my dad's job got moved to the west coast which took us to san francisco and then los angeles. my family separated at that time. my mom and i moved to a very tough part of the city south-central los angeles. my mom struggled, and there were times that she would go without eating to make sure there was enough for us. in the neighborhood i grew up in, you had prostitution, gang activities, and as much as my mom tried to make sure we were in a safe environment, i saw things that may be question what was going on. did anybody care about a young man that looked like me? did anybody care whether we lived or died? i would see reports on the news

of a boy who looked like me dying over a jacket or a pair of shoes. my mom told me to grow up and be the person who makes a difference. my trajectory was not law enforcement particularly, it was to become an attorney. i wanted to get out of my environment. i want to help people by being a civil rights attorney. but i took a turn once or twice that put me on a different road. brian lamb: you tell a story about seeing a dead woman in an alley somewhere. how old were you and what was that about? anthony batts: fairly young. i used to go to school -- my school was probably about 1.5 hours on the bus.

as i went from home to the bus stop, my mom said to stay out of the alley. were going down the alley when i shouldn't have been in the alley and seeing something rolled up in a carpet. it turned out to be a young lady's body. it scared me to death and i just ran. i went to school and didn't talk to anyone about it, but it impacted me and my life. i like to say that it took away my innocence. how i relate that is, think about these kids in a tough neighborhood that see these things on a daily basis. that was a rarity for me. but there are kids that see this on a regular basis. brian lamb: did you ever hate cops? anthony batts: no, not really. my neighborhood did not like the

lapd, but i don't member hating cops. i grew up in the 60's and i remember kids who thought they were cool calling police officers pigs, because they were emulating hippie culture. but my interactions were, for the most part, more positive. i can count on my hand the amount of times i was stopped by a police officer. brian lamb: how many kids in the family, and what did your mom do? anthony batts: she started off working for the board of education. at some point in time, she moved to work for the internal revenue service. i have, i like to say 1.5 sisters. i have a younger sister and a cousin who grew up as my sister.

brian lamb: when did you know that you had a brain and that you are going to be a good student? anthony batts: that was another interesting philosophy that i learned. remember i shared with you that i had to take a bus ride 1.5 hours to a more affluent area for school. very few of the people that i went to school with were african-american. when i was growing up, my mother always said, you are very bright, you can do anything you want to do. she always inspired me. i remember raising my hand in school and i didn't get called on. when i became was the class clown.

i tried to get the attention because other people got called on. i never seeing a movie later in life about ben carson. he ended up being a brain surgeon in the baltimore area. he had a similar situation where he was not thought to be intelligent because of the environment. i got to the point where i was getting an education for me, not to impress other people. i felt that at some point what was going to get me out of my environment was education. brian lamb: 27 years with the long beach california police department. anthony batts: seven years as chief. brian lamb: then he went on to oakland, and how long have you been in baltimore?

anthony batts: a few years. i will go back to your earlier question on how i became a police officer. my mother and i were watching a tv show that came on years ago i think it was called "police story." i said that i could do all those things that he can do. she said for me to make it happen. there was a program called police explorers, which was for young people with an interest in the police department. i joined the los angeles police department program, and i did that for a few years before i started playing football and baseball. before i went to college, i joined the santa monica police cadet program. when i wanted to go to law

school, that would be good on my resume. they got to a point where i was still living at home after graduating from college. i asked my mom if i could stay at her house for a couple of years. she said that i eat too much and needed to get out of the house. what she was really trying to convey is that i taught you to be an independent person. she said it was time for you to leave the nest and if you want to go to law school, find a part-time job. that led to the long beach police department. after i went through the academy, i would patrol the streets, but did a lot of undercover work.

brian lamb: what do you tell people is the most important thing that they must have to be a police officer? anthony batts: i don't think it is just one thing. police work is a tough job. i have three kids, and out of the three not have an interest in being a police officer. brian lamb: how old? anthony batts: 21, 27, and 25. they are not in law enforcement don't have an interest in it. they grew up around it, and saw their data all the time and saw their dad do it, but i never pushed it on. it is a tough job, and people need to know what they are getting into. you have to have drive.

