tv Charlie Rose PBS January 14, 2015 12:00am-1:01am EST
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rose: welcome to the program. tonight, commissioner bill bratton of the new york police department on cops communities and security from terrorist attacks. >> i see my role in the midst of all of the storm and contro versy is to keep moving fromthe police department forward so it's delivering effective services trying wherever i can to work with the mayor to bridge the differences and difficultyies with the unions but also, to bridge the difficulties with the community that quite clearly voted him in to. rose: commissioner bratton for the hour next. funding for carly"charlie rose" is provided by the following: >> rose: funding for "charlie rose" has been provided by: >> rose: additional funding provided by:
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>> and by bloomberg, a provider of multimedia news and information services worldwide. captioning sponsored by rose communications from our studios in new york city, this is charlie rose. rose: bill bratton is here. he is the police commissioner for new york city. this is the second time he's held the post, having previously served under mayor rudy guiliani, commissioner for boston and la police departments. crime wait in new york city continued to fall in 2014. the number of homesideicides fell t but there are challenges despite success. thousands have taken to the streets in the past few months to protest against the nypd's approach to some policing.
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protests triggered in response to a staten island grand jury's decision not to indict the officer who killed eric garner after placing him in what appeared to be a choke hold. there has been a widening reef police the chief police unions and the mayor who has expressed solidarity. tensions peeked after the killing of two police officers last month. police officers turned their back at mayors and police stopped enforcing it minor crimes and some of the numbers released on monday showed enforcement activity is rising but still falls short of last year's levels. david ignatius recently wrote the spirit of police community partnership has been badly damaged in new york and across the country, but the best model for how to heel the rachel is bratton's own experience fixing broken police departments in new york and los angeles. the police chief who can be said to have reinvented policing will have to do it once more. >> from david ignatius.
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i am pleased to have bill bratton back on this program. welcome. good to have you here it's first time to talk to you about a job you know very well, not only having seen it from new york but boston and la. does it differ from different cities? the role of the man or woman who is in charge of the police? >> sure. >> that's what makes it so exciting for me. it's not deja fewvu all over again. with 20 years between the first time and the second time as police commissioner, it's all different in many respects. and so that's why i enjoy it so much. >> that's why i like the challenges that it presents. rose: in other words, when you heard the mayor might very well be thinking about you, this was a job that you welcomed a return to? >> that's true. i never expected that i would get an opportunity to return to it, but much the same as i after when i left policing in
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1996, publiand went into the private sector, had not expected to return to the public sector, but then the opening occurred in los angeles in 2002, and i heard the clarion call, and off i went. rose: you were there for seven years? >> seven years, 2002 to 2009. it's hard to believe. where the hell did that time go? rose: what is it about police work that can't investigates you captivate did you? >> i think it's so impactful. you can impact on everybody. more so than almost any other profession. if you get it right the impact is so profound in a positive way. so new york city 1994, 7 and a half million people living in the city. by making the city that much safer, all 7 and a half million of them benefited, the 50 million tourists who come benefited. los angeles 2002, a city that had been torn biracial violence
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for most -- by rachel violence, the opportunity to heal that violence by using the police as the the healing tool rather than the flashpoint of all of the anger that had brought two of the worst race rights in american history. how can you not suck k /-+* succumb to that type of challenge? rose: you have been in the forefront of modern technology. some of it you designed here and the previous term yet, at the same time, it seems to me essential in every community for the police to have a relationship with the areas in which they serve. those things not in contra diction but is it still true? >> it is still true and i froeblth frequently talk about talk about sir robert peele the creator of the metropolitan police in the 1800s and went on
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to become the british prime minister. he had nine principles of policing when you read them today they are even more relevant today than 150 years ago. the first being that the basic mission for which the police exists is to prevent -- i emphasize prevent -- crime and disorder. the other eight principles go on to talk about how it should be done. and so when you talk about technology technology is an enhancement of those nine principles that, for example, the body camera issue, which is so much in the public discourse today, body cameras have the ability to really help bridge some of the gap between police and particularly the minority communities where there is still so much tension throughout america, part of the rachel divide that still divides us and police tend to be right in the middle of all of that. quite clearly in the last year at any rate. but that technology is going to be able to really remove some of the tension between he said/she
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said because it's going to be able to validate one side versus the other. so technology if properly used can be a great boon to policing. one of the exciting things about coming back to policing in 2014 is the world of technology i get to work with. no police department has as much as nypd. in 2015, it's going to be the year of technology in the nypd. we are going to change the face of policing in new york city and effectively change the face of policing in america this year in new york. >> what's the relationship between the police and the police union? >> in terms of when you say the police and the police union, police officers or police management? rose: all across the board. >> i will speak to my relationship. i have always had very good relationships, sometimes excellent relationships, with my police unions in the six police organizations i have led.
