0:01

I think that we have these kind of preset narratives about a place about people.

0:06

And, you know, we have that in policy and politics as well.

0:11

Right? I think a lot of folks have tried to squeeze this conversation into, like, you either think that people safety is a priority and you want more police or you think we live in a utopia and you don't think we need police.

0:25

Right? Like that's been the binary of this conversation when, like that's not the truth.

0:28

And you know, I don't fault people.

0:32

It is incredibly difficult to tell the truth when you have these preset narratives and the truth isn't fitting into any of them, you, you, you know, people feel like you're not really making sense.

0:41

My whole goal, especially in this moment is to make sure that I'm telling the truth, right?

0:47

And the truth is that we do need to have a conversation about how we keep each other safe as neighbors.

0:53

I think that if there were more opportunities for folks to engage in a more long form conversation, that's how we're actually gonna cook up a solution.

1:02

That's Jeremiah Ellison, and this is the rich roll podcast, rich roll podcast.

1:19

Hey everybody, welcome to the podcast.

1:22

So today's going to be a little bit different as some of you may know, I spent the week of April 13 in Minneapolis, a very tense Minneapolis.

1:32

And I think it's fair to say it was a rather historic and personally a very moving week in which the eyes of the world for witness to both the death of Dante Wright and the tail end of the Derrick Shovan trial.

1:48

And it was also a week in which the world was grappling with what these events mean, what they portend, not just for the current and future of Minneapolis, but for the civil rights movement, for the broader relationship between government power in general and citizenship and our country at large.

2:11

And the reason for this trip, the motivation behind it, the intention, the goal was to better understand the circumstances that led to consume this city.

2:23

And in many ways, the nation, not from what I read or saw streaming endlessly on cable news, but rather from a firsthand perspective, a boots on the ground experience and at the same time to conduct meaningful nuanced conversations with civic leaders of Minneapolis, about the important issues the city and its citizens are grappling with from police misconduct and public safety reform to civil unrest.

2:52

And of course the role social activism has played in all of this.

2:57

So that is what today's conversation with.

3:00

Jeremiah Ellison is all about the first in a series of Minneapolis themed episodes that I will be releasing over the coming weeks as both an activist and elected official.

3:12

Jeremiah represents ward five on the Minneapolis city council, where he sits at the vortex, the intersection of the many challenging and complicated issues that concern his community.

3:25

And from the start, this is a guy who's been one of the leading and most prominent voices calling for the overhaul and reimagination of public safety.

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6:38

Okay. Jeremiah Ellison. So I should point out that this trip came to be through many conversations with my friend Brogan Graham.

6:47

One of the co-founders of November project, who you may recall from episode two 77 of the podcast, way back in the day and who as a resident of Minneapolis was keeping me apprised of the temperature and goings on there and suggested that I come out and see it for myself.

7:05

I have done plenty of podcasts on the road over the years, but this particular situation presented a unique set of circumstances to experiment with expanding the scope of, of what this show has traditionally focused on, which is evergreen conversations.

7:23

And instead pursue a sort of investigative journalism perspective on an important current event unfolding in real time.

7:33

Brogan did not need to implore me to come.

7:36

I immediately jumped on it as an opportunity to try something new with the podcast and opportunity to grow an opportunity, to learn and share to the best of my ability, my sense of all of it.

7:52

So that's the backdrop. As for Jeremiah, he's a guy who was at the very top of my list of people to host.

7:58

And one of the many interesting things about this guy is that the one hand he's a very unlikely politician or civic leader, because in addition to that, being quite young at heart, this guy is really an awesome artist.

8:15

He paints street murals, he pens comic books.

8:18

He's really into the silver surfer and Batman.

8:21

But on the other hand, he is the son of six term Congressman Keith Ellison, who is now the attorney general for the state of Minnesota and the man who was in charge of the Shovan prosecution.

8:33

So you can easily also make the argument that Jeremiah was actually born for the role he currently inhabits.

8:41

My week in Minneapolis was extraordinary.

8:45

There were so many experiences.

8:47

I will never forget. I learned a ton.

8:50

I'll be sharing much more about it on the next roll on episode and other that we're currently working on.

8:56

And I'm, I'm better for the trip.

8:59

And Jeremiah actually has a lot to do with that.

9:02

I'm grateful that he took the time to share his truth and for his trust in my ability to share it with all of you and the result of our time spent together produced what I believe to be a rather powerful exchange.

9:16

My only ask is that you welcome him and his testimony with an open mind and an open heart.

9:23

So here we go.

9:25

This is me and Jeremiah Ellison.

9:27

Once

9:27

again,

9:27

man,

9:27

I

9:27

appreciate

9:27

you

9:27

doing

9:33

this. Yeah. I appreciate the invite. It's almost nine o'clock at night.

9:35

Usually I do these at like noon.

9:38

I'm just waking up.

9:39

I know. I'm like, I hope my energy.

9:41

I can keep it going, but the reason we're doing it at night is because we're well, Ramadan just kicked off.

9:49

So you're fascinating. So you just broke your fast, the meal.

9:51

What's the meal called tar, right?

9:55

Yeah. Yeah. So I, I broke fast just real quickly.

9:57

Cause I knew I needed to make it over here, but like, yeah.

10:00

Two dates, two oranges, like half a gallon of water.

10:05

Yeah, because you can't drink, you don't drink water. Yeah.

10:07

Like I'll have like, I'll

10:09

go home and I'll do it again after this. But I'm like, I'm like, I can't like cook, right?

10:12

Yeah. I have like a big food coma right before you come over here too.

10:15

Have you been doing that your whole life?

10:17

Yeah. Yeah. Yup. Yup. I can't remember how young I was when I started, you know, I wasn't five, like some, you know, some, some kids in the faith, they like we'll start that young.

10:26

Right. I don't think I was that young, but definitely like middle school, high school.

10:30

Right, Right.

10:32

It's cool, man. I like the tradition part of the tradition is, well it's about, is it not about kind of self-reflection like introspection.

10:45

Yeah. Like humility, which are all interesting kind of States of mind as we're in this crazy moment here in your city.

10:55

Yeah, absolutely. I mean, you know, the, I feel like for a long time, Ramadan for me was just fasting.

11:01

Like it was just the hungry you get when you're young, especially you're going to fixate on the not eating part because you're not eating.

11:07

It sucks, you know, for a whole month.

11:08

And you know, somewhere in my early twenties, I had like a, I don't know how to describe it, but like the, the end of Ramadan, like I just felt something different.

11:20

Like I just felt like I was taking it on differently.

11:23

It was no longer just about like an exercise of like, you know, you know, this, this, you can turn a fasting into a sport.

11:32

Right. Like, can I get through the day? Right. Yeah.

11:33

And, and so yeah, the humility, you know, fasting from, from anger and some of these intangible things are like really become the goal.

11:44

They really become the focus for me in the food part is like, it's, it, it, it helps, you know, it helps direct and direct that, but it's not the Point.

11:55

Right. You're, you're purging, you're, you're, you're detoxifying yourself of these negative emotional States.

12:00

And it's a spiritual act, you know, sort of journey that you go on for a month.

12:05

Right. That, that kind of squarely places you in a deeper connection with yourself.

12:11

Yeah, for sure. And it's communal, you know, like it's not eating can feel deeply individual, you know, but, but the practices community, you got millions of people all over the world, but then even more immediately, you know, that you've got like neighbors down the street, like there's a masjid on the other side of the block from where I live.

12:30

It's not the one I go to, but you know, it's always kind of fun to see like, you know, folks gathering together to, to break fast.

12:37

Do if tar together, some people spent all, all night, you know, and the mustard praying and it could be pretty cool What

12:48

happens. So like May 15th is the end.

12:50

Right. So what happens when you finally concluded?

12:52

Yeah. I mean, usually I don't know what we'll do.

12:55

I did get my second vaccine shot, so I'll have to see where family's at.

13:00

And if everyone in the family's got my sister's got, and that my brother's a nurse, so he's gotten it.

13:06

So I think most of us are, might be fully vaccinated by eating.

13:09

And so hopefully we can do it together.

13:12

Right.

13:15

Well, you, you have a fascinating story.

13:17

The more I kind of dive into everything that you're about, the more interested I become and you're a bit of a conundrum because on the one hand, you're just such an unlikely politician.

13:29

Like you're a street artist, you're comic book artists.

13:33

I want to see your comic book art.

13:35

You didn't bring any Comics. No, I didn't bring me anything.

13:39

So on that level, like how does this make sense?

13:42

And yet as the son of your father, Keith six term Congressman now, attorney general and kind of leading the prosecutorial team in the show of, in trial, it's like, of course you're doing this.

13:56

It's like you're following in your father's footsteps in your own unique way, bringing your own kind of in perimeter to what it is that you do.

14:03

But how do you think about this?

14:05

It's like, you didn't show up in a, in a, in a tie, you know, you got a beanie on you rocking the tats.

14:09

You're

14:09

a

14:09

man

14:09

of

14:09

the

14:09

people,

14:09

but

14:09

you're,

14:09

you're

14:09

you're

14:09

first

14:09

and

14:09

foremost

14:09

an

14:15

artist. Yeah. I, I like to think so, you know, I have been painting and drawing my entire life.

14:21

You know, if my dad were here, he would talk about, you know, that my parents trying to figure out how to channel my, my artistic impulses because, you know, we, I grew up in this old house and the wallpaper would peel back.

14:36

And so I was just like the kid. That's like, okay, I'm gonna appeal the wallpaper back, draw something little and put it back up.

14:42

But

14:42

I

14:42

feel

14:42

like

14:42

the

14:42

way

14:42

that

14:42

I

14:42

came

14:42

into

14:42

art

14:42

and,

14:42

and,

14:42

and

14:42

my

14:42

practice

14:42

in

14:42

general,

14:42

especially

14:42

painting,

14:42

you

14:42

know,

14:42

it

14:42

really

14:42

connects

14:55

it. It really overlaps with the way that I govern and a really important way.

15:00

Now I'll, I'll say this quick story.

15:02

And, but when I was eight years old, I got involved with this organization called juxtaposition arts and Roger Cummings and Peyton Russell were my art instructors back then.

15:12

And I show up to the first day of mural painting eight years old, I'm really excited.

15:16

The next youngest person was 14.

15:18

So I'm the youngest person there. I'm really excited to paint this mural.

15:21

I'm thinking, okay, I'm going to get my hands on a spray.

15:23

Can, they had spent all winter making me do still lifes, you know, so I could do the bait and get to the basics.

15:28

And I'm like, not want to keep graffiti artists.

15:29

And, and so I show up and I'm ready to paint.

15:34

And Roger is like, hands me a notepad and a pen.

15:38

And he's like, okay, I want you to walk three blocks that way and walk three blocks in the opposite direction.

15:44

And everybody you talk to who lives in the area.

15:46

I don't care what they're doing. Just ask them what kind of thing they want to see on the wall.

15:49

That doesn't mean we're necessarily going to paint it.

15:52

But you know, when you are going to make public art, you've got to engage the public.

15:56

That's the, that's the last time I was learning that at eight, you know, I think every mural process I ever had incorporated some kind of community feedback.

16:05

And even once you started painting, you know, I remember when I get older, people would walk by and they would say like, you know, that's whack.

16:14

Like I don't like, I don't like how that looks, you know?

16:16

Or they would say, Hey, I'm interested to see how you finish or they give you compliments.

16:20

Like the community engaged is especially on the North side of Minneapolis, the community's going to gauge, they're gonna tell you if they don't like it, I'm going, gonna tell you if they like it.

16:26

And really what they're telling you is in an roundabout way is whether or not you engage them.

16:34

So yeah, that's a huge life skill and a cornerstone of being an effective politician.

16:39

Right? You have to go into the community, meet these people, meet them where they're at and try to develop some consensus around your vision.

16:47

Like, you might think this is what I want to do.

16:49

They don't want it. How much are you willing to bend and compromise?

16:52

How can you get them on board with what you want to do?

16:55

Like all of these are the skills that come into play every minute of your day.

16:59

Now I would imagine. Yeah, no, absolutely.

17:01

And, and outreach can be tough, especially as a local elected you're, you're battling, you know, the fact that, especially in my seat, there's this legacy of not engaging with folks.

17:13

And so that means that, you know, the level of people who think to call their, their council member when they're having an issue is relatively low.

17:21

And so I go to try to, you know, turn that up.

17:24

I want people, you know, it might be a little bit weird, but I want people complaining to my office.

17:29

Right? Like that's how I'm going to be effective in my role, but it can be tough right.

17:35

To, to, to get that level of input.

17:37

I

17:37

think

17:37

we've

17:37

done

17:37

a

17:37

pretty

17:37

good

17:37

job

17:37

so

17:40

far. And you're absolutely right.

17:42

Sometimes people aren't quite there with you, right.

17:45

They're not seeing what you're seeing and does present its own kind of like question, right.

17:52

You can't leave your constituents behind.

17:55

It's just not, it's not the right thing to do, but you also can't just say, do the wrong thing, make the wrong decision because you think it will be unpopular with your constituents.

18:07

And

18:07

that,

18:07

that,

18:07

that,

18:07

that's

18:07

where

18:07

you

18:07

kind

18:07

of

18:07

create

18:07

that,

18:07

that

18:07

where

18:07

you

18:07

have

18:07

that

18:07

tension,

18:14

right? Yeah. Yeah. Well globally, or kind of at a macro context, people are so, you know, kind of, you know, disabused of any idea that their politicians have their interest at heart, you know, they're bought and paid for by special interest groups and they're just looking to get reelected and they're gonna, you know, pander to their base.

18:33

And anything else is just a mirror distraction and beyond fundraising.

18:38

Right. But you're a guy who kind of was foisted into the public eye by dent of the activist work that you did in particular, that one kind of viral photograph of you with your hands up and the rifle in your face from the cops that was Jamal Clark, Shamar, Shamar, right.

18:56

Sorry, in like 2015.

18:59

Right. So this kind of, you know, becomes not really a calling card, but it becomes kind of emblazoned on people's minds that you're a man of the people.

19:10

Right. But then as you become an elected official, there's a blurring line between activism and kind of effecting responsible political change.

19:20

Right. Like I'm interested in like how that works.

19:22

Like where does the activist end and where does the elected official begin to those things kind of merged together?

19:29

Or do you have to think of them as, as like separate identities?

19:34

I think you have to be honest with yourself about what this job can do to people, even if they have good intentions.

19:43

Right. And if you're honest about it, which to be clear, I think usually when, from my experience, when folks are maybe being called like a sellout, right, like that term or, or, or that process of going from being, you know, okay.

19:58

I came in with all these ideals and now, you know, maybe I'm a little bit, I've, I've moved into this other category where people aren't really feeling me.

20:04

I think that that happens because of exhaustion and it happens to people because they think it can't happen to them.

20:11

You know? And so for me, it's about keeping perspective and not taking some of that, some of the, some of that anger that people might have towards me, constituents or activists or whoever not taking it personal, because I know that there have been people, whether in my immediate seat or just in elected office before who have earned a lot of the bad will that people have for politicians.

20:40

Right? Yeah.

20:42

So you have to double down on the transparency and the outreach and boots on the ground, in the community.

20:46

And I think that You also have to, in a way, figure out how to be vulnerable, how, you know, it's, it's not, it's not a quality that's rewarded in this position.

21:00

Right. And there are ways to be sort of pho vulnerable, right.

21:03

Like, I don't know, crying in public.

21:05

Right. Right. And there are ways, Right.

21:08

Social media oversharing.

21:11

Yeah, yeah, Yeah, absolutely.

21:12

And then there are ways where, where to be vulnerable that can earn some good trust in their real may not look vulnerable on their face.

21:20

Right.

21:20

You

21:20

know,

21:20

there

21:20

have

21:20

been

21:20

times

21:20

where

21:20

I

21:20

have

21:20

thought

21:20

something

21:20

was

21:20

needed

21:20

in

21:20

my

21:28

community. Like a couple of months ago I was advocating for women's homeless shelter and the neighbors were like, council member, hell no, we don't want a homeless shelter here.

21:37

And you know, ultimately, you know, I was, I, I, it didn't prevail.

21:46

Right. As much as I wanted it to, I had public meetings where I was just, Oh my God, I was just blasted at these meetings.

21:53

Not in my bag.

21:57

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And people with some legitimate, Right.

22:00

Like I think people have been fed a lot of gross narratives about homeless people and it's not my job to judge them for having consumed those messages, but it is my job to maybe do some political education and try to help them unlearn some of those messages.

22:19

And so when I'm looking at somebody who's using criminalizing language for homeless people, I disagree with them.

22:26

I got to work to make sure that I'm winning and not them, but I don't judge them.

22:34

Right. I don't dismiss them because I know in some ways like what they want and what I want and what that person who's living out on the street wants is probably pretty similar.

22:45

They've just got it.

22:47

They walked into the conversation with a lot of preconceived notions.

22:49

Now, some of the people who were standing against me in that meeting, I thought, you know, I've lost this person support, right.

22:57

Not only did I lose this person support, I, I also, you know, some of the other electeds who were in the room were looked around, saw me getting yelled at and thought, Oh, I'm not going to support it Because

23:09

I don't want to be in his position. And then we ended up losing Th

23:12

that shelter thing you've built.

23:13

And

23:13

so,

23:13

and

23:13

so

23:13

it's

23:13

kind

23:13

of

23:13

a

23:13

setback,

23:13

but

23:13

you've

23:13

got

23:13

folks

23:13

who

23:13

stood

23:13

against

23:13

at

23:13

the

23:13

time

23:13

who

23:13

have

23:13

reached

23:13

back

23:13

out

23:13

to

23:13

say,

23:13

you

23:13

know,

23:13

actually

23:13

I

23:13

see

23:13

what

23:13

you

23:13

were

23:13

doing

23:13

there,

23:13

you

23:13

have

23:13

folks

23:13

who

23:13

were

23:13

in

23:13

the

23:13

back

23:13

of

23:13

the

23:13

crowd,

23:13

maybe

23:13

seeing

23:13

me

23:13

get

23:29

heckled. And you know, they're just everyday people.

23:31

They don't want to be heckled themselves, but they agreed with me.

23:34

And those are the kinds of things that can happen when you're willing to, you know, go out on a limb when you're not operating in that mode of what's going to get me liked in this moment.

23:45

Right. So you're, you're, you're district is ward five, it's 82% people of color.

23:53

Yeah. And something like 40% of the population is below the poverty line.

23:57

Yeah. So this is the, you know, kind of modus from which you're operating and the people on behalf of whom you're, you're advocating for.

24:05

It's interesting that even then there's, there's blind spots.

24:09

Like you're trying to champion the underdog, but these other underdogs are like, Hey, what about me?

24:15

Like, it just gets complicated.

24:17

It does get complicated. I think that's why, you know, I think that's why that, like the only term I can think of is political ad, like political education is just really important.

24:27

It can't happen if you're dismissing people, it can't happen if you're condescending people, people are pretty smart, but they are also a lot of things on top of that.

24:38

Right. People might be afraid at any given moment.

24:40

People might have not wrestled with their biases.

24:44

Right. All of these things can occur.

24:46

And so, you know, I think that's how you, you can find yourself in a position like that.

24:51

And I know for some of those folks, they thought they're, they're thinking, well, yeah, I'm, I'm poor.

24:58

Right. And this guy, you know, meaning me, wants to quote unquote, dump more for people in my neighborhood, Unlimited

25:07

and unlimited amount of resources into a program that doesn't benefit my life.

25:12

Yeah. And, you know, it's a scarcity mindset, you know, my mindset is, you know, you, you're greeted when you arrive, you're given what you're needed.

25:21

Right. And, and I'm always going to have that attitude.

25:25

And so, and so I'll continue to make sure, you know, make sure that we're doing our fair share and building shelters, but, you know, I can, I can disagree while, while empathizing with someone who might be advocating for a position that I can't, I can't.

25:41

Yeah. Well, that's your job, right.

25:43

You're constantly dealing with people that don't see things the way that you do.

25:47

Yeah. I mean, you're, you're like in the shit right now, like you're in the cross airs, the entire world is paying attention to what's happening in Minneapolis right now.

25:57

I would imagine that that must feel at times burdensome to carry that kind of level of responsibility and, you know, on the, on the subject of political education and boots on the ground.

26:11

I mean, that's my motivation in coming here.

26:14

Like everybody else I've been watching, what's been going on here over the last year.

26:18

This feels like a very important historic moment.

26:22

We're at a sort of crossroads, I think, with what's going on in the city and there's, what's going to happen with the verdict and how is Minneapolis gonna move forward or not from this.

26:35

But I think also because everybody's paying such close attention, the ripple effect in terms of like how we're gonna as a nation and even across the world, I think has profound implications.

26:48

Right. And I just wanted to share with you yesterday, you know, as somebody who thought they were paying fairly close attention to what was happening here, I haven't been here before.

26:58

I mean, the last time I visited Minneapolis, I was a kid and we went to George Floyd square yesterday.

27:04

And in my mind as like this progressive, you know, conscious citizen, I thought I knew what to expect.

27:14

And it defied all of that.

27:17

Like all of that went out the window, as soon as I arrived there.

27:20

And it was nothing like what I thought it would be from the setting to the neighborhood, to the visceral experience of being in what is really a living, breathing, not just Memorial, but, but museum grieving place, a gathering spot.

27:35

Like it's so many things you can't define it as any one thing.

27:38

And I was not expecting to be as moved as I was by it, or as welcomed as I was, we had an, we had a great encounter with the folks.

27:48

You know, that group who then were, we'd spent like an hour there and then we were getting ready to leave.

27:54

And they're like, Hey, what are you guys doing? And then they ended up like giving us a VIP tour.

27:58

And

27:58

it

27:58

was

27:58

incredible,

28:01

man. And, and, you know, I had a hard time sleeping last night.

28:04

I was so moved by it. And what it did beyond just that experience in and of itself was reminded me of not just my own biases, but how, when I think I know something, I really don't know, like there's always room to expand and to grow and to learn.

28:21

And I left that realizing how little I actually was connected to what was happening here and just kind of, there's something about the heaviness of it all.

28:31

Like, you can feel the emotion of everybody that's in that space.

28:34

And so I don't, I don't know if I'm, this is leading to a question it's more like an observation, like the context in which I'm coming to you today, as somebody who, you know, is grappling in the political sphere with these issues, how do you, you know, think about how you communicate, you know, when you go on Chris Hayes or CBS news and all these kinds of things that you've been doing lately, I

28:56

think that we have these kind of preset narratives about, about a place about people.

29:04

And, you know, we have that in policy and politics as well.

29:08

Right? I think a lot of folks have tried to squeeze this conversation into, like, you either think that people safety is a priority and you want more police, or you think we live in a utopia and you don't think we need police, right?

29:23

Like that's been the binary of this conversation when, like that's not the truth.

29:26

And you know, I don't fault people.

29:29

It is incredibly difficult to tell the truth.

29:32

When you have these preset narratives and the truth isn't fitting into any of them, you, you, you know, people feel like you're not really making sense.

29:38

My whole goal, especially in this moment is to make sure that I'm telling the truth.

29:44

Right? And the truth is that we do need to have a conversation about how we keep each other safe, as neighbors, as you know, residents, and that the police are not the only means for which we can do that.

29:57

You can have both conversations.

29:58

You can acknowledge that keeping people safe is a priority without having to sort of dive into these preset narratives about right.

30:08

We go again, we're going to do the same thing we've always done.

30:10

And we keep getting the same result.

30:11

Absolutely. The definition of insanity. So today we, you know, there's just so people understand, like we're in downtown Minneapolis right now, national guards everywhere, these all over the place.

30:22

Yeah. You know, guys in uniform, that alarm went off twice.

30:25

I don't know what that was about. It's like a pre pre-set schedule.

30:31

Yeah. Cause it goes off like we're used to, like, it goes off every like first Wednesday or whatever, but this one was also a test I was told, but it's obviously it's not Wednesday.

30:40

So a lot of people were like, what is going on?

30:43

Right. Yeah. I, I think to your point about George flood squares, that if you are somebody else from out of town told me that, that they were just surprised by how residential and low to the ground, the whole space.

30:55

I imagined like more, a much more urban place.

30:58

Lots of stores, lots of foot traffic.

31:00

It's not a suburb, but it's not really the city either.

31:04

Yeah. Especially, there's a lot of nice houses around there.

31:07

Yeah. And it just was nothing like what I had envisioned in my mind.

31:10

And, and I was walking around believing that what I believed was true for no reason at all, because all I had seen were images or quick little video clips, even the iconic mural, I was like, wow, it's so small.

31:24

It's like, I thought it was like, you know, four stories or something.

31:29

Yeah. No, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's much more grounded loaded that, you know, it's, it's, it's, it's not this, this large scale, you know, I think that community members that I've talked to will tell you, like, yeah, there's, there's always been an element of like violent crime in this area.

31:47

Right. Well, before the barricades it's certainly.

31:50

Yeah. I think that that story isn't as well told as it should be.

31:53

It's all about kind of what happened, you know, last year and over the last couple of months Locally,

31:58

I think that there is tried to be a narrative of, there has that there have been a few who have tried to push this narrative that they're like, the place is overrunning with just like, it's just rampant violence every day.

32:09

It's all despair.

32:10

You know, that's been the narrative because there are folks who want to remove the barricades.

32:14

And I'm not saying we can't have a conversation about whether or not we moved the barricades.

32:18

I don't represent that area. It's virtually on the opposite side of town from where I represent.

32:22

But I do think that it simplifies sort of this narrative.

32:28

Right. It's either, you know, it, it it's either a healing space or it's, or it's hell on earth.

32:34

Right. Right. And the truth is that like it's neither and we should probably be, be deferring to the people who are there every day and not just sort of creating a little echo chamber of people who are telling us what we want to hear.

32:46

Right. Like I can't just go down there. I'm inclined to listen to the activist and the folks who are sleeping out there.

32:51

Right. Right. I can't ignore the businesses who are saying, Hey, this is hard for us.

32:56

Right. But you also can't go down there, talk to the businesses who are saying, Hey, this is hard for us.

33:00

And ignore all the people who have said, Hey, this is a space where we feel like we can, you know, access some of our power.

33:07

Yeah. Like I think that you've gotta be able to hold some multiple truths.

33:10

And, and I think that leaders in the state have really struggled to hold.

33:16

Yeah. For people that don't know the square is like, I don't know.

33:20

It's essentially like a S like a little bit more than a city block.

33:22

And within the parameters of George Floyd square are businesses that are closed down right now.

33:28

So obviously those business owners would like to reopen the community would prefer that they don't.

33:35

And everybody's got a valid point of view on that.

33:39

And it's super sensitive. Yeah,

33:41

absolutely. You know, and there's even some of the businesses within there.

33:44

I'm not, I'm not going to remember the name, but there's a woman who has like a, had like a hair and nail place.

33:49

And she's like, it's fine.

33:51

Right. But you've got folks who have food services and it's, it's a little harder to move your food.

33:56

Right. Like it's, you know, so it's Cup

33:58

foods is a, that's like the one thing. And so I got, yeah, Yeah,

34:04

yeah. Cup, eh, I it's, it's one of the it's high level of resilience and, you know, Cornerstore is like it, I, you know, I kind of have a weird, like, you know, appreciation for those, for those kinds of spots.

