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 SecurityAdvisory 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 i