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i have never had a vote of no confidence, which in my profession, oftentimes, is a badge of honor because somebody in a bad post can post no confidence. i have been able to walk a middle road where we have been able to agree or disagree. it's never gotten personal. i work hard at that. even now in new york city between the police unions and the mayor, one positive at this juncture is the relationships that i had formed with the unions over the past year help to go weather the storm as the mayor and the unions try to find common ground that they can stand on so that the disagreements over the last number of months that have boiled to the surface and actually boiled over, that hopefully, i can, because of the relationships i have with them and the relationships i have with the mayor, that i might be able to serve as a bridge in trying to deal with the rift,
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the unfortunate rift, that's developed between them. rose: what's at the heart of that rift? >> it is a number of things, charlie. there is no one thing. it's a succession of issues. the "new york times" recently had an analysis on it and it listed a number of things that were going on the administration, the appointments on the part of the mayor that the unions took umberance the may ors wife chief of staff was a woman that the unions right from the beginning did not like because of the relationship she had of a boyfriend that she was living with. rose: who had a felon conviction? >> a felony conviction. it began to poison the well. something i ended up involved with, the mayor with a well
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intentioned thing after the so-called choke hold death on staten island tried to in a bridging exercise at city hall, brought ministers and community leaders from staten island in but brought the reverend al sharpton into that meeting. the placement of the seating the photograph, the very famous photograph, one side of the mayor, mr. sharpton is on the other. reportsrose what did that say to people? >> particularly to the cops that they went crazy as well as particularly the tab tabloids "the post" and "the daily news," particularly the "post" hates sharpton. the idea of putting him ol seemingly equal footing with the police commissioner, it gave them a cause celeb. with the unions that had begun to have their difficulties with the mayor it gave them just another nail to drive into the coffin. and even for myself.
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it caused me know end -- no end of problems in the sense of friends, professional acquaintances. "what's going on?" as much as mr. sharpton has become a spokesperson and probably the most well known spokesperson for the african-american community the african-american civil rights community, on the one hand. on the other and he is anathama to the police and to the tabloid community. >> because of an early history of his? >> and the twana barley incidents. the current controversies around financial issues. there is no shortage of reasons why you either like or you dislike him. but that incident was really played up so significantly and continues to be referenced in almost any analysis of what led to the breakdown of relationships. rose: what's your role?
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>> i see my role in the midst of all of the storm and contro versy is to keep moving the police department forward so it's delivering effective services, trying wherever i can to work with the mayor, to bridge the differences and difficulties with the unions but also to bridge the differences and difficulties with the communities that, quite clearly, voted him in to office significantly around the issue of frayed relationships with the police department. frayed relationships aroundaround -- rose: in other words, the minority communities that particularly, they, in fact, supported candidate deblaz diblasio because they believed he would represent their point of view about law enforcement? >> principlebly the question of stop, question and frisk. rose: okay. >> which under the previous administration, ray kelley commissioner, mayor mike
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bloomberg, that in the election in which mr. di blasio came from literally last place to first place and was elected, significantly, it was around the issue of stop question and frisk which really came to the forefront in that election. his position and one i supported, that the practice of stop, question, and frisk had expanded too much in the previous number of years in that, like going to a doctor and et cetera treating your cancer with chemotherapy, if he gives you too much he is tryinghe is going to kill you as he is trying to cure you. as crime was going down dramatically, stop question and frisk numbers why were going onup dramatically. it was the belief one was causing the other that it was to reduce crime. i think mayor bloomberg who is passionate on being an anti-gun
