Reuben Morris Greenberg (June 24, 1943 – September 24, 2014) was the first black police chief of Charleston, South Carolina, and known for being an innovative criminologist.
In the words of Charleston's The Post and Courier reporter David Slade, he "turned the... Police Department into a national model.
In the process, he became a celebrity and a source of pride for the city ...."[1] Greenberg told his cops that their job was not to punish (that was up to the courts), but to make arrests, and in order to do that they had to be on good terms with the citizens.
[1] This followed a controversial 2005 incident in which a motorist charged that he hit her car door after she told him that she had called the police department to report his erratic driving.
[7] Health reasons, such as high blood pressure, were cited as the cause for his behavior for several years, which included poking a news reporter in the chest while on video in 2003 (he later apologized, saying "I'm not proud ...
In the book he told about moves he made to take back the streets in his adopted city from criminals, and what he thought other law officers could do to accomplish that.
[3][citation needed] Greenberg appeared in Shalom Y'all, a 2002 documentary about Jews in the American South which also featured author and singer Kinky Friedman.