The Daily Signal - What This Former NYPD Detective Has to Say About Attacks on Police

Episode Date: March 25, 2021

Rob O’Donnell, a former detective with the New York Police Department, was among first responders to the terrorist attacks that brought down the towers of the World Trade Center in 2001 as well as to the terrorist bombing there eight years earlier. O'Donnell joins "The Daily Signal Podcast" to talk about what that was like. "A few days before 9/11, I had a homicide [investigation], which probably helped me not be there as soon as I would have been because I ended up working on 9/10 to about 2 in the morning, where I normally would have been at work at 7," O’Donnell recalls. "I responded straight down to ground zero on 9/11," he says. "And if I would have been at the police station, I would have been there that much sooner." O'Donnell also discusses the violent attacks on police and other law enforcement across the nation, especially over the past year, related racial tensions, and potential reforms in police departments. We also cover these stories: Republican and Democrat lawmakers clash during a Senate hearing on Democrats' bill to nationalize elections. Senate Democrats Mazie Hirono of Hawaii and Tammy Duckworth of Illinois say they won’t oppose Biden administration nominees.  Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador says the Biden administration is responsible for the influx of migrants to America’s southern border.  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This is the Daily Signal podcast for Thursday, March 25th. I'm Virginia Allen. And I'm Rachel Del Judas. Rob O'Donnell is a former NYPD detective. He was involved with the response and rescue in the 93 World Trade Center bombing as well as the response and recovery on the September 11th attack on the World Trade Center. He joins me on the Daily Signal podcast to share his story as well as his perspective on the recent attempts to cancel and to fund law enforcement. And don't forget, if you're enjoying this podcast, please be sure to leave a review or a five-star rating on Apple Podcasts and encourage others to subscribe. Now onto our top news. Republican and Democrat senators clashed during a Senate Rules and Administration Committee hearing Wednesday on the Democrat-backed election bill known as S-1, or the For the People Act.

Majority Leader Chuck Schumer argued in favor of the bill and criticized his GOP college. for not supporting the legislation and for backing state bills that institute laws like voter ID per Forbes. But any American who thinks that the fight for a full and fair democracy is over is sadly and sorely mistaken. Today, now, in the 21st century, there is a concerted nationwide effort to limit the right of American citizens to vote and to truly have a voice in their own government. In the wake of the November elections, one of the safest in recent history, Republican-led state legislatures have seized on the former president's big lie

that the election was stolen and introduced more than 250 bills in 43 states aimed at tightening voting rules under the guise, the guise of election integrity. Instead of doing what you should be doing when you lose. an election in a democracy. Attempting to win over those voters in the next election, Republicans instead are trying to disenfranchise those voters. Shame on them. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell fired back at Schumer,

specifically criticizing a provision in the For the People Act that would change the body of the Federal Election Commission from three Democrats and three Republicans to two members of each party and an additional additional unaffiliated member appointed by the president. After Watergate, my party, the Republican Party, was just about wiped out. The overwhelming Democratic majorities could have done anything they wanted to. It never occurred to them that the Federal Election Commission

set up to police, how we run campaigns, would be made a partisan entity. They could have done it then. Now we're in a 50-50 Senate and a narrowly majority in the House. And this audacious move wants to turn the judge of our democratic process into a partisan prosecutor. Talk about shame. If anybody ought to be feeling any shame around here, it's turning the FEC into a partisan prosecutor.

the majority controlled by the president's party to harass and intimidate the other side. That's what you ought to be ashamed about. If passed and signed into law, the For the People Act will require states to offer extended mail-in voting, prohibit states from requiring voter ID, and make it more challenging for states to clear deceased individuals from voting roles. Both Democrat senators Mazie Hirono of Hawaii and Tammy Duckworth of Illinois say they won't be disapproving of Biden administration nominees. And a tweet posted on Tuesday night, Hirono said, I welcome the appointment of a senior level White House liaison to the AAPI community

to further strengthen our voice. I had a productive conversation with the White House today to make my perspective about the importance of diversity in the president's cabinet. Hirono and Duckworth had previously said they would not vote for any non-diversity Biden nominees in an attempt to make the Biden administration nominate those who are racial minorities or LGBTQ. Herono also tweeted, Based on the private conversation we had, I will continue voting to confirm the historic and highly qualified nominees President Biden has appointed to serve in his administration.

