The CopDoc Podcast, Bill Bratton, Retired LAPD and NYPD Chief, Ep 39

Bill Bratton has led 7 different police agencies over his 50-year career.  He is an author, a consultant, and serves as Executive Chairman for Teneo.  Bill started with the Boston Police Department, rose to become Executive Superintendent.  He was Chief of the MBTA Police, the Transit Police for Massachusetts, the Metropolitan Police, and was the Chief of the Transit Police of New York.  He returned to Boston as Police Commissioner and was twice the Commissioner of the NY Police Department and the Chief of the Los Angeles Police Department.   

He wrote three books, the most recent, a memoir, The Profession, Collaborate or Perish, and Turnaround.  

We talked about the state of policing, CompStat, defunding, community, racism and training.  He advocates for teaching new officers the history of policing.  This was a wide-ranging interview, not to be missed. 

Contact us: copdoc.podcast@gmail.com 

Website: www.copdocpodcast.com

If you'd like to arrange for facilitated training, or consulting, or talk about steps you might take to improve your leadership and help in your quest for promotion, contact Steve at stephen.morreale@gmail.com

Transcript

[00:00:02.060] - Intro

Welcome to the Cop Doc podcast. This podcast explores police leadership issues and innovative ideas. The Cop Doc share thoughts and ideas as he talks with leaders in policing communities, academia and other government agencies. And now please join Dr Steve Morreale and industry thought leaders as they share their insights and experience on the Cop Doc. Pods Cast.

[00:00:32.430] - Steve Morreale

Well, Hello, everybody. This is Steve Morreale and you're listening to The CopDoc Podcast. Another episode, and I have the high honor and privilege to talk to Bill Bratton, who's in New York. Good morning, Bill.

[00:00:41.580] - Bill Bratton 

Good morning. Steve it's good to be with you and your audience.

[00:00:44.010] - Steve Morreale

Thank you very much. When you listen to the intro, it says industry thought leaders. And I would think that your name is right at the top. There. You have the unusual and amazing background where you led seven, if not more agencies, if you count New York twice. And I list those because I was around you when you did some of them, boss. You started in Boston, you went to Metropolitan. You were with the MBTA police in Massachusetts, went to Transit, NYPD, LAPD and back to NYPD.

[00:01:12.270] - Steve Morreale

Did I miss any?

[00:01:13.000] - Bill Bratton 

You did not.

[00:01:13.890] - Bill Bratton 

Ironically, two of them are no longer in existence.  Metropolitan District Police were merged with the State Police in Massachusetts in 1989 and the Transit Police that I joined in 1990. New York City when I was Commissioner in 1995 in New York City, I merged them into the NYPD. So two are only memories.

[00:01:37.200] - Steve Morreale

That's good. But you had a lot to do with that merger, and I know unto itself. That's not an easy chore to try to bring one agency into another because you've got the people from the old agency. If you think about the State Police, ah, you're not really a state trooper, that kind of stuff, and you have to work through those things. Let's talk about that for a moment. How was that consolidation and how difficult was it? And how much of a role did you play in that?

[00:01:57.890] - Bill Bratton 

There were two different stories. The Metropolitan District Commission Police. The MDC, or Mets as they were called. I had the privilege of leading them from 86 to 89. We took them from a corrupt, poorly performing organization, to one that was highly regarded, extraordinarily well equipped and very successful. So successful that the state police, Massachusetts State Police saw them as rivals. And in a legislative move, merged the Metropolitan Police, the Registry of Motor Vehicles Police and the Capitol Police organizations into the State Police. Were the State Police assumed their functions and responsibilities.

[00:02:33.490] - Bill Bratton 

What the State Police union did not understand and was that merger would not basically eliminate the officers. They would just wear different uniforms. All those officers came into the State Police. And the irony was that State Police contract works with seniority get to choose your assignment based on seniority state police retirement age. I think at that time was either 50 or 55. Many of my officers were well into their 50s. So the Metropolitan, Capital and Registry Police ended up because of his seniority with most of the choice assignments, which at that time was the Mass Turnpike and the airport.

[00:03:11.060] - Bill Bratton 

So it would be time since when I go to Logan Airport that I tend to see some of my old MDC officers manning the post at the Logan Airport. So a bit of sweet irony.  

[00:03:22.630] - Steve Morreale

I  can see you. We're taping this, but only for a but only for audio.  But, I can see sort of a sweet smirk on your face. In other words, be careful what you ask for, right?

[00:03:30.950] - Bill Bratton 

It was a hostile takeover that ended up very well for the entities taken over. Transit Police, when I went to Transit in 1990. I was there at the urging of George Kelling, the late-great George Kelling and Bob Wasserman a colleague again, a friend of mine for 40 years. And my first assignment was to report to Bob Kyle, the chairman of the Transit Authority. down here, the MTA. Whether or not the Transit Police should merge into the NYPD, would the Transit Authority get better service that occurred?

[00:03:59.230] - Bill Bratton 

The Union for the Transit Police were advocating for merging because they just felt that they were being treated so poorly. Within two years, we were able to also turn that organization around.  So much that the Union was no longer advocating for merging. I was not advocating for merger because I recognized they would be treated like Cinderella by the NYPD and they would become sort of adjunct. Ironically, in 1995, Giuliani wanted to merge all of the police agencies, Housing, Transit and New York together for efficiencies.

