 Please, please. I can't breathe. Man dies after being detained by Minneapolis police. My stomach hurts. My neck hurts. Everything hurts. I need water or something. George Floyd cries out. He continues. Please, please. I can't breathe, officer. I cannot breathe. I cannot breathe. The grown man even calls out to his mother, saying heartbreakingly, mama. When his actual words stop, his agonizing moans begin. George Floyd dies after saying he can't breathe with cops knee on his neck. Welcome to Sister Power. I'm Sharon Thomas Yarbrough. On this episode of Sister Power, Honolulu civil rights attorneys Daphne Barbie-Wooten and Andre Wooten talk about the killing of African Americans as racism disease. Aloha Daphne. Welcome to Sister Power. And we are talking about thank you for coming. We are talking about this horrific event that happened on Monday. And let's just jump right in. What are your thoughts upon viewing the videos? The murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis was horrific, horrendous. It made me sick to my stomach. You could actually see the three officers on him with the one with his knee and his full weight on Mr. Floyd's neck. You were able to see the lies of the police officers told after they murdered him when they said, oh, he was resisting arrest. And then they showed the video. He was handcuffed. He was not resisting arrest. There's no call for murdering someone like that. It's just another example of the line of history and horrific killings of black men and black women. Not just by police officers, but by vigilantes. Because remember, this comes on the hill of Ahmaud Arbery, who was jogging down the street in Georgia and was shot by two white males who decided he must be a burglary suspect because he's jogging on their street. Shot him and killed him in cold blood. He had no weapon on him. And then they had a friend videotape the murder following them to help them if they needed help in killing him. It's just horrific. And then we already have a lot of problems with COVID-19. And then to see this attack against black men and black women, because remember also between Ahmaud Arbery's murder and Mr. Lloyd's murder, there was a woman, an African American woman, who was sleeping in her bed in an apartment and police broke down the door undercover and shot her several times. And that again was a cold blooded murder. She wasn't doing anything but sleeping. Then there was on March 2020, another young man was in his car and he was stopped in Indianapolis and the police killed and shot him. His murder was on Facebook. Facebook Live, he streamed it. And you could hear the officer after he's killed saying, Oh, I guess they're not going to have an open casket laughing. This is a murder of human beings. And yeah, it makes me very sick and myself, not just me, but a lot of people sick. In the George Floyd matter, the police just came out today. The uniform police said that they don't condemn this type of behavior. And police officer, they were fired. But let's see them get arrested. Let's see them get charged for murder and conspiracy to commit murder. How can you have a teenager who's videoing the murder tell you, let him go. And he's breathing. Please, I can't say it. Please, I can't breathe. Ask him for his mother and you still keep your knee with all of your weight on his neck. That's horrific. It's nauseating. Fortunately, the lawyers are getting involved. We have Benjamin Crump, who also represented Trayvon Martin. And it's was way back getting involved in his representing the next of kin, the sisters, the mothers. And you know, but this needs to stop. Yeah, I still can breathe, you know, right now. Just listen to you go over the events that are happening in less than a month. We're still seeing in witnesses that what legal rights have been violated? Walk us through that beside them murdering an innocent man. There's a lot of legal rights violated and civil rights and constitutional rights. Murder number one crime has been committed in all of the three, all of the four cases I mentioned, crimes have been admitted. And they need to start over some of these people. They did arrest the two men who shot and killed Ahmed Arbery. They haven't arrested the police officers that killed George Floyd. They haven't, to my knowledge, arrested the police officers that killed Breonna Taylor, who was shot in her bed. And they haven't arrested the police officers that killed the young man, Sean Reeds in Mindy Annapolis and laughed and said, I guess they're going to have a closed casket. How cavalier is that considering another person's life who's a human being? And none of these four people were violating the law. None of them had any weapons. They were just murdered. So in addition to that, you can always file a wrongful death lawsuit against the perpetrators. And in some instances, you have to file a wrongful death against the perpetrators because a lot of times and most often, sadly, to say the criminal justice system doesn't work. And many times police officers or vigilantes are not arrested. And in fact, when you consider Ahmed Arbery's case, the two vigilantes who shot and killed him, two prosecutors in Georgia did not think it was a crime. So they weren't arrested until you had the video. The videotapes