Justice through science

PORTRAIT

AFTER A LONG CAREER

IN LAW ENFORCEMENT,

TRACIE KEESEE HAS

TAKEN HER DATA-

DRIVEN POLICING-

EQUITY MISSION

ACROSS THE COUNTRY.

Tracie Keesee’s three-decade career in law enforcement — highlighted by a commander stint in the Denver police district she grew up in, a federal role in the Department of Justice and deputy commissioner appointments in the New York City Police Department — started in the help-wanted ads. She needed a full-time job in 1989, and the Denver Police Department was hiring.

When Keesee decided to pursue a degree while working as a patrol officer in Denver, she was drawn to then-Metropolitan State College of Denver, one of the only schools offering night classes. She knew the campus well, having spent time in the campus library as a teenager while her mother, an MSU Denver nursing graduate, was studying.

“What was different about the professors there was real-life experience. They had been on the ground, in the trenches, and were telling us what you need to look out for or what you need to be brave enough to do,” she said. “That was always what grounded me and what set my direction for the rest of my education.”

Keesee graduated with a political science degree in 1997 and went on to earn two master’s degrees and a doctorate while climbing the Denver police ranks. Along her career path, she achieved a lot of firsts: the first female police captain in Denver, the first African American woman to rise to the rank of division chief in Denver and the first deputy commissioner of equity and inclusion for the NYPD, the country’s largest police department.

Now, Keesee works on the future of policing as senior vice president of justice initiatives for the Center for Policing Equity, a research nonprofit she cofounded that pursues “justice through science” by consulting for police departments across the country. Her work drew newfound relevance this year after the death of George Floyd, an unarmed Black man who died in the custody of a white Minneapolis police officer, spurred protests across the globe.

“What we’ve got going on throughout the country is what I call ‘generational exhaustion,’” she said. “There is no way that we are going to come into the other side of this and think that policing is still going to remain the same.”