January 21, 2025 • 44 mins
Retired Albuquerque Police Department officer Daniel Carr is stepping into the limelight to discuss the murky waters of police reform and accountability. With his platform, Police Law News on TikTok and Substack, Daniel fearlessly addresses the intricacies of policing. His candid analysis promises to offer a refreshing dose of truthfulness amidst a landscape cluttered with extreme narratives. Alongside Daniel, we challenge the status quo, scrutinizing the roles of public figures and police chiefs in perpetuating or dismantling misinformation.
In our conversation, we navigate the controversial discourse surrounding systematic racism in law enforcement. We question the efficacy of police reforms since 2014, particularly when faced with persistent trends in fatal police shootings. Daniel shares his perspective on the unintended consequences of defunding police departments, revealing how crime statistics fuel public perceptions of systemic racism. Through his firsthand experiences, he sheds light on the lesser-discussed role of Department of Justice interventions, weighing their impact on communities like Albuquerque, which has witnessed a significant rise in violent crime despite such oversight.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:02):
Welcome to Courageous Leadership with Travis Yates,
where leaders find the insights,advice and encouragement they
need to lead courageously.
Travis Yates (00:12):
Welcome back to the show.
I'm so honored you're spendinga few minutes with us here today
and I'm excited about today'sguest.
It's been almost two yearssince we had him on the show.
He's one of the mostfascinating guests we've had.
We've gotten lots of requeststo have him back On today's show
.
It's my honor to have DanielCarr with us.
Daniel retired in 2024 aftertwo decades with the Albuquerque
(00:34):
Police Department.
During his tenure at thedepartment, he earned a master's
degree in criminal justice anda law degree Certainly difficult
to do.
A few years ago he startedPolice Law News on TikTok and to
break down use of forceincidents, the channel grew, as
well as his content, into a substack called the Police Law
Newsletter.
(00:54):
You can locate that atpolicelawnewssubstackcom.
The content is free, but Ihighly recommend spending just
$50 a year to get in the mind ofDaniel Carr each and every day.
Daniel Carr, how are you doing?
Daniel Carr (01:09):
I'm doing great.
Thank you so much for having meback on.
Travis Yates (01:12):
Well, man, I know you've retired almost a year ago
, and the last time we spokenone of us were retired, and now
we're both retired.
How's that been for you?
I know your content hasaccelerated, and it's certainly.
I recommend it everywhere, andso does that help you in
retirement to be able to kind oflean into more of this content.
Daniel Carr (01:32):
Yeah, thank you so much for all those kind words
and yeah, that's one of thethings I'm doing more since I
retired just about a year ago isdefinitely writing more
articles on the police law newssub stack and really just doing
more content in general on thepolice law news sub stack and
really just doing more contentin general.
That's that's what I've beendoing a lot of in retirement and
it's been nice to have the timefreedom to really be able to
dedicate to that.
Travis Yates (01:52):
Well, you speak about the time freedom and I
noticed on today's bio I couldtalk about you worked at
Albuquerque.
Last time we were sort ofshying away from that because
you were on the job.
Daniel Carr (02:05):
Do you feel a little more just freedom of
expression now that you're awayfrom a job?
Absolutely, I feel like I'm notonly so.
When I was with the AlbuquerquePolice Department I think a lot
of officers who are active kindof feel this way as well is
that you know you have thefreedom to talk about national
issues, but things that arehappily happening locally in
your own department.
A lot of times people stay awayfrom that, which is probably
the right thing to do.
So yes, I definitely feel likeI have the freedom to talk about
issues that are going on in thecity I live in.
Travis Yates (02:28):
Yeah, I don't know if you experienced this, but
you know I was in the media alot on the job and but I almost
felt like a weight was liftedoff, uh, after I retired,
because it always seemed likesomeone was sort of looking over
my shoulder and reviewing whatI was doing.
Of course, I was always likeyou, just tell me to stop.
Like in policy, you can tell meto stop talking to the media.
Why are you letting me talk tomedia if it makes you so nervous
?
And certainly they used it tobeat me up a few times.
(02:50):
But I felt it was importantbecause I was speaking the truth
and that's the interestingthing about you, daniel, it's
why I recommend you so much isyou sort of come at this from a
down the middle angle, Right,you will.
You will talk bad about apolice incident, just like to
(03:10):
talk good about a policeincident.
You're very critical on thekind of the anti police
agitators that never findanything good in police, and
it's really refreshing, but Iwonder why you're one of just a
few people that do that.
Uh, I'm just going to get yourthoughts on it because I have a
few opinions of myself.
So you, you come at it from astraight straight from uh, you
know, here's the truth, here'sthe facts.
Despite all the noise, why areyou?
Why are there is only one,daniel Card, only a few other
(03:31):
cousins of you.
Daniel Carr (03:33):
That's a great question and I think there are a
few other people who do this.
But one of the reasons that Ido it is because my purpose is
to really have an honestconversation.
It's because I I believe thatpolicing is so important that if
a police officer makes an error, I think it's really important
to know exactly what that erroris.
So, was it an individual policeofficer who did something wrong
?
Was it the policy?
(03:54):
Was it the training that theyhad?
Because, Travis, if we can'thave an honest conversation
about what went wrong, thenwe're never going to be able to
make policing better.
And you know, I try to come atthis from that perspective
because, you know, just like areflex, always supporting the
police officer or always beingagainst the police officer To me
that kind of criticism it's notinteresting and it's just lazy,
(04:17):
and that is not what I'm tryingto do.
Travis Yates (04:19):
Well, man, you just nailed it right there.
I mean, and you're right, it'sfrom both sides.
You'll have the pro police side, even internal police, that
everything we do there's areason for it and you'll have
the anti-police side.
That is just crazy.
And they're both playing tosimilar audiences, right?
I don't know how maybe there's10% on one side and 20% on the
other.
There's similar audiencesthey're playing to and the truth
(04:41):
is it's just so rare.
I mean, I'm not going to go intowhere the media has been in the
last decade and and and all thecrazy stuff that's happened,
but I think I feel a sense and ashift in America to where
they're kind of let me let mejust, you know, caution, my
audience, because this, you know, I don't like to cuss, but
they're kind of tired of thebullshit, right, daniel?
(05:01):
They're kind of tired of beinglied to.
And that's where you come in.
And when I think about policeleaders, this has been a
complaint of mine for many yearsbecause law enforcement has
just taken it and been beatendown by really a lot of lies.
Some things we earned, but alot of it has been lies.
The vast majority has been lies, and our police leaders have
(05:21):
been just deathly silent.
Our police organizations havebeen silent, sometimes going
along with the false narrative.
And here you come along and I'mthinking to myself hey, no
offense to Daniel Carr, you're asmart, intelligent guy, but do
we not have any police leadersin America that can at least
match what Daniel's doing?
What do you think is going onthere?
Daniel Carr (05:42):
What I think is going on there is that there
just isn't any incentive for alot of times for police leaders
to be honest, because, kind oflike we talked about the last
time, if you're a chief ofpolice, you could have great
ideas, you could be, want to bethe best leader possible and
have all these great ideas foryour department, but the mayor
or the city council, if youdon't do what they want, through
no fault of your own, that'sjust the job.
(06:03):
They're going to replace youand find someone else who does.
So it's like there almost isn'tan incentive.
And the example that I want togive real quick is you know, in
the Roger Fortson case so thiswas the officer-involved
shooting of the airman inFlorida.
So Ben Crump, the civil rightsattorney, before the body cam
footage became publiclyavailable, ben Crump said three
things in the media.
He said police officers went tothe wrong address.
(06:25):
He said they didn't announcethemselves and he said that they
forced entry into the apartment.
He said those things in themedia.
As soon as he said that,without seeing any of the body
camera video, I made a TikTokimmediately and I said this
doesn't sound right.
And then we see the body cameravideo a couple of days later.
Every single one of those wasobjectively incorrect.
(06:45):
So the leaders in that city notjust the chief or the sheriff,
but why aren't other cityleaders at least coming out and
saying that, because you know sowell that still thinks that
Breonna Taylor was sleeping inher bed when, when she was shot.
And we know that isn't true.
(07:09):
But the first thing that peoplehear.
It's really difficult to getthat out of their out of their
minds and I wish I had a betteranswer for why police leaders
don't want to go and correctthose objectively false
narratives.
Well, it's.
Travis Yates (07:24):
I don't see this in many other professions and
it's certainly unique to lawenforcement.
It's bothered me to the corebecause it has hurt the
profession so much.
I mean, we could spend daystalking about incidents that
were just fabricated lies, thatpolice leaders knew the answer
within seconds.
You know, you think of the Ibelieve it was Kenosha where, oh
, he shot him in the back and hewas a peacekeeper.
(07:45):
And literally the minute thepolice leader showed up and said
what happened, they knewexactly the truth.
But it was eight days after theincident before, not the police
leader told the truth, thepolice union guy told the truth
eight days later.
And then the DA came out, Idon't know, a month or two later
, and tried to tell the truth,but nobody listened.
Right, and what we got out ofthat, daniel, was riots, right,
(08:08):
and we could, we could talkabout riots in America.
That was happened because oflies, and I think you're right,
I think you know.
Let's just, let's just break itdown to what it is Police
leaders.
They're weak, they're cowards,they're anyone that refuses to
tell the truth.
You can't put leader in thesame sentence, right?
We're not asking them to comeout and bad mouth people or bad
(08:28):
mouth, breonna Taylor, or badmouth.
People Just tell the truth, andI think that's what's so
refreshing about your content isyou just tell the truth.
And I want to ask you, whatkind of pushback do you get just
by telling the truth?
Daniel Carr (08:44):
So the pushback that I get just by telling the
truth.
So the pushback that Itypically get from telling the
truth is really from both sides.
So a lot of times I'll write anarticle and anti-police
activists.
They're always going to get madat me if I say that an
officer-involved shooting isobjectively reasonable.
But there are cases as wellwhere if I think that an
officer-involved shooting is notobjectively reasonable, or I
think that a police officerviolated law or policy, that
(09:07):
individuals who are pro-policewhich I'm pro-police too that if
people who are pro-police, theyalso get mad at me on that side
too, and it's okay to disagree.
That's the thing.
If a police officer, if youdon't like something that a
police officer does, that's fine, let's have the discussion.
But, travis, here's what I'masking.
I'm asking for you to sayexactly tell me exactly what the
(09:27):
officer did that you don't like, and then back up what you
don't like by citing law, policyor training.
Tell me what the officerviolated, and then we can go
from there and have an honestdiscussion.
Travis Yates (09:40):
Well, and the other question I love to ask is
okay, what would you have done?
You don't like this outcome.
How would you have handled thecrazed maniac with no shirt and
wielding a knife, Like, howwould you have handled it?
They don't really like thatquestion, but I love how you
come at it, Daniel, and youmentioned being crump, I don't
know, three or four times a day.
