Our problem is going to be solved with, when youre making gun arrests, if 40 of the people arrested with a gun, a loaded firearm, are being released on their own recognizance, even though a gun charge was not covered by the bail reform law that you couldnt remand people or require bail there, when 80 of them are being released on their own recognizance in brooklyn where we have to most shootings, when you have hundreds of cases that havent been indicted because the grand jurys arent sitting and thats because of covid. When you have a system, even the people convicted of those cases, which is only 17 of our disposed of cases, meaning it went to trial, there was a guilty plea, it ended, only 17 of our cases are getting disposed of and in those cases where theres a mandatory minimum of one to three years, people are doing an average of nine months, thats really sending a message to the people on the street, a, the likelihood is im not going to get stopped. Im not going to be arrested. If i am arrested, i have an 80 chance in some places and a 50 chance in others that im getting out right that day, and if i even plead guilty or get convicted, im only going away for nine months, that is not a formula that discouraging gun violence which is markedly unfair. The thing thats unfair about the gun violence and the irony of the time were talking about this is in our june to july numbers, 95 to 100 of our shoorom the press or politicians about that disparate effect. I cant hear. Sorry, commissioner. Finish your thought because i couldnt hear you for the last about 30 seconds. Go on. Well, the disparate effect i was describing, don, is the vast majority of the victims of this violence are in new yorks communities of color. Yeah. In some cases 100 depending on what period and numbers you look at. Thats devastating, and were not having the same pitch and tone of outrage from our politicians or frankly our media about those woundings and deaths that we are at the other issues at the forefront here. Im not saying we have to have one conversation and not the other, but its hard to separate the conversations when you see the effect its having on lives. John, as you know, thats reason i contacted you, because theres real concern out there. Quite frankly im hearing from people who said i have a friend who said, i was mugged for the first time in new york city since the 1970s. Don, since ive been sitting here with you, we had a 16yearold shot in the bronx, we had a 19yearold shot on the upper west side. We had another teenager mugged at gunpoint by a group of other teenagers in central park. This is not the new york that we were talking about a few months ago. This is a different situation, and there are fixes. And your friends story resonates. Yeah. Chief madre, i want to bring you in and continue to talk about i want to talk about the covid thing and then talk about the real elephant in the room here, right, the whole defunding and police and so on and so forth. Lets talk about the impact of the covid. John mentioned this before. What is the impact of the coronavirus on policing . Are you seeing a connection between the spikes in certain crime and the pandemic . Well, the pandemic exposed a lot of things. First of all, when you look at the effects of the pandemic youre talking about economic distress with families, youre talking about hunger, food deprivation, loss of loved ones and treasured icons. And then of course a lot of our institutions being closed our houses of worship, other places that people frequent just to relax and be able to unwind after working. And work itself. Jobs are shut down, so the pandemic had a great effect on new york city, a great effect on the Police Department. The Police Department many members of the Police Department were exposed to covid19 and suffered through covid19. Their families suffered through covid19. All those effects, economic distress, loss of loved ones, a lot of members of the Police Department suffered through that. When you talk about covid19 Public Health crisis it caused, gun violence is a Public Health crisis and should be viewed as a Public Health crisis. We are seeing gun violence explode in the city. We have to look at it with a holistic approach of how were going to address it with Community Partners strategically working together to reduce gun violence, to help shut down the iron pipeline when were talking on a bigger scale. Guns are still coming into the city at an alarming rate. Were talking about all those strategic partners, people that can help us from a holistic standpoint of providing resources and helping young people, or people wish to do gun violence. At the end of the day when people are ready to go out there and pull the trigger we need to make sure were supporting our police so they can do a dangerous job as well and remove the people off the street who wish to do gun violence. John, lets dig into this a little bit more because you have when it comes to covid you have people being let out of jail, right . Who are being released because they dont want them exposed to covid. And then you have a court system, you talk at a little bit about this before, where people arent going to court, theyre having to make adjustments and all this playing out into the people on the streets and quite honestly, many of them, for whatever reason, are not to stigmatize, not stable or the best of citizens, and that is contributing to the issue. I know there is real fear out there among citizens of new york. Can you talk to me about how covid plays into that . Sure. At the beginning of the year we probably had 5,400 people in the Rikers Island jail, which is the citys prison. At the same time the state was making a giant push to get people out on parole, so they