Summary
Alleged Buffalo shooter Payton Gendron posted online about the great replacement conspiracy theory days before attacking a Tops grocery store killing 10 people. Buffalo police showed great restraint to the suspected shooter after he allegedly killed 10 people and despite being fully armed. Civil rights activist DeRay Mckesson joins THE BEAT with Ari Melber to talk about the Buffalo police over the treatment of the mass shooting suspect and contrasted the force used against the Black Americans. Former DNC Chair Howard Dean joins Ari Melber to talk about Pennsylvania Republican Party bucking McConnell`s warning about the extreme candidates.
Transcript
NICOLLE WALLACE, MSNBC HOST: Thank you so much for letting us into your homes today. We are grateful. THE BEAT WITH ARI MELBER starts right now.
Hi, Ari. Welcome back.
ARI MELBER, MSNBC HOST: Thank you, Nicolle. Appreciate that. Appreciate it very much.
I want to welcome everyone to THE BEAT. I`m Ari Melber. And while I am back it is not a great time to be back. We are obviously all dealing with what happened this weekend.
We begin tonight looking at these communities, mourning what is a nationwide problem and what people are taking in was a senseless act of racist terrorism committed here inside the United States.
This white gunman walking into the grocery store in Buffalo, New York, this weekend. This was a majority black neighborhood, and the evidence shows the shooter knew that, going on to kill 10 people, injuring three more. The city`s worst mass shooting ever.
Today officials say this alleged shooter planned to continue an attack beyond the supermarket and the plan was explicitly to target more black people like those targeted inside the store had he not been stopped by police. They arrived on the scene within minutes and we have more on the response program later in the program.
But the suspect has been identified as 18-year-old Payton Gendron. Authorities say he was armed with an AR-15 rifle, tactical gear, body armor when he opened fire. There was also his attempt to livestream the massacre online. We`re not showing you that. He has been charged with first-degree murder. The FBI also investigating this as a federal hate crime. Civil rights attorney Ben Crump also discussing it, as I just mentioned, as domestic terror.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BEN CRUMP, CIVIL RIGHTS ATTORNEY: This was an act of domestic terrorism perpetrated by a young white supremacist. Just like America responds to terrorism, America needs to respond to this act of bigotry, racism, and hate as a terrorist act.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MELBER: That`s a powerful call from Mr. Crump, who you may recognize, who deals with civil rights issues and policing issues around the nation.
So let`s get into this right now because he just asked about America responding, which goes beyond just the government or justice system response. How do we as a nation deal with what is happening, because it happened this weekend, but it`s not done happening. Law enforcement officials say this alleged shooter posted 180-page manifesto online just days before the attack, and it draws on and references replacement theory at least 28 times.
That is a racist conspiracy theory that basically in Western countries like the United States and some countries in Europe, some type of racial and religious group of external minorities from somewhere else in the world will, quote, "replace" the rightful white supremacist majority of those nations.
Now at one time this was considered, quote-unquote, "fringe." But again when you hear what Mr. Crump asks about how we in America will deal with this, we`re not talking about red and blue here. We`re not talking about the size of the government. We`re not talking about policy. We are talking about a growing push to get people thinking like this so they might act like this, which is why we believe we`ve tried to put together some important reporting on this important problem tonight, because this is being amplified and pushed by some very influential people in America, and specifically on the right.
For example, FOX News host Tucker Carlson. People count up this kind of stuff so whether you watch him or not, the fact is that the people who do and who track this note that he has made a reference or variation to this type of hateful conspiracy theory, this replacement thing, over 400 times since 2016. There are some nights where it seems just like the core point of his show.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TUCKER CARLSON, FOX NEWS HOST: In political terms this policy is called the great replacement, the replacement of legacy Americans. The strategy is to change the demographics of the country. You disempower the people who live here. You take their votes away. The Democratic Party is trying to replace the current electorate.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MELBER: What Tucker does there has a little partisan spin. You hear that at the end, he talks about one party doing this. But make no mistake in case someone is narrow minded enough to only look at this through partisan lenes, as we document on this program before, where this came from out of hateful corners of Europe and where this is going is really not about parties. It is about trying to have a race war.
