Police union reps sit down with reform advocate for post mortem on Austin-police-contract fight

On December 13, 2017, a contract negotiated between the Austin police union and city management was voted down by the city council in response to a large community uprising led by the Austin Justice Coalition. After nearly a year-long standoff, the sides came to an agreement in November, with the union agreeing to significant new reforms and $10 million per year less than in the previously negotiated contract.

On December 4th, police union representatives Ron DeLord and Chris Perkins sat down with Chas Moore of the Austin Justice Coalition in Grits' dining room to discuss the 18-month-long struggle to install accountability measures in the Austin police union contract. Excerpts from the discussion were included in a segment in Just Liberty's December 2018 Reasonably Suspicious podcast, but here's the full, 38-minute conversation:

For more background, see these prior, related blog posts and podcast segments:

• Union contract fight gave Austin advocates leverage to improve police oversight
• Austin's police contract among worst in nation from accountability standpoint, says Campaign Zero co-founder
• Podcast: Police unions, collective bargaining and accountability (three segments)
• Interview: Campaign Zero's Sam Sinyangwe
• A primer for police union leaders on 'making the guilty innocent' after high-profile incidents
• Interview: Ron DeLord on the Ferguson Effect, police pensions, and why he considers Saul Alinsky a major influence

Find a transcript of our conversation below the jump.

Transcript: Scott Henson interviews Chas Moore, Ron DeLord and Chris Perkins about the Austin police-union contract fight, recorded Dec. 4, 2018

Scott Henson: One year ago, the Austin City Council rejected a labor contract negotiated between city management and the local police union in response to a massive grassroots organizing effort, spearheaded by the Austin Justice Coalition. In November, activists finally signed off on a new deal, but one with many more accountability elements and costing taxpayers about 10 million dollars per year less than before. 

After the dust settled, I sat down with leaders from both sides. On the union side, we had both lead negotiators, Combined Law Enforcement Associations of Texas founder, Ron DeLord, and Chris Perkins of the Austin Police Association. On the advocate side, we were joined by Chas Moore, leader of the Austin Justice Coalition and one of Texas's most promising up and coming civil rights advocates. On the December episode of Just Liberty's podcast, Reasonably Suspicious, we published excerpts from that conversation. As promised, here's the full discussion, soup to nuts. It was an interesting conversation to participate in. I hope y'all enjoy listening.

All right, I am here today with Ron DeLord, with Chas Moore and Chris Perkins. Ron is the founder of the Combined Law Enforcement Associations of Texas. Chris Perkins is a negotiator for the Austin Police Association contract negotiation team, and Chas Moore is the head of the Austin Justice coalition. Thank you all for stopping by. Appreciate it.

Let's just start, Ron, since you're the senior member of the crew here and our resident historian, it strikes me that something new happened here. I've not seen anything like this and I've studied police accountability movements and labor efforts before, and sort of citizens' movement surrounding accountability coming in such a direct conflict over a contract negotiation. Strikes me as, sort of, a new thing in the world.

Ron DeLord: Yeah. Well actually, Chas probably aware of it, there is a lot of movement around the country and in it's no secret it comes out of Campaign Zero, which is the fundamental place if you want to go look at activism and it has a lot of topics, one of which is police unions and their contracts.

Scott Henson: Right.

Ron DeLord: I've done this about four times. I was asked to go and speak, but only until the last one that I did in California did I have a conclusion. Because the others was what happened and why they get voted down, but I didn't know the ending. And so when it ended, then I actually could go back and reflect on what I saw as the difference. So Nashville activist got a charter amendment up in the past against the union, a Seattle activist where there's the police union departments under a federal consent decree tried to block it, but the council passed it, but now they've gone to the federal judge to see if he agrees. 

But recently there was some similar stuff in Oakland, St Paul Minneapolis, have all had activist groups that go and, one of two approaches. Don't hire any more police officers because we want to use the money on other social programs. And the other is, just the arguments about transparency and accountability. So this came as the first time I've been involved in it, just myself, although now that I have been, I've been watching around the country.

Scott Henson: Yeah. So Chas, how about you, you're a relatively young man and Ron has been, I guess at this for probably longer than you've been alive. So to sort of step in this game and go toe-to-toe with the police union, had to have been quite an experience. Tell me your perspective on all this. Tell me some of what you feel like you all have accomplished and, just some of the big picture lessons that you've learned over the course of this process.

