 I'd just like to welcome you to the Office for the Advancement of Research's first spring semester book talk We run this series every semester Usually three book talks every semester and this is our first for the spring of 2016 As you can see we're in a much smaller space than we'd like to be here But there is room over here if you want to sit on the edge There are a couple of seats here that are open. So let's make sure that every seat is full But I would like to just quickly welcome our speaker Joe Dominic and Our moderator Steve Handelman Steve will be providing the formal introductions here, but I'm Dan Stageman I'm work for the Office for the Advancement of Research here at the college and Welcome to our first spring 2016 book talk Hi everybody. Hello. Happy Wednesday Happy rainy Wednesday. We have an amazing crowd here. So I hope Those of you who are eating can keep one eye one ear open while we start because we want to we don't want to Narrow down the time that's available for Joe and those of you who've been sitting here for waiting quite a while So we'll try to move ahead really quickly. I'm the director as Dan said of the Center on Media Crime and Justice here at John Jay and He mentioned this is the first of the spring series talk some of you may know that Last fall we held a talk on another very similar book called warrior cops and The attendance was just as great. So I'm really looking forward to our discussion today. Obviously the topic has not Quieted down since last fall. In fact, if anything, it's gotten even more interesting But while I have your attention those of you who are interested in the topic of policing and community policing or Whatever other areas police culture and police behavior that you're studying. I want to give you a very quick plug For the conference. We're holding here at John Jay tomorrow and Friday It's our annual HF Guggenheim symposium on crime in America where we bring in journalists from around the country and put them together with academics practitioners policy makers and including faculty from here and It's open to all students as well no charge and During the course of the panel of the of the conference. We're going to be talking about some of these issues as well. We have Christine Coulter who's a deputy commissioner for the Philadelphia police department Coming we also have Scott Thompson who's the head of the Camden Maryland County Police Department both of whom are among the most forward-looking cops and police managers in the country. We also hope to have the co-chair of the president's task force on 21st century policing Lori Robinson Who we hope will come she's scheduled to come but she may not be able to so it's going to be a pretty good discussion About 21st century policing about where it goes What that task force accomplished what it didn't accomplish So I think if you're interested in the subject that we're talking about today, and you'll have some ideas You'll definitely be interested in coming tomorrow. So please come It's going to be at L61 starting at around 830 tomorrow. We have the mayors of Newark and Gary Indiana as well coming So that's the end of my shameless plug and we will go on now to start our program What I'm hoping is I'll give a short very brief intro to our speaker and Joe will talk for about 10 or 20 minutes or 20 minutes probably and then we'll open it up to questions from you guys and I'll remind you again When we start the question period, but we really because of the crowd be great to have your question short and to the point and Make them questions not statements or declarations. It helps us make it go faster So first, it's really a pleasure and a real delight for me to introduce Joe Dominic here and to be able to bring him back to New York To speak with you. Joe is the associate director of our center He's based in LA He's one of the country's foremost commentators and experts on policing This book is his fourth. I think that's number four his first two of you look at this short bio in the The advertisement for this talk His first two were also about the LA police and they've all been prized winners one was optioned for a film His last book Cruel Justice 2000 which is published in 2004 Was listed as the best book by the San Francisco Chronicle And Joe has a long history of reporting and teaching as well on issues of criminal justice he was a Instructure at the USC Annenberg Center in Los Angeles on journalism and journalism issues for quite a while He's been on the radio and TV locally and nationally he has written about 50 articles or actually probably more than that op-eds essays for both national and local papers He's a regular writer for us at the crime report And he also coordinates and organizes a lot of the events and fellowships that we have and It's also a pleasure to say that Coming to New York for him is coming home because he was brought up here in the city and Taught for a long while as an elementary school teacher in the Bronx, so I think you'll enjoy Joe you'll enjoy his talks, and I think you'll be provoked by it, and it's a very Fascinating and provoking subject and of course a subject that should concern all of us about police So let me without further ado just introduce Joe and let him start and we'll go from there Thank you. Let's hear it. Let's hear it for Queens. Please me being from Queens Okay, thanks. Thanks again for being here among the audience. I wrote blue for were you? the students at John Jay and for your entire generation to try to tell the story of Which begins in my book with with the 1990 to Los Angeles riots and then ends in 2015 and it includes all of the problems that went on here in New York City in 2014 with with With the Commissioner Bratton and Mayor de Blasio So Because we're in New York City and because a good part of my book blue The LAPD and the battle to redeem American policing is also about the NYPD I've decided to start with a quote in the front of my book from your police commissioner The first part is for me Out of the blue. He mentions Chinatown The classic movie of pre-World War two Los Angeles Here's the quote, you know, everyone thinks the last line of Chinatown is forget it Jake. It's Chinatown But it isn't So what was it? I asked he said get out get off the streets Get off the streets. So I thought that that was a That was perfect to kind of start start my talk Which will be which will be brief and we'll then we'll really open it up for questions Now Bill Bratton and I had this conversation shortly after he was named chief of the LAPD in 2002 a Larger part of my nonfiction book is devoted exactly to that get off the streets policing mindset and to that operational philosophy and Why it developed into the phenomenon known as the wars on drugs and crime and How they in turn led to the shameful fact that the United States With the that the United States with 5% of the world's population Accounts for 25% of all the incarcerated people in the world. How many of you know that you probably know that, right? Well, well, it's something I something