Bratton Says Adams Working to Make Subways Safe

don't know, what kind of jumps out for you. Well, the good news you have to follow after the horlific events of yesterday is that today, UH, the NYPD, thanks to a chip into the crime Stoppers hotline from a citizen. UH, the individual we believe responsible for that shooting on the subway was apprehended in Lower Manhattan, So the fear that he his actions generated UH is now being addressed with

the fact that he's been apprehended in in custody. Unfortunately, the overall fear of the subway UH, He's not going to end with that arrest. That's still an issue that Mayor Adams is going to have to grap with going forward. He and the nt A Commissioner Bratton, if you were still Police Commissioner of the nyp D. If you were advising Mayor Adams, what would you tell him he needs to do that the NYPD needs to do in order to make us New Yorkers feel safe on the subway. Well,

the good news is he's actually doing it. That he and I worked in the trance of police chief user lieutenant back in so he saw first hand of participated in what turned the crime situation around back then thirty years ago. Uh, he was a lieutenant and captain in the n YP Police Commissioner and saw what work then to create the safest city in America and keep it that way for twenty five years. So he's looking to replicate in many instances, uh, those experiences. So I'm very

supportive of what he's trying to do. Uh. The struggling he's going to have, and it's been had, is with the political leadership in the city Council, the Progressive Left Caucus, and the political leadership in Albany, which is also progressive left. They have been very reluctant to allow him to use some of the tools that he knew worked back then and kept the city safe for twenty five years. He's doing a lot of the right things. He's putting a

lot of cops into the subway system. Almost a thousand additional cops is almost as many cops now as we had together back in Plus he's uh putting additional offices in there from time to time from street patrols. So the public is not going to be uh if he is not going to be calmed until their consistencies see a lot more police. But also they want to see the police doing something about the disorder, the homeless, the

emotionally disturbed, the drug addictive, the misbehavior. Uh and until they start showing some reduction in actual crime and what people see every day, that feel level is not going to diminish. But he is commit it to doing it, and I applaud his effort because he's a lot of political opposition of what he's trying to do. Bill, we we talked about this little bit earlier about the impact of the pandemic and also after George Floyd and a lot of police forces coming under a lot of scrutiny.

I'm curious how you see You know, you've been in New York, You've been in Boston, you've been in l A. You understand big cities and the think and how it all operates. But how do you feel those two situations exacerbated or maybe got us to where we are today

in terms of what happened yesterday. There's no denying that the George Floyd murder basically and the resultant demonstrations and UH increase in mistrust to the police, the defund the police movement that proved so disastrous to New York City Police depart and lost a billion dollars in that ill fated effort, which fortunately politicians and not running away from UH. COVID was snificant impact, and they have pretty much shut

down the criminal justice system in America. But in the case of New York City and the rest of America, prime had already been beginning to go up in two thousand nineteen, a year before COVID and the politicians would like to run away from that. But the criminal justice reform efforts they were trying to put through in so much of America, with these very progressive district attorneys who are in office in many of our major cities, UH

has been disastrous. There was no city with one of these progressive DA's that can show after their election crime decline, crime increase, I'm sorry, please finish. And they're all experiencing crime increase, so they're well intended efforts are not working. And the irony was in two thousand and eighteen in New York was the safest year in the history of New York City. Lowest GEO population, lower state prison population, lowest crime numbers, lowest numbers of summons is, lowest number

of stock question and fish issues, improving race relations. And then in two thousand nineteen it says, if the wheels come off the cab and we crashed, blame the politicians. Well, the other thing I think I want to bring in terms of blame is maybe the system that's currently set up. Bill, and I think about how many conversations we've had about

inequities in our society. Right there are folks out there that are doing better than ever before despite the pandemic, whether it's wealth creation, job security, and there are others that have not benefited by this system. And I do wonder, you know how that eats at our society and create certainly unease, discontent or terror, as potentially we saw yesterday. Well, it's certainly always been the case that they has and has not. But the irony of it is coming out

of the COVID. Uh is that just listening to some of the reports this morning, eleven million jobs available in the United States, but only seven billion people available to take them, but those seven billion not taking them for variety of reasons. So at least four million jobs that can't be filled. So uh, the idea is that has never been a time in recent history we there's so many job opportunities and the salary for those jobs the

best they've been in quite a while. Unfortunately, it's also in the highest rate of inflation at forty is that it has even at the gas pump, at the grocery store. So those are compounding issues about the inequities. But as it relates to the crime situation, even in the worst of times, we were able to control crime, and then in the best of times we have to control it. But what undid our efforts was unfortunately impact on some

of the minority communities that felt it was disproportionate policing. There. We've learned how to address that and try to correct it. But the trust we lost then is we're still having. When I say we, I mean the police forces of America still having trouble regaining that. But here in New York City, part of the issue is it's a minority majority city. UH still a lot of post Floyd UH resentment towards the police is also still reluctance because of

COVID and now prime fear of crime. People come back to work. My office building, I don't think it is at thirty percent occupancy because we put out you put out yesterday, and we write at the forty eight and Pod Avenue right in the hot Midtown Manhattan, and most of the stores that serviced us in terms of restaurants

instead of still closed. There was a report I think was in the New York Times Wall Street Journal yesterday the average employee in New York which spent about thirteen thousand dollars in the surrounding businesses during the course of for a year. But that's now down about six thousand dollars. So the economic impact on particularly in Manhattan, if you will, and on the m t A, the MTA wridership is

still up about forty percent. That's why that incident yesterday they was so troubling because it just increased the fear of writing on the subway system. Yeah, I think you're absolutely right about that. If you are just joined us. We're speaking with Bill Braden, former Commissioner of the NYPD. He was also chief of the l A p D. He's spent nearly fifty years in law enforcement. He's now

executive Chairman of Risk at TENO. Commissioner Bratton. Um, it sounds like there's this this a big challenge ahead for district district attorneys. Uh, a big challenge ahead for police officers and police chiefs around the country. If you were advising politicians right now, because you did say, blame the politicians for the rise, the increase in crime that we've seen around the country, what would you advise them to do.

