Bill Bratton — Sweet Alice, the Bronx, and What the Job Costs | Part 2
Bill Bratton led six police departments over fifty years, including the NYPD twice and the LAPD from 2002 to 2009. In the second half of this conversation, the policy arguments give way to the people who shaped him — and to the parts of the job that no one applies for.
It opens in Watts. When Bratton arrived in Los Angeles, his community relations sergeant told him to go see Sweet Alice, a sharecropper's daughter from the South who had become the driving force of one of the city's most distressed neighborhoods. She once stood up at a community meeting and told an activist attacking the new chief to shut up. When Bratton left the city in 2009, she told him why her neighborhood had trusted him, in three words he still calls the highest honor of his career.
From there he turns to training, and to the difference between the departments he ran. The NYPD he took over in the 1990s was reactive and discouraged; the LAPD was proud, self-reliant and permanently short of officers, working with a fraction of the numbers he believes it needed. His own academy in Boston in 1970 lasted seven weeks. He argues the country still undertrains its police, and that the cost falls on officers first. Asked for his best moments, he describes lowering his gun in front of an armed man holding a bank teller hostage, and the 2007 MacArthur Park crisis he says was his finest hour as a chief.
Then the worst. For Bratton it is not a single moment but every officer he had to bury, and one night in 1994 when a young officer's widow arrived at a Bronx hospital still in her waitress uniform. He has carried what he heard in that hallway for thirty-two years.
He closes with Steven McDonald, the NYPD detective paralyzed in 1986 who publicly forgave the teenager who shot him, and who rode 235 miles by ambulance to attend Bratton's father's funeral. Across both parts, this is a portrait of a leader who changed American policing and remains unsentimental about what that took.
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Transcript
And as she's coming down the hall, she still had her waitress
Speaker:uniform and her waitress bib on, as I guess you'd call it,
Speaker:and the only sounds you could hear was, one, she wasn't
Speaker:sure what she was coming to.
Speaker:She had not been informed that her husband, in fact, was
Speaker:deceased, was basically the clinking of the coins in her apron
Speaker:50 years in six police departments.
Speaker:This is the part of the job nobody applies for.
Speaker:Yeah, I wanted to jump back to, uh, your time in LA.
Speaker:Uh, I, I- I
Speaker:had a great time.
Speaker:I had a, I had a great time in LA.
Speaker:Loved it out there.
Speaker:Well, I, I came across a, a young lady by the name of Sweet Alice.
Speaker:Do you know who I'm talking about?
Speaker:Sweet- Oh, Sweet
Speaker:Alice, certainly one of the most lovely, uh, community- Yeah
Speaker:… organizers you could ever meet.
Speaker:You were talking about community relations and, you know, how it's,
Speaker:it, it is not what it should be.
Speaker:Tell us the story about Sweet Alice and what that meant from a
Speaker:community relations standpoint.
Speaker:In the, uh, south part of Los Angeles where the bulk of the
Speaker:African American population lived.
Speaker:That population has now declined dramatically.
Speaker:It's largely a Latino area now, South LA Watts.
Speaker:Uh, Sweet Alice was a force of nature.
Speaker:She grew up, uh, on a sharecropper farm down in
Speaker:the South, experienced all the racial segregation of the
Speaker:'50s, '60s, and like so many, fled that to go to California.
Speaker:Wow.
Speaker:In California, she moved into Watts, into one of the most
Speaker:distressed areas, and, uh, effectively became an incredible
Speaker:driving force, a social worker that, in her neighborhood.
Speaker:And, uh, helping out, uh, the, the, in that poverty-stricken
Speaker:area, and became a spokesperson for it, uh, had, uh,
Speaker:daycare centers, et cetera.
Speaker:And my first experience with her when I came into Los Angeles
Speaker:2002, Fred Booker, the sergeant in charge of my community
Speaker:relations here, an African American, one of the greatest
Speaker:cops that ever was, says, "You need to go talk to Sweet Alice.
Speaker:She can give you the real story about what's happening in,
Speaker:uh, Watts, why it's happening, what's, why it's not happening."
Speaker:Sure.
Speaker:And, uh, I went down with my wife, uh, Rikki, uh, who used to go to
Speaker:many of these meetings with me.
Speaker:And we had, um… I'm, I'm, I'm pretty smart.
Speaker:I bring Rikki oftentimes to a lot of the things I go to because you
Speaker:cannot, as Craig can attest, you cannot help but to, to love Rikki.
Speaker:And- … uh, Rikki is a great icebreaker with all the, uh,
Speaker:uh, minority, uh, population that I dealt with in LA.
