Veteran police officers Kenneth Butler and Neill Franklin discuss a report issued by the Fraternal Order of Police that accuses recently fired Chief Batts of ordering police to stand down during looting so protestors would be blamed as the aggressors
Story Transcript
PAUL JAY, SENIOR EDITOR, TRNN: Welcome to the Real News Network. Iām Paul Jay in Baltimore. On July 8 the proverbial you-know-what hit the fan in Baltimore. The police chief was essentially fired. On the same day, the Fraternal Order of Police issued a scathing report about the leadership of the Baltimore Police Department, mostly talking about lack of leadership during the events following the death of Freddie Gray, claiming morale was at an all-time low. But thereās a specific section in that 32-page FOP report that I donāt think is getting quite enough attention, and Iām going to quote it now. Commissioner Batts and command staff members addressed officers during a roll call on April 25, 2015 at police headquarters. Of those officers who were present and with whom the after-action review committee spokeāthatās the after-action review committee of the FOP. Each reported being given direct orders from Commissioner Batts and command staff members not to engage any protesters. Officers were ordered to allow the protesters room to destroy, and allow the destruction of property so the rioters would appear to be the aggressors. According to the officersā accounts they were told, quote, the Baltimore Police Department would not respond until theyāin brackets, the protestersāburned, looted, and destroyed the city so that it would show that the rioters were forcing our hand, end quote. The officers were told their primary job was to deescalate any situation with no response, rather than to escalate with action. This was confirmed by officers from other jurisdictions who attended that roll call. Thereās otherāthereās other examples given that back up this part of the report. That same afternoon the Central District had an occurrence, and the command staff member responded on radio channel 11A that, quote, looting is expected, let it happen. Several officers stated their units were ordered to allow the looting of stores on Howard Street, even though it was occurring directly in front of them. On-scene at downtown CVS store, officers reported being told not to stop looters and to hold their position. Again, over city-wide radio on April 25, 2015, officers were advised not to respond to a Signal 13, in brackets, officer needs assistance, call in the vicinity of Camden Yards. Now joining us to discuss the significance of this part of the FOP report, first of all from New York, although heās normally in Baltimore, is Neill Franklin. Neill is the executive director of Law Enforcement Against Prohibition, otherwise known as LEAP. Heās a 33-year police veteran who led multi-jurisdictional anti-narcotics task forces for the Maryland State Police and ran training centers for the Baltimore Police and the Maryland State Police. And joining us in the studio, Lieutenant Kenneth Butler, 29-year police veteran. President of the Vanguard Justice Society, which represents black cops in Baltimore. The Vanguard Justice Society works very closely with the Fraternal Order of Police, but itās not the same organization. Thanks for joining us. LT. KENNETH BUTLER, PRESIDENT, VANGUARD JUSTICE SOCIETY: Thank you. NEILL FRANKLIN, EXEC. DIRECTOR, LEAP: Glad to be here. JAY: So let me start with you, Kenny, theāwhat evidence is there of this? This is quite a serious allegation, that Commissioner Batts and other leading commanders of the police force essentially created the conditions for a spiraling out of control of the situation. So first of all, what evidence is there for that? BUTLER: I think the best evidence is what you just read, because itās verbatim what some officers heard at the roll call. And I remember, because I was assigned to Camden Yards, and I rememberāI canāt remember who told me, but they said to take off your, if you had black gloves on, because it looks intimidating. Not to put your riot helmet on, because it may agitate the protesters. And also, like you just said, you heard some of the, some of the radio transmissions as far as what was occurring and what we were told not to do. And I think that set upāI think that Saturday with the lack of enforcement set up what happened Monday with the civil unrest. JAY: Now, thereās kind of two contradictory narratives about why this could have happened. The official one so far has been not to try to escalate the situation, not to createāmake it more confrontational, not to have this kind of all-out warfare between police and protesters in the streets. But this is different, whatās being said in the FOP report. Here the intent is to let the situation become a much bigger riot than it might have been otherwise, to allow looting. Like, you can imagineāI mean, I can imagine the argument of deescalating with kids that just got out of a high school throwing some rocks and not wanting to start some warfare with those kids. Thatās one thing. Itās entirely another thing to sit and watch looting taking place and do nothing about it. And so one can only conclude the objective of that is you want the rationale for something. What is that something, more for, for what? For the National Guard to be called in? For thousands of police to be called in? BUTLER: I didnāt understand that from day one, as far as not taking any enforcement action when you see the law being broken. And what it did, in my opinion, it just empowered the, some of the protestersābecause remember, there were a lot of peaceful protesters. And as a matter of fact, when I was down Camden Yards that Saturday, we had a first wave of protesters. And I