americans rise in protest against police brutality. san franciscs district attorney outlines his vision for change andiscusses th steps he has taken. also, we dive into the history of policing, and controversial proposals to improve the system. and protesting during a pandemic. we hear from a doctor about the risks d how cial inequality results in poor health outcomes. hello, and welcome to kqed newsroom. is week 12of sheltering in place in northern california. run a virus infections are rising faster than ever worldwide with 100,000 new cases reported eaday. there have now been 110,000 coronavirus deaths recorded in the united statt as you know the unprecedented pandemic was overshadowed by tens of

thousands of americans protesting the death of george floy the an armed black man killed by a white police officer in minneapolis. this has sparked days of mostly peaceful protests across the nation. at times law enforcement used tear gas and rubber bullets to disperse the crowdso were calling angrily for reform and justice. earlier this week the san st francisco ct attorney announced significant proposals to improve the city's legal and policing systems. we are joined now by skype. ri di attorney, have you personally participated in any ofhe protests this week? >> good to be with you, yes i have. i have been to at least fftwo ent protests. >> what has the atmosphere been like for you? >> it has been wonderful. , righteous raeativity, divee groups in terms of age and race and background coming together to demand -olordue change peacefully in an

exuberant exercise and first amendment rights. >> there have been incidents of burglary, vandalism and at the beginning you had brought ns charges agpeople suspected of being engaged in those activities. in the past six days, have you charged anyone for criminal activity during es >> we have absolutely continued to file criminal charges against people engaged in and allooting or commer burglaries or arson. that is a tiny, tiny minority of what is happening. it is a distraction and i do not view the folks engaged in that kind of activity as being associated w h the protests. there are people using the protests as cover, but they are >> how manycharges would you say you have brought? >> i don't have the exact number. i know that on tuesdaalone we filed 18 felony cases. >> do you have concerns about

pothe san francisco ce department's response to these protests? are you investigating the police department for its handling in the past week? >> i have not heard reports of excessive force at the hands the safrancisco police department. i am proud to say we have avoided some of the horrific vide that have comeout across the country from buffalo and beyond. i have, however, scene and overwhelming police response to peaceful protests. i will not prosecute civil disobedience or peaceful fi exercise of t amendment rights. >> reporter: what are your thoughtsn the curfew insan francisco? should that have been imposed? >> i do not support curfews, particularly because looting and vandalism and arson are already crimes which the police are equipped to arrest and investigate. curfews in a context like this sethe one role, and is to curtail peaceful protected first amendment activity.

change candidate. fice a this feels like a moment of change. dozeou feel enerby it? does it feel in line with your lyliefs? >> absolu the movement that got me elected is the same movement we are seeing in the streets from chicago to cincinnati, from new york to nebraska, all across this country people are excited for change. the majority of americans g are demandurgent reforms to police policies and practices so that we cahave a system where black lives really do matter. >> y made some change this week, at least a proposal along with seven san francisco supervisors and proposed to prohibit the police departnt from hiring y new officers with a known history of serious misconduct. frankly, i think i was surprised by this. as the cen francisco po department currently hiring new of ctprevious misconn history

>> we are now up to nine members of the board of supervisors that are cosponsoring that resolution. you have to wonder why the other two are not willing to support a common sense policy that urges the civil service commission to prohibit hiring officerswith serious misc duct. the reality is we don't what exactly is happening an who being hired, it is a huge problem. the reason for it is calirnia makes it very hard if not impossible for the public to know whether or not an officer misconduct. ious we need transparency and accountability and we need to ensure that we are not putting people on our streets with guns in uniforms and the ability to arrest if they have a history of serious misconduct. >> this would only address new hires, not those already in th d poliartment. why isn't it broader? >> that is correct. we are working on other forms that would address people currently on the police aldepartment. we need to work with the police commission to ensure accountability and transparency and new policies.

