Martin: Tonight, peace officers outfitted for combat -- Man: The objective of our entire profession is peace.
Sometimes, peace is purchased with violence.
Martin: More than $5 billion in military equipment from the Pentagon and more from Homeland Security -- From Boston to San Bernardino, we've seen it used to save lives.
But from Ferguson to Oakland, deep concern.
The film "Peace Officer" asks, "Are these weapons changing the hearts and minds of local law enforcement.
Lawrence: I'm telling you we're on the wrong track.
When you declare war, you can change the rules and forget we've got a constitution.
Martin: Are they turning America's towns and cities into war zones?
Obama: And we've seen how militarized gear can sometimes give people the feeling there's an occupying force as opposed to a force that's protecting them and serving them.
Martin: This evening, we continue the conversation with a PBS town hall meeting at the Northland Church in Orlando.
"Armed in America: Police & Guns."
Good evening and welcome.
I'm Michel Martin, host of NPR's weekend "All Things Considered," and I'm pleased to be partnering with PBS for an important conversation here at the Northland Church in Orlando, Florida.
Several hundred people have gathered for a special PBS town hall.
Our subject -- Should local police be arming themselves with military weapons?
Does this equipment and the tactics that go with them more often save lives or cost lives?
And how does it affect the relationship between the police and the people they are sworn to protect?
I want thank our host, Pastor Joel Hunter, and the good people here at Northland Church.
I'd like to thank our invited guests and our panelists who have made the trip here from all over the country.
With that, let's get started.
The first question I have for each of you is is the status quo acceptable?
As things are working now, is this acceptable?
Former Police Commissioner Anthony Batts, he led the Baltimore Police Department during the unrest following the death of a young man in police custody named Freddie Gray.
Commissioner, do you want to start?
I'm Tony Batts, and I've been the head of a SWAT team as a commander.
Also, I've been doing police work for about 33, 34 years.
Okay.
Is the status quo acceptable?
No, it's never acceptable.
We're always evolving, always changing, and it's always good to get better.
I'm feeling like that's a cop-out.
-Which part?
-"I'm feeling like that it's always", It's never acceptable?
The status quo is never acceptable?
Never.
-Never?
-In police work, And I tell young police officers today, "If you're in police work for the status quo, you're in the wrong profession."
We have the ability to take human life.
We need to be accountable, we have to have standards set, and we have to be held accountable for the things that we do.
This is Haiku.
He is a rapper, and he is a member of a movement you may have heard of, the Black Lives Matter movement.
He's an activist from Ferguson, Missouri.
Haiku, what about you?
Is this status quo acceptable as you understand it?
-Unacceptable.
-Because?
As a former Boy Scout, I can appreciate being prepared, but I've witnessed situations escalate just because of police presence, at face value but then also with the type of equipment, weaponry, and things of that nature.
I've seen situations escalate just because of that.
We'd like those of you watching or listening to join the conversation online.
The hashtag is #PeaceOfficerPBS.
Now, if you don't mind, I'd like to tell you a little something about me, too.
In the spirit of full disclosure, I'd like to know that I come from a law-enforcement family.
My father, two of my uncles, my aunt, two of my cousins, have all been in law enforcement, and my husband was a state, local, and federal prosecutor for 17 years.
I approach this not just as a journalist but also a member of this community that I know is very much grappling with the issues that we are going to talk about here this evening.
How did we get here?
Let's take a look.
[ Siren wails in distance, indistinct conversations ] Martin: The idea of police teams that operate like military units was born out of one of America's most famous uprisings, the 1965 Watts Riots in Los Angeles.
Man: Films and reports on this, the worst riot in our city's history on this news hour.
Martin: In the aftermath, the Los Angeles Police Department began planning to create something called a Special Weapons Attack Team.
Man: Put your hands up!
[ Siren wailing ] We now have a rational, coherent, and long-term strategy.
Martin: In 1997, in the midst of the so-called war on drugs, President Bill Clinton authorized the Federal 1033 Program.
The program allowed the Department of Defense to give surplus military hardware to local American law-enforcement agencies free of charge.
♪♪ An NPR report found that, by 2012, the Pentagon had given local law enforcement nearly 80,000 assault rifles, 200 grenade launchers, and 12,000 bayonets, among other things.
Over the last 20 years, the Department of Defense has given out $5.8 billion worth of 1033 equipment to local police.
This is not the only way police have been acquiring military equipment.
Put your mask on.
Put your mask on.
Here is some sense of what happened from the beginning.
Martin: After the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon on 9/11, local police purchased even more equipment with funds disbursed by the new Department of Homeland Security.
Man: [ Bangs on door ] Police!
Martin: Then, after these images in Ferguson, Missouri, drew criticism in 2014, President Obama issued an executive order limiting the military equipment that could be given or sold to police.
Obama: I will be signing an executive order that specifies how we're going to make sure that we're not building a militarized culture inside our local law enforcement.
Martin: Departments can, however, still use their own money to purchase military gear.
So, should local police continue to buy and use the arsenal of equipment they've accumulated over the last 20 years?
We'd like those of you watching or listening to join the conversation online.
The hashtag is #PeaceOfficerPBS.
We're talking about police using military tactics.
Richard Beary, Chief of Campus Police for the University of Central Florida, the Pentagon offered military equipment to you for your campus police force, as I understand it.
Is the status quo acceptable?
The status quo is not acceptable.
However, I think we have to come to the real facts, and that is that only 4% of the equipment that's given to state and local law enforcement is military-type equipment, meaning guns, armored vehicles, things like that.
96% are radios, office supplies, things that we use because we don't have the budgets.
Susan Rahr, former precinct commander of Seattle during the so-called Battle of Seattle, the anti-globalization protests that turned violent there in 1999.
She is now a member of President Obama's 21st century policing forum.
Susan, what about you?
I think the military equipment is absolutely necessary, but it has to be used wisely, and it really comes down to the leadership courage in a police department.
When I was the sheriff in King County in Seattle, we relied on that military equipment to equip our SWAT team with rifles.
A lot of people have the idea that military rifles are more lethal.
They're cheaper.
[ Chuckles ] That's why we like the military rifles is 'cause they're cheaper.