Chas Moore: Well, I think for us, because ... You remember when we first started out, we were just like any of the activist group. We were in the streets and marching and protesting, and it didn't really solve anything. It was just like a space created for people to vent and be emotional and be mad, which is needed in a movement in some capacity. But we looked at the reasons why we were marching, which was, police brutality, the lack of discipline, lack of transparency.

And for us that lined up with one question like, how do we actually fix some `of the things that we're out here protesting and shutting down traffic for, right? So here in Austin that led to us doing some homework and some history of our own. And looking back at 1999 through 2001, that period with the police oversight workl group, I believe, that you were on, Kathy was on- [ed note: actually the Police Oversight Focus Group; neither I nor Kathy were on it]

Scott Henson: Well, I wasn't on the focus group but I was part of the group that got the Austin Police Association boot planted firmly up my ass when we lost that fight. So yeah, I was part of that.

Chas Moore: Yeah. So looking at that group, looking at some of the things that happened or probably didn't happen that the group recommended, that was taken away and like this kind of last minute kind of a thing. And then looking at the root for the issues that we were concerned about, and it all led to the police contract. It led to us really focusing in on that. Which is something that a lot of activists don't do, right? We like to protest and march and hashtag this and that.

But for us, it was like we really wanted to create change and have change, and that's what it was. So for the last 18 months up until the last couple of weeks ago in November, it was all contract. That's what I did for the last year and a half. It was an interesting fight. It started with these guys basically saying I was a dumb piece of shit. And then, actually-

Scott Henson: That won't ever stop, by the way. I don't know if you know Charlie Wilkinson, but that'll go on for a long time. [laughter, crosstalk].

Chas Moore: Yeah. But now I think we agree to disagree on some things. And I think, Ron and Chris and Tom, finally just said, what do you guys actually want? What's the motion, and all that. And it led to some pretty good conversations and I think it led to something historic, you know? Here in Austin, at least, you and Ron may know better than me, but this doesn't happen. Contracts like this don't happen overnight and they don't have in often. So-

Scott Henson: Right. I've heard many people talk about using the police contract moment as leverage. It's the first time I've ever seen or heard of anyone successfully doing it. Maybe I know Nashville, they did it through a charter, and some other places that have gotten the city council to just straight up do something. But this process of using that as leverage, that's the part that to me, as I was saying earlier, I feel like that's a tactic that hadn't quite worked before.

Chris, you stepped in, maybe not quite at the 11th hour but nearly to, as one of the lead negotiators. I think it's fair to say that everything was at an impasse before you came on. The Police Association president had gone before the city council and raised his voice and yelled at them, and really seemed at the end of his rope. And you stepped in very soon thereafter as the closer negotiator to sort of take it home, and it seemed like there was a change in strategic approach then that y'all softened up, started to talk to the activist.

Tell me about what was going on when you stepped in and how you were able to get to the conclusion.

Chris Perkins: Well, it was really a total team effort though. I recognize that myself and Ron setup as the face, but we had a pretty diverse team. I hearken back to December 13th of 2017, and that's the day we as an association recognized that we were going to have to take a different approach.

Scott Henson: I really enjoy that you remember the date!

Chris Perkins: I will never forget that day. I was on that negotiation team. I was not in a leadership role, but I had been in the police association before as a full time representative. I had gone back to patrol and to be a detective, and they kind of brought me back in. So I was there for December 13th, 2017, and all of our eyes were wide open. And we sat down. The level of organization, for lack of better terms, caught us completely off guard.

We underestimated, we were not communicating with some of the loudest voices in the community. I've told Chas this several times, I don't call him an activist. He's a lobbyist. And some of the work that was done there, we had to sit down and take a real hard look at it. So yes, we did take a different approach. We started ... Actually, someone was a little bit harder to approach and he might want to accept it now.

I tried reaching out to several members of the Austin Justice Coalition and other organizations, and I guess it took them a little while just because of maybe past history, and they thought I might be trying to play some games, but I really wasn't because it wasn't just my belief. It really was Ron's as well.

He's seen this all over. He saw this. We were caught a little flat footed by that day, but we said, we have to take a new approach. Let's sit down, let's have conversations because I bet there's a lot more that we agree upon than we disagree. Because it's my firm belief, when these conversations happen, that not just the community but the police officers themselves can become safer. If we're able to knock down some of those misconceptions, were able to explain our side and listen to the opposite side. That's diplomacy is a really good way to move forward.

