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Press Conference with NYC Mayor De Blasio, NYPD Commissioner Bill Bratton on Garner Case.

Aired December 04, 2014 - 14:30   ET

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

MAYOR BILL DE BLASIO, D-NEW YORK: That's what people deeply desire. They want to know that they'll be safe. They want to know if they have an encounter with the police, that they will be respected in that encounter.

All of us have such respect for the work our police do. It's the basis of a democratic society that our police keep order and allow a democratic society to function. Everyone needs to know that they'll be treated the same regardless of who they are. That's what we aspire to. They need to know that in doing this crucial work, our police will always, with every fiber of their beings, avoid any needless injury and, God forbid, avoid any death that could be stopped. People need to know that. They need to feel that. That's part of what we have to reach. People need to know that black lives and brown lives matter as much as white lives. It's what we still have to aspire to. I said it yesterday. I believe it.

This is not just a problem in New York City. It's an American problem and an American challenge. It's an issue that goes back to the founding of this republic that we still haven't resolved. Our generation has to resolve it. The leaders you see around me, we are all responsible now. The weight of history can't be our excuse.

I have said that I feel these issues very, very personally, something that's a powerful current running through our family. And the stories I've heard from members of my family from previous generations and the challenges we face as parents. This is personal. We can see through the eyes of so many of our fellow New Yorkers.

And all we want, all of us together, is to know that everyone will be kept safe. That's what it comes down to. And particularly that our young people who are learning life's lessons will be safe while they go through that process of maturing. It's what every parent yearns for is that their children getting to go through their childhood and learn lessons they need and be ready for the world up ahead. And God forbid that we lose any child before they complete that journey, before they're equipped with the tools to live.

So many people were aggrieved yesterday. I've made clear my message to them. And again, I want to emphasize yesterday was one chapter. There are other chapters ahead. You'll hear about this more today.

I mentioned last night the call I received from the attorney general of the United States emphasizing that U.S. attorney's process in this case would move expeditiously and independently. You'll hear from Commissioner Bratton about their own investigation

into this matter, which I know will be thorough and fair.

But through all of the pain and the frustration, I'll say I know what to be true, reform is happening here in New York City. It is happening already before our eyes and it's only just begun. There is much more ahead.

I have used the example of the decision by Commissioner Bratton to move for a full retraining of the police force after the death of Eric Garner. This is not a decision of a typical leader. This is the decision of an extraordinary leader. This commissioner understood that something needed to be addressed fundamentally and the training that will happen here in this building will change the future of this city. It will have not just an impact on thousands of people, it will impact millions of people. Every interaction that every officer has with their fellow New Yorkers after they are trained again will be different. That will multiply many times over for years and years to come and a whole generation of officers will be trained with a new approach. It's something we've never seen before.

Now, I understand anyone who is doubtful about change, anyone who is cynical about our democratic process, but I also would say that history teaches us that many times change is real. Something that is started by people of good faith and visionary leaders, like our commissioner, takes hold and multiplies and changes people's lives. We have a lot of evidence of that through history.

One of the focal points here at the academy, we will be changing how our officers talk with residents of this city, changing how they listen, slowing down some interactions that sometimes escalate too quickly, giving officers a chance to wait until backup and supervision comes. Deescalating, using less force whenever possible. These are fundamental lessons that will be taught here. And even in the brief example I saw earlier, you can see the power of an experienced instructor helping officers to realize there is some better ways to do things.

You'll hear from first deputy commissioner, Ben Tucker. Until his promotion last month, Ben was the architect of a lot of the training efforts you're seeing here and also in the curriculum of the academy for new recruits. He'll continue to lead those efforts and make sure that this new training produces the changes we need. And you'll hear from him in a moment. I think as a man who grew up in this city and chose this profession early on in his life, Ben can talk to you about what it means to change the training and talk to you about it from both the viewpoint of the police and the viewpoint of the community and how foundational a change in training is to everything that comes thereafter.

Commissioner Bratton will also talk about the ongoing work he does to bring in community leaders and listen to what they suggest. This is another hallmark of this commissioner. When we first started working together and I often had the experience that I would call him and he would be in the middle of a meeting and he would call me back and say he was meeting with one group of community leaders, another group of faith leaders, civil liberties leaders. He was always seeking out people who had concerns both to explain to them his vision for change but also to find out what they knew to make them a part of the process. We will deepen that in terms of training through a community advisory board that will help bring voices of communities into the training process. And again, Commissioner Bratton will speak to that in a moment.