showed everything that happened two months later. And independent people looked at the video and it was shown all around the world. And then they decided, oh, I think we better take action. And then they charged the two men, father and son, with murder, as well as the person who videotaped the murder with conspiracy. Well, getting back to George Floyd, getting back to George Floyd, prosecutors and United States attorney are trying to decide if excessive force was used. Let's talk about their tactics with that. We the entire United States are witnesses. Everyone who owns a TV and a computer. Yes, we are witnesses. So talk about the tactics of the prosecutors and the United States attorney. That's the Department of Justice is run by Mr. Barr, who wants to let go, drop charges of cronies and friends of the president, who have stolen a lot of money and done a lot of shady deals. He's willing to drop those charges or have the attorney general drop the charges. So let's see if they decide to actually prosecute the police officers. I think also Minnesota, the state of Minnesota can certainly prosecute them as well. So you have two avenues of prosecution for criminal acts. And you also have the civil law in filing a lawsuit against the perpetrators directly and getting money. You know, I would think that when you have all four of your senators and representatives such as in Minnesota come out and say, this needs to be prosecuted, you have the mayor of Minneapolis getting on TV and saying this needs to be prosecuted. You have the police United Uniform Police Association saying these tactics should not be used against a person who's being arrested. Actually, you have the whole world watching to see what's going on. And it appears to be a double standard when a black man or a black woman gets killed, arrested. Whereas if you have somebody like Flynn, and other people who haven't even been indicted who clearly have done shady deals, they don't even get arrested. And if they do get arrested, the DOJ decides to dismiss their case. Wow. Well, you know, let's bring it on home to our backyard here in Honolulu, Hawaii. And isn't it a lot of talk on Facebook about, you know, does racism or does brutality exist in Hawaii? And of course it does. So this is part of the United States where people live. So yes, racism and brutality exists here. So briefly, Attorney Daphne Barbie, talk about your experiences here with that. Yeah, both Andre and I and Andre here is joining me. I had cases with the both of you walk and speak about that. Yes, we both can. We've had cases where there has been police brutality. I brought a case to jury trial where my client, young Filipino brown skin guy had been arrested by the police officers for DUI. Of course, he didn't have any alcohol in his system. They pushed him off his motorcycle bike and they stomped on him. We had a witness who saw the stomping from across the street on her balcony and she came to testify at trial and he had a broken rib. His doctor said you can't get that from falling off a bike. Police officers testified at trial. He fell off his bike. That's how he got his broken rib. He was tested for drugs. No drugs. Test of alcohol. No alcohol. So he dropped the DUI charge. And when we filed against the police officer in the city of Honolulu, we went to trial. We had our witness say what she saw and the jury came back and said nothing wrong. Similar to what happened in Los Angeles with Rodney King. You remember we had it on video with Rodney King being beaten by the police officers. And when they went to trial, the jury came back and said nothing wrong. They had to go through civil rights, the federal government in order to get justice on that case. And in there's other cases that we've had where officers have sat on our clients and killed one of them by putting its face in the mud. And that did settle. But I'll let Andre talk more about that. Over the years, gosh, I've had a number of police brutality cases. One sum and a loss on this as Daphne has indicated, we even had one where the young son of African American judge that we have was beaten up by a police officer basically for he didn't like what he was saying. But he certainly wasn't threatening him. And that was one that the city ultimately did settle. The Aaron Torres case was the one that Daphne mentioned where we represented his sister who unfortunately had to watch the police hog tie and shackle her brother. The problem was after they shackled his hands and feet and put him on his stomach, then one of the cops sat on him. And the coroner called that mechanical asphyxiation. And the city did settle that one with over seven figures. And they didn't even want to go to trial on that. But those police officers were not fired. Indeed, they were promoted. They claimed it was an accident. They were promoted. I just want to take that one to you say they were promoted. Yeah, I say they got promoted. Yes, that was what I just wanted to make sure I was here. Get all those back to slavery. Get all those back to the fact that this is a nation of different kinds of people put together with different kinds of views. This is a book that I was written by a graduate of Reed College, where I graduated from. And back in 169, we took over the administration