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ALEXANDRA NATAPOFF: Welcome
to the inaugural session

of Harvard Law School's
series on Policing in America.

I'd like to start by thanking
Dean Manning and the Harvard

Law School staff for making
this series possible.

You can't see her, but we
all owe a special thank you

to Jenna Cowie, who is our
faculty assistant, and who

has put in an enormous
number of hours

to make sure that this session
was possible and able to run

smoothly, so thank you, Jenna.

This is a year-long series.

We are committed to having this
conversation over the series

of the entire year.

Next month's session will
be on police accountability,

and the highly contested
issue of qualified immunity.

The session after
that, in November,

will be on police unions.

I will not go through
every session,

although I am excited about
every single one of them.

And they're all fabulous
with wonderful panelists

and participants.

I encourage you to
go to the website,

policinginameric
a.law.harvard.edu, which

has information on all
our future sessions,

our future panelists, and
additional resources for those

of you who would
like to read more

deeply about these subjects,
both regarding this session

and future sessions.

My name is Professor
Alexandra Natapoff,

I teach criminal law
and criminal procedure

here at Harvard Law School.

Before I entered
the Academy, I was

an assistant federal
public defender

in Baltimore, Maryland.

I have been looking forward
very much to this series,

to this set of conversations.

And I'll start by saying
that I am very optimistic,

and I am very worried.

I am optimistic because such a
broad and deep range of people

have and are now speaking
out against the injustices

of our criminal system.

I am optimistic and moved
because of the bravery,

because so many
people are stepping up

with incredible
bravery and putting

their bodies and their lives
and their careers on the line

to insist that our
criminal system be better.

And I am worried because
political momentum dissipates.

Because meaningful
change is, and has always

been so difficult to achieve
and sustain in this arena.

10 years ago, as
perhaps you all recall,

we had a solid
bipartisan consensus

that mass incarceration
was a terrible idea.

It's expensive, we all agreed,
it's racist, it's ineffectual.

And yet, today, a
decade later, we still

practice mass incarceration.

We still rely on our criminal
system as a go-to response

to our social problems, to
our problems of inequality.

As a nation, we still
overuse the criminal system

as a form of governance
to a greater degree,

and in a harsher manner,
than any other nation.

And so until we rethink
those historical

and political and
economic choices,

I am worried that extraordinary
moments like this one,

and the sacrifices that
so many people are making

in this moment, may not bring
the kinds of structural changes

that we hoped for.

And so I am looking forward
very much to this panel,

to our extraordinary
experts on this panel,

to help us understand the
depths and complexities

of these challenges, and also
where we might go from here.

I am going to turn
the session over now

to my co-host,
Professor Crespo, who

will introduce our speakers.

We will hear opening remarks
from each of our panelists.

As moderators,
Professor Crespo and I

will then pose some
questions to each of them

to get the dialogue going.

And then we will look to
the audience for questions.

Please, if you have
questions that you

would like to pose to the panel,
submit them through the Q&A

function in written form.

Professor Crespo?

ANDREW CRESPO: Thank you so
much, Professor Natapoff.

I echo Professor Natapoff's
thanks to our dean,

to our school and
to all the staff

here at Harvard Law School
whom made this something

that we could pull off.

For both Professor
Natapoff and I,

I think that this
series is a professional

and a personal passion project.

Professionally, the two of us
each spend our academic careers

teaching and writing
about the police

and about the law of policing.

Before becoming
academics, the two of us

were each public defenders.

I think between the two
of us, we've probably

represented hundreds of
people, all of them poor,

because that's what
public defenders do,

they represent people who
can't afford a lawyer.

And thinking of my clients,
overwhelmingly people of color,

almost universally
people of color.

We represented them
in their encounters

with the American penal system.

And for each of them,
those encounters

started with an encounter
with policing in America.

Personally, I'll just
add that, in my heart--

I teach at Harvard Law
School, but I am a New Yorker.

I'm a New Yorker from a big,
extended Puerto Rican family.

And in that family,
there are multiple people

stretching over decades who have
been harassed by the police.

There are multiple
people who have

been arrested by the police.

And there are multiple people
who are police officers.

And I love all of them.

From these professional
and personal perspectives,

I come to this space seeing
it as a space in which there

are in fact some clear
right and wrong answers,

and some clear and
deep and long-standing

systemic injustices that have
stood for way, way too long.

And then I also
see it as a space

marked by some real
complexity, and some nuance

with hard problems to solve.

So I just feel so
incredibly fortunate

that our school has committed to
spending a full year discussing

these questions.

I feel especially
fortunate to be

joined by Professor Natapoff in
that project and in the work.

And I think most of
all, I feel fortunate

about the amazing people
who are joining us

over this year in
these seven lectures,

as just such incredible guests
with such range of perspective

and expertise and voice to
bring to this discussion.

So it's a real privilege to
introduce to you our kickoff

panel.

I'm going to introduce each of
them, starting with Cori Bush.

Cori Bush is a nurse, a pastor,
a former early childhood

educator.

And ever since the killing
of Michael Brown in 2014,

in her hometown of
Ferguson, Missouri,

she has been an activist
and one of the leading

voices in the Black
Lives Matter movement

on issues of police reform.

This past August, she
defeated congressman Lacy Clay

in the Democratic primary
for Missouri's 1st district,

which includes
Ferguson and St. Louis.

It is a heavily
Democratic district,

so it is safe to say
that Ms. Bush joins us

as the presumptive next
representative from the 1st

district of Missouri.

So if I slip over the
next hour and a half

and call you Congresswoman
Bush, please consider me

[? impressioned ?] and not
necessarily inaccurate.

Come January 3rd, Ms.
Bush is likely to be

the first black woman to ever
represent the state of Missouri

in the US Congress.

I'm going to introduce
a panelist we don't yet

have on with us, which
is our own district

attorney, Rachael Rollins.

DA Rollins had a
last minute change

in her schedule due to be
unfortunate and surprising

passing our chief justice
here in Massachusetts,

the late Chief Justice Gants.

And I should just
pause for a moment

and say that Chief
Justice Gants is

someone who those of
us in Massachusetts

knew well, who was a champion
of racial justice in our state,

and someone who I
think many people miss

and are grieving right now.

And DA Rollins is right
now speaking to her staff

about the passing of
Chief Justice Gants,

and we hope that she'll
be able to join us soon.

I'm going to introduce her
now, so that when she joins us,

she can just pop right in.

To those of us here
in Massachusetts,

Rachael Rollins is
a familiar face.

She serves as the district
attorney for Suffolk county,

which includes the
entire city of Boston.

She is the first woman
to hold that office,

and the first woman of color
to serve as a district attorney

anywhere in the state.

She was elected in 2018 on
a progressive prosecution

platform.

And since then, her office
has, among other things,

published the now-famous
in these circles Rollins

memo, which, among
other things, outlined

her plans to decriminalize
certain low-level offenses

by simply refusing
to prosecute them.

A month later, she sued
the Federal Immigrations

and Customs Enforcement Agency,
more commonly known as ICE.

She sued them in
federal court to try

to block them from
arresting immigrants

in Massachusetts courthouses.

And one week from
today, she has promised

to release her office's
so-called Brady list.

This is an internal
document that pretty much

every prosecutor's
office in the country

has, cataloging
police officers known

to the prosecutor's office
to have misconduct issues.

Usually those lists
are kept secret.

DA Rollins has
promised that hers

will be released to the
public one week from today.

Next on our panel
is Rachel Harmon,

who is one of the country's
leading scholars of policing

and of the laws that
govern police behavior.

She is a professor of
law at the University

of Virginia Law School, where
she directs that school's

center for criminal justice.

She's a member of the
American Law Institute, where

she serves as an
associate reporter

for the forthcoming Principals
on the Law of Policing.

She's also the author
of a first of its kind

casebook entitled, The
Law of the Police, which

is due out next year.

A former law clerk to
Jude Guaido Calabrese

and Justice Stephen
Breyer, Professor Harmon

worked for eight years
as a federal prosecutor

in the criminal section of the
DOJ's civil rights division,

where her
responsibilities included

investigating and prosecuting
police misconduct.

Finally, Professor
Priscilla Ocen

is a professor of law at Loyola
Law School in Los Angeles,

and a scholar of criminal
law and critical race theory.

She's an expert
voice on many topics,

including most especially,
the way that race, gender,

and class interact to
render women of color

vulnerable to various forms of
violence and criminalization.

In addition to offering
numerous articles on this topic,

she's the co-author of an
influential policy report

called, Black Girls Matter--

pushed out, over-policed,
and under-protected.

Before becoming an
academic, Professor Ocen

served as a law clerk to Judge
Eric Clay on the Sixth Circuit,

and is a Thurgood
Marshall fellow

with the Lawyers
Committee for Civil Rights

under Law in San Francisco.

She currently serves
on the oversight

commission for the Los Angeles
County Sheriff's oversight.

Thank you all so much for
being here, and welcome.

It's wonderful to see you and
it's wonderful to have you.

To start off our discussion,
we'd like to invite each of you

to share some opening remarks--

in the order of
five to 10 minutes--

that help us all
understand the challenge

of policing in America today.

What should we, as
a country, learn

from the killing of George
Floyd and so many others?

How should we understand
the summer of protests

that followed in their wake?

And where should we be
taking our penal system

and our institutions
of policing from here?

And slipping already,
Congresswoman Bush,

if you could just start us off.

CORI BUSH: First of all,
thank you for having me.

Thank you for this
invite and this platform

to be able to share, especially
from the standpoint of someone

who came into this as just
an activist, but not even

an activist first, just someone
who just wanted to see what

was happening in her community.