34:17

I grew up like mostly going to corner stores.

34:19

You know, we've got this, you know, people call it a food desert.

34:24

I think, you know, I've heard the term food apartheid.

34:26

I think that's probably more appropriate in North Minneapolis as well.

34:30

And you know, as much as these corner stores, their ownership, the way they operate, it can be problematic.

34:35

But also they occupy space and provide fresh, you know, food, you know, they at least the option for fresh food in places where, you know, grocery stores have, have largely abandoned, No

34:48

grocery stores. Yeah. And that drives, it just creates a vicious cycle because that feeds the, you know, the lack of health and the community.

34:57

But then of course leads to all these lifestyle diseases that make you, you know, susceptible to everything from COVID the diabetes, the heart disease.

35:05

So, I mean, you see George Floyd, I was like, jacked, you know, looked fit.

35:11

But the autopsy revealed he had heart disease.

35:13

He had pretty bad heart disease at the same time too.

35:15

So that I look at that and I'm like, well, that's purely a function of food apartheid, you know, and living in it, you know, coming up in a space like that.

35:23

Yeah. So it's April 15th today.

35:27

And the defense rested its case in the Shovan trial Monday, there's going to be closing arguments.

35:34

It's going to go to the jury. Yep.

35:36

How are you feeling about all this?

35:38

Like, what's your sense of how this is going to play out?

35:41

Yeah, Yeah. You know, when your folks know my dad as an attorney.

35:47

Yeah. But folks might not know, like I've got, you know, uncles, cousins, my, my older brother, all attorneys.

35:54

Right. I think when you get raised in that kind of environment, around a lot of people who study and practice law, you know, I think the one thing you learn is to try not to be too overly prescriptive of what a jury is going to do.

36:05

And so, you know, I've, I've followed the case.

36:09

I've tried not to obsess and hyper be hyper vigilant about following the case, because I know that at the end of the day, you know, we don't have control over the outcome out here, you know, I'm, I'm interested and, you know, I've got, you know, I think in a literal sense, I have no proximity to the case, but obviously I have, you know, people imagine some proximity because of it.

36:35

Cause my dad's, I mean, what is, what is his Role

36:38

specifically? I mean, he's sort of in charge of leading the yeah.

36:41

I think prosecution team. Yeah.

36:43

And I think, you know, his role I think is to, is to make sure that he's got good people in charge.

36:48

You know, Jerry Blackwell is probably going to be pretty well known when this is all said and done.

36:52

And, and, you know, I, I like to think of my dad as a pretty good trial lawyer, but I think it's probably been well over a decade since he's been in a courtroom.

37:01

And so his, his role really is to build a good team and I think, and, and to check in with them to, you know, vet their work, you know, make sure he's seeing what they're seeing and make sure he understands what they're seeing and that he's equipping them with all the tools they need.

37:14

You know, aside from that, is he in the courtroom every day?

37:17

I, you know, I'm actually not sure I've tried to, I've tried for the most part to not get into the details of the case, the same way that, you know, I tried to make sure that he's not in the details of like the civil side as we were dealing with that.

37:31

Right. Because you were involved in negotiating the settlement.

37:33

Right, right. For the family.

37:35

Yeah. And so, you know, there's a, there's, I think there's a, it's a healthy, well, a, I think there's just, it's just good professional behavior for us to make sure that if there's overlap that we're keeping it separate.

37:47

Right. But also, you know, I think people kind of imagined me and my dad have having like this professional relationship, but like we have, There's

37:53

no one, right? Like, like I have the same relationship with my dad, isn't it?

37:58

Nobody has with their dad. Right. So, you know, we get together, we're not going to just talk about work.

38:01

You know, we're going to, we got other stuff going on.

38:04

I read that Cause you're, you're going to run for reelection.

38:06

And your dad was quoted as saying something like, well, I

38:10

hope he's doing it because he wants it. He's like artists.

38:13

And like, you know, I hope he only if he wants to do it, cause at some point that guy's going to go back to painting murals.

38:19

For sure. She will maybe want, I don't know.

38:22

Yeah. No, I, I that's, that's what I love to do.

38:24

I think that I'll be, you know, my, my, my impulses were forced me back into that eventually.

38:29

But right now I really feel like I'm offering something to my community that I don't know, anybody could, could step up and offer and, and, and plenty of people would be capable, you know?

38:40

Right. But who can win an election and who's ready and who, who feels prepared, you know, half of it is feeling yourself prepared, you know?

38:49

Yeah. Me and my dad, like the last couple of months, I think we've like, you know, football came and went, you know, obviously we talk about a lot of like the context, same stuff everybody else talks about, but, but also spent a lot of time talking to me, he's a big fan of like really bad monster movies.

39:06

Like, you know, like stuff like, Oh, I'm watchable.

39:08

Like he really loves like, like Hugh Jackman's van Helsing.

39:11

I can't, I can't, I can't understand it.

39:14

And he's rewatching, you know, I think the, when he can, you know, not that he has a bunch of time, but he was telling me he going to try to rewatch the X-Files.

39:22

So, you know, we talked about that type of stuff.

39:24

I'm trying to get them to watch wander vision.

39:26

I don't know if it's this thing and it might be too new for them Back

39:30

into the X-Files. Wow.

39:32

What was that like growing up with him as a Congressman?

39:35

I mean, most of your childhood, he must've been in office.

39:40

Yeah. So you'd have to go back and forth between DC and here.

39:43

Well, you know, what's, what's weird, you know, I think, I think it was 17 when he was elected.

39:48

Okay. I see. So I was kind of up and getting out of the house and, you know, I don't know too many, 16, 17 year olds who really care about what their parents are now.

39:55

So I think that he, as a parent of a 17 year old, I can promise you this zero interest.

40:01

I, I think it took me a long time to even realize like that anybody thought of him as like, like especially important, you know?

40:11

Cause like, you know, you go to DC to the swearing in and you're there and you know, and like, and all of that, but at 16, 17, and I'm like, you know, I'm thinking about football.

40:21

My, you know, I was playing, you know, at the time I'm thinking about, you know, whether or not I'm gonna recover from my shoulder injury.

40:30

I'm thinking about girls, I'm thinking about art, I'm thinking about all these other things.

40:35

Yeah. And then, you know, and I think that like at some point it was like, I had like a realization in my early twenties.

40:42

I'm like, Oh my dad's like, kind of like, it's kind of weird.

40:48

So anyway, but yeah, it took me a while to even realize.

40:51

And so I think, you know, for my younger siblings, I think it was a little bit more of a thing for them, but for me and my older brother, I think it was like dad's thing.

41:00

Right. And your mom's a baller too, like director of the board of education.

41:04

Yeah. But they were cool with like our son's an artist, man.

41:07

Like let him do his thing. There wasn't a pressure on you to know the law school or anything like that.

41:12

No, No, no, nothing like that.

41:14

I think, you know, in my household it was like, you know, love what you do.

41:20

Try to be good at it so that we can brag about you and that's, you know, that's kind of it, you know, I, I remember my mom was like one of the, I can't remember how old it must've been like 12 maybe.

41:32

Yeah. Like 11 or 12. And I wanted like these like Prismacolor markers and they're like $4 a marker.

41:37

And so you need to get a set of 24 and it's pretty expensive.

41:39

And, and you know, they'd always been interested in my art, but I don't think really understood.

41:46

Like I think they kinda thought of as like, okay, this is a key thing he did as a kid, he's going to grow out of it.

41:51

And not just like remained really interested in comics, really interested in drawing, really interested in painting.

41:56

And my mom was finally like, all right, we're going to get this kid, these colors, these expensive markers and, and let them go wild.

42:02

And, and, and it was probably a big part of like what kept me in it.

42:07

Cause you know, like I think I was getting a little bit like, you know, kind of run that age where it's like, okay, pen and pencil drawn, still lives, right?

42:13

Like this is fine. And it's like, Oh man, I could do all kinds of things with color and all this other stuff.

42:18

So they always really encouraged the art making.

42:21

For sure.

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45:31

So

45:31

the

45:31

activism

45:31

comes

45:37

later. I mean, we mentioned Jamar Clark in 2015, but prior to that, I mean, you were protesting here and there, right?

45:43

Like you got arrested one time you got arrested over 15, but was that was that 2015 incident?

45:51

Like the, the turning point was that was that like a moment where you're like, Oh, I'm going to, I'm going to step up and fill some shoes here.

46:00

I think it was a moment where people in my life kind of thought, Hey, you're demonstrating some leadership.

46:06

I had a mentor, you know, who, who kind of told me, she was like, I've always like when you were in high school, I always wanted you to sort of fill this role.

46:17

Cause people, you know, you know, they, they, you, I've seen, you give people sort of permission in an indirect way, give them permission to do courageous things.

46:27

And I've just kind of never thought of myself that way.

46:31

I'm out here. I'm, I'm moving through the world, trying to paint my paintings and do all that.

46:36

And even during the Jamar Clark protest, I mean, I was, I was spending most of my days up in my studio and it was the activist who are on the ground at the time who were saying like, Hey, you live here.

46:46

And, and we think that it would mean a lot to community members to your neighbors if they have your presence.

46:54

Right. So I would go deliver coffee and, and a big part of what kept me in.

47:00

It was, you know, I was in a longer-term relationship and my, my girlfriend at the time, she was like in it, she was like, we're gonna like, we're going to be at the protest.

47:08

You know? And so I think I, through that relationship as well, it was like, okay, cool.

47:13

Like there's an expectation here. And, and, and, and, and people are telling me I'm adding some value in 2015.

47:20

I think it was more like, you know, yeah.

47:23

A lot of community members, you know, I had actually reached out to the council at the time long yang and, and, and I went back and looked at the message that I had sent them recently because I just was, couldn't quite remember what I had said.

47:37

And it was just like, this really measured message of like, Hey, like, I don't expect you to agree with all the protestors out here, but you know, I'd always had a good impression of him and I'd seen him running loose for County commissioner.

47:48

Then he ended up as a council member as my council member.

47:50

And I kind of thought, you know, like, I don't feel any hesitancy reaching out to you.

47:55

And I just remember feeling so dismissed.

47:58

Right? Like, couldn't it like reading the response?

47:59

I couldn't even be sure if he wrote it. Like I was like, did, did did his aid write this?

48:03

And just like, you know, but I remember just feeling totally dismissed.

48:07

And, and what I had asked him to do was come out and be with his neighbors.

48:11

I said, Hey, look, no matter what you, where you stand, one of your neighbors was killed by a city employee.

48:17

Yeah. And I think it's important that you should come show your face.

48:20

And it was just no, not going to do that.

48:24

And so that, that kind of, I think triggered a, a frustration in me that was like, well, you, you got to at least show up, right?

48:32

Like whether people disagree with you or agree with you, you gotta at least show up whether they call you an asshole or a thank you.

48:40

You got to show up. Right. It's just, it's just important.

48:43

It's just The job. The citizens of this city are not afraid to call their elected officials assholes.

48:50

No, they're not. No, they're not as much as we have this re I mean, you know, Minnesota nice is, is a real thing as well.

48:56

The passive aggressiveness can, can, can be, it can be overwhelming sometimes, but definitely, especially, especially in the last couple of years, I mean, folks are gonna tell you what they feel.

49:07

And I appreciate it.

49:09

Even if I think somebody is wrong, I appreciate it.

49:12

Well, that rawness, you know, can lead to the change that, you know, can change everything.

49:16

I agree.

49:18

So you end up, you end up running and in like 2016, you get elected in 2017 and your platforms essentially at the time, like it has to do with police action, protest and reform, and workers' rights, housing, environmental justice, and the like, but you couldn't have a man.

49:38

Imagine what you would be.

49:40

No, no, not, not at all.

49:42

I, you know, I actually spent, while I was looking through, I have this spreadsheet of like things that I've authored and things that I've liked, you know, projects and policy and ordinances, that kind of thing.

49:53

And a little tracker for myself, what's in progress.

49:56

What have I finished?

49:57

What am I passed?

49:58

And all the stuff that I've passed, you know, it's all, you know, in the, on the budget realm, it's all economic development stuff.

50:06

You know, it's helping small businesses buy their buildings, that kind of thing on the policy front, it's all like housing protection, like renter protection, that kind of housing is such a big deal here.

50:16

It's a huge deal. You know, I mean, everywhere in the country, you know, you're seeing people get pushed out of urban areas because, you know, there's sort of this, I call it reverse white flight.

50:24

It's like, you know, people left in the fifties or whatever.

50:27

And now like their grandkids, like all want to come live in the city and it's fine, but it's driving up home prices.

50:33

And there's a lack of act like lack of access.

50:35

And, and, and it's displacing the people who have been living in city for generations.

50:40

And so I really want to go tackle that both the economic development issue and the housing issue, because it's like, you know, this area is either going to gentrify or it's going to stay disinvested from how can I make sure that neither happen, right?

50:53

Like that we can get investment, but that people can stay and keep opting into this place as their home.

50:58

So that's what I've been focused on.

51:01

And, and obviously police accountability.

51:05

Yeah. Like it, it's a, it's a, it's a focus, but yeah.

51:11

Now it's our inability to wrestle with this for many, many decades.

51:16

Our inability to really wrestle with this issue is kind of tearing our city apart.

51:21

Right now. It's tearing the whole Metro part.

51:24

Yeah. And people we'll talk about Jamar Clark and people will talk about George Floyd and they should, both those people, both those men were killed in this awful way, but people older than me are going to talk about, you know, T-cell Nelson, they're going to talk about a Buka Sanders.

51:39

You know, they're going to talk about these other people who, you know, throughout the years now have been killed by MPD and Terrance Franklin, which was well ahead of my time.

51:50

But, but we didn't settle that case until I was in office.

51:52

I think he was, he was killed in 2012 or 2013 city.

51:57

Didn't settle that case until, until like 2020.

52:00

And so our 2019 maybe.

52:02

And so, so yeah, I think it's, it's a huge issue and we've got to get it right.

52:07

And I think that everybody has the mayor, my, my colleagues, everybody has an idea about how to get it right.

52:15

And everybody thinks the other person's wrong, including me to be fair.

52:19

And, and that's kind of where things stand.

52:23

Yeah. The, at George Floyd square, they do a really good job of, of making sure everybody understands that, although George is kind of the focal point of that space, it's really about so much more than that.

52:36

And you see all the names painted on the, on the street and then there's the cemetery with tombstones for all of the individuals who have, who have fallen at the hands of the police.

52:46

And it's just, it's, it's impossible to not, you know, sort of be in denial about the gravity of the problem.

52:53

Right. And I want to get to re-imagining public safety because you got lots of interesting opinions about that.

53:00

But before that, like, let's spend a little bit of time on George Floyd.

53:04

Like I'm interested in, you know, how everything's story sort of begins to change when that transpires, you know, commencing with, like, when did you first see the video and like, how did that all go down in your own life, Life?

53:17

Yeah. You know, I first saw the video the day it happened.

53:21

It was, I was, it was at night.

53:23

I had seen snippets of it, like on social media throughout the day, but had never been spending enough time on social media to actually click the video.

53:32

And, and nobody had necessarily called me or anything.

53:37

Like usually I'll, I will have like a lot of calls from community activists about like, this happened.

53:41

So I was kind of like, it's not in your ward, it's not in my ward.

53:45

Right. Right. Exactly. And so it was kind of like, okay, I'm not really sure what this video is, but it's late at night.

53:52

Nobody's called me about it, but I'll check it out.

53:56

And I think it was the one I saw what had been like reshared or posted by Elizer, Doris.

54:03

Who's an activist here, local activists here.

54:05

And he wasn't the one who filmed the video, but he had this video and he had posted it.

54:08

So I'm like, okay, Eliza is posting. This must be serious.

54:10

Cause I, you know, I'm taking his opinion seriously.

54:12

And I watched the video and I just remember feeling like, like just that dread that you feel when, as you're, as you're watching him be tortured.

54:21

And, and there's this moment at the end of the video where, you know, I just remember, and I spent a while since I watched it, but they, they go to eventually pick him up and he's so limp and at a human level, you know, like your instincts kick in and your brain is telling you that this person doesn't have any life in them, which contrasted, you know, the call, I eventually ended up kidding, which was, Oh, you know, Oh, he, he, he wasn't dead in the video.

54:55

He passed later. He, you know, all this other stuff.

54:58

Right. And from other city officials, I got a call from the police.

55:02

Well, the mayor called me first. I did.

55:04

And then I saw later than I had missed a call from the chief somehow.

55:07

And, and I let her talk to him about it.

55:10

And it was like, he got bad info, like, you know, somewhere in the chain, a lot of folks, you know, bad info just started spreading.

55:16

He wanted to make sure I was, I knew what was going on.

55:19

He gave me the info he had and it just wasn't the truth.

55:24

Well, the initial police report didn't even indicate the knee on the neck thing at all.

55:29

Right? No, no. It was just as they didn't amend that until after the video was that Right?

55:34

Right. And so, you know, we've, we've been struggling with some problems with MPD even before this happened.

55:42

Right. Like, you know, there was a, my second year in office, or maybe halfway through my first year in office officers got, there was a report that MPD was instructing EMT to inject people with ketamine, whether they needed it or not.

55:57

Right. And you get, you, you got these transcripts with people being a begging, strapped to a gurney begging to not be injected against their will and then being injected, right.

56:07

Aid. We just need to sedate these people.

56:09

Yeah. By whatever means, I'm sorry.

56:11

Honestly, Reading through some of the transcripts that I read often it would read as this person called me a name.

56:18

I didn't like this person. It just seemed vindictive.

56:20

You know, excited is often the term that's used as an excuse to, to, to, to inject people with ketamine.

56:28

But you know, the people who are being injected were often totally lucid, you know, maybe mouthing off quote unquote, but totally lucid and being injected with ketamine sort of came off as more of a punishment than anything.

56:44

Yeah. And, you know, we had this, this marijuana drug bust, which, you know, we shouldn't even be bothering with that anyway, but it was so rife with racial bias that the district attorney wouldn't even prosecute the case.

57:00

And we did not have a progressive district attorney, you know, it was, it was.

57:03

And so these are some of the things that kind of led up to, you know, Oh, we have this huge report that you guys should look into the star Tribune, you know, talk to a bunch of survivors of sexual assault about and talk to them about their experience.

57:16

And it was sort of this huge exposure of, of like how people felt like they were treated, not only was their case never solved.

57:22

Right. And that we have this low, you know, we clear like 20% or less of these types of cases, but individual victims saying that they felt totally dismissed or revictimized by our, by our police breakdown by race.

57:36

I don't remember if it, if the, if the report broke down by race, but some of the women were, you know, very, you know, very public.

57:44

And I think there's a, like a photo with a, with a number of, of some of the victims who felt like they hadn't been given service by the police department that, that given any kind of sense of justice and weren't even, weren't even taken seriously.

57:58

Right. And so these are the issues that we are, you know, that we're dealing with.

58:01

And they're all sort of these local scandals that we're dealing with.

58:05

Each one just notch. It, the tension just gets ratcheted up.

58:09

Right. So, you know, it's easy to kind of look at Floyd, the Floyd situation and the explosion of civil unrest that followed and conclude that it was all about that without really appreciating everything that liked was leading up to that being kind of a breaking moment for everybody.

58:28

Absolutely. You know, there was one professor from John Jay college, they have, I'm going to blank on his name, but he, he said something to the effect of, during one of our council meetings where we were kind of having experts come in and give us testimony.

58:42

He said something to the effect of if, if not an insignificant number of people feel like they no longer want MPD as a part of their life.

58:51

That is a reputation that MPD has earned.

58:56

Right. And so, cause people don't come to that conclusion overnight.

59:00

They don't come to that conclusion out of the blue they witnessed and they experience that nothing else will work.

59:09

Right. Whether it's people who, you know, like Travis Jordan's girlfriend who, you know, he was somebody who was having a mental health crisis, you know, she called nine one one to get help.

59:18

Cause she thought he was going to harm himself and the police shut and killed him.

59:21

Whether it's, you know, people who have lost loved ones because of high speed chases that were like totally irresponsibly conducted.

59:30

I mean, there's a feeling from a lot of people here that, you know, they want good public safety service.

59:39

Right? Yeah. But they they're just showing repeatedly been shown something otherwise.

59:44

And, and, and also, you know, not to go too deep down the rabbit hole, but you're also contending with a lack of sufficient culpability for these officers.

59:54

The arbitration process doesn't really seem to do his job.

59:59

No. So many of these officers get reprimanded and they're back on the streets and there's no real repercussions for that.

1:00:05

Right. And so the, the, the ills are so systemic that it leads to that deep level of mistrust where someone like yourself is led to conclude that it's broken beyond repair.

1:00:16

So the conversation around reform falls on deaf ears for somebody like you.

1:00:22

Right. Because it would, it would appear to like the outsider looking in, well, okay, there's problems here, but let's look at what those problems are and like tease them out and solve them.

1:00:32

But your position is basically like you can't do.

1:00:35

It's like, it's not, it's not a few bad apples.

1:00:37

Like Trevor Noah was talking about this on Instagram.

1:00:39

It's like, it's not bad apples.

1:00:41

It's like, the tree is rotten.

1:00:43

Right. And if you have a rotten tree that teasing out of what's wrong, really isn't going to move the needle or solve the problem in any meaningful way.

1:00:51

And we've Out these problems.

1:00:53

Right. I was, I was, I was reading something that a friend gave me about, you know, all these various commissions that have studied, you know, the various major riots throughout history, right in America, starting with the 1919 race riots in Chicago, known as red summer, 19, 19 red summer happens.

1:01:18

And the governor of Illinois at the time puts together the commission on race relations and to study why the Ryan's happened and you know, how they were exacerbated and finds that in large part, they were started by the police and that they were exacerbated by all these inequities and talks about, you know, literally 19, 19 talks about, you know, we need to end police brutality that will prevent further riots in the future.

1:01:43

We need to have police living in the communities that they work in.

1:01:47

Like they give a lot of suggestions that you'll hear people give today.

1:01:51

This is 1919.

1:01:53

And how did they move past that? Or have they not?

1:01:55

And then yeah, You

1:01:57

tell me how many scandals the Chicago police department has had since 1919.

1:02:02

I mean, I couldn't tell you, I don't.

1:02:04

I mean, I will say it's plenty.

1:02:06

I would argue that they haven't moved past it.

1:02:09

And I would argue that we haven't moved past it.

1:02:11

I think that ultimately, this isn't the problem, you know, locally, we do have a with this department, but if you zoom out, the problem that we're having with this department is not a problem with only this department.

1:02:29

This is a problem that every single city is facing with their departments.

1:02:33

It's a matter of a lack of accountability.

1:02:35

You can have all the training in the world, but if you're not going to be held accountable, your training never matters.

1:02:41

Right. You can have all the good intentions in the world, but if you know that there's never any accountability, then when you fail to meet your good intention, it doesn't really matter.

1:02:53

And I think that's the system that we ha that we, that we've created and we pour tons of money into reforms.

1:02:59

I mean, I think that's the one thing people don't understand is that a lot of these reforms cost additional money, right?

1:03:06

Whether it's facial recognition, whether it's body cameras, they cost a ton of more trainings.

1:03:12

They cost a ton of money.

1:03:13

And yet the settlement amounts yeah.

1:03:17

Here in Minneapolis, but also, you know, there was a, there was a $20 million settlement in Maryland just earlier this year, maybe in 2020, the settlements just get bigger.

1:03:27

So the cost of the apartment gets bigger.

1:03:29

The, the, the behavior doesn't change.

1:03:32

The issue doesn't change the settlements, get bigger.

1:03:34

I mean, at what point do cities just, are, are we just not able to even afford this model of public safety?

1:03:41

Yeah. I think we're pretty much there.

1:03:44

Yeah. The heartbreak of George Floyd as sort of emotionally challenging as all of this is, has for better or worse, kind of foisted you into the, into the national spotlight.

1:03:57

You go from being, you know, ward five city council, men to suddenly being on national news.

1:04:03

And the main thing that you're speaking to is this idea of finding new ways to keep ourselves and our neighbors safe.

1:04:11

Right. But this is all couched in the vernacular around defund the police.

1:04:17

And my sense, and this is, I really want to hear what you have to say about this is I think defunded the defund, the police means many different things to many different people, depending on who you talk about.

1:04:27

My

1:04:27

sense

1:04:27

is

1:04:27

that

1:04:27

it's

1:04:27

less

1:04:27

about

1:04:27

like

1:04:27

eradicating

1:04:27

or

1:04:27

abolishing

1:04:27

a

1:04:27

police

1:04:27

force

1:04:27

and

1:04:27

much

1:04:27

more

1:04:27

about

1:04:27

ending

1:04:27

the

1:04:27

monopolization

1:04:27

of

1:04:27

public

1:04:27

protection

1:04:27

in

1:04:27

the

1:04:27

hands

1:04:27

of

1:04:27

this

1:04:27

broken

1:04:27

system

1:04:27

and

1:04:27

creating

1:04:27

a

1:04:27

new

1:04:27

public

1:04:27

safety

1:04:27

kind

1:04:27

of

1:04:27

program

1:04:27

at

1:04:27

large

1:04:27

of

1:04:27

which

1:04:27

police

1:04:27

are

1:04:27

are,

1:04:27

but

1:04:27

one

1:04:27

part

1:04:27

of

1:04:27

that

1:04:27

is

1:04:27

that,

1:04:27

is

1:04:27

that

1:04:54

fair? Cause you're sort of like, Oh, Oh Jeremiah, he's the defund, the police guy.

1:04:58

Yeah. You know what I mean? So like, what does that mean to you?

1:05:00

And like where do you stand and how has that also, like, how has, how has your perspective or your position on this evolved over the last year?

1:05:07

Yeah, I'll say this as I'm, you know, cause right now it is reelection time.

1:05:14

Right. And as I'm on, I'm on the phones and I'm talking to people maybe even more than usual constituents, more than usual.

1:05:20

And I'm finding that for the most part.

1:05:24

And then it was probably surprises some people, but for the most part, I'm finding that I still have plenty of support and that even my neighbors who are not 100% where I'm at, they, they are open to the city of Minneapolis, spending less money on police.

1:05:44

What they're not open to is us spending less money on their overall safety.

1:05:49

Right? To me, that means that any system that we want that's different than, than what we have.

1:05:56

We've got to create it. That's the only way that we can bring people along.

1:06:00

Right. We've got to create it. And so I think for me, the term defund, right?

1:06:05

Defund the police, it's a term created by activists, not me, right term created by activists to generate a conversation.

1:06:15

It's definitely done that. It's done it's as provocative as it comes, It's

1:06:20

generated a conversation, but it doesn't have anything to do with governing.

1:06:25

Right? So activists are well within their right to make that call.

1:06:30

It's my job to listen to community members and ask myself, in what way can I make this relevant to governing?

1:06:38

And the way that it can be relevant in governing is that we've got to assess all the ways in which people expect to be kept safe, right?

1:06:48

If we are expected by our community and we should be to solve rape cases, then we've got to also admit that we're currently not doing that.

