Inside the Battle for the Soul of the LAPD

Above all, he remembers the boots the cops wore when they kicked down the door of his mom’s apartment. They yanked him out of bed and a deep sleep, 12 gang cops in riot gear searching the room of a tall-for-his-age 10-year-old named Tionne Tisdale. "Where is it?" they yelled, manhandling Tionne until they realized he was only a child. In his terror and confusion, Tionne stared at their jackboots, thinking, "How’d I not hear those on the stairs?" Sixteen years later, that question still haunts him when he wakes, in a soft panic, at 5 a.m.