worth repeating the United States with 5% of the world's population accounts for 25% of all the incarcerated people in the world that should tell you a lot In 1992 We saw the reaction to this kind of policing explode in rebellion with the Los Angeles riots the largest most costly insurrection of the 20th century Then in 2014 we saw a nasty Rebellion rebellion of a different sort right here in New York When the NYPD's rank-and-file Union now you all you all live through this You remember it when the NYPD's rank-and-file Union the patrolman benevolence association or the PBA erupted in contemptuous protest against mayor Bill de Blasio Following the assassination of two NYPD 21 NYPD officers by a madman in Brooklyn I say contemptuous because the cops turning their back on the mayor and Commissioner Bratton and And what I'm what PBA President Pat Lynch did which was declared Which was to declare that the dead officers blood quote starts on the steps of City Hall in the office of the mayor that was the police rebellion in in Against all that's been happening ever since ever since Ferguson So it wasn't only about those those two God rest their souls those two cops getting getting killed for no good reason by a madman It was also about I would argue about stopping frisk That was taking place in this city so and and and That rebellion in turn was about another rebellion that of black and Hispanic New Yorkers Aided by a federal judge and civil libertarians Against the outrageous stop and frisk policies begun by your police commissioner Bill Bratton When he was chief or when he was commissioner the first time here from 1994 to 96 Oh that that policy of stop and frisk was carried to such an extreme Under NYPD Commissioner Ray Kelly and mayor Michael Bloomberg Now if you don't know this stat, this is a good one that in 2011 the NYPD would stop and frisk over 685,000 people the vast majority of whom were black and Hispanic young men That same year in fact The total number of black males age 14 to 24 who were stopped Exceeded the entire population of black men and boys in that age group by 10,000 that is a large part of the 158,000 black males in that age category were stopped more than a hundred and sixty eight thousand times So that that to me is amazing that the number of stops of these boys and young men could exceed their entire population in the city Meanwhile as we all know the shooting death of 18 year old Michael Brown by a Ferguson Missouri police officer and The astounding militaristic response to them and to the demonstrations that followed Brown's killing brought forth a new higher scrutiny of the police and Demand for police reform so strong and so widespread as to be Unprecedented so that's what you're that's what you're living living through right now Ladies and gentlemen, I started writing about about this subject back in 1979 and Nobody was saying nobody was talking about what was happening and what the police were doing and now it's finally come to fruition So Blue is also about police reform in Los Angeles and in New York how it's come about How it's working and what still remains to be done Now we now before we spend the rest of our time together taking questions I'd like to take just a little bit more of your time to talk about how and what about how and why I wrote blue Now I'm a journalist a Storyteller, I'm not an academic Although I spent almost four years researching interviewing and writing blue as a story teller I wrote it as a character driven tale Told through the eyes of the people who lived it over the past 25 years of the crack-filled violence laden 1980s and 90s and the police reforms of the present day chief among them Chief among these characters are three cops the first obviously is Bill Bratton now. Why Bill Bratton? Bratton when I met Bratton I was I already lived in Los Angeles for quite a while And I was I was reporting on the LAPD So when I met him he was already famous because he had been chief of the subway police Here in New York City in the early 90s when the transit police Before the transit police were part of the NYPD and then he became he became commissioner of the NYPD from 1994 to 1996 and started the dramatic Decrease in crime here in New York City In in 1991 Don't quote me on this exact figure, but I think it's two thousand. There were two thousand two hundred and forty five murders in New York City two thousand two hundred and forty five and believe me I lived here at that time I Pardon me. I I moved to Los Angeles in the mid 1970s But I came back here all the time and the same thing was happening in the mid 1970s. This was happening in the early 90s The city the city was out of control and I'm not a control freak believe me And something had to be done and the cops didn't have any answers They couldn't protect the people who needed protection. They were abusing The people who needed protection, but they couldn't protect them So so in Los Angeles and here in New York the people of the poor people poor black and brown people were living in the worst Worst type of situation where they couldn't count on the police. They feared the police and they feared the the criminals among them so So so His his stints as reform chief of the New York City Transit Police in the early 90s as I mentioned as commission of the NYPD in the mid-1990s and then his chief of the LAPD from 2000 to 2009 and then back to the NYPD again in 2014 made him ideal for helping me tell my story because the LAPD and the NYPD are of course the two biggest and most famous police departments in the nation so I was I was very fortunate to have Bratton as a through character and some other people I'm going to talk about in a moment as as through characters So the second among many others many of the cops in blue is Charlie Beck Bratton's hand hand-picked successor to lead the LAPD and And quite a guy a former hard-nosed anti-gang cop Turned one of the country's top police reformers The third is a former LAPD officer named Ray Perez Who's the most fascinating guy I've ever met? Both truth teller and con man. You never knew with Ray Whether he was selling his con or telling the truth and this was this was a this was another anti-gang cop Ray Ray was caught stealing Almost seven pounds of cocaine from the police evidence locker and Made a deal with the DA and told the tale of his fellow anti-gang officers drug dealing frame-ups beatings and shootings All of which led to the LAPD being placed under strict US Justice Department Consent decree for eight years. Does everybody know what a consent decree is? Okay, a consent decree is when the Consent decree was passed into law right after the Rodney became beating of 1991 Which was a year before the Los Angeles Ryers, which were because of that beating And it said it what it did was when the Justice Department noticed a pattern a pattern of abuse And and and violating people's civil liberties They can go in they can go in and say, okay We're going to put you under a consent decree You have to consent to us telling to us monitoring you very