the obama department of justice in 2016 issued a scathing report that highlighted 272 urgently rmneeded re here we are four years late and lessthan 15% of those reforms have been made. he time is now. >> why has it been so slow? >> we see tremendous resistance from police unions. former aclu please accountability experts were just quoted in the press today saying that the police unions in this country are to police reform what the nra is to gun control. there a toxic influence on any effort to hold police accountable or to reform the way that we engage with law >>enforcement. you know the union spent a lot of money against you in the november election. this week heyou and das proposed banning unions from funding prosecutors. who is going to be making that decision, and at is th timeline? >> i want to be clear on what

we proposed. the supreme court of the united states has interpreted the first amendment in a way that allows unions including police unions to spend unlimited money influencing local elections. nothing in the proposal seeks to change that. what we are doing is asking then state bar the american bar association to prohibit candidates for district attorney or current district attorneys from seeking political or financial support. -- directly from police unions. it is toavoid a conflict of interest that presents itself every single time the district attorney's office like my own is tasked with investigating an officer's alleged excessive use of force or murder. >> want to anturn to incident in january. there was a young black man who was arrested. ri and, that arrest a female san francisco poce officer puher knee on his neck in a method that seemed similar to george floyd. there were five body cameras there on the police officers, but it s not until bystander

video emerged in the last week that we were able to really see what hapned in that situation. once you viewed that bystander video you dismissed all arthe s against the young man and put a new policy into place by which all other prosecutors have to review not only by the camera footat also independent video footage before filing charges for resisting arrest or for other incidents. now, my question here is, are you encouraging everyone to pull out there cameras and record all police action? >> the reality is the glre we can have recording a particular incident the better job we can do charging th case. that is not limited to interactions with police. but, we benefit tremendously from surveillance footage from stores and maets across the city when investigating and prosecuting cases. th is true in is instance as well. the video we saw last weekend look at that case.

even more than the arrest had been the basis for the at arrest was unfounded. we reached out to the alleged victims in the case ended a closer . of the police report that had been done and realize there never should have been anh arrest in first place and that is why i personally went to court and dismissed all charges. >> earlier this year you fulfilled a campaign promise by eliminn ing cash bail in francisco. the union says you are creating the largest criminal justice revolving door ever in san francisco will pay a price for it. what wouu say to people who are worried san francisco is less safe now that you are district attorney. >> look at the numbers. si crime is down ificantly. crime across the city is down more than 35%, and the reality about money bail is makes us less safe. eliminate it makes us safer. allows wealthy people to buy their freedom no matter how dangerous they are while poor

people who are perhaps innocent, wrongly accud, or t who pres public risk their poverty. bars because it undermines public safety by allowing wealthy dangerous people to buy their freedom esa undermequal protection by keeping poor people incarcerated. we have replaced that wealth based system with a risk-based system and we are all safer as a result. so >> thank you much for being with us. when cases of police violence against black people become public protests . often fo there is talk of police reform including the need for implicit bias training and reducing the use of enforce to prsuch misconduct from occurring. but now we see a shtat from of reform two proposals for cutting back on the number of police. this week essentials in san francisco announced they will cut police funding sending the services in the minority

communities. joining me from massachusetts is alex vitali, the author of and of policing and with us from los angeles is law professor jody david-armor, tha of the hidden costs of being black in america. thank you both for joining us tonight. i nt to start with you. you are a los angeles resident. he announced he would take om50 million the lapd department and reinvesting it in communities of color. what is your reaction? >> that is the right move that we are looking at the budget initially proped at almost 54% of the $5.5 billion roughly annual budget going to the lapd. that meant that s money th was not going towards social housing, education, you can walk through skid row down here

in la, one of the largest really, the laenest homeless mpment in the country. it is one of the fiercest expressions of structural violence in the country. you look to your left and right and you will see 75% the faces are black. money could be going towards tt those folks, g them out of that desperate plight and not going into the lapd. i think that is justified. >> in san francisco one of the supervisors announced yesterday at a press conference that they aring to be redirecting a portion of law enforcement budgets to communities in need. could you talk us through your vision of a radical restructuring of soety based on our budgets and law enforcement systems? >> i have been advocating around e country that communities should be doing very specific commity needs assessments. they should be looking at what

are the public safety challenges that they face vetha ssentially been turned over to police to manage, and then begin identifying the kinds of specific targeted interventions that could address those problems in ways that don't rely on coercive and punitive methods which are the tools the police have to deal with thesproblems and en they need to make the kinds of demands of their elted officials to bring those resources in the community in a way that allows us to dial liba our ce on police. >> if we are talking about large sums of the budget going towards law enforcement in los angeles as we heard, but 50%, oakland has be 40% inthe past. what percentage do you think of a budg should be spent on law enforcement? >> we don't know the answer to that. there is a huge variability in the way the spending is organized.dd there are costs, pension funds and medical expenses. so, i think this is about a process, not about some

predetermined end goal. i think that we start with the polim schools and out remo fng replacing them with counselors and restorative justice programs. we look at why we are using police to respond to mental hepoth crisis or ce to manage mass homelessness in our cities. think we will get a better i sense of what is going to be left at the end of thispr ess. >> jody, you have spoken in favor of police reform but you have since lost faith in reform i would ke to take minneapolis as a case study. they went through a three-year $5 million reform program trto built between the community and the police through training such as implicit bias. obviously, george floyd's death represents a feeling of reform measures there. are there other metrics you are using to measure the efficacy of police reform? >> yeah. whenever we have these

incidents, it is like a wash rinse and repeat cycle. it could be a commission we have many by people at the hearing and then we say body cam's and implicit nias tr and they have not solved the problem and so now we are hearing what you need to do is not protest in that particular way but just exerce your right and cast the ballot. in someplace like minneapolis you had a democratic mayor, city council, 13 out of 14 democratic. ana lot of cities around the country the marchers see that when you exercise the ballot it does not seem to solve the problem. the problem i think has to do with, number one, reducing the supply to the lice force so that we can vert some of those funds to crime prevention at the front and with social services a that sort thing, number two, then make sure that the resources go

towards getting that kind of crimes that to the black community and every other community wants to have addressed, that is murder, rape, violent assault, when you havea lot of your resources going after turnstile jumpers and low-level nonviolent offenses, then they are not going towards the kind e of investigawork that it takes to solve murders. so, it is just a matter of reframing your priorities mand aling sure that you take on the police unions and the collective bargaining t reements often have bu into them all kinds of protections for police. charlie belier, the former chief said i want to get rid of bad apples but i can't because my hands are tied by thllective bargaining agreement. so making those kind of changes. >> so, you woknow, i d like to take a look at the types of e gressive policing we now, even durg these protests. in los angeles the was a recent example of a woman taseve there been reports of

police vehicles driving into do you think this behavior by law enforcement is going leto to policy change right away? >> well, it is sad to say, but the police are making our argument for us. they're showing that these reforms have not worked. the implicit bias training, the forts of professionalization and community polihi partne. when push comes to shove we are seeing that police are by their nature vlence workers and that when we return problems over to the mapolice to ge there is going to be violence. if we don't wa that we need to try to figure out other ways of managing our problems. >> alex, th e are stro words. we are in a time of crisis and i have spoken to many who say the police should definitely not be defunded right now. maybe later, maybe they see a problem but right now they nt the police to keep them safe from violence that may break out in their neighborhood. yo

what do say to people who are worried about their safety will be reduced if police are defunded? >> of course, the disorder that we see on the streets right now is the product of problematic policing. but, nobody is talking about a situation where tomorrow we flip a switch and there are no police. this is about an ocongoing s of critically examining the particular roles that we have turned over to police and is asdeveloping alternatives we go. so, this is going to be a ng- term process. >> jody, for you, is there a place for police, or do u think they should be done away altogether? how far are you going here? >> i'm not going away to abolition, but i do say that i think lks are starting recognize that the only trust and confidence between the police and community is em making adopt policies that are more humane and show more respect for the dignity of the pople they are policing actually reduces crime. in

people are more wito report crime. they are willing to be ai witnesses t others. in the long run, you are making yourself safer by making your police force more comfortable, more transparent, and in some sm caseler. >> is there place r police in our society? >> i want to say that even the thingshat jody mentions, homicides, rapes, we have a t alternative ways engage in preventative measures to try tob reduce those ms rather than waiting for police to come and take a report. you know, let's look at the credible messenger model. thuse of cure violencewo programs t with young people who are at risk of involvement enin vi. these programs, when they are properly funded and well-run have shown dramatic success in reducing shootgs and lyhomicides without g on policing and mass incarceration. it is time for these big city mayors to take these programs

seriously. we can put them everywhere overnight. we need planning and we need tog develop the mming that goes with them. this is the future of inducing violenceour neighborhood. >> thank you so much. joe -- jody david-armor, thank you so much. as we have seen the publicor outrage to ge floyd's killing has motivated tens of thouronds of people ss the nation to protest. even the midst of a pandemic. well, many are wearing facemasks but gatherings of largalcrowds make so distancing difficult. protesters say racial inequality also results in poor health outcomes ich are reflected in the higher covid- 19 mortality rates among blacks and lanos. joining me by skype an obstetrician and gynecologist who works in alameda. she participated in a protest organized by her colleagues this week at kaiser campuses in the east bay. kaiser permanente did not