Speaker:But, uh, we fell in love with Sweet Alice.
Speaker:She had this delightful Southern accent, and it just…
Speaker:Not, not, not well-educated.
Speaker:I don't think she ever finished high school.
Speaker:Uh, but she had street smarts, and she had goodwill smarts.
Speaker:And I can remember, um, uh, attending a Christmas party she
Speaker:hosted every year where she'd raise funds to give out gifts
Speaker:to these hundreds of kids in s- uh, at Watts who would at
Speaker:Christmas time not get anything.
Speaker:And you'd see these kids come in, the clothes, the poor clothes
Speaker:they're wearing and, and, um, uh, the gifts they were getting
Speaker:were bicycles and high-end gifts.
Speaker:And we ended up, uh, raising a lot of money with her,
Speaker:but going to that Christmas party, uh, each year was
Speaker:just a memorable experience.
Speaker:But she was the heart and soul of the community that, uh- Yeah
Speaker:… I'll never forget, we were at a community meeting and I had a, uh,
Speaker:Black activist who was going after me and, um, uh, and Sweet Alice
Speaker:got up and said, "You shut up."
Speaker:And she says- We, we like this police chief.
Speaker:We got his back.
Speaker:And he shut up.
Speaker:Wow.
Speaker:'Cause, uh, s- Sweet Alice was a power unto herself.
Speaker:So who's the real boss?
Speaker:I guess it was Alice, huh?
Speaker:You think… And I invited her and I, I, I hosted a Christmas
Speaker:party every year, uh, with the LA Police Foundation, invited
Speaker:a lot of the, uh, activists, uh, to that Christmas party.
Speaker:It was a wonderful time, 3, 400 cops and political activists
Speaker:and, uh, uh, social workers.
Speaker:A great, great party.
Speaker:And, uh, Sweet Alice would come.
Speaker:But when Rikki and I were leaving LA in 2009, went down to say
Speaker:goodbye to Sweet Alice, and I write about this in my most
Speaker:recent book, The Profession.
Speaker:And Sweet Alice gives me a hug, and she says to me,
Speaker:"You know, Chief, you know why we love you so much?"
Speaker:With this lovely accent.
Speaker:"No, Alice, why is that?" She said, " 'Cause you hear us."
Speaker:Hmm.
Speaker:"You hear us."
Speaker:Wow.
Speaker:Wow.
Speaker:What, what, what a compliment that the idea that y- that,
Speaker:that she understood that I did hear them, I did listen to
Speaker:them, and I did respond to them.
Speaker:And to have that recognized, you can, you could not… That's
Speaker:probably one of the highest compliments in 50 years of
Speaker:policing I've ever received.
Speaker:And I've, I've got more medals and awards than you
Speaker:can think of, but that, that oral compliment was about the
Speaker:highest award I ever received.
Speaker:Do you think that is common?
Speaker:You know, we're, we're talking about now policing in the 2026
Speaker:era as opposed to years ago.
Speaker:Do you think that cops generally get the community?
Speaker:Do they understand the community?
Speaker:Do they listen to their communities?
Speaker:I think that a lot of cops do, a lot don't.
Speaker:Uh, policing attracts a wide variety of, uh, people.
Speaker:Uh, you get crime fighters, you get cops who are great community
Speaker:activists, you get, uh… And, uh- The profession itself has changed
Speaker:dramatically in the 50, 60 years I've been associated with it.
Speaker:It is a much more caring, understanding, appreciative, uh,
Speaker:learning profession than it had been prior to the '60s and '70s.
Speaker:Uh, individually, uh, I have run across more good cops
Speaker:than bad cops, certainly, uh, uncaring cops that, uh… And
Speaker:it's a profession that requires a wide variety of people.
Speaker:But, uh, the vast majority, I think, still come into the
Speaker:profession the same way I did in 1970, because you w- you
Speaker:wanted to make a difference.
Speaker:You wanted a- Right … a, a good job.
Speaker:You wanted a degree of security that it provides.
Speaker:But it was also a job that you could have at the end of your
Speaker:20 or 30 years, and I talk about this oftentimes in my retirement
Speaker:speeches to retirees going off the job, that where else can
Speaker:you have a job that every day you have the opportunity to
Speaker:have a life of significance?
Speaker:Every day you're doing something different, and every once in a
Speaker:while that something different is of such significance that it
Speaker:is incredibly impactful on you and the people you're dealing
Speaker:with, that, uh, there's very few professions where you can have
Speaker:that opportunity of every day having a day of significance and
Speaker:ultimately a life of significance.