they have to feel it in their heart, it has to be a passion. it has to be in your dna that you want to do this job. not just kicking in doors and chasing bad guys, but helping people. that is my drive more than anything else. when i see pain, when i see people lose their lives, when i see people victimized, that tears at me. it still tears at my core when i see those things. if you don't have the drive this is not the field for you. brian lamb: how long were you married to your first wife? anthony batts: about five years. brian lamb: and she is no longer

in congress? anthony batts: no, she served one and a half terms. brian lamb: why is she a mentor? anthony batts: i got to know her, got to know her family. she shared a lot of good experiences, knowledge. she was really focused on african-american male achievement. as i got married, laura got to know her and went to work for her. brian lamb: you were in oakland for a couple of years. if i read it right oakland has

worst crime in baltimore and long beach. anthony batts: i'm not sure about that. brian lamb: i want to go back to some video from a station in san francisco. this is a documentary from 1974. let's see how it relates to today. ♪ you are going to go to jail boy. or you might end up six feet down. >> it was very different from

what it is now. >> there are about 700 men in the oakland police department. the overwhelming number are white and most live in the suburbs outside the city. brian lamb: what has changed? anthony batts: not much. oakland is fascinating on a lot of different levels. if you had asked me earlier in my career if i would end up in the city of oakland, i would have said no. even a year prior, i would have said no. but when i got the calling, i started doing research on oakland. what is so fascinating about oakland is how it became a city.

once it became a city and started to compete with san francisco -- you had a lot of shipbuilding and a lot of males were called off to the war. so a steel company started recruiting african-americans out of the south to come in to build ships. they were one of the first industries to do dental and medical plans for their workers. so you have southerners who come up and get this well-paying job as well as medical and dental, they had never had that before. i think the population became 40,000 over only a couple of years. but once the war was over, and the soldiers came back, the african-americans were displaced out of their jobs. but they connected to the area

and the weather. once you get into the 1950's, oakland started to recruit police officers out of the south. so you had a policing style that was very heavy-handed, very southern focused. fast-forward to the 1960's, because of some of the actions years prior, you had the black panther movement. you had this grassroots movement of black panthers who took over and are seen as heroes today in the community of oakland. you know the tough interactions between the black panthers and law enforcement at that time in oakland. today, it is not cheap to live in oakland. the housing prices are high. the police department does get paid well, and many of the officers live in the suburbs. you do have a contingent of

officers who were born and raised in oakland and are proud of the city as a whole. but when i came in, there was clearly a chasm between that police department and a city as a whole. brian lamb: i mentioned earlier that you have a phd. what do people in the departments think about you? you got a masters degree and then a phd, in what? anthony batts: public policy. i try not to tout it. they want to know that you know your craft, you know what you

are doing at the helm, and that you have walked in their footsteps. i don't push the doctor piece. when i went to baltimore, i told them to tone that down. for police officers, they want to know if you have been out there on the street. brian lamb: have you seen the wire? anthony batts: i saw it this year. before that, i refused to see the wire. as i was testing to come into the city, i didn't watch it. i didn't want to taint the picture i had of the city. but on a boring summer day, i went on hbo and looked at the first season.

brian lamb: here is a clip from one episode. this is the image that a lot of people have of baltimore. ♪ >> i want to get in and out as quickly as possible. >> they are deep, they are organized.

brian lamb: how often have you been in a situation that looks like that? anthony batts: never. that is season one, the season i was looking at. what situation do you mean? brian lamb: i mean, does it look real to you? anthony batts: it was filmed in the city of baltimore, so you can see locations that i am aware of. there is familiarity from that standpoint. crime in baltimore compared to cities that i come from is more sophisticated. there is a difference from long beach to oakland and from oakland to baltimore.

it is almost like a job for them. weather is dealing drugs or stealing tvs, they are finding ways to make money. when i see in baltimore that is different from oakland, is that we put out strategies to keep them in check but they adapt very quickly. by they i mean the organized criminal element. they move extremely fast. there is a network. there is a gang out there called black guerrilla family. a lot of gangs in baltimore came from california. they have gangs like the crips that came out of south central los angeles.

all these gangs, at least by name, are from california. but there are little more sophisticated than the southern california gangs. brian lamb: i want to show you something that is almost unbelievable for the average person. this is a report from television in baltimore and it has to do with the 2013 story about the jail. see if you can put this into context. >> the details sound like something out of a movie. call it sex, drugs, and wiretap. female officers having sex with prison inmates and officials willing to look the other way. taxpayers paid the state to run the city's jails, but documents show how much the inmates are in control.

