Noble Ray, welcome to InFocus.
Thank you very much.
Glad to be here.
I got to tell you, you and I have
not seen each other since we did the
Wisconsin in Black and White
Project. Thank you for your service
on that.
No, thank you.
It was really good.
Yeah, and for a lot of folks that
don't know, you're a former police
chief, you've been in law
enforcement for?
Um, now 40 years.
40 years, wow.
And give me a little snapshot of
what made you go into law
enforcement. What was it about law
enforcement that made you say, I'd
like to commit my life to that?
Well, I originally started
off into looking
at being an attorney going into
politics, but...
That was too much work, huh?
There's too much work
and you know at UW-Milwaukee
where I was going they had a really
good criminal justice program and
I just got really into
you know protection, justice
and understanding what those things
meant and just connected with
it.
And so you knew you wanted to
climb that ladder to get to the
chief mode of things, or?
About two years in, after being a
police officer, said, if I leave
this profession, I want to leave it
at a minimum as a mid-manager.
And that, in most departments, is a
lieutenant or above.
Yeah.
I love asking people things like if
you had a mission statement for the
kind of work and the kind philosophy
you carry with yourself as you do
your profession, what would that for
you, you think.
My mission statement would
be that we
are here, here for people,
and criminal justice and humanity
are one and the same, and how do we
make that work?
And you've been retired now for how
long?
I've been retired now for about 12,
13 years.
I get the impression you worked just
as much as you did when you were
working.
Why do you stay involved?
I stay involved because it's
part of my belief system.
I still believe that I can have an
impact on helping people
see what police officers
see. I had a unique perspective,
not only unique perspective as a
police officer, but a unique
respective as an African-American
male.
And also I've been very close to the
community. So bridging those two has
been really.
Really important in my life to
ensure this continues.
And one of the reasons I think you
and I are sitting here now is
because I bumped into you a few
weeks ago when they opened up
the center.
The center.
Just to give some context, we're at
the Black Business Hub
here on the Madison South Side
and I know you've probably done
all kinds of things in this
building.
Absolutely, on the board,
also as
another member of another board, the
Rennebaum Foundation, we gave funds
for this building.
So this is important.
I also worked as head
of the Urban League,
as interim CEO and vice president.
You don't sound retired to me, man.
No, no.
But one of the things that we were
talking, you were telling me about
you have a fellowship with the
Fellowship of Law Enforcement
People, and
I found it really interesting when
you talked a little bit about kind
of what you guys do and what the
mission of that organization is.
Why don't you tell us a little about
that?
Yeah, there's a fellowship
that started two years ago, and it
involved retired
law enforcement executives, as
well as people from the university
community, as well current
law enforcement professionals.
And what we wanted to do
was to look ahead,
see what policing was going to
be in 2030 and
2050, because there are a number of
changes taking place.
One of the areas that we started to
focus in on, was the area of
technology, given that it has had
such a major impact in our
lives in so many different ways,
but specifically in law enforcement.
So when we say technology, are we
speaking specifically to like AI
technology?
AI technology, it is
impacting every aspect
of policing, everything down
to how police reports are
done, how surveillance
is done, things
like body-worn cameras,
facial recognition,
to something as simple
as, if you've got this information,
how do you go to court?
How do you explain this information
in court?
Do you have the subject matter
experts? Where do you store it?
Who has access to it.
So this is kind of
a quiet revolution that
we feel that needs to be
discussed more to make sure that
the laws and justice are keeping
up with the technology.
And mission-wise, what would you say
the mission?
Here is, is it just simply to
educate people?
Our mission is to
stimulate or be the catalyst for
communities, both
state, federal and local, to start
thinking about this in a
way where they can kind of shape
how balancing
on one side public
safety and on the other side
privacy.
Because there's some major privacy
concerns, major justice
concerns. So the so our
mission was to give guidance,
start the conversation on guidance.
What does it look like when you have
technology in maintaining
trust with the community?
