Senator tim scott and Baltimore Police commissioner Michael Harrison talk about Police Reform. This event hosted by the american bar association. Begin thehonor to forum on justice and policing of southtor tim scott carolina. Thank you very much. Its a privilege to have you join us for this program at the annual meeting. Sen. Scott thank you and thank you for your leadership. Thank for making the investment to make a difference. Sir. Ank you, what do you see is the role of congress and Community Relations and bridging the gap of trust, particularly with communities of color across our nation . Sen. Scott i think Congress Plays a role in that, even a significant role, but the most important is the one on the local level, the mayors and county chairwoman, those folks have the most direct path towards Police Reform, not those of us in congress. I have shared this many times. I have been stopped by officers years. S in the last 20 seven times in one year as an elected official and all of my 18 stops were either by city, county, or state Law Enforcement, never by federal Law Enforcement officers. Literally while we know the president ial election is important this year, another very important one. The truth is your election for your mayor, a lot of citizens dont participate in, election every city council members, those are the folks directly in positions of power to determine the local Law Enforcement you have. When we dont vote in those elections, we are actually taking a step back from the one place where Police Reform comes to life immediately in your city. We are going to do all we can. Bipartisaned on legislation. Im having great conversations with the chairwoman of the congressional legislation. We are looking for a sweet spot on common ground. I have spoken the last couple days with family members whose brothers died at the hands of Law Enforcement. We want to see something done , but the more i spoke with the family of the victims, the more they kept saying that a local issue. It really is in a very big way local issues. Were going to continue to play a prominent role because we must, but our ability to banned chokehold is on the federal level. We can only encourage behavior by what we do with grant dollars an important part, but it is really less than 5 of the average Department Revenue stream. That is an important part of the equation. If i paint the entire picture, especially for someone who has felt discrimination at the head Law Enforcement, it is really important for us to recognize that most of that is a local decision. There have been calls to defund the police. When you hear that term, defund the police, what does it mean to you . Do you think its appropriate to examine how resources are distributed to communities . Sen. Scott i certainly think it is important for us to examine how resources are distributed , but the concept of defunding the police is the scariest thought ive ever heard as relates to communities of color and the vulnerable communities. I hosted several weeks ago our roundtable discussion with africanamerican leaders throughout South Carolina and attorney general barr. The one thing, the one consensus in the room was lets not defund the police, but lets talk about a better strategy of having Police Respond. A couple of ideas that came out of the room was consistent with executive order that came out of the administration. One was code responders, the importance of having Mental Health experts responding to homelessness and Mental Health episodes, responding to issues of addiction. Those places where the Law Enforcement agency should Health Care Experts as a part of their team so when they respond to these unique and specific circumstances, they are responding with the type of expertise that is necessary to prevent an escalation of force when possible. I will say it this way. You are too young to remember these days, but in the 1980s, we six hundred thousand or additional beds for mental 700,000 Health Patients that we do today. I think that has a Significant Impact on what were asking our officers to do today. If we could find a way to embed within the response mental walkh experts, we might away with a lot of lives saved. Do you think that consideration should be given to altering or limiting or even removing the immunity currently enjoyed by Law Enforcement across the country . Do you believe congress will act to address qualified immunity . Sen. Scott i just had that conversation again with family members about this issue. When i say family members, family members of deceased who lost their lives advance of law at the hands of Law Enforcement. What i told them was there are qualifiedo look at immunity. One way is is a way for us to provide recourse and restitution to the extent possible for the life that was lost . Im all on board. Lets figure out how to make it more punitive for cities, municipalities, departments, counties and even states to be responsible for the actions of their officers. At the same time, if we want to continue to recruit and attract highly talented very motivated officers, youiven have to protect that officer and their personal possessions from the lawsuits from my perspective to the extent possible. The current threshold we have i think i would support, but i would also make it easier for families to receive restitution and recourse by making it easier for them to sue cities and departments and or counties or states. Judy martinez how do you see the role in solving the crisis of incompetence and Law Enforcement . Are you