Professor-Turned-Police Officer Shares Her Experience ‘Behind The Blue Line | The Last Word | MSNBC

Rosa Brooks, author of “Tangled Up in Blue,” joins Lawrence O’Donnell to discuss her experience as a Washington D.C. Metropolitan Police reserve officer. Brooks says throughout academy training, police officers are “primed to think that a threat could come from anywhere at any time,” but they must remember their “top priority is protecting the communities they serve.” Marq Claxton also joins. Aired on 03/17/2021.
» Subscribe to MSNBC:

About The Last Word with Lawrence O'Donnell:
Drawing upon his experience as a former chief of staff on the Senate Finance Committee and as an Emmy-winning executive producer and writer of "The West Wing," Lawrence O'Donnell examines the compelling and impactful political stories of the day. O'Donnell convenes diverse panels of guests, including a variety of politicians and cultural voices, to offer unique viewpoints and perspective. In his signature style, O'Donnell highlights the latest news developments and offers his take on the political stories driving the national conversation.

MSNBC delivers breaking news, in-depth analysis of politics headlines, as well as commentary and informed perspectives. Find video clips and segments from The Rachel Maddow Show, Morning Joe, Meet the Press Daily, The Beat with Ari Melber, Deadline: White House with Nicolle Wallace, Hardball, All In, Last Word, 11th Hour, and more.

Connect with MSNBC Online
Visit msnbc.com:
Subscribe to MSNBC Newsletter:
Find MSNBC on Facebook:
Follow MSNBC on Twitter:
Follow MSNBC on Instagram:

#RosaBrooks #BehindTheBlueLine #MSNBC

Professor-Turned-Police Officer Shares Her Experience ‘Behind The Blue Line | The Last Word | MSNBC

35 comments

  1. This is an international issue. Rarely does application include psychometrics for example, so any bigot or psychopath has no problem becoming a cop.

    1. Oops I should’ve seen this before I asked my question. Rats, I thought that a mental stability test was given even before a person could apply for training. I personally think anyone in government including the president should have to be tested for mental stability. Plus a citizenship test. That would have saved us from the trump administration for sure.

    2. @Catherine Rosengren Agreed, you should have at least as good an understanding of the Constitution as someone taking the naturalization test.

  2. Decades ago my late husband was working on a project to make the campus police of a large university comply with civil service standards. Every police officer took a battery of tests. The only correlation between the test scores and excellent supervisor ratings were high paranoia and low IQ.

  3. Why do I always get GA and SC mixed up?! Because it’s like the same place when it comes to this stuff…And I will buy her book…very interesting person professor to police.

    1. Just a public service turned judge, jury, executioner way too often and a construction job is way more dangerous

    2. nope. 2020 isn’t a good year to gauge police deaths. in 2019 48 officers died as a result of felonious acts, and 56 in 2018. that’s basically one PER STATE PER YEAR. it’s not a common thing. yet their attitudes say otherwise. if people actually did “have a gun” as often as the police say they do, there would be far more deaths.

    3. After my father retired from the police force I asked him “hey dad do you miss your job he said “nope“ that was about 30 years ago today I understand him.

  4. Bring in trainers from countries who don’t carry guns. Diffusing the situation is a priority which will save lives.

    1. True, and I know most of mine…..I have been on both sides of the fence…When Police tried to railroad, a friend of mine, while I was still on the Court…I testified for my friend….The Prosecuting Attorney, entered my office, and began, to tell me how, I broke my oath to the State, by testifying against the State…It made no difference to him I was telling the truth…Telling the truth does not matter, only getting a conviction does……Guilty or NOT…That is the day I turned my back on the Courts, Police, and their Justice….I have been called to Jury Duty Five times since….I always tell them, NO I CAN NOT, BE IMPARTIAL…I DO NOT TRUST THEM….

  5. Do they take a psych test to see where their heads are at? To make sure they aren’t gun crazy or lacking common sense.

    1. That’s one of the problems in America with America the whole system is corporate based so there’s not a lot of weight given to family structure do you know what I mean

  6. The Media can take a little responsible also, just taking the word of the police at face value would’ve given the them a bigger sence of immunity . Plus the police Union seems go above and beyond for their members protecting thugs for any form of punishment. Adding police cannot be held personally responsible is mind blowing. Put that all together and you have an institution that has all the ingredients to rogue , and guess what .

  7. The training does not work because first day on the job you are told forget what you learned. Hire better people get rid of the bad people.

  8. In my experience three kinds of people become cops. The first are motivated by the ideal of “protect and serve”. (Cops call these folks “Dudley Doorights”.) The second are just folks who need a job and have a particular skill set suite for police work. The third are people who want to carry a stick, a gun, and a badge to justify the use of the stick and the gun.

  9. yea that “top priority” line she ends with is so true, police are hired to serve the public, to protect the public and she hits it right on the head they need to be able and willing to take on that calculated risk of putting yourself in danger to do that. we wouldnt let someone be a firefighter if they were going to balk at putting themselves into danger going into a burning building to save people, ITS THEIR JOB, if you dont cope well with the dangers of the job DONT TAKE THE JOB

  10. Remember the video of the cop that shot the Black man running away from the cop? The cop shot him in the back then planted a gun next him? What part of that one did the cop feel his life was was in danger and was trigger happy? Just trigger happy right?

  11. We need to learn from the policing skills they use in other countries. The cops here are way too quick to use their guns.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.