My SWAT team members would much rather have privately purchased rifles, but we couldn't afford them.
Alecia Phonesavanh, her toddler was critically injured when a flash grenade landed in his crib during a SWAT team raid.
Alecia, what about you?
I also come from a family with officers.
My grandpa was killed in the line of duty.
I have an aunt and uncle that live, Northern Wisconsin that were police chiefs.
And 30 years ago, you wouldn't hear of this kind of stuff happening like it is.
I've raised my children to, with the knowledge that if you're in trouble, you can call the cops.
And now, if they're in trouble, they, They're too scared.
They don't trust.
Betty Taylor, what about you?
Is the status quo acceptable as things are now?
No, it's not because of the collateral damage that happens to the voiceless.
When you have a child who's experienced a search warrant or a raid, and then, years later, they're affected by that.
They never receive treatment for post-traumatic stress disorder.
It's not acceptable.
That does need to change.
And "Dub" Lawrence is a former sheriff and the subject of the documentary "Peace Officer," directed by Brad Barber and Scott Christopherson, and who are also here with us, as well, this evening.
Dub, what about you?
We declared war on crime and war on drugs, and now we have war on terror.
If you declare war, you can change the rules and forget we've got a Constitution.
Dub Lawrence, he helped build a SWAT team in Utah, but the same team later killed his son-in-law during a domestic-violence call.
And that is the story at the center of the documentary film "Peace Officer."
We're going to play a little bit of a clip of that right now.
Let's take a look.
[ Men shout indistinctly ] [ Explosion ] On the 22nd of September 2008, the very SWAT team that I founded in the 1970s killed my son in law in my presence.
Man: He is down.
Shots fired.
He is down.
Woman: 911 Emergency.
He didn't rape me.
He did hurt me.
Jerry: Brian climbed into his truck.
He rolled the window up in the car.
Within probably four or five minutes, there were two police officers that pulled up in their patrol cars.
He had two handguns.
He took one of the pistols, and he did fire a round into the plywood next to the truck.
-Tango 1-9.
-We're requesting SWAT team.
Shots fired.
Shots fired.
Jerry: There were officers everywhere.
They were on the other side of the fence.
They were inside the house.
They were on the roof of houses.
They've got 80 police officers.
It's just unbelievable.
They've got a helicopter in the air.
I kept telling them, "Let me talk to Brian.
I know I can calm this situation down."
They said, "Absolutely not."
They were in control, and they were going to handle the situation.
Man: Initiate.
[ Explosion, gunfire ] The gun that he had held all afternoon fell to the ground.
He was already down.
This is the shooter.
He remains standing right where he fired from.
He just began to realize what he's just done.
Well we understand that this is one man's story, one family's experience that we just heard, but I need to ask our law-enforcement representatives, How common an experience is this?
Retired SWAT team lieutenant Michael Foreman, along with others, wrote the national SWAT team guidelines.
Lieutenant, do you want to start?
Well, incidents around the nation are common, and many evolve out of domestic situations, a high percentage.
And my heart goes out to your loss first and foremost.
But in a very clear, SWAT in America saves lives.
There's overwhelming, tens of thousands of cases of successful resolution whether it be the use of tools, negotiations, or other, and that's what we strive to do.
What do you think?
Was this a failure of training or miscommunication or what?
Difficult to judge a case on a brief film, but we do have an obligation to explore every option available to us through negotiations, less-lethal options or others, to try to resolve something peacefully to the best of our ability.
And we do that every day across America.
And it's very difficult based on this just to cast judgment, but we do have that obligation.
Commander Rahr, do you want to jump in here?
I think we have to be really thoughtful when we talk about a national solution to an issue that is very much controlled at the local level.
In my experience, the vast majority of SWAT missions end peacefully but they never make the 5:00 news because they ended peacefully.
Our goal, what we tell our recruits when they graduate from the academy is, "If you never end up on TV, that's a good thing."
But unfortunately, the tragedy of an incident that goes badly is devastating.
And I understand why that overshadows everything else, but I've been in law enforcement for 38 years, and the vast majority of these incidents are resolved peacefully.
There are some departments, there are some SWAT teams that are careless and operate poorly, and that's a huge problem.
But the solution for that, under our current governmental structure, is at the local level, and the mayors, the city councils, those are the people that need to be held accountable in addition to the police department.
Do you all want to jump in on this -- Commissioner Batts?
Go back to your original question, You asked do we know if this is common.
The answer to that is that we don't know.
The reality is that we don't track uses of force by SWAT teams.
I was astonished, to be perfectly honest, We have no idea whether this is common or not common, and that's when I started with my opening statement is that we need to set standards.
We don't need to take control away from them, but you need to set standards.
In that scenario, where I got a phone call when I was a chief of police or when I was in charge of a SWAT team where the person said, "I've just done these acts.
come get me," tells me that's probably a person who has a mental issue.
And so, what I would tell my SWAT team -- "Slow down.
We have time on our hands.
If you have an individual that's not threatening anybody else's life, I don't care if it takes two days, three days, four days.
We have time.
There's no reason to move too fast.
He's not hurting anybody."
-Exactly right.
This is Miranda Mauck, and she comes from the Orlando area.
And I understand that a SWAT team came to your door.
Lake County Sheriff's Department came to my house at about, like, 1:30 in the morning, banging on our door after me and Andrew were just sitting there watching a movie.
It was the wrong house, the wrong building, and they literally had no reason to be there whatsoever.
And he lost his life because of it.
Forgive me -- It's a sensitive question, but was he armed?
He did have a weapon in his hand, but it was down by his side, and he was just simply protecting his home and me from what we thought what was to be an intruder on the other side of the wall because we didn't know who was there.
They never said.
Do you have a question that you might like to ask of our panel?
Is it, like, requirement to say that it's police on the other side of the wall?
Wouldn't you think that would be more beneficial to you?
It's a difficult issue but we talked about the benefit of time.
Sometimes, there isn't the benefit of time.
One of the issues that we're sort of debating here is a situation where officers are entering people's homes without warning, What do we think about that?
Well, I'll tell you, Chief, you want to talk on that?
