More than a decade later, Imperatrice says the organization has raised millions of dollars and helped law-enforcement families and others facing extraordinary circumstances. The Blue Lives Matter name became part of a much larger national debate over policing, but some of the work that affected Imperatrice most had little to do with politics.
One of those stories involved Abigail Arias, a young Texas girl battling cancer whose dream was to become a police officer. Law enforcement in Texas embraced her and helped make that dream real. Imperatrice saw her story and eventually helped bring Abigail and her family to New York, where Blue Lives Matter NYC paid for the trip and surrounded her with members of the profession she admired.
Other children facing serious illnesses followed. Imperatrice knows a weekend cannot change a diagnosis. What it can do, he says, is give a family a few days when the disease isn’t the only thing in the room. For a little while, the child is not simply a patient, and the parents are not thinking every minute about hospitals, needles, test results, long drives and whatever news comes next.
“For one weekend, all these kids get to come to the city,” he said. “They’re excited. But more importantly, they’re cured for a weekend.”
He was not talking about medicine, He was talking about giving a child a chance to feel like a child again. “That’s been probably the biggest blessing of my life,” Imperatrice said, “It’s changed me. It’s changed me for the better.”
The NYPD changed during those years too. Imperatrice entered the department at a time when he says officers were expected to police proactively and many of the supervisors directing them had significant street experience themselves. “When I first came on, we were still able to be cops,” he said.
By the time he retired, Imperatrice believed the culture had shifted. He argues that political pressure, changing policies and inconsistent leadership have made some officers hesitant about legitimate enforcement because they are uncertain whether decisions made on the street will be supported afterward.
His criticism is not reserved for politicians or police executives. Imperatrice also believes officers themselves have an obligation to meet a standard worthy of the NYPD name. He talks about the uniform, physical readiness, situational awareness and whether an officer appears engaged when dealing with the public. To him, those things matter because authority begins before an officer says a word.
The NYPD has spent generations being called New York’s Finest. Imperatrice believes every person who puts on the uniform inherits some responsibility for that reputation. “We can bring back the pride,” he said. “We can bring back the tradition.”
His argument is not that police officers should be beyond accountability. It is that accountability has to travel in both directions. Officers should be expected to perform professionally, and the people leading them should provide clear standards and stand behind lawful police work.
That belief becomes especially clear when Imperatrice discusses videos of officers being taunted, assaulted or publicly humiliated. He acknowledges the tactical reality that two officers surrounded by a large crowd cannot recklessly escalate a situation simply to prove a point. Sometimes officers have to disengage, call for additional resources and return. What he rejects is allowing the incident to end there.
“You can’t just smile and push it off and allow it to happen,” he said.
Imperatrice believes small acts of disorder can become larger ones when people conclude there will be no consequences. His concern is not simply a water bucket or an object thrown at an officer. It is what comes next. That is why so many of his answers return to leadership.
Imperatrice believes the relationship between New York City’s mayor and police commissioner can influence the culture of the entire department. When expectations are clear at the top, he argues, commanders can command and officers know where they stand. When that relationship fractures, uncertainty moves down the chain until it reaches the street.
His years at the Real Time Crime Center also shaped his view of what a modern police department requires. He rejects the idea that strengthening the NYPD is simply a matter of hiring more officers. He wants greater investment in technology, intelligence, training, protective equipment and police facilities.
“We have to reinvest into our police department,” he said.
For Imperatrice, the point is not merely to put more uniforms on the street. It is to give the people already wearing them better information, better equipment and better preparation before they walk into danger.
The upheaval of 2020 tested many of those beliefs. COVID placed police departments in circumstances few had prepared for, while nationwide demonstrations following the death of George Floyd transformed the debate surrounding American policing.
Imperatrice opposed COVID vaccine mandates that forced some public employees to choose between vaccination and continued employment. He also disagreed with law-enforcement leaders who knelt with demonstrators, believing the gesture sent the wrong message to officers at a moment when many were already uncertain about what was expected of them.
His assessment of the pandemic itself is more measured. Departments were dealing with circumstances they had never encountered and relying on information that continued to change. “We were in a place that the world never saw before,” he said. “You’re walking into the unknown.”
Imperatrice’s public voice had begun developing years earlier. His first Fox News appearance came in 2015 while Blue Lives Matter NYC was helping a Staten Island girl named Chloe who had quadriplegic cerebral palsy. Her father worked for the MTA, and Imperatrice remembered the transportation support the agency had provided around the services for Ramos and Liu. He wanted to return that support.
After the television appearance, Imperatrice said a viewer stepped forward and covered a full year of Chloe’s medical expenses. The experience showed him what a microphone could accomplish.
More appearances followed on Fox News, Newsmax and other national platforms, along with appearances in programming produced by Netflix and VICE. Since retiring, Imperatrice says requests for his perspective have increased. For someone with strong opinions, however, he says he has little interest in becoming another person shouting into a television camera.
“You don’t need to go out there and be nasty and curse and call people names to get your point across,” he said. He would rather make an argument people can understand, including people who do not begin on his side. “The goal is just to bring down the temperature, speak the facts and try to fix the problem.”
Imperatrice’s ideas about leadership began with his father and grandfathers, but he also points to people he watched from a distance before eventually meeting them. Two names come up repeatedly: former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani and the late Bernard Kerik.
At a Blue Lives Matter NYC gala, Giuliani was honored and sat near Imperatrice’s eight-year-old son, Landon. Imperatrice remembers Giuliani looking at the boy and saying that Landon reminded him of his own son, Andrew. The comment stayed with Imperatrice because he recognized something familiar in the moment. As a boy, Joseph had watched his father. Now his son was watching him.
