Transcripts For CSPAN2 Washington Journal Eugene ODonnell 20

Eugene odonnell is a lecture at the John Jay College of criminal justice, hes a former new York City Police officer and trainer and instructor at the Police Academy in new york city. Eugene odonnell, welcome to washington journal. Good morning, good to be with you. Let me ask you about how this all started. What do you think went wrong in the e encounter between the fou officers and george floyd on that memorial day arrest attempt . Its a complex conversation and its going to consume a lot of time at the terrible outcome my condolences to the deceased and the family of the deceased. In my view abpolitical breakdown at the top i dont know why Police Officers wnin t middle of a pandemic are involved in a 20 counterfeit bill custodial arrest and same thing in the eric garner case they were in search of blue cigarettes. The mayors have to give more clarity and they are in a lot of cities and Police Officers profoundly what matters police shouldnt be involved. Any Police Interaction can end badly. This is obviously a horrible one but nobody can promise that you can have some version of a apolicing is the nature of the work. We have people that are offering up the idea that you can train your way to the point this will never happen again. Put that off the table get that out of your mind theres no way to prove to do that. The only way to do that is to completely curtail policing and we see that policing has been curtailed so cities like philly and milwaukee and chicago and baltimore famously police are operating abthe headlines in the media this weekend should have been that the collapse of policing the New York Times, Washington Post i hate campaign against the police that raged on for five years. No fact was too important to ignore. Mistress of misrepresentation ingenuity. 4000 to 5000 articles negative articles not one single article talking about policing from the ofurban perspective of police presence. The important conversation were to have now and we should have five years ago this is a Long Time Coming is how were going to protect the country with the police and much much smaller availability and one of the reasons for that is there has been a no no doubt will continue this will be exasperated to complete total collapse of young people to be Police Officers who in etheir right mind wants to pull up put on a Police Uniform in a big city. What rock would you have to climb out of. Obviously the weekend lawlessness and looting in dwriting the most obvious example of you call it the collapse of policing but day today in cities like new york and baltimore, chicago, how does that evidence it so. What is it look like the lack of policing or the drawback by police forces. So it looks like murder with no consequences. It means police may fget to you house they dont have a whole lot of power. If you can construct the conversation about policing the 8 million calls, 30 million calls the new York City Police department thats 5 million calls a year its an enormous amount of work the people do their and the cops who know how much good work they do and dont recognize the caricature of the people thrown out there but if youre going to say that five years new york police 25 million calls mostly without incidents of any kind not necessarily misconduct, that thats enough to stop the city in its tracks. These mayors now have a lot to answer for. These mayors who drove the train and drove their cities over the cliff mayors like ab who were more extremist in the most extremist voices and agreed there is no institution in america worse than the police that nothing is worse the city could be sacked or alluded you could have 20,000 homicides in chicago nothing is worse than the American Police thats where they took the conversation and they cant get out of that now. They told the public some sort of monster that had to be obtained. The reality is a few people died when police do their job former people die when police dont do their job. You see cities like detroit where the police have not been abPolice Officer Police Officer shootings are flatlined Response Time is flatlined. They flatlined because there is no policing. This conversation theres two groups of people that have been totally silenced in this conversation. One would be Police Officers what would they know . Ive never had a conversation with a cop i didnt learn three or four things that were really good insights. And of Course Community on the ground war certainly is amenable to Police Reform and if you got to a Community Meeting its a totally different conversation. They are going to pay the price. If weve learned anything in the last couple weeks that the institutions have to be defended nobody speaks for institutions. Responsible people stand up for institutions. Which by the way the police or the fbi on the line shamelessly by both parties particularly the Republican Party or the president at least at this point no more Important Agency than the fbi and Racial Justice and going after the terrorists that latched onto these protests. The constructed policing that can end badly is absurd. And they constructed the fbi people dont have political opinions. What kind of bpeople would be in federal law en enforcement that dont have opinions . They would look at candidates for sure and declare their unfit for office. People can judge when the fbi thinks there unfit for office. Will open up our phone lines for viewers and listeners to talk with Eugene