See all LastWeekTonight transcripts on Youtube

Speaker 1

00:00

♪♪ The police, who, as these Montana cops show, frequently have to deal with humanity at its worst.

Speaker 2

00:09

What's the First Amendment? What's the First Amendment? What's the First Amendment?

Speaker 3

00:16

You don't even know!

Speaker 2

00:19

Ha! Constitution! All right,

Speaker 4

00:22

come on.

Speaker 1

00:23

Yeah, yeah. Constitution.

Speaker 2

00:25

Have a seat. Read it and live by it. Have a seat in the back of the car.

Speaker 2

00:30

Have a seat.

Speaker 5

00:33

Ron Paul 2012.

Speaker 1

00:34

-♪ ♪ -♪ It is... That's perfect. It's not like he needed to say Ron Paul 2012.

Speaker 1

00:41

That was implicit in everything he said up to that point. But it's certainly nice to have it confirmed. Now, as you know, the police have been at the center of a great deal of controversy lately. It's been impossible to escape from the Black Lives Matter movement, to Colin Kaepernick's protest, to Mary J.

Speaker 1

00:56

Blige awkwardly singing a Springsteen song at Hillary Clinton. ♪

Speaker 4

01:00

Is it a gun? Is it a knife? Is it a wallet?

Speaker 4

01:06

This is your life You can get killed just for living in Your American skin Oh

Speaker 5

01:21

Hillary, thank you

Speaker 1

01:23

Oh, God! Oh, God! Hillary would have won my undying respect if she just looked Mary J.

Speaker 1

01:30

Blige straight in the face and said, I support your message, but that was awkward as f**k and I wish you hadn't done it. That would've been honest. Now, the trust between police and the communities they serve is clearly a cornerstone of civilized society. Unfortunately, that trust has been rocked following a series of controversial police shootings, from Alton Sterling, to Philander Castile, to Tamir Rice, to so many others, I literally cannot mention them all.

Speaker 1

01:56

And cumulatively, these deaths, taken with countless smaller incidents of police misconduct, have led to a common refrain.

Speaker 6

02:03

Listen, I just want the police to be held accountable.

Speaker 3

02:06

We just want the system of policing to be held accountable.

Speaker 6

02:09

Those police need to be held accountable the same way that you're gonna hold me accountable if I broke

Speaker 5

02:13

the law.

Speaker 7

02:13

Whenever they mess up, whenever they commit a crime, whenever something goes wrong, I'm talking about serious stuff like murder and whatnot. These guys never get prosecuted.

Speaker 1

02:23

Now, those are valid frustrations, although as a quick side note, murder and whatnot would be an amazing CSI spin-off. That's a watchable show right there. So, police accountability is what we're going to be talking about tonight.

Speaker 1

02:36

And before we go any further, I should say, as the police will tell you, they have a difficult, dangerous, challenging job. No reasonable person would disagree with that. But that's all the more reason for ensuring that it's done to the highest standard. A cake decorator has a challenging job, but the worst thing that happens if he f**ks up is you end up wishing someone a happy analversary.

Speaker 1

02:57

And, yeah, while that's obviously not ideal, who knows, maybe it's their analversary too. -♪ ♪ -♪ The police will also argue that what they have is less an institutional problem than it is an individual 1.

Speaker 3

03:11

There's been some, bad apples out there. I think that, but I don't think that that is indicative of the entire police department.

Speaker 8

03:18

Yeah, you got bad apples, but you got bad apples in every occupation.

Speaker 6

03:21

Just like any business, you're

Speaker 8

03:23

gonna have some bad apples. They're out to protect you, and that's what policing's about. Are there bad apples?

Speaker 8

03:28

Yeah.

Speaker 1

03:29

Okay, that is a weirdly blase attitude, because bad apples can erode trust fast. Snow White wasn't afraid of apples before she took a bite out of that 1 really bad 1. But I'm telling you, the next time an old lady comes at her with a piece of fruit, Snow is gonna get the f*** out of there.

Speaker 1

03:45

-♪ ♪ -♪ And that argument, it's just a few bad apples, has some real problems. For a start, it doesn't address bad laws and policies that good officers are made to enforce, which we've touched on multiple times before. Criminal justice is kind of our show's signature bit. It is to us what assessing the shape of your poop is to Dr.

Speaker 1

04:05

Ross. Also, you can't claim there's just a few bad apples when no 1 knows exactly how many there are. There are nearly 18,000 different police departments in America, and they are not great about reporting or sharing data. In fact, even some surprisingly basic questions are hard to answer, as the head of the FBI admits.

Speaker 9

04:26

We can't have an informed discussion because we don't have data. People have data about who went to a movie last weekend or how many books were sold or how many cases of the flu walked into an emergency room, and I cannot tell you how many people were shot by police in the United States last month, last year, or anything about the demographics.

