METRO TRANSIT SECURITY / LAPD HAS A NEW CHIEF

Los Angeles Deputy Chief Donald Graham joins this week’s panel to discuss security on the Los Angeles County Metro System, or METRO. Graham leads the LAPD’s Transit Division located within the Metro Headquarters in downtown Los Angeles. Graham is a 29-year veteran of the department. The panelists also discuss the selection of LAPD’s new Chief Jim McDonnell, a law enforcement veteran who spent decades at the LAPD before becoming chief of the Long Beach Police Department and eventually the sheriff of Los Angeles County. The panelists get the rare opportunity to question Graham on a whole variety of issues. This week’s panel includes Bryan Chavez from California State University at Long Beach, and Cameron Hughes from Chapman University. To apply as a panelist, click here.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hey, it's Steve Gregory. Thank you for joining us for
this episode of Studio six forty on demand. This week's
panel on Studio six forty.

Speaker 2 (00:08):
Hi, I'm Cameron Hughes from Chapman University.

Speaker 3 (00:11):
And my name is Brian Chavis, and I go to
the California State University.

Speaker 4 (00:14):
Long Beach, and I'm Deputy Chief Don Graham from the
Los Angeles Police Department.

Speaker 1 (00:20):
The only program in southern California that breaks down the
stories of today through the voices of tomorrow's journalists. The
students come from campuses large and small, public and private.
This is Studio six forty. I'm Steve Gregory. Thanks for

(00:42):
joining us. Our top story.

Speaker 5 (00:44):
Metro estimates about one million people use their transit system
in La County each day. We wanted to know how
safe writers felt.

Speaker 6 (00:53):
LEI has dangerous having seeing me and my family, but
you know, been seeing that and knowing that it does
happen something.

Speaker 1 (01:01):
There's always some form of a presence here by.

Speaker 6 (01:05):
You need to be aware of where your things are,
what's going on around you. It's kind of the same
if you're driving or walking around somewhere unfamiliar. Just need
to kind of make sure that yeah, you you are
sure what's happening and what other people are doing too.

Speaker 5 (01:24):
We also wanted to know why they chose to ride
the Metro.

Speaker 1 (01:28):
It's convenient right now, it's my oldso transportation in the convenience.

Speaker 6 (01:34):
At times, it's just convenient just take the Metro and
it's not so expensive, so might as well do it
every once in a while.

Speaker 5 (01:43):
We rode the Sea Line westbound and eastbound from the
Vermont Athens station Thursday morning. We saw a couple of
people sleeping and most people did not interact with other passengers.
We didn't see any police officers during our two hour trip,
but we did run into two secure ready guards.

Speaker 1 (02:01):
I'll say, it's safe, just gotta be careful.

Speaker 6 (02:04):
You know, certain certain station all dangerous the other so
just got to keep your eyes open.

Speaker 5 (02:10):
These Metro security guards work the day shift and tell
us for the most part it's quiet, but say it's
a much different scene when it gets dark.

Speaker 6 (02:18):
Definitely at nights, that's when you know, everybody go crazy.

Speaker 2 (02:23):
So yeah, we leave that for the police.

Speaker 1 (02:26):
What happens at night, you know, homeless on drugs, sometimes
young people, they get into fights. Cameron Hughes from Chapman
university transit security. Is this something that you've noticed on
your campus?

Speaker 2 (02:43):
Personally, on my campus, the nearest public transit station is
about half a mile away, so our on campus safety
officers are quite diligent in patrolling the campus and they
make it at least to what I think is a
very very safe place. And obviously I can't speak for
like the women on campus, but I myself have felt
incredibly safe even in the late hours of the night.

(03:04):
But at the nearby metrolink station, I would have to
say it's a different story. On occasion I've been there,
and there even in you know, three pm in the afternoon,
there would be people on drugs, you know, running in
and out of the bathrooms, kind of up and down
the station and you know, causing a little bit admittedly
of discomfort for everybody else that's waiting for the train.

Speaker 1 (03:27):
So based on that observation, do you see this as
a problem do you see security on transit as a problem.

Speaker 2 (03:33):
Well, when we're talking about where to you know, put
funds for you know, making the greater la you know,
c areas safer, I would argue that there's might not
be enough allocated towards you know, transit security because at
least in my experience, you know this, this could create
an unsafe environment in this on this train platform when

(03:55):
you have people that are like drugged up, and I
looked around and there was really nobody to mediate the scene,
no security, no police. So I would say that that
would definitely make me feel a little bit safer.

Speaker 1 (04:08):
Brian Chevez from cal State Long Beach. I know that
there is a major line that goes right down into
Long Beach. Are you same question to you? Do you
notice any issues with mass transit and students on campus?

Speaker 3 (04:22):
So I can't speak for all students, but when I
did go to downtown Long Beach just to get a look,
and you do see homeless people lingering around and obviously
securities there. We heard it on the on tape right
now that there's security there, but they don't I don't
think they have the right. They don't have enough authority

(04:44):
to take care of take care of these homeless people.

Speaker 7 (04:47):
You know.

Speaker 3 (04:48):
That's why that when you hear that there might be
a police force for the Metro, for the Metro station,
I think it's very important.

Speaker 7 (04:58):
I think it's something that needs to be done.

Speaker 3 (05:02):
Yeah, because when you go there Like I said, there's
security people there, but they're not gonna They're not allowed
to just grab a homeless person and tell them get
out of here. You can't be here. That's something that
needs to be done though.

Speaker 1 (05:17):
Okay, Los Angeles Police Department Deputy Chief Don Graham joins us,
and you are over trains. It have been for three
years with LAPD. You just heard the assessments from two
of our student journalists, and what say you?

Speaker 8 (05:30):
So, first of all, thank.

Speaker 4 (05:32):
You for having me, Steve, and thank you for our
two student journalists here who are participating in this conversation.
I think, first of all, I want to lay out
some groundwork about the understanding the structure of the environment.
First of all, you mentioned metrolink. Metrolink is a totally
different system than La Metro. Metrolink is a five county
system that of which La Metro is simply a part of,

(05:54):
and the law enforcement contract for the metrolink is exclusively
with the Los Angeles County Sheriff. The La Metro system,
which is funded by a variety of different sources from
local sales tax to federal grants, is the authority for transportation,
both for funding and for operations. Within the County of

(06:17):
Los Angeles. So the line that goes to Long Beach
is a part of the La Metro line, and you've
correctly identified that the security officers do not have the
authority to check to see whether a person is authorized
to be on the system.

Speaker 8 (06:33):
So one of the tactics, Well, let me go back
a little bit.

Speaker 4 (06:35):
So first of all, there are police officers that are
contracted to police the system in the City of Los Angeles.

Speaker 8 (06:41):
Those are the police officers that work for me.