Odonnell, a lecturer at the John Jay College of criminal justice, former nypd officer as well. If you are Law Enforcement official that line is 2027488000 three. We will get to your calls and commented just a moment. Eugene odonnell, a question for you for about new yorks police force. You are part of the Public Safety Transition Team for mayor de blasio in 2013 the New York Times headline says de blasio faces cheers as Police Crackdown this is in the wake of the protests and riding the looting in new york city, how do you think the nypd has fared . I think the nypd has fared quite well. The nypd has had theres a guinness book of World Records for people trying to pick fights with the nypd. Thousands of people. Him vilify and castigated and provoked and attacked and use hate speech and targeted African American cops in the front line and they are looking they still havent gotten it, they will eventually get it its inevitable, cops are human, theyre looking for some video that will show the police in the 1930s group with holding batons race over peoples head. The mayor of the city of newark has played a despicable role in this conversation as had so many other socalled progressive people who senator sanders comes to mind immediately. People who have irresponsibly demagogue the issue of Public Safety by suggesting that whos the villain in all of this the villain is the police. Organa take this complicated issue of urban safety take senator sanders who repeatedly during his campaign with young people hanging on his every word had no solutions to the problems of urban america and new, talk about a cynical approach, he knew all he had to say. All he had to say was Public Safety is a complicated conversation and he knew the room would empty out. So he engaged in this one, two, three Year Campaign slyly suggesting that we should be hunting for enemies. The wealthy starbucks, target, all these entities targeted in these events. Im not pinning all the blame on saturday sanders i just noticed yesterday he is his twitter feed hes confused about what looting has a value or not a value. Thats a terrible thing. Its not too late for the people that did this to correct the records. Policing will not be resuscitated but the damage that these folks did will endure, we are now on a path, and make no mistake about it, who will protect the police if it will not be the police . Will be the army . Will be private security . People with ar 15s out in the streets the other night. Every man woman and child of god . Will we have a strong man government. Will we have Political Violence for leaders are killed we already had a congressman from the Republican Party shop. Democratic congressman shot in the head. Attempts to breach the white house. These are very serious conversations. Whats really discouraging is the conversation about policing got narrower and narrower in the larger conversation got totally polarized and hijacked policeman is the only place in tthe country for anybody to ha a conversation thats not insane at this point. We have colors waiting for you. Just before that i want to ask you about lawsuits regarding Excessive Force reporting for omme Supreme Court reporter in the Washington Post Robert Barnes he writes as protested round the country continue over the death of george flay the Supreme Court is examining a form of immunity that have shielded police from lawsuits about Excessive Force and other government officials for alleged civil rights violations. Ethe court could announce as soon as monday whether it will accept for argument next term challenges to a doctrine called qualified immunity. It protects officers from lawsuits unless plaintiffs can show how can show that the accused violated clearly established laws were Constitutional Rights they should reasonably be aware of. Its your view on the qualified immunity argument . Is being pushed out by the lunatic fringe that hijacked the conversation. The idea that in the police union going after police unions. The idea the police and only the police that have the idea of using force in society and elected officials made that case. They made the case they couldnt understand why the police would ever use coercion or intimidation or physical force in the country abim in the city today that had 84 shootings last weekend this past weekend they had 24 fatalities and enormous amounts of violence. Now we have a situation where we are getting a report card to cops heroically going into the situations and cops a lot of time to matter how much they are told not to they cant help by abide by their oath so the Chicago Police the other night in a highspeed chase after somebody committed a homicide, which is basically t decriminalized the wonder why theyre doing it. This is the conversation that this is where we are at we are at a point where the use of force heis fatality the use of deadly force is murder. Policing cant be coerced did ever. In reviewing things like, the officer had a prior history of using force. Mayors could clean this up before it got radioactively hot. The could of been courageous e they could abuse the political oucapital they failed it every way. We just saw how unconnected th mayors of the cities are. They have no connection in their own communities. They should be we talk about cowards to have that conversation we absolutely need to have cameras on politicians. I dont mean that in a cynical way. What leading up to the riots in the cities where these marrow were what were they doing what