[00:04:28.570] - Bill Bratton 

I was able to support that as Commissioner because I knew the Transit Police, which I greatly admired and respected, would be well treated in my administration. And they were when we merged. So that one also had, by and large, a happy ending. A lot of the older Transit officers were unhappy with the merging because they had such great pride in their organization and really felt even coming into the NYPD that they were losing something. And some of them did that they had a special pride and relationship with the Transit Authority. But overall, my perspective, I think it worked out better for them, better for the Transit Authority and better for the city over time.

[00:05:01.120] - Steve Morreale

So Boston bred and born. And by the way.

[00:05:03.410] - Bill Bratton 

You can tell by the accent? 

[00:05:04.670] - Steve Morreale

Yes, absolutely. I can.

[00:05:06.100] - Steve Morreale

And I'm very proud of it. It sounds so sweet in my ears. But you're Boston bred and born. And we're talking to Bill Bratton, former Commissioner, NYPD Commissioner Boston and the chief of LAPD and others, Vietnam War vet and an MP like myself, a Boston State graduate like myself. Now UMass Boston, talk about those turning points in your life, being in the Army, going back for your education, and how that helped to mold you, Bill.

[00:05:32.960] - Bill Bratton 

I'm very proud to have served for three years in the US Army. a volunteer at that, the height of Vietnam War, I ended up becoming a Military Police sentry dog handler. The military police were charged with responsibility of securing a lot of the facilities in Vietnam. And then when I came back to the United States, I was stationed in the Florida Everglades of all places, providing security for Nike missile site down there, protecting against Cuba and the tensions with the Soviet Union. At that time, I was very fortunate in 1970, lifelong dream to be a cop,  joined the Boston Police Department and you mentioned Boston State College.

[00:06:05.330] - Bill Bratton 

Well, one of the turning points in my career was, well there were two actually during my time with Boston Police Department. One was a special program sponsored by the US government to provide College education to police officers. The belief that the professional policing was very understaffed with College graduates, which it was. So I was one of 100 police officers in the Boston area who were able to attend Boston State College over at Huntington Avenue for a four-year degree in law enforcement. And that was a very formulative period for me was my beginning in policing, but I didn't get wrapped in the blue cocoon as I write about my book or profession.

[00:06:39.730] - Bill Bratton 

Instead, I had the experience of being a young cop working in a profession that was changing dramatically in the 1970s. Height of school busing desegregation, height of housing desegregation, a lot of changes in policing from offices who primarily walked beats to now going into two officer cars and chasing 911 calls all over the division instead of being assigned to one neighborhood. So we lost a lot of identity with our neighborhoods in the 1970s. But I also benefited, not only for that College education where I'd be on the picket lines of the school desegregation lines in the afternoon, but in the morning I be at Boston State in class, in the cafeteria with a lot of those same kids who were demonstrating on those picket lines.

[00:07:19.490] - Bill Bratton 

So I got to experience both worlds from both sides of the barriers, from the police side and from the demonstration side. I also benefited by exposure to a lot of great courses of Boston State College, and I talked about this frequently. They were formulative for me urban geography with Betsy Useem, two semesters, The Importance of History in Cities. I love cities, and I experienced Boston by the MBTA every weekend with my allowance all over the city. And cities were dying in the 1970s. But as Betsy talked about that, they were so essential to civilization.

[00:07:49.640] - Bill Bratton 

They came booming back in the 80s 90s and continued to boom. The second course of significance to me was Dr. Arvanites, who taught Art Appreciation One and Two.

[00:07:59.330] - Steve Morreale

I just read that in your book. I just read that in the book. Yes.

[00:08:01.940] - Bill Bratton 

Yeah. Boston State was right next door to the Museum of Fine Arts and the Gardner Museum on our back door. We spent a lot of our time in those museums and through Arvenities I came to understand the importance of looking at something, but getting behind what we're looking at to get the backstory. So Renaissance art, I didn't like that. I never liked it. I still don't like it. But understanding the history of the importance of Renaissance in terms of the evolution of history, the Impressionists and it really taught me don't make a judgment on the first look to really look at something and see something.

[00:08:32.390] - Bill Bratton 

I tell a related story much later in the book, my experiences in Los Angeles, as chief in LA, dealing with the race issues there becoming very close to a young. not so young, Sweet Alice's in the 60s 70s, sweet Alice Harris, who formed a community group. But she moved from the Deep South in the 60s in Watts and there was a leader in the African American community. And I work very closely with her as chief of police. And when I was leaving and saying goodbye to her, my wife and I and Sweet Alice gave me a hug and said, you know why we like you so much, chief. And I said, no, Sweet Alice, why is that? Because you see us, you really see us. By that she meant that I wasn't just looking at a black face or black kids and white T shirt the baseball had on backwards. I came to understand what the issues were, what they were concerned with and what their feelings were toward the police. So all that began with walking a beat in an all black neighborhood in Mattapan. while going to Boston State College requiring an education that included Art Appreciation, Urban Geography.

[00:09:28.130] - Bill Bratton 

And then thirdly, another transformative experience in that formulative years, my first five years in the Boston Police Department, Policing was not what I had expected. The Boston Police in 1970 still had remnants of racism, brutality and corruption going back to the 50s and 60s. And Kevin White, the then-mayor brought in an outside Police Commissioner to shake things up. And I was planning to leave the Boston Police Department, but I stayed on. When this new guy came in

[00:09:53.050] - Steve Morreale

Bob DiGrazia?

