and the way they express that is to look away. so even at the juvenile level, they look away. and so that is a root issue. we actually have to get to. and finally, it points to the fact that our basic institutions stopped working. working. we had a policy that was amiss to be true for the parole board but the parole board basically did not exist. how it that shows actually leads to a situation where the child faces institutionalization. >> thank you very much. we are going to be exploring all these questions over the course of the rest of the morning. >> thank you. [applause] also at the atlantic's daylong series of panel discussions on race relations and criminal justice, law enforcement representatives and

the director of community servicespolicing discussed the importance of strengthening police community relations. this is about 30 minutes. ♪ ta-nehisi: hello, everyone. i'm really excited to moderate the panel because i think in much of my writing, i deal with this era of police misconduct and brutality, i deal with people on the other end of it, and i tend to hear one side of it. i'm very, very privileged to be here to talk to actual police officers who are actually dealing with the work, and i'm hoping we can get a different perspective and get to the roots of some of the things we have been seeing and talking about in this country for the past couple years.

so i'm here with ron davis, all the way to my right, director of community oriented policing services at the department of justice. cathy lanier, chief of police for washington, d.c. and virginia matias, a police officer on the beat in camden, new jersey. i have a lot of questions for you. [laughter] i just want to start with chief lanier, because i want to get this right out of the way. we had a panel of folks -- people viewed a video and i reviewed it myself and for citizens, it is disturbing. i want to give you an opportunity to respond. cathy: i've seen the video, i've seen parts of the video, not all of it. i know there is some production going on with finishing this film. of course, i saw it, i tried to

do some research, and i just saw it recently. it happened, i believe, in 2012. the first thing i did was see if there was a complaint filed, what happened to the charges, so on and so forth, and i reached out to calvin, because i felt like i should reach out to calvin and offer an opportunity to speak with the family about the incident. i always say, because i've learned the hard way in my career, when i see video of something, and interaction with police and community members, i am not going to comment on that specific piece of video. there was no complaint filed, no investigation done, and i don't have the benefit of hindsight that this was all looked into and there were statements taken all that other stuff. i don't comment on those things anyway because as soon as i make a comment on a piece of the video i see, inevitably another piece of video or something else

will surface. but i will say this about that interaction. anytime i see and interaction between a community member and a police officer that ends badly -- there is a lot of ways it can end badly, and in this case you have a family, or father saying my kids are now afraid of the police. to me, that ends badly. anytime i see a thing like that, it bothers me, because there is too many positive things that police officers do everyday and interact within the community for one incident to change a family's perception, and we have to make sure that doesn't happen. i also think in terms of watching the snippets of the video that i saw of calvin, it takes one or two small things to change the tone of an encounter with a police officer, and sometimes it is the tone of the

police officer, sometimes it is the way you say something or how you say something, or the way -- your body language when you approach, the circumstances at the time. but once that tension starts, it tends to not stop. and so i think the important thing for us as police officers is to remember that you have to be very, very conscious of the way you approach people on the -- and the way you speak to people. most people get defensive if they feel like you are being offensive. being very respectful in encounters and requests -- if it is not a crisis or a dangerous situation, a request versus demand, those things change the dynamics a little bit worried -- that is kind of what we tried and educate our police officers the importance of encounters. you don't have authority and respect just because you wear our uniform. you just don't. [applause]

the uniform is when to represent -- going to represent either fear and oppression or hope and safety. you decide how people view the uniform. the uniform doesn't decide for you. ta-nehisi: i want to ask you, someone who is actually out there right now, when you are in an interaction with the community member, you are not sure what is going on, do you try to communicate -- what is your approach when you are out there on the beat? virginia: my main approach is to engage the community, along with walking my beat on a regular basis, i try to engage in say, -- and say hello, how are you going, how is everything with you, and we are engaged in a conversation. my main approach is to get into my community where i work at, because if something happens there, they are more likely to speak you because they already know you. ok, maybe they might not speak to the officer because they don't know them, but officer matias, she works here, i know her, and i feel more

comfortable. ta-nehisi: tell us a little bit -- i think this is important -- about why you wanted to be a police officer. virginia: several things happened when i was younger and older. when i was growing up, my mom owned a convenience store, and i was around kindergarten at the time, but she was robbed at gunpoint at her bodega, which is like a little grocery store. she always tells us a story about that and it was scary, because i could have lost my mom the day. as time went on, a lot of my other family members, and one of my uncles, he owned a small grocery in north camden, and it was around 2003, and he was robbed and shot, and he died from that wound. that impacted me, that really hit close to home, because i lost a loved one from an act of violence.

