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almost from the day it was founded in 18 48 the folks across the bay in San Francisco have been making jokes about Oakland. There's no there, there, poetess, Gertrude Stein is supposed to have said, while the jokes may live on. But Oakland is no longer that

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faceless other city across the bay. Today, California's fourth largest city is a booming center of industry, commerce, art and culture. Yeah, but Oakland's new glamour and prosperity are not shared equally by all of its citizens. Nearly half of the city's population is non white, and

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many are poor. They do not patronize the symphony or the museum. They don't use the Coliseum, where the airport very much. Nor do they hold their share of the jobs created by Oakland's new industry, port and transportation facilities. Hell, you, your funky open town. How come

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you take a cold and brutal city on your town? Marching this positive ain't got no shame. And most of all, that just ain't got no piteous. Most of Oakland's black and brown citizens came here from the South during World War Two, lured by recruiters for government

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and private industry to work in shipyards and defense plants. After the war, the shipyard's closed and many factories moved to the suburbs, leaving most non white workers behind. Technology puts still more workers on the unemployment and welfare lines, where they were joined by newly dispossessed farmers

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and farm workers forced off the land by the growth of agribusiness. During the fifties, Oakland became a stagnant, seething ghetto of impoverished blacks and Chicanos, surrounded by the white affluence of the Oakland Hills and suburban Alameda County. To contain the misery and violence of the ghetto,

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Oakland's all white police Department earned a reputation for head knocking brutality that has left a well remembered legacy of bitterness in the minds and hearts of many who lived in that time and place. I was growing up in the late thirties and early forties. At that

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time, the police Department was perceived as brutal, and for the most part there's extreme fear on the part of black people in West Oakland. At that time when the police would ever come into the community, I remember one specific situation where several young blacks were being

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apprehended by the police or they went into their homes to pick them up for some alleged crime. And I remember one particular police officer kicking one of the young people couldn't have been more than 13, 14 years old. 00 e think that the Black Panthers raised

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a very significant issue and that was the brutality of the police when they came into the black community police. We're in the same position as most of government, not being, in fact, responsive to citizens needs in our recruit schools. We inculcated for many years, in my

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opinion, in our policemen, what I would characterize is a gun whole law enforcement orientation. We taught them laws of arrest, search and seizure and patrol division patrol procedure practices, which could only result in an officer oriented in a very narrow law enforcement wave. So as we

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went about in this police department as an operational style in the fifties and in some part of the six sixties of stopping people on various pretexts, this is a mandate, as it were from the police department itself. We incurred very, very bad relationships with our community.

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Today there is a whole new relationship developing between the people of Oakland's ghettos and the police. Police officials hold regular meetings in the community and they are well received. This is one of the greatest things I've seen in Oakland in my 30 years here. I never

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thought I'd see the day back in 47 48. I could see police come sit down and let you criticize. It is our responsibility to get out in that community. We'll be here if you want us on. I'm here, quite frankly, to assure you that those men

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the juicy sitting here and the men that work 24 hours a day, seven days a week in the open police department we'll be striving to achieve a goal that they're gonna take a humanistic approach to policing. I don't care how frustrated are policemen happened to be

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because they're working hard how frustrated citizen happens to be because he had a wait a long time for the policeman. I want to see every citizen treated with dignity. I would say that there's been some tremendous change on the part of the police. I think they're

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moving away from the head, knocking brutal physical approach and trying to be, uh, more public relations oriented, more community relations oriented and hopefully more sensitive and liberal in their approach thio modern law enforcement. And I see some dramatic effects because, as I said, I've been here

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when the case was just supposed very hard terms in a moment. A look at how things were going in Oakland these days between the people and the police. It's running around a black boy. Don't you let the sun go down on you, Miss your

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town we owe you might wind up getting dropped 6 ft down. I joined the department in about 1965. It was very different from what it is now. I think we're, ah, a lot more aggressive them. I don't much care for the words harassment. I'd say there

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was a time we were ahead. Knocking department. Yeah, there are about 700 men in the Oakland Police Department and overwhelming number are white, and most live in the suburbs outside the city. Patrolman John Dixon joined the department after a stint with the Coast Guard. He grew

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up in Hollister, is a family man and likes his work. To this extent. He is a typical Oakland policemen. In the past, there was a quota system. It wasn't down on paper, but it did exist, you were expected to write a certain number of citations, and

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if you were a good policeman, you made a certain number of arrests there. The quota system had to result in more aggressive policemen. They had to go out of their way to find certain things, and maybe they went a little far. We were trying to produce

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numbers in arrests and just about every way. What has happened is that Chief Game said, No more quota system and there isn't And today and that's fantastic. We spend more time today talking to people in a lot of situations where they probably would have gone to

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jail before. And I mean a lot of situations. Prior to 1968 the mid 19 sixties at least, the philosophy the department was to operate basically as a legalistic style of police department. Gradually, all right. Through the late sixties and into the early seventies, we began to

