Latest / Heroes Behind the Badge / Bill Bratton — Sweet Alice, the Bronx, and What the Job Costs | Part 2

Transcript

Bill Bratton — Sweet Alice, the Bronx, and What the Job Costs | Part 2 · Heroes Behind the Badge

0:00
And as she's coming down the hall, she still had her waitress
0:03
uniform and her waitress bib on, as I guess you'd call it,
0:08
and the only sounds you could hear was, one, she wasn't
0:13
sure what she was coming to.
0:14
She had not been informed that her husband, in fact, was
0:17
deceased, was basically the clinking of the coins in her apron
0:31
50 years in six police departments.
0:34
This is the part of the job nobody applies for.
0:37
Yeah, I wanted to jump back to, uh, your time in LA.
0:42
Uh, I, I- I
0:43
had a great time.
0:43
I had a, I had a great time in LA.
0:45
Loved it out there.
0:46
Well, I, I came across a, a young lady by the name of Sweet Alice.
0:51
Do you know who I'm talking about?
0:52
Sweet- Oh, Sweet
0:52
Alice, certainly one of the most lovely, uh, community- Yeah
0:55
… organizers you could ever meet.
0:56
You were talking about community relations and, you know, how it's,
1:01
it, it is not what it should be.
1:03
Tell us the story about Sweet Alice and what that meant from a
1:07
community relations standpoint.
1:09
In the, uh, south part of Los Angeles where the bulk of the
1:14
African American population lived.
1:17
That population has now declined dramatically.
1:19
It's largely a Latino area now, South LA Watts.
1:22
Uh, Sweet Alice was a force of nature.
1:24
She grew up, uh, on a sharecropper farm down in
1:28
the South, experienced all the racial segregation of the
1:31
'50s, '60s, and like so many, fled that to go to California.
1:35
Wow.
1:36
In California, she moved into Watts, into one of the most
1:39
distressed areas, and, uh, effectively became an incredible
1:44
driving force, a social worker that, in her neighborhood.
1:48
And, uh, helping out, uh, the, the, in that poverty-stricken
1:52
area, and became a spokesperson for it, uh, had, uh,
1:56
daycare centers, et cetera.
1:57
And my first experience with her when I came into Los Angeles
2:01
2002, Fred Booker, the sergeant in charge of my community
2:04
relations here, an African American, one of the greatest
2:07
cops that ever was, says, "You need to go talk to Sweet Alice.
2:10
She can give you the real story about what's happening in,
2:13
uh, Watts, why it's happening, what's, why it's not happening."
2:17
Sure.
2:17
And, uh, I went down with my wife, uh, Rikki, uh, who used to go to
2:21
many of these meetings with me.
2:23
And we had, um… I'm, I'm, I'm pretty smart.
2:26
I bring Rikki oftentimes to a lot of the things I go to because you
2:29
cannot, as Craig can attest, you cannot help but to, to love Rikki.
2:33
And- … uh, Rikki is a great icebreaker with all the, uh,
2:37
uh, minority, uh, population that I dealt with in LA.
2:40
But, uh, we fell in love with Sweet Alice.
2:42
She had this delightful Southern accent, and it just…
2:46
Not, not, not well-educated.
2:48
I don't think she ever finished high school.
2:50
Uh, but she had street smarts, and she had goodwill smarts.
2:54
And I can remember, um, uh, attending a Christmas party she
3:00
hosted every year where she'd raise funds to give out gifts
3:03
to these hundreds of kids in s- uh, at Watts who would at
3:07
Christmas time not get anything.
3:09
And you'd see these kids come in, the clothes, the poor clothes
3:12
they're wearing and, and, um, uh, the gifts they were getting
3:16
were bicycles and high-end gifts.
3:19
And we ended up, uh, raising a lot of money with her,
3:22
but going to that Christmas party, uh, each year was
3:25
just a memorable experience.
3:27
But she was the heart and soul of the community that, uh- Yeah
3:30
… I'll never forget, we were at a community meeting and I had a, uh,
3:33
Black activist who was going after me and, um, uh, and Sweet Alice
3:38
got up and said, "You shut up."
3:40
And she says- We, we like this police chief.
3:43
We got his back.
3:45
And he shut up.
