Derek, Mike basically already said you won't play in the pre-season so what will your routine be leading up to Thursday night and during the game? Yeah, I'll be the same thing. I'll come out here and practice and then when they travel come get some work and watch some film and then watch them play. You're working with behind you as a whole with the back? Yeah, it's been fun. It's been fun getting out there for the first part of it and then getting back to my normal routine. Just being back with everybody and I feel like our group is solid. I feel like the rookies can hold their own. They come out here to practice hard, they run hard and then in the film room they pay attention to take notes so they've been doing a great job. You're getting a lot of groove that you feel you need to be in. Yeah, I feel good. Like I said, just starting to get back and get out there and get some reps, working with Coach Dews and being with the younger backs on trails and Jordan and Tori. This has been fun getting some work in and just being back out here. It's the best time of the year. The program that you're on, so to speak, is that something that you and the training staff and the coaching staff has come up with or is that something they gave you? Because it seems like it's different, not as much team period. That's Berber's plan. You ask Berber and he comes to me with it and I just go out there and do what I need to do. At this point, do you start thinking regular season yet, knowing that you're not going to be playing in the pre-season? What motivates you through this part of camp then? I've been doing this for about two or three years now, so it's the same thing. Nothing really has changed. I just take it day by day and continue to focus on getting better. I mean, that's the mindset of getting better. I'm not trying to get too far ahead of myself, focus on week one, but just be present in the moment. Do the young guys come to you on the roster there and ask you questions? Do you kind of step in when you feel like they need a pointer here and there? What's communication like usually? In our room, are you saying? Right. Yeah, yeah. Anytime they have questions, they ask. Just go to see them work and see them evolve each and every day and see that they can hold their own. They run hard, they practice hard, and they're smart guys. So just seeing them work every day and improve every day, and that's a cool thing. I'm just here to help whenever they need me. As much change about what you guys are doing out of the backfield, is it really kind of re-establishing what you do and re-fortify? I'm sure you know nothing's going to change. Nothing's going to change as far as how we want to play in our style of football. What do you anticipate seeing you guys are thudding out here? I was talking with Hassan last week just about the first full contact where someone actually tackles them and he's able to push them. What do you expect from him, the first time, first game, first time out from him? Oh, I told him they're going to make some big plays.  So I'm excited to watch them play every day. We watch them on film and see how better they're getting each and every day with their runs and pass detection and catching balls out of the backfield. So I'm excited to see them get out there and make some plays. With new people on the offensive line at certain spots, will next week's practices against Tampa Bay, when you watch film, will that give you more of an idea of what that will look like compared to the line that you're used to running behind last year? I hadn't even thought ahead about Tampa. That's like next week. But those guys, you know, they do their job. We've got good leaders in that room and Keith does a great job with them. So I don't try to get too far ahead, far as thinking that way. But just, you know, like the guys that we have who's in front right now and they're working every day to get better. You keep an eye on what those guys do and practice the guys that are competing for those spots because that's the five that are going to be blocking for you. They're usually too far for me to see. And I'm down here working on our drills. But no, I don't really try to get too caught up in that. And I know those guys are ready to work and doing whatever they can to earn a job or in the spot. Is there an extra value to the camaraderie that can come and how much pressure do you take on bringing that cheerleader aspect to a preseason game? Well, I really don't think it's any pressure. You know, we're all out here together. You know, and it's he competing on working every day. So, you know, it's kind of like a family. You root for one another. You want to see each other do good. And then, you know, you try to make each other better. So I think that's the fun part of it. You know, just rooting for a teammate, wanting them to see them make a play. And you wanting to see the hard work pay off.  At this point in your career, do you still want to beat that volume or are you good handing off a few? I think whatever it takes to win, my mindset has always been the same. So if that type of game is going to be that type of game, go from there. Right. How different does this camp feel compared to the last two years? You know, does it feel like the NFL is making back to Norma after dealing with all the pandemic issues, early morning testing, et cetera? Yeah, no doubt. Obviously, if the protocol is gone and then, you know, being able to have some fans out here at training camp is a lot of fun.  And then, you know, feeling the energy from the fans and support from the fans out here at training camp, it feels really good. Make it easier this time of year? No doubt. You know, when you're able to come out here and you got a little bit of support from the fans and, you know, it's not just the same mundane thing every day.   You guys didn't like about what you've done so far, maybe one of some areas is still being cleaned up. Yeah, we're doing a lot of good things. I'm really happy with the progress that we've made throughout this training camp. Yeah, guys that are stepping up for us, guys that opportunity to make plays and have been able to make them the progression of the offense, where, you know, now we're getting into that kind of second layer of offense where we're not just calling a play and running. We're getting up there, we're making checks, changing some routes, and guys are sticking with me. We're able to make those adjustments, whether it's moving a formation or just changing the route. Our guys are operating. So to be able to do that where we're at right now and continue to build on that is going to be huge for our success this year. So proud of our guys, even some of the young guys who are getting on board with that right now, and just got to keep the foot on the gas. You know, we've done a lot of good things, but there's still a lot of things that we need to clean up and be more efficient at. So proud of our guys where we're at right now, but got to keep the foot on the gas. Last week you got on Kyle Phillips a little bit, some community confusion on a route. And then you went back to him later, it looked like the same type of concept. When you have a rookie be able to pick that up and immediately turn around. How much does that do for the confidence that you're working to establish with them? Oh, it's huge. You know, when you see a guy bounce back after a misstep, be able to handle that and move on and then make the play for you. It's huge. You know, he made another play for me in this two minute today. You know, very good to get us the Phantom holding call, but he was able to make a play, tight coverage, you know, rip the ball in there. He was able to go up and make a big play for me.  And if he's not a clean win, I'm able to throw it to him in a spot where he goes and makes the play. It builds a lot of confidence from my seat and being able to throw him the ball.  It's part of it, you know, where I'm going to try to push our guys and demand excellence from our guys, right? Everything is not going to be perfect, but when it's something that we've gone over multiple times and we kind of expect guys to know, then I'm going to try to hold people accountable, you know, obviously starting with myself and trying to hold myself the most accountable out of anybody out there. But from my seat, it's my job to hold our offensive guys accountable and push them day in and day out so that we can be the most effective as we can possibly be on Sundays. As far as Cal goes, what have you learned about his attitude, his work ethic, maybe even what he plays from being around in the past couple of months? Yeah, he's a shifty guy, you know, I think that's what stands out immediately is his shiftiness. He's able to use his quickness, his lateral quickness and change of direction to get himself open in a lot of different situations, a lot of different routes. He has a good understanding of finding the open areas and this has a knack for getting open, you know, at the end of the day. That's what you love to see from a receiver is one way or another, you know, whether it's a big strong physical guy or him as a little bit smaller quicker guy, you know, using your skill set to find ways to get open.  Brian, he says out here where you've been pretty accurate with the football and, you know, been able to get it into some tight windows. How much of that is just your comfort level and how much of that is guys doing the right things on the on their end to get in the right spot for you to throw it? It takes both, right? You know, I think when I have the confidence that a guy is going to go make a play for me in tight coverage, it allows me to rip it in there and trust that they're going to make a play. You know, if you don't quite have that trust, then maybe you don't make the throw or don't trust the throw as much so you're not going to end up being as accurate. So at the end of the day, when guys are making plays for me in tight coverage on the field, it gives me a lot of trust to rip it in their direction. And they've shown to make plays. So I'm excited to see, you know, where we can take this thing. You're taking a lot of shots downfield and it's pretty accurate there. Is that something by design or is it just kind of like where your reads are taking you? It seems like you're doing it more than before. Yeah, you know, I think it's all kind of play dependent and what we have going, I think coverage dependent, right?  