To talk about a this is forme ean Francisco Police commission and Fire Commission as well and current criminal defense attorney, joe alioto, thank you for joining us today. Youre welcome. Im currently a civil rights attorney in San Francisco. Thank you so much. I want to share with our viewers before we dive in our conversation, here are some of the main takeaways from the executive order today from the president. Mr. Trump said chokeholds banned unless the officers life is in danger. Snior Administration Officials say the order would instead promote certification bodies that train officers in deescalation techniques and use of force standards that prohibit choke holds, that calls for a creation of the National Database on officers with a history of misconduct. It encourages coresponders like social workers for nonviolent calls. Police departments get a financial incentive to adopt best practices. Now, House Speaker nancy pelosi said this falls sadly and seriously short. So on the surface to outsiders, there are some similarities between what were seeing with the democrats bill, the justice and policing act and president trumps executive order but only a little bit. Talk about where the similarities are and where they end and the key differences are. Let me start by saying its not president trumps job to write the laws. Thats the job of the legislature. So im hopeful that the legislature will come up with a more comprehensive policy. This executive order is directing the department of justice and directing funds in certain directions but really, the job falls on the legislature to come up with what those National Standards are going to be. All of those things that the president talks about, weve been doing in San Francisco for many years. When i was on the Police Commission, we started the Early Warning system and that documents any time a Police Officer gets into some sort of disciplinary action and it tracks that Police Officer, so weve been doing that since 2007, approximately 2007. On the issue of chokeholds, chokeholds have always been illegal in San Francisco. Really, whats going to happen is its nice to have a national standard, but really, where the rubber meets the road is going to be at that local level. Right . Its going to be up to the Police Department, the local level, the Police Commission if they exist, the Mayors Office to come down with a policy thats really going to effect real reform and its going to take hard work and negotiation with those Police Unions which is really great to see the p. O. A. And the Los Angeles Police union coming together this week saying, hey, listen, were going to work with you on some of this stuff. Thats not the type of cooperation we saw when i was on the Police Commission back in 2004 to 2008. Nor was it when i was on the California Criminal Justice Commission for the seven years and the two governors that i served there, so its really encouraging to see that were talking about these things. Its not the president s job, so whatever the president s doing is great, but really, its up to the legislature to do some National Standards and then the real hard work happens at the local level, so lets make sure that those chokeholds or bar arm hold, by the way, a chokehold is different than a bar arm hold. Carotid cuts off the flow and then air flow, either one is bad news and should be outlawed in my opinion but weve never used chokeholds in San Francisco, its always been prohibited, so the real hard work is at the local level. Its time to get to work on that, and to continue on some of the policies, the great policies that we have here in San Francisco and that includes the new hiring of new departments, training new people in new ways because some of the old ones in the department bring some of the old ways to the table and i think thats really what this reform is really about is putting those to bed. I think the chokehold is causing a little confusion, right . Lawrence has a question on facebook, wants to know if the officer is able to use a chokehold, how can that officers life be considered in danger, as the officer would be initiating the action . You know, it could be totally subjective, or objective, rather, on this happening at the time. Somebody reaching for the Police Officers gun, their hands on the gun trying to pull it out of the holster while the Police Officer is behind them. In that circumstance, i imagine under the president s policy, that would qualify as a Police Officers life being in danger, so thats just one example of that. You talked about the real work being done at the local level and thats absolutely true. Here in San Francisco, San Francisco mayor london breeds plan is that san Francisco Police will no longer be called to settle disputes between neighb handle Homeless People or really, any noncriminal cases. Do you think thats a good idea and a good start . You know what . That is not really realistic. I was a Police Officer myself. These are calls that can escalate very quickly, so if youre asking for a person that does not train in selfselfdefense or in prote it others, you put them in a dangerous position, in my opinion, if you have civilians go into those type of scenes. It can go to zero to 60 in a second and just to use an example, a domestic incident where youve got two people who live together, cohabitate together, nothing violent but go from verbal discussions to fights to physical fights in