Democratic attorneys general speak about Police Reform and Racial Disparities caused by the coronavirus. This session was part of a net roots nation conference. For joining usch today. On the to our Panel Democratic ags. They are the frontline line of our democracy. I am the political director for the democratic attorneys general association. Truthappy to be back at just let us know. There is a q a function. Panel, we of this have left room for questions. If you want to use that function, thats the best place to do it. Because we already asked it or weve moved onto the next question. Im happy to be here. Lets get started. I want to make sure that east of the ags introduced themselves. In the you were there mountains with you. Friend ine my good california would make a bid for company. Colorado is a special place. I am honored to be the attorney general here. Forarted off as a law clerk ruth bader ginsburg. We really work together. Ive been a member of the community at the university of colorado. Ive also spent time in washington at the Justice Department. Weve got of people, some big challenges. We need people to step up. I thought it was my time to do so. Ive been working on these issues, im excited for that conversation. Thank you. Lets stay out west. Thank you very much. My three colleagues, its great to be with them. Weve been fortunate to work as a team. Thats why we have had such success. We are a team overall. Its been a thrill for me to partake with them. California is a special place. I was born and raised here. It really does reflect the future of the country. Be thehave a chance to top Law Enforcement officer in the state, you will keep it forward leaning. Weve done that. Weve taken on everybody from donald trump to every company you could think of, including somebody taking away from the little guy. We believe there is a mission we can get behind to open doors. We will do that the best we can. For a guy who was the first in his family to go to college, we want to keep opening doors. Thanks for having me. Thank you so much. You are an inspiration. Lets go to the midwest. I just want everybody to know that the presumptive Vice President ial nominee is a former state attorney general. Lets just keep that in mind. Whenever you see her on that judiciary committee, fiercely challenging those witnesses, those are skills she honed doing what we do. Hims honored to serve with for 12 years in congress. He was my mentor. I just wanted to say our philosophy is to help people afford their lives. That means prosperity is something every american should expect. Its our job to make sure they have that chance. Im just honored to be with you guys. Ive been to net roots nation many times. For onlinermade advocacy. Weve been doing it before it was cool. Pandemic isnt cool. Weve been doing this for a long time. We are ready for the moment. Im glad to be here. Thank you. It over. D its great to be with you. Its great to be with my colleagues. Its great to be with net roots nation. I am here in boston, massachusetts. I grew up in new hampshire. I found my calling and my home in the Attorney Generals Office when i left a big Firm Practice many years ago. I became head of the Civil Rights Division. I saw what it was like to work with Kamala Harris and take on the predatory lenders. A were the first to file civil rights suit against those lenders who had such disparate impact on black and brown communities. Of theght the challenge defense of marriage act and sued president obama. Ultimately, that case went all the way to the Supreme Court. The law of the land changed forever. Those are my experiences as a lawyer. Run, it ended up being a landslide even though i was an unknown candidate and had never run for office. The thing that got me there and why i love being with you today is its all about grassroots. People,ut working with being out there and engaging. That what makes this so powerful. See the norms of democracy and our institutions being whittled away, this is how we build. I dont even use that language. I talked about building. For the first time, we have the opportunity to build a different way and to read ourselves of systemic racism. We are going to talk about that today. General,ate attorney hes been on the frontline. Holdingn the line and the Trump Administration accountable and trying to stop as much bad constitutional stuff from happening as possible. Its great to be with you. Its great to be with all the people at net roots nation. Thank you. The its really exciting to see what happened this week when a former attorney general who can move on and go and do bigger and larger things. It really starts here. Lets step into it. This of topics to cover, is why we love coming to net roots, to understand the variety of issues and the topics our ags can cover. Following the recent demonstrations in communities across america, attorneys general are addressing policing facingunities in color, inequities. Attorneys general are the peoples lawyers. We are reflecting this diversity themselves. Today, we have 25 emma craddick ag is that represent the most Diverse Group of ags in history. That is diverse. They address Current Events and represent vulnerable communities. Lets dive into some of these issues to see what democratic ags are doing it. Ets start we all wish we were there and it right now. The title of this panel is building Racial Equity. Are ags on the front lines faring this time when so many committees of color are feeling marginalized and threatened . What steps are you taking . Leadin. You for that we are part of a team and im honored