Transcripts For CSPAN Washington Journal 20240622

Officers have to interact. So they get to see the other side of policing so they are more aware of what we do on an everyday basis and not just what they see on tv. Our first guest is from the Richmond Police department. Chief, thank you for joining us. Guest good morning. Host there a national withrsation going on Building Trust in the community. Give us her perspective of not only what happens but what it does to this general idea of Building Trust in the community you serve. Guest i believe it opens our eyes as a Law Enforcement community. Trust is required in order for us to be a lawful and legal end. We have to carry that trust. At ferguson come it was a sad to chew ferguson, it was a sad situation. You had an officer who had a negative encounter based on the relationships the community have. At baltimore, the loss of life at the hands of Police Officers and they created turmoil and you see a better station because of that. We have been having conversations and it is important we listen and learn and act appropriately to these negative encounters we have across the country. As you listen and learn, what are you hearing from these conversations you are having . Guest i am learning we have to change as leaders the way we train our officers and the way we communicate with the community. Building trust takes time, communication, a shared responsibility and shared goal. We have to continue to engage and work with them. As far as building the trust, increasing the communication, what do you think works in the situations . How do you do those things . Guest in the city into thousand five, the chief came in and created the concept of Community Policing. What the last 10 years, the men and women of the Richmond Police department really get it. I take over as chief in february. For the last 10 years, crime has been going down while the population is going up. There really arent a lot of complaints in the city. That is a testament to the ability and relationships the Police Department have fostered in the city. Peoplehen you speak to in the community and you talk about the use of force, how do you communicate that, especially with instances of shooting there . How did you indicate what happened to so the sense of trust goes forward and they know everything there is to know about a situation that occurs . Guest for me, two weeks ago, i had my first case where one of my officers had to use force resulting in death. There was an uproar in the saying that the police stood over this individual, empty the magazine, reloaded. But this was an armed felon who shot one of my officers so it was important to get front in front of that. I always tell the committee having the open dialog let the case take its course. I was not on the scene, my investigators were not on the scene. We have four precincts in the city and i went to every community to introduce myself and listen. Listening, learning, and then we react as an agency to provide the quality of services the citizens and Community Expect and it is all about relationships. Has set Ae Department model for the region to say this is how you do it. Host it was during the shooting incident, one of the things you said is that this is not ferguson or at least implied that. What does it mean that you even have to say things like that in light of what we deal with today . Guest i thought it was important. It was only that portion of the community where there would be uproar. When i said this is not ferguson , i refuse to have a community on out and create havoc and civic disorder when we dont have all of the facts. This wasnt a case where an officer was rogue. Officers who are Compassionate Care and are committed to the community. I think it was important to put that out there. People believe in trusting their officers and when you have a situation like that and i dont wish that on anyone my officers are not out here looking to shoot. This was a situation where my officer received a call for a person armed with a weapon. This was not racial profiling, harassing a person in the community. It is important for me to reassure the community there is going to be a fair and impartial investigations and im not the one who made the determination. To our Attorneys Office to make the determination. Guest of the morning, chief Alfred Durham to talk about police and community relations. If you want to ask him questions about this topic of policing and community relations. Chief, generally as you tell your officers, what is the general philosophy when it comes to policing . What is the approach you use . At the father of policing in the u. K. He created the metropolitan Police Department and scotland yard. One of the things he said in my the policeis he says are the public and the public are police. We are human beings also. I tell everyone i speak to, we make mistakes. Leader, i desire responsibility to ensure we train our people appropriately, adhere to the policy and i impose discipline where it is needed. Credibilityy is with to legitimacy and transparency for the people we serve in the community and that is so important for me. Host our first call comes from william from tennessee. You are on with chief durham. Is one my question when police are called or pull somebody over and , whys an altercation cant they just shoot them in the leg . Tells noy dead man tales. If they are alive, they cannot tell the history. But there is a video, they will go to court. You want to tell me they are stronger than the police . They workout, they run. Part of the idea was the idea of when to use force and that is something your department has to deal with a lot. Guest i cannot tell an officer when to use force. They have to make that assessment and a quick assessment if there is a threat. The color mention something about traffic stops. Caller. The community is asking the questions how should be conducting on traffic stops. I believe education is very important. Level, wethe officer pass out