- (female announcer) Production funding for Behind the Headlines is made possible in part by the WKNO Production Fund, the WKNO Endowment Fund and by viewers like you, thank you.

- Shelby County Mayor Lee Harris, tonight on Behind the Headlines.

[intense orchestral music] I'm Eric Barnes with The Daily Memphian.

Thanks for joining us.

I am joined tonight by Lee Harris, Shelby County Mayor, thanks for being here again.

- Thanks a lot.

- Along with Bill Dries, reporter with The Daily Memphian.

We'll talk about a lot of things today and I should note to everyone that we're recording this on Monday 'cause of my schedule, so I appreciate you putting up with this 'cause of some travel I'm doing so who knows, in this kind of rapid world right now, what could be different by Friday.

So we'll try to note that and repeat that.

But first really, I mean just 'cause first time we've had you on.

Your reaction and your thoughts to the whole Tyre Nichols incident, I mean, what stands out to you?

What haunts you, what angers you?

What is a place where things can get better?

I mean, your reaction.

- Well, I think the video is evidence that we haven't come as far as we'd like to believe.

Obviously, I grew up in Memphis and Shelby County, I've had my own interactions with law enforcement.

A lot of that was unfair in my view as a young black male growing up here in town.

But I did believe that the Black Lives Matter movement was a real moment for our country.

I did think it was transformative and I thought a lot of the issues were really behind us, but the Tyre Nichols incident really demonstrates that we just haven't made a lot of progress to put it frankly.

And so I'm hurt by the incident.

I am angry and I'm saddened that we're still in this place as a community and as a country.

- We've talked about this before.

I think I've mentioned it before, and all the times that we've done shows in or about, or with people from the criminal justice system, judges and the DA and the DA debate and the Chief of Police and the Sheriff's Department that all these people, state legislature, you are formerly a state legislator, City Council.

You are formerly a City Councilperson.

All of 'em have a piece and part in what we call quote the criminal justice system, right?

Laws are set at the state.

I mean, there's just so many pieces and parts and so on.

The county mayor, your position, doesn't have a whole lot of direct, and you can correct me where I'm wrong, direct authority, particularly over the things that happened in this incident, either MPD, the sheriff's deputies who were there and have been suspended, are being investigated, the EMTs, all kinds of questions.

But what can you do?

I would imagine, you've been on the show many times, I've known you in all these years.

You must want to do something from the point of view of your seat as county mayor?

- So no doubt about it.

I've got a long history of pushing for police reforms.

Most recently, over the course of the first term, we pushed for landmark police reform for Shelby County, at least when the George Floyd incident came forward.

And so we outlawed the military equipment being passed to our law enforcement agencies.

We worked with the sheriff to get that done.

As you mentioned, I've been around for quite a while.

So when I was on the state, I led the effort to make sure the TBI reports were actually disseminated to the public.

And so it wasn't very long ago that you actually could not see those TBI reports, but we passed the law.

I worked with G.A.

Hardaway in the House to pass the law to make sure that those reports were made public.

So I've been in this fight for a very, very long time working these issues, making sure that we report data on the basis of race and I'll continue to make sure that we do what needs to be done in terms of police reform.

So the next area, obviously, is to make sure we have some duty to intervene on the books and expand what that means to make sure that our training is up to snuff.

There are a bunch of commissioners with some ideas on that front, but we'll be working at this until we get it right, because I think all of us are really, really dismayed and all of us are distressed and hurt by this incident.

- Let me go to Bill.

- So is this discussions with the Sheriff's Office, do you also want to have some input with Memphis Police, even though obviously that's not within your job description?

- Well, yeah, I work primarily with the sheriff and the sheriff is the charter officer with law enforcement responsibility on the county side of government.

But at the same time, I work really closely with the DA.

DA Mulroy and in fact, we've just had a meeting in the last couple weeks around what kind of additional initiatives he wants to bring forward that may help to bring more justice and more reform effort to Memphis and Shelby County.

So some of that I'm sure will include his justice review unit in making sure that he has the resources necessary to review some of these incidents and to make sure that everyone is fairly treated in these incidents.

Shelby County, just like other urban areas across our state, is one of the counties that actually puts local resources into our DA's office, so it's not entirely funded by the state.

And so we have a say and a partnership with the DA's office and we plan to strengthen that as we go through the budget process here in a couple months.