So let me just start
with before I ever

stepped foot at a
protest, standing up

for Black Lives Matter.

For me, I was just a--

you know, I always saw myself
as just this black woman

trying to survive in America and
trying to raise two children,

and wanting to
keep my son alive.

That was just the way
that I-- you know,

that's how I walked
through life.

And I was a registered
nurse, became a pastor

and opened a church.

And I thought that
my work was capped--

after working early
childhood for 10 years,

I felt that my work was
working, of course, as a nurse,

but then working with
the unhoused population

in our community,
working with helping

fight human trafficking.

You know, I felt like
that was my thing,

and then pastoring my church.

But it was when Michael
Brown was murdered

in 2014 that saw something
that I never thought I

would see in my own community.

You know, I remember the
day that he was murdered,

I just kept seeing his
photo across my feed,

on my social media.

Didn't even pay
it much attention,

just saw this body laying
face-down and uncovered--

this body just
laying on the ground.

And it took a while before--
it's a few times that I saw it,

I kept scrolling
and I kept seeing it

over the course of the day,
still not realizing that was

happening in our own community.

Then once I found out that it
was in Ferguson, which was just

six minutes from my home,
that's when I realized

that I could do something.

So I decided, show up.

You know, I don't
know what I could do,

I just saw people congregating.

I didn't know what-- you
know, but I was thinking,

hey, I'm clergy, I'm a nurse,
I can go out and be a medic,

I can just offer support.

I can pray with people.

So that's what I did.

What I saw, though, when
I stepped onto the ground

in that community, something
that looked like civil rights

footage from the
'60s that I never

thought I'd see in my own day.

I grew up in a household--
my dad's been in politics

for most of my life.

He was the kind of father,
he wouldn't allow me to put--

you know, at that time,
people may not remember,

but it was like Barbie,
Strawberry Shortcake, Cabbage

Patch Kids, Jem, you know, I
couldn't have that on my wall

as a kid.

I had the great kings and queens
of Africa on the wall as a kid.

I had Rosa Parks and Dr.
King, and I had Jesse Jackson,

you know, Jesse Jackson
'84, something on the wall.

Like that's who my dad was.

But he wanted me to learn
that my skin color was OK,

that my skin color was--

that I had to love it, but
society would not love it.

And so he was building me up.

What I didn't realize that,
through that teaching,

that it would later
sprout out into something

that I could use later.

And so, looking at what we
were taught, we were taught--

so many of us,
anyway were taught--

if you go to school, if
you do well, go to school,

get good grades, go
to a good high school,

get into a good college,
get you a scholarship,

go in and get you a good job,
travel, and then have kids.

Get the spouse and the picket
fence, the white house,

all of that great
stuff, whatever color

the house is, the white
picket fence, couple dogs--

we were taught that this is
what was achievable for us.

Like now, you can sit
at the front of the bus.

You're good now.

You have arrived.

But what we didn't learn was
that the police were still

killing us.

And I remember as a child,
my dad was in politics,

but I remember every
time we stepped

outside of our
small municipality

where he was no longer
an elected official,

he would get pulled over by the
police at least once a week.

And that's not even
an exaggeration,

he would get pulled over
by the police so much,

I used to be angry when I had
to ride with him in the car,

because I didn't want to see
what happened every time he

was pulled over by the police.

And I used to just think, boy,
why are you such a bad driver?

Why won't you do better?

That was my thought
process as a child.

I just didn't understand
it, even as a teenager--

as an early teen--

why won't you do better?

It wasn't until I
got a little older

and I started to see now
my friends are driving,

and how much they were getting
pulled over by the police.

But it still didn't compute.

I grew up in a household
with a politician,

the police were in and out
of my home all the time.

So to me, maybe
something was wrong,

maybe we're doing something
wrong, is what I--

you know, I was
fighting with that.

But when Michael
Brown was murdered,

and I'm out there
on the streets,

six minutes from my home,
where my nail salon was

on one side of the street--
the place where I will go,

and the place where I
would get my hair done

was on the other
side of the street.

This was my community.

When I hit the ground and I
saw the police in riot gear,

I thought MRAPs, I saw dogs,
and I saw thousands of people

in the street.

I couldn't believe
my eyes, because this

is my neighborhood.

Nobody said this was coming.

And not only that, are
we prepared for this?

I remember as we
started to get the--

we started to hear about how
we were protesting wrong.

And I just remember pushing
back on that all the time--

you're telling us
we're protesting wrong.

But first of all, you
should have fixed it

before you decided to come tell
us that we're doing it wrong.

Because we're only doing
it because there is a need,

because somebody was murdered.

And not only him,
but so many others.

In the course of us
protesting, more were murdered.

So instead of telling us
that we're doing it wrong,

you should have fixed it first.

But because you didn't
fix it, and because there

is no playbook-- there
was no playbook the day

before Michael Brown
was murdered, they say,

this is how you protest.

This is what you do--
if you are a nurse,

this is what you do
when you hit the ground.

If you are a chef, this is
what you do you hit the ground.

If you're a this,
this is what you do.

There was no playbook.

And so we did what we felt we
needed to do in that moment.

And then there was this split--

whether it was
generational or clergy,

it was just so many splits,
because everybody was just

showing up doing what
they thought was right.

Our politicians were doing
what they thought was right.

And it tore up a community.

But even though it started
to tear up a community,

the ripple effect of what
was happening in Ferguson,

in the St. Louis area, started
to move across the country

and the world.

What we learned when we think
about George Floyd's murder,

first of all, is that as
much as we've protested,

as much as we've organized
and we've pushed,

these things continue to happen.

What we've learned is, when
our government wants to tell us

we need to throw some more
money at it to fix it--

we've seen that when money
was thrown at it in Minnesota,

George Floyd was still murdered
with a knee on his neck.

And so, we threw
money at it, and say--

the governor, $12 million to
help with police training.

And is that the police
training that came out of that?

This is what you do, you put
a knee on someone's neck?

So for us, throwing money
at it is not the solution.

When we think about this when
we think about what you call

the summer of protests, that
summer of protests to me,

it was different than what I
remember in 2014 with Michael

Brown in 2014,
because we protested

the more than 400 days, even
though the media stopped

covering it.

And we protested again in
2017 after the verdict--

Jason Stockley was--
that man should

have gone to jail for what he
did to Anthony Lamar Smith,

but we protested then.

Still, it's just a
lot of brutality.

A lot of excessive force
against protesters.

What we've seen this
time is that what

we fought for, just being able
to say, Black Lives Matter,

now is a fad.

It's this thing-- oh,
yeah, Black Lives Matter.

We still can't get
our police to stay it,

but the corporations can say
it and make money off of it.

The police won't say it.

Someone said to me
recently, they said,

you know, when a police
officer is murdered,

why don't we see Black Lives
Matter get up and denounce this

and say, oh, that's
a horrible thing.

And what I said to them was,
when do the police get up

and say-- when do all the
police departments get up and go

on television and say, you know,
what another life was taken,

so we denounce that action.

So

Stop telling people
who are volunteers

for this movement,
that are just trying

to fix a problem that has
been going on for so long,

for decades--

and actually, the
real problem has

been going on for centuries--

stop telling us how to fix
it when you are the problem.

What we saw this summer
was we saw people

from all walks of life--
we saw it in Ferguson,

but even more now-- we saw
people from all walks of life,

any age group, ableism
is out the door,

ageism is out the door,
everybody was showing up,

fighting in the streets.

And we weren't just
saying a black man's name,

we were saying black
women's names, as well.

That's important, because
black women are dying, too,

black children are dying.

So we were hearing
those names being said.

And I'm looking forward to
what we're able to do now,

where we're taking this.

We're talking about
defunding the police,

and making it very clear
what we mean by defund.

The reformist
conversations, the abolish

the police conversations
are all important right now.

So it's up to us to figure
out how to get there.

And so when we take
regular people like me,

and put them with academics,
and put them with other people

from different walks of
life in the community,

that's how we're going to
get somewhere with this.

And so I'm thankful to be
on this panel with everyone,

and I can't wait to see
what comes out of this.

Thank you.

ANDREW CRESPO:
Thank you so much.

I see that we are joined, at
least virtually, by DA Rollins.

As she gets set up and
plugged into Zoom--

we'll really look forward
to hearing from her,

but I think we're going to turn
right now to Professor Harmon.

RACHEL HARMON: Thanks
so much for having me.

It's an honor to
be on this panel.

But before I talk about
policing in America today,

I want to ask you a
question that follows up

on what Sasha mentioned.

Sasha said that
despite agreement

about mass incarceration, we
haven't done enough to fix it.

But you might ask--

what's so wrong with
mass incarceration?

I mean overwhelmingly,
people in prison today

are guilty of the
crimes they committed.

Most of those crimes
are pretty serious,

and many people think that
punishing people for crimes

by sending them to prison
is a legitimate thing to do.

So in some sense, it should
be a little surprising

that actually Americans
overwhelmingly

agree that far too many
people are in prison,

and that reforms should continue
to bring those numbers down.

The answer to that question
helps us answer the question

that Andrew asked at
the beginning-- which

is, what's new in
the conversations

about policing today?

What's new in the protests?

But let me step back one
step further and say,

before we talk about
what's new, let's

talk about what isn't new.

Congressman Bush brought up some
of the issues that are not new.

There is a longstanding
concern that officers

engage in unnecessary
overpolicing and violence,

especially against
racial minorities.

And that there's an absence
of meaningful legal remedies

for misconduct.

