[Recording Begins] I: I'm just going to test the audio-- if you'll tell me in what capacity you've dealt with police, just overview quickly as I check this. M: Okay, umm, Codes (175-221) Domestic violence well I do work in a domestic violence shelter, so I getCodes (230-896) How interface with police I observe multiple sides of the police, I work with the ones who bring a victim-survivor, we call them survivors, the ones who bring the survivors in, may or may be empathetic to the situation, bringing them to the shelter, I, uh, meet them as hospitals, they're usually the ones who bring my clients into hospitals, into the ER, uh, so I have to deal with them and the nurses, which is terrible. I meet them at court, I meet them, oh man, all over. I meet them for OFPs, like escorts, to get people's items if they're still at their abusers house, so I have multiple different perspectives and multiple different situations in which I do interact with the police. There's a lot to go from here I: Yeah, yeah, okay. Umm, so maybe if you could just--pick one of those and describe kinda like, an interaction, and even if you could give me, maybe like an, if you were to walk me through step-by-step what happens in one of those situations. And then we can go through. M: Yeah, I think I'll choose the most complicated one, that being- Codes (1269-1459) Domestic violence we work with a pretty rough demographic, we accept everybody, and a lot of these women are obviously survivors of extreme trauma, sex trafficking, domestic violence, assault, what have you. So we get a lot of PTSD, a lot of emotion regulation issues, a lot of mental illness, a lot of trauma. So sometimes these women have a lot of anger, and they're really hard to deal with. I personally just got swung at last week, had to call the police on my client, so umm, yeah. Codes (1739-2128) When do you call the police? Unfortunately, sometimes we do have to call them for our own safety, it's just shelter policy if someone's acting out, and we feel like our physical safety or our well being is at risk, we have to call the police. So, umm, when they come they're usually on their guard, they get a disturbance whatever, I don't know what the code for it is, just someone who's being unruly in the shelter. I: So the police come and they're on guard? M: Yes, they're on guard. Yes. Cause they're potentially gonna take this person out in handcuffs, right? Codes (2281-3048) Negative Interaction So we have to interact with them, give them as much information as possible without giving away too much of this client's personal information, because we're a safe space, because we have confidential information about them that we can't give to the police. That pisses them off, cause they got questions on questions-- that's their protocol, is to ask as many questions as possible. Our protocol as a domestic violence shelter is: listen, this person’s given us issues, but we're still here to protect them. Which means if she says I can't give you information, I'm not gonna give you information. I can't give you her name, I can't-- I can give you her age MAYBE. But that's about it. Oh, they hate that. We have so much problems-- so, so many problems with that. Um, Codes (3051-3370) Times you interacted with the police Positive Interaction and usually you get one or two that have mental health training, which are the ones that are a godsend, because they're coming from a place of conversation and less "I'm gonna arrest you if you keep yelling at me" type of stuff. You know what I mean? So, luckily, sometimes we get the one with mental health training. 9 times out of 10 we're getting the beat cops who have been dealing with Dorothy Day, which, I don't know if you're familiar with, but it's one of the largest homeless shelters in St. Paul. Pretty much I want to say the Twin Cities, it's huge. Codes (3613-3984) Negative Interaction Strong Quotes Shelter Domestic violence Police-Community Relationship So when they see homeless shelter, they're automatically thinking "this person's violent, dangerous, we need to get them out right away." They're just-- anger, frustration, confusion. It's a really delicate situation to deal with. I've had to personally throw myself in front of a cop before because they were acting way too aggressively for the situaiton for my client. Codes (3984-4397) Strong Quotes Domestic violence Negative Interaction Cause you don't want someone to leave an abusive relationship or a traumatic situation, come to a shelter, and then get dragged to the floor by a cop, you know what I mean. It's - we try to make it as safe for the client as possible, but, you know, you can't really fight the cops. They got a little more advantage than you do. So, um, I think that's the most complicated interaction that I have with the police. Codes (4399-5259) Domestic violence What we need to do our job When do you call the police? Exisiting resource I: Okay, yeah, so would the cops...are there cops that are in the shelter, usually? M: No. We don't have any security. Which is why we- I personally have had to host multiple trainings to our staff [on] when is it appropriate to call the police, when is it not. And, you know, before I got there, ebecause I had a mental health background, mental health training, before I got there it was just "if this person's screaming, you call the cops." I've had to like, really, nail it in to these people that there are a lot of situations that you can defuse just by talking to somebody. You don't have to call the cops! It's like a gut reaction that like everyone had when I started working there, like, you know, you can talk to someone a certain way, where they won't act up to the point where you have to call the cops. So, umm, yeah that's really frustrating. Codes (5261-7172) When do you call the police? I: So, in your trainings, what would be the situation in which you would call the cops? Where you would recommend that folks in the shelter call the cops. M: It's not cut in the dry, but there are steps in conversation, with people who are mentally unstable, or people who have rage issues. Right? Just emotion regulation. I see someone with mental illness, I gague whether or not they're suicidal. Like, are they going to hurt themselves? There's literally a script you can ask, if you're suicidal. There's also a script you can ask if you're homicdal. So you start with that, right? Am I at risk of getting hurt, or is this person at risk of hurting themselves. If they answer correctly to most of those questions, I'm calling the cops. I have to, I'm a mandated reporter. But if someone's making empty threats, like if I come at them they're gonna stab me, I'm like, "Do you REALLY mean that?" You know what I mean? Just asking questions, you can make a conversation of this person's crisis to the point where you can get them to calm down. And that's what I train my staff on. SO, I don't know if you've ever had an anxiety attack, but it starts with the self, like you hype yourself up, and it no one intervenes, it can be really bad for you. But if you have someone with a soft voice who's willing to hear you out and validate what you're going through, chances are, like human reaction: if someone's calm, with human reaction you can get yourself to calm back down. Right? So I try and approach it with simple human nature so it's not so dauting. Cause when people say "Oh mental health clients? What do you mean I can't call the cops? I'm freaking out, I'm scared." So, if you're coming from a point of 101 conversation, this is what you do when you have a regular conversation with somebody, it makes it a lot easier. So I just stress that, constantly constantly training. It's a little draining, butCodes (7172-7234) When do you call the police? Strong Quotes it's worth not having to call the police if I don't have to. I: So then, do you feel like you're working against-- so you come in and you've implemented this training, and before that, that wasn't people's automatic. M: Codes (7397-8400) Wishlist/dream resources Strong Quotes Shelter Yes, absolutely not. I've noticed, more times than not, it's very very small, few and far in between, this approach of mental health, umm I notice at a lot of shelters, especially homeless shelters in the Twin Cities, they treat it like a prison. With more freedom, right? So the staff is pretty much just there to keep people from killing themselves or other people, but there's no-- I don't know, human interaction? There's no support, no intervention, there's nothing really there. We're getting there, but this is an archaic thing that has been around for a long time. Only recently are we making the connection between crime rates, mental health, and social demographics. You know what I mean? So in like the last, I wanna say 10 or 15 years, even, I would argue that! That that recently, people were like, "people who commit crimes have a lot of issues," and instead of stopping to ask them what their issues are, we just treat them like prisoners. So we're kinda already doing the work for them. I: Wow, well I appreciate the work you do M: Yeah, It's one thing to work in a shelter, and it's another to try and change it! You know what I mean? It's like the only thing you can do is get people in there who have mental health training. Cause I'm getting so many clients now, and even with my boss, she's like "what's with all the crazies?" I'm like "Okay, let's not say that." *Laughs* Codes (8795-9190) Domestic violence Police-Community Relationship Bias/Predjudice Strong Quotes They're not crazy, they've been through hell and back, they're coming out of hell recently, fresh. And we're just expecting them to acclimate to society like the rest of us. It's like asking a veteran to not have PTSD symptoms, that's like asking a prisoner not to sell crack if they're not making any money at their minimum wage job, you know what I mean? So, it's just- we're asking too much. Codes (9190-9350) Strong Quotes When do you call the police? I: Okay, so with situations where you suddenly needed to call the cops. If they weren't needed, would you call the cops? M: Absolutely not! Absolutely not. I kinda make waves, I actually got in a full blown argument at- what was it? It was