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- [00:00]
Chenjerai Kumanyika
Wondry subscribers can binge all episodes of Empire City early and ad free. Join Wondry in the Wondry app or on Apple Podcasts. It's the last day I'm working on this show, and I'm sitting in a totally silent room with ornate wooden bookshelves, mahogany tables, and a folder full of old letters. I'm at the research room in the Brooklyn Historical Society and I finished my work here, but there's one letter I'm having trouble putting down. It's a faded 61 year old letter from my father. The letter describes an incident of police brutality and announces that core, the Congress of Racial Equality, is going to protest at a police precinct. Dear sir, on behalf of the victim of the brutal and inhuman experience described in the enclosed fact sheet, the letter says, we're demanding an end to this cruel treatment of citizens by law enforcement officers. From Birmingham to the Bronx on February 14th, my father demands an investigation and that any officers found guilty should be fired and prosecuted to the full extent of the law and that justice be done. It's addressed to the governor, the mayor, and three the police commissioner, the FBI, the US Justice Department, and the UN Commission on Human Rights. A month after writing this letter, my dad and other activists handcuffed themselves inside an NYPD precinct to protest, and a surveillance video of him inside that precinct is one of the first things I found on this journey. In that video, he's moving and I can see his face up close. But somehow, even though this letter is just type words on a page, it makes me feel closer to him than that video. This letter helps me see him, but not through their lens. I'm reading his words and hearing his voice in my head explaining why he was there. And it's deep to hold this letter in my hands, knowing that in 1964 he held it in his hands before he sent it out in response to my dad's peaceful protests. The police commissioner said he was one of the three most dangerous men in New York, and the reason why he was so dangerous was because he was pushing for change the wrong way, the inconvenient way. And that's something a lot of folks in power see as a threat. When you ask them, well, what's the right way to make change? A lot of times they'll tell you you should just work within the system. You got a problem with the police, why don't you join the force, be the change you want to see. Because maybe if more black people could be police, the cops might be less racist, less scared, and more connected. To the community. And maybe that could keep us safe. If you look at the NYPD today, it seems like the folks that wanted that got their wish. Today, the chief of the police department, the deputy commissioner, and of course the mayor, a former police officer, are all black men. The NYPD loves to show off this diversity, but what it doesn't love to show off is how hard and long it fought that diversity. And as New York's police pushed back against integration, they built themselves into a muscular political force that could silence critics and shut down any calls for change from wondry and crooked media. I'm Chenjerai Kumanyika, and this is Empire City. Episode 8 Stay Dangerous Imagine for a moment that you're leaving work late one night in New York City. You're headed to a saloon to meet your partner. But when you get there, there's a problem. That's the situation a black man named Arthur Harris finds himself in way back in 1900.
- [04:30]
Khalil Gibran Muhammad
As he approaches, he notices a random white man accosting his girlfriend. So he challenges this guy like, hey, man, take your hands off of her.
- [04:39]
Chenjerai Kumanyika
It's not just any white guy, though. Historian Khalil Gibran Muhammad says the man Harris challenges is an undercover police officer named Robert Thorpe.
- [04:48]
Khalil Gibran Muhammad
The two of them begin to fight because, of course, the black man is defending his girlfriend. He doesn't know right now that it is a cop. The police officer clubs Harris, and Harris responds by knifing Robert Thorpe.
- [05:09]
Chenjerai Kumanyika
That's a risky move because even though Harris doesn't realize the man is a cop, stabbing any white dude as a black man back then was dangerous, and stabbing a cop even more so. Then things get worse.
- [05:30]
Khalil Gibran Muhammad
The police officer dies the next day, and it sets off a riot where the newspapers reported that something like 10,000 white men took to the streets, attacking random black people wherever they could find them. Black men and women are pulled out of buildings. They're just randomly beat. On street corners, there are ubiquitous cries to lynch people. 600 police reserves are called out to stop the violence.
- [06:03]
Chenjerai Kumanyika
When the police get there, they see white people chasing black folks. But instead of stopping them or arresting.
- [06:08]
Khalil Gibran Muhammad
Them, policemen would join in the chase of the frightened colored man, catch him, club him if he resisted, and then drag him away to the police station. It was the worst racist violence directed towards black people since the draft riots of 1860.