What does is look like when
you, you
have a license plate readers,
for example, and
do you use that
technology for everyone?
Do you use it on certain people?
Do you predict through analysis
and data where that's gonna go?
Because there's always an impact.
To any time we do something.
And we also wanted to highlight the
fact that even though a
lot of this technology is not only
being used in policing,
but any time the government,
any time that government uses this
type of information, there are
constitutional principles that must
be upheld.
One of which that we'll probably
talk about more and more is
the impact on the Fourth Amendment.
Yeah, and the Fourth Amendment that
deals with, help me out
here. Unreasonable searching.
That's right, searching.
And when I think about, you
know, the evolution of technology,
and especially for a person like
yourself who spent 40 years in this
industry, it brings
back, you, know, I think about
the things that, you know, that I've
seen just in my lifetime, your
lifetime.
I just kind of took some notes here.
I've seen things on
cuffing techniques.
I've seen things on
bulletproof vests,
changing body cameras,
license plate readers,
facial recognition systems.
What stands out to you in terms
of...
Well, when I started, things were
a lot different back then.
I mean, most
police officers were using
revolvers.
You had to take your time and put
the round in the
gun.
Like a musket, are you saying like a
mutt?
Like a musket.
You know bulletproof vests were
just coming into their own.
Now what you see is
you see vests
that are worn on the exterior with
all kinds of different things
on it from from lights
to maybe a second handgun
to extra rounds and things like
that.
We didn't even have trauma plates.
And a trauma plate was really
important. A trauma plate
is what is on a bulletproof
vest that when the
round hits the
bulletproof vests that it reduces
the damage to the heart
because that's a major impact.
We didn't even have those kind of
things. Of course we
didn't have the great uniforms.
We're wearing polyester.
Everyone had to wear, you
know, the. Three, the
police cap, there were no baseball
caps, that was not allowed.
And so it was, it almost,
it's almost laughable now what
we have available to us than
what we do right
now.
Yeah, and those tools are really
every time something comes out.
I guess the whole idea is that
it makes law
enforcement and enforcing the laws
easier. Is that the whole?
The tool should make
communities safer, law enforcement
easier, but
it still comes down to even
back then, the tool that you
used the most was
a pad of paper and a pencil to
get information. The tool that used
the the most, was talking and
engaging with citizens.
That is transcended.
That will never change.
I was going to say, and do you think
we've moved too far away from that
because of technology?
I think the risk is
there and what
I'm hoping is that
we're starting to create awareness
on that we don't lose
those things.
Things like building trust
with the community.
Things like, you know, are
we operating in a bias and
non-transparent manner?
Are we listening to
people when there are complaints?
Those are some of the things that I
hope that we lose the
empathy for people.
When you have technology,
one of the things that you lose at
times with technology is that it
is an objective standard.
You see the video, you see DNA,
you know, you'll see things
that are there.
But in policing,
subjectivity, discretion, humility,
empathy, and trust, those
are hallmarks that are
in behind good policing in
America.
So then when I, you think about some
of the things that you see out there
now, especially with all the social
media things that are out there,
and you'll see things that
are very easily manipulated,
it almost to the point where you
look at something and you have
to ask yourself, is that real?
It seems like there needs to be and
should be some sort of a balance
between the technology
and the person that's managing
that technology.
How do you see that?
This is something that
I think communities, law enforcement
need to get together on,
as well as the
manufacturers of technology.
You can have
video that
will give a false negative.
Still, we have not resolved
this idea of
women of color and small children.
Showing a
pretty good high percentage of false
positives when we're
looking at surveillance video,
facial recognition.
So those are some things that we
should always be concerned
about.
What kind of thing would cause
something like that to be happening,
you think?
It is
the technology, and when you
talk to the experts in the field,
the ones that are,
not only the experts on the field
but the ones who are producing this,
they have not resolved that.
However,
one of the things that you always
have to be mindful of is
that even the manufacturers,
all human beings have implicit
biases.
