America Is Losing Its Black Police Officers

When Ray Kelly was appointed commissioner of the New York Police Department, in 1992, he announced that his No. 1 priority was to recruit more Black officers to the force. “Without these actions, there will be increased tension between the communities and the police,” Kelly told The New York Times. “Tension leads to hostilities and that will lead to more cries of racism in the department.”

Kelly was not alone. The same year, Willie Williams became the first Black chief of the Los Angeles Police Department, which since 1980 had been under court order to produce a force that looked more like the city it patrolled—and which had been roiled by the beating of Rodney King in 1991. Williams promised to hire more Black officers. So did mayors such as Marion Barry of Washington, D.C., and Chicago’s Richard Daley, who in 1995 said, “You have to have a diversity, and that diversity includes everyone.”

These diversification efforts were largely successful. American police forces became far more representative of their communities, adding women,