- [06:32]
Chenjerai Kumanyika
This incident has become known as the Tenderloin Riot. And when it finally dies down, as usual, members of the black community start organizing. They form a group called the Citizens Protective League. They gather first Person accounts of police brutality and other hate crimes during the riot so that everything the cops did is on the record. And when the cops try to lie about it, the survivors have all the receipts. Some call for black folks to arm themselves, strap up and form self defense committees. Other folks call for a different solution. Maybe we wouldn't have all these problems with the police if we had some black cops on the force. It's not the first time black folks have called for this. But after the Tenderloin riot, it starts to gain a little more steam because this time the violent racism of white police is on full display in front of all kind of folks.
- [07:26]
Khalil Gibran Muhammad
So here you have journalists, white papers reporting on police officers joining in the pogrom against the black community, abusing them, accepting that white citizens have a right to punish them, and then arresting black people. Some newspapers actually called it a police.
- [07:45]
Chenjerai Kumanyika
Riot and it kicks off a pattern of riots, racist police responses, and more calls for black officers. When people talk about black cops being the solution to police brutality today, I kind of roll my eyes. But reading the stories back then, it's kind of moving to me to see black folks trying everything they can to make police work for us and believing or at least hoping that black cops might make us safer. But in the early 20th century, keeping black communities safer wasn't a priority for the folks in power. In 1909, a black preacher named Reverdy Ransom sends out a different kind of appeal. From the pulpit of New York's famous Bethlehem Church, Ransom preaches that it's time for the self respecting and law abiding members of the race to take a strong stand against the lawless Negroes of New York City. For Ransom, hiring black police officers isn't about ensuring the safety of the black community. It's about making sure that some black folks, the troublemakers, stay in their place. And that is a message white New Yorkers and some elite blacks can get behind. The sermon makes front page news in a black newspaper that's been taken over by Booker T. Washington. The New York Age blasts out the headline Negro police for New York Solution given for putting down lawlessness among Negroes and stopping fights with Policemen. For me to hear a black preacher in black newspapers talking about lawlessness among negroes is kind of infuriating. Like, what about the lawlessness of so called law enforcement? What about the lawlessness of the conditions folks are forced to live in? But the fear of rioting black folks finally moves city officials to say, we never said you can't have any black police if Black men think they can pass the police exam. They can try. And one black man is ready and willing to call their bluff. His name is Samuel Battle, and he'll become the NYPD's first black police officer. I learned a lot about Battle from a scholar and advocate named Natalie Shereau. Sherrow uses her research to fight false convictions in the criminal justice system, but she also has a deep connection to Sam Battle.
- [10:03]
Natalie Sherrow
I'm Samuel Battle's great granddaughter.
- [10:09]
Chenjerai Kumanyika
Battle died before Natalie was born, but as a kid, she soaked up all the information she could about him.
- [10:16]
Natalie Sherrow
I spent my whole life with his widow and my grandmother, his daughter, constantly talking about stories about my great grandfather.
- [10:30]
Chenjerai Kumanyika
Sam Battle came from New Bern, North Carolina, a town of folks who freed themselves from slavery. These people built one of America's first free black communities, and Battle's father was one of the town's founders. As a young adult, Battle left his home in search of a different life. And that's how he winds up in Harlem as a luggage handler in Manhattan's bustling Grand Central Station. He lives blocks away from Ransom's church and probably even saw the headline on the front page of the New York Age calling for black cops. Because within the year, he talks to black community leaders, buys a book called how to Be a policeman for 50 cents and decides to apply for a job with the NYPD.
- [11:12]
Natalie Sherrow
It's just not out of thin air when you think of it in this context of what his father did, that audacity that makes him go, hey, I could be a cop. Well, my daddy walked it free and was free before we even declared it. So I could be a cop. Sure, why not?
- [11:28]
Chenjerai Kumanyika
Natalie says his confidence is a trait she's always felt in her family.
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Natalie Sherrow
He could see vacuums of, like, power. He would be like, oh, I'm going to see an opportunity, and I'm going to grab it here.
- [11:39]
Chenjerai Kumanyika
But integrating a police force that doesn't want to be integrated is going to be harder than Battle thinks. By this time, activists had pushed Brooklyn's police force to hire four black men. Their names are Wiley Overton, Philip Hadley, John Lee, and Moses Cobb. Back then, Brooklyn's police are separate from the nypd, and some of those black cops are relegated to working as doormen, not even allowed to patrol. One of them shares a house with Sam Battle's sister Sophia. And when Sam Battle announces that he's going to try to integrate Manhattan's nypd, they all work together to help him prepare for the exam. And after studying for weeks, he walks into a test center as the only Black candidate among 600 officers. And he passes the exam. But Battle was about to learn that pulling up his bootstraps and getting on the force was the easy part.
