their duty to uphold and that is important for me. host: what have you learned in the six months that you have been chief, especially coming from washington, d.c.? i learned that i have inherited a jewel of the department and community here in richmond. i like to think that i am coming in and making changes but we are tweaking things the way we do. you talk about culture, just changing some things to say, hey, maybe we can do it better this way? i believe in inclusiveness. not only the men and women in my department but the community and the relationships. when there is a violent crime as a community, we go out as a group, police, community members, our faith leaders, and we engage and find out what were the problems and what are the needs because of this critical incident? i have inherited a jewel of a department and i cannot ask for more. most of the time when nu chief comes in is because a cheap is

retiring, an issue with crime in the community, especially when you are coming from a union environment, sometimes there is a vote of no-confidence and whether there is a situation with the mayor, city council, city manager -- that was not me. i just came in to replace the retiring chief so i'm keeping the ship afloat. host: alfred durham the chief of the richmond police department joining us today. thank you for your time this morning. guest: thank you. host: we will continue on in our program. next up, we will be joined by captain harvey powers of the regiment police department and in charge of training the cadets that you heard the chief reference. we will talk about that training the cadet goes through to become -- before becoming an officer. later on, the mayor of richmond, gleick jones, on his perspective, especially when it comes to law enforcement. both join us later in the program. we did visit the richmond police department and spent the day at the training facility. during that time, we talked to

the now patterson, a rich and police training officer. one of the things we talked about was how physically demanding cadet training is. toit is extremely physically mandate. starting on day one, you are taken through different phases. we start in the green phase which is breakdown phase. we are taking a civilian and we want to break down a civilian with thinking of the me, me, me i i,.e i, when it comes down to it, we are servants of the city. we are service of people who may not like us. we are service of people who may hate us. who we need to be physically prepared to deal with a fighter, a runner, physically prepared to deal with somebody that might hate us. that is something hard to deal with fundamental level. we take them through different tests where itpt

incorporates push-ups, situps, how flexible you are. , we runll climbs stairs, we do dummy drives, we carry each other and it assimilates. my partner was just fatally wounded and i need to get him from point a to point b, so as far as how physically taxing it is, extremely physically taxing. host: we will continue on with that program taking a look at community relations. captain harvey powers of the richmond police department will join us momentarily. if you go to the new issue of "time" magazine, there are statistics when it comes to police officers and gives a breakdown of who they are. 21% have a high school diploma or less, 36% have a bachelors degree or higher and 44% have completed some type of training.

their median age is 40 years old and 12% of those police officers 13%women, 2% asian, hispanic, 16% black, 80% are white. we talked about the average salary, $60,000. it can be as low as $32,000 in mississippi and as high as $88,000 in new jersey. powers enjoins us, a few more phone calls on the topic of relations between community and police. james, you said you had experience with police. tell us about your experience. you are on. yes, when the police ask you and they don't ask you where you are going and what you are coming from? it's oftenl them misses, you should not have to tell them. host: that's james and alabama.

as promised, captain harvey powers joining us. good morning. guest: good morning. good to talk to you. host: how do you describe your job to other people? guest: i say if you think about the police the -- academy adds a school, i am sort of the principal. i am making sure that we meet all of the department of criminal justice services mandates for training new police officers and for the continued training of our current police officers. host: how many cadets do you train at one moment? guest: that buried here to your based on the vacancy rate we have in the police department and the needs of the department. we can do proximally 30 person recruit classes. sometimes, as one ends, we start another recruit class. sometimes we even overlap those classes depending on the vacancies we are seeing in the city of richmond police department. host: who makes an ideal cadet in your opinion? represent the to

broad diversity that is our city that we serve, so we want to make sure we have officers that are technically proficient in some of the skill sets that are critical to all law enforcement like emergency vehicle operations, defensive tactics, firearms qualification, but we also want to have a member of our community who represents that broader community and can speak to the different needs and the different subcommunities in the city. host: during the process of trading to be a cadet, how long is it and give us an overview of what the cadet will learn in that time. a 31 weekin, it is long process that we have. during that process, like i said, we talk about technical proficiency. you are seen video of defensive tactics training, but we are also talking about uses of firearms. uses of emergency vehicle operation, pursuit operation,