3:47
Wow.
3:48
'Cause, uh, s- Sweet Alice was a power unto herself.
3:50
So who's the real boss?
3:52
I guess it was Alice, huh?
3:54
You think… And I invited her and I, I, I hosted a Christmas
3:57
party every year, uh, with the LA Police Foundation, invited
4:00
a lot of the, uh, activists, uh, to that Christmas party.
4:04
It was a wonderful time, 3, 400 cops and political activists
4:08
and, uh, uh, social workers.
4:10
A great, great party.
4:12
And, uh, Sweet Alice would come.
4:14
But when Rikki and I were leaving LA in 2009, went down to say
4:18
goodbye to Sweet Alice, and I write about this in my most
4:21
recent book, The Profession.
4:23
And Sweet Alice gives me a hug, and she says to me,
4:28
"You know, Chief, you know why we love you so much?"
4:30
With this lovely accent.
4:32
"No, Alice, why is that?" She said, " 'Cause you hear us."
4:36
Hmm.
4:37
"You hear us."
4:38
Wow.
4:39
Wow.
4:40
What, what, what a compliment that the idea that y- that,
4:43
that she understood that I did hear them, I did listen to
4:45
them, and I did respond to them.
4:47
And to have that recognized, you can, you could not… That's
4:51
probably one of the highest compliments in 50 years of
4:53
policing I've ever received.
4:54
And I've, I've got more medals and awards than you
4:57
can think of, but that, that oral compliment was about the
5:01
highest award I ever received.
5:02
Do you think that is common?
5:04
You know, we're, we're talking about now policing in the 2026
5:08
era as opposed to years ago.
5:11
Do you think that cops generally get the community?
5:16
Do they understand the community?
5:18
Do they listen to their communities?
5:20
I think that a lot of cops do, a lot don't.
5:25
Uh, policing attracts a wide variety of, uh, people.
5:30
Uh, you get crime fighters, you get cops who are great community
5:35
activists, you get, uh… And, uh- The profession itself has changed
5:41
dramatically in the 50, 60 years I've been associated with it.
5:44
It is a much more caring, understanding, appreciative, uh,
5:49
learning profession than it had been prior to the '60s and '70s.
5:54
Uh, individually, uh, I have run across more good cops
5:59
than bad cops, certainly, uh, uncaring cops that, uh… And
6:06
it's a profession that requires a wide variety of people.
6:09
But, uh, the vast majority, I think, still come into the
6:12
profession the same way I did in 1970, because you w- you
6:17
wanted to make a difference.
6:18
You wanted a- Right … a, a good job.
6:20
You wanted a degree of security that it provides.
6:23
But it was also a job that you could have at the end of your
6:26
20 or 30 years, and I talk about this oftentimes in my retirement
6:30
speeches to retirees going off the job, that where else can
6:35
you have a job that every day you have the opportunity to
6:38
have a life of significance?
6:40
Every day you're doing something different, and every once in a
6:45
while that something different is of such significance that it
6:50
is incredibly impactful on you and the people you're dealing
6:54
with, that, uh, there's very few professions where you can have
6:57
that opportunity of every day having a day of significance and
7:02
ultimately a life of significance.
7:05
Did LA, uh, Bill get a different, um, a different guy,
7:09
a different leader than New York when you transitioned to LA?
7:13
It was a- Was Bill Bratton a different guy?
7:15
It was a different set of challenges.
7:18
Uh, the culture of the LAPD was very different than
7:21
the culture of the NYPD.
7:23
The NYPD I went into in the '80, uh, excuse me, the '90s,
7:27
was a very reactive, uh, discouraged police organization.
7:32
Mm.
7:33
It had been discouraged from the se- because of corruption
7:36
issues, racism issues, in the '80s in particular, from
7:39
being particularly proactive.
7:41
It was, uh, uh, in some respects overly supervised in
7:47
that officers were discouraged from, uh, engaging in a lot
7:51
of proactive activities.
7:53
Uh, it was, uh… And also the fact the sheer size of it, that
7:58
it, it w- and the reputation, NYPD, biggest and the best-
8:02
Yeah … that, uh, it had a, uh, a culture of superiority.
