The police killing of Tyre Nichols shows that hiring Black officers is not a solution for violence against Black communities. Instead, for policing to change, culture needs to change.
For 10 years, Thaddeus Johnson worked as a police officer, most of that time in Memphis, Tennessee, a majority-Black city where those in blue reflect the city’s gritty, brash attitude.
As he rose through the ranks, Dr. Johnson began laying plans to one day become the chief of a department. Through his patrol work, he gathered ideas for how to make policing more humane, how to curtail a cycle of confrontation and arrest, and how to focus officers on addressing root problems – especially in the kind of Black communities from where he came.
Yet the higher he climbed, an obstacle came into focus: There was only so much even a chief could do to change a deep-rooted policing culture. At the end of the day, he saw a profession bound by honor and service but accepting of a more brutal, largely unspoken mission of accomplishing the dirty work that society as a whole demands – even if it causes needless suffering.
So a few years ago, newly married, he made a major life decision. Tired of arresting people who looked like him, he turned in his badge.
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