So one journalist
described it this way,

talking about
officers in New York,

"it's not seldom that a
peaceful citizen meets a front

at the hands of a policeman.

Too often, an officer sees
a need for his interference

where none exists, and nearly
as often, he's impolite or even

insulting in his manners."

The journalist goes
on to talk about

whether a person treated this
way should resist or disobey,

and says, not unless he's
utterly bereft of sense.

Because doing so is going to
result in physical damage,

and not to the
policeman, either.

That article was published
this week, 122 years ago

in the New York Tribune, 1898.

You will hear in
today's protests,

in the reform efforts, in
contemporary talk about

policing, this age-old concern--

that policing is racist,
that it's violent,

and that it's arbitrary.

Because the law's
too permissive,

that police nevertheless break
that law, and when they do,

they're not really held
accountable-- or at least

not often enough.

Now, I don't want to suggest
that those complaints have

gone away.

I think they're clearly there--
or that contemporary reform

efforts aren't designed
to mitigate them.

But I've been working
on policing issues

for more than 20 years,
and it seems to me

there is something new
in today's protests

and the conversations
about police.

There's a growing
concern that's not

about the precise shape of
the law governing the police,

or whether a specific incident
complied with or broke the law,

but an argument that
it doesn't matter.

That even accepting police is
necessary and useful to promote

public safety, or bring
offenders to justice,

and even assuming that most
of the damage the police do,

in the name of those
goals, is legal,

that policing's harms
have just, as a whole,

gone too far in light of
its benefits, especially

for individuals and communities
who pay most of the costs.

And that's in lives lost, and
also in humiliation suffered.

And we're not just talking
about people of color--

we're talking about people
with mental and physical

disabilities, the youth, people
with alcoholism and suffering

from homelessness,
LGBT community.

The new theme that I hear in
today's protests about policing

is that policing's problem
is like mass incarceration.

That whatever policing's
benefits, as a whole,

it is doing too much harm.

So you can see this in
a whole variety of ways.

I'm going to mention
three of them.

First, you can see it in the
swift and severe response

of protesters to incidents
of deadly force today.

So if you look nearly 30
years ago when Rodney King,

a 25-year-old African-American
father of two daughters,

was beaten by LAPD officers--

LA burned with the worst urban
riot in the 20th century.

But that didn't
happen until a year

after the videos
were first shown

on TV, when the
officers were acquitted

in the state criminal trial.

And you see that continuing.

Congress member
Bush just mentioned

the officers involved
in Stockley's death,

the acquittal there and the
protests to which it led.

But three months
ago, when Rayshard

Brooks, who was a 27-year-old
African-American father

of three daughters,
was killed in Atlanta.

And a video showed his
killing was released,

demonstrators
gathered within hours.

And by the next day,
the Wendy's restaurant

near where he was shot
was burned to the ground.

Now, the officers
involved in Brooks's death

have been charged.

By my reading of the
facts and the law,

I think that
prosecution is going

to be a serious uphill battle.

Because the video shows
Brooks resisting arrest,

taking a taser from
one of the officers,

and firing at another officer.

Even though he's ultimately
shot as he runs away.

Given the video, you might
read the immediate and angry

presence of those
protesters as saying,

in effect, it doesn't matter.

It doesn't matter that
his arrest was obviously

legal, it doesn't matter
that he resisted it,

it doesn't matter
that he was caught

on video grabbing
an officer's weapon

and turning it on the police.

The new emphasis in
the conversation today

is that all of that
is beside the point.

It's enough that Brooks was
one of too many black men

whose death seems
pointless and avoidable,

making the shooting
illegitimate,

whether or not it was illegal.

You can also see this
in the call for reforms.

Now, many of the
reforms we're going

to talk about today, and in
the course of this series,

such as requiring independent
prosecutors for police

misconduct, or eliminating
qualified immunity,

are really contemporary
versions of an effort

we've been talking about for
more than 100 years, which

is strengthening whatever
accountability mechanisms are

available for
individual officers.

And those remain important.

But I want to suggest that
Congress member Bush's

reference to the call to
defund the police, that's

a break with that tradition.

And it's consistent
with this new theme.

Defunding the police, which
usually means significantly

cutting back the police
department's budget,

isn't a way to make
police more accountable.

And unlike abolition, it's not
a way to get rid of the police.

It's a way to make policing
more harm-efficient.

The idea is that with
reduced resources,

police will be forced to
limit coercive policing

to circumstances
in which it's most

essential to achieving
public safety,

such as stopping
ongoing violence.

And in the process,
they'll give up

practices like aggressive
stops and frisks

that impose mass harm, in order
to discover or deter crime.

Defunding advocates usually
take this one step further

by repurposing the funds
from police departments

to other less harmful methods
of achieving public safety.

And the idea there, too, is
that with the same money,

we can achieve some of the
same public safety benefits

with less pain and more
dignity than we do now.

Now, whatever you believe about
whether that defunding effort

will work the way
advocates imagine,

you should hear in this
idea this new emphasis

on harm efficiency
over, or in addition

to, officer accountability.

My last example is actually--

I call it harm efficiency, but
that's because I'm a professor.

The demands for the
community input in the past

have often focused on civilian
review, which is basically

a way of making disciplinary
proceedings more thorough, more

accurate.

Today's protesters want
something different.

They want to shift
decision-making

about policing to those
who suffer its harms,

rather than leave it with
traditional political elites.

And I think that's not
just a demand for control,

there's a more
subtle message there,

that effectively
we will only get

policing that's worth its
costs if we pay attention

to what those costs are.

And the only way to
do that is actually

to give voice to
people who suffer them.

The protests, in this
sense, are themselves

a way to make policing
more efficient.

Because they highlight the
real harms of police, the Black

and brown bodies, especially.

And for Americans
who don't experience

those harms, and could
otherwise easily ignore them,

the protests help
them understand

the full cost of
policing, which may

make them more likely
to demand policing

that minimizes those harms.

Now, maybe I'm reading
too much into all this.

That's possible.

A few years ago, I wrote an
article entitled, Why Arrest?

And I argued that, even if
all of the 10 million arrests

conducted by the police
each year were legal,

they're unjustifiable.

Because they're far too harmful.

And as Brooks's
death reminds us,

as does George Floyd's, there's
certainly a locus for violence.

And it turns out, we don't
need them to protect the public

or to start the
criminal process.

If arrests weren't just the
automatic standard practice,

and we actually evaluated
whether they were worth

the harms they impose,
neither Brooks nor Floyd

would be dead today.

More broadly, I've
argued elsewhere,

that every course of
policing practice,

whatever its legality, should be
evaluated from this standpoint.

It has to be necessary to
achieve important goals,

the harms have to be
proportionate to the goals,

and the harms have
to be minimized

and fairly distributed.

So given that I've
argued that in the past,

I might be hearing
too much in what's

going on in today's protests.

But I don't think so.

I think that critics
of policing today

care deeply about the issues
with which policing has long

grappled, but there
is this new emphasis

that policing does too
much harm, more than it

needs to get the job done.

And actually, given the harms ,
not all the job is necessarily

worth doing.

Or to say it another way,
that policing's problem

is like mass incarceration.

And if that's true, if
the critics are right,

then the public
policy challenge we

face is a little bit different
than the one we faced before.

Because taking our public
safety goals seriously,

and maintaining a commitment
to fairness and legality

in individual
encounters, we still

have to think anew beyond
accountability to ways

to ensure that
policing, as a whole,

is something we can
and want to live with.

I look forward to hearing
from the other panelists

in discussing this further.

ANDREW CRESPO: Thank you
so much, Professor Harmon.

Professor Ocen?

PRISCILLA OCEN: Thank
you all, so much.

Thank you Professor
Natapoff, and thank

you Professor Crespo for
convening this amazing series.

I look forward to attending
some of the later discussions.

And thank you so much for
convening this amazing panel

of powerful women--

you know, it's rare that
you have a full panel

of women on these topics.

And so I really
appreciate the care

with which this
panel was convened,

and I appreciate hearing
from powerful voices

like Congresswoman Bush
and Professor Harmon.

I look forward to hearing from
the DA a little bit later.

So what I want to talk about
is an intersectional analysis

of the challenge of policing.

And to start, I want
to talk about something

I've written about
in the past, which

is a collaboration
between different state

entities in a city
called Lancaster

in the state of California--
it's a suburb of Los Angeles.

And for most of its history, it
was almost exclusively white.

It was known as a sundown town.

But in the early 2000s,
especially as the housing

market imploded, those
demographic realities began

to shift, and quite rapidly.

Increasingly poor Black
and Latino families

moved in, pushed out of
cities like Los Angeles

due to exorbitant rents,
and pulled to the suburbs

by the desire for
a better quality

of life and affordable housing.

Many were utilizing
Section 8 vouchers

to pay for their housing.

In 2000s-- roughly
around 2006, alarmed

by the numbers of
poor Black households

and Latinx households
coming into their community,

the city of Lancaster,
in collaboration

with the Los Angeles
Sheriff's department,

the Lancaster department of
public housing, the school

district, and the Department of
Children and Family Services,

convened a task
force on ostensibly

to address the
needs of people who

were coming into the community.

But in reality, it was
to manage and regulate

what was seen as a nuisance--

these families that were drawing
from public coffers and putting

burdens on city resources.

This task force was asked to
identify, surveil, and in fact,

intimidate individuals
in Section 8

housing, who were
disproportionately

Black women and their children.

Members of this task force,
particularly law enforcement,

followed these women as they
took their children to school,

or as they went to work.

