Transcripts For CSPAN3 William 20240704

Commissioner. And today, as a quick note before we start, commissioner bratton, well be signing some books out in the hallway just after session. I think were all very familiar commissioner brads achievements. So ill just hit a few of the highlights by way of introduction in william was born in 1947 in boston he served with the u. S. Army in vietnam before the Boston Police force in 1970. By 1993, he was commissioner of Boston Police. He was then commissioner of the new York Police Department from 94 to 96, then commissioner of lapd from 2000 to 2. 2009. In 2011, Prime Minister david tried to recruit him away from us to go run police in london. Fortunately, that didnt happen. The post needs to be held. A british citizen, he returned to the nypd to run that again from 2014 to 2016 and hes currently vice chair of the Homeland Security Advisory Council and hes been on that council under president s obama, trump. Biden. Commissioner welcome. And were very fortunate to be here with you. Thanks. Great to be with you and great to with all of you so well prepping notes for our talk last week news broke out of memphis of the killing of Tyree Nichols at the hands of a group of police and that it was a group as opposed a lone actor. It raises more questions of culture and systems. If you were to fly out to memphis today to out what happened and how to fix it. Were one of the first things you would do well, first off, in terms what happened, its quite clear memphis. Like many that have a high crime problem, oftentimes will rely on a unit to focus on that particular problem. Memphis problem was a combination of murders, shootings. It was the most violence city in america in 1920 and 21 and in 22, probably will keep that title. Unfortunately for them. And it is minority majority city population, 70 black Police Department is almost 60 africanamerican and and its issue is very similar to many other cities around the country. It banding not declining rates of violent crime. So oftentimes cities will seek to form specialized units, oftentimes task forces with federal agencies to focus on those individuals who are committing crimes. So like a doctor trying to deal with the a cancer he wants to focus on where the cancer is occurring and not harm the whole body. So the idea here is focus with precision on those who are committing the crime on these units. Oftentimes. And weve seen a time and again, if not properly recruited, if not properly trained, trained, and i emphasize that properly trained, if not properly supervised get out of control. And what we saw in memphis, a unit of officers clearly violently out of control so going into that department, if i were to go in there, it would be first off, looking at what happened. But i can almost predict with certainty happened. They were not selected. Well, they were trained poorly. They were supervised poorly, and they were not to account properly. And weve seen that time and again. I wonder if you can put where we are as a country into, sort of an Historical Context because your dad and my dad are actually the same age, i think both born in 1926 and i remember after the 911 attacks, i was very shaken. I was living in new york at the time and i went talk to my dad and a few of his friends and these old guys. I was saying, you know, this something along the lines. Im saying seems like the scariest time to be an american and they agreed that it was a very scary time and they also reminded me that theyd lived through the cuban missile crisis, the berlin airlift and the korean war and. They had served in world war two. And so it was early yet to be thinking it was the scariest time ever. And in your book, talk about the 1967 race riots, which some of us in the room dont really have a memory of you . Talk about rodney king, your career Law Enforcement goes back more than 50 years and so how bad is it today relative to all that history. With regard to three things, the police and community relationship, policemen now and racial tensions in america. The book the profession is a memoir and. Its a memoir of 50 years of policing that ive been exposed to that have helped to shape, fortunately, in many significant ways in los angeles and in new york, its a profession im very proud of. Its a profession. However, when i began in 1970 was not a profession. It really didnt have schools you could go to learn criminal justice, Law Enforcement. It didnt have all the hallmarks. What we think a profession has a body of Knowledge Research costs and research where you could be skilled and trained. Every Police Leader in america starts as a Police Officer they dont come in from professions or organizations like myself. I started as a 24 year old, hundred and £50 me back in those days as a Police Officer walking beat in an all black neighborhood. So the profession over the last 50 years has truly become a profession. It skill leadership, it has a body of knowledge, it has research it has all the hallmarks of profession. But like all profession, it is constantly evolving it is constantly changing with change. And it is constantly getting better, although incidents like memphis really bring a lot of concern about is it getting better, is it regressing