After Cleveland officer Vincent Montague shot a Black man, he got promoted. Then he allied with Black Lives Matter, and his life went off the rails.
This article was published in partnership with The Marshall Project, a nonprofit news organization covering the U.S. criminal justice system. Sign up for their Cleveland newsletter and follow them on Instagram, TikTok, Reddit and Facebook.
When he shot Greg Love in 2013, Vincent Montague was a Black patrolman with a shitty traffic assignment in the hectic heart of downtown Cleveland’s nightlife scene. After the young Black Clevelander tried to turn down a closed-off street, Montague approached his car with a Glock in hand. A few moments later, Love’s fresh white tee would be drenched in blood.
Although Montague was cleared of any criminal wrongdoing and only served a one-day suspension related to the incident, the U.S. Department of Justice called the shooting an example of the “poor tactics” and “unnecessary and unreasonable use of force” found in its broader investigation into the patterns and practices of the Cleveland Division of Police in Ohio. That investigation would result in an ongoing consent decree to carry out reforms under federal oversight.
So I was surprised, in 2020, to see that Montague’s name was back in the news — as an example of how Black officers could reform policing. In the years following the shooting, Montague had become president of the Black Shield, a Black police organization with a legacy of advocating against police violence in the city.
There’s a part of me that has always wanted to believe that Black cops like Montague could change law enforcement from within. That hope springs from the fact that I have blood in blue. My family members have served as police officers in Cleveland across three generations, and paid dues as members of the Black Shield.
To truly understand how Black cops can change their police departments — and how their police departments change them — I immersed myself in the world of Montague and his Black Shield. I conducted countless interviews with him, Black Shield members and his newfound allies in Black Lives Matter Cleveland.
I never imagined in that time that I’d also witness Montague’s professional and political undoing.
My in-depth story, which tries to unravel his unceremonious downfall, is out now. In following Montague’s career and its aftermath, my story also sheds much-needed light on the promise and plight of Black cops and whether their presence in law enforcement makes Black people any safer.
Thanks for reading,
Wilbert L. Cooper – Staff Writer at The Marshall Project and author of “The Black Shield,” the forthcoming book from Farrar, Straus & Giroux
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