Speaker:Did LA, uh, Bill get a different, um, a different guy,
Speaker:a different leader than New York when you transitioned to LA?
Speaker:It was a- Was Bill Bratton a different guy?
Speaker:It was a different set of challenges.
Speaker:Uh, the culture of the LAPD was very different than
Speaker:the culture of the NYPD.
Speaker:The NYPD I went into in the '80, uh, excuse me, the '90s,
Speaker:was a very reactive, uh, discouraged police organization.
Speaker:Mm.
Speaker:It had been discouraged from the se- because of corruption
Speaker:issues, racism issues, in the '80s in particular, from
Speaker:being particularly proactive.
Speaker:It was, uh, uh, in some respects overly supervised in
Speaker:that officers were discouraged from, uh, engaging in a lot
Speaker:of proactive activities.
Speaker:Uh, it was, uh… And also the fact the sheer size of it, that
Speaker:it, it w- and the reputation, NYPD, biggest and the best-
Speaker:Yeah … that, uh, it had a, uh, a culture of superiority.
Speaker:The LAPD, uh, was a organization that prided itself on its
Speaker:professionalism, and the fact that there were so few of them compared
Speaker:to other police departments on a per, uh, cop ratio.
Speaker:Uh, the unofficial motto, the, the official motto was to
Speaker:protect and serve on the side door of every car out there.
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:But the unofficial motto that Jimmy McDonnell, the current
Speaker:chief, uh, who worked with me as, in the Boston Police
Speaker:Department back in the '70s, uh, as Jimmy informed me when I came
Speaker:in, uh, 2002, our unofficial motto was, "Too few who for
Speaker:too long have been asked to do too much with too little."
Speaker:Wow.
Speaker:There was the LAPD.
Speaker:It, always in budget crises.
Speaker:Uh, with the force, when I joined it, they had 9,200,
Speaker:and I spent the next seven years getting it up to 10,000.
Speaker:But to have equivalent numbers to what I had to work with in
Speaker:New York, taking into account population, land mass, et cetera,
Speaker:I should have had 18,000 cops.
Speaker:Wow.
Speaker:Jimmy right now is working with 8,300 cops.
Speaker:He's lost 1,000 cops because of George Floyd and a
Speaker:lot of other things that have gone on out there.
Speaker:And it's an extraordinary department that is probably
Speaker:still the best-trained department in America, uh,
Speaker:even superior to the NYPD.
Speaker:NYPD does a great job with a lot of their specialized units,
Speaker:but in general, the training is nowhere near the level of, uh,
Speaker:intimacy that the LAPD, because of its smaller size, uh, uh,
Speaker:gives and places on retraining in terms of, uh, year after year.
Speaker:There's also the idea- That, uh, officers out there are very
Speaker:self-reliant, at least the ones I was exposed to during my time.
Speaker:Because on any given night, uh, those two cops in
Speaker:that car, and they refer to each other as partner.
Speaker:Partner this, partner that.
Speaker:They don't g- call each other by first names.
Speaker:Uh, every LA cop wears his uniform exactly the same way.
Speaker:Wow.
Speaker:If you look at them, the, the two spare rounds, uh, clips on their
Speaker:belt where the handcuffs are.
Speaker:Why is that?
Speaker:That's the training.
Speaker:If in the middle of the night you guys are engaged in some
Speaker:type of shootout or something, you wanna be able to basically,
Speaker:if you need to get stuff off the other officer's belt- Sure
Speaker:you know where it is.
Speaker:And they, they back each other up.
Speaker:It's, it's a much more intimate organization.
Speaker:And I would… It's… You know how you have pride
Speaker:in every child you have?
Speaker:Well, I've been chief of six different departments, and I
Speaker:have pride in each of those six.
Speaker:That's right.
Speaker:But I'll tell you, the six were, uh, a couple of them
Speaker:were prob- problem children.
Speaker:But a couple of them- No doubt.
Speaker:Yeah … outstanding in the sense of, uh, uh,
Speaker:exceptional in some respects.
Speaker:Interesting.
Speaker:You know, you, you talk about training, Bill.
Speaker:I, I think I remember you saying somewhere you had several weeks
Speaker:of training, a few weeks of training before you were handed a
Speaker:gun and a badge in Boston- Indeed
Speaker:uh, back in 1970.
Speaker:And, and you were recommending that really the ideal training
Speaker:period should last one year.
Speaker:Is, is that right?
Speaker:That's correct.