constitutional law is critical. we also talk about but they're sort of nonspecific trainings. i think he showed earlier some classroom stuff. that was sergeant shane at one of our lead cit instructors. crisis intervention training. it helps officers deal with people who may be in mental health crisis and understand the perspective of what they are going through specifically. we also recently instituted a department wide training on partial policing. our conscious and bias has on decisions we make us police officers and how to override those unconscious biases when it is possible. host: captain powers, talk about the events of ferguson and baltimore. how does that come into the classroom and how does that change the way you turn cadets? well, we are just the richmond police department, but we are part of a broader national law enforcement that is with 24 hour news and everything

that is on television and internet now. of theppens in one part country impacts the entire country. what happens at one law enforcement. as we see these -- what happens at one law enforcement affects all law enforcement. how to improve our response and improve what we are doing performance wise and change training for current and future officers as we need to. host: give an example. --st: an example specifically the fair and partial policing part of that. bias is wrong,er over at racism or sexism or any of these other things is wrong, but dealing with the unconscious decisions that are made without the officer making them, realizing how they were making just to gett is them to rethink their

interaction and produced that legitimacy within our community, so that our community deals likely deserve to deliver law enforcement services to them. host: how do you change that mentality in a split second situation? split second it's -- situations are very difficult. you saw some good deal earlier of the milo training which is the use of force simulator that we use. we use that for officers and citizens now. we want officers to get from to be looked to go through a scenario and then step back and see those scenarios in smaller snippets, breakdown what may have been a total of 30 seconds into five second segments and see how we were making those decisions. it is part of the contact area that we also at the community to know how we are making those decisions as cheap to have mentioned, -- as chief durha mentioned, completely them -- apparent to them. talk about use of force,

how do you train a cadet on how to use force? guest: it is like anything we talk about. you have to crawl, walk and then run. we start with role-playing scenarios and nonthreatening environments. we will use video simulation as he talked about with the milo system and then we take it to the next level where we vote use ammunition rounds -- where we will use ammunition rounds and a look of it like a paintball round. types of different incremental approaches to training, and just because we give an officer a firearm and put him in a mask is not mean that he is going to need to use that ammunition firearm, but it certainly gives it the reality that we really need to impress upon these new officers as they are facing what the future may hold in a career in law

enforcement. host: police training and the use of force, our topics with captain harvey powers with the richmond police department, he is the training academy director. (202)-784-8000 for those of you experience of police. (202)-784-8001 for police officers. all others, (202)-748-8002. those in rich and, virginia, (202)-748-8003. first call is from stacy in brooklyn, new york. she is a correctional officer. you are on with captain harvey powers. caller: hi, captain powers. hi, pedro. i am from the new york city department of correction. captain powers is 100 correct percent -- 100% correct in his assessment. the one thing left unsaid is that we all bring social biases with this to our jobs. that is one thing that cannot be trained out that we have to

start from the time that we are younger children to learn that all black people are not criminals, to learn that all latinos are not necessarily illegal immigrants, and i do not think that any officer gets up and goes to work in the morning and says, i'm going to kill a black man today, but those cultural biases have important -- they play important roles in that split second decision on what will happen. other, sees someone as his decision might be swayed by that. when he sees someone who looks like him, you may make a different decision and i have seen that in work and in law enforcement over the years and i have seen it in interactions with police in the street. i think it goes back to the history of our country and why police department square started . in the south, with my experience and i'm not that cold, i am retired but i can remember this out and seeing police officers do inappropriate things toward

african-americans and latinos. were ince in the south arms with the government and the government was a segregationist government, so my parents and my grandparents may not have the same opinions of the police that lyts a captain powers' fami may have. in the north, police were used to control for white people, so again, that community may not have the same spec for the police because they have only been disrespected by the police. thank you for your comments and perspective. we will let captain powers respond. appreciate that cap -- that comment, captain. yes, we really strive to make sure that the vices, the unconscious biases that law enforcement officers bring to the table every day are expressed and dealt with. there are two real ways of doing that. first of all, simply bringing to the front the acknowledgment that everybody, black, white,

male, female, tall, short, everybody carries the spices with them. and secondly, after acknowledging that we have those biases, we work with the contact. that the more interaction we have the people that are different than us, the more likely we are to dispel those biases. i return police officers, you have heard the chief talk earlier about badges for baseball. this afternoon, i will be doing shop with a cop, a bunch of city youth commission police officers where we build relationships and dispel some of those biases. the police athletic league and christmas gift giveaways, and delivery thanksgiving turkeys and these sorts of things. we develop contacts within the community and it dispels biases we have of others and it dispels the biases that others may have of us. host: mobile, alabama. carnell is next.

