Publisher of the book and was asked if i would be interested in editing a volume that would attempt to contextualize and explore all the recent awful killings of black men and boys in recent years. I really jumped at the opportunity because theres no issue more important to me than the unfair treatment of black and brown people in the kernel justice could and criminal justice. Host what information do you base that on to come to that conclusion . Guest it is well documented. Its an issue that ive faced for over 20 years. Is certainly plenty of documentation to show that black and brown people are treated poorly in the criminal Justice System, much less fairly been there similarly situated white counterparts, and every step of the process from arrests to sentencing, hence the subtitle of the book. Although the inspiration of the book were all these killings that occurred in recent years and quite friendly have occurred since black people have been in this country but have received attention in recent years, that was the catalyst for the book. Really we went further than that to explore all the ways that black men and boys are treated in the criminal Justice System at every step of the process. Weing the black man use that in a broad sense of the word. The many ways that black men and boys are controlled by the criminal Justice System, arrests, prosecution, imprisonment, and beyond. Host you talk not only about modernday things but the historical context. Give our viewers a taste of that. Guest the very first essay written in the book explores this historical context. Black men and boys have been treated poorly in the criminal Justice System and outside the criminal Justice System from the time of slavery to the present day. The lynchings that occurred after that onto the present day and that has been well documented. We think about emmett till, vendor evans, Martin Luther king. Those are the more famous names that we know of, but black men have been treated poorly that only by Law Enforcement agents, but also people who have taken the law into their own hands. That has been happening throughout our history. Its just more recently quite frankly because of social media and technology and cell phone cameras that we the public have been able to actually witness eyes killings with our own because of modernday technology cou. Killingsely these have been going on since the time of slavery. Host the cell phone camera captured his death by shooting. That was part of the things as well and other instances when it comes to social media. Guest walter scott, we saw her being shot in the back as he ran away from the Police Officer. We saw eric garner being choked to death by Police Officer in staten island. Tamirw 12yearold nea rice killed by Police Officers as he played with a toy gun in a park. Shot with his hands of the air and caught by two cameras with the dashboard of the Police Officers car and from a helicopter overhead. We saw him with his hands in the air as he was shot by officer betty shelby. I think the thing so horrific about all these killings is that not one of those Police Officers was convicted by a jury. Mir rices killer and eric garners killer were never even charged. In the others, they came back either not guilty or a hung jury. That is what many people are finding so often that we are witnessing these killings yet there has not been accountability. Host angela davis is the editor of policing the black man. We will talk about the theme of the book during the course of the hour. If you want to ask questions, 202 7488002, 202 , 202 7488005. 3. You can send questions or comments to her on the twitter j. Ed at cspan the bjw has aashington post count of shooting deaths. Males 220, hispanic males, and what do those mongers tell you when it comes to black males in shooting deaths . Guest a lot of people asked why focus on black men, but the numbers you just cited tells the story. The Washington Post has been a great job of piecing the statistics. Amazingly there has not been a National Database keeping track of these killings. What the journalists have done is that the Washington Post has done a good job. Explains why we focus on black men. They are not the only group treated poorly by the criminal Justice System. Latinos and black women, native americans, lgbt community, they are all treated less well than their similarly situated white male straight counterparts. When we look at the statistics for black men, they are treated worse than any other group. You mentioned the statistics on killings. Host people to look at the statistics and say that white males are killed more than black males. Guest when we look proportionally at the percentage of black men an in our population, there is disproportion. Statistics show that. There are 2. 5 times likely to be arrested that similarly situated white men. They receive longer sentences than white men who commit the same crimes. We document all this in the essays throughout the book. , thedisparate treatment statistics show is unfair. It is not black men committing more crimes. The statistics show that they are treated worse than their similarly situated white counterparts. By that, i mean whites who offenses andme sentenc are treated better by the criminal Justice System and thats unfair. That went 2 analysis shootings in 2015 took place, one order involved a fleeing suspect, one quarter involved officers under attack, and 18 officers were charged compared to 47 officers between 2005 at 2014. Guest that accept the research we are doing quite frankly. You spoke a little quickly so you may have to repeat some of those for me. You say many of them were fleeing at the time they were shot. Host they just said overall when it comes to fatal shootings, the involved a fleeing suspect or police under attack. Guest we have to look at that carefully. A fleeing suspect . What does that mean . The Supreme Court has been very clear in a case called tennessee versus garner that Police Officers are not allowed to use