8:07
The LAPD, uh, was a organization that prided itself on its
8:13
professionalism, and the fact that there were so few of them compared
8:18
to other police departments on a per, uh, cop ratio.
8:22
Uh, the unofficial motto, the, the official motto was to
8:24
protect and serve on the side door of every car out there.
8:27
Right.
8:28
But the unofficial motto that Jimmy McDonnell, the current
8:30
chief, uh, who worked with me as, in the Boston Police
8:33
Department back in the '70s, uh, as Jimmy informed me when I came
8:36
in, uh, 2002, our unofficial motto was, "Too few who for
8:41
too long have been asked to do too much with too little."
8:45
Wow.
8:46
There was the LAPD.
8:47
It, always in budget crises.
8:49
Uh, with the force, when I joined it, they had 9,200,
8:52
and I spent the next seven years getting it up to 10,000.
8:55
But to have equivalent numbers to what I had to work with in
8:58
New York, taking into account population, land mass, et cetera,
9:02
I should have had 18,000 cops.
9:05
Wow.
9:05
Jimmy right now is working with 8,300 cops.
9:09
He's lost 1,000 cops because of George Floyd and a
9:13
lot of other things that have gone on out there.
9:15
And it's an extraordinary department that is probably
9:18
still the best-trained department in America, uh,
9:21
even superior to the NYPD.
9:24
NYPD does a great job with a lot of their specialized units,
9:27
but in general, the training is nowhere near the level of, uh,
9:32
intimacy that the LAPD, because of its smaller size, uh, uh,
9:37
gives and places on retraining in terms of, uh, year after year.
9:43
There's also the idea- That, uh, officers out there are very
9:48
self-reliant, at least the ones I was exposed to during my time.
9:52
Because on any given night, uh, those two cops in
9:55
that car, and they refer to each other as partner.
9:57
Partner this, partner that.
9:58
They don't g- call each other by first names.
10:01
Uh, every LA cop wears his uniform exactly the same way.
10:05
Wow.
10:05
If you look at them, the, the two spare rounds, uh, clips on their
10:09
belt where the handcuffs are.
10:11
Why is that?
10:12
That's the training.
10:13
If in the middle of the night you guys are engaged in some
10:15
type of shootout or something, you wanna be able to basically,
10:18
if you need to get stuff off the other officer's belt- Sure
10:21
you know where it is.
10:22
And they, they back each other up.
10:24
It's, it's a much more intimate organization.
10:27
And I would… It's… You know how you have pride
10:30
in every child you have?
10:32
Well, I've been chief of six different departments, and I
10:34
have pride in each of those six.
10:36
That's right.
10:36
But I'll tell you, the six were, uh, a couple of them
10:39
were prob- problem children.
10:41
But a couple of them- No doubt.
10:43
Yeah … outstanding in the sense of, uh, uh,
10:46
exceptional in some respects.
10:48
Interesting.
10:49
You know, you, you talk about training, Bill.
10:51
I, I think I remember you saying somewhere you had several weeks
10:55
of training, a few weeks of training before you were handed a
10:58
gun and a badge in Boston- Indeed
11:00
uh, back in 1970.
11:02
And, and you were recommending that really the ideal training
11:05
period should last one year.
11:07
Is, is that right?
11:09
That's correct.
11:10
When I joined the Boston Police Department at, uh, on, uh,
11:13
October 7th, one day after my 23rd birthday, uh, we were
11:18
out on the streets in time for Thanksgiving that year.
11:22
So what's that?
11:23
Seven weeks in our blue uniforms with our six-shot revolvers, my
11:28
badge 1190 patrolman, my whistle.
11:31
And, uh, two weeks after that, after two weeks of
11:34
directing traffic, I was in plainclothes wandering through
11:37
the subways and the stores in downtown Boston looking
11:40
for pickpockets and thieves-
11:42
Wow
11:42
with, with, with the most minimum of training.
11:46
Just think of that.
11:47
23 years old, all 150 pounds of me, the awesome powers
11:51
and authority I'd been given with no training t-
11:54
basically to back it up.
11:56
Uh, I've always been an advocate of much more significant training.
12:00
On average, I think, in the United States, we try to give about
12:03
six months of s- uh, training.
12:05
Um, I try to expand that in New York.