leadership did they exert what relationships do they have in the community pee dee i believe most of these royalties in these cities its a vanity project theres no connection and they know they cant solve fundamental problem so they can take the most cynical possible way these very complicated problems they fail to solve the mayors become a lightning rod. They said their constituents the only problem is country is the police. Thats what they said they let the charge and now they have driven the train so far they cant get ahead of lunatic fringe that wants to put the police out of business. Thats where they are. The sender of this conversation is whether police should be put out of business and the mayors in these cities have a lot to answer to. They themselves driving the train and if the police are putting out of Business People in neighborhoods will not be able to get their own safety there gonna pay the price there are millions of americans contemplating whether they will stay in city cities are to be very forlorn places. Because cities if theyre not safe cities will clear out. We brought calls waiting for you. We go to jeannie and rockville california, democrats line, good morning. [inaudible] jeannie in california, Eugene Odonnell, your thoughts. With respect there the police you or anybody else in the most completed conversation. The last thing everybody should think is good be helpful now is a lecture to the police on human rights safter their human rights were absolutely disparaged, kicked in many different ways by mayors, by mayors mayor lightfoot in chicago after the Chicago Police heroically defended the city in a riot, 12 hour tours, three hours of sleep, the mayor totally failed in her mission to protect the city and went on the air the next day, imagine being a cop in that tesituation watching television finding out the mayor is listening complaints at that late stage against the police. But the hate speech i havent seen anything horrific written about mr. Floyds death. Ive seen tens of thousands of hateful threatening abvaio hate speech directed against the police and if anybody thinks the police are in a particular mood now to get lectured to by people who never do their job who would never put themselves in harms way, i saw police in chicago i saw them in philly the other night officers many white men who were not white but they were protecting black West Philadelphia if that neighborhood or any neighborhood burns down that dneighborhood will never come back. Those cops were discharging their duty in the most honorable way the media was there what was the media there to do . To find another story they could write negatively about the police. But the untold story of policing in the last few days is how few may be a thousand cops literally save some parts of cities. Of course as everyone knows who was in philly and chicago, store owners, immigrants, the vulnerable were left to their own devices. Philadelphia was wide open 911 was not answered. Police officers allowed they were told to allow people to loot and which mightve been a good idea but this is not a very good time for people to be wagging their fingers at Police Officers on these picket lines clearly putting themselves in the face of death and been punching bags and a we want to let folks we have a aline for Law Enforcement officers that line 2027488003. Mike and doug dolph marilyn. Im a Law Enforcement officer now because the police cant do their jobs. Im a National Guardsmen i have to get activated because of this pity party that eugene is having for himself about how so hard it is for cops. It so impossible for us to not put knees on the necks of protesters. As a direct correlation right now between those cities having riots and those that arent edits directly lied to the Police Officers and their contacts in their eyes baltimore has been quiet. You want to know why . Because the cops havent been to your gassing and knocking over old people running over people with horses driving cars and the crowds all the outrageous unbelievably violent fascist nonsense that guys like eugene are responsible for. This guy is an absolute clown. This is the problem why policing in new york has been historically an issue. This guy goes directly from the Police Department to training cops and the cop academy a. K. A. a mike, we will hear a response from Eugene Odonnell. Sounds like hate speech to me but we will move on. Lets look at the data. Were in an environment now where you could write a reason balanced piece looking at the historic abuses that have occurred. A complicated relationship in the African American community is no place to publish that analysis no one would read it. If you compare the nypd to the ku klux klan 6 billion people will read that if you say the president should deploy the 82nd airport with teenagers and tshirts. And shoot them down. 6 Million People read that. We have an extremist conversation cspan may be the one and only place left for thee center. As ive been saying to the media this week. I know these stories felt good when you wrote them, you knew they were true you might not of been known and eventually where youre gonna take us but how do we all feel now where we are . We feel better today in a country that is increasingly ungovernable where we going to be in five years and 10 years its going to be with policing having a much smaller footprint. Some of the cities that do not have disturbances some of the cities do not disturb have extraordinary levels of