deadly force against a fleeing felon unless they believe that they are in serious danger of being harmed or the public is in serious danger of being harmed. That can be interpreted in many different ways, right . The Supreme Court has developed this very loose reasonableness standard which allows Police Officers to use deadly force in a much wider range of circumstances that you or i. We want our Police Officers to protect us. They have a very dangerous job. We also do not want them to use force when they dont have to use force. We dont want people to be unnecessarily killed. And so many of these instances, it has been proven that the individuals killed were not armed, or not attacking Police Officers at the time, and we have seen a lot of that on videotape. We want Police Officers to be trained to use deadly force only when it is absolutely necessary. Its very clear from so many of these cases that they have used it in instances when they should not have. Host our guest is a professor of law at american universitys Washington College of law and editor of policing the black man. She writes a chapter a prosecution which we will talk about the bit, but we want to take phone calls that have come in for you. Our first one is from loretta from cleveland, ohio. Caller good morning. Im enjoying this conversation. I want to say dont forget about john crawford, who was killed at a columbus, ohio walmart. A state where you can carry guns and mr. Crawford was in the walmart looking at some guns. Some white guy called the police and told a vicious lie. It is online if you want to look at it. The whole thing because walmart has cameras everywhere. The Police Showed up. They didnt say a word. They just shot him dead from all different angles. The point of my call i wanted to know if the professor knows reporthe 2006 fbi gao which stated that the kkk and White Supremacists have if a trader Police Departments and Law Enforcement infiltrated Police Departments and Law Enforcement nationwide. This report was given in 2006. The length of time that it covers and spans might go back to jim crow. We dont know. The point that im making is minorities, we pay taxes, too. Its incredible that things are going where we are paying to be killed in the street like dogs. Host we will let our guest respond. Guest sure, unfamiliar with the crawford case in ohio, a very tragic case. There are so many cases unfortunately that we could cover them all in the book. I am familiar with that case. Im not familiar with the details of the fbi report that you mentioned, but i do know that there is evidence that there are members and have been in police the klan departments and that is something we cannot tolerate in our society. That is something that needs to be dealt with in every Police Department. That should not be the case. Host from blake in mississippi, go ahead. Caller mr. Davis, i just want to give america just a small example of what it does to black americans. m a discharge gulf war veteran. Once i got out of the military, i came to the home state of mississippi and i got it together. I ascended to management at a job that requires fbi background. Its ridiculous. After 14 or 15 years of doing paying out millions like the business requires, i went on to be the manager of popeyes and , just several careers whereas basically trying to find myself after so many years in the game. After i got my break in the game , i decided to move back to chicago. My big mistake. Ive moved back home to chicago because i missed my family members and decided to get back into gaming. Made a mistake to walk to store about four blocks away. I walked to a store annexed to the store wasnt on a bike shop. A lot of abandoned cars that would be taken to the junkyard. I walked by the car and theres a sidewalk right there on my way back home. Anyway, i was accused of resembling somebody that was missing with the car. ,ix blocks away at my house anyway i was taken the cook county jail. All my rights were violated being picked up and brought back to the scene in a lineup that was totally illegal. This is the problem, america. Host im sorry to interrupt. Eventually what happened only in the interest of time . Caller the problem is grand juries. Ie grand jury, they said actually had the gentlemans id on me. Hearing, theyary mention this. At the trial, they didnt mention that. The prosecution made an agreement with my courtappointed attorney that i would mention that i didnt have any record. Host we will have to leave it there and you may have to explain some of that process. Thats part of the chapter of the book when it comes to prosecution. Guest you mentioned a lot of things. First of all, im very sorry to hear what happened to you. Its an example of how overwhelmed individuals can be and why we decided quite frankly not disciplined focus only on the shootings, but to focus on the entire criminal Justice System from arrest and prosecution to particular prosecution. , i one i contributed contributed a chapter in the chapter i contributed is about prosecution, and i focus on prosecution. Prosecutors are the most powerful criminal justice officials in our system. They make the decisions that really drive the system. Police officers have a lot of power and discretion and we must focus on Police Officers, but we cant stop there. Police officers have the power to bring an individual to the courthouse door, but its the prosecutor who decides whether that person will remain in the system and what happens to them frankly through their charging decisions. They are the individuals who decide whether people will be charged with a crime and what that charge will be. Ler pegida grand jury, individuals who decide whether a person should be indicted, but a prosecutor decides the grand jury. The prosecutor decides what evidence comes in and what evidence stays out. Thats a tremendous amount of power placed in the hands of one individual, mainly the prosecutor. I urge people to focus on prosecutors. Most of them are elected