You know, Racy's made several plays for me down the field. He's big, he's strong, he's physical and he's getting open. So a guy like that getting open down the field gives you a lot of confidence, like I said, just to keep throwing the ball and hopefully we can keep making plays down there. Can you mention, Racy, is there something different this year because it seems like he's having more impact on practice? Yeah, I don't know exactly what it is, but I think he's playing with a lot of confidence. He's big, he's strong, he's physical. He's been here for a couple of years now, so he knows what to do and knows what we expect of him and he's making the plays.  Have you ever heard you talk about guys making plays specifically for you? I heard it in the series XM interview you did over the weekend. Is there more of an ownership of the offense for you personally with this group this year? I don't know, I take ownership every year, but I keep saying the same thing. It just gives me a lot of confidence when guys aren't making plays. I think early on you're kind of giving guys an opportunity, right? They haven't had the opportunity to make a play, especially some of the young guys. You give them an opportunity and they make the play, then you give them another opportunity and then you kind of build that confidence. Even if you don't make every one, you get that confidence that they're going to make more than they don't. At the end of the day, that's what it comes down to. Like I said, beating the guy across from you and if QB gives you a chance making a play on the ball from our seats as quarterbacks, if a guy has shown to do that, it's our job to get him a ball in a spot where they can go get it. If a guy doesn't do that, say you give him opportunities and he doesn't make plays for you.  Yeah, no doubt. I mean, I think that's pretty universal, right? Whether it's basketball or football, you know, if somebody has a hot hand and is continuing to make plays for me, then you're going to try to find a way to get that person the ball. You know, if it's basketball, someone's shooting and they're on fire, you're going to try to keep feeding that person, keep getting them shot. So yeah, I think that's definitely a factor.  We're not playing full tackle, but there's collisions, there's contact. And if you can show me that you can make it out here on the practice field consistently, I have a lot of confidence that they'll be able to make it in the game. Presumably, you'll get a few less live reps over the next handful of days as you go around the first three seasons of the day after recovery day and all that. What do you, what does the offense need to do in this time when you may not get as much of that? Yeah, I think we're going to be working some situational reps in the next couple of days. So I may not be as intense physically, but mentally we have to be on top of it. It's things that come up, you know, once a season, twice a season, maybe. And when they do, you got to be able to be effective. So it's going to be important for us to be able to lock in and take advantage of the opportunity to rep these things. That way, if they do come up in the season, we can nail. How do they seem less consistent? You know, Nick's consistent. You know, I think you look at from day one, a guy coming in and being the same guy each and every day. And I think obviously his role has grown over his time here. I think his confidence is up and he's playing some really good football. I have a lot of confidence in him right now, but he's a guy who's smart. He knows every position we can put him at X, F, Z, you know, play special teams. Really just a utility player for us and allows us a lot of flexibility and on offense to change the personels, move him in and out. He has size, he has length, he has strength. He's tough. So he has everything we're looking for in a football player and his ability to move from position to position creates a lot of opportunities for us. Ryan, you've been a lot different about this one for you personally. Anything that stood out? You're playing how you approach it, anything? I don't know. You know, I try to approach every day with an intention and a purpose to get as much as I can out of the day. You know, whether it's leading the guys, pushing the guys, pushing myself, trying to get something out of each and every day. I don't take for granted the opportunity to come out here and work and to get better and push the guys around me. And it's a lot of fun for me to have these conversations with our guys and then have it show up in a team rep or a 7 on 7 rep and we make the play. You know, that gives me a lot of energy, a lot of juice, just knowing that, hey, I see something on tape. I go to a guy, I have the conversation. Next time it comes up in a practice rep, we're able to hit it. Just seeing that happen several times over the course of this camp so far gives me a lot of confidence of the ability to be able to take that throughout the season, seeing something on tape and be able to translate it to a game rep and make it a play. Are you pushing these guys harder? Yeah, I think so, probably so. You know, I think I'm trying to push these guys each and every day. Like I said, don't want to take any day for granted out here, but I'm going to try to push them and get the best out of them as well as myself.  So if we can all do that, if everyone who steps foot on that field can push themselves and the leaders can push the guys around us to get the best out of everybody, we're going to be a really good football team. You know, I think it'd be awesome for us to, you know, I think race's ability to stretch the field and then, you know, adding the other things that he can do underneath for us. Just size, strength. He's catching the ball really well and that confidence to go make the play when the ball's in the air is everything. So adding another weapon for us, you know, that maybe hadn't been accounted for beforehand is exciting for me and exciting for this offense that we have another playmaker we use. Thank you. Hey, Teresa. Good morning, Mike. Well, 10 practices in the camp. Does it feel like the NFL maybe is back to normal, you know, after two years of the pandemic and all the protocols, et cetera? Does it, does it, and how nice is it to be at this point and being able to focus mostly on football? Well, I mean, I think we're always concerned about everybody's safety's ours and the health of our families. And I think that hopefully we're past that. You know, we wish we would have more room for fans, you know, with some of the construction that we have going on. It's, it's been hard. So we're trying to get as many people out of that we can and, you know, and hopefully we can get some of them out when we practice against Tampa Bay and Arizona. What goes into Mike, I guess, decision on maybe who needs work in preseason games, who maybe you hold back and when do you finally make decisions on some guys? I mean, those are probably determined already. I think you just try to evaluate what's been going on at practice.  And there'll be some guys that that don't play in the game. And hopefully there'll be a lot of guys that need that opportunity to kind of help themselves, help define roles and, you know, show us that they're ready to help us out. What was Dylan's ratings improved over the last 10 days in his training camp? Well, he's competing. You know, he's competing and he understands that he's in there with Nick and we're trying to give both those guys an opportunity to establish the role that we talked about and then, you know, help to develop our team and build our team and, you know, I see him, you know, doing a better job at the top of the pocket or some of these guys, you know, kind of counter back in and he's really focused on that. I think that his knowledge in our system is really expanded and, you know, need to continue to build and develop and be a good opportunity to continue to work. You know, we've got a game against the different opponents, so that's always a challenge up front. You've been going against the same guy for quite a while. Ryan talked about trusting the guys, trusting what he sees in practice more than maybe what he sees in a preseason game from guys Thursday night. How much of it is you want to see the practice field carry over to the game? Would love to, you know what I mean? We'd love to go out there and see the technique and the fundamentals and see who's ready to play in a live situation, you know. Hopefully guys get tired and can fight through it and hopefully there's mistakes that they make that they can fight through and just kind of see who can play within a flow of the game. And, you know, just start to be instinctive when plays start to repeat, which I'm sure they will. I'm sure they'll have the same, you know, limited menu. Maybe they won't, I don't know, but I'm guessing some players will repeat who can take the information from the beginning of the game. Maybe even when they weren't in to go in there and use that information to help them and, you know, who can go and play special teams and then go and play offense or defense. Ryan, as you were getting into the second layer of the offense, where has that gotten cleaner from your standpoint? Well, I think with some guys it's gotten cleaner. I think with other guys, you know, as the installation has started to mount, you know, there's been a little bit of, you know, a slowdown. So, you know, that's where we as coaches have to be able to recognize that and make sure that we're just not glossing over things that we're slowing down again and saying, hey, these are whatever mistakes that came up. And, you know, that's why we coach and practice and find ways to walk through.  That they're, you know, using all that information and then using all that energy for when the balls, you know, snapped. And so, you know, we have to be able to get, there's a lot of stuff that we still are going to put in that we're going to use in the season. You know, tomorrow will be critical day for us with the situations. Mike, through 10 days, what have you seen from Malik maybe in terms of the demeanor of handling the ups and downs of being a quarterback? Well, the ups and downs, I think that's great. I think his, you know, his ability to move on to the next play to be able to process things quickly and understand when it was a mistake and, you know, being able to be coached has been great. You know, we just have to continue again, you know, as we move forward here and some of the stuff that we're doing to be able to handle the operation, making sure that it's clean. We, you know, we did some of the stuff on the ball today. How important that process is for the quarterback.  