tv Washington Journal Eugene O Donnell CSPAN June 5, 2020 9:06pm-10:06pm EDT
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never reach it if we keep treating people of color with the unspoken assumption that they are less human". president bush said "this tragedy in a long series of similar tragedies raises a long overdue question, how do we end systemic racism in our society?, the only way to see ourselves in a true light is to listen to the voices of so many who are hurting and grieving. those who set out to silence those voices do not understand the meaning of america.or how it becomes a better place. ". president obama who delivered his message on social media said "but it falls on all of us, regardless of our race or station including the majority of men and women in law enforcement who take pride in doing their tough job the right way. every day. to work together to create a new normal in which the legacy of bigotry and unequal treatment no longer infects our institutions or our hearts. you can read the entire statements from the former presidents online. at c-span.org.
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>> eugene o'donnell is a lecture at the john jay college of criminal justice, he's a former new york city police officer and trainer and instructor at the police academy in new york city. eugene o'donnell, 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?>> it's a complex conversation and it's 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 ãbpolitical breakdown at the top i don't 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.
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the mayors have to give more clarity and they are in a lot of cities and police officers profoundly what matters police shouldn't 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 ã ãpolicing 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 there's 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 ãbthe headlines in the media this weekend should have been that the collapse of
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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
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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 don't 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 that's 5 million calls a year it's an enormous amount of work the people do their and the cops who know how much good work they do and don't recognize the caricature of the people thrown out there but if you're going to say that five years new york police 25
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million calls mostly without incidents of any kind not necessarily misconduct, that that's 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 ãb 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 that's where they took the conversation and they can't 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
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former people die when police don't do their job. you see cities like detroit where the police have not been ãbpolice officer police officer shootings are flatlined response time is flatlined. they flatlined because there is no policing. this conversation there's two groups of people that have been totally silenced in this conversation. one would be police officers what would they know? i've never had a conversation with a cop i didn't 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 it's a totally different conversation. they are going to pay the price. if we've learned anything in the last couple weeks that the
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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 don't have political opinions.what kind of bpeople would be in federal law en enforcement that don't 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 o'donnell, a lecturer at the john jay college of criminal justice,
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former nypd officer as well. if you are law enforcement official that line is 202-748-8000 three. we will get to your calls and commented just a moment. eugene o'donnell, a question for you for about new york's 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 there's a guinness book of world records for people trying to pick fights with the nypd. thousands of people. him vilify and castigated and
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provoked and attacked and use hate speech and targeted african american cops in the front line and they are looking they still haven't gotten it, they will eventually get it it's inevitable, cops are human, they're looking for some video that will show the police in the 1930s group with holding batons race over people's head. the mayor of the city of newark has played a despicable role in this conversation as had so many other so-called progressive people who senator sanders comes to mind immediately. people who have irresponsibly demagogue the issue of public safety by suggesting that who's 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
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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. i'm not pinning all the blame on saturday sanders i just noticed yesterday he is his twitter feed he's confused about what looting has a value or not a value. that's a terrible thing. it's 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?
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people with ar 15's 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. what's 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 that's 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
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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. it's 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 couldn't understand why the police would ever use coercion or intimidation or physical force in the country ãbi'm in the city today that had 84 shootings last weekend this
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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 can't help by abide by their oath so the chicago police the other night in a high-speed chase after somebody committed a homicide, which is basically t decriminalized the wonder why they're 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 can't 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.
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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 don't 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 it's a vanity project there's no connection and they know they can't 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. that's what they said they let the charge and now they have driven the train so far they can't get ahead of lunatic
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fringe that wants to put the police out of business. that's 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 they're not safe cities will clear out. >> we brought calls waiting for you. we go to jeannie and rockville california, democrats line, good morning. >>. [inaudible]
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>> jeannie in california, eugene o'donnell, 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 haven't seen anything horrific written about mr. floyd's death. i've seen tens of thousands of hateful threatening ãbvaio
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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 harm's 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,
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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 might've 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 ã >> we want to let folks we have a aline for law enforcement officers that line 202-748-8003. mike and doug dolph marilyn. >> i'm a law enforcement officer now because the police can't do their jobs. i'm 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.
