S. A. V. E. Was started in 2010 by the pastor at oaklands True Vine Ministries Church after a member of his congregation was shot and killed. We sort of took a page from the Civil Rights Movement where they would go to the lunch counters and sit in until they were arrested. So we do standins. We go to the community where someone has been murdered and we go and protest in the community about the violence. We are here to support you, let you know that your grandson will never be forgotten. Im here today to support my grandson, aaron, that was killed last month. Actually on november 24th. So im here to support him to let everyone know that he did have a family. These are our babies. Please put these guns away. Julia fords grandson was one of oaklands 131 homicide victims in 2012. The murder rates have been dropping steadily nationwide, oakland saw a 20 spike in homicides last year. This has prompted citizen outrage. Hey, oakland is no different than any other city. People go to work every day. The only difference is that at any given moment, they can be caught in crossfire. That has to stop. That has to stop, and we pay our taxes to be protected and we want protection. As oakland residents demand action, the city police force has suffered years of cutbacks, and now has 25 fewer officers compared to five years ago. Meanwhile, the department continues to work to meet decadeold courtordered reform. Has turned to william bratton, a former police chief who is often credited with reducing crime in los angeles and new york. But some civil Rights Groups are critical of his tactics. He will make his First Official boots on the ground visit to oakland early next month. The city retained him as part of a 250,000 contract with his consulting firm. Earlier today i spoke with bill bratton. He says he needs to assess the situation firsthand before offering any specific prescriptions for oakland, but there are lessons to be learned from other cities. He joined us from new york. William bratton, thank you so much for coming in to talk to us today. As you know, the last time america had a very serious gun control debate was in the early 1990s. Of course, you were chief of police in the new york city area. And that was followed by a two decades decline in crime. I was hope we could begin by having you put that decline in crime in context. The investment in the 90s was 100,000 Additional Police were hired. Additional money went into research, into prisons, into rehabilitation efforts. Research was critical. There was the assault weapons ban on certain types of assault weapons. The impact of that particular piece of the legislation is still being debated. Some studies indicate it had an impact. Some studies indicate it did not. From my own perspective, i look at every life saved is a plus. Every incident that didnt occur is a plus. It is quite clear that hundreds of thousands of individuals who did not get access to those type weapons, that clearly there would have been incidents that would have occurred with those weapons but for that intervention. What is your feeling about what president obama has proposed . The new initiative, by the president , has a number of elements. One, is a significant expansion of the requirement for background screening. Right now, 40 of the weapons purchased in the United States are bought at gun shows. Congress deliberately excluded them from the background check provision. And so many of the guns, i believe the majority of guns used in crimes today, many of them come from that one particular source. So closing that loophole would go a long way toward reducing illegal firearms or firearms of any type in the hands of a criminal population. Second initiative is the idea of changing the magazine clips that fit into many of these weapons so that they can only hold a certain number of rounds. As yet undetermined. I think that would be beneficial because an individual has to change a clip during a course of one of these mass shootings, that presents an opportunity to interrupt that behavior. A Third Initiative that is being made is, once again, a ban on assault weapons. I happen to think that one is not likely to pass. Its unfortunate, but i just dont think despite all of it that its going to pass. The fourth one thats very important also is additional efforts dealing with the mentally ill. That in so many of these instances it is quite clear that the shooters, if you will, are dealing with significant mental issues, mental incapacity. And theres so much more that we can do in dealing with that particular part of the population. We can do a much better job preventing people from getting guns, whether mentally incapacitated or criminals from getting easy access to gun shows. And then on the reactive side, we also have the ability, if you commit a crime with a gun, and you are not significantly mentally incapacitated, where youre going to go off to a mental facility, you go to jail. You go to jail for a significant period of time. Thats what worked in the 90s. 21st century. Significant reduction of crime. We focus on prevention and focus on those who are committing the crimes. So that leads me to the question i must ask about stop and frisk. And i think you prefer stop, question, and frisk. I was just going to correct you there, young lady, on that. Everybody likes to leave out the middle part of that. Its a threepart process. Say why you think so, and i know you dont want to speak specifically about oakland, but in most urban centers theres some tension on stop and frisk. How do you address that concern and why do you think its a policy that works, an applicable tool . It is a constitutionally protected activity by police. Challenge for police is to do it legally, compassionately, consistently. Not just in poor neighborhoods, not just in minority neighborhoods. That