were paroling as many people as possible to reduce the state jail population. When you go on parole you have to say youre going live somewhere. A lot of people dont have resources to set that up outside, so many, many, many of them were paroled into new york citys homeless shelters. Then you had covid come along and then you had a further push. So right now, the population at Rikers Island is about 3,000, maybe a little less, prisoners. Thats a prison that once held 20,000 people. But that was a long time ago. We have been through reducing arrests been reducing that population. But when you enter covid into it, now you have hundreds of people being released into the streets and you have people rearrested who are not going back to jail. You have people who there arent the grand juries to indict those cases as the law requires. If you take our gun cases, 50 of them are indicted, 50 are unindicted. Who knows whats going to occur in those cases. Then you have this other factor, don, which is really important. Nypd, like the rest of the populous, was hit hard by covid, so at some point you have 7,000 cops who are out sick, and then you see shootings start to rise in neighborhoods around the city where crime is down, fewer people are on the streets, crime and police calls for Service Everything was slowing down. Why were shootings going up . That started during covid because Police Presence was lower the challenges for the cops were greater and the criminal Justice System was starting to grind to a halt, and were still in the residual effects of that. Chief, john mentioned fixes. Lets talk about those. New yorks policing strategies of the past are well known. Broken windows, stop and frisk. Now the new term is precision policing. Talk to me about that. What is precision policing . Well, precision policing is really about knowing whos out there, who the bad actors are, whos committing the gun violence and the most crime. The small percentage of people who commit the most crime and make sure were directing our resources to those people. Again, like i said, were going to need a holistic approach, even with precision policing through Strategic Partnerships and working with our Community Members and allowing our Police Officers to do their job, a very difficult job. They need support in doing that job. Okay, i want to you stand by, gentleman. Were going to continue to talk about this. What does this surge in crime mean for the black lives Matter Movement . Here to discuss now is kirsten john foye, the president and founder of arc of justice. Thank you. Appreciate you joining me. You have been listening to this. Were talking about the big spikes in violence in several cities. How is that affecting communities of color and the black lives Matter Movement . Well, thank you, don, and good evening to chief madro and commissioner miller. Its having a chilling effect. In fact, i have done several vigils where the narrative and message coming out of these violent and horrific acts is black lives matter, and were not directing that at an external force like the nypd or other Law Enforcement. Were directs that message internally. We cannot be hypocrites about the preservation and the importance of preserving black life. We cant demand that others respect black life and we wont do so within our own community. But i just wanted to address there was many things that were said that i think is worth addressing. When you have a hammer, everything is a nail. And for the police to recognize that gun violence is a Public Health crisis, yet the only prescription they have offered are criminal justice prescriptions means that the ecosystem of Public Safety theyre referring to is not whole. We need to not just be addressing this current epidemic and scourge of gun violence with criminal justice tools, we need to apply other tools we have in our toolbox. We just in the city of new york zeroed out on top of covid shutting down all recreation for young people during the summer, we just had the budget zeroed out Summer Youth Employment programs. That was the initial salvo in the budgetary negotiation. So youthbased and youthtargeted austerity i believe was one of the triggers and catalysts for what we are seeing. Our young people are hungry and thirsty. They have shelter in the place for months. Remote learning in many instances has failed them. Many of our young people, elders in high school, have checked out. Summer Youth Employment was their go to. It was a thing they were looking forward so. So when the mayor and others came out initially and said, were not going to have any Summer Youth Employment at all in this city, it sent a chilling effect. And so you had gangs and other socalled bad actors exploit that reality, target our young people who are now desperate, who are hopeless, who are feeling rejected and dejected now getting a sense that they have some place to belong, they have a purpose. If nefarious, so be it, but they have a purpose. People are saying, well, if the government is not there to put money in your pocket, dont worry about it. Well figure it out. Just rock with us for the summer time, so we are seeing so kirsten let me just finish and you can pick it up. Yes, we are seeing the perfect storm of social phenomenon converging on this point, but to address all of it with criminal justice and Law Enforcement to the exclusion of fully funding some summer youth activities, even if its virtually the failure to think outside the box, the failure to anticipate the impact of covid, the impact of Remote Learning failures, the impact of this Public Health crisis on our young people, that failure of imagination, that failure of leadership is what led us to this point. Kirsten, i want to the people who are watching