According to the Hill, Senator Duckworth's office said that Senator Duckworth appreciates the Biden administration's assurances that it will do much more to elevate AAPI voices. Mexico's president Andres Manuel Lopez Obador said during a press conference Tuesday that the Biden administration is responsible for the influx of migrants at America's southern border. Lopez Obador said expectations were created that with the government of President Biden, there would be a better treatment of migrants. And this has caused Central American migrants and also from our country wanting to cross the border, thinking that it is easier to do. so. The Mexico president made a similar comment about Biden about a month ago when he said migrants view Biden as the migrant president. House Republicans in the North Carolina legislature have introduced a bill to allow only biological females in women's sports. The bill,

known as the Save Women's Sports Act, would ban transgender women and girls from competing on female sports teams at the high school and collegiate level and would let biological females sue if the law was violated. According to a press release from Equality, North Carolina, a pro-LGBQ organization per WC. N.C. Charlotte, H.B. 358 is rooted in invasive and appropriate questions about the sex assigned to young people at birth and outdated generalizations about male and female bodies. Trans youth belong on sports teams in alignment with their gender identity. Now stay tuned for my conversation with former NYPD Detective Robudanil at the Conservative Political Action Conference. Rob shares his incredible and sobering story of his involvement in the

response and rescue in the 93 World Trade Center bombing, as well as the September 11th attack. He also shares his perspective on the recent attempts to cancel and to fund law enforcement. Never has it been more important for us to fight for America. Each day, we see the penalties of progressive policies across our nation. Our elections are under assault. Our economic freedom is on the decline, and our culture is turning its back on the founding principles that have made us the freest, most prosperous nation in history. That's why the Heritage Foundation developed a plan to take on the left and take back our country. The Citizens Guide to Fight for America provides a series of heritage recommended action items delivered on a regular basis to your inbox. Make an

impact in your community and in our country. Sign up for the Citizens Guide at Heritage.com. org slash citizens guide and join in the fight for America today. I'm joined today on the Daily Signal podcast by Rob O'Donnell. He's a former NYPD detective, Rob. It's great to have you with us on the Daily Signal podcast. Thanks for having me, Rachel. Well, it's great to have you with us. So you began your career as an NYC transit cop and then merge into the NYPD in 1995.

Can you tell us about that and how you first became interested in law enforcement? Law enforcement is a calling. It's something you always wanted to do. But before law enforcement, I was a crisis preventionist for the Office of Mental Health, where I worked in a troubled school, you know, trying to get these kids, their GEDs, you know, instead of just throwing them out into society. So they were troubled youth that were either violent or had emotional or psychiatric problems where they weren't suitable for the official, you know, normal school setting.

So I was a crisis preventionist, and basically I was called in to talk them down, to de-escalate them, and certified to restrain them if necessary to remove them so they wouldn't hurt themselves, the teacher, or other students. And this was just an expansion on that. And that background helped me through my law enforcement career to where, you know, learning to talk to people, learning how to respect people's space and such like that, which I learned hands on with these type of children,

you know, through my career in law enforcement really helped. And when I had the opportunity to become a police officer, again, I was hired into the New York City Transit Police under Chief Bratton, which then became Commissioner Bratton, under the Giuliani administration, you know, seeing his transition of broken windows policing and quality of life enforcement that changed the subway system. And then when he became the police commissioner under Rudy Giuliani, you know, really set the model nationwide for law enforcement and policing. So how did you transition into becoming an NYPD detective? And can you

tell us about what that was like, some of the things that you did? Yeah, as a New York City police officer, again, we merged in 1995. They merged the New York City Housing Police, the transit police and the NYPD into one police force and I was promoted I was one of 1400 officers out of 30,000 that were promoted to police officer special assignment for you know extraordinary duty and dedication to law enforcement you know we were recognized by the police commissioner and then promoted to police officer special assignment and from there you know I worked towards my detective shield I worked in places like the organized crime control bureau narcotics both in Queens Brooklyn and then I eventually you know went to a precinct detective squad and

and transitioned into the homicide task force where I retired out of. Well, you worked for the departments of organized crime control bureau, Precinct Detective Squad, as you mentioned some of these. Can you talk about some of the experiences that you worked on or just things maybe you learned from these different assignments you were doing? It was a wide array, you know, starting off in narcotics and then going to where you're strictly kind of enforced, you know, narcotic violations, both large and small.

