Continued is our discussion with Randall Woodfin. If you missed earlier segments click for part 1 and part 2

In May 2017, The Political Revolution’s Steven Johnson and David Dai met with Randall Woodfin, candidate for Mayor of Birmingham. They met at Octane Coffee in Birmingham and talked about Randall’s history, their mutual work in education, politics and the issues facing Birmingham. David and Steven each hold a Master’s of Education from the University of Alabama and Randall Woodfin currently serves on The Board of Education.

Volunteers for The Political Revolution teamed up to create interview questions and worked with Steven to create this text and audio reproduction of the conversation that followed.

Over the next two weeks, we would like to share that conversation with you for your reading or listening pleasure.

Thank you for supporting progressive candidates!

Audio available on Soundcloud:

Steven: We talked a lot about law enforcement but – and it’s a big issue on the national scene as well. For one, a lot of people just criminalize cops – for right reasons or not – but a lot of people look at their police force not as friends anymore but as an enemy, right? There are good and bad sides of that, not saying cops are always right or people are always right but there’s an issue there, right? So what’s your plan on – obviously you know the cops because you’ve been an attorney you know a lot of the police force –

Woodfin : Well I’ve seen both sides. I’ve seen the side as a prosecutor, where I have to work with officers and I’ve also been a victim of crime, my brother was murdered, this month it will be five years. But I’ve seen another side too. I had an uncle do 10 years in prison got another uncle doing 20. I got another uncle just got out last year, just turned 65 this year, he went in in his 20s. I’ve seen every side of law enforcement, I’ve experienced it all. Including my father – 40 years this past May retired as a state pardon parole probation officer. So when I tell you I’ve seen every side of law enforcement, I’ve literally seen every side. In that space I’m gonna say this – nationally there is a problem. Birmingham – one we have a crime problem and police officers are the face of fighting crime. So in no form, shape or way can I just shit on cops.  It’s not cool. In the second space – police officers, for the most part, are good people. The majority of them. And they go to bat for the communities that they serve.  (Points to officers in coffee shop) like I know personally those guys, i know their character, I know their temperament, I know their personality. We have some asshole officers and they see me on the street. For the most part that’s not the police.

The next space, mayors have to do a better job of investing in and supporting officers. But recognizing the national trend of officer engagement with the community? I’m tired of the word community policing because I think it’s been abused. Nobody knows what it means, right? Lets detail this out. Couple things.

You’ve got this emotional connection to a presidential outcome – people are attached. Right, and they feel some way about Bernie not winning, and they feel some way about Hillary not winning, and like they heads about to blow up because Trump won, and they’re mad, they’re frustrated and they’re angry, they’re hurt and sad – real, raw emotion, attached to their presidential election. And they have zero attachment to a municipal election. And I’m like, last time I checked, the President of the United States doesn’t appoint a police chief, the mayor does. And with all the issues you have about policing, you may want to be concerned who your mayor is. Because that person’s going to dictate policing in your city, policing in your community. Let’s hold that person accountable, let’s make sure we have a good mayor who understands that. Lets put their feet to the fire, let’s find out their plan.

What I want to do is – from an accreditation standpoint, nobody’s messing with Birmingham’s police force, they’re highly accredited, they’re well trained.

But what if we add mandatory de-escalation training to their training regimen every year? That’s a fundamental game-changer because that keeps in mind how to de-escalate situations. Properly train them to de-escalate situations. I don’t see a problem with that.

I think police morale is low across the nation for a couple of reasons.

I don’t think police chiefs and mayors are taking care of their police forces. I know we’re not here. Just talk to them, don’t take my word for it. Go talk to a Tuscaloosa officer and ask them how they’re doing. Not just pay – just actual – what’s going on. They’ll tell you. Unfortunately too many times those guys – act that out.

So I believe a couple things – make it mandatory for de-escalation training. And 2 – here is how community policing works – and this sound silly at first so im gonna clean it up – itll never work if you don’t have enough officers on the actual street. Why? Because the officers’ beat will be too big, they’ll be in their car only, they’ll respond to crime only, instead of building a rapport and relationships with people on their beat.

So community policing – here’s how I define it: officers have genuine relationships with people on their beat. People that live there, people that work there, people that own businesses there. Genuine relationships. Officers got their cell numbers and they got their officers’ cell numbers. So if I have a problem I can call 911 or I can text the officer on my beat cause that’s a genuine relationship. In that space how do you get there? You can’t just hire a bunch of police officers, there’s not enough money. Do we have a shortage of officers? Yes. In the meantime what do you do, what if there was a reconfiguration in police time – how their time is spent – so instead of three 8-hour shifts  – we have 90 officers in 1 precinct – move into two 12-hour shifts and you can double your manpower, that gives you several things.