information, go to community meetings. We are telling people to comply. Put your hands on the steering well, have your drivers license, insurance and just comply and listen to the officer. Bad days officers have but we should not be expressing our feelings toward a citizen contact. It is important there is communication on both sides. Communication is key to every conversation with citizens. Ohio. In hamilton, caller i have two things i want to comment on. I believe civil asset is why a lot of the officers are trying to spend time work for lurk for people, trying to be revenue generators. Taxpayers paying a decent salary to these people so they dont have to go out and try to find property they can confiscate from people to build revenue for the police force. I get tired of hearing so many people talking about most of the officers are good cops. That sounds wonderful but all it takes forever to prosper is for good men to stay silent and when you have this wall of silence and police protecting each other, they are witnessing the police that are brutal and not being fair to the public and they stay silent. Why arent the good officers doing everything they can to get the that officers out of their district and off the force . That is a good comment. First, i will talk about the asset forfeiture. We dont believe that is a salary revenue generator. There are federal laws that mandate we get certain funding from seizures. The wall of silence, that is true. There is a culture and police and sometimes that is hard to break. One of the things i First Published in our policy was that anyone in the department that has any knowledge that anyone has caused a violation of policy, they have are the end of the shift to notify the internal affairs division. Ithink it is serious because am listening, learning, and acting. Ken in virginia is a Police Officer. Caller good morning. Guest good morning. Caller i was a Police Officer. I am a federal agent now. I was a Police Officer in camden for five years. Something i was taught is to walk the beat. You have to understand the community and be a part of it. A lot new officers that get in the field dont understand what it is to live in the community. For the previous color that spoke about there being a wall of silence it is the same in the community. Sometimes communities are reluctant to help but every community has different needs that need to be addressed. Police officers cannot solve all of those problems. I used to work with a lot of children and i still do. I go back home often in the summer to philadelphia and i work with youth but it starts in the home. There is a fundamental respect among people. To take off your uniform, you are a human being like everyone else. Respect ofd the human beings and living but everyone once to build homes to celebrate living. It is a tough job but the biggest call of being a citizen might get an impression the wall of silence exists but it is insulting when there are good officers out there and you have to call someone. You dial that number, you will get a Police Officer to respond and no one else. Guest that is a great comment. One of the things my Community Knows is i dont believe in sitting behind the desk. My officers see that. One of the things i created will we talk about engaging the community is walking beats. By no fault of the officers we do what we call chased the radio. Opportunity toan offer a greeting and salutation to the residencies serve. I created permanent walking beats in every precinct. This was my commitment to the community to increase the walking beats. Most of the original officers didnt volunteer. Volunteers now to walk because the original officers say this is the best thing. Culture,alk about culture and how we do business. If ferguson hasnt taught us anything, people want results and they want back from the community. We talk about police and the public. We cannot do it alone. We have about 214,000 in the city, a small population. About theres nothing we cannot do to reduce crime in our cities and neighborhoods. Do most of the officers of your force live in the Richland Metro area . Guest there is no requirement my officers have to live in the city but most importantly, these people are committed. A couple weeks ago, we had badges in baseball. I had officers go out there on their own time playing baseball for about 25 youth. These people are committed. Communitycing and relations is the topic. We are joined by chief Alfred Durham. Johnny from south carolina, you are next. Caller thank you very much. 60sw up in georgia in the and i have about experience with of them weret most white. I was starting with my friend and it was a white policeman and got out of the car and threw me against the wall for no reason and called me all types of names. I didnt say anything. They got back in the car and drove off. Seen ay times have you black policeman shoot a white person . You havent and you probably never will. They know better. You know . This policeman beating this woman on the highway, beating her with fists on camera. Nothing happened to him. Woman and aa white black officer, he would be gone. Guest we talked about use of force. If the officer has to make that assessment and they had to eliminate the threat. Toell people, we dont shoot kill, we shoot to eliminate a threat. I think this is a conversation no longer is brute force tolerated in the community. People when i was a younger officer, i am not arresting you, i am rescuing you because sometimes people just need help. Respect and ith have several people come back and say because the way you treated me, im changing my ways. For those Law Enforcement agencies and the officers who continue to be abusive and violent, they get what they deserve. Host have you ever had to use deadly force in your time of service . Guest i have not. 28 years of service and i have never had to use force. Host to the colors point callers point, talk about how video and cell phone. What do you think this has done as far as policing