taxpayers more than $8.5 billion a year to pay for the nypd and between salary overtime and the value of their benefits the average beat cop costs taxpayers more than $150,000 per year. that s a lot of money. so police officers then are slowing down. they re not really doing what they are supposed to do they re sworn to protect, right? let me make two points. one is i m not here to quibble about how much police officers do or don t get paid. but it s important that we understand it. because, you know, the number that gets thrown out there every time is the starting salary which doesn t begin to cover what we as taxpayers actually pay our police force. and in terms of the slowdown all i m going to say is look these are civil servants. if our teachers decided, you know we re just not going to educate our kids today, i think there would be hell to pay. neill, you say there s a question going around that maybe this is some sort of revolution considering what s happened in
creates a chilling affect on those who would come out and protest lawfully and exercise their first amendment, their rights in the spirit in which they were intended. and that s the problem. when you have a small minority that create trouble and break the law, it becomes very div cut for law enforcement to separate even though constitutionally in theory they should be able to separate or required to practically, it s very difficult to parse out who is lawfully exercising their constitutional rights to assemble and to protest and those who are simply break the law. neill, can you take me back to what it was like for you as a police officer, here you know pre2004, because when you look at the numbers and governor o malley at the time instituting this real crackdown this zero tolerance policy here and you saw some stunning things you saw one-sixth of the population of baltimore in 2005 arrested. what was it like back then and has it changed? well what s interesting,
charged with enforcing. most of these arrests made in the city are low-level drug offenses. which is a health issue, not a criminal justice issue. and there s no question i said do you think it will do the most to get the answer unfortunately the answer is no. you do have underlying issues they have to be addressed. they ve got to be addressed. unfortunately the violence and riots distracts from the righteousness of that purr sutd. neill, thank you very much for joining us. we ll lean on you going forward. cheryl as always appreciate your perspective. alisyn. chris, we ll be back with you in a second. stay with cnn for the breaking coverage in baltimore. what sparked the violence rocking this city last night? and are city officials doing enough today to restore order? we ll get into all of.
judicial system can deal with that and the only question is should this man be dead. and now, mel, when the man runs away does the officer know why he sis making a break for it and it is probably unpaid child support, and the warrant out for him? le well, i don t want to presume anything, and it is the law, and neill and charles have stated it correctly, the law says that based in the united states the supreme court has stated that the law of the land is since 1985 in the case of tennessee versus garner states that you may not shoot at somebody who is fleeing. you may not use deadly force unless a reasonable officer would state that there is significant risk of immediate body harm to either the officer
or the public in general. and in this case don, re regardless of what it is that he did or didn t do when he ran, there is absolutely no risk to the officer. there s no risk to the public. the supreme court has been clear on this issue since 1985, and there is no justification, end of story. all right. i want you to take a look at this, and this is new stunning video from knbc and it is a pursuit on horseback in san bernardino county ending with a man tased on the ground and punch and kicked repeatedly by what is por than a dozen sheriff s deputies and by the knb c s count he was kicked 17 times, and 13 blows to the head and baton used four time and neill, you first. oh my god. again, come on. once you subdue someone, and you