closely And if you don't if you don't agree to that Then we're going to take you to court and no police department That's that's being watched for a consent decree is going to want to go into court because they go into court that That opens up a big can of worms and who knows what will be found under the rocks if I can mix my metaphors So the LAPD was forced to was forced to agree and 23 police departments are now under consent decrees including Ferguson right now Not all of them are under consent decrees. They're in they're under some form of federal Federal oversight a consent decree is is really the most the strongest thing that can be done and Bill Bratton to his credit Made in forcing this the consent decree he came in Just about six months after the consent consent decree was signed and he made meeting the very rigid requirements of the consent decree in terms of stopping violating people's rights of The yardstick to judge whether the the LAPD was reformed or not and by 2009 when he left it was Reformed and it and it was it was lifted the federal government lifted it their oversight of it gave it to the Los Angeles Police Commission and It's gone. It went away in 2012 and Los Angeles Police Department is not The department that I covered for 20 years very very critically And It was a department as I wrote down here that was just impervious to reform So it was pretty amazing that Bratton was able to get that done so other characters that I follow Through this through my through my story is Guy named Andre lowdown Christians Christensen who was like 280 pounds of muscle And he was a former member of the fearsome black watts base Grape Street Crips and Alfred Lomés a hardcore enforcer for the massive Mexican-American gang Florence you're 13 All of these all of these people's stories together Illustrate both what it was like to be at the mercy or their stories. I should say sorry their stories Andre and and Alfred Illustrate both what it was like to be at the mercy of a really brutal LAPD and the extraordinary violence with which the LAPD had to deal with The stories of these men Led me to essential questions about what constitutes good and bad policing How best to prevent crime how best to control police abuse ease tensions between the police and the powerless and Partner with communities of color to enhance public safety In that respect, I think that blue tells the much larger saga of big big city policing over the past quarter century and Identifies the challenges we still face so with that I would Leave it up to Steve how we proceed One thing I should have mentioned in the opening is just that you know to explain the Significance of what Joe has written here is a you know one of the blurbs that usually see in these books in these And books like this which can always take with a grain of salt, but this blurb actually I Think it's not only correct, but it sets the stage for what our discussion should be Here's what it says is in a time when controversial police actions have virtually split America apart It's impossible to imagine a more important book than Joe Dominic's blue so As Joe was saying what what he's done really is take a look at one police force the LAPD and Really examine it examine why it changed how it changed so dramatically over the 20 years into what it is now It's no longer the fearsome black uniform cops that would break into Houses and homes and Watts like Warriors it's very very very very different and Joe talks without in his book Just to start the conversation going Joe, oh, yeah While the book Uses the LAPD As an example as a metaphor of what was what has been wrong with American policing for so long And they were really the champions of Bad cops it also deals an awful lot with the NYPD the NYPD in the 1970s this what the city of New York was like When Giuliani took over and Bratton became a chief police and And talking about Bratton what he did with the what how what he did to we to reform the NYPD in the first place in the in the mid 1990s that was really good and You can ask me about but about that if you like and what what he did to reform the NYPD That turned out to be pretty bad ie Stopping frisk and broken windows policing both of which if done if the if done judiciously if done carefully by trained cops is are both good Good for good for the public and in terms of reducing crime the problem with them though is you know police are like, you know, they're really They're their minds are set in concrete about how to about what works and what they have to do for policing so the problem the problem became that Under Ray Kelly that they were just that these these these tactics were so abused that they became extraordinarily repressive You took really the first question I was gonna ask you right out of my mouth Because you know you you're you're subject here is LA in the LAPD But what is what you've written about what you've discovered through your investigations in this book? And your other books what does it tell us right now about the state of American policing me what lessons can be drawn? From what you've seen in LA that would be applied not only to New York, but Chicago, New Orleans, and even Baltimore and smaller cities That's kind of a big question. I would answer it, you know, I would make it a more global Question and give a more global answer Um what Among the things that really struck me as I was writing this book is something that I kind of already know Is that you cannot divorce the kind of policing that a city has? from from the can from the conditions of the lives of the poor people In those in those cities and you can't you can't you can't divorce the condition of poor people in America from the priorities of the federal government and the state government in the city government because a living Living out on the lowest rung of the economic ladder In the United States is a very brutal place to be and So what I learned is that the cops reflect that proof that brutality and are part of that brutality Sorry And they're part of that brutality and until Somebody stands up and says we cannot allow our poor people to live with the conditions that they're living under We cannot allow this income disparity. That's that's taking place with Bernie Sanders, you know with his 1% 40% of all of the wealth that's been That's that that's been coming in over the last 10 years Has gone to the top 1% of Americans all of those billionaires so until we recognize the conditions of people's lives and how that affects their futures and how that affects them We you know, we can get some good reform of police departments But we can't get at the essence of the problem, which is 300 million guns and a very violent society, I Guess I won't ask you what you think of the current candidate's opinions on I'm policing right now. You took that away from you But but let me let me let me ask a second a second question Which I think is more relevant to what we're talking about here and then open it up for the folks in the audience your work in the book and elsewhere Focuses on