Just under a month ago, something happened that seems to never happen in United States: a police officer shot an unarmed black man, and then was formally charged with first-degree manslaughter.

Terence Crutcher had been trying to get help with his car, broken down on a highway, when Officer Betty Jo Shelby shot him (as another officer tased him). She claimed that Crutcher was behaving suspiciously and failed to follow orders. While police didn’t find a gun on him or in the car, they did find a vial of PCP, and as of last week we know that toxicology reports say Crutcher had the drug in his system. Shelby’s attorney is claiming that the presence of PCP is the first bit of evidence that will prove that Shelby’s actions were justified.

The entire case is once again raising questions about drug laws, police training, and the relationship between cops and minority communities. Raeford Davis, who works with Law Enforcement Against Prohibition, a nonprofit group of judges and law enforcement agents, has been an outspoken advocate against the war on drugs and over-policing across the country. Davis served as a cop in South Carolina until 2006, and he was kind enough to talk to GQ about the epidemic. The following interview took place over two separate conversations and has been edited.

GQ: We’re in the middle of a huge national discussion right now about the relationship between police and minority communities. You’ve said elsewhere that, in your experience, cops aren’t individually racist, but they are actors in a racist system. Can you explain what that means?

Raeford Davis: That’s part of the disconnect, and that’s why you see law enforcement officers get so upset when they’re called out as just a bunch of racists. In North Charleston we had black leadership in my department, and Charlotte has a black chief. These guys would not tolerate overt racism. They work very hard to maintain a good rapport with the black community and they would get really upset when you did things to mess it up. However, they kind of operate under the same illusions. They put their murder and robbery rates over a map of the city and that’s mostly in poor and minority neighborhoods, and they say, “That’s why we’re there, it has nothing to do with race.” But we know that from the outset drug enforcement was just a covert continuation of Jim Crow-type oppression laws. The laws apply to everyone in theory, but we know they were used to target minority communities. Those efforts have a destabilizing effect on the community, and destabilized communities have more crime, then you have more police presence and activity, and that further destabilizes the community. No additional racism from individual officers is necessary.

Can you describe your training a bit?

In South Carolina they have a central police academy that everyone goes to. Training was eight weeks when I attended, and it has now been extended to 12 weeks. That short time frame by its nature ensures training will be very basic and focused on worst-case scenarios. The overarching theme when interacting with "subjects" is always maintain control no matter what. A great deal of your time is then spent training in physical control methods, use of force: how to shoot, how to strike, how to take a person down, and how to handcuff them in order to maintain that control.

And what about firearm training? Was there much concern about accidental discharge?

I was terrified that I would accidentally shoot myself or someone else. That weighed on my mind a lot. There’s a lot of emphasis on safety and procedure, and we spent time with a “firearms training simulator.” [Ed. note: Here is an example.] You interact with a video screen in shoot/don't shoot scenarios where the instructor can control the outcome the based on your responses. He can even fire ping pong balls at you to replicate being shot at. The simulators are great but they’re training just to shoot or not. I had to ask the instructor when it would be okay to not arrest someone or even press the situation because you think it might go bad for you or you were concerned about harming the person. My instructor said yes, and told me about a time when he pulled over a group of guys on a road and he was by himself and had no back-up. But I had to ask about that—it wasn’t actually covered.