- Could that include a more rapid release of police body cam video?

- I think we'd all like to see more rapid release of police body cam video.

I mean, we know that in terms of programmatically or practically speaking, it's tough because you've gotta review everything you release before you can release it.

And so if an officer works an eight hour shift, that's eight hour shift worth of video and arguably in the extreme, somebody else has to review all the details of that eight hour shift.

And so you can see where that goes.

So it's a whole lot of effort to review the video, but obviously I'd love to see the video released as soon as possible in this particular incident.

A very early on call for the release of the video as soon as possible.

And as I said, led the fight, passed the law that TBI reports could actually be seen by the public.

And so that's opened up the space we have now where there is some discretion to send all these things out.

That wasn't the case before I entered the state Senate.

- The deputies, the Sheriff's deputies, Floyd Bonner, again, that's under the purview, technical purview of the sheriff, not you, but are, you talked about working with the sheriff and with the DA's office, are you pressuring them or wanting answers?

Again, they've been suspended.

There's part of the video, certainly after, as the really, there's a very disturbing period of time after the beating, which is disturbing.

But this period of time where really the young man, Tyre Nichols, gets very little care and there is a sheriff's deputy, very visible, looks at him, clearly shines his flashlight on him, does nothing, like virtually everyone else on that scene.

Are you wanting answers?

Are you pressuring Floyd Bonner about that?

- Absolutely, I want answers.

I haven't seen the video I should say, but to the extent there are other folks involved and they haven't lived up to the level of care that all of us would desire, or to the extent they've committed offenses that potentially are criminal, I'd love to see them prosecuted and I wanna see everyone involved disciplined.

So no doubt about it, I'll be working with the Commission and the sheriff around those issues.

There's, in fact, I've got a phone call today with commissioners around training and how we'll go about to make sure that our training responds to this particular moment.

There are a lot of commissioners that have talked about showing the video as part of the training process the sheriff deputies go through.

I don't know if that's quite the best idea, right?

This is a film where someone loses his life, but I do think the spirit of that is well placed.

And so I'll be talking to commissioners and others, but absolutely, we want everybody held accountable and I'm gonna do everything I can to put pressure that that happens.

- You mentioned duty to intervene, expand on that because this is a thing that, it's part of the charges against, I believe the police officers, all of 'em, I think that was also named, help me out, Bill, the EMTs were fired in part because they did not intervene.

But what is that concept and how should that concept be expanded?

- Well, I think the idea is, is that we're gonna hold people to account for their actions when they commit criminal acts, but in addition to that, we're gonna hold people to account when they don't act.

And so we're gonna put some responsibility on those that are tasked with protecting all of us that they should act if they see something that as someone in danger or they see a criminal offense taking place, including, against officers.

Because we know, I mean apparently this blue wall still exists and that is real.

- Bill.

- Let talk about what I think is an important transition in the office that has come with you being mayor and that is the office's alignment with national issues, issues that Congress is considering, issues the President has talked about as well.

I think it's quite a transformation in an office that really has to date been defined by limited powers.

But I mean obviously it wasn't easy to make that transition with the office and you're still kind of working through that, right?

- No doubt about it-- Every day in office is a day where I'm trying to convince everyone around me and everyone on the Commission that we can do a lot more and that we can do big things and to be very, very courageous and we can make our community more equal and more just and make a lot of progress.

And there's no doubt about it that that is uncomfortable for people in certain contexts.

But we'll keep pushing for that.

You see that playing out right now in terms of our funding of school construction.

I wanna see more students in Memphis and Shelby County get a first rate learning environment.

And so that's the Cordova High School debate, that's the Frayser High School debate, that's the debate about investing in all our municipalities.

I wanna see more kids ready to learn, right?

Which returns us to another national debate and that's the debate around pre-K. We've got a very good pre-K program right now.

The county puts in substantial resources, we partner with the city on that program.

I wanna see that program expanded and this stuff is not easy and it's gonna take some courage, but I'm hopeful that we'll be able to get a lot of that done.

Not to mention the access to healthcare, right.

Which we've got a big and bold vision around access to healthcare and I'd love to see that vision brought to fruition before I leave office.

- And you've also been very active on the climate change issue to the point that the county's about to have a green fleet initiative and edict that's going to be out there to change the county's fleet.

- That's exactly right.

