of george floyd. first, elie mystal. after that, it is robert woodson. liveington journal" is next. join the discussion. ♪ it is the washington journal for june 8. house democrats plan to unveil a legislative package aimed at changes to police policy focused on holding law enforcement officers accountable for conduct. you can look for the unveiling of that package at 10:30 this morning by watching it on c-span. this comes as protesters and community leaders across the united states are calling for a with that money being used to assist communities. for our next hour, tell us your opinion on this defund the police movement and whether you support or oppose it. here is how you can call. (202) 748-8001 for republicans.

(202) 748-8000 free democrats. (202) 748-8002 for independents. members of law enforcement, you can call and give your perspective at (202) 748-8003. forcan use that same number the general public to text us this morning. you can post on our twitter feed @cspanwj and on our facebook page at facebook.com/c-span. to give you a sampling of what is going on across the country when it comes to the defunding movement, you can go to minneapolis, where, as a backdrop, the city council is pledging to begin that process of disbanding the police department. at a minneapolis, the mayor asks questions about this idea of defunding the police department. he talked to protesters gathered outside his house. you can see that this morning. you saw this effort start in los theles a few days ago with

l.a. city council introducing a motion to reduce police funding as calls to defund the lapd echoed at protests. you can even see it played out in portland, oregon. a decision by leaders in that city, the superintendent of schools saying he will discontinue the presence of armed police officers at schools. if you want a working definition , one is being offered by georgetown law. she has this is a working andnition, saying defunding abolition mean something different than what you are thinking. for most proponents, defunding the police does not mean zeroing all budgets for public safety and police abolition does not mean police will disappear overnight or perhaps ever. the police means shrinking the scope of police response abilities and shifting what government does to keep us saved entities better equipped to meet the need. it means investing more in mental health care and housing

and expanding the use of community mediation and violence interruption programs. you can read that. (202) 748-8001 for republicans. democrats, (202) 748-8000 independents, (202) 748-8002. if you're a member of law enforcement, it is (202) 748-8003. as we line up those calls, we will talk about that effort on capitol hill today when it comes to police reform efforts. joining us for that conversation, mike liles of the hill, their senior reporter. guest: thanks for having me. host: talk about what we are expected to see later this morning. guest: democratic leaders have been working on this package for weeks. it is an enormous reform package focused on criminal justice. the congressional black caucus has been taking the lead, making

phone calls within the democratic ranks and outside with civil rights leaders and police unions. immediate sense, it is a direct response to the specific acts of violence against african-americans that have turned headlines in recent weeks. that is george floyd in minnesota and breonna taylor in kentucky and ahmaud arbery georgia. things like aee ban on true colds, which is relevant to the floyd case, and a ban on no knock warrants in drug cases, pertinent to the taylor case, and to make lynching a national crime, which is relevant to the arbery case in georgia. we are going to see specific, tailored legislation to address these specific cases. they often working on these bills for years. a lot of this is going to look familiar. the ban on show colts has been

around since the death of eric garner -- choke holds has been around since the death of eric garner. house democrats of already passed the antilynching piece of this, sent it to the senate. by including it in this package, they are just putting more pressure on senate republicans to act. is the publiced reaction to the death of george floyd, the vastness of the outcry in the united states and beyond. veteran of the civil rights movement and member of the congressional black caucus and third ranking democrat in the house, said we have not seen anything like this since emmett till in 1955. of civils, the voice rights in the house, took that a step further than i have seen ever in my lifetime.

they sent a historic moment here, so democrats are hoping to tap the unique outcry, the unique moment. pelosi often says public sentiment is everything. they do want to force the republicans to take up some of these reforms were at least to make the gop look insensitive and out of touch for not doing so. host: we will see democrats present this. how much response has it gotten from republicans in the house and senate? guest: kevin mccarthy has said he wants to work with the democrats on something, but this is not a bipartisan bill. it is going to be bigger than the republicans want to do. senate, where the republicans have leverage, control of the chamber, mitch mcconnell has said we need to take a look. that is sometimes a euphemism for not doing much at all. we will have to see how much pressure is on them to do anything.

the wildcard is going to be donald trump, who has taken a hard line approach to law enforcement even as the marchers have gone around the country. you saw attorney general william barr said yesterday that racism is not systemic in the criminal .ustice system because so many of these reforms are designed to root out systemic racism, i do not know how much support the ministration is one to give for these ideas -- the administration is going to give for these ideas. it is going to be an issue of public pressure and how much mitch mcconnell response. you can expect this house package to pass this month. losey wants to do it before the end of the month -- pelosi wants to do it before the end of the month. how many republican votes is yet to be seen. they might get a handful, but not an overwhelming number.

then how long these protest endure emma how long this story remains in the headlines -- indoor, how long this are made to the headlines. host: one of the issues on the line is this concept of qualified immunity especially as it applies to police officers. does this bill address that? it does focus on criminal justice reform. they are revising federal statutes around excessive force, including racial profiling, police brutality. they want a federal database of abusive law enforcers so they are not being fired in one city and hired in another. limits on be new qualified immunity, which is this liability thing that has been controversial for years that says a police officer in most cases cannot be sued for actions he or she takes while in the line of duty.

they want to change that language so victims can sue in cases of an abusive arrest or violent arrest or the family consume in the case of a death, like we saw in minnesota. that will be there, among other things. host: that bill is set to be unveiled later this morning. mike liles following it for the hill. thanks for your time -- mike lillis following it for the hill. thanks for your time. the concept of defunding the police, whether you support or oppose it, is what we are asking. , (202) 748-8002. if you are member of law enforcement, (202) 748-8003. in connecticut, republican line, cindy. caller: good morning.

i believe the overreach. overreach is going to not help. up -- igoing to end believe we need reform. -- theo away with unions unions because that is what really to me why they do not get a conviction. hardthing with why it is to fire a bad teacher. host: but when it comes to the budget, do not touch it? is that what you're saying? caller: i don't know if it is do not touch it at all, but we are not stopping there. it is called to dismantle the police department. it is not just defunding the police. i do not know if anybody is addressing that, totally abolishing police. there are a lot of calls to that. host: we have a couple headlines

to that idea. caller: that is a thing that concerns me, dismantling the police. who is going to do their work? do you think social workers are prepared to do a lot of policing? they do not do a great job now. host: we will go to michigan under troy. dan, good morning. response had a scripted and then i googled your name. if you google your name, there is a story in 2017 about a guy named pedro echevarria who was killed by police in los angeles. it is an interesting story of a guy who was walking home. they got into an altercation in the police ended up killing him. ishink the easiest solution if there were no police, there would not have been a problem. once the police approach this man and he had a gun, there was an issue. i think we can move to a society

where it is everyone for themselves. if you have an issue with somebody, that is something you have to defend yourself. host: you are saying to fund totally, then -- d fund, then. caller: yes. i'm calling for the abolishment of -- in this case, the police caused a death and there are cases where the police prevent deaths, but i think it is a net zero. you have to have a society where everybody has a gun or nobody has a gun. cecil, democrats line. black once said a soul left in darkness will commit sin. he will come a sin is not a guilty one but who -- he who creates the darkness. darkness intes housing, etc.. regarding funding the police, i

think that money should go to other services. when someone has a mental illness, police funds can go into helping -- health care professionals to help or otherte the drama services to uplift children in communities that are victimized. believe 1000e, i black people were slayed at the hands of the police. have a wonderful day. host: independent line from rafael in maryland. you are on. go ahead. i am part of law enforcement. i would not support totally defunding the police. i am in the army, so i'm not directly police person, but i would not support totally

defunding the police. what i would support is de-escalation of the police. encounter a policeman on the street, they have all sorts of gear on them. have,things that they do it would be difficult for them to approach the citizen the way they do. if a policeman approaches anybody and they feel like they have a gun, i have all these tools i can use to subdue you or with the use of force than they can do that. if a policeman has a baton and a twice.they will think my comment on this issue. host: in florida, republican line, lloyd. caller: good morning, america.

host: what do you think about this idea of defund the police? caller: what i have seen on cnn and msnbc, they already want to quit using the word defund. this is another of their tricks. watch out, america. host: what do thing about the idea? caller: it is truly insane. we live in a system out here. of riverside and jacksonville it has a problem with burglaries and we need protection. host: are you saying that level of protection would not exist even with a partial defunding of a police budget? doler: what were the budgets to the number of police officers in the field? it would go down. that is where the budget cut is going to be. they will probably have more social programs, but that is

fine. they are going to defund the and any moral authority they think they have is going to be gone. said socialou programs and you said that is fine, why do you think that? caller: i live down the street from a pal station and they seem to be doing good work, but it is already funded. why cut out something that is working good? defunding, by the end of the day, that word is going to be gone. minneapolis mayor jakob fry, asked about this concept of defunding the police in minneapolis. let's hear what he has to say. [video clip] >> i am for a massive, structural shift and how police are defined. policeing the entire department, i am not. host: that was the mayor's

perspective. use all the city council taking another perspective. inare getting paul connecticut, independent line. think this is more about disassociation. we are talking about defunding the extra overtime work, the extra events, the projects are in this hits the police in their pocket books. it hits them in retirement benefits accrued through special work arrangements. about reciprocal agreements with government organizations. them where their money is. these violent attacks on journalists and protesters have been a vetting process to get bed -- bad cops out of the service. you see a hitting of

funds, do you see possibility of a change in community safety? caller: no. look what happened in new york .fter they did away crime went down two years running. it was a bad police policy headed up by our leader's favorite attorney, giuliani. the corruption in the profession -- police are engaging in suppression of criticism of their own ranks and profession. that is what is going on now. god we have prosecutors standing up who are actually charging police chiefs and violenceo incites against peaceful protesters. that is paul in connecticut. the los angeles mayor, eric

garcetti, giving a comment on the possibility of cuts to his police department. here is what he had to say. [video clip] >> our city and ministry of officer identified $250 million in cuts so we could invest in jobs, in health, and education, and in healing. those dollars need to be focused on our black community in los angeles, as well as punitives of caller and women and people who have been left behind for too long. will this involve cuts? department,o every including the police department. that is the mayor of l.a.. lisa bender quoted yesterday this idea of defunding and matters related to it. she said, our commitment to ending our city's toxic relationship with the minneapolis police department to

re-create systems of public safety actually keep us safe. that is what is going on across the united states when it comes to this topic. anthony in newom york, democrats line. caller: thank you for this opportunity. i would only ask the producers to put a magnifying glass on suffolk county, long island, where i live. the police force here is one of ae most overpaid, and it is patronage. there is so much corruption. to jailce chief went for having abused or beaten up his neighbor. probably could have come close to killing him. they kill many men in prison here. host: so the idea of defunding budgets, how far would you go? caller: i do not know the answer, to be honest. 250,000 dollars a year -- they paid a man $250,000

a year because he is related to the county executive or his father is a police officer. you look at the lineage of these officers, their whole family has been on the payroll of authorities for a long time. it is a dumping ground, at least where i am, for relatives of the elite. instances ofgreat them getting their wives jobs for a year or two years and then they go out on disability. in connecticut, independent line. caller: by defunding the police, you're opening the doors to the wild west. if you look at television in the morning or read the newspapers, crime is up. , see people getting beaten up 75-year-old women knocked on the ground in new york, mugged, phones stealing, throwing people on the subway tracks. come on. be realistic.