12:08
New York recently has basically had to reduce it because of
12:10
some of the personnel shortages.
12:13
Same for LAPD.
12:14
They've all, all pulled back, and I think that's unfortunately
12:17
one of the biggest mistakes we make in policing, and one of
12:20
the biggest mistake politicians and the public make, not
12:23
appreciating, uh, the need for adequate funding and time to
12:27
train and to continue to retrain.
12:30
Just think of all the renewed respons- new responsibilities
12:33
just in the last couple years that we need to impart to these
12:36
young officers that we don't have the time to do it 'cause we're so
12:39
shorthanded to put cops in cars.
12:42
They're not at the academy long enough initially, and
12:45
certainly not long enough as they're going forward.
12:48
And the key to it is, would you wanna go to a doctor who
12:50
basically, uh, uh, went to medical school, but then all
12:54
of a sudden he's now out there practicing after only going to
12:57
medical school without doing his internships, et cetera?
13:00
You damn sure wouldn't wanna go to that doctor.
13:02
Mm.
13:03
So we are under, under-trained, uh, as a whole in the United
13:07
States, and a v- most recent example of that is what's gone
13:09
on with the, uh, with ICE, with that, uh, unfortunate expansion
13:14
of 20,000 people they've hired or something in a, in
13:17
less than a couple of months.
13:20
Uh, they had a, uh, if I understand it, a
13:23
47-day training period.
13:25
Why 47 days?
13:27
Well, President of the United States is the 47th president.
13:28
47.
13:29
Yeah,
13:29
makes sense, yeah.
13:30
That, that, some, some genius at, uh, ICE decided, "Well,
13:33
let's, let's train them for 47 days." 47 days and they're
13:38
out there, and we're seeing on television what lack of
13:41
training, uh, ends up doing when they're out on the street faced
13:44
with, uh, the challenges that they're facing on the street.
13:48
No, um, training is ABT, always be training.
13:52
Yeah.
13:53
But unfortunately, uh, we don't.
13:55
And that's, that's the-
13:56
Yeah.
13:56
That is one of my great- Yeah … regrets that, uh, while I've been
14:00
an advocate for it, while I was at the NYPD, LAPD, I was able to
14:05
expand it for a period of time.
14:07
Both organizations, because of budget pressures and personnel
14:11
shortages, have had to pull back on it, and, and that creates just
14:15
great risk for the officers and for the profession as a whole.
14:18
For sure,
14:19
yeah.
14:20
Bill, I, I don't wanna let you go without asking this, uh, im-
14:23
important question, I think, and, and maybe a, a question for
14:26
reflection, and that is, uh, in your 50 years of policing, can you
14:31
identify the best moment and maybe the worst moment in your career?
14:37
Best moments, I think, um, ones where I was
14:41
professionally challenged.
14:43
One would be the idea of as a, as a cop, you always understand
14:48
you're gonna deal with danger, and how are you gonna react to it.
14:51
It's like w- when you're in the military that, uh, my,
14:54
my, uh, three years in the US Army and a year in Vietnam.
14:57
And so in terms of that issue that's always so important to
15:02
cops, this idea of being able to handle yourself, probably a
15:06
satisfactory moment was the, uh, just shortly after going through
15:10
hostage negotiation training, encountering a bank holdup
15:14
suspect holding a hostage with a gun to her head, a bank teller,
15:18
uh, that I confronted as a young sergeant, and was able to, uh,
15:23
y- y- see my training kick in.
15:27
Now, in appreciation of the training issue we were just
15:30
talking about, and what was that training that kicked in?
15:33
In a hostage situation, one, try not to expose yourself personally
15:38
to the, the hostage taker.
15:40
My case, unfortunately, I ended up confronting him, both of us
15:43
pointing guns at each other.
15:44
I couldn't hit the broad side of a barn with a .38, which I was
15:47
carrying at that time, and, uh, so the gun was useless to me.
15:51
I'd kill the hostage before I'd end up killing him.
15:54
And so my training was reduce the tension wherever you can.
15:59
So while I'm trying to reduce the tension by talking, by
16:02
lowering my gun, it reduced his tension somewhat.
