Monday Morning Politics: NYC Shootings and Mayor Adams' Public Safety Agenda

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Mayor Adams: "I'm going to continue to roll out some of the initiatives that we've talked about, putting in place to zero in on those small number of people who are creating a large number of shootings. We need to be clear on that. There's a pocket of people in this city who have made the determination that they're going to be violent in our city."

Brian Lehrer: Mayor Adams speaking there on Saturday after the Friday night police shooting in Harlem. We know he will speak again this afternoon and perhaps do exactly what he said in that clip: continue to roll out specifics of what he ran on, "Reducing gun violence in the city." It's Brian Lehrer Show on WNYC. Good Monday morning, everyone.

Before we bring in our first guests, let me read the words of the murdered officer, 22-year-old Jason Rivera himself, whose family had come to Upper Manhattan from the Dominican Republic, and who framed in writing, not that long ago, what the twin challenges are that make this moment different from any crackdown on crime that might have happened in, say, the 1990s. You've probably heard a line or two from this quoted if you've been paying attention to the news this weekend. I'm going to read the whole two-paragraph email that Jason Rivera sent to the commanding officer of the police academy, subject line "WHY I BECAME A POLICE OFFICER." The paragraphs are numbered 1 and 2.

"1. When I applied to become a police officer, I knew this was the career for me. I would be the first person in my family to become a police officer. Coming from an immigrant family, I will be the first to say that I am a member of the NYPD, the greatest police force in the world. Growing up in New York City, I realized how impactful my role as a police officer would go in this chaotic city of about 10 million people. I know that something as small as helping a tourist with directions, or helping a couple resolve an issue, will put a smile on someone's face.

2. Growing up in Inwood, Manhattan, the community's relationship between the police and the community was not great. I remember one day when I witnessed my brother being stopped and frisked. I asked myself, why are we being pulled over if we are in a taxi? I was too young to know that during that time, the NYPD was pulling over and frisking people at a high rate. My perspective on police and the way they police really bothered me. As time went on, I saw the NYPD pushing hard on changing the relationship between the police and the community. This was when I realized that I wanted to be a part of the men in blue; better the relationship between the community and the police."

That was the whole email. The words of Jason Rivera to the commander of the police academy on why he wanted to be a police officer. "Better the relationship between the community and the police," he wrote there at the end. "Help people in this chaotic city," he wrote toward the beginning, and recalling the time his brother was stopped and frisked for no apparent reason as Jason Rivera, as a little kid, apparently watched. It was not an either/or email that I just read. It was kind of both and.

Officer Rivera at just 22 was also a newlywed, and now his body, as it happens, sits in a funeral home just a few blocks from where I live. As a fellow resident of Inwood, I plan to walk by there as a gesture of respect. While some people are already trying to use this killing as an excuse to denounce bail reform and other policies aimed at reducing mass incarceration, the mayor seems to be setting up to announce policies that aren't as simplistic.

Mayor Adams: "Five officers are shot, and the underlying causes are really revealing. The one yesterday was a domestic incident. The one on Staten Island was a domestic incident. It keeps talking about the feeder of violence and what is causing this violence to take place in this city."

Brian Lehrer: He mentioned five police officers have been shot just since New Year's. He mentioned domestic violence. We know some of the other headline crimes recently. The woman named Michelle Go pushed to her death on the subway tracks at Times Square. The baby named Catherine Gomez hit by a stray bullet in the Bronx. The teenager Kristal Bayron-Nieves killed in an armed robbery at a Manhattan Burger King. You heard about that one. But Eric Adams knows this is not just about one thing.

Mayor Adams: "We're going to move beyond the debate and the rhetoric and move to a place that we can identify and reconcile what are the feeders of this violence that we're seeing. Because many people often talk about bail reform but there are other rivers that are feeding the sea of violence. And if we don't identify them correctly and put in place plans to remove them, we're never going to resolve this issue of violence. And it starts with Washington, DC."