a panel discussion, I was with the chief of police's assistant for Hennepin County, I was with an FBI agent, and also with a-- it was the worst panel I've ever been on. Um, it was a public defender, but not the good kind. And it was me! So it was literally, my main arguement- it wasn't even an argument. My policy is to train or give my clients the skills to use their community instead of the police. What can you do? I know I keep going on tangents or whatever, I have ADD, sorry.Codes (9917-10037) Police-Community Relationship Negative Interaction So, a lot of my clients, and I noticed this when I just started working, is they're like "man, I don't trust the cops. Codes (10037-10084) Negative Interaction Negative Interaction Half of the time I call, they take ME to jail. Codes (10084-10305) Negative Interaction Cause they gotta take somebody to jail, and he just had- or she, they- my abuser just happened to have a better story. So why would I want to call the cops? Or, you know, last time I called the cops they took my children. Codes (10306-10492) Strong Quotes Negative Interaction When do you call the police? Last time I called a cop-- just too many negatives, not enough positives. So, you know, that kinda got me thinking, like I mean, do they really have to call the cops every single time? Or, cal I train them to call me, to call ACLU, to call OutFront, to call organizations that they wouldn't ever think of had they not known about them. You know what I mean? Codes (10664-11368) Wishlist/dream resources When do you call the police? And that's the whole concept of safety planning, right? It's like, I'm not comfortable using this resources so- pardon my language, but instead of being fucked, like we're thought to believe, we can use 6 other organizations that are there and ready to help me. You know what I mean? Ooh man, the people on our panel did not like that information. They're like "What? What do you mean you're telling your clients not to call the cops?" They have trauma! I'm not gonna force them to call the cops! It's as simple as that! I'm creating options for my clients. That whole panel was "WELL, the police should always be your option if you need safety." You know what I mean? Naturally, because it's their job. Codes (11370-12418) Domestic violence Failures of the police Negative Interaction Police-Community Relationship I: Right, it's like if they were actually hearing what peoples experiences were, interacting with the police, it would be like "do they promote safety?" You should really ask yourself that question. M: Well yeah, literally. And I want to say, whens the last time you had a mental health training? When's the last time you interacted with a trans client? When's the last time you've sat with someone and talked with them about their sex trafficking experience? You know, like, I'm seeing that there's not a lot of training in your field, and there's plenty of training in mine, so guess what? I'mma go with what I know. Enough to tell my clients what I know. It's as simple as that. I'm not trying to make them hate the cops, I'm not trying to enforce this "don't trust the police" mentality, but it's like, simply you have other options. Unless someone's trying to kill you. Which, I mean, a lot of times it is that kinda situaiton, in which case, when is it good to call the cops, when is it bad to call the cops? So, that's kinda where I'm at. I: Great. This is exactly the kinda information that we want. So there are alternatives that you would- that exist, already. M: Absolutely. I: So what do some of these other organizations do? In those moments. M: Some of those organizations do interact with the police, but they interact with the police for you, or at your side. So, that's another approach that I like. If you have to call the cops, have someone there to advocate for you. Cause, you call the police, and a lot of times, you don't even know what to tell them, so you start stuttering, you change you're story around, you're stressed out, I get it! They're gonna see that as misinformation. There's not enough there, they're gonna get really paranoid, so it's probably not gonna go well for you. If you have someone there who knows how to talk to the police and advocate for you, that's what I want. So SMELS, that's a legal service, that works with my clients, that's like a direct reference. So they work with mostly native women, but they're pretty much who I refer to if you have custody issues, if you have undocumented women who are trying to leave their abusers, you're trying to get your kids back, whatever that case may be. Legal services, basically willing to work for pennies, to try and help these women. Because they have a legitmate case, but they don't feel like, they don't want to go to police, because they're like "it's not worth it. it's not worth it. I'll just stay with him or her. I'll just stay with my abuser, cause I'd rather deal with that than deal with the cops." And then not getting help. I: So in saying dealing with the cops, what does that look like for these people that are experiencing- M: Making police reports to help