instead of progressing you should feel comfortable. It is continuing to progress. It is still a noble profession, not without flaws, no profession. For example, doctors are some of the most highly trained professionals in our country in the world. One third of them get sued every year. Malpractice so that is something in that profession thats problematic and in policing, as much as we see the flaws of policing, one of the has to do with the very public nature of what cops do. They are out on the streets. Theyre not in an office, not out of the public eye. Theyre in the public eye. And in recent years, every of you is carrying a smartphone, some of you carrying too many police now soon to be all Police Wearing body cameras. Cameras are ubiquitous everywhere in our society. And so when they do, oftentimes its not in the back room of a Police Station or in a cell. Its out in the streets. And that was clearly the case in memphis, that the idea of the body caught some of the the misbehavior, the criminal action that led to the murder of that young man. But the camera that actually caught the most significant action was a pole camera. He camera that was being controlled, an individual. And fortunately for us, in the sense of having a bit of understanding of what happened with that instance, the operator, that camera, the first couple of minutes of that camera, if you notice, is shining on an empty street. But any pivoted because he understood the operator that there was a Police Action going on and he focused that camera on that Police Action. And to his or her credit, and we still dont know who the operator was, they kept that camera focused that action. So we have a much clearer of the criminal misbehavior of those officers at that scene. So policing a profession, in summary, has been getting better. We train better, we recruit better, we lead better. I have a lot of colleagues of leadership positions compared to what it was back in 1970. Most Police Chiefs did not have college educations, did not have specialized training. Now in america today, most departments want their chiefs to have at least a bachelors degree. Many want masters degrees. They look, the schools theyve been to what is missing as a profession. American policing, though, is there is no leadership standards for an American Police chief . Each city, a community decides for itself what those requirements are. So unlike a doctor, unlike a teacher, there is no National School or no college that you go that fulfills the va National Requirements to be a Police Leader. Its still very ad hoc at time. So as a profession we have progressed body of Knowledge Research, but we still do not do a very good job of training either Police Leaders and certainly not of Police Officers. Think of the average Police Officer in america is for 26 weeks before he puts on gun and badge and has all that authority over you. The ability stop you, detain you, question you use force against you, arrest. Thats an awful lot of power to. Give a 21 to 22 year old kid after 20, 26 weeks of training and most of them, after they get hired, go the firing range once or twice a year many of them do not have inside service training, which is to update them on the constantly changing laws. So as a profession it is flawed in we still do not focus enough time, money and resources on the training, the selection and the training and whats the end result . What saw in memphis, what we saw with george floyd two years ago, what we see from time to time and i make a point, though, about what we see from time to time the 60 million encounters between American Police and citizens every year estimated in in an average year, were about a thousand individuals who are killed by Police Officers during the course of those interactions, a thousand out of 60 million out out of that number. I think in 2020 or 2019, the last year, we had figures there were about i think, fewer than two dozen unarmed blacks. Yeah, no question. Positive. 13 unarmed black men killed police in about 15 whites, unarmed, who were killed by police. But in the vast of those thousand deaths, the police are responding to force being directed against them. That results each year usually in the death of 50 or 60 Police Officers who were killed in the line of duty while armed suspects. So that what has been amplified in the world we live in today, beginning with rodney king back in the 1990s with that first video that we had the early incident certainly in the civil rights movement, the chicago riots during the Democratic National convention, the selma bridge incident. But the first real video of Police Behaving inappropriate really was rodney king. But ironically, the defense of those officers during the rodney king event was that they were operating within the guidelines and training that they had received there was a defense. So today in, 2022, there were more of those videos available. But in the overall amount of police out there, theres still a relatively small percentage that up in police using force and within that percentage, about 1 actually end up in some type injury of the person being arrested. So thats very different than. When i came into the business in the 1970s, 97, new york city had 700 officer involved