Hennepin Co. Attorney race: Conversation with candidate Frazier

All right, we continue now with our conversations with candidates. We've invited candidates from four major statewide races, plus the Hennepin County Attorney's Office race for 10 minutes to talk about why they got into the race, what they want to do if they win, and what differentiates them from their opponents. So today, State Representative Cedric Frazier running for the Hennepin County Attorney's Office. Thanks for coming in today. Let's start with a little bit I'd like to do this with biography. People are familiar with your name, you're in the state legislature. But your background prior to that, you are a native of Chicago. Correct. And came to Minnesota for college and to play football, you ran track. That's right. How does your, you've talked about your upbringing in Chicago and how that shapes your visions here for what you wanna do. Tell me more about that. Yeah, I grew up on a On the south side of Chicago, a community called Englewood, for those who don't know, take a look at that. It was a community where when I graduated from high school, we had the highest rate of homicides in our city. And I remember my friends and I said, look, it can't get any worse than this. Well, it did get worse than that. So the perspective I bring with me that I brought here to Minnesota was one where I grew up in a community, and this was doing when crack cocaine, it just first started hitting urban areas. So we're dealing with drug violence, gang violence. A lot of these crimes being committed by people that were the same age as me, and just not really feeling safe in the community, feeling like the systems that were designed or should have been protecting you, we're not protecting everyone. And so I'm bringing that perspective and that's what we're looking for in this office as the next leader is to make sure we have a system that works for everybody. And make sure everybody's protected by the laws and the tools within that office. So you came to Minnesota, you went to school at University of Minnesota Morris? Correct. That's right. Play football? Go Cougs. And then from there, you went to Minnesota State Mankato to get a master's in- I was in the urban studies department and my emphasis was on local government management. So all of this credentials are coming full circle for the work that I'm looking forward to doing. And then from there, you did work with, was it the Minneapolis School District? Yeah, well, I started my career as a public defender in Hennepin County, and then I went on to Minneapolis Public Schools, working at a general counsel's office, work with complex litigation and focusing on how we can make those environments great for our workers and for our students, and I moved from there. And the last decade I've been a labor attorney working for the biggest labor group in our state, our educators. And then the state legislature. And then the state legislature. And in that role in the legislature, you're in the House Public Safety Committee. Yep. And you're co-chair of the Minnesota People of Color and Indigenous Caucus. Yeah, and I've also served as the vice chair of the Judiciary Committee. And most recently, currently, I'm the co-chair of the Ways and which is the finance committee for the entire state. Okay, let's talk about you and your opponent, Anders Folk. Both Democrats running for Hennepin County attorney, but differentiations here. Anders Folk says he wants to bring a different direction to the office of the Hennepin County attorney. He said that he criticizing current county attorney Mary Moriarty saying that her decisions seem based on political calculus rather than requirements of the law, accusing you of continuing on that path versus forging your own path. I mean, what's your response to that? My response to that is that I know my opponent, he talks about Mary Moriarty a lot. Mary Moriarty is not in this race. I know he wanted to run against Mary Moriarty, but she's not in this race. I'm in this race. And I think a big part of that is that he doesn't wanna talk about my resume is because when he's put up against my resume, he's lost on multiple occasions. He lost the endorsement process and he lost on primary night. So it's very clear to me why he doesn't wanna talk about my full resume. My full resume is resonating with the entire county, not an exclusive group like he's working for or wants to represent. I wanna represent everyone in this county. We have a broad coalition. We've got over 30 legislators that are supporting us that live in this county. We've got multiple mayors, city council members that have endorsed this campaign. And I think that means a lot. It tells you a lot about the coalitions that I bring forward and the relationships that I built over the years and people trust me to be a leader in this space. So it makes a lot of sense to me why my opponent wants to talk about Mary, he doesn't wanna talk about my resume and the resources and the endorsements that I have because he hasn't won against me. Let's talk about your vision then for the county attorney's office. What are the things from that Moriarty is doing that you would continue? What are the things that you would change? Well, this is more about just my vision for the office period again, Mary Moriarty is not running. So the next person there's gonna be change in this office and I'm focused on a change that's gonna move forward and not go back to a failed status quo. That led to many of the situations that led up to the murder of George Floyd and the ensuing unrest after that. We can't go back to a system like that and I really fear that that's where exactly where my opponent is gonna take this office back to. My focus, I'm gonna be focused on a Victim Survivors Advisory Board to make sure we're having an input that's necessary to create policies and craft and make sure we implement practices that are working for everyone. We're gonna look for more resources for our youth. So when they make some bad decisions, we can have the resources to intervene, have accountability. But importantly, rehabilitation. We wanna make sure we focus on prevention because the best type of thing is when a crime never happens, the harm never happens to communities. And I know what that's like. I know what it's like to be a