is the issue, unfortunately, around the country because thats where its most frequently used because, unfortunately, that is where the majority of crime, both serious and minor, is committed. Thats the reality of our lives, our society. It is an essential tool of policing. Cant police be better trained, supervised and monitored . I think they can. But those that are advocating it be done away with are representing it can be done away with, im sorry that you do away with it and youre going to have your cities overrun with crime because it is the basic tool that every Police Department in america uses. When you come into a major metropolitan area to consult, what are you looking for . What what do you take stock of when you assess a situation, a crisis situation like the one that city officials are facing . I wont speak to the oakland situation, ive not been there yet. In the case of consultants, youre usually brought in to do a specific assignment. Depending on what the individual citys issues are, my case, a consultants what theyre looking for us to do, its about diagnosing the illness and taking your experience. Whats worked elsewhere that might be applicable for your particular client or patient. This stuff is not rocket science. This is, for 40 years ive been doing it, and i think for 40 years pretty successfully. And thats good news because it is transferable, it is modifiab modifiable. Bill bratton, we thank you for your time and wish you all the best in oakland. Jamie, great to be with you. All the best. Now to our panel. Joining me tonight, allison briscoesmith, director of the center for the vulnerable child at Childrens Hospital in oakland. Eva paterson, president and founder of the equal justice society. And journalist mina kim from, kqeds california report. Mina, i want to start with you. Youve been in the trenches reporting on this issue. Bill brantton in new york, but not in oakland. Hes had success in those cities bringing down the crime rate. Thats a hopeful sign. What challenges in your experience with your reporting will he face if he works with chief george in oakland . I think his biggest challenge is hes going to be a lightning rod for the community. Hes already shown himself to be that because of his support and use of stop and frisk. Im not sure his very Strong Defense of stop and frisk will go over well with Community Members concerned about the racial profiling that might occur if stop and frisk is used. Already chief jordan said that will not be implemented and bill bratton will have a limited role, but bill bratton will be facing other challenges besides having a limited role. One is the fact hes dealing with a city thats had a big spike in violent crime, thats lost a couple hundred plif pol officers in the last few years and being scrutinized by the federal court. Lets talk a little more about what youve seen in oakland. The reduction in the police force, although reporting recently that there will be additions made to the force in oakland and elsewhere in northern california. But lets youve written, youve dug really deeply into this issue and written extensively about, and reported extensively on the california report about oakland residents pleading for officials to Pay Attention to killings in oak. Say more about whats happening on the streets in the oakland community. What i found is that folks in oakland feel like theyre under siege. I think theyre really hopeful the attention thats being paid to gun violence after newtown will help to bring more attention. And the group that we profiled at the very beginning, s. A. V. E. , is group i spoke with. One of the things theyre trying to do besides just trying to get more attention is also to try to jolt their own community out of an exhaustion and sense of numbness from dealing with all of these shootings all the time. Because in that numbness, while its certainly an understandable response to constant shootings, it creates a lack of action and they want to see more action from the groundup, from the communityup. So thats one thing im seeing. The other thing is, im hearing frustration about it constantly being pegged as gangrelated killings. What the community are experiencing are grandmothers dying, their babies dying. To keep calling it gangrelated to them i think sounds like its a way for Community Leaders or for the city leaders or for state leaders to act like they have some control over the situation. As opposed to really addressing the situation the way the community is experiencing it. Which is innocent people being killed. And to get the media to respond in an appropriate fashion. Right. I think theyd like to see that change, too. Eva patpaterson, let me turn you. Why are you so passionate about this issue . Is it personal . Is it political . Both . And whats your response when you hear that bill bratton is coming in to consult in oakland . As he has in many other places. Detroit, we know hes been a commissioner in three Major Urban Centers with some success. As an oakland resident, as someone who is the founder of the equal justice society, whats your response . Personal, political, both . And why . I have a range of responses. Im having dinner with a very close friend of mine whos a philanthropist in oakland. We were lamenting the fact this is going on and on and on. When i watch those parents, i wonder, i have to put this on myself, where are people like me . Im a civil rights lawyer. I live in oakland. Why am i not trying to figure out some answer to this . Where are the Corporate Leaders of oakland . Why is it left to the moms and dads on the street . And the preachers. Exactly. Thank god for them. Im also very nervous about bill bratton. Stop and frisk generally results in people of color being stopped. Theres a prominent lawyer who you probably know who lives