Ron DeLord: I think some little bit of background and when I've talked to police groups, because I've bargained somewhere under 200 contracts and I've been doing this almost 50 years. I started bargaining 40 years ago in 1979. I was a policeman before that, so I tell everybody you think you know it all but you don't. When the December 13th was over, a number of the members of the board and team were so upset, not as much that ... 

They felt the council was weak, and they were. They felt that they had other motives about wanting to spend money on other projects that they hid behind the activists, and the activists were good. So we went in the back and we just had a little conversation and I said, now, you can walk out, you can attack everybody, you can be angry. But let me tell you what, we're going to walk out and we're going to say, this is a democracy. 

And we weren't prepared for that, and I also start my groups and I actually have a slide of Chas. I said, they don't call them community activists for nothing. So I think somebody overlooked the fact they can get people out. Now having said that, here's the lesson I learned. Chris kind of said it, and I tell everybody because when I went out to PORAC, which is a statewide group, 70,000 officers, and at that point we had settled so I had-

Scott Henson: PORAC? I'm sorry-

Ron DeLord: ... Peace Officers Research Association of California.

Scott Henson: Oh, okay.

Ron Delord: It's a huge union, but they had had invited me to come out and speak about some other things but about Austin. But prior to that had spoken to three different groups, but only knew the first half of the chapter.

And then I told them what I think we're going to try to do but we didn't really know yet. So by the time I got there, I said, here's the number one lesson that we learned, and I put this in my slide. Round one. I told them that, okay, they were loaded, they had prepared, they had a concise message. The police did not. They were able to find lots of ally groups. Totally surprised us. It had really nothing to do. I mean the Sierra Club, Save Our Springs.

What in the heck have they got to do with police bargain? But they got them against us. But the lesson learned was, when we came back, I put in my slides. I just ignored the chatter from Chas and the groups. I mean they were picketing, they were out. They were at every meeting and in numerous group ones would say, but we don't have a seat at the table. 

But for 50 years, it wasn't my problem because I dealt with the city, and the city is their representative so they weren't getting a voice on that side or our side. But I tell you, after they won, when we came back, Chris and I, our team made a decision. We're going to go ahead and engage with activist groups, and we're going to talk to them because the first time we ignored them and they tripped us up.

But this time, I don't know that we can reach an accord on everything, and we could. But once we sat down, it took several conversations back and forth that I would tell groups now and, I actually, I'm working with a group. I wont to identify right yet because they're also tied into Campaign Zero. Is out of Texas, but they've called me cause of this and I first thing I did is to go over and sit down with the coalition, and I have. 

So, we're going to engage and we're going to look for things of which we can mutually agree that provides protection for the officers due process. But at the same time, doesn't defend practices that don't make any sense. And I've said over and over, and I'll say it here for posterity, you work for the government, you work for the taxpayers.

There isn't a lot you can hide when you're a public employee, having laws and contracts that protect somebody from something that a taxpayer has every right to know. That's what we started off with our premise, so each time we would say here's something the activists are interested in. We'd go back to the team, people at all protest and say yes, but as Chris said, why don't we just pull the curtain back? 

We really believe that almost 100 percent, not every officer, but almost every officer goes out every day with the intent to do a good job. And if they're not, then people need to know.

Scott Henson: Well, and the civil service code really only applies to about 70 cities is that ride around the state, and everybody else their disciplinary files are subject to the Open Records Act. And so there's more than 2000 agencies across the state that operate with 100 percent transparency.

Ron DeLord: Yeah.

Scott Henson: And so it made the position that, oh, we shouldn't have to open any more. Just sort of an untenable stance. It was like the activists had this "have you stopped beating your wife yet" kind of question. There is no good answer you could have in the context of what other agencies release. 

I agree with you that the city council is supposed to be the public's face there. Part of what happened was in Austin, these police negotiations have always been some very high level political power deals where ... The first one was about Kirk Watson, [when he was] mayor consolidating environmentalist control over city government. And for the whole time that they had citywide council elections, a clutch of central city voters that were controlled by these environmental consultants that were around Watson and that whole group, could elect anyone they wanted.

And the police union, they saw as their really only viable opposition. So they said, okay, if we give them everything they want, they don't have any reason to come at us. We can run this thing as long as we want, and they did until the 10-1 council was created. And that's really the origin of this. Once you had single member districts, you didn't have just, okay, you can have one message that convinces the entire city electorate. And you got a much more diverse council and you got, I think a much more contemplative council issues that had just been assumed. Oh, we do it this way in Austin. Well, no. Now we talk about how we do it on a wide variety of stuff.

