St. Louis — A former state lawmaker and a spokesperson for the Fraternal Order of Police in St. Louis has penned a book on the police perspective of the “post-Ferguson” world.
Jeff Roorda, a former Democrat state representative and undercover police officer, is now taking orders for “Ferghanistan: The War on Police,” which will be available on October 1 in hardcover and paperback.
“[Police] felt like we were watching history be rewritten right before our very eyes last year in Ferguson,” Roorda told The Missouri Times. “And it was all based on a false narrative that any casual observer can see for what it is.”
Roorda said the book as an effort to combat the “false” narrative perpetuated by local and national media, who he said often joined protestors in vilifying police actions and increasing tensions between law enforcement and their communities. Roorda said the “Black Lives Matter” movement had a fundamental misunderstanding of law enforcement.
“Black lives certainly matter, they matter to every cop I know,” Roorda said. “Police are the only representatives of government that step foot in the worst neighborhoods in our community because blacks are disproportionately the victims of violent crimes. We’re the only line of defense between them and those deadly incidents. To imply that black lives don’t matter to cops is a real injustice.”
Roorda’s book focuses both on police in the aftermath of Ferguson and nationwide as the BLM movement spread across the country in response to police killings in New York, Wisconsin, California, and beyond. Roorda’s book will feature exclusive interviews with former Ferguson Officer Darren Wilson, who will also be receiving some of the proceeds of the book sale from Roorda. Roorda said he was choosing to donate money to Wilson because his fellow officer was living in “financial ruin” despite “being totally exonerated.”
The book will also feature interviews with 3 St. Louis-area police officers who were shot in the line of duty after the Ferguson protests.
“Ferghanistan: The War On Police provides us with a refreshingly candid look at what really happened in Ferguson and how it affected those on the thin blue line that stood between law abiding citizens and the violent protestors that rained chaos on the St. Louis area and across the country,” a summary of the book reads.
Roorda authored the book after spending months as arguably the loudest supporter of police in Missouri. Roorda’s website boasts that the former police officer made more than 75 appearances on national broadcasts, largely to reject the “hands up, don’t shoot” narrative and to decry the violence occasionally sparked by crowds in Ferguson.
Roorda said there was initially an opportunity to have an open and peaceful dialogue, noting that many of the protestors committed no crimes and demonstrated peaceful intent, but he also said that the violent fringe that had “co-opted” the movement had robbed them of some credibility.
“Black lives certainly matter,” Roorda said. “But I also think this book humanizes police in an era when they have been horribly de-humanized. It’s important for people to realize that cops are human beings. Michael Brown was a human being. When we lose site of that, it makes it harder for any lives to matter.”
Copies can be pre-ordered online and will be available both in stores and on Kindle upon release.
Collin Reischman was the Managing Editor for The Missouri Times, and a graduate of Webster University with a Bachelor of Arts in Journalism.