to serve with them. I want to emphasize all of us are focused on these issues before george floyd. We are now in a moment, an opportunity to build. Take three different cuts at the answer. First and foremost, we need to build an office in colorado that looks like the peoples colorado, which means we need a key at the inclusive Attorney Generals Office. I set up a Deputy Attorney general for diversity equity inclusion. We are committed to hiring and supporting a Diverse Talent pool, not just those in office to become judges and leaders in our state. The last couple of prosecutors ive hired are all people of color. We need to do our part to build a more diverse and inclusive, not just Attorney Generals Office, but in the Legal Profession generally. Number two, criminal justice reform. When we see our criminal Justice System and a level of current a level of incarceration mostly of people of color, we need to do better. That goes across the spectrum from ending cash bail, which is a big reason a lot of people are in jail, because they cannot afford bail. That is wrong. It doesnt support Public Safety. It is unfair and we have two fix it. We have some great Public Programs here and we have to learn from california who has done better on this. We have to do better on reentry. We have to end the school to prison pipeline. You getting people even as teenagers who find themselves with criminal records. We are working on all of those fronts. Finally, Police Accountability and reform. I am proud of the law we passed in colorado. At the National Bottle and we need to build trust in Law Enforcement and make sure we train Law Enforcement so that we escalate situations and dont have tragedies like we saw with george floyd. We have a lot of work to do. Im proud to be colleagues with the great ags we have here. Im glad that you brought up the cash bail system. You have testified how it is fundamentally flawed on many different levels. Can you share your thoughts a little more on the inequities on the cash bail system . What are the farreaching consequences of a cash bail system for individuals and society at large and how can we address these inequities and overhaul the system . Atty. Gen. Weisner i want people to understand and this is super important when you keep say 48, 72jail lets hours, the chances that they commit a crime later go up. When you separate someone from their families, they lose their job and that is a destabilizing event in their lives. Pretrial attention should only be to protect Public Safety. That only happens with someone who is a risk to society. If someone is not a risk, you should let them out as soon as possible. Things hurtingy the poor people, some cases taking away their drivers licenses. We have to take down these barriers. We have to ask ourselves are what we doing here really about Public Safety . Or is it because its always been this way and we dont have the courage and ability to change it . Cash bail is crying out for reform. It doesnt serve Public Safety, it doesnt help people and it costs money. What california has done on this is a model and we are going to fight hard to get it done here in colorado. I see lots of questions in the chat and a shout out from the people who are in places like new york and we have folks from l. A. And someone from denver. They are giving all of you guys shout outs right now and lots of love. But i completely agree with you there and if there are so many barriers and being a leader and showing up is part of what is important here. Ag ellison, with everything going on right now, we want to talk about george floyd. What happened to george floyd, Breonna Taylor and so many others are painful examples of how far we still need to go what have we but learned as a country from these painful incidences and how can we protect and support our black communities . What can attorney generals like yourself do to address the hurt and pain and express across the country . Atty. Gen. Ellison let me start by saying the Attorney Generals Office can convene, no matter what happens, no matter what your jurisdiction may be, you can pull people together and use your bully pulpit to shine a light on things like cash bail or juvenile detention, domestic violence, there is a range of things as attorney general you can do, including the issue of Police Account ability. Pulled together this document and this is our working group on Police Involved deadly deadly force encounters. We did this in 2019 and everybody on the panel said we didnt just start working on this issue. Weve been working on this issue and have been trying to deal with Police Accountability and Police Brutality all along. We engage Law Enforcement and community to have a real conversation and came up with a number of recommendations. Several of which were passed in the last legislative session. I say this to the folks out there listening because where you are from, you need to engage your attorney general to convene people around Police Accountability. The second thing we can do is, because jurisdictions are not always the same, many of us can bring lawsuits and civil claims where we might be able to say look, you have a police finds all thech black folks and gives them exorbitant fines. The u. S. Attorney general, eric holder, did this investigation regarding ferguson and found out there was an oppressive system in place. The state attorney general, we have the same authority. We can do that where we have the jurisdiction to do so. We can prosecute. Right now, im prosecuting a group of Police Officers i cannot go into the case, i dont want