Hi, everybody. Thank you so much for welcoming me. I’m so honored to be invited. And after meeting some of you in hearing your talks over the last couple of days, I’m so humbled to be on this stage. There are amazing people giving me so much hope and energy for the future. And I feel the home of this place. So thank you for that. In a moment of perhaps temporary insanity, I decided to take on this challenge of speaking in the style of Pechakucha. How many know Pechakucha? For those who don’t, it’s a Japanese speaking style where 20 slides will rotate on a 20-second basis automatically. And my challenge is to keep up with it. It’s kind of like the Marie Kondo of a speaking engagement. I think that I’m the first Pechakucha on the Frank stage. And with that in mind, I’m going to set a medium bar, encouraging others to try. So I don’t want to do too well and be the last. So today, I’m talking about a topic that really is a challenge for our whole society and it’s about how to communicate with police. So one other thing I have to keep to my timing. I don’t want any distractions other than indictments or impeachments. So thank you. I worked for the ACLU for over 20 years in Seattle, St. Louis, and New Jersey, where I met the amazing Ann Cristiano. Over those years, I worked with exceptional people who fought a dizzying array of civil liberties battles. Some of the most courageous, who I will talk to you about today, were those who stood up to unjust police practices. After leaving the ACLU, I naively joined the complex world of independent police oversight. My office reviews complaints and investigations to bring transparency and civilian expertise to police practices. The success of this work depends on persuasive communications among other miracles. In almost three years in oversight, my sense of the intractable nature of police culture has unfortunately been affirmed. As you know, culture eats strategy for lunch. One of the deputies I work with keeps this mantra card on her dashboard. Number one on the list, I’m not going to f-and-i today. But we can’t lose hope. To me, losing hope and the ability to improve police and community relations means losing hope for this country as a whole. Hope lies in building bridges through smart, intentional, non-defensive, empathetic, and patient dialogues. But reconciliation does not come without truth. Resistance has proven itself one of the most powerful vehicles for truth. Leaders and artivists in Ferguson infused resistance with boldness and creativity, including highway shut downs and die-ins at the mall. A strong protest movement needs communications entry points and strategies as diverse as the people it seeks to influence. Risking one’s physical safety speaks volumes about the level of passion and commitment and activists’ holds. Make no mistake, the policy work that people like I do is leverage on the backs of young protesters who put their bodies on the line. They risk their lives to change a status quo in which their lives don’t matter. The voice of grief is another truth that needs space. Mary Weaver became an activist after police wrongfully killed her 21-year-old son, Randy, who had committed no crime. She spent the rest of her days honoring Randy’s memory through social and economic justice advocacy. She also gave comfort and strength to other mothers who lost children to violence. Over time, communication through protests has changed. Experience taught Ferguson protesters to make changes in the interest of both safety and optics. For example, today, white people often occupy the first line in highway shutdowns. This forces white drivers to confront their own in deciding how to respond to the shutdown rather than an other. As a high school student, Leah Fitchett used legal action to make herself heard after police arrested and held her for hours simply because she filmed them on her cell phone. As a result of her complaint, the Newark police changes policies and trainings about the public filming of police. This is Leah a few years later, graduating from Cornell University. We can’t expect more police accountability if we do not hold safe spaces for people to report mistreatment. Janney Liggins mustered the courage to come forward after being raped by an on-duty Oklahoma city police officer. Thanks to Janney, 13 other women he assaulted, all vulnerable and poor, also came forward. And together, they sent the officer to prison. In 2009, Newark police officers harassed Diana Taylor for being a trans woman. They joked about having a $10 bet over her gender, and they searched her in a sexually intrusive manner. It took tremendous courage for Diana to report this treatment. But in doing so, she advanced the public’s knowledge of a reality that most middle class Americans just don’t see. When it comes to addressing police practices, it’s important to take an intersectional approach. The ability to think, speak, and act intersectionally is the ability to build connection and strength. For decades, progressives have tragically worked within silos, failing to leverage the interconnectivity of all human rights. But things are changing. An intersectional approach in Ferguson resulted in connecting activists around the world. Ferguson protesters and Palestinian activists built relationships and visited one another. Members of the 2014 Umbrella Revolution in Hong Kong tweeted empathetic hands up to Ferguson protesters who replied with umbrella shots. In recent years, de-escalation has become recognized as an essential police tactic that can save lives. Of course, it’s something that women police officers have relied on from the beginning. Robin Fenton once removed a 300-pound drunk biker from a bar using only verbal jujitsu. Every time she saw the biker after that, he smiled and promised that he had her back. But de-escalation isn’t just for cops. In Ferguson, people like my husband, who spoke earlier today, train countless people in de-escalation. These skills come in handy in multiple dynamics that activists face, from internal conflict to dealing with counter protesters to staying cool so that the police can’t escalate you. Utilizing unusual suspects, especially people considered credible by police, can break barriers. Such messengers might include representatives from grass-tops organizations, clergy, and civic leaders. By extending their credibility to the movement, they make it harder for the opposition to disregard voices on the ground. But the best unusual suspects for communicating with law enforcement are cops themselves. This is Sue Rahr. She’s the former sheriff who now runs the Washington State Police Training Academy. She brought forth a national dialogue about the Guardian versus the Warrior in law enforcement, or as I like to call it, Andy versus Barney. You all can Google that if you don’t know. Another way to communicate with police is through restorative justice. These confidential, small group facilitated conversations provide perhaps the best opportunity and hope for increased understanding in the face of tragedies involving civilians and police. I would rather see a police officer engage in a two-hour conversation within a grieved citizen than stay home on a two-day suspension. We should also take a step back to clarify police officer’s job descriptions. What exactly is it we want them to do and not to do? We have laid our worst social problems, mental crises, and drug addictions at the feet of police without providing the needed tools, training, and resources. If the job is half social work, then that reality must be understood, recruited, and trained for. Finally, as with all communications among diverse stakeholders, sigh, we must find common ground. That can be of the human level around lives, kids, and passions, but it can also be on the policy level, because ultimately, the tactics that keep the public safer are the exact same tactics that keep police safer. Thank you. Thank you.