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policing priority policies and challenges with the force of vice president of international association of chiefs of police will johnson. welcome to the program. >> thank you for having me. >> so first tell us about the international association of chiefs of police. whatst your mission and what are the issues that you focus on? >> yeah, certainly. so iecp is a membership-based organization comprised of 35,000 police chiefs and executives across 178 different countries. our priority and mission is to better the profession of policing to elevate the service delivery within the communities are each of our members serve and to help create training and public policy opportunities for them to strengthen and build public trust within the communities where they serve. >> it is national police week. this goes back to 1962. how are some of the ways that

it is celebrated and commemorated. >> well, honestly, it's a memorial more than everything else; right? public service is a sacrifice. we know that we strive to create so much good open but in the process of doing that some of the police officers that are serving in their communities are killed in the line of duty. it's a way for us to collectively remember their sacrifices for their communities for those that are still presently serving to honor their memory and also honor that through excellent service moving forward. so the candle light vigil was this week. certainly later today is a memorial. >> the fbi is reporting assaults on law enforcement officers in the u.s. have reached a ten year high as of 2023. why do you think that is? >> there's a lot of societal factors driving that issue.

communities are divisive right now. you see that play out in the political process. that divisiveness leads to improved opportunities for attacked, violent crime and criminal offenses taking place. the perception that those sorts of actions could be justified or righteous in some way. and i think that we're wrestling with that in terms of how do we address the notion that violence is not a solution for any sort of problem that people may be facing. >> there's an article here from front line pbs. in hundreds of deadly police encounters officers broke multiple safety guidelines. i wonder if will what are those challenges in actual encounters and why is it that there are

sometimes police that don't follow procedures? is it a training problem? >> well i read the article and i wanted to commend them with some of the context that they provided. in the sense that these encounters that they are focusing on are dynamic. they're complex. the law requires that they be viewed indefinitely and assessed. but most importantly i think it's important to remember that less than.2 5% -- less than one quarter of one percent of any police encounter with the public results in a use of force. when we think about the 900,000 police officers serving nobly across this country the number of instances that we're talking about in this article is extraordinarily small. now within that we still need to constantly strive to improve, have best practices, to take lessons learned from

any event and constantly improve the delivery of police services. and that's what iecp does through policy development and training opportunities. >> we will take your calls for will johnson. he's fourth vice president of the international association of chiefs of police. the lines are regional. if you're in eastern or central time zones. if you're in mountain or pacific. we have a line set aside for law enforcement. you can also reach us via text and on social media. i want to show you something from the marshall project. this is the headline. they're not cops, they don't have guns but they're responding to more 911 calls. a new generation of first responders is handling mental health calls and other emergencies in cities across the u.s. wanted to get your

reaction to mental health crises and the ability of police officers to respond to those. >> well, i really appreciate this question. i think this is one of the most important coppices we're facing in communities. the first thing that we have to recognize is the mental health system needs assistance. it is not serving all of the aspects and the needs within the community. when people think that 911 and sending a police officer for somebody that's in mental distress is the only solution that's available, as a community we have failed. coffer staffer constantly looking at how do we improve the delivery of mental services in community. how do we provide access because in communities the closest access that they have for psychiatric services may be hours away, particularly in rural jurisdictions. the police should not be viewed as the first solution to this problem, but in times we're the

only aspect of government that still makes house calls. people call 911 they're in crisis, they need help. having an effectively trained police officer to understand the complexities of what they're dealing with and the behavior may not be exactly what it's manifesting in person is key to success. >> and i want to ask you about recruiting and retention of officers. the department of justice put out a report calling it a historic crisis in finding and keeping officers. what's behind that. >> they're not wrong. we are experiencing extraordinary head winds in terms of being able to recruit and retain people that want to serve as police officers in communities. this creates a cyclical problem when where we don't have enough police officers to meet the needs then you have some needs in the community that go unmet and oftentimes within our system of police delivery we

focus on violent crime and then you have property crimes or kind of public disorder. livability crimes that go unmet because there's not enough police officers. as a resident in your community you are far more likely to be impacted by a disorder crime or a property crime or a theft or dealing with the inflation that is caused because of organized retail theft or organized cargo theft impacting communities all across the united states. because we simply don't have enough police officers to meet the need. >> we have people waiting to talk to you but i just wanted to ask you first about the campus protests. >> yeah, sure. >> and police involvement in that and how appropriate you think that is in response to let's say let's assume peaceful protest. >> it's a bedrock of what our

society is built upon. as police officers we can never assume it's always peaceful and the fact that one of the most concerning statements that's publicly reported especially in the media is whenever they say it's mostly peaceful. that mostly is really where police officers operate. because those are the intersections where they have to respond, they have to address those agitators. and our constitutional republic the rights of app individual are equal to and sometimes greater than the rights of the mob. we think about all the students that are not engaged in protests that are trying to attend classes and they're trying to take their finals and they're trying to graduate with their families. they have rights too. how police are making sure to balance the approach so that all peoples rights are protected is really important. >> all right, will, let's take a call from tom in tampa, florida. good morning, tom.