officials, state local ones anyway. And a lot of people do not Pay Attention to prosecutor races and i urge people to do so because they are the individuals controlling criminal justice. Host is evidence to say that the prosecution process is biased against black men more than others . Guest yes, there is evidence of that. There has been a lot of Research Done to show as i mentioned before individuals, black men and boys are prosecuted much more harshly for offenses. Prosecutors have a lot of power in deciding what to charge an individual with. Theres a lot of research to show that similarly situated individuals, one white and one alleged to have done the same thing, but with prosecutors it has been proven in many instances will charge africanamericans at a higher rate with harsher sentences. Benjaminsrious consequences when it comes to the outcome of those cases. Yes, theres a lot of research to support that. I dont allege that prosecutors are intentionally discriminating against individuals. I dont say that most prosecutors are intentionally saying im going to charge black people more than whites. I think a lot of it is unconscious, something we call implicit bias that we all suffer from. All of us in our society by virtue of being in our society are susceptible to bias. Unconscious views that we all have that we are not even aware of as a result of being surrounded by stereotypes in the media and society around us. They can be based on race, skin color, gender, sexual orientation, where we have these deepseated feelings that we are not aware of, the feelings that caused someone to see a black man and clutch their purse a little closer across the street because they have this unconscious bias or view about that person they are not even aware of. We all suffer from it. All of us from all races, but when an individual has a lot of power like a Police Officer or prosecutor is making decisions based on that bias, that is very problematic because that individual has the power to take away a persons liberty or even their lives in some instances. Guest youhost you talk about te of black prosecutors and white matters. Why it matters. Why . Guest a District Attorney in charge of a particular office, 95 of them are white. There are very few africanamericans, very few chief prosecutors or people of color. Thats a problem. Diversity is important our society. Haveimportant that we prosecutors of all races and ethnicities for a number of reasons. However, i make the point that adding a black prosecutor is not going to guarantee that the policy is going to change. A fact that a person is black does not mean they are necessarily going to set forth progressive policy. You need someone who is aware of the problems in our criminal Justice System, aware of the Racial Disparities, and who has the will to make change. That could be a black person. That could be a white person. I give some examples of the chapter of various prosecutors trying to change the problems in our criminal Justice System and theyre not all africanamerican or latino. It has to be someone who has the will to make that change. Host this is eric from georgia. Go ahead. You are on with our guest. Caller thank you. Just responding to the author and the professor you are speaking with, as a former Police Officer, im just wondering why it is that we dont discuss at all how difficult it is just to be a Police Officer in Todays Society. The community that i worked at was predominantly black. The citizenry that i served was black. And the victims and the people who were most hurt by crime were black. Those are the people that i worked to protect as a Police Officer. And yet, it seems that there is some combination for anybody who is a Police Officer that is why in america that serves the public today. Im not upset with the fact that we always seem to want to look at Police Officers as being villains in the way that we are projecting them. I would just like to know from the author what it is that she believes that we absolutely need to do to make this a different world not only for the black community but for people who actually have the job of policing in america today, which is a very difficult job. People risk civil suits, being in prison, if they just act the runway as a Police Officer. They are all human beings. Theyre all people who do the best they can every day and trying to protect the population they are ascribed to. Host thank you for the call. Guest thank you for that. I absolutely agree with you. Police officers have a very difficult job and we all depend on Police Officers to protect all of us. I dont mean to suggest that all Police Officers are villains. I have never said that. I think so many of them do their jobs well, but its very clear that many of them, however, are not doing their jobs the way theyre supposed to do. I focus on those Police Officers. We have a system unfortunately in which there are Police Officers who will reach for the gun, who will not deescalate a situation, who as mentioned before like all of us suffer from certain biases based on race and other things. I dont need to focus on Police Officers. All of us suffer from those biases. When someone who has the power to not only arrest someone, to stop them and involve them in the criminal Justice System, and to also take their lives, we should expect those Police Officers to do their jobs in a way that could not only protect us, but keep us all safe. Its very clear from these killings that have taken place that that doesnt always happen. Thatee with the officer Police Officers have a very difficult job, but i also believe that they have a responsibility to everyone in our community to keep us all safe to do their jobs the way theyre supposed to be done and to not use Excessive Force when its not necessary. , notats what we focus on on the officers doing their jobs well, but those that are not. Host kathy in michigan, good morning. Caller good morning, miss davis. I read about you for many decades now and ive always had