building and demanded that they create a black studies program. But this gentleman went on to be a psychologist and psychiatrist. And he's writing about the fact that Caucasian people in this country used to own people. And the benefits the psychological benefits on top of the money. There was there were harems. And there was just that ownership of people and then ownership of people is what you see in the recent case in Minneapolis with that police officer just nonchalantly looking around strangling that brother to death. Like it wasn't even nothing. That's why Huey Newton created the Black Panther Party. And the recent situation with the Trumpites in Michigan, storming the legislature with weapons, demanding that the state be opened up so that everybody could get the coronavirus somewhat reminded me of when the Black Panther Party went down to the legislature in California, when Ronald Reagan was governor of California, and demanded an end to the police brutality in Oakland. And that led to the some of the changes and some of the gun laws in California. But there is a long history of the slavery and the slave catchers. There's a long history of a Ku Klux Klan in the United States. There's a long history of the Knights of the White Camellia. And African Americans have been fighting this oppression since the very beginning. Denmark, DC, Nat Turner, all of these people were freedom fighters fighting for their freedom and the freedom of their families and to make America live up to its promise of life, liberty and justice for all. Well, there's a quote from there, not to cut you sorry to cut you off, but listen to you speak so passionately, Attorney Wooten, that Nelson Mandela has a quote, fools multiply when wise men are silent. This is why we appreciate you and Daphne here in Honolulu. But that's that's even speak further talks Berkeley about please describe the historical perspective of the lynching of black people in America. Please continue with your dialogue on that. Well, you know, Ida B. Wells was a great journalist who was born right after the Civil War. And she was a newspaper woman in Memphis. And she began to write about lynchings because some of her friends who were young African American business people were lynched in Memphis. And they were meant lynched by white other store owners who were jealous and desirous of their customers. I mean, the they were lies told about the African Americans to justify their extra judicial murders. And but a lot of it was just basically economic competition, and trying to put and putting black people out of business, not to mention the Tulsa riots of was that 1917, where the whole city was burned down because prosperous African Americans were doing business. But after the World War Two and the Korean War, to deal with the history of lynchings that was still going on in the South, the deacons for justice began a movement in in Mississippi of the Korean African American veterans and the African American veterans of World War Two to arm themselves to defend their communities against the nightriders and the killers. Even today, we have this movement, you know, call stand your ground in some of the southern states that really don't need them, because these laws are being interpreted in a discriminatory manner. You know, some people can stand their ground. And then some people get murdered like Traymon Martin, you know, just trying to get home from the store. And Emmett Till, I just briefly, sorry, I just briefly jumping in because I that's all right. Emmett Till 15 year old man, yes, young man from Chicago went to visit his family in Mississippi. And they a woman in a store, a white store owner alleged that he whistled at her. Well, he got lynched. The clan came out, they found out where he lived, took him out and lynched him and killed him in 1955. Okay, for allegedly whistling at a white woman. And later she admitted that she had made it up. He didn't whistle at her. But a 15 year, a 15 year old young man killed and murdered again. And it continues. And that's a way to terrorize how they want to terrorize African American males and females, because they want they don't want us to get equality. They want to treat us as human beings. Well, you know, let's just let's get back to I can't breathe because this is information that oh my goodness, we're we're leaving it. So we found out that Senator the Senator, the Democratic Senator from Minneapolis, Amy, she was an attorney and she did not prosecute the murderer. So let's talk about that. Let's talk about that. He had 10 planks against him, Derek, the murderer. And he was not prosecuted at all. And now we have a young man who's dead. The legal system is part of the capitalist system and it does indeed respond to the money and those who represent the money. The blue uniform, you know, gets a point in every jury trial, regardless of who's wearing that blue suit. And so it's not an even deck. And a lot of that has to do with the way in which the laws are written to collect to protect the police. And a lot of that has to do with the police unions. The police unions collect those dues from every police officer, black or white, and they engage in political activities to promote the candidates that will support them. And the result