- [12:30]
Natalie Sherrow
When he joins the police department, he's having trouble even getting police officers to talk to him, just to purely say anything.
- [12:41]
Chenjerai Kumanyika
One day, he comes to work to find a note waiting for him. There's a hole in it about the size of a bullet, and a message reading, nigger, if you don't quit, this is what will happen to you. He continues to be ignored and hazed for years. But then something changes. One afternoon, a young black man in Harlem runs up to a white NYPD officer and grabs his hat to troll him. Obviously, no cop likes that. But this cop feels really humiliated. He escalates the situation and arrests him. Members of the community watching this blatant abuse of power are like, hell no. And they step in to resist the arrest. In the melee, somebody breaks the cop's jaw, so he pulls out his gun and fires two shots. One of those shots kills a black bystander named Ephraim Gethers. And just when it looks like the community's about to roll out some street justice on the cop in steps, Samuel Battle. Battle throws his body in front of the white officer and yells out, this man is a policeman. He waves his club and clears the crowd. This black cop put his life on the line to save a white cop instead of the black bystander bleeding to death. You already know Battle's white police peers love that response.
- [14:13]
Natalie Sherrow
Like, what a way out. Of all the things he did to prove himself, that was how he got accepted.
- [14:25]
Chenjerai Kumanyika
From that point forward, the NYPD realizes that black cops are their best weapon against accusations of racism. For instance, a few years later, when rumors start circulating in the black community that a white cop had beat up a 16 year old afro Latino kid.
- [14:40]
Natalie Sherrow
My great grandfather and another black detective were sent to take a photo op with this child so everybody could know that the child was safe.
- [14:52]
Chenjerai Kumanyika
Some people argued that Sam Batta was a hero for taking a picture with that kid. Maybe he even helped cool down an uprising. But Natalie's not buying it.
- [15:01]
Natalie Sherrow
So did he stop an uprising? Like stopping an uprising means addressing the structural conditions that stop uprisings. A photo op is not going to resolve any of that.
- [15:15]
Chenjerai Kumanyika
And the struggle continued even after Battle took that picture. As Battle tried to convince the community that the kid was safe, a white cop shot and killed another black kid named Floyd Hobbs. But you can see how the NYPD was starting to use Sam Battle. His job was to smooth things over.
- [15:32]
Natalie Sherrow
And that, in 1935, was probably considered to be deeply innovative. Now we don't even blink when that happens. We have entire police departments that are really, really good at PR and really, really good at utilizing black officers in times of strife. That's a very common strategy. I noticed police departments rolling out his image and rolling out his story more in 2020 than I ever did five years ago.
- [16:05]
Chenjerai Kumanyika
When the city of New York put up a sign to commemorate Battle, they chose the exact location where he saved a white officer who killed a black man. Almost as if that's how the NYPD wants him to be remembered. And it's a hell of a lesson on what's expected of black folks that put on that blue uniform. Battle story has become legendary outside of the nypd, too, like in HBO series the Watchmen, a show that explores the relationship of white supremacists and police departments. There's a scene showing new cops being sworn in. An older black lieutenant named Battle walks up to a young black recruit. Who knows who Battle is. I joined the force because here. Sorry to hear that. As the new recruit accepts his badge, Battle whispers to him, beware of the Cyclops. Beware of the Cyclops. In the show, the Cyclops represents white supremacists who have infiltrated the police department. But in real life, racial supremacists weren't some separate group of white people that had to infiltrate the police department. White supremacy was the order of the day, the default position for white folks backed by Jim Crow law. In the decades to come, more and more black officers would join the nypd. But as their ranks increased, so did the hostility against them. Until finally, white police would pull out all the stops to secure their power. It's a hot summer night in New York City in 1964. Over 50 years since Sam Battle joined the force. And now there are over a thousand black NYPD officers. But of course, tensions are still high between police and black folks in the city, and a chain of events is about to kick off that'll force black police to choose sides. It starts in Harlem when a white building superintendent tells three black boys to get off the steps of a building.
- [18:24]
Andrew Darien
He had called them dirty n words. He threatened to wash them clean.
- [18:30]
Chenjerai Kumanyika
Historian Andrew Darien says the boys tell him, leave us alone, bro. We just chilling. But the superintendent is kind of unhinged.
- [18:39]
Andrew Darien
He starts spraying them with a garden hose. When they refuse to move, the boys.
- [18:45]
Chenjerai Kumanyika
Fight back by throwing bottles and garbage can lids. And that's when the Cops get involved.