So sometimes those implicit
biases can come through through the
manufacturer's work.
Sometimes implicit biases can come
through through how the
technology is deployed.
What's your simple way of how you
would describe what an implicit bias
is? Because I think some people
don't understand what that is
sometimes.
This implicit bias is
a bias that
is not
overt, it is not necessarily
animus.
It is those things that
we do subconsciously
that we may not
be aware of, but it
adversely affects our behavior,
it adversly affects how we
do things, how we make judgments,
and how we.
Perceive things.
So that's how it impacts police.
It's like a pre-judgment kind of
thing? It's a pre judgment.
It's it's a it's a pre judge of
what we do and what we see.
That person's overweight so that's.
To eat a lot. And it's not true.
Absolutely.
And the 800 pound gorilla
in the United States is
implicit bias based
upon race.
That's the 800-pound gorilla.
That's what everyone focuses on.
But as you just mentioned,
weight, age,
language, height, all
of those things we prejudge.
And the one that we prejudged
that we...
We need to really get a handle on,
and those are the social economic
factors.
Sometimes they cut across all of
those categories.
When we see someone that is
homeless, looks destitute,
we in the back of our minds
develop a detachment.
There are some telltale signs,
some watch outs for implicit
bias. One is if
you start to see a
group of people and thinking
all of them do something
a certain way.
Or everyone does it this way.
Those are things that you may
wanna do a self-check because every
human being is different.
And when you start to include
everyone and saying everyone does a
certain way, that's when you become
susceptible to
treating people differently and
prejudging. It sounds dangerous to
policing, is it?
It is dangerous.
And it is dangerous because
you can prejudge, I remember
as a
rookie cop.
Pre-judging a situation where,
because it was a female involved,
I assume that
she did not have a weapon, that she
was not a threat.
But I have run into encounters
where a female was
involved and they had a
weapon and they were just as
much of a threat, but I was pre-
judging the situation and that
placed me at danger.
You have to evaluate
the situation based upon what you
have. That is called individualized
suspicion and making sure
that you're calculating place,
size, manner, how the person
deports themself, how they're
looking at you, and always more
importantly, where their hands are.
Yeah, and when we talk
about implicit bias in
humans, is there
such a thing when it comes to
technology, especially AI technology
and how it's being facilitated?
Yes, in a number
of different ways.
One, implicit bias can come through
in how it's deployed.
Let me give you an example.
If I start off and
I deploy, say,
cameras in an area that
are license plate readers,
and I deployed that based upon I've
got information that there's
a higher incidence of people
violating certain things,
that may be true at the beginning,
okay?
But if I don't come back and check
that, that camera can
start to produce a self-fulfilling
prophecy because what will
happen is that it will continue
to see the same people.
And that will continue even though
it may have changed that that's
not the highest area, the highest
percentage of area, but because
they're taking that information,
we're looking at saying, oh, this is
the highest percent.
The other way that it can
become an
implicit bias is
is how it is designed.
What is it designed to pick up on?
What are the features and
what are the locations and what of
the things that it is design
to do?
That gets a bit complicated and I
don't know if I can get into it in
this particular
moment.
But again, highlighting one
of the telltale signs is anytime
there is like a predictive
analysis that takes place
before it is deployed.
That's when you should start taking
a closer look at is
there a bias inherent?
Because that's when discretion is
used. Human discretion, as
always, opens up human
error.
Yeah, I can't resist this.
But you and I joked earlier before
we kind of began this interview
about the red cup.
And I told you
a story about me going to a badger
game when I first moved here, and I
had water in my red cup,
and the police officer made me put
it out because they assumed that
it might be liquor in there.
Is that an implicit bias?
The fact that I have a red cup that
there is something in there other
than water?
That implicit bias can come
in so many ways, and I'll
say the reason why it's complicated.
One is, why did they select you?
Two, to even ask you that question.
Just because a cup is red, there's
no reason to believe,
there is not a 100% reason to
believe that. But if someone is
operating on this principle
that any and all people
with red cups have liquor
in it, they have prejudged
the situation. That's what I felt.