Brian Lehrer: "It starts with Washington, DC," he said. Not bail reform, not who the Manhattan DA is. Washington, DC, meaning controlling the flow of illegal guns, virtually all of which come to the city from states to the south of us with looser gun laws. There's more than that too. All this about civilian violence is happening on this day when police violence is on trial too. This is the first day of a trial for the officers who were with Derek Chauvin when he killed George Floyd but did not intervene to stop the nine-minute murder in progress. They had nine minutes.

With me now, NY1 anchor and reporter Dean Meminger, whose beats include crime in the NYPD, and WNYC and Gothamist reporter covering mayoral power, Elizabeth Kim. Her new article on Gothamist is called Why Eric Adams Faces A Far More Difficult Test Than Previous Mayors In The War On Crime. Liz, thanks for joining as always. Dean, so nice of you to give us some time this morning as you cover the story yourself. Welcome back to WNYC.

Dean Meminger: Good to be here. Thank you so much. Good morning, everyone.

Brian Lehrer: Dean, could you just talk about the incident itself on Friday night first? Was this basically a mental health crisis call by an elderly mother about her 47-year-old son, and the mother reported no weapons were involved at that time?

Dean Meminger: Well, it came in police talk as a DV call; domestic violence. When they got there the mom had been arguing with the son. This is not a young kid or a young man. This is a 47-year-old man. When the cops get there, the mom and another son are trying to explain what's going on. That's when the young cops go in the back to try to talk to him and all hell breaks loose.

This guy comes out with a Glock that can fire multiple rounds very quickly. He shoots and kills one officer and one officer is still in very critical condition. Right now, cops are praying for a miracle that the other officer, Officer Mora, pulls through. The police commissioner hinted to it saying that he was going through some sort of crisis and the mom had called cops to help out.

Brian Lehrer: It was, you're saying, reported to the police as a domestic violence incident. Violence, not just a mental health crisis, on the part of the individual.

Dean Meminger: Exactly.

Brian Lehrer: Liz, the clips I played of the mayor, how did they illuminate his approach to so many headline-grabbing crimes since he took office, and for that matter, the ongoing crime wave since the pandemic?

Elizabeth Kim: It's very consistent with how he campaigned about not just crime but a lot of problems that are facing the city. It's that saying that he always likes to use is, "I'm going to go upstream," which is to say that he wants a holistic solution to something like public safety and cracking down on crime. He was very consistent as a candidate, and as mayor, he's really been no different.

I think the one thing that does stand out, but it also makes a lot of sense, is he's been very much a presence at the scene of all of these places where these violent crimes have been committed. You see him at NYPD briefings. I think I counted at least four vigils that he attended last week. He said at one of the vigils this is his chief issue. "I'm not sending out the troops. I'm on the front line." He's very much, from the beginning, put out this message that he's in charge, but that he also does understand that it demands a multifaceted approach.

Brian Lehrer: Yes. Here's another multifaceted both and clip in response to the recent crimes. This is Bronx Borough President Vanessa Gibson, who appeared with the mayor on Saturday.

Vanessa Gibson: "We cannot and we will not live in a borough of the Bronx in a city of New York in which violence determines our quality of life. We will not lose our young people to mass incarceration and the proliferation of guns. It is not acceptable. When children are shot in car seats, we have a problem. When children are shot dead in the street by other young people, we have a problem."

Brian Lehrer: The Bronx Borough President, Vanessa Gibson, with the mayor there on Saturday. She wants to stand firm both against crime and mass incarceration. This is not 1994, Dean. Rudy Giuliani's first year in office when he came in to fight crime, right?

Dean Meminger: No, no. Not at all. They need to make sure that these officers are trained correctly and they have the right message when they go out there. I understand today or this week there's going to be some shuffling around at 1PP, police headquarters. People having different jobs, the chiefs of transit, housing, and training. When they go out there we all know the stories. I'm a New York City boy, so I saw it during stop-and-frisk. My own family members, Brian, would call me in tears saying, "Dean, the cops keep stopping the boys and throwing them up against the fence when they come from school. What can we do?"

