How Defunding The Police Hurts Black Communities: Brandon Tatum Explains | The Brief

Mom Donnie is saying things that make people feel good and virtuous, but in reality it doesn't work. I don't know why a rational person would think we should defund the police. Cops don't want to be cops anymore. This is the craziest part. Black people are the biggest problem in the black community. It's not white people. It's not the government. It's other black folks leading the community off of a cliff. When violence happens in the black community, they need to make that just as big of a deal as a school shooting. And welcome back to the brief. We are joined today by the officer Brandon Tatum. Brandon Tatum is a conservative commentator. He's a former police officer and a co-founder of the Blexit movement. He is also the host of the popular Tatum Report, which full disclosure, I am a regular listener. Officer, thank you so much for joining us. >> Well, thank you for having me. I appreciate that. >> So, really the impetus of this conversation is the election of Zoran Mandani as the new mayor of New York City. Mandani has threatened to decommission the New York Police Department strategic response group. He has said, and I quote, "We don't need an investigation to know the NYPD is racist, anti-quer, and a major threat to public safety." And he has proposed a multi-billion dollar Department of Community Safety to deploy social workers instead of police officers to violent neighborhoods. You're a former police officer. You're an obvious, outspoken advocate for greater policing in America. Why do you insist that Mumani is wrong to advocate for these specific policies? Well, that's a great question and I think it comes down to what we call common sense. There's a reason that people get trained in law enforcement. There's a reason that law enforcement officers get trained in uh deescalation. And if you ask anybody in the public, you talk anybody that live in a community where there's violence with who would they want to show up? A police officer with training with a firearm with arrest powers or you want some person who's a social worker that have never been in a conflict a day in their life just to come and try to talk down a criminal? It's not going to work. It has never worked. I'll tell you what will work. If Mandani was acting with integrity and he was in good acting in good faith, this is what he would propose that we maximize strategically using NYPD. And then we also supplement NYPD with people who are, you know, not not sworn and they could probably communicate with people after the fact. We did it very effectively in Tucson. We have a person who's suicidal. We have a person who's going through a a crisis. the police officer respond, make sure the scene is safe. We stand by. Sometimes we leave and and park outside and we let the professionals come in and talk to them about the professional type stuff. Those two things in combination work really really well together. Not isolating one or getting rid of one just to implement the other one where it has never worked in the history of this country. So I think that mom Donnie is saying things that make people who don't live in these neighborhoods feel good and virtuous, but in reality it doesn't work. So let's say for the sake of argument I agree with you wholeheartly although I do happen to agree with you wholeheartly on that. We have seen a survey and it showed that young Americans they support decreasing federal allocations of funds to local police precincts. So if what you're saying is so true and again I actually do agree with you why is there such a great disconnect between so many young people in this country who view the police as the enemy um and the problem rather than the solution to crime and criminality. >> Right? It's called brainwashing. What's happening is these young people are going to universities and I traveled around the country speaking at universities debating some of these young people. And what happened is that they go to universities and these university professors weaponize empathy to make them think that they're virtuous by saying we need to de you know downgrade uh police responses and different things like that. They look at a couple incidents that law enforcement do and then they they think that's the entire uh perspective of what uh people who enforce the law do, right? Killing people and and all of the above. And there there's another side of it that well, not another side, if it's the same side of the same coin. When I would go to universities, I would ask these students, how many people have police officers killed? How many people have they killed unarmed? A kid told me 40,000. We're talking only 14 people a year that are killed unarmed. And anybody with common sense know just because you're unarmed don't mean you're not a deadly threat. But let's just say everybody was a was a wrongful shooting. It I mean they were all a part of a wrongful shooting that was shot unarmed. 