♪ [This Week in South Carolina opening music] ♪ Welcome to This Week in South Carolina.

I'm Gavin Jackson.

Nearly one year after the death of George Floyd, an unarmed black man killed by a police officer in Minneapolis, a jury found former officer, Derek Chauvin guilty on three counts this week of second degree unintentional murder, third degree murder, and second degree manslaughter.

We talk with Geoffrey Alpert, a criminology professor who's also a consultant on the civil case against Chauvin about the verdict.

And Columbia Mayor Steve Benjamin talks about where we go from here.

First, more from this week.

In the State House, the Senate Finance Committee approved it's more than $10 billion budget, which features teacher and state employee pay raises, thanks in part to the 1.7 billion dollars in additional one time and new money lawmakers have to budget with this year.

The Senate, which has been debating a Santee Cooper reform bill this week, will take up the budget, next week.

The House approved Hate Crimes bill advanced to the full Senate Judiciary Committee this week, While a bill reducing drug sentences and eliminating mandatory minimums moved through the House Judiciary Committee, along with a bill passed by the House that limits a business' liability from COVID.

A bill requiring all school districts to return to in person instruction and providing compensation for teachers who teach online and in person, was sent to the governor for his signature, but the Chauvin trial dominated the news this week, and on Tuesday, the nation watched as President Joe Biden gave a prime time address following the murder trial verdict.

<Pres.

Biden> Such a verdict is also much too rare for so many people.

It seems like it took a unique and extraordinary convergence of factors: a brave young woman with a smartphone camera, a crowd that was traumatized, traumatized witnesses, a murder that lasts almost ten minutes in broad daylight, for all the whole world to see.

<Gavin> Congressman Jim Clyburn echoed Biden's push for police reforms, while a bipartisan group, which includes Senator Tim Scott, works on its own bill.

<Rep.

Clyburn> This record will hopefully allow us to get some people to listen and understand why the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act needs to become law, because we need to have some transformative - let's just say attitudes in policing.

<Gavin> Joining me now to discuss the Chauvin murder trial verdict, is USC Professor of Criminology, Jeff Alpert.

Dr. Alpert, thanks for joining us today.

<Dr.

Alpert> Absolutely, good morning.

<Gavin> Dr. Albert, I wanted to have you on the show because I wanted to ask you a little about your insight to this whole trial, but also you are involved somewhat in this entire situation by being a participant in the settlement with the city of Minneapolis involving Derek Chauvin and the death of George Floyd.

Can you elaborate on that for us before we get into what we saw play out this week?

<Dr.

Alpert> Certainly, I was the use of force expert on the civil side.

Obviously, we never went to trial because they settled just before the criminal trial started, but I had done the same work up as Professor Stoughton did, who testified in the criminal side, and really came to the same conclusions that he did after watching him testify, so it was pretty interesting that the two experts on both sides were from USC.

It's kind of a great honor.

<Gavin> That was a massive settlement as well, I mean that was something that we haven't...

I mean, we haven't seen something like that before, I guess, in history, right?

<Dr.

Alpert> Well, a 27 million dollars, I think, was the settlement.

Certainly we haven't seen that in South Carolina, but those settlements... Gosh, I was involved with one of the same lawyer that was a 48 million dollar settlement guy in Chicago, so they do happen, but it's a lot of money.

<Gavin> - An expensive process could easily be avoided, in your opinion?

<Dr.

Alpert> Well certainly.

It's the tax payers who pay those.

The standard here in South Carolina that when you get the judgments or settlements against police, we're the ones who pay for it.

So yeah, they certainly should be avoided.

<Gavin> So when we look at shifting from the civil to the criminal, what stood out to you during this trial, this long trial up in Minneapolis?

What made this such a solid case, guilty on all three counts?

<Dr.

Alpert> I think the prosecution Did a really amazing job of putting the case together, calling the witnesses at the right time, the sequencing, and of course, they have the facts behind them.

The police action was kind of a no brainer.