this man was heard on a wiretap staking his claim. >> this is my jail. my word is the law. >> he claims to make a nice profit selling drugs and phones. >> this case is insidious. this case is extremely serious. >> 13 female corrections officers are accused of smuggling items into the jail in exchange for money and sex. brian lamb: the big guy in this, who is still in the jail i assume, father five children?

while he was in the jail? anthony batts:four different guards who were responsible for guarding him. brian lamb: how in the world does this happen? anthony batts: i think that story is alarming. it was alarming as i lived through it and it is alarming today as i see it. the baltimore police department doesn't oversee the jail. at some point in time, they turned it over to the state. governor o'malley was very upset about it. at the conclusion of that, he said in a lot of new people, and set up task forces to correct those misdeeds that took place. i believe, and i have to talk

off-the-cuff because i haven't looked deeply into it, other than the fact that you have a prison gang -- and you have prison gangs in california that you deal with, too. you get these gangs because you have large numbers of hispanics and african-americans who grouped together. bgf have done the same thing here in the state of maryland. but they have corrupted the jailers that were there. people were getting paid off. they were coming victims of violence because of it. he has been removed from that jail, and i believe he has been moved out of state. there have been a number of task forces, i know.

just recently, i had a meeting between our federal partners and myself to start talking about how we dismantle the black guerilla family. how do we rip this apart and tear this apart. because their tentacles, i believe, run through maryland as a whole and may even make their way up to chicago or new york. so we have called for an organized approach at taking that gang apart. brian lamb: how is it that we have come to the point where one inmate can father four or five children while in the jail? anthony batts: i can't answer that question. i am blown away by it. in the real world, you can't see

how that would take place. again, i wasn't in the jail and we don't have any oversight of the jail. i am dumbfounded to give you an answer. i don't know how that takes place, i just don't. brian lamb: there are 600,000 people in baltimore, there used to be 900,000 some years ago. how many people on your police force? anthony batts: about 3500, with 2800 being police officers. brian lamb: who is your boss? who hired you? anthony batts: the mayor. brian lamb: the mayor before the current mayor had to leave office.

did she hire you or did the current mayor? anthony batts: no, the current mayor. her father was very much involved in politics and she followed his footsteps. to my knowledge, she hasn't had any issues whatsoever. she is a woman that i look forward to working for. i was retired and called it a career, i went off on a harley motorcycle and grew a beard. i went riding up and down the coast of the pacific coast highway. then i was recruited by a headhunter who felt i had the skill base. i am at the stage of my career where i get to work for personalities, so i get to pick where i can work. when i met mayor rawlings-blake, i was very impressed by her vision of how she wants to clean the city up, her no-nonsense

approach. brian lamb: what impact have the wire, the last mayor being indicted, the story we just heard about the jail -- what impact does that have on your force? anthony batts: it gives an image or perception of corruption to be perfectly honest. it is not just the city government but the police department. what i wanted to do when i came in was to route all that out. i made it very clear from day one that if you do a good job out there and make a mistake doing your good job, i will support you if it takes me losing my job, i will do that. at the same time, if you do something corrupt, i will hold

you accountable and be the first person to put handcuffs on you and bury you under the prison. i will not stand for them being unconstitutional or hurting our community. what we have undertaken over the past two years is turning our organization around. not only the hard lifting we have done within the organization, but also changing the image, changing the personality of the organization. i am building a championship team, and we are going to be seen as one of the best in the nation. that is our task at this point. brian lamb: we have some video of you addressing the baltimore police officer beating of a suspect. this happened in june of 2014? anthony batts: it came to light in the summer but it happened two or three months prior. >> on june 14, on the 500 block,

there was an incident that took place. much like the public, i was shocked, outraged, and disgusted from what i saw by an employee of the baltimore police department. nothing that i saw on that video is defensible. more importantly, it is unacceptable and will not be tolerated within this organization. for two years, we have been reforming this organization. this will not be tolerated and will be addressed in the strongest manner possible. this conduct has no place in policing or in the baltimore police department. brian lamb: for the record, who was white and who was black in

that? what happens to the policeman? anthony batts: he has been relieved of duty. he is going through disciplinary procedures and will be tried for his conduct. brian lamb: why did this happen? anthony batts: i can't tell you why, but it is unacceptable. even looking at it now, i have as much outrage. you can't explain that, that has no place in policing, that person has no place in policing. i think it is the job of these people who hold positions of command to relieve those people of their jobs. we go through a rigorous selection process. we have audited that process to make sure we are doing things based on best practices. i take very careful focus on who we hire and how we hire them.