literally a matter of seconds so not realistic to say well send some nonprofit guy with no real training or weapons or selfdefense training, so i think that its going to set a really dangerous precedent and a matter of time before somebody really gets hurt. I want to get your take on this. The democrats bill, we were talking about earlier. The justice in policing act. After the Supreme Court refused to take this issue up, this bill does say, it goes a little further. It includes an end to qualified immunity, in many cases, shields Police Officers, as you know, from lawsuits related to their actions. What do you think about that . To set some very dangerous precedents. You have Police Officers reluctant to go to calls, reluctant to put lives on the lines which is what we ask them to do, and thats really what the departments or the cities are there for. Its to protect a Police Officer against that type of liability. Youre going to see Police Officers not take that job and this is going to be more of a socialized job, which is, as i mentioned before, a very dangerous precedence. I think a lot of people, when you talk about sending a trained social worker, if you will, to certain situations, people might say, yes, that could be a good idea, avoid the potentially deadly confrontations, but what are the limits in your opinion to that . There are no limits. I mean, its a terrible idea to send somebody with no training in physical deescalation or selfprotection or protection of others into a scene like that. Its actually very dangerous, and these are nonprofits that are thinking about hiring, like the foundation with people formerly incarcerated. Is it really a good idea to do that . Weve seen in the last two instances where africanAmerican People had been killed before george floyd, those were vigilantes, people that were regular citizens taking the law into their own hands. Thats what youre basically asking for this civilian population, nonprofit workers formerly incarcerated to do. Are those the people you want to protect your life if theres a quote unquote nonviolent incident happening . You cant believe that thats going to stay nonviolent. You always have to prepare for the worst because typically, we have a lot of bad people in the world and it can go from zero to 60 in a matter of seconds, so we need to be prepared for that and people who are trained for that. All right, so based on what youre saying, im going to guess but let you say what your position is on defunding police, which is, of course, what everybody is talking about and we should also define defunding police, because i think when most people use the term, they dont realize a lot of politicians actually mean just diverting some of the funds and redirecting them towards social services, education and things like that. Defined that way, whats your opinion . It means taking money away that you would have otherwise gotten. Our department in San Francisco has been below that 1994 standard of fulltime Police Officers ever since 1994. Weve been trying to catch up, but weve hired hundreds and hundreds of Police Officers trying to get up to that 1971 Police Officers, but we have fallen short every year because of attrition. Its not a bad thing because we get some of the older Police Officers out that come with the older ways, we have a Better Department today. That being said, defunding is a terrible idea because were already understaffed. What we should be doing is reimagining a Police Department and we have never seen a Police Department fully disbanded. A department back east tried it but fired everybody and hired them right back. Put a paint job on it. So that model has not worked. What we need to do is reimagine what a Police Department looks like and for me, that Means Community policing. We need people that live in our community, we need to change the laws so we can force Police Officers who live here to actually live here. Were less likely to have the person down the street you know and see every day, thats not the guy thats going to put his knee on your neck, right . This isnt the guy, the guy you see every day is not the guy that is going to actually do this. The personal relationships are really important and thats what we should be pushing, Community Policing, a really Community Policing model is what we should have. Thank you so much for having this conversation with us today. Thank you. Take care. You too. Were going to take a short break on the air and when we come back, well shift topics to masks while flying. One passenger from california spent the last two weeks voicing his concern about enforcement. Well talk with him next. Were going all right, welcome back. Today, an Industry Group representing major u. S. Airlines announce that they will begin stricter enforcement of mask wearing on airlines. This as Summer Travel starts to pick up and more americans are taking to the skies again, but a burbank based rider who took a flight on American Airlines a couple of weeks ago has concerns about enforcement. Tony scott joins us today from texas to talk about his experience. Hi, tony. Hello. Thanks for having me. Youre in texas, not california . Correct. So you the airlines may be with the mask wearing and enforcement because of your own experience. Tell us about the flight that youre on on may 25th, right . Yes. So may 25th, i took a flight around los angeles to dallas. Decided id spend some time here in texas