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TalkBack Live

Police Tactics in Black, White and Blue

Aired March 17, 2000 - 3:00 p.m. ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DAVID ARMSTRONG, LOUISVILLE MAYOR: I appointed a chief to run the department the way I want it ti be run.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I feel that the mayor has made a mistake in firing the chief. I think that it was a mistake from the day one.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BOBBIE BATTISTA, HOST: Police at odds are with the mayor and some city residents at odds with police: Racial and political tensions have the city of Louisville, Kentucky in turmoil. Police and their supporters are protesting the firing of Police Chief Gene Sherrard. Mayor Dave Armstrong fired Sherrard after he gave commendations to two white officers involved in the shooting death of an unarmed black suspect. The officers offered to return their awards in the name healing racial tensions, but some in the city want to know why the officers were honored in the first place, and can they ever trust the police?

Good afternoon, everyone, and welcome to TALKBACK LIVE.

It was not your usual rally under way in Louisville, Kentucky, today, lots of speeches in support of the police, a peaceful protest. But at the heart of it, a problem with police, accusations of excessive force, police getting awards for questionable conduct.

Joining us now first today is the Reverend James Meeks, national vice president of the Rainbow PUSH coalition, and on the phone with us is Officer David James, vice president of the Louisville Fraternal Order of Police lodge six.

Let me start with Officer James if I could.

That rally just ended a short time ago. Could you give us a feel for the mood there today?

DAVID JAMES, LOUISVILLE FRATERNAL ORDER OF POLICE: Hello?

BATTISTA: Yes, Officer James, can you hear me?

JAMES: Yes, I can hear you now. BATTISTA: Can you give me -- that rally that just ended a short time ago, the FOP rally, can you give us an idea of the mood at that rally today?

JAMES: It was very festive, a very happy mood. The community was marching with the police, and we were just making some statements and expressing our right to free speech.

BATTISTA: Were there calls for the mayor's resignation or the reinstatement of the police chief at the rally?

JAMES: Yes, there were. There were calls for the mayor's resignation and there were calls for the chief to be reinstated.

BATTISTA: How would you characterize right now the relationship between the mayor and the police in Louisville?

JAMES: Horrible: The mayor has demoralized the police department and has really put the police in a not-good situation.

BATTISTA: When you say he demoralized the police department, you mean because he fired Chief Sherrard.

JAMES: He fired the chief; he boycotted the awards ceremony; he's made some derogatory statements about the police department, which were not true and had no statistical data to back it up, in order to save his own political career.

BATTISTA: Well, let me ask you then, why were awards given to these two police officers who were involved in a questionable shootout?

JAMES: They were given to -- hello?

BATTISTA: Yes.

JAMES: They were given to -- the awards were given to the officers -- there are several different categories of awards. Each award has its own particular criteria. The committee of 13 members that look at different incidents that occur here looked at the incident that they were involved in. And the particular award they got was for exceptional valor. And that award is given to officers who are placed in extreme human danger, life-threatening situations, and they survive the ordeal.

BATTISTA: At the same time, these officers were cleared of any criminal wrongdoing in that incident. But a separate investigation by the city found that there were some problems with the tactics that they employed that could have avoided getting them in that situation to begin with, correct?

JAMES: No, that is not correct. What actually occurred was that there was a grand jury investigation and a coroner's investigation and an internal affairs investigation. Colonel Racucci (ph), the safety director, issued a report that he wrote based on the grand jury investigation. BATTISTA: Did you think it was appropriate for them to receive those awards?

JAMES: It was appropriate for the officers to receive those awards because they fit within the criteria. However, as the chief even admitted himself, the timing of giving those awards was a mistake.

BATTISTA: Let me bring Reverend Meeks in at this particular time.

You were in Louisville earlier this week, Reverend, meeting with folks there. What's your take on this situation?