Speaker 4 (06:44):
We deploy one hundred and ninety two officers per day
on our patrol force, with three additional specialized units, one
with dogs canine officers that search for explosives primarily, and
then a special problems unit, and then a unit that
deals specifically with interfacing with the La County Health System

(07:04):
in order to provide services for the homeless. So that's
within the within the city of Los Angeles. For the
city of Long Beach, the city of Long Beach is
actually contracted to police the Metro through a law enforcement
contract through the System Security and Law Enforcement Department of Metro.
And then any place that's outside of the City of

(07:26):
La or the City of Long Beach is policed by
the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department. So on any given day,
through a twenty four hour period, you have somewhere in
the neighborhood of three hundred police officers that are policing lines.
But these are twelve train lines and twenty two hundred
buses that go through the entire County of Los Angeles
and serve eleven million residents. So, just like any other

(07:49):
local police department, the idea of having cops in your
neighborhood all the time is unrealistic, nor I think within
the confines of our free society, is anything anybody wants.
So the environment of safety on the Metro is a
whole variety of different inputs there.

Speaker 1 (08:07):
And then we're going to talk about that, but we
need to take a quick grape. Welcome back to the
studio six forty m Steve Gregory, thank you for joining us.
Before the break, Deputy Chief Don Graham with the Los
Angeles Police Department was summarizing not only his role in
running the transit security part of LAPED, but he was
kind of getting into a little bit more detail about

(08:28):
how it works. And before the break, Chief I had
to stop you, but you wanted to finish. I want
you to finish your thought. You were talking about going
in a little bit more detail. How complicated this really is?

Speaker 8 (08:37):
Sure? I think in many ways it reflects our society
as a whole. Right, there's eighty.

Speaker 4 (08:41):
Eight hundred police officers in the Los Angeles Police Department
to police a city of four million people.

Speaker 8 (08:45):
I think that partnerships is the way that we get
that accomplished. And it's no different on the Metro system.

Speaker 4 (08:50):
My officers depend on the inputs that we get from
the ambassadors, from the employees, from the contract security, from
the Metro transit security, and from the writers themselves to
know where the best places are to do their footbeats,
where the best places are to deploy the dogs. All
of that information comes from all of the variety of
inputs that we get from the entire ecosystem of safety

(09:13):
on the Metro. There's also a physical safety aspect of
it that I know that La Metro is taking a
good hard look at, and they've already initiated some programs.
There's a pilot program that they started at North Hollywood
that has expanded to Santa Monica about tap to exit
to ensure that proper access control is maintained throughout the system,
sad statistic. And then we'll jump back into the questions.

(09:35):
But we know that access control is the number one
cure for the crime problems on the system. And why
do we know that ninety seven percent of all of
the people the LAPD arrests for violent crimes on the system,
the suspect had no evidence that they were authorized to
be on the system. Ninety four percent of all arrests

(09:58):
meet that criteria.

Speaker 1 (09:59):
You know, I have to. But one of the things
I've noticed about security, and you and I've had many
discussions about trans and security over the years, but the
one thing that gets me that that's kind of not
being talked about a lot, is how politics plays into
how you guys are deployed. You've got three major agencies
that are in charge of security, as you mentioned, You've
got LA County Sheriff's Department, LAPD, Long Beach PD, and
then then the ambassadors, if you will. But they're they're observers.

(10:22):
I mean they're not they don't have arrest powers.

Speaker 8 (10:24):
No, they don't.

Speaker 1 (10:25):
And so and then eventually in this program, I want
to get into your thoughts and views on Metro's attempt
at creating its own police department. But politics plays a
lot into this, because I remember there was this push
to not have armed personnel on the trains because it
looked bad, people were uncomfortable, and then pandemic hits, and

(10:47):
then post pandemic, and then all of a sudden, everyone's like, well,
why is crime so high? Why is crime out of
control on Transit's where's our armed security? And again I
think a lot of that's driven by politics.

Speaker 4 (10:59):
I think the pulling up or show that, I mean
even during the height of those questions being asked. I
think the internal poll that was done by MTA showed
that sixty seven percent of respondents wanted to see more
police on the system and a symboler number wanted to
see more armed security on the system. Again, the question
whether or not the cost intercept with the results are
going to be what you want them to be, that's

(11:21):
a question for economics to determine.

Speaker 8 (11:23):
But as far as politics.

Speaker 4 (11:24):
Is concerned, of course, I don't know that we were
having an honest conversation.

Speaker 8 (11:28):
About what it is that brings harm.

Speaker 4 (11:31):
Vote to people who are in the community and writing
on the Metro, I realized that this uniform does not
mean the same thing to everybody who observes it. I
know that for some people, this uniform means exactly the
things that it means to me as a lifelong Angelino.
It means that my neighborhood is safe. It means my
neighborhood is taken care of them, there's somebody in my
neighborhood that is focused on problem solving. But because of

(11:53):
historical context, I realized that this uniform can mean someone
who brings violence into the community, someone who brings an
aspect of a darker history of the times of Los Angeles.
And LAPD worked hard every single day to continue to
climb that hill and to demonstrate the value of policing

(12:14):
in the modern society.

Speaker 1 (12:15):
We'll get to more of that too, but I want
to give the guys a chance to ask questions if
they have them.

Speaker 3 (12:19):
Yeah, So before the break, you were talking about the
organizations you guys collaborate with. Can you go a little
bit more in detail us to I think it was
Hope that you talked about how you guys work with
them to get homeless people out of there.

Speaker 8 (12:35):
Sure, we don't work with them, we are them.

Speaker 4 (12:38):
Hope is an acronym for a unit type within the
LAPD which stands for Homeless Outreach and Proactive Engagement. And
it was a movement that was started back in twenty
fourteen in downtown Los Angeles and skidd in the skid
Row area to change the focus of officers from an
enforcement standpoint to a services based standpoint, because most of

(12:58):
the crimes that are crimesote that are associated with with
homelessness are not immediate danger crimes to the general public.
And so if we gave an opportunity for an individual
to connect to services, because let's be honest with each other,
arresting our way out of a problem like this is
not possible, not in the justice system that we have today,

(13:19):
and not to bring any procedural justice to people who are.

Speaker 8 (13:22):
Suffering, in many cases from mental illness.

Speaker 3 (13:24):
I'm sorry, but don't you think you need to enforce
arrest in order to minimize the amount of homeless people
you will see? Because you said that, you said a
statistic that a lot of the people that a lot
of the rest you guys makes in transit in the
transit areas come from not being that they weren't allowed

(13:45):
to go in right, So in order to stop that,
shouldn't you arrest them, not arrest them, but push them back.

Speaker 8 (13:52):
I'll give you a great example.

Speaker 4 (13:53):
Yesterday, my WHOPE team came to visit me to tell
me about a success story that they had about two
individuals who they had detained at least six times for
trespassing on the system, but they finally built up enough
trust for them to open up a dialogue and it
turns out that they'd been desperately trying to get back
to their family in South Dakota for about the last
year and a half. So the officers went to some

(14:16):
NGO partners that we had and secured them bus tickets
and now they're on.

Speaker 8 (14:19):
Their way back to unify with their family.

Speaker 4 (14:21):
These are people that are not going to commit that
crime of trespass again because we came up with a
more permanent solution that didn't have to involve the arrest process. Now,
does that mean that we're not in the arrest business, No,
that's not we're law enforcement officers and at the end
of the day, the egregious disruption of the piece is
what we're there for. But if we can find solutions
that are more permanent than arrest, and if you think

(14:43):
about it in the context.

