An NYPD Chaplain on Tense Times for Law Enforcement

Just days after five Dallas police officers were laid to rest, three more officers were killed in a shootout in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. Investigators said the shooter was "targeting officers." Baton Rouge has also been the site of several protests since Alton Sterling, a black man, was shot and killed by police earlier this month.

“Some of the things that are happening now, it’s not something we really faced before. The last time I faced anything similar to this was 9-11,” said the Rev. Barbara Williams-Harris, a retired detective and a chaplain with the NYPD.

Williams-Harris has been working with officers as they deal with their grief from the recent police shootings. And she said she’s counseled African-American officers as they work through their complicated feelings around police shootings of black men.

“When you hear of a young man that was killed by police and then you’re an officer and you have a son who’s that same age, it hits home and it affects that police officer very differently,” Williams-Harris told WNYC.

Williams-Harris is also the national chaplain for NOBLE — the National Organization of Black Law Enforcement Executives. She spoke to WNYC’s Jami Floyd.