REVEREND JAMES MEEKS, RAINBOW/PUSH COALITION: Well, just the nature of what we have even before us today, for the Louisville police to be able to use Officer James as a spokesperson is a basic smoke screen in the fact that Louisville has 33 percent residents African- American and less than 1 percent of its hierarchy in the command of the police structure is actually African-American.

I had a chance to go to that crime scene. I had a chance to look at the situation the officers called grave danger. These men shot this young man down in cold blood. They shot him 22 times. He was in a vehicle. The vehicle was wedged between a telephone poll and a pylon poll. It was stuck in mud. They shot both tires out. There is no way that young man could have run over them if they had just kept their cool. And on top of all that, the victim was unarmed. He was shot at 22 times. His finger tips were shot off, which means that he was trying to defend himself. He was holing his hands up saying, whatever you do, don't shoot. According to all of the eye witnesses, he said, don't shoot. Please don't shoot me. They shot his fingertips off. This young man was assassinated.

BATTISTA: Do you think this is an isolated case here, or do you think it's indicative of deeper problems within the Louisville police department?

JAMES: I think it's indicative of problems we have throughout America, with the Diallo case, where this young man was shot 42 times standing in the doorway of his home unarmed. I understand that a young man was shot in New York last night at point-blank range, unarmed.

The tragedy here is all these shootings, the police keep saying that they're accidental or they shouldn't have happened. They're only happening to African-American youth who are unarmed. There have been no cases of accidental shootings where white males were killed or young white kids were shot down in the street. And something has to be done, and we have to look into the situation and do it immediately.

BATTISTA: Let me let Officer James respond.

JAMES: OK, first of all, Reverend Meeks, glad to see you again -- or talk to you again. Number one, as I have told the reverend before, he was not shot 22 times. And that's the main problem with this whole thing is that people are jacking off at the mouth, saying things that they don't know about because they have not reviewed all the files. And he was not shot 22 times, number one.

Number two, he was armed. He was armed with a vehicle, and he was attempting to run the officers over, and they defended themselves as state law says that they can. Number three, I wouldn't know if a white American has been caught into the same situation because, quite frankly, we only hear about it when an African-American does it. But, you know, we did do some research, and about four years the same exact incident occurred. But, you know, the only difference was the officer was white and the suspect was white. And I'm not the spokesperson for the local police department, I am the elected vice president of the Fraternal Order of Police.

MEEKS: He was not shot 22 times, he was shot at 22 times.

JAMES: He was shot 10 times.

MEEKS: He was shot at 22 times. The vehicle was...

JAMES: The vehicle was shot at also...

MEEKS: The vehicle...

JAMES: ... OK? So don't say that he was shot at 22 times.

BATTISTA: Were the tires blown out of the vehicle?

JAMES: The tires were shot also...

MEEKS: And the vehicle...

JAMES: ... and that did not stop the vehicle, nor did it stop the suspect from attempting to run over the officers.

MEEKS: The vehicle was not moving. The vehicle was stuck in the mud where...

JAMES: The vehicle was not stuck in the mud. Once again, you are incorrect. When you get correct statements and correct facts, Reverend, with all due respect, I will listen to you. But do not say things that are incorrect on the air when you have no idea of what the truth is.

MEEKS: Officer James, I was at the scene. I interviewed, I talked to witnesses that were there. Are you saying on national television that that vehicle was moving?

JAMES: (UNINTELLIGIBLE) took place, so do not tell me you were there at the scene. You were there at the location after it occurred months later.

MEEKS: You are exactly correct.

BATTISTA: I don't...

MEEKS: If you're saying...

BATTISTA: Gentlemen, I don't think we're...

MEEKS: If you're saying the vehicle was moving, that's all I want to know.

JAMES: The vehicle was rocking back and forth, OK? That is called movement. Dirt was flying, the wheels were spinning. He was trying to run over the officers.

MEEKS: The vehicle was not moving. It was stuck in the mud.

JAMES: The vehicle was moving. It was not stuck in the mud.

