It takes a village. It’s a bit hackneyed at this point, but the further I get into my career the clearer it becomes how much I lean on my friends and colleagues and family. I began working on the project that became this book in 2014. It’s launching in 2024. I like to think that I could’ve probably written a book without my supporters, if for no other reason than I am very, very stubborn. But I wouldn’t have wanted to. And the end product wouldn’t have been as good. So, knowing that it takes a village, be there for others, too. We’re all muddling our way through, and it’s easier when we have folks to trudge alongside.
Aspart of my series about “authors who are making an important social impact”, I had the pleasure of interviewing Michael Sierra-Arévalo.
Michael Sierra-Arévalo is an assistant professor in the Department of Sociology at the University of Texas at Austin. He is the author of The Danger Imperative: Violence, Death, and the Soul of Policing (Columbia University Press, 2024). From 2020 to 2023, he served on the City of Austin’s Public Safety Commission.
Thank you so much for joining us in this interview series! Before we dive into the main focus of our interview, our readers would love to “get to know you” a bit better. Can you tell us a bit about your childhood backstory?
I was born in Binghamton, NY, to two Colombian immigrants — Lyda and Pedro. My mom joined the U.S. Army after I was born and, when I was 1, we moved to San Antonio, TX, where she was stationed as a nurse at Brooke Army Medical Center, Fort Sam Houston. I like to think that while I wasn’t born in Texas, I got there fast as I could. I went to public schools in San Antonio, played sports and the viola, and was in the Boy Scouts. I got my Eagle Scout my senior year of high school and I worked a mix of jobs — HEB, Baskin Robbins, Bill Miller’s BBQ — to pay for gas, Magic the Gathering cards, and computer parts. In 2008, I started at UT Austin where I played rugby and eventually graduated with a double major in sociology and psychology.
When you were younger, was there a book that you read that inspired you to take action or changed your life? Can you share a story about that?
One book that stands out in my mind is Blindness, by José Saramago. I think I read it when I was a freshman or sophomore in high school. The gist of the book is that the world is stricken with a sudden blindness, save one woman. From her perspective, you see a group of people descend toward their basest, most violent instincts. Think a more nuanced Lord of the Flies. The book didn’t spur me to take action, per se, but the view of humanity and human nature articulated by the book have stayed with me. There are no clear answers provided. If you want to read the book as “human are inherently evil,” you probably could. But for my part, the book articulated that life and society are delicate, and that base drives like self-preservation and fear of the “other” are always in play. Humans are messy and imperfect and even deplorable, and the book shows that vividly without falling into caricature. I think that lesson has stuck with me in my work on violence and police.
It has been said that our mistakes can be our greatest teachers. Can you share a story about the funniest mistake you made when you were first starting? Can you tell us what lesson you learned from that?
I remember during one of my first ride-alongs with police, I tried to use a structured interview script to learn about how officers used violence. Imagine meeting someone, and then about ten minutes in trying to ask questions like, “When was the last time you used a TASER?” “Why did you use it?” Then iterating that over multiple weapons. It was incredibly awkward and forced. I read the room and immediately stopped using the interview protocol and just had a conversation with the officer. Never went back to the protocol.
At the time, the lesson was that this particular method was not suited to the environment I was in. We were driving around, the radio was crackling, the engine was revving. We weren’t sitting in a quiet room with nothing else vying for our attention. But more broadly, after hundreds of hours with officers, this misstep was a clear reminder that no empirical instrument is a replacement for building rapport, a relationship with a flesh-and-blood person. I disagree with many officers on many things, but they’re people who want to be treated like people. I learned a lot from them, and I learned more when I started from a very approachable, human place.
Can you describe how you aim to make a significant social impact with your book?
I made a conscious choice not to write this book like an academic treatise. It’s painstakingly cited, and all the nitty gritty social science can be found in the endnotes and references. But I thought it was important to write in a way that someone who is not an expert can understand and engage. To that end, I want my book to be a window for those with little or no experience with police into that world. My book is not about heroes and villains. It’s about the unseen and unquestioned parts of policing that make the institution what it is. By showing those things, by letting officers tell the story with their own words, I hope that readers will come away with a better understanding of what policing is versus the ideal version we or those in power often portray. That is a fruitful place from which to have conversations about what we want policing to be.
Can you share with us the most interesting story that you shared in your book?
One of the more surprising stories in the book is when Officer Erickson stops a group of boys for doing nothing more than walking down a sidewalk in their neighborhood. I’ve pasted that section of the book below:
While driving down a darkened street in the heart of the Heights,
Errani drove past a group of six Latino boys walking together on the
sidewalk. He made it most of the way down the block with his eyes
glued to his side-view mirror, then stopped in the middle of the street.
Still looking into the side-view mirror, he muttered aloud, “Look
at these little shitheads.” I asked him if he knew the boys. “No, I don’t,
actually” he responded, “I should, though. Let’s talk to ’em.”