Speaker 1

04:44

How is that possible? We have numbers for almost everything. We have ratings for how many people watched Jeremy Piven in Mr.

Speaker 1

04:51

Selfridge. The government even tracks how many people are killed by falling TVs each year. A number surely inflated by people who were watching Mr. Selfridge and said, -"I choose death," and then pulled the TV down on top of them.

Speaker 1

05:05

In fact, the best numbers on police misconduct come from a researcher named Philip Stinson, who accumulated over a decade's worth of data by setting up 48 Google Alerts in 2005. Google Alerts! And his stats are truly chilling. Out of thousands of fatal police shootings since 2005, only 77 officers have been charged with murder or manslaughter, and to date, only 26 have been convicted.

Speaker 1

05:32

And while the truth is, many police shootings are justified, 26 seem suspiciously low. So how can that be the number? Well, broadly speaking, most investigations of police misconduct face a few obstacles, and the first 1 is big. Misconduct is often investigated internally by an officer's colleagues, which does not inspire confidence.

Speaker 1

05:56

Although if you listen to the police chief in Bakersfield, California, the system is just fine.

Speaker 6

06:01

You're absolutely confident that that structure of review is entirely impartial?

Speaker 2

06:05

I am. These guys are experts in the field. They're also part of

Speaker 6

06:09

the department they're investigating.

Speaker 2

06:10

They have hundreds of years of law enforcement experience combined, and so I have the utmost confidence in these individuals.

Speaker 1

06:16

Here's the thing, there. Combined experience is not a thing that automatically makes you do a better job. Our staff has a combined 347 years in television, and that doesn't mean we won't just throw a f**kload of raisins on a desk and call it entertainment.

Speaker 1

06:31

And... And unsurprisingly, the DOJ has consistently found flaws with internal investigations. In Cleveland, investigators admitted they intentionally cast an officer in the best light possible when investigating a use of deadly force. And in Miami, investigations took so long that at least 2 officers shot and killed a suspect while still under investigation for a previous shooting.

Speaker 1

06:56

And there should never be a second 1 of anything before you figure out whether the first was justified. Call it the Dolphin Tail 2 rule. How is there a second 1 of these? I thought Harry Connick Jr.

Speaker 1

07:10

Ate the dolphin at the end of the first 1. I don't know for sure, I haven't seen it, But no 1 has, and that's the fucking point. And in Baltimore, the DOJ report included the story of Joe Crystal, a detective who had reported 2 fellow officers for alleged excessive force and was labeled a rat, with 1 colleague leaving pictures of cheese on his desk, which is almost charming. Until you learn how far some others went.

Speaker 10

07:38

He found himself cut off. He says he didn't get backup in dangerous situations. Someone even left a dead rat on his windshield.

Speaker 2

07:46

It was like their way of telling me, you know, you don't belong here, this is what we think of you.

Speaker 1

07:52

Ouch. Leaving a dead rat on an officer's windshield is definitely hostile, unless, of course, that officer is a police cat. In which case, it means, welcome to the force, whiskers. We're lucky to have you.

Speaker 1

08:05

Enjoy the rat! But police accountability doesn't just suffer from an unwritten code of silence. That code can be enshrined within state laws or union contracts as well. For instance, 1 reason it can be hard to spot problem officers is that in many jurisdictions, policies allow disciplinary records to be destroyed.

Speaker 1

08:24

In Baton Rouge, a sustained complaint can be stricken from your record after just 18 months. And in Mesa, Arizona, when a journalist started demanding records, a police chief actually made an internal video reminding his officers that there was a way for them to clean up their past.

Speaker 11

08:42

I don't want anybody to have to relive a problem that's already been adjudicated, that they've already been disciplined for, that has already seen scrutiny in the public eye. So, purge your files according to policy. Make sure that, there's the things that you don't want in there aren't in there.

Speaker 1

08:59

That Seems wrong. You should not be able to erase parts of your past that are damning. This is an official police file, not a Volkswagen corporate history that somehow starts after World War II.

Speaker 1

09:11

Yeah. Nazi cars. The choice of the Nazis. And deleting records is not an officer's only option to escape their past.

Speaker 1

09:21

Sometimes, after an incident, they'll simply resign and move to another police department. This happens so much, people in law enforcement call them gypsy cops. In South Carolina, a TV station looked into 1 officer who'd spent a total of 9 years on the job, working for 9 different departments, 3 of them in just 1 year. And in 1 case, he left in spectacular fashion.

Speaker 12

09:44

Deputies believe Yarbrough's driving ability was compromised, and they said they discovered a half-empty bottle of rye whiskey and a baggie of assorted pills in his patrol cruiser. According to the state records, Yarbrough said, I'm not taking no drug test. I guess I'll resign.