Then going to the Precinct Detective Squad, where you handle everything from domestic abuse to a small, salts to thefts, to burglaries, to robberies. You know, anything that happens in that precinct's jurisdiction is normally held by the precinct detective squad and any homicides in that. You know, we had several homicides. Actually, a few days before 9-11, I had a homicide, which probably helped me not be there as soon as I would have been because I ended up working on 9-10 to about 2 o'clock in the

morning where I normally would have been at work at 7. You know, it was like, all right, come in when you come in, because we worked for 4. straight on a homicide. But I responded straight down to ground zero at 9-11, and if I would have been at the police station, I would have been there that much sooner. I wanted to talk to you about the 9-11 experience. You were involved in response and rescue. As you mentioned, can you walk us through since you were there, just what you're able to, but that experience is like what your response was, what you remember from that? A common phrase I use that, you know, if you weren't there, no words will ever describe it.

If you were there, no words are necessary. If you've forgotten what happened there, then you're not worthy of my words. And that kind of sums up my experience there. You know, unfortunately, I'm the only first responder in America that's been involved at four domestic terrorist attacks on our nation. I responded as a rookie transit police officer to the 93 World Trade Center bombing. I responded to 9-11 and work there for a year afterwards doing, as a detective, doing the DNA collection and sifting through the rubble and notifying the families.

After retiring due to injuries sustained in the line of duty and having a couple of surgeries and moving to Pennsylvania, I became the director of public safety for an area there and ended up dealing with the Fort Dix terror plot suspects that were practicing to shoot soldiers and their families at Fort Dix. They were shooting paintball guns in our community. We ended up siding them and I ended up paying their fines with checking accounts that the FBI and the U.S. attorney were very interested in. So I ended up dealing with them. And most recently, you know, my son is a graduate of the Naval Academy and was in Naval Air Station Pensacola when the Saudi naval pilot shot up the naval station and killing three sailors.

My son was in the building and called me while that shooting was taking place. And I hear the shots in the background and, you know, teaching that nationwide as a, you know, critical response instructor, you know, actually living it where your son calls you and you can hear shots in the background is surreal. and never felt so helpless in my life. But, you know, unfortunately, I've had those four experiences which why I'm so passionate about speaking on law enforcement and things we deal with nationally. You know, if it's just me, just a regular,

you know, one of hundreds of thousands of police officers have been directly involved in incidents like that. We need to create a policing in America where those types of things are either minimal or don't happen at all. Well, as someone who was there on 9-11, and some of these other disasters, you've seen firsthand what happens in attacks that have taken place.

And just given all the rhetoric, especially in the past year of canceled culture and people attacking, honestly, the history of this country, I guess what is your response or what is your thought when you see this happening, and then when you are someone who has responded to attacks on the country and you're there dealing with the aftermath? The forgetting a history makes you a prime,

candidate to relive it. I'd rather not see that because I've seen enough in my lifetime. You know, seeing what's going on with the police and the cancel culture and just everything in our nation now is sort of a selfish reason. I'm glad I'm not in law enforcement anymore because to see a career I loved and dedicated my life to and parts of my body to, you know, to see the false rhetoric and the false narratives and the attacks that are based on zero facts and evidence. You know, there's, we can improve on anything. There's no profession that's perfect. No profession will ever be perfect. But we have to start that conversation from a place of fact, not fiction. And when we start that conversation from a place of fiction, you're already on polar

opposites where you're never going to meet common ground. Yes, let's make policing better. Let's make community policing better. Let's increase those relationships between, you know, the police, the community, politicians, and everything. But again, when there's such false rhetoric thrown in, when the data just doesn't support it whatsoever, you know, there's no common ground to get there. Well, you had mentioned that you had to retire due to injuries you sustained in the line of duty. Can you tell us about what happened? I ended up getting, breaking my neck in all essence. I ended up getting steel rods in my neck, you know, fusing several of my vertebrae. So once that happened, it's pretty much, they can't have you chasing bad guys and jumping over fences when you have that