16:06
And so it's an experience that, uh, reinforced the issue
16:11
about training, reinforced my sense of my skill with
16:17
the training I'd received, uh, testing your bravery.
16:21
I got, I got the, uh, department's highest award for valor, uh,
16:25
named after two Boston police officers, brothers killed in
16:27
the line of duty, the Schroeder brothers- Oh … uh, medal
16:30
for that. So that was a test.
16:32
The second test was, uh, uh, of significant leadership
16:37
skills, and that was in 2007.
16:42
I'm up for my reappointment as chief of the Los
16:44
Angeles Police Department.
16:46
I'd been going through a whole series of community meetings, and,
16:49
uh, I basically had it locked up.
16:52
Uh, the police commission was going to reappoint me,
16:55
and then on May Day of 2007, uh, we had a tremendous, um,
17:01
what has been described as a police riot in MacArthur Park.
17:04
Uh, tens of thousands of Latinos, families in the park celebrating
17:08
May Day, and because a group of anarchists had basically assaulted
17:13
officers at one end of the park, the commanding officer authorized,
17:17
uh, and led effectively a clean out the park sweep by
17:22
the metro unit of the LAPD.
17:25
And in that clean out, uh, they fired over 250 rounds
17:29
from their, uh, the, the rubber pellets, uh, exer- exercised
17:34
a lot of use of their batons, and, uh, it was a mess.
17:38
Hmm.
17:39
And, uh, I really believe that was, in my police career, um,
17:43
what I would describe as my finest hour, facing that chan-
17:48
challenge, because in that park was a media tent with some of
17:52
the top media from all over Latin America, was in that tent, and
17:56
they were overrun by the police, and it was all captured on film.
18:00
My mayor was in Latin America celebrating, the
18:03
first Latino mayor of LA.
18:05
I was gonna join him that night because he was on a victory
18:08
lap about how things were going so well, and meanwhile,
18:11
he has all this television beaming back to where he
18:14
is about this police riot.
18:15
Oh.
18:16
So I had Latino media upset.
18:19
I had my police commission upset, my inspector general
18:21
upset, my city council upset, my cops upset because I wasn't
18:26
defending their actions.
18:27
I was- Right … criticizing, not necessarily just their actions,
18:31
but the leadership in particular.
18:33
So, um, the turnaround of that situation, where I saved my
18:38
chief's job, uh, was probably my proudest moment as a chief
18:43
of police in dealing with a crisis, in that we did an
18:47
after action report that was widely applauded, uh, for its
18:51
truthfulness, its forcefulness, and the changes we made.
18:54
Uh, so much so that it never required an outside investigation.
18:58
They were comfortable for the first time with the
19:01
internal investigation.
19:03
So I've had a lot of successes, a lot of failures.
19:06
Uh, I try to learn from the failures, but those two stand out,
19:09
uh- Wow … in police policing, the issue of how are you gonna
19:12
handle yourself in a moment of physical- Threat and challenge.
19:17
And how are you gonna handle yourself in a moment of political,
19:21
intellectual, strategic challenge?
19:24
Wow.
19:24
And, um, uh-
19:26
Great examples.
19:27
How about the worst moment?
19:28
You, you talk about the best.
19:30
What, what was maybe a moment that keeps you awake at, at night?
19:33
W- w- worst, worst moment is not a moment, many moments, and that's
19:38
the, the death of police officers.
19:40
Right.
19:40
Yeah.
19:40
Um, and- Worst … you can say in, uh, some 50 years
19:45
associated with policing, with 25 of them actively as a
19:48
chief, uh, I've had to respond to the deaths of many officers
19:55
in those, those departments.
19:57
And the worst moments are the response initially, uh, dealing
20:02
with the families as they're arriving at the hospitals, and
20:06
then delivering the eulogies.
20:08
Delivering eulogies is extraordinarily difficult.
20:11
Every chief will tell you that.
20:12
That because all eyes are upon you and finding the
20:16
appropriate words in the moments.
20:18
But then remembering, uh, those memories stay with you,
20:22
the response to those scenes and how horrific they can be.
20:25
Probably one that's, one that stands out, uh, most
20:27
for me was the death of the first officer in 1994.
20:31
Uh, young, young kid, uh, killed up in the Bronx,
20:36
uh, during a hold-up.
