The Rich Roll Podcast - Jeremiah Ellison: The Artist-Activist On Forging Real Change

Episode Date: April 26, 2021

This month, events in Minneapolis captured the world’s attention. The recent death of Daunte Wright and the conviction of Derek Chauvin sound a significant shift in the civil rights movement and the country at large. Today, artist, activist, and politician Jeremiah Ellison is here to help us make sense of this historic moment. As some of you may know, I spent the week of April 13th, 2021 (pre-Chauvin verdict) in a very tense Minneapolis. Motivating my visit was an intention to better understand the events and circumstances that brought the world’s focus upon this city—not from what I read online or saw streaming endlessly on cable news—but rather from a first-hand, experience-based perspective. In addition, my objective was to conduct meaningful, nuanced conversations with Minneapolis civic leaders who are grappling with the important issues that have recently dominated national news coverage. Issues that include police misconduct and public safety reform; the roots of civil unrest and the purpose of protest; and of course the role social activism has played in all of this. This conversation, the first in a series of Minneapolis-themed episodes that I will be releasing over the coming weeks, is one powerful result of that good faith inquiry. Representing Ward 5 on the Minneapolis City Council, Jeremiah sits at the vortex of the many complicated issues that concern his community, and from the start has been one of the leading and most prominent voices calling for the reimagination of public safety. On the one hand, Jeremiah is a very unlikely elected official. An artist at heart and painter by trade, he’s both a muralist and a comic book illustrator. He’s into Silver Surfer. And Batman. On the other hand, he is the son of former 6-term Congressman Keith Ellison. Currently Attorney General for the state of Minnesota, the Ellison elder was also in charge of the Chauvin prosecution. In other words, it’s fair to say that Jeremiah was born for the role he currently inhabits. My week in Minneapolis was extraordinary. There were so many experiences I will never forget. I learned much. I’m better for the trip. And my time with Jeremiah has much to do with that. I’m grateful that he took the time to share his truth and for his trust in my ability to share it. FULL BLOG & SHOW NOTES: bit.ly/richroll597 YouTube: bit.ly/jeremiahellison597 This is a powerful exchange. My only ask is that you welcome Jeremiah and his testimony with an open mind and an open heart. P.S. – Special thanks to talented Minneapolis local photographers/videographers Bennie Wilson and Jordan Lundell for portraits & an upcoming video we are working on. Peace + Plants, Rich

I think that we have these kind of preset narratives about a place, about people. And, you know, we have that in policy and politics as well, right? I think a lot of folks have tried to squeeze this conversation into, like, you either think that people's safety is a priority and you want more police, or you think we live in a utopia and you don't think we need police, right? Like that's been the binary of this conversation when like, that's not the truth. And, you know, I don't fault people. It is incredibly difficult to tell the truth when you have these preset narratives and the truth isn't fitting into any of them. You, you know,

people feel like you're not really making sense. My whole goal, especially in this moment, feel like you're not really making sense. My whole goal, especially in this moment, is to make sure that I'm telling the truth, right? And the truth is that we do need to have a conversation about how we keep each other safe as neighbors. I think that if there were more opportunities for folks to engage in a more long-form conversation, that's how we're actually going to cook up a solution. That's Jeremiah Ellison, and this is The Rich Roll Podcast. The Rich Roll Podcast. Hey, everybody, welcome to the podcast.

So today's gonna be a little bit different. As some of you may know, I spent the week of April 13 in Minneapolis, a very tense Minneapolis. And I think it's fair to say it was a rather historic and personally a very moving week in which the eyes of the world bore witness to both the death of Dante Wright and the tail end of the Derek Chauvin trial. And it was also a week in which the world was grappling with what these events mean, what they portend, not just for the current and future of Minneapolis, but for the civil rights movement, for the broader relationship between government, power in general, and citizenship in our country at large. And the reason for this trip, the motivation behind it, the intention, the goal was to better understand the circumstances that

led to consume this city, and in many many ways the nation, not from what I read or saw streaming endlessly on cable news, but rather from a firsthand perspective, a boots on the ground experience. And at the same time to conduct meaningful nuanced conversations with civic leaders of Minneapolis about the important issues the city and its citizens are grappling with, from police misconduct and public safety reform to civil unrest, and of course, the role social activism has played in all of this. So, that is what today's conversation with Jeremiah Ellison is all about, the first in a series of Minneapolis themed episodes

that I will be releasing over the coming weeks. As both an activist and elected official, Jeremiah represents Ward 5 on the Minneapolis City Council where he sits at the vortex, the intersection of the many challenging and complicated issues that concern his community. And from the start, this is a guy who's been one of the leading and most prominent voices calling for the overhaul and reimagination of public safety. There are a few important

things I want to add before we dive in, but first. We're brought to you today by recovery.com i've been in recovery for a long time it's not hyperbolic to say that i owe everything good in my life to sobriety and it all began with treatment and experience that i had that quite literally saved my life and in the many years since i've in turn helped many suffering addicts and their loved ones find treatment. And with that, I know all too well just how confusing and how overwhelming and how challenging it can be to find the right place

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When you or a loved one need help, go to recovery.com and take the first step towards recovery. To find the best treatment option for you or a loved one, again, go to recovery.com. Okay, Jeremiah Ellison. So I should point out that this trip came to be through many conversations with my friend, Brogan Graham, one of the co-founders of November Project, who you may recall from episode 277 of the podcast

way back in the day, and who as a resident of Minneapolis was keeping me apprised of the temperature and goings on there and suggested that I come out and see it for myself. I have done plenty of podcasts on the road over the years, but this particular situation presented a unique set of circumstances to experiment with expanding the scope of what this show has traditionally focused on, which is evergreen conversations, and instead pursue a sort of investigative journalism perspective

on an important current event unfolding in real time. Brogan did not need to implore me to come. I immediately jumped on it as an opportunity to try something new with the podcast, an opportunity to grow, an opportunity to learn and share to the best of my ability, my sense of all of it. So that's the backdrop. As for Jeremiah, he's a guy who was at the very top of my list of people to host. And one of the many interesting things about this guy is that on the one hand, he's a very unlikely politician or civic leader because in addition to being quite young at heart,

this guy is really an artist. He paints street murals, he pens comic books, he's really into the Silver Surfer and Batman. But on the other hand, he is the son of six-term Congressman Keith Ellison, who is now the Attorney General for the state of Minnesota, and the man who was in charge of the Chauvin prosecution. So you can easily also make the argument that Jeremiah was actually born for the role he currently inhabits. My week in Minneapolis was extraordinary. There were so many experiences I will never forget.

I learned a ton. I'll be sharing much more about it on the next Roll On episode and other content that we're currently working on. And I'm better for the trip. And Jeremiah actually has a lot to do with that. I'm grateful that he took the time to share his truth and for his trust in my ability to share it with all of you. And the result of our time spent together produced what I believe to be a rather powerful exchange. My only ask is that you welcome him and his testimony with an open mind and an open heart. So here we go. This is me and Jeremiah Ellison.

Once again, man, I appreciate you doing this. Yeah, I appreciate the invite. It's almost nine o'clock at night. Usually I do these at like noon. I'm just waking up. Usually I do these at like noon. I'm just waking up. I know, I'm like, I hope my energy, I can keep it going. But the reason we're doing it at night is because we're, well Ramadan just kicked off, so you're fasting.

So you just broke your fast. The meal, what's the meal called? Yeah, iftar, yeah. Iftar, right, yeah, yeah, yeah. So I broke fast just real quickly cause I knew I needed to make it over here, but like, yeah, two dates, two oranges, like half a gallon of water. That's not, yeah, because you can't drink, you don't drink water either.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Like I'll have like, I'll go home and I'll eat again after this. But I'm like, I can't like cook right now. You have like a big food coma right before you come over here too. Have you been doing that your whole life? Yeah, yeah, yep. I can't remember how young I was when I started. You know, I wasn't five, like some, you know, some, some kids in the faith, they like,

we'll start that young. Right. I don't think I was that young, but definitely like middle school, high school. Right. Right. It's cool, man. I like the tradition. Part of the tradition is, well, it's about, is it not about kind of self-reflection, like introspection, like restraint, humility, which are all interesting kind of states of mind as we're in this crazy moment here in your city. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I feel like for a long time, Ramadan for me was just fasting. Like, it was just the hunger. When you're young, especially, you're going to fixate on the not eating part because you're not eating.

It sucks, you know, for a whole month. And, you know, somewhere in my early 20s, I had like a, I don't know how to describe it, but like the end of Ramadan, like I just felt something different. Like, I just felt like I was taking it on differently. It was no longer just about like an exercise of like, you know, you know, this, this, uh, you can turn fasting into a sport, right? Like, can I get through the day? Right. Um, and, uh, and so, yeah, the, the humility, you know, fasting from, from anger and some of these intangible things are like really become the goal. They really become the focus for me.

And the food part is like, it helps direct that, but it's not the point. Right, you're purging, you're detoxifying yourself of these negative emotional states. And it's a spiritual sort of journey that you go on for a month, right? That kind of squarely places you in a deeper connection with yourself. Yeah, for sure. And it's communal.

Like it's not eating can feel deeply individual, but the practice is communal. You got millions of people all over the world, but then even more immediately, you know that but the practice is community. You got millions of people all over the world, but then even more immediately, you know, that you've got like neighbors down the street. Like there's a masjid on the other side of the block from where I live. It's not the one I go to, but, you know, it's always kind of fun to see like, you know, folks gathering together to break fast, do iftar together. Some people spend all night at the masjid praying and it can be pretty cool.

And what happens? So like May 15th is the end, right? So what happens when you finally conclude it? Yeah, I mean, usually, I don't know what we'll do. I did get my second vaccine shot. So I'll have to see where family's at and if everyone in the family's got, my sister's gotten it.

My brother's a nurse, so he's gotten it. So I think most of us might be fully vaccinated by Eid. And so hopefully we can do it together. Right. Well, you have a fascinating story. The more I kind of dive into everything that you're about, the more interested I become. And you're a bit of a conundrum because on the one hand,

you're just such an unlikely politician. Like you're a street artist, you're a comic book artist. I wanna see your comic book art. You didn't bring any comics. No, I didn't bring anything. So on that level, like, how does this make sense? And yet, as the son of your father, Keith, six-term congressman, now attorney general,

and kind of leading the prosecutorial team in the Chauvin trial, it's like, of course you're doing this. It's like you're following in your father's footsteps in your own unique way, bringing your own kind of imprimatur to what it is that you do. But how do you think about this? It's like, you didn't show up in a tie. You got a beanie on, you're rocking the tats. You're a man of the people, but you're first and foremost an artist. Yeah. I like to think so. You know, I have been painting and drawing my entire life.

You know, if my dad were here, he would talk about, you know, that my parents trying to figure out how to channel my artistic impulses. Because, you know, I grew up in this old house and the wallpaper would peel back. And so I was just like the kid that's like, okay, I'm going to peel the wallpaper back, draw something little and put it back up. But I feel like the way that I came into art and my practice in general, especially mural painting, it really connects. It really overlaps with the way that I govern in a really important way. it really overlaps with the way that I govern in a really important way. I'll say this quick story. But when I was eight years old, I got involved with this organization called Juxtaposition Arts. And Roger Cummings and Peyton Russell were my art instructors back then. And I show up to the first day of mural painting, eight years old. I'm really excited. The next

youngest person was 14. So I'm the youngest person there. I'm really excited to paint this mural. I'm thinking, okay, I'm going to get my hand on a spray can. They had spent all winter making me do still lifes, you know, so I could do the, get to the basics. And I'm like, nah, I want to be a graffiti artist. And, and so I show up and I'm ready to paint. And Roger is like, hands me a notepad and a pen. And he's like, okay, I want you to walk, you know, three blocks that way and walk three blocks in the opposite direction. And everybody you talk to who lives in the area, I don't care what they're doing, just ask them what kind of thing they want to see on the wall. That doesn't mean we're necessarily going to paint it, but when you are going to make public art, you've got to engage the public. That's the lesson.