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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 aren't 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 haven't 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. ã >> mike, we will hear a response from eugene o'donnell. >> sounds like hate speech to me but we will move on. let's look at the data. were in an environment now where you could write a reason
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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 t-shirts. and shoot them down. 6 million people read that. we have an extremist conversation c-span may be the one and only place left for thee center. as i've 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 you're 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 it's going to be with policing having a much smaller
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footprint. some of the cities that do not have disturbances some of the cities do not disturb have extraordinary levels of violent crimes, streets among the most dangerous in the world. it's a completed conversation, to do it ethically is a hard thing to do. if the police do their job some people may lose their lives. but if the police don't do their jobs, thousands of people are losing their lives. police used to be willing to go out and stop cars and take risks they can no longer essentially do that. this is a great triumph for extreme left and we talk about extreme right this is a great victory for the extreme left or the collapse of policing. every weekend in chicago six, seven, eight, nine african-american kids will be alive and then they won't be alive. >> i just like to know that with everything that's going on a big fix in minnesota would've been if there wasn't for white
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cops showing up at that scene ng and would had an interracial set i think there would've been a lot less trouble and with all these police chiefs showing up on the tv saying wood and allow the cops to go out there and do their jobs, it's just tying all their hands up. so ãband then mayors and police chief and everybody else tying everybody's hands up they need to stop that stuff. we got enough of that in congress that we don't need it for people to get hurt on the streets. as we know from ccongress, whe you make decisions you'd draw fire and heat. this is a complicated conversation there is a huge amount of time to have it. most people and communities are open to having a real conversation not the insane media driven circus that we
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have. the last shooting in minneapolis involved african officer. the officer shot a white australian woman. we can have this conversation. it needs to be data-driven. in a city like new york ythat you can do every metric proves restraint in every possible way. not saying there's not abuses. when you think of the work they do violent conflicted adversarial work against people, think of the police officers who must arrest in domestic violence arrest. if you want to do a form we can make that happen in tell them not to make arrests but that's an enormously charged situation that no matter what the police have to do that and any one of those arrests could end with the death ãbit's very easy for officers to get injured.
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many officers get injured and very routine arrests. >> a question from bradenton t florida. should officers live in the communities or neighborhoods in which they serve?? >>. >> unfortunately right now absence does not make presents. it doesn't make the heart grow fonder. as this conversation goes more polar what we are seeing one police are telling their children don't even go near policing there telling people they can't wait to get out. chiefs are saying that. when they leave they don't just juleave the city, they leave th state, they leave the whole region they don't want to deal with this anymore. you can see why. take a look at just an hour of the extraordinary assault and violence, clear and present danger officers face in these protests, unsupported. with history of lunatics urged on by mayors. mayors are urging alluded to it
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ãbwe had three police officers assassinated because of suggestion by mayor de blasio that the police are marauding through neighborhoods picking on people randomly. how disingenuous as the mayor must know you have to know after 6.5 years all you have to do to curb the polices tell them not to do proactive policing just tell them not to do it. then own the fact that if you don't take guns off the street, lives will be lost.if you say that to people then you contextualize the conversation. this is a strawman argument. the police on their own wire police on their own care if people don't care whether the city is attacked people are shot if the mayor is going on tv after cops heroically defend the city and be smirk to them at attacked them this is an insane conversation it was insane we been doing this for
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five years i've been warning that if we don't have a serious conversation on this topic policing is going to collapse. policing collapsed monday. it will continue to ãb thousands of departments won't be directly affected any department is at risk now if the formulation is one event, one visceral thing that's upsetting that's a standard that simply can't be met ãbif that's can be the standard there's two good reasons to spend our money elsewhere that's one and the fact that we can't get anybody to do the job. we sent somebody who wants to be an urban cop.>> lots of calls waiting were to go to john in clearwater florida. good morning.t >> do us a favor, mute your volume it will confuse us. >> i just did, good morning beck's good job. >> before i begin i like to simply preface my remarks by saying i'm not in any way trying to excuse egregious