we need more police, if anything. this is ridiculous. then you have people like al a record who will set of causing more problems. host: back to the defunding issue, you are saying even if you partially defund the police budget to a community through various means that is going to impact overall safety? caller: yes. i amnnecticut did this, moving out and i'm not going to a state that has this defunding. you will see a lot of people doing that. they are taking police off of college campuses. i would not send my kid to that college. of twitterng off saying defunding the police department may be a bit much. cutting police budgets so they cannot purchase military tanks is a step in the right direction. if police keep assaulting citizens in our streets, defund them.

polices defunding the equals abolishing the police. otherains to be seen if emergency services will feel safe to do their jobs. facebook, defunding the police is an extreme approach as defending police blindly. there should be a mechanism in which every police are held accountable for abuse of power. on facebook, anthony says the question misses the point that cities should fund drug treatment and education programs. it benefits the community and reduces crime more than defunding the police department. defundingully support the police, but how community funds are disbursed needs a deep evaluation. we want to give comments on our facebook page. our twitter feed is @cspanwj. you can text us this morning at (202) 748-8003. include your name, city, and state. call us on that line if you are

a member of law enforcement and give your input. you can do so at (202) 748-8003. mary illinois., go ahead. -- barry in illinois, go ahead. caller: i have a question. if we are going to defund the police, is that going to go to all the state governors' legislatures come all the federal court judges, alisa bring court judges, all the congressman? judges,he supreme court all the congressman? are they going to defund their protection or are just going to be the public and fight their own battles and we are going to keep hours? understand,hat i the money would be applied on the community level. what do you think about the idea? caller: i do not think defunding the police is going to help. i live in a small town in illinois. once orwice a week --

twice a week they publish arrests and sometimes it takes up half a page of a newspaper. if they are going to defund the police, that is fine, but from the federal down to the state, all these people that have protection ought to be canceled out and put that money into the public or community relief that they are talking about. miami, florida. this is fred. caller: we should up fund the police. these things started with criminals and we are losing sight of that. criminals need to be incarcerated with a dominating force, as our president said. we need to give police more money to take control of the streets, put them in jail where they belong. that will fix the problem. pretendingsing over, everybody is with their family on a sunday morning. these are criminals that need to be arrested. host: what you do about police

and the actions solve george floyd? -- the actions we saw with george floyd? caller: those police officers go to jail. these are people who initiated actions by breaking the law. you break the law, you get arrested, you go to jail. we do not blame the enforcers of the law. blame the breakers of the law. host: in the case of george floyd, it is an enforcer of the law. host: the action began with the -- caller: the police interaction began with the breaking of the law, not sunday picnic. you break the law, the officers need to be held accountable. they need to go to jail. we are blaming the enforcers of the law not the initiator, which was the person breaking the law. host: james in new jersey, you are next. i have some experience,

so i'm on the pro side of the fence. withw what happens situations. i live in new jersey. police officers themselves do not get the money. unions get the money. the fraternal order of police gets the money. the captains get the money. lieutenant get the money. when it comes to police officers themselves, they do not get the money. host: so you're saying do not touch the budget? caller: transform the budget so police officers get the money instead of the captains and lieutenants and police unions.

i have been around many years. i know police officers. they got demoted. it is a shame, what happens with police officers themselves. that is james in new york calling this morning. one of the people commenting on .his issue yesterday the acting homeland security chief chad wolf on fox news sunday talking about this issue of cuts for police department's. [video clip] >> it is absurd and i do not understand it. if you are concerned about the racial injustice you talked about, about needing to reform different police department or law enforcement agencies, make sure you're giving them the right training, the right oversight and leadership to do that so they continue to protect the country -- the cities they serve. you do not do that by slashing budgets.

it makes no sense to me. it is a political statement to make. it does not protect our committees. -- communities. california, independent line. you are on. caller: i have been listening to your program this morning. i called in. everybody is talking about there being a race problem, and i do not believe there is a race problem. , are is a religious problem trickster religious problem. from the problems stem garden of eden 15,000 years ago. their been there -- continual sending that has

resulted in what we know today as racism. in san diego, democrats line. caller: thanks, c-span. this term, defunding the police, sounds like something the trump campaign came up with. i can tell you as a counselor and democrat it is a very misguided terminology. do i think the police needs to reorganize priorities? yes. maybe they should cut the budget a little for the rubber bullets. in san diego, it did not get any press but the la mesa police department, there was a peaceful protest in la mesa and two women, one of them was a peaceful protest are, or just people standing around, rubber bullets were used. one woman was shot between the eyes. i do not know if she is still in

intensive care. another, the one that was not even part of it, she was shot in the cheek with a rubber bullet and it may have damaged her cheekbone. that where the police departments are overreacting. eric garner was selling single cigarettes. on himere five policemen for that crime. that is the kind of thing people of all stripes would agree with needs to be taken another look at, re-prioritized. a lot of police work is about people who do not have mental health opportunities anymore so they end up in jail. if you were to take some of that money from the police

budget, put mental health professionals and communities, maybe would solve overall problems. you are saying you can buy that idea. caller: yeah. it is a matter of scale. talking about defunding the police department is ridiculous. it is going to scare people. what i would be behind would be reeducating people around racism . for instance, the use of the confederate flag. i have been educated by watching c-span and your wonderful historians. flag, i wish you would do a piece on that someday. you have run one piece by the former chief of the national parks and he did a study of all the constitutional amendments issued right before the civil to the civilrary

war buffs who like to say it was about states rights, the civil war was about racism and white supremacy. guest: -- host: that is elizabeth. if you want to find out about the confederate flag or related topics, we invite you to go to the website at c-span.org. house democrats set to unveil their legislative package around 10:30 this morning. you can watch that on c-span2. a republican from texas has a street in the -- peace in the wall street journal. he writes about federal law enforcement grants that go only to departments that follow best policing practices. he says, the way we solve these broader issues is not by defunding the police but by ensuring they do better. the justice department provides almost $2 billion a year to state and local law enforcement conditioned on compliance with

federal civil rights laws. that has not been enough to prevent unarmed black man and women from dying in police custody. to senate also expected weigh in on this effort being done by the house with legislation. one of the people at the forefront of that, senator cory booker of new jersey, talking about this idea of defunding the police. [video clip] last night and washington, d.c. to the black lives matter letters the phrase defines the police was painted down there. there is a lot of passion around that issue. phraseu hear that, the may mean different things to different people. when you hear that, what is your reaction? >> i understand completely the sentiment and substance behind the slogan. while it is not a slogan i will use, if people just dismiss it and do not get deeper into the

substance. -- we are using police. as a guy who ran police departments, i would's -- have exhausted police officers saying why are we using police to deal with the fragility of our society? there is so much money going into our police department's that it is a more expensive way to deal with it. i remember being surprised in seattle with a housing group that show me a data analysis where they looked at what was more expensive for society, providing supportive housing for americans with mental illness who were homeless or leaving them on the streets. they found out they were able to save in seattle millions of dollars by giving people supportive housing because homeless people left on the streets with mental illnesses and up in hospital emergency rooms and jails. this is the outrage i think people on the streets are

feeling and that i share. societyver policed as a . we are investing in police that are not solving problems but making them worse. host: in michigan, this is jeff, republican line. caller: i am for defining the police, but i think we have to direct theliticians police and we elect the politicians. in that sense, the blame for police brutality cannot just be with the police. blame.e americans are to we are the majority and we elect politicians who direct the police to go after guys for marijuana and so on and so forth. when we look at this 2020 election, we have to realize that neither biden nor trump is going to do anything but perpetuate the status quo. we need to think about a new politics that can redirect to the police and better directions . whether they defund or not, i do not think it matters.

we need a new way of thinking about policing. joe biden expected to travel to seattle today to meet with the family of george just george floyd. the president at 3:00 this afternoon meet with law enforcement officials at the white house here in the best way to follow what is going on with this and other matters, our website at c-span.org. we will hear from helen in new york, democrats line. this issue began with criminals who committed crimes. about it anyone outraged the jogger who went jogging and was killed? why wasn't the issue brought up about that and racism? why are the police being the focal point because they enforce the law? i think it is a dangerous situation we are in, and i go to

monthly police meetings. i think i have an understanding of what it is like to be a policeman. i would like to know why we are and whyriminals heroes we are talking about law enforcement and crushing their authority in what they do. host: it was a member of law enforcement to became the center of the conversation in minneapolis. what you think but his actions? caller: i think his actions were they aret i say that making a hero out of a criminal. the last crime committed was that he was in a robbery and he took a knife and pointed it to a pregnant woman's stomach. this is the person who is a hero. glendale, maryland, democrats line.

caller: good morning. there should defund the police. the police union should be abolished as well. the union protects the actions of the police. that is my comment. host: you say take the money altogether or partly defunding and applying that to communities? caller: they should take the guns away from the police because those guns empower them to shoot people and kill them. host: if you do that, how do you maintain safety in a community? caller: without guns, there should be peace. host: james is next in connecticut. that guy is nuts. they should defund the police.

reason why you have a lot of these crimes going on is because, as you look at the police system, if they do not make a certain amount of arrests they are automatically in trouble, so they have to make sure that they make a certain amount of arrests. so they are just arresting anybody. they should just defund them. we can use the national guard. if trump wants to bring the national guard income it let them police. -- national guard in, let them police. fbi local investigators are trying to determine a possible link between the ambush style killing of a sheriff's deputy without of a food -- federal officer shot in oakland where than a week ago. the fbi office in san francisco

confirmed its investigators were working with the santa cruz county sheriff's to determine a possible motive to other crimes in the san francisco bay area, including the attack that killed one federal officer and critically wounded another on may 29. next, in missouri, independent line. i think defunding the police is a wonderful idea. then all them peaceful protesters that are burning police stations and businesses in the name of george floyd can come to your house, take what you own, and burn your house. that is real smart. this is dumb. it took one criminal and one bad cop to destroy our nation. police and then the guys in the white hoods would really be killing black people. host: that is bob calling in

this morning. one of the topics came -- comments on the topic came from the wisconsin governor. we cannot avoid the conclusion that we have an issue of racism in our country and state that we need to act on. we can make sure that police services are such that people of all caller and circumstances feel countable with services they offer and are not automatically skeptical of police. the idea of completely disassembling police in the state or milwaukee i could not support. he made those comments in the milwaukee journal sentinel. we will hear from a resident of wisconsin. is tim come line for democrats. -- tim, line for democrats. caller: instead of defunding the police, the money that is in the police department should go more heavily into the training of the

police and setting up rules. i think police prosecuted and perhaps sued for criminal actions. i do believe that. arrestedoyd was being for a supposedly counterfeit $20 bill. just kept his cool, let the police arrest him, let the courts and lawyers take on the event, he would still be alive today, but he sat down on the ground, would not get in the car. the police officer that killed him, and i do believe he killed him, he should get full punishment of the law and may the other three should also be punished, but remember this whole thing started because this man was resisting arrest. host: if the first part of your statement dealt with training,

if the money is applied to training, how do you change all that by training? caller: it is going to have to be some trading and also be some laws. these choke holds, this abuse of force, when somebody is resisting arrest, you may have to call for more police officers . may be teasing might have been the answer instead of holding this man down. i do not know everything about the police, but i know if they pull me over i'm going to say yes sir, no sir. if they arrest me, i'm getting in the car. bothght with them -- parties were wrong. this man might have been committing a crime. we do not know for sure. the police were definitely wrong. we saw that on tape. no rules of engagement. see housere going to

democrats try to pass new rules. do you think that is better done on a congressional level or state and local level? caller: right now we are in an election year, which makes everything political. holds and this knee on the neck, that is what were the country apart. i live in the woods in the middle of wisconsin. i have not even seen a person of color in over 10 years. i do not know what it is like to live there. , but has to be addressed mercy has to be addressed too. i hope congress can find a balance. wisconsin.is tim and this comes from the wall street

journal. talking about a variety of things between the president and joe biden, with the president outreaching joe biden on matters of cutting the un-employment rate and getting people back to work and dealing with the economy. joe biden slightly leading on this idea of representing change. when it comes to being 47% to 38%joe biden for donald trump. addressing the concerns of the african-american community, 49% saying joe biden would do a better job with that. having the ability to bring the country together, joe biden coming in at 50% -- 51% of those polled. jersey,ry in new independent line.

not know about defunding the police as opposed to just holding police accountable. when you start talking defunding, that is a slippery slope, especially with various states having different issues. cops do not get held accountable. like the medical examiner in the floyd case. he already had the fix in. it was underlying conditions. you get these agreements that come out and next thing you know the cops are acquitted. there should also be strict measures that of cops do brutality, shoot an unarmed person, that they automatically go to a federal level criminal investigation instead of a statewide. defunding, i do not get that. i do not understand that. hold them accountable. host: do you think that is

possible? caller: there has to be a try. in a lot of these casings, even under obama's administration, we see all kinds of killings on video. how much clearer does that have to be? various states have different ways they approach these things, and it just should be one measure. you go right up to federal charges if you shoot an unarmed person. that does not mean you automatically get found guilty, but at least your taken out of where you havel the police commissioner and all these people that are influencing different agencies investigating things. just bring a right to the government level if they shoot an unarmed person. pam in burlington, north

carolina. caller: i want to make a correction to the gentleman in wisconsin who said george floyd was resisting arrest. he was not resisting arrest. with theinterview car.nger in george floyd's he said george was very calm. towas asking questions as what was going on, why are you treating me this way, but he was not resisting arrest. i saw the videos. i am not sure where he is getting that. host: so this idea of defunding police, which is what we are discussing? caller: i think they were defunding is confusing. the reason i say that is because i do not think that is exactly what they are trying to say, at least in my opinion. to reform.y need

someone else also said training. healththink the mental of police officers is important. that in they focused on a daily situation where the ones that are sent to the street are perhaps evaluated on a daily basis, maybe money could be put into that so we can make sure that there is not some underlying issue that could come up. let's hear from marie in mississippi and greenville, democrats line. i agree with the lady

who just hung up. i'm glad she clarified that he was not resisting. about agree with her there being funding to evaluate the mental state of police officers and where they are. man saidd that this that this man had 18 misconduct violations against him on his record. what number does any police officer have to have before he is fired? not only did he have this many violations, misconduct on his record, he was put in charge of training two other young, white officers. these two young men were just on the job for two weeks. why would he be in charge of training these other two? now you have this thing that is recurring, a state of mind of this is how you handle this people.

support would you defunding? caller: take some of the funding and start investigating these police officers. get a boards together that can review them and their mental state. he should not have still been a police officer 18 violations of misconduct. shaaban -- derek chauvin expected to appear in court today. caller: i have a few points i would like to make. one thing i want to get clear first -- what is the federal government doing in the first funding local county and state police? am i understanding the issue correctly? host: keep going. caller: funding should be held -- anytime you have money coming in, regardless of who and what to the, you are beholden

provider of that money and they are not going to want to see any of that money go. likeant to have something the commission following the 1971 case in new york city for police corruption. have local citizens commissions to oversee local, county, and state police departments. get federal money out of it. we need to look at how police are being trained and by whom. the author of the book the generals sun just wrote a piece about the police in america being trained by the israelis who have a horrible record for brutality in their policing. we see the same tactics in the united states. host: phil in florida.

concerning cuba 19, with a potential vaccine in the works, whenbeth weiss writing that vaccine comes to fruition, he could require two shots. she writes two doses are likely no oneequired because had developed antibodies against. with many potential vaccines being created using new systems, it is believed two doses will be required for full immunity. the first shot would prime the immune system. second shot would strengthen immune response. you can read it in the pages of usa today. in indianapolis, indiana, we will go next to gloria, democrats line. agree with the two previous democratic callers that were talking about the defunding. i am not sure if i agree with point,ng or not at this but if they do defund they should do something mentally

about these police. i wonder if they even give the mental evaluations before they put them on the police force because some of these people should not be police. host: gloria in indianapolis. one of the people appearing on a sunday show yesterday was ben carson. he talked about the topic of systematic racism and law enforcement agencies. here are his comments. [video clip] >> i grew up in a time where there was real systemic racism. i remember as an eighth grade students i was the only black student. i got the highest academic achievement and the teacher berated the other students that they were not trying hard enough because a black kid was number one. that was not uncommon when i was growing up. that is uncommon now. are there still racists?

absolutely. there were yesterday, there are today, and there will be tomorrow. that does not mean we should not fight it. .his is an opportune time people are concentrating on this. we cannot let this moment slip away. we need to deal with some of the issues in the police departments . we have policemen who are rogue. the majority of policemen are wonderful, but you have some who are rogues and they can go from one jurisdiction to another jurisdiction and nobody does anything about it. they can be wearing body cameras. there are things that can be done, but we need to come to mutual solutions about this. now is the time to do it. let's not let this moment subway. at the same time, we must be very vigilant about these groups of anarchists who destroy the livelihoods of the people they

claim to be trying to help. let's not be fooled into accepting silly things that make no sense because we want to honor somebody. let's make sure we think this through. inc. about the consequences. you want to abolish police departments? what happens if you do that? everybody goes out on arms themselves. they start hiring vigilante groups to protect them. we have total chaos going on. that makes no sense. from stefan in chantilly, virginia, independent line. caller: i want to make a point and the work if do with police officers -- i am an aircraft mechanic. we as airline mechanics make

mistakee, any type of that will pose a potential danger or hazard to an aircraft, we kill hundreds of people, possibly thousands. obviously, we are going to jail. officer who was sworn to protect people kill someone justification, they should be upheld to the law. with defunding the police, i do not think people are saying abolish police department altogether. all thethey are saying funds the police are getting, riot gear, all this extra gear, bullet-proof vest's, things that wouldt used every day, i

take them towards programs for schools, trade programs for students so when they come out of school they have a skill or some kind of financial intelligence. right now, they are not learning that stuff in school. on bikes andorking motorist since i was a teenager. even a 20er or something-year-old to say do you know how to use a wrench -- they have no idea. stephane from chantilly, virginia. last call on this topic. thank you all for participating. two discussions coming up unrelated matters when it comes to the events of the last couple weeks surrounding george floyd. joining us next, elie mystal on how people can use floyd's death in the fight against racism. we will hear from robert woodson on his thoughts on what the protests could mean for the police. those discussions coming on

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" washington journal" continues. host: joining us is elie mystal of "the nation," serves as their justice correspondent. you have probably seen many protests over the years on these related matters of violence by the police and what race relation issues, what makes this different than others, in your mind? guest: it is a good question. my first one of these is sean bell, cops emptied 19 bullets into a man the night before his wedding. that was my first kind of experience with this at the street level activity. a problem in america for a long time. the difference right now that i a, there is -- two, are objectively more white people involved in the protests. that is just an objective fact. i think that is objectively

positive. yesterday i saw mitt romney say black lives matter. not black corporations matter, black lives matter, which made me clutch a pearl. i was like, whoa. i think the racial integration and racial harmony of these protests is something we have not really seen since mainline civil rights era march on washington. i think that is great. the second thing that i would distinguish from other -- again, this happens a lot that is may different now -- is the kind of intensity of the specific harm, right? this is not like we need to hold hands and sing kumbaya. this is we need to get your foot off our next. there is focus and intensity there. i think it is one of the reasons

it is making so much news and raising so much awareness. host: everybody involved in this, they want to see some type of end result. what is the end result? guest: i like to focus on the positive victories that have been achieved. andk chauvin was arrested his three accomplices were arrested. i do not believe that these four cops would have been arrested without these protests. so the protesters have already achieved a victory. in terms of further victory, in terms of more action, i think we have seen already some of the city mayors start to make changes, start to reassess their relationship with the police. you were talking about this a little bit, these are local concerns. policing is a local issue. so many of these cities, we have democratic mayors who, despite being allegedly liberal and

allegedly progressive, have this very aggressive posture when it comes to policing. they are in the pocket, you could argue, of policing there they have not rogan free. i think one of the specific goals we are starting slowly to see is city mayors starting to think differently about controlling their police forces. i think that would be a great victory going forward from these protests. host: for the talk of this funding police, partial budget funding,ding -- dis dismantling the police, do you think partial results are possible? guest: it is interesting. or,le talk about disfunding i use the word, disarming the police. it is hard to say we are not going to have any cops and that man will protect us. we are not talking about a lawless situation.

what we are talking about is decreasing the budgets -- we talk about decreasing military spending in this country. [indiscernible] -- is the point of the defunding movement. do i think it will have long-term effects? i will say this, nothing else has worked. this is not a new problem, not something people figure out two minutes ago, two weeks ago, two years ago. this has been a long-term, systemic problem in america for my entire life, and i am 42 years old, and much of my mother's entire life, and she is much older than me. so community policing has not worked. electing democrats and electing progressive mayors has not worked. what is supposed to work, right? so you get the defunding from the position of nothing has worked so far. i don't know long-term if that is something that people are

ready to really kind of walk into intellectually, but pushing towards taking away some of the police's voice -- the militarization toys -- would be helpful. host: elie mystal joining us for this conversation. eastern and00 central time zones. mountain and pacific time zones, (202) 748-8001. law enforcement, (202) 748-8002. you can tweet us, @cspanwj. and you can text us at (202) 748-8003. talk about your point about appealing to white people. guest: i, like pretty much every black person i know, has spent a significant amount of time these past two weeks fielding calls and text messages and well wishes from white friends who want to help, who have seen how

bad things are and are becoming aware and wanted to know how they can get involved or help my life. you know, i try to take it positively. in lowe once famously said "west wing," ignore the fact but you are in a party ignore the fact that you showed up at all. it is difficult. this is not news. i have had white people said to me over the past few weeks, wow, elie, i used to think you were extreme, but now it seems you were kind of right about the cops. yeah, yeah, i have been, and i have been for a long time. so my goal is to say, like, look, i am glad that now you are awakening to this problem, but what i need you to do, as opposed to reaching out to me, as opposed to trying to see if i need a cookie, if i need a fruit basket, right, i need to to go out there in your own networks

where i am not invited, where my voice is not heard, where i am not allowed to speak to them, and you do that work. you sound like me when you are hanging out with your only white friends. you sound like me when you're hanging out with your family at thanksgiving. because this has been a long-term problem and aggressively combating police brutality and the racism that leads to police brutality is a full-time job that african-american people, that black people in this country, do everyday. and if you are white and you want to help, then you have to make that part of your full-time job, to stamp out or at least challenge racism and oppression wherever you see it. because as a white citizen, you are going to be allowed into rooms, lot into conversations where people of color simply are not going to be there, so you have to be the advocate. you have to be my ally in that moment, not just overtaxeds or twitter -- not just over texts or twitter. host: the idea of systematic