1:06:56

Our current system is not doing that.

1:06:58

If people expect that if they have a loved one in the throws of a mental health crisis, that their city is not going to show up and fucking kill that person, then we've got to create a system that functions that way.

1:07:13

Right. And if people who had a FA who have had a fender bender still want to get a report for insurance, but don't necessarily want to have to interact with a police officer, then we should create a system with that.

1:07:23

It's possible. Yeah. It is interesting because now, no matter what situation you find yourself in the cops are the only like nine one one, and it's the cops.

1:07:31

So whether it's a paramedic situation or a mental health problem, or a simple, you know, skirmish that could be, you know, managed effectively through some kind of, you know, community outreach or something like that.

1:07:46

Yeah. There seems to be a lot of situations and circumstances in which the police need not be involved, particularly in a situation where there's such a level of distrust.

1:07:57

Yeah. I mean, I know that the, the, the, the fake $20 bill quote unquote it's, it's an alleged fake ton of dollar bill.

1:08:04

I don't know if it's ever been confirmed that George Is

1:08:07

that bill? No, I didn't turn off the evidence.

1:08:09

That's a great question.

1:08:12

No

1:08:12

talks

1:08:12

about

1:08:12

that,

1:08:12

but

1:08:16

This alleged fake $20 bill, even if it was real, did it require for guys with guns to respond?

1:08:22

I mean, that's not an armed robbery.

1:08:25

That's, that's not even a heist, right?

1:08:28

Like that's not, that's not, that's not, that's not any kind of an emergency that four armed people need to come and address.

1:08:37

I think that we've got to have a response.

1:08:40

We've got to have a system that can still address that store's need.

1:08:47

Right. Hey, we're out 20 bucks. If this happens too often, like where it's not great for us, but we also need a system that, I mean, our only way, I mean, did that story ever get it's 20 bucks back, right?

1:08:58

Like, like our, we didn't do any sort of remedy for that store in that moment.

1:09:02

All, all the city did, all the police did was killed George Floyd as a response to this alleged fake $20 bill.

1:09:10

What pit public safety need was met, I think is the question that we've got to ask ourselves.

1:09:15

And if the answer is none and you know, I assert that the answer is none.

1:09:20

Then

1:09:20

what

1:09:20

do

1:09:20

we

1:09:23

need? Right. Because the store needed, it needed to needed, you know, a response for the emergency that they were having or for the incident that they were having.

1:09:31

But George fluid's safety also mattered in that moment.

1:09:35

And in our system, we didn't prioritize anyone's safety, but we definitely prioritized sort of a punitive response to someone we thought might've been creating some harm.

1:09:48

Yeah. How does that relate to our kind of parochial notion of what it means to protect and serve?

1:09:55

Right. Yeah. I mean, certainly, you know, in some communities likely not all, there was a date and a time where the police officers were embedded in the community and they were community members and they were looked to for guidance and counsel and they knew, you know, those officers knew the people in the community.

1:10:15

That's a far cry from what we have today, which is a pivot in the opposite direction towards these militarized, you know, essentially SWAT teams that you see increasingly, you know, across the country, That,

1:10:31

that older model where you did have folks who lived in the area that model never worked for them Communities.

1:10:36

Yeah. That's what I said, kind of parochial that was actually true or right, Right.

1:10:41

No fair, fair enough. Yeah. I mean, and, and, and, and, you know, you've got all, you got images of not only police starting race riots in 1919, but you know, you've got it happening in the twenties and then in the thirties and, you know, you've got to happening in Harlem and you've gotta happening in LA.

1:11:01

Right. And so I think that there's this, the Chicago, the trial of the Chicago seven is about, you know, the police starting a riot, you know?

1:11:09

And so I think that we've got to vet the whole thing, right.

1:11:12

Like I think, you know, MPDs been around for 153 years, you know, I think that we shouldn't finger wag at how it functions now and say, well, we we've just got to address that.

1:11:26

Right. I think we should maybe take inventory of how the last 153 years have gone, you know, in total.

1:11:32

And, and if we haven't gotten what we needed out of the system, then yeah.

1:11:38

I think that, and, and again, I think we haven't that I don't think it's reactionary.

1:11:44

I don't think, I don't think 102 years is reactionary to say, I think it's time for a different conference.

1:11:51

Right, right. You're you, but you're often characterized as well.

1:11:54

Reactionary. Yeah. I think this movement is, yeah.

1:11:56

Yeah, Sure. I mean, there was the moment sometime after the protests were reaching their peak where you among nine city council members wanted to amend the city charter so that you could put into motion, this kind of department of public safety.

1:12:14

Right. Exactly. Which would kind of upend the traditional way that the police operated that didn't pass or didn't get onto the ballot.

1:12:22

Right. But it's going to be on the ballot and, you know, Right,

1:12:25

right. So we, we, we didn't proceed forward quickly enough to get it on the ballot for 2020, but now not only is there a council amendment, there is a community amendment also proceeding forward, the language is pretty similar.

1:12:38

There's some, I think there's some key differences, but I think that even if the council had given up on that effort, the community was like, no, we want this and they're gonna, they're gonna make sure it's on the ballot.

1:12:50

Right. And so I think that, that, I think that only affirms that this is what, that this impulse, wasn't some kind of Minneapolis city council impulse that you now have in order to get for a citizen's petition to end up on the ballot in Minneapolis, they have to get, I think, a little over 20,000 signatures.

1:13:07

Right. So now you've got 20, 20,000 votes that are for sure going to be cast for this thing, if not more, right.

1:13:14

You're nearing a mandate from your neighbors, from your residents.

1:13:18

When they're saying, even if you don't bring forward, this charter change, we will.

1:13:23

Right. Meanwhile,

1:13:24

you have made some progress, right?

1:13:27

There's this something like $8 million have been redirected to other public safety measures there's restricted use on choke holds.

1:13:36

And you know, there's been a raising of the threshold for the use of force.

1:13:39

There's these violence interrupters.

1:13:42

These guys, you cruise around in orange t-shirts and kind of mediate conflict in various neighborhoods, this office of violence prevention.

1:13:51

Yep. Right out of the health department. Right.

1:13:52

So there, there has been some, some kind of movement in the direction that you'd like to see.

1:13:58

I'm sure very far from what you would prefer to see at the same time.

1:14:03

You know, the counterpoint would be that, that this whole movement has led to an increase in violent crime.

1:14:09

And meanwhile, like hundred police officers have quit and violence is on the rise.

1:14:14

So like, how do you, I just want to give you an opportunity to share your thoughts on that or respond to that.

1:14:19

Yeah. It's funny. I was having a conversation with a friend of mine.

1:14:23

He reminded me of this recently.

1:14:25

This is before George Floyd even happened.

1:14:28

It was before the killing of Georgia money even happened.

1:14:30

And when everything started shutting down and all these people started going out of work, he was reminding me that I told him, then I said, you know, look, whenever people are out of work, crime goes up and I said, crime is going to go up.

1:14:43

And people are going to ask for more police. Right. That was my prediction.

1:14:45

Then that's how it works.

1:14:47

Right. I think that, you know, it would be a little out of place for me to say that the unrest from the summer played no role in the increase in violent crime that we had this summer.

1:14:58

I don't know, but neither did the police.

1:15:02

Neither does the mayor. Neither do the people who are making this claim.

1:15:06

And what makes more sense and is backed by more evidence throughout history is that when people are out of work, crime goes up, we had both of these things happen at the same time.

1:15:19

Right? You've got communities who are some communities in Minneapolis who are already poor, becoming more poor.

1:15:27

And then those same communities feeling incredibly disillusioned and disaffected by the killing of George Floyd, you know, that is going to cause A

1:15:37

reaction powerful combination.

1:15:39

Right. And so, yeah, we've had, we've had this uptake in violence.

1:15:43

We've had this spike in violence this past year.

1:15:45

But if you talk to a lot of, a lot of Northside youth, right.

1:15:53

I represent North Minneapolis.

1:15:53

It's not the only place that's had has an increase in violence, but when you talk to, but a lot of youth have been involved in the violence that has occurred over the last year.

1:16:02

And if you go talk to youth directly about what will keep them safe, most of them, I mean, I don't think I've talked to a single teenager, you know, a single person or a single teenager in North Minneapolis who has said the issue is that we don't have enough police.

1:16:18

They'll say the issue is that we don't have anything to do the issue.

1:16:21

Is that okay In

1:16:24

their house? They can't go to school. Right? Yeah. People are home.

1:16:26

They can't get that meal that they would get at school.

1:16:28

They can't get that meal that we get in school also, you know, they're at that age where they want to take risks, they want to be bold.

1:16:35

They want to, you know, and, and when you combine that with access to a firearm, with access to, you know, with, with, with, with all the, all the things that a teenager wants to desire to feel powerful.

1:16:47

Well, yeah, you're going to have, you're going to have some in an environment right now where it's kind of like anything goes, yeah, yeah, right.

1:16:54

Yeah. Then you're going to have these increases in violence.

1:16:56

The other thing I would say is that people would have to also be claiming that there was a rise of violence because of a declaration.

1:17:05

Right. Because the city council made a deli declaration.

1:17:09

Right. And that, that caused a spike in violence Perpetrated.

1:17:12

The crime has no idea.

1:17:15

Yeah. It's not that kid is not on my newsletter.

1:17:20

Yeah. You know, I I'll say that he has no idea what they city councils is up to because we didn't address.

1:17:26

We didn't remove 5% of the police's budget until December of 2020.

1:17:31

Right. And so when you see this rock, this spike in violence over the summer, what's, you're witnessing is the old model at work.

1:17:40

What's your, what's your witnessing is the status quo at work fully funded?

1:17:43

You know, I think the, I think the year 20, 20 Minneapolis police department had more money than they'd ever had in their hit in the history of their department.

1:17:50

And so we didn't actually, even, we didn't even reallocate 5% of their budget until December of 2020.

1:17:55

And so, so the argument to me starts to really falter when you actually examine it, fed it in any, in any way.

1:18:06

And what makes more sense is again, this economic issue, conflated with the, the pandemic people out of school, all that stuff.

1:18:14

Have you looked at, do you know this thing, campaign zero from DeRay, McKesson, you know, who Dre Dre is?

1:18:22

I don't know. I will admit, I don't know a ton About

1:18:24

Scott this. I mean, you know, police reform is one of his big things, but he started this kind of initiative non-profit initiative called campaign zero.

1:18:32

And it's all about police reform. And they, they took all of these people.

1:18:35

Who've actually studied this and figured out what's effective and what's not.

1:18:40

Cause a lot of the things you think would be good actually don't end up translating into any kind of fungible change.

1:18:46

And they looked at like, what are the things that move the needle?

1:18:50

And he comes, he's got this website and it's like, here are the 10 things that are actually effective in reforming police, but that's not really the game you're playing.

1:18:58

Like you're, you're playing here. Play your role in a different paradise.

1:19:01

Right. This whole thing. I, I think that like, I'd be happy to check it out and just make sure that I it's probably a lot of the stuff that other people are recommending.

1:19:09

I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll say that because a lot of these reforms, they all come out of the same school of thought and they all make the same base assumption.

1:19:16

And that base assumption is that policing is the only way to conduct public safety.

1:19:23

And, and so I'm not accusing or that, I, I don't know.

1:19:27

I have to check, I'll have to check out his 10 points, but I will say that like, you know, you go through and you look at what people are saying today.

1:19:33

And you look at things that came out of, you know, the McComb commission or the Kerner commission, you know, or, or any of these things that, that any of these studies that came out of these riots and they they've been making the same recommendations in the Illinois commission on race relations.

1:19:49

They've been making the same recommendations for a hundred years.

1:19:52

And so my question is what, what, what other than policing would work, you know, to achieve our goals?

1:20:00

I think that was the one thing That you talked about this idea of the police, having a monopoly on public safety.

1:20:05

And, and I got to admit, I never really thought About

1:20:08

that before. It was like, they do have a monopoly.

1:20:10

And why is that?

1:20:12

Is it supposed to be that way? Should it be that way?

1:20:15

I never asked myself that question before. Right.

1:20:17

But the idea that it doesn't need to be that way, and perhaps there is a different way.

1:20:21

Right? The only thing I can think of that resembles that in any regard, I mean, I lived in New York city in the late eighties and I remember the guardian angels everywhere, like on the subway.

1:20:29

And it was kind of like this community-based, you know, mediation squad who was there to kind of diffuse any kind of conflicts that would, you want to talk about defunding those kinds of efforts Have

1:20:43

popped up over cities, right? Like whenever is at peak crisis, they employ these kinds of efforts.

1:20:49

Right. They hire people that maybe used to be in a life of violence, but know reformed themselves.

1:20:54

Yeah. Those guys, and it has an impact, right.

1:20:56

Might take a year or two or three, but it has an impact.

1:20:58

And then as soon as they're, as soon as crisis averted, they go away.

1:21:03

Yeah. And, and it's because, you know, It

1:21:06

would, we always sort of view those kinds of things as sort of tag ons.

1:21:12

Right. They're like band-aids mediate.

1:21:14

Right. Exactly. But to me what's more common.

1:21:17

Right. I guess I'll, I'll pose it as a question. What's more common, a domestic dispute between a couple, right.

1:21:23

Or a dispute between neighbors or an active shooter situation.

1:21:27

What's more common.

1:21:30

Right. Well, probably depends on the neighborhood, But

1:21:32

you know, probably, you know, The,

1:21:34

the domestic dispute situation, Right.

1:21:36

What's more common that somebody is maybe having some kind of mental health emergency.

1:21:44

Right. Whether it's, whether it's, you know, severe depression, they're, they're gonna take their own life.

1:21:49

Whether it's paranoid schizophrenia, they didn't take their medication.

1:21:52

Whether, you know, they have a trauma in their trip, they get triggered.

1:21:55

Right. Or are a bunch of, you know, heavily armed guys on the freeway gonna gonna March down and just start indiscriminately.

1:22:04

Yeah. Murdering everybody on site. I mean, what's not getting it.

1:22:07

Yeah. I get it. So to me, like to have somebody to have like someone in a mediator role To

1:22:12

have someone in like a who's a mental health specialist, it just makes more sense for that to be more of a staple.

1:22:19

I'm not saying that, you know, there's no role for guys with guns in the, in our current, There

1:22:27

should be more tools in the toolbox basically.

1:22:30

Yeah. There should be right. Not everything needs to be, What

1:22:32

does it look like? Like if you had your druthers, the ideal scenario that could play out in this city, forget about politics.

1:22:39

Sure. Here's the, here's the, here's what I would like to enact that I think would solve these problems.

1:22:44

Yeah. Well, you know, I think that my prac, my pragmatic brain sort of kicks in and I'm like, well, nothing would be like ready tomorrow at scale.

1:22:52

But that, even that aside, right.

1:22:54

The office of violence prevention, we established it in 2018 with half a million dollars.

1:23:01

Now the office has 7 million, I think is the budget.

1:23:04

I think It's 2.5.

1:23:06

I think you, I think what I read, I could have it wrong, but 2.5 got directed towards it.

1:23:13

So that amped up the budget to seven.

1:23:16

Okay. Okay. Yeah. I'll vet that out.

1:23:18

Yeah. You might be right on that. So it's exponential growth, but whether it's 2.5 or 7 million, that is that pales in comparison to what it was 170, right.

1:23:28

170 million is what we give the police.

1:23:30

Right. What we've set aside to build our mental health program is a couple million dollars.

1:23:36

It's it's going to go very far. It's going to help get that jumpstart, that program, and hopefully integrate it into our nine one one system.

1:23:43

So it doesn't have to have its own long seven digit number and all of that, but whatever their budget is, it's going to pale in comparison to that 1.7 million to me, I think that we need to be in a constant state of evaluation of what do we need an armed force for.

1:24:01

Right. When did, when is use of force actually appropriate when and who gets to make that decision, he gets to make that decision.

1:24:08

Well, also shit happens too, right?

1:24:10

That would be the counterpoint, But

1:24:13

you can back that up with data, right? Like you can have, you can have, I think it was like the New York times to put out this thing that like police spend about 4% of their time actually in, in engaging in a violent situation, right.

1:24:24

4% of their time. I'm not saying that you need to reduce your, what you police do all the way down to 4% of public safety.

1:24:31

But what I'm saying is that I do think that it's worthwhile to examine reality, right?

1:24:36

You can, you can run hypothetical's until your brain is tired.

1:24:40

Right. You can have a lot of this hat. What if that happens? What if blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

1:24:43

And what I would say is that like when have the police ever met that public safety standard that they say they're meeting, right?

1:24:52

When have they been successful? Right.

1:24:54

I can point to a lot of situations in which not only did the police mess up, but they weren't even successful.

1:25:00

They weren't even successful in meeting any public safety standard at all.

1:25:04

Right. And so I think that, how do we avoid that?

1:25:07

Right? How do we avoid not meeting any public safety standard at all?

1:25:10

I think it's worthwhile to ask ourselves.

1:25:12

And I, I think it's, I think it's totally fair to say, how did X scenario go?

1:25:17

How does X scenario usually go?

1:25:19

Whether it's a, a mental health crisis response or domestic response and ask yourself, are the police having an effect here, a positive one?

1:25:30

Are they meeting any sort of public safety goal that we have as a city?

1:25:34

And if the answer is yes, but they could use some improvement here and there, then great.

1:25:39

If the answer is no, then we should probably develop a different strategy.

1:25:43

You know, I think that what we're experiencing is that you have a whole bunch of people that say, it's not even fair to ask the question.

1:25:49

It's not okay to even ask them.

1:25:52

Right. The question's dangerous. It's, it's fascinating because everything you're saying makes really good sense.

1:25:56

And it's crazy that that it's such a delicate subject.

1:26:01

And so to just Sit

1:26:04

down and rationally, walk through it, because I think, I think it part that is perhaps informed by just, you know, sort of rash, impulsive reactions to the idea of messing with the police force at all.

1:26:17

And I don't think it's helped by like, we all saw the video of mayor fry, you know, being asked like, are you gonna, you know, are you gonna defund the police?

1:26:25

And he said, well, if you mean abolish a police force, like I don't support that.

1:26:30

And it was in the middle of a huge protest and they said shame, and he had to kind of walk through this crowd.

1:26:35

It's like, okay, like you and him have different opinions on all of this, but, but what you're saying, isn't like a yes or no question, are we abolishing the police department?

1:26:45

Like this is a well thought out nuanced perspective on improving public safety that is comprehensive and involves the police in appropriate circumstances.

1:26:59

Yeah. Yeah. How dare you?

1:27:01

You know what I mean?

1:27:02

Cause you aren't like, it's like, Oh Jeremiah, he's the he's he's the defund guy.

1:27:06

Yeah. You stay away from that guy. Yeah.

1:27:08

That's narrative like that's that's narrative for you though.

1:27:10

Right? Like there are people who feel like they would benefit politically if, if they could prevent people from hearing me ask the question And

1:27:22

you're you have, you don't have that many opportunities to kind of talk on and on, like we're doing here, it's soundbites inside super square.

1:27:30

Yeah. And if you don't nail it, like they're gonna, they're going to cry, you know, sort of position you however they feel like, or whatever is going to get the most clicks.

1:27:37

Yeah. Oh, for sure. For sure.

1:27:38

And, and I've accepted that, you know, you talked about like, I started off this whole thing as the council member for the fifth ward and now I'm, you know, getting public interviews, I would say I'm still the council member for the fifth ward.

1:27:49

And the only thing that matters to me, right.

1:27:52

I'm interested in these conversations because quite frankly, I think, you know, it just kinda sharpens my ability to talk about it and I'm gonna, you know, take some lessons from this conversation and I'm going to apply it to my conversations on the phones, with people, with my neighbors.

1:28:07

So when I'm talking about this stuff with every single day, right.

1:28:09

But for me, the work is not conversations like this one.

1:28:13

It's great to have it. It's great to have, you've got a tremendous platform and, and I appreciate the way you're using it.

1:28:19

Right. But for me, the council member of ward five here in Minneapolis, and I don't have to convince anybody on the news.

1:28:26

I don't have to convince people in St.

1:28:28

Paul. I don't have to convince people on the coasts.

1:28:30

I don't have to convince Congress, you know, I've enjoyed this conversation.

1:28:34

I really liked You. I don't have to convince you even.

1:28:36

Right. But you don't have to do anything show up, but I wouldn't say that.

1:28:41

Yeah. You have to convince your constituents.

1:28:43

And I got to convince my third, if your constituents to flip on the news and they're like, well, you seem like a nice guy when he came through yesterday, but now he looks like a crazy person.

1:28:53

Sure. You know, here, like I'm not so sure.

1:28:55

Yeah. I, luckily I haven't gotten that feedback.

1:28:57

I know, I know it exists out there and I know that there's there's those, but I mean, I guess I'm lucky enough that What

1:29:03

is the, what is like the question that you wish you got asked in those interviews?

1:29:07

Or what is the confusion, if there is any that you would like to clear up or that frustrates you, when you see those news pieces, We

1:29:15

just got done. Now talking about kind of the nuances of how you execute a call to how, how a call a broad call to action gets sort of channeled and interpreted into governing.

1:29:25

That's the kind of conversation I want to be having, right?

1:29:28

Because it's the kind of conversation that I'm going to have to have one way or another.

1:29:32

If I want to get anything done, right?

1:29:35

These are not binary, you know, situations.

1:29:38

And, and I can appreciate that.

1:29:40

Like, you know, some conversations are going to be three minutes, right?

1:29:45

And that I've gotta be able to have a three-minute response that is at least approximate to the 90 minute conversation I can have.

1:29:53

Right. But I also think it's important that these conversations not get reduced to the three minute response.

1:29:59

It's much easier to say you said a thing in public and then crime went up.

1:30:05

It's stupid, but it's much easier to say than to have this conversation about what actually drives up crime.

1:30:12

Like what the, the impact of the pandemic and the economic crisis have had on safety.

1:30:17

It's easier to say it's easier to say that, but then you have to ask yourself, well, crime also went up in New York and Chicago and you know, cities in Arizona.

1:30:27

And, you know, and then you have to say, is that the, is that the city of Minneapolis is that the Minneapolis city council's fault to, you know, then, then, then it's like, you know, and you know, now you're giving me, you know, sort of the kind of power that nobody actually has.

1:30:42

Right. And so, and so, you know, that doesn't really make any sense, but it's easier to say, and you can say it in a short amount of time.

1:30:50

It's harder for me to say, how do you go about this?

1:30:52

How do you turn this into governing?

1:30:53

Actually, can't quite answer that question in three minutes.

1:30:57

Right. I can answer what we've done in three minutes, but even then I can't really get into the details.

1:31:01

Right. You know, 5% of their budget, a million dollars to, to these things it's important.

1:31:07

And I should say it, but yeah, I think that if there were more opportunities for folks to engage in a more long form conversation, that's how we're actually gonna cook up a solution to me.

1:31:19

And if people could, you know, I guess I'll challenge myself to help people not have such short memories about what has happened in the past, because I think that plays a role in it too.

1:31:33

The only way that you could be accused of being reactionary for questioning 102 year old conversation that has not moved one inch in those 102 years is if people have consistently had really short memories about these kinds of incidences, the impacts that they've had, the tragedies that they've cost.

1:31:51

And so, you know, I, I've got to be patient with people and help them not have such short memories.

1:31:57

Right. Right.

1:31:58

So At

1:32:00

the same time, you must have some kind of game plan in the event that shoving gets released and it, and is not convicted.

1:32:12

Right. Because the city is going to spark, like, do you have a sense of, of how you would respond to that?

1:32:17

You must have thought about that. Of course, You

1:32:20

know, in the, during the summer, you know, when there was just, you know, the unrest kind of just dragged on and on and on, there was, there were groups of neighbors who sort of some arms, some unarmed who decided to sort of engage in their own sort of patrols.

1:32:41

Right. Sort of like an amped up, you know, neighborhood watch type thing.

1:32:45

And

1:32:45

myself

1:32:45

and

1:32:45

council

1:32:45

member

1:32:45

of

1:32:45

fleet

1:32:45

Cunningham

1:32:45

noticed

1:32:45

that

1:32:45

not

1:32:45

all

1:32:45

of

1:32:45

the

1:32:45

groups

1:32:45

knew

1:32:45

each

1:32:45

other

1:32:45

and

1:32:45

that

1:32:45

we

1:32:45

didn't

1:32:45

want

1:32:45

groups

1:32:45

who

1:32:45

are

1:32:45

armed

1:32:45

and

1:32:45

maybe

1:32:45

driving

1:32:45

around

1:32:45

or,

1:32:45

you

1:32:45

know,

1:32:45

so

1:32:45

like

1:32:45

coming

1:32:45

to

1:32:45

conflict

1:32:45

with

1:32:45

people

1:32:45

who

1:32:45

live,

1:32:45

literally

1:32:45

live

1:32:45

a

1:32:45

couple

1:32:45

blocks

1:32:45

from

1:33:04

them. And so we, so we tried to play sort of that connective tissue.

1:33:07

I was out doing patrols myself and people knew that they could text or call me and, and, and if they couldn't get through to nine 11, that I had a direct line to the, you know, the, the, the commander of the precinct and that I could sort of help them address their problem.

1:33:20

And that if I couldn't get that, I would drive to their location and help them myself.

1:33:24

Right. You know, as one individual, you know, I'm not incredibly superhuman, you know, you met me, I'm not incredibly tall or, you know, all that stuff, but Kind

1:33:35

of jacked, I'll try.

1:33:39

Yeah. But, but I, I can't, I can't be out here being like, you know, I, I'm not going to be Batman.

1:33:45

Right. I just don't have the capacity, but I don't think anyone does, but I'll probably be out there with my neighbors and trying to make sure that people are safe, trying to make sure that, you know, their property is not, you know, lit on fire and all of that.

1:34:00

I think there's also just this huge, you know, if you're not in Minneapolis, you know, I don't blame you for not like discerning the local geography.

1:34:08

Right. But like, for folks who maybe don't know all the protests were happening miles from where I represent.

1:34:15

Right, right, right. They're halfway North.

1:34:17

Yeah. I was, I was surprised how far South George Floyd square is.

1:34:22

Yeah. And, and so that, you know, so for, and there were no protests, no marches, no nothing happening in North Minneapolis.

1:34:29

But we had was, we had these spontaneous fires that got started.

1:34:33

Not by crowds, not by protestors, not by activists, not by any of that.

1:34:38

Yeah. Are you talking about like auto zone and the precinct South

1:34:41

side, North side, we had, you know, gas stations, businesses, that kind of stuff being lit on fire.

1:34:47

And so it was kind of odd, right.

1:34:49

People like, okay, we're not having protests over here, wire prop wire, things getting lit on fire.

1:34:53

And, and so there was, you know, were a few times there was one time in particular where, you know, I, we got a call from a neighbor, me and my, me and my, me and my friend, Mike, and my younger brother.

1:35:06

We arrived at the scene of this fire before the firetrucks, even.

1:35:11

And we're, and it's, it was a, it was a, a business called the fade factory.

1:35:16

It's a barber shop. And we were just like trying to help the small business owner, like put the fire out in his shop.