at home and my family members among them and people i know who live in new york city and harlem my neighbors are texting me now saying, listen, im watching your show. Its not just guns. Knife violence, stabbings, slashings are happening all the time, three to four times a day in west and Central Harlem as per my citizen app. More scary for guns than me at least. People are going to wonder, kirsten, how does a Youth Program and it is needed, and what you said how does that drive people, they go from that to a gun to killing someone to stabbing someone . We touched on it earlier. This is a Public Health crisis. Many of our young people are suffering from trauma. Trauma thats inflicted by violence. Trauma that originated out of poverty. The conditions that they live under, the absence of adequate housing, the absence of opportunities, whether they be educational or employment opportunities, the presence of violence. You know, we may have seen a decrease in the stats but on the streets those stats rarely play out the way they play out in a presentation in a board room. So our people are dealing with this untreated trauma, and then on top of that, they are told that the little opportunities that they were looking forward to will no longer be there, so instead of saying, lets throw the police at this, like we threw the police at social distancing enforcement inappropriately, and that wound up in a fracture of the good faith that took years to build up it looks like a resurgence and reemergence and resurrection of stop and frisk under a new policy, social distancing enforcement. When we see police doing jobs they were not trained to do, not equipped to do, that quite fr k frankly wont get to the core of the problem, we see criminal justice and Law Enforcement exacerbating the problem. All right. I want to bring in let me bring in i understand. I think we got it. But i want to bring in chief madre. Can you respond to him . He makes really good points about whats happening, people not having anything to do, the conditions that many people are set in, but do you see that as is that part of the issue here . Absolutely. When you look at a lot of our communities, communities that have been marginalized and underfunded and dont have to resources, of course its going play into it. Of course its a factor. And, you know, we need our leaders. We need the governor and everyone involved to address it. This is what i talk about, we need a holistic approach to address crime in our communities with our communitybased organizations and our churches and house of worships, Crisis Management systems. All of these entities have to Work Together. We have to formalize the Police Community response to how we address crime, but also at the same time when we see this uptick in gun violence, we still need to police to be the police and address these crimes. John, you know, i want to you respond, because if youre just looking if youre just being reductive and simplistic about it you would say, well, because this happened right in this moment then that means this and this means this. What kirsten is talking about is something that has been happening for a long time, something that maybe should have been anticipated. How do you see what kirsten says playing into the crisis that were dealing with right now . Im having trouble disagreeing with anything that he says. I even agree with him on the hammer and nail analogy. You know, this is the deal with police, don. Society has a series of safety nets. Theres health, youth services, Mental Health services, but throughout history whenever those safety nets have become worn or broken or had holes in them, when people start to fall through them, at the bottom theres always a cop. Thats why where that ends up. Whether its Mental Health or homeless or so on. When it comes to shooting, if the nail is the bullet, then the police are going to be the hammer. Were going to focus on that and the folk is going to be enforcement. But his point is extraordinarily important. When it comes to youth, we have a Police Commissioner who when he was sworn in, his state of the nypd address was, my focus is going to be on the kids. How do we keep them from going down that road . How do we put them on a better road . How do we help them in neighborhoods where they have very limited k40is choices . And he started the youth commissioner program. He hired a Deputy Commissioner and said, your job is to wrangle other city agency into services theyre not providing whether its cleaning that park, opening that youth center, or providing services. We have something called operation ceasefire, and the chief can tell you all about that. Where we went to the home of a kid, hes with a kid, he iss involved with a gang and there was an intervention with a member of the kids family, the clergy, maybe a probation officer and said, these are your choices. The next shooting you may be involved and your choices are limited. Right now, can we steer you towards a job in well get you one. Can we steer you towards a Training Program . Well get you one. Are you having an addiction issue . Do you want rehab . You want a program . We can get you into one. You can write your ticket here, but youre headed to a bad place. So as the hammer whats that police tend to be in these things you know, weve tried a whole bunch of different tools but were not really the answer. Mr. Foye is right. Those programs need to be empowered, they need to be emboldened, and those safety nets need to have those holes fixed. The problem were facing right now is we have a crime surge, which requires more cops, and were about to have less, and requires better deployments and more deployments and our overtime budget has been cut by 60 . Not the kind of