Breaking Rank (59 page)

When it finally happened, two blocks from my home, the victim was a frail seventeen-year-old kid. He and a couple of pals had come to the big city from the burbs to sip espresso and soak up the atmosphere of a pre-Starbucks, independent coffeehouse on University Avenue.

Out of the grief and recriminations that followed the murder came a commitment to organize a citizens' patrol. Officer John Graham, the first openly gay cop within our ranks, stepped forward to offer the hundred or so citizen volunteers a class in personal protection. So did Chuck Merino, a friend of Graham's. Merino was an El Cajon cop and scoutmaster for his department's Explorer troop.

The citizens' patrol, sponsored by the PD, was a first for San Diego (and the country) so it got a lot of press. Which is how the Boy Scouts of America, which sponsors police Explorer posts, learned that one of their scoutmasters was gay. BSA wasted no time firing Merino. It didn't matter to them that he was an outstanding police officer in his hometown, a man of sterling character, a volunteer who had made an extraordinary contribution to our department, and to the people of Hillcrest.

To his credit, Jack Smith, Merino's chief, wasted no time telling Boy Scout leaders to pack up their tents and camp stoves and remove their bigoted butts from the premises. Smith formed his own, unaffiliated youth “scouting” program. And put Merino in charge.

To the credit of my own chief, Burgreen asked me to chair a special meeting of SDPD's senior staff. The agenda: Should we follow suit and file for divorce from the Boy Scouts of America?

Graham, who taught in our Explorer program, was not technically “at risk,” since he wasn't a scoutmaster. But there was an important principle involved, namely discrimination and the will to stand up to it. There was also the matter of solidarity with another agency whose employee had been helpful to us, and whose chief had stuck his neck out for his guy.

There were an even dozen members of our senior staff—black, white, Latino, women, men, civilian, sworn. Several of the men, traditional police
managers (some with grievances against the “liberal” chief of police and his even more “liberal” assistant chief), were ex-scouts themselves. I pictured them as kids: the straight-male bonding, the campfires, the knot-tying. This was not going to be a slam-dunk meeting.

I predicted at best a fifty-fifty outcome, with Burgreen having to make the call at the end of a rancorous meeting. By our rules everyone was required to speak his or her mind—no passing, no ass-kissing, no “group-think” allowed. We heard first from Chief Smith, then from the regional poobah of BSA. I thanked them, excused them, and started around the room. A deputy chief . . . a commander . . . our civilian personnel director . . . another a deputy chief . . . another commander . . .

Shaping up in the seventh-floor conference room that morning was one of the biggest shocks of my career. By the time I turned to the last member of the team, the “vote” was 11-0. The last person, our most senior member in age and tenure, one of our last “dinosaurs” and an ex-scout, made it unanimous: If the Boy Scouts of America would not stop discriminating against gays, and if Chief Justice Rehnquist's Supreme Court kept insisting they didn't have to, the San Diego Police Department would also send the scouts packing. I'd never felt more proud of my organization.

And the rank and file? They'd never felt more ashamed or embarrassed by their department. They went ballistic. So did three-quarters of the community and at least half the city council. So, too, did Bill Kolender, who'd moved on to become head of the California Youth Authority. “Jesus, Normy,” he said, after our decision made headlines. “You and Bobby really fucked up on this one.” I wanted a good comeback, but couldn't quite remember the quote. I went home that night, pulled out my journal, and found it:

            
In Germany they first came for the communists and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a communist. Then they came for the Jews and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Jew. Then they came for the trade unionists and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a trade unionist. Then they came for the Catholics and I didn't speak up because I was a protestant. Then they came for me—and by that time no one was left to speak.

—Pastor Martin Niemöller

Cut to Seattle, 1994, ninth and final badge. I'm the city's new police chief, having traveled a thousand miles up the Pacific coast. “You're not really going to be out there, are you?” said Norm Rice.

“Yeah, I was planning on it.”

“You mean you're gonna
march
?”

“Sure.”

“Well, I'll be damned.” I think he was used to the chief before me, a man who'd rather have had his canines pulled than stroll along in the city's gay pride parade. For me, there was no way I
wouldn't
be there.

“Yeah, well, those are my people.”

The morning rain had stopped and the sun was out in full force. A festive crowd of ten thousand lined Broadway from Pike to Prospect on Capitol Hill. Rice and I milled about with groups of city employees, including several gay and lesbian cops and firefighters. Local businesspeople, musicians, straight parents of gay children, politicians courting votes, six-foot-tall men in drag—all wandered over to say hi to the mayor and meet his new police chief. As we prepared to step out, a large, loud contingent of “Dykes on Bikes” roared past us to take their customary place at the front of the parade. Many were bare-breasted but for pasties; a few were bare-cheeked as well. They straddled “hogs” and Hondas and Kows, maybe even an Indian or two. The parade was under way.

