National Police Association Podcast with Guest, James Walden, Candidate for NYC Mayor, Former Asst US Attorney
Hi, this is Sergeant Betsy Brantner Smith with the National Police Association, and this is the National Police Association podcast. I have a guest today who has some fantastic ideas on how to bring true law and order back to New York City, how to really save justice, save the NYPD, save the people of New York. You know, we all pay attention to what's happening around this country, and New York right now is truly in a fight for its life. And there's a lot of talk about defunding the NYPD and so many other things. So I thought you needed to hear from a guy who really has excellent ideas and isn't running around doing crazy TikTok videos and all that is you know a very thoughtful man and experienced man.
Betsy Smith:So Jim Walden welcome to the show.
James Walden:Thank you, thank you. First of all, you for your service and secondly, you for having me on the air.
Betsy Smith:Absolutely. So you're an attorney and you started off as a prosecutor, a federal prosecutor. What was that like?
James Walden:It was it was, for a young guy, a young lawyer, it was the best job I can ever imagine. I mean, I I wasn't planning on being a prosecutor. I actually clerked for a judge in Philadelphia, and he sized me up and then made me go watch a trial and I was riveted. It was crack dealers who had killed a bunch of their colleagues who were stealing from the group and they boiled one of them in oil, in a vat of oil. And I was riveted during the trial and I thought, oh my God, I've got to do that.
Betsy Smith:You know, we always, you know, people are always saying, why don't the police arrest this person? Why don't they arrest that person? Or, you know, all of this stuff. And I'm always trying to get people to understand, yes, the police, we arrest the bad guys. We could arrest all the bad guys in the world, but if you don't have a good prosecutor your arrest goes nowhere, right?
James Walden:It's true. And I mean, honestly, I worked with the greatest of the great. We when I I was doing mostly organized crime prosecution when I was in the US attorney's office for what's called the Eastern District Of New York, which is Brooklyn, Staten Island, parts of Long Island, Queens. And I assembled a task force that included the NYPD and some legendary NYPD officers. And they actually worked hand in hand with the FBI and the Drug Enforcement Administration.
James Walden:Everyone was on the same page. We had a war room for and we put so many gangsters away. It really it really was an effective law enforcement strategy.
Betsy Smith:And you know New York is really the epicenter for those types of task forces because criminals don't know jurisdictional boundaries and that's something that we have learned in law enforcement, but I always think we're a little behind. It really took us until the late 80s and into the 90s to really understand the task force concept and that you needed everybody, state, local, federal, and your prosecutors to really make an impact, especially when it came to things like public corruption and organized crime, right?
James Walden:I couldn't agree with you more, Betsy. I mean, it it is a full contact sport, and those weren't the only three agencies that worked with us. We had fire marshals working on some of the arson cases. We had IRS agents working with us on some of the financial components. And when you bring everyone together and you stop competing for cases and you're really working together and pulling in the same direction, there's really nothing that that you can't do.
James Walden:I mean, I don't remember the exact tally, but I think we solved something like 25 cold case homicides. We put away members of the administration from every organized crime family in New York. We put away a generation of some of the more ultraviolent associates that had been on a killing rampage across the city in the late nineties. So it was it's really effective what law enforcement can do. And and thankfully, our law enforcement in The United States is second to none.
James Walden:I mean, in every jurisdiction, every pocket of the country, we've got cops and agents and investigators that really keep us going as a country. And so we need to salute them and treat them better in every possible way.
Betsy Smith:So you went into private practice and as an attorney in the East, you could just have your summers in the Hamptons and do all that stuff, do a little bit corporate law, but you decided to get into politics, Jim. Talk to me about that decision.
James Walden:Well, it's a longer story than that because honestly, I don't think I would have run for politics if it wasn't for what was happening in New York City now. For the past twenty three years, I've been a private attorney, but in various firms and now in my own firm for more than a decade, I chose to bring a lot of cases to help people from every walk of life. So I've brought cases or defended cases for or on behalf of police officers and other law enforcement agents. But I've also helped the indigent. I've helped people from low income housing.
