Blue: The LAPD and the Battle to Redeem American Policing
By Joe Domanick
4/5
()
About this ebook
Beginning with the 1992 Los Angeles Riots and ending with the tumultuous police controversies swirling around both Ferguson, Missouri, and New York City in 2014, Domanick’s fast-paced book is filled with political intrigue, cultural and racial conflict, hard-boiled characters like intransient, warrior minded cops like LAPD chief Daryl Gates and America’s most famous police reformer, William J. Bratton. As the Los Angeles Times put it, Blue “weaves a compelling, fact-filled tale of a turbulent city in transition and a police department that often seems impervious to civilian control.”
As the story unfolds, Domanick seamlessly injects and analyzes police policies and actions, while discussing police accountability and legitimacy, effective crime-reduction based on real, long-term community policing, and what is necessary for a new stage of progressive police reform to take place. As Kirkus Reviews summed up in a starred review: “This is a well-executed, large-scale urban narrative, sprawling, engrossing, and highly relevant to the ongoing controversies about policing post-Ferguson.”
Joe Domanick
An award-winning investigative journalist and author, Joe Domanick is Associate Director of the CMCJ and West Coast Bureau Chief of The Crime Report. Among his books, To Protect and Serve: The LAPD’s Century of War in the City of Dreams won the 1995 Edgar Allan Poe Award for Best Nonfiction “true-crime” book; Cruel Justice: Three Strikes and the Politics of Crime in America’s Golden State has been assigned reading at Stanford Law School, and was named one of the best books of 2004 by the San Francisco Chronicle.
Related to Blue
Related ebooks
Blue on Blue: An Insider's Story of Good Cops Catching Bad Cops Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Brotherhoods: The True Story of Two Cops Who Murdered for the Mafia Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Mob Mayhem Volume One: The Rise and Fall of a 'Casino' Mobster, Shots in the Dark, The Gangster's Cousin Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsMurder, Inc., and the Moral Life: Gangsters and Gangbusters in La Guardia's New York Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsHow Long Will I Cry? Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Dancing with the Devil: Confessions of an Undercover Agent Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Stone City: Life In The Penitentiary Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Snowbird: The Rise and Fall of a Drug Smuggler Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Breaking the Blue Wall: One Man's War Against Police Corruption Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5From Jailer to Jailed: My Journey from Correction and Police Commissioner to Inmate #84888-054 Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Wire: Truth Be Told Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5American Overdose: America’s Addiction Crises, The Whole Story Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Passage: Memoir of a Boston Undercover Cop in the '60S Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsC-1 and the Chicago Mob Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsMurder for Hire: My Life As the Country's Most Successful Undercover Agent Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Soul Cries: In Black & White and Shades of Gray Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsBensonhurst Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsA Prisoner's Fight: The Pandemic As Seen From Inside the Illinois Department of Corrections Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsNYPD Green: A Memoir Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Going Down To The Barrio: Homeboys and Homegirls in Change Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsChicago Street Cop: Amazing True Stories from the Mean Streets of Chicago and Beyond Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Stickup Kids: Race, Drugs, Violence, and the American Dream Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Fort Apache: New York’S Most Violent Precinct Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Buddy Boys: When Good Cops Turn Bad Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Savage City: Race, Murder, and a Generation on the Edge Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Year of Dangerous Days: Riots, Refugees, and Cocaine in Miami 1980 Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Six by Ten: Stories from Solitary Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Maximum Security Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Death on the Fourth of July: The Story of a Killing, a Trial, and Hate Crime in America Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The East Village Mafia Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratings
Politics For You
The Prince Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Real Anthony Fauci: Bill Gates, Big Pharma, and the Global War on Democracy and Public Health Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Anarchist Cookbook Rating: 2 out of 5 stars2/5The Great Reset: And the War for the World Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Sex Trafficking: Inside the Business of Modern Slavery Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Girl with Seven Names: A North Korean Defector’s Story Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Parasitic Mind: How Infectious Ideas Are Killing Common Sense Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Daily Stoic: A Daily Journal On Meditation, Stoicism, Wisdom and Philosophy to Improve Your Life Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Son of Hamas: A Gripping Account of Terror, Betrayal, Political Intrigue, and Unthinkable Choices Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Great Awakening: Defeating the Globalists and Launching the Next Great Renaissance Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The