Speaker 1: You're listening to Bloomberg Business Week with Carol Messer and
Speaker 1: Bloomberg Quick Takes Tim Stinovic on Bloomberg Radio. We do
Speaker 1: want to bring in our guest, former NYPD Police Commissioner
Speaker 1: Bill Bratton, his executive chairman of Risk Advisory and over
Speaker 1: at Tonio and he joins us via zoom So, UM,
Speaker 1: Bill Bratton, so good to have you here with us.
Speaker 1: Tell us about this situation. What we know, what we
Speaker 1: don't know, what kind of jumps out for you. Well,
Speaker 1: the good news you have to follow after the horlific
Speaker 1: events of yesterday is that today, UH, the NYPD, thanks
Speaker 1: to a chip into the crime Stoppers hotline from a citizen. UH,
Speaker 1: the individual we believe responsible for that shooting on the
Speaker 1: subway was apprehended in Lower Manhattan, So the fear that
Speaker 1: he his actions generated UH is now being addressed with
Speaker 1: the fact that he's been apprehended in in custody. Unfortunately,
Speaker 1: the overall fear of the subway UH, He's not going
Speaker 1: to end with that arrest. That's still an issue that
Speaker 1: Mayor Adams is going to have to grap with going forward.
Speaker 1: He and the nt A Commissioner Bratton, if you were
Speaker 1: still Police Commissioner of the nyp D. If you were
Speaker 1: advising Mayor Adams, what would you tell him he needs
Speaker 1: to do that the NYPD needs to do in order
Speaker 1: to make us New Yorkers feel safe on the subway. Well,
Speaker 1: the good news is he's actually doing it. That he
Speaker 1: and I worked in the trance of police chief user
Speaker 1: lieutenant back in so he saw first hand of participated
Speaker 1: in what turned the crime situation around back then thirty
Speaker 1: years ago. Uh, he was a lieutenant and captain in
Speaker 1: the n YP Police Commissioner and saw what work then
Speaker 1: to create the safest city in America and keep it
Speaker 1: that way for twenty five years. So he's looking to
Speaker 1: replicate in many instances, uh, those experiences. So I'm very
Speaker 1: supportive of what he's trying to do. Uh. The struggling
Speaker 1: he's going to have, and it's been had, is with
Speaker 1: the political leadership in the city Council, the Progressive Left Caucus,
Speaker 1: and the political leadership in Albany, which is also progressive left.
Speaker 1: They have been very reluctant to allow him to use
Speaker 1: some of the tools that he knew worked back then
Speaker 1: and kept the city safe for twenty five years. He's
Speaker 1: doing a lot of the right things. He's putting a
Speaker 1: lot of cops into the subway system. Almost a thousand
Speaker 1: additional cops is almost as many cops now as we
Speaker 1: had together back in Plus he's uh putting additional offices
Speaker 1: in there from time to time from street patrols. So
Speaker 1: the public is not going to be uh if he
Speaker 1: is not going to be calmed until their consistencies see
Speaker 1: a lot more police. But also they want to see
Speaker 1: the police doing something about the disorder, the homeless, the
Speaker 1: emotionally disturbed, the drug addictive, the misbehavior. Uh and until
Speaker 1: they start showing some reduction in actual crime and what
Speaker 1: people see every day, that feel level is not going
Speaker 1: to diminish. But he is commit it to doing it,
Speaker 1: and I applaud his effort because he's a lot of
Speaker 1: political opposition of what he's trying to do. Bill, we
Speaker 1: we talked about this little bit earlier about the impact
Speaker 1: of the pandemic and also after George Floyd and a
Speaker 1: lot of police forces coming under a lot of scrutiny.
Speaker 1: I'm curious how you see You know, you've been in
Speaker 1: New York, You've been in Boston, you've been in l A.
Speaker 1: You understand big cities and the think and how it
Speaker 1: all operates. But how do you feel those two situations
Speaker 1: exacerbated or maybe got us to where we are today
Speaker 1: in terms of what happened yesterday. There's no denying that
Speaker 1: the George Floyd murder basically and the resultant demonstrations and
Speaker 1: UH increase in mistrust to the police, the defund the
Speaker 1: police movement that proved so disastrous to New York City
Speaker 1: Police depart and lost a billion dollars in that ill
Speaker 1: fated effort, which fortunately politicians and not running away from UH.