(10:00):
That's maybe an exaggeration,but how does someone like that
and I've got some insidebaseball on Mr Crumpy he doesn't
go to court, he doesn't go totrial, he doesn't litigate.
Uh, you can just ponder whythat is.
He's just doesn't.
It's all about a uh public showand and and a narrative, and
(10:22):
you have clearly shown so manytimes how I mean.
Obviously people know that.
Pay attention that he both facelies.
He's become a multimillionaireby doing this.
What does that say about ourcountry, Right?
What does that say about, bythe way, our leaders that when
they hear Ben Crump, get scaredand settle lawsuits?
I mean because the truth israrely on his side.
The odd thing about Mr Crumpwhich I'd love to ask him one
(10:44):
day In fact, we were in the sameairport, but I couldn't catch
up to him was how come, whenthese cases are actually bad?
Because there are bad ones,Daniel, You've talked about them
.
I don't see you.
I only see you in the caseswhere you seem to be fabricating
information.
That's always struck me likethis I'm getting off on a
(11:05):
tangent, but this correctionvideo, that is just horrendous.
I don't see the outrage forthat one right, which is wild to
me.
Like, okay, that's one you canget outraged about.
There is not any level of theoutrage I've seen on cases where
there shouldn't have beenoutrage.
Why do you think that is?
Daniel Carr (11:19):
Well, you know when it comes to Ben Crump, I think
it's really important tounderstand what he is, because
it's very easy to just criticizehim and demonize him and I
think we should criticize hisideas but it's really important
to just kind of put it in thecontext of what he is.
He's a civil rights attorney.
His job is to get as much moneyas possible for the person that
(11:39):
he's representing.
That's his job.
It's not for justice, it's notnot like my job.
What I see I do is my job is tohave an objective and honest
conversation about importantissues in policing.
That's my job.
That's not his job.
And the mistake would be tothink that he's playing the same
game.
He's not.
So he's playing the game of,and it's his job to try to get
as much money as possible.
(12:00):
That's what he's doing.
So I think if we look at itfrom that that uh perspective, I
think it's it's more, it's morehonest to be able to see
exactly what he's doing and kindof like you said me when you
talked about the riots, you knowI wrote an article a while back
and I basically said you knowthere's what ben crump does.
Just like you said, he doesn'tgo to court, but he basically
has developed this brilliantthree-step process lie, riot,
(12:23):
riot, extort, and that's what hedoes.
Travis Yates (12:27):
Yeah, that makes a lot of sense and I got a theory
.
I don't think many people havedone this, but I think if Ben
Crump comes to a town and helies clearly lies about a police
incident, I think if a policechief went in front of a
microphone and said this is notthe truth, here's the video,
here's the truth I actuallythink he just goes back to
florida, I I think I thinkthat's what actually happens,
but very few people will do thatto him, right, for some strange
(12:49):
reason, and uh, we'll move on.
But I think that's veryinteresting and I agree we
should not be focusing so muchon him, because that is who he
is.
We should be focusing on thepolice leaders that are just
refusing to be honest, which ismore troubling to me than Ben
Crump not being honest.
Daniel Carr (13:05):
And if I could say one more thing on that.
So what I do in my videos a lotof the time, and some of the
videos that I put up on TikTokthat have gone viral I think one
of them has eight million viewsor something like that where
it's a case where Ben Crumptells objective lies and I get
on there and I say, OK, this iswhat Ben Crump said, and the
involved police officers, theyaren't allowed to publicly
defend themselves.
That's where I come in and thenI go and I correct the record
(13:28):
and I play the body camerafootage and it's content like
that.
The reason that those videoshave gone viral, it's because
people want the truth and asmany videos of those as I can do
.
That's one of my goals.
But the thing is, you're right,I shouldn't be one of the only
ones doing it.
That is the job of the policechief or the sheriff or the city
leaders Not to lie, not todemonize people, not to talk bad
(13:49):
about people who just lost aloved one, but just to be honest
about what happened with theirpolice officers.
Travis Yates (13:56):
Yeah, I want to talk about one of your recent
articles.
By the way, if you're just nowjoining us, this is Daniel Carr
You've got to subscribe to thepolice law newsletter.
It's policelawnewssubstackcom.
He's talked about TikTok onhere.
If you swing that way, go toTikTok.
Daniel is obviously verypopular on TikTok so popular
they banned his TikTok when itblew up, but he's built another
one, so check that out.
(14:18):
But I'm an educated man, daniel,so I like to read your lengthy
articles versus your 12-year-oldvideos.
But people love the videos.
But I want to talk about one ofyour latest articles called
2024 by the numbers, and I wantto just kind of give our people
watching or people listeningwhat this said.
You need to go to his website,pay the 50 bucks.
Don't be cheap, support thisguy.
(14:39):
But here's what you said.
You say, hey, there'sapproximately 54 million police
citizen contacts.
There's somewhere in theneighborhood of 10 million
arrests per year.
Here is fatal police shootingsfor 2024.
Eleven hundred and thirty threepeople were fatally shot.
Ten sixty eight were fatallyshot by police.
Were men OK, 94 percent weremen.
Twenty point nine percent wereblack.
(15:01):
Thirty point eight percent werewhite.
You go on and on and I lovewhat you said at the end of it.
You say the insane notion thatpolice officers are engaging in
wild shootouts with acorns on adaily basis is simply not based
in reality.
But what struck me with thisdata, daniel, is I have followed
this data for many, many yearsand this data has been around
(15:24):
950, 1050, 1100.
I would say between 950 and1200.
Ever since I followed the data,all of the police reforms in
the last decade, all of theclaims of systematic racism and
I'll tell you why they say thisand we talked about talking to
me earlier.
I've been beaten up for sayingthis, but here's why it's always
(15:45):
been said uh, 20.9 percent ofblack men were fatally shot by
police, and then what they sayabout systematic racism is but
there's only 13 percent of blackmen in america, so that
obviously means it's systematicracism.
Obviously, we can talk aboutthat in a second on why that is
crazy.
But, um, what I have since,daniel?
(16:06):
This data has not changed.
I got two questions, actuallymore than two.
This data hasn't changed sinceall the reforms have happened
and people need to kind of goback and turn their time machine
back to 2014, 2013.
This is why we made all thechanges in policing because of
all these so-called shootings ofunarmed people.
Why hasn't this changed?
(16:26):
Why hasn't the reforms changedthe data?
And to pair with that question,is anybody looking at the
reforms?
That didn't change the data onwhether reforms actually helped.
Daniel Carr (16:38):
That's a great question and I'd like to talk
about reforms.
I think we're going to get intothat later, but the reason that
the data hasn't changed and thereason that the data is not
going to change is because thereform in order to lower the
amount of officer-involvedshootings is not on the part of
police officers, Because policeofficers if someone comes at a
police officer with a knife or agun or threatens a police
(16:59):
officer with deadly force,there's no reform possible that
is going to change the situation, where a police officer is not
going to defend themselves in asituation like that.
So I think that police reformis this giant industry and it's
sold as that it's going to lowerpolice shootings and things
like that, and the reality is isthat it's not.
(17:20):
Now there are some good thingsthat police reform can do, but
the notion that it's going tolower the amount of police
shootings is false.
Travis Yates (17:30):
Well, I think it's preliminary, but I think the
case can be made that it'spossibly increased police
shootings because, as crime goesup in communities, many reforms
in many of these urban citieshave caused a increase in
violent crime.
We can debate on why that isprobably less police activity,
less police officers, all thatas crime goes up, police use of
force goes up, because that'swhat use of force is used on is
(17:52):
criminals.
And uh, and what's your take onthat?
That the reforms possibly couldhave created an increase,
because this is an increase.
This number is higher than, ifyou on average, the last 10
years.
This is on the higher end.
Daniel Carr (18:05):
Yeah, so I think that's.
I think that you're correctwhen you say that.
So a lot of the results of thepolice officers leave those
cities because they don't wantto be in that environment of a
(18:26):
lot of people don't don'tsupport police.
So so when you have, so really,just like what I said, when you
have cities who defund police,instead of three or four
officers going to a call wheresomeone's armed with a knife or
maybe they they can go with aforce array where one officer
has a taser, one has a beanbagshotgun, and now you have two or
three officers with less lethaloptions, well now you've
defunded that police department.
(18:47):
What that means there's lessofficers on the street.
So now you're sending twoofficers there.
So the idea that a policeofficer is going to be able to
use less lethal force, thatoption, becomes less, and so,
yeah, I think that absolutelycan happen.
I don't think that's the intentof a lot of the academics who
(19:08):
run these police reform agencies, but I think that's the
realistic result of what happens.
Travis Yates (19:13):
Yeah, there is a big disconnect between what
academia says and what realitysays, and we'll get into consent
decrees a little bit later.
That would be a funconversation.
But one thing that I always sawover the last decade is I would
talk a lot about this myth ofsystematic racism.
I will have a one-on-one debatewith anybody any day about that
, because I've studied the dataand a lot of you know Roland
(19:36):
Fryer and Heather McDonald.
A lot of esteemed statisticiansand researchers have studied
the data and they agree with me.
But, man, I've been beaten upthrough the years whenever I
mentioned it.
But this is what we're talkingabout.
To say to say that becausepolice shootings should be
exactly along, you know, theracial lines in America is
(19:59):
saying that crime should becommitted along racial lines.
And I would submit to you thatif crime was dead, even among
all ethnicities and races, wellyeah, our use of force should be
dead, even among allethnicities or races, because
that's how force happens.
Force is directly correlated towho's committing violent crime.
I think that is common sense topeople that can get out of
(20:20):
their own way.
So when you look at thedifference and disparity there,
you can't just look at it likethe number you just said.
Oh, it's 20.9.
Oh my gosh, it's 13%.
You have to then look at, well,what percentage is committing
violent crime, and that triggersa lot of people where it has in
the past by trying to just kindof speak that common sense.
(20:40):
But this idea of systematicracism has done a lot of damage
in law enforcement because onceagain, police leaders have not
spoken about it, because I forone, if I'm a police leader, I'm
going to do everything I can tomake sure that's not happening.
I'm going to be running my owninternal data.
I'm going to be putting thatout to the public.
I did that in certain partswhen I worked on the department
and that upset people when I was, when I pulled the robbery data
(21:02):
and said, well, here's who'scommitting robberies and here's
the use of force on robberiesand whoa.
They look very similar.
That upset even people insidethe police department, oddly
enough.
So that's obviously not beingdone.
But what I have noticed, danieland it's one of my point I want
to get to is I haven't noticedthis pitch of systematic racism
at the height that I used to.
Maybe I'm wrong, but I mean Iused to be getting beat up about
(21:25):
it all the time.
I haven't been beaten up aboutit in a long time.
I don't hear this a lot.
