NYPD Neighborhood Policing | James O'Neill | TEDxThacherSchool

you guys hear me good all right so why am I here first of all I never sleep second of all they certainly don't write hilarious movies wish I could but no I can't ride a horse I'm here because my wonderful niece sent me an email about three months ago I said Uncle Jimmy can you come out to my school I'm a soft touch so today it's only 3,200 miles why not and nothing ever happens in New York City said they they won't miss me for three days and so far things are going well back home just a little bit about what I do not who I am I'm going to tell you that a little bit but what I do I am the highest ranking member of the New York City Police Department that's why they have all these stars on my shoulders I'm not a real high profile guy I never have been but I worked for Commissioner Bratton twice in the past in 1990 and 94 we came back in 2014 and he asked me to take the job and can't say no to that guy he's a great man so happy that I know him New York City and Mayor DeBlasio were so lucky to have him so my job is not really I'm not kidding when I say don't sleep I have 35,000 cops that work for me all of them carry guns is eight point eight million people in New York City so what could possibly go wrong nothing I'm sure I am the chief of operations so I have all the people on patrol work for me all the 77 precincts the transit districts the housing PSAs Special Operations Division its Aviation Harbor mounted if you ever want to see people ride we have an eight-month remount school and I get to go to the graduation it's absolutely terrific also in Special Operations is emergency services unit those are those are the firemen in the contrary to popular belief I do like firemen I do like firefighters and Jack that's not just because you're here and I think you told me your brother's a firefighter but that's no I did do get one with firefighters very well so it's a busy job I also have the Traffic Division I have housing Transit Community Affairs so it does it does keep me up at night but I'm the luckiest guy in the world I don't know how I ended up with this job I worked for the prior administration I got along with them well for about eight years in the last four years talk about failure I was in charge of the citywide Narcotics Bureau and one team in Brooklyn south that decided it would be a good idea to instead of paying the confidential informant let's just take crack from people we lock up and give it directly to the comp national floor so that was a monument of failure and I was banished to Detective level for about six years so talk about failure talk about rising up out of the ashes I'm a lucky guy lucky guy that bill Pratt came back and I'm a lucky guy to be in his position but Who am I with dad two sons 26 and 22 them teaches math and the other is just graduated from college and for five months later he's still kind of making the transition from college life that's the reality I'm sure he'll get a job one day it's absolutely absolutely a wonderful kid so we're working on that I'm play hockey I'm human being laughs I cry I love my family that's probably why I'm here my sister Liz is here she drove down from calf from San Francisco also so that's but that's who I am let me just tell you about why I'm a cop this is this isn't what my family does retired in 73 friend of my friend of my dad's uncle George it was a local cop in a 6-7 precinct I'm a cop because I think my eldest son put it put it best we're in a diner one day and we eat and he was about 14 the other guys about 10 we come outside and it's done eating some women coming in so I step back and I hold the door women walk in and go to the car you can't help it you're a chronic do-gooder we just can't help I said you know what Danny I think you're right and and talk about following in your heart that's what you need to do I was lucky enough to sit down on my nephew jack is was interviewed today for the school I had the opportunity to sit in on the admission speech all of you guys and girls are the students here this is a terrific place I hope you understand how how lucky you are to be in a place like this and we really they're not giving a chance to go under the radar you know people care about you people loving it so make sure make sure you understand that it appreciate it it's not everybody in this this great country and that opportunity is thoroughly impressed and absolutely thoroughly embarrassed by my my knees Katie it really is you really do have to follow your heart you know I bounced around a couple of colleges I get out with a degree in government wasn't really sure what I wanted to do but I knew I wanted to do something where where I could make a difference I joined the police department in January 1983 the New York City Transit Police Department actually had a huge argument with with my mom my mom's 84 now she's I don't think anybody's could get the better on her she's actually text she texted out she texted me the other day I had made the mistake of not calling her for a couple of days which our families have sinned so she texts me don't worry about me I'm still alive so of course being Irish and all you know bit of a wise guy he texted her back that's the best news I've heard all day call you later and she texted me back why is this so why do people become cops I know why I became a cop and I was lucky enough to be a precinct commander for six and a half years I had the Central Park precinct slow counts about 15 20 million people a year visit there I had the two five in East Harlem about a hundred and eighty two hundred cops and they had the 44th precinct three hundred cops it's the 44th precinct was a life-changing experience for me 180,000 people live in the in 1.9 square miles about 300 cops and it's a it's an economically depressed area is a bit of an understatement and it's a violent place too but what my experience the two and a half years I was there and I'm not just talking about the cops I'm talking about the people in the community to what I saw every day I even saw it as a young transit cop you know 7 o'clock in the morning going to work most of the people just want to live in peace and do right by their family but that was