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Trial of Patrolman Thomas Shea
Book by Hauser, Thomas
- GenresNonfiction
273 pages, Hardcover
First published May 7, 1980
3 people are currently reading
36 people want to read
About the author
Thomas Hauser
138 books36 followersThomas Hauser (b. 1946) is the author of forty-two books on subjects ranging from professional boxing to Beethoven. His first work, Missing, was made into an Academy Award–winning film. Muhammad Ali: His Life and Times earned numerous awards for its author, including the prestigious William Hill Sports Book of the Year. In 2004, the Boxing Writers Association of America honored Hauser with the Nat Fleischer Award for Career Excellence in Boxing Journalism.
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
July 10, 2023
The fact that I read this book over the course of one day warrants at least three stars alone. The narrative was gripping, well-structured, and its reliance on firsthand accounts helped really set the scene of an era that I never lived through. This book being over four decades old is a detail that would be hard to miss on first glance, as the anti-cop sentiment is one that was certainly less common at the time, and I have to commend the author on presenting what seemed to be a mostly faithful account of this tragedy.
That’s not to say I don’t have my complaints. While I think this book was probably helpful to shifting public view at the time, I think these days if you want to read about this type of subject you’d be better-served reading an author that isn’t White. I won’t argue with the LA Times’ praise of the book at the time, that it was an “uncommonly fair” account of the trial. However, throughout the book I couldn’t shake the feeling that I was reading a story in which the police were the protagonists, however flawed they were, leaving the rest of the Black residents of South Jamaica to be relegated to the background, serving as more of an element to build atmosphere rather than as real, human characters. Most in-text quotes come from men in uniform or highly-educated politicians and lawyers, which like it or not means that you will get a spin on the story that’s going to be different from community members’ accounts of this traumatic experience.
As a reader in 2023, you may also grow weary of the author’s silent dismissiveness of struggles faced by the Queens community in the name of presenting “both sides of the story.” Chapter 3 is dedicated solely to interviews of white cops telling the reader how dangerous the residents of South Jamaica were—how they feared for their lives daily—serving as perhaps a justification for Shea’s eventual murder of a ten-year-old Black child. I get its inclusion as a narrative device for the author, but we have to remember that this is real life! Thomas Shea didn’t shoot Clifford Glover because he was scared for his life, or on edge, or paranoid due to the rising violence of the Black Liberation Army. He shot him because he was a racist—he had a history of violence against Black people, was dissatisfied with his job, and was upset due to being overworked. It’s clear throughout that him and his colleagues did not see Black people as human. Again, the author presents all this information too, which is great, but the way the book is set up would have you believe that the fate of Clifford Glover was an inevitability due in part to the behavior of groups like the Black Panthers and the greater Black community overall in their renunciation of the police. The equivocation of bad cops’ behavior with Black residents’ behavior isn’t legitimate because for one group it’s a job and the other group it’s survival. I just couldn’t swallow the subtext sometimes, as a reader.
I’m not here to shame Thomas Hauser forty years after the fact—far from it, actually. One of the major takeaways from this book is how much of a miracle it is that stories like this even reach the light of day, let alone become a major publication from a successful author. I just want to be an advocate for bringing nuance and skepticism to your reading of this highly engaging book. And once you’re done, keep reading different books on the subject! History has to be pretty well-tailored in order to fit into a tightly-written political thriller.
Not that anybody asked.
That’s not to say I don’t have my complaints. While I think this book was probably helpful to shifting public view at the time, I think these days if you want to read about this type of subject you’d be better-served reading an author that isn’t White. I won’t argue with the LA Times’ praise of the book at the time, that it was an “uncommonly fair” account of the trial. However, throughout the book I couldn’t shake the feeling that I was reading a story in which the police were the protagonists, however flawed they were, leaving the rest of the Black residents of South Jamaica to be relegated to the background, serving as more of an element to build atmosphere rather than as real, human characters. Most in-text quotes come from men in uniform or highly-educated politicians and lawyers, which like it or not means that you will get a spin on the story that’s going to be different from community members’ accounts of this traumatic experience.
As a reader in 2023, you may also grow weary of the author’s silent dismissiveness of struggles faced by the Queens community in the name of presenting “both sides of the story.” Chapter 3 is dedicated solely to interviews of white cops telling the reader how dangerous the residents of South Jamaica were—how they feared for their lives daily—serving as perhaps a justification for Shea’s eventual murder of a ten-year-old Black child. I get its inclusion as a narrative device for the author, but we have to remember that this is real life! Thomas Shea didn’t shoot Clifford Glover because he was scared for his life, or on edge, or paranoid due to the rising violence of the Black Liberation Army. He shot him because he was a racist—he had a history of violence against Black people, was dissatisfied with his job, and was upset due to being overworked. It’s clear throughout that him and his colleagues did not see Black people as human. Again, the author presents all this information too, which is great, but the way the book is set up would have you believe that the fate of Clifford Glover was an inevitability due in part to the behavior of groups like the Black Panthers and the greater Black community overall in their renunciation of the police. The equivocation of bad cops’ behavior with Black residents’ behavior isn’t legitimate because for one group it’s a job and the other group it’s survival. I just couldn’t swallow the subtext sometimes, as a reader.
I’m not here to shame Thomas Hauser forty years after the fact—far from it, actually. One of the major takeaways from this book is how much of a miracle it is that stories like this even reach the light of day, let alone become a major publication from a successful author. I just want to be an advocate for bringing nuance and skepticism to your reading of this highly engaging book. And once you’re done, keep reading different books on the subject! History has to be pretty well-tailored in order to fit into a tightly-written political thriller.
Not that anybody asked.
August 21, 2025
Had more than a few grammar/punctuation errors. Written alright- seemed to go into too much detail in some unnecessary parts. Alright overall, easy to read.
February 2, 2013
Riveting book.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews