Between Black Lives Matter and Back

the Blue, social media has been aflame with arguments

about cops and the communities they serve.

So what's the best way to reconcile the two groups?

Ask a man who's been doing that on Skid

Row for nearly 20 years.

REPORTER: Like many cities, Los Angeles

has a long history of tension between minorities and police.

LAPD officer Deon Joseph says the road

to reconciliation starts with prayer.

The way that I police with these people, the way

I treat them, it pleases my Father in heaven.

Because I'm fair to them.

I don't care if you're black, white.

I don't care if you're Muslim, Jew, gay, straight.

I don't care who you are.

If you need justice, I'm going to be fair to you,

and I'm gonna work hard for you.

REPORTER: Under his leadership, crime on Skid Row

has dropped 18%.

He works hard to bring people together from all backgrounds.

Today, he shares how the Lord leads

him to change Skid Row by sharing faith, bringing

justice, and building genuine relationships with those

in need.

Hey, I'm working on a program.

Deon Joseph is the author of the new book,

"Diary of a Skid Row Cop."

And he's here with us now.

Deon, thanks for being on the show.

It's good to meet you.

Thank you for having me.

Love your story.

Oh, thank you.

Now, Deon, you grew up in the LA area, right?

Long Beach, yup.

OK, and you had prayed not to be assigned to Skid Row.

Absolutely.

Absolutely.

From what I heard about it, it was just death, destruction.

People had all kinds of diseases and fighting

in front of patrol cars and couldn't be stopped.

Why would I want to go there, you know?

And that's where you ended up.

It's where I ended up, and it ended up

being where I felt that I was called to be.

Now, that didn't happen right away.

After a couple of months, you actually said to yourself,

I'm home.

Oh, absolutely.

And I was standing in Skid Row one day,

and people just kept coming up to me saying,

you know what, I can see it in your eyes.

There's something about you that's going to help me.

And I got really comfortable for some reason.

And I realized what that was.

And that was my upbringing.

My parents were involved in outreach their entire lives.

For their entire 47-year marriage,

they raised 41 foster children in addition

to their three children and their grandkids.

And I was their--

WENDY GRIFFITH: Did you say 41 foster kids?

DEON JOSEPH: 41 foster kids.

WENDY GRIFFITH: And so you had a lot

of pseudo brothers and sisters.

DEON JOSEPH: Yes, yes.

And these kids came into our homes broken, sexually

molested, homeless.

Some of them were crack babies, you name it.

It was just a miracle to watch how

they gave a non-patronizing but unconditional style of love

to them.

And many of them didn't even want

to leave our home from the love my parents gave to them.

And I learned from that.

My dad, he hired individuals who needed a second chance.

My dad didn't tell me for years that I was swinging

a hammer next to an ex-convict.

And many of the people he hired were.

And he believed that these men, if they

wanted-- that's the key-- a second chance,

they deserved it.

And he never called them his employees.

He always called them his friends.

So I learned from that as well.

Your dad ran a construction business.

Yes.

And he hired these guys right out of jail.

A lot of people wouldn't do that.

Some of them had criminal records.

Others got passed over because of racism,

and they couldn't get jobs anywhere else.

And my dad would help them out.

And Officer Joseph, you became a Christian

at a very young age.

Yes.

Yes, I did.

How old were you, five?

I was seven years.

Seven years old.

Seven years old.

And I loved what you said in your bio.

You said you were in church, you felt something warm,

it felt like love, and you were like, I want that.

Yeah.

Because I used to play around in church.

I'm the guy whose mom had to keep flicking him

in the back of the ear, you know.

But then one day I just heard a message that touched my heart,

and I just never looked back.

Never looked back.

So amazingly-- or not amazingly, but God clearly

prepared to be a cop on Skid Row.

And for a lot of people, they don't

know what Skid Row-- how bad it is, really?

DEON JOSEPH: Well, let me break it down to you.

Skid Row is a recovery zone.

It's where a lot of drug programs, shelters, services,

about 107 programs to help people get on their feet.

The problem is, Skid Row attracts

two groups of individuals-- individuals

in desperate need of services they

can't afford anywhere else.

Like your favorite celebrity, where do they go?

Betty Ford, Malibu, Passages, there's horses running around,

yoga.

Great.

WENDY GRIFFITH: [LAUGHING]

DEON JOSEPH: These folks have to rehabilitate

in the middle of a drug bazaar.

And the reason why it's a drugs bazaar

is because it attracts the latter, hundreds and hundreds

of drug dealers, gang members, who descend upon Skid Row

to prey on them.

And they're outside and sometimes inside

of the programs, keeping them on an endless spiral of addiction.

And the poor quality of life also fuels that as well.

WENDY GRIFFITH: How have you turned the streets around?

And you have.