BATTISTA: Yes, we're not going to resolve that -- this issue right here...

JAMES: No, we're not.

BATTISTA: ... so if I can move it forward, the mayor also evidently suggested that he thought there might be some problems with racial profiling within the Louisville Police Department. This is certainly not a problem unique to Louisville.

Officer James...

JAMES: Yes.

BATTISTA: ... do you believe that to be a problem?

JAMES: You know, if the mayor were to ask, what would be some of the current concerns of African-Americans in this community, he could say, well, some of the concerns are drugs, economy -- hello, can you hear me?

BATTISTA: Yes, go ahead.

JAMES: Economy and joblessness and profiling, OK? Those are some of the concerns that I hear from African-Americans in the neighborhood. But for the mayor to say outright that there's a problem with profiling in Louisville, Kentucky, just drive a black face down Louisville, Kentucky, and see how often you get pulled over, that is totally, totally out of line for the mayor to say when he does not know that. In fact, in fact, the statistics that we have show that in a population of 30 percent African-Americans, approximately in the city. that 7 percent actually got pulled over and stopped by the police.

So, he was very much incorrect, and that only occurred after he was asked, did you have the power as the mayor of the city to stop those awards from being given? And if so, why did you not do that? And the mayor was unable to answer those questions. The next thing you know, there is racial profiling in Louisville, Kentucky, from the mayor. That was only to save his political career and divide the city by distracting from the real issue at hand, which was the firing of the chief. BATTISTA: Are you saying you do not think that racial profiling exists on the Louisville Police Department?

JAMES: I did not say that racial profiling has never occurred on the Louisville Police Department. I'm not saying that it has never, ever happened. I'm saying that it is not a large problem like the mayor says it is. Our officers go through specific training, dealing with such issues, OK? And they are trained specifically not to do racial profiling.

BATTISTA: Reverend Meeks, then, why do you think it's a big enough problem to warrant the call for a federal investigation?

MEEKS: Well, not only is there racial profiling in Louisville -- in the city of Louisville, there's racial profiling even among the hierarchy of the police department.

Officer James just said that there are 30 percent residents who live in the city of Louisville. Why is it then that less than 1 percent of the command structure of the Louisville police is African- American? From the chief down through his top nine lieutenants are all Caucasian Americans in a city that's 30 percent African-American. That's racial profiling right there.

Officer James also said, the citizens on the street believe that there is racial profiling. If there's racial profiling in the hierarchy, if there's racial profiling in the city of Louisville, all of us should know that this is a problem not just in Louisville but all over America.

JAMES: David James did not say that citizens believe that there's racial profiling in the city. And there are African-Americans in the command structure.

BATTISTA: I got to take a break at this time, gentlemen. We'll continue here in just a moment.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BATTISTA: Let me ask one final question to our two guests.

Officer James, do you think that the city of Louisville is going to be able to move beyond this? What do you think the outcome will be?

JAMES: A lot of the outcome will depend on the mayor. However, I hope the city can move forward and heal and come together as a community and all those things.

BATTISTA: And, Reverend Meeks, your thoughts?

MEEKS: I think that the mayor did the right thing. It was awfully insensitive of a police chief to give awards to policemen who had been involved in a questionable shooting. That just did not show good judgment. And I think that the mayor, in order to calm any kind of racial tension there in Louisville, I think he did the right thing. And for the officers to not understand that is just for the officers to basically see what they are programmed to see.

BATTISTA: Reverend Meeks, Officer James, thank you both so much for joining us today.

Let me go to the audience quickly here to the back row.

LOUIS: Louis.

BATTISTA: Louis.

LOUIS: I was going say that the question to me is intent. I feel like that if the police chief really cared about the African- American community, which he serves, he would have thought about them when giving two police officers awards for shooting an unarmed black man.

BATTISTA: All right, Louis, thanks.

And as we explore the Kentucky police shooting, and other cases of alleged police misconduct, we're invited several authors to join us today who write about their experiences in a world divided by color and power.

