The State of Missouri is scheduled to execute Marcellus “Khaliifah” Williams on Sept. 24 for a crime that even prosecutors now say he did not commit. On Sept. 12, a Missouri judge denied a motion filed by prosecutors to vacate Williams’ conviction and death penalty. Despite more than half a million petition signatures demanding Williams be freed, Missouri is set to proceed with the execution. Michelle Smith, Co-Director of Missourians to Abolish the Death Penalty, joins Rattling the Bars to explain Williams’ case and the fight to free him before it’s too late.
Studio / Post-Production: Cameron Granadino
Transcript
The following is a rushed transcript and may contain errors. A proofread version will be made available as soon as possible.
Mansa Musa:
Welcome to this edition of Rattling the Bars. I’m your host, Mansa Musa.
In this country, according to the Constitution of the United States, a presumption of innocent goes with a person that’s arrested. They’re presumed innocent until they are found guilty. It’s not they’re presumed innocent until they exonerate themselves. It’s the burden is always on the state to prosecute a person beyond a reasonable doubt.
We have a situation today, where a man that is innocent, not by me saying this, but by the very people that prosecuted him saying this, that he’s innocent. Not me saying this, the evidence, the DNA evidence is saying this. Not me saying this, but a preponderance of evidence and people coming out on behalf of Marcellus Williams Khaliifah, better known as Khaliifah, who is slated to be executed the 24th of this month.
Joining me today is a supporter and an advocate for Khaliifah, is Michelle Smith. Welcome, Michelle.
Michelle Smith:
Thank you so much. Thank you for having me on. I appreciate the space to talk about Khaliifah’s case.
Mansa Musa:
Okay, so let’s start right here. First, tell us a little bit about what you do, then we are going to what’s going on with Khaliifah.
Michelle Smith:
Sure. So, well, as far as myself and my organization, I am the co-director of Missourians to Abolish the Death Penalty. We are the only statewide entity in Missouri that primarily fights to get rid of capital punishment. That is our main goal. And, in doing that, we do a lot of different things.
We do things from legislative advocacy, trying to change the actual law, to connecting with our community, and educating our citizens about the usage of the death penalty in Missouri. And also, we advocate for people who are on death row, which is what we’re doing currently for Khaliifah. So, we do a lot. And, this case right now, it is very dire. He has an execution date in, what, 11 days, and so we’re really trying to amplify his case, this injustice, and what is happening in our state concerning the pending execution of an innocent Black man.
Mansa Musa:
All right, so let’s right there.
Okay, an innocent black man. All right, make the case based on what the facts say, why he’s innocent, but start with what they say that he allegedly done.
Michelle Smith:
Sure.
So in 1998 there was a, the victim’s name is Felicia Gale, and she was in her home and there was a person who entered her home, and brutally killed her, and it was a tragic situation for sure. I never want to take away from that. A family lost [inaudible 00:03:30].
And so after this happened in 1998, a few months prior, another person, another woman, had been murdered in her home in a similar fashion. And the medical examiner at the time said they looked similar, but also the way that they were killed with a knife from their home, and also this knife was basically left sticking out of their bodies. So the medical examiner thought that there was some similarities, maybe it was some type of serial killer situation, but both of the cases went cold for a very long time. There were no suspects and no one arrested in either of those cases.
A little over a year later, the victim in this case, Mrs. Gale, her husband, who was a doctor, he decided to offer a $10,000 reward for someone to come forward with information because he and his family wanted justice for the killing of his wife. So once he offered that $10,000 reward, several people came forward basically saying that Khaliifah had confessed to killing this victim. And those people were… One was a girlfriend, someone he was dating, and another person was a person he met in jail.
So we all call that a jailhouse informant, or a jailhouse snitch. So these two particular people who I’ve actually learned knew each other, the informant, and the person in jail, and the girlfriend. So they both said Khaliifah basically told them that he had killed this victim, and the main crux of the case during that time… And he went to trial in 2001…
Mansa Musa:
That’s right.
Michelle Smith:
So several years after the murder, he went to trial. The informants both received money, they received $5,000. In one case with the jailhouse informant, he actually met the victim’s husband at the prosecutor’s office where the victim’s husband handed him $5,000 in cash. So it’s just egregious.
But, the main crux of the case at that time was these two people’s statements, and the fact that Khaliifah was in possession of the victim’s laptop computer. Now, you and I both know that there is a time, and even still today, stolen property is sold, handed off, et cetera. And so the fact that Khaliifah had her laptop was not necessarily surprising to me, because people do trade in stolen property.
And, interestingly enough, the girlfriend at the time, who said Khaliifah had the laptop, it was later found out that she’s the one who gave him the laptop, because she [inaudible 00:06:18] off the street again. At that point it had been stolen property. So he had been in possession of the victim’s laptop, and these people said that he told them that he had done this.
But, when we look at the actual evidence, and when I say evidence, I mean physical evidence, not only blood at the scene, but things like footprints. There was a bloody footprint left at the home from the person who had did this. Those did not match Khaliifah. Also, the victim, of course, she struggled, this was a brutal situation, and the victim was clutching hairs in her hand of the perpetrator, the person that had harmed her, and when they tested those hairs that were clutched in her hand, they did not match Khaliifah either. Any fingerprints in the home did not match him either, and the blood on the knife also did not match Khaliifah.
So there is no physical evidence that actually matches Khaliifah in this case. Again, the only thing that the prosecution originally put their case on is these two “witnesses” who said that Khaliifah told them that he did it, and the fact that he had item of the victims in his possession, including her laptop.
Mansa Musa:
Okay, answer this for the benefit of our audience…
Michelle Smith:
Go ahead.
Mansa Musa:
Because the error that you talking about, that he got locked up, The Innocence Project, the DNA became like the national standard for exonerating. Kirk Bloodsworth, they got a law I call Kirk Bloodsworth law, but Kirk Bloodsworth was locked up with me, and Kirk Bloodsworth was locked up in the 80s, ’85 or ’86. And Kirk Bloodsworth was locked up for allegedly raping and killing a little young girl. They had the underwear of the little young girl in their possession, the state did, and never tested it. So when they ultimately tested it, it exonerated him. But what that did that started this national campaign to give value to DNA evidence. That’s what this did. And I’m setting this backdrop up.
So whenever DNA evidence came up during that period, during the late nineties, or in that whole ’90 and 2000, and the OJ, you had… DNA evidence was like the crux. It was like the end of all. Why wasn’t this evidence taken into, if you know, why wasn’t this evidence, which is evidence that’s scientifically sound evidence, because you got hundreds of thousands of people that are locked up to this day based on DNA evidence. Why was this evidence excluded and didn’t go towards his innocence to your knowledge?
Michelle Smith:
Well, I’ll say a couple of things.
First, getting DNA tested in cases is always and often contentious. So, often the courts don’t approve the testing. You assume that when a case has some type of evidence, it is automatically tested. That’s not necessarily the case. So in Marcellus’ or Khaliifah’s case, the forensic evidence, the DNA was not tested until 2015, and I mean the current good DNA testing, not just like a blood test, but actual…
Mansa Musa:
Right.
Michelle Smith:
So it was conducted in 2015.
And during that time what happened was the DNA on the weapon, it was not Khaliifah’s DNA, but whoever’s DNA was, it was unknown. They didn’t know who. So of course the assumption is the DNA must match the perpetrator, and they did not know who that was. They were not allowed to run the DNA through the FBI system, I think it’s called CODIS. They were not allowed to run it through the system, so for many years that DNA went unknown.
However, a few weeks ago, probably mid-August, some DNA testing was conducted further on that knife, and when that testing came back, they had tested the prosecutor who originally prosecuted the case in 2001 and one of his investigators. And, interestingly enough, the DNA came back to match them. So what that told the current prosecutor’s office is that the evidence was contaminated, because obviously the prosecutor didn’t do it himself. So the fact that the DNA on the knife matched him, meaning that there was some contamination that happened, there was some mishandling of the evidence. And so the fact that the reality is the prosecutor’s DNA is on the weapon and also that investigator means that there was some type of breakdown in the chain of custody and the handling of that material.
A few weeks ago, August 28th when the hearing was held, that original prosecutor, he got on the stand, and testified, and he basically said that “Yes, I did handle the knife without any gloves.” He said the trial again happened three years after the murder, and because they had already run the fingerprint testing and the blood testing, he felt like it was okay for him to handle the knife without gloves. Actually said he did it all the time, which is concerning to me. And so that’s how his DNA got on the knife.
He handled it without gloves. He said he pulled it out of the package, and put the evidence sticker on it, and he showed it to several of the witnesses to confirm that that’s the knife that they saw, witnesses being the police officers, and he did. So the fact that the weapon was mishandled and the evidence contaminated obviously means that there’s something going on, because had the prosecutor not done that, it’s possible that the actual perpetrator’s DNA would have still been found on the knife, but because it had been mishandled, right now the DNA, again, does not match Khaliifah, but it has proven the evidence has been mishandled. So that is why there such contention around the DNA evidence in this case.
Mansa Musa:
All right, talk about this here. What about the hair follicles? Did anything come out in terms of testing that against Khaliifah’s hair follicles?
Michelle Smith:
Yes, and none of the other evidence matched Khaliifah, the hair, the footprints, the fingerprints, there is no physical evidence in that home, in that murder scene, that matched Khaliifah. The only evidence they had was the fact that he was in possession of the victim’s laptop and that these two people said that he told them he did it. They didn’t see it happen. They weren’t there either, but they both said that he told.
And the person from jail, interestingly enough, he did not know that man. He had just been in jail with him for a few days up to a week, so the fact that you would even be in jail with someone and just confessing to them that you killed people, that doesn’t make any sense to me.
Mansa Musa:
But that’s a common phenomenon in prison. People, they sit around, and they look at the paper, and they read about somebody’s case and they use that to get out. They call the state’s attorney, state’s attorney, don’t even look and see whether or not it’s any validity to it.
But let’s talk about, excuse me, the current prosecutor. And the current prosecutor and them and the states representative saying they are saying that he should be released or he should definitely not be executed. Talk about that, talk about that right there.
Michelle Smith:
Sure. So in our state, in 2021, there was a law passed in Missouri. And that law says that the local prosecutor, which is the office that prosecuted a person, that local prosecutor has the right to bring forth a case, a motion to court, to ask the court to set aside conviction, and that happens when the attorneys for the person who was convicted brings evidence to the prosecutor and then he himself in his office reviews the evidence.
So it’s not that a prosecutor just brings any case, he actually has his own staff review the evidence, his investigators, he runs the testing, et cetera. And once he was done reviewing this case, he decided that, “Yes, this case is not something I would have brought to court if I had been in court at that time. Our office messed up, our office mishandled evidence, and our office convicted someone who we today believe, who is not guilty, who is innocent.”
And so because of all of those reasons, the prosecutor brought the motion to court, asked the judge to review it, and to vacate that conviction. But, there is another party in this matter, which is the state attorney, the Attorney General of Missouri. And so the Attorney General of Missouri has the right to challenge the local prosecutor’s assertions. And this has been done several times. Now in the past three times, it has been used since 2021, the person was exonerated and freed and none of those people were on death row. All three of those people had life sentences. One was prison 28 years, one was in prison 34, and one was in prison for 42 years, and all of them were black men. Each of those black men have been exonerated and released after decades incarcerated.
But in this particular case, when the prosecutor brought forth the case and asked for to be reviewed, the State Attorney General has tried to block him at every point, at every turn. They were going to take a Alford plea, which is basically a plea deal [inaudible 00:16:36] some evidence, but that still there is doubt in that conviction. And the judge was going to accept that Alford plea, and in exchange they were going to give a Khaliifah a life in prison sentence.
Now life in prison is still a conviction and incarceration, however, it would’ve saved his life. He would not be facing execution. But, the State Attorney General went to the Supreme Court that evening, asked them to throw out this plea deal and hold the hearing, and once that hearing was held, the judge then reviewed the evidence… And it came out yesterday, so the judgment came out yesterday and it said that basically the DNA evidence that again points to the prosecutor, meaning that it was contaminated, is not “clear and convincing.” There’s a very high bar, when we’re talking about innocence, there’s a very high bar and person has to meet and the judge does not feel that this case meets that high enough bar in order to vacate the conviction. So the judge denied the motion to vacate the conviction.
So at this point, again, Khaliifah is facing execution on September 24th. His attorneys as well as the local prosecutor are trying to figure out their next legal move in court. I’m not quite sure what that is, but of course they can go to the state Supreme Court, they can also go to the US Supreme Court, and so we anticipate them doing that, and I’m sure that they’re going to keep fighting to bring justice to this case, and to exonerate Khaliifah, and also stop his impending execution. But we are in [inaudible 00:18:20]
Mansa Musa:
I got you. This is literally like you say, the 11th hour, but also from my information is the family members came out and said… Took a position on Khaliifah. What was that?
Michelle Smith:
In these cases, the victim’s families don’t always agree with the prosecution, and I think that’s a fallacy that people assume so. But the victim’s family, Mrs. Gale’s family have stated publicly that they don’t believe in the death penalty.
Again, her husband is a doctor and I’m sure that him being a doctor, a person that is tasked with saving people’s lives, is what grounds his own ideology in this, but the family is not for the death penalty. Now the family believes that Khaliifah is guilty of the murder. They have stated that as well. They don’t believe he’s innocent. They believe he’s guilty, but they also don’t believe in death penalty. So they would be satisfied if he was just incarcerated. But I explain to people often that the prosecutor, they don’t always align with the family. The prosecutor is a political position, and the decisions that they make in the office are often politically motivated. It’s not always about the family.
I’ve seen cases where… There’s one case of a man who family, the victim’s family was his own family, because in his case, when he was 19, he killed a member of his family. I believe she was a great aunt who was an elderly person, and he was doing drugs, sadly, and he killed his great aunt trying to get money. But the victim’s family, his family are same family.
And that victim’s family went to the governor, I believe it was Texas, and went to the governor of Texas and told him, “We don’t want our loved one killed. We understand what he did. We are a family of faith. We are a family of forgiveness, and we want him here, and we believe that he’s a better person, and we don’t want to lose him.” And the state said, “we don’t care what you think” and executed him anyway.
So the prosecution is not always about the victim’s families, or the victim’s loved ones, or justice for the victim’s family, because in Khaliifah’s case, the victim’s family does not agree with the death penalty, however, the state is still pushing for Khaliifah to be executed. So it is not always what the victims want.
Mansa Musa:
We want to educate our audience on this point when they offer Khaliifah an Alford, because the Alford plea is a plea that’s saying that I’m innocent, it’s just that the circumstances, I can’t overcome these circumstances at this time. It’s not that they can’t be overcome, it’s just they can’t be overcome at this time. So this is a better course.
So given the Alford plea, he still would’ve been able to pursue his quest to be exonerated, which is really what this is about, an innocent man. Talk about an innocent man getting ready to be legally murdered. Talk about the state of Missouri and how they do the… Overwhelming numbers of blacks on death row, or is this generally that they go out, and they execute or they try to get the death penalty across the board, or is just systemically poor and poor people?
Michelle Smith:
Interestingly enough, when we talk about… Of course, racism is embedded in the capital punishment, death penalty system, it is the crutch of it is how it was done. There was a time where we were lynched.
Mansa Musa:
Come on.
Michelle Smith:
They made it legal and they made it state and they made it in the gas chamber, or an execution chair, but it’s still state-sanctioned murder. And since it is still embedded in racism, there is a little bit of difference. It’s not necessarily the race of the defendant, which that has a part, but statistically it’s the race of the victim.
Being a white female means that you’re three and a half times more likely to receive a death sentence. So if the victim is a white woman or a white female child, whoever the perpetrator is, nevermind [inaudible 00:22:33] whoever. But that goes to show you who’s valued in society. Because if Khaliifah’s victim was a black man or a black woman, he very likely would not be on death row right now. That’s just the reality of the situation.
So, racism does definitely play a part, who the victim is plays a huge part, but it is also who the defendant is as well. And in our particular state, because we are a state that held onto slavery, actually Missouri was a [inaudible 00:23:05] only state.
Mansa Musa:
Yes.
Michelle Smith:
So Missouri is the South. I tell people that often Missouri is the south, and when we look at it, we look at the lynchings in our state, and we can really overlay a map of the executions and they almost match. So places that did lynching, extrajudicial murders, now carries out the death penalty, capital punishment. It is definitely mostly black men, for the most part, but the overwhelming majority of people are poor. And that’s what we need to talk about, too.
People who are facing capital punishment, or lengthy sentences in prison are poor, don’t have access to the best legal help. In Khaliifah’s case, his attorneys, back at that time, his defense attorneys today, those two men are judges, and they came to court and they said, “Listen, we were ineffective because we had another death penalty case at the time, and we were stretched thin, we were busy, we had more than one capital punishment case, and we did not do everything that we could for Khaliifah because of that other case.” And they actually admitted that in court as well. So the representation for people, most of the time get public defenders, and they don’t have the robust representation. Everybody’s not OJ. Everybody cannot afford Johnnie Cochran and a great legal team.
Mansa Musa:
Dream team.
Michelle Smith:
Exactly. And so most poor people are facing these particular punishments because they don’t have access to their robust legal representation, and that’s the crux of it.
Even right now in our state, there are approximately 10 to 12 pending capital punishment cases, meaning they’re sitting in jail, waiting to go to trial, and they’ve been charged with murder and facing a death penalty. And guess what? All of those people right now are white men from rural Missouri. So they’re from small towns in Missouri, they’re all white men. And it is really an indictment, again, of our system. So when we talk about racism and the division and the biases, we truly need to understand that our system, our country, hates poor people overall.
Mansa Musa:
Criminalize poverty.
Michelle Smith:
[inaudible 00:25:16] tell you is, if you’re poor and you don’t have access to resources, or access to amazing litigation, et cetera, you are going to be victimized in this system.
Mansa Musa:
They criminalize poverty.
But talk… Look, before as we get ready to close out, talk about Khaliifa. I asked you earlier, I said, make the case why you think he’s innocent, and I’ll leave that up to our viewers based on the preponderance of information that you gave us, the facts of his case is in public record, but talk about Khaliifa, how is he doing and what kind of person is Khaliifa, for the benefit of our audience?
Michelle Smith:
So Khaliifah is again, his birth name was Marcellus Williams. He has been a very devout Muslim for many, many years and he took upon the Islamic name Khaliifah upon his shahada, which is that naming ceremony. He is also the Imam at the prison he’s in. So he is a person that is looked up to that is very admired. He guides the other Muslim men in that prison, and he’s always trying to make sure that he stays in alignment with Allah. So because of that, he keeps his faith right up front, and he is doing okay. We talked a few weeks ago and he honestly encourages me, because I’m not… Sadly, I don’t have the faith that he has. He’s always concerned asking me how I’m doing, telling me everything is going to be okay, because I’m a worrier, but he is very much that person that really stays calm, keeps other people calm around him, and has their perspective that everything is going to work out because he is such a faithful individual.
He’s also a father, a grandfather. He is very involved in his family, and he’s a poet. Khaliifah writes amazing poetry and we put together a collection of his poetry as well. He’s written poems about, one is called the Perplexing Smiles of the Children of Palestine, and it is an amazing poem about just the atrocities that are happening to the Palestinian people. He’s written a poem about George Floyd and the issues of what happened in 2020. So he’s very in tune with what’s going on today, and he has written some amazing poetry. So he is a beautiful-spirited person. He is definitely someone that has so much to give to others, and we are truly fighting for his innocence and his life so that he can go on impacting people in a positive way.
Mansa Musa:
So tell our audience right now, what can they do, how they can support and try to help reverse this process that we know that going to take place unless we get some support and raise the voices of Khaliifa.
Michelle Smith:
So of course, his legal team are doing all they can in court and we appreciate that, but as far as the community, locally here in Missouri and nationwide, just amplify Khaliifah’s story in his case, talk to your community members, talk to your family, talk to your loved ones about the fact that death penalty does not solve anything, and actually killing innocent people should be something we as a society should not be doing.
We have a petition for Khaliifah. We also have a webpage, which is www.freeKhaliifah.org. His name is spelled K-H-A-L-I-I-F-A-H, and it has a toolkit where we have graphics, and we have information that you can share on social media. You can print also and share as well. We have a little email template that you can email our governor, especially if you live in Missouri, you can definitely utilize that. So we’re really asking people to learn and to amplify the case, amplify Khaliifah’s life and humanity, and we would love this to get as big as possible. Some people have made videos on TikTok and Instagram, and those are amazing as well, because those get a lot of views and really inspire other people to learn more, and so that’s truly what we’re looking to do, amplify Khaliifah’s case.
Next Tuesday the 17th, from six to nine P.M. we will be going live on Instagram, bringing on several people to talk about Khaliifah’s case and trying to do a social media push really just to amplify the case, again, and to amplify his life because a lot of people don’t know what’s happening, so we definitely want more people to understand what is going on and how it not only affects us in Missouri, it affects us nationwide because we should have a stop at killing innocent people. That definitely is not something we should be doing.
Mansa Musa:
Thank you. There you have it. The Real News, Rattling the Bars. We ask that you review this information about Marcellus Khaliifah Williams. We ask that you asked yourself if you was in this situation, would you want to get a fair trial? Would you want people to really look at the information and the evidence when you confronted with this information and this evidence? Ask yourself, would you, as a juror, if you knew all this as a juror, would you have found Khaliifah guilty of murder? Ask yourself if you as a juror, would not be able to discern when person have interest over humanity, where a person would take and sell somebody out for $5,000? Ask yourself what would you do?
We’re asking that you look at this information and follow what Michelle was saying as far as on the Instagram, on their webpage is very interactive, and make your voice known. Because if we continue to allow this country to execute people, legally with impunity, then as Angela Davis say, “If they come for me at night, they’ll come for you in the morning.” And this is them coming for us in the morning and we don’t raise the voice of Khaliifah. Thank you, Michelle.
Michelle Smith:
Thank you. Thank you so much.
Mansa Musa:
And we asked you to continue to support Rattling the Bars and the Real News because we’re actually the Real News.
Darcy Layton was pleasantly surprised with a free sweater and fruit from her local convenience store—but what she didn’t know was that a more sinister surprise was awaiting her outdoors. Without explanation, local police confronted Layton and ordered her to show ID. Police body camera footage reveals the officer got physical when Layton was slow to give her full name, and arrested her under questionable pretenses. Suddenly facing charges, Latyon was hit with another shock from police: if she did not accept a guilty plea, she would be involuntarily committed to psychiatric hospitalization. Taya Graham and Stephen Janis of the Police Accountability Report investigate the case and examine how it reveals the role of police in enforcing social boundaries by criminalizing mental illness and homelessness.
Production: Stephen Janis, Taya Graham Post-Production: Stephen Janis, Adam Coley
Transcript
The following is a rushed transcript and may contain errors. A proofread version will be made available as soon as possible.
Taya Graham:
Hello, my name is Taya Graham and welcome to the Police Accountability Report. As I always make clear, this show has a single purpose. Holding the politically powerful institution of policing accountable. And to do so, we don’t just focus on the bad behavior of individual cops. Instead, we examine the system that makes bad policing possible.
And today, we will achieve that goal by showing you this video of a cop making an inexplicable arrest of a woman who was simply standing on a public sidewalk. A questionable use of power to detain and cage a person who had not committed a crime. But it’s an arrest which reveals the destructive consequences of over-policing and why cops need to be watched at all times. But first, I want you watching to know that if you have video evidence of police misconduct or brutality, please share it with us and we might be able to investigate for you.
You can email us tips privately at par@therealnews.com and share your evidence of police misconduct and please share and like and comment. It really helps us and it can even help our guests and you know I read your comments and appreciate them. And please consider joining our channel and if you click that blue fundraising button over here, you can make a huge difference to help keep us going. If you donate $75 or more or become a $10 a month supporter, you’ll receive an exclusive Real News T-shirt as a special thank you so please consider helping us. You never see ads here and you know we don’t take corporate dollars.
All right, we’ve gotten that out of the way. Now, as we reported on the show repeatedly over and over again, police power is often used in situations that do not justify it, but in fact call for entirely different solutions. There are incidents where people simply need the help of another human being, not a gun, a badge or a set of handcuffs and no use of police power is more indicative of our penchant for applying it to the wrong situations than the video I’m showing you now.
It depicts an encounter between Darcy Layton and an Ogden, Utah police officer that ended with horrible consequences for her and questions about how the department treats people in need at their most vulnerable moments. The story starts in Ogden, Utah in April 2023. There, Darcy Layton is experiencing what she’ll tell us later was a moment of personal crisis. Not violent, as you will see, or even alarming. She’s just dealing with the consequences of her tenuous housing situation and she’s struggling with the stress of it. She happened at the same time to be standing on a street outside of a 7-Eleven, which is a fact that will be important later. That’s when an Ogden police officer drove to confront her for reasons that remain unknown. Take a listen.
Ogden, Utah Police Officer:
Hey, excuse me. Hey.
Darcy Layton:
Hi.
Ogden, Utah Police Officer:
Hi. What’s your name?
Darcy Layton:
I’m sorry, I was kind of praying to God for a minute.
Ogden, Utah Police Officer:
Okay, no, that’s fine. It’s just the people at 7-Eleven don’t want you here so can I get your name?
Darcy Layton:
Oh, they didn’t tell me that [inaudible 00:03:01] been in there.
Ogden, Utah Police Officer:
Okay, well what’s your name? What’s your name? Hey, stop. Stop.
Taya Graham:
Now, you will notice as the officer exits the vehicle, Darcy was clearly standing on a public sidewalk, not on the property of a 7-Eleven. And as is her right, since the officer had not expressed reasonable, articulate suspicion that she had committed a crime, she had declined to identify herself and simply exercise her right and walk away, but the officer decided to pursue. Take a look.
Ogden, Utah Police Officer:
Hey, what’s your name ma’am? Ma’am, what’s your name?
Darcy Layton:
I’m okay. I just would go for a walk, I’m okay.
Ogden, Utah Police Officer:
What’s your name?
Darcy Layton:
I didn’t shop with [inaudible 00:03:51].
Ogden, Utah Police Officer:
Okay, what’s your name?
Darcy Layton:
I’m going to go. I’m fine. I haven’t done anything wrong.
Ogden, Utah Police Officer:
You’re not leaving.
Darcy Layton:
I’m fine.
Ogden, Utah Police Officer:
You’re trespassing. They want you out of here.
Darcy Layton:
I am walking off the, wait, wait. I’m not trespassing. I’m on public road.
Taya Graham:
First of all, the officer has not established that she has committed a crime. Yes, as you heard, he accused her of trespassing. But given that she seems far removed from the actual property of the 7-Eleven, that is at best, a questionable allegation. Still, without any evidence of intent of a crime, he continues to try to detain her – watch.
Ogden, Utah Police Officer:
Come back to my car.
Darcy Layton:
I was on a public road.
Ogden, Utah Police Officer:
Come back to my car.
Darcy Layton:
Public road, public road.
Ogden, Utah Police Officer:
Come, stop.
Darcy Layton:
Let me go.
Ogden, Utah Police Officer:
Stop.
Darcy Layton:
What the you fuck [inaudible 00:04:30].
Ogden, Utah Police Officer:
Stop.
Darcy Layton:
Fuck, fucking God. Oh my God.
Ogden, Utah Police Officer:
Stop.
Taya Graham:
Okay, so for some reason that I cannot conceivably justify legally he puts his hands on her and I will note at the time this occurred, she was not threatening anyone and she was in the process of leaving the area, as I will repeat, is her right. Therefore, the question at this point is why did the officer put his hands on her? What exactly is the crime? Take a look for yourself and decide if this use of force is justified.
Darcy Layton:
[inaudible 00:05:03].
Ogden, Utah Police Officer:
Stop.
Darcy Layton:
Fucking stop, fucking God. Oh my God.
Ogden, Utah Police Officer:
If you don’t stop.
Darcy Layton:
Fucking hell.
Ogden, Utah Police Officer:
Get the fuck off [inaudible 00:05:17].
Darcy Layton:
Rick, you got a PP.
Ogden, Utah Police Officer:
Hey, don’t feel my leg.
Darcy Layton:
Rick you got a PP. God, damn you.
Taya Graham:
Before I weigh in on the legality of this arrest or what the law entitles the officer to do, at this point I want you to take a look at something that we see quite often when watching police body cameras, but rarely discuss, the way the officer initiates pain compliance. Now you can see how the officer bends her arm up into her arm socket. This is an extremely painful maneuver that can have lasting physical effects. Just recall our last show when Eddie Holguin was still suffering from the ongoing nerve pain of a previous arrest when the police arrested him again and caused pain in the same arm. Still, despite the risks, along with the obvious fact, Darcy is hardly a physically formidable detainee, the officer continues to press her arm up and into her shoulder, see for yourself.
Ogden, Utah Police Officer:
Stop.
Darcy Layton:
Fucking hell.
Ogden, Utah Police Officer:
Get the fuck off [inaudible 00:05:17].
Darcy Layton:
Rick, you got a PP.
Ogden, Utah Police Officer:
Hey, don’t feel my leg.
Darcy Layton:
Rick you got a PP. God, damn you. [inaudible 00:06:44] Fucking bullshit [inaudible 00:06:44]. God damn.
Ogden, Utah Police Officer:
Okay, give me your other arm. Give me your other arm.
Taya Graham:
Now, I really want you to think about what you’re seeing here. A woman pressed into the ground on the wet sidewalk, her arm dangerously pushed up into her back and is facing this physical duress for doing what exactly? What was the crime here? What was the threat to the public safety? A couple of 7-Eleven employees didn’t like her. Is that how we justify the use of force? Let’s just listen and see if the officer shares the particulars of the crime upon which he bases his use of force.
Darcy Layton:
Fuck.
Ogden, Utah Police Officer:
You’re being ridiculous.
Darcy Layton:
Don’t you dare, mother fucker. Fuck, your mother.
Ogden, Utah Police Officer:
Sit up.
Darcy Layton:
It’s okay, fucking your mother.
Ogden, Utah Police Officer:
Sit up.
Darcy Layton:
If you’re okay with fucking your mother. Fuck you, bullshit, [inaudible 00:07:36].
Ogden, Utah Police Officer:
Please stand up.
Darcy Layton:
Fuck Eddie. God damn it. Fucking, what is your problem?
Ogden, Utah Police Officer:
Come on.
Darcy Layton:
What did I do?
Ogden, Utah Police Officer:
Put your shoes on.
Darcy Layton:
What did I do?
Ogden, Utah Police Officer:
Let’s go.
Darcy Layton:
What did I do, please? What did I fucking do? You, God damn it.
Ogden, Utah Police Officer:
What did I do? What crime had I committed? A fairly simple question and yet the officer does not answer it. Now, instead, he ridicules Darcy and continues to implement pain compliance, a situation that only gets worse as he forces her into the patrol car all the while maintaining his silence about her alleged crime.
Darcy Layton:
Please, what did I fucking do? You God damn it.
Ogden, Utah Police Officer:
Stop. Stop. Do you have anything on you shouldn’t have? What’s your name? Huh? What’s your name? I’m going to add another charge.
Darcy Layton:
I’m sorry please be nice.
Ogden, Utah Police Officer:
Get in.
Darcy Layton:
Fucking bullshit.
Ogden, Utah Police Officer:
Get in.
Darcy Layton:
Please be nice. Who are you?
Ogden, Utah Police Officer:
Police, get in.
Darcy Layton:
Please, who are you?
Ogden, Utah Police Officer:
Get in.
Darcy Layton:
Who are you?
Ogden, Utah Police Officer:
Get in. Get in please. Can you put your feet in the car please?
Taya Graham:
I’m going to add another charge. Well, that’s interesting. For what exactly? Because you can’t have a secondary offense without an underlying crime to justify it, right, officer? So what exactly is the first offense that justifies the second? Because as far as I can tell you never really made clear what the initial reason for the arrest is. And let me say this as well, this particular arrest up until this point embodies many of the problems people endure when they push back on the state of law enforcement in this country.
This is why people don’t trust the police because so far the officer has been less than forthcoming about his justification for this violent arrest, and yet he has been more than articulate about his disdain for Darcy, which incidentally, is not a crime. In other words, you can’t arrest people that you don’t like. But still the officer persists and continues to refuse to answer questions. Just watch.
Ogden, Utah Police Officer:
Get in, please. Can you put your feet in the car please? It’s soaking [inaudible 00:09:57].
Darcy Layton:
I’m very hot.
Ogden, Utah Police Officer:
What’s your name?
Darcy Layton:
I’m sorry.
Ogden, Utah Police Officer:
What’s your name?
Darcy Layton:
Ah.
Ogden, Utah Police Officer:
Huh? What is your name? What’s your name?
Darcy Layton:
I don’t know.
Ogden, Utah Police Officer:
Huh?
Darcy Layton:
I’m sorry.
Ogden, Utah Police Officer:
What’s your name?
Darcy Layton:
I just kind of daydreaming for a minute.
Ogden, Utah Police Officer:
Okay. What’s your name?
Darcy Layton:
I don’t know. I don’t remember. [inaudible 00:10:23]
Taya Graham:
But now perhaps the officer realizes that he has made an arrest for no good reason so he starts to make an accusation on body camera, the one that seems problematic, if not impossible. Take a look.
Darcy Layton:
I’m sorry I fucking [inaudible 00:10:39] myself I didn’t mean to you.
Ogden, Utah Police Officer:
Lean your up a little bit.
Darcy Layton:
Am I dead?
Ogden, Utah Police Officer:
Why did you scratch me? Did you bite me?
Darcy Layton:
They drowning me in the fucking hole.
Taya Graham:
Did you bite me, seriously? This is what we like to call body worn camera performance. You know, I don’t have reasonable articulable suspicion or probable cause to make an arrest, but what I do have is the ability to perform my own version of stop resisting on body worn camera to justify any actions that might not meet the actual legal threshold for putting someone in handcuffs. Now, I’m not going to review the entire video, but here are a few excerpts and you tell me when and where she had the opportunity or inclination to bite the officer. Let’s watch.
Ogden, Utah Police Officer:
Stop.
Darcy Layton:
What the fuck.
Ogden, Utah Police Officer:
Stop.
Darcy Layton:
Fucking, fuck. What the hell?
Ogden, Utah Police Officer:
Stop.
Darcy Layton:
Fucking dick.
Taya Graham:
So I, for one, didn’t see it and if you did, please leave a comment sharing where you did if you do indeed think she tried to harm the officer. But for the record, the bite may have been literally impossible because as Darcy shared with me later, she didn’t have her dentures in. But in the meantime, there is much to reveal about what led up to the arrest and the way police in Ogden, Utah have been aggressively targeting members of the community that we will unpack for you when we speak to Darcy and her boyfriend, Eddie Clegg, details, which only make the circumstances surrounding this example of over-policing even more questionable. But first, I’m joined by my reporting partner, Stephen Janis, who’s been reaching out to the police and examining the evidence. Stephen, thank you so much for joining me.
Stephen Janis:
Tay, thanks for having me, I appreciate it.
Taya Graham:
So Stephen, how are police justifying the arrest? What crime did Darcy commit?
Stephen Janis:
Well, I looked at the charging documents. We obtained them from the police department. Pretty simple. They charged her with some very questionable crimes that don’t seem to match the body-worn camera, namely trespassing and then interfering. But of course interfering would be a secondary offense to trespassing. And if you look at the video, you could see that she’s clearly on the sidewalk, I think, although the snow is covering, but not on the property.
But what they did because of those charges is that they had her plead guilty to the trespassing, threatening to charge her with that other bogus charge, which is injuring a police officer, which again, on video clearly contradicts what the officer was saying. So really it’s an example of law enforcement using their powers, to strong-arm someone into giving up their rights.
Taya Graham:
Okay, so wait, you’re saying Ogden, Utah prosecutors actually threatened her with charges of assaulting an officer. What was the plea offer and what eventually happened?
Stephen Janis:
Yeah, I mean Tay, it’s amazing. What they use is that very, I think questionable charge of trespassing to then intimidate her and saying that she was going to have to plead guilty of something that clearly wasn’t on body-worn camera, which just shows you how ridiculously ill-equipped I would say, our justice system is to defend people who can’t afford a high-priced lawyer. I’m sure if she had an expensive lawyer, that case would’ve been tossed in a second, but instead she ended up spending time in jail having plead guilty to a crime she didn’t commit.
Taya Graham:
Stephen, it seems to me that police are targeting this area’s unhoused population. What does this use of police power say about the underlying imperative of it and how does this jive with some of the theories of police power and its role in capitalism?
Stephen Janis:
Well, Tay, let me go back to what I just said. Let’s do a little thought experience. Imagine if all these unhoused people had expensive lawyers who could fight back and question the police, question the charges, question the legality, put officers on the stand and put the legal system on the stand as well. Let’s imagine what would happen. Do you think they’d be harassing these people? Do you think they’d be arresting them and pulling them in for charges they didn’t commit? Do you think so? I don’t think so. And that just shows you that our justice system is for sale and it goes to the highest bidder and that’s the problem we see here. People don’t have a way to defend themselves. They don’t have access to the same services that rich people do. And so police mess with them. That’s all this is. That’s what it is.
Taya Graham:
And now to talk about their encounters with police prior to the arrest we just watched and how law enforcement continues to harass them, I’m joined by Darcy Layton and her boyfriend, Eddie Clegg. Darcy and Eddie, thank you so much for joining us.
Darcy Layton:
Thank you Taya for having me.
Taya Graham:
So first, what were you at the convenience store before you were grabbed by police?
Darcy Layton:
I had gone for a walk but forgot my ID, my wallet and keys and I had somebody mail it to me, that was mailed to my address and I was just kind of asking if anybody knew where they might’ve moved to because I’d been living there for three years already in my apartment and still receiving mail to this person. Yeah, so I was just taking a break from my house for a minute. I was getting ready to head back home and somebody offered to buy me a drink. I wasn’t panhandling by any means, but it was cold and raining so somebody offered me, they put a jacket on me and offered to buy me a drink and they bought me some bananas and that’s why I was there.
Taya Graham:
An officer approached you but did not seem to explain why you were being stopped or detained or articulate any kind of reasonable suspicion. Did the officer ever explain to you what your crime was?
Darcy Layton:
I wasn’t catching on, I’m hard of hearing in my left ear and he approached me from my left side and at the time I was saying a prayer and I even mentioned that to him and then he said, “Stop.” So I thought he meant stop praying. But I couldn’t see him. I had been offered a ride home by two people in two white cars and thought it was one of them coming back to offer me a ride again. So I didn’t look. I just kept my eyes closed, praying still when he said to stop. At some point after I saw the video, but I didn’t hear it while I was standing there because of the deafness in my left ear, after they finally released the video over a year later to me, that’s when I heard him say that the store didn’t want me there, but I was already off the property.
Taya Graham:
The officer appeared to be strongly twisting your arm behind your back and then put you face down on the wet sidewalk. Was any reason given for using these pain compliance techniques or even for cuffing you?
Darcy Layton:
There was nothing given to me, nothing I heard at all. He basically told me that I wasn’t wanted on the property, they wanted me to leave, so I was walking away from the property. I was already off the property. I started to walk away when he said, “Stop.” And so I continued on my way By then I was on the public road, which is not their property anyway.
Taya Graham:
Did the officers identify themselves or give you any information?
Darcy Layton:
No, they didn’t and would not, I asked them repeatedly afterwards. Even at that point, who are they? Who are you and what’s going on? What did I do? And they would not respond to me and give me an answer whatsoever so I was uncertain of them even being official officers at all. Whatever happened to a rights to remain silent because they never even said anything about that. And so I was just remaining silent and then I felt like I must’ve been so confused because I didn’t realize, know what was going on because they wouldn’t give me any information whatsoever about who they were even when I asked who they were. So I didn’t feel comfortable giving them information about who I was because I’d heard on TV or on the news to make sure that if you don’t trust that they are true officers, to call 911 and go to a store or somewhere where there’s more people and get some real officers on board before contacting or telling them anything. So I didn’t feel I was doing anything wrong here by not giving them my name at first, but I did give them my first name, but it’s not in the video.
Taya Graham:
Darcy, were you injured during the encounter? It looked very painful.
Darcy Layton:
Yeah. Well I also have previous injuries in my lower back, a slipping disc. It is slipping. There’s no fluid in my, between L-4 and L-5. It just, it’s completely gone so it’s bone on bone already. They were putting their knee in my back pushing so hard that I lost control of my bladder with all their weight on top of me and up in my cervical C-spine now and my neck also with more damage as well. It was hurting pretty bad. Yes, that’s why I was swearing so much. Definitely causing me pain.
Taya Graham:
So the part with multiple officers being on top of you wasn’t shown in the body camera video we have because that body cam was not available because of the cost, right?
Darcy Layton:
Because I am on SSI for disabilities that I have and I only get, well right now, back then it was just a little over $900 a month. I had been going to that store at least three times a week every month for three years. But the income level is not high enough to retain that. They want $2,000 for the entire footage. So after asking for over a year and getting the run around of nothing coming back to us, they finally released seven minutes of the video to me just last week or week before. So yeah, I had nothing to go on yet, but they still want $2,000 for the entirety of it. And on SSI you’re not allowed to have anything more than $2,000 at a time on hand so how would I survive?
Taya Graham:
If there were three officers present and one of them was on top of you, I have a feeling, and now this is just speculation that the body camera video probably looked pretty bad to have three officers on top of one woman and perhaps they don’t want the world to see that.
Darcy Layton:
I was face down so it was hard for me to see anything. But when they first pulled me up, I was totally soaked because they had me down in the gutter with a lot of water coming down. Then they were giving me a hard time. They were saying, “Okay, miss no name.” And then they said, “Come on [inaudible 00:19:57]” I mean I’m white, I’m as white as they come and I also read part of his police report and it said he was working overtime and I don’t see crime in the area being necessity for any cop to work overtime in the area. Generally, it’s a pretty calm town.
Taya Graham:
I have seen officers make double their salary with overtime in Baltimore, so I know it’s a precious commodity. What were you charged with and how long were you in jail?
Darcy Layton:
It was like interfering with arresting officer and failure to disclose information and then they were trying to say that I assaulted the officer and I bit the officer and I scratched the officer. However, I was face down with my arm behind my back the whole time. I don’t see how any of that could have possibly happened and I had no teeth. So yeah, my dentures do not fit right. I choke when I try to eat with food so I don’t even wear them at all, but I’m cool with that. It’s fine.
Taya Graham:
Now, something I noted during the body cam video was the officer started pointing at his arm with his smartwatch and suggested that maybe you had bitten him or was that even possible or was it likely he reddened his own arm while cuffing you? I mean you didn’t even have your dentures in, right?
Darcy Layton:
Oh yeah and face down like I was, I thought they were going to drown me right there on the spot in the gutter with so much water coming down and then as much pressure as they applied to me with their knee in my back and I could not hold my bladder whatsoever, like I was getting ran over almost by car. It was stupid. And then I believe, they don’t really have calendars in the jail anyway. They don’t treat you very well here in Ogden in the jail. I believe it was like nine days that I stayed there in the jail before they let me out with no medication. I’m schizophrenic, I got Alzheimer’s or not Alzheimer’s, sorry, what is that called? Parkinson’s like movements and Parkinson’s going on, early stages, but I did not get a single visit from a nurse of any kind.
Also, I did read their written report down at the police station. Just recently, they finally allowed me to see that. He stated that I had said my head hurt, which I never did. They said that they brought a paramedic down there to have me checked out before he brought me to jail. It never happened. There was never a paramedic brought by and the whole time I was there for nine days in jail, zero medications brought to me for my conditions.
Taya Graham:
Darcy, that’s awful you didn’t receive your medications while you were in jail. How are you feeling right now though? I mean how are you processing this? What you describe is really awful.
Darcy Layton:
I have a real hard time being around the officers. Eddie likes to play these videos trying to get them to, he’s just wanting to learn as much as he can about police brutality and them making them do things better and be accountable for their actions and I am stressed out post-traumatic stress disorder and I have to keep getting out the vehicle because he keeps planning so much he doesn’t understand how it causes me stress and I have to go for a walk to get away from it. But I’m having some serious issues. I went and spoke with a therapist just yesterday and it makes me shake. I mean I’m dealing with it, I’m working on it, not letting it bring me down like it was. But yeah, I had some serious, serious issues there and I’m going to get through it though. But yeah, I don’t trust them.
Taya Graham:
So you told us that you’re homeless right now living out of your truck with Eddie. Have the police offered you any help?
Darcy Layton:
In a truck right now that’s just what we do. Most of them have been a hindrance. We’ve run into a couple of real good ones though that are very helpful. We’ve even had them come to a court hearing just to be there for support with us, a couple months back. She was a really nice lady. She did show up because I was having some real uncomfortable feelings about going around police officers and feeling safe at all and triggering my post-traumatic stress disorder coming in and she showed up and she’s very cool.
Eddie Clegg:
She’s an advocate.
Darcy Layton:
An advocate. And she even gathered us up some clothes and stuff and a pill medication holder to help me with my medication because I could lose them sometimes in here and sometimes I forget or I’ll fall asleep before I take my nighttime ones. Not purposely, I just check out though. So yeah, it was good to find at least one out there.
Taya Graham:
How did the police generally treat homeless people in the area? Now you’re living out of a truck and at the time of arrest Darcy, you actually still had an apartment. How do police handle homeless people and do they offer any support services?
Darcy Layton:
At the time of the 7-Eleven incident when I was tackled by the officer or yeah, I was living in an apartment. I had been there for a year and I had just come out on a rainy day with no makeup on and looked like a wet cat already so when I was put into the jail, they were treating me as if I was homeless and the judge even said, or the representative even said, “Well what are we going to do for her address? Where do we send the information?” Because they automatically assumed I was homeless and didn’t even ask me so I don’t know. They have harassed people on Washington Boulevard just because they’re homeless. They stop them and check their bags. One, the other day had just barely gotten released from jail. I don’t know what from, but Eddie got out to record, to make sure he wasn’t bothering him. This guy’s frail and shaky, he’s not doing anything wrong.
Eddie Clegg:
Just got out of jail.
Darcy Layton:
He’s got his backpack and his belongings, whatever he can carry and you can’t carry hardly anything. You need more things with you than you can carry already, but he’s not doing anything wrong. He’s minding his own business and this guy is messing with him. He picked it up and got out of the vehicle, pulled over the side of the road, got out and started to film, record the guy.
Eddie Clegg:
I watched him go through his backpack. The guy’s telling me somebody stole my wallet, I don’t have any ID, but I got my paperwork. I just got out of jail. He didn’t care about the paperwork, he wasn’t trying to find out who he was.
Darcy Layton:
And they give camping tickets to people who are laying out on the parks they don’t let you be at the shelter property during the day.
Eddie Clegg:
And he found a beer bottle in the backpack, so he went to his car and he was going to write him up. I know he was. But he hadn’t seen me yet. Talking to the guy, I got it on video and he was telling me, “Yeah, I tried to tell him that I had ID in here, show my paperwork but he didn’t want to see it.” And then when he seen me recording, he got out of his car, he went back over and says, “Well, I’m not going to charge you with anything, you’re free to go.” And he actually zipped his backpack back up. He zipped it back up and they don’t do that. So he knew he was doing something wrong and I was so happy that he did that. I told him that pretty cool of him to zip your backpack up and let you go and I gave the guy $20 and said, “Things are looking up for you, hang in there.”
Taya Graham:
How do you think the police should have handled this encounter? I mean you were off 7-Eleven property when they approached. I mean how do you think this could have been handled differently?
Darcy Layton:
Well, afterwards when I finally, like a year later, by the time they finally let me see the real video, they should have called for probably paramedics or took me to the hospital because knowing, I took some college courses myself in physiology and psychology and all that. I know, based on watching the video that I needed to go get checked by a doctor mentally because I was a little out there that day because of the schizophrenia, but I still was not doing anything wrong and he is the one who needed to be checked out, not really me.
Eddie Clegg:
So yeah, he had no right, he wasn’t called there. They didn’t tell her to leave. They would’ve told her.
Darcy Layton:
Rogue. He’d gone rogue.
Eddie Clegg:
Yeah, he told her they didn’t want her on property, she started to leave, he should have let it go with that.
Darcy Layton:
Because that’s what he told me. Basically, they don’t want you here, they want you to leave. And so I started to leave as he told me and then he grabbed me for no God damn reason.
Taya Graham:
I think it’s so important for people to understand how people who are on hard times are treated in your area and how an arrest can really alter the course of someone’s life. Thank you. Darcy and Eddie.
Now, as with many of the police encounters we unpack on this show, there is always more to comprehend than just the questionable actions of an overly aggressive cop, motives and imperatives so to speak, that need to be fully understood so that we can get to the root cause of what makes such questionable police behavior possible. Now, one aspect of police power we witnessed in this arrest that is critical to the broader mission of law enforcement is how the officer was able to control space. In other words, as you watch the arrest, you notice the officer has the ability to set arbitrary boundaries and use them to put it mildly to entrap Darcy.
Now when I say entrap, I use that word for a reason because as you witnessed on the video, the officer didn’t care about what was a public sidewalk versus what was private property and he wasn’t the least bit interested in what constituted a public roadway versus what was the private purview of the 7-Eleven, the nuances of space were not of concern, instead, he became the arbiter of it. While this fact may seem trivial, it is not because all of the consequences of policing that we have covered on this show, this arbitrary control of space, is the most essential aspect of what makes excessive law enforcement a threat to our civil liberties. It is the malleable ability to deem a person occupying space to be illegal that gives cops one of the most severe holds over our lives. I mean, think about it. There’s a reason the right to peaceably assemble is part of the First Amendment, not the 10th.
There is an important underlying intention to forcefully stating that the people have the right to redress their government in public space that goes beyond the legal text and into the realm of the truly profound. And what makes it profound is that in effect, those several dozen words preclude just the sort of policing we witnessed in that video. It should at least in theory, make it impossible for an officer to simply determine that anyone standing anywhere could be construed as a criminal simply because they say it is so. Now, imagine for a moment if those words did not exist, imagine for just a second what police could do if the text of the First Amendment had somehow been different. Well, in a sense we live in that reality because as Stephen just told us police had the power to intimidate. Ms. Layton pleaded guilty despite the fact she did not commit a crime.
Cops could literally fashion a crime that does not legally exist just to deny Darcy her right to peaceably assemble. It’s hard to see this type of policing as anything but punishing someone for simply appearing to be homeless. This is a specific expansion of police power that has come under scrutiny by an innovative thinker who is warned the consequences of allowing it to grow unchecked. His name is Mark Neocleous and he is the author of the book called The Fabrication of Social Order, A Critical Theory of Police Power. Now it sounds complicated, but I promise it really isn’t because what the book concludes about police power simply exposes the imperative that drives arrests like we saw today. The book’s thesis is that policing in our modern capitalist society is more about order than it is law enforcement, that police play a critical role in maintaining the order of society based upon profit.
In fact, the primary purpose of police is to in fact fabricate an order that would not otherwise exist to create a world where labor is at the mercy of a capitalist elite, and power is a tool of inequality warriors armed with guns and badges. Neocleous argues that the fabrication of order and the resulting influence of police power start with the types of arbitrary power we have just witnessed. In other words, while Darcy’s arrest might seem trivial and insignificant in the broader story of the battle of America’s flawed law enforcement industrial complex, it’s actually where this entire story starts. That’s because the power has to be at its essence, arbitrary. In other words, it has to be applied solely at the discretion of authority. It can’t be precluded or prescribed by law. It simply cannot be limited or curtailed by a set of amendments outlined in the Constitution.
It has to be random, chaotic, and most of all indiscriminate. And what I mean is that in order for this type of police power that Neocleous envisions to proliferate, it must be random, unknowable and infallible. It must be indiscriminate, contradictory, and most of all unfair. And it must embody all of these seemingly contradictory concepts to adhere to the underlying principle that drives it, to sow chaos in the lives of people who can least afford it, to create and fabricate crises in the lives of working-class people that seemingly strip us of our rights and thus our political power. I mean the biggest fear of the elites that run this country is the working class rising up and opposing the political order that currently profits off a record level of wealth inequality. They really don’t want us to figure out that their catastrophic greed is in fact a problem, not us.
Now having a small handful of people living like kings plundering on natural resources and flying private jets is not what ails us, but it is in fact the result of the underlying chaos caused by intractable poverty that is actually making our beautiful planet uninhabitable. In other words, it’s you, not us, who are the problem. And that’s the point of the policing we watched earlier. It’s overarching control over what should be public space is the most potent facet of bad law enforcement because as the officer manipulated space so too did he manipulate Darcy. As he was able to turn a public sidewalk into an illegal no-go zone. So too was he able to put Darcy in handcuffs, and as he was able to deem the otherwise legally protected actions of Darcy into a crime worthy of the use of force, he was also able to wipe away her civil rights and turn her into a menace to society.
And it is worth noting as Stephen reported from the charging documents and as Darcy related to us, that there was no legal code or law violation recounted in the charging documents. I mean, the officer didn’t even try to cite a law to justify her nine-day incarceration. The only accusation he did make was the unsubstantiated claim that she bit him, an allegation the body worn camera certainly calls into question and as I said, she told me and Eddie that she didn’t even have her dentures in the morning the alleged bite occurred. My point is this is exactly why the growth of police power seems, in essence, to be antithetical to our constitutional rights, why processes like civil asset forfeiture continue to grow unabated as our entire legal system sits by and watches. All of this is the result of police power that has been allowed, or perhaps I should say, encouraged to become as indiscriminate as possible.
It’s just a result of a system expanding its influence through illogic that rather than create a law enforcement system that is rational, predictable, and fair, what we have is a set of protocols that are intended to be exactly the opposite, irrational, unpredictable, and most importantly indifferent to the notion of justice. In this sense, what we have is policing that does not in fact fabricate order, but instead manufactures disorder. What I mean is that police aren’t the gatekeepers of civilized society as some cop-agandists like to argue, but instead, agents of chaos. They literally wreak havoc in our lives like they did with Darcy. And in doing so, only make difficult problems worse for the people who are already suffering. It’s an update on the aforementioned theory of police power and how this power unchecked, moves to our lives. We have to recognize it for what it is and what it is to keep it in check. And when we see it like we did in Darcy’s case, we have to call it out and reveal it as a real threat to civilized society.
We have to let the powers that be known that we see what you are doing and we know what you want to diminish our civil liberties, and we have to be clear that you can’t have them because we are willing to fight to not just keep them but expand them, bad policing or not. We know we deserve better and we will not compromise until we get it.
I want to thank our guests, Darcy and Eddie for reaching out to us. We really do wish you both the best and I hope that by shining a light on your experience, certain officers will be a bit kinder. And of course, I have to thank intrepid reporter, Stephen Janis for his writing, research and editing on this piece. Thank you Stephen.
Stephen Janis:
Taya, thanks for having me. I appreciate it.
Taya Graham:
And I want to thank mods of the show, Noli D and Lacey R for their support, thank you Noli D. And a very special thanks to our accountability report, Patreons, we appreciate you and I look forward to thanking each and every single one of you personally in our next live stream, especially Patreon associate producers, Johnny R, David K, Louis P, and Lucita Garcia, and our super friends, Shane B, Kenneth K, Pineapple Girl, Matter of Rights, and Chris R.
And I want you watching to know that if you have video evidence of police misconduct or brutality, please share it with us and we might be able to investigate for you. Please reach out to us. You can email us tips privately at par@therealnews.com and share your evidence of police misconduct. You can also message us at Police Accountability Report on Facebook or Instagram or at Eyes on Police on Twitter. And of course you can always message me directly at Tayasbaltimore on Twitter and Facebook. And please like and comment, you know I read your comments and appreciate them. And we do have the Patreon link pinned in the comments below for accountability reports. So if you feel inspired to donate, please do. We do not run ads or take corporate dollars, so anything you can spare is truly appreciated. My name is Taya Graham and I’m your host of the Police Accountability Report. Please be safe out there.
Speaker 9:
Thank you so much for watching The Real News Network, where we lift up the voices, stories and struggles that you care about most and we need your help to keep doing this work so please, tap your screen now, subscribe and donate to the Real News Network. Solidarity forever.
The issue of mass incarceration has been far less central to the 2024 election thus far in comparison to the 2020 presidential race. However, that doesn’t make the matter any less pressing for incarcerated people, their loved ones, or the activists fighting tirelessly to free prisoners. There are a range of ways presidential candidates could commit to ending mass incarceration, but one tool stands out as a quick fix that can be implemented through presidential prerogative alone: the power of clemency. For months, activists with the FreeHer campaign have been building pressure for the next president to wield their clemency powers to swiftly release women serving extended sentences. Andrea James, founder and executive director of the National Council for Incarcerated and Formerly Incarcerated Women and Girls, and Families for Justice as Healing, joins Rattling the Bars to discuss the importance of clemency.
Studio / Post-Production: Cameron Granadino Audio Post-Production: Alina Nehlich
Transcript
The following is a rushed transcript and may contain errors. A proofread version will be made available as soon as possible.
Mansa Musa:
Welcome to this edition of Rattling the Bar. I’m your host, Mance Mosley. Today, we’re continuing our conversation about elections and how poor working class and oppressed people can navigate a system that wasn’t built to serve our needs. What does it mean to vote and mobilize for key policy issues rather than for a political party? And what are the issues that people impacted by the prison industrial complex are mobilizing around? When I was reporting for the Real News at the FreeHer March in Washington DC in April, I saw a lot of folks wearing stickers saying, “I’m a clemency voter.” What does it mean to be a clemency voter? Here to talk about this today is Andrea James. She’s the founder and executive director of the National Council for Incarcerated and Formerly Incarcerated Women and Girls. She’s the founder of Families for Justice as Healing, and she’s the author of Upper Bunkies Unite: And Other Thoughts On the Politics of Mass Incarceration. Welcome Andrea to Rattling the Bars. How you doing today?
Andrea James:
Doing okay. Doing all right.
Mansa Musa:
All right, so let’s get right into the gist of things. When we was at the march in April, the FreeHer Rally March, we recognized a lot of signs and a lot of the slogans and a lot of the shouts and a lot of the information coming from the podium was a hundred women get clemency in a hundred days. This being indicative of President Biden’s first 100 days of administration. But more importantly, the more salient point was that the clemency should be used as a mechanism to release women that are being held captive on these plantations known as prisons.
First of all, talk about why y’all went in that direction first, the clemency, why did y’all focus? Because y’all done did a lot of things. Y’all got a lot of things on y’all platform, but this right here is the more strategic and more direct approach that when you look at the results, the results will be either the person get out and we’d be celebrating the release, but more importantly, the momentum is going to come out. We’ll talk about some of the things that y’all doing to get it, but talk about how, why are y’all getting that space right there?
Andrea James:
We were incarcerated in the federal system. We were in prison with sisters who are never coming home unless their sentences are commuted. So it’s kind of different when you determine what space you’re going to work out of when you haven’t had the full experience of what we’re talking about here. But if you were like us, if you were women that were incarcerated in the federal system, who were mothers, who were wives, who were aunties, and grandmothers and sisters, and moms in particular, we have been separated from our children, but some of us had the opportunity to go to prison and come home. So we’re fighting for sisters that unless we get clemency for them, they’ll never come home. And we’ve got to really understand that. We’re talking about is the liberation of our people, and we want to bring attention to the intentionality of incarceration of our people and the policies that led up to that. Now, we started our work after, we started organizing in the federal prison for women in Danbury, Connecticut in 2010, and brought the work-out with us starting in 2011. And then other sisters inside Justine Moore, Virginia Douglas, Big Shay, they started to come home. So it wasn’t rocket science for us, but in the federal prison, you would see this from all over the country, sometimes from different Black communities around the world.
And so it wasn’t rocket science for us to stop this work. But we started in the prison realizing not really totally clear about what clemency was as a tool. But after coming home in 2011, that became crystal clear to us. We met Amy Povah at CAN-DO Clemency. She taught us a lot about clemency as a tool. And then of course, President Obama, who we got in front of and who centered women and brought us to the White House. But also we should not be going backwards from what President Obama did with clemency.
Mansa Musa:
Okay, let’s pick up on right there because, all right, now for the benefit of our audience, clemency is a federal mandate and it’s top heavy in its bureaucracy. Honest you know-
Andrea James:
It’s a tool, it’s a privilege bestowed upon. It’s not a mandate, it’s a tool. It’s bestowed upon the President of the United States to grant relief to people from their sentences. And that takes many forms. It could be freedom, immediate freedom, commuting your sentence, meaning it only stops the sentence that you are serving from within a casserole place, a prison. It doesn’t mean that you’re off of, you are still convicted, you still can leave there and be on federal parole, what they want to call supervised release with all shenanigans, with semantics of language. You’re still under the auspices of the Federal Bureau of Prisons or sentence. But you are no longer required to serve that from within the prison. Now, that takes all different levels depending on what the clemency is that you are given. Some people are given full clemency ban. You hear them come down the hall telling you to pack out. You’re like, “Where am I going?” They’re like, “You’re going home.”
Mansa Musa:
You ain’t going to pay for nothing. You gone.
Andrea James:
You going home. Our director of clemency, Danielle Metz, young woman, sentenced to triple life sentence plus 20 years for being Glenn Metz’s wife, basically and took her away from her 7-year-old and months old babies to put her in a prison for triple life sentences plus 20 years.
Mansa Musa:
And we going to get into some of the crimes they alleged committed. Yeah.
Andrea James:
But it could be a president could commute your sentence, but tell you, instead of life, you’re going to do 30 years or anything in between that. It’s not always a guaranteed immediate release. So what President Obama did was to connect the power of the tool of clemency that the President of the United States and only the President of the United States or the governor of individual states, that’s the power. No questions asked. His or her only power to commute a person’s sentence. Okay? So that’s what clemency is.
Mansa Musa:
Let’s talk about this here. Okay. Now, so we got that [inaudible 00:07:54]. And in terms of y’all introduced a bill called the Fixed Clemency Act and I-
Andrea James:
Well, we didn’t introduce it. It was introduced by, we supported it, we poured a lot of information into it. It was our Congresswoman Ayanna Pressley’s bill, because we need to fix women.
Mansa Musa:
I wasn’t able to track the stand. So what happened with it? Where did that stand by you?
Andrea James:
Nothing happened with it. Nothing happened with it.
Mansa Musa:
So it’s dormant?
Andrea James:
I mean, it’s a valiant effort to keep and we have to do that, but we also have to have people who are elected to office like Ayanna Pressley, she’s my congresswoman out of Massachusetts, to we need people like her that are willing to push the parameters of what we hear every day now, people talking about democracy, right? What is democracy? Well, so far in this country, democracy isn’t inclusive. It is a white male dominated vision of democracy and the parameters of what democracy and what needs to be discussed as democratic values, it’s defined to be not inclusive still of the majority of people who find themselves caught and entangled in the criminal law system, which in this country is Black people. The majority, disproportionality we’re talking about. And so we have to take this very seriously because we’re in a state in this country right now where we got this selection going on. There’s all kinds of language being thrown around, but we’re also talking about candidates and we’re still talking about it under the Biden administration with President Biden, who was one of the catalysts of the drafters of the 1994 Crime Act.
Mansa Musa:
That’s right. Come on.
Andrea James:
The drafters of the Adoption Safe Family Act. Those two things were targeted at us intentionally. The drug war started under the Nixon administration, intentionally targeted towards us to oppress and control Black communities. And so if democracy, when we’re using that term now like we’ve got a state democracy, what exactly are we talking about saving?
Mansa Musa:
That’s like Frederick Douglass saying like, “What’s your 4th of July mean to me?”
Andrea James:
Well, yeah.
Mansa Musa:
I’m on plantation.
Andrea James:
It’s still holding in place these two parties that are elitist and capitalist in ways that still do not include everyday Black folks who are entangled in the criminal law system at a disproportionate number in this country from every state and every federal prison around the country. So until we grapple with that, until we’re not afraid to talk about, well, what does democracy in this country really mean? And really have candidates and legislators, state, federal, president, governors who are willing to actually engage in that conversation about, “Yeah, we fighting to save democracy, I guess.” But how is that being defined in this country?
Mansa Musa:
Let me ask you this here, Andrea, on the clemency thing. Now, as it stand right now, it’s top heavy in dealing with bureaucracy because everything goes through the Justice Department. Justice Department is the front line in terms of getting an application.
Andrea James:
They’re prosecutors so [inaudible 00:11:51]
Mansa Musa:
Right. And now I’ve seen what y’all were saying. So this is what I wanted to unpack for our audience benefit so going forward they can understand y’all strategy. Now, when I was locked up, in the state of Maryland, they had a thing where the only way life could get paroled, it had to be signed by the governor. It had to go through the governor. So what happened is the parole board recommend you for parole and it would sit on the governor’s desk three or four years before he say no. So what we did, we lobbied and got a bill passed to take it out the hands of the governor. Now I seen, like you say, in this bill that was introduced, but one of the things that y’all was saying, in y’all position was that what clemency would do is take it out the hand of the prosecutor, the Department of Justice. So how do y’all mobilize or where are y’all at in terms of mobilizing around getting the autonomy that’s going to be needed in order to get some type of equity towards the women that deserve to be released?
Andrea James:
Yeah, I mean, we decided at some point you can only go so far with what’s happening in Congress right now, who’s controlling Congress, what they’re paying attention to. We fought so hard against the passage of the First Step Act, the way it was presented, because it’s been a big smoke screen. And we knew when Congress passed First Step that it really wasn’t what we needed. It didn’t address the people who needed to get out. It called out the very people that needed the most relief and so how could we ever support a bill like that. And we never crossed over in support of it, even though we fought valiantly to try and add retroactivity and other things to the first step. And then it was put into the hands of the most vile regime of a think tank called the Heritage Foundation also responsible now for project 2025 to implement the First Step Act. And it’s just, we are one of the few, I don’t know if any other organizations have done it, but our legal division led by our senior council, Catherine Sevcenko, has followed the implementation of the First Step Act. And it’s been just a sham. It’s been a [inaudible 00:13:59], but the PR on it would make anybody think that everybody who’s come like 30,000 people got released because of First Step Act. That’s not true. But I digress.
So when we talk about the [inaudible 00:14:16] Act, at some point, yes, we have to weigh in. We need legislators who are directly affected like Congresswoman Ayanna, Pressley, to carry these bills forward for us and to at least put them into existence knowing that we got a big struggle to get them to go anywhere because the members of Congress were satisfied with the First Step Act. As abysmal as it is, they weren’t going to center criminal justice reform in any significant following that for years, we knew that. That’s the path of how things go. We haven’t heard a peep about criminal justice reform other than Trump wanting to bring the death penalty back for drug dealers. We haven’t even heard. It’s not even on the current candidates platforms.
And so we had to shift our energy to, and it’s not really a shift, it’s just, what are we picking up now to being present and to make sure that the concept of liberation of our people isn’t just left to hope somebody’s going to keep it at the forefront? That’s our job. Nobody’s coming to save us. If nobody gives a shit about our issue. If you’re going to do this work, you have to be consistent in finding ways of staying in the public eye, of showing up, of taking up space, of getting in the street. And so that’s what we did with the 10th anniversary.
We did this, did this 10 years ago in 2014, and that’s how we got the attention, because of the work of civil rights lawyer, Nkechi Taifa who brought the National Council and the sisterhood to the attention of President Obama and Valerie Jarrett to say, “Yo Prez, we see you. We see you equating. We see you connecting clemency to racial justice. That clemency is racial justice. We see you going into the federal prisons.” How could it be that he was the first President of the United States to go to visit a federal prison? How could that be?
Mansa Musa:
Yeah.
Andrea James:
Right? But at the same time, Prez, we don’t see you talking about women.
Mansa Musa:
That’s right. Exactly. Come on, talk about that.
Andrea James:
He did. He brought us into that White House with the help of Nkechi Taifa, Sakira Cook, Jesselyn McCurdy, these Black women lawyers, civil rights lawyers in the district, and we were able to come in and talk about it, did a whole forum about women and incarceration, an armchair discussion with Valerie Jarrett. So we have to always find ways to center ourselves. Now, since 2014, we were able to work with CAN-DO Clemency, Amy Povah. We were instrumental in using our voices and experiences that helped more than 50 women come out of the federal system. President Obama did that. Now we certainly should not stand to go backwards in any way. Trump made a complete mockery of pardons and clemency and good for the people who got them. It was his cronies and people who supported him, and they were good. It was great. You got a pardon, I’m happy for any formerly-
Mansa Musa:
Anybody getting out the dungeon.
Andrea James:
And convicted person, right?
Mansa Musa:
Yeah, anybody getting out the dun?
Andrea James:
But it also derailed the momentum around clemency that President Obama had built up. So we anticipated going forward when Biden got back in that seat. We met Vice President Biden. We were in the White House. You know who we are, who the women are of the National Council, women from across this country who were buried in prisons, who are using their voice to create significant and meaningful change. You know what this is and you also know what happened and who came out under President Obama with just impeccable stellar records of what they’ve done with their lives since then. What are you afraid of? We’ve got women who are elderly, who are sick, who are long-timers. Michelle West just exceeded her 31st year, going on her 32nd year of incarceration. What a [inaudible 00:18:56], you’re talking about three decades ain’t enough for drug war sentencing. But what [inaudible 00:19:02]
Mansa Musa:
Let me ask you this here. Okay, because I seen the video that y’all did on the clemency and we be pressed for time. All right, so map out, because this right now for like you say, for most women that got triple life, that got death by a thousand cuts, that’s locked up in prison right now, for most of them clemency is some type of change in the judicial system where a case come out that affect them. Clemency is probably the only way they going to get out.
Andrea James:
Only way.
Mansa Musa:
Going forward, what do you want to say to our audience about how do they get involved in this issue? Because this is, like you say, this is a human rights. It’s not a civil rights. This is a human rights issue. You lock people up for drug offenses, no violence involved other than the fact that they was connected with somebody that did something and they get the bulk of the sentence. So how do we deal with people going forward? What do you want our people to understand going forward? How do they get involved with this fight? The free women.
Andrea James:
All you got to do is follow the National Council for Incarcerated and Formerly Incarcerated Women and Girls. The nationalcouncil.us. It’s easy. You can reach out to us, but you can do very simple things. Go onto the White House website and you can send a message on the White House website, anybody, anytime, any day, and just say, we vote clemency. We’ve got a campaign that is making it very clear. Listen, you’ve got to be using your clemency power. This is an extraordinary opportunity for President Biden to correct the wrongs of the 1994 Crime Act of the drug sentencing policies. Just understand and be strong about it. Yeah, clemency is racial justice. I am creating some injustices that were directly targeted to Black people in this country who are buried in prisons, who will never come home unless I bring them home.