thing that works logistically in a surge. And it was largely kind of in the politics of all of the protest movement to say, were doing something to punish the nypd by defunding. Thats also not what you do during a crime surge, because for every one of these crimes theres a victim back there, one who may be surviving, one who may be losing their life, but thats where were supposed to be focussed and where were needed right now, and thats a resource issue. Yeah. We can talk all evening about defunding the police and what it means. I want to bring kirsten back in. I wanted you to hear what they had to say. Now i want to you respond to it. In your response, i want to ask you this. Black lives matter now has a lot of people behind it. A Pew Research Poll saying 67 of americans support the movement. Do you think that this crime surge might jeopardize that report . Then respond to what the gentleman said there. I hope it doesnt jeopardize the support thats being built around Racial Equity and equality in this country. I think its important to keep in mind and put in context what we are seeing. And im i count chief madre as a friend. Commissioner miller i know is a good man, and im glad were all having an embarrassment of agreement here tonight. But i think its important to maintain the grander context of what is happening here. We have reached our saturation point with respect to guns. There is a gun for every man, woman, and child in this country. And when it is easier for a young person who is feeling a sense of despair, hopelessness, when it is easier for them to get their hands on a gun than it is for them to get their hands on an application for a job or to get their hands on an application for a Training Program, then that is a recipe for disaster. I think its important to note that we have seen over the years we have seen a marked shift in the way the nypd operates. Some of us wish we had seen more. But i think the defunding of the nypd movement was not about punishing the police. Its not for some of us. It wasnt about being punitive. It was about the redirecting of Critical Resources away from the Law Enforcement apparatus and Law Enforcement approach to the Public Health infrastructure. The Crisis Management system as chief madre mentioned. The fact that we do not have in our schools guidance counselors. The fact that our children are going to bed hungry and waking up hung are i in many instances. The fact that there have been no playgrounds open, no parks open, the fact our children have been boxed in by circumstance and by material reality, and now they are boxed in by a lack of hope for any opportunity, all of these things go into what we are seeing with this crime spree, and i would hope that everyone that believes that black life matters holds these truths close to them. If black life matters its not just a tag after a killing. Its also a call to action to prevent the circumstances, to arrest the social ills that are driving these young people and engulfing these young people. And to give our young people a sense that there is a pathway out of this reality, and we do not currently have that. Yeah. Listen, im so glad that were all here talking about this, because it is a very difficult conversation. But also i think that what were doing here is a responsible way of having this instead of relegating it to a political process or some other means trying to demonize people, demonize the cops or black lives matter or anyone. Because we all need each other. The cops need the citizens on board. Citizens need the Police Officers on board. Thank you, gentleman. I want to you stand by. Were going to continue talking the about this. I dont want to run out of time. I want to talk about defund the police more. As these stories collide theres a void of leadership from the white house. Joining me now is sara sidner and police chief charles ramsey. Good to see both of you. You guys are have been standing by watching and listening. Black and brown people are fighting for theyre more likely to be affected by the coronavirus. A lot of things coming together but were also seeing some things, for example in minneapolis i was talking to residents there and trying to figure out what happened since the killing of george floyd. In that very neighborhood what youre seeing is people are starting to complain that when they do call police, when they need assistance, when theres a shooting theyre not showing up and they feel like theyre not being protected and served by the Police Department in that particular neighborhood. And we have seen this happen in other spots. In atlanta, after Rayshard Brooks was killed you saw this 12 or so more than a dozen officers calling in sick, and that sort of thing goes back and forth. Because the officers also feel that people are very aggressive towards them when they try to go into a neighborhood after Something Like this happens. So theres a reluctance there as well. Youve got all these things kind of mixing together. We do know in the neighborhood where george floyd was killed they started their own patrols. There are citizens patrolling. Theres a group that put up tents to help with first aid there because of some of the things that are going on in that neighborhood. So you have this push and pull, because crime rates have gone up there. They are seeing Violent Crime rise in minneapolis, just like theyre seeing it where you are in new york, where i am here in los angeles, and theres a Big Conversation over how to deal with that. We often, though, see this in the summer time. Chicago, you see the numbers go up. We often see this happen in cycles, but with coronavirus out there and with the huge impetus of black lives matter, who really concentrate on Police Brutality and