Speaker 8 (14:45):
Of today's justice system.

Speaker 4 (14:46):
Right with the advent of the effect of the Prop
forty seven and AB one oh nine on our jail systems,
the overwrought jail systems which are supervisors are already talking
about closing men's central jail. The purpose of a county
jail is to hold people who are waiting for arraignment
and to incarcerate people who are convicted of a misdemeanor.

(15:08):
But in a post AB one or nine world where
you've got felons that are being sent back from the
state to finish out their felony time in county jails, well,
where are the misdemeanors supposed.

Speaker 8 (15:18):
To serve out their time?

Speaker 4 (15:20):
And so this is how you hear stories about someone
who's sentenced to one hundred and eighty days in jail,
but they're out within twenty four hours.

Speaker 8 (15:26):
Right.

Speaker 4 (15:27):
Most of these crimes that are being committed, as far
as trespass or things, are misdemeanor crimes.

Speaker 8 (15:32):
Right.

Speaker 4 (15:32):
And so if we were able to get that person
into permanent supportive services, get that person into mental health services,
or reunite them with their family, which is what they
wanted to do in the first place. That's a much
more permanent solution than to have that person be a
denizen of the Metro constantly trying to thwart the access
control and then getting involved in whatever activity they get involved,

(15:52):
both as a suspect and as a victim.

Speaker 1 (15:57):
Welcome back to Studio six forty. I'm Steve Gregory for
joining us before the break. Deputy Chief Don Graham with
the Los Angeles Police Departments and Transit Security, it was
talking a little bit about, you know, the arrest and
how they're engaged and when do they arrest and when
they don't arrest, And that's a question Brian, you were asking,
so I wanted to give it back over to you
to find out if if you've got the answer you
need or do you want to move on.

Speaker 3 (16:18):
Well, the one thing I'm still a little confused on
and it's mostly because nowadays, people like you said, look
at your guys's badge differently. They some of them see
it as you know, you guys protect the community, and
others see it as just another way to abuse power.

(16:39):
When it comes to the Metro and the transit and
all these homeless people that are getting into this. I
feel that there needs to be some sort of enforcement,
you know, even though people don't want to see it,
there has to be some sort of way that we
could find a good middle do you know if there's
any possibility of that.

Speaker 4 (17:00):
So three years no, three years ago, when Elemetro changed
its policy about in reaction to the pandemic and made
it a much more open system, we started to see
the unfortunate effects of not having access control and unfortunately,
because the writership went dwindled down to almost zero because
working people were safer at home or finding new.

Speaker 8 (17:23):
Ways to go to work.

Speaker 4 (17:25):
We had basically a system that had unfettered access by
individuals that are experiencing homelessness, and those people ended up
victimizing each other. So as we came out of the
pandemic and we started to look at the alternatives. As
ridership began to increase the pre pandemic levels, my team
came together with took a look at the appropriate laws

(17:48):
and thought, well, wait a minute, if you need a
tap card to get past the turnstiles, then technically, actually legally,
once you've passed the turnstyles, if you don't have a
tap card, you're trespassing. And so we began in March
of twenty twenty three to do tap card inspections. So
our officers would go to an entire platform or an

(18:09):
entire train car and ask everybody to produce their tap card.
When somebody didn't produce their tap card, then we had
reasonable suspicion to believe that they didn't have authorization to
be there, and we would begin an investigation into trespass,
and if they failed to leave, then we would arrest
them for trespass. Fortunately, I suppose for us that led
us to the arrest of dozens and dozens of individuals

(18:31):
that had warrants for much more serious things. We've arrested
people with murder warrants, rape warrants, robbery warrants simply because
they would didn't have tap cards to be on the system.
So almost half a million tap cards tap card checks later,
we can happily report that in twenty twenty four, the
violent crime rate has fallen by over twenty five percent,

(18:53):
the overall crime rate has fallen by almost thirty percent,
and if we continue with the mid year numbers that
we had, we will have the lowest crime year that
we've ever had since LAPD had the contract in twenty seventeen. Now,
I just want to be clear that when I say that,
no statistic is going to make a crime victim feel better.

(19:15):
And the unfortunate proliferation of our societies want to be
voyeurs instead of interveners, and the amount of social media
video that you see about someone misbehaving on the metro
system just reinforces the idea that it's utter chaos and
violence on the system.

Speaker 8 (19:33):
And to make it worse, you can't go anywhere.

Speaker 4 (19:36):
When you're on a train and somebody starts to act out,
you're stuck there. And if it doesn't happen to be
a security officer or a police officer that's on that train,
then you're stuck there till the next station. And we
understand that and we certainly sympathize with it, which is
why we're being as proactive as we can.

Speaker 1 (19:52):
Okay, did you get basically what you needed?

Speaker 9 (19:54):
No?

Speaker 2 (19:54):
Yeah?

Speaker 1 (19:55):
Okay, good good, And listen, Cam, I want you to
jump in here in a second. But before we do
all of that, this is usually the time we want
to let everyone know who you are. Cam Hughes from
Chapman University. Let's talk a little bit about who you
are and what you're up to and what you hope
to accomplish.

Speaker 2 (20:10):
I am studying communication and economics at Chapman University, and
I've been heavily involved with the radio station, just getting
into the new season of my show Cranial, where I
talk about current events, unique and fascinating stories, fun facts.
I host live trivia as well, which is very unique,
and it's been quite a fulfilling and rewarding experience, especially

(20:30):
as we get into the election year. I'm excited to
start focusing on politics and teaching the people of my
school's community and beyond about, you know, more deep intricacies
of the political system that they might not be familiar
with previously, at least that I wasn't. And I've done
episodes on things like taxes and laundry, and you know,

(20:51):
as an adult, you would say that's so silly but
sexy topics for college I know, But the thing is
college students don't know how to.

Speaker 8 (20:58):
Do their taxes, so that even I do most adults.

Speaker 2 (21:02):
Well, that's what I feel. I'm doing my due diligence
and I'm hopefully excited at in form for that coming.

Speaker 1 (21:07):
So well, it's great to have you back as always
and Brian Chavez from cal State Long Beach. What are
you up to? I know you have a focus in
sports and you've done you did our sports special, so
tell us a little bit of what you're up to.

Speaker 3 (21:19):
Yeah, so this is my first semester at cal State
Long Beach. I am a I want to focus more
on sports, but since my since I started at cal
State Long Beach, I have been venturing off into different topics.
Coming here definitely opened my eyes to the political world
and it's actually been pretty interesting on what you could

(21:42):
find and how you could use that to you know,
help your community.

Speaker 7 (21:46):
So that's been very interesting.

Speaker 3 (21:48):
But yeah, my main goal is to you know, be
a sports sideline reporter one day and to be able
to travel the world.

Speaker 8 (21:58):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (21:58):
Good, Well, it's great to have you here, as all
was Deputy Chief Don Graham. You come with an impressive
background in your career as well well.

Speaker 8 (22:07):
Twenty nine years with the Los Angeles Police Department.