in oakland. He was stopped in the driveway of his home and was stopped by the oakland police. Now, we dont want to malign the police. We all need protection. But what happens is that certain stereotypes about men of color come into play and it affects whos stopped. And thats whats very unnerving. Theres an epidemic of an overincarceration of black and brown people. It starts with stop and frisk. An activity that might be seen as a harmless activity, if engaged in by a white kid, if its a black or brown kid, theyre going to juvi. A white kid may be sent home, dont do that again. It starts this schooltoprison pipeline. It just starts a whole array of problems. So stop and frisk, i think, is really problematic. In los angeles, i believe there was a code called nhi. It meant no human involved. This was a police code which meant black and brown people. The work weve done on Brain Science and behavioral science seems to indicate that many people associate criminality with black people. And brown people. So having the stop and frisk as a way to deal with this i think is an overreaction and is a way that we might just cause more harm. Very concerning. I want to come back to the Brain Science. We Talk Solutions in just a moment. I want to turn now to you, dr. Briscoesmith for more of the real world impact on this. I know you, as well, mina, have looked at this as a health issue. This is a health issue. Isnt it . A Public Health issue. Right. Its a Public Health issue that has broad ramifications for how people are doing and functioning. And even to take it back to the Health Implications in the Brain Science, we have lots of evidence that being exposed to this level of chronic trauma really impacts peoples functioning. And their brain. How so . What does it do to a community to be under siege . Picking up on what mina said earlier. Over time, this level of violence and the number of deaths in a community. Its not just oakland. We could name a number of communities in the bay area and across the country that are under siege. We see a sandy hook and see a number of deaths. 20 children, 6 adults plus the kill aer and his mother. But over time we see a volume of deaths in a single community. That must have an impact on the psyche of the people who live in that community. Has an impact on the psyche of the community and impact on the body and minds of those who live in the community as well. So theres Robust Research to really document living in circumstances of chronic trauma will actually Impact Brain Development and potential for health development. And also have impacts in terms of cardiovascular disease, obesity, diabetes. There are a number of impacts that are really documented. Theres research to support that. To support that being exposed to chronic levels of trauma does that. And theres, actually i was on the phone on the way here with a researcher from San FranciscoVeterans Administration looking into some of that work. The animal models are there. Unfortunately the people models are there, too. Its chronic stress is another way of kind of thinking about it. When one has to always be worried about whether or not youre going to be harmed, it impacts the body. Give us a real world example. What do you see in your practice . Who are the people were talking about . You know, there is, as mina suggests, this notion that were talking about gang violence. And often we are. And not that those lives should be discounted, either. But what do you see . Youre working with children often, or young people, juveniles. But its not just the victim thats affected. No, not just the victim, but the family around them. So we work with many children at Childrens Hospital with children in foster care. So we have a program that specializes in kids zero to 3. Those are kids zero to 3 exposed to chronic trauma around them. Also within their families. But also many of the folks we serve have been witness to the type of violence or actually direct victims. What we see is developmental regression, lack of progression. We see parents unable to meet the needs of the children because theyre so highly traumatized. We see children and infants actually stiff and unable to respond. We see really day to day a dramatic impact. Theres also a dramatic impact of being able to help and intervene and call folks together. But i think as mina describes before, numbness, hypervigilance, feelings of no future, are all kind of characteristics of being highly traumatized. At the same time, i dont want to pa thologize any community. This is not unique to oakland, not unique to any community in northern california, richmond, emeryville. This is a problem in many communities across the country, and it is a systemic problem, is it not . It is. I was also really resonating with what you said. My fiance was murdered. I am an upper income professional. This was 16 years ago. Im still dealing psychologically with the impact. Gun violence, eva . He was shot in the head in kingston, jamaica. Im still dealing with that. Ive had therapy. If im in east oakland and this is happening every day and im 6 years old, you and i were talking about the children. Do you want to tell the story about the kids that were going to the library . Right. The children that were walking to the library and couldnt go because there was a shootout by their school. They were on lockdown. They had to go the next day with a police escort. The kids were very aware they are in a situation of violence. They are very much aware of whats going on around them. Its hard to see little kids reflecting that back to you. We cannot have a conversation that is solely about the problem, i want to talk about the solution. So lets go around with a panel of women who are so committed to these issues. Let me start, mina, with you. Youve talked to people about solutions