officially sanctioned the event. thank you for joing us. >> thank you for having me. >> was there a specific moment that catalyzed your decion to protest? >> you know, that is really interesting, because there was not a specif moment. and i actually had my doubts about what this protest would mean, so when i left the house that morning i grabbed my black lives matter sign out of my backyard and i e went to what would happen and it was really moving. there were four sites. we have alama, richmond, oakland, and pinole, and it was with very little planning, a coordinated effort with people from the ebs staff to nursing to chnicians and the physicians, a lot of the mas. people came witheir own handmade signs. i think they knew it was not necessarily sanctioned by, the organizatibut nonetheless, they took to the streets

ouside of each respecti site d it was incredibly powerful that we took a knee for the length of nine symbolic minutes. >> do you think there will be protests? t comes from these are you hoping for? >> i hope there is change. there seems to be, and i can't -- i have en doing a lot of thinking about what is different about this? is it that it is a covid-19 pandemic? is it that there was a trio hs de there is definitely more sulfone footage of these deaths and they are so violent and something seems to have switched and i'm hoping that will bring change. u ow, change usually is not handed down fr the top. so, i don'expect that from the organization. i think one of the most beautiful parts of the protest was a classic example of civil disobedience. so, here was ell >> i just wanted to talk specifically, since you are an obstetrician and gynecologist

about maternal health. and the issues that impact black lives, more than white arves from racial diy, from stress, and how that impacts mothers and newborns. >> so, there have been a lot of studies, there have been a lot t of hses over time about why there are different outcomes in black women compared to their white counterparts. and what doit comes to is that it seems like it is ra institutionasm. when you control for all other factors socioeconomic, education, you will find that a woman whis very educated, who you know, upper class or has enough means will do more poorly than a poor white woman. >> how bad are these outcomes? how diverse and fferent are they? >> you see an increase in hypertensive conditions, pre- gestational diabetes. hemorrhages,and mortality,

black women are 2.5-3 times more likely to die in childbirth. >> it is shocking. can you tell us what you see in your practice since the pandemic began? are you seeing more stress and mo. ers? >> absolute i see more stress because we so bizarre and you know, i s think it will take time to see what the effects are long termic specly on maternal morbidity. and, so women are verynervous, they're nervous. they want the best care of course for the best outcomes ofn their pregnancy,this is a group of people, a group of patients that still need to be seen. so, they are coming and exposing themselves. they are t able bring their partners. it is a scary time. we are now allowing a partner in labor. you know, there was a wild that they were not sure if they would be able to have eir bloodãpartners with them in labor. so, this is a really unique

time where we toarneeding provide that kind of reassurance. and, in a way that d we never before, that they are going to be okay. >> the and as a healthcare practitioneras you have gone out and participated, what is your concern about people gathering? >> it is interesting, because i have had people calling me. people who have taken this pandemic and e orders to stay home very seriously. and, yet they feel compelled to protest and they have friends who have not left their home since thbeginning ask you know, do i think it is safe? and so i have done a lot ofng thinbout what going on here and you know, if you look at what the world health organization defines as what we should be doing, they are ng redefihat social distancing really should be called spatial distancing and i portant at is an ellips>> but, that is obviously something that cannot happen in

these protests. together. much closer >> they are. so, if you're talking about the specifics, i think thatbeing outcome outdoors is safer than indoors. wearing a mask, i think mutually ofãwearing masks is safer than not wearing any masks at all or one person wearing a mask and the other one not. and, so we are trying to be as safe as possible while we spatially distancing. and, but -- while we are socially connecting becaus i think thsocial connection and solidarity is an important part of the health of society. and, so what yohave hereis that people are willing to risk their lives. they are willing to take a risk. a th aware of what is going on. it is similar to what we are doing as healthcare practitioners going in, knowing are taking re of patients when there is an infectious risk. we are bedoing our with the tools that we have. here in the bay area, and i think there are acny where we are aware that there might another spiklater. but, people are really passionate, so much so that they are willing to risk their

lives to make a statement against the unmitigated police brutality and they are willing to do it to say that black lives matter. with us today. much >> thank you for having me. as always, you can find more verage at kqed.org/tran0 newsroom. you can reach me through my social media handle. thank you for watching, good night. robert: protests and fierce

debate over presidential power and american values. >> let's stop thinking that our voice don'tatter! and vote! because it's a lot of u's it lot of us! it's a lot of us! [cheers] robert: across the country, protests over the police killing of george floyd brings civil right to the floor of the americanonversation. >> i am your president of law and order -- robert: but presidentrump responds with force and calls for domination. nd somemilitary leaders republicans are alarmed. >> i am struggling with it. have struggled with it for a long time. robert: and top dem