I would say the two things that have

helped me in that exam that have helped

me most of my law enforcement career my

grandmother instilled in me two things

problem solving being a big part of that

is is like you never make excuses when

bad things happen don't make excuses you

put yourself in that position you found

yourself here it is nobody else's fault

but yours you know I'm not an excuse

person I don't make excuses if I find

myself in a bad situation I did

something to get myself here and I'm

going to get myself out and that was the

way she taught. The other thing she

taught me was she's like, "You're going

to be damned if you do and damned if you

don't. You better be damned for doing

like so you act. You always act. You

don't let your circumstances

dictate for you. You act and you take

action and you do. You don't wait for

somebody else to do for you."

>> Kathy, it is so lovely to see you and

thanks for making the time. Really nice

to see you again.

>> Glad to finally connect. It was nice to

see you, too, Tim. I was going back and

forth on where to start this and I think

I'm just going to follow the tried

andrue and begin at the beginning here

and maybe we should just start with

tuxedo and just give people sort of a

snapshot

of

where you grew up, how you grew up, you

know, all those dreams of being in law

enforcement. And

I'm partially kidding, of course,

because I know a little bit of the

backstory, but can you tell people

about the beginning?

>> It's important, I think, for context

about the choices I made in my life,

like everybody on this planet, the way

you're raised, your your family, your

environment has so much influence on the

way you do things as an adult. So, my

parents married right after high school.

First boyfriend, girlfriend, you know,

so right after high school. My father

was a firefighter, went in the fire

department. My mother was a secretary.

She went to work for the federal

government.

Dream, you know, back in the 50s, being

married at 18 is perfectly normal. So,

they got married, bought a home, started

having children, they had three kids.

I'm the youngest of the three. After I

was born, I think they realized that a

secretary and a firefighter salary does

not exactly cover child care for three

kids. So, they couldn't afford the child

care for three kids for both of them to

work. So, my mother took a a leave of

absence from work. She did eventually go

back, but she took a 10-year leave of

absence after I was born. And then when

I was two, my mother took us to my

grandparents for the weekend. And when

we came home, my father was gone. He had

taken a car and uh left my mom with

three kids and and no income literally

cuz she was not working at the time. So,

life changed pretty dramatically for us.

Then I was again, I was two. I don't

remember a lot of detail early on, but I

do remember as a child growing up over

that next 10 years, my mom was home with

us really just a wonderful childhood. My

mother was always there. She helped with

homework and she would take me to soccer

practice and basketball practice and

majorette practice. I mean, she was

always with us and she was just a a

wonderful, loving, caring mom. And we

didn't have a lot, you know, we lived on

$350 a month. my my father's eventually

paid child support. So, we had, you

know, a lot of support from the church

and from, you know, friends and family.

But it was a a fun childhood for me. I

mean, my mom was with me and I I think

she provided a lot of stability for my

brothers and I. And then when I was

getting ready to go from back then, this

is back before middle school. So, you

went, you know, elementary school,

junior high school, high school. So, in

sixth grade, you leave elementary school

and you go to junior high school. So

>> I was 12 years old, 13 years old,

becoming a teenager. We were going to a

new school. I was going to seventh

grade. My mother went back to work. I

was the youngest at the time at 13. She

felt like we were old enough to be latch

key kids and come home and let us in,

you know, be home for a couple hours

every day until she got home from work.

So she went back to work in her same

role working for her same boss that she

left 10 years earlier, which is pretty

amazing.

>> That is amazing. In fact, that whole

10-year period when my mother was off,

also important is how it frames my

context of things is during that 10

years when my mom was home. I remember

her sitting in front of the TV and

taking shortorthhand to the television

and she would like get our favorite

records and she would write down in

shorthand all the words and then she

would sit at the table and type them all

up and give us the words so we could

sing along with our songs. And you know,

I thought it was just mom doing fun

things for us, but it was her keeping

her skills, right? My mom when she went

back to work after a 10-year break in

service, she still took shorthand at

like 96 words a minute and still could

type over 100 words a minute. So,

>> wow.

>> Just a wonderful example of work ethic

for us. She knew she needed to go back

to work and wanted to go back to work as

soon as possible and she wanted to be on

her game. So, great childhood. But when

I was moving to junior high school, my

mom went back to work. So, I kind of

lost that guardian, that best friend

like at a critical time, right? Like I'm

becoming a teenager. We were going to a

new school. They were busing back in

those days. So, I was being busted into

a really tough neighborhood in

Washington DC.

>> From Maryland to Washington DC.

>> Right on the border of DC.

>> Can I pause you for one second?

>> Sure.

>> I'm just trying to put myself, which is

impossible for me to do of course, in

your mom's shoes, right? You guys return

to the house, no car, dad's gone, three

kids. Have you spoken to her or do you

have any best guesses as to the other

things that helped her

hold everything together in terms of

resilience or support or anything else?

I mean, I suppose that necessity is the

mother of invention on some level, but

have you ever spoken to her about that?

>> I did. And you know, it's funny. My

mother was very passive, sweet, just

kind of a very quiet internal person.

>> And in my entire life, I never saw my

mother cry. Never. Never. I mean, under

any circumstances when I I'm sure she

did.

>> Mhm.

>> But I never really saw my mother cry.

And my grandmother was completely the

opposite. My mom was an only child. Her

mother was like a pistol. Like hardcore.

So my grandmother was very helpful, but

my mother was a rock. I mean, she took

care of us. When I tell people now, we

lived on food stamps, welfare. The

church brought us baskets of food for

the holidays, but we didn't have a car

for many years. We finally got a car. It

didn't have heat. It used to break down

every time we went out in it. You know,

the hot water spet in our bathroom used

to squirt scalding hot water over you if

you didn't weren't careful because it

needed a washer and there was nobody to

come and fix that washer, you know. So,

but we had a wonderful childhood. My

mother was just solid. She loved her

kids and she was a beautiful, beautiful

woman. And I always ask her why she

didn't ever date and she's like, "My

kids were my life and I didn't want

anybody around my children that didn't

think of them as the same priority that

I thought of them." So,

>> I think her resilience was really just

steady for her family. I think her

family was her motivation and nothing

was going to disrupt her commitment

there.

>> Yeah. The singular focus. So, I

interrupted you.

>> That's okay. you were saying there's

this transition point. You're busing in

to Washington DC and

you've sort of lost your guardian in a

sense.

>> Yeah.

>> At that point. So if if you wouldn't

mind picking up there.

>> So again, we were being busted into a

neighborhood. The idea at the time was

to racially integrate neighborhoods. I

lived in a very small industrial

neighborhood, like an industrial park

right on the border of Washington DC.

Literally, there was a train that ran

right behind my house in the backyard.

On the other side of that train tracks

was Washington DC. We were on the

Maryland side. So, they were busing us

to a school and uh on the border of

northeast Washington to integrate, you

know, racially integrate the schools.