I was learning that at eight. I think every mural process I ever had incorporated some kind of community feedback. And even once you started painting, I remember when I would get older, people would walk by and they would say, that's whack. I don't like how that looks. Or they would say, hey, I'm interested to see how you finish. Or they'd give you compliments. The community engages, especially on the north side of Minneapolis. The community is going to engage. They're going to tell you if they don't like it.

Right. They're going to tell you if they like it. And really what they're telling you is in a roundabout way is whether or not you engage them. Yeah, that's a huge life skill and a cornerstone of being an effective politician, right? You have to go into the community, meet these people, meet them where they're at and try to develop some consensus around your vision. Like you might think, this is what I wanna do.

They don't want it. How much are you willing to bend and compromise? How can you get them on board with what you wanna do? Like all of these are the skills that come into play every minute of your day now, I would imagine. Yeah, no, absolutely. And outreach can be tough, especially as a local elected. You're battling the fact that, especially in my seat, there's this legacy of not engaging with folks.

And so that means that the level of people who think to call their council member when they're having an issue is relatively low. And so I go to try to turn that up. I want people, it might be a little bit weird, but I want people complaining in my office. That's how I'm going to be effective in my role. But it can be tough to get that level of input. I think we've done a pretty good job so far. And you're absolutely right. Sometimes people aren't quite there with you. They're not seeing what you're seeing. And that does present its own kind of question. You can't leave your constituents behind.

It's not the right thing to do. But you also can't just say uh do the wrong thing make the wrong decision because you think it'll be unpopular with your constituents and that that that that's where you kind of create that that uh where you have that tension right yeah well globally or kind of in a macro context people people are so kind of disabused of any idea that their politicians have their interest at heart. They're bought and paid for by special interest groups and they're just looking to get reelected and they're gonna pander to their base

and anything else is just a mere distraction beyond fundraising, right? But you're a guy who kind of was foisted into the public eye by dint of the activist work that you did in particular, that one kind of viral photograph of you with your hands up and the rifle in your face from the cops, that was Jamal Clark?

Jamar. Jamar, right, sorry. In like 2015, right? So this kind of, you know, becomes not really a calling card, but it becomes kind of emblazoned in people's minds that you're a man of the people, right? Yeah.

But then as you become an elected official, there's a blurring line between activism and kind of affecting responsible political change, right? Like I'm interested in like how that works, like where does the activist end and where does the elected official begin? Do those things kind of merge together or do you have to think of them as like separate identities? I think you have to be honest with yourself about what this job can do to people, even if they have good intentions, right? And if you're honest about, which to be clear,

I think usually when, from my experience, when folks are maybe being called like a sellout, right? Like that term or that process of going from being, you know, okay, I came in with all these ideals and now, you know, maybe I'm a little bit, I've moved into this other category where people aren't really feeling me. I think that that happens because of exhaustion and it happens to people because they think it can't happen to them, you know? And so for me, it's about keeping perspective and not taking some of that anger that people might have towards me, constituents or activists or whoever, not taking it personal because I know that there have been people, whether in my immediate seat or just in elected office before, who have earned a lot of the bad will that people have for politicians, right?

Yeah. earned a lot of the bad will that people have for politicians, right? Yeah. So you have to double down on the transparency and the outreach and boots on the ground in the community. And I think that you also have to, in a way, figure out how to be vulnerable. It's not a quality that's rewarded in this position, right? And there are ways to be sort of faux vulnerable, right? Like, I don't know, crying in public, right? And there are ways-

Performative, vulnerable on social media. Oversharing. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And then there are ways where to be vulnerable that can earn some good trust in their reel may not look vulnerable on their face, right? Mm-hmm. You know, there have been times where I have thought, vulnerable that can earn some good trust in their real may not look vulnerable on their face, right? You know, there have been times where I have thought something was needed in my community.

Like a couple of months ago, I was advocating for a women's homeless shelter and the neighbors were like, council member, hell no, we don't want a homeless shelter here. And, you know, ultimately, We don't want a homeless shelter here. And, you know, ultimately, you know, I was, it didn't prevail, right? As much as I wanted it to. I had public meetings where I was just, oh my God, I was just blasted at these meetings. Not in my backyard kind of thing. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And people with some legitimate fear, right? Like, I think people have been fed a lot of gross narratives about homeless people. And it's not my job to judge them for having consumed those messages, but it is my job to maybe do some political education and try to help them unlearn some of those messages. And so when I'm looking at somebody who's using criminalizing language for homeless people,

I disagree with them. I got to work to make sure that I'm winning and not them. But I don't judge them. I don't dismiss them because I know in some ways what they want and what I want and what that person who's living out on the street wants is probably pretty similar. They've just got it. They walked into the conversation with a lot of preconceived notions. Now, some of the people who were standing against me in that meeting, I thought, you know, I've lost this person's support, right?

Not only did I lose this person's support, I also, you know, some of the other electeds who were in the room looked around, saw me getting yelled at and thought, oh, I'm not going to support it because I don't want to be in his position. And then we ended up losing. That shelter didn't get built. And so it's kind of a setback. But you've got folks who stood against it at the time who have reached back out to say, you know, actually, I see what you were doing there. You have folks who are in the back of the crowd maybe seeing me get heckled. And, you know, they're just everyday people. They don't want to be heckled themselves, but they agreed with me. And those are the kinds of things that can happen when you're willing to go out on a limb, when you're not operating in that mode

of what's gonna get me liked in this moment. Right, right. So your district is Ward 5. It's 82% people of color, yeah. And something like 40% of the population is below the poverty line. Yeah. So this is the kind of modus from which you're operating

and the people on behalf of whom you're advocating for. It's interesting that even then there's blind spots, like you're trying to champion the underdog, but these other underdogs are like, hey, what about me? Like, it just gets complicated. It does get complicated. I think that's why, you know,

I think that's why that like, the only term I could think of is political ed, like political education is just really important. It can't happen if you're dismissing people. It can't happen if you're condescending people. People are pretty smart, but they are also a lot of things on top of that. Right. People might be afraid at any given moment. People might have not wrestled with their biases, right? All these things can occur. And so I think that's how you can find yourself in a position like that. And I know for some of those folks, they're thinking, well, yeah, I'm poor, right?

yeah, I'm poor, right? And this guy, meaning me, wants to quote unquote dump more poor people in my neighborhood. And a limited amount of resources into a program that doesn't benefit my life. Right, right. And it's a scarcity mindset. My mindset is you're greeted when you arrive,

you're given what you're needed. Right. And, and I'm always going to have that attitude. And so, and so I'll continue to make sure, you know, make sure that we're doing our fair share and building shelters. But, you know, I can, I can disagree while, while empathizing with someone who might be advocating for a position that I can't stand on. Yeah, well, that's your job, right? Yeah.

You're constantly dealing with people that don't see things the way that you do, right? I mean, you're like in the shit right now, like you're in the crosshairs. The entire world is paying attention to what's happening in Minneapolis right now. I would imagine that that must feel at times burdensome to carry that kind of level of responsibility. And on the subject of political education and boots on

the ground, I mean, that's my motivation in coming here. Like everybody else, I've been watching what's been going on here over the last year. This feels like a very important historic moment. We're at a sort of crossroads, I think, with what's going on in the city. And there's what's gonna happen with the verdict and how is Minneapolis gonna move forward or not from this. But I think also, because everybody's paying such close attention,

the ripple effect in terms of like how we're gonna function as a nation and even across the world, I think has profound implications, right? And I just wanted to share with you yesterday, as somebody who thought they were paying fairly close attention to what was happening here, I haven't been here before.

I mean, the last time I visited Minneapolis, I was a kid and we went to George Floyd Square yesterday. And in my mind, as like this progressive, conscious citizen, I thought I knew what to expect and it defied all of that. Like all of that went out the window as soon as I arrived there. And it was nothing like what I thought it would be

from the setting to the neighborhood, to the visceral experience of being in what is really a living breathing, not just Memorial, but museum, grieving place, gathering spot. Like it's so many things, you can't define it as any one thing. And I was not expecting to be as moved as I was by it or as welcomed as I was.

We had a great encounter with the Agape folks, you know, that group who then we'd spent like an hour there and then we were getting ready to leave. And they're like, hey, what are you guys doing? And then they ended up like giving us a VIP tour. And it was incredible, man. And I had a hard time sleeping last night. I was so moved by it.

And what it did beyond just that experience in and of itself was remind me of not just my own biases, but how, when I think I know something, I really don't know. Like there's always room to expand and to grow and learn. And I left that realizing how little I actually was connected to what was happening here. And just kind of, there's something about the heaviness of it all, like you can feel the emotion

of everybody that's in that space. And so I don't know if this is leading to a question, it's more like an observation, like the context in which I'm coming to you today as somebody who is grappling in the political sphere with these issues. How do you think about how you communicate when you go on Chris Hayes or CBS News

and all these kinds of things that you've been doing lately? I think that we have these kind of preset narratives about a place, about people. And, you know, we have that in policy and politics as well, right? I think a lot of folks have tried to squeeze this conversation into, like, you either think that people's safety is a priority and you want more police, or you think we live in a utopia and you don't think we need police, right? Like that's been the binary of this conversation when like, that's not the truth. And, you know, I don't fault people. It is incredibly difficult to tell the truth when you have these preset narratives and the truth isn't fitting into any of them. You, you know, people feel like you're not really making sense. My whole goal, especially in this moment, is to make sure that I'm telling the truth.

Right. And the truth is that we do need to have a conversation about how we keep each other safe as neighbors, as residents. And that the police are not the only means for which we can do that. You can have both conversations. You can acknowledge that keeping people safe is a priority without having to sort of dive into these preset narratives about- Right, here we go again. We're gonna do the same thing we've always done and we keep getting the same result.

Absolutely. It's like the definition of insanity. So today, just so people understand, like we're in downtown Minneapolis right now, National Guard's everywhere, Humvees all over the place, you know, guys in uniform, that alarm went off twice. I don't know what that was about.

It's like a preset. Like making sure it works or whatever. Yeah, which is funny because it goes off, like we're used to like, it goes off every like first Wednesday or whatever. But this one was also a test I was told, but it's obviously it's not Wednesday. So a lot of people were like, what is going on? Right. Yeah. I, I, I think to your point about

George Floyd square is that if you are somebody else from out of town told me that, that they were just surprised by how residential and low to the ground, the whole space was. Cause we look at the pictures. I imagined like more, a much more urban place, lots of stores, lots of foot traffic. And I was like, it's not a suburb, but it's not really the city either. And actually there's a lot of nice houses around there. And it just was nothing like what I had envisioned in my mind.

And I was walking around believing that what I believed was true for no reason at all, because all I had seen were images or quick little video clips. Even the iconic mural, I was like, wow, it's so small. I was like, I thought it was like, you know, four stories high or something. Yeah, no, it's much more grounded, you know,

it's not this large scale. You know, I think that community members that I've talked to will tell you like, yeah, there's always been an element of, like, violent crime in this area. Right. Well before the barricades. It certainly existed after the barricades. I think that story isn't as well told as it should be.

It's all about kind of what happened, you know, last year and over the last couple months. last year and over the last couple months? Locally, I think that there has tried to be a narrative. There have been a few who have tried to push this narrative that the place is overrunning. It's just rampant violence every day. It's all despair. That's been the narrative because there are folks who want to remove the barricades.

And I'm not saying we can't have a conversation about whether or not we remove the barricades. I don't represent that area. It's virtually on the opposite side of town from where I represent. But I do think that it simplifies sort of this narrative, right? It's either, you know, it's either a healing space or it's hell on earth, right? Right. It's neither, and we should probably be deferring to the people who are there every day and not just sort of creating a little echo chamber of people who are telling us what we want to hear. I can't just go down there.