type of injury because any bloated in that could be crippling. Well, currently you sit as the director of business and media relations with Brothers Before Others. Can you tell us about Brothers Before Others and as well as what other organizations you're involved in? Sure. Brothers Before Others is a national law enforcement charity. And some people will say, well, Brothers Before Others, that's kind of sexist. But you can't spell brothers without her in there. And a large portion of our membership are women and are very supportive of our organization. We started off sending flower arrangements to every line of duty death in the country to the tune of $300,000 now over the past six years.

You know, each of these big flower arrangements are $200, $250 each. And we wanted law enforcement and their families, their department, to know that there's people in America that care about you, there's people that you've never met that are in your shoes that stand by you and mourn with you. So we started off doing that. And then, you know, we've become connected. One of our members is a forensic sketch artist in Philadelphia, Johnny Castro. He does Johnny Castro art.

He does portraits for every line of duty death in the country. you know now we're we're giving portraits of these deceased loved ones and you know a lot of times you'll see the big portrait the the 16 by 20 something portrait next to the casket because we get them there because we're nationwide so we usually have them hand delivered we're in the past he was just putting in the mail and mailing them to the families we're having them hand delivered by our members in those areas you know we've done so much we've done Christmas for underprivileged schools in the new jersey where our headquarters is based. We've done hospital Christmases for children's hospitals all across the tri-state area, California, Florida,

you know, things like that to where we impact the community and show that relationship between the community. One of the most recent ones this last Christmas, you know, we were giving, we picked the poorest district in New Jersey. And we were originally just going to do like K through 4. And then we saw the need and we ended up during the entire school, which was K through 8. And the teacher and the principal and the superintendent of the school came to us, when we were doing it, in the process of doing it, and says, you know, these are probably the only gifts these kids are going to get this year. And that really touched us. And to get the thank yous from the families, you know, we had boy and girls. We got wish lists from the kids beforehand where our members went out and, you know, bought things and wrapped things where we had wrapping parties where we wrapped, you know, 800 gifts.

You know, those are the things in the community that really bring the law enforcement and the community, you know, of all demographics, all backgrounds, all races, all religions, all, you know, financial ability, you know, to. That's beautiful. So we talked a little bit about cancel culture, but specifically when it comes to attacks this country has seen on law enforcement, especially within the past year. Can you talk a little bit about your reaction to that, especially when it comes to me, this is attacks on your brothers, essentially? Yeah, it's really given me my place, my, my, my motivation. You know, active law enforcement officers by policy can't have a voice in America. They're not allowed to speak their mind. They're not allowed to say what, what? they're going through because of a department, you know, anti-social media policies.

You know, it's down to the point now where if their wives or husband likes something, they're being questioned over that. So, you know, I'm that voice. I don't have the restrictions of having a department policy over me, and I have my ear to the law enforcement officers across the nation what they're going through amongst themselves with their supervision, with politicians, with the community. And I speak on that. And again, we get back to that false rhetoric, the narratives.

You know, there's 800,000 police officers, one law enforcement officers in America. You know, there are 300 million police community contacts a year. You know, 30 million criminal investigation contacts. You know, 1.7 million violent felonies. You know, police in 2019, you know, shot under 1,000 people, and only 54 of those thousand people were unarmed. So now you're talking, you know, 5% of all shootings are the unarmed civilians.

And then when you break down the unarmed civilians, most of them are white people. So it's not that police are just indiscriminately shooting unarmed black people in the community. You know, if you, but if you listen to the false rhetoric out there, you know, we're gunning down black children all across America. You know, I think there was a recent poll where they said they thought it was in thousands. Do you know how many, in 2019, do you know how many unarmed black children under the age of 18 that police officer shot and killed? was one. And it was an 18-year-old who was on drugs, naked, beating his girlfriend and her best friend who she called for help. When the police got there, he fled, they chased him, he started fighting

with them, they tasered him twice, and he tried to remove the officer's gun, so the partner shot him. Now, it's classified as an unarmed shooting because it started off unarmed, but once you grab that gun and once you're in a fight with an armed police officer, you're no longer unarmed. Whoever wins that fight is armed. So that's the shooting, and that's the reality of it. You know, things that happen like a George Floyd, you know, the incidents that have sparked riots across the nation. Let's investigate. There's not a police officer. I know that didn't see the George Floyd video and said it wasn't abhorrent. You know, it was common ground. You know, we all thought it was disgusting. There's avenues to investigate that. There's avenues to punish that.