14 people. They think 40,000. I remember being on campus and saying I know why you're upset. I would be upset if 40,000 unarmed people were killed every year by police. So when you are uneducated, brainwashed, you don't have any fortitude to research for yourself, you are going to a university that's either paid for by your parents or you're taking out ungodly amounts of loans. You have no real responsibility. You don't live in real life. You you're not paying taxes. You're not doing any of those things either while you're in college or as soon as you get out of college. You have a sense of entitlement. You're you're a nonfunctioning person in society. Only those people in my personal opinion have, you know, that that nonsensical approach to things. I don't know why a rational person would think we should defund the police. They don't understand what defunding means. And and I'll explain it real quick just for perspective. >> Please, >> defunding the police isn't just a financial removal of resources. When you make the claim that you're going to defund the police, which means that you are telling law enforcement officers that we don't have your back anymore and we are not going to support what you do and therefore you it metriculates down through the police department of a lack of morale and trust of the system. So then cops don't want to be cops anymore. Therefore, police officers don't proactive police. They wait for you to call for service which caused the crime to go up. And then what happens is all the police officers that have been serving for an incredible long time that have wisdom and understanding how the job should be done, they retire and they don't mentor the young officers coming in. And then good people don't want to be cops. So therefore, they have to dumb down the standards and now they get every Tom, Dick, and Harry in there that are not focused on community policing and not focused on what it means to be a cop and they're committing crimes and doing all kind of other stuff as law enforcement officers. So, it's this cycle of a deterioration of law enforcement in the community when you make the approach to say you're going to defund the police. And actually defunding the police is even worse because you don't have resources to replenish attrition. >> And therefore, you don't have enough cops to even do a job even if they wanted to. And they're unsafe. You know, when I say unsafe, meaning that they don't have enough uh staffing to make sure the officers are actually safe when they go to these calls. So they're doing compromising things just to try to manage serving the public and it goes downhill from there. But you know young people who are ignorant, who are uneducated, who have never done a ride along a day in their life, don't know what police officers really do, they are the ones that are unfortunately voting in our future. >> Well, I'm really glad you mentioned retirement because that was going to be what we focused on as it pertains to New York City. So the FDNY commissioner Robert Tucker, he announced recently that he will be resigning uh effective immediately as a result of Zora Mandani's election to mayor. We have seen that at this point compared to last year a surge in retirements amongst the NYPD. So I think you've done a really good job at diagnosing the problem. What is wrong as it pertains to policing? So I guess the question now is on a cultural level, on a legislative level, on a political level, what needs to be done to combat this surge of retirements and resignations amongst law enforcement? How can we encourage people, especially young people, to actually want to go into these professions? >> Well, first I'll start with accountab account accountability from the police department. Meaning that cops need to make sure that they are in the community. They're serving community first. It's not just about arresting bad guys and beating people over the head that are criminals, even though that's a lot of what they have to deal with. But also, cops need to learn how to be more compassionate and put themselves I'm not saying that all cops are bad. I'm saying that there are opportunities to win the trust of the public. When those opportunities present itself, we got to take advantage of it. Meaning that you have to put yourself in the shoes of a person who call in a burglary. What if that was your mom? What if that was your grandmother? >> Treat people to want the way you want them to treat your mama. And I think that on our side, law enforcement side, if we can maximize the opportunities there, we can begin to build the trust from the public. Therefore, that trust is not coming from political uh pundits or uh political officials. Then another thing is people who are in leadership positions because we elect these people. We need to start electing people in leadership positions who um at least acknowledge the importance of law enforcement. When we do that, they will support law enforcement by having higher standards. Therefore, we have the elite group of people who will serve the community. then we will speak well of law enforcement and support them and have their back, have the get better training for them. Therefore, we have a better flock of of cops who can serve the public even better. And then from the the pressure of the city, the city leaders, uh the police chiefs, then pressure them on, you know, pressure people on the federal level to say, "You need to start giving us proper respect and resources from the federal level." um you know stuff like that. I think the accountability has to start with law enforcement. Then it comes to the uh city leaders and we have to get more support on a federal level which the important I guess time that we're in now Donald Trump is very supportive from the federal level. If we can get a mammi or at least to change his mind about his rhetoric he could begin to create a better environment for law enforcement um for people in law enforcement to try to apply for the job. So on that note of Donald Trump and federal law enforcement, we have seen obviously President Trump putting National Guard troops across American cities to really respond to what many are calling the surge in political violence here in the United States. Obviously, President Trump himself was a victim of two different assassination attempts. We saw really on live TV the assassination of our friend Charlie Kirk, the brutal killing of Arena Zeritzkov in North Carolina. So I I guess my question is, is this the new normal in American life? just this gush of political violence. And then the follow-up to that is what can practically