1:35:21

And we were unsuccessful.

1:35:24

I just remember like pouring water, like running water hoses from people's houses.

1:35:28

And like, the heat was kind of incredible.

1:35:31

And then all of a sudden, like the two like windows just on either side of us just shattered.

1:35:35

And it was like, we're not going to defeat this fire with these, with these homo ho home hoses.

1:35:42

Right. That was what I did the first time.

1:35:44

And, and I'll continue to be out there and do stuff like that the second time, you know, I, I'm not as convinced that the city, well, maybe now that we've had Dante right.

1:35:54

Killed in Brooklyn center, which is a nearby suburb.

1:35:59

I mean, it's, it's essentially Here

1:36:00

in North Minneapolis, but it's like North, North Minneapolis, and it's not, technically Minneapolis has its own mayor, its own police force.

1:36:07

Right. Right. But I'll tell you right now that like, I have constituents who, you know, who can, who move around quite a bit.

1:36:13

Right. And you know, they'll live in Minneapolis, they'll live, they'll live in North Minneapolis.

1:36:17

They might go live in the golden Valley, which is a nearby suburb, but they're definitely gonna go live in Brooklyn park or Brooklyn center in Brooklyn centers where that happened.

1:36:27

I mean, it's, it's, you know, there there's, there are the borders that governments create.

1:36:32

And then there are the borders that people create.

1:36:34

And, you know, from North Minneapolis to Brooklyn center, there's essentially no border.

1:36:38

Right. Like people don't even treat it like it's different.

1:36:40

Right. And so, you know, I still kind of consider that happening kind of basically in my neighborhood.

1:36:45

Yeah. I'm not as convinced that, you know, there's just going to be chaos.

1:36:49

I will say that in my experience, being on the ground, the way police respond to protesters, and I don't think it has to be this way, but the way they respond contributes to chaos.

1:37:02

And when you have that kind of chaos, you're going to have all kinds of activity start to happen.

1:37:10

Right. When the police consistently are claiming that they cannot distinguish between peaceful protestors and somebody who threw a water bottle and they dump gas and mace and rubber bullets and flash bangs on the entire crowd, you know, there are going to be people who look at that and say, game on, yeah, there's an opportunity here.

1:37:31

They're going to be people who are pissed off who think they're in a fight for their life.

1:37:34

And the police response is proving them.

1:37:36

Right. Right. But that's how they're going to feel.

1:37:38

Yeah. They just, it feeds off each other. Right.

1:37:40

And escalates the difference.

1:37:42

Now being of course that the national guard is here.

1:37:47

Right. So that's different. What's interesting about that is at peak George Floyd protests, there was the whole kerfuffle with the mayor with Donald

1:37:56

Trump, right. He was calling him weak.

1:37:57

And you know, saying that if, if Friday didn't call in the national guard, he was going to do it because you know, when the Luton starts, the shooting starts right.

1:38:08

That famous tweet and mayor fry didn't call it the national guard.

1:38:12

But now he did.

1:38:13

And so here we are in a situation on the Eve of a verdict being delivered in the midst of Don the Dante rights situation.

1:38:22

So there is a pins and needles kind of vibe everywhere you go.

1:38:27

And on top of that, this curfew, and you got a lot of opinions about how curfews work to derail or curtail freedom of association and freedom of speech.

1:38:37

What is your take on, you know, seeing these Humvees all over town right now.

1:38:44

Yeah. I, I, I think that it, it, it probably invites the very kind of activity and actors that it's meant to deter, to be honest with you.

1:38:57

I mean, the fence is certainly do that.

1:38:59

You might as well put The barbed wire and the fences and the barricades everywhere.

1:39:03

Yeah, absolutely.

1:39:04

It is like a war zone.

1:39:06

It's crazy. Yeah. I mean, you know, there was somebody, my guys were walking around downtown and they, they bumped up against the German woman who was saying that some elderly, German woman who said something along the lines of like, I haven't seen anything like this since, you know, Berlin.

1:39:22

Yeah. I mean, it was funny right before I was just about to say, I described to my sister.

1:39:29

I was like, yeah, they literally have to two fences with barbed wire in the middle.

1:39:33

And her response was, that's how the Berlin wall was built.

1:39:35

I'm like, that's not a great sign.

1:39:39

Right. I, you know, It's been wild to watch the PR, like I click on CNN and first of all, it's crazy to like be here and then turn CNN on.

1:39:48

And it's like, all, everything all day long is about what's happening here.

1:39:51

Right. It's like this, even when we were at George Floyd square, one of the guys we were with went into cup foods and it's of course it's on in there too.

1:40:00

Yeah. And it's like, it's so meta.

1:40:02

Right. And like strange, like some crazy simulation.

1:40:06

Yeah. Yeah. In the context of the Dante.

1:40:08

Right. Protests, you turn on CNN and you can just hear like, it's all about like, what's going to happen when the clock ticks 10 and it's curfew and everybody's like getting ready for some major clash hasn't happened yet.

1:40:23

Yeah. I know. There's been some shit that's gone down, but in the grander scheme of things, it's mostly just pretty chill.

1:40:28

It's mostly just the military.

1:40:29

There were like 10 people there after curfew everybody.

1:40:34

Yeah. It's mostly just the police in the military dumping gas on people.

1:40:36

Like, you know, and, and, and I think that that's like, I mean, you know, they, in some ways they have to do that, right.

1:40:46

They, they predicted this, this, this, this violent crazed fallout, people in Minneapolis and surrounding area were going to react in this way.

1:40:57

They prepared for months for the scenario that they wanted, which is, you know, their, their, their, their opportunity to have the resources to suppress a crowd.

1:41:11

And so when it didn't happen, they kind of had to pretend like it was happening anyway.

1:41:18

That's the sense that I get. Yeah.

1:41:20

And I think it's kind of sad.

1:41:23

And for anybody who's been, who was out in Brooklyn center, you know, I've always had a really good impression of the governor, but I saw the other day, he S or maybe earlier today, time is a flat circle these days.

1:41:38

He said that he believed that if the barricades hadn't gone up in the military, hadn't gone out there that the, that the police precinct in Brooklyn center was going to go up in flames.

1:41:47

I

1:41:47

can't

1:41:47

think

1:41:47

of

1:41:47

a

1:41:50

thing. I, I've never heard an elected official, no matter their party say something so more full of shit than that.

1:41:57

Cause if you're there and I was there and you're reading the room and you're, you're getting the mood of the crowd, you kind of get a sense of, of where things are at.

1:42:06

You literally had activists leaders out there who were, you know, gently urging people to go home.

1:42:17

Most of them did.

1:42:18

I mean, the type of people who themselves you would think would not go home, we're urging people to go home.

1:42:25

I mean, the tone is just, people are mourning, whatever fantasy the governor has about these rabid people who can't control their impulses, who want to burn everything down, it doesn't exist except in his family.

1:42:40

It's usually a reaction to something Level

1:42:43

of provocation. It's almost always that.

1:42:46

I mean, it's pretty, I've only ever seen it be that There's

1:42:50

always going to be bad actors though, whoever sure.

1:42:52

Okay. This is lawless. Like nobody's gonna know, you know, there's not going to be any cops showing up, so we're just gonna go do what we're going do.

1:42:59

Yeah. For sure. Right. You're going to have people who think, okay, cool.

1:43:02

This is an opportunity to go break into the store and steal some stuff that I could, you know, sell later or, or own or whatever.

1:43:10

Right. You're always going to have that, but to pretend like the entire crowd is that, or to just say, Oh, there's no way for us to distinguish.

1:43:16

It's not true.

1:43:17

And you know, I know I generally try to keep a calm, demeanor, but it infuriates me to kind of the know to no end when I see that.

1:43:25

And the, and the rhetorical violence, right.

1:43:27

You're not saying you, you know, you don't see it.

1:43:29

The governor's not seeing what he's articulating.

1:43:32

So he has to sort of implant that image in your mind with his words.

1:43:36

Right. That's all he has because he can't show you that because it doesn't exist.

1:43:40

He has to implant that in your mind with his words.

1:43:42

And, and a lot of, a lot of elected officials govern that way.

1:43:45

And it's just to provide some rhetorical cover when they go ahead and abuse, you know, our neighbors, I

1:43:53

think the part of the challenge or the uphill battle that you're trying to wage is convincing a guy like that, that there's value in doing something different.

1:44:05

Like we've seen the evidence that like, every time you do it this way, this is what happens.

1:44:09

Yeah. But if you're that guy, you're like, well, Maybe

1:44:14

we just need more force. Yeah.

1:44:16

It's like, it's too risky. You know what I mean?

1:44:18

If he's, if he's trying to please his constituents or whoever he is answering to in that regard, it's like, I know if I do this, it might not go so good, but this is what we do.

1:44:28

And so I can try to do something different.

1:44:30

Yeah. I can take comfort in that. Whereas if I go out on a limb and say, we're not going to do any of that, we're going to allow these protesters to like, do their thing.

1:44:38

And I promise you, it's going to be chill and something goes sideways.

1:44:41

And it's like, no, you're head is on a stick.

1:44:44

Sure, sure. I mean, one is, I'm not advocating that when tensions are high, that you do nothing.

1:44:52

Right.

1:44:52

I

1:44:52

do

1:44:52

think

1:44:52

that

1:44:52

when

1:44:52

you

1:44:52

have

1:44:52

folks

1:44:52

like

1:44:52

myself

1:44:52

or

1:44:52

folks,

1:44:52

like,

1:44:52

you

1:44:52

know,

1:44:52

Steve

1:44:52

Fletcher,

1:44:52

Lisa

1:44:52

Bender,

1:44:52

you

1:44:52

know,

1:44:52

there,

1:44:52

these

1:44:52

are

1:44:52

my

1:44:52

colleagues

1:44:52

on

1:44:52

the

1:45:02

council. When you have like a handful of folks advocating that we do it differently.

1:45:08

Right. And we've never done it differently before, but we think that if we all engaged our, our collective imagination and we all engage our comments, our collective common sense that we could probably do something pretty good.

1:45:18

But when you got three, five, seven, nine people, and then you have the governor, the con you know, the commissioner of public safety, the police chief of the city of various cities and the, the, the, the, the Hennepin County sheriff, all saying, we're going to do it this way.

1:45:36

And you're like, okay, I think we should do it differently.

1:45:39

And they're like, well, how you ha like you, we collectively thought of this really abusive response.

1:45:46

And it took all of us, all of our brains together, working together to think of this really abusive response.

1:45:51

But, but the, but the non abusive response, the one that does that isn't rooted in violence.

1:45:55

You've got to come up with that on your own. If we don't like it, we're just gonna tell you, Right.

1:45:58

I mean, that's, that's the criticism that gets hurled at you.

1:46:01

Like, Oh, you want this different way.

1:46:03

Well, show us what that is.

1:46:04

And, you know, you haven't come up with that right.

1:46:06

In specifics. True. And the truth is that in, in a lot of ways I have, right.

1:46:11

When it comes to thinking out this department of public safety and the ways that we should examine safety and, and proceed forward, that I've have thought out when it comes to how you deescalate a crowd that is full of raw emotion, I've got some ideas.

1:46:26

I do think that it would be worthwhile for me to vet those ideas with other smart people and, you know, have my ideas challenged and, and shaped into a plan.

1:46:36

Right. Like, I think that shouldn't Like

1:46:38

an organizational psychologist, or like somebody who understands, like, you know, the appropriate response to, to diffuse tense Emotions.

1:46:50

It should at least involve the governor. Right. It should at least involve the mayor.

1:46:53

Right. And, and, and, and it doesn't involve even those part.

1:46:56

Like, you know, I think the, the, the, the standard is crazy, right?

1:46:59

Like, like they come to get, they, they understand the value of, of collective imagination.

1:47:05

They all worked together to collectively imagine this plan that they're executing, that's going really badly.

1:47:11

Right. But tradition has momentum, but traditional Has

1:47:14

momentum. And the expectation is that if you want to do it differently, that you've got to come up with that on your own.

1:47:19

We did it together. We use the power of collaboration.

1:47:23

Oh. But what you want to collaborate? That's no, that just means that you don't know what you're doing.

1:47:26

And so the standards for the standards are just different and they're, you know, to a ridiculous degree.

1:47:34

Yeah. So who is getting it right? Like, is there a model out there of a city that's executing in a way that you think Minneapolis could aspire to emulate?

1:47:44

I'll be honest with you. I don't know that any city government is getting here.

1:47:47

What about internationally? Like any, any places in Europe or, you know, I mean, their relationship to policing is completely different.

1:47:54

Yeah. It is completely different. They, their gun laws are different, you know, you know, I think that they've built a system that they can sustain.

1:48:00

Right. And, you know, I think there's a whole host of reasons why maybe it would be difficult to copy that.

1:48:07

Right. I do think that, like, when you look at what other cities have done around doing a better job of ensuring housing and addressing homelessness.

1:48:16

Right. And, but it's not just homelessness. Cause, cause the homeless quite frankly, are not the ones out here committing most crimes.

1:48:21

Right. It's people who might be housed, but are financially insecure and, and, you know, and, and, and, and really disenfranchised disenfranchised, and, you know, your, your, your options for them are that they can starve to death or they can go out and try to create a little bit of opportunity for themselves.

1:48:38

And they're opting to live.

1:48:40

Right. Maybe in a way that harms others and that's not okay.

1:48:44

But you also haven't. We also haven't set some people up for success.

1:48:47

I think that, you know, there are some folks who are starting to, I think, you know, I keep using this phrase, ask the question.

1:48:52

It's not like a slogan or anything. I'm just, it's just kind of how the conversation evolved.

1:48:56

But like, I think there are some folks who are asking the right questions, right.

1:48:59

Mayor Myrick in Ithaca, New York is like asking the right questions.

1:49:03

He's actually taking this department of public safety concept.

1:49:06

I don't know that I don't necessarily know that he got it from us, but he, he certainly moving much faster than us in trying to execute something like that.

1:49:15

Right. And, and I certainly think that like, folks, like, you know, it's too bad that like Michael Tubbs, you know, ended up losing his election because, you know, instituting things like, you know, universal, basic income and, and experimenting and figuring out how we can do those kinds of policies.

1:49:31

I think they start to erase some of the reasons that people might engage Creative,

1:49:36

a bedrock, a foundation, right.

1:49:38

You can build upon. Right. But I feel like that was one initiative that has succeeded in becoming a productive part of the national conversation and no small Part

1:49:48

due to Andrew Yang. I mean, he's the one who really should yeah.

1:49:50

On the president of the stage into, into prominence.

1:49:52

And it's now being, you know, reasonably considered in a way that a couple of years ago people thought it was totally great.

1:50:00

Yeah. Right. Right. You know, I think what we're finding with policing is that no response is actually going to amount to safety.

1:50:07

If people are insecure in their housing, insecure in their work, insecure in, you know, how they feed themselves, right.

1:50:16

The system we have can an accident brutality on people who are perceived as committing harm, but often, and acts plenty of brutality on people who aren't even perceived to be committing harms.

1:50:29

It just an Experticity on them.

1:50:30

So I think that a real path is going to have to be a mix of us realizing that housing and you know, how people earn their living and safety are not siloed, you know, subjects no matter.

1:50:44

Right. And that we sort of have to engage these other forms as we change our emergency responses.

1:50:51

And I think that what we're going to find is that for folks who were out there maybe selling drugs or doing whatever kind of thing that, that we might see as harmful to our communities, that now we give them an out and we're not, we don't, they don't have an outright now.

1:51:09

Yeah. And then what we're going to find is that, you know, the person who has, you know, bipolar disorder and they're having an episode or, or whatever, whatever whatever's going on, then if we can admit to ourselves that a cop showing up with a gun, pointing their gun at that person and screaming at them, doesn't actually, Yeah.

1:51:26

It's not productive.

1:51:28

I mean, I think another issue that will like, if this becomes a thing that you'll have to contend with is the difference between conceptualization and execution.

1:51:40

Oh, for sure. Like I'm thinking of child services, for example, the idea of child services is very, well-intentioned like to protect these kids, but then it becomes abused and misused and, you know, kids are getting yanked out of houses that shouldn't get yanked dash.

1:51:58

Like, you know what I mean? Like all sorts of stuff can go haywire with this stuff, right?

1:52:01

The minute you start creating all of these bureaucracies.

1:52:04

But I actually think that it's the, I think that it is our punitive inclination that, that, that actually creates that.

1:52:12

Right. That to me, that starts with, I mean, that is a Well

1:52:15

that's. I mean, you could that traces all the way back to systemic racism in that regard.

1:52:21

Like, what is the intention when you're knocking on that door?

1:52:23

And you're like, what are you expecting to see?

1:52:25

What is your bias going into that situation?

1:52:27

And what are the expectations or your quota or whatever your boss is telling you for sure.

1:52:33

I mean, we've had, you know, I think by and large, you know, people will find that they'd much rather interact with like an EMT or a firefighter than a police officer, but, you know, I've heard from constituents that they feel like they've been by MTS.

1:52:46

Right. And so, you know, when, when w if, if an EMT is showing up to a scene with the mentality of a police officer, if a child protection worker is showing up to that door, knocking on that door with the mentality of a police officer, then you're going to get sort of that punitive.

1:53:02

And if they know they're being dispatched in lieu of police, though, that could lead to that mentality.

1:53:08

I don't know that that's true. Yeah. I don't, I don't, I mean, I'm not saying it's not true.

1:53:11

I just don't, I don't know for sure. Right.

1:53:14

That that would be one of those assumptions that we would have of reason.

1:53:16

And it's not a reason to not try right now.

1:53:20

And it's one of those assumptions that we would have to really vet.

1:53:22

Right. And I mean, we're seeing that like, look, the, the violence interrupters and even put before we had the cause there, the violence interrupters are pretty new.

1:53:30

Even before we had the violence interrupters we had, what's called GVI caseworkers.

1:53:34

This is group violence, intervention caseworkers.

1:53:37

You know, these guys they're, they're not approaching, you know, these are men and women who are approaching their work with that sort of punitive.

1:53:43

Like I got to catch somebody in the act, or I gotta, I gotta, I gotta wag my finger and, and strict discipline, or I gotta, you know, this is not how they approach the work.

1:53:52

Right. And so I think that it's possible to create emergency responses that do that do by and large have the intended outcome that you want right now, you know, anything that you don't put a lot of care into, a lot of investment into is probably not going to function very well.

1:54:14

So we're going to have to make sure that you know, that these are not trends that come and go right.

1:54:19

That, you know, we tried that it worked, but the problem is not as prevalent now.

1:54:26

So we're going to go ahead and give all that money back to the police if that's the outcome then.

1:54:30

Yeah. I mean, we, I think we can pretty much count on these cycles, continuing.

1:54:36

So I'm sitting down with the mayor tomorrow, and I know you guys don't see eye to eye on, on, on everything, but you seem to have, you seem to have a rapport.

1:54:45

Yeah. You guys get along and everything.

1:54:46

What do you think?

1:54:48

Like, what should I ask him?

1:54:50

Like, what would you like me to ask him? What would you like me to hear his answer on?

1:54:57

You know, I think you're going to be better at this stuff than me, but, you know, there is one question I feel like has gone really unanswered.

1:55:05

You know, there was this report by the U of M that talked about the misuse of less lethal rounds throughout the country.

1:55:12

And, but, you know, th the start of their research was here locally.

1:55:15

You know, things like, you know, five-year-olds that had nothing to do, you know, them, their parents, they weren't at the protest there.

1:55:24

You know, we had a firearm struck with a rubber bullet.

1:55:26

Scott hadn't received a skull fracture.

1:55:28

People who are hit with canisters, you know, tear gas, canisters, or, you know, Flashband canisters, right.

1:55:34

That you would have to literally be aiming at their head in order for that to really happen, journalist blinded.

1:55:40

Right. You don't have to ask them the specifics about cases, because these things are all going to get litigated.

1:55:45

But, you know, there was a time during the protest after George flood was killed, where, you know, yeah, the crowns were upset, but the response from the police was excessive.

1:55:56

And I don't think that it could be, it could not be described by any reasonable, reasonable person who was there as anything other than excessive.

1:56:03

And if my memory serves me correctly, it was two days of just excessive police force on protestors before you, before the auto zone went on fire.

1:56:16

Right. And so to me, in my mind, that's two days You

1:56:19

could have, but at that point, there's no chance for deescalation when the AutoZone's on.

1:56:24

No, but you get two days before that.

1:56:27

Yeah. You had two days before that to, to, to address the situation and to do something differently, right.

1:56:33

Instead of pushing these protestors, creating a chaotic situation in which non protestors felt welcomed, and then pushing the crowds back into the businesses that are protected by you, right.

1:56:45

You push them, you literally push them back into the neighborhood and into the businesses that are not protect being protected by you right now.

1:56:51

And so, you know, a lot of folks, when they look at that report, all the misuse, all the excessive violence that happened during the protest, I mean, the state's lawsuit against the city of mania against NPD for a pattern and practice of discrimination is not because of what happened to George Floyd.

1:57:08

It's because of how police acted during the protests.

1:57:11

Right. You know, there there's been this question hanging of like, did the mayor and the chief approve of this conduct, or was the chain of command broken, were rank and file officers going rogue.

1:57:23

And,

1:57:26

And we don't know. And we don't know. And I think that, That

1:57:29

the mayor and the chief have successfully avoided that question.

1:57:31

And quite honestly, they've reaped the benefits of having no answer to that question, because if they maintained full control, but also somehow didn't condone the conduct that occurred well, you know, that, that means that they both made all the right decisions and that they deserve to stay in control of the system.

1:57:54

Right. But there's no political benefit in answering that question.

1:57:57

Sure. But I think that it's, I think that there's a benefit to CA to asking the question, I, I, you know, not that I'm saying, you have to ask them that question Tomorrow,

1:58:04

I'll be a hostile question to ask them, I'm not going to lie, but I got to think about that.

1:58:10

But I do think that, you know, I do think that the, the, the answer to that question matters, not because it would hurt the mayor politically, right.

1:58:19

Or the chief or whatever.

1:58:21

Right. I don't care about that.

1:58:22

But every road to change has to start with an acknowledgement.

1:58:29

Right. And if we cannot have an acknowledgement of what did and didn't occur, then Right.

1:58:37

You gotta have the reckoning. Right.

1:58:39

Right. Right. As, as a, as a starting Point,

1:58:42

right. That being said, though, I feel like his position on police reform, he's not willing to go as far as you would like to go, but he's fully acknowledging that the system is broken.

1:58:57

And he is, it is in significant need of, of dramatic repair While

1:59:02

at the same time, not changing his response to protests, not changing his approach to that broken system.

1:59:09

You know, you can change the wording on the use of force document, which, you know, had been reworked, rewritten pretty well into just in 2016.

1:59:20

Right. You can do some of these things that on paper look totally fine.

1:59:24

They look like the right thing to do.

1:59:27

And then the center erupts, and then just whatever's going to happen.

1:59:31

Yeah. Dump gas on them. Right. If we're not ch you know, you can say this system is deeply broken, but we're going to surround the bill.

1:59:36

We're going to surround all these buildings with, with, with fences and barbed wire.

1:59:40

We're not going to take the time to understand why the crowd reacted the way it reacted.

1:59:46

And we're certainly not going to admit that we played any role in that.

1:59:51

Right. I think one of the most valuable things about, you know, that, that the movie of a trial, the Chicago seven, I brought it up earlier is that, you know, and one of the values of reading Kerner commission, you know, McComb commission, the commission on race relations, the Illinois commission on race relations from 1919.

2:00:07

One of the values that you get is that, you know, when you vet history, a lot of the major riots once studied, are determined to have been started by the police.

2:00:21

Well, they, yeah. I mean, that movie does a great job of showing how that all came to be.

2:00:25

And it's, it's just history repeating itself and repeating itself.

2:00:30

Right. And so you say there's a problem, but then when you see the problem, and we say like this, like, this is the problem you got, no, Nope.

2:00:39

This is now we're going to keep doing it this way.

2:00:42

I think that, that is, you know, I, I think that it's caused problems.

2:00:46

And after the death of Jamar Clark, that was sort of when this initial wave that we're now re you know, sort of remixing this initial wave of reforms, you know, rewriting the use of force and deescalation, all that stuff.

2:01:00

That

2:01:00

initial

2:01:00

wave

2:01:00

came

2:01:00

came

2:01:04

then. Right. We did all the stuff that we were supposed to do.

2:01:06

The city did, I wasn't in office, but like the city did all the stuff was supposed to do about with Brooke, with regards to reform then.

2:01:13

Right. And it was like, here we go again, here we go again.

2:01:17

Right. And, and we're, and we're rewriting the same.

2:01:19

We're taking the same documents that we rewrote in 16, and we're rewriting them now, you know, different mayor, different chief.

2:01:27

But, and, and I think that, that's the one thing that I wish the mayor and the chief would understand is that admitting the failures of this current asking the questions, demanding some real change is not a reflection of them because they didn't build this, but they are, you know, sort of, they have invested in the maintenance of it.

2:01:54

And I believe that they shouldn't be.

2:01:57

Yeah, no, it's interesting. I mean, it's a valid point.

2:01:59

It's, it's, it's certainly not, I mean, it's politically verboten let alone expedient right.

2:02:07

To admit that. But I do think like I'm a huge believer in the power of vulnerability.

2:02:14

And I think that level of honesty to like own, you know, do an inventory and actually own, you know, your side of the street and how that contributed to what transpired just in gender so much trust.

2:02:26

Ultimately you have to play the long game.

2:02:30

Right. And if you're a politician, you're always looking at the next election cycle, but if you can broaden that to the right.

2:02:36

Yeah. Michael 30,

2:02:38

right. I'm 31. I was like, I was like, man, this guy's younger than me, but, Well,

2:02:42

Michael Tubbs is, are you the youngest city council member currently currently Change

2:02:47

next, next, next election cycle? I think so good.

2:02:49

Some good young folks are gonna win, but like, but yeah, I'm currently the youngest and like, you know, he Rose to mayor and I think in, in the city that he lived in and I think it could be easy, but I think it'd be a mistake to say like, Oh, this is a quick rise and fall.

2:03:06

Right guys, 30, it's got the rest of his life to make an impact.

2:03:10

And like, from everything I've seen from him, he's going to right.

2:03:13

I think that if I had to lose an election, because I advocated for a homeless shelter, for example, I could live with that if I had to lose an election, because I fought for more affordable housing, because I fought to create a system that actually kept people safe, more safe than the one now.

2:03:32

Right. If I had to lose an election for those reasons, like, so be it, I can live with that forever.

2:03:38

I'll go back to paint murals.

2:03:40

Right. You know, some of us are lucky enough to be incredibly young in this job.

2:03:48

And if we had to lose an election, because we did the right thing in a moment that demanded that we do the right thing and like, what's the real loss, right.

2:04:01

Well, yeah. The arc of history bends towards justice, like ultimately in, you know, that is playing the long game because, you know, you'll find yourself in some other situation where you'll be fine.

2:04:15

Yeah. Or get reelected or, or whatever.

2:04:18

Right. But what does it look like for you?