racism within the department, you can look at specific instances like george floyd, but what other metrics do you look at if you make that case if, indeed, you do make that case? i do not want to speak for you. stops here that they get all because back to stops. it is partially my legal training coming through. once the state has you and puts their hands on you, and i mean cops, agents of the government, once they put their hands on you , then anything can happen. anything can go wrong. whether it is racism bias, just anything can go wrong. what we need to do is decrease the time and the ability of the state to put their hands on you. when you look at stops, stops have always been incredibly, overwhelmingly racially biased. seems like it was like eight years ago -- like, three months ago, mike bloomberg was trying

to run for president. black people were like, i am not having that. why? because mike bloomberg was johnny on the spot when it came to -- he thought it was a good idea, and it is actually the worst possible idea. if police do not stop you, they cannot kill you. so when we talk about systemic bias in the system, the need to force police to show us they have probable cause for a stop that goes beyond he was black and looked like he was doing something, that has to be priority number one. priority number two has to be of what ise veil called qualified immunity, which basically means if a cop was doing something in the line of duty, he cannot be sued, which gives the cops impunity to commit crimes while in the line of duty. we have to make cops pay and make them be held accountable for violations they commit while doing their work. ,f we start at those two things

i think that is, honestly, a quicker way to get at the underlying's estimate bias in the system as opposed to focusing only on what is called post custodial treatment. what we saw with george floyd was post custodial treatment. what was with eric garner was post custodial treatment. i am trying to get to the point where cops are not putting people in custody in the first place. host: first call is from vicki in chicago. you are on with our guest elie mystal of "the nation." go ahead. caller: hi, yes, i just want to say that i think it is really sad that people do not trust the police. i love the police officers we have. i believe they have done a terrific job. i think it is just disgraceful the way these criminals have torn down our city. and i do not respect criminals would go and loot and tear down. and i cannot believe they have the out that -- they have the nerve to talk about defunding

the police when the police protect us and save our lives. it is a disgrace. thank you. know. yeah, well, i i do not trust police. i never have. i am always more worried -- and most situations, i am more worried about the cops than the alleged criminal activity. and the reason why that is, because we have laws against crime, right? we have a system of government that says certain things are bad. you cannot rob me. you cannot mug me. right? we do not seem to have laws against police crime. police are allowed to, as i was just talking about, stop me for no reason. police are allowed to restrict my movement and restrict my access on trumped up charges. police are allowed to beat me and shoot me. that is not ok. that is the fundamental kernel of why i do not trust my police,

because my police operate above the law. right? and i cannot begin to trust somebody who does not operate within the bounds of society and of the law. i am sure that is not going to be our first call suggesting that what is really happening right now is just a bunch of criminals looting, so i do not want to go too far down that rabbit hole. but i will simply say that the vast majority of protesters have been peaceful and respectful, and if you think about what they are protesting, if you think about the kind of, the pain and illegalities that they are protesting, the fact that 90% of them, that 95% of them, perhaps 98% of them have been completely law-abiding is a miracle. it is a miracle that so many people have been so respectful given what we are dealing with. host: from maryland, renee is next. hi. i think that we

are focusing all the attention of the police and what they need to do, but the black community has a lot of work to do, too. we all do. you know, the thing is, i do not believe this is a racist issue. we are making it one. there are 13% of our population that are black people. they commit 53% of violent -- of murders, and 60% of all the robberies. we have to focus on crime, too. their side has to focus on crime. the police have to focus on, force.cessive but nobody is talking about both sides having work to be done. and if black lives matter's, it starts with black abortions and white abortions, all abortion. all killing. more blacks kill blacks. how can we make black lives

matter when blacks do not make black lives matter? host: ok. mr. mystal? elie mystal? the signal seems to be a bit frozen, so we will attempt to reconnect. guest: can you hear me? host: yes, go ahead. sides,there are not two alright? there is one side, that is the american side. well,ller tried to say, the black people have to work on their side -- no, no, no. the american citizens have a sidedness, right? the other side, the other people in this, are not two different groups of american citizens. they are american citizens who all should enjoy a certain level of respect and right and freedom, and the state, the state' government, the armed agents of the state which have to follow a certain set of rules, and when those armed

agents of the state follow those ands in a biased fashion beat out justice tearfully depending on the color of an american citizen's skin, that becomes the problem. that becomes the only problem worth talking about. as i said earlier, we have laws against crime, laws against robbery, laws against property robbery.oss against all right? what we need are to have those laws looked at fairly, and when the armed agents of the state refused to fairly meet out justice, then we have -- we, all, including renee, have a societal problem. it is a problem for black people, and it is a problem for americans. host: bob and marilyn, your next. --in maryland, you are next. caller: i have two comments for the gentleman. first, my sense is that racism,

as you are terming it, sort of looks like this for the police. they are trained down in inner cities. they have all kinds of experiences. and each time they are walking , let's black gentleman say 90% of the time there is a problem, let's say even 80% of the time there is a problem, what about 70% or 60%? racism starts to become probability. and so they walk up to a gentleman, they are already on guard, because 60% of the time there has been a problem, as renee just said and you just much more percentage of violent crimes are accomplished by black people. so take some culpability with all this. host: ok, let's take that point and let our guest respond.

guest: let's see, where do i start? black people do not commit more crimes. if that is what you are arguing, black peoplearm -- are arrested more often for the crimes, which shows the bias. arrestedut who gets for what, not who commits what that is number one. number two, we can go through a rabbit hole of long-term that manifestues in crime rates. that is a longer discussion that i do not want to have at this moment. number two, to your point about how police are always on guard and that is racism. that is complete and utter nonsense. it is nonsense to argue that police walked to a black person and 90% of the time there is a problem, maybe 60% of the time there is a problem -- are you

insane? right?tching mtv, stop watching violent movies that make you think that 60% of the like people you meet walking around a part of the problem here you're talking at best around 10% of the time there is a custodial problem that would lead to some kind of actionable crime. if you're telling me that police, because of their training and their experiences and whatever have gotten to the point where racism seems, as they caller said, like a probability situation to them, we have a solution to that. we use it in the army. we take people off the front lines after they have been there for too long because we know they basically lose their training. right? we understand that we cannot have deployed troops for an indefinite amount of time because even the best trained soldier will crack. best, what we are seeing with our police, and i

think it is far worse, but at best what we're seen with our police is an over deployment. we are seeing the police officers who have ignored their training, who have lost their training, who have lost the plot of the story because they have been deployed on the front lines for too long and they need to be rotated off, put off the horse -- force, or put behind a desk. that is, again, if you thought that anything that last caller said was in the realms of accuracy, then the solution is you pull police forces back and rotate in a fresh, new round of troops who have not been racially biased as our current police. host: earlier you talked about this idea of qualified immunity, and it was one of the topics of discussion that came up with the interview with the attorney general, bill barr, yesterday on cbs. i want to play a portion of what he said about it and get your response. [video clip] >> do you think there should be

some tweaking of the rule of reduced immunity to go after some of the bad cops? >> i do not think you need to reduce immunity to go after bad cops, because that would result certainly a police pulling back. policing is the toughest job in the country, and i, frankly, i that we have generally the vast overwhelming majority of police are good people. civic minded people who believe in serving the public. they do so bravely and do so righteously. >> and bad cops? >> i think there are instances of bad cops. and i think we have to be careful about automatically assuming that the actions of an individual necessarily mean that the organization is rotten. all organizations have people engaging in misconduct, and you sometimes have to be careful as to when you ascribe that to the whole organization and when it really is some errant member who is not following the rules. [end of video clip] pedro, that argument

makes me insane. in no other industries the argument consistently forwarded, that holding people in that industry accountable will make the people who have not committed crimes in that industry bad. right? that is essentially what vee -- barr is saying, that somehow because they're so many good cops, the holding the bad cops accountable will make the good cops feel less like doing their job. that is an insane, illogical argument. if you are a good cop and you do not commit police brutality, do not commit racial bias, and do not go out there and being the long arm of racism in our society, if you are a good cop, then how can you be anything other than shocked and appalled and frustrated by the bad cops which solely your entire organization, make people not trust you, and literally make

your job harder? how can you not be aboard -- ab hored by those people and not one those people to be held accountable, right? the fact that so many cops do not seem to want the so-called bad apples to be held accountable next may question this whole, how many good pot -- cops are there really, argument, right? like what we saw in buffalo last week or two cups pushed an elderly man, cracked his school open on the sidewalk, all those other cops walked over him, we finally saw two of those officers face accountability, and we saw 57 other officers resign from the special unit in protest over those two officers facing charges. how many good cops do we got? in the theory that there are more good cops than bad, then the argument that the good cops will not stand for holding the bad cops accountable

is ridiculous. pr reports this morning that there are eight pending cases before the supreme court when it comes to the topic of qualified immunity. they also report that justice sonia sotomayor as well as justice clarence thomas commented on the fact about properly re-examining this issue. guest: it is an interesting thing when you get into the weeds of qualified immunity. one of the interesting things that i call a problem is that liberals, again, have been generally fans and defenders of qualified immunity, too. it is one of the problem that the supreme court wants to talk about sometimes, the problem or we put too many former prosecutors in the position to be judges and eventually appellate judges and eventually supreme court judges. that prosecutorial bench, justice sotomayor, a former prosecutor, it makes them pro cop, pro qualified immunity, makes them come from a tradition

where these things were accepted instead of challenged, and if that is on the liberal side, you can imagine what the conservatives do. although, i will say, one of the interesting things about this qualified immunity debate is you get a little bit of play from some of your more hard-core, let's call them originalist conservatives, like neil gorsuch is kind of just as interested in changing the rules around qualified immunity as say sotomayor is now willing to consider. one of the issues here is that qualified immunity is entirely made up by judges. it is not a statute, not an act of congress. it is an entirely judge-made distinction. and of judges made it, judges can unmake it. a super conservative like neil gorsuch is really interested about unmaking judicial law -- generally, a liberal, i am not, but this is a law that should be

undone. that is where the intellectual experiment is for qualified immunity. i do not know if these protests make it more likely for the supreme court to take up such a case. they could right now. i do not know if it makes it more likely. i do not know if it makes more likely for the liberals even. will sotomayor reconsider? rbg and rpg and -- others reconsider? we do not know if we have five yet, but it is interesting. host: members of law enforcement can call with questions. jack from new jersey, you are on with our guest. caller: good morning, pedro. it has been a while. just a possible solution, at least an attempt to have been reading everything possible on this tragic subject, and i do not hear any solutions anywhere. fbidon't we have the

profile the police departments across the country? i mean, they have all these trained people, personnel. that if we have numerous complaints about a police officer doing wrong things to certain neighborhoods and people , this has to be corrected. they could probably identify, with 99% of the good police officers who go to work every day whose wives and children are scared to death if they are going to come home or not, it is a few bad apples on both sides, every side you can think of. if you can profile these people, identify them, bring them in, put them on desk duty, maybe they can do school crossings ,omeplace or give an early out because it would relieve so much pain our country is going through. we were making great strides. i am in older dude, been around

