Blue: The LAPD and the Battle to Redeem American Policing

From award-winning investigative journalist and author Joe Domanick, Blue explores the history of police culture and reform in the United States and the systems that enable racially motivated police brutality.

Beginning with the 1992 Los Angeles Riots and ending with the tumultuous police controversies swirling around both Ferguson, MO and New York City in 2014, Domanick’s fast-paced book is filled with political intrigue, cultural and racial conflict, hard-boiled characters like intransient, warrior minded cops like LAPD chief Daryl Gates and America’s most famous police reformer, William J. Bratton. As the Los Angeles Times put it, Blue weaves a compelling, fact-filled tale of a turbulent city in transition and a police department that often seems impervious to civilian control.

As the story unfolds, Domanick seamlessly injects and analyzes police policies and actions, while discussing police accountability and legitimacy, effective crime-reduction based on real, long-term community policing, and what is necessary for a new stage of progressive police reform to take place. As Kirkus Reviews summed up in a starred review: This is a well-executed, large-scale urban narrative, sprawling, engrossing, and highly relevant to the ongoing controversies about policing post-Ferguson.