CHUCK TODD:
This Sunday: Policing in America.
ANTONE BLACK:
He didn't attack nobody. He didn't rob a bank. He didn't kill nobody.
CHUCK TODD:
A young man with bipolar disorder --
ANTON BLACK:
How are you guys doing? My name is Anton Black.
CHUCK TODD:
-- wrongly believed to be committing a crime --
OFFICER THOMAS WEBSTER:
The black male wearing all black just fled on foot. Apparently he is a schizophrenic.
CHUCK TODD:
-- dies in police custody --
ANTON BLACK:
Please. Please.
CHUCK TODD:
-- in front of his mother.
LaTOYA HOLLEY:
He told our mother that he loved her.
CHUCK TODD:
Anton Black's story raises so many larger questions about policing in America.
OFFICER THOMAS WEBSTER:
Get on the (bleep) ground!
CHUCK TODD:
How did a police officer who lost his job in one city get a job in another?
LESTER HOLT:
You called him a monster?
LA MAR GUNN:
Yes.
CHUCK TODD:
How could Anton's death be ruled an accident?
DR. ROGER MITCHELL:
Anton Black was in a fight and lost, and that is a, that is a homicide.
CHUCK TODD:
And are police unfairly attacked while doing a dangerous job?
JASON JOHNSON:
I don't see any indication of malice. I don't see any indication of indifference.
JENELL BLACK:
So he's not getting locked up?
OFFICER:
No, no, no, no. We're going to get him to the hospital.
CHUCK TODD:
This morning, we're going to look at the pressure points of policing in America through the lens of one case: the death of Anton Black.
ANTONE BLACK:
My son was George Floyd before George Floyd.
CHUCK TODD:
Welcome to Sunday, and a special edition of Meet the Press.
ANNOUNCER:
From NBC News in Washington, the longest running show in television history. This is a special edition of Meet the Press with Chuck Todd.
CHUCK TODD:
Good Sunday morning, and I hope you're enjoying your Labor Day weekend. This morning, we're going to do something a little bit different. We’re going to take a deep dive into the debate over policing in America. There are few cases of policing more notorious or consequential than that of George Floyd. Floyd's in-custody death at the hands of police officer Derek Chauvin and three others on May 25, 2020 sparked a huge national debate about defunding police. It set off street demonstrations, and it made the phrase "Black Lives Matter" a household term. But it's another case that happened before George Floyd in the small town of Greensboro, Maryland, with similarities and connections to the George Floyd case, that we're actually going to examine in-depth today. First reported by Dateline last month by Lester Holt and supervising producer Dan Slepian, the death of a young man named Anton Black in police custody, touches on so many fault lines we’ve been debating about policing over the last few years: race, mental health, escalation versus de-escalation, police accountability and the role of the medical examiner, just to name a few. In this morning's special edition of Meet the Press, we're going to review what happened to Anton Black, how he died, how the cause of death was determined, and perhaps most important: how a police officer with a history of violence in another jurisdiction was even allowed to be on the job. And in each step of the way, I'm going to talk to experts on policing -- a scholar on race and criminal justice, the president of a police defense fund, and the director of the Innocence Project as well as a former medical examiner. But let's start by meeting Anton Black -- a star athlete whose death has raised so many questions about policing in America. Here's Lester Holt.
[BEGIN TAPE]
ANTON BLACK:
How are you guys doing? My name is Anton Black and I hope you like my introduction video.
ANTONE BLACK:
Yeah, this is my baby boy, Anton.
LESTER HOLT:
Anton was a standout athlete -- voted his high school's homecoming king, twice.
ANTONE BLACK
He was a star wide receiver on the football team.
ANTON BLACK:
Set. Go.
ANTONE BLACK:
And mid-Atlantic champion in the 100, 200 and the high jump. I used to love to see him run, oh, and jump.
LESTER HOLT:
After graduating, Anton enrolled in college. but his sister LaToya said his true passion was to build a career as a model. He had the looks.
LaTOYA HOLLEY:
Definitely. Gorgeous.
LESTER HOLT:
But in that summer of 2018, Anton's behavior changed.
ANTONE BLACK:
To me all of a sudden he got moody. He was crying. He was upset all the time.
LESTER HOLT:
He went to a hospital?
ANTONE BLACK:
Yes.
[END TAPE]
CHUCK TODD:
Anton was diagnosed with bipolar disorder. It’s a condition that often develops in the teenage years. Anton lived in the small town of Greensboro, Maryland. It’s just a few miles from the border with Delaware. It’s an important point that will soon come into play. Greensboro is a racially-mixed town of roughly 2,000 residents, approximately one in seven of whom are African American. The town has four police officers in total. Residents often describe Greensboro as a real-life Mayberry. But all of that changed on September 15, 2018. It was a Saturday evening, when a married couple driving home from church saw something they thought was alarming. It was Anton holding a 12-year-old boy in a headlock. When the woman asked the boy, Xavier, if he was all right, Xavier said no, so she called 911, and Greensboro officer Thomas Webster responded. What neither of them knew was that Anton and Xavier had known each other for years.
[BEGIN TAPE]
OFFICER THOMAS WEBSTER:
All right, listen. You're not his brother?
ANTON BLACK:
No, I am.
XAVIER:
He's not my brother, bro.
OFFICER THOMAS WEBSTER:
Stop, stay right there.
XAVIER:
That's not my brother.
LESTER HOLT:
Right before Webster turned on his camera, Xavier told him that Anton was schizophrenic, which wasn't accurate. Anton had been diagnosed with bipolar disorder.