[00:09:53.050] - Bill Bratton 

It was Bob DiGrazia, six foot three, handsome as could be Italian with an Afro, what looked like an Afro those days.

[00:10:01.000] - Bill Bratton 

His three-piece suits and his baby blue Dodge car with the blue vinyl roof as his police Commissioner car and he come in and shook that Department upside down. A bit of the corruption. A bit of the incompetence. Brought professional standards into the Department and showed me what a transformational leader, what one man can do to change an organization, to change a culture. And he's been my inspiration for leadership ever since. I've modeled myself after him ever since that time. And he's responsible for my career. He changed the promotional processes so that at the age of 26 - 27 I think, I was promoted to Sergeant. Youngest sergeant in the history of the Boston Police Department, actually, because it changes he made in the exam process.

[00:10:44.010] - Bill Bratton 

He took it from a straight memorization of the so called Blue Book, Rules and Regulations, to include the books on management, leadership, on race relations, including Assessment Center, include an oral exam

[00:10:55.570] - Steve Morreale

For a Sergeant?

[00:10:56.310] - Bill Bratton 

Sergeant and subsequently  to Lieutenant. And through some of those experiences, I headed up a neighborhood policing program in the Boston Police Department in the late 1970s. That got me a lot of notice. So much notice, that in 1980 the Police Commissioner and still then-Mayor Kevin White promoted me to Executive Superintendent of Department, the highest ranking uniformed officer in the Department of the Boston Police.

[00:11:22.330] - Bill Bratton 

Think of that. Ten years I went from a rookie patrolman up to executive Superintendent of that 2800 person police department. All of this in that formulative years of turbulence in Boston, in the 1970s and indeed in our country, where policing was going through a reformation, trying to make itself into profession. But, was unfortunately following a course of action that was to have negative impact on policing impact in the 70S and 80s and what it did, George Kelling talks about this wrote about it eloquently that we focused on a response to crime and not prevention of crime.

[00:11:55.330] - Bill Bratton 

I saw that first had, the idea, that it was not believed the police could do anything, anything to prevent crime, that we thought crime was caused by racism and poverty, unemployment, many other factors, and that police had no impact on that. So police should focus their evidentiary on becoming more professionalized, bit of education, more technologically proficient, more skilled at responding to the growing workload that 911 had created. And that's where the mobilization of putting cops and cars taking them off walking beats occurred. With that, we lost identity with the neighborhoods we were policing and policing adopted this full time response to 911 calls, response to solving crimes after the fact and measuring our success by response to crime.

[00:12:36.490] - Bill Bratton 

I came to find in my time in the 70s at the neighborhood policing program that we were making a mistake because I came to understand that police could in fact prevent crime and that should be our goal. And I was also exposed in the 1970s to what has become my Bible and that's Sir Robert Peel 1829,  nine principles of policing when he created the Metropolitan Police in London.

[00:12:58.820] - Steve Morreale

Right.

[00:12:59.080] - Bill Bratton 

Those nine principles, if you read them, and they're in the book, that they were appropriate today than they were even then. The first of those is the basic mission which police exists is to prevent crime and disorder, prevent crime and disorder. We were not focusing in the 70s and 80s with fair exceptions, myself being one of those exceptions on disorder. The broken windows are Kelling writes so relatively about we're focusing on serious crime, but we spawn into it. I came to passionately believe that we could prevent crime, but to do it, we also had a focus on disorder at the same time, give it the same priority.

[00:13:31.670] - Bill Bratton 

And I think my career has been proof positive that the dual approach, taking advantage of the other advances of being made in policing, better recruiting, better technology, better education, better appreciation for the importance of race could make a difference and effectively to make a difference.

[00:13:47.720] - Steve Morreale

So a few things that you've said and its interesting because one of the things that I wanted to talk about was the 1968 Commission report and of that, you know, LEAA and LEEP were created. Actually, one of the things we just said is there was no criminal justice when we went to school. It was law enforcement, as you said, as a Bachelor in law enforcement. Mine too. And so that was beneficial. But I want to get to the book for a moment and there's a whole bunch of other things I want to talk about.

[00:14:10.670] - Steve Morreale

But you titled it The Profession and the first couple of questions that come to me, and I know that being in policing for 35 years myself, some people will say policing is not a profession. You merely have to have a high school education. What in your mind constitutes a profession? Is policing really a profession and is educational incentive of value to policing?

[00:14:29.080] - Steve Morreale

Does that help professionalize?

[00:14:30.410] - Bill Bratton 

The idea of entitling the book The Profession is tthe belief that we are now truly a profession. For much of our history, probably up until the 70s and 80s, we were not we were forming, but like cement. It takes a while for to Haden. And what we were missing was a body of knowledge. There were no criminal justice courses at any of our leading institutions. Why? Because there was no body of knowledge, that there was no research being done in policing in its many aspects of the criminal justice system.

[00:15:00.410] - Bill Bratton 

There were very few highly educated police officers. Many police leaders basically had high school education. And that effort going back to 1970s was a recognition by the federal government that the 70s was an era in which policing was going to be professionalized. George Kelling writes eloquently about this transition period. The irony was that even as we were professionalizing, that some of our early efforts led us in wrong directions. And one of those was embracing the idea that we could not prevent crime when basically Sir Robert Peel layed it out perfectly that the basic mission for the police profession was to prevent crime and disorder, and we needed to form our body of knowledge, our activities, our leadership around that belief.