[18:05:03]
Now this alleged gunman screed invokes the great replacement theory. Now, I want to say, on our MSNBC coverage from across the weekend through tonight there is a careful goal not to indiscriminately echo or disseminate every piece of this, every claim or lie inside this conspiracy theory. To show the exact evidence, though, of the link to this very serious mass murder this weekend, I`m now going to quote a portion of this suspect`s claims for you, including his admission.
His admission that this exact racist world view is what got him thinking about committing violence. Quote, "I learned that the white race is dying out, that blacks are disproportionately killing whites. We are doomed by high rates of immigration," he says again there at the end of that quote. And he later writes, quote, "My race was doomed, and it was there that I started to think about committing an attack," end quote. His words.
Now, as a matter of reporting or law, there is not a stipulation here drawing a causal link between this act and this violence and any individual person`s rhetoric. Indeed, this kind of investigation can be quite complex and take a long time when you go beyond what happened that day to what may or may not have caused it, who was linked to it, or in legal terms, if there`s any other direct actors, whether there was some sort of attempted conspiracy.
That is not what we are asserting here, and I say that in all deliberate care. At the same time we note there are ways that this very screed from this very alleged killer echo exactly what has been pushed out here across parts of the European and American right-wing and across parts of FOX News and Tucker Carlson`s show.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
CARLSON: How precisely is diversity our strength? Since you`ve made this our new national motto, please be specific as you explain it. Can you think for example of other institutions such as, I don`t know, marriage or military units in which the less people have in common, the more cohesive they are? Do you get along better with your neighbors or your coworkers if you can`t understand each other or share no common values?
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MELBER: There is that overlap. As for FOX`s position on this, they are not directly commenting. They did tell "The Washington Post" that there are examples they pointed to where Tucker Carlson has spoken out against violence, and because he has a platform he may speak out on it of course this week.
Now we`ve previously reported on replacement theory right here on THE BEAT. This was last year, documenting how it was gaining traction, how it was not going away, how some Republican lawmakers were pushing it as a type of what they argued was policy discourse.
We traced it all the way back to its French origins. Yes, this anti- immigrant theory is as a matter of ideological history itself an immigrant idea. Indeed it comes from the reclusive and self-published author, a guy named Renaud Camus. How he talks about it in the context of what he views as the right leaders of France. He thinks they have to be white. He thinks they are the rightful and, quote, "original population."
That`s what we hear on the American right-wing about legacy populations, and he worries they are going to be replaced by minorities from Africa.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
RENAUD CAMUS, SELF-PUBLISHED AUTHOR: It`s a change of people and of civilization. Great replacement is the darkest thing which can happen. I think the crime against humanity in the 21st century is the great replacement.
RICHARD ENGEL, NBC NEWS CHIEF FOREIGN CORRESPONDENT: You think it is the crime against humanity of our times?
CAMUS: Yes, yes. Yes, very much so.
The question is, is it time now for white Anglo-Saxon English-speaking Americans to be substituted in the turn as Indians were?
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MELBER: That is the face of white supremacy, of ethnonationalism, completely at odds with, if you are an originalist, the founding documents of the United States and the effort to have a society not built around race but built around the rule of law, of democracy, of pluralism. These are the things you learn in textbooks, you learn in law school. These are the things under attack.
Camus lives in a 14th century landmark castle in the south of France. That`s who`s ghostwriting you might say some of what is passing for these concerns about America coming out of Tucker Carlson. Now this weekend another person has drawn on this conspiracy theory and these words, this time committing a mass murder.
But it`s not the first time that these ideas, which many of which are constitutionally protected speech, you can say these things. But it`s not the first time that they`ve moved towards actions that are not protected because they involve menacing or violence.
[18:10:07]
In 2017 we saw the neo-Nazis directly quoting this same thing, replacement theory, as they march in Charlottesville.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED PROTESTERS: Jews will not replace us. Jews will not replace us.
DONALD TRUMP, FORMER PRESIDENT: You also had people that were very fine people, on both sides.