>> caller: yes, good morning, ma'am and good morning chief johnson. i appreciate all the work you do. the reason for my call. you had a segment earlier about law enforcement in the community and i tuned in midway through that segment and i was getting somewhat livid at some of the callers calling in because they were talking about policing in the community. they were talking about how they hate the police and police, you know, just everything wrong about police officers. why i was livid is because of the fact that i want to throw four names out there. u.s. marshal tommy weeks, officer sam pelosh, officer alden elliott and officer josh meyer. three mondays ago those four officers were killed in charlotte, north carolina.

one of them was my son. and my son was like every other police officer. he was a husband. he was a father. now he his wife is a widow and his children are left without their father who was very important to their lives. how can anybody hate my son? my son was what everybody in the united states is out there. a father and spouse. what would you do, chief, bauds -- what you're trying to do is make sure that we do have enough law enforcement. if law and order is important in this country and the police must be supported because they go to work every day not knowing if they're coming home. they do that every day and they don't talk about it. they know the risk is there. they don't talk about it. they're doing a job they want

to do because they want to protect and serve. my son was always a servant. even when he was a teenager. he just loved people. he was a man for others all the time. i think most of the people in this country are supportive of law enforcement because when they had the procession for him at the medical examiner's office in charlotte to my son's hometown of mooresville, the interstate was lined with people. there were six to seven people deep in that town with their love and support for what these gentlemen did that day. they keep the community safe. >> and tom, we're so sorry for your loss. this is the article on the associated press. four officers killed in north carolina were at disadvantage as shots rained from above according to police. will. >> yeah, first thing i want to say is just a heart felt thank

you for his service. i mean when we talk about national police week and the challenges, it's this examples like this that resinate within communities. not just policing communities but within communities. i can't imagine losing a child, but i have lost officers under my command. so thank you for his service and we mourn for him right now. he stood as a police officer for the rights of all people including those that disagree with us. although it is personally because behind the uniform is a person. it's personally distasteful when people characterize individuals because of maybe the profession that we've chosen. i accepted that whenever i entered into the profession and

i know this caller's son did too. it's about how do we continue to make communities stronger, better, police in a constitutional way and protect victims. in the charlotte case there's many concerns about that incident that iecp has. when we talk about recidivism. we talk about access to weapons for people that were felons. we talk about the violent nature of being able to arrest individuals that are absconding from the law and the challenges they have, the police officers they have in executing those warrants. sometimes gets oversimplified whenever it is being reported either in this case where a tragedy for the law enforcement community happened or in instances where people may not understand police tactics or questions about police behavior. it's difficult to have those conversations because of the complexities and the emotions. >> let's talk to ann next in

rockport, massachusetts. hi, ann. >> caller: yes, hi, good morning. thank you for taking my call. i'm very glad that i was able to get through this morning. i've been going through a huge problem here in rockport. we have -- it's a small community. about 5, 6000 people. i've been being harassed by a gentleman next door for the past six years. i tried to have an audience with the chief of police a couple years ago when one of the officers was working on a case and wrote up one of my complaints to make it look as though i was the aggressor and not the victim. he refused to meet with me. i have had multiple different charges. i've called the police department at this point over 100 times. the only help they give me is by constantly telling me that i need to go to the court. the man next door, my husband's

a vietnam veteran. we're both 75. he's 78. my husband's been spit at. the man is now stalking me. hi follows me around the yard. he swears. f you and calls us all kinds of names if he sees us. >> is he mentally ill, ann? >> i seem to think he is. two weeks ago we had a huge problem here on a friday. i had to have the police to my house three times. the next night his sister, he lives with his sister. the sister's 66 and this gentleman is 78. they took her out of the house in an ambulance. i think he's also a number of people have said the same thing. we think he's also abusing her. but i mean that isn't my problem unless she speaks up. i'm speaking up and i'm not getting any results from a

police chief in our community. we don't have any crime. the only thing they do is they stop cars and they give them a slap on the hand for speeding or whatever. >> okay, ann. let's get a response. go ahead, will. >> i think your first question was a great reflection of the challenges that are out there. first i would tell you to continue to engage with your local police department in expressing your concerns. i know that through that dialogue a solution will be efforted to be able to recollect if few it. but in these sorts of neighborhood concerns and clearly we don't have all the details but we have a limited set of case facts here. the intersection between criminal behavior, civil infractions and then just poor manners all collide whenever you start talking about neighborhood disputes. is there a mental illness? is there just a personality

disorder in terms of incompatibility? the final thing is until the united states it's not illegal to be a rude neighbor. sometimes police are really at the intersection of all of those different data points in terms of how they try to protect the due process rights for all involved. because i'm quite sure the neighbor if we had him on this episode would give us a different set of case facts. and the police have to weigh through that and of the it and reconcile it with the law and move forward with the most appropriate constitutional solution that serves all parties. >> we've got a text for you from anthony in miller place, new york who says --

the subcommittee will come to order. today the subcommittee for surface transportation, maritime freight and ports will examine the roadway safety crisis and the solutions that we must implement in response. like to thank my ranking

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