Will Biden's VP pick be Black, female — and a cop?

When Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) took herself out of contention to be Joe Biden's running mate last week, she made her reasoning perfectly clear. "I think this is a moment to put a woman of color on that ticket," she said."If you want to heal this nation right now — my party, yes, but our nation — this is sure a hell of a way to do it."

The context was obvious. America's cities have been convulsed for the past month by protests over police brutality and misconduct, and over the larger charge of systemic racism in American institutions. To pick a white Minnesota prosecutor with a long history of declining to indict police officers in shooting cases would be pouring salt on the wound and gasoline on the fire. By contrast, choosing a woman of color — especially a Black woman — could be a balm, and a sign that a Biden administration would take the concerns being voiced in the streets seriously enough to redirect that energy into electoral politics.

So what does it mean that so many of the high-profile Black women under consideration for the position are also ... cops?

The term was applied during the campaign to California Sen. Kamala Harris (now seen by many as Biden's most likely pick) — and it was not meant as a compliment. Before reaching the Senate, Harris spent most of her career as a prosecutor, first as San Francisco district attorney and then as attorney general of California. Though her tenure did feature initiatives that might appeal to a reform-minded moderate — her involvement in the anti-recidivism pilot program, "Back on Track," for example, or her implementation of anti-bias training for police — she has been harshly criticized, both by left-wing progressives and libertarians, for favoring tough punishments for drug crimes, sex crimes, and other offenses. She was seen as someone who overall abetted the expansion of the carceral state rather than someone who tried to rein it in.

Biden has another option in Florida Rep. Val Demings, a rising star from a key swing state — but the label applies even more plainly to her. Though Demings achieved national recognition as a co-manager of the impeachment trial of President Trump, she spent most of her career as an officer in the Orlando Police Department, climbing to become the first female head of the department in 2007. One can point to actions she took that could appeal to moderate reformers — including investing in quality-of-life improvements as a crime reduction strategy and advocating for a national registry of police shootings — and she has spoken out clearly about police misconduct as not only an affront to justice but a betrayal of the idealism with which she joined the force. But even before she ran for Congress, her record as police chief was being reassessed, from triumphant — a 43 percent drop in violent crime in four years — to a far more qualified success marred by continued complaints of excessive force.