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Rosa Melendez was the Regional Director for CRS Region 10 from 2000 - 2014.
There are 3 parts of this interview and a summary: Part 1, Part 2 and Part 3 and The Summary This is Part 1.
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Bill Froehlich (00:00:00): I am recording. Okay, good afternoon. It is 1:15 about on Eastern standard time on December 10th, 2021. My name is Bill Froehlich and today I have the pleasure of chatting with former regional director, CRS regional director for region 10, Rosa Melendez. And this is part one of our conversation with Rosa Melendez: this afternoon. She has signed her consent form. And we're going to go ahead and get started. So Rosa, just some - Do you mind if I call you Rosa?
Rosa Melendez: (00:00:36): No, please do.
Bill Froehlich (00:00:37): Great. And of course you can call me Bill. Just some preliminary points. Do you recall the dates of your service with CRS and the positions that you held?
Rosa Melendez: (00:00:47): I started with CRS in November of 2000.
Bill Froehlich (00:00:54): Okay. And when did you retire?
Rosa Melendez: (00:00:57): I retired in November of 2014.
Bill Froehlich (00:01:05): Okay. And were you regional director for region 10?
Rosa Melendez: (00:01:07): I was regional director the entire time of region 10, which is Alaska, Idaho, Oregon and Washington.
Bill Froehlich (00:01:13): Okay. And just real quick, were there ever times when you also pitched in other roles, maybe you had multiple regions that you were directing?
Rosa Melendez: (00:01:22): Yes, one time I had region seven, the Chicago office, when we were absent a regional director. So every Wednesday I was either on a flight to Seattle or to Chicago for three months.
Bill Froehlich (00:01:37): That's a lot of travel. Very good. Well I want to take you way back and perhaps you could tell me a little bit about your background and your career trajectory prior to 2000, prior to your joining the community relations service.
Rosa Melendez: (00:01:53): Well, I've said that I think I was groomed for this position from day one. And the reason I say that is my mother was a civil rights activist. I was born and raised in Midvale Utah, Salt Lake County. And my mother was vice president of a Spanish organization, a Spanish speaking organization. And she mainly worked on education and police matters in the community. And in fact, she was nominated last year, or a year before, as one of 50 women that made Utah history, Edith Melendez. And they talk about her having a colorful language when she was meeting with the governor or the police chief or whatever. And I was in high school at well, I mean all my life, really, but I remember in high school, I would get very embarrassed with my mother because I went to a private high school and then would go down to her office and then follow her to all her meetings in the community. And I remember saying, oh my God, when I grow up, I'm never going to do this to my kids. If you talk to my kids, they were dragged along to many meetings. So I think I was raised to do this and my education was not in this. My education was to be a bilingual bicultural educator. But I always knew that I was community oriented. And I always saw that there was this division between, at that time, the Latino community that I was born and raised in, and the law enforcement community. And I just one day decided that I was going to be a police officer and that I was going to bridge the two communities together. And eventually it led to being a police cadet with Salt Lake City Police Department. And I knew that because of religious differences, that I would never be promoted to the areas that I wanted to. So I left Salt Lake and came to Seattle and joined Seattle Police Department. First, as a community service officer where you didn't have the authority as a police officer, but you served the community and dealing with runaway or neighborhood disputes, or, you know, just some of the things that really doesn't need the law enforcement power. And then later I joined the police department as a police officer. And I was even then known as being more community oriented because I kept taking the time with whatever the situation was to talk to the people and to try to find some solution so it wasn't a problem forever. It wasn't a repeat problem for law enforcement. And then I became community oriented in the Latino community, the African American community, the Asian community in different projects. Like with the Latino community, I would wear my uniform every Thursday and go to Jose Marti daycare and read to those young kids in Spanish and English, a book, you know, a little short story. So they would not be frightened of the uniform because many of the kids were frightened of the uniform. And I thought if I was officer friendly, I could help them, you know. And then I went to recruitment and when I was in recruitment I convened the, what I consider the leaders of various communities.
And I told them, "hey, it's not my job to find police officers. You guys are the leaders of your community. It's your responsibility to bring those leaders to us and help us recruit them." And you know, I also said that it was our responsibility to recruit, to educate, to promote, to retain so they retired from the police department. You know, I just didn't want the numbers. I wanted them to leave a legacy. And we were fairly successful in that round of recruitment. And then the director of personnel would have me meet with the recruits that weren't doing so well. Like what did, what..., you know - A lot of time this was females, because this was not an area that many females had been in. I mean, the fighting, the wrestling, you know, the physical training portion, or the handgun portion of it, was always a difficult portion for the females. And so it was like, okay, do we need to assign somebody to teach you how to really shoot your gun or how to learn some techniques for physical training? And then after that I went back to patrol as a supervisor. I was promoted and went back to patrol as a supervisor and continued doing community-based programs on my free time, you know. And was known to be a community activist. I got the reputation in the police department that I was too community oriented. Then when I became a Lieutenant, the federal government had a program called "Weed and Seed." And I don't know if you remember that. That was a, Department of Justice came out with a program that was called Weed and Seed. I don't know why they named it that because community members immediately started saying, "oh yeah, you're going to weed out our kids and plant, you know, gentrification and everything else."
Bill Froehlich (00:07:51): Oh, weed like weed spray. I see. Weed and Seed. I heard, I heard you, I thought it was wheat. But.
Rosa Melendez: (00:07:58): No. Weed. Weed. Weed and Seed. Which is a terrible connotation for a community to have. But we had many, many meetings. I was, some of the community leaders said that I was like the nurse that did the Tuskegee Airmen. Yeah, it was crazy. And my kids would get really upset, but, you know, we continued on with that and eventually it became a very successful program and it became the model program for the entire United States where training was done in Seattle. Through that, I had known Bob Lamb, who was the Regional Director of region 10, and as kind of one of the founders of NOBLE (National Organization of Black Law Enforcement Executives). And through him, I became part of NOBLE and I also started participating in CRS activities. And when I then was appointed to be the US Marshal by President Clinton, after several years, you could tell his health was failing and he kept saying, "Rosa, will you please come and be the Regional Director of region 10?" And I kept saying, "Mr. Lamb, I appreciate that. But I'm having too much fun being the Marshall." And several years later he passed away and his wife then contacted me and she said, "they're going to start advertising his position and you have to apply for it because he wanted you to, you know, be in this position." And that was at a time that President Clinton I mean, it was President Bush against Al Gore, and I, for some reason, I said, "you know what? I don't think President Bush would reappoint me. So really I better look for another job." <Laugh>
Bill Froehlich (00:09:58): So you felt that Bush was unlikely to reappoint you as US Marshall so you left to go to CRS. All right.
Rosa Melendez: (00:10:06): Right. Yes. So I applied for CRS, went through the process, and I became the Regional Director of CRS. So as you can see being raised in a community that my mother constantly fought for, and then being in the police department, I became, I really did become a bridge between two communities, you know. And I was able to teach law enforcement about cultural differences and teach the community about the law enforcement culture. So, that's what brought me to CRS.
Bill Froehlich (00:10:42): So can you say a little bit more about your relationship with Bob Lamb and his wife?
Rosa Melendez: (00:10:49): Oh my God. Mr. Lamb was, everybody knew Mr. Lamb. Everybody knew Mr. Lamb. I mean he was a, I think a captain, in some New Jersey police department. And like I said started NOBLE, was one of the original founders of NOBLE. And he was just such a leader, such a true leader. I mean, he met with leadership throughout the country to break bread and to do whatever was necessary to bring communities together. Watching him was amazing and he just had, some people just have a knack to bring communities together, to have people talk, and laugh, and to have a partnership. And he had that knack.
Bill Froehlich (00:11:47): And you said, though, you got the call from his wife after his passing?
Rosa Melendez: (00:11:51): Yeah. His wife, I mean, he kind of adopted me as one of his surrogate daughters when I was in Seattle Police Department. And being the first Latina ever hired by Seattle Police Department, then being the first woman of color to be promoted by Seattle Police Department, he kind of took me under his wing. And so, he's one of those people on the outside of the department that kind of mentored me, and guided me, and that I could always talk to, and knew it was confidential. Or when he went through this, the situations he went through as a police officer in New Jersey, you know, how would you resolve those issues? So, yeah.
Bill Froehlich (00:12:33): Oh, that's great. Sounds like you had a great relationship with him.
Rosa Melendez: (00:12:36): Oh, I had, you know, I had some wonderful, wonderful mentors within the community, within the police department, and throughout the entire United States that just took me under their wing. Rose Ochi was another one that just kind of took me under her wing and guided me.
Bill Froehlich (00:12:56): Well. So I'd like you to transition now to your work as Regional Director of region 10. Can you just tell us little bit about what your role was as regional director, what the day to day looked like, how you managed your team of conciliators, how you worked with the central office in DC?
Rosa Melendez: (00:13:17): Okay. Well, region 10 is a little bit different than a lot of different regions. It's called like the frontier, the Northwest, the last frontier. Right? So we do have a lot of cowboy mentalities, you know, Or frontier people mentalities that don't want federal interference. You get like cities like Portland and Seattle that are liberal, but then the rest of the cities outside of those areas are very, very conservative. For instance, I remember there was one town that I was called into in Idaho that the mayor was really concerned that the person that was running for police chief, or sheriff, had a cross burning party and what that meant to community since it was a highly populated community of American Indians. And of course, he wouldn't talk to us or wouldn't, didn't want to work with us at all. And so what it was was just meeting with the community members and letting them know what their rights were, you know. I mean, you can't force somebody to come to the table. But you can try to change people's views or give them, you know, thoughts that they may have never had. Or "how would you feel if this happened to your daughter?" Or, you know, things like that. Try to make it more personal to change thoughts, or to change their way of looking at things. Luckily he didn't win and that became a dead issue, but the mentality was still there. That is still part of the mentality. A lot of times I was utilized in not just the Northwest, but throughout the country on issues that had to deal with law enforcement, because lots of times police departments will say, "you don't know what it's like to be a police officer," you know? And they couldn't tell me that because I had been a police officer. So I could go in saying, "hey, I know what you guys go through. I know some of the issues, but this is how, this is how the community perceives you, you know. And their perception is real to them. So how do we change that?" So, and issues like that, I was also brought in on issues where there was issues regarding language, you know? But I saw my role as the Regional Director to be the ambassador for CRS. And that meant meeting with school leadership throughout those states to let them know what were some of the problems that came up in other states or other, you know, parts of the country that was a challenge for educators. It was meeting with police departments to let police chiefs and sheriffs know how I could assist them. It was joining different organizations. So I can, you know, be a constant face there. I'm not just there when a crisis is up. And I think that's one of the biggest things that happens is that, you know, it's so sad that lots of times CRS shows up where there's a crisis and you know, then you've got to get your bearings and, you know, try to meet the leadership and try to set a level of trust, you know, a plain level of trust. So, I saw myself more as the ambassador to get out and meet as many people as possible. And to tell them a little bit about what the program, what CRS meant and what were the cases that we could handle.
Bill Froehlich (00:17:24): Yeah. So I'm seeing three roles that you described. Two in your region. One is the ambassador for your region to put your face out there. Another is working on cases like the one you described in the conservative community. And then a third is beyond your region, that CRS often leveraged you and your depth of experience in law enforcement, the US Marshall, Seattle and Utah police, to gain entry elsewhere. And so I wonder if you might briefly share in a little bit more detail about how, one example where you were called in to, I don't know, Miami, just picking a city, and about how you were called in and utilized to gain entry in those conversations.
Rosa Melendez: (00:18:08): Well, one I can think of in particularly was working with region 10 when we were working with the state of Arizona. And there was the whole issue with immigrants and there was going to be a protest and the protest was going to be at the federal building and it would also involve the US Marshall for the district of Arizona. So going down there and meeting with the Marshall as a former Marshall, letting him know what the playbook was, and you know, that these people were going to march and there were some that wanted to be arrested and, you know, things like that. Other times was going to like I'm thinking of when in -
Bill Froehlich (00:18:58): Can I pause you for a second? Were you referring to the SB 1060? The immigration legislation? Yeah (Rosa Melendez: ). Okay. I just wanted to make sure that we're all on the same page.
Rosa Melendez: (00:19:07): Yeah. So Ron had brought me in because he knew there was going to be dealings with the US Marshall there and being a former Marshall and, you know, the Marshall and I are still friends. <Laugh> And yeah, so it was things like that. That's one that stands out the most. I did one in Tommy Battles's region one time. And it was, I can't remember exactly what police department it was, but it was meeting with the police department regarding what was going to happen there. So it's lots of times it was just going into the police department, you know, introducing myself as a former law enforcement person and the former US marshal. So I had the street experience and I had the executive experience and, you know.
Bill Froehlich (00:20:02): Yeah, it's clear that you were brought in to help build trust between CRS and departments when needed. And that's a -
Rosa Melendez: (00:20:12): And you know, the other thing is I had some political contacts too that kind of helped. And when I was with the Marshal's office, I became the special assistant for a while to John Marshall, who's the son of Justice Thurgood Marshall. So when we had a situation in Minnesota with the US Marshal there that was a friend of the family, I was brought in to meet with him and break bread and make things better and, you know.
Bill Froehlich (00:20:46): Great. Yeah. You were utilized in a lot of ways. So can you perhaps talk through one of your cases in a little bit more detail? Perhaps a more interesting one, whether it's concretely or abstractly.