20:37
And I'm in the hospital room with him, he is now deceased,
20:41
we have the priest and some of my command staff, and we had
20:44
sent a helicopter up to get his wife that, uh, he was… That
20:48
she, they were living upstate.
20:50
And it's quiet in the hospital.
20:52
Hundreds of officers outside in the halls in New York
20:55
when it happens that they come from everywhere.
20:58
And, but then she arrives, and it's, it,
21:00
everything just goes quiet.
21:02
Not a sound, out of respect for her.
21:05
And she had- She was a waitress.
21:08
She had been picked up where she was working that night.
21:11
And as she's coming down the hall, she still had her waitress
21:15
uniform and her waitress bib on, as I guess you'd call it.
21:19
And the only sounds you could hear was, one, she wasn't
21:25
sure what she was coming to.
21:26
She had not been informed that her husband, in fact, was deceased.
21:30
Was basically the clinking of the coins in her apron.
21:35
Hmm.
21:35
That, uh, the change.
21:37
That was the only sounds you could hear as she came into the
21:39
room, the, the sound of that, and just, and it stayed with me for…
21:43
That would've been 1994.
21:45
What's that?
21:46
32 years ago.
21:47
Yeah.
21:48
That's, um… So there's many worst moments that,
21:53
uh, uh, each of them, um-
21:58
N- none of them good memories in the sense of, uh, uh, when
22:01
you're dealing with the death of an officer, none of them are good.
22:04
What about, uh, and last question, um, Steven McDonald
22:08
is one of those officers who died in the line of duty.
22:11
You had a lot of interaction with Steven.
22:13
Th- this is an amazing story.
22:14
We call him God's cop because he, he preached, uh, forgiveness.
22:19
Uh, he was shot by a 15-year-old bike thief in Central Park
22:23
back in 1986, and, uh, was paralyzed from the neck
22:27
down, and, uh, soon after, forgave the man who shot him.
22:33
And, uh, it's an incredible story.
22:35
He lived for another 31 years, died in 2017 from the injuries
22:41
he suffered in that shooting.
22:43
Um, they just renamed the New York City Police
22:46
Department Police Academy-
22:48
After
22:48
Steven … after Steven.
22:49
I- I'd like you to comment on, on Steven, just to share
22:52
with our audience who this was and what that meant to
22:55
you when they renamed the police academy after him.
22:58
I was first introduced to him, him when I c- came to New York
23:01
for the first time in 1990 as chief of transit, and he was at,
23:05
uh, one of the events I attended.
23:08
Uh, his newborn son, I think the son was about five years
23:13
old at that time, that, uh- Oh, yeah … when he was shot, his
23:17
wife was, was pregnant and I think gave birth after, uh, he was shot.
23:21
Uh, his son recently has been promoted to a deputy inspector
23:24
in the NYPD, and, uh, great family, Patti, his wife.
23:29
And I had the honor of, uh, promoting Steven to, uh,
23:33
the rank of detective when I was police commissioner.
23:36
And, uh, just an incredible m- man.
23:41
NYPD is big enough that some of our severely injured officers,
23:44
we are actually able to keep them on the department where
23:48
they s- they s- uh, Steven did serve so many, uh, roles
23:53
as a goodwill ambassador, uh, at various public events.
23:57
A favorite memory of Steven, though, is, and this is a personal
24:00
one, that, uh, h- he's confined to a wheelchair, always basically
24:06
with the breathing tubes.
24:07
Uh, he could manipulate a few fingers that could control certain
24:11
features of it, but he's, he's confined to this wheelchair.
24:14
And, uh, they had a special ambulance for him to allow him
24:17
to be able to move around with the oxygen that, uh, he needed.
24:21
And my dad died in 2016 —
24:24
I was police commissioner — living up in, uh,
24:26
Weymouth, Massachusetts.
24:28
I'm down in New York.
24:29
I go up for Dad's funeral to put it together- And at Dad's, uh,
24:35
uh, wake and funeral, um, about 300, uh, New York City police
24:41
officers traveled from New York to come up, a lot of my command
24:45
staff to attend that funeral.
24:47
It was, uh, Dad was a Navy veteran, so he got military
24:50
send-off, et cetera.