UNIDENTIFIED PROTESTERS: You will not replace us. You will not replace us. You will not replace us.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MELBER: You will not replace us. Jews will not replace us. Part of the writings of this conspiracy theory have the idea that in America or these western states, Jews will help foreign minorities, quote-unquote, "take over." And Europe doesn`t have a great record on these issues if you look at the far-right and the hate speech, and what hate speech can lead to.
Now others have trafficked in this and meant it. There was Brenton Tarrant. In March of 2019 he attacked two mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand, killing 51 people, pushing white supremacy, posting about replacement theory. And what you see here is how that can drive interest. This is international Google data which shows a spike in searches for replacement theory around that incident.
Then in August 2019 you have a spike when another shooter, Patrick Crusius, attacked that Walmart in El Paso. 23 people died there. He posted online complaining or warning of what he viewed a Hispanic invasion of Texas. Then you have April 2021. That`s the biggest spike to date. That`s Google data. And you see the person pushing it that time through media was Tucker Carlson. He talked about a demographic replacement on air.
"The New York Times" reports on this as well, and you see that massive spike in interest. Today, well, searches for replacement theory after some spiking down are back up again after this alleged gunman has been linked to the conspiracy theory.
What you see on your screen is something that may be less fringe in the numerical sense, as it is embraced by some who want to talk about which as I mentioned in the United States is allowed and embraced by others who want to use it as a pretext or explanation or incitement of terrible violence and terrorism.
I`m joined now by Brittany Packnett Cunningham, she`s the host of "Undistracted," the podcast. She was also on President Obama`s 21st Century Policing Task Force.
Welcome. Thank you for joining me at a grim time. We put that together to try to make sure there`s some understanding of the wider context, as you heard and viewers heard, I took pains to mention, that some speech, even terrible speech is protected. Violence is not. What do you make of this alleged killer, this suspect, as we say legally, citing this conspiracy theory, this racism for his alleged violence?
BRITTANY PACKNETT CUNNINGHAM, MSNBC POLITICAL ANALYST: You know, I would add to the really thorough overview that you made of the great replacement theory that this is not new here in America. Even if there was no Google to search for it and even if it wasn`t being called the great replacement theory.
If we look at the rise of Jim Crow across the American South, it happened because suddenly at the dawn of emancipation, white slave owners and other white supremacist looked around and realized that because of the continued breeding of enslaved people, because of the continued importing of human labor from Africa, suddenly there was a critical mass of black people across the south. Those folks aimed to live their lives.
Those folks aimed to raise their families. Some of those folks even reached the levels of higher office and elected office, and suddenly we saw a slate of laws and an era of terror begin in order to beat back those folks who might, again, live their lives. So that era of racial terror that we continued to ignore was a time when lynching was at an all-time high. It was at a time when the kind of terrorizing of black families and black people was at an all-time high, whether it was at the voting booth or again in a grocery store or a general store.
So this is not new to America. It goes beyond FOX News, it goes beyond, like you said, a political party. This is about recognizing that the great replacement theory as it is now being called, tells us that white supremacists know exactly how this system makes the rest of us suffer. They know exactly how minorities are treated. That`s why they don`t want to become one. You know, people like me spent a lot of time trying to convince folks of the suffering of marginalized people, but the great replacement theory in essence is a single admission that white supremacists are afraid that we will do to them precisely what they have been doing to us for generations and that tells us all we need to know.
MELBER: Yes, you packed a lot in there including how that sort of -- that fear mixed with a kind of projected abuse of power or injustice, you know, traffics with a kind of awareness.
[18:15:11]
There`s long running debate on immigration in this country. And in the original report we did on this, again, whether it`s sort of I`m being annoyingly lawyerly repetitive or not, we took pains to mention there`s of course legitimate debates over immigration policy and how you do it and how open or closed the door is and what`s going on in the world and what`s going on with war and refugees, right?
This is distinct and different because it presupposes a racist, anti- Semitic, anti-Muslim, religiously bigoted system, that`s a closed system. And so you`re kind of exiting the land of policy and going into this. And yet I go to those pains to mention all that nuance because people who don`t follow this closely or might get confused or might be listening to bad faith actors might thing, well, it sounds like immigration.