in the 1950's and 1960's and never had a problem with anybody. host: we will let our guest respond. guest: first of all, i appreciate the comment. again, i will push back. there are not two sides there is an american citizen side and the armed agent of the state side. they're not bad apples on both sides. there armed agents of the state not doing the right thing in their attempt to catch criminals. with that said, yeah, look, independent commissions have been a thing people have suggested in terms of monitoring the police and holding the police accountable, there is local governments -- again, these are local issues, various local governments from time to time will set up independent commissions. the problem with that consistent his police unions. in this world where republicans have been so effective at neutering the strength of union

after union after union for workers, the police union remains strong. the police union is probably one of our strongest unions left in the country. and they consistently frustrate any effort to hold cops accountable for their crimes. they frustrate efforts certainly for charges, but they frustrate efforts at suspensions, and firing people, and they parenting,fforts at which is such a key aspect of this entire situation we do not even get -- we, the public, do not even get to know the cops tonary history of identify which ones are the bad ones. it is policing -- police unions time and time again who are enemies of this kind of accountability that jack just talked about. so if we can get police unions ever on board, if we could get these allegedly 99% of the good cops, if we can ever get them on

board to holding the few bad apples accountable for their badness, we could move forward. host: from jackson heights, new york. dan, your next. caller: i would like to point out two things. ae, coming from europe for number of years, i have never seen police as violent as i have here. i mean, violent with citizens, be they white, black. it is the most violent police i have ever seen. the second thing is, you know, there is a certain hook up to the brain, brain science, and one is through cognitive and one is through limbic reflex reactions. the first one takes a long time to develop. the second one is very quick. so if you're going to draw your gun and fire, like you see in the cowboy movies, it has to be on automatic and goes fast. but if policeman are not

killers, policemen are supposed to be peacekeepers, anymore communities hire combat veterans because they say, ah, they have weapons training, so these guys are going to be cheaper to put out on the streets. they are getting people who are trained to use their weapons to assault an adversary. they are not people who are trained to keep the peace. i think that the main problem is as anolice trained adversary of the communities they serve in. host: ok, thank you. admit,so i am going to limbic systems are beyond my field expertise. [laughs] i cannot speak to the brain chemistry of what is going on. i can say a few things from that call. earlier, u.s. me pedro, what is the difference between this and all the others?

the police are really showing their contempt for american citizens in this moment, right? of shootingp side teargas canisters at point-blank range at reporters and beating people with sticks, and the flip side of all of that is that so many more people who think that people like me are lying when we talk about police brutality, who think that people like me are hyperbolic when we talk about the contempt that police show for people in my community, they are seeing that all on the nightly news these past weeks. so that also gives me hope that we might have some better futures as more people see what the police can really be like. callerpoint that the inspired me -- again, i know nothing about the brain chemistry of all this -- but when you talk about putting former soldiers in the line of

fire like this, it is an important point that the police have entered into an adversarial relationship with the communities they police, as opposed to a communal relationship. it is why twice now on this program i have pushed back on callers who have said there is a black side and a white side to this or there is a black side and a police side to this. that is the fundamental wrong way of looking at it. there are american citizens who are deserving of respect and restraint, and then there are the armed agents of the state who work for us, whose only job is to protect us from specified crimes. and that is the fisher, -- fissure, the correct one, not this kind of inter-nesting war between all police and all black

people because all black people might one day be criminals. that is the wrong frame of this entirely. host: today in washington, we are going to see members of congress, led by the congressional black caucus, unveiled their own package of legislation to put police reform on a congressional effort, considering that the republicans hold the senate and the white house, as well, what do you think about these efforts politically here in washington to change these things? guest: welcome to the party, democrats. look, i am a literal -- liberal peer usually when you have me on, i am on the liberal side of things. i have been unimpressed with the democratic party on this issue my whole life. the democrats, in general, have not shown up strong enough on this issue. i think the new crop of progressives are. i think aoc and ayana pressley, you know, there are people that are on the younger side of progressives that have been laser focused on this issue.

i will say generally people of color, generally women of color, have been laser focused on this issue. but with large, the democratic party establishment has dropped the ball time and time again, not just at the national federal congressional level but, again, the local level, at the local level were these cities, these majority liberal cities are overwhelmingly electing democrats, and democrats in charge of the mayors and prosecutors office in the country have generally failed. so welcome to the party, congress. i would love to know what democrats in congress actually think they can do now because it has been a long time coming, and the important thing is that they need to be doing that -- whatever they do today, that has to be part of every campaign they make going forward, has to be part of every local election argument they make going forward. because we need at least one party concerned about police reform. so far, for most of our

lifetime, we have had zero parties concerned about that. host: what does it mean for joe biden going forward as he addresses these issues? guest: [laughs] i'm not here to talk about my flair. this is the moment that we need leadership. i think biden has made a great argument that of all possible presidents to be leading us in this moment, donald trump is the worst, right? he is not the unifier, he is the inflame her in chief. he does not bring people together, he looks for division and ways to keep us apart. so trump is the worst possible person to be in charge of this moment. biden is making a very good argument that he is not the worst possible person to be in charge of this moment. i think that generally helps him. generally, a feeling that we need to return to normalcy also helps biden. so i think that is probably part of the political experiment.

again, i come back to just the cold fact that these issues are not federal issues for the most part. -- a is a limited amount limited role for the federal government here. even when you say we have to get the federal government more involved in local policing, remember how quickly that can go bad. liberals, remember jeff sessions and his ridiculous attempt to stop sanctuary cities and deputize local police enter his deportation force. federal controlled policing is not always a good thing, right? so while this is a moment for biden to talk about his general unifying ability, in terms of policy, policing -- changing police policy has to start on the local level, which is why i use most of my time and most of my voice not criticizing trump on this issue, not criticizing mitch mcconnell on this issue, but criticizing bill de blasio on this issue, because he is my

mayor in my town. he is the one that makes things better tomorrow. host: this is elie mystal joining us from "the nation." you can find his writing at website thenation.com. jay in maryland, go ahead. caller: yes, normally i would tell elie not to be loud, but on this, definitely be loud. there was a caller that talked about the fbi looking into police departments. nation, you go to the can you downs reported on the exact thing done by the fbi down intercept, also there was an article on it. , different sense communities are treated differently. i had an officer tell me that when they were in new york

busting people in the black community for possession of marijuana, that they wanted to go to shea stadium during the tailgating parties because there were white people out there openly smoking marijuana, possessing marijuana. when dylan roof killed nine people in a black church, the police apprehended him and took him to burger king. so do not tell me there is not a difference on how blacks and whites are treated by the police. because it is evident. if you open your eyes, you will see. host: and you identified yourself as a member of law enforcement. what do you do? caller: i am on the federal side. i do not want to go into details about it. but as was mentioned before, the good officers know who the bad apples are. host: thank you for the call. told us, hey would have to kill us, right? [laughter] one of the things i have been

trying to point out is to write that-- to remind people black people got televisions, too. african-american people, black people, in this country last month spent a whole month watching predominantly white people, many of them armed, some of them draped in the confederate flag, span out across this country and get in the face of police officers with guns and spittle over not being able to go get a haircut come over not being able to go to david busters. busters. to dave & we did not see cops out there with violence or pepper spray or riot gear. i saw one protester push a cop into a lake because he did not like the social distancing rules. cop did not start beating the man on the back of the head with a billy club. we all saw that a month ago. now when we come to our protests when now we are not protesting

about whether or not we can get a haircut, we are protesting about whether or not we can get justice in the streets, and the police show up before a megaphone shows up, the police show up in riot gear and with armed vehicles, willing to pepper spray us and shoot rubber bullets at us and tear gas our protests, we notice the difference in treatment. y'all can pretend like you don't, but we do. we notice how differently the police treat our protests then the white confederate protests that happen just a month ago. for god sakes, saw the michigan state government close down to avoid a confrontation with protesters who happened to be white. but now black people go out there and protest and cops are in full riot gear and using counterinsurgency tactics and low-flying helicopters like they are in a war zone. that is a difference in treatment that people notice. host: new hampshire is next.

this is suzanne. caller: i am a public defender in my 60's, so i have a lot of first-hand experience with police issues. have have to say, what i noticed the most is that police in my lifetime have become very militarized. it is much different than when we were younger and the police were on the beat in the community. the police today are like soldiers, and that is a problem. because when you are a soldier, you look at the population differently than you would as a police officer who is supposed to serve and protect a community. in new hampshire, black and brown people are disproportionately, i believe, stopped, and they are treated differently. you have a lot of sudanese and a lot of people of color from different countries, and they are treated differently. it is pretty appalling. so that is what i have to say. i would reform the police by, as

i think you said earlier, take away the toys. not need all of that to go to an apartment for drug bust in new hampshire. it is the feeling that they want to get soldiers out there, and that is the wrong mentality for a police officer. and i think there are a lot of good police officers -- i know a lot of them -- but for some reason, they do not want to step up and call the bad ones. maybe it is fear or something. guest: look, i totally agree. the point of a lot of the defunding -- i use the word disarming the police -- movement is to take away the toys, make them less militarized, make them who like a regular citizen has authority, as opposed to an --y boy who is suppressing suppressed evildoers. i am going to wild out a little bit. one way to think about the

government, if we want to play both sides, is to also think police- one of the ways have called for needing to have these kind of militarized arms is because they claim that the criminals are being well-armed with assault rifles and what have you. so if we took the toys away on both sides, get the guns away, we would have less violence. that is me liberaling out. host: elie mystal's with "the nation," their justice correspondent. thenation.com. thanks for your time. we will get another perspective from robert woodson up the woodson center as we talk about what the protests might mean for police and how they do their job. that conversation coming up next on "washington journal." the presidents, from public

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booth infrastructure into wi-fi are strategically -- they are strategically located across the city of new york. that in and of itself provides a means of communicating that sets out sort of a predicate for what can be done with sensor technology, how we can regulate our lighting system. there is so much that can be done just from that platform alone. >> the new york democratic congresswoman, tonight at 8:00 eastern on the communicators on c-span2. [chanting] >> with the recent protests unfolding across the country, watch our live, unfiltered coverage of the government's response with briefings from the white house, congress, governors , and mayors from across the nation, updating the situation. plus, efforts addressing the ongoing coronavirus pandemic and

campaign 2020. join in the conversation every day on our live call-in program, "washington journal," and if we missed any live coverage, watch anytime on demand at c-span.org or listen with the free c-span radio app. >> "washington journal" continues. host: joining us as robert woodson, founder and president of the woodson center. thanks for your time, sir. guest: pleased to be here. host: remind viewers about the woodson center, who finds it, and the purpose. guest: i founded the woodson center about 38 years ago, and its purpose is to serve low help arounde with the country in high crime and drug infested neighborhoods, and we find grassroots leaders who are solving the problems internally. they are social entrepreneurs. once we find them, we help them

with access to money, training, so if they're helping 50 people, we will help them to expand to help 500. we have -- we have served about 2500 low-income people of all races in 39 states throughout the country. host: who funds and backs your organization? guest: primarily private donors. we have gotten large grants from amoco,vron corporation, individuals, the bradley foundation. occasionally a government grant to help. but primarily private donations of individuals. host: you have probably heard as much as anybody about this defund the police or at least a partial amount of their budget and turn that money around and put it into communities. what do you think of that idea? guest: i think that is the worst idea that i ever heard.