What's the delicate line that that they need, the delicate needle that they need to thread when it comes to building that trust up with the community. What at the same time empowering their officers to keep crime off the streets? Whatever sejers is watch whate A Adams, the Mayo New York is up to. In the sense of what he's

trying to do. He is moved from the left to center in terms of trying to get more people onto common ground from the progessive left the center right, And advice to any of these mayors is this idea that to control crime, you need the police, but you need police to police compassionately, consistently, same in white neighborhood as black neighborhoods, and constitutionally legally, And so their role is to ensure that their police departments are operating a transparent

manner and engaged in constitutional policing. And we are better able to do that now than ever body cameras, we have a lot most survey and oversight, We have better trained police officers, but we are dealing with a legacy of historic tension between police and minority communities. But in New York City, the irony was two thousand eighteen, the

safest year in the history of our city. That the jail population in New York, which was largely a minority population, had been reduced from twenty two over pick course of twenty years, took about an average of five thousand, and the state prison population was down by a lot of so that we have been ever to control crimes so dramatically that we effectively change the behavior of a lot of people that they remained law abiding. They didn't break

the law. They didn't invade the fair. They weren't in the times when marijuana was not legal, they weren't smoking marijuana in public. It's a lot of the minor type crime that got so many in trouble that this is what the progressive left is trying to change the enforcement practices. But there were some people in that population, if you will, of those who are inclined to not obey the rules that you have to punish. You cannot let people keep getting away and never paying the fair, doing what they

want to do at any time of the day and night. Uh, that's not how democracy works. So we've engaged in a very interesting debate and delever at the moment. And I look at the skills of justice, the symbol of justice in America, the scales right now, it's very heavily in favor of the reforms of the progressive left, well intended, some needed, but tip too fa And what we have as a result is growing fear of crime, is growing actual amount of crime as evidence in almost every major

American city. Good news is that's what we're facing in I'm informed by history. I lived it, and I know how it changed. And the good news is with leadership like Eric is trying to provide based on his knowledge of history. Uh, maybe we can change it again, but it's going to take a lot of people kind of coming to center from there. It's kind of like the troops in the World War One getting out of the trenches and coming into no man's land and trying to

kill each other. Commiser bratn. One thing I want to ask you is you know you have had, you know, senior positions, as we said in New York, Boston, l A. You have seen a lot of crisis situations and having to bring together different constituents. Um, you know, what can you tell us about the process right now of what's

going on? We know a certain amount of information. A lot came out of uh that briefing just a couple of hours ago, and yet officials are still tell telling us that it might be weeks before we know a lot a lot more. What kind of questioning is going on. Tell us a little bit of what's going on behind the scenes to the specifics of yesterday shooting incidents in the press conference that just tell about two hours ago,

the building of the prosecution case now begins. The gathering of huge amounts of evidence, the interviewing of hundreds of witnesses and victims, miles upon miles of video that will be gone through, questioning hopefully of the suspect in the sense that he will lower up and that loyal advice about to say anything us, whether he chooses to or not. As people would love to understand a little about motivation other than just a social media post. Issue of concern

here in terms of the ability to prosecute him. UH. Is he mentally sound to prosecute or is he so emotionally unstable that they determined that he can't be held to responsible for his actions. There's also the issue that the federal government, federal prosecute is now taken over the case under the Terrorism Statute, and so the idea this is being treated as an act of terrorism going forward UH and a lot of people felt that was the case.

But the UH federal prosecutor now is going to have to really work very hard over the next several days to fill in the gaps answer some of the questions that are out there. UH, and the idea that's going to take weeks and months. That's really weeks and months to build a case that they can then take this individual to trial, but in reality it's over. They have him.

There's no sense that he was working in con challenge with anybody else, and so this is now effectively building the case that the news we are because he's he's been apprehended. Absolutely, I think we all a sigh of relief there. What's the biggest question you have or you would have certainly um for him at this point. That's the idea of what was his overall intention? We saw some of his actions, but was that all he was

intending to do? Or for example, he had other incendiary devices in that bag, what was he intended to do with those? He had several more clips of those uh extended magazines with thirty rounds in each magazine. In some respects uh uh that may have would caused the second magazine to jam because he shot the first dirty shots are so fast that the weapon basically the second clip went in uh pfactively open heated and jammed it. Commissioner, we only have about thirty seconds left with you, so

I want to make sure to get this question. And how important is that that the m t A make sure they have functioning cameras throughout New York City's transportation system functioning cameras that can also be shared with the law enforcement authorities. That these cameras are great, but if they're not able to Basically, since the UH worked with every other camera system and the law enforcement has, the functionality is limited to strictly operational aspects and not law

enforcement aspects. Alright, We're gonna leave it on that note. Um, Commissioner Broughton, thank you so much. I really appreciate your time. Of course, former New York Police Department Police Commissioner Bill Bratton holding you know, senior positions again as we mentioned in New York, of course Boston and Los Angeles as well. We appreciate him joining us via Zoom executive chairman by

the way of risk Advisory today. We've often spoken with him ahead of the Super Bowl when it comes to security and risk concerns, so this is certainly top of mind and something he knows an awful lot about. Really great to get Commissioner Bratton's thoughts on everything that's happened in the last thirty six hours