So, that
leads to
problematic policing.
And so what we would ask that police
officer to do is
review what they do,
ask themselves some questions.
But for this person
having the red cup, would I have
contacted them?
But for believing that
every person with a red cup has
liquor in it,
would I had done what
I did and would I've
contacted this
person? Those are the questions that
we can do it. There are good people.
All people have implicit biases.
There are people. People.
The thing is we are
bound to
to provide service in
a fair and impartial manner.
So that's the difference between
a police officer or someone in
government and just an everyday
person.
Because I have the right
to take away your freedom as
a police office.
Because I can use force up
to including, physical force
up including,
unfortunately, the potential
of taking your life.
I have that constitutional,
that burden of being,
and it's not a burden, it is what we
take that oath for,
to do it in a way
where I'm a guardian of
democracy and not trying
to get away with something,
or trying to be overbearing
and tyrannical on those things.
It's an awesome power,
but it's only awesome
when it's used correct.
And you talked about license
plate readers, tools
that are used to kind of gather
information.
And during our pre-interview, you
know, I learned about
this technique
of called, is it
the flocking?
Flock.
Explain what that is.
A plot camera is a camera that is
deployed in certain parts of
a particular geographic area
and what it does is
it picks up information and it goes
back to a certain point.
Many times it's a command center and
what is does is reads license
plates, it reads information about
it and depending upon the technology
they're starting to be able to
pick up and extract more
information from that.
But...
It can pick up
by reading a plate,
does this person have a violation?
Has this person been previously,
I mean, does this have
warrants out for their arrest?
All of that type of information is
there. So the question with flock
cameras really comes down
to this.
Are they there to be
used after the
fact when we say
a crime was committed?
Then they come back and they look at
it and say...
Yeah, this person was
driving in this area at
this particular time.
This is when the crime was
committed.
I think people probably
have a better feel
for that. It's just like the
bombing incident
in
Boston with the marathon.
They went back and they start
checking the cameras and they could
start to piece together things.
I think most citizens
understand that use.
Where it becomes a question
is proactively how
it is used.
So if I'm using this information and
then I act on it,
even if you have not
committed a crime right then
and there, I go knock on your
door and say, hey, you came through
this intersection at
such and such date and time.
This is a potential.
And based upon the information we
have, you have a warrant for your
arrest.
So people ask those questions or
You were here
and you're being surveilled
now. People complain about
the issues of privacy.
And what's done with that
information once it's gathered, what
happens to it at that
That's, that's another issue.
In the, in, in most states,
information has been historically
treated in their laws that
govern. How long you can maintain a
record. Where does the information
go? Who has access to
it? So one of
the other concerns that communities
need to wrestle with is that
if, if a third
party has data and information
and if the government has access
to that. Have they made
that third party become a de
facto part of the government because
they're accessing their information?
But where is that stored?
What information do they have on
you? Don't you have a right to
know what your government has
on you?" These are questions
that communities really do need to
wrestle with.
Yeah, and we know that some
law enforcement agencies,
departments around the state have
been moving away from that system.
Why do you think it's so
controversial, and why would they
move away from it, you think?
I think, first
of all, I think it was
developed, in many
instances, to
improve public safety.
I'm not going to conclude that that
was not the reason.
But I think
that right now, we're
behind the curve.
We are behind the curves because
we have not,
as a community,
provided what they
should be used for.
What are the standards?
What are standards of privacy that
that community accepts?
How should the police department
use it?
Some communities have gone and what
they've done is that they've pulled
together stakeholders and
they've discussed from
every branch.
They've pulled people that
are community
members, civil liberties,
they've pull together people that
are subject matter experts, the
manufacturers, and they have come
up with. Some broad guidelines,
and then the community starts
to lay out for
law enforcement, here's
some policies, here are some
procedures, here is some ordinances
that we think would work, and they
all have to be constantly improved.