Rosa Melendez: (00:21:01): Well, there's one, there's one that happened in -. There's two that I wanted to talk about that stand out, will always stand out in my mind. One was in Alaska. And Alaska always had law enforcement issues with communities of color, especially like the indigenous community in Alaska, plus the Samoan community. There's a large Samoan community in Anchorage, Alaska. And the cultures are very, very different, you know. Very different. Like in the Samoan culture, you know, you can discipline your own child, but, and it can be brutal, you know, but in the United States you can't do that. So there was meeting with Samoan elders that are the leaders of the different tribes, because the small community has tribes, and letting them know that may be acceptable in Samoa, but it was not acceptable here. And there was a shooting involving a Samoan young man. And it led to a lot of uproar in the communities of color. And meeting with the police chief, I kept telling him or explaining to him, we needed to be more transparent because people wanted to know what the shooting policy was. And well, it literally took months, maybe a year, to explain the difference between policies, procedures, and operational plans. Because there was a fear in the law enforcement community that if we let them see the police manual for policies and procedures, that we were giving them their playbook. And I was trying to explain that, no, it's not the playbook. So we were able to call in a professor from the University of Alaska to sit down with us and work with everybody. The NAACP, the, you know, the indigenous community leadership, the Samoan leadership, the Latino leadership, the whole leadership. Oh, the lesbian gay leadership. I mean, that's another story. That's a funny one. But anyway, so having this all at the table with law enforcement on what part of their manual could be put on the web so people could see what it was, being more transparent. And literally it almost took years. It almost took two years and then it was baby steps. It was total baby steps. But as it went on, the police chief and law enforcement, and not just the police chief, the sheriff, could see that this was building a greater sense of trust with the community when the community could see what the policies were, you know. When can you shoot? When can you not shoot? What are your policies and procedures in responding to a domestic disturbance? You never send one officer, you send two cars. That's why it always looked like there was an, you know. And then that happens in the white neighborhood. It's just not in the, you know, Latino neighborhood or the African American neighborhood. It happens in every neighborhood. That was just a policy. It was a procedure. So that one, I mean, it sounds funny, but it was convincing the law enforcement community that by putting, and working with the US Attorney's Office and with the FBI up there, to try to change the mindset of local law enforcement that having these policies and procedures transparently out there so people could read them. And it was not as secret when you could shoot, when you couldn't shoot. It sounds little, but it took many, many meetings, telephone calls. Because you know, I can't fly to Alaska all the time. <Laugh> And since I, it was the leadership of the police department, they didn't want just a conciliator. They wanted somebody that could say, "well, you know, community, you're pushing a little too far here. Let's see what the police department's willing to give up here, you know." So it was just that. It was a lot of telephone calls. We didn't have Zoom at that time. <Laugh> Yeah.
Bill Froehlich (00:25:52): At least you had phones. That's good. Oh, well I, so I want to break down this case just a little bit more. If you don't mind.
Rosa Melendez: (00:25:59): No, go ahead.
Bill Froehlich (00:26:01): So you said there was an incident that kind of triggered your involvement?
Rosa Melendez: (00:26:06): Well, there were numerous incident, but the last, the icing on the cake was the shooting of the Samoan.
Bill Froehlich (00:26:11): And so can you tell me, were you, or your conciliators invited to this conversation? Did you approach the community to intervene? How did you gain entry?
Rosa Melendez: (00:26:25): The police chief had called me and asked me if I would come up. And then the leader of NAACP had asked me if I would come up. So I went up there and I met with the city's civil rights committee, so they could tell me what they thought problem was. I met with the police department and then I met with the Samoan community. And then I decided that we needed to have a town hall meeting. And I explained that to law enforcement, that sometimes the community needs to ask questions. They need to vent their frustration. And it's a hot seat for the police chief, you know, and lots of people don't like to be on the hot seat. And, you know that he was getting, he and his staff was getting have the hot seat and they needed to allow these people to vent in order to get them to come to the table and start talking.
Bill Froehlich (00:27:29): So before you tell me more about that, because I have a ton of questions about that. I just want to ask you one other prep question. So you were working with the Samoan and other communities, already. This event happens. You get the call from the chief and the NAACP. You do this mini assessment by meeting with leaders in the community. Was there any other prep work that you did on your way up there? Any, anything specific that you might highlight. Or because you were...already involved in the community, you were fairly prepared. Can you say more about that?
Rosa Melendez: (00:28:04): Because that wasn't my first visit to Alaska, you know, or to this particular city. I had been there several times on other different issues. I had also gone up there to introduce myself to the US Attorney and to the FBI and to, you know, the local law enforcement. And not just that city, but throughout the cities of Alaska. And the mayor . . . and then also the senator's office because, you know, the Senator can pull you out of there really fast. Yeah if they feel that they don't want you there and you don't have their permission to be there, or the US Attorney feels they don't want you there, you don't have permission to be there. You know, so I always, when I say ambassador, ambassador meant meeting with all these different parties and getting your good foot out there first, you know, before an event really happened. And luckily I had done that.
Bill Froehlich (00:29:08): Yeah, you were that ambassador and with this particular event, you were also checking in with these folks, it sounds like, to make sure that they welcomed you or they at least weren't objecting to your presence in the community.
Rosa Melendez: (00:29:20): I tried to have quarterly phone calls with different, like a contact person from the senator's office, a contact person from the mayor's office or the mayor, he or she, himself or herself, you know. Checking in with the US Attorney all the time. I mean I had this phone list of people that I like, you know, did a lot of phone calling and how are you doing? And when I met with them, this is another thing I think really helped me, when I met with them, like you said your son and your wife, you know, if I had your business card I'd write: "son, cold, how's he feeling? Wife, fractured leg." You know, so the next time I talked to you, "Bill, how's your wife doing? How's her leg progressing? You know, how's your son doing?" And if you said you had a dog and the dog's name was Skipper, "hey, how's skipper doing?" ...So I wrote notes down on everybody's business card of everything I could get out of them in meeting with them and trying to get into some of their personal life, you know? So that added a touch.
Bill Froehlich (00:30:21): Absolutely. That's a great way to connect. Humanize yourself. Humanize them.
Rosa Melendez: (00:30:26): Right. And so then I had a business card on my computer, you know, and I wrote all these notes down and every time they told me something else, I'd write a little note down. So it was constantly becoming more personal with them to the point that they started inviting me to dinner, or, you know, like "let's go meet. I'm going to bring my wife, why don't you bring your husband?" Because sometimes my husband would fly with me. So that started becoming not a stranger, you know. That trust level, that trust level kept going up every time I'd start meeting with them. But I had to make sure I wasn't just having lunch or dinners with the police department. I was doing community too, you know. Because I didn't want one party to say, "oh, she's having so much time with the police department because she's former law enforcement."
Bill Froehlich (00:31:18): That's great. That's smart. Making sure that you're balanced. There's balance. There's equity in who you're meeting with.
Rosa Melendez: (00:31:27): But I think the biggest key for me was personalizing it. Meeting with them, personalizing it, and staying in contact. Like I tried to make quarterly phone calls.
Bill Froehlich (00:31:39): Thank you for sharing that. I appreciate that. So I want to go back to this case. Now that I've taken you down this important tangent. You've conducted this assessment of sorts by connecting with people and you've advised the community that you want to have a town, that the police department should have a town hall and be on the hot seat, and hear the community. So can you tell me a little bit about how those conversations and setting that town hall up went, who was involved, and what the town hall looked like?
Rosa Melendez: (00:32:11): Well, working with the community, particularly the communities of color up there, wasn't new to me. Working with the Samoan community was new to me because they had never been to any of the previous meetings that we had had. So that was new to me. Working with the police department wasn't new to me. It may have been a new police chief, but you know, the command staff was pretty much the same. So, I had familiarity with all those different areas. Working with the Samoan community and the leadership there, thank God I had worked with the Samoan community in Seattle and knew kind of the hierarchy. If I didn't, I could have made it worse. Who is the leadership in this community, and what led to this, and how can we change this from never happening again? And what would you like from the police department? You know. So, I already knew what the other communities of color wanted. I already knew what the police department wanted. Now, I needed to know what the Samoan community wanted and the Samoan community wanted to really vent their frustration with the police department and the lack of community intervention in the police department. The lack of when they come to domestic disturbances they didn't try to know the community. And so meeting with the police chief and saying, "what activities can the police department participate in the Samoan community? What kind of recruitment plan have you done in the Samoan community?" Or, you know, just all that. I mean, recruitment was always a key issue. What kind of diversity do you have in your police department? If it's you know, I mean, it's a large indigenous community and if you don't have a reflection of the community that leads to distrust. So everybody agreed to... the town hall meeting. And the police chief, I had worked with him before and his command staff, and they knew they'd be on the hot seat. And they knew that I would balance it. You know, I wasn't going to let it get out of control. That's the other thing you know -
Bill Froehlich (00:34:43): Did you facilitate?
Rosa Melendez: (00:34:43): Yeah I did -
Bill Froehlich (00:34:43): You sound like you say that reluctantly, I don't know. <Laughs>.
Rosa Melendez: (00:34:48): Well, yeah, I always ended up facilitating for some reason. I don't know why, but, you know, I guess it's the trust that the parties had in me and they knew that I wouldn't let it go too far. And I would tell each party beforehand, if it starts getting to the point that it's accusatory or finger pointing, that's not beneficial to anybody. Let's have concrete discussions that can lead to something. So we had maybe a series of three or four of those discussions. So first one was very, very heated. The second one, and this was over months, right. And the second one was not as heated, but it was still heated. By the third time there was discussion about let's look at what we can do as a group to make this better. But the main issue was they didn't think the police department was transparent and they wanted to know. The police chief wouldn't vocalize what the shooting policy was. And by doing that, it led to some distrust and that's when it was like, okay, let's bring in this one professor, some community members recommended him, that he was really, really good. And he started working with us and he had a lot of meetings with the police department. And I wish I could remember his name. I'll have to look through my files and see if I can find his name. And that might be a discussion you might want with him because he really did help us a lot. I don't know if we could have gotten to where we got to, where they put their manual up on the web. So people, you know, and it was distributed at different...meetings after that. But yeah, it took a lot of time, a lot of meetings, a lot of phone calls.
Bill Froehlich (00:36:52): So say more. So we've got these town halls that you facilitated. So you're in the facilitator's hot seat. Which I, you know, I feel you. And you've got the chief and the community there. And then that sparks conversations. Are these essentially facilitated negotiations? Is this a mediation? A formal mediation process? Are you doing some shuttle diplomacy about this with the professor? Can you tell me a little bit more about what's happening in those conversations?
Rosa Melendez: (00:37:28): Okay. Well, I never said mediation or agreements like that because that's too formal in the Northwest.
Bill Froehlich (00:37:37): <Laughs> Okay.
Rosa Melendez: (00:37:38): So in the Northwest, we didn't do a lot of mediation signings. It just, it seems to be a trigger word for some reason. But no, I would just say, okay, then it was - Okay, several meetings and then it was let's pick leaders, you know, from these different meetings to meet in a smaller, which would've been the mediation, in a smaller group, and let's come up with some ideas that we can bring all the parties together and have some working relationship. So we bring leaders from the Samoan community. And we already had leaders from the other communities of color because they had a civil rights committee that they all were part of. So it is just bringing Samoan community into that civil rights committee, you know, merging them into that. And working with the police department. So, and somebody from the civil rights committee, and I can't remember his name right now, recommended this professor. And apparently this professor had worked with the police department in the past and so it was okay. Yeah. Everybody has trust with this professor. And he and I had a phone conversation, like I said, many phone conversations because you can't fly to Alaska all the time. They're expensive and CRS doesn't have an expensive budget. And sometimes it was working with the city's civil rights director. Calling that person and saying "can you bring these people together? Maybe we can have a phone conversation" you know? And then the professor just kind of took it from there. And then when they were ready to present it to the community, I mean, there were a lot of meetings, you know, and a lot of discussions, phone discussions. And then when they were, the police department, was ready to like unveil this thing, then we had a big community meeting and a big auditorium where the professor kind of guided everybody through it. Which was great. But it just took a lot of meetings. It just took a lot of meetings. A lot of discussion. I don't know if we would've built, I don't know if we would've ever gotten there, if it wasn't for that one professor. He had buy in from the youth of color. He had buy in from the police department. And I think he was in criminal justice now that I think of it. But so he had buy in and I don't know if we would've ever gotten there without him.
Bill Froehlich (00:40:42): It's really interesting. Something that you referenced earlier, you're the ambassador for CRS. CRS started down this road, but then you passed the baton to someone who was local, who had even more trust than you did in the process.
Rosa Melendez: (00:41:04): And that's systematic. That's why I believe in systematic change. Where CRS doesn't have to go in anymore. I mean, there's been a change that, you know, that they've learned to work it out themselves. They don't need somebody to guide them through it. And I'm serious, I don't know if we would've ever gotten there without that professor.
Bill Froehlich (00:41:25): No, that and the professor was a local community member. But that's really fascinating. and really interesting. I want to get back to those larger -
Rosa Melendez: (00:41:35): And also he was a white, he was a white male. Which you know, kind of gave some comfort to the police department but had buy in from the community because the youth had taken classes from him. And if the kids liked him, the parents liked him, you know. So it was a great mix.
Bill Froehlich (00:41:56): That's really wonderful. So you've described a little bit about who was at the table. And these are some concrete, more concrete mediation questions. But you're not calling it mediation. So I respect that, I understand that.