Speaker 4 (22:10):
I've been a patrol officer, detective supervisor.

Speaker 8 (22:13):
I've been a surveunts team operative.

Speaker 4 (22:16):
I've been a community police advisory member, commanding officer of
the North Hollywood area. I was the commander as the
Homeless coordinator for the department through COVID, which was one
of the most transformative experiences of my life.

Speaker 8 (22:31):
I'm so proud of the work that we did with.

Speaker 4 (22:34):
The other members of the city family and a team
of police officers that went from being policy wonks to
bring almost three thousand homeless people under shelter before the
rest of the world even thought we.

Speaker 8 (22:43):
Should do something about that.

Speaker 4 (22:45):
And then I was honored to be the first Filipino
deputy chief in the history of the LAPD. What I
promoted and became the chief of transit for the cysts
of the city. And since I believe that a person's
safe access to transportation defines the size of their world,
I'm honored to be leading the officers who try to
keep that system safe and accessible.

Speaker 1 (23:10):
Welcome back to Studio six forty. I'm Steve Gregor. You
thank you for joining us. Before the break, we were
learning a little bit more about our panel, of course,
Brian Chavis from cal State Long Beach, Cam Hughes from
Chapman University, and Don Graham, Deputy Chief of the Los
Angeles Police Department, and Cam, I wanted to turn over
the mic to you to see if you had any questions.

Speaker 2 (23:27):
Yeah, well, Brian touched on it very well, and I'd
say you answered a lot of the questions that I
had previously, particularly about homelessness, the homelessness issue and kind
of adjacent with that, the drug issue as it's present
on our transit system. I wanted to ask you because
to say that everybody you come across who might be

(23:47):
on drugs in public is inherently evil, is very minimizing.

Speaker 7 (23:50):
Addiction is a disease.

Speaker 2 (23:51):
So when you're going about policing and trying to keep
the community safe, how do you kind of toe the
line between doing that getting drugs off the streets and also,
you know, respecting the humanity of those who might be
unhoused or who are occupying these spaces.

Speaker 4 (24:08):
I think the first part about it is to produce
a better police officer, and which is what we've been
working on with the LAPD. You know, the pathway to
drugs is a very complicated one. When I was the
Captain of Downtown LA and I would go on foot
beats and skid row and I would see these people
who are passed out in their tents, and I would wonder,
what must it be like to live in a light

(24:28):
to live in a world where you could literally go
weeks without hearing somebody utter your first name, right, or
you wake up and you know that the only thing
in front of you is this struggle to get enough food,
so you can get back to this place that you
slept in the night before and hope that it's not occupied,
because then you might be in a physical altercation to
just defend the place that you slept in the night before.

(24:49):
And then someone comes along in the office you five
balloons of heroin and say sell four of them and
then you can keep the fifth one for yourself.

Speaker 8 (24:57):
What would I do?

Speaker 6 (24:58):
Right?

Speaker 4 (24:59):
So it's it's a very hard situation when you also
realize that the people who are purveying this behavior are
the ones that are breaking too people's cars, the ones
that are breaking to people's homes, that are assaulting people
on the streets because they can't control the lengths of
their own addiction. From my own perspective, it used to
be easier for us when they when when in the

(25:22):
pre prop forty seven world where the idea of a
felony versus the idea of rehab was a real choice.

Speaker 8 (25:31):
Now, if you go and you.

Speaker 4 (25:32):
Look at the people who are choosing rehab over prison time.
Why would you choose rehab and take a six month
rehab cycle when you could literally go in plead guilty
for a narcotics possession charge and walk out of court
with time served.

Speaker 8 (25:47):
So that makes it very, very difficult for us.

Speaker 4 (25:51):
We partner with with LA pat with Path, with LA Doors,
with LASA, with Department of Mental Health, every organization that
we can urban alchemy in an attempt to bring a
services oriented stint to this.

Speaker 8 (26:09):
And to go back to your early question growth, we
were talking about the.

Speaker 4 (26:12):
Effectiveness of the criminal justice system. Well, we can put
hooks on somebody and take them out of that situation,
but if there is no retro, if there's no accountability
at the back end, well then they're going to be
back in the situation that they're in. And at least
we're getting some success at transferring people from the arrest
cycle into that services cycle. It would be much easier

(26:33):
if you know, after two hundred and twenty years of
a penal system in this nation, that there were other way,
there were other penalties after conviction than death, imprisonment or fine,
right treatment, mental hospitals, and the comp and compelling people
to participate in those processes, would it widened out and

(26:56):
make our accountability fit the problems. So we are still
dedicated to cutting off the supply and going after mid
and high level drug dealers that are bringing fentanyl and
those kind of drugs onto our system, and it's become
another whole aspect of policing. When I came on the job,

(27:19):
we didn't have to worry about putting your hands in
or near somebody's pockets that you're going to get a
fentanyl exposure and I'm going to end up in the
emergency room simply because I was searching a suspect to
see whether or not they had.

Speaker 8 (27:29):
A weapon on them.

Speaker 4 (27:30):
So these are things that my officers today have to
deal with that I didn't have to deal with going
back into the nineties and doing the enforcement that we
did in the nineties. Obviously, as we've learned over history,
the hammer approach doesn't work, and so we need this
multi vector system to be able to be effective in
stopping this piece. And unfortunately, there are some people out

(27:54):
there who have taken the political stance that in order
to increase the treatments for people, you need to decrease
the accountability and so I think the basic bottom line
argument of the defund the police crowd was if we
take money away from these oppressive, racist police officers and
we put them into these programs that will be much
more effective.

Speaker 1 (28:14):
Well, and I guess it's up there, because here's the
other thing, too, chief is that and you know this
as well, a lot of those programs that you're talking about,
some of them are above board and others are not.
Loss has got a ton of issues. You've got mismanagement
of funds, You've got you know, you've got the heads
of these NGOs that are making half a million dollars
a year. That system is flawed in itself. The homeless

(28:36):
industrial complex is one of the big problems.

Speaker 4 (28:39):
I'm not going to even try to make that argument
that it's anything about the reality. But the piece is
when you look at what police are asked to do.
And I know that this argument has come from a
variety of different vectors. Right, we are not equipped. That's
not our training.

Speaker 8 (28:55):
Stay handle that.

Speaker 4 (28:56):
Our training is to stabilize the situation. So the actual
purveyors of the solution can come in and find purchase,
but don't operate in safety.

Speaker 1 (29:04):
Yeah, but at some point you know you, you know,
you keep bringing these people to these programs, or you
keep encouraging these people go to these programs, but knowingly
these programs are flawed and they're screwed up, and they're
again mismanaging millions and tens of millions of dollars of funding.
Don't you think that at some point? And it's not

(29:25):
on you, I'm saying, but overall the department. Don't you
think the department has some culpability in like going, Okay,
we're done taking them to you. We've got to find
an alternative.

Speaker 4 (29:35):
I think we're always looking for those alternatives, and sometimes
we don't have them because the interface with the government
system or what the court orders for them to do
is what is what there is. But I think you
talk about the department and whose culpability is that. Whose
responsibility is it to keep these people accountable? It's ours
the voter, and the voters just don't do the job

(29:58):
of educating themselves and coming out in the numbers that
would affect the decision making process of the elected job.