[00:15:40.000] - Bill Bratton 

So we are now a profession. We have all the hallmarks profession. There's a lot of research that has been done about us, many highly educated members in our forces. One of the things I changed in the NYPD recruiting back in 1994-95. We raised the educational requirement that you needed two years in college to become a New York City Police Officer.  One that got me officers who are a little older, too. That also encouraged officers to continue their education coming into the police department because they're already halfway toward the full college degree.

[00:16:10.550] - Bill Bratton 

They would need to take the Sergeant's exam in the New York City Police Department. So we also have as a profession much better standards. All professions need standards. They need checks and balances. We provided very little education to our police officers up until probably the 60s and 70s. I was on the streets of Boston. After eight weeks of training, they rushed us out on the street. So we got to do traffic in downtown Boston during the holiday period, of all things. Billy Bratton with a gun and a badge, 8 weeks of training protecting the citizens of Boston.

[00:16:40.120] - Steve Morreale

Scary thought, right?

[00:16:41.650] - Bill Bratton 

It was a scary thought. I'll tell you, an experience I had that basically shaped my advocacy for training. Training. Training always be training. Always do more training. Do more training initially six months, which is pretty much the standard, should be experienced with minimum of a year and then a following year working with the field training officer an officer goes solo. Very few departments do that. But I had an experience after that. Eight weeks not only was on traffic duty in uniform but about two weeks after that, they had me in plain clothes, working with other rookie officers, doing pickpocketing, shoplifting duties in stores and subways of downtown Boston.

[00:17:16.460] - Bill Bratton 

And one of my partners, Frankie Corbesierro drew us and  spotted a young black kid on the Orange Line, Washington, the subway picking apartment. If somebody got on to the subway train, we pulled him off them up against the wall. Frankie had him against the walls, them down. And basically I was covering them crowds out of the gate. And the kid was acting up and got two white guys pasting this black kid and what has largely in all black population in that particular subway station. And I ended up drawing my gun.

[00:17:41.870] - Bill Bratton 

I had my badge out and had the gun down by my side, but we were scared to death. Now we had this kid who was huge. Frankie was having trouble handcuffing crowd was getting more agitated. I had no training for any of this. None. None whatsoever.

[00:17:54.980] - Steve Morreale

Well, if I can interrupt. Clearly, Bill, your own experience, mine is that sometimes only luck gets us out of those things because we didn't have training.

[00:18:03.680] - Bill Bratton 

Exactly. Well, what we lucked out on that morning was that two Transit cops, uniform cops came walking down the platform and whatever, I take charge of the situation. So that drilled into my mind in my first two months, three months on the job, the importance of training, and how I had lack of it. The second training experience was one that DeGrazia provided back in when I was promoted the Sergeant program had been developed in New York City to deal with postage incidents, which were a growing problem in the country.

[00:18:31.140] - Bill Bratton 

And DiGrazia brought that training program to the BPD, I signed up for it after the psychological screening was accepted. It was, I think, a three week program down at the old police Academy down in North End.  About a month or two after that, I'm working District 6, South Boston. A uniform Sergeant, my Matador world's worst police cars and the call came in for bank robbery. And I was right, literally, around the corner, coming over the Broadway Bridge and this was on Dorchester Avenue at the Broadway Bridge and got off the bridge and couldn't go no farther. Traffic was all jammed up. So I exited my car, notified the dispatcher I was moving up towards the scene. And I'm working my way through the crowd. And all of a sudden, outside the crowd and facing a gunman, black gentleman with a red leisure suit holding a white female bank teller hostage with a gun to her head in his hands, other hand, her throat with a money bag in that hand. And he surrounded by an all white audience in South Boston, which was at the height of the school busing and desegregation crisis.

[00:19:28.230] - Bill Bratton 

So you could not have created a more tense situation. That crowd was ready to take on this guy gun and all. And that's what I walked into. First thing we learned in hostage negotiation training was, don't expose yourself. Well, by accident, I was exposing myself. I had my gun out. I was in full uniform. He had his gun out. We're pointing our guns at each other. But that's where the training, the recent training kicked in. I recognized I could not try to shoot him without potentially hitting that hostage or the crowd that was surrounding us.

[00:19:57.440] - Speaker 1

So that gun in my hand was absolutely useless. A major part our of the training was deescalate the tension, deescalate the situation so that you can talk to this individual. I lowered my firearm and started talking with them. Look, you haven't shot anybody. You're not going to get out of this. But right now it's not so bad. But if this gets worse, you ended up using that gun going to get a lot worse. I was able to talk him into surrendering. Some ending. And so there was two vivid examples of training in my early formulative career. And I have been an advocate of it.

[00:20:27.030] - Bill Bratton 

And in the midst of this defund police, the stupidest movement that was ever formed.  I've been advocating using language, refund the police, because with the responsibilities in the 21st century, you shouldn't be taking money away from the police need to give them more money for more training because there's more things in our responsibility.

[00:20:44.270] - Steve Morreale

So, Bill, as I'm listening to you, you're such an advocate for policing. You've got so much experience, you've got the pole that you're still active. It strikes me in a couple of ways that the 68 commissions, some things, some good things came from it, and some things were completely ignored. As you well know, 21st century policing report comes out, six pillars. Some are implemented, the others are cast aside. One of the thing you just said was about education and research. Is it time for us to have a series of American police colleges, much like they do in Europe and in Scandinavia.