- [18:51]
Andrew Darien
And upon hearing the commotion, an off duty officer comes up from a nearby basement store where he had been shopping.
- [19:02]
Chenjerai Kumanyika
The white off duty officer fires three shots, killing one of the boys. He was 15 years old. And the next day, Harlem erupts. Fed up. Folks rise up, throwing bricks, rocks and Molotov cocktails at cops.
- [19:29]
Andrew Darien
People don't riot for no reason. And they're not rioting because of a single incident. They're rioting because of the day to day brutality that they experience and that has accumulated for a long period of time.
- [19:45]
Chenjerai Kumanyika
The protests spread to Brooklyn and lasts for almost a week. Over 100 people, people are injured, nearly 500 arrested. And in the end, it's the same old story. A grand jury clears the cop of any wrongdoing. New York City's oldest black owned newspaper, the Amsterdam News, comes forward with three demands. First, fire the white cop that killed the kid. Second, hire more black and Puerto Rican officers. And third, figure out some real way to let regular people have oversight of the nypd. Now, you may not be surprised to hear most of the cops hated these ideas. At this point, a civilian complaint review board does exist. The problem is that the so called civilians on the board are white NYPD officers. So the police review themselves and generally clear themselves of any wrongdoing. And that's how the cops like it. Well, most of the cops. By now, the NYPD has a growing black population inside of its ranks. Police officers related to people in the black community. And they bring a different perspective. They form a fraternity inside the NYPD called the Guardians.
- [21:02]
Andrew Darien
The Guardians say if we are here to keep the peace with this community, you have to do your work to make sure that they aren't brutalizing our citizens.
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Chenjerai Kumanyika
The Guardian supports civilian review that actually includes civilians. And a black NYPD officer and Guardian member named James Hargrove says they don't just support it passively. We were out fought, we campaigned for it, we lobbied for it. We did everything we could for it. They lobbied for it. They did everything they could for it. And they weren't the only ones pushing for real civilian review. All of this is happening around the same time that my father and other core protesters handcuffed themselves in a police precinct. And it's around the same time he wrote that letter. They put out a flyer with details on the recent beating and killing of black and Puerto Rican folks by the nypd. And at the bottom of that flyer it says, we demand a public review board now. But instead of listening to that totally reasonable demand, police officials attacked them and ignored their calls. So finally they think to themselves, if the city isn't going to take these claims to court, we'll make our own. One evening, black folks across the city pour into a Church on 35th Street. I imagine my dad is there moving chairs and tables in one of the church's main halls to set it up like a courtroom. People who have been beaten and victimized by the police sit on one side, and a 10 person panel of civilians sits on the other to bear witness to their stories. The panel includes the founder of the aclu, a senior church minister, a former judge and the director of core, the Congress of Racial Equality. The same group my dad is a part of, the police commissioner and the accused officers are invited, but they want no part of it. No policeman will appear. We do not believe in kangaroo courts or public lynchings. The first person to testify is an auto mechanic named Jesse Roberts. Roberts incident and so many others is what my dad wrote his letter about. He sits down in a chair across from the panelists and tells his story. One day a few months ago, he had gone to the police to report his car stolen. But when he got there, the police accused him of having marijuana. Robert says they took him upstairs, locked him in a detention pen, stripped him naked, blindfolded him, threw hot coffee on his body and beat him for several hours. I can only imagine what it was like for Jesse Roberts to tell his story in public, in front of respected members of his community, and finally be heard. When the hearing is over. The National Director of Corps says that the time for talking is over. We need civilian review now, he says. Regular people, community members, should have oversight of the police that serve in their communities. People shouldn't have to wait for the next Lexile, the next big police commission into violence and corruption that cycles back around every 20 or so years. I'm not saying that everything was all good between activists like my father and black police like the Guardians. It definitely wasn't. But what I am saying is that for years, black New Yorkers dreamed that black police officers could stand in support of their community. And now, on the one issue of civilian review, black police and black activists are finally on the same side. But one group that's not on that side is rank and file white police. They're disgusted with the mere idea of being reviewed by civilians.
- [24:58]
Andrew Darien
They depicted it as a radical and communist civil rights inspired measurement.
- [25:06]
Chenjerai Kumanyika
When historian Andrew Darien describes how police talked about civilian review back then, it sounds like how they talk about it right now.
- [25:13]
Andrew Darien
They said it would give Criminals the upper hand. There was a lot of talk about it, handcuffing the police in the streets.