I'm inclined to listen to the activists and the folks who are sleeping out there. I can't ignore the businesses who are saying, hey, this is hard for us. But you also can't go down there, talk to the businesses who are saying, hey, this is hard for us, and ignore all the people who have said, hey, this is a space where we feel like we can access some of our power. I think that you've got to be able to hold some multiple truths. And I think that leaders in the state have really struggled to hold that. Yeah, for people that don't know, the square is like, I don't know, it's essentially like a little bit more than a city block. And within the parameters of George Floyd Square are businesses that are closed down right now. So obviously those business owners would like to reopen. The community would prefer that they don't. And everybody's got a valid point of view

on that. And it's super sensitive. Yeah, absolutely. And there's even some of the businesses within there, I'm not gonna remember the name, but there's a woman who has like a hair and nail place and she's like, it's fine, right? But you've got folks who have food services and it's a little harder to move your food, right? Like it's, you know, so it's-

But Cup Foods, that's like the one thing that's open. Oh my God, so it's. But Cup Foods, that's like the one thing that's open. Oh my God. Yeah. Yeah. Cup, it's one of the, it's high level of resilience. Yeah. And, you know, corner stores like it. You know, I kind of have a weird, like, you know, appreciation for those, for those kinds of spots. I grew up like mostly going to corner stores. You know, we've got this, you this, people call it a food desert. I think I've heard the term food apartheid.

I think that's probably more appropriate in North Minneapolis as well. And as much as these corner stores, their ownership, the way they operate, it can be problematic. but also they occupy space and provide fresh food, at least the option for fresh food in places where grocery stores have largely abandoned. Yeah, there's no grocery stores. And that drives, it just creates a vicious cycle because that feeds the lack of health in the community that then of course leads to all these lifestyle diseases

that make you, you know, susceptible to everything from COVID to diabetes, to heart disease. So, I mean, you see George Floyd, guy was like jacked, you know, looked fit, but the autopsy revealed he had heart disease. He had pretty bad heart disease at the same time too. So that I look at that and I'm like, well,

that's purely a function of food apartheid, you know, and living in it, you know, coming up in a space like that. Yeah. So it's April 15th today, and the defense rested its case in the Chauvin trial. Monday, there's gonna be closing arguments. It's gonna go to the jury. How are you feeling about all this?

Like, what's your sense of how this is going to play out? Yeah. Folks know my dad as an attorney, but folks might not know I've got uncles, cousins, my older brother, all attorneys. I think when you get raised in that kind of environment around a lot of people who study and practice law, I think the one thing you learn is to try not to be too overly prescriptive of what a jury's going to do. And so, you know, I've followed the case. I've tried not to obsess and hyper, be hyper vigilant about following the case because I know that at the end of the day, you know, we don't have control over the outcome out here.

You know, I'm interested. You know, I've got a, you know, I think in a literal sense, I have no proximity to the case. But obviously, I have, you know, people imagine some proximity because my dad's in the case. Yeah, I mean, what is his role specifically? I mean, he's sort of in charge of leading the prosecution team. Yeah. And I think his role, I think, is to make sure that he's got good people in charge. Jerry Blackwell is probably going to be pretty well known when this is all said and done. And I like to think of my dad as a pretty good trial lawyer, but I think it's probably been well over a decade since he's been in a courtroom.

And so his role really is to build a good team, and I think, and to check in with them, to vet their work, make sure he's seeing what they're seeing, make sure he understands what they're seeing, and that he's equipping them with all the tools they need. Aside from that— Is he in the courtroom every day? I'm actually not sure. Is he in the courtroom every day? I'm actually not sure. I've tried for the most part to not get into the details of the case the same way that I've tried to make sure that he's not in the details of the civil side as we were dealing with that. Because you were involved in negotiating the settlement for the family. Yeah.

And so, you know, I think there's a healthy, well, A, I think there's just, it's just good professional behavior for us to make sure that if there's overlap, that we're keeping it separate, right? But also, you know, I think people kind of imagine me and my dad having like this professional relationship, but like we have a personal one, right? Like I have the same relationship with my dad as anybody has with their dad, right? So, you know, we get together. We're not going to just talk about work. You know, we're gonna, we got other stuff going on. I read that, cause you're gonna run for reelection and your dad was quoted as saying something like, well, I hope he's doing it cause he wants it.

He's like, my son's an artist, man. Like, you know, I hope he, only if he wants to do it, cause at some point that guy's gonna go back to painting murals. Yeah, for sure, for sure. Maybe he will, maybe he won't, I don't know. Yeah, no, I, that's what I love to do it because at some point that guy's going to go back to painting murals. Yeah, for sure. Maybe he will, maybe he won't. I don't know. Yeah. No, that's what I love to do. I think that I'll be, you know, my impulses will force me back into that eventually. But right now I really feel like I'm offering something to my community that

I don't know anybody else could step up and offer. And plenty of people would be capable, you know, but who can win an election and who's ready and people would be capable you know right um but who can win an election and who's ready and and who who feels prepared you know half of it is feeling yourself prepared um you know yeah me and my dad like the the last couple of months i think we've like you know football came and went you know obviously we talk about a lot of like the context same stuff everybody else talks about um but but also spent a lot of time talking about he talk about a lot of like the context, same stuff everybody else talks about. But also spend a lot of time talking about, he's a big fan of like really bad monster movies. Like, you know, like stuff like unwatchable.

Like he really loves like Hugh Jackman's Van Helsing. I can't understand it. And he's rewatching, you know, I think when he can, you know, not that he has a bunch of time, but he was telling me he's going to try to rewatch the X-Files. So, you know, we talked about that type of stuff. I'm trying to get him to watch WandaVision. I don't know if it's his thing. Yeah, it might be too new for him. Going back into the X-Files line. Wow. What was that like growing up with him as a congressman? I mean, most of your childhood, he must've been in office. Yeah. So you'd had to go back and forth between dc and here well you know what's weird you know i think i think it was 17 when he was elected okay so you were already yeah so i was kind of up and getting out of the house and you

know i don't know too many 16 17 year olds who really care about what their parents are now so i think that he as a parent of a 17 year old iold, I can promise you, zero interest. I think it took me a long time to even realize that anybody thought of him as especially important. Because you go to D.C. to the swearing-in, and you're there, and all of that. But at 16, 17, I'm like, you know, I'm thinking about football. You know, I was playing, you know, at the time. I'm thinking about, you know, whether or not I'm going to recover from my shoulder injury. I'm thinking about girls. I'm thinking about art.

I'm thinking about all these other things. And then, you know, and I think that, like, at some point, it was like I had, like, a realization in my early 20s. I'm like, oh, my dad's, like, kind of, like I think that like at some point it was like I had like a realization in my early 20s. I'm like, oh, my dad's like kind of like people know. Yeah. It's kind of weird. So anyway, but yeah, it took me a while to even realize. And so I think, you know, for my younger siblings, I think it was a little bit more of a thing for them. But for me and my older brother, I think it was like dad's thing for a while.

Right. And your mom's a baller too, like director of the board of education. Yeah. Yeah. But they were cool with like, our son's an artist, man. Let him do his thing. There wasn't a pressure on you to go to law school or anything like that. No, no, no.

Nothing like that. I think, you know, in my household, it was like, you know, love what you do. Try to be good at it so that we can brag about you. And, um, that's, you know, that's kind of it. You know, I remember my mom was like one of the, I can't remember how old it must've been like 12, maybe. Yeah.

Like 11 or 12. And I wanted like these like Prismacolor markers and they're like $4 a marker. And so, you know, you get a set of 24 and it's pretty expensive. markers and they're like four dollars a marker and so you get a set of 24 it's pretty expensive and um and you know they'd always been interested in my art but i don't think really understood like i think they kind of thought of as like okay this is a thing he did as a kid he's gonna grow out of it and i just like remained really interested in comics really interested in drawing really interested in painting and my mom was finally like, all right, we're going to get this kid these expensive markers and let them go wild. And it was probably a big part of what kept me in it because I think I was getting a little bit around that age where it's like, okay, pen and pencil,

drawing still lifes, this is fine. And it's like, oh man, I could do all kinds of things with color and all this other stuff. So they always really encouraged the art making for sure. So the activism comes later. I mean, we mentioned Jamar Clark in 2015, but prior to that, I mean, you were protesting here and there, right? Like you got arrested one time. Yeah, arrested over $15.

But was that 2015 incident like the turning point? Was that like a moment where you're like, oh, I'm gonna step up and fill some shoes here? I think it was a moment where people in my life kind of thought, hey, you're demonstrating some leadership. I had a mentor, you know, who kind of told me she was like, I've always, like when you were in high school, I always wanted you to sort of fill this role because people, you know, they, I've seen you give people sort of permission in an indirect way, give permission to do courageous things. And I've just kind of never thought of myself that way. I'm out here, I'm moving through the world trying to paint my paintings and do all that. And even during the

Jamar Clark protest, I mean, I was spending most of my days up in my studio and it was the activists who were on the ground at the time who were saying like, hey, you live here and we think that it would mean a lot to community members, to your neighbors, if they have your presence, right? So I would go deliver coffee. And a big part of what kept me in it was I was in a longer term relationship and my girlfriend at the time, she was in it. She was like, we're going to be at the protest. And so I think through that relationship as well, it was like, okay, cool. There's an expectation here, and people are telling me I'm adding some value. In 2015, I think it was yeah, a lot of community members, you know, I had actually reached out to the council member at the time, Long Yang. And I went back and looked at the message that I had sent him recently because I just couldn't quite remember what I had said.

And it was just like this really measured message of like, hey, like, I don't expect you to agree with all the protesters out here. But, you know, I'd always had a good impression of him. I'd seen him run and lose for county commissioner. Then he ended up as a council member and as my council member. And I kind of thought, you know, I don't feel any hesitancy reaching out to you. And I just remember feeling so dismissed, right? Like reading the response, I couldn't even be sure if he wrote it. Like I was like, did his aide write this? And just like, you know, um, but I remember just feeling totally dismissed. And, and what I had asked him to do was come out and be with his neighbors. I said, Hey, look, no matter how, what you, where you stand, one of your neighbors was killed by a city employee. Um, and I think it's important that

you should come show your face. And it was just, no, not going to do that. And so that kind of, I think, triggered a frustration in me that was like, you got to at least show up, right? Like whether people disagree with you or agree with you, you got to at least show up. Whether they call you an asshole or thank you, you got to show up. It's just important. It's just a part of the job. The citizens of this city are not afraid to call their elected officials assholes. No, they're not. No, they're not. As much as we have this, I mean, Minnesota nice is a real thing as well. The passive aggressiveness can be

overwhelming sometimes, but definitely, especially in the last couple of years. I mean, folks are going to tell you what they feel. And I appreciate it. Even if I think somebody's wrong, I appreciate it. Well, that rawness can lead to the change that can change everything. I agree. So you end up running in like 2016, you get elected in 2017. you end up running in like 2016, you get elected in 2017.

And your platform is essentially at the time, like it has to do with police action protests and reform and workers' rights, housing, environmental justice and the like, but you couldn't have imagined what you would be in for. No, no, not at all. I actually spent, when I was looking through, I have this spreadsheet of like things that I've authored and things that I've tried, projects and policy and ordinances, that kind of thing. And a little tracker for myself.

What's in progress? What have I finished? What have I passed? And all the stuff that I've passed, it's all on the budget realm. It's all economic development stuff. It's helping small businesses buy their buildings, that kind of thing. On the policy front, it's all like housing protection, like renter protection, that kind of stuff. I mean, housing is such a big deal here. It's a huge deal. You know, I mean, everywhere in the country, you know, you're seeing people get pushed out of urban areas because, you know,

there's sort of this, I call it reverse white flight. It's like people left in the fifties or whatever. And now their grandkids all want to come live in the city and it's fine, but it's driving up home prices and there's a lack of access and it's displacing the people who have been living in the city for generations. And so I really want to go tackle that, both the economic development issue and the housing issue, because it's like, you know, this area is either going to gentrify or it's going to stay disinvested from. How can I make sure that neither happen? Right. Like that we get investment, but that people can stay and keep opting into this place as their home. So that's what I've been focused on.