Rosa Melendez: (00:42:10): But it was mediation. But there was no signed agreements or anything.
Bill Froehlich (00:42:14): There we go. Right. So we've talked about who the participants were a little bit. Were there any challenges about getting any particular communities to the table in this process? I know you invited the Samoan community in. But were there any challenges with other communities, getting them to, or keeping them at, the table?
Rosa Melendez: (00:42:36): The other communities that didn't feel it was really part of their problem was the Latino community...Which was disheartening to me because I'm Latino, right. And there wasn't that much representation from the indigenous community, the Alaska natives. That was really strange to me because they were the ones that suffered from police use of force more than anybody else probably. But it was carried on primarily by the African American community. And there was one particular Reverend and I still think if he is alive he's still the head of that committee, you know. But it was more the African American American community that really led the charge in all the issues in Alaska.
Bill Froehlich (00:43:31): So did you have any specific goals for your involvement in this process? From the beginning or the end or for CRS. Were you trying to make peace as America's peacemaker? Were you trying to help identify and address some of the divisions and tensions in the community? What were some of your goals as CRS's representative out there?
Rosa Melendez: (00:43:53): My first goal was getting them at the table to at least discuss instead of finger pointing. Where they could all accept what their responsibilities were. I mean the community has a responsibility to the law enforcement too, you know? So if you want law enforcement to investigate a sexual assault in your community, or an assault in your community, well you gotta call them and there's gotta be trust. And if the police department's not going out to the community and building trust, they're not going to call. So my first thing was getting the Samoan community and the police department to try to start trusting each other, where the Samoan community did not only go to the police department to complain, but they went to the police department to report. They were witnesses. You know, that's one of the biggest problems in communities of color is trying to have them be a witness to law enforcement because of the distrust in law enforcement. And so that was my primary goal: is to at least get them to the table to talk. But I also know that growing up in a community of color, and I never was the victim of any use of force issues, but I know other people in my community that were. And I knew that the community had to vent. You know, when people get angry they have to vent. And you gotta let, and I would say this to every conciliator. You've got to let people vent. They have to vent. Get it out. Because if you don't let them get it out, you're not going to have anything constructive later on, you know. It's going to constantly be finger pointing. So they've got to get it out. And then once one or two meetings later, maybe three, then we start talking about where do we go from here?
Bill Froehlich (00:46:02): With respect to where you went, did you set a formal agenda? Okay, I'm hearing these 1, 2, 3 things. Or did you help build consensus for an agenda. Or did one even emerge?
Rosa Melendez: (00:46:16): I always knew that the community kept saying there was distrust because the police department would never share what their policies were. My thing was if I could get the police chief just to be transparent about policies. And it was funny, it was the university professor that really led him to the line, to see that by putting your policies and procedures out there is not giving away your operational plan. He was scared that by putting the policies and procedures out there was giving - I'm not going to tell you tactically how we approach a house or something like that. Or how we respond to a sniper. I mean, no, that's operational. You don't give that out. But you can give out the policies and procedures. How is a use of force investigation? How does a police department investigate use of force? What makes up your internal affairs? What are the different stages of complaints, you know? Letting them be educated on that.
Bill Froehlich (00:47:27): Well, it sounds like you and the faculty member did a lot of work helping reframe the concern so it would become more palatable to the police chief. Whether it's reframing talking about, well, look, this is a policy, it's not your technical strategy for the police, for the sniper. What were your effective techniques for reframing or persuading a party to reframe what they were saying?
Rosa Melendez: (00:47:57): You know, this professor got it right away. I was really lucky on this. I mean, he got it right away and I didn't have to really tell him that. I just told him there was a distrust between community and police and there was a lack of transparency from the police side. If the police department could be more transparent with their policies and procedures, then I think that it would gain more trust from the community. And he understood that right away. And then he started working with a group, a small group, from the police department and the community. And that's where they came up with the framing of all of this. So I really did. I handed it off. I mean, they didn't need me anymore. I mean, the community knew what they wanted. The police department knew what they wanted. And they had this professor that everybody trusted that knew how to guide it.
Bill Froehlich (00:48:52): Well, I have one more question about the process, and then I want to turn to the professor led presentation of what they came up with. If you don't mind. So was there ever a point in time where you identified any ground rules for part of the process and how did you come up with those ground rules? And the answer you might just say no. <Laugh> But.
Rosa Melendez: (00:49:15): No... When I met with every party and said we were going to have the town hall meeting, I always set my ground rules. You know, we're not gonna finger point where, you know, and we're not gonna call names and you know, all that. So everybody knew those ground rules. And then once we got to the auditorium, there were a lot of people that were not in those initial meetings. So I had them on a chalkboard, what the original ground rules were. And I have that somewhere because they're the same ground rules I use all the time, you know? So yeah, I did that. I mean, you know, let's be as polite as possible. I mean, we don't want, you know, we don't want a shooting or anything in the town hall meeting, you know. And believe me, there's a lot of guns in Alaska. <Laugh>
Bill Froehlich (00:50:12): I haven't been, I wouldn't know. So wonderful. Thank you for that. So take me then to you've handed off to the professor and the professor is now facilitating the presentation of the concepts that they've arrived, reached consensus on, back in another community conversation.
Rosa Melendez: (00:50:36): Okay. So you mean the presentation...it was in a huge auditorium. I think it was at the University of Alaska, Anchorage. And there were large amount of people there. And he just went through where this all started from. You know, that there was a distrust of community and there was a distrust of police and that this small group got together and this is what they came up with. And then he talked about use of force, because that was the number one issue with the community was the police department's use of force. So on this big screen he had what the use of force policy was...Then people asked questions and the police chief or a community member would answer it. Now I acted as a facilitator in choosing, you know, who was getting asked, I mean, selecting who was asking the questions or whatever and not letting it get too far. The professor was the one that was just reading the script and then saying, are there any questions? And then we went from there. It was a great meeting. I mean, it was probably one of the best meetings we ever had. I mean, you know. Sometimes I think I want to go back up there and see...if it's still on the web. And I know the police chief has changed and I know lot of things have changed, but is it still on the web?...Was it a systematic change? You know? No, it was, I mean, it was a dream case. It started off as a case from hell, but because of this professor.
Bill Froehlich (00:52:27): The local part. Really valuable. Thank you. Thank you for sharing.
Rosa Melendez: (00:52:32): ...I think every community has that one person. And if you can find that one person, that can bring everybody together, that's a miracle. The other one I wanted to talk, this one was more contentious. Because -
Bill Froehlich (00:52:46): One more quick question about the solution. Yeah. So what do you think the factors are in making that solution durable or ensuring systemic change? Having it posted online, that would make change in the community in the long term, I think. But I want to hear from you. What would have to happen to really make systemic change because of that policy?
Rosa Melendez: (00:53:17): Like I said, the police leadership had to know that we were not giving away operational plans. And having their mind, it was like many of them felt that we were giving away their game book...Explaining to them it wasn't a game book. This was the policies and procedures and...the community should know it. What is your shooting policy? What is your use of force policy? What happens if the community makes a complaint against a police officer? How is it investigated? You know, how are these people that are selected to internal affairs selected? So it was trying to change the minds of law enforcement that this was something that the community deserved to know, you know. It should be made public. And it just took a lot of discussion and it took finding a police chief in another city that could talk to the police chief.
Bill Froehlich (00:54:42): ...So you found another police chief?
Rosa Melendez: (00:54:43): Well, I was able to say you can call Gil Kerlikowske
Bill Froehlich (00:54:51): Ah, got it.
Rosa Melendez: (00:54:52): Who was a police chief of Seattle who ended up becoming the commissioner of ICE...so there were different police chiefs throughout the country that I knew could probably, you know, let them know that they do this and that, you know, it's okay.
Bill Froehlich (00:55:13): So that's one more strategy I'm hearing is you as the ambassador for CRS, urging the Anchorage police chief to reach out to peers in other large communities to highlight their practices. So one other question I have, and I promise I'll move on.
Rosa Melendez: (00:55:32): That's okay!
New Speaker (00:55:32): One of your first goals that you articulated was getting them to the table just to have this conversation. Did this group continue having conversations? Were they able to work more collaboratively after this process because they had worked collectively for a year? Did it open up lines of communication?
Rosa Melendez: (00:55:54): It's really funny. Some people stay in that group and some people left, you know. Long term wise the core group that was always there, stayed. The Samoan community kind of stepped out of that group, you know. So it's like it wasn't necessary for them anymore. So they weren't part of it and that's one of the things that you find out working with groups...is there's a core group that's always going to have the interest and always going to fight for justice, right? And people will come into that core group as their need increases. But if there's not a need anymore, they leave it. But they'll come back when it, you know, when there's another shooting or something. And...that just happens in every city I've ever worked with. You know, you have that core group that really works. And then you have others that just kind of filter in...I always tried to pick a group where there was not an ego. Because if the community members were going there for ego recognition or they're going to run for a political office, it was selfish. It wasn't community oriented. And I would always try to tell the police chief and the command staff that you gotta leave your ego at the door, you know. Let's just be people. And that's really hard for people to do, you know. Ego. And what do you really want out of this? I mean, what is your personal thing? Are you looking for an office in the future? ... I always try to pick people that seem to be very real about it. And were not fighting to get into the newspapers. Were not fighting for leadership of their community. Just wanted, you know, what was right.
Bill Froehlich (00:58:16): Yeah. Thank you.
Rosa Melendez: (00:58:17): And I don't know. I mean, people have asked me how did I do it? And I think being raised by my mother and always seeing that her thing wasn't leadership. I mean, it wasn't to be notarized, you know, or she didn't want any notary about it. She just wanted the job done. And I always seemed to have the knack to pick people that had wanted to get it done. Now there's always some that you can't kick off the group. <Laugh> You know, and you just have to work with them. I mean, like the one Reverend I told you that I think he's still the chairperson of this group. Sometimes it was really hard to keep him away from the issues. And sometimes he could create more issues than really needed to be created.
Bill Froehlich (00:59:10): Seems like you had the intuition to identify who could leave their ego at the door or who wasn't interested in political or promotional advancement in these processes.
Rosa Melendez: (00:59:19): Yeah. Right. Right.
Bill Froehlich (00:59:20): And who could work to get the job done.
Rosa Melendez: (00:59:24): Right.
Bill Froehlich (00:59:25): That's I think a difficult skill to have. But being raised by your mother, you've secured it.
Rosa Melendez: (00:59:32): She worked with so many people in the Latino community that I was able to cypher out who was doing it for personal gain and who was doing it for community gain and I guess I just learned it innately. I don't know.
Bill Froehlich (00:59:53): Yeah. Thank you. Well, you wanted to talk about a second case, which I'm excited to hear about.
Rosa Melendez: (00:59:58): Yeah the second case was in Seattle and it was an indigenous and an American Indian wood carver that was partially deaf and partially crippled...In the Northwest, Canada, and Washington state have tribes that got separated by the country lines, but they didn't get separated by tribes, if you know what I mean. So part of the tribe lives in Washington state and part lives in British Columbia. So this particular person, his name, and I can say it because it was in the newspapers, John T. Williams. And it was a terrible shooting with a young police officer that shot this guy, this wood carver. And he said the wood carver chased, went to attack him and that's why he shot him. And when the police department came out with this analogy of what had happened, they got bombarded by witnesses saying that's not how it happened. So immediately I got a phone call from the director of the Washington State Civil Rights Commissioner, Indian Civil Rights Commissioner. And she said, "Rosa, we've tried to make peace with the police department, and they're not working with us. And they're not doing this with us. And this is a new police chief. And could you help us?" And she knew I had worked with her on many, many issues. And we had gone to lunch and dinners many times. So she knew me. I knew her. And I said, "okay, I'll call Seattle Police Department." So I called the deputy chief. The police department didn't want to meet. They said "no, the Indian group has been...the American Indian group has been very radical and vocal. And we can't work with them and everything." And I go, "I know. I'm not asking now. I'm telling. I'm not asking I'm telling." And he said "well, can I talk to this person before we have a meeting?" I go "yeah." So they met. They talked. And he said "okay, let's have a meeting." So we had a meeting in the chief's office. And we had about 10 people from the American Indian community and maybe three or four from the law enforcement. And then we had myself and Sandra Blair...she was a senior conciliator.
New Speaker (01:03:03): And can you say her name again? Sandra -
Rosa Melendez: (01:03:05): Sandra Blair. B L A I R.
Bill Froehlich (01:03:09): Thank you.