I think he's done a really nice job. How much do you evaluate the guys harder this year? And he said that he was. Have you noticed Ryan pushing?  I think that that's probably intentional. You know, I think he knows when to push guys and when to pull them along. And sometimes, you know, how you have to approach certain guys to get the best out of them. And, you know, if I'm a receiver, that's the most important relationship that we'll have on our football team is the one with the quarterback and the receiver. Because, you know, that is the guy throwing the ball. So wherever he needs him or wants him on a particular route or versus particular coverage, that's where I would be if I wanted to try to get the ball.  Special teams is a large part of the game. They set the table for what we're trying to do and offense and defense.  And although it's an opportunity to change momentum, create momentum, cover and kickoffs, you know, trying to create with a kickoff return or a punt return. So I'm excited to see us, you know, go out there and play and see guys that can return kicks and who can cover kicks. And that'll be a large part of the evaluation. Was that intentional on Ryan pushing the guys more this year? Was that something that you had discussed with him wanting to see him do or something that he told you? I think that's all of us. I think that's between me, Ryan, the offensive staff, Todd, you know, just taking ownership of this thing and making sure that, you know, they give the quarterback an opportunity to correct him or tell him what he wants to tell him. You know, Rob can fill in whatever blanks or, you know, Todd can fill whatever blanks in with, you know, with Ryan. Is there something that is said for the phrase gamer? Can you see something from guys in game action that you maybe can't out here? I mean, we think practice is important. You know, I think the ability to come out here and focus and perform in the way that we want to practice, I think, is critical and important. I'm not going to say that, you know, we want a whole lot of gamers. You know, we want guys that are prepared and ready to go and that can execute. And maybe some guys, you know, level of play will increase. There'll be a better tackler because we, you know, we don't tackle much or you say, well, I didn't really see that from him in practice. But I don't know about gamer. Kyle Phillips, what are some of the things you're seeing that has, you know, warranted him getting significant snaps, especially as a rookie? When he gets open, catches the ball, he knows where to go. Looks like the quarterback trusts him, whether it's man. I think he does a good job of recognizing whether it's man or zone and how he wants to run his route and be indecisive. Of the receiving is determined by Ryan's level of trust or his relationship with those guys. Is that something that you heavily factor in when determining who's earning those first team reps out there with them? I think it's just about production, about who we feel like is improving and who's earned them. I would say that those probably would parallel each other. Did you envision Tim Kelly working with the tight ends so much when you hired him or is that something that kind of has evolved? I mean, I think that that's where, you know, I asked him to kind of concentrate during practice, you know. I mean, Tim can be valuable out there helping tight ends, helping young guys, helping the position. Same thing it is every day. Come in with an intent to learn and focus on the things we talked about that are important with training camp and be attentive in meetings and execute whatever it is that we ask them to. That's all we ask every day. How appreciative to be back on the field in an actual game setting for the first time in a while.  Yeah, each and every day.  That's not going to be possible, but it just keeps showing up to work, keeps practicing, keeps working the technique and shows up in the meetings ready to learn, ready to fix any mistakes that showed up.


We have to contain this. Can you determine the cause of the demonic invasion until the Resup satellite is brought back online? Samuel Hayden, I think we can work it both. Demonic presence at unsafe levels. Lockdown in effect. Lockdown.


I spent evenings sitting inside watching cable news I've become satisfied with the idea that there was nothing I could do Then you started to become restless, started to get engaged Occupy Wall Street set up tents in Zuccotti Park on September 17, 2011 to protest corporate greed and the influence of the big banks and wealthy donors on our political system Solidarity protests sprung up all over the country, including one in Athens that would have a big impact on local politics Solidarity So many cities involve United States sometimes, but we're trying to make it that way Tim Densen became a commissioner in 2018 and now in 2022 he's at the end of a very successful first term This is his story and the story of how a local protest movement changed Athens' politics forever Thanks for joining me Tim Sure Happy to be here Your time as commissioner is coming to an abrupt end in a couple months and looking back on your first term I think it's such an interesting story that I wanted to do an episode on it Full disclosure, I've been heavily involved in everything that we're going to be discussing today So I might be a bit biased about it I'm not trying to hide that, I wanted to throw that out there The Occupy Athens movement began in October about just 11 years ago Can you tell me why that happens? Why there was a local presence for the Occupy Wall Street movement in New York? Athens is a metro area that had a lot of people who were being impacted by the grievances that brought about Occupy in general, vast income and equality So many of the rich and billionaires were getting so many extra benefits and loopholes made for them while working class people struggled just to get by I can say what spoke to me about the Occupy movement even more than those social justice and economic justice issues was the very creative ideas behind the protests We're going to occupy space as part of the protests It was a very communal, populist kind of thing and it was all supposed to be one day I remember there was an organizing meeting where I saw them on Facebook That's like, hey, come make signs, we're going to have a one day Occupy protest of solidarity The next morning our plan was, I want to say it was like 9am or 8am we were supposed to come out and I had work that day but I was like, I'm going to get up early and come out before I have to go to work and I came out and it was probably like 80 of us by the time I left it was, you know, quite a few people I was like, okay, this is a lot more people were coming than going and I had to go to work and I went to work but when I was at work I was just still so excited from the energy and the people were coming and there was talk of us doing, you know, a meeting that night and possibly having a dinner that night and it was like, it was starting to grow so I was very excited at work and I decided like, alright, my shift is over I'm driving back down there and I came back down here and stayed late into the night What shall main long term or short term go? We want our voices heard and we want there to be dialogue We want the corruptive role of money and power and politics to be discussed The first step is discussion and you need to have that between like, enough of the public as possible and that involves everybody being well informed of the facts and then they're discussing their opinions based on the real facts Over those next few days, weeks and months I spent many nights out here sleeping out here I spent countless hours talking and learning with individuals really growing my own political understanding my own understanding around social justice, racial justice, economic justice it really turned to me and I think a lot of other people into a bit of an informal school on politics and economics and everything and it was just completely life changing to me and it showed me that I can do something even if it's small, I can do something and I felt very empowered from that especially whenever I felt maybe solidarity for the really first time as I like all of a sudden linked up with all these people who most of them I had never known before in my life and we started having these like real, sincere, genuine conversations about what was wrong with the world and what we think needed to change and how we could fix it Eventually Occupy Athens started focusing on local issues instead of national ones Tell me about how that transition occurred like what were some of the first local issues that you got involved in Yeah, I think that's one of the more interesting things that happened We were definitely focused on national politics, national economics simultaneous to this, there was, I think it started out as a very separate movement happening was protests and organizing against a downtown Walmart which would have been just down the street about half a mile and while Occupy didn't really take a stance specifically on the development as much definitely took a stance on some of the quote-unquote back door meetings closed door meetings that were going on around it and some of the questionable things that helped bring it about and which also helped kill a thing called Project Blue Heron which was going to be a big river district redevelopment thing and be more community focused There was a big rally at City Hall against this development again which Occupy spoke and which we had all decided that we were going to Occupy City Hall and so me and other organizers stood on the steps of City Hall announcing that we were going to Occupy City Hall This Walmart development is only a symptom of a larger problem Corruption in our local, state and national government and the tendency for those governments to side with corporate interests over the interests of the people The public was greeted with open arms in the mayor's office The people of our city had vital information hidden from them behind closed door meetings and were silenced when trying to speak their minds to the mayor and commissioners I am