i knew from there that i needed to make a change in my community, and i felt like i wanted to help make a difference. ta-nehisi: do you feel if you are making a change? virginia: yes, i do. when i speak to, especially the children and change their perspective, i don't know what type of encounter their parents might have had, but when i speak to them, and they are like "hi, officer, how you doing, i want to be an officer," i think that is great. and also, when you engage them and change their perspective, so they can feel it for themselves how they engage. ta-nehisi: you know, i'm interested -- i was listening to you talk a little bit, and i wonder, as young person, i don't know your background, but as a young person, what your relationship was like with the police, what your perception was of the police. did your parents have a talk with you? i don't want to put anything on

you, but i want to know what your experience was like. do you come from a law-enforcement family? ronald: officer matias is being very modest. she recently had a meeting with president obama and other officers to talk to him about what it is like to be a rank-and-file officer and what community policing looks like, and it helped shape the views of the administration of what good community policing looks like. she is making a difference here. [applause] now, for me, my father was a cop. the good and bad side of that -- get myself in trouble here -- i had protection that a lot of young men of color don't have. my father was a cop and i could invoke that privilege, and that all is what it is, privilege. when i decided to be youthful all and a knuckleheaded, like really love most young men are.

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nonetheless, he got the ticket. he is going to northwestern and he is in a major metropolitan area and i have to worry about violence, have to worry about him getting caught up, going out and having a good time with his friends and getting hurt again violence. and the worry that every father has, that he does not give me a -- goes out and gives me a grandchild before i am actually ready. i was not really -- when i grew up i did not have to face the same challenges so in that case i grew up a little bit more privilege, if you will. but i have -- but as a father, i'm concerned about it, and as a society, it comes down to one question, if i may say this. the number one question we have to ask, whether as police chiefs or community numbers, white, black, across the board, is how

do we see our young men of color? if we view them as a threat, then a lot of things become different. reaching for a drivers license is no longer a furtive movement. -- reaching for a drivers license is no longer a move -- and action, it is a furtive movement. youthful exuberance becomes a crime. a lot of things come out of our fear and implicit bias. how do we view young men of color, to make sure we treat everyone with dignity and respect. [applause] ta-nehisi: you know, one thing we were talking about behind the stage -- and this is just a pet theory of mine -- we live in a society right now where it strikes me, as an observer and a citizen, that police officers are called into situations in which maybe -- let's just say may be someone into the criminal justice system, invoking the powers of the criminal justice

system, are not the best answer. as i said to you, ron, i particularly think about that case in columbia, south carolina, but there are so many cases like that where you can see other societal things going on, be it some sort of drug issue that can be thought about from a public health perspective, walter scott, where the child support system -- and that is not to excuse the officer, but that is there. or a mental health issue which is behind it. i wonder, what your perspective is -- are we at the point where police officers do too much? cathy: you know, policing has been pushing back on that for years and years. really, policing has become -- the analogy, policing has become the drive-through 24-hour mcdonald's of services, because we are the only 24/7, 365 days a year, whenever that crisis hits, or if some thing has to be

solved, and when there are not other resources for it, well, the police will handle it. to some extent the community, they don't know who to call, are going to call the police will -- i think there is a lot of things that we in policing try the best we can to train and prepare for, but we know that there is other people who are better providing that service, and if we could get police out of that business, we would. i think that is part of this. we really have to look at laws and enforcement and enforcement vs. regulation in some cases. regulation is one thing. you don't need a badge and a gun to regulate things. ta-nehisi: concretely, what do you -- cathy: there are some things that are violations that officers are sent out to enforce. like minor violations of business regulations or maybe even minor or criminal in some

cases, sales of cigarettes and things like that. are these things you need to have a badge and a gun in forcing? are these things more regulatory that could be handled through a civil process and eliminate the potential for things to go bad? i think there's a lot of things. we certainly need a mental health training. we are going to deal with people in mental health crisis. i would love it if people in this country knew that they had a loved one with a mental health crisis that they could dial another number other than 911 and get a mental health professional out that knows how to do with that, vs. a police officer who is been trained but has been trained in a 40-hour course to do with that. ronald: can i add one thing? let's make sure when we have this discussion we go beyond the arrest. for the first time in 2014 we saw that our crime rates and arrest rates went down at the