caller: good morning. my comment is the fact that over the last 12 years, 13 years, we peopled a lot of young go off to war, go to the middle east and they will basically train to fight in these urban or these cities in the middle east, so what you are saying are a lot of these young people over the last 12 years, 13 years could come back, they have gone to the police force and it is like they are still fighting in iraq or afghanistan. they treat the public like someone coming from behind the building and they just start shooting. the other point i wanted to make was i worked in city county state government in human resource management for nearly 20 years. i helped higher police officers and law enforcement people and merit system a

test or examination to get hired, they always get the military people, and this goes back a long way back, they always give them extra points on their test scores. so if a regular citizen scored thend a veteran scores 80, veteran automatically gets an 85, so the veteran is put in front of the regular citizen. the other thing i wanted to ask you, captain, and i know he is in training primarily, our police officers tested for drugs and for steroids on a continuous basis? the things i see on television, and i am 63-year-old and basically retired, so i watch tv, and i'm watching the news and you see these police officers who have their heads shaved and when they go into action, it is like you're on steroids or something. host: thank you. i really appreciate those questions. go ahead, captain powers.

guest: i will be with the drug question first. officersond police face random drug testing and if there is any cause to believe that there is something illegal going on, then we can call for drug testing with them. we produce a page in random drug screening and those things should be cap. ,ou spoke about the military former military members becoming richmond police officers and a strongham has made point changing slightly the mindset of richmond police officers. something we try to reflect in training and that is to go from a warrior mentality to a guardian mentality. we have to be guardians of the community we serve. we cannot go out the door as warriors, fighting crime. we have to be guardians of the community we serve and that is really critical, a subtle difference, but the critical difference we have to embrace. it everything we do in training and in-service and in use of

force training and beyond, we are trying to embrace that guardian mentality. the chief is implemented a plan that we have the police recruits much more involved in the community. we are walking in public housing communities, within the latino communities and doing events there. there -- we are working with the homeless community and these sorts of things so that richmond police officers can see themselves as guardians of their community, not as warriors. a resistance to change that mentality from warrior to guardian? guest: i don't see it as a resistance to it. i think police officers and i think people in general are not very quick to embrace all changes, but i think the benefit that officers see of changing from a warrior mentality to a guardian mentality is readily apparent. engagemmunity want to the police department to be part

of our team, we do not just gain witnesses, we didn't community members who believe they are a legitimate law enforcement agency. a take that into account when they serve on juries, and they hear the testimony of the police officer so to embrace that change, that is the critical fight and the critical thing we must accomplish to make sure they see themselves as guardians. host: what do you think of the perception of richmond police officers in the community? we heard the chief talk about how you go on walking tours of the community. what do you think the general perception is now of officers in richmond? guest: i have been with the department 22 years. when i came out of the police academy, we had 160 homicides in than 200,000h less people in the population. you heard the chief talking earlier about how we are not over 200,000 people and last year we had 42 homicides. clearly, the community engagement that the chief is spearheading is working?, all caps

-- working. we continue to grow and look for ways to improve. we look to each different parts of the community that may question our legitimacy, but we have come along way in the 22 years i have been here and i look forward to the next steps we make to grow even better. host: from salisbury, north carolina. here is l.c. you are on. caller: yes, captain, i'm going to show the difference. roof was arrested for killing nine people, he was handled like he was a kid. in texas, this 12-year-old girl was slammed to the ground like she was a common criminal. this is the perception. this is what you see. person that has been accused of killing nine people just -- was handled like he was an ordinary citizen. of the car andt