Speaker:When I joined the Boston Police Department at, uh, on, uh,
Speaker:October 7th, one day after my 23rd birthday, uh, we were
Speaker:out on the streets in time for Thanksgiving that year.
Speaker:So what's that?
Speaker:Seven weeks in our blue uniforms with our six-shot revolvers, my
Speaker:badge 1190 patrolman, my whistle.
Speaker:And, uh, two weeks after that, after two weeks of
Speaker:directing traffic, I was in plainclothes wandering through
Speaker:the subways and the stores in downtown Boston looking
Speaker:for pickpockets and thieves-
Speaker:Wow
Speaker:with, with, with the most minimum of training.
Speaker:Just think of that.
Speaker:23 years old, all 150 pounds of me, the awesome powers
Speaker:and authority I'd been given with no training t-
Speaker:basically to back it up.
Speaker:Uh, I've always been an advocate of much more significant training.
Speaker:On average, I think, in the United States, we try to give about
Speaker:six months of s- uh, training.
Speaker:Um, I try to expand that in New York.
Speaker:New York recently has basically had to reduce it because of
Speaker:some of the personnel shortages.
Speaker:Same for LAPD.
Speaker:They've all, all pulled back, and I think that's unfortunately
Speaker:one of the biggest mistakes we make in policing, and one of
Speaker:the biggest mistake politicians and the public make, not
Speaker:appreciating, uh, the need for adequate funding and time to
Speaker:train and to continue to retrain.
Speaker:Just think of all the renewed respons- new responsibilities
Speaker:just in the last couple years that we need to impart to these
Speaker:young officers that we don't have the time to do it 'cause we're so
Speaker:shorthanded to put cops in cars.
Speaker:They're not at the academy long enough initially, and
Speaker:certainly not long enough as they're going forward.
Speaker:And the key to it is, would you wanna go to a doctor who
Speaker:basically, uh, uh, went to medical school, but then all
Speaker:of a sudden he's now out there practicing after only going to
Speaker:medical school without doing his internships, et cetera?
Speaker:You damn sure wouldn't wanna go to that doctor.
Speaker:Mm.
Speaker:So we are under, under-trained, uh, as a whole in the United
Speaker:States, and a v- most recent example of that is what's gone
Speaker:on with the, uh, with ICE, with that, uh, unfortunate expansion
Speaker:of 20,000 people they've hired or something in a, in
Speaker:less than a couple of months.
Speaker:Uh, they had a, uh, if I understand it, a
Speaker:47-day training period.
Speaker:Why 47 days?
Speaker:Well, President of the United States is the 47th president.
Speaker:47.
Speaker:Yeah,
Speaker:makes sense, yeah.
Speaker:That, that, some, some genius at, uh, ICE decided, "Well,
Speaker:let's, let's train them for 47 days." 47 days and they're
Speaker:out there, and we're seeing on television what lack of
Speaker:training, uh, ends up doing when they're out on the street faced
Speaker:with, uh, the challenges that they're facing on the street.
Speaker:No, um, training is ABT, always be training.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:But unfortunately, uh, we don't.
Speaker:And that's, that's the-
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:That is one of my great- Yeah … regrets that, uh, while I've been
Speaker:an advocate for it, while I was at the NYPD, LAPD, I was able to
Speaker:expand it for a period of time.
Speaker:Both organizations, because of budget pressures and personnel
Speaker:shortages, have had to pull back on it, and, and that creates just
Speaker:great risk for the officers and for the profession as a whole.
Speaker:For sure,
Speaker:yeah.
Speaker:Bill, I, I don't wanna let you go without asking this, uh, im-
Speaker:important question, I think, and, and maybe a, a question for
Speaker:reflection, and that is, uh, in your 50 years of policing, can you
Speaker:identify the best moment and maybe the worst moment in your career?
Speaker:Best moments, I think, um, ones where I was
Speaker:professionally challenged.
Speaker:One would be the idea of as a, as a cop, you always understand
Speaker:you're gonna deal with danger, and how are you gonna react to it.
Speaker:It's like w- when you're in the military that, uh, my,
Speaker:my, uh, three years in the US Army and a year in Vietnam.
Speaker:And so in terms of that issue that's always so important to
Speaker:cops, this idea of being able to handle yourself, probably a
Speaker:satisfactory moment was the, uh, just shortly after going through
Speaker:hostage negotiation training, encountering a bank holdup
Speaker:suspect holding a hostage with a gun to her head, a bank teller,
Speaker:uh, that I confronted as a young sergeant, and was able to, uh,
Speaker:y- y- see my training kick in.
