July 25, 2016, Montrell Jackson, a Black police officer recently killed along with two others in Baton Rouge, La., by Gavin Long, a Black former Marine, was laid to rest at the city’s Greenoaks Memorial Park. The death of a Black man at the hands of another who was apparently seeking to take a forcible stand against murderous police brutality exposes a gray area in the matter of Black and blue lives. Even Jackson himself expressed challenges with the conundrum. In a Facebook post placed shortly before his death, Jackson struggled with his duty’s duality. “In uniform I get nasty hateful looks,” he wrote, “and out of uniform some consider me a threat.”
Retired NYPD detective first-grade, Derrick Parker, also known as The Hip-hop Cop, agrees with the sentiment that Jackson’s death may alter the course of the Black Lives/Blue Lives/All Lives conversation. “It’s going to throw somewhat of a controversy into it because there was a Black police officer killed now,” said Parker.” “So now the people are going to argue that are going against Black Lives Matter, they’re going to say, look, you guys are killing one of your own.”
Jackson’s death does raise questions. If, as in response to the “All Lives Matter” backlash, “All Black Lives Matter,” where do Black cops factor into the equation? Do Black police officers not face the same challenges as any other African-American in this nation? Can Black members of law enforcement not serve as partners on the inside who are struggling against this system’s ingrained institutional racism and latent and manifest perpetuations of white supremacy?
Another retired NYPD detective, a 20-year veteran identified as Brownseed, believes that estranging Black officers from the struggle is ill-advised. “If you make the statement that Black Lives Matter, then Black Lives Matter, it doesn’t matter if they’re a police officer,” said Brownseed. “If you take the stance of shooting Black police officers when you have the agenda of Black Lives Matter, you’re sending the wrong message; whereas before you may have had an ally, now you have an enemy. To shoot them down in the street because they work for the police department is ridiculous. You’re bringing unwanted attention to the movement. You’re not helping any cause whatsoever. You have no idea what’s going on inside, but the Black police officers do and if you just listen to them, and at least back them a little bit, you could find out what’s going on.”
For the record, BLM does not condone the killing of anyone, let alone police officers, Black, white or any other ethnicity. Its purpose is to stop murders, the deaths of Black people at the hands of police—not to perpetuate further homicides. “As Black Lives Matter, we are for all Black Lives in that we are for Black Love,” said Autumn Marie, an organizer with BLM New York City. “But we also need to be clear that that means we are for honoring Black Lives and so that does not include violence against Black People.” While “Black Lives Matter” may be a rallying cry for some retributory radicals reacting to the rampages of racist police, their actions do not reflect the strategies of BLM as a network of activists.
As for strategic partnerships within the department, while Black police officers have the potential to be of assistance in balancing the scales of true justice, that doesn’t seem to be the prevailing modus operandi. It’s hard to make the case for Black officers as comrades with the likes of Milwaukee Sheriff David Clarke taking center stage at the Republican National Convention. This is a man who called victims of police homicides “co-conspirators in their own demise,” and sees BLM as anarchy that “transcends peaceful protest and violates the code of conduct we rely on.” In his “Blue Lives Matter” agenda, demonstrations are worse than the devils of death-dealing and dirty-doing being done to Black people across the country.
Half of the officers involved in the death of Freddie Gray in Baltimore are Black and July 4th of this year, Officer Wayne Isaacs, a Black man in uniform, killed a Black motorist, Delrawn Small. But what of officers like Nakia Jones of Ohio, officers who joined the force because they want to help other Black people? In the aftermath of the shooting of Alton Sterling in Baton Rouge, Jones posted a video on Facebook speaking out against racist presumptions and practices in policing while making a heartfelt plea for Black unity as the only means to end the trends of murder and madness from without and within.
“The reason why all this racist stuff keeps going on is because we’re divided. We’re killing each other. We’re not standing together,” she said. “A house divided against each other will not stand.” Jones asked her audience to support those in law enforcement that are right because there are those like her that will give their lives for their community. She explained, “I am my brother’s and sister’s keeper, that’s why I’m going to keep this uniform on.”
Jones refuses to be lumped in the same negative category as rogue cops, seeing herself as an ally on the inside. “I’m not that type of police officer,” she said. She later stated that “the reason why I became an officer was to make a difference in people’s lives … I want to be that change, so I became that change.”
Whether one agrees or disagrees with the efficacy of Black officers making meaningful contributions to the struggle, Black officers do face challenges similar to other Black lives. It isn’t unheard of for a Black cop shot by a white officer to be subjected to the same tactics used to cover other police-involved shooting deaths. Bruce Stallworth, a LAPD investigator and gang liaison officer who has witnessed woes from the LA rebellions to Ramparts to the death of Biggie Smalls, still lives within the shadow of the aftermath of the 1997 death of fellow Black officer Kevin Gaines.
“They assassinated my character along with his,” said Stallworth of the flood of information leaked after the shooting that painted Gaines as corrupt. While Stallworth asserts that he is not anti-LAPD in the slightest bit, being critical of its culture has cost him in his career. “I’m fighting my department for the same things the people in the community are fighting for. I’m fighting for respect, dignity, to be treated fairly, to not be harassed, discriminated against.”
The bottom line for Black lives in blue is that only time will tell if they will continue to play along and play out like lyrics to a KRS-ONE song, alternating between the personas of police officer and plantation overseer, or whether they will stop being spooked, stand up for their humanity and be spooks who sit by the door. Black lives matter when it’s a Black cop only to the extent that Black lives matter to the darker hue of the blue. Until killer cops are jailed and the system no longer offers a culture of sanctuary for deputized deviants, until officers like Jones become the norm, the issue of Black and blue will remain a red-blood storm.