NYC Police Clash with Mayor
KAYE: Welcome back. This morning we've been talking quite a bit about the history between New York Mayor Bill de Blasio and the NYPD and most recently, I'm sure you can remember this video, where they turned their back on him as he came to the hospital where the two officers who had been ambushed in Brooklyn were being treated. So this is a long history and we wanted to invite our next guest on to talk a little bit about how this all works. He not only knows what it's like to lead a police force, he's also been a mayor. Lee Brown is New York's former police commissioner and the former mayor and police chief of Houston. He's also written a book titled "Policing in the 21st Century, Community Policing." Nice to see you. So this battle between New York police and city hall, certainly nothing new. In 1992 there was an all riot by police against the former mayor, David Dinkins. You had served as New York City's police commissioner just before that happened. During your time, I mean what can you recall about that? Were relations between police and the mayor strained then as well?</s>LEE BROWN, FORMER NEW YORK CITY POLICE COMMISSIONER: The issue was there was just brewing while I was there. That was the creation of a civilian review board to receive and investigate complaints against police officers. The police officers did not endorse that concept and, as I understand, that was the reason for the demonstration there at city hall. I wasn't in the country at time. I did read about it when I returned.</s>KAYE: What do you see as different this time around? What do you make of what's happening in New York?</s>BROWN: We must understand that a police department is a big family. In this instance, two members of the family lost their lives. So there's a lot of pain there. We would probably prefer that the officers not turn their back on the mayor, but that happened. To understand it, we must understand the circumstances under which that occurred, that's the loss of two members of a family. Do we condone it? No. Do we understand it? Yes.</s>KAYE: So with this tension, I mean how do you cut through it? What needs to be done on both sides?</s>BROWN: If there are other issues, and I suspect there may be other issues that have not come to the surface yet, then there's a need for the police, along with the police commissioner -- the police union and the police commissioner and the mayor to sit down and work through the issues. I don't know what the issues are at this point in time, but I suspect it's more than we know about at this point in time.</s>KAYE: You wrote the book on community policing. You implemented a program also during your time in New York. How do police officers benefit from what you call community policing?</s>BROWN: One thing I think it makes them safer. Let me tell you one quick story when I was in New York. A white officers working a predominantly black public housing projects. They made an arrest and was immediately surrounded by residents there. One African-American man came out of the crowd, stood next to the officer, crossed his arms and just stood there. That dispersed the entire crowd. And once they were all gone, the resident of the housing project looked at the officer and said, I thought we were going to have to kick butt there for a while. What's the essence of that story? That officer had worked in that community. People got to know him, and he was able to carry out his job with the support of the community. And that's the essence of community policing. I define it as a partnership and I underline the word partnership between the police and the community to accomplish four objectives. No. 1, to prevent crime, No. 2, to arrest those who commit crimes, No. 3, to solve problems in the community, and No. 4, to improve the quality of life in neighborhoods. The police can't do the job alone. The community can't do the job alone. But when you put the two together, you have an awesome force to get things done. That's the essence of community policing. It's not a program; it's a process. It's a philosophy of how do you use your police officers to improve the quality of life in neighborhoods.</s>KAYE: It sounds like it does exactly what it sounds like -- builds a community, builds trust, which is certainly lacking right now. Lee Brown, thank you very much. I'll be right back.</s>BROWN: You're welcome.