confident you can make a difference and how would you go about doing so that we can move to a better place in this country as we need to be . Sen. Scott yes. I think i am a part of the team that can make a difference. I hope i have made a difference. One of the things we dont spend a lot of time talking about and i cant for the life of me figure out why is how do we nearly oneycle that third of africanamerican boys who grow up to become men have a negative interaction with Law Enforcement and or incarceration . The keys to that from everything ive studied, education and poverty. Breaking those cycles should be a robust part of ongoing conversation as we look to address the issue of social justice. Other things that i have worked on for frankly five years, i started this conversation after walter scott on making sure we provide more resources for body cameras because i know personally that had it not been the miracle of a bystander recording the incident that walter scott was shot in the back eight times, had it not been for that camera, none of us would have ever secondguessed the Police Report that had been falsified to protect the officer. That is the situation we have to overcome as quickly as possible. One of the ways we do that is by putting in as much pressure and force on the system to change , but being in that position, having lived in that community, playing in those streets, i take it as a personal part of the odyssey and journey i am on to provide more funding for body cameras to work on legislation that has passed the senate like antilynching legislation, to work on opportunity zones, bring more money into the poorest neighborhoods, to continue to bring recordbreaking levels of funding for historically black colleges and universities as ive done for the last two years. Theres a lot of things we can do, a lot of things we should do that is not directly connected to Law Enforcement, but it is absolutely connected to the pipeline of justice. If i want to reduce the number of incidents people of color having in the Justice System, i need to break that cycle as early as possible. Judy martinez senator scott, thank you so very much for being with us. We very much appreciate the time you spent with us today. And i will turn it back over to joey jackson, who will then discuss further your thoughts as , well as their observations regarding policing in america and the path forward. Thank you so very much. Sen. Scott thank you as well. Have a great day. Welcome to justice and policing, a path forward. My name is joey jackson. Im an attorney and we have a lot to discuss. We are in trying and difficult times. Those trying and difficult times have been brought about by what weve seen as injustices with our own eyes and theyve occurred primarily with police involving people of color. We are in a situation now where i think people have come to the conclusion enough is enough and are looking for paths forward that are ripe with reform, rife with the issue of equality and policing that is done in a way that treat all people of all races in a very people way and respectful way. What we are seeing across the country are protests everywhere and those consist of people, not only black and brown, but people , with the issue that people knowing what they see is wrong, knowing what they see needs to be altered or reformed. Today as we gather to have this discussion, it was important that we bring about a diverse frome group of people an academic perspective, policing perspective, and political perspective to get to the root cause of the issue. At not only what the problem is, but discuss solutions. Discuss moving forward. Discussing in this time of opportunity, and i will call it a time of opportunity, because when we see these issues, there is a crossroads now. What are we going to do . How are you going to fix it . What measures are going to be put in place so that their people who have died at the hands of police could have a legacy, and that legacy will be that perhaps future lives lies lives can be changed. Perhaps policing again could be brought to a situation where there could be a gap bridge between communities and police, between police and communities , and moving forward can be done and i guess a more compassionate way for in a way that acknowledges and represents that we have to Work Together. And we have to Work Together in a way that respects everyones rights, and certainly respects the rights of black and brown people across this country. In doing so and putting together this panel, it was a Dynamic Panel indeed brought together from a crosssection, as i noted , of people who bring a wealth of knowledge and experience. I will start first in just introducing judge susie morgan, a Federal District court judge in louisiana. She will be introducing herself momentarily. No stranger to this issue at all, presiding over decrees, having knowledge, information, and understanding of the process as it relates to policing, and the extent of those decrees, what the effectiveness is, what it looks like moving forward, and so it is a pleasure and a privilege to have her here. We also have traci burch, dr. Traci burch, professor traci burch. She brings an academic perspective, a perspective of wisdom, a perspective of having to teach people and speak to people to flush out these issues in a classroom, to develop and work with bright minds moving forward, which will perhaps bring meaning and dialogue to this discussion of how we fix a broken system. Of course, we know we have commissioner