“The Cop Who Realized The Bad Apple Was Him”

Past Due with Ana Marie Cox and Open Mike Eagle

Ana Marie Cox, Open Mike Eagle, and Andrew Steven

Arts, Society & Culture, Business, Performing Arts

4.6 • 6.4K Ratings

🗓️ 3 July 2020

⏱️ 46 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

In his 34 years in law enforcement, Norm Stamper participated in — or approved of — the gassing of protesters “hundreds” of times. Yet, he thought of himself as a reformer. He was, he thought, one of the “good guys.” His first book was intended to pull back the curtain and expose those *other* cops. Five years into retirement, he realized he was one of those other cops all along. Today, he’s advocate for not just changing policing policy, but resetting the whole system. Find out how he got there.That first book is Breaking Rank: A Top Cop’s Exposé of the Dark Side of American Policing (2005). The one that reflects who he is now is To Protect and Serve: How to Fix America’s Police (2016). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	protests continue tonight across the tri-state. Right now you can see the
0:04.2	protesters are jumping this barrier right here and US Park Police are pushing
0:08.4	them back. Overnight authorities in Minneapolis fought back aggressively
0:14.4	deploying tear gas to break up crowds during the fifth night of protest after
0:18.9	the death of George Floyd. We witnessed for many hours overnight. There's a
0:23.7	confrontation between police and protesters that symbolize the anger of a
0:28.6	community that is pleading for and demanding justice. Hi I'm Annamarie Cox and
0:40.6	welcome to with friends like these Converse Edition. The uprisings across
0:48.2	America have succeeded in drawing into question the reflexive narrative that a
0:53.2	lot of us white people have when it comes to police. If nothing else I hope you
0:58.1	dear listener got a little uncomfortable hearing that litany of headlines
1:02.5	that show journalists continuing to frame police violence against protesters as
1:07.2	some kind of equal and opposite set of forces. But just because we're thinking a lot
1:13.3	more about the rights and humanity of protesters as we should be. I hope we
1:19.2	don't totally lose sight of those cops and what committing and witnessing
1:24.6	violence does to them. Because every once in a while those events can have the
1:32.4	same effect on them that they do on us. They can be the beginning of a
1:37.1	revelation. The beginning of a question about the system they're a part of.
1:43.1	That's what happened with this week's guest Norm Stamper. Norm was the Seattle
1:48.2	police chief in 1999 when protests over the world trade organization flooded the
1:53.2	city streets. At that time he approved the use of less than lethal force against
1:58.8	mostly peaceful protesters and he's regretted it pretty much since. He left
	...

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