Inside a police training conference
Post Reports
The Washington Post
4.4 • 5.1K Ratings
🗓️ 23 February 2022
⏱️ 14 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Much of America wants policing to change. But these self-proclaimed experts in police training tell officers they’re doing just fine. Today on Post Reports, we take you inside a police training conference.
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For more than a year now, Robert Klemko has been covering calls for police reform across the country in the wake of the murder of George Floyd.
But last fall, he started wondering — have these calls for reform changed anything about the way police are trained?
He went looking for a police training conference, and he found the Street Cop Training Conference in Atlantic City in October. The speakers included the right-wing political commentator Tomi Lahren, former law enforcement officers and military personnel. Robert wasn’t allowed to attend — but he did obtain a recording of the conference, and he shares it with us today.
You can read more about Robert’s reporting, and listen to his article here.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | I was really just googling police conferences and I stumbled upon this one in New Jersey |
| 0:07.0 | put on by this company called Street Cop. |
| 0:12.0 | Robert Clemco reports on criminal justice for the post. |
| 0:15.2 | So for more than a year now, he has covered calls for police reform across the country. |
| 0:21.1 | But recently he was wondering, what are some of the conversations happening on the other |
| 0:26.0 | side of that blue line? |
| 0:27.9 | The conversations happening between cops when they don't think that anyone else is listening. |
| 0:33.4 | Are cops talking about reforms or being trained to do their jobs differently? |
| 0:38.7 | So Robert started looking for a police training conference and he found one. |
| 0:44.9 | Yeah, I saw that Tommy Laren was one of the keynote speakers and for people that don't |
| 0:49.2 | know, she's the Fox News personality who often has some of the more outrageous far-right |
| 0:55.7 | takes. |
| 0:56.7 | They've been defunded, they've been demoralized, they've been demonized, we've got ambush |
| 1:01.3 | style killings of our police officers. |
| 1:03.9 | And so I thought this would be an interesting one to try to go to. |
| 1:07.5 | I couldn't get access but I was able to make contact with somebody who did and share |
| 1:13.4 | the recording with me. |
| 1:16.1 | So what were you trained to understand? |
| 1:18.4 | You know, I wanted to know how cops talk about the police reform effort and the current |
| 1:25.5 | political climate when they think they're only talking to cops. |
| 1:31.1 | So Robert gets this recording from the source who we're not going to name and he watches |
| 1:35.7 | it and it was even more illuminating than he expected. |
... |
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