- [Announcer] Funding for
Overheard with Evan Smith
is provided in part by
the Alice Kleberg Reynolds
Foundation.
And Hillco Partners, a Texas
government affairs consultancy.
And by KLRU's Producers Circle,
ensuring local
programming that reflects
the character and interests
of the Greater Austin,
Texas community.
- I'm Evan Smith, he's
America's Police Chief,
the longtime and now
former top cop in Dallas,
thrust into the national
spotlight on one of the force's
and the city's most tragic days.
His memoir, Called to Rise:
A Life in Faithful Service
to the Community That Made
Me, has just been published.
He's David O. Brown,
this is Overheard.
Let's be honest, is this
about the ability to learn
or is this about the experience
of not having been
taught properly?
How have you avoided what
has befallen other nations
in Africa?
You can say that he'd
made his own bed,
but you caused him
to sleep in it.
You saw a problem and
over time took it on.
Let's start with the sizzle
before we get to the steak,
are you gonna run for President?
I think I just
got an F from you.
This is Overheard.
(audience applause)
Chief Brown, welcome.
- Thank you.
- Thank you for being here,
and congratulations on the book.
I have to say, I kinda wish
you didn't have to write it.
Right, I wish the events
that propelled this book
to exist hadn't happened.
Although,
it's such an interesting
story that you tell
not just of July 7th
of 2016 but your own
life, and I think that
actually for a lot of us,
finding out about you as
the backdrop for this book
is worth the read.
- Yes, and I've been an
extremely private person,
even though a public figure
for various reasons but this
book reveals my thoughts,
my life, how it applied--
- Story behind the story.
- Purpose, meaning, yeah.
- The events, I should
say, of July 7th,
obviously people are aware
of them in the abstract,
or maybe in specific if they
paid attention to the news
of that day and after it.
Let's set this scene for
that and talk about that
a little bit before
we talk about you.
So, 2016 was a particularly
brutal year in this country
in terms of the relationship
between the police
and citizens.
You had 64 police
officers, I believe, shot,
you said in the book,
and 21 ambushed.
- Yes.
- And a thousand,
almost a thousand people
killed by the police.
- Yes.
- Also, last year.
- Yes, and it reached a
fever pitch in July after--
- Just to the run-up to this--
- Yes, for the shootings
in Baton Rouge, Louisiana
and the shootings in Minnesota.
- Alton Sterling in Louisiana,
Philando Castile in Minnesota.
Those both happened
over the July 4th--
- Weekend.
- Weekend.
- Yes.
- So that's really
the immediate backdrop
to what happened on
July 7th in Dallas
because those two
killings prompt protests,
rallies, all across the country.
Including one in Dallas
and the Dallas one
was really at the
same time happening,
similar events happening
in other places.
- Yes, and we felt that
this was a critical point
in police/community
relationships
and that this protest was
really important to manage well.
- Do you have any reason to
fear that things would go
off the rails on that day?
Going into that day, knowing
that people's tensions were
at a high point,
knowing everything
that had preceded this,
did you go into
this day thinking,
"We really have to plan
for this ending badly?"
- No, actually it was
just the opposite.
We had met with the
planners of the protest
weeks before when we
knew the July 4th weekend
prompted this idea of
a national protest day.
And so we met with them, we were
in undercover capacity in
their planning meetings,
we were hearing what
they were planning to do,
they were planning to
have a peaceful protest
and they intentionally
wanted to be peaceful
because they wanted
the country to hear
their concerns and not be
distracted by violence,
or property damage or whatever.
So we knew that they
were gonna have speakers,
have a pretty stationary
event in a park downtown,
and then disperse.
That was the plan and
it was going to plan.
- And Dallas also, let's
say, not just any city
in this country, right?
It is the
the 9th largest city
in the entire country,
it has a long history
of issues around race.
- Yes, it does.
- And so, Dallas as
a particular backdrop
is an element of this story,
and maybe a greater
burden for this city
to show its best face.
- I agree.
And we were intentional in our
ways of managing this crowd.
We were making sure
that the best of Dallas
was gonna be--
- On display.
- Display.
- So the gentleman who
killed these police officers.