James Walden:I've helped school kids, and that calling to service was very much a relic of the time that I was in the US Attorney's Office when I felt like I was using my law degree for good. So I did dozens of cases like that over the course of twenty three years just because I wanted to give back in a meaningful way. I didn't care about having a mansion in the Hamptons or driving a Jaguar or whatever. But now we're at a critical point in New York City where we've gone through ten years of terrible mayors who mismanaged the city, broke the NYPD to the point that it's hard to recognize sometimes. Now we're going through a safety crisis.
James Walden:It's getting a little bit better. The numbers are improving in some areas, but they're not improving in some of the more disadvantaged areas of the city. Felony assaults are at an all time high. And we can't seem to get our act together. And all of the problems that we have in New York, they come down to one thing, bad political leadership, misuse of money.
James Walden:We've got a $118,000,000,000 budget in New York City, and we can't seem to keep our subways safe. Give me a break. So I decided to jump in the fray because I've seen the mayors over the course of the last ten years and they're certainly less qualified than any one of us And it's time for people that are capable and have deep integrity to get corruption out of city hall, get back to good political decision making, and most importantly, providing and ponying up for the people that we're supposed to serve rather than making the office all about ourselves because that's what politicians, career politicians do. Everything's about them, their ambitions, their projects, their pet projects, their cronies. We have to have a different sort of leadership, and that's what I'm hoping to bring to City Hall.
Betsy Smith:You know, you had a front row seat to the erosion of life in New York City, the erosion of pride for the NYPD. I mean, post nineeleven oh one, all of us were running around wearing NYPD hats and t shirts and NYPD and the NYFD were the most respected public safety organizations in this country. How did we get to where we're at now?
James Walden:Betsy, it's such a great question. I'm so glad that you asked it. The truthful answer is I get dizzy when I think about it. And it's a million different things. Right?
James Walden:It's it's people blame it's essentially, it comes down, in my view, to a form of bigotry against police. And we kind of got past 09:11, and then we went through COVID, and then there were a lot of incidents nationwide where people felt as though black and brown people were being mistreated by police officers. And it ballooned into this ridiculous revolution where we thought, I mean, we never thought, but they thought that somehow we could be safe while we were, attacking police officers, making their jobs more difficult. It's ridiculous. Like, the whole defund the police, that was a terrible policy.
James Walden:It's a stupid policy. And at its core, it's a bigoted policy. It's bigoted again bigotry against cops. We don't allow bigotry for other groups, but somehow it's become fashionable, not just acceptable, but fashionable to be bigoted against cops even though by any measure, the overwhelming majority of police officers have have even few civilian complaints. And people just don't realize that their acts of heroism in their cities every single day that the cops aren't going on social media and doing TikTok saying, I'm so great.
James Walden:I saved this person and neither are their police departments. But if they did, they'd overwhelm the Internet. So I know this because I've, you know, served alongside or with or been friends with police officers the entire time I've been in New York City, and I'm just sick and tired of it. And for to hear the the so called progressives talk about defund the police, that's the most regressive thing because the victims of that will be more dead black black and brown people in disadvantaged communities. And that's why so many places that I've gone to, they've said to me, please bring the police back.
James Walden:We need more police in our neighborhood and I'm not surprised by that at all because it's not the people that are affected that are really organized and trying to gut the police or or shame the police. It is these so called intelligentsia, I don't even know what to call them, but they think they know better than everyone else and they're advocating policies that are going to be a disaster.
Betsy Smith:You know, you're absolutely right. And it's usually people who live in gated communities or have building security and things like that. You know, what what no one ever wants to talk about is post the death of George Floyd, thousands, literally thousands of more young black men died in this country sacrifice, if you will, of George Floyd because we had less police, less proactive policing, and those men did not have to die. And now to talk about defunding the NYPD, which there is a candidate for mayor in New York, you know, who has been talking about that for years. We had to, you know, defund the NYPD.
Betsy Smith:What would it be like in New York City if you just push the NYPD aside and say yeah. I don't even understand the logics.
James Walden:Well, let's
Betsy Smith:just logic behind that.
James Walden:Let's just take a simple example. This is the the latest the latest, explanation of what a post, defunding of the police would look like. Right? So he's trying to talk a careful game now despite all of the videos that you can find in the social media posts where he calls the police corrupt and wicked and says we have to defund them. We have to dismantle them.