shooting incidents, police force of 35,000, city of seven and a half million people. Last year, the city of new york had about 50 shooting incidents, most of them Police Responding to attacked or being shot at. And i think last year in a city of almost 9 million people, they took eight lives during the course of Police Action. So the city of memphis last year had almost as many murders as the city of new york with a popular nation of 600,000 new york has a population of now almost 9 million. So memphis going back to where we began the discussion about memphis is in a crises of crime. It has been for a number of years and its efforts to deal with that crime ended up unfortunately in the murder of this young man and theres lessons to be learned from that lessons, as you, say, 60 million positive Police Interactions on average in this country each year. And positive, if youre getting a ticket going down the highway, positive on a i can guarantee every one of you is supportive, as you might be individually, collectively, the police have had an incident with a police who is probably not the nicest you ever encountered. Ive had several myself that in time, but many good cops who lay it on the line every day. And i wanted to ask more about morale and recruiting specifically i just anecdotally i live in a town in connecticut in our little just hired six former nypd officers which is great for our town we probably got six great new Police Officers but i wonder how cities like new york where the job is the most difficult and dangerous are left and we have i think recently learned that at least two of the Police Officers in memphis involved in this killing would not have been hired five years ago because memphis is stepping up their recruiting efforts and had to drop a few requirements, an Associates Degree and things like that. So five years ago, these guys would not have been cops. But now we cant find cops. Bad things happen and now. Even fewer people want to be cops. So were in it. Were a tough cycle. What do you what do you make of that . Thank you for that question because ill give you several respond it we are in a recruiting crisis is at this time the crises began to accelerate after the death of george floyd large number of Police Officers the last several years have retired from policing tired of the constant being beaten up if you will in the media by Community Groups as well as the increasing to their own safety. So understand the way they have decided that any of them that have 20, 30 years now is the time to go. More concerning is many that are leaving after only a few short years in a profession that normally attracts people for 20 or 30 years. So something has dramatically in the sense of officers feeling they are supported that that what they do meaningful and worthwhile. So many are leaving because of disenchanted with the current circumstance. But in the case of memphis memphis an exact perfect example of part of the problem at the moment after george floyd, it was expression defund the police was the political buzz word. So many of the politicians latched on to isnt this great will defund the police. Well take the money we give to them and well give them to social workers to deal all these issues that the police should not be with. And what are those issues . Narcotics, homeless and the idea of a mentally ill, those the three issues where cops get into trouble of the time dealing with the homeless segment dealing with the emotionally disturbed, dealing with the narcotics addicted society for 50 years, a up its response to those issues terribly we the worst homeless problem in our country since great depression. We have the worst narcotics problem in history. 140,000 people died last year of overdose deaths. And we have the worst issues in terms of the mentally ill. We still dont treat our mentally ill well and who has to clean up all of that . Who has to deal with it in the public, on the media, the police so things that the police are trained for or equipped to deal adequately is what effectively they are asked to deal with. Why because society and our politicians not been able to figure out what to do with it. I would argue know what to do with it, but we dont want to spend the money because it will cost a fortune. So there was the foolishness of defund the police. The police are not funded adequately enough because we dont train them well enough. We dont equip them well enough to do what is expected of them to deal with the mentally ill, to deal with the homeless, to deal with the emotionally disturbed. It is not easy to deal with any those populations and without adequate training without adequate guidance, without adequate support, where to them . Where are you going to put the homeless . Were going put the emotionally disturbed. Where are you going to put the drug addicted . Society is not that so . Where are they . On the streets so . Who has to deal with them to police . So its a terribly complex job and has become more complicated over the years. So defund the police was ironic in effectively it basically reduced funding los angeles reduced its police by almost a thousand officers. What did it get . Soaring crime rates, increasing homeless, increasing narcotics people on street