not on other issues like gun violence in the community youre seeing this conflation of so many things happening at once, and people trying to figure out what to do. How to make sure theyre safe while at the same time knowing theyre not trusting a Police Department itself, the one group of people they felt like they should be able to call, and they dont do that and take it upon themselves. And that can cause problems in and of itself. Having lived in chicago for a number of years, there are people who are and new york city, ive live in the philadelphia, st. Louis, alabama, so on and so forth. There are many people out in these neighborhoods who have been for decades trying to stem the violence, especially the gun violence. Its not a new problem, but this is something now that seems to have skyrocketed. And again, the perfect storm. Chief ramsey, lets talk about this whole defunding the police. A lot of activists say its about reallocating Police Forces although some are calling for abolishing the police. First of all, this hasnt happened yet. I think in new york city, 1 billion from the budget, from the city council and mayor, theyre going to take it. Second, this phrase has been misunderstood, but its a tough phrase, because when youre explaining exactly what it means there are people who say, youre losing. Talk to me about that. What do you think . First of all, thanks for doing this. This is an important conversation. When i hear Defund Police i have my own view. I think everybody has its own view. Like you and most people i talked to, theyre talking about reallocating funds towards community services, which i do not disagree with. But heres the problem my fear is that the money will be taken out of the police budget, but the responsibility for responding to these calls will not go away. The Reason Police have the First Responders to begin with for mental Health Crisis and Substance Abuse issues and so forth is because at 2 00, 3 00 in the morning, who else is around other than the police . They would have to seriously staff up social services to make them available, even if theyre going to corespond with police. So, you know, i would follow the money. Its easy to take money out of a budget, which by the way, in most cities the vast majority is all personnel costs. Philadelphia, for example, 97 of that budget is salaries and benefits. Theres very little leftover there. Theres no way you could take money out of that budget and not impact personnel, again, at a time when were going through crime, covid and the like. Its complicated. I dont disagree, but i dont see it happening in the see it happening in the short term. It would take years to staff social services to the point they can be First Responders and then you cant divorce it completely because some of the calls are dangerous. Social workers are not going in by themselves to deal with it. Stand by. We have many others here as well. Crime and gun violence are adding to the heavy toll facing many communities of color already being hammered by the coronavirus. Lets hear now from a doctor. Dr. Brian williams associate professor of trauma and acute care surgery and codirector of the Surgical Care unit at the university of chicago. Doctor, good to see you. Thank you. You have been listening. I want to you weigh in. You have shared some data with us from your hospital that shows the increase in gun violence over the past several months. Tell our viewers what were seeing and youre seeing in this data. Thank you for having me, don. This is from the university of the chicago trauma center, which serves on chicagos south side. And if you look at when the stayathome order went into effect in chicago, and we accept that crime, like interpersonal violence requires a offender and it requires a victim. When the stayathome orders went into effect you would see a decrease because less people were outside and most homicidal gun violence homicide occurs in the outdoors. As the orders were lifted, we saw the increase in interpersonal gun violence and homicides and thats also reflected across other cities. So what were seeing here at our center is not unusual. Seems to flow with what you would expect from the data, and the lack of being able to be outdoors during stayathome orders to commit crimes seems to show there was a decrease in april and may, and now you see its ramping up in the summer. We have been running for the past two or three weeks now. We had an email today discussing how we can adjust our activities as a group cover the volume of gun violence thats coming into our center. Wow. I think its interesting because you say as i was trying to explain earlier, if youre looking at this simplistically, you can look at the factors you can look at the protests and so forth, and you can try to connect one to the other and that may not be necessarily so. You say that this doesnt prove any connection between the protests were seeing and the rise in gun violence. How do you know that . Im saying you cannot say that that is the case. I cant say its definitely not the case, but you cant say that definitely because of the prevents or because of covid gun violence is going up. If you look at the body of research about crime being committed that you need an offender and a victim, and particularly with gun violence that occurs mostly outside 80 of gun violence occurs outdoors, then it makes sense that because of covid and the stayathome orders when people are staying inside and not going to work that you would see a decrease in gun violence. As the orders are lifted you would see the numbers increase, as we are seeing here at the university of chicago, and going into the summer which is a busy season in all Trauma Centers across the country. Were seeing this