And we’ve given him, when we created the list of a hundred women, it’s 99 now because Martha Ivanov died. If we’ve given him the lowest hanging fruit that exists, who’s going to deny elderly women that have served decades in a prison who are sick, have dementia, don’t know who they are, don’t know why they’re in prison. I have terminal conditions. How are you going to put a mom in prison like Michelle West and leave her there for 30 plus years and say you still aren’t going to get any relief from the legislation that was passed. So President Biden, this is the only chance these sisters have and they’ve got skin in the game. You got decades in a prison and the atrocity of rape of women. That has happened in 19 of the 29. Now, we say it’s every single of the 29 federal women’s prisons, but they have, the Justice Department has determined that in 19 of the 29 prisons, the most egregious case coming out of Dublin that we did fight to get closed, but not in the manner they closed it. They literally shut it down in a week after… they had a brothel running out of there. The warden, the chaplain was raping women in that prison for years this went on and they finally closed it. And guess what, we said, give clemency to all of those women.
Give clemency to every single one of those women that was raped in that prison. And let’s look at who else across the federal system should be released because of the atrocities that they have been subjected to. You know what they did instead? They attacked them. They sent them to other prisons where the gods used all kinds of punishment and told women when they arrived. “Don’t think you’re going to pull that shit here at this prison because we’re not having it.” They sent women to prisons where women who were unpoliticized and had been buried in a prison and just don’t know and are underneath the control of male prison administration and gods who told them, junk these women, beat up these women because they have disrupted everybody, all of you in the federal system now. And sent them to prisons also that were some of the 19 prisons where they are currently raping women in those right now.
Mansa Musa:
All right, Andrea. So as we close out, first all, we want to acknowledge that this is like a human rights issue. That the abuse of women in the criminal injustice system on these plantations is beyond anybody’s imagination and conscience. They get treated way worse than men could ever be treated. But going forward, and we know about the clemency, what’s the next thing on y’all platform? And we’ve got two minutes.
Andrea James:
Doing a 11 city tour, it’s called Nobody’s Coming to Save Us. It’s a photographic exhibit in 11 cities across the country that were photographs taken by formerly incarcerated brothers, Malik and Johnny Perez, and also a very professional photographer, David who was there who took some incredible pictures for us. We are screening that video that your group did for us that people will see with y’all’s permission, but it’s on the table to be screened as people come into this exhibit. We’re doing a community forum in each of these cities that we’re going to 11 cities, Chicago, Philadelphia, Boston, you name it. We’re going there and holding the conversation about this issue.
They’re building 11 prisons as we’re talking about this, women’s prisons across the country as we speak. And so when we talk about these issues, we’ve got to help the public understand that we need to not be building prisons, we need to be decarcerating people, not just women but women, we unapologetically advocate on behalf of women, but free them all and stop with decarceration. Not one prison should be being built in this country. The problems and the ineffectiveness, police in prisons don’t create healthy, thriving communities. Healthy, thriving people do. So talk about democracy when we call out democracy like it’s some sort of savior for this country. And if you’re for one candidate, you’re not for democracy. If you’re for another, you are. Well, for us, for our people, democracy has not expanded to cover us. And so what does that mean?
We are creating the abolitionist think tank called the Free Her Institute. And we are not doing it with any kind of C3 grant money. We are doing it by selling T-shirts and a cup of coffee. We want people to commit, buy a T-shirt or for one year commit to donating to the FreeHer Institute the cost of one cup of $5 a week for a year. You can go to freeherinstitute.com and you can click a button and you can make that commitment for one year. And if you decide after a few months, I can’t do this anymore, just call us and we’ll stop it. But help us. We are building the abolitionist FreeHer Institute think tank so that we can amplify and elevate these issues the same way that the Coke brothers, that the Heritage Foundation, that Project 2025, that these people that get flooded with all of these billionaires dollars that we don’t have.
We are formerly incarcerated, predominantly Black women that have to get out there and beat the bushes to raise every dime. And to be an independent voice, we can’t take grant money in the same way that we run our programming through for the think tank because we have to have the space to say what needs to be said without the threat of funders feeling like we’re encroaching upon what they think we should say. So we’re asking people, “Go to freeherinstitute.com, help us. We need it. We’re building this abolitionist think tank.” And it’s the work that I’m focused on right now. We’ve got to get these sisters out, send an email to the White House and the Justice Department encouraging clemency, and let’s elevate and amplify the voices of these sisters who are doing this incredible work.
Mansa Musa:
That you have it. The Real News Rattling the Bar. Andrea, you rattle the bars today. You could hear it and we ask everybody’s support, the Real News and Rattling the bar. But more importantly, look at this podcast and make a decision. Do you think one cup of coffee is worth the lives of people? Do you think one cup of coffee, just one cup of coffee, that’s it. This ain’t just, we simplify it to the most simplest term. I’m buying one cup of coffee. I do it every day anyway. So instead of me buying, I’m putting my money where I know that the result is going to be somebody going to be free. Thank you Andrea.
Andrea James:
Thank you.
Mansa Musa:
And we salute you. It’s…
Andrea James:
One cup of coffee-
Mansa Musa:
This is Black August month. We salute you in your struggle and continue work.
Andrea James:
One cup of coffee for true democracy.
Mansa Musa:
That’s right. That’s right.
Andrea James:
Let’s redefine what it looks like. So thank you so much. Thank you for always supporting us, and we’re grateful for helping us to amplify and elevate our voices. Thank you.
On Aug. 9, 2014, Officer Darren Wilson shot and killed Michael Brown in Ferguson, MO. Police left Brown’s lifeless body in the hot sun for four hours, plainly demonstrating the contempt of law enforcement for the local community. The righteous rebellion that followed in Ferguson shook the nation and the world, turning the Black Lives Matter movement that had begun following the earlier murder of Trayvon Martin into a global mass movement. Ten years later, some things have changed, but most things have not. Reforms have been passed at various levels concerning the power and accountability of the police. Yet the culture of impunity and the reality of racialized police violence as a daily occurrence in the US continues. In this special episode of Rattling the Bars, Taya Graham and Stephen Janis of Police Accountability Report join Mansa Musa for a look back on the past decade of attempts to stop police violence, and a discussion on why justice for Michael Brown and so many others continues to elude us.
Studio / Post-Production: Cameron Granadino Audio Post-Production: Alina Nehlich
Transcript
The following is a rushed transcript and may contain errors. A proofread version will be made available as soon as possible.
Mansa Musa:
Welcome to this edition of Rattling Bars. I’m your host, Mansa Musa. We’re in a period of Olympics. If we was to deal with the Olympic analysis of my guests today and we had an event, the event would be watching the police run around the track and see who cheat and get a medal for exposing them. That would be the medal we would get, the medal for exposing police corruption and police brutality and fascism as it relates to the police department. Here, welcome Jan and Taya of the police accountability.
Stephen Janis:
Thank you.
Mansa Musa:
They’re on the dream team at The Real News Network, and I’m honored to have y’all here. When we was talking about doing something about Michael Brown and I said, “Yeah, it’s Michael Brown’s anniversary,” and we was talking about it. I said, “Maybe we can get Jan and Taya to come in,” because it’s like the highlight of my doing this is working with y’all and talking to y’all because y’all-
Stephen Janis:
Thank you.
Taya Graham:
Thank you.
Stephen Janis:
Thank you.
Mansa Musa:
One, y’all got depth. Now, y’all real cool people.
Stephen Janis:
Thank you.
Taya Graham:
Thank you.
Stephen Janis:
Well, thank you.
Taya Graham:
[inaudible 00:01:18].
Mansa Musa:
Let’s start. This is the 10th year anniversary of Michael Brown.
Taya Graham:
Yes.
Mansa Musa:
All right. We know that what came out of Michael Brown was a civil upheaval of demonstrations all around the country and all around the world.
Stephen Janis:
True.
Mansa Musa:
But more importantly, the way it was looking in Washington, DC, and the way it was looking in the United States, the fact that it was consistent and it was long. People came out, and people made it known that they was tired of police running them up.
All right. Let’s talk about where was y’all at and how did y’all cover that?
Stephen Janis:
Yeah. Well, it’s interesting because I was still part of the mainstream media sort of, as you know, at a mainstream media television, actually Sinclair Broadcasting, when the uprising around Michael Brown. So I wasn’t able to cover it, but we did end up starting to work here, both of us, when Freddie Gray died in police custody. So we were thinking about it because you had mentioned to us you wanted to talk about how things had evolved over 10 years.
One of the things that we both thought about when we discussed it was there has been, since Michael Brown and since the subsequent George Floyd and Freddie Gray, there has been tremendous amount of reform on the civilian side. In other words, even in Maryland for example, you used to have the Law Enforcement Officers’ Bill of Rights, which give police special privileges in the legal system when they do something wrong. That was repealed. So there have been things that have happened.
We have a consent decree in Baltimore. Many things that have happened. But I think on the side of policing, in terms of the culture of policing, I don’t think that has changed as rapidly as the civilian side of expectations. In other words, for a long time, the idea of police brutality was buried and not covered. I know, as a reporter when I covered it in the aughts, it was just my word against the police. Now that there had been body camera and things and there’s evidence, and Taya will talk about that in some specific cases, that makes a different type of way to process it and to push back against it.
However, I think still at this point in the actual bastion of policing, I think some of the same attitudes that create the sort of horrible situations we witnessed still persist. I think police are still trained to be very violent, to be very suspicious, especially with people of color, and to act out violently, preemptively, not as a last resort. Or I don’t think any of this talk about being able to deescalate, I don’t think that’s true.
In fact, there was just an article written by Samantha Simon in The Atlantic where she went to four different police academy trainings and what she talked about was how the police were trained to view us, and I mean the people-
Mansa Musa:
People, right.
Stephen Janis:
… as violent, possible murderers at any second and how that has persisted. So I think one of the things Taya and I talked about was you can’t say there have not been attempts and there have not been some real substantive changes. But I think police are still in this back and forth war with us that has been precipitated by the culture of policing.
Mansa Musa:
Before I go to you, Taya, let’s talk about a point you made, and I think our audience need to really understand this, is the fact that there has been some changes on the civil side. That’s the society looking for a place where the police represent their motto, serve and protect.
Stephen Janis:
Exactly.
Mansa Musa:
With the culture being what it is, how do we make inroads into that?
Stephen Janis:
I mean I think that’s very difficult because, so for example, Taya and I attended the Republican National Convention, and there was a sign, Back the Blue. The conventioneers were touting these signs, I think, because police have become a part of the political process. I mean one of the things in this country, we try to separate the military from politics because we know that people with guns and badges enforcing political ideologies can be an extremely fraught authoritarian experience.
But when you’re down in the convention, you turn around and you see all these signs, Back the Blue, it just makes policing feel like it’s in a different realm than where it really should be, which is municipal service. I think that’s a political battle, unfortunately, that is still being fought because Republicans are using it as a kind of wedge issue. You still hear this silly, and I would say extremely silly, Defund the Police mantra, which anyone who knows anything about municipal budgeting, covered cities and policing, police departments have excess funding many times.
You still hear this. They’re still throwing out, “Well, you said, ‘Defund the police,’ without ever thinking about can a municipal agency be held accountable?” So the problem is that it’s become so political that I think it’s going to be hard to change that culture because the police see the support from the right side, from our more authoritarian side, and they say, “Well, we need to just embrace this and ratchet up, and we don’t need to respond to what the civilian side wants.” So I think it’s going to be very difficult.
Mansa Musa:
Tay? Go ahead.
Taya Graham:
Can I add to that? Because you brought up something really interesting in relation to the way policing is politicized, and it’s something that we always joke. So if somebody from the DPW was supposed to-
Stephen Janis:
The Department of Public works.
Taya Graham:
… for the Department of Public Works was supposed to recycle and instead of recycling, they took all our recycling and just dumped it somewhere, would we be wrong to criticize them? Would we be attacking the very fabric of society to say, “Hey, they’re supposed to do their job this way and they didn’t?” No, of course not. That person who took all our recycling and did whatever they wanted with it would probably get reprimanded, if not fired.
But if we say, “Hey, Baltimore City Police Department has been shooting unarmed people. We have a problem with it,” suddenly, the politics are involved. Suddenly, we are anti-American. Suddenly, we’re not being patriotic. We’re not supporting our boys in blue. Well, wait a second. They are paid by us, the taxpayers. They are supposed to protect and serve. That police culture that we’re talking about, unfortunately, really hasn’t changed.
I think we have some really strong signs of that. I mean I think what we covered with Sergeant Ethan Newberg, that’s a Baltimore City police officer, one who was making $239,000 a year-
Mansa Musa:
Right. Of taxpayers’ money.
Taya Graham:
… of taxpayer dollars. But thanks to this body-worn camera program that was started in SAO Mosby’s office, they were reviewing the body camera video. They looked at about six months’ worth of it, just six months, and they found nine occasions in which he committed 32 counts of misconduct in office, 32 counts, just nine occasions in six months. Can you imagine what that man was doing before there was a body-worn camera program?
Mansa Musa:
That’s right. Yeah, yeah.
Taya Graham:
Can you imagine all of the crimes he committed against our community that we don’t even know about? Guess how much time he spent in jail?
Mansa Musa:
How much?
Stephen Janis:
Six months?
Taya Graham:
No, no. He got six months probation that he could spend at home.
Stephen Janis:
Home detention.
Taya Graham:
Home detention.
Mansa Musa:
Home detention.
Taya Graham:
Home detention. He didn’t even spend a night in jail for terrorizing our community-
Stephen Janis:
I mean it’s really kind of-
Mansa Musa:
Yeah, exactly.
Stephen Janis:
It’s really kind of interesting because I was just looking at the community report. There’s a report, State Senator Jill Carter passed a law that required a certain type of reporting mechanisms for the police department. What’s really interesting about it is right now the Baltimore Police Department in the latest survey has about 2,100 sworn officers, which is about 700 or 800 officers short of their capacity and what they normally are staffed at.
However, we are in a year of record … We probably will have a record low homicide rate, and we did last year under the kind of circumstances where there’s low police staffing. So what does that tell you? That tells you that this idea of this equation that underlies the whole political argument of police-
Mansa Musa:
Come on.
Stephen Janis:
… that more police make us safer is absolutely false. But it doesn’t really get into the political equation. Now, in Baltimore, people had a choice. They could have elected Sheila Dixon, who was more the pro-police, or they could have gone with Brandon Scott, who had a more … What was it called? GVSR? A gun-
Taya Graham:
Oh, it was a gun violence reduction safety-
Stephen Janis:
Which was a complete community program, which is what he created with this. They chose the community program because we’ve seen this up close. But really, I think on the broader scale of American politics, this hasn’t been digested by people that, you know what, your main argument for more police and giving police the powers to do things that are unconstitutional is that we’ll be safer. There’s no proof of it, and Baltimore is an perfect exemplar of the fact that that’s just not true.
We have less police and less crime. So to the police partisans, I say, “Explain that to me. Why has that happened?”
Taya Graham:
Exactly.
Stephen Janis:
So it’s just a very interesting dynamic because it-
Mansa Musa:
Really, the issue it underlies is this, is that, one, the police never have been put together as representative of the community. So that’s the beginning. There’s always been there to serve and protect the property interest of corporate America and capitalists. Here we come along and we say, “Okay, but that’s not what your mandate say. That’s not what your oath say.” So we try to hold you accountable to the things that you’re supposed to be doing.
Let’s walk back. So we had Rodney King. The response to Rodney King was a spontaneous Riot, looting, killing, whatever. That was the response because of what people seen, the visual aid of what people seen-
Stephen Janis:
Yes. Absolutely.
Mansa Musa:
… more importantly, and it was in California. They showed you how the relationship between the police and Californians. They acquitted OJ because they said the police. When they interjected the police in this case, it don’t make no difference what you did, in their mind, we got empirical evidence and examples of the police being bad. So can’t nobody be worser than them in the situation. All right. All right. We got Trayvon Martin. Then we got-
Stephen Janis:
Michael Brown.
Mansa Musa:
Michael Brown. Then we get Freddie Gray-
Stephen Janis:
Freddie Gray.
Taya Graham:
Eric Garner.
Stephen Janis:
Eric Garner.
Mansa Musa:
Right. Eric Garner, Freddie Gray, and then George Floyd. Not talking about what’s happening in between that.
Stephen Janis:
Because there are a lot of cases on top of that.
Mansa Musa:
Right.
Taya Graham:
Sandra Bland-
Stephen Janis:
Sandra Bland.
Taya Graham:
… in 2015, all of that recorded by the dash camera. It was absolutely heart-breaking.
Mansa Musa:
And in each case, the cry from the public and the masses has been, “Change the police,” whatever we say that is. We Come up with terminology like defund, when we saying defund, better training. We come up with a whole host of things that we want to see done around the police, and the system and the capitalist response is, okay, we’re going to take what you say and we’re going to interpret it the way that advances our narrative-
Taya Graham:
Absolutely.
Mansa Musa:
… ergo Cop City. They saying what they offering in Cop City is that, “Oh, we’re training police to better serve and protect.” Okay. But going back to your point, Jan, why do you need military-style training? Why do you-
Stephen Janis:
Right. Well, you know-
Mansa Musa:
Go ahead.
Stephen Janis:
One thing that Taya and I always not laugh about, but we covered very extensively the consent decree between the Baltimore City Police Department and the Department of Justice, which was the result of the uprising after Freddie Gray. But what was amazing about it is we both looked at each other and they announced $70 million in new funding for the police department.
So the police department literally wreaks havoc in the community, creates the conditions in which people felt the need to literally rise up, and their response was, “Let’s give police more money and training.” Right, Taya?
Mansa Musa:
Money.
Taya Graham:
Absolutely. You know what? When you brought up Cop City, you took the thought right out of my mind because when you said capitalism, you said policing, and you said, “What is the real comparative policing?” The Cop City that they want to create, guess who’s funding it?
Stephen Janis:
Yeah. Corporations.
Taya Graham:
Coca-Cola, Home Depot, Wells Fargo.
Stephen Janis:
Private companies. The Atlanta Police Foundation.
Taya Graham:
I mean if this doesn’t show you the tie between capitalism, the protection of property, and what police are really there to do, I don’t know what will.
Stephen Janis:
Yeah. So it always is, in these situations, more money doesn’t flow to the community, even though community programs are shown to be really more effective. Instead, more money flows to police. No matter what happens, it’s like heads, I win, tails, you lose. The more money comes to them in the form of this police reform infrastructure you’re talking about. It becomes almost a business opportunity-
Mansa Musa:
It is.
Stephen Janis:
… because there’s just so much money available to people who will say, “Oh, I can help reform the police.” I forget the police, the thing that there’s-
Taya Graham:
Like the ROCA?
Stephen Janis:
Yeah, ROCA. Not ROCA per se, but there’s just so many organizations and people who can take advantage of the funding that flows to policing. Go ahead.
Mansa Musa:
And the Fraternal Order of Police in everywhere, they’re like a lobby beyond a lobby because-
Taya Graham:
Because they have the power.
Mansa Musa:
… no matter what goes on, they always going to paint the narrative that we’re here to serve and protect, and you taking our ability to do that. Bump the fact that we’re killing people indiscriminate. Bump the fact that we fabricating cases against. Bump the fact that we taking and manufacturing evidence against people or like in the case that you talk about all the misconduct.
The connection is that you’re doing this with impunity. So you can take and say, “Oh, well, I’m going to cook the books or I’m going to misappropriate money and I’m doing it with impunity. But in the interim of me doing that, I was out on the street shaking down people. I got numerous of people arrested. I locked up and swore an oath that what I say they did, they did, and you take me at my word because I’m the police.” But the person that’s the real victim of it is the person that you supposed to serve and protect.
But let’s talk about the reactions from each one of these periods because, like I said, in the era of King, the beating, it was rioters. People literally was outraged because of what they seen, and it was more the visual than anything else and what they seen. And then when you had Trayvon and you had the other one, you didn’t have as much of a reaction in terms of when you got to Michael Brown. Why do you think that Michael Brown had that type of impact?
Stephen Janis:
Well, I think because I just saw from a reporter covering police brutality prior to the cell phone camera and the visuals that you would see, that it was very difficult sometimes. You’d write about really what you knew were horrible police shootings where someone would get shot in the back and you just knew it was wrong, but you didn’t have visuals.
I think in the case of Freddie Gray, you saw Freddie Gray being taken into the van. Michael Brown, you saw his body lying on-
Mansa Musa:
Just laying out there.
Stephen Janis:
Eric Garner, you saw him being in the chokehold.
Taya Graham:
Being put in that chokehold, all those officers on top of him.
Stephen Janis:
I honestly think it’s like the civil rights movement of the ’60s where-
Mansa Musa:
Right. Edmund Pettus Bridge.
Stephen Janis:
… video finally could show people and when people could finally see it, even if it wasn’t always directly what happened. I mean everyone saw Freddie Gray being put in the van on the second stop when he was hogtied. I’d say he was hogtied with handcuffs and thrown into the back like a piece of trash. And then he ended up hitting his head, but whatever. Everyone could see that. When you can see it, I think it has a bigger effect. The cell phone cameras were instrumental just as much as a body camera.
Taya Graham:
Absolutely. Cell phone cameras, CCTV footage, and now finally, body-worn camera are one of the most important tools that this civil rights movement has because just like you were talking about the Fraternal Order of Police, they’re often arguing, “The Constitution is getting in the way of our cops doing good policing. It’s getting in the way of it.”
Mansa Musa:
That’s an oxymoron.
Stephen Janis:
Yeah.
Taya Graham:
It’s ironic, that idea, well, you’re going to have to bend or even break the law to be able to uphold it and be able to serve it. When you were talking about in Ferguson, I think that moment where you saw him. He had his hands up, and he said, “Don’t shoot.” We saw that he had nothing in either hand, and that officer still gunned him down anyway. I think the visual of that, the visual of seeing Eric Garner have six officers on him with one in a chokehold-
Mansa Musa:
Chokehold.
Taya Graham:
… and knowing that all he was doing was selling some loose cigarettes, and they’re on top of him like that. You could tell he’s a big man. He’s got breathing issues. You could tell that they were harming him. You could tell that. He’s saying, “I can’t breathe.” So I think seeing those moments on camera in the same way that you mentioned with the ’60s civil rights movement, I think it’s when those images from Vietnam came home-
Mansa Musa:
That’s right.
Taya Graham:
… and they saw little children being harmed, being devastated by war, when they saw those images, that really helped motivate people in the same way. Seeing those images of African Americans being unarmed and being harmed and gunned down, people really started to understand that what we had been saying all along was true, that these officers were killing our people.
Stephen Janis:
To your point, I mean the one case that really influenced Maryland’s legislation, where most of the legislative action was not actually Freddie Gray, but George Floyd, because, visually speaking, George Floyd was so direct and graphic and so unambiguous. I mean it ended up actually exposing our corrupt medical examiner ruling in favor of police, Dr. David Fowler, because he ended up testifying that George Floyd did not die from positional asphyxiation, but rather the tailpipe that was next to him.
Taya Graham:
Yes, it was carbon monoxide. This is what our medical examiner-
Stephen Janis:
Yeah, who had been ruling controversial.
Taya Graham:
… the medical examiner that we had over 20 years, the one we had here, the same one who ruled that the death of Tawanda Jones’ brother-
Stephen Janis:
Tyrone.
Taya Graham:
… Tyrone West was accidental and due to him having a heart condition. It had nothing to do with the police officers that body-slammed him on the ground.
Stephen Janis:
And Anton Black.
Taya Graham:
The death of Anton Black down in Greensboro, Maryland, a 19-year-old young man that was a track star, and you can see in the body camera video, these big officers-
Stephen Janis:
Just sitting on top of him.
Taya Graham:
… sitting on top of him.
Stephen Janis:
Positional asphyxiation.
Taya Graham:
They said, “Oh, he died because he had a heart abnormality.” That’s the type of rulings that Dr. David Fowler gave.
Stephen Janis:
So-
Taya Graham:
So when he went in front of the entire country in that courtroom-
Stephen Janis:
And testified.
Taya Graham:
… and testified that it wasn’t positional asphyxiation, the police officers were not a contributing factor, that the fact that he had drugs in his system and that the car tailpipe was near him, that was most likely carbon monoxide poisoning that contributed to his death. Literally, over 400 Pathologists and medical examiners around the country said, “You need to audit this guy. You need to audit him.” They signed a petition.
Stephen Janis:
I guess my point was that George Floyd, I think, from our perspective of covering policing, had the greatest impact on legislation and just change. So that’s why I would say it’s the visual component that makes the difference.
Mansa Musa:
The thing about George Floyd, unlike the other ones, was like you said, the visual aid, but it went national and worldwide. But this was the issue with it. The only way you wasn’t affected by it, you ain’t had no conscience. I don’t care what station in life, where you at in your politics, I don’t care who you like, “Yeah, I’m all for Trump, but I can’t be for that,” because it was so graphic.
Stephen Janis:
Yes.
Mansa Musa:
That’s what caused the reaction because, in that reaction, and I want y’all to speak to this, in that reaction, you had the movement, Black Lives Matter. You had a more strategic push which led to legislation or led to people who was conscious trying to talk about this more so than anywhere else.
So why do you think that at this stage right now? We know we had that. We know we seen that. We know we seen the upheaval. But at this stage right now, the problem hasn’t changed.
Stephen Janis:
No.
Mansa Musa:
They just shot is boy in the back in Baltimore City. Go back to I think what you say, Taya, or you, Jan, where they say the training was to look at us as us as being-
Stephen Janis:
Yeah, you know-
Mansa Musa:
… look as that first. It ain’t a matter of me what I’m doing. It’s a matter of you in my view, running with your back away from me. But in my training say you a threat or I got to subdue you to stop you from being a potential threat, and the way I do that is I kill you.
Stephen Janis:
Yeah. I mean so there’s a couple things because, for example, just so people understand, despite all these reforms, in 2017, 981 civilians were shot and killed by police. In 2023, it was 1,161. So it has continued to increase, unfortunately. I think what we have to understand, there’s this idea that Taya and I wrestle with all the time about police corruption because the idea being that there’s this police force that if you just reform them to a certain extent, they will suddenly be good or whatever.
But I think what’s more important to understand is that policing just reflects the underlying problems with the society that it purports to serve. In other words, Baltimore City, the way Baltimore City’s economically and racially constituted, the way Baltimore City violated the rights of African Americans, all those things were reflected in the policing. So unless you reform society’s corrupt … As you pointed out, the idea that property is more important than human life-
Mansa Musa:
Right, than human life, really.
Stephen Janis:
Unless you reform those elements, policing is always going to be responsive to the power and the corrupt power of the society in which it is situated. So I think that’s what is very difficult about this reform problem because you really can’t just say you’re going to be able to, in isolation, reform police.
If the society or the city or the county or the country in which this policing is situated is not reformed first, I think policing will continue to be memetically reflecting what is going on in that society. What perverse incentives there are, what racial problems there are will always be reflected in policing.
Taya Graham:
This conversation’s got me thinking about so many different things. We’re talking about these lethal uses of force, and I was thinking of Sonya Massey, 36-year-old woman, Springfield, Illinois.
Mansa Musa:
Come on now. Come on. Come on.
Taya Graham:
You see her. She calls police because she believes there’s been an intruder around her home. She calls 911 for help. Officers go take a look around. They see a car that’s had its windows broken into. So perhaps she was right. Perhaps there had been an intruder around her home. She comes to the door, and she’s just wearing a bathrobe. You can tell that she has no armaments on her whatsoever. The officer goes very close to her and speaks to her, but then insists that he needs to see a form of ID. So that’s when she’s like, “Well, I have to go in the house and look for it.”
When we get to the point where he says to her, “Turn that pot of hot water off. I don’t want a fire,” she says, “Okay.” She goes over there. Until that moment, they had been somewhat laughing and joking together. She goes over there, and she makes a comment. He’s like, “Get that hot water.” She’s like, “Oh, I rebuke you in the name of Jesus.” And he’s like, “I will shoot you. I shoot you in your effing face,” and he immediately pulls the gun up.
I reported on this, and I had people say, “Well, it’s possible she threw that water in his direction.” I was looking at the distance. There was a counter between her and them. I was like, “No one said, at any point, they could have left. They could have backed away.” What happened to de-escalation?
Mansa Musa:
Yeah. What happened to all that? Yeah, what happened to all that? Yeah.
Taya Graham:
Although personally, from what I saw of the body camera video, I do not believe at any point she was genuinely threatening either one of those officers with that pot of hot water, if they truly believed that what was occurring, they should have retreated. There was no reason to shoot an unarmed woman in her face three times and then not give medical aid. It’s absolutely incredible.
Mansa Musa:
See, that go back to something you said earlier is they’re being trained to be assassins. They’re occupying forces in our community. They’re being trained. De-escalation is like a no de-escalation in their mind is problematic for them because I can gain control by de-escalating, but that’s not control for them. Control for them is I kill somebody and the threat of me will shoot you and kill you. It’ll help you de-escalate, get out my face. Because, like you say with Sonya Massey, it was no threat there.
When you running away from the police, when you running away, it’s only in the movie where somebody running from the police and shooting back like this here and the police get hit. That’s only in the movie. I don’t care what you got. When you run away from the police, the very act of running away is saying I’m trying to get away. So, in your mind, what do that mean? That mean that you’re trying to, what, hurt me?
But let’s talk about the reforms and how they’re not being implemented or how they’re being played because we know right now, the George Floyd Bill hasn’t been passed.
Stephen Janis:
Right. The George Floyd Act, yes, it has not.
Mansa Musa:
George Floyd Act. Every time something come up with the woman, Sonya Massey, “Oh, look, we need to sign the George Floyd.”
Taya Graham:
Oh, that bill died in 2021. It died in Congress. You know what? That bill was so reasonable. They’re saying, “Hey, let’s codify that there should be no chokeholds. Hey, let’s codify that there shouldn’t be no-knock warrants. Hey, you know what? Let’s stop the 1033 Program and stop giving small-town police officers BearCats and literal tanks to police their communities with.” There was not a thing in there that would be considered radical, just some really reasonable reforms, and it died.
So with all the public outcry, with all the pressure, the organizing, the activism, and like you said, we have the body camera that shows exactly what happened, they still couldn’t get that bill passed.
Stephen Janis:
One program that strikes me as very interesting that it’s worth thinking about in the context of this discussion is the Safe Streets Program in Baltimore because I’ve watched it evolve from having absolutely no dedicated funding to growing and getting some state-dedicated funding. But throughout that process, there’s been this pushback from police partisans specifically through our local Sinclair Broadcasting affiliate, which has continually questioned and continually pushed back and questioned the spending, which is minuscule compared to the police department.
But the main component that I think that the police partisans don’t like and is revealing, I think is the fact that Safe Streets is not an armed force. It is supposed to be de-escalation. It is people in the community who are trained and who have knowledge of the community to simply de-escalate, not shoot anybody, not put anybody in handcuffs. It’s really supposed to be a community mediation program.
I don’t know how you feel about it, but with the people that I interviewed who participated in the program struck me as extremely courageous and dealing with very difficult circumstances, and I thought it was really interesting that a program that was really saying, “We don’t need guns and badges and arrests. We need members of the community who are empowered to mediate,” I always thought it was interesting that places like FOX45, Sinclair, the people who have been very police-focused, found it to be threatening. What is threatening about mediation exactly?
Mansa Musa:
The person that started it, Leon Faruq, we was locked up together. When he got out, he created that concept-
Stephen Janis:
That’s amazing.
Mansa Musa:
… for the purpose of making the community safe and educating the community how to interact with the police, and more importantly, to get the police involved in the community and understanding the community. So what they did over the years, like you said, you get this pushback, and then you vilify some of the people that’s in it.
Stephen Janis:
You vilify people. They definitely did that.
Mansa Musa:
So now you’re saying you shift the focus off of the work that they’re to the individuals that’s involved in the group. But going forward, how do y’all see this playing out in terms of because we know that right now it’s shifting? I know in DC, when they passed their last bill, Safe Street or whatever, she put in there about chokeholds. They passed a policy about you can choke them, but you just can’t put this on them. You can put this on them.
It’s a different hand gesture. You can’t choke them with an L, just choke them with both of your hands, and it’s not lethal. But I guarantee you when you look back over all these cities that, mainly with the uptick of what they call crime, that they have went back and undid a lot of the common sense reforms.
Stephen Janis:
I agree. But I mean I think there needs to be a reckoning with what is evolving in Baltimore where you have a large reduction in violent crime, like police shootings and homicides, and yet you have fewer and fewer police. We, as media, need to force people to reconcile with that, to answer the questions about that because the narrative that has driven the excesses and abuse of police that we have seen is the narrative that more policing somehow means more safety or, as Taya mentioned, allowing police to ignore constitutional rights. Or constitutional rights are a barrier to good policing and safety and all these things.
All these things are absolutely hinged upon the fact that somehow unleashing a militarized force in a civilian society can somehow make it safer. We, as media, have to really, really push that question and question that underlying assumption. It is so important, and it really frustrates me because no one’s asked that question. It’s right there in black and white. The Baltimore Police Department is staffed at historically low levels. Why are homicides going down?
Well, it’s because Mayor Scott, and I’ll give him credit for that, invested in community-oriented violence intervention programs, not because of the police. If we can dislodge policing from that idea that somehow they’re the barrier between civilization and chaos, I think we’ll go a long way to getting real police reform.
Mansa Musa:
Yeah, I agree. Taya?
Taya Graham:
But the other part of the discussion about how media should handle this is that when we report on police misconduct, we can’t have the public or the government come out to kill the messenger.
Stephen Janis:
That’s a good point.
Taya Graham:
The example I would want to give of that is when we were covering Sergeant Ethan Newberg. He’s the officer I mentioned earlier, making over a quarter million dollars a year for literally terrorizing our community. We sat in that courtroom and watched him read, I would say, what was a less than heartfelt apology to the victims of his criminal misconduct against them. During that speech, he was looking over at us, and he mentioned, “I don’t think I would be standing here today if it wasn’t for certain members of social media.” He looked over at us a couple times.
Stephen said, “He’s looking at us.” And I’m like, “No, he’s not. You’re just being paranoid.” He’s like, “No, he’s looking at us.” After he was told that he was going to get just six months home detention, another reporter came up to us and was like, “Well, what did you do? Kick his dog? Why did he keep looking at you like that?” The thing I realized is that he blamed us. It was our coverage that put him in that position, not his unconstitutional behavior.
Stephen Janis:
That’s a good point.
Taya Graham:
There are members of the public that feel that way, that if we highlight a police officer doing harm against the community, that we’re creating a problem. No, it’s the officers who are breaking the law-
Mansa Musa:
The law, yeah.
Taya Graham:
… who are harming the community that are causing the problem. So that’s the other thing that when you are a member of the media and you do step out and you do say the truth and you speak it out and you show the body camera footage and you give the victim side of the story, people turn on us and say, “You’re making it worse.” We’re saying, “No, you guys need to clean this up.”
Mansa Musa:
As we close out, y’all got the last word. We’ll start with you, Jan.
Stephen Janis:
Well, no, I mean, again, I think police reform will not really occur unless you see fundamental shifts in the way we discuss things like violence and poverty and unless we address those underlying issues. Police is a really simple solution for late-stage capitalism to suppress people’s political efficacy and suppress their ability to say, “This is wrong. I shouldn’t be going broke because I can’t pay my medical bills.” All those things are intertwined.
I think if we recognize that, that is where the real reform will occur. Recognizing police role that we talk about a lot in our show in the inequality equation and enforcing racial boundaries, that has to be discussed and fleshed out in order for real reform to occur.
Taya Graham:
The only thing I would add to that is the fact that the culture of policing is a serious problem. And it’s not just Dave Grossman’s Warrior Cop training or his Killology training or the New Jersey Street Cop training, which I would suggest anyone look up what those events look like. That Street Cop training was absolutely insane. You can understand why police would go out and just be terrible to the community after attending an event like that.
But that the culture of policing, I think the best way to think of it is what we saw with George Floyd, that veteran officer kneeling on Floyd’s neck and the two other officers just going along with it, just going along with it, not one of them spoke up and said, “Well, maybe we should render some aid now. Maybe we should stop.” They went along with it.
So as long as the veteran cops keep on replicating this unconstitutional, to say the least, style of policing, we’re going to continue to get it. So we have to attack the heart of this police culture or we will continue to get the same results.
Mansa Musa:
There you have it, Rattling the Bars, Real News. We have to attack the culture. As Jan said, you have low homicide incidents in Baltimore City and a low police force. That mean that whatever the alternatives they’re doing, they’re working in terms of making the community safe. So why are we not investing in that? Or why do we continue to invest in a police force as an occupying force in our community? We need to ask these questions.
As this is the 10th year anniversary of Michael Brown, we recognize that some changes have been made, but more importantly, the biggest change that’s being made is the consciousness of the community and people becoming more and more aware of police. This is because of people like Taya and Jan and the Police Accountability Report. Thank y’all for-
The number of homeless people in the United States, either without shelter or in temporary housing, is steadily rising towards a million people. Faced with this crisis, municipalities, counties, and states across the country are responding by criminalizing those experiencing homelessness. Advocate and activist Jeff Singer joins Rattling the Bars to discuss the Grants Pass v. Johnson ruling, and what it means for America’s poor.
Studio / Post-Production: Cameron Granadino Audio Post-Production: Alina Nehlich
Transcript
The following is a rushed transcript and may contain errors. A proofread version will be made available as soon as possible.
Mansa Musa:
Welcome to this edition of Rattling the Bars. I’m your host Mansa Musa. According to the Department of Housing and Urban Development report, 653,140 people are homeless. Bottom line, sleeping on the streets. Nearly 327,000 people in the United States live in transition housing. They live in situations where at any given moment, they’ll join the 653,140 without having a place to stay. What do this say about the United States of America? What do this say about the world when we have a situation where people don’t have a place to stay for no other reason then they can’t afford to live in certain environments because of the cost of living? Here joining me to talk about a recent Supreme Court decision, but more importantly, his work in trying to eradicate homelessness and trying to elevate people’s consciousness about the sense of humanity we should have about people that don’t have a place to stay. Joining me today is Jeff Singer. Welcome, Jeff.
Jeff Singer:
Thank you so much, Mansa.
Mansa Musa:
Hey, Jeff, tell our audience a little bit about yourself.
Jeff Singer:
I’ve been working on homelessness, poverty, racism for a very long time, since about 1965, and a lot of that time in Baltimore and some of that time in Washington DC and there’s a lot of work to do. I especially liked what you said about changing people’s consciousness because we certainly need to do that.
Mansa Musa:
Right. And we was talking off camera, I was talking about Ms. Schneider and for the benefit of our audience that don’t know, Ms. Schneider was also probably one of your compadres in this fight in terms of combating homelessness, but more importantly, raising people’s awareness and educating people on the need to have a sense of humanity about people that don’t have a place to stay. And I was telling, I was in a meeting where one is a guy that he mentored told a story and say that, “Well Ms. Schneider, because the population became so bad, people didn’t have a place to stay, that he was involved with all the homeless encampments.” And he just one day said, “Look, we got to find a place to stay.” And they went down there and took former Federal City College, which is UDC now, and took it and made that a place, what they call it 2nd & D now, and the Army is we talking about something that happened almost 40 years ago and 2nd & D hasn’t gotten better.
2nd D is just a transition place where people who don’t have no place to stay come. And that wasn’t the intent of Mitch or that’s never been your intent is the intent has, from my understanding, has always been to get people in permanent housing, to try and get people to get up and have that dignity to have their own. Okay. So let’s talk about the Supreme Court recently came out with a case that said, and I think it started in Oregon, and said basically that homeless organization or advocacy organization filed a suit saying it was a violation of the Eighth Amendment, which is cruel and unusual punishment for the benefit of our audience, there’s cruel and unusual punishment to have people living in the streets, to have people living in the streets during the winter, to have people living in the streets during 110 climate, to have people living in the street through all the elements.
It was a cruel and unusual punishment to have people not have food, not have adequate clothing as a result of living in the street. Walk us through this case and what this case means in terms of how this country has criminalized, started to criminalize, poverty.
Jeff Singer:
Well we hardly have time for a full exploration of that, but to be relatively brief, in 2018, there was a court case in the northwest, the Martin versus Boise case, which ruled that if people couldn’t find a place to sleep that wasn’t outside that it was a violation of the Eighth Amendment to criminalize them, to put them in jail and/or to fine them. And that case changed a lot of the policies that cities were using to punish people who had nowhere to live. Well the cities didn’t like that so they found other means to get people experiencing homelessness out of sight to hide them. And in this small place called Grants Pass, Oregon, the city was arresting people for sleeping outside and using a blanket or a pillow.
They made that illegal, for people who had nowhere to live and nowhere else to sleep. Well some of the folks who were arrested decided, they got some lawyers and they appealed that. It didn’t make sense to punish people who had nowhere to live for sleeping outside.
Mansa Musa:
Right.
Jeff Singer:
Right? Well the federal district court agreed, oddly enough, with the folks who thought it was wrong for them to be arrested because they had nowhere to live. And the city of Grants Pass then appealed that ruling to the Supreme Court on April 22nd of 2024, this year. The Supreme Court heard the arguments about whether or not it is cruel and unusual punishment to jail or fine people who have nowhere to go because they’re sleeping on the street. And just a couple of weeks ago, the Supreme Court ruled that arresting people who have nowhere to go is not cruel and unusual punishment.
Our common sense and even logical understanding surpasses that. It seems impossible, but the decision says that the Eighth Amendment, the ban on cruel and unusual punishment, does not apply to what jurisdiction, city, state, the federal government, doesn’t apply to what they do. It just applies to the way that they do it. I don’t really understand that. I’ve read the decision. Twisting logic that way just eludes me, but the result of this is that now jurisdictions, cities in particular, have the right to put people in jail if those people have nowhere to live.
Mansa Musa:
And I won’t flush this out a little bit, right, because the lunacy in this whole thing with the Supreme Court. Sotomayor said that, “If you don’t have a place to sleep and you get caught sleeping on the street, you’re going to jail,” and she was saying this as a dissenting opinion saying that the court has to reduced itself to this type of lunacy where you criminalize a person. Now you criminalize a person for having a blanket and a pillow and sleeping on the street. Now you saying that to me in the United States of America, the land of plenty where we have unlimited, we have unlimited monies to send to countries to bomb people, we have unlimited money for people in countries where we don’t like the country that’s sending them, we have unlimited money to house them, clothe them, and give them tax breaks, but for the people that’s United States citizens, we don’t have no sympathy or money to house them.
Talk about the impact of this decision on, and I said 600,000, but we know the population is much larger than that and then I said that in regard to what HUD’s site, but when we look at city by city, I was in Las Vegas and I seen pockets of homeless people, people that didn’t have no place to stay, but I was seeing randomly and one day we turned around the corner and this overpass where, like large overpass, multiple highways coming and going. So it created a large shelter and it looked like a city of nothing but people that was unhoused. And we know, we see this in California and the District of Columbia, they had, we talk about 2nd D, but they had places where they just can’t have a canvas and you might look and see 10 tents, a week later you see 30 tents, a month later you see 150 tents.
And I think the District of Columbia got a number and when it reach that number, they come and round them up, take their property and destroy their property, and try to force them to go in a shelter or just flush them out, but talk about the impact that this going to have on that kind of, because that’s the reality. The reality is that no matter what, you don’t have enough prison cells because you got 2.5 million people right now or more in prison. So you don’t have enough prison cells for the 600 or 800,000 people that don’t have a place to stay and that’s their crime, “I don’t have a place to stay. My crime is I just fell asleep from exhaustion on the street and where you found me at, it was a matter of whether the car was going to run over me or you was going to pick me up and take me to jail or I was going to be dead. So that was my option. Somebody running over me, you taking me to jail, or I die right there.”
So talk about that. Talk about the impact that’s going to have on that because we need our audience to understand that this decision is not talking about rounding up wild animals or deer hunting season. This decision is saying that people, human beings, don’t have a right to fall asleep.
Jeff Singer:
Yeah. It’s really disturbing to think about it that way and that’s a correct way to think about it. I suppose if people want to invest money in the US, it might be wise to invest money in the people who build and operate prisons, the Corrections Corporation of America. That might be a good place to invest money. The fundamental problem of course is capitalism.
Mansa Musa:
That’s right.
Jeff Singer:
And until we start to have an economy that meets people’s needs rather than creates profits, we won’t be solving the homelessness problem, but it’s not new. People have been thinking about, talking about it, writing and acting on this problem for thousands of years in the United States, which isn’t thousands of years old of course. We’ve had waves of homelessness after every war. After the Civil War there were thousands and thousands of people who wandered around the country looking for a place to live because they couldn’t find one, thousands. After World War I, most people remember hearing about hobos.
Mansa Musa:
Right, right.
Jeff Singer:
Hobos were just people who had been displaced by the war and had nowhere to go. They rode railroad trains looking for a place to stay. They created encampments, hobo jungles they were called at the time. And then during the Great Depression, of course, millions of people were homeless, again because capitalism couldn’t work well at that point, and there was homelessness everywhere. In Baltimore, 20,000 people gathered in front of City Hall in 1933 during the Great Depression demanding a place to live. And there’s pictures of this. There’s good historical exploration of it. In fact at that time, two encampments were created in South Baltimore toward Glen Burnie.
Mansa Musa:
Right.
Jeff Singer:
And why were there two? Well there was one for white people and one for African-American people. They were segregated.
Mansa Musa:
Segregated homeless camp.
Jeff Singer:
Yeah. And the white one, the people there were given places to live. In the African American one, they weren’t. They had to build their own shelter. They even built a little golf course. So that’s the Great Depression. That housing problem was solved, by the way, by the creation of public housing. Public housing began to be built in 1937 to give people a place to live because there were so many tens of thousands of people without a place to live. And of course, public housing was segregated in Baltimore and in many places. Well there’s more to the story of course, but today, public housing is in the process of being destroyed-
Mansa Musa:
That’s right.
Jeff Singer:
By both parties, Republicans and Democrats, and Baltimore had 18,000 public housing units 20 years ago and today Baltimore has about 5,000 public housing units. They’ve given them away to corporations and to some nonprofits. They’ve taken away the rights of the people who lived in public housing and until we restore public housing, Nixon administration created something called the Section 8 program.
Mansa Musa:
Right.
Jeff Singer:
People have heard of that. Well it was the privatization of public housing and the creation of profits for the people who owned the buildings. Right?
Mansa Musa:
Right because in DC it called the voucher system.
Jeff Singer:
Yes. Yeah.
Mansa Musa:
Right. What your analysis is correct is to who profit from the voucher system.
Jeff Singer:
Right. Right. And then of course racism, which some have called the original sin of America, is so intertwined in housing policy, not just public housing and housing vouchers and Section 8, but also racism is deeply embedded in the larger, the market for housing so that we have had redlining, which was a denial of loans and mortgages to people of color and also to Jews and Syrians by the way who we were not permitted to get mortgages. We had restrictive covenants and I’ve seen some of these documents like I’ve seen the one from Northwood, which is part of Northeast Baltimore. And when you buy a house there, and it may still be in the mortgage, you have to agree not to sell that house to a person of color. This is true all around the country. In 1948, the Supreme Court ruled that that was illegal in the Kramer case, but in any event.
Mansa Musa:
We’re talking about, after every war, we’re talking about veterans, we’re talking about people that fought in the war. So we’re talking about, like right now, right today, a lot of the people that’s homeless, a lot of them are veterans and return to citizen, people that’s formerly incarcerated. But more importantly, I worked for an organization called Veterans on the Rise in DC and it was an organization primarily for a veteran, but it got created by a veteran that was homeless and start advocating that, “This ain’t right. We fought for this country. Why shouldn’t we have a place to stay when we come back to this country? We’re being treated like refugees when we return to this country.” So that’s not a farfetched analysis in that regard, but I want you to talk about going forward because now we have a situation where being poor get you locked up if you steal loaf of bread.
You stole the bread because you were hungry. That’s a crime because that’s theft. But now the crime that you’re guilty of now is you don’t have a place to stay and from exhaustion, if I walked around all day long I don’t care who you are, people, I don’t care who, this is only in the movies when somebody walk across the desert and fall out when they get to the town. No. This is real life where people be on their feet all day long and from exhaustion and 90 degree heat, 115 degree heat, fall out, that because you fell out, you’re considered a criminal.
So I want you to talk about going forward, where are we at now in terms of trying to reverse or trying to raise people’s awareness that your tax dollars should be being invested in housing people or holding the creed, the constitution. All men are created equal and have inalienable rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Is not my life worthy enough for me to have a place to stay? Is not my happiness worthy enough for me to pursue having a place to stay? Talk about that, Jeff.
Jeff Singer:
Well American law and jurisprudence doesn’t really provide solutions to these problems. As long as capitalism is the fundamental principle of American society and political economy, as long as that’s the case, we’re not going to solve these problems, but it doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t try. It means we should try and we should understand how all of these issues are interrelated. There’s so much to do. Lately the Supreme Court has been an important force of making things worse and they use torture logic like, cruel and unusual punishment doesn’t mean getting sent to jail because you have nowhere to live. No. It just would mean that if they sent you to jail and purposefully embarrassed you while they did that, then that would be cruel and unusual punishment.
So this makes no sense. It also, the Supreme Court has ruled that the President can do anything that he wants to do. And if he’s the President, then it’s legal. There have been many sorts of rulings that are laughable from a logical perspective, but that’s not what all this is about. What it’s about is there’s a small group of people, we call them the ruling class, who make the rules and the laws are designed to uphold the rules that they make. So the Constitution be damned I suppose.
Mansa Musa:
And I like to echo this point. I think we speaking off camera and I was saying the crisis is not the lack of home. Unemployment is not the crisis. Poverty is not the crisis. The crisis is that we let 1% of the people control the country. The crisis is in the thinking of them, that it is a crisis in morality. It’s a crisis in humanity. That’s what the crisis. You got more than enough money, more than enough wealth. I remember I heard someone where they said like, “The $48 billion they gave to fund the wars abroad could end homelessness in the country.”
Jeff Singer:
Right.
Mansa Musa:
And we are in a political climate right now as we speak. The Republicans are having their convention today. Only their platform is not going to be make America great by giving people a place to live or something to eat, some shelter. Making America great is making corporate more wealthy. And the more wealthy corporation get, the more money they’re going to want to want. But at the end of the day, Jeff, what are you doing right now? What are some of the works that you’re doing right now in terms of working around with this population and helping people understand the needs to look at them with some dignity?
Jeff Singer:
Well that’s a wonderful question and the most important work that all of us can do now is to study and learn and teach and teach. My profession I guess, I’m a teacher. I’m a professor at the University of Maryland in the Graduate School of Social Work. So some of the work I do is trying to raise up new social workers to understand that social work isn’t just about helping individuals. It’s about a dialectic between service and advocacy. And all social workers should not only be provided services to people who are experiencing homelessness, domestic violence, child abuse, these are all important issues, but they don’t get solved one person at a time. They only get solved by people acting together, mobilizing and organizing.
So in fact, I’m teaching a class right now called Communities and Organizations. So that’s part of what I do. And then I do help a lot of people individually. I mean, it’s just something I’ve done for the last 50 years or so. And it’s important, but it doesn’t solve the problems in a structural way. So helping people gain a structural analysis of how capitalism actually works and how we can change it, that’s as important as anything we can do.
Mansa Musa:
Right because I think as it stand now at the rate that we’re going, you spoke on this, the Supreme Court has constantly coming out with rulings that solidify capitalist control, that solidify fascism, that solidifies the imperialist thinking. The courts is coming out on all levels, the lower courts and the high court is one bookend, locking it in. So when we’re confronted with that, we’re confronted with a situation where our only redress is to organize around the idea that we have a right to be treated human, we have a right. This is not something that’s given to us by a corporation. This is our human right to be treated as human beings. And with that, Jeff, you got the last word. What you want to tell our audience about and how they can get in touch with you?
Jeff Singer:
Oh, well, I will answer that, but after I answer that, I want to say something else.
Mansa Musa:
No, you can always say that and then answer that.
Jeff Singer:
Okay. Well just this morning I learned that one of the few heroes of the homelessness struggle in Baltimore died this morning because he was homeless. He’d had a place to live off and on.
Mansa Musa:
Right, right, no, that’s neither here nor there because conditions create the situation. It’s not, I told you earlier, people don’t wake up. People don’t wake up and say, “I want to live an impoverished life.”
Jeff Singer:
Right.
Mansa Musa:
It’s a certain social construction, certain things that go into that that create that situation and conditions that find a person, find themselves at the crossroad between not having a place to live and blowing their brains out or doing something more, committing a crime.
Jeff Singer:
Yeah.
Mansa Musa:
It’s this country. Yeah. And we want to send out our prayers and speak his name so we know who we’re talking about.
Jeff Singer:
I will. Damien Haussling was his name. And Damien was one of the founders of our street newspaper called Word on the Street. It’s not around anymore unfortunately. Damien was one of the founders of Housing Our Neighbors, which is an advocacy organization of people experiencing homelessness and their supporters. And Damien was also the founder of the Baltimore Furniture Bank, which provides free furniture to impoverished people who get a place to live. And he died in the Furniture Bank. He was working there last night and there was no air conditioning and I think he died from heat stroke.
Mansa Musa:
Yeah, yeah.
Jeff Singer:
But he’s sort of a martyr to the notion that this country, in its documents, says, as you said earlier, that, “All men are created equal and that they have inalienable rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” And those are just words because they’re not concretized-
Mansa Musa:
Now come on. That’s right.
Jeff Singer:
In the actual life of people. There are hundreds of thousands of people just in Baltimore who don’t have enough food to eat.
Mansa Musa:
That’s right.
Jeff Singer:
And yet there’s food. There’s food everywhere. It rots off the farms and in warehouses. It rots, but people don’t have enough food to eat because of the distribution and the profits that are being made.
Mansa Musa:
It’s more important than feeding people. And I think that, on that note, I think that this is what this conversation should end on. This is about humanity and this is not about nothing other than that. This is about, if you say that you believe in humanity, if you say you believe in anything that has any semblance to a God, if you say you believe in anything to have any type of morality, then when you walk past a person that is sleeping on the street, you should at least stop and look at them, even if you’re not going to do nothing for them you should at least stop and act like they don’t exist because then you’re taking, to yourself, you’re taking in your mind suppressing a reality of this country.
You’re not suppressing the reality of this individual. You’re suppressing the reality of this country, this country that you hold up to be so great that has an attitude that, “No, it’s not life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” It’s money, money, money, and more money. With that being said, there you have it, the real news, Rattling the Bar. We wanted to remind all our listeners, as Jeff said earlier, that one of our heroes passed away doing this work around people that don’t have a place to stay. We want to remind our listeners that don’t change the term from unhoused to because it’s more a sanitized term than homelessness. The term is not indicated of the conditions that the people find themselves in. These are human beings that are in dire need and help and we as a nation should be thinking about where we stand at when it comes to our morality. Thank you, Jeff, for educating us today. Thank you for giving us this opportunity to educate our audience about the state of America as it relate to people that don’t have a place to stay. Bottom line, just homeless. Okay.
The Holguin family’s troubles with the El Paso Police Department began in 2022, when Adzari Holguin, then a high school senior, was asked by relative to film the police while they responded to a call about a domestic dispute. After police became aggressive once they noticed Adzari was recording, her father, Eddie Holguin, stepped in to escort his daughter home. That’s when police staged an illegal raid on the Holguin residence and arrested Eddie and Adzari. After the raid, the Holguins filed a lawsuit to demand justice. Now, they say the El Paso police are deliberately targeting their family. Police Accountability Report examines the evidence, and what this case tells us about cops in America today, who in many places not only operate with virtual legal impunity, but also conduct themselves more like a mafia than like law enforcement.
Production: Stephen Janis, Taya Graham Post-Production: Stephen Janis, Cameron Granadino
Transcript
The following is a rushed transcript and may contain errors. A proofread version will be made available as soon as possible.
Taya Graham:
Hello, my name is Taya Graham, and welcome to the Police Accountability Report. As I always make clear, this show has a single purpose, holding the politically powerful institution of policing accountable. And to do so, we don’t just focus on the bad behavior of individual cops. Instead, we examine the system that makes bad policing possible.
Today we will achieve that goal by showing you this video of how El Paso police planned and plotted to retaliate against a family that had sued them over an illegal arrest, a disturbing move by police that ended in yet another questionable set of charges and even more pain for the family that has to endure it.
But before I get started, I want you watching to know that if you have video evidence of police misconduct, please email it to us privately at par@therealnews.com or reach out to me on Facebook or Twitter @tayasbaltimore, and we might be able to investigate for you.
Please like, share, and comment on our videos. It helps us get the word out, and it can really help our guests. You know I read your comments and appreciate them, and I even write back. You see those hearts down there, I’ve even started doing a comment of the week to show you how much I appreciate your thoughts and show what a great community we have.
All right. We’ve gotten that out of the way. Now, as we’ve discussed repeatedly on this show, the greatest obstacle to holding police accountable is their power to retaliate. That is, police are afforded unusual latitude and discretion to use the law against their critics. No case better illustrates this idea than the video I’m showing you right now. It depicts the El Paso Police Department surveilling a family they had illegally arrested before, a previous violation of their rights that led to a lawsuit against the department. But after the lawsuit was filed, the police began a protracted investigation into the family. A possible case of harassment that proves our point about how police can target and terrorize the people who push back against them.
The story actually starts in 2022, that’s when high school senior and El Paso resident, Adzari Holguin had been asked to phone police at the request of a relative who had called them because of a domestic disturbance. The relative wanted the interaction recorded to ensure her rights were respected, but when Adzari started to film, the police reacted. Take a look.
Adzari Holguin:
You just grabbed my phone out of my hand and physically assaulted me. Recording is within my full right.
Officer 1:
[inaudible 00:02:25]-
Adzari Holguin:
You cannot have to-
Officer 1:
… just stand back.
Adzari Holguin:
Can I get your name and badge number, please?
Officer 1:
It’s [inaudible 00:02:29].
Adzari Holguin:
No. Can I have your name? If Pinera, okay, but there’s no reason for her to get physical with me.
Officer 2:
If you don’t want to go for interference I suggest you take off. Now. You want to be arrested for interference or take off? Your choice.
Adzari Holguin:
Interference with what?
Officer 2:
My investigation.
Adzari Holguin:
Investigation of what?
Officer 2:
Family violence.
Adzari Holguin:
But what am I doing? Why are you doing this? What am I doing?
Officer 2:
Investigation, ma’am.
Adzari Holguin:
You have to do that.
Officer 2:
Do you want to go in for interference or can you leave please?
Adzari Holguin:
Interference of what? For what am I? How am I interfering?
Officer 2:
I’m give you one last chance.
Adzari Holguin:
How am I interfering?
Officer 2:
Do you want to be under arrest for interference or do you want to take off?
Adzari Holguin:
There is no reason for you to arrest me. Why are you touching her? You cannot touch her.
Speaker 14:
I will not hit you, but `do not touch me.
Officer 2:
All right?
Speaker 14:
I will not [inaudible 00:03:17]
Officer 2:
I want to get you both for interference.
Taya Graham:
After Adzari’s father, Eddie, intervened and escorted his daughter home. El Paso police decided that leaving the premises was not enough. Instead, they raided the family home, cuffed and arrested both Adzari and her father. Just watch.
Eddie Holguin:
Leave us alone. Get the fuck out of here. She [inaudible 00:03:46]
Taya Graham:
Now after this troubling arrest, the family fought back. The charges of resisting and evading police were dropped and they filed a lawsuit alleging the department violated their civil rights. And that case is still being adjudicated.
But roughly one year later, Adzari was home one day when to her shock, she spotted police surveilling her driveway. Concerned, she grabbed her camera to document their actions. Let’s take a look.
Adzari Holguin:
I’m here. [foreign language 00:04:29] I think they took your license plate.
Taya Graham:
The police soon scattered. But the video footage shows what appears to be the officers writing down the license plate number of her father’s work van. Azar confronts them and they refuse to answer her questions. See for yourself.
Officer 3:
[inaudible 00:04:57]
Taya Graham:
Police leave without explaining the intrusion, but that’s not where the story ends. Not hardly. Because roughly one month after they surveilled his van, detectives show up the family residence again.
Adzari Holguin:
Can you call my dad real quick and him know that there’s some cops here? Can you call my dad real quick? Let him know that there’s some cops here. May I ask for your name and badge number, sir?
Det. Armendariz:
Detective Armendariz, number 2720.
Adzari Holguin:
And you, sir?
Detective 2:
Detective [inaudible 00:05:27] 2425.
Adzari Holguin:
Okay, thank you so much. May I ask what you’re doing here?
Det. Armendariz:
Your dad’s an adult, we got to explain to him over here.
Adzari Holguin:
I’m in a adult as well and he’s not here at the moment, so I’d appreciate if you explain it to me. Cause I also live here. Okay.
Det. Armendariz:
Is he here or not?
Taya Graham:
Can I ask what you’re doing here, sir?
Det. Armendariz:
Okay. Easy. I’ll just drop it off with you and give it to him please. Thank you.
Taya Graham:
Can I ask what you’re doing here sir?
Detective 2:
Investigation ma’am, it’s an investigation.
Det. Armendariz:
Criminal investigation.
Adzari Holguin:
For?
Det. Armendariz:
Don’t worry, he’s an adult.
Adzari Holguin:
I’m worrying about it and I’d appreciate it as my public servant if you answered my questions.
Detective 2:
Have a good day.
Det. Armendariz:
Have a good day ma’am.
Detective 2:
Thank you.
Det. Armendariz:
A lovely day outside, isn’t it?
Adzari Holguin:
It would be lovelier if you explained what you were doing here.
Det. Armendariz:
It’s a criminal investigation.
Detective 2:
The department is hiring just in case you’re interested.
Adzari Holguin:
How professional. So professional of servants to not explain their reasons here.
Detective 2:
Have a good day ma’am.
Taya Graham:
Now, Adzari calmly asked them what crime they’re investigating. The detectives again refuse to answer. Why they refuse to justify their apparent secrecy is unclear. It’s a Kafka-esque moment that only raises more suspicions about what police are actually up to.
But the police are not done. Just a month later, they pull over Eddie and Adzari and claim the insurance and registration on his van have expired. Take a look.
Eddie Holguin:
Hey, why right now?
Officer 4:
How’s it going? Officer Burrow El Paso Police Department, sure your insurance, your registration’s expired.
Eddie Holguin:
It shouldn’t be.
Officer 4:
No.
Eddie Holguin:
I’s not. I have insurance and everything.
Officer 4:
No. Okay. My partner’s coming on the other side.
Eddie Holguin:
It’s a goddamn, the accountant. He’s the one that takes care of that not me.
Officer 4:
Yeah. Your work truck, do you work here?
Eddie Holguin:
I’m looking at an address. I live over there.
Officer 4:
Oh, you live over here?
Eddie Holguin:
Yeah, but I’m looking for an address right here.
Taya Graham:
Now Eddie pushes back, but soon police change tactics. First without explaining why, they ask him to step out of the vehicle. Notice that Eddie is nursing an injured arm. And why? Because the last time they arrested him, police pulled him up from the ground as he was handcuffed, wrenching his shoulder and wrist. And now, and you’ll learn more about this later, he shares with us that he can’t fully control his arm or make fine motor movements with his hand. But again, the police don’t seem to care.
Officer 4:
Slowly. Okay, I’m going to see your hands, okay?
Eddie Holguin:
That hurts a lot.
Officer 4:
You put your stuff down, okay sir? You don’t have anything on you, all right? Ahead.
Adzari Holguin:
He’s hurt. He’s hurt.
Officer 4:
Can you step out of the vehicle?
Adzari Holguin:
Don’t hurt him. Please.
Officer 5:
So listen, you have a criminal warrant, okay? That’s why we’re taking you in.
Taya Graham:
A criminal warrant? For what?
Officer 4:
Turn around. Turn around.
Officer 5:
I don’t have the details yet, but they advised that he has a criminal warrant.
If you want to put two handcuffs, we’re going to put two handcuffs is that cool?
Eddie Holguin:
[inaudible 00:08:22] with my hand bro.
Adzari Holguin:
Be careful with his hands.
Officer 4:
Face the van please.
Adzari Holguin:
Please don’t.
Officer 4:
We will take it off. we’ll take it off.
Taya Graham:
Now suddenly police reveal that Eddie has a warrant. What the warrant is for. They don’t initially say, but they commence to arrest him anyway, just watch.
Officer 5:
Don’t reach. Don’t reach.
Officer 4:
Stay in the car.
Adzari Holguin:
I’m, okay.
Officer 5:
She’s in the car.
Adzari Holguin:
I’m in the car. I’m in the car.
Officer 5:
If you want to record that’s fine.
Adzari Holguin:
Let me just have, please.
Officer 5:
What do you need?
Adzari Holguin:
I need his [inaudible 00:08:55] and I need, can I go get it? I don’t want you to hurt me. I’m just,
Speaker 7:
I’ll give it to you right now.
Adzari Holguin:
Can I have his wallet?
Taya Graham:
And now Adzari concerned about her father’s wellbeing. Asked the police the one question they should always be able to answer. Why did they put him in handcuffs? And their answers are revealing. Let’s listen to their responses.
Adzari Holguin:
Wallet.
Officer 5:
I’ll give it to you right now. Give me a minute, okay?
Adzari Holguin:
Okay.
Officer 5:
I’ll give you his wallet and his [inaudible 00:09:20] .
Adzari Holguin:
Why are you arresting him?
Officer 5:
He is a criminal.
Adzari Holguin:
For what? He hasn’t done anything. He doesn’t even leave the house.
Officer 5:
I don’t know about the details. I just know he has a criminal warrant.
Taya Graham:
Okay, so no details, not a single justification for putting someone in handcuffs. Not one iota of evidence, but fortunately for Eddie, his daughter Adzari does not relent. In fact, she demonstrates clear resolve and personal courage that perhaps the officers could learn from because Adzari does not back down, which prompts the officer to pepper her with questions or face losing her family’s van. Let’s see what happens next.
Officer 5:
How old are you?
Adzari Holguin:
I don’t answer questions.
Officer 5:
I’m asking, so you, do you want to take this car or do you want me to impound it?
Adzari Holguin:
No, don’t impound it.
Officer 5:
That’s why I’m asking. How old are you? Do you have a driver’s license so you can take the car?
Adzari Holguin:
I don’t answer questions.
Officer 5:
Okay, just step out of the vehicle for me. If you don’t have a driver’s license, I can’t let you take the van. Okay?
Adzari Holguin:
Let me call someone here please.
Officer 5:
Who are you going to call?
Adzari Holguin:
My neighbor. Let me just.
Officer 5:
How old are you?
Adzari Holguin:
Let me just figure out a way to get this home. We don’t have, just please don’t impound it. I’ll get someone to bring it, drive it home and I’ll sit in the passenger seat.
Officer 5:
It could only be you. Do you have a driver license with you?
Adzari Holguin:
Why does it have to be me?
Officer 5:
I’m not going to ask somebody else. That’s me. Do you have a driver’s license, girl, yes or no?
Adzari Holguin:
But why does it have to be me?
Officer 5:
Because you’re the passenger.
Adzari Holguin:
And? I have a neighbor, I have family, I have friends.
Now, besides the fact that Adzari does not have to answer any questions because she’s in fact a passenger, the officer here is also taking part in what we like to call policing and the inequality divide. That’s because this entire confrontation with Adzari takes place over the disposition of her father’s work van. Basically his entire livelihood hangs in the balance and now the officer is threatening to confiscate her ID and perhaps entangle her in the same web, now closing in on her dad.
Now bear in mind, Eddie has not been accused of a traffic violation. And bear in mind that the notion that the passenger has to drive the truck home is entirely a fiction. Still, the officer continues to threaten to take the van and to extract personal information from Adzari. Just watch.
Officer 5:
All right, can you just step out and you can go wherever you want.
Adzari Holguin:
Wait, let me, because let me just call real quick.
Officer 5:
I’m asking nicely. Can you step out of the vehicle and then call whoever you want?
Adzari Holguin:
Okay?
Officer 5:
Yes. Thank you ma’am.
You’re good to see home?
Can you get a tow truck for.
Adzari Holguin:
Don’t get a tow truck. We don’t need a tow truck.
Officer 5:
So do you have a driver’s license? I’ll be glad to give it to you. Do you have one with you?
Adzari Holguin:
I don’t answer questions. I’m waiting for someone to come pick it up.
Officer 5:
Okay, then we’ll impound it. Ma’am, I’m giving you an opportunity.
Adzari Holguin:
Oh my god, people are insufferable. You get a kick out of being a pig, don’t you? You love making people’s lives miserable. Well, I need to get my things out of the vehicle before you impound it. What do you mean no?
Officer 5:
You can’t do that.
Adzari Holguin:
Yes, I’m getting my.
Taya Graham:
Now this is not where their story ends because there is so much more going on behind the scenes, including the shaky evidence behind the questionable charges, what the family is doing to fight them and why they think the police are targeting them. And these details will be explored when we speak to Adzari and her father Eddie.
But first I’m joined by my reporting partner, Stephen Janis, who’s been reaching out to police and investigating the case. Stephen, thank you so much for joining me.
Stephen Janis:
Taya, thanks for having me. I appreciate it.
Taya Graham:
So first, are the police saying anything about Eddie’s arrest? How are they justifying the charges?
Stephen Janis:
Well Taya, like many police departments that I have tried to press for answers on troubling cases there, huge communications department seems to be disproportionate to what they will say about it. I have asked them, I will continue to press them, but no, they haven’t said anything and they don’t seem like they want to talk even though a lot of people are getting paid to answer questions.
Taya Graham:
So the officer said that the passenger has to drive the vehicle. Is that actually true? And what eventually happened to the van?
Stephen Janis:
Yeah, this is for Pinocchios here, Taya. There is no law in Texas as a passenger has to drive away a car that has been either impounded or stopped by police. It is absolutely untrue. It’s totally false. It’s one of those things cops like to do, I think in these situations to suit their purposes, make up laws on the fly. Totally untrue. Totally. Really. I’m obviously disturbingly untrue, but I’ll keep looking. Maybe I can find something, but I really, really doubt it.
Taya Graham:
As we watched the video, I mentioned that this arrest was a perfect example of how law enforcement plays a critical role in our current unequal system. Maybe you could talk a little bit about that.