When you get that call from a family member in tears you're worried about it. I've often said this on many shows, that in many neighborhoods in New York City people are afraid of the criminals and afraid of the cops, and that is a heck of a way to have to live. They have to make sure that these cops are really targeting those who have the guns and not just stop everyone. Speak respectfully. If you think someone really has a gun, of course the whole method changes, but jumping out of Honda Accords, Toyota Camrys, minivans-- and people have said they're very nervous. You don't know who these people are. If you're from the city and some dude jumps out on you, even you Brian [crosstalk].

Brian Lehrer: In plain clothes?

Dean Meminger: Yes. Brian, if it happens to you in Upper Manhattan, Inwood, somebody jump out of the car, "Hey you," you run. Like the one guy said to the mayor, some of these young kids do have guns, so what's their reaction? They're going to pull out a gun. It's very delicate.

Brian Lehrer: Liz, that brings us to your headline that Adams faces a more difficult test on crime than previous mayors. Why do you think?

Elizabeth Kim: Well, it goes very much to what Dean was just talking about. Is that the mayor now has to thread the needle on lowering crime, but also ensuring that he can do it in a just and non-racist way. The other aspect that is unprecedented is the pandemic. The pandemic has really brought-- I would say it's inflamed a lot of triggers that are typically associated with rising crime, beginning with economic instability. A lot of economists have frequently talked about that there is a correlation between unemployment and the crime rate. Right now New York City, it's almost 9% unemployment, and it's more than double the national average.

That is one indicator, and that's something that people on the ground talk about too. I think at the roundtable on Saturday, you hear violence interrupters saying that it's not enough just to break up these disputes. You have to be able to offer people in these communities another opportunity, a job. That's something that the mayor is hearing on the ground as well.

Then to speak to the incident where the two officers were shot, the domestic violence incident, that yet again is something that has gone up amid the pandemic. There's a mental health crisis. Domestic violence complaints have gone up as well. The way I would describe it really is this kind of boiling crisis, but the dimensions of it are a lot more different than it was in the late '80s or 1990s. All mayors - it's true - all mayors have had to deal with crime, but this has become a lot more complex for Mayor Adams.

Brian Lehrer: Dean, were you trying to get in there?

Dean Meminger: Yes. I think it's just important when we have these conversations about crime. Just to remember, because we hear that argument "perception over reality," it depends on where you live. That's your reality. If you live in a tough neighborhood in the South Bronx or Brooklyn or Upper Manhattan where people are being robbed, stabbed, and shot, yes, you really feel unsafe. That's your reality. Others are seeing the news and they may live in safer neighborhoods, but the perception is that well, it's unsafe for them, but maybe there's been one murder in their precinct in the last year.

The one thing I want to point out is that remember, as you pointed out, this is not 1980 or 1990. In the early 1990s, more than 2,000 people per year were being killed in New York City. This last year, 2020 and 2021, we saw an increase; so a little over 400 people killed. That number's going up. In 2017 and 2018, we were below 300 people a year killed in New York City, a city of 8.6 million people. We have to be cautious not to scare people too much. We're New Yorkers, so your head should be on swivel, you should be paying attention, but it's not the days of the '70s, '80s, and '90s.

Brian Lehrer: Listeners, with Dean Meminger who has long covered crime in the NYPD for NY1, and Liz Kim, who covers mayoral power for WNYC and Gothamist. Our phones are open. Maybe if you knew Officer Jason Rivera, anybody out there want to say something? If you know the critically wounded shooter or the other critically wounded police officer, either of them, the shooter or the police officer, the officer Wilbert Mora, or if you have a question or comment about crime in New York right now, or anything about new policy responses from the new mayor, 212 433-WNYC, 212-433-9692, or tweet @BrianLehrer.

Dean, I read the email called "WHY I BECAME A POLICE OFFICER" by the slain officer, Jason Rivera, sent to the commanding officer of the police academy saying he wanted to fight the chaos in the city, but also help improve community relations after his brother was unjustly stopped and frisked and he saw things changing after that. Do you know why that email even existed? Is that part of a course for cadets at the police academy?

Dean Meminger: I'm not sure if that was - the one that was sent - his application because sometimes you have to write why you want to be in the department. I'm not sure if that was a part of his application, or once you're there for six months in training you have to do all of your coursework so he may have written it then. We have this perception that all officers are from Rockland County and Orange. I think it goes up and down, but about 50% of cops are actually from New York City. Like this young officer, 22 years old.