take off. You cant prove causality between the two. Its coincidental. It will be interesting to look at the data in months to come to see if theres a connection between covid and the protests and increased gun violence. All we can say now is yes, it is increasing and theyre happening at the same time but one may not lead to the other. Youre working in the hospital and youre seeing patients from these communities gunshot victims, people suffering from symptoms of the virus. What is it like for everyone there . Well, we all are we take this job very seriously. We have chosen to do this. No one forced us into this profession. We realize were working under somewhat austere conditions with the violence and the conditions. Me personally, its hard to see the number of black victims from gun violence and dealing with covid, covid infections are coming to the hospital because that just indicates there are root causes to its inequities that are being unmasked by the gun violence, but the moral of the group within our hospital is still pretty high. We recognize the importance of the job were doing. But we want people to recognize that this is not over. Covid were sitting down for the long haul. We still have a long ways to go. Were nowhere near being out of this pandemic. Please do your part and the healthcare workers will be there to back you up. I think its interesting. Youre saying something very similar to what mr. Foye was saying, that gun violence is a Public Health crisis like coronavirus and it needs to be given the resources to combat it. What would that involve . Well like any other Public Health crisis, we need Public Health disease, we need to allocate resources for research. We need to have a multidisciplinary approach to solving the problem. We have to look upstream to prevent the problem in the first place. For gun violence, a instead of focusing on the resources here to take care of injured victims what can we do to prevent the injuries in the first place . Same thing with covid. In the middle a this have pandemic, the government printed 1 trillion to address the disaster from this pandemic. Just imagine if we could just invest a fraction of that and be proactive to prevent that from happening in the first place. If we minimize we can keep people healthy and safe in their communities and avoid this epic disaster we are dealing with right now. Doctor, stand by. I want everyone to stay with us. We are going to have much, must have more. My next guest is patrolling the streets right now, trying to keep the streets safe after his 11yearold grandson became a victim of gun violence over the fourth of july weekend. Live to him next. 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We are back now with our special programming this evening. We have assembled a number of people who can help us out with the situation that is happening from Law Enforcement and members of community, victims, doctors and so on and so forth. We want to continue this conversation. Hopefully we can make a difference and get you to understand whats going on. We all need each other in this instance, because gun violence is claiming the lives of more children. On the fourth of july, 11yearold devon mcneil was at a stop the violence cook out in washington, d. C. That his mom helped to organize. His mom drove him to his aunts house, close by, to borrow a phone charger. As he hopped out of the car he was caught in the cross fire and he was killed and so his grandfather is with us now. He is also a local activist and the founder of the d. C. Chapter of guardian angels. I thought you were patrolling earlier but you were out protesting, and so i want to talk to you about that, but i want to start by saying how sorry i am for your familys loss. He was an innocent bystander, only 11 years old. Thank you for joining us. How is your Family Holding up tonight . How are you doing . Everybodys doing okay. Actually, were getting through it and one of the reasons why were getting through it is because of members of our community is fed up. And they have been out with us for the last nine days walking and marching and informing people, you know, were not going to take it any longer. The violence have to stop, especially the shooting of young people. We had three julys in a row, starting with 2018. We had a 10yearold named mi kyle wilson. She was shot when she come out her mothers apartment with 5 to purchase ice cream. Five thugs jump out of a car and shoot randomly this 10yearold girl. En july of 2019 we had an 11yearold boy that was shot and killed at a gas station in d. C. As well. And then this is the third july, which was july 4th. My grandson just happened to be going to get the car charger when people came from around the building and started shooting at some others. They both returned fire, and he was right in the middle and he was caught, and he was struck, and of course, you know what happened from there, he was deceased from the shooting. The suspects in your grandsons death you remember explaining what happened, and allegedly are alleged gang members shooting at possible rivals. Two men have been charged. Arrest warrants issued to others. How have to police dealt with this . I think the police are doing a great job. I have been working with the d. C. Police for many, many years. Back when chief ramsey was there, we had developed a great relationship when he was the police chief in d. C. And i went and helped him a few times in philadelphia. But the d. C. Police department is one of the best Police Departments in the united states. They got on this right away. They were able to pull camera footage from the community, which had very good cameras, and they used that by putting it on youtube to people actually started