Speaker:Now, in appreciation of the training issue we were just
Speaker:talking about, and what was that training that kicked in?
Speaker:In a hostage situation, one, try not to expose yourself personally
Speaker:to the, the hostage taker.
Speaker:My case, unfortunately, I ended up confronting him, both of us
Speaker:pointing guns at each other.
Speaker:I couldn't hit the broad side of a barn with a .38, which I was
Speaker:carrying at that time, and, uh, so the gun was useless to me.
Speaker:I'd kill the hostage before I'd end up killing him.
Speaker:And so my training was reduce the tension wherever you can.
Speaker:So while I'm trying to reduce the tension by talking, by
Speaker:lowering my gun, it reduced his tension somewhat.
Speaker:And so it's an experience that, uh, reinforced the issue
Speaker:about training, reinforced my sense of my skill with
Speaker:the training I'd received, uh, testing your bravery.
Speaker:I got, I got the, uh, department's highest award for valor, uh,
Speaker:named after two Boston police officers, brothers killed in
Speaker:the line of duty, the Schroeder brothers- Oh … uh, medal
Speaker:for that. So that was a test.
Speaker:The second test was, uh, uh, of significant leadership
Speaker:skills, and that was in 2007.
Speaker:I'm up for my reappointment as chief of the Los
Speaker:Angeles Police Department.
Speaker:I'd been going through a whole series of community meetings, and,
Speaker:uh, I basically had it locked up.
Speaker:Uh, the police commission was going to reappoint me,
Speaker:and then on May Day of 2007, uh, we had a tremendous, um,
Speaker:what has been described as a police riot in MacArthur Park.
Speaker:Uh, tens of thousands of Latinos, families in the park celebrating
Speaker:May Day, and because a group of anarchists had basically assaulted
Speaker:officers at one end of the park, the commanding officer authorized,
Speaker:uh, and led effectively a clean out the park sweep by
Speaker:the metro unit of the LAPD.
Speaker:And in that clean out, uh, they fired over 250 rounds
Speaker:from their, uh, the, the rubber pellets, uh, exer- exercised
Speaker:a lot of use of their batons, and, uh, it was a mess.
Speaker:Hmm.
Speaker:And, uh, I really believe that was, in my police career, um,
Speaker:what I would describe as my finest hour, facing that chan-
Speaker:challenge, because in that park was a media tent with some of
Speaker:the top media from all over Latin America, was in that tent, and
Speaker:they were overrun by the police, and it was all captured on film.
Speaker:My mayor was in Latin America celebrating, the
Speaker:first Latino mayor of LA.
Speaker:I was gonna join him that night because he was on a victory
Speaker:lap about how things were going so well, and meanwhile,
Speaker:he has all this television beaming back to where he
Speaker:is about this police riot.
Speaker:Oh.
Speaker:So I had Latino media upset.
Speaker:I had my police commission upset, my inspector general
Speaker:upset, my city council upset, my cops upset because I wasn't
Speaker:defending their actions.
Speaker:I was- Right … criticizing, not necessarily just their actions,
Speaker:but the leadership in particular.
Speaker:So, um, the turnaround of that situation, where I saved my
Speaker:chief's job, uh, was probably my proudest moment as a chief
Speaker:of police in dealing with a crisis, in that we did an
Speaker:after action report that was widely applauded, uh, for its
Speaker:truthfulness, its forcefulness, and the changes we made.
Speaker:Uh, so much so that it never required an outside investigation.
Speaker:They were comfortable for the first time with the
Speaker:internal investigation.
Speaker:So I've had a lot of successes, a lot of failures.
Speaker:Uh, I try to learn from the failures, but those two stand out,
Speaker:uh- Wow … in police policing, the issue of how are you gonna
Speaker:handle yourself in a moment of physical- Threat and challenge.
Speaker:And how are you gonna handle yourself in a moment of political,
Speaker:intellectual, strategic challenge?
Speaker:Wow.
Speaker:And, um, uh-
Speaker:Great examples.
Speaker:How about the worst moment?
Speaker:You, you talk about the best.
Speaker:What, what was maybe a moment that keeps you awake at, at night?
Speaker:W- w- worst, worst moment is not a moment, many moments, and that's
Speaker:the, the death of police officers.
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Um, and- Worst … you can say in, uh, some 50 years
Speaker:associated with policing, with 25 of them actively as a
Speaker:chief, uh, I've had to respond to the deaths of many officers
Speaker:in those, those departments.