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crusader was vince .1 of the ways was to use the stop, question and frisk. unfortunately, that's about 10% of the reasons why cops conducted stop, question and frisk. they saw people -- stopped people for a whole myriad of other issues. but the defense of stop, question, and frink as a principle means of getting guns off of the street gave the "new york times" and mayor di blasio a rational that you get so few guns for so many thousands of stops, it's creating this form of rachel -- racial profiling. for your viewers in new york this might not be easy to understand. rose: i think it is. i think important and easy to understand because there is fergson, missouri and a whole lot of other places where they are dealing with the same issue: the relationship between police and community. maybe a different community, but
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the issues seem to be -- >> how do you find the balance? i like using a medical comparison because everybody understands medical issues. rose: right. >> and i use that analysis that we developed in new york in the 1990s. the comstat was about gathering crime information to identify emerging trends. you go to a doc, he does tests. he determines you have cancer and he will treat it with radiation, chemotherapy. the correct is not to ate you, give you too much chemo. he will make you sicker. in the use of stop, question and frisk, it made the patient, particularly the african-american patient who was bearing the brunt of the treatment -- rose: they felt more aggrieved? >> they felt more aggrieved. it's interesting because both ingberg and police commissioner
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kelley in a lot of the opinion polls the rated highly. he used to go to two or three african-american churches on sunday and personally was rated very highly but his police department and it's policies were the cause of great consternation in that same community. there was a disconnect. rose: that was the background of the election? >> and di blasio effectively rode that horse to victory. where i got on the horse with him was i believed it was being applied too extensively. it could be done in less quantity rose: what's the result of the opinion thate mayor and you have had in terms of how you look at stop and frisk? >> well in terms of stop, question, and frisk, one of the things that i think is misunderstood in the city, many of the opponents who were against it thought that the mayor was going to do away with it. you can't. it's a basic tool of american policing. the challenge is to do it in
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appropriate amounts to the issues that you are facing. so last year we did fewer than 50,000 stops, but we almost doubled the number of those stops that arrested in arrests. so reinforcing that the stops were doingbeing done appropriately and the fact that last year was the safest year in the history of the city in terms of overall crime, with 600,000 fewer stops, crime continued to go down. many were predicting and particularly the tabloids that stop question and frisk being resulted so dramatically was that crime would go through the roof. i joked when the mayor was elected, everybody thought the four horses of the acopalyps were going to come charging and armagedon armagedon was arriving. rose: didn't happen? >> didn't happen. >> rose: do you think the police officers and the police union under the mayor -- understand the mayor? do they have a
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perceptioneception that you find unreasonable? >> the per i deal with the mayor, i spend a couple of hours a week, and we have a meeting every week, me and my senior leadership team, half a dozen and him. rose: a friday? >> usually a friday meeting. he is much more pragmatic than dogmatic. i think his progressive ideas and his -- the idea that he is unabashedly to the left and a progressive but he's not dogmatic in reference to looking at issues. so, for example, the example of pragmatism, the broken windows philosophy, which i am a strong prop pony he want of strong practitioner of strong defender of, the mayor much to the chagrin supports broken windows but like stop, question and
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frisk, appropriately applied in the right amounts. a lot of his supporters don't understand that. they like stop, question, and risk. they want broken windows done away with. they don't fully appreciate how important it is to the safety, security and feeling of safety and security in the city. so there is an example of his pragmatism that he -- it would be easy enough to stay with the support base that got him elected. but, you know, he's really committed to trying to find the right balance in the city, not just for his base. rose: to explain to those police -- >> right. in terms of that's the man. i deal with him. a great part of my social circling. i live in the upper east side. so a lot of my social circle and friends are not particularly supportive of the mayor. rose: can you make the case for him? >> in some instances, i am able to make the case for him because i am able to speak from my area of responsibility.