Speaker 1: COVID was snificant impact, and they have pretty much shut
Speaker 1: down the criminal justice system in America. But in the
Speaker 1: case of New York City and the rest of America,
Speaker 1: prime had already been beginning to go up in two
Speaker 1: thousand nineteen, a year before COVID and the politicians would
Speaker 1: like to run away from that. But the criminal justice
Speaker 1: reform efforts they were trying to put through in so
Speaker 1: much of America, with these very progressive district attorneys who
Speaker 1: are in office in many of our major cities, UH
Speaker 1: has been disastrous. There was no city with one of
Speaker 1: these progressive DA's that can show after their election crime decline,
Speaker 1: crime increase, I'm sorry, please finish. And they're all experiencing
Speaker 1: crime increase, so they're well intended efforts are not working.
Speaker 1: And the irony was in two thousand and eighteen in
Speaker 1: New York was the safest year in the history of
Speaker 1: New York City. Lowest GEO population, lower state prison population,
Speaker 1: lowest crime numbers, lowest numbers of summons is, lowest number
Speaker 1: of stock question and fish issues, improving race relations. And
Speaker 1: then in two thousand nineteen it says, if the wheels
Speaker 1: come off the cab and we crashed, blame the politicians. Well,
Speaker 1: the other thing I think I want to bring in
Speaker 1: terms of blame is maybe the system that's currently set up. Bill,
Speaker 1: and I think about how many conversations we've had about
Speaker 1: inequities in our society. Right there are folks out there
Speaker 1: that are doing better than ever before despite the pandemic,
Speaker 1: whether it's wealth creation, job security, and there are others
Speaker 1: that have not benefited by this system. And I do wonder,
Speaker 1: you know how that eats at our society and create
Speaker 1: certainly unease, discontent or terror, as potentially we saw yesterday. Well,
Speaker 1: it's certainly always been the case that they has and
Speaker 1: has not. But the irony of it is coming out
Speaker 1: of the COVID. Uh is that just listening to some
Speaker 1: of the reports this morning, eleven million jobs available in
Speaker 1: the United States, but only seven billion people available to
Speaker 1: take them, but those seven billion not taking them for
Speaker 1: variety of reasons. So at least four million jobs that
Speaker 1: can't be filled. So uh, the idea is that has
Speaker 1: never been a time in recent history we there's so
Speaker 1: many job opportunities and the salary for those jobs the
Speaker 1: best they've been in quite a while. Unfortunately, it's also
Speaker 1: in the highest rate of inflation at forty is that
Speaker 1: it has even at the gas pump, at the grocery store.
Speaker 1: So those are compounding issues about the inequities. But as
Speaker 1: it relates to the crime situation, even in the worst
Speaker 1: of times, we were able to control crime, and then
Speaker 1: in the best of times we have to control it.
Speaker 1: But what undid our efforts was unfortunately impact on some
Speaker 1: of the minority communities that felt it was disproportionate policing. There.
Speaker 1: We've learned how to address that and try to correct it.
Speaker 1: But the trust we lost then is we're still having.
Speaker 1: When I say we, I mean the police forces of
Speaker 1: America still having trouble regaining that. But here in New
Speaker 1: York City, part of the issue is it's a minority
Speaker 1: majority city. UH still a lot of post Floyd UH
Speaker 1: resentment towards the police is also still reluctance because of
Speaker 1: COVID and now prime fear of crime. People come back
Speaker 1: to work. My office building, I don't think it is
Speaker 1: at thirty percent occupancy because we put out you put
Speaker 1: out yesterday, and we write at the forty eight and
Speaker 1: Pod Avenue right in the hot Midtown Manhattan, and most
Speaker 1: of the stores that serviced us in terms of restaurants
Speaker 1: instead of still closed. There was a report I think
Speaker 1: was in the New York Times Wall Street Journal yesterday
Speaker 1: the average employee in New York which spent about thirteen
Speaker 1: thousand dollars in the surrounding businesses during the course of
Speaker 1: for a year. But that's now down about six thousand dollars.
Speaker 1: So the economic impact on particularly in Manhattan, if you will,
Speaker 1: and on the m t A, the MTA wridership is
Speaker 1: still up about forty percent. That's why that incident yesterday
Speaker 1: they was so troubling because it just increased the fear
Speaker 1: of writing on the subway system. Yeah, I think you're
Speaker 1: absolutely right about that. If you are just joined us.
