What A Day - MPD Unplugged

Episode Date: June 8, 2020

Minneapolis City Council members have said they intend to disband the Minneapolis Police Department and replace it with a community-based public safety model. On the federal level, Democrats will introduce reform legislation today that, among other things, will change the standard for use of force.We interview Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison, who recently took the lead in the prosecuting cases related to George Floyd’s killing by police. We ask him why it's so difficult to prosecute officers, and what he makes of moves to disband police departments.And in headlines: India experiences its highest day of cases, unemployment numbers are better but still terrible, and former VP Joe Biden has enough delegates to win the nomination. Plus, Erin Ryan fills in for Akilah Hughes.

It's Monday, June 8th. I'm Gideon Resnick. And I'm Erin Ryan, filling in for Akilah Hughes, who is taking a very well-deserved vacation this week. Akilah, we hope that you are buying turnips and using bells to your heart's content. I think that's a thing. I don't think that's a thing, but I think Animal Crossing is a thing, and I intend to find out what that thing is. On today's show, a conversation with Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison about the George Floyd case and why it's difficult to prosecute the police in America, then some headlines.

But first, the latest. It has been two weeks since Minneapolis police officers killed George Floyd, sparking massive and sustained protests throughout the country and world against police violence toward Black Americans, and also police violence at the protests against police violence. Protests continued over the weekend, drawing even larger crowds in some places and showing no signs of slowing down. So let's go through some of the newest responses we've seen from cities and the federal government. Yeah, so things moved quite quickly in the last few days. So let's just start in Minneapolis. On Friday, the city banned chokeholds and neck restraints by police officers, and officers will now be required to try and stop their fellow officers if they

observe any improper use of force, and they would face the same disciplinary action those officers would face if they don't intervene. Then yesterday, nine of the city council's 12 members announced their support for disbanding the Minneapolis Police Department and replacing it with a community-based public safety model. That number constitutes a veto-proof majority, and it comes a day after the city's mayor, Jacob Fry, was booed out of a rally after saying that he did not support, quote, the full abolition of the police. In New York City, Mayor Bill de Blasio, who has faced unrelenting criticism for his handling of protests in the city, as well as instances of police brutality by NYPD, announced that for

the first time he would cut funding for the department. NYPD has an annual budget of $6 billion. de Blasio did not specify how much funding would actually be diverted to social services yet. Moving now to the federal level, Democrats plan to introduce reform legislation today. So what do we know about what's in it? Yes, there was early reporting on a draft of this that was going around. And it would, among other things, reportedly institute mandatory bias training, create a national registry to track police misconduct, change the federal standard for use of force, ban, quote, no-knock warrants, which, as we know, was used when Louisville police killed Breonna Taylor, and change qualified immunity. That is the legal doctrine that shields officers from civil suits. Later in the week,

we're going to delve deeper into the conversation about defunding, abolition, and reform, what activists are seeking, and what results they're actually getting. But for now, let's shift gears to another related subject. Erin, we've seen a slew of resignations in the past few days across different sectors. That's in response to the protests against police abuses and the broader push for racial equity in other spaces. So let's go through some of what we've seen so far. Fifty seven police officers in Buffalo, New York, quit their department's emergency response team after two officers who were caught on video seriously injuring a 75 year old protester were suspended. Initial reports stated the officers resigned in solidarity with the two officers.

But now local media is saying that that isn't true and that the union mischaracterized the reason for the mass resignation. In fact, according to reports, the officers resigned because the union said it would no longer provide legal defense for officers on that team. So what's worse, resigning over being pro police brutality or resigning because your union won't defend you in court anymore if you do some police brutality? Tomato to Maru, nobody's looking good here. Yeah, to say the least. And brutality or resigning because your union won't defend you in court anymore if you do some police brutality. Tomato, tomato. Nobody's looking good here. Yeah, to say the least. And speaking of nobody looking good, yesterday, New York Times opinion editor James Bennett resigned after being asked to step down by the paper's publisher. So this came after the Times caused a Category 5