- [25:22]
Chenjerai Kumanyika
And the conversation back then is being led by a man named John Cassess.
- [25:27]
Andrew Darien
Everybody knew who John Cassess was. He's a really seminal figure. Most white rank and file officers had a good deal of affection for him.
- [25:40]
Chenjerai Kumanyika
Casas is a tall Italian American police officer who's elected president of the Patrolman's Benevolent association, or the PBA for short. Around this time, the PBA has become the official union of the nypd.
- [25:55]
Andrew Darien
He was an outspoken critic, negotiating for the rights of officers to be able to control their work environment.
- [26:04]
Chenjerai Kumanyika
But John Casas has a problem. His police force doesn't really know how to act like a union and fight like a union. He hasn't gotten them to organize and push for the conditions they want. But what Cassess does have working in his favor is tens of thousands of pissed off cops.
- [26:20]
Andrew Darien
He and a significant lion's share of his constituency really saw themselves as victims. They saw themselves as victims of police management. But later they would also come to see themselves as victims of civil rights advocacy and feminism.
- [26:43]
Chenjerai Kumanyika
And if Casas wants a strong union, he's gonna have to get him even more riled up. Have you ever heard that saying that says, if you've been living with privilege, equality feels like oppression? Well, John Casas knows that there are three things his white cops hate more than anything else. Liberals, powerful women, and black equality. So he turns to the media. He starts calling out hiring initiatives led by management and city elites.
- [27:13]
Andrew Darien
There's a new cadet program for black and Hispanic youths in the 1960s. They at first call them community service officers, and they're trying to make them into full fledged officers. And Cassess just can't stop talking about racial preferences and preferential treatment and disparaging affirmative action.
- [27:38]
Chenjerai Kumanyika
So when activists and black cops start demanding civilian review, John Cassess focuses all his union's rage on that.
- [27:46]
Andrew Darien
And even though in many ways this is a racial issue for the white rank and file, I think it is yet another example of how management is trying to control them. And they see it as a kind of class bottom up issue for them.
- [28:07]
Chenjerai Kumanyika
When New York Mayor John Lindsay attempts to add four civilian members to the Civilian Complaint Review Board, Cassest loses his ship. He basically says, this doesn't have anything to do with safety or police brutality. The problem is liberals and activists who want to turn your city over to criminals and make it more dangerous for you. The PBA creates a petition and gets enough support to turn it into a ballot question. The PBA has over a million dollars in their treasury, and Cassette says he's willing to spend every single dollar to defeat the CCRB measure. He starts popping up on radio programs. Communists always try and make hay while the sun is shining. And by the pressure groups and the civil rights movement asking for the Civilian Complaint Review Board.
- [28:56]
Andrew Darien
And he's not just talking about law and order. He's not just talking about potentially handcuffing the police. But he's making this an explicitly racial campaign by constantly referring to to the black and Puerto Rican peril. Or by saying that he's sick and tired of giving into minority groups and that he was, for once, going to stand up for white man's rights.
- [29:22]
Chenjerai Kumanyika
Eventually, Casasa's racist commentary gets completely unhinged, and the PBA replaces him as chief spokesman. But their campaign to kill the CCRB continues to build. The PBA bankrolls racially inflammatory posters on the sides of New York City skyscrapers, like one depicting a white woman coming out of the subway with a big shadow behind her. The text reads, the Civilian Review Board must be stopped. Her life, your life, may depend on it. Ultimately, it would be up to the voters. On November 8, 1966, people went to the polls, including police officers.
- [30:04]
Andrew Darien
Every one of the 1300 members of the Guardians association voted unanimously in favor of Civilian review.
- [30:15]
Chenjerai Kumanyika
But 1,300 black cops are nothing compared to a department of 27,000, let alone a city of 7 million.
- [30:23]
Andrew Darien
Fear ultimately wins out in the end. New Yorkers end up voting basically 2 to 1 against civilian review. And it breaks down along racial lines. Black and Hispanic New Yorkers vote overwhelmingly in favor of civilian review. I think it's as high as 80%. Most white New Yorkers vote against it. The more that you are working class, less educated, and potentially bordering the same neighborhoods with these communities of color, the more likely that these racial fears are going to be touched off.
