A Major Obstacle to Police Reform: The Whiteness of Their Union Bosses

The president of Minneapolis’s police union called George Floyd a “violent criminal” and those protesting his killing by a police officer a “terrorist movement.” A union chief in Baltimore once said Black Lives Matter activists were a “lynch mob”; one in Philadelphia referred to them as “a pack of rabid animals.” Another has labeled St. Louis’s democratically elected prosecutor, who is black and supports police reform, a “menace to society” who must be removed “by force” if necessary.

All of these union leaders also have this in common: They are white.

In many cities, police officers are more than the people they are sworn to protect and serve. But this is especially true of the presidents of their unions, The Marshall Project found in an analysis of . Of the 15 largest departments in which a majority of officers are people of color, only one, Memphis, has a union leader who is black.