victim. I know what it's like to not feel safe and like the systems aren't protecting you. So we're gonna focus heavily on that. We're also gonna treat wage theft like a crime that it is. And here's why that's important. They have a lot of working families in this community. By a wide majority, they outweigh anyone else that are voters in this community. And when you have someone that's working hard, maybe two or three jobs to make the ends meet, and they're earning that money, but they're not being paid by a bad acted employer, that destabilizes families, and then destabilizes communities, and it leads to public safety issues. Let's talk about juvenile justice issues. Again, you mentioned that as a big part of your vision here. There's been some criticism here, and again, I know you're saying you're Mayor Moriarty and this is you're different. That she's been focused on some of the intervention and some of the second chances, I guess is it where the criticisms are that juvenile offenders have been released to reoffend. What is your vision for dealing with juvenile justice issues here? My vision is that we've got anyone that's harming a community, there should be accountability for that and that includes incarceration. But I will say about this, look, I talked about how I grew up on the south side of Chicago, growing up in that community and not feeling safe because systems weren't protecting us. There was never a moment that my mom, my dad, my cousins, my grandfathers, anyone ever said, we should not hold people accountable when they cause harm to the community. It was the exact opposite. We wanted more safety and we weren't getting that. So for me, I'm bringing that perspective into this role and I wanna make sure that communities don't feel like that. That they feel like they've got a partner with me as a leader in this office as looking out for their absolute safety. And that includes holding people accountable when we have the ability to do so. Okay, the relationships with law enforcement, do you feel that there's been a breakdown in those relationships in the current office? And what would you do to make sure those relationships work to get cases forwarded for charging? Yeah, well, there's absolutely a breakdown. I think we can all see it playing out in the media, we see the back and forth, so that's unfortunate. And again, I go back to what I'm bringing to this role is you look at the endorsements, you look at the support that I have. I have relationships that are built in. I'm gonna be ready to, I'm ready to go right now because I have those relationships. I've been building those relationships and my role as the Vice Chair of the Public Safety Committee where we finance and create a policy for law enforcement, work closely with them to do that. And what I've said, when I met with law enforcement, what I've said, when I'm in this role as a leader, my staff, myself are gonna be there as a way of support, not surprises. We're gonna be working closely with you to make sure we can do everything we can to create safe communities. Okay, you mentioned victims and survivors, gun violence. We've seen non-fatal shooting investigative units in St. Paul, now Minneapolis. You would do the same thing, same type of approach in the county attorney's office. Absolutely, I carried the legislation to create resources for non-fatal shooting. I worked on the legislation that Ramsey County used when they put together their non-fatal shooting task force when we worked on public safety aid. I helped craft that legislation. I'm absolutely committed to that. And the reason why is because if you can go out and apprehend and find the individual that committed that non-fatal shooting, you can stop the next shooting. You can stop the retaliation for someone going out to look for that individual because they want retribution or accountability. So you would, let's see, expand the proven violence reduction initiatives as part of that? Yes, correct. Okay, let's talk about two now. Part of your platform is stand up to Trump. Prosecute federal agents who violate Minnesota law. We've seen that happening. What's your take on it? Absolutely. I was out there with the community when Alex Freddie was shot, when Renee Good was shot. And the conversations that I was having with people, with neighbors, real neighbors right there in that community, were like, how can we make sure that we send a message that it can't come into our community, cause this type of harm and then just get away with it with no consequences i said we have to we have to prosecute and hold those agents accountable and i said we have the laws to do that if you come into our state and you violate the laws you are uh you are also under the jurisdiction of the county attorney and we can prosecute and charge those cases now we'll look at the evidence we're still trying to get some of that evidence from the feds um that's unprecedented but we'll look at that evidence and we'll make those charges when we can prove beyond a reasonable doubt that we that you violate the state law and we'll hold you accountable for that harm. And I just want to say, one of the things about this, I know my opponent likes to say a lot that there's no daylight between us. There's absolutely daylight between us on this thing. And I'll give you an example. One of his top donors, which is Chris Maddow, who many people may know, ran for, he was running for governor as a Republican. He's on the record as saying that I donate to campaigns because I think it's gonna get a better outcome for my clients. He's a max donor to my opponent. And the reason he's doing that because he thinks he's gonna get some kind of favor when these cases are being looked at. No one in this race know or believes that I'm gonna have any type of favoritism. I'm gonna look at the law and I'm gonna prosecute based on what the law says. Okay, and that is it. 10 minutes is up. Told you it goes fast. It goes really fast. It does. Cedric Frazier, thanks. Thank you, thanks for having me on. Thanks for taking the time in here today, appreciate it. Right, appreciate you. If you'd like to see any of our other interviews with candidates, including his opponent, Anders useful, you can do so at our YouTube page on Fox nine. All right, with that, we're gonna take another break. All day live continues.