because the people in whose name it is being done will be the ones most injured. there have been several studies that demonstrate that when there is police notification -- for instance, when police are withdraw they vigorously enforcing laws in these high crime areas, the consequences are increased in the number of deaths in those communities. for instance, last spring in st. louis in a period of less than four months, 16 young people, children under the age of 14, were shot and killed. only one arrest. and that same pattern occurs throughout the country. so when you talk about withdrawing the police, it would have the opposite effect. it will increase the number of deaths occurring in those communities. but the people who are advocating this do not have to

live with the consequence of their advocacy. that is the problem. i would like to see some of those who are advocating to defund the police, why don't they lead by example, for instance, and give us their zip codes and then demand that the police not come into their communities to enforce the laws, and let's just see what happens there. someone said when you make an enemy of the police, then you have to make friends with criminals. host: mr. woodson, you recently wrote about what was going on, and you talk about this idea of the ferguson effect. you wrote this, the devastation will likely continue after the ashes cool and the remains of shops and other businesses are swept away, a pattern known as the ferguson effect has emerged across american towns and cities racked by anti-police protested in recent years. can you expand? guest: the ferguson effect is what i just said, some years ago -- in cincinnati, ohio, when the

police officer shot a young man and sharpton and all the civil rights people came into cincinnati and organized a citywide boycott, so what happened was the police said, well, if we are going to be accused of racism, we are not going to be aggressive in enforcing the laws in those high crime areas. there was a dramatic increase in the number of deaths in that high crime area. neither sharpton, the pastors, or the civil rights people of cincinnati had to suffer the consequence of that. also, the people that were hurt most about the boycott were waiters, cooks. there were black folks who were driving taxicabs. they were the ones most hurt by this advocacy. what i saw this trend in cincinnati 10 years ago, and now it has been documented in a harvard study that shows, in the course of a year, when police

refused to be aggressive in enforcing laws in those high crime areas, there is about 800 deaths that occur as a consequence every year of police nullification. we ought to be asking the people what we -- what we plan to do it the woodson center, we want to poll those communities and ask the people in their whether they think that we should be pulling back and defunding the police. host: if you want to talk to our guest, eastern and central time zones, (202) 748-8000. mountain and pacific time zones, (202) 748-8001. members of law enforcement, (202) 748-8002. you can text your thoughts to (202) 748-8003. we need to take a short pause in a few minutes in this conversation. mr. woodson, you have been a longtime advocate involved in civil rights for many years.

from what you saw of these protests of late, how do they compare to what you have seen earlier? guest: first of all, as a veteran of the civil rights movement, i experienced racial .iscrimination firsthand in the 1950's, i was stationed in mississippi and in florida, and i saw it firsthand. in fact, i went to jail twice because i raised civil rights issues on a military base, and the police, there was a relationship of the local police, so i got arrested. three years upon my discharge, whenever police would -- police lights would flash in my rearview mirror, my heart would race. i remember the days when i would go to jail and a very nasty, dirty place. so i have experienced it firsthand. so what we fought for in the civil rights movement was an opportunity to demonstrate our ability to achieve.

and we had specific goals in mind. but today, they do not have any specific goals in mind. all they are talking about is what they are against. in the civil rights movement, we fought for what we were trying to achieve. but there seems to be confusion right now. also, as dr. king said, the way you destroy an enemy is make them your friend. we were not out to vilify white people. racism was not bad, dr. king said, because it was being practiced by white people. racism was bad because it was people, and he recruited black and white people to confront people. -- to confront evil. minutes have just a few before we have to take a break. what reforms are needed in the cases of derek chauvin and other

police? they should be held to a higher standard than anyone. and when police do what was done in this case, they should be vigorously punished. i believe that one of the things we ought to do is insist that police, if they witness a fellow officer committee a crime or violating the law, they should arrest them. the rule really think of law should prevail over loyalties to fellow officers. so if we were to institute that practice, that would help in this situation. if those four officers had come upon as civilian with a knee on havene's neck, they would effected an arrest. well, the same should apply if they see a fellow officer during the same thing. so there needs to be reformed. but we should also -- we do not want people to profile blacks

because some blacks commit crimes. we do not want us to generalize, nor should we generalize about the police. in the course of a year, there are 1000 people who are shot by police, many of them shooting at the police. 270 blacks that are killed. and only 27 are -- blacks killed by whites or police officers who are unarmed. 27 thaty one of those is creating the kind of outrage that you see, there are 270 blacks who are killing other blacks. so yes, i think we should hold the police accountable. but black folks should hold themselves accountable, as well. does black lives only matter when it is taken by a white person? i think that we should be 9/11ged at the kind of

that occurs every year in black america. as someone said, if black people don't think black lives matter, why should whites or anyone else? and these are difficult issues, but we must at least be able to debate and discuss them without somebody being called a name or someone losing their job because they do not subscribe to the new orthodoxy to say institutional racism --are you for against it? if you challenge us in anyway way, people lose their jobs. i think this is a dangerous trend that i'm witnessing in america where we cannot even sit host: our conversation, robert woodson of the woodson center. he is there founder. founder.their

we will pause our conversation slightly with him and go to the house of representatives in their pro forma session. as thousands of americans fill the streets of towns and cities

throughout the country, we know that there is a great movement of spirit in our nation. we know not where it leads. fill us with your spirit of discernment and good judgment that the national dialogue might issue forth in a community more consummate with the founding principles of our nation. cleanse us of the racism that we must own as our historical failures still to actualize one nation, under you, with liberty and justice for all. through it all, continue to bless and protect those protesting, but also those members of police departments and security units charged with protecting and serving our communities. as well, dear lord, continue to protect your people during this time of pandemic and inspire

those medical professionals who labor through these times to find a treatment and protection against the coronavirus. bless us this day and every day and may all that we do and can do for our neighbors be for your greater honor and glory, amen. the speaker pro tempore: pursuant to section 4-a of house resolution 967, the journal of the last day's proceedings is approved. the chair will now lead the house in the pledge of allegiance. i pledge allegiance to the flag of the united states of america and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under god, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. pursuant to clause 4 of rule 1, the following enrolled bill was signed by the speaker on tuesday, june 2, 2020. the clerk: s. 3744 an act to condemn gross human rights in

of of turkish muslims and torture and harassment of these communities inside and outside china. the speaker pro tempore: the following enrolled bills were signed by the speaker on thursday, june 4, 2020. the clerk: h.r. 7010 an act to amend the small business act and cares act to modify certain provisions related to forgiveness of loans from the paycheck protection program to allow recipients of loan forgiveness upped the paycheck protection program to defer payroll taxes and for other purposes. senate 2746 an act to require the director of federal bureau of investigation to provide information on suicide rates in law enforcement and for other purposes. senate 3414, an act to authorize major medical facility projects for the department of veterans affairs for fiscal year 2020, and for other purposes. the speaker pro tempore: without objection, the chair lays before the house a resolution. the clerk: house resolution 995. ranking member on a certain

standing committee on the house of representatives. the speaker pro tempore: without objection, the resolution is agreed to. and a motion to reconsider is laid upon the table. of ant to section 4-b house resolution 967, the house stands adjourned until 9:00 a.m. on thursday, june 11, 2020. house resolution 967, the house stands adjourned caller: we have come a long way in this country, but it looks like we have not come far enough and there is still work to do. i represent a group of retired professionals, multiracial, and we are approaching this problem from a different perspective.

the -- we studied the takedowns across the country most prevalent. one of them took place just north of me in more, oklahoma a few years ago. a fellow was taken down and he died. the five off-duty officers were cleared. and the discussion on that -- and this was brought up in the group at the library, i was amazed -- but my three sons had the benefit of -- my grandfather was chief of police and when he taught me to drive when i was 15, he discussed what would happen when you came into contact with law enforcement and it was startling what he said. he said, when you come into contact with law enforcement, he said you are in a life or death

situation and you will determine whether you live or die based on your actions. host: thank you. guest: i am not sure what his point is, but yeah, i think we all need to take control of our situation. again when law enforcement has the authority of the state, they must be held to a higher standard and be held accountable, but i think it is wrong to exaggerate the number --cases like this is this if as if this is systemic. actions of these lawless officers reflect on the entire system to the point where there are calls for defunding the entire police. where therestaurants staff refuses to serve police officers to show solidarity with black lives matter. what is that all about?

why isn't there outrage? i did not fight and struggle and go to jail in the civil rights movement so that, in the name of justice, we discriminate against another group of people called police officers. that is the moral inconsistency that we are addressing today. host: vanessa from illinois. good morning, your next. i wanted to applaud mr. woodson for being very commonsensical in everything that he's said. he is one of the most commonsensical persons i have listened to hear. i would love to sit down and have a conversation. i think this is more than what we can all solve here in a few seconds, but i guess my question is, i mean, i look at the police and to me they have the hardest job in america, and the world.

if i try to put myself in the place of all people, i mean, i cannot because i am not there, but i see the things they have to deal with and how could any person be in that type of situation and always be a certain type of person to be not affected by what happens? same as the person who is on the other cited, maybe the criminal, who feels his life is a certain way and he reacts to the same problems. it is not a good situation. feel -- of course, we need to keep our police. change has to be on both sides. host: apologies for that, vanessa. mr. woodson, go ahead. guest: you are right. what we are doing at the woodson

center is we are going to convene a webinar where we go around the country and identify communities where there is positive police, black community and police interaction, and see what the rest of the country can learn from. we ought to be studying suggest ofstudying success instead just highlighting injuries that can be avoided. las vegas, nevada, for 12 years has operated a program in cooperation with the police that helps over 3000 people who are in prison to return and be successful citizens. 40% of his mentors are police officers. they are mentoring some of the people they used to arrest. this is the kind of innovation we could -- we should be examining and learning from rather than always just pointing

the accusing finger at the police and exempt ourselves from any responsibility. host: henry in de soto, texas. good morning. caller: in this day and age, i atieve we are really adept trying to label people as liberal and conservative. -- this idea of defunding the police i do not believe is going to go away, especially during this pandemic. tax revenues are low and, as a result, where will money come from to fund other things if it does not come from cutting certain things? toh that said, the idea maybe say that that might be a liberal idea or something, think again about people that talk about government and shrinking government. this is an economic issue.

this is economics. i know the thing about race and all like that. the common denominator is money. the people who have will always have, but people who do not have will not. defunded,e police is there will be places that will be protected by police. it just will not be those areas that are less fortunate. thank you. guest: you are absolutely right and that is my point. particularly hollywood celebrities who are pouring $20 million into bailing out rioters and protesters are not making any distinction because they live in gated communities where there is private security. many of them have armed security anywhere they go. some of the people who are advocating ad time police -- advocating anti-police live in gated communities. this is why at the woodson

represents low-income people -- we need to not assume the people on television are not qualified -- are qualified to speak to people -- speak for people in those low income communities. it is patronizing to make decisions for someone else when you do not have to live with the consequences of that decision. host: this is maxine. she's in michigan. hello. caller: thank you for taking my call. i went to thank and congratulate mr. woodson for the work he is doing, and hope that the black community will listen to him and stop listening to these black leaders that are in it for self gratification and what they can make off of this. i do agree with mr. woodson completely. thank you.

