Transcripts For CSPAN2 Bill Clinton Campaign Appearance In E

not only white officers. you have black officers, asian officers, hispanic officers, the abuse of authority and where it takes place. this is consistently and black and brown communities and sometimes poor white communities. we got a call. it was a call for an officer in need of aid. now that call, anybody who knows law enforcement officers can officer needs aid is a very seriousa very serious call. it means all officers and the geographical range of this call stop whatever your doing and expedite to the officers location who put out the aid call. here she is in trouble. serious trouble. so this officer put out an aid call. chasing a suspect in armed robbery command he was running in giving his coordinates calling out where he was. the experts is location and get there 1st cd officer put the aid call out. they see the officer bent over when did, breathing hard. what happened. are you okay? are you all right? yes. i'm okay. all right. where did he go? street in north st. louis, missouri. the black side of st. louis, missouri. i think you went in that house. he picked the house at random. we go up to the house. bang on the door had a mac like a flashlight hit the doors are secured. open the store. not going to use the language. we know somebody is in here here coming in to bring you out. we don't know if anyone is in the house are not, but from the back of the house with the ruckus we created we see should begin to approach the door. wooden door, glass the center moving about the speaker here. slowly getting to the door. the door opens cracked. standing in the doors a kid about 19 years old, african-american. outstanding year with this female officer. i'm 6-foot eight, attaché right now. at that time i was working out every day. i was about to 65, 270, single-digit body fat, had, had a short sleeve shirt i was a size medium. and it was that small on purpose so ii could just look like i was busting out of it. [laughter] he opens the door, looks, and you said, lady, i don't know what you're talking about. i live here. i have lived here all my life. every a lisp like those our family. they know me. i'm here by myself right now, but you got the wrong house. and i guess that was the wrong answer to suzy get those words out she grabbed him by his throat, snatched him out of the doorway and took them to the edge of the porch we were on. in north st. louis the porches are elevated. they sit up real high. ufo maybe 10 feet. she had him by his throat over the edge of the porch. she cracked him right in the face. and i'm looking at this, and if somebody hits you like that and i share this incident 100 times and always say if somebody hits you like that generally speaking your going to do one of two things, put up your hands and try to block something else that may be coming for you may offer up some discouragement for that kind of behavior. given that this is a police officer, that is not likely. him again. to the face, to the grind. it is happening. i'm telling it slow, but it is happening fast. at this point if you can picture, i grab a uniformed officer and get her office guy. leader over there. it was an officer in need of a call which means every officer in the area experts to this location. he hit cancel the aid call it slow them down some but not completely because of you understand police work, they want to see what the aid call was about so they came anyway. here come the rest of the officers. up the steps of the porch we were on comes a black officer, blackmail officer. he comes up the steps alexa me, looks at the veteran officer, goes over to her kemal what's going on. what on. what happened? she points of the guys delaying were she left him and said that smb assaulted me a judge and if you world trying to do. like officer said zero, yeah he goes over the guy says, man, get up. kit looked about him and said, man coming you see are can't get up. kit said she i can't get up. grabbed him, picked him up and slammed him into the house. his hands behind his back and he kept him up. still leaning against the house. he said that it down. i'm taking un. the kit was leaning on the house looking at the and said, man kemal never forget the look in his eyes, a mix of anger, hurt, surprise, fear, all of that. he was looking at this brother in front of them thinking why are you doing this to me. one last time he said, man, you see i can't go. officer said i know. a drop-down a grab this kid, pulled up like that. you have your hands bound behind your back. and you move them somebody grab you by your ankles pulls up as hard as they can comeau what you think happens? you hit your head pretty hard. and he did the room in the car and we got back to the station. we'll get into it. if you ever interfere with me again when i'm doing police work, that's all she characterized as she had done, police work. i will never ride with you again. i'm thinking that's already a pretty damn good idea. the other officer comment him go back and forth a little bit. his bosses the whole thing, look, we have work to do. we all went back in service. we are to five would always bothered me about that encounter commode always a state with me to this day was the reason the kid catania officer you see i can go, you see i can't go because when he 1st came to the door some in the other officer standing there and corrected often you standing on crutches. she snatched him off crutches. and nobody was in the house and it was his home and he was in violation of the law. the law. i get one more for you to set the foundation. anthony collins, young kid, 21, 22, 2006, cost us when i was at the aclu, and assault committed on him by police officers in st. louis, a traffic stop in one of those checkpoints situations, they have to stop. andy is at the checkpoint one night and he stops but the officers at a distance and he can understand what the officer is directing him to do, and so he gets out of his car to find out more because you somewhere to be. he has somewhere to be. it's out of the car, the officer says