The Legal Lens Podcast

203. NYPD Police Officer to Civil Rights Attorney: Kawan Lovelace on Fighting the Systems He Once Served

Episode Summary

In this episode of The Legal Lens Show, host Angela Reddock-Wright sits down with Attorney Kawan Lovelace, a New York–based civil rights lawyer whose path to the courthouse ran through work as a NYPD police officer, to detective and Bronx prosecutor before he left to challenge the systems he once served. A Queens native and former Olympic triple jumper at the 1996 Atlanta Games, Lovelace reflects on how 9/11, his wife’s escape from Tower Two, a work-related injury, and becoming a father led him into policing and then into law school at nearly 40, only to discover the limits of “changing the system from within” when he saw his role as a Black prosecutor being used to justify a system that ignored redlining, poverty, lack of mental health care, and other structural harms facing defendants who looked like him.

Episode Notes

In this episode of The Legal Lens Show, host Angela Reddock-Wright sits down with Attorney Kawan Lovelace, a New York–based civil rights lawyer whose path to the courthouse ran through work as a NYPD police officer, to detective and Bronx prosecutor before he left to challenge the systems he once served. A Queens native and former Olympic triple jumper at the 1996 Atlanta Games, Lovelace reflects on how 9/11, his wife’s escape from Tower Two, a work-related injury, and becoming a father led him into policing and then into law school at nearly 40, only to discover the limits of “changing the system from within” when he saw his role as a Black prosecutor being used to justify a system that ignored redlining, poverty, lack of mental health care, and other structural harms facing defendants who looked like him.  

Now representing clients in wrongful arrest, police brutality, false imprisonment, malicious prosecution, and other constitutional violations, he uses his insider knowledge of policing and prosecution to expose how qualified immunity, law enforcement policies, and weak accountability protect officers “with the power to take life,” while offering listeners clear insight into how the criminal legal system actually operates for Black and Brown communities and concrete ways to push lawmakers—locally and federally—to end qualified immunity and reimagine safety and justice.

Key Topics Covered: 

• Kawan Lovelace’s journey from Queens to the 1996 Atlanta Olympics as a triple jumper, and how the discipline of elite athletics helped him tackle law school at nearly 40.​
• His decision to join the NYPD after 9/11, serving as a police officer and detective in Harlem’s 32nd Precinct, and how an on-the-job injury altered his path.​
• Going to a public interest law school, becoming a Bronx prosecutor, and discovering the limits of “changing the system from the inside” when supervision and office policy overruled his discretion.​
• The pivotal courtroom moment when he realized he was functioning as a “justification” for a system that refused to account for structural racism, redlining, poor schools, and lack of mental health access in the lives of defendants of color.​
• His transition to civil rights practice and current work litigating wrongful arrest, police brutality, false imprisonment, malicious prosecution, and other civil rights violations against NYPD and government actors.