I mean, you don't one, put your knee on someone's neck for that period of time, and more important, is you don't leave someone on his stomach for that long.

And I think it was nine minutes where they left him on his stomach, and in terms of police action, it was a pretty straightforward decision.

Now, the cause of death was what we all didn't know, and we certainly heard some amazing medical testimony about breathing, and how being on your stomach and having someone putting pressure on you was a cause of death, and of course, Minnesota has a strange law compared to South Carolina, where it was simply a substantial cause of death, and I think the medical doctors did a pretty amazing job of explaining such a complex medical phenomenon to those of us who aren't that smart.

<Gavin> What about just when we do we see that video, is that really what made the case?

I mean, otherwise you look at the public statements that they released, the Minneapolis Police Department released in the initial days of that situation involving George Floyd, versus what we saw come out of this because of video, and we would have seen the body cam footage as well, I assume, but it really never got to this level until we saw that video.

<Dr.

Alpert> Well, the video is important evidence in all these cases.

It gives us a different perspective than what we've had in the past with just written reports, and people are spinning things in one direction or another because everyone has a vested interest, and the video doesn't do that.

Now the video only gives you a partial view, and we've got to be aware of that, and what the partial view really is.

Now again, this case to me boiled down to the cause of death, and that was that we saw a parade of medical experts who all pretty much said the same thing on the prosecutor's side.

Then we had the one person from Maryland who testified on the opposite side, and that's our adversarial system of justice here in America, that that's what we do, and obviously the jury believed the prosecution witnesses, and the cause of death was substantially caused by keeping George Floyd on his stomach for such a long period.

<Gavin> And I just think...

I know we're talking about the cause of death being so critical to this case, but when I think about this video, the young girl that shot the video, I think back to Walter Scott, and how important that video was to that situation too, with Michael Slager being prosecuted for that as well.

If you're a person of color, or anyone I guess interacting with police, do we just need to make sure that someone is nearby rolling video, or that a body camera's actually active?

I mean, what's it going to take to get someone's words to be worth something these days?

<Dr.

Alpert> I think the policies on body worn cameras have now become more sophisticated where they have to be on instead of any discretion in these kinds of interactions with the police and the public.

Certainly having more videos... Look what happened in January 6th of all the videos we have from the capital.

We got a much better picture with different videos from different angles.

Watching one video can be misleading, so I think yeah, all these different camera angles are really important to finding out what happened.

<Gavin> What do think is going to change as a result of this verdict?

A lot of people are saying we're going to see more accountability.

This was a big break for accountability with police reforms.

Do you see that happening?

What could possibly result from this, maybe in the state level here in South Carolina?

<Dr.

Alpert> Well I would hope that there's some real reform in Training.

I would hope there's some real reform in activities, but I'm a little skeptical.

I started my career doing the after action report for the riots in Miami after a black motorcycle rider was bludgeoned by police down there, and then this is 1979.

The riots in 1980 after the officer was acquitted, so we're really not far from where we were forty years ago, and that's very disturbing, but being in 2021, maybe we'll learn a little bit, and maybe we will see these reforms in Criminal Justice Academy in the various police departments around the state for training on how to slow things down, how to be more empathetic towards us, how to be more empathetic towards people we don't understand, and really try to figure out how to resolve a conflict other than the use of force and certainly the use of deadly force when possible, and I want to put that caveat in there because we saw the shooting recently in Ohio where the officer shot the woman who was stabbing two other women.

I'm not sure if he had any time to slow things down.

We don't know.

We haven't done the investigation, but sometimes you can't, but many times we can.

<Gavin> And professor, to keep with that, the Columbus news that came out.

That incident happened minutes before the verdict came out on Tuesday in Columbus, Ohio.

You recently were with The New York Times talking about this case.

Can you maybe just give some more insight about that, in terms of when police use this deadly force, and maybe why this officer reached for their gun instead of reaching for a taser, which unfortunately we also saw happen in Minnesota recently as well.