proud to say that Occupy Athens, acting alone and totally separate from People for Better Athens will be occupying City Hall until they bring a whole series of town hall meetings with the purpose of gathering the input from people of this town about the City Project really the pivot point here was the police were called threatened to arrest all the protesters even after they were told that they could stay and soon after that the mayor put on the agenda of one of the committees an urban camping law that was going to outlaw people from the area with the camp downtown So do you think this law was targeted at Occupy or was it more like do you think it was also against trying to get rid of the homeless population? I think it was definitely looked at as one of those things that could do both issues, two birds with one stone I think for the current government at that time and this was Mayor Nancy Denson This was Mayor Nancy Denson and there definitely were urban camping laws being passed in other places including Atlanta that was making it very difficult for the homeless population to be able to even sleep anywhere without breaking the law being arrested We saw I think a responsibility there that we helped bring about that reaction yet the people who were really going to be hurt by that law were going to be people unhoused people who are struggling So I think we felt a real responsibility to fight that law and so to do so we had to really engage with how local government works Myself and other folks started going to not only the Mayor and Commission meetings but the committee meetings were discussing this finding out what the rules of engagement and process were with those meetings how public comment worked and how we could skirt around those rules did a lot of organizing work around that and we successfully stopped that law and to me that success was really I think what gave the energy for myself and all the other Occupy organizers to really go to that next level and we all started learning these skills we figured things out as we screwed up and covered new ideas So you're saying as you learned all these skills and knowledge about how to interact with the local government you decided that hey I could use this for more than just the urban camping law I could apply this to transit advocacy I could apply this to living wages advocacy We started getting a little bit of notice and we were I think a little more impact and we realized what potential was there Before he became a commissioner Tim ran for Mayor in 2014 against incumbent Nancy Denson No relation Most of the things that happen that we see that we work on as a commission and some local government tons of little things constantly but they all kind of add up I mean everything from our benches downtown no longer have unnecessary poles down the middle that were being used just to try to be comfortable for people to lay down take a nap take a rest if they needed to Mayor Nancy Denson was very conservative for a democrat but she was running unopposed and that's why Tim says he decided to give her a challenge Did you think that you could win or if not why did you decide to run because you were an unknown candidate at that point Yeah you know I think whenever we launched the mayoral campaign you know everything what we were doing at that point was somewhat a form of protest the whole idea was that if nobody ran against Mayor Nancy Denson that I would and nobody else threw their hat in and so I think we used the opportunity to not only try to win that campaign which I definitely ran to win but knowing that if I didn't at least we're bringing these issues up to the forefront that needed to be brought up talking about that there was a lot of other solutions that weren't being explored like oh we can use this as a movement building entity which we did channeling all that momentum all the volunteers all of the platformer and researcher policy using that all to go into and create Athens for Everyone the political and non-profit that we formed basically and neatly out of that my my speech at the end of the campaign was basically the launching speech of Athens for Everyone this campaign was about me this campaign was about everyone else in this community and in that matter it doesn't matter that I have less votes it doesn't matter at all it doesn't matter that Nancy will have four more years because Nancy is going to have to deal with me and the thousands of other people who voted to have an Athens for everyone and your platform during that run included some very big topics like STI for a living wage for all Athenians guarantee access to pre-K education for all children encourage the spread of affordable housing and then some more focused ones like Sunday bus service, zero fare service legalizing backyard chickens on your platform and you criminalizing cannabis and providing digital recordings of all public meetings so the big issues were still working on but the more focused stuff has mostly all been accomplished by this point and do you think something like fare free bus service would have happened if not for your mayoral run? Absolutely, I don't think it would we very much normalized it over the many years I think it also shows that I think fare free bus service is probably the biggest, most impactful thing that we pulled off that really I think is a complete shift in the way that we think about public services and such you know I don't think that would have happened unless if we hadn't kept with it and sure that was announced on my platform back in 2013 we finally really got it done in 2020, I mean it took seven years it took seven years of like pretty consistent working and pushing on it from all different levels outside from like public advocacy from the policy research and stuff that was done with Athens for everyone to of course the other integral part of being me being on the commission and being on the commission with a lot of other willing commissioners and a mayor who was willing to take this on and really try to do it but even you know some of the commissioners who very much laughed and balked and called it crazy before supported it and voted for it because I think we kind of normalized this idea I also asked about the legacy of the defunct advocacy group Athens for everyone what did it accomplish? I don't think there's any way that we could have said that we would have swept those elections with progressives winning across the basically every single candidate that Athens for everyone endorsed except for one school board member one bringing about a major shift in the way that our local government works and also I think a huge part of this is just bringing so much focus on the local government really bringing about a shift that people need to pay attention to local government that a lot of things can get done here not everything I think sometimes we've maybe shifted too much everybody looks for every solution every problem maybe on the local government which that's not necessarily there but we brought a huge spotlight onto city hall and local government and the fact that people can be engaged with it people can make demands, people can advocate so I think that's that's the legacy despite the remarkable wins in 2018 for Tim's first two years progressives were still a minority on the commission even so they were able to end cash bail for local ordinances they resolved to achieve 100% clean energy by 2035 they instructed police to accept passports as ID at traffic stops to protect the undocumented community and they reacted quickly during the COVID-19 pandemic to set up a shelter in place and mask ordinance so tell me about those first two years was it like you expected you know the commission like when you finally got there in some ways you know it was definitely a ton of work and there was definitely a big learning curve but yeah I'm definitely proud that we were able to get some stuff done we weren't even recording all of our meetings one of the things that I was doing during my campaign and stuff and even after the campaign with Athens for everyone is we were going to the work sessions and recording them and streaming them online because our local government wouldn't do it and I can tell you this like now it's insane that our work sessions were ever not broadcast and recorded because so much gets done there and then in 2020 Deborah Gonzalez a very progressive DA was elected district attorney and Carol Myers was also elected to the commission as well as Jesse Hool got on there as well they became commission under very unfortunate circumstances but Hool was a progressive all those candidates were very progressive and so at this point we weren't even charged by the local government for I think one of the first times ever possibly I think we really hit a tipping point we really did where we had the power and ability to really pursue some of those bigger things that we were just a little bit short of before and that was a game changer so yeah I think once they came on the commission that was really a big pivot point where we had to leverage to get some of these things done that we've been trying to work on for a while just couldn't get them over to the finish line over the past two years commissioners have begun programs like Fair Free Bus Service a police alternative for 911 responses living wages for all county employees an inclusionary zoning policy to encourage affordable housing an eviction prevention program an anti-discrimination ordinance a human relations commission an in town resolution and a police oversight committee what are you most proud of having accomplished um yeah it's hard to say I mean I think I would say the eviction prevention program because it's been I think one of the most directly impactful programs with just like four months under its belt it had already kept 270 families from being evicted from their homes it had a real massive direct impact improvement that happens to those families and that has improvements for the entire community too and the other one I would say would definitely be Fair Free Public Transit but also like public art we have seen a massive increase in the amount of public art that has popped up in our community and a massive increase on how much we started funding public art here and not just so that we created public art for everybody to enjoy that's a big part of it we have a lot of support our artists that we have here in Athens and getting back to affordable