2:04:20

Are you in you in this, for the, like, what's, what's it look like 10 years from now?

2:04:23

Or are you in this game for good?

2:04:25

I, you know, I think it's really important that I play the role of I'm being asked to play by my community right now.

2:04:31

I think, you know, Such

2:04:33

politician answer, I I'll put it this way, thinking About

2:04:38

that. I'm just thinking about, I mean, I'll put it this way.

2:04:41

I mean, I came into this, I got to like When I was 27.

2:04:44

Yeah. And I don't plan on doing this job till I'm 77.

2:04:46

I think that there's some real interesting things that I've been able to create in the last three plus years.

2:04:53

And I think there's some real interesting things, you know, and I'm not just talking about public safety, I'm talking about economic development.

2:04:58

I mean, you know, for years, people in North Minneapolis have talked about, okay, in the black community, number one issue is access to capital.

2:05:04

And I created this fund that gave folks access to capital and I'm seeing small businesses buy their buildings.

2:05:09

So now there's ownership within the community set of landlords who live on the other side of town Sometimes

2:05:14

not even in the S in the country.

2:05:17

Right. And so, and so, like, I feel like I'm really getting some things, right.

2:05:23

Cause I'm willing to dig into the weeds and I'm willing to respect, you know, the, the expertise of some of our staff and at the same time learn what they know and try to push them as best as I can.

2:05:32

Right. To do better on housing, to do better on this, to, to, to create these, these interesting things.

2:05:36

But I am a firm believer that when your time is up, it's better to, you know, sort of relinquish the mic than to have it snatched from you.

2:05:44

And so, you know, I think that if I'm not looking around my community and saying, you know, who are all the brilliant people that I know could do this job right?

2:05:53

Who are all those people, but they would never do it because nobody ever told them that they could be a city council member.

2:05:59

Right. Like, you know, they would never do it because nobody ever asked them.

2:06:02

Right. People always ask like, no offense to attorneys.

2:06:04

I blood-related to a bunch of people always ask like the businessman or the attorney to run for office.

2:06:09

Right. They're not asking the artists that I asked them to use work, or they're not asking the sanitation engineer who probably knows more about problems in the city, you know, than, than anybody else.

2:06:17

Right. And so like, to me, you know, a part of my job is to look around me, look at my surroundings and say, who else could do this job and serve their community.

2:06:27

Whether they're older than me younger than me, doesn't matter.

2:06:30

I think one of the things that we fail to do, and I guess the, we here is I'm talking about, you know, you know, young progressives and progressive electives and maybe electeds in general is that we don't invest in, in people's leadership.

2:06:44

Right. We sort of just like allow leadership to manifest in whatever way.

2:06:48

And then we, and then we, you know, sort of hit the lottery and you know, maybe this person, right.

2:06:54

Well, it's, it's, it's a lot easier and a lot more fun to just criticize politics.

2:06:57

That's for sure.

2:06:59

You know, I, yeah, for sure. And that's fine. You're going to be criticized.

2:07:02

Right. I hope whoever, I hope, whatever, you know, young leaders that I, I I'm investing in.

2:07:09

I hope that the one thing I can pass on to them is, is, is to have really thick skin.

2:07:15

A lot of people have done this job badly.

2:07:19

Right. A lot of people have caused harm in these positions.

2:07:23

Right. There's several council members, even who like, you know, you still see them around town who like, you know, they left office cause they took bribes.

2:07:29

Right. A lot of people have caused Harms

2:07:31

in these positions have caused harm in this, in these positions.

2:07:33

And so, and so you better have to skin because you know, your neighbors deserve at least that, you know?

2:07:40

So, so yeah.

2:07:42

I don't know how long I'll do this. I, I, I feel a lot of purpose in this work and I feel pretty good at it.

2:07:50

I don't know that I enjoy it, But

2:07:53

I mean, look, man, it feels like you got a pretty good grip on it, but I think you're in the right lane.

2:07:59

I'm sure you're itching to pick up a paintbrush.

2:08:02

Yeah. I don't know if you still do that in your free time or if you have any free time.

2:08:06

I mean, if you were going to, if you were, if you could do a mural right now, what would you like?

2:08:10

What would that look like? W what would that mural be?

2:08:14

Oh man. Right this second I've I would probably want to do something that had nothing to do with any of this.

2:08:20

I probably wouldn't want to just paint like a huge, like silver surfer, like, like on the side of a building And

2:08:26

just like, is that your guy?

2:08:28

I love silver surfer. I think that, I think, I think he's great.

2:08:30

One of my favorite favorite comics, but you know, I'd probably want to, you know, I'm not even sure if I'd have the energy to paint a mural right now, you know, it could be pretty physically.

2:08:38

I never quite realized how physically involved mural making was, but you know, you build a scaffolding every day and you're climbing this thing and climbing down and days are usually hot in Minnesota.

2:08:48

The days can be really tend to be pretty hot.

2:08:50

So I'm like, I don't even know if I'd have the energy to pay me.

2:08:52

All right. Now It's not hot out.

2:08:55

That's funny. Cause I would've thought, Oh, you'd have this perfectly grafted like idea of this political politically charged mural that, you know, you'd want to go paint down it.

2:09:05

Jewish white square. Well, what I would want to do right now, I, you know, I, I would, I probably could write a pretty good season of Fargo.

2:09:13

Oh yeah.

2:09:13

Like

2:09:13

given

2:09:13

it's

2:09:13

hard

2:09:13

to

2:09:13

not

2:09:13

visit

2:09:13

here

2:09:13

and

2:09:13

not

2:09:13

think

2:09:13

about,

2:09:13

I

2:09:13

actually

2:09:13

just

2:09:13

watched

2:09:13

that

2:09:13

movie

2:09:13

like

2:09:13

two

2:09:13

weeks

2:09:22

ago. I couldn't see the show at all. Yeah. The show is pretty good.

2:09:24

It's good. Good. Yeah.

2:09:27

Christo. The latest season with Chris rock.

2:09:32

Yeah. That was really good season. Two's probably still just like the best, but they're also different.

2:09:38

Yeah. They're all really different, but it's all the same vibe.

2:09:40

Yeah. I wouldn't have time to do it, but yeah. I could probably write a pretty good season of Fargo.

2:09:44

Alright. Well good man. Good talking to you.

2:09:47

Yeah. Thank you. How do you feel? All right.

2:09:48

You gotta get some food and You, yeah. I'm gonna go eat some water.

2:09:51

I think a couple of days.

2:09:52

cool,

2:09:56

man. I appreciate you talking to me. Yeah.

2:09:58

Best of luck in your sales.

2:10:01

Thanks. Peace Lance.