At one time Congress hadmentioned this word systematic
race system over eleven hundredtimes in proposed bills's been
lowered.
What do you think's going onthere?
Why?
Why do you?
I don't think it's gone away.
Why do you think the noise and,quite frankly, the myth has
(21:45):
kind of dissipated for a time?
Daniel Carr (21:47):
yeah, great question.
So I don't think the answer isis that we, we objectively and
honestly won the argument andnow they just agree with us that
there isn't any?
Travis Yates (21:57):
I agree with that wholeheartedly, yeah.
Daniel Carr (22:01):
I wouldn't take the victory on that.
What I think is that it's notpolitically popular.
Defund the police was such amassive failure Even in places
like San Francisco.
They've gotten rid of thesepro-criminal DAs there, so it's
not politically popular anymore.
It doesn't do them any good.
That's why they're not talkingabout it.
(22:22):
And just to add on to what yousaid a second ago, is you know
when we were in the whole, whenit was really in the thick of
the systematic racism debate,and you know the best way that I
can explain it and I wrote tomy article, and not the only one
to talk about is you know whatI come back with is just I try
to use logic as much as possible.
I say you know, men are 50percent of the population, but
(22:43):
they are 94 percent of peoplewho are shot and killed by
police.
And then I ask people why doyou think that is?
I say, do you think that policeofficers are systematically
sexist against men?
And of course not.
So the obvious answer is well,men commit over 90% of the
violent crime.
Therefore they have morenegative interactions with
police officers.
If you can get people to buy inthere, because most people will
(23:07):
, then it's very easy to say youhave to take that same logic
when it comes to race and age,there's a reason that the vast
majority of people who are shotand killed by police officers
are under 45 years old.
Police officers aren't, aren't,aren't ageist against young
people.
It's that's who's puttingthemselves in situations and
committing crime and using thatlogic.
And then if you get people tobuy in there, which almost
(23:29):
everybody does, it's just onestep further to say well, the
same is true with race.
Travis Yates (23:34):
I'm glad you said that, Dan, because that was
actually my next comment.
Don't think that because ithasn't been a big topic in the
media or the activists, that itsomehow has disappeared.
Law enforcement agencies needto protect themselves against
this in the future.
And it's so simple, but I onlyknow of about three departments
doing it, and this is thesimplicity of it.
You take your part one crimedata, Daniel, and you break it
(23:56):
down by race, because we don'tmake that up.
Those are real victims thatcall the police and describe a
suspect right, it's rape,robbery, murder, homicide,
aggravated assault, arson andyou break that down by race.
And then you break down use offorce by race and you put them
side by side and you just put itout on your public website.
(24:17):
You don't have to make acomment about it, you don't have
to opine about it, you just putit out there and people can
look for themselves at thedirect comparison and make their
own judgment.
But hardly no one does this,which is strange to me, because
that data is readily availableby a few clicks of a button, as
you know, and I don't understandthat.
But that needs to be done,because you're not pointing
(24:38):
fingers, You're just being givenpeople, as you talk about
Daniel, the truth.
And so if you want to sit hereand claim that a seven percent
disparity in shootings meanssome systemized racism, Well
let's look at all the data andthen just stick it side by side.
I talk about this in my seminarsand people kind of I had this
chief.
He'd been a chief for 30 yearsago.
I'd never thought of that.
I'm like, what is going on here?
(24:58):
You'll sit here and listen toMSNBC, call you every name in
the book, including whitesupremacists and everything else
, but you have not thought aboutjust presenting the data.
Because I think you're right.
I think most of your community,regardless of where you are in
America, most communities,they're going to look at this
logically.
They're not political animalsalways pointing fingers, they're
just going to look at itlogically and they want to know
the information.
(25:18):
But if all you hear all day,every day, is racism, racism,
racism, that's going to be yourdefault.
So it's very simple to do Justso.
Few people do it, and thatleads me into consent decrees,
because this narrative hasdriven consent decrees across
America, and people listening tome know where I stand on this
because I look at the data.
(25:39):
I look at what happens before aconsent decree happens in a
department.
I look at what happens after aconsent decree happens in a
department.
Daniel, you were in adepartment before a consent
decree and you're in adepartment near the tail end of
a consent decree.
I'm going to open it up to youbecause I think you can speak
freely about this now and justto let our audience know consent
(25:59):
decree is.
The Department of Justice comesinto a department.
They say there's allegationsagainst you.
Typically those allegations arecoming from a few of the
activist groups and that spursthe DLJ.
It's very political.
They pick and choose which citythey go to.
Mainly it's a liberal citybecause it's usually a friendly
environment for the DLJ.
The city usually finances theinvestigation.
Phoenix, for example, has spentwell over $10 million on an
(26:23):
investigation for the DLJ, whichseems crazy to me, and I'm sure
Albuquerque spent millions andmillions of dollars to help the
DLJ say these horrible thingsabout Albuquerque and the DLJ.
This shocker finds these thingsthat they call a pattern and
practice of civil rightsviolations, constitutional
violations and they put out asummary document and then they
either get the department toagree to let the DLJ impose a
(26:46):
consent decree, federallymonitored on the department.
That basically runs thedepartment.
In a nutshell, Policiestraining it basically starts
running the department.
Or if the city says we don'tagree with it, the DOJ has the
option to take it to court andto actually have to present
evidence.
Now, very few, if any.
I think one department has takenthem to court.
Doj has never won one of thesein court to my knowledge.
(27:08):
So most departments for somereason will just say, okay,
we'll do it.
But in recent years there'sbeen a lot pointed out about
these and I'm just interestedabout your, since you have an
intimate knowledge about it,Daniel.
There's probably only about 100people in America that have
worked day in and day out withconsent decrees inside a police
department.
Give us your thoughts onAlbuquerque kind of the impact
(27:30):
it had, and is Albuquerquebetter off today than they were
a decade ago before a consentdecree?
Daniel Carr (27:36):
So those are a couple of different questions.
So the first one is isAlbuquerque better off now than
they were before?
And I'm going to be mixed onthat.
So one of the reasons is thatthe Department of Justice, like
you said, came into the city ofAlbuquerque in 2014.
They said there was a patternin practice of violation of
civil rights and excessive force.
We had 30 homicides inAlbuquerque in 2014.
(27:59):
The DOJ was in Albuquerque for10 years.
They just left earlier thisyear.
This year, we had 134 homicides.
Now I get crime went upeverywhere.
I'm not saying that this causedan extra 100 homicides, but
that is unbelievable in 10 yearsto jump 100 homicides.
Also, we had, I think, the yearthat the DOJ came in, I think
(28:20):
we had 15 officer-involvedshootings.
Of those 15 officer-involvedshootings, none of those
shootings were ruled illegal orunconstitutional.
Remember that this year, 10years later, I think, we had 15
officer-involved shootings.
The same thing None of theseshootings were ruled
unconstitutional.
So what did the city gain?
10 years?
(28:40):
Tens of millions of dollars.
What did the city gain?
And I can tell you what the cityof Albuquerque gained from my
point of view and just to betransparent the last four years
I was with the department.
I worked in Internal AffairsForce Division, where I was a
use of force investigator and Iworked in compliance.
I was the detective for theforce review board, where
basically, I did thepresentations for department and
city leaders about use of forcecases.
(29:01):
So my last four years I reallygot to see up close this reform
process when it comes to use offorce and what I could say is
that the practices andprocedures that the department
now utilizes for investigatinguse of force is top notch.
It's incredible, and if thereis a way to get that system that
(29:21):
we use to investigate force andhow thorough it is because it
should be thorough how do we getthere?
Is there a way to get therewithout the 10 years and the
tens of millions of dollars?
So the last thing I'm going tosay about this, or just one
other example, travis is thatthe Department of Justice came
in in 2014.
It wasn't until summer of 2021that the Albuquerque Police
(29:43):
Department had not only a use offorce policy that the feds and
the DOJ were good with, but thatwe had a system and
investigators to investigate useof force how the DOJ wanted.
It was essentially a guessinggame for seven and a half years.
So cities who are going throughit now, like Minneapolis and
Phoenix and Louisville, I think.
(30:05):
So what these departments aredoing and what they should be
doing is they should be going todepartment leaders over at
Albuquerque Police and Seattle,some of these other places, and
say, hey, what were some of thepolicies, reforms that worked,
what can we do?
So there's not this guessinggame about what the feds want.
And again, we can argue aboutconsent decrees, but for cities
(30:27):
and police leaders that arestuck, I think right now there
is a way to go from the 10 yearsthat we did down to maybe two
or three years.
And if I were a police leaderand again, what happens in the
city is way above a commander oreven above what a police chief
can do If you're stuck in this,you have to be thinking, okay,
how can we make this as quickand painless as possible?
(30:48):
Because again, I'll be honest,some of the policies not all of
them, but some of the policiesand mostly procedures they
haven't been all bad, they'vebeen good.
One other last example I giveis we were the first major
department in the country togive body cameras to every
single patrol police officer,which I love.
That was a great thing, butthere is a way to do it without
10 years and tens of millions ofdollars.
Travis Yates (31:09):
There's certainly a way to do it without the DOJ.
I mean, you could just do it.
It's what leadership's aboutRight, leadership's about right,
and I'm not going to go into ittoo deep, but I'm at the tail
end of a multi-monthinvestigation on Phoenix's
investigation.
Now Phoenix has not agreed withthe DLJ and they have not
signed up for a consent decreeyet.
But one of the problems Phoenixfound was a lot of the things
(31:31):
that DLJ said simply wasn't truein a summary report, which is
really shocking.
And so Phoenix did somethinginteresting.
I'm sure you're aware of it,daniel, is DOJ usually comes out
with a summary report and theyjust kind of give you a
paragraph on each of theseexamples, right, and say, oh,
this is wrong, this is wrong.
For instance, in Albuquerquethey said that all these police
shootings were unconstitutionaland that wasn't true.
You just told me that wasn'ttrue and the police shootings
(31:53):
actually increased during theconsent decree because your
violence increased during aconsent decree.
It's like we're coming fullcircle.
They're talking about that, butwhat Phoenix did was really
interesting is they went andfound these examples.
I think there was 132 examplesthat the DOJ said Phoenix was a
pattern in practice.
Now, let's just stop rightthere.
(32:14):
One hundred and thirty twoPhoenix police goes to two
million calls a year.
The DOJ studied six years.
We're talking tens of millionsof citizen contacts.
They found 134 incidents thatwere constitutional violations,
according to them, and I thinkPhoenix identified about one
hundred twenty two of those andthey put out a Web site that
listed not to paragraph, itlisted body camera footage,
(32:37):
administrative documents.
So that's what I have beenworking on and going through
because to me it's sofascinating.
And I got to admit to you I didnot think I would find what I
found.
I thought there were some shadythings, probably with consent
decrees, because I've watchedthese through the years, but I
found out of 122 incidents wecould identify, I found four
(32:58):
accurate incidents.