actually had a conversation with a couple of them. And I rememberāand someone from the middle of the crowd threw a bottle. And I remember a young kid, he had to be no more than 22 years old. Well, he stood up and said, donāt throw anything else. No one threw anything else. And I remember, I had a conversation with an elderly gentlemen. He said, hey, Lieutenant, look, we just want to have a peaceful protest. So youāre not going to have any of that, no more bottle throwing. Okay, fine. I spoke with the young man, he goes to the University of Baltimore. I canāt remember his name. But I had a conversation with him. That was peaceful. Thenābut the second wave that came in, thatās when everything hit the fan. And we, we still could not take action. I mean, they threw trash cans. Bottles. Whatever you could think of, thatās, thatās what what they threw at us. And I told my officers, put your riot helmets on. But I thinkāI just couldnāt understand that type of order. I understand you donāt want to instigate or agitate. But at some point you have to take a stand. JAY: Well, the allegation here is that itās deliberately done to have as much violence as possible in order to what? The onlyāto what has to be to eventually have much more policing, but somehow youāve justified it because thereās all this looting. And you know, the imageāitās also the way the narrative in the media changed. Instead of it all about what was being called the murder of Freddie Gray, itās now about a burning CVS. Neill, let me come to you for a sec. Because this allegation against Commissioner Batts goes further than just what happened during that roll call. Thereās a, in the FOP report, Batts is quoted in an article thatās in the LA Times, that when he was the head of police in Oakland when there was a protest that was becoming violent, I guess. And hereās the quote from the LA Times. Quoting Batts: We allowed the protesters to start breaking into Foot Locker. They broke into Foot Locker at different places. But we had to do that because we didnāt want to look like this was a police action where we were responding too soon. In other words, the policing is based on propaganda as a PR positioning. But in this case in Baltimore it seems to me itās even a little more nefarious than that. Itās that weāre going to create the conditions for thousands of police to join us. Because we know that Batts ahead of time, before any of this happened, had already created the idea that they were going to invite, what, three, four policemen, thousand policemen from across Maryland to come to Baltimore. And he must have known in the works was the National Guard. Now whetherāthereās some question whether he really wanted the National Guard or not. But certainly it was in the works. And theyāand by creating this out of control situation, if thatās true, it becomes the justification for the occupation of Baltimore byāyou know, military occupation, really. BUTLER: Yeah. I hope that thisāif true, I hope it isnāt, is style of dealing with an uprising, a riotous or potentially riotous situation. Hearing that about Oakland and then seeing what happened in Baltimore. But I always tend to take a position on things or at least look at things from a perspective of a criminal investigator. So if he in fact said these things in a roll call, and Iām notāwhat Iām about to say, Iām not denying that he said anything or whatever. If the reason is so that we can allow this to happen, allow the looting, allow the destruction of property and other things so that we can become more heavy-handed with our policingābut that didnāt occur. I mean, we brought in resources from other police departments, and the National Guard. But we didnāt have this overall heavy-handed enforcement effort as the days went on. As weāve seen in some other cities, for instance. Also, I find it a little interesting, I know how police are. I know how we are. And if something like that is being said and itās really inappropriate or controversial, we tend to record things. This day and age, Iām surprised nobody surreptitiously pulled out their cell phone and just started videotaping what was being said. Or any, or that point on, any time a commander said something. JAY: Well, Kenny, were you at that roll call? BUTLER: No. I came in after. JAY: But have you heardāyou heard people who say they were at the roll call and heard this. BUTLER: Yes. Yes. JAY: So itāsāI mean, itās not, you wouldnāt think the FOP would not make all this up, would you now? BUTLER: Well, I, I would hope not. I would certainly hope not. But you got to understand, this is the, this is how I look at things. Iām not saying that it didnāt happen. Iām just saying this is how I look at this, look at things. Because also context, the exact words that are used, are also important, and the order of those words. For instance, when the mayor said what she said about wanting to give room for the protesters to do what they did, I mean, that was recorded. So thereās clear evidence of her saying that. Whether she meant it or not, she said it. JAY: It seems to me thatās different, perhaps, than what is being said that Commissioner Batts and the other leadership said. Because it seemed to me that if youāre talking about, as I said, kids throwing rocks, and you donāt go and do these mass arrests of kids throwing rocks, and if sheāif weāre speculating a bit here, what she meant. But if she meant we didnāt go after all these kids, I think that makes a certain amount of sense. Youāre talking about looting, and Iām not even getting into the right or wrong of looting, and all the rest of that. Because thereās a lot of the young activists and people in town that say looting was a lot less of a crime than some of the other stuff that goes on in this