narcotics appeared in increasing numbers of mentally ill on the streets. Defund does, not work. Youve effectively need to leave, fund the police to train them better to deal with society has not done a very good job of doing. But what is one of the other impacts with people leaving the job were not able to keep up hiring, deal with the attrition and have a new generation of young people who for whatever reason, do not like the police. Unlike the generation i came from in terms of the baby boomers, my dads generation generation after me im not sure if they actually generation x or whatever it is, but somewhere along the line they just like everybody. They just like everything and a lot of things that they dont want are careers in public service. So we have a population normally would try to recruit from people in the twenties who want to come in choose this extraordinarily difficult profession. Why because it looks awful and it is awful in many respects, it can be incredibly rewarding, but from the outside it doesnt look. It can be. So what goes on is that to attract recruits, to fill the ranks . Memphis. Memphis is short. 500 officers below authorized strength right now. So what do they do to compensate for that . To have enough cops, the street to answer 911 calls and to deal with a soaring violence rate. They lowered the standards in lowering the standards. As you pointed out civil the cops hired came in with those lowest standards. If anything we should be raising the standards because of the complexity of the problems that these young men and women have deal with and we should train them to deal with those problems and. We do not so we dont have a crisis. Were in the worst crises of the 50 years ive been exposed to business. Do we know how to fix it . I believe we do. Could i fix it. I believe i could. But its going to, as all things take commitment, its going to take revenue. Its going to take resources. And at the moment, none of that is there we are talking about changing the culture. Police will change you about talking about reform. But all of this it costs it takes leadership. It takes public support. And so much of that is missing at this time. I want to ask you about the role of the media in some of the things been talking about when you started out in 1970, there were no 24 hour cable news operations. It seems to me those in the anchor chairs were a little bit, at least less overtly partizan. Maybe they were maybe partizan, but wasnt wasnt sought out there werent so activist in the anchor chair. What role has the media played exacerbating some of the issues youre talking about like with the police or this generation that views the police so negatively . Media plays a phenomenal role and oftentimes a good role because it basically it brings transparency but its in the interpretation of whats going on. Oftentimes, we are a very divided nation. The very divided country at this time. As you know, had been talked about at this conference for the last two days. Mainly the people that have been on these panels, this idea that, you know, the far right the far left and that we congress a do Nothing Congress because they wont talk with each other. Too Many Political leaders arent unlike doris striking this morning during a presentation that the idea of politics is to do good people. So many of our political ideas now all they want to do is go to good for themselves, get themselves on television, themselves on social media. So where we are now with the media is both a benefit and a negative. A benefit that if we are doing good the police profession, theyre there tell and expand that story. Were in a world where we are able to tell and share that much. Im sorry, i dont that much. No. As if i fortunately dont tell me ghost stories. But there are so many good that are going on that you dont hear about because the old expression, many of you probably hear this one, if it bleeds, it leads. So in new york city right now, in terms of where we live, that the lead stories every night not story the lead stories three or four of them are usually the shooting this murder, this robbery, this rape because at the moment, the crime once again become a significant issue in the american mind. The irony of it is that the reform that everybody is calling for they have blinders on that reform has been happening and its been happening successfully starting in the 1990s, 1990 worst crime year in the history of country, worst crime in the history of new york, new york city, by example, twice and 243 murders, over 5000 people shot in the streets. New york in 1990, over a half million rapes, robberies, burglaries, stolen cars, 2018 in new york city, fewer than 300 murders, fewer than hundred thousand. Significant. In that city, a jail population that had been reduced by almost 60 . Why . Because police the things that we began to do in the nineties and ill speak to that in a moment we turned it around if a 25 years crime went down every year in new york city so that by 2018 it was truly the safest large city in america and it was repeated in many other cities, the country, los angeles included, where i also had the privilege of working from 22 to 29. Why did it get better . Because police embraced philosophy of