- [31:07]
Chenjerai Kumanyika
And just like that, the PBA wins its first political fight. The first of many fights that would stave off police reform efforts. And that becomes a centerpiece of what the union is doing. Dare to entrench police power. But people working for police accountability never gave up. Almost 30 years later, in 1992, the Civilian Review Board was composed of half civilians and half police officers. New York's first black mayor, David Dinkins, proposed to make it all civilians and to make it truly independent by removing the police commissioner from the process. But by then, the police union was a political juggernaut, and they went off. They marched around City hall park in a peaceful and orderly Fashion. But then, minutes later, thousands of cops stormed through the barricades and ran on top of cars. The rally was organized by the C.O.P.S. union Patrolman's Benevolent association, and they brought all their big weapons to protest the CCRB changes. Despite the power of the union in their protests, the CCRB was eventually changed to an all civilian board, which seems good, except for one problem. The board is under the New York Police Commissioner. So if the commissioner gets a verdict they don't like, they can just toss it out regardless of the evidence. So there's no real accountability coming from the outside of the department. What about a cop trying to make change the right way from the inside? When you look back at the racist pushback against integration and the fight against civilian review, all that happened when white police officers were a large majority in the NYPD. But in 2006, that changed. The NYPD became what's called a majority minority organization. This means that collectively, there are more black and brown NYPD officers than white ones. And some days, when I walk the streets of New York, the only cops I see are black and brown. Recently, I caught up with a police officer who started two years after that shift. His name is Edwin Raymond. What's going on, man?
- [33:33]
Edwin Raymond
I'm good, kid.
- [33:34]
Chenjerai Kumanyika
I'm good. So much for coming out, man.
- [33:36]
Edwin Raymond
How you feeling?
- [33:36]
Chenjerai Kumanyika
I'm all right, man. I was up late reading your book, so you owe me some food, you know what I'm saying? And I was surprised to learn about his early experiences with New York police. Edwin was born and raised in East Flatbush, Brooklyn. And cops in Edwin's neighborhood started targeting him at a young age, at 15.
- [33:54]
Edwin Raymond
For whatever reason, they just kept stopping me, man. You know, and I didn't know what it was at first.
- [33:59]
Chenjerai Kumanyika
So this wasn't like once or twice.
- [34:01]
Edwin Raymond
No, it just kept stopping me, frisking me, throwing me up, accusing me of things. It just didn't make sense. And this continued for three years.
- [34:10]
Chenjerai Kumanyika
And over time, Edwin noticed something different about the cops that were harassing him.
- [34:16]
Edwin Raymond
At 18, what was different was it's the officer was black this time. All the other encounters were white cops. And I quickly just written that away to racism, you know? But when there was a black cop, same behavior. That confused me.
- [34:32]
Chenjerai Kumanyika
These cops were the successors of Sam Battle, the people who should have understood Edwin and worked to keep him safe. But for some reason, they weren't acting that way, which surprised Edwin.
- [34:43]
Edwin Raymond
I need to understand why even he sees me as suspicious.
- [34:48]
Chenjerai Kumanyika
In 2008, at the age of 22, he enrolled in the NYPD Police Academy. And Edwin says his classes didn't ignore the department's history.
- [34:58]
Edwin Raymond
The first trimester of the police academy, we learned about the history of the police and just other historical points, like Samuel Battle essentially being the first black officer.
- [35:10]
Chenjerai Kumanyika
But Edwin says by teaching that history, the NYPD was really just checking a box instead of addressing systemic racism. His real lesson about the current NYPD and race came from one of his teachers, who showed him a scene from the movie Crash where a white cop pulls over and assaults a black woman. It's a lesson on racial profiling.
- [35:31]
Edwin Raymond
Like, if you see someone that you want to pull over because of their race, don't just pull them over because of their race. Wait for a traffic infraction, and now you can pull them over because of their race.
- [35:44]
Chenjerai Kumanyika
Edwin's instructor wasn't telling them not to profile. He was telling them how to get away with it.
- [35:49]
Edwin Raymond
And this was an Asian man. You know, I'm like, whoa, interesting. You know, because I don't realize it's structural yet. I'm thinking that this is this instructor, what he wants to do, and maybe what he's wrongfully teaching. I don't realize the whole damn system would actually reward cops who think that way, who move that way, who end up getting arrest that way.
- [36:09]
Chenjerai Kumanyika
And no matter how hard he tried to resist it, Edwin started feeling the worst parts of policing taking root in his own mind.
- [36:17]
Edwin Raymond
So I remember it was three of us wearing plain clothes. We're at New Lots subway station, and on the other side of the turnstile, there's a gentleman asking people to swipe him in, right?
- [36:30]
Chenjerai Kumanyika
No one was in danger here, but this was exactly the kind of person that Edwin was trained to focus on.