Stephen Janis:
Well, what’s amazing to me is how police departments want to show us that this is actually true. This has been a theory of ours and we’ve had plenty of examples, but it’s amazing to me how police will go out and say, yeah, I’m going to actually show you how this works. I’m going to take this guy’s van, I’m going to arrest him for something, a crime he didn’t commit. I’m going to put his picture up on TV and make him a scary criminal, who no one’s going to want to hire. So they’re really cooperating and proving our theory. It is unfortunate, it is tragic, it is horrible, but it is the truth. And I think this particular arrest shows exactly what we mean when we say that.
Taya Graham:
And now for more on their protracted ordeal and their suspicions about the motivations driving the El Paso Police Department, I’m joined by Adzari and Eddie Holguin. Thank you both so much for joining me.
Adzari Holguin:
Thank you so much for having us.
Taya Graham:
So my first question for you essentially is to help people understand the video. You and your father were just working on a job, when your car was pulled over. What was the reason that the police officers said they were pulling you over?
Eddie Holguin:
They said that my inspection sticker was expired.
Taya Graham:
Now how does it go from an inspection sticker being expired to you being placed in handcuffs? How does that happen?
Eddie Holguin:
Well, that’s what they told me, but it was kind of weird the way they were acting. They were stalling or telling me to wait and then they’d be going back and forth, back and forth. But what they were doing is waiting for more of them to show up. Because you know how they are that one or two can’t do nothing. They need more than four or five, six of them. They won’t do anything by themselves. They’re too scared.
I guess I can’t really walk real good and my hands all messed up so I can’t really do anything. But then they said that I had a warrant for my arrest for aggravated assault with a deadly weapon.
Taya Graham:
So Eddie, let me follow up with you here. What is this aggravated assault with a deadly weapon that created this warrant? What were these officers describing? What was the alleged incident?
Eddie Holguin:
Two detectives came down here in May 30th looking for me and I wasn’t here, Adzari was here. They asked her but, I think you have the video of that because I wasn’t here. I was working. So when she went to where I was working, she said this cops went to go look for you. Here’s a card.
So I got the card and looked at it and he told me to tell you to call him. Well you know that ain’t going to work. I don’t call him. I got no business calling him. But the next day he called me and then he called me when I answered, he says, “Mr. Holguin?” And I said, “yeah”. He says, “This is Detective Armendariz. And I said, “Yeah”. He says, “You want to give me a statement?” I said “A statement of what?” They said, “Well you know.”, I don’t know.
I don’t know what you’re talking about. He said, “Well, what happened?” I don’t know what you’re talking about. I don’t know what happened. Tell you, tell me. He said, “Well, they said that you shot somebody with a BB gun.” I don’t have a BB gun, I don’t have a pellet gun. I have no kind of guns. The only thing I was doing was cutting the grass. That’s it. That’s all I know. I never saw anybody out there.
And then he says, I got up to go forward. I told him, that’s it. You’re trying to make chicken soup out of chicken shit. You’re lying. And I hung up. And then on Friday, the next day, that’s when we were coming back from work and that’s when I got pulled over. That they said it was for a sticker. For an inspection sticker, but that’s not what it was. They’re already looking for me. Well, but they know where I live.
Taya Graham:
So let me turn to you, Adzari. During the traffic stop, we are seeing your father being put into handcuffs. What is your understanding of this? What’s going through your mind when this is happening?
Adzari Holguin:
I was so scared. It was like my nightmares were coming true. When they started grabbing at him and then hurting him and arresting him, I didn’t know what was going on.
Eddie Holguin:
That’s why you were recording?
Adzari Holguin:
I was recording for that reason, I felt it in my gut that I needed to record because you can never not record around them. Something bad always happens when it comes to cops. And it did and my mind was so all over the place. I couldn’t think. My only thing that I could think of was to make sure that I kept my dad on camera because I didn’t want them to do anything to him off camera.
Taya Graham:
So you actually shared a photo with me of your father’s arm and wrist being swollen. Eddie, do you want to talk about what happened to your arm and what the injury is and if it was re-injured during that arrest?
Eddie Holguin:
Yeah. Well I have my wrist, it’s all swollen. I can’t use my thumb and this finger. These two fingers? I can’t use them. I can’t move them hardly because it hurts a lot. This is where they hurt me the first time.
When they came three years ago, Gonzalez, that officer or whatever, Gonzalez, she’s the one that pulled me out of the car, started banging me on the car and then she pulled the handcuffs up and messed up my two shoulders and my wrists. I heard something pop in my wrist and it got really bad because they left me handcuffed for 12 hours on that bench over there at the substation.
They’re supposed to only leave me there for two. They left me there 12 before they took me to the jail and took off the handcuffs. And now with this time they left me handcuffed another 12 hours. So it got even worse. I got more swollen and then I had gone to some of the therapy. The next week I went to therapy and they saw my wrist and they said, what happened to you? So I told him, he said, I don’t know. We can’t do therapy, you can’t even move them. Before you started to move them, now you can’t move them anymore.
Taya Graham:
Can you tell me what kind of charges, if any, that you are currently facing?
Eddie Holguin:
I’m facing aggravated assault with a deadly weapon.
Adzari Holguin:
It’s a second degree felony that they’re trying to put on my dad.
Taya Graham:
And I just have to make this clear for everyone to understand. I was absolutely shocked when I was told that you were considered a fugitive. So you’re facing aggravated assault with a deadly weapon and you’re considered a fugitive. Can you just explain to me where this accusation came from?
Eddie Holguin:
When they arrested me on Friday, I got out on Saturday about 2:30 in the morning. Then I came home and Saturday in the evening they put on the TV that they couldn’t locate these people and I came out there. But they have already been here in my house. I don’t know how many times. They don’t know where I live? I know they do. They already came two or three times just for this case.
Adzari Holguin:
My dad had been arrested earlier that day on Friday around two in the afternoon. And by the time he got out he was already a wanted fugitive and they were saying that they can’t find him and he came out on the KTSM website and he came out on Channel 10 news. Until this day, it’s still coming up, you can look it up on the website, he’s still listed as a wanted fugitive even though he is already been arrested and he’s already out. It was funny when I saw that, I was like, what? Turn around. He’s right behind you. It was ridiculous.
Taya Graham:
Thank you both for your answers and I really appreciate that you explained to me that even though he had already been in jail and they had already processed him and given him charges, he was still listed as a fugitive. And I think that’s very important for people to know how this can damage your professional reputation or your personal reputation to be listed this way. So I think it’s really important to clear the air here.
Eddie Holguin:
I already lost two jobs because of this. I went to the other one and they told me that they didn’t need my services anymore, because they saw that on the TV. And then the other one, they called me and said that they would call me at a later date to go do some work. So I already lost two jobs. And now I haven’t had any work for over a month. Nothing.
Taya Graham:
So a very significant aspect of this case is that you and your father were suing the El Paso Police Department already for another incident of police misconduct and brutality. I understand you might not be able to talk about the lawsuit in detail, but in your opinion, do you think this warrant and arrest was perhaps a form of intimidation or even retaliation for your family filing a lawsuit?
Eddie Holguin:
That’s what I believe because why would somebody come and say that I did something when I haven’t even been out there? Shooting somebody with a BB gun at 2:30 in the afternoon? I don’t have a BB gun or a pellet gun. Like I said, we were back there taking the blankets off the sweat lodge. Then I came out here to start cutting the grass and that happens. Then two months later, this detective comes and ask me questions, if I want to give a statement. Two months later, but I don’t know anything. Like I told him the first time, I don’t know what you’re talking about. Tells me two months later, I still don’t know what they’re talking about.
I didn’t do anything to nobody. I don’t know where they got somebody to say something about me or how they did it. I believe this has to do with that lawsuit. That’s what I believe. I don’t know for a fact, but sure looks that way.
They don’t have no evidence against me. There’s nothing. That’s why the cops left. And then two months later, what is he doing for two months? Trying to get somebody to sign something to arrest me? Because he has no evidence? Something’s really bad, smells bad.
Taya Graham:
Adzari, one of the things I was so amazed by is that you were barely 18 years old and you handled that situation so well. You started recording, you asked for name and badge number. How did you know how important filming the police is? How did you learn how to do that?
Adzari Holguin:
It’s all thanks to my dad. I had a really good teacher these past few years. If it weren’t for him, always watching the Real News Network, Direct D James Freeman, Audit the Audit, Watch the Watchdog, all of them. We watch them on a daily basis and you kind of pick some of these things up over the years. If it weren’t for that education that I got from my dad, I wouldn’t have known because I didn’t know before. They don’t teach you this stuff in school.
Eddie Holguin:
And I’ve always told my kids, “Don’t call cops. If you see them, don’t get near them. Don’t talk to them. Turn around, walk away. Just keep away from them.” Because those people are no good. They’re really not. And they have, I don’t know what kind of training? Four months of training? Four months! A child walking around with guns.
Taya Graham:
I know this is a difficult question, but I have to ask you, Eddie, how are you coping with this? I mean whether financially or physically or even emotionally, how are you coping with the assault and injury that you had with police three years ago and then this new encounter, which must have been very intimidating?
Eddie Holguin:
It was really hard because, first of all of that happened three years ago. I don’t go out hardly nowhere. Only if I got to go to work and come right back. I don’t go to Walmart because they got cops there. Anytime they have cops anywhere, I will not go there.
I don’t go anywhere. I don’t even go to the store because I’m afraid of those cops. I go out of the house and I’m going down the roads. I see a cop, I’ll turn around and come right back to the house. I’m not even going to the store. Adzari has to go on her bike because we don’t have another car and she doesn’t drive the van. It’s too big for her. So she has to go on her bike to get groceries because I won’t go. I will not go. I’ll just stay home.
And it’s so difficult staying in this house for so long and I had cops coming down here after one year after my mom had passed. I started having problems with cops. They kept coming down here. They had already accused me of other things, but they always go away because I didn’t do anything. I don’t leave the house, I just sit here.
Only time I go outside to the front is to cut the grass. I don’t like to be in the front because a cop passes by, I’m afraid they’re going to stop. The day I cut the grass, I was out there at five o’clock, five 30 in the morning cutting the grass. While it’s still, the sun’s barely coming up because at that time I go out and pray. But after I prayed and I start the lawnmower, because I’m afraid to be out there when there’s people out there because I’m afraid they’re going to show up again. I can’t do this anymore. I hate it here so much. I want to leave, but I can’t. Then they don’t let me work now.
Taya Graham:
I know that was difficult to share and I really appreciate it. My last question is this, if you could speak to the police department in El Paso, Texas, if you could speak to them directly right now and you knew they were listening, what would you want to tell them? Adzari, what would you want to ask of them?
Adzari Holguin:
How dare you? How dare you live with yourself, eat breakfast in the morning, be happy, enjoy your life and sleep comfortably, knowing that what you did to us on a daily basis, to everyone around here? How dare you walk these streets thinking that you’re above us and how dare you believe that you own me and you can tell me what to do and I have to bow down and listen to you? You do not have the right, you do not have the knowledge that I have. How dare you.
Taya Graham:
And Eddie, what would you want to tell the El Paso Texas Police Department?
Eddie Holguin:
Just leave me the fuck alone. Go do whatever you want. Just leave me alone. I do not like them. I can’t stand them. I see them. I want to run away. I start shaking. Why? Because I know how they are. They have a sign on the side of the car that says, serve and protect. Serve and protect who? Yourselves! You sure as hell don’t serve and protect us.
Taya Graham:
Thank you both so much for being open with us and coming forward to share what happened. We really appreciate you.
Now, I think the case we just reviewed is indicative of a phenomenon that plagues this country today and does not get the attention it deserves. It’s sort of an institutional malaise, which I believe leads to the type of police behavior we just witnessed, especially the efforts of cops to silence their critics.
In part it’s simply the cruelty that arises when people are given indiscriminate power they can use to settle personal scores like it appears police did in this case. But it’s also a structural problem that I think arises from a system that cannot care for the people who actually do the work to make it work.
To explain what I mean, I will start with an example. This is a site the El Paso police use to inform the public about dangerous fugitives. It’s supposed to make residents aware of violent criminals who are a threat to the community and are still at large. But as you can see here, the El Paso Police Department also decided to feature someone who seems a little out of place, namely Eddie Holguin.
That’s right! The man we just interviewed, a hardworking contractor, who runs his own business, and has been raising his wonderful daughters, was such an imminent threat to society that the police had to broadcast his image to the world. A man who has worked his entire life to support his family and contribute to society was now apparently an irredeemable criminal.
It is truly shocking to say the least for a variety of reasons. The first one being that it seems based upon the videos we showed you, police actually knew where Eddie was when they posted his photo. I mean, they had his address, apparently. And even if he wasn’t home all the time, it’s not like there was any evidence that Eddie was engaged in some sort of effort to evade them.
And that’s the point I’m trying to make. An aspect of the broader unjust system boiled down into the life of a single man. Because the fact that the El Paso police have thrust Eddie into the spotlight is indicative of how the system itself processes the cruelty that defines it.
In other words, what we’re really witnessing in the case of Eddie and Adzari is how the system that is based upon injustice perpetuates that same injustice in the lives of the people who are forced to endure it. So what do I mean?
Well, think about it after you watch the interview. Is there any logical reason to humiliate Eddie by publicly announcing him to be a menace to society? From what you’ve learned about his life, is there any plausible justification for turning him into public enemy number one? So then why do it? Why turn his life upside down?
Well, think about how I described the criminal justice system just a few moments ago. Imagine what that really means. The idea that there is something else going on inside this process of policing that has nothing to do with law enforcement or public safety.
Think of it as a new form of symbolic exchange. And okay, before you start saying Taya, what the heck are you talking about? Please, give me a moment to explain. Symbolic exchange was an idea postulated by French cultural theorist, Jean Baudrillard. If you’re not familiar with him, he’s a postmodern thinker who coined the term “hyperreality”. For example, a digitally conjured reality with no meaningful anchor or authenticity in the tactile world.
But Baudrillard also thought a lot about capitalism and his theory of symbolic exchange was part of it. In it he argued that symbolic exchange was the process of conferring a benefit on someone beyond a physical good or possession. Meaning a benefit that is not material, but perhaps spiritual or metaphysical, a gift that is enriched through passion and meaning, rather than price.
He argued that capitalism and the material world it creates erodes the value of symbolic exchange, which is one reason he thought contemporary capitalism defined by goods and services was also personally alienating.
But I think his theory could be applied to the present, especially to what we’ve seen in the behavior of law enforcement that we have demonstrated again and again on this show. Because honestly, so much of what law enforcement does in cases like Eddie’s is symbolic, like the most wanted picture. And that symbolism is not only impactful, it can be defining.
And of course I can hear you now commenting in the video saying, Taya, why are you talking about this? I mean, I know you’ve taken some discursions before, but seriously, a French philosopher? Cultural theory? Are you serious? Please just give me another minute to hear me out.
I think if you really drill down into the current state of American society, you can see that the glue that holds our unfair system of inequality together is largely symbolic. And by shaping and controlling the flow of signs, the dominant powers that be can influence perceptions, behaviors, and ideologies.
I mean, how else can anyone explain a system that facilitates private equity firms buying up doctor’s practices and then slamming patients with surprise medical bills that bankrupt them? How else can you justify a country where the top 1% holds $38.7 trillion in wealth more than the combined wealth of the country’s squeezed middle class, which possesses just 26% of it?
How do you explain a country that has seen its economy grow exponentially over the past few decades and still has roughly the same amount of people living in poverty since the 1970s?
It doesn’t sound rational does it? It doesn’t even seem logical. And yet I think it explains quite a bit about how this system works and perhaps how it doesn’t. And why when it does, it swallows the lives of people like Eddie with unquestionable cruelty because the system that rewards unjustifiable wealth can only be justified by something other than logic.
When a reality simply doesn’t make sense, we as human beings often make sense of things through symbolism. Think about how we ascribe so much meaning and import to concepts like love without truly understanding it. But boy, we do represent it through songs and lyrics and what we can’t deduce through logic, we explain through symbols or art or concoctions of poetry, what we can’t justify through numbers or data we explore through imagery and metaphor and art. It’s just the way we’re wired.
But with all human expressions comes the duality of light and dark. This means that when we want to perpetuate an injustice that defies logic, symbolism often makes it work. And in this sense, policing and law enforcement are the purveyors of a symbolic war on the working class all at the behest of the elite. What they can’t justify by the logic of economics, they facilitate with the image of the arrest.
When the persistence of poverty calls into question the system that created it, law enforcement steps in to make the poor unworthy through over-policing and unwarranted charges.
That’s why El Paso police have gone to such extreme lengths to make the lives of Eddie and young Adzari a living hell. Because when us, the people, fight back, we puncture the symbolic logic of late stage capitalism. When cop watchers turn their cameras on cops who harass them, we reverse the symbolic exchange and reveal the true imperative that drives excessive policing. When we make symbols that contravene theirs, they simply don’t know what to do.
Well to make sure they can’t turn our guests into symbols of scorn, I’m going to leave you with this symbol. It’s a picture of Adzari and her father Eddie, two human beings who just want to live a normal unencumbered life. Not criminals, not threats to society, just two shining examples of humanity. And we don’t want the El Paso Police to forget it.
Again, I want to thank Eddie and Adzari Holguin for coming forward to share their experience. I know it was difficult and on a personal note, I wish I was as well-informed and brave as Adzari was at her age. She stood on her rights to protect her family, and I think we can all appreciate that courage.Thank you both and I have to thank Stephen Janis for his writing, research and editing for this piece. Thank you so much, Stephen.
Stephen Janis:
Taya, thanks for having me. I appreciate it.
Taya Graham:
And I want to thank mods of the show, Noli D. and Lacy R. for their support. Thank you! And a very special thanks to our Accountability Reports Patreons, we appreciate you and I look forward to thanking each and every single one of you personally in our next livestream, especially Patreon associate producers, Johnny R., David K., Louis P., and Lucita Garcia, and our super friends, Shane B, Kenneth K, Pineapple Girl, Matter of Rights, and Chris R.
And I want you watching to know that if you have video evidence of police misconduct or brutality, please share it with us and we might be able to investigate for you. Please reach out to us. You can email us tips privately at PAR@therealnews.com and share your evidence. You can also message us at Police Accountability Report on Facebook or Instagram, or @eyesonpolice on Twitter. And of course you can always message me directly @tayasbaltimore on Twitter and Facebook.
And please like and comment, I read your comments and appreciate them and we will have a Patreon link pinned in the comments below. So if you feel inspired to donate, please do. We don’t run ads or take corporate dollars, so anything you can spare is truly appreciated. My name is Taya Graham and I am your host of the Police Accountability Report. Please be safe out there.
A 42-year-old Black woman, Adrienne Boulware, has died in the custody of the California Department of Corrections at the Central California Women’s Facility in Chowchilla. On July 4, prison guards exposed Boulware to extreme temperatures outdoors during a heatwave for 15 minutes, leaving her with just a small glass of water in the over 110 F heat. Boulware began to exhibit symptoms of heat exhaustion almost immediately after returning indoors. Two days later, she passed away while receiving medical care. Elizabeth “Leesa” Nomura of the California Coalition for Women’s Prisoners joins Rattling the Bars to discuss Boulware’s tragic death, and what it reveals about the dangers prisons place incarcerated people in as the climate crisis intensifies.
Studio / Post-Production: Cameron Granadino Audio Post-Production: Alina Nehlich
Transcript
The following is a rushed transcript and may contain errors. A proofread version will be made available as soon as possible.
Mansa Musa:
Welcome to this edition of Rallying the Bars. I’m your host, Mansa Musa. It’d be unimaginable to think that if I left a dog in the car with the windows rolled up under these heating conditions that I would not be held accountable by the animal and Humane Society. But the same thing is taking place right now in California with the women in Central California Women’s Facility. The same thing is taking place right now where women are being held in environments where the heat has reached a temperature of 110. As a result, a woman has died, and not to say how many more will die or what the state of these women are at this current time. Joining me today is Elizabeth Nomura. Welcome, Nomura. Tell us a little bit about yourself and what organization you’re representing at this juncture.
Elizabeth “Leesa” Nomura:
Again, my name is Leesa Nomura. I am the statewide membership organizer for the California Coalition for Women Prisoners. We are a organization that’s been around for almost just shy of 30 years, and I have been a statewide organizer for close to three years, but have been connected with CCWP since I was incarcerated. And I’ve been home in January, it will be five years I have been released from prison. I am of Pacific Islander descent and I am very grateful to be here calling from Tonga Land, or commonly known as Los Angeles. Thank you for having me.
Mansa Musa:
Okay. Yeah. And thank you for that. Okay, so let’s get right into it. According to a report that just came out on July 6th, a woman died from heat exhaustion in Central California Women’s Facility. Talk about what’s going on with them conditions right now as we walk back through what happened with this system.
Elizabeth “Leesa” Nomura:
Yeah. Tragically, a 42-year-old black woman, a very good friend of mine, of our sisterhood inside, Adrienne Boulware, just shy of coming home next year. It was 4th of July and she was being released for her meds and the institution was locked down because of course, on the holidays, there’s a lack of staff. And so because of that, on those days, the institution will be locked down because of lack of staff. And so it was med time. She was popped out for her meds. And in the configuration of the institution, the meds are not distributed to the cells like in some of the men’s joints. They have to leave their room, walk out of the unit and walk across the yard to the medical unit, stand in line with all of the other folks from the yard, and then wait in line for their turn to go up to the med window and then get their meds and then walk back to the door and then wait for whenever the housing staff in their air-conditioned cop shop is to walk to the door and unlock it and let them in.
And so apparently what the story is from our folks inside who we have direct communication with and tell us that Adrienne was out there in addition to the time it took for her to stand out there, wait out there and be exposed to above 111 degrees, I believe it was that day. What the temperature is and what the feels like temperature is always different, right, especially in the armpit of California, which is central California. And so Adrienne is standing out there and they said about 15 minutes. She’s waiting, she’s looking at the CO, he’s seeing her, she’s seeing him, and he is leaving her out there. And the whole time, there’s no water, there’s nothing out there for her to drink. And the only water she’s had the whole entire time is a little cup.
Mansa Musa:
Right, they give you water with your meds.
Elizabeth “Leesa” Nomura:
They give you water, and that’s all she’s had that whole entire time. And so by the time she went inside, she was let in, went inside, she was suffering from heat exhaustion, she was sweating, her roommates were concerned for her, helped her into the room. She was shaking. In the configuration of these units, the rooms hold up to eight people and there’s a shower, a toilet, and two sinks in there so they have access to shower anytime in those cells. Her roommates helped her into the shower. She went in and once she went in there to try to cool off, she collapsed. And she collapsed and she became incoherent.
They said that her legs were shaking uncontrollably and they then called out for medical help, in which case the call-out for medical emergency is 222. So if you can imagine that scene, all of the roommates pounding on the door screaming [inaudible 00:06:37]. So it was very frantic, and they’re just trying to do the best they could because of course they’re the first responders.
Mansa Musa:
Right. You’re exactly right.
Elizabeth “Leesa” Nomura:
They’re doing the best they can to keep her coherent, to keep her there and to monitor her health at that time and see how she’s doing. And so finally, medical comes and takes her away and they don’t hear anything until they receive the word Saturday morning that she had passed.
Mansa Musa:
How long did it take? Okay, because like I said, I’ve been in this space. I did 48 years prior to being released. I got five years coming up. I’ll be out five years December the 5th, but I did 48 years. When I first went in the ’70s, you had fans on the wall. It was these steel cells. It’d be so hot that the paint would literally be peeling off the wall and we ain’t get no ice. Back then, you ain’t get no ice.
But talk about how long, first of all, how long did it take for them to respond before we go into unpacking the conditions? Because it’s my understanding this is not new to this environment. How long did it take for them to respond to her, to get to her before they was able to get her to a unit where she would get treated properly to your knowledge?
Elizabeth “Leesa” Nomura:
They said the total amount of time, it was about 12 minutes. So it took about three minutes for the CO to get down the hallway, unlock the door, assist the situation, hit the button, and then go to the door, let wait for the medical staff, bring the gurney, walk to them, and-
Mansa Musa:
Take another 15 minutes to get across to y’all.
Elizabeth “Leesa” Nomura:
Yeah, to get across the yard.
Mansa Musa:
So all together is a total of 35 to 40 minutes.
Elizabeth “Leesa” Nomura:
No, no, actually it wasn’t that long because remember, each yard has their own medical unit, has their own medical thing, so the nurses there came with a gurney. It was about 13 minutes.
Mansa Musa:
Yeah, it’s 13 minutes too long.
Elizabeth “Leesa” Nomura:
It’s 13 minutes too long. She’s already suffering.
Mansa Musa:
And the reality is, the reality is that, okay, we recognized and this is in the United States of America, this is not isolated to this California prison, we recognized that the heat wave was going across this country. We recognized… I was in Vegas and it was 115 and I went outside and I did something every three minutes and came back in. That’s how burned the heat was. But it wasn’t so much the heat, it was just like the lack of air. It was just like not told. So I know from experience, but more importantly, I know from experience from being in that space.
Talk about now… My understanding is that this is not the first time that this institution or the California prisons has been cited for not being prepared to deal with the heat or elements, period. Talk about, to your knowledge, has it changed? How long did you do before you was released?
Elizabeth “Leesa” Nomura:
I did 10 years.
Mansa Musa:
All right, so you can walk us back. So has the conditions staying there, have they gotten any better during the course of your incarceration?
Elizabeth “Leesa” Nomura:
No, they’ve only progressively gotten worse because of course the equipment is becoming more and more dilapidated and over time and it hasn’t been replaced. And I worked on those maintenance crews that did the preventative maintenance that’s supposed to happen every winter in preparation for the summer. So I know what those preventative maintenance procedures look like. They’re just walkthroughs and just procedural and just checkoffs as opposed to actually things being really done to actually prepare. And so those cooling units or those swamp coolers actually are not doing the jobs that they’re doing.
Mansa Musa:
So what exactly are they for our audience? Because I know they got… I told you, the women at the correction at the county, the detention center in Baltimore City, they had got an injunction. They brought coolers, what you see on the football fields. They grown a cooling station. They grown and ran these pipes and ran these conduits all through the prison was popping in air the whole entire time because it got so hot that they didn’t have the amenities that modern prison have in terms of fans or air or be able to cool down the [inaudible 00:12:08], So they was able to get that done. So talk about what they got compared to what they should have.
Elizabeth “Leesa” Nomura:
So they have swamp cooler systems that sit at the top of the roofs of every unit. However, those units, those units are connected to piping systems that pump water because of course swamp coolers need a flow of water in order for them to work. So what’s happened is that each of those units, when you run them, now the water leaks into the ceilings and now they leak into the buildings when they run them and cause more problems. And now you have leaking into the day rooms, leaking into the rooms, and so they’re causing more issues where the ceilings are falling in.
So what they end up doing is they end up not running them because of the fact that they know they’re going to cause more problems in the end and then they don’t have the people to come in or they don’t want to repair them and so they just don’t run it. And so they refuse to run or they run the air but not the water or the cut off the water line and just run the air but what ends up happening is the air will run, but after a while because the water’s not running, the engine will run hot and then it’ll pump out hot air.
Mansa Musa:
Hot air.
Elizabeth “Leesa” Nomura:
And so that’s what happened on Friday.
Mansa Musa:
Right. I see. Yeah.
Elizabeth “Leesa” Nomura:
That’s what ended up happening on Friday afternoon when we started Friday morning to get desperate pleas and cries for help. In the early morning hours of a lockdown status, we were getting… No, it was Saturday morning. Everyone had found out that Adrienne had passed away and they were all distraught about the passing, but then they were also all locked down and they were calling out to us and they were just getting ahold of all of us advocates saying, “We are locked down and the vents are pumping out hot air and we can’t breathe,” and they were saying, “We can’t breathe,” and then women were throwing up, they were having headaches, leg pain.
Mansa Musa:
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Heat exhaustion.
Elizabeth “Leesa” Nomura:
And already it’s 113 that day, so the pipes were all running hot. They had no ice water because all of the ice machines in the institution except for one were all broke down. So they had no access to ice water, lack of staff, so nobody was out there trying to-
Mansa Musa:
Get ice.
Elizabeth “Leesa” Nomura:
… solve the problem or get ice or make any phone calls outside to get any ice shipped in. And so nobody cared. And so everyone’s locked in their cells, up to eight people in a room, and then to add insult to injury, they’re pumping in hot air-
Mansa Musa:
Hot air.
Elizabeth “Leesa” Nomura:
… from these things and they’re not even popping the doors open so that people can breathe. And half of the staff there that doesn’t give a crap is ignoring the women asking and begging to at least be let out a hallway by hallway to breathe in the day room. They’re not going to stab them. This is not the men’s joint. This is the women’s institution. All they want to do is just come out hallway by hallway.
Mansa Musa:
Breathe, so they can breathe.
Elizabeth “Leesa” Nomura:
Let them get some reprieve out of these ovens, I mean, these practical death chambers that are… I mean, it’s just crazy because not only… I mean, it would be better to be outside in 113 degree weather where you can actually breathe air and to be confined in a space that has no windows, no ventilation and then you’re pumping in hot air on top of that on top of breathing the air from your friend that’s-
Mansa Musa:
Everybody, all air being sucked up.
Elizabeth “Leesa” Nomura:
… pressed up against you.
Mansa Musa:
Yeah. Let me ask you this, Elizabeth. Okay, you just outlined that this been going on for a minute, right? Why haven’t they fixed this? Because we’re talking about at least it’s been in existence for at least five years, this system of cooling, air, water, cold air. Hot summer, California, always going to be hot. The environment ain’t going to change. You ain’t going to put no windows in it, you ain’t going to knock no windows off. You ain’t going to do none of that. You ain’t going to bring no air conditioning. Why haven’t this changed? What is the reason why the state of California has not invested money into changing this situation?
Elizabeth “Leesa” Nomura:
They don’t care. They don’t care.
Mansa Musa:
All right. What’s the status of the environment now? Since now we got death and potential deaths on the way or potential irreversible injuries because of heat exhaustion, what is being done now by the California State Prison system, the Department of Correction in California? Because this ain’t only… If they got this attitude towards women prison, and this is a general attitude towards prisoners in general, women prisoners, men prisoners, juvenile prisoners, kid prisoners, prisoners in general, you going to die, well, so be it.
Elizabeth “Leesa” Nomura:
Right? I mean, so in terms of California Department of Corrections, or specifically for what has happened following our advocacy at CCWF, we had immediately after these cries for help, we immediately put out a press release in response to Adrienne’s passing or Adrienne’s death, and also too, putting out specifically the cries for help, and we did it quoting folks and quoting the emails and text messages we were receiving with their permission. And we put it out to every news agency that would listen to us and all of our social media, all of our social media platforms so that folks could see and we could get as much support that we could in the general public.
And the response was overwhelming. We went viral within the hour of placing that out. And so I spent the good part of the rest of that day and the following next day doing interviews and talking with people and sharing just the stories of my folks on the inside, what they were going through and how it consistently continues to be this way year after year, summer after summer, and they’re burning them up in the summer and freezing them out in the winter.
Mansa Musa:
Yeah, freezing them out in the winter.
Elizabeth “Leesa” Nomura:
That’s how it is. And it never changes. And so in response to our advocacy, our ongoing pressure that we were putting on CDCR and the administration there at the institution, they had immediately went to work on getting those ice machines back online. They immediately went to work on purchasing additional igloos so that each unit could have two igloos at all times. And then they immediately started to open up each of the trailers that have a AC units in those trailers that they usually have like NA, AA classes.
Mansa Musa:
I got you, I got you.
Elizabeth “Leesa” Nomura:
So they open those up as cooling stations when the temperatures go up, when they go up to above 90 degrees. So these things have aggressively gotten better. However, in order for those igloos to be filled with ice and filled with water, to get those in there, you have to have staff that want to do it. So then we’re getting those staff members that are petty, and so then we’re finding out, oh, we’re getting staff that will fill the ice chest with 80% water and only a small scoop of ice and then by the time you get the igloo from the kitchen to the unit, that thing is already melted, so that’s the kind of attitude you get from inside from people from those, I’m sorry, from those pigs, that don’t give a crap-
Mansa Musa:
Yes, yes, they are.
Elizabeth “Leesa” Nomura:
… that don’t give a crap and they’re retaliating against for what? For people, all they’re trying to do is stay alive and they don’t want to give people that right to advocate for their own lives. They’re not asking for much, they’re just asking [inaudible 00:22:26]-
Mansa Musa:
Let me ask you this, what’s the security status of that particular concentration camp?
Elizabeth “Leesa” Nomura:
Well, women’s prisons… Well, this particular women’s prison is the highest security women’s prison.
Mansa Musa:
So it’s max? It’s max medium?
Elizabeth “Leesa” Nomura:
Yeah, because actually, CCWF was the only institution in the state that housed death row.
Mansa Musa:
Okay, so it’s max medium.
Elizabeth “Leesa” Nomura:
So you had everyone from death row to level ones.
Mansa Musa:
Right, right. Let me offer this though, for clarity, right? The sister that passed away, her name was Adrienne?
Elizabeth “Leesa” Nomura:
Adrienne Boulware.
Mansa Musa:
Well, Adrienne was murdered. That wasn’t-
Elizabeth “Leesa” Nomura:
Yes, yes.
Mansa Musa:
That’s murder. There’s no way you can describe that but when you take [inaudible 00:23:15]-
Elizabeth “Leesa” Nomura:
Let me be clear that the institution and CDCRs went on the record to state that she had passed away from a preexisting health condition.
Mansa Musa:
Yeah. The preexisting health condition was neglect of taking care of me and providing me with the adequate medical attention that I need. That’s neglect, neglect turned into murder. But okay, going forward.
Elizabeth “Leesa” Nomura:
In any heat advisory in the free world that comes up on every billboard, on every [inaudible 00:23:48], when they tell you to be aware or be careful, they tell you to be careful in this heat of your family members and your elderly who have what? Preexisting health conditions.
Mansa Musa:
Right, and-
Elizabeth “Leesa” Nomura:
They’re at risk.
Mansa Musa:
And then we not confused by this because we recognize that if she was in society and left in a car by anybody under the same conditions and died, they would lock them up for a homicide or involuntary manslaughter. So the fact that she was held on a plantation, under the new form of plantation, prison industrial complex, the fact that she was in that environment, they tend to minimize her existence and her being a human being, but we here to tell them right now that this is murder.
And I’m imploring y’all to at some point in time come to that place where y’all try to get some redress around that, around why did she have to die, because as you said earlier, okay, they’re putting these things into place, which is good, but the fact of the matter is if you don’t change the attitude of the pigs, if you don’t change the attitude of the institution, then somebody else is waiting in the wings to die and they justify it by saying, “Oh, they died because they had preexisting conditions and it wasn’t the fact that we was neglectful in getting them treatment or putting them in an environment that did not exasperate these preexisting conditions. That ain’t had nothing to do with it. It was just the fact that they wasn’t healthy and their health contributed to them dying.” But going forward, what do you want our audience to know?
Elizabeth “Leesa” Nomura:
So basically what I would like your audience to know is that California Coalition for Women Prisoners is not done with this fight. We are going to take this fight to the legislative level and we are going to take specific asks to the legislation and these asks are going to look like short-term asks, but also some long-term asks. At the short-term level, we want every person inside every institution in California to be given state-issued cooling rags. Such an easy thing. Just cooling rags, just something that could provide immediate relief that you and I and the free world no big deal could get at the 99 Cent Store.
Also, too, is that we want also state-issued fans issued to every person that’s incarcerated. That is not a hard ask because a fan that’s issued is cheap. They are not expensive compared to the medical expense to deal with heat-related issues that come up because of the heat, extreme heat. Issuing a fan upon a person’s intake or person being booked into the prison is actually a cheap ask. If any legislator wants to push back on that because of budget, that is one of our asks.
The other thing is we want cold water dispensers accessible in every unit and not cheaply. We want it always to stay cold. So we want that to be accessible and we don’t want it held back from anyone in any lockdown situation. If someone needs that water, there needs to be a protocol in a way that that person, whether they’re in their cell or outside, be able to access that water or get that-
Mansa Musa:
Yeah, water. We talking about water, cold water.
Elizabeth “Leesa” Nomura:
[inaudible 00:27:38] at any time they need.
Mansa Musa:
That’s all. Yeah. Cold water. That’s all. Cold water.
Elizabeth “Leesa” Nomura:
Cold water and not tepid water. They can get that from the [inaudible 00:27:46]-
Mansa Musa:
Yeah, we asking them for cold water. Cold water, that’s all.
Elizabeth “Leesa” Nomura:
Cold ice water.
Mansa Musa:
We didn’t ask for you to go melt the ice glacier to bring it in there and import it from Alaska. We just asking you to make the water cold and give us access to it as we need it. Come on.
Elizabeth “Leesa” Nomura:
So long-term asks, we would like AC, not swamp coolers.
Mansa Musa:
Yeah, we want the same thing they getting cool with. Same thing they getting cool with. We want the same thing.
Elizabeth “Leesa” Nomura:
We want two units installed because the inclement weather is not getting any better. Climate change is causing it to get worse. And so it’s unavoidable. AC units must be installed in every unit in every prison, and I’m just saying starting with the Central Valley, because the weather there is more clocked 100 degree weather, simultaneous 100 degree weather in the Central Valley than any area of California statistically. So that’s a great place to start.
And I will say this. I received Intel that a year ago the institution had purchased brand new chillers and signed a contract to have those installed and installed one in one unit in the institution and somehow ran out of the funds to install any chillers.
Mansa Musa:
Yeah, what happened to the money? What happened to the money? Yeah.
Elizabeth “Leesa” Nomura:
All of those chillers are sitting in the warehouse.
Mansa Musa:
Yeah. What happened to that money? Yeah. What happened to that money?
Elizabeth “Leesa” Nomura:
What happened to that money? Who misappropriated those funds to complete the installation project and why did Adrienne have to die because of it?
Mansa Musa:
Yeah. And also, I think that y’all need to ask that they do an internal investigation on that right there because this been going on far too long.
Elizabeth “Leesa” Nomura:
Don’t you worry about the thing, brother. I got that.
Mansa Musa:
See, one thing, I just recently became aware of it but this been going on for a while and then Adrienne was murdered. Her murder should be the reason why they should feel like they should be hard-pressed to resolve it. But how can our audience get in touch with you and support what y’all are doing?
Elizabeth “Leesa” Nomura:
Well, right now, the Adrienne Boulware family is asking for support to help them not only with funeral expenses, but they would like to fund their own independent autopsy. And so we are assisting them in supporting their GoFundMe fundraiser. And so I do have a link for that. I will forward that to you if you don’t already have it already, and also to an ongoing support of the work that CCWP has. CCWP, California Coalition for Women Prisoners dot org, is our webpage and you can connect with us or you can also connect with us on our Instagram @ccwp and that’s our Instagram handle.
Mansa Musa:
Thank you, Liz. And there you have it, real news rattling the bars. This is not a big ask. Just imagine somebody asking you say, “Listen, just give me a wet rag, cool wet rag to put on my head to lower my temperature.” That’s not a big ask. Just imagine somebody ask, you say, “Can I just get a cold drink of water?” That’s not a big ask. All the women in California ask to be treated like human beings. And as a result of being treated inhuman, someone has been murdered, not died from preexisting conditions, but died from the fact that they was neglected. We ask that you look into this. We ask that you evaluate this report and support the women in the California prison system, but more importantly, we ask that you write your congressmen or get involved with this because this is a problem. There you have it. Rattling the bars, the real news. Thank you.
The modern prison system’s origins in slavery can be seen in telltale signs throughout the system. The system of chattel slavery had no incentive to keep Black families together—in fact, separation was deliberately used to punish the enslaved. Today, the prison system mirrors this in its treatment of families of the incarcerated. Prisoners are denied the opportunity to be fully present parents by the nature of their condition, and further separation from family through visitation denial, relocation, and other means are used as a way to punish and torture inmates. Ernest Boykin, a father of seven, speaks on his personal experience as a formerly incarcerated parent—and everything he did to ensure that he would remain in his children’s lives despite the system’s efforts to deny him that right.
Studio / Post-Production: Cameron Granadino Audio Post-Production: Alina Nehlich
Transcript
The following is a rushed transcript and may contain errors. A proofread version will be made available as soon as possible.
Mansa Musa:
Welcome to this edition of Rattling the Bars. I’m your host, Mansa Musa.
Today, we’ll be doing a series on Father’s Day. And more importantly, we’ll be doing a series on the impact the criminal injustice system has on incarcerated parents, or more importantly, on the family overall.
Joining me today is an extraordinary individual to talk about being a parent, being a Justice Impact parent. More importantly, being a upright, standup Black man. Ernest, welcome to Rattling the Bars.
Ernest Boykin:
Hey, I’m sorry I do call you Mr. Hopkins. But yeah, Mansa, thank you. You made me feel like I was on a Shannon Sharpe Show, man, with that introduction.
Mansa Musa:
Yeah, we a little better than Shannon Sharpe. Plus, we not trying to get the ratings.
Ernest Boykin:
Exactly.
Mansa Musa:
We trying to get the story out, The Real News. But let’s talk about Father’s Day.
Now, in full disclosure, me and Ernest was in a program called Georgetown Pivot. That’s where I first met Ernest at.
We was either doing something about telling something about ourselves. We was going around; this was our first introduction to everybody coming on in that space together. We had seen each other when we was registered up at the school. But this was during the time of COVID, so we was on Zoom.
And when they got to you, this is what impressed me the most about everything that you said. But then once I got to know you, I really realized that you are an extraordinary individual.
Ernest Boykin:
Well, thank you.
Mansa Musa:
You might not present yourself like that all the time, but in terms of who you are as a person, I recognize that.
But this is what stuck out with me on something you said, when you talked about your children. I’m going to let you tell our audience, first of all, a little bit about yourself and some of the things that you’re doing. Then, we’ll get into that.
Ernest Boykin:
Okay. Well thanks, Mansa. Yeah. My name’s Ernest Boykin. I’m a father of seven. I have probably every age child that you could think of. No, I’m sorry. I have two in college. I have two under two years old right now, I have a couple in the middle, and I’m proud of them. They’re all the lights of my life.
When I was away, that’s what kept me grounded. Looking at their pictures or talking to them on the phone and things like that.
Currently I’m the part owner of a Straight Route Trucking. We’re a trucking company out of Washington, DC. We move cargo from point to point all across the United States of America. I started that with my life partner, Brisa, and we’ve been in business since 2022.
Mansa Musa:
Okay. Now let’s talk about your children. How much time did you serve prior to being released?
Ernest Boykin:
I served approximately six-and-a-half years.
Mansa Musa:
Okay, in the six-and-a-half years you had, how many children did you have when you left the street?
Ernest Boykin:
I had five children. And I’m not just talking about biological.
Mansa Musa:
I know, yeah. We talking about children.
Ernest Boykin:
Children, yeah, people that I was responsible for. Five individuals.
Mansa Musa:
All right. And in terms of when you got arrested and ultimately sentenced, who was responsible for taking care of your children?
Ernest Boykin:
Well, their mom; it fell all on their mom. It fell on my parents too, because my kids’ mom and I really weren’t getting along.
So during the school year, the court had awarded me custody and guardianship over the children, because I was sending my kids to private school. When the kids were living with their mom, she tried to put them in public school. But the court felt like they were getting a better education in private school. So they sided with me and let me control that.
Mansa Musa:
While you was incarcerated?
Ernest Boykin:
No, no, before I was in prison.
Mansa Musa:
Before you got in. Okay, go ahead.
Ernest Boykin:
Before I went to prison. So it was a situation where my parents kept them until school let out, and then they went with their mom. So my parents shared in some of the responsibility, and my kid’s mom. It was pretty much her responsibility to deal with all the children herself.
Mansa Musa:
Because this is important for our audience to understand that when a parent is incarcerated, the impact that incarceration has on the family. But more importantly, when the parent has children, men or women.
How did you maintain your relationship with your children, and then maintain that relationship? What type of impact can you say you had on them that you can look at today and say, “Because of this, they’re like this”?
Ernest Boykin:
Yes, it was very difficult to maintain that relationship. But the reason why I was able to do it was because I wanted to do it.
Mansa Musa:
Come on.
Ernest Boykin:
Anytime I tell myself I want to do something, I do it. And it didn’t matter that I was in prison versus being free.
Mansa Musa:
Right.
Ernest Boykin:
I felt like I was still going to be a parent to my children. I didn’t feel like the walls could stop me from being a parent to my children. So where there was opportunities for me to talk to them on the phone multiple times a day, I would do that.
If I had to write them multiple times a day, or multiple times a week or once a day, whatever I felt was necessary at that time for me to keep a connection and bond with them, I did it.
Mansa Musa:
In that regard, because that’s the thing I’m going to flesh out. Because that’s the thing that I think that society in general don’t recognize how impactful that is.
I’ve been in spaces where I’ve seen men, biological children, or not biological children, would raise them from behind the door, behind the wall, behind the fence. And they come to them for all the advice. They come to them for guidance, they come to them from a direction.
How did that play out in your relationship with your children? How did your children respond to you in terms of, 1), being incarcerated, and 2), respond to you in terms of recognizing that regardless of your location, that is my father and I’m going to listen to what my father say? Or was they defying, like, “Well, you ain’t here, man. Why you going to tell me what to do?”
Ernest Boykin:
It is funny you say that because it does happen. If your kids’ mom shows you respect to the kids-
Mansa Musa:
Come on.
Ernest Boykin:
… then it makes it easy for the kids to show respect to you. But if they see conflict between the kids’ mom and yourself, then the kids are forced to choose a side between parents.
And that’s where the difficulty comes in to parent your children: especially if you have girls and you’re a man, they’re going to naturally side with their mom.
And then also if you have boys, boys are going to feel protective of their mother, so they’re going to side with their mom. So you’re kind of in a lose-lose situation a lot of times. And you can’t get aggressive with them because if you get aggressive with your children while you’re away, it doesn’t hit home the same way you might think it would.
Mansa Musa:
Right.
Ernest Boykin:
When you’re face-to-face with your child, you may have to discipline them by talking to them more stern or whatever you have to do to discipline your children. It does not hit the same over the phone, because they definitely know that you’re not there.
But it’s up to Mom or Grandma or Grandpa or uncles to reinforce things that you say. And say, “Hey, don’t forget your dad said that, or your dad said this. I’m going to tell your dad when your report card gets here.”
Or, “Yeah, your dad said that if you do good in school, he’s going to send you some money.” Things like that, it helps out a lot.
Mansa Musa:
And you know what? That right there, how much of a strain was that on you in terms of maintaining your mentality? Because we looking at prison and then okay, you trying to be a parent. This is the foremost thing on your mind: getting out so you can take care of your children.
But at the same time, you in the gladiator school. You in a joint where at any given day, like on lockdown: something that happen lockdown. How was you able to stay focused, and not get caught up in the environment because of frustration from not being able to hug, hold, or console your children in time of need?
Ernest Boykin:
I think I was, I mean, for lack of a better word, lucky. I just think that I was blessed, fortunate to get through that because I’ve seen people get hurt for less, for nothing.
Mansa Musa:
Yeah.
Ernest Boykin:
People just get beat up or abused by the staff or the officers for nothing.
Mansa Musa:
Right.
Ernest Boykin:
So fortunately enough, the way that I maneuvered my way through it was just to mind my business, focus on me, and invest every minute of the day and to try to better myself. So that when I got another shot, because I knew I was going to get another shot.
Mansa Musa:
Right, right.
Ernest Boykin:
It was all about when I would get another shot.
Mansa Musa:
That’s right.
Ernest Boykin:
It was like, “Just be ready so that when I get my next shot, I can do everything that I need to do to win.”
Mansa Musa:
Right. Let’s unpack some of what you spoke about about the prison environment.
Why you think the system, the prison industrial complex, the new plantation, why you think they don’t encourage or they don’t promote or they don’t support building a family unit? Or aid and assisting the parents in maintaining some type of connection with their children? Why you think that’s not on the radar?
Because I know for a fact, and you know this yourself, every program that exists in the prison system, if it deal with anything relative to family, if it deal with anything relative to counseling, if it deal with anything relative to networking with society, prisoners came up with ideas in them laboratories, in them thinking tanks, and put them things into effect.
Why do you think this is not something that the Bureau of Prisons or any institution doesn’t try to perpetuate?
Ernest Boykin:
Yeah, it’s funny you asked that question. Because I remember these guys in the law library said that in the prison handbook, it says it’s the responsibility of the prison to maintain family ties.
Mansa Musa:
Come on.
Ernest Boykin:
It says that in the handbook. And we would use that line right there when they try to justify sending you far away from your family, or when they try to justify leaving you in the hole without phone calls or without visits and things like that.
Just like you said, man, the prison industrial complex is a direct reflection of slavery. If you’ve ever watched Roots or did any research about slavery, you’ve seen how families were split up and divided. That was a way that they used to discipline people, and they continue to do that through the BOP.
They split up families and send you far away to make it hard for your family to come visit you as a way to discipline you if they don’t like you. And that’s not right.
Also, anything that you can see on a slavery movie or documentary or anything, when you think about it, it’s kind of the same thing.
Mansa Musa:
Yeah, yeah.
Ernest Boykin:
You got people working for nothing.
Mansa Musa:
Right, right.
Ernest Boykin:
If you in prison, you got people working for nothing.
Mansa Musa:
Come on.
Ernest Boykin:
You got people for years and years and years. They can’t leave this one little-
Mansa Musa:
Plot of land.
Ernest Boykin:
… spot of land.
Mansa Musa:
Yeah. Come on.
Ernest Boykin:
And you got people in prison doing the same thing, walking around in a circle.
Mansa Musa:
That’s right.
Ernest Boykin:
All day long.
Mansa Musa:
Yeah.
Ernest Boykin:
You know?
Mansa Musa:
Yeah, come on.
Ernest Boykin:
And then when you get mad for people for sticking up for themselves, you beat them. You give them diesel therapy.
Mansa Musa:
Yeah, yeah.
Ernest Boykin:
Or you [inaudible 00:14:17]
Mansa Musa:
Tell them about diesel, because our audience don’t know know diesel therapy.
Ernest Boykin:
Diesel therapy; I’ve been through it; is when they put you on that bus for weeks and weeks at a time. And you’re just eating out of a bag; you’re only eating bag lunches. You’re not getting a hot meal ever. Your mail doesn’t catch up with you.
Mansa Musa:
Yeah, yeah. Yeah, that’s torture.
Ernest Boykin:
You can’t get a visit, you can’t use the phone. You waking up in a different city every day, and you’re sleeping in the hole of every jail every time you stop. It’s a lot.
Mansa Musa:
Let’s talk about this here. Okay, because we recognize that the prison industrial complex is the new form of slavery. 13th Amendment justifies that.
We recognize also that when it comes to family unification, and that’s not even on the radar when it comes to the prison industrial complex. Why why do you think this system right here as it exists now continue to stay in this space?
Like you say, 1), like in the District of Columbia, if you’re under federal jurisdiction, you might wind up in wherever United States territory. Wherever it’s United States territory, that’s where you could wind up at.
Ernest Boykin:
Mm-hmm.
Mansa Musa:
2), in terms of allow you to have access to your family.
Ernest Boykin:
[inaudible 00:15:55] Excuse me.
Mansa Musa:
They don’t. And lastly, what impact does that have, from your perspective, on the general population? How did you see that plan out in the general population?
‘Cause we know when they had Lorton, and Lorton was the prison that was in under the District of Columbia’s government. We know when they had Lorton, that it was a correlation between the community and Lorton.
When people got out, came out of Lorton, they went back to the District of Columbia. And they did progressive things in the community, because that was their town. That’s where they was from.
But now you have a situation where you in Walla Walla, Washington. Next time you look up, you in Florida. Next time you look up, you in South Carolina. Next time you look up, you on your way out. Now you in Ohio.
From your experience and your insight, how did that play on the mentality of the prison population?
Ernest Boykin:
Well, most people don’t have to experience going outside of their boundaries. But the people who usually have to experience that are the Washington DC inmates.
Mansa Musa:
Come on.
Ernest Boykin:
And if you’re a 007 inmate or 016 inmate or 000 or something like that, then nine times out of 10, the BOP will send you out of boundaries because they had a label on guys from Washington DC.
They tried to take it out on the DC guys by sending us far away from home, so that we couldn’t get visits. Because they felt like if we got visits, then that would just empower us more. Or it just would be too much like right.
Mansa Musa:
Yeah, yeah.
Ernest Boykin:
So just because guys from Washington probably were a little more aggressive or more joking about doing the time because of the culture; people coming from Lorton, they was doing time. And they wasn’t doing time like that in every other prison across the country.
Mansa Musa:
Right, right.
Ernest Boykin:
So the people’s attitude was totally different.
Mansa Musa:
Let me ask you this here. All right, so now you get out.
Ernest Boykin:
Yes sir.
Mansa Musa:
Right? Now you get out of prison and you got the opportunity to be with your children.
What was that like? When you got out, and now not only do you got the opportunity to be with them, but now in your mind, what?
Ernest Boykin:
When I got home and saw my kids for the first time without having a CO or a window, a partition or some chains on or something, that was a magical feeling. It was great.
They all hugged me and they didn’t want to let go, every last one of them. I mean, when I got home, my kids was grown, most of them. Well, not most of them, they were older teenagers.
Mansa Musa:
Right, right, right.
Ernest Boykin:
I had one that was 20. And he hugged me probably for 10 minutes before letting go, crying like a baby.
Then I had my baby boy at the time, he tried to slide $30 in my pocket. He said, “Hey Dad, I was cutting grass because I wanted you to have some money in your pocket when you came home.”
Mansa Musa:
Yeah, yeah.
Ernest Boykin:
And that really touched me. Then my other son, he fired up the grill. And he was cooking some hot dogs and burgers on the grill for me. So I really felt great in that moment.
My daughter, I was just shocked to see how mature she had gotten. I felt like she didn’t have enough clothes on, and I tried to say something to her about it. I just wasn’t ready.
Mansa Musa:
Yeah. Right, right.
Ernest Boykin:
She was not the little girl that I left.
Mansa Musa:
Right.
Ernest Boykin:
And just to let you know, my first day was magical. But every day after that was very hard, because I had expected the kids to be one way and feel one way about me coming home. And the kids that had expected me to be another way, and they thought that I owed them something.
I was like, “Hey man, you guys, don’t you remember everything I’ve done for y’all? And don’t you remember when Dad was home, we had good times? And there are going to be good times again.”
And it had been so long that they really had forgotten the stability that a father brings to their family and their household. So they were really not trusting. They were really damaged.
Mansa Musa:
That’s the part that this prison industrial complex plays on. Like you say, it’s designed to create an atmosphere in the families that there’s no trust. It’s designed to create a thing where there’s no unity. It’s designed to create a situation where there’s no respect.
So if I’m getting visits, I’m taking care of my children and I’m trying to do things with my child over the phone and in the Visitors Room. But once I get out, because I didn’t have the opportunity to do that, or they didn’t create a mechanism within the prison industrial complex for me to have that kind of opportunity and access. Now, like you say, when you get out, it’s an expectation on everybody’s part.
But looking forward, because you said that it’s a struggle. And I think all parents coming out of the system are confronted with the [inaudible 00:22:16].
A friend of mine, he talking about he’d be struggling with his eldest son. They respect him, but at the same token, he had to be stern with him sometimes to try to get their attention. Like, “Look, I’m your father, no matter what. And I will put hands on you if that’s what it come to.” Right?
Ernest Boykin:
Right.
Mansa Musa:
But that’s the reality. But that don’t change. It’s no love, it’s lots of love there.
But looking now as we get ready to close out, looking ahead and looking where you at right now, what would your children say?
First off, what would your children say if I say, “Your father Ernest, how is your father? What’s your father like? What do you think they would say?
Ernest Boykin:
Oh, they imitate me all the time. They probably think I’m burnt out for real. Honestly, that time would burn you out a little bit, because it’s like I have so many stories from there. I always reference that period of my life when I’m trying to teach them a lesson.
Mansa Musa:
Right, right, right, right.
Ernest Boykin:
It could be anything. It could be like, “Yeah, don’t cut the line. Because if you cut the line in some places, man, some people might go upside the head.”
Mansa Musa:
You feel some kind of way about it, right?
Ernest Boykin:
“They’re not going to like it, and they might try to put the knife in you for that.”
And they be like, “For real dude, for cutting the line?”
And I’m like, “Yeah, it’s that serious.”
Mansa Musa:
Yeah.
Ernest Boykin:
So they probably might say that they definitely respect me. They’ve seen me start over from nothing, and actually build our family back up to better than it was before I went away.
Mansa Musa:
And what would somebody say like, “Man, what’s up with your kids, man?” What would you say about your kids? How would you identify?
Ernest Boykin:
I have great children. They’re very intelligent. They are all handsome and beautiful in my eyes. They’re generous people. They’re stand-up individuals. They don’t condone none of the things that society is making okay.
Mansa Musa:
Yeah, that’s right.
Ernest Boykin:
They’re not on none of that. Right?
Mansa Musa:
Right.
Ernest Boykin:
They definitely understand that people who tell on people ruin people’s lives a lot of times. So they’re living in that culture where now they having to see, “Okay, what’s the difference between people snitching and what’s the difference between people trying to have a nice community?” You know what I’m saying?
Mansa Musa:
Right. I got you. I got you.
Ernest Boykin:
My kids are growing up now, and I don’t try to influence them to do anything other than to be good people and to be financially responsible.
Mansa Musa:
Let me ask you this here as we close out. How can people get in touch with you? And what are some of the things you’re doing now that you think people should be made aware of?
Ernest Boykin:
Yes. Oh, thank you. Well, you can always reach me at straightroutetrucking@gmail.com in reference to trucking, and in reference to just if you wanted to talk to me about justice reform or have me come out and speak or write, because I am an author. I should be publishing a book about re-entry in the end of this summer.
Also, I write for FAMM. I write articles about people who are over-sentenced or wrongfully accused and things like that.
But yeah, you can reach me at ernestboykiniii@gmail.com. That’s E-R-N-E-S-T B-O-Y-K-I-N I-I-I @gmail.com. You can even call me at 202-285-1153.
I really appreciate this opportunity, Mansa Musa. I really love what you guys are doing here. And I love this platform that you’ve built up, because you’re really, really giving a voice to the voiceless. And I’m big on that.
Mansa Musa:
You heard it, there you have it. Real dude Rattling the Bars. This is Ernest Boykin. You would never believe that after hearing this conversation, that this man was one time justice-involved, raised his children to be what he, by his own definition, responsible children, responsible members in society.
In the face of all the problems that our children are being confronted with, his children has risen above. And it’s because of his influence. And we can’t take this lightly.
We implore you to think about this. You can listen to what Ernest say. And it’s millions of other people like Ernest in the criminal injustice system: fathers, mothers that are raising their children from behind the walls and behind the fence.
Whereas you continue to support Rattling the Bars and The Real News. Because guess what? We really are the news.
After more than a decade of persecution, Julian Assange has returned home to Australia a free man. He almost didn’t make it. The FBI and the Pentagon considered every available means—legal and otherwise—to prevent Julian from winning his freedom. Chip Gibbons and Kevin Gosztola return to The Real News to discuss the inside story of Julian’s fight for freedom, and the monsters who tried to crush him.
Studio Production: Cameron Granadino Post-Production: Alina Nehlich
Transcript
The following is a rushed transcript and may contain errors. A proofread version will be made available as soon as possible.
Maximillian Alvarez:
Welcome everyone to the Real News Network Podcast. My name is Maximillian Alvarez, I’m the editor-in-chief here at The Real News, and it’s so great to have you all with us.
Eleanor Goldfield:
And I’m Eleanor Goldfield, a journalist, filmmaker, and the co-host of the Project Censored radio show. And I’m really excited to be teaming up with Max to co-host this very special episode of the Real News Podcast today.
Maximillian Alvarez:
Before we get going today, I want to remind y’all that the Real News is an independent viewer and listener supported grassroots media network. We don’t take corporate cash, we don’t have ads, and we never put our reporting behind paywalls. We have a small but incredible team of folks who are fiercely dedicated to lifting up the voices and stories from the front lines of struggle around the world. But we cannot continue to do this work without your support and we need you to become a supporter of The Real News now. Just head over to therealnews.com/donate and donate today, it really makes a difference. Julian Assange, founder of Wikileaks, founder of WikiLeaks is finally free. On June 24th, Assange left Belmarsh Prison in London, a maximum security prison where he is been incarcerated for over the past five years, awaiting what many expected to be an extradition order to the United States. Assange then boarded a plane and was flown to the island of Saipan, part of the Northern Mariana Islands, a US territory in the Western Pacific. There he was taken to a federal courthouse where he pled guilty to one criminal count of conspiring to obtain and disclose classified US national defense documents in violation of the Espionage Act of 1917. As part of the plea deal, he was sentenced to time served in Belmarsh, and he was released to return home to his native Australia, finally, which he did on Wednesday, June 26th.
Eleanor Goldfield:
So firstly, there’s absolutely no question that Assange’s freedom is thanks to the tireless efforts of his family and tens of thousands of people around the world, including in no small part to our guests today who work to raise awareness and support for Julian. The US government deserves exactly zero thanks for this, much like with the case of Chelsea Manning. It is no evidence of benevolence or justice to free the person whom you wrongfully imprisoned such moments as these are evidence of the power of the people. Let’s take that time to celebrate and recognize this win, a sustaining reminder for the many fights that we have before us. Fights that Julian’s work has bolstered and illuminated. Indeed, Julian’s contributions to our movements are hard to quantify, as one of our guests on this show, Kevin Gosztola covers in his book on Julian called Guilty of Journalism.
There is no issue, be it government corruption, climate change, or the military industrial complex which WikiLeaks has not shed light upon and given us organizers and journalists and indeed citizens vital facts and fuel for both our struggle against oppression and our push to build a better future. At the same time, Julian’s work cannot easily be cast in a left-right paradigm. It’s far more elegant and indeed simple. It’s just about the truth and the right of we the people to know what governments do in our name as journalists, as organizers, as citizens, and really just human beings, we’re excited and relieved to know that Julian is free. And at the same time, we are intensely aware of what this case against Julian, and not least of all the guilty plea, mean for our dwindling access to a free press. Something that our guests will speak more to.
Maximillian Alvarez:
As Chip Gibbons journalist, researcher, and policy director of the nonprofit advocacy organization, Defending Rights in Dissent. And another one of our guests today wrote for Jacobin on June 27th. “There is zero question that Assange going free is cause for celebration. Assange is a journalist who exposed US war crimes. As a result of this work, he has suffered vicious and relentless persecution at the hands of the US government. Yet Assange’s freedom was attained in a bittersweet victory. Until the very end the US government refused to drop its claim that basic journalism can constitute a violation of the Espionage Act. A plea deal does not set a legal precedent, but the steep price extracted from Assange will undeniably have a chilling effect on journalism”. So what effect will the US government’s relentless persecution of Julian Assange and this plea deal have on journalism worldwide, the people who produce it and all of us who depend on it, and what effect will it have on the world we live in and how we live in it?
What effects has it already had? As this bitter, twisted, monumental 14 year saga comes to an end we want to take some time to not only walk through the latest news and the conditions under which Assange finally secured his freedom, but to appreciate what this all means. We need to also reflect on the real substance of the US government’s persecution of Julian Assange on what this case was “about” in the popular mind and what it was actually about and on what our response to all of it or lack thereof these past 14 years says about us, our media and the society we live in.
Eleanor Goldfield:
And to do that, Max and I have brought in two incredible guests who have covered and publicized this case and advocated for Julian’s freedom for years when so few others would. Kevin Gosztola is the author of Guilty of Journalism, the Political Case against Julian Assange and the editor of the Dissenter Newsletter, which regularly covers whistleblowing, press freedom, and government secrecy. He’s one of the few reporters to report on both Chelsea Manning’s Court Martial and the extradition proceedings against Assange. Kevin has also been a frequent guest on the Project Censored Radio Show and indeed Guilty of Journalism comes to you from the Censored press collaboration with seven stories. Chip Gibbons is policy director of Defending Rights and Dissent, where he has advised multiple congressional offices on reforming the Espionage Act. He covered Assange’s extradition for Jacobin Magazine and he is currently working on a book on the history of FBI political surveillance for Verso books. Kevin, Chip, thanks so much for being here.
Kevin Gosztola:
Thank you.
Chip Gibbons:
My pleasure. My pleasure.
Maximillian Alvarez:
Well, gents, it really is an honor to have you both here on a rare occasion when we do have some good news, albeit we will get into the details of how good, how bad this news is. But after this 14 year long saga in which y’all have been fighting so hard, and of course Julian and his family have been fighting relentlessly against the onslaught they faced as Julian was persecuted by the United States government. This is indeed a cause for celebration, a moment to reflect, and we are going to talk about your impressions and larger reflections when we get to the end of this conversation here.
But I wanted to start where we are right now and jump right into the context of the news that people are hearing about over the past couple days and weeks. Now, back in February, Real News viewers watched our on-the-ground coverage from London, where the high court heard the Assange team’s request for permission to appeal his extradition order to the US where he faced 18 charges under the Espionage Act, despite not being a US citizen. So let’s quickly bring folks up to speed on how we got from there to here. Also, like I said, we want to take some time to get your larger takeaway thoughts and reflections at the end of the conversation but for now, tell us about where you were when you heard the news and what was going through your mind at that moment. So Chip, why don’t we start with you then, Kevin, we’ll go right to you.
Chip Gibbons:
Sure. So in February, Julian Assange’s defense team requested nine different grounds for appeal. I believe it was nine. Each of these grounds of appeal are tied to a specific point in UK Extradition Law or European Human Rights Law. But at the heart, what they were arguing was that Julian Assange was a journalist and that it violated who was being persecuted for exposing state criminality. He got the information from Chelsea Manning, a whistleblower, and that this was impermissible to extradite him to the United States. They raised a number of issues from the fact that it would violate his free expression rights to be tried for his journalism, for exposing war crimes, that it would be a political offense. And the UK US Extradition Treaty is very clear, you cannot extradite someone for a political offense. And they also made a number of arguments about the fairness of the trial he would receive, that he might be prejudiced as a result of his nationality, and that he might face the death penalty.
The UK judges heard these nine arguments and they rejected the vast majority of them as grounds for appeal. They found some very limited grounds for appeal. First, the lack of death penalty assurances. Under UK statutory law, you cannot be extradited if you will face the death penalty. Death penalty assurances are routine for the US because most of the world doesn’t share our belief that governments can kill their citizens. So they have to offer those types of assurances if they want to actually extradite people. The other two assurances came from comments that Gordon Kromberg, one of the lead prosecutors in the case made. Kromberg is a notorious figure. He was involved in the Daniel Hale prosecution. He was involved in one of the many attacks on Sami Al-Arian, a Muslim civil rights Palestinian civil rights activist, who has since been deported from this country thanks to the government attacks on him.
And he has a history of making really inflammatory anti-Muslim comments. I believe he’s also a very sort of die-hard Zionist who has a personal blog where he refers to the occupied Palestinian Territories, Judea and Samaria. And he just has a real history of making inflammatory remarks, which have led a lot of people to question why the US government lets him handle sensitive cases. He told the British courts in an affidavit that Assange would have a really fair trial in the US because he could challenge his indictment for violating the First Amendment, for violating the Fifth Amendment, saying the Espionage Act was too vague. And then he came in with, but of course the US government wouldn’t accept these arguments. And he listed, and this is where he made his mistake, he listed all of the areas where they would challenge them. Including that Julian Assange as a foreign national might not be entitled to First Amendment rights, at least with respect to national defense information.
And Julian Assange’s legal team seized on this. And they said, if he can’t rely on the First Amendment, that’s a free expression violation and he would be prejudiced as a result of his nationality. And these two UK judges couldn’t find anything in violation of freedom of expression for prosecuting Julian Assange for exposing war crimes. They said all but three of the charges brought against him had no free expression nexus. That’s of course not true. And of those three that did have free expression nexus, the information wasn’t in the public interest to share. But in spite of that, they said if he can’t have First Amendment rights as a foreigner, he would have his right to free expression violated and he would potentially be prejudiced as a foreign national. But they said he could appeal in those three grounds, death penalty, free expression, prejudice as foreign national, unless the US gave satisfactory assurances.
And the US has been allowed to give assurances in this case before to basically short circuit the legal process in the UK and get rubber stamps. And they literally told the US what to say. So I thought they were going to just rubber stamp this again. But they had a hearing. The defense agreed that Julian Assange, the death penalty assurance was sufficient. But they argued about this assurance the US gave where they said he could seek to rely on the First Amendment, but the US government said only a court could decide what were the scopes of the First Amendment. And that’s true, and they were a bit in a corner with that one. But they also refused to say that Kromberg wouldn’t even raise this argument about being a foreign national.
So it was a really hubristic thumbing of their nose at the British legal system, which from my standpoint of having sat through these hearings and having watched it for five years was ready and willing to rubber stamp the persecution of a journalist for exposing war crimes. But they just thumbed their nose at them over this last assurance. And we’ve learned from the Washington Post that the British lawyers who represent the US didn’t think they could win on this point. And at that point, they agreed to the plea deal in it. And I can talk more about what’s in the plea, but I’ve been talking for a long time and I want to let Kevin get a word in edgewise as they say.
Maximillian Alvarez:
Kevin Gosztola, hop in here, brother.
Kevin Gosztola:
All right. Well, thank you for laying that all out, Chip. I’ll go ahead and share where I was when I heard this news because I had an opportunity to hop on a live stream with Chip after I was informed of this unbelievable development. I must stress that I didn’t exactly think that Julian Assange would be walking out of Belmarsh prison this year or next year or the year after. My imagination or my ability to think that we could create the scenario where he would be a free man did not get to that point yet. And CIA whistleblower, former CIA officer John Kiriakou, gave me a phone call. Usually I call John Kiriakou because of who he was and who he has been, and invite him to come on a show and do a live discussion of developments with an Espionage Act prosecution or something related to government secrecy.
He was calling me and he was very serious. He said, “Have you seen the news?” And I was like, “What?” “It’s all over”. “What’s all over, John?” “Well just look at it, it’s everywhere”. I thought somebody had died, but nobody was dead. And in fact, it was the opposite. Something remarkable had happened, and Julian Assange had been able to break free from the clutches of this US government from, I believe, a security apparatus that would’ve been happy if he had died in prison. And we hopped on and did a quick reaction to it. And then I slowly processed what had taken place. And as I paid attention to the Assange legal team and their reactions, and then as we were treated to the reporting from the Washington Post based on insiders sources, it became clear that this case had collapsed. That in fact, it’s the fault of the US Justice Department that Julian Assange was free.