So, each day when our bus would pick us

up and take us to school, when our bus

would pull up in front of the school,

everything in most big cities, I would

say, but in Washington for sure, is very

neighborhood based. So when our bus

would pull up in front of the school and

we would get out as the Maryland kids

coming to the school, as soon as we'd

get off the bus, we'd get jumped. Like

every day there was a fight. It was a

terrible change. You know, all the way

through school. I was in the talented

and gifted program, straight A student,

loved school, and now I'm being busted

into a school where the kids that we

were going to school with hated us. Was

very racially charged. It was agonizing

to go to school because you had to fight

just to get from the bus to the

classroom. So my mom would go, her bus

would, it's funny now, it wasn't funny

then, but her bus would pick her up on

the corner at 7:00 in the morning and my

bus would pick me up on the other corner

at 7:15. So we'd both go out to the bus

stop together in the morning and she

would wait for her bus, I'd wait for my

bus. She'd get on her bus and she'd ride

by me and I'd wave and then one of my

older friends who had a car would come

and pick me up and we would go skip

school for the day. You know, I at least

would skip the first half. Like I would

skip the first few periods so I didn't

have to go through that agonizing, you

know, fight every morning

>> entry.

>> Yeah.

>> Rough entry.

>> So I went from, you know, a talented and

gifted student with straight A's to

failing like literally every subject the

first quarter of seventh grade. So I was

chronically truent. I think I was

averaging 19 days a quarter that I was

actually showing up for school. My

mother didn't know because the school

never notified her. And by the time she

got home from work at 6:00 p.m., we were

all sitting around like pretending to do

our homework. So my poor mother had no

idea until about midway through the

eighth grade, I was so chronically

truent that I was failing all of my

major subjects. So meanwhile, while I'm

skipping school, I'm hanging out with

the wrong people. Much older crowd,

friends of my older brother and older,

you know, just an older crowd and just

getting in trouble. and I fall in love

with a much older boyfriend at the time,

think I'm in love and we want to get

married and run away and get married.

And so by the time I was in the ninth

grade, I 14 years old, found myself

pregnant. My boyfriend at the time had

given me a diamond ring. We were

engaged. We're going to get married. So

we run away. He was 26 at the time. I

was 14. My mother, when she finds out,

was going to have him arrested, right?

So she was going to put him in jail. So,

I run away from home and think, "Well,

we got this. We're going to get married

and we're going to have the baby and

everything's going to be great."

The mind of a 14-year-old.

Obviously, things didn't work out that

way. So, interestingly, I went to my

father, who had been out of the picture

most of my life, and asked for him to

sign for me to get married because I had

to, because of my age, one of my parents

had to legally sign over my legal

guardianship to my husband. So they

literally signed over my legal

guardianship to my husband. So my dad

thinking he would have one less child to

pay child support for cuz once he signed

over my guardianship he

>> and cuts the child support bill

>> paid $100 less a month in child support.

So he signed over my legal guardianship

to my husband. We got married the day

after my 15th birthday. I was 8 months

pregnant at the time. So, I guess fast

forward a little bit, a year and a half

later, I was back at home. My mother was

taking me to GED classes at night. I was

sneaking to go to GED classes when I was

still married. My husband didn't approve

of me going to school. So, once we

separated, my mom made sure I stayed in

school, got my GED. She would bring her

typewriter home from work and she taught

me how to type on the kitchen table. So,

she taught me how to type and take a

little shortorthhand. And I went and got

a job as a secretary. I lied about my

age. I went and got a job as a secretary

when I was 16. So started working as a

secretary and then worked as a waitress

in the evening in a bar. Also lied about

my age to work in a bar. That was the

only option up in the area where I was

working. So for the next several years,

I worked two jobs as a secretary and a

waitress. You know, my motivation

really was my son. Mhm.

>> It was

kind of a significant moment for me and

I've had a few in my life. When my son

was born, I'd never babysat before. I'd

never held a baby. I didn't know

anything about babies or children. And

when he was born, he was such a good

baby. His crib was at the end of my bed

in my bedroom. And I'd wake up in the

morning and he'd be awake and he'd just

be looking at me, waiting for me to wake

up, right? Not crying, not nothing. He

would just be looking at me. And so

>> that is remarkable.

>> Yeah. About three weeks into this

experiment, I'm looking at him one

morning and it just dawns on me like for

the first time that I'm a parent and

that that helpless little baby was

completely relying on me. And my mother

was always stressed the importance of

education and work to us. And here I

was, you know, my husband didn't allow

me to go to school. I would never be

able to get a job. And I'm looking at

this poor little innocent baby and I'm

thinking, his whole life depends on me.

and what am I going to be able to

provide with a nth grade education and

not much.

So that was a aha moment.

>> Yeah. Yeah. I'm going to resist the

temptation to ask 300 questions about

the last few minutes that you shared

because we'll we'll end up spending all

of our time there if I do that. But I am

curious for you. I'm trying to put

myself

in your shoes at that young age.

when you and we we don't need to get

into the details unless you'd like to

share, but when you separated from your

then husband, like when that happened,

what did you think was going to become

of you? Like what did you envision

your path would be at that point? I have

to imagine that it would have just been

incredibly challenging. I don't know.

You can't believe everything you read on

the internet, but I read that when you

were a young girl, you dreamed of being

a lawyer. I don't know if that's true or

not.

>> And then flash forward, you go through

this entire tumultuous experience and

you land back at home. Where did you

think your life was headed? Where did

you think you were headed at that point?

Well, I knew that with a ninth grade

education and a single mom that I had

zero chance of being able to do what I

thought was most important in the world,

and that's take care of my son. And when

I first moved back home, I got my GED,

but I still was not able to easily find

a job at my age. I was, you know, 16,

almost 17. I had to wait till I was 16

and nine months to take the test to get

the GED.

>> Interestingly, you needed 255 to pass

the test. I got 256. I passed at that

one point.

>> Oh my god.

>> Just another little like footnote of my

life.

>> Talk about these sliding door moments.

Holy cow. Right.

>> So, my mother had always stressed the

importance of education and work. So, I

knew I had to go back to school and I

wanted to go to college. I didn't want

my son to be subject to the same crappy

neighborhoods and the same crappy

schools that I went to. I wanted him to

have a real chance. And I knew if I was

going to do that, I had to go back to

school and get a college education. And

if I didn't do that, he would be doing I

was standing in the same food stamp line

my mother stood in with me. I remember

the first day I went to get food stamps

going to the big white building by

Prince George's Plaza right near my home

and standing in the same line with my

son that I stood in with my mom when I

was a kid and I was like this is not my

path. This can't be my path. And when I

got my job as a secretary, they offered

tuition reimbursement to go to college.

So, I started a community college. I

just started taking one class a semester

and uh that's where it started, one

class a semester and they reimbured me

for it. So,

>> so I recall I mean for people who don't

have contacts, we've been we've been

trying to schedule this for a while and

understandably you got a lot of balls to

juggle and

I remember hearing just pieces of your

story. This was God, it has to be what,

more than a year ago now. I'm sure. Time

flies, but it's been a it's been a long

while. And I just remember thinking to

myself, God, I hope someday that we can

have this conversation on the podcast.

So, I want to thank you again for doing

it. How do you then go from there? What

is the connective tissue sort of the

catalyzing events that ultimately get

you into law enforcement? Right? What is

what are the first few dominoes that get

tipped over that start to push you in

that direction?

>> So, to be fair, my family is a public

service family. My father was

firefighter. My oldest brother had

become a firefighter right out of high

school. My other brother was a police

officer. I was working as a secretary. I

was taking that one class a semester

working as a secretary trying to get my

son in private school. I wanted him in

private school. I did not want him going

to those schools. I was still living in

the same crappy neighborhood, but I

wanted my son in a good school. And I

saw an ad. I was 23 years old. I saw an

ad in the Washington Post for the

Metropolitan Police Department. They

were hiring. And what caught my

attention, it's a full page ad in the

post. The half of the page was said

tuition reimbursement. I'm like, "Oh my

god, tuition reimbursement. I'm paying

for one class a semester. I'm going to

take me 30 years to get a degree."