I'm glad to talk about that.
And I've been in law enforcement coming up on 39 years, and I just finished a term as president of the International Association of Chiefs of Police, so this last year I've spent a lot of time all over the country and at the White House dealing with these issues.
And when possible, we should always de-escalate.
We have to de-escalate when we can.
Unfortunately, there's times we can't.
It happens.
San Bernardino was a perfect example.
When was there time to de-escalate that?
Those officers were under fire as soon as they, as soon as bad guys saw them.
So, sometimes, we don't know what's going to happen, and those things happen so fast we have to adjust quickly.
Can I ask you, though, to address the question here?
Because I think the point that Miranda was making and the point that some of our other panelists are making is these are confrontations that didn't need to happen.
Is that possible?
It's certainly possible, and, you know, one of the things that I preach as I go around the country, It's all about proper hiring, training, and supervision.
That's what it's about.
-Is that going on?
I think we're doing better, and I think what we have seen, Let's just be honest.
What happened with the economic downturn in this country, You know what the first money they pull from law-enforcement agencies is?
Training dollars, The things that we need most gets taken away.
That's what gets cut, and that's just reality.
So, what we've seen is we've seen many years of a vacuum in some agencies where they weren't doing the training that they should have.
And this is one of the points that I've tried to make at the White House.
That's what we need to do.
We realize we have got to do a better job with mental illness.
We've got to do a better job with substance abuse.
We get the issues.
We've got to have the money.
we've got to have the political support, and we have to have the community support to do it.
I want to remind everybody that we'd like those of you watching or listening to join the conversation online.
The hashtag is #PeaceOfficerPBS.
I have a sensitive question to raise, and this is an issue that Dub raised.
Are you okay?
You ready to talk about it?
Oh, yeah.
I'm good.
I think one of the painful issues for you, particularly as a law-enforcement officer yourself -- a former law-enforcement officer yourself, was your belief that the police, in your son-in-law's case, lied.
They lied about their efforts to de-escalate, they lied during, in your view, during the confrontation, and you believe they lied after the confrontation about what actually happened.
Is that fair to say?
Yeah.
That's fair to say.
Do you think that's common?
[ Clears throat ] I have to answer that based on my personal experience.
I'm concerned about those officers who get by with murder.
There's no transparency.
You can't get to the records to learn the truth in the first place for a common citizen.
Let me ask Alecia about that because unfortunately her story has a similar issue.
It was about 3:00 a.m. My family and I were sleeping, and it was at my husband's sister's house.
We had just lost our house less than two months prior to a fire in our home in Wisconsin.
So, our house burned down.
We had no other options.
So, we got in our van with our kids, and we went down to Georgia to stay with my sister-in-law.
But at 3:00 a.m., a SWAT team came in and raided the house.
They threw a flashbang grenade in.
It landed in our son's crib with him.
It blew open his face and chest, blew apart the playpen.
When SWAT entered, they didn't announce themselves.
They pinned my husband to the ground.
And then, I heard my baby scream.
And I turned to go for him, and the officer picked him up.
And he was holding him downward.
I said, "Just give me my son.
What are you doing?
Just let me have him.
He's scared."
The officer screamed at me, "Shut up.
Go sit down.
Shut up.
Go sit down."
I went and sat down.
They took our son out of the room.
And I started asking, "Where's our son," you know?
"Your son's not hurt.
He didn't sustain any serious injuries.
It looks like he appeared to lose a tooth."
And, um... What was the truth?
[ Sighs, sniffles ] He, uh, The flashbang landed on his pillow, blowing open his face and chest.
His nose was detached.
He had severe burns all over his body.
You could see his whole ribcage.
He was in a medically-induced coma for six weeks.
And since then, he has undergone 14 plastic reconstructive surgeries.
He has four more for this year, and he will receive two every year for the rest of his life.
At the age of 12, he will have to have his upper jaw moved forward and his whole right side of his teeth removed because it's not capable of growing itself.
-[ Sniffles ] -Dub, you've been going around the country, actually, connecting with families who have had an experience similar to Alecia's.
How common is that?
To kick somebody's door in in the middle of the night sets the stage for somebody getting hurt.
in most of the homes in this country because we have the right to protect the sanctity of their home.
We've forgotten the castle rule.
We have given drug-enforcement officers power and authority to use force that, in my judgment, should not happen.
And my personal experiences serving warrants in a reasonable hour, catching people when you can surround them and avoid any kind of injury or hurt or damage, I know it can be done because my deputies and my colleagues with the police department and the sheriff's office, we served more than 16,000 warrants without a single officer or citizen getting hurt.
And my SWAT team never killed anybody.
It would have been considered a failure if anybody got hurt on either side.
The idea of diffusing and neutralizing and not letting anybody get hurt.
And like the Chief says, time is in your favor.
Let me ask Commissioner Batts, I wanted to ask you about the issues that had been raised here.
Why knock on somebody's door at 3:00 in the morning for selling weed?
I think there's a bigger question.
And to all the loved ones who have suffered in the stories here which are pulling at my heart, I, Having a baby impacted like that is extremely sad.
And your son-in-law being lost, Those are very powerful things.
But there also has to be balance, too.
At the same time, I've had to bury police officers that have had their brains blown out with AK-47s and their kneecaps blown apart.
This is the most heavily armed society, one of the most heavily armed countries in the world.
And these police officers, these young officers have to go out there and make split-second decisions.
And we try to train them and select them and give them the best tools that they possibly can.
But you also have to get the suspects, true suspects at times, And I'm not just talking about with marijuana.
I'm talking about serious drugs at times where they can get into that house safely and render the people under control in a safe manner.
I can guarantee you mistakes are gonna happen.
And people should be held accountable for those actions, for those decisions.
But you also have those courageous, young police officers out there.
You have to take care of them, too.
And they're putting their lives on the lines, and they have families, also, that they have to go home to.
And so, what are you telling me?
You're telling me that part of the reason to knock on somebody's door, bust down the door at 3:00 in the morning is to, what, to have the advantage, to minimize the harm to the officer?
To minimize the harm to everyone, it should be.
And just like the sheriff said, is that it's a success when no one gets hurt on either side.