We created the space, the global movement undoubtedly created a space for plea deal negotiations. But it became clear to me that the reason they were not pushing forward with an extradition, and the reason why they had offered such a favorable plea deal, which we’ll get to those terms, is because they were now fearful of losing. There’s an email that’s referenced in this Washington Post report that says, “The urgency here has now reached a critical point”. This is from a Justice Department trial attorney. “The case will head to appeal and we will lose. It doesn’t get more evident than that. We overcame an unprecedented prosecution against Assange”. And we will get to the fallout, the aftermath.
Eleanor Goldfield:
Yeah, absolutely. Thank you both for contextualizing that. And I want to go even further back, and obviously as the saying goes, you could write a book about this, and, Kevin, you did. So I don’t want to try to force an entire book into this little space, but I want to get to some of the basics of the case. And, Kevin, I think that one of the things, like you and I have discussed before, that feels more shocking. To listeners who aren’t as familiar with the case as you are, is the role of the CIA, and as you pointed out the fault of the Justice Department here in taking up this case, I was wondering if, Kevin, you could talk about this and then Chip also with your expertise, talk a little bit about the basics of the case that was originally brought thanks to the CIA and indeed how that has gotten to us to this point where it did all fall apart.
Kevin Gosztola:
Yeah. And what you’re saying, it’s not some kind of kooky conspiracy theory that we’re making up. We’re not trying to do our own progressive left version of Infowars here. We have a Yahoo news report that was put out by Michael Isikoff, Sean Naylor, and Zach Dorfman that dug into, they had conversations with over 30 people. They were former officials from the Trump Administration. They were people who had a connection to US intelligence, presumably some of them at some point worked in offices at the CIA. Were in a position to know that there were discussions led by former CIA Director Mike Pompeo, where war plans, it’s called War plans, they were sketched out to try and target Julian Assange as part of a pressure campaign while he was living in Ecuador’s London Embassy under political asylum. And he was there from June 2012, I believe, to April 11th, 2019 when he was arrested, expelled.
And the British police put him in a van and took him to Belmarsh Prison. And we learned in this article that they are discussing plans to kidnap, even poison, Julian Assange. And that they were willing to entertain the possibility of a rendition flight, basically, to try and get him outside of the embassy, put him on this plane and bring him to the United States. That created a panic inside the Justice Department. They don’t have indictments ready for Julian Assange, and they’re wondering what charges they’re going to bring exactly against him. And that spurs them to develop an indictment so that he doesn’t arrive on the shores of the US at some point in need of an arraignment hearing, and then the Justice Department would be caught with their pants down and have no indictment against Julian Assange ready to go. This would be an extra judicial act on the part of the United States.
So that’s important as the context for the charges that get issued. Mike Pompeo is a key player in labeling WikiLeaks a non-state hostile intelligence service, signaling that they’re going to try and destroy this media organization. And as I look at it, something that Chip can dig into deeper with his deep knowledge of the FBI is that I believe the CIA was willing to employ co-Intel pro-style tactics against WikiLeaks by turning people against each other. But the charges that get brought up first, we see a sweetening of the media landscape so that people will be malleable to the idea of the Justice Department prosecuting Julian Assange. They come forward with a computer crime charge, and they say that he conspired with Chelsea Manning to crack a password and help her move inside of a military computer anonymously. And then a month later, after everything has been laid so that they can create this narrative that Julian Assange was some sort of a criminal who went beyond being an ordinary journalist, they then reveal the 17 Espionage Act charges. And at that moment, the Press Freedom organizations, the human rights organizations, every single civil liberties’ organization understands they must take this seriously. There’s no applause for the US Justice Department showing restraint. The misguided attitude that some journalists and other players had beforehand, they aren’t using that logic anymore. They’re not justifying the Justice Department’s actions. And so I’ll let Chip continue from there.
Chip Gibbons:
Yeah. And the CIA played an incredibly important role, given that they plotted to kill and rendition him. As someone who is writing a book on the FBI, I want to also remind us that the FBI played a pretty strong role here. We know during the Obama years, they drafted potential charges against Julian Assange and that they argued that unless Julian Assange, this is the intelligence division, unless they charged him, there wouldn’t be a deterrent against this type of activity. And we know at one point, both the FBI and the CIA demanded a meeting with Obama. I’ve filed many FOIA requests with the FBI about WikiLeaks. I’ve gotten the response in the past that there was an ongoing legal process.
There is no longer an ongoing legal process so I’ve refiled that request, and I’ve sued the FBI over FOIA a number of times, and I’m prepared to do so in this case as well. So hopefully we find out what it is they sent over in 2013 to Obama in the charging documents and compare it to what they actually charged him with. I think we’ll find it’s the same case. So Julian Assange is indicted under eventually an 18 count indictment, one count of conspiracy to violate the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act. And then the remaining counts are brought under the Espionage Act. All of the charges are from [inaudible 00:22:56] in 2010 to 2011. Julian Assange and WikiLeaks received information from Chelsea Manning, a heroic…
Chip Gibbons:
… and WikiLeaks received information from Chelsea Manning, a heroic whistleblower about the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, about the creepy criminal backroom dealings at the State Department as well as about the U.S. prison at Guantanamo. This information was newsworthy and they partnered with a number of media outlets, including mainstream ones who threw Julian under the bus as soon as they could, as well as more independent ones. There’s a really fascinating series of articles published between WikiLeaks, The Nation, and I believe it’s HaitiLibre about what the documents show about U.S. interference in Haiti, including that we tried to stop them from raising their minimum wage. You have just everything from U.S. soldiers massacring civilians, and covering up to U.S. interference in the Spanish judiciary process in order to prevent the prosecution of U.S. soldiers for murdering a Spanish photojournalist to just helping, I think Levi, a jeans corporations prevent Haiti from raising their minimum wage.
It’s an incredible document set. For this good act, Chelsea Manning was tortured and received, at that point, the longest sentence in history for giving information to the media. I think it might not have been as long as the Schulte sentence, but that was quite recent and quite complicated. Under the Espionage Act indictment, Julian Assange faces three unprecedented counts of pure publication, that is he posted the information on the WikiLeaks website. He faced four counts, I believe it was, of receiving national defense information. Of course, you can’t publish national defense information if you don’t receive it. He faced a number of aiding and abetting charges where they wanted to impose criminal liability on him for actions that Chelsea Manning took. I believe they actually had more aiding and abetting charges for Manning’s conduct, which was heroic other than Manning actually faced in her court-martial.
I believe she was only charged under 793E at the court-martial, and they… Was it more than? Other than espionage. They put in a whole range of other charges as well. He’s facing liability for what Chelsea Manning did. He’s facing liability for having information and he’s facing liability for publishing it, and there’s also a conspiracy count. In the final part of the prosecution where they take the plea deal, he pleads only guilty to the 793g conspiracy provision, which requires two or more people to plead to have committed other offenses under the Espionage Act. That conspiracy is brought under the conspiracy they allege in the criminal information, which is like an indictment, is that Julian Assange and Chelsea Manning conspired to break the Espionage Act.
Manning broke the provisions under the Espionage Act for giving information to someone unauthorized to receive it. Knowing he would publish it, Julian Assange broke the provision of receiving it. Then, it’s a little bit ambiguous to me as to whether or not they include the final publishing in the criminal information because the charge that Julian Assange faced for pure publication is also one of the aiding and abetting charges that Manning faced. They just list out the parts of the indictment, but they don’t give more information. The criminal conspiracy to violate the Espionage Act is that Chelsea Manning gave information to a journalist about war crimes knowing he would publish it. That journalist accepted the information and he received it. If you look at the statement of facts, and they were laying this case out in the courtroom in February, there’s this theory that WikiLeaks begins the conspiracy essentially by existing since WikiLeaks exists as a website that is willing to publish information at the hearing in February, the prosecutor stressed without the permission of the person who owns the information like, “Yes.” In investigative journalism, you generally don’t get the person’s permission, that they were inciting people to break the Espionage Act.
Believe also in the February hearing, inciting people or soliciting them to break the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act. They also make a deal about the fact that Manning and Assange are in contact to learn to transfer of the documents, and that Assange said to Manning when she said, “I have no more information,” curious eyes never run dry. I would love to take that before a non-Eastern District jury, if that’s what the conspiracy hangs on that very ambiguous line. Kevin, what is Julian Assange guilty of?
Kevin Gosztola:
He’s guilty of journalism. Actually, Chip, if you don’t mind… Also, Max and Eleanor, if you don’t mind me just coloring in some details that I know from the Chelsea Manning court-martial, which I believe are relevant. There was never any attempt by military prosecutors to argue that Julian Assange was part of some conspiracy or that Chelsea Manning was a co-conspirator with Julian Assange during that court-martial. I always thought that was worth raising as we see on the flip side that the Justice Department is accusing Julian Assange of working with Chelsea Manning. There wasn’t really ever this allegation of trying to help her move anonymously through military computers and crack a password. The reason being was because it is known that Chelsea Manning had access to those military databases. It doesn’t actually make sense. The allegation or the narrative in this prosecution never added up.
In fact, a lot of holes were poked in it by a former forensic military examiner. Actually, I think he still works. His name was Patrick Eller, and he was hired by the Assange legal team to give some really crucial testimony going over evidence from Chelsea Manning’s court-martial. It shows that she didn’t need help because her security clearance cleared her to be in these computers. In fact, the discussion about cracking a password, if you look at the record of the court-martial, it had more to do with the fact that soldiers in this particular unit in Baghdad were trying to install movies, music and software on their computers without being detected by their superior officers. That is they wanted to have unauthorized downloads and being able to crack a password on their computer to get through as an admin without somebody knowing was something they were interested in doing, so they didn’t get brought up on some kind of charge of violating the good order and discipline in the U.S. military.
That’s nothing that the Justice Department ever wanted to address or take seriously. I also should remind people that when this trial was unfolding in Chelsea Manning’s case, WikiLeaks did not have this stigma that develops within the U.S. Government and gets more intense past 2016 and 2017. There’s an actual Army counterintelligence document that treats it as a media organization, treats Julian Assange as a staff writer for a foreign media organization, and says that the documents that he has about U.S. military equipment that he’s handling with attention to the newsworthiness of the material in that document.
Yochai Benkler does a good job during Chelsea Manning’s court-martial, demonstrating to the judge and Chelsea Manning’s court-martial, Colonel Denise Lind, that, in fact, WikiLeaks is performing a role that is no different from the New York Times. We know that that becomes a reality for the Justice Department because all of the reporting from that time proves and indicates that the Justice Department was not comfortable going forward with charges against Julian Assange because it would endanger the editors and the publishers and reporters at these organizers that had partnered with WikiLeaks like the Guardian, Der Spiegel in Germany, El Pais in Spain, Le Monde in France and so on.
Chip Gibbons:
The conspiracy is incredibly weak that they were arguing. I sat in the courtroom in February and very few words were made about the password hash, which is weak on a technical level, but in terms of a legal one, it’s the strongest part of the government’s case because that type of conduct does not have a clear First Amendment protection that you can make it the way the other ones do. So much of it was just WikiLeaks exist and therefore, they’re liable for other people breaking the Espionage Act. I actually think the CFAA too. In the second superseding indictment, the third indictment they bring against them, they expand the narrative against them. There’s a whole section of overt acts that’s not clear if they’re under the Espionage Act or the CFAA or both. The overt acts are going on Democracy now to talk about Edward Snowden, which I hope is not a felony, giving talks, extolling the virtue of whistleblowing, which I hope is not a felony.
They label it continued attempts to recruit systems administrators that by Julian Assange, by talking about the importance of sources in journalism as well as saying if people have classified information, WikiLeaks will publish it. He did say that, that he is recruiting people and at this whole theory of recruitment and solicitation in the government’s indictment in the government’s theory. Apologist for the government’s case like to hone in on the password hashing. They like to hone in on some of the later stuff about LulzSec that’s in the third indictment. The password hashing came up in the court, but none of the other stuff did. It always was they have a website that says they will publish secret information and therefore, they are soliciting people to hack and steal national defense information. That’s really very dangerous.
Maximillian Alvarez:
Well, I want to talk about a point that you all both raised, which is how the rest of the media contributed to making this narrative hold some water. In fact, the complicity of so many other media outlets, either in their complicit silence and refusal to talk about this or in their outright complicity in painting Julian Assange as somehow not a journalist in WikiLeaks as something other than a resource for journalistic material, trying to isolate and make Assange doing everything in their power, of course, to try to isolate Julian Assange and make this case make sense within those conditions. Now, I know you all have talked about this in past interviews, but I definitely think it bears revisiting and wanted to ask you all if we could just talk a bit about the role of the media and the public response to this, right? Because this case is 14 years old.
Fourteen years ago, I was working as a temp in a warehouse in Southern California in the Great Recession. I had no idea what the hell was happening with this. I fully admit that like so many others in the country for many years, I just felt like it was too big to wrap my head around. I also admit that the reports I would see from trusted media sources that painted this case as something that was too opaque, too heavily concerned with national security for me to have any worthwhile opinion on, I stepped back and had none on it. I wanted to ask you all if you could just say a bit about the role that the consent manufacturing apparatus played, including by outlets that would go on to win journalistic awards for using the content of the WikiLeaks.
Kevin Gosztola:
Yeah. We have to highlight the New York Times. We have to highlight the New York Times in particular, because they play a role in stigmatizing Julian Assange. They play a role in giving everyone a language for demonizing him. It’s executive editor Bill Keller who gives us this depiction of Julian Assange as a kind of bag lady who’s stinky and he doesn’t change his socks, and they promote that hacker stereotype as much as they can to create this image of an unreliable media partner. They go above and beyond to emphasize on and on that he is not an equal to the New York Times, that WikiLeaks and the New York Times are on a different level. They say that Julian Assange is a source, which is not true. Because to me, working in this space as long as I have, and I cover this for 14 to 15 years, my understanding of journalism is that the source is the originator of the documents.
The originator of the documents is Chelsea Manning. If Chelsea Manning had gone directly to the New York Times, in fact, she actually tried to do that. But if Chelsea Manning had handed over these documents to the New York Times, then that would be a source and a journalist relationship. Julian Assange is functioning as a publisher and editor of this new kind of media organization that wants to create a clearinghouse for government documents from governments all over the world. The New York Times is basically thumbing their nose at Julian Assange and refusing to be an equal. That creates an incredibly contentious relationship. We even see later that the New York Times goes behind the back, convinces the Guardian to pass along U.S. diplomatic cables that WikiLeaks is no longer willing to share with the New York Times because they don’t trust the New York Times. Part of the problem is that the New York Times holds this position in the media ecosystem of reviewing their national security and military stories with the U.S. Government sharing what they’re about to do.
WikiLeaks doesn’t believe that that’s how you should act if you are engaged in investigative journalism, if you are serious about this kind of reporting. There’s more to say about this back history, and I’m certain that Chip will get into it and color some more context. The other point that I want to raise before I give the floor back, before I share the floor with Chip here is to say that someone like Charlie Savage at the New York Times who contextualized what this president means, he was very clear that this was a chilling precedent for the press that Julian Assange had pled guilty, that the Justice Department was able to secure a plea deal. He mentioned that this would now be a deterrent for reporters and media organizations that were thinking about publishing stories in the national security arena about intelligence agencies and about the U.S. military.
The problem with that is, Charlie, you work for the New York Times. The New York Times withheld stories about Bush warrantless wiretapping in 2004. James Risen, very famously well-known case of this media malpractice tries to get this out before President George W. Bush’s reelection, and they don’t want to publish the story. They sit on this evidence of criminality and an abuse of power. Only by saying he’s going to include it in his book, State of War, do they eventually run a story. He shares the byline with Eric Lichtblau.
They reveal this. It’s a major, major scoop, but they sit on it. There was no threat of prosecution in that case that I’m aware. Yes, there were Justice Department people and FBI agents that went hunting for sources. In fact, it’s argued that NSA whistleblower, Thomas Drake got caught up in that dragnet and trying to find somebody that they could hold responsible. They went after Thomas Tam for challenging the Justice Department’s endorsement of this illegal and unchecked mass surveillance. I just share that to illustrate that what we are experiencing now may not fundamentally change a whole lot. I know we’re going to have a larger discussion about what happens next after Assange, so I’ll give the floor back to Chip.
Chip Gibbons:
Kevin, your memory might be better here than mine, but in 2011, the New York Times published a lengthy insider account of working with Julian Assange that painted him in completely negative terms about what an uneasy relationship it was. I think it’s worth remembering what journalism was like in 2010, which is unfortunately what it’s like in 2024 as well. We had just come out of a period where there was little trust in the corporate media because they had all served as stenographers for the Bush administration. They cheered on the war in Iraq. They didn’t report civilian casualties properly in Afghanistan. They were not willing to speak truth to power, especially in the Iraq war. I think that was really… I was talking to a Italian newspaper reporter the other day, and she mentioned even 20 years after that, she’s in Italy, not in the U.S., people will cite the Iraq war media coverage is why they don’t trust the media.
That has had a huge impact people perceived the media. When WikiLeaks and Julian Assange come on the scene, they’re very courageous. Stefania Maurizi who wrote a fascinating book about her time working with WikiLeaks. She says, “Technology is part of the story, but courage is a huge part of the story.” Just seeing someone who was willing to stand up as a journalist to the U.S. national security state when all of these other people were acting as stenographers was really inspiring. I think they despise Julian Assange for that. Also, the New York Times view of journalism is you parrot what the Pentagon says, whereas Julian Assange’s view of journalism is if wars can be started by lies, peace can be started by truth, sort of the I.F. Stone type perspective of journalism. They don’t recognize that as valid. They don’t recognize, “If you believe journalism can be used to speak the truth, to challenge injustice.” They don’t view that as journalism.
I think that’s a huge part of the story here. As a result, these media outlets were willing to throw Julian under the bus. I do think part of the reason why they came for Julian Assange and not for the New York Times and not for the Guardian, is because Julian Assange had that vision. WikiLeaks was challenging military policy. They were challenging U.S. foreign policy, what you might call imperialism and empire. I believe that’s why the U.S. Government came for them. Yeah. He’s challenging U.S. military policy, challenging U.S. foreign policy, where so many people in the corporate media view themselves in partnership with U.S. national security state. Sometimes they expose them in ways they don’t want to be exposed, but they don’t view themselves as on different teams.
Kevin Gosztola:
Well, is it okay if I just put an exclamation point on that? Because I think that’s such an important point to make. Because oftentimes, it’s been a criticism of Julian Assange that he didn’t do enough to recognize U.S. politics. Maybe he didn’t do enough to boost Hillary Clinton or understand that Democrats are the bulwark and they’re supposed to be able to fend off Republicans and you’re not supposed to take certain positions. He’s outside of the United States. He doesn’t understand US politics first and foremost, I don’t think, but he also is someone who is on the outside experiencing this oppression against him and WikiLeaks that is being carried out by both of these political parties.
Navigating it is a little bit like what people feel every day who don’t have a leader in any of these parties. More importantly, it is that fact that he’s willing to challenge U.S. empire and challenge the American Empire Project, if you will. I do see him as somebody who’s carrying on the kind of work that we’ve seen, the scholarly work that we’ve seen from people like Noam Chomsky, Chalmers Johnson, Greg Grandin, Andrew Bacevich, and so on, and that his work is hard to swallow for these media people and for the U.S. Government for that matter, because he’s not controllable, and so…
Kevin Gosztola:
… because he is not controllable, and so that is the fear. I mean, the reason I think that this indictment, these charges had to be generated against Julian Assange is primarily because they knew that when they go to him to negotiate, he does not share their interests. So when you go to a New York Times editor or you go to a New York Times publisher and you say, “Well, we’re trying to do this, we want to counter Chinese influence in the Asia-Pacific region, so we need you to hold this back,” I don’t think Julian Assange is going to go along with that.
He’s going to make the case that what he has is in the public interest, and we need to expose the way in which the US is abusing foreign policy to justify human rights abuses, to justify the expansions of wars, that justify the destabilization of countries around the world. And you can’t tell him, “Oh, we’re engaged with great power competition, we’re engaged with trying to maintain US influence around the globe,” and have Julian Assange and WikiLeaks sit on a whole set of documents, and not include them in their complete archive.
Eleanor Goldfield:
Yeah, absolutely. And I think, I mean, what you’re both speaking to is the tagline of WikiLeaks, which is, “We open governments,” and that’s not about whether the Democrats are doing this or whether the Republicans… It is, as I said earlier, it’s about the truth, and it is that elegant and that simple. But of course, since it is that, there has to be some kind of character assassination. And we saw this with Snowden too, like, well, and Lee Camp, the activist comedian has a joke about this, about how when Snowden came forward with his findings, it was basically like, “Oh, we have to scramble.” Like, “Oh, he didn’t graduate from college, right?”
And Lee Camp’s joke is like, “If your house is on fire and some dude walks by and says, ‘Hey, your house is on fire,’ are you going to react or are you going to turn to him and be like, ‘Hold on, did you not graduate college?’” Like, no, the point is over here that your house is on fire. And so the character assassination machine has to get rolling, because Assange and WikiLeaks have such a simple, and focused, and indeed elegant goal.
And I’d also like to point out that this is why critical media literacy is so important, so that you can read between the lines and see, “I don’t actually care whether Julian Assange showers regularly, like, what does this have to do with what WikiLeaks is doing, and why are they trying to highlight this? What are they trying to hide and shift my attention away from?” And of course, at Project Censored, one of the things that we really focus on is this critical media literacy, to understand how we’re being propagandized and lied to every single day by the very same outlets that threw Assange under the bus. And I mean, we could talk about this for the next several hours, but I want to get to what we’ve kind of been discussing a little bit, which is this plea deal, and y’all’s feelings on this plea deal, the good, the bad, and the ugly, as it were?
Chip Gibbons:
Can I just respond to something you said about sort of the character assassinations or changing the story to the whistleblower or the journalist thing? One of the most famous whistleblowers in US history is Deep Throat. He is the person who gave information to two Washington Post reporters that brought down the Nixon administration. Who was Deep Throat? Deep Throat was Mark Felt, the one of only two FBI agents to be criminally prosecuted for the counterintelligence programs. Between being prosecuted, which is, I believe, his defense was funded up by Nixon, and Reagan pardoned him. He was the massive campaigner for reviving the Hoover-like programs for defending them, including defending the illegal acts.
He had no concern, he participated in black bag jobs. Richard Nixon actually testifies in his defense, which is free legal break-ins, said, “Oh, actually, legal break-ins are normal in the executive branch.” Of course, Nixon would know that. His concern was not with democracy, it was with Nixon passed him up for a promotion he wanted to take over for Hoover. No one says, “Let’s throw out the Watergate reporting because Mark Felt is unlike Snowden, unlike Manning, unlike Assange, actually a really bad guy, who actually had done harm to our democracy.” But we don’t ever say that, nor should we. It doesn’t change that the Watergate reporting was correct.
Kevin Gosztola:
I’ll go ahead and jump in on the plea deal, and then Chip, you can go ahead and add to… What’s been on my mind, so one of the things that’s been out there in the ether about this plea deal is that it is a win for US intelligence agencies, and I have serious doubts about whether this is a victory. I think that it’s been spun that way by figures like former Director of National Intelligence, James Clapper, because they don’t want to admit that it failed.
I don’t think the end goal of prosecuting, putting all this time, energy, and resources tarnishing the US image that they wanted this to end in a plea deal, where Julian Assange was never put on trial. I do believe that the security agents, the intelligence agencies, military officials even who were offended by seeing their information published, certainly people at the State Department, because believe it or not, the State Department spokespeople were more aggressive in the last months in defending Julian Assange’s prosecution than the Justice Department itself, that I don’t think that they wanted to just see Julian Assange hop on a plane and fly home to Australia.
Okay, he made a pit stop in a US territory, but fly home to Australia, and be welcomed like it was a homecoming parade that he was given. There was jubilation from the Australian people. He got a phone call from Australian Prime Minister, Anthony Albanese, basically saying, “Welcome back to Australia,” it sounds like. So I don’t believe this was the outcome that they were hopeful for. I think this is the spin to cover up the fact that the Justice Department botched this case and failed to secure Julian Assange’s extradition to the United States. The other point that I believe is that this isn’t as much of a chilling precedent for free press, the plea deal is not. I think it’s an unmitigated victory for freedom of the press, freeing a journalist and ensuring that they don’t slowly continue to die in prison and to ensure that they survive.
Freeing a journalist from this persecution is always a victory for freedom of the press, whether we’re talking about it being an attack by China, Russia, Iran, the Israeli government, Turkey, you go down the list of offenders, India, Pakistan. Freeing somebody who is going through this kind of ordeal is always a victory, no matter what kind of chill, shock waves are being sent through the profession. But what’s the chilling precedent is the fact that the US government ever thought that it was okay to bring charges against Julian Assange, who is an Australian citizen, not a US citizen, somebody who is a foreign national, who the US Justice Department decided they should extraterritorially apply the Espionage Act to Julian Assange, even though he had never held a security clearance, he never signed a nondisclosure agreement, like any of the other whistleblowers who have been unjustly punished.
He had no allegiance to the United States that he was supposed to file the loyalty that he had to show to the United States, he never pledged to protect state secrets. So he was free, like any journalist or reporter, to do with the information whatever he pleased. Now, there might be ethical questions, there could be ethical considerations. We can have discussions about how media organizations handle material that they receive, but that’s not the law. Irresponsibly handling information does not mean that you’re now a criminal and you should be prosecuted by a government on that. We should all agree.
Chip Gibbons:
It’s really hard for me to figure out what the US government thought the end game was here. Part of me agrees with Kevin that they didn’t want a plea deal, and we saw in the Washington Post a story that there were people within the Justice Department who absolutely want to drop this case, and they were being stifled to doing so from higher-ups. Obviously, those types of leaks are self-serving. I do think in some ways, though, the indictment is such an egregious act of charge stacking that it’s difficult to not read it as an example of an attempt to coerce a plea deal. Most of these Espionage Act cases do end in pleas because of this. I’m not going to go through all 18 counts, but let me just, with the counts from the State Department cables, just to illustrate how this is charge stacking.
First, we have a charge that Chelsea Manning obtained the documents in violation of the Espionage Act and Assange is guilty under an aiding and abetting theory. Then, we have that Chelsea Manning had lawful possession of the State Department cables, and she unlawfully communicated them to Julian Assange, and Assange is guilty of this under an aiding and abetting theory. Then, we have Chelsea Manning, who in the previous count, just had lawful possession, now she has unauthorized possession of the same document set, and unlawfully communicated them to Julian Assange.
Then, we had Julian Assange receive the documents, and then we had Julian Assange publish them. These are just the counts from the State Department documents. We could go through this with the Iraq rules of engagement, the detainee assessment briefs, the significant activity reports, and everyone will be falling asleep, because this is pretty dry. So I do think, I too, I am stunned that they turned this into an 18-count indictment, especially when the final plea agreement, 793(g), encompasses almost all of this conduct, right?
The conspiracy between Chelsea, alleged conspiracy between Chelsea Manning and Julian Assange, is just the rest of the indictment charges, and they hit him with the conspiracy charge and all these other charges. So I do think this was an abusive indictment to escalate the potential sentence. I think one theory for that would be to try to coerce a plea deal. I think one theory could be to try to game the sentencing, and I also think that there’s also a potential of a split jury verdict, because the aiding and abetting charges would be about what standard you hold Chelsea Manning to. It’s an open question, what the government has to prove to convict someone who’s not a government employee.
And on top of that, there is case law about the First Amendment, that when you have a pure speech issue, you have to prove a very high level of intent that has never been applied to these Espionage Act cases, because the government said there isn’t pure speech. But there’s three charges that I think the government could not get out of arguing for pure speech. And if you look at what the UK judges said, I mean, these are the three charges that they ruled undeniably had a free speech nexus, and I just decided the documents weren’t that interesting, and we don’t have that kind of balancing test. So you could have a real disaster if you took this to a jury. Of course, they were in the Eastern District, which is very stacked.
And so I don’t know, part of me thinks there are people in the FBI and the CIA who would’ve taken this to the very end, and part of me thinks there are… But I think there are also people in the political part of the Justice Department who wanted an exit ramp. I think the plea deal, I think the stacked nature of the charges could also be explained by the vindictiveness of the FBI and the CIA, or it could be this sort of standard practice in the US justice system of stacking charges against people to coerce pleas. I will say, I do think there was a schism between the career intelligence officials and the FBI, the career intelligence officials or career national security officials, and the Department of Justice National Security Division, the CIA, although they may be their own third block, since they were more interested in illegal activities than the prosecution, and sort of the more career- or the political-minded people, political appointees who just don’t want to touch this.
So what is the impact of this indictment? Kevin is 100% right in his assessment. The plea deal sets no legal precedent and the precedent that was set, the political precedent, the chilling precedent was set by the fact that the government brought this case in the first place, that they pursued it for five years, including appealing adverse rulings in the UK system. Remember, originally, a judge in the UK rejected the free expression arguments, but blocked the extradition based on the US prison conditions, which would’ve allowed the US to walk away but still claim a victory with the Espionage Act. And not just the five years in Belmarsh, but the seven years he spent in an embassy that a United Nations working groups said was arbitrary detention, the fact that a UN special [inaudible 00:59:56] said he was tortured.
I mean, you look at Julian Assange’s ordeal, and I don’t think anyone is eager to repeat it, any aspect of it. Yes, Kevin is shaking his head. Yeah, so I think the precedent was set by bringing the indictment, I think the precedent was set by punishment by process, and I think the precedent was set by 14 years of extralegal, extrajudicial warfare on Assange and WikiLeaks, and that precedent is very scary.
Kevin Gosztola:
Yeah, and I just want to quickly add specifically from the plea deal that Julian Assange’s legal team did an excellent job of winning him some inclusion of items that sweetened him pleading guilty to this felony charge, and I don’t actually presume that it’s going to make too much difference to his life in Australia. He was able to get a pledge in writing or a commitment in writing that there will be no criminal cases brought by the Justice Department, that they will not try to extradite him from Australia for the publication of any other documents that he obtained and published prior to the plea deal negotiations.
So he can never be prosecuted for publishing CIA hacking materials that were really the source of Mike Pompeo deciding that he needed to act out his revenge against WikiLeaks. Julian Assange will never receive an indictment for anything related to the Clinton campaign or DNC emails that were published in 2016, but of course, we already know that there weren’t really charges to bring, and there were First Amendment issues with indicting Julian Assange, because that’s what special counsel Robert Mueller determined during the course of his investigation.
And there’s no gag order, he can talk about his case openly. There’s nothing that he has to follow. There’s no restrictions, there’s no supervisory release in Australia, and he’s free to go back and be editor-in-chief or work in some capacity, helping WikiLeaks rebuild itself now that he is free from prison, which I think is another reason I believe the US national security state would be unhappy with Julian Assange walking free, because now, there’s more likelihood than ever that we’ll see a resurgence from WikiLeaks, that they will try to publish once again. And I’ll say this, that it’s my conviction, I believe this to be true, that the US government is not just upset about Julian Assange and the information that was published in 2010 and 2011. They don’t just want to destroy WikiLeaks and stop it from operating because of the documents that we have discussed briefly in this conversation today, but they are fearful of the next leak.
They are fearful of some kind of an organization that has such a high profile to convince and inspire whistleblowers around the world to pass along documents. And they have a long way to go to prove that people could securely submit documents and not have them intercepted by agents, and that people in the different security apparatuses throughout the world wouldn’t be able to find out those whistleblowers’ identities. They have work to do to prove that they are a credible place that you could turn to. And they also have competition. There are over 75 media organizations that now have secure submission systems. So they’re no longer the novelty that they were back in 2007, 2006, 2007, when WikiLeaks first came on the scene. But that being said, I think they will try to return, with or without Julian Assange, because they don’t want the United States to have the final say in whether WikiLeaks can operate and be a participant in journalism.
And we spoke about the media earlier. We spoke about the way that journalists have reacted to WikiLeaks, and Julian Assange, and just, I know we’ve been talking for a while, we’re probably going to start winding down, I’m kind of weaving in some of my larger takeaways before you put that question to me. But the thing that I think most of all is that journalists in the US prestige media were always reticent and afraid of showing too much solidarity for Julian Assange, too much solidarity for what WikiLeaks was going through, and that’s because they themselves don’t like what he did. He embarrassed them and the whole institution of journalism that they’re a part, they showed how much they rarely actually exercise their freedom of the press.
So here’s Julian Assange practicing freedom of the press to the fullest, being guilty of journalism, and here they are, actually limiting the kind of impact that they could have to effect change, to protect and preserve human rights, to ensure that there is wider democracy. So that’s how you see these frivolous debates that we were pulled into, that actually fed into the US Justice Department and their prosecution by saying things like, “Julian Assange is not a journalist,” or that it doesn’t matter whether you think Julian Assange is a journalist or not, it just matters that the First Amendment protects the acts of journalism.
But I insist and will forever insist that it was crucial to grapple over this and argue with people over this, because the Justice Department was trying to and successfully stigmatized Julian Assange as not being a journalist, so that they could persuade us that this Espionage Act prosecution was an exception to the rule. Part of getting the wheels going on this was to say, “Oh, don’t worry. We’re just going to prosecute him with the Espionage Act. It won’t be other reporters, it won’t be other journalists on down the line.”
And we fed into that. Anybody who ever allowed and ceded ground to the Justice Department by saying, “Yeah, okay, it doesn’t matter if you think he’s a journalist or not,” I feel like it made it easier for the Justice Department to continue on with their case. And so that’s why I was always frustrated with organizations like Committee to Protect Journalists that wouldn’t include him in their jailed journalist index, not because I’m opposed to the Committee to Protect Journalists, but because I really wanted to struggle with them over this.
And I was pleased that the Reporters Without Borders organization, Rebecca Vincent did some tremendous work for them as their International Campaigns Director, to observe the extradition proceedings. I was pleased that he was included in their list of detained journalists annually. I was upset and frustrated that Amnesty International wouldn’t classify Julian Assange as a prisoner of conscience. I felt that there were more things that organizations and media organizations could do, but I think that the reason why they were always reluctant to go as far as they should was because they were afraid to show this solidarity.
Chip Gibbons:
I’m fairly certain Defending Rights & Dissent, the organization I work for, was the only press freedom organization that was consistent in calling Julian Assange a journalist as well as a political prisoner. I’ve been in the meetings on the Hill with the big press freedom groups, and they would all go around in a circle and say, “We don’t think he’s a journalist,” or, “It doesn’t matter if he is or isn’t a journalist.” I would always say, when I was in public appearances, from a First Amendment standpoint, it doesn’t matter if he is or isn’t a journalist, but I think he’s a great journalist, which I do.
Maximillian Alvarez:
Well, and on top of that, just to throw in one additional critical media literacy layer here, is that it didn’t even have to go that far for so many of us. What we also got trapped in was this discussion of whether or not you like Julian Assange as a person, and what you think of his character, or what you’re told about his character, as if that supersedes our basic civil and human rights, that rights are rights, unless the guy’s an asshole, right? Then, suddenly, we can just throw our human rights out the window, and if we’re already engaging in that kind of discussion, we have already lost. And I think that that is one of many kind of takeaway lessons that we should really beat into our brains, moving forward, for all of us, so that I’m not asking everyone listening to this to whip yourselves for not being the best Assange advocate, but I am asking you to do better moving forward, and to learn.
Maximillian Alvarez:
But I am asking you to do better moving forward and to learn from this as we are all trying our best to do. And we owe so much to the work of folks like Chip and Kevin to showing us what was kept from us and what we in fact also obscured ourselves in the ways that we would participate in these discussions over these past 14 years. And gents with that, I wanted to kind of round out because we’ve kept you for a long time, and Eleanor and I could talk to you about this for eight more hours, but we know that we got to wrap things up and let y’all go. And so we don’t know exactly what comes next for Julian Assange and WikiLeaks as y’all said, but of course, from here at The Real News, from Project Censored, from all of us, more than anything, we just hope that he and his family find some peace and healing after this incredibly hellacious ordeal.
But I wanted to ask you guys what comes next for you both and also what your reflections are after this saga has come to an end that frankly none of us expected even a couple months and weeks ago. And I’ll pose it to Chip and Kevin by way of a final thought here and what I’m trying to reflect on. Because one thing that I think is still very much an open question is, it’s not just that so many of us regular working people, citizens of the world, people who consume some news, who care to a reasonable degree but are also dealing with our own lives, your average person, I think that so many of us had different reasons for not engaging with this case. We have a lot of excuses, but a lot of really legitimate reasons. People are dealing, like I said, with their lives, they’re struggling to get by, they’re caring about their kids. There are other stories that may be they’re really concerned about and our brains only have so much room.
But I think that there’s a much larger problem here about our political and intellectual attention spans in the digital age. Because for as frustrated as I know you all have been, and Eleanor, I include you in this as well as someone who’s been covering this for a lot longer than I have, the lack of care from the public has been a constant source of frustration for you all as people who have cared so deeply about this and have understood the consequences and the weight of this case in a way that the rest of us, frankly, didn’t.
But what I’m also wrestling with is that that’s the case for practically any story that we cover. I mean, people forgot about Ukraine four months after that war started. And I was standing in East Palestinian, Ohio a couple months ago where that train derailed and where the citizens of that town have just been left to flounder in this toxic hell, and they feel just as forgotten as a Julian Assange would. And I stood there in that town and I told them, as someone who interviews other working people around the country, it’s not that folks have forgotten about you, it’s that they all feel as forgotten as you do. And so what do we do with that?
How do we build enough sustained attention, let alone political commitment to win a strike, free a journalist who’s being persecuted by the largest imperial power in the world, stop a genocide happening in our name across the country? A big part of that is how much we ourselves in this mediad environment can stay focused and stay committed. And I don’t think that’s all a personal failing. I think it’s like our brains don’t know how to adjust to this world that we’re in, and that’s a real political liability for any of us who want to build something, let alone fight for something that’s going to take a long time to build.
So that’s my final thought. Chip, Kevin, I wanted to toss it to you and ask what your kind of big takeaway reflections are here. And also, please do take a bow for your incredible fucking work and tell us what you are doing next and where folks can find you. And then Eleanor, I’ll let you close it out with your final thoughts.
Kevin Gosztola:
Go ahead, Chip. You can go first.
Chip Gibbons:
Okay. So I will say this. A lot of people will ask me, was any of this worth it? Do people care about the revelations that Manning gave and that Assange published? Do people care about the truth or publishing the sort of information? And my response to them is always, the governments of the world are incredibly invested in silencing the truth. They spent 14 years trying to destroy WikiLeaks, trying to break Julian Assange, trying to send a message to future journalists. In Israel right now where there’s a genocide in Gaza, we see them assassinating journalists, we see them shutting down Al Jazeera. We see in the US the Congress wants to, they always want to ban TikTok, but now they want to ban TikTok because they blame it for people getting full information about Gaza. So the governments of the world are incredibly invested and will go to extraordinary lengths to silence and suppress the truth. So we should not be cynical about the importance of this work, about the power of the truth, because the governments aren’t., The US government isn’t. The Israeli government isn’t.
Where I’m going next, you can find me as a journalist on Twitter at ChipGibbons89. The organization I work for is Defending Rights and Dissent rightsanddissent.org. They are one of the only organizations who have consistently struck the right tone on this case over 14 years. We were the ones who were the first group to go on the Hill and talk to members of Congress. I was involved in setting up those meetings, including bringing Jeremy Corbyn to talk to American members of Congress, I guess I’m still not supposed to name who they were. But we did a lot behind the scenes on this case. I did a lot of journalism. So please visit us at rightsanddissent.org.
Where we’re going next. I mean, I think a couple things we have to think of next. First, the Espionage Act is still on the books. Julian Assange has said that he thinks his actions are protected by the First Amendment, and he thinks they violate the letter of the Espionage Act. He’s 100% correct. And now is the time for us to strike at the Espionage Act to make sure we don’t have a law on the book that criminalizes First Amendment protected activity when journalists reasonably rely on the First Amendment every day to do things the Espionage Act says is unlawful. And the Espionage Act doesn’t just apply to journalists, it doesn’t just apply to whistleblowers, it applies to anyone who reads the newspaper and talks about the story that they’ve just read.
On top of that, I will say, we are back in the landscape that WikiLeaks emerged in, in that we have a government that is lying to us about a war, in this case, a genocide and we have a media that is parroting those lies. If ever there was a time that called out for a Dan Ellsberg or a Chelsea Manning or a Julian Assange, it is this time right now where we have a genocide being perpetuated based on lies. And I think it’s really important for us to stand up for those who are telling the truth about Gaza, to stand up for the journalists who are being assassinated, for the public officials who are resigning. And I don’t quite know what solidarity looks like in this exact moment, I’m still figuring it out. But I do know that working with the Gaza, the truth tellers, to uplift them and support them and show my solidarity with them along with going after the Espionage Act are going to be a huge role of where I’m going next because there is a collateral murder happening every day in Gaza.
Kevin Gosztola:
Like Chip says, there’s a lot of work that still has to be done. And I should just mention that, Chip, you’ve done some incredible work on the Hill to advance Espionage Act reform. And that’s a crucial going forward that that’s the next thing in my mind after following this case, you just paraphrased Julian Assange. But everyone around the world, outside of the United States, but global, we’re talking about this mostly in a domestic context, but all around the world, it’s now been clear that if you are an international reporter or a correspondent for a news media organization, especially if you’re reporting on wars or foreign policy of your country and there’s some United States involvement and you obtain primary source material about what is happening, you could be at risk. It just depends on if you’re in a location where the US could get its hands on you, if there’s a government that would be willing to open you up to this prosecution. If you’re in some limbo, if you end up trying to claim asylum and then there’s a pressure campaign and you get forced out and then detained. I believe that that should really alarm many who have not considered this fully up until this point about how unsafe the US government has been making the free press or freedom of the press around the world.
And so on these things like Espionage Act reform, we must probably engage. I think we should all be invested in a reporter’s shield law. We don’t have a national reporter’s shield law here in the United States. The Press Act, this is something that the Freedom of the Press Foundation has been working on very aggressively. It’s available, it’s there sitting in Dick Durbin’s wet paper towel hands. All he has to do is hold a vote on it. And then I don’t know what Joe Biden will do, but he should sign it. And then I also think that we should be following more closely anytime there are national security or police subpoenas or we see that there are things like censorship regimes that are imposed, like what we are seeing as Chip raised the issue of the war on Gaza, Israel, the Israeli government have this incredible censorship regime that they’ve imposed. It’s led to the banning of Al Jazeera. And not to mention the fact that at least 100, 1,020 journalists have been killed by the Israeli military at this point. And that should be a focus of us because of the US’s role in that conflict.
I know that there are other imprisoned people that are political prisoners. There is journalism under attack in places like India and Pakistan that the US is complicit in the way that they’re being mistreated. And so there are journalism cases, there are attacks on freedom of the press that we should support or attend to that they’re not the boutique causes like many of these press freedom organizations hold them up all the time. We’re talking about things that fall under the radar.
I know we need to wrap, so just a personal reflection as we close. Thank you to The Real News and thank you to all of the scrappy independent media organizations out there that ever invited me on their shows to be interviewed and to speak about this. I mean, I’m indebted to you because without having this platform and being able to share this work I don’t know that I would’ve been able to reach so many people. I’m indebted to Project Censored and The Censored Press for giving me the ability to write this book, Guilty of Journalism. This is 14 to 15 years of my life. Now, fortunately, I didn’t spend it in prison or in any form of arbitrary detention. I wasn’t being persecuted. But I mean, this is a long time. It’s a feature of this case. The passage of time was an issue in this extradition case. I just think of all the incredible people I’ve managed to meet. I don’t think I would’ve met Chip or Max or Eleanor. Eleanor and Max, you’re both very supportive of the book, and I have immense gratitude for that. But I’ve met whistleblowers, I’ve met journalists, I’ve met attorneys that I’m sure I never would’ve encountered.
I had the ability to meet Pentagon Papers whistleblower Daniel Ellsberg, and I’ve been so disappointed this past several days that he wasn’t able to live to celebrate this moment. I’m disappointed that another supporter of my work, especially covering Chelsea Manning’s court-martial, human rights attorney Michael Ratner is not alive to celebrate seeing Julian Assange walk free. And since many people are familiar with Ellsberg and maybe less familiar with Michael Ratner, it is worth taking a moment to laud him for what he did at a very dark time in the Assange, WikiLeaks timeline, because there was all of this contempt and derision directed towards Assange saying, oh, he’s just paranoid. He’s talking about how the US government wants to come after and extradite him. He won’t go to Sweden because he says that the US government is going to try to get him in his grips and bring him to the US and prosecute Julian Assange. Well, that’ll never happen. That could never take place.
Michael Ratner would go on news media shows that invited him and very clearly articulate the grounded fears for why Julian Assange needed to be protected and why the Justice Department needed to shut down and close their grand jury investigation and announce very clearly that there would be no charges. So I celebrate him.
And finally, I’m professionally indebted to Chelsea Manning and Julian Assange. I can tell you, I would not be the journalist I am today without them. And much like a war correspondent can get an award for a summary execution and maybe feel a little bit conflicted inside about how they’re being celebrated for capturing that brutality. I’ve been documenting and chronicling both of these cases, and I’ll continue that work with The Dissenter Newsletter at thedissenter.org. I’ll continue to follow whistleblowers, government secrecy and threats against freedom of the press. I’ll cover attacks on journalists, mass surveillance, secrecy, abuses. And do all of this work that should be an extension based upon the understanding, and I’ll end on this, that what we have seen illustrated through Julian Assange’s case is not only that he’s guilty of journalism, but that the war on whistleblowers is a war on journalism. It’s been said by many in this space before, but those individuals are correct that these are not just people who are whistleblowers or leakers, they are media sources. And the Julian Assange case and Chelsea Manning’s case are both clear examples in the past 15 years of the US government waging a concerted attack on investigative journalism.
Maximillian Alvarez:
Well, Kevin Gosztola and Chip Gibbons, again, on behalf of The Real News and all of our audience, let me just say that we are indebted to you. And Eleanor, I wanted to toss it to you to share your final thoughts and round us out.
Eleanor Goldfield:
For sure. So I’m reminded, I worked on a film years ago called Killswitch about Snowden, and it shares a quote from him that one of his biggest fears that nothing will fundamentally change. And that has stuck with me since I worked at that film and since I’ve been doing this work. And I think, I mean not to try and sugarcoat it because I’m not. But the reality is that things have changed. You changed Max, like you pointed out, when this case started you were working in a warehouse and now you are bringing these stories to light. I mean, Kevin, you pointed out that this has been 14 years of your life. Chip, this has changed you and therefore it’s changed the people around you and the orbits in which we organize and share this information.
I think that that quote from Snowden, it means that it is on us to not just personally change, but to change the way that we interact. It’s also changed how I do journalism. I mean, my journalism career started in recording magazines telling people how to mend their cables. I mean, I’ve obviously veered away from that, although I can still help people fix their cables. But I think that it does show the power of these actions by these whistleblowers and by journalists. And again, I agree with both of you who point out Assange is a journalist and it shows the power of truth. It shows the power of journalists doing that incredibly important work that like in Gaza, like Chip pointed out, there’s a reason that these journalists are being targeted because Israel is terrified of the bits of truth that they carry with them.
And so I think it’s really important to highlight that and to highlight that journalists are there, to your point, Max, not just ensure that the folks who feel forgotten are not forgotten, but also to ensure that that support is built around these issues and these stories. And people might say, oh, well, the job of a journalist is to be objective. I say bullshit, there’s no such thing as objectivity. The way you cover something, your angle, it shows who you are and it shows how you feel about a certain topic. And so I think that that’s the really important role that we have as folks who do this kind of work. And also, this shows that people, truth tellers, whistleblowers, have people on their side. And that might feel like a small comfort when you’re being tortured. It might feel like a small comfort when you’re confronting genocide. But I think this is also where we find each other, like Vaclav Havel said, the solidarity of the shaken. I think that that’s so important that we use an opportunity like this to remind each other that we have that and that this is our role. And however that manifests going forward for y’all, for you Max, for me, I think that is a really important lesson to take with us.
Maximillian Alvarez:
Hell yeah. Yeah. Just by final note, I really, really wanted to underscore for our listeners, please support this work however you can. Support Chip’s work, support Defending Rights and Dissent. Support Kevin’s work, buy his book. Support The Dissenter Newsletter. Support Project Censored. Please support The Real News. I mean, I know you can’t support all of them at once, but we need it. And if you want this work to survive, you got to support the folks that are doing it. So please, please do that.
And by way of rounding out, I just wanted to sort of make a quick announcement in that vein because I’m so honored and excited to have this kind of space where I can talk to incredible warriors and journalists like yourselves. And we want to do everything we can to lift up your work and to broaden its reach and to collaborate together. And so yeah, this will not be the last time that y’all hear me and Eleanor on the pod together, or you’ll be hearing more of Eleanor and the great Mickey Huff on The Real News podcast feed because I’m excited to announce that The Real News will be syndicating the Project Censored show, which many of you have probably already listened to on Pacifica Radio. It’s an excellent show. Kevin was just on there a couple weeks ago talking about this case. It’s incredibly mission aligned. It’s smart. The guest that you guys have on our great. We’re really excited to bring it on our podcast feed.
And Real News listeners, if you’re digging this, you’re going to get a lot more great content coming at you from this feed. But please go check out all the great stuff that Project Censored is doing. We’re going to link to everyone’s work and everyone’s website in the show notes for this episode. And of course, we’re going to link to our website, our newsletter, which you can sign up to if you never want to miss a story. And please, please, please donate to The Real News if you want to keep hearing more important coverage and conversations just like this. You can do that by going to TheRealNews.com/donate and become a donor today. We really appreciate it, y’all.
For now, this is Maximillian Alvarez signing off. Take care of yourselves. Take care of each other. Solidarity forever.
One of the most persistent myths about the US prison system is that the system of mass incarceration helps deter and change harmful behavior. Yet according to the federal government’s own statistics, more than 80 percent of formerly incarcerated people will be arrested within a decade after their release. The astronomical rate of recidivism reflects two realities: the prison system targets people for political reasons, and fails to address the roots of social problems. Dominque Conway joins Rattling the Bars to discuss her experience leading prison-based mentorship programs behind bars, and how she and others have used political education as a tool to not only address social problems, but transform people into active agents of change within their communities.
Studio Production: David Hebden, Cameron Granadino Post-Production: Cameron Granadino, David Hebden
Transcript
The following is a rushed transcript and may contain errors. A proofread version will be made available as soon as possible.
Mansa Musa:
Dominque Conway has an extensive history with working with prisoners in the prison industrial complex. Beyond her work she was doing to free her husband, Eddie Conway, who was the creator of Rattling the Bars here at The Real News Network, Dominique was committed, and continued to be committed to educating people, raising their conscience, and having them organize to change the conditions that poor and oppressed people are subjected to. She, along with others, created the program called Friend of a Friend, that was responsible for organizing and raising prisoners’ consciousness. Welcome, Dominique.
Dominque Conway:
Thank you for having me.
Mansa Musa:
Okay, so let’s start here. You have an extensive involvement with the prison industrial complex throughout this country. You’ve been in some FCIs, you’ve been in some detention centers, you’ve been in some county jails. And I met you in the Maryland prison system. What brought you to this space, in terms of finding yourself where you were constantly involved in going to institutions? What got you into that frame of mind to be a part of that? Because that, in and of itself, anybody involved with prisons, and to the extent that you have been committed to, they get burned out quick. It’s not a place where you see a constant change and progress in terms of what’s going on. It’s a lot that goes on, but it’s hard not to get burned out. I Have been in a space where I’ve seen people come and go. But when I look at your tenure in this environment, it’s different. Why?
Dominque Conway:
Well, first of all, I started the work because of my relationship with Eddie. Initially, I was really more interested, obviously in his case, which was to me, the epitome of injustice. But anybody who knew Eddie Conway knows that working with him always involved working with the people. So, from that interest, and wanting to really play a role in getting him out of prison, it led into, okay, let’s do this for the population. Let’s develop this program to engage the population. Part of that, and you know this, a lot of the men who had been in prison for a while, who were older, knew that you needed programming, you needed to engage young people. Without that, a lot of that idle time would just simply lead to violence. So, working with Eddie sparked it, initially, at the House of Corrections in Maryland. We worked with the veterans group there, because you always had to have this group that you worked through.
Through that group, we were able to bring in people who could speak to very specific issues, who could actually, really, do a lot of political education. We couldn’t tell the prison system that’s what we were doing. So everything we did was under the guise of conflict resolution. But, don’t get me wrong, a lot of the men also wanted to do that conflict resolution, and a lot of them were doing it. And not in the way that people may think. But these were men who could intercede in violent situations, and step between two people wielding knives.
I feel like I learned a lot from that, too, just from working with folks inside. It was never a one-way situation, where I was just simply bringing in people who were educating. The people who came in, often talked about how much they got from the experience of going into the prison system, and working with folks. And that just continued to spread throughout the system in Maryland, until, I think, it really became a threat to the administration, because of the fact that we were able to work with people from all walks. Different religions, different street organizations/gangs. Friend of a Friend came out of that programming that started at the House. Friend of a Friend became more of a formalized mentoring program. But Friend of a Friend became big. And at one point, I was working with hundreds of men in the Maryland prison system. And then, we spread into the federal system as well.
Mansa Musa:
Let’s talk about that, so we can educate our audience on exactly what Friend of a Friend. I remember when Eddie came into… I was at JCI when he came to JCI. I hadn’t seen him in a long time. We were up in the library talking, and he told me, he said, “Look, I got this group that we’re getting ready to bring in here.” He ain’t say we getting ready to start. He said, “I got this group. We’re getting ready to bring in here, and I want you to be a part of it.” And I’m telling say, “they ain’t going to let you start no new group.” They had real rigid system of allowance. I said, “It ain’t going to be kind of [inaudible 00:05:31]. Don’t worry about that. Oh, this going to happen. It’s just a matter of when we get to the right people and talk to them.”
And that became Friend of a Friend. And I was given responsibility of helping to coordinate some of the things that was going on. Explain what Friend of a Friend is. And you briefly touched on how it came about, but talk about how it came about and how it morphed into what it ultimately turned out to be really a course that you could teach in college.
Dominque Conway:
So once the Maryland House of Corrections was closed, they dispersed these men to different prisons throughout the system. At that point, we had been there for a few years, working with that vet group. So we went to Department of Public Safety, and we’re like, “We want to continue this work.” Basically, they sent Eddie to Hagerstown, we’re like, we’re following Eddie to Hagerstown. At the time, Mary Ann Saar was the head of public safety. A liberal, but that got us in the door. And that’s what we needed to happen. So we went into the Maryland Correctional training center at Hagerstown. That’s where Eddie was. And Eddie had pulled together men from the population. Very diverse group in terms of who and what they represented. And I met with those men and pretty much asked them, “What do you want to do?” Which was a different approach this time. It’s like, “Okay, what do you want to do?” And they chose a mentoring project.
From there, we developed a curriculum, but we always, always, always, had a very political component to the work, and always did political education. Because one of Eddie’s concerns was trying to… And all of our concern, and I give a lot of credit to Eddie, but the reality is, it was me, it was other men [inaudible 00:07:45] put this together. But the concern was, you have these young men, some of whom have come into the prison system already broken. And it’s a system that just continues to break people.
So we wanted to really send people back out into the community more whole. And so that was a part of it. And I feel like with Friend of a Friend, what we were able to do that we weren’t able to do with the VETS program, is we created this sense of community, a sense of family. People had this feeling that they belonged to something that was bigger than themselves. And even when we were in the Feds, it was like that. Because also we would tell them the story, and the name itself came from a code word that was used on the Underground Railroad, which was kind of our view. It’s like, hey, trying to help people get free.
Mansa Musa:
Right, exactly.
Dominque Conway:
I may not have had a Winchester or whatever Harriet Tubman carried, but we were certainly [inaudible 00:08:48].
Mansa Musa:
Yeah, we had Winchester IDs,
Dominque Conway:
Yeah. Trying to help people get free. And that freedom first came through their minds. So we would tell this story about how that term, Friend of a Friend was used on the Underground Railroad when people were escaping slavery, and they go to a safe house. And they’d ask, “Who sent you? “A Friend of a Friend” and so we were working in that tradition as far as I was concerned, and as far as the men that I worked with were concerned.
Mansa Musa:
You know what, in terms, you made a good point about getting people to change their thinking, and changing their thinking changed their behavior. Ultimately, their behavior will be reflected in what they do, and not only in the environment where we was at, but also in society. Because I remember that when we would come out of a meeting and one of the guys that might be a participant or participating in Friends of a Friend, and he might be talking to somebody, and it might be a conflict. The person he’s talking to is getting ready to go do something to somebody. And the guy would come and say, this happened one time, the guy come to us, me and Eddie was staying there.
He said, “Yeah, I’m just talking to him. And he got this problem.” He getting ready to go do X, Y, Z. Eddie said, “Well, what did you do? Did you talk him out? What did you do [inaudible 00:10:13]? What did you tell him?” He said, “Well, I told him I’m going to catch up with him when we get back on the tier.” So Eddie said, “No, well go get him now and try to de-escalate what was going on.” But my point is the fact that Friends of a Friend’s allowed for us to be able to have that kind of relationship with the population, that when you was in Friends of a Friend’s, you felt like you had to be involved in the population to the extent that conflict problems and issues, that you felt as though you had to be a part of resolving them because of the harm it was doing to the population, and more importantly, to yourself. Talk about what some of the things that we was doing, how the curriculum came about. Because we had a curriculum.
Dominque Conway:
Yeah. It’s funny, because for the most part, we were winging it early on, which worked fine. Because I at that point wasn’t thinking so much about structure. But the reality is, it was like my supervisor suggested it. I hate to give him credit, but it was good, because we were able to pull together a curriculum that really reflected the work that the men were doing. So if we’re talking about conflict resolution, what you see represented in the curriculum, was based on what really happens in prisons. I asked them, “What are the number one conflicts in here?” Telephone, microwaves.
Mansa Musa:
Right, exactly. Right, right. Exactly, though. That’s the reality.
Dominque Conway:
Yeah, we center the curriculum around those kind of situations. But there was always stuff that was never put in writing, that we did, and we worked on, because of the fact that we were doing a lot of political education. And even in the curriculum, I slipped a little bit of The Red book in there.
Because we knew that the curriculum was going to be viewed by prison officials. So I had to really be mindful of who else is looking at this, and [inaudible 00:12:22] developing it. But I feel like the richness came from not just the curriculum, but from what the men also added to that, from what I was able to add to that. And also just those initial trainings, because when I would go into the feds, I would be there for maybe three days, working with the men and doing the training. And then from there, they’d be on their own.
Mansa Musa:
And when we talk about, which I’m going to go into next, is the political education aspect of it, because in JCI, we brought Moon Works in, or Mama K, Mama Rashida, their cultural collective. And they did a play. But up until that point, they had never done anything like that in JCI. But more importantly, when the people that we was bringing in, like Mama K, whose husband is… both of them were Panthers. And her husband is-
Dominque Conway:
You mean, Mama C?
Mansa Musa:
Yeah, Mama C, right. And her husband Naz, and they in Tanzania. But we brought people in that had that, ordinarily, people in the prison would just say like, “Oh man, I would never have access to these people.” Because it is just not something that I’m doing individually. But when we brought these people in, it opened up a new world to the prisoners, and they started actualizing. Avion. Remember, he could write real good. He always had good writing skills. But when he got in contact with Friends of a Friend, he developed some real political poems that reflected just how he felt. Talk about why it was important to have that political aspect associated with Friend… and just as opposed to having, like you say, “Okay, we giving you information about how to resolve conflict over the microwave, how to resolve…” When it ain’t that life or death situation. You got to out think this situation. Why was the political component important in Friends of a Friend?
Dominque Conway:
I think, because at the core, that’s who we were. That’s who Eddie was. And everything that we did was going to be political. It would be easy to look at Friend of a Friend and think of it more as a reformist kind of measure. But we never viewed it that way, because we knew that in between actual revolution, you got to do something for the people.
Mansa Musa:
Right, exactly.
Dominque Conway:
Survival pending, okay. And also that abolition is a ways off. So in that time, what do you do? Do you just leave people to their own devices? No. You work with them. And I mean, we were always very clear that we weren’t trying to tell, particularly the young people we work with, we weren’t trying to tell them what to think. We were just simply trying to encourage them to think.
Mansa Musa:
To think. That’s right.
Dominque Conway:
And I feel like in that environment, even that was political. The political education was important, because we also wanted them to understand the role that they had previously played in the community. Because the hope was, and this occurred in very different ways, that folks would go back into the community and put into the community. Whereas before, maybe they were taking, maybe they were doing harm. You could tell a person, “Well, you know you are really doing bad things in the community,” but where does that get you? We wanted them to understand why were your choices limited to selling drugs. That requires political education. You have to help folks develop an analysis to really see what their world is like, and begin to understand the role that they can play in changing it. So that was really critical. And I think also at the core of a Friend of a Friend, is it was a love movement.
And love is political, love is revolutionary. I think it was James Baldwin who said, “Love has never been a popular movement.” And that was the truth. Because the other part of it, was loving each other and also getting folks to love themselves. So, if you love yourself-
Mansa Musa:
Yeah, exactly. That was a big thing.
Dominque Conway:
Yeah. You go about the world in a very different way when you have that kind of regard. But a lot of people had grown up in environments where not only were they not loved, but the world didn’t love them. The world said bad things about them, and still does.
Mansa Musa:
And you know what? And I like that, because I recall we had young guys in there, and they had this personas machismo about them. And then we had people in there was built that. They liked that, like the term, “I like the smoke.” We had individuals, they like the smoke. And so we had to deal with them and get them to understand that, “You need to look at yourself as well. Because you’re not here as a bouncer. You’re not here as the Sergeant Arms. You here like everybody else.” But I remember one incident with Timmy Poole, and for the everybody, Timmy Poole is a well-known individual in the Maryland system. And this kid was going back and forth, and Poole just said, “Man, all you need is a hug,” and grabbed him and hug him, and the kid started crying.
Because, up until that point, nobody never hugged him. But the thing about the political aspect, and you can talk about this, is… because you mentioned how people was taken from the community. Now everybody that I know of that was involved in Friends of a Friend, that’s out in society right now, or in the institution that was impacted by it, they’re doing things in terms of giving back to the community. They taking ideas and seeing some of the things that might need to be done, violence interruption, clothing, feeding people, having Friends of a Friend type activity in terms of within the community. Talk about your experience in witnessing some of this from individuals coming out, that you actually witnessed or that you knew was impacted by it.
Dominque Conway:
Yeah. I feel like early on, maybe 2009 or so, one of the first guys… because you know for a long time, we were working with folks, and our folks were serving long sentences and [inaudible 00:19:18] getting out like that. One of the first guys, Omari, was released, and I actually hired him. And that started a whole process of me hiring some of the men who were coming out, to do some work in the community, and engage the community. Because also I felt like it was important for us to mirror the very things that we’re talking about. And I worked for a nonprofit, and I was like, they need to put their money where their mouth is. [inaudible 00:19:47] talk about how great the program is, we need to be able to hire these men.
And so over the years, I hired quite a few of the men who were returning. But then you also had men who gradually came out and just engaged in very different ways. I think about Hussein Muhammad or William Freeman, who, he started going to classes inside, through Goucher University. He got out, continued at Goucher. Actually during graduation, he was the speaker. From there, got accepted into Hopkins, but also on the side continued to do work. He was involved with organizations, but he also attempted to help other folks. And that was actually how it was inside, because he was that person inside who was also trying to help, and trying to help folks negotiate their way out of street organizations. And I remember there’s a story that I have about him where we were actually paying our mentor stipends. Yeah, we did.
Mansa Musa:
Right. Right, right, right. Yes, right, that’s what we did. That’s what we did.
Dominque Conway:
I’m sure the DOC didn’t appreciate that, but we did. And he used his stipend to actually buy somebody’s way out of the gang. And I was like, “Wow, that’s deep,” because everybody else is buying Game Boy, whatever.
Mansa Musa:
Right, right. And that’s the paradigm shift. Because, when they took the Pell Grant out of the prison system, and prior to taking the Pell Grant out, this is where everybody went to school, because this was in Maryland… we had a oppressive warden that was pretty much saying that, if he think that you’re doing something, he going to put you on admin. So everybody started going to school to get around that. But in going to school, it put us in an environment we had to think, because we constantly aware like our classes.
But in terms of Friends of a Friends, that’s the takeaway. Because most of the guys that was in there, like I said, they went back on the tiers, or they got out, they thought about, their perspective about society changed, and their relationship with society, but more importantly, their relationship with the community. Their perspective changed. And then when they changed their perspective, their practice changed. And they started implementing ideas around things that could better improve their relationship with the community and better get the community to understand their value and their worth. Talk about how at the end of the process, what happened when… Because I know Eddie got out, and I think at some point in time, we got a stumbling block with Friends. Talk about that.
Dominque Conway:
So, after Eddie got out, I still continued to go in, and actually also was at that point doing trainings in the federal system in a couple of different prisons, to spread the program too. And prior to Eddie being released, there were always these hangups that we would run into, with the Department of Corrections. There were periodic bans. One time it was because I had a floppy disk in a planner that I stuck in a metal detector. I was banned for months at that point.
Even though, I was like, “You guys can look at the floppy disks, because you also are the only people who actually have computers that…
Mansa Musa:
Right, right, exactly.
Dominque Conway:
[inaudible 00:23:30] put the floppy disk in.” So that created a lot of frustration. And for me, that kind of sealed the fate of Hagerstown. Because once that ban was lifted, I didn’t feel comfortable going back to Hagerstown. I felt like that represented their desire to get rid of us, and I wasn’t sure what they might do beyond that. Especially because we won, in terms of the whole fight to get back in. So I continued to do the work down in the Jessup area, in the prisons there, and in the federal system. But even that, after a while, because like I said, we were also paying the mentors stipends.
I felt like that was important. It’s like these folks were doing work that people get paid well to do, out in the community. I was like, “Why are we not doing it?” We were actually even writing that into grant proposals. And one particular funder was giving us the money to do that. And so there was at some point though, at which there was a conflict. I think one of the mentors, they found a check or something, and that created a problem. And at that point, I was like, I’m not going back to meet with these [inaudible 00:24:51].
Mansa Musa:
Yeah, because yeah, you’d be fighting another fight. The fight ain’t worth that.
Dominque Conway:
Yeah. I was like, I’m not explaining anything. We did what we did because it was the right thing to do. There are rules and regulations, and usually, particularly when you talk about prisons, those are intended to really suppress people. We weren’t about that. We were about really uplifting folks. So once that occurred, I just made that decision. And Eddie was like, “Yeah, it’s time.” He was like, “You know, you did a bid too.” And it was time for me to stop the work anyway, because it was time for us to live too, and live outside of the system…
Mansa Musa:
Right. Outside of… Yeah, uh-huh.
Dominque Conway:
… that for so many years, had him.
Mansa Musa:
And you know what? And another part of the impact of Friends of a Friend that I see, is that, when guys was getting the stipend, it created income for them. When guys got out, they was being hired. We have this perspective in this country, and I want you to weigh in on this. We had this perspective in this country, we had the abolition movement, and people actually opened up and say… I was on a Zoom the other day, and the woman, she did her spiel and she said, “Oh yeah, by the way, I’m an abolitionist.” And her platform, and I’m not questioning her strategy or tactic, her platform is to engage in trying to get laws changed, that impact people. Mandatory minimum, trying to get mandatory minimum changed.
But then you had this purist mentality out there about abolition. And the purest mentality that’s coming, like all movements, the contradictions become apparent to me, based on a person’s level of conscious and awareness, when they make the analysis. But you had this purest movement like, hey, all buildings, all everything, prison industrial complex related, abolish it. And like the same way abolishing slavery. Talk about that, in terms when they’ll see some Friends… or they’ll see people coming in, interact with self-help groups, and might have a ulterior motive for coming in an interactive self-help group to create a political education class, network with people around, educating them, networking around [inaudible 00:27:33] coming in veterans group, but talk about, “You have a right to post traumatic stress disorder, and I got this radical lawyer coming in.” Talk about that part of the abolition as it relates to the concept of abolitionists.
Dominque Conway:
Okay. Yeah, it’s funny because that dialogue goes back so far for me in terms of doing this work for, I guess it was almost 20 years, and that ongoing dialogue about abolition. And I always avoided calling myself that. I personally don’t even believe in labeling myself. I don’t feel the need to.
Mansa Musa:
Right, exactly. Exactly.
Dominque Conway:
Your work will speak for you. But one of the things, especially being a student of history and having really looked at slavery, is that people were calling for the abolition of slavery, but they didn’t stop engaging with black folks who were enslaved. Okay?
Mansa Musa:
Exactly.
Dominque Conway:
It didn’t stop people from teaching people to read, it didn’t stop people from helping people get free. You always have to be willing to engage with the very population that you’re talking about. Because one, you shouldn’t be talking about them if you’re not really engaging with them. Because also people can speak for themselves and what they want. And it’s not that I don’t believe that prisons should be abolished. I do, but I also understand that there’s a long way to that, and we have to be willing to engage folks. Also, the communities that generally are impacted by the prison system, they’re still, for many people, a sense that they’re not safe.
And don’t get me wrong, I know police do not make people safe. Okay? That’s part of The lack of safety in the community. But also there are other things going on in the community that we have to be willing to address, and we have to look at ways to address those things. We have to create alternative economy for folks. People have to be able to live and eat, or they will revert to crime. That’s not a black thing, that’s not a Latino thing, that’s just a thing.
Mansa Musa:
That’s a social construct. Yeah.
Dominque Conway:
Yeah. So I feel like there’s a need to always be engaging with the people who will be affected by abolition. And not just engaging in a way that’s providing resources or telling people what to do, but actually finding out what people need and want, what they desire, what abolition really means for them. Because like I said, during slavery, you still had various people who were engaging with folks, who were preparing them for that point, who were educating, who were helping people sneak out, get to the north, cross them state [inaudible 00:30:35] do all of that work. And it’s still very necessary. Particularly with prisons, because I just feel like people inside just become more invisible over the years. And over the last decade, it seems to be that way. And it’s not to say that people aren’t doing work. I think a lot of those people who are doing work, it’s just simply not amplified. And the issues that they’re representing are not amplified in a way that they really need to be.
Mansa Musa:
Right. There you have it. The Real News. Thank you Dominique Conway, for coming on and educating our audience on the importance of the community, people in the community, as activists, however they define themselves, come into this environment and give this the prison environment some exposure to society. But more importantly, some of the political elements that’s in society, to change their thinking. Thank you for coming in. You definitely rattled the bars today. Appreciate you.
Dominque Conway:
Thank you.
Mansa Musa:
There you have it. The Real News rattled the bars. And guess what? We actually are The Real News.