So there are a lot of people that have been working on this issue for a long time, but when this is all said and done, Shelby County will ban the purchases of gas-reliant vehicles in the mayor's administration.

So there's hundreds.

- Just to clarify, not ban the average citizen from buying a gas vehicle.

You may wanna do that.

I don't know if we can have that conversation.

What you're saying is those bought and owned by the Shelby County government?

- That's exactly right.

- Okay, just to clarify before you got a lot of, some emails and some questions and so on.

- Well, Bill, started off with the Shelby County mayor has limited powers.

So yes, that's stipulated that this is with respect to Shelby County vehicle purchases.

That we've gotta get to a point where we stop buying gas-reliant vehicles and we're gonna get to that point.

We've got an ordinance that would prohibit in the future any purchases of gas-reliant vehicles.

We're really proud of that.

And what that does is that means that after many years the county will shift to only buying hybrid or electric vehicles.

That's really critically important.

You see that kind of spirit come out of places like California and I know it hadn't happened in Shelby County, but it can and we're gonna work really hard until it happens.

At the same time, we've got the solar panel project, which is a huge solar panel project for our local government and we're gonna be able to provide our own solar power for at least two of our buildings at our east campus.

Really pleased with that.

The surplus energy, we'll be able to sell back to the grid and so over time, we suspect that we may even make money off our solar panel project out at our east campus.

- Is it counterintuitive for local politicians to deal with these kind of national issues, do you think?

Has it been hard to get buy-in to even touch those issues like climate change and green fleets, not to mention school construction?

- Well, no matter where you sit, the issue you confront is always the same.

It's just the issue of the status quo.

A lot of folks in leadership position are, I dunno if they're satisfied with the status quo, but they are very, very fearful of the yes.

And in my view, leadership is about getting to yes.

And it's not about coming up with reasons why we can't move forward or we can't have reform and why the status quo has to continue, so that's at any level.

In terms of kind of your global thinking, the reality is, is all these issues, all these global or national issues, are all local issues at this point.

There's so much overlap at this point.

The kinds of things that a lot of people are thinking about, in terms of a livable wage, in terms of paid family leave, in terms of access to healthcare, in terms of whether or not their kid gets a high quality instruction, in terms of crime, all of the big issues that we can think of are actually issues that transcend our local community and are national and global issues.

- So on the one hand, you have the limited powers that we've talked about.

On the other hand, you have a bully pulpit there as well.

What's the balance like between those two?

Because this seems to me it involves an awful lot of the bully pulpit.

- A whole lot of the bully pulpit.

So obviously I don't have a direct role in Memphis-Shelby County School system or in schools construction, but you can insert yourself just about anywhere, right?

If, like you say, if you're able to utilize the bully pulpit, so I think a lot of it is bully pulpit.

We don't necessarily have direct powers to do some things, but you know, I've inserted myself in some of these fights.

Transit, obviously I don't have any role in transit whatsoever, but I think in early part of the first term we worked hard to try to amplify that issue of transit.

And so that's the number one issue.

And I'm sure every candidate running for City Council or running for City of Memphis mayor is gonna be asked about transit.

And I think, I tried to play a real role in amplifying that issue, but I don't have any powers with respect to transit or MATA, but we did try to insert ourselves there and we're gonna continue to talk about that issue.

- We talk about national issues and right now Tennessee legislature, like a lot of legislatures that are more right, red or Republican leaning, there are changes about trans rights.

And this legislature has raised that, you were up in the legislature for how, eight years?

- Four years.

- Four years.

- Four years.

- Seemed longer, probably seemed even longer to you.

And also the move to cut off HIV funding and you talked about access to healthcare.

The governor has proposed cutting off some federal funding and there's a lot of talk about books and what kids should and should not be learning and should and should not be reading.

Is that a place where you want to at least have a voice, if not again, explicit authority?

- Oh, absolutely, I wanna have a voice in all that.

In terms of the healthcare, obviously we are for access for all in terms of healthcare and so on the Shelby County side, in order to drive that issue, we're gonna create our first healthcare program where we partnered with UT Health Science Center and we're gonna open up Shelby Cares and Shelby Cares will be open in just the next few weeks.

That's gonna be on Third Avenue, Third Street, sorry, Third Street in the southwest quadrant of Memphis.

And we're gonna provide healthcare to all that need it.