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change style of operations into what is frequently referred to now as a service style of police department. George Heart is Oakland's new police chief. He assumed leadership of the department in October 1973 when Chief Charles Gain retired after 27 years on the force. The change came

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about because it had to come about to be responsive to the community. The community was saying to us, I think that we want a police organization which services the entire community in a fair and impartial manner. And we want a police organization. Uh huh. In which

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we can have confidence. First, we'd like to get you toe think as well as you can about the way you look that police work in a way of operating before he even started. Recruit Train Oakland's new policing style is a product of an unusual collaboration between

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the Oakland police and a group of social scientists. One of these scientists is J. Douglas Grant, former chief of research for the California prison system. Grant and his colleagues had been remarkably successful in helping convicted criminals overcome their own violent behavior through a process of self

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study. In 1969 they convinced police officials that by helping violence prone policeman studied their own behavior, they could reverse the upward spiral of violence between the police and the people of Oakland. Former chief Charles Gain agreed it was worth a try and they went toe work

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under a grant from the federal government. Today, the self study process is carried on by the department's conflict management section. At the time, there was no regard to the quality of the work. It was just basically a numbers game and nobody. One idea that developed early

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in the self study process was that of tape recording actual confrontations between Oakland police officers and potentially violent citizens. The recordings have proved invaluable in understanding how to avoid conflict and are now used in training new police officers in the art of discretionary decision making. A

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police officer probably has the broadest powers of discretion in carrying out his functions than any other citizen. So we're gonna do today is sit down and listen to to patrolman as they intervene in a family dispute. We're not saying that everything that they do in this

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tape is the right way to do it. But they made certain decisions throughout this tape. We're gonna sit down and critique these bit by bit. This is an actual street incident. These air riel policemen and really people okay, Yeah, some individual officers, when they come into

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the recruit academy, feel that they're coming in to be trained to be a tremendous crime fighter. They don't realize that that's only a portion of their trainings. How to combat crime. There's a lot of it is gonna be in how to deal with people, how to

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solve people's everyday problems, how to meet the everyday problems of the community. All right. I mean, unless you're gonna arrest me, arrest me if you ain't gonna arrest me, man. E kind of like to talk about it first before they look all I got. Look, man,

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that's my wife. I'm a humble man. You ain't got nothing. Do with you understand me? You understand me? You ain't got nothing to do with man. Don't tell me to calm down, man. What we're trying to provide or promote is an officer who does his job,

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does it well, does it efficiently. Who does in fact, produce, but who at the same time is a very humanistic individual. Um, who understands his community who understands himself and his department. Okay, He's told you in a probably 20 different ways. What the problem is, does

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anybody know? One of the officers already identified it. He wants it back. She doesn't. She doesn't want him back. I'm not telling them not to use force because there are those instances and those times when they must use force. But also what I'm saying is that

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there's all different ways to establish your authority. As a police officer, you can establish authority by human. You can establish it by showing concern. Pure physical force is not an absolute That's not the only way one controls the situation. What I need is a woman man,

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but I can't seem to find myself a woman, though I'm looking forward in this one right here, but I can't seem to find one. I've been getting drunk almost every night since. I didn't help me understand What's the problem? He's screaming it to you, E o.

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Why don't you say it? Earlier, a very simple things really started screaming Plain old set. Uh huh. But the Oakland Police doom or than just talk about violence prevention in their academy classes. Each time an officer must use force in the performance of his duty, it's

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recorded to a computer, and periodically the computer selects out those officers with an unusually high number of such critical incident. They are then invited to appear before a panel of fellow officers who review in meticulous detail his handling of situations that resulted in violence. We're asking

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you to be very candid with us. We're asking you to admit your mistakes. Every guy on this panel has made some of the same mistake's that you've made none of us here that are perfect. What we're trying to do is find better ways of doing things.

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The action review panel is both voluntary and confidential. No record is kept and no disciplinary action is involved. An officer may sit for a long as eight hours while his peers question and analyze his actions, his judgment, his personal attitudes, even his mannerisms. Yet since the

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panels were started in 1971 no man has refused to participate. The moderator of the action review panels is Officer Bob Crawford of the Conflict Management section. In this case, the first ever filmed The man in the hot seat is Officer Bernie Gerhardt, Details complaining. State suspect

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had an illegitimate child three weeks ago but refuses to stay home and care for the child. Suspect would not talk to ah Rose and had to be physically subdued to be taken into custody. Okay. What happened? I don't remember it. Do you realize that things like

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this our official records that can be subpoenaed into court, and you could be put on a stand being sued? And somebody could hit you with a report just like that? Like you say, six months later, you might remember two years later, you'd be looking at the

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guy and say, Well, I had to physically subdue a 17 year old girl who had only been out of a hospital for three weeks after having given birth to the baby. I don't remember a thing about it. It could color. You're looking very, very poorly. He

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has sat on panels before, but I think it struck him being kind of different to be sitting in that see rather than in one of the other seats. She could have had your head blown off with your own gun. What if you had a machine gun?