to quarantine with my son and was a little reluctant to fly but we hadnt seen each other for six months so i thought if i get a first class ticket, maybe that would give me more space and every piece of literature, web site, app from American Airlines said that masks are required of all passengers, thats their new rule. So i was like, okay, thats going to be great. So on this flight, a wide bodied plane, first class. I noticed the young lady next to me wasnt wearing a mask. She was having a snack. No big deal. Youre allowed to take off your mask to eat, but after that, she was just kind of chilling out. So i just kind of leaned over and said, hey, do you need a mask . I got some extras because i just happen to carry masks and she said, no, she had one but the rest of the flight, the mask never went on. So i summoned a fli attendant to makeha told m masks were optional. So i took out my phone and just showed him on the app that the app said your ceo said all passengers are required to wear masks in flight, not wearing a mask. So he laughed and went to speak to one of the senior Flight Attendants and came back maybe 30 or 45 minutes later and said that the young lady who was a teenager, 15 or 16, Something Like that, didnt have to wear a mask because she was a child. I said, well, shes a teen and shes just as risky as any adult and so he was being condescending and kind of leaned down to her and said, sweetie, do you want to wear a mask . And she said, no. And hes like, sorry, nothing i can do about it and he walked off and that was sort of my experience, so i asked for another Flight Attendant to see hoeycouldnt accommodate me or interested in accommodating me. Was this girls parents on board and did they get involved somehow . Yes, she was flying with her parents. Her mother sitting right behind her and her father sitting behind me and it could have been just simply switching out our seats and coincidentally, both parents were Wearing Masks. So they chose to wear masks, yet they didnt want to tell her to. You know what, you did hashtag this experience, flying while black. Why is that . I dont think the Flight Attendants were being racist, per se or verbally racist but in light of everything going on when the George Floyd Protests or so, i just wondered that if i were a caucasian male and this lckir o refused would i have gotten the same response or would i have been taken more seriously and sometimes i wonder if i would have been taken more seriously because i just felt like it was discounted, so that was more an effort to get their attention but thats sort of how i felt in the moment that, oh, well, he doesnt have a mask, no big deal. Theyre not even disclosed that i have health issues, some pulmonary issues and asthma that puts me at a higher catego category. Wasnt there also a microaggression that felt like it was a case of flying while black . This is true. And thats whole point about flying while black. As i told you, i was flying first class and when i got on the plane, first class to the left and coach to the right, so i went to the left and the Flight Attendant stuck out her arm to block me, and like, im flying first class. Like, i need to see you ticket. What seat are you . I showed her my seat and then it was fine, but its just Little Things like that that arent necessarily meant to be racist, but when youre in black skin, it can sort of come across that way because the assumption was i didnt belong in first class or i couldnt afford first class. Its just little instances like that. Im so sorry. Its like a thousand little cuts, right . It does hurt and adds up, but i want to ask, you are an elite status flyer and you see Flight Attendants interactions with passengers a lot. Do you think theyre just hesitant to get into a conflict and if that is the case, do you think there needs to be a government mandate to give them a little more teeth . Yeah, i think they probably are hesitant to get into a conflict, and i think part of that is the fact that, i learned in the process you know what im going to do, lets go ahead and take this answer over to our live stream platforms b well many people have such a misunderstanding as to how a reverse mortgage works. People think that the bank takes your home, but that is not true. Thats absolutely 100 wrong. The home is ours. We can sell it if we want to at any time. I like the flexibility of not having a payment, but i can make the payment if i want to. Youre responsible for keeping up your property taxes and youre responsible for paying your insurance on the property. 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We want to dig deeper into the announcement from the Industry Trade group we were talking about representing the airlines that if passengers dont wear masks on flights in the future, they could have privileges revoked including possibly losing their privilege to fly with that airline. I talked with the president of the childrens hospital, dr. Michael anderson and asked him what he thought about it. I think its really good progress. A couple of weeks ago, i was on a flight. I delayed a business trip as a lot of american travelers had gone, but i had to get on this trip. The passenger went right past me without a face mask on and i did something i dont typically do, i started snapping pictures of people coming on to the plane walking past me without a mask on and put it on twitter, it got a lot of attention. It