Rosa Melendez: (01:03:12): And we had a major discussion. There was a lot of finger pointing again. But there was discussion about the wood carver being partially deaf. He didn't hear the police officer's commands. The wood carver being partially disabled couldn't run. So he didn't chase the officer. The fact when the police department came out and said the officer did everything right but this is under investigation. You've already told the community what the investigation is. And that's when I met with some of the police chief and his command staff and said, "whenever there is a shooting, you never come out and say, the officer did everything right. You say, this has been a very traumatic experience for law enforcement and the community and it's currently under investigation. And we will not talk about the investigation at this time." So everybody knows that it's been tragic for the community. It's tragic for the police department. It's tragic for everybody. But the minute you say that the officer followed policy and procedure, you've already told the community what the investigation is, you know. That led to several other meetings. Then led to the development of the SPD. I can't remember how they, Native American Council. And one of the Native American officers was transferred from patrol to the community outreach program to be part of this council. And the council meets on a monthly basis and they discuss issues that are happening. And they discuss ceremonies that the community may be having that they would like the police department to be involved in. Again, that advisory council is as strong as the community wants it to be. Okay. Because of that shooting, the US Attorney's office got involved. And the US Attorney's office was able to prove that there was an excessive use of force by Seattle police department, which led to a consent decree. But that was by getting all these parties together and the community going to the US Attorney's office too. So the US Attorney's office got involved in that too, you know. And the US Attorney's office always had CRS involved because we had the confidence of the community...The US Attorney's office did a civil rights investigation on the officer and...when they were able to come to the conclusion, they brought the attorney in, and the brother, the family members of John T. Williams. And they asked me to come to sit with the family while they said "we can't charge officer, because we can't prove intent."...I know I ran past it and I'm trying to think what else we did, but there were many steps involved and I can't think of them all right now. But it led to, this was one of the first times that the American Indian community had really sat down with the police department. And the police department selected some of the community leadership to go through their SPD academy, you know, their citizens academy, because they had developed a citizens academy. So some of the people went through the citizens academy and became advocates of the police department. Some still have distrust issues, and will. But you know, again, it was somewhat of a systematic change from the standpoint that they devised an advisory council out of that.
Bill Froehlich (01:08:38): It sounds like. Sorry, go ahead.
Rosa Melendez: (01:08:40): But the police department lost some face in the fact that when the emergency was over with, you know, like a year later down the street, when it's not an emergency situation, they transferred the Native American officer back to patrol, out of the community outreach program and back to patrol. And she felt used. And the community felt she was used. So again, it led to some distrust issues, again. Like you're only bringing her in because we complained and now that we're not complaining anymore, you send her back. You know. So...Go ahead.
Bill Froehlich (01:09:29): Do you know the Native American Council, the advisory council, it sounds like a structure to listen for concerns from the Native American community with police relations and to try to address that. And that structure is, sounds like a process to identify and address concerns before they boil over into more systemic issues or to address the systemic issues in the first place. So it sounds like a commendable outcome that was durable for a year and was effective while the one Native American woman was there. Did the council continue?
Rosa Melendez: (01:10:12): Well, you know, the SPD Seattle Police Department still has those councils. They have the African American Council. The Latino council. They have the Somalian Community Council. They still have all those councils.
Bill Froehlich (01:10:27): Did they, was the Native American Council the first or did they add it?
Rosa Melendez: (01:10:32): It was added later.
Bill Froehlich (01:10:35): Okay.
Rosa Melendez: (01:10:38): And again, the strongest, this is really something amazing to me. The strongest advisory council in SPD right now is the African American Advisory council. They meet all the time, but. And the Somalian community is very, very active. But the Latino Community Council has kind of, you know, lost its number of people that continue to come. There's again, that small core group, the two or three that will be there. And it's happened with the American Indian Council too. I don't even know if it's in existence anymore. But you know, I mean, you have to say that the police department did try. I mean, there were some mistakes they made, you know. Like by using the American Indian officer. You know, I think that really sent a message to the community. So...those are lessons learned that you talk to the police department about later on.
Bill Froehlich (01:11:39): That's really helpful. And I mean that council is an outcome of this process and whether that outcome was sustained or not, and how it was sustained is a different question. So thank, thank you for sharing that. I do, I know you sat down, I want to go back to that initial meeting that you facilitated with 10 members from the indigenous community and the four police officers or so, and Sandra, your colleague Sandra Blair. So the meeting was tense.
Rosa Melendez: (01:12:14): Oh, very, very tense.
Bill Froehlich (01:12:15): <Laugh>. So how did you and Sandra cut through the tension? Did you allow the parties to vent, as you described previously?...Can you say more about some of the strategies?
Rosa Melendez: (01:12:30): There were some funny things and, you know, I mean hopefully police departments learn from some of the things I'm saying. I'm not pointing just to, because this could be any police department. It's not just Seattle. But I remember one person, one law enforcement individual, who was a captain said "well, you know," because there was discussion about the wood carver being partially deaf. And the captain said, "well, you know, some of our officers are trained in sign language." And the Washington State Human Rights Commissioner whose husband is partially deaf said "our generation was not taught sign language in boarding schools." So it was like.
Bill Froehlich (01:13:24): That references to Indian residential schools, correct?
Rosa Melendez: (01:13:30): Yeah.
Bill Froehlich (01:13:32): Yeah. Okay.
Rosa Melendez: (01:13:33): And it was a big sting. And to me, my thought was they didn't do their background check on this population. Because you should know that they were not taught sign language if they were deaf. They weren't even sent to a deaf school. So, you know. So sometimes you've gotta make sure both audiences have an understanding. And that, I took that as part of my fault, too. I was like oh, you know, knowing that I knew he was partially deaf. But here the police department's trying to say "look, we've sent some officers to learn sign language, like we've sent some officers to learn Spanish." And you know, I mean they were proud of the fact that they did this. But at the same time, they were not aware of the history. And this was an older gentleman. He was in his fifties, sixties. So he wouldn't have been sent to some of these schools for sign language. So it's knowing your audience, you know. And I think the conciliators responsibility is to kind of educate both audiences. That was one of my takeaways that ugh, maybe I should have said, you know, he's partially deaf and there's many American Indians in our generation, you know, the baby boomer generation that weren't given the opportunity to learn sign language.
Bill Froehlich (01:15:19): You know, that's really interesting. I love this, the point you're making about it's not just the party's responsibility to prepare for a convening, a conversation, but it's also the facilitator, the conciliators obligation in a small group setting like this to make sure both perspectives understand where one another's coming from. Even prior to the meeting, at least do a little priming, prep, for that conversation.
Rosa Melendez: (01:15:51): And here I thought I prepped for it and this came out and I was just like, I was like, oh God, you know.
Bill Froehlich (01:15:58): <Laugh>. That's a really, and I appreciate your saying, look I, you're admitting that you could have done things differently as well. I appreciate that. You said there were a couple of things like that. Are there any others you remember from that conversation?
Rosa Melendez: (01:16:16): Oh, other one was the police chief at that time had been my internal affairs partner. Then, some of the members of the American Indian community said well, then we don't trust her. And it was Debbie Lee, the Commissioner of the Indian Civil Rights that stood up and said "don't you ever, you know, judge Rose's character or commitment to this. Cause I worked with her on many cases and I trust her." So.
Bill Froehlich (01:16:58): Your work as an ambassador building those relationships over time. So that the woman who stood up for you, she was with, she was telling her indigenous colleagues who were sitting on the same side of the table, "Rosa, I trust Rosa. You need to trust Rosa during this process." That's fascinating.
Rosa Melendez: (01:17:18): So again prep, I would've said I should've told the police chief and the command staff there "don't say that you've worked with me or you have a better relationship with me than the community does, you know?"
Bill Froehlich (01:17:35): So tell me a little bit more. You were co-facilitating this with your colleague, a senior conciliator Sandra Blair. What was her role in this process?
Rosa Melendez: (01:17:43): What Sandy did in that process is Sandy wrote down what people were saying so we could see it on the board.
Bill Froehlich (01:17:51): Ah. So she was charting. Okay.
Rosa Melendez: (01:17:53): Yes. She was charting. Okay. And there was much discussion about the fact that the police department had never visited or attended any functions at Chief Seattle [Club] organization or house. I mean it was an organization that did healthcare, did outreach, did everything for urban Indians, because in the city you have a lot of different urban Indians, you know, from different tribes. And that the police department hadn't done much outreach in that community and the police department hadn't done outreach to know members of the Indian community. And that the police department was kind of narrow minded, thinking that all the Indians on the street that they saw were drunks. And that they weren't, you know, they weren't all drunks. They were professionals. And they were at the table here, you know? So it was kind of changing the perception of the police department. The police department had to come to their facility, to their ceremonies, to see the people of their community and that they all were not from one tribe. That they were from various tribes and they had various different cultures. And some tribes didn't even like each other, you know. So, you know, and the police department, the police command staff, you know, admitted "no, we haven't been there. We haven't visited Chief Sel like we do with el Centro de la Raza or like we do the Asian Counseling and Referral System. But we haven't also had invitations." You know. So was back to the Native American community to learn that they had to invite too. I mean, it was on both sides, you know. When the police department had ceremonies to invite members of the Indian community. They had not worked with the community. There's several community projects in Seattle that serve the indigenous population, the Native American population, that Seattle police department had not been part of and had not worked with. And the view from the police department was that it was always the Indians on the street that were drunk and that was their perception.
Bill Froehlich (01:20:54): It sounds like you were able to quickly, somewhat quickly, identify an agenda of concerns in this conversation. And I wonder, were there any intractable demands that perhaps the indigenous community was making or the police were making in this context.
Rosa Melendez: (01:21:14): The indigenous community wanted more recruitment from their community, you know. They wanted more officers on the police department. Shortly after that, that's when they brought the female out of patrol and put her in that, you know. And then the group went from the chief's office to the community outreach team, you know, which was a different section of the police department. But the deputy police chief was still part of that. So that's when we had monthly meetings and some of those issues were identified, okay. The recruitment issues. What do we do with the recruitment issues? Where do we go to recruit some of the officers? There was also discussion about those school resource officers only identifying the Indian students that were constantly in trouble or that were flunking out. And then it went into, that led into a discussion with Seattle public schools about the American Indian students having the highest dropout rate. And then that led to another set of meetings with Seattle public schools. So from that original meeting, it went to meetings in the police department, expanded out to meetings in Seattle public schools. And what was Seattle public schools going to do to assist the community and bringing the dropout rate down instead of up.
Bill Froehlich (01:23:06): So this conversation is the venue or the stakeholders really are both, are shifting from the chief's office to an outreach office, to schools, and et cetera. Keeps flowing to where the issues...It's almost as if the stakeholders are following what the issues are and you're inviting people into the conversation. I want to go back just a little bit. I asked you about Anchorage or about the Anchorage case, what some of your goals were in that case. Just getting people to the table. What were some of your goals in initiating these conversations when you told your contact in the chief's office "No, you're going to have this conversation." Was it bringing people to the table again just to start talking or did you have other goals? Were you trying to do other things as well?
Rosa Melendez: (01:24:04): My first goal was just to get them to the table, you know. That was my. And hopefully that we could come out of that, you know, with some goals. I mean I just, I mean, the first meeting was really, I mean, people were angry. And some still are, you know. Some will always be angry. I mean, every now and then I read some comments on Facebook from some of the people that were at that original meeting about the police department going "God, <laugh> what happened." But the fact that there was, again, a core group. And that came back to the core group that really wanted change and that were willing to work with the police department and the police department willing to work with the core group. And I would say that that came to about five or six people, you know? But again I told, well her name's Debbie Lee who was the Commissioner of the Indian Civil Rights Commissioner, I said "Debbie, your group has to pick five people that can meet on a regular basis with the police department. Because they can't meet with this big group." I mean, you know, there was more people that wanted to come in. But they can't keep meeting with this big group. The five people that the group trust. And there were probably about four that were really, really committed. And we've kept on a relationship. I mean, we still, you know, I still meet with some of them and, you know, they work with the police department, still, some of them.
Bill Froehlich (01:25:58): When the meetings kept shifting to involve different stakeholders, the school district for example, was there any hesitancy from the school district to engage? Was there any hesitancy for the school district to change or tweak policy with respect to those resource officers and their discipline of indigenous students?
Rosa Melendez: (01:26:20): The school district was fabulous. The school district was willing to do so many different things. But we had people that then came into the school district discussion that we were never ever going to please. Yeah.
Bill Froehlich (01:26:43): Can you say more about that?
Rosa Melendez: (01:26:46): Well, I can think of two in particular. Their agenda was: we've never been treated right; we're never going to be treated right; we want monetary repercussions from how our kids have been treated.
Bill Froehlich (01:27:03): Ah, so the individuals who were never going to please were from the indigenous community.
Rosa Melendez: (01:27:08): Yeah. Yep.
Bill Froehlich (01:27:09): Hm. Interesting.
Rosa Melendez: (01:27:10): There were two that, and I was always, I always tried to be the timekeeper in these meetings because I, they were, by this time now they're evening meetings. And that means people have gotten off their jobs and they're coming to these meetings at the school district or at the police department. And I would always talk to the leader from both sides on what did they want for the agenda. And so we'd have an agenda and I'd make sure everybody knew what the agenda was and how many minutes we had to discuss the agenda. Because I wasn't staying there all night, you know. And I tried to be the timekeeper on that. And this one lady that wanted monetary stuff, she got upset because she stated I was too cultural, too white, or I can't remember, because I did this timekeeping thing. And I said.
Bill Froehlich (01:28:08): So she was accusing you of, by being the timekeeper, she was saying "look, she's taking a process, a whitewashed process, and applying it to me."
Rosa Melendez: (01:28:22): Yes. Yes. Yes.
Bill Froehlich (01:28:23): As an indigenous individual.
Rosa Melendez: (01:28:25): And I was trying to, I kept trying to explain to her "no, I'm trying to be sensitive of everybody's time here. Everybody has taken time to be here. We promised it would only be an hour, 90 minutes, and I want to stay within that 90 minutes and I want to make sure that everybody's issues are covered, you know."
