The apparent participation of off-duty officers in the rally that morphed into a siege on the U.S. Capitol building Jan. 6 has revived fears about white supremacists within police departments.

These concerns are not new. White supremacy, the belief that white people are superior to other races, has long tainted elements within law enforcement. As I testified before Congress just months before this assault, there is a long history of racism in U.S. policing – and this legacy may have contributed to the violence in the Capitol in Washington, D.C.

Reports of officers involved in an attack in which the symbols and language of white supremacy were clearly on display are concerning.

But so too, I believe, is a policing culture that may have contributed to the downplaying of the risk of attack before it began and the apparent sympathetic response to attackers displayed by some police officers – they too hint at a wider problem.

As someone who has researched and written about the chilling problem of white supremacists in law enforcement, I believe the failure to confront the problem has had deadly consequences.

Blue, but […]