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  • Hello, subscribers.

  • Hello, others.

  • David Hoffman, filmmaker with another clip.

  • This is a live presentation you're about to see from 1969 the police versus the community.

  • I think in some ways it's gonna really remind you of issues today and in other ways.

  • Things have changed and improved, so think about the time.

  • 1969.

  • Tension in America.

  • Violence in America, not street crime.

  • So much anti war protests by antiwar demonstrators, not hippies, as some of my commentators accused.

  • They're not hippies.

  • They're anti what demonstrators?

  • Small group, pretty violent.

  • And then the black community becoming violent as well.

  • After Martin Luther King was killed, the violence really picked up in the inner city black community.

  • The police are the symbols in that society at that time off, Law and order.

  • Nixon, Law and Order.

  • And there's an enormous amount of tension.

  • First of all, they're almost all men.

  • The 99% men, 99% white in the black communities, and they see their job.

  • And I've interviewed cops have told me this non as stopping crime, but as keeping order very different from stopping crime.

  • In fact, crime rose during that period and In many ways it was because the police were not on the streets blocking crime.

  • They were making law and order.

  • On the other hand, the police had a job to do.

  • They were caught in the middle.

  • They were doing the job they thought the community wanted.

  • So you're going to see live on public television?

  • Incredible Alive Night, where police talked to activists on the public is watching.

  • You don't see that anymore, do you?

  • Do you ever see live television of multiple sides of the partisan divide talking to each other?

  • Even though the talk is rough, I'm very interested to see what you think about now.

  • For example, things changed.

  • They hired women, they had black people.

  • They trained in community relations.

  • The police.

  • It's not the same as it was back then.

  • Certainly not, in my view, How do you see it fight racist policemen?

  • Uh, normal set of things here.

  • If you want me to mention it will say here now we've got to put the get these four legged and two legged beast.

  • We know none of them are.

  • The brothers and sisters are going to stand for these talk business.

  • What's the motive behind this.

  • What's the motive behind this sort of propaganda?

  • Mr Kovaleski?

  • I'll tell you what it is to start up the hostility between the police and the members of a minority group.

  • You saw two perfect examples here tonight.

  • Off.

  • Why?

  • There is hostility toward the police.

  • Just take one good long look, a Reverend Clean when he says that we are the enemy, that we are the invader.

  • And he is the man that says here that white policemen are the ones who are enforcing the laws for the white power structure.

  • Mr.

  • Khan Volesky, Let me ask you a question.

  • I would like to know.

  • I'd like to know from Mr Kovaleski, number one if he knows of any taste in the black community where there are automatic weapons.

  • Do I know of any case?

  • Yes.

  • Wasn't it recently that we just rounded up 15 people in the city of New York for a an arsenal of automatic weapons?

  • I don't believe so.

  • You don't believe I would like you to read the New York Evening Ideo?

  • I do.

  • I read a very close in there.

  • I read it very closely.

  • I would like to also I like to also ask my gave you this file here that's filled with hundreds of people that have been locked up for carrying guns.

  • Right.

  • I'd like to ask you another question.

  • Mr Kovaleski, do you believe that there has ever been a case off police brutality against the black citizen in the city of New York?

  • That all depends on what you consider a police.

  • Your physical abuse off a citizen in the city.

  • Physical abuse in the city.

  • I was, If I was to say, Do you believe that there's ever been a case on isolating?

  • Let me tell you one little story.

  • Let me tell you one little story, Mr Kovaleski.

  • There was a woman by the name of Ida Brown.

  • She was arrested by two police officers and charged with assaulting them in Newark and New York.

  • She was Negro.

  • She was brought to trial and a conversation.

  • During the trial, a prosecutor heard these police officers talk about how they had rigged a story against this woman.

  • He removed himself from the case and took the witness stand himself and testified as to what he had heard.

  • The case was dismissed.

  • The interesting thing is that these two police officers has still to today not had charges brought against them for perjury or either Departmental charges.

  • I can't you, Mr Kurban.

  • I'll answer that.

  • I don't know about the departmental charges, but I know that as a result of that particular incident were the approach Cherie charges filed against a police officer.

  • County prosecutor?

  • It's not after the New York police.

  • What do you mean?

  • It's up to the North Police, I said.

  • It's not up to the New York police.

  • Let me say this, Mr Carvin, to admit that there are to say that there aren't isolated cases of police brutality would be a bold faced lie.

  • Ah, number one in the city of Philadelphia here a colored man came forward and squealed on ram on What's the rain?

  • It's a colored organization, very revolutionary action movement movement.