in many ways on police chiefs on Charlie Beck who took over from Bill Bratt and you know them both of them very well You still know you talk to them a lot And you've done interviews you've been critical of them as you're not exactly necessarily You know in their court, you've been an independent observer But one thing that a lot of people may not realize I may not want to Understand totally is what what impact what's the effect of a police chief? I mean is the police chief Usually appointed as a political appointment by the mayor of the city council Yeah, I mean how important is he or she? To changing police culture and police reform I mean should we need to need to look beyond the police chief themselves to what's going on the rank and file? Well, I think it's enormously important and I think Bill Bratton who I have who I am critical of in a number of respects is a good example of this New York City When Bratton took over in 1994 was a place and had been throughout the 70s and 80s and into Into the early 90s What people just didn't feel safe? I Can't tell you how how bad it was. It was a city out of control You know I used to I used to teach in the South Bronx and I lived in Manhattan. I would take the subway home, you know a Skinny-looking kid. That's what I was still even though I was teaching and you know, I felt like muggable Muggable Mary it was because it could happen at any time. I never saw any cops the cops just weren't around and When they were around you couldn't you couldn't help but notice By by the by the big bellies in the slump of their shoulders that they they had kind of kind of given up Bratton rejuvenated the rejuvenated the NYPD really kind of single handedly and and made it into the department It is today for good and for bad He did the same thing in Los Angeles, so I but there's not too many Police chiefs who who can do this? Brad and I think was able to do it in Los Angeles because of his reputation in New York And that helped him when he got to LA because the second piece of it is of the management By a good police chief is you got to get the troops to come with you You cannot reform the culture of a police department if if the troops won't come with you And even even with all that Bratton did It's taking real you know the generation for for cops coming into a department is about four years And and by now almost all of the cops on the LAPD were hired under either Bratton or Beck And they've been trained under them in a different form of policing. They still emphasize the repressive The repressive a side of policing, but they're very very good very innovative In terms of community policing something that Bratton is just trying to start now and it's really in Swinging him in Los Angeles Is the police chief the sufficient Or changing a police chief is that sufficient to change? a department or Are we looking the wrong directions? We've lost a lot of me police chiefs are probably the most insecure jobs right now in the country a lot of laugh Chicago superintendent was fired a couple months ago. They don't last very long and they go from one place to the other Sort of like journeymen journeymen cops You know, I think it's I think other than the presidency is probably the a big city police chief is the hardest job The hardest job that you can have and Just because you understand what Bratton did We have Gary McCarthy in Chicago who was just fired People are outraged by the job he did in Chicago and he was an acolyte of Brattons So it takes a you it takes a I think a unique guy Almost like it takes a very unique president to really Reform a police department and get the troops to come along with you which takes time just like it will take time to to To stem the violence in our ghettos and barrios that still exists It it will take it takes time to reform a police department. It doesn't happen overnight ladies and gentlemen Okay, so there's a lot of meat there for a question So why don't you those want to ask questions raise their hands and remember my appeal to you is to keep your question short Identify yourself if you can if you're willing to and I wait for the answer and we'll try to get as many folks as possible in the in the mix. Yes, sir Hi, my name is Jesse. I was just curious What does Bratton do or not do lack of doing that he was able to be so responsible for such a reform and then it almost? Backfire all together and what can he do to make it good again Well, it only backfired In the sense that the NYPD wound up Violating people's civil civil liberties so much. It's it really still worked at preventing crime That was that's the that's the first the way I look at it. That's the first stage in modern day in modern-day policing Revolution Bratton when Bratton took over the NYPD the the the general Consensus not just among cops but around among criminologists and sociologists was that cops couldn't really do very much about crime that that crime was you know, it was caused by a High number of people in the high crime committing years a lot of other different factors Some of which have some have some effect on crime But the specific things that Bratton did was Stopping Frisk, which I would argue at that time to get the city under control was necessary But done in the way that I that I mentioned Broken windows, which is very important because You don't want to come out of your your apartment building and see some guy urinating on the street You walk up a little you walk up a couple of you know half a block and you see you see all So all sorts of stuff that you don't want to see in your neighborhood and Quality of life policing is can be very effective It can also be very abused and in a lot of a lot of police agencies once Bratton gave Permission to stop and frisk to be used a lot of police agencies started to use it and they would come up with zero tolerance You can't have zero tolerance for quality of life crimes. Well, you know for a little misdemeanors you can't so that was that was number so so Stop and frisk and Broken windows policing is number one and two hotspot policing is a third one now so This came in with the advent and wide use of computers What the NYPD started to do? was to map where crimes were occurring daily and then and then deploy their police where those crimes were happening and Not just push them over to another area, but make a rest but make a rest and and quiet and and quiet it down and That was very successful remains very successful Um Another one was Comstat. You all know what Comstat is everybody should know no no Okay, Comstat is part of a part of them the part of the crime reduction strategy that I that I just mentioned and It gives to to to precinct captains to commanders a Certain piece of territory, you know, let's say it's what the o5 or something and and it says you are responsible for reducing crime in this area and Every month you have to go before high-ranking NYPD officials and And if the crime has gone up you have to explain why and if it's gone down you get a lot of applause So that's been very important and that's