Speaker 1 (30:04):
And then I know it's very simple just to blame you.
It's just very simple.

Speaker 4 (30:08):
Sure, I'm very well dressed for yeah, We're gonna hold
there and Cam will come back and let you finish
up if you want, let's take a quick break.

Speaker 1 (30:15):
When we come back, we'll continue the conversation and welcome
back to the studio six forty. I'm Steve Gregory. Thank
you for joining us. And we've been talking with Deputy
Chief Don Graham with the Los Angeles Police Department. He
heads up the Transit division for the department. It's one
of three police agencies that are overseeing security for the

(30:39):
very large metro system. And before the break, I know, Cam,
you were asking some questions, and it looks like a
lot of these questions that both you and Brian have
had are related to homeless and how the homeless are
being treated on the lines, because that seems to be
probably the bigger problem that's happening. And I've been kind
of given the chief of some grief because of some
of the politics behind the scenes on this. But Cam,

(31:02):
I did want to go back to you and let
you find out if you've got the answers that you
needed and if there's anything else you wanted to ask.

Speaker 2 (31:08):
I thought everything was laid out in a manner that
was eye opening to me. At least, Steve, you mentioned
politics behind the scenes, and inherently, when you have so
much going on behind the scenes, there's a lot that
the people don't really understand about how these issues are
being taken care of and the other organizations besides the LAPD,
who the responsity responsibility might be falling on to take

(31:30):
care of these issues. So is there something in particular
that you wish the people understood more about the legislation
and how it affects the work that you do.

Speaker 8 (31:40):
Oh? Absolutely.

Speaker 4 (31:41):
I think the first step is understanding the very basic
structure of government.

Speaker 5 (31:44):
You know.

Speaker 4 (31:45):
I get into these back and forth at community meetings
from now and then, and they want to know why
the city hasn't done this, and why the LAPD hasn't
done that. And I always sort of facetiously say, do
you remember that scandal that happened in the nineties with
the LA City Health Department?

Speaker 5 (32:00):
Yeah?

Speaker 4 (32:00):
Yeah, no you don't because that doesn't exist, right, the
health structure of the county health that is a structure
of the Los Angeles County government with its just past
forty six billion dollar budget to handle the social network.
Right that is in the hands of the five LA
County supervisors.

Speaker 8 (32:19):
I did a meeting with.

Speaker 4 (32:20):
A group of people whose role was to advise ELI
Metro on public policy, and one of the members of
that group was sure that LAPD worked for the sheriff,
who then in turn worked for the mayor of Los Angeles.

Speaker 8 (32:35):
That's how confused.

Speaker 4 (32:36):
People are about the very roles of government that exist
in just in the microcosm of La County. So I
would love for our electorate to be more educated when
they come to the polls and they just look beyond
the title of what's on a proposition and look into
what it would actually do, and do more research about

(32:57):
what candidates stand for and what they've done in the past.
I know that as an executive on the LAPD, when
I look to promote people, we stand on the idea
of past predictors of future performance and what's the best
predictor of future performance past performance?

Speaker 8 (33:14):
Right?

Speaker 4 (33:15):
But this requires effort, and I know that it's been
said before by statesmen throughout our history, but democracy is
not easy. Democracy and free governance is a struggle, and
it's an effort, and it doesn't have to be repatriated
with blood.

Speaker 8 (33:29):
It can simply be repatriated with.

Speaker 4 (33:30):
Knowledge and going to the polls and knowing what it
is that you think your society should look like.

Speaker 2 (33:36):
Is the message here then for the general populace is
pay some attention to that literature you get in the
mail when it comes time for election season.

Speaker 4 (33:43):
Absolutely, and pay a lot less attention to the things
that you see that come from an organization or group,
and pay more attention to the stuff that comes from
the state of California and from the County of Los Angeles.

Speaker 8 (33:54):
That actually have the text.

Speaker 4 (33:56):
And if you don't understand what you're reading, then talk
to talk to social groups and get a network of
people together to understand what they're saying. But to simply
default because one organization or another is telling you to
vote for this and that just think that's a dangerous
way to have a free society.

Speaker 1 (34:12):
And a lot of the misinformation and disinformation out there
is also being incredibly damaging right now, very much so.
But I do want to ask a little bit about
the plan for the Board of Metro to create its
own police department. Did that come as a shock to.

Speaker 4 (34:29):
You, No, only because I understand the politics and the
optics of it. It's very optimistic plan that they laid
out that Elemtro laid out in a five year rollout of.

Speaker 1 (34:42):
Optimistic for them or optimistic for the overall security of
the system.

Speaker 4 (34:46):
I think optimistic for them. I think that we all
agree that there are a lot of issues that that
plan does not address. A lot of the nuances and policing.
I think there might be some misunderstanding as to how
the mutual aid system actually works, and some underestimation about
in kind services that the La Metro gets because it's

(35:08):
contracted with the La Sheriff's Department, the LAPD, and the
Long Beach Police Department. We had a very tragic incident
that occurred here in the city with a metro bus
from South Los Angeles that got hijacked and eventually was
brought to a stop in downtown LA and it was
the LAPD swat team that got on board and rescued
a passenger and the operator who was on board, And

(35:30):
those were all in kind services that La Metro doesn't
pay for it directly, but are offered to them because
it's part of our contract. So I think that there's
a lot more thinking that has to go into what
that looks like. And the timing is also very interesting.
I happened to have been appointed to be one of
the co chairs of Transportation Safety for LA twenty twenty eight,

(35:55):
and so we're now starting to put the boots to
the ground for plannings, explained people. That is sure, it's
the planning for the Olympics, and so as the transportation
chief of the city, I'm a co chair along with
the Sheriff's Department c HP and the Secret Service about
what transportation security is going to look like to the
venues and so as we as we move forward and

(36:17):
having that being an element of what the region is
going to have to deal with in four short years,
the idea to transition this this the policing of the
of the of the public transportation system in the county.

Speaker 8 (36:32):
The timing is curious.

Speaker 1 (36:33):
Well, I got to put you on the spot. Then,
do you agree that Metro should have its own police
department or do you think things just find the way
they are.

Speaker 4 (36:39):
I think that the l A p D and the
Sheriff's Department and the Long Beach Police Department provide excellent
policing service.

Speaker 8 (36:45):
I think that we are question.

Speaker 4 (36:47):
I think we're dictated by the policies that we're given.
And so do I look forward to to severing our ties.

Speaker 8 (36:58):
No, I do not.

Speaker 4 (36:59):
I think that we get a synergy from being able
to cooperate because those chain stations and those bus stations
don't they're not operating in space. They're in the city
of Los Angeles, and so crime problems in the neighborhood
can affect that. Crime problems that come from Metro can
affect the neighborhood around us, and our ability to talk
directly with other LAPD assets allows us a crime fighting synergy.

Speaker 1 (37:21):
And before we finally wrap up this topic, I do
want to ask did Metro do a study on this
saying that they needed a department or did they just
do this on their own.