The DOJ described four of themaccurately.
Why can I say that and not bebiased?
I watched the body camerafootage and read the reports the
same body camera footage andthe same reports the DOJ had
access to.
But they did a lot of things inthose to make them seem bad
that weren't bad and I got totell you I and I'm surprised.
(33:23):
I mean I don't think the CivilRights Division of the DLJ is
probably the best experts inpolice activity.
But a first year criminaljustice student could have
analyzed these cases and come toa similar conclusion is what I
found, because you just watchthe body camera and you read the
reports.
It's just the truth.
Here's what happened.
(33:43):
I mean, I'm talking crazythings, daniel.
There's an incident where theysaid the guy didn't have a knife
in his hand.
He had a knife in his hand.
I mean, just, I'm talking wildstuff.
And why do you think the DLJthought they could?
Because they had to have known.
There's no way.
And we talk about bias and Ithink it's coming from.
(34:04):
I agree with you, I don't thinkthey are.
They have this intent to justbe crazy like this.
But I think it comes from anacademic bias, because we don't
know who writes these DOJreports.
We don't know who investigatesthem, because if you don't take
them to court, they don't revealthem.
It's just a generic report, soI don't know who's behind it,
(34:27):
but it reads to me like someacademic people that have never,
ever, you know, been in apolice car, because it's just so
strange the way it's written.
I can't I mean I won't even gointo the other things I found,
but it's wild, I feel.
I did a few videos on it.
But uh, why did you think thedlj thought that this could
happen?
Because I'm going to be honestwith you, phoenix police is a
large department and millionsand millions of calls.
There probably was 100 or soincidents that were bad.
(34:49):
There probably was.
That's not the instance the DLJpicked, and so I'm really
confused by it.
I just want to hear yourthoughts and we'll move on.
Daniel Carr (34:58):
Yeah, I think it's.
I think one of the reasons thatthey do it is, first of all, I
think it's because they theydon't necessarily know.
So I don't think that the civilrights division, so just really
quick, what you said is in apolice department, that's that
big, the idea that there's not ahundred use of force,
problematic incidents a year atleast violations of policy we
know that there are because itwould be, impossible for there
(35:19):
not to be.
So I don't think that the civilrights division is sitting there
and saying you know what wehave, these hundred cases that
we know are problematic, butwe're actually going to talk
about these instead.
I don't think they're doingthat.
So I don't think they know.
They don't have a Travis Yatesor a Daniel Carr on their staff
to really kind of do like afinal review of these cases.
I think that's part of it, andone of the ways that I can say
(35:40):
is that they just don't know isan example I can use for my
agency, which actually happened,and when it happened, all of us
in the use of force divisionwere just screaming how crazy
this was.
They said that we were not onlyshooting too many people, even
though all the shootings werelegal.
Not only were we shooting toomany people, but we were using
the taser too much.
So they made the taser policymore restrictive.
(36:01):
They made it more which causesmore shootings they made it
travis.
they made it more difficult bypolicy for police officers to
utilize tasers.
And we're sitting there in thatuse of force office and we had
two officer-involved shootingscome through where these should
have been tasings.
It should have been tasings andthe reason that they weren't
tasings is because had theofficer utilized a taser, it
(36:22):
would have been against policyand the officers looking at days
off.
Travis Yates (36:42):
So again, they don't have bad intent, but they
have bad ideas, and some oftheir bad ideas by saying that
officers shouldn't utilizetasers as much either.
That causes moreofficer-involved shootings.
I have specific examples ofthat and I think that's what it
is.
Yeah, I kind of came to theconclusion that I was dealing
with.
You know that these peopledidn't have bad intent.
They were just not smart inthis area.
When I continue to see themabuse what Miranda was or wasn't
, they kept saying that theywere violating Miranda rights,
when that's about as clear caselaw as you can get custodial
interrogation.
And they were talking aboutpeople that weren't in custody,
(37:04):
that were.
Know, are you watching tvmovies?
What's going on here?
How do you not do a googlesearch on what miranda is?
And so they just clearly didn'tunderstand that.
And the fourth minute was awhole nother debacle.
So I think I'm with you, daniel.
I would love to help them ifthey're, if they can be helped,
but at this point the the oddthing is about the dlj.
Is is is in of DLJ.
They actually can do a prettygood job of looking at police
(37:27):
departments.
You know the civil rightsdivision clearly, when I read
some of these reports uh, cause.
It's not just Phoenix.
Louisville chief is on recordsaying none of this was true,
which is which is wild to me,right?
So anyway, man, I appreciateyour insight into that.
Very few people that have beeninside uh are willing to speak
about it, but I think we allwant better professional police.
If the DLJ Civil RightsDivision had the answer, we'd be
(37:49):
singing their praises, but Ithink clearly the data is out.
There has to be a different way.
I personally would love policeleaders to lead and to make
departments great, and I thinkyou probably feel the same way,
daniel.
So a couple more questions.
Man, I appreciate you.
The first time we talked I'mtrying to remember, but the
(38:09):
obviously the Chauvin trial waseither just wrapping up or had
been done, or anyway we hadcertain information on the Derek
Chauvin and the Minneapolisdeal.
A lot of information has comeout since the trial, which is
crazy to me.
How come this informationwasn't out for a man's trial
(38:30):
right?
Have you wavered at all on whathappened there?
I don't want to relitigate allof this, but it's certainly
troubling to me that a lot ofthis information seemed to have
been hidden from the public andfrom the jury when that trial
happened.
What's your thoughts on that?
Daniel Carr (38:45):
Yeah.
So my thoughts on that are Ithink they have evolved over the
years, the more informationthat came out and I've been at
this stage for a while is thatthe three officers who let's
start with them, the threeofficers who weren't Derek
Chauvin the idea that they wereprosecuted or charged with
anything is absolutely insane.
I do not think any of thoseofficers committed a crime.
Also, derek Chauvin, you knowwhat I can't get past on that
(39:08):
and I see a pathway to, maybe,where I can.
What I still can't get past isthat when you have someone who
is obviously in medical distresswhich George Floyd obviously,
was the idea that you're goingto have him on his handcuffed,
his stomach and putting anyweight on his back or shoulder,
any weight for that period oftime for lack of a better term
(39:31):
that's a bad idea.
So I don't know whenMinneapolis got that training.
I know when I got that training, probably around 2010.
So the idea that officerChauvin didn't know that, that
seems, that seems that seemsstrange to me.
I don't think that he intendedto harm George Floyd.
My guess is that he used thismove, this kind of keeping his
knee bladed across the back.
Travis Yates (39:51):
Yeah, they call it the maximal restraint,
technique MRT.
Daniel Carr (39:55):
He probably used that dozens of times and the
result was everyone was fine.
So I don't think that there wasany bad intent on his part.
So my question is really aboutthe training and what I've
learned since then.
I actually attended a seminarin my last year where Derek
Chauvin's defense attorney, ericNelson he was one of the
(40:17):
speakers and one of the thingsthat he talked about.
He says what Derek Chauvin didin that case having his knee in
that way that was trained.
That was true, they actuallytrained him to do that and that
wasn't allowed- yeah, what'scrazy is they have photographs
of the training.
Travis Yates (40:25):
Yes, right, they have photographs of this being
trained.
Daniel Carr (40:28):
Yeah.
So even if, even if he wastrained to do that, I get it.
I'm just going to be and again,I know that a lot of people who
are are pro police don'tnecessarily agree, but no matter
what the training is and I getthat he had him in that position
because he was waiting forsomeone to come with with legles
, because he was, I get all that.
The idea that you're going tohold someone back in 2020, hold
(40:52):
someone in that position forthat long doesn't make any sense
.
So I guess I would need theanswer to the question of why
that decision was made.
Why didn't you roll him over onhis side or sit him up?
Now, again, I can tell you, Idon't think that was the correct
thing.
So that's probably a violationof policy.
Do I think that's criminal?
I think it's up in the airwhether or not that's criminal.
(41:12):
Is a 20 years in jail criminal?
Absolutely not.
And I do not think that DerekChauvin got a fair trial.
Travis Yates (41:18):
Yeah, and that's why I love you, daniel, because
you just come straight down themiddle with all the information
and you're right.
I mean, if you have to provethis beyond a reasonable doubt,
you just threw about 15 thingsout there that causes people to
kind of pause one way or theother, and I'm not sure the jury
got that same information so,which is really insane, and it
may or may not come back andbite you know the state of
(41:40):
minneapolis or minnesota, uh,that presented that case,
because obviously someinformation's come out that's
very, very troubling.
One more thing, daniel, and Ilove what you said about this,
is the contrast between theDaniel Penny case and then the
subway fire case that justoccurred.
I think we live in this day andtime where it doesn't take long
for things to come around.
(42:00):
What's your thoughts on that?
Daniel Carr (42:02):
Yeah.
So my thoughts on that are thatDaniel Penny obviously he never
should have been charged.
When this happened, I said youknow, this is really a barometer
to see where society is, thatare we going to go with
prosecuting someone like DanielPenny, who was just objectively
trying to save people andprotect people from being
murdered or harmed by someonelike Jordan Neely?
(42:22):
And that was kind of abarometer of where society is.
And the fact that he was foundnot guilty, I think we won on
that one.
Now he never should have beenprosecuted in the first place.
And then, when it comes to thatsubway fire case, this is one of
the things where I havedisagreement with people,
especially people who arepro-police, because they think
that police officers should havedone more.
(42:43):
And here's the thing.
I'm not disagreeing that theofficers should have done more.
I'm just saying that it's myopinion that if you want police
officers to do more, or if youlet me just frame it the way I
did before If you don't likesomething that a police officer
did and we all saw the video ofthe police officer standing
there on his radio while thewoman is burning alive If you
don't like what the policeofficer did, then fine, let's
(43:05):
have the discussion.
Point to law policy or trainingthat the officer violated.
Because if you look at it underthat, if you look at it under
that, um, under that view, thechief of police said the
officers did everything theywere supposed to do.
They got on the radio and theygot fire extinguishers and
that's how they put her out.
So if we want police officersto do something different, great
(43:26):
, we have to give them trainingand equipment to be able to do
it.
Because a lot of times Travis,when we have a situation where
we can objectively say, hey, Idon't like what the cop did, but
the cop didn't violate lawpolicy or training, if that's
where you find yourself, veryoften the problem is much higher
on the food chain.
Travis Yates (43:43):
Yeah, yeah, excellent, take, daniel.
I can't thank you enough, man.
Where can people find you?
Where can they reach out to you?
I would also remind people goto policelawnewssubsectcom and
subscribe and give this man $50a year.
It's not a lot for the workhe's putting in.
I just did that today and Iwant to encourage everybody else
to do that.
So, daniel, where can they findyou at?
Daniel Carr (44:05):
Well, first of all, it was an honor to be on.