be done to stem the tide of people who are emboldened who actually believe that the best way and in fact the only way to respond to ideas you do not like is by shooting them in the throat. What can be done about this epidemic? >> Man, you you're asking some incredibly good questions. You know, I think that unfortunately this is a reality. Um, I think political violence is going to continue to grow. And you know, everything that happens in life or in this country when it comes to violence and rhetoric, there's a eb and flow and we're seeing it go on the rise and I think at some point it will subside. I now have to have full-time security, you know, and so a lot of people are in my position need to have security now. Events have to have security. We can't even do events outside. People are still trying to shoot and threaten to kill all of us. And so we're not going to see a downtick in political violence, unfortunately, right now. So we have to be prepared for that. And a what do they call it? A a hopeless plug is that that's why I started a security company called Black Line Security. But that's for another subject. But one of the things I think we can do to prevent this is political leaders changing their rhetoric and speaking against these things. Because when you see things that happened to Charlie Kirk, they gave a a super lukewarm half-hearted response. They didn't jump down and throw some people in political violence. They give their little thoughts and condolences. I think we got to do more as political people to say or people in power to say on both sides, we should come together and say this is wrong. We have had enough and we're going to take these seriously and we're going to punish people who go out and commit acts of violence unnecessarily. You're going to go to prison. You're going to do we need to probably pass legislation to make it even more of an aggravated crime if you go out against somebody and try to kill them from their political ideologies. Like we we got to do something about political violence and we have to do something about political persecution because obviously you go into a restaurant and you do certain things and you discriminate against somebody based on their gender, based on their race, it's a crime. I I I think you it should be somewhat reasonable to call it a crime. If you discriminate against somebody based on their political beliefs and and this is why I say that because political beliefs are associated with voting and we have rights that we can believe and we can support any political uh party that we want. When you begin to bludgeon people, when you begin to ostracize people, not allow them to shop at a certain business because of where how they how they vote to to me that's like the suppression of the vote. That's suppression of our amendment rights to be able to freely participate in a in a constitutional republic. So I think maybe we should start making it more important to talk about it and also have laws against some of these things, >> right? And and we've seen in New York City and really across the country, women are being set on fire in in the subways. We saw actually on the same bus line that Zarena's Arena Zitzkov was writing on, yet another stabbing. So I think the way we can succinctly point this problem is make crime punishable. Again, I think we've been too soft on crime, but but I digress. I want to close out this conversation pertaining to law enforcement on while I agree with you on the solutions, I guess I'm sort of stuck on the practicality. So, what I mean by that is the White House claims that attacks, physical attacks against ICE officers are up by more than 1,200%. Anecdotally, as much as I have the uh the pleasure of working at Prageru, I have the displeasure of living in Los Angeles. And the week I moved to Los Angeles, our mayor Karen Bass puts a partial uh curfew onto the city because so many people were rioting against ICE officers, were throwing rocks and molotov cocktails uh against police cars. So again, I agree with you on the solutions. I guess my question now is on a practicality both from federal enforcement and the White House all the way down to local mayors or precincts. How can we actually bring about the enforcement of federal law, whether it's immigration law or whether it's addressing those problems we were just discussing, women being set on fire? How are we meant to be doing that when you have an increasingly radical populace whose immediate reaction at seeing enforce law enforcement officers is to start throwing rocks at them? It seems like in an almost impossible situation now. >> Well, it's only um I'm going try to be nice on here because I'm a Christian. It's it's only radical nonsensical demons who would even argue or try to combat enforcing federal law. They they're not doing it in good faith for a lack of better terms. You go to you go to some places in Texas, you go to places in the South, they welcome this enforcement. They know these people shouldn't be in our country, especially they're committing crimes and violence and killing people and doing all this other stuff. They shouldn't be here, so they welcome it. It's only lunatics who conjure up hatred against ICE and Border Patrol. It's the most insane thing I've ever seen in my life. Now, the approach that Donald Trump is doing, in my opinion, is the approach we have to do. And just because there there's adversity doesn't mean that we have to back down. So, I want Donald Trump, as long as it's within the constitutional framework of the law, as long as the Supreme Court is approving of it, which we have co-equal branches of government for this very thing, then I think Donald Trump has to continue to do it. We've removed, I don't know, hundreds of thousands of people that shouldn't be in our country. We've