OFFICER THOMAS WEBSTER:
Put your hands behind your back.
LESTER HOLT:
When Webster went to handcuff Anton, he gave the officer an odd response --
ANTON BLACK:
I love you. I love you.
OFFICER THOMAS WEBSTER:
Put your hands back. Put your hands behind your back.
LESTER HOLT:
-- and began to run away. Webster radioed the dispatcher.
OFFICER THOMAS WEBSTER:
The Black male wearing all black just fled on foot. Apparently, he is a schizophrenic.
LESTER HOLT:
Three other men joined the pursuit: two off-duty officers from nearby jurisdictions who happened to be in the area along with a civilian on a motorcycle. Anton ran to his home and locked himself in a car outside. Officer Webster arrived moments later, and without saying a word, he drew his baton and smashed the driver's side window.
OFFICER:
Watch his hands! Watch his hands!
LESTER HOLT:
Then he fired his taser.
OFFICER THOMAS WEBSTER:
I'm tasing him, tasing him.
LESTER HOLT:
But it didn't work.
OFFICER:
He just bit me!
LESTER HOLT:
Anton grappled with the men up a ramp toward his front door as he cried out for his mother.
ANTON BLACK:
Thank you. You were always there. Thank you!
OFFICER THOMAS WEBSTER:
He's schizophrenic.
OFFICER:
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
LESTER HOLT:
The officers then wrestled Anton to the ground --
OFFICER THOMAS WEBSTER:
All right, grab his leg. Pull it out from under him.
LESTER HOLT:
-- with the help of the civilian, who had a confederate flag on his motorcycle helmet.
OFFICER OFFICER THOMAS WEBSTER:
He's cuffed.
OFFICER:
Okay, let him sit there a sec.
OFFICER OFFICER THOMAS WEBSTER:
Okay, everybody take a breather.
LESTER HOLT:
Anton's mother, Jennell, heard the commotion and stepped outside.
JENNELL BLACK:
What is this at my door?
LESTER HOLT:
Webster began speaking with her.
OFFICER THOMAS WEBSTER:
Anton here tried to abduct a 12-year-old and then fled from the police.
LESTER HOLT:
Anton -- handcuffed and on his stomach -- was kicking his legs. So Webster decided they should shackle them too.
OFFICER THOMAS WEBSTER:
I got shackles.
LESTER HOLT:
Anton continued to cry out.
OFFICER THOMAS WEBSTER:
Shackles in the trunk of the car.
ANTON BLACK:
I love you.
CIVILIAN:
You'll be better if you don't fight. Calm down.
LESTER HOLT:
Officer Webster told Anton's mother he wasn't in any legal trouble.
OFFICER THOMAS WEBSTER:
He needs help.
OFFICER:
Yeah.
JENNELL BLACK:
So, he's not getting locked up?
OFFICER:
No, no, no, no. We're gonna get him to the hospital.
LESTER HOLT:
Anton went limp.
JENNELL BLACK:
Anton!
OFFICER:
Anton. Come on, buddy.
LESTER HOLT:
That's when EMTs were called, but they could not revive him.
ANTONE BLACK:
I saw -- and that's why I can't sleep to this day. I seen him begging for his life. You know, he's hollering "Mommy." They never moved. They never got off of him.
JENNELL BLACK:
When I opened up the door, how come they didn't let him up? I'm standing right there.
[END TAPE]
CHUCK TODD:
We're going to pause the story here. And I'm joined by two men who know a lot about the issue of policing. Paul Butler teaches criminal law and race relations law at Georgetown University. And he's author of the book, “Chokehold: Policing Black Men.” And also joining us is Jason Johnson. Mr. Johnson is the president of the Law Enforcement Legal Defense Fund, which provides support to officers charged with crimes. Gentlemen, welcome to Meet the Press.
PAUL BUTLER:
It's great to be here.
CHUCK TODD:
I want to try to unpack the incident itself and what the police could've done differently. We put up a definition of de-escalation from the National Consensus of Policy discussion paper on use of force from 2020. And the definition is this: “An attempt to stabilize the situation and reduce the immediacy of the threat so that more time, options, and resources can be called upon to resolve the situation without the use of force, or with a reduction in the force necessary.” Jason, let me start with you. What we saw there with Thomas Webster, did he follow this definition?
JASON JOHNSON:
Not in my opinion. No. He did not. But I think it's important to remember that de-escalation is just words on a page unless we train our police officers how to de-escalate. It's not a skill that we're necessarily born with. We had to be trained how to do it. As far as I know, Officer Webster had never been trained how to do it. Did he employ those tactics? No. Were they appropriate to the situation? I'm not sure. But they certainly were not used.
CHUCK TODD:
Paul – First, my goodness, it's a good thing we had body camera footage, so at least we're able to at least have some idea of what the truth is. What are some ways – You've dealt with a lot of these cases. What are some ways that Officer Webster could've handled this differently?
PAUL BUTLER:
So, Chuck, every year the police arrest about 10 million people. And not one of those 10 million people feels like getting arrested that day. So de-escalation is about common-sense ways of reducing the trauma and stress of an encounter with the police so that it doesn't end in a tragedy like what happened to Anton Black. So in this situation, keep in mind Mr. Black had not committed a crime. We heard the couple's calls. He's roughhousing with a friend. We know that this is something that when people see African American young men playing around, they're more likely to think of it as a crime than if it's someone else. But what de-escalation in this context means is looking at the situation: How do you talk to people? Do you communicate respect with your tone, with your voices? Are you thinking in this warrior mentality? President Obama's commission on policing said one of the concerns is that too many cops now have this us-against-them mentality. It's guardian, not warrior.