Joining us, the Reverend Michael Eric Dyson, a Baptist preacher and communications professor at DePaul University. His latest book is "I May Not Get There With You: The True Martin Luther King Junior." His previous books include "Race Rules: Navigating the Color Line."

Also with us is Robert Tanenbaum, a former New York prosecutor and author. His latest book, coming out in July, is titled "True Justice."

And on the phone with us from Philadelphia is Lisa Scottoline, a trial lawyer and author of legal thrillers. Her latest novel is "Moment of Truth." Lisa recently graduated from the civilian police academy.

All right, welcome to all of you.

And, Reverend Dyson, let me start with you.

What -- this is not the first time we've done a show on this sort of thing. What's going on here? And is this happening more and more frequently?

REV. MICHAEL ERIC DYSON, AUTHOR, "I MAY NOT GET THERE": Yes it is. I think it's the persistence of a set of stereotypes, beliefs, biases and prejudices that continue to color or distort the lens through which policemen view African-American citizens.

We're living in the aftermath of the Diallo case in New York, where we see again that black life is not respected, the fundamental integrity of black life is not acknowledged, and that black people have to be afraid that if they're simply trying to defend themselves by showing their wallets or proving that they are not the thugs or the criminals, they are subjected to all kinds of arbitrary force and violence by the police.

I, myself, as an African-American man, have been stopped countless times, numerous times, by policemen, and I feel the fear and adrenaline that rushes through all of our bodies regardless of color. But the extra added burden for me is that if I make the wrong move or quirky move than that will be interpreted as something that is fundamentally hostile to these police and, therefore, I might be subjected to death.

BATTISTA: I hear you painting a broad brush over police departments. Do you intend to do that?

DYSON: Well, I think that if you look at the numbers: Is it acceptable that if 10 white men were arbitrarily murdered by the police over the last several years, would we be talking about a trend that white men need to be more careful about themselves, or would we be suggesting that there's something wrong and lethal at the heart of the police department?

No, I'm not suggesting that all or even most policemen are the problem, but it only takes one policemen to kill another person. And the accumulation of the deaths of African-American people suggest to us that we're not doing a good enough job.

It is not that police are our enemies, it is that the mentality of many policemen shares in the mentality of the larger society. Why do we think that policemen somehow will be exempt from some of the same prejudices and biases that circulate in the larger community? We don't recruit these men from Mars. They come from New York, Philadelphia, Detroit, Chicago, Atlanta. They come from the mainstream of the beliefs about African-American people in this society.

And when we are talk about racial profiling, we're talking about a longer history than something immediate and recent. We're talking about the accumulation of beliefs about a certain set of people where some people should be subordinate to others or some people are inferior to others. And those things manifest themselves with lethal intensity when it comes to interactions between many policemen and the African-American community.

BATTISTA: Robert, are there some fundamental problems within police departments, particularly concerning race, that aren't being addressed?

ROBERT TANENBAUM, FORMER NEW YORK PROSECUTOR: There's no question about that. The reverend is right -- both reverends are right, the Reverend Meeks and Reverend Dyson. This is a serious cancer that's permeated our entire culture, and the culture of the police departments have to change. They can't just simply say, as they say, to justify these unlawful stops, these unlawful shootings, that most of the crime is committed by blacks, therefore -- and between the ages of teenage years and about 35, and therefore, we're justified in stopping these people and trying to prevent crime, if you will, and/or arrest somebody who is in the course of committing a crime.

The Diallo case, it's tragedy beyond that which an innocent, decent human being was killed, is that the very the individual, Mr. Diallo, who the police are supposed to be protecting in a high-crime area winds up getting killed in his own house. Now why is this happening? One of the reasons is that there is now countervailing authority. The prosecutors have dropped the ball around the country. They're not bringing to justice these kinds of cases, and the police understand that they're completely in control, which is exactly wrong. You need independent, apolitical prosecutors who are going to look at all these cases, fairly evaluate them and bring to justice those people in the police department who are breaking the law. In addition to which, the so-called good cop has to feel that he can, without fear, go to an independent prosecutor and really tell the people who are committed these crimes in the police department who are corrupt cops, because if they don't do that, then they're not doing their job, so called good cops, and they're really not good cops, are they? Because they're turning their back on fellow police officers who are corrupt, and that's intolerable.

