Chatham County Sheriff Richard Coleman’s declaration of war on gangs combines enforcement with counseling, parents, churches, and community intervention — raising a larger question about what Black law-enforcement leadership should look like across America.
The fact that Richard Coleman, the sheriff of Chatham County, said the word “gangs” on several occasions while standing in front of cameras in Georgia should trigger a wider national discussion. By doing so, he was admitting that there is a problem which many Black communities are aware of but which political and law-enforcement leaders often find difficult to talk about without the discussion soon becoming divided between those who want tougher policing and those who are worried about police misconduct.
Coleman didn’t put it that way; instead, he stated that Chatham County has a gang problem, declared that his sheriff’s office was going to take part in the situation, and told parents who have children involved in gangs to act at once. “We’re tired of people dying. We’re tired of people being killed. We’re tired of shootings,” Coleman said when announcing the initiative.
However, the most important aspect of this press conference was the declaration of war.
Coleman surrounded his enforcement message with references to parents, clergy, counselors, victims of violence, and community leaders. His administration’s strategy says law enforcement will deal with those involved in criminal gang activity. At the same time, community institutions must engage the young people, families, and neighborhoods affected by that violence.
That combination deserves examination far beyond Georgia.
BLACK LEADERSHIP AND PUBLIC SAFETY
Chatham County is not a majority-Black county, and that matters. According to the U.S. Census Bureau QuickFacts, the Black population is about 37.7 percent, and the county’s total population is estimated at 312,000 in 2025.
Since Coleman is a Black sheriff serving in a county that includes Savannah and has a large Black population, his statement therefore brings up a wider issue concerning Black law-enforcement leadership in majority-Black cities and in many Black communities throughout America.
Putting a Black person in charge of a police department, a sheriff’s office, or a public-safety agency should not be considered the ultimate measure of progress. Although representation is important, representation alone without actual results leaves the residents with the same problems even when there is a change in leadership.
The real measurement has to be outcomes.
Is it safer for children to walk home? Is the number of shootings going down? Are repeat violent offenders being spotted? Are the residents willing to work with the investigators? Do the officers respect constitutional rights? Are the victims getting the services they need? Is it being done to prevent young people from unnecessarily ending up in the criminal-justice system? And when police officers break the law or violate departmental policy, are they also held accountable?
Black communities should not have to choose between protection from criminals and protection from police misconduct.
They deserve both.
COLEMAN IS PUTTING ENFORCEMENT ON THE TABLE
Coleman’s approach begins with enforcement.
The Chatham County Sheriff’s Office has set up a new gang unit that includes one sergeant and four investigators who report to a lieutenant, with the unit under the command of a major. Officials said the investigators have already begun collecting intelligence and identifying the gangs operating in the county.
Coleman then took the unorthodox action of publicly naming the groups which his office states have been linked by intelligence to gang activity; recent local reporting referred to the announcement as identifying such groups in Savannah and the surrounding areas while at the same time correctly pointing out that the reported associations with gangs do not amount to evidence that any particular individual has committed a crime.
That distinction matters.
It is wrong to say that aggressive policing involves giving up due process. Intelligence does not amount to a conviction, and association does not prove that a person has committed a crime. The leadership of the black police force should be able to take a firm stance on violent crime without sacrificing constitutional protections.
The principles are not contradictory.
Coleman also advised residents to keep their firearms secured, since the department did not want them ending up in the hands of irresponsible people, and he kept referring to the campaign as one aimed at protecting the whole county, not policing a specific community.
That is where the national discussion should begin.
ENFORCEMENT ALONE ISN’T THE PLAN
What made this press conference different from a typical “tough on crime” announcement was that several people stood beside the law enforcement officers.
Rev. Manuel and his wife Angela said that in 2015 they had lost their daughter to gun violence and then went on to bring up their son. They mentioned that counseling had helped their grandson come to terms with the loss of his mother rather than let the grief turn into vengeance.
The foundation is now aiming to offer counseling not just to those victims and families who have been affected by gun violence but also to individuals who have committed crimes.
That is significant.
What they are really doing is admitting that it is impossible to make up for all the things that caused the violence once the violence has taken place.
Dr. Lisha Dean also talked about offering free counseling, including specialized help for young people who have been affected by gun violence; her main emphasis was on mental health, decision-making, and mentorship as means of enabling young people to make choices.
This results in two tracks being operated at the same time.
For those who commit violent crimes, there is an accountability program and one which is intended to prevent a later generation from becoming either perpetrators or victims.
The idea is by no means absent from current criminal-justice research, since the National Institute of Justice’s CrimeSolutions initiative has rated focused-deterrence strategies as “Promising” based on studies that direct enforcement and intervention toward high-risk offenders and groups rather than viewing entire neighborhoods as consisting of criminal populations. Different programs may yield different results, which is yet another reason why outcomes should be measured rather than assumed.