It’s been 40 years since supervised release was first introduced into the federal court system by the 1984 Sentencing Reform Act. Supervised release, which replaced federal parole and probation, is a secondary sentence judges can impose that only comes into effect once people have already served their time in prison. The legality of the widespread use of supervised release, not to mention its overall constitutionality, is highly controversial. Jabari Zakiya joins Rattling the Bars to make the case for the abolition of supervised release.
Studio Production: David Hebden, Cameron Granadino Post-Production: Cameron Granadino, Alina Nehlich
Transcript
The following is a rushed transcript and may contain errors. A proofread version will be made available as soon as possible.
Mansa Musa:
Jabari Zakiya is an expert on supervised release, a system that is being used by the prison industrial complex to keep people on the plantation. Is it unimaginable to think that a person receives a sentence, serves it out, only to be released on supervised release and serve more time than his or her original sentence? Jabari Zakiya brings this truth to reality. All right, as we unpack this, we need to first establish, not so much as the problem with supervised release, but what is supervised release?
Jabari Zakiya:
Well, supervised release was created in 1984 with the Sentencing Reform Act of 1994 in the middle of the Reagan year. And, two things came out of that act. The first thing was the creation of the Federal Sentencing Commission, and the other major thing was the abolishment of the use of parole and probation in the federal system, they replaced that with this thing called supervised release. So, supervised release is an extra sentence that gets put onto people’s prisons term and it only becomes effective after you have fully served your prison term. And then, when you get out, then they say you’re on this thing they call supervised release.
Mansa Musa:
All right, and supervised release came through the Reagan administration. And are we talking about specifically DC code offenders or are we talking about nationwide, anybody that’s under federal jurisdiction?
Jabari Zakiya:
Any federal conviction. Any federal sentence from a federal conviction. Since November 1st, 1997, that’s when supervised release became effective. That’s when federal courts start to oppose the sentences, that included supervised release. So yes, DC, anywhere across the country.
Mansa Musa:
Okay. So now, for the benefit of our audience, because we just don’t want to assume that everybody got an understanding of the sentencing mechanism in the prison industrial complex. So, walk our audience through the sentencing mechanism. So, once a person is convicted, walk them through it and to the whole process, you will use yourself as an example.
Jabari Zakiya:
Okay. So, currently, for federal convictions, once you get convicted of a federal crime, you have a sentencing hearing in front of a federal judge. At the sentencing hearing, the judge imposes the sentence, which concludes a prison term, could include a prison term, it could include other provisions. But usually, in the case that we’re talking about includes a prison term of so many years or months. And then, a term of supervised release that follows the prison term.
Now, supervised release is not mandatory for the widest sets of categories of crimes. Statutorily, supervised release only has to be imposed by statute on a certain category of crimes, such as terrorism, child molestation, etc. All other categories of crimes or all other categories of people that get convicted of crimes, it’s at the discretion of the court whether to impose or not a term of supervised release, but by practice they dole out supervised police like jelly beans.
Mansa Musa:
Okay.
Jabari Zakiya:
But most people don’t know that. Most criminal defense attorneys don’t act like they know that. And most public defenders don’t act like they know that, because they don’t challenge during the sentencing hearing, “Why are you giving this person a term of supervised release? What is the legal basis of it?” Why are you giving them a certain time period? What is the legal basis of why are you giving somebody a three-year term of supervised release?” Like in my case, I had a 16-months prison sentence and a 3-year term of supervised release. Well, why is the term of supervised release almost twice as long as the prison sentence? I didn’t know anything about that at the time. My public defender didn’t do anything to contest it. So, the system keeps rolling along by practice through inertia. Everybody just lets it go and very few people challenge it. The good thing is, people are starting to challenge.
Mansa Musa:
Okay, so let’s talk about this here. All right? I get convicted of a crime.
Jabari Zakiya:
Mm-hmm.
Mansa Musa:
I got 16. The maximum penalty for the crime is 24 months. That’s the maximum time I can get for the crime. I can only get 24 months for the crime. That’s it. So you can give me 24 months, you can give me one year sentence, and then you give me one year probation. But it can’t go beyond two years in my sentence. So now, under this guideline of supervised release, is that term of supervised release a part of the penalty? Would my sentence be 24 months plus three years supervised release? When I look at the statute, what’s the sentence for this crime I committed, would it say, “And supervised release”?
Jabari Zakiya:
And this is one of the greatest problems, the prison sentence is the punishment.
Mansa Musa:
Right.
Jabari Zakiya:
Okay, when you talked about the 24 months, that’s your prison sentence. Supervised release is this unconstitutional second sentence, because supervised release allows the government to put you back in prison without the benefit of having to convict you of any crimes. In fact, all the people who go back for revocations of condition supervised lease, those are for non-criminal activity. Those are for what is called administrative technical violations, such as dirty urines, such as being in the presence of other felons like your cousin, or your mother, or your brother
Mansa Musa:
Or nobody you might not even know committed a felony.
Jabari Zakiya:
Or for not getting a job within a certain period. Or for merely not calling back your probation officer or meeting with them at a certain time. These are technical violations. They are totally unconstitutional, because essentially, there’s no place in the constitution that allows the government to supervise people after they have completed their prison term. The prison term is their punishment under the fifth amendment.
Mansa Musa:
Okay, let’s go now. Now, we got to understand supervised release. Recently, as of May the 6th, the ACLU filed a suit against the government, claiming supervised release and parole status said people with disabilities are forfeited. And in this suit that they filed, the ACLU, the Public Defense Department, and a few other legal organizations filed, they were basically saying, under the supervised release, it doesn’t take into account a person’s disability or mental state, but more importantly, in the suit… And we look at the body of the suit, they’re suing parole and they suing the Office of Supervision, which is known as CSOSA, which is the mechanism or the institution that deal with supervision.
Jabari Zakiya:
In DC.
Mansa Musa:
In DC.
Jabari Zakiya:
Right. District of Columbia. Right.
Mansa Musa:
All right? But, in the suit it talks about the way they go about assessing once a person is put on supervised release, the way these entities that’s responsible for the supervision, the way they make a determination on how you’re going to be supervised, they use a metric.
Jabari Zakiya:
Right.
Mansa Musa:
And, in the metric, the metric in turn say, “Okay, this person should have drug tests. This person should meet twice a week with their PO. This person should have a job in 30 days. This person should have a place to stay or be in an identifiable shelter. Because all these things that I’m putting in this mechanism, if you don’t do these things, those are the things that’s going to lead to a technical violation.”
Jabari Zakiya:
Right.
Mansa Musa:
Right? How did that play out? Now, in this lawsuit, they’re saying that this mechanism doesn’t take into account circumstances. It’s arbitrary, capricious, and too general. And what they’re saying specifically as it relate to people with disabilities and mental health, is that the case across the board?
Jabari Zakiya:
Right. What they’re dealing with are obvious egregious collateral damage from the whole structure of supervised release.
Mansa Musa:
Come on.
Jabari Zakiya:
Right. So, when they abolished parole and probation in the federal system, they claim in the creation of supervised release that the purpose of supervised police was for rehabilitation. And, it was supposed to give people a way to transition back into coming out of prison into society. And that this was supposed to help people, which is the exact opposite of what its actuality is. The practice of it is, it’s just another means to control and punish people after they have already served their full prison sentence. So what the ACLU is finally doing, because in 2019 when we created the Coalition in Supervised Release, we actually met with the DC probation office… Excuse me, Public Defender’s Office and the Federal Public Defender’s Office who deals with the federal cases on the side. The DC deals with the DC cases.
So, what they’re doing is attacking the collateral mechanism. They’re not attacking the legality of the system. All right? What I’m saying is… An analogy would be, say you could either say slavery is bad and unconstitutional, or you could say certain conditions under slavery are bad. Or you shouldn’t be able to just rape people arbitrarily. You shouldn’t be able to cut people’s feet off. You shouldn’t be able to beat people. But, slavery is all right.
Mansa Musa:
Right, right, right.
Jabari Zakiya:
But just don’t make it so onerous that you make it so ugly and heinous that these things occur. That’s the approach they’re taking when anybody who has their rights restricted is unconstitutional, because you’ve already served your prison sentence. So, they’ve created this facade and the courts have gone along with it and most organizations go along because you have to attack the full fundamental principle of the idea that once you have served the prison system, that is your punishment. There is no other means for the government to have any supervisory or administrative authority over you, because you have served your prison sentence, you are a free person, you can do what you want. The government has no authority. The constitution doesn’t give the government any authority to supervise anybody. It only says they can punish people for a crime where they have been duly convicted.
Mansa Musa:
And okay, let’s examine the whole application of supervised release. All right, so you say it’s only certain crimes can be given a prison-
Jabari Zakiya:
Are mandated.
Mansa Musa:
… Yes, are mandated. And that’s in the law.
Jabari Zakiya:
That’s in law.
Mansa Musa:
But, outside that, it’s discretionary.
Jabari Zakiya:
It’s totally discretionary.
Mansa Musa:
All right. And, as it’s mandated, they passed a law to say it’s mandated?
Jabari Zakiya:
It’s by statute.
Mansa Musa:
Okay.
Jabari Zakiya:
The statute 18 U.S.C. 3583 lists the categories of offenses where the courts are mandated to impose a term of supervised release. Every other thing is discretionary.
Mansa Musa:
All right. So now, in terms of where the disconnect comes in, it comes in that when it’s being done arbitrary and capricious. Or, is it a disconnect in the sense that it should never be in existence?
Jabari Zakiya:
It should never be in existence.
Mansa Musa:
Why?
Jabari Zakiya:
Because the government has no constitutional authority to supervise. You’re an American citizen. You’re supposed to be American citizen. So, when you are convicted of a crime, the prison sentence is the one punishment under the fifth amendment that they can impose upon you. Period. You do your 5 years, 10 years, or whatever that prescribed sentence is for that particular offense, that’s it. You come out, “Okay, I’ve done my time. I’ve served my sentence. I’m now a full and functional citizen.” Presuming that you were a full and functional citizen in the beginning. But, that’s it. So when you had probation and parole, what happens is you get a 10-year sentence. You come up for parole after 30% of your sentence, or let’s just say, three years. Because there’s nothing in the constitution that says, “You have to go to prison.” It says, “Punishment.”
So, under the former system, before they created supervised release, you had a 10-year sentence. You come up for parole after three years, the government can decide how to punish you. They can say, “Well, we’ll keep you in prison.” Or, “We can allow you to serve the remaining 7 years of that 10-year sentence after you come up for parole in 3 years. You can serve that outside of prison. But you’re still under administrative control of the court, which is your parole officer. So if you violate whatever conditions that were part of your parole supervision administrative plan, then you can go back.” But you only have one sentence. And after that 10 years over, that’s it.
Mansa Musa:
So they send you back, say, you got 60 months, 5 years, you do 40 months, they let you go out on parole.
Jabari Zakiya:
Mm-hmm.
Mansa Musa:
All right. And you got two years left on your sentence, you violate, they send you back, you got a year left on your 60 months. At the end of the year-
Jabari Zakiya:
That’s it.
Mansa Musa:
… That’s it. Okay. But then, under supervised release-
Jabari Zakiya:
You served your whole sentence.
Mansa Musa:
… They gave you.
Jabari Zakiya:
They gave you five years, you served your whole sentence. Then, the day you walk out of prison, your term of supervised release starts.
Mansa Musa:
Oh, okay, I see the problem then. So now, you really… Then it gave you an extra sentence.
Jabari Zakiya:
They gave you an extra sentence. But this time, they can put you back in prison for a non-criminal offense.
Mansa Musa:
Right. Until your term of supervised release… Or they could keep nitpicking you, like in the case of the people they sued.
Jabari Zakiya:
Right.
Mansa Musa:
They send them back for a year, they’re going to let them go, they send them back for another year. They can keep doing that back and forth. But under the traditional system, they can send you back and say mandatory out, say just bring it to the door.
Jabari Zakiya:
And so, many people under the conditions of parole and probation, you can max out in prison if you choose.
Mansa Musa:
Right.
Jabari Zakiya:
And many people did, or chose to do that, especially if you have a shortened sentence, because they didn’t want to go through the hassle of being ping-ponged from halfway houses back, and da-da-da, and try to find a job and stuff, and then getting caught up. So many people would say, “No, I’m going to just max out.” So then, when they left, it’s like, “Goodbye. See you later. You don’t have no control over me at all.”
Mansa Musa:
Right.
Jabari Zakiya:
Under this system, you do your max time, they can ping-pong you back for, like I say, all these little trivial so-called administrative violations that are not crimes. And the whole point of this system, those white males in the middle of the Reagan administration with the complicity of the Democrats put this in place with that explicit purpose. Because, Reagan, he became president in 1981. We had gone through the Vietnam War. We had gone through the Vietnam protests, the student riots, the Civil Rights Commission. At the beginning of the Reagan administration, the federal prison population was somewhere around 20,000 people. 20,000 people total across the nation in the federal prison.
Mansa Musa:
Mm-hmm.
Jabari Zakiya:
After he left, that population rose from 20,000 up between 80 and a 100,000. So, one of the whole purposes of his administration was those rabid confederate white racists said, “You know what? We can’t allow these people to go out and protest these policies, to confront the government. And so, we’re going to need to put more of them in prison.” And of course, they did the mandatory minimums, they did the crack cocaine deference. All that was designed to put particularly black people, black males in prison, and to keep a revolving door to keep them in prison.
Mansa Musa:
Why you think so… Why? Okay. If supervised release is so draconian, and it applies nationwide, why you think you don’t have more kickback nationwide about it? Because according to your argument, one, it’s unconstitutional, it’s not mandated by lawyers discretionary under certain circumstances. But yet, it’s being practiced all across the board. Why you think we don’t have no more opposition to it in terms of trying to get it reversed?
Jabari Zakiya:
That’s a very good question. Part of it is just inertia. People just go along with the system. But, the arguments I’ve just told you, they are being made and they have always been made from day one. Unfortunately, the groups that should have been the natural people to argue these things from the beginning, like the NAACP, the Urban League, ACLU, they were asleep at the wheel. Even again, these laws were passed with the complicity of Democrats too.
Mansa Musa:
Right.
Jabari Zakiya:
It wasn’t just Republicans, and it wasn’t just Reagan. They existed under Clinton. Clinton made it worse.
Mansa Musa:
Mm-hmm.
Jabari Zakiya:
Obama didn’t do anything about it, right? So, it’s not just a one-party thing. It’s a total acceptance by both the Republican and Democratic Party that we need to put more particularly black men in prison and keep them there for as long as possible. And the courts have basically rubber-stamped it, because they haven’t really done the serious analysis that is now being forced upon them by the ACLU that should have been done in 1987 when these sentences started to be put down.
Mansa Musa:
This is what they say in the quote, ACLU, “There are just absolutely no policies or procedures to assess their accommodation needs or to provide the accommodations that people need just to have an equal shot at completing supervision and staying in their community.” Now here, you preference this with, they’re talking about people with disabilities.
Jabari Zakiya:
Right.
Mansa Musa:
But, could you apply that across the board, there is no provisions being provided for people in general?
Jabari Zakiya:
The government has no authority to supervise anybody.
Mansa Musa:
Right.
Jabari Zakiya:
If they wanted to provide a system for harmonious and stress-free reintegration back into the community, they could do that. They could absolutely do that. But it wouldn’t have nothing to do with punishing people and sending them back to prison. It would just be a transitional period that has nothing to do with re-incarceration. They could do that, but they don’t want to do that. They have to create a means to put people back in prison. They’d rather put people back in prison, than actually help people transition. Because then, that whole mindset, that group of these rabid, right-wing racist white men don’t want black people, don’t want brown people being able to walk the streets, and be full citizens, and compete ideologically, financially, and every other way with their whole whiteness dominating. That’s this whole thing with these white people now. They are scared out of their wits that they are a declining minority in this brownification of the United States. And they want full and complete control of everything. And they know they don’t have the numbers. Their numbers are dwindling.
And so, these mechanisms are being put up. That’s why all across the country, in Florida and all these people, they want to say, “You can’t read these books.” They want to call anything black people do, black extreme organizations, which has no constitutional meaning whatsoever, et cetera, et cetera. This is an ongoing war. Most black people don’t understand that this is a war. This is an overt war that these white males are continuing, because they, never in their mind, thought they lost the civil war. Right.
Mansa Musa:
All right. So, as we look at the supervised release, right? Going forward… So, what were some of the work that y’all did and how far did y’all get in terms of trying to get at this mandate?
Jabari Zakiya:
Okay. One thing that most people don’t know and your attorneys won’t tell you, the judge won’t tell you, is that, there is a part of the statute on the supervised lease, after a year on supervised lease, you can petition your sentencing court, your sentencing judge to terminate the remaining part of your supervised release. So, one of the things we did, I used that provision and I helped get one person’s three-year term of supervised release terminated after 18 months. This is in the statute. This is a right that everybody on supervised release has. You can just file a motion after a year and say, “Please terminate the rest of my term of supervised release.” Usually, the probation officer won’t tell you, your offense attorney won’t. This should be just structurally streamlined. It’s like, “Okay, you’re…” Like with the probation part. After a year, you should go back and automatically go back in front of the judge and say, “I want to terminate the rest of the…”
Mansa Musa:
Right.
Jabari Zakiya:
But they don’t do it that way. They don’t even tell you that you have a statutory right to request this.
Mansa Musa:
And if people wanted to try to get it reversed or try to get in the advocacy space of getting it removed altogether, what is your recommendation?
Jabari Zakiya:
Well-
Mansa Musa:
If there was something that was feasible.
Jabari Zakiya:
… Well, there’s two ways attack this systematically. You can attack it through the courts, which is what the ACLU. But ultimately, you have to attack it through legislation, because the appellate courts and the Supreme Court have shown no inkling of abolishing the whole system. Even though, as you noted, you can cite all these collateral unconstitutional consequences of its mechanical imposition. There’s no way to impose the system constitutionally.
Mansa Musa:
Right.
Jabari Zakiya:
There’s no way to do it. So, they don’t even try.
Mansa Musa:
Right, right.
Jabari Zakiya:
So it’s like slavery. Either you abolish it or you keep it going.
Mansa Musa:
Mm-hmm.
Jabari Zakiya:
Right? So, you got more cases from the Supreme Court upholding slavery, than you do abolishing it, right?
Mansa Musa:
Right.
Jabari Zakiya:
At some point, you just have to build enough momentum where enough people finally say, “It’s wrong.”
Mansa Musa:
Right. All right, so now, as we get ready to close, let’s look at the impact this has on families.
Jabari Zakiya:
Right. Well, like you say, a common condition of supervised release is you can’t interact with other felons. So if everybody in your family was convicted on a case… So if you go to a summer barbecue and your brother’s there or your cousin in there and they were convicted on the same count or whatever, you could be in technically a violation of your supervised release.
Mansa Musa:
And in terms of from your own personal experience and your knowledge, how often do they revalidate people, like just nonsensical stuff?
Jabari Zakiya:
Actually, they have studies by the Sentencing Commission that actually documents this. But what we know absolutely that in the current federal prison population, somewhere around 30 to 35% of the people in federal prison are there for revocations of supervised lease, not for convictions of new crimes.
Mansa Musa:
And so, that means 30% of the population that they send back. And, from your knowledge, is this a continuum? Do they keep this number fluid? I’m going to make sure I got this ability to keep this population back to a number by 30%. In addition to people being on parole, I know they subject to violate, I got probation, they subject… But now, I got a sure thing in supervised release because I can knit-pick, from your knowledge, is this something that you see as a common practice?
Jabari Zakiya:
It’s a common practice. You can get the numbers from the actual Bureau of Prisons, because they list that. The sentencing commission comes out with their yearly reports. So yes, this number is known. That’s why I can say it’s between 30 and 35%. And, they can tell you what are the types of offenses people are getting revoked from, right? So, what I’m saying is that everybody who goes to prison has a number. Everybody who goes to prison has a term of imprisonment.
Mansa Musa:
Mm-hmm.
Jabari Zakiya:
So, all that information is empirical. It’s not random.
Mansa Musa:
Right.
Jabari Zakiya:
You could go by every person they put and you can compile, “Why you’re here? How long you here?” Etc. Etc. So, what they don’t want to do though is show you that the whole purpose of the system is not rehabilitation. Because, see here’s the constitutional argument. If they claim a prison sentence is your punishment, then how can putting you back in prison for revocation of a technical violation be rehabilitative when it’s the same actual remedy for two supposedly different things, right?
Mansa Musa:
Mm-hmm.
Jabari Zakiya:
So how can prison be a punishment under one condition and a rehabilitation under another condition? It doesn’t make any sense.
Mansa Musa:
No, it doesn’t.
Jabari Zakiya:
And that’s the whole thing. People have to be engaged in extreme acts of cognitive dissonance to justify how doing the same thing… Putting people in prison has two totally separate and opposite purposes.
Mansa Musa:
All right. As we close out, what do you want people to know and what are you advising them in terms of trying to get this?
Jabari Zakiya:
Okay, here’s functioning what people need to know. People who are about to go have a federal trial, and 85% of the people are more in the federal system plea bargain, they don’t even go to trial. So you just copped to a plea. Again, first you need to know that supervised release is discretionary. And you need to first know, “Is the offense that I am convicted of or pleading to, does that have a mandatory term of supervised release?”
Mansa Musa:
Right.
Jabari Zakiya:
If the answer is no, then when you go to sentencing, you need to make your attorney contest the requirement or any discretion to impose a term of supervised release, because they’re supposed to explain why under their discretion they think you deserve a certain-
Mansa Musa:
Okay.
Jabari Zakiya:
… And what the length in that term is. So, you need to contest that at sentencing, because if you don’t contest in that sentencing, you can’t use it as an appeal. Right? And so, systematically, all these people need to understand, contest your whole sentence, contest it, contest it, contest it. Also, you need to know again, after a year on supervision, you can petition to have the rest of it terminated. So, these are the mechanical things people need to understand, because if people just started exercising your statutory rights, you could really make a dent in the re-incarceration of people.
Mansa Musa:
Okay, thank you, Jabari.
Jabari Zakiya:
Okay.
Mansa Musa:
There you have it. The Real News, Rattling The Bars. Jabari is rattling bars about supervised release. It’s unconstitutional, it’s draconian, it extends a person stay in prison. It supposed to go from punishment to rehabilitation, but only thing it’s doing is rehabilitation according to the definition to restore you back to your rights. So basically, what it’s doing is putting you back in prison. That’s what it’s restoring you to, put you back in prison. We ask that you continue to support The Real News and Rattling The Bars.
We ask that you look at this information that we just brought you about supervised release. If you have a family member, or some of you know it’s on supervised release, or getting ready to get convicted of a sentence, or getting ready to plead, then take Jabari’s advice. Have them look into whether or not their sentence or the crime they committed, mandate supervised release and if it don’t, have them contest it. Have them be aware that if they do get supervised release, after a year, they can appeal to have it revoked, or they can have their probation terminated. There you have it, The Real News. And guess what? We are The Real News.
Two years ago, Michigan-based cannabis entrepreneur Coty Cecil’s camper van broke down in Milton, West Virginia. As he was awaiting repairs, Cecil was confronted by Milton police at his door. Despite appearing without a warrant, police demanded entry into the camper van. During the subsequent raid, police smashed Cecil’s window and confiscated eight hemp plants. Cecil now faces a 10-year sentence. Meanwhile, Cabell County, which Milton is located in has a development deal with the billion-dollar cannabis company Trulieve, which is expected to build a grow facility in the planned HADCO Business Park, an economic initiative being funded by millions in local taxpayer money. Trulieve was quietly benefitting from tax payer funded subsidies while Cody was sitting in jail. Thanks to previous reporting from Police Accountability Report and the support of viewers, Cecil was able to get his bail reduced and return home. Cecil now returns again to Police Accountability Report to discuss his fight against the 10-year prison sentence looming over him. Police Accountability Report has previously investigated use of public fundsin Milton.
Production: Taya Graham, Stephen Janis Post-Production: Stephen Janis, Cameron Granadino
Transcript
The following is a rushed transcript and may contain errors. A proofread version will be made available as soon as possible.
Taya Graham:
Hello, my name is Taya Graham and welcome to the Police Accountability Report. As I always make clear, this show has a single purpose, holding the politically powerful institution of policing accountable. And to do so, we don’t just focus on the bad behavior of individual cops. Instead, we examine the system that makes bad policing possible. And today we’re going to show you this shocking footage of an illegal raid by police in West Virginia that has turned into something even worse for the person whose rights were violated. A problematic case to say the least, that threatens to imprison a man for years for doing something that has been decriminalized across the country, but that a local judge may decide warrants separating a young man from his family for years.
But before we get started, I want you watching to know that if you have video evidence of police misconduct, please email it to us privately at par@therealnews.com, or reach out to me on Facebook or Twitter @tayasbaltimore and we might be able to investigate for you. And please, like, share, and comment on our videos. It helps us get the word out and it can even help our guests. And you know I appreciate your comments. I’ve even started doing a comment of the week to show you all how much I appreciate your thoughts and what a great community we have.
All right, we’ve gotten that out of the way. Now, two years ago we told you a harrowing story about a young man named Cody Cecil. In December of 2022 he got stuck in the small town of Milton, West Virginia, after his camper broke down. So Cody had been paying to stay at a campsite while a faulty brake line was being repaired. But one morning he awoke to police inexplicably banging on his door. At that moment, despite police surrounding his camper, Cody started live-streaming. Take a look.
Cody Cecil:
Well, there’s cops all around the RV beating on my door and I don’t know what for, so they’re going to have to come in and get me. So I figured I’d just lay back and smoke a cigarette and let this progress. A bunch of unmarked cars out there. I’m not answering the door. They can get a warrant and come get me.
Taya Graham:
Now, as you will learn later, Cody has struggled with addiction nearly his entire life and only when he discovered the benefits of marijuana was he able to break the cycle. And that prompted him to start a growing business in Michigan where pot is legal. Because of all this, he became an evangelist, so to speak, for the benefits of it, which is why I think it’s interesting that Cody takes such a courageous attitude towards the looming police presence outside his door. Let’s listen for a moment as he asked the police why they’re trying to break down his door.
Cody Cecil:
What is going on?
Police officer:
Open the fucking door now.
Cody Cecil:
I was back there asleep. What is going on?
Police officer:
We have a search warrant. Open the door.
Cody Cecil:
I just want to know what is going on.
Police officer:
Open the door-
[Inaudible 00:02:58].
…now or we’re going to pop it.
Cody Cecil:
I have no arms or anything. You guys got me scared for my life. Why should I open the door?
Police officer:
Open the door.
Cody Cecil:
I’m not doing anything wrong. I’ve been asleep all morning. What’s going on?
Police officer:
[inaudible 00:03:09] door.
Cody Cecil:
I just want to know why.
Police officer:
We’ve got a search warrant.
Cody Cecil:
For what?
Police officer:
Open the door.
Cody Cecil:
Can I see it?
Taya Graham:
Now, Cody demanded a warrant, which was his right. That’s because while police can search a motor vehicle while it’s being operated on a public road with just probable cause, they need a warrant if it’s on private property. Still, despite the law affirming his request, police continue to demand he opened the door without one. Let’s watch.
Cody Cecil:
I will open the door if I can get a copy of my warrant.
Police officer:
We’ll give you one. Open the door.
Cody Cecil:
So you’re going to break my stuff violently anyway?
Police officer:
You’re going to get a copy of the warrant. Yeah. Open the door.
Cody Cecil:
Look, my hands are right here. All I’m doing is recording this. That’s it.
Taya Graham:
Now, unable to produce the warrant, the police decided to become even more aggressive. Ignoring the law, they upped the ante by resorting to force. Take a look.
Police officer:
Open the door.
Cody Cecil:
I just don’t understand why and what’s going on.
Police officer:
[inaudible 00:04:04] the door.
Cody Cecil:
I need to have a lawyer present.
Police officer:
You don’t have a lawyer present for a search warrant.
Cody Cecil:
For a warrant, why not? This can be done completely peacefully. I just need to see a warrant first. Why are you guys breaking my stuff?
Police officer:
You won’t open the door.
Cody Cecil:
I haven’t seen a warrant yet. Right now I look like I’m surrounded by a bunch of wolves trying to attack me.
Police officer:
[inaudible 00:04:30].
Cody Cecil:
Okay, so as soon as I get a warrant, I’ll open the door. What’s the issue? Whoa, whoa.
Police officer:
Open the door.
Cody Cecil:
I don’t understand why you guys are being so violent towards me. That’s all.
Police officer:
We’re not being violent.
Cody Cecil:
Yes you are. You just smashed my whole window in.
Taya Graham:
That’s right. Police begin breaking the window of Cody’s camper, literally destroying the property that is an invaluable asset for him. Now we have a copy of the undated search warrant, which was later given to Cody. It was included in discovery related to the eventual charges against him, and Stephen will have more on that for us later. But a review of the warrant shows that the entire reason that half of the Milton West Virginia Police Department was pounding on his door was not for drug dealing or some sort of theft or other serious crime, but rather in the pursuit of nature. That is, of eight immature pot plants. A fact that Cody points out.
Cody Cecil:
All right. Well here we go. This is what they’re after. Just so people know the real truth.
Taya Graham:
But even as Cody continues to ask for a warrant, police respond with more force.
Police officer:
We are effecting a search.
Cody Cecil:
What kind of a search? Can I get any response at all?
Police officer:
The hell do you got in [inaudible 00:05:57]?
Cody Cecil:
It’s a deadbolt. I’ll unlock it.
Police officer:
Unlock it.
Unlock it.
Cody Cecil:
I want to see a warrant.
Police officer:
Unlock [inaudible 00:06:03]-
Cody Cecil:
I want a warrant first. This is my constitutional right to see that I am being searched with a warrant.
Police officer:
You are being searched with a warrant as soon as it gets here.
Cody Cecil:
Then I will be sitting right here, not doing anything, trying to comply with the police that are breaking into my home for no apparent reason.
Taya Graham:
Now, Cody decides, I think understandably, to take some edibles to help with the stress of the situation. I mean, the police have yet to answer his request for a warrant and are still trying to break down his door, so he decides again to partake in a natural plant that is legal to consume in 26 states. See for yourself.
Cody Cecil:
Eat some edibles.
Taya Graham:
Now I just want to pause here and comment briefly on something I think we as Americans overlook when we watch videos like this. That is, despite the protections of the constitution, the laws of our country have been construed to allow police to use violence over a plant, a thing that grows from the ground as freely and naturally as a weed. Something that is now legal in more than half the country, as I noted, but is still apparently dangerous enough to allow police to break into private property. It literally makes no sense, and it’s this bizarre legal standard I think that causes what happens next. Legal empowerment has obviously affected the police who have been granted it, as we can hear when they reply to Cody’s repeated request for a warrant.
Cody Cecil:
Why? It sounds like a pride issue. I just want to see a warrant, that’s it, and I will come out. I don’t have nothing in here. I don’t have nothing to hide, but you just beat my door down and you’re trying to make me look like a straight criminal. I don’t know what I did wrong. I’ve been sleeping in my RV since last night. What did I do wrong, officer? Can you explain it?
Police officer:
We’ll explain everything as soon as you open this door.
Cody Cecil:
I need a warrant.
Police officer:
I know what you need.
Cody Cecil:
See what I’m saying? Why isn’t that my constitutional right?
Taya Graham:
“I know what you need.” Seriously, you, a law enforcement officer tasked with upholding the constitution are mocking someone who evokes their rights? Is it funny to you that someone’s home and worldly possessions, basically his entire business, is about to be trashed, seized, and otherwise disposed of? But it actually gets worse, much worse.
Police officer:
It is your constitutional right and we will give you the warrant as soon as it gets here.
Cody Cecil:
So you had to break in my door before you gave me it?
Police officer:
The judge has signed it and it is on the way.
Cody Cecil:
Okay, so why did you have to break my stuff before I could come out?
Police officer:
‘Cause you won’t open the door asshole!
Cody Cecil:
Because I haven’t seen a warrant.
Police officer:
Fine.
Cody Cecil:
I will come out peacefully. My hands are right in your face. I promise I’m doing nothing. I just want to see why and see that this is justified, what you just did to my house.
Police officer:
Just open the door.
Cody Cecil:
This is outrageous. I will open the door as soon as I get the warrant. I don’t understand any of this. I’ve been asleep in here since last night. What is the issue? What did I do that caused you guys just so much turmoil to come here and smash my house in? Seriously. What? So you can arrest me and beat my ass for not unlocking the door? No, thank you. I’ve been in this spot before.
Police officer:
You either open it or I’ll smash every fucking window there is.
Cody Cecil:
I know that’s right.
Police officer:
We’re going to get in.
I don’t care if you’re recording. Open it. I got a search warrant to get in there.
Cody Cecil:
For what? What did I do? Can I have my warrant and I’ll come out.
Police officer:
This is not Tennessee, son. Open-
Taya Graham:
“This isn’t Tennessee, son.” I mean, what does that even mean? I mean, is West Virginia post-Constitution? I do think the exchange is revealing, beyond the officer sets. I mean it seems to me that the police are not just mocking his request to protect his rights, but they are using ominous language to intimidate him into opening the door by suggesting that they are not law enforcers, but actually privateers enabled to do just about anything.
Finally, realizing he had little choice, Cody opens the door and the police pounce. Not just one cop, but multiple officers all in pursuit of a couple of plants. Not a violent criminal, not someone who had robbed someone, stolen a car or committed an act of violence. Just a young man using a plant to enrich his life. See for yourself.
Cody Cecil:
I don’t understand what I did wrong. I feel like you guys are going to hurt me for no reason.
Police officer:
We’re not going to hurt you.
Cody Cecil:
Then why have I been in here asleep since last night and now you guys are here to attack me?
Police officer:
Not here to-
Cody Cecil:
I haven’t been doing anything wrong. What am I doing wrong?
Police officer:
Open the door.
Cody Cecil:
What am I doing wrong?
Police officer:
We’re coming in, asshole.
Cody Cecil:
I’m coming out.
Police officer:
Right now.
Cody Cecil:
Okay, you guys got me scared for my life, dude.
Police officer:
Right now, unlock the door.
[inaudible 00:10:55] window.
Cody Cecil:
I’m trying to come out. You guys got me scared for my life. Here, I’m coming out. I’m coming out, guys.
Police officer:
Put your cigarette down, let me see that-
Cody Cecil:
Okay.
Police officer:
…you understand me?
Cody Cecil:
It’s the other way, guys. The other way.
Police officer:
Comes this way.
Cody Cecil:
Please. I’ll help you. Don’t break my house. This is all I own.
Police officer:
There’s supposed to be another guy in here.
If there’s anybody else in here make yourself known.
Cody Cecil:
It’s just me. I’m by myself.
Police officer:
Where’s your partner [inaudible 00:11:21].
Cody Cecil:
My partner? Who are you talking about?
Police officer:
That’s what he’s doing, he’s in here eating all this shit.
Cody Cecil:
What are you talking about?
Taya Graham:
That’s right. Cops pick through Cody’s belongings, buoyed by their top-notch investigative skills, behaving like a bunch of unrepentant frat boys basking in the glow of their mercenary bounty. Of course, eventually this collection of Sherlock Holmes realizes there’s a cell phone running which prompts him to act. Let’s take a close look at these few moments.
Cody Cecil:
Big issue dude?
Police officer:
[inaudible 00:11:49] in here-
Cody Cecil:
[inaudible 00:11:49] Because you guys didn’t even show probable cause or a warrant. [inaudible 00:11:56].
Police officer:
You get all these, dude?
Here we go.
That’s what he was doing. He was in there eating this shit.
Yeah, he was eating edibles is what he was fucking doing, see.
[inaudible 00:12:07]
Taya Graham:
Now I can’t read lips, but I think that officer was again expressing his contempt for both Cody and the law. And it’s not really surprising given what we’ve learned about this police department throughout our investigations over the past few years. It is a fraught set of facts because since then, rather than acknowledging the futility of the raid, prosecutors and police have doubled down. And for more on what that means and how it will affect his family, we will be joined by Cody and his mom soon. But first, I’m joined by my reporting partner, Stephen Janis, who’s been reaching out to prosecutors for comment and looking into the case itself. Stephen, thank you so much for joining me.
Stephen Janis:
Taya, thanks having me. I appreciate it.
Taya Graham:
Now first, you’ve reviewed the warrant and the case file. What are your thoughts?
Stephen Janis:
Well, basically it looked like a yard sale sponsored by police and where they’re going to go and just take everything out of your home and load it into the car and drive away with it. They confiscated a vehicle. They confiscated the camper. They confiscated grow materials. They confiscated books, they confiscated checkbooks, they confiscated deposit stamps. It was insane. It was just like they went in there and just took whatever they wanted and the whole justification was eight plants. Now, they also confiscated a gun, that actually didn’t belong to Cody because he did not own this camper. But they took everything he had all on the basis of eight marijuana plants and a so-called chemical smell. It is one of the worst statements of probable cause I’ve ever read. The warrant, as far as I could see, should have been rejected.
Taya Graham:
Now we’ve done a lot of reporting on the Milton West Virginia Police Department. Can you provide some of the background on this department and the problems they’ve had?
Stephen Janis:
Well Taya, Milton is a perfect example of over focusing on policing creates bad policy. The Milton Police Department has almost doubled in size in terms of budget over the past four or five years. Meanwhile, they’ve doubled ticket writing and ratcheted up fines. So it really shows you that they’ve incentivized policing in a bad way. Meanwhile, the town gave a tip or tax increment, finance tax break to Jeff Hoops, who is a failed coal baron who actually took money out of miners paychecks when Blackjewel coal went bankrupt and then gave himself money. It was a terrible, terrible mess. But meanwhile, he gets a tax cut plus 170 acres in free land that we’re giving him for $20 that belonged to the city. So really these two things go hand in hand and that’s why Cody’s, the arrest of Cody, the seizing of his property is really, really suspect.
Taya Graham:
Stephen, you’ve reached out to prosecutors and the judge. What are they saying about the case and what sort of prison time is Cody facing?
Stephen Janis:
Well Taya, this is what’s most alarming about the case. Eight pot plants could be 10 years. I’m not kidding. I know you think I’m making this up, but just eight pot plants could be 10 years because this judge apparently is sentencing Cody under Schedule I for marijuana, meaning it’s very dangerous substance, after the federal government has reduced it to Schedule III. Now just really set aside for a moment that they’ve been giving a big tax break to a legal grower and this young man could be facing two sentences, which could be served consecutively, not concurrently, meaning at the same time, and be in jail for 10 years for what you saw on camera. Tell me what the crime is. It is really a travesty of justice and I think everyone has a right to be concerned.
Taya Graham:
And now to get a sense of the toll this ordeal has taken on Cody, the risks he is facing out of sentencing and some of the questionable courtroom statements by the judge, I’m joined by Cody Cecil. Cody, I just want to say thank you so much for joining me again on the Police Accountability Report. We really appreciate you being here.
Cody Cecil:
Absolutely Taya. I appreciate you guys and everybody at the Real News Network for all the support and all the help.
Taya Graham:
So can you just describe for me what we’re seeing in your camper? I mean suddenly there’s pounding on the door and you pull out your cell phone camera. Can you describe to us what we’re seeing on that cell phone video and what you were thinking at the time?
Cody Cecil:
Yeah, so I woke up that morning with loud, aggressive knocks on the door. So then I kind of peaked out my bedroom window and I seen that it was a couple of cops and I thought, well, I don’t feel like answering this. I’m just waking up, so I’m just going to ignore the morning intrusion for the day. Well, the knocks started getting more aggressive and they weren’t going away. So at this point I took out my phone and I went live. ‘Cause I was just confused as to why they were there. So the phone and me recording was really just for my self-defense.
Taya Graham:
Now, something I noticed in the video it was that you were very wise to ask for a warrant before allowing police into your home, your camper. What happened when you asked for that warrant?
Cody Cecil:
Well, I was persistent in asking for the warrant. And after about 20 or 30 failed attempts of asking, “Just show me a warrant and I’ll let you in, and this can be done completely differently. I just want to understand what’s going on.” Finally, after about the 30th time or so that I’ve asked, he said, “You’ll get a warrant when it gets here.”
Taya Graham:
So we see the officers break into your camper, they break in and they start to drag you out. Did you even understand what was happening at that time? I mean, did you have any idea of what they were doing? Did they explain anything to you?
Cody Cecil:
No, not at all really. Even I didn’t get explained anything to me until I got basically to the police station. And I was just in complete shock, not understanding what was going on. Yeah, I had no clue. And that’s really all I kept asking for was just a little bit of information on why they’re here and what’s going on. Because at the time I was, after so many times of asking for a warrant and certain things, I was starting to honestly believe if they were even really cops or not. I was trying to do my best to de-escalate the situation and keep everybody calm, and as these guys are just getting more and more aggressive, it just felt completely off.
Taya Graham:
So they forcefully drag you out and take you into jail. When the police took you in, what was your bail and what were the charges that they told you at that time?
Cody Cecil:
So when I finally got there, they gave me obstruction of justice for recording with my phone, cultivation, distributions with intent, and bringing substances across the state line. And they gave me a cash bond of $100,000.
Taya Graham:
So I first learned about your troubles in West Virginia when your mom contacted me. She said, “My son was just put in jail for two days before Christmas. He’s been there for a month and her heart was breaking.” What was that like and what were you thinking during that time in that cell?
Cody Cecil:
To be honest, just the way that they were acting like I was a cold-blooded killer basically. It was such high bond and I thought everything was over. I didn’t know if I was ever going to make it home.
Taya Graham:
Also, let’s take a moment to hear from Cody’s mom Joni.
Speaker 5:
We know that Cody made some bad choices and that he needs to stand accountable for what he did. But I don’t understand, the judge gave him the max sentence on a Schedule I charge.
Taya Graham:
It’s okay, take your time. I understand.
Speaker 5:
To take him away from his whole family for five years. My mom will probably die while he’s in there. She’s 70 something years old and that’s her baby.
Taya Graham:
Now we ran your story and fortunately our community reached out and your bail was lowered, but the past two years you’ve had this hanging over you. What have you done for the past two years? Have you had to travel for court? Has there been any sort of impact on you during the past two years while this has been hanging over your head?
Cody Cecil:
So when you guys came in and actually wanted to shed light on the case and the tyranny that was happening, then they decided to actually give me a bond reduction, which wasn’t happening until everything went public thanks to the Real News Network. So they dropped it down to 20,000. But part of my bond stipulations was I was banned from the state. I was only allowed in the state for court. But upon doing so, when I got released, I got taken immediately up north back home and I didn’t have the resources to go grab the RV. It was broken down. So my RV, my house, my home got taken away and impounded.
By the time after the couple months that I did spend in jail waiting on bond and everything to change, they tried to say it was six, seven, $8,000 to get my RV back, which I did not have nothing. I was completely, they took most of my legal business stuff, my legal seeds, my laptop, everything that I owned of value and completely took me back down to absolutely nothing. I was absolutely nothing, square one. And so the last couple years have literally just been me rebuilding my bond with my sons. ‘Cause they were kind of upset that I was gone for the couple months, ’cause I was already gone a month prior to that for work. So at that time it was going on four or five months before I could see my sons and then… So it’s been a lot. I had to rebuild from scratch the last couple years, then going back and forth to court and everything else has just been… It definitely hasn’t been the easiest. So they knew what they were doing when they banned me from the state. I’ll say that.
Taya Graham:
Now one of the charges was cultivation, but you work for a legal marijuana company and you have a medical card. And the federal government has moved marijuana from Schedule I drugs, like heroin, to Schedule III. And West Virginia has had medical marijuana since 2018 and now is even giving millions of dollars in tax breaks to cultivators. Do you have any idea why they’re coming down so hard on you?
Cody Cecil:
Well, and I’m just going to say that this is my personal opinion, ’cause I know we all have in the cannabis community, we all have our regards towards officials and their position and role they play. But in my professional opinion, I truly believe it’s because I’m not buying sets of golf clubs for these officials and I’m not pushing my funds towards their political agenda and I’m not donating to their political parties and I’m not buying lunches and pizzas and everything else. I don’t have the big bank accounts backing me, which would in turn back them, so therefore I’m null and void. Which honestly, in more retrospect for a business standpoint, I’m in the way.
Taya Graham:
Now, I just want to make sure people realize this. Some seem to think you were there possibly to distribute seven or eight little hemp plants and 10 to 15 grams of bud, but you actually had no interest in being in West Virginia. I mean you were just traveling through.
Cody Cecil:
So after the couple years and rebuilding and everything and the publicity that came to the case, I know that Milton had some troubles after me with the way that the police force was working thanks to the Real News Network shedding light on another case. And they were allowing me to stay out of state. And then the public defenders, which I was using throughout this, trying to save resources for the fam and still rebuilding resources of my own, I had to use the public defenders. They was more leaning towards the fact that they just kind of want to just get through this as much as I do, that the state just wants to make sure that, in my opinion, again, this is in my opinion, that they just want to make sure some charges stick so that I have no chances of suing the state and going back after them, but also keep it to where they can put me on probation and send me home.
And they dropped a couple charges, and they were just the charges of cultivation and the charges of possession with intent to deliver. And I was under the impression, because the leniency that he showed allowing me to be free and home, that I was going to ultimately end up possibly more than likely with probation at home so that I could definitely showcase that I’m not a bad person and not doing these things, but still get the case onward and out of their dockets. And so it’s one to five on each.
And I went back to court, and like I said, I guess I was naive in the fact of thinking they’re just wanting to get through this as much as I was and just get it over with and move on with their lives. And that wasn’t the case. He completely disregarded the rest of the possible sentencing guidelines and he gave me the most severe and he gave me one to five prison on the cultivation, and I go back July 2nd, 9:00 AM for the final sentencing and the other charges sentencing, the possession with intent to deliver, and that is possibly up to another one to five. So he has to decide if I’m going to get one to five on each and run them concurrent or consecutively on the next sentencing.
Taya Graham:
I have to admit, I just don’t understand why a judge would want to pursue this. I see a young man who has been clean for years, who has a family, two children of special needs, and he actually wants to help people with medical marijuana because you believe in it as a real healing medicine. I mean, does this judge see you as some kind of dealer? Does he see the fact that you believe in marijuana as a medical drug as lack of remorse? I mean, what has this judge said to you? What have you heard?
Cody Cecil:
Yeah, at the time of this, Virginia was just becoming recreationally legal and legal in their own rights. And my family I had in Virginia was looking for consulting and help in agricultural realms and help producing their own medicine and becoming sustainable in their own medicine. So I was down in Virginia and I was trying to help, not trying to, I was starting legal businesses and consulting and trying to navigate my way into legality through Virginia as I’ve already been in Michigan. So I was down there for about a month and a half helping people and getting public relations started and certain things. And then about a month and a half into that, I was like, okay, I got to go home and visit my family and visit my sons. So I was driving up back up to Michigan through West Virginia and my brake lines blew, so I pulled over and got a campground. And when I got the campground, that happened about a week or so later. I truly don’t believe this would’ve happened if my RV wouldn’t have broke down.
Taya Graham:
Now something that I think is very important is how your family is dealing with what you’re facing and how you are handling it. I mean whether or not this is concurrent time or consecutive, this is a lot of time, especially to be away from small children. And it’s potentially so much time for a crime that is not a crime in the rest of the country. How is your family handling this?
Cody Cecil:
Well, I think that we were a little naive in the fact that we were thinking that the country was going to be a little bit more, the judge or anybody in the country would be a little bit more understanding towards the cannabis thing. And I was absolutely thinking, yes, he’s going to make me go home and be on probation. I want to see that he’s doing good and he’s wanting to do the right things, but I don’t think that my family didn’t realize how severe the outcome could possibly be.
And so we went to court and then all these things came out on his end and he let his views be known on how he feels about the cannabis space. I just don’t think that he’s pro-cannabis at all. He told me, he said, “You don’t think there’s anything wrong in what you do and what you’re doing.” He said, “you’re just going to go back home and continue to grow cannabis and do what you’re doing up there and think that nothing you’re doing is wrong and okay.” And then he went a little further and he said, “I’ve read a lot of character letters from you, and others might see you as a good man, but what our views on what a good man are are completely different.”
Taya Graham:
Now I want to do something a little different today. Usually I use the example of a bad arrest to make a point about a broader problem with policing that affects the entire country. But in this case, what is happening in Milton is just such a perfect example of the essence of the idea that bad policing leads to other government miscues. So that I want to drill down into the story still unfolding in the small West Virginia community to make a point, and I want to start with a press release from HADCO, or the Huntington Area Development Council. This organization touts itself as the driving force behind the economic growth in the area surrounding Milton. In a press release, the organization touts the finalizing of a deal between Cabell County, where Cody was arrested, and a cannabis growing company called Trulieve. The deal would allow the firm to build a grow facility there.
The deal includes the use of land and facilities of the so-called Hadco Business Park. What is the Hadco Business Park? Well, it’s a taxpayer funded facility designed to lure businesses to West Virginia. What they will be doing at the grow site, according to the same press release, is exactly what Cody was arrested for, growing marijuana for medical use. And Hadco was not just celebrating this fact, it was touting their commitment to medical cannabis and put it at the forefront of a new economy. Let me just read a quote. “This project will provide good paying jobs for our residents and will place Huntington West Virginia at the forefront of a rapidly growing cannabis industry in West Virginia.”
Okay, I’m really trying to unpack this idea. Why is pot a godsend for the county and legally supported with actual government tax breaks for one set of people and totally illegal and warranting jail time for another? What makes it okay for a huge corporation to grow pot for profit while the cops can seize the property of another growing company and never return it? Would you like to take a guess?
But let’s not stop there at assessing the idea of what makes a criminal in Cabell County versus a hero of capitalism. Now, remember Stephen mentioning the deal to build the Grand Petition Hotel in Milton? As he pointed out, the recipient of the communal largess was one, Jeff Hoops. Hoops is the notorious failed coal baron who clawed back the paychecks of miners around the country. The ensuing economic calamity caused incalculable pain for working people and left a trail of environmental devastation for which he has not been held accountable. Even the company he bankrupted, Blackjewel coal, sued him for fraudulent transfers for allegedly shifting millions of dollars, equipment, property, mining permits, inventory, and assets into his own family belongings.
But that didn’t stop Cabell County for awarding the aforementioned $15 million tiff to Hoops to build the Grand Petition Hotel. And wait for it, in 2018. The project, as Stephen noted, was supposed to be an expansive and economic boon to the area. So much so that the city of Milton turned over 170 acres of city-owned land for just $20. The hotel itself was projected to be opened in 2020. However, as this video we found on YouTube shows, the structure itself hardly seems close to being finished.
But of course, a big question I’m sure you’re asking is, Taya, how does this all fit together? I mean, what does a hotel, and ganja growing, and a cannabis crusader say about the state of American law enforcement and the role it plays in working class communities across rural America? Well, think of it this way. As Socrates noted in Plato’s seminal work the Republic, one of the most important questions facing any society or civil government is the fundamental notion of justice. Or in short, can a society be just, and if so, what constitutes a just society?
In other words, is the government fair to people who are governed? And does this fairness equate to better lives, open opportunity, and the type of social equilibrium in which anyone can thrive? This is of course a vexing question bereft of easy answers. I mean, it would literally be oversimplifying the entire concept if I said I could answer what this looks like and how it could be implemented in the world we live in now. However, I think pretty clearly I know what does not constitute a just society. And I think that rendering can be found in Cabell County. Let me lay it out in simple terms. Growing eight plants in your private camper is a crime punishable by 10 years in prison. Asking taxpayers to fund your billion-dollar business to exploit a plant derived from nature and yet restricted by law for some is heroic.
Trying to cure your addictions by spreading your love for a plant that some would say has practically magical healing powers. Oh, that’s a crime that requires the seizing of all your hard-earned assets, cleaning out the bank accounts of innocent coal miners while you pay yourself millions, which incidentally was alleged in a series of lawsuits against Jeff Hoops. Well, that noteworthy behavior will earn you free land and millions in taxpayer assistance. Sitting in your camper, minding your own business, waiting for it to be fixed warrants a full-on raid by law enforcement. Not building a hotel or explaining why it’s taking so long to do so even with mounting taxpayer assistance, well, that’s just great business. And if you’re interested if the hotel will open any anytime soon, take another look at this video of the state of construction posted last month. Doesn’t look great at the moment.
The point is, as we have witnessed time and time again on the show, the difference in this country between criminals and upstanding citizens is not always measured by their deeds. Rather, it seems we equate personal morality with the weight of their bank accounts. Too often what dictates a crime is not the impact it has on all of us, but rather the social, capital, and political connections of the perpetrator. How else can you explain the county of Cabell, West Virginia, where a giant corporation can grow all the weed it wants while Cody is being stripped of his last dollar and his rights for a few plants? How else are they supposed to accept the legal justification for giving free public land to a disgraced coal magnate versus seizing the property of a man who grew eight plants for his own use?
Truthfully, the case as it has unfolded, proves an unfortunate and troubling point about both our laws and how they’re enforced. They protect the powerful and afflict the powerless. They bolster the rich and burden the poor. They shower the already wealthy with largess and strip the struggling of their meager wealth. They bolster the riches of the richest while caging the working class for trying to better themselves. It’s a social imbalance that I think fully answers Socrates’ simple question: is a society just? Well in Cabell County, if Cody Cecil goes to prison I think we all know the answer.
I’d like to thank my guest, Cody Cecil, for speaking with us, and we wish him and his family the very best during this difficult time. Thank you so much, Cody. And of course, I have to thank intrepid reporter Stephen Janis for his writing, research, and editing on this piece. Thank you, Stephen
Stephen Janis:
Taya, thanks for having me. I appreciate it.
Taya Graham:
And I want to thank mods of the show, Noli D and Lacey R for their support. Thank you and a very special thanks to our Accountability Report Patreons. We appreciate you and I look forward to thanking each and every one of you personally in our next live stream, especially Patreon associate producers, John E.R, David K, Louis P, Lucia, Garcia, and my super friends, Shane B, Kenneth K, Pineapple Girl, Matter of Rights, and Chris R.
And I want you watching to know that if you have video evidence of police misconduct or brutality, please share it with us and we might be able to investigate for you. Please reach out to us. You can email us tips privately at par@therealnews.com and share your evidence of police misconduct. You can also message us at Police Accountability Report on Facebook or Instagram, or Eyes on Police on Twitter. And of course, you can always message me directly at tayasbaltimore on Twitter or Facebook. And please like and comment, I do read your comments and appreciate them, and you know I give out those little hearts down there. And we have a Patreon link pinned in the comments below for accountability reports. So if you feel inspired to donate, please do. We don’t run ads or take corporate dollars, so anything you can spare is truly appreciated.
My name is Taya Graham and I’m your host of the Police Accountability Report. Please be safe out there.
Speaker 6:
Thank you so much for watching The Real News Network, where we lift up the voices, stories and struggles that you care about most. And we need your help to keep doing this work, so please tap your screen now, subscribe, and donate to the Real News Network. Solidarity forever.
This story originally appeared in Jacobin on June 23, 2024. It is shared here with permission.
Atlanta residents are awaiting a court decision on whether they will be allowed to vote on the construction of a massive new police training facility, dubbed “Cop City.” The $110 million Atlanta Public Safety Training Center would draw police trainees from across the country and contain an entire mock city, a model strikingly similar to the Israeli military’s “mini-Gaza” used to train Israeli troops for urban combat.
Atlanta’s Cop City was proposed after the 2020 George Floyd uprising, the mass protest movement sparked by the murder of George Floyd by then officer Derek Chauvin in Minneapolis, MN, and other instances of racist police violence. As with earlier waves of Black Lives Matter protests, 2020 led to some policing reforms — many imposed by voters through ballot initiatives — but in general, police institutions responded to the movement by preparing for war. Just over a year after George Floyd took his last breath, the Atlanta city council voted to green-light Cop City.
From the moment it was announced, many Atlanta residents have fought bitterly to stop Cop City, while the city government is doing its best to build it anyway. The effort to ram Cop City past public opposition is dovetailing with antidemocratic measures and increasingly draconian anti-protest laws across the country, in a bipartisan spiral toward authoritarianism that we ignore at our peril.
It is becoming increasingly obvious that the struggle against authoritarianism doesn’t always revolve around far-right Republicans. In urban centers like Atlanta — think also of recent police responses to protests in New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, and Minneapolis — Democrats are paving the way to the society far-right Republicans dream of, where decisions are made by and for those already in power and the police are armed and ready to keep everyone in their place.
The Referendum on Cop City
In June 2021, Atlanta city councilmember Joyce Sheperd introduced Ordinance 21-O-0637 proposing to lease 381 acres of publicly owned forest to the Atlanta Police Foundation for the construction of Cop City. The facility itself would be built on eighty-five acres of clear-cut land in the Weelaunee Forest, adjacent to a majority-black area of Atlanta. Dozens of cop cities have been built or are under construction since the George Floyd uprising, but Atlanta’s would be the flagship — the largest and most public-facing police urban warfare training center in the United States.
The fight to prevent construction brought together people of all stripes, including anti-racists and opponents of militarized policing, environmentalists sounding the alarm about the potentially disastrous climate impacts of destroying so much of Atlanta’s green space, and residents who see Cop City as part of rampant gentrification or who simply think taxpayer money could be better spent on underfunded public services. Local activists mobilized demonstrations, direct actions at construction sites, a network of forest encampments, and a nationwide solidarity campaign.
Atlanta’s Cop City would be the flagship — the largest and most public-facing police urban warfare training center in the United States.
In June 2023, after two years of escalating protests and repression, the Atlanta City Council met to vote on public funding for Cop City’s construction. Residents again packed city hall, with public comments lasting for over thirteen hours, the vast majority dead set against the project. Once again, the city council ignored its constituents and voted to appropriate tens of millions of tax dollars to build Cop City.
The next day, Atlantans turned to a more formal type of public comment, one with some teeth — a referendum campaign to repeal the 2021 ordinance leasing land to the Atlanta Police Foundation. It would be the first time a popular referendum (meaning a vote on a policy instead of a politician) has been used in Atlanta.
One could be forgiven for expecting that the response to a proposed referendum on an ordinance supported by the mayor and twice approved by the city council would be a public awareness campaign to persuade residents that Cop City is in fact a good thing. That’s how democracy is supposed to work, right? Instead, the city government threw up every roadblock they could to prevent a popular vote.
The first version of the petition was rejected on a technicality; when it was resubmitted and eventually accepted, the city of Atlanta sued both to restrict signature collectors to Atlanta residents and to invalidate the petition altogether, saying that it was unconstitutional in Georgia. A district judge kicked the can on the second objection, saying it would get adjudicated if the referendum were to make the ballot. On the first question, he ruled that anyone could circulate the referendum petition, and he extended the sixty-day deadline to submit signatures.
But when the campaign submitted their 116,000 signatures by the new deadline — significantly more than all votes cast in Atlanta’s last mayoral election and almost double the amount required to get on the ballot — the city rejected them on the grounds that the campaign had missed the original deadline, arguing that since the lawsuit was being appealed, the new deadline was false. That appeal is currently with the Eleventh Circuit.
On top of this, the City Council voted to adopt signature-matching procedures, which experts criticize as riven with problems that result in the exclusion of marginalized people. But that procedure only kicks in if the process is allowed to proceed. As it stands, 116,000 signatures sit in boxes and the referendum is at a standstill while construction of Cop City moves forward.
Antidemocracy in Action
Switching out mayors and city council members — all Democrats in the first place — has had no effect. After the 2021 vote to lease land for Cop City, many longtime city councilmembers, including Sheperd, were ousted by a slate of younger Democrats running on progressive platforms. Yet the 2023 vote to fund Cop City was almost identical to the 2021 vote to lease it (11–4 and 10–4, respectively). Likewise, the mayor who initially supported Cop City, Keisha Lance Bottoms, was replaced with Andre Dickens, who had previously signaled some willingness to stand up to police. Since taking office, however, Dickens has overseen the bureaucratic suppression of the referendum and brutal police repression of protesters.
Not only has changing Democratic representatives been unsuccessful in aligning the city with its constituents on this issue, but the tactics that Atlanta Democrats are using against the Cop City referendum have directly mirrored Republican attacks on the direct vote elsewhere.
Ballot initiatives and referendums are the only large-scale means of direct legislation we have, and as such are a good barometer for democratic institutions. Where the local party in power is uncomfortable with people having a direct say in legislation, it’s a good bet that those politicians aren’t governing in most people’s best interests. That’s because when voters are allowed to legislate for themselves, they tend to agree on a lot of core issues.
The tactics that Atlanta Democrats are using against the Cop City referendum have directly mirrored Republican attacks on the direct vote elsewhere.
For example, every single state initiative to raise the minimum wage has passed going back to 1996, with an average of 60 percent support in red and blue states alike. During Barack Obama’s presidency, Republicans made opposition to Medicaid expansion a pillar of their platform, but when voters have petitioned to put the expansion on the ballot in Republican states, it has passed almost every time. Abortion is supposed to be the polarizing issue par excellence, but all seven votes on abortion rights or bans since the Supreme Court’s Dobbs decision have gone for reproductive freedom (four initiatives to protect abortion rights passed, while three to ban abortion failed).
As a decision-making mechanism, ballot initiatives themselves are highly popular, and voters from both parties are acutely hostile to legislators trying to take away the direct vote. So when state or local governments want to do just that — typically connected to an initiative that is popular with voters but unpopular with party leaders — they usually try to avoid appearing as though they’re simply against democracy. Instead, they tend to take a more subtle, death-by-a-thousand-papercuts approach — legislation that makes the process more expensive and less accessible, bad-faith bureaucratic obstacles, overly burdensome technicalities, and lengthy court challenges.
Some of the most common methods state and local governments use to weaken citizen initiatives have been trying to increase the winning percentage it takes to pass initiatives; upping the number or widening the geographic distribution of signatures required (which hikes up costs for campaigns); arbitrarily changing deadlines and paperwork requirements; imposing “single-subject” rules that can sound like common sense but in practice enable courts to toss initiatives by claiming they relate to more than one thing; imposing divisive or misleading ballot language; sponsoring competing measures meant to confuse voters; and so on.
When all else fails, legislators have resorted to gutting initiatives they oppose through bills that undo the intended effect, and courts have overcome popular citizen initiatives by ruling them unconstitutional, sometimes on absurd technicalities. In rare cases, often involving the carceral system, government agencies have simply refused to comply. This is where the role of the police comes into focus. When push comes to shove, who is going to enforce the rules, and who do the enforcers answer to?
Around the country, wherever ballot initiatives are being used to pass policy that the majority wants but the ruling party opposes, state and local governments are resorting to rigging the game to prevent a popular vote. That’s exactly what we’re seeing in Atlanta. In many instances, initiative campaigns have managed to overcome gerrymandered rules to win. Whether or not this is possible in the future may come down to how barefaced the police can be in suppressing dissent.
The Police State
The job of police is to enforce the status quo, and a deeply unequal status quo requires heavy-handed enforcement. Historically, the institution of police was imported from England, where constables were used to defend the rule of monarchy against the masses since the thirteenth century. A similar practice developed in the seventeenth century via deputized bands of armed white men enforcing the system of slavery in the American and Caribbean colonies.
The first formal police departments in the United States were the ruling class’s response to abolitionist calls for rebellion. Modern policing did not develop to defend everyday people from criminals, but to protect the beneficiaries of a racialized and exploitative system from those who wanted to change that system.
Today reasonable people might disagree about the ideal role of policing on the road to a more just society. But we should all agree that to the extent police exist, they should be accountable to the communities they police, not just to the people in power. It would be difficult to overstate the danger that militarized police, armed with the weapons, tactics, and attitude of war, pose not just to the safety of our communities, but to any chance we might have of democratizing the US political and economic systems.
It is no accident that Cop City emerged in reaction to the 2020 racial justice uprising, itself a popular rejoinder to racist police violence. During that moment, police brutalized protesters and attacked journalists with impunity. The Department of Homeland Security even admitted to using unmarked vans to kidnap activists at gunpoint. Cop City was proposed in the aftermath of these events to train police how to better operate as though they are an occupying force in hostile terrain of a majority-black city.
One of Cop City’s prime inspirations, the Israeli military’s “mini Gaza,” speaks volumes. It’s hard to find a single person, whatever their stance on Israel and Palestine might be, who wants cops to police their neighborhood the way Israeli soldiers operate in Gaza. Supporters of militarized policing implicitly understand that those guns will be pointed at other kinds of people in other places.
In January, 2023, as if to leave no doubt about the type of policing Cop City would supercharge, Atlanta police raided the Stop Cop City protest encampment, shooting activist Manuel “Tortuguita” Paez Terán at least fourteen times in the process, killing them on the spot. Police claimed Tortuguita had a weapon and fired on police, but recordings from the raid indicate police likely shot at each other by accident, while the district attorney has refused to make forensic evidence public.
The fight to stop Cop City is emblematic of a broader struggle to govern through popular will against a political class that appears increasingly ready to swap out democratic institutions for a police state.
Later that year, just as the referendum campaign was gaining steam, Atlanta police arrested dozens of protesters for domestic terrorism, racketeering, and other felonies carrying twenty-year prison sentences or more. Then they arrested three people running the Atlanta Solidarity Fund, which helped provide bail for Stop Cop City activists.
The targeting of support activities like the bail fund, as well as the outrageousness of some of the charges — terrorism charges for having muddy shoes, felony intimidation for handing out flyers about Tortuguita’s murder — make it clear that getting honest convictions is not the priority. These police and prosecutor actions, like recent legislation across the country criminalizing dissent and enabling vigilante violence against protesters, are about breaking the movement.
Shortly after the crackdown on activists and supporters, the Atlanta city clerk published the referendum petition online with all signatories’ personal information, effectively doxing everyone who wanted a public vote on Cop City. When activists demanded that information be redacted, the city council directed the city clerk to comply, but the clerk has yet to do so. As with obstructions to the referendum, the bureaucracy has a way of fluidly taking the shape of repression. Through it all, organizers on the ground refused to be cowed, and continued to press the fight against Cop City.
People Power vs. Police Power
The most direct threat of authoritarianism clearly appears to come from the Republican Party. With the accompanying media parade focusing on two-party candidate elections, it can be all too easy to overlook the ways Democrats in liberal cities are putting pieces in place for the authoritarian transition. The fight to stop Cop City is emblematic of a broader struggle to govern through popular will against a political class that appears increasingly ready to swap out democratic institutions for a police state.
Right-wing Republicans are not the immediate problem in Atlanta, where the ruling Democratic political establishment came to power in the wake of the civil rights movement. But knowingly or not, that Democratic political establishment is laying the far right’s groundwork in repressing voting and civil rights to prepare the police for war against their own population.
This phenomenon is by no means limited to Atlanta, and the impacts of the fight over Cop City will not stay local. Through antidemocratic measures, the criminalization of protest, and the militarization of police, the ruling class is attempting an encirclement maneuver around possibilities for change from below. The more of these battles we lose, the fewer our options become.
For the past 54 years, Thomas ‘Tahaka’ Gaither has lived behind bars as a political prisoner. A former member of the Black Panther Party Baltimore Chapter, Gaither was a close associate of ‘Marshall’ Eddie Conway Jr., who spent his last years as host of Rattling the Bars. Although Gaither was released on parole decades ago, he was forced to return to prison in the late 1990s when Gov. Glendering revoked parole for anyone who had received a life sentence. Tahaka Gaither and his daughter, Tara, return to Rattling the Bars to discuss his life, their family’s shared struggle to release Tahaka and live on in spite of the prison system, and what Tahaka’s incarceration has meant for generations of his family.
Studio Production: David Hebden, Cameron Granadino Post-Production: Cameron Granadino
Transcript
The following is a rushed transcript and may contain errors. A proofread version will be made available as soon as possible.
Mansa Musa:
Welcome to this edition of Rattling The Bars. I’m your host, Mansa Musa. Joining me today via phone and in the studio as well via phone is a comrade of mine, Thomas Gaither, better known as Tahaka.
Tahaka is a political prisoner in every sense of the word. Tahaka is a former Black Panther. When we was in the Maryland Penitentiary, we had a collective called the Maryland Pen Intercommunal Survivor Collective, which was patterned after the Black Panther Party under the leadership and guide of Eddie Conway. Tahaka spent a numerous amount of years on lockup for allegedly being involved in an assault on an officer, along with Eddie and four other comrades.
Tahaka, welcome to Rattling The Bars. Hey Tahaka, tell our audience a little bit about yourself.
Thomas “Tahaka” Gaither:
Like the brother said, my name is Tahaka, as you know. And I’m a member of the original Black Panther Party under the leadership of Marshall Eddie Conway, one of the Maryland Penitentiary Five, which included Eddie Conway. That’s my rap buddy. You know?
And I met Eddie when we first went in the penitentiary around the same time, man, about 54 years ago. I was a kid. Eddie just went and he mentored me. You know that. You know I was his right-hand man the whole time we were there.
Mansa Musa:
Yeah. That’s right.
Thomas “Tahaka” Gaither:
You know. Yes indeed. So I’m just sitting here, like I said, I’ve been here for 54 years now since 1970, trying to get my freedom. And like Mansa Musa said, I’m definitely a political prisoner.
Mansa Musa:
Oh, you political prisoner in every sense of the word. Hey, Tahaka, walk us through those 55 years, more importantly, about where you was at in that process, because we need our audience to understand-
Thomas “Tahaka” Gaither:
Okay. All right.
Mansa Musa:
We need our audience to understand that-
Thomas “Tahaka” Gaither:
Well-
Mansa Musa:
Yeah. Where you was at, what went on through that 55 years.
Thomas “Tahaka” Gaither:
Okay. Well, in 1970, at the age of 19, I entered the Maryland State Penitentiary in East Baltimore. Maximum security prison, the only maximum security prison at the time in the state of Maryland. I was 19 years old, as I said. I went in there with a life sentence. And I was one of the first teenagers in there. Prior to that, it wasn’t like it is today where everywhere you look it’s a bunch of youthful guys-
Mansa Musa:
That’s right.
Thomas “Tahaka” Gaither:
… teenagers, 18, 19 years old. Back then I was like, I think it was only one other prisoner in there that was my age. It was like coming into the belly of the beast. I had never into a situation like that before. And the Maryland Penitentiary at that time was known as one of the most dangerous prisons in the United States.
Mansa Musa:
That’s right.
Thomas “Tahaka” Gaither:
Not just in the state of Maryland. You know? It had a death row. It had a death row chair in there, and death row inmates. Maryland was unique in the fact that; and you know, because you was there; that the death row inmates, they circulated with everybody. They weren’t isolated like in other prisons. And some of my nearest and dearest comrades was on there, like Sam Feeney. You know?