BATTISTA: What you're saying, yes, is police are not, in your opinion, able to police each other.

Lisa, you just graduated from the police academy, and you're a former trial lawyer. What's your perspective on this?

LISA SCOTTOLINE, AUTHOR, "MOMENT OF TRUTH": Well, I graduated from the civilian police academy so that I could better understand police procedure, and I hate to disagree with everybody, but I think that it's really important to realize, the reverend has a wonderful point, which is police are subject to the same environment that we all live in, and I don't see it particularly, and completely in terms of color. So if a policeman is in a crime-ridden neighborhood, in which he knows there are a lot of very heavy-fire weaponry floating around, he's inclined to be very, very nervous.

And knowing what I know about police procedure, I'm really disinclined to be so judgmental. I mean, there's evidence that Diallo -- a bystander said he has a gun. The man reached for his pocket. And as tragic as that case was, I understand what the police did.

Now I think there's a lot of things wrong with police procedure. I think approaching someone in plain clothes is really a wrong procedure and has to change. It may have made sense 20 years ago, but it doesn't in multicultural urban areas, not in the least, and that's a the problem with Diallo. But really hesitate to see things strictly in terms of race.

BATTISTA: That was a problem in New York again recently, by the way, the plain clothes issue.

SCOTTOLINE: It's an important one, too. Actually, every day undercover cops get shot by other undercover cops, because everyone is running around in plain clothes. Something has to be addressed.

DYSON: But look what the happened in Providence, Rhode Island, where an off-duty policemen was murdered by two other policemen, one which he went to academy with. The point is, the point that Ms. Scottoline made, is extraordinarily important, and that is to say that these policemen are part of the larger fabric of our society, but that if they thought of them as being brandished, then somehow they responded. Well, when white Americans are assumed to have a gun, they are not shot down with a hail of bullets -- 22 bullets shot at the gentleman in Kentucky, 41 bullets at Mr. Diallo and a hail of bullets in many other cases across the country.

Here's the point, that there's an intimate relationship between stereotype and vision about who black people are, and the manifestation of that belief in the police practice, and it seems to me time and again, it is beyond chance. It would be one thing if it happened once or twice or three times, but these case have been repeated time and time again. African American people who are well- intended, well-meaning, who possess themselves with exemplary deportment, end up being murdered, and shot and harassed and beat-up by the very policemen who are supposed to protect and serve us. And I'm saying that until we get the larger racial animus in check, the police themselves will continue to tap into that deep vein of bigotry that informs and even distorts they're perception about who black people are.

BATTISTA: Let me get to the audience here quickly before we go to break -- Sureme (ph).

SUREME: Yes. I just want to say two things. The first is that, you know, we can't take two wrongs and make it a right. We have to deal with the first wrong, and that is, if we are going to deal with anything, we must have knowledge, and when I say this to all the youth in America, not just black or white, learn the laws. Go to the library. Pick up a book and learn what's going on around you. Learn what the police department is doing. And if you learn that, then they'll back up off you sometimes. Because if you know what you know, then no one can take that away from you, and that's the truth.

BATTISTA: I'm going to take this opportunity to take a break. We'll continue in just a moment. We'll also talk with author Richard Price, right after this.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BATTISTA: We're back.

Let me bring another voice into this conversation. On the phone with us is author and screenwriter Richard Price. Among his books, "Freedom Land: The Wanderers" and "Clockers."

Richard, thanks for joining us.

RICHARD PRICE, AUTHOR: You're welcome.