[00:21:16.470] - Bill Bratton 

Ironically, the British police for years at Brahm Hill College, where every senior police leader in Britain had to go through that College. So they're all trained the same. But part of their fiscal cutbacks, they cut back on that program, i don't even even know if it exists anymore over there. So there's an example of defunding the police at a time when they really needed to expand funding because of the increasing responsibilities in that country. In our country, the problem with the Crime report that you reference from 68, the problem with the six pillars report so often one, they end up on a shelf and not fully implemented.

[00:21:47.640] - Bill Bratton 

That only pieces of them, they never get funded adequately to fully implement these well thought out recommendations. And so going forward, the idea is better education, more structured education, particularly for American police leaders, because right now the education of American police leaders is all voluntary. A lot of cities require that they want college degrees, but to obtain those college degrees, it's entirely up to the individual to get them. And many police leaders today have multiple degrees, spending, have doctorates and lawyers. That's a good thing. But to get a standardized form of training, the FBI offers the National Academy, the National Executive Institute.

[00:22:25.560] - Bill Bratton 

They try to stay contemporary, but the issue there is that even that training could be improved. But the deficiency is that so few people can go to 670,000 officers now. And I think they handle 300 or 400 a year. The Police Executive Research Form, which is one of the foremost leading institutions in the country doing research, doing training. I participate in their Senior Management Institute of Police, training for senior management every year. This year, I think I helped to train over almost 500.

[00:22:55.110] - Steve Morreale

That's at BU? 

[00:22:56.220] - Bill Bratton 

It normally is at BU, this year, they had to miove it to Orlando because of the virus you available to them. So, Ironically, Alando ended up the Corona Virus center for Florida, but the class required that you'd be vaccinated coming in, and they did testing also. But we really don't have structured training, so we have consistency of training. Many schools have criminal justice programs. Ironically, I advocate that young people don't necessarily take a criminal justice degree program, but rather take degree programs that give them a broader education, because when they come into policing the first six months, we're going to give them a lot of the training that they would get in that college environment.

[00:23:34.110] - Bill Bratton 

But the training is very specific to the police organization are now joining. So I advocate a mix of criminal justice coupled with social studies. I referenced much earlier in our conversation that Boston State College. My degree was in law enforcement, and the only course I flunked in law enforcement at Boston State College was Forensics. I was awful at it. But what were the two courses that I still remember and talk frequently about? There were social studies courses, Art Appreciation in Urban Geography. One of the things that we don't teach at all, not enough of, but not at all, is the history of policing.

[00:24:07.290] - Bill Bratton 

And what I've tried to do with my book. My three books actually is, in some respects provide a history summary, the memoir, 50 Years of Policing Over the Last 50 Years. The opening page is a quote from John Timony where he's quoting from somebody else as living those who don't know their history due to repeat it. Just think of Afghanistan, Vietnam, those who know police know we don't know our history. Just think of the mistakes we make over and over again. Whereas if we taught the recruits the history of their police department, their city, how beneficial, that would be during that initial  training, or if we taught police leaders when they go for criminal justice degrees, police history, we don't.

[00:24:44.210] - Bill Bratton 

So we have a profession that in many respects is lacking o One of the tenets of a profession knowing your history.

[00:24:51.020] - Steve Morreale

Obviously you wrote Turnaround, Collaborate or Perish and The Profession which is the most recent and am I reading? It was part autobiography, part police history, which I found very interesting and intriguing, and sort of mirrored my life and part prescriptive for the future. But obviously, it's written from your perspective. And there's some people who would not see the book they way that you or I would do. You say to them, what were you attempting to do as you wrote the book? Where were you aiming the audience?

[00:25:18.630] - Bill Bratton 

Oh, there's a fourth element to the book. It's a tutorial. I go to great plans to provide detail, around many of the buzzwords of the 21st century; qualified immunity, implicit bias training, stop question and frisk, things that are so essential to modern policing and so misunderstood. So I try to put it into commonsense language, definition and examples. So the book is the first three things that you outlined, but the fourth is a tutorial. But the book is also clearly my perspective, and that's what I want to impart.

[00:25:50.550] - Bill Bratton 

I'm a strong advocate, probably the strongest advocate in practitioner of broken windows policing, which I go into a great deal of detail describing, which is the quality of life to so long. Robert Peel talked about disorder, crime and disorder. I go into a great deal of discussion about the need to deal with race, that race and police. You can't separate the two. The history is so comingle over time. So what do they want to do with these three books? The three of them together provide leadership, understanding of leadership, the importance of collaboration, the importance of knowing what you're talking about.

[00:26:23.040] - Bill Bratton 

So if you're been talking about qualified immunity, basically understand what it is. If you're going to attack stock, question and risk because of your concerns around racial bias, disproportionate impact. Well, first off, know what it is. And then when you advocate to do away with it shows a clear lack of understanding of its importance to policing. You could not function in America without stop question and frisk,  What do you expect the car to do? He suspected something's happening,  just walk by? No, the book was intended to be advocacy for the profession.