But if you're going into homes that have AK-47s, if you're going into homes that are heavily armed, you have to go up against that.
And so, you have to find a balance on both sides.
Alicia wants to say something.
What if -- What do you, I mean, for a normal procedure?
Don't you do surveillance?
There was no surveillance done on the house they came to.
If you approach a door with a minivan this far away, There's a Pack 'N Play right outside the door.
You're holding that flashbang.
I mean, is there really a point of no return?
Or is there a point of, "Okay, wait."
You know, "Let's stop and think.
We don't have to break this door down and rush in and throw this.
They should have done things long before they even served a search warrant.
In the organizations that I ran and the SWAT team that I ran, You should have surveillance.
You should have how many rooms are there.
You should have how many people are there.
You should have how many children live there.
You should have a diagram of that room.
You should know where the people are placed.
Those are a lot of things that should have been done on the front end, and the command staff should approve that and ask very tough questions even before that serve.
And so, when something like that, you need to go back up that trail and find out what went wrong and who is accountable for that.
It's almost always gonna be a leadership failure.
Because, like Tony said, you have officers who have committed to giving their life, and they tend to be, "Hey, I'll go and do whatever you tell me to do."
And it's up to the leadership to make those good decisions, to require them to do surveillance, to require them to do their homework, make sure they don't hit the wrong house.
And so, unfortunately, too often, the focus is on the street officer.
The focus should be on the SWAT team commander, the Chief of Police, the Mayor.
That's where the focus needs to be.
Lieutenant, you want to say something?
Well, I also want to paint a picture.
Understand, That is unfortunate.
And there are procedures in place to prevent such an incident from occurring.
But the average number of training days is two days a month.
If you don't have the proper training, if you don't have the money to train your staff, why don't you just say no?
Well, you're absolutely correct.
We've published national standards, trying to establish minimal standards that should be followed nationwide.
Some of the resistance we've got from chiefs and sheriffs is they can't afford to adopt the procedures.
I believe you can't afford not to adopt the procedures.
Betty Taylor is a former police chief from Winfield, Missouri, it's a small city, and she is a former SWAT team member.
She is now pursuing a doctoral degree in psychology.
This is something you've been thinking about -- a lot.
Yes, I have.
The war on drugs changed everything.
That's what has affected, And I come from Missouri, where we were hit with meth, and we weren't ready for that to come in in the '90s and the early 2000s.
It's still a big problem in Missouri.
But the war on drugs has really caused the uprising in the search warrants and the desire to do that.
And I disagree with the, when they say if someone doesn't get hurt it's a good day.
You don't know what psychological damage has been done with these warrants.
This family is still suffering, and this has been years from it.
But this was a mistake.
Let's just say for the sake of argument, Let's just say for the sake of argument there were drugs in their house.
Okay.
Let's just say for the sake of argument, And there weren't, Alicia.
-Right.
-There were not.
Let's say there was a weapon in the house.
Would it still be justified given what you believe the long-term damage could be?
The long-term damage to me was how it was going to affect the people that are in the house other than the people you're trying to extract.
How does it affect the children and the other family members, the people you're not trying to get?
No one might not have gotten hurt, but psychologically what trauma have we caused?
Can I ask you this, Did you think about those things while you were still a police officer?
Were those things you started thinking about afterwards?
-Yeah.
Yes.
-You did?
Did the rest of you, Is that a conversation that you all have, which is -- yes?
Any time there's a warrant execution, we are always concerned about the children.
The agencies that I've been a part of, the raids that I've been involved with, hundreds and hundreds, we always factored that.
We always worried about the neighborhood children somehow getting in the way of things and people being injured.
So, when you do that threat matrix, that's one of those factors that you have to look at.
Haiku, you want to just jump in on this?
-I wanted to ask a question.
-Go ahead.
So, we're talking about SWAT,.
and we're talking about tactical advantages, and I think the average person would ask, "What is the tactical advantage of essentially sneaking in and raiding someone's house at 3:00 a.m. with no type of indication of the things that we've grown up to know that there police present?"
We look outside, and we don't see flashing lights.
Someone can knock on the door and say that they're police.
They can say that they have a warrant, but they bust open the door, and we might be coming out of a deep sleep.
And what is the tactical advantage there?
Well, there may or may not be.
It depends on the threat matrix.
But just in itself, just doing it arbitrarily at 3:00 in the morning, No, not at all.
You have to justify the actions that you take at all times.
And there's procedures that should be followed.
And those agencies that are going at the whim of doing it at 3:00 a.m. that cannot justify it, No, they should be held accountable.
Absolutely.
-In regards to that question, yeah, if the objective is to apprehend, That's my question.
What is that tactical advantage?
Batts: There's different warrants that you serve.
If you have a low-grade marijuana warrant, there's nothing that says that you have to knock the door in and go in.
You can get the guy coming out, and that can be served in the daytime.
If you have normal warrants when people are up -- There's different levels.
But if you have evidence and hard-core information that this person is heavily armed in that house and has multiple weapons and there's multiple of them, those are the times that you want to have that tactical advantage.
So, not every warrant is served by SWAT.
And they don't have to go into a house.
You can get a person coming out going to their car in the morning time.
I just want to mention that, as we've discussed, we've talked about a balance, and we have also talked about the fact that there are a lot of different perspectives here.
Iris has a very interesting story.
Do you want to tell us that story?
Well, my daughter was held hostage for 68 hours.
And they were chasing a guy from Winter Park -- Winter Park Police -- and the gentleman jumped through the window and forced me out at gunpoint -- and my sister-in-law out at gunpoint.
So, it left the two kids in there alone.
You know with the infrared and everything they did, it saved my daughter's life, because this gentleman was carrying my daughter around, 2 1/2-years-old daughter, as a bulletproof shield, you know, and they waited.
The police, they negotiated, they waited and everything, and my daughter is alive right now today.
Thank you for being here.
[ Light laughter ] I think it's important to get that side of the story, as well.
Lieutenant, did you want to add anything?
-Well, I was there for two days.
-You were there?
She was a small child.
And I applaud the Orlando Police Department.
And three men risked their lives and went up against a man with a gun.