shepherd and put in the cart really nice, but this 12-year-old girl, frightened, the police slammer to the ground like she was a dog. this is what is wrong. i am 70 years old. calle never had a need to the police. my wife did it one time on drug dealers and the police told the drug dealers the call the police. i had no need to call them. i drove a truck for 21 years and i have been all over the country and canada. the police officers in this country need to go to canada and be trained. those officers are totally different and everybody says guns, well, they have more guns in canada and we do per population. host: thank you. definitely hear and understand what he is saying and i think when he is talking about really, if i can summarize, is a perception issue. i certainly was not present at the apprehension of mr. roof,

and i certainly do not know the ins and outs of interaction that happened with when he was talking about in texas, but the perception of what is going on is the reality in law enforcement these days. we need to fight just as diligently to be that guardian and have that guardian mentality and have that be the perception and the reality. about as his comments training in canada, i think the richmond police department does a fantastic job making sure it's officers and men and women are phenomenally trained. host: when it comes to the training, what type of nonlethal weapon training to officers receive? guest: we have different training. or, we referred to as a mace or pepper spray, we carry that. we have the expandable baton also known as the asp.

we also have some officers who are taser certified. the number we have at the department is growing. we continue to purchase more of those. one of the chiefs big pushes his to make sure that those nonlethal technologies that are available and we bring them to their. one of our specialized units have additional technology at their disposal. host: here is terry from louisiana. go ahead. caller: good morning to everyone in the united states. i went to a crime watch meeting telling why they should end the drug war. a policeman comes over there and threatens me with arrest for telling these troops. one of them was a state parole officer who called me every year tellingry -- they were them that you get much better drug deals from the guards in prison. there were no murderous out called gangs until they pass that law. there were no murderous drug

gangs until they pass the drug laws. --y were killed the alcohol they repealed the alcohol laws after they passed it and it broke up all the murderous out called gangs, so does not take a rocket scientist to figure out what should be done about the drug laws. you appeal those drug laws, and you will cut the murder rate and the crime rate in half or more because the murdering crime rate doubled when they passed the prohibition of alcohol. host: captain powers, go ahead. guest: i understand what you are saying, i do not know about policy and law changes about the legalization of drugs. i do know that we work diligently and without any substantial changes in the drug law in richmond in 20 years, we brought the murder rate down from 160 to 42, so it is not just laws that can impact those crime rates. i think the biggest difference in 22 years ago and now is

simply to community that is willing to work with us and engage us and be part of the problem solving that we really need to make change happen. host: you talk about perception, captain powers, is there more aggression coming from members of the community toward the police in your opinion? guest: i don't know specifically that it has changed or increased decreased. there has always been a certain element of that with law enforcement and that probably always will be on some level, but that is such a small percentage of the community that we serve at once to harm us or do us or make a problem. they all want a safe environment to live and to grow businesses and to raise children. it is our job to partner with them and make that the reality. while there will always probably be a very small minority of people that wish to do us harm or wish to be harmful to the community, we can do our part by

partnering with the community and deliver the kind of safe community that they really want. host: if you live in richmond and want to talk to our guest, (202)-748-8003. lois is from richmond, virginia. caller: good morning. good morning, captain powers. guest: good morning. caller: how are you? guest: i am very well. thank you. that ini wanted to say richmond, one of the things i did not agree with [indiscernible] afraid ofity is still police. they still have the concerns. [indiscernible] what is changing the one on one relationship built with the police department? we have built a one-on-one

relationship where i trust him, so if people want to turn themselves in or turn in a gun, because i built a relationship and the police chief of .unro and he was in richmond it's got to begin with a one-on-one relationship that will build the trust and change the perception. whenst had a shooting officer killed a resident of richmond and the community was very upset. i received a call from captain they worked on the simulated to see what happened. i do not agree with everything that is going on in richmond, with the police, or the community. i have not built a relationship with the chief. i tried couple of times but he

is super busy. i know the police as an officer jackson who comes to our christian private school and he went to patty whacking and show teenagers and answered questions from teenagers in the community about it. that is what makes a change. you've got to do the one-on-one relationship building with trust and perception changing. thank you. i promise i did not put her up to call. that is pastor lois, she is the minister over in south richmond with whom i have worked several years. it is all about those relationships. we to make those relationships. we have to make those relationships based on honesty and knowing each other and working together for the common good. she has done a lot of great work over in south richmond.