great admiration. Good morning to you, pedro. Our three children and two of them very sadly were hurt in a childcare setting. C andan committed a csx because he was white, i believe nothing ever happened. I have gross documentation. I kept his file since 1992 and im still fighting for justice for my children. Had he been anything but white, he would have been charged and the charges would have been the most severe. When you have the support of the prosecutor attorney, and not just him, but one of them is still serving. When you have the support of that individual in office, you have a license to do whatever you want. In fact, the prosecuting attorney threatened me when i finally got the Police Report in 2004 that the man who hurt my children could take me to court and sue me. I was born and raised in flint. Probably the biggest highlight wheny schooling was segregation happened. I went to Public School my last four years of school and many of my teachers were black. Half of my fellow students were black and it was the richest of social experiences. I dont think i could duplicate it really could host. Host thank you, caller. Guest im so sorry to hear what happened to that caller. Oftentimes individuals are treated better in the criminal Justice System because of the color of her skin unfortunately and she provides an example of that. Host from houston, texas, reginald, youre on the phone. Go ahead. Reginald from houston, texas . Caller yes, good morning. And im a reginald correctional officer. Im Reginald Ward from sugarland, texas. You have to remember when article 13 was passed. There are still using that particular law today that has adverse effects on the policing. It was started in the slave control and thats how the police started, to control the slaves. They still have that mentality one third of the persons and livestock has more respect than a black person in Todays Society because of that mentality. Are still using that in the Police Officer and its still mandated in a way that they feel like cap free reign to be able to shoot and kill and be the court and handle the Justice System with their gun behind them. I believe this seems to be looked over and people need to be held accountable in the judicial system along with our black representatives and all of us as people of humanity. This is hurting america. We incarcerate more than two thirds of the people in the world being incarcerated here in america. We need to have overview and oversight of our criminal Justice System so we can have more respect and admiration for us and dont look at black people as prey. Guest reginald mentions a lot of the things covered in the books in various essays. From a Historical Perspective, he mentioned from the time of slavery, he mentioned a lot of things. One that i think you made me think of was the fact that we talk about how theres a need for training and reform in the Police Department. A lot of what he says is true. What we talk about a lot of the issues like implicit bias and Police Officers are receiving implicit bias training. There is training around implicit bias. Theres an entire chapter on infosys bias implicit bias. Thats reform we suggested for Police Departments. Many things he suggested for the over incarceration issue in our country to the racial bias throughout the system, the need for a police training, these are all issues addressed in various essays. Host we talked about walter scott. Usa today published a story saying the top that shot him got 20 years in prison. Is that a positive sign of some sort . Guest whats interesting about the walter scott case is this is one of the cases where we saw on videotape a clear killing of a man who was running away from Police Officers. I think it is very troubling that many people say, how could a jury look at that videotape ,nd come back a hung jury not able to say that this man murdered walter scott when many of us who see it saw that . G theyry came back homun cannot make a decision. Walter scott was one of the few people who had federal charges brought against him. Its a difficult to have federal charges brought against Police Officers. Because he had federal charges pending against him, he made a plea bargain with the prosecutor. I talk about pleabargaining a lot in the book. He made a bargain with them that he would plead guilty to one of the civil rights charges in exchange for the state prosecutor not bringing the murder charges back against him. With a hung jury, the prosecutor has the option of trying the case again to see if another jury would convict. He pled guilty to that civil rights violation, violating the civil rights of walter scott. I think you did that because the judge had a lot of discussion. He couldve gotten anything from probation to life in prison. I believe he and his lawyer hoped that he would not get present time, but the judge decided to give him 20 years for the civil rights violation. I think that brought some comfort to the family of walter scott and others that he is doing some time, but the fact remains that he was not convicted of murdering walter scott. In none of these cases that ive mentioned has there been a conviction by a jury, even in cases where there has been a videotape. I think that is what so troubling. How can juries look at those videotapes and come back not guilty . I think people still find it very hard to convict a Police Officer, even in light of the evidence, the very clear evidence before them, and thats troubling. Host the freddie gray case, a lot of attention. Six Police Officers none of them charge for convicted. Was it the District Attorney . Guest the freddie gray case was a very complicated case. The prosecutors did charge all those officers. Many of these cases like the Michael Brown case and ferguson, rice, eric garner, none of the officers were even charged. They made the decision to charge those officers right away. I think she was criticized for how she did the charging. I think a lot of people thought she did it too quickly, but