arrested and we've deported people who have murdered other people, people who have committed rape on children. I mean, you name it. We have done the job that we supposed to do in the federal government. The way that this government system works is that states do have rights, but states should be acting on the best interest of of the nation, right? So although an individual state may feel a certain way about immigration, but when the federal government is saying we're being invaded by a certain group of people, they're they're causing an incredible burden on the taxpayer on a federal level. The local government, the state government, the state uh leaders to say, "How do we work together to make this happen?" in my state there will be push back if you do it like this. So, you know, the state government and the federal government should say, "Okay, how do you want us to implement it?" But I'll tell I'll tell you this. This is the craziest part. We wouldn't even see ICE agents in these cities if the cities will cooperate with federal holds for immigration for immigration laws. Because when these people that are out here right now, they have had some interaction with law enforcement. They have a warrant for their arrest. They they committed uh violations with their u immigration, whether it's they came in here with no paperwork, they didn't show up to court. That's the only reason that we can find these people. It's not like they're going to a burrito place and saying, "Let me find every Mexican I can." Are they going to Home Depot and like, "Let me just rand up every Mexican I see." That that's not what's happening. What's happening is that these people have deportation orders. They have some type of connection with the federal government in a negative way and they're going to enforce the law. And and just so happened there's other people that they run into who are illegally in this country and that's the reason why they're enforcing it. We wouldn't have to go into the cities if the first time they go to the county jail that they will put them on a hold and let the federal government come to the jail to extract them. But what they're doing in these cities is they're going they're going to the jail and they have no paperwork. they're legally in our country and they know it and they just let them out into the city and now we have to go to the city to get them instead of getting them at the jail. That's really what this comes down to. So, if they're not going to cooperate, Trump is going to have to do what he have to do. I support that 100%. And we have to push through the stupidity from the public to get these things done and then we don't have to bother with it anymore. So, this antagonistic attitudes that people have towards law enforcement kind of reminds me of one of your first viral videos where you as a black man came out quite strongly and quite publicly against Black Lives Matter. So, I guess number one, the question is those organizers of BLM as a movement, is there a new cause? Is there a new policy? Is there a new something that they are working on that we need to be aware of? And then number two, what would you say are actually the issues affecting the black American community today? And and what are some of the ways that the government can help out? Well, first and foremost, uh, Black Lives Matter was a complete fraudulent organization. I don't know how people don't go to jail and how they didn't audit them. They got all this money coming in and they've done nothing for the black community. Nothing. There's nothing notable that they've done. There's nothing they can point to. There's no statistical data points that have changed anything in the black community. You They can't even say that black people are not getting shot unarmed by police. It is none of those things are happening in the to the benefit of the community because of Black Lives L lives matter. They did nothing. They took money, hustled, bought properties, you know, and now we don't even hear from them no more. Where's Black Lives Matter? They had billions of dollars invested in in the things that they were doing. Fraudulent. And then, if you ask me what's the biggest problem in the black community, it's uh black people. Black people are the biggest problem in the black community. Black leaders are the biggest problem in the black community. It's not white people. It's not Donald Trump. It's not the government. It's not laws that are on the book. is other ratchet black folks who are leading the community off of a cliff. They won't tell people the truth. They capitulate and and tell them that they're a victim so they don't actually grow and do anything for themselves. I grew up in a black community and we weren't afraid of white folks. We weren't afraid of the system. The things that bothered us or the that that that caused us to stay up at night were other black people. I think that the solution to the problem in the inner city is the people who live in the inner city. >> It don't cost you nothing to clean up your streets. It don't cost you nothing to pull your pants up. It don't cost you nothing to go get a job, a real job, and not sell dope to your own brothers and sisters. These are the things that need to change. It don't cost you nothing to be a daddy. >> You gonna go lay up with the girls and have babies with them and you don't take care of your responsibility. That's why your community is struggling. That's why things are going the way they're going. And then women. I ain't letting women off the hook because we have terrible baby mamas that are pushing these fathers away from their kids in some of these cases which are causing kids to have live in a fatherless home. They need to fix their problems in the black community if they want anything to change. The federal