You immediately suppress crime by sheer presence.

2. You can then really get into community policing because now in addition to having a police officer with a car you can have foot patrol, you can have bike patrol, and officers can engage people and their time is not just spent responding to crime because you have more officers.
3. You haven’t spent any additional money in tax dollars
4. We have young officers leave all the time and they’ll tell you that, hell they are just like the three of us. If they have a family they want time off on the weekend too. Now they get the option to have time off on the weekends as well. I could go on and on what that does.

But the relationship between officers and the people in the community is going to boil down to talking to both sides and saying what is it that we’re doing right, what is it that we are doing wrong, what can we be doing better, what do we need to stop. Nobody’s going to lead that conversation but the Mayor and the Chief of Police. Not the President of the United States, not the Governor of a state. It’s a really big deal. And we better have a mayor that is committed to making sure police interactions with citizens is the way its supposed to be. And I’m committed to that.

David: So how do you raise voter awareness to where they understand that it is the mayor’s duty in terms of appointing that police chief and that dictates the kind of relationships that it’ll have with the citizens –

Randall : Great question

David : I’m not sure what voter turnout is like in Birmingham?

Randall : Too low

Steven :It’s not good anywhere

David : It’s not great anywhere but how can you raise awareness in terms of addressing that frustration at the national level by making them aware its [police] more city level.

Randall : So it’s two or three groups – feel free to add – but these are the three groups that come to mind – directly to your question of how do you address. Got a bunch of senior citizens, elderly people who own their property and they literally don’t feel safe on their front porch, they don’t feel safe in their front yard,  they’re concerned about crime, they’re concerned about being robbed, they’re real concerned about the murder rate. And there’s a direct conversation about this – the current police chief has been in that position a decade – 10 years even before the current mayor got there, how our policing’s not working. Because crime is doing this [gestures upward]

And the second group – and you can have that conversation with them – this is how we are gonna repurpose neighborhood watch this is how we are gonna repurpose how our officers spend time when they’re on their beat, this is what we’re gonna do to fight and address crime.  And starts a new shift, keep talking to them in that space.

This is the second group. Our generation. Telling of x or generation x and y. They got a fundamental police mentality, right? Like, cops are evil. You gotta be talking to these guys around  – hey we are gonna implement a citizen’s task force that looks at police complaints, and we are gonna implement de-escalation training. And we’re gonna implement a lot more conversation that officers should engage. And…everybody record everybody, screw it. Officers got cameras, you’ve got a camera too, fine, everybody record everybody. It doesn’t matter. And we believe in secret santa and we wanna judge how officers are as people, don’t be an asshole. And there’s a third group – that gives zero care about anything – talk to these two. And just keep talking to them, because they

Our younger generation are concerned about police interaction.

With the community, these older people are actually saying – their words is we need more police or why the police aren’t doing their job.

Its two conversations, you have to blend both those conversations because they both have merit. You have to talk about it, over and over, town hall meetings, small group meetings, clean out your damn car and actually go to the hood where people posted up and talk to ‘em.  You see an old lady on her porch, you pull up and you talk to her. Talk to people about those issues over and over again. Because there is one space where people aren’t shy about telling how they feel and that is the police. Either I don’t feel enough protection or the police are too overzealous. That the fram e. That’s the literal refrain regarding policing and where we are.

Address both – over and over, over and over. If i see a public works employee on the back of a garbage truck or horticulture cutting somewhere, I stop and talk to them. Hey, how’s it going. I do the same thing with police or you do the same thing with the resident or the young person: “Had any interactions with the police lately? How is it?”

And I pay attention to all the groups on Facebook I see some of our problems are fabricated, because we want attention. Some it is genuine. If it’s genuine you suppress it, you shut it down, you stop it.

Zero tolerance on any effect of bad policing as it relates to interacting with citizens. It’s a non starter. They don’t allow it.

Steven : It’s tough because in our life you have a few rough situations where you gotta make decisions on the spot – it’s a grave decision either way – in our lives we don’t have that many of those decisions but a police officer could face that once a week, you know what I mean? but its tough, yeah.

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Join us next Sunday for the fourth and final part of this interview.