The retraining is one of the foundational things we can do. It will create a momentum for change on top of the change in the Stop and Frisk policy, on top of the change in marijuana arrest policy, on top of the changes we've made with the CCRB and the inspector general, on top of the new effort to pilot body cameras. If we're serious about change, we understand it can only be achieved with the people we serve. And we understand that change requires many elements. What I'm describing to you is a series of reforms that all work together that synergize to change the dynamic between police and community. And we are moving each and every one of them aggressively and energetically.

I said last year that we have to achieve this mission. I'm more convinced than ever. Even in this difficult moment, I'm more convinced than ever that we will achieve this mission. I'm convinced that we have the talent and the leadership. We have the will and we have the tools. And we have the will of the people urging us on. And I've said this to many people who have felt unheard that they should recognize how much their voices mattered in these last months and in these last years because these changes are happening because the people demanded it. And that should be a reason for people to have faith that the process of democracy is functioning. With the help of everyday New Yorkers, with the close partnership of all of the members of this department, we'll get there.

I want to say a few words in Spanish before introduce Commissioner Bratton.

(SPEAKING SPANISH)

BROOKE BALDWIN, CNN ANCHOR: All right, we're going to pull away from this for a minute as he's speaking in Spanish.

We've got Eugene O'Donnell, professor of John Jay College of Criminal Justice. He was with the New York Police Department, trained New York police officer.

Just react to what we heard from the mayor before we go back.

EUGENE O'DONNELL, PROFESSOR, JOHN JAY COLLEGE OF CRIMINAL JUSTICE & FORMER NEW YORK CITY POLICE OFFICER: We'll hear the real details but this is a good thing for the city and for the country to remind people about the competence issues for policing, which often gets overlooked. This is a big investment that will cost a lot of money.

BALDWIN: Retraining the entire police force. When does that ever happen?

O'DONNELL: What's interesting is the cops are starved for this training. Cops will not resist it. Cops love this, especially if it's hands on and relevant --

BALDWIN: Really?

O'DONNELL: -- they can't get enough of it. Hopefully, it's high quality, allows them to do role plays. That's what they need. The major complaint of policing in this city, the training is bureaucratic, filling out forms, 1600-page patrol guide. And then there's no time to do actual hands on diagnosing of problems and responding to those problems. So hopefully, they'll get to that.

(CROSSTALK)

JEFFERY TOOBIN, CNN SENIOR LEGAL ANALYST: There's a political issue here, too. One of the reasons Bill de Blasio was elected mayor a year ago was outrage in the city's mostly minority parts of the city at overly aggressive police tactics, mostly known as Stop and Frisk here in New York. He appointed Bill Bratton, former police commissioner, and made him police commissioner again with the mandate to cutback on Stop and Frisk, which they have. And crime is still down.

BALDWIN: Here he is, Commissioner Bratton.

TOOBIN: Here he is.

WILLIAM BRATTON, COMMISSIONER, NEW YORK POLICE DEPARTMENT: -- the first time. And you'll, hopefully, come back in January when we formally open it.

To the media, many here for the second time in two days, welcome. Hopefully, the next time you come, the restaurant downstairs, one of the largest in the city, seating 800, will be open and we'll be able to offer you refreshments at that time. It will be encouragement for you to come back.

I would like to thank the mayor for his generous comments but extend those comments to the men and women of the department, thousands of them that, last night and again today, and I'm sure again this evening, have really, in the face of a lot of -- as the mayor has pointed out -- anger and frustration, have performed as we would expect them to perform professionally. Even though a lot of the sentiments were directed against them while they were on those fence lines, they dealt with it, and dealt with it professionally.

As the mayor referenced, we had a total of 83 arrests last evening. During the course of those events, no significant acts of vandalism, no violence. And so the evening, which was intended, first and foremost, to check the tree lighting ceremony at Rockefeller Center that attracted national and international attention, that that went off very, very well so those watching from around the country and around the world were actually unaware of what was going on on the perimeters of that event.

What I would like to do today is expose you to some of the training that is being conducted in this academy and has been under way for a while and will expand dramatically in the months ahead where we will be training almost 22,000 police officers, retraining in a three-day course. The charts in back of us, to my right and your left, charts outlining those three days of instruction are going on.

Two of the principle architects, the now first deputy commissioner, formerly deputy for training, Ben Tucker, and his replacement as deputy commissioner for training, Mike Julian, both are going to briefly address you and identify what's going on here in the academy in the course of these three days of training for officers in the department.