Thank you so much for the kindwords, and you can find me.
I'm on X YouTube, just aboutevery other social media channel
.
You can find me everywhere atPolice Law News.
Travis Yates (44:16):
Daniel Carr, it's been an honor, it's been a
privilege.
Thank you for being here and ifyou've been watching and you've
been listening, just remember,lead on and stay courageous.
Speaker 1 (44:26):
Thank you for listening to Courageous
Leadership with Travis Yates.
We invite you to join othercourageous leaders at www.
travisyates.
org.
Welcome to Courageous Leadership with Travis Yates,
where leaders find the insights,advice and encouragement they
need to lead courageously.
Travis Yates (00:12):
Welcome back to the show.
I'm so honored you're spendinga few minutes with us here today
and I'm excited about today'sguest.
It's been almost two yearssince we had him on the show.
He's one of the mostfascinating guests we've had.
We've gotten lots of requeststo have him back On today's show
.
It's my honor to have DanielCarr with us.
Daniel retired in 2024 aftertwo decades with the Albuquerque
(00:34):
Police Department.
During his tenure at thedepartment, he earned a master's
degree in criminal justice anda law degree Certainly difficult
to do.
A few years ago he startedPolice Law News on TikTok and to
break down use of forceincidents, the channel grew, as
well as his content, into a substack called the Police Law
Newsletter.
(00:54):
You can locate that atpolicelawnewssubstackcom.
The content is free, but Ihighly recommend spending just
$50 a year to get in the mind ofDaniel Carr each and every day.
Daniel Carr, how are you doing?
Daniel Carr (01:09):
I'm doing great.
Thank you so much for having meback on.
Travis Yates (01:12):
Well, man, I know you've retired almost a year ago
, and the last time we spokenone of us were retired, and now
we're both retired.
How's that been for you?
I know your content hasaccelerated, and it's certainly.
I recommend it everywhere, andso does that help you in
retirement to be able to kind oflean into more of this content.
Daniel Carr (01:32):
Yeah, thank you so much for all those kind words
and yeah, that's one of thethings I'm doing more since I
retired just about a year ago isdefinitely writing more
articles on the police law newssub stack and really just doing
more content in general on thepolice law news sub stack and
really just doing more contentin general.
That's that's what I've beendoing a lot of in retirement and
it's been nice to have the timefreedom to really be able to
dedicate to that.
Travis Yates (01:52):
Well, you speak about the time freedom and I
noticed on today's bio I couldtalk about you worked at
Albuquerque.
Last time we were sort ofshying away from that because
you were on the job.
Daniel Carr (02:05):
Do you feel a little more just freedom of
expression now that you're awayfrom a job?
Absolutely, I feel like I'm notonly so.
When I was with the AlbuquerquePolice Department I think a lot
of officers who are active kindof feel this way as well is
that you know you have thefreedom to talk about national
issues, but things that arehappily happening locally in
your own department.
A lot of times people stay awayfrom that, which is probably
the right thing to do.
So yes, I definitely feel likeI have the freedom to talk about
issues that are going on in thecity I live in.
Travis Yates (02:28):
Yeah, I don't know if you experienced this, but
you know I was in the media alot on the job and but I almost
felt like a weight was liftedoff, uh, after I retired,
because it always seemed likesomeone was sort of looking over
my shoulder and reviewing whatI was doing.
Of course, I was always likeyou, just tell me to stop.
Like in policy, you can tell meto stop talking to the media.
Why are you letting me talk tomedia if it makes you so nervous
?
And certainly they used it tobeat me up a few times.
(02:50):
But I felt it was importantbecause I was speaking the truth
and that's the interestingthing about you, daniel, it's
why I recommend you so much isyou sort of come at this from a
down the middle angle, Right,you will.
You will talk bad about apolice incident, just like to
(03:10):
talk good about a policeincident.
You're very critical on thekind of the anti police
agitators that never findanything good in police, and
it's really refreshing, but Iwonder why you're one of just a
few people that do that.
Uh, I'm just going to get yourthoughts on it because I have a
few opinions of myself.
So you, you come at it from astraight straight from uh, you
know, here's the truth, here'sthe facts.
Despite all the noise, why areyou?
Why are there is only one,daniel Card, only a few other
(03:31):
cousins of you.
Daniel Carr (03:33):
That's a great question and I think there are a
few other people who do this.
But one of the reasons that Ido it is because my purpose is
to really have an honestconversation.
It's because I I believe thatpolicing is so important that if
a police officer makes an error, I think it's really important
to know exactly what that erroris.
So, was it an individual policeofficer who did something wrong
?
Was it the policy?
(03:54):
Was it the training that theyhad?
Because, Travis, if we can'thave an honest conversation
about what went wrong, thenwe're never going to be able to
make policing better.
And you know, I try to come atthis from that perspective
because, you know, just like areflex, always supporting the
police officer or always beingagainst the police officer To me
that kind of criticism it's notinteresting and it's just lazy,
(04:17):
and that is not what I'm tryingto do.
Travis Yates (04:19):
Well, man, you just nailed it right there.
I mean, and you're right, it'sfrom both sides.
You'll have the pro police side, even internal police, that
everything we do there's areason for it and you'll have
the anti-police side.
That is just crazy.
And they're both playing tosimilar audiences, right?
I don't know how maybe there's10% on one side and 20% on the
other.
There's similar audiencesthey're playing to and the truth
(04:41):
is it's just so rare.
I mean, I'm not going to go intowhere the media has been in the
last decade and and and all thecrazy stuff that's happened,
but I think I feel a sense and ashift in America to where
they're kind of let me let mejust, you know, caution, my
audience, because this, you know, I don't like to cuss, but
they're kind of tired of thebullshit, right, daniel?
(05:01):
They're kind of tired of beinglied to.
And that's where you come in.
And when I think about policeleaders, this has been a
complaint of mine for many yearsbecause law enforcement has
just taken it and been beatendown by really a lot of lies.
Some things we earned, but alot of it has been lies.
The vast majority has been lies, and our police leaders have
(05:21):
been just deathly silent.
Our police organizations havebeen silent, sometimes going
along with the false narrative.
And here you come along and I'mthinking to myself hey, no
offense to Daniel Carr, you're asmart, intelligent guy, but do
we not have any police leadersin America that can at least
match what Daniel's doing?
What do you think is going onthere?
Daniel Carr (05:42):
What I think is going on there is that there
just isn't any incentive for alot of times for police leaders
to be honest, because, kind oflike we talked about the last
time, if you're a chief ofpolice, you could have great
ideas, you could be, want to bethe best leader possible and
have all these great ideas foryour department, but the mayor
or the city council, if youdon't do what they want, through
no fault of your own, that'sjust the job.
(06:03):
They're going to replace youand find someone else who does.
So it's like there almost isn'tan incentive.
And the example that I want togive real quick is you know, in
the Roger Fortson case so thiswas the officer-involved
shooting of the airman inFlorida.
So Ben Crump, the civil rightsattorney, before the body cam
footage became publiclyavailable, ben Crump said three
things in the media.
He said police officers went tothe wrong address.
(06:25):
He said they didn't announcethemselves and he said that they
forced entry into the apartment.
He said those things in themedia.
As soon as he said that,without seeing any of the body
camera video, I made a TikTokimmediately and I said this
doesn't sound right.
And then we see the body cameravideo a couple of days later.
Every single one of those wasobjectively incorrect.
(06:45):
So the leaders in that city notjust the chief or the sheriff,
but why aren't other cityleaders at least coming out and
saying that, because you know sowell that still thinks that
Breonna Taylor was sleeping inher bed when, when she was shot.
And we know that isn't true.
(07:09):
But the first thing that peoplehear.
It's really difficult to getthat out of their out of their
minds and I wish I had a betteranswer for why police leaders
don't want to go and correctthose objectively false
narratives.
Well, it's.
Travis Yates (07:24):
I don't see this in many other professions and
it's certainly unique to lawenforcement.
It's bothered me to the corebecause it has hurt the
profession so much.
I mean, we could spend daystalking about incidents that
were just fabricated lies, thatpolice leaders knew the answer
within seconds.
You know, you think of the Ibelieve it was Kenosha where, oh
, he shot him in the back and hewas a peacekeeper.
(07:45):
And literally the minute thepolice leader showed up and said
what happened, they knewexactly the truth.
But it was eight days after theincident before, not the police
leader told the truth, thepolice union guy told the truth
eight days later.
And then the DA came out, Idon't know, a month or two later
, and tried to tell the truth,but nobody listened.
Right, and what we got out ofthat, daniel, was riots, right,
(08:08):
and we could, we could talkabout riots in America.
That was happened because oflies, and I think you're right,
I think you know.
Let's just, let's just break itdown to what it is Police
leaders.
They're weak, they're cowards,they're anyone that refuses to
tell the truth.
You can't put leader in thesame sentence, right?
We're not asking them to comeout and bad mouth people or bad
(08:28):
mouth, breonna Taylor, or badmouth.
People Just tell the truth, andI think that's what's so
refreshing about your content isyou just tell the truth.
And I want to ask you, whatkind of pushback do you get just
by telling the truth?
Daniel Carr (08:44):
So the pushback that I get just by telling the
truth.
So the pushback that Itypically get from telling the
truth is really from both sides.
So a lot of times I'll write anarticle and anti-police
activists.
They're always going to get madat me if I say that an
officer-involved shooting isobjectively reasonable.
But there are cases as wellwhere if I think that an
officer-involved shooting is notobjectively reasonable, or I
think that a police officerviolated law or policy, that
(09:07):
individuals who are pro-policewhich I'm pro-police too that if
people who are pro-police, theyalso get mad at me on that side
too, and it's okay to disagree.
That's the thing.
If a police officer, if youdon't like something that a
police officer does, that's fine, let's have the discussion.
But, travis, here's what I'masking.
I'm asking for you to sayexactly tell me exactly what the
(09:27):
officer did that you don't like, and then back up what you
don't like by citing law, policyor training.
Tell me what the officerviolated, and then we can go
from there and have an honestdiscussion.
Travis Yates (09:40):
Well, and the other question I love to ask is
okay, what would you have done?
You don't like this outcome.
How would you have handled thecrazed maniac with no shirt and
wielding a knife, Like, howwould you have handled it?
They don't really like thatquestion, but I love how you
come at it, Daniel, and youmentioned being crump, I don't
know, three or four times a day.
(10:00):
That's maybe an exaggeration,but how does someone like that
and I've got some insidebaseball on Mr Crumpy he doesn't
go to court, he doesn't go totrial, he doesn't litigate.
Uh, you can just ponder whythat is.
He's just doesn't.
It's all about a uh public showand and and a narrative, and
(10:22):
you have clearly shown so manytimes how I mean.
Obviously people know that.
Pay attention that he both facelies.
He's become a multimillionaireby doing this.
What does that say about ourcountry, Right?
