PARTEE WOKE UP SUNDAY MORNING on a brown futon in his office. His night had ended just five hours before, at two-thirty in the morning. That futon was not made for a man of his size; his legs hung over the edge and one of his arms drooped over the side. But it wouldn’t have mattered much where he lay down, as he wouldn’t have slept much that night anyway.
His wife, Cecelia, had texted him when she saw the intensity of the conflict in downtown Baltimore, and he’d dashed off a quick reply: I’m OK. She didn’t press for more. They usually communicated with each other multiple times a day, but on hard days, days like yesterday, she knew better than to expect much of a response from him. She wouldn’t complain; she knew it was what she had signed up for when she married a police officer, because her own father had been one. Plus, she didn’t have to get the news from him, as her television was on all night. She knew what kind of evening it was.
He wanted to talk to her, unload some of what he was going through, but he couldn’t. He was consumed with thoughts about what had been one of the most chaotic nights of his entire tenure as a member of the Baltimore Police Department. The chaos outside had stirred up chaos inside, too—the emotions that swirled in him were complicated and contradictory. He was upset with the young people he’d watched hurling debris and destroying police cars the night before. But he was also upset that it had come to this. And he was upset that he understood exactly why they’d been throwing bricks.
Partee had joined the police force two decades ago because he wanted to do his part to heal the disconnect between police and the West Baltimore community he grew up in. He’d seen the fissures between police and residents firsthand growing up, but he still felt deeply that there was no way any of his colleagues would have intentionally killed Freddie Gray. He couldn’t conceive of any of them waking up that morning with homicide on their minds. But he also understood why this was tougher for the rest of the community to believe. Their anger was real, and so was their skepticism. Partee felt it was unfair for him and his brothers and sisters in arms to be blamed for the horrid conditions that they were now being asked to come in and police. How do you police a failed school system? How do you police an unemployment rate that hovers around 50 percent for African American men between the ages of eighteen and thirty-five? How do you police an opioid epidemic that needs to have a public health solution and not a criminal justice one? He also knew that the police department he and his colleagues worked for, by retaining and defending discriminatory policing practices that even the United States Department of Justice found routinely violated the constitutional rights of residents, such as conducting unlawful stops and using excessive force, was part of the reason for the torrid conditions.
Partee hadn’t initially wanted to be a cop at first. After finishing college at Morgan State, he decided he wanted to be a teacher. He interned for a while at Robert Poole Middle School, a public school nestled in a working-class neighborhood. The school was—rather appropriately, he thought—situated between an elevated expressway and Johns Hopkins University, two paths out of the neighborhood. People say you know pretty early whether or not teaching is right for you, and sure enough, Partee learned pretty quickly it was not his calling.
He also worked at the Fudgery, a legendary candy shop located at the heart of the Inner Harbor, where fudge-making is accompanied by singing and dancing. Tell them it’s your birthday, and your decadent fudge offering will be coupled with a pitch-perfect a capella rendering of “Happy Birthday” (both the classic version and the “black” version—Stevie Wonder’s tribute to Martin Luther King Jr. Day). The members of the Baltimore-bred R&B singing group Dru Hill, named after a famous park in West Baltimore, met while working together at the Fudgery. Everyone who works at the Fudgery has the same job: candy maker. And the application process is anything but traditional. Applicants have to demonstrate an understanding of math, science (to make the candy), and musical pitch. Therefore, to get the job not only did Partee have to show he could make a mean batch of fudge, but he also had to show off his tenor vocal range.
The Fudgery was also where he’d met Cecelia. She always said that Partee reminded her of her father, a burly and kind man who believed deeply in family and in community. Cecelia’s cousin Cassandra had been a career Baltimore police officer, and Cecelia’s stories about her cousin became an early model for Partee. Partee’s family had its own legacy of service—he grew up admiring how his grandfather, a Marine, always took pride in his dress and sense of discipline. How he held his shoulders back and his chest out. Partee had considered joining the Marines right out of high school and was on his way to the recruiting station when he received an acceptance letter from Morehouse College. But it was conversations with his grandfather Grandpa Joe that had gotten Partee interested in the police department in the first place.
“Anybody can talk. Not many do. What are you going to do to change things?” Partee remembers the exact words his grandfather said to the aimless young Fudgery employee. And it could not have come at a more perfect time. That young man was seeking direction. Grandpa Joe’s push, and Cassandra’s example of life as a career police officer, provided both.
As Partee started to get up from the futon on this late April morning, he was surrounded by artifacts of a useful life: pictures of his family, certificates and awards he had received in his twenty years of service on the force. He looked up and saw a framed poem that he had first encountered while a student at Morehouse, written by its former president, Benjamin E. Mays. Mays had preached nonviolent civil resistance and mentored leaders such as Dr. King and Maynard Jackson. After last night, Partee realized, the poem had taken on a new meaning.
Didn’t seek it, didn’t choose it
But it’s up to me to use it
I must suffer if I lose it