And obviously, police accountability. Yeah, I was just like, it's a focus. But yeah, now it's our inability to wrestle with this for many, many decades. Our inability to really wrestle with this issue is kind of tearing our city apart right now. It's tearing the whole metro apart. And people will talk about Jamar Clark and people will talk about George Floyd and they should, both those people, both those men were killed in this awful way.

But people older than me are gonna talk about, you know, Tysel Nelson. They're gonna talk about Abuka Sanders. You know, they're gonna talk about these other people who, you know, throughout the years, you know, have been killed by NPD and Terrence Franklin, which was well ahead of my time, but we didn't settle that case until I was in office.

I think he was killed in 2012 or 2013. City didn't settle that case until like 2020. And so, 2019 maybe. And so, yeah, I think it's a huge issue and we've got to get it right. And I think that everybody has, the mayor, my colleagues, everybody has an idea about how to get it right. And everybody thinks the other person's wrong, including me, to be fair. And that's kind of where things stand. kind of where things stand. Yeah, at George Floyd Square, they do a really good job of making sure everybody understands that although George is kind of the focal point

of that space, it's really about so much more than that. And you see all the names painted on the street. And then there's the cemetery with tombstones for all of the individuals who have fallen at the hands of the police. And it's just, it's impossible to not, you know, sort of be in denial about the gravity of the problem, right? And I wanna get to re-imagining public safety

because you got lots of interesting opinions about that. But before that, like, let's spend a little bit of time on George Floyd. Like I'm interested in, you know know how everything sort of begins to change when that transpires you know commencing with like when did you first see the video and like how did that all go down in your own life yeah you know i first saw the video uh the day it happened it was i i was it was at night. I had seen snippets of it like on social media throughout the day, but had never been spending enough time on social media to actually click the video. And, and nobody had necessarily called me or, or anything. Like usually I will have like

a lot of calls from community activists about like this happened. So I was kind of like, it's not in your ward. Yeah. It's not in my ward. Right, right, exactly. And so it was kind of like, okay, I'm not really sure what this video is, but it's late at night. Nobody's called me about it, but I'll check it out. And I think it was the one I saw what had been like re-shared or posted by Eliza Deris,

who's a activist here, a local activist here. He wasn't the one who filmed the video, but he had this video and he had posted it. So I'm like, okay, Eliza Deris, who's an activist here, a local activist here. He wasn't the one who filmed the video, but he had this video and he had posted it. So I'm like, okay, Eliza's posting this. Must be serious because I take his opinion seriously. And I watched the video and I just remember feeling like just that dread that you feel as you're watching him be tortured. you're watching him be tortured. And there's this moment at the end of the video where, you know, I just remember, and it's been a while since I watched it, but they go to eventually pick him up. And he's so limp and at a human level, you know, like your instincts kick in and your brain's telling you that this person doesn't have any life in them, which contrasted, you know, the call I eventually ended up getting, which was, oh, you know, oh, he wasn't dead in the video.

He passed later. You know, all this other stuff. Right. Call from other city officials. I got a call from the police. Well, the mayor called me first. I did. And then I saw later that I had missed a call from the chief somehow.

And I later talked to him about it. And it was like, he got bad info. Like, you know, somewhere in the chain, a lot of folks, you know, bad info just started spreading. He wanted to make sure I knew what was going on. He gave me the info he had. And it just wasn't the truth. Well, the initial police report didn't even indicate the knee on the neck thing at all. Right. No, no. It's just as-

They didn't amend that until after the video was out. Right. Right. And so, we've been struggling with some problems with MPD even before this happened, right? There was my second year in office or maybe halfway through my first year in office, officers got, there was a report that MPD was instructing EMTs to inject people with ketamine whether they need it or not, right? And you got these transcripts of people being,

begging, strapped to a gurney, begging to not be injected against their will and then being injected. Right. The idea being, we just need to sed be injected against their will and then being injected. Right. The idea being we just need to sedate these people. Yeah. By whatever means necessary. Honestly, reading through some of the transcripts that I read, often it would read as this person called me a name I didn't like.

This person, it just seemed vindictive. Excited delirium is often the term that's used as an excuse to inject people with ketamine. But, you know, the people who are being injected were often totally lucid, you know, maybe mouthing off, quote unquote, but totally lucid. And being injected with ketamine sort of came off as more of a punishment than anything. And, you know, we had this marijuana drug bust, which, you know, we shouldn't even be bothering with that anyway, but it was so rife with racial bias that the district attorney wouldn't even prosecute the case. And we do not have a progressive district attorney, you know, it was, and so like, these are some of the things that kind of led up to, you know, oh, we had this huge report that you guys should look

into the Star Tribune, you know, talk to a bunch of survivors of sexual assault about and talk to them about their experience. And it was sort of this huge exposure of, of like how people felt like they were treated. Not only was their case never solved, right. And that we have this low, you know, we clear like 20% or less of these types of cases, but individual victims saying that they felt totally dismissed or re-victimized by our police. And does that break down by race? I don't remember if the report broke down by race, but some of the women were, you know,

very public. And I think there's like a photo with a number of some of the victims who felt like they hadn't been given service by the police department, given any kind of sense of justice and weren't even taken seriously. Right. And so these are the issues that we're, you know, that we're dealing with. And they're all sort of these local scandals that like we're dealing with. And each one just notches, the tension just gets ratcheted up, right? So, you know, it's easy to kind of look at Floyd, the Floyd situation and the explosion of civil unrest that followed and conclude that it was all about that without really appreciating everything that like was

leading up to that being kind of a breaking moment for everybody. Absolutely. You know, there was one professor from John Jay College. They have, I'm going to blank on his name, but he said something to the effect of during one of our council meetings where we were kind of having experts come in and give us testimony. He said something to the effect of, if not an insignificant number of people feel like they no longer want NPD as a part of their life, that is a reputation that NPD has earned, right? And so, because people don't come to that conclusion overnight. They don't come to that conclusion out of the blue. They witness and they experience that nothing else will work, right? Whether it's people who, like Travis Jordan's girlfriend, he was somebody who's

having a mental health crisis. She called the 911 to get help because she thought he was going to harm himself and the police shut up and killed him. Whether it's people who have lost loved ones because of high-speed chases that were totally irresponsibly conducted. I mean, there's a feeling from a lot of people here that they want good public safety service, right? But they've been shown over the years. Yeah, they've repeatedly been shown something otherwise. And also, not to go too deep down the rabbit hole, but you're also contending with a lack of sufficient culpability for these officers. The arbitration process doesn't really seem to do his job.

No. So many of these officers get reprimanded and they're back on the streets and there's no real repercussions for that. Right. And so the ills are so systemic that it leads to that deep level of mistrust where someone like yourself is led to conclude that it's broken beyond repair. So the conversation around reform falls on deaf ears for somebody like you, right? Because it would, it would appear to

like the outsider looking in, well, okay, there's problems here, but let's look at what those problems are and like tease them out and solve them. But your position is basically like, you can't do, it's like, it's not a few bad apples, like Trevor Noah was talking about this on Instagram. It's like, it's not bad apples, it's like the tree is rotten, right?

And if you have a rotten tree, that teasing out of what's wrong really isn't going to move the needle or solve the problem in any meaningful way. And we've teased out these problems, right? all these various commissions that have studied the various major riots throughout history in America, starting with the 1919 race riots in Chicago known as Red Summer, 1919. Red Summer happens and the governor of Illinois at the time puts together the Commission on Race Relations and to study why the riots happened and how they were exacerbated and finds that in large part they were started by the police and that they were exacerbated by all these inequities and talks about, you know, literally 1919 talks about, you know, we need to end police brutality that will prevent further riots in the future. We need to have police living in the communities that they work in. They give a lot of suggestions that you'll hear people give today.

This is 1919. And how did they move past that or have they not in your opinion? You tell me how many scandals the Chicago Police Department has had since 1919. I mean, I couldn't tell you. I don't know. I mean, I will say it's plenty. I would argue that they haven't moved past it. And I would argue that we haven't moved past it. I think that ultimately this isn't the problem. You know, locally, we do have a problem with this department.

But if you zoom out, the problem that we're having with this department is not a problem with only this department. This is a problem that every single city is facing with their departments. It's a matter of a lack of accountability. You can have all the training in the world, but if you're not going to be held accountable, your training never matters, right? You can have all the good intentions in the world. Right. You can have all the good intentions in the world. But if you know that there's never any accountability, then when you fail to meet your good intention, it doesn't really matter. And I think that's the system that we've created. is that a lot of these reforms cost additional money, right? Whether it's facial recognition, whether it's body cameras, they cost a ton of more trainings. They cost a ton of money. And yet the settlement amounts, yeah, here in Minneapolis, but also there was a $20 million settlement in Maryland just earlier this year, or maybe in 2020,

$20 million settlement in Maryland just earlier this year, or maybe in 2020, the settlements just get bigger. So the cost of the apartment gets bigger. The behavior doesn't change. The issue doesn't change. The settlements get bigger. I mean, at what point do cities just, are we just not able to even afford this model of public safety? I think we're pretty much there. Yeah. safety. I think we're pretty much there. Yeah. The heartbreak of George Floyd as sort of emotionally challenging as all of this is, has for better or worse kind of foisted you into the

national spotlight. You go from being Ward 5 city councilman to suddenly being on national news. And the main thing that you're speaking to is this idea of finding new ways to keep ourselves and our neighbors safe, right? But this is all couched in the vernacular around defund the police. And my sense, and this is, I really wanna hear what you have to say about this is,

I think defund the police means many different things to many different people, depending on who you talk about. My sense is that it's less about like eradicating or abolishing a police force and much more about ending the monopolization of public protection in the hands of this broken system and creating a new public safety kind of program at large of which police are but one part of. Is that fair? Because you're sort of like, oh, Jeremiah, he's the defund the police guy. You know what I mean? So like, what does that mean to you? And like, where do you stand? And how is that also like, how is your perspective or your position on this

evolved over the last year? Yeah, I'll say this as I'm, you know, cause right now it is reelection time, right? And as I'm on the phones and I'm talking to people, maybe even more than usual, constituents more than usual. And I'm finding that for the most part, and I know this probably surprises some people, but for the most part, I'm finding that I still have plenty of support and that even my neighbors who are not 100% where I'm at, they are open to the city of Minneapolis spending less money on police.

What they're not open to is us spending less money on their overall safety. Right. To me, that means that any system that we want that's different than the one we have, we've got to create it. That's the only way that we can bring people along. Right. We've got to create it. And so I think for me, the term defund, right, defund the police, it's a term created by activists, not me, right? Term created by activists to generate a conversation.

It's definitely done that. It's done that. I mean, it's as provocative as it comes. It's generated a conversation, but it doesn't have anything to do with governing, right? So activists are well within their right to make that call. It's my job to listen to community members and ask myself, in what way can I make this relevant to governing? And the way that it can be relevant in governing is that we've got to assess all the ways in which people expect to be kept safe, right? If we are expected by our community, and we should be, to solve rape cases, then we've got to also admit that we're currently not doing that.