James Walden:It's not even just he said defund. He's literally called for dismantling the police. Right? So this is a very radical, radical person. Now he's saying, well, all I wanna do is I wanna freeze policing levels now and give some of the police's response or the police responsibilities over to essentially civilians.
James Walden:I say that they they I've I've used the the the like wet nurses. But one of the things that he wants to take away from police, you're gonna love this, is responding to domestic violence calls. Now, can you imagine a a a more fraught situation that requires policing expertise to deescalate situations and to make sure that victims, mostly women, right, overwhelmingly women being abused by men, to keep them safe. Does he actually think that civilians are gonna be able to do that job? It's, like, it's it's out of a some stupid textbook somewhere and and not even a college one.
James Walden:It sounds like it's like a radical kindergarten textbook where everyone's nice and everyone's good and there aren't really bad people in the world. So, so it's a vision for New York or any city that is built on silliness. And the fact that people are essentially overlooking it and saying, well, he's young and he's engaged younger voters and he puts out good TikTok videos. If this is what we've become, then we've got real problems, which is one of the reasons I'm standing up and saying, I'm in this race. I'm gonna get us back to sanity.
James Walden:I'm gonna inspire young people with better ideas and ideals that are sustainable and will create a safe and fair society. It doesn't have to be this radical approach.
Betsy Smith:Now, the New York City Council is not exactly filled with people that love the NYPD. I know of some of them who seem to have a very tenuous grasp on the law. They have no grasp of police procedures, some of them that I have seen and seen some of the things they have said. What would you do if you were elected mayor to help the NYPD, even if you have a city council who still wants to kick them around like a political football?
James Walden:Well, listen, What I'd like to do, can't do, which is to put a requirement in that you can't serve in the city council unless you've walked a beat for a month or two. Right? That would be a great thing, to get people to understand what cops actually have to do as part of their job because I agree with you wholeheartedly. They don't seem to understand it. But I put out a proposal as part of my race, which as you can imagine wasn't very popular in some circles, but I put it out anyway, that would limit the ability of the city council to pass legislation that micromanaged police operations.
James Walden:I mean, they really have no business whatsoever in that realm. There's clearly a direct responsibility on the mayor and the police commissioner to deal with safety. So as mayor, I hope that we could get that limitation into our governing document, which is called the New York City Charter. But if not, they're going to be taking me to court a lot because if they pass laws that limit my police commissioner's ability to manage his or her own police department in the way that they see fit, I'm gonna direct them not to follow the law and we're gonna go to court and get injunctions because the city council really should not be in the policing business. They have a hard enough job just getting good legislation passed that actually helps people.
Betsy Smith:You know, the NYPD has really been under attack, under assault almost for the last ten or twelve years, really well prior to 2020. And because of that, and because of what then happened after 2020 and COVID and the George Floyd BLM riots, the payouts that some of the rioters got because the NYPD dared lay hands on them, The New York City Police Department is woefully short staffed. And every New York cop that I know that is still on the job basically has a countdown calendar on their counting down to the day that they can retire and move to Florida or move to New Jersey or whatever. What's your thoughts on that? What would you do about that if you were running the city?
James Walden:Well, so first of all, I will say that whatever that countdown calendar is, it's been reset to, whatever, January 20 because if the guy that won the Democratic primary is is actually elected in the general election this November, I guarantee you that there's gonna be police flight from New York City at at levels that we've never seen before because many, many cops, and I've talked to a lot over course of the campaign so far, want nothing to do with a New York City that's run by a guy that's this radical. This guy, by the way, let's give him a name. His name is Zorhan Mamdani. 33 year old paper thin resume, has mostly failed at any job he had up until now, but he's the person that the Democratic Party has elected as the Democratic nominee for the mayor. But as mayor, I'll I'll tell you, first of all, there'd be a tone from the top that would be radically different.
James Walden:Rudy Giuliani was obviously a pro cop mayor. He actually wasn't that good with respect to the NYPD unions, and I would be much better than them. So the first thing is there would be a tone from the top that we're back to a place where we respect and love the police, and I'll show that in every possible way that I can. One of them is picking a police commissioner based on merit and merit alone, and I've already announced that I will actually not pick the police commissioner myself. I'm gonna pick a group of policing experts that includes the former DA of Manhattan, Cy Vance, a former police commissioner Ray Kelly, another deputy commissioner, Bob Ganley, and a number of others.
