He adds that many community leaders used tension between police and the black community to get elected.

Law claims the 75 per cent decrease in police brutality cases over the past three years is evidence that "negative feelings about the police are unfounded." Each complaint is thoroughly investigated, he adds.

The department itself conducts these investigations, however. Last year, of 21 complaints filed against policement, of official results were two sustained, 15 unsustained, two still under investigation and two dropped.

Law says the police still "have lost of problems in black communities crime-wise, and when someone gives an officer a lot of trouble and he lifts his nightstick over their skull, they don't realize he's only defending himself. He's got to defend himself."

P.G. County black policemen are in a difficult position, torn between conflicting loyalties. Sergeant Kenneth Savoid has been with the department ten years, longer than any other black. When he first joined, he was the fifth black on the 500-man force in the county's 270-year history. Today he is one of 65 black on an 850-man force, and is the highest ranking black. Savoid says he feels "caught between a rock and a hard place."

The department's resistance to integration is understandable, Savoid says, because it was "shoved down the department's throat; it was too big a change, and too fast." He adds that there is till a need for more black policemen on the force.

"Blacks historically have had, and still do have a long way to go here," he says.

While Savoid has managed to accept and adjust to the difficulties inherent in his position, Nathanial Austin, a former black P.G. County policeman, did not fit in as well.

Austin finally left the police department last year after three years of frustrated attempts to recruit more blacks into the department and to organize a black police union.

Austin contends that the department "only brought blacks on as bodies to satisfy Justice Department pressure. There were no upward mobility opportunities."

Black and white policemen, he adds, "coexisted like Russia and the United States." Other black policemen did not want to join a union because of fear of reprisal and criticism from white colleagues, Austin states.

Having worked with other police departments, Austin concludes, "P.G. County still has one of the most racist police departments around, and their reputation is well-earned; they deal with blacks and low-income people ruthlessly and brutally. I certainly wouldn't rule out police membership in the Klan."

The Johnson incident, he adds, will be a much-needed "rallying cry" to oppressed blacks in the county.

Johnson supporters say that Terrance is one more black victim to P.G. County racism. White residents, the police and country officials instead focus on the two policemen slain on duty as the real victims in the case. But really, Johnson, the two policemen, and the torn P.G. community itself, like America in general, are all victims of a long-lived, deep-rooted racism that seems as hard to overcome now as it has ever been.