people still make their way into police department's. just like you have bad apples in the community, you have bad doctors who do stupid things you have people who become police officers who do stupid things. you have to have a mechanism to draw them out, hunt them down, and get rid of them. brian lamb: how much do we not see? wear and tear on the police officers that we don't see on video? anthony batts: it has nothing to do with that. that guy never did anything offensive whatsoever. he may have said something

which may have made the officer mad. i put that to a bad apple that needed to be eradicated and taken care of and lose his job over the actions. and if necessary, the attorney should look at filing charges. brian lamb: 63% of baltimore's african american. what is the breakdown on the police force? anthony batts: we have 47-48% african-american, with 52% being minority. brian lamb: how hard is it to make these police departments

more reflective of the community? oakland is an overwhelmingly african-american city. anthony batts: the breakdown is probably about the same as baltimore. long beach is probably one of the most diverse cities. i grew up in a police department that had a balance of african-americans, caucasians, gay and lesbian community cambodian community. so we were used to dealing with diversity and understanding the culture of each community. they all have different values. oakland was a very diverse community also. it has a large african-american population, but also a large hispanic population. also a very affluent population. you have your lower

socioeconomic strata to the higher ones. baltimore also has a similar situation. affluent areas but also areas that are very challenged. part of my job is to get those different communities speaking to each other. given at the table and have open, authentic conversations. yesterday, i was at two meetings celebrating martin luther king's birthday. i had two of the most exciting meetings that i had had. the meeting was on excessive force. it went away during the meeting

to many different topics. in southern california, we talked about race openly. there was so much diversity, that you had to talk about it. it wasn't so much race, but diversity that was the conversation. in northern california, the discussion moved beyond race to diversity. in baltimore, it was like going back in time. it was about racism in that city. in baltimore, you may have a black community here, a caucasian community next to it. you have a lot of people living in a very short range. i want to get the community to have those authentic

conversations and bring people to the table where we have a conversation about race and start building a new city that is working together to bring down those barriers. i think for the first time because of the mix of the conversation, that started to come out. a progression and evolution started with that conversation. brian lamb: how do you get along with baltimore sun reporter mark puente? anthony batts: i don't have many interactions. he published a story that dealt with payouts that it taken place and equated to about $5.2 million. i don't have an issue with that because i want to be as transparent as possible. we try to get information out there.

when there is officer misconduct, we are the first ones to try to get in front of the news. the only issue i have with his story is that it made it look like those issues are taking place today when in reality we are going in the opposite direction. we had incidents in 2007, where people filed lawsuits against the police department. there were times when i was in long beach, when i was in oakland, before i even got to baltimore. when it was published, it made it look like these issues happened today. not only have we dropped in the metrics, but policing today is based on homicide rates, which i think is a mistake. we were down dramatically in

homicides. we had the second-best homicide reduction in history of the city. in 2011, we got down to 197. prior to that, we were in the 360s. brian lamb: of the 211, 190 were african-american, and 189 were women. anthony batts: let me go back to use of force. if you have a 5% plus or minus shift, you get a huge drop.

lawsuits are dramatically down. crime is down, use of force is down, building a community is going in the right direction. it goes to what you are talking about. most of the homicides are african-american males shot and killed by african-american males. when i walked in the door as this carpetbagger coming in from another part of the country, i tried to start the conversation. what are the issues that are driving this? when i got back was, until you get that homicide rate down, you don't get to come to the table. not only did we get the homicide rate down, but we got the two

dimensions of policing down. we're going in the right direction in professionalizing the police department that is concerned about its community. but we have to go and ask the questions on why we have some african-american males taking the lives of other african-american males. the population has dropped, and the reason for that is that the jobs have left. you have a city that was moving from an industrial city to a city that deals with technology and tourism. the city has already started on its way to build a new economy. as the school system is starting to catch up with providing young people who can work in these jobs. you have bgf and gangs like that

terrorizing people within our community. you get a bad picture of baltimore, but baltimore has a lot of beautiful locations where you don't have crime. but when you have the shootings that permeate the front page of the newspaper, that is the perception of businesses and people that want to move to our city. the meeting about yesterday, it moved away from just talking about police to start talking about, what are the causes and factors for african lives being lost on the streets, and that is what i'm excited about. brian lamb: the same is true in washington. here is some video of the mayor, and this is all about something that you are in the middle of discussing.