24:52
But Steven came up in that ambulance, the 235-mile drive
24:59
from New York, and then 235 miles back, to come in and
25:03
basically attend those services.
25:07
That- that's- that's, that's, you know, you can imagine
25:10
how that makes you feel in the sense of that degree
25:14
of- of love and respect.
25:16
Uh, and he- he's the embodiment of what policing,
25:21
uh, should be about.
25:23
Fortunately, the embodiment of much of what policing is
25:26
about, and is the embodiment of what the goal sh- should be
25:31
for every police officer, this idea of compassion, this idea of
25:36
having a life of significance.
25:38
Here's this paraplegic, and what a life of significance,
25:42
what a legacy he had.
25:44
Uh, you know, when, when I exit the stage, I wanna have
25:48
people say, uh, uh, uh, "What a, what a nice legacy that
25:54
guy left behind." Really.
25:55
It's never gonna match what Steve McDonald left behind, but
25:58
it's something to strive for.
26:01
He even, uh, gave the, uh, keynote address at the dedication
26:05
dinner for the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial.
26:08
Yeah.
26:08
Mm-hmm.
26:08
And now his name is inscribed on that same memorial.
26:12
Uh, an incredible human being, and, uh, so glad
26:15
to have known him a bit.
26:16
Uh,
26:17
Bill-
26:17
Well, since this is my comment about the death of officers
26:19
being the most impactful, who knows more about that than you?
26:23
Yeah.
26:23
Really.
26:23
You've, you've committed your life to remembering every
26:27
police officer in the United States who's ever lost- Sure
26:30
a life in the service of the police profession.
26:32
So, uh, I hadn't thought of that when I, I mentioned that
26:35
about the impact of those on me, that nobody knows it better
26:39
than you, that's for sure.
26:40
Well, it's been an honor and a privilege to be able to honor
26:43
and remember those, uh, fallen heroes of law enforcement,
26:46
as well as those who continue to serve and risk their lives
26:49
daily for our protection.
26:51
Uh, Dennis, I'm gonna turn it over to you to close us out, but-
26:54
Well,
26:54
I- … uh, let me, let me suggest one thing, though, before I leave,
26:58
and that is, um, we call this show Heroes Behind the Badge.
27:01
I'm thinking today's episode should be called Legendary
27:05
Legends, uh, Legendary Leaders of the Badge.
27:10
And, uh- Legendary Leaders of the Badge.
27:12
I like that.
27:12
I, I think- We're gonna have to get a whole new, uh, logo here.
27:17
Uh, Drew will do that for us.
27:18
But, uh, no, I, I thank you, Bill.
27:20
You've been amazing- Appreciate that … uh, a
27:22
part of my life, and I'm so glad you joined us today.
27:25
Thank you.
27:26
But I have, Commissioner, I have one final question.
27:30
Maybe you'll break some news here today.
27:33
Are you still hungry?
27:36
Are you going to take another shot at it?
27:41
I wish I were 10 year- I, I oftentimes talk about this.
27:43
I wish I was 10 years younger.
27:46
Um, I'll, I'll be 79 this October 6th.
27:49
Wow.
27:49
And, uh, I'll be very frank with you, the… I think the intellect
27:53
is better than it was in 1970.
27:55
The- I don't think there's been no diminishing, and
27:57
it's in- informed by 50-some odd years of experience.
28:00
Absolutely.
28:01
Uh, uh, the energy level relative to intellectually is still there.
28:06
But, uh, the job itself, even as a police chief, a police leader,
28:12
is physically extraordinarily demanding in the sense of- Right
28:16
… from, you know, 5:00 in the morning till 10, 11:00 at night,
28:19
the various events, benefits you have to go to, engagements, 3:00
28:24
in the morning calls, officers shot, going to the hospital.
28:27
It is a physically very taxing job.
28:31
And so, um, would I love to be back in the day, back in the game?
28:37
You better believe it.
28:38
Miss it every day, particularly when you look at the,
28:41
the life I've had, NYPD, Boston- Right … LAPD.
28:44
Uh, uh, been an extraordinary life with a lot of, uh,
28:49
quite a rollercoaster ride.
28:51
Yeah.
28:51
And, uh, uh, but I'm not so sure that intellectually
28:56
could I contribute?