Two officers were seriously injured.
But they chose to risk their lives to save those young children at that time, and -- -So, what's the difference?
And it's wonderful to see them here today.
Why, in this case -- Here's a person who's a heavily armed person who has a baby, holding a baby as a human shield, and they can restrain themselves in this situation?
But you have another situation, like Dub's, where you've got a man who is clearly in distress, family members offering to negotiate, and he's dead after a very large display.
What's the difference?
It goes back to what we talked about before.
It's all about hiring, training, and supervision.
And as the sheriff said, we've seen a void in some of that leadership.
And I've spent 6 1/2 years supervising a narcotics unit.
So again, my heart goes out to you with the flashbang, but I can tell you this -- My reputation was on the line as a supervisor for everything my people did, so I had a policy that one of us supervisors -- when my people did the search-warrant affidavit, they would give it to us, and, without any conversation, we had to follow their instructions that were on the warrant and match it up to the right house.
That's how we've eliminated hitting the wrong house, because sometimes, in the middle of the night, it's hard to tell one from another when you're in row houses and things like that.
But there are mechanisms.
It takes time, it takes training, and it takes strong supervision.
And it takes supervision on the part of the leadership every now and then to say, "No, we're not doing it today.
It's not worth the risk.
We're gonna come back another day."
And that's what we have to have.
We have to have that courage to be in charge.
-Susan.
-Michel, I just got to make another point, too.
We have to hold people accountable, but there's a major thing that gets in the way of that, and it's called liability.
And so, you have risk managers for cities and counties that do not want their police departments to admit that they made a mistake.
And that's one of our biggest challenges is these situations that go badly.
There's a lot of lessons to be learned.
So, somebody's telling you to lie -- who?
Well, no, no, I'm not saying they're telling us to lie.
No you.
Forgive me.
Is somebody telling police officers to lie?
Who would that be?
What I'm saying is police departments are not encouraged to stand up and say, "I'm sorry.
We made a mistake."
They're encouraged to be quiet.
And that has to change in this country.
There's so many opportunities to learn from mistakes, but there is a huge risk when a police department stands up and admits to making a mistake.
And we have to come to grips with this.
This is a very litigious country, and that has an impact on the decision-making.
I need to move on to the next topic.
I want to remind everybody that we'd like those of you watching or listening to join the conversation online.
The hashtag is #PeaceOfficerPBS.
So, let's recap -- When we talk about the militarization of the police, we're talking about three things here.
We're talking about police using military tactics or paramilitary tactics, if you will.
We're talk about appearing in the middle of the night.
We're also talking about laws that permit police to enter a home and begin firing if they encounter resistance.
And we're talking about something else.
We're talking about policies, Federal policies that have building up the military-grade equipment from armored vehicles to grenade launchers that everybody from big cities to small towns and even college campuses have been accumulating.
And that's what we want to talk about next.
Man: This is the St. Louis County Police.
You are violating the state-imposed curfew.
You must clear the roadway.
Martin: For much of the country now, the images are seared into memory.
What took place not on the streets of Iraq or Afghanistan, but here on the streets of a St. Louis suburb.
These were the days and weeks following the fatal shooting of an unarmed black teenager named Michael Brown by a white police officer.
-Lighting it up.
-Let's go!
Light it up!
Martin: It was August 2014.
In response to civil unrest, police in Ferguson donned riot gear and rode in on tanks carrying snipers.
Man: Whoa!
Rooftops, now -- Watch the rooftops.
Martin: Protesters compared it to a military occupation.
-Whose streets?
-Our streets!
-Whose streets?
-Our streets!
-Whose streets?
-Our streets!
Martin: This was not the first time in recent memory citizens faced police who seemed armed for combat.
[ People chanting, "The world is watching!"
] Martin: In 1999, clashes between heavily armed SWAT teams and anti-globalization protestors became so violent they were dubbed the Battle in Seattle.
Stop!
[ Shouting indistinctly ] Martin: A number of social scientists worry aloud that we might be seeing something psychologists call the weapons effect, suggesting that humans become more aggressive when weapons are present.
So, they worry that when police dress like soldiers, both officers and civilians begin to act like wartime enemies.
♪♪ Our PBS "Armed in America" poll found that when asked whether having military equipment increased the use of excessive force by police, only about 1/3 of Americans said "yes."
More than half thought the military equipment did not have that effect.
♪♪ Don't forget to keep the conversation going at the #PeaceOfficerPBS.
Let's be clear -- There have been instances where local SWAT teams have used this equipment very effectively to protect and save lives -- In the aftermath of the Boston marathon bombing, for example, and in hostage situations.
But in the majority of cases, we want to ask is the acquisition and use of all this hardware really something that we should be encouraging?
It's a complex thing, and when we talk about the majority, again, I have to go back to the military equipment.
96% of what cops get has nothing to do with armor and tanks and all that other stuff.
There's a huge -- It sells a lot of media airtime, but it's not factual.
Is it true, though, you have a rocket grenade launcher?
Yes, ma'am, I do.
You have a rocket grenade launcher.
-Yeah.
-You're a campus police officer, campus chief.
-Let me explain that.
-Yeah, I'd like to hear.
Again, it's perception.
And that -- In 1994, when the World Cup was coming here, we housed athletes at the university.
That grenade launcher was a tear-gas launcher.
Okay, so, it sounds like we got -- We've never had an explosive round.
It's a tear-gas launcher.
But under the military trade information, it comes out as a grenade launcher.
It's a tear-gas launcher.
Phew, I was worried about that one.
That's what it is, okay?
[ Laughter ] And, again, that's why sometimes you got to get to the reality of what we're really dealing with.
Okay.
Susan, what about you?
Because you did use this equipment during your stint in Seattle, right?
Correct, but I want to clarify.
I was not with the Seattle police department.
I used it in the sheriff's office, and we used it in a horrific, armed, barricaded man who had just murdered several people, was holed up in a house full of weapons.
And I had injured officers pinned down behind a car.
An officer had been shot in the head.
And I would have given my left arm to have an armored personnel carrier close by.
We eventually got one there in an hour, and that saved lives.