Our current system is not doing that. If they have a loved one in the throes of a mental health crisis that their city is not going to show up and fucking kill that person, then we've got to create a system that functions that way. Right. And if people who have had a fender bender still want to get a report for insurance but don't necessarily want to have to interact with a police officer, then we should create a system where that's possible. Yeah, it is interesting because now, no matter what situation you find yourself in, the cops are the only, like 911 and it's the cops. So whether it's a paramedic situation or a mental health problem or a simple, you know, skirmish that could be, you know, managed effectively through some kind of, you know, community, you know, outreach or something like that. Yeah, there seems to be a lot of situations

and circumstances in which the police need not be involved, particularly in a situation where there's such a level of distrust. Yeah, I mean, I know that the fake $20 bill, quote unquote, it's an alleged fake $20 bill. I don't know if it's ever been confirmed that George Floyd used. Where is that bill? I have no idea.

You didn't turn up in evidence, did you? That's a great question. No one talks about that. But this alleged fake $20 bill, even if it was real, did it require four guys with guns to respond? I mean, that's not an armed robbery. That's not even a heist, right? Like that's not any kind of an emergency that four armed people need to come and address. I think that we've got to have a response. We've got to have a system that can still address that store's need, right?

Hey, we're out 20 bucks. If this happens too often, it's not great for us. But we also need a system that, I mean, our only way, I mean, did that store ever get its 20 bucks back? We didn't do any sort of remedy for that store in that moment. All the city did, all the police did was kill George Floyd as a response to this alleged fake $20 bill. What public safety need was met, I think is the question that we've got to ask ourselves. And if the answer is none, and I assert that the answer is none, then what do we need? Because the store needed a response for the emergency that they were having

or for the incident that they were having, but George Floyd's safety also mattered in that moment. And in our system, we didn't prioritize anyone's safety, but we definitely prioritized sort of a punitive response to someone we thought might've been creating some harm. Yeah, how does that relate to our kind of parochial notion of what it means to protect and serve, right? Yeah.

I mean, certainly, you know, in some communities, likely not all, there was a date and a time where the police officers were embedded in the community and they were community members and they were looked to for guidance and counsel. And they knew, you know, those officers knew the people in the community. That's, you know, a far cry from what we have today, which is a pivot in the opposite direction towards these militarized, essentially SWAT teams that you see increasingly across the country. But even that older model where you did have folks

who lived in the area, that model never worked for black communities. Yeah, that's why I said kind of parochial and whether or not that was actually true or not. Right, right, right, right. No, fair enough. Yeah, I mean, and you've got images of not only police starting race riots in 1919, but you've got it happening in the 20s and in the 30s,

and you've got it happening in Harlem, and you've got it happening in L.A., right? And so I think that there's this, the trial of the Chicago 7 is about the police starting a riot. And so I think that we've got to vet the whole thing. I think that MPD's been around for 153 years. I think that we shouldn't finger wag at how it functions now and say, well, we've just got to address that. I think we should maybe take inventory of how the last 153 years have gone in total. And if we haven't gotten what we needed out of the system, then yeah, I think that, and again, I think we haven't, that I don't think it's reactionary. I don't think 102 years is reactionary to say,

I think it's time for a different conversation. Right, right. But you're often characterized as reactionary. Yeah, I think this movement is, yeah, for sure. I mean, there was the moment sometime after the protests were reaching their peak where you, among nine city council members, wanted to amend the city charter so that you could put into motion this kind of- Department of Public Safety.

Right, exactly. Which would kind of upend the traditional way that the police operated. That didn't pass or it didn't get onto the ballot, right? But it's going to be on the ballot in November, I think. Right, right. So we didn't proceed forward quickly enough to get it on the ballot, right? But it's going to be on the ballot in November, I think. Right, right. So we didn't proceed forward quickly enough to get it on the ballot for 2020. But now, not only is there a council amendment,

there's a community amendment also proceeding forward. The language is pretty similar. There's some, I think there's some key differences. But I think that even if the council had given up on that effort, the community was like, no, we want this. And they're going to make sure it's on the ballot. And so I think that only affirms that this impulse wasn't some kind of Minneapolis City Council impulse.

That you now have, in order for a citizen's petition to end up on the ballot in Minneapolis, they have to get, I think, a little over 20,000 signatures. Right. So now you've got 20,000 votes that are for certain going to be cast for this thing, if not more, right? You're nearing a mandate from your neighbors, from your residents, when they're saying, even if you don't bring forward this charter change, we will. Right. Meanwhile, you have made some progress, right?

There's something like $8 million have been redirected to other public safety measures. There's restricted use on chokeholds and there's been a raising of the threshold for the use of force. There's these violence interrupters, these guys who cruise around in orange t-shirts to kind of mediate conflict in various neighborhoods.

This Office of Violence Prevention, right? Out of the health department. Right. So there has been some kind of movement in the direction that you'd like to see. I'm sure very far from what you would prefer to see. At the same time, the counterpoint would be that this whole movement has led to an increase

in violent crime. And meanwhile, like 200 police officers have quit and violence is on the rise. So like, how do you, I just wanna give you an opportunity to share your thoughts on that or respond to that. Yeah, it's funny, I was having a conversation with a friend of mine, he reminded me of this recently. This is before George Floyd even happened.

This is before the killing of George Floyd even happened. And when everything started shutting down and all these people started going out of work, he was reminding me that I told him then, I said, you know, look, whenever people are out of work, crime goes up. And I said, crime's going to go up and people are going to ask for more police. That was my prediction then. That's how it works, right? I think that it would be a little out of place for me to say that the unrest from this summer played no role in the increase in violent crime that we had this summer. I don't know, but neither did the police, neither does the mayor. Neither do the people who are making this claim. And what makes more sense and is backed by more evidence throughout history is that when people are out of work, crime goes up. We had both of these things happen at the same time, right?

You've got communities who are, some communities in Minneapolis who are already poor becoming more poor. And then those same communities feeling incredibly disillusioned and disaffected by the killing of George Floyd. You know, that is going to cause a reaction. Yeah, powerful combination. Right. And so, yeah, we've had this uptick in violence. We've had this spike in violence this past year. We've had this uptick in violence.

We've had this spike in violence this past year. But if you talk to a lot of Northside youth, right? I represent North Minneapolis. It's not the only place that has an increase in violence. But when you talk to, but a lot of youth have been involved in the violence that has occurred over the last year. And if you go talk to youth directly about what will keep them safe, most of them, I mean, I don't think I've talked to a single teenager, you know, a single person,

a single teenager in North Minneapolis who has said, the issue is that we don't have enough police. They'll say, the issue is that we don't have anything to do. The issue is that people are hungry in their houses. They can't go to school, right? People are hungry in their houses. And they can't get that meal that they would get at school. They can't get that meal they would get in school. Also, they're at that age where they want to take risks. They want to be bold. And when you combine that with access to a firearm, with access to

all the things that a teenager wants, the desire to feel powerful. Yeah, you're going to have some. And an environment right now where it's kind of like anything goes. Yeah. Right. Then you're going to have these increases in violence. The other thing I would say is that people would have to also be claiming that there was a rise in violence because of a declaration. Right.

Because the city council made a declaration. Right. And that that caused a spike in violence because- That kid is perpetrating the crime has no idea. Yeah, see- That's not playing into the- That kid is not on my newsletter. You know, I'll say that.

He has no idea what the city council is up to because we didn't address we didn't remove five percent of the police's budget until December of 2020. Right. And so when you see this spike in violence over the summer, what you're witnessing is the old model at work. What you're what you're witnessing is the status quo at work fully funded. You know, I think the I think the year 2020 Minneapolis Police Department had more money than they'd ever had in the history of their department. And so we didn't actually even, we didn't even reallocate 5% of their budget until December of 2020. And so the argument to me starts to really falter when you actually examine it, vet it in any way. And what makes more sense is, again, this economic issue conflated with the pandemic, people out of school, all that stuff. Have you looked at, do you know this thing, Campaign Zero from DeRay McKesson?

You know who DeRay McKesson is? Oh yeah, I know who DeRay is. I don't know, I will admit, I don't know a ton about- So he's got this, I mean, police reform is one of his big things, but he started this kind of initiative, nonprofit initiative called Campaign Zero,

and it's all about police reform. And they took all of these people who've actually studied this and figured out what's effective and what's not. Cause a lot of the things you think would be good actually don't end up translating into any kind of fungible change. And they looked at like,

what are the things that move the needle? And he's got this website and it's like, here are the 10 things that are actually effective in reforming police. But that's not really the game you're playing. Like you're playing, you're playing. You're rolling a different paradise with this whole thing. Right. I think that I'd be happy to check it out and just make sure that I... It's probably a lot of the stuff that other people are recommending. I'll say that

because a lot of these reforms, they all come out of the same school of thought and they all make the same base assumption. And that base assumption is that policing is the only way to conduct public safety. And so I'm not accusing DeRay of that. I don't know. I'll have to check out his 10 points. But I will say that you go through and you look at what people are saying today and you look at things that came out of the McCone Commission or the Kerner Commission or any of these things that, any of these studies that came out of the McCone Commission or the Kerner Commission, or any of these things that, any of these studies that came out of these riots, and they've been making the same recommendations,

at the Illinois Commission on Race Relations, they've been making the same recommendations for a hundred years. And so my question is, what other than policing would work, you know, to achieve our goals? Well, that was the one thing that you talked about, this idea of the police having a monopoly on public safety.

And I gotta admit, like, I never really thought about that before. I was like, they do have a monopoly on that. Like, and why is that? Is it supposed to be that way? Should it be that way? I never asked myself that question before. Right.

But the idea that it doesn't need to be that way, and perhaps there is a different way. The only thing that I can think of that resembles that in any regard, I mean, I lived in New York City in the late 80s, and I remember the guardian angels everywhere, like on the subway. And it was kind of like this community-based mediation squad who was there to kind of diffuse any kind of conflicts that would occur. You want to talk about defunding. Those kinds of efforts have popped up over cities, right? Like whenever cities at peak crisis, they employ these kinds of efforts, right? They hire people that maybe used to be in a life of violence, but have reformed themselves. It's usually, yeah, those guys.

And it has an impact, right? Might take a year or two or three, but it has an impact. And then as soon as crisis averted- They go away. They go away. And it's because we always sort of view those kinds of things as sort of tag-ons, right? They're like Band-Aids. Mediate, right, exactly. But to me, what's more common, right?

I guess I'll pose it as a question. What's more common? A domestic dispute between a couple, right? Or a dispute between neighbors or an active shooter situation? What's more common, right? Well, probably depends on the neighborhood, but probably the domestic dispute situation.

And what's more common that somebody is maybe having some kind of mental health emergency, right? Whether it's severe depression, they're going to take their own life. Whether it's paranoid schizophrenia, they didn't take their medication. Whether they have a trauma and they get triggered, right? and they get triggered, right? Or are a bunch of heavily armed guys on the freeway gonna march down and just start indiscriminately murdering everybody in sight? I mean, what's more common?

Yeah, I get it. And so to me, to have someone in a mediator role, to have someone who's a mental health specialist, it just makes more sense for that to be more of a staple. I'm not saying that, you know, there's no role for guys with guns in our current- There just should be more tools in the toolbox, basically. Yeah, there should be, right?

Not everything needs to be- So what does it look like? Like if you had your druthers, the ideal scenario that could play out in this city, forget about politics politics like here's the here's the here's what i would like to enact that i think would solve these problems yeah well you know i think that my prag my pragmatic brain sort of kicks in and i'm like well nothing would be like ready tomorrow at scale but that even that aside right um the office of violence prevention we established it in 2018 with half a million dollars

now the office has seven million i think is the budget um i think it's 2.5 i think you i think what i read i could have it wrong but um 2.5 got directed towards it so that amped up the budget to seven oh okay okay okay yeah i'll. Yeah, you might be right on that. So it's exponential growth, but whether it's 2.5 or 7 million, that pales in comparison to 170. Right, 170 million is what we give the police, right? What we've set aside to build our mental health program is a couple million dollars. It's going to go very far. It's going to help get that jumpstart that program and hopefully integrate it into our 911 system so it doesn't

have to have its own long seven-digit number and all of that. But whatever their budget is, it's going to pale in comparison to that $1.7 million. To me, I think that we need to be in a constant state of evaluation of what do we need an armed force for, right? When is use of force actually appropriate? And who gets to make that decision? And who gets to make that decision? Also, shit happens too, right? That would be the counterpoint. But you can back that up with data, right? You can have, I think it was the New York Times that put out this thing that like police spend about 4 percent of their time actually in engaging in a violent situation. Right. Four percent of their time. I'm not saying that you need to reduce your what police do all the way down to 4 percent of public safety. But what I'm saying is that I do think that it's worthwhile to examine reality.