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rose: when do you criticize him? >> the issues of criticism would be one in the sense of, in our conversations, publically you don't do that. if i have a difference, one of the good things about the relationship is i am free to offer that advice and counsel and i feel comfortable doing that that he's open to that type of input if you will. rose: when you tell the police you don't think it's a good idea to turn your back, that it is a -- a funeral is not a place. it is a place for grieving, not grievance, your words your eloquent words, does that resonate with them. >> at first, it was heart felt for me. it could have been any mayor or any governor or any president. that's how i feel about my profession and that expression
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of disrespect. it was not the place for it. and so that's why i wrote the memo that i did encouraging, for the second funeral, let's not repeat the mistake of the actions of the first. and the good news was, my understanding is at a larger funeral, 23,000 turn out for the first funeral for officer ramos and 28, an even larger turnout, the largest in the history of the city, probably the largest ever in america for a police officer, and there were several hundred in that ground of 28,000 who turned their backs, and although you would have some of the news reports would have you believe the vast majority were doing it. rose: between the first funeral and second funeral, you had a significant drop in people who turned their backs? >> my understanding of it, the numbers were much less than they were the first time which i felt good about but i would have felt much better if it had
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been no turning of the backs at all. but that's not something i can control. i can seek to influence and cajole, which i sought to do with my words because even though the officers are there in uniform, they are there on their own time. they are not there on duty. they are there on their own time. my ability to say: you will not do that, i don't have that. even if i had it, would i seek to use that power. rose: the mayor is anxious to heel this breach? >> definitely. there is so much riding on healing the breach that he likes cops. he understands their importance, appreciates it and is really working very hard to understand the grievances, understand the issues. there is a lot going on behind the scenes to meet some of those grievances and some of those issues. but a lot of that activity is lost in the following ofg of war.
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there is so much churning of issues. it's going to take a while to let the dust settle and let people take around. rose: people are beginning to speak to each other. >> there is a lot going on in the sense of dialogue behind the scenes. we have had public meetings. the public needs to see that we are trying to talk with each other. i use an express charlie that i think will resonate with you, that it begins with five tribes in africa, the expression we see you sweet alice, what a character sweet alice was a beloved character. but she says to my wife, ricci and i: you know why we like you chief chief of police out there? you see us. and i love that expression. you see us. because i like to think that one of the things i learned long ago when you are talking with somebody, look them right in the eye and it's fascinating how people respond. sometimes they look away very closely because they are not
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used to it but then the ides come back. it is a way of communicating. >> that's an african custom, they look you right in the eye. reportsrose rose: my sense is the mayor is riled a little bit of this and feels he has gone as he should without as much reciprocity. >> in my dealings with him and interactions with the unions, that he has treated the department extraordinarily well until terms of resources, in terms of support of me. he always speaks very favorably of me in public and private settings. he speaks very highly and favorably about the police. what he does question and challenge is some of the practices and procedures. and so the -- it's amazing how
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the dialogue everybody is hearing something different. and in terms of the challenge moving ahead is to get everybody to effectively hear the same thing. because right now they are not rose: not hearing each other. >> no. rose: not hearing the same thing? tell me what you mean by that, not hearing the same thing. >> it's a sense of, say myself, the mayor, that what we are trying to reform is practices that the cops did not enjoy participating in. the cops hated that they were being pushed for more stop, question, and frisk activity. part of their resentment is the administration changed but they are still here. and the new inspector general oversight, the new federal monitor oversight, the new racial profile ing bill, the new city counselcil, they feel that all of that burden ishas now been placed on them and they were
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not the cause of the reason the burden was created. they were not the cause of the increased stop, question and frisk that created this resentment in the african-american community but they are bearing the brunt of the remedy. so you can understand their frustration, their anger, that we didn't do this. we were forced to do this. we were told to do this. it was policies and procedures. rose: a policy decided by the mayor and the police chief? >> and now they are gone and we are still here and we are dealing with the aftermath. rose: dealing with the aftermath. is al sharpton helpful. >> sharpton is helpful i think in the sense of his reach into the african-american community. quite clearly even as he is doing that he would tell you that he would be the first to tell you he believes through his, through his inframatua he is able to control violence, what occurred in fergson. >> and he certainly believes
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that. rose: is he right? >> in terms of he would present you case after case where it did not happen. at the same time you could present cases where it did happen. was he the instigator? was he at fault? that would be subject to debate, depending upon who is engaged in the debate. rose: not always a constructive force? >> in terms of there would be many who would believe that is the case. guiliani spoke out very forcefully in that regard, feeling that mr. sharpton's actions are not helpful, actually, that they contribute to the problem rather than contribute to the healing. but that opinion has been not shared by others. rose: shared by the mayor and the present police chief. >> we are in the tower of babylon in terms of the issues in controversy at the moment. rose: this is my point. what's happening in new york is seen through a national lens. it really is. >> that's why new york is so important in this country.
