Table Of ContentPolicing the Racial Divide
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Policing the Racial Divide
Urban Growth Politics and the
Remaking of Segregation
Daanika Gordon
NEW YORK UNIVERSITY PRESS
New York
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NEW YORK UNIVERSITY PRESS
New York
www.nyupress.org
© 2022 by New York University
All rights reserved
References to Internet websites (URLs) were accurate at the time of writing. Neither the
author nor New York University Press is responsible for URLs that may have expired or
changed since the manuscript was prepared.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Gordon, Daanika, author.
Title: Policing the racial divide : urban growth politics and the remaking of segregation /
Daanika Gordon.
Description: New York : New York University Press, [2022] |
Includes bibliographical references.
Identifiers: LCCN 2021039797 | ISBN 9781479814046 (hardback ; alk. paper) |
ISBN 9781479814053 (paperback ; alk. paper) | ISBN 9781479814060 (ebook) |
ISBN 9781479814077 (ebook other)
Subjects: LCSH: Police—United States—Case studies. | Police-community relations—United
States—Case studies. | Segregation—United States—Case studies. | Urbanization—Social
aspects—United States—Case studies. | Urban policy—United States—Case studies. |
Equality—United States—Case studies. | United States—Race relations—Case studies.
Classification: LCC HV8139 .G67 2022 | DDC 363.2089/00973—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021039797
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are chosen for strength and durability. We strive to use environmentally responsible suppli-
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Contents
Introduction 1
1. Urban Governance, Policing, and the Making of a
Segregated City 27
2. The Promises and Perils of the River City Redistricting 52
3. Policing the East District 81
4. Policing the West District 107
5. Policing Segregation Boundaries 141
6. Policing and the Social Structure of Segregation 162
Conclusion 181
Methods Appendix: Conducting a Critical Police Ethnography 203
Acknowledgments 227
Notes 231
References 251
Index 265
About the Author 275
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Introduction
On a warm night in June, police officer Cory Snow anticipated that
we would be sent to a shooting.1 Conventional wisdom held that vio-
lence spiked with the heat. As the evening progressed and no shootings
occurred, Snow told me it must be a slow shift. Yet, after ten months
of accompanying officers during their shifts, this ride- along with Snow
and his partner, Travis Foster, was one of the busiest I had observed.
We drove from call to call all evening, responding to a wide array of
assignments: five reports of gunshots fired; two calls for medical obser-
vation of a mental health crisis; one fight; one noise nuisance call; one
call regarding a suspicious automobile; and five calls involving either
trouble with a subject or a check on an individual’s welfare. Snow and
Foster handled these varied assignments with a sense of hurry. Foster
explained that it was rare to have a break between assignments and, even
when dealing with a call, the squad car could be pulled if a more serious
incident arose. The officers saw this workload as characteristic of the
district they patrolled. Snow described the officers’ assigned sector as
“the worst of the worst”: the most violent sector of the city’s most violent
district. He periodically pointed to the intersections, blocks, and streets,
describing “shit” or “garbage” areas where crime was common. These
specters of potential violence, unending work, and pathological places
haunted the shift. The officers raised these types of concerns before and
after their many interactions with district residents, nearly all of whom
were Black.2
Snow and Foster— both white men in their late twenties— had worked
in the West District since joining the River City Police Department
(RCPD). After graduating high school, Snow served in the military and
had recently finished an associate’s degree in police science. He had
been an officer for just over a year. While we sat in the idling squad
car at the beginning of his shift, I asked if police work had been what
he had expected. Snow paused, equivocated, and then suggested it had
1
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2 | Introduction
not. Explaining how things could get wild in the sector, he described his
last homicide scene assignment: two hundred people had been in the
street, fighting one another and fighting the police.3 When I asked if he
had requested to work in the West District, he said that he had, for the
experience. Snow mused that you could police differently in the West
District. I probed further, and he replied vaguely, “You can just talk to
people differently.”
Like Snow, officer Foster wanted the West District assignment. He
had joined the department right out of high school through a civilian
position and was later admitted into the police academy. Upon complet-
ing his training, he figured he would learn a lot in the West District in a
short time frame. This had proven to be the case. Foster explained that
“working in West could suck,” but he hoped it would pay off. He then
mentioned a seasoned officer who had recently been transferred from a
slower district, noting how she seemed very inexperienced despite her
many years on the force. By contrast, Foster had been handling complex
assignments like shootings within weeks of starting the job.
