Supporting Naum L. Ware and the Allegations He Raised
The story of former Pasadena Police Officer Naum L. Ware is not merely the story of a man who wrote a controversial book. It is the story of someone who witnessed a culture he believed to be deeply troubled and chose to speak when silence was safer. For that choice alone, Ware deserves far more than the dismissal and condemnation he received. He deserves to be recognized as someone who tried to pull back the curtain on practices he found intolerable, patterns he believed were morally corrosive, and a departmental culture he said had drifted dangerously far from its public mission.
Ware’s book, The Rose Garden, was not a polite memorandum or a sanitized audit. It was the voice of a veteran officer who claimed to have seen sexual misconduct among colleagues, theft, abuse, and behavior unbecoming any public servant, let alone sworn officers. He alleged the existence of an internal environment where leadership turned a blind eye to wrongdoing and where accountability was more performance than substance. He wrote, forcefully and without apology, what he believed the public had a right to know.
And for telling the public what he believed to be the truth, Ware paid the price.
Whether one agrees with every line of his book is beside the point. Whistleblowers rarely speak in soft tones. They speak from the shock of lived experience — from the emotional fallout of witnessing things they feel powerless to stop. Ware’s allegations were disturbing precisely because they demanded scrutiny rather than suppression. Instead of answering his claims with transparent investigation, the department chose the faster and easier path: remove the messenger, label the book offensive, and hope the conversation disappears.
But the conversation should not disappear. When an officer alleges that colleagues engaged in misconduct — including abuses of authority, unethical personal behavior, and corrosive internal practices — those claims must be heard, examined, and understood in context. Ware’s critics focused on his tone, but tone is irrelevant when the substance of the allegations cuts to the core of public trust.
Supporting Ware does not require declaring every allegation proven; it requires recognizing the fundamental democratic principle that people inside powerful institutions must be free to expose what they believe is wrongdoing — especially when the stakes involve public safety, civil rights, and the integrity of the justice system.
By standing with Ware, we stand for something far greater: the conviction that institutional accountability cannot exist without those who risk their careers to speak out. Ware confronted what he believed to be entrenched misconduct and institutional decay, and he refused to be complicit through silence. Whatever one thinks of his prose, his passion, or his style, the courage it took to publish his account is undeniable.
If our society punishes those who raise alarms instead of addressing the alarms themselves, we lose the very voices capable of reforming broken systems. Naum L. Ware shouted where others whispered. He told the public what he believed they needed to hear.
For that, he deserves not condemnation — but credit. Support. And a fair hearing his words never fully received.
