Front Burner - DeRay Mckesson on how to stop race-based police violence

Episode Date: June 2, 2020

Despite making up only 13 per cent of the population, black Americans represent about a quarter of all people killed by police. Today on Front Burner, we speak to civil rights activist DeRay Mckesson about the concrete steps he thinks could be taken to deal with the problem of race-based police violence.

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Back up! Back up! No justice, no peace! Prosecute the police! For days now, we have witnessed scenes of peaceful protest and scenes of chaos as people across the United States, Canada and around the world pour onto the streets. George Floyd has been the victim of a racist crime. All over the world is watching this, what's happened with the black man. And that is not fair. Demanding an end to police violence and racism and justice for George Floyd.

an end to police violence and racism and justice for George Floyd. We're going to look at a few concrete steps that some feel could accomplish those goals. Today, I'm speaking with DeRay McKesson. DeRay's a civil rights activist and a prominent voice in the Black Lives Matter movement. He spent a lot of time in Minneapolis, which is, of course, where George Floyd lived and died. DeRay rose to prominence during protests that followed the killing of another unarmed black man. Michael Brown, shot by a white police officer in Ferguson, Missouri. Michael Brown, shot by a white police officer in Ferguson, Missouri. DeRay has run for mayor of Baltimore and continued to participate in the movement that has arisen around the problems of race and police violence. This is FrontBurner.

Hi, DeRay. Hey, it's good to be here. Thank you for being with us. I know you're busy and there's a lot going on and all of that. You have been witnessing what's happening on the streets between police and protesters. What are y'all doing? What are y'all doing? Y'all doing nothing. Because that's not going to bring my brother back at all. Missed out for joy. Missed out for George.

How would you describe what you've been seeing in terms of the police response to all of the protesting and demonstrations? You know, it is as wild as it was before, right? I think that, you know, there are a lot of people who would say, people like me, that the activists, that we were being dramatic, that we were over-exaggerating the violence of the police. And what you've seen, like I've seen, is that you've seen reporters get targeted. Why am I under arrest? With tear gas, with rubber bullets. Tear gas to try to clear those protesters out. to clear those protesters out. Also, some flashbang hit by something. I know one person who lost her eye because the police shot her in the eye. Like, you know, the violence of the police has been not only the cause of why the protests are happening in the first place, but also has just continued in city after city after city.

So I want to talk to you about a number of measures you believe will reduce police violence and deaths caused by police. You sort of have a list. We're not going to be able to talk about all of them, but I want to talk about a few. And I want to start with chokeholds and strangling. Talk to me about that. Do we know how frequently police in the United States use these measures and what needs to happen?

So for context, there's not really good data about the force that officers use that doesn't result in death. We just don't have the data in many places. So chokeholds are interesting. And strangleholds, they're different. So chokeholds are when it's like your Adam's apple. A stranglehold is the muscles on the side of your neck. When these things are deployed, we know that people are often injured in really severe ways.

But only 28 of the 100 largest cities in America actually ban chokeholds. So New York City doesn't, for instance. There are a lot of cities in the country, Minneapolis, where George Floyd was killed. They don't ban chokeholds. So we see that this is a real issue. And we track eight things around use of force. And if a department goes from none of them being in place to all eight of them, it leads to 72% reduction in police violence. So we know these eight policies matter.

And the thing is that they're all really common sense. So it's like ban chokeholds, ban shooting into moving vehicles, restrict the ability to use deadly force immediately, right? So like require that you exhaust all other means before you use deadly force, require that an officer intervene if they see another officer engaged in wrongdoing. Like these are all common sense. So I just want to go through a couple of them. So I want to go back to chokeholds and strangling

and thank you for telling me that they are different. Are there situations in your view where police can legitimately use those tactics? So here's what we know is that in the places where the police have the most restrictive use of force, they are also the safest. And it does not impede their ability to execute that job. So, you know, it doesn't seem like these are necessary. The data shows that they're not necessary. The data shows that all eight of these things went in place actually leads to less violence from the police and the police are actually safe for themselves.

You also want to see a requirement that fellow officers step in if they witness one of their colleagues using excessive use of force. What kind of change do you think it would take in police culture for that to actually happen? Oh, it just needs to be the rule. You know, I don't, here's the thing is that these really aren't like rocket science, right? Like, I don't even, so I can't even participate in like it being hard. This is a, this is a failure of political will and courage. It's not a failure of anything else. So, you know, what would it take? It would take a mayor who would actually be a strong mayor. It would take a governor who would actually stand up for

people and not just the police, right? Like that's all it would take. It wouldn't take, it doesn't take anything else. These are cost neutral. There's no money. There's not, you know, this is just policy that's in favor of people. And we just see failed leadership after failed leadership refuse to enact them. You know, in recent, you know, this in recent decades, police forces across your country and in other countries as well have become more militarized. They have armored vehicles. They have grenade launchers. The U.S. government has provided these excess military weapons to police forces and has granted them budgets for buying more military style equipment. What's been the impact of all that?