reporting that they knew who the guys were. And because of the reports that came in, the detective was able to start getting really close on the case and was able to pick up two. And of course we have two more that have been identified that they are looking for. And theres a third one they are trying to get a warrant for. I want to john stand by. I just want to bring everyone back into the conversation, because i want you guys to contribute as well. And listen, all of you who are listening, unfortunately what happened to johns grandson isnt an isolated case. He mentioned some kids that died, you know, in previous years but multiple children as young as 6 were killed by gun violence during the Holiday Weekend alone. It doesnt end there. This past sunday, a 1yearold was shot in killed in his stroller in brooklyn. A 9yearold boy was killed in a triple shooting in new orleans just yesterday. This is a tragedy for families. A doctor is seeing it happen. John, speak to us about that. When i spoke with you, you said, you know, everyone people talk about, you know, whats happening with police, some of the issues that you mentioned but rarely do we mention the victims. Thats kind of why i got to say, we have to have the conversation as one conversation because i think weve lost your microphone. Sorry, don. Sorry. Its okay. I used to work in television. I should be able to figure this out. I remember when you were a reporter on cbs. All right, so the microphone replacement process. The conversation we were having is its very difficult to separate these conversations. You can talk about the disparate effect that police have in community of color, and then you have to say, okay, what is the way to reform and what are the right reforms. Then you talk about the disparate effect that crime is having in communities of color. You look at the terrible tragedy of johns grandson or the 1yearold who was shot just this weekend in new york city or the three shootings i was at last night or the shootings im going to go to after this show tonight, and when you look at the doctor you had on showed that chart, and the chart showed the disparate effect on communities of color of the covid disease. And, you know, if you look at the shooting charts, in june, we had 270 shootings in new york city. 98 of those involved people of color as victims. 76 of those were black. That is a Public Health crisis, and we have to have the conversations about reform while were also having the conversations about how to fight crime effectively. And we cant do that alone. We need the whole team in on that conversation. I want to play something else. This is the grandmother for the 1yearold little boy that was shot and killed in new york this weekend. Lets listen. Everybody talk about black lives matter. What about baby lives . What about teenager lives . You took an innocent child from a mother and a father as well as grandparents and i dont think its fair. That little boys name is deval gardener. 1yearold. Its both. Its all of it. That black lives matter, that black babys life matters. Teenagers and so on. And your job is to keep all of them safe. How do you feel when you hear that . Its awful. I feel awful. My heart bleeds for that family. You look at new york city since the beginning of the year, 104 people under the age of 19 have been the victims of gun violence. They were of them homicides. We have to Work Together as communities, police. We have to address this gun violence, this surge of gun violence thats taken our babies and our communities. Ive had the opportunity to do a lot of things with young people, especially during my time with brooklyn north, do healing circles to address trauma. You know, put Library Books into our precinct lobbies to increase and encourage reading within our communities. There are a lot of things we can do to engage our youth but, again, we have to address gun violence to protect our young people. Before the top of the hour i want to address our panel. Kirsten, i want to start with you. What would you like to say about that . Well, i think its important to maintain the connection between the violence that is selfinflicted and the violence that is inflicted upon our communities. Right now today a good friend of mine and colleague is leading protests in kentucky, Tamika Mallory over the killing of breonna taylor. Reverend sharpton is convening a major socially distant responsible march to deal with the issue of black lives matter. But its important that young people see that their lives matter in order for them to reaffirm for themselves that black lives are mattering. If young people and people of color, black people and brown people and Indigenous People are killed with impunity, with no respect to justice, with no closure, then they internalize that and then they turn that trauma in on themselves. Its important that as we talk about justice for young Deval Gardner and for the 11yearold young man, my heart bleeds for you, sir, and the loss of your family, you have my prayers and con dole lapses, but as we talk about justice for them, we need to talk about justice at large for our community. We must have accountability across the board. We cannot just talk about accountability for those in the community that take the lives of those of us in the community and not talk about accountability from those outside of the community that take our lives. The message has to be consistent across the board. Justice has to be consistent across the board. There must be equal protection under the law, and that in and of itself will send a powerful message to these young people that if my life matters to the greater society, if my life matters to the Justice System, if my life matters to the people that make the