[00:26:52.470] - Bill Bratton 

It is a advocates book. And when somebody Googles some of those terms, some of the first things I want to pop up in that Google will be these books, this idea that they've talked about Athlet oh, and somebody Google's my name, in addition to some of the negatives that'll pop up, and there's had a lot of ups and downs my life. A lot of people who don't like what I believe in and what I espouse all well and good for them with their belief. But I argue very, I think, convincingly for things I deeply believe in. That really my opinions informed by 50 years of experience.

[00:27:21.620] - Steve Morreale

So, Bill, one of the things I think in some cases that people see somebody like you or others.  First of all, in policing, that we can be bold and we can be brash and have an opinion and we want to fix things. And we don't always want to talk about things. We want to get things done. You could be a threat to others, not intentionally, by any means. But I want to ask this question. You have walked into so many agencies. Let me take you down some memory lane and ask you what you recall, what the common threads were when you walked into a command staff meeting for the first time trying to understand this new place you're going to, and that you've got a charge to make it better than it was before, with the people you have.

[00:27:58.850] - Steve Morreale

What are the questions you're asking around that table? What's the data you're looking for? How did you identify priorities and issues? I'm very curious about that because there has to be some consistent theme there.

[00:28:10.140] - Bill Bratton 

First off, when I go into an agency in the first time I meet its command staff, I already know a lot about that agency. I purposely seek out agencies and crises. Agencies that think of the MBTA much maligned for increasing crime and incompetence back in the early 80s. The Metropolitan Police. Mayer, and corruption. New York City Tansit Police police, totally ineffective in dealing with crime and disorder. NYPD, vry ineffective dealing with crime and disorder in 94. LAPD mired in scandal race issues going back 50 years. NYPD in 2014, mired in race issues once again, and fear of crime.

[00:28:50.630] - Bill Bratton 

I always look for organizations crises. But before I step through the door. I do a transition study using people like Bob Wasserman. I learn everything I can looking at the media, meeting with people beforehand, so that when I come through the door, I believe I have an understanding of that organization is its current leadership as well as potential future leaders. And I have developed over time a system that's multi-faceted. I do a cultural diagnostic using a good friend, John Linder, to go in and understand the culture of the organization, the culture of the community they're trying to police that involves a lot of focus groups, does a lot of surveys that are conducted.

[00:29:27.560] - Bill Bratton 

Bottom analysis. I also am a strong believer as I wwrite about in my second book, Collaborator orPerish in the idea of collaboration of finding common ground. Mr. Lucas wrote a wonderful book, Boston experiences around housing desegregation in the 1970s called Common Ground. Was the DEA of trying to deal with this tumultuous period of racial tension in Boston. And how do you get through it? How do you get by it? And the idea of using the expression commongroundi is that and I articulate eight things that need to be done to have effective collaboration.

[00:29:56.990] - Bill Bratton 

Starts with visionary leadership, belief of the leader that you can do something, then being able to articulate what needs to be done. But thirdly, finding a common platform where you can get people from all sides to come to that platform, to hear their ideas and then let them see that they have some common ground. They might have differences of opinion, differences in perspective. But to find find common ground, where there's something that you can put together in a way of a plan of action that's appealing to all of them and that they can take some ownership of.

[00:30:26.960] - Bill Bratton 

 I call that process reengineering. Reengineering is the idea of in department after department.  I form volunteer focus groups of people inside the department, people outside of the department to articulate what the issues that are on this Common Ground platform. And most recently in the NYPD, there are over 700 identified issues, and we formed up I forget now how many reengineering teams to focus on all of those issues and come up with recommendations for solution, and then not only decide what we think we can affect, achieve cheap and accomplish by working together, then track them as they move forward.

[00:31:05.120] - Bill Bratton 

And so the process. By the time I meet with the command staff for the first time, one I'm a visionary leader. I have a vision of what I think this organization is going to need. But then I very quickly following Jim Collin's book, Good to Great. Basically on my bus, I'm the driver. I know where I want to take that bus. I get the right people on the bus would be that are going to help me along the way, get the wrong people off the bus as fast as I can.

[00:31:27.690] - Bill Bratton 

In other words, people that just don't share the vision are going to repeat it. And then, as you can go down the journey, get people right people in the right seats. Sometimes you keep moving them around.  All the time, understanding that my former leadership any organization for a lifetime. I go in to turn it around and then get off the bus. But I want to make sure the next guy moving up into the drivers seat, believes in the same things I do. He might have set of different ideas, but the core vision is a shared vision because he helped to create.

[00:31:54.990] - Steve Morreale

And, you know, that actually has happened a couple of times. Obviously, you walk in, you're the outsider.

[00:31:59.720] - Bill Bratton 

I always want to be the outsider.

[00:32:01.520] - Bill Bratton 

You leave the insider more ready to take over. That's my sense. It happened in LA that happened in New York, right?

[00:32:07.680] - Bill Bratton 

Charlie Back in LA, Mike Moore after him that might go after him. Another guy that was at toward the back of the bus, who moved up in seats. Jimmy O'Neil, now Dermot Shea.

[00:32:15.870] - Steve Morreale

Dermot. And they would play prominent.

[00:32:18.630] - Bill Bratton 

All guys, you guys are on the bus that kept moving seats. Jimmy come on as Chief of Partol, Chief of Department, Commissioner.  Dermot come on running Comstat, Chief of Detectives, then Commissioner. In LA, Charlie Beck started as a Captain. Moved up Mike Moore was a commander.  In the NYPD of 94-96, it would have been John Timony went on to Miami and Philadelphia. But Giuliani wanted Howie Safir. And when I left the MDC, it was basically merged out of existence. My number two person there, Kathy O'Toole, ironically ended up becoming a Secretary of Public Safety and Police Commissioner Boston. 

