Edwin Raymond has had to live with people hating him who have never met him. In some ways, he’s used to it. If you can get used to that. If you can get used to someone hating you when what you did was tell the truth about the New York Police Department.
He says he knew he was going to get push back for writing his memoir: “An Inconvenient Cop: My Fight to Change Policing in America.”
Raymond is resolute. He knows what he witnessed and why he made the choices. He lives with that. Still, when he wrote his book he decided to help others understand his life beyond being a Black police officer in New York City.
He wrote about his childhood, he says, so people can know who he is and what motivates his actions as an officer and an activist.
Raymond spent 15 years working in the New York Police Department, the largest local police department in the world. He is now a leader in the movement for police reform and known as “the highest-ranking whistleblower in NYPD history.”
He has won a Commanding Officer’s Award for exceptional duty, an NAACP Courage and Leadership Award, an International Documentary Association’s Courage Under Fire Award and a Doc Star of the Month Award for his work. His book was published in October 2023 and has received national accolades.
On his website, in his own words, he shares why he is on this journey: “Though this path hasn’t been easy, it’s been necessary.”
Arizona Luminaria spoke with Raymond in advance of his visit to the Tucson Festival of Books on March 9-10, 2024.
Consider what happens to an American city policing system when the truth is inconvenient. What happens to humans when they are considered inconvenient?
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Q: In the title of your book, you choose to describe yourself as inconvenient. How did you come to decide on this title?
A: You know, I am inconvenient to the system. I’m inconvenient to the conversation that’s been happening around the subject, because it’s one of the most polarizing subjects in the United States right now, especially since George Floyd. People that used to say reform years ago, are saying abolish and defund today. Meanwhile, those who are pro law enforcement refuse to acknowledge that there are issues that need rectifying. So I’m essentially inconvenient to both. I’m presenting a perspective that’s always left out of that conversation. I’m presenting the perspective of the justice minded, law enforcement official, someone who’s not blinded by patriotism. Someone who, despite being employed by the system, can see the detriments and has first-hand knowledge on what buttons to press to remedy the situation that we see nationwide.
As soon as readers open your book, the dedication is: “To both the well-known and unknown who have made great sacrifices for the masses.” What exactly does that mean and are there specific people that come to mind? I mean, we have iconic, even mythical figures when it comes to activists and civil rights and people who have fought for things much bigger than themselves. And while we have to respect and be inspired by that work, there are so many that will remain nameless who have contributed to the work also.
The first sentences of your book are: “No role in society is more divisive than that of the cop. Feared and respected.” But what was being a cop like for you personally as a Black man? What led you to become an advocate for change within the system? There’s a limbo that Black officers experience where once we join the police department, we’re no longer a member of the community. We’re not Black anymore. We’re essentially blue. Simultaneously, we’re never accepted by the blue. We never assimilate no matter how hard we try to. So we occupy this middle ground that the beginning of the book jumps right into.
2024 Tucson Festival of Books
The Tucson Festival of Books — March 9-10 — is an annual event held on the University of Arizona campus, drawing more than 100,000 people, including hundreds of authors and celebrities. The fest brings in people of all ages for one thing: Books.
Authors across all genres, and all from different backgrounds and walks of life, have the chance to share their stories. Whether that be through book signing tables, social gatherings or panel talks with various authors, there is something for writers, readers and gawkers alike.
See the schedule of author presentations, including three events featuring Edwin Raymond.
In your efforts to change the NYPD from within, you shared that you faced isolation and harassment from colleagues. What was that like for you? The plan wasn’t originally to be a whistleblower. The original plan was to rise through the ranks, and have the autonomy to do things differently. I was forced to become the activist and the whistleblower because the system is not designed for differing opinions from within. I prepared to be called a rat, and to be ostracized. Despite what you prepare for, when you actually go through it, it still stings. So I always wore a very strong image, but when I was home and would think about it, it was heavy. It was mentally draining. I would see people staring. I would walk into a room and you can tell they were just talking about you. Or when you walk in the room, the energy shifts completely. Everyone is jovial in a room, and then when you get there to eat your lunch, you notice everyone’s serious again. So I didn’t enjoy it, but I accepted it.
Writing a book about these deeply personal things that you went through during your time on the force can be very emotionally taxing. What encouraged you to continue to tell your story even if it got hard at times? In terms of personal things that I wrote about I actually start with my childhood. I wrote this book with academia in mind, but I still felt a memoir was necessary so the reader can connect with the person. I can sit here and transcribe the data that I’ve collected and transcribe certain anecdotal experiences. But you know, writing a memoir allows you to see the whole. The whole Edwin Raymond. Writing about my childhood, there were things that I’d never said out loud to myself, that I had to write about for the first time. So it was a combination of buried emotions, trauma, and it was even therapeutic at times. You don’t realize how much of that stuff stays with you and affects who you are.