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rose: this is from the "washington post": bratton rapid between pronouncements that represent the office he leads and the support for the mayor at who's pleasure he serves. nonetheless, it remains unclear whether he can succeed at repairing relations and in the process, bolster his reputation as an innovator, one he forged as the city's top cop understand mayor rudy guiliani, before heading west to lead the l.a. police department for seven or years." do you believe you can succeed at repairing these relations? >> i do. if not, i would be gone. i did not come out of the private sector back in the public sector leaving a very comfortable life in the private sector to come back in to the challenges of the public sector if i did not believe i had a lot to contribute. i came into this position eyes wide open understanding the issues of a year ago that have been compounded in a much more
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complex fashion during the course of that year whether it's terrorism, the face of terrorism changing dramatically, relationship between police and community became more frayed over the courts of the last year. but throughout it all, what the police continued to deliver was public safety. crime went down dramatically this past year, even in the middle of all of that tension. the city became even safer. the city became even more attractive in the sense tourism continues to increase. the quality of life in the city has improved for so many. but for others, it has not. >> that's an argument that we advance all the time. when i say, "we," i mean the administration, the mayor, and the administration police department that there are pockets of poverty, pocket did of desseparation that remain in arguably the world's greatest city that have not changed
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dramatically high unemployment, the poorest schools the lack of opportunity, principally communities of color, particularly african-american communities where levels of violence remains in new york is concentrated in those neighborhoods. those challenges remain. the ability to successfully deal with them it will take a lot of work. rose: has the media helped or hurt? >> the media in this town is a very complex situation that you have new york posts, passionate in their dislike of mayor di di blasio. "the daily news" depending upon the day of the week and the issue. ""new york times" who feels the mayor is not far enough to the left for their liking. as much as they praise some of his activities, they are just as inclined to bang away at him which is ironic because he is a progressive and truly moving in the direction
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rose: pushing too far? >> "the wall street journal" is opened bine the same person who owns the "new york post" is more the middle of the road. "the wall street journal"'s reporting on police issues is probably some of the most balanced in the city. and "news day," a long island newspaper actually has very good reporting on what goes on new york relative to policing rose: how well do you know pat? >> pat, i have known going back to when he was first campaigning to be president of the npa, the outsider not favored to win. i can recall meeting him for the first time, that it was saint patrick's parade, bitterly cold, wendy day and he had a canteen truck he was dispensing hot chock look at. i have known pat almost 20 years rose: do you think he wants to do something to make this relationship between the mayor and police better? and does it help if he says the mayor has blood on his hands? >> well frth, i think the
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rhetoric pat used is unfortunate. i say this. it's inappropriate. rose: to him? >> and in the media. >> that's what i say we can agree to disagree. i don't shun him. there is nobody /-+* knobby shun. it is a personal and professional one. do i agree with everything he is doing? certainly not. i think in this instance i have certainly expressed my concerns about it. but in understanding union leadership that you need to recognize, union leadership, that their first obligation is to their members, and even in the police profession, they have an obligation to the public. rose: a person of interest? >> their role is to represent and if the membership doesn't feel that they are being represented appropriately, they will vote him out. rose: this is what the edit ole
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oral says: they should say the police are trying to extort him and the city believes if the police department's current commanders cannot get the cops to do their jobs, mr. di blasio should consider replacing them. january 6th 2000. rose ? >> that editorial was crazy, wants to go to war with the cops? what they are addvocating is to go to war with the cops. i would rather my approach which i think right now is using a well-managed response to what i am dealing with. going back to work, levels of work performance, returning to normal would not have used the approach that the "new york times" would encourage that's the last thing you need is trying to instig gate a widening of the gap. i am trying to work to close the gap. >>.