>> So I went with a friend and we went and

stood in line. They were hiring a

thousand cops. This was during the crack

cocaine wars in Washington. Early 1990.

So 500 murders a year. DC was known as

the murder capital of the world at the

time. So I just went and stood in line

with a thousand other people. Went and

took the test and I came out I want to

say I came out like 60 out of a thousand

people on that test. So they called me

right away. I was the only white female

in the room. Right. This is back in the

early 90s. Washington DC was about 89%

African-American. Right. So I felt the

same drive my mother felt taking care of

us is that I have a son that needs me.

He needs me to provide for him and the

only way I'm going to do this is get a

good job. Government job, not a bad

option, and go back to school and get my

degree. So I got hired by the

Metropolitan Police in 1990. Started

walking a footbeat. My first day out of

the academy was the Mount Pleasant

riots. So my first day out of the

academy, I went to work and didn't come

home for 5 days. It was great. Okay,

we're gonna double click on that and

come right back to Mount Pleasant. But

before we do,

>> I want to know what the entrance exam or

qualification exam was like.

>> Mhm.

>> Right. because you you mentioned the GED

and like just by sort of the skin of

your teeth getting in, you know, passing

the hurdle and then it sounds like you

not very technical term, but kind of

crushed the

the examination that you took that

ultimately placed you at 60 out of a

thousand. What was that test like?

>> So, remember now when I started going

taking classes at Prince George's

Community College, my goal was to be a

lawyer. I wanted to be an attorney.

>> Mhm. I started out wanting to be a

secretary like my mom. Then once I got

into the workplace, I realized I wanted

bigger, better things. So I wanted to be

an attorney. So I was taking political

science, philosophy, a lot of those kind

of courses, getting all my generals out

of the way in community college. So by

the time I got to the Metropol Police

Department at 23, I had three years of

college courses, right?

>> But the exam for entry into policing,

now back in those days, they only

required a high school diploma or an

equivalent. So you didn't need college.

So the this the entry exam was a lot of

things that you would expect for law

enforcement. You do a lot of multiple

choice questions. You know, you have to

be able to read and comprehend well. So

reading comprehension was a big part of

it. You have to do some basic math,

right? So you have to understand math.

But there was a lot of problem solving

type questions. So they flash a photo in

front of you and then they say you

there's a photo inside of a a department

store. Okay. you just walked into this

department store and there's been a

robbery, right? What is it you noticed

in that quick three seconds you had to

look at that photo? What do you

remember? What time was it on the clock?

You know, what color was the lady's

shoes that was standing at the register?

Right? Like,

>> so there was, you know, reading

comprehension, math, problem solving,

and then a good bit of are you paying

attention? you have the detail to pay

attention and do the things that you

need to do as a police officer, which

much of which you learn as a cop.

>> But it seems like you had either

developed or innately possessed,

and maybe I'm reaching, but I mean,

maybe not. I mean, was there anything in

that test that highlighted,

for lack of a better descriptor, like

superpowers, strengths of yours that

came into like full fruition later where

you're like, okay, if I look at the

recipe, some of the ingredients of the

recipe that ultimately contributed to my

success, were any of them sort of

revealed in that test in any way or not

really?

>> Great question. Actually, it's a very

good question. I don't get a lot of

interviews that ask the types of

question you're asking. I think it's a

excellent question. So I I would say the

two things that have helped me in that

exam that have helped me most of my law

enforcement career. My grandmother

instilled in me, you know, she spent a

lot of time with us growing up as well.

Two things, problem solving being a big

part of that is is like you never make

excuses. When bad things happen, don't

make excuses. You put yourself in that

position. You found yourself here. it is

nobody else's fault but yours. You know,

I'm not an excuse person. I don't make

excuses. If I find myself in a bad

situation, I did something to get myself

here and I'm going to get myself out.

And that was the way she taught. You get

yourself in, you get yourself out. And

the other thing she taught me was she's

like, you know, you're going to be

damned if you do and damned if you

don't. You better be damned for doing.

Like, so you act.

>> You always act. You don't let your

circumstances

dictate for you. you act and you take

action and you do. You don't wait for

somebody else to do for you. And those

things were really part of that

problem-solving exercise when you're

coming on the police department. And

it's certainly your problem solving

exercise every day you're on the police

department.

>> Mhm.

>> It it certainly was for the next 27

years for me. You can't avoid

consequences. There's consequences for

everything that happens. Every decision

you make has consequences. You can't

avoid consequences, but you can choose

what you do after those things happen.

I imagine you've probably not met him,

but I interviewed someone named Jaco

Willink, who's a former Navy Seal

commander many years ago. It was the

first time he ever did a public

interview. And he wrote a book called

Extreme Ownership. And I feel like your

grandmother and what she instilled in

you is in a nutshell exactly the type of

high agency thinking that Jaco talks

about. It's the same thing.

>> Yeah.

>> Wow.

>> My grandma would say there there's two

types of people in the world. Excuse

people and people who are accountable.

And I'm going to be the accountable.

>> Let's come back to Mount Pleasant. For

people who don't have the historical

context, what were the Mount Pleasant

riots? And you said right before I asked

about the test, you said it was great.

And if that is actually not a sarcastic

statement, but a real sort of statement

of how you felt, I want to know why that

was the case. But let's start with just

a little bit of

>> history for people who who aren't

familiar. I certainly wasn't with the

Mount Pleasant riots

>> when I said it was great in terms of

being a rookie right out of the academy

and understanding what you've got

yourself into, right?

>> It was here's what you've got yourself

into, right? Like you went to work today

and you're not gone home for 5 days, you

know? So the night before my first day

out of the academy, there was a pair of

police officers walking a foot patrol in

in our patrol district. They tried to

place a gentleman under arrest for

drinking in public. He was a Latino

male, didn't speak English. We had a big

problem in our city back in those days.

Law enforcement, we had very few people

in the department that spoke Spanish. We

had a huge Latino population. There was

a big gap in our community. So, it's

really difficult to do any kind of

effective policing if you're not

communicating with the people in the

community, and we were not. So when this

officer was trying to place this person

under arrest during the handcuffing the

the subject after one handcuff was on he

turned around pulled the knife on the

officer and the officer shot. So he was

shot with one handcuff on so the partner

of the officer who shot rolled him over

put the other handcuff on took the knife

away called paramedics. Alls that people

saw was a handcuffed person who'd been

shot. M

>> so the Latino community in that

neighborhood immediately began, you

know, gathering on the street, large

crowd. This all happened around 11:30 at

night. So by the time I got into the

station for 5:30 roll call, I show up at

5:30 in the morning. The riot had broken

out around 1:00 a.m. They had burned

several police cars. There was stores

that were looted and on fire. I mean,

there was a big, big deal down in Mount

Pleasant. So when I got to work my first

day, I walked into the station, said,

"Hi, I'm Kathy Laneir. I'm the, you

know, new rookie from the academy." And

they threw me a gas mask and they told

me to go out and get in the van. He

said, "Hop over the counter, go out the

back door and get in that van." And I

was like, "Okay."

