July 3, 2020 • 45 mins
Baratunde explains what "defund the police" means to him then takes you to the room where it happens as the Los Angeles City Council hears directly from Black Lives Matter activists presenting their case to reimagine public safety and the city budget.
Find out more about the participatory budgeting effort at peoplesbudgetla.com
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Yo, this is Baritone Day and welcome to We're Having
a Moment, a limited podcast series where I try to
make sense of this defining moment around race and policing
in the United States. This is episode three, defund the Police.
(00:25):
Remember checks and balances, old school concept from ancient Rome
or the Enlightenment or the US constitution. Always get those confused.
The idea is to prevent concentrations of government power by
dividing it and building in accountability. Cool idea, Right, what
if we tried that with police? Because right now, practically speaking,
(00:50):
police in the US have concentrated a lot of power
and are rarely held accountable. I remember when I first
is heard the phrase defund the police. I was like, what,
that's crazy? What about crime? You know? And it just
(01:11):
struck me as insane. But then I decided to learn things,
and it turns out learning can cause one to change
one's mind, and so I applied new information to my
old ideas, and I've come out as an advocate of
defunding the police. It starts with slave patrols. I know,
(01:36):
I know, black person talking about slavery. What else is new?
But it's a thing. It's always a thing in the beginning.
We created this nation based on taking a lot of land,
killing a lot of people, and forcing labor out of
another set of people. And to ensure this system of
racial and economic dominance, we put in place rules and
(02:01):
we defined a role of slave patroller. Here is the
slave patrollers Oath from the great State of North Carolina. I,
in certain name here do swear that I will, as
searcher for guns, swords, and other weapons among the slaves
(02:22):
in my district, faithfully and as privately as I can,
discharge the trust reposed in me as the law directs,
to the best of my power. So help me God. Now,
when I decided to dig into this history lesson, I
didn't go to the Democratic Socialist of America website. I
(02:42):
didn't dig up an old pamphlet from the new or
old Black Panther Party. Nor did I visit my favorite website,
Deport all White Americans not Bid. No, I went to
the National Museum for Law Enforcement their website. You can't
physic lego, but they are in our nation's capital very
much with the support and sanction of the law enforcement community.
(03:06):
And those words were on their website, as are these
in a post dated July nine, talking about the history
of policing in the US. Here's what it says. When
one thinks about policing in early America, there are a
few images that may come to mind. A county sheriff
(03:27):
enforcing a debt between neighbors, a constable serving and a
rest warrant on horseback, or a lone night watchman carrying
a lantern through his sleeping town. These organized practices were
adapted to the colonies from England and formed the foundations
of American law enforcement. However, there is another significant origin
(03:48):
of American policing that we cannot forget, and that is
slave patrols. And and and I heard it in my head,
like slave patrols, you know, it's like a pop and circumstance.
There was umpits are maybe loots, you know, depending on
the era. So when the official museum of law enforcement
(04:08):
in the country is willing to acknowledge the origins of
this institution, I'm gonna use that as my source to
try to bring more people in. In the US, the
police were established as a means of controlling populations, first slaves,
then just black people in general, but also poor people
and labor organizers. Crimes were defined to control black people
(04:32):
in America were so good with our imagination, we called
those sections of the law black codes. So we defined
these codes that restricted black people's ability to work and
live in certain areas of our society. And if you
violated that, a patrolman, a law enforcement officer, a constable
(04:53):
might show up and arrest you. You might be cited
and find you might have to give up all your
wages for all the work you did, returning you to
the status of practical slave. For over a century in
the U S, we've loaded up law enforcement with all
sorts of duties. Help with the homeless, resolved domestic disputes,
(05:14):
walk my kids across the street, perform a wellness check,
respond to noise complaints, intervene in a mental health crisis,
handle unruly kids in school a k a. Kids in school. Oh,
and look over there, a black person is walking or reading,
or shopping, or sleeping, or bird watching or breathing. Go
get them, officer. For each of these problems. We have
(05:36):
prescribed the intrinsically excessive force of mostly men with a
lot of guns. And while we loaded up these officers
with jobs they aren't qualified to perform, we also loaded
them up with guns, lots of guns and other military hardware.
We only deploy to subdue the enemy. We've made a
(05:59):
meror can law enforcement the equivalent of a call of
duty war zone team with unlimited load out, drops, unlimited
cash to revive their players, and constant radar. And for
the record, I am not qualified to make that call
of duty reference, but I want to thank my godson,
Griff for letting me feel relevant to the young people.
Go god Son, go god son, make me feel cool.
(06:23):
We spend a hundred billion dollars a year on policing
in the US. We could spend less than that and
cover full four year public college tuition for everybody. We
spend a hundred billion dollars a year on policing, and
it keeps going up. When crime goes up, the police
(06:44):
budget goes up. When crime goes down to historic lows,
the police budget goes up. When we're in a pandemic
and everybody's budget gets cut, the police budget, say it
with me, now goes up. That's a magic, cool world
of money right there. And it's dumb if you want
(07:04):
to encourage public health and safety, but it is diabolically
effective if you want to encourage control, because if you
really wanted to encourage public health and safety, you would
stop shipping military hardware to cops and start shipping in
ninety masks to frontline healthcare workers, just saying we're still
(07:24):
dropping the ball on that pandemic. Remember COVID, It remembers you.
I live in l A of my city's budget goes
to the Los Angeles Police Department, fifty four. In other cities,
the numbers are large as well, if not a majority.
(07:45):
Policing represents the largest share of budgets in scores of
US cities. When the biggest line item spending in your
government's budget goes towards policing, you live in a police state.
That's just how math works. We've tried the body cams
and the implicit biased training, and the toothless citizen oversight boards,
(08:07):
and the new police chiefs and the progressive mayors. It
has not worked. Reform has not worked. American police still
kill the people they are sworn to protect and serve,
at a rate of a thousand per year, black folks,
representing a disproportionate share of those, whether armed or unarmed.
(08:28):
That death rate is just something we accept and refuse
to hold police accountable for it. And there's no accountability
because of extremist unions and weak prosecutors and purposeful design
and history. So for the future to be different, our
approach has got to be different. So I'm saying, defund
(08:48):
the police and move that money into solutions run by
qualified people. It turns out we have teachers who can educate,
social service workers who can help people on the streets,
counselors to manage non violent disputes. If you needed heart
surgery and you went to the hospital and instead of
(09:08):
a surgeon, you got a police officer with his service weapon,
how would you respond. Defund the police means fund the
services that actually help solve problems. And while we're at it,
why don't we ask the people who have been subject
to high levels of contact with the police if it
(09:31):
makes them feel safe, if it makes them feel healthy
and secure in their homes. Because I think a lot
of folks who are pro over policing have never been
subject to over policing. You get the good cop, You
get the cop that hands you the in masks instead
of dragging you off the bus because you don't have one.
(09:52):
This is some of what defund the police means to me,
let's imagine what it would be like to not live
in a police state and go build that place. Yo,
(10:17):
I am so down with building that non police state.
I just tried to make the best most comprehensive case
I could or defunding the police. But I know I
didn't cover everything, things like qualified immunity, which is a
whole thing that basically prevents the government or employees of
the government from being held personally liable for violating the constitution.
(10:40):
But I need to keep it moving for your sake
and mine. And I just want to point out it's
one thing for me to make this case for defunding
the police, but it's another to hear the case being
made by the activists on the ground in the halls
of political power. And that's what I'm about to do
with you next. A few weeks ago, I started hearing
(11:01):
about something called the People's Budget l A and I
was like, Yo, I live in l A. I'm a people.
I love budgets, so I'm in. And with the city's
budget up for approval by the city Council and the
mayor proposing of funds going to l A, P D.