[00:32:53.870] - Bill Bratton 

Please commit Boston.

[00:32:54.840] - Steve Morreale

Yes, I know, Cathy well. 

[00:32:57.050] - Bill Bratton 

 When I left Boston, my recommendation for my successor Paul Evans.  He had gotten on the bus with me, moved up. In the MBTA, when I left there Tom Maloney who I recruited from the Boston Police. Every one of the departments with the the exception of 94 with Giuliani. My handpicked successor was my successor.

[00:33:17.180] - Steve Morreale

So you just raised a word, and in my notes, I wanted to talk about Comstat with you. And Comstat was the brain child. Remember reading that you were doing it in a rudimentary way in Boston by looking at data. And I remember the old paper stuff that we would have to work on. And it was so much easier once we were able to compute that. But it seems to me that when you went to New York, one of the things it did was force many people out that were not used to being held accountable, that couldn't stand up to either scrutiny.

[00:33:45.650] - Steve Morreale

Aiming for the mission. Is that a fair assessment?

[00:33:48.390] - Bill Bratton 

That's correct. That one of the things that's misunderstood about Comstat.  I write about it so frequently in my books, talk about it. And it was revolutionary. It did change. American policing continues to change it. But so much of the focus is on the idea of - it was a creative way of using data. Find out the 70s, the print out thing. Putting a map on a wall,

[00:34:08.200] - Steve Morreale

Your pinpoint right.

[00:34:10.620] - Bill Bratton 

Then you put little dots on the map for each prime that occurred. Pretty soon you have hot spots or problems popping up.

[00:34:16.730] - Bill Bratton 

And that was the beginning of CompStat back in the 70s. We modernized it in the 90s when I went to the NYPD, but it's not only just a crime tracking system, and I'll explain briefly in a moment the four elements of it, but it's an accountability system in which we hold people accountable.

[00:34:32.280] - Steve Morreale

So you were talking about Comstat in that you wrote about it and that it's misunderstood.

[00:34:36.750] - Bill Bratton 

Okay. Comstat, which was a system for tracking crime. That's what it's known for. Identify where crime is occurring and identify patterns s and trends very quickly and rapidly. Response would use effective tactics to deal with it. But even after it's gone, basically keep focus just in case such be occurring. But what is not often understood fully about it? It's a phenomenal accountability system. Comstat, which is a meeting that was held in the NYPD headquarters, would bring in everybody in a precinct or involved with dealing with the crime and disorder issues in that precinct, or borough, the precinct captains, the borough commander, the Detective Sergeant's, squad commanders and working with those maps would talk about crime.

[00:35:15.180] - Bill Bratton 

 Why is it up? Why is it down? What are you doing that's successful? What are you not doing that you should be doing? And it was a room where there was total transparency, total inclusiveness that everybody could see everybody else, hear everybody else with a phenomenal sharing of ideas forum. And it worked. And it allowed me, as police Commissioner on this 50,000 person organization, sit in that room and watch some of my top commanders, some of my top sergeant's talk about issues.  And you could very quickly identify who got it, who didn't get it, who was in the wrong assignment, needed to be on a different seat on the bus.

[00:35:45.960] - Bill Bratton 

You wanted them on the bus, but they needed to be in a different seat. So Comstat revolutionized. The NYPD continues to be the engine that moves that bus along. It revolutionized American policing, although every Department has its own version of it. But if they're doing it correctly, you get a much better handle on their crime situation on a daily, hourly basis. And importantly, it gives them great accountability tools for their leadership to identify people that are working with them. Are they all on the same bus traveling towards the same destination?

[00:36:13.920] - Steve Morreale

So as you talk about leadership, and I know you do that an awful lot, and you're guiding other people. What is it that you're suggesting that leaders need to do - new leaders where they're trying to kind of find themselves? There are certain elements that you expect or you impart as a mentor?

[00:36:29.090] - Bill Bratton 

There's a wonderful play, a movie, actually, to that matter. Glenngary, Glennross about a bunch of salesmen competing for a prize. And the manager of this group is saying that he's constantly hammering home. Always be selling.  In other words, your salesman. So always be selling. Well, as a leader, it's always be learning. I've seen too many police leaders who think they know it all. That you're head of a city agency and you don't need to learn anybody from anybody else. I don't need any new stinking ideas.

[00:36:56.600] - Bill Bratton 

That's always a mistake. I always seek to - as a police leader, constantly be learning,  going to conferences, staying involved with the latest contemporary trends and not isolate or close yourself off. And I've worked for some bosses that were like that. I know of others, some who have succeeded after they have left. And always be learning. Because the profession, any profession is always changing. It's always evolving and you never want to stay static. The world is always changing. And to stay, keep pace with the world, you always have to be prepared to change.

[00:37:28.100] - Steve Morreale

Have you made decisions that you were so firm that you weren't going to change it until you realize that some of the factors have changed and then you do reverse yourself? In other words, are you so stayed in a decision that that's it. We're not going to change it at all.