BATTISTA: Two of your best, in my humble opinion, "Freedom Land" and "Clockers," both dealt with issues of race in a fictional natural American city -- maybe not so fictional.

Is this, in your mind, a black and white issue, or a black and blue issue or a good cop, bad cop issue?

PRICE: Well, I think it's black an white, obviously. I mean, it's American History. But I think, moreso, it's a black and blue issue, because if you look at the incidents of unjustified shootings, you know, oftentimes, you know, the cops, you know, will be Hispanic or black also. I think cops are empiricists. I mean, they see where they are. They have experiences in a certain neighborhood, and they're ready for Freddie. I mean, so, I mean, yes it's black and white, but I think it's also cops who are perceived as an occupying army, and whoever occupies the poor neighborhood in which they patrol.

BATTISTA: You know, you try, when you write your books, successfully, to get into the heads of your characters, whether they're black or white, and that's a completely different perspective, and there are perceptions of the police that are uniquely -- belong uniquely to each race. So what do you find when you get in there?

PRICE: What do I find?

BATTISTA: When you find when you climb into the different mindsets of a white person and a black person?

PRICE: Well, I mean you know, I'm white myself, so it's sort of a grounder for me to emphasize with a white person. Look, I'm obviously not black. I'm never going to be black. I don't what it's like to walk the Earth in a black skin. However, if you spend time in a certain areas, there are certain surface realities, you know, which are fairly obvious, and there's certain surface outrages and not so subtle -- I mean, not so obvious encounters that, you know, can give you a sense of what it's like.

But the thing with the cops, once again, is that they go into an area, and basically they want to get home in one piece. They see a black kid running. Now they don't know if that black kid is running from a robbery, or running home for dinner or running home to study for his physics exam. They see a black kid running, they know they've seen other black kids running in the past, there's been trouble. They're going to stop that kid. They're not going to let that kid go. And if it turns out that the kid is running because he's late for something, that kid will be trembling with rage, and the cop will be, more or less, apologetic afterwards, and life will go on.

But you know, it's their experience in that neighborhood that's going make them do that.

DYSON: See, I think that Mr. Price is exactly right, that the everyday forms of brutality that people endure, not simply when a broomstick is shoved up somebody's behind, as it was Abner Louima by the cops, it's the everyday incidents of racial brutality and intimidation. This is why so much of hip-hop culture is chock full of police brutality. When You heard Tupac pack say, "Just the other day I got lynched by some crooked cops, and to this day, they're on the beat getting major pay, but when I get my check, they're taking tax out, so we're paying the cops to knock the blacks out." Or, as Mr. Price already said, it's not simply black and white; it's black and blue. One rap lyric says, "And don't let it be a black and white one, because they'll throw you down to the street top, black police showing out for the white cop."

So there's something about the aggression and rage of any policeman in relationship to the large community that they are to police, but the everyday existence of black people who are intimidated, who are threatened, who feel that their lives are at stake if the police stop them, check them down.

When I've had policemen stop me and they found out I did not rob, or steal, or murder or mug, often they don't apologize to me. Often they don't say, I'm so sorry, forgive me. They just say, "Just make sure you keep yourself in check." And I think that's intimidation of the highest order that needs to be undermined and needs to be stopped.

BATTISTA: Got to take a break. I'll get to you guys in the back row right after this message.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BATTISTA: Let me get a little bit of audience reaction to our topic today.

Clarence is from South Africa.

CLARENCE: Yes, Bobbie, I am.

BATTISTA: And your feelings on this whole issue as you listen to all of this?

CLARENCE: I would like to say that I don't believe in bad administration. I firmly stand for clean administration, but I think the whole issue of the incident of killing a black youth is being pulled out of context. We must look at South Africans -- Americans as Americans, not as black Americans or white Americans. Don't over emphasize the black-white issue. Look at the wrongs which were done and clean up the administration within the police force and stop making it a racial issue.