Our transition report talks about trans youth and making sure they have access to healthcare and trusted health providers.

And so we're gonna make sure that our Shelby Cares on Third is consistent with all of that.

With respect to literacy, right?

We've got a big huge push in terms of literacy and we've been working with a whole lot of partners there.

We push out literacy books to every second grader in town.

So we're gonna push out, 20,000 or so, they're phonics books.

We've created them and they have a description of various places in Memphis and Shelby County, so they're specific to our community.

You know, A is for, I don't know, not Elvis.

[all laughing] E is for Elvis, but.

- We'll take that out.

- Yeah, let's just edit that.

So they're that kind of books.

We're gonna push out a copy of that book that's Memphis and Shelby County specific to every second grader and that simultaneously teaches 'em about Memphis and Shelby County and teaches 'em about phonics and that's coming real, real soon.

So you know, whether or not somebody gave us a place at the table or not, I don't think any of us on my team, we're not thinking about that.

We're just thinking about what the major problems are and what we can do to help resolve those major problems.

Another incident, since we're talking about leadership, is this whole obsession with waiting for people to lead.

Well we gotta wait to see what this person says and wait for people to do what that person says.

We're not waiting on any of that.

I only got three and a half years left.

So, any problem where I think we're gonna have an impact, we really wanna work on it regardless of whether healthcare is our natural domain or literacy is our natural domain or not.

- Do you talk to the governor?

- No.

- Do you talk to his people?

I mean, are you able to com, I mean you're sitting here and we hope he watches every Friday, I don't know that he does, but I mean, how do you communicate these things to the governor's office or do you?

- Well, I'm sure I could reach the governor if I had a desire to reach the governor.

I think what I'm set up to do, in fact, I've got a meeting that I'm gonna have in the next couple weeks is members of the governor's team to make sure they're brought up to date.

For example, we're working on a project now where we hope to bring significant investment to the Regional One campus.

It still needs a lot of pieces put in place, but been working with the chairman of the Commission, Mickell Lowery, been working with the budget chairman, Michael Whaley, and we think this might be a moment to really invest in Regional One and we really want the state to get notice of that and if they want to participate, we'd love to have their participation.

- Speaking of Regional One, the last specific dollar figure that I saw was possibly a $350 million commitment by the county for what amounts to a $750 million undertaking that basically overhauls the Regional One campus, which has kind of been a patchwork of different buildings for several decades now.

Has the dollar figure changed?

- No, no.

I think we need $700 million or more in order to really make the kind of investment that is warranted at this point, given the age of that campus and given the importance of Regional One.

I'm convinced, we've formed a Regional One committee several weeks ago and we've had many, many meetings with many, many stakeholders about the condition of Regional One and the moment that we're in.

And I'm convinced that it'll take hundreds of millions of dollars and it will be money well spent.

I'm not the only lever in this.

Mickell Lowery is a really important voice in this process along with Michael Whaley and the rest of the Commission.

So I've been talking to them frequently about the needs at Regional One and I will be one voice pushing for everyone to do everything they can to stretch themselves because we could get something really, really down for our community and there's no better use of our resources.

- Right.

This obviously is over several years and it's a combination of not only county money, although the talk is that that would be the first money in, but it would also be state and federal money and it would also be private and philanthropic dollars making up the amounts here.

- That's exactly right.

Recently, in fact we've written to our Congressmen for the area, David Kustoff, Steve Cohen, just to make them aware that the Regional One committee is going about the work of identifying these resources.

But yes, we would love to have additional partners at the state and federal level and so we're gonna continue to work to find those resources.

- I've heard people say this before, you may have and I apologize, but you know, Regional One serves, it serves Mississippi, it serves Arkansas, I think it can even serve parts of Missouri as the only what level four, level five.

- One.

- Level one, sorry, did it backwards.

Thank you.

Trauma center in the area and also, so is there any ability to get funding from these other states that rely on, and secondarily the other hospital systems in town would be, if Regional One was, went into decline, didn't exist, they would have a huge burden that they may say they already have a burden now, but I think all of them would admit their burden would increase dramatically.

Is there some way to look there for contributions?

- Absolutely, we think that there is reason for all of those folks to come to the table and partner with us on the Regional One rebuild project.

It's like you said, it's the only level one trauma center at the same time it's the only public hospital in our region and that's critically important.