[00:37:41.040] - Bill Bratton 

No, I don't think that a core belief about broken windows, core beliefs about CompStat. Can they be modified for changing times at broken windows? Case in point, broken windows quality of life enforcement. Key to it is the concept is sound at all times. But like a doctor, how much of it do you use at any given time? And police chiefs are like doctors. You have to know your patient. How much medicine is that patient capable of absorbing to deal with their particular illness? So in New York City, it was quite clear that starting in the 21st century, crime was going down dramatically.

[00:38:12.930] - Bill Bratton 

So you should be able to start pulling back on stop questioning frisk activity. Instead, they kept creating more of it. Why? Because they believed it was so effective. Well, let's try more. Well, the problem was the patient was saying, you're giving me too much. And so the black community in particular began to rebel against this idea of too much of it. I believe the black community was correct that there was too much going on. So by way of example, there was 700,000 documented stops in 2010.

[00:38:38.340] - Bill Bratton 

In New York last year. I think they get about 10,000. Last year might be a bad idea, to quote, because starting in 2019, crime began going up in New York City again. But the example was that you could adjust the amount of activity to the patient's needs in a city with a lot less crime certainly can try having a lot less stop, questsion and frisk medicine. So there's a firm commitment to a belief, but understanding that it could be modified over time.

[00:39:04.740] - Steve Morreale

That's good. I love the medical model that you use all the time.

[00:39:07.650] - Bill Bratton 

Well, I use medical models all the time because people get it. And I'll close with this, if I may, going back to Comstat, because it's the core of what I do as a doctor with my patients. No two cities are like in America, and I've consulted in over 100 of them, so I've got a pretty good sense of them. So you want a police leader who's, like the best doctor you can find, who has the ability to identify the illnesses his patient, as understand how they impact in each other an applies the right  dose to each of those illnesses. Timely, accurate intelligence. Like cancer, find it early, rapidly respond to it using I effective tactics, chemo, radiation in the right amounts. And then after you cure it or reduce it significantly, keep going back

[00:39:46.560] - Steve Morreale

Keep an eye on it

[00:39:47.420] - Bill Bratton 

Check on it, keep an eye on it. And that's American policing. That's the way policing should work. And that basically like a doctor oath to do no harm. Policing is all about trying to do minimum harm to your patient while you're trying to make that patient healthier.

[00:40:02.100] - Steve Morreale

Yeah. That puts in nice perspective. Last couple of questions that are personal in a way. What's on your bucket list?

[00:40:07.710] - Bill Bratton 

Talking you from my office here New York, on the business  division of one of the largest CEO consulting firms in the world. And I still do a lot of activities involving my old profession, on the share of the Homeland Security Advisory Council, advising the Secretary of Homeland Security on the myriad of issues he has to DEA with. So nowhere near any stage of retirement, that's still active in my formal world policing and still very active in the new corporate world of security and risk.

[00:40:35.510] - Steve Morreale

But what is on your bucket list? What do you want to do? Where do you want to go, what do you want to see?

[00:40:39.500] - Bill Bratton 

Bucket list is to, particularly at this time of great stress in American policing profession, to basically advocate in the purpose of the book the profession for the importance of policing, the importance of what is necessary to make policing even better and more responsive to all the concerns, whether it's not issues, race, use of force, corruption, there's only expression you get what you pay for. Well, if you want to defund police, you're going to get less effective policing. If you want more effective, more racially conscious, more successful policing, put more resources into it.

[00:41:07.700] - Bill Bratton 

And so my bucket list is is to continue to advocate for a police profession, also to effectively continue. And I like to have a good life. Rep Simon shares the former Prime Minister I attended a speech in Chicago that he gave for Motorola, and he was asked a question by one of the attendees that early on in your career, what did you set out to accomplish? And he answered with this, he said very early on, I decided which book did I want my name and a question.

[00:41:31.830] - Bill Bratton 

I said, what do you mean, which book? He said, Did I want my name in the guest book that I want my name in the history books? He said, I chose the history books. That's pretty much what I've decided. I want my name in the history books, so I don't want to just be a guest passing through. I want to have a legacy. I want to have a lasting imprint. And I think, fortunately, with Comstat broken windows policing, much of that legacy is a good one.

[00:41:52.410] - Bill Bratton 

Some of it certainly challenged, but I'm always happy to respond to the challenges.

[00:41:55.920] - Steve Morreale

Here's the last question. I know you're running out of time, and you're moving on to another event. If you had the chance to sit with anybody, talk with anybody, DEA or alive, that impressed you. Whose brain would you like to pick?

[00:42:06.360] - Bill Bratton 

I'm a student of history. I read a lot about history and reading DEA book about Churchill. Just finished a book about grants. I have one on eyes, and I'm going to be starting many of those people that don't need to pick their brain in any respect, because there's so many books about them about how they thought and so not so much. That going back to always be learning. I'm always learning from people who were in response to great prices, great stress, did great things. And what was the process that they used to by DEA with that.

[00:42:33.750] - Bill Bratton 

And so I'm always learning that always striving for traditional role models.

[00:42:38.100] - Steve Morreale

Terrific. Well, we've been talking and very lucky to talk with Bill Bratton. Thank you very much for being with us.

[00:42:43.530] - Bill Bratton 

Great to be with you,also.

[00:42:44.850] - Steve Morreale

Appreciate it. Best of luck.

[00:42:45.990] - Bill Bratton 

Take care.

[00:42:46.470] - Steve Morreale

Thanks for your time.