BATTISTA: And over here to the other side.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Hi. I want to make a public appeal to America. Please, something has to be done by this, because before you know, half the population will be wiped out by police brutality. It's not worth it, OK? When I see the cops, I'm sorry to say, but I'm afraid. And it shouldn't be like that, so I'm begging America, please make a difference.

BATTISTA: It's so simple, I think, to say, don't make it a racial issue. But clearly it's not going to go away because we say that.

DYSON: No, not at all at all. I don't want it to be a racial issue. When I get up and walk down the street or countless black people walk down the street, we're not trying to be racial profiled. We don't want people to subject us to their scrutiny, to the distorting lenses of race, so it's not a matter of my choice, it's the reality in a society that continues to see you as a black person. When people look at me, my son going to the mall, they look at him as a member of a group, a group of young black people who may intimidate them, who may menace them, who may steal something from them, who may be part of a gang. So when Richard Price was saying that when you see a kid running down the street, what do you think? You don't think he's going to do the physics homework. A lot of people probably said, oh no, the kid's not going to do the physics homework. We're thinking there's something going on.

So I think it's one thing for this gentlemen to talk about South Africa. If you look at the history of South Africa, South Africa is a poor example of being able to transcend and overcome the black-white divide.

BATTISTA: When we get to looking at solutions, we've done this show many times, unfortunately, in the last month or so, and, Robert, one of the things that always comes out is -- and the mayor of Louisville saying the same thing: more education, more trailing, sensitivity training, diversity training. Can this work?

TANENBAUM: Well, it's part of the answer, but the major part of the answer is -- and by the way, we can't wait in order to answer the question to change the entire culture of America, because the racism in America is so endemic and part of our history which is so shameful that we really have to deal with this issue aggressively right now, and make these police officers accountable, and how do we do that? We need special prosecutors in our city dealing with the criminal justice system, and the police will know that these prosecutors are not out to make a case, but when they use their weapon, which should be used as a last, last, last resort, not the first engagement procedure, so that the rules of engagement are very clear, and special prosecutors who will be independent, apolitical will be able to deal with these cases, and the police will understand that there are going to be serious questions with respect to every time they use their weapons.

BATTISTA: And, Richard -- Robert, that's a good suggestion from you, but yes, I was going to say, everybody wants to deal with this issue, but nobody knows how to.

PRICE: You know, I mean, first of all, the guy from South Africa saying don't make it a racial issue, that's saying something like, well if it's something between men and women, does it always have to be a sexual issue. Well of course. I mean, it's just inextricably tied in.

In terms of, well, the things that you do on a policy or administrative level, that's one thing. But basically you're dealing with human nature. And you can't legislate against human nature. You know, and it's not like, you know, there are guidelines, and that's going to change the human heart. You know, I mean, you've got a situation where it is -- I mean, Michael Thomas, I think said this a long time ago, that, you know, in poor neighborhoods police are perceived as an occupying army. The flip side of that from the policeman's point of view is he feels as sort of alienated and on edge, you know, looking at himself in that environment. He's going in there, and he's saying, well, what am I doing? I went into this housing project, I risked my life, I locked up a kid selling drugs, I took a knife off somebody, or I took a gun off somebody, this, that, and I do this, my life is at risk, and nobody's applauding. Nobody's giving me a thumb's up. He doesn't understand. That's because of all the other times, you know, that you went in there and, you know, you stopped the kid running home to eat.

It's a, you know, it's a class action insult to all the people in the housing projects. What the police consider, you know, survival attitude is an insult to the people there and vice-versa. I mean, I feel like, you know, it's very hard to come together. Everybody feels like the victim.

BATTISTA: Good point.

I've got to take another break. As we do, a comment from Stephanie, who's from Louisville.

STEPHANIE: I just want to point out that this is a societal problem. Everyone keeps talking about what should the police do to work on this, and unfortunately the police are members of a society, and society emphasizes this view. And until the society corrects its problems, its members aren't going to be able to correct the problem individually.