I got a helicopter that is the only helicopter in our entire Seattle metropolitan area because of the 1033 program.
Again, most of the rifles that my SWAT team members and patrol officers carry are from the military.
It's because they were free, not because they're more lethal.
And I guarantee you that officers do need to have rifles.
The people that may be unintended targets are safer in many circumstances if officers are using a rifle rather than a handgun.
Talk to me, though, about the -- So, we've have to be careful about thinking military equipment and weapons are bad.
It's how they're used that we need to focus on.
Haiku, I know I want to talk to you because this is -- We talked about what happened in Ferguson, and you were there.
And we're talking about relationships.
And we're talking about the fact that -- Look I was there, too.
I wasn't there during the immediate confrontation, but I was there a couple weeks after.
The fact is people -- their property was being torched.
Right?
Yeah.
Oh, it wasn't?
Okay, so, who burned down that Quick Mart?
I mean to say, "Who burned down the Quick Mart?"
I'm trying to re-center 'cause that footage you just showed -- I just got angry again.
I was there.
It looked like the footage that I took.
And that night... [ Sighs ] That night was a night where they tried to implement martial law.
They tried to implement a midnight curfew.
Their wording was, "At midnight, you're not to be present.
And if you are, we will have to -- you will be arrested or other forces will be used."
To my knowledge, no one on the protesting side was aggressive.
When midnight came -- When midnight came, they stormed the street.
It looked like Gaza.
Every report that I saw during that time, everyone compared Ferguson to Gaza.
And it was a response.
It was a military response to voices.
All we did -- People were armed with signs.
And that was their response to that.
From the beginning, from August 9th when Mike Brown was shot, their response was always, like, kicking us while we were down.
It was salt in the wound.
All we did was come out and ask questions.
When they told us that they were implementing that curfew that night, we weren't going to obey the curfew.
We weren't going to storm the police station with weapons and try to tear the place down.
And they threw tear gas at us.
They -- someone was shot with live rounds.
I heard different stories.
He was 50 feet away from me.
I don't know if police shot him.
I don't know if another protester shot him.
I don't know who shot him, but they created that.
The police created that opportunity for that to happen, and it was entirely unnecessary.
They used -- The had an LRAD vehicle come out.
They used sound weaponry against unarmed people.
And it was entirely unnecessary.
And that's my whole outlook on this.
Your view is that they escalated, that they caused the confrontation... -Yes.
-...by being what, by doing what?
You do realize they disagree?
By not only being present -- but just their presence alone would have escalated it to some degree, but to show up with the type of weaponry and the equipment and the mentality that they had, it's almost like those old cartoons where one side comes with a slingshot, and this comes with a pistol.
This one comes with a rifle.
This one comes -- It never ends.
One side is gonna feel threatened and have to counterbalance that.
What should they have done?
The police?
Yeah, what should they have done?
I don't believe -- I don't understand why they felt like -- I understand why they thought that the curfew was needed because everything throughout the day was peaceful protest.
The QuikTrip that was burned down kind of became a national landmark.
People came from all over the world to see what was going on, and they came to location.
And during the day, it was like a fair.
It was like a parade.
It was like a party.
It was very jubilant.
It was a lot of celebration going on.
And then, as soon as the sun went down, that's when all the turmoil was happening, but it was because of the police presence.
It wasn't like those same people, as soon as the moon comes up, now we all switch gears and now we've all become violent.
It was because that was when the police decided to come and said, "Okay, well, we're shutting all of this down," and they're imposing their authority on us unnecessarily.
They should have just let it go and let people talk themselves out -- That's your view?
Every time -- Finally -- When McCaskill made a phone call and said, "Hey, leave them alone," there were was no conflict for the whole 24-, 48-hour period where the police just didn't get involved.
They let us do our thing -- no issues at all.
Commissioner, I'm going to ask you about this.
You knew I'm coming over there.
-[ Laughs ] -How are you hearing this?
Batts: It's very good.
Haiku and I, before this, sat down and talked, and we had a very good conversation.
And he's a very young good man, and I wanted to hear from his eyes, 'cause I've been on the opposite side of that.
I wanted to hear what he was going through, what he felt, how it made him feel.
In the city of Baltimore, that city was very dramatically impacted on the second day of rioting.
The first day -- And I'm a Constitutionalist.
And I believe in the Constitution, and I tell my officers that we are are the guardians of the American Constitution.
I mean that strongly.
And our job is very noble in guarding that Constitution.
You have a right -- and a 1st Amendment right -- to march and have the freedom of speech.
You should not have a .50-caliber gun pointed at you as you're doing your 1st Amendment rights.
That's just unacceptable, and it's just not acceptable.
But when you start to destroy a city -- And I'm not talking about Ferguson.
I'm talking about Baltimore.
When you start to destroy a city and you start doing things which are illegal, then you are breaking the law.
Our responsibility is to bring order back to that situation.
But they started burning down neighborhoods that were in African-American centers that counted on those stores, those locations, that infrastructure for that community.
So, when we lost control of the city and had to declare a state of emergency -- People have the right to march and protest, and I supported that all up until we set a curfew.
I set a curfew for 10:00.
And at that point in time, we were gonna take back control of the streets.
Now, Haiku is absolutely right.
And I'm gonna agree with you 'cause I'm getting into a debate with you, 'cause you know you'll out-debate me.
People should have the right to protest and speak against our government and do those things.
But when a curfew is set, that is law.
The Constitution and the lawmakers have given us the right to enforce that law, and so you have to to go off the street.
And so, our public still has to obey those laws, too.
You just don't have a right because you're upset at the government or upset at the police department not to obey laws.
Can I just ask you to engage the question that Haiku raised which is -- His argument is the presence of all that gear is itself -- feels provocative to people who are already upset.
Can I ask you to -- The biggest thing for me, not only in Baltimore, but when I was in Oakland and when I was in Long Beach -- 'Cause I had major crowd-control situations in those locations or riots or whatever you want to call them.
The biggest call for a chief and the biggest call for me in that situation is where it becomes -- It's that line when it starts to becomes violent and you don't want to incite -- The police officers in Baltimore will tell you they're pissed at me, and they're pissed at me because they wanted to suit up and put on the helmets and the gear and the batons and the gloves and the sunglasses, and I wouldn't let them do it initially because I didn't think it was necessary.
