America's cops are a 'microcosm of a racist system' in the US: Nina Turner

Appearing on CNN on Tuesday morning, former Ohio Democratic lawmaker Nina Turner lashed out at police in light of a series of deaths of African-Americans at the hands of cops and said proposed changes to policing can't come fast enough.

Speaking with CNN "New Day" host Alisyn Camerota, Turner said that, even with police reform on the horizon, there appears to be nothing coming quickly at hand that will halt police from assaulting Blacks even after the national outrage over the death of George Floyd at the hand of four Minneapolis cops.

"It's definitely a start, but there's no time for patting each other on the back and slapping hands," Turner told the CNN host. "What we fail to realize is that this is a system and that the police are really just a microcosm of a racist system, an anti-black system whereby generations of black folks have lost their lives. And when they were not physically killed, the spiritual death, the mental death, political, economic, social death, that is the thing."

"So, yes, it is a start, but we are a long way from atonement," she continued. "And the United States of America as a whole must atone for its sins against the African-American community. So what I don't want is folks to get slap-happy about this. This is a start, but a long way from where we need to go as Breonna Taylor's family, George Floyd's family, Tamir Rice's family -- Emmett Till didn't have a smartphone to verify whether or not he was entitled to some humanity in the United States of America."

"So, this is no time for celebration," she added. "This is a time to continue work. We need not only a total restructuring, but we need wholesale, tear-down the system and start and reimagine policing in a different way."

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