very close to a hotspot policing as well So I think that those those were the major things and even even though they seem kind of common-sensical That wasn't what they that wasn't how the NYPD was deployed at all Before before Brad and it wasn't how what how the LAPD was deployed at all. Let's move to next question Hello, I'm Frank Pazell. I'm here with my class understanding criminal behavior I was just thinking about you reference the culture of policing and just wondering what is it about the culture of police? The organizational culture of the rank-and-file that makes them so Disconnected from people of color, especially as you hear the rhetoric of of Patrick Lynch Well, let me ask you answer let me start to answer your question in this way I think If let's take New York City as an example every cop on the NYPD had to live in New York City Then then the culture would change, but I think I think I think this Brutal policing of people of color started when the first the first the first African slave Yeah, you know hit A foot feet touched the United States in in 1609 Was reinforced with the future of slave laws which said that that everybody in the country has to has to capture Slave who's who escaped and return him to to his owner? That happened in the 1840s and then after that you had You know a hundred years of Jim Crow segregation Which was enforced by the police so the police have always been brutal and harsh with people of color in this country And that that's part of the culture also It's only been recently that you really have Police chiefs who are educated in the social science Sciences and except what the social sciences have to say about how About social the sociology of neighborhoods about the culture of neighborhoods and the culture of the United States and And it started to break down that culture, but that culture was also a culture of you did something wrong I arrest you you do something wrong. I arrest you At the another thing to get back to your question that Bratton did was that the cops The cops used to sit around and wait until somebody reported a crime and then they would go Right up the crime, but they didn't do anything about preventing that crime So that was that was the way they operated and they and they they you know I grew up a working-class guy from Queens. I know I know guys that became cops I know I know cops And they're very you know, they're not a lot of them aren't college educated I don't know what it is now probably a lot more are and you know It's better better better integrated if you have somebody John Jay. Yeah, if you have somebody for example who grew up In Harlem who's a woman and she becomes a police officer She's gonna have a different attitude towards the people of color and she's gonna understand certain things about people of color That's some white guy who grew up in in you know It's some some white town on Long Island and now lives in that same white town on Long Island And you know thinks that he's going into the ghetto and he's and he's gonna he's gonna police like you know Like some Marine in Fallujah Which is what the L that's which is how the LAPD police Joe. That's the culture. I'm sorry Joe, can I follow up that question very quickly because it's a good one I think about the disconnection this what's your assessment of the role of police unions, right? I mean the the questioner mentioned the PBA you've mentioned the PBA and they are Among the chief impediments right now many many cities to police chiefs and the idea of reform I'm a very strong believer in In unions, but public service unions when they have to do with law enforcement Are a real problem and in policing they are the biggest one among the biggest impediments to police reform Because police reform is really about Community policing and it's and police accountability These guys don't want to be held accountable Police like to air like to operate in shades of gray They don't like to operate in black and white And in both meanings of that term So So they and they don't want yet they don't want to be held accountable and that's that's the bottom line and as I mentioned When Patrick Lynch said these terrible things about the mayor He wasn't really pissed off and those all those police officers turned their backs on the blase of weren't really pissed off Because those two officers were killed of course they were angry and they felt bad about that But deep down what they felt bad about was that bill that Bill Bratton that year Had reduced stopping frisks in New York City by 79% almost 80% so that's that that was it they had to start operating in a way they didn't like and There's no culture harder to change than police culture. I believe okay moral questions. Is one over that side Hi, my name is Carol E. I'm here with my drug abuse class 110 We always hear that police are shooting black and brown people because they feel like they are in fear for their lives and That there's this culture of us against them and that might be true to a point but I They always they always seem to make it as if the black people are all the brown people are against the police yet the daily news and pro-publica just turned over you know a very big article on nuisance law abatement where black and brown people were arrested in their homes and Later on being found innocent or charges were dropped yet the NYPD still went to the judges after the charges were dropped and Had these people evicted from their homes and then when our young people run from the police They say you know because you know why you're running you must be guilty But when you're found innocent the police still comes after them and this isn't going on for for quite a quite a while And I don't understand how the higher ups are not speaking about it No one from the police department has met has has Responded as far as I know to this big article that was came out like about two weeks ago So so you mentioned a number of points. Which one would you prefer that I? No, no, I just don't understand why the police department has not bill platt Bratton is particular Yeah, you know has not responded to this Review about the nuisance abatement law where the police department has some of you mentioned you mentioned Bratton So I'll use Bratton in May day 2007 There was a big march on Cinco demo on Cinco de Mayo and there were hundreds of thousands of Latinos who came out to March You know and at a big park called MacArthur Park The Latinos were there I'm in force a lot of families kids and strollers lot you know a lot of women a lot of just families and Somebody and it was very very peaceful somebody then through a bottle a plastic bottle or two at at some of the police and immediately the LAPD announced By helicopter that everybody had a disperse in three minutes now You can't hear anything from a helicopter and it was in English not in Spanish So people just didn't do anything because actually didn't hear it and the NYPD Just went into their paramilitary training Yeah, the LAPD Went into their paramilitary training formed the line and With