housing real quick so I know it's true that that eviction prevention program has helped a lot of people but I also think that the need is possibly greater now than it has been in the past what else can we do going forward like have you really exhausted the options at the local level or is there anything else that we can do not at all a lot of this goes back to all the way back to the recession that during the recession if you look at our growth of our community plus the growth of our housing stock the number of housing units that were being produced it was keeping up at a very comparable ratio up until the recession and then after the recession hits the production of our housing units dropped pretty pretty far down and never has picked back up to the level that it needs to for population of growth so you have that factor you have the pandemic the student housing plus that Athens just has become a very highly desirable place to live plus short term rentals you add all of these things together and when the pandemic happened and as we look now with inflation happening we kind of had this perfect storm for this to happen and so for us to tackle this it requires a lot of different tools it requires us to regulate short term rentals it requires us to find ways to increase the production of housing in general but of course specifically to affordable housing we need to be hitting all of these different approaches it's not where nothing we have a lot of things that still need to be changed our land use map has to be updated and the biggest thing that we have to change that comes to the commission which I'm very worried about is the mindset of commissioners density is not bad density does not mean low quality of life I'm sure you would like to continue this work on affordable housing but you and some of the other progressive commissioners are not running for election this year or you're not able to so would you like to talk about why that's the case? yeah I have some enemies in the wrong places you know there was a very intentional redistricting effort to get myself and commissioners Russell Edwards and Melissa Link unable to run for reelection the people who did this are the republican legislators at the state level people like Houston Gaines or Bill Kouser do you think they're threatened by you like why did they do this? I can say that they definitely don't respect democracy very much but I guess that's not big news is there something specific that they didn't like that you did? I spoke to Houston Gaines who was the sponsor of the bill and he told me that Melissa Link was mean to him he told me that Russell Edwards didn't respect him this is all paraphrase of course basically and that I didn't respect him and that I was never was willing to work with him I never called upon him to work with things spoiler every time we talked about policy I called him every single time he never reached out to me once so what do you think it is? I think it's politics and the way they drew the maps they were drawn in ways to help it try to open the door up for conservatives to get in there you know to me it's just unfortunate that I have political differences with Houston and definitely not always happy with sometimes not happy but you never put your own personal vendettas, personal things over the needs and the choices of the community I think it was just pretty disrespectful to the Athens-Lark County community I plan on using the next four years to serve and work on the school board and bring good things there but also to help organize our community back to be able to have the power to work for the majority of a vocal conservative minority who uses gerrymandering and other tricks to try to bring about their own power Is there anything that you're still working on in the next two months that you'd like to get accomplished before you leave for office? Yes I am busting my ass to get a few things done before I'm out doing tons of work on housing I am hoping to have recommendations for short term rentals out of committee These are things like Airbnb's Airbnb's so that we can put a regulation like how many of them there can be where they can be, how they can operate and that they will have to be paying their taxes and fees and such to the county like any other hotel or any other business has to and then also working very hard to get some recommendations on accessory dwelling units so that people could be able to have say small apartments or in-law suites in their backyard built to again expand our housing stock There's a lot that's going on that I'm hoping that we'll get done a lot of these projects that we've had going on for years I unfortunately won't be on the commission to see them I'll get finalized but I'm hoping they will be done sooner rather than later Yeah well thanks for so much for coming on my show Yeah, thank you and thanks the Athens community for giving me a chance and hopefully they'll give me a chance again in the future What I've learned from all of this is that moving our community in a progressive direction is a long-term project but real change is possible if we stand together and demand it Bye for now


Hi folks. Thank you all for coming. We're gonna go ahead and get started. We have a speaker too that's not yet here but they will be here shortly so I want to get going. My name is Chris Miller. I lead the advocacy and activism work at Ben & Jerry's. I'm just here to act as your emcee although the company is strongly supportive of this legislation. So we're here today to urge the Vermont legislature to move forward with their effort to end qualified immunity. You know, as many of you know, qualified immunity was in fact invented by the courts in the Jim Crow south to prevent people who were victims of police misconduct from having their day in court. The Vermont legislature can fix this problem and we're here today to ask the legislature to act and to pass legislation that would end qualified immunity. We have about 10 speakers. Folks are going to be relatively brief. I'd ask that you hold questions until the end. And so with that, I would invite our first speaker Senator Rom Hinsdale to say a few words. Thank you. Thank you all. Thank you so much for being here on a day that we are recommitting to ending qualified immunity in Vermont. I personally and particularly want to thank Ben Cohen and Jerry Greenfield, not only for standing up for this issue and standing up for criminal justice reform, but also because we should enjoy free ice cream. We should remember that we deserve joy and that everyone deserves to have joy and eat ice cream and remember why life is worth living. And who has that right and privilege been taken away from? It's been taken away from Tamir Rice, who was 12 years old when he was killed by the police. It's been taken away from George Floyd, who can never have ice cream with his daughter again.  And so so often we have to remember that people of color deserve joy, too. They deserve to be able to get a scoop of ice cream with their kids and and pass wisdom and joy on to the next generation. And so often because of corruption, misconduct and police brutality that has taken away from them. I was 13 years old when I was arrested by the LAPD with a friend of mine who is also brown. We were on a street corner, a block away from her house, getting something she needed at the store at about 9 30 at night. And two officers pulled up and the first two questions they asked us were, Are you Mexican? Are you sure you're not Mexican?  They handcuffed us to a bench and they didn't talk to us for most of the rest of this school night. And finally, when they went to call our parents at around 2 AM, another officer came over and I thought, you know, that officer had a look of concern on his face. And I thought finally, you know, I don't I think we've ended up with some really bad police officers who held us for most of the night, didn't share our rights with us, didn't call our parents. And that officer came over and he said, Hey, it's pretty late to have these young girls here on a school night. Don't you think? And the officers that had detained us said, You know what? We're getting overtime for this. It's fine. And that officer that I hoped would be the good cop would be the one to say that's not right. Where have you called their parents? Do they know their rights? Have you talked to anybody? Laughed and walked away. And that's what a system does that has no accountability built in is even if you have a good officer, one who you think shares some concern for your well being as a 13 year old kid. The system doesn't really create a lot of opportunities for them to hold their colleagues accountable. And that officer walked away that night. And that's when I learned that you can't have a system that just relies on good cops to police bad cops. You need actual accountability. You need to end qualified immunity. And remember that officers of the law who have the right and ability to detain people to pull a gun on people and to take away their civil liberties and in some cases take away their life need more accountability, not less than every other job in America. And that's why we're here today to ask folks to end qualified immunity. And it's not just about the folks in other states that we know and my own experience in Los Angeles. You know, we know that Greg Zulo in in Castleton area was detained by the police for having snow on his license plate.  