across the nation . Guest i appreciate people videoing. We have to look at the totality of the story. A lot of times, the images out , the people dont want to cooperate but they are quick to put it on social media. You have to have the full package. This happens everywhere. We continue to convey to our officers, you may not see it but it sees you and it is important our officers know there is no crime against a citizen videotaping. One of the things im looking to body cameras. My officers are looking to embrace that technology because there is a fear every time they go out to do something, they are being secondguessed about their actions and that is what we dont what officers to do because a lot of officers are out there by themselves taking actions for the community and being chastised for the actions they take that are very important. Host re looking for federal funding for the body cameras . We apply for a grant that we have not heard back from yet. We are excited. Policies, retention schedules we have to work in, privacy issues. Re are lot of arts to this parts to this. I want the community to have input because once it is all said and done, we want to have people standing behind us. Made in a vacuum but a collaborative effort by the Police Department and citizens. Host next is christina from fremont, ohio. Caller hello. Thank you. Community, there have been quite a few corruption incidents. Personal experience was with my cousin murdered five years ago by the officers. Felon. Unarmed it was an unloaded weapon. He was not aware of the police being there. They surrounded the house. It is in court at this time so i cant talk too much but the gun the police came out. No one communicated anything to him. Teamsent in an armed swat while he was asleep. They didnt know if he was alive and sent in tear gas. They didnt try to communicate with him at any point. He jumped and they killed him right there. It is very sad because it is not only happened to my family, it has happened to seven other families. I feel like the body cameras would be such a good thing for our communities, to help gain our trust, for all of us to see hange, to have that extra seeing what they are going through. Itt happened with my cousin, wasnt 7, 8 hours before the police even left the house. All of that eight hours of what was happening, the officers going through the home. We could have seen that on the body cameras, they could have used in court to help them. I feel the body cameras are such a great step in the right direction and i really pray we can get these for our communities and i commend all of the officers. I know they have a tough job. I know there are good cops out there like there are good people out there. I just really feel like at this point, the body cameras is a great step in the right direction. Host chief, go ahead. Guest i cannot get into the circumstances surrounding her cousins death but i offer my condolences. Again, i think we have to listen. We have to listen to the community and make the necessary adjustments in our training, policies, and the way we do business. Host charles from mount vernon, new york. Charles is a Police Officer. Host i was a new york city Police Officer and i was a training officer. I was impressed with the chief with the beat patrol. I grew up in harlem and most of the officers in harlem were white but we really never had a problem with them because we saw the same officers all the time. They knew us, our parents, everybody. Now you have officers just coming where you dont see the same officer twice in the same community. Am 69 years old i dont hang out on the corner. They just walk up to you. I remember when the stock and frisk law came out of the early 70s. It was not stop and frisk. It is stop and question with probable cause etc. Frisk, it is a pat down but they eliminated the probable cause clause in new york. I was impressed with the beat the beat cap is the best. It is the most expensive but the best way to get the community with the police. And we had an experience with the College Community where we had observers from the College Writing in the police car. Iding. Guest you are right. I remember growing up in washington, d. C. Guy, 62cer was a big and we respected him. , hee did something wrong was taking us home to our parents and that is what it is about. In our training academy, we go through six month of training never taking them to the street. Send them out into a Public Housing community, hispanic community, Homeless Community just to interact. Once they get out there and not have any expectations of what they will encounter. The chief joining us with our discussion on police and community relations. The numbers on your screen. If you live in richmond and want to call and talk to the chief do you get the sense of general animosity . Guest not at all. I tell you, just the relationship. Our Faith Partners here plays an important role. We have citizen academy, Youth Academy, senior academy. We have a myriad of programs to engage our youth. We have our Young Adult Police commissioners, our explores program. I have only been a chief for six months, but the men and women have set the foundation and created a bond with the community. There are sections of the communitys that are challenging. One thing i noticed is that it seems to me that the youth certain youth in the community, they have this certain right of passage that they have to be disrespectful to authority and adults and that is creating some problems and challenges. One of the things im working on along with the superintendent of public schools, we are locking up a lot of young kids, youth, our future. Just fights, using profanity. We are the ones introducing them to the juvenile Justice System and we wonder why they have problems with our police, so we are looking to do a Creative Program in just working with the schools and it will be a private nonprofit working to build those relationships and the and leave them on the right path. Most important, the