In your book, you mention how NYPD is the standard for many policing practices across the country. Recently it was announced that the NYPD would be creating a full-time post within Tucson, bringing their total number of “foreign” posts to 16. Is that a common thing for the NYPD to do? And how does this “posts” system relate back to broader themes you discuss in your book? Despite being a local police department, the NYPD operates more effectively and with a higher budget than most nations. What local police department can afford to have agents all around the world? It’s unheard of! Federally, that’s different. But local, it’s unheard of. And unfortunately that’s what allows the cancer to spread. If there’s any good that can come from those relationships and having those posts, great. But unfortunately, nonsense comes with it. A lot of police departments, when they are looking to hire new leadership they often hire outgoing or recently retired NYPD leadership. And what have they done? They’ve literally just recreated what they know in New York, and that’s how the cancer spreads.
You mention the myth of bad apples, and say it’s really the whole barrel. What are some misconceptions about the term “bad apple” when it comes to policing, and how do you hope to dispel these misconceptions through your book? This is something that I was guilty of prior to joining the police academy. And I would say 95% of society is guilty of. We assume that police officers have a lot more autonomy than they really do. You’re literally not you. Out there you are conforming to a system. You are following orders and policy. The bias is already in the policy. This is why no matter the racial makeup of a police department, if they’re still following detrimental policy, we will still have the same despairing outcomes. An example of this can be Tyre Nichols in Memphis. All the officers involved were Black, and the police chief was a Black woman — and people might assume, because everyone involved is Black, including the police chief, it would eradicate the issue. It doesn’t. All of them are still operating within a certain framework and that’s where we have to go deeper into the soil of the tree.
You share a lot about challenges you’ve faced and things you’ve learned. What do you hope readers can learn and take away from reading “An Inconvenient Cop?” We all have a part to play in moving the needle. You know not everyone is going to ascend to the position of being a recognizable leader, but everyone’s contribution still matters.
Does that go back to dedication for those known and unknown? 100% yes.
Your book has seen a success since its release, with positive reviews and now an appearance at the Tucson Festival of Books, where you get to share the themes in your book with a large audience. What, to you, have been the most rewarding parts of sharing your story? The feedback from the readers. I have a decent social media account, about 60,000 followers or something, so I’m pretty easy to find on social media. The direct messages, the reviews left on Amazon, on Good Reads, people who were completely cynical now have hope. People who basically got the book just to critique it, because they’re very blindly pro law enforcement, they now say, “You know what? Maybe there is room for improvement.”
So the fact that readers have been able to see this perspective that’s been missing, that’s the most rewarding part. I am hoping that academia embraces it more, as well. I wrote this book with college students in mind. I want it to be a tool. The message, the information in the book, I want it to be a tool that’s used to to get things right.
Finally, what are your hopes for the future of policing in America, and how do you hope your book can contribute to the ongoing conversation surrounding police reform? I hope that people can understand, despite the origins of policing being a slave patrol, it’s just a microcosm of this nation. Are we going to say, “Look at the origins of this nation, there’s no hope?” I would hope not.
So why would we do that with just a fraction of the problem, when the larger pie is still seen as salvageable.
I’m hoping that people become less cynical about policing, and realize that, like so many other systems that have issues, we can cut the cancer out.
There are positive gains from policing because some people have convinced themselves that nothing positive comes from the police at all. That’s oversimplifying the reality. I’m hoping that the book is a tool that helps educate people.
I’m not the only person that could have written this book in terms of the information that I’ve gathered in 15 years, but sadly, anyone else who could have probably won’t, right? Other people who have access to this, front row seats to this, they just wanna live their lives simply.
Being an activist is not easy work. Being recognizable, having people hate you who’ve never met you, it’s not fun at all. I’ve gotten death threats, you name it.
But I’m hoping the knowledge from the book becomes part of what we advocate for the future.
Is there anything you would like to leave the readers with? I’m trying to prevent more victims. We have to break the cycle of waiting for a Black body to be dead in the street somewhere in America to care. You know, we have to stay on top of this because progress can be undone.
We’re seeing this from the banning of books, to lawsuits challenging diversity and affirmative action. This is all decades of progress slowly being unwoven. So we have to stay on top of these things.
I really hope that people can stay on top of this, despite everything else happening nationally and around the world. Because remember, in the middle of a pandemic, when distractions were suppressed, this was the subject that got everyone outside around the globe. Not the pandemic itself, not climate change. When the distractions are suppressed, we have time to think about things that matter.
The thing that got everyone outside was George Floyd, and for that reason we have to remember, that’s how powerful this subject is.
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