What does that say about, bythe way, our leaders that when
they hear Ben Crump, get scaredand settle lawsuits?
I mean because the truth israrely on his side.
The odd thing about Mr Crumpwhich I'd love to ask him one
(10:44):
day In fact, we were in the sameairport, but I couldn't catch
up to him was how come, whenthese cases are actually bad?
Because there are bad ones,Daniel, You've talked about them
.
I don't see you.
I only see you in the caseswhere you seem to be fabricating
information.
That's always struck me likethis I'm getting off on a
(11:05):
tangent, but this correctionvideo, that is just horrendous.
I don't see the outrage forthat one right, which is wild to
me.
Like, okay, that's one you canget outraged about.
There is not any level of theoutrage I've seen on cases where
there shouldn't have beenoutrage.
Why do you think that is?
Daniel Carr (11:19):
Well, you know when it comes to Ben Crump, I think
it's really important tounderstand what he is, because
it's very easy to just criticizehim and demonize him and I
think we should criticize hisideas but it's really important
to just kind of put it in thecontext of what he is.
He's a civil rights attorney.
His job is to get as much moneyas possible for the person that
(11:39):
he's representing.
That's his job.
It's not for justice, it's notnot like my job.
What I see I do is my job is tohave an objective and honest
conversation about importantissues in policing.
That's my job.
That's not his job.
And the mistake would be tothink that he's playing the same
game.
He's not.
So he's playing the game of,and it's his job to try to get
as much money as possible.
(12:00):
That's what he's doing.
So I think if we look at itfrom that that uh perspective, I
think it's it's more, it's morehonest to be able to see
exactly what he's doing and kindof like you said me when you
talked about the riots, you knowI wrote an article a while back
and I basically said you knowthere's what ben crump does.
Just like you said, he doesn'tgo to court, but he basically
has developed this brilliantthree-step process lie, riot,
(12:23):
riot, extort, and that's what hedoes.
Travis Yates (12:27):
Yeah, that makes a lot of sense and I got a theory
.
I don't think many people havedone this, but I think if Ben
Crump comes to a town and helies clearly lies about a police
incident, I think if a policechief went in front of a
microphone and said this is notthe truth, here's the video,
here's the truth I actuallythink he just goes back to
florida, I I think I thinkthat's what actually happens,
but very few people will do thatto him, right, for some strange
(12:49):
reason, and uh, we'll move on.
But I think that's veryinteresting and I agree we
should not be focusing so muchon him, because that is who he
is.
We should be focusing on thepolice leaders that are just
refusing to be honest, which ismore troubling to me than Ben
Crump not being honest.
Daniel Carr (13:05):
And if I could say one more thing on that.
So what I do in my videos a lotof the time, and some of the
videos that I put up on TikTokthat have gone viral I think one
of them has eight million viewsor something like that where
it's a case where Ben Crumptells objective lies and I get
on there and I say, OK, this iswhat Ben Crump said, and the
involved police officers, theyaren't allowed to publicly
defend themselves.
That's where I come in and thenI go and I correct the record
(13:28):
and I play the body camerafootage and it's content like
that.
The reason that those videoshave gone viral, it's because
people want the truth and asmany videos of those as I can do
.
That's one of my goals.
But the thing is, you're right,I shouldn't be one of the only
ones doing it.
That is the job of the policechief or the sheriff or the city
leaders Not to lie, not todemonize people, not to talk bad
(13:49):
about people who just lost aloved one, but just to be honest
about what happened with theirpolice officers.
Travis Yates (13:56):
Yeah, I want to talk about one of your recent
articles.
By the way, if you're just nowjoining us, this is Daniel Carr
You've got to subscribe to thepolice law newsletter.
It's policelawnewssubstackcom.
He's talked about TikTok onhere.
If you swing that way, go toTikTok.
Daniel is obviously verypopular on TikTok so popular
they banned his TikTok when itblew up, but he's built another
one, so check that out.
(14:18):
But I'm an educated man, daniel,so I like to read your lengthy
articles versus your 12-year-oldvideos.
But people love the videos.
But I want to talk about one ofyour latest articles called
2024 by the numbers, and I wantto just kind of give our people
watching or people listeningwhat this said.
You need to go to his website,pay the 50 bucks.
Don't be cheap, support thisguy.
(14:39):
But here's what you said.
You say, hey, there'sapproximately 54 million police
citizen contacts.
There's somewhere in theneighborhood of 10 million
arrests per year.
Here is fatal police shootingsfor 2024.
Eleven hundred and thirty threepeople were fatally shot.
Ten sixty eight were fatallyshot by police.
Were men OK, 94 percent weremen.
Twenty point nine percent wereblack.
(15:01):
Thirty point eight percent werewhite.
You go on and on and I lovewhat you said at the end of it.
You say the insane notion thatpolice officers are engaging in
wild shootouts with acorns on adaily basis is simply not based
in reality.
But what struck me with thisdata, daniel, is I have followed
this data for many, many yearsand this data has been around
(15:24):
950, 1050, 1100.
I would say between 950 and1200.
Ever since I followed the data,all of the police reforms in
the last decade, all of theclaims of systematic racism and
I'll tell you why they say thisand we talked about talking to
me earlier.
I've been beaten up for sayingthis, but here's why it's always
(15:45):
been said uh, 20.9 percent ofblack men were fatally shot by
police, and then what they sayabout systematic racism is but
there's only 13 percent of blackmen in america, so that
obviously means it's systematicracism.
Obviously, we can talk aboutthat in a second on why that is
crazy.
But, um, what I have since,daniel?
(16:06):
This data has not changed.
I got two questions, actuallymore than two.
This data hasn't changed sinceall the reforms have happened
and people need to kind of goback and turn their time machine
back to 2014, 2013.
This is why we made all thechanges in policing because of
all these so-called shootings ofunarmed people.
Why hasn't this changed?
(16:26):
Why hasn't the reforms changedthe data?
And to pair with that question,is anybody looking at the
reforms?
That didn't change the data onwhether reforms actually helped.
Daniel Carr (16:38):
That's a great question and I'd like to talk
about reforms.
I think we're going to get intothat later, but the reason that
the data hasn't changed and thereason that the data is not
going to change is because thereform in order to lower the
amount of officer-involvedshootings is not on the part of
police officers, Because policeofficers if someone comes at a
police officer with a knife or agun or threatens a police
(16:59):
officer with deadly force,there's no reform possible that
is going to change the situation, where a police officer is not
going to defend themselves in asituation like that.
So I think that police reformis this giant industry and it's
sold as that it's going to lowerpolice shootings and things
like that, and the reality is isthat it's not.
(17:20):
Now there are some good thingsthat police reform can do, but
the notion that it's going tolower the amount of police
shootings is false.
Travis Yates (17:30):
Well, I think it's preliminary, but I think the
case can be made that it'spossibly increased police
shootings because, as crime goesup in communities, many reforms
in many of these urban citieshave caused a increase in
violent crime.
We can debate on why that isprobably less police activity,
less police officers, all thatas crime goes up, police use of
force goes up, because that'swhat use of force is used on is
(17:52):
criminals.
And uh, and what's your take onthat?
That the reforms possibly couldhave created an increase,
because this is an increase.
This number is higher than, ifyou on average, the last 10
years.
This is on the higher end.
Daniel Carr (18:05):
Yeah, so I think that's.
I think that you're correctwhen you say that.
So a lot of the results of thepolice officers leave those
cities because they don't wantto be in that environment of a
(18:26):
lot of people don't don'tsupport police.
So so when you have, so really,just like what I said, when you
have cities who defund police,instead of three or four
officers going to a call wheresomeone's armed with a knife or
maybe they they can go with aforce array where one officer
has a taser, one has a beanbagshotgun, and now you have two or
three officers with less lethaloptions, well now you've
defunded that police department.
(18:47):
What that means there's lessofficers on the street.
So now you're sending twoofficers there.
So the idea that a policeofficer is going to be able to
use less lethal force, thatoption, becomes less, and so,
yeah, I think that absolutelycan happen.
I don't think that's the intentof a lot of the academics who
(19:08):
run these police reform agencies, but I think that's the
realistic result of what happens.
Travis Yates (19:13):
Yeah, there is a big disconnect between what
academia says and what realitysays, and we'll get into consent
decrees a little bit later.
That would be a funconversation.
But one thing that I always sawover the last decade is I would
talk a lot about this myth ofsystematic racism.
I will have a one-on-one debatewith anybody any day about that
, because I've studied the dataand a lot of you know Roland
(19:36):
Fryer and Heather McDonald.
A lot of esteemed statisticiansand researchers have studied
the data and they agree with me.
But, man, I've been beaten upthrough the years whenever I
mentioned it.
But this is what we're talkingabout.
To say to say that becausepolice shootings should be
exactly along, you know, theracial lines in America is
(19:59):
saying that crime should becommitted along racial lines.
And I would submit to you thatif crime was dead, even among
all ethnicities and races, wellyeah, our use of force should be
dead, even among allethnicities or races, because
that's how force happens.
Force is directly correlated towho's committing violent crime.
I think that is common sense topeople that can get out of
(20:20):
their own way.
So when you look at thedifference and disparity there,
you can't just look at it likethe number you just said.
Oh, it's 20.9.
Oh my gosh, it's 13%.
You have to then look at, well,what percentage is committing
violent crime, and that triggersa lot of people where it has in
the past by trying to just kindof speak that common sense.
(20:40):
But this idea of systematicracism has done a lot of damage
in law enforcement because onceagain, police leaders have not
spoken about it, because I forone, if I'm a police leader, I'm
going to do everything I can tomake sure that's not happening.
I'm going to be running my owninternal data.
I'm going to be putting thatout to the public.
I did that in certain partswhen I worked on the department
and that upset people when I was, when I pulled the robbery data
(21:02):
and said, well, here's who'scommitting robberies and here's
the use of force on robberiesand whoa.
They look very similar.
That upset even people insidethe police department, oddly
enough.
So that's obviously not beingdone.
But what I have noticed, danieland it's one of my point I want
to get to is I haven't noticedthis pitch of systematic racism
at the height that I used to.
Maybe I'm wrong, but I mean Iused to be getting beat up about
(21:25):
it all the time.
I haven't been beaten up aboutit in a long time.
I don't hear this a lot.
At one time Congress hadmentioned this word systematic
race system over eleven hundredtimes in proposed bills's been
lowered.
What do you think's going onthere?
Why?
Why do you?
I don't think it's gone away.
Why do you think the noise and,quite frankly, the myth has
(21:45):
kind of dissipated for a time?
Daniel Carr (21:47):
yeah, great question.
So I don't think the answer isis that we, we objectively and
honestly won the argument andnow they just agree with us that
there isn't any?
Travis Yates (21:57):
I agree with that wholeheartedly, yeah.