Not just this, but this is indicative of that, right? Under 10-1, there's just a lot of things that are now part of the political process that really had been sort of just, oh, we just do it this way for a long time. Let's see. Where do I want to head with this? Chas, I feel like other groups that are working on these sorts of topics around the country would benefit from you describing where you feel like your leverage points came from. I know that we've talked about the contract's rejection and December 13th and again, I just love that that date means so much. We may have to get T-shirts made.

Ron DeLord: We won't be wearing them. But he can wear them.

Scott Henson: But then there was also the moment when the city council decided, well, okay, we're not going to just re up these stipends forever. I think that was a big moment. Talk to me about where you feel like your leverage came from and, and when you realized, okay, we know how to pull the right levers here.

Chas Moore: I agree with Ron, and I don't think a lot of activists or organizers would like this, but I think ... So what we wanted to do was win, right? We didn't care if you cared about our issue or our cause, we wanted to win. And we knew in order to win, the best way was to talk about money. Right? I agree 110 percent with Ron on that. All but one, maybe two council members cared about the transparency and accountability. But for the most part, out of that 11-0, vote, none of those people probably cared about money.

Instead of talking about, stop killing unarmed black people and stop mistreating people, we just had to talk about the money, and that's how we get the strange bad fellows of Sierra Club and Save Our Springs and ... All these things that really didn't make sense when you talk about it.

We had the Parks people come out and talk about, don't pay the cops. It was- [crosstalk, laughter]. Yeah. For us, it was like what's the road to win, right? That was a huge part of it. Something we agree with. But that's not the most important thing for, at least my organization. We do care more about the transparency and accountability. 

The money factor, which is equally important, was the most important to the people that ultimately made that decision.

Scott Henson: Right.

Chas Moore: So that was something that we lifted up for probably about six months of last year. And then once we got that initial no on December 13th, now we can start talking about other stuff. I think if people were really paying attention to it, I think the money issue became incredibly transparent that that was the key issue back in, I believe February, March or April when they, again, just didn't give them the stipends back.

So for me, I knew at that time, okay, that's the leverage point. And in order for us to get what we want and for them to get what they want, we were going to have these conversations. Because city council could have easily hit behind us again if they wanted to. But we also looked at, can we actually live with a better contract? And they get some money back? Because we did want the information, right? We wanted the-

Scott Henson: Right.

Chas Moore: ... information on the bad cops because everybody thinks we're anti cop group, but we're not, we're anti bad cop. We're anti secret cop and all that type of stuff. So the leverage point for us, which we identified very quickly, was money. Again, like Ron said, these people have constituents in all the districts that they have to take care of. And what better way to do that then talk about money. Right?

The money helped us get accountability. The money helped us get transparency. The money helped us get the anonymous complaints and strengthen the OPO. So I think for people that are doing this in other places, why you want to do the admirablething and fight for all the good stuff, all the hashtags? Is that more important than winning and actually getting the things that you're fighting for? Or, is it more important to sit here and get a yes vote for the things that you're fighting? Which is important. I get that. But if you want to win, you have to have a different approach to that. Right? So-

Scott Henson: Yeah. I don't think they're mutually exclusive. I mean, the fact is we all live here. We all pay taxes. Nobody likes your property taxes maxing out every year. People can hold more than one thing in their head at one time. They can want accountability and also not want government to be excessively costly, and all that. 

Chris, this leverage point Chas is describing leads me to think about a lot of comments I saw on your Facebook page. And you would see over time, really, that this issue about not having the stipends that having been taken away seem to be just really a grind with the membership. I felt like for Ken Cassidy, the president who had hollered at the council, that seemed to be what was driving his top to blow.

And at the same time I kind of feel like I ... I felt like I was watching this all at once and just hoping y'all didn't figure it out too that frankly, his coalition was fraying as well. There are some ways in which over time it's really hard to keep everybody animated and ginned up. And he was kind of lucky to have some new voices step in, in the year after December 13th, when really some of the players before that had gone off and were doing other things.

And there was sort of this appearance because of the new energy, I think, of Chris Harris and a few others I'm thinking of. But it's also the case that, this was a tired man. He told me more than once. I don't think I can have another contract [inaudible 00:25:07]. I don't know if I have one of those in me.

Chas Moore: Now you tell us.