But right now, we're behind the
eight ball because we have not done
that. And so we're
reaching for this technology before
we know its total impact,
and we're before we know the
total impact.
One of the numbers I heard,
don't quote me,
but I went to a seminar last summer
and talked about AI and
how it was being used and I
think at that time they were saying
that it's
only correct 80% of the time.
And so is it okay for something
that's wrong 20%
of time, is it ok
to use that as a tool?
How do you weigh the value
it brings in terms of
what it brings to law enforcement
versus
the problem it creates
from it being used improperly
by the humans that control it?
It's a very complex question, but a
good one.
So I gave the example of a fly
camera. If someone is
wanted for murder, you want that
person off the street.
You want that fly camera to be able
to pick that up.
But let me give you an example that
happens every day.
One, if you are under,
if you go to go
on a cruise ship, your picture is
taken, okay?
And that could be used in other
ways. Government could use it.
And do you think most people...
Soon and understand.
And that's happening wherever they
go now? No, they don't.
They don't, I
don't think they understand that the
government can, at times,
they can decide to subpoena that,
that private entity could
decide to give it to them.
They don't know that.
But that, to me,
can be more problematic.
However, in answering to your
question, sometimes it's
situational.
They do the same thing in many
instances if you get on a flight.
But because the risk of
a person getting on that flight and
that plane coming down, if that
person takes that plane down,
you're willing to take more of a
risk.
You're willing give up more of your
privacy if the
risk is higher or if it's
effective and it's important to
save lives.
If it's not doing those things,
you're going, well, why am I giving
up my privacy just for this?
So those are
some of the things that we have to
balance.
You know, are we just doing it
because it's convenient for a
particular industry or convenient
for police?
So that's one.
One of the thing I do want to
mention that I
think really quickly is
there is an economics to
this that is important
for people to understand.
There are agencies now
that are sending calls
sending drones to calls to
assess the situation.
Okay? And then once they
assess it, they may decide to
deploy police or- Isn't
that safer?
It can be.
And all of these have very
positive impacts.
That's why it needs that
scrutiny.
However, you flip that
over and do
you start to say,
well, it's cheaper.
To have the drone do it,
than to have police officers
who have to pay insurance,
salary, benefits, and all those
other things.
Now, those are major questions
because we have grown accustomed
to having human beings, and
it should always be making decisions
about arrest, who gets
the citation,
what are the mitigating
circumstances?
I want to know which one's going to
give me the best intelligence.
You may want to know
who's going to give you the best
intelligence, and I believe it's a
police officer.
The technology will give you that
information, but the
police officer will add those
things that you can't
ever add with that, you know.
Yeah, but can a drone talk
a person down from
a hostage situation or
whatever that circumstance
is? I mean, there just has to be a
human implement, right?
There has to be a human element
to be able to do those
things. There has been a human
elements to understand
the context, to understand
that human being, where they're
coming from, to understanding a
particular area.
You can have someone,
you can have people violating park
laws every night and that drone
will pick up on it and they'll say,
this is a problem, you're violating
that. What they may not know
is that a
store may have closed and this may
be the only drug store
open at night and people are
violating that just to get to that
drug store.
So you do need
human beings to assess
these things because just
because something is
wrong, the criminal justice system
may not always be the
correct way to deal with it.
And it takes judgment.
That's why.
That's why justice is
not blind. Justice is blindfolded.
That means that human beings
have to do things to be
able to make sure that justice is
meted out in an equal and
fair way.
So that's why Lady Justice has
that. That's the balance is there.
You have to balance the scale with
empathy.
You have the balance of scale with a
whole host of issues that
someone is surrounded with.
These are things technology can't
do. And I don't think
that we want a
world right now where technology
is making those decisions, just like
no one wants a world that we're
constantly being surveilled.
Yeah, and speaking of the human
influence on things,
whose job is it to determine,
you know, how these tools
are implemented?
Is it the law
enforcement agency?
Is it a community?