But now you have prosecutors, you know, overcharging and trying to please the public to where, you know, in a year from now, or actually a couple months now, when that goes to trial and they can't live up to the charges that they've brought, we're going to go through this all over again because, you know, in my opinion, they did overcharge. They did rush to judgment because they had to appease the public crowd. That's not what investigations are for. Investigations that'll look at the facts and charge appropriately, not based on emotion, but the law. You know, anyone who saw the video has emotional feelings on that, and that's fine to have. But I want to see the proper charges filed. I want to see the officer held accountable under those proper charges, not get acquitted,

and we have riots nationwide, which hurt hundreds of more police. officers arrest thousands of individuals, and we're back to square one. Well, since you mentioned that, and just looking on big picture, what can be done, are there any sort of reforms that you think should be pursued as all these discussions are being taken place? There's always room for improvement. I mean, let's go back to the George Floyd incident. The time to review a policy is a constant, ever-changing process.

It shouldn't have to come to an incident like a George Floyd to where they have to rewrite their policies. Minneapolis policy states that they can use a knee on the neck to the individual's unconscious of all other methods fail. That's in their policy. Now that's what he did, but, you know, and he also held that in excess, you know, after the individual was unconscious for several minutes, you know, based on the video. But there's not a police officer in this country that writes their own policy. Police leadership writes those policies. Politicians write those policies. Lawmakers write those policies. But they want to throw the beat officer or the officers on the street under the bus when something like this happens when

their policies failed. And again, there's mistakes to be made, but there's levels to investigate that, more than any other thing I know. You know, if a doctor makes a mistake, you know, there's legal process for them to go after medical malpractice, which is one of the number one deaths in the country, but you'll hear about law enforcement way more than you hear about the medical malpractice deaths. You know, you have, when a police officer does something wrong or right, his direct supervision investigates it. You have internal affairs investigating it. You have the chief's office investigating it. You have the district attorney. You have the Department of Justice and special prosecutors in certain cases. You know, you have multiple levels to hold that officer accountable. And they are most often

times. But again, these decisions can't be made off a motion. They have to be made on the facts, the laws, and the policies that are in place. You know, to see the changes where we are now, this defund the police movement is just sad. And it's not going to last. What they're going to do is it's a shell game. They're going to take this money that they would normally use for the police departments and they're funding towards other areas. Like they're moving, you know, traffic control to the Department of Transportation. They're moving, you know, some emotionally disturbed persons responses to social workers. They're just moving that money to one area and crime's going to rise and then they're going to go to the public and say, well, for public safety reasons,

we've got to raise your taxes because they're not going to take that money back from these organizations. They're funding these pet policies they've had for, they've wanted to fund their all lives. This is just a method to do that. Well, going back to New York City, where you served for so long, it had a long period of high crime, and now, well, in the past, it became a safer city. But given current trends, where do you see the direction for the city going now? Unfortunately, I worked in the city before it got better. You know, I worked, my first assignment was 42nd Street and Times Square when it was still run by, you know, porno theaters and dregs of society where you couldn't walk five steps without a stabbing or robbery or rape. That's where my career started. That's where my career started.

and to see it cleaned up to where it's basically became Disney World. Disney owns most of 42nd Street now and the shows and the way it's become a tourist attraction. To see that change, you know, and the economy change with it, you know, when businesses started thriving back, you know, when the tourism industry hit record highs. But to see where we're declining now, to see that go back, we are going back to, you know, late 1980s, 1990s crime. and what's that going to do is chase industry, chase tourism, chase the good people in New York

that just want to get out, their tax base. You know, those apartments and housing in New York City are very expensive and pay very high taxes. You know, the housing market itself has seen, you know, how much percentage decrease over the past, you know, a couple of months and COVID and the pandemic restrictions on helping that. Well, racial tensions seem to be a significant factor

