Black police straddle line between race, duty over deaths

Associated Press

Jorge “Jinho” Ferreira feels the tension between being black and carrying a badge every day as a deputy in Alameda County, Calif.

“I feel like you have to prove yourself on every level,” said Ferreira, 39, who patrols about 30 miles east of San Francisco. “You have to prove yourself to the black community, you have to prove yourself to all of your co-workers, you have to prove yourself to society.”

With the nation roiled by two grand juries’ recent decisions not to indict white police officers in the deaths of unarmed black men, some black officers say that as they enforce the law, they wonder whether the system they’re sworn to uphold is stacked against black men.

In interviews conducted by Associated Press reporters across the nation, retired and active black officers expressed concern about how black men are treated by the largely white police forces in the United States, an issue that has led to protests alleging police brutality. The officers say they want change just as much as anyone else, and advocate for it where they can because they, too, have something to lose.

“A lot of us have sons, and we want to make sure our colleagues are treating our young boys with dignity and respect,” said Oakland Police Lt. LeRonne Armstrong, a 16-year veteran.

Since the summertime deaths of 18-year-old Michael Brown in Ferguson, Mo., and Eric Garner, 43, who gasped “I can’t breathe” while being arrested after allegedly selling loose, untaxed cigarettes in New York, thousands of people have taken to the streets to protest their deaths, the grand juries’ decisions — and the nation’s police forces.

Caught in the middle are blacks working in law enforcement. There were an estimated 55,267 African-Americans in local police departments and an additional 15,500 in sheriff’s departments in 2007, the latest information available from the Justice Department.

“We’re called things like Uncle Toms and traitors to our community, in spite of the fact that we sympathize or we agree with the anger that our community holds, because we feel that same anger,” said Noel Leader, a retired New York City police sergeant who in 1995 co-founded an advocacy group, 100 Blacks In Law Enforcement Who Care.