get back in that car. because he has somewhere he urgently needs to be here 1st the officer anyway an attempt to explain and find out what he needs to do so he can move through the checkpoint. these days noncompliance can get you killed. the officer proceeds to assault him physically, mason, chokes them up with that mace, eyes burning, and they are getting ready to arrest him for assault on officer again are resisting arrest. they charge with resisting arrest. anthony pleads this case. at some point one of the supervising officers arrives , and a decision is made to finally let him get medical attention which they initially denied to him. this was largely due to the fact that at some point they realized that the assault the officer committed had caused him to miss his flight back to a rack for his 2nd tour of duty in the united states army. i interviewed anthony at length, and to hear anthony, this black kid, the soldier described to me how he felt like he had no rights in the united states that anyone were bound to recognize areas always felt this way because the police had always treated he and his family this way was disappointing to say the least. these kind of experiences a part of the daily lived reality of black people everywhere in the country, particularly in the urban course of america, and you need to fully understand this is what they are talking about. they are talking about the real experiences, and they are tired. this is generations old. fathers and sons, mothers and daughters of experiences going back to who knows when zero accountability for any of it. as police officers we can fall back on the narrative of heroism, sacrifice, risk, the favorite words of many of the most public police apologists that you see all the time in the mainstream media for people like kerry houck the former new york city detective, the town crier of police apologists don't people at justify anything that police do on the street. this is where we are. what about the more serious cases we have seen absolutely no accountability for officers that violate our human rights, eric garner murdered, make no mistake. murdered on the street as he pled with his life. and officer using an illegal chokehold barred by department policy. in the aftermath of it in the police union boss new york city police union president cannot chest out calling on his officers to turn their backs on the mayor of new york for having the nerve to describe the experience of the end his family when he talked to his biracial kids about how to do with the police. but do better to have his officer stopped turning them back on the human rights and the protections of the constitution that extend to the citizens they serve. he would do much better. sandra bland, sandra bland. who encounters an officer and rightfully his indignant at a nonsense stop and you correctly asserts the right only to be met with the contempt of this officer for having the nerve as a black woman to assert your rights. is asking her -- he is directing or to put out a cigarette after the summonses issued. their interaction is done. if you have received a summons for me and we have conducted a business i'm out i'm back to my car. if you don't put it out somehow we escalate to the.where i'm telling you going to let you up because i don't like your attitude. we have got to come to a place where officers see the inherent dignity and value of every life. i just want to go through a few. we do have some media coverage, and it is important. this goes out for people to here a different perspective from law enforcement that acknowledges the realities of our early history when it comes to race and racism in our criminal justice system. the child was shot within two seconds and the police officer arriving. he barely exited the vehicle. this was an officer who had a history of failure and his performance area. the department that he left to go to the cleveland police department said he was unfit for duty, particularly when it relates to firearms. he thinks he's i am reaching for his waistband when you are notified by least one color that it could be a toy gun. then you fire within two seconds on the boy sister shows up when you put her on the ground and in the back of the car before you even administer help. that happens in black communities. contrast that with the recent shooting a young man louisiana, six-year-old boy, tragedy that should not have happened. the two officers the shot that could have been indicted. $1 million bond set for both. freddy gray. freddy gray did not leave his home in baltimore with a broken back in the crushed windpipe. and he did not do it to himself. and yet officers would assert that is the case and become indignant but we don't believe them. the attorney for baltimore have the courage and integrity to indict the officers with the vitriol and aggressive response in the attack on her and her family because i'm telling you, they want zero accountability, zero, none. that is why this movement you see, the unity that you created amongst you. >> so vital the moment that they have come together, never and we all agree. millions of people, everything in the. that is the american reality. talking about the american reality. being sure that they will be held accountable, trade on martin, another kid stockton and killed by a man from what i have seen and heard gives us all a good example of the textbook howard. he engages trade on after he is told not to and shoots to death of childhood physical to the physically fought ending gets off on the floor to stay underground law. contrast that with the woman upon being confronted by a mana man who had a history of physically and brutally assaulting her and you in that moment announced that he was about to physically and brutally assaulted her again, she produced a weapon, a gun and said no you're not. and she fired a shot 12 warning shot hitting no one, killing no one and was sentenced to 20 years in prison. the process distorted by race and racism gets us a result like that. a lot of people were comfortable with that. the last case of