| | | | |  | | By Brakkton Booker | With help from Rishika Dugyala and Teresa Wiltz
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The family and attorneys of Ahmaud Arbery raise their arms in victory outside the federal courthouse in Brunswick, Ga., after all three men involved in his killing were found guilty of hate crimes on Tuesday. | AP Photo/Lewis M. Levine | What up Recast fam! The Biden administration imposes new sanctions on Russia while condemning the "beginning of a Russian invasion of Ukraine." The U.S. women's soccer team reach a multimillion-dollar settlement with their governing body, which agreed to compensate the men's and women's national squads at equal pay rates. But we kick things off with a pair of verdicts in cases involving the high-profile killing of Black men. The people who stood trial for the killings of Daunte Wright in Minnesota last year and Ahmaud Arbery — who was gunned down on this day two years ago in Georgia — have been found guilty. The verdicts were handed down within days of one another. In one instance, families and supporters, while acknowledging the significance of the conviction, say the punishment wasn't enough. In the other, supporters, while jubilant, are frustrated they had to pile on the pressure before justice was served. The three white men who killed Arbery as he jogged through their coastal Georgia neighborhood were already convicted of murder in state court in November. On Tuesday, they were found guilty of federal hate crimes as well.
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Katie Bryant, Daunte Wright's mother, is surrounded by community members and activists after former officer Kim Potter was sentenced to two years in prison Friday in Minneapolis. | AP Photo/Nicole Neri | The specter of race permeated last year's murder trial of Gregory McMichael, his son Travis and their neighbor William "Roddie" Bryan. Still, in the courtroom, state prosecutors didn't make race the primary focus, instead zeroing in on the defendants' actions: Suspecting Arbery was a burglar, the three men chased him down in their trucks, cornered him, then shot him dead in the street. In the more recent trial, federal prosecutors made a forceful case that Arbery was targeted simply because he was Black. A jury made up of three Black people, one Latino and eight white people agreed. High-ranking officials, including Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp, swiftly weighed in to praise the verdict, pointing to the case as an example of the justice system working as it is intended. "Today was another necessary step toward justice in a case that shocked many across our state and nation, my family included," the Republican tweeted Tuesday.
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| Attorney General Merrick Garland, at a briefing from the Justice Department, declared, "The defendants' actions — and the racism that fueled them — have inflicted enduring trauma on Mr. Arbery's family, his friends, his community and communities across the nation." But Arbery's family had initially been frustrated with DOJ officials. Though federal hate crime convictions are unusual, the family wanted the trial to proceed, despite a plea agreement the Justice Department secured with two of Arbery's killers, the McMichaels. It's rare that disputes between the families and federal prosecutors spill out into the public. Plea deals can often be viewed as too lenient, while going to trial can risk prosecutors not securing a conviction. In the end, the federal judge sided with Arbery's family. But the family's earlier frustrations were on display Tuesday outside the U.S. District Court in Brunswick. "Even after the family stood before the judge and asked the judge to not take this plea deal, the lead prosecutor Tara Lyons stood up and asked the judge to ignore the family's cry," said Arbery's mother, Wanda Cooper-Jones. "That's not justice for Ahmaud. What we got today we wouldn't have gotten if it was for the fight the family put up on Jan. 31."
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Attorney General Merrick Garland speaks during a news conference on Tuesday at the Justice Department. | Nicholas Kamm, Pool via AP | When asked about Arbery's mother and her frustration with the DOJ, Garland said, "I cannot imagine the pain that a mother feels to have her son run down and then gunned down while taking a jog on a public street. "My heart goes out to her and to the family. That's really all I can say about this." Some 1,400 miles away, in Brooklyn Center, Minn., another mother also demanded more from the criminal justice system. Katie Bryant's son Daunte Wright was killed last April by Kim Potter, a white police officer who said she mistakenly drew her service weapon instead of her Taser during a traffic stop. On Friday, upon learning that Potter would serve a two-year prison sentence, Bryant said, "the justice system murdered him all over again." Under state guidelines, the minimum recommended sentence for first-degree manslaughter is about seven years. The family denounced the sentence, saying that Judge Judy Chu was far too lenient and was swayed by Potter's crying during her pre-sentencing statement. "Yes, we got a conviction, and we thank everybody for that, but, again, this isn't OK.," Bryant said on Friday. She continued:
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| Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison issued a statement on Friday, attempting to find a middle ground in the sentencing. "There is no cause for celebration: no one has won," Ellison wrote . "We all have lost, none more than Daunte Wright and the people who love him. None of us ever wanted Kim Potter to recklessly pull the wrong weapon and kill Daunte Wright. "What can we do now? We can talk. We can try to understand. We can change policy, and we can work together." All the best,
The Recast Team
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| Power dynamics are changing. With The Recast, you'll get a twice-weekly breakdown of how race and identity are the DNA of American politics and policy. Was this forwarded to you by a friend? Subscribe to the newsletter here. Mea culpa: In the Friday edition of The Recast, we misstated that two senators were responsible in shelving efforts for Biden's Build Back Better legislation. Sen. Joe Manchin was the sole Democratic senator upending the measure.