Teachers were contacted by
DCFS and by law enforcement

and asked about the attendance
records of their children--

which were used to
make allegations

of criminal truancy, which
could, in some instances,

land these women in jail
or result in hefty fines.

Their homes were
searched for Section 8

lease violations,
which are non-criminal,

but could result in the loss
of their homes or housing

vouchers.

The Department of
Children Family Services

investigated their homes
for abuse and neglect.

And quite frankly,
when these women

called the police for help, for
example, for domestic violence

incidents, these women
were instead arrested

rather than their perpetrators.

And their homes
were searched again

looking for evidence
of an illegal occupant.

I tell this story,
which as I said,

I examined it in a piece called
The New Racially Restrictive

Covenant, to say this--

if we are to understand the
expansive problems of policing,

which Congresswoman
Bush described,

in which Professor Harmon
articulated in her comments,

then we have to not just
talk about traditional law

enforcement.

We can't just talk
about the police.

We should view this moment--

the uprisings and the reckoning
that the problems of policing

that gave rise to this moment--

through an
intersectional lens that

elevates the concerns of women
like those who were targeted

in the city of Lancaster.

By that, I mean that
we have to examine

the ways in which
marginalized identities render

individuals and communities
vulnerable to state violence.

And we also have
to pay attention

to the multiple institutions
and systems that

collide to produce a myriad
forms of state violence.

So when we hear community
activists, scholars calling

for defunding of police, they're
not just talking about police.

And Miriam Makeba said
this in a wonderful op-ed

in the New York Times--
we're talking about policing

and the logics
that undergird it.

And when I say
that, and when I say

that we need to look at an
intersectional lens in terms

of how we examine the
problem of policing,

it helps us to understand
the ways in which policing

is gendered and racialized,
and affects women-- like those

who were impacted in Lancaster.

All too often, when we
think about policing,

we focus almost exclusively on
traditional police departments

and police practices, such
as stops, searches, and use

of force that target
Black and brown bodies,

and rely on racialized
stereotypes of criminality

as justification.

This traditional view of
policing and police violence

posits Black men and Latinx
men as the primary targets

and victims of
policing, obscuring

the ways in which girls, women,
and gender nonconforming people

are subject to state
surveillance, control,

and punishment.

This traditional view
of policing, in turn,

limits our ability
to create narratives

around anti-Black
police violence

that women, in
[INAUDIBLE] experience,

to develop advocacy
strategies, to call attention

to these dynamics, and to
draft policy interventions that

address all of the ways that
policing writ large harms

Black and brown communities.

So I want to just
give a couple examples

of the way in which this
intersectional lens can help

us to lift up these
expansive forms of policing,

and their racialized
and gendered harms

that they inflict on Black
communities, and particularly

Black women and girls.

So here's a couple of examples.

So if we talk about American
policing, race obviously

[INAUDIBLE],, so is policing
of gender and sexuality.

We talked about the experiences
of women in Lancaster

who were being followed when
they were taking their children

to school, when they
attempted to seek help

as a result of
domestic incidents.

And that's just the sort
of tip of the iceberg.

There have been a number of
studies conducted by the AP,

as well as a number of other
institutions, [INAUDIBLE]

Bowling Green State
University, that

found that the second most
complained about form of police

misconduct-- when we're talking
about traditional policing--

is sexual violence.

In a year-long
investigation by the AP,

they found that
over 1,000 officers

lost their badges in a six-year
period because of allegations

of rape, sodomy, or
other sexual assault.

And [INAUDIBLE] is
one example of that.

In the other study that
Bowling Green conducted,

roughly 405 police officers
were prosecuted for rape,

and another 600 were prosecuted
for forcible fondling,

for example.

But when we go beyond
traditional policing

institutions, we still see
this happening-- this policing

of gender, sexuality,
the way in which

Black women appear
in their homes

and attempt to care
for their families.

So in the context of
welfare institutions,

a case called Sanchez
versus the County

of San Diego,
authorized warrantless

searches of the homes
of individuals who

were reliant on public housing.

And this was done, again, by
members of law enforcement,

this was done by
welfare investigators.

And information
that was obtained

during the course of
those warrantless searches

could result in
criminal prosecution.

Black women and
other women of color

encounter surveillance
in hospitals and schools.

There've been a number of
cases of Black women being

subject to arrest and
prosecution for conduct

during pregnancy.

So we see all of
these other sites,

outside of this sort of
traditional beat cop,

outside of the traditional
forms of law enforcement, that

cohere into forms of policing
that we also need to be talking

about, that we also
need to be addressing--

these logics of punishment that
Sasha mentioned, when we talk

about governing through crime.

So when we want to talk
about dismantling the police,

or defunding the police,
or reforming the police,

we have to be talking
about policing,

and we have to look at
how these logics appear

in multiple institutions, and
the way in which they affect

a diverse set of
populations, including

Black women and girls.

And only when we can liberate
Black women and girls

from these forms
of surveillance,

policing, when we can
liberate trans people,

and we can liberate
people who are

disabled from these
systems of surveillance

and policing that occur across
a broad swath of institutions,

can we say that we have
firmly dealt with the problem

of policing in America.

That's all, I'll stop there.

Thank you.

ANDREW CRESPO: Thank you
so much, Professor Ocen.

And welcome, DA Rollins.

It's wonderful to see you again.

Thank you for making it.

We've explained to our
audience the sad reasons

why you weren't able to
join us right at the start.

RACHAEL ROLLINS: The hardest
thing I've ever done in my life

was getting onto this Zoom.

But I made it.

So I'm very happy.

ANDREW CRESPO: We're
so glad you're here.

Thank you.

And you're here just in
time, because we've just

come to where we are asking
folks to share their opening

remarks, and we're up to you.

And the question that
we put to the panel

was just what should
we as a country

be learning from the
killing of George

Floyd and so many others?

How should we
understand this summer

of protests we've just seen?

And where do we take
the institutions

of policing, given this
potential crossroads

we're standing at?

And we'd love to
hear your thoughts.

And then we'll ask some
questions of the group.

RACHAEL ROLLINS: Sure.

I think what many people
are seeing with respect

to the murders of
George Floyd, Ahmaud

Arbery, and Brianna Taylor--

which, of course, we've now
had two different iterations

after that batch there--

is what many communities have
been screaming for centuries,

right?

I like to point out to people
that, where we find ourselves

for cultural reference-- this
is why Colin Kaepernick silently

took a knee and people lost
their minds, because he

was silently protesting
police brutality.

There was an amazing
article in the Washington

Post a few months back
where it said, two knees--

you have to choose one.

Either Colin Kaepernick's, or
Derek Chauvin's-- you can't opt

out.

You must choose which one
that you will support.

I think where we find ourselves
is a moment of reckoning

and a need for atonement.

And although the
police are getting--

and I believe justifiably
in much of it--

taken to task with
respect to some

of this outrageous,
and murderous,

and felonious behavior, we have
to look at district attorneys,

as well.

When we think about an
Ahmaud Arbery, all of us

have watched that video
of a lynching-- which,

let's be very clear,
the definition--

yes, there was not a
rope, but that's not what

the definition of lynching is.

And three district attorneys'
offices watched that same video

we've all seen of the
McMichaels hunting

Ahmaud, and then killing him.

We now know the youngest
McMichael, Travis,

uttered a racial slur as
Ahmaud took his last breaths.

Three district attorneys
watch that video

and said, looks fine.

Georgia has a citizen's
arrest statute.

This seems clear.

What I think where
we find ourselves

is many other communities
are now recognizing

that poor people and
Black and brown people,

overwhelmingly, receive a very
different police department

than other people
do, receive a very

different criminal legal
system than many others do.

And as a progressive
prosecutor myself,

I think people
are fearful that I

want to pull the
ceiling that they

get to walk in with the
assumption of innocence

and not guilt, walk
in with the belief

that the system
actually works, I

want to drag that
down to the floor

of where poor Black and brown
people experience the system.

And when they say that,
they don't use those words.

I say, but you're
proving my point.

There are two systems, right?

I want to lift the
floor to the ceiling.

I want everyone to feel
as though, because our tax

dollars pay for it, and
many individuals, immigrants

documented or undocumented,
some at times paying taxes

into our system, yet a system
that is failing them every day.

And not just failing them, in
some instances killing them

with impunity.

Deporting them for matters
that, if as an American,

we wouldn't even potentially
be looking at things.

I have stood up and fought on
behalf of individuals that had

a misdemeanor seven years ago,
that was going to be deported

back to Somalia, where he
spent two days of his life--

the first two days of his life--

then went to Saudi
Arabia, and then

ultimately came to the
United States in his teens--

was going to be deported back.

So I think where
we find ourselves,

what we see with police and law
enforcement-- which of course,

includes ICE and
the federal agents,

as well as state
and local actors--

is a moment of reckoning.

And I am optimistic that this
is-- cautiously optimistic--

that we are going to keep
the pressure on, and make

significant change with
respect to policing.

And I might not use
the word defund,

but I support whatever
words people are

using, because they're
fed up and tired,

as well they should be.

And when we protest
peacefully, nobody listens.

When we take a knee
quietly, nobody listens.

So when we scream and yell,
or maybe break a window

or engage in behavior with
respect to property damage--

our country values
property more than they

do our bodies, our Black
and brown and poor bodies.

And they will point
to that less than 1%

of the masses that might engage
in violence, where insurance

fixes those windows,
that building

gets that property back.

George Floyd's family is
never going to see him again,

neither is Brianna Taylor, or
Elijah McClain's, et cetera.

So we have to keep
the pressure on.