want to talk about, michael brown. michael brown was killed ten minutes from my house. killed by darren wilson and ferguson. they were credible witnesses that describe the scene of the shooting, contradicted his account and it is a case that should have been tried on the facts in front of a jury. but a prosecutor was determined to prevent that and dumped information and told them to sort through it through the testimony of aa hostile witness for who may have been established as fact that she could not have been and was not physically present at the time michael a shot. this was a prosecutor who has a history. twenty years earlier, the jack-in-the-box was filled with students from the local school. to suspects killing them both, both unarmed comeau one of them are gainfully employed father. that goes to a grand jury. he lied about key elements of testimony in the case. .. >> there shouting racist offset him. a vietnamese guy, the other guy beat him so brutally they he is blind in one eye. they've had officers and officials, like elected people saying, that is enough. his death is warranted because look at the kind of kid he was, he push that guy. good thing we gave wahlberg a chance to get his life. it's a good good thing we saw that he was redeemable. what about black on black crime? what about it? people say or ask where are all the protest when blacks kill other blacks? as if that is an offset for the human rights violation, civil rights violations, and brutality we see from people who are sworn to protect and serve us. first, people commit crimes where they are against people around them. where they live, so there's a black on black crime white on white crime, hispanic on hispanic crime. it's cried. a better question is where's the coverage of the many protest organize efforts to a dressed violence in black communities that take place all the time in st. louis. i have been a part of many of them. many of my colleagues are invested in on goes, decade-long efforts to push back against the kinds of things we see that contribute to the violence in our communities and directly address at the community, grassroots level. in some cases door-to-door. what we have not been able to do is slow the defunding of already under resourced public education, slope chronic underemployment or slow the massive incarceration. we have not been able to do that. deprivation and hopelessness, you put those together anywhere and you will get what you get, whether that is in st. petersburg, russia, poland, poland, st. louis, missouri. the bahamas, wherever. you create those conditions you will have what you have. it is not mysterious. it is not only the violence that we talk about when we address it in our communities, i think it's important to talk about this, because what it comes down to for us is the loss of futures. what might he or she had been? what might he or she have given to us? what have we lost? a future. i will tell you this and be clear, the violence in our community as a problem and i will tell you specifically the problem have within a minute. but the number of futures lost to violence in our communities, does does not begin to approach the number of futures lost in our communities by the criminal justice system that is at its core. institutionally racist and and works in concert with the private prison industry that preys on the stock market and legislative lobby and states ensure that prisons they contract to build and run for prophet remain 90% occupied. i will say this about the issue, the specific problem i have with it is with me personally. it pains me that our young people, descendents of the community, that have been targeted for suffer an abuse, marginalization and deprivation, enslaved, exploited, diminished at every turn. they would now turn the gun on us, and each other. that part of it pains me. i look what is happening in chicago, in, and st. louis, and other cities, and i pray for a raise consciousness in those communities, among those young people to get a clear picture of where they are and who they are and who how we got where we are. moreover, i would call out our entertainers, the ones who profit from the death of our brothers, who commute a message that the death of our brothers is your mission in life. those those who profit from sending that poison to us. we see the blood on our streets and glorify and encourage it further, when your rights and your freedom of expression and to keep it real was bought and paid for with the blood and sacrifice of the people who came before you? get conscious, man. get conscious. wake up. stop allowing yourself to be used by a system that has destroyed us since we landed. none of that, none of it, changes the fact that institutional racism is at the foundation of criminal justice in america. there is also please culture through out the nation, two examples to listen to shorter time to do it. maybe a question to answer, nothing we can talk about changes that, not not new terrorist threats, not looting, nothing can change the reality of the problems and issues that we have to come to grips with as a country to move forward. we can't sweep it under the rug, or which they look over there, none of that. equal treatment of the law is not the american reality. we are going to have to dig deep within ourselves. to to make the discussion more comfortable, let me say this, and not just in this room but nationally, for the nation, here's how to make this race discretion, we talk about blake and why but we have other races in the country too. understand this, except it, and we can go forward. the problems i'm talking about here tonight, and that i talk about all the places that i discuss the, when it comes to race and racism, institutional racism, our history with it, no one in this auditorium tonight is under indictment, the white people in the room is under indictment for any of this. why? the kids you do not create the conditions. we were all born into this reality. it was was like this when we got here. this is what we are born into. you didn't do this. trust me, it was like