Black Lives Matter l A and several other community groups
(11:23):
created the People's Budget by actually, you know, engaging the
people of Los Angeles and asking what we wanted done
with our money. And when I say other community groups,
I'm talking about groups like the Labor Community Strategy Center,
March for Our Lives, various l A tenants unions, the
Translatin Coalition, and a lot more. You can find out
(11:45):
at People's Budget l A dot com. The term People's
Budget l A even trended on Twitter across the entire US.
It's like we were all looking for a way to
channel our outrage into something productive, and here was this
ready made effort to look at how our city government
spent our money and change it. Yes, the call is
(12:06):
to quote unquote defund the police, but the context matters
in terms of how city budgets are determined, and that
helps to really understand what the deeper demand is beyond
simply defunding. So in June fifteenth this year, several leaders
from among the People's Budget l A coalition made a
(12:27):
formal presentation I'm talking power point and everything, to a
special session of the l A City Council. You know
it's serious when they got charts. I'm gonna let you
hear some of this presentation for yourself. It was about
an hour and a half total. We don't have that
kind of time right now, but I pulled out certain
sections I think really deepen the conversation and the explanation
(12:51):
of what defund the police might actually mean. The first
voice you'll here is that of Dr Molina Abdullah. She
was among the origin no group of organizers that convened
to form Black Lives Matter years ago, and she continues
to serve as the l A chapter leader. She's also
a professor, thus doctor and former chair of Pan African
(13:12):
Studies at California State University, Los Angeles. Dr Abdulah earned
her pH d in political science from the University of
Southern California and her bachelor's in African American Studies from
Howard University in my hometown of d C. In other words,
she's hella qualified. Okay, So my name is Molina Abdula.
(13:33):
I know many of you, UM, and we're thankful for
this space. We're thankful that UM you've allowed us or
opened up UH City Council, especially during this time UM,
for us to present the people's budget I'm an organizer
and co founder of Black Lives Matter of Los Angeles, UM.
(13:53):
And we have in the room as presenters Kendrick Sampson
from Build Power, who's also an act. We have soon
to be Dr David Turner UM, who's our leite researcher
on the People's Budget. We have who we lovingly call
Baba Achilley, you can call him Ackilley UM, who is
of one of the core team members for Black Lives
(14:15):
Matter Los Angeles and has been doing justice work for decades,
first trained by Caesar Chabez UM and has trained many
of us in this movement. So we just wanted to
start by talking about what the People's Budget is. UM.
Hopefully you all have seen our website, the People's Budget
(14:35):
l A dot Com People's Budget l a dot Com.
And again we want to lift up that. We're just
appreciative of everyone who's lent their time and energy and
expertise to developing the People's Budget. So we want to
lift up that there are tens of thousands behind us
watching Channel thirty five watching the live stream right now. UM.
(14:58):
And we also want to name that this moment is
one that is built out of many years of organizing,
and so for almost as long as you've been budget chair,
we have been countering the mayor's budget proposals that every
year tick up in terms of police spending. So about
five years ago we first saw the mayor's pie chart
(15:21):
UM which showed that over fifty of the city's general
fund was going to l A. P D. We were
shocked and outraged by that, and everyone we engaged in
was equally outraged. No matter where they lived in the city,
no matter what their political perspective was, no one really
realized that upwards of fifty of the city's general fund
(15:44):
was going to police. And so Baba A. Keeley is
actually in a moment gonna walk us through UM what
that means and how this year's UM demand kind of
unfolded beginning with before the murder of George Floyd. So
we want to be very clear that we've been calling
for the defunding of police for at least five years.
But this is a moment where the world has cracked
(16:06):
open and you all have the opportunity to really be
courageous and do something different in the city of Los Angeles,
and we see different things happening throughout the country and
throughout the world. Like I said, Hella qualified, I mean,
I'm kind of inspired just hearing that an opportunity to
(16:27):
be courageous and do something different. She's like, you could
be a leader. I'm like, Yo, put me in coach,
let's do this. I'm at coach, I mean doctor. Now,
you heard me say earlier that of l A's city
budget goes to the l A p D. I learned
that from Dr Abdullah and the People's Budget, which has
been on the case for the last five years. Now,
(16:51):
the next part of the presentation I'm going to share
builds on Dr Abdullah's opening establishment. The speaker is Baba Achille.
He is a long time activist and organizer. And when
I say a long time, I mean organizer for the
United farm Workers in the seventies Understays or Chavez. Long
time I mean national organizer for Jesse Jackson presidential campaign.
(17:17):
Long time I mean Western regional field director for the
n double A CP. Formerly served as a staff member
for two Speakers of the California State Assembly. Currently is
the director of the Family lew Hammer Institute and a
core member of Black Lives Matter Los Angeles. There's a
lot more I could say about this man, but we
don't have time. Baba Achille grounds the call to defund
(17:41):
the police in the needs of Los Angeles black community,
which like those of other cities in America, has been
disproportionately impacted by COVID nineteen. Again remember the coronavirus. Aquila
reminds the council members that the demands of Black Angelino's
need to be centered because the health and economic fall
of COVID HiT's us harder. There's a small correction to
(18:04):
his testimony. At one point he says Black people are
dying from COVID at two thirds the numbers of our
population that should be. We're digging to rate two to
three times higher than the general population. Good morning, my
name's Achille, and I'm an organizer with Black Lives Matters
l A and the director of the Family lu Hamer Institute.
I'm going to share with you with the Council the
(18:27):
Black LA demands UH in light of COVID nineteen and
the rate of black death. These demands were developed and
sent to you all back in April, and once again
Councilman heard Weston was the only person that responded. These
demands are the genesis of and connected to the people's budget.
Because Black people are dying at two thirds the numbers
(18:50):
of our population from COVID nineteen, Many in the black
community felt it was critical because this is a life
or death issue and it required immediate attention because we
were dying. These demands were developed by a coalition of
more than fifties Black Beard organizations, including many of the
(19:12):
groups that you all work with, and then focused on
long term and immediate needs because we are disproportionately impacted
both by this public health crisis and the economic fallout.
These demands are based on a divest invest principle. Divest
from a bloated police budget, defund the police, and invest
(19:35):
in the people's needs and quality of life spending. We
spent many hours discussing, planning, and developing these demands. I
want to draw your attention to an immediate demand around
public safety. Employ properly equipped non violent community care workers
as neighborhood resources instead of expanding patrols by funding police
(19:59):
and law enforcement, funding for neighborhood based community care plans
in black communities throughout the city, especially South Los Angeles,
Watts and Skilled Road, A moratorium on non violent arrest
and dismissal of all non violent criminal warrants and citations.
(20:21):
We felt, because these demands grew out of our need
and pete and black people were dying, that if these
demands were met and the focus was on Black interests
and issues, that all other people would be developed. These
fifty five demands are based on an understanding that because
Black people are suffering the most, our needs must be
(20:44):
addressed immediately, and we reject the cuts that the mayor
was making to the critical needs that we were advocating for.
So at the time that we are dying the most,
the budget reflects the least resources in communities that are dying.
That became the centerpiece, and we advanced them in April
(21:08):
we are now in June, and they became the genesis
of and connected to what evolved and developed as the
people's demand because we knew that if Black people were
taken care of, everybody else is always going to be
taken care of. So that's why it is critical for
us to start with the interests, understanding, and concerns of
(21:32):
Black people. Thank you, let's say it again for the
people in the back. If black people are taken care of,
everybody else is always going to be taken care of.
And that's the truth, Ruth. I'm sharing this with you
because I have also watched the news and seen various
pundits not just now but over the years saying, well,
(21:55):
what are their demands and when are we going to
strategize and organize and mobile lies? And you can't just
protest in the streets forever. You've got to have a plan,
young blood, And I want you to hear for yourself
how strategic, how organized, how mobilized these leaders and others
have been. The People's Budget involved over thirty thousand Angelinos
(22:20):
choosing to declare our budget priorities for our city, and
that number continues to grow. The next presenter I'm going
to share with you is David Turner. He's an activist
scholar from Inglewood, California. He has a day job as
(22:43):
manager of the Brothers Sons Selves Coalition, which is this
coalition of community based organizations that's working to end the
school to prison pipeline and decriminalized communities of color. He's
also a fifth year doctoral candidate at UC Berkeley and
he works with Black Lives Matter l A as a
political education specialist, helping organizations with teachings and curriculum design.