government's part in this. We we don't need the federal government to be involved. Right. In my opinion, get out of the way. M >> let the faith let the faith community let the churches do what they need to do unobstructed in the in the black community. And I think that's where we'll see change. This reparations talk is hogwash. >> So you know that that's the only thing I see them pitching. I'll say this too. I have a show so I run my mouth a little long. >> You're good. >> Give me 30 seconds. >> Take more than 30. Another thing is that when violence happens in the black community, if the government or the mainstream media want to do anything, they need to make that just as big of a deal as a school shooting. >> A kid will walk into a school with a AR, kill five kids, and it's all over the news. People are crying, thoughts and prayers, justifiably so. When five kids get shot at a birthday party in the black neighborhood because some fool is looking for the a rapper. Why is that not a big story? That's a mass shooting. That's a mass couch. The kids are getting killed when a kid when a drive by shooting having a kid get shot in the head while doing math just trying to live their life and make a make make a better life for themselves. Why is that not big in the medium? when we go deploy the National Guard to XYZ places, why haven't the government believed in deploying the National Guard? Now, I know Trump has tried to do it, but we should deploy the National Guard in the war zone that is the south side of Chicago and some of these inner city communities that more black people have died in these communities than we've lost in war. Why don't the government make make that more of a priority? Why can't the government prioritize inner city communities and black youth like they do illegal aliens? >> They've been here for 30 minutes and they got a bomophone. They got credit card. They go to abandoned school that they abandoned that was a black school that they they couldn't keep up with and they put, you know, they close it out and kids had to find somewhere to go to school. But then they let illegal aliens go in there and they feed them and they house them. billions of dollars spent on illegal aliens in some of these inner city communities where they're not going to the foothills, man. >> They're not going to, you know, in Nashville where it's all be. They're not going there. They're not going to scout, Arizona. They're going and competing in the inner city community where where people are in poverty and the government is subsidizing it. And I think that that's what needs to change. >> There's so much there to unpack. I just want to piggyback on the second point you made. Larry Elder, who of course ran for governor of California against Gavin Newsome, and he also ran in the Republican primary, has made a major issue out of the fact that he believes the greatest threat to the black American community today is fatherlessness. There are more uh households, more black people growing up without a father today than there were pre uh 1964 Civil Rights Act. So on that note, number one, police are obviously a response to crime. Do you see that families and communities are actually a a tool whereby you can prevent crime rather than responding? And then the second question I have, but of course you were close with Charlie Kirk, Charlie Kirk was an inspiration to millions of Gen Z men in particular. We have seen since Charlie Kirk's assassination so many people on the left and on the right who are trying to hijack the movement and influence the minds of young people. So, what advice would you give to young American men, black, white, Christian, Muslim, Jewish, about finding strong male role models in their lives? >> It's a great great two questions. I'll try to hand them one at a time. The fir the first thing is um about the fatherlessness. Fatherlessness is detrimental to everybody in America, no matter what color you are. Unfortunately, in the in the black community, it's disproportionately a reality that young men don't have dads in the home or legitimate father figures to help them navigate life. No matter what community you in, no matter where you are in the world, if you don't have adequate male leaders or fathers in the home, your community will be in shambles. Period. And like I said, the reason why the black community gets the rap more often than not because 70 plus percent of these young people are born in single parent homes. And there are stats out here. Somebody going to try to fact check me and say that there's a stat here that black fathers are more involved than anybody else. No, that's a that's bull crap because you can be involved and you're not in the house, your involvement is not as effective. I had a kid out of wedlock and and and when he was growing up, we lived in two different states. Yeah. I was there for my son. I paid child support. I call him on the phone every day. There's a difference between calling and paying child support than physically being in the house with your kid where he can see you. He can identify with you. He can he cannot just listen to your rhetoric. He can see what a man looks like. And that's a big issue. But when it comes to Charlie Kirk and what he stood for and and this is why I love Charlie and I stood by Charlie and and my goal is to to help Charlie's legacy continue is that young men do need to seek out real mentors. Mentees and mentors. Some of us who are leaders in the community like Charlie was need to be mentors to young people. It's not enough for us to be sitting on a high horse with millions of views and doing our flying private and all this other sort of stuff. If you can't turn around, look back and say, "Young men, I'm gonna create an environment where you can follow me, not only with my words, but by my