shitstorm last week when it published a lie-ridden op-ed by Senator Tom Cotton, which argued that the military should be mobilized in the states to subdue protests. Yeah, and Bennett reportedly hadn't even read the piece before it ran with the headline, send in the troops. Yikes. The Times said the piece's publication represented a, quote, significant breakdown in the editing process. Times staffers also spoke out internally and publicly against the piece, with Black employees taking the lead, saying the piece put them in danger. Others have talked about how running Cotton's views unchecked in an op ed versus in a reported article where they could be fact checked and put in context was irresponsible. And another very welcome resignation, the editor in chief of the Philadelphia Inquirer has now resigned after the publication ran the headline buildings matter to didn't go over very well with everybody who isn't a building. Dozens of staffers

walked out over the piece and the editor issued an apology the day after it ran, but the damage was done. My oh my yes. And Andrew Alexander, the CEO and co owner of the Second City, which is the improv theater resigned after an alum accused him of racism. Alexander said he was, quote, deeply and expressly sorry and promised his replacement would be a person of color. Yes, and good improv joke, Gideon. I caught that. Thank you very much. You're welcome.

Not everyone resigned because of public outrage, though, Alexis Ohanian, a.k.a. Mr. Serena Williams, voluntarily stepped down from the board of Reddit on Friday and encouraged remaining board members to replace him with a black person. He also pledged one million dollars to Colin Kaepernick's nonprofit group and promised to donate future gains of shares of Reddit to anti-racist causes. He says he did it to create a better world for his daughter. So we'll be tracking how all of this reverberates through business and other organizations as they account for their role in perpetuating systemic racism. That's right. But turning back to Minnesota and the issue of policing there, all eyes are on Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison. Just over a week ago, Ellison took the lead in the prosecution of cases related to George Floyd's killing at the hands of police. Days later, he announced upgraded charges against Derek Chauvin, the former officer who knelt on Floyd's neck for nearly nine minutes,

as well as the other three officers on the scene who did not intervene. Ellison, a former member of Congress, is attempting to diligently prosecute these cases, which very rarely result in a conviction. In Minnesota, just one police officer has ever been found guilty in the killing of a civilian. I spoke to Ellison yesterday. This was before the Minneapolis City Council officially announced their intent to disband the local police. It had just been floated by a few members. We talked about that idea and more. Here is our conversation. Attorney General Keith Ellison, thank you so much for taking the time today. Well, it's good to be here. Thank you.

So I want to begin with this question. You've spoken a lot about the careful nature with which you've approached the case and the difficulty of getting convictions here, even though the world has seen the video of these officers' actions. Why, in your view, is it so difficult to prosecute cases against police officers in this country? There's a lot of factors. One factor starts with just the culture that we live in. Under the law, being a police officer does not accord anyone with more credibility than anyone else. The court will say, just because somebody's a police officer doesn't mean you have to believe them. But that's contrary to what some people were raised to believe. I mean, just think about all the cop But that's contrary to what some people were raised to believe.

I mean, just think about all the cop shows you may have watched in your life. Rizzoli and Isles, Cagney and Lacey. You know, I don't know what's what's what's what Hawaii Five-0, right? You know, the Mod Squad, you know, hippie cops, cool cops, you know, 21 Jump Street, young cops. You know, 21 Jump Street, young cops. I mean, you know, we're just inundated with this sort of cultural message that these people are trustable, do the right thing, and, you know, even got some funny one-liners every now and again. But that's part of it. Jurors tend to resolve doubts in favor of the police. Of course, the grand jury has played a big role in Mike Brown's case. You know, that case went to the grand jury. People were disturbed, but, you know, the grand jury process is secret. You know, you don't really, we do know now that the county attorney actually misinstructed the jury on the use of force in that grand jury case.

And you can look it up. They gave literally bad law, which is sort of outrageous, but that happened. And so, you know, like in the case of Rodney King and Walter Scott, those cases made it to the jury. They went the other way. I mean, sadly, because these incidents happen with some frequency, there is a defense bar specializing in representing police that has a lot of experience and knows how to do these cases. And yet your average prosecutor doesn't do them very often. I mean, I'll admit, you know, I have been, you know, trying to lower people's expectations because I want them to be realistic about this, not because we're not confident, not because we don't believe, we do believe. But also, you know, you got to just look at what the situation for what it really is. Do you think that the additional charges for

the officers and the upgraded charges for Chauvin would have happened without protests? What I must say, and what is true, is that when I agreed to participate in this case, and I didn't ask for this case, but when I was asked to be in the case by the county attorney and the governor, I told them, well, I haven't read the file yet, but I'm going to tell you one thing. I'm not going to do anything that violates my sense of professional ethics, I'm not going to charge anything or not charge anything based on optics or politics. I'm just not going to. I refuse to do that. So the public can rest assured that our review of the file and new evidence had come in. We had been able to see new stuff. We have been able to consult and talk more.