Mansa Musa:
That’s right.
Thomas “Tahaka” Gaither:
He mentored me. Sam Feeney took me under his wing when I first went in there.
Mansa Musa:
That’s right.
Thomas “Tahaka” Gaither:
And Soldier Gerald Ditt right there with you. My comrades. These guys, they raised me. They raised me up.
At that time when I entered the penitentiary, Eddie Conway was still in Baltimore City Jail waiting to be tried on the trumped-up charges. But they charged him with a shootout, with assassinating an officer that wounded another officer; an incident where he wasn’t even present at the time. And they railroaded him to get him off the street because of his political influence in the community and his leadership.
Mansa Musa:
That’s right.
Thomas “Tahaka” Gaither:
But he was at City Jail at the time and I was in the penitentiary. So we were waiting on Eddie to come in. When I went in the pen, they had a small cadre of Black Panthers in the penitentiary and under the leadership of Rob Kasa-Vubu Folks. Do you remember Kasa-Vubu?
Mansa Musa:
Yes, sir.
Thomas “Tahaka” Gaither:
And Eddie wrote about him in his book, which the Marshall Law. I think it was in the second book that he wrote, Life of a Baltimore Black Panther, because Kasa-Vubu was running the party at the time. So I had met Eddie prior to coming into penitentiary. He came to my community with a group of Panthers. They were on a fundraising drive. They were selling Black Panther papers and Free Huey buttons and stuff like that. And they came to my neighborhood. And my mother invited him in and gave him some Kool-Aid and some cookies and stuff and bought some pens and some papers.
That’s when I met him, but I wasn’t to see him again until after that incidental play. They had him over there on court side in Baltimore City Jail. They subsequently railroaded him and found him guilty and gave him a life sentence, something like life and 30 years and put him in the penitentiary. So his mission at that time was to organize the brothers in penitentiary. And he took over leadership from Rob Folks. And you know, the rest is history, man. You know. You was there. I remember when you came through.
Mansa Musa:
Yeah. You recruited-
Thomas “Tahaka” Gaither:
You remember when you came through-
Mansa Musa:
You recruited me. You recruited me.
Thomas “Tahaka” Gaither:
Huh?
Mansa Musa:
You recruited me.
Thomas “Tahaka” Gaither:
Yes, I did.
Mansa Musa:
Yeah, I remember you came-
Thomas “Tahaka” Gaither:
I remember like it was yesterday, man.
Mansa Musa:
Yeah. Hey, Tahaka, tell-
Thomas “Tahaka” Gaither:
Yeah. How old were you?
Mansa Musa:
I was 19 when I came in there. I came there two years after-
Thomas “Tahaka” Gaither:
Yeah. Yeah, I think you-
Mansa Musa:
I came in there I think a year after you came in there. Or two years. Hey. Hey, Tahaka.
Thomas “Tahaka” Gaither:
Yeah.
Mansa Musa:
Okay-
Thomas “Tahaka” Gaither:
And so I was given… Yes, sir?
Mansa Musa:
Nah. Okay. Now, you’ve been locked up all this time, right? Talk about how you was at one point in time during your incarceration or your imprisonment or enslavement that you was allowed to go out and be on work release. Talk about that period where you was out working on the street.
Thomas “Tahaka” Gaither:
Okay. Well, all right. Well, what happened last year most was I stayed in the penitentiary for like 14 and a half years. And during that time I basically grew up in… I was 19 years old when I went in. But the Black Panther Party always taught us to seek higher education. So I got my GED, I went to college, I got my Bachelor’s of Science degree in Sociology. And I went up for a transfer from maximum security trying to get to medium security.
But the warden said that as long as I was in the college program, he was going to keep me there until I graduated. So I wound up staying almost 15 years. I graduated from Coppin State University with a Bachelor’s of Science degree. And after 14 and a half years, they sent me to the Maryland House of Correction, which is medium security. So I progressed from maximum to medium. So that was in 1984. I went into pen in 1970, and 1984 they finally transferred me to the Maryland House of Correction medium security institution. And I went in there. And, you know, the House of Correction was “The Cut” as it was called at the time.
Mansa Musa:
Yeah.
Thomas “Tahaka” Gaither:
They tore it down since then. They had a reputation in there too. That was a very tough prison. You know? But at this time, I mean, I grew up in the penitentiary, so everybody basically knew who I was. They knew me. And I went in there and I started programming in medium security, trying to get to minimum security.
And eventually they sent Eddie Conway [inaudible 00:08:33] me and Eddie were in there together. And we were running a self-help organization called South Incorporated. And after five years in the Maryland House of Correction under medium security, they transferred me to minimum security. And I was [inaudible 00:08:51]. So I went from maximum to medium to minimum. And so in 1984 to The Cut after, and then 1989 is when I went through pre-release system. Stayed in the pre-release system for four and a half years, from ’84 to ’89 when I made a work release status in pre-release.
And I was basically on the street, man. I was coming out every day going to work. I started working on the road through and cleaning trash and trimming trees and going all this stuff, you know, on the highway stuff. And finally they reduced my sentence. Well, they didn’t reduce my sentence, but they reduced my status from minimum security to pre-release. And I received work release, which is the highest status you can get in the pre-release system.
Mansa Musa:
Yeah. Right.
Thomas “Tahaka” Gaither:
Yes, sir.
Mansa Musa:
All right now. Okay. So we talking… I just wanted the audience to get a nice overview of you so they can understand who you are as a person and more importantly who you are as a man. This show is primarily about Father’s Day. And I got your lovely daughter here, Tara, who is your wingman, so to speak.
Thomas “Tahaka” Gaither:
Yes, sir.
Mansa Musa:
Every time I would tell Tara, I say… Every time I’m trying to do something for you or around you, I say, “I’ll call one of your family members, right?” And they’ll say, “Oh yeah, okay, yeah I got somebody.” And they’ll put Tara. And look, Tara might be-
Thomas “Tahaka” Gaither:
[inaudible 00:10:33].
Mansa Musa:
Yeah. Tara might be on… Look, Tara might be getting ready to work. Tara might be… Look, we was on the phone, and they say, “Tara can you come in?” She say, “When?” “This time.” And she’d be like… You could hear her calculating in her head. “Oh well, yeah, I’m going to take off…” Yeah. Because of her father. But, Tahaka, talk about how old was Tara when you left the street?
Thomas “Tahaka” Gaither:
Hey, Mansa Musa, when I left the street, Tara was one. She was 1-year-old. She was 1-year-old, man. You know? The sweetest little girl, man. And it just broke my heart, man, to have to leave her and her mother and coming to the penitentiary. But you know I had no control over it. But she was 1. And-
Mansa Musa:
And look-
Thomas “Tahaka” Gaither:
One thing I can tell you, man, my mother… You know my mother.
Mansa Musa:
Oh, I already know-
Thomas “Tahaka” Gaither:
You met my mother before, right?
Mansa Musa:
Yeah. Your mother was a soldier. Your mother was a soldier. Yeah.
Thomas “Tahaka” Gaither:
Yes indeed.
Mansa Musa:
Hey-
Thomas “Tahaka” Gaither:
So my mother would bring Tara every week to see me [inaudible 00:11:37]-
Mansa Musa:
That’s right. Yeah, yeah. And look, I remember when you used to talk about it when… I was down at Cut with y’all for a minute till I tried to escape, but I remember-
Thomas “Tahaka” Gaither:
Yeah. I remember.
Mansa Musa:
Every time we was around each other, right? Because we comrade. We family for real. We be talking about each other. And I remember we used to always talk-
Thomas “Tahaka” Gaither:
We family. We definitely family.
Mansa Musa:
I remember we used to always talk about Tara. Hey, Tahaka, you proud of Tara?
Thomas “Tahaka” Gaither:
Oh man, you know I’m proud of my daughter, man. She’s beautiful. She grew up to be an outstanding young lady. She’s beautiful. Her morals are tight. She raised her family. She has two beautiful daughters and she raised them. And each of her daughters had four children. She helped to raise them. And the family is just beautiful. She held the family together. And she’s been by me, she’s been by my side the whole time. Like I said, my mother would bring her every week after church. She would bring her without fail to visit me. You know? And any time we had a function or a social or something at the prison, Tara was there.
And when she started having children, she brought her children. And when her children started having children, they brought them. So you’re talking like three generations. Tara, her children, and her grandchildren. All three generations were raised up coming through these prisons to see Pop-pop.
Mansa Musa:
That’s right. Hey, Tara-
Thomas “Tahaka” Gaither:
We have a strong family, man.
Mansa Musa:
Hey, Tahaka, I got her right here. Look. She look like she’s getting ready to cry too. Look. Hey, Tara, talk about-
Thomas “Tahaka” Gaither:
She better not cry.
Mansa Musa:
Okay.
Thomas “Tahaka” Gaither:
She know we don’t do no crying.
Mansa Musa:
Talk about… Your father just said that your grandmother, which I knew… Matter of fact your grandmother was like… We called your grandmother the collective mother. Seriously. Because every time we got packages she would bring… Like, whoever couldn’t afford family ain’t afford no package, she would give packages. She would make sure Tahaka had more than enough stuff. And basically we always broke down and shared. But she was always in that space.
Thomas “Tahaka” Gaither:
That’s right.
Mansa Musa:
As far as like… We called her the collective mother. Talk about that experience, your grandmother bring you over to see your father and all those years, what kind of impact did that have on you?
Tara Gaither:
I think that if it weren’t for my grandmother that I would not have the relationship and bond with my father that I had because she was bringing me to the penitentiary. I didn’t know where I was going. I just knew that I was going to see my father and I knew that… I mean, back then when you look at the penitentiary, it just looked to me like a big old castle.
Mansa Musa:
Yeah, that’s right.
Tara Gaither:
So I thought that I was going to this big… I mean, I can remember sliding down the brass staircase when I was little. But if it wasn’t for my grandmother, I owe a whole lot to my grandmother for keeping me in contact and making sure that I knew who my father was and that I had a bond with him.
Mansa Musa:
Right. And then he also talked about… And that right there, if you pass that on, that became like a thing with you, with your children to make sure they knew who their grandfather was. Why was that important?
Tara Gaither:
It was just a natural thing that, to me, that this is my father and this is my children’s grandfather. So they ought to be just as tight with him as I am. And the same thing with my grandchildren. I brought my grandchildren when they were first born to see my father. You know? And so my grandchildren know who Pop-pop is. Even down to the youngest, the two-year-old, she knows who Pop-pop is.
Mansa Musa:
And Tara, Tahaka talked about how long he’d been locked up, and the fact that at one point in time he was actually going out on the street. When he was going out back and forth on the street, did y’all have contact?
Tara Gaither:
We were in contact. I actually was coming… I never stopped going to visit him. I was actually coming up to Jessup Pre-Release Unit to visit my dad. So yeah, I was seeing him. I don’t remember a time in my life that no matter where he was, even when he had been to Hagerstown that I didn’t see him. If I was old enough to drive, I knew how to get in the car and turn the key and get up the highway.
Audio:
You have 60 seconds remaining.
Mansa Musa:
And for the benefit of our audience-
Thomas “Tahaka” Gaither:
You hear me?
Mansa Musa:
… Tahaka, you get ready. They’re getting ready to cut you off, right?
Thomas “Tahaka” Gaither:
Yeah, they getting ready to cut me off, man.
Mansa Musa:
Okay.
Thomas “Tahaka” Gaither:
But I just want to say, man, I want to thank y’all for these Father’s Day programs, man. It means a lot to me, as well all the other guys in here. They know about… I told them what was going on, man. Most of them love you and they respect you, bro. But Tara, God bless you. And you always-
Audio:
You have 30 seconds remaining.
Thomas “Tahaka” Gaither:
We got a saying, “Every day is Mother’s Day, every day is Father’s Day.” You understand? We don’t just wait one time a year to celebrate.
Mansa Musa:
That’s right. That’s right.
Thomas “Tahaka” Gaither:
All right, man.
Mansa Musa:
All right, comrade.
Thomas “Tahaka” Gaither:
You all carry on, man. God bless you, man.
Mansa Musa:
All right, comrade. Yeah. And Tara, look-
Thomas “Tahaka” Gaither:
All right. I love you, man. Told you I love you folks.
Mansa Musa:
All right. Love you too, comrade.
Thomas “Tahaka” Gaither:
Tara, you be good. You be safe.
Tara Gaither:
I will.
Thomas “Tahaka” Gaither:
I’ll talk to you later, Tara.
Tara Gaither:
Okay.
Mansa Musa:
And Tara, like you say… Now he getting ready to go off. But let’s talk. Let’s talk about how your father, your impact your father had. And we know because he, even by his own admission, he already say how he feel about… You know. So that’s no question about how he view you and your growth and your maturation and coming into your womanhood.
Talk about what influenced, how he influenced that, the person you are today. Because remember, he say you was, what, one years old? So talk about them, that experience, the influence he has on you to be the woman that you are today. What type of influence did he have on you?
Tara Gaither:
A large impact basically because after a certain time my grandmother wasn’t taking me to see my father, but I still had a desire in me to have a relationship with him. So even as a teenager, as soon as I was able to get in by myself, I was there. And it was important. And it was a time in the middle when I was older and on the weekends I wanted to be with my friends or whatever, whatever. So I wasn’t always at my grandmother’s house. So that was at the point where it was really important because he never left me, because he continued to… I was getting them phone calls. And sometimes I can remember when my father was in The Cut, we would talk on the phone all day just chilling, sitting back-
Mansa Musa:
I remember. I remember.
Tara Gaither:
… on a summer day-
Mansa Musa:
I remember
Tara Gaither:
… you know, chilling, talking to my dad. And I have the kind of relationship with him where I can tell him anything and he can tell me anything. So it was important to be able to have that bond. It’s important to be able to have… Every child needs a father.
Mansa Musa:
Yeah.
Tara Gaither:
And I needed my father. And I seen some stats where it said that children that grow up with their fathers incarcerated, it affects them more than if their parent were dead. And that’s some serious stuff right there. But it’s up to you what you want it to be.
Mansa Musa:
And that right there, that’s the part of this system that is designed to do that. It’s designed to create that mentality in the family, that if your loved one is… And on the plantation, talking about be dead or she dead, but the fact that by your own admission and the reality is that he said he never left you because, like he said on early, you heard him when he left, when he got locked up, it hurt him to have to leave you. And that right there drove him to say, “That no matter what, I’m going to make sure that my daughter know that I’m her father. I’ll make sure that my daughter know that… Treat me like your father. Look at me like I’m your father. Don’t look at me where I’m at. Look at me as your parent under these circumstances.”
And in terms of that right there, what do you tell other children of parents that are in incarcerated? What do you tell them that might be struggling with that? What do you tell them? Because you’re an example of what to do or how to maintain or how to process it by your example of that.
Tara Gaither:
The sad realization of being a person whose parent is incarcerated is that when you realize that it’s generational. As Black people, right now we’re striving for generational wealth. Okay? It’s this thing all about generational wealth, how to get generational wealth. But we don’t understand that incarceration is generational.
Mansa Musa:
Right.
Tara Gaither:
I have a brother, my brother has a son, my brother has been incarcerated. And we just recently found out yesterday that my nephew may be going away for a long time. You know? It is important that people know that children need their parents regardless, no matter wherever they are, whatever they did, the parenthood is so needed. It’s so needed. Just remember that they say that out of every eight children, one of those children has an incarcerated parent. That’s a lot of people. That’s a lot of children.
And then you get to the road, are you going to go this way or are you going to go that way? A lot of that depends on what you’re getting from your parent that is incarcerated. A lot of it. So my father was feeding me, my father was feeding me, “What about your grades?” You know? It’s all about doing right. What are you up to? Keeping in contact with me. On some of them summer days when I could have been out in the street doing anything, I was on the phone talking to my dad.
Mansa Musa:
Right. And you know what? And that right there, what you just say, that’s the genesis right there. That is the line and the saying what the parent that’s incarcerated do with the children. How they [inaudible 00:22:57]. And I had two people coming here interview prior to you. And both of them… One was incarcerated, dad, he out. And other one was a woman much like yourself whose father was still locked up. But all of them had the same… Going back to your point, all of them, everybody had the same perspective. He was in touch with his children while he was locked up. He made sure that he had access to them by phone. The father or the young lady, much like yourself, they got the kind of relationship that… Y’all will be mirror images. If y’all run y’all stories by side by side, y’all be remember images in terms of how much the parent that’s incarcerated made sure that they stayed in touch with their children.
And this will give me… Talk about… Maybe you want to talk about it, why you think the system don’t encourage that. Why you think the prison system is so hell bent on, oh yeah, making you feel uncomfortable when you come to visit? Like, I’m going to make you… If you had to come to Hagerstown, okay, I’m going to make it where you come, but I’m going to make it where it be so uncomfortable when you coming to see… Like, you doing something wrong by seeing your family. Or I’m going to make it like, oh, you get there, then I’m going to say like, “Ooh, visiting hours is over.” You only been there five minutes. And, like, what do you mean visit, something happened? Why do you think the system is so hell bent on stopping that and not encouraging that?
Tara Gaither:
That’s a good question because I was in the computer and I was looking up stats and I was like, “I can’t believe they got all these stats.” They know how many children have incarcerated parents. They know out of the children that who had incarcerated parents, how many ended up incarcerated. They know the effects that having incarcerated parents has on a child. They have all of this information. But I couldn’t find anywhere where they did anything positive with it.
So I sat back and wondered to myself, well, maybe they wanted the information because they wanted to use it against us. I don’t see anybody doing anything with that information to help any children that have incarcerated parents, whole families. I was the only child for my mother. But you have families where men with multiple children that nobody’s doing anything for these kids. I have any idea. I’m going to tell you. I have been to just about every visiting room in the state of Maryland. And let me tell you, the officers need to have sensitivity training. They need to be trained not to… Because they have a way of looking down on you like you are lower than them. And a lot of things that you want to say to them, you can’t say because you’re not going to get your visit.
But it is amazing how they treat the families and the children. I had one of my grandkids with me. I took her to see my father and she had barrettes in her head. They made me take her barrettes out of her hair. Family Day. She told me I couldn’t take the bottle in. I could take the pamper. What I’m going to do with a baby? This was recently. The last Family Day they had up there. What am I going to do with an infant with no bottle? I’m like, “Come on, this is ridiculous. I’ve been coming up here since I was was this age. You’re not going to tell me she can’t have a bottle. She can have a bottle.” I mean, all my grandkids have been up there.
So it depends on the government. These people that are running these institutions, they need to do something about it because what they don’t realize is that the more communication and time that people have with their families kind of tones them down a little bit.
Mansa Musa:
It does. Yeah.
Tara Gaither:
Could have a lot of problems in those facilities. If you bring the parents closer to their children, they have a reason to have hope and a reason to want to come out and do better. But if you keep them separated and the baby’s mother doesn’t want to come out because she don’t want to go through this and she doesn’t want to go through that, it just makes the whole matter worse.
Mansa Musa:
Yeah. And talk about this since we are doing this Father Day show. How did you process Father Day every Father’s Day? How did you process it, if you can recall?
Tara Gaither:
For most of my life, on every Father’s Day, I was on either the highway or going somewhere to see my dad. Most Father’s Day, it got to a point where the prison stopped letting you send cards or greetings cards. So now I’m at the point where it’s just like I can’t even send them my greetings card because-
Mansa Musa:
Yeah. They won’t allow it.
Tara Gaither:
… they don’t allow it.
Mansa Musa:
Yeah, I know.
Tara Gaither:
But Father’s Day, to me, and Mother’s Day have always been pretty much the same. I spend Mother’s Day with my mother and I spend Father’s Day with my father.
Mansa Musa:
And that’s the other part of this narrative, because, like I said, I was locked up 48 years. And me and your father, like I said, that’s my comrade. He outlined that early. He recruited me when I was on [inaudible 00:28:30]. Both of us looked alike. Both of us was young, red, and big bushes. Right? So matter of fact, we look almost like twins.
Tara Gaither:
I’m sure.
Mansa Musa:
And he recruited me. And in terms of recognizing in that environment, how many parents, how many people have children that’s in that environment, how many children that don’t have that ability to see their parents. But we created Family Day. See, we created what they call function. We created family days and we created… One year we had… One time, you said like, we let adults in. We created one way to say like, okay, before we created what was known as Family Day, one organization would create for their program and say like, “We have children. A parent can come in and bring their children.”
So it always been, for us, and I’ll go on record and say this is all throughout the United States, it always been for us. Those of us that’s in constant, always have access to the community, always have access to our family, always have access to people, because we want to hold onto our humanity.
Tara Gaither:
Right.
Mansa Musa:
It’s them that’s trying to take our humanity.
Tara Gaither:
Yeah.
Mansa Musa:
It’s the system depriving us of our humanity. And for those of us that can’t process that and don’t see that, much like your father who can, 55 years, they start them out on parole, but yet he still got hope, yet he still stay… He’s the same person.
Tara Gaither:
Same person.
Mansa Musa:
You know, he’s still on the phone. He’s still talking. He’s still being the parent that he is being whoever he is in y’all family’s life being Pop-pop. You know? He’s still being there because he’s not giving up hope. But as we close out, what do you want our audience to know or viewers to know about your father and what we can do or what we should be doing to try to get him some relief?
Tara Gaither:
I don’t know if everybody heard it, but my father said that when he was incarcerated, he was 19 years old. I was a one-year-old. I am 55 years old. And I can’t think of anything that I did as a teenager when I was 19 years old that I deserve to be punished for right now.
Mansa Musa:
Yeah. For 55 years. Yeah.
Tara Gaither:
For 55 years.
Mansa Musa:
Yeah. Come on.
Tara Gaither:
Because I’m the same person, but I’m not the same person.
Mansa Musa:
That’s right.
Tara Gaither:
Because when I was 19 years old, I was a 19-year-old.
Mansa Musa:
Yeah. That’s right, Tara.
Tara Gaither:
You know what I’m saying? I was doing what 19-year-olds do. And I wasn’t exactly thinking the way a 55-year-old woman thinks. I can’t understand that my father is 72 years old, has been incarcerated since he was 19 years old, has come out and worked on the street and never caused anybody any problems, hasn’t done anything to hurt anyone, educated himself. Because he didn’t have to do that. He didn’t have to go to school. You know? He could have have just sat there and could have figured out some trouble to make or something like that. You know what I’m saying?
Mansa Musa:
Yeah. That’s right.
Tara Gaither:
It’s a lot of things that we need to look at when we are holding people for so long. And it’s overincarceration, it’s overpunishment, and it hurts the community.
Mansa Musa:
That’s right.
Tara Gaither:
Because my grandfather has sons out in the community. He has grandsons out in the community. And they’re having children. And he’s the patriarch since 19 years old. And he is the one person that could put his hand out and say, “Listen, you don’t want to do that.”
Mansa Musa:
Right.
Tara Gaither:
“You don’t want to do that. I’ve been there. Let me tell you what it’s like. Let me show you a better way.” But like I said, incarceration is now generational. So we need to save ourselves. Sometimes in order to save ourselves, we got to speak up and we got to say, “This is the right thing to do. This is the right thing to do.” Let that man come home, let him be with his family. Let him have contact with the young men that are in the family because maybe one of them might be going a little bit this way. Maybe he can guide him the right way.
Mansa Musa:
That’s right.
Tara Gaither:
You know? And keep him out of trouble. But to me, a 19-year-old and a 72-year-old?
Mansa Musa:
Yeah, [inaudible 00:33:26].
Tara Gaither:
What is that?
Mansa Musa:
And we want to remind our audience that we’re talking about someone who was locked up at 19 years old. Science already came out and say that at the age of between 16, 19, 24, you don’t have the memory rate or the mental capacity to have an adult make an adult decision regardless of what they say the age is. And science came out and said this. And now the Supreme Court then came out and say that because of that you have to evaluate people in this age bracket differently.
But more importantly, we’re talking to Tara Gaither, Tahaka’s daughter, better known as… His real name is Thomas Gaither, but we call him Tahaka. We’re talking to her about her father. She was one years old when he got locked up. 55 years later… She’s 55. What we want our audience to understand about this particular episode is this is a remarkable individual. One, he was out on working on the street while he was locked up. They closed down the system that he was under because of something they did, not because of something he did.
Number two, he’s an accomplished musician. He can go anywhere and play with any band anywhere in the world without missing a note. He’s an accomplished musician. That’s number two. He graduated from Coppin. He got his master’s degree. I mean bachelor’s degree. But more importantly, he has served 55 years. What more do you want from this man? We ask that you look into this case. We ask that you research this case. And we ask that you come to your senses about what you would do if you was locked up 55 years for something that you did at the age of 19. And the suspect is whether he did it or not. But at the age of 19 when it happened, we ask that you continue to look in this case and continue to support Thomas Gaither.
Tara, thank you for coming and joining us today. We really appreciate you taking your time out there to give us some insight to your father and yourself.
Tara Gaither:
Well, thank you for having me. Yeah, any time that I can let people know what’s going on, I’m right there with it. So thank you for having me. I really appreciate it.
Mansa Musa:
Yeah. And there you have it. The real news. Rattling The Bars. We ask that you continue to support Rattling The Bars because it’s only through Rattling The Bars you get this kind of information about Thomas Gaither, better known as Tahaka, or have his daughter come here and express the influence that he has on her and the generations, which she talked about generational incarceration. But he has been able to break that cycle in her family by being a positive influence in his child’s family. And he could also be a positive influence in other people’s family and be a mentor. So you only get this information from Rattling The Bars. And by the way, as far as the real news, guess what, we’re actually the real news.
The prison system keeps millions of families from celebrating Father’s Day together. For Alexia Pitter of Families Against Mandatory Minimums, separation from her father, Gasi Pitter, has been a lifelong reality. Kept from even embracing her father during prison visits as a child, Alexia’s struggle to build and maintain a relationship with Gasi has required taking on the entire prison system. After believing for many years her father would never be released, Alexia is now fighting for her father’s release. Rattling the Bars explores this story of a brave daughter’s love, and one family’s determination to resist.
Studio Production: David Hebden, Cameron Granadino Post-Production: Cameron Granadino
Transcript
Mansa Musa:
Welcome to this edition of Rattling the Bars. I’m your host, Mansa Musa.
Joining me today is Alexia Pinter, the daughter of an incarcerated, imprisoned, enslaved Black man. More importantly, he’s her father, and we’re doing a series on Father’s Day.
But more importantly, we are trying to highlight the impact that the prison industrial complex, the new form of plantation, has on families: and why this system that’s supposed to be designed around humanity ceased to apply humanity, or humane behavior, towards families. Welcome to Rattling the Bars, Alexia.
Alexia Pitter:
Thank you. Thank you for having me.
Mansa Musa:
All right, tell our audience a little bit about yourself.
Alexia Pitter:
Absolutely.
Mansa Musa:
Yes.
Alexia Pitter:
So as you said, my name is Alexia Pitter. I work for an organization called FAMM, which is Family Against Mandatory Minimums.
I’m a senior associate there of Family Outreach and Storytelling. I tell a lot of stories from the formerly incarcerated perspective, but then also people who are still incarcerated. So I’m able to have that dialogue.
My loved one, my best friend in the world, is my father. He’s been incarcerated since I was three years old. I’m now 27, so I really grew up seeing my father in prison. I don’t really know him outside of being behind bars, and that was very hard for me.
I remember when I was around three, four years old, and I went to visit my dad for the first time. I wanted to just give him a hug. Like any child does, I’m just rushing and I’m like, “Daddy!”
The guards came over, the correctional officer, and said, “No, you’re not allowed to hug him. You’re not allowed to touch him. You need to sit right there.” They were just watching us the whole time in the visiting room.
I remember trying to understand why I was here with my dad.
Mansa Musa:
Right, right.
Alexia Pitter:
I’m three, four years old and I can’t hug him and I can’t touch him. And that’s what I need so much in that moment; I need that love.
After a while I was numb to it. If I was seeing my dad, the way I was able to process it was, “Well, this is just his home. This is where I see my dad. I’m not able to touch him. I’m not able to hug him. But this is his home, and this is just our new norm.”
Then when I was about 15, 16, I went to see my dad. And I looked through the window as he’s getting ready to go in the visiting room. He has handcuffs and foot cuffs on, and his head is down. And that truly changed my life and my perspective, because to me, my dad was my hero.
He’s the one who taught me how to heal. He’s the one who taught me about Marcus Garvey and Malcolm X and all the amazing work of the Civil Rights Movement and the Black Panther Movement. Everything that I really knew about my identity, where I came from, healing, mental health and things like that, came from him.
But in this moment he just seemed so small, and I just couldn’t understand why he was in chains. And to process that was so hard for me.
I remember asking my mom, “Why is Daddy in chains? He would never do anything wrong. Why do they have him confined in this way?”
And she was just, “This is the way it is, and this is just his lifestyle. And unfortunately, this is where we are.”
So that was the first time that I really acknowledged that this wasn’t just a separate home for my dad.
Mansa Musa:
Right.
Alexia Pitter:
This was prison, and he couldn’t leave when he wanted to. I couldn’t see him when I wanted to. And that just opened more of a dialogue with us. Because for a long time, I didn’t ask my dad why he was in prison.
Mansa Musa:
That’s right.
Alexia Pitter:
And I really believe that my fear was if I knew, it would be too scary that we just couldn’t continue to have our relationship.
Mansa Musa:
Right.
Alexia Pitter:
And so as time progressed, one of my best friends; her name was Jess; she came to me and she said, “You know, your dad’s been in there for 20 years. I have some organizations. We can come together. Let’s try to get your dad out.”
I remember just looking at her, being so confused. I didn’t know what to say, because I never thought that that was possible.
Mansa Musa:
Yeah.
Alexia Pitter:
To me, this was his existence, this was his home, this will always be his home, nothing else outside of that. I couldn’t really process that. So I was just like, “Sure, I guess. But I don’t even know where to start, what that looks like.”
After that, I decided to go the clemency route and I had different organizations working with me. And me and my dad had one of the most open, honest conversations that we ever had. I’m getting already a little emotional-
Mansa Musa:
Yeah, [inaudible 00:05:26]
Alexia Pitter:
… because what that looks like.
Mansa Musa:
Yeah.
Alexia Pitter:
Yeah, thank you. What that looked like was me, for the first time, not having to survive, and me learning that mentality. Because when I was younger, I think what I realized is that by me saying that he couldn’t come home, that it wasn’t possible. That was my way of protecting myself from disappointment and not getting my hopes up.
So when my best friend brought up this idea of him coming home, we did have to have that honest conversation. Because for the first time in a long time, I didn’t have to be the strong child. But I was allowed to say, “Honestly, I want you to come home, Dad. I need you to come home.”
Mansa Musa:
Yeah.
Alexia Pitter:
“I need you to be at my graduation. I need you to help me to become an adult. I need your advice. I need you to physically be there.”
And that was the toughest thing that I’ve ever had to go through, because I had to be honest with myself. It’s almost like when you have that wall up and you just have to let that wall go.
Mansa Musa:
Let’s flesh that out. Because see, that right there is the part of the conversation that most of us don’t get when we talk about the impact that this prison industrial complex has on family, and the impact that it has on children of the parent, the person that’s incarcerated.
Because you just outlined that, and you outlined early, your father had done some amazing things and educate you and gave you a sense of knowledge that made you the woman you are today.
But then you went on and expressed that psychologically, you had positioned yourself to say, “Well, my dad is never coming home and I got to find comfort. I got to find some way to rationalize that, because I want my dad home. But I don’t want to say nothing because I don’t want to create a disappointment.”
Alexia Pitter:
Yeah.
Mansa Musa:
How did you ultimately come to the point where you was able to process that? And as we know now, you are moving forward in terms of organizing and doing the things that would ultimately result in him coming home? I know that to be a fact.
Alexia Pitter:
Thank you. Thank you. No, that’s a great question. I say this a lot, especially as a Black woman: we’re so used to taking care of everyone around us.
Mansa Musa:
Come on.
Alexia Pitter:
And I would say my mom led by example. My mom had me at 18. She was kicked out when she was pregnant. I lived in Jamaica for quite some time. I came back.
And with my mom, no matter how much she was struggling as a single mother, she always said, “When we see your dad, I need you to put on your best-dress clothes. He doesn’t need to know that we’re struggling. He doesn’t need to know that we feel him not being here. He needs to know that we’re okay. He has enough to deal with. He needs to know that we’re okay.”
And so following that example, at a young age, that’s what I knew when I came to see him, I wanted to laugh with him. I wanted to joke with him. I don’t want to tell him about the things that I’m going through. He has enough going on.
And so for me to get into that transition, like I said, when my best friend told me, “Yeah, we can do this. This is a possibility.” I would even go as far as her saying, “I had a dream that your dad will come home.”
Mansa Musa:
Oh, yeah, right.
Alexia Pitter:
She was doing some other work in the community. And she’s like, “I feel in my spirit that it is my job to help you with this. I’ve only spoke to your dad two times, but I feel like this is in my spirit that I have to help.”
And being able to go through this clemency process: one thing we did leading up to the clemency process is we meditated and we fasted for, I want to say 15 days leading up to clemency.
We meditated at the exact same time. And we did journal prompts of, “Okay, what would happen when he came home? How would you feel?”
And we were talking to each other over the phone about it. He was just very emotional because I think in his mind he kind of put away the idea of being home as well, or not wanting to tell me that it’s a possibility, because he doesn’t want to get my hopes up.
Mansa Musa:
Right.
Alexia Pitter:
But I would say that was the first time that we were vulnerable with each other and allowed our deepest, darkest thoughts to come out.
And even to that extent, I want to say two days before his clemency, he told me on the phone, he said, “Look, I was trying to help someone. They were gang-affiliated and I was trying to be a mentor and I was trying to help them get them out of the gang. I’m trying to mentor them. And they died right in front of my cell, and there was nothing I can do.”
And he said, “Baby girl, I’m not okay. And I want you to know that I’m not okay.”
Mansa Musa:
[inaudible 00:10:41]
Alexia Pitter:
And I was able to say as his daughter, “I’m not okay.”
And I think that’s the thing that changed: is as much as he’s taught me so much, and as much as we’ve had these amazing conversations as a Black man and as a Black woman, for the first time there was a space where we were allowed to say that we were not okay.
Mansa Musa:
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Alexia Pitter:
This prison system did affect us, that we did feel broken down. He even went as far to say, he was reading this book by Ta-Nehisi Coates, Something Torn and New, that talked about re-remembering.
And he said, “I think about what my ancestors went through. It’s hard to process, because although I don’t know exactly what they went through, I know what it is to be chained. I know what it is to not have my freedom. I know what it is to feel so locked up in this body, and I can’t breathe, and I’m suffocating.”
So I think to answer your question, that was that breaking point. We needed to be vulnerable. Because in this life, we’re taught that you can’t be vulnerable, that you’re vulnerable when you have time for it. You work, and then one day maybe you’ll have time for that.
So I hope that answers your question.
Mansa Musa:
Yeah, that answer my question. Yeah. And I want to flesh this out. 1), I told you I did 48 years in prison. The whole entire time I was locked up, this was my prayer. I could die on the other side of the fence, on the other side of the wall, but I refused to die in prison. I refused. This is what drove me. I refused to.
I don’t care if I went on the other side of prison and fell right out dead. As long as I didn’t fall out dead on the side there I was still held in captivity.
But the thing that I think that what you just outlined is how it’s hard for your father, or any individual in the prison industrial complex, on the plantation, to express any vulnerability. Because the system is designed to dehumanize you, demoralize you, and break you.
So the only thing that you have left George Jackson said in prison, let’s say, “The whole fight for them is to take our individuality. You take our individuality and you put us in a collective mentality, in a herd instinct. To everything we do, we do it in a herd instinct.”
So for you and this breakthrough between you and your father, to have this moment where; this is the part about the Father’s Day, and this is the part about the impact that the father have on the child and child on the father; to allow y’all to find a space where y’all could be vulnerable. And therefore allow his humanity to come out in a space where he could be human.
Because just like you saying, when y’all going on a visit, put your best face forward, wear your best dress. When he coming in there, he coming in like, “I’m putting my best face forward. I’m putting my best foot forward. I can’t let them know that somebody just died in front of my cell. I can’t let them know that they just put somebody in my cell and he got mental issues and it might be a problem. It might not be. I might have to do something to him or for fear of having something do to me.”
But what you was able to do; and this is the part I wanted our audience to recognize; is that when you talking about fathers and their children, the children and the parents, they make each other. They create that sense of humanity in that inhumane environment. Did you feel that?
Alexia Pitter:
Yes. Yes. I absolutely feel that. I do. That’s one of the things that I admire about our conversations now, especially as I get older, I feel more comfortable talking about how I feel. We push ourselves to be human, and allow ourselves to be human, and to laugh and to talk about things, but to feel.
And that’s something I realized too is I would say that when I recently spoke with him, I want to say about a week ago, I was on the phone with him. We have a book club; we are always talking about our books, and we read the same at the same time. But this time I heard something in his voice. And I said, “What’s wrong?”
He’s like, “It’s okay. We don’t have to talk about it, baby girl. We don’t have to talk about it.”
I’m like, “Mo, I want you to know that you’re able to talk to me. I may not have the answers. I may not know who to call. But I want you to know that if something is going on, you can talk to me the same way I want to talk to you.”
And he said, “Well, to be honest, I feel so guilty about not being in your life that I feel like for this 20 minutes on this phone call, the least I can do is hear what you’re going through and be there for you.”
And I said, “Well Daddy, you know we’re both doing that. If I’m doing that because I don’t want to stress you out, and you’re doing that because you don’t want to stress me out; well, now we’re just holding everything in. And the prison is winning in a sense.” And-
Mansa Musa:
And talk about this, Alexia.
Alexia Pitter:
Yeah.
Mansa Musa:
Not to cut you off, but talk about this here because I want these moments right here to be snapshots: to get people to understand the system, and the impact this system has on us in terms of our inability to be able to be in a space where we can have a normal conversation.
Talk about why you think this system is so caught up on, or so hell-bent on destroying … that right there, destroying any humanity that we have in us, mainly as it relates to why the system don’t have a mechanism where families can reunite?
Alexia Pitter:
Yeah.
Mansa Musa:
Why the system don’t have a mechanism where the father can have more access to the child in an environment where the child doesn’t feel like they have to suppress feelings and emotions, but can be able to express? Why you think this system is hell-bent on that?
Alexia Pitter:
That’s a great question. The best way I can answer that: I was interviewing a formerly incarcerated individual; I can’t think of the name at the moment. And I said, “Well, how did you know you were ready to be free?”
And he said, “Well, I had to be mentally free before I could ever be physically free.”
And the first thing I did, I was like, “I have to tell my dad this, because I found the key. I know what we have to do now. I know what the next step is.”
Mansa Musa:
Yeah.
Alexia Pitter:
I was very excited. And so with this prison system and the prison industrial complex, it’s not just what they say: “You do the crime, you do the time.”
Mansa Musa:
Come on.
Alexia Pitter:
It’s a psychological thing. They want you to feel small. They want you to not only be physically in chains, they want you to mentally be in chains. And what that looks like is not allowing certain books to come into prison. They don’t want you to learn too much. I tried to send my dad to Malcolm X books, and they turned that down really quick.
Mansa Musa:
Yeah, right.
Alexia Pitter:
They don’t want that.
The next thing is, as a family, when you walk in, you’re being searched.
Mansa Musa:
Yeah.
Alexia Pitter:
They’re touching you in places that’s uncomfortable. The correctional officers won’t even look at me. And especially because it’s a rural town, I’m spending three hours to see him. That’s about $100 in tolls, then paying for the vending machine.
And at this point, I’m mentally and psychologically thinking, “It is inconvenient to see my dad because I have to pay this much money. Because I have to be searched, right? Because I have to make this long trip.”
And him, they’re teaching him, “Well, you don’t deserve to be loved. You don’t deserve for someone to come to visit you. And if they do, it’s going to be on a two-hour timeframe. You don’t deserve to have these kind of discussions.”
They want him to psychologically continue to feel enslaved, to know that there is no other option. And they’re trying to teach him that he is defined by his mistakes.
Mansa Musa:
Yeah.
Alexia Pitter:
And I think that’s another thing that’s very specific: is when you tell someone your one mistake is going to define you for the rest of your life, how is someone ever going to think that they’re more than that mistake?
Mansa Musa:
That’s right.
Alexia Pitter:
How are they even going to process what it is to heal, or even that healing is possible? How are they going to know that they can do better?
And it causes this issue, this strong … taking a minute to process.
Mansa Musa:
Come on.
Alexia Pitter:
It makes us engage in the self-hatred and the self-destruction.
Mansa Musa:
Yeah. Yeah. This is hopelessness.
Alexia Pitter:
It’s hopelessness. And as long as you stay in that hopelessness, you’ll never come home. You’ll never see outside. You’ll never think outside of this mental slavery.
And that’s why I told my dad. I said, “Right now, I don’t know if Governor Pritzker is going to say you’re coming home. But what I do know is you have control over how mentally enslaved you are. So what we’re going to do, we’re going to read books, you’re going to learn about your ancestors.”
When we’re on the phone, I always say that on every 20-minute phone call for the last five minutes, I make sure I tell a joke to make my dad laugh.
Mansa Musa:
Yeah, right. That’s right.
Alexia Pitter:
I have to get his spirits up, and end every conversation with, “I’m proud of you.” Because especially as Black men, they don’t hear that enough. And sometimes especially as Black women, we’re having our own things that we’re going through.
Black men are fighting against society, we’re fighting against society. And by the time we come together, we’re just all over the place. And sometimes you need someone to say, “I’m proud of you.”
Mansa Musa:
Yeah.
Alexia Pitter:
And to bring that a little further, my dad’s mother passed away when he was very young. And he told me, he said, “I feel like you’re a reincarnation of my mother. And the reason I said that is because my mother was the only one that I felt believed in me.
“And here you go. I wasn’t at the graduation. I’m not there to physically walk you down the aisle when you get married. But yet you still show up for me, yet you still answer the call. Yet you still say that you’re proud of me.”
And he says all the time, “The reason that I knew that I could have a second chance is because you believed in me.”
And that’s the thing with the prison system. They don’t want them to believe that there is another option. And it creates this deep dark hole that brings you back to the 1800s-
Mansa Musa:
Have mercy.
Alexia Pitter:
… that brings you back to the 1700s-
Mansa Musa:
Have mercy.
Alexia Pitter:
… because you do identify with your ancestors. Because you know what it is to be enslaved, and you know what it is for you not to see family. You know what it is for you not to be able to read.
And that type of connection between your ancestral self and your enslaved self in 2024, that can create self-destruction.
Mansa Musa:
[inaudible 00:22:22]
Alexia Pitter:
And that is what their purpose is.
Mansa Musa:
Let me ask you this here. Because I know our audience probably are asking the same question, and it might be rhetorical for me.
Why do you believe in your father, despite the fact that he’d been incarcerated, left when you was three. But as you express your belief in him and your love for him, why do you have this for him in the absence of?
Because that’s the thing that it’s a two-way street, the parent on one side and the child on the other. But now we talking from the child’s perspective, the young woman’s perspective. Why?
You got all this passion about your father, despite the circumstances he find himself under. Why?
I mean, people want to know. Somebody would probably be screaming right now, “This is just a hopeless situation. Why she got this much respect and revere him so much in the face of all this that she has to go through, to even spend a couple of hours with him? All she has to go through to have a 20-minute phone call, all she has to go through to not be able to say, ‘Oh, let me call my father and tell him I’m going to be ready to do X, Y, Z.’” Why?
Alexia Pitter:
That’s a great question. My father, and like I told you, I never wanted to know why he was in prison. But I started to ask questions.
He migrated to America, I want to say, when he was 16. And when he came here, he didn’t have a visa and he didn’t have any way of making money. Then he found out he had a child at 18.
In his mind, he felt like, “I needed to do whatever I could do to make sure my child did not go through what I went through in Jamaica in poverty.”
So he became a part of a gang-affiliated organization and things like that, and just talking to the wrong people, being in the wrong spaces. And he made a mistake.
As I’m getting older; I’m from three years old to five years old, to 10 to 20; I see how he says, “Well, I’m going to meditate today. I’m going to journal today. I really want to know what is healing. I want to learn what it is to forgive myself. I want to understand, who was that little boy growing up? Why did he need love in all the wrong places? Why did he make these actions?”
He was asking himself these questions. It wasn’t for a six-month period and then we never talked about it again. It happened throughout my entire childhood.
And so now I’m at home and especially growing up without a father, I’m already a statistic. “You’re not going to make it to college. You’re not going to be financially stable. You’re going to end up in prison just like your dad.” That’s what I heard my entire life.
I’m in school and I’m struggling and it’s hard to keep up. I’m being bullied in school. I’m being physically abused. I’m dealing with sexual abuse, and I’m trying to process all these things as a child. And I’m still trying to make it to college, and I’m still trying to be the best that I can be.
And I had this moment and this understanding: “If my dad can be in chains, can be in this small room to use the bathroom in front of someone, for someone to tell him when he has to eat; if he can go years without medical treatment, without speaking to a therapist and still make the effort every single day to be a better man, there’s nothing that I can’t do.”
That is what he taught me at a very young age. And his strength and his determination and his willingness to always make sure that he is mentally free, no matter what is against him.
I knew. I knew. And he has taught me that there’s nothing that I can’t do. So when I fight for him, it’s not just fighting for him, I’m fighting for me. He’s a part of me. We are together.
Mansa Musa:
Right.
Alexia Pitter:
And I have to believe that. Because I will be honest: I’ve spoken to formerly incarcerated individuals. They even said like, “Hey, can you call my daughter, explain to her my circumstances?” And I absolutely do, because it’s just so much that he doesn’t have access to, and I have access to so much.
And if 20-something years later he can still answer the phone and still give me advice, despite someone dying in front of his face and still showing up for me, there’s no reason why I wouldn’t show up for him.
Mansa Musa:
And you know what?
Alexia Pitter:
To me, that’s community.
Mansa Musa:
And you know what? That’s the part of this process and the part of this experience, the prison industrial complex, the plantation.
I remember reading after slaves was freed, what they did, they put want ads in the paper. Ads were saying, “Do you know where Mary Jane or Betty Jo is at?” To find their family members to link up with them to go build a community.
But you just talked about how that’s done in the spirit world. This is the spirit that you’re talking about that got you motivated to stay in that space. But more importantly, this is the same thing with your father.
If somebody was to ask you about your father, how would you describe your father?
Alexia Pitter:
Where do I even start? First, every time he sends me a letter, it says, “Negus Gasi.” His name is Gasi Pitter. And “Negus,” for a lot of people who don’t know, is “King.” That’s what it means.
And so even in his letter writing, he always says, “You better write ‘Queen.’ I’m not answering. I’m not opening the letter unless it says ‘Queen Alexia.’”
So even in that way, he set the tone of what it is to step in a room and believe that you are enough, and hold a crown on top. And that was the thing that he’s taught me so much that really describes him.
He never makes excuses. To this day, he still feels guilt about the crime that he made. And he still mourns the losses of the victims in that circumstance. And he always says, “It’s not the mistakes that you make. It’s how you recover from it.”
Mansa Musa:
That’s right.
Alexia Pitter:
“What do you do? What do you do after you’ve made that mistake?”
And so to describe him, he’s very spiritual, he’s very grounded. I’m very jealous sometimes, because I’m like, “How in this world of chaos are you so grounded?”
Even when I call him, I’ll say, “How are you doing?” And his answer never changes. He says, “I’m peaceful.” And he always says, “That doesn’t mean that my environment is peaceful.”
Mansa Musa:
That’s right.
Alexia Pitter:
“I have found peace within myself so that I can exist in this environment for now.”
And so hearing these things, especially as a woman and hearing the adversity, he’s resilient. He manifests beauty. He pours so much love into the world, even when he didn’t receive love.
He mentors individuals that maybe he never talked to. But he sits down with them and he walks them through what he’s went through in life, and why you have to make a difference.
And then he always connects it to the ancestors. “They’ve worked so hard so we can be where we are. So we have to do better. We have to pay our respects.”
He’s very spiritual and he loves to laugh and he makes jokes. And it never feels like he’s my father. It just feels like that’s my best friend.
Some daughters don’t want to tell their parents certain things. That’s not the case. Sometimes we tell each other too many things and it’s like, “Okay, slow down.” But no, he just represents light and love.
And he really taught me that, “Just because you didn’t feel loved at a point in your time doesn’t mean you need to give love. In fact, it is your job to give even more love to make up for the love that you didn’t receive.” And to me, that’s the best way to describe him.
Mansa Musa:
As we close out, if somebody seen your father and said, “King, describe Queen Alexia to me. How is she?” What do you think he would say?
Alexia Pitter:
I’ll be honest. He just told me this. He said, “I don’t think you truly realize the power that you have.”
He describes me as a warrior with a lot of battle scars, and he describes me as resilient. He believes that I give a lot of love to this world, although I may not have felt a lot of love.
He describes me as a leader and someone who’s always, always going to tell the truth and show up as my authentic self despite where I am. And a lover and a forgiver and a mentor. I love to mentor people, and I learned a lot from him.
But then also I would say a person of community. Community is very important to me. I always try to surround myself with community and always giving back.
So I think he would say that I’m the nuclear system of each community that I go in. I bring people back and I help ground others. And I think that’s the best way he would describe me.
Mansa Musa:
Let me ask you this. How can our audience and our viewers get in touch with you? We know that you’re doing the clemency, y’all working on the clemency. How people can get involved with your effort to get your father free? Or more importantly, any other work that you’re doing?
Alexia Pitter:
Thank you. That’s a great question. We have a petition right now on change.org. If you just type in Gasi Pitter, G-A-S-I P-I-T-T-E-R, you can sign the petition.
Also writing a letter to Governor Pritzker and saying that he does deserve to come home; he is a changed man, and that he will have support when he comes home. So sending those letters are important.
Then you can also email me at A-P-I-T-T-E-R @ famm.org, F-A-M-M.org, and share what you thought about today’s podcast and just what you think in general about second chances. Those are probably the best ways that you can support us in our journey.
And just always continue to fight for prison reform, and know that people are humans outside of the crimes that they’ve committed. He was 18 when he committed this crime. He’s now going to be, I think, 43 years old. That’s a large amount of time to make a difference.
So really just open up your hearts and minds, and turn away from what you’re hearing in the media because everyone is not bad. In fact, there’s a lot of people who come home and do so many things for the community.
And because they’ve been through that similar thing, they know exactly what to say to the young people coming up. And so just really thinking about that. That’s the best way you can support me and all the other people waiting to come home.
Mansa Musa:
There you have it. The Real News, Rattling the Bars. We just got finished talking to Queen Alexia.
And I would like to offer this point of view. If someone was to ask her father what did they think of her? He would say, “Here come the Queen, because she’s definitely representing her father.”
This is about Father’s Day. But more importantly, this is about humans, human beings. Alexis is a human being. Her father’s a human being. We got 2.5 million people that’s incarcerated on these plantations that are human beings. And we got a society and a system that says, “Despite your humanity, we’re going to do everything to take it away from you.”
But we have this storyteller today telling us, no, that’s not the case with her father. And that’s not the case with her.
Thank you Alexia-
Alexia Pitter:
Thank you.
Mansa Musa:
… for coming in and joining us today.
Alexia Pitter:
Thank you.
Mansa Musa:
And we ask that y’all continue to support The Real News and Rattling the Bars.
Rattling the Bars is here to give voice to people like Alexia and her father. Rattling the Bars is here to give voice to the voiceless and The Real News. Well, as we always say, because we are actually The Real News.
Following his conviction on 34 felony counts, former President Donald Trump will be sentenced on July 11. While celebrated by many as an unprecedented example of legal accountability for elected officials, the Trump trial has also demonstrated a long-established truth: there are two justice systems in America—one for the rich, and one for the poor. Journalist Laura Flanders and historian Rick Perlstein join a special livestream discussion with the hosts of Police Accountability Report Taya Graham and Stephen Janis to discuss the inequality of the US criminal justice system, and how backlash to the trial could threaten the future of democracy.
Studio: David Hebden, Cameron Granadino Production: Stephen Janis, Taya Graham, Maximillian Alvarez
Transcript
The following is a rushed transcript and may contain errors. A proofread version will be made available as soon as possible.
Taya Graham:
Hello, my name is Taya Graham, and welcome to our Trump conviction post-verdict livestream. For the next hour and a half, we will discuss the fallout and reaction to the 34 felony count verdict that was handed out by a jury two weeks ago. It was historic, of course. Never in our country has a former or current president been convicted of a crime, but it also elicited a very revealing type of pushback, from both the punditry and the political elites. And so in the grand tradition of The Real News, we are here to offer a counter to the mainstream media narrative and to provide a different perspective from which to view this momentous event.
To do so, I’m going to be of course joined by my reporting partner, Stephen Janis, who with me, will be breaking down some alternative ways of analyzing the jury’s decision. As two reporters who have covered the criminal justice system for nearly a decade, we both find the pushback against the verdict quite illuminating, a bit of a yet-to-be-told story about how the elites of this country perceive justice when it’s applied to one of their own.
But we will also be joined by other guests who will share their own unique insights into what this verdict means for us and our country. We’ll be joined by our two outstanding colleagues, Maximilian Alvarez, our editor-in-chief and champion of the podcast, Working People, and Marc Steiner, who of course hosts the incredible show, the eponymous Marc Steiner Show on The Real News, including a fantastic series focusing on the rise of the right, so be sure to check out those podcasts if you haven’t already.
We’ll also be joined by award-winning broadcast journalist, Laura Flanders of the Laura Flanders and Friends Show, and she’s the author of six books. In 2019, she was awarded an Izzy Award for excellence in independent media, as well as a Pat Mitchell Lifetime Achievement Award from the Women’s Media Center for Advancing Women and Girls Visibility and Power in Media. It’s an absolute pleasure to have her here.
And we will have the renowned author and historian, Rick Perlstein, author of the books, Reaganland and Nixonland, and he is the author of five bestselling books. Perlstein received the 2001 Los Angeles Time Books Prize for his very first book, Before the Storm: Barry Goldwater and the Unmaking of the American Consensus, and orgs like Politico have christened him the chronicler extraordinaire of the modern conservative movement. It is going to be such a pleasure to have such a nuanced conversation with these knowledgeable guests.
Also, just a note, I will be reading your comments from the live chat and posting them, and also if possible, at the end, posing some of the questions you ask. But first, I want to discuss with you, Stephen, some of what I want to call the fallout, so to speak, over Trump’s verdict.
Stephen Janis:
It’s been revealing.
Taya Graham:
As we all know, former President Donald J. Trump was found guilty by a New York City jury of falsifying business records to high payments of hush money to former adult film star, Stormy Daniels. Prosecutors allege Trump had done so to influence the outcome of the 2016 election. The trial spanned almost two months, but it took the jury two days to reach a verdict. Suffice it to say that the reaction has been fast and furious. Republicans have been calling it a weaponization of the justice system, or lawfare, and they’ve made the argument that the verdict only helps Trump in the upcoming presidential election and that the charges other result of a purely political vendetta against Trump.
Now to be clear, we are not weighing in on Trump’s pros or cons as a potential candidate or politician. We must remain agnostic. However, we can critique how his supporters have characterized the verdict and what that says about the criminal justice system.
So as we mentioned before, Trump supporters immediately criticized the verdict and the case as both unfair and the result of political persecution. But Stephen, I think there’s something interesting embedded in this critique, notably that the outrage seems to be that these charges were simply unwarranted. The facts surrounding the case have pretty much been ignored, which is why I think this criticism is premised upon an intriguing construction of our criminal justice system, which we will discuss extensively later.
I think the pushback implies that the system in this case didn’t work because the criminal justice system cannot charge the rich or powerful or otherwise privileged. In other words, it’s perfectly fine to prosecute working people for just about anything, no matter how trivial, but a former president and billionaire? Well, any attempt to ensnare him is simply unfair. Can you talk a little bit about that?
Stephen Janis:
Well, yeah, we were talking about when the verdict came out and the response and the immediate backlash, and we were both like, wow. So they finally got the religion of the problems with the criminal justice system. Suddenly, the criminal justice system is problematic, but I think for both of us, I think for both of us, this was revealing about a theme that we’ve talked about on our show consistently and that is the role of the criminal justice system in inequality. And the reason I think Republicans were pushing back is because they’re saying, “Well, the criminal justice system can’t prosecute the rich or the powerful. It only prosecutes poor people. It only prosecutes working people.”
Taya Graham:
Right.
Stephen Janis:
And I think also the fact that they ignored the facts is another part of that, because we talked about the way that this criminal justice system effectuates its power within the system, which is to police social boundaries in one sense and make sure that the working class political efficacy is dimmed, and also to a certain extent, to make facts irrational. You have a rational system and it makes it irrational, and especially in this case, by saying that there is no way, no way that any of the evidence or any of the facts matter in this case. All that matters is you tried to prosecute one of us and you successfully did it, and so therefore, it can only be a rational outcome. And it sows confusion and I think it also brings an irrational sense to a system that we want to be rational.
So it’s really a very complicated, but also quite, like you said, like you pointed out, and that’s very important. The minute we heard it, we were like, ah, okay. So they’re defending the system of inequality just as much as they’re defending the candidate, Trump, and they’re saying that the system is nothing but irrational. But that’s what we’ve been talking about when we talk about all the people on our show who were prosecuted for nothing.
Taya Graham:
Exactly. We’ve been saying that for years.
Stephen Janis:
Whose lives are destroyed over nothing. How rational is that? Well, now they’ve had a taste of their own medicine and it’s very revealing.
Taya Graham:
Absolutely. And once again, I want to reiterate that we remain agnostic about the parties of the elites or their political agendas. I think one could argue that these wealthy elites aren’t really team blue or red. The only color they really care about is green, and my point is that these elites, these multimillionaires, the billionaires who control the criminal justice system seem to react with outrage when it turns towards them. That holding the rich accountable is prima facie an abuse of the system they constructed, which is an easy argument to make when you consider how often the ultra wealthy skirt accountability. The former CEO of Boeing, CEO Calhoun, put lives at risk by sacrificing safety to cut costs, and yet he’s not prosecuted. Instead, he receives a $45 million parachute. Or take any executive from Purdue Pharma who addicted and killed hundreds of thousands, and walked away fabulously wealthy with barely a single executive prosecuted.
And perhaps what we’re seeing is an effort to distract from this imbalanced application of justice, because instead of addressing facts like these, they simply attack the entire system. However, when it comes to the relentless persecution of the working class, these same elites are effusive in their praise. I can’t even count the number of cases that we’ve covered that seem to be at the very least capricious, if not retaliatory against working people.
And when I say that, we see an entirely different dynamic than a billionaire complaining about not being able to write off his payment of an adult film star as a business expense, or the assertion that he’s under attack because of his power. No, we see people who are targets simply because they are essentially powerless, working class people who can’t afford lawyers and publicists or hold the attention of the nation. Stephen, why is it so important to remember this in the context of the verdict?
Stephen Janis:
Well, I like the point you made. It was a great point and it is an excellent point, which is that they effectively are arguing that a billionaire should be able to write off his payments to his mistress on his taxes. That’s an important thing to me, because that’s a very difficult argument to make in rational, fact-based land, to say, yeah, we need to tear down the justice system because a billionaire wants to write off a payment to his mistress.
Taya Graham:
Those aren’t even crimes most of us can imagine committing.
Stephen Janis:
Well, that’s the thing, and to a certain extent, it exposes the inequality of the system in and of itself because it really poses a crime that none of us would ever have… Well, at least I know personally. I can’t speak for you, but I don’t have the ability to participate in that kind of crime. But what it really shows is the irrationality of an unequal system and how it manifests every day. So they’re in this dilemma I think, where they seem to be being righteous about something that is really outlandish, and also at the same time, trying to defend a system that upholds their inequality and the inequality that we all suffer from.
Taya Graham:
Well, let’s remind our viewers of some of the cases that clearly emphasize this point that we’ve covered.
Stephen Janis:
Yeah, sure.
Taya Graham:
There is a Texas first responder with 30 plus years as a career firefighter, Thomas C, who is falsely charged with a DWI. This case dragged through the courts for over two years, even though the police never turned in the toxicology evidence that proved his innocence. However, during that time, while the charges of a DWI hung over his head, he was forced to resign, literally a man who ran into burning buildings and saved lives as an EMT. Let’s just take a moment to listen to Thomas describe how this false DUI just nearly destroyed his career.
Now, despite the difficulty in being arrested, separated from your pet and having them taken to animal control, there were other consequences. You almost missed your father’s funeral because of this, and it cost you your job and impacted your finances, right?
Speaker 1:
I’d already been on light duty because of my eye. I would need a cornea transplant to get my eye fixed. The fire department only gives you so long to be on light duty before they turn you loose, no more pay. If they have another job, I believe they’re obligated to offer you another job, so they sent me to go work in communications as a dispatcher and I was in training to become a dispatcher at the time. Because of the DWI, I was no longer allowed on the floor of the dispatch center. Because I was no longer allowed on the floor of the dispatch center, they ended up giving me a letter, “You can retire now or go work in another department in the city.” Or by then, I already knew that once I’d been charged, I’d go to tell someone, “You wouldn’t believe what happened. I got charged with a DWI. I don’t even drink. I haven’t in 33 years.” Never heard of someone getting a DWI that doesn’t even drink.
Taya Graham:
This is just a heartbreaking case, to know that Thomas C, he thought of these firefighters as his family. It is absolutely a heartbreaking case.
Stephen Janis:
And even when we reached out to the union officials and the people who should be protecting him, they just turned their backs on him and he lost his job, his whole career, over nothing, over a crime he didn’t commit.
Taya Graham:
I know.
Stephen Janis:
But there was no backlash from conservatives on that, or anyone from… You can’t reach politicians about these cases. They don’t comment. I know because I’m a reporter, because I ask. And when these things occur, there’s just silence, deafening silence. So just keep that in mind when we’re support… When… Yes. Okay.
Taya Graham:
That’s an excellent point.
Stephen Janis:
I’m not going to go too deep in the-
Taya Graham:
No, no, that’s an excellent point. The silence is deafening.
Stephen Janis:
It is deafening.
Taya Graham:
And I want to give you all another example. Consider the case of Michelle Lucas. Now, this is a hardworking grandmother of four who was charged with passing counterfeit money, one counterfeit $100 bill. Lucas had been forced to plead guilty to two felony counts until we investigated and exposed the flaws in this case.
The case focuses on a person you might remember. Her name is Michelle Lucas and she was one of the stars of our documentary, the Friendliest Town, a film that recounts the firing of the first Black police chief of a small town on Maryland’s lower eastern shore called Pocomoke City. But the reason we reported on her a few months ago is because the hardworking grandmother of four and community activist was facing two felony counts of, wait for it, passing counterfeit bills.
So how did this happen? Well, because Michelle did a favor for coworker. She was delivering pizzas for a Pocomoke restaurant when a cook asked her to pick up a bottle of tequila. To pay for it, he handed her a $100 bill. On her way back from her delivery, she paid for the liquor, gave it to the cook, and went back to work. But two hours later when she returned to the restaurant, she was greeted by a parking lot full of cops. I’ll let Michelle explain.
Speaker 2:
Two hours later, I’m coming back to the restaurant and there’s three sheriffs and two Pocomoke cops, and then he will say, “Hun, you’re getting charged with a felony.” And then I was like, “What?” I have never in my whole life, whole life, not even as a teenager with my mom, been in any trouble. So when he’s telling me I’m getting charged with a felony, my mind, I blanked out.
Taya Graham:
Fortunately, after we published her story and after Stephen sent some very effective emails to the public defender’s office, she was assigned a new public defender who withdrew her plea and the charges were dropped. Stephen, what do these unjust arrests and the silence of the elites about them say to you about our criminal justice system? And to be fair, there were hundreds of thousands of illegal arrests made in our Democrat-run city, just to be fair.
Stephen Janis:
I don’t want to sound too complicated but it’s a way of rationalizing the irrational aspects of the system, that we all live with the inequality. It’s a way of saying the irrational aspects of inequality, like people go broke over a medical bill or whatever, or can’t make a living wage, is actually rational because the criminal justice becomes a social boundary enforcer that keeps people like Michelle and keeps people like Thomas C. lacking the political efficacy or agency to fight back.
That’s what’s so interesting about the Trump reaction, because suddenly, the criminal justice system is not rational. We know it’s not rational. We see it play out in the lives of people, of working class people all the time in irrational ways. But suddenly, suddenly the system that they will say is rational when poor people or working class people get caught up in it, suddenly is rational. So it shows, I think it exposes the underpinnings of the system, which is really the manufacturing of inequality and manufacturing the narrative of inequality to make sure that narrative is never really questioned by the people who are subject to it. So that’s what I think we see, and that’s why it’s important to remember these cases.
Of course, in the case of zero tolerance, the Democrats were in power and 700,000 people were arrested in a city of… Over the period of seven years, a hundred thousand people a year for five or six years, and Democrats were absolutely silent about it. No one said a word. Every time I’d write about it, no one wanted to comment. So again, you see these massive irrational inequalities, and yet, the only thing that elites right now are worried about, seem to be, is one man’s ability to take a deduction for his sex life, so, revealing.
Taya Graham:
It is revealing. It says to me that elites care about elite problems.
Stephen Janis:
Yeah, of course.
Taya Graham:
Apparently.
Stephen Janis:
I guess that’s the way it works, right?
Taya Graham:
And not the rest of us, right?
Stephen Janis:
Yeah.
Taya Graham:
Now, to expand this discussion, we are going to turn to our colleagues and guests to get their individual takes on the verdict and its implications. I’m going to ask everyone to weigh in first on their general thoughts about the verdict’s implications and how they think it will impact the coming election and the politics of criminal justice. So first, let me turn to our esteemed editor, Max Alvarez. Max, let me know some of your thoughts.
Max Alvarez:
Stephen, Taya, thank you so much for having me on. As always, it’s an honor to go into battle with y’all and we know our audience have a lot of questions, and I am just truly honored to be on this incredible panel with everybody to do our best to answer them. So one thing I just wanted to add onto to the great intro that you guys gave, since another one of our colleagues, the great Mansa Musa, who hosts the show Rattling the Bars here at the Real News Network, Mansa himself was incarcerated for 48 years of his life and now hosts the show that Marshall Eddie Conway founded that focuses on the violence and victims of the prison industrial complex. So a year ago, Mansa did a great interview with Dyjuan Tatro when this trial began, and Dyjuan had a great quote that I just wanted to read because I think, again, we can learn a lot from your guys’ reporting, Mansa’s reporting, Mark’s reporting, that can inform the discussion today.
And Dyjuan said, quote, “There’s this idea that we have a fair justice system in this country, and anyone who pays attention to what happens in our courtrooms, who police arrest and don’t arrest, knows that we do not. Some people find it helpful to say that we have two systems of justice in America. I don’t take that view. We have one system of justice, the primary function of which is to incarcerate and oppress primarily Black and brown people to the benefit of wealthy elites, and so we have one system that’s doing exactly what it is meant to be doing. The same system that will coddle Donald Trump after he sought to overturn a legal and fair election on January 6th also put Crystal Mason in prison for five years for mistakenly casting a provisional ballot as someone who had a felony conviction.”
So again, just to really underscore the point that y’all were making about what this trial, before we even got a verdict, already said about our criminal justice system. The fact that Trump could have all of these charges against him, all of these crimes for which he has not been charged, while people who have never been convicted of anything are literally rotting and dying in Rikers Island right now.
So to sum up my preliminary thoughts on this conviction, I’m going to actually steal from the great writer and political analyst, Ed Burmila, whom we’ve interviewed at the Real News before. So Ed perfectly characterize, I think, the absurdity of the Trump era years ago during Trump’s first term by referring to what he calls the Air Bud syndrome. Air Bud, of course, is the classic 1997 Disney sports comedy in which a young boy befriends a golden retriever with the uncanny ability to ball out on the basketball court.
“Things will get worse,” Ed wrote in 2019, referring to the Trump era, because the then Democratic controlled House, as Ed wrote, quote, “Intends to hold endless hearings and point desperately to the Mueller report, like the losing coaches point to the rulebook in Air Bud, gesticulating wildly as the dog dunks on them over and over. And the crowd loves the dog with all its heart and looks at the losing team with the contempt reserved for such demonstrations of learned helplessness, while the very voters to whom Democrats most desperately want to appeal don’t know or care about rules, but sure do notice that one team managed to lose a basketball game to a fucking dog.” End quote.
So let us not forget that this was in essence what politics was during Trump’s first term, a feckless Democratic Party establishment, a ratings obsessed and out of touch corporate media apparatus, all perpetually caught in their own Air Bud rerun cycle of decrying the rule breaking and norm violating of the Trump administration, while Trump just kept dunking on them. Slashing taxes for corporations and the rich, stalking the Supreme Court and the judiciary writ large, issuing executive orders left and right, taking a battering ram to the Department of Education, the National Labor Relations Board, the post office, et cetera, et cetera. Let us not forget that the Democrats, outside of the Bernie Sanders led progressive wing, had no real answer to this. Trump was debilitatingly popular and leading Biden in the 2020 race just over four years ago, and it really took a deus ex machina pandemic and the Trump administration totally blowing the response to COVID-19, and for historic numbers of voters coming out to vote for Biden to actually overtake him and win the presidency in 2020.
But Biden did win. The January 6th insurrection at the Capitol did fail to overturn the election results. Trump got kicked off of Twitter, he temporarily fell out of the headlines, and so many people in this country breathed a sigh of relief and told themselves that the nightmare was over. But it wasn’t, and here we are again, and I just want to lay that out at the top because it really does feel like so much of the mainstream discourse around this trial and this election is unfolding as if we didn’t all live through the first Trump presidency. It feels like our media and political elites, and the people who still buy their narratives, learned nothing from that period. But there is no way that you can listen to our colleague, Marc Steiner’s vital long-standing reporting on Trump, his supporters, the rise of the right in the US and around the world, and not get the anxious sense that the verdict news is just the beginning of something, not the end.
There is no way that you can watch our long-standing coverage on America’s criminal justice system and the prison industrial complex through your guys’ great reporting, Mansa’s great reporting, and naively believe that Trump has any intentions of going quietly or that this system will treat him the same way it treats people like us. He doesn’t, and it won’t. As Trump immediately messaged to his supporters after the verdict, just like he did after the 2020 election results, he will deny, attack, and encourage others to deny and attack the legitimacy of any Democratic process or institution, including those designed to uphold the law and order that Trump claims to love so much that get in his way. We know this about Trump. We cannot pretend to and we cannot afford to pretend to not know this about Trump. So the real question is what is our plan?