Michael Harrison here as well, a person who is been in the trenches on this issue, who has rose amongst the ranks, who has been a model of excellence, an example on issues of policing, who was formerly in louisiana and then of course is now in baltimore as the police 41st Police Commissioner. We will also be joined later by senator scott. He certainly brings a political perspective to this. The senator working on legislation and reform and many issues. Hopefully the senate will get it together with the house, but we look forward to speaking with him as well. To get into this panel, i would like for a minute for each of the panelists to again say hello and introduce themselves and speak to the issue of why this is such an important issue of our day and how we move forward in a better way. Judge, if we could start with im smart enough to know that you always start judge morgan im a Federal District court judge in new orleans. 2012 whenactice until i was appointed to the bench by president obama. Four months later, i got assigned the new Orleans Police case. Yearsming up on eight working that Consent Decree. Ive learned a lot about policing and about Police Reform. Playinitely see a role to in Police Reform in our country. It is not the only way, but it is one way i found to be very effective. Joey thank you, judge, so very much. Professor burch, if we can turn to you. Prof. Burch hi, thank you so much, joey. Im a professor of Political Science and also a professor at the american bar foundation. One of the major issues i researched is criminal justice and the political effect on criminal justice. Im working on a project that examines how and when people respond politically by voting or protesting to policing and how they do that. Im happy to be here. Joey we are happier you are here. Then, of course, professor excuse me, commissioner harrison. Professor also because he knows this stuff inside and out, but commissioner. Commissioner harrison thank you for having me. Im honored to be a part of this panel, especially lead to be joined by judge morgan who had a pleasure of working with. I got my start with the new Orleans Police department, 28 years there. In 2014, i was asked to take the lead as police superintendent. Going into the year of the Consent Decree and served as the superintendent. Taking it through our various stages in the Consent Decree. I was blessed to be asked to take the lead of multiple Police Departments and said yes to that. I moved to baltimore in its second year of its Consent Decree in 2019. Im participating in my second Major City Police department under a Consent Decree which is about making reform into the department that the citizens have asked for and the city has agreed to. Im honored to be among your panel. Joey if i could start with you and just having this discussion, commissioner. I know you are on the hot seat. Your reputation really proceeds itself. You have done tremendous things. We are at such a difficult time. I know police are in a tough way now. Are blamingple police for a lot. I want to make it clear that Community Need police, police need communities. In saying that, we know there ,re some police that run afoul and may do things that bring the iron of the entire community, as they should. What i would say since we are looking at a path moving forward, how do we get our hands around this problem . Is it a Community Policing issue . Is it a training issue . Is it a recruitment issue . What is the issue and how do we make it better . Commissioner harrison it is all of the above. You pointed out. Everything from how we recruit to how we hire, who we train. How we create policies that support that training that turns into positive police performance. Its Community Engagement. Joey, i heard you say Community Policing i want to say we are not different from the community, we are a part of the community. In my professional opinion, there is no distention between police and community. We are part of the community we serve. Everything we do that breaks the trust and breaks the relationship between the police and community, we are actually doing it to ourselves, not just the community. We are harming ourselves because we are part of that community. Its everything that we do. Ever single policy, the way we perform, the way we engage, the way we enforce, and the way we treat people with dignity and respect. Our policy should support that everyone is treated with dignity and respect and with equity. That is what a Consent Decree is. It is designed in new orleans as it is in baltimore to transformed the department to do all of those things so we are looking for the right people with the right temperament, the right will to do this work, who will be engaging and empathetic and compassionate. Tough on crime, soft on people. Joey very well said. You bring up the issue of consent agree. Judge morgan, if i could pivot to you on the issue as a person who knows so much about that issue. I guess i would ask of you, what could we expect with regard to Consent Decrees . Are they effective, can they be effective . How do you in your judicial role oversee them in a way to ensure things are made better . Judge morgan i will start with talk about why we have Consent Decrees. The crime bill gets criticized often because it increased penalties and increased incarceration, but the very good thing it did was empower the doj to initiate pattern and practice investigations of Police Departments to determine whether they are engaging in patterns or practices of unlawful conduct.