Every black police officer has felt or witnessed racism on the job, Matthew Horace said. Every single one.
"There's not a black police officer or federal agent within this United States that _ if you ask them if they've seen racism within the ranks of their organizations _ will say 'no.'"
Right down to racial slurs, the retired cop said in a recent interview.
"We live with it; we work with it."
As a federal agent on surveillance, he had police approach him because he was reported as "suspicious." While driving a Mercedes-Benz in his golf-course community, Horace was pulled over by a sheriff's deputy, who told him that he was stopped only because he didn't recognize the vehicle.
Although all such actions aren't always consciously racist, they usually show implicit bias, he said.
"We all have these biases," Horace writes in a recent book, "The Black and the Blue."
The bias "just make us people," he writes. "Unfortunately, when they are held by someone with a badge and a gun, and the power to take a life, those biases can play out negatively and people who shouldn't be, end up dead."
His book, co-written with journalist Ron Harris, weighs in on racism and bias in law enforcement from several angles: historical perspective, personal examples and examination of headline-making cases of black men killed by police.
Since Horace, 55, retired in 2012 from law enforcement, he's often been a contributor on CNN, talking about infamous police shootings in Ferguson, Mo.; Baltimore; Chicago' and other places. He still works as a private security executive and adjunct professor.
Because he had experience and a platform, Horace decided to "use it for good" by writing the book with Harris, a former editor and writer at the St. Louis Post-Dispatch who teaches journalism at Howard University.
"It's time for a complete overhaul of the criminal justice system in America," Horace said. Although his book on the topic joins a growing number by black activists and journalists, it stands as one of the few by a black officer.
He writes about being both "blue" and "black" _ and sometimes viewed suspiciously by both groups. Horace was a police officer in Virginia, and then a federal agent in the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, where he would become a senior executive.
"What is it going to take for people to listen and understand and have a sense of empathy and compassion for people?"
It was a rhetorical question Horace posed during the interview. But he can cite most of the reasons he believes white Americans, in particular, don't seem to care about police shootings involving black citizens:
"One angle is, 'if I don't see it, then I don't believe it.' Another is, 'if it doesn't impact me and the people I love the most, then I don't have to be bothered with it.' And then there's just 'I don't care.'"
Dysfunction in policing has been written about for a long time, Horace said, but when race is brought in, "everyone digs their heels in, they sort of bond together. ... Police culture does not like being called on the carpet."
Not every case of bias involves a white officer, he said. The book recounts misconduct by black officers and notes that some long-troubled departments have had black police chiefs. The authors also gather comments and recollections from white police chiefs interested in reform.
One white retiree's memories of New York policing in the early 1980s checks every movie cliche, like clubbing people for mouthing off and employing "unconventional" deterrents.
"It was hard arresting a pimp, because they knew how to skirt the law," the former officer remembers.
"So, we would take it out on them with their cars. We would slice their interiors up with box cutters, use slappers or nightsticks to break the glass and the dashboards. If they had soda or beer in the car, we'd pour it over the interior."
Turning 180 degrees is a story from the current white, gay police chief of Tucson, Ariz.
While chief in Richmond, Calif., during national protests of the shooting of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Chris Magnus said his entire command staff "just went out and talked to people who were in the march." When a captain noticed that demonstrators and their kids were hungry, the police bought pizza for them.
Magnus also said of Richmond, which had a lot of violent crime: "Our goal was to train officers so they understood that they had multiple tools and strategies to deal with dangerous individuals, other than just shooting people."
Ferguson comes up in several chapters in "The Black and the Blue." Drawing in part on Post-Dispatch reports about the town's efforts to use tickets and the municipal court system to raise money, Horace doesn't blame just former Officer Darren Wilson for shooting Michael Brown in 2014:
"It was city leaders and their policies, however, that set in motion the tragic events that took place when Wilson encountered Brown."
Horace and Harris write that police were just part of a "judicial pipeline to extract more money from residents."
Although changes have been made in Ferguson and many other troubled police departments, it's harder to alter their culture, Horace said. Culture is a strong force in police organizations.
"In police work, there is a culture that said we can't be wrong."
At his book signings, Horace gives advice on how residents can test their own biases and how police departments can adopt new strategies in hiring, recruiting and accountability.
Among the biggest changes in the past few years have been cellphones and police body cameras. It's harder for police and residents to deny deadly misdeeds when they are filmed.
"You have the world seeing things that only certain communities ever talked about before."
Ever the cop, Horace points out that body cameras can also protect officers from false allegations.
What about times when an officer's camera was off?
"If you see departments in which police don't turn them on, they weren't on when the incident happened, that just shows there is still this sense that 'we can do whatever we want to do.'"
