REIMAGINING BLUE

A police chief reflects on her career and the challenges law enforcement faces today.

Ziman is the daughter of a cop prepared to enthusiastically follow in his footsteps. “I was born to be a police officer,” she says. And despite the hurdles she faced as a woman working in a male-dominated environment, she rose to become the first female police chief in the Aurora, Illinois, police department. She was profoundly shaken by the death of George Floyd, however, and the violent protests that followed. According to her, his murder “flipped the switch in the police world.” The author was forced to reflect deeply on the state of policing and the ways systematic racism creates an imbalance of power between law enforcement officers and those they serve, especially minority groups. Ziman chronicles her own experiences as a police officer and candidly discusses her approach to the job, including the management of fear and the use of humor to diffuse potentially volatile situations. Her account is an impressively balanced one. She’s not restrained by “blind loyalty” to her fellow officers and feels free to criticize them, but she also resists lambasting the profession: “The most important lesson to take away from all of this is that we can hold simultaneous thoughts. We can support our police and still want reform that makes our police better. We can support police and still denounce cops who violate society’s trust by being unfaithful to the profession. These things aren’t mutually exclusive.” She proposes several practical reforms that are astute—the teaching of de-escalation techniques and a greater emphasis on the mental health of officers, for example. Ziman has a tendency to traffic too indulgently in shopworn clichés: “Own your truth unapologetically no matter what it is.” There is a section entitled, “You Be You.” However, this is still an impressively sensible book, one free from political extremes and based on an impressive reservoir of practical experience.

A thoughtful, evenhanded contribution to the current public debate about policing.