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Show opener

Host Robert Lipsyte welcomes viewers to the Eleventh Hour and introduces himself.

Wide shot in the studio, Lipsyte sitting at a rectangular table across from Brown.

INTERVIEW CONTINUES:

Lee Brown 6:53
I think there's a lot of other dynamics taking place in in our community at this time that extend beyond the police, we find that we have an epidemic of drugs, particularly crack cocaine. And I think that's one of the most serious problems confronting America. And certainly the most serious problem confronting New York at this time, we find that there's a proliferation of illegal handguns or our guns, mainly handguns on the streets of our city, we find that violence on on precipitated violence, even against police officers is something that we're experiencing at this point in time. All these factors create anxiety within the community. And certainly it's a matter of concern for police officers as well. What we have to do, we being those of us involved in law enforcement is in tune to ensure that we continue to work positive positively with the people that we serve. Because it's clear that if we're going to be successful in achieving our mission, we're going to have to have the understanding, support and cooperation of the people that we serve. That's long term. Well, I believe that this study has had a tradition in doing that. The CPAP program, for example, your program, which is a tenet of community policing, is a good example of that many of your programs that I've had a chance to observe here are consistent with what I believe in, the New York City Police Department has been in the forefront of pioneering new concepts.

Robert Lipsyte 8:16
Let me interrupt to Dr. Brown, you believe that. And that's very important, because you have to be positive and you have to make this system work. But a lot of New Yorkers don't feel that certainly black New Yorkers and Hispanic New Yorkers who see a 75% police was a 75%. White, who doesn't live in the community, and a police force that often feels because of its training, the class of radio and television and cop shows, feels frightened in the community.

Lee Brown 8:48
Perceptions are important, whether it's real or not. If people believe something, then that's significant that we have to address it. What we're in the process of doing right now let's take a look at all of that. I've spent a lot of my time talking to people who represent people and people in the community talking to police officers and determining what's on their mind. I have to set the goal for the department if you would develop the vision which we work toward. And that vision, as far as I'm concerned is to make sure that the police are viewed as, as well as being an integral part of the community. It serves no one's purpose if the police are looked upon as being an occupying force. We can't do what we need to do unless we have that support that I referred to earlier. I see a mechanism of doing that. And the mechanism is really building on what already exists in the city in terms of a philosophy of policing that I call community policing. Community policing involves making sure that the officers are if you would partners with the people in the neighborhoods, this city is rich with neighborhoods. We need to capitalize on that and deliver our services around the unique characteristics of neighborhoods, making sure that police are an integral part of that neighborhood neighborhood not apart from it

Robert Lipsyte 9:59
does that this I mean, physically a police officer walking along the street talking to people isn't that what

Lee Brown 10:05
one does not necessarily have to physically walk along the street and talk to people. We've been mobilized with radio cars right now. And we first started mobilize patrol in America, it was a means of getting one place from one place to another, that can still be the same purpose of the cars, one doesn't have to roll the windows up and not talk to people. But we have to also look at many other mechanisms that we have to interact with people. We have strong sense of community here, we have groups that are designed to take care of the quality of life issues in the communities that they are concerned with. We want to be part of that process,

Robert Lipsyte 10:42
Police community work with people who had talked to community groups, go to churches, or schools understand this, your department called recently and we were checking a figure and there are 1400. Police as we speak, there are 1400 foot patrol officers right now on the street, which I guess doesn't seem like an awful lot.

Lee Brown 11:04
What we need to make sure we keep in mind is that foot patrol is a strategy. What I'm thinking and talking about is really a new way of looking at policing, a new style of policing, a new philosophy of policing. And regardless of how you go about delivering that services, it's the way you think about police services. That's what we call community policing.

Robert Lipsyte 11:25
Show us how that that philosophy is going to change perception.

Lee Brown 11:29
To the extent that you have police officers assigned to an area on a permanent basis, what we would want to happen in the future is that there becomes an ownership on the part of the police officers for the people who live or work in that area. By the same token, we want the people who live or work there to develop an ownership toward the police officer. And jointly, we look at what are the issues that are of concern to the people who live in this area? Jointly, we determine what are the best strategies for resolving these issues. And jointly, we use the combined resources of the police and the community to solve problems.