So I hopped over the counter and went

and got in that van. I was sitting with

15 other cops with gas mask on and big

riot sticks and they took us down and

they dumped us off on the corner of

Mount Pleasant and Park Road and it was

fully engulfed in a fires and looting

and you know people were throwing

bottles and bricks and stones at us. We

had little helmets they had given us in

the as we were hopping out of the van

and I didn't have a radio because

rookies weren't allowed to have radios

at the time, right? I had not been

trained how to use the radio. So my

partner had the radio. So my lifeline

was on my partner, but we stood there

online and literally got pelted with

bricks and bottles and I mean over the

course of 5 days. It was trial by fire

for sure. But it was a big learning

experience for me because I understood

the frustration. I understood the

frustration. The large number that whole

community of Mount Pleasant were all

Latino. They didn't speak English. The

cops didn't speak to them very well. I

mean, nobody could really communicate

with, but the cops were pushing people

around and there was no way to to try

and get the story straight and really no

effort to get the story straight, right?

To understand the frustration. So, it

was a big learning experience for me as

I worked my way up the ranks to

understand how important inclusion is in

the community. If you're a police

officer and you are not embedding

yourself in that community and

understanding who the people are in that

community and what their needs are and

how to communicate, you're really not

going to be successful.

>> We're gonna, I imagine, revisit that at

some point because it seems to be a

consistent thread through a lot of the

work they've done. But I want to spend a

little bit more time on Mount Pleasant.

I am curious, I suppose, yet again, what

that

maybe showed you about yourself or just

highlighted about you constitutionally

or personalitywise, right? Because I

would imagine some people could get

dropped in that environment after they

just signed up. They're like, "Hey, I'm

just here for tuition reimbursement.

Holy shit." Like, I'm getting hit with

bricks. Like, this is not exactly what I

thought my first day was going to be.

and they're out, right? Like I have to

imagine that there are some people who

would be closer to that. Maybe they

didn't quit, but they're probably closer

to that end of the spectrum.

And do you thrive in particular in

intense environments? I wonder, right?

Because like in my case,

constitutionally sort of out of the box,

little things, especially interpersonal

things bother me that are kind of

trivial, frankly. Like I get all wound

up about very stupid things, but in

crisis situations,

you know, the car accident in front of

me, some guy's got his like leg blown

apart or whatever. I actually do really

I do very well in those environments. I

don't know why that is. I really have no

idea. Yeah.

>> But was there anything that you noticed

about yourself in that type of

environment in those types of

circumstances? I think the thing for me

that I thrive on is as we're dropped out

down there and they're giving us the

riot sticks and the helmets and the gas

mask and they're shooting canisters of

gas into the crowd and knowing what

started this and how this all blew up.

I'm thinking to myself, we're not going

about this the right way. Like I was a

rookie. I know nothing about policing

other than what I was taught in the

academy. So by no means did I think I

was smarter than the guy making the

command decisions, right? But I'm just

looking at it from my perspective and

going this is just not the right way to

do this. like this is we're not going to

win here. That's this is not a win

situation. This should be done

differently. And I just always felt like

from the minute I hit the ground like

watching like analyze the way that we

were doing things and thinking why are

we doing this this way? There's a better

way to do these things. And so that's

the way I felt at Mount Pleasant my

first day on the job. You know, really

hard to explain. I just felt like

there's a problem to be solved here and

we're not going about it in a problem

solving manner. We're going about it

with brute force, right? brute force

doesn't always work.

>> So, it intrigued me. Every day after

that, once the riots were over, I

started walking a footbeat in the city.

Every single day I went to work, I got

to problem solve for

six, seven, eight times a day, you know,

and calls for service, 911 calls. You

respond to people who are in crisis,

people who need help, and you know, you

get to try and help think through that,

help solve the problem. And that's

that's what I enjoyed doing. It's

frustrating when you're at the bottom of

the totem pole and you're the line

officer, right? you're in a chain of

command. You can't make certain

decisions. But I did feel like every

single day I went to work, I made a

difference in someone's life,

>> no matter how small.

>> Yeah. And this was around, tell me if

I'm getting this wrong, but around 1990

or early early 90s.

>> 1990.

>> 1990.

>> Yep. 1990.

>> And you were working your way up the

ranks. When did you first and we'll

certainly talk about kind of the the

good, the bad, and the ugly of that time

frame

in some respects, but when did your

first real mentor show up? I have

different names from doing homework in

front of me. I've got, if I'm saying it

correctly, you know, Sonia Proctor, I've

got Charles Ramsay, who might show up a

little bit later. I'm not sure exactly

on the chronology, but were there any

critical figures in the first few years

who were helpful to you or was it really

just executing, getting the job done,

delivering and working your way up? I'm

wondering when your first mentor of

sorts or kind of

I don't want to say guardian, it might

not be the right word, but influential

figure showed up within policing.

>> So, I was an officer and I loved my job.

I got once I worked my way up, I was

foot patrol the first, you know, several

months and then I went to motorcycle

school and I got trained to ride a motor

and then I was on a motorcycle. I want

to be mobile so I could get around and

you know I love the adrenaline 911 calls

getting out there being first on the

scene and and then I got moved up a

little bit more and seniority and I was

in a patrol car and I used to get on the

radio and I'm like all right dispatcher

I'm in service give me stack me up give

me all the calls you got pending you

know that's been sitting there waiting I

I'll take them all. I had a lieutenant

who he was like a SWAT team commander

guy who got promoted to lieutenant and

they sent him out to patrol which is

like a slap in the face to a SWAT guy,

right?

>> For sure.

>> Like they hate the patrol stuff. But

he'd come to my district and he called

me in his office one day. He's like, "I

hear you on the radio out there." He's

like, "You're really humping." I was

like, "Yeah, I love this job. This is

great. It's fun." And he's like, "You're

coming up on three years. You're going

to be eligible for sergeant. You should

take that sergeant's test." And I was

like, "Why would I do that? I like my

job. like what I'm doing if I take

sergeant test and I'm going to get moved

somewhere. He's like, "No, no, you need

to take the sergeants test." Like, well,

why would I want to do that? And he's

like, "Well, you want to make more

money, right?" And I'm like, "That's a

good point." And he said, "And once you

start taking these promotional exams, it

gives you more opportunities to

influence the things. You know, I hear

you're trying to change some things. You

know, why don't you take that exam?" So,

he pushed me pretty hard. And when the

tests announcement came out, he said,

"Come on, I'm going to give you a ride.

let's go pick up your books. You have a

eight-month window to study. He's like,

"Let's go pick up your books."

>> So, I was like, "All right." I was a

little intimidated. I like, "Okay." So,

I took that sergeant's test. I was

eligible for sergeant at 3 years. I took

the first sergeants and test. There was

890 people that were eligible that we

took the test all together. After the

written exam, you go to um an assessment

phase where you do a bunch of oral

interviews and exercises and paper

exercises. and I end up coming out

number 13 out of 890 for that. So I got

promoted right away. A very young

sergeant, 26 years old, three years on

the job. Most of the people I I had a

master patrol officer working for me

that had more years on the job than I

was old. He had 26 years on the job. I

was 26 years old.

>> So that was the first mentor and he

remained a mentor for me for most of my

career.

>> What was his name?

>> Donnie Axom. Donnie Axom.

>> These stories are so critical, right?

Because I mean people are self-made in

many respects and at the same time you

just have to wonder sometimes right if

if you didn't have these intervening

figures

>> nothing like your experience but I had a

pretty miserable public school

experience when I was growing up and

ultimately hadn't even thought of

private school and it was there was one

math teacher who was basically like you

need to get the hell out of here and I

was like yeah yeah yeah out of here to

where right and he just kept harping on

me and then there was one other person

who chimed And then I had two people and

I was like, "Oh, okay. Maybe I should

take a look at this." And it was just

like if that had not happened, who

knows, right? Just a lot of question

marks.