same time. as a community we have to accept that arrests do not automatically equate to public safety. we have to look at our sentencing and how long we throw people in jail. this is an area that we are seeing very bipartisan support, that keeping people in gels for these extended periods of time cost us $80 billion a year. that is the kind of money that can be reinvested into providing services. it is $6,000 for treatment, $60,000 for incarceration. we are spending more to keep young men in jail than to give them full scholarships to harvard. we need to prepare our young people across the board for society, and we need to convince ourselves that we don't fall for the temporary satisfaction that comes with -- some of these problems were not created overnight, will not be solved overnight. they require you, require the police department, working together to make our communities safe. if you ask the police to do it,

it means all i have to build a house is a hammer and that means everything looks like a nail and that is one direction. cathy: i was in a discussion with criminal justice partners the other day, and there was a discussion about investing in drug treatment, once people get into the system, and really, the solution for criminal justice partners is for us to put ourselves out of business. isn't that ultimately the goal, that you should have investment long before the person gets into the system? how about investment before you are incarcerated, not after you are incarcerated? now it makes the challenges that much more difficult. [applause] i hate to say my profession, but more investment in social services and less investment in police and incarceration is probably the long-term solution. ta-nehisi: right. i know i have to open up to questions really quick.

you alluded to this bipartisan moment that we find ourselves in from various perspectives and there is a lot of interest in the overall criminal justice reform, not just the police. i wonder -- not i wonder, i think that that consensus is actually built on very, very thin ice. we are in a moment where compared to 20 years ago, the crime rates are much lower than they were, and even still, we have heard quite a bit about this affect where you have the black lives matter movement, activists observing police officers, filming police officers. it affects some of the crime rise we have seen in our cities. there was a direct relationship between those 2 things. we have heard this from very high places in our government. and i wonder what you guys make of it. ronald: we are starting to see spike in violence in certain cities around the country. we have an obligation to do the research to find out why, to go with empirical data to find out

the root causes of it. the notion that suggests that america's finest you are looking at understated somehow don't do -- would somehow not do their job, i reject that. the automatic connection between an activity and crime, we know through history we should not make that connection. we need to find out more data, we need to basically research, we need to ask the tough questions. but we need to have conversation to have the courage to ask the tough questions and come up with the answers. although we are seeing a spike, this is still from 40-, 50-year lows in crime. before we assume there is a national epidemic of violence, and all violence is some thing we should deal wit, hwe should take a look at what got us there. what is most heartening for me is i am listening to my colleagues like cathy and others and she is saying we need to do it on evidence-based scenarios,

we need to build social services and options. the idea that policing in a democratic society means that public scrutiny is not a threat to policing, it is the foundation of it, that you must demand that the community hold the police accountable. [applause] that is the only way it works. the greatest exertion of authority is use of force by police so it has to be criticized and scrutinized and evaluated and we have to do it fairly so that officers treat you with different and respect and all sides of the story are heard before you make the assumptions. cathy: i agree with him. ta-nehisi: ok, before we go to questions, i will put this to you quickly. as you walked out and you are doing your job and you see folks filming you on the camera phone, does that affect your willingness to go do your job? virginia: no, i act the same way if i'm on camera or off-camera. i'm always professional and treat everybody with dignity and respect. ta-nehisi: ok, all right.

i think we have time for maybe one question. i can't see where we are going. all right, here we go. beautiful. >> so if both officers were in the video, what would you guys do differently? what would you do? cathy: you are asking about the calvin video? i have only seen bits and pieces of the video, and i saw just a few days ago -- i will say this. in 25 years i've been policing here, and i started policing here in 1990, when we really had a huge violent crime issue in the district, and relationships were not very good with police. i learned very quickly that sometimes the simplest of things can turn a normal encounter between a police officer and a community member in a bad direction very quickly, this

list of things, just the -- when i say simplest of things, it is just the tone of voice, the way you approach a person, the way they perceive the way you respect them, and that goes both ways. i've seen a perceived lack of respect from the community member by the way or the tone and officer uses, and i've seen the same reaction from a police officer reveals they are not -- and so you just have to -- i've spent the majority of my career making sure that i am always conscious, especially when i enter a situation where there was already a crisis going on, something is already in a crisis situation, that i'm very respectful of the fact that i'm entering someone's home or someone's community, where there is always something bad -- already something bad happening, that i have to be the one that makes the effort to calm things, be respectful, and bring things back down to atone where we can have a reasonable discussion first. ta-nehisi: ok, i think we've got

