Black and Blue

• Author: Jeff Pegues
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/puar.12755
• Published date: 01 March 2017
• Date: 01 March 2017

164 Public Administration Review • March | April 2017

Public Administration Review,

Vol. 77, Iss. 2, pp. 164–165. © 2017 by

The American Society for Public Administration.

DOI: 10.1111/puar.12755.

Jeff Pegues is the justice and homeland

security correspondent for CBS News, and

author of Black and Blue: Inside the

Divide between the Police and Black

America. He has participated in closed-

door interviews with FBI director James

Comey, CIA director John Brennan, and

DHS secretary Jeh Johnson. He orchestrated

interviews with chiefs of police following

Michael Brown ’ s death in Ferguson,

Missouri, and covered all angles of the

Charleston, South Carolina church killings.

Prior to joining CBS News, Pegues spent

10 years at WABC-TV in New York. He is

recipient of three Emmy Awards, numerous

Emmy Award nominations, and the Sigma

Delta Chi Award from the Society of

Professional Journalists.

Perspective

N ow that the Trump Administration

has taken over the reins of the Justice

Department, it is unclear if the

recommendations of President Obama ’ s Task

Force on 21st Century Policing will ever be fully

implemented. It offered several recommendations,

including Building Trust and Legitimacy,

Community Policing and Crime Reduction, as well

as Officer Training and Education. A quote from

former President Obama, featured prominently in

the more than 100-page report, underscores what he

believed should drive progress on the issue: “When

any part of the American family does not feel like it

is being treated fairly, that ’ s a problem for all of us.”

Black Americans have felt unfairly targeted by

police officers for decades. Police tactics like “stop

and frisk” essentially sanctioned unlawful stops.

Other tactics deployed by police departments to

drive down crime drove a wedge between cops and

the community. Since 2009, more than 25 pattern

and practice investigations into police departments

found that a virus of unlawful police behavior and

insufficient training had spread to departments across

the country, the symptoms of which began to appear

in cell phone videos, surveillance cameras, and dash

cams. Once the video went viral, then there was

no hiding what many in the black community had

feared and suspected for some time: justice was being

delivered unfairly.

Local officials are well aware of the cost of inaction

on this issue. In New York City, for example, before

stepping down in September, Police Commissioner

William Bratton put the NYPD on course for a

new form of policing. He moved away from “stop

and frisk” to what he believed was a more laser-

like focus on a small group of criminals, rather

than targeting a general population. It seems to be

working. New York City is experiencing historic

drops in crime.

1 According to the NYPD, there

were 335 murders in 2016, compared with 352

in 2015. That is a nearly 5% decrease, as well as

a reduction in the friction with communities of

color.

In Chicago, reform seems to be moving at a slower

pace. Cops admit that they are making fewer arrests,

as crime goes through the roof. In 2016, Chicago

had 762 homicides.

2 That was a 57% surge over the

year before. The shooting of LaQuan McDonald by

Officer Jason Van Dyke still haunts the department

and the city. McDonald was shot 16 times by the

officer. The incident was captured on a dash cam

recording that was not released to the public for

more than a year. Investigations in Chicago have

uncovered a police culture that lacks accountability.

3

Police officers were not being held responsible for

violations of protocol or for breaking the law. Dean

Angelo Sr., president of the Chicago Fraternal Order

of Police, believes a more rigorous disciplinary process

might have prevented a situation like the McDonald

shooting.

However, Angelo also says reform cannot happen on

the backs of police alone. He insists that too often

society leans on cops to solve issues a lot deeper than

fighting crime. “We can ’ t fix your kid. We can ’ t raise

them. We can ’ t fix your marriage. We can ’ t get you a

job. We can ’ t fix your addiction,” he says. “Everybody

wants us to do everything now because everything is

related to crime and statistics and the people that are

on the streets wind up at the wrong end of a police-

involved shooting.”

Any solution to this divide between black and

blue requires understanding. There is a long and

complicated history behind what we are seeing unfold

in places like Chicago, Baltimore, and Ferguson.

Acknowledging that reality may save lives on both

sides of this emotional divide, which is why there are

those who believe an open and honest dialogue may

be needed now more than ever. The president of the

International Association of Chiefs of Police may

have been trying to spark that conversation late last

year when he acknowledged the history of police in

Jeff Pegues

CBS News

Black and Blue