Here & Now

Shock, Despair After the Highland Park Shooting

Frederica Freyberg:

Chief Wray, thanks very much for joining us. So on the 4th of July, when you saw what happened in Highland Park, Illinois, as a former police officer, police chief, and citizen, what was your reaction?

Noble Wray:

My reaction was just utter despair for the people that were there. You don’t expect from a law enforcement standpoint and from a citizen standpoint, for something like that to happen at a parade. It’s not an urban center, although it’s adjacent to Chicago. You just don’t expect that. And I think parents and people in attendance were just in shock.

Frederica Freyberg:

And so, are we all kind of potential targets then at any time for a mass shooter?

Noble Wray:

Yeah, when you start talking about parades, grocery stores, elementary schools, you just never know where this is going to happen. So that is why I know that Congress passed major legislation a few weeks ago on the whole complex issue of guns and gun safety and mass shootings. But I don’t think we’re finished with this. Not by a long shot. There’s tremendous fear, and this tremendous fear cuts across all kind of boundaries, racial boundaries, religious boundaries, age. You know, where? As a parent, as a grandparent, ’cause I think every American, when they look at that, they think of themselves and what they would do. They can relate to that because it’s happening in common places.

Frederica Freyberg:

So if we’re not finished, what’s to be done?

Noble Wray:

What’s to be done is I tend to gravitate to the people that talk about this as a multifaceted approach. I think splitting it into a dichotomy, saying it’s guns or it’s mental health does not do the dialogue any good at all because it’s complex. You take this particular situation, how does a red flag law work? Even when you get down to, and this particular situation is still evolving, but we expect a lot from parents and relatives to be the ones that would contact law enforcement and say, “Hey, look, my child is doing this. This looks out of place.” But they also have a loving relationship with that child. And so it’s very complex. No one wants to see their kids in handcuffs. But the question is, no one also does not want to see their kids harm someone or end up in prison for life or even worse.

Frederica Freyberg:

Meanwhile, we learned after the fact that the suspect in this Highland Park mass shooting made his way to Wisconsin and Madison potentially with some idea of doing something similar here. When you heard that, what did you think?

Noble Wray:

Well, again, it gets closer to home, so it becomes personal. And so what I thought was a number of things. From a personal standpoint, I started to think about where we were, where my sons were, where my grandkids were that day and what we were doing. Could they come into harm’s place? From a law enforcement standpoint, it was, how are they responding? What are some of the techniques that they’re using to respond? Because it’s not common for a mass shooter to leave the scene. Typically, they’re arrested or there’s a quote unquote suicide by cop or they’re arrested pretty close to the scene. So for someone to leave a mass shooting with that much devastation, make it not only across state lines to another city, that’s rare and thank God it’s rare, but it was really a tense moment, I think, for a number of people in the area.

Frederica Freyberg:

Well, what do you think about whether or not the populace here should have been warned about that?

Noble Wray:

Well, I think that is something that I believe law enforcement, the law enforcement agencies should get together and discuss that. How does that happen? Who notifies the public? What information should come out? ‘Cause there is a balance. I think everyone understands what you do when you’re notified of an amber alert, but what information comes out when you have a mass shooting and you’re notifying the public, you don’t want the public to get too upset and where they’re paralyzed in acting. But in this particular case, you want people to take the proper precautions. What were the proper precautions under this scenario?

Frederica Freyberg:

What is your opinion as former law enforcement of these military-style assault rifles in the hands of civilians?

Noble Wray:

They have no place, not in a domestic setting. That is not even an argument or a debate. The high capacity, the ability for human destruction on the body. I understand the Second Amendment. I support the Second Amendment. I understand that in so many ways. And it is something that people hold near and dear to, it is a constitutional right. But I read the Constitution all the time and I’ve yet to see a constitutional right to an AK-47.

Frederica Freyberg:

As a police officer, do they scare you?

Noble Wray:

Yes, especially where the trends are going right now. The last three to four years, more gun purchases, more people possessing them in public places, in public spaces. And here’s the downside of where this is going to go. If you are, based upon some of the recent Supreme Court rulings, you’re more able to carry, open carry, or concealed carry. That means the interaction between a police officer and the citizen, that could change the dynamic of what takes place. We have relied on our ability to communicate with citizens, the ability to build a rapport, build trust. And if the first thing you’re thinking about is, is this person armed all the time, then what do you do? The second thing, from a tactical standpoint, when you have mass shootings and everyone is armed, where do you go with that one? Or when you have mass shootings and you’re looking for the suspect and there are people coming at you that are armed, how do you distinguish who is the person of suspect or the person of interest? Because it becomes more complex and a rapidly evolving situation that officers have to determine.

Frederica Freyberg:

On another matter, the arrest of the suspect in the Highland Park shooting was described as without incident. People are talking about kind of the stark difference between that arrest of a suspect and a mass murder essentially and the arrest of a young black man in Akron, Ohio who was gunned down during a traffic stop. What do you think of that?

Noble Wray:

Let me first start by saying both of these are still under investigation, but I do think, without getting into the specifics of the case, I do think historically and currently with today’s social context and what African Americans in particular believe, there’s a question in terms of how do I respond to police when I’m asked to stop at a traffic stop, or when I’m told to comply. Police officers, on one hand, they have a right to expect that you’re going to follow their commands. They have a right to expect that. But when you get situations like what happened six years ago with Philando Castile in Minneapolis where not only was he complying, but he was complying with the officer’s demand, but he even told the officer that there was a gun in the car. And so he’s complying, but he still ends up getting shot. And so that creates an ambiguity around, what do I do? Do I comply? If I comply, will I still be shot? And so you should comply and we want people to comply. And I don’t want to suggest in any way, shape, or form that just because there’s an element of race that we should go to the lowest common denominator. It should be equal justice under the law and everyone should be treated the same. I think that is the issue. But historically, and with today’s social context, I personally, and I have relatives, I have friends, there is a bit of confusion, a bit of fear, that if I comply, what will happen? If I don’t comply, what will happen? And again, that is a dialogue that needs to take place, seriously needs to take place between the police and many communities that they serve.

Frederica Freyberg:

All right. Noble Wray, thank you very much.

Noble Wray:

Thank you.