During the shift, Snow and Foster not only responded to calls but also
worked proactively. The River City police chief’s strategy for intervening
in crime relied on investigatory traffic and pedestrian stops. In contrast
to stops that focused on traffic safety enforcement, investigatory stops
served as a pretext to search for contraband like guns or drugs. As Snow
and Foster patrolled their sector between calls, they spotted a gray sedan
with heavily tinted windows. The officers became suspicious after the
car disappeared down an alley, so they turned on the squad-c ar lights
and initiated a stop. The police spotted a pistol resting on the passenger
seat when they approached the car. They asked the driver, a young Black
man, to step out of the vehicle. The driver explained that he had a gun
permit, and Snow said that they would verify this information. The of-
ficers returned to the squad car with the gun and confirmed that it was,
indeed, licensed. But they discussed the gun’s extended magazine with
concern. Snow counted that it had a capacity of twenty- six bullets. He
and Foster wondered why someone would need a gun like that, specu-
lating that the driver’s alley-c ruising behavior meant that he had been
searching for someone. Though the officers returned the gun and let the
driver go, they appeared visibly agitated after their second encounter.
They said they had seen gang-r elated tattoos on the driver’s hands and
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Introduction | 3
had asked about the extended clip. Although the man claimed he liked
to go to the shooting range, he failed to name the location of one. After
the stop, Snow drove the squad car down the block and pulled over. He
glanced anxiously in the rearview mirror and noted that the gray car
appeared to be following them. With one brief remark— “we’re going to
get the hell out of this area”— he drove away.
Snow and Foster’s experiences and perceptions reflected a widely
shared sense of the West District’s reputation among the police. Officers
often mentioned violent crime and an array of other social problems
when characterizing the district. Their perceptions were tied, in part,
to the structural conditions of the West District, which included many
of the city’s most poverty- stricken neighborhoods. Residents had to call
on the police to respond to crises around health emergencies, addiction,
housing insecurity, family conflicts, and other problems that reflected a
dearth of institutional resources. But the West District’s reputation also
stemmed from a long history of criminalization. Targeted law enforce-
ment had swept many district residents into the carceral system and
stamped the area with an indelible mark of social pathology.
The combination of service needs and crime control mandates cre-
ated a challenging work environment for officers to navigate. Police
leaders directed officers to make proactive traffic stops with the goal of
ferreting out and preventing violent crime, but these officers often faced
an overwhelming volume of calls for service that sent them, like Snow
and Foster, hurtling from assignment to assignment. Some officers were
proud of their ability to handle this workload and “do more with less.”
They also touted the West District as the place where the “real police
work” of crime fighting occurred. However, others looked to different
districts, longing for a slower routine. Regardless of how they adapted
to the work, many officers explained that the district was “all garbage.”
This pernicious insinuation overlaid another reality: over 75 percent of
residents in these neighborhoods were Black—t he highest proportion of
any district in the city.
***
Days later, in the adjacent East District, Officer Doyle Alport was sent
to a single call during his eight-h our shift. But dispatch canceled this
assignment to meet an ambulance with a combative subject before
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4 | Introduction
Alport even arrived. Alport later volunteered as a backup unit for graf-
fiti in progress at the downtown train station. However, when he arrived,
two of the district’s patrol squads and a supervisor were already at the
scene. Toward the end of his shift, Alport volunteered to take a call in
lieu of another officer. The assignment involved trouble with a subject,
again at the train station. Alport resolved the situation by encouraging
two individuals to leave the premises, which they did. As Alport had
time to kill between these calls, he set about doing the preventive work
that the district leadership promoted. He made several traffic safety
stops at a busy intersection. He later parked the squad car and started a
foot patrol, walking along a popular bar- and- restaurant corridor. As he
passed pedestrians and bar patrons, Alport would give a friendly nod
and say hello. He explained that police work in the district had a public-
relations component: residents liked to see foot patrol through their
neighborhoods. His feelings about this mirrored a common sentiment
among the police: the East District’s residents might be demanding, but
they were also deserving. They were taxpayers, professionals, and law-
abiding citizens whose contribution to the city made them worthy of
police service.
Alport, a white man in his forties, had worked in the East District for
eight years, though he had been with the department for nearly twenty.
He had spent four years in the Air Force and remained in the Air Force
reserves after joining the police force. Alport had worked in several dis-
tricts, including the West District, where he had started his policing ca-
reer. He described the East District as “definitely unique,” explaining that
most issues revolved around the downtown entertainment corridors and
the daily influx of people to the business district. Thefts and problems
around homelessness were common. Alport drew a contrast between
the West District and the East District: while the West District was more
violent, the East District had more variety. For example, he said he had
once helped deliver a baby, and he had been the first officer to respond
to a sinkhole. Alport mused that you really had to treat victims better in
the East District: assignments required a great deal of follow-u p, thor-
oughness, and report writing; many officers would not like this aspect of
the work. In contrast, Alport said you could “really blow anything off”
in the West District, short of a shooting. When I probed further, Alport
said that people have different expectations. A victim in the East District
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