A lot of folks turn to Regional One for their care and a lot of them don't have anywhere else to go.

So they don't have insurance or they're not able to pay the full freight of their care and they end up at Regional One.

For that reason over the course of many, many years, the county invests about $30 million in indigent care at Regional One.

If we are smart, we will recognize that this is a moment to make sure that Regional One can continue to deliver that care to those who are in need and who, like you say, will land elsewhere and everyone will invest.

So we're working really hard to find partners.

- Will Regional One stay in the medical center?

I mean, is that already decided that it's basically gonna be a rebuild of what is there on the footprint?

- That's exactly right.

So the good news is, is you've got some great leadership at Regional One right now and you've got some great folks that have been working on this and thinking through this and so they're prepared to make the case at the appropriate time and they've begun that process.

As I say, the Commission is really the critical piece here and so we're gonna be hopeful that our commissioners understand the importance of access to healthcare and supporting our only public hospital.

But yes, they've identified how you might phase in a rebuild on the existing property or obtain new property in that area if needed.

- Okay.

And bring us up to date on where the discussions are about the new school, the new Cordova school, which was the last time you were here and we talked about that.

- So we're gonna talk more about that as we enter into budget time.

I think I'm scheduled right now to present my budget April the 12th.

We also have a budget retreat with the Commission, which is currently scheduled for March the 4th.

And so we're gonna talk about Regional One for sure.

We're gonna talk about the schools, but in my view we need to do a $100 million for Cordova High School and if we can find some partners, we need to do another at least $80 million, or so, for Frayser High School, right.

And we need to do something for all of our municipal school systems as well.

So we've got a lot on our plate and I'm just hopeful we'll be able to get it done.

- Let me also say is I, if you came late, we're taping this on Monday, it's airing on Friday, so if there was news this week that we didn't get to with the mayor, it's only just because of my schedule and his coming in on a Monday where we don't normally tape.

One thing, I want to just circle back as we begin to hear this, the Tyre Nichols and everything that, some of the things you talked about, you talked about being a young black man and having bad interactions with police.

Antonio Parkinson, the State House representative, your colleague when you were up at the legislature, at least in the Shelby delegation, he wrote in Tri-State Defender, a really interesting, a really painful thought-provoking column.

I think the title was, you know, I just didn't expect to, "I Just Didn't Expect To See Five Black Faces" and talked about the pain for him as a black man and the confusion around that and RowVaughn Wells, Tyre Nichols' mom said, you know, "I hate the fact that us Black people, we are out here killing each other."

I mean, how do you respond to that?

I mean, someone who's been in all these forms of government and done all this work, you've talked about the interactions that you had.

How do you make sense of that, the five black faces?

And the other predominantly black police officers who were there at the scene and appear not to have provided any care as the young man laid there?

- I don't know if I was that surprised by that aspect of it, so I was surprised that we hadn't made as much progress and this kind of alleged brutality was still taking place.

But I wasn't surprised by the color of the officers.

I think that that dynamic is a dynamic of power and vulnerability and so the dynamics of power and vulnerability play out regardless of race, and so that didn't surprise me.

The two or three times when I was a young black teenager and was thrown in the back of police car, I don't recall it being white officers.

So that's not, the rules you're told as a black male growing up, at least in the age I grew up, when you're driving a car and not to have four black males with you in the car and how to act if you're pulled over.

Those aren't rules that apply when it's a white officer who has his lights on behind you, those are rules that apply anytime you're pulled over.

And so I think that I wasn't surprised and I think there are a lot of folks out there that didn't take note of that in terms of surprise because again, the dynamic is just one of power and vulnerability and so that's not race specific.

- Are you hopeful that that can change?

That that power dynamic?

I've got 20 seconds, but are you hopeful?

- We need major reform, so I don't know if I'm hopeful yet, but maybe I'll get there.

I'm a politician.

I've been doing this a while and so, I went to church yesterday and I went to Andre Johnson's church and he was very, very hopeful that things were gonna change.

So I'll let his words carry us forward.

- Alright, thank you.

Again, thanks for being here.

Thank you, Bill.

Thank you for joining us.

If you missed any of the episode today, you can get the full show at wkno.org or you can look it up on YouTube or you can get the full podcast of the show on iTunes, Spotify, The Daily Memphian site, or wherever you get your podcast.

Thanks very much.

We'll see you next week.

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