Hello, my name
is Brianna
and I'm in my
second year here
at Seminole State,
and I'll like to introduce my dad.
Hi! My name is Manuel Sanchez.
I'm Briana's dad. I'm a retired NYPD police
officer for 20 years and I'm currently
an active law enforcement officer
here in the state of Florida.
So, this video is called,
"Bridging the Racial and Ethnic Divide."
And the purpose is to have candid
conversations about issues. So,
perspectives and views on race
and ethnicity. So, I wanted to get
the perspective from a retired
and active member of law
enforcement. So, the first question I
want to ask you is do you think
there is a divide between people
from when you started in the law
enforcement agency to now in
the 21st century?
I believe there's been a significant
change in how people were when I
first got into law enforcement in the
early '90s. And now, we're practically in
the 21st century. Back in those days,
I noticed people were more united.
People cared for each other. They
respected law enforcement. Law
enforcement respected the community.
The community came out to us and they
wanted certain things done in their
community. If there's anybody robbing or
stealing or vandalizing or selling their
Cali(?) or that or something like that,
they'd reach out to us with confidence.
You know, we would sit down together
with some of the judge readers and
we'll do this once a week. We'll sit down
at either a church or community center
and they'll come up to us and they'll say,
"Hey, listen. We're having these problems
with these people and they're
destroying our neighborhood, and we want
you guys to help."
And the communication that we had with
them was fantastic.
So there's like a form of unity and trust?
There was, back then.
So, my last question to you is do you
think that this is something that can simply
be solved by having conversations like
these between peers?
Simply resolved? I don't know it'll be
simply solved but I think it's a great
starting point. It's definitely a
great starting point because I think the
gap that we have right now between
police between religious people between
politics; our gap has gone to the point
where it's not going to be fixed just
overnight just by sitting down where we're
doing today. It's definitely a great way
to start. You have to start somewhere.
You have to close that gap somewhere.
Communication's always been the key to
everything. You got to sit down and
communicate. Find out what we're doing
wrong. Find out what needs to be
corrected. Find out how we can correct
it. Is there-can we do it by sitting down?
Can we meet with our community leaders?
Meet with our politicians?
And decide, "Hey, enough is enough. Okay,
we've been vigor and we've been
fighting about every little thing that we
can think of and we're not getting
anywhere." And society's getting worse.
It's getting more ugly. It's getting more
nasty. It's getting more violent. You
know, people are getting hurt.
Innocent people're getting hurt for no
reason, you know. And that's just not
how--I remember being, y'know, my early
'90s when I first became into law
enforcement. You know, back then, there
was the crime. There was the hate, you
know. There was a lot of bickering.
But there wasn't such a big of a gap.
Not the way it is now. I mean, you
can't turn the TV on, you can't turn
on social media without seeing violence,
any type of violence for the most littlest
things. It's just the violence just
doesn't end. You know, we need to,
as human beings, we need to sit down
somewhere and I think a lot of it
starts in the community. A lot of it
starts with our politicians. A lot of it
starts with our community leaders.
You know, that's where we have to
start.
And our first step can be just building
trust again and having conversations
and then going out to our own
neighborhoods and see what happens.
That is the best way to start. Absolutely,
I agree one hundred percent (100%),
So, to conclude to our video, I still
think that people need to realize that
racism is a big issue and I think that
conversations like these are still
relevant to have with friends, family,
peers, and acquaintances. All perspectives
are important to end this racial and
ethnic divide between us. So, thank you for
watching and listening. And thank you for
coming.
It was a pleasure.