Robert Lipsyte 12:04
Let's take an example. I think the thing that people are talking about this week, at least, are the shootings in which police officers shot in, in several cases, children, teenagers, how would a new philosophy new perceptions and ownership of partnership either avoid such situations or make them easier to deal with

INTERVIEW CONTINUES:

Lee Brown 18:01
That's a value, what do we want our police officers to do? We want them to go out and help people solve problems that impact the quality of life in the neighborhoods, we don't want people to come in, it looks a person to come in, it looks only for the excitement of the red lights of the fire and the running from place to place. And the things that we see on television because television gives not to picture what police works about. So we want to make sure that the people that we hire, fit what we want our police officers to do, and that's what I mean, by hiring in the spirit of service about adventurer, and

Robert Lipsyte 18:37
in the spirit of essentially your career. I mean, you've got a lot of degrees, you have a master's degree, a PhD in criminology. And in a sense, if you will, you're a kind of corporate police officer, you've moved from city to city you've moved up you've kind of brought a body of experience, from from place to place, which is seems different, it seems to a certain extent, at odds of perhaps our perception of if not an adventurer with a gun, at least somebody you know, on the streets for many, many years in one place.

Lee Brown 19:16
Well, I think that's an advantage that I have in coming here. And particularly New York, I think there's a good compatibility between what I've been about over the last particularly 15 years where I've headed law enforcement agencies, and what the New York Police has been about the last several years. So New York's pioneered and things like affirmative action women on patrol, and community policing. Those are the same things I worked hard for in other places. So my coming here as the Commissioner is a good match between a police agency agency is headed in a certain direction, what I bring into the agency. So what I believe in is consistent with what the New York City police team has been about for the past few years.

Robert Lipsyte 19:57
And yet with all these progressive things that you talked about, it's odd that you were against an all civilian review board for the police. Why is that?

Lee Brown 20:07
It's important to deal with definitions that issue was raised when I was in Houston, the proposal there was to take the whole disciplinary process out from the police department, and create a separate body to receive and investigate allegations of misconduct or conduct on the part of police officers that take disciplinary action. And I strongly oppose that I still do. And the people in Houston shared my position that it did not come about. The issue here is a lot different. For years, this city has had its civilian complaint Review Board. At one time, the there was a mixture of it wasn't a mixture of civilians in context of the mayor making appointments last couple of years. Now, the mayor appoints six the police commissioner point six employees that are non uniform employees. I don't have any problem with that. And the reason I don't because the commissioner still maintains control over the discipline of the employees in the police department, I think it'd be a drastic mistake to move discipline from the commissioner. Because if you do, you can't hold the commissioner accountable. The commissioner is responsible for the integrity of the department. And discipline is an important tool of management. And so we're talking really about two different things we talked about. If you have the responsibility, you want the power as well, certainly, it's my responsibility and and what exists here. It's something that I support. Well, we'll look at this mixture, because it's only been in operation for a few years to see what it means. And I don't see a necessity of rushing trying to do something different at this point in time.

Robert Lipsyte 21:35
I think we have a sense of your philosophy. And it's certainly something that is fascinating that we could be comfortable with. But I guess we still want to have some quick fixes. We want to have somebody who's going to say something about getting those guns off the street, making us feel safer. And in a sense, maybe even whether this is a true perception or not raining back, a police department that might be fearful, and is responding in a fearful manner,