she is one of many partnerships that exist within the city of richmond about making this place better. when we had the officer involved shooting, i reached out to her. i said i really want young people to experience this simulator. to walk a mile in our shoes and understand the difficult decision-making process. host: our cadets trained to complete incident reports and are they considered legal affidavits subject to perjury charges? cover report writing. documents.gal there are consequences if they are inappropriately filed. so yes. host: from georgia. this is bruce. hey.r:

all the cops i have seen lately have done a lot better than they used to do. one guy called and said he was from atlanta. i'm from atlanta. he said he didn't see any black cops. i did. i don't know what part of atlanta he was from. i'm glad you all are doing a lot better. from michigan. go ahead. caller: good morning. thank youke to say very much for doing your job. you couldn't pay me enough to do your job. i would also like to say that i have had experience with police. when i was 17 i got caught shoplifting.

a pair of earrings at the local walmart. i didn't tell my parents. didn't run and get a lawyer. went down to the courthouse. showed up and told the judge i did it and i was sorry and won't do it again. got my six months probation. and every week i had to report to a lady's house in my neighborhood. knewl the kids probably why was going there every week until my six months was up. but i didn't care. foundly reason my parents out was because a letter got sent to my home stating that i had completed my perl and stuff -- probation. it's called personal responsibility. run, if you don't fight, if you don't spit at them, if you don't try and run away, if you don't try and fight with people, they're not going

to abuse you. and that's my thing. i believe in personal responsibility. and i'm going to be 60. i've had police pull me over. i don't give them a problem. goodbye. very much and guest: i appreciate your comments. it is so important to make sure we are clear to the community with what we need and our expectations when they have those interactions with police officers. whether it is traffic stops or a nonviolent offense. so critical for us to deliver that training to the community on our expectations and our needs so that we can be safe and we can go home to our loved ones and you can be safe.

i have a family that i want to go home to every night. every officer in this country has a family that's important to them. they do a difficult and sometimes dangerous job. there are small things the community can do to help us help them and make those interactions as simple as possible. host: what about the community members who videotaped interaction between police? how does that change your job? guest: i don't know that it has changed either. have seen some provocative things done with videotaping of police officers. as long as you are not interfering with the police officer and you are standing at a distance and videotaping, i kind of applaud it. i think it is a great thing to have as many perspectives as possible on what is going on in our community. our mayor has spearheaded an effort to get body cameras to officers on the street.

i think having that record and accountability is important to the citizens we serve. i think we have stressed with police recruits that they may be videotaped. i certainly have been videotaped a number of times. i'm doing my job properly and following the laws and the roles of by department. it star problem. what would you want the public to know about how someone should behave if they are being stopped or questioned? of a sick things are very important. you probably are a great person, a nice person who has committed no serious offense. but i don't know that when i walk up to address you. issue or ahave an perception and i'm trying to work through, trying to figure out how much of a threat you pose to me.

i think a lot of people operate under the assumption that i should automatically know what kind of person you are if you mean to do me harm or not. police officers don't have the precognition to know that. that on interactions, whether it is a traffic stop or interactions in the community, keeping your hands plainly visible is 95% of what you need to do. keep them on the steering wheel at a traffic stop. keep them in front of you. you don't have to put them up in the air, just keep them where i can see them. those hands are going to pose the most lethal threat to a police officer. visible and the police officer has no need to worry that you are doing him any harm. just keep your hands where we can see them.

from arizona, aaron is up next. caller: hello. i have to say i have a bit of a different interaction with law enforcement. in the fire service and emergency medical services as a paramedic for over 32 years. the law enforcement sheriff and city police on a regular basis. we work together. we have their back and we know they have hours especially in critical situation. thing that iiggest have seen of people on these honestyat we go on his and respect. honesty and respect. it is a two-way street. if you want respect you are going to have to give respect. ss theset need to cu

officers out. anything you can do to better yourself -- honesty is the biggest thing. , even want to get into take the civilian police academy, i recommend doing that. it is a real eye-opener. caller hadevious said, my experiences the few times that i have been pulled over, i have a concealed carry permit. so whenever the traffic stop happens i obviously pull over as far as i can. i rolled down all my windows and turn the interior light on and put my hands on the steering view.in plain you address the officer appropriately. good afternoon, good morning officer. i let them know i have a firearm either on me or in my vehicle.