James Walden:And they are going to choose three candidates and give those candidates to me, and I'll choose one of the three. And that way people will know there's no cronyism. There's no patronage. I'm choosing based on a good process that gives the best three candidates a shot at the job. And then I'm gonna be dealing with the police unions in a much better way.
James Walden:They need to be they need to make more money. I am gonna raise cops' salary. We have to do it. If we wanna be competitive I mean, I I myself have seen recruiting videos where NYPD officers have left and gone to other cities in the country where people actually respect where they are paid a living wage. In some of these cities, they have preferences for better mortgages or better housing.
James Walden:We have to start doing that if we want to try to reclaim a position where we're actually offering cops the ability to have families and provide for those families.
Betsy Smith:I wanna jump in on that for just one minute because one of the things I don't think the general public really understands is how low the pay is at NYPD compared to LA or Chicago or even Austin, Texas, Dallas. It's pretty extraordinary and that was over the decades that I've come to New York and trained their cops and things. And they would ask me, well, what do you make? And the differences were stunning to me. And yet they were so dedicated and cops in New York love New York City like no other police department I've seen.
Betsy Smith:They're there because it's in their heart.
James Walden:Yeah. Can I just so I agree with you, and I'll I'll share a short short story with you, which is I was in my own neighborhood, and my neighborhood is a fair I wouldn't say we're conservative in the sense that there are a lot of Republicans, but but they're mostly Democrats, but they're relatively centrist? We have a business district, and there were cops that were encountering a man that was he was a street performer, but he was getting really kinda crazy and shouting and making people feel upset. So the police were trying to politely get him down the street so that they could figure out whether or not he was having a mental health problem. And and he wouldn't cooperate, so they had to physically they didn't, handcuff him right away.
James Walden:They physically moved him several stores down. Guess what happened? Immediately, a bunch of 20 pulled out their phones and started recording and screaming at the police for police brutality. And, of course, the guy that they were trying to assess started screaming himself and making a big scene. Like, that kind of scene replaced itself all over New York where, however strongly the police have felt about New York, I don't think they feel so strongly right now in terms of the level of support they're getting.
James Walden:And I think that that is just a travesty. I mean, it and it's and it's a train wreck waiting to happen because cops have opportunities, as you've said, to move their families to other places that are safer for them to police because there's less crime. They get paid a living wage. They have housing options that aren't true here, and they get respect from the general public. So if you're I just saw a video on Instagram that I agreed with.
James Walden:Was someone that was raised in a Black and Brown community, a disadvantaged community, that was actually talking about how difficult it is to be a cop right now. And his perspective, and I agree with it, is no sane person would be a cop right now in New York City given all of the things that are happening, including all of this corruption being exposed at the very top of the department by cronies of our current mayor.
Betsy Smith:You know, and you're absolutely right about that. And if this doesn't change, know, New York is gonna be a completely failed city. You can't destroy one of the largest police departments in the world and not have it affect your city. You also have, because again, because NYPD is thousands of officers short, you also have a plan to keep some of those officers who are eligible for retirement to get them to stay on the job. Talk to me about that.
James Walden:Well, listen. I mean, again, as part of a whole package that, that I hope will be received by the police department is very pro police. I think that, you know, that maybe maybe that because they're gluttons for punishment, there are a lot of cops that are near the end of their careers that still want to serve. I mean, talk about heroes. I mean, to to want to have longer a longer career in NYPD is something that we should definitely be celebrating and encouraging, especially at a time when we're really down police officers.
James Walden:So I definitely would like to extend the opportunity for those police officers to continue to serve in whatever capacity they can. There'll be some that can still patrol. There'll be others that maybe they can train in the police academies, others that can do supervisory jobs that are super important. But one of the ways that I want to have more cops is to retain those that are willing to work into their golden years.
Betsy Smith:I love that. I was 50 years old when I retired after twenty nine years and I retired from the police department, but I went on to run my own company. I still do that. And that's what most cops do because 50 is pretty young, 50, 55, that's kind of the standard around the country. You're still pretty young and like you said, you still wanna serve a lot of cops, they go into training or security or go to a smaller sheriff's department kind of situation.
Betsy Smith:But if you can get those cops to stay with all their experience and their commitment to the NYPD. I think that would be a genius idea.