Right. You can you can run hypotheticals until your brain is tired, right? You can say, well, what if this happens? What if that happens? What if blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And what I would say is that when have the police ever met that public safety standard that they say they're meeting, right? When have they been successful, right? I can point to a lot of situations in which not only did the police mess up, but they weren't even successful in meeting any public safety standard at all. And so I think that how do we avoid that? How do we avoid not meeting any public safety standard at all? I think it's worthwhile to ask ourselves, and I think it's totally fair to say, how did X scenario go?

How does X scenario usually go? Whether it's a mental health crisis response or domestic response. And ask yourselves, are the police having an effect here, a positive one? Are they meeting any sort of public safety goal that we have as a city? And if the answer is yes, but they could use some improvement here and there, then great. If the answer is no, then we should probably develop a different strategy. I think that what we're experiencing is that you have a whole bunch of people that say, it's not even fair to ask the question. It's not okay to even ask the question.

Right. The question's dangerous. It's fascinating because everything you're saying makes really good sense. And it's crazy that, that it's such a delicate subject and so difficult to just sit down and rationally walk through it. Because I think, I think at part that is perhaps informed by just, you know, sort of rash impulsive reactions to the idea of messing with the police force at all. And I don't think it's helped by, like we all saw the video of Mayor Fry being asked, like, are you gonna defund the police?

And he said, well, if you mean abolish the police force, like I don't support that. And it was in the middle of a huge protest and they said shame and he had to kind of walk through this crowd. And it's like, okay, like you and him have different opinions on all of this, but what you're saying isn't like a yes or no question,

are we abolishing the police department? Like this is a well thought out, nuanced perspective on improving public safety that is comprehensive and involves the police in appropriate circumstances. Yeah. Yeah. How dare you? You know what I mean? I mean, and- Because you are like, it's like, oh, Jeremiah, he's the defund guy. Yeah. You stay away from that guy. Yeah. That's narrative. Like that's narrative for you though, right? Like there are people who feel like they would benefit politically if they could prevent people from hearing me ask the question. And you don't have that many opportunities to kind of talk on and on like we're doing here.

It's in soundbites. It's inside. It's super quick. And if you don't nail it, they're going to sort of position you however they feel like or whatever is going to get the most clicks. Yeah. Oh, for sure. For sure. And I've accepted that.

You talked about like I started off this whole thing as the council member for the Fifth Ward and now I'm getting public interviews. I would say I'm still the council member for the Fifth Ward. And the only thing that matters to me, right, I'm interested in these conversations because quite frankly, I think it just kind of sharpens my ability to talk about it. And I'm going to take some lessons from this conversation and I'm going to apply it to my conversations on the phones with my neighbors who I'm talking about this stuff with every single day. But for me, the work is not conversations like this one. It's great to have it. It's great that you've got a tremendous platform and I appreciate the way you're using it, right? But for me, I'm the council member of Ward 5 here in Minneapolis.

And I don't have to convince anybody on the news. I don't have to convince people in St. Paul. I don't have to convince people on the coast. I don't have to convince Congress. I've enjoyed this conversation. I really like you. I don't have to convince you even, right? No, you don't.

You don't have to do anything. You don't have to show up here. But I would say that, yeah, you have to convince your constituents. Constituents. And I got to convince my colleagues. If your constituents flip on the news and they're like, well, he seemed like a nice guy when he came through yesterday, but now he looks like a crazy person here. Like, I'm not so sure. Yeah. Luckily, I haven't gotten that feedback. And I know it exists out there and I know that there's those narratives, but I mean, I guess I'm not so sure. Yeah. Luckily I haven't gotten that feedback. And I know it exists out there and I know that there's those narratives,

but I mean, I guess I'm lucky enough. What is like the question that you wish you got asked in those interviews or what is the confusion, if there is any that you would like to clear up or that frustrates you when you see those news pieces? You know, when we just got done now talking about kind of the nuances of how you execute

a call to, how a broad call to action gets sort of channeled and interpreted into governing. That's the kind of conversation I want to be having, right? Because it's the kind of conversation that I'm going to have to have one way or another, if I want to get anything done. Right. These are not binary, you know, situations. They're not. And I can appreciate that some conversations are going to be three minutes, right? And that I've got to be able to have a three-minute response that is not get reduced to the three-minute response. It's much easier to say, you said a thing in public and then crime went up. It's stupid, but it's much easier to say than to have this conversation about what actually drives up crime, what the impact of the pandemic and the economic crisis have had on safety. the impact of the pandemic and the economic crisis have had on safety. It's easier to say that, but then you have to ask yourself, well, crime also went up in New York and Chicago and cities in Arizona.

And then you have to say, is that the Minneapolis City Council's fault too? Then it's like, now you're giving me sort of the kind of power that nobody actually has, right? And so that doesn't really make any sense. But it's easier to say, and you can say it in a short amount of time. It's harder for me to say, how do you go about this? How do you turn this into governing? I actually can't quite answer that question in three minutes, right? I can answer what we've done in three minutes, but even then then I can't really get into the details, right? You know, 5% of their budget, $8 million to these things. It's important and I should say it, but yeah, I think that if there were more opportunities for folks to engage in a more long form conversation, that's how we're actually going to cook up a solution to me.

And if people could, I guess I'll challenge myself to help people not have such short memories about what has happened in the past, because I think that plays a role in it too. The only way that you could be accused of being reactionary for questioning a 102-year-old conversation that has not moved one inch in those 102 years is if people have consistently had really short memories about these kinds of incidences, the impacts that they've had, the tragedies that they've caused. And so, you know, I've got to be patient with people and help them not have such short memories. Right, right. I've got to be patient with people and help them not have such short memories. Right, right. So at the same time, you must have some kind of game plan in the event that

Chauvin gets released and is not convicted, right? Because the city is going to spark. Like, do you have a sense of how you would respond to that? You must have thought about that, of course. groups of neighbors who sort of, some armed, some unarmed, who decided to sort of engage in their own sort of patrols, right? Sort of like an amped up, you know, neighborhood watch type thing. And myself and Councilmember Philippe Cunningham noticed that not all of the groups knew each other and that we didn't want groups who were armed and maybe driving around or, you know, so like coming to conflict with people who literally live a couple blocks from them.

And so we tried to play sort of that connective tissue. I was out doing patrols myself and people knew that they could text or call me. And if they couldn't get through to 911, that I had a direct line to the, you know, the commander of the precinct and that I could sort of help them address their problem. And that if I couldn't get that, I would drive to their location and help them myself. Right. You know, as one individual, you know, I'm not incredibly superhuman. You know, you met me. I'm not incredibly tall or, you know, all that stuff.

You're kind of jacked. I try. Yeah. that stuff. But, um, you're kind of jacked. I try. Um, but, but I can't, I can't be out here being like, you know, I'm not going to be Batman. Right. I just don't have the capacity. Um, but, uh, I don't think anyone does, but I'll probably be out there with my neighbors and trying to make sure that people are safe, trying to make sure that, you know, their property's not, you know, lit on fire and all of that. I think there's also just this huge, you know, if you're not in Minneapolis, you know, I don't blame you for not like discerning the local geography, right? But

like for folks who maybe don't know, all the protests were happening miles from where I represent. Right. Right. They're happening. You're way north. Yeah, I was surprised how far south George Floyd Square is. Yeah. And so that, you know, so for, and there were no protests, no marches, no nothing happening in North Minneapolis. What we had was we had these spontaneous fires that got started, not by crowds, not by protesters,

not by activists, not by any of that. You're talking about like AutoZone and the precinct that was South side, North side, we had, you know, gas stations, businesses, that kind of stuff being lit on fire. And so it was kind of odd, right? People like, okay, we're not having protests over here. Why are prop? Why are things getting lit on fire? And, uh, and so there was a, you know, there were a few times, there was one time in particular where, you know, I where we got a call from a neighbor, me and my friend Mike and my younger brother. We arrived at the scene of this fire before the fire trucks even.

And it was a business called The Fade Factory. It's a barbershop. And we were just trying to help this small business owner, like put the fire out in his shop. And we were unsuccessful. I just remember like pouring water, like running water hoses from people's houses. And like the heat was kind of incredible.

And then all of a sudden, like the two like windows just on either side of us just shattered. And it was like, we're not going to defeat this fire with these home hoses, right? That was what I did the first time. And I'll continue to be out there and do stuff like that the second time. I'm not as convinced that the city, well, maybe now that we've had Dante Wright killed in Brooklyn Center, which is a nearby suburb. I mean, it's essentially North Minneapolis.

You're in North Minneapolis, but it's like North, North Minneapolis. And it's not technically Minneapolis. It has its own mayor, its own police force. Right, right. But I'll tell you right now that I have constituents who move around quite a bit, right? And they'll live in Minneapolis. They'll live in North Minneapolis. They might go live in Golden Valley, which is a nearby suburb.

But they're definitely going to go live in Brooklyn Park or Brooklyn Center, which Brooklyn Center is where that happened. I mean, there are the borders that governments create, and then there are the borders that people create. And from North Minneapolis to Brooklyn Center, there's essentially no border, right? People don't even treat it like it's different, right? And so, you know, I still kind of consider that happening kind of basically in my neighborhood. I'm not as convinced that, you know, there's just going to be chaos. I will say that in my experience being on the ground, the way police respond to protesters, and I don't think it has to be this way, but the way they respond contributes to chaos. And when you have that kind of chaos, you're going to have all kinds of activity start to happen, right?

they cannot distinguish between peaceful protesters and somebody who threw a water bottle and they dump gas and mace and rubber bullets and flash bangs on the entire crowd, you know, there are going to be people who look at that and say, game on. Yeah. There's an opportunity here. There are going to be people who are pissed off, who think they're in a fight for their life. And the police response is proving them right. Right. But that's how they're going to feel. Yeah. They just, it feeds off each other, right? And escalates. The difference now being of course, that the National Guard is here, right?

So that's different. What's interesting about that is at peak George Floyd protests, there was the whole kerfuffle with the mayor, with Donald Trump, right? He was calling him weak and, you know, saying that if Fry didn't call in the National Guard, he was gonna do it because, you know,

when the looting starts, the shooting starts, right? That famous tweet. And Mayor Fry didn't call in the National Guard, but now he did. And so here we are in a situation on the eve of a verdict being delivered in the midst of the Daunte Wright situation. So there is a pins and needles kind of vibe everywhere you go. And on top of that, this curfew.

And I know you got a lot of opinions about how curfews work to derail or curtail freedom of association and freedom of speech. What is your take on, you know, seeing these Humvees all over town right now? Yeah. I think that it probably invites the very kind of activity and actors that it's meant to deter, to be honest with you. I mean, the fences certainly do that. You might as well put a big-

The barbed wire and the fences and the barricades everywhere. Yeah, absolutely. It is like a war zone. It's crazy. Yeah, I mean, you know. There was somebody, my guys were walking around downtown

and they bumped up against a German woman who was saying that, some elderly German woman who said something along the lines of like, I haven't seen anything like this since, you know, Berlin. Yeah. I mean, it was funny right before I was just about to say, uh, I, I described to, uh, my sister, I was like, yeah, they literally have two, two fences with barbed wire in the middle. And her response was that's how the Berlin wall was built. And I'm like, that's not a great sign. Right.

