So, first of course, congratulations for the outcome of the Derek Chauvin trial which everyone has taken note of at this point.

But I want to start the conversation in a slightly different place.

This was a monumental achievement in the sort of relationship between police and their community, especially the relationship between police and African Americans.

And a lot of people are describing it as a potential turning point, right?

That maybe we go in a different direction.

I want to start with you talking about what you think that direction could look like now that we've gotten a conviction for a police officer who murdered a citizen.

And we got a jury to say that.

What's next?

I mean, obviously that's not the full repair that we need to this problem.

What would you like to see us do from here?

First thing, let's pass the George Floyd Justice and Policing Act.

That is an immediate short-term thing we could do.

We need the support of the Michigan congressional delegation, of the Minnesota congressional delegation, and it's stuck a little bit in the Senate.

And so I asked my friends, Debbie and Gary to do all they can to unstuck it and get it moving.

I've made the same request to Amy Klobuchar and Tina Smith here in Minnesota.

I know that Corey Booker and Tim Scott are negotiating right now.

They need to stay in the room until they come out with something good.

That is, that would be a substantial and important step forward.

I'd love to see him pass it before the anniversary of George Floyd's death, which would be May 25th.

And you know what?

I was so overjoyed when President Biden said that in his address to the Congress.

That's step one, job number one.

Let me say too, that you know, Kym Worthy, Wayne County prosecutor, tried a historic case involving the death of Malice Green.

And I think she got conviction there.

So it's important to get these convictions.

I think the more you get convictions, the more police have to say, "Okay, maybe I'll be more careful in doing my job.

Maybe people are going to hold me to account."

I think it is important for prosecutors all over the United States to know that the public expects them to prosecute police misconduct and excessive force, just like they would any other misconduct and illegal behavior.

Nobody's above the law.

Nobody's beneath the law.

Accountability is the key.

You can write all the policies you want but if they're just words on a page, you know, officers know that.

They know what's enforced and what's just written there.

And so there's gotta be a cultural shift towards accountability for everyone.

And you know, quite honestly I really believe officers who go to work every day to serve really want us to hold those who are not there for that purpose to be held to account.

And then of course I mentioned federal legislation.

I mentioned what prosecutors can do but really what I'm talking about is what community must demand.

Community must say, we expect these crimes to be prosecuted.

But then the Michigan state legislature, Minnesota state legislature, lot to be done there.

And I think we need to look at how a lot of these collective bargaining agreements are constructed between police departments and the police union.

Because if you have an arbitration clause regarding misconduct, where the arbitrator always just puts the officer back over and above what the chief wants, that's a bad sign.

The chief needs more control over discipline in the department, particularly as it relates to customers, consumers, citizens, residents, things like that.

Yeah, so I'm also curious what you make of this part of the narrative that says we can't fix policing the way it's constructed, the way it's imagined in this country.

It is not safe for particularly people of color and that we've got to do something completely different.

Now some people say it's defund the police.

I think that's a problematic term because that's not actually what their... It's really a hashtag.

Right, right.

That's what it is.

It's not a policy prescription.

It's not a policy approach.

But the idea of deconstructing and reconstructing the police.

Do you think we have to go to that extreme?

Well, the answer is yes.

But I would never adopt the language of defund the police, abolish the police.

I wouldn't use that term.

What I would say is we need to make the main thing, the main thing.

What's the main thing?

Public safety is the main thing.

That's the main thing.

We're trying to keep people safe.

How do we do that?

Is having every single case, having it responded with an armed person, the gun, whose training is to use the gun or the nightstick, the only way to achieve public safety.

I would say that in some cases, you get an armed shooter, you need that.

You have somebody threatening violence, you might need that.

But what about George Floyd?

Where he was accused of a fake 20?

Do you need a armed response to essentially a low level property offense where nobody has ever alleged that George Floyd even knew that the 20 was fake?

Right?

So, I mean, and then what about people who are in mental health crisis?

I mean if you're an officer who wants to help, but this person just looks angry and maybe they look assaultive, but they haven't yet assaulted anyone, maybe they are in a autistic meltdown.

What you need there is a professional who's gonna come and ascertain the problem and deescalate the problem.

And I think to a certain extent, American policing has let punitive measures and tough guy tactics be a surrogate for public safety.

And I think that we need to get back to, let's keep the community safe.

What do we need to do that?

And really reemphasize that.

And we will have armed people responding to crises.

That is an inevitability.

We will also do a lot more upstream things.

We will do a lot more.

We will diminish, we will reduce the number of unnecessary contacts.