Speaker:And the worst moments are the response initially, uh, dealing
Speaker:with the families as they're arriving at the hospitals, and
Speaker:then delivering the eulogies.
Speaker:Delivering eulogies is extraordinarily difficult.
Speaker:Every chief will tell you that.
Speaker:That because all eyes are upon you and finding the
Speaker:appropriate words in the moments.
Speaker:But then remembering, uh, those memories stay with you,
Speaker:the response to those scenes and how horrific they can be.
Speaker:Probably one that's, one that stands out, uh, most
Speaker:for me was the death of the first officer in 1994.
Speaker:Uh, young, young kid, uh, killed up in the Bronx,
Speaker:uh, during a hold-up.
Speaker:And I'm in the hospital room with him, he is now deceased,
Speaker:we have the priest and some of my command staff, and we had
Speaker:sent a helicopter up to get his wife that, uh, he was… That
Speaker:she, they were living upstate.
Speaker:And it's quiet in the hospital.
Speaker:Hundreds of officers outside in the halls in New York
Speaker:when it happens that they come from everywhere.
Speaker:And, but then she arrives, and it's, it,
Speaker:everything just goes quiet.
Speaker:Not a sound, out of respect for her.
Speaker:And she had- She was a waitress.
Speaker:She had been picked up where she was working that night.
Speaker:And as she's coming down the hall, she still had her waitress
Speaker:uniform and her waitress bib on, as I guess you'd call it.
Speaker:And the only sounds you could hear was, one, she wasn't
Speaker:sure what she was coming to.
Speaker:She had not been informed that her husband, in fact, was deceased.
Speaker:Was basically the clinking of the coins in her apron.
Speaker:Hmm.
Speaker:That, uh, the change.
Speaker:That was the only sounds you could hear as she came into the
Speaker:room, the, the sound of that, and just, and it stayed with me for…
Speaker:That would've been 1994.
Speaker:What's that?
Speaker:32 years ago.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:That's, um… So there's many worst moments that,
Speaker:uh, uh, each of them, um-
Speaker:N- none of them good memories in the sense of, uh, uh, when
Speaker:you're dealing with the death of an officer, none of them are good.
Speaker:What about, uh, and last question, um, Steven McDonald
Speaker:is one of those officers who died in the line of duty.
Speaker:You had a lot of interaction with Steven.
Speaker:Th- this is an amazing story.
Speaker:We call him God's cop because he, he preached, uh, forgiveness.
Speaker:Uh, he was shot by a 15-year-old bike thief in Central Park
Speaker:back in 1986, and, uh, was paralyzed from the neck
Speaker:down, and, uh, soon after, forgave the man who shot him.
Speaker:And, uh, it's an incredible story.
Speaker:He lived for another 31 years, died in 2017 from the injuries
Speaker:he suffered in that shooting.
Speaker:Um, they just renamed the New York City Police
Speaker:Department Police Academy-
Speaker:After
Speaker:Steven … after Steven.
Speaker:I- I'd like you to comment on, on Steven, just to share
Speaker:with our audience who this was and what that meant to
Speaker:you when they renamed the police academy after him.
Speaker:I was first introduced to him, him when I c- came to New York
Speaker:for the first time in 1990 as chief of transit, and he was at,
Speaker:uh, one of the events I attended.
Speaker:Uh, his newborn son, I think the son was about five years
Speaker:old at that time, that, uh- Oh, yeah … when he was shot, his
Speaker:wife was, was pregnant and I think gave birth after, uh, he was shot.
Speaker:Uh, his son recently has been promoted to a deputy inspector
Speaker:in the NYPD, and, uh, great family, Patti, his wife.
Speaker:And I had the honor of, uh, promoting Steven to, uh,
Speaker:the rank of detective when I was police commissioner.
Speaker:And, uh, just an incredible m- man.
Speaker:NYPD is big enough that some of our severely injured officers,
Speaker:we are actually able to keep them on the department where
Speaker:they s- they s- uh, Steven did serve so many, uh, roles
Speaker:as a goodwill ambassador, uh, at various public events.
Speaker:A favorite memory of Steven, though, is, and this is a personal
Speaker:one, that, uh, h- he's confined to a wheelchair, always basically
Speaker:with the breathing tubes.
Speaker:Uh, he could manipulate a few fingers that could control certain
Speaker:features of it, but he's, he's confined to this wheelchair.
Speaker:And, uh, they had a special ambulance for him to allow him
Speaker:to be able to move around with the oxygen that, uh, he needed.
Speaker:And my dad died in 2016 —
Speaker:I was police commissioner — living up in, uh,
Speaker:Weymouth, Massachusetts.