that that experience helped me be Who I am today people want to live in peace cops want to do their job and it helped me understand why people become police officers and Bob alluded to you know that the controversy over the last it's almost 12 months now probably a little longer than that Eric garner tragedy was in July of 2014 but it's tops cops want to be cops because they want to make a difference I tell it everywhere I go I tell them as often as I can somewhere in your life you made a decision to do something good and to do something right I appreciate that everybody everybody should appreciate that but unfortunately that's not what happens the nature of our business there are gonna be some people that don't like us it's by its very nature its adversarial at times and time since violent we just had a police involved shooting in New York City the other night thank God our cops didn't get hurt ended up shooting kind of like they fired ten rounds of us and we fired 19 back at them that's just the nature of the business it can be violent that's anything everything that's transpired over the last was in there 14 16 months the one thing that that really truly bothers me and I understand that there are bad cops I know that I've got 33 years in the police department I've seen I've seen some things that I'm not proud of you see the videos this video is everywhere now and it's just it's disheartening to see when when cops do wrong the pion launched that's not who we are people took this job to make a difference they took this job to keep people safe and to make lives better and and I'm proud of them I tell them be proud of who you are and what you do and understand that you know New Yorkers can be fickle New Yorkers can be can be tough and we're going through a bit of a tough time right now and Bob you said something about mayor de Blasio that I have to take exception with I'm with mayor de Blasio two or three days a week and he's done more for the New York City Police Department in the last two years the previous administration did in 12 its fully supportive of us is fully supportive of Commissioner Bratton and I'm glad to call him not only it's my boss but he's a friend so that was a bit of a long introduction I only have eight minutes left so I have to get through this crime and crime in New York City right now was at its lowest levels since the 60s in 1992 there were 22 hundred homicides last year there were 330 in 1992 there were 5000 shootings in New York City that's not police shootings that's usually bad guys shooting at bad guys last year they were 1,100 in 1992 there were 500,000 major crimes last year there was a little over a hundred thousand so you would think that New York City would be very appreciative of all the good work that's done by the police department and it's not all done by the cops I understand that this demographic issues is education issues and I understand I live in reality but then there are communities just that that don't appreciate what we do and that's we have so much to do with that and we tell our cops that listen we want you to make connection to the community if we really need that never give them the time nor the opportunity to do that and last year after the Eric garner tragedy what happened out in Ferguson I got this job November 3rd last year and November 24th last year was the Ferguson decision that's when the protests started in New York City in the Eric garner Court ruling was on December 3rd the grand jury decision in the protest or it was it was not a good time to be a cop it was just the future all that was that was hurled at us every day I had 3,000 cops assigned to the protest we had 10,000 people in the street we had 30,000 people in the street and the protests weren't against you know it wasn't against nuclear power was they against education it was against us and I've had I had so many arguments with people politicians saying no they weren't they weren't directed at you I said no you're wrong I was there every day I thought they were directed at us and the cops internally externally we went through 12 years of an autocratic regime the previous police commissioner don't know how to make decisions weren't able to make decisions all the decision-making came from the top that they didn't feel that the community has appreciated us so how do we do how do we move forward so on December 20th after five weeks of protests two of our cops jolo immigrant from from China Hillary cop first and Rafael Ramos at two young sons they were brutally murdered just just for being just for wearing a blue uniform and sitting in a police car on December 20th brutally brutally assassinated the guy who did it ended up killing himself if there's any good that could possibly come from that and that's a stretch I was at the hospital I was there when parents came in for a yell and Jaden Raphael son came into the hospital I was there so to say any good came of that would definitely be a stretch it gave people pause to think about what the police mean to I'm only in New York City does that sentiment swept all over the country but what it means to to everyone in the United States and gay people pause but it also paralyzed us it also paralyzed the New York City Police Department almost brought the cops to their knees I didn't ever think I would see that happened we didn't stop working but it came close it came real close and after the Bratton's got to bills bill Bratton's got the same sort of mindset that I have that listen people have to grieve that's not that's not force or force the issue here enforced the hand then they came back slowly and surely but surely and remember that they have we had two cops brutally but there's a moral obligation by all cops to keep the people of this city safe and they started working again and we're continuing to work I only have a couple of minutes I had some slides I'm probably not going to get through them but yeah and it's it's getting late and plus I'm on East Coast time that's why you went last Thank You Katie thank you so let's just let me tell you about how we plan to move forward and I think it's a good plan it's up and running in six precincts from it now it's in the 100 precinct of 101 which is in the Far Rockaway