Daniel Carr (22:01):
I wouldn't take the victory on that.
What I think is that it's notpolitically popular.
Defund the police was such amassive failure Even in places
like San Francisco.
They've gotten rid of thesepro-criminal DAs there, so it's
not politically popular anymore.
It doesn't do them any good.
That's why they're not talkingabout it.
(22:22):
And just to add on to what yousaid a second ago, is you know
when we were in the whole, whenit was really in the thick of
the systematic racism debate,and you know the best way that I
can explain it and I wrote tomy article, and not the only one
to talk about is you know whatI come back with is just I try
to use logic as much as possible.
I say you know, men are 50percent of the population, but
(22:43):
they are 94 percent of peoplewho are shot and killed by
police.
And then I ask people why doyou think that is?
I say, do you think that policeofficers are systematically
sexist against men?
And of course not.
So the obvious answer is well,men commit over 90% of the
violent crime.
Therefore they have morenegative interactions with
police officers.
If you can get people to buy inthere, because most people will
(23:07):
, then it's very easy to say youhave to take that same logic
when it comes to race and age,there's a reason that the vast
majority of people who are shotand killed by police officers
are under 45 years old.
Police officers aren't, aren't,aren't ageist against young
people.
It's that's who's puttingthemselves in situations and
committing crime and using thatlogic.
And then if you get people tobuy in there, which almost
(23:29):
everybody does, it's just onestep further to say well, the
same is true with race.
Travis Yates (23:34):
I'm glad you said that, Dan, because that was
actually my next comment.
Don't think that because ithasn't been a big topic in the
media or the activists, that itsomehow has disappeared.
Law enforcement agencies needto protect themselves against
this in the future.
And it's so simple, but I onlyknow of about three departments
doing it, and this is thesimplicity of it.
You take your part one crimedata, Daniel, and you break it
(23:56):
down by race, because we don'tmake that up.
Those are real victims thatcall the police and describe a
suspect right, it's rape,robbery, murder, homicide,
aggravated assault, arson andyou break that down by race.
And then you break down use offorce by race and you put them
side by side and you just put itout on your public website.
(24:17):
You don't have to make acomment about it, you don't have
to opine about it, you just putit out there and people can
look for themselves at thedirect comparison and make their
own judgment.
But hardly no one does this,which is strange to me, because
that data is readily availableby a few clicks of a button, as
you know, and I don't understandthat.
But that needs to be done,because you're not pointing
(24:38):
fingers, You're just being givenpeople, as you talk about
Daniel, the truth.
And so if you want to sit hereand claim that a seven percent
disparity in shootings meanssome systemized racism, Well
let's look at all the data andthen just stick it side by side.
I talk about this in my seminarsand people kind of I had this
chief.
He'd been a chief for 30 yearsago.
I'd never thought of that.
I'm like, what is going on here?
(24:58):
You'll sit here and listen toMSNBC, call you every name in
the book, including whitesupremacists and everything else
, but you have not thought aboutjust presenting the data.
Because I think you're right.
I think most of your community,regardless of where you are in
America, most communities,they're going to look at this
logically.
They're not political animalsalways pointing fingers, they're
just going to look at itlogically and they want to know
the information.
(25:18):
But if all you hear all day,every day, is racism, racism,
racism, that's going to be yourdefault.
So it's very simple to do Justso.
Few people do it, and thatleads me into consent decrees,
because this narrative hasdriven consent decrees across
America, and people listening tome know where I stand on this
because I look at the data.
(25:39):
I look at what happens before aconsent decree happens in a
department.
I look at what happens after aconsent decree happens in a
department.
Daniel, you were in adepartment before a consent
decree and you're in adepartment near the tail end of
a consent decree.
I'm going to open it up to youbecause I think you can speak
freely about this now and justto let our audience know consent
(25:59):
decree is.
The Department of Justice comesinto a department.
They say there's allegationsagainst you.
Typically those allegations arecoming from a few of the
activist groups and that spursthe DLJ.
It's very political.
They pick and choose which citythey go to.
Mainly it's a liberal citybecause it's usually a friendly
environment for the DLJ.
The city usually finances theinvestigation.
Phoenix, for example, has spentwell over $10 million on an
(26:23):
investigation for the DLJ, whichseems crazy to me, and I'm sure
Albuquerque spent millions andmillions of dollars to help the
DLJ say these horrible thingsabout Albuquerque and the DLJ.
This shocker finds these thingsthat they call a pattern and
practice of civil rightsviolations, constitutional
violations and they put out asummary document and then they
either get the department toagree to let the DLJ impose a
(26:46):
consent decree, federallymonitored on the department.
That basically runs thedepartment.
In a nutshell, Policiestraining it basically starts
running the department.
Or if the city says we don'tagree with it, the DOJ has the
option to take it to court andto actually have to present
evidence.
Now, very few, if any.
I think one department has takenthem to court.
Doj has never won one of thesein court to my knowledge.
(27:08):
So most departments for somereason will just say, okay,
we'll do it.
But in recent years there'sbeen a lot pointed out about
these and I'm just interestedabout your, since you have an
intimate knowledge about it,Daniel.
There's probably only about 100people in America that have
worked day in and day out withconsent decrees inside a police
department.
Give us your thoughts onAlbuquerque kind of the impact
(27:30):
it had, and is Albuquerquebetter off today than they were
a decade ago before a consentdecree?
Daniel Carr (27:36):
So those are a couple of different questions.
So the first one is isAlbuquerque better off now than
they were before?
And I'm going to be mixed onthat.
So one of the reasons is thatthe Department of Justice, like
you said, came into the city ofAlbuquerque in 2014.
They said there was a patternin practice of violation of
civil rights and excessive force.
We had 30 homicides inAlbuquerque in 2014.
(27:59):
The DOJ was in Albuquerque for10 years.
They just left earlier thisyear.
This year, we had 134 homicides.
Now I get crime went upeverywhere.
I'm not saying that this causedan extra 100 homicides, but
that is unbelievable in 10 yearsto jump 100 homicides.
Also, we had, I think, the yearthat the DOJ came in, I think
(28:20):
we had 15 officer-involvedshootings.
Of those 15 officer-involvedshootings, none of those
shootings were ruled illegal orunconstitutional.
Remember that this year, 10years later, I think, we had 15
officer-involved shootings.
The same thing None of theseshootings were ruled
unconstitutional.
So what did the city gain?
10 years?
(28:40):
Tens of millions of dollars.
What did the city gain?
And I can tell you what the cityof Albuquerque gained from my
point of view and just to betransparent the last four years
I was with the department.
I worked in Internal AffairsForce Division, where I was a
use of force investigator and Iworked in compliance.
I was the detective for theforce review board, where
basically, I did thepresentations for department and
city leaders about use of forcecases.
(29:01):
So my last four years I reallygot to see up close this reform
process when it comes to use offorce and what I could say is
that the practices andprocedures that the department
now utilizes for investigatinguse of force is top notch.
It's incredible, and if thereis a way to get that system that
(29:21):
we use to investigate force andhow thorough it is because it
should be thorough how do we getthere?
Is there a way to get therewithout the 10 years and the
tens of millions of dollars?
So the last thing I'm going tosay about this, or just one
other example, travis is thatthe Department of Justice came
in in 2014.
It wasn't until summer of 2021that the Albuquerque Police
(29:43):
Department had not only a use offorce policy that the feds and
the DOJ were good with, but thatwe had a system and
investigators to investigate useof force how the DOJ wanted.
It was essentially a guessinggame for seven and a half years.
So cities who are going throughit now, like Minneapolis and
Phoenix and Louisville, I think.
(30:05):
So what these departments aredoing and what they should be
doing is they should be going todepartment leaders over at
Albuquerque Police and Seattle,some of these other places, and
say, hey, what were some of thepolicies, reforms that worked,
what can we do?
So there's not this guessinggame about what the feds want.
And again, we can argue aboutconsent decrees, but for cities
(30:27):
and police leaders that arestuck, I think right now there
is a way to go from the 10 yearsthat we did down to maybe two
or three years.
And if I were a police leaderand again, what happens in the
city is way above a commander oreven above what a police chief
can do If you're stuck in this,you have to be thinking, okay,
how can we make this as quickand painless as possible?
(30:48):
Because again, I'll be honest,some of the policies not all of
them, but some of the policiesand mostly procedures they
haven't been all bad, they'vebeen good.
One other last example I giveis we were the first major
department in the country togive body cameras to every
single patrol police officer,which I love.
That was a great thing, butthere is a way to do it without
10 years and tens of millions ofdollars.
Travis Yates (31:09):
There's certainly a way to do it without the DOJ.
I mean, you could just do it.
It's what leadership's aboutRight, leadership's about right,
and I'm not going to go into ittoo deep, but I'm at the tail
end of a multi-monthinvestigation on Phoenix's
investigation.
Now Phoenix has not agreed withthe DLJ and they have not
signed up for a consent decreeyet.
But one of the problems Phoenixfound was a lot of the things
(31:31):
that DLJ said simply wasn't truein a summary report, which is
really shocking.
And so Phoenix did somethinginteresting.
I'm sure you're aware of it,daniel, is DOJ usually comes out
with a summary report and theyjust kind of give you a
paragraph on each of theseexamples, right, and say, oh,
this is wrong, this is wrong.
For instance, in Albuquerquethey said that all these police
shootings were unconstitutionaland that wasn't true.
You just told me that wasn'ttrue and the police shootings
(31:53):
actually increased during theconsent decree because your
violence increased during aconsent decree.
It's like we're coming fullcircle.
They're talking about that, butwhat Phoenix did was really
interesting is they went andfound these examples.
I think there was 132 examplesthat the DOJ said Phoenix was a
pattern in practice.
Now, let's just stop rightthere.
(32:14):
One hundred and thirty twoPhoenix police goes to two
million calls a year.
The DOJ studied six years.
We're talking tens of millionsof citizen contacts.
They found 134 incidents thatwere constitutional violations,
according to them, and I thinkPhoenix identified about one
hundred twenty two of those andthey put out a Web site that
listed not to paragraph, itlisted body camera footage,
(32:37):
administrative documents.
So that's what I have beenworking on and going through
because to me it's sofascinating.
And I got to admit to you I didnot think I would find what I
found.
I thought there were some shadythings, probably with consent
decrees, because I've watchedthese through the years, but I
found out of 122 incidents wecould identify, I found four
(32:58):
accurate incidents.
The DOJ described four of themaccurately.
Why can I say that and not bebiased?
I watched the body camerafootage and read the reports the
same body camera footage andthe same reports the DOJ had
access to.
But they did a lot of things inthose to make them seem bad
that weren't bad and I got totell you I and I'm surprised.
(33:23):
I mean I don't think the CivilRights Division of the DLJ is
probably the best experts inpolice activity.
But a first year criminaljustice student could have
analyzed these cases and come toa similar conclusion is what I
found, because you just watchthe body camera and you read the
reports.
