WASHINGTON — In an unusually frank and personal speech, FBI director James B. Comey on Thursday addressed "hard truths" about policing, acknowledging racial bias among law enforcement officers and lamenting a "disconnect" between police agencies and communities of color.
"We are at a crossroads," Comey said. "We can choose to live our everyday lives, raising our families and going to work, hoping someone, somewhere, will do something to ease the tension, to smooth over the conflict. Or we can choose to have an open and honest discussion about what our relationship is today."
In giving the speech, delivered to students at Georgetown University, Comey placed himself at the heart of the politically charged debate on race, policing and use of force that has so often riven minority communities during the Obama administration.
Police "often work in environments where a hugely disproportionate percentage of street crime is committed by young men of color," Comey said.
"Something happens to people of good will working in that environment," he added. "After years of police work, officers often can't help but be influenced by the cynicism they feel."
A police officer, whether "white or black," has a different reaction to two young black men on the side of a street than he does to two white men, Comey said, because the black men "look like so many others the officer has locked up."
At one point in his remarks, Comey cited the song Everyone's a Little Bit Racist from the Broadway musical Avenue Q in making the case that everyone makes judgments based on race.
"Look around and you will find," Comey said, quoting the lyrics, "no one's really color blind."
Comey's speech follows a series of high-profile cases in which police have been accused of racial bias, including the fatal shooting in August of Michael Brown, an unarmed black teenager in Ferguson, Mo., by a white police officer, as well as the choking death of Eric Garner, an unarmed black man, at the hands of a white police officer in New York in July.
In December, two minority New York police officers, Wenjian Liu and Rafael Ramos, were gunned down in Brooklyn while in a patrol car.
While acknowledging biases within law enforcement, Comey also called on communities to appreciate the perspective of officers who "want to do good for a living" and who often risk their lives to protect others.