2:10:02

Thanks

2:10:02

for

2:10:02

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2:10:02

everybody

2:10:02

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Peace I think that we have these kind of preset narratives about a place, about people, and you know, we have that in policy and politics as well. Right? I think a lot folks have tried to squeeze this conversation Daunte, like, you either think that people's safety is a priority and you want more police or you think we live in a utopia and you don't think we need police. Right? Like, that's been the binary of this conversation. When, like, that's not the truth. And, you know, I don't fault people. It is incredibly difficult to tell. The truth when you have these preset narratives and the truth isn't fitting into any of them. You you know, people feel like you're not really making sense. My whole goal, especially in this moment, is to make sure that I'm telling the truth. Right? And the truth is that we do need to have a conversation about how we keep each other safe as neighbors. I think that if there were more opportunities for folks to engage in a more long form conversation, that's how we're actually gonna cook up a solution. That's Jeremiah Ellison. And this is the Retrol podcast. Daunte rich role podcast. Hey, everybody. Welcome to the podcast. So today's gonna be a little bit different. As some of you may know, I spent the week of April thirteen in Minneapolis, a very tenths Minneapolis. And I think it's fair to say it was a rather historic and and personally a very moving week in which the eyes of the world for witness to both the death of Dante Wright and the tail end of the Derek Chauvin trial. And it was also a week in which the world was grappling with what these events mean, what they portend not just for the current and future of Minneapolis, but for the civil rights momentAs, for the broader relationship between governments, power in general, and citizenship in our country at large. And the reason for this trip, the motivation behind it, the intention, the goal, was to better understand the circumstances that led to consume this citynot in many ways, the nation, not from what I read or saw streaming endlessly on cable news, but rather from a firsthand perspective, a boots on the ground experiencebased at the same time meaningful nuanced conversations with civic leaders of Minneapolis about the important issues the citynot its citizens are grappling with from police misconduct and public safety reform to civil unrest. And of course, the role social activism has played in all of this. So, that is what today's conversation with Jeremiah Ellison is all about. The first in a series of Minneapolis themed episodes that I will be releasing over the coming weeks. As both an activist and elected official, Jeremiah represents ward five on the Minneapolis Citynot Council where he sits at the vortex, the intersection of the many challenging and complicated issues that concern his community. And from the start, this is a guy who's been one of the leading and most prominent voices calling for the overhaul and reimagination of public safety. There There are a few important things I want to add before we dive in, but first we're brought to you today, but boll and branch, taking your sleep experience to the next level in comfort and sustainability, you guys probably know I'm all about ethical product optimization from food to everyday are a few important things I want to add before we dive in. But first, we're brought to you today by Bolen Branch taking your sleeping experience to the next level in comfort and sustainability. You guys probably know, I'm all about ethical product optimization, from food to everyday essentials. 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Go to C a L m.com/rich roll for 40% off unlimited access to comm's entire Go to CALM dot com slash richroll for forty percent off unlimited access to Calm's entire library. That's calm.com/rich That's calm dot com slash rich roll. Okay, Jeremiah Ellison. So I should point out that this trip came to be through many conversations with my friend, Brogan Graham. One of the co founders of November project who you may recall from episode two seventy seven of the podcast way back in the day, and who as a resident of Minneapolis was keeping me apprised of the temperature and going on there and suggested that I come out and see it for myself. I have done plenty of podcasts on the road over the years, but this particular situation presented a unique set of circumstances to experiment with expanding the scope of of what this show has traditionally focused on, which is evergreen conversations, and instead pursue a sort of investigative journalism perspective on an important current event unfolding in real time. Brogan did not need to implore me to come. I immediately jumped on it as an opportunity to try something new with the podcast, an opportunity to grow, an opportunity to learn and share to the best of my ability my sense of all of it. So that's the backdrop. As for Jeremiah, he's a guy who was at the very top of mind list of people to host. And one of the many interesting things about this guy is that on the one hand, he's a very unlikely politiciannbspJeremiah leader because in addition to being quite young at heart, this guy is really an artist. He paints Street murals. He pens comic books. He's really into the silver surfer and Batman. But on the other hand, he is the son of six term congressman, Keith Ellison, who is now the attorney general for the state of Minnesota. And the man who was in charge of the Chauvin prosecution. So you can easily also make the argument that Jeremiah was actually born for the role he currently newsbut. My week in Minneapolis was extraordinary. There were so many There were so many experiences I will never forget. I learned a ton. I'll be sharing much more about it on the next roll on episode and other content that currently working on. And I'm I'm better for the trip, and Jeremiah actually has a lot to do with that. I'm grateful, but he took the time to share his truth and for his trust and my ability to share it with all of you. And the result of our time spent together produced what I believe to be a rather powerful exchange. My only ask is that you welcome him and his testimony with an open mind and an open heart. So here we go. This is me and Jeremiah Ellison. Once again, man, I appreciate you doing this. Yeah. I appreciate the appreciate the invite. It's almost nine o'clock at night. Usually, I do these in, like, noon. I'm just waiting. I keep I know I'm, like, hope my energy I could keep it going. But the reason we're doing it at night is because we're well, Ramadan just kicked off. So you're fastening -- Yeah. -- just broke your fast. The meal was the meal called it. The meal Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So I I broke fast just real quickly because I knew I needed to make it over here, but, like, Yeah. Two dates, two oranges, like, half a gallon of water. That's not Yeah. Because you can't drink you don't drink water. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Like, I'll have, like, alcohol, and I'll eat again after this, but I'm, like, I'm, like, I can't, like, cook. Right? You I have like a big food coma right before you come over here like, a big food com or recipe to come over here too. Have you been doing that your whole life? Yeah. Yep. Yep. I can't remember how young I was when I started, you know, I I wasn't five. Like, some, you know, some some kids in the faith. They're like, we'll start that young. Right. I don't think I was that young, but definitely like middle school, high school. Right? Mhmm. Right? It's cool, man. I like the tradition. Part of the tradition is Well, it's about is it not about kind of self reflection, like introspection -- Yeah. -- and, like, humility which are all interesting kind of states of mind as we're in this crazy moment here in your city. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, you know, I feel like for a long time, Robin on for me was just fasting. Like, it was just a hunger. You get to when you're young, especially, you're gonna fix it on the not eating part because not eating as sex, you know, for a whole month. And, you know, somewhere in my early twenties, I had, like, I don't have to describe like, the the end of round on, like, I just felt something different. Like, I just felt, like, I was taking it on differently it was no longer just about, like, an exercise of, like, you know, you know, this this you you can turn fastening into sport. Right? Like, can I get through day? Right? Yeah. And, and so yeah, the humility, you know, fasting from, from anger and some of these intangible things are like really become the And and so, yeah, the the humility, you know, fasting from from anger and some of these intangible things aren't like really become the goal. They really become -- Uh-huh. -- the focus for me. And the food part is like it's it helps, you know, it helps direct direct that, but it's not the point. Right. Your your purging, you're you're detoxifying yourself of these negative emotional states. Mhmm. And it's a spiritual act, you know, sort of journey that you go on for a month. Right? That -- Mhmm. -- that kind of squarely places you in a deeper connection with yourself. Yeah. For sure. And it's communal. You know? Like, it's not even can feel deeply individual, you you know. But but the practice is community. You got millions of people all over the world, but then even more immediately, you know, that you've got, like, neighbors down the street, like, the there's a mass shit on the other side of the block from where I live. It's not the one I go to, but you know, it's always kind of fun to see like, you know, folks gathering together to, to break It's not the one I go to, but, you know, it's always kinda fun to see. Right. You know, folks gathering together to to break fast, do iftar together. Some people spend all all night, you know -- Mhmm. -- and the mustard preChauvin Daunte it can be pretty cool. And what happens? So, like, May fifteenth, as the end Right. So what happens when you finally what happens when you finally concluded? Yeah. I mean, usually, I don't know what we'll do. I did get my second vaccine shot. So I'll have to see where families at. And if everyone in the family's got my sister's gotten it. My brother's a nurse, so he's gotten it I think most of us are might be fully vaccinated by eating and converts. So hopefully we can do it together. Right. Yeah. So Well, you you have a fascinating story. The more I kind of dive into everything that you're about, the more interested I become, and you're a bit of a conundrum because on the one hand, you're just such an unlikely politiciannbspJeremiah a street artist, your comic book artists. Mhmm. I wanna see your comic book art. You didn't bring any comic No. I didn't bring anything. Let me know. So on that level, like, how does this make sense? And yet as the son of your father, Keith, six term, congressman -- Mhmm. -- now it attorney general and kind of leading the prosecutorial team in the Chauvin trial. It's like, of course -- Mhmm. -- you're doing this. It's like you're following in your father's footsteps in your own unique way, bringing your own kind of in perimeter to what it is that you It's like you're following in your father's footsteps. In your own unique way, bringing your own kind of imprimiter to to what it is that you do. But how do you think about this? It's like you didn't show in a in a in a tie. You know, you got a beanie on. You're rockin' the tats. You know? You're a man of the people. But you're you're you're first and foremost in artists. Yeah. I, I like to think so, you know, I have been painting and drawing my entire I like to think so. You know, I have been painting and drawing my entire life. You know, if my dad were here, he would talk about you know, that my parents are trying to figure out how to channel my my artistic impulses because, you know, we I grew up in this old house and the wallpaper would peel back. And so I was just like the kid that's like, okay, I'm gonna peel the wallpaper back, draw something little, and put back I feel like the way that I came into art and and and my practice in general, especially mural painting, you know, it really connects. It it it really overlaps with way that I govern in a really important way. Mhmm. No. I'll I'll say this quick story. But when I was eight years old, I got involved with this organization called juxtaposition Arts. And Roger Cummings and Payton Russell were my art instructors back then. And I showed up to the first day of mural painting eight years old. I'm really excited. The next youngest person's fourteen. Yeah. So I'm the youngest person there. really excited to paint this mural. I'm thinking, okay. I'm gonna get my hand on a spray can. They had spent all winter making me do still lives, you know, so I could do the bay and get to the basics and I might not wanna be my feedieitis. And and so I show up and I'm ready to paint and Rogers, like, hands me a notepad and a pen and he's like, okay, I want you to walk, you know, three blocks that way and walk three blocks in the direction and everybody you talk to who lives in the area. I don't care what they're don't care what they're doing. Just ask them what kind of thing they wanna see on the wall. Mhmm. That doesn't mean we're gonna necessarily gonna paint it, but know, when you are gonna make public art, you've gotta engage the public. That's the that's the lesson. Yeah. I was learning that at eight you know, I think every neural process I ever had incorporated some kind of community feedback. Mhmm. And even once you started painting, you know, especially when I get older, people walk by and they would say, like, you know, that's whack. Like, I don't like I don't like how that looks, you know, or they would say, hey, this I'm I'm interested to see how you finish, or they give you compliments, like, the community engages, especially on the north side of Minneapolis. The community is gonna engage. They're gonna tell you if they don't like it. Right. gonna tell you if they like it. And really what they're telling you is in a roundabout way is whether or not you engage them. So yeah, that's a huge life skill and a cornerstone of being an effective Yeah. That's a huge life skill and a cornerstone of being an effective politician. Right? You have to go into the community, meet these people, meet them where they're at Mhmm. -- and try to develop some consensus around your Like, you might think, this is what I wanna do. They don't want it. How much are you willing to bend and compromise? How can you get them on board with what you wanna do? Like, all of these are the skills that come into play every minute of your day now, I would imagine. Yeah, no, No. Absolutely. And an outreach can be tough, especially as local elected. You're you're battling, you know, the fact that especially in my seat. Mhmm. There's this legacy of not engaging with folks. And so that means that, you know, the level of people who think to call their their council member when they're having an issue is relatively low. And so when I go to try to you know, turn that up. I want people, you know, might be a little bit weird, but I want people complaining to my office. Mhmm. Right? Like, that's how I'm gonna be effective in my role. But it can be tough, right, to to to get that level of input. I think we've done a pretty good job so far. And you're absolutely right. Sometimes people aren't quite there with you. right. They're not seeing what you're seeing and does present its own kind of like question, They're not seeing what you're seeing. And that does present its own kind of like question. Right? You can't leave your constituents behind. Mhmm. It's just not it's not the right thing to do. But you also can't just say, do the wrong thing, make the wrong decision -- Mhmm. -- because you think it'll be on dealer with your constituents. Mhmm. And that that that's where you kind of create that that where you have that tension. Right. Yeah. Well, globally or kind of in a macro context, people are so, you know, kind of, you know, disappears of any idea that their politicians have their interest at heart. You know, they're bought and paid for by special interest groups, and they're just looking to get reelected, and they're gonna pander to their base and anything else is just a mere distraction beyond fundraising. Right? But you're a guy who kind of was hoisted into the public eye by dint of the activist work that you did, in particular, that one kind of viral photograph -- Mhmm. -- with your hands up and the rifle in your face from the cops. That was Jamal Clark. Jamal. Jamal. Right? Yes. Sorry. In, like, two thousand fifteen. Right? Mhmm. Yeah. So this kind of, you know, becomes not really a calling card, but it becomes kind of emblazoned in people's minds that you're man of people. Right? Yeah. But you become an elected official, there's a blurring line between activism and kind of affecting responsible political change. Right? Like, how I'm interested in, like, how that works? Like, Where does stand? And where does the elected official begin? Do those things kind of merge together? Or do you have to think of them as, as like separate Or do you have to think of them as as like separate identities? I think you have to be honest with yourself about what this job can do to people. Even if they have good intentions. Right. Mhmm. And if you're honest about which to be clear, I think usually when from my folks are maybe being called, like, a sellout. Right? Like, that term or or or that process of going from being, you know, okay, I came in with all these ideals and now maybe I'm a little bit I've I've moved into this other category where people aren't really feeling me. I think that that happens because of exhaustion, and it happens to people because they think it can't happen to them. You know? And so for me, it's about keeping perspective. And not taking some of that some of the some of that anger that people might have towards me constituents or activists or whoever not taking it personal because I know that there have been people whether in my immediate seat or just in elected office before who have earned a lot of the bad will that people have for politicians. Right? Yeah. So you have to double down on the transparency and the outreach and boots on the ground, in the to double down on the transparency and the outreach and I think it's on the ground and the community. And I think that you also have to, in in a way, figure out how to be vulnerable. How you know, it's it's not it's not a quality that's rewarded in this position. Right? And there are ways to be, sort of, faux vulnerable -- Right. -- like, I don't know, crying in public. Right. And there are ways formative -- Right. -- on social media. Right? oversharing. Yeah, yeah, Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. And then there are ways where where to be vulnerable that can earn some good trust in their real. May not look vulnerable on their face. Right? Mhmm. You know, there have been times where I have thought something was needed in my community, like a couple of months ago, I was advocating for women's homeless shelter, and the neighbors were like, accounts member hell no. We don't want a homeless shelter here. And, you know, ultimately, you know, I was I I it didn't prevail. Right? Mhmm. As much as I wanted it to. I had public meetings where I was just, oh my god. I was just blasted at these meetings, not in my backyard. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And and people with some legitimate fear. Right? Like, I think people have been fed in lot of gross narratives about homeless people. And it's not my job to judge them for having consumed those messages, but it is my job to maybe do some political education and try to help them unlearn some of those messages. And so when I'm looking at somebody who's using criminalizing language for homeless people, I disagree with them. I gotta work to make sure that I'm winning and not newsbut but I don't judge them. Right. I don't dismiss them because know in some ways, like, what they want and what I want and what that person who's living out on the street wants is probably pretty similar. Mhmm. They've just got it. They walk into the conversation with a lot preconceived notions. Mhmm. Now some of the people who were standing against me in that meeting, I thought, you know, I've lost this person's support. Right? Mhmm. Not only did I lose this person's support, I I also, you know, some of the other elected who were in the room were looked around, saw me getting yelled at and thought, oh, I'm not gonna support it because I don't be in his position. Yeah. And and then had blosing. It it Th that shelter thing you've that sheltered thing you've built. Mhmm. And so and so it's kind of a setback, but you've got folks who stood against at the time, who have reached back out to say, you know, actually, I see what you were doing there. You have folks who were in the back of the crowd, maybe seeing me get heckled and, you know, they're just everyday people. They don't wanna be heckled themselves, but they agreed with me. Yeah. And those are the kinds of things that that can happen when you're willing to, you know, go out on a limb when you're not operating in that mode of what's gonna get me liked in this moment. Right? So your your district is ward five. Uh-huh. It's eighty two percent people of color, yeah, and something like forty percent of the population is below the poverty line. Yeah. So this is the, you know, kind of modest from what you're operating and the people on behalf of whom you're you're advocating for. Mhmm. It's interesting that even then there's there's blind spots like you're trying to champion the underdog. But these other underdogs are like, hey, what about me? Like, it just gets complicated. It does get complicated. I think that's why you know, I think that's why that, like, the only thing term I could think of is political ad. Like, political education is just really important. It can't happen if you're dismissing people. It can't happen if you're condescending people. People are pretty smart, but they are also a lot of things on top of that. Right? People might be afraid any given moment. People might have not wrestled with their biases. Right? All these things can occur. Yeah. And so, you know, I think that's how you you can find yourself in a position like that. And I know for some of those folks, they thought they're they're thinking, well, yeah, I'm I'm poor. Right? And this guy, you know, meaning me, wants to quote unquote dump more -- Mhmm. -- poor people in my neighborhood. In a limited amount of resources into a program that doesn't benefit my lives. Right. Right. You know? You know, it's a scarcity mindset. You know, my mindset is, you know, you you're greeted when you arrive. You're given what you're needed. Right? And and I'm always gonna have that attitude. Mhmm. And so and so I'll continue to make sure, you know, make sure that we're doing our fair share and building shelters, but, you know, I can I can disagree while while empathizing? With someone who might be advocating for a position that I can't I can't stand on. Yeah. Well, that's your job. Right? Yeah. You're constantly dealing with people that don't see things you do. Yeah. I mean, you're you're, like, in the shit right now. Like, you're in the crosshairs. The entire world is paying attention to what's happening in Minneapolis right now. I would imagine that that must feel at times burdensome to carry that kind of level of responsibility. And, you know, on the subject of political education and boots on the ground, I mean, that's my motivation in coming here, like everybody else, I've been watching what's been going on here over the last year. This feels like a very important historic moment. We're at a sort of crossroads, I think. With what's going on in the And there's what's gonna happen with the verdict and how is Minneapolis gonna move forward or not from newsbut I think also because everybody's paying such close attention, the ripple effect in terms of like how we're going to function as a nation and even across the world, I think, has profound implications. Right? And I just wanted to share with you yesterday you know, as somebody who thought they were paying fairly close attention to what was happening here. I haven't been here before, I mean, the last time I visited Minneapolis, was a kid, and we went to George Floyd's Square yesterday -- Mhmm. -- and in my mind as like this progressive, you know, conscious I thought I knew what you expect -- Mhmm. -- and it defied all of that. Like, all of that went out the window. Is soon as I arrived there and it was nothing like what I thought it would be from the setting to the neighborhood to the visceral experience of of being in what is really a living breathing not just memorial, but but museum, grieving place -- Mhmm. -- gathering spot. Like, it's so many things. You can't define it as any one thing. And I was not expecting to be as moved as I was by it or as welcomed as I was. We had a great encounter with the Agape folks -- Mhmm. -- you know, that group -- Mhmm. -- who then we were we'd spent, like, an hour there then we were getting ready to leave. And they were like, hey, what are you guys doing? And then they ended up like giving us a VIP tour. And it was incredible, man. And and, you know, I had a hard time sleeping last night. was so moved by it. And what it did beyond just that experience in and of itself was remind me of not just my own biases, but how when I think I know something, I really don't know. Like, there's always room to expand and to grow and to learn. And I left that realizing how little I actually was connected to what was happening here. And just kind of there's something about the heaviness of it all, like you can feel the emotion of everybody that's in that space. And so I don't know if I'm this is leading to a question. It's more like an observation, like a context in which I'm coming to you today. As somebody who, you know, is grappling in the political sphere with these issues. How do you, you know, think about how you communicate when you go on Chris Hayes or CBS News and all these kind of things that you've been doing lately. Mhmm. I think that we have these kind of preset narratives about, about a place about I think that we have these kind of preset narratives about about a place, about people, and you know, we have that in policy and politics as well. Right? I think a lot folks have tried to squeeze this conversation Daunte, like, you either think that people's safety is a priority and you want more police -- Mhmm. -- or you think we live in a utopia and you don't think we need police. Right? Like, that's been the binary of this conversation. When, like, that's not truth. And, you know, I don't fault people. It is incredibly difficult to tell the truth when you have these preset narratives and the truth isn't fitting into any of them. Mhmm. You you you know, people feel like you're not really making sense. My whole goal, especially in this moment, is to make sure that I'm telling the truth. Right? And the truth is that we do need to have a conversation about how we keep each other safe as neighbors, as Daunte. And that the police are not the only means for which we can do that. You can have both conversation. You can acknowledge that keeping people safe is a priority. Without having to sort of dive into these preset narratives about -- Right. -- here we go. Again, we're gonna do the same thing we've always And what we getting the same result -- Yeah. -- like the definition of insanity. So today, we you know, there's just so people understand, like, we're in downtown Minneapolis right now -- Mhmm. -- national guards everywhere. Vies all over the place -- Yeah. -- you know, guys in uniform, that alarm went off twice. I don't know what that was about. It looks like a pre it's a preset. It was sure to work. Yeah. it goes off, like, we're used to, like, it goes off every, like, first Wednesday or whatever. But this one was also a test I was told, but it's obviously, it's not Wednesday, so a lot of people were like, what is going on? Right. Yeah. III think to your point about George Floyd Square is that if you are somebody else from out of town told me that that they were just surprised by how residential and low to the ground, the whole space was because we Right. I I imagined, like, more a much more urban place lots of stores, lots of foot traffic. Yeah. It's not a suburb, but it's not really the city either. Yeah. It's actually used a lot of nice houses around there. Yeah. And it just was nothing like what I had envisioned in my mind in. And was walking around believing that what I believed was true for no reason at all because all I had seen were images or quick little video clips. Even the iconic mural I was like, wow. It's so small. It's like I thought it was like, you know, four stories there or something. Yeah. No. It's it's it's it's it's it's much more grounded, you know, it's it's it's it's citynot this this large scale. You know, I think that community members that I've talked to will tell you, like, yeah, there's there's always been an element of, like, violent crime in this area -- Right. -- well before the barricades It certainly existed. I think that story isn't as well told as it should be. It's all about kind of what happened, you know, last year and over the last couple Locally, I think that there's tried to be a narrative. There has there there have been a few who have tried to push this narrative that they're, like, the place is overrunning with just It's just rampant violence every day. It's all despair. You know, that's been the narrative because there are folks who wanna remove the barricades. And I'm not saying we can't have conversation about whether or not we remove the barricades. I don't represent the area. It's virtually on the opposite side of town from where I represent. I do think that it it simplifies sort of this narrative. Right? It's either you know, it's it's either a healing space or it's or it's hell on earth. Right. Right. And the truth is that, like, it's neither and we should probably be be deferring to the people who are there every day not just sort of creating a little echo chamber of people who are telling us what we wanna hear. Right? Like, I can't just go down there. I'm I'm inclined to listen to the activists and the folks who are sleeping out there. Right? Right. I can't ignore the businesses who are saying hey, this is hard for us. Right. But you also can't go down there. Talk to the businesses who are just saying, hey, this is hard for us and ignore all the people who have said hey, this is a space where we feel like we can, you know, access some of our power. Yeah. Like, I think that you've gotta be able to hold some multiple truths. And and and I think that leaders in the state have really struggled to hold. Yeah. For people that don't know, The square is like, I don't know, it's essentially like a like little bit more than a city block. And within the the parameters of George Floyd's Square, our business that are closed down right now. So, obviously, those business owners would like to reopen. Mhmm. The community would prefer that they don't. Mhmm. And everybody's got a valid point view on that. And it's super And it's super sensitive. Yeah. Absolutely. You know? And there's even some of the businesses within there I'm not I'm not gonna remember the name, but there's a woman who has, like, a hair and nail place, and she's, like, it's fine. Right? You got folks who have food services and it's it's a little harder to move your food. Right. Like it's, you know, so it's Right? Like it's you know, so it's but cup foods is a that's like one thing and so. Oh my god. Yeah. Yeah. Cup. I I it's a it's one of the it's it's high level of resilience. Yeah. And, you know, corner stores like it. You know, I kind of have a weird, like, you know, appreciation for those for those kinds of lots. I grew up like mostly going to corner stores. You know, we've got this, you know, people call it a food desert, I think, you know, I've heard the term food apartheid. I think there's probably more appropriate in North Minneapolis as well. And as much as these corner stores, their ownership, the way they operate. It can be problematic, but also they occupy space and provide fresh you know, food, you know, they have at least the option for fresh food in places where, you know, grocery stores have have largely abandoned. Yeah. There's no grocery stores. Mhmm. And that drives it just creates a vicious cycle because that feeds the, you know, the lack of health and the community then, of course, leads to all these lifestyle diseases that make you, you know, susceptible to everything from COVID, to diabetes, to heart disease. Mhmm. So, I mean, you see George Floyd. Guys, like, Jack, you know, looked but the autopsy revealed he had heart disease he had pretty bad heart disease at the same time too. So, that, I look at that, and I'm like, well, that's purely a function of food apartheid -- Mhmm. -- know, and living in you know, coming up in a space like that. Yeah. So it's April 15th So it's April fifteenth today, and the defense rested its case -- Mhmm. -- in the show of in trial. Monday, there's gonna be closing arguments. It's gonna go to the jury. Yep. How are you, like, feeling about all this? Like, what's your sense of how this is gonna play out? Yeah. You know, when you're you know, folks know my dad as an attorney. Yeah. But folks might not know, like, I've got you know, uncles, cousins, my my older brother, all attorneys. Right? think when you get raised in that kind of environment around a lot of people who study and practice law, think the the one thing you learn is to try not to be too overly prescriptive of what a jury's gonna do. Mhmm. And so you know, I've I've followed case. I've tried not to obsess in hyper vigilant about following the case because I know that at the end of the day, you know, we don't have control over the outcome out here. You know, I'm I'm interested. You know, I've got a you know, I think in literal sense, I have no proximity to the case, but obviously, I have, you know, people imagine some Ximedy because of it. Cause my dad's, I mean, what is, what is his because my dad's Yeah. I mean, what is his What what is his role specifically? I mean, he's sort of in charge of leading the yeah. I think prosecution team. Yeah. And I think, you know, his role, I think, is to is to make sure that he's got good people in charge. You know, Jerry Blackwell is probably gonna be pretty well known when this is all said and Daunte. And And, you know, I I like to think my dad is a pretty good trial lawyer, but think he's probably been a well over a decade since he's been in a courtroom. And so his his role really is to build a good team and I think and and to check-in with them to, you know, vet their work, you know, make sure he's seeing what they're seeing, and make sure he understands what they're seeing. And that he's equipping them with all tools they need. You know, aside from that, is he in the courtroom every day? I you know, I'm actually not sure. I've tried to I've tried for the most part to not get into the details of the case the same way that, you know, I've tried to make sure that he's not in the details of, like, the civil sign as we were dealing with that Right. Because you were involved in negotiating the you were involved in negotiating the settlement -- Right. Right. -- for the family. Yeah. And so, you know, there's a I think there's a healthy well, a, I think there's just it's just good professional behavior for us to make sure that if there's overlap, that we're keeping it separate. Right. But also, you know, I think people kind of imagined me and my dad of having, like, this professional relationship, but, like, we we have a personal one. Right? Like, I I have the same relationship with my dad as anybody else with their dad. Right? So, you know, we get together. We're not gonna just talk about work. You know? Gonna say, we got other stuff going on. I read that because you're you're gonna run for reelection and your dad was quoted as saying something like, well, I hope he's doing it because he wants it. He's like, have some artists. And I'm like, you know, I hope he only if he wants to do it, because at some Daunte, guy's gonna go back to paying murals -- Yeah. -- for sure. For sure. Well, maybe one, I don't know. Yeah. III that's that's what I love do. I think that I'll be you know, my my my impulses will force me back into that eventually. But right now, I really feel like I'm offering something to my community that I I don't know anybody else could could step up and offer and and and plenty of people would be capable, you know. Right. But who can win an election and who's ready and and who who feels prepared, you know, half of it is feeling yourself prepared. You know, yeah, me and my dad, like, the the last couple of months. I think we've, like, you know, football came and went, you know. Obviously, we talk about a lot of, like, the context, same stuff everybody else talks about. But but also spend a lot of time talking about. He's a big fan of, like, really bad monster movies. Like, you know, like, up like, I'm watchable. Like, he really loves like like like Hugh Jackman's Van Helsing. I I can't I can't I can't understand it. And he's re watching, you know, I think the when he can, you know, not that he has a bunch of time, but he was telling me he's gonna try to rewatch the x files. So we, you know, we talked about that side of stuff. Trying to get him to watch one television. I don't know if it's this thing. Yeah. It might be too new for going back into the x files online. Wow. What was that like growing up with him as a congressman? I mean, most of your childhood he must have been in office. Yeah. So you'd have to go back and forth. Between DC in here? Well, you know, what's what's weird. You know, I think I think it was seventeen when he was elected. Oh, Okay. I you're in row. Yeah. So I was kind of, yeah, up and getting out of the house and don't know too many sixteen, seventeen year olds who really care about with their parents now. So I think that he as a parent of a seventeen year old, I can promise you. Zero interest. I I think it took me a long time to even realize, like, that anybody thought of them as like like especially important, you know? Because, like, you go to DC to the swearing in and you're there and, you know, and, like, and all of that. But at sixteen seventeen, I'm like, you know, I'm I'm thinking about football. Like, you know, I was playing, you know, the time I'm thinking about, you know, whether or not I'm gonna recover for my shoulder injury. I'm thinking about girls. I'm thinking about art. I'm thinking about all these other things. Yeah. And then, you know, And I think that, like, at some point, it was, like, I had, like, a realization in my early twenties. I'm, like, oh, my dad's, like, kind of Like, people know it. Yeah. Yeah. It's kinda weird. Uh-huh. So anyway, but yeah, it took me a while to even realize. And so I think for my younger siblings, I think it was a little bit more of a thing for them. But for me and my older brother, I think it was like dad's thing for a while. Right. And your mom's baller too, like director of the board of education. Mhmm. Mhmm. Yeah. Yeah. But they were cool with, like, our son's an artist, man, like, his thing. There wasn't a pressure on you to -- No. -- to law school or anything like that? No. No. No. Nothing like that. I think You know, in my household, it was like, you know, love what you do. Try to be good at it so that we can brag about you. And that's, you know, that's kind of it. You know, I remember my mom was like one of the I can't remember how old it must have been like, twelve. Maybe, yeah, like, eleven or twelve. And I Daunte, like, these, like, prismacolor markers and they're, like, four dollars a marker. And so you get a set of twenty four. It's pretty expensive. And and, you know, they'd always been interested in my art, but I don't think really understood, like, I think they kind of thought of it as like, okay, this is a key thing he did as a kid. He's gonna grow out of it. And I just, like, remained really interested in comics, really interested in drawing, really interested in painting. My momentAs like, alright, we're gonna get this kid, these expensive markers and and and let them go wild and and and it's probably a big part of, like, what kept me in it because, you know, like, I think I was getting a little bit, like, you know, kinda run that age where it's like, Pen and pencil. Drawn still lives. Right. Like, this this is fine. And it's like, oh, man, I could do all kinds of things with color and all this other stuff. So they always really encouraged start making for sure. We'll We'll be back in a flash, but Hey, why be back in a flash, but hey, why not not? A couple of words about public couple words about public goods. My one-stop shop for sustainable high quality everyday essential is made from clean ingredients at an affordable My one stop shop for sustainable, high quality, everyday essentials made from clean ingredients at an affordable price. Public goods is basically your new endless store. 