whatever you might say she did, she did bring charges. However, the Police Officers three of them went to trial. They charge to have a judge trial instead of a jury trial. The judge found him not guilty. I think its very clear that when the same judge is trying the last three that the prosecutor knew that was not going to be a conviction and she ended up dismissing. None of those officers were held accountable for the killing of freddie gray. I think thats very troubling to 70 people. Host this is our guest, angela davis. She is the editor of policing the black man. This is a compilation of articles or chapters, including one written by her. That is the title of the cover. Our next call is from missouri on the democrats line. Caller thank you very much. I have a question for you. Don lemon stated, why dont you put your hands on the grill like you are told . Why do blacks not adhere to what a policeman says . Thats the question that i have. The minister that wrote the last book that i have and i gave it away to a friend, he claims that it starts at the home with the women raising most of the black children. I dont know that much about it. Why dont they adhere to what a policeman says . The cigarette salesman on the sidewalk, they told him to put his and behind them, and he walked off. Wilson charged the policeman. Youll hear that on the news. You have to read it in some publication. Saids it that don lemon why dont you put your hands on the Steering Wheel like you are told . Host we will let our guests respond. Guest i dont know why don leavitt said that because in so many of these instances the men were doing exactly what the Police Officer told them to do. And they were still killed. We look at the case of lando castile, philando killed in his car, videotaped in front of his girlfriend and his daughter. He was telling the Police Officer that i have a weapon and im allowed to have a weapon. Im not reaching for it. He wasnt reaching for it. He was doing exactly what the Police Officer told him to do and the Police Officer took out a gun and shot him. They aren that somehow being killed because theyre not doing what Police Officer said is not true. The cases that you mentioned you mentioned eric garner and he was told not to sell cigarettes. If he was selling cigarettes and he wasnt supposed to, thats not a reason to be killed. You dont kill people because they are selling illegal cigarettes. Thats not a reason to take a persons life. Thats the issue here. We know so many m instances whee you are not allowed to kill. Police officers are not allowed to kill a person because they are disobeying the Police Officer. Thats not a reason to take a persons life. Police officers are allowed to use deadly force if they are in danger of being killed or if the public is danger. They are allowed to use deadly force not simply because a person is disobeying them. Our laws dont permit that. And in thesences cases, we had individuals opening the Police Officers, retreating, running away from Police Officers. We dont kill people because theyre running away. Thats not a reason to take a persons life. You take a person life if you are in danger of having your life taken with that person is endangering the public. That is what Police Officers are allowed to use deadly force. And in no other instances. Ofortunately and so many these cases, Police Officers escalated the situation and kill that took a persons life when that person was unarmed and oftentimes are treated and oftentimes obeying that Police Officer. Those of the cases that we are talking about this book. Those of the cases we want to stop. We stoppe want to stop these killings. Host john is in tennessee for our guests, angela davis p caller. Caller can you hear me . Host you are on. Go ahead. Caller the question i have for the guest is does she think that the problem of policing black men is solely linked to racism and bias or do you also think its a cultural problem . A couple things i was thinking of that is can we blame the systemof todays justice just on racism . Are there other factors such as poverty that help play a role . Guest just to clarify the question, you asked whether we can blame the Police Killings solely on racism or the problems in the criminal Justice System . Caller sure which the was talking about. Host we have them on the line. Go ahead. Caller i think just the problems in general. I will give a specific example. Here in middle tennessee where we are, if you looked at a map areasme in our area, the that have the worst amount of crime are typically areas that are the highest, for example, in rates of poverty. I guess what im trying to get factorse there other that play than just racism for has fromlack community the writers point of view suffered an injustice from policing . Im just wondering if theres if she thinks theres other factors than just racism. Guest absolutely. Thank you for clarifying. Racism is not the only reason we have problems in the criminal Justice System. Theres no question about it. There are many poor whites in the kernel Justice System who are not treated fairly. You mentioned class. You mentioned poverty. Those play a tremendous role in our criminal Justice System. People who do not have adequate representation when they are represented by a courtappointed attorney or public defenders who dont have the resources to investigate cases. They dont get an adequate defense. There are problems with money bonds were we still have places or people are being held from trial because they cannot pay a certain amount of money. That is totally unfair. Thats a problem in our criminal Justice System. Race and racism is not the only rec reason we have disparities in our criminal Justice System. There are many reasons why we have that unfairness and thanks for putting that out. Host this is alexis for our guest, angela davis, editor of policing the black man. Caller good morning. I would like to talk about the culture throughout the whole hello . Host you are on. Go ahead. Caller i couldnt hear. From the top down and am talking about all the way up from jeff countys down to a small where the District Attorney many t the fate of two too many africanamericans, people of color, and people in poverty. 