U.S. Constitution with The Declaration of Independence and The Articles of Confederation Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Disloyal: A Memoir: The True Story of the Former Personal Attorney to President Donald J. Trump Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Gulag Archipelago [Volume 1]: An Experiment in Literary Investigation Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Fear: Trump in the White House Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5No Place to Hide: Edward Snowden, the NSA, and the U.S. Surveillance State Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Cult of Trump: A Leading Cult Expert Explains How the President Uses Mind Control Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5The Only Plane in the Sky: An Oral History of 9/11 Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5On Palestine Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Republic by Plato Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Capitalism and Freedom Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The January 6th Report Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Ever Wonder Why?: and Other Controversial Essays Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Blackout: How Black America Can Make Its Second Escape from the Democrat Plantation Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Devil's Chessboard: Allen Dulles, the CIA, and the Rise of America's Secret Government Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5This Is How They Tell Me the World Ends: The Cyberweapons Arms Race Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Speechless: Controlling Words, Controlling Minds Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
Reviews for Blue
10 ratings2 reviews
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Important necessary book about the culture of American policing seen specifically through the development of the LAPD from Rodney King to 2015, from thuggish paramilitary untouchables to a modern, accountable unit of city government. Expertly researched, vividly rendered. This is not the writers fault but I wish this book had come out in 2018, in light of Michael Brown and Eric Gardner and Sandra Bland and Black Lives Matter. Still 100% worth it.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5A special thank you to Simon & Schuster and NetGalley for an ARC in exchange for an honest review. 4.5 StarsAward-winning investigative reporter, Joe Domanick describes the transformation in BLUE, The LAPD and the Battle to Redeem American Policing --a riveting page-turning account of the LA police Department from the LA riots, the OJ Simpson trial, to the events of 2014, which began in Missouri and New York City; with effects reverberated throughout our country. Domanick tells of a much larger bigger picture of American policing over the past quarter-century, and the challenges we still face today.The story is told through the lives of people who actually LIVED it—police officers, police chiefs, mayors, city politicians, gang members, and ex-gang members, community leaders, and citizens. Thought-provoking questions: What constitutes good and bad policing? How best to prevent crime, control police abuse, ease tensions between the police and the powerless, and partner with communities of color to enhance public safety. Joe mentions how he wanted to understand the source of the department’s extraordinary power, when he wrote his first LAPD book, a character-based historic narrative of the department called to protect and to serve, as a way to find that understanding. Then there were changes in the 1950’s up to 1991 when the tension once again began mounting when four white LAPD officers were caught on videotape beating a black motorist- Rodney King. A year later the officers were acquitted, sparking the bloody LA riots. Thereafter little changed.Why was the reform taking so long to implement? This is when he decided to revisit the LAPDs history starting with the 1992 riots and the writing of Blue.Told through lives of the people who lived through the crack-filled violence-laden nineties, and then through the reforms that finally began taking hold in the first decade of the twenty-first century. Joe highlights two cops: One a police reformer and stranger to LA, the other a chief-in-training with LAPD roots stretching back half a century. The others were LA gangsters who embodied the fraught relations between the LAPD and the communities. I enjoyed the way the Key Players are highlighted at the front of the book with a description of each, as well as sections devoted to the topics and time.•Charlie Beck•Tom Bradley•William Bratton•Andre Christian•Daryl Gates•Alfred Lomas•William H Parker•Bernard Parks•Rafael “Ray” Perez•Connie Rice•Willie WilliamsMeticulously researched, well-written, with impressive historical notes, references, interviews, and news reporting, as well as-- laid out in a very organized format. Much of Blue is about cops and the police leadership, officers past and present. From crime, politics, and cops—policies and reform. Filled with political intrigue, cultural and racial conflict, income and opportunity. The politics and the business of crime and guns, our reckless sentencing laws, and the disastrous state of our public schools. All of this disparate forces together send generations of young Americans into the world’s largest prison system with no end in sight. As the author notes, in 2014 both the American people and the American press began asking hard questions about the current state of American policing. We live in a violent, racist, gun-loving society. American society is in a deep crisis centered around our corrupt politics and institutions. We have to start somewhere, and have to work for change within and within and outside American policing. Depending on your age or your geographical location, some stories may ring all too familiar, if you lived through those eras.Highly recommend. Informative, Compelling, Timely.