Speaker 4 (37:30):
No, they did say they hired a consulting company to
come in and they did research and interviews.

Speaker 1 (37:39):
Okay, well, that's going to wrap it up for the
transit topic. When we come back, we'll go on to
our next topic. Welcome back to the studio six forty.
I'm Steve Gregory.

Speaker 10 (37:48):
Our next topic, Well, this is something of an unusual
homecoming for Jim McDonald, who spent a full career rising
through the ranks of the LAPD, eventually serving as its
assistant chief before he left to become the chief of
the Long Beach Police Department, and now years later after
a term as La County Sheriff.

Speaker 9 (38:04):
The mayor says it's McDonald who was best suited to
serve the city of La The announcement at city Hall
ended months of mystery about who Karen Bass was considering
for the top job at LAPD, possibly one of the
most consequential decisions for the mayor.

Speaker 11 (38:20):
To me, what is most important, as I said from
the beginning, is to keep the city safe. We need it,
and I feel very confident in one of the top
law enforcement professionals in our country who was willing to
come back to the department and lead us in a
time when the department internally needs to be transformed.

Speaker 9 (38:41):
She's talking about the need to hire more officers and
to plug the league of officers retiring sooner than expected.
Jim McDonald says one immediate focus will be improving morale
among the nearly eighty eight hundred officers, who often complain
they're overworked, stuck with outdated technology, and have less and
less time to build community relationships or proactively investigate crime.

Speaker 12 (39:03):
The big part of that morale is not enough people.
We're down dramatically from where we should be, and at
full deployment, LA is pretty light un deployment compared to
other major US cities.

Speaker 9 (39:15):
McDonald last served at LAPD as the first Assistant Chief,
a position responsible for keeping the entire department running day
to day. He left to become chief of the Long
Beach Police Department before he was elected Sheriff of La County,
a position he held for one term.

Speaker 1 (39:30):
CAM do you think that the mayor made the right choice?

Speaker 2 (39:36):
Well, obviously, I'm not familiar with the other twenty four
twenty five plus applicants. But one thing that struck me
from that clip that I thought was a little funny
is he said he's been rising his way through the
ranks for years and years.

Speaker 1 (39:50):
Well, what's the alternative?

Speaker 2 (39:51):
Are you going to hire somebody that is new on
the job.

Speaker 1 (39:54):
Isn't that?

Speaker 2 (39:55):
Isn't that your deal too? That's kind of just how
it goes, ain't it.

Speaker 1 (39:59):
But well, that's that is an interesting obserage. I hadn't
really thought about it that way, But I mean, this process,
it's this is one of these things where, like the
reporter said, which by the way, is Eric Leonard from
k NBC used to be here at KFI and uh,
you know in that in that package he said, you know,
that was this is something that we've been anticipating for

(40:19):
months now. So I just didn't know if if there
was something that that you even cared about, or any
anything that you might have been paying attention to.

Speaker 2 (40:27):
Well granted, as an OC head, I can't say that
it was on the forefront of my you know, vision.
But judging from what I've seen from the you know,
the coverage, it seems like, you know, this gentleman McDonald's
fit for the job.

Speaker 1 (40:41):
So Brian, you know, he's the former chief of Long
Beach PD and so that's kind of you know, your
neck of the woods now, I mean, you live in
a different part of town. But do you think that
him being at the L E. P D then Long
Beach then the sheriff does that? You know? Is that
a pretty good trajectory?

Speaker 3 (40:59):
That sounds pretty good. I mean, he's gonna know how
the majority of the city works. He's gonna have, you know,
connections and Long Beach he's gonna have connections obviously in
LA and when you tie those two together, well hopefully
you know, he reaches and branches out to the greater
oc area as well. But I think it's it's good

(41:19):
he's gonna have a lot of familiarity with with a
lot of the places.

Speaker 1 (41:22):
So, as a student journalist, as you look at this,
what are some of the things that you think the
new chief should be looking out for. What are some
of the things you would be curious about having the
new chief look at.

Speaker 3 (41:36):
I think I liked when he said that he wants
to boost morale and within the department. I think one
of the things that that was said was community relations.
I think that is very important. I think that the
public needs to, you know, look at he needs to.

Speaker 7 (41:54):
Look at the law enforcement a lot differently.

Speaker 3 (41:57):
I think some of the people are scared either or
they just have this stigma attached to them about how
a lot of the police officers just they abuse their power.
And I think that's not totally correct. I don't think.
I don't think a few bad apples, you know, ruin

(42:18):
it for everyone.

Speaker 1 (42:18):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (42:19):
Yeah, And I think I think that's gonna be really important.
I've been building a better community, building a better relationship
with the community.

Speaker 1 (42:26):
And cam back to you on the same kind of question.
As a student journalist approaching it from that lens, how
would you hold this new chief accountable?

Speaker 2 (42:36):
How would I hold an account Yeah.

Speaker 1 (42:38):
I mean, and you don't have to have him be
your chief, but as a as a as a senior
law enforcement person, how would you, as a student journalist,
hold this new chief accountable?

Speaker 2 (42:47):
Well, obviously, being as a public figure as he's been,
he I'm sure received scrutiny and coverage from the actions
and policies that he implemented. But now being that what
chief of the LAPD is a much much more prominent position,
and he is going to be under the public eye
much more so. And I think it's almost naturally going

(43:10):
to occur that, you know, every policy decision he makes
or every even aspect of his personal life is going
to be under a lens now, and I think the
public and the outcry that would result from, you know,
misconduct on his end is naturally just going to end
up holding him accountable.

Speaker 1 (43:29):
You know. And wit Chief Graham, for disclosures sake, you
were on the short list. Yeah, that very job.

Speaker 8 (43:35):
I was gonna correct what Camas says.

Speaker 4 (43:36):
So you have met somebody who was the job honor
to have been one of the nine finalists to make
it that far in the process, and as a lifelong
resident of the city of La it was an honor
to be considered in the names that were on that list.

Speaker 1 (43:51):
Can you give us any insight in as to what
you went through in that process and what were some
of the things that were asked of you?

Speaker 3 (43:57):
Oh?

Speaker 8 (43:57):
Absolutely, morale was a big portion of it. As you
know from the media coverage.

Speaker 4 (44:03):
The mayor went around to the roll calls throughout the
city and she spoke to hundreds and hundreds of police
officers to get their input as to.

Speaker 8 (44:10):
What it is that they felt was important in running
the department.

Speaker 4 (44:13):
And not only her, but the members of the La
Police Commission held open hearings in the community. They went
to roll calls to talk to the officers themselves, and
so we're always a very big part of that interview
process and what were our ideas and what were our
plans on addressing that addressing that issue, because there is

(44:35):
no doubt we have a problem, and the problem is
recruitment and retention.

Speaker 8 (44:41):
Everybody fails to realize.

Speaker 4 (44:43):
Or people who are having this conversation in public failed
to realize that.

Speaker 8 (44:46):
Thirty years ago, the.