their with their clubs just started whacking people down just you couldn't couldn't escape from it They just whacked people down including reporters So I asked Bratton. How could that happen? He said Well, I didn't get to that So I think that might answer your question. I mean 2014 with the hell of a year for Bratton You know it guys not he's no spring chicken as they say Well, yeah, well, you know police departments are hard are hard to change. That's why Black Lives Matter and Other other groups other grassroots groups Have to keep pushing everybody has a role if you want to see better policing you want to live in a better society Black might like black lives matter. I don't agree with everything they say, but they need to be there They need to be doing it. It's got to be done. Okay We need to go to other Well, I'm not saying that but in that instance, that's the case Questioner here and then there Hi, my name is Leland, I'm here with a class my question was in your experience at the LAPD because you've been reporting on them for so long What are some of the reforms that you've seen that have created the biggest impact the biggest positive impacts on that police department? I Think the biggest one There's a couple biggest one is community policing I think this is so important and I we talked about the first wave of police reform being Figuring out how to prevent crime the second wave as far as I can see for the immediate future is community policing They've done a really good job of Division captains and and commanders and assistant chiefs taking Taking hold of an area and and being responsible for everything from murder to Making sure that somebody who That the couch that was thrown out and left in the street is picked up that those kinds of things and they're very serious about About community policing about winning over the people and they really started to do it and an example of I believe of how effective it was when when everybody was When when many many many people were so upset about the number of stop and frisk that the NYPD was doing the LAPD proportionally in those years the 20-2011 2010-20 was stopping the same number of people LAPD has always stopped the same number of people But they were doing it in a different way. It was far more focused on gang members They were they were treating people in a different way and they started to know The people and the people that were really causing trouble and those that weren't so That I would say that's that's the biggest thing. We also have a police chief In Los Angeles the police chiefs was always about them. The press was attacking them, you know the ACLU were the enemy Like Beck he said, you know his attitude is if his face if his face never appears in the paper That's good as long as they people think the department is doing its job and not abusing people. Okay next question right here Hi, Dr. Jan Jager, I'm here with my victimology class Do you discuss victims and changes towards the victims that police have had and victim precipitation or any attitudes With the police towards victims any kind of victims murder victims their families rape victims I don't I That's a great question. I really don't go into that much at all and I think it's a very very important subject Yeah, I don't want to tell you something because you know far more about it than I do Hi, my name is Brittany to tie in with Leland's question earlier. Do you believe the same? Community-oriented strategies that were implemented in LA would be as successful here in New York Do you think there should be some differences or roughly the same? I? Think it's harder in New York LA is three million people It's African-American population used to be 17 percent It's down to about Seven or eight percent now so it's and you know and it's spread out. So it's kind of easier to please to To do community policing in the projects or in other areas. I think would be harder now We'll see because that According to Bratton is his next big thing to do and I think it's it's it's gotta be done because you know every time I come into the City for the last 20 years. I asked about the cops how the cops so I asked taxi drivers and You know they used to say oh, yeah, don't spoil guys, you know they put no so much and and but now They don't they don't like the police, you know, they don't like the way they approach them They don't like the way that they they treat them So that you know, that's all part of community policing There's there's been studies that show that a big part of the encounter of any account or somebody has with the police is telling people why they were stopped in a nice way and and and being and and being fair People want the people want the cops to be fair It's if you you know that matters more to them than getting a ticket Okay, next question ready. Hi, my name is Guadalupe from a Joe We have seen a lot of police reform criminal justice reform But we still face mass incarceration and racial Discrimination I can't hear you. Uh, we we still see a lot of we see we see a lot of police reform criminal justice reform, but we still face mass Incarceration and racial discrimination my my question is is it a police problem or politics problem? It's a police problem. Definitely, but it's more it's more It's more problem of politics, you know, the police didn't pass Three strikes laws. They didn't pass all of these laws that are that are filling that have filled our prisons With millions and millions of people. I mean, I I don't know I mean, there's 2.5 million people in prison right now in the United States And and that's lower than it's been for a decade So consider that over a period of 20 years and think about how many of your fellow Americans? Have been in prison and if you're an African American take that number and multiply it by 100 You know by 90 percent 100 percent and that's so so it's it what it's the it's politics and the politics of Police repression were very very very strong in the 90s very strong and politicians reacted to it with With these astounding laws that would take a law where you used to get two two years in prison and They would triple it, you know, they would just go through the laws and do that I I'm very serious So we have all of these laws and some of them, you know Are mandatory minimums that don't give a judge the opportunity to say well this guy did that But on the other hand, he's never done anything else. So let's you know, let's not give him 25 years to life Which happened in California? for for stealing a six pack or Having some residue of cocaine In your in your car Where the estre is these what these are all true or stealing a tire or stealing two pairs of sneakers people were getting 25 years to life without the possibility of parole Until they serve 25 years for these crimes now that's been changed But that's that's the way that's the way it was in the 90s Okay, no the question Yes, Diane Paris law department adjunct professor You mentioned the white cops that go home to the suburbs and yet Over the past hopefully 20 years or at least 