(23:06):
In the hearing, David took on the job of sharing
the results of the people's budget itself with the council members.
I wasn't alone and being shocked that of my city's
budget went to the police department. An overwhelming majority of
the people engaged in this participatory budgeting process felt the
same and had different ideas of how our money should
(23:28):
be spent. So overwhelmingly overwhelmingly, the call was that we
wanted to invest in universal needs and divest in traditional
forms of policing. To give you an example of what
this looks like, forty five cent of people wanted to
(23:49):
invest money in things that we call universal aid and
crisis management. Twenty seven percent of folks wanted to invest
in things for the built environment, right, so investing in
our roads, investing in our parks, investing in the things
that we know keep our city lively and functioning. And finally,
of people wanted to invest and reimagine community safety. So
(24:14):
instead of us when we first walked in the room
being greeted by law enforcement, what would it look like
if we were greeted by other folks? What would it
look like? If we were greeted by community care workers.
What would it look like if we were greeted or
we had our temperatures taken right by people who were
health workers for the city, not people with guns who
could take my life. And then when we asked people
(24:38):
if they wanted to invest in law enforcement, one point
six percent of the people who took our surveys that
if we need to make sure that we put money
into law enforcement. There was a lot more data as
part of this presentation, and I'll let you find out
more for yourself at People's Budget l a dot com
again dope slides. But the most emotionally hacked part of
(25:00):
the presentation for me wasn't the long history these organizers
had with the issue, nor was it the detailed alternative
budget they pitched. It was actually their own stories of
what public safety often looks like versus what it could
and should look like. These stories often get lost in
the charts and the chance, but they are the heart
(25:21):
of the issue. In many ways, people's direct, lived experience
and stories are far easier to comprehend than any spending formula. Anyway,
here's David again urging the council to imagine something different
and sharing his own story while doing so. What would
it look like if, instead of law enforcement shooting people
(25:42):
with rubber bullets and tanks, we use some of that money, right,
and we used it to invest in the protective equipment
for our city workers and the protective equipment of our
essential of the essential workers who on the front line.
What would it look like if we had that type
of infrastructure already in place? What would it look like
if we had the infrastructure right to support those who
were the most vulnerable. We know that we can support
(26:05):
people who are homeless. Right, it just wasn't any political will. Well,
now is the time to be bold. In addition to that,
right talking about built environment. Right, So again, I grew
up right around the Cresshaw area. It is a struggle
all parts, right, especially where they're disproportionate amounts of black people. Right,
(26:27):
you don't see the same type of infrastructure that you
see in other parts of the of the city. One
of my good friends, Justin Marks, he used to say
this thing that when he worked in the city of Englewood,
it didn't necessarily feel safe, but there were a lot
of police around. But when he started working in the
Wiltshire area. There weren't a lot of police around, but
it felt safer. And he would say that police don't
(26:49):
make communities feel safe. Resources do. So what does it
look like for us to have the resources in the
built environment that reflect that we care about that community. Again,
we're welcoming and we're inviting city council to imagine what
this looks like with us and to invest in that
and then finally re imagine community safety. I'll say this
(27:13):
right before I close. My mother and my father, right
of course struggled. They struggled like a lot of parents struggle,
but domestic violence, with trauma, with harm, things that oftentimes
were very challenging with growing up. And a lot of
times the police got involved my mother and my father.
(27:36):
The police never helped the situation, It escalated the situation.
Somebody always went to jail. Somebody always was locked up.
Either it was my mom for being aggressive or it
was my dad for being aggressive. And because of that,
right it broke my family apart, and neither one of
my parents are alive today because of the stress that
(27:58):
they experienced, because as we weren't able to work out
our issues, and because we don't invest right in family therapy,
we don't invest in restorative justice. What would it look
like if instead of you know, police officers coming and
take my dad away, right, or police officers coming to
criminalize my mother right for her mental health issues. What
(28:21):
would it look like, right, if we had mental health
workers who came to support that. What would it look
like if we had people who cared about the community
to do restorative justice work to heal the harm. I'm
blessed to be sitting in front of you a year
away from getting my PhD. But there are a lot
of people who grew up in a very similar situation
(28:44):
that I did who are not here because of that
same timea because of those same issues. But you all
have the power of the ability to make a new
Los Angeles, to make a new Los Angeles that protects
little black boys like like I was, protect little black
girls like my sister. I'll tell you this testimony, if
(29:05):
we can call it, that really hit home from me.
I grew up in Washington, d C. In the nineteen eighties,
when we had the dubious distinction of being the murder capital,
we had the dubious distinction of a crackhead mayor, and
I had the dubious distinction of being the statistically anomalous
(29:27):
young black man with no formal history with the criminal
legal system. But I knew what it was like to
live in that environment of instability and violence and to
survive while others who are just as deserving and look
a lot like me don't make it. David's appeal to
(29:48):
the imagination really moved me. What would it look like
if and that question gets at the creative side of
defunding the police. So we're gonna switch now into a
creative presenter. His name is Kendrick Sampson. You may remember
(30:09):
him from episode two of this series, focused on the protests.
Kendrick is an actor, an activist, a story teller, and
founder of Build Power, which uses the power of storytelling
in Hollywood in partnership with grassroots activism to drive change. Here,
Kendrick paints a picture of a beautiful protest that was
(30:31):
made much uglier by the violent and thuggish behavior of
some government employees. I two weeks ago, two weeks ago
was in the streets. We co organized led by Black
Lives Matter Los Angeles, but co organized with Build Power,
(30:52):
a peaceful demonstration and Pan Pacific Park, and we marched
to Third and Fairfax. We closed out. We had an amazing, amazing,
powerful time, a beautiful, beautiful display of love and care
for our communities and uplifting those who have been murdered
(31:13):
by police, those families, letting them grieve and heal around
community abroad, community, thousands of people and it was beautiful.
It was one of the most beautiful experiences that I've
ever been a part of. As I was going home
and I started looking for my staff, who I am
(31:36):
worried about now because of the trauma that they've experienced.
The demonstration was met with violence from l a p D.
And I can't explain why to this day, I am
still healing. If you could see these wounds, they took
(31:56):
off layers, layers of skin. Just a couple of days ago,
I was finally to get the hanging skin off of
my leg. I was shot seven times with rubber bullets.
I have a permanent scar here on my chest. I
have five on my leg, one on my arm. I
(32:17):
was beat with batons, jumped by police. So was my
assistant who came and tried to pull me away. He
was beaten, had to go to the hospital and get
stitches in his leg because you could see the bone
where they cracked his shin open. My buddy Dion has
two fractured bones in his skull right now, and he
(32:39):
had skin, a flap of skin hanging from his face
from being shot by rubber bullets. This was at a
beautiful one of the most beautiful moments I've ever had
in my life, one of the most healing moments, only
to be traumatized. So I have a particular disdain and
um trauma for being met by police to be escorted here.
(33:07):
It didn't have to be done into the chambers. I
didn't have to, you know, have a police officer and
armed police officer take my temperature a health professional. We
need healing right now. Thousands of people out there were
brutalized by police officers. I don't think we hear that
word healing very often in city council chambers across the US,
(33:31):
or on cable news or most places where public discourse happens,
but we should. The The aversion to solving every problem
with armed police officers is an academic for those of
us advocating this position. It's based on repeated traumatic experiences
that go back many lifetimes. Many generations. Kendrick took us
(33:55):
to the scene of protest violence initiated by the police,
but for him, the story goes back years. Okay, so
when you think about like when I was in school, right,
we had problems. Some a kid brought a knife to
school one time and was trying to stab another kid.