basically boils down to this. Us Wearing Masks right now is protecting each other. Us Wearing Masks and trying to keep socially distant as possible is one way to prevent the spread of this. We dont have a vaccine yet. Were working on therapies. So these things called npis havent gone away, right, this pandemic is still here. So when i was on the tight very cramped space of an aircraft, im wiping everything down, im very concerned, but i thought it was really terrible that nobody was enforcing the regulation. So to your question, i think this is a good step by the airlines to take it more seriously. I was just going to say, i mean, what is the federal governments role in it . Because the airlines, thats about as far as they can go saying we dont want your business but dont you need the law behind you . Dont you want either the faa or the tsa to say, look, this is a security threat, in a way, a Public Health security threat, so were going to take action or is that not an area they can weight into . I think they can and as a pediatrician, im a little outside my expertise, but if you think about it, when you listen to the safety briefing, theres something that says, federal law requires you to comply with lighted signs and crew member instructions. I think thats rarely enforced and i understood my twitter activity got intense about people saying, people have been accosted in costco because the managers didnt put a mask on, so we dont want to put our Flight Attendants at risk. I get that. Then i say the federal government or Law Enforcement or somebody has to take this seriously. Another friend of mine said, if you lit up a cigarette on that aircraft, which, of course, i wouldnt do, but the weight of the law would come down upon you. This is a Public Health emergency or Public Health crisis just like that. What more do you think they could also mandate . For example, im thinking about the middle seat, right . If they tell the airlines you cant sell the middle seat, does that then mean they would have to subsidize the loss of that revenue . Yeah, it gets really complicated, doesnt it . When i flew united and united is one of the carriers in that organization you just mentioned with a second press announcement saying were taking this seriously and enforce it, when ive flown united since this all came down, indeed, the middle seat is vacated, but you bring up a great point is that then, cutting a third of their revenue for a flight . So are the airlines then going to go back and say to the federal government, were doing our part, but why dont you start helping us . Its really complicated but once again, this is saving lives. I tweeted on saturday, i usually walk along on saturday by your studio and it was probably 50 of people that had masks on and thats a whole different kettle. Weve got to take this seriously because this is protecting each other while we work on a vaccine. So i think the feds, more and more, have to get involved. I will say, embarcadero, if youre close to people, youve got to have the mask. If you can truly keep yourself 10 feet away or more, thats an argument you can make for choosing not to wear it in the moment but on the plane, you dont really have that option, which leads me to my question, does it really make a difference if you dont have the middle seat, but lets say youre 2 feet away from the next person by the window, as opposed to one foot away. Does that really make that much of a difference . I think it does because you are a little bit more difference and this is mikes opinion, not necessarily a scientific fact but youre also not touching the person next to you, right . Not touching their bag. Like theyre trying to board in different ways and get you apart, i think its not 6 feet unless youre flying some Luxury Aircraft that only has two seats but i do think this notion of social distancing, of course, is trying to avoid contact. So i think the middle seat is pretty common sense too. Dr. Anderson also stressed the notion were testing more is why we see more cases is not true. He said were seeing more cases in the icu and more hospital patients as well and wearing a mask when you get near anybody is your best bet to protect everyone. Were going to take a short thats going to do it for now. Thank you for joining us today on this interactive show, getting answers. We hope you got some today. We heard the opinion of a former member of the sanrais cmiio and current civil rights attorney, he took a strong stance against sending people like social workers out to nonviolent calls. We also got into the topic of masks required on airplanes. Well be tonight, several developing stories as we come on the air. President trump on the police in america. The president surrounded by Law Enforcement while signing his executive order today, suggesting Police Departments ban choke holds unless an officers life is in danger. But the president does not mandate an end to the practice. Also saying the American People demand law and order, even if they dont know thats what they want. Families of those killed by Police Meeting with the president and what they said after. There is also news tonight about the Deadly Police shooting of Rayshard Brooks in atlanta. The d. A. To decide on possibleg togh aboutle brooks, his record. The coronavirus and is china tonight dealing with another emergency . Resident s in beijing being tol
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