this when you showed up. if you are alive now, our responsibility is to acknowledge fully what that reality is, not not the narrative, what the reality of what our history is, where we are now and then do something about it, collectively, together. that is our role, is our role, that will allow us to have this discussion. i was told i only had 30 minutes, i know i'm getting there. there are things we can do to change the dynamic between police communities, the police community relationship and the breakdown and it. was the genesis of the movement that we have seen is now expanded to include the impact across all of our systems, education, polemic, healthcare, you name it. relative to pleasing community, the first of the foremost piece we have to address is accountability. there is already plenty of good training, i heard people talk about this training or that training, we have great training already, but it is worthless if you do not have officers that a here to the policy and are not held accountable when they don't. eric garner, murdered by an officers who violate their own policy to take his life and nobody is held accountable. all we have is a man with his chin up in his chest out. accountability is everything and it starts inside the system. one of the things i would like to see in the national coalition -- which is a diversion group from l.a. to new york, i would like to see is a movement within the criminal justice system itself, nationally. starting with people who come from affective communities, black and brown communities who work in the criminal justice system, judges, attorneys, police officers, correction officers, whoever you are and wherever you are, we can collect ourselves within that system and demand and enforce changes we want to see relative to how it operates in our community. there are enough of us. and it is right. we have the moral high ground here, that is one of the things i would like to see. another thing i think we go a long way to resolving some of the issues we see is a special prosecutor in all cases in the use of force by police officer resulting in serious injury or death. the relationship between prosecutors and police department are too close to have a reasonable expectation that the prosecutor is going on after any officer who they work with almost 100% of the time. a prime example of that -- he was recently sued after mike brown's case in the last month or two by a grand jury that he illegally removed from the grand jury because he thought he had a propensity to look at things differently. he is a former aclu attorney, think i know who he is. he's john doe they have an announced his name publicly. they take them off the grand jury in violation of state law. do you think they don't shape outcomes? to think they don't decide who gets justice and who doesn't? that leads me to my next point, in the case involving police misconduct and use a police force that results in serious injury or death, eliminate the grand jury. this is a secretive process that comment too many cases involving police misconduct result in the elimination of accountability for police officers because the prosecutor has advocated for the officer in front of the grand jury so they don't have to be tried on the facts. either that, or have the arguments for indictment take place where the public can be present. blessing i will tell you is to support the movement that you see. it's an american. don't be afraid of black lives matter, these are young people who are american citizens and just like you but they want their rights recognized. their right to live, the right to dignity recognize. it is not negotiable to them. it is not up for discussion. they are citizens hereto and they fully understand the history. so as i close my remarks and personal amazed that i was able to get through, they ran me ragged today. i had no idea what i was in for when i got up at 4:30 a.m. to fly to delaware. but i am glad i came and i appreciate you giving me your time and valuing what you thought i might have to say enough to be here tonight. i look forward to engaging you, she said the questions need to be respectful and they do, but nothing is off limits. you can challenge me or ask me, you can say because i believe in free and open dialogue i think that's way forward. thank you for your patience with me tonight. thank you. [applause]. was that too long. >> now, thank you so much for being here. you are the final speaker in the series that we have had all semester long about race in america. we have talked about the black lives matter movement, the civil rights movement, so you are here in this unique role as having served as a police officer and now speaking out against the uncivil things that you saw. what, the cove founder of national coalition for justice reform and accountability, long name, how did you go from being a police officer twos holding officers a countable? >> it was not a huge transition. when i came to the department i came with the same ideology, same personal philosophy, same disposition, everything about me was the same when i joined the department. i think ultimately that's what led to me leaving. because i am who i am. i was profamily disillusioned, more than i was before i was an officer. i was profamily disillusioned by the justice system in the united states and some of my colleagues in particular. let me be clear about this, i realize i have not said this tonight and i think it is important that i do. there are good police officers. there are good people, doing a very difficult job under very difficult circumstances, we you have to make difficult decisions sometime. they deserve our support. it is a tough job. my contention is that the number of officers that will willfully abuse their authority and your human rights, your civil rights, is too big a number to not have a systemic policy response in place to deal with those people. but there are good officers in the country. >> you had a couple of ads, or editorials that command the past years talking about your experience as a police officer. i