Here`s how some Republicans have been trying to walk that line on the immigration issue and replacement. Take a listen.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DAN PATRICK (R), TEXAS LIEUTENANT GOVERNOR: The revolution has begun. We are being invaded. They`re not invited.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We`re replacing national born American -- native born Americans to permanently transform the political landscape of this very nation.
CHRIS MAYES, MSNBC HOST: Republican governors and Matt Gaetz, quote, Tucker Carlson is, all caps, correct, the so-called replacement theory.
PATRICK: The illegals who are here who are going to take our education, our health care, all -- so it`s government, it`s politics.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MELBER: Brittany?
CUNNINGHAM: I find it fascinating to hear white people talk about who`s illegal on stolen land. I find it absolutely fascinating that folks can perpetuate this kind of theory knowing full well that it was the genocide of indigenous people and the enslavement of black people, black African people that created this country in the first place that now white people are saying they are native born to.
We should all find that absolutely terrifying, and frankly, we should all be terrified by the fact there are more and more of these kind of gunmen, these kind of domestic terrorists being built every single day in classrooms when books get banned, when history is not being taught, and when people refuse to actually tell the truth and fire the folks who do. This will happen again. This is the scary part of this. You will report on a massacre like this again.
You will ask somebody like me to come and help people make sense of this, and the reason why is because we have yet the seek courage from a critical mass of lawmakers on both sides of the aisle who finally put their foot down and recognize that this rhetoric is nothing but hate. We have yet to see care from enough federal intelligence agencies who often have the intel about these things and people but don`t actually prevent these activities.
We haven`t seen consciousness from gun manufactures, and their lobby from tech companies, where these ideas continue to be proliferated. Certainly from media outlets who perpetuate this kind of lies. We certainly haven`t seen any conscience from politicians who will spout and espouse these views and then get sunny profiles in mainstream papers like "The Hill."
This will happen again as long as we don`t recognize what`s happening right in front of us and how it is being perpetuated in all of the dark corners and places that we once ignored and all of the places like our classrooms and church houses and television screens.
MELBER: Yes.
CUNNINGHAM: Where we`re not paying enough attention.
MELBER: Yes. As I mentioned, it`s a grim time. You`re making a lot of sense, but any sense, any logic here is cold comfort given what we`re going through. I hope people are listening, and Brittany, thank you for joining me tonight.
CUNNINGHAM: Thank you.
MELBER: Appreciate it.
We have a report coming up on the double standard here on the law enforcement side. By the end of the program, we do turn to politics. There`s a big primary tomorrow. We have a special guest on that. Howard Dean, back on THE BEAT by later in the hour to tell us why this picture matters. Dean will be here. Stay with us.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[18:23:22]
MELBER: The nation is reeling from this deadliest mass shooting this whole year. It`s a racist that terrorize the community of Buffalo. It raises new questions about the hate, the vitriol, the racism, that radicalizes people as we`ve been covering tonight. And that`s just about the killer, the motive and the shooting. Then there are these separate questions about the police response here and the broader approach of law enforcement because as this horrific news was even first breaking it became clear police were dealing with an active shooter, a mass killer allegedly, armed for a major firefight.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JOSE DIAZ-BALART, MSNBC HOST: A gunman in upstate New York opened fire in a Tops supermarket store, killing 10 people.
UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: The heavily armed killer wearing body armor and a tactical helmet livestreamed the massacre.
UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: Cornered by police, authorities convinced him to drop the gun he had pointed at his neck.
UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: White male suspect is now in custody. And that suspect wanted to kill many more to continue his hate-fueled rampage.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MELBER: That`s some of what the authorities confronted. And yet police never fired a shot at him. When they arrived police didn`t know if he would shoot at them or others or what his next plans were. They just knew he was the suspect in killing more people in a day than anyone this year, and yet the guy walked out of the store, as a witness recounted. The cops were just screaming at him and he just stood there. It was like he wanted them to shoot him.
Now that was a police restraint leading to some of this scene you see captured here. The suspect arrested peacefully, no shots fired after he allegedly killed 10 people, which the police chief touted.