Five officers ultimately
died as a result of this day.
Micah Johnson was an Army
veteran, African American,
and he very specifically
said, we came to know,
that he was targeting
the police, and white
police, specifically,
as a result of these incidents
that have happened elsewhere.
- Yes, we learned
that later at the time
when we negotiated with him.
People think this was a
long, drawn-out event.
And it was to a certain extent,
but the shootout was
just a few minutes,
then we spent the time after
the suspect gets cornered,
three and a half hours
to try to bring it
to a peaceful conclusion,
even though there had been
the most extreme violence
you could imagine,
we still wanted to
give him an opportunity
to give up peacefully
and that opportunity
just didn't exist.
- Yeah, and so,
ultimately, as we now know
from watching the
events on that day,
you had a robot
with a bomb on it.
- A pound of C-4.
- Right, that you sent in,
and that's ultimately how
you resolved the situation.
He was killed and situation
was brought to a close
and that was it.
It could have been a
lot worse and in fact,
he talked about having
intentions for it
to have been a lot worse.
In fact, at one point he said
there were bombs all
over Dallas, right?
- Not just his intent to
create the most damage he could
to people.
He wanted to divide
us around race.
He particularly wanted
to target white cops,
so that we could
be more divided,
in this area of white cops
versus communities of color.
This was more than just,
the violence which
was bad enough,
but he wanted to spark something
that would divide our city,
divide our country even more.
- Right.
What allowed this situation
not to be worse than it was?
I mean, that's a strange
question, I'm sure.
What happened?
What was the decision point
or what were the elements
that allowed the
situation to be contained
from your perspective?
- I had the,
the belief that
whatever would happen,
divided or we'd come together,
rested on how we
talked to the public
and the world when
we were being,
having press conferences.
- So the aftermath of this.
How you talked about
the events of that day
and what it meant,
what it signified about
what had happened prior,
and what it would
mean going forward.
- I actually got a question
from a media person
about what this meant.
And specifically, I
answered the question
in a more broad term, not just
speaking to that reporter,
or to Dallas.
I was speaking to the
country and the answer was,
"We're not gonna let a
coward change our democracy,"
that we're not going
to now be more divided
because this person does this.
And this is an opportunity
for us to challenge
each other to do better
but also to come together
on common goals.
- Right, you're not under the
illusion of course, Chief,
that this situation was going
to cause the race to relations
in this country to suddenly
repair or the relationship
between the police and
communities of color
to suddenly repair because
this is an ongoing situation.
It's been ongoing in the
year since, I'm sad to say.
You're probably acknowledged
that we're not any better
really than we were before.
- I'm naive so I'm
gonna first check
the box of a naive person.
Because I left school my
senior year here at UT Austin
to become a police officer
to save the world.
I am that naive to
believe that we can
take the worst of circumstances
and be the beneficiaries
of the greatest hope.
- You still choose to believe
that there's a solution there.
That there's a fix there.
- Yes.
I insist on it.
- You insist on it.
- Yeah.
- Do you believe
that the police have a beef
with the communities they serve?
I want you to
speak truth here
about what's goin' on.
Why do we have this problem
between law enforcement
and communities of color?
You grew up in a
community in Dallas
that has been,
you know, you understand
from the community side
of this conversation, right?
- So, let me be plainspoken.
I've been black a long time.
(audience laughs)
- I will fact check that.
- Okay. (laughs)
(audience laughs)
- Confirmed.
- So, I've been stereotyped
as a black man.
And I hate it.
I hate that if a black
person does something,
all blacks can be cast
as what that person did
in a negative light.
And I've been a cop
all of my adult life.
And I hate it when
a cop does something
and it cast the whole lot
of policing in a bad--
- There's a stereotyping
of that as well.
- Stereotyping
divides us further.
It's not a solution
to stereotype and
there are some cops
that don't deserve
to wear the uniform.
Without question.
But explain to me how five cops
can give the ultimate sacrifice,
run toward gunfires,
kill protestors who had
just been protesting them
between bullets and their bodies
and be racist and
cast in the same light
as the one or 2% of cops
that don't need to be
in the uniform as the
same as I as a black man
will be cast in a stereotypical
way in other negative tones.