thank you but what i am trying -- i am trying to get honest discussion into this. when you see these demonstrations, they are against institutional racism, systemic racism. i do not know what that is. i wish someone would tell me what it is. they use demographics about inequities in black communities that exist: high unemployment and whatnot. they assume that the problems that exist, black on black crime, low achievement -- they are saying, some of them, that this is a legacy of slavery and discrimination. that is just not true. andreality is between 1940 de jureen we were --

segregation and blacks had much lower income, we did not have the black on black crime we have now. in the 1930's and 1940's during , people could not walk safely in those communities without fear of being mugged by their grandchildren. the question is one of the promises of the civil rights movement. officials, they would treat their people better. the question is why did we witness the kind of decline in the last 30 to 50 years in these cities controlled by black -- black officials elected officials? if race where the single issue, the question that gets avoided is why our black children, and schools customs -- in school systems and other foster care

systems, why are they failing and systems run by their own people? --discussed racial theitutional racism and inequities today as if the civil rights movement never happened. that is something we need to discuss in this country. host: we have a viewer off of twitter who says the only time wasks had full employment during slavery. how do you answer to that? true. that is not in durham, north carolina, there are examples. it is called the black wall street. businesses, 600 residences, our own insurance companies. blacks in income for 1940 in durham was comparable to the medium -- median income of

whites nationally. you talk about the education inequities. there were five high schools in america between 1899, dunbar high school, booker t. washington, and other schools. even though we had more crowding, used textbooks, half the money that white schools had, those schools outperformed all of the white schools in that district. at a time when white people were at their worst, blacks were at their best. if we could achieve excellence in -- at a time during segregation where we had no political representation, why can't we learn from the examples of what we achieved from the worst conditions and apply them today? it is just not true that we are always defined by the

opposition. host: from gerald in maryland. go ahead. you are on. caller: good morning. mr. woodson, how are you? this is gerald. had the pleasure of working with mr. woodson in the late 1990's. he was doing gang intervention and all the other work. problem a serious gang -- was a serious gang problem here in d.c. in the late 1990's. i am still doing the work. the things that i learned at the 1990's.center in the a young man brought in an idea. we are still doing it. we have had to postpone a few things, but the point is we've

helped hundreds of young people. the model we are using, myself and the young people i am working with, is the model i learned from the woodson center in the late 1990's. host: ok. thank you, gerald. guest: and that is my point. we need to concentrate and success -- on success and solutions. what concerns me about the current dialogue around institutional racism and black lives matter is that it is communicating to blacks that whatever problems you have, what it -- whether it is the diction, poor eating -- whether it is addiction, poor eating habits, it is not your fault. if you are killing each other, it is not your fault. if you are being mis-educated, it is not your fault. you are the victims of institutional racism.

onlythat does is not exempt the person from personal responsibility but puts the power and control in the hands and says myple destiny is determined by what white people do and do not do. that is what troubling -- that is what is troubling about reparations and all this stuff. it is a recipe for failure. it is insulting, patronizing. host: i want to go back to the conversation we had before the break on police reform efforts, specifically in the case of george floyd. were you suggesting that save -- that self policing within the police department is the best way to go about weeding out bad cops? guest: i think when police officers -- when we can make a to the rule of law prevail over loyalty to one's fellow officer,

yes, that will go a long way to give police the expectation, create the expectation. you have to penetrate the police theure and insist that police police themselves and hold themselves to the same standards that they hold civilians. i think that was one strategy we ought to be pushing. that the might think police officers themselves would bond together in order to keep that from happening? guest: they may or may not. with the volunteer national black police association in the 1970's and 80's. when there were fewer black officers and many of them would not respond to a crime in progress in civilian clothes because you would have a police shoot them thinking they were a perpetrator. what they used to do is call

911. what they came up with, though, is that if all police officers witness of police officer committing an illegal act, they pledge to arrest that officer. in black police association the 70's and 80's past that resolution among themselves that they would do that whether or not it was sanctioned by the department or the union. that is something that ought to be discussed as one of the remedies among others. host: robert woodson of the woodson center joining us for this conversation. woodsoncenter.org. we will go to georgia. go ahead. caller: i would just like to say woodsoniate mr. robert because he said one word that caught my attention and that was "solutions." police wereounger,

not like they are today. it is almost like police are policing for profit to keep the courthouses full for the lawyers and people are being arrested areharassed for things that really not crimes. i mean, victimless crimes. i have examples. i am a white guy. and i have a great example of how mia and my two sons were harassed -- of how me and my two sons were harassed coming from colorado to georgia. we had georgia tags. we were bringing a camper home. my police -- the police pulled my son over first. we waited on him at the next exit. law enforcement came to the camper where me and that my oldest son was and they brought

a dog. they thought we was holland drugs from colorado -- we was iuling drugs from colorado, ed, and those cops made the dog hit on our camper. untiler barked intel -- the police officer made it bark. all of us perhaps have an example. there are also examples of police officers saving lives, rescuing children. we ought to emphasize good things when they happen as well. there needs to be some balance in this discussion. you rewarde of what and less of what you punish. if the only time we talk about police officers is when there is some infraction, that is going to create a hostile environment.

we also need to talk about when police officers do a heroic thing. there should be balance. from mimi in charlotte, north carolina. good morning. you are on. go ahead. caller: i want to talk about what mr. robert woodson is talking about. we should not talk about what the police do. we have to because they are killing people that they should not be. they are always talking about what goes on in the black communities. they never talk about what goes on in the white communities. people commit a lot of crimes, white on white crime. the police officers are not killing -- explained to me why they are not killing white people? white people are out there killing people too?

why aren't they doing them the same way they are doing black people? host: mr. woodson. it is unfortunate all the attention has to be focused on what is happening with black people. i think you are right. the problem we need to be talking about was the proper role of police, but it ought to be a specific -- it ought to be a respectful discussion. the police should not have to prove that they are faithful to their duties. we should begin with an open mind and understand we need police in our country. anarchy -- i do not ever want to live in a situation where there is an absence of police. i think it would be chaotic. host: mr. woodson, there is a conversation going along with this, with the events of the last couple weeks about qualified immunity, whether

changes are needed when it comes to police officers. where do you stand on the issue? it has been a discussion point going along with what has been happening in the last couple weeks. guest: i do not know enough about it to comment on it. i do not know. host: loretta in north carolina. good morning. go ahead. caller: yeah. woodson andk mr. get this straight. i assume what you're saying is that the police should be allowed to do what they want to do in order to keep them and throwing a tantrum going into the communities and attracting people. do what words, let them they want to do.

-- what dopropose you think should be done to keep police from killing us. it sounds like you're on the payroll of the police and bill cosby and all those sorts of people. what should be done to keep cops from killing us, allowing, to hold each cops -laer accountable is a la land dream. guest: police should be held to a higher standard than anyone else. let me tell you personally that in my life i have lost a 29-year-old brother who was killed, leaving behind of five

children. a 17-year-old niece who was raped and murdered. a nephew who was shot and killed by a young man he grew up with. and two other nephews put in intensive care. not a single one of them was assaulted by white police officers. they were killed and assaulted by another black person. problem ise the internal. is where we ought to be addressing the problem right now. only 1000 people are shot by police officers for whatever. 9000 blacks kill other blacks every year. i ask you where should our priorities lie if we really care about black lives? we ought to be taking steps like

we do at the woodson center to help organizations within communities to reduce that violence. that is taking personal responsibility. barriers weternal must face, but we also have a personal responsibility to take care of the internal problem. host: los angeles, california. michelle, hello. caller: i have a question for you. there is a said that high incidence of black on black crime. so, the blacks do not care about black lives, why should anyone kills --why should anyone else care? your relatives were victims. there were many black victims out there. their lives do matter and we should care about it.

i am a little confused about your statement. guest: my point is the only time you see demonstrations like you are witnessing around the country is when a white person kills a black person. i carry around with me the picture of one of 20 young black children, all under the age of nine. three years ago, in milwaukee, wisconsin, a five-year-old girl was sitting on her grandfather's lap at the dinner table when a bullet came through and hit her in the head. it was not even front-page news. there was nobody demonstrating like this. children in black six months killed on our streets. no one is demonstrating about that. no one is having discussions about what we can do to combat

it. officerwhite police shoots one black person and we know the name of that person, memorials are developed for them, and they become the cause of a movement to solve the problem. i am just asking for some proportionality. let's put our time and energy focused on the largest problem we have, and that is those deaths internally. there is nothing white people can do externally to help us. it is a problem internal to us. we must address it. but in order to address that, we have to acknowledge the importance of it. right now, it does not seem to be important. the only time we get upset is when a white person takes a black person's life. host: we will hear from doreen. she's in massachusetts.

caller: when i watched the video of george floyd, i was totally disgusted, could not believe something like that could happen, and thought she had have -- and thought he should have been arrested immediately. and did not understand why he , and why he was not charged with first-degree murder. and that was with totally, completely democrat administration in that area. more so thats tensions could inflame, violence could iraq -- violence could erupt. my question is, on the black lives matter, when they first started, that group three or four years ago, back with michael brown and other cases

that cops killed in unarmed black man, and that whole hands started alloot these protests. the mayor of baltimore -- i am not sure if it was the michael said case -- came out and for the police to stand back and let the citizens destroy, which caused all this chaos in that city. burning cars, looting, and everything else. we watched it live on tv. host: what would you like our guest to address? these cases with black lives matter back then was investigated by the obama administration, by eric holder, a black attorney general, and found those officers were not guilty. hands up, do not shoot did not happen.

it was alive. -- a lie. guest: i think she is right. we need to be honest in these kinds of cases. i go back to my point -- why are we discussing it and making it a major cause for demonstrations and ignoring the more pers 8 -- the more pervasive problem of black on black violence? the: robert woodson is at woodson center. he serves as their founder and president. ourthe remainder of program, we will go back to the question we started with, this topic of defunding police departments. having that money puts a communities. democrats, (202) 748-8000. republicans, (202) 748-8001. independent, (202) 748-8002. if you are law enforcement,

(202) 748-8003. we will take up those questions when we come back. ♪ >> this week, the house and senate will hold hearings on the federal response to the coronavirus and law enforcement accountability. p.m., eugene:30 scalia testifies on the cares act and the role of unemployment insurance. on wednesday, at 10:00 a.m. eastern, the house judiciary committee hearing on law enforcement accountability. also, on c-span3, secretary of the treasury steve mnuchin testifies before the senate small business committee on the implementation of title i of the cares act. live tuesday and wednesday on c-span and c-span3,

c-span.org, and the free c-span radio app. >> tonight, on the communicators -- >> we are at the beginning of building our smart city. vertere fortunate to con our telephone booth infrastructure to wi-fi kiosks. they are located across the city of new york. provides a of itself sets of communicating that out a predicate for what can be how we canechnology, regulate our lighting system, so much that can be done just from that platform alone. >> new york democratic congresswoman yvette clarke on the communicators on c-span2 tonight. chris "washington journal continues. an op-ed on this

idea of defunding the police. she says "defunding and abolition probably means something different from what you are meet -- what you are thinking. it does not mean zeroing out budgets for public safety. it does not mean police will disappear overnight or perhaps ever." meanses on to say it shrinking the scope of police responsibilities. it means investing more in mental health care and housing and expanding the use of violence mediation and interruption programs. your thoughts on this topic of defunding the police, whether you support or oppose it. you can let us know on the line. you can also post on our twitter feed @cspanwj.

and you can text us at (202) -- (202)202) 748-8001 748-8003. georgia starts us off. this is chris. good morning. caller: i am for law enforcement. i am for reforming law enforcement. i am also for putting more money into training. i understand that a couple of those officers in this case had only been on the job a week. how can you blame those guys totally if they have only been on the job a week? i do not think they had proper training. police.with reform to more training. all police officers, departments have bad officers. i agree. host: but the idea of defunding the police? what do you think?