CHUCK TODD:
Jason, explain the decision by the officers to pursue him when he fled.
JASON JOHNSON:
So the information that the officer receives is that – We heard the 911 tape, it's that there's a younger boy who is in a headlock. The officer responds in good faith, assuming that that's true. He makes some observations that tend to confirm that. His interaction with Anton Black doesn't dispel that. And Anton Black leaves. He gathers enough information to understand that perhaps Anton Black is suffering from a mental health emergency. He seems to – Officer Webster seems to understand that. And so he has no idea where Anton Black is going, whether he could harm himself, harm other people. He has a duty to follow up on that, in my opinion. And that's what he does. I heard what Professor Butler said. I do believe that the officer was respectful in his initial encounter with Anton Black. I don't think he came across as authoritarian or mean at all. I think he was respectful. And so I think the reason for following him is that he has a duty to do that.
CHUCK TODD:
Do you believe he should have followed him? Do you believe that there was enough cause to follow, for the decision to pursue?
PAUL BUTLER:
No. I don't think so. Again, he'd responded to a concern that this child was being hurt maybe. And he learns that, no, they're friends, kids just playing around. At that point the criminal law enforcement interest was over. Still, the officer elects to seize Mr. Black, to try to put him in handcuffs. And what does Anton say? He says, "I love you." And then he runs away. Again, every officer does not have to make every arrest. And in this case, there was nothing to arrest for. But too often these kinds of chases, even when they're about nothing, lead to tragedy.
CHUCK TODD:
Let's talk about the next confrontation, Jason, which was – He goes, he sees that he's in the car. And then the baton to the window. There doesn't seem to be any justification for that. But I'm just curious what you would say or what his defense is.
JASON JOHNSON:
Yeah. So I would say that is the part of this incident, if you watch the video tape, that's the part that sort of hit me as the most likely to – Look, people are gonna have questions about this. They're going to want to know, Why did he do that? My response to that is that police officers are human beings. Okay? They're not perfect. In this case I don't believe Officer Webster had been trained in any of the de-escalation policies. I think what he was intending to do is to reduce or eliminate the risk. First of all, he doesn't know Anton Black as far as I know. He doesn't know that's his house. He doesn't know that's his car, as far as I know. He wants to eliminate the risk of Anton Black – He doesn't know if he has a weapon or doesn't have a weapon. He doesn't know if he wants to harm himself or not. And when there's an opportunity – If his intention is to seize Anton Black – That seems to be his intention, and we can argue about the propriety of that. If that is his intention, why not do it when you have the opportunity immediately – We'd be talking about this in a much different light. We might not be talking about it at all if Anton Black is safely placed in handcuffs at that point and taken to a hospital. You know, looking at this in a light most favorable to what Officer Webster's intentions were, as I'm sort of inclined to do, that I believe was his intention.
CHUCK TODD:
But then there was also the tasing. I guess the question is – looking at a layperson, Paul, is: What was the rush? Why not let him sit in the car for half an hour and cool off? That could have – What was wrong with just sort of stepping back?
PAUL BUTLER:
That would've been the best police practice. It's true that police officers are human beings. But they're human beings who are licensed to kill. And in this context, you have to wonder about how much of a difference Anton Black's mental illness made. So we know that sometimes police officers buy into this stereotype that people who are mentally ill are more dangerous, or more likely to commit violent crimes. And all of the data tells us that that's not true.
CHUCK TODD:
All right, but let me – When do you think it is – Do you understand when a police officer feels as if they're not sure, going into his situation, they're not sure, they might reach for a weapon. And they have to always be prepared that the person they're trying to calm down might reach for a weapon. How should they be handling that situation in your view?
PAUL BUTLER:
So the legal standard is if an officer reasonably believes that she's about to be killed, or that the suspect is about to harm somebody else, then she can use deadly force. If that's not the situation, and there's no reason that the officer in this case would have any practical reason to be concerned about Mr. Black, then the officer isn't entitled. A federal judge in the civil settlement in this case said that a reasonable jury could find that the cop used excessive force.
CHUCK TODD:
Jason, is there any part of the tasing that is defensible in your view?
JASON JOHNSON:
Well, first of all, I'd just say this was not a use of deadly force. Using a taser is not deadly force. In fact, it's used to prevent some future need to use deadly force. Ideally it stops there. Again, in my earlier remarks, looking again in a light most favorable to Officer Webster, I believe that's what he was trying to do is end it right there. And the taser was an extension of that. Again, if the taser –
PAUL BUTLER:
But end what exactly?
JASON JOHNSON:
His design was to place Anton Black in custody. And, again, we could debate whether that was proper or not. I would say it was. That was his objective, to get Anton Black in custody. If he uses a taser effectively and Anton Black is taken into custody safely, that changes the outcome.
CHUCK TODD:
I'd go back to, he used the taser as he was running away, not when he was coming toward him. I mean, should that have been a difference too in when you use a taser?
JASON JOHNSON:
Well the legal standard for using a taser is a term called active resistance. So if the person is actively resisting or evading arrest, then that would be a justification for –
CHUCK TODD:
So in that sense, you think it would've met the legal standard?
JASON JOHNSON:
I agree that a jury could disagree with this. I understand that it's not well established. But I think that there's an argument to be made that it was a reasonable action by the police officer.