30a former emt in boston years ago, we would be called to the police station. The first thing out of the patients mouth is the cop beat me up. We could not put that in our report. We couldnt say patient says. Wasother time patient said driving and had a headache and then lost control of the wheel. Policed not describe the in that respect. Working sidebyside with police, i saw collusion. I saw how it would go up the chain and people were wrongly treated physically and through the system. As, i was on a grand jury here in wilmington. Unfortunately you are presented with these cases. They have already done whatever support whatever they are trying to get you to do and thats usually indict. Cases people on the grand jury are like i have a nail appointment at 3 00. Host we have to leave it there. Guest you mentioned a lot of things and i appreciate you mentioning the grand jury for one. Shes absolutely right. Prosecutors absolutely control the grand jury. Individuals, to the grand jury from the community and the idea behind the grand jury is that we have members of the community who are deciding whether a person should face an indictment, should face charges. The reality is that they usually do what the Prosecutor Says. Thats why in the chapter written by Roger Fairfax of George Washington law school thats around grand juri es is that a grand jury will and died a ham sandwich and thats saying comes from the fact that it is so easy for a grand jury to return charges. All they have to do is assign that there is probable cause that a person committed a crime. Thats a very low standard. What the prosecutor presents all evidence they want to present, its so easy to come with an indictment. Why is it in all those cases where Police Officers killed these individuals, and the very few cases that were presented to a grand jury, they did not indict . It started with ferguson and Michael Brown. That grand jury did not indict. Why . The prosecutor was in charge of it and did not want an indictment. If you look of the transcripts of the jury, very rarely is it released, but he released it. It was very clear he was on the side of that Police Officer. That is why there is a call in cases where Police Officers are charged or alleged to have killed a citizen or an individual, they have called for prosecutors to step aside and allow an independent person to come in and present the case to the grand jury. Prosecutors worked very closely with Police Officers. It certainly does not appear theythey can be fair if are tasked with investigating the very officers that they work with every day and rely on to make their cases. If you look at these cases from case in ohio and Michael Brown in ferguson and so many others, the case involving eric garner, the grand jurys did not indict you that unless even though its very easy for grand jurys tonight. People find it very difficult to face. Why is it that prosecutors indict people every day in the criminal Justice System very easily . The prosecutor comes at present you with all the evidence and you feel like you have no choice. When its a Police Officer, its a very different story. People see that unfairness and are understandably upset by it. Host the Washington Post highlighted in april that it was just session talking about Jeff Sessions talking about the obama administration. Jeff sessions says we need to review this and light of that. Where is the status of that and what does that mean for the issue youre passionate about . Guest first of all, sessions is the attorney general of the United States. That means he is in charge of federal prosecution. That peopleing should realize is that only 10 of all criminal cases are prosecuted in the federal system. 90 are prosecuted on the state and local level. That is why we have to Pay Attention to our local District Attorneys. However, the attorney general is in a very powerful position. We had eric holder at Loretta Lynch in the Previous Administration who took a very different approach to these cases. Eric holder went to ferguson and did an investigation. Very difficult to bring civil rights charges, but that was an investigation. Of the Ferguson Police department and the entire system and ferguson. If you have not read the department of justice report, you should read it. It showed a pattern and practice of unconstitutional behavior on the part of the Police Department and other Civil Servants there. Re is now eight agreement an agreement between the Justice Department and ferguson that they will clean up their act and change. Same after freddie grays killing in baltimore. There was an agreement between the Justice Department and the Police Departments in both of those cities. They agreed we need to change. Those Consent Decrees were in place. When Jeff Sessions came in, he asked the judge to revisit them. Both judges said no. These were agreements made by the Justice Department and both of those Consent Decrees are in place. Monitors are in charge of them now and there have been hearings recently in baltimore where the public has been invited to give their input and the Police Departments in both of those jurisdictions are now being overseen because of these Consent Decrees and hopefully there will be changes and improvements. But Jeff Sessions wants to do it very differently going forward. I think thats fair troubling. Host this is carolyn in atlanta, georgia. Because im calling would like to know from this davis how often does she get to sit in on the grand jury, knowing that the eyewitnesses are somewhat believable and the portion of the video would be in the mix of the grand jury . How often do you get sit it on the court . We pulling people into wrongdoing . We speak against these Police Officers saying they are wrong in doing all these wer wrong things