Joseph D. Dorsey Sr., 51, is the deputy chief of the MARTA police. He has several close family members, including four nephews who are police officers. Dorsey was interviewed by staff writer Rosalind Bentley. His comments were edited for space and clarity.
Growing up in rural central Louisiana, my interactions with law enforcement weren’t really negative because I had cousins that were in law enforcement and they were actually role models to me and my brothers.
As time went on, my big brother became a police officer, and I always looked up to him. The key thing that he told me when he got into law enforcement was, “If you want to be a police officer, if you get into it for any reason other than wanting to help people, you’re pretty much doing it for the wrong reasons.” I took that to heart.
I’ve been pulled over before, but it’s never been a negative experience. It’s probably a combination of things; the officer being well-trained on race relations, and then it was probably some on my part in the way I reacted.
Anytime you’re pulled over, basically the officer is in charge. Some officers may do things different, but (as an officer) you gotta follow the basic principle of treating everybody the way you would want to be treated. Even though that person may have violated a traffic law or something, you still want to treat them nicely and have them treat you nicely just like you would want somebody to treat your sister or your mother.
If you look at it that way, I don’t see how you can go wrong in treating everybody the same and everybody fairly.
If the system were what the system is built to be, no one should have any concern. But unfortunately there are situations out there that take place.
As a young man growing up, is it possible that I was profiled? It’s a possibility, because I’ve had expensive cars before and, yes, I’ve been stopped before in rural Louisiana. At the time, I was a police officer. I was off-duty, just going with the flow of traffic.
I said, “Sir, how can I help you? What did I do?”
The conversation was positive from that point on. He never knew I was a police officer.
See, you’ve got two tales. You’ve got one side, then you’ve got the law enforcement side. There’s no one side that’s 100 percent right. It has to come together to make it right.
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