PAUL BUTLER:
I'm a law professor. I've got to make this clear. The police can't shoot somebody or use non-deadly force just because they're running away from a crime. It has to be proportionate to the threat. In this case, there was no threat from Mr. Black.
CHUCK TODD:
All right. I'm gonna pause here. You guys are coming back a little bit later in this program. So we will see you again and continue this discussion. But when we come back, we're gonna tell you a little bit more about the police officer, Thomas Webster. Turns out Webster had a violent past. Five years before he arrived in Greensboro, Webster was an officer in nearby Dover, Delaware, where he was seen on police dashcam video kicking a young African American man in the face, knocking him out, and breaking his jaw. He still got hired by Greensboro, even though his story and its aftermath were well-known to the town before they hired him. So how did this happen? Stay with us.
CHUCK TODD:
Welcome back. Nineteen-year-old Anton Black died in front of his mother in a struggle with four men, including Officer Thomas Webster and two other officers from nearby towns. So who was Thomas Webster? As we'll learn, Webster had been a police officer in nearby Dover, Delaware, and was the key figure in a violent incident captured on police video that eventually would cost him his job. So how was he able to get hired in nearby Greensboro Maryland? Webster is an example of what some call the wandering cop syndrome: Officers who simply move to another town after being let go for cause. What's more, the town of Greensboro knew all about Webster. Here’s where Lester Holt picks up the story.
[BEGIN TAPE]
LESTER HOLT:
The video, which is hard to watch, is from August 2013 when Webster was an officer in Dover, Delaware. He and another officer were responding to a call about a fight when they stopped one of the suspects, Lateef Dickerson –
OFFICER:
Get on the [EXPLETIVE] ground.
TRACK 303
– and ordered him on his hands and knees.
OFFICER THOMAS WEBSTER:
Get on the ground!
LESTER HOLT:
Just as Dickerson began complying, Webster kicked him in the face, knocking him out and breaking his jaw. But it took two years for that video to go public, only after Webster was charged with second-degree assault.
LA MAR GUNN:
Folks wanted answers, they wanted justice.
LESTER HOLT:
La Mar Gunn, then-president of the NAACP of Central Delaware, led protests outside the courthouse.
JESSI STARKEY:
A packed courtroom in Kent County today.
LESTER HOLT:
At his trial, Webster testified he was afraid Dickerson was reaching for a gun. He said he meant to kick Dickerson in the upper body, but missed and kicked him in the face. After three days of deliberations, Webster was acquitted.
LA MAR GUNN:
It sends us years backwards. We're clearly not happy with this response.
LESTER HOLT:
In an agreement with the city of Dover, Webster resigned and left with his pension: $230,000.
LA MAR GUNN:
I thought he was done.
LESTER HOLT:
But two years later, La Mar heard disturbing news: Webster had been hired as an officer at the Greensboro, Maryland police department, just 25 miles away.
LA MAR GUNN:
I felt betrayed. I couldn't believe it.
LESTER HOLT:
Did you feel the need to warn the folks in Greensboro?
LA MAR GUNN:
The moment I learned that Webster was in the process of being hired in Greensboro, I made a phone call.
LESTER HOLT:
La Mar says he spoke with the Greensboro city manager.
LA MAR GUNN:
I went step by step as to why you would have to hate the people you served to unleash that type of monster on unsuspecting citizens.
LESTER HOLT:
You called him a monster?
LA MAR GUNN:
Yes.
CHUCK TODD:
La Mar Gunn was not the only person who warned Greensboro. Webster was chosen by Greensboro's new get-tough police chief, Michael Petyo. After Webster was hired, members of Greensboro's African American community protested and they went to the town council, pleading with them to reverse the decision to hire Webster. But the council, made up of five white men, allowed Webster to stay on the force as one of the town's four police officers, agreeing with Petyo that he deserved a second chance. So joining me now is Rebecca Brown, the director of policy at the Innocence Project, which works to exonerate people who've been wrongfully convicted. Rebecca Brown, welcome to Meet the Press.
REBECCA BROWN:
Thanks for having me.
CHUCK TODD:
So this is the wandering cop syndrome. And when you get to the details of this, this isn’t a case – When we talk about this issue of should we know who police officers are, how much of their record should we know – This is a case where if you just Googled his name, you learned everything you needed to know about what happened. So I look at this and I wonder what reform could have fixed this?
REBECCA BROWN:
Well, I think there are several reforms that could have fixed this. The first is making sure that police disciplinary records are made publicly available. In the state of Delaware, there was what's called a Law Enforcement Bill of Rights that's a statute that effectively says any internal investigation is secret from the public. This man had 32 excessive force complaints. So that was kept from the public. Now, of course, people did know about this other horrible incident, which did somewhat follow him. And obviously the community was very concerned about that and brought that to the town council. But just foundationally, his record should've been publicly available. Because what ultimately happened here was that the chief kept that information from the certifying body in Maryland.
CHUCK TODD:
Now Maryland now has a law, and it's called Anton's Law, that essentially gets rid of this law enforcement bill of rights. Is that fair to say?
REBECCA BROWN:
Right. So that was repealed in Maryland. There are still more than 20 states with law enforcement bills of rights.
CHUCK TODD:
Let me put that up. There's quite a few of them. Because I want to talk about these law enforcement – That sounds terrific. Who is going to be against the law enforcement bill of rights when you look at this, on here? But these have turned into almost a super steroid version of immunity, hasn't it?