Bill Froehlich (01:28:44): So that by being the timekeeper, by implementing these timing ground rules, you were able to deal with these intractable demands of sorts. Were there any other ways that you dealt with intractable demands, like hers, effectively or ineffectively? <Laugh>
Rosa Melendez: (01:29:02): I had Debbie Lee again, the Indian Civil Rights commissioner, I would talk to Debbie and say "Debbie, we're never going to get anywhere as long as this person is always there. You, the group needs to talk to her and try to control her so we can move the process." So I put it back on the group, you know, to try to <laugh> control her because the school district was doing everything they could, you know. I mean the school district was offering to do tutors. And I mean, the school district was offering to do a whole bunch of things to bring this grade, these grade levels up and to keep in contact with the students constantly. Like doing a monthly assessment with the students, and bringing in what kind of staff needed to be brought in, or did counselors need to be brought in? So the school district was really trying to work with the community. It's just that we had these one or two, really two, that were just so contentious. We were never going to get anywhere. And then what ends up happening is then other members from the Native American community said "I don't want to attend these meetings because all it is is b*tching on the same thing." You know? So I had to say to at them at one meeting, "either we continue with these meetings or we cease because we can't keep going over the same issues, you know, and not get anywhere."
Bill Froehlich (01:30:37): So I'm hearing the way you're talking about the public school district, you're talking about their flexibility. About their willingness. About their openness similarly to hear the concerns and propose solutions that they think might work. I'm not hearing that tone, the same tone, with respect to your interactions with the police department, for example.
Rosa Melendez: (01:31:02): No.
Bill Froehlich (01:31:02): …Is this generalizable to most school districts that you work with or school districts generally are willing?
Rosa Melendez: (01:31:11): No. No.
Bill Froehlich (01:31:11): What were the, why was this scenario different? Why was this school district so flexible and willing to work with you and address the concerns that were raised?
Rosa Melendez: (01:31:26): Two top people in the school district were really, really willing to do what was necessary for all kids to graduate. And they didn't want a drop out rate. And they admitted that there was some failures systematically and that they want to, they wanted to alleviate those failures and they wanted to figure out ways to identify what those failures were to make this successful for everybody. You're not going to have that. I mean, again, it's like the professor in Alaska. Again, I had two leaders and five leaders were physicians that were willing to go above and beyond what was expected of them. And I mean I was, I mean the majority of us were, there's only five of us, I mean five indigenous members. But when you've got two of the five constantly fighting with whatever solution there is. "Oh, so you're going to bring my kid out of class once a month and embarrass them by doing an assessment?" You know? And we're like "well, isn't that what you want? You want to make sure that they're -" "Or you're going to make them go to counseling."… It was just very contentious. And finally the leadership of the school district said we can't do anymore.
Bill Froehlich (01:32:54): Was the, were the changes in the school district, were they durable and systemic? If you know.
Rosa Melendez: (01:33:05): They were durable and they would have been systemic if the community would have allowed that to happen. But since they couldn't get buy in from that leadership of the community, you know, it wasn't going to be successful for anybody. So it became unsuccessful for everybody.
Bill Froehlich (01:33:28): I see. Okay. So I'm just going to pause the recording for one second.
Bill Froehlich (01:33:38): So Rosa, we're approaching the top of the hour for this first interview. And really, I just, when I ask you, you've been so helpful in illustrating what's taken place in these two contexts in Seattle and Anchorage. Is there anything else that you want to add about either of these two cases or working as a conciliator generally for now, and then we'll reconvene with more specific questions a little bit down the road.
Rosa Melendez: (01:34:08): Well I'm sure there's like a policy book or some procedure that has: you should do step 1, 2, 3, and 4. I've never followed that. I kind of go with whatever the flow is of the group. If the group is working with the town hall meeting and we're getting somewhere, then I'm going to continue with that. And then we may bring it to a narrower group. If that's not working then I try something else. So sometimes it's just going into your toolbox and trying to find what's going to work in that particular situation. And not all handbooks are going to work. Sometimes you just have to develop something that does work for everybody.
Bill Froehlich (01:34:55): Yeah. Thank you for highlighting why it's important to be flexible. So I'm going to pause. I'm going to hit the stop button. Stop the recording and we'll reconvene for session two. So let me just.
So Tim, I have some specific questions about what conciliation or mediation or facilitation processes look like, whatever word you were using. Specifically, about table-oriented processes and community mediation processes. So you wrote me, I primed you, you wrote me that you would define a table-oriented mediation as formal talks between two or more parties. And so we'll just start... from there. So if you could tell me, and I think you wrote more than. But, I think we'll get to everything else you wrote through these, through the questions that I have. So first, in a table-oriented conversation, who was at the table? Who chose the participants and were there challenges getting some of those participants to the table?
1:30 Tim Johnson Okay, who's at the table are people who are in dispute. In CRS, when that usually meant a community group, or community leadership, on one side of the table, and on the other side of the table a representative of local government, mayors, police chiefs, school superintendents, and the like, depending on the issue.
In the CRS process, there is an alert where a conciliation specialist becomes aware that a problem may exist and they become aware of this through a myriad of ways: previous contact, news reports, reading the newspapers. Which I don't guess they do anymore, because they have the Internet now. But I read seven newspapers a day. Every day. And we would receive those papers at the New York office, so I would read papers from Buffalo, and from Albany, and from Atlantic city, and from Newark, and the like. On a good day I could tell you where the cheapest eggs were. But once we got an alert, we would write that down and we say “okay, this is a possible case.” We would then try to figure out who... are the players? Who should I talk to in the community about this? Little easier than it sounds because if it were a complaint by the leadership of NAACP you go to NAACP. If it were a complaint by a local parent group, we find out who those parents are. You contact them and say who's in charge. You go to them. Going to the other side, to the folks that the community might be concerned with, complaining about, or alleging a bias from, you figure out what the top leadership there is. Is it... the police department? Is it the school system? Is it the municipal system? Is it the mayor's office? You try to figure out who's the top person and call that office. Now, this is all happening in what's called the assessment stage, okay. Now in the assessment stage what I'm shooting for is to say: “okay, is there a conflict here? Do you see a conflict here? Do you feel concern from the community? Is this something that you would be willing to sit down and talk about in confidence.?”
You find out your parties are, you find out whether or not they'd be willing to sit down and talk, and then you find out what they want to talk about. Wow. What are the issues here? And I defined issues as what do you want? Okay, what are the interests here? Why do you want what you want? Pretty simple, straightforward. Most important, I would ask in good faith, I would say: “are you willing to hear what the other side says? Are you willing to say what you really think and what your positions really are? And if that's the case then okay great. We can... begin the process.”
If I had time, sometimes I didn't, I would sit with each side to the dispute, and I would say: “what do you think the other side feels? What do you think the other side is gonna talk about? What... is one side going into demand and the other side going to excuse?” And things like that. So just to be ready for a good faith conversation.
If we got that far, then we could say: “okay, let's find a place to talk.” I would always choose as neutral a place as possible. So, if it was with the police department, I would prefer not to go to the police department. If it were with the school system, I would prefer not to go to the school. Didn't always work out that way. But very often City Hall might have a place. There might be a church that has a meeting room. But you want to get as neutral as possible setting. “Okay, everybody show up at seven o'clock this evening, we'll... start the discussion.” And at those discussions I would reiterate all the things that I said in the assessment, alright. You’re here with good faith. Both parties would like to reach some resolutions to these frustrations that have been experienced. You have identified certain concerns. Side A, why don't you tell Side B where you're coming from on this. Side B I don't want you to answer, I just want you to listen. Just want you to listen. Remember what we said in the assessment, that... the idea here is to get things on the table and then to look for options. And then to look for compromise. But let's... put the things on the table first.
Once we got to that point, and notes were taken and... things like that, we could then move towards: okay, what would it take to move forward on issue a? How can issue A be made better for both sides. Reminding them that, you know, compromise is something both parties can agree to. Everybody doesn’t get everything that they want. But, both parties get something. So, how can we, how can we do that? How can, how can you get something out of this to move forward?
And generally that kind of management if you will, facilitation of the conversation, worked fine. The very best jobs I ever did were the ones where they said: “well thanks a lot Tim, but you really didn't do anything.” Which was the perfect, to me, the perfect answer. That's one of those times when you get back in your little car and, you know, kind of congratulate yourself. Yes! You did it! So that's table mediation. A lot more formal.
9:20 Bill Froehlich Let me ask you some follow up questions if you don't mind. Sure (Tim Johnson) So you identified particularly good faith. That's in essence a ground rule, or some might frame it as a ground rule... You ask the parties to participate in good faith, such that they would be able to articulate their interests in positions and come with an open mind to listen. Was there ever any... pushback about participation in good faith?
9:46 Tim Johnson Yes. I’ll listen but they're wrong.
9:52 Bill Froehlich Okay. And what did you do with that?
9:54 Tim Johnson I'll listen but they... won't hear me. And this was before, it's always best to do these things separately, when the parties are separate. To say well “I can understand how you might feel.
How you've experienced these things for a long period of time and you can't believe that the other side would be willing to listen. I... understand that. If we're gonna go forward, if this process is going to help this community, then we have to go in with the idea: yeah they will. We have to go in with the idea of expecting good faith.”
Now, sometimes even in the mediation process itself, one side would let slip that doubt in that, in transit position. And I would say “now, let's go back to what we said during the assessment. We're gonna listen. We're gonna hear. Then we'll talk about possible options. But let's listen and hear first. Just to make sure everybody's on the same page.”
11:11 Bill Froehlich So, it also sounds like in that assessment you asked the parties to identify the issues. Which then we're going to discuss and potentially brainstorm and negotiate about. So, it seems like you set that agenda of issues yourself? Or was that a consensus-based process, they were articulating the issues for you?
11:30 Tim Johnson I don't have any issues. I don't live here. You know, these are your issues, your concerns, tell me what they are, and let me write them down. And I would write them down and say “now, if you like, you can... prioritize these. Tell me what the most important one is and what the least important one is.” And I would do that with both sides. And I would share that information with both sides. “So, here's what they want to talk about. Here's what you want to talk about.” So, let's be ready when we get there, rather than show up at the meeting, you know, with our hands like this. Let's go “oh yeah, I, Tim showed me, you know some of these issues and I had no idea that issue four was an issue. We had no idea.” “Well, we'll get to issue four after one, two, three.” You know, that kind of thing. But the more I put ownership of the process on the disputants, the better I did. And the better they did.
12:55 Bill Froehlich With respect to the issues that they identified and prioritize, in your table-oriented mediation sessions, did those issues shift or change during a mediation? Or were they usually stagnant?
12:59 Tim Johnson I wouldn’t say stagnant I would say they... might be reexplained in a different way. They might be redefined. They might say, you know, our first priority really shouldn't be our first priority let's talk about priority four or whatever. But for the most part, they know that this is pretty much what we want to talk about. Now, sometimes somebody will say: “you know what we didn't mention was blahdy blah.” You know we’d write that down and I would say: “let's cover these first and if there's time let's see if we can’t talk about blahdy blah.”
13:46 Bill Froehlich So when you were initiating a table-oriented process, what's your goal? Do you have a goal? Is it a goal to get to a written agreement? Just to get the parties to talk? And, did you tell the parties what your goals were?
14:04 Tim Johnson I did tell the parties what my goal was. And my goal was not a written agreement. Which was not a good thing in CRS because they want written agreements. I said, “my goal here is to provide you the opportunity to move towards resolution and to do that by facilitating this process with you. That's my only goal. Your goals, as you've already stated, were to see what you can do about issues one, two, three, four, whatever. And if we have time, you want me put on the table. And the way to do that, as we've already discussed, is good faith, listen, share. See where things could be done.”
I don't remember ever being involved in a session where one side got everything it wanted. I do remember. And that very often, that was just ego. You know, one side would say “well I’m not doing that.” “Okay, well put that aside.” Then towards the end we would say “would you like to revisit that?” And both sides would say, it’s not that important. You know we got this let's... go with that. So, my hope was that the parties involved would feel like they made progress. If they felt like they made progress, good enough.
15:50 Bill Froehlich I like that. So, a couple more specific questions, even more specific. As I know you've taught mediation for the mediators out there in the world perhaps. How at the table, or in your assessment process, did you build trust between yourself and the parties and between the parties?
16:15 Tim Johnson Okay. How I built it between myself and the parties was by being as honest as I possibly could. As I said, in early discussions sometimes my color was a hindrance. And I would explain to them: “I’ve never been brown. I've never been black. I've never been Asian. My whole life I've never been these things, okay. What I have been is a person who has received training and experience in helping people to talk. I won't represent you. You have to represent you. I won’t propose or suggest that I know what's best for you. I don't. You know what's best for you. You know what's best for your community. And it might be different in Podunkville then it might be in Shmukatuey. I don't know. It's up to you. This is your process. And it's a voluntary process. At any point if you feel I've violated your trust, if you feel like I'm misrepresenting you, if you feel like I'm trying to fool you, call it. Just say stop. I'll ask you, you know what went wrong and I'll try and answer any doubts that you have. But if you don't want this, I go home. I get paid by the year, not by the case.” So, very often, that was enough to say okay, sometimes reluctantly, they would say okay. You know it would be better if you were Latino, if you spoke Spanish, if you were African American. Well, I'm not. And I never claim to be.