We did bring fresh eyes to the file. But I will say that I very much doubt that I would be having the case now if it weren't for the public sentiment. I think that part of what explains my role is one, you know, now we got statewide resources. That's a good thing. But also it may be in the minds of some helped to sort of. This may have helped public sentiment and hopefully built some community trust. But, you know, the county attorney is he's the only one who brought a successful murder prosecution against a police officer. They are still involved in this case. We're happy about that. That's a good thing. And so we're working together.

Right. And some members of the Minneapolis City Council are considering disbanding the police force and starting anew. Do you agree with that approach? I'm going to let that process play out. I don't have any dog in that fight. What I will say is it is a good idea to reconceive of how we do public safety. I'll say that, you know, look, Obama had 21st century policing. It was an extensive process. A lot of ideas were brought in, you know, upgrading, modernizing how we do policing with a very clear eye toward the fact that some of our police practices were rooted in, you know, I mean, quite frankly, you know, centuries gone by. And thereby rooted in race relations and economic relations of that time. Right. So, you know, during slavery days, 240 Jim Crow era, which took place between 1865 and 1965.

And so, you know, that's why you have, you know, a lot of the things that you would see in during that part of our nation's history. But we really didn't. But what was law now is custom and culture. And so, you know, we need to update, you know, we need to come up with a new sense of this. I mean, you know, you've probably heard about the warrior model of policing as opposed to the guardian model of policing. One tells the officer, your sole goal is to come back alive. You know, it's kill or be killed out there. Those people are actually the enemy. You are a warrior.

As opposed to, no, it's your job to protect these people. You're here to save them, safeguard them, all of them. Even the ones accused of violating the law are in your care and custody while they're in your care and custody. certainly has to support a lot of the public. I will say this, and as a note of caution, the way you describe what you're doing, you want people to support the reform process. There are some people who aren't quite ready to talk about dismantling. Because like, well, then what are we going to do? What if there's a domestic violence case? What if there's people selling drugs on the corner that I live in? What if,

what if, what if? I think it is important to say, look, we're not going to stop doing public safety, right? You know, human beings have not ceased to have a darker side, you know. But what we are going to do is set it on a new set of principles where safety and security is the primary, not domination. And of course, we've heard that word recently. Right, right. From certain people. Well, yeah, certain people who live where? Yeah, in the nation's capital. Yeah, you know the one. That was Attorney General Keith Ellison. He was, of course, not so subtly talking about our president at the end there. We'll continue to track these cases, but that is the latest for now. WOD Squad, WOD Heads, it's Monday.

You know what the business is. It is time to check some of those temps. New Looney Tunes episodes have started airing on HBO Max, featuring our favorite talking animals who are always chasing each other. There's one major change, though. In response to gun violence in the U.S., famous Second Amendment advocates Elmer Fudd and Yosemite Sam will not have rifles. So, Erin, temp check.

Do you support disarming the toons? Are they totally disarmed? They have no alternative weapons? I think... Go ahead, go ahead. Okay, no, this is a show about toons that are at war with each other, and I feel like Bugs Bunny is so clever and wily

that it's really cruel and unfair to put in Yosemite Sam and Elmer Fudd, two dullards at best, to fight against him with absolutely no weapons. So what weapons do they have? I heard a rumor that one has a scythe, and this rumor was spread by members of our team earlier today. I don't know if this rumor is true,

if one of the fellows is now a communist. Gosh. I mean, Looney Tunes have always been a kind of way to get kids to watch propaganda. Like, have you ever watched World War Two era Looney Tunes? I have not. Oh, my gosh. Well, there's a lot of them and some of them haven't aged very well.

But, you know, cartoons have been a way to kind of ingratiate people to an agenda. So I guess giving a bad guy a symbol of communism would be a kind of retro indoctrination tactic, I guess. Yeah, I mean, it's like basically having children read the Communist Manifesto, both good things, in my opinion, in terms of, you know, public literacy. I feel like if Elmer Fudd were carrying a scythe, he would become a symbol of the DSA along with Gritty. Like he would become adopted by the DSA. Yes. I think, I mean, that seems like a net good if that's, you know,

the thing that's going to come out of Looney Tunes rerunning on HBO Max. And that's it. We checked our temps. Check out Looney Tunes on HBO Max if you want or watch Truly any other show if you don't. Let's wrap up with some headlines. Checking back in with the state of the pandemic.