place. But setting that aside, thatās a different category of non-intervening. So the mayor might have been talking about kids throwing rocks and not allowing looting. FRANKLIN: Well Iām, Iām not sure what she was referring to. But Iāmāwhen she says it, Iām just thinking of the looting as well. But let me just point out something thatās very important. I think overall there was a, a grave misjudgment here, a lack of preparedness for it. You could have the personnel either from Baltimore City or other agencies ready, off-location, off-site. You could have the helmets and the shields and the batons, and all the other protective gear and equipment that the officers need ready in vehicles, in vans, that would take just seconds to deploy, to hand out when things do get out of hand. When that first group downtown started, as Kenny said, the second wave, that was a manageable size of, or violentāand I call them violent protests because Iāve watched the video. I watched the bottles and items being thrown, and the fences, the steel fences in the trash cans. itāweāre just fortunate that no one was seriously hurt during that. But it was a manageable size crowd, that if the police were ready to respond rather quickly to quell that, they could have done it. JAY: But thatās my point, really. Kenny, if you go back to the FOP report, itāsāthere was plans in place. I mean, the National Guard is here within a very short period of time. They clearly were very well prepared. They knew exactly what buildings they were going to stand in front of. This was a well-planned, what do you do if thereās enormous unrest in Baltimore? The National Guard was all ready for this. There were thousands of other cops waiting to come from other parts of Maryland to Baltimore. The curfew. Without this crazy stuff there never would have been a justification for a curfew. So, soāI think part of it is I come at this from my experience of having covered the G20 in Toronto, I guess in 2010, where 20,000 peaceful protesters marched down the street. A hundredāmaybe 125 Black Bloc tactic types run down the street, break windows, burn a police car. And hundreds, maybe thousandsāin fact I think it was almost 5,000 police in the area because the G20 was there, are told to stand down. Exactly like this. A good 45 minutes of mayhem. Then the police march in, and then they arrest 1,000 people. Mostly people who were not involved in any of the violence. I mean, I talked to someone very senior in the police department in Toronto, and I said to him, this looks like itās a rehearsal. Youāre training your police how to do mass arrests, and you needed some excuse to do it. This one feels like we needed to stop talking about the death of Freddie Gray, and letās talk about burning CVSes. So let him go. BUTLER: But you know, I think that, and from being there, I think onceāonce you allow a certain type of behavior then other people just get emboldened. But I think just likeā. JAY: Sure, once you send the message, itās a free-for-all. BUTLER: Absolutely. But my thing isāand listen, Iām an old school cop. The first rock thrown should have been the last rock thrown. Because now, you know, you may say, okay, allow them room to protest. Iām okay with that. Peacefully protest. But when you talk about looting, what about the family that owns that business thatās just been looted, and thatās how they feed their family? Well, how do you think they feel when they hear that, you know? Oh, the mayor said this. Well, so now Iāve lost my income because you allowed them to loot. You gave them room to destroy. And I think thatās unfair to the business people. I think itās just unfair to the peaceful protesters who just wanted to have their voices heard. JAY: Well, thatās the point of actuallyāthereās certain parts of this FOP document I have some serious questions about, and weāre going to get to. But the real point here is itās actually to smear the peaceful protesters, to make all the protesters the villain of the piece, and thatās the reason you let it go. Neill, as I said, I saw this in Toronto. Thereās been a lot of discussion about, in Baltimore, I donāt know how much you know about this particular case. But how thatāthereās these things called the fusion centers which are, we know thereās one just outside of Baltimore where you have an integration of the NSA and you have the FBI and Homeland Security, local police. And they have a lot of experience, and are working on this issue of what you do when cities erupt. I mean, is this one of the plans? This is why I ask, based on the Toronto experience, is part of the sort of strategy here is let it go crazy for a whileā. FRANKLIN: No, IāI donāt think thereās, you know, I just think this was poor decision-making by one or two people at the top in the city. BUTLER: I agree with you, Neill. FRANKLIN: Iām very familiar with the G20 incident and what that was about. But the police officers there, for instance in Toronto, they were prepared, equipment-wise, personnel-wise. And as you said, they let it go with this one group committing this destruction, and get to a point so that they can go in and pretty much enforce, you know, take enforcement action on everyone. No matter whether you were a peaceful protester or one of the ones causing the havoc. This was completely different here in Baltimore. And again, because we didnāt see the response that we saw in Toronto with G20. It was pretty much a stand down for the most part the entire way. Yeah, there were some arrests. You know, later on, during the curfew, andā. JAY: But the curfew itself is a violation, takes away peopleās rights to protest after 10:00. The occupation of the city. But I think it also showed, once there was going to be some consequences for looting, it stopped