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police behavior. but there are two things that concern me that i would like your guest comments on. why has there been no meaningful discussion about the rate of crime in the black communities? it seems to be totally ignored. we hear about the mass incarceration and the scenarios seem to be that the police are just indiscriminately picking up black males and putting them in prison. why don't we discussed the high rate of homicide and other violent crimes committed within the black edcommunity? the second question the matter i would like you to comment on is, in the last 20 or 30 years i seem to have seen an incredible increase in the amount of really destructive weapons available to the general public. those weapons then make themselves available to the criminal element and police seem to be in many regards
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outgunned. and i can understand why perhaps the police have adopted a more militarized approach because i think it's becoming increasingly more dangerous over the last 20 or 30 years for them to do their job. >> eugene o'donnellb. >> on militarization, people of all persuasions, libertarians, republicans, democrats take cheap shots at the police and you see the complexity of that conversation. on the first question. >> the rate of crime. >> mass incarceration was catastrophe. arrests were made that were absolutely ludicrous joke arrests. minneapolis the fact that ãb is still being handled as policing matter and we should hate ourselves and shame particularly those of us who are older and no better and saw where this is going when policing was turned into this metric driven insanity that
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targeted the african-american community and led to people being arrested for things that are embarrassing to even say that people lost their liberty over. and the road into this conversation was people, many of them, ãbwanted represent and one percent of the black boat republican party which is absolutely no ãbhas been driven out should the tone. always had a jail cell available. we need to do sensible justice reform the republican party could right now it should to unite the country on things like bill reform which is mostly the right thing to do. there are some exceptions to
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that but republican party should take that right here right now that's most right thing to do but militarization, militarization the media ãb have some shame. school shootings, terrorist attacks, the idea the police coming in plainclothes and sedans and minivans set on fire and molotov cocktails thrown at them and rolled over and nobody could figure out why the police want to have more quit. this is the most nuanced conversation that takes years to have a to the five cops in this city i learned 25 things so much to learn so many th different ãbin the narrowness and insanity of an ideological conversation it so dispiriting at this point. and where are we going to be? we do this for the next five years?
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america, is a slogan to be? >> we will hear from regina ãb regina and apollo pennsylvania. giwelcome. >> i really appreciate your position on what you are saying about the far left. i'm quite appalled that you're talking about trump and republicans being a problem. in pittsburgh we have along with philadelphia it's run by democrats. they are both century cities we watched the people before the protests in east liberty and different places the businesses who the police couldn't protect because basically all that you are saying right here the money actually went to funding parks in pittsburgh. instead of or maybe putting more money into schools.so we could have more emotionally disturbed children when i was a substitute teacher i knew someday that child would be before a policeman like you while the principal told me, i don't need to help i don't need any help if they throw a chair
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at me so what. so i really feel for you. i think it's time to realize what you originally said by the police did stand down so what's the problem if mr. trump is standing up there saying i want to protect these people's businesses i want them to be able to protect their own property and not be like the spolice being injured and as fa as i'm concerned where's the big fuss with these minorities about getting coronavirus and a high rate when they're all standing together having a big protest and running around throwing bottles and some of the whites are doing that too we have a white man picked up in pittsburgh. i'm not sure what the name is, starts with a b. he put on a go for me account to try to get a stupid lawyer. fortunately got shut down because he torched and encouraged torching one of the police cars. >> that's regina and pennsylvania.
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>> the president is manifestly unfit to be in office. it's so clear after the events of the last few weeks it's so obvious provoking this conversation does he think he's helping the police?with the kind of rhetoric he's engaged in, the kind of inflammatory stuff while the real heroic cops in the neighborhoods trying to have relationships with people and most difficult situations and he's provoking people talking about sending in the army talking about american citizens the african american community has a long history of serving this country from top to bottom. if anybody wants to see it and look at the covid crisis in the lifeline of the country. postal service, transit workers, service workers of every kind, doctors, nurses, you name it. the african-american community has been in the middle of that and nobody can avoid noticing the rhetoric these presidents comments.