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language is very inappropriate in this discussion. >>. language on the part of "the new york times" or similar language on the part of the post is not helpful, not helpful at all. rose: let me turn to sort of the future in terms of what you want to do. do you have any tragic death of mr. garner and the tragic death of those two police officers who posthumously were raise today detective. >> that's right. rose: in your mind are they connected? >> well there is certainly a connectivity in that mr. mr. garner's death, the death of the young man in ferguson were part of the catalyst for the demonstrations that began to
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roll across the country. and the -- if you will, putting on to the front burner, once again, the racial issues that have been so devicesive in our history we thought we had begun to resolve in the '70s and '80s, the 21st cents tree, they are back on the front burner again. i have stated quite clearly that the actions that the individual who murdered my two police officers were clearly the results of his being influenced by that turmoil in the previous month and a half starting with november 23rd i think the ferguson decision. rose reports right. and the garner? >> we have the garner decision. >> grand jury decisions >> the grand jury decisions on the garner case. so my opinion, that his actions were, in fact influenced by his
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dissatisfaction with those decisions. rose: you really saw the heart of a city in the funeral and the response to those two brave young police officers? >> it was magnificent. and it's in a way it's similar. rose: has something happens as it did with the deaths in a way in paris with those cartoonists and the hostages a country came to its sense and then you see the death of those two. >> the legacy of the death of those two officers were that it did stop some of the madness in the sense bring about a pause, if you will in the tensions around the issue of race? the irony of it the absolute irony of it in that it was an
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immigrant asian officer who came to this country at age 12, an officer of port rican dis descent killed by an african-american. the irony there he was actually lashing out at police and the two officers that he ends up murdering, what the city is all about rose: the city and the promise of the city and the reason the city has had such a sustaining sense of being as the statue of liberty projects. >> i think i have referenced. i have this fascination with sub wafrlthsz and the symbol of this is that i every day, 6 million new yorkers get into the subways and ride throughout the city everywhere and the subway pool is, black ground, yellow
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grease under the finger nails, jewelry, man cured fingernails. i love the subways because it is the future of the world and happening in new york city. the idea that 6 million people can cram in to those subway cars on an average day, we have four or five reported crimes throughout the city in the subways. four or five rose: four or five? >> with 6 million people. under extraordinarily crowded circumstances. that's why i have so much hope and this current distress that we are in. we will get through it. it's just been around long enough. i 67 now. it's going to take time. nothing lasts forever in the sense that the stress that we are under right now can be exhausting, dealing with the stuff all the time. but it's mitigated by the fact that if we get it right -- and we will get it right. i am the eternal optimist. i wouldn't do this if i didn't
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think i had a role to play in getting it right. we will get it right. i have no doubt about that. reportsrose you have the full confidence in the mayor to do it? >> i believe i have the full confidence in the mayor. i think i have confidence also in my cops. rose: and you have confidence and you believe in the communities that are served by this -- in this city? >> i wrote a book collaborated paver youish. issues of common ground. now deceased, but i can remember read that book as a police officer in boston having lived it appeared just how marvelous he captured all that had gone on and that the idea of common ground, a term i use all the time. i take it from that book. rose: we saw a horrendous killing in paris in two separate events. what the do you worry about?
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what are the lessons? you have a police officer over there and have had a police officer over there. >> my pred sets or, ray kelley coming in to office after 9-11 had counter terrorism capability because prior to that, we relied on a joint terrorism task force we assigned officers to. ray in his 12 years as commissioner created and found around the world supported a fundraising organization to have 12 officers stationed around the world london, paris, asia and we have an officer that's been right in the middle of all of these in paris these past couple of ways providing information and as a matter of fact i have a delegation over there attending the funeral right now. 10 officers over there that are just showing the camaraderie that exists between policing. but in terms of what concerns
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me, certainly crime that every time -- on my blackberrry i am notified of every shooting murder, rape that goes on in the city. it is so much less than i was notified about 20 years ago but tearlism. the way trailer, the original al-qaeda fight to now isis, assuming a more significance potential threat. al-qaeda focused on the big event. israel is promulgating everybody i can pick up a knife take action rose: take action against not only civilians but the military? >> for example, back in september, to the effect of attack the police, attack the military, thecanada seeds two on the military and the assault in parliament, the ax-wielding man
