File: Interview about police officers being accused of being racist
Duration: 30 minutes
Date: January 18, 2015
Interviewer: Me, Jennyfer Hiraldo
Responded: Officer Jhovanny Ysabel
Me: Thank you for taking the time to answer my questions today.
Jhovanny: No problem.
Me: How long have you been a police officer? Why did you decide to be a police officer?
Jhovanny: I’ve been a police officer for 8 years. I become a police officer because I always wanted to be one., it was a dream of me since I was a kid to be a police officer.
Me: What neighborhood do you patrol? Can you describe it?
Jhovanny: I patrol a low income neighborhood in the New York city housing. The neighborhood like I say is a low income one and it’s mostly black and hispanic people.
Me: Did you pick it or was it assigned to you?
Jovanny: It was assigned to me.
Me: Can you describe a typical/ routine stop?
Jhovanny: Not all stops are the same you know. They are all different, there's nothing really typical about my job.
Me: Police officers and their actions have been a topic of discussion in the news lately, what is your take on the way police officer have been portrayed by the news and politicians such as Blasio?
Jhovanny: Well in my opinion the media portrait police officer the way they do to sell their newspaper, and politicians do it to gain trust and vote from the people. They use whatever negative that is going on to their advantage.
Me: What role do you think that the media plays in the way police office are looked at? Do they make it better or worse?
Jhovanny: They make it worse because don’t want to buy the newspaper when something good is happening, people want to hear all the bad things that are going on, all the craziness that is happening.
Me: Do you think it’s fair that all the police officers get blame for the currents events that have been happening lately?
Jhovanny: No, it’s not fair at all because just because the one person made the mistake doesn’t mean that everyone that wears a uniform does the same thing. Is like not all spanish/ black people are criminals.
Me: Do you believe that the stop and frisk program was helpful?
Jhovanny: It was help but it was misused at the same time by the police department.
Me: With the Broken Windows theory many think that it has no effects on serious crimes, what’s your take on the?
Jhovanny: When you walked around 93 and park avenue do you see graffiti, broken windows garbage in the streets, abandoned cars, or doors that are broken?
Me: No.
Jhovanny: If all those things were to happen do you think that crime would be higher?
Me: Yeah.
Jhovanny: Exactly my point because if something is broken and damage and no one cares when you tackled those small things people would know that is not the right thing to do. They would make things better and take care of things. If the door is broken and it’s not fixed anyone can go inside the place and do whatever they want. They can rob whereas if the door is closed people who has access to it can be the only one to go in.
Me: Statics has showed that black people are the majority to get stop by cops, have you experience the?
Jhovanny: When you work in a neighborhood that has primarily black and hispanic people you are not going to stop an Asian guy there, you’re not going to stop a white person there if that’s not what’s there. That’s not the demography of the neighborhood. When you patrol in a neighborhood that the majority of people are black and hispanic unfortunately those are who you are going to stop. Because also static has shown that people who committed a crime are ethnic background.
Me: Have anyone ever made assumptions about you because of the way you look or your race?
Jhovanny: They have made assumptions about me but not because of my race but because I wear the uniform.
Me: There has been a lot of protested march going on lately, how you been assigned to be in one for protection?
Jhovanny: No, I actually haven’t been assigned to be in one.
Me: Would you like to take part in one for the experience of seeing how does protectors feel? To see how the African American community feel?
Jhovanny: To be honest with you I really wouldn’t want to take part because is hard, it’s a hard task to control all those protectors. But if it would be assigned to me I would gladly do my job.
Me: As a police officer how does it make you feel hearing all those means comments about police officer being seen as racist?
Jhovanny: It makes me feel that people who are assuming or saying that are ignorant and are blinding by the media. Because not everyone where I patrol are criminal or breaking the law, the only people that I deal with are the criminals, the drug dealers and the people that are breaking the law. I don’t deal with working class people because they are not breaking the laws.
Me: Currents events like the Eric Garner and Mike Brown cases have been causing a lot of controversial, do you believe that race is really the issue?
Jhovanny: The problem is the you have the media, the politicians feuding what’s already a big problem. They are making in it okay for those who are saying that all cops and white people are racist.
Me: What is exactly your perspective on race as a cop? Does it influence your job at all?