And I think it's a fulfillment of a commitment that I made coming in as commissioner, and that the mayor embraced wholeheartedly, the need to refocus the department and to refocus it requires training and the enhancement skills so necessary to reach the commitment that we make to the community to police fairly, impartially and safely.

With that, if I could ask Commissioner Tucker to come up and fill you in on what's been going on here and the very exciting things that are happening here.

BEN TUCKER, DEPUTY COMMISSIONER, NEW YORK POLICE DEPARTMENT: Thanks, Commissioner.

So, as the mayor indicated, interesting times, and things are, with respect to training, are going extremely well. We are, with the academy, involved in some training changes and a broad landscape of training initiatives.

So just in terms of contrast, it's important to note that for the last 50 years, the New York City Police Department training has taken place out of primarily out of 20th Street, 235 East 20th Street in Manhattan here. And they've -- our training staff has done an extraordinary job in training our officers. This building that we're in right now is an extraordinary step forward. Three-quarters of a million square feet. We have those of you who may have seen the building. For those who have not, it's an opportunity for us to train our police officers in a very different way, as the police commissioner and the mayor both indicated, and gives us an opportunity to make our officers even more effective and raise the bar in terms of the training that we've done.

And so we started in March. Let me just talk about what we've done since then. We've developed the program to provide post-academy field training for recruits who are finishing the academy. Probationary officers needed to establish a felt presence, which is intended in their communities to raise the level of community trust and confidence and collaboration. And so two important and, I think, essential pieces of that partner officer program I want to mention. One is the assignment of senior partner officers, senior officers who are the mentors for our new graduates as they are assigned to their new commands. There's a real strong recognition that we needed to have those officers who were recently leaving the academy, who are now in field assignments, need to get their sea legs. Very practical approach. Something we've not had in the department for quite some time. We created a program that will go extremely well.

The other essential point that I would make with respect to the component and that is our community partners program. We enlisted the help of citizens from various communities where the officers, in our last class that graduated this past June, when they went to their 12 or so impact commands, we enlisted citizens from those communities where probationary officers are assigned, and we asked these citizens to host those officers when they arrived to those commands. And what I mean by host is those officers would be introduced to the culture of that community and have an understanding of the issues in those communities and work on and attend events in those communities and get to know the business community and the schools and so forth. We have 607 officers that are out there assigned with partner officers. And their feedback has been extraordinary in terms of the impact that that's had in many of these locations. So we are continuing that as we roll out the next full-blown field training program with the current class of 918 officers who will graduate at the end of this month.

Every class from then forward, two things will happen. When they leave the academy, they'll leave field support through the program and they'll go to precincts as opposed to the most violent and challenging neighborhoods as has been the case in the past. That will put us in a position to have officers get a much broader exposure and understanding of what police work is really like.

I want to move on and talk about the other promise that we made, and Commissioner Bratton referenced it, to train our 20,000 member patrol force. The patrol force, we'll be training 16,000 police officers, 2,500 sergeants and another 900 or so lieutenants, all members of the patrol force. This training is designed to enhance the capacity of those members to engage in positive police communities reaction, interactions, while maintaining police officer safety.

One of the challenges we face is this disconnect between our communities, local communities, and our police officers. And the training that we're going to conduct both through field training program but also in our recruit training and our ongoing in-service training will focus in every way on how we can get our officers to engage with communities and have a felt presence that makes a difference that builds trust. We're training members of the service by platoon. And this is an interesting and, I think, an important point to make. That's not been done in the past. So the officers that we bring in for training from these precincts, you'll have police officers, sergeants and lieutenants, all trained together. These are officers that work together. Logic is they work together, we train them together, they'll perform as a team together much more effectively when they are back in their commands in every respect. So we are moving in that direction.

Let me talk about the three charts I referenced earlier. I'm going to outline those charts. I think we're going to provide you with copies of the information on the charts. I wanted to just walk you through and give you a sense of what we intend to do with three-day training that we're talking about. This is in-service training for the entire patrol force. We've begun that earlier this month and we hope to complete it sometime in June. Day one, so we're talking about foundations of policing. And I'm not going to go through all of what's there, but the goal here is to --

BALDWIN: We'll stay on some of these pictures. But initially, you heard from the mayor. You heard from the police commissioner. And now folks under him walking through what will be -- making this huge announcement that the New York police force will be 100 percent retrained.