I, you know. And it's been a while to watch the, like I click on CNN. And first of all, it's crazy to like be here and then turn CNN on. And it's like everything all day long is about what's happening here. Yeah.

Right. It's like this, even in, when we were at George Floyd Square, one of the guys we were with went into Cup Foods and of course it's on in there too. And it's like, it's so meta, right? And like strange, like some crazy simulation. But in the context of the Daunte Wright protests,

you turn on CNN and you can just hear, like it's all about like what's gonna happen when the clock ticks 10 and it's curfew and everybody's like getting ready for some major clash hasn't happened yet yeah i know there's been some shit that's gone down but in the grander scheme of things it's mostly just pretty chill it's mostly just the military night there were like 10 people there yeah like after curfew everybody left yeah it's mostly just the police and the military right gas on people. Like, you know, and I think that that's like, I mean, you know, they, in some ways, they have to do that, right?

They predicted this violent, crazed fallout. People in Minneapolis and the surrounding area were going to react in this way. People in Minneapolis and the surrounding area were going to react in this way. They prepared for months for the scenario that they wanted, which is, you know, their opportunity to have the resources to suppress a crowd. And so when it didn't happen, they kind of had to pretend like it was happening anyway. That's the sense that I get. Yeah. And I think it's kind of sad. And for anybody who's been, who is out in Brooklyn Center,

you know, I've always had a really good impression of the governor, but I saw the other day he, or maybe earlier today, time is a flat circle these days. He said that he believed that if the barricades hadn't gone up and the military hadn't gone out there, that the police precinct in Brooklyn Center was going to go up in flames. I can't think of a thing. I've never heard an elected official, no matter their party, say something so more full of shit than that. Because if you're there, and I was was there and you're reading the room and you're getting the mood of the crowd,

you kind of get a sense of where things are at. You literally had activists, leaders out there who were, you know, gently urging people to go home. Most of them did. I mean, the type of people who themselves you would think would to go home. Most of them did. I mean, the type of people who themselves you would think would not go home were urging people to go home. I mean, the tone is just, people are mourning. Whatever fantasy the governor has

about these rabid people who can't control their impulses, who want to burn everything down, it doesn't exist, except in his fantasy. It's usually a reaction to some level of provocation. It's almost always that. I mean, it's pretty, I've only ever seen it be that. There's always going to be bad actors though. For sure.

Okay, this is, it's lawless. Like nobody's going to know, you know, there's not going to be any cops showing up. So we're just going to go do what we're going to do. Yeah. I mean, for sure. Right. You're going to have people who think, okay, cool.

This is an opportunity to go break into the store and steal some stuff that I could, you know, sell later or own or whatever. Right. You're always going to have that. But to pretend like the entire crowd is that or to just say, oh, there's no way for us to distinguish. It's not true. Or to just say, oh, there's no way for us to distinguish. It's not true. And, you know, I know I generally try to keep a calm demeanor, but it infuriates me kind of to no end when I see that.

And the rhetorical violence, right? You're not seeing, you know, you don't see it. The governor's not seeing what he's articulating. So he has to sort of implant that image in your mind with his words. That's all he has. Because he can't show you that. Because it doesn't exist. He has to implant that in your mind with his words. That's all he has. Because he can't show you that because it doesn't exist. He has to implant that in your mind with his words. And a lot of elected officials govern that way. And it's just to provide some rhetorical cover

when they go ahead and abuse our neighbors. I think the part of the challenge or the uphill battle that you're trying to wage is convincing a guy like that, that there's value in doing something different. Like we've seen the evidence that like, every time you do it this way, this is what happens. But if you're that guy, you're like, well.

Maybe we just need more force. Yeah, it's like, it's too risky. You know what I mean? If he's trying to, you know, please his constituents or whoever he is answering to in that regard. It's like, I know if I do this, it might not go so good, but this is what we do. And so I can take comfort in that.

Whereas if I go out on a limb and say, we're not gonna do any of that. We're gonna allow these protesters to like do their thing. And I promise you, it's gonna be chill. And something goes sideways. Then it's like, oh, you were- And that dude's head is on a stick. Sure, sure.

I mean, one is, I'm not advocating that when tensions are high that you do nothing, right? I do think that when you have folks like myself or folks like Steve Fletcher, Lisa Bender, you know, these are my colleagues on the council. When you have like a handful of folks advocating that we do it differently, right? And we've never done it differently before. But we think that if we all engaged our collective imagination and we all engage our collective common sense, that we could probably do something pretty good. and we all engage our collective common sense,

that we could probably do something pretty good. But when you got three, five, seven, nine people, and then you have the governor, the commissioner of public safety, the police chief of the city, of various cities, and the Hennepin County Sheriff all saying, we're gonna do it this way. And you're like, okay, I think we should do it differently.

And they're like, well, how? We collectively thought of this really abusive response and it took all of us, all of our brains together, working together to think of this really abusive response. But the non-abusive response, the one that isn't rooted in violence, you've got to come up with that on your own. If we don't like it, we're just going to tell you. Right, I mean, that's the criticism that gets hurled at you

like, oh, you want this different way? Well, show us what that is. And you haven't come up with that in specifics. And the truth is that in a lot of ways I have, right? When it comes to thinking out this Department of Public Safety and the ways that we should examine safety and proceed forward, that I've had thought out. When it comes to how you deescalate a crowd

that is full of raw emotion, I've got some ideas. I do think that it would be worthwhile for me to vet those ideas with other smart people and have my ideas challenged and shaped into a plan. And shouldn't that involve like an organizational psychologist or like somebody who understands like, you know, the appropriate response to diffuse tense emotions. Right, it should at least involve the governor, right?

It should at least involve the mayor, right? And it doesn't involve even those parts. Like, you know, I think the standard is crazy, right? They understand the value of collective imagination. They all worked together to collectively imagine this plan that they're executing. That's going really badly, right? But tradition has momentum. But tradition has momentum.

And the expectation is that if you want to do it differently,, that you've gotta come up with that on your own. We did it together. We use the power of collaboration. Oh, but what you wanna collaborate? That's no, that just means that you don't know what you're doing. And so the standards are just different and they're to a ridiculous degree.

Yeah. So who is getting it right? Like, is there a model out there of a city that's executing in a way that you think Minneapolis could aspire to emulate? I'll be honest with you. I don't know that any city government is getting it right. What about internationally? Like any places in Europe or, you know, I mean, their relationship to policing is completely different. Yeah, it is completely different. Their gun laws are different. You know, I think that they've built a system that they can sustain, right? And I think there's a whole host of reasons why maybe it would be difficult to copy homelessness, right? But it's not just homelessness because the homeless, quite frankly, are not the ones out here committing most crimes, right?

It's people who might be housed, but are financially insecure. Yeah. And, you know, and- Completely disenfranchised. And disenfranchised. And, you know, your options for them are that they can starve to death

or they can go out and try to create a little bit of opportunity for themselves. And they're opting to live, right? Maybe in a way that harms others and that's not okay, but we also haven't set some people up for success. I think that there are some folks who are starting to, I think, I keep using this phrase, ask the question. It's not like a slogan or anything. It's just kind of how the conversation evolves. But I think there are some folks who are asking the right questions, right? Mayor Myrick in Ithaca, New York of how the conversation evolved. But I think there are some folks who are asking the right questions, right? Mayor Myrick in Ithaca, New York is asking the right questions.

He's actually taking this Department of Public Safety concept. I don't necessarily know that he got it from us, but he's certainly moving much faster than us in trying to execute something like that, right? something like that, right? And I certainly think that like folks like, it's too bad that like Michael Tubbs ended up losing his election because instituting things like universal basic income and experimenting and figuring out how we can do those kinds of policies,

I think they start to erase some of the reasons that people might engage. Yeah, you create a bedrock, a foundation that you can build upon. Right. But I feel like that was one initiative that has succeeded in becoming a productive part of the national conversation and no small part due to Andrew Yang. I mean, he's the one who really kind of put that into prominence and it's now being, you know, reasonably considered in a way

that a couple of years ago, people would have thought it was insane. Totally crazy. Yeah. Right. Right. You know, I think what we're finding with policing is that no response is actually going to amount to safety if people are insecure in their housing, insecure in their work, insecure in, you know, how they feed themselves, right? The system we have can enact some brutality on people who are perceived as committing harm, but often enacts plenty of brutality on people who aren't even perceived to be committing harms. It just enacts brutality on them. So I think that a real path is going to have to be a mix of us realizing that housing and how people earn their living and safety are not siloed subjects, subject matter, right? And that we sort of have to engage these other forms

as we change our emergency responses. And I think that what we're going to find is that for folks who were out there maybe selling drugs or doing whatever kind of thing that we might see as harmful to our communities, that now we give them an out. And they don't have an out right now. Yeah. as bipolar disorder and they're having an episode or whatever, whatever's going on, that if we can admit to ourselves that a cop showing up with a gun, pointing their gun at that person and screaming at them,

doesn't actually help them. Yeah, it's not productive. I mean, I think another issue that will, like if this becomes a thing that you'll have to contend with is the difference between conceptualization and execution. Oh, for sure. Like I'm thinking of child services, for example. Yeah, right, right, right.

The idea of child services is very well-intentioned, like to protect these kids, but then it becomes abused and misused and kids are getting yanked out of houses that shouldn't get yanked out. You know what I mean? Like all sorts of stuff can go haywire with this stuff. The minute you start creating all of these bureaucracies.

But I actually think that it's the, I think that it is our punitive inclination that actually creates that, right? To me, that starts with, I mean, that is a- Well, that's, I mean, you can, that traces all the way back to systemic racism in that regard. Like, what is the intention

when you're knocking on that door and you're like, what are you expecting to see? What is your bias going into that situation? And what are the expectations or your quota or whatever your boss is telling you? For sure. I mean, we've had, you know, I think by and large, you know, people will find that they'd much rather interact

with like an EMT or a firefighter than a police officer. But, you know, I think by and large, you know, people will find that they'd much rather interact with like an EMT or a firefighter than a police officer. But, you know, I've heard from constituents that they feel like they've been assaulted by EMTs, right? And so, you know, if an EMT is showing up to a scene with the mentality of a police officer, if a child protection worker is showing up to that, knocking on that door with the mentality of a police officer, then you're going to get sort of that punitive approach. And if they know they're being dispatched in lieu of police, though, that could lead to that mentality. I don't know that that's true. Yeah. I mean, I'm not saying it's not true. I just don't.

I don't know for sure. Right. That would be one of those assumptions that we would have to vet. It's not a reason to not try. Right, right. You know. And it's one of those assumptions that we would have to vet. It's not a reason to not try. Right, right. And it's one of those assumptions that we would have to really vet, right? And I mean, we're seeing that like, look, the violence interrupters, and even before we had, because the violence interrupters are pretty new. Even before we had the violence interrupters, we had what's called GVI caseworkers.

This is group violence intervention caseworkers. called GVI caseworkers. This is group violence intervention caseworkers. These guys, they're not approaching, these are men and women who aren't approaching their work with that sort of punitive, like, I got to catch somebody in the act, or I got to wag my finger in strict discipline, or I got to, this is not how they approach the work, right? And so I think that it's possible to create emergency responses that do, by and large, have the intended outcome that you want, right? Now, anything that you don't put a lot of care into, a lot of investment into, is probably not going to function very well. So we're going to have to make sure that, you know, that these are not trends that come and go, right? That, you know, we tried that, it worked, but the problem's not as prevalent now. So we're going to go ahead and give all that money back to the police.

If that's the outcome, then yeah, I mean, I think we can pretty much count on these cycles continuing. Mm-hmm. So I'm sitting down with the mayor tomorrow. Mm-hmm. So I'm sitting down with the mayor tomorrow and I know you guys don't see eye to eye on everything, but you seem to have a rapport. Yeah. You guys get along and everything. What do you think, like, what should I ask him?

