White Cop, Black Ghetto

For nearly two years, policeman David A. Magnusson, 27, has patrolled Miami’s black Overtown ghetto, where rioting broke out last winter after the shooting of a black motorcyclist by a Hispanic officer. He is a police representative on the panel that is investigating that outburst.

“I’m sure I’ve said my share of words that perhaps I shouldn’t have said, you know, in common, everyday language. But as far as being able to say I can’t work an area because this person’s a certain color or that person’s a certain color, I have not been that way. There’s hostility sometimes, say, when you’re making an arrest, one of the friends will say, ‘Get your cracker ass outta here!’ And I might respond with a four-letter word to them on the side. No ‘Nigger, this’ stuff or nothin’ like that. I don’t talk like that to people; I refuse to, even with all the ‘cracker’ stuff. I might grab a guy and say, ‘You s.o.b., why would you be callin’ me “cracker”? You got somethin’ ! against me?’ And then he’ll think about it, and he’ll say, ‘Well, no, man, but . . . ‘ You see, he’ll cut back on the hostility.”