Thank you for tuning in to another episode of the Bakari Salas Podcast.

Today we'll be interviewing my brother Wes Moore, but it's been a busy week and

before I get to Wes we have to talk about the Chauvin verdict and more importantly

what this all means for the future of policing and police accountability.

Obviously as most of you all now know, former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin was found

guilty on all three charges this past week, and sentencing is in about eight weeks.

It should be clear to anyone that's been following this that what we saw in this week's verdict wasn't justice, but instead some accountability for the murder we all witness.

Justice for us is a world where passing a fake $20 bill doesn't end up being a death sentence,

and we're far removed from what true justice looks like in this country.

And even the lower bar of police accountability is still far too difficult to come by unless there's a

tape of an officer kneeling on your neck for almost 10 minutes. If we're being honest, so far

as federal policing reform is concerned, we should keep expectations low.

The George Floyd Justice and Policing Act should be law, and it helps move the needle on so many issues from accountability to making it easier to prosecute officers

to use of force standards to keeping bad officers permanently off our streets

but it's unlikely to pass why because we need 60 votes to get police reform done and that means

asking Republicans to take votes against police unions and that also applies to

some moderate Senate Democrats who care far more about what police unions have to say

than Black Lives. Their Black Lives Matters tweets notwithstanding.

We could eliminate the filibuster and dare moderate Senate Democrats to take a stand and have to vote the way they tweet,

but that would be too much like right. So what should we do? Well to me, what I know is that our local governments tend to skew Democratic and every local government needs to pursue a police reform and accountability agenda that goes as far as the state allows them to go.

And from our friends in state legislatures,

do what Maryland did and pass comprehensive policing reform.

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