(gentle twinkling music) - [Narrator] This is a Milwaukee PBS "Listen MKE" special presentation.

- Welcome to another edition at "Listen "MKE Live".

I'm James Causey, a columnist with the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, and I will be your host today with a great panel to discuss Kenosha, one year since the Jacob Blake shooting, How much progress has been made in Kenosha?

What challenges remain, and what can we expect to see?

"Listen MKE Live" is a collaboration between the Ideas Lab, which I'm a member of at the Journal Sentinel, WUWM 89.7 FM, Milwaukee's NPR, Milwaukee's PBS, and the Milwaukee Public Library.

Joining us today to talk about Kenosha is Diamond Hartwell, a Kenosha native and human rights activist, Dayvin Hallmon, a former Kenosha County Board member who fought down Kenosha Police to wear body cameras, and State Representative, David Bowen from Milwaukee, who has been marching for over a year for police reform and human rights.

We're also hope to have a member of Jacob Blake's family on, as well.

But I wanna start first with Diamond.

So the mayor has started this effort to bring people together since the shooting of Jacob Blake.

And I just wanna talk to you about what has taken place as far as these talks?

What have you participated in?

- Well, this grand scheme idea is called the Commit to Roadmap, Action or Commit to Action Roadmap.

Something along those lines.

And this is something that actually came to his mind before the events of Jacob and everything that followed.

It didn't come to fruition until after the events that unfolded in Kenosha.

It really came together after he hosted listening sessions.

I believe those didn't happen for a while after the incident with Jacob.

Those happened a couple months later.

And yeah, really, the Commit to Action Roadmap, it's a group of committees and subcommittees that get together and hyper-focus on specific things.

So the first step on this roadmap was policing.

So there was the Policing Committee made of local clergy, and then the subcommittees, which were headed by local clergy members, and then there were people like me, just regular citizens.

And there were some officers on it, some people on different City Administration boards and things like that.

And we all focused on specific things within the police department.

Like, the one I was on was Training.

And we spent a couple months doing research and coming up with proposals.

And then we submitted our proposals.

And I did learn last night that the committee did meet, and they talked about all the proposals that came forward.

And I guess we're at a speed bump in the road, waiting for the report to come back.

- Is that a little bit disappointing, knowing that so far, you know, you guys have been meeting for months, and you come up with proposals to make change, but still it's been a little slow with the action to take place?

- Oh, it's absolutely disappointing.

If there's a word for more than disappointing, it is that.

Because the whole process has been incredibly slow.

This is something that the mayor had been talking about doing since June or July of last year.

And it's not something that really came together until early this year.

I think the first meetings that we had were in March.

And then we did do a lot of research.

We spent a lot of time together.

We met once or twice a month, put a lot of hours in.

Me, personally, I didn't do the research.

I did community outreach and got their opinions.

Like, "Hey, what do you wanna see, training-wise?"

Did a lot of learning.

Like, I learned all about KPD's training.

I mean, a lot of effort was put into it, and it was a lot of emotional labor, too.

And for it to just be sitting on somebody's desk right now is really disappointing, and it's really a slap in the face because it's not just me, personally, that's affected.

It's the whole community.

And I know there's a lot of community members right now who are like, "What's going on?

"Where's the change?

"If you're actually doing something, where is it at?

"Like, update us.

"What's going on?"

- We have Justin Blake, the uncle of Jacob Blake that I would like to bring in right now.

How are you doing, Justin?

- Assalamu alaikum, dear brother.

Thank you for having us.

Doing great.

- Hey, thanks for joining us.

Can you give us an update on how your relative, how Jacob Blake is doing?

Your nephew.

- My nephew, little Jake, is just getting out of hospital again after suffering severe pain.

They're trying to, he has a new doctor, so they're trying to manage his pain better In order for him do do his therapy, he needed more pain management.

But he and our entire family are disgusted at the lying of, about all the deceitfulness that's going on in and around this case.

Diamond, we love her to death, but she's such a lady, she couldn't say it.

The mayor's a bold-faced liar, They utilize community members to make it look and to placate to the people as though something was gonna be done when nothing at all has happened.

I just got off another interview with the chief of police, that the African-American community, he's been having me just talking to the people, and things are going well.

He's a liar.

Things are not well in the community.

I don't have to be nice anymore about it.

A racist systemic runs through their whole topper echelon, in their government, in the sheriff's police department, in the DA, and et cetera.