caller: caller: i do not agree with defunding the police. what if your house gets broken into or you get carjacked? who are you going to call, the ghostbusters? host: donna in michigan city, indiana. hello. donna, hello? caller: hello. iwant to tell your listeners was a member of the citizens police academy in michigan city and they train you for seven weeks to tell you all about police work. you go out in the community and spread the word. shocked if wey started defunding the police. i do not know about your communities, but in mine we need the police. they are essential. they work very hard. people do not realize how much danger they put themselves in. i think our country would be in

desperate situations if we started doing that. i understand there is problems in communities with police training, but we should work on that, as dr. woodson brought out. i hope we keep our sanity during all of this. i grew up in the civil rights era and i have friends of all persuasions. i will leave you with this. it was dr. king that said that it is not the color of your skin but the content of your character. i want to say to the police departments all over the country, we appreciate you. bute is work to be done, let's not start by taking away money from police departments. they need that to outfit themselves and continue to train. host: these comments about defunding the police come here in washington this morning. twitter, democrats are going

to unveil the justice in policing act. they would limit legal protections for police, bam police choke holds, among other changes. that announcement was reportedly going to take place at 10:30 this morning. onn it does, you can see it c-span and follow along on c-span.org. the president is also set to meet with law enforcement officials at the white house today. louisiana, republican line. brenda, hello. caller: hello? host: you are on. caller: yes, i was calling to -- i am in support of the police officers, but i am not in support of bad police officers. i believe something needs to be done, but defunding law enforcement is not the answer. there is too much chaos in this land. host: but why not even a portion

of a budget to be defunded and put back in communities? caller: people do not understand. you need the police. it has been that way since the wild west. it did not work back then. why should it now? the police need help. people need to comply -- not with bad officers. there is bad in every bunch. you know, good -- host: let's go to drew. new york city. wrong. dr. woodson is there is no such thing as black on black crime. crime happens in everybody's neighborhood. if somebody is white and gets killed, you do not call that white on white crime. so stop that. police -- let's look at the

history of police. of had sheriff the ending -- you had sheriffs, the ending of slavery, white people wanted to keep black people out of their communities. they formed police brigades to keep us out of encroaching on their lifestyle or whatever, all right? host: how does taking money out of those budgets fix that or correct those things? caller: i do not think you should take money from it. there should be stronger recruitment in those neighborhoods from those people. white recruit people that do not recruit, right -- why people that do not like you, right, into the police system? you are going to recruit people that do not like black people so they are going to take their anger out on them and they can. it has been happening for

centuries. they do not have strong recruitment and cities. i live in new york. i live in jersey. on thetwo brothers police force, a friend on the police force. they tell me what goes on. better recruitment -- have a better recruitment in the neighborhoods from those people. host: ok. for his part, the president sending out a tweet on the topic. all caps. law & order. at least that part is in all caps. he goes on to say the radical left democrats have gone crazy. we will hear from alexander in ocala, florida. caller: i will make this fast. police to defund

departments to elf -- to allocate funds to various programs and services. my question is what part of the program is going to be defunded and how is that going to be used? host: how would you answer those questions? caller: i do not know. that is what i am asking. host: is there a certain sections of police budgets that are a starting point in your mind? caller: i do not know police budgets that well, but i cannot imagine taking away from an emergency response team or special deployment team or a swat team. do you take away from a drug enforcement team? what about the warrant squad? what are you taking the money from? that is what is leaving me a little confused. what exactly do we mean by community programs and social services? that is what i am saying.

do we combine the two and make police program that makes community policing more important? i do not understand what defunding a police department means. host: that is alexander in florida. in wisconsin, this is chester. hello. caller: thank you for taking my call. i was wondering what will the democrats do if joe biden wins considerdency, when we he was the prime co-author of which, 94 crime bill, locked up thousands of black people? if we go to the 93 speech he made on the senate floor, he practically castigated every black person in the country as being criminals. democrats are putting themselves in one hell of a predicament. host: to the topic of defunding

the police? what do you think? caller: i do not think that would happen under a democratic administration. host: but what do you think about the idea? caller: the idea? defunding the police entirely: no. i think taking away their consequencesevere and special cross-cultural training. host: let me go back to the first part. what does taking away their weapons achieve? caller: well, taking away the military style weapons. those are intimidation techniques and tools. in the blacky, community, intimidated when we see the police. host: ok. that is chester. we will go to duane in illinois. hello.

black, this is not about white. this is about humanity. -- the police work for us, ok? responsibleuld be cameras andaving people on the street, they should have their vehicles running, onours their conversations with their partners. they should also have audio in front of the vehicle to pick up any conversation. if there is a partner with them, they should have more cameras on them instead of the people to keep them in check to see how

they act. and look at everything on that. int: that's duane illinois. the headline of the new york times talk about new york city's experience of this topic. to redo the headline -- bill de blasio warns against the notion of cutting funding to the new york police department -- warms to the notion of cutting to to the police department. we will be moving funding from the nypd to youth initiatives and social services. the details will be worked out in the budget process in the weeks ahead. i want people to understand that we are committed to shifting resources to ensure that the focus is on our young people. host: let's go to marlene and

.ll to mont i oppose defunding the police. when someone commits a murder, their family is not punished. they are the guilty person. this policeman committed a whole policehe department should not be defunded because of it. we need our police. god bless all of them, except the murder. host: ron is in indiana, and elizabeth. democrats line. caller: i am terribly concerned about the militarization of the police. i think the question of should we defund the police is not quite broad enough. i think we should defund the militarization of the police.

but there is a lot of nonlethal weaponry, nonlethal equipment that can be used by the police force instead of murdering citizens. host: when you talk about militarization, what do you mean? caller: they are using equipment like full suit body armor and ar-15's. my policeunity, department has an armored apc. what do we need it for? we do not have gang activity or a high crime rate. that is money that is wasted. my local police department could have used that same money to buy non-lethal weaponry and promote public relations more, and that would have helped our community. buffalo whoers in self identified as being incapable of following the rules, i want to say thank you for resigning. that is the best thing for everyone. if you are not in the position

to cause those problems, then perhaps that is the solution. host: next, stacy in mclean, virginia. good morning. caller: thank you for taking my call, pedro. the last caller stole some of my thunder. defunding the police is ridiculous. however, defunding the militarization of the police is something we need to do. we cannot have weapons of war turn on american citizens. do not get me wrong. there are good and bad people in every profession and every town. what we will have to do as black people is turn and those people that are committing those crimes. if you cannot do the time, do not do the crime. period. police isthe military concerned, no police officer

should have the right to play judge, jury, and executioner and kill people in the street. i noticed they only fear people that are black and unarmed. but they do not fear a dillon roof, who shot up a church. fear a white boy that has an ar-15 who just committed serial murder, but there is a fear of an unarmed black man or woman or child. host: ok. another sidebar to everything that has been going on. the editorial pages of the new york times, the op-ed pages. this story -- james bennett resigned as the editorial page editor of the new york times days after the opinion section published a much criticized unitedublished by a states senator calling for a military response. last week, we saw a significant breakdown in our editing process. that was the publisher in the

know on sunday. be able, he would not to leave the team for the next leg of that change. that is the story that ran in the times. senator cotton put out a series of tweets in response. about as -- talks portion of the story he wrote. usingd he called for military forces as a backup only if police are overwhelmed, not to be used against protesters. adding, if the your times has any decency, -- if the new york times has any decency, he should retract this smear. new castle, pennsylvania. hello. coming from the perspective of someone who is a three time felon that has turned

their life around and runs an independent recovery program -- can you hear me? -- i feel like defunding the police is the most illegitimate act america could do. they are there to protect our civil liberties. i think they should force felons certainelf to go for a amount of hours of right along's with police officers -- hours of ride alongs with police officers. it would cause them to see what police officers have to go through. when i was breaking the law, it was not them that maybe commit the crimes. wrong realized that the part of my ways, it was easier to get back in the right direction. host: in regards to george floyd, do you put the onus on george floyd or the officer? 1000%, it is the officer

but had there been someone like me in the car, i would have jumped out and slapped the officer off of him. there should be an accountability. they should put a civilian who has lived that life. immediately.t host: let's hear from benjamin in texas. democrats line. caller: i am 80 years old. host: you are on. go ahead, benjamin. benjamin from texas, hello? we will go to julie in massachusetts. go ahead. i think it is absolutely crazy. you will have people arming themselves.

it would be an absolute disaster. when robert woodson was on, a woman called in from north carolina. thequestion was: why are police killing black people and not white people? i think that everybody on your station at least would know that it has been all over the news, the actual numbers. i just want to put out there -- i believe it was 19 unarmed white men and nine unarmed black men police last year. byhink diffusing this withholding this kind of information -- it would defuse the situation if people understood the numbers. when the media does not put the information out there, it feeds that narrative that black people are being hunted down. host: ok.

sean in patterson, new jersey. i think the phrasing of this entire discussion is wrong from the get go. it should not be either or. not defund or into the police department or continue the wholesale slaughter of innocent, unarmed people of color by the law enforcement. instead, there are definite ways in which brutality in the police department could -- curbed andn eliminated completely, such as the eradication of qualified immunity. it would make easier the job of -- people who would join better, is to simply weed out the people who are making it

more difficult for them, such as the criminal cops. town, and on -- in my you can deny this, but there are people on the force to pursue criminal ends. they were taking money out of cars and splitting it up amongst each other. there were cases in baltimore i have read about where police officers were selling drugs. cops were selling drugs out of their cars. host: that is sean. the last call for this segment. we thank all of you for calling. a couple things happening on capitol hill. 10:30, house democrats are expected to take a look at police reforms. you can watch it on c-span. the president is expected to meet with law enforcement officials later this afternoon. for all those events and more, go to our website at c-span.org,

where you can watch events, see archives, information, and follow along. we thank you for watching. another program comes your way at 7:00 tomorrow morning. we will see you then. ♪ speaker pelosi will hold a press conference to unveil legislation for equal justice. that is at 10:30 a.m. here on c-span. later, white house press secretary kayleigh mcenany briefs reporters. live coverage when that starts onht here on c-span

c-span.org, and live with the free c-span radio cap. tonight on "the communicators" -- very beginninge of building out a smart city. we were fortunate very early on to convert our old telephone booth infrastructure into wi-fi kiosks, and they are strategically located across the city of new york. that in and of itself provides a sets of communicating that out, sort of, a predicate for what can be done with sensor technology, how we can regulate our lighting system. there is so much that can be done just from that platform alone. >> new york democratic congresswoman yvette clarke tonight at 8:00 p.m. eastern on "the communicators" on c-span 2.

>> this week, the house and senate will hold hearings on the federal response to the coronavirus and law-enforcement accountability. tuesday at 2:30 p.m., eugene scalia testifies on the cares act on the role of unemployment insurance during the coronavirus pandemic. wednesday, 10:00 a.m. eastern live on c-span, the house judiciary committee hearing on policing practices and law enforcement accountability. also a 10:00 a.m. eastern, secretary of the treasury, steve mnuchin, testifies before the senate small business committee on the occasion of title i -- on the implementation of the title i of the cares act. you can watch online at c-span.org or listen live on the free c-span radio app. to give you a sampling of what is going on across the country when it comes to the defunding movement, you can go to minneapolis, where, as a