to impact the jury pool, so im not going to talk about it, but i will say we have the jurisdiction in certain situations which varies from state to state to prosecute people who violate the law even if they are Police Officers and we should do so. We should not say we are going to let some people be above the law and others be beneath the law. Tos is critically important prosecute violations of law no matter who it is. Then we can advocate legislatively. Very impressed with the work phil has done, that javier and those guys in california have done on use of force and, by the way, the four of us are just a slice of the talent that democratic ags have. We are just four out of 25. Everyone is doing awesome things, but we can advocate legislatively in nevada, they are doing great stuff. In illinois, in new york, right out on the front on these issues. Federally, we have weighed in as a group and mara was leading what policethis is accountability looks like. Those are just a few ideas. My things my thing to the Netroots Nation is you need to look at it as a source of movement, a source of change. Engage them, call them, get on the phone and give your ideas of what you expect and what you would like to see them do. Those are just a few ideas. Farah the movement right now mean something. You should be talking with and communicating with your eye with your ags. Why is the role of ag so critical for these issues . Atty. Gen. Becerra the attorney is the and most states only official that covers not just a city or county, but the entire state. When the people are looking for protection and defense, the one office that can do that for everyone and not just folks in this he or county is the attorney general. So it is critical we are is why its that important we have statewide policies that let us get into these issues. As my colleagues mentioned, the accountability is so important, the transparency, more and more so, we realize we need transparency in policing and the way Public Safety is conducted. What i have found in terms of reform, you cant have reform unless you go down to the roots to the way policing is done. Ist is why what keith said so important. In california, we do pattern and practice investigations. In 2018, we did we were invited by the chief of police in sacramento to review a shooting that occurred. The young man named Stephan Clark in 2018. Into at have to go in pattern and practice because we were invited by the new chief of police, the first africanamerican chief of police in sacramento. We did a wholesale review of the sacrament of Police Department. We were also asked to do an independent investigation on the criminality of the shooting on top of that two separate activities. But what keith mentioned which is so important, rather than look at one incident and try to get to the bottom of the truth and justice, you need to do a wholesale review and you have to start at the roots. We came out with a report which was directed at the sacrament of city Police Department, but ended up becoming the basis of legislation in california which is now law, which requires every Police Department to undertake new reforms. Those are starting to take form. A pattern and in practice investigation in bakersfield, at the Police Department and kern county, the sheriffs department. We are right now in charge of the reform oversight for the San FranciscoPolice Department. We just got involved in doing the same thing for a small town just north of San Francisco which has had a number of police shootings. But the fruits of much of our work came from a lot of what we found in sacramento. It has informed much of what we have done. We have a law in california that allows us to track every single shot by a Law Enforcement officer, so we can find out if they are profiling by race or transgender status. Us so it now informs is no longer anecdotal evidence. It is now empirical evidence that will drive our policies. So you do have to get down to the roots to make this happen and that is where being a statewide official and office head is there to protect the people statewide. It helps to have ags involved. Farah it not only helps to have ags involved, but a democratic ag, which is why we will talk about elections later in this conversation. Voting for and electing emma craddick ags come if you care about these issues, you should be electing democratic ags. To youy, i want to get as well. What is your perspective and how can attorney generals address that at least in the state of massachusetts . Atty. Gen. Healy i come to this as somebody who is formerly head of the Civil Rights Division and now the attorney general, chief Law Enforcement officer for our state. I think what my colleagues have said is so right on. Its about training, its about training for unconscious bias and police practices. Its about officer standards and training for use of force, deescalation, all of that is really important. Here in massachusetts, we have worked to do that and we are working on legislation that would statewide ban the use of chokeholds and intervene when an officer sees another officer using excessive force, encouraging body worn cameras and the like. All of that seems to me does not get you where you need to go unless there is true accountability, and thats one thing we have partnered with our chiefs on because the ability to identify those who engage in bad actions, holding them accountable is very important. Thats something that we as democratic ags have been supporting. We have also been supporting efforts to make sure our resources are being used appropriately. We h