that is really going to deescalate things right there. and then oh by the way, i have a gun on my hip, that changes things. too many of these people are doing the armchair quarterback of, i saw this episode of insert your favorite cop show here. they like to crack skulls. that is not how it really is. it takes a lot to provoke a law enforcement officer to have to go hands-on or act. utmost respect. love cops. we get along great and below is have their back -- we will always have their back. guest: if you had told me i was going to get a phone call from a firefighter, i would have been worried. but now i am much better off. we both have a tough job to do.

it is greatly improved and far ass dramatic when we have simple level of cooperation and communication. that responsibility is a two-way street. we need to have police officers communicating to the community and the people there interacting with. drama during the interaction. host: we have a question from twitter saying when with the officer like us to find our insurance and registration? guest: we have seen that from a lot of community members. i wish there was a cut and dry answer for that. if you don't have it already in your hand as the police officer a simpleg up, conversation with that police officer is the most helpful. that is simply looking over and saying, my wallet has my drivers

license and it is in my left rear pocket. my registration and insurance information is in the glove box. what would you like me to do? would you like me to reach over and grab it? would you like to go over and get it for me? that is the most helpful way to interact with a police officer. give us the rundown on, what would you like us to do? seethen the officer can your communicating effectively with me and we will give you that respect back. host: joe from washington. caller: good morning. respect for your job and what you do. i am a citizen, too. and i depend on your work to keep us safe me and my family. a couple of previous callers were giving their experiences. i have no problem with their experience but they have to

remember what you said earlier. a couple of other comments were made about the sensitivity that cultural bias. it exists and we know it. i am an african american male and i have experienced some situations that have been -- could have gotten out of hand but thank god they didn't. approached i a caucasian officer and you are a black man, it is automatically antennas up. that is not to say there is going to be violent or anything. i watched some of the episodes the victims that have been killed by the hands of cops. there was a few that were not justified. they have not been justified to my understanding. is blindustice sometimes. hopefully in the future people like you and the other chiefs who are working to build sensitivities and fill those

communication gaps, that is what it is going to take. it is easier to treat people who look like you better. and you feel more safe and comfortable in their presence than people who don't look like you. especially after the media hypes up the reputation and stereotypes of certain cultures. it is a battle. it is a challenge to all of us as a community and as citizens. we need you guys. i appreciate you. it is a responsibility that you have to take upon yourself to know that this is a human being. he is god's child, too. and god loves all of us. have a great one. the unconscious biases that all human beings face impact our decision-making and

police officers are no different. we are men and women who have chosen a helping profession. we have chosen it freely knowing we want to serve our community. we don't do it with something in the back of our mind that says that we want these biases to help us make bad decisions. we want to make the good decisions to help our community prosper. the critical thing is to deprogram things that the media may have programmed, personal experiences may have programmed why developing those relationships with people in the community. whether they look like us or not. whether they're are from the same background we are from or not. we want to make richmond the best place can be. host: james from georgia. caller: i want to commend both of you guys. comment. when i wasce chief,

in atlanta there was a captain who was a patrol officer. his name is chief griffin. he did a wonderful job in the community. he went to schools. he was security at the basketball game. people knew him. andxperience with griffin all of the police chiefs that need to be like griffin. he did a wonderful job. you have a stressful job to do and i just want to commend that. my second problem is when you say it starts from home. when you taught bigotry from home and you raised up and you want to be authority so use the police officer to be authority, they have to be scrutinized. they already have a problem. you hired them in the military to do a job. the citizens they go back and they see a black man, and i'm not targeting all white

officers, when they grow up in a society and they look at a they seem toor, have a problem. i could go on and on with the problem. i won't sugarcoat. blacks are being mistreated and that it's to stop. -- that needs to stop. how toed to be taught treat ordinary people, black people and be a little more polite to them. nodge don't make you know better. he talked about a great relationship he had with a police officer in his community. and this is what we need from our police recruits. we need recruits that can