Though it’s billed as part memoir, part polemic
on the jacket flap, I’d definitely place this book more in the polemic category. Norm Stamper’s Breaking Rank iterates his opinions on policing in five loosely organized categories with several chapters for each: crime and punishment, cop culture, police department structure, oversight of police, and departmental and city politics. Most chapters in these sections are illustrated with his own experience on the subject. A few of the chapters are devoted almost wholly to major experiences in Stamper’s career: when he shot and killed an unarmed man, his year infiltrating protest groups, and running the Seattle Police Department during the riots at the Seattle W.T.O. ministerial conference in 1999. Stamper espouses liberal, reformist ideas and presents them well in this engaging but cursory survey of policing from his perspective.
First off, a couple of caveats about my own perspective. I’m born and raised Seattle. I spent a few years in Idaho, but Seattle is home. I’m liberal. Seattle liberal. And my brother works as a police officer in the Seattle P.D. He started after Norm Stamper resigned following W.T.O. so his stories don’t cover the period about which Stamper writes. But I do hear stories about police work.
The first section is mostly Stamper’s political opinions on law enforcement policies that many folks are discussing: the drug war
(decriminalize), prostitution (decriminalize), domestic violence (not treated as important as it should be), capital punishment (against), and gun control (for). His opinions here are only worth note because his views are opposite the general perception of what the police think. Police are the law and order people, so they should be for more law and more order. While I agree with him on every one of those ideas save that of gun control where my opinion is muddled, I thought Stamper’s arguments were not persuasive. He might have better arguments, but the length of these chapters precludes them from being elaborated.
The second section on cop culture I found a lot more interesting. While his views on marijuana legalization get more notice, this part is a real inside look, albeit of two nicer police departments in the U.S., San Diego and Seattle. Topics covered here include sexism, the blue wall of silence
, and doughnut eating cops. But what struck me most were his thoughts on police racism. He wrote something that he admits he can’t back up with data, but which intuitively makes sense to me.
Simply put, white cops are afraid of black men. We don’t talk about it, we pretend it doesn’t exist, we claimcolor blindness, we say white officers treat black men the same way we treat white men. But that’s a lie. In fact, the bigger, the darker the black man the greater the fear. The African-American community knows this. Hell, most whites know it. Yet, even though it’s a central, if not the defining ingredient in the makeup of police racism, white cops won’t admit it to themselves, or to others.
So, why am I so certain that white cops are afraid of black men? Because I was a white cop. In a world of white cops. For thirty-four years.
From the earliest days of academy training it was made clear that black men and white cops don’t mix, that of all the people we’d encounter on the streets, he most dangerous to our safety, to our survival, were black men.
Legitimatekill or be killedevents do happen — far more often today than when I was a beat cop. A police officer would be a fool not to be ever vigilant. But I’m afraid this reality has licensed panicky white cops to shoot unarmed black men when they should be talking, or fighting, their way out of a sticky situation.
Stamper’s only data on this is his own experience and statistics about the U.S. population’s fear of blacks in general. In other words, not specific to police officers who have guns and can arrest people.
The last three sections the major viewpoint expressed is that the police should not follow the military command and control structure. It was necessary at one point to combat corruption and cronyism, but now other concerns need to be dealt with. Aloof, rigid police departments become separate from the people they police. Without engagement between communities and law enforcement, relationships between the two will deteriorate. And without that engagement, crime can’t be fought effectively.
Throughout all his pontificating, Stamper illustrates his arguments with experiences from his own career. A lot of this frustrated me, because Stamper only names names when it’s safe
to do so: the people are dead or he’s saying something nice or the person just won’t care what Stamper says (Rudolph Guiliani for instance). He’s tempers his criticism of police officers and officials individually while repeatedly calling for bad apples and people who don’t get with the progressive program to be removed. Perhaps you could have given a few examples, Mr. Stamper.
Who he’s hardest on in his personal stories is himself. After finishing, I can’t recall a single incident or story in the book where he claims he did well or credit for success. But he does include numerous stories of his own failures. Racist acts. Marital failure. In fact, the three big personal stories are all of failure of some sort. Killing an unarmed man. Spying unnecessarily on peaceful leftists. Presiding over the W.T.O. debacle. None of them ended up with happy people.
And in one way I’m fairly annoyed with him. After retiring, he’s taken his ball and gone home so to speak. He’s gone from urban to rural, now living in the relatively inaccessible San Juan Islands. He’s active in some causes, particularly marijuana legalization. The challenges of criminal justice are urban, racism in particular. I don’t think they can be combated from the reaches of northern Puget Sound. If he’s committed to these issues, I think he ought to come back to the city.
One other blogged review:
Title: Breaking Rank: A Top Cop’s Exposé of the Dark Side of American Policing
Author: Norm Stamper
Imprint / publisher: Nation Books / Avalon
Format: Hardcover
Length: 396 p.
Publication date: May 2005
ISBN-10: 1-56025-693-1
Subject: Police — United States
Subject: Police — Job stress
Subject: Police misconduct
Subject: Police — California — San Diego
Subject: Police — Washington (State) — Seattle
LC classification: HV8138 .S673 2005