it has to do with body cameras. >> the goal of the review is to build upon the reforms already in place with a focus on developing additional internal controls to track and respond early to officer misconduct, well it the same time providing the police commissioner with the authority currently lacks to hold that cops accountable. it is also to build trust and transparency to the development of a panel looking at the implementation of body cameras. we are in the final stages of the body camera recommendation. brian lamb: body cameras, is that going to work? anthony batts: first thing, body cameras are not a panacea. i was at a meeting with the

president not too long ago where he said he was going to bring millions of dollars to make sure police departments are outfitted with body cameras. when i went into oakland in 2009-2010, we were one of the first police departments in the nation to experiment with body cameras. when i walked into baltimore when i walked in there, i had a focus of bringing body cameras online. the issue was, i needed to build a credibility within the organization to bring those forward. since day one, i have been a proponent of cameras. what came out of that was a reduction of citizen complaints in oakland. there were two reasons why i brought cameras to oakland. one was that i saw that the police department had a large number of complaints.

the clip that you showed earlier said that the police department in 1974 was about 750 officers. in 2009, there were 850 officers, so very little growth. of those police officers, they were pretty close to about 3000 complaints. that was an outrageous number. when i started looking at the numbers and reading the complaints, i could see that you had some misconduct by officers, but more so, you had people filing complaints that led to lawsuits and payoffs. in an impoverished city, people were using this process to file lawsuit against the city. i know enough about police work, where some of those i thought something doesn't smell right. that is why i wanted to start leaning toward cameras, so

everything is captured. we were kind of on the bleeding edge of technology, because we were like the second police department in the united states to go to these cameras. what i didn't take into account was how does that play when you are dealing with privacy rights? how does that play when the media has access to all those filming's? when you respond to a call and you are filming the interaction in that house -- say you had a false allegation by a child against a parent -- and you capture that on the camera, and you find out that it did happen, the media has access to all those things you filmed. maybe that is a politician or someone in the community, you can't put the genie back in the

bottle. there was no policy for that and we need to look at the laws for governing that. in the last five years, people are seeing a lot more legal issues going on with body cameras. we are taking time in baltimore to walk through the laws, the privacy issues, the freedom of information act. and also, how you store the data? in oakland, we had to go out and purchase multiple servers to store the data. at the end of the shift, the police officer puts the camera in a docking station, and you have to download all of the data. for cities that get sued, that

lawsuit might come up years later. if you have information that deals with a homicide case, you have to hold that data forever. in baltimore, you have close to 3000 officers on a daily basis. how many servers do you have to buy to hold that data? the other option is cloud data. but with that, how do you encrypt that data? these are things we are working through and figuring out. brian lamb: when you have the cameras on, how long are they running? anthony batts: they can run anywhere from five hours to about seven or eight hours. in oakland, the officers turned

off the cameras when they were in the car. but if they were having an interaction with the resident, they were mandated to put the camera on. brian lamb: here you are in 2014 making an announcement about the department of justice. anthony batts: today, i am announcing, that i have requested with the blessing of the mayor, that the federal government come into the baltimore police department and assess us in a full review of the baltimore police department. i contacted ron davis for a review, and he said he will start the process moving forward. we have everything to gain from outside review. this would be the fifth review i have instituted to help us reform the organization. since my arrival, you have seen

that i am not afraid to bring out bad reviews. this is consistent with my philosophy that sunlight is the best lesson. anthony batts: one of the things -- the reason that i was brought into oakland, and brought into baltimore is building police organizations that are part of communities. what i saw in baltimore, as we bring in outside reviews, both panels from outside have said that the officers were not the cause of the person losing their lives. the people still do not believe that even though we had leading experts from outside.