PARENTS CANNOT BE REMOVED FROM THE EQUATION
Perhaps one of the most uncomfortable portions of the press conference concerned parents.
Coleman expressly told parents that when their children were associated with gangs, they should talk to them and get them to get away from that activity. Other speakers went a step further, saying families often know more about what their children are up to than they are willing to admit.
That conversation is necessary.
The government can’t bring up our children, the police can’t bring up our children, schools can’t take the place of parents, churches can’t take the place of parents, and community organizations can’t take the place of parents.
Support can be obtained from all of those institutions, but accountability also needs to be present in the home.
When explaining the overall strategy, the chief deputy of the sheriff made that point too. He stated that the response had to start with parents and family members and then include churches, schools, and law enforcement; he also wanted law-enforcement agencies throughout Chatham County to take part instead of leaving it all to the sheriff’s office.
That could be one of the most important lessons for Black communities across the nation.
Public safety forms an ecosystem.
BLACK POLICING MUST ALSO MEAN ACCOUNTABLE POLICING
There are valid questions regarding Coleman’s initiative, and they should not simply vanish merely because we agree that gang violence needs to be dealt with.
At the press conference, reporters questioned him about funding, cooperation with prosecutors, and the need for specialized training.
Coleman said five existing positions had been used to form the unit and that he and his chief deputy would assess the additional financial requirements before going to county officials.
More importantly, when asked whether the new gang unit had been discussed with the district attorney’s office, Coleman replied, “No,” indicating the unit was a sheriff’s office initiative.
The reporter also questioned whether the sergeant associated with the unit had received gang-specific training, noting that although he had completed more than 3,000 hours of training, only five of those hours were related to gangs. In response, Coleman stated that the certification held by Georgia peace officers allows them to carry out investigations and highlighted the sergeant’s experience in this area, adding that further training would be acquired if needed.
The importance of those questions is that declaring war is easy. Building cases that can stand up to judicial scrutiny is harder.
If this initiative is to serve as a national example, success must ultimately be shown in measurable outcomes such as shootings, homicides, gang recruitment, guns seized in connection with criminal cases, clearance rates, the number of successful prosecutions, and both recidivism and community trust.
DOES BLACK LEADERSHIP CHANGE POLICING?
Some research suggests police leadership deserves more attention.
A study that had been peer-reviewed and which appeared in the journal Social Science Quarterly looked at the cases of fatal shootings by police in the 100 largest cities in America from January 2015 to June 2020. The study discovered that the rate of fatal shootings of officers per capita was lower in cities where the police chief was Black as compared to those where the chief was white, the difference still being present after the researchers had taken into account several city characteristics such as crime rates.
It should not be taken as demonstrating that having a Black person in a position of authority automatically leads to improved policing. The study offers several possible explanations and notes its limitations.
It does, however, underline an important point: leadership and organizational culture matter.
A Black chief or sheriff who has an understanding of the history that exists between law enforcement and Black America may thus hold a special position; they can appreciate why residents call for police accountability and at the same time realize that the grandmother who avoids sitting on her porch because of the threat of gunfire also has civil rights.
The mother whose son is wrongly stopped by police deserves justice.
So does the mother whose son was murdered.
Those truths can exist simultaneously.
BLACK AMERICA DOES NOT HAVE TO CHOOSE
For too long, America has treated policing as an ideological choice. One argument is that the police should be supported. One suggests that the police should be reformed.
Black America ought to call for a more sophisticated form of policing—one that is effective, constitutional, and accountable.
We can ask police officers to respect citizens just as we require citizens to respect the law. We can require that consequences be imposed on an officer who abuses his authority just as we demand that consequences be given to someone who shoots into a crowd. We can provide funding for counseling and mentorship even though we still arrest people who are responsible for serious violence.
One does not conflict with the other.
That is why the events that took place in Chatham County should interest people beyond Chatham County.
Richard Coleman has not yet shown that his scheme will succeed. That assessment must be based on results, not on a press conference. The department will have to prove that its intelligence is accurate, that the investigators are properly trained, that the prosecutions are supported by evidence, that the constitutional protections are preserved and that violence in fact decreases.
But Coleman has presented an important proposition.
There is no need for black leadership within law enforcement to adopt the failed extremes that characterize the debate over policing in America.
There can be another model.
It could protect the community without treating the community as a criminal group. It could arrest violent offenders without considering every Black man to be a suspect. It could require parental responsibility while also offering families resources. It could get the churches involved without expecting prayer to take the place of policy. It could provide counseling without pretending that counseling replaces consequences.
And it can recognize something Black America should never have been asked to forget:
Public safety is a civil right too.
The question now is whether Chatham County can turn that principle into measurable results — and whether Black law-enforcement leaders in cities across America are willing to examine what works, reject what does not, and build public-safety models designed around the communities they actually serve.