- But is the negative
critique of the Police Chief
or is the negative
critique of the communities
that the police serves
in any way legitimate?
- There are individual instances
of cops behaving badly.
And there are people
in the community,
patricularly communities
of color behaving badly.
- Right.
- But you can't
cast the whole lot.
- A few bad cops or a
certain number of bad cops
are not the police in the main.
- Right.
- And a few bad actors
in these communities
are not the black
communities, say, in the main.
The problem is that we tend
to simplistically associate
the bad actors on both
sides with the institution.
- With broad strokes.
- Broad strokes.
- With no solutions in between.
- How do you change it?
- I go back to how our
democracy was formed.
Particularly the local
democracy changes,
more significantly, our lives.
So what I mean by
that real quickly is
protesting alone has never
significantly changed anything
in our country.
The Civil Rights movement
is the closest example.
50 years ago, young
people began protesting.
And then they challenged
in the courts,
the laws.
The divider segregated
by equal laws.
And then they ran for government
and got elected and served.
John Lewis got elected
and served in government,
after protesting.
They wanted the
Voting Rights Act
so they can have
the right to vote.
So they could then,
particularly at the local level,
have an impact on city
council, city managers, mayors.
So that they could then be
represented in government.
That their point of view
could be represented.
- But you understand that
in communities like Dallas,
Austin, Houston, San Francisco,
Chicago, pick a city,
people believe that
coming out and showing
that they have a problem
with the way things are,
whatever that issue may be,
whatever the community may be,
they believe that having
their voices heard
is an essential component,
maybe the first pebble in
the path of our democracy.
You're not saying they
shouldn't do that.
- No, I'm saying
let's contrast that
with the last city council
election in Dallas,
just a few weeks ago.
6% turnout.
- Right.
- Which means 94% of the
people at the local level,
stayed at home.
And when you protest and have
that kind of participation
in our local democracy,
you cannot expect
any significance.
- Ultimately it doesn't
matter if you don't do
what is necessary to
make change happen.
- Yes.
- And that's where
that comes from.
Do you expect that we're gonna
have situations like Dallas
going forward?
I mean, it feels like,
how can you say no, right?
- We take a step forward
and then another viral video
comes out and we
take two steps back.
And so it's been a
most challenging time,
and we right now don't know
how reform is gonna go forward
from the federal aspects of
how the justice department
would put forth
a consent decree.
So we don't know that.
What it's gonna take,
and I'm gonna repeat this again,
is
putting some skin in the game
at the local democracy level,
a municipal government,
that's where the police
chiefs are hired,
that's where the mayors and
the city council write policy,
change training for
police officers.
They can actually reform
through engage participation
in the local government.
- So if you don't
like what's going on
you gotta change it, that's it.
- Yeah, put some
skin in the game.
I quit school my senior year,
became a police officer.
That is not the only
thing you can do
is become a police officer.
- But that's an example,
I mean you're an example
of somebody who said,
"I can't just sit back and
watch a situation unfold
"that I'm not happy with.
"I've gotta put myself
in the middle of it
"and try to be a
positive changer."
- Yes, after you
finish protesting,
put that protest sign down
and put an application in.
Be the change you wanna see.
- You were chief for six
years, maybe a little bit more.
You were on the force
for more than 33 years.
- Yes.
- You know how the
police department,
how police forces work.
Are there things
practically over and above
what we're talking
about at a high level,
or are there on the
ground, granular things
that forces can do to
ensure that the relationship
between themselves
and the community
is better and healthier?
Some aspect of
community policing.
Is there technology
that can be used,
whether it's body cameras
or dashboard cameras
the kinds of things that
have come into common usage
or we're all kind of
familiar enough with them?
More that forces now looking
back over your shoulder,
can be doing or should be doing?
- Yes, all of the above,
check all the boxes.
Here's the best example
that I can give.
There are cops that I
used to get assigned with,
that today other cops
get assigned with,
you don't wanna ride with them.
'Cause when they get
to a scene with you,
they're gonna cause problems.
They're gonna have you
in Internal Affairs,
writing letters,
they're gonna put your
career on the line.
