Transcript: Mayor de Blasio Appears Live On MSNBC's The Last Word with Lawrence O'Donnell

August 19, 2019

Lawrence O’Donnell: Joining us now is Bill de Blasio, the Mayor of New York City and a democratic presidential candidate. Mr. Mayor, thank you very much for joining us tonight on this important night. 

Mayor Bill de Blasio: You’re very welcome, Lawrence. 

O’Donnell: There was a lot of talk during the presidential debate about why haven’t you fired the officer. Could you just clarify that for the audience? It’s been very clear, I think, to people in New York who follow this, but the lines of authority in these cases and how it works. 

Mayor: Absolutely, Lawrence. So, our State law says that this is something that has to be handled within the NYPD through a public trial, due process, a decision by a trial judge that goes to the Commissioner as a recommendation. And the Police Commissioner, by State law, is the only person who can ultimately act. In decades and decades in New York City history, on matter what a mayor says or doesn’t say, the only actual ability to fire a police officer after due process is in the hands of the Police Commissioner. And, by the way, if you want to see the sanctity of that due process and have it hold up in the end, it’s actually important that a mayor not interfere, because I believe justice has been done here finally. It took way, way too long, but justice has been done, and now it’s important that this decision stick. I'm sure it's going to be an attempt to challenge it in court, but it's crucial that it stick, that justice be served and that we're able to move on as a city and a nation. And I have to say, Lawrence, you've watched these situations all around the country – this is the premier police department in the nation and not so long ago it would not have been necessarily assumed that a trial inside the NYPD with an NYPD deputy commissioner as the judge would result in this level of accountability. That judge said no, that was a prohibited chokehold, that was wrong, this officer should be terminated. The First Deputy Commissioner concurred, sent back to the Commissioner – the Commissioner concurred. This is actually the process working. It should have happened a long time ago and if it were not for the U.S. Department of Justice telling the City of New York not to proceed, we would have done this a long time ago. And we learned a very painful lesson from that experience with the Justice Department over two different presidential administrations.

O’Donnell: Yeah, let me go to that. It's not so much that they were telling you not to, they were requesting that you not proceed because they don't actually have the authority to slow you down. It is customary, and I think pretty much every department and probably every city in the country would have gone along with the Justice Department's request. But if this were to happen again, and the Justice Department were to make the same request and you had this kind of convincing video and in a city with the sense of urgency about it, what would you do differently? 

Mayor: At this point, Lawrence, I don't believe that United States Department of Justice is dispensing justice anymore. There's no conceivable way they could take five years to decide to do nothing. That’s unacceptable from my point of view, we would not – we would not honor their request in the future. But Lawrence, the key is not to have another Eric Garner case, to do things so differently that we never have this kind of tragedy again. And I think it's important for all your viewers to understand, these situations, these conflicts can be changed through de-escalation. We’ve taught all of our officers – 36,000 officers we retrained after the tragedy of Eric Garner to de-escalate any kind of situation that the community, to deescalated exactly what you saw on camera there. Now, that would be handled very differently. There's a body camera on every officer, that was not true at that time. Every officer is getting implicit bias training to help weed out whatever biases are in all of us as humans. This is a very different city. This was a very different police force and it's very notable that the first [inaudible] public trial in this entire case, the first time there was actually a trial, it was an NYPD trial.

O’Donnell: Mr. Mayor, I think I've been studying this subject for all of my adult life, literally, and my first book was entitled Deadly Force about this very subject, and what is very clear is it is going to happen, just like plane crashes are going to happen again. And what one of the things we absolutely need – because there's human error, as you know, there's a bunch of ways in which this can happen again – and it's the aftermath, the transparency of the aftermath that is – that becomes so important. And we see in your administration, two different versions of this – one on the civil side, where the family in the process of filing a civil lawsuit to sue the city. And you very quickly settled that case with basically no legal strain on the family, for $5 million – a little bit more than $5 million. And then all the rest of the process, the non-civil process was what dragged on for all of these years. And so, again, would you simply say, for example, on the parts of it that the City controls, let's just go ahead with the police internal affairs investigation, the police department possible trial, as we saw in this case, and let's not consider the timetables of any of the other processes, which we don't control and could be slow.