The unions, the police unions,
are fighting tooth and nail

to change any
situation that we have,

where there is going to be more
transparency, more oversight.

They love the fact that
they get to self-regulate.

And anyone who questions them
gets labeled soft on crime.

So we are in an incredibly
unique situation, but I think--

I'm cautiously optimistic
that we're going

to see some profound change.

ANDREW CRESPO: Thank
you all so much

for these terrific remarks
that just set the table

and set the frame.

Hopefully everyone at home
now is able to see all of us.

We're trying to have
the Brady Bunch set-up

now, because we're going to
move into some discussion.

And all of you who are sending
in questions to the Q&A,

thank you.

Because we can read them here,
and we're trying to both--

we're drawing on them and
melding some of them together.

So if we don't quite read out
your name and your question,

please note that
we're also reading

them and trying to get as
many into the conversation

as we can.

The first question
here is to Ms. Bush.

You know, hearing
you speak, there

is this powerful
language of activism

animating your diagnosis.

And then, hearing
Professor Harmon speak,

there was this similar diagnosis
in the language of legislation,

law, policy reform.

And it occurs to me,
hearing you talk,

that you're kind of on
the cusp of these two

ways of looking at the problem.

And I was reminded
in thinking of that,

of something that someone who--

again, come January,
is very likely

to be your colleague, the
chairwoman of the Congressional

Black Caucus,
representative Karen Bass,

who was asked recently about
some of the police reform

legislation that is working
its way through Congress.

And one of the things
she said in response

was, it's the role of
an activist to push us

as far as they can push us.

It's our role to legislate,
and that is a different role.

I'm just kind of
curious, as someone

who is in this maybe
transition moment in life,

or is straddling
these two worlds,

do you see those
roles as different?

If so, how are they
different, and what

is it that you are
hoping to accomplish

for all of these bills
you've talked about?

By making that
move from where you

have been, as an
organizer and an activist,

into the halls of
Congress as a legislator,

what are you most hoping
to achieve by that?

CORI BUSH: Most
hoping to achieve?

You know, just doing this
thing different in our day.

Some things aren't
happening just simply

because somebody who
has the vision to do

it just hasn't done it yet.

So I want to take us
from a place of thinking

that we have to
walk and do things

within the confines
of what we know,

or who did it before, or--

forget all of that.

What I saw on the
streets of Ferguson

was something that I
never thought I'd see.

But what I also saw was
how the entire world, just

all over the world,
people stood up.

And how many changes have
happened across our country

even now, six years later,
because people did something

that they never
thought they would do.

And people did-- people
spoke up and stood up.

Like people said that
they couldn't, you

know, oh, you can't do
that, you can't do that.

But we did it.

And now we're here.

So I'm walking into
the doors of Congress,

hopefully in January,
as a politivist--

you know, I'm being
told I have to shave off

the rough edges of the
activist and all of that

to come into these doors,
but I push back on that

and say, I don't
have to do that.

I'm bringing the
activist into Congress,

because it's the reason
why I want to go,

is because of what I've
seen as an activist,

and because I've had to
step into being an activist.

Because if there was nothing
there, I wouldn't have to--

I could be a nurse and
a pastor somewhere.

You know, I could
be taking care of--

I'm a single
parent, you know, me

and my kids, me and my three,
you know, that could be me.

But instead, there are all of
these problems that continue

to happen in our communities.

I remember, at one point
people kept saying to us,

oh, you activists are so mean.

You're so mean and
you're so angry.

Like where is your forgiveness?

You should be
forgiving, like we need

to move into a place of not
just truth, but reconciliation.

When do we get to
reconciliation?

And how do we get
to reconciliation

if you keep killing us?

And so we push truth
for a long time,

and then we're talking--
so many groups right now

are talking conciliation.

I got it.

But don't try to
get me to a place

of reconciling
and forgiving when

these things continue to occur.

And so I'm walking
into those doors

remembering what my
face felt like when

it hit the ground when I was
brutalized by the police when

they threw me in the air.

I remember seeing the stars
coming towards my face,

and then the ground
coming towards my face.

I couldn't understand
what was happening.

Why am I seeing the stars?

Didn't realize they had
threw me up in the air.

And then, just remembering how
my face felt on the ground,

on that hard concrete,
while it was being stomped

by several police officers.

Remembering every time I
saw someone hung upside down

and hog-tied, hanging
off of a baton,

because they said
no to an officer.

Every time somebody
stepped over off of a curb,

and just because they
stepped off of the curb,

and you got near that white
line in the street, that

meant you were impeding
traffic, so now you could

be brutalized by the police.

I remember all of that,
and I won't forget it.

I won't forget what the
rubber bullets felt like.

I won't forget
the bare mace that

burned my skin for 22 hours
back on July the 5th this year.

You know, I won't forget that.

And so I'm taking
that in those doors,

because that voice has
to be there, as well.

Yes, I will work on
policy because I remember

what that burning felt like.

Yes, I will remember
every single person that

was out there and the
things that we went through,

whether it was with the police,
or whether it was with the DA,

whether it was
with the judge, we

got to talk about
the entire system.

And so that is
how I'm going to--

and that will inform policy.

RACHAEL ROLLINS: If I could
add, as an elected myself--

and I wish I could vote in
wherever you're running,

Ms. Bush, because I
would send two votes in.

But I'm telling
you, I used to say

when everyone-- when we talk
about wealth-based disparities

and race-based disparities,
and people say to me,

as well, why don't you smile?

You're always so angry.

And I say, when do I smile?

When I'm talking
about, I don't know,

somebody squeezing the
life out of George Floyd

for eight minutes
and 46 seconds,

does the smile come after that?

When does the smile come?

None of this is funny.

If white communities
woke up and had--

they went to sleep and
then woke up the next day,

and all of their police
officers were black,

and they beat the crap
out of their kids,

or FIOed them constantly,
or were harassing them

on the way to school, and
pulling them over-- you

would have your congressman,
your senator, your mayor,

your city council,
the governor--

you'd be demanding
justice immediately.

That is what our lived
experience is every single day.

We are policed, and
over-policed and over-prosecuted

in every aspect of our lives.

And so for me, I
like to say, when

people say when do we
get to reconciliation?

I'm the oldest of five, and
if I looked at my brother

and slapped him
dead in the face,

and then said, from
this moment forward,

we are going to have peace
in this relationship.

As his cheek was stinging
he'd say, wait, so now

we have peace?

I don't get to--

you know, and nobody saying
we need to swing back.

But what you haven't even
done is acknowledge the harm.

We have a president right
now that does not even

want to acknowledge the 1619
Project from The New York

Times.

This isn't an article that
I'm writing in my home

as some zealot,
this is The New York

Times that is doing this work.

They don't even
want to acknowledge

the slavery, the redlining,
the reconstruction,

all of the Jim Crow era--

they don't want to talk
about it because it

makes them uncomfortable.

I think murder is Trump's
uncomfortability every--

you get my point.

I don't care about
your uncomfortability,

or being comfortable,
if my people

are still being murdered,
maimed, and brutalized in 2020.

So we need more people
that are politivists.

And I don't know whether
I'm a district attorneyist,

but I will tell you, what I love
about my job is the autonomy.

We need a Cori Bush.

We have already-- and we
are lucky in Massachusetts,

Congresswoman Ayanna Pressley.

People that lead, and are
their true and full selves.

But I agree with you, don't ever
forget those lived experience.

That is what needs to be brought
to our halls of Congress.

I don't forget as the DA
visiting my siblings who

have been incarcerated,
visiting my siblings who

struggle with mental health
issues or substance use

disorder, being the
guardian of two of my nieces

as a result of that.

I walk to work every day with
that lived experience, and try

to lead with that lens, not just
let's fling them all in jail

and let the sheriff
figure it out.

ALEXANDRA NATAPOFF: Wow.

I want to invite Professor
Ocen into this precise moment

of the conversation.

And DA Rollins, you just
mentioned the sheriff--

Professor Ocen, you are on
the oversight commission that

oversees the LA county
sheriff's department,

and you are also deeply
engaged in community

activism in Los Angeles.

And in many ways, you are
straddling that same line

that so many on this
panel are straddling.

In your previous remarks,
you mentioned something

that I don't think that we
appreciate enough, which

is the risk of impunity that
we grant to police officers,

not just on the job
but off the job.

You mentioned the very high
rates of domestic violence

that police officers engage in,
high rates of sexual assault.

And I want to ask you to
meditate on this question

of the role of law, when we
see examples of law enforcement

officials and--

and perhaps if you want to
talk about it, the sheriff's

department that you oversee,
feeling that they have

some ability to ignore the law.

And just ask you to join in
this conversation at that space.

PRISCILLA OCEN: Yes, so
part of what I've really

been thinking about in
terms of my academic work,

my activist work,
and my policy work,

is the efficacy of reform,
and the efficacy of law

and regulating and governing
police departments.

We see policing as
a basic social good,

as something that our
elected representatives

and our government
has an obligation

to provide to the
public to ensure

that we are all safe and
secure in our communities.

And that's effectuated
by police, who

also ensure the rule of law.

That's the sort of
traditional story.

And so when police fall afoul of
our basic expectations of them

by engaging in excessive use
of force, by murdering people,

brutalizing people, lying,
and so forth, we often

chalk that up because of how
valorized law enforcement is,

to a few bad apples
who can be reformed

or rooted out by policy reform.

We can appoint a
civilian oversight body,

we can eliminate
qualified immunity,

we can change the use
of force standards--

which is what we've been
doing here in California.

