No FBI director has spoken publicly and at length about the issue of race.
Until today.
FBI Director James B. Comey plans to discuss the strained relationship between police officers and African Americans at a speech at Georgetown University, the New York Times reports.
Comey is expected to discuss how well-intended law enforcement can unconsciously discriminate against black people by more closely scrutinizing them.
The decision to address race shows that Comey is beginning “to show how he’s a much different F.B.I. director than the previous ones,” said Chuck Wexler, the executive director of the Police Executive Research Forum.
“Not to take anything away from the previous directors, but it was almost as though they thought, ‘This is something we shouldn’t weigh into.’ The F.B.I. director is looked upon by police chiefs who have been talking about this issue for years as a very important person, but they haven’t used their position as a bully pulpit to underscore how important civil rights and race is in policing.”