<Dr.

Alpert> Well the case in Minnesota with the mistaken use of a firearm instead of a taser, there's no excuse for that, and I think we're going to see a criminal conviction there as well, or a settlement, or at least I think she's going to plead guilty, but we'll see.

I mean, that'll play out, but this one in Ohio was very different, because the woman had already stabbed another woman, and was going after a second woman when the officer shot her, so we're really just starting to look at the investigation, but the video shows that this woman with the knife put the other people in eminent fear of their lives, and the officer was saving them as opposed to him.

There's going to be criticism.

Why didn't he shoot her in the leg or something that we learn in the movies, but in reality that's not effective.

You shoot towards center mass.

You're trained to do that, and he was protecting her life, not his life, so I think it's a different scenario.

<Gavin> Yeah, all these very different nuances, they're different situations, everything happening in moments, fleeting moments there too.

Can you tell us about qualified immunity and the big controversy around that?

I mean, we're talking about these situations too, and how an officer may react differently if they don't have that qualified immunity, or if they do.

Just elaborate on that.

I know that's at the center of a lot of debate, a lot of reform conversations.

<Dr.

Alpert> Well, I think the government, the police departments have over relied, heavily relied on qualified immunity, which gets them out of liability.

Not saying that it was proper behavior, but just keeps the checkbook closed, so I think we really need to revisit qualified immunity, and I think there's a lot of talk, both in Congress and certainly in our legislature.

It's such an important issue that needs to be either eliminated or certainly revisited where the way the courts look at these activities can't just give the police a way out, and I think we've got to hold them accountable for what they do wrong, and praise them when they do things right.

<Gavin> So how do you maybe see balancing accountability with the ability to recruit officers, keep them on the force, and not make them feel like they're being the target of something when they're just trying to do their job, when several other situations might get the most attention, but they're just try to do their job and keep people safe, and then different situations happen, different things occur.

How do you juggle the two?

<Dr.

Alpert> Well, I was reading earlier this morning, an officer, I can't remember where he was from, but he made the comment that what Derek Chauvin did was embarrass and ruin our careers for all the police around the country because what he did was so wrong, and I think that's really important to understand why people become police officers.

We've got to recruit them with a realistic sense that it isn't all about high speed chases and shooting people and getting into these physical encounters.

It's about interactions.

It's about social interaction with people and trying to deal with people who are in crisis, and deal with people who otherwise wouldn't be calling the police.

It's a tough job, but we've got to recruit them with that understanding, and not give them false expectations, because just like you pointed out, very quickly they're going to leave the job.

Now we've spent all this time and money training, and for what?

So the training, the expectations, hiring them under the understanding of what their job is really going to be not what they had learned in the movies or on television.

Otherwise we're going to keep [inaudible] police officers, and we're going to keep spending a lot of money for no reason.

<Gavin> And keeping with that training aspect, we have less than a minute left.

We see that our Criminal Justice Academy in South Carolina, it takes longer to become a nail technician in the state than it does to become a police officer by training hours.

What needs to be done there?

Do we need more money spent on training?

Do we need more money going towards other ways to de-escalate situations and have unarmed people showing up to situations that don't require an officer with a gun?

<Dr.

Alpert> Well clearly we need to spend more money and provide more Training to people who want to become police officers, and in service Training.

We have some very good departments in the state who can provide their own training.

Certainly the Criminal Justice Academy needs to step it up with the amount of time and quality, but that's money that they're not getting, and our funding system through tickets and fines isn't appropriate.

We do need to update how we deal with training, and certainly provide other options for police departments to train their officers.

<Gavin> Well University of South Carolina Criminology Professor Jeff Alpert, we have to leave it there.

Thank you very much for joining us this week.

<Dr.

Alpert> You're welcome.

<Gavin> Now for more reaction to the Chauvin trial verdict, I'm joined by Columbia Mayor Steve Benjamin.

Mayor Benjamin, thanks for coming back.

<Mayor Benjamin> Hey, Gavin.