10 years whether by consent decrees or whether by Voluntary compliance. There's been much more diversification of police departments such as inclusion On the basis of race gender Sexual orientation to what extent have you seen a positive change by the inclusion of different groups? As police officers, well, I think it's I think it's very important the LAPD for example Was forced and the city of Los Angeles was forced into to a consent decree Because they had they were hiring so so few African-Americans Mexican-Americans and women and so when you have about 2% 3% 4% African-Americans on a department or women on a department what happens is they get subsumed by the culture they are they are they are they adapt the rules of the culture and and the attitudes of the culture but if you have if you have minorities in Numbers and like this. I think 18% of the LAPD now is women 11% are African-Americans and the African-American population is about 8% if you have that then the culture starts to Starts to change Actually, Steve, I have a quick follow-up to that. Joe. I don't know if you read I think it's last week There's a story in in the New York Times a young cop by the name of Edwin I'm forgetting the name, but Edwin Raymond Basically was a profile in the times of Edwin Raymond NYPD officer and he He basically very promising young cop 30 years old looking at promotion to sergeant and Not finding any traction in getting his promotions because he is not playing the quota game essentially and you know my question in in relation to that is You know if if comp stat if all comp stat does at this point is impose quotas from the top down that they trickle down to the street and You know cops are only being judged on their arrest numbers. Is that system salvageable at this point? I don't think I know in the LAPD Cops are no longer Being cops are no longer being promoted because of arrest numbers I know that for a fact and I and I know Bratton's philosophy of this Cops and cops are promoted Um, in terms of how well they're keeping crime down not how many arrests they make No, if you if you do it by how many arrests they make that's terrible You get you get because they go out and they just arrest anybody they can for any for any anything they can so So I don't think they're doing that, but I don't know I don't know enough about the NYPD to know if that's still going on But I think in the Los Angeles Police Department. I just spoke. I just did a very long interview with the chief and He was very very strongly said that that was the case another question General over there standing up in the back Hey, my name is Levi and I just have a question So you mentioned I'm sort of like the culture of police and how it's hard to change right to get them to take sort of Responsibility for actions and so I'm curious to know what you think about sort of on the DA for example And like the DA's office role and sort of I guess in a way Like perpetuating that lack of responsibility that police officers have and a lot of times It seems like they're on their side when it comes to like very controversial cases such as on the case in Ferguson for example well I'll just give you an example Two examples happen right here It does anybody believe that the cop who choked Eric Garner to death Didn't deserve to be indicted Well, that was in Staten Island the DA there decided, you know, he was I think he's a Republican decided That's that people in Staten Island. I didn't want him and indicted or whatever forever for whatever reason And didn't indict him now. We have in Brooklyn We have an African-American DA a good guy. We've had him Steve on a number of occasions He indicted this the officer who shot the guy in the in the stairwell, you know that you know the case So I think I think the officer should be fired But I'm not sure that he should have he should have been indicted because he couldn't see anything He was he was very he was very frightened. So it was I think he was indicted as as an example So so So that's that's that's two cases The other thing is that DA's got have to work with the police the police make the cases for them very frequently They don't want to be in a bad relationship with them That's why that's why that's why comp Cops are very rarely indicted and lost in Chicago There it wasn't the cop indicted for a shooting In 30 years in 30 years before this guy who who killed the the young man Was and was indicted and that was only because that was only because they had it on tape and it was so hurt it was such a obvious obvious horrendous shooting and Los Angeles, I don't think there's been a cops have been indicted but not but not for You know murder on the job So it that's that's the answer. I think okay. Is there a question on this side that someone here while you're thinking I have a question for you There's a new phrase out there You've seen in the press and everywhere else called the Ferguson effect and what that's supposed to mean is that because of all the attention of the protests since the first outbreak in Ferguson and the shootings of unarmed civilians elsewhere in the country police are and the Consequent consent decrees and all the criticism and the The tighter procedures that police are saying well, you obviously don't want us to go after bad guys So we're not going to we're gonna be less aggressive and as a result. You see Some people say the result is you see Consequent spikes in crime in various places other people say that's that's a crock. That's not really true It's for other reasons Ferguson effect doesn't exist But they're obviously our cops out there who feel hard done by and maybe changing their policing Themselves on the streets. So what do you think about that? Is I mean how serious my issue my My feeling is hey get with the program. You're you're a professional You know, you have to do your job this is one of the this is why body cameras and and and and cameras in in the In police vehicles are so important Not just because they protect the public but they exonerate the police So the police can go ahead and do their job and not be worried about that if indeed they are worried about that They might be you know, maybe who who wants to be the next cop? who appears on CNN and MSNBC and all these news channels and is and is and Just you know, it's good and it's called a racist etc So it might be I don't think in good police departments. I don't think that that's a case that that Cops have to understand the situation how they need to operate Raise your hands any more some more questions Wow, you're all tired Exhausted some people trying to exhaust it from listening to me. Oh, there's one. Okay Hi, I'm just so so my question to you is in regards to what's going on now With all the slashing that's going on with the stabbing and slashing faces You mentioned earlier that when you was younger you was afraid of the MTA Etc. So I myself feel the same way now and I feel like Bratton is not taken Precultures of what's going on of the situation aggressively the way that he should be and My question