Nomination for a Hero Badge

Baton Rouge undercover cops

I was going to go off on a rant about why this story is misleading. Then I decided not to dignify it beyond a couple of comments to put the photo into context. Chief “Balls the Size of BB’s,” should have pointed out that the events depicted in the photo happened 25 years ago and left it at that. Instead we get a mea culpa.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/louisiana-cops-dressed-blackface-1993-171253831.html

This is where I go off on this worthless turd Chief. Instead, I’ll settle for this:

STATEMENT BY POLICE CHIEF MURPHY PAUL The Baton Rouge Police Department was made aware of a post circulating on social media in which two Baton Rouge Police Officers are dressed in blackface. According to the post, the pictures are from a Baton Rouge Police Department yearbook. A preliminary review of the matter indicates the officers were working in an undercover capacity during a department-approved operation when the photos were taken. The Advocate published a story about the operation on February 22, 1993. Blackface photographs are inappropriate and offensive. They were inappropriate then and are inappropriate today. The Baton Rouge Police Department would like to apologize to our citizens and to anyone who may have been offended by the photographs.

I worked narcotics for fifteen years. During ten of those years I targeted crack cocaine dealers and organizations almost exclusively. Here is what I know about crack dealing. It is the only drug, (at least in San Antonio, Texas) where street level dealers blatantly hawk their product. They stand in the street and flag down cars. These dealers are exclusively black. I have never seen a white male hawking crack on the street corner. In fact, a white male may have trouble buying crack.

The second point is the operation itself. The two narcs pictured were supposed to pose as drug dealers and sell pseudo-crack to unsuspecting customers. Based on my experience, putting white undercover officers on the street in a black neighborhood wouldn’t work. It wasn’t their “turf” and white street dealers just didn’t exist. There were no black officers available.

This ill conceived operation is a manpower intensive, expensive and low percentage play. I suspect that the narcs were against it, but lost the argument. If I had to guess, this was a PR exercise demanded by the Chief. The narcs gave it to him in spades. (Take that any way you want).


I asked every upper level crack dealer, that I arrested, if they had ever sold dope (crack) to a white guy. Out of hundreds of dealers I found one and two of his runners who admitted to dealings with a white male. The usual reaction was a resounding hell no. Crack dealers practice racial profiling.

Let me put this operation into a context that non-cops can understand. Picture a first date. You go through all that expense, aggravation and wasted time with no real expectations. At the end of the night, it is unlikely her panties will be on the floor next to your bed. That is what the narcs were faced with.