And when he refused, they towed his car, impounded his car, and he had to walk in the snow back to the college campus or Mark Johnson, who will never be able to enjoy ice cream again, who was gunned down in Montpelier, someone with known mental illness who had an air gun in his hand that officers thought was a dangerous weapon. We have issues here in Burlington where you see that black teenagers are detained almost at the same rate as white teenagers in a city where they are a tiny fraction of the population compared to white Burlingtonians and where in Chittenden County, young black men make up 2.5% of the youth population, but 25% of those charged as youthful offenders in court. This is a system that is broken in Vermont that we need to fix in Vermont. And finally, I'll say, you know, I've talked to officers about this legislation because I've spent a decade in the legislature fighting so that law enforcement has the trust they need to do their job and protect and serve all Vermonters. And when we talk about this bill, they say, we can't possibly pass this bill. We have a shortage of law enforcement officers, and this will take away the ability for us to recruit more law enforcement officers. Well, first of all, we don't want the kind of law enforcement officers that don't believe in accountability, that don't believe in oversight of their job, which which Americans and Vermonters are supposed to be guaranteed. And second of all, we have a shortage of nurses. We have a shortage of educators. And do we say just reduce the standards? Just get rid of the accountability measures? You know, who cares if your kids aren't aren't educated as well in school? Who cares if you don't get the quality you need in the hospital? Because we have a shortage of those staff. No, we don't do that. And that's not what we should do for law enforcement either. So I ask and I'm joined by so many other community leaders and 75% of Vermonters in asking that the legislature end qualified immunity and finally bring responsiveness and accountability to law enforcement. Thank you. Thank you, Senator Rom Hinsdale. I did forget to mention that we will be serving ice cream in the shop after this stick around for that. If I can ask representative Selena Colburn to come forward. Thank you. I want to start by thanking everyone for being here and thanking folks for organizing this event. And huge thanks to Senator Rom Hinsdale, Senator Fallon and others who really led on this issue in the Vermont Senate for where to working with them as a member of the Vermont House. It's clear from the stories we just heard from stories we've heard again and again, that our system of justice in this country often delivers anything but justice. It's true in Vermont, where we see documented racial disparities as Keisha just noted in really every step of the criminal legal system process. We have the worst record for disparities and incarcerations in the country in the state of Vermont. And the process of how these disparities happens, it was recently affirmed in a report by the Council of Government that the Legislature commissioned that showed that black people in Vermont are over represented in misdemeanor and felony prosecutions by up to 14 times more likely to be charged with a felony for drug offenses. The good news is that there is truly I believe growing support for transformation of our justice system and for how we respond in this country and in this state to people who cause harm and to survivors and victims of crime. But we have to reevaluate the role of police in our communities to to enact this transformation. We have to be asking ourselves when is a police response the appropriate response? And we also have to be asking in cases where it is, how do we really build trust with police in our communities? There are many answers to this, so I don't want to pretend that qualified immunity is the only answer because that's what happens after something really terrible has happened, right? So we need policies to create equity in our justice system all across the board. We need community oversight of police. We need better training. We need to really investigate alternative responses to what are sometimes called behavioral crises for really understanding when a police officer maybe isn't the right person to be responding. We need to look at seats attorney Sarah George is doing here at limiting what's sometimes called secondary enforcement. Those kind of pull over stops that can then escalate and really rethinking about how we criminalize drugs and poverty and a host of other things in our state that are really social constructions. So ending qualified immunity alone is not enough, but it is a really important piece of this puzzle. Vermonters who experience abuse, injury, or even fatality at the hands of police deserve their day in court. I worked in the state legislature as a member of the House Judiciary Committee on our recent revisions to the police use of force policies that we have. And I can tell you that the laws governing police conduct in this state already include significant balancing factors and protections for officers as they should. So we really need to get rid of this practice of just wholesale shielding officers because that tips the balance and it really nullifies our efforts at reform in other areas. So I want to join Vermonters who have spoken really loudly and clearly in support of ending qualified immunity in this state in support of transparency and accountability and policing. And I really hope that my we'll see this bill cross over from the Senate to the House and really look forward to working on it there and and getting the strongest policy that we can for the state of Vermont. Thank you very much. Thank you Representative Colburn. Next up Senator Becabella. Good afternoon. I think I want to start by saying I come to this not just as a legislator but also as a parent and someone who has studied history for a long time and has been a student of history for a long time. And when I have a platform like this it's really important to lift up other voices who are more directly impacted by this on a regular basis. So I want to talk about the writer Isabel Wilkerson for a moment. Black writer who has an amazing book called cast and what she says is we have an invisible cast system not invisible to her as a black woman but invisible to so many other people in this nation and that we actually are in many ways not different from India and not different from Germany during the Holocaust that we too have a cast system here and she said when you have a cast system and you're not seeing it for what it is you don't see that the structure itself that the society is built on is actually rotten at the base and she like can say to an old house and that you have to tend to that rot you have to tend to the base of the system that is flawed and that's what we are doing by examining qualified immunity for the very first time in 50 years in Vermont and the Senate and saying just because it's been this way doesn't mean it has to stay this way that we have to be able to look under the head of the system and say is it doing the things that it was intended to do or is it having in fact an impact on all of us as a society that's what we're trying to do in the Senate and I want to thank Senator Rom Hinsdale for speaking to you know we've heard from a lot of law enforcement that they're very uncomfortable with this and I could tell you as a gay woman there were people who are very uncomfortable with me having equal rights they were very uncomfortable with civil unions very uncomfortable with civil marriage we have seen this before and it doesn't mean that we as a society shouldn't be examining the system and figuring out is it serving the needs of all people so I am so excited to be here with all of these people behind me I want to keep it brief because there are other voices I want you to hear from more and I just want to thank you for being engaged in this issue I really hope we are going to continue to make progress on this in the Senate and the last thing I want to say is I want to thank Senator Sears and Senator Bruce who I know could not be here but they both believe we must not just accept that something is right just because it's been that way for a long time thank you very much thank you senator ballant next up I'd like to invite Kaya Morris who is the executive director of rights and democracy thank you all for joining us today for this important conversation and just a reminder that black lives still matter we are really fundamentally trying to address in this moment is that we had a cultural awakening that went and reverberated across the globe around the disproportionate relationship we have between those whom we have in place and in place and trusted and trusted in saving and serving our communities from harm to become those that are the actors creating the harm for our communities we have a legacy that goes back to the beginning of this nation's founding that has treated certain individuals as subhuman and as a less deserving of their human rights and so what we found that happened in that last year or two of this pandemic is that people said we're not interested in the status quo that i will not let my brother fall behind and that we must understand that what feels safe for me feels entirely unsafe for someone else and those same pillars we look to for security our visions of terror for some members of our community that people will not seek assistance from law enforcement because they know that their requests and their cries may be twisted and used against them and criminalized them for doing so that there is a constant fear that when you are pulled over that violence may erupt that that particular police officer on that particular day may have made some difficult choices that have led to this unfortunate moment that means the very end of your life and so we were here on the streets and we had youth parked in front of city hall here in burlington and we had things painted on the roads declaring that black lives matter and that this is going to be a new day and what's happening right now it's a retraction we're finding that that same energy is still it's it should be there but it's dissipated and so now it's still the same folks who were putting themselves on the front line to make progress that are actually back in the line of fire because the allies are gone so there was a promise at the beginning of this year at the beginning of this legislative cycle that we were going to put forth a bill to end qualified immunity and that bill has been gutted because the power of the people has not been in the people's house and the urgency the cries and the fear are not felt anymore and so it's easy to go back to what is comfortable instead of what is right so i am so proud to be here in this moment but i am disappointed as well because all the people who slept intense for weeks at a time all the folks who put themselves in the front lines of these protests and dealt with tear gas and rubber bullets all the people who lost their lives in the fight not just in the last few years but over the last few centuries are looking at us and saying what are you doing why are we unable to get this done and so as each of these speakers are going to outline it is crucial that we continue to press forward on making real real actually actualized reform for law enforcement so that we can make a better Vermont and one in