decision, then my life has to matter to my brother and my sister and to myself. And so its important that we have a holistic approach to justice. Its important that we apply justice equally. I want to get everybody in. No disrespect. Were getting close to the top of the hour. Doctor, kirsten is saying something thats very important which might make your job easier if what he says actually happens. You have to understand that firearms are the leading cause of death for black children in america. The second leading cause of death for white children in america. America leads the world for high wealth nations as far as firearmrelated deaths tore children. So as a country we should be able to do better to protect our kids and it is the antithesis of american exceptionalism that we cannot do that. Think about not just the lives that are lost but also the survivors of gun violence and the families who are dealing with their own trauma from this. The ripple effects of losing these children or anybody from gun violence far exceeds anything we can quantify or unpack in a single show. The effects are intergenerational, theyre widespread and we need to collectively really put the effort forth to arrest this. Chief ramsey, you know, speaking with john, he said that you had developed a relationship with him in the community. Its important to have relationship with the Police Officers and the community. Its very important and, john, im very sorry for your loss. John and i became very close during the time that i was chief in d. C. I had him come up to philadelphia to help me get a chapter of the angels started up there and he was very, very helpful in that regard. One thing we didnt spend time talking about but the doctor mentioned it, and that is the trauma that occurs in the community, not just the family members but for everybody who is near the gun violence or violence, period, thats taking place. Young children that have to walk to school the next day and have to step over blood stained sidewalks, teddy bears tied to telephone polls. Thats sending a message. They become hyper vigilant. When they get older, the way of protecting themselves is by having a gun themselves. It is a cycle that needs to be broken. The violence is gripping our cities and we have to find something that works. Short term solutions, long term. A lot of what we talked about are long term. How do we keep people alive this weekend . We have people right now that will not live to see monday morning. Thats just fact. Weve got to find a way to be able to deal with that and stop that kind of crime from happening. Sara, listen, you have been out there doing a heroic job covering whats happening. You and i have been on these scenes and covering whats happening. What are the solutions . Theres so much frustration in the community. So much mistrust of the police. The police are frustrated as well. I think the chief is right. Coming up with a solution is difficult, but were going to have to do it. Reporter yeah. I think one of the things thats really difficult, don, this show has really touched on this, we dont like dealing with gray. We want black and white. Its either youre against us or for us, and this is a gray area where, yes, there are people who are absolutely correct that gun violence is an epidemic in our country and we need to deal with that. Crime and epidemic in our country, we need to deal with that. On the other hand, people are saying the Police Brutality has to be dealt with. You have to deal with this all of the time. I wanted to mention one department, im curious to know what the chief thinks about this in particular, camden, new jersey, had a huge problem with corruption in their department. Back in 2012 they basically disbanded the department and rebuilt it. One of the things they said really worked, they were one of the most dangerous cities in america and their crime dropped by 40 over the last seven or so years, and one of the things they did was when they rehired officers, when they brought officers in, the first thing they had to do was go to their beat and knock on doors. Not show up when theres a 911 call, not show up when people need it but go and get to know the community. That seems to be part of the solution, don. John, everyone is giving condolences as they should because of what happened. You are that link between the Police Department and citizens and so in the final moments we have here wed like to hear from you. What do you think needs to be done . First thing, we have to look at kids when theyre showing aggressive behavior at a young age. When that happens, we have to have people in place ready to meet with these young people and talk to them. We no longer can take kids when we think they have an issue and tell them to go into a corner for 15 minutes. Thats not going to work. We have to find out what the problem is. The problem can be that the children are not eating at home, the children could be molested, they could be somebody attacking them, bullying them. Weve got to find out what the problem is. The other thing is we have to start teaching young people from preschool all the way through the 12th grade of college how to deal with problems. Problem solving skills. Because we can teach them how to solve the problems at a young age, hopefully theyll learn how to solve a problem when they are engaged in some kind of activity that is aggressive to them in the community. They would have to pick up a handgun or machine gun and use that. Because right now young people dont know how to solve a problem. They think the only way of solving it is picking up that firearm and using it. So we have to start teaching them at a very young age, how do you solve a problem when you have them. Once we can do that at a young