We can do any number of
things to try to give police

more inter-control
of their communities,

to ensure that police meet
the basic expectations

of professionalism, courtesy,
kindness, and law-abidingness

that we expect of them.

And so we utilize these
democratic reforms to try

to reform police departments.

And here's what I've learned
being on the civilian oversight

commission.

That these democratic
reforms don't work,

and we become
frustrated with them,

and we become angry--
especially the communities who

are directly impacted by them,
Black and Latino communities,

because we've been at
this for decades, trying

to reform inherently violent
and corrupt institutions.

And why haven't we been
able to reform the police,

despite decades and
decades of trying?

Despite multiple reports,
despite multiple commissions,

despite generations of
attention to this issue?

This is the conclusion I've come
to-- you can't fix the police

with democratic reforms
through the use of--

and through the
enactment of laws

through the democratic process.

Because the police are
inherently anti-democratic.

If you look at how they operate,
they routinely flout the law.

If we're talking about
consent decrees that

are imposed upon
police departments,

they intimidate
elected officials.

You can look at the
city of New York,

under Bill de Blasio, when
stop and frisk was terminated.

The way that the police unions
bullied and intimidated,

and attempted to intimidate
the mayor here in California.

We recently had an incident
where the police union ran ads

with a target on the back of
an elected representative.

They routinely lie in court
and on official documents,

when we expect our
law enforcement

entities to tell the truth.

They routinely flout directives
from their elected officials.

And that's the
problem that we're

having here in LA
county-- we have

been granted subpoena
power, which we've used.

Our sheriff has ignored it.

We have asked the sheriff to
cooperate with the inspector

general, in terms
of investigations

of police killings by members
of the sheriff's department.

We've been locked out.

We have asked the sheriff to
provide just basic information

about who is in our jails-- and
we have one of the largest jail

systems in the world.

We have been rebuffed.

Our sheriff has
called a Latina member

of our board of supervisors--
which funds the sheriff's

department-- a racial slur.

Why?

Because he knows he
can act with impunity,

and that there will be no
one to essentially check him,

aside from the voters
every four years.

And even then, those elections
have very low turnout,

and our sheriffs
essentially can't be checked

by any other democratic body.

So time and time again
we turn to the law,

we turn to the democratic
process to try to effect change

within violent law enforcement
institutions, and we fail.

Precisely because
law enforcement

simply flouts these
democratic initiatives,

and asserts their own
rules, their own culture

on the public with
tremendous harms, in the way

that Professor Harmon described.

ANDREW CRESPO: I think this
tees up for me what is--

directly it goes into a
question I have for DA Rollins.

DA Rollins, you live
between two worlds, also,

but of a different
sort of sort, right?

We've just heard
from Professor Ocen

about the enormous
power of police

unions, police institutions.

We're going to have an entire
session in this lecture

series on police unions.

But when Professor Ocen
talks about criticizing

or intimidated elected
officials, I mean,

a few days before
you were sworn in,

the National Police Association
filed a bar complaint

against you.

You've had you've had public
confrontations with police

unions locally and nationally.

And yet, at the same time,
I was listening to you

on WBUR just recently
talking about

how the vast majority of
police are doing a good job,

and that it's a problem of the
kind of focus on bad apples.

And obviously, you have to work
with police officers every day.

So I hear you speaking
in both senses here--

a focus on the police
as ally, and as partner

and as the essential other
arm of the law enforcement

team that you lead.

And yet, at the same time
also, as groups-- groups

that have criticized you,
and taken steps against you

as an elected official, that
are in some ways unprecedented.

So I'm just curious
how you think of that?

Question of the power
of organized policing,

or in police
institutions, as someone

who's interacting with
that institution in really

two different ways, with
potential tension between them.

RACHAEL ROLLINS:
Yeah, and again,

if anyone who's
ever handled fruit,

or knows what a bad apple looks
or feels like, it's disgusting.

It's infecting all the
other fruit in that bowl.

There are fruit
flies everywhere.

So this is not just
one or two bad apples.

I like to say, if there are 10
bad police officers and 1,000

good police officers who say
nothing about the 10 bad,

we have 1,010 bad
police officers.

That's why there are now
bystander requirements

that we've seen as a result
of things, where you can't

willfully look the other way.

Where we have seen abject
failures regarding IAD,

which is Internal Affairs
Division, and ACD.

These are the words we
use in Massachusetts,

I don't know what you
guys use in the states

that you're in, which is
Anti-corruption Division.

That's the criminal as
opposed to the procedural

or administrative violations.

It's become very clear to me
that the DA's office that I

inherited, just about
a year and a half ago,

had no oversight on that.

At the end of a process,
they might spit something out

and say, here you go, DA,
we think this is a crime.

Well, that doesn't help me if
you hand me two small things--

is that two of 12
things you looked at?

Is that two of 1,000
things you looked at?

If you're talking about $300
worth of overtime fraud,

but when I go into
the community I'm

hearing about
brutalization of people

by certain units in
our police department,

that's excessive use of force,
as opposed to a written rules

violation.

I think we have to be far better
as DAs looking at the police.

And why I think they were
most upset with me is they,

of course, had put
all of their money

and power and privilege behind
a candidate in the race,

who I can happily
say, came in second.

And so I owed nobody anything
as the elected candidate.

And I had made clear to
them, we aren't friends.

I don't report to you and
you don't report to me.

But the difference
between our role

is, when you break the
law, just like anyone else,

I'm holding you accountable.

Period, end of story.

And in fact, because we
have to work together,

if I don't hold you
accountable, the system,

which I believe and
know, is operating just

the way it was supposed to.

It's not broken,
it is working just

the way it was set up to work.

But people lose faith
if they say, wait

a minute, Massachusetts, you
have now no less than six

or seven state police scandals.

These troopers who have
stolen tens and tens if not

hundreds of thousands of
dollars in overtime fraud,

get to retire with dignity,
accept their pension,

and maybe get some slap
on the wrist in Florida

where they live now.

But if I shoplift $200 worth
of stuff, because I'm starving

and need food from a
supermarket or Target,

they're going to want me to
charge them with some crime

and put them in jail.

It's hypocrisy, right?

It's complete hypocrisy.

And the thing I will
just double down on

is the unions have the
power to label elected

officials as soft on crime.

They're unlike any
other unions we

have-- this isn't
the teachers union,

this isn't the nurses union.

The police have the
lethal and legal authority

to kill you, kill you,
with no oversight.

They don't have to stop
and make a phone call.

And what I like to tell them--
and it's my job afterwards

to see if that was reasonable
and justified or not.

So I'm proud that, before
these reforms were demanded,

and I know communities
demanded it

way before George
Floyd, Ahmaud Arbery

and Brianna Taylor and
others, but nobody was really

listening--

I created what is the first in
the nation, discharge integrity

team.

Where my office doesn't
even investigate

officer-involved
shootings, I do.

Outside of my office, I
have a community member,

a retired judge, a
criminal defense lawyer,

and an active member
of law enforcement,

and I'm the fifth member.

I only have one, two, or
three people in my office

that present to us.

We don't meet in our
office, we meet monthly,

and we meet with the community,
and we discuss with them

what we are doing so that they
have at least a sliver of faith

in the system.

As opposed to these
officer-involved shootings

happen, they go to
the DA's office,

they don't hear
anything for years.

And then quietly, they
say, yeah, reasonable,

justified, not a big deal.

And I will end with Black
communities overwhelmingly,

and brown in some circumstances,
we fail in both realms.

We never get the
criminal prosecution

that we are entitled to
when we are murdered,

and we're of course
blamed for our murder--

we're the only group of people--
most culturally appropriate

a group of people
on the planet earth,

who are then blamed
for our murder.

But above and beyond that, we
now, with qualified immunity,

we don't even get
the ability to get

a dime as a result
of this behavior

in certain
circumstances, where that

is the other place that not
only does that person go to jail

for murder, but
then, the city has

to pay the millions of
dollars out to that family.

Which, of course,
doesn't fill the hole

in the void of the loss,
but at least can get them

some sort of accountability.

ALEXANDRA NATAPOFF: Thank you.

Professor Harmon, I want
to join up a thread.

DA Rollins mentioned
this challenge

of maintaining the legitimacy
of the criminal process

that we have.

And you mentioned in your
remarks what, I think--

the insight that the people do
not wait for the legal system

anymore.

They enter the streets as
soon as the injustice occurs.

And I took you to be implying--
or maybe not implying--

that it's a reflection
of a loss of faith,

that we don't need
to wait anymore.

We have no faith
that the outcome

will vindicate those interests.

And I think that's
such a powerful point.

And it's particularly
powerful coming from you,

because you have spent your
career grappling with the law.

We-- Professor
Harmon and I both--

serve as an advisor
to the project

that she is an associate
reporter for the American Law

Institute, attempting
to articulate

what principles of policing
should look like under the law.

And I just wanted to invite
you to join this theme that we

are hearing emerging from
this panel on the role of law,

its limitations, what
can we do to render--

what is our ability to
render it legitimate?

We are, after all,
at a law school,

speaking to dozens
of people who are

entering the legal profession.

What can we say to them
about the possibilities

and the limits of the
law in this space?

RACHEL HARMON: Well,
I'm happy to continue

to listen to these
three brilliant

and powerful
African-American women,

so I don't need to say anything.

But if I'm going to say
something about the law,

I would say that one of the
reasons I left the Justice

Department is because
I thought, well,

prosecuting police
officers can't possibly be

the way to solve the problem.