which people do not have to fear for their lives nor do they leave as we keep seeing happening over and over again we all deserve better thank you next up i'd like to invite sarah high tower who's the executive director of the peace and justice center happening across quote in particular has been on my mind so i'm gonna start my speech with a quote because that's what we do this one is not an inspiring one restraints why are you so concerned with saving their lives the whole idea is to kill the best or it's and and the war at the end of the war okay this has been my life okay should i go is that good enough should i try it i'll shut up again if they start great so quote not a good quote but i'm gonna quote them which is just straight why are you concerned with saving their lives the whole idea is to kill the bastards at the end of the war if there are two americans and one russian left alive we win general thomas power us air force 1960 and i know that quote sounds like a tangent i promise i will make it work by the end but what i want to say is that the word reasonable and what is reasonable and who defines it and what it means because the word reasonable is very objective i think all of us will agree that if we look at the person next to us we probably have a different definition of what is reasonable to some extent than they do but to another extent i hope that we today are starting to broadly agree on what is reasonable but we're still living in a time where 25 50 75 100 years ago the people who are lifting up as leaders who we were who were creating the standards who got to say what is reasonable when how and where had very little in common with me and what i consider reasonable they were men like thomas power who could reasonably say that three americans and one russian left alive would be a win they were police who could shoot black men on the reasonable suspicion that they looked like black men wearing jeans in a neighborhood where crime had occurred they were the public defenders the judges and the prosecutors who said it is reasonable to shoot first and ask questions later they're the politicians who called black and brown brothers scary that they're super predators that they waged a war backed by billions of dollars what our society has to find is reasonable has very little to do with reason it has a lot to do with who's in power and what we want to do to maintain that power and i think to the point of what kaya just said is that it's wild that what we could consider reasonable wins two years ago one and a half years ago is slowly dwindling away that the allies that we had the momentum that we had is we're not keeping it there's not as much as i love to see all of your faces is a year and a half ago we had momentum to do so much more and i i want us to continue to build up the momentum starting with ending qualified immunity thank you all thank you saraya next up i'd like to invite uh reverend mark hughes the executive director of the remand racial justice alliance and um thank you ben thank you jerry and thanks for all of you come out to meet us today and have a conversation about qualified immunity it is um really unfortunate that we would have to stand before you today and have a conversation about what we all know is just the right thing to do it's it's it's really quite simple i think earlier um at the top of this press conference it was mentioned that the the whole premise of qualified immunity is is really an offshoot of the civil rights movement uh what happened was is is that a law enforcement officer decided to arrest some black ministers who were accompanied by a dozen white ministers in the freedom rides in mississippi because they refuse not to enter a restaurant and that's when qualified immunity started the concept of qualified immunity catch it please um however it was it was an adjustment uh to as chris said at the top of the presentation the kkk act now listen to what i'm trying to tell you this is why this is all stupid is is because the kkk act which was enacted in 1871 at the height of reconstruction was designed to protect black people from protect their civil liberties that's what it was designed to do and it was in 1961 when it was deconstructed and replaced with this idea that there should be this thing called qualified immunity that would make people exempt from that same protection why are we begging for this why is it being positioned in such a way that it's being something taken from the police this is actually a restore of civil liberties this is not taking anything away from anyone but the the bigger question is is why do we even have to have this conversation the logic tells us is is that it doesn't make any sense for anybody to be immune to the law especially the law hello so why why are we having this conversation but there are deeper discussions because it seems that every time we start talking we start talking about civil rights when we start talking about racial justice when we start talking about diversity equity and inclusion we always end up at the doorstep of the police why is that well i encourage you to do your history work because the same reason that this this thing was enacted in the 60s it stands true today and that is there is a racial division along an economic and a political division along racial lines that has always existed in america and it manifests itself in the criminal justice system as well as housing education employment health services economic development transportation all the way across the board so why are we having this conversation when we know that economics is at the center of it and why do we have delays in the economic policy that exists in our legislature today to address it especially having with the legislature having already acknowledged that systemic racism is a thing in a joint resolution last year why are we still having that conversation and i think the other piece of this thing it really has to do with why is it that we have a president pro tem of the senate a judiciary chair who is one of the most powerful people in there why is it that we have so much power behind this bill but yet and still is being dec is being deconstructed and gutted even as we speak where is the power to keep this thing together how could it be that we can have the president pro tem and the chair of judiciary pushing this thing and we still can't get it over the finish line why the reason is is the same reason that we had this thing passed in the house at the national level and the senate refuses to take it up it's because of political and economic power because it doesn't pay certain people to see this come out the way that is supposed to come out so let's call this thing what it is there's political and economic power that's blocking what we're trying to do and it's our voices and it's only our voices that can make this thing come to fruition how is that vote them out vote them out because if they can't get it done this session here in the state of vermont everybody's up for election in november there is no reason why we should not be able to get this done in this place at this time everybody knows that this needs to get done at this place in in this time and if we don't get this done what it means is this one thing and one thing only is that the police are more powerful than the legislator despite rule 25 in the house and despite the sixth and seventh article of the constitution so i encourage you to get busy because what we're what we're really doing is is we're not just holding a legislature accountable in a a certain chamber that is judiciary in the senate we're holding them all accountable and if they can't get this done vote them out send them home we got to get this thing done thank you i got to say it's an honor to be with these advocates of justice thank you for the my name is dwayne peterson and i appreciate the opportunity to share some perspectives i've gathered across my careers i served nine years as a patrol officer with the los angeles police department l.a.p.d and eight years as a special agent with the california department of justice i literally swore an oath to defend the constitution and i proudly serve my community and those were rough years of violent crime los angeles suffered a thousand murders in a single year when i was on duty i understand and deeply respect the challenges of working in public safety then i had the sense to choose vermont and like so many others moved my family here ten years ago i founded co-founded sun common which is the state's largest clean energy business now a holy own subsidiary of another great vermont company isan while those various experiences brought me some insights i'd like to share i'm here in my personal capacity and not on behalf of any of those entities i'm here because i believe the very concept of qualified immunity is simply indefensible notice that those who opposed this reform don't celebrate this bizarre legal doctrine but focus on what they fear would happen when we eliminate it they alleged that it would contribute to police malaise make it more difficult to recruit new folks into law enforcement or that it would burden municipalities i'd like to address each of these qualified immunity is indefensible it doesn't protect law enforcement practitioners from frivolous lawsuits nor from accountability arising from their official actions they're well established pathways in the judicial system to address these rather it exists to prohibit victims whose constitutional rights were violated from seeking justice it only protects those who by definition acted unreasonably now notably those who oppose ending this weird doctrine tend not to defend it but instead alleged harms from enacting this common sense reform police officials claim that morale already challenged during these difficult times as law enforcement seeks to regain the public trust the law enforcement would suffer further by adding this protection for unconstitutional actions and that recruiting would suffer too i don't believe that a full throated defense of upholding the united states constitution would disparate police officers or dissuade others from joining the ranks i saw firsthand how good cops detest the bad cops standing with the constitution can only be good and now as an employer in what is the toughest labor market in my lifetime i know that young people are voracious consumers of media and have intense bs filters on what's right and wrong the pathway