The Impeachment Manager With Street Cop Smarts Who's Been Taking on Bullies Since She Was 10

By Michael Daly, The Daily Beast

26 January 20

Val Demings is not your typical impeachment manager. The first woman to serve as Orlando’s police chief before moving to Congress, she’s laser-focused on upholding the law.

atch impeachment proceedings with the eyes of a good cop.

Impeachment manager Val Demings does. She was an Orlando police officer for a sterling 27 years, rising to chief before retiring and running for Congress.

“I’ve heard a lot about testimony and witnesses and evidence and investigations,” the 62-year-old told The Daily Beast on Friday of her new role, presenting the House’s case in the Senate. “That’s exactly what I did as a cop... I feel like I’m in the same line of work.”

She is reminded in particular of her time as commander of Internal Affairs, a position she accepted even though friends advised against it. Internal Affairs can make you a pariah in the cop world.

“I did because it’s about protecting the integrity of the agency and the profession,” she said. “So here we are in this impeachment inquiry, it’s about integrity. It’s about the law. And nobody is above the law.”

Demings went from the police to politics after she met Michelle Obama and the then first lady asked her a life-changing question.

“When are you going to run for office?”

But Demings did not start out with any animosity toward President Trump.

Whatever the true attendance at Trump's inauguration, it would have been one less if Demings had not gone.

“I wanted to see the peaceful transition of power,” Demings told The Daily Beast. “That’s what makes us the greatest nation on earth.”

Since childhood, Demings has been of the firm belief that it is important to respect the office of the president, however you may feel about the person holding it.

That included Richard Nixon, who was elected seven months after the assassination of Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and five months after the assassination of Robert F. Kennedy.

“She’s never been shy or timid and I remember on the school bus she would beat up the boys.”

— Gwen Butler

“She said, ‘He’s still president, you got to respect that,’” her older sister, Gwen Butler, told The Daily Beast. “And boy was I furious.”

Demings was then all of 11 years old.

“She always had that wisdom, that old woman wisdom,” Butler said. “You have to respect the office and somehow pray for the person that’s in there.”

That was in 1968, one year after Demings entered the fifth grade and her first integrated school. The fifth grade was also when she took the first step toward a career in law enforcement by becoming a school safety officer. She wore an orange belt with a shoulder strap and a badge. The other kids looked to her to settle disputes on the school bus as well as ensure they safely crossed the street.

“On the school bus, the kids would get into these quarrels and they would ask her advice,” Butler recalled. “She was like the police on the bus.”

Butler added that Demings seemed not afraid to assert herself physically if some of the boys tried to intimidate her or bully others.

“She’s never been shy or timid and I remember on the school bus she would beat up the boys,” Butler said. “She has the spirit of doing what has to be done... of carrying on what needs to be carried on and you cannot be too close-mouthed.”

Nobody could have been much surprised when Demings became a cop. She remembers starting her first shift with a spirit that has stayed with her through all the years that followed.

“I was ready to go,” she told The Daily Beast. “We believe as new police officers we can save the world... That is what I was determined to do. That was what I was going to do.”

She remained ever ready to answer a call for help.

“I loved the energy,” she said. “I loved the rush. When people are in trouble, they call the police department believing when we get there things will get better.”

She worked patrol and motorcycles and became a detective and rose on through the ranks. She married a fellow cop and had three children. Jerry Demings preceded her as chief, bouncing the first African-American to hold that position before becoming Orange County Sheriff and then mayor of Orange county. She became the first woman chief. And violent crime fell significantly during her tenure.

“She did not play,” Butler told The Daily Beast. “She treated those criminals in Orlando the way she treated those boys on the bus.”

Val Demings reminded her cops how they should always strive to make things better when they answer a call.

“Make sure it’s better, not worse,” she said.

Demings retired in 2011, and was prompted to run for office by Michelle Obama’s question. Demings was defeated in her first bid to represent Florida’s 10th congressional district, but tried again and won in 2016. The mass shooting that left 49 dead at the Pulse Nightclub in Orlando that June may have convinced more voters to support an adult version of the kid in the orange vest and badge, a champion of public safety who advocated sensible gun control.

She delivered her first remarks from the House floor on Jan. 9, 2017, hours after Orlando Police lieutenant Debra Clayton and Orlando County Deputy Norm Lewis were killed in the line of duty. Demings had worked with Clayton for years and knew her to be an officer who would take time to read books to children at elementary schools and clean the homes of struggling senior citizens.

That morning, a civilian had approached Clayton outside a WalMart and told her she had just seen a man inside who was wanted for murdering his pregnant girlfriend and the girlfriend’s brother. Clayton was approaching the entrance when the wanted man suddenly emerged and shot her multiple times. The gunman fled and Lewis was killed while giving chase.

That afternoon, the voice that had commanded respect on the school bus and in the streets was heard in the House for the first time.

“As the former Orlando Police Chief, I had the honor of knowing both Sgt. Clayton and Deputy Lewis,” Demings said. “Sergeant Clayton was a fine officer, wife, mother. She was 42 years young, and had just celebrated her first anniversary with her husband. Deputy Lewis was deeply admired by all of his colleagues. He loved helping people, and it showed in his work. He was just 35.”

Demings then said, “Mr. Speaker, I respectfully ask all Members to join me in a moment of silence to honor these heroes during this most difficult time.”

All present of whatever political persuasion stood in respectful silence. The partisan struggles of the House then resumed, Demings as filled with a sense of mission as she had been on her first time on patrol. She was determined to make things better when it comes to such real life, pressing issues as gun violence and seniors and veterans and housing and health care. She brought to it her old woman wisdom and street cop smarts.

“I've seen the effect of good and bad government and the effect of good and bad leadership,” she said.

On Jan. 20, 2017, the newly elected Representative Demings attended the inauguration of the newly elected President Trump, who was assuming the office that she had since childhood insisted we all have to respect.

Demings ran unopposed in 2018. She was in her second term when there arose a situation too much like when she ran Internal Affairs, involving someone who appeared to be violating public trust and ignoring the very laws he had sworn to uphold. And that person was our current president.

“I believe we are in a nation of laws.”

— Val Demings

Deming had started life as the youngest of seven children in a shack that had shutters, but not windows, no indoor plumbing or electricity, with light provided by kerosene lamps and cooking done on a wood burning stove. She started in segregated schools and went on to college and a degree in criminology and she had become chief of police and had gone on to Congress. And now she became one of the seven impeachment managers.

“So here we are in this impeachment inquiry,” she said on Friday.

She remarked on the similarity between her current duties and being a cop. She cited a common guiding principle.

“I believe we are in a nation of laws,” she said.

As an impeachment manager, she has remained focused not on The Donald but on The Law. She spoke on Friday afternoon to a senate-turned-jury, saying Trump’s “campaign of witness intimidation” is “reprehensible,” and it “degrades the presidency and was part of his effort to obstruct the impeachment inquiry.”

“The president issued threats, openly discussed possible retaliation, attacked their character and patriotism and subjected them to mockery and other insults,” she said of the witnesses who testified. “The president’s attacks were broadcast to millions of Americans, including the witnesses, their families, their friends and their co-workers.”

She carefully enunciated each syllable of what she said next.

“As we all know, witness intimidation is a federal crime.”

So spoke a good cop.