with their court process, umm, you need a police report in order to make a claim for an order of protection. You need a police report. You need enough evidence beyond a reasonable doubt, that this person is abusing you, and you need the court to step in. Basically. So, you know, evidence is mostly collected by a police officer. If you call them trying to get away from your abuser. They're the first responders, more or less. So that's what I mean when I'm talking about dealing with the police- relying on them to keep your evidence, to make an accurate report, and to be able to back you up in court. Cause it's your word against your abusers against the police officer's. There's three levels of story that you need to rely on to get what you need. So it's very helpful to have someone who has been working with clients for a long time, that's why always ACLU, always SMERLS, always CLUES, CLUES helps with legal services. It's like community organizations that have networks that are willing to at least get someone in the direction of where they're willing to go. You know what I mean? Does that makes sense? I: So now I'm thinking, when we initially started, you said that was the most complicated situation that you would end up in with a police officer. So what are some of the other ways you interact with police officers? M: Umm, one really stands out to me. It's kinda a story, a short story, but it's a story. I: Beautiful, stories are great. Yeah. M: I had a client wo had been raped at the Metro Transit station, she was lured into a parking garage and raped. So she was really proactive, I was like shocked. Well I wasn't really shocked, she had a long history of trauma so rape was kinda normal for her. So her reaction was "Okay, I'mma go to the police, I'mma make a police report, I'mma go to the emergency room, get checked out, and then I'm gonna go make an appointment with my therapist." She had, like, she kenw what she needed to do. Which- I mean, I was proud of her, but also goddamn, how many times has this happened to you? To where you know exactly what you need to do, and then be able to do it, just deadpan face serious. She didn't even cry, like, the whole day I was with her. And I took her to the police station to make a police report. And the officer who was there, that just happened to be his beat. He was familiar- that's his route, this parking garage is on his route. He's familiar with that area. So he was coming from a place of "We're gonna get this guy," he wanted to help her, it was good, but he was very...umm...he was almost parental about it. He was like "Well, why were you there so late at night?" I: Oh god. M: Yeah, he didn't say "What were you wearing," which is the classic line, but he said EVERYTHING else. "Why were you there so late at night? Why didn't you have a friend? Why are you taking the bus to work so early in the morning? Why don't you take an UBER?" Stuff like that, which is like listen dude. I had to step in a couple times, like "She lives in a domestic violence shelter. She's broke! She can't afford an UBER. Why doesn't she have to beg someone to come with her, when she has to go to work at 5 am? Who's gonna get up with her? You're asking ridiculous questions right now. They don't make sense." I had to keep telling him, I had to keep bringing him back, he's like "Well why did you do this, why did you do this," instead of saying "Where did you get raped, what time, what did the person look like, what did he do after," that kinda interview. He was focused just, like, entirely on her behavior, not on this person. So I felt like I was running the interview. And this guy was in his 50s, I was like "Dude how long have you been doing this for? I just happened to sit in on your making a report for a sexual assault, and you are doing it all wrong." He was like "Well I've had training, and I know where you're coming from, and I'm not trying to yell at you, but if my daughter got into this situation," cause he has kids, right? Father figure. I was so proud of her, she's like "Well I'm not your fucking daughter? Right? Am I? No? I need help. Quit scolding me and get the information." And I looked at her like "I cannot believe you just said that, I'm so proud of you!" She was like defending herself. That was like an hour and a half of interviews, he's like "Well, you should go to the hospital to get checked out, I'm gonna take you there." We follow him to the hospital, he sits there, way longer than he should be, telling her what to do next time. "Well, you should really wear leggings, you should get a buddy to go with you, don't ever do this again. She's like "what do you mean, never do this again? He raped ME, I didn't do shit." She got mad, I got mad, like you're telling her never to get raped again basically. That's what you're saying. He's like "well, I didn't mean that," It's like okay, whatever dude. You can leave now. Thanks for the report. I will call you, because I don't want you having any sort of interaction with her after this. Just leave. So long story short, it was supposed to be a short story, but, you know, his heart was in