Black Cops Don’t Matter

Democrats are driving African-American police chiefs out of their jobs

WSJ editorial.

"As the Democratic Party moves to the left this year, it is spending time and energy hoping voters don’t notice the consequences of progressive policies. The party famously rolled through its convention across four days without mentioning the violence gripping U.S. cities. Now another hard-to-miss phenomenon has emerged: African-American police chiefs are being forced from their jobs by the party’s protesters.  

In one day this week, two black police chiefs resigned under pressure—Renee Hall in Dallas, the first black woman to head that city’s force, and La’Ron Singletary in Rochester. Last month Seattle Police Chief Carmen Best, a three-decade veteran of the force, quit in protest over the progressive City Council’s plans to defund the police.

Rochester’s Chief Singletary didn’t go quietly. In a bitter statement Tuesday, he said: “As a man of integrity, I will not sit idly by while outside entities attempt to destroy my character.”

In anything resembling normal times, the ascent of black cops to the top of these urban police forces would be seen as substantive racial progress. What has become hard not to notice is that these black officers, not to mention black cops on the street, are getting no support from prominent Democrats—not Joe Biden, not former California Attorney General Kamala Harris, not anyone but Donald Trump.

Perhaps the most prominent African-American police chief resisting the progressive offensive against cops is Detroit’s James Craig.

Earlier this week a group of Democratic politicians, including Michigan Rep. Rashida Tlaib, sent a letter to Chief Craig and other city officials urging an outside investigation into Detroit police tactics. Chief Craig fired back.

“What really disturbs me,” he said in a statement, “is that when the protesters assaulted Detroit police officers with rocks, railroad spikes and fireworks, never once did these representatives ask for an independent investigation into their violent criminal activity.”

Let it be noted that Chief Craig has something rare—the support of Detroit’s Democratic mayor, Mike Duggan. Not so fortunate are the black men and women elsewhere whose chosen profession was providing security for their cities. They are now, apparently, dispensable."