A City Divided: Race, Fear and the Law in Police Confrontations

by David Harris

A City Divided tells the story of the case involving 18-year-old Jordan Miles and three Pittsburgh police officers. David Harris, a resident of Pittsburgh and the Sally Ann Semenko Chair at the University of Pittsburgh School of Law, describes what happened, explaining how a case that began with a young black man walking around the block in his own neighborhood turned Pittsburgh inside out, resulted in two investigations of the police officers and two federal trials. Harris, who has written, published and conducted research at the intersection of race, criminal justice and the law for almost thirty years, explains not just what happened but why, what the stakes are and, most importantly, what we must do differently to avoid these public safety catastrophes.

354 pages, Paperback

Published January 10, 2020

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Reviews

[Bill O'driscoll · Rating 4 out of 5]

Essential reading about the ongoing crisis in the way police deal with the communities they serve, especially the black community. Most of the book is a detailed case study of a single 2010 incident and its aftermath: the police beating and arrest of an 18-year-old high school senior in Pittsburgh. Jordan Miles was walking from his mother's house to his grandmother's house, a few doors away, on a January night; a car-full of three plainclothes cops decided he was up to no good, and that he had a gun, and beat him badly. Harris uses the incident to explain how mutual mistrust grow between police and communities, overwhelmingly as the result of systemic racism and police training that teaches officers a military mindset and to view everyone in every situation as a potentially deadly threat. Harris concludes with a long set of detail (and in many cases, field-tested) solutions to the problem. The writing is a bit academic at times, but covers crucial issues in an evenhanded way.

[Jr · Rating 5 out of 5]

Delves into a case of an arrest and "alleged" police brutality from the perspective of both the Black youth how was beaten and the police. The author is a law professor at the University of Pittsburgh and there was extended litigation over the case, and a number of the individuals involved spoke to the author so a lot of information is out.

He does an excellent job of fleshing out how different people saw things differently and how the incident, which long preceded the recent ones, affected the community.''

[Carol · Rating 5 out of 5]

Required Reading

A City Divided should be required reading for all citizens. Deadly police confrontations will continue until all of us demand that law enforcement and community members see each other as partners in keeping the community safe.