When you go to a call and
they're in the call with you,
"Hey, hey, you stay in the car,
"I'll go handle this,
when I get back,
"let's go to the next call."
Cops know the cops
that shouldn't be cops.
There's a small percentage.
And the risks are, the
reason why I'm saying this,
the risks are this small
percentage can hijack
the internal organization.
- Why can't you get
those bad cops out?
- That's the question
that has to be answered
by police leadership.
I've terminated over
60 cops as police chief
during the six
years I was there.
And that casts you
being portrayed as not being
supportive of a police--
- Enemy of the cops.
- Yes.
Is the police union the issue?
- Sometimes it's the
culture, not the union.
Union is the reflection
of the culture
where people pay dues and
expect to be represented.
I'm not against
unions but per se,
but police leadership have to
put their careers on the line
and challenge the police and
culture to get the one or 2%.
You owe it to the 98% who are
doing the job the right way,
to get the one or
2% out of policing.
- In some ways, public
education is having a voice
in this conversation
as well, right?
You have a 10-year system
at the higher ed level,
or in the case of public
ed, you've got unions
that are very protective
of their folks
and understandably so.
But there are bad
teachers who are probably
you know, in schools, people
know who the bad teachers are
in the same way that
enforcers people know
who the bad cops are.
- Great segue for
this next point.
It's a good point
for me to make.
The whole time I was
chief, I wish my cops
would throw a hundred
mile and hour fastball,
or a (mumbles) ball.
Because they're not compensated
for the task we
expect them to do.
We expect them to be perfect,
not make mistakes,
particularly on video,
and we expect them to
risk their lives for us,
but we pay them nominal
types of compensation.
While sports entertainment,
if you can throw a
fastball, throw a football,
dunk a basketball--
- Or you look like Brad Pitt.
- You are extremely compensated
to the most perverted way.
- Right.
- And we do get what we pay for.
We get what we pay for.
- So this is out of
balance, you think.
- Yes, not just policing
and fire departments,
but teachers as well.
We need to think
about compensating
the foundations of our society.
How we teach our young people,
how we protect ourselves,
need to be compensated.
We need to pay our cops,
pay our firefighters,
pay our teachers much
more money than we do.
- Why'd you wanna be a cop?
You've said it a couple times,
as we know from the book,
that you dropped out of college
to go be a cop.
- Yes, I was a senior in 1983
when the crack cocaine
epidemic hit my neighborhood,
hit all inner cities,
I grew up poor.
- You're living in Oak Cliff.
- Oak Cliff in Dallas, a
neighborhood in Dallas.
- You grew up mostly in
Dallas and so you saw
your community, the
community you grew up in,
suffering from
this drug epidemic.
And you said, "I gotta come
home and do something about it."
- Yes, I gotta come home.
My dad and mom broke
the news to him,
my dad was very frustrated
with the decision.
- I was so fascinated by this.
This is an early
actor in the book.
Your dad says to you, "Why
do you wanna be a cop?"
His exact quote was,
"Cops mistreat people
"in the community."
- Yes.
- This is 1982, 83,
this is 30 x years ago.
Your dad says this to you.
It's the same conversation
that probably dads
are having with kids who decide
to be cops today.
- Today, yes.
- Right, it's the exact
same conversation.
- Yes, it is.
And my dad grew
up, he's born 1940.
He grew up in the Jim
Crow South segregation.
He was probably more
likely than not,
not respected by police
during that timeframe.
- That's his frame of reference.
- That's his world view.
But I'm stubborn.
I'm stubborn.
I'm worried about their safety
livin' in the neighborhood,
while the crack cocaine
epidemic is increasingly
more violent.
I can't concentrate
at school anyway.
And so I go down and
put an application in.
And I don't take
no for an answer.
They hired me, and my first
beat was my own neighborhood.
- And you were
always a boy scout.
In essence, not a literal
boy scout, but you know,
as we now know
that term to mean,
growing up as a kid.
- I earned these nerdy glasses
right here, yeah, yeah.
(audience laughter)
- Let me say, here
we go, right here!