Always great to be with you, friend.

Mayor, I want to start off by asking just your initial reaction to the Tuesday verdict when we look at that murder trial of Derek Chauvin, the former Minneapolis police officer.

<Mayor Benjamin> The range of emotions that so many Americans of all persuasions that we've gone through over the last years has been pretty amazing, and we were in the middle of a city council meeting, and I took a pause and asked Councilman McDowell, who's a retired United Methodist minister, to offer a word of prayer, and I know I wasn't the only one, but I wept.

I wept, and it was difficult at that time to ascertain that those with tears of joy or pain or angst or sorrow.

It was probably a little bit of all the above, but certainly I think a lot of us, millions of us, I might add, felt it was a bit of a burden lifted, a one hundred pound weight off our shoulders, and it felt like there had been some measure of justice for the Floyd family, understanding obviously that nothing comes close to having a loved one holding your hand anymore, but it was a range of emotions, my friend.

<Gavin> And Mayor, moving forward when you look at this in this moment in time in history, and just how monumental it has been for a lot of people, especially of color, moving forward, what assurances do you have maybe for the people here in Columbia, the second largest city of the state that maybe something that this can't happen here?

Or is there worry that it could happen here?

How do you react to that?

What assurances do people have to this?

<Mayor Benjamin> Well this is a capital city.

We are the capital of South Carolina.

We always strive to be a focal point of inclusive thought, practices, policies, willing to challenge on the systemic issues around race and racism, reimagining the way in which we provide safer communities, and we provide good government.

I think it would be folly to ever suggest that, that what happened in Minneapolis or anywhere else, could never happened here.

I mean, I think that's the challenge of our times.

How do we put systems in place that allow our system of justice to work for all people, recognizing that my faith, tradition, there's only one perfect person who ever walked the face the earth, and he even got mad with the money changers in the temple.

So people will always make errors and sometimes grave errors.

Our job is to make sure that the system of justice we have is rife with accountability, is sincere in its transparency, and that we're constantly working to create that more perfect union, and that requires really thoughtful systemic change, policy making laws changing, a commitment to truly transparent government.

It's a constant process that we started here in earnest long before George Floyd's murder.

After Michael Brown was killed in Ferguson, Missouri, we started a series of policy changes and training changes.

We became the first state to go 100% body cam and make the interactions between police officers and the communities that they protect very transparent.

That was a start and was recognized by President Obama as we took a lead in helping a move towards 21st century policing initiatives.

That was a start that gave us a bit of a head start on a lot of places across the country, but just realizing that this is a constant challenge, a constant process, a constant process of self improvement, and also recognizing that the world we live in right now, we're so much more interconnected and interdependent any time before.

So something happens in Columbus, Ohio or Louisville, or a street in Minnesota or in Georgia or Louisiana for that matter, it affects us here at home.

Our people are connected.

They want a dialogue, so it means we have to constantly be vigilant in making sure that we're again, begin building that more just society as Dr. King might say.

<Gavin> So what kind of conversations does that lend itself to with your police chief when you talk to him about this verdict or different situations that happen across the country, and even here in our state.

How do you guys provide that accountability?

I know you're talking about body cameras, and we've seen some policy changes as well, but what do you do maybe on the regular while talking with your police chief about these things?

<Mayor Benjamin> We I think the reality is that we're very fortunate in the Chief that we have, in Skip Holbrook, he and his command staff.

He's very high IQ.

He also has a very high EQ, that emotion quotient.

He understands People, he understands the really deep challenges that, not only communities of color, but as you said, may have not been invested in this heavily over the years, and maybe also over police.

The real challenges that are there, he endeavors to try and deal with them.

Even some of our high crime areas in every community, rallies that the vast majority, the vast majority 95% or 98% of the people there are good decent, hardworking people, and you have a very small number of folks who cause most of the problems.

So how do you use not only the relationships that you build with the community, but also use technology in the 21st century.