it became clear to me that i still had an issue with public trust. regardless of the fact that lawsuits are down, officer involved shootings are down people and communities say they don't believe it. because i believe in transparency, i want to bring in a third-party. i want to bring in the department of justice for collaborative reform. it is not like los angeles or oakland when i was there, this is collaborative reform. this means we sit down with the government, open up our books and show them everything. and then things that we need to get better on, they advise us. for me, it is like having an enlarged command staff. at the conclusion of this

hopefully, the department of justice will come out and say we are going in the right direction and the community will say that we have a police department that is doing the right thing. public trust is my focus. if i had to bring in noah and his ark, i will bring him in. we are doing great things, but my public still doesn't have the feel that we are. brian lamb: how are you doing on heroin trafficking? anthony batts: the mayor has taken a strong stance -- and again, as we talk about homicides, i think we need to focus on the cause and effect of

those homicides. it connects to the fact that we need jobs and industries in the area. if you don't have the workforce that is trained to high-tech or tourism jobs, people are going to need to make money. many people are selling heroin to make money. if we can dismantle the black guerilla family, then we can help to reduce the addiction rates. not just arresting people but treating the addictions that they have. the drug problem in baltimore is decades old. it goes back to the 1930's, and

it exploded in the 60's and 70's. i think we need to cure the addiction issues that we have within our city, which will help us to reduce the selling of the product, which leads to the homicide and corruption in the jails. brian lamb: we were talking about "the wire" earlier, what impact did that have on the rest of your force? anthony batts: you showed that clip of the police officer punching the resident there. i want to see how the officers felt. did they feel the anger, were they embarrassed by that? when i was pleased to see was that the majority of my

organization was extremely upset about that. they were upset that is you make strides to go in the right direction, you have some stupidity. you have the same reaction to " the wire". you have people that come from europe and want to walk around the city and see if it is like "the wire." officers don't want a connection to the wire. we are researching how to change uniforms. this is a new day for this police department. it starts with me and goes down to the core of this organization. the men and women don't want this anymore. they want the perception of the organization changed. when we change that, it changes the perception of our city.

brian lamb: what is the relationship between the police force and the baltimore sun. is it good or bad that you have an aggressive baltimore sun covering police activity? anthony batts: media exists for a reason, and i think that is a good thing. when i was in long beach, as a young command officer, one of the first assignments that they gave me was to correct the relationship between a local media organization and the police. they always started stories with the beleaguered long beach police department. my task was to change that. what i had to do was open up the

organization to the media. what i learned is, that if you sit down with the media and our transparent with them, and explain what is going on and how you are correcting it, that you usually have a good relationship. that happened when i was in long beach. that happened when i was in oakland. you sit down with them and say we don't have anything to hide. my mantra is, sunlight is the best disinfectant. brian lamb: what you said before about the cameras, is all the video that policeman shoot available to the public? anthony batts: yes. you have the public information act.

the media has access to it and so does the community. but i want to go back to the baltimore sun. if you are being honest with them in california, it seems to work. what we're trying to do in baltimore is, i have a new press information captain, who is in that position to change our relationship. part of it is to be open and honest about what is going on in our organization and hopefully as we continue, our relationship will improve with the baltimore sun and other pieces of the media. when we mess up, we mess up. when we do things right, tell us we're going in the right direction. brian lamb: our guest has been anthony batts, who is the police commissioner in the city of baltimore, maryland. we thank you. anthony batts: thank you for having me.

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you can watch these and search all q&a programs at seized and.org. -- c-span.org. washington journal is next with your phone calls and the latest news. at 10:00 we go to the center for strategic and international studies. liam fox is speaking about u.s. relations with the u.k.. the house gavels and in for general speeches. coming up this morning, wesley clark talks about isis and the roles of coalition allies. rob bishop discusses the

homeland security department. with congress still working on a long-term solution for funding we look at how the department operates with alicia caldwell. host: good morning. it is monday, march 2, 2015. you are looking at a live shot of the capital building on an icy morning in washington, d.c. where little agencies are opening on a two hour delay. the homeland security department shut down deadline is five days away as the agency continues to be caught up in a debate over president obama's executive order on immigration. it puts speaker john boehner between hard-line conservatives and centrists in his party on how to move forward. this morning we are opening