[18:25:07]
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JOSEPH GRAMAGLIA, BUFFALO POLICE COMMISSIONER: He put the gun underneath his chin and our officers, very courageously, used every de-escalation tactic that they could. They talked him down. It was a, you know, pretty one-sided fight there with the armor that he had and they were able to safely take him into custody with no further shots being fired. It was a -- it just a tremendous act of bravery.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MELBER: There was certainly bravery on display this weekend by civilians and officers facing down the emergency. It`s good no more shots had to be fired. But there`s also a stark double standard in policing here because when faced with the deadliest shooting of the year and a suspect who is literally still holding a gun used to allegedly kill 10 innocent people, well, at that moment, police were at the highest possible legal threshold for firing a weapon, for using deadly force.
And they didn`t. By contrast, two months ago Buffalo police used deadly force on Dominic Thomas shooting him when he had a mental health episode and was reportedly seen with a knife. Last year Buffalo Billies used deadly force to shoot at Willie Henley, a 60-year-old homeless man who was accused of swinging a bat at an officer. Neither of those had a gun. Neither were accused of killing a person, let alone 10 people moments before.
But they were both black. And for all the talk about the danger facing police or the facts of a given incident, which do matter, the data still shows that race drives different outcomes here. Discrimination and racism shape police interactions sometimes more than an active mass shooter, which is of course the deadliest emergency police ever face. Dangerous to the people police serve, dangerous to the police themselves.
And yet you have this drastically different use of force. And it`s long been documented. Police use more force and deadly force on black people who are three times as likely to be killed by police. Now the Buffalo Police just de-escalated an arrest of an armed alleged mass shooter, and data shows police frequently escalate interactions with black people over nonviolent infractions. Over 400 people killed in traffic stops who were unarmed, according to a recent "Times" report on five years of data and that disproportionately resulted in the killing of minorities by police.
Anyone familiar with the news knows what this looks like. It was a traffic stop over a brake light that didn`t work which led to South Carolina police shooting Walter Scott in the back, killing him. Unlike this Buffalo shooter, Mr. Scott was unarmed and fleeing, not holding a gun at a murder scene.
Jacob Blake was walking away from police, not seen holding a weapon at the time when police shot him seven times in the back. That left him partially paralyzed. Authorities say they later found a knife on the scene. Or there`s the case when police shot an unarmed 22-year-old Stefon Clark eight times killing him. Now that was investigated but the prosecutor cleared the officers with a sweeping defense, saying the police wrongly believed this individual`s cell phone was a gun. So that made it legally OK to kill him.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ANNE-MARIE SCHUBERT, SACRAMENTO COUNTY DISTRICT ATTORNEY: All of those statements that those officers made within the seconds after the shooting support the belief that they honestly without hesitation believed he had a gun. We will not charge these officers with any criminal liability related to the shooting death and the use of force on Stefon Clark.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MELBER: This happens all the time. So the system says out loud police can kill that unarmed person because police had a mistaken and fear of him. Stack that against the current Buffalo police explanation of their restraint against an actually armed suspect standing outside of a mass shooting.
You know, last month it was another traffic stop which led police to shoot 26-year-old Patrick Lyoya in the back of the head after a struggle ensued pursuant to a traffic stop. You may recall we covered this at that time. The same pattern. It was a stop over a nonviolent allegation. The officer escalated it. Then there was a struggle ensuing over the taser. The officer pinned the suspect and then quickly killed him.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Let go of the taser.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I ain`t got to taser honestly.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Let go of the taser. Drop the taser.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MELBER: This is an all-too-common way the police use force. And we`re talking about it for a reason on the news tonight. This is known to anyone with a reason to know.
[18:30:00]
People in legal and media circles who interact with these basic facts. Experts who track this data. I quoted some of the data earlier. And you know, who else knows? People who live in communities who are policed like this every single day.
That is the background for what we then live through as a nation, that infamous slow, brutal police murder of George Floyd, who was unarmed. It occurred pursuant to an arrest over a non violent petty property crime. That was news but it was not new. And the Americans who were scandalized or shocked by that type of police force, had not been paying attention or not wanting to. For all the outrage over that particular killing. And police use of deadly force continues at the same pace, the same rate in America this year, a steady line as you see there, from the Washington Post count.