(Chief laughs)
You were always on the
right side of things,
you played sports,
you tried to stay on the
right side of the line, right?
I'm interested in
an anecdote where
somebody gives you a joint.
I think this was
in San Francisco.
- It was in San Francisco.
- Somebody gives you a
joint and you try a joint
for the first time.
And then you decided,
"Okay, I don't like this,"
and then the opportunity
comes up later,
and you say, "Thank God,
"if I had made the wrong
choice, my whole life
"would have been different."
- I wouldn't have been able to
be hired as a police officer
if I was a drug user.
I'm 13 years old when
I make this choice.
But for a few years later,
that being a crack pipe
was the first experimentation
is addiction for a lifetime.
I always said but for
the grace of God, go I--
- It's a different story.
Well, and even then,
I wanna get to this.
So
your son
dies,
and you take pills to sleep.
- Yup.
- And then you think about
continuing to take pills
to help you with your
grief and your sleep
and everything else, and you
look at the pills and you say,
"If I take pills
the second time,
"I'm gonna take them everyday,"
and you push the pills aside.
Because you have such
extraordinary discipline
and so much of what's
in this book is you
having this ongoing
conversation with yourself
about who do I wanna
be, how do I wanna be,
how do I want my
life constructed
and pushing all the things
that could derail you off.
- When I was in kindergarten,
my mother saw this in me.
She called me a old soul.
(audience laughs softly)
A old soul.
I loved being around
my great grandmother.
- Mabel.
- Yes, Mabel Henderson.
I love being around older
people 20 years, 30 years
older than me.
My whole life, I've never
liked the same kind of music
my peers liked.
I've always liked the music
my parents listened to.
My mother just consistently
called me a old soul.
And that caused me to
be more reflective.
That nature I have caused me
to be a bit more reflective
in decision making.
- Now, Chief, you know that
at the time that this incident
in Dallas happened on July
7th, this horrible day,
we came to learn things.
As you say you're
a private person.
- [Chief] Yes.
- We came to learn things
about you that we did not know.
Your brother died, your son
died, your first partner died.
You actually have had
to personally deal
with an extraordinary high
number of terrible things
in your own life.
How have you dealt with that?
How do you deal with it?
And in some ways,
did it better prepare
you for this last
trip around the track as chief,
this horrible day in
the aftermath of it?
- Only upon reflection
does it make sense
that this was preparing me
to deal with five officers
being killed and to
speak to an officer,
department and speak to
the country in a calm voice
and bring people
together and divide.
While I was going through
all of that tragedy,
it made no sense to me.
Actually, the
first tragic moment
was my first police
partner who was killed
in the line of duty.
I wanted to quit the department,
I wanted to quit my
faith, I'm a Christian,
not same with the
gospel, I wanted to quit,
and I went to a prayer
meeting to confront God
about why bad things
happen to good people,
and to say so long.
That this faith
is not worthwhile.
And
this prayer meeting was a
small group of women mostly.
And they prayed for me
and kept me in my faith,
kept me on the job.
It's the only reason
why I'm here today
is because of God's
good grace (mumbles).
It's the only reason why
I was able to go through
tragedy after tragedy
after tragedy.
And when the most tragic
things happens to other people,
I'm able to rise to the
occasion only through my faith.
- Your brother was killed by--
- Drug dealers.
- Drug dealers.
- Yes.
- Your son had
behavioral health issues.
- Bi-polar.
- He killed--
- A police officer
in a suburban city,
and was subsequently killed.
- And then he was
killed by police.
- Yes.
He was 28 years old,
adult bi-polar, had
no signs of bi-polar.
The only gun I had in
the house was the gun
that the city issued me.
He had not been
acclimated to guns.
We didn't hunt or
anything like that
so he had not been interested.
Adult bi-polar, untreated,
and this episode happened.
- And so in some ways I
kinda bring this forward
to Micah Johnson and
the events of July 7th
because he also had
serious behavioral,
I mean, clearly, he had serious
behavioral health issues.
And I wonder if from
your own experience,
with a son, an adult
son who tragically died
but who had these
behavioral health issues,
may be similar in some
respects to Micah Johnson.