Like, what would you like me to ask him? What would you like me to hear his answer on? You know, I think you're gonna be better at this stuff than me. But, you know, there is one question I feel like has gone really unanswered. You know, there was this report by the U of M that talked about the misuse of less lethal rounds throughout the country. But, you know, the start of their research was here locally. You know, things like, you know, five-year-olds that had nothing to do,

them, their parents, they weren't at the protest. We had a five-year-old struck with a rubber bullet. Skull hadn't received a skull fracture. People who were hit with canisters, tear gas canisters, or flashbang canisters, right? That you would have to literally be aiming at their head in order for that to really happen. Journalists blinded, right? You don't have to ask them the specifics about these cases because these things are all going to get litigated. But, you know, there was a time

during the protest after George Floyd was killed where, you know, yeah, the crowds were upset, but the response from the police was excessive. And I don't think that it could be, it could not be described by any reasonable person who was there as anything other than excessive. And if my memory is serving me correctly, it was two days of just excessive police force on protesters before the AutoZone went on fire. Right. And so to me, in my mind, that's two days where you could have- But at that point, there's no chance for de-escalation. When the auto zone's on fire, no. But you had two days before that.

You had two days before that to address the situation and to do something differently, right? Instead of pushing these protesters, creating a chaotic situation in which non-protesters felt welcomed, and then pushing the crowds back into the businesses that aren't protected by you, right? You literally push them back into the neighborhood and into the businesses that are not being protected by you right now.

And so, you know, a lot of folks, when they look at that report, all the misuse, all the excessive violence that happened during the protests, I mean, the state's lawsuit against the city of Minneapolis, against MPD for a pattern and practice of discrimination is not because of what happened to George Floyd. It's because of how police acted during the protests, right? There's been this question hanging of like, did the mayor and the chief approve of this conduct or was the chain of command broken? Were rank and file officers going rogue? And we don't know. And we don't know. And I think that the mayor and the chief have successfully avoided that question. And quite honestly, they've reaped the benefits of having no answer to that question, because if they maintained full control,

but also somehow didn't condone the conduct that occurred, well, you know, that means that they both made all the right decisions and that they deserve to stay in control of the system. Right. But there's no political benefit in answering that question. Sure. But I think that there's a benefit to asking the question. I, I, you know, now that I'm saying you have to ask him that question tomorrow, that'd be a hostile question to ask. I'm not going to lie. I gotta think about that. But, but I do think that, you know, I do think that the, the, the answer to that question matters, not because it would hurt the mayor politically or the chief or whatever. I don't care about that.

But every road to change has to start with an acknowledgement. And if we cannot have an acknowledgement of what did and didn't occur, then I don't know how we change. You got to have the reckoning. Right. Right. Right. As a starting point.

Right. That being said though, I feel like his position on police reform, he's not willing to go as far as you would like to go, but he's fully acknowledging that the system is broken and is in significant need of dramatic repair. While at the same time, not changing his response to protests, not changing his approach to that broken system. You can change the wording on the use of force document, which had been rewritten pretty well just in 2016, right? You can do some of these

things that on paper look totally fine. They look like the right thing to do. And then Brooklyn Center erupts and then just whatever's going to happen is going to happen. Yeah. Dump gas on them, right? You can say this system is deeply broken, but we're going to surround all these buildings with fences and barbed wire. We're not going to take the time to understand why the crowd reacted the way it reacted. And we're certainly not going to admit that we played any role in that. that the movie of the trial, the Chicago 7, I brought it up earlier, is that, you know, and one of the values of reading Kerner Commission, you know, McCone Commission, the Commission on Race Relations, the Illinois Commission on Race Relations from 1919, one of the values that you

get is that, you know, when you vet history, a lot of the major riots once studied are determined to have been started by the police. Well, yeah. I mean, that movie does a great job of showing how that all came to be. Right. And it's just history repeating itself and repeating itself. Right. And so you say there's a problem, but then when you see the problem and we say like this, like this is the problem, you go, no, no, no, we're going to keep doing it this way. I think that that is, you know, I think that it's caused problems.

And after the death of Jamar Clark, that was sort of when this initial wave that we're now sort of remixing, this initial wave of reforms, you know, rewriting the use of fours, de-escalation, all that stuff. That initial wave came then, right? We did all the stuff that we were supposed to do. The city did. I wasn't in office, but like the city did all the stuff it was supposed to do with regards to reform then, right? And it was like, here we go again. Here we go again, right? And we're rewriting the same. We're taking the same documents that we rewrote in 16. And it was like, here we go again. is that admitting the failures of this current system,

asking the questions, demanding some real change is not a reflection of them because they didn't build this. But they are, you know, sort of, they have invested in the maintenance of it. And I believe that they shouldn't be. Yeah, no, it's interesting. I mean, it's a valid point. It's certainly not, I mean, it's politically verboten, let alone expedient, right, to admit

that. But I do think, like, I'm a huge believer in the power of vulnerability. And I think that level of honesty to like own, you know, do an inventory and actually own, you know, your side of the street and how that contributed to what transpired just engenders so much trust. Ultimately, you have to play the long game, right? And if you're a politician, you're always looking at the next election cycle. But if you can broaden that a little bit. But you don't have to though, right? Michael Tubbs is 30, right? I'm 31. I was like, man, this guy's younger than me. But like Michael Tubbs is 30.

Are you the youngest city council member? Currently, yeah. Currently, yeah. I think that'll change next election cycle. I think some good young folks are gonna win. But like, but yeah, I'm currently the youngest. And like, you know, he rose to mayor and I think in the city that he lived in, and I

think it could be easy, but I think it'd be a mistake to say like, oh, this is a quick rise and fall, right? Guy's 30. He's got the rest of his life to make an impact. And like from everything I've seen from him, he's going to, right? I think that if I had to lose an election because I advocated for a homeless shelter, for example, I could live with that. If I had to lose an election because I advocated for a homeless shelter, for example, I could live with that. If I had to lose an election because I fought for more affordable housing, because I fought to create a system that actually kept people safe, more safe than the one now, right? If I had to lose an election for those reasons, like, so be it. I could live with that forever. I'll go back to paint murals, right?

You know, some of us are lucky enough to be incredibly young in this job. And if we had to lose an election because we did the right thing in a moment that demanded that we do the right thing, I'm like, what's the real loss, right? Well, yeah, in the arc of history bends towards justice. Like ultimately, that is playing the long game because you'll find yourself in some other situation where you'll be fine or get reelected or whatever. Right.

But what does it look like for you? Are you in this for the, like, what's it look like 10 years from now? Are you in this game for good? I, you know, I think it's really important that I play the role I'm being asked to play by my community right now. I think, you know.

That's such a politician answer. I mean, I'll put it this way. I'm not thinking about that. I'm just thinking about. I mean, I'll put it this way. I'm not thinking about that. I'm just thinking about, I mean, I'll put it this way. I mean, I came into this, I got elected when I was 27. Yeah. And I don't plan on doing this job until I'm 77. I think that there's some real interesting things that I've been able to create in the last three plus years. And I think there's some real interesting things, you know, and I'm not just talking about public safety. I'm talking about,

you know, economic development. I mean, you know, for years, people in North Minneapolis have talked about, okay, in the black community, number one issue is access to capital. And I created this fund that gave folks access to capital and I'm seeing small businesses buy their buildings. Right. So now there's ownership within the community. Right. Instead of landlords who live on the other side of town. Sometimes not even in this, in the country. Right. And so, of town. Sometimes not even in the country, right? And so I feel like I'm really getting some things right because I'm willing to dig into the weeds and I'm willing to respect the expertise of some of our staff and at the same time, learn what they know and try to push them as best as I can, right? To do better on housing, to do better on this, to create these interesting things.

But I am a firm believer that when your time is up, it's better to sort of relinquish the mic than to have it snatched from you. And so I think that if I'm not looking around my community and saying, who are all the brilliant people that I know could do this job, right? Who are all those people? But they would never do it

because nobody ever told them that they could be a city council member, right? Like, they would never do it because nobody ever told them that they could be a city council member, right? Like, you know, they would never do it because nobody ever asked them, right? People always ask, like, no offense to attorneys, you know, blood related to a bunch of people always ask, like, the businessman or the attorney to run for office, right? They're not asking the artist, they're not asking the youth worker, they're not asking the sanitation engineer who probably knows more about problems in the city, you know, than anybody else, right? And so, like, to me, you know, a part of my job is to look around me, look at my surroundings and say, who else could do this job and serve their community? Whether they're older than me, younger than me, doesn't matter.

I think one of the things that we fail to do, and I guess the we here is I'm talking about, you know, you know, young progressives and progressives electives and maybe electives in general is that we don't invest in, in people's leadership, right? We sort of just like allow leadership to manifest in whatever way. And then we, and then we, you know, sort of hit the lottery and, you know, and maybe this person, right? Well, it's, it's, it's a lot easier and a lot more fun to just criticize politicians. For sure. You know, I, yeah, for sure. And that's fine. more fun to just criticize politicians. For sure. Yeah, for sure.

And that's fine. You're going to be criticized. I hope whatever young leaders that I'm investing in, I hope that the one thing I can pass on to them is to have really thick skin. A lot of people have done this job badly. A lot of people have caused this job badly, right? A lot of people have caused harm in these positions, right? There's several council members even who like, you know, you still see them around town who like, you know, they left office because they took bribes, right?

A lot of people have caused harm in these positions. And so you better have thick skin because, you know, your neighbors deserve at least that, you know. So, yeah, I don't know how long I'll do this. I feel a lot of purpose in this work and I feel pretty good at it. I don't know that I enjoy it. I mean, you know, look, man, it feels like you got a pretty good grip on it. I think you're in the right lane. I'm sure you're itching to pick up a paintbrush.

Yeah. I don't know if you still do that in your free time or if you have any free time. I haven't had time lately. If you could do a mural right now, what would you, like, what would that look like? What would that mural be? Oh, man, right this second,

I would probably wanna do something that had nothing to do with any of this. I'd probably want to just paint a huge Silver Surfer on the side of a building. Is that your guy? I love Silver Surfer. I think he's great. One of my favorite comics. But I'd probably want to, I'm not even sure if I'd have the energy to paint a mural right now. It could be pretty physically, I never quite realized how physically involved mural making was but you know you build a scaffolding every day and you're climbing this thing you're climbing

down and days are usually hot in Minnesota the days can be really can be pretty hot so I'm like I don't even know if I'd have the energy to paint a mural right now it's not hot it's not hot it's not hot right now that's funny because I would have thought, oh, you'd have this perfectly grafted idea of this politically charged mural that you'd want to go paint down at George Floyd Square. You know what I would want to do right now? I probably could write a pretty good season of Fargo right now. Oh, yeah.

Like give it everything. Trust me, it's hard to not visit here and not think about i actually just watched that movie like two weeks ago have you seen the show at all yeah the show's pretty good it's good yeah yeah and the chris the the latest um season with chris rock oh yeah yeah no it's really good season two's probably still just like the best but um they're all so different yeah they're all really different but it's all the same vibe. Yeah, I wouldn't have time to do it, but yeah, I could probably write

a pretty good season of Fargo right now. All right. Well, good, man. Good talking to you. Yeah, thank you. How do you feel? Feel all right? You gotta get some food in you.

Yeah, yeah, I'm gonna go eat some more. I think a couple of dates, that's not gonna do it for you, man. A couple of dates, a couple of oranges. Yeah, I know. Cool, man. I appreciate you talking to me and best of luck winning your sales. Yeah, I know. Cool, man. I appreciate you talking to me and best of luck winning your sales, my friend.

Thanks. Peace. Bye, Hans. Thanks for listening, everybody. For links and resources related to everything discussed today, visit the show notes on the episode page at richroll.com. If you'd like to support the podcast,

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Peace. Plants. Namaste. Thank you.