WASHINGTON _ Val Demings' rise from Orlando, Fla.'s first black woman police chief to a congresswoman with a central role in President Donald Trump's impeachment trial landed her on Joe Biden's vice presidential shortlist.
And now, as protests over the death of George Floyd grip the country, those same credentials are propelling Demings further into the national spotlight, with interviews last weekend on "Meet the Press," frequent cable news hits and a Washington Post op-ed titled "My fellow brothers and sisters in blue, what the hell are you doing?"
But for Demings, a Democrat who served as police chief from 2007 to 2011 after joining the Orlando Police Department in 1983, the resume that served her so well in the last four years may turn out to be a mixed bag amid the national outcry against police brutality and a flawed criminal justice system.