BATTISTA: Back in a moment.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BATTISTA: Let me take a look at some polls real quickly. There was a Gallup poll taken in December of last year. When asked the question, have you ever felt that you were stopped by police just because of your race or ethnic background, 42 percent of blacks said yes, 6 percent of whites said yes. The numbers were much higher, of course, among black men aged 18 to 34, 72 percent in that category. Seventy-two percent felt they had been stopped on the basis of race.

DYSON: I think that's a reality.

BATTISTA: Well, let's talk about, because we have not, in the few moments we have left -- and, Richard, let me start with you on this one, the role that the media plays in this. I keep seeing comments from the chat room about that.

PRICE: Well, you know, the media -- what happens is when something like Rodney King goes down or Amadou Diallo goes down, and they make it sound like this has never happened before. Rodney King was getting his butt kicked in every state in the union every night. Some guy was there with a video camera, and all of a sudden it's as if it's never happened before. Amadou Diallo, this guy last night, I mean, this stuff has been going on and on.

I mean, I had heard that actually incidents of police -- reported police brutality were higher under the Dinkins administration, which is to say that this is an ongoing thing. What happens with newspapers is that when something goes down that's kind of shocking, as soon as it's in the paper that thing tends to have babies for about two weeks.

Somebody gets pushed off a subway track and they lose their arm and their arm is reattached, I promise you there's going to be three more articles about people in the next week that have been pushed on subway tracks. And, you know -- and it makes it sound like it's just happened now under, you know, some neo-Nazi Giuliani regime. This has been going on -- do you think it was any better in the '50s or the '40s? I mean, this thing is historical. You know, and you have to keep that into context. It's not likes it just started with Abner Louima. You know, it just -- it became newsworthy once again, and then they look for babies for it.

SCOTTOLINE: Although I guess, Richard, in fairness, don't you think it's increasing? I mean, I think it's increasing, and I think it's increasing in part because we are so more heavily harmed than we were 10 years ago. I mean, when I talk to police for the books and just in my own general research, you know what they really are? They're afraid. I mean, your point about them wanting to get home in one piece is just totally well taken, because I don't think they come in out of aggression. I don't think they react out of aggression. It's like a dog, a little dog that bites out of fear. They're just scared, and they know they're outgunned and they're probably outmanned, and they don't have the element of surprise on their side, because they walk in in force when -- it's sort of like guerrilla warfare.

TANENBAUM: Well, that's not a justification for any of this. The police are always in an advantage situation basically, because they have colleagues with them, they're armed. We've given them tremendous responsibility, and the fact of the matter is over the last 10 years in Los Angeles and in New York City, for example, $100 million has been paid in civil judgments for police misconduct, and yet there are no successful prosecutions. So what are the district attorney's doing and what are the politicians doing with respect to siting back and paying out these dollars?

And when I hear someone like Officer Weeks (ph) say that the mayor is trying to curry political favor by taking on the police in these kinds of cases, he's got it all wrong. The problem is the politicians are in bed with the police unions because they want their support to get elected. And that's a real tragedy, because we need accountability. And the only way we're going to have accountability is to have special prosecutors involved in the criminal justice system to handle this kind of corruption.

BATTISTA: Got to take another break. Back in a moment.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BATTISTA: We got about 30 seconds left Michael, if you want to take 15 of it.

DYSON: Black people want three things: the benefit of the doubt, the presumption of innocence and what the Palestinians and Israel fought for, the quiet miracle of a normal life.

BATTISTA: All right, Michael Dyson, thank you very much.

Michael Eric Dyson, excuse me.

DYSON: That's all right.

BATTISTA: Thank you very much for joining us. Appreciate your time. Also Robert Tanenbaum, Lisa Scottolini and Richard Price, thank you very much for joining us. And did I forget anyone? I certainly hope not. We're running out of time here.

We'll see you again. Enjoy your weekend. We'll see you again on Monday.

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