a good place, but no training whatsoever. It was all gut reaction, which was like macho, I'm gonna get this guy, you should know better, you need to be safe, you're a woman, you can't just be walking around, like what is this, the 50s, bro? She's got a job, let her get to work. So, yeah. That was like, oh man, a 2 hour rant session after I worked the bar that shift. But, I was very proud of her that she's obviously been used to dealing with police officers in that respect. Cause she was not letting him have any of that. She was like "I did not do any of this to myself, and you should not be making me feel like I did this to myself." So, you know, I haven't heard from him since, I see him every once in a while, but, man. If I could just sit him down for a few hours and let him know what he's doing wrong in a way that's professional, I wish. I wish. But he's not forced to do that for me, or for anyone else. That's another situation. I: Wow. M: Yeah dude. So you get the ones that are just typical, 50s style police officers, ready to kick ass like they're military. You get the ones who are softies, kinda, but still got that really fucked up old school view about sexual assault, he said she said. I don't see enough middle ground. I don't see enough. It's really frustrating. I: Is there a story-- can you give a time when a cop like, did it right, where you were like "that is what we need"? M: Absolutely, I have. That's the one with mental health training. That's the one that was a sane nurse. Are you familiar with sane nurses? Sane nurses have amazing, amazing training for mental health and sexual assault. So those are the ones who are called to deal with people who've been raped. Because they know how to talk to them, they know how to administer rape kits, all of the really traumatizing stuff in ways that aren't so traumatizing. So they have, probably more than me, hours, hundreds of hours worth of training. He just happened to quit that job to become a cop. That's the one that I had the best relationship with, cause he's like "I can talk to her." He's my age, he's like mid-20s, like really nice guy, he realizes he's a white dude from the suburbs, so he's like "I'm not gonna bullshit anything, I gotta just talk to this person. Cause obviously a white man walking up to somebody in a police uniform is OOH, we get a bad rap. So he knew that, he knew his privilege, he knew his intimidation, by just looking at him, and somehow he was able to talk to people. He just had that demeanor, that really calming demeanor. Even when he was talking to me, I was like "I feel relaxed right now." Cause I have trauma with cops, as a protestor, I mean just recently, a few months ago, I had trauma! I have beef with cops. I don't like it affect my job, but it's like, when one walks in, I get a little nervous. He didn't have that, I don''t know what, maybe he just got lucky with his energy, but he didn't have that. It's that type of personality mixed with hundreds of hours of training, I don't know if he's worked out, I haven't seen him in a while, I'm hoping he kept his job cause he's really good at it. Really good at it. I: And he was a sane nurse before? M: Yes. I: So the training that he would've gotten wasn't through- M: Oh no. Nope. I just got super lucky, because he'd had another job that had cared about mental health. That's not to say that the police district doesn't provide mental health training, because they do, they do involve other organizations, such as mine -- domestic violence shelters, legal services, other nonprofits, grassroots, they get people in a room and they listen to them. I don't think that happens enough, I don't think they're getting the people in those rooms that need to hear what's going on, and they're definitely just way too focused on the paramiliary training. Which, I get it, you're a police officer, but they really need to step up that mental health training. Cause that's the clientele. Nowadays? Yes, absolutely the clientele. So, yeah. I: So then it's kinda luck of the draw. Who you interact with? What officers you interact with? M: Sometimes, we know our local district, so it's literally, I feel like I'm requesting like a DJ or something, I'm like "Yo, is so and so working tonight?" they're like "Nah, he's in tomorrow." I'm like "Okay, well if I have to call the cops I'll wait til tomorrow." It's literally like "Is so and so working?" Cause we have the same people coming, we know who the bad ones are, we know who the good ones are. I: And you can sort of, if it's not urgent, you can pick and choose a little bit? M: Yeah, yeah. If it's not a pressing issue I'm like, "Well he knows me, so have him call me when he gets in tomorrow." And uh, I'll do that, I'll have conversations, I'll be like "You know this person is mostly likely gonna be on the corner of such and such, they've been using coke a lot lately, so keep an eye out and make sure they're safe." He's like "okay, I'll roll through there and make sure she's safe, go on my way." That's the kinda cop I love, cause it's open communication. I can call him up, be like "you know, I'm not saying