Tangled Up in Blue

Journalist and law professor Rosa Brooks goes beyond the "blue wall of silence" in this radical inside examination of American policing

In her forties, with two children, a spouse, a dog, a mortgage, and a full-time job as a tenured law professor at Georgetown University, Rosa Brooks decided to become a cop. A liberal academic and journalist with an enduring interest in law's troubled relationship with violence, against the advice of everyone she knew, Brooks applied in 2015 to become a sworn, armed reserve police officer with the Washington, DC, Metropolitan Police Department. Then as now, police violence was constantly in the news, and each day brought more stories of corrupt cops, police violence, and the racial disparities that mar our criminal justice system. But as Brooks made her way through the police academy and began work as a patrol officer in the most crime-ridden neighborhoods of the nation's capital, she found a reality far more complex than the headlines suggested.

In Tangled Up in Blue, Brooks recounts her experiences inside the usually closed world of policing. From street shootings and domestic violence calls to the behind-the-scenes police work during Donald Trump's 2016 presidential inauguration, Brooks presents a revelatory account of what it's like inside the "blue wall of silence" and issues an urgent call for a truly transformative approach to. An explosive and groundbreaking investigation, Tangled Up in Blue complicates matters rather than simplifies them, and gives pause both to those who think police can do no wrong-and those who think they can do no right.



Story Locale: Washington, DC