He put his patrol car into reverse and backed up down the oneway
street toward where the boys were still walking. Without taking
his eyes from their reflection in his side-view mirror, he silently
unholstered his pistol with his right hand and held it in his lap. His
palm wrapped tightly around the pistol’s grip and his index finger
pressed firmly alongside the weapon’s frame, parallel to the barrel.
He rolled down his window as he neared the group of boys. Noticing
Errani’s approach, they stopped walking and turned toward the
patrol car. They were in their early to mid-teens, no older than high
school sophomores. Errani finished pulling up alongside them and
greeted them in a friendly tone. He kept his firearm out of sight and
trained on the boys through the panel of his patrol car’s door.
“What’s up, guys?” he asked. The boys responded in a jumbled
chorus of “Hey,” and “What’s up?”
“You guys out of school?”
The boys, again, responded altogether with a tangle of “Yes” and
“Yeah.”
Errani continued his questioning. “You staying out of trouble?
Doing good in school?” One of the boys, partially hidden by his
friends, chirped up and joked sarcastically, “Yeah, making straight
A’s!” The others laughed, one adding, “I definitely got some D’s
though, for real.”
Errani did not acknowledge the boys’ laughter or jokes. He only
told them, “Alright, you guys stay out of trouble. Have a good night.”
Without waiting for a response, he drove away, leaving the boys
standing in the night. Less than a minute had passed since Errani
first spoke to them.
As he drove past the darkened windows of multifamily homes
and weathered brick apartment buildings, he reholstered his firearm.
Unprompted, he turned to me and explained why he had drawn his
weapon, hidden it in his lap, and kept it pointed toward the group of
boys walking along a sidewalk on a Friday evening: “I always do that
when I’m just talking to someone out the window like that. You never
know — they would’ve been able to shoot at us in a split second if they
wanted. That’s why I keep it down here, relaxed, finger off the trigger.
But you have to be ready for that. Always have a plan of attack.”
What was the “aha moment” or series of events that made you decide to bring your message to the greater world? Can you share a story about that?
I don’t think there was an “aha” for me when it came to wanting to talk to lots of people about my work. The “aha” was deciding to go down this road of studying police and police culture. For me, that was the police killing of Michael Brown in 2014. Prior to that, I had been working on gun violence reduction. But Brown’s killing was a seismic shock. It made me start to question what I knew about policing. And what I found was that we knew perishingly little about police, despite decades of study and scandal. Whether it was hubris or gumption, I don’t know, but I thought I could be part of uncovering the hard-to-see “how” and “why” of police violence. The goal has always been to reach people with my findings, and to shift, in ways large and small, how policing operates in this country. As I got further into the work and I told more people about my findings, their surprise and interest helped keep me focused on that goal.
Without sharing specific names, can you tell us a story about a particular individual who was impacted or helped by your cause?
I don’t know about being affected by my “cause,” but my work was cited in an amicus brief to the U.S. Supreme Court on behalf of a plaintiff in a police brutality case. The Court chose not to grant cert, but the use of my hard-fought research in an effort to give someone justice felt like a big achievement. It’s telling, of course, that it still didn’t reach the Supreme Court. And maybe that’s the lesson here. Progress is, at best, halting. The road to justice is long and winding. No choice but to stay the course and hope that you plant the seeds of a tree under whose shade you’ll never rest.
Are there three things the community/society/politicians can do to help you address the root of the problem you are trying to solve?
The most micro-level policy suggestion I propose in The Danger Imperative is to have local police officials review their training curricula and remove “killology” / “warrior” content. There is no reason for recruits to be told things like “You must become the predator” to arrest law breakers. More broadly, tax dollars should not be spend by police departments to send their officers to training run by private companies that preach related ideology.
At the state level, POST (Police Officer Standards and Training) offices should review the approved trainers and curricula for classes that count toward state-mandated training hours. Whereas local admin can stop sending officers to courses and manage their own training material, it would go a long way if poor quality, dangerous training and trainers were removed from the approved rolls.
Most broadly, we need to stop talking about “officer safety” and “public safety” as if they’re mutually exclusive. Turns out, there are a range of interventions that can reduce violence without reliance on armed police. Improved lighting, greened lots, and revitalized facades of dilapidated buildings have all been shown to reduce violent crime. Lower violence overall means less violence for police to address. Even more specifically, increasing the number of behavioral health treatment centers reduces assaults against officers. That says nothing of the potential downstream effects of better access to mental health care. I don’t argue that there’s no place for police with guns. I’m not naïve about the reality of a country with more guns than people in it. But that doesn’t mean that police must be assumed to the default and best option for addressing violence and crime in our communities.
How do you define “Leadership”? Can you explain what you mean or give an example?