  • Now this organization had hired him to shoot kill the police commissioner, the mayor of Philadelphia in a district attorney of Philadelphia.

  • And he pointed out to the police and to the FBI, where the potassium sign nine was stashed away so that when they started the riot, they were going to poison 1500 policemen.

  • Now I want to ask this reverend over in Detroit who is the leader of the colored people in Detroit because I have a book here, Reader's Digest, which is a very respected book.

  • And it states that The New York Times said that the executive secretary of the N A.

  • A C P in the city of Detroit condemns the police because they didn't put force into the riot area soon enough.

  • Now, do they want force or don't they want for us?

  • Chief Jenkins, can you pull some of these strings together from your point of view and get some balance out of this discourse?

  • Well, I'd like to say at this point that I regret that more police chief not appear on this program tonight because I don't think they've been well represented on this program.

  • I think his emphasize that this nation has a very serious problem, that we must find an answer to it now.

  • The first order Business must always be long in order and justice for old.

  • Now the causes must be identified and it must be corrected.

  • And that is exactly what we're determined to do here in Atlanta, Georgia and I'd like Forever Williams to speak on that also.

  • Thank you very much, Chief.

  • I've listened to the dialogue which has been going on here, and I I know that the gentleman in Newark have some problems, but I don't think we've been talking about what really concerns it.

  • One of the things that I'd like us to get back on.

  • And this is the question of white fear and the fact that the police department in the city of Detroit is arming itself with stone or rifle seems me toe lend support to the claim of the minorities in that city that they have something to fear.

  • I certainly share the opinion of somebody who said this is not the sort of thing we wanted a democratic society.

  • Uh, now, one of the things that we've got to understand is that white citizens do not have the same reason to complain as Negroes do against police department.

  • Why is that so, reverend?

  • This is so because policemen do make a difference in the treatment off Negro citizens and white.

  • Why is that so?

  • That is so because they they belong to a majority race of people who in this nation feel that they want to be a difference made between Negroes and whites.

  • Anybody in his sane mind knows that in America we have made a difference between white and Negro for a long time.

  • And the majority the white still feel Negroes.

  • I inferior the rights and that they want to be treated differently.

  • Anybody Williams time is time is running out on us.

  • We're going to get back to you.

  • I hope that I hold a wake for them for the moment, to Alderman Joseph Clark in ST Louis on and get some further reactions from you.

  • Alderman Clark.

  • Yes, Mr Martin.

  • I'm going to get in here before we destroy ourselves with guns and bullets.

  • I would like to say that I think that income, police, community relations we must realize that this is just one way that the two races system in America reveals itself.

  • I think that too often the hostility that Negroes have against white people in general is reflected in the attitude toward police.

  • And I know that too often the hostility that whites have against Negro is reflected in the white policeman's attitude toward Negro and that generally white people sit back and let the police handle.

  • They're in this battle.

  • I would like to ask your distinguished panel there in New York.

  • How can we mobilize the majority of race in America to remove some of the injustices against the Negro people?

  • I think that it's very important that the community community have something to say about police operations.

  • And perhaps this is a basic problem.

  • The community, particularly the black community, has never had anything to say about police function or how policemen treat them.

  • Uh, in their own communities, for instance.

  • Ah, why does a black community have to put up, say, with racist policemen?

  • Why don't they have the right to say we don't want this racist policemen who calls out Children *** working in our community?

  • Why can't they expel that policeman?

  • It seems that this is a right of the white community, and Negro community has to put up with this type of thing because they don't have any power.

  • I want to go for a moment, Thio, Reverend plagues congregation in Detroit and ask Reverend Clegg if I can still get him, Uh, nobody.

  • I think Dr Clegg would deny that there is a struggle in this country.

  • Can you still hear me way with this white hypocrisy with the end of the white people to set up a situation that they can control?

  • We are tired of sociologists and psychologists talking us to death.

  • We're tired of police commissioners and tweets experts telling us that we're not getting our heads with.

  • We are through.

  • The black Revolution is in progress and it's going on way.

  • Doctor percent, a psychiatrist.

  • I don't care what they do.

  • It's going on.

  • There's nothing they can do.

  • Doctor.

  • Doctor Dussel.

  • There's a so called I don't want you to put, uh, reverend on a couch, so to speak.

  • But I would like you to address yourself to just what he said.

  • Well, I think, uh, Reverend Clegg, like many other black people in this country Ah, very angry because they're not listened to, uh, the charges and other problems that they bring to the establishment.

  • Uh, continually brushed aside that there really isn't any dialogue.

  • The police community relations programs generally are not a two way type of dialogue that public relations programs where the police try to sell their self image as they're trying to do tonight that group in Philadelphia and that there's there's no admission on their part of bending that there's a problem that they have to deal with.