He saw how his brother was stopped and frisked, maybe wrongfully. That impacts you, so it was incredible to see him say, "You know what? I want to change it. I want to be in the department because I won't do that." I think we have a lot of police officers out there that feel the same way. That they can do a good job. I always tell people I would not want to be a police officer. It is a difficult, difficult job. He thought he was going in there to help people and he makes the ultimate sacrifice; gives his life, Brian.

Brian Lehrer: In your experience covering the NYPD, do you think that both sides' sentiment for why he joined the force is still relatively unusual today?

Dean Meminger: I don't know if that's the case in 2022. We know people join for a multitude of reasons. One, people just need a job. [chuckles] I think that's almost the worst reason to become a cop, but a lot of people do. It's a good job. After 20, 25 years you're only in your 40s, you retire and you walk away with half of your pension, or you come from a police family. I think there are a whole bunch of folks who always wanted to be police officers or wanted to help or realized they can help. I've heard that from a lot of people over the years, that they joined to help.

There's many reasons, but I've always said it's a tough job. If you don't want this job please do not take it because you can take someone's life. As a newsman, and I'll say this very quickly, I'm very careful on who I put on TV. If they don't want to be on TV I don't put them on TV, because they'll remember that the rest of their lives. If you ask me, "What story did you do last Thursday, Dean?" I won't remember. Police officers are the same way. They pull that gun on you and say, "Oh, sorry. You're the wrong person. Go ahead." You'll remember that for the rest of your life, Brian. Right?

Brian Lehrer: Yes.

Dean Meminger: Like, "Oh my God, the cop pulled a gun on me." That cop may not even remember it. I think you have to have a certain compassion and dignity about who you are. That's the problem then, if you want to get into it a little later, the plainclothes officers. I have the videos that the community sent to me. Some of these men and women were overly aggressive out there boxing people, and people trying to explain, "Wait, this is my son. We're doing nothing. We're just hanging out in front of our building."

They're barking military orders at them and people are like, "Wait. Who are you talking to? We live here." That turned into a fistfight with plainclothes officers, and that's what people are concerned about.

Brian Lehrer: Liz, before we get to some callers, we know some of the things the mayor ran on regarding crime or has said since his election. That new plainclothes anti-gun unit that Dean was just referring to. Allowing judges to order people charged with crimes held on the grounds of dangerousness even if they would otherwise be eligible for release on bail. Federal government gun control from DC said that in the clip. What are you expecting this rollout of a grand plan to be that the mayor is promising for this week?

Elizabeth Kim: I think it's going to be all of those things. I think he is going to repeat some of the things that he said already about wanting there to be more coordination between federal law enforcement and city and state when it comes to gun trafficking. He would like tougher restrictions at the federal level on gun buying. That's not something we're hearing from Washington right now.

The biggest expectation is not on all of these facts that are outside his control, but what he does control. I think the public wants to hear what is he going to do with the NYPD? How is he going to change policing? He's talked a lot about precision policing, for example, and using data. I think those are the details that he will be pressed to deliver today. If not today, very soon.

Brian Lehrer: Sam in South Brooklyn, you're on WNYC with Dean Meminger from NY1 and our Liz Kim. Hi, Sam.

Sam: Hi, good morning. I think Jason Rivera is a really interesting case for the direction that our police department is heading in. It's tragic that his story has to come to light under such circumstances. I teach at CUNY at John Jay College in music, which is an interesting place to teach, and [crosstalk].

Brian Lehrer: You teach music at a college of criminal justice?

Sam: That's right because we believe in a well-rounded education and making people human beings with multifaceted interests. He didn't go to John Jay, at least I don't know if he did, but I certainly teach a lot of up-and-coming cops. They're really coming from an incredibly diverse background here in New York City, which is of course the great hallmark of CUNY. That we are such a diverse campus community.