policing called Community Policing and Community Policing had three basic elements to it, and it makes sense if you think about it. The three piece my wife rikki klieman, whos in the audience, will be presenting up here shortly, taught me that as a trial lawyer a jury if you give them more than three things at a time, theyre going to solely miss the fourth and fifth. So given three. So i to do things in three. So community has three elements pot a ship, police and community Political Leadership working together on problems. The second piece what are the problems that you want address . What do you want them prioritize. But in focusing and prioritizing what is the goal . The prevention of crime not the response to it . Because in the seventies and eighties we spent most of our time responding to crime measuring our success by how quickly did we answer that 911 call . How many people did we invest how many crimes we clear in crime went up steadily in the seventies and eighties in nineties we embraced and that was one of the leading embraces and in fact one of the creators of Community Policing concept that the goal should prevention, not one of you would prefer to effectively lob to raped and then the satisfaction of wife of the rape of being arrested and tried. You wouldnt prefer it to would not have happened in the first place. Well, that was the goal we began to embrace in the nineties and i was one of the leading people pushing that and when i got the opportunity work with giuliani in his first term as mayor, i was his first Police Commissioner. We embraced policing at the national level. Bill, the crime bill of 90 400,000 more cops training for cops, a lot more Research Money for the next several years. Overall crime went down by 40 in america. But in new york by 2018 was down by 90 . And then what happened in new york and whats been happening in our country since . George floyd, we formed the police without ever taking a look at well, for 25 years why was climbed. It was because police had been reforming reforming to the extent we were controlling behavior in way that we were causing less and less harm our citizens rates of violence by police rates of shootings, rates of incarceration were going down dramatically, particularly in the minority where so much of the crime, unfortunately, and so many of the victims are. And one of my great frustrations is that all these calls for reform take a look at what we did in the nineties in the 21st century the first 20 years in new york, l. A. , many of the cities around the country are this. This is not Rocket Science to do this stuff. And the great frustration is that the political winds of the moment basically, the media follows, a lot of those winds and right now the winds are all about reform. Yeah. Yeah. I wanted to lets stay on that. I want to circle back if we have time about Michael Brown. Hands up, dont shoot. And and media running with that do you talk about that in your book but on this point in your book, which tells a wonderful story but its also a manual for successful policing and all the logic and, the strategies and the data is here. And you show again and again and that it works and has for hundreds of years. Going back to robert peel in the early 19th century in in great britain. And yet we after putting hard work reducing crime, its succeeding. We then turn back on these strategies and we get into this cycle and you can just see the cycle coming again and again. How do we break that cycle and just maintain our foot on the gas of solid policing . I wish i had the answer to that at the moment, one of the great frustrations not having im no longer technically in the business and a longer police chief serve on the Homeland Security Advisory Council for the secretary. I stay very active in a lot of policing issues through my. Books as well as opinion columns i write tv appearances, constantly engaging with my contemporaries who are still in the business. But its a very frustrating time, the moment, because theres just not that recognition of how much was done and how much progress were making. Its as if when unfortunately george floyd and as cities like new york, a very Progressive Group of politics, wins in district attorneys came into power and didnt. Quite frankly, they screwed it up, screwed it up big time. You referenced sir robert peel, my personal idol a hero. Sir robert peel, who created the British Metropolitan Police london in 1829. And he nine principles of policing. And if you were to read them and i encourage read them theyre in the book in several instances theyre more appropriate today than they were back in 1829. The most the five most basic words in his first principle were the basic mission for which the police exist is to prevent crime in disorder. Prevent crime and disorder. The seventies and eighties were focusing on responding crime and doing nothing about responding or preventing the growing homeless populations on our streets are going to soar the graffiti, prostitution, abandoned cars that what people understood was that what people see day are those socalled quality of those socalled broken windows. A judge filling in jim wilson. So whats really, really about the idea that what you every day in your neighborhood