In late October, I had the privilege of interviewing former NYPD and Boston Police Commissioner and LAPD Police Chief Bill Bratton for Faircount Media’s soon to be released end of year issue, “The Year in Homeland Security – 2011.” After decades of service in a police uniform, Bratton is now in the private sector serving as the Chairman of Kroll, one of the world’s largest risk management and security enterprises.
I had the fortune of spending nearly an hour with him and it was an hour I won’t soon forget. For those of you who have never had the good fortune of meeting him or hearing him speak, Bratton is absolutely professional. Unlike a number of people in the public eye, he actually does his homework and thinks before he speaks – a quality missing in so many areas of our lives today. He is confident and commits candor without any of the shrill finger-pointing you often see on cable TV and other media outlets. He’s also very plainspoken and tells it like it is rather than engaging in semantic word games where meaning and articulated points are often lost.
Our interview touched on a range of issues, including the lessons not learned after 9/11; the state of information sharing with local law enforcement agencies; and how the country’s fiscal climate will impact the overall homeland mission. The transcript of our conversation will be released in the next couple of days, but Faircount Media’s Defense Media Network site has released a snippet of our conversation that I hope you will find interesting.
With the recent announcement of Time Magazine’s Person of the Year – The Protestor, Bratton’s comments could not be more timely as he offers his insights on how nations around the world should prepare to deal with civil unrest; lessons learned from the riots in London; what police can learn from social media; and how to deal with the Occupy Wall Street movement.
Take a moment to read what one of America’s Smartest Cops has to say and I guarantee you that you’ll learn something new. I know I did.