Mayor: Lawrence, in the past I would've said – and you indicate it – when the Justice Department makes that request, we used to take it very, very seriously. They had the higher charges. They were not just as dealing with personnel matters, they were dealing with potential criminal charges. They were the Justice Department – had often been throughout the whole Civil Rights movement, and since, the place that you went for objective justice, even when localities were not providing it. And I have to tell you, especially because this started before the current administration, this started in a previous presidential administration. I just in a million years could not have foreseen this delay and this ability of the Justice Department not to act. As I say, in the future, we would never do it that way again because we've learned as painful lesson. But I want to contest one thing you said – and I think you have a lot more expertise in the study you've done of this issue than I probably do, but I have to contest one thing – you know, for decades we have not trained our police officers properly in this country to deescalate conflict. We certainly never gave them implicit bias training. We didn't have body cameras. I think it's a very, very different reality now. We have a neighborhood policing philosophy that's all about actually building human relationships between officers and the people they serve – first name basis, officers stay in the community long-term, getting to know people and feeling at one with the community. This is happening on a mass scale in New York City and we're actually driving down crime every single year as we heal the relationship between police and community. So, I do not think these tragedies are inevitable. I agree with you, human error is always possible in life, but, I’ve got to tell you, so much of why this happened in the past was because officers were trained in a very aggressive approach, policing and over-policing approach, not in a humane understanding, compassionate approach that was actually about building relationships of mutual respect. And as we've been doing that in New York City, you're not seeing these kinds of incidents. And I really think the goal should be for this whole country, every single police officer, good people who choose to serve, all of us good people who follow a noble calling deserve the kind of training and support and the opportunity to build a relationship with the people they serve that, bluntly, they have not been given. Nor have communities been given a chance to experience that kind of policing. I think we need to do that all over this country. 

O’Donnell: Mr. Mayor, I want to go to something one of your critics said today. Patrick Lynch, he heads the police officers’ union in New York City – and let's just stipulate that the leaders of police unions around the country are always critical of any police department or mayor whenever a police offer officers [inaudible] – but he said something very interesting, because word for word, it is actually what the protestors and the Eric Garner case want the police to do. He actually said we will uphold our oath, but we cannot and will not do so by needlessly jeopardizing our careers or personal safety. I'm not sure Mr. Lynch realizes, but what he just said there is exactly what people who want police accountability – it’s exactly what people want them to do. 

Mayor: Well, look, I'd say it this way – I think the sad reality is – and I'm someone who believes in the labor movement very, very deeply – but you said it, unfortunately it has been too many times when leaders of police unions did not serve their members because they sent a message that was not about how we heal, not about how we move forward, but it ultimately a very divisive message, and that's what you heard today from Pat Lynch. Very disrespectful of our Police Commissioner, Jimmy O'Neill, very disrespectful of fact that there was due process and there needs to be accountability for all of us. But look, I think our police officers are truly professional. I think they're going to continue to serve and protect. People are not going to get caught up in an attempt to politically manipulate them by a few union leaders. I think our police officers are here doing this work. It's tough. It's dangerous, but they do it because they want to help people and protect people. And this city's going move forward. I’ve got to tell you, Lawrence, this has been a very, very painful episode, but it's also finally a moment where there's some visible justice and some closure for the Garner family and a chance to build something different. And that's what I'm going to focus on and I think that's what the vast majority of New Yorkers and Americans want. And the voices telling us, go backwards – that’s not what people are looking for. They want healing. They want us to put that past that held us back behind us. Mr. Mayor, we've crashed over the commercial break [inaudible] one presidential question about this, which would be – in a de Blasio administration with a de Blasio-chosen attorney general, how would the Justice Department approach these cases? 

Mayor: Lawrence, I think there should be an immediate commitment to speedy justice. In fact, I would support legislation at the federal level to require a time limit. Whenever there's an issue of police discipline, in a case involving a police officer, in this case, and an unarmed civilian, the Justice Department needs to come in and make its decision in real-time – one year, two year, whatever frame that should be decided, it should be mandatory. And in my administration as president, I would say the Justice Department makes it very clear to local authorities, if you're not going to address this issue, the Justice Department will step in, in a speedy manner and address it forthrightly. 

O’Donnell: Democratic presidential candidate, New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio, thank you very much for joining us on this important night on this very important subject – important in New York City and the country. Thank you very much, Mr. Mayor. 

Mayor: Thank you, Lawrence.