one more. we have time for one more. >> the question is largely for officer lanier. i am a community organizer and i was in anacostia on sunday for a community event, where we were harassed by police officers and we had a sergeant called to the scene, and the sergeant continued to cross the other -- harass the other organizers. i was the escalating -- de -escalating and i asked the officer about his tone and level of respect and i said sir, i've been in de-escalation training and i've never been in one where matching tone is a de-escalation techniques, because he was yelling at the citizen, and he turned to me and he said "we don't have de-escalation training. we have verbal judo." [laughter] i would like to ask you what verbal judo is and why we don't have de-escalation training. [applause] cathy: so the first question i would ask, and you don't have to answer -- if ever you have an interaction with a police

officer and you don't feel it was appropriate, for any reason, i would encourage you to file a complaint so that the police can look into those things. you don't have to file with the police department here. somebody outside can take a look at what happened to address issues. i have to say -- >> e-mail -- cathy: before de-escalation was called de-escalation, because de-escalation has been taught in police academies since i have come on and it has evolved over the years and we try to teach it while we are in defensive tactics, various different scenario-based training, but we have been doing it for many, many years, and this officer had to be a 10-12-year veteran, because verbal judo was one of the best de-escalation trainings out there, and it was taught

nationwide, and it was very effective. i don't know if it was sarcasm or what without having all the information -- >> could you tell us what verbal judo is? cathy: de-escalation training. i'm sure you know -- ronald: it has been around since the 1990's. the concept of judo, redirecting energy, talking your way down from the situation. that is what it was designed to do. since that time it has been updated and modified, it gets more into real based scenario training, escalation where you can test it. we both kind of smile because it is going back a few years. cathy: going back a ways. when they go through their annual training, we still put them through de-escalation training as part of their ongoing training. if you have not talked a summary -- talked to someone about that

encounter or you want to give me the information, i would include you too so we can look into it. >> [indiscernible] our police departments are hiring ex-vets and it saves them money in training and all of that. is that the reason why it appears that black people and others are being treated less than human, as enemies? ronald: let me start with that one. for a lot of people, happy belated veterans day. my office, we provide a lot of grants for hiring, and we absolutely support the hiring of veterans, not because it saves costs, but these are young men and women who was sacrificed a lot for their country and we have an obligation to help them return to the community and provide support for them. we also know in many cases that the military understands the disciplinary process. i think it is the training, not the idea of the veteran. also keep in mind, the voluntary veteran force is pretty strong.

one argument is that many of the volunteers are young men and women of color. i would be cautious about making that assumption. where i agree with you is making sure we don't militarize the police. even the military will tell you -- cathy: the military's teaching community policing in communities, and the military prior service does not afford any opportunities -- you still go through the -- you still have to have the same hiring requirements, you still have to go through the same police academy. it doesn't lower the standards. what it does for me in washington is we have the 60-college credit requirement, and some of our young men and women go into the military and they don't go to college, and this affords those folks an opportunity to come onto the police department using their service in the military as opposed -- in exchange for the 60 college credits, which they can get when they --

>> [indiscernible] ta-nehisi: you going to let us talk. come on, you got it let us talk. cathy: these are local community members, and they are -- the military is been teaching community policing for the last eight to 10 years. ronald: if there was a feeling that communities are being treated as the enemy, i don't think we are pushing back on your feeling with a bathroom and -- i don't think we are pushing back on your feelings on that and that may be the case where you are living, and the challenge we are looking at with community policing -- the only thing i would say is i don't think it would be accurate to attach it to one segment of policing being veterans. what i would take a look at him wherever there is this feeling, is the training of all your officers, how they are held accountable, how you are relating to the community, because i know as a former police chief that looking at the men and women who have come from service, and i'm a veteran and my daughter is a veteran, and their sense of duty can be very positive. but that does not excuse the

department not engaging in a supporting and treating the community right. i just think we should be hesitant, may be cautious, before making that automatic link. but i understand the concern. ta-nehisi: thank you. thank you. [applause] cathy: thank you. ronald: outstanding. ♪ our road to the white house coverage continues with the democratic presidential debate from date -- drake university. we will hear from martin o'malley, hillary clinton, and bernie sanders. the debate is cosponsored by cbs , the des moines register, and twitter. you can see it at 4:00 p.m. eastern on c-span. thank you for your support,

and kids, for just saying no. thank you. my hope is that the women of the future will feel truly free to follow whatever paths their talents and their natures escape. i think they thought that the ande house was so glamorous did was sowhat you glamorous, your life was so glamorous. ,ll they saw where the parties you are meeting people. i have to tell you i never worked harder in my life. >> nancy reagan served as longtime political partner, ferocious protector, and ultimately as caretaker for president ronald reagan. and involved first lady, she was active with key staff