>> Critical. Those mentors are critical.

>> What does a sergeant do? I'm embarrassed

to admit that I have no idea. Like, what

does a sergeant do?

>> This is one of the things that police

departments do, right? Now that I'm in

the private sector, I wish the private

sector had similar structure. So, once

you make sergeant, you start as a

first-line supervisor. So they'll give

you eight people, eight to 10 people

that that you're responsible for. So

you're the squad sergeant. Like you have

a squad that's assigned to you. Those

eight to 10 people, they report to you.

So I'm responsible for making sure when

we pop out a roll call and we hit the

street that that my squad of eight is

doing what they're supposed to do.

They're clearing their calls. They're

taking reports like they're supposed to.

If they get in a situation where they

don't know what to do, they go over the

radio call for me. I go down and help

them work through that situation. And I

help teach them how to manage these

situations. So, you're first line

supervision. You're right there every

day on the street with the 911

responders and you're helping them

manage those calls and you're helping

them manage how to solve those problems.

You're signing arrest paperwork. You

know, if you make an arrest, wait a

minute, let me let me look at all the

probable calls you have here before we

put this person in handcuffs or if you

got the person in handcuffs when I get

on the scene, let's review what you got

here, right? Before we take somebody to

jail, let's make sure we we've met the

DC code, right? We know that you've got

a legitimate arrest here. You start

managing a small group and then the next

level is manager. Then you become a

lieutenant and then they give you like

40 people to manage and you start making

little bigger decisions. Now you're

scheduling, you're assigning, you're

working through warrants and things like

that. So it's a very gradual

progression.

In that time frame,

early 90s or just 90s I suppose at

large, what was it like being a woman in

the police force?

>> It was a really tough environment when I

first got there. There were a few days

in the very beginning when I was an

officer that you know the good thing

about the officer like when I got there

the department was

85 probably%

African-Amean. And the city was largely

89% African-American. So largely

African-American, certainly very few

white females. It was very few females.

So I would think we were about 11% women

on the department of 5,000. 5200 I think

when I came on size of our department.

So very few women, very few white women.

It's hard to think back to 199. Sexual

harassment was common place. Nobody

talked about it. Nobody cared about it.

It wasn't an issue. Like it just it it

happened every day and you just, you

know, you work through it. I grew up

with two older brothers, so I kind of

knew how to navigate it a little bit.

You know, I listened. My brothers gave

me advice how to deal with some of this.

The good thing is as an officer, you

very quickly establish yourself. And I

established myself as an officer early

on as a worker. Like, I came to work, I

did my job. I don't need anybody to do

me any favors. You don't need to look

out for me. I don't need a partner. I

can ride by myself. I'm good. Once I

made sergeant though, the harassment got

worse. I mean, I I had a lieutenant that

was really really sexually harassing. I

mean, not just me, but several women,

physical harassment. I mean, like

getting you in a on a midnight shift in

a sergeant's office and closing the door

and, you know, putting her hands on you

and things like that. And I remember

saying to my boyfriend at the time, I

was like, "You know what? I got real

thick skin. I could take all kinds of

comments. I don't mind any of that

stuff, but I'm not going to let people

put their hands on me. That's just not

going to happen." So the harassment was

pretty intense. It was a it was a really

tough environment.

>> So what happened?

>> I eventually

So I had a a lieutenant when I made

sergeant. I was sent over to um

southeast Washington. I was patrolling

in southeast. I had really a good squad.

I worked nights, permanent nights. So I

had a lieutenant that was harassing me

and some other women, but me pretty

intensely. calling me on the radio,

forcing me to drive him around, putting

me in his cruiser with them, making me

drive him around,

just not letting me do my job, constant

harassment, calling me on the radio,

bringing me to the office, make me drive

him somewhere, things like that. So, I

finally, after several times of asking

him to leave me alone, I finally filed a

sexual harassment complaint. He had put

his hands on me several times. So, I

filed a complaint and I remember going

down to the EEO office and filing this

complaint and they asked me to write a

list of anybody who had ever Well, first

of all, before I went down, my partner,

one of my fellow sergeants who was a a

black male officer said to me one day,

we were out riding together. The

lieutenant had called me in and my

partner said to me, the other sergeant

said, "How long are you going to let

this keep going on before you do

something about it?"

>> And I was like, "What are you talking

about?" He's like, "I hope you're

writing this stuff down. I hope you're

going to say something to somebody

because this can't go on like this."

Again, a man, not a woman, another male

police officer basically said to me, "If

you're not going to stand up for

yourself, nobody else is going to stand

up for you." And so when he said that,

it clicked and like he's trying to say

either you're going to allow this to

keep happening or you don't want it to

happen and you do something about it. So

I after that conversation, I filed this

complaint.

I list all the people who had witnessed

because my harasser made no no effort to

hide it. He made horrible comments and

grabbed women in front of others all the

time. So I listed 17 different witnesses

and they did the investigation and

literally I left the EEO office. I went

to court. I had court that day and I was

in court 20 minutes after I left the EEO

office from filing my complaint. My

harasser, the lieutenant, texted me on

my beeper, and we had beepers back then,

and said, "I know what you're doing, and

you're not going to get away with this."

Like, so it was supposed to be

confidential, but within 20 minutes of

leaving the office, the person who was

doing my investigation called him and

told him that I had made a complaint.

>> Gross.

>> So, I had to go back to work in that

environment, one of the most violent

areas of Washington DC. From that day

forward, he prohibited me from

partnering with anybody. He refused to

allow me to ride with anybody else. He

continued the harassment. He, you know,

came into my office the next day, shut

the door and said, "Look, I know that

what you're doing. You need to back

down. You need to withdraw this

complaint. You're not going to win."

They sustained the complaint. So, the

investigation, all the witnesses I

listed, they were all men. I didn't

think any of them would tell the truth.

Nobody wanted to go against us, a higher

ranking person. And every single one of

them told the truth. They all wrote down

what they saw. They all not only talked

about what they saw him doing to me, but

what they saw him doing to other women.

And I was just shocked.

>> I always say to women, you don't realize

when you're in these scenarios, decent

men that observe these things going on,

they don't like it either, right? They

don't like it either. And and those

other men that I was working with, they

didn't like it either. And some of them,

this guy had harassed their girlfriends

or their wives or, you know what I mean?

So

that really made an impression on me

that so many of the men that I work with

stood up and did the right thing there.

So when when it was time for him to be

disciplined for this, when we got to

trial board, I walk into trial board for

the discipline to come down and they

told me they had to drop the whole case

and throw it out. And I'm like, why?

What happened? And they said, well, we

missed the 90 days. In the District of

Columbia, you have to bring discipline

within 90 days of the day that you knew

or should have known about the

misconduct. They sat on this

investigation till day 91 and then

turned it in. So, literally after all of

that, they threw the case out and they

said, "Well, we'll just transfer you.

Where do you want to be transferred to?"

I was like, "I don't want to be

transferred. I didn't do anything wrong.

I don't transfer me. Transfer him. I

didn't do anything." He later had

several other complaints come forward

and eventually was terminated for a

severe case with another multiple other

subordinates later on.

>> But I will tell you this now, everything

above the rank of captain in the police

department is appointed, right? You

civil service exam for sergeant,

lieutenant, and captain. After captain,

it's appointed by the chief of police.