So, you know, as an uncle, I got the right to be frustrated as hell after I've been down there almost a year, nothing at all has happened.

The police officer shot my nephew's back at work.

There's a gentleman running for sheriff that murdered somebody 15 years ago.

We got arrested and brutalized and our shoulder torn out of place while we're in custody.

So nothing absolutely has changed.

It's gotten worse.

And I love Diamond to death.

She's such a lady.

But I don't have to be nice.

- Let me ask you this.

What do you wanna see?

What kind of change do you wanna see happen in Kenosha?

I understand the frustration, but let's talk about change that you would like to see.

- Well, let's talk about, how about let's have a real investigation?

How about let's get the gentleman, the gentleman, the cop, that shot my nephew indicted and get him fired and indicted in jail.

That'd be the hell of a beginning.

Because right now, it's open season on African-Americans in Kenosha.

Why?

Because my nephew didn't commit a crime.

They never charged him with a crime.

And if you understand that fact, and this man got away with shooting our nephew seven times in the back and paralyzed him, then you can understand no African-Americans in the city, state, or county of Wisconsin, or specifically, Kenosha, Wisconsin, are able to walk around in comfort.

How can they possibly?

- Can we talk a little bit about how Jacob's sons are doing?

I know that they witnessed a shooting.

They were in the back seat when their father was shot.

What kind of trauma did they endure, and how are they coping right now?

- They're not coping well.

They often have times where the situations, you can clearly see are responses and actions that are far outside what a kid their age would do.

And they're in therapy.

And let's hope somewhere down the line and in the future that they can live more of a regular life.

But the fact of the matter is, they watched their father being shot right outside their door seven times in the back by a white police officer named Sheskey that's still employed by the police department of Kenosha.

- Let me ask you this.

So, you know, Jacob Blake has had over 30 surgeries.

What's the prognosis on him for any kind of recovery?

I know you mentioned the pain that he was undergoing.

Is there any chance that he'll ever walk again?

- Not at this point, brother.

It's pain every day.

He manages to keep his head up and stay on point, continue to fight the battle.

And he has dreams and has goals of walking again.

But the realization of that being right now isn't that highly that that will happen.

What would help is trying to get some type of justice and correct things in Kenosha so this doesn't happen to another African-American father in front of his children in Kenosha.

- Okay.

Hey, I appreciate you coming on.

If you can, I want you to hang tight.

I want to go to Representative David Bowen.

And if we can bring David Bowen on.

Hey, David.

So you've been marching all over the country for justice and for police reform.

You proposed several bills on police reform.

What do those bills look like?

So we proposed a whole package.

And this really dived into the solutions that were being avoided by the folks that were at the table controlling the conversation around reform.

There is no easy way to do this.

No way to put the things under the rug that are just too controversial to talk about when it comes to an issue so that citizens in the state of Wisconsin can be treated as human beings, they can be respected of their rights.

And what we did was, we went from every angle to ensure that there can be impartiality.

We can take out a bias.

We can take out of the processes that could lean a certain way because someone may decide that they want to not conduct an investigation properly.

They want to sway the report that goes to someone to make a decision on charging.

And that that decision to charge isn't made by somebody that will be inclined after their history of working with that police department to lean a certain way in that in that charge.

So we went to the basics and, you know, we have a 12 bill package that dives into everything from the charging decision itself.

Instead of a DA, it would be by a court-appointed judge, just like we're seeing in the John Doe case with Jay Anderson Jr.

It would be ensuring that the folks conducting the investigations of a police-involved shooting, even though now, we have state law that changes it, that that police department isn't investigating themselves, we also need to make sure that the individuals conducting the investigation aren't related or have not worked on the police department that they're investigating before.

There needs to be a time removed so that we can create some distance and that we can create reasons for the public to trust their police departments again, to trust that it's in their hands, and they have a chance to be able to show that they're going to be by the book, that they're going to follow these rules.

And we're seeing so many instances in real-time, right now, of investigations that have been done, and they literally have to be thrown away because they weren't done with the impartiality that they needed.

We also have bills around even ensuring holding officers accountable, that the definitions of, police of use of force entails that you're not throwing under the rug the chance of an officer not being held accountable by their colleague.

It was one of the things that was taken out of the police reforms that were passed.

And it was opposed by the Milwaukee Police Association, unfortunately, on the floor of the assembly, at the last minute.