The point is that here is a individual who really represents the direction of our police force in New York City which we really want to bolster. We want to support and we want to push and positively reinforce that that is the direction that we want to see our police being representative of our very communities that they're policing. I can't say enough how much it seems valuable to me, as somebody who's working with this up-and-coming crowd for many years, that they're really getting out there on the streets and being part of the community and reflective of the community.

That we should not just take a tragedy like this to look at those kinds of positive biographies that are going to make the kinds of changes that we're looking for. We're very critical in a lot of conversations about policing these days in so many different ways. We're looking at police departments, somewhat monolithically, across the United States when here in New York City what we're seeing in the up and coming generation is exactly the kind of thing that we need to be supporting and get positive reinforcement.

Brian Lehrer: From your perch at John Jay, which does produce a lot of police officers, you see a rising generation of people with different values than the older generation of police.

Sam: Well, I can't speak too much to the older generation and their values because I didn't teach them, but I can say that this rising generation are clearly reflective of the diversity of our city. That is exactly the kind of thing that we want to be positively reinforcing in terms of the way that police are engaging with community. Tout that kind of biography, not wait for a tragic event like this always to point that out, but to say like, "Here's a young guy who, for all the reasons that he expressed in his email, led him to be on the police force that were to be a agent of positive change as a police officer-

Brian Lehrer: Same thing.

Sam: -and not as an antagonistic character in the community."

Brian Lehrer: Thank you so much for that view from a music teacher at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice. Maybe we'll get Juilliard's criminal professor calling up next, I don't know. Sam, thank you, thank you very much. We really appreciate it. David in the Bronx, you're on WNYC. Hi, David. Thank you for calling in.

David: Hi. Thank you for taking my call. One of the things that's hard to say but I think is something that everybody has to acknowledge as we try to have a more equitable city but also a safer city, is that in most cases when I turn on the news in the morning and you see an officer shot or somebody pushed from the train, it is an African American that is committing the crime. That's a very sad thing, and I think that has to be part of the conversation. It's not always the case, but it is a majority of the time, and I think we need to think about why is that happening.

It's a monumental task trying to figure out how do we make this a more equitable city and a safer city, but it is mostly African American men, mostly younger men coming from poor neighborhoods that are committing these crimes. I just wanted to bring that up as something that is just an obvious thing that I'm noticing.

Brian Lehrer: David, thank you very much. Liz, that's why Mayor Adams talks about the education of what he calls Black and brown youth as being such a critical component to fighting whatever percentage of crime there is in this city, and why he talks about anti-poverty and unemployment. He mentioned that over the weekend as well, right?

Elizabeth Kim: That's correct. I think there's no question that the mayor gets it right. If you want a mayor that understands that crime is multifaceted, that it's not just about putting more police officers on the street, Mayor Adams certainly understands that and he's spoken to that frequently. I think the criticism though is where is the policy to match his rhetoric? We're still less than a month in and maybe it's still too soon, and maybe he's developing those policies. That's probably what he would say, but I think there's a growing impatience around that.

Something like what the caller said, pointing to the fact that these are people that come from poor communities. These are exactly the communities that were hard hit by the pandemic. These are exactly the kinds of workers, hourly-paid workers, who were most impacted and lost their jobs. The question for Mayor Adams is then like, "If you understand this, where are the job training plans that you're bringing to those communities? What are the in-social investments that you're bringing to those communities?" I imagine that as more time goes on, those are the questions that the advocates are going to be pressing him on.

Brian Lehrer: 400 years of official and unofficial racism in the United States, let's not forget, leaving the country unequal. We know that communities with a lot of poverty, and where does the poverty come from, commit more violent crime than more affluent communities. Monica in Sunset Park, you're on WNYC. Hi, Monica.

Monica: Yes, good morning. I wanted to sort of throw in another, I don't know, monkey wrench into this. That all these issues, as largely as they are, are dealing with race and ethnicity history of our city, of our country. I have an anecdote of something that had nothing to do with race, with the behavior, the treatment of the police. White as middle America, white as one could imagine on the streets, though this person is not a middle America white, for 20, 22-year-old young man raised in Sunset Park.