India experienced its highest day of new cases on Sunday as the country begins to further reopen today. It now has one of the most cases of any country along with the U.S., Brazil, and Russia. Here in the U.S., a third of states are seeing cases rise, including California, Florida, and Texas. Ooh, woof. Yeah. Meanwhile, New York City, which experienced the biggest outbreak in the country, has seen cases continue to drop. The city will also begin reopening today. Public health officials are still encouraging people to keep wearing masks, washing hands and staying distant.

If you haven't been, please take care of yourself and be aware of who you're spending time around, because the last thing we need is another wave of the pandemic. We got the latest numbers on unemployment last Friday, and they were better than expected. The U.S. added 2.5 million new jobs in May as parts of the economy reopened and unemployment fell from 14.7 to 13.3 percent. Still not good. Republicans who are already reluctant to continue working on more economic relief have already seized on the report as an excuse to keep watching and waiting. Something economists warn against given that the unemployment rate remains higher than we ever saw during the Great Recession. Adding to the uncertainty is a misclassification

error over the last few months in which millions of people were listed as employed but absent from work, though they may really have been unemployed. Accounting for that, the true unemployment rate may be closer to 16% in May and could have reached as high as 19.7% in April. Yeah, we're either fucked or we're completely and utterly fucked. We are either Krakatoa or Mount St. Helens. It's either way. It's going to be bad and there's going to be lava. Former Vice President Joe Biden has reached the number of delegates he needs to formally win the Democratic nomination after eight primary contests went his way last Tuesday. He affirmed his victory like the everyman that he is by doing

a post on Medium. Thank you, sir, for using the People's Platform and you just won yourself a clap reaction. Biden can count on some Republican support as he heads towards the general. George W. Bush's Secretary of State Colin Powell said on Sunday that he's team bye bye man since he's close to him ideologically and he quote cannot in any way support President Trump. There are also other prominent Republicans like George W. Bush, Jeb Bush and Sidney McCain who also refused to vote for Donald Trump. Mitt Romney is in this group too, but per the New York Times, he isn't sure yet whether he'll vote for Biden or write in his wife, Ann, which he did last time. Some of us are also thinking about voting for Mitt Romney's wife, and we just don't want to make a massive deal out of it. I think Mitt Romney should vote for his horse. If he's going to do a

joke candidate, vote for your horse. Nothing in the Constitution says we can't have a horse president. You got to pick the winning horse, you know? Exactly. Harry Potter author J.K. Rowling really stepped in it on Saturday when she mocked a headline that described the need for sanitary products for, quote, people who menstruate. I'm sure there used to be a word for those people, she said. She then added, just to make sure her 14.5 million followers knew what she meant, if sex isn't real, then the lived reality of women globally

is erased. Human rights groups were quick to condemn the implication that menstruation is the determining factor in what makes a person a woman, because implying that gender is rooted in biology rather than society is transphobic, not to mention plenty of cisgendered women don't menstruate. J.K. Rowling could have written a lot of things online on Saturday. She could have explained why wizards could travel through time and turn into animals, but failed to invent a spell that could make it so Harry Potter didn't need to wear glasses. She could have voiced her support for a different social justice movement, an actual good one that happens to have a major presence on social media right now. But instead, she made it even clearer that she's what those of us

in the wizarding world of feminism might call a TERF, or a Trans Exclusionary Radical Feminist. A disappointing turn from the inventor of Quidditch, a sport that makes no sense. Kind of like her take made no sense.

And those are the headlines. That is all for today. If you like the show, make sure you subscribe, leave a review, inflate our job numbers, and tell your friends to listen. And if you're into reading and not just merciless dunks on J.K. Rowling's bad takes like me, What A Day is also a nightly newsletter.

Check it out and subscribe at crooked.com slash subscribe. I'm Erin Ryan. I'm Gideon Resnick. And welcome to the resistance, Jeb Bush. Boom. MacBook Pro, baby. Nice.

What a Day is a product of Crooked Media. It's recorded and mixed by Charlotte Landis. Sonia Tun is our assistant producer. Our head writer is John Milstein, and our senior producer is Katie Long. Our theme music is by Colin Gilliard and Kshaka.