(34:15):
Um one of my dear dear uh who I used
to call my sister, was shot and killed in high
school at a party. There were fights, many fights in
high school, because that's what kids do. Police didn't ever
(34:38):
save us from any of those situations. They did never
help any of those situations. They targeted the black and
brown kids at our school. The discipline was disproportionate, and
they came in and pepper sprayed kids when they fought.
You know what my mom did when me and my
(34:58):
brother fought, pull us off of each other, and it
was done because we were children. We don't need police
in our schools. The person who intervened from the kids
stabbing another kid was a teacher. A teacher. I haven't
(35:23):
heard of police helping any of these situations, these school shootings.
As a matter of fact, on one of them, I
believe the one in Florida one ran away. Yeah, I'm
not going to answer this question for you because I
know that we know the answer. But why do we
have armed officers in our schools? I experienced police brutality
(35:45):
coming up growing up in high school. I was pulled
out of my mom's car at gunpoint and accused of
stealing it. I was told that he would shoot me
if I tried to run. He was gonna bust my
knee caps if I even moved. I was sixteen. You
(36:07):
think I went back to school and wanted to see
police officers. There was nothing. There was nothing ever that
officers did to keep us safe. Teachers kept us safe.
We could have used some more counselors. We could have
used some more nurses. There's schools here they don't have nurses,
(36:28):
don't have adequate counseling, I mean near adequate counseling. They
don't have the bear minimum for counseling. We need therapy
in our schools. There's so many kids that experienced trauma
in our communities and we have no therapy. This is
what policing means to so many people, especially black people
(36:50):
in the United States. When we've heard calls from more cops,
we rarely heard from those who are forced to live
with those cops day to day in our communities and
our schools. Often the person that brought more violence into
your life is brought even more deeply into it by
this escalation. The final part of this hearing I'm going
(37:12):
to share is again from Dr Molina Abdullah of Black
Lives Matter l A. It's one more personal story about
public safety, but one that doesn't involve police at all.
When I first moved to Los Angeles a little more
than twenty years ago, I went to graduate school at USC.
That's what brought me here. I came here when I
(37:34):
was twenty one, and the second place that I lived
was in Lamart Park, and I lived in this unit
on Dagnan, close to Audubon Middle School, and something strange
would happen every morning at about seven o'clock. All the
(37:56):
old folks would go out and sit on their porches.
And I watched this happen for about a month. And
I was friends with the people who lived in my
um building, and I asked Miss Gorton, who lived in
the building in the unit in front of me, because
she was one of the older folks who sat on
the porch. She come out in her housecoat with her
(38:16):
coffee mug, and they'd sit out there and sometimes they
talked back and forth to each other. And I sent
Miss Gordon, why do y'all come outside every morning? And
she said, oh, we're watching the babies go to school.
And they would sit outside and watch the babies go
to Audubon and there were never any fights. Sometimes they
(38:39):
would pull some kids and go stop cussing. I'm gonna
tell your mama, right, But that was public safety. It
was beautiful. It was the building of community. Right. It
was the way that I knew that I didn't have
to worry about being a young single woman living in
a you in it that was pretty accessible. Somebody could
(39:03):
have easily gotten into my door. But Ms Gorton was
looking out for me, you know. And so it's really
important that we understand that as we're saying and we
are saying defund the police, we're also saying, reimagine public safety.
And so we're asking you to step into your highest
(39:23):
selves in this critical moment. This is a moment when
the whole world has cracked open. Don't be weak, don't
say this is what is Imagine what can be and
so we're asking you to do that because we're demand,
we're also making ourselves do that. This is Hollywood Boulevard.
(39:45):
Last Sunday, there were over a hundred thousand people out
on Hollywood Boulevard. There are tens of thousands of people
every sec every single Wednesday, right down the street from
where you are. You're welcome to join us. Right last night,
on an organizing meeting, not a protest, we had to
turn people away. We had over seven hundred people fill
(40:08):
a church um for a Black Lives Matter organizing, just
a general meeting to talk about what it means to
defund the police. Every day there are people filling the
streets and putting their bodies on the line, but also saying,
you know what, I'm going to reject respectability politics. I'm
gonna step into my highest self. I'm gonna look at
(40:30):
my children, but also hear the voices of those who
walked before me, and I'm gonna be courageous. That's what
we're asking you to do, to be courageous, defund the
police and reimagine public safety. You have the ability to
do it. Let's let Los Angeles lead this charge. Honestly,
(40:51):
I want to slow clap for Dr of Doula on
that closing, But I don't want to hurt your ears.
I respect you too much to do that to you. Instead,
I just want to point out what our great job
I think this team did. I didn't just hear defund
the police or all cops are bad. I heard we
(41:12):
can do better, We can evolve, We can be courageous
and creative. You can be a leader. Now you heard
the voices of Dr Molina Abdullah, Baba Akilly, David Turner,
and Kendrick Sampson. There was one more presenter I didn't
include in these clips due to time, but I want
to acknowledge her contributions as well. Reverend Rachel Wong, an
(41:35):
organizer with l A Voice, a Presbyterian pastor and also
a member of the Healthy l A Coalition. At the hearing,
she shared the breadth of the coalition that came together
behind the People's Budget, and you can check it out
for yourself at People's Budget l A dot com. Maybe
you just like copy and paste the whole website and
(41:55):
build one in your own city if you're not already
doing that. To me, this hearing is what this moment
is all about. It's about all of us having that
opportunity to step into our higher selves, as dr Abdulla says,
and to demand more from our society. Our government are
elected officials. As of this recording, here's the status of
(42:17):
the people's budget. L A. Our Mayor Eric Garcetti has
reversed his proposed budget increase for lap D in the
middle of a pandemic and proposed a modest decrease instead,
and people are still pushing for more. In fact, if
you listen to the general public comment line during city
council meetings, the vast majority of those calls are from
(42:41):
Angelino's across the city, demanding a redirection of these funds.
Several hundred city employees have also signed on to a petition.
Now it's different because they presumably understand the impacts of
the budget, they work in city government, and they're also
demanding that the council defund police and fund communities in
better ways. On the schools side of the system, the
(43:05):
l A Unified School District board voted to keep armed
police in schools, but the teachers union voted to remove them.
Now the school board has the power, but it's still
a sign of a shift and beyond where I live
in l A. There's a lot going on. Because you
probably don't live in l A, but you live somewhere.
The odds are high you live somewhere. In Minneapolis, the
(43:27):
city Council has voted unanimously to put forward a measure
to remove the term police department from the city's charter
and favor of language that's Department of Community Safety and
Violence Prevention. And this is headed toward if things continue
to move down this lane, a ballot measure in November.
(43:48):
In New York City, the city council speaker and now
the mayor have proposed cutting a billion dollars from that
police department's six billion dollar budget and reducing the uniform
police force now overward amount of time. There's still a
lot of questions, but many other cities are trying to
meet these demands in this moment, redirecting funds away from
(44:10):
the simplicity of policing with a gun and into other solutions.
To me, defunding the police is not about not liking
police officers or not respecting their efforts. It's about expanding
our imaginations. Most of the people who put on that
(44:30):
uniform are dedicated, are hard working and are what we
might call good people, but they are part of a system,
and that system is not designed to protect and serve everyone,
and they're being asked to do way too much. And
there are other ways we can be saved in the heat.
(44:56):
I ain't got not lose. I've been fighting these hard
times and we're having a moment. Is a production of
(45:17):
I Heart Radio Podcasts. Executive produced by Miles Gray, Nick
Stump and barrattune Day Thurston. Produced by Joel Smith and
Elizabeth Stewart, Edited by Justin Smith, Music by Llo Black.
