"I will not be lectured."
Kamala Harris, former prosecutor, says the family of Breonna Taylor deserves justice — and Americans deserve criminal justice reform.
Kamala Harris, former prosecutor, says the family of Breonna Taylor deserves justice — and Americans deserve criminal justice reform.
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00:00Look, and I'm a former career prosecutor.
00:02I know what I'm talking about.
00:04Bad cops are bad for good cops.
00:14Senator Harris, in the case of Breonna Taylor,
00:17was justice done?
00:19You have two minutes.
00:20I don't believe so, and I've talked with
00:22Breonna's mother, Tamika Palmer,
00:25and her family,
00:26and her family deserves justice.
00:29She was a beautiful young woman.
00:31She had as her life goal to become a nurse,
00:33and she wanted to become an EMT to first learn
00:36what's going on out on the street,
00:38so she could then become a nurse and save lives.
00:42And her life was taken, unjustifiably,
00:45and tragically, and violently.
00:47And it just, it brings me to, you know,
00:52the eight minutes and 46 seconds that America witnessed,
00:56during which an American man was tortured and killed
01:03under the knee of an armed, uniformed police officer.
01:10And people around our country, of every race,
01:15of every age, of every gender,
01:19perfect strangers to each other,
01:21marched shoulder to shoulder, arm in arm,
01:25fighting for us to finally achieve that ideal
01:29of equal justice under law.
01:31And I was a part of those peaceful protests.
01:35And I believe strongly that, first of all,
01:39we are never gonna condone violence,
01:42but we always must fight for the values that we hold dear,
01:48including the fight to achieve our ideals.
01:50And that's why Joe Biden and I have said on this subject,
01:54look, and I'm a former career prosecutor.
01:56I know what I'm talking about.
01:58Bad cops are bad for good cops.
02:00We need reform of our policing in America
02:03and our criminal justice system,
02:04which is why Joe and I will immediately ban chokeholds
02:08and carotid holes.
02:09George Floyd would be alive today if we did that.
02:12We will require a national registry
02:14for police officers who break the law.
02:17We will, on the issue of criminal justice reform,
02:20get rid of private prisons and cash bail,
02:24and we will decriminalize marijuana,
02:26and we will expunge the records
02:29of those who have been convicted of marijuana.
02:31This is the time for leadership
02:33on a tragic, tragic issue of unarmed black people
02:37in America who have been killed.
02:39I was the first statewide officer
02:42to institute a requirement that my agents
02:44would wear body cameras and keep them on full time.
02:47We were the first to initiate a requirement
02:51that there would be a training for law enforcement
02:51on implicit bias, because yes, Joe Biden and I recognize
02:55that implicit bias does exist, Mr. Vice President,
02:58contrary to what you may believe.
03:00We did the work of instituting reforms
03:03that were about investing in reentry.
03:05This is the work that we have done
03:07and the work we will do going forward,
03:09and again, I will not be lectured by the Vice President
03:14on our record of what we have done
03:17in terms of law enforcement
03:18and keeping our communities safe
03:20and a commitment to reforming
03:21the criminal justice system of America.