recommend people looking at these two articles from the washington post and box. my students said you spoke about the story you spoke about the young black man with the crutches was frustrating and upsetting to read about. were there other situations, encounter like that in with the police force? >> no. the situations i've situations i've been countered in situations i been made aware of, it is very common experience to see. peoples abused for simple noncompliance. yes, i am aware of it simple a colleague who is interesting because him and i were initially probably, when saved we are adversaries but we are not best buddies. his father was chief of police at one point with the st. louis police department and his dad got into politics, opposite opposite a guy who was the first african-american in the history of st. louis, and i worked on his security detail. i used to be in shape, i'm telling you. but this guy while he was in the department he was in the detective bureau. he walked in and was a sergeant and he walked into one of his officers who is threatening a black subject in a chair with a taser held at his genitals. telling him that he was going to tell him what he wanted to know and what and say what you want him to say or else. my colleague walked in on that and he stopped it, rightfully. he wrote the guy up, he sees the taser and immediately as you would expect he was ostracized, marginalized, the guy who stopped it, the sergeant. he was lack ball, we don't deal with you. at the boar trial for this thing i was the only person who showed up, him and his dad, ironically. the only two people who showed up in support of him. every other officer from union and everywhere else was aligned against him. how dare he stop him from threatening to subs backed and run his good name. so incidents like that, telling you i can impress upon you enough. these are not isolated, few and far between kind of things. these things things are part of the daily, lived experience in the collective experience of black people all over this country. >> so, 15 years out from your experience in the st. louis police department. i've a picture here from demonstrators who were reacting after learning that the police officer who shot michael brown would not face charges outside the police station in ferguson, missouri. this is about a year ago. fifteen years being out of the police force, was your reaction when you heard that the officer would not be charged for michael brown's death. >> disappointed in not surprise. surprised. i knew whose hands the case within. robert mccullough was doing anything he can to anyone who understands anything about the legal process. it was clear early on that he would do everything he could to avoid holding him accountable. nor was i surprised by the reaction of the community. let me share something with you to give you a sense of community. you see the young people turn, here's what they live, here's other parents have lived. i gave her know your rights workshop about four months ago in st. louis, during during which at the end of it a gentleman mid- 50s, early 60s stood up and said when i was coming up as young man, police officer saw me moving furniture out of an apartment and came to question me about it. and he was still in it, maybe he was taken it, but no he was moving from one apartment to another. he explained to the officer, white officer that i am moving to this apartment because i take my stuff out. later that same day in the evening at night, the same officer had him face down, in the mud, with a shotgun at his head. accusing him of stealing. saying that he was taking things from an apartment. same officer. that took place 30 years ago and canfield greene, where where mike brown lip. thirty years ago. so imagine the accumulated experience in history of the people in that community and then when they see, as i told you we had credible witnesses that contradicted their story. it was never sent to trial, no one ever got a chance chance to hear the credible testimony against the burden of facts that and even if you accept his version as an officer, if i'm using deadly force it should be because i feel threatened, why did you fire any shots as michael brown was running away from you? if i'm moving away and my threat to now? am i threatening you? and my threat? i'm not. why are you fire at me? you don't think he had a weapon because your statement was he was wrestling and fighting over yours. and you retained it. you kept it, so he has nothing. it should of went to trial. >> looking at police behavior you have also done some research on human rights abuses in particular the st. louis city jails with aclu. you report suffering in silence on mine. in 2009 it demonstrated numerous human rights violation, what has changed? >> not much. originally the city city was in complete and utter denial. we're told that we had some agenda none of that was true. ultimately everything in the report was proven to be true, and then some. they're facing a number of lawsuits now based on the kind of conduct and behavior we described in the report. systemic change is very difficult. you you have to have people inside the system who acknowledged the problem and work to change it. we have not seen it and we are facing lawsuits as we speak. they are trying as i understand to make some changes inside the system, but it is very difficult. the criminal system in america is as it is. rapid human rights abuse. we as a society, even if we don't believe it, we passively accept the idea at least that the moment you crop us threshold that your rights are suspended. it's ironic in a jail sunny where you are being held for trial. innocent until proven guilty? they're violating your human rights on a date today basis. sexual assault, medical deprivation which can be deadly. if you have medication and your incarcerated that you need to live and survive and it's been denied to, that's a problem. we found all of these things when we did that report. i'm glad we're able to shed light on it but

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