The Officer Harassed a Black Man for Washing His Car, Unaware the Man Was His Police Sergeant and His Career Was About to End

All body camera footage from investigatory stops would be randomly audited to ensure officers were following proper procedures. 5% of all stops each month would be pulled at random and reviewed by a team of supervisors and community representatives. The department created a civilian review board with actual power. Previous civilian oversight had been advisory only. The new board could compel testimony, access all records, and make binding recommendations on discipline for sustained complaints.

Officers were required to complete 16 hours of implicit bias training annually, not the previous 2-hour online module that officers could click through without paying attention. The new training was in-person, interactive, and included scenarios designed to make officers confront their own biases. The department also established an early warning system that would flag officers who showed patterns of problematic behavior before it rose to the level of sustained complaints. If an officer had three complaints alleging similar conduct within a year, even if none were sustained, they would be automatically flagged for additional supervision and training. Whitmore was involved in developing the new training program on implicit bias and racial profiling.

He shared his own experience with the body camera footage as a training example. Officers watched a respected sergeant get profiled by one of their own. It was powerful and uncomfortable, which was exactly the point. The training didn’t just show Whitmore’s incident. It showed the body camera footage from several of Castellano’s previous stops.

Officers watched Castellano stop the attorney while jogging. They watched him harass the business owner outside her own store. They watched him make a college student empty his backpack. Then, trainers asked the officers to identify what reasonable suspicion Castellano had in each case. The answer was always the same, none.

The only common factor was the race of the person being stopped. Whitmore also became an advocate for officers of color within the department. He discovered that he wasn’t the only black officer who had experienced discrimination. Several others shared stories of being stopped by fellow officers while off-duty, being questioned about why they were in certain neighborhoods, being assumed to be suspects rather than officers. Whitmore started a mentoring program pairing experienced officers of color with newer recruits.