Their neighbors saw him grow up, good student, college, he's home for a college break. Gets accosted, gets stopped by undercover police that were doing a drug detail in a park that, yes, there was a problem there. As it turns out, they cut him off as he's on his way to a jog, to a run wearing jogging clothes. Black, which happened to fit the profile that they had been told by their superior.

This person is wearing black, didn't say jogging clothes as it turns out, cut him off at the corner of 5th Avenue and 39th Street because witnesses supported the young man's version of what happened, because it's a very busy intersection and everybody is out there all day long - this is like middle of the day - and throw him against the wall, cuff him. I just keep saying, "What?" I spoke to people who I know hung out at the corner and yes, everything was how the young man laid it out. Throw him in the back of an armored car, bring him back to the park to their-- What I think the young man says-- they were calling this guy a sergeant.

Everybody in the detail, everybody is white, white, white. He has white police officers, a white suspect. The first thing the sergeant, or whatever, says to his own people, his own crew, "What, are you crazy? What, are you stupid? Does this guy fit the profile of what I told you?" You're like a eight-year-old looking down. Now, this is [crosstalk].

Brian Lehrer: Maybe that has something to do with race, but I think I get your point, Monica. I'm going to have to get a response from our guests just for a time, but you're talking about plainclothes police officers' excessive behavior, right? That was a case of that.

Monica: This is white on white. The officers were about maybe seven years older than the victim.

Brian Lehrer: Right. That's your point, is even white on white. Dean, you wanted to come back to this question of a new plainclothes unit. We know that in the past they've been associated with more police shootings than other units of the NYPD proportionately. Can Mayor Adams put together a plainclothes unit that is really different and still gets guns off the street and prevent crimes?

Dean Meminger: I guess he can. A shameless plug here from my Instagram and Twitter, @DeanMeminger, people are responding already to our conversation. Can the mayor change this? She pointed out a good point, your caller Brian, because I've often said it's not always Black, white, Hispanic, Asian. We have plenty of Asian officers in the NYPD now. More Hispanic officers than Black officers now. I often say it's the color blue, it's their uniform. Black officers can beat up Black people and white officers can beat up white people. Now, most officers are not doing that but that is the fear.

Eric Adams, he said he was brutalized by cops when he was a young teenager. Hopefully, he and his new police commissioner, we've left her out of the picture so far, but she is the new police commissioner, new to the NYPD. Hopefully, she has some say in this. That Eric Adams is not the de facto police commissioner here. I hear that they will put in some new training, interview people to make sure they're not bringing in hotheads. They want to get the guns off the street but they're hotheaded. They're not going to listen to anyone, they're just going to jump out and be aggressive.

They're full of muscles and tattoos and all that, to be stereotypical, but you'll look at some of these units and that's what you will see. They have to be careful about that. The cop with the mohawk going and full of muscles, and he's jumping out in the projects in Harlem, I don't know. You could be asking for a terrible situation here. People call them the undercover cops. A lot of kids I know, they will say, "Here come the overcover cops" because they stand out like a sore thumb sometimes. Like, "Oh, here comes the overcover." Some guy with some dirty jeans and beat-up sneakers. Nobody in our neighborhood dresses like that.

I want to say, because some people say, "Oh Dean, you're a cop hater." No. Definitely not, folks. I just think that it's a complicated situation. I just go back to that saying that I said earlier Brian, is that folks in certain neighborhoods are afraid of the criminals and afraid of the cops. That's just a heck of a way to have to live.

Brian Lehrer: Troy in Brooklyn, you're on WNYC. Hi, Troy. Troy, do we have you?

Troy: Yes.

Brian Lehrer: Hi there. You're on the air.

Troy: [unintelligible 00:34:40]

Brian Lehrer: Yes. Thanks for calling up.

Troy: Yes. It's just sad with this. It brings me to tears often. I see all the stuff that's going on with this kid that lost his life and just graduated the academy a few months ago.

Brian Lehrer: We don't have a great connection. Did you tell our screen-

Troy: I'm sorry. [crosstalk]

Brian Lehrer: -you are currently an NYPD officer?

Troy: Yes.

Brian Lehrer: Thank you for coming up.

Troy: Can you hear me?