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attacks police officers standing in a row. a more recent incidents. we can see how these types of calls to inspire condition responded to by people who are beginning to become radicalized and so that's a constant threat rather than the al-qaeda trying to always replicate the 9-11, the big event or the multiplents at the same time. rose: at the same time al-qaeda in the arabian peninsula has been advocating and has tried to bring individually, you know, attacks, whether it's the underwear or the shoe bomber and i am not sure about all of these. they have promoted the idea of individual attacks. both by somebody coming into the country and at the same time people who hear. >> al-qaeda which is pretty much understood mainly be hiding in pakistan and aqap the division in yemen which has been charged with, by al-qaeda
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central, to conduct attacks in advance of the west. so, the christmas day bomber the cartridge efforts to try to knock down planes, those come out of yemen, the aqap. they are believed to have been the influencing entity for the two brothers in paris. rose: do we know what happened when the brother, said, went to yemen? >> that i can't speak to because i am not sure. >> that's something in intelligence would be able to develop going forward. rose: french investigation? >> that's correct rose: to figure out clearly what he did what he learned, speaking to the leader of al-qaeda in the arab peninsula and who might be working with him when he came back because they kept a rather low profile when they came back maybe building up a number of people. there was a report we had this morning, paris police are trying
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to find six other, perhaps, cell members. >> clearly as we saw in the boston mayorrathon bomber, that activity pre-dated isis. and their ability to without ever having basically trained anywhere to just work with magazine instructions instead of craft those bombs that created so much havoc in boston. the inspired and can be just as impactful as those who were trained or have the ability to train in syria or yemen. rose: why is that? >> i'm sorry? reportsrose why is that more impactful? >> well, even though there are thousands that have traveled to syria to fight, a lot of them from europe and it may be 100 or so from america that there are thousands upon thousands who can be inspired here in the state, in canada from thousands of miles away.
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so they don't have to travel to learn. they can be inspired here as we saw with those two brothers in boston they can learn. rose: how do you combat against that? >> that's a constants challenge. >> isn't it? rose: yeah. >> in new york certainly more so than any other city in america with the exception of l.a. which i also had the privilege of being chief of a number of years ago, john mil and i created the capability in l.a. that it runs a close second to the capabilities here in new york. most american cities don't have the resources that we have here. so that is a growing threat a growing concern rose: one of the questions that has been raised is whether because of limited resources that paris police had been forced to cut back on some of the things that they wanted to do. >> it's some of the early things in terms of now going to go into the analysis of the investigation. could it have been prevented? the assault on the two brothers,
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the assault on the grocery store that that's what the after action analysis will attempt to determine. what can we learn going forward from it? but one of the early-on stories was because of a variety of budget issues and other issues that the resources that the french intelligence services had to work with had been reduced. >> potentiallyly becomes a issue for america because we have seen cutbacks in this country particularly at the federal level. rose: question about privacy and whether surveillance goes too far? >> right. the controversy over the last couple of years with snowden but in this city in new york, our capacity has not been reduced. it's been expanded. the resources we applied to it have not been reduced. they have been expanded. so in response to the growing threat that the new york city government, new york city police even under this new mayor have continued to commit resources to that priority. rose: is the level of
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communication between nypd the justice department the f.b.i. a law enforcement agencies domestically and foreign at the highest 11. >> it's the best it's ever been. rose: that's essential. >> it is essential. i would defy you to try to find somebody on either side of the fence, nypd side or the federal side that would not say that the relationships now are the best they have ever been which is important because we are continually trying to improve those relationships. we need as much trans piece we need to have a seamless web of enter activity between us. i really believe that we do have that personal relationships with the f.b.i. and other agent sees and we socialize with each other, go to professional con fences were each other and we are in really constant communication. >> that's absolutely critical.
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rose: it has been said to me that the biggest concern by law enforcement is somebody is going to find a way to slip in to this country some kind of weapon, dirty bomb. is that your biggest nightmare. >> that would be the idea of some type of chemical or radiation device because of the potential for mass casualties as well as mass mitigation of a large area that would not be habitable because of the radiation impact. the current threats that even what just occurred in france that the total death total is hor nifk and of itself and we have seen how impactful those were but that's what the death toll of less than a dozen or close to a dozen, you can only imagine if you had an event that had a death toll into the thousands like we saw at the world trade center.