and then our people turn out to be even worse. The killing is elevated even more. The more we speak up on their behalf, does it get worse or do they get better . We need to take a look at how many of these people are on drugs. A lot of these people that are getting killed may be on substance abuse. ,nd also the case in new york the guy died because he not only had four or five preexisting illnesses. How do we know what people have all these preexisting illnesses . The police need to be able to handle them. Host you put out a lot so we will let our guest respond. Guest she asked about grand juries and how often i have been . Need personally . Ive never been on a grand jury because of my background in the criminal justice. Ive been called for jury service and never get picked for that reason i think. I would love to serve as called. Caller areing the mentioned is that some of the People Killed were on drugs. Im not sure if she was implying that because of that that they should of been killed or what the situation. In a lot of these instances come up Police Officer have not been trained on how to deal with people that are in distress. There have been cases involving people who have been mentally ill that are killed by Police Officers. Thats one of the issues being addressed in the Consent Decree in baltimore. Police officers have no training. We can think of cancer incidences where individuals are suffering from Mental Illness or the effects of drug abuse who have been behaving in a certain way because please officers have not had the training. Our officers reach for the gun and kill them when it was not necessary for them to do so. The answer is that we need to have training for Police Officers to recognize when a person is unwell and how to learn to deal with those individuals without deadly force. We dont want to kill people because they are mentally ill or suffering from the effects of drug abuse. We want to learn how to get the help that they need without taking their lives. Host howard in new york, go ahead. Caller yes, hello. Court sanctions have been going on for decades now and what you have done so brilliantly is breaking it down from the black to whattters killing happens daily in court. Probably only 2 about Police Officers, but the issue is 98 of them will not turn them in and we turn a blind eye. We see the killing and the jailing of the Poor Community and sometimes the best of our community on a daily basis. Thank you for what youre doing. Prosecutors are the most important people in politics because they get to decide who gets charged and who doesnt get charged. In upstate new york, a prosecuted a black man for murder who had two killedsibley because she sibley because she could have felt that they could convict or. This is what we have facing black people daily. What you are doing is great work and i hope you can focus on the specific issue because its the greatest issue facing black america in the last generation. Guest thank you so much for your call. I really appreciate your point about prosecutors and the power to charge. One of things we talk about the book is not only the power to charge, but the plea bargaining process. At shows like law and order and think theyre all these trials going on. Resolved by way of guilty pleas. Prosecutors control the process because its so easy to bring charges as was pointed out. All the prosecutor needs is probable cause. That is the lowest standard that a person committed a crime. It is much lower and proof beyond a reasonable doubt that prosecutors have to show to get a conviction. Its easy to pile on charges at the beginning. With 57on is faced charges come you could see why a person would take a plea. The Prosecutor Says ive charged you with these 10 counts and if you plead guilty to one, i will dismiss the ninth. You can see how someone with an overworked public defender who doesnt have the time or resources to investigate the case and are innocent would say if i go to trial not convicted, i may be innocent, but i would be convicted of all 10 of these offenses. I better take the deal. If im convicted of 10, i could face sentencing on all 10 and face the rest of my life in prison. I will take the plea anyway even though im not guilty. That happens over and over again. Puts prosecutors on a tremendous unfair advantage and thats something we need to reform in our criminal Justice System. Mentioned theer black lives Matter Movement. How does that influence the process of the black man as he is being policed by officers . Guest the black lives Matter Movement is a very important social Justice Movement. It started after the killing of Trayvon Martin back in 2012. Its an Important Movement because we need individuals protecting on the streets. We need people litigating in the courts. We need people writing their state legislators. We need people taking action on all these levels. Without the attention that the black lives matter has brought to this issue, we would not be here today talking about this issue. We would not have produced this book. That movement, like so many movements that came about after killings, after emmett till was dgar everster me was killed, the black lives Matter Movement is a social Justice Movement of our day. This is not just kids out on the street. This is a Serious Movement and i really appreciate the work thats being done by the individuals in that movement and it needs to continue. Host heres the book, policing the black man. It covers all aspects of that. It is edited by angela davis. How many authors total on this . Guest there are 11 chapters and a couple of them are coauthored so about 12 or 13 authors altogether, individuals who are just very proud to include like brian stephenson, sherilyn , i could goin our on and on. We worked very hard to make this book accessible to everyone who wants to pick up and learn about this issue and learn about ways that they can make a difference by working to reform the criminal Justice System. Host did you learn anything by