Speaker 4 (44:48):
Clinton Crime Bill brought one hundred and fifty thousand additional
police officers to the American policing profession above what normal
hiring forecasts would have been for them five year period.
So we are at the other end of that spike.
Now this is my twenty ninth year with the department,
and I came on in nineteen ninety five, which was

(45:10):
the end of the first year of what would be
the most sustained hiring of policing in American history.

Speaker 1 (45:16):
What was the number, what was the highest number that
you ever had in the department were ten thousand, thirty three,
ten thousand thirty three, ten thousand thirty three.

Speaker 8 (45:23):
But during that Clinton Crime Bill era, I believe we.

Speaker 4 (45:26):
Went from just under eight thousand to almost ninety six
hundred in the five year period.

Speaker 1 (45:39):
Welcome back to Studio six forty. I'm Steve Gregory. Thank
you for joining us. Talking with de WUDE Chief Don Graham,
who heads up the LAPDS Transit Division, along with Cam
Hughes from Chapman University Brian Chavis from cal State Long Beach.
Before the break, we were talking a lot about sort
of the vetting process because bringing everyone back up the speed.

(45:59):
You were among the ten semi finalists for the job
of Chief of Police that now has been anointed to
Jim McDonnell. So you were talking about the process because
I wanted to know, because it's not something that I
really dug that deep into. But the process was in
correct me if I'm wrong on this, But there was

(46:20):
sort of a headhunter group, right. And when they first
announced the opening, when Chief Moore, Michael Moore had retired,
they immediately went to a nationwide search. The Board of
Commissioners put out a call and they started narrowing it down,
and they went through and vetted it and they found
their top ten. You were among those top ten.

Speaker 8 (46:40):
Yes.

Speaker 1 (46:41):
From that top ten, then it was narrowed down to
three yes, right, and then from that three then they
were additional one on one interviews with the mayor and
then she made her selection.

Speaker 8 (46:50):
Yes.

Speaker 1 (46:51):
And do you felt like or do you feel like
rather that that vetting process was pretty thorough. I mean,
in your experience, who did you speak? Who was your
interview with?

Speaker 4 (47:01):
So my interviews were with the recruitment company, and then
I had an panel interview with the members of the
Los Angeles Police Commission, and I thought the interview was
very thorough.

Speaker 8 (47:12):
I thought they covered quite.

Speaker 4 (47:13):
A few subjects about morale, about retention, about the structure
of the department, about community outreach and relations, about the
role of policing in our current society, about what I
felt the role of our elected officials are in the
governance of the police department. So I thought it was
a very comprehensive interview and an opportunity for me to

(47:37):
really air my ideas and my opinions, and I got
positive feedback and I am looking forward to sharing those
ideas with the new chief and continuing to serve as
an executive manager of the department.

Speaker 1 (47:51):
So, based on the line of questioning, either from the
firm or from the commission, what were the top concerns.

Speaker 4 (48:00):
Based on the line of questioning, I think the top
certainly the morale question. It was the most hard hitting
of the questions because there is a lot of spect
there was a lot of of interpretation about the will
of the police officers within la PD was to seek
somebody from outside the organization. Uh and UH And that
spoke to me as I am and I have come

(48:21):
up through the organization and have you know gone to
the to the places that I have gone and to
try to understand what the what the officer's perception, where
those comments would come from, and why that is a
symptom of the morale on the organ in the organization
which plays haywire with our opportunities to uh uh to recruit.

(48:44):
As a personal example, I ran into a young lady
at a restaurant who wanted to be a police officer
and we were chit chatting about what her expectations were,
and that she told me that her uncle was an
employee of the department who told her not to apply
to LAPD.

Speaker 8 (48:58):
And the idea that there is and there is an
employee out there.

Speaker 4 (49:02):
And I'm not sure he's not the only one who
is actively telling his own kin to not become a
member of this organization is telling and that is something
I think that we need to focus on, and I
think the Police Commission rightfully focused on that topic during
the interviews.

Speaker 2 (49:18):
Well, I was going to ask because clearly this is
an issue. In my hometown of Seattle, there are less
than a thousand police officers currently employed. In the last
four years, I think it's no secret that there has
been a change in the public perception of police officers
and as police officers are retiring at a faster rate

(49:39):
than new ones are being recruited. This is probably an
issue that you're going to have to change because I
would say that most young people who are entering the
workforce are going to be disinclined to choose a job
that comes under so much scrutiny. So what would you
have to say to the young individuals, those in my

(50:01):
generation who are looking for a profession and what would
you do to recruit I guess is the shorter of
my answer.

Speaker 8 (50:09):
Wow, there's so much I would love to talk to
about that piece.

Speaker 4 (50:12):
Because Number one, I would say that the perception of
the public about policing has changed very little. It's the
conversation that we have in the media circles that has changed.

Speaker 8 (50:22):
Right.

Speaker 4 (50:22):
I watched a Ted talk once where I saw a
media expert tell us so that the media is terrible
of telling us what to think, but they're great at
telling us what to think about and a lot of
the conversation has been the role of policing.

Speaker 8 (50:33):
Right.

Speaker 4 (50:33):
Well, to me, the role of policing has continued to
be the same, right, it is not and has very
rarely ever been just a simple cops and robbers game, right,
It is about the stabilization of the community to allow
the community to do.

Speaker 8 (50:47):
What it does.

Speaker 4 (50:48):
You know, my brother is a very good guitarist and
my sister is a genius at math. I like to
think that my ability to bring a stable community for
them to operate and is what allows them to do
their things that they're good at. And so I don't
think that actual perception has changed. I think that a
conversation has changed. But to your point, So the first

(51:08):
thing I think that we need to do is we
need to be better storytellers about what it is that
a police officer actually does.

Speaker 8 (51:14):
I don't think I think.

Speaker 4 (51:16):
That we tell our story about what policing is, and
it is contrasted by an industry of professional storytellers. Where
is it that most people have their perception of the police.
It's because they've watched every episode of Law and Order
and they know exactly how this investigation should go down, right,
And so the separation between what is reality and what

(51:38):
is fantasy is blurred in the American psyche. So that's
number one. Number two, I think that in I'm a
parent of teenagers, and I know that they are constantly
in search of identity, right, And I think the one
thing that this job gives you is that I look
at myself. I live in the city of Los Angeles.

(52:01):
I've lived in the city my entire life. This is
where I've chosen to raise my family, and so I
look at myself as a guardian of the peace of
the society that my children live in.

Speaker 8 (52:11):
And I am very happy with that self identity.

Speaker 4 (52:14):
And so I'd love to fantasize about the idea that
the better of a job I can do as a
police executive, the better of a city that my children
get to live in, right.

Speaker 8 (52:24):
And so the idea to define.

Speaker 4 (52:26):
Yourself and the role that you do and the way
you interact with people every day will mark your success
or failure as a police officer. And so if you're
looking for connectivity, if you're looking for identity, if you're
looking for a job that is constantly challenging, this is
the place to be.

Speaker 1 (52:44):
To learn how to become a student panelist, go to
KFIAM six forty dot com slash studio. That's k FIAM
six forty dot com slash studio. Welcome back to the
Studio six forty. I'm Steve Gregor, joining us. We've been
talking about the appointment of a new chief to the
Los Angeles Police Department. Jim McDonald is going to be running.