Yeah, so the militarized weapons is a real problem. And you are seeing those weapons on the streets right now because of the protests. The Obama administration had ended the program, but they didn't end it legislatively. They ended it through an executive order. So as soon as Trump gets in, he ends that. So the government is giving police departments weapons. The state is issuing an executive order that will make it easier to protect yourselves and your communities. He is rescinding restrictions from the prior administration

that limited your agency's ability to get equipment through federal programs, including life-saving gear. You know, the good thing about the way our government is set up is that the federal government has very little role to play in everyday policing. So there are 18,000 police departments. These are largely or exclusively managed at some sort of local level, whether it's the mayor and police chief, elected sheriff or the governor. So the federal government just doesn't really have like a whole lot of play in that. This really is a sort of a local thing. So the federal government just doesn't really have like a whole lot of play in that. This really is a sort of a local thing. That's interesting that you see that because you see a lot of anger direct in your country to the president of the United States when really these fall to municipalities and states.

And if we look at Minneapolis, which you know this, our Canadian listeners may not, the city council is democratic, the mayor is a democrat, the governor is a democrat. So do you see this in any way, the police violence, what you're seeing on the streets of your country as a partisan issue? Well, the Republicans are, they just staunchly defend the police. The Democrats are just afraid of addressing the police. So it's two different roads. They both lead to the same thing, but it is a different strategy to engage those people. You know, Trump deserves all the criticism he gets. It just, he personally is not doing a lot around the police. Thank God that the president can't do as much around the police, because I'm

sure if he would, he would. You know, he could mobilize the National Guard or the military or something on domestic soil, and that would create a big fight between him and some governors. So hopefully he'll just sit down. And you you know like i know he can use the bully pulpit and he's done that in ways that are unproductive but like i said most of what's going on these rules and policies and police shooting contracts and laws are managed at the local level and it truly is a spectacular failure of leadership i want to talk to you about two areas um about what about policing that have come up a lot in the last couple

of days. One of them is about body cameras. At least one of the officers involved in George Floyd's arrest was wearing one. Police say body cameras increase accountability and transparency. I should say, in Louisville, a man was killed. By police during a protest

early this morning. At least one person was killed in And the police officers there weren't wearing or didn't activate their body cameras. They were required to by law. Those two officers are now on administrative duties reassigned to that. But do you think body cameras really would help in terms of the conflict that we're seeing between police officers and people who are black and people of color in your country? So it's not even what I think. I think there is a separate conversation to have about the importance of video and why we need video for some prosecutions and what video does. But the data is really clear. But the data is really clear. You know, if body cameras were going to be this end-all, be-all thing that made the police kill less people,

we would have seen the effects by now because most major cities have body cameras. And we also haven't seen that in the data. The research doesn't support the idea that it changes police behavior. As you said, there are numerous police forces in your country. All told, the U.S. spends about $100 billion a year on policing. So they're well-funded. Police forces are well-funded institutions. And they don't want to let go of their budgets. We always see, even in our country, police unions saying we need more police officers on the street, more cops on the street, give us more money.

Last couple of days, there has been this growing or at least amplified conversation about defunding the police, which essentially means cutting police budgets and redirecting that money. Is that something you support? Yes, it's two big buckets, right? So one is reduce the power of the police. And that's the work around use of force and some other things. The second bucket is shrink the role. So we think about shrinking the role of the police. It's a reminder that the majority of what the police are called to do is not about emergencies

and certainly not things that require armed intervention. So do we need somebody with a gun to walk into a house and try to find a, walk into a neighborhood and find a missing kid? No. Do we need somebody with a gun to help somebody whose car broke down? We don't. And a majority of 911 calls, that's what they are. So we should actually take all of those functions. Do we need an armed person to deal with somebody who's dealing with a mental health crisis? We don't.

So all those functions that currently the police are tasked with, we should take away those functions and take away the resources that go to them. And that would do a great deal of good. So we think about a divestment strategy. It is about saying, you know what, the police currently do a host of things that is not in their skill set anyway. And we should remove it and put the resources somewhere else. Where should that somewhere else be? Oh, so it depends on what you remove, right? So, you know, the police will complain about being social workers all the time. It's like, you know what, you're right. You should not be dealing with domestic abuse. You shouldn't be dealing with mental health crises.

We can find skilled people who can do that, who don't carry guns, who can intervene in crises. Whoever thought that like sending somebody with a gun out was the best way to deal with everything. That doesn't even make any sense. So you reinvest the money where the services are going to go. I want to just take a step back to the last administration, because one of the things the Obama administration did was ramp up investigations and lawsuits into civil rights

abuses by police forces. And then Donald Trump became the president, and then Attorney General Jeff Sessions announced, look, the government's not going to pursue those kinds of investigations and lawsuits any longer. What problem were those investigations meant to correct? And should they be reintroduced today? Yeah, so the problems depend on the city. So there were some cities that were killing a disproportionate amount of people. There were other cities that were engaged in fraud or misconduct. So the DOJ got to decide and figure out where they wanted to go. Remember that a fully staffed Department of Justice, not during Trump and Obama,

could only investigate three police departments, right? So it wasn't, they did a lot and we love those people. They were an incredible team. They were limited in their scope because of their lack of capacity. So three police departments being investigated a year out of 18,000, not really a huge win. But in the places that the DOJ intervened, they actually did a lot of good. They did.