So, after an alleged racist killing spree directed at black Americans this weekend, the unusual restraint and peacefully apprehending this apparently active shooter holding a gun when they got there is very notable. Just as it was when police peacefully apprehended Dylann Roof after he murdered nine people in a violent hate crime in South Carolina. The Buffalo shooter will get his day in court.
This double standard runs from the government to the discourse we have which shapes how we and jurors think about these cases. When police killed an unarmed black 18-year-old Michael Brown, which set off those Ferguson protests in the Obama era. The nonpartisan objective Associated Press reported he was a man posing that threat. He was unarmed. The A.P. identifies this same-aged 18-year-old suspect as a teenager. We should note after criticism the A.P. later updated that reporting over the weekend, but the reference to a white teenager taking this action was widely distributed.
And while that police chief I showed you said the suspect was pointing this gun at himself. That accepts these alleged killers` claim that he`s suddenly less dangerous, that he has an intent to stop killing others and perhaps kill himself, which he didn`t. That was cited as a reason for the de-escalation. And it`s vital to confront how that relates to the double standard because police took the alleged killer at his word. They believe he would just stop shooting at people.
They took the word of the gunman at the murder scene, which is the opposite of what the police and prosecutors did in some of these other cases I`m telling you about. They would not take the word of an unarmed black man pursued for a non-violent infraction in the first place. Instead, the system said in that case of Stephon Clark, whether we remember him or not. The system said, well, if police wrongly think that somebody has a gun, somebody like him has a gun, well, then the police can shoot on sight.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ANNE-MARIE SCHUBERT, DISTRICT ATTORNEY, SACRAMENTO COUNTY: All of those statements that those officer made within the seconds after the shooting, support the belief that they honestly without hesitation believed he had a gun.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MELBER: That`s what they believed. It`s all out in the open. This is the time to deal with. And the point here is not that American police should use even more force at the wrong time. And is not that they should somehow, quote err on the side of killing any person might be safely dealt with nonviolently. Safely for the person, safely for the police, safely for the community. That`s not the point. Many experts and civil rights leaders have made the core point before saying they are not asking police to kill other suspects the way the police are killing unarmed black Americans. They`re asking police to stop killing unarmed black Americans.
And when that seemingly baseline, simple plea is made. Well, we`ve all been doing this together. We`ve been living through this together, you know what happens, it`s met with a litany of legal justifications and factual hypotheticals, the police may be believed that the unarmed person was armed. I just showed you that example. Or they believed he was grabbing a taser in a way that would flip the whole conflict around. Or they believed he might pose a future threat, or they believe you might get in his nearby car with a weapon that was conveniently waiting there and then turn that while outnumbered by the police. It`s a lot of legal mumbo jumbo. To the point here is not to rerun the play over the weekend.
[18:35:00]
The point is to understand this weekend`s facts in a scene like that with the deadliest shooting of the year and a peaceful apprehension, gives lie, and shreds so many of the claims we have been hearing. That relate to so many other innocent lives. In this case, innocent black lives. Those are some of the facts. Civil Rights Activist DeRay Mckesson joins me live on all this when we`re back in one minute.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
MELBER: We just read through the facts. I`m now joined by civil rights activist DeRay Mckesson. What do you see here on the law enforcement side?
DERAY MCKESSON, CIVIL RIGHTS ACTIVIST: You know, it`s so interesting, it`s a reminder that the police make choices. They could choose to be peaceful. They could choose to deescalate. They could choose to just talk to people in situations, you recounted a whole host of situations that didn`t require armed intervention at all. Traffic stops those sort of things. But the police make choices. And often when these situations happen, they`re like, no, no, we had to do it, we must have done it. We fear for our lives. And it`s like, no, you made a choice to kill that person. That was a choice.
With the buffalo shooter, we saw the choice on the full display. He had just committed the biggest murder of the year. More people murdered than any other day. And the police chose to watch him. They chose to be really chill and calm. They chose to just talk him. Talk him down. And it`s like, what would those choices look like for the least dramatic offenses for the traffic stops.
For the guy that got killed for riding his bike on the sidewalk. For the mistaken identity, for the kids that got killed by the police, is that -- again all I think about this is that the police make a choice, they choose to kill black and brown people. They choose to de-escalate and be really chill in the face of white people like this Buffalo`s shooter.
