What are your thoughts on the Laquan McDonald case, and what kinds of results do you expect?
I was angry when I saw the video. Right now I’m sitting in front of you in a suit, but on another day when I take my glasses off, put my contacts in, and put on a hoodie and decide I’m going to walk down to the corner store and grab something real quick and head to my apartment, something like that could happen to me. I remember going to the University of Chicago feeling in some cases that the police weren’t always my friend. I know that the majority of police officers do their job well and honorably, but at the same time if you are an African American of a certain age, you can’t help but to remember the front-page splash of Emmett Till. You cant help but connect this to Trayvon Martin, Eric Garner and this continuum of violence against black bodies and this feeling in our communities that it happens with impunity. Part of the problem is that the police need to view everyone, no matter what their skin color as a citizen to be protected and not a population to be controlled. You can’t shoot a human being who is on the ground defenseless, fourteen more times after he has been shot, if you look at the person and see your son, your brother,,your uncle, your wife. You can’t do that. We have to change the culture. My hope is that we take this moment for necessary reforms. We will say, look we have got to open to the fraternal order of police contract and say if you have multiple complaints against you that we can get rid of you, before you take someone’s life. We have to change the so-called Independent Police Authority. In 409 shootings since 2007, they have found one to be a result of misconduct. The mayor fired the head of the commission, that’s good. He fired McCarthy and Anita Alvarez needs to go in March. We need wholesale reform. If you are on the side of God and law this affects you.
Talk about your body camera legislation.
We started working on this bill back in January. There were a couple of pieces to it. There was increased training for crisis intervention for police. There was a bill that was actually my bill that they took the language verbatim and put in in on independent investigation on police involved killings. Then we created a funding stream for body cameras. We think body cameras are very important and we want to find a way to get them for every police department. Think about it like this. If we didn’t have this video of Laquan getting shot, we wouldn’t have this situation where we see something resembling justice beginning to start for the McDonald family. The camera made a difference. We have to make sure the police turn the cameras on and keep the audio on. There has to be some accountability in cases where the equipment is malfunctioning. Another thing that the bill does is if a prosecutor decides they are not going to prosecute, a report has to be released to the public to show the evidence and why they will not prosecute.
How do you feel about working with the youth groups like BYP100 and We Charge Genocide?
I am very open to it. I have been very proud of our youth and how they have conducted themselves. Many times you hear the kids don’t care, they are not involved or engaged, but we have seen the opposite of that here in Chicago. For the most part they have been on target with their demands.
What do your constituents expect from you generally?
The thing that I have always said to my constituents is that I will always be honest with the challenges we face. I don’t do “happy talk”. So if I have a district out in the suburbs who are woking on their second and third Olympic size swimming pool and I have schools down the street from me who don’t have desks or pens, I can’t wait on the Governor to suddenly decide he is going to have to tax his rich buddies to pay for all of this if I can say, you guys get one Olympic sized swimming pool and we get libraries, a school nurse, field trips and our kids get to get enriched. I would love to be able to do all of these things, but if I can’t do all of these things and you are already 200% of where you need to be and these kids are falling behind because they dont have the same kind of investment we are going to have to tweak our system a bit so that you get a little bit less and the kids who need it get a little bit more. Thats the kind of conversation and honesty that I have to provide to my constituents. They expect someone who not only talks about what they want to do but also has a plan to do it. They expect somebody who will actually deliver and do the work.
What word of encouragement do you have for anyone pursuing their goals and dreams?
Don’t listen to the haters. Find mentors who care about you, believe in who you are and love you for who you are.
Learn more about Christian Mitchell at his website https://www.christianmitchell26.org/