REBECCA BROWN:
Right. It's special protections for law enforcement that are facing allegations of misconduct. You know, at the Innocence Project, we wish some of these protections were available to our clients. Right? I mean, some of our clients, because they're innocent, they don't even seek counsel. And, of course, everyone deserves counsel: police, civilians. That said, these special protections are beyond the pale. For instance, law enforcement that are accused of these things can sometimes have cooling off periods, five days, 10 days before they're even interviewed or interrogated. In some instances, these law enforcement bills of rights allow them to review body worn camera footage of the incident before they're interrogated.
CHUCK TODD:
Let me talk about the body camera situation for a minute here. Because we wouldn't be here without the body camera footage. You know, we talk about the cellphone footage that has sort of done this. But, I mean, how more difficult was this to police – to borrow a phrase – before we had this movement to get police officers to wear body cameras, even in a small town like Greensboro?
REBECCA BROWN:
Right. Certainly, I mean, body camera footage was central here. But, you know, it's not a panacea. There are so many other aspects of the system that need to be reformed to really ensure transparency and accountability of law enforcement. And, you know, that just wasn't the case here. I mean, we saw that there were, you know, hidden disciplinary records from Delaware. Maryland's, you know, certifying body did not receive them. And this can all be fixed through laws like Anton's Law. Anton's Law didn't just, you know, repeal the Law Enforcement Bill of Rights. It also made police disciplinary records publicly available. Seventy-five percent of states restrict access to police disciplinary records.
CHUCK TODD:
This makes it – Literally he just drove 25 miles. Because it was across state lines, all of a sudden, he's a brand new person.
REBECCA BROWN:
Right.
CHUCK TODD:
Right? And a brand new applicant, I guess, for the police force.
REBECCA BROWN:
Exactly. And sometimes this is an intrastate problem. Right? Ohio, for instance, which is where Tamir Rice was killed, you know, the officer had come from another department where the chief said, "This man should not police," because of how he behaved during firearms training. He then went to the Cleveland Police Department. Tamir Rice was killed. And then, that same officer went to a third department in Ohio.
CHUCK TODD:
So would the simplest reform be a federal registry for all cops? One person described it to me as a social security number for cops.
REBECCA BROWN:
Absolutely. I mean, law enforcement should have unique identifiers. Right now, they do not. So there should--
CHUCK TODD:
Across the board, whether you're in Greensboro, Maryland or New York City.
REBECCA BROWN:
Across the board. Absolutely. But on top of that, you know, in order to really properly put information into this index, you need to make sure that these records are publicly available. Because we saw, right, in this instance, 32 complaints people were unaware of, 22 of them which had to do with the use of a taser. This would've been critical information.
CHUCK TODD:
And you would assume – Now let's talk about standardized training. You know, in this entire conversation I had previously with Jason and Paul, one of the things was, "Well, he may not have had the proper training." We do not have uniform training standards either, particularly for small-town cops.
REBECCA BROWN:
Right. I mean, I think there's issues around training. There are also issues around, you know, who is best equipped to respond to these incidents. Right? We understood years ago, right, that we needed specialized firefighters to deal with fires in this country. So, you know, to have emergency responders be responsible for every type of incident just makes no sense.
CHUCK TODD:
Except what do you do when you're in a tiny town, you know, with limited resources? I mean, it feels like it's easier to reform the NYPD than it is Greensboro, Maryland.
REBECCA BROWN:
Well, I thought it was fascinating, on the Dateline, we watched the former chief say exactly what he would've done, right, which was a different form of policing to begin with. And, you know, arguably, big or small, you can have emergency responders who, you know, are best equipped to deal with mental crisis.
CHUCK TODD:
Well, and we're going to discuss the whole guardian versus warrior mentality a little bit later. You're going to be back with us too. Rebecca Brown, thank you. When we come back, Anton's father says Anton was George Floyd before George Floyd. But the connection between Anton Black and George Floyd doesn't simply end with two deaths in police custody. There's another connection to George Floyd. It had huge consequences in this case. And it potentially has huge consequences for hundreds of others. We're going to tell you about that one next.
CHUCK TODD:
Welcome back. So how did Anton Black die? You saw it, but it's a question Anton's family had been demanding to know for months. Dateline found out about Anton Black while reporting on a far more famous case: that of George Floyd. During the reporting on this story, Dateline learned that there was one key player who played an outsized role in both cases. Here again is Lester Holt:
[BEGIN TAPE]
LESTER HOLT:
Four months after Anton Black’s death on his own front doorstep, the autopsy report came out. The manner of death: accident.
ANTONE BLACK:
It's an accident. You beggin' for your life and they don't get off of him. How is that an accident?
LESTER HOLT:
The report was co-signed by Maryland’s Chief Medical Examiner, Dr. David Fowler. You’ll want to remember his name. It said that while it was “...likely that the stress of the struggle contributed to his death … no evidence was found that restraint by law enforcement directly caused or significantly contributed” to it. The cause of death, it stated, was a heart defect and a “a significant contributing condition” was bipolar disorder. The day after the autopsy report was released, the county prosecutor announced no charges would be filed.
ANTONE BLACK:
You took somebody's life and you don't even get charged?
LaTOYA HOLLEY:
It's kind of like they were exonerated as soon as-- Anton's autopsy report was signed.
LESTER HOLT:
The role of the medical examiner was yet another issue captured in the harsh light of Anton Black’s death.