is effectively what shapes your opinion about is it a safe neighborhood . Is it a bad neighborhood . And while crime is certainly something you have to focus on to be successful, you need to focus on both crime and disorder. Its like when you go to a doctor, you going to cancer hes not certainly focus whats going to potentially take your life but hes also looking at those other issues that if theyre not addressed the socalled crime they may take your life in policing in the seventies and eighties and politically political will all focus on lock them up, put them away. Thatll solve the problem. It did not work. We ended up with the socalled mass incarceration community, many people going away who should have been for drug addiction, who should have been treated for their Mental Illness that weve loaded up jails with them. But in the nineties we began to get it right. And i was one of the leading architects of getting it right by the focus on crime and disorder and how do we focus on crime with the system we write about in a book called compstat. Compstat eight letters short for computer statistics. The particular programs how to only eight letters in the naming of a system so thats what we ended up with compstat shuffling computer statistics had four elements and those elements sound so when you listen to them but the that we had a created in the 1990s only 30 years ago timely intelligence gather your crime information every day not at the end of the month but every day timely accurate intelligence, Rapid Response. What was that intelligence telling you where crime was beginning to grow. Patterns and trends three, four or five. Stop it before it became channel 20. Timely, accurate intelligence. Rapid response. Effective tactics. Whats going to work uniform patrol Visibility Task like the one that was so flawed . Memphis joint task forces with the feds. Whats working . And then lastly, relentless follow up like a doctor he hes cured your cancer but for the next several years he wants to see you every couple of months to make sure its not coming back again in policing. After we made an arrest was all over, we forgot about it, but we did not take into account that. These people get back out of jail again. So the compstat system was focus on crime that was so successful and still works to this day. Its like when you go to a doctor timely i going intelligence examines you he finds something he thinks a cancer chest fortune there is Rapid Response effective is you going to use chemo is going to use radiation its got you surgery and then whatever uses he wants relentless follow up to see if it worked well effectively we took the metal medical and applied it to policing you apply it to your personal life that thats how vickie and i got together that timely accurate intelligence. Im having breakfast the Regency Hotel in new york one morning and comes walking across a homeless, beautiful young woman in a red dress. And shes with her new boss at court tv. I knew ricky briefly from boston. I look up and hows this for like 8 00 in the Morning Court . Ricky, you look so beautiful. I was single. Id marry you. I was on the in the process of getting the voice the time she gets in the car. We business cards and pleasantries she leaves and gets in the cab with her boss and the boss says shes going to call you and make stop you Exchange Cards all the time. Hes going to call you his wife as soon as she got. I had called this was before of this was cell phone so i had to find a quarter basically make the call. And then for the next several months it was her work schedule. My travel schedules, traveling all over the world as a consultant, the time we tried to make it, finally we got together for drinks. So the King Cole Bar in new york in front of that very famous painting and shortly thereafter we married tommy lee. I couldnt challenges Rapid Response effective and relentless follow up and here we are were coming up on 25 years together so its a so it can work with medical. Medicine policing a very respected profession with one third of the doctors are sued every year for the mistakes but you trust them we policing and then you have personal life coach that works for all of it but there a model for successful policing in this book and that you have implemented by the way that is a beautiful love story ive tried familiar with her prior to today, but it really can only work if there is a das office that has a compatible in pursuing crime and in a media that is not creating confusion. And i wanted to return for just a moment, if we could briefly on the Michael Brown thing, which you also talk about in the book, which had the hands up dont shoot narrative echoed in the media for some time, even though it wasnt true, eric holders doj came down and investigated and confirmed that it was not true. That is not how it happened. But its hard to unring the bell. How damaging was media involvement in that particular case, which kind of set the tone for years Going Forward . A very good point is about the Michael Brown incident in ferguson, missouri, that. One of the beginnings of this this Media Attention to these types of incidences, more cameras became available in a Michael Brown circumstance. Michael had him engage a incident