And I’ll close by saying this. I don’t know what this means for all of us going forward. I can’t know that, none of us really can. But what I do know, as someone who is not only living through the Trump era of American decline like the rest of us but I’m trying to learn from it so that we don’t keep falling into the same stupid society-destroying traps, that the worst thing that we can do right now is just hold our breath and anxiously, passively watch to see if the system holds up. I think the most essential thing that any of us can do right now, and this cuts to the entire mission of everything we do at The Real News, is to understand ourselves and to help others understand that the answer to that if question, whether or not what remains of our democracy will hold, that ultimately depends on us, how prepared we are for whatever storm may be coming and how willing we are as people, as working people, as citizens, how willing we are to fight for our rights, our families, and our future.
Stephen Janis:
Well, thank you, Max Davis. That was great.
Taya Graham:
Powerfully said. And you know what? I know you have a question for Mark, but I just want to throw up just a couple of comments here. We have SarahLagger22 who says, “The Trump saga is stage drama, like the House of Cards from Netflix. It’s all a soap opera.” And NoNo38 said, “It’s all a script. Behind the scenes, the left and the right high-five each other and mock the peasants.” I have to concur that there’s a great deal…
PART 1 OF 4 ENDS [00:24:04]
Taya Graham:
I have to concur that there’s a great deal of political theater here involved, and I think all of us know when we’re being given a show-
Stephen Janis:
Yeah, I wish I was-
Taya Graham:
So thank you so much for those comments.
Stephen Janis:
Yeah, I wish I’m the one who wrote that script. That’s a good script. And so, Mark, let me move on to you. Mark, Mr. Rise of the Right, I’m sure you have a lot of thoughts on this, so if you don’t mind sharing your initial impressions of the verdict or what you thought in the context of your reporting, that would be great.
Mark:
I wasn’t surprised about the verdict. For all we blast certain parts of our establishment, certain parts of our court system do the job they’re supposed to do, and the jurors did the job they were supposed to do, and I think that’s something that has to be taken into account.
I think what we’re facing here though is, let’s look at America’s history. Now, I’m a student of the period between 1861 and 1890 and what happened during Reconstruction. After the Civil War was fought and Black folks were freed from enslavement and democracy tried to flourish through the South, the forces of the right and racists came barreling back, pushed everybody out of the way, had control. And because the North didn’t want to defend it, came barreling back and took control and created a system of segregation, where for 100 years, Black folks lived under absolute oppression in the South and segregation across the country.
So, it can happen again. We see that in the course of this 20th Century, that you’ve got everything from the battles of the unions and the left and others who put FDR into power, that whole legacy going up through the ’70s and the pushback from the right that took place. Now it’s all being eaten away. Some people may look at Trump as a buffoon, but he’s not a dumb buffoon, and he knew how to fill a political vacuum, and he stepped into it because he knows media and knows how to push himself and knows how to sell things. And that’s exactly what he did.
So he’s become the embodiment of everything that certain groups in America despise. And so we are now faced with the real chance is the Democrats cannot seem to get their act together, at least at this point. The race is neck-and-neck, and if the right wing wins, and if they control one or both houses, then all bets are off.
Stephen Janis:
Yeah.
Mark:
And what people have forgotten, I think, to do and how to do, that we don’t do enough, is A, how to organize, to build something that can fight back and build something to protect the future. Among all the many things I did in my life, I spent some years in advertising, when I was broke and needed to figure out something else to do. So I did that for a while, but I learned a lot in those years when I worked in advertising, and I’m always shocked how people cannot figure out how to make a message to the American people about what the future might hold and what has to be done now.
Stephen Janis:
Thank you, Mark. That is an excellent point. So Terry, you want to…
Taya Graham:
Well, I’d like to turn to Laura to get her thoughts. I’d love to know how you think this verdict impacts the moment we’re in and if you think there’s going to be fallout for the election or even for our criminal justice system.
Laura:
Well, thanks for that. And this has been an interesting conversation so far. I want to pick up on something that Mark said about those jurors. We love to talk about the man, not the movement. And likewise, we love to talk about, in this case, Donald Trump, and the prosecutor to some extent, Alvin Bragg. But let’s talk about those jurors, those 12 everyday folks, as DA Bragg called them, who sorted through those two months of testimony and documentation and a fairly complicated case and came up with a unanimous verdict. And I think that they did some complex thinking there, which is what we need to be doing in this moment. So inspired a little bit more by them than I am by the punditry.
I want to just lift up a couple of things. I’ve seen in the days since the verdict, a kind of declaration coming from people on the democratic progressive side, “Well, this shows how the system works.” It doesn’t. I doesn’t work for most people who would’ve been prosecuted, as you’ve said, on lesser charges years ago, and it hasn’t worked yet for Trump. Let’s not forget that he is trailing a trail of crimes for which he has not been brought to justice. Everything from rape and sexual abuse to meddling in election, insurrection, document abuse, document stealing, and well, the Georgia case has now been delayed, but conspiracy. So this language of, “Oh, the system works,” you’ve been saying, “Very well.” We know it doesn’t, not for most people and not yet for him.
The other thing I’ve heard that concerns me, if you want to talk about affecting our politics in this moment, is a lot of people on the democratic side, hanging their hopes on a prosecution, a criminal incarceration, an incarceration on these charges of Donald Trump. And I want us to just step back for a moment and say, we have just come off, especially since the murder of George Floyd, but not exclusively then, a movement calling for alternative approaches to justice in this country. Decarceration, abolition, not reaching for incarceration as our first solution to every problem. And I think the reality is that Donald Trump’s first time offense on a nonviolent crime will not be sent off to prison in handcuffs.
So New Yorker Magazine cover aside, this is a distraction. And if it becomes the question, does our system live or die by whether Donald Trump gets frog marched off to jail? I think that we will have spent a lot of time and a lot of hot air on a really useless conversation. Where I think we need to be focusing next in our thinking in a complicated way, is about this system of ours. Because fun as it is to point out the hypocrisy of the get tough on crime right wing, now saying, “Wait a minute. Wait a minute, we didn’t mean it.” We too, as critics of the criminal justice system, have to also consider our approach. So we are looking at decades of vilification of our systems of government, our institutions of government. And you’re right, they come from a place of white male privilege and power. They have been institutions to maintain that power and privilege and a white supremacist male patriarchy capitalist system.
But there are forces calling for chaos in this moment, chaos of the sort that I’m sure Mark has been reporting on, we’ve been reporting on in our reporting on the attacks on the energy system in North Carolina, the attacks on the capital. We can be complex, I think, and as subtle and nuanced as those jurors in realizing that while we criticize the system, that’s not to say we don’t believe there should be a system and that we are in very dangerous territory if we simply allow this election to accelerate the Accelerationist movement, actually, the movement that would like to see our country thrown into such chaos of violence that only people with the most violence win.
We don’t tend to be the winners in those equations. And I think that’s where my mind is going at this moment, is how can we think in as complicated a way as we must about the problems with our system, the need to create some new systems but not embrace the nihilistic, what the heck, pick up a gun solution, which is for the most part, what’s on offer right now.
Stephen Janis:
Well, Laura, I want to congratulate you. You answered all of our questions that we had planned for this. So in a single answer-
Laura:
Oh, good. I’ll go home.
Stephen Janis:
So, congratulations. We’ve got to take a break here to come up with some new questions.
Taya Graham:
Seriously.
Stephen Janis:
But moving on to Rick. Rick, no one knows this subject better than you and how the right responds to things. And was there anything that surprised you in the response to Trump’s verdict or was it kind of what you thought? And you also mentioned in your article about the cruelty that accompanied this response. Was there anything that really said, “Oh, I didn’t expect this to happen?”
Rick:
Well, it is truly, truly, truly an extraordinary hinge point in America’s history and the world’s history. There really, really are no simple answers. I think Max might’ve said, no one has any good solutions to this, except for maybe the Bernie wing of the Democratic party and they’re being ignored. Well, I live in Chicago and we elected a mayor from the Bernie wing of the Democratic Party, and they all fucked it up too. There’s no easy solutions to this. All of us who are trying to figure out what is going on, everyone kind of jumps onto what’s familiar to them. They try and ride the bicycle. No one forgets how to ride a bicycle. But this time, the gears have slipped off the chain and we’re peddling and peddling and peddling and not getting anywhere. It’s crazy. It’s a crazy, crazy time.
And I’m hearing, “Oh, the elites think they’re accomplishing something by convicting Donald Trump.” Who’s the elite? Who are the workers in this situation? I think all the categories are very scrambled. We have an outright fascist base for Donald Trump. A lot of them are blue collar folks, victimized by democratic policies, victimized by republican policies. And what I’ve been following, I went on a far right message board than I’ve been following for decades and decades. And yeah, basically, yeah, nothing surprising, particularly from them. I’ll just quote some of the things they’re saying. “Never forget May 30th, 2024, the date the leftist devils chose civil war for this nation. Trump will be my president by God.” Another guy is saying, “Elections will be conducted using 5.56 millimeter voting machines.” That refers to the 5.56 millimeter NATO round that’s used in an AR-15.
Now when the first guy says leftist devils chose civil war. Yeah, they mean Biden. They mean the intermention on the jury who are New Yorkers and probably are all communists anyway, but they also mean you and me. And the problem about unsurprising rhetoric like that, is how it was joined by relatively surprising rhetoric from the billionaire class that they don’t care about the rule of law. And anyone who knows how capitalism works, knows it’s important for people to have predictable contracts, predictable courts, right? One of the things I said in one of my articles is, trials themselves are on trial in Judge Merchant’s courtroom. That was vindicated because all of a sudden, all these people are saying, “We don’t care about the criminal justice system,” was not just people from Freerepublic.com, it was people like Marco Rubio.
I mean, they’re ready for war, right? They’re all ready for war. And unfortunately, I think the one answer we have to reach for, as tragic as it is, under Donald Trump as president, and this is something I’ve been studying very closely, studying the 2025 project. There’s all kinds of needles hidden in that haystack. One of the things they want to do is, make every school that takes federal funds, which means every school, every student, take the military entrance exam. That’s not even been reported. That’s 1000 pages, there’s a lot of crazy stuff in there.
Under Donald Trump, we are literally going to be in the sites of people from Free Republic and the officers of the state. I mean, under a democratic president, at least we’ll have a little bit of space to breathe, and as tragic as it is, but I’d rather be governed by a guy whose son gets convicted and says, “Okay, he’ll take his licks.” Don’t forget there’s another, when we talk about the elite putting people in jail, Democrats should not, Laura is absolutely correct, have this fantasy that the grownups will save us. The criminal justice system will save us, the institutions will save us. The institutionalism was what, I think, people were mocking in that ridiculous… That Bermila was mocking, the ridiculous, like the first impeachment. They kept on saying, “Oh, Donald Trump ignored the interagency. He didn’t follow the…” It was kind of like the bureaucratic version of, “He didn’t use the right salad fork.”
That’s not going to save us. That is not going to save us. A Democratic party, yes, that realigns itself along New deal style, populist terms, and Biden has taken the first steps. He’s also getting on the bicycle and doing all the familiar stuff. When Israel starts a war, you support them. That’s the familiar thing. But he’s finding that doesn’t work anymore. There might be political consequences to this.
So our first job really, really, really is to keep the fascists as far from the legitimate control of state violence as we possibly can. And I’m sorry, I’ll just go to my grave saying that. And then on January 20th, when the old man, if he makes it that long, is inaugurated for a second term, yeah, hit the bricks. Hit the bricks, maybe he’ll join us. He’s walking the picket line, supposedly. But it’s not just the elites against the masses, that’s our old way of thinking. We don’t know how to think right now. We’re on that bicycle too, and we just can’t keep pedaling and the chain is not meshing with the gears. And this is a very uncomfortable reality. It’s a very uncomfortable world to live in. My Man, Max once asked me, what’s my one word explanation about what we need to do in one sentence, we must love each other or die. Solidarity, respect. I didn’t come up with it, it’s W.H. Auden, so. Yeah, I wish I could claim the credit. It’s really easy.
Laura:
I came up and I had a good two-word answer the other day to that question. I was speaking to Maurice Mitchell from the Working Families Party, and he says their go-to approach is block and build. We have to block fascism, but blocking isn’t enough, we have to build the alternative. And I think that’s where we are. We’re just in pretty sad shape, I’d say, at this moment. There’s some interesting stuff on the horizon, I will say.
Stephen Janis:
It’s an excellent point because Clinton, in 2006, he relied upon the idea that Trump was just going to be unpalatable without thinking about policies that affected the working class. So I’m going to turn to Max and his great podcast, Working People. I mean, can we look at this through the… I mean, I think Rick raises some great points, that the working class has been victimized by Democrats just as much as Republicans. So can we look at this through the class prism in terms of analyzing this verdict and just analyzing the phenomena of Trump? Or do we fall into that same idea where somehow the Democrats are different, but they’re not really, in the neoliberal policy world that we live in right now? I mean, is that a good way or bad way of looking at it? Or is there a different way that Rick suggested?
Max Alvarez:
Well, I mean, class is everywhere, right? The specter of Marx haunts everything. And so my blunt answer is that, yes, class analysis and the sort of dynamics of capitalism that shape who we are, how we live, how we work through those kind of essential class dynamics does factor into everything that we’re talking about. But it is not prescriptive, right? I mean, because I think one of the taglines for what we do with The Real News, which is so basic, but it’s such a hard point for people to accept, is that it’s a big fucking country and there are a lot of people in it, and people are very complex. And as we ourselves have shown through the work that we do, even long before I ever got here at The Real News, but also, ever since. People are complex and people have many different reasons for voting the way they do, not voting, so on and so forth.
My show, the show that you mentioned, Working People, which I started years before I ever got to The Real News, the very first interview I ever did, as you guys know, was with my dad, Jesus Alvarez, a Mexican immigrant who grew up dirt poor in Tijuana, came over to this country, separated from his siblings, became a citizen, met my mom, built a family, bought a house, lost everything in the Great Recession, including the house I was raised in, felt under the Obama administration that our family, so many millions of others were totally left to flounder while the big banks and corporations got bailed out like that. But he had nowhere else to turn in 2016. And so he described voting for Trump to me, as voting for the devil. “I had a choice between the devil I knew and the devil I didn’t.”
And that is, I think, something that I’ve heard from a lot of different working people from around the country, who voted for Trump the first time, maybe voted for him even the second time, and are even still considering voting for him now. So we know that Trump voters can take many different forms. My own father is one of them. And that is why we’re so adamant about getting people to actually listen to their fellow workers, listen to their neighbors, go out beyond your own algorithmically sorted echo chamber, get off the old, the single circuit between you and the mainstream channels that you visit every single day. And because the farther away we are from actually knowing and seeing each other, the easier we are to exploit, to divide, and to convince that we are each other’s enemies.
Because that is also a factor too. We’ve mentioned the media, we’ve mentioned the media scape in the ways that corporate media responded to Trump. But while all of this is happening, while we are careening down the gullet of a 21st century in which big tech has achieved its signature goal of disrupting the world that we live in without any thought to the consequences, so many of us are not even operating on a shared basis of shared reality.
I mean, when I talk to some Trump voters, it’s like I say, “What’s important to you?” And their list of priorities is vastly different from what I’m hearing from other people. Because again, that’s not all a class determination. A lot of that is the media that they watch, a lot of it is the people that they talk to, the people they don’t talk to, in the ways that, again, those sorts of basic connections between working people and our basic understanding of what our fellow workers are going through is ripped apart and everything is mediated back to us through the internet and through mainstream media or through even, independent media.
But the point I’m making is that so many of us are seeing a different version of reality right now, and that is playing into the ways that people’s brains are poisoned in the ways that they think. But I’ll say this and I’ll shut up, is yes, there are tons of economic reasons for why people are feeling as despondent as they are, feeling as hopeless about the political establishment as they have been. Rick has covered this plenty, Laura’s covered this plenty, I mean, Thomas Frank has talked about this. I mean, a lot of it is not even hidden anymore, but we’re not doing fucking anything about it. We just keep telling our fellow workers that they’re idiots wanting to vote for this guy instead of doing anything to help them.
Like the Republican voters in East Palestine, who I know many of, we’ve reported on their struggle there, but Trump was the first one out there after the train derailed, Biden took a year to get there. That’s basically, that’s made the determination for a lot of people because they’re screwed either way. So which president actually got out there first to show that he cared? Sorry.
Taya Graham:
Wow. Max, that was really powerful. And I want to draw a little bit from what you just said and give that to Mark in this question I have for him, because I hope people have taken the opportunity to listen to your series on The Rise of the Right, where you explore and contextualize the MAGA movement. But Max brought up something interesting. How can working people overcome the movements that we’ve become a part of, whether it’s a left movement or a MAGA movement, and reach out to each other and realize, we have a lot more in common than we have different. I mean, I was just wondering, you’ve been part of a lot of movements to build solidarity. Maybe you could let us know if there’s any hope?
Mark:
Well, let me start this way. Hearing what everybody has just said, that people move politically for two very emotional reasons, fear and hope. And when people were in the civil rights movement, when we had our freedom rise, we were getting beaten and tortured and thrown into jail and people died, 36 people in Mississippi died in one summer fighting in the civil rights movement. But what drove them was hope. What drove them was hope that we could change something, that we could build a better America, that we could free people in this country.
And the other thing is fear. People now, especially voting for Trump, being pushed to the right, are moved out of fear. Their lives are unstable. They don’t know what’s coming next. And so neo-fascist and fascist demagogues always have, know that. Hitler Mussolini knew that. Bolsonaro knows that and knows how to play into it. So to get to the heart of what you just asked, given that, in terms of my analysis is a reality of what we face, nothing just happens. For things to change, people have to organize and be organized.
Let me give you an example. When I was an organizer in South Baltimore back in the early seventies, we organized an attendance union movement. Charles Street in South Baltimore was a dividing line between the black world in Sharp Leadenhall and the white world in South Baltimore, both working class communities. Many people working on the docks and they are always at each other’s throats. But there was one common enemy that we found, and the common enemy was the slumlords who affected both their lives. So we organized an interracial tenants movement that changed the laws in Baltimore and pushed and actually brought people together who-
PART 2 OF 4 ENDS [00:48:04]
Mark:
Changed the laws in Baltimore and pushed, and actually brought people together who’d never come together before. It’s not just going to happen with people coming together. People have to work at bringing people together. You have to organize and build a movement that makes that change. That’s the only way it ever has happened. Only way it will happen. And I think that we have to remember our past. We have to remember what people did in the 30s and the 60s, what people did before that when they came together to fight for equal rights, to fight for their union movements, to fight for real wages.
It was people coming together because they had a common fight together and they also had people organizing that movement. Many of them came from those ranks. They weren’t outsiders, but people had to be organized. It’s the only way it happens. And I think that you see some of it, you see some of it in some of the reporting Max is doing, let’s say with workers around the country, unions that are coming up, and it is happening, but A, it’s invisible to most media, which doesn’t help. And B, it’s just beginning and the other side is fueled with billionaire money.
Stephen Janis:
It’s true.
Mark:
And they are highly organized.
Stephen Janis:
Yeah. Well, thank you Mark. So let me move to Rick. Rick, I want to ask you a question that just came to me when I was listening to what you were saying. So let’s say the Democrats decide to just run some ad, a big ad campaign saying Trump convicted felon and focus on his criminality as a way to move voters. Do you think that’s a good strategy? Given what you were talking about, how chaotic things are now, kind of like that throwback to 2016. How could you vote for Trump? Is that actually a bad strategy?
Rick:
It’s so interesting. I’ve been working on this piece for weeks and weeks and I am trying to get it together because the conclusion of the piece is we don’t know what’s a good strategy, which is really tough. Really, really, really tough. I was listening to a certain mainstream media outlet that appears on the radio and they were interviewing young voters in Michigan. “Oh, are you going to support Trump? Are you going to support?” It was young African-American voters, “Are you going to support the Republicans? Are you going to support the Democrats?” And one of the young women said, “Well, I can’t support President Biden because I have all these student loans and he did nothing about it.” And those of you who have been following this issue know that actually he can’t do anything about it legislatively, for obvious reasons, the Republicans control the house and they don’t care anything about students anyway. So he did what he could. He thought he could legally using executive action and that was struck down by the Supreme Court.
So clearly just running on his accomplishments isn’t really working. It’s not even working with us. I mean, it’s like there was an article in the Washington Post yesterday, “The Biden Administration Tuesday will announce rules to block medical debt from being used to evaluate borrowers’ fitness for a mortgage and other types of loans.” If you don’t think that’s a big deal and you’re on the left, get the hell out of the library.
Stephen Janis:
Agreed.
Rick:
So what we have here is a left that wants to say they’re two wings of the same party. They’re both neoliberal. The problem with that is we all know that the Democrats haven’t done enough to basically make a moral repair for what they did in the 90s through things like NAFTA, what they did in the 2010s through not making people who had their homes stolen from them whole.
So here’s this guy Biden with all his flaws. He says, “I’m going to do this, this, and this. I’m going to nominate a national labor relations board members that are going to let people organize instead of letting companies break the rules. I’m going to appoint ahead to the Federal Trade Commission that’s going to break up monopolies.” And if they just hear the left say, “Well, these guys are both neoliberals.” Why should they even try?
Stephen Janis:
Can I just ask you a really quick question though? And you bring this up and it’s so important. Why don’t those policy, let’s say wins, ever permeate the consciousness of-
Rick:
That’s what I’ve been agonizing over the last few weeks. I think a lot of it is the 50-year history almost coming on 50 years of Ronald Reagan, the best rhetorician and best con man that we’ve ever had in the Oval Office, persuading people that I’m from the government and I’m here to help are the most dangerous words in the language. I think a lot of it is serial betrayals by the Democratic Party. You say you’re for us, but you’re not for us. A lot of it is the media where a young woman can be interviewed and say something that’s an outright falsehood and it’ll just be taken as a horse phrase comment about whether young people are for the Democrats or the Republicans.
It’s all these things put together and the project of making… And people don’t even really conceptualize that when they vote, they’re hiring someone who’s an administrator who has to be able to administrate. Donald Trump, there’s a study that said basically if America had had the same, and they had a conservative government too in Australia, if we had the same Covid policies that Australia had, we would’ve had 900,000 people alive today. That’s like genocide levels of death caused by Donald Trump’s incompetence. Well, it’s one of these bicycle chain things. It’s like none of the old stories signify anymore. We are in a moment of true, true centuries… Once every several centuries, historical chaos, confusion, system collapse.
So there’s no like, “Oh, I see… Joe Biden needs to say this. They need to run this commercial, they need to do this policy. They need to say this about the Republicans.” No, no, no. There’s no easy answers like this guys.
Stephen Janis:
I mean, to your point, a lot of legal experts said that Trump had a way to win that trial in the sense that there’s a serious level of incompetency there and they didn’t win it because they didn’t take a really good-
Rick:
And they’re bringing in the competent guys for the second term.
Stephen Janis:
Go ahead, Taya, sorry. Sorry, sorry. But thank you Rick. Thank you Rick, thank you. That was really…
Taya Graham:
No, that was terrific. I just wanted to give Laura a chance to jump in. I’ve been wondering, especially when Stephen was talking about that sort of tough on crime rhetoric that the Republican Party was known for. Just from your reporting, how do you think conservative folks are going to reconcile the sort of Back The Blue rhetoric now that some of the attacks coming from the Trump side are headed towards law enforcement? How do you think they’re going to handle that?
Laura:
Well, they haven’t been forced to address any of their hypocrisy.
Rick:
They’re fascists.
Laura:
They for the last many decades of running-
Rick:
Just doesn’t matter.
Laura:
Again, we’re kind of dreaming if we think that they’re going to be caught in a hypocrisy, they’re not. They’re just going to say both sides of their mouths work, right? And they speak out of both of them. And let’s not forget that Donald Trump called for the killing, the execution of the exonerated five Central Park jogger case.
Stephen Janis:
Very good point.
Laura:
He would be the first to be strung up, it seems to me if one, were actually to hang people for hypocrisy, but we don’t believe in that and we’re not going to do that.
We have two different scenarios going on, and I’m just going to say you were right Max, you mentioned at the very beginning that there was a danger that the Democrats, people called out the danger that the Democrats might spend their first term, Biden’s first term, simply focusing on Russian bots and the Russian threat and conspiracy and this and that and trials and hearings and all the rest of it. We’re still doing it. We’re still focusing on the legal proceedings against Donald Trump when what we need to be doing is expanding our lens. And as Rick just pointed out, looking at the historic moment that we are in, we are not an isolated country.
You just saw the European elections where the right made thumping gains. That right in Europe is working closely with the right in this country. We may talk internationalism, but the right practices it, I think a whole lot better than we do, in the same way we may talk intersectionalism, but that project 2025 project that Rick talked about, the plan of action from the Heritage Foundation, that will assure that whoever comes into office next on the right will have a plan of action for every department and some people ready to be employed to implement it on day one. We may talk intersectional, they practice life, they do intersectional politics, they plan, they think systemically.
What we need to do I think is step back and say, look, it may pain us, it pains us, probably to credit Joe Biden with anything vaguely progressive. We don’t have to, the gains that have been made in this country, the progressive initiatives that we have seen happen under a Biden administration, such as the one that Rick just mentioned about Medicare debt. But you can look at some of the others in the Inflation Reduction Act or the American Rescue and Recovery or Recovery and Reinvestment Act, that walking on the picket line with the autoworkers, what we’ve seen in the way of student debt relief, that didn’t come from no place, that came from that Bernie wing of the Democratic Party and the movement mobilized in that election.
Biden’s a politician, he read the writing on the wall and he ran on a platform that he thought he could get away with and then implemented a whole lot of policies that I think we have to give him some credit. But we can claim also for our movements as having pushed that to the front and to the fore. And we need to look at the way that we think about politics as again, not about the people, but about the movements, not about the individual man, but about the movements and the moment that we’re in and the scope of history. The changes we’re seeking don’t happen overnight with one administration or another.
So I don’t know, I spoke to Angela Davis about this election and she said, “Voting isn’t a valentine. It is an act on behalf of a class interest and an interest to be able to organize.”
And I think that where we are right now is a time when we have to really focus at what is at stake and be very, very clear. On the one hand is an anti-democratic rising on the right that is international, globally organized, strategic, ideologically driven and has a plan. And on the other hand, there’s us and there are some aspects of our movements that I think we are seeing in this moment have a real impact. And some of that is the class-based economy-based movements. Another part is the gender-based movements. And a third part, let’s just talk about, is the anti-colonial movements that we’ve seen mobilizing on campuses against US unconditional support of Israel. That movement, which we’ve seen as simply targeting Netanyahu and Biden’s support for Netanyahu, could be seen as an anti-authoritarian force as well, in the sense that apartheid in Israel is a ipso facto authoritarian thing.
The problem is we don’t have a media that covers politics this way. We have a media that looks at the top of the ticket, the individuals running and fails to communicate to most of us the importance of the power that we have and the many, many elections that are happening around the country that we can have way more impact on than that presidential one. I did a test the other day of asking Google how many people are running for office in this country right now? And the answer came back clearly two, not right.
Stephen Janis:
I really feel-
Laura:
435 seats of Congress, more than half of the Senate, 13 gubernatorial positions, get real folks. Whose interest is it for you to only be looking at those two top of the ticket races.
Taya Graham:
That is such an excellent point.
Stephen Janis:
I really feel like our guests, they’re talking about the irrational relationship between policy and actual voters perceptions is actually why Trump is so strong. Because the entirety of the premise of Trump is irrational in that sense. And he kind of feeds, as Rick and Laura both mentioned, feeds on and Mark too on the irrational injustices that have accumulated over time in this country that are completely at odds with sort of the underlying idea of this country. And so I think, listening to our guests, it’s really Trump’s verdict is part of that process of creating an irrational sense of what’s actually happening. And that disconnect between the voters and policy is probably one of the biggest problems, even though it’s not really sexy in the sense that you’re going to… Go ahead.
Rick:
I think… The social media piece is fascinating because it’s become such an accelerant for the forces of division, atomization. The kind of stuff people in mid-century America wrote books about, people feeling alone and alienated and the right knows that if they move people down Maslow’s hierarchy of Needs and turns them into creatures seeking survival in fight-or-flight mode, they do better. They’re the gun people. They’re the, “We’re our tribe. We’re going to protect ourselves.”
And one of the things that I’ve been saying in my columns, I think I mentioned in my last one, is some of this stuff, they’re only good words for it in the German language because they have the experience with this. When I say trials themselves are on trial, and if Trump wins, it’s a good trial and if Trump loses, it’s a bad trial. There’s a word for that, it’s Fuhrerprinzip. It’s the leadership principle and it’s very simple. Trump’s our guy, he’s good. Everyone else is not our guy, they’re bad. And unfortunately, because we are a movement that moves people up the hierarchy to self-actualization, to self-realization, to reason, to solidarity, to sacrifice on behalf of the common good, we have a harder road to hoe.
But I mean, the word I’m looking for is fascist, here. We are fighting fascists and this kind of derangement information, flood the zone with shit, this kind of thing where every institution that’s independent of the Fuhrer has to be degraded, whether it’s universities.
One of the things I’ve been pointing out, I did a column on the campus protests and I said, one of the things that’s really scary about the response to the protests is that it has joined all sorts of… This is one thing where all sorts of elites have joined together, whether it’s the White House talking about the danger that Jewish students feel, as if Palestinians didn’t feel danger. I interviewed a Palestinian student who had a childhood of basically having, she’d give a speech during high school Islam 101, a small town in Missouri, and people would show up with guns and point their guns at her. Safety, but the response to the protests that joined together, the White House, University presidents, fascist mobs, right? And people in the Senate like Stefanik who are continuing a project that was begun by William F. Buckley in 1950, in his book God and Man and Yale. And when she said, we need to turn universities over to the people who own them, the boards of trustees, and they should decide what gets taught there. This is the opera, is the operant result… They’re making that happen.
University of Indiana, before the protests, the faculty voted a vote of no confidence against the right-wing neoliberal anti-protest, president of that university, 92%. No, they’re saying “The university doesn’t belong to you, teachers.” Doesn’t belong to you people who are trying to raise the levels of humanity, it belongs to the owners. So this is fascism I’m talking about, and the people running the Democratic Party are probably not my favorite people to go in a foxhole with to fight fascism. But I’ve been quoting Frederick Douglas who told black brothers and sisters, it was actually all black brothers then who could vote in the 1880s, the Republican Party probably will sell us out in an instant, but they’re the boat and everything else is the sea.
Mark:
Right? That’s an important quote. It really is an important quote.
Rick:
Everything else is the sea. And let’s talk, like I say on January 20th, they’re hitting the bricks. But we really, really, really have to defeat these guys who talk all the time about physically eliminating us with their guns, which are, they say they have to fight tyranny, and we are the tyrants. They don’t say Biden is the tyrant, but Max Alvarez is okay, he’s a working-class guy. It’s all of us.
Laura:
And democracy itself.
Rick:
And democracy itself. They’re very explicit about that. Reagan was not explicit about that. He would talk in the American Argo, he would talk about how much he loved immigrants. He would talk about how much he loved democracy. He often acted anti-democratically. He acted terribly against all sorts of migrants and refugees. But he talked the talk, at least. These people are doing it with the bark off.
Taya Graham:
Wow. Rick, I actually wanted to hit you with another question. I wanted to make sure OG Skywatch came up here, but I’ll make sure to put their comment on the screen. They reminded me of the article you had done in the American Prospect where you really dug into a topic we wanted to explore, which was the rallying of the elites, in particular, some of the wealthiest elites around the cause of invalidating the jury’s verdict. I mean, you mentioned PayPal founder, David Sachs, Elon Musk, Sean McGuire, and that’s just the short version of the people you reference. I’m just curious-
Rick:
Jamie Dimon is now kind of in the Trump camp.
Stephen Janis:
Wow, really?
Rick:
Yeah.
Taya Graham:
Why do you think some of the wealthiest folks in the country, some of the most powerful and wealthy elites in our country are running to back him? Is it because on some level they want to make sure the criminal justice system doesn’t ever come for them? I’m just curious, why do you think they’re doing that?
Rick:
I mean, unfortunately, I’m not very big on historical parallels. They often don’t work as well as people think they do. But this is one that’s very, very close to what happened in Germany in the 1930s. There was a guy named Fritz Von Papen. He was the Vice Chancellor of Germany when Hitler got to be the Chancellor basically in this minority election, and they had [inaudible 01:07:24] a plurality of the votes and cut a deal and they had guns in the streets. Fritz von Papen said, “We’re going to have Hitler so far on the corner. We’re going to make him squeak.” I call it Von Papenism. Our modern Von Papens are the guys like Jamie Dimon, the guys like Elon Musk who think that they can control this guy, “Oh, he’s not smart. We’re smart.” Money is, every dollar you have is a smart point. I have the most smart points. I’m the smartest guy. And we know that everyone gets into bed with this guy, wakes up with fleas. I mean, ask the former attorney general, the former attorney generals, Jeff Sessions and Bill Barr, who are now going to be lined up against the wall with me and Max and Biden.
They think they’re smarter than they are. They’re idiots. You can’t have a functioning capitalist economy when you have one guy making all the decisions like a dictator. They’re wrong. They are wrong, but they also have a lot of money and they have a lot of power, and it’s a fucking tragedy.
Taya Graham:
You know what? You make such an excellent point. I love how you said, for every dollar they have, think they’re smarter than us. And you made an excellent point as well, that everyone who’s stepped up and thought, “I’m smarter than Trump, I’m going to control him,” has been-
Stephen Janis:
Has been burned.
Taya Graham:
Has been horribly burned. They have learned their lesson. So, let me… Oh, I’m sorry, go ahead.
Rick:
Some line up for another paddle on the ass. [inaudible 01:08:56] other.
Taya Graham:
Right? Mitt Romney. Ted Cruz.
Stephen Janis:
You can go on forever. No one ever comes out better.
Taya Graham:
Seriously, we could just list them forever.
Stephen Janis:
No one ever comes out better.
Laura:
Michael-
Rick:
[inaudible 01:09:07] Right? It’s kind of like, yeah, he’s a mafia Don, but I’m in the mafia with him. No, you’re not.
Stephen Janis:
For now.
Taya Graham:
Right?
Rick:
For now.
Taya Graham:
Until you’re taken out back.
Stephen Janis:
Right, exactly.
Taya Graham:
So I guess we should turn to Max. We were supposed to make sure to give Max another chance because I really wanted to know how he would react to this idea. There is this thesis from the Trump team that this conviction will actually help his election or even galvanize his supporters. I mean, for regular folks, for folks like us, if we get a felony charge, it affects our ability to get an apartment, to get a job. It hurts us to get a felony charge.
Stephen Janis:
Yeah, it’s a badge of honor, now.
Taya Graham:
But for former President Trump, this could actually be a plus. I mean, is that possible?
Max Alvarez:
Yeah, it’s possible. I mean, but only with, again, the sort of de-fanging of the institution itself. If Trump went through what we went through, we’d be having a much different conversation. But the conversation we’ve been having is that he hasn’t and he’s not going to. And so it means something different for him than it means for any of us. As the cases y’all highlighted at the beginning of this live stream really showed.
I mean, every single one of us knows someone who’s been impacted by the criminal justice system, if we ourselves have not. We know how devastating this system can be and is on a daily basis for working people around the world, people who have their cars towed and are suddenly lose their livelihoods and live in a country that is so unkind and so brutal that so many of us are living so close to homelessness.
Right now, the key issue driving boaters and according to all the polls, is not this trial, it’s the cost of living and the availability of housing. And in fact, what we’re seeing, again, at least from political polling, which everyone should take with a pinch of salt, and for all the reasons that we and Rick and Laura have talked about should not take is just the diet. This is what America thinks, right? I mean, but what we are seeing, at least in that polling is that this is not changing people’s opinions about how they’re going to vote. People who feel like both parties have screwed them over and offer nothing for them, still think that way. People who believe in Trump, were going to vote for him anyway, do think that this increases his capital and it make them more likely to vote for him, but they were going to vote for him anyway.
I mean, that again speaks to the problem of, at the core of all this, which is we are not operating on a terrain of shared reality here. And that is why I think the references to Civil War are in fact quite-
PART 3 OF 4 ENDS [01:12:04]
Max Alvarez:
References to Civil War are in fact quite apt, right? Because that is what happens when you have a people living within a geographic boundary who are not abiding by the same reality, and in fact, see the other’s reality as a threat to their own. You end up with conflict and violent conflict. That is the way that those things go.
I wanted to just make that point because sadly, a lot of the folks that I have asked, folks that we’ve interviewed who I know are Republican, I’ve just said, “Hey, what are you and your family and your neighbors talking about right now?” This is purely anecdotal. I just say it to say, these are folks who know me, know us, know our work, and I know them and I know their story.
They’re not changing. I mean, even if they know me, even if they know what we fight for, even if they agree with a lot of the economic and political arguments that we make, we have not fundamentally changed the economic and political reality that the rest of us are still living in.
It’s still an idea, whereas the bill that you have to pay at the end of the month, the rent that you have to pay at the beginning of the month, the childcare payments that you have to make, that is not an idea. That is a hard reality that people deal with every single day.
As we mentioned earlier, the more you keep people living close to the bone, close to poverty, close to homelessness in a country that criminalizes poverty, criminalizes homelessness, keeping people at that level is how you ensure that there will always be a right bed for fascistic thinking. It is the boss’s first tool to pitting workers against one another. That is still happening and it’s going to keep happening.
I think that, like Mark said earlier, the way to address that, that we know works, that we’ve seen work is people build solidarity. They get out of these cages in their heads. They stop seeing their fellow workers as their enemy when they are forced to engage in common struggle together and build a solidarity out of that where we are fighting together for something, not just constantly talking about ideas, but actually fight for something and improve each other’s lives and communicate to each other that we care about each other as people.
Because the flip side to what Rick said, about how the rich and powerful think that their dollars translate to smart points, which makes them smarter, is that working people feel the exact same way. Our lack of dollars, our lack of capital translates to a perennial sense that we are worthless, that people like Donald Trump are smarter than us and must know more than we do.
Even though I know by talking and interviewing workers all the time, that so many of them are smarter than Donald Trump. But we live in such a horrible capitalist system that trains us to believe we are worth as little as we are paid, and we deserve the treatment that we get in this unfeeling country. That also contributes to the sense of people wanting to believe in Trump or anyone like that. We need to address that with more than just good ideas. We got to be there where people are, help them fight for better and show them that they deserve more than that and we’re going to be there fighting with them for it.
Stephen Janis:
Now David’s just informed us that we have less than 15 minutes left.
Taya Graham:
Right, right.
Stephen Janis:
Do we want to move to the speed round, and…
Taya Graham:
We may have to take it to a speed round, unfortunately.
Stephen Janis:
Yeah, and I think address this issue in terms of what would be the impact, or you go ahead and you do it, but let’s just make sure we get it in so we get everybody…
Taya Graham:
Well, here. Why don’t you start off for Laura?
Stephen Janis:
Well, for the speed, are we doing the speed round?
Taya Graham:
We’ve got to take it to the speed round because we were given our, from our delightful studio director, David Hebden, gave us the 15-minute warning.
Stephen Janis:
Well, so we can just ask, does anyone think that Donald Trump will serve a day in jail? If he does or if he doesn’t, we’ll start with Laura, does it matter and should he be sentenced to anything? Will it have any impact at all of what the criminal justice system actually ends up doing with him? If he gets community service, what should he do? Laura, we’ll start with you.
Laura:
Quick round, props to Alvin Bragg, who is the DA who brought the case against all the odds, was given a lot of grief and did a good job in my view. Now that having been said, no, he’s not going to serve a day in prison and we should stop talking about this case. The court is not going to save us. Organizing is what is required.
Taya Graham:
Preach.
Laura:
Politics, intergenerational, intersectional, long-term, politics is the point right now. Frankly, if I had a media team that had resources of the sort that our network friends have, I would stop covering the trials and start having somebody regularly on the campaign stops that Trump is making. Record what he’s saying, show who’s there, show what’s being sold outside in the parking lot. The public need to see what is being incited in this moment and whom. We need to start talking to some of the people Trump’s talking to. But first and foremost, we’ve got to start seeing one another in this picture instead of focusing simply on this court.
Taya Graham:
So well said.
Stephen Janis:
I mean, when we went to a Trump rally, we saw the militaristic Trump as Rambo, kind of iconic, iconography.
Taya Graham:
But the thing is, despite some of the iconography being a little odd, I actually had…
Stephen Janis:
Odd?
Taya Graham:
… some very nice conversations with the folks outside of the Trump rallies. Even though, let’s say our political viewpoints were different, I felt like we were really able to communicate and understand each other and I feel like I learned a lot. That’s one of the reasons that I’m really excited that we’re going to be going to the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee, Wisconsin this July, because we want to do exactly what you said, Laura. We want to reach out to people, to understand what their concerns are. We’re not just going to be inside the RNC, we’re going to be outside the RNC. We’re going to be going to residents in Milwaukee and asking them their thoughts on the upcoming campaign.
Stephen Janis:
But I mean, Trump with a bazooka was burned into my consciousness.
Taya Graham:
Well, I mean the Rambo one was a little odd.
Stephen Janis:
Very interesting. So should we go?
Taya Graham:
Yes, we’ve got the lightning round. What kind of community service?
Stephen Janis:
Not just, we also been asking about the app, and I think Laura made an excellent point about we got to stop talking about it.
Taya Graham:
I completely agree.
Stephen Janis:
The mainstream media is obsessed with it. But let’s just get, so let’s go to Mark, I guess, and we’ll get Mark.
Taya Graham:
Let’s keep talking.
Stephen Janis:
Mark, so what do you think? Do you think Trump’s going to be sentenced anything? Should he be, should he spend any time in jail? Will that be a factor in the election?
Mark:
I mean, should he spend time in jail? Yes, but who cares because it’s not going to happen.
Stephen Janis:
Okay.
Taya Graham:
Fair enough.
Mark:
If he gets parole, send him to cleaning up all the dog shit in America, let him do that for a few months. Can’t talk to the media, has to pick up dog shit.
But beyond that, I think that the reality is that we face a very grim future if certain forces in America don’t come together and unite to stop it, and that’s the reality. It can happen, but will it happen? I mean, it’s like I said to somebody the other day who’s inside the Democratic Party who I’ve known for a long time. You should take some of those millions and millions of dollars, work with unions, work with communities, hire organizers, make a fight, and build a media campaign that attacks every word that sucker says, and put it out there wide.
You’ve got to take the fight to him, to them. If we don’t fight, we lose. I don’t see us fighting at the moment. That fighting doesn’t mean fighting in the street, but from where I come from, if that happens, it happens. I’m not joking. If it happens, it happens.
But what I’m saying is you take the fight, like in Mississippi when we had COFO and SNCC, you took the fight to the racists and the clan by organizing black people in Mississippi to register and vote and to go out there and walk to the polling places. No matter what the hell happens, you’re going to force them to let you vote or you’re going to go to jail.
Stephen Janis:
Let me ask you a really quick question…
Mark:
Yes.
Stephen Janis:
… Given your basic experience. One of the voters Trump has picked up with is African-American men and has been making these polls seem more favorable to Trump. Why do you think that’s happening?
Mark:
Well, it’s interesting. One of my closest friends in life who I was in the Boy Scouts with, which was a long time ago, when we still had segregation, and I was the white kid in an all black boy scout troop on the east side of Baltimore. This guy was a Black Panther and a leader of the auto workers, and he voted for Trump. We had these long conversations, “Well, why did you vote for Trump?” He’s passed away, it’s about six months ago, one of my closest friends. But he said, “Because the Democrats don’t do anything for us, because they’re not fighting for us, because they don’t care about what happens in our communities. They don’t create jobs. They’re not fighting to help the environment. Let’s get this guy in office, maybe he’ll make it so bad, we’ll get rid of him.” There’s a feeling of people who feel left out have no place else to turn.
Taya Graham:
Yes.
Stephen Janis:
Yeah. To Rick’s point on that.
Mark:
For the Democrats to do it, they’re going to have to come together with unions, community groups, as I just said, and really organize and fight. If we don’t take it to them, we’re going to lose.
Taya Graham:
Mark, I think you made an excellent point, and when you mentioned your friend, there are folks out there who take pretty much an accelerationist view to this, which is we have to show how bad the system is by putting the worst person in charge until people are ready to make a serious change. They’re pretty much on the, they’re beyond incremental change anymore, which unfortunately is what a lot of Democrats have promised. Let’s go to Rick.
Stephen Janis:
I’m afraid to ask him this question actually.
Taya Graham:
Yeah, I’m a little worried about asking Rick this question.
Rick:
I got a good answer. I got a good one.
Stephen Janis:
Okay.
Rick:
I think there’s a better chance than Trump going to jail, that the Governor of New York pardons him because there’s a tradition with the Democratic Party that the more polite we are to the other side, the nicer they’ll be to us.
Taya Graham:
Right.
Rick:
When they go low, we go high.
Stephen Janis:
Yeah, that works.
Rick:
Then also in the next issue of Baffler, me and the historian, Geraldo Cadava, have a piece coming out, interview between the two of us about why minority folks are voting for Republicans. He knows more about this than I do, especially Spanish surname folks. Accelerationists, that’s no way to go when the other side has the guns.
Taya Graham:
Right. I have to agree. I don’t want us to burn it down to make things better.
Stephen Janis:
It’s an interesting distinction. How do you fight without seeming as accelerationist as the Republicans when we fight?
Rick:
Well, you build, right?
Stephen Janis:
But that’s the thing, Rick, what we were talking about. I mean really if you look at the Inflation Reduction Act, there’s a lot of building going on, but people don’t perceive the Democrats as having done anything, or Biden.
Laura:
Biden didn’t sign the checks. Well, Trump signed the checks, the relief checks.
Rick:
Well, I mean, yeah.
Stephen Janis:
That’s right.
Rick:
There’s a shortage of welders now. It’s like if you want a job and you’re working class become a welder and they’re…
Stephen Janis:
And electricians.
Max Alvarez:
The federal government should be putting out job programs to train people to be welders, to take the jobs. They’re not doing it.
Laura:
Big signs that say project brought to you by… One thing I have for the old man as you called him Rick, was why is he up there campaigning on his own? He should be campaigning with his whole cabinet, show who it is that actually is brought into office when we cast a vote in an election. It’s not one person, it’s a whole administration. There may be some bums, may be some good people in there.
Rick:
How about we start a new generation of democratic leaders.
Laura:
Yeah, look at them. Lina Khan. I mean there’s a few good ones out there. There’s some good members of that administration who never get a say in these campaign stops.
Stephen Janis:
Good point.
Laura:
I think that’s what I wish I could see is a “we” campaign. It’s a whole bunch of people we bring into office when we cost that vote.
Stephen Janis:
Great point.
Taya Graham:
That’s an excellent point.
Stephen Janis:
The last person is Max on this lightning round. We mean lightning, Max, which means fast.
Max Alvarez:
I wholeheartedly agree with what everyone has said and I’ve talked enough, so I’ll see you tomorrow.
Taya Graham:
Oh, okay.
Stephen Janis:
Okay.
Taya Graham:
That was unexpected.
Stephen Janis:
That was interesting.
Taya Graham:
Well, on that note, I want to thank all of the wonderful guests.
Stephen Janis:
Absolutely.
Taya Graham:
For their insightful answers and critical context that they shared with us to understand this historic moment. Certainly I’ve learned a lot and the opinions offered during this live stream have prompted me to reconsider the verdict in ways that I hadn’t before.
Stephen Janis:
Absolutely.
Taya Graham:
That to me, this is what the Real News is all about, and that’s why we work so hard to produce these types of shows and feature these wonderful thinkers. Now Stephen, I’m going to give you one last chance to say something. Given some of the ideas raised in this discussion, what’s your big takeaway or final thoughts? Is there anything else you want to share?
Stephen Janis:
Well, we have to weaponize being rational as much as the right can weaponize fear. But I think one of the operative things you see in bad policing and bad law enforcement is that law enforcement has a rhetorical ability to appeal to fear and fear makes us irrational. I think all our guests pointed out how much the right and the Republicans have used fear and irrationality to be effectively politic.
What I would hope we would be able to do is somehow counter that. But it’s very hard to counter. It’s very hard to counter when, as Rick pointed out, you have someone fearful, isolated, lonely on their computer, feeling like no one cares about them. That’s a hard thing to fight in the political arena, especially when you have someone like Biden who’s not the greatest communicator in the world.
I think we should focus on that and coming up with a rhetorical platform to be able to see things are changing on some level and that has to be communicated and understood. That’s where I am.
Taya Graham:
Well, before I give my final thoughts, I just want to throw a few comments on the screen. I wanted to share Lori McNamara who said, “Not putting him in jail tells every other criminal politician that they can go right ahead and do exactly what he did. Take over your entire country by telling lies and lies and more lies.”
I also wanted to add Buckaroo Bonsai, I think who was responding to our talking about solidarity. He said, “All one or all none,” and that was on the Dr. Bronner’s soap bottles. I don’t know if you’ve ever used the Dr. Bronner’s soap.
Stephen Janis:
I have not.
Taya Graham:
I also just want to say hi to Nola D out there as well.
Stephen Janis:
Hi Nola. How are you?
Taya Graham:
Thank you. We appreciate you. All right, so now I’m going to get to some final thoughts and I also just want to thank everybody for being in the chat. It’s been very lively and I wish I could have put more of your comments on screen.
Let me share just a few things for all of us to consider. However, you feel about Trump, the fallout from his criminal conviction falls into the same pattern as his other legal troubles and predicament. It seems, regardless of what he does says or what norms he challenges, to put it mildly, there are always two camps of thought that are stubborn.
One camp that holds him infallible and the other camp that finds him irredeemable. What is lost in the conversation is us, the people who truly suffer the consequences of these flawed institutions. The problems with the system so to speak, always seem to center around him, his power, his ambition, and his efforts to save himself. That’s what troubles me about all the controversy over this conviction and what it says about our criminal justice system.
It’s a debate, if not a purposeful and divisive distraction that focuses on the fate of a single man, one individual, and one person who by most measures has been incredibly lucky and the beneficiary of a system that is often intrinsically unfair to the rest of us. I mean by his own account, he is a billionaire. He lives an incredibly lavish lifestyle. He’s afforded the best legal representation and has had the freedom to blast the judges and prosecutors like no other defendant I have covered.
He has been, up until this point, nearly untouchable. At the very least, a recipient of the generous varieties of material comfort and social capital afforded only the most elite of the elites. My thoughts about Trump have much to do with that aspect of his predicament. He’s an elite. He like his fellow billionaires, have been afforded an unjust share of the largesse of a decadent society.
With all that, he seems to be concerned about the criminal justice system only through the lens of his personal tribulations. I mean, he wants us to take to the streets to protect his right to take a business deduction for paying off a mistress the amount, nearly four times the yearly wage of the average working person. He wants us to tear apart the system so he can be exempt from it.
He’s not alone. I mean, isn’t this true with the rest of the elites in this country with their supersized yachts and private islands and underground survivalist bunkers? They have the extravagant lifestyles of literal kings and queens. Do they also want to be exempt from a predatory healthcare system? Do they worry that social security won’t be there for them when they retire? I don’t think so, but I do. I worry.
I mean, I guess the question would be, why can’t the elites get to experience the unfairness of the system and the injustice the rest of us live with every day? It might be good for them, make them a little less aloof and maybe the next time they would really hear us when we cry out for help or for justice. This goes for the system that bolsters the inequality, that makes them so powerful and so contemptuous of it. When that system bends and actually contorts towards them, they claim it’s unfair and biased. When it comes for us and the working class people we feature on our show, it’s just a result of a process that has rightly condemned, the least powerful among us.
I would offer this caveat when we think about the trial, the verdict, the fallout, and perhaps the impact on the election. Yes, the criminal justice system is flawed, in obvious and in some opaque ways. Yes, it can be capricious and used to retaliate and squash dissent. Yes, it is often more harmful than the crimes and transgressions it purports to redress. I mean, we have both witnessed its destructive tendencies firsthand.
But let’s just make sure that we’re fixing it for all of us and let’s focus on reforming it for the people who can’t hire expensive lawyers and have a pulpit surrounded by media. Let’s critique reform and overhaul the system for the people, not just the powerful. Let’s fix it for everyone, not so that a single individual can take a tax deduction that most of us could only dream of.
All right, that’s it. That’s it for me.
Stephen Janis:
Excellent. Thank you.
Taya Graham:
I want to thank our guests, Laura Flanders, for taking the time to speak with us. Thank you so much, Laura, and I hope everyone watching will take a moment and go to subscribe to the Laura Flanders and Friends channel…
Stephen Janis:
Absolutely.
Taya Graham:
… Which should be tagged in the description below. Of course, I want to thank Rick Perlstein for his time. I wish I had more time to draw on your experience from a historical perspective. I really appreciate you being here.
Of course, we’ve got to thank our Real News colleagues, Maximillian Alvarez and Mark Steiner for joining us. To everyone help make the stream possible, including David Hebden, Jocelyn, Kayla, Cameron, James and Ju-Hyun. Thank you so much for helping us keep it on track.
Stephen Janis:
Thank you.
Taya Graham:
Of course, I have to thank my colleague Stephen Janis.
Stephen Janis:
You’re welcome.
Taya Graham:
For hosting this live stream with me. It’s always great to get you off your investigative beat on the street.
Stephen Janis:
Yes.
Taya Graham:
And indoors to report.
Stephen Janis:
Grateful, I am grateful.
Taya Graham:
Thank you Stephen.
Stephen Janis:
Thank you and thanks to all the guests. They were wonderful.
Taya Graham:
I want to thank everyone who participated in today’s chat. Thank you for helping us have a productive conversation. I hope you’ll take a moment to leave a comment and a like, and we always appreciate hearing your thoughts. My name is Taya Graham, and thank you so much for joining me this evening. Take care.
The lived reality of the racist prison system can get lost in the swirl of facts and figures surrounding mass incarceration. Frigid cells in winters and sweltering conditions in summers; the volatility and capriciousness of hostile guards and correctional staff; food barely fit for human consumption; isolation from one’s community and deprivation from the routines and small freedoms that made up one’s identity prior to incarceration. The trauma of such an experience is undeniable, and extends far beyond prison walls—from overpoliced communities subjected to the constant presence of police surveillance and terror, to the families and relationships put under the strain of separation. Dr. Da’Mond Holt returns to Rattling the Bars for the final installment of a two-part interview, this time speaking with host Mansa Musa and his friend Lonnell Sligh, about their respective experiences behind bars, and the implications of the prison system as a deliberate system of mass trauma affecting Black and other working class communities of color.
Studio Production: David Hebden, Cameron Granadino Post-Production: Cameron Granadino
Transcript
The following is a rushed transcript and may contain errors. A proofread version will be made available as soon as possible.
Mansa Musa:
Welcome to this edition of Rattling The Bars. I’m your host, Mansa Musa. Joining me today is Dr. Da’Mond Holt from Trauma… Where are you from?
Dr. Da’Mond T. Holt:
The Trauma Center of Hope, from Tucson, Arizona.
Mansa Musa:
Trauma Center of Hope from Tucson, Arizona. And my good friend Lonnell Sligh, say hi to our audience Lonnell.
Lonnell Sligh:
Hello everybody. Thank you for having me. I’m Lonnell Sligh.
Mansa Musa:
Today we are talking about black trauma, what happened to us. We have Dr. Holt here as a referee between me and Sligh. Me and Sligh been beefing forever. I want you to mediate this beef, right Doc, since you a traumatologist. Because he got the Golden Gloves Award and all that. So I’m thinking about just hitting him and running, not to have no more Trump, but I jest.
Today we going to be talking about, both me and Lonnell together, have served almost a hundred years in prison. So today we’re going to be talking about, not only how we process the trauma that we undergone, but our views on it as it relates to the prison system. But more importantly, we want you Doc, Dr. Holt, to contextualize a lot of this stuff for the benefit of our audience. Because we’re of the opinion that we need to build a movement around trauma.
Dr. Da’Mond T. Holt:
Yes.
Mansa Musa:
We’ve been having this conversation off camera. But more importantly, we wanted to talk about, as it relate to the prison industrial complex, when should we start addressing it? Should we wait to post-release or pre-release, or when they first go in the system?
Lonnell, talk about yourself, aight. How much time was you initially serving?
Lonnell Sligh:
Two life sentences plus a hundred years.
Mansa Musa:
Okay.
How much time have you done thus far?
Lonnell Sligh:
33.
Mansa Musa:
All right.
Full disclosure, Lonnell was sent out state. He’ll talk about that a little bit. We had just got him back to the state of Maryland where he’s presently, his family lives, his children live. He got a wonderful loving family. Talk about your journey. Let’s talk about how you wind up in Kansas.
Lonnell Sligh:
Okay. As he stated, we long-time time friends, we were in Jessup Correctional Center together. And at the time it was a killing field. In Jessup, we seen the need that we had to do something if we wanted to move forward and not be locked down or shut down.
Mansa Musa:
Yeah.
Lonnell Sligh:
So we started a program called the Rebuilding Our Youth program, and it became highly successful. We had gangs and people from all different walks in the program. Just like I said, it became successful. So in success when you in the midst of the belly of the beast, you have jealousy, envy, which we here to talk about now. Trauma. A lot of traumatized people.
Mansa Musa:
Yeah.
Lonnell Sligh:
Even myself. As we know, when you traumatize, you don’t know how to deal with situations or things that you might want to do, so you take the low road.
Mansa Musa:
Yeah.
Lonnell Sligh:
So anyway, in the midst of that, I ended up getting sent out of a state to Kansas. That was most definitely traumatizing because I was sent away from my family.
Dr. Da’Mond T. Holt:
Right.
Mansa Musa:
Yeah.
Lonnell Sligh:
In the midst of me doing something that we thought was great and we thought was good. So anyway, I went to Kansas, and this is a whole new process and a whole new journey. In my past way of thinking, when you go into a new environment, you got to set a tone. Because that’s that trauma, that’s that way of thinking. But I had fortunately moved in my journey, whereas though I was more comfortable with myself and I was on a positive movement, whereas though I was bettering myself. Because that’s one of the things that we were fortunate to do; a lot of people don’t get that opportunity.
So when I got to Kansas, it was a nightmare. And just like I say, it was traumatizing. But I took that opportunity to say, okay, I’m mad and I’m in a new environment, but I’m going to continue my journey because this is who I am now. This is what I built myself to be. This is what I believe and this is my passion.
Mansa Musa:
Yeah.
Lonnell Sligh:
So I went to Kansas and seen the lay of that land and seen that they were a hundred years behind the time, I use that as a terminology, but they were behind the time. So I was able to bring the same mindset that I had in Jessup that I left him with, to there.
Mansa Musa:
Dr. Holt, let’s unpack that, right, because we talked early about the different types of trauma and fight or flight.
Dr. Da’Mond T. Holt:
Yeah.
Mansa Musa:
In your analysis, because you put in the book, you got in there about the prison industrial complex and the impact of that particular institution on people of color, black people, African-Americans. Talk about that right there. How do we deal with that industry? Because now we’re talking about an industry, prison industrial complex. As he just said, it’s arbitrary and it’s capricious that is designed primarily to punish.
Dr. Da’Mond T. Holt:
Yes.
Mansa Musa:
So in that environment, how do you look at what needs to be done? When do we need to address the trauma? Trauma led us in there and when we get out, trauma’s going to get us back in there if we don’t address it. Talk about your analysis when you talk about the prison industrial in your book.
Dr. Da’Mond T. Holt:
So not only the industry, but I believe the system itself, the justice system period is a traumatizing environment and a traumatizing system.
Mansa Musa:
Right.
Dr. Da’Mond T. Holt:
Not just on the back end when you’re incarcerated, but on the front end when you are overly policed in our community, where traffic stops is a deadly experiences for black and brown people, where indictments and the way that processing is done for black and brown people on just the front end. We haven’t even got to the prison system yet. We’re talking about how we are prosecuted, how juries are selected.
Mansa Musa:
Right.
Dr. Da’Mond T. Holt:
We don’t really pierce through a lot of those layers of how traumatizing that is for black and brown people. I mean the fact of the matter is we just incarcerate too many people. We incarcerate more black and brown people than anywhere in the world. And the system is designed on purpose. People say it’s a broken system. It’s not a broken system.
Mansa Musa:
Yeah. Right.
Dr. Da’Mond T. Holt:
That system has been designed and architect to do what it do.
Mansa Musa:
It’s highly functional.
Dr. Da’Mond T. Holt:
Yeah. It’s highly functional and, believe it or not, very profitable.
Mansa Musa:
Come on.
Dr. Da’Mond T. Holt:
The justice system is also a billion-dollar industry where different subcontracts all got their hands out to make money on people who have been incarcerated, even to the bail system that needs to be reformed. We have a lot of people who have not even been adjudicated sitting in county jails for months, and they lose their home, they lose their job, they lose their families. All of those different things. That’s nothing but trauma my friend. Then we get to the prisons; when now you are convicted, many people that are black and brown have wrongfully been convicted, have not been exonerated, and they’re sitting in prison innocent.
Mansa Musa:
Right.
Dr. Da’Mond T. Holt:
So prison is a traumatizing experience; being confined as an animal, treated as an animal, institutionalized, mentally, abused by prison guards, gangs all over the place, sexual assaults, rapes and murders and shanks, all of that stuff. The violence impacts the brain in such an overwhelming condition. And if you’re in that environment for a 24-hour experience, the brain that the [inaudible 00:08:57] is overwhelmed, the HPA is releasing so much cortisol that your first several days of the introduction of being in prison, being fresh meat, coming into that environment, makes the brain so overwhelmingly traumatized and on high alert to where your brain can’t relax. It can’t sleep. Insomnia is real. You can’t sleep because you don’t know if it’s life and death.
Mansa Musa:
Right.
Dr. Da’Mond T. Holt:
Depending on what beef you have, going to sleep might be death for you.
Mansa Musa:
Right.
Dr. Da’Mond T. Holt:
So imagine, just sleep deprivation. Being cold and not comfortable, no real soft mattress. All of those things plays a part on the traumatization of incarceration. The paranoia begins to develop. Then because of the fact that the environment is so animal-like in behavior, you have to start turning off your natural senses and emotions, just to survive the night.
And the treatment, the dehumanizing experience, the demonizing experience, the stigmatization experience, the marginalizing experience of being in a prison environment does severe damage to the brain. It doesn’t just impact the brain. I believe that your brain starts being rewired starting day one. And it stays stuck in that rewired frame, not even when you get out. And that’s when it gets dangerous. Because when you’re released, your brain stays in a rewired state. And this is the reason why when people and my brothers and sisters come out of prison, they are not the same. They are not the same. Your children know it, your spouse know it, your family know it. You have been almost unhinged and rewired to live in a animal-like condition. But the question is when you’re back released in society and normalcy, how do you shift abnormal-like behavior for 30 years of conditioning to normalcy? The switch doesn’t just happen like that.
Mansa Musa:
Let me pick up on that right there.
Dr. Da’Mond T. Holt:
Yeah.
Mansa Musa:
All right. And I’m going to come to you next, Sligh. All right, I’m going to give a situation.
Dr. Da’Mond T. Holt:
Yeah.
Mansa Musa:
All right. They killed the police in the Maryland Penitentiary, [inaudible 00:11:44]. So naturally the state respond by, they’re going to do a fact-finding mission. So they had the previous attorney general, Stephen Sacks; they had the speaker of the house, the general assembly; and they had the house, the delegate. They came into what this place was called South Wing. Now I did a lot of time on South Wing. They came in there. When they left, they was on the front porch of the penitentiary like they was shaking, visually shaking, and this is where they say they came from. They say they came from the innermost circle of hell. Man, I did anywhere between three, four and five years in that spot. I didn’t feel like I was in hell. Talk about that, Sligh. Talk about when did you start? Because you ain’t come in the system the Lonnell Sligh you see today.
Lonnell Sligh:
Absolutely.
Mansa Musa:
You know what I mean? You come in the system, the Lonnell Sligh that was ready to, anybody say the wrong thing…
Lonnell Sligh:
I’m going to deal with it.
Mansa Musa:
You want to deal with it. Where did you make that shift at? When did you come to that shift? Because what he just outlined is something that both Carlisle or a horror movie; if you was to take and not speak on trauma and say this is a script for the next horror movie, Freddy Krueger. Then you could take everything he said, said and say, okay, just put Freddy Krueger in the character. Talk about that Sligh.
Lonnell Sligh:
Just like you stated to how they came out of the South Wing, for me, I consider myself not a monster, but I was ready to deal with whatever came to me. Because that’s just the mentality that I had when I first came to prison. I was living a lifestyle in the streets that had me in that mind frame. But for me, once I got to prison, it took some years, it took some time. It took me, like he said, going to the lockup, sitting on that shelf. But I had a lot of people in my ear that always asked me, “What is your problem? Even though you say you never getting out of prison, you still have a lot of things that people would love to have.” Through that I just started thinking and analyzing it.
Then it dawned on me how my way of thinking was that my way of thinking was crazy and insane. So once I got that in my mind, then that’s when I started making the transition into trying to re-educate myself. Because I knew something was wrong, and that’s why I said I didn’t know nothing about the trauma until later on. But that right there was the spark for me, and thirty-something years later, I’m here today.
Mansa Musa:
Hey doctor, talk about that right there. Because that’s something that is common in prison. That’s a commonality in prison. We come in one way; in the midst of being in there, the light come on, what they call the aha moment. But peel that back. Is that that junction? Have I processed, have I come to the realization that I got trauma? Or am I just, now I’m rewiring myself to say, “I got to change my thinking in order to get out of prison. Because if I stay where I’m at, I’m not going to get out.”
Dr. Da’Mond T. Holt:
Yeah.
Mansa Musa:
You understand what I’m saying?
Dr. Da’Mond T. Holt:
I understand what you’re saying. Before you can change your thinking, there’s a process. The process is number one, you have core beliefs. Once you have your core beliefs, then you have your thoughts, which is your thinking. Your thinking is in charge of your actions, and if you continue to have a certain level of actions for a certain amount of days, it turns into behavior. And then once you have a set behaviors, it turns into habits. You can’t get over here and impact your habits when you have not shifted your core beliefs.
Lonnell Sligh:
Absolutely.
Mansa Musa:
Okay.
Dr. Da’Mond T. Holt:
Your core beliefs is your reality. It’s what’s real to you. Now I can think all kinds of things about you, but if you don’t believe it in your core reality, it doesn’t matter about what I think. Now I’m even talking about it as a doctor. I can believe I see hope in you, but if your core beliefs is so dark you can’t even see a glimpse of light, then it doesn’t matter how much light I see in you. Your core beliefs have been damaged. So in order to really shift your thinking, and a lot of times coming out of prison, we have stinking thinking.
Mansa Musa:
Come on.
Dr. Da’Mond T. Holt:
So your life can’t change until you shift your stinking thinking. How you do that? Number one, you got to shift how you believe.
Lonnell Sligh:
Absolutely.
Dr. Da’Mond T. Holt:
You got to believe in a higher power more than you, whether that’s God or whatever. And you also got to believe in yourself. Now in my perspective, I believe in the power of God. Two, then your core beliefs have to impact how you think. Thinking has everything to do with who you are. As the scripture says, “As a man thinketh in his heart,” holy, “So is he.” You are the product of your thoughts. Your life cannot change until, number one, you change your belief system. Your belief system impacts your thoughts, then thoughts impact your behavior. Behavior impact your actions. Actions impact your habits. You can’t change your bad habits until you go push that rewind back and go back through those steps, one by one, and start shifting those things in the right direction.
So it is very important that when we’re talking about people coming out of prison, it is not as simple, from my per perspective, to just give an inmate a job and give them a house. Well, you can give them a job and a house, but if you ain’t healed the brain, it doesn’t matter how many resources that you give them, they will relapse and go back into recidivism. So we have to go back to that root cause of healing the brain. My other book is called Get Your Mind Right. You can’t change your life till you heal your brain. You want a better life, we got to heal that brain, get that brain functional at the level that it needs to be in order to impact people’s lives. So my last point is what I was alluding to is when we go into prison, the prison is designed not only just to punish, but the prison is designed to create monsters.
Mansa Musa:
That’s what it is. That’s what it is. That’s right.
Dr. Da’Mond T. Holt:
It’s to create monsters.
Mansa Musa:
That’s right.
Dr. Da’Mond T. Holt:
It’s really you going on Nightmare on Elm Street.
Mansa Musa:
That’s where you’re at.
Dr. Da’Mond T. Holt:
Whether if it’s 20, 30, 40 years. And you stay there with Freddy Krueger until you’re like Freddy Krueger. And then when you come out, we wondering why recidivism is high. Well first of all, I always say too, the prison industry need to stop false advertising. They need to stop lying. What do you mean by that, Dr. Holt? Hold on, I’m glad you’re asking me. I’m going to tell you for free. What I mean by that is they have been lying to us for years calling prison, the Department of Corrections. They don’t correct nothing. It’s really the Department of Punishment, not Correction. Because if it was correction, then you’d be getting education. If it was correction, you’d be getting mental health support. If it was correction, you’d be getting rehabilitated from addictions and substance abuse. It does not correct. So we need to change it from DOC to DOP, because it’s more about punishment than it is correction. So Dr. Holt is on record on your show saying they need to stop all this doggone lying, talking about they correcting.
When you’re correcting you should leave better than the way that you were. What we are doing is we leaving men bitter than better. So when you coming out of prison, we got more bitter people than we have better people. And when bitterness sets in without correction, it turns into a mental and spiritual cancer and it begins to erode on the inside. This is also what we call suicide ideation, where people are hanging themselves in prison because they have lost all light hope and they have no future to change.
Mansa Musa:
There you go. Dr. Holt, you got me getting ready to say amen. Hello.
According to Dr. Holt, we got no authority. We got no authority. Stop that doggone lying.
Dr. Da’Mond T. Holt:
Stop that lying.
Mansa Musa:
Sligh, talk about in your transition. Because mind you audience, this is gladiator school. The JCI Jessup Correctional Institution. I’m going on record, Dr. Holt; JCI is the only institution that I know of that was founded on the knife. When you came to JCI, you ain’t ask for no clothes, no change of underwear. You ain’t ask for no a bed roll, you asked for a knife. The first thing you asked for, “Give me a knife.” And then you proceeded to, “Where I’m going to sleep at? Give me something to sleep on. Give me a pillow,” if I wanted one. Or, “Who I’m in the cell with.” But prior to that, when you came into the system, if you knew somebody, if I knew Lonnell, if me and Sligh was homeboys and I knew him; when I came in the joint, I ain’t got to ask for a knife. He going to say, “Look, here, you need this right here.” So in terms of trauma, the first thing I would think is, “Okay, who do I got a problem with?”