parents, the mothers have to be part of that, too. That is a missing link. The issues start at home. Police are the face of government 24 7. We come in and we are seen as the bad guys, but we are that entity, that body that when they make the call, they expect us to be there so we have to build a relationship that they dont want a part of. It is challenging but we are up for the task. Host how much of that challenge is drug related and how does that compare nationwide as far as drugs and the job of policing . Guest its interesting because the drug business has really changed. Back in the day, late 1980s and early 1990s, they were focused on deals behind the scenes. We make a lot of the cardica it is atics arrests but lot of Gang Violence and there is a high poverty rate in the city of richmond and the mayor is doing a lot of things to create an address those issues. We are seen in facetoface daily. In a lot of the Public Housing communities that we have, and we have five Public Housing communities, we see those relationships built. About three weeks ago, we had a homicide in the afternoon and within a couple hours, we had six tips on that community and that is pretty unprecedented. Six tips within half an hour and we made an arrest and identified the suspect. Host our next call in texas. Roy is up next. Caller i was raised to respect the police. Ive never had any issues with police, but this isnt like the community thing, but i hold it up to a huge cluster for the subdivision. Apparently, we were throwing a Birthday Party and the pool was my first stop and they had a tent in the driveway and they lined up the cars by the mailbox. I asked one of the people to move the car because i had to put mail in the mailbox and he did, but when he finished, he f bombed me in front of the kids who were preparing for the Birthday Party and the parents were sitting in the garage. They did not do anything. All they did was f bomb me until it got through. I think parents when they dont do anything to correct kids, it just makes things worse. Kids, in general, they have no respect and the older kid f bombing the mailman in front of little kids, what are they learning . Thank you. Guest you know, again, it starts at home. One of the things i experienced in december, there is an annual Christmas Parade in richmond and as we were marching down the main street, broad street, we went into an area called jackson ward, the predominately Africanamerican Community and there were kids lined up experiencing festivities. I greeted the kids and said Merry Christmas and not one of them acknowledged me. I understand about not the fact that they did not knowledge me but they had the parents there and they did not say knowledge. My point is, if they needed help, would they come to us or the bandit on the corner with the gun to resolve the issues . It is challenging but it starts at home. Host roseburg, oregon. Duke is next for our guest. Duke, good morning. Go ahead. Caller yes, police chief, just remember this the police are not there to protect and serve the people. They are there to protect and serve the establishment. In the first place, if you want to cut down on shootings, this arm the police completely. No tasers, and the only thing they should be allowed to carry are the batons. They wouldnt be quite so likely to shoot somebody if they do not have a gun. Thank you. Guest thats interesting. I would tell you this since may 30, we have a firearms and fugitive initiative and 82 days, we recovered 178 firearms. From the year to date we have , recovered over 540 illegal firearms off the street of persons. To say that we should not be armed to defend not only ourselves but mostly defend the public in those situations, i think my officers need to be armed, sir. Britain breach beach. Good morning. Caller good morning. Host you are on. Go ahead, john. Caller sorry. I thought i got beeped off. I really respect the chief. I think he is a really smart guy and i hope he runs for congress. [laughter] i want to talk to something specific. Nonviolent people that are arrested, why do they got to handcuff them . I understand it is policy, but is there any adjustments that can be made on that . If someone gets arrested for nonViolent Crime, no criminal record whatsoever, handcuffing them is not respectful and it really makes a resentment toward the police when you do that. Thank you. Guest that has been a conversation piece since i has been in the Department Since 1987. What you have to realize is that when a person is arrested, even for a minor offense, we do not know who we are dealing with. Initially, we dont know if they have a criminal history, so whether they facing of that so for the safety of the individual and the safety of the officers, it is a dramatic experience when you get arrested and you dont know how they will react, so i think handcuffing is the appropriate method we have to take. Host are there different techniques to handcuffing . Is it just standard arms behind the back . Guest for the Richmond Police department, standard behind the back securing of the individual. Host that is part of the training that goes on from the video on the screen from officers in richmond getting training on handcuffing. Chief Alfred Durham joining us on Community Policing and relationship with police. Lets hear from david in mobile, alabama. Good morning. You are next. Caller hello, can you hear me . Host yes, go ahead. Caller my name is david. I have a story for you. I filed 12 complaints with the Justice Department on it. This happened a year ago in alabama. I was living with a woman by the name of connie smith and she was in a Divorce Court with her exhusband. He was transferred to department of agents for the Justice Department, he was gone for quite a while and i got a knock on my door at 1 00 in the afternoon after i got off work. I had two Justice Department agents, three Police Officers at our front door. The Police Officers, one standing next to the Justice Department agent, had an fbi