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the president spoke okwith the police most insulting speeches imaginable to the police by minimizing and suggesting they should brutalize people. the american police are proud. people i know are proud ãb they take great risks and despite very difficult circumstances they take every step they can to not take the life. and that's equally filled by new york city cops. cops are proud of the fact that the able to nonviolently resolve some of the most thorny and difficult situations. >> report from los angeles disses forbes in their headline " la mayor slashes lapd budget as calls to defund police slowly pick up steam" we go to nearby van nuys california in the san fernando valley hear from beverly. good morning. >> good morning. please don't cut me off i hope i get much airtime like regina because this is a very touchy subject to me.
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first of all, on mr. o'donnell, it should have been taking care of or done something that nature five years ago. it should have been taking care of 40 years ago. my family and i are victims of police brutality. i in 1980 was pregnant with my son, two white officers beat me down badly in front of 36 street ãb32nd market in la. two years from that 1982 he was working then, mr. o'donnell, i see it on the screen, dated the fifth chokehold on me. chief daryl gates. my point is that we need to get these corrupt chief and corrupt police off the street. there covering up for each other. that's my problem. this should have been going on that took another black unarmed
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man to bring up these riots and protests, people are fed up. i'm fed up. i'm still trying the ties i went out to protest on mr. george floyd in honor of my brother donald ray wilson 1982 six officers took an unarmed man on a harbor freeway and did the fifth chokehold out and just one other point. when we were going to trial for my brother, the judge sitting on that bench said if you are under the influence of a substance the police are not supposed to do police brutality on you. take it to the nearest hospital if you did a criminal act you are not supposed to be beat down, police brutality and killed. that's in the constitution it's under a code i can't remember this was 1982 but the judge said that. you can't go above the law and just kill people quickly appreciate you sharing your
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experience. eugene o'donnellb. >> these experiences are deep and hard to get past. i think just this week there was a poll of how people in the african american community feel about owpolice and when people were asked about whether they were personally unfairly treated by them these days because policing is done way less now. just a little bit over 40% of americans said they were personally mistreated by the police. almost 30% of what people said the same thing. i don't by any means suggest there's ãjust think of the 100 worst [inaudible] this goes on the same way. but you would think from reading the media 100% or 90% of people in the african-american community would say they personally had
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an issue. a lot of it would suggest that as policing has been fewer and fewer people have ãb unfortunately this always has to be balanced by who pays the price when the police are not there in 20,000 homicides in the city of chicago and other places going into other cities and by the way, we got this problem in big cities it's a complicated conversation. what makes minneapolis not only horrific but just bizarre is why the police would be so actively engaged in an event that most big cities would draw adversely no attention at all. >> a couple of questions for your comments on twitter. the first one asks says come up
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ca cop substantially more mone to incentivize the profession while increasing the risk of firing from wrongdoing. question from deb in missouri, will there be a fair trial for the four officers? in the last one with the guest discuss antibias or cultural competence training for police? i've seen research indicating it actually makes president prejudice work. many of those topics you'd like to address? >> i pass on that but i'll take a pass on those questions i think time is limited. i'd like to break some new ground these things have been discussed endlessly. i like to open up the discussion in the last five years it's just getting narrower and narrower. as the weeks same conversation. >> let's go to new braunfels texas independent line, rachel, good morning. >> good morning. i'm watching your show and i'm just a simple person but i feel
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that accountability is the number one thing in this issue to start with. mr. floyd goes out there and intentionally set to do counterfeit deed which is a federal crime and then all of a sudden he doesn't know he's going to e be possibly going in a police car and sitting in the back seat and going downtown with that. i don't know even though it's poor people and not a rich person or anything like that either but accountability is one issue i think is being thrown way out in the boonies where they're not taking responsibility. people are not taking responsibility for their actions. >> i wanted to circle back on garcetti because he's also been a police abolitionist. i can answer that question.