in police controversies like we've talked about. And so did your experience, working as a police officer in a city, like New York City with a diverse population, give you insights into this issue and if there's anything that can be done about it? Honesty is the best policy when it comes to that. In my career, I don't care what color you were, how you were raised, what religion you were. You were up to you. You know, my partner, you were next to me. My life depended on you and your life depends on me. We need to get back to that. With a lot of the rhetoric out there,

and the racial tensions and the stoking of what's happening, you know, you take an organization like Black Lives Matter. You hear the term Black Lives Matter, and who doesn't agree with that? You know, everyone does, but they're conflating that with an organization that goes out there and burns cities down. So when you say, oh, you're anti-Black Lives Matter, no, I'm anti-the-organization Black Lives Matter, because look at what they've done. As far as the term Black Lives Matter, I'm all for it. Of course they do.

But it shouldn't be one life matters over another or this, and that's where we get. you know, where you had, you know, the Black Lives Matter. And then when the two officers were killed in Ramos and Lou in New York City, you know, that sparked Blue Lives Matter. And it just furthers the divide. But Blue Lives Matter isn't going out there and rioting in cities. So we need an honest dialogue, but again, we need to start that conversation from a place of fact, not fiction.

And there's just so much fiction out there and so much emotion and feelings. And a lot of times, perceptions harder to deal with than reality. I can't change, I can't tell you what you feel, what you believe. I can't change that. You're going to have to change that. You're going to have to look at the facts and make your own decision where if there's a tangible issue, like if there was real white supremacist going around New York City

and beating people and chasing people down and such like that, that's something tangible. You go out there and you address it aggressively. But if people just feel, feel that that's the way it is, like the unarmed black kids in America. You know, they think there's hundreds and thousands of these kids that are getting killed when it's just not the facts. You know, the more we talk about the facts, the more that we allow ourselves to have that

open discussion, even if you disagree with it, have the discussion, look at the facts, agree to disagree, you know, based on the facts, but we need to do better on getting that out there. Well, lastly, I'm sure there are a lot of people who are listening who want to know what they can do. So how would you encourage the everyday citizen to support law enforcement? say thank you speak to your officers you know talk to them see ask them what's on their mind don't be afraid when you see that law enforcement officer and and i don't care who you are what color you are

what speak to your local police officer tell them your fears let them give you a response back to help calm those fears you tell them your concerns you know let's hear their side of the story let them know that you appreciate them being out there you know let them know what they can support to have their their leadership in the police departments and political leadership you know make for a better environment for both the police and the community. You know, that conversation should be happening on every street corner, every time police interacts with someone, every time someone sees a police officer, you know, take that 30 seconds to say, you know, how are you doing?

You know, what can the public do to make your job easier? You know, what's the biggest factor that you're dealing with in your job? Hey, as a citizen, this is my biggest fear living in this city and the XYZ. You know, get that dialogue going. So, you know, maybe if maybe you have a fear that's unfounded. Like, again, your perception and that officer can say, well, really, man, you know, we don't have that issue here. It's very rare that that kind of crime happens.

You don't need to be afraid of that. But, you know, you should watch out for this, this, and this, which is something separate, which might be a lot less. Or just, you know, that public safety community policing aspect of be aware what's going on in your community. And vice versa. But that dialogue goes both ways, you know, as we should be listening to officers. You know, officers need to listen to the public, too, and get their perception and see what the feeling on the ground is in the communities they serve.

Well, Rob, thank you so much for joining us on the, Daily Signal podcast and also thank you for your service. Thank you very much. You guys have a great day at C-Pact. And that'll do it for today's episode. Thanks for listening to The Daily Signal podcast. You can find the Daily Signal podcast on Google Play, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and IHeart Radio. Please be sure to leave us the review and a five-star rating on Apple Podcasts and encourage others to subscribe. Thanks again for listening and we'll be back with you all tomorrow. The Daily Signal podcast is brought to you by more than half a million members of the Heritage Foundation. It is executive produced by Kate Trinko and Rachel

Del Judas, sound design by Lauren Evans, Mark Geinney, and John Pop. For more information, visitdailysignal.com.