DR. ROGER MITCHELL:
Our role in legal cases plays a huge part.
LESTER HOLT:
Dr. Roger Mitchell is a former chief medical examiner for Washington D.C. Today, he’s head of pathology for Howard University and an expert in investigating deaths, like Anton’s, that occur in police custody.
DR. ROGER MITCHELL:
He was breathing, running, talking before the fight. //And he's no longer breathing, talking, running. And he dies.
LESTER HOLT:
From what you've learned from the Anton Black case, what is the proper manner of death?
DR. ROGER MITCHELL:
Homicide. Anton Black was in a fight and lost. And that is a - that is a homicide.
LESTER HOLT:
Which is not the same as murder and it doesn’t mean Webster or any one else committed a crime. Whether they did anything wrong, that's a legal matter.
DR. ROGER MITCHELL:
That is correct.
LESTER HOLT:
Here is where Anton Black’s case intersects with George Floyd’s. When former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin went on trial for murder, his defense called an expert witness.
DR. ROGER MITCHELL:
I was watching it live, from my office.
LESTER HOLT:
Chauvin’s expert was none other than Dr. David Fowler – the same medical examiner who co-signed Anton Black’s autopsy report.
DR. DAVID FOWLER:
… Potentially carbon monoxide poisoning ....
LESTER HOLT:
Dr. Fowler told the jury that despite Chauvin’s knee on Floyd’s neck, in his expert opinion, the manner of death was “undetermined.”
[END TAPE]
CHUCK TODD:
So joining me now to talk about the role of medical examiners in determining police accountability is a man you just saw in that clip. It's Dr. Roger Mitchell. Dr. Mitchell, welcome to Meet The Press.
DR. ROGER MITCHELL:
Good morning.
CHUCK TODD:
All right. The viewers have seen the death of Anton Black. So let me ask you. I’m going to give you – there are three basic choices here: accident, homicide, murder. This medical examiner chose "accident." How did he come up with "accident"?
DR. ROGER MITCHELL:
I'm not quite sure how they came up with "accident." I think that there's a philosophy and culture that if there's an altercation with law enforcement, that often, if law enforcement didn't mean to kill someone, then it's an accident. But I suggest that it's a homicide, that whether they intended to kill him or not, the actions of another human – whether they're law enforcement or not-- those actions that lead to a death are homicide.
CHUCK TODD:
That's the technical definition of homicide. It's a death by the hands of another. We don't get into intent in–
DR. ROGER MITCHELL:
That's right. That's right. So to answer your question about murder, murder is a legal construct. And that can be determined by your prosecutor, your jury, your judge--
CHUCK TODD:
So if you were the medical examiner here, you would have simply labeled this "homicide"?
DR. ROGER MITCHELL:
Simply.
CHUCK TODD:
And so what does that tr-- because I think this is what people don't understand. If you label it "accident," the investigation ends? What happens?
DR. ROGER MITCHELL:
Well, some will tell you that the investigation doesn't have to end, right?
CHUCK TODD:
Yeah.
DR. ROGER MITCHELL:
It'll say, "Well, you know, prosecutors can take accidents. They do it with motor vehicle collisions all the time. And they prosecute motor vehicle homicides." But in reality, when the medical examiner calls something “accidents” or “undetermined,” a lot of the times, the prosecution will not move forward. The investigation will not move forward.
CHUCK TODD:
The minute you put in "homicide," then it just creates urgency, pressure? Or is there actually more mandated investigating that has to be done?
DR. ROGER MITCHELL:
Well, that's going to be on the law enforcement, right?
CHUCK TODD:
Okay.
DR. ROGER MITCHELL:
Because as the objective forensic pathologist, my job is not to calculate what the effects of my cause and manner are going to be but merely to call the truth on my cause and manner and ensure that the cause and manner is reliable and reproducible, like any other diagnosis in medicine.
CHUCK TODD:
Right. There's a lot of subjectivity into this. And in this report, the medical examiner here, Dr. Fowler, he seemed to indicate bipolar disorder was a cause. How did he come up with that?
DR. ROGER MITCHELL:
Well, it's interesting, because David Fowler co-signed this report. So it's not just one medical examiner on this report. There's a more junior medical examiner, and then there's Dr. Fowler. Bipolar as a contributing cause, again, trying to give circumstances of why the altercation needed to occur could be my only assumption.
CHUCK TODD:
Well, they– he – they think maybe a heart condition developed. Couldn't you have just as said that the tasing, that just simply tasing him could have triggered this, too? The point is it's as, it’s as possible of a contributing factor as bipolar disorder, no?
DR. ROGER MITCHELL:
Well, the cause of death -- it's interesting that you bring that up, Chuck Todd, Chuck – the reality of it is, is that that cause of death is a natural cause of death. It's a natural cause of death, if you just read the cause of death. Yet the manner of death is an accident. So there's some force that's acting on that natural death. In this case, it's the altercation. And that's why it's a homicide.
CHUCK TODD:
All right. Let's talk about a bigger picture here, which is we don't know the true number of people that die in custody in America, whether you die in custody during an arrest, die in custody perhaps while you're, you know, in jail or in prison, die in custody perhaps in a health care facility. It is not on any form, is it?
DR. ROGER MITCHELL:
No. And the reality of it is, is that in order for us to understand the whole burden of this injury or disease in this country, we need to know how many people die. There's a Deaths in Custody Reporting Act that is a law that is not being fully complied with across this country.
CHUCK TODD:
We don't have it mandatory on death certificates to check that box or not, correct?
