00:00You have embedded yourself beyond your work in the Minneapolis Foundation in issues of community policing, right, and the safety of Black community in the relationship with police.
00:16And I want you to talk about some of the councils and task force and advisory boards you're on, but that is something I want you to talk about because Minneapolis went on to the national stage differently in the George Floyd moment.
00:34What got revealed in that is some stuff that Minneapolis already was dealing with, but the rest of the world was getting introduced to it in a moment differently because of his murder.
00:46And they haven't stopped. Black men are dying in Minneapolis with police encounters.
00:53Yeah.
00:54You lost a cousin.
00:56That's right.
00:57In community. And that ignited a different fire in you around community and policing and what does this look like?
01:08So talk about that moment. Talk about the George Floyd moment from your eyes.
01:13Yeah.
01:13And what is happening now and what you want people to know about the journey that the Twin Cities is on.
01:20Yeah. May 11th, 2011, my cousin Christopher Calvin Miller was murdered.
01:30He had just graduated from the police academy.
01:33He was murdered by someone that I went to school with.
01:40It was complicated.
01:43Yeah.
01:44Um, it was devastating.
01:49It was the first week of me being the president and CEO of the organization that I mentioned.
01:57This is what I'm talking about.
01:59The convergence of life.
02:01Yes.
02:01Yes.
02:02Enroll.
02:03Professional high, personal low.
02:05Yep.
02:05Yep.
02:06I had to find professional high, personal low.
02:08I had to find the credit.
02:10Yep.
02:10And, um, I decided at that point I would never not work on community safety and issues of policing.
02:19I got involved in policing and police reform at that moment, um, because the sergeant or the investigator on his case, Chris Arneson, I got to, uh, be in relationship with her through that trial.
02:36And then she invited me to sit on a steering committee when DOJ came in to do a look at, uh, MPD, the Minneapolis police department.
02:45And so from that point forward, I was engaged in policing.
02:49When I came to the, the Minneapolis foundation, I came on two conditions.
02:53I could work on public safety and criminal justice reform.
03:00So they approved that.
03:02Um, so I started a fund, uh, the fund for safe communities that looked at, uh, criminal justice reform, reducing, uh, or improving safety, reducing violence and, uh, mental health and wellness in our brown and black communities.
03:20So that fund has been started.
03:22Um, in 2019, we funded, uh, police deadly force task team.
03:30Um, um, that was co-chair by our attorney general, Keith Ellison and our commissioner on public safety, uh, John Harrington to look at police deadly encounters, to look at ways in which we could reduce it.
03:43We came up with 60 plus recommendations to do that.
03:47Those recommendations came out in March of 2020 and then George Floyd's murder happened in May of 2020.
03:56George Floyd, uh, George Floyd, uh, was murdered two days, uh, before that my mother came home for hospice.
04:05So again, this convergence, uh, community pain and personal pain.
04:10Yep.
04:11Um, and you know, I have a role where I had to show up.
04:15I have roles in which I have to show up.
04:17Um, and, um, and, um, and again, you know, you have to dig deep and figure out how to continue to do that work.
04:27And, um, there was something about him calling for his mother in that moment that had me understand the importance even more of why I needed to be in that role.
04:41And it, it's, uh, made me understand even more deeply why I needed to stay in this work of criminal justice reform.
04:51So right now I'm sitting on a committee, the mayor, looking at how we continue to look at, uh, police reform.
05:01I'm working with NYU, the policing project.
05:03I'm re-imagining public safety.
05:05I'm on, uh, the committee to, to select a new police chief.
05:12I'm sitting in multiple tables and I'm there to learn.
05:17I am there to represent this community in the very best way that I can.
05:24Um, and I'm there to make a difference in a way that I know will not be satisfying to everyone.
05:33And that's what we started with, right?
05:35Like I know what will be disappointing.
05:36I know that there will be critics, but I know that every time I show up, I'm bringing all that I know about this community to the table.
05:46And I will represent the very best I got on what I know.
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