- [36:36]
Edwin Raymond
So everyone's just walking by him, and then he starts to walk towards the exit gate. Cause if you enter the exit gate, that's also theft of service. It's the same charge as if you jumped the turnstile. So when he goes towards the exit gate, I look at my sergeant, I look at the other officer, like, get ready. You know, it's about to go down. And then one of the last passengers, an old grandma, he's like, ma'am, ma'am, you gotta swipe. You gotta swipe. She reaches into her purse, and she swipes him onto the train. And, brother, I was so upset.
- [37:10]
Chenjerai Kumanyika
Wow.
- [37:11]
Edwin Raymond
I was so upset. I was like, damn, this is supposed to be my collar, right? And I was like, ugh. I was pissed. And it took me about five minutes to then say to myself, wait, wait, wait. Edwin did you just get upset because a black man didn't break the law? Are you. Are you serious right now?
- [37:30]
Chenjerai Kumanyika
Did.
- [37:30]
Edwin Raymond
Did you just get upset because he did not break the law? And that's when I said, yo, wake up, bro. Remember who you are.
- [37:40]
Chenjerai Kumanyika
What Edwin slowly comes to realize is that his job is just to deliver the numbers that'll make his department look good. And the fact that he's a black cop is.
- [37:48]
Edwin Raymond
Doesn't really matter in terms of changing the systemic issues. It's not delivering what we think it is. That common sense appeal that having black people in these positions gives folks is just not what's actually happening. It looks good, right? It triggers a sense of pride because you're filling in the void with what you think is happening behind the scenes, but it's not actually happening.
- [38:17]
Chenjerai Kumanyika
Edwin says he didn't become a cop to profile his own people, but the department would punish him for not arresting enough folks. And when he complained, the department retaliated against him, and it impacted his career as well as the lives of the people he policed. So in 2015, he decided to go public as a whistleblower. He was joined by 11 other officers, all speaking out about the race based quota system. Edwin became the lead plaintiff in a class action lawsuit against the city and police department. Ultimately, the lawsuit was dismissed by the courts in 2020. Two years later, Edwin decided to retire from the force. His journey had shown him that there were too many obstacles for him to make change from the inside. And what it showed me was how much the NYPD works against the people in uniform who try to be honest, good cops. Even though the force is more diverse than ever, all those diverse faces are still protecting the same system. In 2023, Police Commissioner Kishant Sewall, the NYPD's first Black woman to hold that office, threw out more substantiated CCRB complaints than any previous commissioner in history. And her replacement, another person of color, Edward Caban, threw out hundreds of CCRB cases before he resigned. Edwin and I walked up to San Battle Plaza in the Schomburg Museum in Harlem together. I was born in Harlem, and we reflected on all the history that led to both of us being here. As Edwin tried to come to terms with the 15 years he gave to the NYPD, he explained why. Getting the safety we need means we have to get to the root of the problem.
- [40:07]
Edwin Raymond
As long as this white supremacy, as long as the discrimination is baked into the ingredients, we're still going to get the results that we've been seeing, and we have to remember, at the end of the day, the police are not the system itself. They are the muscle of the system. And the muscle will always reflect not just the laws, but the values of a society.
- [40:36]
Chenjerai Kumanyika
Before you listened to this series, you probably knew there's some problems with the police, but maybe you thought they're still our best shot at safety or that we could solve whatever's wrong with police with enough good apples and the right reform. And maybe you thought that the NYPD and the 18,000 other police departments across the country were created to prevent crime. But this institution, the NYPD and policing in America, did not arise in good faith from people trying to keep you and me safe. And if there's one thing I want you to take away from this series, it's year after year when you hear politicians roll out the same tired ideas that have failed for over a century about training or diversity or checks and balances, like they're some kind of new, innovative solutions. Now you have the history to know that when they say that we been there, we already tried that. And the stakes are too high to keep repeating this cycle again and again. When I started this series, I wanted to reveal the untold history of the NYPD so it doesn't stay hidden. And in the years since, I've seen my daughter and Yola go from saying that the police are here to keep.
- [41:50]
Natalie Sherrow
Her safe, they keep people safe, to.
- [41:54]
Chenjerai Kumanyika
Fearing the police, fearing that they'll take her away, take her to jail. What if it does, huh?
- [42:02]
Natalie Sherrow
What if it does happen?