James Walden:It's definitely a win win.
Betsy Smith:Absolutely. So in New York, you have this your mayor's race is weird. I don't know how else to say it. But you you it's you have all these different candidates. You know, the primary's over and all that.
Betsy Smith:How is that gonna play out, do you think? And and and how do you want that to play off play out as we get into the fall?
James Walden:Well, just for your viewers that may not be familiar with the New York race, I don't need to go into a whole bunch of detail, but they're basically five people in the race. There's the socialist, anti police, anti Semite, Zorhan Mamdani. Don't even get me started. And then there are four what I will call adults. And I'm not saying adult because they're quality people, but they're old enough and have done enough in their lives that at least I understand why they're running.
James Walden:But there is the current mayor, Eric Adams, who was a former NYPD officer himself. There's Andrew Cuomo, who was the governor of the state of New York for, I don't remember, think nine years, and he resigned in disgrace. There is a Republican named Curtis Liwa who is a radio personality and then there's me. Now my concern was and is that given how popular Mamdani is with particularly Democrats on the farther end of the left spectrum that the four of us who are somewhere between centrist Democrats, independents, and Republicans are gonna split that vote. And the way that the Democrats have basically rigged the game here, they have these elections not in presidential years because then it'll be lower turnout and the unions, are mostly democratically aligned, can control the outcome.
James Walden:So if we're lucky, we'll get 1,300,000 people to vote and Mamdani got 545,000 votes in the primary. So that doesn't leave a lot of room for error. If you have four people splitting the vote, then you're essentially by dint of the crowded nature of the field ensuring that you're going to elect the guy that has the least business being in City Hall. So I've proposed a pledge among the four candidates that we would have a poll at the September or the October. We would all agree on the parameters of the poll and who is going to do it and make sure that it's fair to everyone, but that we essentially agreed that the winner would take all and that the three people that were ranked the lowest in the poll would, you know, however the regulators would allow us to say this, because there are some regulatory issues, but that they would align around the front runner and then it would essentially be a one on one race.
James Walden:Because I don't think that the socialist guy Mamdani can win if it was a one on one race. So I put this out. It was contrary to the advice of my campaign staff because they're like, well, you're gonna surge and, you know, maybe you'll be one or two points behind the front runner when September or October occurs. And my position is, yeah, that I'm I think that will happen because I believe in my record of of success and service. But who cares?
James Walden:If I'm one or two points behind and I will essentially then create a spoiler situation, My political ambitions have to take a back seat to the good of New York, not just for New Yorkers, but for the whole country because a lot of the country's wealth comes through New York. I mean, we've got more than a trillion dollars of value that comes to this city in some form or fashion every year. And so if New York slides down a rabbit hole, it's bad for the entire country. I mean frankly it's bad for the entire world because we're an economic driver for places around the world. So I decided to put my money where my mouth is to be the first person to raise my hand to say, if everybody else signs up for this, I think this is better for New Yorkers even if it's bad for my campaign.
Betsy Smith:I tell you, that is a fascinating concept. I know not everybody is as into politics as some of the rest of us are, but I find that fascinating. And however things shake out, New York, like you said, I mean the whole world is watching this, and the entire law enforcement community is watching this because again, where NYPD goes, so goes the rest of law enforcement. We love our brothers and sisters from the NYPD, and we want them to be able to continue to do their jobs and keep their cities safe and not have to deal with destructive forces. Jim, I wish we had about another hour and a half to talk, but tell people where they can find you, where they can follow you, how they can learn more about what you're doing.
James Walden:This is a great conversation. Can't believe we're almost out of time. My social media is jimfornyc and my website is jimfornyc.com. So I hope people look at the other policies that I have up there because I think you'll I hope you'll find them to be solid and maybe even a little inspirational. But I promise everyone I'm gonna fight, fight, fight to try to reclaim sanity in City Hall because I do not want to see us slip down the socialist, Semitic, anti cop path.
James Walden:And I think the majority of New Yorkers stand together on that.
Betsy Smith:That's awesome. Jim, thanks for your service to this country. Thanks for you and thanks for your support of law enforcement as well and we appreciate you spending time with us today. And if you'd like more information about the National Police Association, visit us at nationalpolice.org.
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