You're an appointed rank. And you're

also at will. So if you can get

appointed to inspector or commander, but

you also can get demoted with no cause

either. So I remember one of my mentors,

another mentor, a lieutenant, there was

a captain and a lieutenant that were

both good mentors to me there. The

captain of the two mentors I had there

pulled me aside after this complaint and

said, "You did the right thing. He's

been harassing women here for years and

somebody needed to stand up, so you did

the right thing." He said, "But just

know you'll never make it past the rank

of captain." because my that lieutenant

was very well connected at the time to

the chief of police. So very friendly

with the chief of police that whole

administration. So I said that's fine.

Like that's fine. I wasn't thinking, you

know, long-term longevity and promotion.

>> That actually ties into what I was going

to ask you because it strikes me as

an incredibly brave thing to do. I

imagine not everyone in your situation

would have done that. I mean, in fact,

they didn't, right? I imagine there's a

lot of fear around there could be a lot

of fear around the political or job, you

know, professional repercussions of

voicing something like that, especially

during a period when that was not

common.

>> Well, remember my driver in life, Tim,

if you think about this and harassers

work this way. My goal in life is to

take care of my son. I'm a single mom.

After he knew I made a complaint, he was

threatening my job. He was really making

it very difficult for me to come to

work. like it was terrifying to come to

work, you know, and I was fighting for

my job. I can't lose my job. I have a

son to take care of and I'm not going to

lose my job because somebody wants to be

a bully. And that's the motivation. It

was it was terrible. I was sick to my

stomach every day. I was going in the

bathroom and throwing up. I mean, it was

when I got to work and just every time I

heard his voice on the radio, it was

terrible for me. But I also couldn't

afford to lose my job. I was not going

to let somebody force me out of my goal.

I had a son to take care of, so I

couldn't afford that. I was going to

fight until I knew that I was safe.

>> Yeah. I mean, it's sort of focusing

forcing function, right? I mean, having

that singular priority. So, it seems

like I mean, the predictions about you

never rising above the rank of what was

it? Captain.

>> Captain

>> seems like that fellow wasn't exactly

the the Nostradamus of of predicting the

future. So could you walk us through

sort of how things

progressed and why were you able to

continue to excel? Did his prediction

just turn out to be completely false?

>> I think it would have been accurate. I I

tell you what it the stars aligned for

me. So I took sergeant test at three

years. I was eligible for lieutenant at

five. I took the lieutenant's test at

five years. I came in number one on that

test. I took the captain's test seven

years. I came in number three on that

test. So I got promoted bang bang bang.

three years, five years, seven years. I

was a captain for seven years. I would

have never gone past the rank of captain

in that current administration. And then

Mary and Barry gets arrested, our mayor.

>> Mary and Barry is taken out and replaced

by the control board. The control board

comes in 1998. I'm a captain at the

time. Mayor and Barry is now taken out

of play. The control board takes over.

They bring in Chuck Ramsay, an outsider

who knows nobody

>> in the department. He doesn't know

anybody. He's got no click. He's got no

boys.

>> Everybody's fresh. So, he comes in as

I'm lieutenant just making captain,

takes over the police department as a

complete outsider and is doing his

assessment of what officials, what

command level officials he wanted to

have on his team. And he appointed me

from the rank of captain to be an

inspector to take over a major narcotics

branch with less than eight years on the

job. I was 29, I think.

>> All right. Chuck makes his appearance.

Right. Okay. Charles Ramsey.

>> He's the next big mentor.

>> Yeah.

>> Yes.

>> Okay. So, just for my honestly my

personal curiosities, I really know

nothing about how

police

structures work, right? What is what is

a captain doing? And then what is an

inspector do if you don't mind?

>> So, again, this is where I think the

police gets right. You're you spend

three years as a patrol officer. You

make sergeant. You study really hard to

take the test. You make sergeant. You do

go through some schools. After you make

sergeant, you manage a small group. Then

you make lieutenant two years later. You

go through the exam process. You go

through some schools after that. And

then you manage a squad of like a

platoon of 40. So now you've got when I

was lieutenant, I had narcotics

officers, I had detectives, and I had

patrols.

>> How are those 40 people determined? Is

it based on neighborhood or some type of

sort of geographic area

>> at that time? It's done differently and

over the course of the years it's

changed but at that time it was

geographically. So I had a patrol

district and of that patrol district I

had one-third of that patrol district

and I managed every resource for that

part of the district. So all three

shifts I had day work, midnights,

evening shift all three shifts. Those

officers are split across those three

shifts and they covered all the

policing. So, not just the 911

responders, the guys in the in uniform

going to 911 calls, but also your

narcotics officers and your detectives

that follow up and investigate crimes.

>> This is Lieutenant. Am I getting that

right?

>> That's Lieutenant.

>> Okay. So, Lieutenant, is that the first

time where you're getting kind of the

decathletes exposure to all of these

different things?

>> Yes. Okay. And you're also getting

exposure to administration. So, part of

that exam, that promotional exam is

studying administration. You have to

learn administration. Like so if there

are municipal regulations that need to

be changed and I'm managing a large part

of the portion of the District of

Columbia and I see a municipal

regulation needs to be changed, I need

to know the process to petition to

change that municipal regulation. How do

I go about changing that law?

>> Because I I'm seeing firsthand the

impact it's having in our neighborhoods,

right? So,

>> so police administration starts to

become more and more important there.

>> I also now can start influencing policy.

>> I can influence policy for my little

piece of the world, right? Mhm.

>> I decide what my drug enforcement

tactics are going to be. I decide how

we're going to work in terms of doing

warrant service and things like that. So

that's where you first start to get a

better understanding of influencing how

policing actually is carried out.

>> Not to minimize the the prior steps, but

it sounds like the lieutenant role is a

very dense learning opportunity

just based on the description. And I

think the best role, the best rank on

the police farmer for me was lieutenant.

I was able to still go out on the

street, support my troops, back up my

sergeants, have fun policing and do the

policing that I enjoyed, but I also had

the ability to change the environment

for them, help them

>> and also influence how we were policing

our community.

>> And then captain,

>> after captain, it gets, you know, so

captain is more more you're strapped to

your desk a lot more. Yeah, I was going

to say more more behind the desk

>> because you're reviewing bad arrest that

went, you know, somebody didn't a

sergeant didn't do the right thing and

review the paperwork. Now you've got a

bad arrest that's got to be detention

journal. So you've got to review and

make that decision. You've got to set

things up at the courts. You've got to

look at all the disciplinary

investigations that come in. You know,

officers getting disciplined for things.

You got to make decisions about that.

You sit on trial boards, you know, who's

going to get disciplined, who's going to

get terminated. It's very

administrative. You're helping the

commander make decisions, you know,

community meetings, deployment

decisions, and it's not as much fun.

>> Yeah.

Yeah. I don't I do I I know a few people

in in law enforcement, but mostly

military, former military guys. And I

mean, very similar, right? Some of these

guys, they just love being in the field,

and they're like, I got promoted. It's

like, I just don't know how I feel how I

feel about it. They're like very mixed.

>> Well, here's the big key. When I went to

go change my uniform, so you go to

property division. When you get

promoted, you walk off the stage, you

get your promoted, you get your your

birds or whatever you're getting, your

clusters or whatever. It's for your new

rank. You go to the property division,

you get your new rank insignia. When I

made captain and I went over to property

division to get my new rank in, they

said, "Turn in your handcuffs." And I

was like, "What? Turn in my handcuffs?

