<Begin Segment 19>

TI: So what's it like with the current administration, has your work or your ability to work changed?

RW: The largest part is like the agency has shrunk, so it's much more limited in terms of our numbers. But at the same time, I think the refinement of methodology and understanding of how conflict works, and how we can be most efficient and effective in what we do, I think we are premier at that now. And I think our responsibility now is not to lose that methodology but to preserve it for the future, whatever happens to us. And like my team out here that I work with, I'm regarded as senior in the agency, right, and sort of in practice.

TI: You're one of the Knights now.

RW: Oh, clearly, clearly. But my own view is that the folks that work for me are better than me. And so that's really self-satisfying, because that's what I should be doing. And so it gives me confidence that into the future, this will be carried forward, and we want to refine the capture more. But when I went from human relations to CRS, I started learning more methodology and theory to understand, and dynamics, and how to look at these situations and discriminate between different kinds of events. Because they're not all the same, they're all different. But there are some patterns that you could spot, and some things that are more effective to do quickly, and it's important not to get distracted. Because there are differences between events and critical incidents, like something happens that's spontaneous, creates a reaction, people rising up, that's a different situation than even something like a jury verdict, because that's an event, and you can prepare for that differently. When it's a critical incident, it doesn't have real structure, and your role is to kind of give structure to it, and to bring those elements together so it has some degree of structure, problem solving.

TI: And predictability, I suppose.

RW: Right. And the quicker you could do that, and you can it faster or slower, there are proficiencies.

TI: Intentionally faster or slower?

RW: Oh, yeah. Like you're intentionally looking at who's out there. Sometimes it's one mass group, sometimes it's multiple groups, there's layers.

TI: So there are actually times when you actually go slower, realizing certain things have to play out before...

RW: Or you know this is not going to reach a stage where you can engage. That's where you want to get 'em to, but it's not going to engage now. So right now, you want to prevent some stuff. Like law enforcement will have a tendency to view a crowd is a crowd is a crowd, rather than to distinguish, you know what? There's this element, there's this element, this element. And if you do this, and just play crowd control, you're going to shift these folks from not being a threat to being a threat. You're going to make it worse. And the seasoned practitioners understand it, they've gone through enough...

TI: That goes back to what you said earlier in terms of complexity, it makes it less black and white.

RW: Yeah. Because initially, like crowd control, yeah, you just don't muscle that. So our training is with cops, but it's also making entry with cops. And it really helps to be DOJ, because as a human relations director, cops are going to lock you out, and I know that, and I could see the difference. And I recognize other things, like you call up a city manager, "Hi, I'm from DOJ, and I read about this incident. Can you kind of debrief me on what's going on with it?" But just what happens afterwards, even if I never show up, they go, "Hey, DOJ called, we better get on this." But there's a catalytic thing, you think, "Hey, you know what? We can do a lot of good just by making phone calls."

TI: Right, exactly.

RW: So we're out there.

TI: Yeah, so I have your card, because if I ever need you to make a phone call for me... [laughs].

RW: Yeah, and if you call our office, when it goes to voice message, the number you have, like if this is an emergency, is my cell phone number. Call me. I'm serious, because it's learning that in this spot, you can call a city manager and get your call returned, and just ask a question, and set off dynamics that help improve the situation just by doing that. And same, like if you have that in your pocket, you have a responsibility to make that accessible. And some of our training with folks, it's like I can't tell you to do that, but just recognize these dynamics.

TI: No, I totally get what you're saying.

<End Segment 19> - Copyright © 2019 Densho. All Rights Reserved.