Fiction, Rap and Life

January 9, 2007 (San Dimas, CA) Police-Writers.com added five new authors to the growing list of police officers who have written books.

Lou Campanozzi was born and raised in Rochester, New York. As a young man he joined the Rochester Police Department and for 22 years he commanded the homicide and robbery squad, worked undercover narcotics, and eventually became the city’s District Commander. He was one of the three founders of BowMac Educational Services, a police training consulting firm formed in 1980. The company was designed to teach police officers how to properly interrogate criminal suspects. Lou’s techniques were adapted by police officers around the country and resulted in thousands of criminal justice convictions.

After retiring as a Captain from the Rochester Police Department, Lou relocated to Albuquerque, New Mexico. While in Albuquerque he worked with the New Mexico State Police and continued to educate police officers throughout the country. He also assumed the position of Chief of Police for the Sandia Indian Reservation in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Prior to his death in October 2002, Lou completed three books in the Mike Amato Detective Series: Killing Cards, Ground Lions and his final work, Justice.

In the late 1990s, a trio of Chicago Police Department police officers, Eric Davis, Randy Martin and Randy Holcomb created a positive message through music and ultimately writing. According to Amazon.com, “the Slick Boys were three undercover Chicago cops who moonlight as rappers with an upbeat message. "We tour elementary schools and junior and senior high schools," writes Eric Davis. Their agenda envisions the police officer's job as social work rather than gunplay, values education and respect, and urges kids to ditch stereotypes and "dream extra large." In addition to the musical presentation the police officers authored the book “The Slick Boys: A Ten Point Plan to Rescue your Community by Three Chicago Cops who are Making it Happen.”

In 2005, Mark Davis, of the Chicago Police Department published “Race Traitors.” According to Dennis Banahan, a retired Chicago Police Department detective, and the author of Threshold of Pain, in his review of Davis’ book remarked, “In the 1970's, Don Cornelius, the host of a very popular dance show called Soul Train, and a former policeman himself, ended every episode of the program with the optimistic words, "Peace, Love and Soul". On the streets of Southside Chicago, however, there was anything but peace and love. The Black Stone Rangers street gang, still in its infancy, had a stranglehold on the black community. Extortion, drugs and shootings permeated the fabric of everyday life in the black community. The leading cause of death for black males between the ages of 18-25 was murder. And there were more murders in any given year than had occurred during the entire Al Capone era. Mark Davis does an outstanding job reconsturcting the era and giving us some insight as to what it was like for a working black policeman. Not the Hollywood, rebellious, anti-establishment black policeman stereotype, just a hard working stiff trying his best to do the right thing for the right reasons. A guy who has to endure the dichotomy of sometimes being called an "Uncle Tom" by the community he loves while still not being fully accepted by his white brothers in blue. Mark Davis walked that walk, talked that talk, and now, wrote that book. Do yourself a favor and pick up a copy of "Race Traitors". Peace, Love and Soul.”

While Police-Writers.com hosts 244 police officers (representing over 70 police departments) and their 627 books in six categories, there are also listings of United States federal law enforcement employees turned authors and international police officers who have written books.