What are you talking about? You don't

need those anymore." Like, uh, you're

not taking my handcuffs. I'm going to

keep my handcuffs. I'm right here. Right

here.

>> I kept my gun belt, my handcuffs, my

extra magazines, all those things that

the administrative captains used to turn

in. I'm like, "No." Uhuh. I'm keeping

this stuff.

>> Yeah.

>> So, let's come back to Chuck. And

because I'm so unfamiliar with the

internal workings, it's hard for me to

pick the next

sort of flash point, maybe a seinal

moment for you. There's a lot to pick

from. I'm not sure how to put them in

order. Not that they have to be in

order, but maybe tell me if there's

something that we should talk about

before this, but you mentioned Chuck,

right, pushing you to take tough

assignments.

Is

special operations division is that a

sensible place to hop to next or what do

you think is are we skipping some

important

important steps in between? when Chuck

came in and he initially put me in

charge. I'd only been a captain I want

to say four or five months and he kind

of did a clean out at the top like a lot

of that old boy network that was there

when he got there. They were all people

that were long past retirement. So he

pushed a lot of the command staff out.

So that made him push people up pretty

young in their career. So he pushed me

up to be the commander of major

narcotics branch as an inspector. Like I

said, just under eight years on, so I

was very young.

>> I'm trying to do the math. How old were

you then at that point?

>> So I want to say I was 30ish 30 31 at

Major Narcotics Branch.

>> Wow, man. That's amazing. That is a lot

of responsibility.

>> And so I went to major narcotics branch.

So I had major narcotics branch and

vehicular homicide. So I managed all the

vehicular homicide investigative units

there for just under two years. And then

he promoted me again to commander and I

took over a patrol district. the fourth

district where Mount Pleasant sits, the

patrol district I started in, I went

back now and I was the commander of that

patrol district. It was the largest

residential area in the in the city of

Washington. So I took over that

district. I ran that for two years and

then he shot away. He called me down to

his office and he says, "You know, I'm

thinking I'm going to send you to SOD."

It was 911 happens, right? 911 happens

the Friday after 911. He says,"I think

I'm going to send you to special

operations division." I was like, "You

know what? I love being the district

commander. I love working in 4D. This is

my goal was to retire as the commander

of 4D. Thanks, but I really like where I

am." And he's like, "Oh, okay." And then

two days later, a teletype came out

transferring me to SOD. So, like it

wasn't really asking me. He's like, "Oh,

oh, okay."

>> He's like, "That's a great story. Thank

you for that."

>> Funny, right? Glad to hear it.

So I took over special ops. Now special

operations division had never had a

woman in charge. So that in itself was a

little intimidating. But the one thing

that when you talk about mentors and I I

know you probably have experienced this

like many others is

what a mentor does for you is they lend

you confidence that you don't have. Like

Chuck

recognized that I didn't have the

confidence. I was like intimidated by

this sod thing. My guy was like, "Yeah,

no." That, you know, never had a woman

in charge. It's the predominantly male.

I always say it's the most testosterone

in the police departments in SOD, right?

It's the bomb squad, the SWAT team,

harbor, the marine unit, the helicopter

unit, aviation, horsemounted unit, K9,

civil disturbance unit, the presidential

protection unit. So, it's like nine or

10 different units. You know, your your

high-end stuff. So, anyway, he

recognized that I was intimidated by

that. And he's like, "Mm- you're going

to go and you're going to do it." He

sent me off to a bunch of schools. I

went to EOD schools, bombing schools. I

learned how to manage a bomb squad. I

learned how to manage a squat team. And

the people there were great. That was my

best assignment in my entire career. I

spent six years there after 911

recreating our special operations

division and turning it into a homeland

security and counterterrorism unit.

>> What made it so good for you, that

particular role?

>> Well, it was the most complex role I'd

ever held. Most of the units I I

managed, I had to manage three or four

different type of specialties. I had to

manage nine different specialties and

they were highly special. Sniper teams

on the SWAT teams, negotiations unit,

the bomb squad. We were just after 911

and we were trying to evolve our

department from a pre 911 police

department in the nation's capital to a

post 911 police department in the

nation's capital. We got called

flatfooted on 911 and we should not have

been. We didn't have the skills,

training, equipment, and things that we

should have had. Right? I always say

Timothy McVey, that Oklahoma City

bombing was the wakeup call. That's when

we should have started changing the way

we train and prepare our police

officers, but we didn't. Right? And then

there's the first World Trade Center

bombing. That was another wakeup call.

We didn't respond to that. It was not

until 911 that the nation's police

departments in the largest cities really

realized that we have to be prepared for

this type of asymmetric threat that

we're now facing. So when Chuck put me

in charge of SOD, he said, "I want you

to create the homeland security

capabilities that we need, not just in

SOD, but across the whole department."

So he gave me a blank check to create a

brand new

police philosophy in the Metropolitan

Police Department. So we created the

Homeland Security Counterterrorism

Bureau. We created CBR&. My first year

we got $17 million in funding to buy

level A suits to send our people down to

Andison, Alabama. I went down to

Andison, Alabama. I trained in sarin and

VX live sarin and VX gas. We were

trained to do rescues in hot zones. We

went down to Nevada and trained on rad

environments, radiological environments.

I was one of the few people that was

fortunate enough to train with Ken Albec

and Bill Patrick, two bioweapons

scientists, one from Russia and one from

the US, taught my bio weapons class, you

know, how to respond to biological

threats. Anthrax, right? We had anthrax

in Washington DC. These are all things

that I was on the front end of creating

and I got to go through all of that

training and all of that experience with

my whole team and the Metropol Police

Department when we were finished that

six years of of evolution was a

completely different place.

>> Wow. This is a good time to I think come

back to something I kind of promised to

listeners that we would revisit

and it goes all the way back. We're not

gonna go

all the way back to Mount Pleasant. But

when you were first day on the job, five

days, and you're looking at it and

you're thinking to yourself, we're not

doing this the right way, right? We

can't even communicate with these

community members. Furthermore, we're

not even trying to set the message

straight. And then if we flash forward,

you know, I have notes that are a bit

scattered here, but I have notes on

embracing technology, right? So this is

from governing.com. I want to give

credit where credit is due, but this

relates to looking for new ways to

connect the community to the police in

the case of the police. So the creation

of an anonymous text tip line, cleverly

named 50411. Am I saying that the right

way?

>> Give the 50.

>> Give the 50. the 411, right?

>> The 50. I'm such an idiot. I'm such an

idiot.

>> We are the 50. Like the cop, they used

to call us the 50 back in the old days.

And 411, you know, the 411.

>> Yeah. Right. So, in in 2008, they

received 292 tips. By the end of 2011,

that number had jumped to 1,200.

>> 1,200. Yeah. We got up to about 2,800.

>> 2,800. Right. And there are many

examples of how that ended up being

valuable. And then there's a whole

separate topic which is maybe related

but different which is cultivating

sources right so like developing sources

>> getting to know people and this is

quoting from the same piece but you you

treat people with respect you establish

relationships and god you know I'm

trying to think of some of these

examples that I read about separately

but this seems to all probably feed into

a lot of what you were doing in bad

overhaul later, right?

>> Yes.

>> And I'm just wondering if you have any

other examples of sort of cultivating a

access to helpful information, right?

Not just drowning in noise. I'm

wondering how you even thought about

that cuz I imagine one of the challenges

at at that time, probably even still

today, but especially post 911 in the

wake of that, that there's

kind of a good news bad news situation.

