tanley Crouch is a social critic, musician, author and a man of strong words and hard-held convictions. He makes no apologies for his opinions and the candid way he expresses them in his newspaper columns — even when those opinions clash with those held by many of his own race. He loves jazz and the blues and despises rap for its violence and negative messages, especially towards women. And he has been known to throw a punch or two. Put simply, he is a man of courage. He is also the New York City Patrolmen’s Benevolent Association’s 2005 Man of the Year.

Stanley Crouch was born in Los Angeles in 1945 and was pressed by his mother to start writing at the age of eight. Years later, while studying at East Los Angeles Junior College, he taught a literacy course in East L.A. Active in the civil rights movement since his junior high school days, he became a black nationalist after experiencing the 1965 Watts riots live and in-person. But the writings of Ralph Ellison and Albert Murray, who became major influences in his thinking, led him ultimately to reject the black nationalist movement.

From 1968 to 1988, Mr. Crouch taught at the Claremont Colleges, played drums in an avant-garde jazz band in New York City and worked as a staff writer for the Village Voice. He even served a stint as spokesman for jazz great Winton Marsalis. Today, Stanley Crouch is a formidable columnist at the New York Daily News, where he writes on a wide array of topics. He has also contributed articles to magazines like The New Yorker, The New Republic and Esquire. He is also the author of three essay collections: Notes of a Hanging Judge (1990); The All-American Skin Game, or The Decoy of Race: The Long and Short of It, 1990-1994 (1995); and Always in Pursuit: Fresh American Perspectives 1995-1997 (1998). In 2000, Mr. Crouch published his first novel, Don’t the Moon Look Lonesome: A Novel in Blues and Swing.

The best way to know Stanley Crouch is through his writings:

Rap artists — “I was looking at this guy Snoop Dogg on MTV: The level of intellectual sluggishness that this man represents, and most of these rappers represent, is staggering to me.”

Confronting challenges — “If you’re going to get in the ring and try to take the belt, you have to prepare to get hit.”

But what brought Stanley Crouch to the 111th Annual PBA Convention as our Man of the Year were his positions on police officers and the tough job we do.

Recent examples:

The PERB decision that awarded a 10.25% raise to incumbent police officers but savagely reduced the salary for future officers — “The new contract that has been pushed at the New York City police is the sort of thing that one would associate with a Marx Brothers movie because it pats the seasoned cops on the head while slapping the incoming ones...I applaud (the 10.25 % retroactive raise) and understand that that the city is just a cheapskate.

It always has to face many extended hands every time any workers get a raise. But the police should exist in a separate category because they face far greater threats to life and limb far more often than any other city employees.”

A May 2 column on the city’s reported decrease in crime — “...None of it would be possible without the sustained efforts of our New York City Police Department, easily the finest unit of modern law enforcement in the nation. That assembly of public servants, either riding in squad cars or walking the streets, zooming along on bicycles or doing its duty in plainclothes, has made our town what it is today.”

Racial profiling (under the headline, “It’s not profiling, it’s good policing”) —“There is no other way to enforce the law or catch criminals than to look for the people fitting the victims’ descriptions of the perps. From January to June 2002, nearly 60% of suspects were described by crime victims as black, according to police records released this week. Slightly more than 50% of the people involved in stop-and-frisks during those months were black. This, even though blacks are 25% of the city’s population. Of course, if the police did nothing, or were extremely hesitant about stopping people who fit the descriptions, the protest would be that the NYPD does not care about black people, which is why it ‘allows’ so much crime to take place in Negro communities.”

Clearly, Stanley Crouch gets it. He understands what we’re up against as we try to keep New York City safe and civil for all its people regardless of who they are, where they’re from or what they believe. And he has the courage to lay it out there for all to see without regard for the reactions it might stir. We are proud to have him as our 2005 Man of the Year.