Black and Blue: A glimpse into the world of two Oakland police officers.
Robert Smith and Daniel Griffin open up about their experience being Black officers on the police force.
This article is a project from The New York Times Student Journalism Institute, a professional development program for collegiate journalists.
By Clara Mokri
In June 2020, in the wake of the killings of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor, 30-year-old Daniel Griffin stood with hundreds of fellow Black men in Oakland, Calif., in a line where the police and protesters faced off. But he wasn’t standing with the protesters. Instead, he stood across from them and looked them all in the eyes. Because he was in uniform that day, protesters taunted him, called him a sellout and warned him not to show his face in Oakland, his hometown, anymore.
“That really upset me,” he recalls. “I’m Black before I’m blue.”
Six years ago, Officer Griffin’s childhood dream came true when he was sworn in to the Oakland Police Department and became the youngest officer in O.P.D. history to join the prestigious motorcycle unit. He said that he thought that by becoming a police officer and bringing diversity to the force, he could spark change from within.
Robert Smith did not share Officer Griffin’s childhood dream. After moving to San Francisco in 2012 and hating his job at the time, he stumbled upon an O.P.D. job listing. He applied as a joke, but after being accepted into the police academy, he was surprised to hear that out of 2,600 applicants, he was one of only 60 to be selected to join the force.
Officer Smith has fully committed himself to the job over the past eight years. In 2015, he was selected as the O.P.D. liaison and lead coordinator of the OK Program of Oakland, a nonprofit that implements a preventive approach to policing by mentoring young Black boys from sixth to 12th grade and fostering trusting relationships with their families.
“The program works closely with the schools because shortcomings in the classroom translate to crime on the streets,” says Officer Smith.
According to Officers Griffin and Smith, because the pandemic has forced students of all ages to take their studies online, many of those boys think school has become optional, and they spend their time on the streets instead. Both officers acknowledge this as a major contributor to an increase in crime rates over the past year.
“Rarely do I see kids in East Oakland throwing a football,” says Officer Griffin as he drives down Bancroft Avenue. “They are being recruited to gangs from a super young age because they can get out of juvenile hall so easily due to Covid. The younger age group is responsible for a large majority of the violent crime in East Oakland right now.”
Officer Smith points to his preventive police work as a key to reversing the high homicide rates and incarceration of Black juveniles and men in America.
“Young Black boys are the only demographic that, if they have a legitimate threat on their lives, won’t call the police because they don’t trust them,” Officer Smith says. “With the OK Program, we are trying to get to know the families through these mentorship events, home visits and being present in the community as people who look like them and who they can trust and call on.”
The results of preventive policing are not readily apparent overnight. Officer Smith says he hopes that by the time he has grandchildren he will start to see real change.
“It costs millions to deal with one murder. Why not put a fraction more of that money into preventative police work? Then maybe next time, that murder won’t even happen in the first place. Instead, nothing is changing.”
The past year has been emotionally taxing on both officers.
The fatal shooting of Daunte Wright by a police officer during a traffic stop in Minnesota a few days earlier was frustrating for Officer Griffin. “If one little action can tick a person off so much, they shouldn’t be doing this job in the first place,” he says. “That mistrust of the police is fresh after an incident like that, and I’m the one who has to go out in the streets and take people’s anger. I don’t know if that’s worth it anymore.”
For Officer Smith, the hardest part of the past year has been seeing so many young boys die by gun violence. There had been 45 homicides in Oakland as of April 21, more than triple the number in the same period last year.
“One kid I know had a new R.I.P. T-shirt every week,” Officer Smith says as he shakes his head. “These kids out here become numb to it. You’ve got a seventh-grader running around thinking he wants to be a gangster, and if he keeps at it, his family is going to have him on an R.I.P. T-shirt, too. Kids don’t ever think it’s going to happen to them until it’s too late.”
Read more about Clara Mokri and her photography.