They helped change the culture of policing. And more importantly, they helped change the outcome. So in most of the places there was federal intervention, the police killed dramatically less people. They have much better policies. And that is on the whole good. You know, it would be great for the DOJ to continue that practice. I don't think we're going to see it under Trump. And hopefully Trump won't be president for the next go round.

In the Dragon's Den, a simple pitch can lead to a life-changing connection. Watch new episodes of Dragon's Den free on CBC Gem. Brought to you in part by National Angel Capital Organization. Empowering Canada's entrepreneurs through angel investment and industry connections. You know, we talked about people making all kinds of calls. You said, look, what I'm advocating for, this is not like rocket science. This is just basic stuff we want our police officers to stop doing in your country and in other countries, including our own. Others are calling for more radical changes or things that would require more policy changes.

Paul has changed, but no matter what they are, DeRay, what is the power of police to limit, to delay or prevent some changes, some of the measures that you and others have laid out? The only power they have to do that is fear. That's it. The police are invested in making sure that you feel like if there are restrictions on their power, that you will be unsafe. That is literally the only power they have and they use that power repeatedly it's what scares away legislators and mayors and city council people but they don't have any structural power to stop these sorts of things what about like what you spoke of there that you know the sort of lobbying effort that um you know that they try to influence politicians of all stripes but it's fear is the tactic. Fear is what they lobby with. There's no like rational argument

for why you wouldn't ban chokehold. The argument that the police say is if you ban this, then somebody might be trying to kill me and am I supposed to not put them in a chokehold because it's banned? And it's like, these are false choices. They don't have like a, there's not like a reasoned argument.

It's only fear. There have been police forces arguably that have made real efforts to change their tactics. I'm thinking of, you know, Camden, New Jersey, a place that's been in the past one of America's most violent cities. There are many changes there, kind of a community policing approach, and we saw officers there marching with protesters. But that's not just a one-off example, right? They're doing more than just marching with protesters. Yeah, in a lot of those places there have been like really powerful policy changes. It's not like just good people, right? I don't know another way to say it. In all the places where there have been increases,

decreases in police violence, it's because either a policy change because activist letter or the DOJ. Camden's no exception. And so how do you replicate that kind of model? How does that happen? So some of it is how do we teach people so that they have the information, which is why we launched useofforceproject.org a long time ago, so that people can see the policies, they can understand them, they can read them, they can press. So that's one. Or the policies they can understand them they can read them they can press so that's one or the doj can intervene so you you help people understand at the local level then they go push or you ask for outside intervention again like these things are like simple but not small it's not like you don't need a 3 000 page playbook i don't need to talk about it for 40 minutes about like what the strategy strategy is pretty simple. The only thing holding us back is a lack of courage. That's it. It's not there's like no,

there's this really isn't rocket science. There are some things about policing that are a little complicated. policing and contracts are complicated, like the language in them is is complicated. The timing is complicated. The policies are not it's just courage. It's just a lack of courage. Just before I let you go. You were, you know, you were in Ferguson, Missouri. And a lot of people say, look, nothing or very little has changed since then. Do you think this time is different? We'll see. I don't know.

You know, I'm not a psychic. So we'll see what this time turns into. I think that this time is a continuation of the last time in the sense that many of us who were there the last time and we thought things were going to get better and they got worse. And this time people are fed up. But what it'll turn into, you'll have to come back afterwards and we will see if we were able to meet the moment or not jerry thanks for making time for us i appreciate it cool talk to you later bye on monday evening after going days without appearing in public as much of the country

protested peacefully in the streets, with some protests turning violent, U.S. President Donald Trump surfaced. In a brief speech, he addressed the protests, saying the country has been gripped by, quote, professional anarchists, violent mobs, arsonists, looters, criminals, rioters, Antifa, and others. After blaming state officials for losing control, Trump threatened to deploy the military on American soil. Therefore, the following measures are going into effect immediately. First, we are ending the riots and lawlessness that has spread throughout our country. We will end it now.

that has spread throughout our country. We will end it now. Today, I have strongly recommended to every governor to deploy the National Guard in sufficient numbers that we dominate the streets. Mayors and governors must establish an overwhelming law enforcement presence until the violence has been quelled. If a city or state

refuses to take the actions that are necessary to defend the life and property of their residents, then I will deploy the United States military and quickly solve the problem for them. The president then left the White House's Rose Garden. That's Donald Trump on the streets where the protesters were just having their encounters with police where that tear gas was just falling. Police used tear gas and flash grenades to clear peaceful protesters

so that Trump could walk to a nearby church. He then posed for a photograph outside holding a Bible. All of this followed an order from Trump to deploy an active duty military police battalion in Washington, D.C. A similar move in other states would require consultation with the governors, which casts doubt on his ability to make good on the vow to do the same elsewhere in the U.S. That's all for today. I'm Pia Chattopadhyay. We'll talk again tomorrow.