almost instantly. And itās only really the one night. FRANKLIN: I think what stopped that was the city coming together. The community folks, the community leaders. The faith community came out. Other leaders came out. And despite what we believe about and know about some of these gangs, I think they had an ulterior motive for coming together so that we could move beyond the curfew and beyond the mayhem, because they were losing business. BUTLER: Absolutely. They were losing money. Thatās right. FRANKLIN: [Inaud.] business and money. They [inaud.] get back to normal as quickly as possible so that they could continue their operation on the street corners. So I think that it was the community response that suppressed the uprising that we saw and the problems that we saw. JAY: Just finally, Batts made these comments at a roll call and other senior commanders involved, number one, shouldnāt there be some reckoning for the other commanders that told people let this happen. But two, would this really happen without some political people involved? I mean, the mayor, and who knows who else. I mean, who elseāsomeone else has to be on the decision that says, letās make them look violent. Letās vilify them, and then weāll do something. BUTLER: I agree with you, but will we ever find out. Because I can tell you now, just my opinion being in the police department for 29 years, no commander is going to be held accountable. I can tell you that now. You know, itāll just be swept under the rug. And weāll move on to business as usual. FRANKLIN: A lot of it has to do with just the, again, not just the men and women in the streets were not receiving the training that they should have, but the commanders donāt have training for dealing with these types of situations. You know, and how to strategically deal with a group of people who are throwing the rocks, throwing the bottles, and how to use the different formations so that you can do the things that are needed strategically, dividing the groups of people, sending them in particular directions, but not just to push them in a direction with nothing else planned. You know, you have to have other personnel to come in from different directions to take enforcement action, as well. Soā. JAY: Thatāwell, I wasnāt going to get into it in this segment, but maybe I have to. That gets into the whole beginning of all this. Likeāfirst of all, I still want to know why no oneās been charged for putting something on the internet which says, what was the phrase. Purge, I think it was. BUTLER: Purge. JAY: I mean, in this day and age, and with the NSA clearly on top of everything, how come we donāt know who did that? How did this all get instigated? For people that arenāt following this, there was some internet message that said purge, which was interpreted by some [of the] 30-40 kids apparently to go to this Mondawmin Mall, and apparently go create some mayhem or something at the mall. But this high school right across the street from the mall gets out right at the same moment. Well, who is it decides to close down the subway, the metro and the buses, so that kids canāt get home? And then who is it decides to corral all these kids and push them down to Penn and North? And then the kids are not going to react? FRANKLIN: Right, yeah. This is tons of poor planning in that area. JAY: Or real planning, to some effect. Because as I say, all the media attention was on the death of Freddie Gray. And after this happens, all the media attention is on a burning CVS. So you know, there may have been some planning in this. FRANKLN: Right. But really, you should have had a coordinated effort from three, at least three entities that I know of. Number one, the school system, number two, the MTA, and number three, the police department, as they were trying to prepare for this so-called purge at the Mondawmin area. But it seems like they werenāt even communicating with each other. They should have a staggered school release. The police department shouldnāt have had their, the men and women suited up and ready to go there. They should have been off. They could have been ready, but out of sight, completely on the other side of the mall. And then they should have made things appear as normal, and they should not have closed down the bus lines and the metro. And they could have been ready to deploy, if need be, the numbers that they needed. But when those kids got out there, no transportationāthese kids from Douglass, no transportation. And then seeing these officersāyou just made the situation much worse than what it needed to be. You just agitated thisā. JAY: Yeah, thatās my point. Well, maybe thatās what somebody wanted. Anyway, I wouldāIām going to give you both a softball, because Iām assuming youāre going to agree with this. But shouldnāt there be some serious inquiry into everything? Not just the court cases, but a full-scale inquiry into why and how all this happened? BUTLER: Oh, I agree. I agree. And I thinkāand you can help me out with this, Neill. I think thatās where [perth] came in. And I think they said they were going to do an inquiry into everything that happened with the civil unrest and everything. But I donāt know if itās still going to take place because of what happened with Commissioner Batts. Because I know his press conference was scheduled yesterday. But Iāve always said we need to look into something and see what we did right, see what we did wrong. Because if this should happen againāprayerfully, it doesnāt, that weāll be better, better prepared to handle it the next time. JAY: All right, thank you, gentlemen. Thanks for joining us. Thank you, and thank you, Neill. And thank you for joining us on the Real News Network.
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