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ãbhe should this very day release his security detail. he should release the law enforcement in his office in the smansion he lives really should if he has any ethnics picks the pool zip code in los angeles and has the largest crime and moved there. he and some other people's and forcing police abolition they should pledge that they and their family should never call 911. i know there are some people trying to quote that idea. without the police the knowledge of police on the accountability issue police culture is taking a leap in the last five years you cannot have accountability that will get you to the point where you're video where a there is a graphic detail. most chiefs you will see the
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mayor saying it explicitly. the surefire way not to have an issue is not to have an engagement in the first place. that is the thing that has center the conversation. >> the mayor of washington dc court requesting federal law enforcement leave ãbmayor muriel bowser saying "i request that president trump withdraw all extraordinary federal law enforcement and military presence from our city a reminder that president will hold a news conference about 10 minutes 10:00 p.m. eastern will cover that live here on c-span and c-span radio. we go live next to lynn in lenore south carolina north carolina, republican line. >> good morning. i'm sitting here watching this and just astounds me we took a bad situation we've got people blaming trump blaming this, blaming that.
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it's wrong for people to go out there and destroy businesses. attack people. attack the police. could you imagine what this world would be if we didn't have the police? if i was caught someone would walk off the job in the cities that don't stand behind them. yes we have bad in everything. but the republicans and the democrats no matter what trump is for, they are against. whether it's wrong it's right. that's the problem. you got the media that wants to only just go with the democrats. this world would be destroyed because of this. even if trump does something good it's just wrong wrong. if he didn't send anybody in they would be saying trump is burning his ivory tower he don't care he don't want to help nobody. and then this man wants to blame trump. what happened when obama was in
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there and they was down here in charlotte burning trucks and jerking people out of their trucks. was othat all obama's fault? >> do you think there's any bipartisan agreement on assisting localities? cities in particular. he talked about the shrinking footprint of police across the country.is there federal money, federal programs that could be implemented to t:do that? >> it's not can happen. including the police officers in this country come it's not can happen. one of the notable things from the caller is as this conversation is just totally gone off the rails is the depth in which people know their side of the argument but don't have the base to say the other side of the argument. racism is so fundamental issue in the society that was legally enshrined in this country and the police were put into the position sometimes very often quite
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actors in connection with that enshrinement. were trying to work our way out of that and one thing we certainly have seen in case anyone doubted it dividing people and making the country ungovernable makes people feel good but at the end of the day short-term rush comes at a long-term cost. how you unify the country how you have a serious conversation about these issues and there are winners and losers and one law enforcement does not act has anybody heard the term talking about ãbin the last few years this conversation has gone off the rails. i would just hope there's so much to learn from some of the people's experiences and how to make that actionable to just be talking to people and totally
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agree with you. that becomes an arrangement after a while. the arrangement goes on derangement and you almost have a colts kind of mindset very extremes of this conversation. in which there is no fact there is no information that will change anybody's mind it would just reinforce their already made up minds. >> on the looting that happened a number of cities across the country headline from washington times, "well coordinated steve's capitalize on protest chaos".io honor nation's capital in our law enforcement line for this is ken. >> good morning. thank you for taking my call i appreciate your time. i'm not quite sure where the information is but i heard some sort of percentage that could you please remind me of what it was that 40% of black people hold if you don't have 100% of black adults pulled then it's an inaccurate assessment anyway ssbecause you have to go beyond just police i've been doing it since 92.