Brian Lehrer: Yes. Now we can hear you better. Go ahead.

Troy: All right. Yes. I was just saying that it's sad that this young man lost his life just graduating a few months out of the academy. The challenge, again, with everything that we do in the city is a matter of training and it's got to take time. Everybody wants results. I know the mayor's going to come out with a plan and I hope that it's a balanced and long-term plan, but again, when these things happen and people want results, you send people out there trying to get results and then something bad happens, in reference to someone else being shot, because our officers are a little more tentative and afraid.

It goes back to training and it goes back to a lot of these bad decisions that we made coming out of the-- Black Lives Matter movement has caused more crimes especially in minority communities, it's caused the increase in violence. Now we've had so many laws changed, and as a result of it, placed so much more liability on our police officers that police officers are easier not to get involved into stuff and not to do enforcement because now I'm taking a risk of getting sued.

I'm taking a risk of getting all of these things that are involved now that you have to account for. Should I do this? Should I not do this? If I don't do this, then it's probably easier because now I don't have to worry about getting sued and I can go home.

It's so challenging that people don't understand that we want to take one situation that happened in another state and change the laws here in New York and place so much liability on a job that's so dangerous. They shouldn't have been walking to that doorway based on training. I don't know what they were trained to do, but you shouldn't have been walking to it.

Brian Lehrer: To the back bedroom where the guy then came out-

Troy: Yes.

Brian Kehrer: -and shot them on Friday night. Why would that be against training? Explain it to us.

Troy: Technically, it's a fatal funnel. There's no cover, there's no place for you to go. The proper thing to do, stand to the side. "Hey, have your family member come out so I could see that he's unarmed and he's okay. If he chooses not to come out, then we have a barricaded situation, we'll call ESU, we'll back out." Walking towards that is the mindset "I'm trying to help." I understand that, and it is so sad because I could see in his video posting and his demeanor that's what he was probably trying to do. Tactically, it was definitely unsafe and it goes back to training.

I don't know what's going on in the academy. They're coddling a lot of these officers so much now just to get them out because people don't want this job - you know what I'm saying? - as opposed to preparing them. Again, I don't know what's going on in the academy, but these are things that need to be addressed wholeheartedly.

Brian Lehrer: I hear. That's really interesting. I hadn't heard it previously about that decision to walk toward that door, the back of the apartment. Troy, can I ask you one more follow-up question on something you said? If police officers are wary of getting involved now in some cases in which they should get involved to help prevent a crime because of the fear of getting sued, but you put that in the context of because of something happened in another state. Maybe you're referring to George Floyd.

You heard our last caller from Sunset Park. You know how much stop-and-frisk put the community back on its heels, so many people over the years in this city. It's not just something that happened in another state. In your experience, how do you think you can thread that needle between not being excessive and at the same time doing what needs to be done?

Troy: With proper training. This is the thing that people, we have to get-- There was a big shift and I'm sure you noticed it. It was in the city when Police Commission Bratton took over. He took over because he wasn't ingrained. Even though he was in the police department before, he wasn't ingrained in the system. When he came over there were so many changes. Like things that we weren't able to do because we had 12 years of Commissioner Kelly. Everything had to be done and approved by him.

Not to speak ill of him, you know what I'm saying, but there was a change. Something was able to be done. People were able to be changed and moved. I'm so grateful that the police commissioner that we have now is not from New York City because, again, we would have just been not the same. We have these people that have been in the police department for 30 years, ingrained in the same mindset, and going back to doing things like how they used to do it. They don't advance because when they went into the academy it was totally different.

We need fresh thoughts, fresh ideas. We need the coordination between training and the DA's office so that officers can properly, truthfully prosecute cases without having to thread the needle of truth and lie, and do things properly with body cams and stuff. These are problems that the DA's office have when, "Okay, where's your body cam?" "Oh, we don't have it." The case gets thrown out automatically because there's no body cam. Now the person goes back out on the street to get another gun. Let's figure out a way to effectively do policing under proper training.