It's just the truth.
Here's what happened.
(33:43):
I mean, I'm talking crazythings, daniel.
There's an incident where theysaid the guy didn't have a knife
in his hand.
He had a knife in his hand.
I mean, just, I'm talking wildstuff.
And why do you think the DLJthought they could?
Because they had to have known.
There's no way.
And we talk about bias and Ithink it's coming from.
(34:04):
I agree with you, I don't thinkthey are.
They have this intent to justbe crazy like this.
But I think it comes from anacademic bias, because we don't
know who writes these DOJreports.
We don't know who investigatesthem, because if you don't take
them to court, they don't revealthem.
It's just a generic report, soI don't know who's behind it,
(34:27):
but it reads to me like someacademic people that have never,
ever, you know, been in apolice car, because it's just so
strange the way it's written.
I can't I mean I won't even gointo the other things I found,
but it's wild, I feel.
I did a few videos on it.
But uh, why did you think thedlj thought that this could
happen?
Because I'm going to be honestwith you, phoenix police is a
large department and millionsand millions of calls.
There probably was 100 or soincidents that were bad.
(34:49):
There probably was.
That's not the instance the DLJpicked, and so I'm really
confused by it.
I just want to hear yourthoughts and we'll move on.
Daniel Carr (34:58):
Yeah, I think it's.
I think one of the reasons thatthey do it is, first of all, I
think it's because they theydon't necessarily know.
So I don't think that the civilrights division, so just really
quick, what you said is in apolice department, that's that
big, the idea that there's not ahundred use of force,
problematic incidents a year atleast violations of policy we
know that there are because itwould be, impossible for there
(35:19):
not to be.
So I don't think that the civilrights division is sitting there
and saying you know what wehave, these hundred cases that
we know are problematic, butwe're actually going to talk
about these instead.
I don't think they're doingthat.
So I don't think they know.
They don't have a Travis Yatesor a Daniel Carr on their staff
to really kind of do like afinal review of these cases.
I think that's part of it, andone of the ways that I can say
(35:40):
is that they just don't know isan example I can use for my
agency, which actually happened,and when it happened, all of us
in the use of force divisionwere just screaming how crazy
this was.
They said that we were not onlyshooting too many people, even
though all the shootings werelegal.
Not only were we shooting toomany people, but we were using
the taser too much.
So they made the taser policymore restrictive.
(36:01):
They made it more which causesmore shootings they made it
travis.
they made it more difficult bypolicy for police officers to
utilize tasers.
And we're sitting there in thatuse of force office and we had
two officer-involved shootingscome through where these should
have been tasings.
It should have been tasings andthe reason that they weren't
tasings is because had theofficer utilized a taser, it
(36:22):
would have been against policyand the officers looking at days
off.
Travis Yates (36:42):
So again, they don't have bad intent, but they
have bad ideas, and some oftheir bad ideas by saying that
officers shouldn't utilizetasers as much either.
That causes moreofficer-involved shootings.
I have specific examples ofthat and I think that's what it
is.
Yeah, I kind of came to theconclusion that I was dealing
with.
You know that these peopledidn't have bad intent.
They were just not smart inthis area.
When I continue to see themabuse what Miranda was or wasn't
, they kept saying that theywere violating Miranda rights,
when that's about as clear caselaw as you can get custodial
interrogation.
And they were talking aboutpeople that weren't in custody,
(37:04):
that were.
Know, are you watching tvmovies?
What's going on here?
How do you not do a googlesearch on what miranda is?
And so they just clearly didn'tunderstand that.
And the fourth minute was awhole nother debacle.
So I think I'm with you, daniel.
I would love to help them ifthey're, if they can be helped,
but at this point the the oddthing is about the dlj.
Is is is in of DLJ.
They actually can do a prettygood job of looking at police
(37:27):
departments.
You know the civil rightsdivision clearly, when I read
some of these reports uh, cause.
It's not just Phoenix.
Louisville chief is on recordsaying none of this was true,
which is which is wild to me,right?
So anyway, man, I appreciateyour insight into that.
Very few people that have beeninside uh are willing to speak
about it, but I think we allwant better professional police.
If the DLJ Civil RightsDivision had the answer, we'd be
(37:49):
singing their praises, but Ithink clearly the data is out.
There has to be a different way.
I personally would love policeleaders to lead and to make
departments great, and I thinkyou probably feel the same way,
daniel.
So a couple more questions.
Man, I appreciate you.
The first time we talked I'mtrying to remember, but the
(38:09):
obviously the Chauvin trial waseither just wrapping up or had
been done, or anyway we hadcertain information on the Derek
Chauvin and the Minneapolisdeal.
A lot of information has comeout since the trial, which is
crazy to me.
How come this informationwasn't out for a man's trial
(38:30):
right?
Have you wavered at all on whathappened there?
I don't want to relitigate allof this, but it's certainly
troubling to me that a lot ofthis information seemed to have
been hidden from the public andfrom the jury when that trial
happened.
What's your thoughts on that?
Daniel Carr (38:45):
Yeah.
So my thoughts on that are Ithink they have evolved over the
years, the more informationthat came out and I've been at
this stage for a while is thatthe three officers who let's
start with them, the threeofficers who weren't Derek
Chauvin the idea that they wereprosecuted or charged with
anything is absolutely insane.
I do not think any of thoseofficers committed a crime.
Also, derek Chauvin, you knowwhat I can't get past on that
(39:08):
and I see a pathway to, maybe,where I can.
What I still can't get past isthat when you have someone who
is obviously in medical distresswhich George Floyd obviously,
was the idea that you're goingto have him on his handcuffed,
his stomach and putting anyweight on his back or shoulder,
any weight for that period oftime for lack of a better term
(39:31):
that's a bad idea.
So I don't know whenMinneapolis got that training.
I know when I got that training, probably around 2010.
So the idea that officerChauvin didn't know that, that
seems, that seems that seemsstrange to me.
I don't think that he intendedto harm George Floyd.
My guess is that he used thismove, this kind of keeping his
knee bladed across the back.
Travis Yates (39:51):
Yeah, they call it the maximal restraint,
technique MRT.
Daniel Carr (39:55):
He probably used that dozens of times and the
result was everyone was fine.
So I don't think that there wasany bad intent on his part.
So my question is really aboutthe training and what I've
learned since then.
I actually attended a seminarin my last year where Derek
Chauvin's defense attorney, ericNelson he was one of the
(40:17):
speakers and one of the thingsthat he talked about.
He says what Derek Chauvin didin that case having his knee in
that way that was trained.
That was true, they actuallytrained him to do that and that
wasn't allowed- yeah, what'scrazy is they have photographs
of the training.
Travis Yates (40:25):
Yes, right, they have photographs of this being
trained.
Daniel Carr (40:28):
Yeah.
So even if, even if he wastrained to do that, I get it.
I'm just going to be and again,I know that a lot of people who
are are pro police don'tnecessarily agree, but no matter
what the training is and I getthat he had him in that position
because he was waiting forsomeone to come with with legles
, because he was, I get all that.
The idea that you're going tohold someone back in 2020, hold
(40:52):
someone in that position forthat long doesn't make any sense
.
So I guess I would need theanswer to the question of why
that decision was made.
Why didn't you roll him over onhis side or sit him up?
Now, again, I can tell you, Idon't think that was the correct
thing.
So that's probably a violationof policy.
Do I think that's criminal?
I think it's up in the airwhether or not that's criminal.
(41:12):
Is a 20 years in jail criminal?
Absolutely not.
And I do not think that DerekChauvin got a fair trial.
Travis Yates (41:18):
Yeah, and that's why I love you, daniel, because
you just come straight down themiddle with all the information
and you're right.
I mean, if you have to provethis beyond a reasonable doubt,
you just threw about 15 thingsout there that causes people to
kind of pause one way or theother, and I'm not sure the jury
got that same information so,which is really insane, and it
may or may not come back andbite you know the state of
(41:40):
minneapolis or minnesota, uh,that presented that case,
because obviously someinformation's come out that's
very, very troubling.
One more thing, daniel, and Ilove what you said about this,
is the contrast between theDaniel Penny case and then the
subway fire case that justoccurred.
I think we live in this day andtime where it doesn't take long
for things to come around.
(42:00):
What's your thoughts on that?
Daniel Carr (42:02):
Yeah.
So my thoughts on that are thatDaniel Penny obviously he never
should have been charged.
When this happened, I said youknow, this is really a barometer
to see where society is, thatare we going to go with
prosecuting someone like DanielPenny, who was just objectively
trying to save people andprotect people from being
murdered or harmed by someonelike Jordan Neely?
(42:22):
And that was kind of abarometer of where society is.
And the fact that he was foundnot guilty, I think we won on
that one.
Now he never should have beenprosecuted in the first place.
And then, when it comes to thatsubway fire case, this is one of
the things where I havedisagreement with people,
especially people who arepro-police, because they think
that police officers should havedone more.
(42:43):
And here's the thing.
I'm not disagreeing that theofficers should have done more.
I'm just saying that it's myopinion that if you want police
officers to do more, or if youlet me just frame it the way I
did before If you don't likesomething that a police officer
did and we all saw the video ofthe police officer standing
there on his radio while thewoman is burning alive If you
don't like what the policeofficer did, then fine, let's
(43:05):
have the discussion.
Point to law policy or trainingthat the officer violated.
Because if you look at it underthat, if you look at it under
that, um, under that view, thechief of police said the
officers did everything theywere supposed to do.
They got on the radio and theygot fire extinguishers and
that's how they put her out.
So if we want police officersto do something different, great
(43:26):
, we have to give them trainingand equipment to be able to do
it.
Because a lot of times Travis,when we have a situation where
we can objectively say, hey, Idon't like what the cop did, but
the cop didn't violate lawpolicy or training, if that's
where you find yourself, veryoften the problem is much higher
on the food chain.
Travis Yates (43:43):
Yeah, yeah, excellent, take, daniel.
I can't thank you enough, man.
Where can people find you?
Where can they reach out to you?
I would also remind people goto policelawnewssubsectcom and
subscribe and give this man $50a year.
It's not a lot for the workhe's putting in.
I just did that today and Iwant to encourage everybody else
to do that.
So, daniel, where can they findyou at?
Daniel Carr (44:05):
Well, first of all, it was an honor to be on.
Thank you so much for the kindwords, and you can find me.
I'm on X YouTube, just aboutevery other social media channel
.
You can find me everywhere atPolice Law News.
Travis Yates (44:16):
Daniel Carr, it's been an honor, it's been a
privilege.
Thank you for being here and ifyou've been watching and you've
been listening, just remember,lead on and stay courageous.
Speaker 1 (44:26):
Thank you for listening to Courageous
Leadership with Travis Yates.
We invite you to join othercourageous leaders at www.
travisyates.
org.
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