Joining us now is the first woman
to ever serve as the chief of police in Orlando, Florida,
and is now a member of Congress.
From Orlando, Florida, please welcome Congresswoman Val
Demings.
Ellen, it's great to be with you.
First of all, you're amazing.
So how are you right now?
My heart is broken.
It's broken because what we are seeing, America is on fire.
And I spend a large majority of my life
trying to make America better, trying to put fires out.
But yet, the ugly ghost of racism
has been with us since the beginning
of time in this country.
And it continues to rear its ugly head.
And now it has spilled over into the streets.
And I grieve, along with America.
Yeah.
I obviously can't imagine the pain
that every black person is feeling right now.
But I just find myself just crying.
Like last night, I just couldn't stop crying.
And I just am so sad for everything that's going on.
But you have been amazing.
You wrote an article for the Washington Post.
It's titled, My Fellow Brothers and Sisters in Blue,
What the Hell Are You Doing?
I want you to talk about that.
Ellen, I joined the Orlando Police Department
when I was 26 years old.
I joined after serving as a social worker,
working with broken families and broken children.
I continue to want to make a difference.
I've worked side by side with some
of the most courageous, kind men and women
that America has to offer.
When I saw what happened to George Floyd,
and it brought back to my memory,
there are too many examples--
Eric Garner, Breonna Taylor, the Rodney King incident,
and others.
I just had to remind my brothers and sisters
in blue, the men and women that I have worked with,
the men and women that I have loved,
of the important responsibility that they're doing,
and that their number one weapon is the good brain
that the Lord gave them to think before they act.
And I just had to ask the question, what the hell are you
doing?
Because you are supposed to represent all
that is good and decent about America.
And what happened to Mr. Floyd was brutal and senseless.
You've said that they should ban neck restraints.
I mean, that's one thing that could happen, right?
There's one thing that you could--
the police force has a different technique to hold people.
We shouldn't use any restraint that
causes an officer to grab a hold of anything
above the shoulders.
And choke holds have been banned in a lot of different areas.
But it was a little bit different
what happened to Mr. Floyd.
And I just, Ellen, for the life of me,
as a mother of three African-American sons,
as a woman who wore the blue uniform for almost 30 years,
I just cannot for the life of me understand how the officer
continued to kneel on Mr. Floyd, hearing his cries of, "I
can't breathe."
Those words should be painfully familiar to us.
And I just didn't understand.
I also just couldn't understand the officers
who were standing by, because failure to act
is just as egregious.
I just don't get it, when we have
been trained, they have been trained to protect human life,
to render aid.
We have a long way to go.
Yeah.
I mean, with his hands in his pockets.
So it was just, and as we speak right now--
this airs Friday-- but as we speak,
the other three have not been charged, which is outrageous.
I mean, it's, I don't know.
All the rioting, all everything, if they all would have just
been arrested on day one.
Even though it was a horrible incident that happened,
they all should have been arrested.
And I think a lot of-- and if they
haven't arrested by now, on Friday as we speak,
this is crazy.