Rep. Val Demings featured in a Democratic National Convention video along with a slew of other female leaders during a race and identity-centric program that took place on Wednesday. As a former police chief, her attitude towards policing and race-related issues has undergone a radical overhaul over the years.

Demings served as Orlando police chief for four years out of the 27 years of her service and has a reputation for being a strong defender of the men and women in blue. She was also considered for former vice president Joe Biden’s running mate, partly because of her police background.

In a year that has witnessed demonstrators demanding justice against police brutality and pushing to defund the police, along with a slew of anti-cop rhetoric in the wake of George Floyd's death in police custody, Demings' credential is touted as a double-edged sword. Democrats are bent on changing systemic racism they see in police forces across the nation, Fox News reported.

Even Demings had joined that push and had gone as far as describing systemic racism as “the ghost in the room" back in June. pointing out that the American people have been fighting systemic racism for 400 years in an interview with ABC's This Week, Demings admitted that it is even present in law enforcement agencies, housing, education, and several other places.

She also appeared on CBS’ This Morning in June, where she slammed Attorney General William Barr for denying there was systemic racism in law enforcement. She went on to say that when someone fails to publicly admit that there is a problem, addressing the problem gets difficult.

She recalled her earlier remarks wherein she pointed out that Trump and Barr are both responsible for intervening and admitting there is a problem, adding that they will be pushing the White House and the Department of Justice to address it, to make it right, to show compassion and unify the country.

Demings said neither the president nor the attorney general is capable of doing that and to make things worse, they keep claiming that there is no problem. This is a major change since 2006 when as a deputy police chief she used to defend the cops and deny allegations of racism in her police department.

She pointed out that she has read and heard a lot about racism, racial profiling, and things like that as the highest-ranking African-American member of the Orlando Police Department in an op-ed for the Orlando Sentinel. Admitting that the department has its issues, she denied that racial profiling was an active part of the operation.