I mean, if you have a camera, why do you need to stop somebody?

They could have let Daunte Wright go, and then mailed him his ticket for tags, right?

And you know, police have learned years ago, the high-speed chase are probably more dangerous.

It's probably safer to let that person go than to chase them, you know.

Because then they get an accident, kill civilians.

So we need to really put public safety as the driver.

Not, "I'm a macho man, And don't you talk back to me and if you sass me I'm gonna stick a gun in your face and call you a lot of foul names."

I mean, if you're just... What the police did to George Floyd in the very first, is deemed to be by our existing law, legal.

But in the very beginning, it's like, put the gun up in his hands.

He's got the hand gun cocked sideways, "Get the F out of the car."

I would submit to you that while the law protects the officer's behavior in that situation, because he didn't see his hands, that sort of set the tone for the entire encounter, you know?

(audio cutting) the incident, rather than the deescalation of the incident.

Right.

Right.

Police are there to deescalate, but often they don't.

Right.

"Step out of the car, sir.

I need to talk to you."

Just saying sir.

What if you just said, "Step out of the car, sir.

I need to talk to you," as opposed to "Show your effing hands!"

You know, I mean, look, is there an occasion where an officer has to draw a firearm on a person?

Sure.

There is.

Nobody's saying there's not.

I believe in officer safety and officer wellness.

But if your first move is, "Show me your effing hands!"

I mean, you know, honestly, a lot of people in our society don't believe African-Americans are routinely treated that way.

Right.

That's one of the cases, that's one of the reasons I'm glad this case was televised, so that the world could see, here is... this is routine in certain parts of our country.

And in other parts of our country, it would be absolutely intolerable.

I do wanna talk a little about Chauvin trial and what's next there.

You've made a sentencing recommendation in Chauvin's case and you've got more trials.

You have more officers.

Yeah, we do.

We have them.

And they're tough.

And we're gearing and we're working hard on it.

I have to say to everybody listening, the three defendants remaining are presumed innocent until proven guilty.

I want to be very clear.

They have a right to a fair trial, impartial jury.

And I stand by that as a prosecutor.

I'm not a minister of punishment.

I'm a minister of justice.

So I stand on that.

So that's coming up and I'm not gonna be able to speak that much about those three that's happening on August 23rd.

When it happens, the world will know.

But as it relates to Mr.

Chauvin, yeah, in Minnesota law, the second degree unintentional murder, which is the top count he was convicted of, carries with it a guideline sentence of 150 months.

And then in Minnesota, you do two thirds, right?

So it works out to a hundred months, which is about eight years inside.

And then you do the rest on supervised release.

We are arguing, and we have argued, and we are arguing now that there are aggravating factors in this case.

One is that Derek Chauvin was entrusted with the power prestige and esteem of the police department.

He was a person of trust and authority and used it in a way to effectively murder.

So that is more, that drives us in the direction of greater level of accountability and culpability.

George Floyd was particularly vulnerable.

He was in a prone position, hands behind his back.

There has been testimony that George Floyd had fentanyl in his system, that in my mind doesn't make it worse.

It makes it worse for Chauvin.

It makes him more vulnerable in greater need of care and concern by people who have rendered him helpless.

Right?

So those are two, number three.

It was performed in front of kids.

You commit an act of violence in front of kids.

that can mark them for a lifetime.

Traumatic.

Number three.

Number four I think I'm on is that I think it was particularly cruel to stay on top of him as he yelled that he couldn't breathe 27 times, screamed for his mother, stayed on top of him three four minutes after he didn't even have a pulse.

You know?

And so those are some of the aggravating factors that we identified, reasons why the judge we believe should depart support in this particular case.

I do want to give you a chance to talk about your roots here in Detroit.

Oh yeah.

You know, I'm so very proud of being born in Detroit and grew up in Detroit.

I went to Hampton Elementary, you know I went University Detroit High School on seven mile, went to Wayne State.

My dad went to Wayne State, you know?

And you know, my family is a product of the great migration.

My mother directly from Louisiana.

My father, his parents were from Florida and Georgia, came up to Detroit, worked in the factories there.

My grandfather worked at Boeing Aluminum and you know very proud to have those roots and got so many good friends and family members in Detroit, which I admire so much.

And my dear mother who we lost last year to COVID, you know was a staple and a stalwart and a pillar at Wayne County juvenile court services, and (indistinct) church, and I maintain made the best gumbo in Detroit.

And so, you know, yeah.

You know, I'm so proud of Detroit.

So fond of my roots there, and I get back there two three times a year, and I always have a great time.