I’d say in my written response to you, I could never be Patt Glenn. A.) I'm white, she's black. B. I’m male, she’s female. C.) She grew up in Chicago, I grew up in New York. Now are there any similarities? Yeah, we're both city people. Great. Wonderful. But her life experience and my life experience, different. Wally Warfield grew up in my town, Queens. Alright. He went to a high school that my high school played in basketball. So, we had a few more similarities than Pat and I did. But A.) I’m not black, he is. B.) I did not get as far in education. He has a doctorate and very, very well versed. Very articulate. Way more articulate than I could ever hope to be. So I can't be him. What I can do is I can listen to Wally or Victor Rizzo or Miguel, or you know, any of these folks. Ben Lieu, who was my partner in Philadelphia. And I can go, that was a good idea. I like the way he did that. It’s mine. And then I would try it. And it would work out for me.
Ben was very good at street mediation. And I suspect he honed that skill as a street cop in Baltimore. Very, his approach was very disarming. “Hey, we're here. Something’s gonna happen. Hopefully nobody gets hurt. Why don’t we talk about this for a minute?” That kind of thing. So yeah.
20:36 Bill Froehlich So let's come back to Ben and street mediation a little bit. And I wrote down disarming because I want to come back to that quality as a street mediator. I, you’re talking about, you know, as a white male particularly, how did you deal with power disparities, including disparities where we might have lower power, generally lower power groups, African American, Hispanic, etc.? Did you do anything specific to empower them or uplift minority or low power voices in your... table oriented conversations?
21:15 Tim Johnson I tried to ensure that everybody got a fair shot. Some community leaderships would appear to be intimidated by high level government types: mayors or superintendents or chiefs. Which they picked up on. And they would try to exploit. “Well, you don't know anything. You know, you're just a citizen here. You have no idea what you're talking about.” And so, when those kinds of imbalances happen, I would ask questions. I would say “Well, Chief Sensitive over here said you don't know what you're talking about. How do you feel about that? Do you think... you have some issues here? Because somebody told me some and you articulated rather well I thought, you know, where you come from. “Well yes, as a matter of fact.” And then they would you know, go on.
It did not always work I must say. I did have a case where there was clear insensitivity if not outright prejudice on the part of the local sheriff's department. And the local sheriff came in very bombastic and very: “Well if you people think this is bad wait, you know, this... could get a lot worse.” Which was a threat. And the African American leadership folded. They said “well, I guess that's... everything is going to be okay.” And there was no way I could ask a question or encourage further discussion without violating my neutrality. So sometimes it worked and sometimes it didn’t.
23:29 Bill Froehlich When you did engage in efforts, some elicitive questions, that you discuss with the low, low power party, was there ever any pushback from you know, that police chief, where you said “well before, you know, you articulate you did an effective job of articulating your concern about X, Y and Z.” Did you ever get pushback from a chief who said, “well why are you asking them that question?” Or something along those lines.
23:57 Tim Johnson Yeah. And I would say I ask that question because we want to be sure that all the bases are covered. That when this is over, there are no questions.
24:09 Bill Froehlich So did you have any effective techniques for persuading a party to reframe a problem to transition it from a negotiable, or one that's not negotiable, to an issue that is negotiable? So, by it way of example, a lot of your peers have said: “look parties come into these conversations and say you got to fire the chief immediately, the mayor’s got to resign.” And to the chief, who they're negotiating with, that's not really a negotiable issue.
24:45 Tim Johnson Yeah. What I would do is I would say: when people say you got to find the chief, what I hear is something different. What I hear as an outside person is: we're very confused, upset, dissatisfied, with the relationship that we currently have. So instead of talking about firing chiefs, let's talk about what's the ideal relationship between community and police department. What is it that you want?
25:21 Bill Froehlich So, you would ask the party elicit information on the party designed to focus on that relationship and then move from there. Okay.
Say, let me just give you an example, assume there’s a police involved shooting, and you're called in to a table-oriented negotiation, and the parties, hypothetically the police department, and NAACP, and the family, right, are at odds over facts. How do you deal about what happened at the shooting? How do you deal, as a mediator, with disagreements over facts or perspectives?
26:02 Tim Johnson First, I would never involve a family... They can't possibly come with good faith. They can only come with anger, and a thirst for revenge, and possibly looking for a mistake to be made on the part of the police so they can sue for wrongful death or whatever. And second, I would say: we can't undo what's been done. So, what is it from this point forward that we want to look at so that both the police and the community can feel secure in being able to have police protection and police services and the police can have confidence in what they do and confidence that the community understands that. And you know, let them go back and forth.
Now if a situation, George Floyd for example. I wouldn't be there. Because that's a legal matter. Because the family is suing the police and the police are you know focused on the legal issue. Okay. That would not be jurisdiction to CRS. If however, beyond that, the community wanted to sit down and revamp and revise the relationship between police and community, that's something we could do.
I mentioned earlier Patt Glenn did this at least twice. And was there for weeks. He was there for weeks. Unheard of in CRS, by the way. And came up with very detailed arrangement. Now Bob Lamb would say that was a good job. Because that changed capacity. That changed the relationship. The reality is that a year, maybe two years later, all the parties are gone. And it's just like “oh yeah we did that back in ‘78. Who cares.”
28:42 Bill Froehlich So, after you get to a solution, then we’ll loop back to a few other questions but you’re on solutions right now, what do you do to ensure that they're actually carried out?
28:57 Tim Johnson What a great question. Nothing. I did nothing. I went onto the next case. And the reason for that was economic. We would... assume, CRS would assume, things are going okay if we didn't get another complaint. Now, I did invite people to contact us if there was a problem. But I never got contacted.
29:27 Bill Froehlich Never? No (Tim Johnson). Say there was, was there ever any role in post, in the post negotiation, post mediation phase, that you played?
29:39 Tim Johnson No. No, I wanted to. And I think CRS should have. And we should have gone back, you know, a year later and met with the same people to see what progress has been made, and what arrangements were met and were not met, you know, to evaluate. We used to do a program called SPIRIT in school and we never went back to schools. We should have went back to the schools in the following year and said “so how are things going? Let's sit down and have some pizza with the kids and see where they are at this point.”
Money. You know, we had, when I was in New York there were three conciliators covering all of New York, New Jersey, Puerto Rico, and the Virgin Isle. Alright. Three conciliators couldn't cover New York City. So. You know, my attitude was okay, do the best you can with what you got while you got it. Teddy Roosevelt, by the way.
30:58 Bill Froehlich It’s Teddy Roosevelt, you said.
31:00 Tim Johnson Teddy Roosevelt said that. Yes he said: “do what you can with what you got while you have it.” And Teddy Roosevelt also was a police commissioner in New York City and the desk that he had as commissioner is in the police chief's office. And was back in the 70s and early 80s. Big huge, really nice stuff. And so, when I met with that guy he explained the whole: “this is Teddy Roosevelt’s desk.” Oh, cool.
31:33 Bill Froehlich That is cool. So, based on your observation, were the solutions that communities came up with, were they durable? Do you know?
31:46 Tim Johnson I think they would be with continued monitoring and continued open communication. You know, what people want is, okay fix this and it’ll go away. Well you fix it, but you’ve got to keep working on it. It's like people say, fix racism. Well that's not gonna happen. What is gonna happen is building better ways to address allegations of biased behavior. On both sides I might add.
Now you know, I'm 100 years old and all of these things were happening back in the 1940s, 1930s. Okay. We're almost 100 years later and they’re still happening. Right so, when I see people yelling and screaming about why is it still happening, it's still happening because we try a little solution instead of the long-term solution. We say “okay we're not going to do xyz anymore that's it.” Without thinking that xyz is soon going to be replaced by 123. Which is equally insensitive, or harmful, or what have you.
33:20 Bill Froehlich So, let's think about solutions that, at the table. Did the party's themselves develop the solutions or were there ever times when you suggested solutions to the parties.
33:38 Tim Johnson The parties always chose solutions. And pre mediation assessment, I might say something along the lines of “you know there's a police department in Podunkville. They tried this. I don't know if that would work here. Or there's a program, Smokatuey, they tried this. I don’t know if that applies. That, I only did that if it seemed like they were at an impasse and couldn't come up with a viable route.
34:17 Bill Froehlich So you may have articulated or highlighted ideas that have worked in other communities or had been tried in other communities. But they always chose. And I was gonna follow up with that. You use “chose,” didn't, not necessarily “develop.” Often the communities develop them, but if they were stuck you might help them develop based on the experience of other communities?
34:40 Tim Johnson Well, I would do that or they would make a suggestion and then say “we should do this.” And I would say “okay, how would that work? What are you gonna, you know, how is that gonna be? Is that something that needs to be funded? Is that something that needs monitored? Is that something that needs written down? Is that something that's gonna require training? How are you gonna do that?”
35:07 Bill Froehlich So, during conversations I imagine there was often significant tension at the mediation table. What strategies did you use to diminish tension?
35:22 Tim Johnson Anytime there was any level of recognition on either side’s part to say “oh, I hear what you're saying. Oh, that's a good point.” I would try and reinforce that. I would say “okay that's what this is all about. That's why we're here. That's what listening in good faith is all about. Let's mark that down in your book so that as we move forward you can say “Oh, we’re not at complete loggerheads. There's some light at the end of both tunnels.
36:10 Bill Froehlich Were there ever discussions you were involved in where the hostilities and tensions actually increased during the mediation and what would you do then?
36:23 Tim Johnson The only times that I can think of is when mediation failed. You know, well, you know, one side or the other would say this isn't working. And in spite of any efforts on my part to reopen willingness to sit and talk. And there was sometimes when the parties really didn't care for a solution. They cared for political points. They want to make political points. They want to run for mayor or whatever. And tensions would get higher then.
37:10 Bill Froehlich That’s interesting so when politics were involved and people were trying to score political points, that would often create and increase the tension in the room. Did anyone ever...?
37:20 Tim Johnson And in the community.
37:25 Bill Froehlich Can you give me an example of that?
37:27 Tim Johnson For example, I tried in one city to get the parties to be. The community leadership was more interested in making political points and made a big show of standing up and walking out. And it was clear to me that they had misrepresented their intentions. But I can't say that to the city. I'm certainly not going to talk to the press about it. But following that, the very next day, there were a community, minority community wide strike against all downtown businesses. Led by the same people who were at the table. So, I think that we were used as an excuse and then they went back to the community and said “see we tried, and they won’t talk to us. Now we have to force them.” At same time one of the main representatives announced his run for mayor.
38:38 Bill Froehlich And I assume they did not come back to the table.
38:39 Tim Johnson No. Which is more, it’s a pity because I think the city was ready to make some major concessions. You know, what are you gonna do, it’s like politics that we have now. They’re not interested in solutions; they’re interested in points. And it’s, you know, people make their living coloring their words so that the insurrection becomes an overblown riot. And the gas prices are directly related to the current administration. And the immigration problem is much worse today than it was then. It’s not, by the way. Rather than talk about solutions, they talk about how can we call the other side wrong.
39:52 Bill Froehlich So, you know what, your politics is close to values, and so I want to ask you a question specifically about values. What happened at the mediation table when you're dealing with conflicts over fundamental values that are likely nonnegotiable? How did you work through those issues?
40:18 Tim Johnson Generally, the conflicts were surface conflicts. And if you dug a little deeper, they both had the same values. So, you say that you believe in the Constitution. Okay. And you believe that everybody has a constitutional right to worship how they choose. And there have been attacks on mosque. Should those attacks be handled both from law enforcement point of view and a community point of view as much as you might respond to a burning cross? And if so, you know, what's the basic value? The basic value is that everybody should be free to worship the way they choose.
41:22 Bill Froehlich So, you often looked for core values and found values that were in common. Yeah (Tim Johnson). Okay. Did you... always work with groups at table-oriented mediations together at the same table in a joint session? Or did you use caucusing or shuttle diplomacy?
41:44 Tim Johnson I prefer everybody at the same table. It's quicker. It's more direct. I have done shuttle diplomacy. And sometimes that was because of schedule problems one side of the other might have had. And the weakness there is that I had to report to one side what the other side said. Was I accurate? Did I do it the way they wanted it done? I would tell them what I was gonna say and tell them how I was gonna say it. “Yeah, yeah, okay, that’s good.” But I always felt better to let them do the talking, not me.
42:32 Bill Froehlich So, other than scheduling reasons what were other reasons you used shuttle diplomacy or caucusing?
42:39 Tim Johnson Anger. Animosity. Hostility. You know, let's see if we can’t bridge that gap and then come back to the table.
And you know, I would tell them, this is not unusual. This is not, you know, there's nothing wrong with anybody here that feeling should remain high. This is a normal thing. And one way we can handle that is by, you know, you sit in this room, and I’ll sit in this room, and we’ll rush back and forth. But eventually, we're gonna come together. And we're gonna check with each other. “Did you hear what we said? Did you hear how we replied? Did you hear what we suggested? Did you hear what we counter suggested?” Things like that. Because, you know, eventually, you’ll have to come to some sort of agreement.
43:41 Bill Froehlich So, what, I have two more questions about the table process. How long would a typical table-oriented process last? Was it one day, or? Yeah (Tim Johnson). I know it seems like a one day. Okay. So you would do these in one day. Yeah (Tim Johnson). Okay. And whereas Patt Glenn would be working for weeks on particular projects. Okay. Very good. Excellent. Is there anything else you want to say about table-oriented processes before we transition to street or community-oriented processes?
44:15 Tim Johnson That table orientation looks long term solutions. And that helping people define and understand good faith efforts, ultra important.