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I mean, we mentioned Jamar Clark in 2015, but prior to that, I mean, you were protesting here and there, mean, we mentioned Jamal Clark in two thousand fifteen, but prior to that, I mean, you were protest in here and there. Right? Like, you got arrested one time. Right. You got arrested one time. Fifty. But was that was that two thousand fifteen incident? Like the, the turning point was that was that like a moment where you're like, Oh, I'm going to, I'm going to step up and fill some shoes like, the the turning Was that was that, like, a moment where you're, like, oh, I'm gonna I'm gonna step up and fill some shoes here. I think it was a moment where people in my life kinda thought, hey, you're demonstrating some leadership. I had a mentor you know, who who kind of told me she was like, I've always like, when you were in high school, I always wanted you to sort of fill this role because people, you know you know, they they I've seen you give people sort of permission in an indirect way and give permission to do courageous things. And I've just kinda never thought of myself that way. I'm out here. I'm I'm moving through the world trying to paint my paintings and do all that. And even during the Jean Marc Clark protest, I mean, I was I was spending most of my days up in my studio and it was the activists who were on the ground at the time who were saying like, hey, you live here Daunte we think that it would mean a lot to community members, to your neighbors if they have your presence. Right. So I would go deliver coffee and And a big part of what kept me in it was, you know, I was in longer term relationship and my my girlfriend at the time. She was, like, in it. She was, like, we're gonna Like, we're gonna be at the protest, you know. And so think through that relationship as well, it was like, okay. Cool. Like, there's an expectation here and and And and and people are telling me adding some value in twenty fifteen. I think it was more like, you know, Yeah. A lot of community members, you know, I had actually reached out to the council member at the time, Long Yang, and and And I I went back and looked at the message that I had sent him recently because I just was couldn't quite remember what I had said. And it was just like this really measured message of like, hey, like, I don't expect you to agree with all the protesters out here. But, you know, I'd always had a good impression of him and I'd seen him run and lose for kinda commissioner, then he ended up as a council member and as my council member. And I kinda thought, you know, like, IIII don't feel any hesitancy reaching out to you. And I just remember feeling so dismissed. Right? Like, couldn't it like, reading the response. I couldn't even be sure if he wrote it. Like, I was like, did did did did his aid write this and just, like, you newsbut remember just feeling totally dismissed. And and what I had asked him to do was come out and be with his neighbors. I said, hey, look, no matter how what you where you stand, one of your neighbors was killed by a city employee. Yeah. And I think it's important that you come show your face. And it was just, no. Not gonna do that. And so that that kind of, I think, triggered AAA frustration in me that was like, well, you you gotta at least show up. Right. Like, whether people disagree with you or agree with you, you gotta at least show up whether they call you an asshole or thank you. You gotta show up. It's just it's just important. It's just a part of the job. The citizens of this city are not afraid to call their elected officials' assholes. No. They're not. No. They're not. As as much as we have this I mean, you know, Minnesota NICE is is a real thing as well. And the passive aggressiveness can can can be could be overwhelming sometimes, but definitely, especially, especially in the last couple of years. I mean, folks are gonna tell you what they feel. And I appreciate it. Even if I think somebody's wrong, I appreciate it. Well, that Ronnis, you know, can lead to the change that you know, can change everything. Mhmm. Mhmm. I I agree. So you end up you end up running and in, like, two thousand sixteen, you get elected in two thousand seventeen. And your platform's essentially at the time, like, It it has to do with police action, protests, and reform, and workers' rights, housing, environmental justice, and the like. But you couldn't have a imagine what you would be in for? No. No. Citynot at all. I, you know, I actually spent I was looking through, I have this spreadsheet of, like, things that I've authored and things that I've, like, you know, tried projects and policy and ordinances. That kind of thing. And a little tracker for myself. What's in progress? What have I finished? What have I passed? And all the stuff that I've passed, you know, It's all, you know, in the on the budget realm, it's all economic development stuff, you know, it's helping small businesses buy their buildings, that kind of thing. On the policy front, it's all, like, housing protection like, perspectiveIn, that kind of housing is such a big deal here. It's a huge deal. You know, I mean, everywhere in the country, you know, you're seeing people get pushed out of urban areas because, you know, there's sort of this, I call it, reverse white flight. It's like, you know, people left in the fifties or whatever. Daunte like, their grandkids, like, all wanna come live in the citynot. And it's fine, but it's driving up home prices. And there's lack of act like, lack of access and and Daunte it's displacing the people who have, you know, been in the city for generations. And so I I really want to go tackle that, both economic development issue and the housing issue because it's like, you know, this area is either gonna gentrify or it's gonna state this invested from. How can I make sure that neither happen? right? Like that we can get investment, but that people can stay and keep opting into this place as their get investment, but that people can stay and keep opting into this place as their home. So that's what I've been focused on. And and obviously, Their accountability. And I it was I was just like, it it's a it was it's a it's a focus. yeah, now it's our inability to wrestle with this for many many decades, our inability to really wrestle with this issue is kinda tearing our city apart right now. Yeah. It's tearing the whole metro apart. Yeah. And people will talk about Jamal Clark and people will talk about George Floyd and they should. Both of those people, both of those men were killed in this awful way. But people older than me are gonna talk about, you know, Tycell Ellison. They're gonna talk about a book Sanders. You know, they're gonna talk about these other people who, you know, throughout the years, you know, have been killed by MPD. And Terence Franklin, which was well ahead of my time, but but we didn't settle that case until I was in office. I think he was he was killed in twenty twelve or twenty thirteen. city. Didn't settle that case until, until like didn't settle that case until until, like, twenty twenty. And so Daunte nineteen maybe and so So yeah, I I think it's it's a huge issue and we've got to get it right. And I think that everybody has the mayor, my colleagues, everybody has an idea about how to get it right, and everybody thinks the other person's wrong, including me to be very and and that's kinda where things stand. Mhmm. Yeah. The at at George Floyd's Square, they do a really good job of of making sure everybody understands that Although George is kind of the focal point of that space, it's really about so much more than that. And you see all the names painted on the on the street. And then there's the cemetery with tombstones for all of the individuals who have who have fallen at the hands of the police. And it's just it's it's impossible to not, you know, sort of be in denial about the gravity of the problem. Mhmm. Right? And I wanna get to reimagining public safety because you got lots of interesting opinions about that. But before that, like, let's spend a little bit of time on George Floyd. Like, I'm interested in you know, how everything sort of begins to change when that transpires, you know, commencing with like when did you first see the video and, like, how did that all go down in your own life? Yeah. You know, I first saw the video the day it happened. It was I I was it was at night. I had seen snippets of it, like on social media, throughout the day, but had never been spending enough time on social media to actually click the video. And and nobody had necessarily called me or or anything Like, usually, I I will have, like, a lot of calls from community activists about, like, this happened. So I was kinda, like, it's not in your ward. Yes. Not in my ward. Right. Right. Exactly. And so it was kind of like, okay, I'm not really sure what this video is, but it's late at And so It was kind of like, okay, I'm not really sure what this video is, but it's like at night, nobody's called me about it, but I'll check it out. And I think it was the one I saw what had been, like, reshaped or posted by Eliza Doris. Who's an activist here, local activists who's here, localist who's here. He wasn't one who filmed the video, but he he had this video and he had posted it. So I'm like, okay. Elijah's posting this must be serious because I, you know, take his opinion seriously. And I watched the video and I just remember feeling like like just that dread that you feel when as you're as you're watching can be tortured. and there's this moment at the end of the video where you know, I I just remember and I spent a while since I watched it, but they they go to eventually pick him up. And he's so limp in at a human level, you know, like your instincts kick in and your brain's telling you that this person doesn't have any life in them. Which contrasted, you know, the call I had eventually ended up getting, which was, you know, Oh, he he he wasn't dead in the video. He passed later. He, you know, all this other stuff -- Right. -- and from other citynot got a call from police. Well, the mayor called me first. Uh-huh. I did. And then I I saw later that I had missed a call from the chief somehow. and I later talked to him about it. And it was like, he got bad info, like, you know, somewhere in the chain, a lot of folks, you know, bad info just started and it was like, he got bad info. Like, you know, somewhere in the chain, a lot of folks, you know, bad info just started spreading. He wanted to make sure I was I knew what was going on. He gave me the info he had and it just wasn't the truth. Well, the initial police report didn't even indicate the knee on the neck thing at all. Right. No. No. It's just as They didn't amend that until after the video was out. Right. Right? And so, you know, we've we've been struggling with some problems with MPD even before this happened. Right? Like, you know, there was my second year in office or maybe halfway through my first year in office, officers got there was a report that MPD was instructing EMTs to inject people with ketamine whether they need it or not. Right? And you get you you got these transcripts with people being begging, strapped to a gurney begging to not be injected against their will and then being injected. Right. Any idea being we just need to sedate these people -- Yeah. -- by whatever means. That's -- I'm sorry. -- honestly, reading through some of the transcripts that I read, often it would read as this person called me a name. didn't like this person. It just seemed vindictive. You know, excited is often the term that's used as an excuse to, to, to, to inject people with You know, excited delirium is often the term that's used to as an excuse to inject people with ketamine. But you know, the people who were being injected were often totally lucid, you know, maybe mouthing off quote unquote, but totally lucid. Mhmm. And being injected, we kind of mean sort of came off as more of punishment than anything. Yeah. And, you know, we had this this marijuana drug bust, which, you know, we shouldn't even be bothering with that anyway. But it was so rife with racial bias that the district attorney wouldn't even prosecute the case. And we citynot have progressive district attorney. You know? It was was. And so these are some of the things that kind of led up to, you know, Oh, we have this huge report that you guys should look into the star Tribune, you know, talk to a bunch of survivors of sexual assault about and talk to them about their so, like, these are some of the things that kinda led up to you know, we had this huge report that you you guys should look into the Star Tribune, you know, talk to a bunch of survivors of sexual assault about and talk about their it was sort of this huge exposure of of like how people felt like they were treated. Not only was their case never solved, right? And that we have this low, you know, we clear like Daunte percent or less of these types of cases, but individual victim saying that they felt totally dismissed or re victimized by our by police. And is that a breakdown by race? I don't remember if if the if the report broke down by race, but some of the women were, you know, very put, you know, very public. Mhmm. And I think there's, like, a photo with a with a number of of some of the victims who who felt like they hadn't been given service by the police department. The the given any kind of sense of justice and weren't even weren't even taken seriously. Right? And so these are the issues issues that we're, you know, that we're dealing with. And they're all sort of these local scandals that, like, we're dealing And each one just notch it. The the the the tension just gets rashted it up. Right? you know, it's easy to kind of look at Floyd, the Floyd situation and the explosion of civil unrest that followed. And conclude that it was all about that -- Mhmm. -- without really appreciating everything that, like, was leading up to that being kind of a breaking moment for everybody. Absolutely. You know, there was one professor from John j College. They have come and got a blank on his name, but he he said something to the effect of during one of our council meetings where we were kind of having experts coming to give us testimony. He said something to the effect of if if citynot an insignificant number of people feel like they no longer want NPD as a part of their life. Mhmm. That is a reputation that MPD has earned. Right? And so because people don't come to that conclusion overnight. They don't come to that conclusion out of the blue they witnessed and they experience that nothing else will They don't come to that conclusion out of the blue. Mhmm. They witness and they experience that nothing else will work. Right? Whether it's people who you know, like Travis girlfriend who, you know, he was somebody who's having a mental health crisis. You know, she called the nine eleven to get help because she thought he was gonna harm himself and the police shut up and kill them. Whether it's, you know, people who have lost loved ones because of high speed chases that were, like, totally irresponsibly conducted. I mean, there's a feeling from a lot of people here that, you know, they want good public safety I mean there's a feeling from a lot of people here that, you know, they want good public safety service. Right? Yeah. But they they're just showing a little bit of years. Yeah. They've repeatedly been shown something otherwise. And and and also not to go too deep down the rabbit hole, but you're also contending with a lack of sufficient culpability for these officers -- Mhmm. -- the arbitration process doesn't really seem to do his No. So many of these officers get reprimanded and they're back on the streets. And there's no real repercussions for that. Right. And so the the the ills are so systemic that it leads to that deep level of mistrust where someone like yourself is led to conclude that it's broken beyond repair. So the conversation around reform falls on deaf ears for somebody like you. Right? Because it would appear to like the outsider looking in. Well, okay, there's problems newsbut let's look at what those problems are and like tease them out and solve them. But your position is basically like you can't do. It's like, it's not, it's not a few bad it's like citynot it's not a few bad apples. Like Trevor Noah was talking about this on Instagram. It's like it's not bad apples. It's like, the tree is It's like the tree is rotten. Right? Mhmm. And if you have a rotten tree, that teasing out of what's wrong really isn't gonna move the needle or solve the problem in any meaningful way. And we've teased out these problems. Right. I I was I was reading something that a friend gave me about, you know, all these various commissions that have studied, you know, the various major riots throughout history -- Right. -- in America. Starting with the nineteen nineteen race riots in Chicago known as Red Summer, nineteen nineteen. Red Summer happens and the governor of Illinois at the time puts together the commission on race relations and to study why the riots happened and, you know, how they were exacerbated and fines. That in large part, they were started by the police and that they were exacerbated by all these inequities and talks about literally nineteen nineteen talks about, you know, we need to end police brutality that will prevent further riots in the future. We need to have police living in the communities that they work in. Like, they give a lot of suggestions that children or people give today. This is nineteen nineteen. And how did they move past that? Or have they not? I mean, again. You tell me how many scandals The Chicago police department has had since nineteen nineteen. I mean, I couldn't tell you. I don't know. I mean, it's it's I will say it's plenty. I would argue that they haven't moved past it. And I would argue that we haven't moved past it. I think that, ultimately, this isn't the problem you know, locally, we do have a problem with this department. But if you zoom out, the problem that we're having with this department is not a problem with only this department. This is a problem that every single city is facing with their departments. It's a matter of a lack of accountability. You can have all the training in the world. But if you're not gonna be held accountable, your training never matters. Mhmm. Right? You can have all the good intentions in the world. But if you know that there's never any accountability, then when you fail to meet your good intention, it doesn't really matter. Mhmm. And I think that's the system that we that we've created. Mhmm. And we poured tons of money into reforms. I mean, think that's the one thing people don't understand is that a lot of these reforms cost additional money. Right? Whether it's facial recognition, whether it's Body cameras. They cost a ton of more trainings. Mhmm. They cost a ton money. And yet, the settlement amounts yeah, here in Minneapolis, but also there was a twenty million dollars settlement in Maryland just earlier this year or maybe in twenty twenty. The settlements just get bigger. So the cost of the apartment gets bigger. Mhmm. The the the behavior doesn't change. The issue doesn't change. The settlements get bigger. I mean, at what point new cities just are are we just not able to even afford this model of public safety? Yeah. I think we're pretty much there. Yeah. The heartbreak of George Floyd as sort of emotionally challenging as all of this is, has for better or worse, kind of foisted you into the, into the national heartbreak of George Floyd as sort of emotionally challenging as as all of this is, has for better or worse kind of foisted you into the into the national spotlight. You go from being, you know, ward five city councilmen to suddenly being on national newsbut. And the main thing that you're speaking to is this idea of finding new ways to keep ourselves and our neighbors safe. Right? Mhmm. But this is all couched in the vernacular around defund the police. And my sense, and this is I really wanna hear what you have to say about this is, I think, defund of the police means many different things to many different people, depending on who you talk about. My sense is that it's less about like eradicating or abolishing a police force and much more about ending the monopolization of public protection in the hands of this broken system and creating a new public safety kind of program at which police are one part of. Yes. Is that is that fair? Yes. You're sure, like, oh, he oh, Jeremiah. He's the defund, the police guy. Yeah. You know what I mean? So, like, why does that mean to you? And, like, where do you stand? And how is that? Also, like, how is how is your perspective or your position on this evolved over the last year? Yeah. I'll say this, as I'm, you know, because right now, it it is reelection time. Right? And as I'm on I'm I'm on the phone that I'm talking to people, maybe even more than usual, constituents more than usual. And I'm finding that for the most part, and this probably surprises some people, but for the most part, I'm finding that I still have Daunte of support and that even my neighbors who are not one hundred percent where I'm at, they they are open to the city Minneapolis spending less money on police. What they're not open to is us spending less money on their overall safety. Right. To me, that means that any system that we that's different than the one have, we've gotta create it. That's the only way that we can bring people along. Right? We've gotta create it. And so I think, for me, the term, defund, right, defund the police. It's a term created by activists, not me. Right? A term created by activists to generate a conversation it's definitely done that. It's done and it's as provocative as it comes. It's generated a conversation, but it doesn't have anything to do with governing. Right? So activists are well within their right to make that call. It's my job to listen to community members and ask myself, in what way can I make this relevant to governing? And the way that it can be relevant in governing is that we've gotta assess all the ways in which people expect to be kept safe. Right? If we are expected by our community and we should be to solve rate cases, then we've got to also admit that we're currently not doing that. Our current system is not doing that. If people expect that if they have a loved one in the throes of mental health crisis, that their city is not gonna show up and fucking kill that then we've got to create a system that functions that way. Right? And if people who had a who have had a fender bender, still wanna get a report for insurance, but don't necessarily wanna have to interact with police officer, then we should create a system where that's possible. Yeah. It is interesting because now, no matter what situation you find yourself in, the cops are the only, like, nine eleven, and it's the cops. So whether it's a paramedic situation or mental health problem or a simple you know, skirmish that could be, you know, managed effectively through some kind of, you know, community, you know, hours or something like that. Yeah. There seems to be a lot of situations and circumstances in which the police need not be involved particularly in a situation where there's such a level of distrust. Yeah. I mean, I know that the the the fake twenty dollar bill, quote unquote, it's it's an alleged fake ton of dollar I don't know if it's ever confirmed that George Floyd -- Where Is that that bill? -- I don't know why he didn't turn up the evidence. That's a great question. No talks about that. But this alleged fake twenty dollar bill, even if it was real. Did it require four guys with guns to respond? I mean, that's not an armed robbery. That's That's not even heist. Right? Like, that's not that's not that's not that's not any kind of an emergency that four armed people need to come. And address. I think that we've gotta have a response. We've gotta have a system that can still address that store's need. Right? Hey, we're out twenty bucks. If this happens too often, like we're it's not great for us. Mhmm. But we also need a system that I mean, our only way I I mean, did that store ever get us twenty bucks back? Right? Like like, our we didn't do any sort of remedy for that store in that moment. All all the city did, all the police did, was kill George Floyd as a response to this alleged fake twenty dollar bill. What public safety need was met, I think is the question that we've got to ask ourselves. And if the answer is none, and you know, I assert that the answer is none. Then what do we need? Right? Because the store needed needed needed, needed, know, response for the emergency that they were having or for the incident that they were having. But George Floyd's safety also mattered in that moment. And in our system, we didn't prioritize anyone's safety, but we definitely prioritized sort of a punitive response -- Mhmm. -- to someone we thought might have been creating some harm. Mhmm. Yeah. How does that relate to our kind of parochial notion of what it means to protect and serve? Right? Yeah. I mean, certainly, you know, in some communities, likely not all, there was a date and a time where the police office servers were embedded in the community, and they were community members, and they were looked to for guidance and counsel, and they knew you know, those officers knew the people in the community. That's, you know, a far cry from what we have today, which is a pivot in the sit direction towards these militarized, you know, essentially SWAT teams -- Mhmm. -- that you see increasingly, you know, across the country. Even that that that older model where you did have folks who lived in the area, that model never worked for black communities. Yeah. That's never worked kind of parochial weather, you know, that was actually true. Right. Right. Right. Right. No fair, fair No. Fair. Fair enough. Yeah. I mean, and and and And, you know, you've got old you've got images of not only police starting race riots, in nineteen nineteen, but, you know, you've got it happening in the twenties and in the thirties and, you know, you've got it happening in Harlem and you've got it happening in LA. Right? And so I think that there's this the Chicago the trial of the Chicago seven is about, you know, the police starting riot. You know? And so III think that we've got to vet the whole thing. right. Like I think, you know, MPDs been around for 153 years, you know, I think that we shouldn't finger wag at how it functions now and say, well, we we've just got to address Right? Like, I think that, you know, MPD's been around for a hundred and fifty three years. You know, I I think that we shouldn't finger wag at how functions now and say, well, we've just gotta address that. Right? I think we should maybe take inventory of how the last hundred and fifty three years have gone. You know, in total. And and and if we haven't gotten what we needed out of the system, then, yeah, III think that and and again, I think we haven't. Then I don't think it's reactionary. I don't think I don't think a hundred and two years is reactionary. To say. I think it's time for a different conversation. Right. Right. You're but you're often characterized as reactionary. Yeah. I I think this movement is. Yeah. For sure. I mean, there was the moment sometime after the protests were reaching their peak where you, among nine city council members, wanted to amend the city charter so that you could put into motion this kind of -- Mhmm. -- Department of Public Safety. Right. Exactly. Which would kind of upend the traditional way that the police operated -- Mhmm. -- that didn't pass or didn't get onto the ballot. Right? But it's going to be on the ballot in November, I think. Right. Right. Right. So we we we didn't proceed forward quickly enough to get it on the ballot for twenty twenty. But now not only is there a council amendment, there's a community amendment also proceeding forward. The language is pretty similar. There's some, I think there's some key differences, but I think that even if the council had given up on that effort, the community was like, no, we want this and they're gonna, they're gonna make sure it's on the There's some I think there's some key differences, but I think that even if the council had given up on that effort, the community was like, no, we want this. Mhmm. And they're gonna they're gonna make sure it's on the ballot. Right. And so I think that that I think that only affirms that this that this impulse wasn't some kind of Minneapolis City Council impulse. That you now have, in order to get for a citizens petition to end up on the ballot in Minneapolis, they have to get, I think, a little over twenty thousand signatures. Right. So now you've got twenty twenty thousand votes that are for sure gonna be cast for this thing, if not more. Right? You're nearing a mandate. From your neighbors, from your Ellison when they're saying, even if you don't bring forward this charter change, we will. Right? Meanwhile, you have made some progress. Right? There's something like eight million dollars have been redirected to other public safety measures. There's restricted use on choke holds, and, you know, there's been a raising of threshold for the use of force. Mhmm. There's these violence interrupters, these guys who cruise around in orange t shirts -- Mhmm. -- on a mediate conflict -- Yep. -- in various neighborhoods. This office of violence prevention -- Yep. -- right, out of the health department. Right. So there there has been some kind of movement in the direction that you'd like to see. I'm sure very far from what you would prefer to see. At the same time, you know, the counterpoint would be that that this old movement has led to an increase in violent crime. And meanwhile, like two hundred police officers have quit and violence is on the rise. So, like, how do you I just want to give you an opportunity to share your thoughts on that or onto that. Yeah. It's funny I was having a conversation with a friend of mine. He reminded me of this recently. This is before George Floyd even happened. This is before the killing of George Floyd even happened. And when everything started shutting down and all these people started going out of work, He was reminding me that I told him then, I said, you know, look, whenever people are out of work, crime goes up. And I said crime is gonna go up and people are gonna ask for more police. Right. That was my prediction then. Mhmm. That's how it works. Right? I think that you know, it would be a little out of place for me to say that the unrest from this summer played no role in the increase in violent crime that we had this summer. I don't know. But neither did the police. Neither does the mayor. Neither did the people who are making this claim. And what makes more sense and is backed by more evidence throughout history is that when people are out of work, crime goes up. Mhmm. We had both of these things happen at the same time. Right? You've got communities who are some communities in Minneapolis who are already poor, becoming more poor, and then those same communities feeling incredibly disillusioned and by the killing of George Floyd. You know, that is gonna cause a reaction -- Yeah. -- powerful combination. Right. And so, yeah, we've had we've had this uptick in violence. We've had this spike in violence this past year. But if you talk to a lot of a lot of Northside youth. Right? I represent North Minneapolis. It's not the only place that's have has an increase in violence, but when you talk to but but a lot of youth have been involved in the violence that that has occurred over the last year. And If you go talk to youth directly about what will keep them safe, most of them I mean, I don't think I've talked to a single teenager, you know, a single person a single teenager in North Minneapolis who has said, the issue is that we don't have enough police. They'll say, the issue is that we don't have anything to do. The issue is that people are hungry in their house. They can't go school. Right? People are home and they can't get that meal that they would get at school. They can't get that meal that we would get in school. Also, you know, they're at that age where they want to take risks, they want to be bold, they want to, you know and and when you combine that with access to a firearm with access to, you know, with with with with all the all the things that teenager wants the desire to feel powerful. Mhmm. Yeah. You're gonna have You're gonna have some And in an environment right now where it's kind of like anything goes. Yeah. You know? Right. Yeah. Then you're gonna have these increases in violence. The other thing I would say is that people would have to also be claiming that there was a rise of violence because of a declaration. Right? Because the city council's made a de declaration. Right. And that that caused a spike in violence It causes perpetrating the crime has no idea. Yes. Citynot That kid is not on my newsletter. Yeah. That kid is not on my newsletter. Yeah. know I I You know, I I'll say that he has no idea what they city councils is up to because we didn't know, I'll say that. It has no idea what the city council is is is up to because we didn't address we didn't remove five percent of the police's budget until December. Of twenty. Right? And so when you see this rock this spike in violence over the summer, what you're witnessing is the old model at work. What you're what you're witnessing is the status quo and we're fully funded. You know, I think the I think the year twenty twenty Minneapolis department had more money than they'd ever had in their history of their department. And so we didn't actually even we didn't even reallocate five percent of their budget until December of twenty twenty. And so so the argument to me starts to really falter when you actually examine it, fed it in any in any way. And what makes more sense is, again, this economic issue conflated with the pandemic -- Mhmm. -- a lot of school and all that stuff. Have you looked at do you know this thing, campaign zero? From Doreen McKesson, you know, who Doreen McKesson? Yeah. No. Doreen. I Daunte, you know, I I will admit. I don't know what time So he's got this. I mean, you know, police reform is one of his big things, but he's started this kind of initiative, nonprofit initiative called campaign zero, and it's all about police reform and they they took all of these people who've actually studied this and figured out what's effective and what's not. Because a lot of things you think would be good, actually don't end up translating into any kind of fungible change. Mhmm. And they looked at, like, what are things that move the needle? And he come he's got this website, and it's like, here are the ten things that are actually effective in reforming newsbut that's not really the game you're playing. Like, you're you're playing you're playing you're playing you're rolling different paradise -- Right. This whole -- with this whole thing. Right. III think that, like, I'll be happy to check it out. And and just make sure that I it's probably a lot of the stuff that other people are recommending. I'll I'll I'll I'll say that because a lot of these reforms, they all come out of the same school thought, and they all make the same base assumption. And that base assumption is that policing is the only way to conduct public safety. And and so I'm not accusing Dioria that I I don't know. I have to check I'll have to check out his ten Daunte, but I will say that, like, you know, you go through and you look at what people are saying today and you look at things that came out of, you know, the McCone Commission or the current Commission, you know, or or any of these things that that any of these studies that came out of these riots. And they they've been making the same recommendations in Illinois commission on race relations. They've been making the same recommendations for hundred years. And so my question is, what what what other than policing would work, you know, to achieve our goals? I think that was the one thing Well, that was the one thing that that you talked about this idea of police having a monopoly on public safety. And and I gotta admit, like, I never really thought about that before. It was like, they do have a was like, they do have monopoly on that. Like and why is that? Is it supposed to be that should it be that way? I never asked myself that question before. Right. But the idea that it doesn't need to be that way and perhaps there is a different way. The only thing that I can think of that resembles that in any regard I mean, I lived in New York City in the late eighties and I remember the Guardian angels everywhere like on the subway and who's kind of like this community based, you know, mediation squad who was there to kind of to to use any kind of conflicts that you wanna talk about defunding. Those kinds of efforts have popped up over cities. Right? Like whenever cities that peak crisis, they employ these kind of efforts. Right? They hire people that maybe used to be in a life of violence, but if, you know -- Right. -- reform themselves. You believe Yeah. -- those guys. And it has an impact. Right? Might take a year or two or three, but it has an impact. And then as soon as they're as soon as crisis averted, they go away. They go away. Yeah. Yeah. And and and Daunte because you know, it would we always sort of view those kinds of things as sort of tag ons. Right? They're, like, band aids. Mediate. Right. Exactly. But to me, what's more common? Right? I guess, I'll I'll pose it as question. What's more common? momentAs situate between between couple right, or a dispute between neighbors or an active shooter situation. What's more common? Right? Probably depends on the neighborhood. But probably, you know, the momentAs dispute situation -- Right. -- what's more common that somebody is maybe having some kind of mental health emergency. Right? Whether it's whether it's, you know, severe depression, they're they're gonna take their own life, whether it's paranoid schizophrenia, they didn't take their medication, whether, you know, they have a trauma and they're they get triggered. Mhmm. Right? Or are a bunch of, you know, heavily armed guys on the freeway gonna gonna march down and start indiscriminately -- Yeah. -- murdering everybody at the site. mean, what's not given? Yeah. I get it. I get it. Yeah. And so so to me, like, to have somebody to have, like, someone in a mediated role, To have someone in like a who's a mental health specialist, it just makes more sense for that to be more of a have someone in like a who's a mental health specialist, it just makes more sense for that to be more of staple. I'm not saying that you know, there's no role for guys with guns in the the In our There there just should be more tools in the toolbox, basically. Yeah. There should be. Right? Not everything needs to be So what does it look like? Like, if you had your druthers the ideal scenario that could play out in this city, forget about politics, or here's what I would like to enact that I think would solve these problems. Yeah. Well, you know, I think that my pragmatic brain sort of kicks in and I'm like, well, nothing'd be like ready tomorrow at scale, but that even that aside. Right? The office of violence prevention, we established it in twenty eighteen with half million dollars. Now The office has seven I think, is a budget. I think It's two point five. I think you've I think, what I read, I could have it wrong, but two point five got directed towards it, so that amped up the budget to seven. Oh, okay. Okay. Okay. Yeah. I'll bet that. out. You you might be right on that. So it's exponential growth, but whether it's two point five or seven million, that is that pales in comparison to what it was. hundred and seventy. Mhmm. Right? right. 170 million is what we give the A hundred and seventy million is what we get the police. Right? Mhmm. What we set aside to build our mental health program is a couple Ellison dollars. It's it's gonna go very far. It's gonna help get that jumpstart that program and hopefully integrate it into our nine eleven system so that doesn't have to have its own long seven digit number and all of that. But whatever their budget is, it's gonna pale in comparison to that one point seven million. To me, I think that we need to be in a constant state of evaluation of what do we need an armed force for. Right? When when is use of force actually appropriate? When and who gets to make that decision? Daunte who gets to make that decision? When also shit happens too. Right? That would be the counterpoint. Newsbut you can back that up with data. Right? Like, you can have you can have I think it was like the New York Times that put up this thing that, like, police spend about four percent of their time actually and and engaging in in a violent situation, right, four percent of their time. I'm not saying that you need to reduce your what police do all the way down to four percent of public safety. But what I'm saying is that I do think that it's worthwhile to examine reality. right? You can, you can run hypothetical's until your brain is You can you can run Hyper that occurs until your brain is tired. Right? You can say, what if this what if that happens? What if blah blah blah blah blah blah. And what I would say is that, like, when have the police ever met that public safety standard that they say they're meeting. Right? When have they been successful? Right? I can point to a lot of situations in which not only did the police mess up, but they weren't even successful. They weren't even successful in meeting any public safety standard at all. Right? And so I think that how do we avoid that? Right? How do we avoid not meeting any public safety standard at How do we avoid not meeting any public safety standard at all? I think it's worthwhile to ask ourselves. And I I think it's I think it's totally fair to say. How did x scenario go? How does x scenario usually go? Whether it's a momentAs health crisis response or domestic response. And ask yourselves are the police having an effect here, a positive one? Are they meeting any sort of public safety goal that we have -- Mhmm. -- right as a city? And if the answer is yes, but they could use some improvement here and there, then great. If the answer's no, then we should probably develop a different strategy. You know, I think that what we're experiencing is that you have a whole bunch of people that say it's not even fair to ask the question. It's not okay to even ask the question. Right. The question's dangerous. It's it's fascinating because everything you're saying makes really good sense Daunte it's crazy that that it's such a delicate subject and so difficult to just Sit down and rationally, walk through it, because I think, I think it part that is perhaps informed by just, you know, sort of rash, impulsive reactions to the idea of messing with the police force at sit down and rationally walk through it. Because I think I think a part that is perhaps informed by just, you know, sort of rash, impulsive reactions to the idea of messing with the police force at all. And I don't think it's helped by like, we also have a video of mayor Fry, you know, being asked, like, are you gonna, you know, are you gonna define the police? And he said, well, if you mean abolish the police force, like, I don't support that. And it was in the middle of a huge protest and they said shame, and he had to kind of walk through this was in the middle of a huge protest. Mhmm. They said shame and he had to kind of walk through this crowd. It's like, Okay. Like you and him have different opinions on all of this. Mhmm. But but what you're saying isn't like a yes or no question? Are we abolishing the police department. Like, this is a well thought out nuanced perspective on improving public safety -- Mhmm. -- that is comprehensive and involves the police in appropriate circumstances. Yeah? Yeah. How dare you do? You know what I mean? I mean because you are like, it's like, oh, Jeremiah. He's the he's the he's the defund guy. Yeah. You stay away from that guy. Yeah. You know, that's narrative. Like, that's that's narrative for you though. Right? Like, there are people who feel like they would benefit politically if if they could prevent people from hearing me ask the question. Mhmm. And you're you have, you don't have that many opportunities to kind of talk on and on, like we're doing here, it's soundbites inside super you're you have you don't have that many opportunities to kind of talk on and on like we're doing here. It's sound bites. It's inside of a square. Yeah. And if you don't nail it, like they're gonna, they're going to cry, you know, sort of position you however they feel like, or whatever is going to get the most And if you don't nail it, like, they're gonna they're gonna, you know, sort of position you however they feel like or whatever is gonna get the must click. Yeah. Oh, for sure. For sure. And and I've accepted that. You know, you you talked about, like, I started off this whole thing as the accounts member for the fifth ward I'm, you know, I'm getting public interviews. Mhmm. I would say, I'm still the council member for the fifth ward. And the the only thing that matters to me, right, I'm interested in these conversations. Because quite frankly, I think, you know, it just kinda sharpens my ability to talk about it, and I'm gonna, you know, take some lessons from this conversation, and I'm gonna applying to my conversations on the phones with people with my neighbors who talking about this stuff with every single day. Right? But for me, the work is not conversations like this one. It's great to have it it's great to have you've got a tremendous platform and and I I appreciate the way you're using it. Right? But for me, I'm the council member of ward five here in Minneapolis. I don't have to convince anybody on the news. I don't have to convince people in Saint Paul. I don't have to convince people on the coast. I don't have to convince congress, you know. I've enjoyed this conversation. I really like you. I don't have to convince you even Right. But you don't have to do anything show up, but I wouldn't say Right. But you don't I've never had to do anything to help newsbut would say that, yeah, you have to convince your constituents -- And I gotta convince my friend -- if your constituents flip on the newsbut. And they're like, well, he seemed like a nice guy when he came through yesterday, but now he looks like a crazy Sure. You know, here, like, I'm not so sure. Yeah. Luckily, I haven't gotten that feedback. And I know it's I know it exists out there, and I know that there's there's those narratives, but, I mean, I I guess I'm lucky enough. Well, what is the what is, like, the question that you wish you got asked in those interviews? Or what is the confusion if there is any that you would like to clear up? Or that frustrates you when you see those news pieces. You know, when We just got just got done now talking about kind of the nuances of how you execute. A call to how how a call a broad call to action gets sort of channeled and interpreted into governing. That's the kind of conversation I wanna be having. Right? Because it's the kind of conversation that I'm gonna have to have one way or another if I wanna get anything done. Right. These are not binary, you