And so I just want to talk about some of the nuggets in which they shared with us and also some of the sentiments we heard from the mayor of New York City, Mayor de Blasio.

I have Jumaane Williams joining me on set. He is a member of New York City council. And Eugene O'Donnell has been with me.

We're so grateful to have your voice speaking, having been a police officer in the city training police, and now at John Jay College for Criminal Justice.

So, since you're just now joining us, Council Member, we would love to hear from you when you hear about a full-on retraining of New York police.

JUMAANE WILLIAMS, NEW YORK CITY COUNCIL MEMBER: Obviously, retraining is nothing to sneeze at. It's important. I'm glad they're doing it.

There's a couple of things. One, I also wanted to hear about some things we would feel today. I also wanted to hear about accountability for the officers. Both officers that killed Eric Garner are on payroll. What's going to happen to them? I know it's a process. My hope is that examples are made of officers who make mistakes and people die. So the retraining is good. But I want to hear what else will happen and what can get to the ground today.

In addition -- and I don't want to lose sight of this -- we must focus on police/community relations but we also have to focus on something else. If we don't, we'll miss the boat.

BALDWIN: What's that?

WILLIAMS: Black and brown people across the spectrum in the country are treated differently. That goes to many things. What I often hear, the police are there because the communities want them. This is true. But the communities also ask for better housing and youth programs and community centers. They ask for their streets to be cleaned better. They ask for a lot of things and, for some reason, we don't hear that. And then, we only send the police. That's a recipe for disaster. Those communities have been generationally ignored and are being ignored now. And that's the crux of this issue. If we don't deal with that, whatever we do, is not going to fix the problem.

BALDWIN: I see you nodding just as a former New York City police officer hearing those very valid concerns.

O'DONNELL: We had a tragedy in public housing because the lights didn't work. If you go to public housing, the big complaint is the lights don't work. It happened -- and the councilman led on this and said, why didn't we have an electrician here to fix the lights, we wouldn't have had a tragedy. A lot of these issues -- there is serious police issues -- but there's a lot broader societal issues often that are at the root of a lot of things that eventually become police issues.

BALDWIN: Now, we kept hearing from the mayor, saying over and over, off the top, listen, I hear you, I feel your pain, your frustration. We absolutely need to improve and work on the trust, right, between community and police. And as he was saying, we want a society where everyone is treated equally. I took this note. How do you teach that? How do you teach that? Either of you?

WILLIAMS: It's extremely difficult. One, you have to start by acknowledging. One of my frustrations has always been -- my first step is having to explain to somebody that racism exists. That makes it very difficult. You can't fix a problem unless you diagnose it. I'm happy that they are trying to start acknowledging that this is generational racism that exists so we fix the problem. You can't just change people's attitudes but you can create policies and direct resources so that they are fixed.

(CROSSTALK)

BALDWIN: But how will policies fix it if someone's heart isn't in the right place?

WILLIAMS: My concern -- I'm always concerned about somebody's heart, but I'm more concerned about their actions. If a police officer can kill somebody and get away with it, that's a problem. If communities are living in substandard housing and nobody cares enough to fix it, that's a problem. If there are issues in a community and the only thing that we send are our police, which are part of the solution but not only the solution, that's a problem. We have some things that we can fix today and begin to work on today but we have to be honest about where we actually are, and we have trouble doing that.

BALDWIN: Jumaane Williams, thank you so much.

Eugene O'Donnell, thank you.

O'DONNELL: Thank you.

BALDWIN: We're going to take a quick commercial break. On the other side, we're getting some information, limited information, as far as this Staten Island grand jury. The decision made public just about 24 hours ago that the police officer involved in the death of Eric Garner would not be indicted. Information on the makeup of the grand jury, next.

You're watching CNN.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BALDWIN: You're watching CNN. I'm Brooke Baldwin.

We're getting new details this hour as to what the grand jury in the Eric Garner case in Staten Island, New York, heard.

But first, both New York's mayor and the U.S. attorney general just spoke about the frustration and the pain that's sweeping the nation right now. Police violence against minorities. Mayor Bill de Blasio here in New York heralded a move by his police commissioner, Bill Bratton, to retrain the entire New York City police force, some 34,000 officers.

And just minutes ago, Attorney General Eric Holder announced his office would launch a, quote, "fair and expeditious civil rights investigation" into the Garner case.

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BALDWIN: It is a case that launched dozens of protests nationwide just last evening, including this one posted to Vine.