"One night, after a grueling shift, two white DPD officers pulled me over. I was still in uniform, badge affixed to my chest and a #2 pin on my collar, indicating that I worked in the 2nd Precinct. I identified myself as a fellow officer, thinking they would see me as an equal. Instead, one pointed his gun at me and said, “Tonight you’re going to die, n-----,” before discharging his weapon. I dove back into my vehicle and miraculously managed to escape. I realized then that not even our shared uniform could save me from their racism. And I wondered that if they were willing to shoot and kill a black police officer, what were they willing to do to black civilians?
As a supervisor a few years later, I stopped a group of officers from beating three black teens. I was finally in a position to hold them accountable for their excessive use of force. But my precinct commander yelled at me for attempting to "ruin the lives of those good officers." I witnessed this kind of complicity repeatedly. When other officers reported abuse, as they should, they were ostracized, transferred to lesser assignments and treated so poorly that many quit." -
Isaiah McKinnon is a retired chief of the Detroit Police Department, retired associate professor of education at University of Detroit Mercy and former deputy mayor of Detroit.
Here is the article from USA today
