A black policeman in New York for decades before his retirement, the former officer, 60, tells the BBC: "It's the chickens coming home to roost".

"This is something that's been mustering for a while," says Mr Billups.

Not for the first time has anger against law enforcement in America spilt out into demands for change - national attempts to reform the country's patchwork of nearly 18,000 police departments have periodically cropped up since the early 20th Century.

But outrage over a spate of deaths of black Americans at the hands of police, especially the death of George Floyd, a former club bouncer asphyxiated during an arrest, has spurred a clear bout of soul searching within police departments themselves.

Officers are divided over if and how reforms should come about.

For Mr Billups, now chairman of the Grand Council of Guardians, an organisation for African-American law enforcement officers in New York state, the problems lie at the top.

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