You can find my email, newsletter and a lot more
at barrattun Day dot com. If you do the social things,
find me on Instagram at barrattun Day And if you
(45:39):
like text messaging, well send me one. That's right. You
can text me right now two oh to eight nine
four eight four four. Just put the text w h
A M wham in the message
Yo, this is Baritone Day and welcome to We're Having
a Moment, a limited podcast series where I try to
make sense of this defining moment around race and policing
in the United States. This is episode three, defund the Police.
(00:25):
Remember checks and balances, old school concept from ancient Rome
or the Enlightenment or the US constitution. Always get those confused.
The idea is to prevent concentrations of government power by
dividing it and building in accountability. Cool idea, Right, what
if we tried that with police? Because right now, practically speaking,
(00:50):
police in the US have concentrated a lot of power
and are rarely held accountable. I remember when I first
is heard the phrase defund the police. I was like, what,
that's crazy? What about crime? You know? And it just
(01:11):
struck me as insane. But then I decided to learn things,
and it turns out learning can cause one to change
one's mind, and so I applied new information to my
old ideas, and I've come out as an advocate of
defunding the police. It starts with slave patrols. I know,
(01:36):
I know, black person talking about slavery. What else is new?
But it's a thing. It's always a thing in the beginning.
We created this nation based on taking a lot of land,
killing a lot of people, and forcing labor out of
another set of people. And to ensure this system of
racial and economic dominance, we put in place rules and
(02:01):
we defined a role of slave patroller. Here is the
slave patrollers Oath from the great State of North Carolina. I,
in certain name here do swear that I will, as
searcher for guns, swords, and other weapons among the slaves
(02:22):
in my district, faithfully and as privately as I can,
discharge the trust reposed in me as the law directs,
to the best of my power. So help me God. Now,
when I decided to dig into this history lesson, I
didn't go to the Democratic Socialist of America website. I
(02:42):
didn't dig up an old pamphlet from the new or
old Black Panther Party. Nor did I visit my favorite website,
Deport all White Americans not Bid. No, I went to
the National Museum for Law Enforcement their website. You can't
physic lego, but they are in our nation's capital very
much with the support and sanction of the law enforcement community.
(03:06):
And those words were on their website, as are these
in a post dated July nine, talking about the history
of policing in the US. Here's what it says. When
one thinks about policing in early America, there are a
few images that may come to mind. A county sheriff
(03:27):
enforcing a debt between neighbors, a constable serving and a
rest warrant on horseback, or a lone night watchman carrying
a lantern through his sleeping town. These organized practices were
adapted to the colonies from England and formed the foundations
of American law enforcement. However, there is another significant origin
(03:48):
of American policing that we cannot forget, and that is
slave patrols. And and and I heard it in my head,
like slave patrols, you know, it's like a pop and circumstance.
There was umpits are maybe loots, you know, depending on
the era. So when the official museum of law enforcement
(04:08):
in the country is willing to acknowledge the origins of
this institution, I'm gonna use that as my source to
try to bring more people in. In the US, the
police were established as a means of controlling populations, first slaves,
then just black people in general, but also poor people
and labor organizers. Crimes were defined to control black people
(04:32):
in America were so good with our imagination, we called
those sections of the law black codes. So we defined
these codes that restricted black people's ability to work and
live in certain areas of our society. And if you
violated that, a patrolman, a law enforcement officer, a constable
(04:53):
might show up and arrest you. You might be cited
and find you might have to give up all your
wages for all the work you did, returning you to
the status of practical slave. For over a century in
the U S, we've loaded up law enforcement with all
sorts of duties. Help with the homeless, resolved domestic disputes,
(05:14):
walk my kids across the street, perform a wellness check,
respond to noise complaints, intervene in a mental health crisis,
handle unruly kids in school a k a. Kids in school. Oh,
and look over there, a black person is walking or reading,
or shopping, or sleeping, or bird watching or breathing. Go
get them, officer. For each of these problems. We have
(05:36):
prescribed the intrinsically excessive force of mostly men with a
lot of guns. And while we loaded up these officers
with jobs they aren't qualified to perform, we also loaded
them up with guns, lots of guns and other military hardware.
We only deploy to subdue the enemy. We've made a
(05:59):
meror can law enforcement the equivalent of a call of
duty war zone team with unlimited load out, drops, unlimited
cash to revive their players, and constant radar. And for
the record, I am not qualified to make that call
of duty reference, but I want to thank my godson,
Griff for letting me feel relevant to the young people.
Go god Son, go god son, make me feel cool.
(06:23):
We spend a hundred billion dollars a year on policing
in the US. We could spend less than that and
cover full four year public college tuition for everybody. We
spend a hundred billion dollars a year on policing, and
it keeps going up. When crime goes up, the police
(06:44):
budget goes up. When crime goes down to historic lows,
the police budget goes up. When we're in a pandemic
and everybody's budget gets cut, the police budget, say it
with me, now goes up. That's a magic, cool world
of money right there. And it's dumb if you want
(07:04):
to encourage public health and safety, but it is diabolically
effective if you want to encourage control, because if you
really wanted to encourage public health and safety, you would
stop shipping military hardware to cops and start shipping in
ninety masks to frontline healthcare workers, just saying we're still
(07:24):
dropping the ball on that pandemic. Remember COVID, It remembers you.
I live in l A of my city's budget goes
to the Los Angeles Police Department, fifty four. In other cities,
the numbers are large as well, if not a majority.
(07:45):
Policing represents the largest share of budgets in scores of
US cities. When the biggest line item spending in your
government's budget goes towards policing, you live in a police state.
That's just how math works. We've tried the body cams
and the implicit biased training, and the toothless citizen oversight boards,
(08:07):
and the new police chiefs and the progressive mayors. It
has not worked. Reform has not worked. American police still
kill the people they are sworn to protect and serve,
at a rate of a thousand per year, black folks,
representing a disproportionate share of those, whether armed or unarmed.
(08:28):
That death rate is just something we accept and refuse
to hold police accountable for it. And there's no accountability
because of extremist unions and weak prosecutors and purposeful design
and history. So for the future to be different, our
approach has got to be different. So I'm saying, defund
(08:48):
the police and move that money into solutions run by
qualified people. It turns out we have teachers who can educate,
social service workers who can help people on the streets,
counselors to manage non violent disputes. If you needed heart
surgery and you went to the hospital and instead of
(09:08):
a surgeon, you got a police officer with his service weapon,
how would you respond. Defund the police means fund the
services that actually help solve problems. And while we're at it,
why don't we ask the people who have been subject
to high levels of contact with the police if it
(09:31):
makes them feel safe, if it makes them feel healthy
and secure in their homes. Because I think a lot
of folks who are pro over policing have never been
subject to over policing. You get the good cop, You
get the cop that hands you the in masks instead
of dragging you off the bus because you don't have one.
(09:52):
This is some of what defund the police means to me,
let's imagine what it would be like to not live
in a police state and go build that place. Yo,
(10:17):
I am so down with building that non police state.
I just tried to make the best most comprehensive case
I could or defunding the police. But I know I
didn't cover everything, things like qualified immunity, which is a
whole thing that basically prevents the government or employees of
the government from being held personally liable for violating the constitution.
(10:40):
But I need to keep it moving for your sake
and mine. And I just want to point out it's
one thing for me to make this case for defunding
the police, but it's another to hear the case being
made by the activists on the ground in the halls
of political power. And that's what I'm about to do
with you next. A few weeks ago, I started hearing
(11:01):
about something called the People's Budget l A and I
was like, Yo, I live in l A. I'm a people.
I love budgets, so I'm in. And with the city's
budget up for approval by the city Council and the
mayor proposing of funds going to l A, P D.
Black Lives Matter l A and several other community groups
(11:23):
created the People's Budget by actually, you know, engaging the
people of Los Angeles and asking what we wanted done
with our money. And when I say other community groups,
I'm talking about groups like the Labor Community Strategy Center,
March for Our Lives, various l A tenants unions, the
Translatin Coalition, and a lot more. You can find out
(11:45):
at People's Budget l A dot com. The term People's
Budget l A even trended on Twitter across the entire US.