jacket on. Shouldnt the fighters up as an fbi agent and she was not. The other woman at the door identified herself as an atf agent, she was not. She was a federal Police Officer. There was a Police Officer at the right side of the door in uniform. I am standing at the door in my underwear. I am amazed at what is going on. Me and connie have never been arrested, never committed a crime in our entire lives, we have never been involved in criminal activity. They told me that i am americas most wanted and that i had just committed murder. I asked them, do you have any proof of this whatsoever . They had no warrant, no picture, nothing but a big made up the story. The two agents, the fbi agent i mean the Justice Department agent and the one disguised as an fbi agent push me out of the way, ran into the house upstairs, accosted connie and stuck a gun to her and brought her downstairs. Host david, what would you like our guest to address . What is the general topic you want them to address . Caller im going to get to it. Host weve got to move on only because he went to get more calls in, so why dont we leave the call there. Chief, is there anything to take away from that person story . Does it relate to anything you have heard in the department . Guest no, not here in my department. Host your department does have a program that we found that when we paid a visit not too long ago that you invite citizens to take the role of a Police Officer and get their perspective on what they do daytoday to day, especially in a situation that we show a video of. Well come back to get your perspective on it. Get off [gunshots] he came at me. All right. Your first round was sent off, the second round, thirdround, fourthround. Now, let me tell you something. I did not realize i shot him four times. Say that again for me. I did not realize i shot him four times. You get so caught up with what happens when internal affairs and your supervisor shows up and asked you what happened . And you say i dont know, you are being honest and that is very frequent to happen. Lets take it one step further. Lets take an additional step. Tomorrow, this is the front page of the times, what does the headline of that article say . Officer shot man four times. No. Try again. Officer shoots unarmed man four times. You were in fear for what he was going to do to you harm wise right . And he was drunk. And is probably drunk but he still did not have a gun in his hand. Host that is one person playing the role of officer, shooting a person four times. What do you learn from those who assume that role, especially once they go through the shooting process . Guest i have to tell you, pedro, that program has been a hit. Just going down the community and folks being inquisitive of why we have to shoot individuals with a gun. Why cant you just shoot them in the leg, or fire a warning shot and i thought about it. Our officers go through this training twice a year. Why not bring the community in . I tell you, everyone who went through that scenario training, they have come out and said, i have a whole different perspective on what the Police Officers have to do and i am going to continue that they because it is important and we understand. One of the things im looking to do is to purchase a portable system so we can take it out to the communities. I believe in taking the show on the road and that way when they see the police shooting, not only here and hopefully never again care, but someone else can say no, no. This is what they go through and i think it is imported. Important. That communication piece goes trust and support and that is how you build trust, communication and participation. Host how often do people come through to take the test . What types of people come through to take the experience . Guest we started off with the media, are faithbased leaders, our citizens academy. One thing that was interesting was the mayors Youth Academy and members of the mayors Youth Academy came in. Nine high school students. When they went through that, every one of them had a profound response saying, i did not know. You know what . Everyone of those students shot the bad guy. A split second decision. Its not easy to say, why did you not shoot them in the leg . Everything we do is reactionary. Host tony is from missouri. Go ahead. Caller good morning. I worked dia 16 years and that she was talking about use of force for an individual that has never been in the use of force before. They do not know what goes on and i will just take anything you say for us off the air. Thank you. Host caller . I think we lost them. We will go on to frederick in virginia. Caller how are you doing . Good morning. Im going to say that i am african in this country and i have experienced a lot of bad policing in this country. Trust me, for civilized country like the united states, most of the Police Officers dont care. They will kill you. You are black, young, they will kill you. Im going to tell this story. I can be called at any time to come to work. You are talking about use of force will start you are saying that a Police Officer sometimes cannot use their judgment. If i cannot use my judgment and use that for my client, i will kill the person because i am a nurse. Ok, if you are a Police Officer and youre not prepared to be a Police Officer if you think that and you are a Police Officer, youre not prepared to be a Police Officer. Guest i just want to say that use of force is a touchy subject. The last time we had the use of force that resulted in the debt in death was may 4, was in 2010. I do not believe my officers in the city of richmond are triggerhappy. We do not come to work every day, my officers did not report to duty to go out and shoot someone and kill someone. Based on perception though, when you come in our police headquarters, there is a quote from Martin Luther king junior. What is happening somewhere else in the country we are feeling , the ramifications of that and i believe it is unfair and that is why it is