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i'm kind of familiar in inner cities. but there is also a problem in society and that society's problems are still going to walso affect even how you poli even with the laws when i was policing in the early 90s that in and of itself is not a police issue the law was created by people. those lawmakers there's a certain amount of frustration that not only people of color minorities including poor white people that they go to that black police officers are minority police officers go to the same thing. there's a culture there that exists that is not a healthy one when we had mr. ahmaud arbery who was gunned down, it's not just a fact of who did it and the racial application behind it, it's the fact that it took so long for police to do something about it. not maybe even the orders to be given because the policies and
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the laws are not designed to protect people. looters are criminals. protesters are not. i as a black man as a black police officer would hope that people would use that right to vote and protest as much as people push the narrative to use their second amendment rights and in , closing, it's n that donald trump created racism, he just happens to be a soldier in white supremacy. thank you. >> eugene o'donnell. >> thank you and just to clarify, these are poles of sampling of african-americans so 40% said they were unfairly targeted 60% did not say they were unfairly targeted. irand there was actually a more intriguing call poll that said 40% of african caamericans in this climate ãbtrusted the
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police to be racially fair in enforcing masks. there is a reservoir of trust the policed when all is said and done they are doers and actors people who live a life of surveillance they understand that. the police continued to be one of the most respected itinstitutions in the country a if you could just have a conversation where you destroy the institution with no plan for what comes next that's a very worrying thing. no institution could sustain the unrelenting attacks that were put on police officers. the institution then is millions and millions of dollars and millions of hours on contextualized factual inflammatory incitement a lot of data in this country suggests it's a little overcomplicated than it appears. a lot of policing now is about simply doing service and not to
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doing trick traffic stops and things that will put the police in conflict. that's the only surefire way to not have that one dreaded ãba question ston twitter eugene o'donnell we have a couple minutes before the president's news conference. what are your thoughts of a current grassroots new york city push on effort to for elected civilian review board campaign or civilian sit in judgment for police misconduct? >> that's so absurd at this point. it's just absurd. you have a police profession in new york city that all the data shows, i also want to say, police have been on video now for 24/7 for years. obviously with notable exceptions. 800,000 person agency that serves a billion people in a city like new york.
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25 million calls we did this in 2015 where are the videos of police abuse? where the bona fide videos of police abuse, show it. where the complaints of police abuse? let the ccr become clean. open your records and show the very worst cases you've seen in new york and i believe in some not that there can't be some abuses in this giant enforcement and service and troubled quarter-inch or problematic situations but we would respectfully suggest some total of all the videos alleged police abuses in new york city are in total when you step back and you look at public safety generally, their inconsequential. >> we will hear from marion chattanooga tennessee welcome.
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>> there is a point i wanted to disagree with everything you are saying but as you went on i began to agree with some of the things you are saying but my concern is with some of the people that calling. whenever you talk about protesting the police they want to bring up chicago. first of all, we pay police. our tax dollars pay police so we have the right to protest the police it would not make us any sense to ãbi hope that answers the question of people calling mcguire they protesting the police killings but not the killings in chicago. secondly, i do think more transparency should be part of the police. i do believe in cameras. there are situations where there are abuse. all police are not bad but
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there does need to be more transparency within a police department and that's what i need to say. thank you. >> on body cameras.eugene o'donnell, what are your thoughts? >> i should say, legitimate protests have made policing better and will continue to make policing better. body cameras are a done deal. ...... notuse the here you are going to find abuse. we need to know where the grands elected officials slam and have no solutions. people insequential the highest offices national police.
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>> you take an oath to uphold the constitution if you can't do that, walk away. next hoboken new jersey good morning. >>caller. >> i would like to make two comments. revoking qualified immunity for police officers and number two since the police have become more militarized from andy griffith to robocop's what do you think about creating a new standard may be a police code of conduct? >> we need to have a substantive conversation
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78 million times i suspect we will do it 78 million more. >> with eugene o'donnell we will wrap up here thank you so much for your time i appreciate it. >> living through lost the confidence of wave and cynicism unable to trust what we are told by anyone who calls themselves an expert. it becomes very difficult to rise to a challenge like this our first reactions to say know they are lying in it - - lying and in it for themselves they have to take on the challenge to persuade people like and that they exist for the country
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music that was constructed at that time and then we came to the exhibit and shows the baptist church and george wallace standing he looked up at me and said he was so sad why did he do those things to other people? it broke my heart. i said he never told me why he did things to other people but i know he was wrong. maybe it is up to you and me to help make things right.
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