Here’s What Happens to Good Cops When They Stand up to Bad Cops

Headlines and social media posts attest an inexcusable escalation in instances where law enforcement’s use of brutal tactics or lethal force are alarmingly unwarranted. In fact, the reality that police regularly inflict indiscriminate violence with blatant impunity has exhausted any expectations of justice for family members of countless victims. With numb cynicism, a sardonic common theory concludes that good cophas to be an oxymoron—because if there were any good cops they would arrest the rotten ones . . . right?

As a theory, that scenario works surprisingly well. But it ignores two interrelated points of considerable weight—and the first might shock you, so brace yourself. Good cops aren’t just a fairy tale—and they are everywhere. However, the reason the corrupt cops aren’t being arrested in droves or having their crimes exposed isn’t for lack of effort. For Lorenzo Davis, holding police accountable was in his job description—until he ran headfirst into the Blue Wall of Silence for trying to do exactly that.

As former supervisor of the Chicago Police Department’s Independent Police Review Authority (IPRA), Davis was tasked with investigating the department’s shooting incidents with an impartial eye to determine if they were justified. In eight years of shootings, as Davis told the Daily Beast, he discovered six cases where no possible justification existed for the officers involved to have used a firearm. Tragically, three of those “bad shootings”—police jargon for unjustified officer-involved shootings—cost people their lives.

But Davis’ findings were never made public.

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