Lee Brown 22:06
I have a good appreciation for what's out there on the streets. I have an appreciation what the officers have to deal with day in and day out. These are not the best of times when you start talking about policing the city, particularly a city is large and complex as New York, we do have, as I mentioned earlier, an epidemic of drugs. Crack cocaine is a very, very serious problem. To the extent I don't think most Americans recognize the severity of the problem. We do have a proliferation of illegal guns on the streets, we do have people who are committing violence at an unprecedented level, really unprecedented violence. As to what we used to know, we find that drug problems really pushing the crime problem between 30 and 40% of the homicides we experienced in our city are drug related. And I would submit this probably even a conservative figure. So these are rough times. We have police officers who have to deal with that. What we have to understand is that when we talk about the problems and the complexity of the problems we're concerned about, we can't look at crime drug as being just a police problem. And I say that about by following up if we ask the question, Why does one commit crime? Why does one use drugs? I don't care what the answer is, I think we all would agree that the police do not control those factors that produce criminal behavior, illegal behavior. And so we have to be concerned about the chance to the schools that support the Chancellor and his efforts to make sure that people get quality education, we have to be concerned when we look at the workplace, we find that people no longer earn their living by using their hands that though the work market now is a place where people have to use their mind and not getting an education is not conducive to getting the job and not getting a job leads people into trouble. If we look at our prisons and jails, we find that the people we're concerned about here, the ones I talked about, the ones who are uneducated, unskilled, and and unemployable are the ones that end up in the criminal justice system. And so all of that is to say, when we talk about crime and and safety, we have to accept it as being a community problem. Now, there are two levels of addressing it, people need immediate relief. And that's where the police come in. We made over 100,000 arrests for narcotics in this city. That's not going to solve the problem. But you have to give immediate relief to people because they're suffering in their neighborhoods. But at the same time, we have to look at education, keeping people from using drugs, with a look at our treatment, because addiction is a big part of the drug problem. To the extent that one is addicted and a large number that people were arrested are they are going to commit crimes to support their habit. All of that is to say that this is not a simple issue. It's a complex problem, and there are no quick fixes work

Robert Lipsyte 24:43
to complicate it even further. Do you think race is relevant in this discussion?

Lee Brown 24:47
Well, to the extent that if we accept the fact that there are social economic reasons why people get involved in in crime or drugs and to the extent that there is a difference in their relative degree of deprivation based on race, then yes, we have to say we have to consider race.

Robert Lipsyte 25:04
Does that complicate police work in and again, police force that 75%. White,

Lee Brown 25:10
I think we could overcome that, that that process of complicating police work. But it does raise issues. And particularly when we find that there are racial incidents that occur in our city, that also must be addressed, we have to have an environment where people feel secure in their neighborhoods, to the extent that you find that not existing for whatever reason that it does complicate police work. If race is an issue that brings about division, then that's a problem that we have to deal with.

Robert Lipsyte 25:38
Supposedly, there'll be a demonstration this week in which the body of one of the teenage boys shot by the police will be brought to the steps of City Hall. This is something else you're going to have to deal with. So early in your career here.

Lee Brown 25:55
I think it's important that we look at the deaths that have occurred, those are events that we all have to be sad about, I probably one the most difficult things I have to deal with as a police commissioner is death, the death of a citizen, and particularly the death of a citizen when the police officers involved death of a police officer, those are the most difficult things that I have to deal with. As a, as a community, we have to be saddened when someone loses their life, particularly young people. It hurts within the police department to we feel the pain when someone loses their life, particularly a young person. But we have to look at those incidents and not linked them together. There's no correlation between one and the other. We have three young people that have been killed by police action. This year. 17 year old that we're looking at, we haven't reached conclusion on a 14 year old, we have to reach conclusion on the investigation and a 13 year old and they're all are different in one way or the other. The 13 year old, for example, unfortunately, the person came up to the police officer with a gun. We know that from the preliminary investigation. So there's a difference between that and the other two. And we have to complete the investigation. So we can tell you more about what happened in the other two instances, then we are able to do now. But what we have to hopefully get everyone to understand that takes a little longer to complete investigation than we would like. We don't want to compromise the integrity of the investigation for the speed and then we all be sad if we make the wrong call. So we got to do a thorough complete investigation and then do what's right based on the outcome of the investigation.

Robert Lipsyte 27:32
So we'll look forward to that into your career in New York. Welcome to New York Comissioner brown Thank you very much for being with us. That's the 11th hour I'm Robert Lipsyte

Host Lipsyte announces the show and introduces himself. Show ends.

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