We have Shot Spotter and so many other types of intervention programs, to help us dial in on those whoare causing the most problems, but at the very same time, working to build the sense of trust and accountability, but you have to have the community because you may have five hundred officers in the community of one hundred forty thousand people.

The officers can never truly keep a community safe without having the trust of the community that shows that they're working with them.

We do that every single day.

The Chief and I speak almost every day.

He is constantly ideating and innovating, and he also goes through the process of iteration.

Some things you'll get right.

Some things you'll get wrong, but we're always trying, again trying to create that more just community, so... And I would say this too before I let you go, Gavin.

I think we also need to make sure that we're spending as much time, not just training officers, but recruiting our officers and investing in our officers.

These are men and women who run towards danger when all of us are running in the other direction.

We've got to make sure we treat them as the true civil servants and professionals that they are, by investing in their pay, in housing opportunities.

We have a wonderful housing program to recruit officers, with no down payment to live in our city.

They need more bonuses and other opportunities to grow in their profession.

<Gavin> So we're talking about sending more money to police instead of people discussing diverting funds.

The phrase 'defund the police' Is very complicated, but it's really just talking about spending money different ways, different approaches.

What's it look like on city council?

Is there any move to do that, or how do you approach funding the police right now in this current budget year coming up?

I don't think there's an appetite.

I have no appetite in removing money from the police department budget.

I think thinking very creatively about ways in which you invest in alternative programs, diversion programs, youth oriented programs, recruitment programs that train the very best and brightest, is where our focus ought to be, but no, I think that's a red herring.

We need to focus on investing in communities, not disinvesting from smart, solid, safe communities.

<Gavin> And then Mayor, your council also approved the revisions to the Force of Use policy last year from the city police department, talking about getting rid of choke holds, and other different divisive and controversial uses of force.

Can you elaborate on that?

Was that just to get ahead of maybe where things were going, and just to get in line with more modern police?

<Mayor Benjamin> We started changing our of use of force policies as far back as I mentioned, after the Michael Brown killing, so back in 2015.

We may have revised them again in 2017.

I think the greatest policy gift of what happened last year with not only George Floyd, but also so many other cases, is that it pushed police departments including ours, to be much more explicit.

So oftentimes policies are written either by officers or by our lawyers, and they're written more in an exclusionary way as opposed an inclusionary way, explicitly stating that certain types of use of force are not allowed, unless the danger is grave enough that there's a potential loss of life.

If someone is threatening someone else's life or is imminent, then certain uses of forces are warranted, so it was more of a clarification, explicit clarification, of what is allowed and what's not allowed, and I think that helps because it makes the process, again, much more transparent and clear to the officers who are entrusted with some of the greatest powers, and the power to take life.

<Gavin> And Mayor, with a minute left, We saw powerful protests last May and throughout the summer.

There was some destruction, not only here, but across the state as a result of some of these, but it was very minimal compared to the moments that we saw play out across the state and country.

I want to ask you just what kind of conversations... Can you give us any light on some the conversations you've had with activists and maybe their feelings now in this new day?

<Mayor Benjamin> I speak to some of the activists that I've met then, or Some that I knew long before the protests of May 30th almost every single day.

It's been a constant process of dialoguing, learning, developing true friendships, and it's been solid.

So I want to encourage folks that, that dialogue, the reality is, you can learn something from a 7 year old or a 77 year old, and if you share experiences and challenges, we all grow because of it, So, those conversations go on literally every day between the mayor of Columbia and some of our most thoughtful activists.

<Gavin> And we'll keep that conversation going, Mayor.

Columbia Mayor Steve Benjamin, thank you for joining us.

>> Thank you, Gavin.

Take care.

<Gavin> Thanks.

To stay up to date throughout the week, check out the South Carolina Lede .

It's a podcast, I host twice a week, and you can find it on SouthCarolinaPublicRadio.org, or wherever you find podcasts.

For South Carolina ETV, I'm Gavin Jackson.

Be well, South Carolina.

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