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an area of the city were to become habitable to the contamination is that a real concern? it is currently. is it likely country? no. reportsrose why is it unlikely? >> that we -- not able to detectat all that there is a capacity, a capability to pull something like that off at this time. rose: you haven't been able to to determine whether someone has the capacity dodo -- to do it? in terms of getting their hands on the weapon? >> matching the skill set with the resources rose: or getting it into the country? >> or getting it into the country. no regard, new york is probably one of the better prepared environments in the country because of the radiation detection devices permanently installed here, hundreds of officers who walk around with the devices on them all the time. but as we go forward into the future, we have seen the
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phenomenal advances in the world of technology in cyber crime. there is a wonderful movie that i just saw "black hat," around the issue. action adventure, but it's about the issue of cyber security threats, and that is a growing concern a growing risk. so, if there were anything that officers used -- an overused term, what keeps you awake at night the cyber would be the great concern rose: shut down the grid, ruin the financial system. >> certain things happened in recent years in iran and elsewhere that are alleged to have been cyber activity related. you know, i don't profess to have intimacy with all of that. but unfortunately, i have a lot of people in the department and our colleagues. rose: john miller's jobs. >> that's one of john's jobs.
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that's for sure. rose: so here is the question: with all of the rise in terrorism that we are seeing with the internet and the capacity to influence new young people for whatever reason to join on some kind of people to sacrifice their lives to give them some sense that there is a greater place that they will do this act for that you are religion, are we less safe than ever? less safe? >> we have the potential to become less safe. myself, for example, as police commissioner in new york, i am not living in fear. i am living with great awareness but at this time i think we are very safe. as we go forward the great challenge is going to be to keep safe and because the threats are clearly going to become more completion, more potentially pervasive, and our challenge is
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going to be how to stay ahead of the curve rather than being behind the curve. after 9-11, we were behind the curb for a period of time. but then we were able to catch up both nationally and certainly what mayor bloomberg and commissioner kelley would create that myself and mayor di blasio are now expanding upon. rose reports right. >> but the world is a very interesting place at the moment. always has been, but going forwards. i was very good myself and many of the people i got the privilege of working with, jack naple, john mil and others keeping this city safe against traditional crime. now the challenge is going to be to keep it safe from traditional crime and safer against the unknown future growth of terrorist-related crime. rose: thank you for coming. >> pleasure to be here. rose: in the interest of full
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discovery, your wife works with me on another program, "cbs this morning," and we are proud to have her. thank you very much. >> thank you. rose: commissioner bill bratton for the hour. thank you for joining us. see you next time. for more about this program and early episodes visit us online at pbs.org and charlierose.com. captioning sponsored by rose communications captioned by media access group at wgbh access.wgbh.org
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rose: on the next "charlierose," a conversation with marco rubio, the senator from florida? >> my experience in this country is through the lens of someone raised by two people with very limited education, who was a bar tender and a maid and achieved the american dream. they were never rich but they owned a home in a safe and stable neighborhood. they retired with a sense of dignity. millions of people achieve that in the united states in the 20th century, especially after the second world war. it was part of the fundamental
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promise america always held out: if you were willing to work hard and per certainsevere, you would find a job that would allow you to achieve that lifestyle and it may be even more. now, what's happening is a growing number of people are doing it. they are following the formla they were told growing up. some have gone on and graduated from college. and they are finding that no matter what they do, they cannot find jobs that pay enough to live off. they are millions of people living one broken down car away from catastrophe. they won't have the money to fix the car or get to work. rose: or one illness. >> or a leak in the roof. you see this all the time and people that are struggling. so what it does is, what's happening now is that people wake up in the morning and they read the news about how the economy is taking off again, you know, wall street is having a great year and the gdp is growing again. this is not bad news but they are saying to themselves, why isn't that reaching me? and the truth is, if you are willing to work for $9 an hour, you could probably find a zob in this economy. but you may not be able to pay your bills.
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so we have to address that because if you lose -- if you lose that, the, if you lose that upward mobility, what my parents lived, the as prations of the american drill, i think you have lost the soul, the crux of what makes us special and unique. ♪ rose: funding for charlie rose has been provided by the coca c >> rose: funding for "charlie rose" has been provided by: >> rose: additional funding provided by: >> and by bloomberg, a provider of multimedia news and information services worldwide.
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[serene guitar music] ♪ ♪ captioning and audio description provided by the u.s. department of education. >> it was good to be back in the wilderness again, where everything seems at peace. i was on me and the anal was a gre feeling-- free omore tplan d do as i plse beyo was all around me. my d w a dream no lo. suppose i was here bause this was sething i had to do-- not just dream about it, but do it.
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