compiling this book . Guest i learned a lot. I was really fortunate that somebody of these great authors and activists that i asked to join me joined me and i learned so much from all the. M. I thought i you a lot about the kernel Justice System. Host orange, new jersey, that is where sterling is. Go ahead. Caller good morning and happy new years. Thank you for taking my call. The reality is that the Justice System cant be reformed without understanding that america was built on controlling black man and profiting from black men. The Justice System serves as a jobs program for the white community. Moved the portion of the white population into policing and monitoring the black population and it has grown since then. Now youre dealing with a triple headed beast where you have potentially 20 of the European Community making their living and raising their families off of what is happening to me and my community. So to fix the Justice System, you almost have to reform america because [laughter] this whole system, everybody out here come on dealing with it on multiple levels with family of mine where i make a great amount of money, but im dealing with everybody caught up with eddie charges. You always have to get a new lawyer and get this guy. Come idy we are going to spent 50,000 just about last year on lawyers and different legal fees. All that went to whiteman. Host ok. Guest the caller mentioned a lot of issues. He mentioned the Historical Perspective and i think thats so important to me that it was included in the book. The book starts with that and i think the caller would find that chapter interesting because it deals with looking from the days of slavery to convict policing to lynching top to the present day that there has been a consistent pattern of black men being treated fairly and poorly unfairly and poorly. Host baltimore, maryland, we will hear next from robert. Caller thank you, pedro, and to the guest. Im going to be as quick and succinct as possible. Ive been teaching for 20 years. As a teenager growing up in the city of baltimore and working at montgomery county, i always hear people say things like if the police had more training, a lot of these killings of unarmed black man would end. I think thats a fallacy in logic because if you look at it, and almost every Police Department, i cant think of one where a black officer recruits and they get the same training. They both get the same training at the police academy. Why is it that black officers are several times less likely to use deadly force whereas a white officer is probably two to three times more likely to use deadly force . They get the same training and yet the outcomes are very different. Host thanks, caller. Guest im not sure about the statistics. I will say this. Ive never said nor will say that training will eliminate all killings. I dont think thats the case. Certainly we do need to have more training in Police Departments. Training on a number of Different Levels implicit bias training so please can become aware of this bias that they have. In one of the chapters, once you biasthat implicit explicit, that goes away. We need training so that these officers can learn not to reach for the gun first when they are in the situation, not to escalate the situation between themselves and an individual, but to deescalated so theres not a necessity to use force. We need more training. Im not saying that will resolve the problem, but that will help. Host we spent a lot of time on imprisonment. What does it say about it . Guest he talks about the problems of the system and Racial Disparities throughout the system. He talks about it and many of the chapters have pointed out that a disproportionate number of individuals in prisons and jails are black men. The book explores the reasons for that and why thats the case and the unfairness behind it. Thats an issue that is explored throughout the book. Host one more call. This is rick from conyers, georgia. Go ahead. Caller i was wanting to know before the me too movement with the women, there was a me too movement about black men being pulled over with driving while black. The nation has had aggressively to different responses to those movements. What do you think about that . Guest i think both of the problems are serious problems. The me too Movement InvolvingSexual Harassment and assault of women is extremely problematic and needs to be dealt with. Racial profiling and problems of racism in the criminal justice announcer cspans washington journal live every day with policy issues that impact you. Coming up thursday morning, former United StatesCongress Representative joins us to discuss his 24 years in congress , which details his experience as a legislator and lessons he learned about the country. Be sure to watch cspans washington journal live thursday morning. Join the discussion. Ive been attacked by everybody. The rightwing wing, the russians, the trump campaign, and now i can add to that list, the clinton campaign. Sunday, former Democratic NationalCommittee Chair donna brazil talks about her life in politics and her memoir. Here. Far from julie was very excited. She had hillary was very excited. In illinois. She met this young state senator. She told my friend, we were on the third floor and she said she knew barack obama. I did not know barack obama. I know a lot of people in chicago politics. I never heard of barack obama. We met him that spring of 2003. The rest is history. Announcer q hyundai come sunday night on cspan. Cspan, where history unfolds daily. In 1979, cspan was created as a Public Service by americas Cable Television companies and is brought to you today by your cable or satellite provider. Attorneys and law professors debated the First Amendment and hate speech laws at an event posted by the National Constitution center. This took place last month and runs one hour 45 minutes. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the National Constitution center on the road. [applause] jeff i am jeffrey rosen,