| | | THE EXCLUSIVE
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Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison, right, addresses reporters outside the Hennepin County Family Justice Center in Minneapolis in September 2020. | AP Photo/Jim Mone, File | We wanted to dig a little deeper into the Kim Potter sentencing and get some insight from the Minnesota attorney general. He says the former officer can bring about healing in the community and change in the justice system. And he reminds us, there have been only three times in Minnesota history when a police officer was held accountable for killing a civilian: "It's not like this happens every day." This interview has been edited for length and clarity. THE RECAST: Seems to me that you accept the verdict [in the Potter trial], though you personally don't agree with the sentence. Can you talk a little bit about your statement and what you were hoping to convey? ELLISON: The main idea I was trying to convey is that the life of Daunte Wright can't be measured in the number of years that Kim Potter gets. It just can't be. We should be trying to use her sentence to prevent the next tragedy. I wish the judge would have asked more of Kim Potter. I wish the judge would have [called upon Potter to] talk about weapons confusion. [That Potter had] to give people advice [so] they don't make the same mistake. You need to go call up Taser and say, "Well, look, even though this is my fault, and I was trained not to do it, maybe we can prevent some deaths, if we just did these design changes." I don't know. Let's start trying to fix the system, as opposed to just sticking it to people. I mean, some people deserve it to be stuck to, like Derek Chauvin deserves that. But I mean, there might be other people who might be able to get out there and actually stop police misconduct.
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A demonstrator carries a Black Lives Matter sign in front of a group of demonstrators calling for Kim Potter's release on probation on Friday in Minneapolis. | AP Photo/Nicole Neri | THE RECAST: Do you think Kim Potter is an effective messenger in this effort? ELLISON: Why not? Everybody has a role to play, right? Let's just say you're a person who gets a DUI, and you think, "What's the big deal? I had a few drinks. They pulled me over because I was swerving." And then you got to go to a class and you got somebody in front of you saying, "I got behind the wheel after drinking and driving, and I got into a multi-car accident which killed two teenagers. And I want to tell you, I'll never forget it, I'll never live it down." Wouldn't that get to you? It would get to me. I'd be like, "Damn, I thought I was just doing a little something that wasn't that big of a deal. But now I can see how bad it can really, really, really go. I think I'm going to pay attention in my Taser class. I think I'm going to work a little bit harder to make sure this doesn't go wrong." THE RECAST: I don't know. We'll take Potter at her word that it was an accident. But I'm not sure that's going to sway folks who look at this as someone who took a life … and got less of a sentence than someone selling weed. Some of this doesn't make sense, right? ELLISON: I'm not here to disagree with them. But the bottom line is that in Minnesota, the discretionary latitude courts are afforded in sentencing is extremely broad. So I don't enjoy telling anybody the truth. But the truth is, this sentence is what is going to be.
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| So I don't really believe that if Kim Potter was going to do this, I don't think it would solve all the problems. So often when you propose a solution, people rebut your proposal by saying that's not a complete panacea. There is no panacea. It's gonna be a whole lot of different things we do to create a safer environment. THE RECAST: Obviously, for folks that look like us, for Black families who have lost loved ones to these sorts of circumstances with police, we are the ones that are often asked to be understanding, to be patient, to allow justice to take its course. The Wright family says they did that. Then the judge said Potter deserved leniency for the deadly encounter with Daunte Wright. What do you say to folks who feel if the tables were turned, like they were in 2017 when a Somali-American officer killed a white woman, that no such leniency would have been granted? And would the sentence have been harsher? ELLISON: Well, obviously, that doesn't sit very well with me. But … are we trying to make sure that everybody is treated as bad as Black people are or that Black people are treated as well as everybody else is? I'm trying to do the second one.
I set up a conviction review unit to get people out of prison who are innocent. I set up an expungement unit, which is free, for people to get second chances for crimes they did, in fact, commit. I have stood in favor of reducing mass incarceration. I'm not going to flip everything I [help build] for Kim Potter. By the way, 12 people who did not know Kim Potter or Daunte Wright looked at all the facts and felt that she was guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. That is, that is a very important message to me. She will never be a police officer. She will never carry a gun. She will always be morally, legally culpable for the death of Dante Wright forevermore.
| | | ICYMI @ POLITICO
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The "King of Laredo," as Rep. Henry Cuellar is sometimes known, has been exiled by national Democrats in the final stretch before a young progressive tries to knock him off in a March 1 primary. | Manuel Balce Ceneta/AP Photo | The "King of Laredo": That's the nickname some have bestowed upon longtime Rep. Henry Cuellar (D-Texas). POLITICO's Sarah Ferris reports his reign is in jeopardy, as national Democrats and business groups that once backed him have all but abandoned him. Big tech firms like Facebook and Apple have backers who say bills in Congress aiming to rein in big tech will end up negatively impacting people of color and minority business owners. Rep. Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y) tells POLITICO's Emily Birnbaum: "I don't buy it."
| | | THE RECAST RECOMMENDS Hey Recast fam! It's our birthday! One year ago today we launched with a promise to unpack all things race, politics, power and policy . Thanks for taking this ride with us. And with that, here are a few things that we're digging on the culture front:
| | Programming note: Join The Recast's Brakkton Booker for a conversation on POLITICO Live tomorrow, Feb. 24 at 10:30 a.m. EST. He'll be talking with Atlanta Mayor Andre Dickens as part of The Fifty: America's Mayors, which will feature interviews with U.S. mayors discussing their policy agendas, enforcement of Covid measures, the rise in crime & labor shortages. Register here to watch live. | | Commuting to work in Mexico City isn't for the faint of heart. It's time to bid "Killing Eve" adieu. Marlon James, the award-winning Jamaican novelist, has a new novel, "Moon Witch, Spider King," the second in a trilogy of what he calls his "African Game of Thrones." Gloria "Goyo" Martinez, the frontwoman of the Grammy-winning Colombian hip-hop group, ChocQuibTown, is the subject of an HBO concert special.
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| TikTok of the Day: Why women are qualified to critique masculinity.
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