Chris Perkins: I think we all realized, that year, was just about enough for the community as a whole as well. But it had to be our mission because we needed longterm stability. Police officers have to deal with a lot on a daily basis. They should not be concerned about ... That's, that's our job. That was my job. That was Ron's job. But longterm stability was important.

We couldn't just jump on the first thing that came out because, no one really wanted that. Not members from the community, not the police officers that we represented. We had to find a way. So it was very difficult for all of us to hold it together essentially. Because, social media is, I'm not the biggest fan of it. I'm a little bit older so I actually I've never had Facebook or any of that stuff ever. I'm not a big fan of that because I think it's very easy for someone to get behind a keyboard and insight things, but they very rarely come out in the public with those opinions.

But it does stir up a lot of problems. So you're absolutely right. While we were negotiating, and we also took the approach of Facebook live all of our negotiations. I said, I want everybody to watch what we're doing.

Scott Henson: And that's new, then they'd always been secret before.

Chris Perkins: That was something ...

Ron DeLord: They had been, but also nobody came. I bargain where it's public, but there isn't a single citizen show up. No media shows ever. 

Scott Henson: Yeah. We tried back in 99, 2000 and were sent away.  In Austin. It had never been allowed. Those of us who had tried to-

Chris Perkins: It wasn't just for the community. It was for my members and their families-

Ron Delord: More so I'm sure.

Chris Perkins: No, it really was a whole ... let's just be as transparent as possible. Because I say this not just to say it, I actually believe it. If we're not doing anything wrong, come watch. There's no need to hide something because if you do that, people will just fill that void with suspicion. And if you take that away, because I firmly believe ... Yes, we're a very well paid police department, but with that, comes a very good police officer. And I want the public to see that. Everybody's [inaudible 00:27:29].

When I saw, again, I'll use the date one last time, no shirt, but when I saw what happened in December 13th, we sat down and said, we have to go a different way. And not just for the activists, but for police officers because they had no idea.

They were like, no one had ever voted a contract down. You know, you've been there.

Scott Henson: Right.

Chris Perkins: You've seen them all. We've had one council member vote no one time all the other contracts. This time, they all essentially voted no-

Scott Henson: Yeah.

Chris Perkins: ... Without taking the vote. And then for us not to take their interim contract and they actually say, let's sit down. Let's start over from the beginning. Hopefully this is the blueprint for the next time I will not be there. I'll be retired. Ron probably will be.

Ron Delord: I'll be 75 years old.

Chris Perkins: Hopefully the next time, this is the blueprint. And no one gets caught off guard and they're going to be some wants. That's why the conversation between the Austin Police Association, and a large number of groups in town, but mainly the Austin Justice Coalition because they're the ones that fought the fight the entire time. 

This conversation needs to continue, so we never have a 2017 again. We're never gonna agree on everything, but there are some strides that we can make.

Scott Henson: Alright, December 13th has become a never again situation. I love this. All right. Well, I didn't really have much more specific, but is there anything else that y'all wanted to discuss or talk about that we hadn't hit yet? Or ...

Ron Delord: Let me just think, both chairs and Chris. I was surprised at how many police unions around the country are watching Austin. I got invited to five different presentations out of state to speak about what happened. Now, others had been in various forms of that, they either beat the activist back or they eventually got their deal, but everybody wanted to know what happened here.

And I gave them a truthful analysis, because I'm talking inside the tent to the other unions. But I think that, and I'm communicating now out to groups when I speak to them or when they contact me, I really asked them to use what we learned to take a position. I'm seeing groups now in fights with activists where if they were talking to me, I would give them a different way to approach it. 

And I always tell them. I'm never going to convince an anarchist, but I'm not dealing with anarchists. They're a small percentage. I'm dealing with people who are social activists who want change. So if we'll have that conversation with them and we can reach a point at which we can agree on, then next time we'll have that conversation again. Because in the end I know, even at the end had we had the ability financially to get the council to vote on it, we would have just delayed it for four more years.

And it was better to have buy in by everybody, and that we thought was more important than whether we made more money or they got everything they wanted or we gave up too much. I don't know, but I'm comfortable that we changed the dialogue. I'm comfortable that this will work throughout the United States, and I'm going to encourage groups to reach out to Chas, reach out to Chris and ask to get some guidance on how do we deal without having this war, where ... They already know that money is the key.