- [42:06]
Chenjerai Kumanyika
How is it gonna happen? She's asking these questions based on what she's seen the police do in her community. And I've struggled with the answers. But then I thought of the words of organizer Mariame. Hope is a discipline. It's okay to feel sadness and rage. But like David Ruggles, Elizabeth Jennings Graham, and the ancestors on whose shoulders we stand, we must be intentional and relentless about finding our way forward. So while Enyola will know the truth about police, she'll also learn about the stories of resistance. Well, you know what, Enyola? We're not gonna let that happen, because we're gonna. We have lots of people. We can keep each other safe. Okay?
- [42:55]
Natalie Sherrow
We have Ella. We have Auntie Lilna. We have Grandma.
- [43:00]
Chenjerai Kumanyika
We have Grandma. From cop watchers to mental health workers, from abortion providers to people protesting war, from my father, who turned up inside the police precinct, to my mother, who's dedicated her life to public health, we're the most safe when we treat each other's lives, especially the lives of people in crisis as precious and take responsibility for each other.
- [43:25]
Natalie Sherrow
They never want us to get hurt.
- [43:27]
Chenjerai Kumanyika
And we can all wrap around each other and then everybody will be safe and knowing we we won't go away. When you stand on the right side of history, people will say you're uninformed, they'll say you're using the wrong tactics, and they'll even say you're dangerous. But the NYPD's own history has taught me that for us to stay safe, we have to stay dangerous. Empire City is made with a commitment to ensure that the stories, the stories of those who were and still are impacted by the NYPD are always part of the stories we tell ourselves about the police, about America and about democracy. And those impacted people include Eleanor Bumpers, Michael Stewart, Radcliffe, Franklin Haughton, Mark Davidson, Eric Garner, Sean Bell, Amadou Diallo, Ramarlee Graham, Akai Gurley, Kimani Gray, Deborah Danner, Saeed Vassal, Kowaski Trewick, Abner Louima, Frankie Arzuaga, Clarence Jones, Javier Payne, Nicholas Hayward Jr. Wynn Rosario, Marilyn Rivera, Natasha McKenna, Jasmine Heiss, Chantel Davis, Venita Browder, Marsha P. Johnson, Sylvia Rivera, Dunya Zayer, Christina Gonzalez, Emily Waters, Zoe Leonard and Genesit Gutierrez. To learn more, go to crooked.com empire city or check out our show notes. Follow Empire City on the Wonjry app, Amazon Music, or wherever you get your podcasts. You can binge all episodes early and ad free right now by joining Wondry plus in the Wondry app or on Apple Podcasts. Before you go, tell us about yourself by completing a short survey@wondry.com survey if you have a tip about a story you think we should investigate, please write to us@wondry.com tips Empire City is a production of Wondery and Crooked Media. I'm your host and executive producer Chenjerai Kumanika for Crooked Media. Our senior producer is Peter Bresnan. Our managing producer is Leo Duran. Our senior story editor is Diane Hodson. Our producers are Sam Riddell and Noam Osband. Bowen Wong and Sydney Rapp are our associate producers. Sound design Mixing an original score by Axel Cocoutier. Oh, that's real good. Our historical consultant and fact checker is History Studios for Wondry. Our senior producer is Mandy Gorenstein. Our senior story editor is Phyllis Fletcher. Our coordinating producer is Mariah Gossett. The executive producer at Push Black is Lily Werkne. Executive producers at Crooked Media are Sarah Geismer, Katie Long, Tommy Vitor and Diane Hodson. Executive producers at Wondry are N'j'jeri Eaton, George Lavender, Marshall Louie and Jen Sargent. Special thanks to Len Webb, Sydney Smith, William C. Anderson and Darren Wallace from Push Black Allison Falsetta and Mary Knoff from Crooked Media, Jamie Cooper, Morgan Jones, Candice Manriquez Wren, Eliza Mills and Andrew Law from Wondry Heather Ann Thompson from History Studios, Ellen Horne, Adrienne Mehi and James Berry from NYU Journalism and Tara Kamal Edlin and all the staff at Cambar Production Studios at NYU Tisch, Pat Walters, Sam Richards, Laurie Mulvey and Matt Katz, Norma Jean Almodovar, Aaron Beckenmeyer, Aisha Bell Hardaway, Cherie Carlson, Timothy Guilfoyle, Julian Goh, Ebembola Johnson, Marilyn Johnson, Alec Karakatsanis, Tom Newkirk, Arva Rice, Marcy Sachs, Jackie Shine, John Teufel, Stacey Toussaint, Steven Westlake and Regina Wilson. And last but not least, my mother, Shariki Kumanyika, my wife, Sadika Kumanyika and my daughter, Enola Wangari Kumanika SA.