Examining Protocol In Disorderly Conduct Cases

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ROBERT SIEGEL, host:

Is it ever necessary or justifiable to arrest a man in his own home who's not suspected of any other crime, but who is being angry, loud and uncooperative with the police? We're going to put that question to two guests now. In our studio, Ronald Hampton, a retired Washington, D.C. police officer and now executive director of the National Black Police Association. Welcome to the program.

Mr. RONALD HAMPTON (Executive Director, National Black Police Association): Thank you.

SIEGEL: And joining us from Chapel Hill, North Carolina is Chapel Hill Police Chief Brian Curran. Welcome to the program, Chief Curran.

Mr. BRIAN CURRAN (Chief, Chapel Hill Police): Thank you for having me.

SIEGEL: And I want to hear from each of you. Someone tells you there's a burglary at my house, you go there, you find me, you see my ID. I am irritable. I am tired from a long plane flight. I'm rude and I tell you, get out of my house. Chief Curran, are you thinking, at that point, about arresting me and is there some line which, if I cross it, is going to get me arrested?

Mr. CURRAN: Well, I think in that particular case, and at least under North Carolina law, it's a kind of situation where you're probably wondering, you know, where is this guy coming from? But the break-in investigation appears to be over at that point. And generally speaking, you know, our officers here would probably withdraw from the house and just go onto the next call.

SIEGEL: I'll add one more element to it. I call you an anti-Semite, also, as I'm doing it. I get your dander up, do you arrest me?

Mr. CURRAN: Probably not. That's - you can pretty much do and say a number of things in your own home that you might not be able to get away with on the street. It's not a public place. And police officers are - you know, at least most of the ones that I'm familiar with, well-trained officers, are used to getting some abuse from the public and sometimes in unexpected quarters or at inappropriate times and are trained to not rise to the bait.

SIEGEL: Ronald Hampton, you would not rise to the bait or does there come a point when you say, this is getting out of hand, a crowd is gathering, if this keeps up, I'm arresting you for disorderly conduct?

Mr. HAMPTON: No. I would do pretty much what the chief is saying. As a matter of fact, I'd like to commend him for what he's talking about, because I see good police officers doing those kinds of things. If I was a police - I was a police officer and if I was called to handle a situation like that, those are the kind of things that I would do.

I see a police officer's job primarily as deescalating escalating situations. If you allow them to pull your strings, then you're defeated and then now they're in charge. And that leaves - that's how we get in trouble - by permitting those kinds of things to happen.

SIEGEL: Now, as I say, let's assume that the neighbors are around. We've heard that described in the case of Professor Gates. And a scene starts to develop. And it's a scene in which the police officer is being berated by a citizen. Do you as a police officer, Ronald Hampton, in that situation, do you have to sort of show the flag for the police force and show that you're in charge?

Mr. HAMPTON: I don't think so. I think there are a number of ways to show that you're in charge. But my mother says the way you start a thing off determines how you end it. So, when you go into the situation, then that has a lot to do with taking control of the situation and then doing it. You don't, like, overly expose yourself so that you can - you will end up having to make an arrest to start off with and then escalate the situation out of control.

I just think that it should've been handled that way in the beginning and we wouldn't be having this discussion. And we wouldn't have all these other opinions coming in either.

SIEGEL: Chief Brian Curran in Chapel Hill, do you agree with that or is there a point at which it could possibly turn into a scene and the police officer to maintain order, might make an arrest?

Mr. CURRAN: Well, I agree with the other guest, Mr. Hampton, that our primary goal when we go to these scenes is to try to deescalate whatever is going on. You know, the dictum is - like it is in medicine - is you first do no harm when you get there. And most officers can handle the situation and deescalate it, you know, from what the reports have said that this one had kind of turned into. I think in this particular case, it began as, I think everyone agrees, as a burglary in progress from a third party had called it in...

SIEGEL: Right.

Mr. CURRAN: ...and once the burglary investigation was over, just kind of morphed into something else.

Mr. HAMPTON: Right.

Mr. CURRAN: You know, depending on what - which camp you're in, there's a disagreement on the facts of that and which I think has sparked the debate nationwide. But, in general, I think you can withdraw from the situation like that without doing harm to yourself, to your reputation and - or your department and just kind of carry on with business. I think as long as you're behaved professionally, I think most of the onlookers are going to recognize that.

SIEGEL: Very, very, briefly, Ronald Hampton, the president spoke of the black experience with law enforcement here.

Mr. HAMPTON: Right, right.

SIEGEL: Over the past 24 hours, any number of black professional men have related the incidents they've experienced where they feel they have been treated with undue suspicion. Is it different with a black person?

Mr. HAMPTON: Oh, absolutely, it is. And the difference was explained in the president's comments because he spoke from his heart. Two things: The fact that he knew Professor Gates and he spoke from his experiences. Experience - black men's experience with law enforcement in this country is very different than that experience of whites. So when someone asks you that question, then you're going to respond based on how you have handled these situations or how they have been - how you've been - found yourself in the middle of them.

SIEGEL: Chief Curran, true? It's different? It's different?

Mr. CURRAN: I think, you know, in any encounter that anybody has with law enforcement, with anybody else, really, whether you're, you know, black, white, Asian, Latina or whatever, you bring your own personal experiences, you know, to the table in any kind of encounter. And law enforcement, we're trained to just try to deal specifically with the behavior and not with the baggage that might along with it.

SIEGEL: Chief Brian Curran of Chapel Hill, North Carolina, and Ronald Hampton, thank you both very much.

Mr. Curran: Thank you.

Mr. HAMPTON: Thank you.

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