so important to say that we will not have those incidents here because we continuously engage the community. Host how often do talk with washington, the white house, the Justice Department about events of policing . I know a task force was convened about Community Policing and they put out a report. Did you have input or what you see from washington on these issues . Guest i did not have an input but i am part of international chief of police and we are always going out it is important. These are chiefs from across the country experiencing the same thing right now, but i have to commend president barack obama in creating that task force because it opened our eyes and there are six pillars that came out of there. My command staff every monday starts to review those and implement them and have conversation about what we need to do to change policing. Interestingly enough, out of those six pillars that came out of the recommendation of that task force, richmond was already doing six of them, so we are doing something right and im proud to say that we get it and thank the president for creating that task force to get that information out and have citizen involvement in that. Host here is thomas from texas. Thank you for holding on. You are on. Caller hi, how are you guys doing . My grandson is sheriff can you hear me . What do you think of Mass Shootings and automatic weapons all over the place . We have 30,000 people die a year from handguns. Dont you think the union could help your cops out like getting some of the weapons off the street and the citizens . Thank you. Guest last week in washington, d. C. , they convened a meeting on all the gun violence and the increase of violence across the nation and you are absolutely right, sir. There is an increase in use of firearms and capacity magazines are recovered with these weapons. Thankfully in richmond, we are not seeing that. We are recovering a large number of weapons but not associated with violence. We are experiencing a decrease in Violent Crime, down 13 in a Violent Crime. The main crime issues i have for me are motor vehicles. I will take that any day over someone being victimized. It is better for us to say that we will take that property crime hit, but the Violent Crime is up across the nation and for once, we are down so we are fortunate here. Host newport, vermont. John, good morning. Caller good morning, pedro and chief Alfred Durham. I live in a predominately white state of vermont and in my two years, i am in my 60s, might in my experience through the years has been very negative with the police. I have had a gun put up to my head, i am not the wimpy looking guy, so the assumption is whatever it is. Many of these Police Officers are steroided and some are obviously on drugs themselves and in my opinion, i am a lawful and in my opinion, unlawful shootings of persons here in vermont. If you do your research, you will find that. I am appalled at how many young blacks i see the police have shot in what appears to me to be completely unlawful circumstance. They have all these rules, there the tools there are several , police in most cases responding. They could use short shotguns with teflon beanbags, whatever they need. They can knock them down with rubber bullets, with whatever. They had clubs, theyve got mace, every kind of tool and compassion has to be an essential ingredient in the recruit of Police Officers. If you cannot determine if a recruit has any compassion, then they should be excluded from consideration and a lot of the young fellows are servicemen. They have ptsd, whether they declared themselves are not. Or not. They are young, full of machismo and this is what i have come up against the room the many years of where i live. Negative experiences of Police Officers. Host thank you, john. Guest john, i hear you. Especially when you just talked about one of the things i spent 25 years in the washington Police Department and we had 200 officers were part of the military reserves and they were deployed overseas to spend a lot of time in afghanistan and they come back here. Even here in my department, i also have men deployed overseas right now and when they come back, they have to integrate back into our society, meaning the Richmond Police department. Again, i dont think that i have done a good job or my Due Diligence to look at that and that is something i have to look at. You bring a good point and this is an issue and im glad we are having this conversation, the nation is having this conversation about Law Enforcement Building Community relationships and how we are building the disconnect between Law Enforcement and the African American community. I think this is just the tip of the iceberg. We will continue to have these conversations but i refuse to continue to see, across the country, why the are still we are still having these types of misconducts and uses of forces by Law Enforcement officers in unjustifiable killings of black men. Host chief Alfred Durham of the Richmond Police department. What is the racial makeup of your force . Had you gauge that, especially amongst the community you serve in . Guest i have about 32 africanamericans. 