Chris Robinson

Thank you, everyone, for being out here today, and I just wanna briefly talk about the reason why we're here and just Tom's story is pretty funny. I do the same thing. I usually get up around 5:30 in the morning to run track near my house, but one of the reasons why I do that, because I don't want it to be a lot of people around me, because again, I'm viewed as a threat. There could be an issue, and actually two months ago, a gentleman that lives across the street from the track, just stared at me on the track. And then it was like, "Ah man, here we go." And I gotta be concerned about that.

And, you know, we're all here. Yes, everyone is shocked and dismayed about the events of a couple of weeks ago with George Boyd. Well, I've been in that situation a couple of times in my life, where I was in that exact situation. And I just wanna tell you it's mortifying, it's humiliating, it's frustrating, and it's frightening. And, you know, the one thing there are people out there, you know, people that I love and care about, people that are friends of mine, that, when I tell them this, they kinda dismiss it, they think what I'm saying isn't true.

And I listen to them. I wanna respect their thought process. I wanna understand them. And so I have conversations with them. And the thing that I appreciate, and the thing that I like about Campaign Zero is the fact that, okay, they're going out there, they wanna collect as much data as possible, national data.

I mean, yes, we're collecting data now, but just bits and pieces here and there because we need to see the problem, like everyone needs to see it. We can't solve any problems if we can't even agree that there is a problem. So the fact that there's somebody out there that's collecting everything and, you know, people are saying, "Okay, there's a few bad apples." And okay, yes, that's true. And I'm not gonna condemn, I'm not gonna pre-judge a whole group of people just because I've been pre-judged. It is awful, it sucks.

And so I'm definitely not going to do that to anybody else, whether their race, religion, color, or occupation, but every group has a few bad apples. But when the system is a way where those few bad apples can continue to do those bad things, then we have a huge problem. And so the fact that, okay, we have a possibility now to collect all this data, now we can start finding solutions. Now we can differentiate, okay, police, you're gonna do what you do best, but leave this job for someone else that does this job better, and this way, it keeps everybody safe, it keeps the police safe, to keep the citizens safe. It makes our society work better as a whole.

So I'm glad you guys are here and a part of this, and please just let's continue to work, and today, let's work out hard and enjoy and I'll pass it along to Greg.