44:38 Bill Froehlich So you, one more question and I appreciate that note about long-term solutions in particular. What, you noted that your colleague, your partner, Ben Lieu, was disarming as a community-oriented mediator and that, you implied that that was an effective trait. What is an effective trait or skill set of a table-oriented mediator?
45:09 Tim Johnson Competence and organization. Competence in knowing the process. And giving me the parties confidence that: “okay, we’re with the right guy. This is... what they said was gonna happen, this is what's happening.” An organization, you know when to move from point A to point B to point C. So, if you are not competent and organized, they will pick up on it, the [] will pick up on it immediately. They’ll know immediately, “this is not the guy we want.”
45:51 Bill Froehlich Okay. Thank you for sharing those values. So let's... move on to street-oriented processes and a similar set of questions, but a little bit... shorter. So street-oriented processes, which you've defined in what you've put, what you wrote to me as: what you did at demonstrations and protests. And that's exactly the type of mediation that I'm thinking. You wrote your goal was to avoid violence, specifically. So, did you share that goal with the folks you were mediating with, or consolidating with? No (Tim Johnson). Or did you not have time?
46:33 Tim Johnson No. It would be nice if we could, you know say, “well you're about ready to run over there and punch that fella. Let's sit down and talk about, you know.” No. What we would do is first separate. Do everything you can to get party A as far away from party B as possible.
46:567 Bill Froehlich When you say party, do you mean group A from group B?
47:04 Tim Johnson Yeah. Alright (Bill Froehlich). And... example. The Klan was gonna do a meeting. A lecture. In a public library. In the meeting room in the public library.
47:21 Bill Froehlich Yeah, you mentioned this story last time we talked. And separating and specific.
47:36 Tim Johnson The Klan wanted more people in the room than was legal. So, we said, “we're happy to let your speaker come in. You got to get somebody out.” And they said “oh, we’ll get the anti-Klan out.” “No, no. You got to get one of your Klan people out. Not fair to these other folks.” That was... an immediate solution to an immediate problem.
Another example. Different session. Different demonstration. And the Klan was finished, and they wanted to go to a parking garage, get their cars, and get out. Alright. So, they started to walk to the parking garage and the anti-Klan people want to chase them and beat them up or whatever. So what we did was one of us took the Klan into the garage and one of us spoke to the anti-Klan. Alright. And that was, you know, “before you go in there, you know, let me run over some things, you know. that might not work out for you if you do go in there.” And by the time all that happened, they were in their cars and gone. So that keeps them separate.
In a moving demonstration, where people are marching and there are anti-marchers on the sidewalk that want to yell at them. We would walk with the marchers. Not, you know. We would walk along side. So, we would be next to the barricades that separated the anti-people. And then on this side would be the marchers. And somebody would say “I’m gonna go over there and punch that guy in the nose.” You would try to isolate that one person. And, a number of different ways to do that. Give me five minutes. You say to the guy, give me five minutes. You’re standing there with a Department of Justice hat, Department of Justice shirt. You know, you’re obviously a fed. So they respond to that. And if you say you know, “what's it, you know, if you went over there and did that what would it accomplish, other than make you feel good? And it might make you feel bad. You know, by saying it was ineffective.” And you’d just talk to them for five minutes and maintain eye contact with the guy. By, you know, in two/three minutes that group of people had passed so there's nothing to fight about.
Another one.
50:43 Bill Froehlich I’m gonna pause you there. How, so I imagine, I’m just imagining a group of 100 protesters. How do you identify that person who says I'm going to go punch that guy?
50:52 Tim Johnson He says it.
50:54 Bill Froehlich Do you hear it in a large group of protesters?
50:56 Tim Johnson Yeah.
50:58 Bill Froehlich Yeah. Okay. With, let’s just say, you know, there’s 500 protesters and 200 counter protesters. Who are you working with? Is it just, you know, four conciliators, or two conciliators, or are there others involved? Seems like a one to 100 ratio is, I don’t know. Tell me more.
51:22 Tim Johnson Sometimes it was one to 100. But, mostly in a demonstration like that, there would be local law enforcement. And we would meet with local law enforcement before the event. We would say “we want to be an excuse for you not to get involved with hot heads. For you not to have to arrest anyone. Just want to be your excuse. However, we recognize who the authority is here and that’s you not us. So if you say to us “get out,” we're gone. If you say to use “we’ll handle this,” we’re gone. But, while we're there, we can defuse the little incidents that could lead to a bigger one and save you guys a whole lot of trouble. That worked out pretty good.
52:17 Bill Froehlich Were there ever jurisdictions that said, “get out, we don't want you” right away when you told them that? Or were there particular demonstrations where they said, when they looked at you and said, “Tim get your people out of here, we're done with this.”
52:34 Tim Johnson No, I didn't experience that, but other conciliators did. And they did the right thing, they left.
52:51 Bill Froehlich If you... were about to explain the third scenario to me. So, there was the Klan scenario, there was the conflicting protestors. Go ahead.
52:57 Tim Johnson Somebody breaches the barricade. And the five-minute thing doesn't count. It's not working. So, you surround that person with a number of people and all of you talk to him at the same time. All of you maintain contact, eye contact, with him and go “hey, Joe, talk to me for a minute, you know. Where did you get those shoes? I love shoes. Hey Joe, you got a sister? I think I know your sister.” Anything that came to mind, alright. And Joe was, you know, “what? What?” Alright. And in a very short period of time, you've gently walked him back behind the barricade.
He gets to not get in trouble, and yet not be considered cowardly by his peers, okay. So we gave him a back door. And we get to have the thing continue without violence. So any... variation of those two things seem to do alright. And like I say, in my time I never had a problem. Granted, I'm six foot two and I weighed 240 pounds. So, you know, it's a little easier for me to... be a little more articulate, I guess, or verbal, than a little guy.
54:42 Bill Froehlich Did you try, did you ever re, try to end or redirect a protest in anyway? So, marchers demonstrating, redirect them to a different street or something?
54:55 Tim Johnson Oh yeah. Yeah. When we were told to do so by law enforcement.
55:00 Bill Froehlich And were you more effective at redirecting as a CRS member than say, law enforcement, and why was that?
55:08 Tim Johnson Six of one half a dozen of the other.
55:15 Bill Froehlich Okay. Did you ever work with one side of a protest, for example, to train them to self-marshal themselves? Yes (Tim Johnson). What did that look like?
55:25 Tim Johnson We got a whole training manual on marshaling. Yes, we would say, you know, identify yourselves with special T-shirts, or arm bands, or something. Know what your role is and where you’re going. How are you gonna get there? Understand that law enforcement is in charge. Have a message that you want to give to people during the process. You know, we're here to make a point. We're not here to burn buildings. Those kinds of things.” A backup plan so if somebody did get hurt, they could be evacuated. Have access to bathrooms, have access to water, and those kinds of things. And know where you're going before you get there. Draw maps so that everybody knows, starts on 48th street, it's gonna end on 9th avenue.
56:33 Bill Froehlich When you were training those advocacy groups, how did you maintain your... neutrality? Were you able to maintain it? Or did you have a different view on it in that context?
56:46 Tim Johnson I think I had a different view. What I did was say here are concepts that you might not be aware of. And that we know work. That will help you to achieve your goals. And some people would call it training. Other people would call it technical assistance. But basically, you’re just helping people who might not be, and almost never were, experienced in this kind of group activity. You have something to hold onto.
57:21 Bill Froehlich So, when you said: “help you meet your goals,” what did you mean by that?
57:28 Tim Johnson The protestors’ goals.
57:30 Bill Froehlich Okay. Which were?
57:34 Tim Johnson Make a point. Demonstrate their dissatisfaction. Call attention. That kind of thing.
57:44 Bill Froehlich Rather than have an alternative where there's violence, and that's the headline, and that's distracting. Okay. Did you ever help train protesters or advocates to more effectively advocate for their interests in positions?
58:07 Tim Johnson No. Not my job.
58:13 Bill Froehlich You mentioned police and law enforcement that were involved or affected by your efforts, or partners, when you were marshalling protestors yourself. Were there are other organizations that you worked with, nonprofit or advocacy organizations, that had similar interests?
58:30 Tim Johnson Yes. There... were God Squad. Local ministers who wanted to come out and be marshals. And we would talk with them about what to expect . . . they had at hand. Things like that.
58:51 Bill Froehlich Which, can you give me an example of a community where they used the God Squad?
59:00 Tim Johnson A city in New Jersey was experiencing significant racial tension that was exasperated by a really serious excessive use of force. And they had a demonstration. People were very angry. And so the local ministerial alliance came together. And we found out that they were talking. So we got in contact with them and said: “here’s some things we think you could do.” Sorry, go ahead (Bill Froehlich). Maybe, you know, I mean the ministers say “Jesus wants you to blah blah blah” is more effective than “the police guy said blah blah blah.”
1:00:01 Bill Froehlich Okay, so they took the perspective, and you as well, that their marshaling may have been more effective in certain contexts than law enforcement.
1:00: 11 Tim Johnson No question. Absolutely. Sometimes the police were more effective. You know, it just depended on what the situation was.
1:00:27 Bill Froehlich Okay. When you were doing... community-oriented street policing, how did you build trust quickly?
1:00:42 Tim Johnson Approaching people open handedly. Like this. Asking people their name.
1:00:54 Bill Froehlich And just for the transcript’s sake..., Tim is holding up his hands and his palms facing forward, when he says open handedly.
1:01:05 Tim Johnson “Hi. It's a bad situation, isn’t it? Gosh, I can't imagine how frustrated you must feel. Let me talk to you for a minute and see if we can move things forward for you and make sure that you, you know, you're here at the end. That you don't have to leave or anything. What would you like to see happen? How would you like to proceed?” Just pepper questions. Explaining that I don't have any answers. “You know, you have all the answers. Help me understand. I don’t live here. I’m from out of town. What’s going on? Why is everybody so angry?” You know, they get to vent a little bit. “Okay, I feel a little better,” and go back in the crowd.
1:02:01 Bill Froehlich So they, you would ask them their name. You’d come to them with a lot of questions... with open hands. What other techniques for building trust quickly did you use?
1:02:13 Tim Johnson Smiles. “Hi.” “Well,” and show surprise, “this is really something, isn’t it?” Sometimes it wasn't. You know, having done this several times you would say, “you think this is bad, you should have been in Brooklyn.” But you don't, you know, you don't say that to them because this is their big deal. And you go “wow, this is something.” You know and they go “well the Department of Justice thinks it’s something, I guess it is.”
1:02:52 Bill Froehlich And how did you build trust with the police departments that you were coordinating with? How did you build trust with the advocacy groups and the God Squads? Quickly.
1:03:01 Tim Johnson Meet with them beforehand. Before the event starts. Tell them who you are and what you want to do. Tell them who's in charge. They’re in charge, not you. Tell them that you and the rest of the CRS people will leave the area at any point they tell us to leave the area. That we are just another arrow in your quiver.
You know, you don’t, you don’t have... It’s like use of force. It’s a continuum. Sometimes presence is enough. The cop is on the corner, I’m not going to do anything wrong. Sometimes it takes a little more than presence. The cop is on the corner and he’s walking directly at me. I’m not gonna do anything wrong. The cop is on the corner and he’s looking directly at me and now he’s coming over and he’s gonna talk to me. These are all graduations in that continuum. And one option is let the fed do. You know, that doesn’t work, you’ve still got all the other things. And plus, there’s no report. There's no paperwork. It didn’t happen. I wasn’t there. The fed took care of it. What do I know? And it worked out so, there you go.
1:04:32 Bill Froehlich I love how you were both arming groups with information based on your wisdom and experience, particularly law enforcement, and empowering them to tell you what to do. And those are just core to a mediator’s practice.
How... did you just decide, you know..., after, there might be a protest, or demonstration, or competing demonstrations, would you just leave when it was over or did you stay in the community to try to take next steps with them, maybe at a table-oriented process or work with the community at the town hall or a discussion forum? How did you decide when it was time to end your involvement in community-oriented processes?
1:05:26 Tim Johnson When the demonstration was over, we went home. Follow up would happen. Generally, the demonstrations would happen, if it happened in your region, then you could identify some of the community leadership and maybe make contact with them a few days later. But many times we were called to go to another region because you wanted more than one guy. And so, I went to Mississippi. I went to Louisiana. I went to California. I, that’s not my jurisdiction. So what... happened after that I have no idea.
1:06:13 Bill Froehlich And when it was in your region, you would follow up or one of your colleagues would follow up with those involved? Yeah (Tim Johnson). To do what specifically?
1:06:24 Tim Johnson Just to check to make sure that there's no room for table negotiations. Generally, we would debrief on the day with the police. And the police would call the formal briefing.
1:06:40 Bill Froehlich Tell me more about that.
1:06:43 Tim Johnson Well, quite often there would be more than one jurisdiction. So, you would have state police, police from other jurisdictions, and the jurisdiction itself. And they wanted to cover the area with law enforcement presence. And we would sit down, and they would all congratulate each other and tell each other what a wonderful job they did. We would, one of us would get up and say “thank you very much for allowing us to be here. We did not, you know, find any issues or concerns that are related to anything that you need have attention to.”
1:07:32 Bill Froehlich Were there ever law enforcement debriefing sessions where they identified concerns to improve upon and... No (Tim Johnson). And did you and your colleagues ever debrief and identify things “oh boy, we wish we would have done this differently. Or oh boy, these police jurisdictions, you know, they need to improve these practices and are other ways we can support that.”
