Jack Sloan was a police officer. He had a wife and children.
In 1984, he arrested a Black armed robbery suspect named Walter Tapus; while cuffing him, Tapus broke his hand and nose, and Tapus's leg was fractured. Tapus sued the city of Detroit for $5 million, claiming Sloan kicked him repeatedly after he had been handcuffed, but Sloan said Tapus's leg had been injured already and that was the only reason he was able to capture him.
The District Attorney dropped the charges against Sloan, and the civil suit was dismissed; however, local Black Democrats put pressure on the Detroit Police Department, and Sloan received an official reprimand for excessive force.
In 2001, he was invited to sit next to First Lady Abigail Bartlet at the State of the Union after performing an act of heroism at an elementary school while off-duty, but he was a last-minute addition and the White House didn't have time to vet him. The story came out about Tapus, and C.J. Cregg convinced Sloan to give a interview to Mark Gottfried on Capitol Beat telling his side of the story.