is that the citizens are losing out and not being protected and served by the people that are supposed to protect and serve them. In many states, you have to prove actual malice, not just negligence, not just wanton and reckless activity, but you have to prove actual malice by a police officer in order to actually have a police officer convicted of wrongful assault, excessive police force or murder in this case. And so in Minneapolis, the people are demonstrating and writing because they're not seeing justice. They're not seeing anybody arrested. They're not seeing anybody charged. Certainly those people should have been fired because they weren't doing their jobs correctly as any intelligent person who looks at that video knows, but they need to be arrested and they need to be held for trial. I mean, yeah, you can grant them bail if they can come up with a million dollars or so, but they need to be arrested and held to full account for their wrongful action. Well, let's talk about any apology from any of the law officers. That's true. Apology would actually do anything. But if you murdered someone, one would and you said it was an accident or whatever reason they're going to say, since they can't use the false accusation of resisting arrest. That's heavy. Heavy on your heart. It is heavy. And so for you to just go on and say nothing. Well, let's bring it back to George. Let's just talk a minute about George Floyd. And one friend, Veneta Williams told Buzzfeed News. He was articulate. He was grounded. He was spiritual. He was an athlete. He was an organizer. He was a comforter. He was an encourager. So now we have the murderer that killed George Floyd with his knee and Kaepernick took a knee. Now let's talk about that for 30 seconds. A lot of people are upset about Kaepernick taking a knee to try to encourage more justice and more fair treatment for people. So and he still hasn't gotten a job in the NFL since that time, which highlights the injustice that is ingrained in this unfortunate society that we live in for all of the beauty that it has. It has this underlying double standard of racism, which was nailed into its core in those seven planks that protected slavery in the original slave Constitution. A lot of people don't realize that the original Constitution didn't have slavery protections in it. The Constitution of 1789 was written up later and put those slave planks in there in order to get the businessmen behind it. And also many of the people who wrote the Constitution were slave owners. Of course, so it gets back to the election college. We have so much to say one other. Could I say one other thing? Sure. About three years ago, an African, a large African American man was, he was a guardian, an award to a young man who was developmentally disabled. And he was there with him helping him through his challenges. And he was shot and killed by the police. Guess what? It went to trial, not guilty. Where was this? So hopefully it's changed. It was about three years ago. And I forget which town it was. It was a Midwest town. Okay. One case involving a large brother by the name of Vonta Perkins. Maybe about 15 years ago. Vonta was a cook over at Connolly Marine Corps base. And he took a bus from Waikiki to Connolly every day. And one day, he was trying to get on the bus and the bus driver slammed the door in his face. And Vonta ran down to the next stop and pounded on the door and got on the bus. But the bus driver stopped the bus and called the police claimed he was afraid of Vonta because Vonta didn't say anything and was just listening to his music. Well, the police showed up and told Vonta he had to get off the bus. And Vonta was saying, why do I have to get to work? I haven't done anything or said anything. Vonta ultimately got off the bus, sat down at a bench to wait for another bus because he still had to get to work over at Connolly to cook for the Marines. And the police came up to him and wanted to arrest him and question him and basically beat him up. So we followed the lawsuit discrimination against the bus company. We filed another case against the police. And the bus company agreed to settle their case for $50,000. And I talked Vonta into taking it. Well, Vonta did the police also offered $50,000, but Vonta wouldn't take it. We went to trial. Vonta was a large brother. I'm a large brother too. And the jury ruled that the police didn't do anything illegal. And we did not win that case. And a lot of that, you know, it's hard to say, you know, some of it may have had to do with the fact that Vonta was a large brother, rather than a small brother, but at the same time, he was a law abiding person. And his civil rights were totally violated. Oh, well, you know, business of these cases, you know, compromise is not unusual. Well, you know, Daphne and Andre, we need, okay, unfortunately, but fortunately, unfortunately, at least the public knows racism is all around all over the world. But I think we need to do a part two, you have a lot of stories to tell, we need to do this again and chat again. And thank you very much. But I do want the audience to know at the end of the show, we, the George Floyd family has started a GoFundMe page. So please write it down. It's at the end of the show. Aloha and thank you.