It's like we were all looking for a way to
channel our outrage into something productive, and here was this
ready made effort to look at how our city government
spent our money and change it. Yes, the call is
(12:06):
to quote unquote defund the police, but the context matters
in terms of how city budgets are determined, and that
helps to really understand what the deeper demand is beyond
simply defunding. So in June fifteenth this year, several leaders
from among the People's Budget l A coalition made a
(12:27):
formal presentation I'm talking power point and everything, to a
special session of the l A City Council. You know
it's serious when they got charts. I'm gonna let you
hear some of this presentation for yourself. It was about
an hour and a half total. We don't have that
kind of time right now, but I pulled out certain
sections I think really deepen the conversation and the explanation
(12:51):
of what defund the police might actually mean. The first
voice you'll here is that of Dr Molina Abdullah. She
was among the origin no group of organizers that convened
to form Black Lives Matter years ago, and she continues
to serve as the l A chapter leader. She's also
a professor, thus doctor and former chair of Pan African
(13:12):
Studies at California State University, Los Angeles. Dr Abdulah earned
her pH d in political science from the University of
Southern California and her bachelor's in African American Studies from
Howard University in my hometown of d C. In other words,
she's hella qualified. Okay, So my name is Molina Abdula.
(13:33):
I know many of you, UM, and we're thankful for
this space. We're thankful that UM you've allowed us or
opened up UH City Council, especially during this time UM,
for us to present the people's budget I'm an organizer
and co founder of Black Lives Matter of Los Angeles, UM.
(13:53):
And we have in the room as presenters Kendrick Sampson
from Build Power, who's also an act. We have soon
to be Dr David Turner UM, who's our leite researcher
on the People's Budget. We have who we lovingly call
Baba Achilley, you can call him Ackilley UM, who is
of one of the core team members for Black Lives
(14:15):
Matter Los Angeles and has been doing justice work for decades,
first trained by Caesar Chabez UM and has trained many
of us in this movement. So we just wanted to
start by talking about what the People's Budget is. UM.
Hopefully you all have seen our website, the People's Budget
(14:35):
l A dot Com People's Budget l a dot Com.
And again we want to lift up that. We're just
appreciative of everyone who's lent their time and energy and
expertise to developing the People's Budget. So we want to
lift up that there are tens of thousands behind us
watching Channel thirty five watching the live stream right now. UM.
(14:58):
And we also want to name that this moment is
one that is built out of many years of organizing,
and so for almost as long as you've been budget chair,
we have been countering the mayor's budget proposals that every
year tick up in terms of police spending. So about
five years ago we first saw the mayor's pie chart
(15:21):
UM which showed that over fifty of the city's general
fund was going to l A. P D. We were
shocked and outraged by that, and everyone we engaged in
was equally outraged. No matter where they lived in the city,
no matter what their political perspective was, no one really
realized that upwards of fifty of the city's general fund
(15:44):
was going to police. And so Baba A. Keeley is
actually in a moment gonna walk us through UM what
that means and how this year's UM demand kind of
unfolded beginning with before the murder of George Floyd. So
we want to be very clear that we've been calling
for the defunding of police for at least five years.
But this is a moment where the world has cracked
(16:06):
open and you all have the opportunity to really be
courageous and do something different in the city of Los Angeles,
and we see different things happening throughout the country and
throughout the world. Like I said, Hella qualified, I mean,
I'm kind of inspired just hearing that an opportunity to
(16:27):
be courageous and do something different. She's like, you could
be a leader. I'm like, Yo, put me in coach,
let's do this. I'm at coach, I mean doctor. Now,
you heard me say earlier that of l A's city
budget goes to the l A p D. I learned
that from Dr Abdullah and the People's Budget, which has
been on the case for the last five years. Now,
(16:51):
the next part of the presentation I'm going to share
builds on Dr Abdullah's opening establishment. The speaker is Baba Achille.
He is a long time activist and organizer. And when
I say a long time, I mean organizer for the
United farm Workers in the seventies Understays or Chavez. Long
time I mean national organizer for Jesse Jackson presidential campaign.
(17:17):
Long time I mean Western regional field director for the
n double A CP. Formerly served as a staff member
for two Speakers of the California State Assembly. Currently is
the director of the Family lew Hammer Institute and a
core member of Black Lives Matter Los Angeles. There's a
lot more I could say about this man, but we
don't have time. Baba Achille grounds the call to defund
(17:41):
the police in the needs of Los Angeles black community,
which like those of other cities in America, has been
disproportionately impacted by COVID nineteen. Again remember the coronavirus. Aquila
reminds the council members that the demands of Black Angelino's
need to be centered because the health and economic fall
of COVID HiT's us harder. There's a small correction to
(18:04):
his testimony. At one point he says Black people are
dying from COVID at two thirds the numbers of our
population that should be. We're digging to rate two to
three times higher than the general population. Good morning, my
name's Achille, and I'm an organizer with Black Lives Matters
l A and the director of the Family lu Hamer Institute.
I'm going to share with you with the Council the
(18:27):
Black LA demands UH in light of COVID nineteen and
the rate of black death. These demands were developed and
sent to you all back in April, and once again
Councilman heard Weston was the only person that responded. These
demands are the genesis of and connected to the people's budget.
Because Black people are dying at two thirds the numbers
(18:50):
of our population from COVID nineteen, Many in the black
community felt it was critical because this is a life
or death issue and it required immediate attention because we
were dying. These demands were developed by a coalition of
more than fifties Black Beard organizations, including many of the
(19:12):
groups that you all work with, and then focused on
long term and immediate needs because we are disproportionately impacted
both by this public health crisis and the economic fallout.
These demands are based on a divest invest principle. Divest
from a bloated police budget, defund the police, and invest
(19:35):
in the people's needs and quality of life spending. We
spent many hours discussing, planning, and developing these demands. I
want to draw your attention to an immediate demand around
public safety. Employ properly equipped non violent community care workers
as neighborhood resources instead of expanding patrols by funding police
(19:59):
and law enforcement, funding for neighborhood based community care plans
in black communities throughout the city, especially South Los Angeles,
Watts and Skilled Road, A moratorium on non violent arrest
and dismissal of all non violent criminal warrants and citations.
(20:21):
We felt, because these demands grew out of our need
and pete and black people were dying, that if these
demands were met and the focus was on Black interests
and issues, that all other people would be developed. These
fifty five demands are based on an understanding that because
Black people are suffering the most, our needs must be
(20:44):
addressed immediately, and we reject the cuts that the mayor
was making to the critical needs that we were advocating for.
So at the time that we are dying the most,
the budget reflects the least resources in communities that are dying.
That became the centerpiece, and we advanced them in April
(21:08):
we are now in June, and they became the genesis
of and connected to what evolved and developed as the
people's demand because we knew that if Black people were
taken care of, everybody else is always going to be
taken care of. So that's why it is critical for
us to start with the interests, understanding, and concerns of
(21:32):
Black people. Thank you, let's say it again for the
people in the back. If black people are taken care of,
everybody else is always going to be taken care of.
And that's the truth, Ruth. I'm sharing this with you
because I have also watched the news and seen various
pundits not just now but over the years saying, well,
(21:55):
what are their demands and when are we going to
strategize and organize and mobile lies? And you can't just
protest in the streets forever. You've got to have a plan,
young blood, And I want you to hear for yourself
how strategic, how organized, how mobilized these leaders and others
have been. The People's Budget involved over thirty thousand Angelinos
(22:20):
choosing to declare our budget priorities for our city, and
that number continues to grow. The next presenter I'm going
to share with you is David Turner. He's an activist
scholar from Inglewood, California. He has a day job as
(22:43):
manager of the Brothers Sons Selves Coalition, which is this
coalition of community based organizations that's working to end the
school to prison pipeline and decriminalized communities of color. He's
also a fifth year doctoral candidate at UC Berkeley and
he works with Black Lives Matter l A as a
political education specialist, helping organizations with teachings and curriculum design.