Speaker:I'm down in New York.
Speaker:I go up for Dad's funeral to put it together- And at Dad's, uh,
Speaker:uh, wake and funeral, um, about 300, uh, New York City police
Speaker:officers traveled from New York to come up, a lot of my command
Speaker:staff to attend that funeral.
Speaker:It was, uh, Dad was a Navy veteran, so he got military
Speaker:send-off, et cetera.
Speaker:But Steven came up in that ambulance, the 235-mile drive
Speaker:from New York, and then 235 miles back, to come in and
Speaker:basically attend those services.
Speaker:That- that's- that's, that's, you know, you can imagine
Speaker:how that makes you feel in the sense of that degree
Speaker:of- of love and respect.
Speaker:Uh, and he- he's the embodiment of what policing,
Speaker:uh, should be about.
Speaker:Fortunately, the embodiment of much of what policing is
Speaker:about, and is the embodiment of what the goal sh- should be
Speaker:for every police officer, this idea of compassion, this idea of
Speaker:having a life of significance.
Speaker:Here's this paraplegic, and what a life of significance,
Speaker:what a legacy he had.
Speaker:Uh, you know, when, when I exit the stage, I wanna have
Speaker:people say, uh, uh, uh, "What a, what a nice legacy that
Speaker:guy left behind." Really.
Speaker:It's never gonna match what Steve McDonald left behind, but
Speaker:it's something to strive for.
Speaker:He even, uh, gave the, uh, keynote address at the dedication
Speaker:dinner for the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Mm-hmm.
Speaker:And now his name is inscribed on that same memorial.
Speaker:Uh, an incredible human being, and, uh, so glad
Speaker:to have known him a bit.
Speaker:Uh,
Speaker:Bill-
Speaker:Well, since this is my comment about the death of officers
Speaker:being the most impactful, who knows more about that than you?
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Really.
Speaker:You've, you've committed your life to remembering every
Speaker:police officer in the United States who's ever lost- Sure
Speaker:a life in the service of the police profession.
Speaker:So, uh, I hadn't thought of that when I, I mentioned that
Speaker:about the impact of those on me, that nobody knows it better
Speaker:than you, that's for sure.
Speaker:Well, it's been an honor and a privilege to be able to honor
Speaker:and remember those, uh, fallen heroes of law enforcement,
Speaker:as well as those who continue to serve and risk their lives
Speaker:daily for our protection.
Speaker:Uh, Dennis, I'm gonna turn it over to you to close us out, but-
Speaker:Well,
Speaker:I- … uh, let me, let me suggest one thing, though, before I leave,
Speaker:and that is, um, we call this show Heroes Behind the Badge.
Speaker:I'm thinking today's episode should be called Legendary
Speaker:Legends, uh, Legendary Leaders of the Badge.
Speaker:And, uh- Legendary Leaders of the Badge.
Speaker:I like that.
Speaker:I, I think- We're gonna have to get a whole new, uh, logo here.
Speaker:Uh, Drew will do that for us.
Speaker:But, uh, no, I, I thank you, Bill.
Speaker:You've been amazing- Appreciate that … uh, a
Speaker:part of my life, and I'm so glad you joined us today.
Speaker:Thank you.
Speaker:But I have, Commissioner, I have one final question.
Speaker:Maybe you'll break some news here today.
Speaker:Are you still hungry?
Speaker:Are you going to take another shot at it?
Speaker:I wish I were 10 year- I, I oftentimes talk about this.
Speaker:I wish I was 10 years younger.
Speaker:Um, I'll, I'll be 79 this October 6th.
Speaker:Wow.
Speaker:And, uh, I'll be very frank with you, the… I think the intellect
Speaker:is better than it was in 1970.
Speaker:The- I don't think there's been no diminishing, and
Speaker:it's in- informed by 50-some odd years of experience.
Speaker:Absolutely.
Speaker:Uh, uh, the energy level relative to intellectually is still there.
Speaker:But, uh, the job itself, even as a police chief, a police leader,
Speaker:is physically extraordinarily demanding in the sense of- Right
Speaker:… from, you know, 5:00 in the morning till 10, 11:00 at night,
Speaker:the various events, benefits you have to go to, engagements, 3:00
Speaker:in the morning calls, officers shot, going to the hospital.
Speaker:It is a physically very taxing job.
Speaker:And so, um, would I love to be back in the day, back in the game?
Speaker:You better believe it.
Speaker:Miss it every day, particularly when you look at the,
Speaker:the life I've had, NYPD, Boston- Right … LAPD.