And we need that part of the legislation to ensure that officers have the backup to support holding each other accountable, that we can create cultures where officers don't have to fear that if they do hold their colleagues accountable, that the backlash will come back on them.

It should be a requirement for officers to report each other.

And right now, that requirement was taken out.

So there are a lot of solutions that the current state taskforce that was created by the Speaker of the Assembly, Robin Vos, and held under tight-fisted control under Jim Steineke in the Assembly.

They did not allow a number of solutions to be talked about and discussed at that table.

But we know the solutions that we brought forward in the enough-is-enough package is supported by folks in the community 'cause we listened, and it's even supported by folks in law enforcement.

We listened to police chiefs.

Police chiefs want to be heard and respected when they make a decision to fire an officer.

And the decision to fire the officer, especially for a chief to saying, "I looked at this case, "I looked at the situation.

"This officer's not fit to be on this force."

It should be harder for the reverse process to stop that firing.

And right now, that process is sometimes subverted and sometimes rejected, even when a police chief says, "I'm trying to lead this department in a certain direction, "and this officer is not showing he has the capabilities, "not showing he has the characteristics, "the integrity to be a part of this department."

And the process is too easy to keep that officer on the force.

- Let me ask you this.

So does this bill have any inklings of a defund the police or anything of that ilk?

Because right now, as we speak, there's a defund the police conversation taking place right now, where police chiefs across the state of Wisconsin are meeting.

And they were saying that, you know, people are telling us that they want police, they want protection, they need us, and they want more police officers.

So does anything in your package deal with defunding police in any way, shape or form?

- You know, the great thing about this package is that we get above that argument, and we have to understand what communities are saying when there are questions, if you should fund a police department.

It's because a community does not feel respected.

They do not feel as if the police department, itself, that they are paying for every day, and they incur bills because of court cases of officers not doing the proper things by the book, not actually respecting the rights of citizens.

They are the ones that are questioning, what are we funding our departments for if we're ending up with more debt and more bills and more things financially that are putting us in a bad light?

So I have to first off say, all the bills in our package are above that argument.

If we had fire departments that chose which fires to fight, everybody would say, "Well, what's going on?

"What are we really paying for?"

And I think what communities are saying is that they want police departments, especially when you go on polling and you ask people, you know, "Do you want a police department "that respects everybody's rights?"

Everybody says, "Yes."

A vast majority of people are saying, "Yes."

A vast majority of people are saying they want good service from police departments, but they are also saying substandard service should not be appropriate.

That should not be allowed, that we want to be able to provide and pay for the best service that we can get.

That's what communities are saying.

And I get that.

My Republican colleagues have tried to bring this up on the floor.

And I have always said, "You have to go back to what communities are feeling, "what they are going through in these processes.

"And are they actually getting the excellent service "that they should be paying for?

"Or is it substandard?

"Is it being reverted back to being treated in a way "where they are paying for service, "only to be allowed to be turned into targets "at the end of the day?"

We've seen time and time again, over years, in Milwaukee and across the state of Wisconsin, across this nation.

When departments do not live up to higher standards, there is a culture that allows a race to the bottom.

There is a culture that allows individuals, black men, to be given these illegal checks where they literally are having their rights violated, drugs are being planted on them.

We end up having these situations in our departments where they're these cliques that are formed around, who can hurt people the most?

These are real things that have happened in our communities across this nation and across our state.

And I get it that there are a number of lawmakers that would say, "David, I don't know "what that's like in my community.

"We have officers that we trust.

"We have officers that have respected us and engaged us in a different way."

And I can say, "I need you to find empathy "for a community that is looking for leadership, "looking for excellent service "from their police departments, and they aren't getting it."

- That's a good point, that's a good point.

But this is a good time for me to move to Dayvin, who lived in Kenosha and worked there as a politician.

Dayvin, when you hear what David Bowen is expressing, I know you understand our frustrations firsthand.

You fought to have Kenosha police officers armed with body cams.

And you went through that fight.

And you also experienced just what it's like to be a black man living in Kenosha.

Can you tell me about the frustration you experienced when you participate in politics there?

- Anything having to do with race or racism was basically something that no one wanted to touch.

And what makes it astonishing isn't so much that, but that you have a fairly significant contingent that votes of blue are identifies as Democrat.

Hardcore union folks, a number of whom have lived in Kenosha long enough to know that it has a history of being a sundown town.

But, of course, no one ever bothers to say that out loud.

So, I mean, the dishonesty just runs deep.