DR. ROGER MITCHELL:
No, we don't even have it on the death certificate. So I've been calling for a check box on the U.S. standard death certificate merely to say yes or no whether or not a death is in custody. Because yes, Anton Black is terrible, and so is George Floyd. But there are hundreds of people that are dying from natural disease that they didn't need to die from while incarcerated –
CHUCK TODD:
Right. We may find out --
DR. ROGER MITCHELL:
– that's just as important.
CHUCK TODD:
How about a little better health care at some of these facilities, right? You know, or something like that – a pharmaceutical help here or something like that, correct? This is the type of things we could discover.
DR. ROGER MITCHELL:
Absolutely, in an objective public health measure. The reason why we know about maternal mortality and why women are dying while in childbirth is because there's a check box on the U.S. standard death certificate. The reason why we know smoking is contributing to cancers is because there's a check box on the U.S. standard death certificate. Motor vehicle collisions, a check box on the U.S. standard death certificate.
CHUCK TODD:
And yet not in custody. You created this box when you were here in D.C.--
DR. ROGER MITCHELL:
That's correct.
CHUCK TODD:
– and did this. It took you about a year to get everybody – did you get pushback from law enforcement? Did you get pushback from some?
DR. ROGER MITCHELL:
You know, it's interesting. I work well with law enforcement – been, you know, a medical examiner for over 15 years. And once we articulated and started educating people about how having this data readily available can help us prevent deaths, people were pretty much on board. So it took me about a year, but we got it done locally. But we need to get it done nationally.
CHUCK TODD:
And we don't have time to even get into the whole conversation that, "How is it that we can elect these people, elect folks rather than make sure they have the expert background before they actually become coroners or medical examiners?"
DR. ROGER MITCHELL:
We're here to improve a system.
CHUCK TODD:
Yeah. That would be one way to do it, too. Dr. Mitchell, appreciate it. We will talk to you again soon. When we come back, what we've learned about Office Webster, about the man who hired him, Police Chief Michael Petyo, who knew even more about Webster's past before hiring him and hid it from view.
CHUCK TODD:
Welcome back. It turns out there was more to Officer Thomas Webster's past than the videotape kicking incident we showed you earlier. Dateline learned that during Webster's ten years as a cop in Delaware, he had 32 use of force incidents on his record. Twenty-six of them were against African Americans. But Michael Petyo, the new police chief, who chose Webster, withheld that information. Petyo ultimately pleaded guilty to a charge of misconduct. He received three years of probation. Eleven months after Anton's death, Office Thomas Webster was decertified as a police officer and fired in Greensboro, Maryland. Last month, three days after Dateline's broadcast, Anton Black's family settled a lawsuit against the police officers involved and the towns involved for a total of $5 million. The settlement includes a new use of force policy that restricts restraining a suspect in a prone position. And it also calls for training in de-escalation and dealing with mental health issues. When we come back, I'm going to bring together all of our guests for an in-depth discussion on how we can reform policing in America.
CHUCK TODD:
Welcome back. We're now bringing together all of our guests from the broadcast for a more comprehensive discussion of what Anton Black's case tells us about policing in America, how we can learn from it and perhaps get police reform back on the national agenda. Joining me again are Rebecca Brown of the Innocence Project; Professor Paul Butler of Georgetown University; Jason Johnson, president of the Law Enforcement Legal Defense Fund; and former D.C. Medical Examiner Dr. Roger Mitchell. Welcome back to all of you. Paul, let me start with -- I want to hit sort of four pillars here. But one thing you brought up early, and it was something I was going to bring up had you not brought it up, and it was -- because it was really almost like the first sentence of the Obama Administration's Task Force on 21st Century Policing. It came out in May of 2015 and it, and it said this: "Law enforcement culture should embrace a guardian – rather than a warrior – mindset to build trust and legitimacy, both within agencies and within the public." The idea is the warrior is your soldier; they fight your wars. The guardians are members of your community; they protect you.
PAUL BUTLER:
And if you think about somebody who's applying for a job to be a guardian, they have a whole different skill set than people who want to be warriors. Guardians want to take care of communities. They want to talk to people and work with them. From today's conversation, it can sound like we're talking about a bad apple cop, but I think that that's only one of the problems. Most cops serve with integrity, but U.S. cops still kill 1,000 people a year. That hasn't changed since George Floyd. And so when we're talking about reform, we have to think about transformation and change, including workplace culture, getting away from that warrior mentality.
CHUCK TODD:
It starts with how you recruit. Doesn't it, Jason? Like, the type of folks you recruit. There is this feeling over the last 20 years of almost militarizing our local law enforcement.
JASON JOHNSON:
Well, we need not just guardians. We need one person who can fill both roles depending on the circumstance. It's almost impossible to find. If we have officers responding to an active shooter incident, or an act of terrorism, or any act of violence that requires officers to bravely enter and take appropriate action, that requires both roles. I'll say a lot of this conversation about police reform is actually driving people out of the profession. It's not because we're looking at reform, but it's the ideas, the tenor of the conversation, the fact that it's controversial, it's divisive. It's running people out of the profession. And the line of people that want to come in is very short. So I think we have to be mindful of the fact that the conversation we're having about police reform or improvement is going to inform a young person who maybe is interested in serving in a guardian role in law enforcement. If they feel that they're entering something that's divisive, that's made up of people that are racist thugs, they're not going to do it.