There's only a certain number of people really care about social justice, but they do care about constituents. They do care many times about taxpayer money. So once you tie that together, which is what they did in St Paul. Chief wanted 50 more officers, the activists showed up and said, if you want to hire those 50, we can do this with homeless and social program. And that was the same thing in Seattle. We're not against the police, were not against them getting more pay, but we think you also have to invest in a social network. And so anyway, that's my ... I learned the lessons and at 70 years old, old dogs new tricks, there's lots to learn.

Scott Henson: Well, and I have to say, I don't blame you at all for the strategy that you took. The truth is, given the history of the police union negotiations in Austin, if I were your consultant, Chris, I have told you the same thing. Just steamroll them. The council's going to do what you want. They're going to roll over. Don't worry about it. It's always happened before. It'll definitely happen again. We thought it was going to happen again. 

Nobody on our side really thought that they wouldn't cave. They'd always caved before, it was kind of ... So that moment had to happen to change the conversation. Ron, I have told Chas a few times, it's almost certain that you're more liberal than I am by quite a bit.

I mean truly. And, this is not a liberal-conservative issue in the least. It is just an issue about power, is really what it is. And who has it, and who wants it, and who needs it to make change, and who wanted to keep the status quo. There was not going to be the ability to get the leadership, I think, to have that realization you're talking about without a December 13th. 

Maybe the other cities won't have to do it because we did. But I do feel like that, that kind of had to occur before you could even open up a space.

Ron Delord: I wouldn't have learned it. Had we just steamrolled them, next time I'm doing it and groups show up. I would have said, just get your votes and we'll run over them. But I will leave you with one of my quotes, and all use Frederick Douglass. Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never has, and it never will. And that's true on both sides. 

Scott Henson: All right. You have anything else? Are we ending on that?

Chas Moore: Well, I mean I can't beat that quote. So we might have to like ... [laughter]. I think a lot of activists are going to.... And organizers or lobbyists, whatever you want to call them. I think they have to be willing to actually have the conversations like me and Chris and Ron to get some of the small changes, get some of those small victories that can then, I think, lead to bigger changes in bigger victories.

I could be wrong, but I think if we didn't have the conversations with Chris and Ron, I don't think this new contract that was pretty sweet of a deal on both. Well, definitely on our side. I don't know how they feel, but I don't think we would have had that without those conversations. So I think especially in today's society, really when you talk like politically with so polar opposites, everything is so divided.

I think if people are willing to come to the table and sit down and talk, and have the conversations about what we want and why this is important to us, I think that change can happen. Like Chris said, I've avoided this guy for like at least three to four months. We would work on the oversight work group. And he was like, let's go meet, talk about contract. I was like, no.

But I think about all the things that we wouldn't have got. I think of all the things that wouldn't have been in this contract that are gonna help a lot of real life people if I would've just been so cocky, and kept ignoring Chris. So I think, if people are willing to have those conversations, I know, Austin is different.

I could probably understand why people in Portland, where the tension between cops and community is completely different. That conversation might have happened for a couple of years, but I think at some point is going to have to happen. I think something that I'm Erica Ford out of New York said that really makes a lot of sense to me is, the community and the cops have co-produce public safety. The cops can't do public safety by themselves. You have to have the community a part of that conversation, a part of contracts, a part of policy.

I think if people are willing to have those conversations and police departments are willing to open those doors and pull back the curtain, that's how you start to bridge those gaps and bridge those relationships because, it's just going to have to happen.

We live in an age where you got assholes like me that are going to come to every confer meeting, and say, no, that's not good enough. And then if you ignore me, I'm going to bring 300 of my friends from the parks and the puppies and everybody. We're going to have that fight. Like Chris said, it's easier to have those conversations so we don't have to have another December 13th.

We live in a day and age where people want change, right? That's why, to me the most significant thing about December 13th was that people can actually win. We can beat these institutions and not just cops. We can persuade city council to actually do what we want, and I just think that's where we are.

People actually need to see change if people need to win. Going against the police union is something that ... I don't even think you thought we were going to win. I think you thought we were fighting the good fight and you were rooting for us, but I didn't think you thought we were going to win. I wanted us to win, but I didn't know that we were going to win till the votes happened.

Scott Henson: I never think we're going to win. I'm always surprised every single time.

Chas Moore: Yeah. So, I think that win meant a lot for a lot of different people in a lot of different ways. But again, we have to be willing to have these conversations and agree when we can to disagree when we can't agree, and keep moving forward. 

Scott Henson: All right, well, on that note, thank you gentlemen for talking with me and congratulations to everybody on the new contract.