at a local Convenience Store that effectively brought the police into the neighborhood and the story that initially went out, hands up, dont shoot the story. Upon investigation, he was assaulting the Police Officer. The officer ended up killing him, selfdefense. But to this day up dont shoot is still something you oftentimes see the entire police and youre correct that the government investigated, found that the Police Officer was justified in the shooting. But that somehow it got lost in the retelling of the story and is still lost in the retelling of the story. The memphis incident, a different set of circumstance is that because by all accounts the victim in this one story incident totally unlike Michael Brown who had said set the stage for happened with him and the good news that eventually over time we find out the truth the bad news that the it has at the beginning you cant lose expression you cant unring bell once the bell has been in a negative way, its very difficult to unring it. And Michael Brown ferguson, which set the stage for so much of the Media Coverage of these types of events, was based basically on what was based on a lie in some respects way the story was told and. Its one of the great frustrations. One of the good things, however, about social media is i still remember going to a class harvard and one of the things that were talking about was this new thing was coming on twitter and they were talking about this other thing, the cloud. And i thought, what the hell is twitter a cloud . Im thinking the clouds in the sky. And thats part of that whole evolution of the tech, not technological world. We live in well, twitter, you remember the boston bombing at the marathon coming up on the 10th anniversary that if you can believe it, that the media rushing to that scene understandably. Cnn and the New York Post were putting out, each one in their desire to be first with the news. Were not vetting the information correctly and theyre putting out misinformation, including misidentification of a potential suspect. The worst thing that you can actually do, what ed davis, the Police Commissioner that time had going for him, however, was had embraced twitter and had twitter account that the Boston Police department had created. So as fast they were coming out with the misinformation, he was coming out with the correct information as the police source. New york post story is wrong, thats not the suspect. Cnn got it wrong. Were not at this house to arrest the suspect. So for me, that was a wake up call because. Now, instead of having to feed the media on this schedule, you to beat the 7 00 news deadline, you meet the 3 00 deadline for the evening newspaper. We effectively could go around them and tell the story through our lens challenge to do it is to do with a transparent way and to do it honestly. And i think we were able to do that. So in new york city that i basically created the largest social media in the country, we had millions of followers from around the world on our facebook, on our twitter on if you name we were doing it. And the challenge was to effectively do it always as you could honestly with as much as transparency. So what has changed is that theres so many streams of information coming at you and its been talked about this conference. We tend to in a sense, isolate ourselves into the stream that were most with, to the idea we dont Pay Attention to those other streams and the divisiveness in the country right now is that, you to watch msnbc . You tend to watch cnn, cnn, still trying to figure out what it is we tend to watch fox and anything coming from msnbc. If youre a fox, well its going to be long that information and misinformation as much as we this was going to be a phenomenal revolution. It has created unforeseen problems that were still wrestling and thats had a phenomenal impact on the world that i spent so much of my time in the criminal justice world. And how do get the facts out there every joe friday most of this your audience is young enough to remember joe friday my my personal hero they had just the facts maam. Just the facts that trying do that just the facts say in this day and age very, very difficult that thats for sure what it is. Switch gears a more personal question. I remember an article about your fathers obituary and. You and your sister were quoted in there talking about how know. I think you came from modest beginning, but modest. And your dad would sometimes lunch to save a few bucks so he could buy present for you and your sister on his way home from work that he had rosary beads and a picture of the pope in his bedroom. Wondering if you could talk briefly about the early days of William Bratton what role faith may have played in your life . I was very fortunate. I had two great parents, my man dad and bill, and dad was the best. Both them born just before the depression. Growing up during the depression, dad lost his mother very early age, dirt poor father, an alcoholic raised by an odd charlestown in boston and hardscrabble lives of during the depression goes into the u. S. Navy 1944. At age 18 serious and the pacific on an Aircraft Carrier during all the kamikaze attacks attacks. Im on on the beneficiary extraordinary parents. I