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June 18, 2020 - Dennis Prager Show

08:10

Are Police Dpts. Racist? LAPD Officer: That's '100% False'

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	One of the Los Angeles Police Department and Hawthorne Police Department.
	And an entrepreneur and philanthropist.
	And he excels at all three.
	I can say that.
	I know the man.
	Steve Robinson and our country.
	And I appreciate your honesty about the Atlanta issue.
	And now I understand better what happened and why...
	There might be legitimate questions about what he did.
	And you as an officer have questions.
	All of us understanding we're not judging.
	That's a separate issue.
	But it may not have been the appropriate response to shoot the man who was running away with the taser.
	And it makes sense to me.
	I want to make clear, though, to all listening that as much as a mistake as that might have been and I have to emphasize might have because that'll be adjudicated leaping to the notion that it was done because the man was black is a non sequitur to me I just I just don't understand how people get to that conclusion I agree that's an absurdity there's no way that that Officer
	woke up that morning and said, I'm going to go and kill a black person today.
	That's just a ridiculous thing to say.
	In fact, where I work is in underserved neighborhoods of color, and the vast majority of cops there are white, and we choose to work there because we want to help the community.
	We don't want to go there and hurt people in the community.
	We're there to help protect and serve that community.
	And I firmly believe that the vast majority of police officers, vast majority, wake up every morning wanting to do good and wanting to help.
	And those circumstances happen to be they shot a person who was black.
	They didn't shoot a person because he was black.
	That's a ridiculous statement, a ridiculous sentiment, and the people that perpetrate that, I think, are as guilty as anyone in this whole mess.
	Yes, that's the reason I raised it.
	And every study that I have seen, Has confirmed that, including the National Academy of Sciences, speaking about the lack of racist bigotry in the police force.
	Last year, this report came out, ladies and gentlemen.
	National Academy of Sciences, that is the highest body of science in the United States of America.
	So, I'm very happy to have had your take.
	By the way, when I went with you and your fellow officers, On the ride along.
	And we went into the inner city.
	And I remember black kids running over and hugging one of the cops.
	Do you remember that by any chance?
	Oh, I do.
	I remember it very clearly.
	And I will tell you, before we started our organization down there to help kids and families, you wouldn't have seen that happen.
	And this is truly the evolution that at least the Los Angeles Police Department has gone through in the last 25 to 27 years.
	Massive change.
	I remember that he sort of like adopted one of those kids.
	You know, remember what I'm talking about?
	I remember exactly what you're talking about and I'll even tell you a story that went even further than that.
	A few months later I was down there working with the same officer and we had come up on a group of people in Nickerson Gardens that were out.
	Smoking dope, drinking alcohol in places they shouldn't be doing that, and we went up to them to simply try to move them away from where they were because they were not in front of their units.
	We were trying to provide a little safety and security for the people that were in those units who had called us in the first place.
	And as we were leaving, one of the people, who is a known gang member, walked up to us and said, hey, I gotta talk to you guys.
	What about?
	He said, my daughter...
	He's going into fourth grade.
	I want to get into Operation Progress.
	That's one of the organizations we have down there to help kids and families.
	And the buddy I was with said, you realize you're talking in front of your buddies.
	You shouldn't be talking to us in front of your buddies.
	And the gang members said, look, my lot in life is fixed.
	But the fact of the matter is, my kid isn't.
	And my kid can go on to do better things.
	I don't want my kid to do what I'm doing.
	And you are the only place I know I can go for help.
	So when people talk about that white cops are out to get black people, and there's this systemic racism in police departments, I'm telling you, it is absolutely 100% false.
	Has the LA Times ever done a feature piece on this?
	No, why would they?
	It destroys their narrative.
	And by the way, I can tell you, on a daily basis, there are hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of cops in the LAPD, I would say probably 80% of patrol cops, that do something on their own time, with their own money, to help a person in these neighborhoods, a child, a family, buy them food, books, meet them at school because they're afraid to walk home from school because of the bad stuff that's happening in the neighborhood.
	This happens on a daily basis, and you never see these stories told.
	That's right.
	I just want to remind my listeners that the media, which lie with the ease with which you breathe, not only lie by commission, which I mentioned the editorial.
	Did you happen to hear me read the editorial from the LA Times today?
	I heard part of it, yes.
	Because you might have been driving over here and not missed.
	Editorial.
	Atlanta police killed a black man for being drunk at Wendy's.
	Oh, that's silly.
	That didn't happen because he was drunk.
	No, no, no, no.
	The whole thing's a lie.
	That's not why they killed him.
	You could say it was a mistake or it was wrong, but it wasn't for being black and drunk at Wendy's.
	No.
	So that's a lie by commission that they never report what I saw and what you're discussing about the interaction of police in the inner city that is so positive.
	That's lying by omission.
	Yes.
	That's the point I wanted to make.
	On a grand scale.
	Now, what is the controversy over the chokehold?
	Well, I think the way it looks is, first, it looks bad when someone looks like they're being choked.
	But I will tell you this.
	First of all, there's many different types of chokeholds.
	And before this recent bill that was just signed, or executive order just signed, including in our own department, where they've said no chokeholds whatsoever, There was a very effective method of helping to subdue a suspect, and it was called a carotid hold.
	Now, you put your arm around the person's neck, but you squeeze the carotid veins on each side, and the blood flow stops, and within four to ten seconds, the person is rendered unconscious.
	You let go, you put them in handcuffs, you move on.
	Over time, that was a less lethal type of use of force we could get into.
	Over time, the last few years, it elevated to deadly force, and it was on par with using your gun to shoot somebody.
	So the idea that you could actually, when applied properly, which was in the vast majority of cases, you could actually de-escalate by using a carotid and put somebody unconscious and then put them in handcuffs into custody and take care of it.
	They now elevate it to the same point as the ability to shoot somebody in the face, to over-exaggerate the point of it.
	Okay, so is the carotid hold the same as a choke hold?
	I think people think it's all the same, but there's a difference.
	One is you're putting, you know, the carotid, when applied properly, and it requires training, so I'm not saying that you should just have a policy, hey guys, go ahead and use a carotid without training, but with proper and extensive training, when used is not the same as putting your hand or arm around the windpipe of somebody and choking them so air goes away.
	We'll continue.

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