I don't know what else to say.

- The frustration got you to the point where you said that you had to leave, correct?

- Yeah.

I mean, I still remember the day I went into the sheriff's department to pick up a printed copy of the policies and procedures and, you know, walked into that area, and the first deputy comes out and looks at me.

"Oh, yeah, "Supervisor Hallmon.

"Okay, I'll get your stuff.

"I'll be back in a minute."

Goes through the door, different deputy comes out.

And that second deputy apparently had no idea I was the county board supervisor.

Sees me sitting there with my head in my hands and is spooked by my presence.

You know, I don't know what policy walls you can erect to protect around that.

If you've got somebody who's trained with a badge and a gun, and they're terrified inside of the most secure building in all of Kenosha County, then there's no telling what you're gonna do on the street.

My presence shouldn't spook you.

- So I've read a piece where you were talking about an incident that happened across the street from the school, with the police department rushing into a home.

Can you talk about the lack of understanding that the police department showed when they did this, or when this incident occurred?

- It, yeah, it just happened.

It just seemed to be very, very careless.

And so, it was an afternoon.

I was actually on my way, walking down the street to church.

There's an elementary school along that route.

And as I'm walking down the sidewalk, I've got the school across the street on the right-hand side of me, and I see a line of guys in big jackets, and they've got, like, a battering ram, and they're running towards me.

And I had to jump out the way on the sidewalk.

And they ran into a home that I had just passed.

Well, the school buses are coming to pick up kids from the school across the street.

And so, there are men out there with really big guns.

Why didn't somebody call the school?

It's almost just as if they just didn't care.

- Yeah.

I wanna bring Diamond back on.

Diamond, as a young person, the energy that was generated from the marching and the protesting, has Kenosha ever experienced something like that, where young people had risen to the top and have made demands in your lifetime?

What, you're 26-years-old?

Have you ever seen anything like this before?

- I got a taste of it, just a very small taste of it.

The first ever protest, that's not true.

The first ever racially-motivated protest that I've ever seen in Kenosha.

And I've been here my whole life, was in 2014, after Mike Brown, a very small group of us stood outside of the courthouse and stood in solidarity for Mike Brown.

And that was the first taste I got, and I would not get a taste again until Donald Trump was elected and people were terrified.

So they went to the Democratic Party Meeting.

And I mean, not much came from that either.

So I would say, no.

I mean, we talked about it briefly, James.

Like, a lot of times, especially when you live somewhere where so many people live in their own bubble and their own comfort, a lot of the times people don't really wake up, don't really open their eyes.

They don't get their bubble burst.

They don't care until something truly tragic happens.

- How do you harness this energy, though?

So you have young people wanting change, pushing for change.

You're one of 'em.

You're out there all the time pushing for change, but you make suggestions, and then no action takes place.

What happens if you continually become the hamster on the wheel?

What happens to a society when young people aren't listened to?

- I mean, I've seen it happen firsthand.

I was around when Dayvin got elected, and I was around when Dayvin made the decision to leave.

And I remember last year, at a County Board meeting, I made some comments and reminded them that there is nobody on that board who looks like me or looks darker than I do because they drove Dayvin into the ground.

Dayvin didn't feel safe in Kenosha.

He didn't feel comfortable.

He wasn't listened to.

And so, and I definitely feel now, now that I've been doing this for so long, and especially that we're at this point where we're truly dealing with people's lives now, I understand where he's coming from.

And those are things that I've contemplated.

It used to be, I have to stay in Kenosha because if I don't stay to make it better, then my younger siblings or the generation after me, they're gonna deal with the same problems.

But now it's turning more into, if I stay here, I'm gonna get run into the ground.

It's not gonna be good for me.

So I definitely know how this ends if things don't change.

- Dayvin, did you hear, you heard what Diamond just said.

Is that true?

Did you feel unsafe?

- Well, there was a moment, certainly, in trying to mediate a street fight with some constituents in their families, that I realized there was nobody in Kenosha bothering to work on homophobia.

There was nobody in Kenosha bothering to really work on racism.

Folks just didn't seem to care.

And so, when you have that situation, you have to wonder who exactly has your back.

And the answer is nobody.

- That's a very deep and powerful statement.

"Listen MKE Live" is a collaboration between the Ideas Lab at the Journal Sentinel, WUWM 89.7 FM, Milwaukee's NPR, Milwaukee's PBS, and the Milwaukee Public Library.

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