I’m a White Cop and I Support Black Lives Matter

On Friday morning, I woke up and deactivated my Facebook account, frustrated by the highly charged rhetoric coming from friends and activists on opposing sides of the Black Lives Matter versus Blue Lives Matter divide. Over the weekend, in the wake of the Dallas shootings, I watched along with the rest of the country as renewed protests and hundreds of arrests took place. The stark exposure of our national fault lines is distressing, and while there is hope, you have to search hard to find it.

I'm a retired police professional, a 20-year veteran of California law enforcement. I'm also a criminal justice reform activist, a board member of Law Enforcement Against Prohibition (LEAP). So the diversity of my social media friends reflects my values—values that now appear to be at war with each other.

I greatly fear that the violence of this past week will further exacerbate the deep divides in our society. The loss of five police officers protecting Black Lives Matter protesters in Dallas can now be added to the losses of the scores of people of color, including Alton Sterling in Baton Rouge and Philando Castile in Minnesota, who have recently fallen victim to the troubling state of police-community relations in America—and yes, in too many cases, to law enforcement strategies based on structural racism. Every one of these deaths is not only tragic in itself, but also further poisons relations and entrenches opinions.

Influence and Vice-

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