deed, where you can watch what I do. You can see how I move. We have opportunities for you to learn from me. You You shouldn't have to pay money for me to teach you how to do better on social media. You shouldn't have to pay money for me to show you, you know, how you can build a business." I tell my guys here, I'm pretty sure you heard me before the show started. Don't you get don't you have kids out of wet line? You need to get married first. You need to establish yourself first. Men like me and others who are mature in the game, we should reach back and and teach young young people. And for the young people, seek out mentors. Mentors don't always have to be somebody that you call every day. Mentors could be somebody who you admire from a distance, mimicking the things that they do while following God. And one thing that I will say too is that young men need to understand that it's okay to be tough. It's okay to be dangerous as long as you do it by honoring God and you're doing it when it's only appropriate, you know, only in in cases where it's appropriate. Um, which what what I mean by that is that you should be training, you should be working out, you should be in good shape physically and mentally, and you should be able to take out anybody at any time if it's necessary. But the the real man reserve that right only when it's necessary. Meaning that I could take you out, but I won't do it because it's not necessary in a in a certain situation. Let me clarify this before I get you in trouble and me in trouble. Men that train in law enforcement, men that train in the military, they have the capability of taking it all away if necessary. When it's not wartime, when they're at home with their kids and their family, they put that that that worry on the back end. >> But when it's time to step up and it's time to put it all online for the for your country, when it's time to put it on all line for your family, that's when that warrior need to come out. And it's okay to be that warrior. You just got to know when to activate and when to not activate. When it's wartime and when it's not wartime. And I think the what I'm afraid is happening to young men is that they feel like they should never be a warrior. They should never have the capacity to to do what they need to do to take care of business. And let me say that as nice as I can. They feel like they need to be coward and pacifist all the time. No, you need to be the baddest person that walk in every room you walk in with confidence with a good handshake. look another man in the eye. You should be the you should be the lying walking in any room that you walk in. There's nothing wrong with that. And when you go home and when you with your family and with your friends, you know, you can you can let you can let your guard down a little bit, but at the end of the day, you have to have that capacity. And so, I want young men to be bold. I want them to be courageous. Let me add this, too, and it's the last thing I'll say. Somebody asked me on a podcast the other day said, um, who do you admire most? And I said, I admire my future self. That's who I admire. Because a man with integrity, a man that have the most integrity that I've seen is my future self. A man that's bold, that's courageous, the most bold and courageous and wise man that I know is my future self. And and young men need to create the avatar of their future self. And that's what they need to pursue >> because all that you believe that you are will be what you become. Whatever you think is what's going to manifest in your life. If you think, "Oh, I'm not good enough because Brandon Tatum has three million followers and I'll never be like him and I'll do," don't compare yourself in that way. Take things from Brandon Tatum that he's doing right. Add that to your avatar. Take things from this person and this person, this person. Take things from biblical people. add it to your avatar and every day you wake up and you admire somebody, you admire who you will become in the future. >> Wow. >> It'll change everything for young people if they can just put that in perspective. >> Well, well said. And I got to say, shame of the shame on those in the right who purport to be conservative who believe that actually you should just blame your problems on other people, on shadowy, undefined forces. No, you have to take responsibility for for your life. I as much as I said I was going to let you go, my producer will kill me if I do not ask you the following question. When I was preparing some questions for you, I had written black American in capital B. And apparently that's like a woke thing to do a capital B for black because it means they're their own identity. They're not like any other race. Number one, is my producer right? Uh like is this a thing in the black community to write with a capital B versus a lowercase B or is he kind of making this up? >> Well, in the woke black community, uh full of victimhood, they may pay attention to it. I ain't thought twice about the letter B in black being because at the end of the day I'm a child of God as long as you don't get that one wrong. But like when it come to black AfricanAmerican >> hey just call me American, >> right? Like Latin just >> Yeah. Yeah. Just call Yeah. Like I think it don't m like people like me it don't matter. >> Well said. >> You if you in the woke world maybe. >> Well said. This has been Officer Brendan Tatum. All of my listeners, if you are not already listening to his podcast, you are doing yourselves a tremendous disservice. Make sure uh to to follow him, not just on social media, but but his ideas are certainly needed in America, in our society today. Officer Tam, thank you so much for joining us. We appreciate it. >> Well, God bless you, brother. Thank you for having me on. >> Thank you.