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All right. All right. You killed both. Listen to what he's saying. This is You could have had your head blown off with your own gun. I know that you can't handle you guys probably I don't care how great you are. In his case, he realized he

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had a small man complex. I kept thinking that he had to take the first affirmative action and arrest situation to overcome the small man. Thanks, which he doesn't have to do it because he works very effectively. I might be wrong about what the whole object of

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these panels are. But when a person starts showing up with one of these after another, we're supposed to look into wine. And I just wanted to ask the question. Is he one of these men? He's not this big in stature of some of us, and it's

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feared in about four or five of his remarks. I talked to a lot of belly button, I think because we have a small man complex and he's taken, I don't care. I just want, you know, Okay, The thing about the size Okay. When I first came

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on, I did have a size problem. I'm only 58 when I was 155 then and I had with this conflict purchase a small man complex. I'm not defensive about it. I don't think I well, quicker to act because I'm aware of my size, especially when the

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person was bigger than if there was no pure panel. If there was no one to call attention to the fact that a NAWF did have a particular problem, whether it be a small man complex or what have you, he would act this out in the street

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and it would be mis read. I have seen the rial hard egg come up here, sit through the panel, totally reject the panel, yet go out and do a different job that he was doing before you pointed up some things that I that I was aware

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of as sort of halfway and didn't think that was really showing too much. It's good to have other people tell you something that you think you're already aware because then you know the other people are aware of it and you'll make a better effort to control

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it or whatever. I think that panel was good if you picked a good panel. There is an officer here that I don't respect, and from that aspect, I think it's good if there were a bunch of turkey sitting here. I left a long time ago and

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you have heard about in the locker room? Yeah, the suspect is considered a 51 50 should be considered armed and dangerous. Both are wanted for conspiracy and forgery. Since the inception of the action review panel and other self study techniques, there has been a dramatic drop

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in the number of conflicts between the police and the people of Oakland. Resistance to arrest and assaults on police officers dropped as much as 30% in a single year, while citizen complaints against police officers have been cut in half. But policemen are traditionalists. Many still admire

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the ideal of the super cop. The tough, resourceful and courageous law man who always catches the crook. And some of Oakland's finest are still uncomfortable with their departments, new style and philosophy. There's basically 22 parts to the job. One part is, Is enforcing the law on

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the second part is is, let's say, helping people. Our relationships with people are a whole lot better than they used to be. But as faras enforcement of the law, we're slacking off, and that's part of the job. John Dixon works in the hard core ghetto of

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West Oakland neighborhood is very poor and almost exclusively black. It is not an easy beat for a white policeman working alone. Ah, you've got to be realistic. Your child may go through some more as a result of my talking to her. I don't think he could

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go through no more than any other kid that's on the street to name of two minds are the move has been good. We're dealing with the people in a much better frame of mind. The results are much better. When I go into people's houses, it z

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you don't get a zoo. Much of a hassle is you used to do, and yet at the same time, you're still respected as a policeman Republican except us more than they did before. I find that in most cases I get a lot more cooperation and you

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find that more people are at least willing to give you information on the side than they were before. More people are inclined. Thio give you a helping hand. Well, before I think very few people were delivery have been involved in no burglary. I just gave my

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girlfriend e remember when I first came on that if he did make a car stop. You immediately got a crowd. Today you not only don't normally gather the crowds, but when you do gather a crowd itself, the people don't tend to be is hostile. The quality

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of the arrests were making now are much better, no doubt about it. But I think that we're getting kind of lethargic. We're sitting back. We're accepting the fact that we're service orientated department, which I think a person is inclined to think that we're at the beck

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and call of people, and I think that's what a lot of us are doing. We're just sitting back waiting to be called, unless you want to run here. We're more community relations orientated, more of a service type department, and I think that the expensive enforcement law

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enforcement, the so called service style is not for, say, a week approach to the problem of tall. If anything, it's a stronger approach. Having effective alert Police Department, which does in fact engage in heads up police work, aggressive patrol. That's what the community wants. That's why

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we exist. Would you like the department to go back to the head knocking legalistic department that it used to be? No, I don't think anybody wants it to go back that far. Not that far. Why? It would just create the same old problems we had before.

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Ah, hostile society problems on the very on, the simplest of things. Just talking to people on the street. I don't think we'd have as much success if we went back to that. I believe probably more than I believe anything that the officers in this department do,

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in fact want to do and do, in fact, accomplished a very capable level of policing in the open community. I believe that they support totally the concept that any police organization can only operate in a fair and lawful manner. Do you think you have to make

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a choice between community relations and good enforcement? No, I think they could work hand in hand. It's obviously can hell, you Mr Police. Yeah, you better heed the people want to cause the handwriting is on the wall. Tell you, Mr Police, she you better heed the

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people wanted cause the handwriting on the wall with eso. Have fun while you can. Just like the walls of Jericho. Your way