Speaker 1

10:00

Holy shit! I'm not taking no drug test. I guess I'll resign." is a sentence you do not want to hear from a police officer.

Speaker 1

10:08

It's barely appropriate coming from a roadie leaving Aerosmith. And gypsy cops have been involved in tragic incidents. In the Tamir Rice case, the officer who shot the 12-year-old had been in the process of being fired from his previous job before resigning. But the Cleveland police missed that red flag when hiring him because they didn't read his personnel file, which detailed an incident during weapons training where he had a dangerous loss of composure, leading his supervisor to conclude, I do not believe time nor training will be able to change or correct these deficiencies.

Speaker 1

10:43

That is the kind of performance review that should keep you from getting hired at Staples, let alone a job where you're given a fucking gun. That cop, by the way, was never even charged. Like many such cases, his never made it past the grand jury, which seems inherently surprising until you realize local prosecutors and cops have to work together all the time, which can get very complicated.

Speaker 13

11:08

As a former prosecutor, I can tell you, you work with the police, you rely upon the police, you trust the police, the police are in your office reviewing evidence, examining evidence, preparing for trial, and then have to turn around and prosecute them to prosecute you?

Speaker 1

11:23

Exactly. For a prosecutor to go after a cop they work with is incredibly awkward. I can't think of anything more inherently awkward, other than, of course, this.

Speaker 4

11:34

Oh... -♪ Oh... ♪ -- AUDIENCE LAUGHING,

Speaker 5

11:36

APPLAUDING -♪ Hillary, thank you.

Speaker 1

11:39

Oh, God, oh, God, it's not getting any better! Nothing in Hillary's life has ever been more awkward than that. And think about what a high bar that is!

Speaker 1

11:49

-♪ 00000... ♪ -♪ 00000... ♪ And even when cases go to trial, officers have a major advantage, which is that juries tend to have a natural predisposition to trust them.

Speaker 14

12:00

Police officers truly get a presumption of innocence, whereas most criminal defendants don't come in with any presumption of innocence. You're swimming upstream. Usually a judge will toss the case at a preliminary hearing, or a grand jury will refuse to indict, so you never even get to trial.

Speaker 14

12:16

And jurors just do not come in with any belief whatsoever that officers can, can, commit a crime. They just don't.

Speaker 1

12:23

It's true. Many people see a police uniform and automatically think, trustworthy. Unless, of course, it includes a sleeveless shirt and a boombox, in which case they think stripper, and sometimes, wait, gym from middle school?

Speaker 1

12:39

And under the law, the police generally have a certain amount of leeway regarding lethal force, meaning that fatal shootings can be considered legal even if they are unnecessary or disproportional. There is even a shorthand for such cases. It's lawful but awful, which I believe is also the legal definition of Woody Allen's marriage. I think that's it.

Speaker 1

13:01

I think... Who are you angry with here? -...put the booze back in your pocket.

Speaker 5

13:06

-...put the booze back in

Speaker 1

13:06

your pocket. And... And on top of all this, officers can bring in expert witnesses who can present nearly any situation as a potential threat.

Speaker 1

13:16

Take Dr. Bill Lewinsky, who runs something called the Force Science Institute. For years, he has testified on behalf of police officers. Here he is providing a rationale for why it may be okay to shoot someone that has a knife.

Speaker 15

13:28

Knives can actually be more dangerous than a gun. They don't have to be reloaded. They can be used at close distance.

Speaker 15

13:34

We know that a stab from a knife, or a stab or a cut, can be extremely quick.

Speaker 1

13:41

Hey, come on. That is not the motion you make when you are stabbing someone. That is the motion you make when you are a teenage magician finishing a trick.

Speaker 1

13:50

Is this your card? -♪ ♪ -♪ But... But there is no doubt, there is no doubt, a knife is a dangerous weapon. But what if someone doesn't have a knife?

Speaker 1

14:00

Dr. Lewinsky, could force still be necessary when someone is unarmed?

Speaker 15

14:05

First of all, it's significant to know that unarmed does not mean they're not dangerous. In fact, the fist may have been the very first weapon that human beings used against each other. In fact, I've measured strikes on human beings by other humans, and the strikes can occur at a speed of 4, 5, or 6 strikes in a second.

Speaker 15

14:24

And some of them, really hard.

Speaker 1

14:27

What is he talking about? The only time a fist is a match for a weapon is during a game of rock, paper, scissors. And even then, it can be defeated by paper for reasons which make no sense to me whatsoever.

Speaker 1

14:40

But that's not the point. Look, look, defendants are allowed to call expert witnesses, of course. What is weird is Lewinsky has appeared before grand juries, which is where prosecutors are supposed to present their best, unchallenged case for an officer's indictment. So, why would they let Lewinsky in there?