62 caucasian, 3 latino and about 1 other. The population in richmond is about 50 africanamerican. One of the rings we are doing is to have a diverse Police Department. Even females are minority in my Police Department. You have to have the racial makeup of the community you serve. Its important. Host what kind of package you offer them in terms of salary and benefits . Guest that was a Sticking Point here. Salaries got a pay raise last month. It is a tough job. Salaries are not commiserated in Law Enforcement. We do not take this job to become rich, but you look at the duties and responsibilities and everything that we rest upon our officers from social workers to Health Care Providers and just having conversations and counseling folks, there is a lot involved and we had that face a and we are the face of the Community Government 24 7. Host one statistic tells us that it is about 60,000 a year, is that what about their making the richmond . Guest not at all. Starting salary here is about 31,500. Host and that goes up with experience in time . Guest yes, we have a development program. There are five steps that that and you can get compensation and then you have a step, depending on time of service, the program. Host mark is from california. Mark, you are on. Caller yes, chief, i was listening to you sit up there and i dont think Law Enforcement is really getting what is going on with black lives matter and people protesting out on the streets. Nothing is really changing out in the streets. I really think the problem is of leadership and training. You have all these guys coming back from afghanistan that were in iraq and you put them out on the street. We have a problem with militarization of you guys. It is becoming it has become an us and them situation. You are saying that you have Community Policing going on, but i can see that you got to ease into this because you cannot have Law Enforcement officers walking up to peoples houses in the neighborhood because they will be scared of you. People are really scared of you guys. I dont think you understand that. You dont treat people with respect most of the time and you want people like with sandra bland officer expected her to kiss his butt and she was not going to do that. She was ready to go. And she ended up going into jail and dying because she did not kiss that officers butt. I would really like to see them modify training with the officers these days and with the leadership. Theres got to be a zerotolerance policy. When an officer is busted for racially or any kind of racial problems or bigotry, youve got to get rid of those officers right away. You cant just make them go to another department. Host we will of the chief respond, mark. Go ahead. Guest mark, you are absolutely right. This is the reality we are facing today. I cannot speak about anywhere else. I am the leader of the Richmond Police department. I have a command staff and staff of officers and civilian staff committed to the community. We dont have those issues there so i cannot speak or what is going on in other jurisdictions of what you experience where you live. However, i can november of last say november of last two to february this year, you talk about black lives matter there were about five unpermitted protests. We allowed those students, participants to exercise their First Amendment right. We told them to get up and we worked with them. There was not one arrest or encounter. What was the most amazing ever more profound for me, a protester came over to my officers and should there hands and said thank you. Again, i am thinking we are doing the right in, building relationships. I cannot speak for anyone else but i like to think that my Leadership Team here, we keep our finger on what is happening across the nation and thats important today. Host gary is from lancaster, pennsylvania. A former Police Officer. Gary, go ahead. Caller yes, i just wanted to say that god is not sleeping or dead and the Police Officers really do have problems with a lot of issues still. They have to learn to respect the other people, too. They try to make them bow down to them all the time because that is just the way it is. Host that is gary from pennsylvania. Chief, how to Police Officers get trained as far as dealing with stress, issues they encounter on the job . Who do they turn to at the richmond pd . Guest you know, it is interesting. We have critical training here and it we train our officers on how to deal with Mental Health but we are also learning how to deal with stress and those issues. There are a series of programs with medical Health Professionals who come in and we talk about the stresses of the job. We have programs here for our members but most important me that importantly talking about leadership and supervision. It is important for my first line of supervisors. They monitor their personnel, that is a critical piece, too. If you see something out of the norm or their officers are not doing or not themselves, they need to immediately take action and that is important. Host what kind of information does an officer have to do at the end of shift if there are incidents or not, particularly if theres some type of instance what kind of information does an , officer have to provide to a supervisor . Guest anytime there is a use of force incident, we have reports, mandates and policies and the this supervisor would be immediately notified. There is accountability here. Documentation is imported. Again, you are talking about reports. When i was talking to the community, there were some complaints about interactions with our officers. One of the things did you file a complaint . No, you wont do anything anyway. Well, you cant hold me accountable for something i do not know or my Police Officers if you do not let me know they are doing something wrong. So now we are seeing complaints coming against officers. 30 increase in complaints and that is a good thing because i want to know if my officers and not performing their duty to uphold and that is important for me. Host what have you learned in the six months that you have been chief, especially coming from washington, d. C. . I learned that i have inherited a jewel of the department and community here in richmond. I like to think that i am coming in and making changes but we are tweaking things the way we do. You talk about culture, just changing some things to say, hey, maybe we can do it better this way . I believe in inclusiveness. Not only the men and women in my department but the community and the relationships. When there is a Violent Crime as a community, we go out as a group, police, community members, our faith leaders, and we engage and find out what were the problems and what are the needs because of this Critical Incident . I have inherited a jewel of a department and i cannot ask for more. Most of the time