Recorded LIVE at Tattered Cover Book Store, Paula Lehman-Ewing speaks with retired NYPD lieutenant, whistleblower, and author Edwin Raymond about the unresolved tension between inside and outside approaches to change in policing.
Edwin joined the NYPD after experiencing police harassment as a teenager, determined to challenge discriminatory practices from within. He later became the highest-ranking whistleblower in NYPD history and the lead plaintiff in the federal lawsuit Raymond v. City of New York.
Together, Paula and Edwin explore the difficult questions that sit between reform and abolition: Can a system built to resist accountability actually change? Is incremental reform progress — or the system absorbing change to survive? Are justice-minded officers a path forward, or a contradiction?
The conversation moves through whistleblowing, broken-windows policing, restorative justice, ICE enforcement, leadership, recruitment culture, and the emotional cost of challenging institutions from the inside. This episode doesn’t offer easy answers — it sits in the tension between two worldviews trying to imagine a different future for public safety.
What is Get Me to the Gray?
Get Me to the Gray, presented by COJA Services Inc., is a podcast about the conversations we’re told we shouldn’t have. Hosted by journalist and author Paula Lehman-Ewing, the show brings people with fundamentally different ways of seeing the world into honest dialogue—where we name what divides us and keep talking anyway.COJA Services Inc. works with mission-driven organizations and brands that are clear on their values but struggle to translate that clarity into public-facing language. We help teams align internal narratives, reduce confusion before it becomes mistrust, and translate complexity into public understanding without relying on scripts, rhetoric, or generic AI language that strips voice and judgment.
If you're in the greater Denver metro area, register for our LIVE events at tinyurl.com/COJAEvents