But you know, when you look at
people marching in the street,

demanding those
prosecutions, I started

to have to pay more
attention to the idea

that even though they didn't
solve the problems, one

of the things the victims
told me is that it was

the first time in their
lives when I said, look,

I'm from the Justice Department,
what happened to you was wrong

and I'm going to do
something about it,

they felt like that was a sign
of respect from the government.

And so prosecution, civil
damages, this is not enough.

This isn't close to enough.

But it doesn't mean
it's not important.

It is a sign of the government's
respect for individuals.

And so we need to continue
to refine and improve

the laws we have
governing police conduct,

and the methods we have for
holding police accountable.

But at the same time, we have to
use law for the bigger mission.

And you could see this
in DA Rollins's reforms,

that you both have to
focus on the system

as a whole, on what
it's achieving,

whatever its intent is, whatever
its individual incidents might

seem to justify, what
it is doing to people,

who it's actually affecting.

And to do that, you have
to hear from those voices.

Which is why congress
member Bush's election

is so important.

It's bringing into
the lawmaking process

the voice of people who know
the effects the system is

having on people on the street.

And so, I think the law
plays multiple roles.

I don't think accountability
is unimportant.

I don't think the rules
governing what police should do

are unimportant.

I don't think the structure
of political systems,

which allow the voices to
get heard, are unimportant.

But I think we have
to, on top of that,

think about the tools that
we have to improve outcomes

more broadly.

ANDREW CRESPO:
Professor Harmon, when

you speak of the
importance of a voice

here, I see a theme in probably
five or six of the questions

that have come in, that
actually focus a lot

on the language of this moment.

So much of this moment is
marked by phrases that we hear--

defund the police.

On the other hand,
back to the blue.

There's this language
that comes of all of this.

And a bunch of people
are asking about how

people who are in
the activism space,

or the space that is generating
these moment-defining phrases,

how do you navigate the
tension between trying

to appeal to people who
don't agree with you,

and maybe win over people
who don't agree with you,

on the one hand,
without giving up

the centrality and
the urgency that we're

seeing on this panel?

So a lot of folks have been
asking in the Q&A about,

for example, the phrase,
defund the police.

On the one hand
they think, gosh,

this feels like
maybe a hazy phrase.

On the one hand, some
folks are saying, gosh,

it feels almost inherently
conservative-- it's

about just taking a
little bit of money

away, or taking some money
away, and repurposing it

to other state agencies.

On the other hand, we
see in our national media

that defund the
police is described

more frequently than not as
a kind of fully radical idea.

I'm just curious,
as those of you

who try to navigate
the politics of this,

how do you think through
this question of--

are you trying to persuade
people who disagree with you?

And what do you do if some of
the ways that we go about this

put people off.

We have a comment from
a student who says,

you know, honestly, I
have a lot of police

officers in my family.

And when I hear things spoken
about some of these ways,

my instinctive reaction,
this person says,

is to feel defensive and
on guard and not trusting.

And maybe it's an
inherent tension,

but I'd love to just
hear those of you who

give so much thought
to the dynamics

of this talk about that.

I see you singling me,
Congresswoman Bush, please.

CORI BUSH: Yeah, so that
feeling that that student just

spoke about, that's how we
feel every day just in life.

So hearing about what happened--

hearing about that thing
that's making you uncomfortable

when people say these
things about police,

that's how we feel
every single day.

And we can't even just say,
walking out of our home.

Brianna was murdered in her bed.

So we can't just say that--

Atatiana Jefferson wasn't
murdered outside of her home,

she was in her home, you know.

So that's how we feel.

So I understand that that
thing makes you uncomfortable,

but it makes you
uncomfortable the thought

of something, the hearing some
words makes you uncomfortable.

But we're talking about
our lives are on the line,

so I'm asking you to
push in a little further,

and think about what it's
like for people who only--

This is the thing, there
is a physical reaction

that people have when
they see my skin,

a physical reaction,
a negative reaction

happens in their bodies.

And so then that comes out some
way, either in their actions,

verbally, or comes out
some other way later.

We're talking about
stopping that.

So when we say defund,
I'm sorry if the language

makes you uncomfortable.

And I'm not trying
to be ignorant,

or anything like that.

But when we say defund,
it made you think.

Because let me say this,
when education was defunded,

did anybody say anything?

Education has been
defunded for a long time.

We've been moving money
from the education system,

putting it into private
prisons for a long time,

and nobody is saying
anything about that.

But when we say defund the
police, because the police have

to be this treasure,
look, we want money

to go to places that
are underfunded.

So do I want money
to go from MRAPs?

If a MRAP is
$300,000, my community

could probably use that money
for our unhoused population.

We could have used
that money to bring

COVID-1o supplies quicker
into our communities,

but that didn't happen.

We could use that money
to pay our mental health

professionals, instead of
having our police be mental

health professionals,
instead of having

our police be social workers.

Let's have them do what they're
supposed to do, and then

have the people who have gone
to school to do these things,

let them be paid to do that job.

Because let's face this--

social workers aren't even paid
the wage that they deserve.

But we won't even
go into all of that.

You know, I think about as a
nurse, the amazing DA Rollins,

was talking about the bad
officers and the good officers.

You know, I think it was
Chris Rock that said,

can we be have a bad pilot?

Can you have the bad pilots?

Or who wants the bad pilot?

Who wants the bad chef,
the chef of the restaurant?

Yeah, come on in, some of them
are good, some of them are bad.

But sit on down.

You know, no-- we can't have
good officers and bad officers.

There should be officers, and
then extraordinary officers,

the ones that get the medals.

That should be all that we have.

Because I think about it as a
nurse working in a hospital,

look, when I'm at the
hospital, and I have my staff,

if I have a staff member that
continues to murder people

because this nurse can't
figure out 100 units of insulin

to give to this person,
versus 100 milligrams

of insulin to give
to this person.

And this nurse is
always killing folks,

or this person is
always hurting people.

And then I say,
well, you know what,

we got to keep that amongst us.

You know, we're going to
just do better next time.

Tell the kids I say, hello.

Is that what you expect from me?

When you show up
to that hospital,

you expect the quality
care that nurses bring.

In the end, if a nurse
does something wrong,

it makes the paper.

Like it goes into the--

you know, the state
sends out a paper,

the nurses send out
a paper every month,

and it has a portion in it
where it says, this nurse,

such as such-- by name--

this nurse did this, and
this is what happened when

the investigation happened.

Just because-- just because
we turned it in and said,

this nurse did this.

It goes somewhere and that
information is made public.

So we're holding even
nurses to a standard

that police officers
aren't being held to.

And so I have to push back on
the comfortability of people

and how things make you feel and
what labels make you feel like.

If saying defund
made you stand up

and say, oh, something is wrong
with this-- you paid attention.

And look, I'm
asking you to not be

upset when you have your foot--

you're stepping on
my foot and I say,

you know what, get off my foot,
and you don't do anything.

Hey, you know what, would
you move, get off my foot?

And you don't do anything.

But when I push you off
my foot, and now you want

to say, why are you pushing me?

Why you getting mad?

You can't do that.

No, you should have
moved the first time,

or you shouldn't
have even been there.

That's what we're saying.

So it's not about
your comfortability--

if I'm making a word up--

it's not about your
comfortability,

it's about what's
right for all people.

RACHAEL ROLLINS:
If I could jump in.

I mean, to her point, my
mom's a registered nurse--

the reason why it
makes the paper

is because she's licensed,
just like lawyers are.

And many police
officers aren't, right?

And I, as a lawyer,
we don't have

the death penalty
in Massachusetts,

but I can't kill
you with my pen--

writing something.

I can make enormous
changes in people's lives

with the decisions I
make, and the autonomy.

But police officers have the
legal and lethal authority

to kill.

And that-- they aren't licensed.

At least in Massachusetts
they are not.

And we're hopefully
moving toward that.

Budgets are a value statement.

Budgets are a value statement.

And when we, in Massachusetts,
or Boston, have a $14 million

budget for the Boston
Police Department,

and then somewhere else
$60 million in overtime,

you shouldn't have to have a
Nobel Peace Prize in economics

to read a budget of a city.

It should just be
like police budget,

all the stuff should be there,
and it should be explained.

And that's four
times as much money

as the Boston Public
Health Commission makes.

When we think about
education and prisons--

and I testified in front of
our legislature and said,

when we were asking for
$17,000 more per student

in rural poor schools, and
urban poor schools, to say,

we want to be equal with some of
these more wealthy communities,

where their taxes
allow the public school

systems to be better, I
was peppered and drilled

with questions.

And I said, whoa, whoa,
whoa, hold on a minute--

I was just here a
couple months ago,

and we pay $55,000 a year for a
prisoner at Nashua Street jail,

and you didn't ask
me a single question.

You don't care about the
end of the system, where

it's three times as much
money to pay for a prisoner--

which, by the way, two to
three prisoners-- every two

to three prisoners,
one correction officer.

That's the ratio there.

In our schools, it's 28
students to one teacher,

and we're hemming and hawing
about $15,000 to $17,000.

Our system is set
up for failure.

And I can tell you as the DA,
one of the best indicators

as to whether or
not you will touch

the criminal legal system--

not the only-- but is, are you
getting a quality education?

What is your housing situation?

Are you suffering from
environmental racism,

which is very real, and higher
levels of COPD and asthma

because you live
in a place where

there are bridges and roads
going through everywhere,

and toxins and emissions
are significantly

higher in your community.

I will just also point out
that when our government--

when attorney
general, Jeff Session

cut all the consent decrees,
and there was no longer

any oversight on all of these
rogue police departments,

nobody questioned the
defunding of that, right?

The regulation, they're
like, oh, this is wonderful.

