William Richardson
Aug 8, 2017 · 5 min read

NOBLE: Justice By Action

Five days. More than a thousand officers. One goal: make their cities safer.

If you asked random people on the street about their thoughts on law enforcement as a whole, your results may vary depending on numerous factors. Race, gender, location and age demographics could skew an individual’s bias and you could get any answer from positive to negative.

Michael Brown. Philando Castile. Sandra Bland. Countless other incidents that have happened at the hand of those sworn to protect. You can understand the lack of overwhelming faith.

And that’s entirely justifiable. The fear is rational. The skepticism is earned.

But what if I told you that law enforcement actively worked to fix that image?

What if there was a place where minority law enforcement officials convened to share ideas and fellowship to ensure stability moving forward?

It just so happens that if you attended last week’s NOBLE (National Organization of Black Law Enforcement Executives) Annual Training Conference and Exhibition in Atlanta, you would have seen just that.

The logo for the NOBLE, first established during a three day symposium in 1976. (Courtesy of NOBLE’s website)

While public perception tends to be dictated based on the incidents of police brutality and everything broadcasted for the world to see on social media, this is the one side of law enforcement that the people will never get to see: the human side of being an official of the law dedicated to making a difference for the people and the communities they serve.

Officers from local municipalities, major police departments, and federal government agencies get to take off their uniforms and just be around their peers. The officers have panels that start at 8 am and range from how to utilize body cameras effectively to how to gain trust among millennials to dealing with the emotional trauma of law enforcement death. The panels are designed to provide officers with the opportunities to hear how to make their departments run more effectively from people that are experts in their fields.

Though the conference serves as a forum for law enforcement to learn how to better serve their communities, I found it more beneficial to be on the outside looking in. As a young black man who doesn’t have a job in law enforcement, it was easy to navigate around and listen to the experiences of the officers who traveled from the likes of London, Montréal, and numerous states in the United States.

To provide some context, I grew up around law enforcement from birth. My father retired from a county corrections department and my mother was a executive director in a municipality that served a major police department. Family dinners almost always consisted of talks about what was going on in the city, who was hired/fired, and which politician would truly deliver on the platforms that got them elected in the first place. I found myself as a child going to work with my mom and sitting in city halls, police departments, and fire stations. So from a young age, I knew all the pros and cons of working in law enforcement.

The ironic part is that when I was growing up, my parents wanted me to distance myself from working in law enforcement entirely. They have the mindset that law enforcement tends to strip you of your humanity, that the badge tends to come before your race, your ideologies, your morals and ethics.

While that can be true for a lot of officers, NOBLE does a good job of reminding its members where they came from and that their jobs can be symbolized in three words that make up their motto: justice by action. Black and blue can coexist together; they aren’t mutually exclusive, to be active and think outside the box to benefit the masses. And on top of that, the officers were encouraged to take time away from the panels and to enjoy the sights and sounds of the city. And that’s when people had the most to say.

So I observed. Listened to what officers had to say. Asked questions about their lives. And put everything in perspective.

Despite a speech from controversial* U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions during the Civil Rights Brunch, 99.9% of the other speakers, panelists, and officers all focused on preaching kindness, professionalism and most importantly, humanity, to work towards a common goal that they swore to uphold. Speeches from Civil Rights leader and former Atlanta Mayor Andrew Young Jr., Congressmen John Lewis and Sanford Bishop (both D-GA) spoke to the importance of law enforcement in a time where so many negative images of cops have been front and center in the last five years or so.

And the best part? There were Black people everywhere. In a time where prejudice and racism seems to be more visible and prevalent than ever before, the vast majority of the people at the conference were all Black. Many different hues. Many different accents and hair styles. And all in one of the most culturally diverse cities in the country. It was beautiful.

If people of color had doubts that law enforcement didn’t understand their struggles because the people enforcing the laws didn’t look like them, this conference showed the exact opposite of that. If anything, there was a hyperawareness that showed they know exactly what’s going on and more. What shocked me was the amount of honesty there was about what they know and what they don’t know.

For example, one of the workshop panels was entitled “Issues of Trust Between Millennials and Law Enforcement Officers.” In this panel, Dr. Elsie L. Scott, director of the Ronald W. Walters Leadership & Public Policy Center at Howard University conducted a focus group made up of Black men and women across four different colleges, and out of the students they talked to, the number one reason why students wanted to join law enforcement was to help people.

The reaction of the people in the room was what surprised me more than anything. As I looked around, some of the officers murmured amongst each other and others sat with seeming disbelief in their eyes. You’d like to think that would be common sense, and for a 23-year-old like me, maybe it is. But in a day and age where people hate law enforcement just because, where rappers call police “pigs” and throw profanity at “12”, it’s tough to see the forest for the trees.

And that’s why this conference is so vital.

Law enforcement are people too. Sometimes they need a drink. Sometimes they need to kick their feet up by a pool. And sometimes they need experts to tell them how to effictively do their jobs better. It’s the duality of being an officer. A retired U.S. Customs officer told me: “We are officers all the time, but just like people in other fields get to go home to their families, we should be able to do that too. We’re not perfect. There’s always going to be the good and the bad, but we’re still human.”

And as I left the conference with a sense of optimism, I realize that there’s a silver lining here: it can only get better from here. With the advances NOBLE is working to achieve, law enforcement will make bigger and better strides to ensure their communities are safer for everybody.

*Writer’s Note: I use controversial because not only has he been in the spotlight consistently since his nomination, the speech he gave was….something. I can’t remember the last time I had somebody blur the lines between good intentions and propaganda, and do it to my face. But to each their own.*

William Richardson

Written by

Free Agent. Music. Sports. Culture. UConn Class of 2016. @NABJ member. Women's B-Ball @TheUConnBlog. (*Just bring snacks)

Welcome to a place where words matter. On Medium, smart voices and original ideas take center stage - with no ads in sight. Watch
Follow all the topics you care about, and we’ll deliver the best stories for you to your homepage and inbox. Explore
Get unlimited access to the best stories on Medium — and support writers while you’re at it. Just $5/month. Upgrade