PAUL BUTLER:
Or if you have a job where you have to follow rules, if you're licensed to kill and have to be careful about how to use that power, if you have concerns about that, you should not be a police officer.
JASON JOHNSON:
No, I certainly didn't say that. I think that police officers absolutely should be well-trained, should follow the rules. I don't think that's an issue. I don't think that's pushing people out of the profession, by the way. I think the fact that police officers today are presumed guilty, presumed bad – if there's a viral video of any sort of controversial police action, it seems like it's the police officer that's presumed to have done something wrong. That pushes people out. The public policy that follows it, that pushes people out. So following the rules and being subject to training is really not the issue.
CHUCK TODD:
Rebecca -- go ahead.
DR. ROGER MITCHELL:
I think it’s largely – you talked about culture, right? The culture within the law enforcement agencies, culture within those local law enforcement agencies. Yes, we can take our cues from some of these outliers as to what we're talking about but also some of the sustained racism that we may see in law enforcement. But if we're willing to change the culture and really work towards changing the culture of policing towards this guardian mindset and reward community that lives in community, that loves community, that operates in community and have those same people want to be the law enforcement in community, versus people coming from outside communities, policing those communities, that mindset of guardian is easier than you would think.
CHUCK TODD:
I'll be honest, Rebecca. I'm hearing echoes. Like we’re – we have this debate about we want a different skill set in our teachers and all of this stuff. When you think about both teachers and cops, we're suddenly asking them to do a whole lot of things now. And, oh, by the way, we haven't given them a raise and we don't pay them. We want them to have all of these skills, but they don't feel like they're rewarded to have those skills. Is that a problem?
REBECCA BROWN:
Well, I think there's just an issue, too, of expecting police to be emergency responders to every kind of event, right? And there are certainly better-equipped people to deal with people in mental health crises. And, so I think – and by the way – this would be an excellent issue for unions to take up in terms of protecting their workforce. I think, you know, they don’t – you know, instead of sort of fighting accountability measures and fighting transparency measures, I think unions would do well to look at, you know, what is being asked of law enforcement and thinking about, "Does this even make sense? Are there better responders for some of these types of events?"
DR. ROGER MITCHELL:
There’s – for me, there's no doubt that there’s – that we're putting too much on law enforcement. I believe in an all-government approach. And to let the public health institutions in government, to let the Department of Behavioral Health off the hook for their responsibilities to community I think is poor government.
CHUCK TODD:
Should we not call – I mean, I don't want to get into the name stuff because then everybody has a politicized debate, but this is about public safety at the end of the day. Sometimes public safety, you know, is a health crisis.
JASON JOHNSON:
Absolutely. And as everyone around the table I think agrees, police officers have become public safety generalists. No matter what it is, we expect law enforcement to be able to respond to it, and that's not really what they're fit for. So --
CHUCK TODD:
But should it be? I guess that’s what – I mean, are – should we rethink this?
JASON JOHNSON:
You're never going to get police entirely out of the mental health business just because of the nature of what police do. But they can be sort of second responders, you know? So the front line are mental health professionals, and then police are there to deal with protecting the public in that very narrowly-defined role.
CHUCK TODD:
Right. Paul?
PAUL BUTLER:
90% of calls that cops get, 90% of 911 calls, are about people who are in a relationship crisis, mental health crisis, a beef between family members or neighbors, someone who's experiencing homelessness. When people with guns and batons and the power to arrest show up, often that makes things worse, not better. Even Republican administrations, President Trump, he agreed that there ought to be co-responders – not just the folks with guns – to those types of situations.
CHUCK TODD:
Let’s talk about some simple – police reform has died a couple of times in Congress. It does seem like simple things that shouldn't be hard to do, your checkbox, why does – why should politically – why has it been difficult?
DR. ROGER MITCHELL:
Well, I think it's really not holding our public health infrastructure responsible for the public safety of our citizenry. To suggest that there's some disconnect between public health and public safety, you know, I'm a medical examiner, physician, but I also served as interim deputy mayor for public safety and justice for Washington, D.C. because there is a need to connect the dots. This checkbox on the U.S. standard death certificate allows for a death certificate that has to occur in all deaths in custody – it's going to occur – for us to merely to know that that individual died in custody. We can start understanding from a very basic level who, how, and why people are dying in custody –
CHUCK TODD:
Yes.
PAUL BUTLER:
Can I just say, if the question is why we haven't seen national change, it's a two-word answer: "the Republicans." It’s Senator Scott, a Republican, and Senator Booker, a Democrat were supposed to work something out about the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act, just common sense reform. It failed not because of politics or the Democrats. It failed because Republicans did not have the courage and will to do life-saving work that would make police officers respond more effectively, help community safety.
JASON JOHNSON:
I just don’t think – the problem with the police reform debate is that we don't agree on what the problem is. We don't agree on what the problem is. And I think a lot of people had been resistant to facts. When we put data about how many millions of calls police respond to, how infinitesimally small the number of times that police officers use deadly force, use the number a thousand, but that's among a sea of police responses and it doesn't take any account for what the circumstances were. It's just a number. And so if we can't agree on that, we can't move forward.
CHUCK TODD:
Well, we spent an hour on it. We got a lot more debate to do, but I have run out of time. So thank you. That's all we have for today. A big thanks and shout-out to Dateline, Lester Holt and supervising producer Dan Slepian for reporting this story for a very long time and very thoroughly. Thank you all for watching. Enjoy the rest of your Labor Day weekend. We'll be back next week because if it's Sunday, it's Meet the Press.