As we turned onto Broadway we were met by half a dozen sign-toting Christian fundamentalists who, when they recognized me in uniform, shouted greetings like “You ought to be ashamed of yourself, Chief!” and “You're gonna burn in hell, Chief!” A few feet up the road the crowd turned friendlier. In fact for the rest of the parade spectators kept breaking from the sidelines to shake my hand, plant a kiss on my cheek, or press candy into my palm. Oh, yes, and to do the same with the hugely popular mayor.

Coming on the heels of a widely publicized incident in which a Seattle cop had (unlawfully) arrested two men for smooching in public, my appearance in the parade was “nothing short of astonishing,” said a civil rights activist. People went out of their way to express appreciation, and none seemed more grateful than my own lesbian and gay police officers.

Others weren't so happy. On Monday morning the phone started ringing and wouldn't stop. Letters poured in for days (my favorite: a man informing me that I was a “dried up, useless scrap of scrotum”). Straight cops lit into me. Who did I think I was, disgracing the uniform like that? What message had I conveyed to upstanding, God-fearing, law-abiding citizens? Cal Thomas, the syndicated right-wing swill-pitcher, devoted an entire column to my reprehensible act. One of the local dailies ran a cartoon of the city's new chief dressed as a drum major
ette
—I've thrown my baton into the air and it's come down and landed in my eye.

There was more parade fallout: Two days before the event, one of my assistant chiefs, with my blessing, turned down a request for Christian police officers to participate, in uniform, in that Saturday's “March for Jesus.” When word about that got out, hellfire rained down like a late-summer lightning storm.

I spent a good part of my first year as Seattle's chief fielding questions, asserting the principle of separation of church and state, and reassuring my cops that I was neither the Antichrist nor a sodomite—although I did let them know that my sexual orientation, like theirs, was nobody else's business.
*

I also told my cops that as proud as I was to be their chief, I was also the
community's
chief of police. And, yes, as I clarified to a particularly testy lieutenant, “community” does include leather-clad, chain-dragging, bare-butted men and topless dykes on bikes.

What did I mean when I said gays were “my people”? It wasn't meant condescendingly. I simply felt great warmth and affection for the gay community, a fondness derived, in part, from my own years of prejudice and bigotry. It was a reflection of my admiration for those who live courageously in the face of so much hostility in our society, and of gratitude for the way the gay community had embraced me in San Diego and in Seattle. Also because, yes . . .
some of my best friends are gay.

As I battled my homophobic demons I must have, along the way, replaced an old stereotype with a newone. Today, I believe that openly gay women and men are generally more “real” than straight folk, more honest with their emotions, easier to talk to, more likely to understand, care about, and confront the oppression of others. And, all in all, they're a hell of a lot more fun to be around.

When I retired from SPD in 2000 a party was held in my honor at an upscale conference center on Seattle's waterfront. My whole senior staff was there, but only a smattering of rank and filers. In any event, the police presence was swamped by hundreds of community members, black, white, Latino, Asian, American Indian. And gay.

Judy Osborne walked up and gave me a hug just before the program began. “Happy?”

“Yeah, I am.”

“Good,” she said. “No sadness at all?” Tears had formed in her eyes.

“Oh, sure. A little. Mostly I feel . . . finished, complete.” She knew what I meant. We'd come a long way together.

At the beginning of my last year as chief, Osborn, a member of my Sexual Minorities Advisory Council (we'd tried for a better name but “Chief Stamper's Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgendered, Polyamorous, Queer, and Questioning Advisory Council” wouldn't fit on the business card) asked to talk to me after one of our regular meetings. “You're not comfortable with me, are you? With
us
?”

I was taken aback. My lord, hadn't I reached out to her community? Aggressively confronted bigotry, discrimination, hate crimes? Made SPD a whole lot more hospitable for gays and lesbians? “What are you talking about, Judy?”

“The transgender community. Me, Suzanne, Barb . . .”

“Oh, come on. You know me better than that. You . . . you . . .” I didn't know what to say. I thought of Suzy. I looked into Judy's eyes—the first time I had allowed myself to really look at her. “Ah, shit. How did you know?”

“We know these things. We can tell.”

“Yeah, but
I
didn't know.”

“I know.”