1:08:02 Tim Johnson We would debrief on our activities. Did we do a good job? Could we do a better job doing something else? Is there a way to be better prepared? Those kinds of questions. But again, depending on whether or not you were visiting a jurisdiction, we didn’t go further than that.
1:08:25 Bill Froehlich Were there any learning points from those internal CRS conversations that you could share?
1:08:32 Tim Johnson Yeah. I think that generally if we had more time then we'd be better prepared. If we knew what people, we’d be better prepared. If we could meet with more people prior to the event, we'd be better prepared. If we could develop written materials that we could send out to people, we'd be better prepared. And CRS has some of those materials. You know, they’ve written things so that if I’m a local conciliator and I’m hearing that these things might happen I can get some copies and send them to people.
1:09:19 Bill Froehlich And what, what are the top... one or two materials that you would send to a community in advance of the demonstration?
1:09:27 Tim Johnson Soft marshalling. Safety issues. Things like that. Okay (Bill Froehlich). Police community leadership relations. Make sure they know who you are, and you know who they are.
1:09:51 Bill Froehlich Okay. So wanted to keep talking a little bit more about street or community-oriented mediation. Everything okay? Let me finish the question. No, it’s okay. No problem. So, specifically I wanted to talk to, you mentioned your colleague, Ben Lieu and in what you wrote to me you said street mediation is called “combat mediation.” So, I’d love for you to say more about that.
1:10:27 Tim Johnson That was his term. Yeah, that was his term. And basically, what we’re trying to do is get people to just keep moving. And you’re good at it if you’re comfortable on the street. If you’re nervous, if you’re afraid, if you lack confidence, you’re not gonna be very good at it. You’ve got to be, you’ve got to give the people the impression that: “I’ve been here before, I belong here, and we’ve done this several times. This is good for you.”
1:11:16 Bill Froehlich The first time you were doing this combat mediation, street mediation. Did you have all those traits?
1:11:24 Tim Johnson Yes. Based on experience that I had in prisons.
1:11:28 Bill Froehlich Ah. Okay. Based on experience in prisons. Excellent. So, you previously described Ben Lieu’s demeanor as disarming and that resonates with the traits you just identified: confidence, calm. Can you say more about Ben’s work in combat mediation? Are there any illustrations that come to mind?
1:11:55 Tim Johnson Well, but, the example of the Klan and the library, that was Ben Lieu. He negotiated that by saying you know “I give you something, you’ve got to give me something.” And he had several years as a street cop in Baltimore followed by several years as the Chief of Homicide Division in Baltimore. So, he had the confidence to talk to anybody. And people sensed that.
You know, if you grow up... I used to try to train trainers. And I would say to them: “if you walk into a room, they’re gonna know whether or not you’re gonna be a good trainer in the first 30 seconds. You’re gonna know, when you’ve got some experience, if this is gonna be a difficult class or an easy class. Just by the demeanor of people. Teachers in high school, they can do the same thing. They can walk into a room, they could walk into a cafeteria, got hundreds of kids in it, they can sense right away if there’s gonna be a problem. How do they do that? They do that through experience.
And knowing there’s gonna be a problem and being able to handle the problem, two different things. So, inexperienced people will run away from the problem. Experienced people will run to the problem. Turns out. And folks like Ben Lieu could do that.
1:13:52 Bill Froehlich This... some colleagues and I have written before that during demonstration, during a protest, there are roles for traditional mediators to play. But this isn't one of them. Because the corporate courtroom mediator does not have the same skill set and you are highlighting precisely why in a way that is crisper and clearer than I have ever thought before. So, I appreciate that. Is there anything else that you want to say about street-oriented mediation or in the illustrations that come to mind?
1:14:30 Tim Johnson Well, as I was leaving CRS, they were moving away from that. They were moving towards not having a presence at demonstrations. And if there was gonna be a presence, they wanted it to be situated away from the event so if there was a problem they could be called in to mediate. So that... I don’t know where they are now, whether or not they...
1:15:10 Bill Froehlich Was that a political choice point or where was that in the hierarchy of CRS? What was the choice point?
1:15:17 Tim Johnson The administration.
1:15:20 Bill Froehlich Okay. Like AG administration, or?
1:15:23 Tim Johnson I don’t know whether it was the AG or Deputy AG or all the way down to the executive director. I don’t think executive directors made that many decisions. They were told what to do and often times they would sense what they should do based on meetings that they had. And they would shift their practices.
1:15:50 Bill Froehlich So, speaking of the administrative components of CRS, do you have advice, and you've written a little bit, for navigating the bureaucracy at CRS? And to be candid with you, I was in an oral history earlier just today, and someone said: “you should ask Tim Johnson that question because he's the only one that I know who’s moved from being in the field to headquarters.” So, please tell us.
1:16:20 Tim Johnson Yeah, you have to understand why people ask staff to do what they ask them to do. Headquarters doesn’t do mediation. Headquarters doesn’t do conflict resolution. Headquarters does bureaucracy. Bureaucracy requires reports. Your reports don’t really have to make that much sense. They have to be given to congressional staff so that they can say “I have here a report that says there were 200 incidents of blady blah.” Whether or not each of those incidents resulted in a case, didn’t matter.
Also didn’t matter, it mattered more to headquarters that an alert, an assessment, and follow up reports were done, than what was actually in them. So, what I would say to people is come up with stock answers. Then you can just: “met with parties. Parties said... We continue to deliberate. Thank you.” And if you could do that rather than complain about “oh my god they want me to do this and they want me to do that.” Just do it. Efficiently (Bill Froehlich).
I called it the price I had to pay to do the work I wanted to do. And the work I wanted to do was be in the street, or in the community, with the people.
1:18:05 Bill Froehlich Any other tips for navigating the bureaucracy? How do you move from the regional office to the national office?
1:18:12 Tim Johnson I was asked to come in and be Chief of Field Coordination, which I had thought was gonna be a promotion. It didn't turn out to be one. But I figured that if I were Chief of Field Coordination, you could get more information to more conciliation specialists on a national basis. Because I would be required to read everybody’s reports. And so, I would see a report from somebody in Chicago and notice an assessment process in Seattle and I would put those two conciliators together, call each other up, talk about this. That had not been done before.
1:19:07 Bill Froehlich Innovative. So, you were putting people together to brainstorm. Others have mentioned there was hesitancy to share ideas across... regions and across offices. Was that the choice from a director, or do you know why CRS was hesitant to share information?
1:19:25 Tim Johnson When they found out what I was doing I was told to stop. That each region had to take care of itself, and it was the regional director's job to manage.
1:19:37 Bill Froehlich You've mentioned though that there are annual retreats where there's training, and I presume resources are shared, what's the distinction between having that annual retreat and resource share and doing it a basis as you were directing individuals?
1:19:57 Tim Johnson Control, maybe? I don’t know. I pretty much didn’t pay attention to it anymore. I just say “oh I just happen to be taking to someone.” So, you know, so. I was not the best [] staff they ever had.
1:20:26 Bill Froehlich So, let's talk about who you learned from. You've mentioned so many folks throughout your... time. You wrote about Wally Warfield and Pat Glenn and Ben Lieu. And talking about your lived experience you would never, you don't have the lived experience, I don't have the lived experience of an African American woman or a black man, and I assume Asian, I assume Ben is Asian, an Asian male. But you also said today that you would observe them and say “whoop, I'm gonna take that” and then try it and make it.
I tell my students in my mediation clinic, when you're observing a co-mediator or another mediator, you’d pick something, you’d try it, and you’d make it yours. You’d make it authentic to you. And that's what I heard you say. Exactly (Tim Johnson). My it words now.
1:21:18 Tim Johnson Exactly. Exactly right. And, I would... If I wrote something, a training program or whatever, I would give it to people and say this is just a skeleton you put the bones on.
1:21:38 Bill Froehlich So, who else did you learn from other than those folks we've talked about? And do you have any stories... that resonate?
1:21:45 Tim Johnson Not really. You know I tried to learn from everybody, both good and bad. And they were bad examples. We had a conciliator who continuously criticized the New York City Police Department and publicly called it the most racist police department in...
1:22:16 Bill Froehlich He publicly, or the conciliator, publicly criticized the New York City Police Department as the most racist police department in America?
1:22:27 Tim Johnson Not helpful. Not helpful at all. He would say this to primarily black audiences. Which endeared him to them. But again, not helpful.
I had other people who tried to be pushy with their authority. “I'm from the Department of Justice, here's my badge.” Not helpful. One of the things that I would teach is humility. You're not that big a deal. You've got some ideas and some knowledge about process. Share that with two people. Do what they do.
1:22 Bill Froehlich Yeah, that resonates and everything that you have said, and the conversations, whether it's talking to the police for street-oriented mediation or it's letting the parties identify and choose their issues to negotiate over, how they're going to resolve them. So that that idea of humility resonates as I think about this collective set of interviews the conversations we've had here.
So, what sources would you advise someone entering this line of work to observe? You suggested talking to people. Figuring out what constitutes conflict resolution. Can you expand on that?
1:24:13 Tim Johnson One of your students graduates: “I’ve got a degree in mediation.” Okay what he's got is some knowledge of mediation, some knowledge of the process, some different approaches to the process. Great. Al right. Talk to people who do it for a living. Co-mediate with experienced folks. Watch them. See what they do. Piece of paper.
1:25:02 Bill Froehlich Said see how they sell it, handle non-believers. How they handle negative emotions.
1:25:06 Tim Johnson That's a big issue. You’ve got to sell the process. If you don't sell the process nobody's interested in buying. It’s got to be something you want to do.
1:25:17 Bill Froehlich How do you sell it with humility?
1:25:20 Tim Johnson I sell it based on their expertise. You guys know what's going on more than anybody else. So, you want to move forward, you’re the only ones that can do it. I can help you do it by providing the table and the process. You’re in charge.
1:25:46 Bill Froehlich You also wrote to establish in your own mind a continuum of approaches to conflict resolution that move parties towards a resolution. Why do you say in your own mind? You know I can point you to an article, or several articles, that have a continuum of conflict resolution. Why do you say in your own mind?
1:26:08 Tim Johnson Know where you’re going. Know where you are. Know where you want to go. Is this a situation where you’re just gonna chat for a minute? Is this a situation where you’re gonna do more than just a chat? Is this a situation where you’re gonna have to help identify issues and interests? Is this a situation for long term mediation agreements? Be aware of where they are in that process and work with them where they are.
1:26:48 Bill Froehlich Great. Love it. Any anything else about other sources? You also write about referrals, literature, talks, formal training, informal training, collect materials, etc. Anything else you want to add?
1:27:02 Tim Johnson Not really.
1:27:06 Bill Froehlich So just a couple more questions and they're really follow up questions for me. I asked for a written account, and you sent me a copy of the sacred trust note that you wrote and described in our first conversation, and I’m really appreciative of that. I think in our second conversation you noted, or I heard from someone else in this project, that Bob Lamb used the phrase sacred trust at times. And I also... noted, as I was looking up that phrase in the context of CRS, that in 1998, Rose Ochi gave remarks at a CRS annual award presentation. Here's what she says.
“While our forces have been radically reduced in numbers, CRS’s dedication is not diminished. We’re strong of heart to what many of us believe is our sacred trust to securing equal justice.”
So that's the end of the quote. But I just wonder if you have any reflection. You said you weren't at that ceremony, but I don't know if you knew that she used that phrase or if you have any reflection on her use of the phrase “sacred trust” there?
1:28:25 Tim Johnson Yeah. I knew she used the phrase. And your other directors have used the phrase. And usually they use it, they used it, in speeches. Which is nice. But I would have preferred that the concept be discussed more informally among staff. Some staff, you know, adopted it right away. And some didn’t. Some said “this is just my job. You know, I’m not a, you know. So.”
1:29:20 Bill Froehlich Yeah. So informal, having that informal conversation with... staff and conciliators across the country may have been valuable from your perspective. Well thank you for that reflection and I know I didn’t send that to you in advance. So, my last question is really, is there anything else you want to tell me in this conversation?
1:29:45 Tim Johnson Working for CRS was the highlight of my career. It gave my career meaning and my only regret is that it didn’t last longer and that I didn’t do more. I consider myself extremely lucky to have had the opportunity. I am honored that I am considered a peer with people like Patt Glenn or Tommy Battles or Mike Hernandez or any of the others.
1:30:35 Bill Froehlich Well Tim I am honored to have had this extended conversation with you over a couple of months and it's been a pleasure. From everything you've said it's clear that you've done so much for so many people. So, I’m both appreciative and in awe of all that you've done. And I’m grateful for your willingness to have this conversation. So, thank you for all the work that you've done and for chatting with me about it. It's been a privilege.
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Civil Rights Mediation Oral History Project Phase 2 As a public service, Beyond Intractability hosts this site in conjunction with the earlier Phase I of the Civil Rights Mediation Oral History Project. IRB statement for Phase II interviews “Research conducted pursuant to Ohio State University Office of Responsible Research Practices IRB protocol 2021E0493.” |
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Civil Rights Mediation Oral History Project Phase 2 As a public service, Beyond Intractability hosts this site in conjunction with the earlier Phase I of the Civil Rights Mediation Oral History Project. IRB statement for Phase II interviews “Research conducted pursuant to Ohio State University Office of Responsible Research Practices IRB protocol 2021E0493.” |
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