and the three three and a three four which is up in Manhattan and three two which is in Central Harlem and it's in the 113 which is in South Queens and all that crime reduction that I talked about that's for most of the city there were still places in New York City that still have a tremendous amount of violence talk about Brownsville East New York the place where I used to work in the fourth floor of the South Bronx there were still people shooting at each other every day just today along we had three shootings up in the Bronx the four for the four six of the four eight is how I live my life now I'm addicted to the digital my blackberry I can't live without it so we do have we do have this moral obligation to to reduce crime and keep people safe get people to stop killing each other and shoot each other one thing about New York City most of the people most of the violence most of the homicides and the shootings it's it's perp on purpose you know that's cop talk but everybody knows it's a bad guy shooting day guys sometimes it's over to narcotics sometimes it's over nonsense sometimes it's over disrespect sometimes it's sometimes it's just over territory but unfortunately every once in a while innocent people get shot too even that wasn't the case we still have an obligation to keep keep crime down and there's a there's a no snitch thing that swept the country over the last couple of years we have thirty percent of the people that get shot in New York City refused to cooperate with us they refused to cooperate with us refused to even talk to us we just let that go and we can't possibly let so what we're doing in in New York City it's called the neighborhood policing model and basically before the model was instituted and each precinct it'd have say two hundred cops half those cops would be assigned to sectors to entering radio runs nine women jobs in a New York City in a busy precinct a busy night you're answering 25 radio runs a night so where where do you have the opportunity to make any connection to anyone in that community when you're answering 25 radio runs a night you just don't it doesn't happen it's an unrealistic unrealistic expectation then the other half of the command the other they have to the precinct we have cops that are doing mycotic work that always has to be addressed anti-crime work preventing people from getting robbed conditions quality of life domestic violence traffic administrative work we became way over specialized so now we're moving to moving back to more of the generalist police officer so when these pilot commands putting more cops in there we resected every precinct so now the sector represents an actual neighborhood not just an arbitrary line and we're putting the same cops in the same sectors every day so there's familiarity with the people that they're sworn to protect and serve and just to talk for two seconds about the oath as a young cop I came in when I was 25 so I was a little older as a cop when you're 22 years old and you take that out for the grace you're right-handed you swear to uphold the Constitution to protect and serve baby when you're that young you really don't realize the implications of what you're talking about but now the job I have and when I go to the hiring so I see them raise their hands and said I tell them pay attention to what you're saying it's important to pay attention to this because that's this is what you're getting paid to do to keep people safe so just to get back to the neighborhood policing model we have the same cops the same sectors on the same tours every day we also in each one of the sectors we have what's called the neighborhood coordination officer we have two of them in each sector and their job to be the conduit between the sector cops the community and the police department in general we hold neighborhood work groups and now I've since the garner incident I've gone to four or five hundred community meetings each and every one of them that I've gone to people tell us we want policing that's something that's not done to us but that's done with us now this is what's happening and it seems to be working crime is continuing to decrease and there's a level of community satisfaction and it's it's it's important that that we do this that we push this decision-making down to its lowest level which is our police departments police officers this is how you build leaders and this is how you make a better police department and and the cops are embracing it I'm a cynical person like my younger son tells me I'm the most sarcastic cynical person that he's ever met I think he might not be right but he might be close so I was tasked with coming up with the program to try to make a difference to try to make help us move forward and have a shared responsibility for crime and it does seem to be working I'll tell you and what was really an impetus is what what happened in Baltimore in the late April or early May I saw that and talked about your blood pressure being raised this is something I didn't want happen in the New York City we're doing our best to make sure it doesn't happen the precinct commanders I have in those precincts for this program there embrace it they believe in it and and I know this is certainly a way to move forward about three seconds left here my timings not too bad once again before up before I stop speaking just truly appreciate where you are and what your experience is and and as you get out of here and you move forward with your life make sure you find a job where you end up doing something that you love because you only get one shot at this it's got to be something that you love it's got to be something where at the end you're gonna say to yourself you know what I had a life that that had significance and had meaning you can't go backwards in time I truly understand that I truly realized that so I don't have regrets make sure that as you move forward in your life you do something that you love so thank you very much

Channel: TEDx Talks

Views: 15,597

Rating: 4.5897436 out of 5

Keywords: TEDxTalks, English, United States, Life, America, Cities, Community, Cooperation, Crime, Government, Policy, Society

Id: XxHuJopPK60

Length: 22min 0sec (1320 seconds)

Published: Sun Nov 22 2015