MELBER: And so, when you look at this, in terms of changing the practices, which you and others have worked on, how much of this is about the mindset that people bring? We all know from life and politics, it`s hard to change minds. And how much of it is about actually adjusting the enforcement because the clip I played, which we chose deliberately of a prosecutor saying, well, whatever they believe just fine. If that`s your standard, then you`re going to operate potentially in an environment where you know, all you ever have to do is say that you had a belief.
MCKESSON: He`s are some of it is mindset and culture, for sure. The other is accountability. So, imagine if you knew that you could do whatever you want, and you couldn`t get in trouble for it. Or there could be no accountability. Couldn`t get fired, couldn`t get -- that`s what policing is like. So, most people look back at the conviction of Derek Chauvin. And they`re like, OK, something happened. That was accountability. That was real.
And here`s the thing, the police kill 1,100 people a year. The highest number of convictions ever, for as long as we have data in a given year is 11. That`s one percent. That`s the highest number ever. So, Chauvin is the aberration, not the norm. And the police generally know across cities and states that they can do this. They can violate people`s rights, they can beat people, they can shoot people, they can kill key people. And the numbers just don`t bear out that there is no accountability.
So, what we can do is increase accountability mechanisms. But we can also move away from policing as a response to all conflict and community. Why do we send people with guns to all conflict, so like traffic stuff like that. We needed a different type of response to this shooting to stop it from happening. And you see when the police showed up, again, they were the most chill there. So again, the police make choices that are black and brown. That`s what this is.
MELBER: 30 seconds but your view on this larger issue of black boys being treated like men and white men being treated like boys when it benefits them.
[18:40:00]
MCKESSON: Yes, so I`m just happy you called it out and named it so clearly because when we tell people we say that they`re like, oh no you`re being dramatic. And you saw that when Mike Brown was killed, he was a grown man. And when the shooter just killed 10 people, he was a child. So, the more and more that we name this and force news agencies to do better, the better we all are.
MELBER: Yes. More than one issue during our timeframe. I appreciate it DeRay. Thanks for joining me. Appreciate it. We`re going to take a turn here to other problems but in the political arena. This is a Republican standard Senate candidate. Now cop marching with the proud boys on insurrection day. She`s on the ballot tomorrow. Howard Dean is here when we come back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[18:45:00]
MELBER: Welcome back. We`ve been talking about the choices facing America. Well, tomorrow is election night in part of America with choices to make. Many closely watching this Republican primary in Pennsylvania. And boy as it turned into a real showcase for some of the party`s problems with extremism. No fewer than three leading candidates there went to Washington for the January 6 rally, including someone who is reportedly surge in some polls.
That`s the Senate candidate Kathy Barnette. She`s now been caught marching on the Capitol in a photograph. NBC News has verified these images are her. Circled in red, marching next to proud boy members, some of whom were indicted for feloniously breaking into the Capitol. Now there is not evidence that she personally breached the building. She also organized some buses for the gathering on insurrection day.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: You organized buses for January 6th. Seeing what happened in the aftermath of that. Do you regret being a part of that at all?
KATHY BARNETTE (R-PA), SENATORIAL CANDIDATE: I feel about January 6th, the way the left feels about the summer of 2020, when you have black lives matter --
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MELBER: Likening that criminal activity to protests. Barnette has also made attacks on Muslims and LGBTQ people which has even drawn criticism from Dr. Oz, her rival within the party. We`ve got Howard Dean here. We`re going to get into the import of it and the wacky politics of it right after this break.
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[18:50:00]
MELBER: It is quite a table. We do get to turn to politics. If I can say get and we get to be joined by Howard Dean who has run for president and run the DNC and worked as a doctor and run a state, couple different things. Welcome back, sir.
HOWARD DEAN, FORMER DNC CHAIR: Hey, thanks for having me, Ari.
MELBER: Let`s get into Pennsylvania. DNC might be the most relevant, because you dealt with these kinds of things and how primaries can shape a general and how general elections shape who controls the Senate. P.A. is a funny place. They went for Biden, they got a lot of different kind of campy caricatures, and yet the Republican primary seems to be bright now in the grips of a Trump-style celebrity clash with a Trump-style set of MAGA foot soldiers, your thoughts?