to attracting millennials women and bipoc folk into fulfilling careers in public safety is hardly by clinging to vestiges of injustice like qualified immunity better to tout the recent policing reforms enacted and an end to qualified immunity as visible commitments to improved policing as recruiting tools for the next generation we also heard that municipalities would be harmed by the confirmation of constitutional rights one of the aspects i appreciated about the los angeles police department was that i knew that organization had my back i received two department commendations and never a citizen complaint but i knew that if i were unfairly accused or even if i made a mistake on duty la pd would be there for me so to my current job our people are undemnified for their work i believe vermont police would expect the same adding liability coverage for this niche risk is right to protect folks on the front lines but i've also learned a lot from the caring vermont business community including that liability insurance isn't just about protecting a company's assets but in creating a pool that's available to do right by victims of accidents or wrong doing insurance appropriately provides for those who suffer harm our municipalities seeking to shirk that liability and merely shifting the risk and cost to victims that's not right so i believe qualified immunity intended to protect violations of the constitution is indefensible and worries about writing this wrong are unpersuasive as reasons to perpetuate injustice that's my perspective as a former police officer thank you dwayne uh two speakers left introduced jerry greenfield co-founder of ben and jerry's and co-chair of the campaign to end qualified immunity ben and i are here today both as co-founders of ben and jerry's and also as the co-chairs of the campaign to end qualified immunity we've been engaged in this work for the last two years both at the federal level and in about a dozen states and one of the most remarkable things about this effort for justice is the broad ideological base of groups and organizations who are seeking to end qualified immunity it starts at the supreme court with both clarence thomas and sonia satamayor agreeing that qualified immunity needs to be ended or significantly reformed and just last year ben and i co-wrote an op-ed with the general counsel of coke industries urging an end to qualified immunity in new mexico imagine that ben and jerry writing an op-ed with the general counsel of coke industries who would have guessed not us but the issue is that important and that compelling and then look at who we have here today representing all of her month elected officials business people former law enforcement grassroots organizers racial justice advocates it's incredible across the state and we all agree yes police have a difficult job and we want to celebrate the police when they do a good job we say love the good ones and at the same time when people's rights are violated they need to be able to get justice we need to end qualified immunity now thank you and finally ben cohen co-founder ben and jerry's co-chair of the campaign to end qualified immunity first i want to thank the huge majority of vermont police officers who are dedicated to helping out to protecting and serving in all sorts of difficult situations men and women who go about their jobs thoughtfully and with concern and care for the people they encounter every day and here's some things that we as vermoners and americans all believe in no one should be above the law everybody is entitled to their day in court everybody deserves equal justice under the law and you'd be hard-pressed to find a vermoner who believes that police should be immune from prosecution if accused of breaking the law let's face it the status quo is not working trust in our police is at an all-time low and it's trust between the community and police that is foundational to effective public safety we need to understand that trust and accountability go hand in hand if you're not willing to be held accountable people aren't gonna trust you the way to rebuild that trust is not to persist in the same old ways it's to bring allegations of police abuse into the sunlight into a court of law and let a jury decide that's really all overturning qualified immunity is about letting an aggrieved person have their day in court and letting a jury decide we believe in government of the people by the people for the people ours is a representative democracy where our elected representatives support the will of the people 75 percent of vermoners believe that police officers should not be immune from prosecution police officers disagree i get that it's natural everybody would like to be immune from prosecution nobody wants to be held accountable if somebody told me hey ben you're currently immune from prosecution is it okay if we take away that immunity hell no but when police officers say that they can't do their jobs without immunity from prosecution what they're actually saying is that they do not believe they can do their jobs without violating people's constitutional or civil rights and that is not the kind of policing we want in a free society i get that it's easier to do the job if you don't have to worry about trampling people's rights but protecting and serving some people while abusing others is not the kind of policing vermoners want overturning qualified immunity is not about saying a policeman is guilty or that he or she did something wrong all it's about is allowing a person who feels abused to have their day in court and letting a jury decide that is justice that is our system of accountability saying that police are not to be held accountable is unjust all we're saying is that police should be held accountable in a court of law just like everybody else well people say this is vermont it can't happen here but it does and we've had a lot of examples today about how it continues to happen in our state mostly toward people of color so people who tend to be abused by a rogue cop don't look like me they tend to be they tend to be people of color or lower income so it's difficult for people like me to understand the problem because it's not our lived reality we need to hear the voices of those not like us you've been telling me to shut up for years when i've been telling you about this very that are crying out for justice we need to believe what they're telling us we need to stand up for those who suffer the day-to-day indignities of being other it's white people it's white people the majority that have the power in our society so i'd like you to think about three numbers the first is 450 000 the second is 1700 and the last number is five 450 000 the people of vermont have spoken over 75 of us that's 450 000 vermont citizens want to hold police officers accountable by overturning an antiquated doctrine 1700 there's 1700 police in our state who do not want to be held accountable we get that but being held accountable is a requirement of any job and it should be especially a requirement for people we authorize to use physical and lethal force in our name five but somehow or other our system of representative government is failing us and a committee of five people in the vermont legislature appears to be about to eviscerate senate bill 254 this will deny the full legislature the ability to vote to end qualified immunity and it'll continue to keep bed cops immune from prosecution that is not a representative democracy that is a police state in which cops are above the law there's a clear desire of vermonters who care about the rights of their fellow citizens so we ask pass a bill to overturn qualified immunity out of committee so that the full legislature has a chance to vote on it five people should not use their power to overrule the will of 450 000 vermonters thank you thank you then i assume uh folks participating the press council we have to take any questions if you have them and then we will open the shop for folks who want ice cream we'll have about 10 minutes to get people in and out so thank you certainly the bill has been watered down quite a bit i mean is the form that it's in right now is is that something that that you guys would support or is that kind of a non-starter on your end understanding and talking with members of the coalition that what was being discussed last week in committee is not a compromise that they could get behind so the committee is going to continue to do their work the conversation is not done and so we're we're continuing to engage the committee with a path forward so but i think i got a strong message this morning as it stands now the compromise that was considered last week is not something that we can get behind the only thing i would add is that i have another piece of legislation s250 that has the end to qualified immunity intact it also has independent investigation into use of force making sure that if there is misconduct from an officer it's put into a registry and follows them so they can't escape accountability for actions of misclassifying information or misconduct as well as banning the use of false information to coerce a confession so we have a comprehensive bill in senate government operations and my hope is that the pro tem will join me in helping to advance that bill out of senate government operations that has ending qualified immunity if we can't remain strong on ending qualified immunity as it stands in senate judiciary can i speak people can i speak i'm a victim of a heinous crime bill that was passed by madeline qman and i am roger may cover the eyes of god held me up but had vast against the brick wall that they exposed the front level of my brain it kicked the left eye out of my head i am a victim tom trombly found me and if he had i would be dead i am the reckoning of christ and i kid you not i want you people to know that i'm writing a book called how about me by robert william right and you're gonna make me a millionaire and i'm gonna take care of everybody i'm supposed to do this today i came back god bless you all i walk and the eyes of christ and jesus christ and the mother of mary thank you all for what you do for everybody and everybody is equal and in the eyes of god take care thank you sir thank you thank you and thank you all for what we do for each other uh i'm coming back i'm gonna buy eight candles about the tree of life at my family's spirit fair just for a teeny fabric thank you