If you want more information or tips,

there's probably going to be an

overwhelming amount depending on how you

solicit and how you search for it. So,

how did you how did you think of

separating signal from noise?

>> For me, it was pretty simple and it does

go back to Mount Pleasant. Again, pretty

intuitive on your part not having been

in policing. So when I became the chief

of police, a couple of commitments I

made to myself and to the community was

that we had a tendency to place higher

value on some neighborhoods and some

crimes than others. And our job is to

protect all of the community and every

crime should be equally important to us.

If if we're not preventing crimes, we're

not being successful making arrests. We

used to publish our arrest stats every

year and go, "Oh, look, we made 50,000

arrests last year. Look how successful

we are." Well, that's 50,000 times and

we didn't do our job because we didn't

prevent those crimes from happening. So,

to me, arrest stats are not a good

measure of success for a police

department. Now, I don't have a stat to

tell you what I prevented, right? But

the goal should be to try and prevent.

So, for me, what was very clear is when

I first took over as chief, I promised I

was going to go on the scene of every

single homicide. Why? because I wanted

people in the communities to know it

didn't matter what neighborhood you

lived in or what the circumstances of

that homicide was, that homicide's just

as important to us as every other

homicide. So, a homicide in Georgetown,

right, in the very expensive wealthy

neighborhood, if there was a homicide

there, it would get news coverage for

weeks and police were all over it and

and almost always those crimes would be

closed. But if there was a homicide in a

project, public housing project, it got

little to no news coverage. Three people

shot last night in Southeast. That was

it. That's all you'd hear. And nothing

about those people or what happened with

those crimes. And they very rarely got

closed. So I put an emphasis on trying

to cultivate those relationships in the

community. It was clear to me two

things. People didn't trust us. They

didn't trust the police. And we didn't

close these homicides because people

weren't witnesses wouldn't come forward.

They wouldn't come forward because they

didn't trust us. And so we had to change

that. So I had a great example. I was

out, we did a crime initiative during

the summer called All Hands on Deck. So

I was out on All Hands on Deck. I'm

walking through a public housing complex

and there's two middle-aged women

sitting on a wall outside in the summer.

They're drinking. They got open

containers of alcohol, which is illegal,

right? They could have been in the old

days when I was pleasing, we would just

walk over and handcuff them, lock them

up, take them to the station, right?

That's open container alcohol. So I go

over and I sit down and start talking to

him. There had been a series of

shootings in this complex and I said,

"Hey," she's like, "I don't know why you

guys are here. You don't care about us."

Kind of giving me the lip.

>> And I said, "Okay, well, I'll tell you

what. Here's my business card. My cell

phone number's on here." First of all,

they had no idea I was a chief.

>> That's I'm just a cop, right? Right.

>> They don't watch the local news. They

don't know that I'm the chief. Here's my

business card. If you have any

information and you want to talk to me

about anything that's going on here and

tell me who's out here shooting in the

middle of the night, hit these kids that

are on the basketball court, please let

me know. And when I walk over to the two

ladies, they kind of take their beer,

you know, and stick it behind the wall.

I was like, you know, you're not

supposed to be drinking out here, but

I'm going to pretend I didn't see that,

right? So, so I give them my business

card. I give them that respect. I Yes,

ma'am. No, ma'am. Talk to them with a

little respect. I give them my business

card. My cell phone number's on there.

About two weeks later, I get a call at

1:00 in the morning and it was a woman's

voice. Don't know if it was those women.

Can't prove it. Don't know to this day.

But I get a call about 1:00 in the

morning. There was a shooting in that

neighborhood. And the woman's voice said

to me, "Tell your officers that the gun

is behind the white Escalade."

>> And I like, "What are you talking

about?" She says, "On Cloud Street." She

gave me that the address on Cloud

Street. She said, "There's a white

Escalade. The gun is there." So, I

turned on my police radio, half asleep,

switched to the sixth district that

where that address is. And sure enough,

they're working a shooting. And I went

over the radio. I said, "Cruiser one,

who's the onseene official? Have him

call me." He calls me. I said, "Look, I

just got a tip from somebody that

there's a gun involved in this case, and

this is where the gun is."

>> Sure enough, that's where the gun was.

They recovered that gun. From that

recovery of that gun, they were able to

start working this case and actually get

information. So, I always tie that back

to I strongly believe that the fact that

I walked over to those women. I showed

them a little respect. I sat on the wall

with them. I didn't lock them up for the

Oakland DL. They weren't hurting

anybody.

>> Mhm.

>> I sat and chatted with them. I gave them

my cell number and said, "Look, I want

to help, but if you don't give me

information, I can't help." So, that's

the philosophy that I wanted all of my

cops to have. That's the way I wanted

all of us to police our communities. I

wanted people to see that you give me

information, you'll see results. You

tell me who's involved in shooting up

the neighborhood, we'll go after them.

we will make. So we started we're doing

instead of just putting posters up when

a homicide occurred when we made an

arrest for the homicide we went back and

put posters up saying the case is closed

right reverse canvas like instead of

just telling you when something bad

happens we're going to tell you when we

close it. So now people know

>> that we've taken that person off the

street and those little things matter.

>> Yeah. Matter a lot. I want to please

confirm or deny this, but I am in the

course of speaking with you and

certainly in the course of doing

homework for this conversation impressed

with your attention to detail, which

comes back also to my signal versus

noise cuz I'm like, I am dazzled by your

ability to

manage all of these details. And I tell

me if this is a complete dead end, but

it seems like you demonstrated this

really really early on. And we'll we'll

come back to where we were in the

timeline, but this is as a you had a job

at 16 as a secretary at a commercial

real estate firm.

>> Am I getting that right?

>> Yes. Eisinger Kilbane.

>> You handle tenant billing, right?

>> Y

>> and it seems like you've practiced this

or just had this ability that you've

honed over time. you know, thousands of

pieces of correspondents come through

the police department every day, but

you're also talking about learning, I

think, at that job to never let anything

that's got your name on it be imperfect.

And it's just like,

>> sound familiar, Tim?

>> Well, yes, there's that also. My

incredibly helpful slash

>> OCD.

>> Yeah. Brain damage and two saying OCD.

But as you have a job that increases in

scope upon scope upon scope upon scope

and

how do you build systems that help you

to keep track of these things, right?

Because not everyone is going to have

necessarily your

eye for detail or capacity to remember

the details in that photograph that

flash for a fraction of time that you

then need to recall. So, it seems like

ultimately, and I'm I am cheating a

little bit because you know when when

you sent and we asked for some notes in

advance of this conversation. I'll just

I'll just read one thing here because

>> I don't remember now. So, I got you're

going to get me on this.

>> Oh, I'll tell you. It's great. It just

says, "No hacks for me. I try to focus

on systems or strategies that will hold

up over time." Right. And I'm wondering,

for instance, whether it's in your

current role or where we left off in

terms of your timeline

as you're soliciting information from

the community and they're offering more

because you're showing not just the

announcement of the bad thing, but that

you actually took action related to

their help that closed cases, etc., etc.

How do you ensure that the department or

the organization that you're a part of

is equipped to digest that? And I'm not

sure that's an easy question to answer,

but I'll just leave it there.

>> No, it's not an easy question to answer,

but I would say this. I experienced in

200.

So, I I pushed technology very very hard

once I became the chief. When I took

over as the chief, we had Teletubby

pagers. We didn't even have cell phones.

And I wanted everybody to have