(23:06):
In the hearing, David took on the job of sharing
the results of the people's budget itself with the council members.
I wasn't alone and being shocked that of my city's
budget went to the police department. An overwhelming majority of
the people engaged in this participatory budgeting process felt the
same and had different ideas of how our money should
(23:28):
be spent. So overwhelmingly overwhelmingly, the call was that we
wanted to invest in universal needs and divest in traditional
forms of policing. To give you an example of what
this looks like, forty five cent of people wanted to
(23:49):
invest money in things that we call universal aid and
crisis management. Twenty seven percent of folks wanted to invest
in things for the built environment, right, so investing in
our roads, investing in our parks, investing in the things
that we know keep our city lively and functioning. And finally,
of people wanted to invest and reimagine community safety. So
(24:14):
instead of us when we first walked in the room
being greeted by law enforcement, what would it look like
if we were greeted by other folks? What would it
look like? If we were greeted by community care workers.
What would it look like if we were greeted or
we had our temperatures taken right by people who were
health workers for the city, not people with guns who
could take my life. And then when we asked people
(24:38):
if they wanted to invest in law enforcement, one point
six percent of the people who took our surveys that
if we need to make sure that we put money
into law enforcement. There was a lot more data as
part of this presentation, and I'll let you find out
more for yourself at People's Budget l a dot com
again dope slides. But the most emotionally hacked part of
(25:00):
the presentation for me wasn't the long history these organizers
had with the issue, nor was it the detailed alternative
budget they pitched. It was actually their own stories of
what public safety often looks like versus what it could
and should look like. These stories often get lost in
the charts and the chance, but they are the heart
(25:21):
of the issue. In many ways, people's direct, lived experience
and stories are far easier to comprehend than any spending formula. Anyway,
here's David again urging the council to imagine something different
and sharing his own story while doing so. What would
it look like if, instead of law enforcement shooting people
(25:42):
with rubber bullets and tanks, we use some of that money, right,
and we used it to invest in the protective equipment
for our city workers and the protective equipment of our
essential of the essential workers who on the front line.
What would it look like if we had that type
of infrastructure already in place? What would it look like
if we had the infrastructure right to support those who
were the most vulnerable. We know that we can support
(26:05):
people who are homeless. Right, it just wasn't any political will. Well,
now is the time to be bold. In addition to that,
right talking about built environment. Right, So again, I grew
up right around the Cresshaw area. It is a struggle
all parts, right, especially where they're disproportionate amounts of black people. Right,
(26:27):
you don't see the same type of infrastructure that you
see in other parts of the of the city. One
of my good friends, Justin Marks, he used to say
this thing that when he worked in the city of Englewood,
it didn't necessarily feel safe, but there were a lot
of police around. But when he started working in the
Wiltshire area. There weren't a lot of police around, but
it felt safer. And he would say that police don't
(26:49):
make communities feel safe. Resources do. So what does it
look like for us to have the resources in the
built environment that reflect that we care about that community. Again,
we're welcoming and we're inviting city council to imagine what
this looks like with us and to invest in that
and then finally re imagine community safety. I'll say this
(27:13):
right before I close. My mother and my father, right
of course struggled. They struggled like a lot of parents struggle,
but domestic violence, with trauma, with harm, things that oftentimes
were very challenging with growing up. And a lot of
times the police got involved my mother and my father.
(27:36):
The police never helped the situation, It escalated the situation.
Somebody always went to jail. Somebody always was locked up.
Either it was my mom for being aggressive or it
was my dad for being aggressive. And because of that,
right it broke my family apart, and neither one of
my parents are alive today because of the stress that
(27:58):
they experienced, because as we weren't able to work out
our issues, and because we don't invest right in family therapy,
we don't invest in restorative justice. What would it look
like if instead of you know, police officers coming and
take my dad away, right, or police officers coming to
criminalize my mother right for her mental health issues. What
(28:21):
would it look like, right, if we had mental health
workers who came to support that. What would it look
like if we had people who cared about the community
to do restorative justice work to heal the harm. I'm
blessed to be sitting in front of you a year
away from getting my PhD. But there are a lot
of people who grew up in a very similar situation
(28:44):
that I did who are not here because of that
same timea because of those same issues. But you all
have the power of the ability to make a new
Los Angeles, to make a new Los Angeles that protects
little black boys like like I was, protect little black
girls like my sister. I'll tell you this testimony, if
(29:05):
we can call it, that really hit home from me.
I grew up in Washington, d C. In the nineteen eighties,
when we had the dubious distinction of being the murder capital,
we had the dubious distinction of a crackhead mayor, and
I had the dubious distinction of being the statistically anomalous
(29:27):
young black man with no formal history with the criminal
legal system. But I knew what it was like to
live in that environment of instability and violence and to
survive while others who are just as deserving and look
a lot like me don't make it. David's appeal to
(29:48):
the imagination really moved me. What would it look like
if and that question gets at the creative side of
defunding the police. So we're gonna switch now into a
creative presenter. His name is Kendrick Sampson. You may remember
(30:09):
him from episode two of this series, focused on the protests.
Kendrick is an actor, an activist, a story teller, and
founder of Build Power, which uses the power of storytelling
in Hollywood in partnership with grassroots activism to drive change. Here,
Kendrick paints a picture of a beautiful protest that was
(30:31):
made much uglier by the violent and thuggish behavior of
some government employees. I two weeks ago, two weeks ago
was in the streets. We co organized led by Black
Lives Matter Los Angeles, but co organized with Build Power,
(30:52):
a peaceful demonstration and Pan Pacific Park, and we marched
to Third and Fairfax. We closed out. We had an amazing, amazing,
powerful time, a beautiful, beautiful display of love and care
for our communities and uplifting those who have been murdered
(31:13):
by police, those families, letting them grieve and heal around
community abroad, community, thousands of people and it was beautiful.
It was one of the most beautiful experiences that I've
ever been a part of. As I was going home
and I started looking for my staff, who I am
(31:36):
worried about now because of the trauma that they've experienced.
The demonstration was met with violence from l a p D.
And I can't explain why to this day, I am
still healing. If you could see these wounds, they took
(31:56):
off layers, layers of skin. Just a couple of days ago,
I was finally to get the hanging skin off of
my leg. I was shot seven times with rubber bullets.
I have a permanent scar here on my chest. I
have five on my leg, one on my arm. I
(32:17):
was beat with batons, jumped by police. So was my
assistant who came and tried to pull me away. He
was beaten, had to go to the hospital and get
stitches in his leg because you could see the bone
where they cracked his shin open. My buddy Dion has
two fractured bones in his skull right now, and he
(32:39):
had skin, a flap of skin hanging from his face
from being shot by rubber bullets. This was at a
beautiful one of the most beautiful moments I've ever had
in my life, one of the most healing moments, only
to be traumatized. So I have a particular disdain and
um trauma for being met by police to be escorted here.
(33:07):
It didn't have to be done into the chambers. I
didn't have to, you know, have a police officer and
armed police officer take my temperature a health professional. We
need healing right now. Thousands of people out there were
brutalized by police officers. I don't think we hear that
word healing very often in city council chambers across the US,
(33:31):
or on cable news or most places where public discourse happens,
but we should. The The aversion to solving every problem
with armed police officers is an academic for those of
us advocating this position. It's based on repeated traumatic experiences
that go back many lifetimes. Many generations. Kendrick took us
(33:55):
to the scene of protest violence initiated by the police,
but for him, the story goes back years. Okay, so
when you think about like when I was in school, right,
we had problems. Some a kid brought a knife to
school one time and was trying to stab another kid.