And when it became violent, then it became necessary.
Then, we stepped it up.
One of the hardest decisions for a chief is when you make that call.
Because you can antagonize a crowd to feel exactly as he's saying, but you also can't let those officers get hurt, either, at the same time.
If there's bricks and things being thrown, you have to protect those officers, so it becomes one of those calls that you have to make at the right time.
Betty, do you want to speak on this -- Betty Taylor?
Well, I was teaching down in St. Louis when the riots happened.
I was teaching policing to a school of 99% African-American young men that were interested in becoming police officers, especially after Mike Brown.
There was a big interest in that because they wanted to feel that they were part of the community, and they felt that during the day 'cause it was a -- like almost a festival type -- A sense of community during the day.
At night, when the curfew was imposed and all the riot gear and things came out, it was like, "Hey, I want to be you, but you don't want to be me."
So, it became, instead of protecting and serving, it became an "us against them" mentality.
But then, it should be the "us for them" mentality.
These were young men that really wanted to be police officers, and they would wear the -- We had uniform shirts that said, "Creating the future of law enforcement."
That was my big mantra for my school.
So, tell me again, Betty, if I could understand where you're coming from -- You're saying that that whole experience turned people who thought that they wanted to be law-enforcement officers to not want to do it anymore because -- Why?
What did they say?
They just felt like the people didn't want to hear them and that they couldn't do that to their community.
They felt like that they were being ostracized from a community that they wanted to protect and serve.
They wanted to suit up, and they wanted to be out there and help.
They know the war on drugs more than anyone.
But what was it that made them feel that way?
What was it exactly?
Was it the fact that the guys were suited up in gear, or was it something else?
-Well, when you're -- -Or was it the whole situation?
It was the whole situation, but when you've got someone in full gear and they're calling the citizens animals -- you know, "Get back, you animals" -- that makes them think, "I don't know if I want to be part of that."
Even though I taught them the building blocks of ethical policing -- We went over that.
And these would've been great officers.
Can I put you on the spot, Commissioner Batts?
Again?
As a -- Yeah.
[ Laughter ] You know why I feel like I can?
Because we haven't talked about race here.
-Yeah.
-Obviously, a lot of the people involved are of all races.
I mean, we've seen people who've had terrible experiences with law enforcement who are of all different races.
We've had people who are in law enforcement who are of all different races.
But I have to ask you, if you don't mind, as a person of color, how does that sit with you?
I'm sure there have been times in your life that you've been called some things -- turncoat, traitor, some other things like that -- and I'm asking, as a situation like Ferguson, how does that sit with you as a man of color?
If I may respectfully ask you that.
I don't think that's a tough one.
I am an African-American male.
I happen to be in a profession of law enforcement.
I take a great deal of pride in both being African-American and being a law-enforcement officer -- or a retired law-enforcement officer.
I take a great deal of pride.
It's in my DNA.
But that also comes with an understanding of my community.
I grew up in South Central L.A.
I grew up in those dysfunctional communities that are a lot like the cities that I gravitate to because that's where I grew up.
And I think my responsibility is to understand, to know, and to translate to my organization what people are expecting out of us and also to translate to my community what police officers are seeing, too.
My role is bifurcated.
And in Baltimore -- crowd-control, riot situation that took place, I called a number of my African-American command officers in, and I said, "Your responsibility is to try to calm this down."
You have a certain touch and you have a certain something that comes with you.
And let's start talking to our community.
Let them know that we are a part."
But it wasn't just our African-American officers.
It was Caucasian officers that were doing it, that were talking to the community.
And at some point in time, it's not the color that matters.
It's your empathy.
You have to love that community.
You have to love the people that you're serving.
As well as a leader, I have to love those police officers, so it becomes an understanding and a mechanism taking color and race out of it.
But race does play a part.
I upset Baltimore, when, the year before, at the President's panel, I said, "Baltimore has an issue with racism."
And I didn't say it that way, but that's what I'm saying.
And the city's image was impacted by that, but that racism goes towards the friction and the irritation that is going within that city.
And you have to have that conversation.
Chicago, when they issued their report, what was the first thing that they said their problem was there?
Race and racism -- And you have to deal with it.
I have to ask you -- Do you feel that the police love you?
Do you feel that they do?
I feel like there are individual cases where, yes, they do, but as a whole, no.
Do you feel that the police love you and they do their job out of love?
Do you all feel that way?
Absolutely.
Please keep in mind there is a time and a place for peaceful protest, but you see the best and the worst of people come out in these incidents.
There's a lot of bad people that take advantage of these circumstances and law enforcement is faced with dealing with that.
We have an obligation as law enforcement officers, to protect our community.
We are the first line of defense.
Now we did a poll and we asked whether excessive force by police is a problem in this country.
2/3 of Americans say, yes, it is, but we also learned that your view of whether excessive force by police is a problem in this country has a lot to do with income.
A third of people making $50,000 a year or less tend to think that it is.
Fewer wealthier people believe that.
Among black Americans, roughly 3/4 called excessive police force a major problem.
And I need to ask you, how do we feel about that?
Lieutenant, you want to take that?
How do we feel about that?
We can do a better job, and I will tell you from the street officer to the SWAT officer, the first thing we could do is learn to listen and to talk to people before we take any application of force.
So many of these situations can be resolved peacefully and it goes back to training dollars.
Are you properly trained in all aspects?
Today's law enforcement get to train a minimum 40 hours a year.
That's not sufficient.
Dub, what do you want to say?
I know there's something.
You've been itching to get into this conversation.
Back into the conversation.
Back to my original statement.
I think it's systemic.
I'm impressed, when you commented that your officers wanted to get out there and put on the armor and take them down.
I'm trying to see what it is that brought us to where we are and when I look at this and I see people upset because of 200 years of discrimination, I see inequalities and I see the reaction that you're experiencing and I see the difficulty that the commissioner is experiencing in trying to maintain peace, which is his sworn duty and Constitutional oath, it's a complex issue.