DEAN: I think that`s right. I think the whole Republican Party is in really been directed by Donald Trump with his brand of hate. And it`s very bad for the country, people have lost faith in our institutions, including the Supreme Court, which is a really serious problem if you depend on the rule of law.
And this slate, in Pennsylvania, which is not a particularly extreme state is probably the most extreme slate of any Republican group in the country. Unless (INAUDIBLE) some pretty far right-wing. Oh, Yes. I mean, you`ve got three major candidates. I think Ohio would give it some running room. But I just think these are the three most extreme candidates that are running at any particular state.
MELBER: Wow. You know, people don`t know this about you. Some people watch baseball, some people watch cartoons. I know you love to watch Republican primary debates, especially lately. So, this will be a rerun for you. But to make sure folks understand some of what you just referenced is who we`re dealing with just on the factual questions about the election, etc. Here`s the part of the Republican primary slate in P.A.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Former President Donald Trump continues to talk about the 2020 election. Is it time for the Republican Party to move forward?
MEHMET OZ (R-PA), SENATORIAL CANDIDATE: I have discussed with President Trump but we cannot move on.
BARNETTE: Absolutely not. There`s nothing more important than making sure that my one vote matters.
DAVID MCCORMICK (R-PA), SENATORIAL CANDIDATE: We have a tragedy here that most Republican voters in Pennsylvania don`t believe in the integrity of the election.
CARLA SANDS (R-PA), SENATORIAL CANDIDATE: Senator Rand Paul said the election of 2020 was stolen by the Zuck Bucks.
JEFF BARTOS (R-PA), SENATORIAL CANDIDATE: The 2020 election was a catalyst for what we`re seeing now.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MELBER: Howard?
DEAN: These are lies, and Trump knows it`s a lie. These guys know what`s a lie. Most of these people are not crazy. There are a few that I think probably are demented or something. But most of them are not crazy. They are manipulated -- trying to manipulate the public and they have successfully manipulated a significant part of the Republican Party. The rest of the Republican Party, however, is fed up with this. Raphael Warnock is the senator today. And he`s going to be a senator next January.
Because there are a lot of moderate Georgian people who just think this is nuts, and that they see the danger for the country. And of course, the Roe -- upcoming Roe versus Wade decision unmasking that after the several justices lie to the Judiciary Committee. This is not helpful to the United States of America to have a court, which openly lies and has been recruited by the Federalist Society. This far-right group of people who want to roll the clock back to the 1840s.
MELBER: Yes, you mentioned a political-legal agenda to go to a kind of theocratic, old school. You know, pre-gender equality world. We lead the show with the primacy of replacement theory growing and what is potentially mainstream right-wing politics. And then the election stuff we mentioned here. I mean, this is what creeping authoritarianism looks like. I`m reading here from the coverage here about Doug Mastriano.
A leading Republican candidate for governor here, as well as candidates in Pennsylvania who say basically -- a state senator says he would appoint a Secretary of State who would, quote require all voters to reregister before casting their ballots, dramatically reshape the electorate and would likely violate federal law. Howard with the 45 seconds you have, should we normalize in discussion or coverage that is a kind of a hanging end of these citizens. Here`s this idea, might steal election, might also be illegal.
[18:55:00]
DEAN: Well, this is ultimately going to be up to the American people, we get to vote on this. And they can attack the voting process. And that`s dangerous and they do it. The person they most remind me of is Vladimir Putin. Basically, he will stop at nothing to get what he wants. And these guys will stop at nothing. I would venture to say that the murder of 10 black people in Buffalo yesterday wouldn`t have happened except for the extreme atmosphere this generated by supposedly respectable people running for the United States Senate. We are at a crossroads in this country, and the only people that can fix this are the voters.
MELBER: Fair, important point, Governor Dean on more than one topic, thank you, and we will be right back.
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MELBER: It`s been good to be back with you. That does it for The Beat with Ari Melber. "THE REIDOUT WITH JOY REID" starts now.
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