Speaker 1: We're speaking with Bill Braden, former Commissioner of the NYPD.
Speaker 1: He was also chief of the l A p D.
Speaker 1: He's spent nearly fifty years in law enforcement. He's now
Speaker 1: executive Chairman of Risk at TENO. Commissioner Bratton. Um, it
Speaker 1: sounds like there's this this a big challenge ahead for
Speaker 1: district district attorneys. Uh, a big challenge ahead for police
Speaker 1: officers and police chiefs around the country. If you were
Speaker 1: advising politicians right now, because you did say, blame the
Speaker 1: politicians for the rise, the increase in crime that we've
Speaker 1: seen around the country, what would you advise them to do.
Speaker 1: What's the delicate line that that they need, the delicate
Speaker 1: needle that they need to thread when it comes to
Speaker 1: building that trust up with the community. What at the
Speaker 1: same time empowering their officers to keep crime off the streets?
Speaker 1: Whatever sejers is watch whate A Adams, the Mayo New
Speaker 1: York is up to. In the sense of what he's
Speaker 1: trying to do. He is moved from the left to
Speaker 1: center in terms of trying to get more people onto
Speaker 1: common ground from the progessive left the center right, And
Speaker 1: advice to any of these mayors is this idea that
Speaker 1: to control crime, you need the police, but you need
Speaker 1: police to police compassionately, consistently, same in white neighborhood as
Speaker 1: black neighborhoods, and constitutionally legally, And so their role is
Speaker 1: to ensure that their police departments are operating a transparent
Speaker 1: manner and engaged in constitutional policing. And we are better
Speaker 1: able to do that now than ever body cameras, we
Speaker 1: have a lot most survey and oversight, We have better
Speaker 1: trained police officers, but we are dealing with a legacy
Speaker 1: of historic tension between police and minority communities. But in
Speaker 1: New York City, the irony was two thousand eighteen, the
Speaker 1: safest year in the history of our city. That the
Speaker 1: jail population in New York, which was largely a minority population,
Speaker 1: had been reduced from twenty two over pick course of
Speaker 1: twenty years, took about an average of five thousand, and
Speaker 1: the state prison population was down by a lot of
Speaker 1: so that we have been ever to control crimes so
Speaker 1: dramatically that we effectively change the behavior of a lot
Speaker 1: of people that they remained law abiding. They didn't break
Speaker 1: the law. They didn't invade the fair. They weren't in
Speaker 1: the times when marijuana was not legal, they weren't smoking
Speaker 1: marijuana in public. It's a lot of the minor type
Speaker 1: crime that got so many in trouble that this is
Speaker 1: what the progressive left is trying to change the enforcement practices.
Speaker 1: But there were some people in that population, if you will,
Speaker 1: of those who are inclined to not obey the rules
Speaker 1: that you have to punish. You cannot let people keep
Speaker 1: getting away and never paying the fair, doing what they
Speaker 1: want to do at any time of the day and night. Uh,
Speaker 1: that's not how democracy works. So we've engaged in a
Speaker 1: very interesting debate and delever at the moment. And I
Speaker 1: look at the skills of justice, the symbol of justice
Speaker 1: in America, the scales right now, it's very heavily in
Speaker 1: favor of the reforms of the progressive left, well intended,
Speaker 1: some needed, but tip too fa And what we have
Speaker 1: as a result is growing fear of crime, is growing
Speaker 1: actual amount of crime as evidence in almost every major
Speaker 1: American city. Good news is that's what we're facing in
Speaker 1: I'm informed by history. I lived it, and I know
Speaker 1: how it changed. And the good news is with leadership
Speaker 1: like Eric is trying to provide based on his knowledge
Speaker 1: of history. Uh, maybe we can change it again, but
Speaker 1: it's going to take a lot of people kind of
Speaker 1: coming to center from there. It's kind of like the
Speaker 1: troops in the World War One getting out of the
Speaker 1: trenches and coming into no man's land and trying to
Speaker 1: kill each other. Commiser bratn. One thing I want to
Speaker 1: ask you is you know you have had, you know,
Speaker 1: senior positions, as we said in New York, Boston, l A.
