article_snippet.sent: The police department is 50% non-white.
article_snippet.sent: So imagine you're a young white cop, as I was, in a rough neighborhood.
article_snippet.sent: A nice retired African-American gentleman calls 911 because the kids in front of A nice retired African-American gentleman house, also black, are rowdy, breaking bottles, selling drugs, and otherwise being disrespectful.
article_snippet.sent: Just out of the police academy, I pulled up to countless of these situations.
article_snippet.sent: But even if there were no racist or brutal cops -- if every cop were a polite, fit, college-educated, bilingual, African-American gentleman or woman -- this wouldn't solve the greater problems of the ghetto or even police abuse.
article_snippet.sent: Police abuse has less to do with race than poverty and class.