But I take it all the way back to my Senator and my state legislator who got us off on the wrong track to begin with.
I don't like some of the laws, and I think we need to focus, with our lawmakers, to change things where we've gone wrong.
I have problems with the war on drugs and I have problems with the fear factor in our society where we polarize.
Can I ask you all in the audience here, do you think there's a system problem or do you think it's a few bad apples?
Can I see if it's a system problem, you think it's a problem with the system, the way policing is done.
Is this a problem of what?
A few bad apples?
A few people not being trained well?
Anybody who thinks that it's a few people not being trained well?
Training?
Fix it?
-Both.
-All of the above.
-All of the above.
-All of the above.
You think, you think...?
I think it's both -- the war on drugs -- you don't see one of the number one gateway drugs is prescription pills, but you don't see a no knock warrant at 3:00 in the morning at a pharmacist's house or a Walgreens.
Right?
[ Applause ] So that needs to be addressed.
Susan?
I think where I saw things really start to go off the rails, so to speak, is after 9/11, as a society, I think we collectively said, "We're going to give up some of our freedom and our rights because we're scared."
And I think that momentum is still present and it's something that I've worked really hard at our police academy with our brand new recruits -- the first week they're given a copy of the Constitution and we talk about, "Your job is to find the right balance between safety and freedom."
And I agree with you, Dub, that's the most important thing we can teach a police officer, is finding the right balance.
And I think our police officers are absolutely critical in demonstrating whether democracy works or not.
Do you feel that this message is getting through?
-Absolutely.
-Do you all feel that this message is getting through?
Chief?
You know, I come from a law enforcement family, too.
My dad was a police chief, my brother was a deputy sheriff, my sister still is a deputy sheriff -- So you just lack imagination when it came to picking your job?
Yeah, exactly.
My two children are now deputy sheriffs, and my nephews are deputy sheriffs.
And I can tell you this -- they do it because they love this community.
They love this community and they'd give their lives for this community and the people in this room and you can never forget that.
The other thing that's important -- and I preach this to my people all the time -- and that is, every one of us raises our right hand and we take this oath, "I do solemnly swear to support, protect, and defend the Constitution of the government of the United States and of the state of Florida."
But the end of the day, the citizens, they have the right to be safe and secure in their house, and the business owners who've invested millions of dollars, they have a right to not have their buildings burned down, and when that decision is made by government, in consultation with the mayor and the governor and says, "that's it.
Martial law."
We have to do that.
That's our obligation.
Does it bother you that so many people feel there is a problem?
Its citizens, no matter what color they are.
It is disturbing that the numbers are what they are, But, you know, what I've also seen is it depends on the community.
So, that's where it comes back to really that basic premise of government.
It's not just the police -- you elect -- you get the type of law enforcement you're willing to tolerate and you're willing to elect.
That's what you get and that's right back to the basics of this country.
If you don't like the type of law enforcement in your community then stand up and elect somebody that will give you what you want.
That's just the way it is.
Miranda, forgive me, I see that you're in distress here.
Is there something that we can talk about -- I don't want to put you on the spot, but you're obviously...
I feel like nobody wants to take accountability for it -- like all of these innocent people are actually dying, but who is getting repercussions for their actions?
Like all my life, I've gotten in trouble -- I get in timeout if I did something wrong, or I get fired if I do something wrong at my job.
Who is being accountable?
Whether it is paperwork trail, whether it was the man that knocked on my door -- whoever dropped the ball needs to be held accountable for it.
[ Breathing shakily ] -They should be.
-They should be.
We're in support of you here and unfortunately, that right now is by lawsuits.
That's how you hold people accountable right now.
Again, we don't invent the rules... We've been in lawsuits for four years.
I'm just saying.
Phonesavanh: I really feel this is important to say.
I have a lot of respect for the police community around where I live, I appreciate them, they're very respectful, they know what's happened -- you know they take that into consideration if there's a problem, they call me.
They will not show up at my door because they know my kids are going to sit there screaming and be scared.
They call me.
It is not the badge.
It is not anything -- I think a lot of it is the personality, and if the government can give free equipment, they should give free training.
If there's a lack of training, there should be free training.
[ Applause ] That should just be it.
It shouldn't be anything else.
They should automatically offer free training.
I want everybody to say what they need to say because we're down to our last couple of minutes.
Commissioner.
Taking from that, I think it's clear today because of things that have taken place, the community has lost trust in policing to a certain degree.
And so we're going to have to do those things that it takes to win that trust back because you have a lot of good police officers and courageous leaders, but I cannot tell you now, you asked the question at the beginning, is there a problem?
Scientifically, I cannot tell you that there is a problem because data is not collected.
And so we need to collect data to start holding people accountable and we need to start tracking that as a nation, as a whole, whether you're dealing with force, SWAT team deployments, and that's how you have to start holding people accountable.
The public doesn't trust us to hold ourselves accountable now, and that's why all these things are happening, so we have to prove that we're doing the right things for the right reasons.
Dub you have a final thought that you wanted to share?
When a district attorney declares an incident, justified or unjustified, that is not what the Constitution says.
The Constitution says that every person has the right to due process.
That's not due process when you declare something justified or unjustified under the law, because it's the law that is wrong.
Does that make sense?
Mm-hmm.
It's not guilty or innocent, and when we can't have transparency and even know what happened or get the evidence into the courtroom before a judge and a jury to determine whether the officer is guilty or innocent, the problem is systemic.
The problem is, to me, lawmakers who have responded to Sandy Hook and to schools and shootings in theaters.
We live in a society of fear.
I mean, I have officers that will say it's a fight.
The people are the adversary.
We have to have bigger guns, because this is a different world.
And we said it in the beginning, we have gone off track.
Please if I can, let's look at the real problem -- it's the law.
We need to go back to the fundamental principles that made our nation the great nation that we should be, we have been.
We need to leave it there for now for this conversation.
I thank all of you who came here tonight who answered hard questions, who shared important and difficult experiences with us.
To Pastor Hunter and the Northland church, to Orlando, PBS station WUCF, don't forget to keep the conversation going at the hashtag #PeaceOfficerPBS.
Goodnight.
[ Indistinct conversations ]