In some areas, the crime has gone down dramatically.

What is your secret?

Well, I look back on my career, I

was one of those cops who would arrest everybody in sight.

I was very good at-- and there's nothing wrong with that.

It was noble.

I was going after bad guys.

I was putting people who were causing problems

in the street in jail.

But when I look back, the very system

that tells me to go out and fight crime

was fighting against me, because they get

released immediately almost.

So I looked back and said, nothing's changing.

I had to change.

So what I had to do was develop something called

the sit-down technique, where said,

I'm going to be visible to these people to deter crime.

I'm going to reach out from the heart.

I'm going to find out information

about drug programs, transitional housing, housing

programs, whatever it takes to elevate you.

I read you actually went-- there

were a group of drug dealers, and I think they were gambling.

You poured anointing oil on the sidewalk.

What was that about?

Well, I had been frustrated.

I had done so much to try to stop

a lot of the activity on one particular street,

and it wasn't working.

And the--

WENDY GRIFFITH: And prayed.

I just sat in my patrol car and got inside my personal self

and just prayed.

I said, God, what can I do here?

My mom had this anointing oil that she would always

pour on my head.

WENDY GRIFFITH: I love it.

I looked like a fried chicken by the time she done with me.

[LAUGHING]

And I said, let me try this, Mom.

All right, here we go.

And I tried that for some reason after praying.

I looked up, and about 3/4 of them were gone.

The anointing breaks the yoke of bondage, right?

[BOTH LAUGHING]

And it was just simple.

What I felt what was being said in my heart was,

the answer is already inside you.

Be there for them.

WENDY GRIFFITH: Be there.

And I stayed there.

And it was amazing to have-- when

you see the real community come out and tell you

how they feel-- thank you, don't leave, keep walking this beat,

we need to see you.

WENDY GRIFFITH: So the key was being visible, being available,

us and being present in the neighborhoods.

And at some point, I think you said

you went and told the neighbors, hey,

you can come out and walk your dogs now.

Yeah.

Come out, walk your dogs, hang out.

Hey, you can feel free to come to me.

I put out a big old sandwich truck or a mobile sub station

to deter the wolves so the sheep could come to us for help.

Because most people in those communities

aren't going to come because there's

a figurative and sometimes literal gun to their head

telling them not to work with the police.

You had to break that to get to the real heart

of the community.

And you have started programs.

One of them is for prostitutes in that

area called Ladies Night.

What's that about?

Ladies Night was started in 2008.

But it was birthed in my heart in 1999

when I saw a prostitute had been brutally raped.

And she didn't want my help because she

was-- it was just a life.

Her Johns, pimps, everybody told her, if you go to the police,

you're going to be arrested.

Well, in 2008, the same things were happening, so I said,

what can I do here?

Let me just put together a big old program,

big old show for the ladies here called a Ladies Night.

And I had pizza there.

And I only expected five women to show up.

But to the grace of God and the relationship

I built with the community-- and that's important part,

is building those relationships--

we had 175 women show up throughout the night from Skid

Row.

And these women had criminal records.

And my message to them was, I don't care if you're

a prostitute or a preacher.

I don't care if you're on probation.

I don't care what you were doing when you were sexually

assaulted or abused.

You have a fundamental right to report these crimes.

Because we had gangsters, you had advocates,

and you had Johns telling them the opposite.

And that's why they weren't coming.

And here's the result. This is amazing how God works.

Three women who were victims of the taxicab serial rapist

that was running around just brutalizing women

were in that audience that night.

And he had violated them weeks before.

They finally came forward, and it helped send him away

for the rest of his life.

So it worked.

And there's so much more I want to talk to you about,

but we're out of time.

With what's going on in America with this war on cops

and as an African American police officer, I mean,

how can you in like 30 seconds sum up--

what is the solution to what's been

going on with this war on cops?

In 30 seconds, all I have to say

is I thought exactly like the very people who

are shouting against me.

And the most important thing you need to do

is take the time to see the other side.

The only difference between me and them

right now is for 20 years I've been on the other side.

I've been black longer than I've been a cop,

and that's not going to change--

[BOTH LAUGHING]

---at all.

I hope not.

It's beautiful.

But I've seen the other side.

I've seen the vast majority of cops, they want to save lives.

They don't want to hurt people.

They want to get to know you.

You just have to open your heart.

You have to open your heart.

Oh, there's so much tomorrow that we could talk about.

But Deon, thank you so much for your service.

God bless you.

Thank you.

Well, you can learn more from him by going to CNB.com

and getting his book.

It's called "Diary of a Skid Row Cop."

I just feel like this is going to be

a movie one of these days.

He also had more to say in our behind-the-scenes interview

on Facebook Live.

And you can watch that by going to facebook.com/700club.