Is it state officials?
Whose job is to say,
you, know, this is a good idea.
We should have a robot that
decides that, hey, camera one,
camera two, those guys might do
something suspicious in a month,
and we need to be ready for it.
Like whose job is it to choose
where that kind
of
superficial technology is being
used, I guess.
I think it is the
stakeholders of
the community.
Is that the people?
That is the people,
that is the ones that
are the manufacturers, there's the
civil rights leaders,
there is government.
But the distinction here is
that government has to lead on this
one, because we're talking about
government issues.
Well, some people are concerned
about the government because they
take the data and
use it in ways that some of
them don't even know about.
And when government
undermines trust,
when they're not using it in a way
of honesty, character,
confidence, when you don't have the
confidence and they're using it the
right way, they've undermined trust.
So Thank you.
Bye.
I'm not speaking to a government
that is not working.
I am being aspirational, talking
about if a government is working,
they should take the lead.
They should bring people together.
They should talk, they bring all of
the key stakeholders together and
decide these key points of
privacy, of
things like, you know,
public safety, of trust,
of all of this. Cause all of those
things are right there.
You know, the cost-benefit analysis
of having a drone do it or
a person do it.
All of those things are key
to providing public safety
in this country.
I want to get this question here
before we wrap up.
I mentioned Big Brother earlier.
You know, I think people understand
that.
Yeah, we're always there's
a camera on us.
And it corners and grocery stores,
elevators, you name
it.
Is that a good thing?
I don't think so,
because for two reasons.
One, and I
know everyone has cameras,
it's not just government, but
I don't think it's a good thing,
because it creates an environment
where we assume
that people are wrong.
It creates a surveillance mentality
that people have to prove themself
right.
One of the major
principles of this country is
that you are right until
you are innocent until proven
guilty.
Under these circumstances, if you're
constantly under surveillance and
something comes up, you have
to prove yourself innocent.
If you show up
as a false positive on a camera,
and you were there, and you're a
false-positive, you're going to have
to proof that you didn't do
it.
And that turns
the whole dynamic of some things
that for 250
years, was important to
this country, and that's
shifting, that constant
surveillance.
And I also want to ask you,
what do you see as the biggest
threat to policing,
and what do you use to see as a
threat to the
community and how it's policed?
Biggest threat to policing is
if somehow we
cannot get.
The entire apparatus
of government to start working on
these issues.
Because the police will be left out
there hanging.
Because... The community will ask,
I need for you to keep my community
safe, but then when they keep
the community safe and they make a
mistake, then they're going to
say, well, you're using technology
too much.
So the police, as
the ones that are delivering the
service, that will be
on their, that will, they
will carry the burden of
having to deal with all of
these issues. So it's important
that if you have a
law enforcement agency in your
jurisdiction that you help them
and you pull together
these resources to do that.
What was the second question again?
What's the biggest threat to the
community that's being policed?
The biggest threat to
the community as being police
is that we
lose our faith
in humanity.
That we start to believe
that we live in a
society that everyone
is a criminal.
People commit crimes at a
very low rate when it's all
said and done.
We should not design
systems solely for the purpose
of catching people.
We should design systems for
keeping the community safe, albeit,
which is very important, but
we should also design systems
that do the right thing
and help people and
help communities stay safe while
maintaining the public trust.
Yeah, and I'm going to get you to
look into your crystal ball on this
one.
What is the future,
considering we're here now, but what
does the future of law enforcement
look like in terms of technology and
how it's being used? What do you see?
What's going to be the next big to
do?
That's a tough one because
just as I sit here, if I go
back three years, everything
that was related to technology has
just expanded like you would not
believe.
It is growing so rapidly.
We've got data centers
that are powering algorithms
that we could never imagine
before.
So it is hard to
predict what's going to happen, But
we must try
if we can.
Keep this human-centered.
Justice must be human-centered.
From one human to another.
No worry, thanks for stopping by.
Thank you very much.
I appreciate you.