Jhovanny: Race is just the way people identify a group as or the way that person identifies themselves. But when am at work me personality race has nothing to do with the law. You can be a Harvard graduate and CEO of a company and if you rape somebody you are a rapist period. Or if you are a high school dropout who has seven kids by the age of 19 and you sell drugs then you are a drug dealer. You can be Black, Asia, Hispanic that doesn’t matter to me. But like I said the media are trying to portrait us like the and it take back to the 1930s where a person of color had to seat in the back of the bus because of it’s color. People don’t want to see that Eric Garner and Mike Brown lives were ended because of what they cause. Is not like Mike Brown was going to school and the cop stop him and shoot him, that’s what the media is making in it seen like. Even with the Eric Garner situation he said in the video “this ends today’ what did he mean with the. What the mean was the he wasn’t going to go to jail and he was going so resist the arrest. His health contribute to his dead. The media and the politicians wanted to call it a choke hold but they really don’t know what the means. When somebody is choking with a piece of food, can they say listen i'm choking?
Me: Not really
Jhovanny: No because the piece of object is stuck where we project our voice. Now when somebody is choking whether with a piece of food or a choke hold they are not going to tell you listen I can’t breathe, they are just going to drop dead. In the case of Eric Garner the cop did a take down move on him to bring him down. And during the whole section he was talking and breathing so therefore he did not died because of a choke hold. But the media and politicians want to agree with the society. The only reason why the police officer didn’t go to jail was because the video exist. When you are really choking somebody out they wouldn’t be able to speak. What he did was not against the law. It was unfortunately that he died because no one thought even himself that the was going to happen. If you notice he was arrested 30 other times so why did he decided to resist this time?
Me: Maybe because he saw everyone that was around him.
Jhovany: And also because he saw that they were recording what was happening.
Me: Now they are trying to create cameras for police officers to wear in their uniforms, do you believe that by cops wearing cameras will better the situation? If no, why?
Jhovanny: I honestly think that it wouldn’t because with Eric Garner their was a video and people are still saying the other thing. Is people believe that he was hot because he was black then that’s what they are going to believe. One thing you can not do change is a person stay of mind. You can not convinced a person who is like see things that the cops do as racist.
Me: Overall what can be done to improve police officers relationship with the society? How can the society have trust in police officer?
Jhovanny: People either love police or hate them. There is no in between. Some people are like they don’t bother us we don’t bother them. There's so many things that the police department does to improve the relationship with the community but it doesn’t change those who don’t like/trust the police officers. You wouldn’t honestly get 100 percent of the people to like police officers because some of those people grew up to not like nor trust the police.
Me: Once again thank you for taking your time to answer my questions and being so honest with me.
Jhovanny: It was a pleasure answering your questions.
Conclusion from the interview:
Jennyfer Hiraldo
Race Study
January 18, 2014
Conclusion from Interview
My conclusion from the interview that I conducted with the Officer Jhovanny Ysabel is that overall his experiences as a cop has not shaped at all his perspective on race because to him race has nothing to do with his job, if you broke the law then you broke the law. For officer Ysabel race is the "way people identify a group as or the way that person identifies themselves". (Ysabel, page 3). And whether you are black, hispanic, or white if you broke the law then you have to deal with the consequences. With this interview I learned that politicians get so involved in the problem and they agree with the society mostly because they secured their votes and they know that by going against the society they will not win. The politicians have to make sure that they agree with the society because at the end of the day the society are the one who vote for them. Officer Ysabel also explains how if the majority of the people where he patrols are Black and Hispanic then those are the ones who he will mostly going to stop, it all depends on the area that a police officer patrols. With the response that I got about how politicians get involved in order to receive their votes I totally agree with Officer Ysabel because in order for them to get their votes they have to pleased the society.
What I also concluded from my interview with officer Ysabel is that to him the Eric Garner situation wasn't because if race. He explains to me how his health was the reason why he died and that he if the police officer was really choking him then Eric Garner wouldn't have be able to speak. He explains to me that the media only puts out what the society really wants to hear and they don’t really give out all the information completely. Want I also concluded with this interview is that when is comes to the relationship between cops and the society changing it will take a lot of hard work because like officer Ysabel said “you can not change a person mind, and you will never get 100 percent of the society to like/trust the police officer”. Ysabel, page 5). Overall what I can take from this interview is that as a police officer to Jhovanny Ysabel race has nothing to do with his job. To him if you break the law then you simply break the law it doesn't matter what race you are. For officer Jhovanny Ysabel people make assumptions about him not because of his race but because they see him wearing the uniform of a police officer. At the end of the day for officer Ysabel his experiences has not shape his perspective on race because his simply doesn't involved race with his job, race to him is how someone identifies themselves and whether you are Black, Hispanic, Asian, or Mexican if you break the law you simply broke the law. With this interview I totally got to see a whole new perspectives because I also just hear the perspectives of the society/ the media. I was very pleased with the responses that I got because they were honest and well deep answer.