  • There's a tendency if you talk about the population as a whole and how the police behaved toward them, too.

  • Ignore the fact that it tends to be concentrated in the ghetto, and in many ways the slum precinct is like the Slums School.

  • It doesn't get the best of the Police Department, and indeed, there is probably the least dialogue at that level of the community.

  • Our department in Philadelphia has had a community relations program going on for many, many years, and in my opinion it's a waste of time because we have to put up with people like Rap Brown Carmichael and people such as that you can.

  • We put members of of, ah, country that's got 200 million people in it to Mr Harrington, you have like a missing something in defensive policeman.

  • If you would let me say it now, you bounced all around the country.

  • You know, we policemen are not responsible because people riot on account of what their educational problem is that they're not getting a proper education.

  • We policemen are not responsible because people are not getting jobs and getting paid big salaries.

  • We policemen are not responsible for a lot of things.

  • We policemen didn't send Carmichael over to the other side, the dame, and cursed this country and aspirate to be defeated.

  • We didn't ask wrapped around to demand that the American flag be taken off the stage before he talked.

  • But if trouble starts, we would have to stop it.

  • And I say to you that I think we have been too much, and I think it's time for reason in this country, not treason.

  • What?

  • What sort of reason do you mean, Mr Harrington, that people such as you now you have bent over backwards all night just to try to rectify the ones that will go on a walk out Now, we had every reason in the world that walked out on you tonight because you refused to let us get our say in on many of these things.

  • Now you got the experts there.

  • You've got the experts who was on the President's Crime Commission.

  • Well, let's hear how they would handle the riot.

  • Let's see what they would do if they had to go into a riot area.

  • What would they do with their clubs?

  • Where would they be?

  • And let me say this to you.

  • What?

  • All of the experts, I hope the people in this country remember that last year crime went up 15% over what it was last year, and it's only the decent people that crime is being committed on by hoodlums.

  • And it's only one thin line between crime and society.

  • And that's us policemen.

  • I have to agree with Mr Harrington because thes ghettos, conditions that exist in them like a unemployment run down housing and several other causes were not caused by the police and the policeman that want to beat their didn't ask to be put in that specific place.

  • But when we took an oath, we took an oath to preserve going order not to go around four string community service is because we have our hands full with full on order.

  • Now, I am completely flabbergasted at the gentleman.

  • If I should call him a gentleman in Detroit with what he is preaching, I was always told that ministers of the Costco were supposed to preach love.

  • Now here is a man positively preaching hate.

  • Now I'm beginning to wonder whether he is a minister of Christ or a minister of Satan.

  • What has happened is that we have reduced this dialogue.

  • Tow the question.

  • Whose side are you on our side of their sign.

  • Now that statement of the case is entirely irrelevant and beside the point end of American society accepts it as the terms and conditions off the A.

  • Addressing the problem, then our future is very dim indeed.

  • I'm inclined to believe that are concerned with the police this evening is not to burden them with the responsibility for the whole of the problem, but rather to suggest the sense in which a sensitive regard for their role in addressing the tasks to which they are assigned will indeed minimizing some degree the kind of tensions which are rampant in the society between the various groups.

  • And it is important that we make certain that in their input they do not further aggravate the situation.

  • Not that they cause it, but it might be important, terribly important that we see to it that the police actually give us the time in terms of which we can resolve these basic issues were prisoners of time, total community, and I speak primarily announcer, the white community.

  • It must begin to work at changing the basic attitudes in our nation.

  • And until that is done, make the police Department as good as you will.

  • We shall not removed by doing that causes a right in this nation.

  • We're a pluralistic society, and people ought to be encouraged, indifference and an expression of that difference.

  • And there ought to be a way to compose those differences without the kinds of confrontations I'd like to see.

  • The police abandoned this dead dog they've been beating about the police Review board.

  • I don't happen to be one that was ever in favor of it.

  • In fact, I've been publicly against it as a solution of our problems simply because they didn't think it got to the root of the problem, namely, the developing of confidence of the public in the way in which the police addressed the claims and protests about grievances.

  • But I do think the police ought to take seriously into into their minds the possibility of developing confidence on the part of all sections of the public by in their own way, experimenting in developing channels by which grievances can be presented to them, accepted without prejudice, processed in a responsible way and in accounting and answer me available to those who posted pro tested.

  • And if that is done, then the many of these things would put aside that they now have occasion to take a objection to on their merits is having no warrant but to simply say it isn't so.

  • There's not going to be an answer to these people.

  • They are aggrieved.

Hello, subscribers.

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