As Minneapolis's chief of police in 2020, I was in the eye of the storm — and at the helm — during a moral crisis that swept around the globe — the murder of George Floyd, whose life was extinguished under the knee of a police officer while three other officers failed to intervene.

The entire policing profession found itself on trial. Blue and Black collided — the two worlds I inhabited, as a police chief and as a Black man.

But I never felt my loyalties were divided. My duty was the same as it had always been: to serve the people of the city — all the people — and to uphold the constitution and the laws of my state. It was the oath I had sworn and honored for more than 30 years.

When I was chief of police, my job was the pursuit of justice, and it did not require taking sides. Yes, the so-called blue wall of silence that has long protected police officers from accountability is real. Yes, it was painful for me to be seen by some as an enemy to my own community — my lifelong advocacy for racial justice suddenly eclipsed by the uniform I wore. And yet, I fired the involved officers immediately. I became the first police chief in U.S. history to swiftly and unequivocally denounce and testify against the actions of one of my own officers in a

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