Speaker 1: You have seen a lot of crisis situations and having
Speaker 1: to bring together different constituents. Um, you know, what can
Speaker 1: you tell us about the process right now of what's
Speaker 1: going on? We know a certain amount of information. A
Speaker 1: lot came out of uh that briefing just a couple
Speaker 1: of hours ago, and yet officials are still tell telling
Speaker 1: us that it might be weeks before we know a
Speaker 1: lot a lot more. What kind of questioning is going on.
Speaker 1: Tell us a little bit of what's going on behind
Speaker 1: the scenes to the specifics of yesterday shooting incidents in
Speaker 1: the press conference that just tell about two hours ago,
Speaker 1: the building of the prosecution case now begins. The gathering
Speaker 1: of huge amounts of evidence, the interviewing of hundreds of
Speaker 1: witnesses and victims, miles upon miles of video that will
Speaker 1: be gone through, questioning hopefully of the suspect in the
Speaker 1: sense that he will lower up and that loyal advice
Speaker 1: about to say anything us, whether he chooses to or not.
Speaker 1: As people would love to understand a little about motivation
Speaker 1: other than just a social media post. Issue of concern
Speaker 1: here in terms of the ability to prosecute him. UH.
Speaker 1: Is he mentally sound to prosecute or is he so
Speaker 1: emotionally unstable that they determined that he can't be held
Speaker 1: to responsible for his actions. There's also the issue that
Speaker 1: the federal government, federal prosecute is now taken over the
Speaker 1: case under the Terrorism Statute, and so the idea this
Speaker 1: is being treated as an act of terrorism going forward
Speaker 1: UH and a lot of people felt that was the case.
Speaker 1: But the UH federal prosecutor now is going to have
Speaker 1: to really work very hard over the next several days
Speaker 1: to fill in the gaps answer some of the questions
Speaker 1: that are out there. UH, and the idea that's going
Speaker 1: to take weeks and months. That's really weeks and months
Speaker 1: to build a case that they can then take this
Speaker 1: individual to trial, but in reality it's over. They have him.
Speaker 1: There's no sense that he was working in con challenge
Speaker 1: with anybody else, and so this is now effectively building
Speaker 1: the case that the news we are because he's he's
Speaker 1: been apprehended. Absolutely, I think we all a sigh of
Speaker 1: relief there. What's the biggest question you have or you
Speaker 1: would have certainly um for him at this point. That's
Speaker 1: the idea of what was his overall intention? We saw
Speaker 1: some of his actions, but was that all he was
Speaker 1: intending to do? Or for example, he had other incendiary
Speaker 1: devices in that bag, what was he intended to do
Speaker 1: with those? He had several more clips of those uh
Speaker 1: extended magazines with thirty rounds in each magazine. In some
Speaker 1: respects uh uh that may have would caused the second
Speaker 1: magazine to jam because he shot the first dirty shots
Speaker 1: are so fast that the weapon basically the second clip
Speaker 1: went in uh pfactively open heated and jammed it. Commissioner,
Speaker 1: we only have about thirty seconds left with you, so
Speaker 1: I want to make sure to get this question. And
Speaker 1: how important is that that the m t A make
Speaker 1: sure they have functioning cameras throughout New York City's transportation
Speaker 1: system functioning cameras that can also be shared with the
Speaker 1: law enforcement authorities. That these cameras are great, but if
Speaker 1: they're not able to Basically, since the UH worked with
Speaker 1: every other camera system and the law enforcement has, the
Speaker 1: functionality is limited to strictly operational aspects and not law
Speaker 1: enforcement aspects. Alright, We're gonna leave it on that note. Um,
Speaker 1: Commissioner Broughton, thank you so much. I really appreciate your time.
Speaker 1: Of course, former New York Police Department Police Commissioner Bill
Speaker 1: Bratton holding you know, senior positions again as we mentioned
Speaker 1: in New York, of course Boston and Los Angeles as well.
Speaker 1: We appreciate him joining us via Zoom executive chairman by
Speaker 1: the way of risk Advisory today. We've often spoken with
Speaker 1: him ahead of the Super Bowl when it comes to
Speaker 1: security and risk concerns, so this is certainly top of
Speaker 1: mind and something he knows an awful lot about. Really
Speaker 1: great to get Commissioner Bratton's thoughts on everything that's happened
Speaker 1: in the last thirty six hours