Speaker:Uh, uh, been an extraordinary life with a lot of, uh,
Speaker:quite a rollercoaster ride.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:And, uh, uh, but I'm not so sure that intellectually
Speaker:could I contribute?
Speaker:Yes.
Speaker:But physically, no.
Speaker:So intellectually- Right … I do attempt to
Speaker:stay involved with- Absolutely … appearances like this.
Speaker:I do a lot of op-eds.
Speaker:I still teach at PERF's SMIP every year.
Speaker:Uh, I still do a lot of mentoring, an awful lot of mentoring,
Speaker:which, uh, I thoroughly enjoy.
Speaker:Uh, uh, until my time comes to go, I, I, I intend to
Speaker:try and stay impactful.
Speaker:Uh, we, we hope so.
Speaker:I think we, we the citizens of the United States and those
Speaker:who are, who are involved in policing are better for your
Speaker:involvement, and I hope you'll stay involved for a long time.
Speaker:Please mention your book again.
Speaker:Uh, your lat- I know you have several, but your
Speaker:latest book, I believe, was called The Profession, right?
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:There were three of them.
Speaker:I was fortunate to work with three great co-authors.
Speaker:First one was Turnaround, after I thought I was leaving policing
Speaker:in 1996, uh, with Peter Knobler.
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:Uh, that was a biography.
Speaker:Second one was, uh, was, uh, Zach Tumin in 2012, a police
Speaker:management book, uh, called Collaborate or Perish, the theme
Speaker:of collaboration essentiality.
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:And the third one, the most recent, and thank you for
Speaker:mentioning, is The Profession.
Speaker:It's a memoir.
Speaker:Uh, it's not just my story.
Speaker:It's many stories of many people that were impactful in my career
Speaker:and on the profession itself.
Speaker:And so, uh, all three of them… And that's part of the legacy
Speaker:that, uh, a lot of chiefs will be able to get a book out there.
Speaker:I've been the great fortune of getting three of them out.
Speaker:That's great.
Speaker:And Craig, uh, I think you're well aware that an honor that I
Speaker:received this past, uh, uh, summer was at the Police Memorial event.
Speaker:I received from, uh, the Police Memorial people a, uh, one
Speaker:of their awards for, uh, the service to policing, and I was-
Speaker:Lifetime achievement, I believe.
Speaker:Yep.
Speaker:I was very,
Speaker:very humbled- As you deserve
Speaker:very humbled by that one.
Speaker:That, uh, uh… That's quite an award.
Speaker:It weighs about 50 pounds trying to lug that thing around.
Speaker:You can credit me for that or blame me, yeah.
Speaker:Well, um, again, thank you, uh, for being with us.
Speaker:I mean, this is an honor to have you.
Speaker:It's an honor to get to know you, the person behind all
Speaker:these headlines that have been created over the years, and
Speaker:thank you for sharing that.
Speaker:Person behind the badge, badge 1190.
Speaker:You got it, 1190.
Speaker:Thank you.
Speaker:I, I, I figured that out.
Speaker:I researched that.
Speaker:I had to know that badge
Speaker:number, so.
Speaker:So again, thank you again.
Speaker:I want to remind our, uh, listeners and our viewers, this
Speaker:is Heroes Behind the Badge.
Speaker:If you liked anything that Commissioner Bill Bratton had
Speaker:to say today, and there was a whole lot to like, will you
Speaker:subscribe, like, and follow?
Speaker:Yeah, subscribe, like, and follow Heroes Behind the Badge.
Speaker:Okay?
Speaker:We are sponsored by Citizens Behind the Badge.
Speaker:Citizens Behind the Badge is the leading organization
Speaker:in support of the men and women of law enforcement.
Speaker:Join hundreds of thousands of your fellow Americans in support
Speaker:of law enforcement by going on
Speaker:citizensbehindthebadge.org, citizensbehindthebadge.org.
Speaker:You will find all about us.
Speaker:You'll also have a tab for this podcast so that you never
Speaker:miss the next episode, and we release quite a few new ones.
Speaker:Uh, and this one is going to, uh, this one is going to be one that
Speaker:a lot of people wanna listen to.
Speaker:So- Again, we appreciate your listening.
Speaker:It's citizensbehindthebadge.org.
Speaker:This episode of Heroes Behind the Badge is now over.
Speaker:Thank you, Commissioner Bill Bratton.
Speaker:Thank you.
Speaker:We appreciate, we appreciate you, and we'll see you next
Speaker:time on Heroes Behind the Badge.