go stalk this person, but I'm worried about her," and he says "Okay, I'll do it, and I'll come back and call you with a full report."But the amount of the times that that's happened, I can count on one hand. I've been working in this field for almost a year, and I can count on one hand the amount of cops I have that relationship with. And it kills me, cause how long are they gonna stay in this field? If they're that good, probably not very long, you know? I hope they do, but it's too much of a good thing. It's too good to be true! So I kinda gotta keep my own down more often than not. My own perception of policing right now is really complicated, and I know that about myself, so I really try to meet them halfway. Unless they're being complete assholes, which... I: In that case, what would you do? M: I will tell them to leave. And I will call someone else. Like, "Okay, you're not needed here anymore, you can remove yourself, you can keep the police report, I'll give you the information you need, but you gotta leave." And I'll call COPE. COPE, are you familiar with COPE? *pauses* Okay, COPE is amazing, it's an amazing concept, it's hard to keep people working with COPE, cause it's a hard job. But essentiall what COPE is is when someones having a mental health crisis, instead of calling the police right away, if they're not an immediate threat or danger to your ot themselves, you can call COPE, they will come out and assess the person's stability. If it's bad enough, they will stay there until the police come and they will escort them to the ER to get evaluation. If it's not serious, COPE will sit with the person and talk with them to make sure they're okay. That's probably the most effective form of mental health crisis intervention, but there's not enough of it. Unfortunately. COPE is a beautiful concept that I honestly don't, I don't know if it's going to be sustainable. I really don't. Unless something changes. I: What would be the change for it to be sustainable? M: We just need to get more training! I'm not even saying the police officers, that's just the topic of conversation tonight. I'm talking about everyone who has contact with my clients. It's the paralegal. It's the public defender. It's the judge who oversees hundreds of Orders for Protection every day. It's the nurse who has been there way too long and hates their job, and just does not know how to treat a sexual assault victim. It's the landlords that have been witnessing these behaviors and haven't said anything. It's the, god, it's the CPS worker, it's even me, it's even people who work in the shelters who turn a blnd eye, it's- everyone needs more training. And where do we get the money to train literally everybody? *I* need more training, you know what I mean? So on a macro level, it just seems impossible. So, where do we start, we gotta start small! And that's why this project, it's a small step, but it's a forward step. I'm so used to seeing backwards steps. It's a baby step forwards. I: Okay, I'm gonna check and see if I'm... M: On topic? I: Yeah, I mean we're definitely....this is all super super topical. Um, I feel like you're answering all these questions without me asking them specifically. M: Sweet! That seems to happen, I just get in a flow, and you know... I: Yeah, that's great. Um, I guess I'm like, yeah, so I guess you spoke to this a little bit, part of this project is both getting an understanding of what the lay of the land is, and how police are functioning in these different capacities as it exists, and also a visioning. So like, I'll ask you these questions. If the police didn't exist, like weren't an option, how would that impact the shelter and your clients and the work that you do. M: I...uh...I call the cops, honestly, I don't use them enough, to have...I call them when I absolutely have to, I've worked there almost a year. I need to figure out how long I've been working there. I've been working there, let's say a year, and I've had to call the cops, let's say, 5 times. So in a year, I"ve felt like the situation was to the point where I couldn't handle it 5 times. I have HUNDREDS of clients. So if the police didn't exist, I might have to dodge a few punches once in a while, but that's not gonna deter me from working. That's not going to keep the shelter [from] running smoothly if the police weren't there. If they were not there and we had the ideal amount of training, the right amount of people working in the shelter, and a really solidifed network of organizations who have constant communication with each other who know what they're about, they know how to take in whatever resources and distribute them evenly, in a utopian society, no. I don't think we need em! I don't think we need them. You know, and when we do need them, there I can think of a very few scenarios where it would be so out of hand where I hoped and wished I had the police, but that's a chance...if I had the decision, if I had the choice, that's a chance I'm willing to take. That's why I teach my clients that they don't have to go to the police. I even reflect back on me when I was growing up, you