to you is What is your opinion on what is he doing now to protect us because I feel like we have more Guardian angels as they say old guys protecting us and I feel like we don't have enough police officers in the streets taking care of hot spots as they consider and Making sure that everyone is safe and secure because you know Even if we carry a weapon on us for protection is like, you know, we could get locked up for it So I just feel like in your opinion, what would you do because I just feel like brand is not being aggressive of the situation Well, you know, we've been saying I've been saying some some tough tough things about the police, but This is why we need the police. This is that this is the situation In this country. It's far far better than it was 20 years ago. Believe me far far better I don't know enough about that situation To to tell you to tell you what what what should be done certainly hot spot policing would be would be Seems to be a candidate For dealing with that, but I just don't I know but it's terrible. I'm so sorry you have to go through that Let me so can I ask a quick follow-up to that? So to what extent then do you think the police department whether it's the NYPD or the LAPD or the Police brass have a responsibility to deal with the perception of crime as well as the reality of crime The first job of a police of a police chief is To be confident to appear confident and then then to take transparent action To deal with this. I don't know. Maybe I don't know you know better than I do has has brought in been On TV on the news talking about this and what he's gonna do So subways are really terrible because you're trapped if somebody goes nuts and starts stabbing you And if there's not a cop in that car not even on the chain, but in that car It's it's a terrible situation. Let me just insert some statistics here So that we're in reality territory the reason I asked the question about perception of crime is because this last streak of Slashings there have been eight eight slashings not 2008 In total so this last streak which has lasted about six to eight weeks at this point There have been eight slashings that is actually four times as many during the comparable period last year But it's still eight. It's single digits. It's not two thousand So we're still talking about, you know in terms of slashings on the subway We're talking about, you know, 15 to 20 a year even at the current rate So, let me let me if I can just to gauge, you know The sense of the crowd. How many of you have negative feelings about police? Don't be shy if you have them have them raise your hands Just to how many of you have positive feelings about the police Well, there's a there's an interesting answer. So that may mean the police the NYPD are doing something Something right something right absolutely I'm sure if we took that poll maybe two years ago or five years ago. We get a totally reverse I believe that also if I could if I could just say you might have gotten that impression Because you read the New York Post Or the daily or the daily news you can't trust Those papers you're you're a student at John Jay. It's it's pretty easy to go online and find out The facts so that actually is my follow-up for you Joe quickly What's your reporter your journalist for you know for 20 years you've been doing this You know you were a professor and your teacher What do you think the role of the media has been in terms of police perceptions just to echo? Dance point and what can we do the media have a particular role to play in this whole question of police reform? well, that's a really good question Steve and it's My answer is this That what happened in Ferguson? What happened in Staten Island all of these different kind of police abuse cases? would have just Be gone with the wind if they had happened 10 15 20 years ago before the technological Revolution now that we have the technological revolution and we have people of your generation Being appalled by what they see and and and letting everybody know that and that includes reporters I'm talking about people with 35 You know 35 and under I think the press has done an incredible job since Ferguson of calling our attention to these these problems so I detect an exit is starting, but I know another Another class. All right. Well, thank you We have some more questions. I think in a room Well, there's one new one here if I can just go to you It's a new beat Bye-bye everybody. Thanks for coming yet By time we're done, there'll only be two two people to apply Hi, my name is Trevor. Obviously, there are a lot of criticisms about Bratton Do you think he has what it takes to? Enforce community policing now that we strayed away from the proactive policing from the 1980s You know, I haven't seen seen him in a while He certainly had what it what it took in 2014 to get through that year with all that happened I Still think he has the the knowledge. I don't know if he still has the energy required It's a big big job. We should we should note that Mr. Bratton has said he probably will not be serving a second time if the plazio was a second term so that means that After the next election we may be into a whole new landscape politically Okay, well, I Unless you're some or you had another follow-up Yeah, we get to see a lot more crime that's happening But do you actually in fact see that crime and police brutalization is actually going down over the past Two decades as opposed to how it looks on TV and how it looks in the media as it's on the rise Well, there's no question that crime has gone down. I mean here in New York City quite Oh Officer involved shootings and beatings I Think I think departments are less tolerant. It depends on the police department is the answer Okay, it depends on what the what the chief Tells the sergeants on the beat and what the sergeants on the beat in force so I Know all of the things that we're seeing now have always gone on Probably more so and I think because of what we've been seeing and the change in attitude of two generations of Americans your generation and generation before you that it's that it's lessening there's less tolerance for it it's very hard to quantify because The statistics were never really kept before so we're seeing a lot of it now seems like there's suddenly a lot and Certainly in New York and places like LA the extent of police brutalization or police Aggressive tactics has gone down, but I don't know if you can say the same things about Baltimore or Cincinnati Well, that's right exactly places Miami I mean, you know, there's still old-style cops and old-style policing in a lot of cities around America and those folks are still at loggerheads if you if if you want to find out about police shooting officer involved shootings in particular go Go to the Guardian and the Washington Post who have done fantastic jobs of Compiling statistics about police shootings and other abuses And also a good place to start About this whole subject is to read Joe's book so go buy it outside and please join me in thanking Joe for