grew up in a water flat in boston that we used to heat water on the stove to take baths and then get showers. So i went in the u. S. Army in 1967 and id look at their lives and id always marvel that because if you ask dad about life, he would say he had a good life. And i at their lives and out of the lives that myself, vicki, have had the good fortune that weve had. And it just seemed that it was just an always a tough life, always trying to have enough money to take care of the kids, etc. , and but he had this spirit about him and i think it was the spirit of that the greatest generation, if you will, and a little about dad and i take after him in some respects that as much as im representative of the authority of policing and power, etc. , hes teaching me to drive. One sunday morning im there with my learners permit, 5 00 in the morning and no cars out. Thats why we were driving around and we pull up behind police car that stopped at a red light up in boston carbon square right. This is my first book, turnaround and the light turns green to cops. I shoot the breeze in the front seat and they sit there and. Dad says to don, i said. I said, dad, theyre cops to the horn. I shoot the horn. Sure. Cops pull over, we pull out or they pull over. And one of the cops comes walking back to the car and the language incredible. And the dads leaning across at me, yelling at the cop the light was green. You didnt move. He went and forth at it. And then finally the cop said, get the hell out of here. And off he goes. But, but dad was like that, he hated the abuse of authority. And ive inherited that and its ironic that i went into policing where it is so there was so much power and authority in that Police Officer, but theres also so much that officer can do if he uses that power and authority the right way. And id like to think that thats what ive been about in the sense of. Daughters have the expression do no harm in many respects, the oath of office of the Police Officer takes is the same thing we have to use force sometimes. Its unfortunate, it looks awful, but its lawful. Were authorized to use force, deadly force. But the challenge, like for the physician the doctor is in there using that force to use the minimal amount of force necessary to effectively keep control of the situation and this is where the training is important and the supervision and the accountability because so easy as a Police Officer to basically go off the reservation. If youre not trained appropriately, youre not supervised. And thats what happened in memphis. Clearly, what happened in memphis. And so the challenge for american Police Leadership, the challenge to american Political Leadership is to push back on this defund the Police Movement and instead push for the refunding, understanding the significance issues that society has not been able to deal with successfully, that theyve asking police to deal with. In the meantime, the emotionally disturbed and narcotics addicted, the criminal the reality is, unfortunately, some are bad people. Theyre criminals and you want somebody to deal with them. You want to have to deal. And thats where the police command. But you owe it to them to give the appropriate support when they do, trying to do the right thing. You need to do anything to give them any support when theyre doing the wrong way. But when they are trying to do the right thing is that cop that up shooting Michael Brown. He was trying to do the right thing on that day. But for months he was basically represented as the bad guy rather than Michael Brown. And so thats the obligation of the press, which they have lost sight of their idea they as a profession too often to get the story before they put it out in rush to get it out oftentimes. They have diminished the corroboration that they at one time were required to get back in the good old days of Walter Cronkite when basically they wanted put the story out, but they wanted to put the story out that it was correct. So we were trying to save a little time for a question from audience at the end. We got just under 2 minutes left, so i think wed squeak in if you raise your hand and, then ill repeat the question for the room, maam, could you say a word about the role of Group Dynamics in some of these talks . Because its very interesting to me that often a group phenomenon. The question is about role of group denial dynamics. Theres no that thats been studied significantly. This idea of in policing, weve seen that time and again. You remember the diallo shooting in new york city, 41 shots for a Police Officers. Im a cop out in end of shooting. Diallo was reaching for his wallet and it was widely that the first officer that yelled gun and fired the first shot that everybody else spontaneously reacted. So you saw some of that i think with the memphis issue at the same time, it still does not exclude excuse the individuality of the action. Each person is ultimately responsible and he suggests if by their own actions. So you know, were going to see those five cops scrambling to justify what they did rather than that group phenomenon. But theres no denying group phenomenon and basically is its contagious, if you will. Commissioner, thank you very much. I think were out of time. Thank yo