*This morning, Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison who is now in charge of the prosecution of the officers involved in the George Floyd case was a guest on SiriusXM’s “The Joe Madison Show.”
During the interview, Ellison told Madison that he is “very seriously looking” at prosecuting the other officers in the case and asked for patience as the process could take months and would not be an “easy slam dunk.”
Ellison said “That doesn’t mean that when we get to a courtroom that it’s going to be some sort of easy slam dunk. History proves that it isn’t. So what I’d say is we’re going to be fair. We’re going to investigate the case carefully. We’re going to prepare carefully. We will, and you use the word trust and I expect that I will over the next course of several months, be a subject to some criticism myself. That’s just the way this goes, but I hope that I can maintain the trust because people know that I am serious about justice and we’ll pursue it..”
When asked about arrested the other officers involved in the case, he says “We’re going over it carefully and we are reviewing the video tapes, the audio tapes, all the evidence, and we will make a charging decision based on the facts that we can prove, but I don’t want anybody to doubt that we are very seriously looking at that issue.”
Audio is below.
Keith Ellison: Prosecuting the George Floyd Case Will Not Be “Some Sort of Easy Slam Dunk”
Host, Joe Madison:
You have to avoid, do you not, any missteps for various reasons, correct?
Keith Ellison:
Right. That’s absolutely right. If I could just remind the folks listening, look, we all saw what happened to Freddie Gray. We looked at that and we were like, well, of course, that guy was killed. And yet nobody was convicted for that. Walter Scott, that jury hung. Even Rodney King, he got hit 57 times and the Simi Valley verdict was not guilty, or as my memory serves, and they ended up getting convicted because of a federal civil rights prosecution. And so I just want to caution folks. I mean, everybody said, ‘well, we all saw with our own eyes what happened there. We know what happened. We know what the results should be.’ And I don’t deny that your eyes are working well and you saw what you saw, but that doesn’t mean that when we get to a courtroom that it’s going to be some sort of easy slam dunk. History proves that it isn’t. So what I’d say is we’re going to be fair. We’re going to investigate the case carefully. We’re going to prepare carefully. We will, and you use the word trust and I expect that I will over the next course of several months, be a subject to some criticism myself. That’s just the way this goes, but I hope that I can maintain the trust because people know that I am serious about justice and we’ll pursue it, but I’m going to be fair to all parties concerned, and that I’m going to be just, and that’s the way it’s going to be. So, we’re proceeding forward and we’re going to be working really hard. We were doing 14 hour days and now we’re going to be, I don’t know how many more hours in the day I got left, but we’re going to be using them all and I’m working very hard to make sure that justice is achieved.
Keith Ellison “Very Seriously Looking” at Arresting Other Minneapolis Officers Involved in George Floyd’s Death
Host, Joe Madison:
Can we anticipate that those three officers will be arrested?
Keith Ellison Let me tell you at this moment, it’s 6:39 AM Monday morning. I’m not prepared to announce anything at this moment. I will say that we are going to hold everybody accountable for what they did wrong and what they did that’s illegal. And so I will say that we are examining this question carefully. We’re going over it carefully and we are reviewing the video tapes, the audio tapes, all the evidence, and we will make a charging decision based on the facts that we can prove, but I don’t want anybody to doubt that we are very seriously looking at that issue.
Keith Ellison says Prosecution Does Take Months and Asks for Patience
Host, Joe Madison:
Now something rang in my ear, you said, in months to come. So that brought up this next question. And that is people, you know, they want swift justice. I know they want it fair, but then the question is, if you know the answer, what’s the timeframe? Because it could be one of the main criticisms is, uh oh, is this going to take months? And where does that put us? Your response to that?
Keith Ellison:
If people will recall criminal between the time that a crime happens and there’s arrest, and the ultimate trial of that case, it’s not an overnight thing. It does take months. And I think I want to be clear to folks that that is what it takes and we’re going to need their patience in that time. I even am reluctant to use the word patience because people who’ve been long denied, treated unfairly for decades and centuries, you tell them to be patient, they’re like, we’ve been patient. I get that. I totally get that.
Host, Joe Madison:
Yeah. Right. Yeah. How long? Not long. Yeah. Right. King’s favorite quote.
Keith Ellison:
Right, but I also want to say, ask people to look into their own memory and their own experience. How often does it take for a case to end up in trial? It’s not an overnight thing. There’s a lot of evidence to gather, a lot of case to prepare. We’re not going to delay this any longer than we need to, but we do want to be ready. We do want to be prepared, and I do hope I can hold the trust of the community as we go through that process of preparation.
Keith Ellison Suggests Reporting Violent Provocateurs to Law Enforcement
Host, Joe Madison:
What word do you have for these provocateurs and these opportunists who are just disrupting things all over the country, but in particularly your hometown?
Keith Ellison:
What I want to say is that the people who get out there and march for justice for George Floyd are pursuing a noble pursuit. They’re in the best tradition of this country, of this world, of raising the moral voice to get justice. And the people who would go out and commit arson and injury and hurt people and even harm and maybe kill some of them, as they try to mix in with the crowd, all they’re doing is trying to tarnish the reputation of your just cause. Don’t let them do it. Whip out your cell phones, take pictures of these people when they do this and share them with law enforcement because what you’re trying to do is bring justice. What they’re trying to do is something very, very different. These people need to be held accountable too, and please don’t be confused, people who are burning..they’re burning down minority owned small businesses. They’re burning down corporations of companies that your grandmother goes to get her prescriptions filled at and after the place was burned down, where’s she going to go? So don’t let these people do this. We need you to keep the righteous cause clear and make a clear moral signal that we’re calling for justice. We’re not going to blur the line by letting somebody who’s actually committing crimes and defaming the movement get away with it.
SiriusXM’s “The Joe Madison Show” (weekdays from 6-9am ET on SiriusXM’s Urban View channel 126).
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