Speaker 1

14:59

They're essentially shooting their own case in the foot, which is presumably justified, because feet were the second weapon ever invented. And listen, we've focused heavily on trials here, but in a perfect world, there would be enough accountability throughout policing that the blunt instrument of a trial would very rarely be necessary. So, how can we fix all this? Well, for a start, now, body cameras have increased transparency and trust in many places.

Speaker 1

15:25

In Rialto, California, after just 1 year of using them, the number of complaints filed against officers fell by 88 percent, and the use of force dropped by around 60 percent. And when Baltimore's trial run of a body camera program ended, their police commissioner begged for their return.

Speaker 16

15:42

Police officers want cameras. I think this is just a moment where everybody wants cameras. I was speaking to some folks just before we came in here, and apparently we had a couple police officers who were turning in their body-worn cameras, and they were asking, you know, when can I, when can we get these back?

Speaker 1

15:57

Right. And these cops aren't M. Night Shyamalan. If they plead with you to let them have a camera again, you should give it to them.

Speaker 1

16:06

Give it to them. And body cameras are obviously just 1 solution. Other cities have tried requiring officers to file separate reports every time there's a use of force, or they've used early intervention systems to try and spot problem officers, or they've brought in outside prosecutors to handle controversial cases. The problem is, police unions fiercely fight any attempted reforms.

Speaker 1

16:30

Just listen to James Stewart, head of the biggest police union in Newark, where the DOJ found that 3 quarters of police stops had no legal justification. To listen to him, if anything, the police are being too scrutinized.

Speaker 17

16:44

I don't know where the problem started, but there is an animosity or a lack of trust. You know, as soon as there's any sort of physical force exerted by a police officer, everybody's got their cell phones out.

Speaker 5

16:55

You know,

Speaker 17

16:55

they want to catch us doing something wrong. When you got the cop out there in the street facing all this negative opposition day in and day out, does it come a point when the police officer's gonna say, hey, you know what? Maybe he doesn't have to go to jail.

Speaker 17

17:10

Yeah, maybe I'll take the path of least resistance. Maybe I'll put the blinders on as I'm driving by the corner where the 10 guys are hanging out.

Speaker 1

17:17

Okay, there is a lot to unpack there. First, throwing a tantrum and threatening not to do your job because you faced public criticism is pretty childish. You think Steven Seagal gave up on his movie career just because people said mean things?

Speaker 1

17:31

Of course not. Just this year, he starred in End of a Gun, The Perfect Weapon, The Asian Connection, Code of Honor, and Sniper Special Ops. Why? Because he's a f**king professional, that's why.

Speaker 1

17:42

And he commits to his job. But... But more importantly, when you say you might ignore 10 people hanging out on a corner, yeah, maybe do that. Because that's not typically a crime.

Speaker 1

17:57

In some cases, 10 people on a corner is just a fucking yard sale. Still, for many people, Stewart's argument that, you know, for police to be effective, they need to be given broad leeway to use force is very appealing. It's especially appealing for those of us who, for whatever reason, are fairly confident that that force won't be applied to them. But it is worth looking at the actual cost of that trade-off, because a lack of trust in police accountability leads to a lack of trust in police.

Speaker 1

18:29

And we now have reached the point where there are schools who host classes like this 1 to teach kids how to safely interact with law enforcement.

Speaker 5

18:37

I want you to repeat after me. I want you to say, -"Officer." -♪ Officer. -"Am I free to go?"

Speaker 1

18:42

-♪

Speaker 6

18:42

Am I free to go?

Speaker 5

18:43

1 more time. Officer. -♪ Officer.

Speaker 1

18:45

-♪

Speaker 5

18:45

Am I free to go?

Speaker 1

18:46

-♪

Speaker 5

18:46

Am I free to go?

Speaker 1

18:46

-♪

Speaker 6

18:46

Am I free to go?

Speaker 1

18:47

-♪

Speaker 4

18:47

The hope is, with this simple advice, teens can protect their rights and maybe their lives.

Speaker 1

18:54

That is so fucking depressing. Especially when you realize that that's probably the only class where nobody will raise their hand and say, when are we ever going to use this? And when you see something like that, it makes it hard to buy in when someone dismisses police misconduct issues like this.

Speaker 8

19:11

They're out to protect you, and that's what policing's about. Are there Bad apples? Yeah.

Speaker 1

19:16

Yeah, but here's the thing about that. The phrase isn't, it's just a few bad apples, don't worry about it. The phrase is, a few bad apples spoil the barrel.

Speaker 1

19:25

And we currently have a system which is set up to ignore bad apples, destroy bad apples records, persecute good apples for speaking up, and shuffle dangerous, emotionally unstable apples around to the point that children have to attend f***ing apple classes. You cannot look at our current situation and claim that anybody likes them apples.