28:58
Yes.
28:58
But physically, no.
29:00
So intellectually- Right … I do attempt to
29:01
stay involved with- Absolutely … appearances like this.
29:04
I do a lot of op-eds.
29:05
I still teach at PERF's SMIP every year.
29:09
Uh, I still do a lot of mentoring, an awful lot of mentoring,
29:12
which, uh, I thoroughly enjoy.
29:14
Uh, uh, until my time comes to go, I, I, I intend to
29:18
try and stay impactful.
29:20
Uh, we, we hope so.
29:22
I think we, we the citizens of the United States and those
29:26
who are, who are involved in policing are better for your
29:30
involvement, and I hope you'll stay involved for a long time.
29:33
Please mention your book again.
29:34
Uh, your lat- I know you have several, but your
29:36
latest book, I believe, was called The Profession, right?
29:39
Right.
29:39
There were three of them.
29:40
I was fortunate to work with three great co-authors.
29:43
First one was Turnaround, after I thought I was leaving policing
29:46
in 1996, uh, with Peter Knobler.
29:48
Right.
29:49
Uh, that was a biography.
29:50
Second one was, uh, was, uh, Zach Tumin in 2012, a police
29:55
management book, uh, called Collaborate or Perish, the theme
29:58
of collaboration essentiality.
30:00
Right.
30:00
And the third one, the most recent, and thank you for
30:02
mentioning, is The Profession.
30:04
It's a memoir.
30:05
Uh, it's not just my story.
30:07
It's many stories of many people that were impactful in my career
30:10
and on the profession itself.
30:12
And so, uh, all three of them… And that's part of the legacy
30:16
that, uh, a lot of chiefs will be able to get a book out there.
30:20
I've been the great fortune of getting three of them out.
30:23
That's great.
30:23
And Craig, uh, I think you're well aware that an honor that I
30:25
received this past, uh, uh, summer was at the Police Memorial event.
30:30
I received from, uh, the Police Memorial people a, uh, one
30:34
of their awards for, uh, the service to policing, and I was-
30:38
Lifetime achievement, I believe.
30:40
Yep.
30:40
I was very,
30:41
very humbled- As you deserve
30:43
very humbled by that one.
30:44
That, uh, uh… That's quite an award.
30:46
It weighs about 50 pounds trying to lug that thing around.
30:49
You can credit me for that or blame me, yeah.
30:52
Well, um, again, thank you, uh, for being with us.
30:56
I mean, this is an honor to have you.
30:58
It's an honor to get to know you, the person behind all
31:02
these headlines that have been created over the years, and
31:06
thank you for sharing that.
31:07
Person behind the badge, badge 1190.
31:10
You got it, 1190.
31:12
Thank you.
31:12
I, I, I figured that out.
31:14
I researched that.
31:15
I had to know that badge
31:18
number, so.
31:18
So again, thank you again.
31:20
I want to remind our, uh, listeners and our viewers, this
31:24
is Heroes Behind the Badge.
31:26
If you liked anything that Commissioner Bill Bratton had
31:30
to say today, and there was a whole lot to like, will you
31:33
subscribe, like, and follow?
31:36
Yeah, subscribe, like, and follow Heroes Behind the Badge.
31:40
Okay?
31:41
We are sponsored by Citizens Behind the Badge.
31:44
Citizens Behind the Badge is the leading organization
31:47
in support of the men and women of law enforcement.
31:51
Join hundreds of thousands of your fellow Americans in support
31:56
of law enforcement by going on
32:00
citizensbehindthebadge.org, citizensbehindthebadge.org.
32:03
You will find all about us.
32:05
You'll also have a tab for this podcast so that you never
32:08
miss the next episode, and we release quite a few new ones.
32:13
Uh, and this one is going to, uh, this one is going to be one that
32:17
a lot of people wanna listen to.
32:19
So- Again, we appreciate your listening.
32:22
It's citizensbehindthebadge.org.
32:24
This episode of Heroes Behind the Badge is now over.
32:28
Thank you, Commissioner Bill Bratton.
32:30
Thank you.
32:30
We appreciate, we appreciate you, and we'll see you next
32:33
time on Heroes Behind the Badge.