Douglasville’s cops: pale by comparison

Almost 20 years ago, I covered the case of an African-American police lieutenant who was fired and then rehired by the force in Douglasville. (They had canned him for failing to report bad behavior by some white cops. Go figure.)

At the time, he was the only black cop on the department’s roster. We talked about that, and about all the reasons the department’s leadership gave for why it was so.

This week, I was there again, because a New York Times analysis showed Douglasville with one of the biggest gaps in the country between the racial makeup of the town and its police force. We had the same talk.