He's fiscally
responsible, right?

But it resulted in more
harm to our communities.

And then, as far
as protesters, it's

part of why, when I hear
the professor talk about--

and I love this--
people don't wait

for the criminal
legal system anymore.

They take to the streets.

You're right-- that same
criminal legal system

that allowed Derek Chauvin
to have 17 infractions,

and didn't do anything, that is
now going to investigate Derek

Chauvin for the homicide
of George Floyd,

and the DA's office that
didn't look into Derek

and prosecute him if any
of those were crimes,

absolutely right.

They should be
outraged and out there.

And it's why I've said, I
believe in the First Amendment.

And unless there is violence--

and I don't mean disrespect,
or loud language,

or stepping off
of a curb, I mean

violence and significant harm--

we are not going
to be prosecuting

protesters in Boston.

ALEXANDRA NATAPOFF:
So, I wish we could

go on for many more hours.

We are out of time.

I'm going to exercise
moderator privilege, because we

started five minutes late.

So I'm going to ask everyone
to stay a couple minutes more.

I would love to give our
extraordinary panelists one

last minute to say a few
parting words to our students,

to this group.

DA Rollins, if we
could start with you.

And then I'll ask
Professor Harmon, and then

Professor Ocen, and then
we'll give Congresswoman Bush

the last word.

Anything you would to leave
our students and our community

with?

RACHAEL ROLLINS:
Yeah, just that I

think that there's
this false dichotomy

where it's police
reform, but what

about Black on Black crime?

Or if you harm a police
officer, people say,

but what about police brutality?

I think we can believe
Black lives matter,

and also want to make sure that
police officers aren't harmed.

We look at what happened
in LA with these two

deputy sheriffs--

I'm praying for their recovery.

And I will say that out
loud, of course I will.

We oppose violence, period.

We're not saying we
want white people

to experience the same
thing that we do every day.

We don't want violence at all.

We just want it
acknowledged that it's

happening at an incredibly
disparate rate for us.

So I will say, I think there's
a false dichotomy that's

out there.

I do think it's important
that we continue maybe

not trying to persuade, but
speaking to people that we

disagree with.

We have to start having very
uncomfortable conversations

period, end of story.

And to the congresswoman's
point, uncomfort

and maiming or murder,
your uncomfort,

you can deal with that.

I promise you.

Being a little bit
uncomfortable because you

hurt some words that
hurt your feelings--

and I'm not belittling that--
but as opposed to the George

Floyd family, your uncomfort
is, I'm sorry for that,

let's keep it moving and
speed up a little bit,

Because our uncomfort
is that's just

the level I wake
up with every day,

and the assumptions that are
made about me as a visibly

brown and Black woman.

So I will say, be
involved, even if you

disagree with what I'm saying.

And if this is at Harvard Law
School where people are local,

let's engage in a conversation.

Or debate, you
know, that's fine.

But let's start a
conversation if we disagree,

because where we are is
harming too many people,

and we need to start moving
forward in the process.

And then, I'm just honored
to be with these amazing two

professors and this woman.

So Wesley Bell and Kim Gardner
are my two good friends,

so you know I'm texting them
about it now in Missouri.

All right, but thank
you for having me.

ALEXANDRA NATAPOFF: I'll
just take the opportunity

to mention that Wesley Bell
will be at our next session

on October 16, so
I hope everybody

will remember to
join us again for

future extraordinary sessions.

Professor Harmon?

RACHEL HARMON: I
guess, you know, police

can and do play a
really important role

in making people and
making communities safer

and making them more livable.

But they don't play that
role in every community.

And until they do,
we're going to have

to talk about the
harms that police do,

as well as the benefits
that they can bring.

And so yes, there are hard
conversations to be had.

But that really
shouldn't be taken

as a lack of faith
in what policing can

achieve in the United States.

ALEXANDRA NATAPOFF:
Professor Ocen?

PRISCILLA OCEN: I
would say that this

is a movement not a moment.

So for many, the uprisings
in cities across the country

seems quite sudden.

But when we look at
the historical record,

this reckoning has been
decades, or centuries even,

in the making, in terms of
even when the first police

departments were founded to
regulate labor in the North,

and to regulate
unpaid labor, i.e.,

enslaved people in the South.

So this has been a
long time coming,

in terms of trying
to align policing

with our democratic norms,
our democratic expectations,

our anti-discrimination
norms broadly.

And what produced this moment
is an abject failure on all

of those counts, in terms of
regulating police departments

along the lines of democracy,
along the lines of equality,

along the lines of
ensuring that people

can live with dignity
in their communities,

notwithstanding their race,
gender, sexual orientation,

disability, and so forth.

And so the work that's
been done over the decades

is significant.

And it has helped
us to understand

the true nature of the
problem that we're addressing.

So it's not just with regard
to police departments--

it's with regard to
our political systems.

Its with regard to our civil
institutions that perpetuate

the logics of policing.

So when folks say,
defund the police,

what they're talking about is
not merely shifting resources.

They're talking about
bankrupting a particular kind

of ideology that views police
as the frontline of segregation,

that views police as a mechanism
for regulating the poor,

the racially
marginalized, and those

who are differently abled--
those who are not normative.

And so that's really
the question in terms

of what are we defunding?

We're not only shifting the
resources that fund police,

but the ideologies
that undergird them.

And those ideologies exist
in a number of institutions

outside of law enforcement,
traditional law enforcement

agencies, as I was discussing.

So if we're going to
divest from police,

we can not
simultaneously reinvest

in other punitive institutions.

So we really have to pay
attention to those logics.

That work is there,
it's decades long.

And at this moment, folks
are being called in--

not called out.

They're being called
in to be allies.

And that includes law
students, law professors.

We have a lot of work
to do to really question

the role that we play in
facilitating police violence,

and legitimizing
policing in the way

that it has been exercised
in the United States.

And we need to be partners
in really dismantling

the ideological underpinning of
policing in the United States

in the way it affects those
who are the most vulnerable

in our communities.

And I hope that the folks
who are watching this now

will take that invitation
and will join us

in asking these critical
questions about the role of law

in democracy in
regulating public safety,

and what public safety
means more generally.

ALEXANDRA NATAPOFF:
And I'll just

take this moment remind
everyone that there

are some supplemental
readings from some

of our academic
colleagues on the website

if you're interested in reading
more deeply about these issues.

Congresswoman Bush,
can you send us off?

CORI BUSH: Absolutely.

I just want to ask
a question, just

for people to think about later
on as you go through your day,

and hopefully that you can
mull over the next few weeks,

you know, thinking
about this subject

and what is your
anti-racism work?

And how does that plug into what
we've been talking about today?

You know, we're always
told, can we get past this?

Or if you all will comply, and
all of these things, and then

I think about how in 2015, one
year after year after Michael

Brown was murdered
and we had protested

for more than 400 days
with the Ferguson uprising,

and we ended up with a
blue lives matter law.

We ended up with a 70% of Black
drivers were more likely--

Black drivers were 70% more
likely to be pulled over

in Missouri than white drivers.

Now, in 2019, we were 95%
more likely to be pulled over

by police officers
than white drivers,

in a state where
we're only 11.8%--

where the white community
is 83% in this state.

And where and our Latinx and
Hispanic community is 4.3%--

we were 95% more likely
to be pulled over,

40% more likely to be
stopped and searched,

and 40% more likely
to be arrested,

even though we were the
ones, a lot of times,

didn't have anything on
us when we were searched.

So what is your
anti-racism work,

and how can you use that
to help fix this problem?

And I'm saying that because
everybody has a place.

I don't care if
you're a student,

I don't care what your
place is right now,

there is a work that you can do.

Take it to your families,
to your network,

if you have a religious
affiliation, whatever groups

you're a part of.

Take it to the
board room, take it

to wherever, whatever
access you have, use that

and put it to this work.

Because that's the only
way we'll change it.

And if you think
that if you're not

a part of-- if
there is something

that you can not bring, you
haven't dug deep enough.

So go back and
look at this thing.

Every single person
has a place in this

to fix this in this
country for all of us.

Because if I die tomorrow,
if I'm murdered tomorrow,

can you say that you did
the work to make sure

that Black lives matter?

Thank you.

ALEXANDRA NATAPOFF: Thank you.

Like to thank our
extraordinary panel.

This has been illuminating
and inspiring.

I'll turn it over
to Professor Crespo,

if you'd like to leave
us with any few words.

I'd like to thank all
the students and all

our participants who listened.

And I hope everybody
appreciates the time

that these extraordinarily
busy and overcommitted people--

none of these panelists
have any time,

and they donated that
time today to us,

so that we could
do our work better,

so that we could proceed
in our education better.

So thank you, we're
very, very grateful.

ANDREW CRESPO: Thank
you all so, so much.

Echoing the DA and the
future congresswoman.

As the DA said, part of the
work is having a conversation.

Certainly not all of
the work, but that's

what we're hoping to do here--

to have this type
of conversation,

to have at last a full
year, and to put in the time

that we can to make
sure that we explore

these questions as thoroughly
and as thoughtfully,

but with the urgency that
the moment calls for.

And many of your
questions in the chat,

as I was reading through them,
I thought, OK, well, we've

got a whole session on that.

Which is why those
questions might not

have been asked today.

But we hope that you'll
go to policinginameric

a.law.harvard.edu, you can
see the full slate of topics

we're going to talk about.

You can see our
future panelists.

And we look forward
to seeing many of you

back here in October.

And to our amazing
panelists, one more time

I'll just say, thank
you so, so much.

RACHAEL ROLLINS:
Thanks for having us.