If that gave you a
different way to think about
that day in the moment
and the ultimate way
to resolve the situation.
- I had been developed
through tragedy and empathy
that's just hard to
explain for people.
It's beyond empathy.
I can really see a kid
struggling with mental health
or drug addiction
differently and appreciate
that person needs services.
Or before my tragedy,
I would have said,
that's somebody else's problem.
I would have had
sympathy, maybe.
But not as if it's
something I need to do
to help resolve that.
- Do you think the police
forces around this country
generally speaking,
have adequate training
in dealing with people
with behavioral health?
Because of course many
people who are involved in
criminal activity are not people
with behavioral health issues
but a great number are.
Right, and in some ways
having that frame of reference
for that maybe as
a better strategy.
- Our prisons in many
parts of this country
are our largest mental
health providers.
- They're effectively
psych wards, right?
- Yes, they are.
Up to a third.
Up to a third are mental
health providing issues
that police cannot
resolve with handcuffs.
You can't arrest your
way out of mental health,
poor mental health
policies and funding.
You can't.
It's impossible to have--
The cops, the burden of police
officers in this country
is way too much.
- Do you make this case
to elected officials?
- I do.
- You're no longer the
chief, you retired as chief
in October of 2016.
You're now essentially
on the circuit.
By which I mean in part,
you're advocating for a lot
of these issues
we're talking about.
- I serve on the board
of mental health institute.
- Out of Dallas.
- Yes, out of Dallas.
And we advocated at the
legislature this year
and got the funding
that we asked for,
thank you Governor
Abbott for signing that!
- To argue that
when you think about
the criminal justice
portfolio of issues,
you've got to put
mental health in there,
if not at the very top.
- Yes.
- Because these are issues,
they're related,
unbelievably related.
- And it's intersected with
drug abuse.
People who are addicted to
drugs often are self-medicating
a mental illness.
Just go to a mental
health facility and
try to get medicine.
It's embarrassing,
what we've put out
there to help people.
- So, Chief, we
have a minute left.
So you retired as Police
Chief in October of 2016.
You thought this was the
moment for you to depart
after 33 years on the force
and six years as Chief.
And so you're now
out in the world.
You have any thoughts
that you wanna get back
into the public
space in any way?
Because the bet,
as you said yourself
in the very beginning,
at the end of the day,
you have to be the change.
- Yes.
- So where are you in this
conversation going forward?
- Well, I've been asked
this question before,
"Are you considering politics?"
Here's my answer.
"I don't know if politics
will consider me."
And here's why I say that.
- But you're not foreclosing.
- No, I'm just saying,
if you give me a million
dollars for my campaign,
I may not vote the way
you want me to vote.
If a person in a
different party says
something I agree with,
I'm gonna support them.
So my partner would kick me out
and I wouldn't have any
money to run for office.
(audience laughter)
So it's not that
what I consider politics.
I don't know if politics
will consider me.
- Right, what you just described
is actually the antidote
to the poison though.
- Hmm.
- Somebody who is willing
to say, "I'm not gonna,
"it's the country
over party idea."
- Yes, sir.
- So that might be you.
- Okay, Evan, we
gotta talk more after.
(audience laughter)
- Okay, very good.
Chief, TV likes nothing
more than a cliffhanger.
(Chief laughs)
I think we just provided one.
Chief Brown, thank you
so much for being here.
Congratulations on your book,
thank you for everything!
(audience applause)
- [Announcer] We'd love
to have you join us
in this studio.
Visit our website at
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to find invitations
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with our audience,
and guests and an
archive of past episodes.
- When we journey the
mass incarceration issue
back in the 80s and 90s
in that war on drugs,
our crime rates were
10 times as high
as they are now.
And we're actually
much safer when we can
make distinctions between people
who need mental health
care, drug treatment,
to make their bed space
for the violent people
that need to be in jail.
- [Announcer] Funding for
Overheard with Evan Smith
is provided in part by
the Alice Kleberg
Reynolds Foundation
and Hillco Partners, a Texas
government affairs consultancy.
And by KLRU's Producers Circle,
ensuring local
programming that reflects
the character and interests
of the Greater Austin,
Texas community.