Speaker 8 (53:07):
The uh so, we're the largest in LA County.

Speaker 1 (53:10):
Well, the third largest, third largest in America.

Speaker 8 (53:13):
That's the second largest city in America.

Speaker 1 (53:14):
That's right, second largest city, third largest agency New York Chicago, Right, Yeah,
that's right. And so, but McDonald comes back, it's kind
of a homecoming for him, and you know him, Chief Graham,
you've known him for a long time as well as
I and so I wanted to go ahead and let
the guys ask questions of this too. Cam you were
talking a little bit about recruitment, Brian, what do you.

Speaker 3 (53:36):
Got The one thing I want to know is he
was I've been looking at some reports and for some reason,
I don't know his history, but he's being a little
criticized about his procedure. Like when I say that, I
mean the way he enforces the law. I feel like

(53:58):
I've heard on some YouTube channels that they're scared that
he's going to be another person that just gonna that's
gonna lay down the law hard. Like you said that
hammer strategy. What do you think about that?

Speaker 4 (54:15):
I think you're talking about a guy who came up
into his executive management experience under the tutelage of Bill Bratton.

Speaker 8 (54:23):
And when you listen.

Speaker 4 (54:25):
To Bill Bratton talk about policing, and I always thought
that this was brilliant. He said, the application of policing
is like the application of medicine to a sick patient. Right,
If you apply too much medicine, you could kill or
damage the host. But if you don't give enough medicine,
then your treatment is ineffective. And in the way that
doctors are the purveyors of the medicine as the professional

(54:48):
medical professionals, we are the professional purveyors of policing. And
so our job is to balance that that policing the
invasive policing, because it is invasive into what we think is.

Speaker 8 (55:03):
The fabric of our rights as Americans. Right. I think
that's part of the reason.

Speaker 4 (55:08):
To go back to Cam's question about recruitment and retention,
it becomes hard to think about the scrutiny of it
because you know, in a lot of ways, we're America's parents.

Speaker 1 (55:17):
Right.

Speaker 4 (55:17):
No, you can't drive one hundred miles an hour just
because there's nobody on the freeway. No, you can't shoot
that guy because he.

Speaker 8 (55:23):
Mad dogged you.

Speaker 4 (55:24):
You know, we're the ones that have to enforce all
of those things that people would rather go all in
into doing. So I think that Jim is going to
come in here with that same mindset that yes, there
is reality, and we still believe in the broken windows
theory of policing. And I know there's a lot of
police detractors out there that think that that's simply oppressive,

(55:45):
but I think there's a tremendous amount of evidence that
shows that just the application of the perception of care
in a particular area makes it a lot less susceptible
to crime.

Speaker 8 (55:56):
Because criminals are afraid of scrutiny.

Speaker 4 (55:58):
Right unless you are unless you were mentally ill when
you were in the commission of a crime, one of
the issues that you deal with is the need to
not get caught. And so if the perception in an
area is that people are watching, the police are watching,
security professionals are watching, then people are much less likely
to commit crimes in those areas. And it's a very
basis of the broken windows theory. And I think Jim

(56:21):
came up under that tutelage, and I think he's going
to bring that to the department. Jim has also been
stolardly committed to community policing. That was his role. The
first time I ever met Jim McDonald was and he
was a commander on the department, and I was a
senior lead officer who is a senior lead offfer around
LAPD is one of the frontline problem solving officers in

(56:44):
the community outreach, in community relationships business. And so Jim
was in charge of the senior lead officer citywide, and
he was the one that gave us the structure when
we recovered from let's say, some alternate decisions that were
made in the previous chiefs, and when Bratton came in
reinforced the idea of senior lead officers, it was Jim

(57:05):
that was the one that gave us the tools to
be able to do that. So I'm very confident in
his in his commitment to community policing and partnership based policing.

Speaker 8 (57:14):
And I'm excited to have.

Speaker 4 (57:15):
Somebody of his, of his medal, of his gravitas, of
his education, someone who is a who has become a
national voice in policing to come back home and bring
it to.

Speaker 1 (57:24):
LA I was it was funny because I was at
the press conference at the Mayor's office and I asked
him a question. Everyone was asking him about what his
plans are and his future goals and all this other stuff,
and I asked him, why, why the hell did you
come back to the chaos? Why? Because the man's living
a very comfortable life as a consultant, he's an author,
he was working for USC School of Public Policy. Why

(57:47):
would you come back? Because that's what I was curious,
and you know, and he said he saw a challenge
before him. He saw that policing was sort of in trouble,
at least at LAPD. He fell some I guess, some
loyalty to the agency. But I thought it was kind
of interesting how he said that the events of twenty
twenty really bothered him too, and how policing was handled

(58:09):
and perceived, and he felt like he wanted to come
back and write that.

Speaker 8 (58:13):
I thought, Oh, and.

Speaker 4 (58:14):
It's it is personal, right, this is a personal job
to be to take up the time with some corny
story about mine. But you know, I grew up in
the seventies as a half Filipino with a white last
name in Bayonne, New Jersey, and so you know.

Speaker 8 (58:29):
I came home and asked my mom, are you sure
we're Filipino? Because the kids at school are pretty sure
we're Chinese.

Speaker 4 (58:34):
And then we moved to the most cosmopolitan city in
America and I went to Fulton Middle School, which was
a completely diverse school from my standpoint, made friends with
a totally diverse cast of kids who I'm still friends
with today.

Speaker 8 (58:51):
Came up in this city, went to college, and then
came across this.

Speaker 4 (58:54):
Profession where I get to put on a uniform every
day and go out and talk to and protect the
people in the city. That made me the person that
I've always wanted to be. I didn't want to be
a little timid kid that was always afraid of my
racial identity. I wanted to be a kid who was
not afraid to express themselves and not afraid to go
and take action when I thought things were wrong. And

(59:15):
this organization has allowed me to do that for the
last three decades. And so I don't know what Don
Graham would be doing if he was still in bay Own,
New Jersey. But in Los Angeles, California, I'm a deputy
chief for the Los Angeles Police Department.

Speaker 1 (59:31):
We're going to wrap things up to guys, any other
questions We have just about a minute or so left. Yeah, good, okay,
you got all the answers to your questions. Chief Graham.
I can't thank you enough.

Speaker 8 (59:42):
My pleasure, absolutely, this has.

Speaker 1 (59:43):
Been wonderful for you to come in and take time
out of your day to come in. Of course, Cam
Hughes from Chapman University, it's a pleasure having you back.
Brian Chavis from cal State Long Beach, thank you so
much for being here as well.

Speaker 8 (59:54):
Best of luck to both of you.

Speaker 1 (59:55):
Thank you. Studio six forties a production of the KFI
News Department for iHeartMedia, Los Angeles. The show's executive producers
are Steve Gregory and Jacob Gonzalez. The line producer is
Richie Kinteto. Our video producer is Mark Many. The opinions
expressed on this program are those of the guests and
do not necessarily reflect the views of KAFI, iHeartMedia or

(01:00:19):
its affiliates.