Leadership is behavior as much as mindset. With regard to the former, it can be something as simple as being aware of other peoples’ body language and then, as a leader, following up with someone who appears to be struggling to see if/how you can help. Or it can be even more overt, like publicly taking responsibility for one’s mistakes. The mindset is, for me, about wanting to make others better by giving your best. There’s obviously some domain specificity — a research team versus a rugby team versus a Broadway play — but a leader is someone who understands the value of giving their best to someone besides themselves and something besides their own performance.
What are your “5 things I wish someone told me when I first started” and why? Please share a story or example for each.
- Skip more class. Like a lot of high-performing students, I was a hoop jumper, a box checker. I went to every class. Did ever reading. And I did really well in my classes. Looking back, though, I could’ve spent some of those classes sitting in the sunshine. Or reading a book. Or volunteering. Or doing any number of things. When you get down to it, a 94 in a class looks the same on a transcript as a 98. It’s hard to see it in the moment sometimes, but lots of students and young people are really, really hard on themselves. Give yourself some grace and skip class to get some ice cream.
- Life happens when you’re in __________. My advisor told me “Life happens when you’re in grad school,” after my grandma died and I confided I was feeling adrift and unmotivated. I dind’t get it at the time, but I now see it as a reminder that what we DO — be it grad school, a career, whatever — is just part of the picture. And it’s important to leave space for and privilege the joy and pain of the other things that come with life. Otherwise, what is it all for?
- This too shall pass. If you’re feeling bad, this too shall pass. If you’re feeling great, this too shall pass. So feel what you’re feeling. Be conscious of it and reflect on it. If you’re in the dumps, let yourself feel depressed or sad or anxious. And remember that the low is temporary and a necessary condition for the high. If you’re on top of the world, relish it. But don’t convince yourself that the work is done. Because this too shall pass.
- It takes a village. It’s a bit hackneyed at this point, but the further I get into my career the clearer it becomes how much I lean on my friends and colleagues and family. I began working on the project that became this book in 2014. It’s launching in 2024. I like to think that I could’ve probably written a book without my supporters, if for no other reason than I am very, very stubborn. But I wouldn’t have wanted to. And the end product wouldn’t have been as good. So, knowing that it takes a village, be there for others, too. We’re all muddling our way through, and it’s easier when we have folks to trudge alongside.
- The institution will never love you. In my line of work, there’s a lot of poetic talk about the pursuit of knowledge and changing the world and the like. And there’s something to that. But when rubber meets road, professors are still workers, albeit with a unique and (in my view) really great job. As such, it’s naïve to extrapolate too far from the material reality of getting a paycheck for teaching students, writing papers, getting grants, etc. Despite flower language about diversity and community and how much faculty are valued, etc., we’re all line items on a spreadsheet with a $ amount next to it. I don’t mean to be super pessimistic. I don’t think what I’ve dedicated my professional life to is empty capitalism. But I am one of many faculty members in a big institutional machine. And while individual members of that institution do care about me and want the best for me, it’s a mistake to equate those people to the broader institution and its policies and motivations. So what does that mean in practice? You have to look out for yourself and your family, because no one else is going to. That might sound heartless, but the sooner people realize that the only person who is really accountable for your happiness and wellbeing is you, the better off you’ll be.
Can you please give us your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Can you share how that was relevant to you in your life?
I’m not entirely sure what this means. But I do tell my students, “There are such things as happy accidents.” I started playing rugby largely by accident my freshman year of college. And I was terrible. But fast forward a few years and I was a starter, with a group of friends who remain in my life to this day. Rugby gave me the opportunity to coach while I was in graduate school, and I got to see Chile and Argentina as a result. Outside of rugby, even my professional pursuits have been marked by fortunate happenstance, with where I started winding its way in very unexpected but ultimately beneficial ways. This is all to say that setbacks or seemingly aimless circumstances can be the beginning of something really special. You just have to be OK with not knowing for sure.
Is there a person in the world, or in the US with whom you would like to have a private breakfast or lunch with, and why? He or she might just see this, especially if we tag them. 🙂
It may seem trite at this point, but I’d love to talk with Barack Obama about the behind-the-scene discussion around police reform that occurred during his second term. I obviously have a lot to say about what I think challenges are for enhancing justice and mitigating the harms of policing. But I don’t have a clear view into the halls of power in Washington. I don’t have access to the Attorney General or major city chiefs in the same way. And I don’t know what the landscape looks like when thinking about sticks and carrots accessible to federal powers, not how the President thinks about building a coalition across local, state, and federal stakeholders.
How can our readers further follow your work online?
The Danger Imperative: Violence, Death, and the Soul of Policing can be found on Amazon or a bookstore near you. My Twitter and Instagram handle is @michaelsierraa, and readers can leave me a message at dangerimperative.com.
This was very meaningful, thank you so much. We wish you only continued success on your great work!
Social Impact Authors: How & Why Author Michael Sierra-Arévalo Is Helping To Change Our World was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.