in your reporting. What have you found . I talked with both physicians and also with the community. To begin with the Public Health officials i talked to, they felt like applying certain awareness campaigns that were effective with other Public Health issues, like drunk driving, for example, when they raised awareness that its okay to intervene if someone is drunk and about to get behind the wheel. Theyre saying its okay to intervene if somebodys going through a bad patch and have access to a gun. Go in there and say, hey, you know, lets get the gun out of the house for a while. Because what theyre trying to talk about is not just gun homicides, but also gun suicides because gun suicides can lead to homicide. I mean, arguably, the event in newtown, he could have been suicidal and taking out as many people as he could before he took himself. So theyre talking about that kind of if theres a way to actually, you know, make people feel like that is an allowable, reasonable, publicly supported intervention, that could reduce peoples access to guns when going through a bad patch. Eva, solutions . I want to go back to the kids, because we were all just torn up about the kids at sandy hook. And also the kids who were survivors, and everyone was sad, and that was a good thing. But think of the kids you were just talking about who go through this every day. What are we doing for them . Maybe you do this at your hospitals, but i think some type of therapy, psychological support, not just for the kids, but for the parents. In my discussions this week about this topic with people in oakland, people said, people arent getting educated. So you cant get a job. One good way to make money is to sell drugs. If youre selling drugs, youre going to come in to violence because things are really crazy. Theres this chain reaction. The last thing, what i talked about before, why am i not meeting with those parents on the street in oakland . Why isnt the head of clorox not meeting with them . Why arent we feeling like a community of oakland rather than, oh, isnt it terrible whats going on . I have some responsibility as well. I think many of us do. Maybe this show will be a catalyst for having that kind of conversation. But were some smart people in oakland. I need to know you. I need to work with you. I need to connect with you. I work with you. And in richmond, san jose, emeryville. And in places that, perhaps, arent under siege, reaching across the border to places that are. Doctor, your solution . I think there are actually a number of solutions that are available. You know, as much as we have research about the negative impact, we also have lots of research there are things that work. There are trauma informed and evidencebased therapies available that we provide at childrens and a number of folks provide throughout the east bay. There are also folks up in arms, folks that are kind of coalescicoalesc coalescing and doing work. Work thats done at some of the high schools, youth empowerment, youth uprising, theres a number of folks that are really getting folks together, getting the youth together to really stop. They feel this impact in ways that, you know, many people dont. They are seeing their friends and community be torn apart. Theres an uprising. I think theres a means of actually interrupting on this pipeline. You articulated a pipeline which i think is true. A pipeline that goes into the prison industrial complex, a pipeline that actually moves black and brown out of the way. But theres a way to interrupt that. Once youre in that pipeline, its very hard to break out. Very. The systems that are involved. Whether its a juvenile justice or foster care, or those kinds of systems. I think there are ways of interrupting that system before. I think theres education and attention, support for parents. And i think theres actually a lot of work thats going on and a lot of hopefulness because we are under so much despair and so much rage. I think that is actually something we can motivate to interrupt the cycle. There are things that can be done. I mean, one of the things i was hearing about actually, people are getting to know their neighbo neighbors. Connecting with them. Theres been a growth in Neighborhood Watch programs. Growth in social media and other ways of connecting with each other to come together and protect their community. Less isolation i think is the key. I think perhaps in the media we can do more to help people be aware of this isolation that whaz has occurred. I want to thank all of you for being here tonight, to help, as you suggested, spark a conversation about whats happening in our communities. And as you say, perhaps sandy hook can, as it seems to have in our country, start this conversation about whats happening in neighborhoods every day across our country. Thank you, ladies, all so much for being here. And thats all for tonight, but the conversation does continue online. Visit kqed. Org thisweek for our interactive map of oakland. It details the thousands of gunrelated crimes reported in 2012. Theres also a link to the pbs series after newtown and much more. Im jamie floyd. Thank you so much for watching, and good night. The following kqed production was produced in high definition. Calories, calories, calories wow, it rocked my world it just kind of reminded me of boot camp. I dont know what you had, but what i had was great. It almost felt like Country Club Food to me. Dont touch. Its hot i gotta tell you, you people are getting me all excited with all these dis hi im leslie sbrocco, welcome to check, please bay area, the show where regular bay area residents review and talk about their favorite restaurants. Now, we have three guests, each one recommends one of their favorite spots and the other two go to check em out to see what they think. This time