(34:15):
Um one of my dear dear uh who I used
to call my sister, was shot and killed in high
school at a party. There were fights, many fights in
high school, because that's what kids do. Police didn't ever
(34:38):
save us from any of those situations. They did never
help any of those situations. They targeted the black and
brown kids at our school. The discipline was disproportionate, and
they came in and pepper sprayed kids when they fought.
You know what my mom did when me and my
(34:58):
brother fought, pull us off of each other, and it
was done because we were children. We don't need police
in our schools. The person who intervened from the kids
stabbing another kid was a teacher. A teacher. I haven't
(35:23):
heard of police helping any of these situations, these school shootings.
As a matter of fact, on one of them, I
believe the one in Florida one ran away. Yeah, I'm
not going to answer this question for you because I
know that we know the answer. But why do we
have armed officers in our schools? I experienced police brutality
(35:45):
coming up growing up in high school. I was pulled
out of my mom's car at gunpoint and accused of
stealing it. I was told that he would shoot me
if I tried to run. He was gonna bust my
knee caps if I even moved. I was sixteen. You
(36:07):
think I went back to school and wanted to see
police officers. There was nothing. There was nothing ever that
officers did to keep us safe. Teachers kept us safe.
We could have used some more counselors. We could have
used some more nurses. There's schools here they don't have nurses,
(36:28):
don't have adequate counseling, I mean near adequate counseling. They
don't have the bear minimum for counseling. We need therapy
in our schools. There's so many kids that experienced trauma
in our communities and we have no therapy. This is
what policing means to so many people, especially black people
(36:50):
in the United States. When we've heard calls from more cops,
we rarely heard from those who are forced to live
with those cops day to day in our communities and
our schools. Often the person that brought more violence into
your life is brought even more deeply into it by
this escalation. The final part of this hearing I'm going
(37:12):
to share is again from Dr Molina Abdullah of Black
Lives Matter l A. It's one more personal story about
public safety, but one that doesn't involve police at all.
When I first moved to Los Angeles a little more
than twenty years ago, I went to graduate school at USC.
That's what brought me here. I came here when I
(37:34):
was twenty one, and the second place that I lived
was in Lamart Park, and I lived in this unit
on Dagnan, close to Audubon Middle School, and something strange
would happen every morning at about seven o'clock. All the
(37:56):
old folks would go out and sit on their porches.
And I watched this happen for about a month. And
I was friends with the people who lived in my
um building, and I asked Miss Gorton, who lived in
the building in the unit in front of me, because
she was one of the older folks who sat on
the porch. She come out in her housecoat with her
(38:16):
coffee mug, and they'd sit out there and sometimes they
talked back and forth to each other. And I sent
Miss Gordon, why do y'all come outside every morning? And
she said, oh, we're watching the babies go to school.
And they would sit outside and watch the babies go
to Audubon and there were never any fights. Sometimes they
(38:39):
would pull some kids and go stop cussing. I'm gonna
tell your mama, right, But that was public safety. It
was beautiful. It was the building of community. Right. It
was the way that I knew that I didn't have
to worry about being a young single woman living in
a you in it that was pretty accessible. Somebody could
(39:03):
have easily gotten into my door. But Ms Gorton was
looking out for me, you know. And so it's really
important that we understand that as we're saying and we
are saying defund the police, we're also saying, reimagine public safety.
And so we're asking you to step into your highest
(39:23):
selves in this critical moment. This is a moment when
the whole world has cracked open. Don't be weak, don't
say this is what is Imagine what can be and
so we're asking you to do that because we're demand,
we're also making ourselves do that. This is Hollywood Boulevard.
(39:45):
Last Sunday, there were over a hundred thousand people out
on Hollywood Boulevard. There are tens of thousands of people
every sec every single Wednesday, right down the street from
where you are. You're welcome to join us. Right last night,
on an organizing meeting, not a protest, we had to
turn people away. We had over seven hundred people fill
(40:08):
a church um for a Black Lives Matter organizing, just
a general meeting to talk about what it means to
defund the police. Every day there are people filling the
streets and putting their bodies on the line, but also saying,
you know what, I'm going to reject respectability politics. I'm
gonna step into my highest self. I'm gonna look at
(40:30):
my children, but also hear the voices of those who
walked before me, and I'm gonna be courageous. That's what
we're asking you to do, to be courageous, defund the
police and reimagine public safety. You have the ability to
do it. Let's let Los Angeles lead this charge. Honestly,
(40:51):
I want to slow clap for Dr of Doula on
that closing, But I don't want to hurt your ears.
I respect you too much to do that to you. Instead,
I just want to point out what our great job
I think this team did. I didn't just hear defund
the police or all cops are bad. I heard we
(41:12):
can do better, We can evolve, We can be courageous
and creative. You can be a leader. Now you heard
the voices of Dr Molina Abdullah, Baba Akilly, David Turner,
and Kendrick Sampson. There was one more presenter I didn't
include in these clips due to time, but I want
to acknowledge her contributions as well. Reverend Rachel Wong, an
(41:35):
organizer with l A Voice, a Presbyterian pastor and also
a member of the Healthy l A Coalition. At the hearing,
she shared the breadth of the coalition that came together
behind the People's Budget, and you can check it out
for yourself at People's Budget l A dot com. Maybe
you just like copy and paste the whole website and
(41:55):
build one in your own city if you're not already
doing that. To me, this hearing is what this moment
is all about. It's about all of us having that
opportunity to step into our higher selves, as dr Abdulla says,
and to demand more from our society. Our government are
elected officials. As of this recording, here's the status of
(42:17):
the people's budget. L A. Our Mayor Eric Garcetti has
reversed his proposed budget increase for lap D in the
middle of a pandemic and proposed a modest decrease instead,
and people are still pushing for more. In fact, if
you listen to the general public comment line during city
council meetings, the vast majority of those calls are from
(42:41):
Angelino's across the city, demanding a redirection of these funds.
Several hundred city employees have also signed on to a petition.
Now it's different because they presumably understand the impacts of
the budget, they work in city government, and they're also
demanding that the council defund police and fund communities in
better ways. On the schools side of the system, the
(43:05):
l A Unified School District board voted to keep armed
police in schools, but the teachers union voted to remove them.
Now the school board has the power, but it's still
a sign of a shift and beyond where I live
in l A. There's a lot going on. Because you
probably don't live in l A, but you live somewhere.
The odds are high you live somewhere. In Minneapolis, the
(43:27):
city Council has voted unanimously to put forward a measure
to remove the term police department from the city's charter
and favor of language that's Department of Community Safety and
Violence Prevention. And this is headed toward if things continue
to move down this lane, a ballot measure in November.
(43:48):
In New York City, the city council speaker and now
the mayor have proposed cutting a billion dollars from that
police department's six billion dollar budget and reducing the uniform
police force now overward amount of time. There's still a
lot of questions, but many other cities are trying to
meet these demands in this moment, redirecting funds away from
(44:10):
the simplicity of policing with a gun and into other solutions.
To me, defunding the police is not about not liking
police officers or not respecting their efforts. It's about expanding
our imaginations. Most of the people who put on that
(44:30):
uniform are dedicated, are hard working and are what we
might call good people, but they are part of a system,
and that system is not designed to protect and serve everyone,
and they're being asked to do way too much. And
there are other ways we can be saved in the heat.
(44:56):
I ain't got not lose. I've been fighting these hard
times and we're having a moment. Is a production of
(45:17):
I Heart Radio Podcasts. Executive produced by Miles Gray, Nick
Stump and barrattune Day Thurston. Produced by Joel Smith and
Elizabeth Stewart, Edited by Justin Smith, Music by Llo Black.
You can find my email, newsletter and a lot more
at barrattun Day dot com. If you do the social things,
find me on Instagram at barrattun Day And if you
(45:39):
like text messaging, well send me one. That's right. You
can text me right now two oh to eight nine
four eight four four. Just put the text w h
A M wham in the message
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