know, situations. They're not. And and I can appreciate that. Like, you know, some conversations are going to be three minutes, like, you know, some conversations are gonna be three minutes. Right? And that I've gotta be able to have a three minute response that is at least approximate to the ninety minute conversation I'm I'm I can have. Right? Mhmm. But I also think it's important that these conversations not get reduced to the three minute response it's much easier to say, you said a thing in public and then crime out. It's stupid, but it's much easier to say then to have this conversation about what actually drives up crime. Like, what the the impact of the pandemic and the economic crisis have had -- Mhmm. -- on safety. It's easier to say it's easier to say that. But then you have to ask yourself, well, crime also went up in New York and Chicago and you know, cities in Arizona and, you know, and then you have to is that the is that the citynot is that the Minneapolis City Council called too? You know, they then then then it's like, you know, and and now you're giving me sort of the kind of power that nobody actually has. Right? And so and so, you know, that doesn't really make any newsbut. But it's easier to say, and you could say it in a short amount of time. It's harder for me to say, how do you go about this? How do you turn this into governing? Mhmm. I actually can't quite answer that question in three minutes. Right. I can answer what we've done in three But even then, I can't really get into details. Right? You know, five percent of their budget, eight million dollars to to these things, it's important and I should say it, but yeah, I think that if there were more opportunities for folks to engage in more long form conversation, that's how we're actually gonna cook up a solution to me. And if people could, you know, I guess, I'll challenge myself to help people not have such short memories about what has happened -- Mhmm. -- in the past because think that plays a role in it too. The only way that you could be accused of being reactionary for questioning a hundred and two year old conversation that has not moved one inch in those hundred and two years is if people have consistently had really short memories about these kinds of incidences the impacts that they've had, the tragedies that they've caused. And so, you know, I've I've gotta be patient with people and help them not have such short memories. Right? Right? So at the same time, you must have some kind of game plan in the event that Chauvin it's released and and is not convicted. Right. Because the city is going to spark, like, do you have a sense of, of how you would respond to Right? Because the city is gonna spark Like, do you have a sense of of how you would respond to that? You must have thought about that, of course. You know, in the, during the summer, you know, when there was just, you know, the unrest kind of just dragged on and on and on, there was, there were groups of neighbors who sort of some arms, some unarmed who decided to sort of engage in their own sort of know, in the during the summer, you know, when there was just, you know, unrest kind of just dragged on and on and on. There was there were groups of neighbors who sort of some armed, some unarmed who decided to sort of engage in their own sort of patrols. Right? Sort of like a amped up, you know, neighborhood watch type thing. And myself and council member of Philippe Cunningham noticed that not all of the groups knew each other and that we didn't want groups who were armed and maybe driving around or, you know, so they'd like having conflict with people who live that literally live a couple blocks from them. And so we so we tried to play sort of that connected tissue. Mhmm. I was out doing patrols myself and people knew that they could text or call me And and if they couldn't get through to nine eleven, then I had a direct line to the, you know, the the commander of the precinct and that I could sort of help them address their problem. And then if I couldn't get that, I would drive to their location and help them myself. Right. You know, as one individual, you know, I'm not incredibly superhuman. You know, you met me. I'm not incredibly tall or, you know, all that stuff. But you're kinda jacked. I tried. Yeah. But but I I can't I can't be out here being like, you know, I'm not gonna be Batman. Right? I just don't have the capacity. I don't think anyone does. But I'll probably be out there with my neighbors and trying to make sure that people are safe, trying to make sure that you know, their properties not, you know, slid on fire and all of that. I think there's also just this huge you know, if you're not in Minneapolis, you know, III don't blame you for not, like discerning the local geography. Right. But like, for folks who maybe don't know all the protests were happening miles from where I Right? But, like, for folks who maybe don't know, all protests were happening miles from where I represent. Right. Right. They're halfway north. Yeah. I was I was surprised how far south George Floyd Square is. Yeah. And and so that, you know, so for and there were no protests, no marches, no nothing happening in North Minneapolis. What we had was we had these spontaneous fires that got started, not by crowds, not by protesters, not by activists, not by any of that. And talking about, like, AutoZone and the precinct, that was south side. North side, we had, you know, gas stations, businesses, that kind of stuff being put on fire. And so it was kinda odd. Right? People like okay, we're not having protests over here, why are why are things getting lit on fire? And and so there was a, you know, there were a few there was one time in particular where you know, I we got a call from a neighbor. Me and my me and my me and my friend Mike and my younger brother, we arrived at the scene of this fire before the the fire trucks even. And we're and it's a it was a it was a business called The Fade Factory. It's a Barbara Shop, and we were just, like, trying to help the small business owner, like, put the fire out in his shop. And we were unsuccessful. I just remember like pouring water, like running water hoses from people's I just remember, like, pouring water, like, running water hoses from people's houses and, like, the heat was kind of incredible. And then all of a sudden, like, the two, like, windows just on either side of us just shattered Daunte it was, like, we're not gonna defeat this fire with these with these home home hoses. Right? That was what I did the first time. And, and I'll continue to be out there and do stuff like that the second time, you know, I, I'm not as convinced that the city, well, maybe now that we've had Dante time and and I'll continue to be out there and do stuff like that the second time. You know, I I'm not as convinced that the city well, maybe now that we've had Dante Wright killed in Brooklyn Daunte, which is a nearby suburb. I mean, it's it's essentially You're you're in North Minneapolis, but it's like North North Minneapolis. Right. And it's not technically Minneapolis. As its own mayor -- Right. -- its own police force. Right. Right. But I'll tell you right now that, like, I have constituents who, you know, who can who move around quite bit. Right? And they'll live in Minneapolis. They'll live they'll live in North Minneapolis. They might go live in Golan Valley, which is a nearby suburb, but they're definitely gonna go live in Brooklyn Park or Brooklyn Daunte, which is in Brooklyn centers where that happened. I mean, it's it's you know, there there's there are the borders that governments create and then there are the borders that people create and, you know, from North Minneapolis to Brooklyn Daunte, there's essentially no border. Right. People don't even treat it like it's different. Right? And so, you know, I I still kinda consider that happening kind of basically in my neighborhood. Yeah. I'm not as convinced that, you know, there's just gonna be chaos. I will say that in my experiencebased on the ground The way police respond to protesters, and I don't think it has to be this way, but the way they respond contributes to chaos. And when you have that kind of chaos, you're gonna have all kinds of activity start to happen. Right? When the police consistently are claiming that they cannot distinguish between peaceful protesters and somebody who threw a water bottle, and they dump gas and mace and rubber bullets and flash bangs on the entire crowd. You know? They're gonna be people who look at that and say, game on. Yeah. There's an opportunity here. They're going to be people who are pissed off who think they're in a fight for their here. They're gonna be people who are pissed off, who think they're in a fight for their life. And the police response is proving them right. Right? Mhmm. But that's how they're gonna feel. Yeah. They just it feeds off each other -- Right. -- right and escalates. Right. The difference now being, of course, that the national guard is here. Right? So that's different. What's interesting about that is at peak George Floyd protests, there was the whole kerfuffle with the mayor, with Donald Trump. Right? He was calling him weak. And, you know, saying that if if Friday didn't call in a national guard, he was gonna do it because you know, when the looting starts, the shooting starts. Right. That famous tweet. Mhmm. And mayor Fry didn't call in the National Guard, but now he did. Mhmm. And so here we are in a situation on the eve of verdict being delivered in the midst of the Daunte rights situation. So there is a pins and needles kind of vibe -- Mhmm. -- everywhere you go. And on top of that, this curfew -- Mhmm. -- and I know you got a lot opinions about how curfews work to derail or curtail freedom of association and freedom of speech. What is your take on, you know, seeing these humvees all over town right now. Yeah. III think that it it it probably invites the very kind of activity and actors that it's meant to deter. To be honest with you. Mhmm. I mean, the fences certainly do that. You might as well put the barbed wire in the fences in the barricades everywhere. Yeah. Absolutely. It is like a war zone. It's crazy. Yeah. I mean, you know There was somebody my guys were walking around downtown, and they they bumped up against the German woman who was saying that some elderly German woman who said something along along the lines of like, I haven't seen anything like this since, you know, Berlin. Yeah. I mean, it was funny right before I was just about to say, I I described to my sister, I was like, yeah, they literally have two two fences with barbed wire in the middle, and her response was, that's how the Berlin Wall was built. And I'm like, that's not a great sign. Right. I, you know, And It's been wild to watch the PR, like I click on CNN and first of all, it's crazy to like be here and then turn CNN it's been a while to watch the the like, I click on CNN. And first of all, it's crazy to, like, be here and then turn CNN on, and it's, like, all everything all day long is about what's happening here. Yeah. Right? It's like this. Even in when we were at George Floyd Square, one of the guys we were with went into cup foods. And it's of course, it's on in there too. Yeah. And it's like, it's so meta. Yeah. Right? And and, like, strange, like, some crazy simulation. Yeah. Yeah. In the context of the Dante write protest, you turn on CNN, and you can just hear, like, it's all about, like, what's gonna happen when the clock ticks ten and its curfew and everybody's like getting ready for some major clash. Mhmm. Daunte happened yet. Yeah. I know there's been some shit that's gone down. But in the grander scheme of things, it's mostly just pretty chill. It's mostly just the military. Say night, there were, like, ten people there. Yeah. After curfew, everybody left. Yeah. It's mostly just the police and the military -- Right. -- jumping gas on people. Like, you know, and and and I I think that that's like I mean, you know, they In some ways, they have to do that. Right? They they predicted this this this violent crazed fallout. People in Minneapolis surrounding area were gonna react in this way. They prepare for months for the scenario that they wanted, which is, you know, their their their their opportunity to have the resources to suppress a crowd. And so when it didn't happen, they kinda had to pretend like it was happening anyway. That's the that's the sense that I get. Yeah. And I think it's it's kinda sad. And for anybody who's been who is out in Brooklyn Center, you know, I've always had a really impression good impression of the governor. But I saw the other day he or maybe earlier today time is a is a flat circle these days. He said that he believed that if the barricades hadn't gone up and the military hadn't gone out there that the that the police precinct in Brooklyn Center was gonna go up in flames. I can't think of a thing. I'm I I've never heard an elected official no matter their party say something so more full of shit than that. Because if you're there and I was there and you're reading the room and you're getting the mood of the crowd, you kinda get a sense of of where things are at. You literally leaders out there who were, you know, gently urging people to go home? Most of them did. Mhmm. I mean, the type of people who themselves you would think would not go home. We're urging people to go home. I mean, the tone is just people are mourning. Whatever fantasy the governor has, about these rapid people who can't control their impulses, who burn everything down. It doesn't exist except in his fan. It's usually a reaction to something usually a reaction and to some Level of of provocation. It's almost always that. I mean, it's pretty I've only ever seen it be that. There's always gonna be bad actors, though, whoever For sure. Okay. This is it's law less like nobody's gonna nope. You know, there's not gonna be any cop showing up we're just gonna go do what we're gonna do. Yeah. For I mean, for sure. Right? You're gonna have people who think, okay. Cool. This is an opportunity to go, break into the store, and steal some stuff that I could, you know, sell later or or own or whatever. Right? You're always gonna have that. But to pretend like the entire crowd is that, or to just say, oh, there's no way for us to distinguish. It's not true. And and, you know, I know I generally try to keep a calm demeanor, but it it infuriates me. Kind of a no. To no end when I see that. And the and and the rhetorical violence. Right? You're not seeing you you know, you don't see it. He the the governor's not seeing what he's articulating. So he has to sort of implant that image in your mind with his words. Right. That's all he has because he can't show you that because it doesn't That's all he has. Mhmm. Because he can't show you that because it doesn't exist. Mhmm. He has to implant that in your mind with his words. And and a lot of a lot of elected officials govern that way, and it's just to provide some rhetorical cover when they go ahead and abused, you know, our neighbors. I I think the part of the challenge or the uphill battle that you're trying to wage is convincing a guy like that that there's value in doing something different. Like, we've seen the evidence that like, every time you do it this way, this is what happens. Yeah. But if you're that guy, you're like, well, maybe we just need more force. Yeah. It's like it's too risky. You know what I mean? If he's if he's trying to, you know, please his constituents or whoever he is answering to in that regard. It's like, I know if I do this, it might not go so good, but this is what we do. And so I different. Yeah. I can take comfort in take comfort in that. Yeah. I can take comfort in that whereas if I go out on a limb and say, We're not gonna do any of that. We're gonna allow these protesters to, like, do their thing. And I promise you it's gonna be chill. Mhmm. And something goes sideways, then it's like, you know, your head is on a stick. Sure. Sure. I mean, one is, I'm not advocating that when tensions are high that you do nothing. Right. Mhmm. I do think that when you have folks like myself or folks like, you know, Steve Fletcher, Lisa Bender, you know, these are my colleagues on the council. When you have, like, a handful of folks advocating that we do it differently. Right? And we've never done it differently before. But we think that if we all engaged our our collective imagination and we all engage our momentAs, our collective common sense, that we could probably do something pretty good. But when you got 3579 people, and then you have the governor, the, you know, the commissioner of public safety, the police chief of the city of various cities and the the the the the Henningham County Sheriff all saying, we're gonna do it this way. And you're like, okay, I think we should do it differently. And they're like, well, how? You have you're like, you we collectively thought of this really abusive response, and it took all of us, all of our brains together, working together to think of this really abusive response. But but the un but the non abusive response the that does that isn't rooted in violence. You gotta come up with that on your own. own. If we don't like it, we're just gonna tell you, If we don't like just gonna tell you you're gonna Right. I mean, that's that's the criticism that gets hurled at you. Like, oh, you want this different way and will show us what that is. And, you know, you haven't come up with that -- Right. -- in specific And the truth and the truth is that in in a lot of ways I have, right. When it comes to thinking out this department of public safety and the ways that we should examine safety and, and proceed forward, that I've have thought out when it comes to how you deescalate a crowd that is full of raw emotion, I've got some when it comes to thinking out department of public safety and the ways that we should examine safety and and and proceed forward that I've had thought out. Mhmm. When it comes to how you deescalate a crowd that is full of wrong motion. I've got some ideas. I do think that it would be worthwhile for me to vet those ideas with other smart people and, you know, have my ideas challenged and and shaped and into a plan. Right. Like, should not involve, like, an organizational psychologist or, like he understands, like, you know It should least be appropriate response to to diffuse tense emotions. Right. It should at least involve the governor. Right. It should at least involve the mayor. Right? And and and and and it doesn't involve even those part, like, you know, I think the the the the standard is crazy. Right? Like like, they come to get they they understand the value of of collective imagination. They all worked together to collectively imagine this plan that they're executing that's going really badly. Right. Mhmm. But tradition has momentum. But the tradition has momentum and the expectation is that if you wanna do it differently, that you've gotta come up with that on your own. We did it together. We used the power of collaboration. Oh, but what you wanna collaborate? That's no. That that just means that you don't know what you're doing. And so the standards for the standards are just different and and they're, you know, to a ridiculous degree. Yeah. So who is getting it right? Like, is there a model out there of a city that's executing in a way that you think Minneapolis could aspire to emulate? I'll be honest with be honest with you. I don't know that any city government is getting it right. What about internationally? Like, any any places in Europe or, you know, I mean, their relationship to policing is completely different. Yeah. It is completely different. They their gun laws are different. You know? You know, I I think that they've built a system that they can sustain. Right? And, you know, I think there's a whole host of reasons why maybe it would be difficult to copy that. Right? I do think that, like, when you look at what other cities have done around doing a better job of ensuring housing and addressing homelessness. Right? And but it's not just because because the homeless, quite frankly, are not the ones out here committing most crimes. Right? It's people who might be housed but are financially insecure. Yeah. And and, you know, and and and and And clearly disenfranchised and you know, your your your options for them are that they can starve to death or they can go out and try create a little bit of opportunity for themselves. And they're opting to live. Right? Maybe in a way that harms others and and that's not okay, but you also haven't we also haven't set some people up for success. think that there are some folks who are starting to, I think, you know, I keep using this phrase, ask the question. It's not like a slogan or anything. I'm just just kinda have a conversation involved. like, I think there are some folks who are asking the right questions. Right? Maher Maher in Ithaca, New York is, like, asking the right questions. He's actually taking this Department of Public Safety Concept. I don't know that I don't necessarily know that he got it from us, but he he's certainly moving much faster than us. In trying to execute something like that. Right? And and I certainly think that, like, folks, like, you know, is too bad that, like, Michael Tubbs you know, ended up losing his election because, you know, instituting things like, you know, universal basic income and and experimenting and figuring out how we can do those kinds policies, I think they start to erase some of the reasons then people might engage. Yeah. You can create a a bedrock of foundation. Right. You can build upon. Right. I feel like that was one initiative that has succeeded in becoming a productive part of the national conversation and no small are due to Andrew Yang. I mean, he's the one who really -- Sure. -- yeah. On the president of the stage into, into on the presidential stage. Into into prominence Daunte it's now being you know, reasonably considered -- Yeah. -- in a way that a couple years ago, people don't have thought it was insane. Totally crazy. Yeah. Right. Right. You know, I think what we're finding with policing is that no response is actually going to amount to safety if people are insecure in their housing. In securing their work, insecure in, you know, how they feed themselves. Right? The system we have can enact some brutality on people who are perceived as committing harm, but often, enact plenty of brutality on people who aren't even perceived to be committing harms. It's just an ex brutality on them. So think that a real path is gonna have to be a mix of us realizing that housing and, you know, how people earn their living and safety are not siloed, you know, subjects. So, no matter. Right? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And that we sort of have to engage these other forms as we change our emergency responses. And I think that what we're gonna find is that For folks who were out there, maybe selling drugs or doing whatever kind of thing that that we we might see as harmful to our to our communities Mhmm. -- that now we give them an out. And we're not we do they don't have an out right now. Yeah. And and then what we're gonna find is that, you know, the person who has, you know, bipolar disorder and they're having an episode or or whatever whatever whatever is going on, then if we can admit to ourselves, then a cop showing up with a gun, pointing their gun at that Ellison, and screaming at them, doesn't actually It's it's not it's not practice. It's not productive. I mean, I think another issue that will like, if this becomes a thing that you'll have to contend with, is the difference between conceptualization and execution. Oh, for sure. Like, I'm thinking of child services, for example. Yeah. Like -- Right. Right. -- the idea of child services is very well intention -- Mhmm. -- protect these newsbut then it becomes abused and misused and -- Yep. -- you know, kids are getting yanked out of houses that shouldn't get yanked dash. Like, you know what I you know what I mean? Like, all sorts of stuff can go haywire with this. Off the the minute you start creating all of these bureaucracies. Newsbut I I actually think that it's the I think that it is our punitive inclination that that that actually creates that. Right? That to me, that starts with I mean, that is a well, that's. I mean, you could that traces all the way back to systemic racism in that mean, you could that's traces all the way back to systemic racism -- Yeah. -- in that regard. Like, what is the intention when you're knocking on that what is the intention when you're knocking on that door and you're like, what are you expecting to see? What is your bias going into that situation. And what are the expectations or your quota or whatever your boss is telling you? For sure. I mean, we've had, you know, I think by and large, you know, people will find that they'd much rather interact with like an EMT or a firefighter than police officer. But you know, I've heard from constituents that they feel like they've been assaulted by EMTs. Right? And so, you know, when when if if an EMT is showing up to a scene, with the mentality of a police officer. If a child protection worker is showing up to that knocking on that door with the mentality of a police officer then you're gonna get sort of that punitive approach. And if they know they're being dispatched in lieu of police, though, that could lead to that mentality. I I don't know that that's don't know that that's true. Yeah. I don't I don't I mean, I'm not saying it's not true. I just don't I don't know for sure. Right. That That that would be one of those assumptions that we would have of would be one of those Well, I think that we would It's not reason to it's not a reason to not try. Right. Right. Yeah. And it's one of those assumptions that we would have to really vet. Mhmm. And, I mean, we're seeing that, like, Look, the the violence interruptors, and even before we had the because there the violence interruptors are pretty new. Even before we had the violence interruptors, we had what's called GVI caseworkers. This is group violence intervention caseworkers. You know, these guys, they're they're not approaching, you know, these are men and women who aren't approaching their work with that sort of punitive, like, I gotta catch somebody in the act or I gotta I gotta I gotta wag my finger and and strict discipline. Or I gotta this is not how they approach the work. Right? And so I think that it's possible to create emergency responses that do that do by and large have the intended outcome that you want. Right. Mhmm. Now you know, anything that you don't put a lot of care into, a lot of investment into is probably not gonna function very well. So we're gonna have to make sure that you know, that these are not trends that come and go. Right? That, you know, we tried that. It worked, but the problem's not as prevalent now, so we're gonna go ahead and give all that money back to the police. If that's the outcome, then, yeah, I mean, we I think we can pretty much count on these cycles continuing. Mhmm. Mhmm. So I'm sitting down with the mayor tomorrow. Mhmm. And I know you guys don't see eye to eye on on on everything, but you seem to have you seem to have a rapport -- Yeah. -- you guys get along and everything. What do you think, like, what should I ask him? Like, what would you like me to ask him? What would you like me to hear his answer What what would you like me to hear his answer on? You know, I think you're going to be better at this stuff than me, but, you know, there is one question I feel like has gone really I think you're gonna be better at this stuff than newsbut, you know, there is one question I feel like has gone really unanswered. You know, there was this report by the U of M that talked about the misuse of less lethal rounds throughout the Daunte. Mhmm. And but, you know, the the start of their research was here locally. You know, things like, you know, five year olds that had nothing to they, you know, them, their parents, they weren't at the protest. They're you know, we had a firehouse truck with a rubber bullet. Skol hadn't received a Skol fracture. People who were hit with canisters, you know, tear gas canisters or you know, flash bang canisters. right. That you would have to literally be aiming at their head in order for that to really happen, journalist That you you would have to literally be aiming at their head in order for that to really happen. Journalism blinded. Right? You don't have to ask them the specifics about these cases because these things are all gonna get litigated. But, you know, there was a time during the protest after George Floyd was killed. Where, you know, yeah, the crowds were upset, but the response from the police was excessive. And I don't think that it could but it it could not be described by any reasonable Ellison who was there as anything other than excessive. And if my memory is serving correctly, It was two days of just excessive police force on protesters before you before the AutoZone went on fire. Uh-huh. Right. And so to me in my mind, that's two days where You could have, but at that point, there's no chance for deescalation when the AutoZone's could have. But at that point, there's no chance for deescalation. When the autozone's on fire, you get two days before that. Yeah. You had two days before that to to address the situation and to do something differently. Right? Instead of pushing these protesters, creating a chaotic situation in which nonprotesters felt welcomed and then pushing the crowds back into the businesses that aren't protected by you. Right? Mhmm. You push them you literally push them back into the neighborhood and into the businesses that are not protected being protected by you right now. And so, you know, a lot of folks, when they look at their report, all the misuse, all the excessive violence that happened during the protest, I mean, the state's lawsuit against the many against MPD for a pattern in practice of discrimination is not because of what happened George Floyd. It's because of how police acted during the protest. Right? You know, there there's been this question hanging of, like, did the mayor and the chief approve of this conduct? Or was the chain of command broken? Were rank and file officers going rogue? Mhmm. And and we don't know. And we and we don't know. And I think that I think that the man and chief have successfully avoided that question. And Quite honestly, they've reaped the benefits of having no answer to that question. Because if they maintained full control, but also somehow didn't condone the conduct that occurred. Well, you know, that that means that they both made all the right decisions. And that they deserve to stay in control of the system. Right. But there's no political benefit in answering that question. Sure. But I think that it's I think that there's a benefit to to asking the question. III, you know, now that I'm saying you have to ask them that question tomorrow. I'd be a hostage question then. I'm not gonna lock. But I gotta think about that. But but I do think that, you know, I do think that the the the answer to that question matters, not because it would hurt the mayor politically. Right? Mhmm. Or the chief or whatever. Right? III don't care about that. But every road to change has to start with an acknowledgment. Right? And if we cannot have an acknowledgment of what did and didn't occur, then I don't know how we do it. You gotta have the reckoning. Right. Right? Right. As a as a as a starting point. Right. That being said though, I feel like his position on police reform He's not willing to go as far as you would like to go. Mhmm. But he's fully acknowledging that the system is broken and is in is in significant need of of dramatic repair, while at the same time not changing his response to protests. I'm not changing his approach to that broken system. You know, you can change the wording on the use of force document, which, you know, had been re rewritten pretty well in just in twenty sixteen. Right? You can do some of these things that on paper look totally fine. They look like the right thing to do. And then it center erupts and then just whatever is gonna happen is gonna happen. Yeah. Dumb gas on them. Right. If we're not you know, you could say this system is deeply broken, but we're gonna surround the bill we're gonna surround all these buildings with with with fences and barbed wire. We're not gonna take the time to understand why the crowd reacted the way it reacted. Daunte we're certainly not gonna admit that we played any role in that. Right? think one of the most valuable things about, you know, that that the movie of the trial, the Chicago seven I brought it up earlier, is that, you know, and one of the values of reading current commission, you know, the commission, the commission on race relation, the Illinois commission on race relations from nineteen nineteen. One of the values that you get is that, you know, when you vet history, a lot of the major riots once studied are determined to have been started by the police. Mhmm. Well, they yeah. I mean, that movie does a great job of showing how that all came to be. Right. And it's it's just history repeating itself and repeating itself. Right. And so you say there's a problem, but then when you see the problem, and we say like this, like, this is the problem you got, no, so you say there's a problem But then when you see the problem and we say, like this, like, this is the problem you go, no. No. This no. We're gonna keep doing it this way. I think that that is, you know, I I think that it's caused problems. And after the death of Jamal Clark, that was sort of when this initial wave that we're now re you know, sort of remixing. Mhmm. This initial wave of reforms, you know, rewriting the use of force, deescalation, all this stuff. The initial wave came came then. Right? We did all the stuff that we were supposed to do. The city did. I wasn't in office, but, like, the city did all the stuff that was supposed to do about with with regards to reform then. Right? Daunte was like, here we go here we go again. Right? And and we're and we're rewriting the same. We're taking the same documents that we rewrote in sixteen, and we're rewriting them now. You know, different mayor, different chief. But and and I think that that's the one thing that I wish the mayor and the chief would understand, is that admitting the failures of this current system, asking the questions demanding some real change is not a reflection of them because they didn't build this. Mhmm. But they are, you know, sort of they have invested in the maintenance of it, and I believe that they shouldn't be. Yeah. No. It's interesting. I mean, it's a valid point. It's it's it's certainly not I mean, it's politically verbatim let alone experiencebased, to admit that but I do think, like, I'm a huge believer in the power of vulnerability. And I think that level of honesty to, like, own do an inventory and actually own your side of the street and how that contributed to what transpired. Just engenders so much trust. Mhmm. Ultimately, you have to play the long game. Right. And if you're a politician, you're always looking at the next election cycle. But I mean, you can broaden. You don't have two though. Right? Yeah. Michael Tubbs is thirty. Right? I'm thirty one. I was like, I was like, man, this guy younger than me. Like, Well, Michael Tubbs is, are you the youngest city council member currently currently Michael Tibbs is Are you the youngest city council member? Currently. Yeah. Currently. I think that will change. That'll change next next election cycle. I think so good. Some good young folks are gonna newsbut, like, yeah, I'm currently the youngest. And, like, you know, he rose to mayor, and I think in in a in a city that he lived in, and I think it could be easy, but I think it'd be a mistake to say, like, oh, this is a quick rise and fall. Right. Guys, thirty. He's got the rest of his life to make an impact and, like, from everything I've seen from him, he's going to. Right? I think that if I had to lose an election because I advocated for a homeless shelter, for example, I could live with that. If I had to lose an election because I fought for more affordable housing, because I fought to create a system that actually kept people safe more safe than the one now. Right? If I had to lose an election for those reasons, like, so be it. I could live with that forever. I'll go back to paint materials. Mhmm. Right? You know, some of us are lucky enough to be incredibly young in this job. And if we had to lose an election because we did the right thing, in a moment that demanded that we do the right thing. And, like, what's the real loss? Right? Well, yeah, the arc of history bends towards justice. Like ultimately, you know, that is playing the long game because you know, you'll find yourself in some other situation where you'll, you know, be fine. Yeah. Or get reelected or or whatever. Right. But what does it look like for you? Are you in you in this for the like, what's what's it look like ten years from now? Are you in this game? I'm good. I, you know, I think it's really important that I play the role I'm I'm being asked to play by my community right now. Mhmm. I think you know, that's such a mean, I'll put it this way. I'm not thinking about that. I'm just thinking about I mean, I'll put it this way. Came into this I got it like the one I was twenty seven. Yeah. And I don't plan on doing this job till seventy seven. I think that there's some real interesting things that I've been able to create in the last three plus years. And think there's some real interesting things. You know? And I'm not just talking about public safety. I'm talking about, you know, economic development. I mean, you know, for years. People in North Minneapolis have talked about, okay, in the black community, number one issue is access to capital. And I created this fund that gave folks access to capital, and I'm seeing small businesses buy their buildings. Right. So now there's ownership within the community -- Right. -- instead of landlords who live on the other side of town -- Yeah. -- sometimes not even in this in the country. Right? Mhmm. And so and so, like, I'm I'm I feel like I'm really getting some things right because I'm willing to dig into the weeds and I'm willing to respect you know, the the expertise of some of our staff. And at the same time, learn what they know and try to push them as best as I can. Right? To do better on housing, to do better on this, to to create these these interesting things. But I am a firm believer that when your time is up, it's better to sort of relinquish the mic than to have it snatched from you. And so, you know, I think that if I'm not looking around my community and saying, you know, who are all the brilliant people that I know could do this job? Right? Who are all those people, but they would never do it because nobody ever told them that they could be a council member. Right. Like, you know, they would never do it because nobody ever asked them. Right? People always ask, like, no offense to attorneys, you know, blood related to a bunch of people always ask, like, the businessman of the attorney to run for office. Right? They're not asking the artist, they're not asking the youth worker, then not asking the sanitation engineer who probably knows more about problems in the city, you know, than than anybody else. Right? And so, like, to me, you know, a part of my job is to look around me, look at my surroundings and say, who else could do this job and serve their community. Whether they're older than me, younger than me, doesn't matter. I think one of the things that we fail to do and I guess the we here is I'm talking about, you know, you know, young progressives and progressives elected and maybe elected in general is that we don't invest in in people's leadership. Right? We sort of just like allow leadership to manifest in whatever way and then we and then we, you know, sort of hit the lottery and, you know, maybe this person. Right. Well, it's it's it's a lot easier and lot more fun to just criticize politics. That's for sure. Yeah. You know, I, yeah, for I yeah. For sure. And that's fine. You're gonna be criticized. I hope I hope whoever III hope whatever, you know, young leaders that I I I'm I'm investing in. I hope that the one thing can pass on to them is is is to have really thick skin. A lot of people have done this job badly. Right? A lot of people have cost harm in these physicians. Right? There's several council members even who, like, you know, you still see them around town, who, like, they left office because they took bribes. Right? A lot of people have caused harms in these position have caused harm in this in these positions. And so and so you better have thick skin because, you know, your neighbors deserve at least that. Yeah. You know? So, so So so yeah. I I don't know how long I'll do this. IIII feel a lot of purpose in this work, and I feel pretty good at it. I don't know that I enjoy I I mean, you know, look man, it feels like you got a pretty good grip on it. But I think you're in the right lane. I'm sure you're itching to pick up a paintbrush. Yeah. don't know if you still do that in your free time or if you have any free time. I mean, if you were gonna slightly. If you were if you could do a mural right now, what what would you, like, what would that look like? What would that mural be? Oh man. Right this second, I've I would probably wanna do something that had nothing to do with any of this. I probably wanna just paint, like, a huge, like, silver surfer, like, like, on the side of the building. And just like, is that your like, is that your guy? Love SilverScript. I think I think it's great one of my favorite favorite comics. But, you know, I probably wanna you know, I'm not even sure if I'd have the energy to paint a mirror right now. You know, it be pretty physically I never quite realized how physically involved my role making newsbut, you know, you build a scaffolding every day, and you're climbing this thing, you're climbing Daunte, and days are usually hot. In Minnesota, the days can be really can be pretty hot. So I'm like, I don't even know if I have the energy to paint me all right now. Because it's not hot right now. It's not hot right now. Funny because I would have thought, oh, you'd have this perfectly grafted, like, idea of this political politically charged mural that, you know, you'd wanna go paint down it. Jewish white George Floyd's Square. You you know what I would wanna do right now? You know, I I would I probably could write a pretty good season of Fargo. Right? Right now. Oh, yeah. Like, given everything Trust me. It's hard to not visit here and not think about I actually just watched that movie, like, two weeks ago. Can you see show at all? Yeah. The show is pretty good. It's good. Yeah. It's good. Yeah. And Chris, the the latest season with Chris Rock. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That was really good. Season two is probably still just like the best, but they're also Yeah. They're all really different. It's all the same vibe. Yeah. I wouldn't have time to do yeah, yeah. I could probably write a pretty good season of I could probably write pretty good season of Fargo right now. Alright. Well, good, man. Good talking to you. Yeah. Thank you. How do you feel? You're alright? You gotta get some food in You, yeah. I'm gonna go eat some I'm gonna go eat some more. I think a couple of dates. That's that's that's I'm gonna give it a little bit more just. Yeah. Cool, man. I appreciate you talking to me and best of luck winning yourselves. Yeah. Thanks, man. Thanks. Peace. Bye. Thanks for listening everybody for links and resources related to everything discussed today. Visit the show notes on the episode page at richroll dot com. If you'd like to support the podcast, the easiest and most impactful thing can do is to subscribe to the show on Apple Podcasts, on Spotify, and on YouTube. Sharing the show or your favorite episode with friends around social media is of course always appreciated. And finally, for podcast updates, special offers on books, the meal planner, and other subjects, Subscribe to our newsletter, which you can find on the footer of any page on richroll dot com. 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