every day some disaster was occurring whether it was a particularly bad crime, political meddling in their work, a brouhaha with the media, outrage over something that happened in court, or frustration with an investigation. In between there’s also the funny stuff, things that happen that are so hilarious you laugh until you cry.
Another thing I wanted to share was the disconnect between what was reported in the media and what was really going on, particularly if the incident had racial overtones. A watershed experience for me occurred when we had to hold a meeting in a neighborhood that was almost all African-American just a week after two white Boston cops shot and killed a 12 year old African-American boy. The news reports indicated a race riot was imminent. The department sent more than the usual contingent of uniformed officers expecting there might be trouble. As we entered the church basement, the crowd stood and applauded. As we stood there dumbfounded, they presented a list of four other kids who were making life intolerable for them and asked the cops if they could get them “off the street” too. The officers spent the rest of the meeting explaining why that was not an option.
After three years working in that police station I knew I was going to spend my life advocating for cops. I especially felt I had an obligation to introduce Americans to these wonderful people and let them know about the incredible work they do so we can live free of fear and protected from the evil and violence that is such a constant in American life.
That’s why I wrote this book.
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