Brian Lehrer: Troy, thank you so much for your call. We really appreciate it. Stay safe out there, and thank you very much for calling up. We're going to run out of time in a few minutes, but Dean, I think I heard you reacting as that officer was talking. What were you thinking?

Dean Meminger: Yes. That's something that is being investigated or should be investigated. Should they have gone down that hallway where you can't get out? There's something we heard with Deborah Danner - I've been covering that - where the officer, unfortunately, killed a mentally ill senior citizen. They went into an area where they couldn't back out. They'll be looking into that. Can they change that in the future to save lives?

Also, we had two rookie officers together with another cop who didn't have that much experience, all going to a domestic violence call. Which cops will tell you, that's one of the most dangerous calls you can really go to because everyone in the family is upset. They need to look at a lot of those issues here. Hopefully, safety can come out of this tragic situation.

Brian Lehrer: Liz, before we go, I want to play two clips of one more speaker who appeared with the mayor right after the killing on Friday night. It was the police union chief Pat Lynch. He used the spotlight that the mayor gave him to basically ask people to vote for pro-police political candidates. Listen.

Pat Lynch: "We're going to carry a New York City police officer out of this hospital, and we're going to salute the best we can. We're going to do the best we can and we're going to line the church in front of that church, synagogue, mosque and do the best we can, but after that conversation that's real. Laws that are real. Support that's real, not press conferences. Let's get voting, give us what we need."

Brian Lehrer: Let's get voting, give us what we need. We know the PBA, the union, was supporting the head of the Queens Republican Party for the City Council seat that she won this past November. Why did the mayor have Pat Lynch there for you covering mayoral power? It's obvious and understandable in one way when it's one of your union members who has just been murdered and, of course, it's a dangerous job always, but he's also considered to be such an antagonist by so many community members where there's a heavy police presence.

Elizabeth Kim: Up until this point I have seen Pat Lynch at all of these briefings where there is a police officer that is injured, so it didn't completely surprise me that at a briefing where a police officer had died that he would have Pat Lynch there. One important thing to note about Adams though is that even before he came to office he started talking about how he felt he needed to change the morale of the NYPD. Actually the caller, Troy, speaks to that, is that a lot of officers' morale is down.

One thing that Mayor Adams said-- even before he came into office he said, "I've got your back," and that's something that you see him also repeating on the ground too when he's out there at press conferences. At those press conferences lately, you will hear him speaking as much to the public but he's also speaking to the NYPD, kind of like rallying the troops. I don't know if he's delivered on this promise, but before he came into office he had promised that he would visit every single NYPD precinct in the city.

Brian Lehrer: After de Blasio did not have Pat Lynch, after two officers were murdered in a very different incident in 2014, de Blasio lost the rank and file quickly. Maybe he was going to lose them anyway, but maybe Adams is playing a long game here, almost over the head of Pat Lynch for rank and file respect. Dean, one more from Pat Lynch Friday night, the one making some news.

Pat Lynch: "We will stand patch to patch and bury up our brother. We will bow our heads in sadness, but we need you too. The streets can't just be full of New York City police officers at this funeral. The public has to come."

Brian Lehrer: Dean, in our last 30 seconds, why is he calling on the public to attend the funeral which will be Friday at St. Patrick's Cathedral? Is that unusual?

Dean Meminger: Well, I think he's been talking to the public as well trying to push back against politicians he may look at as progressive or to the left saying, "You need to stand with us because these are your lives on the line." I think the one thing we are seeing is that Eric Adams, he is trying to pull the union in so that they don't push back against him, but Pat Lynch also sees that, well, Eric Adams is talking to everyone. You have to be cautious as well. If he's talking about unity, you can't be talking about, "Well, I'm against the mayor and I'm against the people." At the end of the day, it is safety for all of us who live and work in New York City.

Brian Lehrer: Dean Meminger anchors and covers the NYPD and crime for Spectrum News NY1. Liz Kim is of course our political reporter covering mayoral power. See her great work all the time on Gothamist as well as hear it on the radio. Liz and Dean, thank you so much for giving us so much time today when you're both so involved in covering the aftermath of this story.

Dean Meminger: Thank you.

Elizabeth Kim: Thanks, Brian.

 

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