know, I had a side of my family that was undocumented, from Mexico. We never fucking called the police. They're like "I will take you to the ER, and we don't say anything about this!" Like no, it's not an option. Then I have the other side of my family, where they're like "If you see anything, call the police." So I had two complete opposite sides of the spectrum. Always call the police, never call the police. So I've had to kinda navigate myself through my own experiences combined with what society trains us, at a very young age, to react--how to react to situations. Does it involve the police, does it not involve the police. I mean, if my option to involve the police didn't exist, but I had, you know, a bunch of other options that I could do and I was trained in all of this, would it work out for the better, would it benefit me, would it benefit my clients? I don't know, but I'm a pretty big optimist, and I would say that yes, it would. Be a lot better. If instead of police officers responding we had psychologists responding. We're trained in basic restraints, I know how to get someone to the ground if I need to and restrain them if they're having a full-blown mental health crisis. Do I need a police officer to do that? Eh, probably not. Probably not. You know what I mean? So those are the kind of questions that I ask myself. Cause I get that a lot, they're like "Oh, well you would miss the police if they weren't here." I'm like "Would I, though?" If I had every other option other than them, I would probably take the other options. In a heartbeat. But that's because I know how to navigate my resources that are available to me. Not everyone does. Know what I mean? So that's why the 'culture of wokeness'- I like to think of it not just as a movement, but it is a culture- it's like a subculture of wokeness. This culture of woke, I like to think that people in the movement, or young people from here on out, take that as an opportunity to educate themselves, to be passionate about investigating what kind of resources they have available to them. Cause it might not seem like there's a lot, especially right now with all this bullshit that's happening in politics, don't even get me started. I don't know if I'm gonna have my job anymore, there's so many questions, right? But on a macro level, I keep thinking "It's hopeless, we're all fucked." But on a micro level, we live in an awesome area. Twin Cities, I've lived in Chicago, I've worked mental health in Chicago, there's nothing there. The politics are too fucked up. Twin Cities, we're actually very...we're stepping in the right direction. I will say that. I'm not saying we're the best city, but we have a lot of really good people who are trying to get positions of power that will help. THis whole culture of wokeness, I feel like there's going to be a lot of people who come out of this movement such as myself that want to change the systems. And we're seriously looking at it from a point of "Do we need the police or not?" So many- I have a 17 year old sister, she's seen...she saw my dad get arrested at the mansion. She saw my dad get tackled to the ground, and arrested, for exercising his rights. And that just like, pissed her off. She was like "THAT didn't need to happen. What can I do, now, to change my life, but also take steps to change the system?" It's like our young people, who were all arrested over the summer, are like "This is fucked up! What can I do to change this?" And I have so much love for them, but I feel like...the steps are being taken. They're small steps, but they're being taken. Maybe I'm an optimist, maybe I'm a realist, maybe I'm just trying to hang onto something to keep me going in my really hard field of work. I don't think so, though, I don't feel like that. I don't feel like I'm just making shit up. There's just too many conversations having so much impact on me, and there's too many organizations, there's too many co-ops, too many groups, too many things that are happening right now in our community that are really good for us. So I'm just choosing to hold onto that as much as I possibly can, and I think things will start to happen. I: Yeah, I have to remind myself to by in that position more often. I mean, this is exactly why I'm doing this project, because I feel like with all the interviews I do I feel like both incredibly frustrated and disgusted, and then also like, people are thinking about these things, asking the right questions, and that's where we gotta start, at least. To be moving towards something. M: I agree, just conversation, talking, instead of making a Twitter post and using social media as your conversation outlet. This, to me, is so valuable, sitting here, telling you about my perspective, how minor it may or may not be, and just getting that out there, having that conversation, I feel like I can do that with people in the community, and I feel like I can do that, hopefully, with systems that need to change. I feel like one day I can feel comfortable having this kind of conversation with people who interact with my clients. With the nurse- [Recording Ends]