Lonnell Sligh:
Yeah.
Mansa Musa:
Because you giving me something to protect myself with, there’s obvious that I got a problem with somebody. Now talk about that. Because you was down in JCI at the inception of it, when they started, when it was, they were flying the helicopter in there. Talk about how you was able to navigate that and not get caught up. Or not get caught beating nobody up.
Lonnell Sligh:
Yeah, I heard that. You didn’t have to say that. But nah, you absolutely right. When I first got to JCI, it was at the beginning stages, and it was a killing field. The helicopter land there weekly, regularly. And it wasn’t just for inmates, the residents, it was for the staff as well. But the thing that helped me was the people that was around me that I knew when I got there. I had a few good brothers there that just gave me the lay of the land. Because when, just like he said, when it opened up, they was closing down the penitentiary because of a whole bunch of shenanigans. So it was built on, like he said, the knife.
But for me, it wasn’t a thing of how I’m going to survive. The thing for me was how was I not going to kill somebody? You know what I mean? Because that’s what type of place it was. So for me, because let me remind you, I didn’t say this earlier, but I had a double life sentence plus a hundred years. So I was never supposed to get out of prison. That was supposed to have been my resting place. So when you have that kind of sentence, a lot of times we had that mindset that we going go in there and we going to make examples so that people know to stay out my way. But just like I said, fortunately I had a few people that was there that knew me from Lorton or from other places that gave me some guidance. And from that my mindset was, because I was never getting out, I was trying to get into a space where I’m going to figure a way to better myself and the people around me. Even though, just like I said, I knew I was never getting out of prison.
Mansa Musa:
Dr. Holt, talk about that. Because Angela Davis said in her book If They Come in the Morning, about political prisoners, by her and other political prisoners, she talked about that part of the prison industrial complex, where in that environment you foster a family. And in that environment, when you foster a family, that family in that environment, it becomes more than just to protect you. It becomes a place where you can get legitimate advice. Like you said, he had people saying things to him about like, “Man, look, you got to change your way of thinking, man.” Even though he had double life and a gazillion years, he chose to listen to them because he looked at him as being family and people that had legitimate interest. We talked about that earlier, we talked about people getting ready. Can you find that environment, people that can help you, encourage you, to get ready to do a self-examination?
Dr. Da’Mond T. Holt:
Most definitely. And I think what he had found, the brother had found, was a sense of community. Because another thing about the prison industry and incarceration is not only does it try to create and produce monsters, but it does it by the power of isolation. And it is to break you. Isolation is that breaking down process. It is to break you down mentally, emotionally, spiritually, to even where you feel your soul is dying. The spirit man is dying through the power of isolation. Because once now I isolate you, now the prison guard can perpetuate pain and punishment, belittling, and kill your soul. And that’s what a monster is.
Mansa Musa:
Soulless.
Dr. Da’Mond T. Holt:
A soulless person.
Mansa Musa:
Is that making sense?
Lonnell Sligh:
Absolutely.
Dr. Da’Mond T. Holt:
It’s a soulless person. That’s a scary situation. That’s why they need you in the cage, is because they’re making you a soulless human walking on that campus. And anything can happen. So they create it, but they’re scared of what they created and don’t know what to do with it.
But at the end of the day, if you don’t have a permanent life sentence, that means one day you’re going to get released to society. And what we are doing is we are releasing those type of individuals in the community, and they’re not mentally, emotionally and spiritually ready. So you asked the question, and we talked about in our first segment, readiness have everything to do with you wanting to go to the next level. Believe it or not, you ask her what does readiness look like? Believe it or not, that’s not an easy answer. It’s a very complex answer. But I can say in my experience and expertise, readiness has had everything to do with circumstances and situations. Sometimes a loved one have to pass away.
Mansa Musa:
Right. You got it, you got it, you got it.
Dr. Da’Mond T. Holt:
Unfortunately.
Mansa Musa:
Right.
Dr. Da’Mond T. Holt:
Unfortunately, maybe a loved one might have to have passed away, and you didn’t get that relationship right. Let’s say for example, you got a brother, y’all been beefing and you was the black sheep of the family, and that person was jealous of you. Y’all been beefing all since your childhood and adulthood, and that person died, and you never got a chance to rectify that relationship, but you got four other siblings. Sometimes it takes losing that person, that loved one, and realizing I got four others. I need to take life serious and get it right before I finally get that light to show up and say, “You know what? I need to be ready.” Maybe it means you had to lose the relationship of your kids for you to finally recognize your temper is out of control, and you are burning every relationship that you have today. Every bridge now is burnt, you can’t even go back and walk no more. Maybe that may force you to say, “I need to do something about myself and get ready.” So it looks different for every circumstances, but it is all associated with the circumstances about readiness.
Mansa Musa:
You know what? I like that. Because when we look at the landscape, the prison industrial complex, it might just be as benign as, “I got to change the way I am. I don’t want to be seen like this no more. I’m a sleazy, slimy dopefiend, and every time somebody references me, they reference me with an adjective that’s descriptive of somebody less than human.” That can put me in a state of mind where I got I do self-examination. But at the end of the day I agree that it’s circumstantial, readiness is circumstantial.
As we close out, Lonnell, talk about what you’re doing now.
Lonnell Sligh:
Well, right now I’m not fully out. I still have some conditions, but I made sure that I put myself in the space to continue what we started in JCI. And as we talked earlier about this movement for this trauma, because for myself and for Brother Mansa Musa, I think I could speak, we most definitely need a movement. And like he said earlier, when do you start in the prison complex? Because for us, we tried to start at the beginning and give people something to latch hold to from day one, even if they not ready. We was a firm believer. We always told guys, “Hey, if you come in here, we don’t care what you in here for, but you’re going to be respectful.”
Mansa Musa:
That’s right.
Lonnell Sligh:
Eventually some of those guys he had in here interviewing because they in spaces now where they leaders and they have their own programs. But for me right now I’m involved in a program called Evil Life Givers, Ditto House. I’m currently looking for employment as a peer counselor so that I can continue on the things that we started.
And I have a team of guys that we are doing our own thing. We networking with Kansas, to go to Kansas, because I started something in Kansas that now is taking off and it’s big. The people in Kansas has invited me back to Kansas to go inside the prison that I was incarcerated, the one that they sent me from Maryland to punish me to. They invited me.
Mansa Musa:
To come in and heal.
Lonnell Sligh:
To come in and heal. I meet with them weekly on Thursday with my team, and I also Zoom in on the program that not only did I found, but other programs as well that I was involved in.
Mansa Musa:
Dr. Holt?
Dr. Da’Mond T. Holt:
Yes.
Mansa Musa:
Going forward, what do you want to tell our audience and the world at large when it comes to how we should address trauma?
Dr. Da’Mond T. Holt:
I always say that trauma may not be your fault, but it is your responsibility to heal from trauma. Because if you don’t, we gonna bleed on people that didn’t cut us. And not only people that cut us, but sometimes we also bleed on ourselves. It’s important that we identify where we are hemorrhaging and we’re bleeding from our trauma so that we, number one, can be in recovery and restoration for ourselves. And then two, we can go and promote and help somebody else recover as well. It’s very important that we understand that there is hope and there is a light.
In my work of treatment, I always, number one, promote love. I don’t start anything without love. Tina Turner said, “What’s love got to do with it?”
Mansa Musa:
Come on.
Dr. Da’Mond T. Holt:
Love has everything to do with it. And one of the thing about prison, it abstracts love from us and we have to get that love back. Men, sometimes we don’t know how to love. We’ve had some rough experiences before prison and in prison; and then we come out, we don’t know how to build those attachments. But everything starts out with love because it’s the most powerful force in the universe. Nothing is more powerful than love because I believe God is love. And that’s where we start out with. So we also got to be, when we talk about readiness, do you love yourself?
Mansa Musa:
Come on.
Dr. Da’Mond T. Holt:
And how much do you love yourself? What are you willing to do to show that you really love yourself? Because it’s hard to love others without you having your own self-love.
There’s hope. That’s why I call it not just the trauma center, I said the Trauma Center of Hope. That tells people that no matter what has happened to them, you can heal. Rather you have been sexually assaulted, whether you’ve been molested, whether your father walked away from you, rather your mother left you at the fire station and now you went through foster care through foster care. I’m telling you what’s love got to do with it, and that’s why we start out with love.
And then there has to have light. You start out with love, then everybody needs a beacon of light. We got to be able, despite the darkness that is happening to our lives and the nightmares we still have, that we are walking in the light. The light have to shine through the mist of darkness. That is what gives us hope; that no matter what has happened to us, I can heal and I can be the best version of myself. The quicker you become the best version of yourself of healing from trauma, the by-product is you can get your marriage back, you can get your children back, you can get your careers back. You can get all those things back when everything starts with the inner healing of you.
Energy can never be destroyed. It is only transferred. So it is time for us to create a movement of healing and releasing a powerful energy of healing throughout our nation. What the world needs now is love, sweet love.
Mansa Musa:
There you have it. What Dr. Holt just told us, say, “Don’t believe the hype.” It’s not fatal. Your injury is not fatal. It’s irreversible, it’s not. You can be healed if you believe. It’s not a hands-on moment, it’s not a hallelujah moment. This is a real movement. This is a real moment, this is the real news, giving you information about trauma.
Thank you Dr. Holt, thank you Lonnell for joining me. There you have, the real news surrounding the bar. We ask you to continue to support us, because we are actually the real news.
Jennifer Kretschman, a Sacramento school district social worker, was wrapping up her workday when she received a sudden, frantic call from her 17-year-old daughter. Kretschman’s daughter informed her that a black SUV with tinted windows was following her and her stepfather, Kretschman’s fiancé, Jacob Palkovic, on their drive home from school. Kretschman instructed her daughter and Palkovic to come meet her at her workplace, but it was too late. Shortly after the call ended, the unmarked SUV swerved in front of Palkovic’s car. Armed men poured out of the vehicle and pointed their guns at Palkovic and his stepdaughter. Tearing the two family members out of the car, the men failed to announce themselves as members of the Sacramento Sheriff’s Office’s Gang Suppression Unit. Taya Graham and Stephen Janis of the Police Accountability Report speak with Kretschman to uncover why her family was arrested, and explore the myriad problems that come from specialized police units and the police culture that makes them so dangerous.
Production: Taya Graham, Stephen Janis Post-Production: Stephen Janis, Cameron Granadino
Transcript
The following is a rushed transcript and may contain errors. A proofread version will be made available as soon as possible.
Taya Graham:
Hello, my name is Taya Graham and welcome to the Police Accountability Report. As I always make clear, this show has a single purpose, holding the politically powerful institution of policing accountable. And to do so, we don’t just focus on the bad behavior of individual cops, instead we examine the system that makes bad policing possible. And today we’ll achieve that goal by showing one of the most disturbing videos of police overreach I have ever seen, a violent traffic stop by a gang unit that ensnared a teenage girl and her innocent father. A rare glimpse into the threat that militarized policing poses to our basic constitutional rights, which we are going to break down into all of its problematic pieces.
But before we get started, I want you watching to know that if you have video evidence of police misconduct, please email it to us privately at par@therealnews.com or reach out to me on Facebook or Twitter at tayasbaltimore and we might be able to investigate for you. And please like share and comment on our videos. It helps us get the word out and it can even help our guests. Now of course, you know I read your comments and appreciate them, you see those hearts I give out down there. And I’ve even started doing a comment of the week to show how much I appreciate your thoughts and to show what an amazing community we have. And we also have a Patreon called accountabilityreports. So if you feel inspired to donate, please do. We don’t run ads or take corporate dollars, so anything you can spare is greatly appreciated.
All right, we’ve gotten that out of the way. Now, as host of a show focused on police accountability, I have watched and reported on a variety of horrible arrests and horrifying body camera video. However, the video I’m showing you right now is one of the most problematic I’ve ever seen. Not just because of the aggressive tactics and sheer indifference to the Constitution it picks, but the ugliness it reveals about the state of American law enforcement, a deeply upsetting callousness towards the citizenry that must be witnessed to be believed.
The story starts in Sacramento, California, in September of 2023. There a man named Jacob Palkovic was driving his 17-year-old stepdaughter home from school. As he was driving, he noticed a black SUV with tinted windows following him. Concerned, his daughter called his fiancee, Jennifer Kretschman. She instructed him to drive to her workplace, a local school, for their safety. But before they could arrive, the unmarked truck drove in front of them and a terrifying encounter with a group of plainclothes officers ensued. Take a look.
Jacob Palkovic:
I’m trying to pull into my wife’s work right here, man.
Speaker 3:
What part of stop don’t you understand?
Jacob Palkovic:
Hey Officer, I’m trying to pull into-
Speaker 3:
Get out of the car.
Jacob Palkovic:
I got the car in drive.
Speaker 3:
Get out of the… put it in park.
Jacob Palkovic:
I got the car in drive.
CJ Kretschman:
I’m a minor, I’m a minor, I’m a minor.
Speaker 3:
Get out of the car.
Jacob Palkovic:
Yes sir, I’m coming out. What the fuck? What do I do man? I just trying to turn in my wife’s work-
Speaker 3:
Put your hands on your back.
Jacob Palkovic:
I can’t. I got a bad back.
Speaker 5:
Put your hands behind your back.
Jacob Palkovic:
I got a bad back man. What the fuck?
Taya Graham:
That’s right. A bunch of men exit an unmarked vehicle with guns drawn, pointed at Jacob. There are no police markings on their car and they didn’t even announce that they’re police officers. Instead, they drag him to the ground and proceed to execute a painful and terrifying arrest. Just watch.
Speaker 3:
Don’t resist.
Jacob Palkovic:
Yes sir. What am I doing? I just wanted to get to my wife’s work.
Speaker 5:
Well that was stupid. That was fucking stupid.
Jacob Palkovic:
Dude. I’m not… I [inaudible 00:03:18].
Speaker 5:
That was fucking dumb.
Jacob Palkovic:
I can’t breathe man.
Speaker 3:
All right, he’s good.
Jacob Palkovic:
I can’t get up-
Speaker 3:
Turn around, turn around. Stand up. Turn around and stand up.
Jacob Palkovic:
[inaudible 00:03:33].
Taya Graham:
Now let’s take a second to acknowledge the utter lawlessness of what we’re seeing here and what it means. And I will allege for this particular video, these police officers have not explained to Jacob why he’s on the ground, in obvious pain, being handcuffed. They have not spoken to him at all, they have not articulated a crime or probable cause for violently removing him from the car. Instead, they’ve used force without any foreseeable provocation. An indiscriminate use of police powers that only escalates when they arrest a seventeen-year-old girl. Just look.
Jacob Palkovic:
What the fuck are you guys doing to my daughter?
Speaker 5:
Is this your wife or your daughter?
Jacob Palkovic:
She’s 17 years old man.
Speaker 5:
Well then stop acting like an idiot.
Jacob Palkovic:
Doing it by I’m coming to my wife’s work.
Speaker 5:
Now you’re going to jail.
Jacob Palkovic:
She’s 17 years old, man.
Speaker 5:
Now you’re going to jail. Now you’re going to jail.
Jacob Palkovic:
Why would you do that to a seventeen-year-old? [inaudible 00:04:25].
Taya Graham:
Now, even though police have already handcuffed a man for no alleged crime along with his seventeen-year-old stepdaughter, they are not done showing what can only be described as sheer contempt for the law. That’s because the teen’s mother, Jennifer Kretschman, watches the arrest as it unfolds and demands an explanation, as is her right, but the police are having none of it. Watch how the officers respond and tell me, and I do not say this lightly, are these the heroes that we’re supposed to back without question? Just watch.
Jennifer Kretschman:
Hey, you better get your fucking hands off my daughter.
Speaker 7:
You’re going to stay right there.
Jennifer Kretschman:
If you ever touch my daughter again-
Speaker 7:
You’re going to go into handcuffs too. You’re going to go into handcuffs too if you do not back up.
Jennifer Kretschman:
Name and badge number?
Speaker 7:
Davis-167. Please back up. Please back up.
Jennifer Kretschman:
That is my daughter. Don’t touch me.
Speaker 7:
Please back up, or you’re going to go into cuffs too.
Jennifer Kretschman:
Do not touch me.
Speaker 8:
Let me tell you what’s happening, do you want me to tell you?
Jennifer Kretschman:
Please do buddy.
Speaker 8:
You’re not going to the car.
Jennifer Kretschman:
I would like to check on my child.
Speaker 8:
She’s fine. Let’s go over here.
Jennifer Kretschman:
I just watched her get yanked out-
Speaker 8:
Okay, listen-
Jennifer Kretschman:
17. She’ll be 18 in December. She goes to the Met.
Speaker 8:
So listen, listen. They’re conducting a traffic stop on the car. The car was not stopping for probably the last two miles.
Jennifer Kretschman:
Traffic… Why?
Speaker 8:
I don’t know.
Taya Graham:
So again, the officers on the scene use the threat of handcuffs to suppress dissent. They literally threaten to jail a mother whose only crime is to demand an explanation. No statement of probable cause, no articulation of reasonable suspicion. Only the allegation he had not stopped for two miles, for an unmarked vehicle with tinted windows. But it gets worse, much worse. See for yourself.
Jennifer Kretschman:
They have no right to be in my car.
Speaker 5:
Don’t talk to me, I’ll talk to you. What you need?
Jennifer Kretschman:
Who are you?
Speaker 5:
I’m the supervisor right now. Who are you?
Jennifer Kretschman:
Okay, what’s your name and badge number?
Speaker 5:
I’m Johnson-272. So your car is going to get towed today.
Jennifer Kretschman:
I’m sorry, say that again.
Speaker 5:
Your car’s going to get towed today.
Jennifer Kretschman:
Why?
Speaker 5:
And your daughter and your husband are going to jail. What else do you want know?
Jennifer Kretschman:
My daughter is 17.
Speaker 5:
I don’t care.
Jennifer Kretschman:
You don’t have a right to take her to jail.
Speaker 5:
She resisted arrest and she’s going to go to jail for arrest.
Jennifer Kretschman:
You can’t-
Speaker 5:
I absolutely can. I absolutely can.
Jennifer Kretschman:
No. Why would would you arrest her?
Speaker 5:
Why would I not? She resisted arrest.
Jennifer Kretschman:
She’s 17. You must have a reason to arrest her, a lawful reason to arrest her.
Speaker 5:
Do you understand your husband and your daughter just ran from police for the last seven miles.
Jennifer Kretschman:
They did not.
Speaker 5:
They didn’t?
Jennifer Kretschman:
Run?
Speaker 5:
So the camera wouldn’t lie?
Jennifer Kretschman:
What do you mean run? I just watched you pull my child-
Speaker 5:
We haven’t… Lighted them up, conducting a traffic stop for the last seven miles. They did not pull over.
Jennifer Kretschman:
What? For seven miles? Why did he say two? So get your story straight.
Speaker 5:
Talk to me, I’m the one that pulled her over.
Taya Graham:
Now I want to stop the video right here. Besides the fact that the story has completely changed, her fiance has driven seven miles instead of two as the officer previously stated, the sheriff refuses to answer a fundamental question. What is his probable cause for searching the car in the first place? While it’s true, due to a Supreme Court ruling officers can search cars without warrants if it is on a public street. They cannot do so without probable cause. Just listen again as the officer is asked this question and see if he answers it.
Jennifer Kretschman:
Why did he say two?
Speaker 5:
I don’t know.
Jennifer Kretschman:
So get your story straight.
Speaker 5:
Talk to me. I’m the one that pulled her over, so talk to me.
Jennifer Kretschman:
No, you weren’t. I watched this dude with the beard, pull her out of the car.
Speaker 5:
Which is in my vehicle. So get your facts straight if you’re going to talk about it.
Jennifer Kretschman:
I watched the dude with the beard, okay.
Speaker 5:
Perfect, he’s with me.
Jennifer Kretschman:
That’s the facts and that’s what I saw.
Speaker 5:
Okay. So your daughter is going to go to jail.
Jennifer Kretschman:
My daughter’s 17. Do not touch her.
Speaker 5:
17 year olds can go to jail.
Jennifer Kretschman:
For what?
Speaker 5:
For resisting.
Jennifer Kretschman:
Resisting what? You had no reason to grab her out of the car.
Speaker 5:
Okay.
Jennifer Kretschman:
I know my rights and I know her rights.
Speaker 5:
We’ll discuss… okay-
Jennifer Kretschman:
We can discuss whatever you want, but you’re wrong or you know it.
Speaker 5:
No I’m not.
Jennifer Kretschman:
Yes you are and you know it.
Speaker 5:
So again, again. Again, thank you. Thank you.
Jennifer Kretschman:
Because this is a complaint against you for touching… who is driving my car?
Speaker 5:
Your husband.
Jennifer Kretschman:
What is happening right now?
Speaker 5:
That’s getting towed, that’s leaving.
Jennifer Kretschman:
My car is? Why?
Speaker 5:
Well, if you want to tell me how the law goes, you should already know why.
Jennifer Kretschman:
I don’t have any understanding. I only know my daughter says there’s a bunch of cops-
Speaker 5:
You want to come over here and address us in regards to what we’re doing.
Jennifer Kretschman:
Yeah, because I watched you rip my daughter out of the car.
Speaker 5:
You watched me?
Jennifer Kretschman:
I watched the gentleman with the beard, and you know what I’m talking about.
Speaker 5:
Okay, okay.
Jennifer Kretschman:
But you talking to me this way. You’re here to protect and serve. I’m here working. I get a phone call from my daughter.
Speaker 5:
You should have a good conversation with your husband then.
Jennifer Kretschman:
Okay, I can have a conversation-
Speaker 5:
Driving the way that he’s driving with your daughter in the car, if that’s what you’re concerned about.
Jennifer Kretschman:
What is the driving like? I don’t even know.
Speaker 5:
We have literally been trying to pull him over for the last seven miles. He is not pulling over. It’s called a pursuit. He’s running from officers.
Jennifer Kretschman:
What happened with my daughter though?
Speaker 5:
She resisted getting out of the vehicle. Did you see guns pointed at your vehicle? Did you see guns pointed at your vehicle?
Jennifer Kretschman:
I couldn’t. I was too far away.
Speaker 5:
Okay, so you didn’t see the whole thing going down, correct?
Jennifer Kretschman:
No, but my child’s out here.
Speaker 5:
So are you showing up late the game? Can we make that clear?
Jennifer Kretschman:
I want you to stop talking to me like I’m an idiot, because I’m not.
Speaker 5:
Okay, I’m done here.
Taya Graham:
So that’s not really an answer, is it? What does that mean? What law does that invoke? What exactly does that have to do with meeting the legal threshold to seize and search of vehicle? I am genuinely confused. But now with legal sufficiency cast aside, what do the officers do next? They search the car. No, search is too mild a word, they ransack it. Observe.
Speaker 7:
A bunch of lock boxes. There’s one in the back too.
Speaker 3:
Narcan. She might have dope on her. You might’ve had her stuff the dope somewhere.
Taya Graham:
She might have dope on her. So I think that’s a revealing comment. That’s because the police at this moment know they did not have a legal reason to drag two people from a motor vehicle and put them in handcuffs. It appears they’re looking for a post-hoc justification because it’s revealing what has not been articulated at this point. They didn’t accuse him of speeding, they didn’t claim he was driving erratically, they did not cite expired tags or some other technical violation. Because of their silence, I think it’s safe to infer they saw someone they didn’t like the looks of, and without evidence, arrested them. And as you will see, they turn to a playbook that police used for decades to incriminate otherwise innocent people when they screw up; the war on drugs. See for yourself.
Speaker 3:
I’ll get under that dash on that side real good because you could see that she was moving around, making those furtive movements under here.
Speaker 7:
Oh, a hundred percent.
Speaker 8:
You guys want me to… [inaudible 00:10:58] back to my car.
Taya Graham:
So I just want to stop here for a second. Not to make some caustic comment, but just to read something to remind all of us why this matters. A founding principle, so to speak, that is often ignored or forgotten. The text of the Fourth Amendment of the Constitution, which most definitely applies here. Call it a notification from the constitutional rights emergency broadcast system, if you wonder why I’m doing this. All right, here it goes. The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers and effects against unreasonable searches and seizures shall not be violated, and no warrants shall be issued but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched and the person or things to be seized. Now, watch the rest of the search and decide if these officers have ever read this.
Speaker 9:
Are they rulers?
Speaker 7:
Probably not.
Speaker 3:
Can we pop the trunk? Is there a female coming so we can search here?
Speaker 5:
Do you get bus?
Speaker 7:
I got a bunch of burnt foil and then white powder falling out.
Speaker 3:
Where?
Speaker 7:
Right here.
Speaker 3:
Under the dash? Yeah.
Speaker 7:
No, it came out of this. So all that just fell out of here.
Speaker 3:
That was what was shoved between the seat. Yeah, it’s in that envelope.
Speaker 7:
All the dopes in the envelope?
Speaker 3:
Yeah.
Speaker 5:
What is it?
Speaker 3:
Looks like Fetty.
Speaker 5:
Is it.
Speaker 3:
Or Coke?
Speaker 7:
Probably.
Speaker 5:
All right, so both of you real quick [inaudible 00:12:46].
Speaker 9:
All right. She didn’t have nothing on her, I just searched her.
Speaker 3:
Huh?
Speaker 9:
I just searched her, she got nothing on her.
Speaker 3:
Okay. He was trying to hide this then.
Speaker 9:
All right, you want me to close [inaudible 00:12:55]?
Speaker 5:
Into the back.
Speaker 3:
Oh yeah. It’s wrapped up in one of these pieces of paper.
Taya Graham:
Mm. So it looks like Fenty or Coke. Interestingly, the officer who has just discovered drugs does not actually show to the camera what he has supposedly discovered. They don’t even seem concerned about preserving the evidence, something that will make sense later as this story unfolds. They don’t even put on gloves or take precautions to protect themselves from these dangerous drugs. But for now, they continue to pull apart the car amid innuendos that there are drugs. A process that includes a male officer physically searching a seventeen-year-old girl. Take a look.
Speaker 5:
All right, so both of you can go back here then.
Speaker 9:
All right. She didn’t have nothing on her. I just searched her.
Speaker 3:
Huh?
Speaker 9:
I just searched her. She got nothing on her.
Speaker 3:
Okay. Looks like Xanax.
Here look under this seat on this side again under though, because he shoved this notebook, was helluva shoved all the way down.
Speaker 5:
In there?
Speaker 3:
On that side, driver’s side.
Speaker 5:
You’ve already found it over here?
Speaker 3:
Yeah, I already pulled it out. Looks like it might be Xanax.
Speaker 7:
Crushed out Xanax?
Speaker 3:
Yeah, if you look, there’s zanie bars in there too. It’s wrapped up in that yellow notepad paper.
Speaker 7:
[inaudible 00:14:14].
Speaker 3:
Did you see anything there?
Speaker 5:
Is he on status or anything? Olson?
Speaker 9:
They haven’t ID’d him [inaudible 00:14:34] .
Speaker 5:
Well what the fuck are they doing?
Speaker 7:
You’re getting her ID? She’s not [inaudible 00:14:34].
Taya Graham:
I want to freeze this frame right here and look at the documents the police had seized. A voter registration form. Now what makes this worth noting is something we have argued on the show over and over and over. Bad policing is meant to discourage civic participation. Corrupt cops erode our political efficacy. And as you will hear later, that’s exactly what happens. But even with intrusive searches yielding nothing, police continue, seemingly fixated on punishing the family. Just watch.
Speaker 7:
Somebody moved it on top of this seat. So where did this notepad come from originally?
Speaker 3:
Stuffed in the side.
Speaker 5:
Driver’s side.
Speaker 3:
Driver’s side. It was stuffed in between the seat and this center island.
Run these two names. Jacob Palkovic.
Speaker 9:
That’s the driver.
Speaker 7:
DJ?
Speaker 5:
What?
Speaker 7:
He’s got mail in his name inside of here.
Speaker 5:
Okay.
Speaker 7:
Put it on my camera.
Speaker 3:
And foil.
Speaker 7:
And burnt foils.
Speaker 3:
Did you open that up, were they zanie bars?
Speaker 7:
They looked like zanie bars. I opened it up maybe more than you did now.
Taya Graham:
Well, I’m so glad the officers found this whole thing funny. Truly. I’m glad that terrorizing two innocent people and then tearing apart their personal possessions is humorous to them. I think we can clearly see how police regard us, the public. How little they take into account their harmful actions can literally turn our lives upside down. But one thing they are aware of is the body camera. And now amid a fruitless search, the supervisor asks an interesting question. Are you still on? And after he asks it, the officer turns off his camera. Just watch one more time.
Speaker 3:
I’m on.
Speaker 5:
[inaudible 00:16:18]
Speaker 3:
I’m finished searching.
Taya Graham:
Now the supervising officer says something we can’t hear and the officer turns off his camera. I wonder why. But there is much more to this story than what you just witnessed on the body camera. And that’s because after all the invasive searching and aggressive tactics, I think you’ll be surprised, or perhaps even shocked, at how police charged this case. And for more on that, we will be joined by Jacob’s fiance and the mother of the teenager swept up in this arrest, Jennifer Kretschman. But first I’m joined by my reporting partner, Stephen Janis, who’s been looking into the case and reaching out to the sheriff’s office and researching the law. Stephen, thank you so much for joining me.
Stephen Janis:
Taya, thanks for having me. I appreciate it.
Taya Graham:
So first, what were the charges and what is the sheriff’s department saying about the case?
Stephen Janis:
Well Taya, the charges are really questionable in this case. They charged him with evading, simply not stopping for a police vehicle, which as you can see in the actual video, there’s a lot of questions about that, which I’ll get to later. But in terms of the sheriff’s comments, we sent them an email, they have not responded yet. But really I think on this scene, the sheriffs made clear what their comment was about this arrest, which is contempt for the public. It was pretty clear they didn’t want to answer questions… Actually scratch that, they were just basically defiant, saying we don’t have to explain what we’re doing to the people on the scene. So there’s your comment. If I get anything more, I’ll mention it in the chat.
Taya Graham:
Now that seems like something that would be a secondary offense, right? Doesn’t there need to be an underlying crime to justify that?
Stephen Janis:
You know Taya, it’s really interesting because basically evading is a crime of intent. So what are the components of intent? The components are that you’re being pulled over by marked police car with officers in police uniforms. And if they’re not, one of the defenses is you can say, “Hey, I didn’t know it was a cop car.” And I think in this case, with the evidence that we’ve seen on video, I think that defense could hold up. In fact, I think it’s preposterous that they charged them with evading, when they clearly weren’t dressed like police officers. They were just randomly touting guns, jumping out at people. In this era when we have a lot of road rage and crazy stuff happening, how can you blame someone for being scared and not wanting to pull over? So really I think intent is a big question here, and I don’t think these charges will hold up anywhere.
Taya Graham:
Stephen, we’ve reported extensively about the destructiveness of specialized units and militarized policing. What is your take on this in the context of aggressive policing and its impact on communities across the country?
Stephen Janis:
Well Taya, let me quote the famous Frank Serpico who uncovered police corruption in New York City police department in the 1970s, said, “There’s no such thing as a crooked cop, just crooks and cops.” Well, I will say this about specialized units, people in jeans and T-shirts running around randomly pulling people over, pointing guns, are not law enforcement. They’re not enforcing law, they are lawless. And this is the problem with specialized units. They inherently, aesthetically, are lawless and they do things that endanger people. They don’t help us with public safety, and I’ve covered so many of them, I can’t even count. It is a bad way to police, it is destructive for the community and it needs to end.
Taya Graham:
And now to learn how she has been fighting back against police overreach and how it’s impacted her family, and what she plans to do to hold police accountable, I’m joined by Jennifer Kretschman. Jennifer, thank you so much for joining me.
Jennifer Kretschman:
Thank you for having me.
Taya Graham:
So let’s just start at the very beginning so we can help people understand what happened here. You were at work and you received a frantic phone call from your daughter. What did she say?
Jennifer Kretschman:
I’m sitting at work. I get the phone call and I’m like, “Where are you guys?” Ready to just tell them… because they’ve probably stopped and done something. And she’s like, “Mom, mom, we’re being chased,” or followed, I don’t remember the exact verbiage. But I’m like, “Slow down, tell me what’s going on.” I can’t really understand her because it’s like muffled, like arguing or something. I learned it wasn’t arguing, it was just like, “What’s going on? Turn around.” And I could hear him telling her to look and see, “Look at them, tell me are those cops? What’s going on?” She’s like, “Mom, I think that we’re being pulled over.” I’m like, “What do you mean you think?” I wasn’t understanding. “What do you mean you think, is there a car behind you? Is it a cop car? Does it have lights on it?” And well, she’s like, “I can see lights in the window, but I don’t think it’s a cop car.” And I’m like, “Well, you have to be able to see the sides of the car.” And she was like, “Jacob, go to the side.”
And she’s trying to tell him to get over a lane and he wouldn’t get over a lane. He was just at that point was just focused on going straight, figuring out what’s going on and trying to get to my work. And I said, “Where are you?” And she’s looking around for identifying landmarks and she said, “We’re almost to your work.” “I’m going to head towards parking lot right now, and you guys just pull into my work.” And I’m thinking that either if it’s a cop, they’ll just slowly pull into the parking lot behind my work and that’s the biggest thing I’m going to have to deal with. If it’s someone trying to carjack them, when they turn into a busy parking lot they’re probably just going to speed ahead.
And then as I’m approaching, and I’ve lost track of where CJ went, which is my daughter, and I can see a scuffle on the other side. And I see other vehicles, actual police vehicles coming onto the scene now. So I’m really confused because what went from, “We might be getting pulled over,” it went to this huge police scene in a matter of less than a minute. And so when I get there, I was not the calmest, I will say that. I see men in my car digging through stuff. I see a guy with her pink backpack in his hand and he’s going through it. He has a baseball cap on. I’m assuming he’s some type of undercover person at this point because there’s multiple police cars. And I said something probably not very appropriate, but get your hands off my daughter with some foul language in there. And then he threatened to arrest me, pushed me backwards, and I’m like, “Okay, I just need to get to my daughter.”
Taya Graham:
Something I think that’s really important to explain is how your family perceived the car following them. The police described their driving to a safe place, the parking lot of your workplace as evasion. So I would assume your husband was driving the speed limit and obeying traffic rules as he drove roughly one and a half or two miles to your workplace. Tell me, how did your family perceive the men in the car?
Jennifer Kretschman:
From what I understand, Jacob started noticing this black SUV with guys in baseball caps. I want to say some had them forward and some had them backward and he swears he could see the barrel of a gun. And so then she’s like, “I’m calling mom.” And so these men, there’s no badges, no uniforms, they have on baseball hats, sunglasses, what they learned later were bulletproof vests. In the police report it says, it says Sac Sheriff in big yellow lettering on the front and back. That was not true. You could see a Sac Sheriff in black lettering kind of from behind, and I have multiple videos of that as well. When they got out of the car and I could see them, they were wearing jeans and Converse tennis shoes. One guy had on khaki cargo pants… nothing would’ve told me they were law enforcement.
Taya Graham:
Why did your fiance respond this way to the men in the car? I could understand him thinking maybe it was a road rage incident or even a carjacking.
Jennifer Kretschman:
So Jacob is from South Phoenix. He has had a history. He has had many experiences with law enforcement. He has tattoos on his neck and on his arms and on his body, so he knows what it’s like to be profiled. So he knows law enforcement side, he knows if it’s gang members, he knows that in no scenario is this a good scenario when you have a group of men that don’t look like law enforcement asking you to pull over, because they’re nudging and he can see them all doing like this, or something like that. And so that’s why CJ was so scared and confused because she’s like, “If it’s law enforcement and you don’t pull over, this is bad. If it’s a gang and you don’t pull over, we’re going to get shot.” The first man said they were in a high-speed chase pursuit for two or more miles, which that’s not even possible, but I was like, “Okay.” And then Johnson, the driver of the vehicle, said they had been chasing him for seven miles. When the police report actually came out, it said one mile, 1.1 miles or something like that. According to CJ and Jacob, it was about a mile.
Taya Graham:
So your family wasn’t actually accused of any traffic violations, right? What traffic violation did your fiance commit to get pulled over? What was the crime that led to these charges of resisting arrest?
Jennifer Kretschman:
Taya, that is such a wonderful question. One that I asked many times throughout the entire incident that was never answered. In fact, when it was answered, it was they resisted arrest. “No, no, no. I want to know why they were being pulled over.” “Because he wouldn’t pull over.” “No, no, no. Why was he being…” Not one time… hold on, let me clarify. At one point in time he goes, “Well, he doesn’t even have a driver’s license.” And I said, “He has two. He has one in Arizona and one in California. I know when we went from one state to the other that he got… I remember I was there. So, no.” And that was the end of it as far as them attempting to tell me a reason for the traffic stop initially. I got nothing else.
Taya Graham:
There are so many things that I found problematic with the arrest and the treatment of your family, but the way you were treated was, let’s say less than courteous. How did the officers respond to your questions and your concern about your daughter who was a minor, and would you say the officers were being professional?
Jennifer Kretschman:
Well, there was a lack of professionalism, but they responded as though I was the criminal. They responded as though my daughter and my fiancee were criminals, and… well, they told me they were. They told me they were, I would say 10 plus times, they’re going to jail. Your daughter, your husband, they’re going to jail. And every time I said why I got no response. I was told to stand back, stand in the shade, stand under the tree, get out. I was told I was interfering with the investigation. But literally when Detective Johnson came up, and he was the supervisor on scene, I said, “What is your name and badge number?” And then told me I didn’t know the law, I’m coming late on the scene, I didn’t have my facts straight, and then proceeded to tell me that they drove seven miles in pursuit. They just treated me horribly. I would never want them to treat anyone this way. They searched my car illegally and then they towed it, towed my car. It was just like the icing on the cake. They had gone through this whole scenario and in the very end were like, “And we’re going to cost you a thousand dollars just because we effed up.” And I think it was just to make it look like they did something legitimate.
Taya Graham:
I assume your car was being searched without your consent. And when you reviewed the body camera footage, were you surprised by the things that the police said? For example, they said they found Xanax bars in a piece of paper and tin foil that was burned and white powder residue, and yet none of this evidence was ever shown on camera. And you and your family were not charged with drug possession. Surely if there were drugs in that car, they would’ve charged you as the owner.
Jennifer Kretschman:
No, there were no drugs in our car. There were no tin foils in our car. We had lock boxes in our car. And this is… I should have mentioned this when you asked about the treatment of us. We do Turo, I don’t know if you’re familiar with that, it is like Airbnb for cars. And so basically it’s people can come and rent your car, and they pay you just like Airbnb if they came and rented your house. And so we have two or three cars that we have done this for just as a little side income. And so they have a lock box when people come to come rent your car, they get the key out of it and drive away.
Well, they came over and when he’s telling me all of this about the drug paraphernalia, I’m like, “What? What?” And then he asked about the lock boxes and I think he thinks that that’s some sort of drug hiding place, or I don’t know what he thought it was. But I’m like, “No, we Turo our cars.” And so then when I watched… they had a piece of body cam footage where they’re talking about us and I could hear it in the background. He goes, “Do you think they’re realtors?” “No.” And they’re laughing about us. We’re not good enough to be realtors or something.
Taya Graham:
So interestingly, I thought I heard an officer say to you, “If you keep asking questions, you can go to jail too.” Did I hear that right? What did he actually say to you?
Jennifer Kretschman:
You did hear that correctly. That was, I believe, Masterson. Yes, you heard that correctly. And the way I gauged it, he really looked up to this Gang Suppression Unit, like they were the cool guys. And so he was repeating all the stuff they were saying to him. And it was so maddening and I was nowhere near… well, there was no scene. Anyways. And that’s the thing, you had asked earlier too, when I saw them searching my car, I literally said to them, I’m like, “Stop searching my car. Get out of my car. I do not give you permission to search my car.” And that’s when they told me there were multiple reasons that they could be searching my car right now.
Taya Graham:
I heard the police officer say something interesting. He said, when you were concerned about the way your daughter was yanked out of the car, he said, “I wouldn’t be mad at the police, I would be mad at your daughter.” And they also made fun of your daughter saying that she was a minor. How did their discussion of your daughter and their treatment of her make you feel?
Jennifer Kretschman:
To be honest, I had never even heard what you just said. I didn’t hear them making fun of her like that. I saw it and I saw them not caring about me getting to her, and evidently she was asking to see me the whole time too. She could hear me asking for her and she was crying and they wouldn’t take her to me. And so I literally told them about her trauma too from when she was a child, and how I needed… I just wanted to be with her even if it meant I had to stand outside of the car. Because in the beginning I didn’t know, I knew she didn’t do anything wrong but I didn’t know. And for them to make fun of her…
What’s horrible too is there’s not one snippet of body cam footage with her being arrested… anything that happened to her. And I’m assuming that was intentional because in the court case they said only one of the arresting officers was wearing their body camera, which wasn’t true. They had not one image of her body camera, of an officer arresting her. And I’m worried that they’re going to see that or the public’s going to see that, and think badly of her and have opinions about her, and not consider the fact that she’s still a 17-year-old who’s being manhandled by these large grown men. They called her the B-word, and that’s what she told me, as they were arresting her. And they told her she was going to jail, there was no question about it.
And then they put her in the back of a police car, drove that police car away from me to the parking lot, and they allowed a male officer by himself, behind a door, to search her, physically search her. And that’s where her abuse is. They kept saying she must’ve stuffed the drugs somewhere. They threw her in the back of a police car and left her there and had some uniformed officer check in on her once or twice. And every time they promised that she was going to be taken to me and she wasn’t brought to me until the very, very end, which was probably close to an hour later. I know she has PTSD and I know that she needs me right then.
Taya Graham:
I’m so sorry. It is so terrible to hear about your child being spoken about like that. How long was this whole process and were any of your family taken to jail and what were the charges?
Jennifer Kretschman:
So from the time I got the phone call, which was about 16:40-ish, until the very end of the incident when my whole family was returned to me, was how I see it, was about an hour. No one was taken to jail. An ambulance came for Jacob because he couldn’t breathe. He was in the midst of a panic attack and he had injuries from when he was 18. They searched him again. They walked to the back of the… I think he was going from the police car to the EMTs and they searched him again, searched very well, because they were so insistent that they had to have something. Of course, I have nothing.
And then when they walked over, at the very end Jacob comes walking to me, he’s a mess. CJ is just frazzled and just like, “I want to go home. I want to go home.” They say, “You can’t take your car. Your car is being towed.” And then of course I said, “Why?” But then I just stopped because I was so grateful that I had my family with me, I didn’t care what they did with my car at that point in time. And I didn’t want to say anything that would jeopardize anyone going to jail. And he was charged with evading a police officer, failing to yield to a police officer and resisting arrest.
Taya Graham:
So how did you handle the charges?
Jennifer Kretschman:
He went to court in December. They wanted to see what he wanted to do and he said I wanted to fight it, and he would not agree to a guilty plea. And so we met with the public defender who said absolutely, and tried to get the body cam that she couldn’t get it the first round, they wouldn’t release it to her. The second round they only sent over some of the uniformed officers. And so evidently at some point in time she was able to get some other body cam. And on the day of his court case, she called and said that the district attorney had watched the video footage and said that the cop’s behavior was insane and that the charges were all dropped.
Taya Graham:
How much has this cost your family financially or emotionally? What has the personal cost been? I know this has been traumatic for your daughter.
Jennifer Kretschman:
There’s all sorts of costs to this. One, it’s emotional and psychological. And I don’t even know if that’s the right word for it, but at work I feel like everyone looks at me differently, treats me differently. No one even confronts me about it. And I didn’t even take it back to my office and show anyone until the charges were dropped, because I was so afraid that they wouldn’t believe me because they probably wouldn’t. Law enforcement’s never wrong. So it’s cost me… For me personally, there’s no amount of money that I could say because that’s my reputation and my livelihood and it’s my work.
It’s cost my daughter her graduation with her peers, her friends. She honestly just totally withdrew the whole first semester. And she wouldn’t blame it on this because kids I don’t think can correlate the dates, see how things happened, but it was so obviously that anyway. So the whole last five months of her life have been in disarray.
The tow and the actual costs were about probably $1,200 in the end when the four or five days without the car. So in October I was like, “I don’t know why I am feeling so stressed and I can’t seem to focus at work and all of this stuff.” And so then I started seeing a therapist, CJ went back into therapy and Jacob started seeing a chiropractor and all of that. There’s all of those things too.
Taya Graham:
When we were talking earlier, your request from the police was just so small. You just said it would be fair for your family to be reimbursed for the money you lost due to your car being impounded, but honestly, I think you deserve an apology from the department. What would you want to say to the officers if you knew they were listening to you right now and what would you want from the department?
Jennifer Kretschman:
I would want to tell them that when they went into law enforcement, their goal was to truly protect their community and serve their community, then they were not meeting their goals. I would want them to think about if it were their mother or their daughter or their sister or their brother, that was just coming home from school, drinking a mango smoothie and to be attacked and harassed by a group of men. My daughter had a gun pointed at her head and so did my fiance. It’s like they had real life guns that could kill them pointed at their heads. I don’t know the fear that that brings because that hasn’t happened to me, but I can imagine that they will never feel safe again, especially because these are the people that are supposed to be protecting you. So it would’ve been better if they weren’t law enforcement and they were a gang because at least we would be able to feel safe in our community afterwards.
Taya Graham:
We noticed that the police picked up a voter ID card in the body camera footage. And what is such a coincidence to me is that when people are arrested or harassed by police, they lose their political efficacy and they feel like they don’t have any impact on government and their voice doesn’t matter, and so they stop participating. And it’s actually something I wanted to discuss.
Jennifer Kretschman:
This is the first time I haven’t voted. What does it matter anyways? That’s literally how I feel now. I used to be so one-sided and now I just don’t even care. And I’m not to say anything against all the work that you guys do, I know that… And that’s why I’m putting this out there. It doesn’t matter what anyone thinks of me or my family, things have to change. They just treated us like we were trash. And I don’t know, like we were criminals, but I don’t even think criminals should be treated that way. We’re just all human beings trying to get by in this world, but these are not the people I want protecting my community. That’s all I can say.
Taya Graham:
Now, I have so many thoughts on the actions of police that we just dissected for you, I barely know where to start. It is so hard to really put into words how troubling it is to witness police perpetuate this injustice against two innocent people. But since it’s part of my job and the promise we make at the beginning of the show to do so, I’m going to try.
So the first point I want to make is fairly straightforward. There is no explanation or excuse for what we just watched on the body worn camera. There is no justification that law enforcement can conjure to burst out of a car with guns drawn in plain clothes to terrify this family. So let’s just dispense with any pretext or police propaganda for the moment.
What I really want to parse here has nothing to do with weighing the police explanation versus the extensive interviews and reporting on this story. Instead, I want to talk about the idea of cruelty. Now, I know that sounds odd. What does the concept of cruelty have to do with a flawed, if not illegal, traffic stop? I mean Taya, this isn’t a philosophy class. Well, let me explain. When I watched these videos and spoke to the family, I was struck by how casually these officers deflected the concerns about their lawlessness, their disregard for how disruptive their actions were for the people on the receiving end was just stunning. But what hits me even harder is the outright contempt the cops had for the people in that car, that even after they had screwed up, they continued to double down and became, for lack of a better word, meaner. Simply put, they became cruel.
It was a glimpse into a reality we all know about. But it was so stark and transparent that it left me with another alarming concern. That this example of overly aggressive policing, so easily dismissed by the people who execute it, is as much a threat to our way of life as the crime it purports to stop. Just consider the words of Jennifer, our guest, when she said, “We’re all human beings trying to get by in this world.” It’s an important sentiment echoed by the 19th century German philosopher, Friedrich Nietzsche, who wrote a book called Human, All Too Human. It’s a collection of aphorisms that touches on all aspects of simply being human. And in it is a quote that I think is applicable to the ordeal we have reported on today. Nietzsche wrote, “The mother of excess is not joy, but joylessness.”
And that’s what we witnessed on the body worn camera, the excessive use of police power and the joylessness that ensues from it. The trauma, the economic harm, the psychological duress are all the result of excess law enforcement. The fear, the terror, the civic paralysis rooted in the act of police overreach. It’s a collection of social ills, so disturbing, that I think the question actually is, do we really understand how this aggressive form of law enforcement affects us in ways both less obvious and sometimes completely unacknowledged? Because while I don’t truly know how effective or even useful this style of policing is, I do know it is clearly and unequivocally dehumanizing. It is, put simply, not an instrument of justice or process of public safety, but a strategy to turn citizens of a democracy into supplicants of a police-driven autocracy. That’s right, because any civil society where police can do that to innocent people is simply not as free or as fair as advertised.
Now, don’t get me wrong, we live in a democracy. Our voices matter. Our rights matter. What we do matters. But democracy is fragile and it can easily be eroded by bad actors who don’t respect its principles or believe in its importance. Therefore, all I can conclude from what I’ve watched, is that these officers could care less about it. They seem to me completely devoid of respect for the law, comprehension of the constitution, and more importantly, why it all matters. And even more troubling is that they are the agents of excess that drain our lives of the joys of freedom. They simply seem disconnected from the truisms and the beliefs that tie us all together, our humanity. They seem to believe that the law is predicated upon vengeance, violence and cruelty, not the idea that we are all presumed innocent. It’s a tool to harass, terrorize or otherwise menace people that you don’t like, instead of a shared set of rules that govern all our lives. Not negotiable boundaries that can be crossed just because you have a gun and a badge. That’s not how this social contract is supposed to work.
I know this is strong language, but watching those cops is like seeing a collection of fascists within our midst. Not law enforcement officers, but rather inequality warriors who only want to divide us, cage us, enrage us and conquer us. And as our guest told us, she was so shocked and demoralized by the behavior, she didn’t even vote. Now, how’s that for backing the blue?
But at the same time, we should also take another lesson from this disheartening example of police abuse. We must remember that we have the tools to fight back against this roving oppression. We, the people, can counter the cops who think by illegally putting us in handcuffs, they have defeated us. Well, let me be clear. They have not, they cannot, they will not. And how do I know? Because I am here telling you this story. Because even if these officers feel they can freely violate the Fourth Amendment, there is still a First Amendment that stands in defiance of them. And it lives here on this show and on this channel, and it lives in Stephen and it lives in me, and it’s in our hearts and our minds that we are determined to use it to inform you. We can ensure that the actions of these officers are not kept secret from the public. We can produce this show, highlight the evidence, expose the wrongdoing, and otherwise inform the people who matter; you, our viewers, our community, the people who believe our rights matter.
I know all of this might seem underwhelming when pushing back against men with guns and badges and a decidedly bad attitude. Maybe that the power of the pen might seem somewhat insignificant against the cowardly bravado of four plainclothes cops in a tinted SUV, but don’t underestimate that power. As one of the people who wrote the Constitution intended to preserve our rights noted, the pen is indeed mightier, and let’s show the powers that be how that works.
I want to thank Jennifer for coming forward and bravely sharing her experience with us. Thank you, Jennifer. I wish you, Jacob and CJ the very best in receiving the apology your family deserves. And of course, I have to thank intrepid reporter, Stephen Janis, for his writing, research and editing on this piece. Thank you Stephen. And I want to thank mods of the show, Noli D and Lacey R for their support. Thank you Noli D. And a very special thank you to our Accountability Reports Patreons, we appreciate you and I look forward to thanking each and every one of you personally in our next live stream, especially Patreon associate producers, Johnny R, David K, Louis P, Lucida Garcia, and our super fans, Shane B, Kenneth, K, Pineapple Girl, Matter of Rights and Chris R.
And I want you watching to know that if you have video evidence of police misconduct or brutality, please share it with us and we might be able to investigate. Please reach out to us. You can email us tips privately at par@therealnews.com and share your evidence of police misconduct. You can also message us at Police Accountability Report on Facebook or Instagram or @eyesonpolice on Twitter. And of course, you can always message me directly at tayasbaltimore on Twitter or Facebook. And please like and comment, I do read your comments and appreciate them. And we do have our Patreon link pinned in the comments below for accountabilityreports. So if you feel inspired to donate, please do. We don’t run ads or take corporate dollars, so anything you can spare is truly appreciated.
My name is Taya Graham and I’m your host of the Police Accountability Report. Please be safe out there.
Jose Palomares, an off-duty cop, was moonlighting as a security guard at a homeless services center in Fort Worth when a dispute arose over $20. Officer Palomares chose to intervene—immediately accusing the man who believed he’d had $20 stolen from him of being a drug dealer. After calling in the drug dogs and conducting an illegal search, Palomares failed to find sufficient drugs to justify his accusation. Instead of letting the man go, Palomares then decided to pressure his arrestee into becoming an informant. Police Accountability Report discusses the shocking footage and what it tells us about the ways police wield their power against the poor.
Production: Taya Graham, Stephen Janis Post-Production: Stephen Janis, Cameron Granadino
Transcript
The following is a rushed transcript and may contain errors. A proofread version will be made available as soon as possible.
Taya Graham:
Hello, my name is Taya Graham and welcome to the Police Accountability Report. As I always make clear, this show has a single purpose, holding the politically powerful institution of policing accountable. And to do so, we don’t just focus on the bad behavior of individual cops. Instead, we examine the system that makes bad policing possible. And today we’ll achieve that goal by showing you, not telling you, why police need to be watched, because the shocking video you are seeing now reveals how police abuse their power to harass the poor, and when confronted about their overreach, turn to arrest to shut down dissent.
It even depicts how police can turn the power of law enforcement to recruit the downtrodden into a weapon against others. All of this we will break down for you of this harrowing encounter caught on body worn camera, but before we get started, I want you to know that if you have video evidence of police misconduct, please email it to us privately at par@therealnews.com, or reach out to me directly on Facebook or Twitter @tayasbaltimore, and we might be able to investigate for you, and please like share and comment on our videos.
It helps us get the word out and it can even help our guests, and of course you know I read your comments and appreciate them. You see those little hearts I give out down there, and I’ve even started doing a comment of the week to show you how much I appreciate your thoughts and to show what a great community we have. And of course, we have a Patreon Accountability Report. So if you feel inspired to donate, please do. We don’t run ads or take corporate dollars, so anything you can spare is truly appreciated. All right, I’ve gotten that out of the way. Now, quite often when we receive body camera footage from a viewer, it depicts a dynamic that is overlooked by both the mainstream media and even some body camera channels that simply post it without comments.
And that is the pernicious power imbalance between cops and the rest of us, an expansive sense of their influence over our lives that cops often display in seemingly routine encounters that is not fully understood and requires more examination. And no arrest embodies this idea more than the body camera footage I’m showing you right now. It depicts a cop hired by a community center detaining a man after a dispute over $20, but it also shows how police can quash dissent through an illegal arrest, coerce the impoverished to become a carceral tool, and deploy unlimited resources against the powerless to further the reach of the law enforcement industrial complex with often destructive consequences.
This story starts in Fort Worth, Texas in June of 2022. There, an off-duty Fort Worth cop named Jose Palomares was moonlighting for a Texas mission, a provider of services for homeless people when a dispute erupted over $20. That’s right, 20 bucks. The officer who cited drug use at the facility for his subsequent actions decided to turn the conflict into an opportunity, detaining the man accused of wanting his money back and trying to force him to consent to a search. Let’s watch.
Officer Palomares:
So, basically I’ve just been informed that you’re the local drug dealer up here in Dillon Doe.
Speaker 3:
No, I’m not.
Officer Palomares:
So, it doesn’t matter what you tell me. I’m going to do my job, okay?
Speaker 3:
Am I being arrested?
Officer Palomares:
No, not right now.
Speaker 3:
I haven’t done anything.
Officer Palomares:
So now, do you have any drugs on you?
Speaker 3:
No.
Officer Palomares:
Okay.
Speaker 3:
I just come down here to get my mail at the [inaudible 00:03:18].
Officer Palomares:
So again-
Speaker 3:
[inaudible 00:03:20].
Officer Palomares:
I don’t think you’re listening to me. You can tell me you ain’t got nothing all day long, but now I’ve already had… And I already know that you’re the guy for selling drugs and methamphetamines and we don’t tolerate that.
Speaker 3:
I am not. I don’t even do that.
Officer Palomares:
So, it doesn’t matter what you tell me, sir. I’m just letting you know what I know.
Taya Graham:
Now, I want you to remember what the cop says at this point for reference later. He states, “I already know you’re selling meth or a drug dealer.” He doesn’t provide evidence or actual proof. He merely makes the declaration to coerce the person he detained into relinquishing his constitutional rights, a push he continues to make without evidence. Take another look.
Officer Palomares:
And I’m going to get a drug dog to come up here and check, okay? Just so you know. All right, so I’m going to do my job. I’m going to check.
Speaker 3:
I haven’t done anything, sir.
Officer Palomares:
Okay. All right, sir. Are you on probation or parole?
Speaker 3:
No.
Officer Palomares:
Do you have any warrants?
Speaker 4:
[inaudible 00:04:13].
Speaker 3:
I’m clean. I haven’t done anything, sir.
Speaker 4:
[inaudible 00:04:18].
Speaker 3:
[inaudible 00:04:19] he stole $20 from me. He’s going to say anything.
Taya Graham:
Now, the person in question does not give in. So, the officer ups the stakes, using a casual movement as a pretext for creating what I would best call a narrative of escalation. What that means is because the man is refusing the search, the officer overstates the facts to force compliance. Watch.
Officer Palomares:
Robert 336. Have a seat. Sit your butt down.
Speaker 3:
I was going to show you here what I got.
Speaker 5:
[inaudible 00:04:44].
Speaker 3:
I haven’t done anything, sir.
Officer Palomares:
I don’t care what you say.
Speaker 5:
[inaudible 00:04:48].
Officer Palomares:
What are you trying to get up for when I ask you to sit down?
Speaker 3:
I was going to show you, because [inaudible 00:04:53]-
Officer Palomares:
I don’t trust you, sir. No, you’re not going to stand up and try to fight me and take off running and try to hurt me and hurt yourself. I don’t know you. I don’t know you, sir.
Speaker 3:
I’ve never caused any problems [inaudible 00:05:00]-
Officer Palomares:
And I’ve asked you to have a seat. Why? For your safety and for my safety.
Taya Graham:
Now, one fact worth highlighting at this point of the encounter is the faulty premise of this officer’s fact finding. At this point, the officer can cite no direct evidence that the man was stealing. There’s also no evidence that he committed an assault, just an alleged threat. There are no injuries, no witnesses to an assault, no witnesses have seen the man sell a single gram of meth. But still, listening to the officer, you would think he already had an airtight case, which is why his next move is even more troubling. He threatens the man with a drug-sniffing dog.
Officer Palomares:
Well, you’re up for dealing narcotics, that is not going to be tolerated.
Speaker 3:
I’m not. I haven’t done [inaudible 00:05:37]-
Officer Palomares:
That’s okay, I got a drug dog coming. That’s okay. I’m going to have a drug dog coming. So, I’ve already asked for your permission to let me check. You said no, we’re going to go another route. That’s all there is to it.
Speaker 3:
You can search me fine, but the thing is, I don’t understand why. Tell me the reason why.
Officer Palomares:
Are you going to tell me why when I just told you why?
Speaker 3:
That’s not a reason. I haven’t done anything. That’s going on [inaudible 00:05:58]-
Officer Palomares:
I just told you why. So, what part of why-
Speaker 3:
What makes you [inaudible 00:06:01]-
Officer Palomares:
Okay, you ask me one more time and I’m going to tell you the same thing. Ask me why again. Why? Because somebody says you’re dealing drugs out here, that’s why.
Taya Graham:
So, I want to point out something here that does warrant more attention, a fact that will become more disturbing as this video unfolds. Simply put, the amount of time and resources dedicated to an incident that was neither violent, nor a truly brazen crime is stunning. In fact, crime statistics show for example, in just three months in 2024, Fort Worth had over 900 burglaries and 18 homicides, serious crimes that should be the focus of police attention, but that constant jump rate of crime fails to halt the officer’s apparent need to find a way to put this man in jail. Efforts that include, let’s say exaggerating the facts to make his case. Check it out.
Speaker 5:
10-4, item 217 is running code. Do you need him to continue code?
Officer Palomares:
No, ma’am. You can have him reduce. He sat back down and he was just trying to take off on me and call for help. Dealing drugs is illegal. Do you not understand that?
Speaker 3:
I’m not dealing any drugs.
Officer Palomares:
So, somebody tells me you’re dealing drugs, I have to come and investigate.
Speaker 3:
He wasn’t standing there talking to me [inaudible 00:07:02]-
Officer Palomares:
Sir, what are you doing? Sir, what are you doing? You’re not making any sense. You’re not making any sense whatsoever.
Speaker 3:
This guy’s here. [inaudible 00:07:10]-
Officer Palomares:
It doesn’t matter what you say, sir. It doesn’t matter.
Speaker 3:
Why?
Officer Palomares:
It doesn’t matter what you say.
Speaker 3:
Why?
Officer Palomares:
I’m going to do my job.
Speaker 3:
I didn’t do anything.
Officer Palomares:
You’re just getting aggressive with me, that’s all you’re doing.
Speaker 3:
No, I’m not.
Officer Palomares:
Yeah, you are.
Speaker 3:
I have not gotten aggressive with you [inaudible 00:07:21]-
Taya Graham:
Seriously? Did the man who’s been sitting against the wall try to take off? Is the officer so unsure of his case that he had to stretch the facts? But now the second officer decides to join in and escalate the efforts to smear the detainee by accusing him of having, wait for it, having cold beer. Take a look.
Officer Palomares:
He’s a local drug dealer over here, apparently. He sells meth.
Speaker 3:
I’m not a drug dealer.
Officer Palomares:
He’s got meth on him. He don’t want anybody to check his stuff.
Speaker 3:
The guy owes $20.
Officer Palomares:
So, I want a K-9 to come up here. We’ve been having a problem with meth up here.
Speaker 3:
[inaudible 00:07:49] drug dealer.
Officer Palomares:
Say again?
Speaker 6:
Did you already find something?
Officer Palomares:
No, but he’s got it right here… Dude, they’ve already dimed him out inside that he’s out here.
Speaker 3:
One guy.
Officer Palomares:
Sir, close your mouth. Sir, close your mouth. So, apparently he’s threatened one guy [inaudible 00:08:01]-
Speaker 6:
It’s too early for beer, too.
Officer Palomares:
So, there was a guy that he just threatened-
Speaker 6:
It’s too early for that.
Speaker 3:
I just come over here and eat breakfast, that’s all. What did he tell you?
Officer Palomares:
Hey, ma’am, this is Robert 336. Do you have a K-9 available that can make my location?
Speaker 5:
Can I get a visual [inaudible 00:08:14]?
Officer Palomares:
Yes, ma’am, drug dog.
Speaker 3:
But there’s no reason to call a dog, that’s crazy.
Officer Palomares:
Sir, yes there is. You’re not going to tell me what I’m not going to do, sir.
Speaker 3:
I’m not trying to tell you, but I’m just saying [inaudible 00:08:24]-
Officer Palomares:
If you take off and get off running-
Speaker 3:
It’s not going to be-
Officer Palomares:
You’re going to be evading detention. You’re going to be arrested.
Speaker 3:
I’m not running.
Taya Graham:
Just a note, drug-sniffing dogs are notoriously inaccurate. Statistical analysis puts their accuracy rate somewhere between 40 and 60%, an error that would give pause to anyone subject to it, especially because if the dog makes a mistake, you may have to go to jail and wait for your day in court to prove your innocence. Still, at this point, the officer’s inability to intimidate the man into consenting to a search boiled over. That’s because despite his outwardly calm demeanor, the officer again paints a decidedly false picture, just watch.
Officer Palomares:
Okay, I’m having them get ahold of a drug dog. So yeah, he’s putting up a fight. I’m going to get that guy’s information real fast.
Speaker 6:
Okay.
Officer Palomares:
So if he tries to take off, just hit me on the radio, and I’ll run out here real quick, because he already tried that once already apparently.
Taya Graham:
Now, this is a point where things get really interesting. That’s because without the benefit of due process, the officer has the man criminally trespassed, meaning he cannot enter or be near the premises again, a move that seemingly makes the officer angry.
Speaker 5:
I’m on my way.
Officer Palomares:
So, Dora’s going to come out here and advise you that you can’t come up anymore. So, you’re going to be criminally trespassed.
Speaker 3:
What? I didn’t do anything.
Officer Palomares:
And you’re still detained, and I got a drug dog coming up here.
Speaker 3:
[inaudible 00:09:45].
Officer Palomares:
If I were you, the second you try to get up and be slick, and so if I were you, don’t-
Speaker 3:
[inaudible 00:09:50].
Officer Palomares:
Listen to me very carefully, sir, because ain’t nobody playing games with you.
Speaker 3:
Why are you yelling at me?
Officer Palomares:
Because you’re interrupting me and talking over me, that’s why I have to get louder with you, because you don’t listen very well. At this point, if you take off, jump up, take off running, and fight, you will have additional charges. Do you understand me sir?
Speaker 3:
Yeah, I haven’t [inaudible 00:10:08]-
Officer Palomares:
Okay, so if you take off, it will be evading detention.
Speaker 3:
I haven’t even tried [inaudible 00:10:11]-
Officer Palomares:
I just want to be clear with you. I’m being very clear with you since the time we started talking. I’m not playing any games with you. I’ve been very direct with you and very straight-up with you.
Speaker 3:
Why are you yelling?
Officer Palomares:
The only one playing games is you.
Speaker 3:
I didn’t do anything.
Officer Palomares:
And doing illegal activity, sir.
Speaker 3:
I didn’t do any illegal activity.
Officer Palomares:
It doesn’t matter, sir. I got a drug dog coming up here. We have the right to do that. The police has the right to investigate. That’s what we do.
Taya Graham:
Then, something unexpected happens, an incident that perhaps is more revealing than it would seem on the surface. A cop watcher arrives, specifically Manuel Mata. And in this case, not just a cop watcher, but an independent observer, someone who turns the focus around onto the police and puts them under scrutiny for their actions. Mind you, not with a drug dog or threat of arrest, but with a simple cell phone camera. Take a look and notice how police respond when the spotlight turns on them.
Officer Palomares:
Sir, we got a guy with drugs here, sir. Sir, you cannot be here in the spot. You can record over there. Sir, you got to record over there.
Manuel Mata:
What’s your name and your badge number?
Officer Palomares:
Sir, you’re going to be arrested for interfering.
Manuel Mata:
What is your name and your badge number? If you touch me, you will lose qualified immunity. I’m on the public sidewalk.
Officer Palomares:
Stand on that side over there, sir.
Manuel Mata:
No, I don’t have to.
Officer Palomares:
So, you’re interfering.
Manuel Mata:
No. Call your supervisor. If you’re going to put your hands on me, call your supervisor, because this is the sidewalk.
Officer Palomares:
I’ve already asked you to move.
Manuel Mata:
Nah, I’m not trying to hear that. You have to understand people’s rights.
Officer Palomares:
I’ve already asked you to move, sir.
Manuel Mata:
Nah, go ahead, do your thing.
Officer Palomares:
I’ve already asked you to move.
Manuel Mata:
Call your supervisor.
Officer Palomares:
I’ve already asked you to move.
Manuel Mata:
Call your supervisor. I don’t listen to unlawful and illegal orders.
Officer Palomares:
You’re going to step over here-
Manuel Mata:
Call your supervisor. You just threatened me with arrest.
Officer Palomares:
Sir, you cannot step over here.
Manuel Mata:
No, call your supervisor.
Officer Palomares:
Put your hands behind your back.
Manuel Mata:
No, don’t touch me.
Officer Palomares:
Put your hands behind your back.
Manuel Mata:
Don’t touch me.
Officer Palomares:
Put your hands behind your back. Put your hands [inaudible 00:11:53]-
Manuel Mata:
[inaudible 00:11:53].
Officer Palomares:
Put your hands behind back.
Manuel Mata:
Go ahead.
Officer Palomares:
I got to stop doing what I’m doing, because you’re interfering, you’re going to be handcuffed.
Manuel Mata:
I’m First Amendment protected [inaudible 00:12:02]-
Officer Palomares:
I understand that, you can record, but if I have to stop to do what I’m doing-
Manuel Mata:
Call supervisor.
Officer Palomares:
… To take care of you.
Manuel Mata:
Call your supervisor.
Officer Palomares:
Come over and have a seat.
Manuel Mata:
I’m not sitting down nowhere.
Taya Graham:
That’s right, the cops respond with an arrest, never mind that Mata was exercising his First Amendment rights by holding the officers accountable for their actions and forget that Mata was documenting their use or possibly abuse of power by trying to coerce a man to give up his constitutional rights. No, Mata’s camera was the real problem. Forget about the ineffective use of law enforcement powers, and boy, do these cops punish him again, falsifying the circumstances in real-time to threaten Mata, just watch.
Manuel Mata:
Don’t worry, man. I’m not moving nowhere, man. You’re hurting my fucking hand, dog.
Officer Palomares:
Stop pulling away from me, sir.
Manuel Mata:
I’m not. I am not pulling away.
Officer Palomares:
Stop pulling away from pulling away from me.
Manuel Mata:
I’m not, stop lying.
Officer Palomares:
Stop escalating-
Manuel Mata:
Stop lying, I’m not escalating.
Officer Palomares:
Stop escalating.
Manuel Mata:
The only one who escalated anything was you.
Officer Palomares:
Stop escalating.
Manuel Mata:
You escalated everything by putting your hands on me [inaudible 00:13:03]-
Officer Palomares:
Stop fighting.
Manuel Mata:
I’m not fighting.
Officer Palomares:
Stop fighting.
Manuel Mata:
I’m not fighting, dude.
Officer Palomares:
Stop fighting.
Manuel Mata:
Stop being aggressive.
Officer Palomares:
Stop fighting.
Manuel Mata:
Stop being aggressive. I’m sitting right here on the floor where you illegally threw me on the ground. I’m not violent, I’m not aggressive, that’s you. You’re the one that’s aggressive and violent. You’re the one that doesn’t understand the law. You did it based on your feelings and your camera… Stop doing that with my hands.
Officer Palomares:
Stop fighting, sir.
Manuel Mata:
I’m not moving.
Officer Palomares:
Stop pulling away.
Manuel Mata:
Stop hurting my hands. And this officer that failed to render me aid, you’re all wrong. Hey, can you get this motherfucker off me, man? What is he doing? I need you all supervisor right now.
Officer Palomares:
I got a narcotics investigation going on.
Manuel Mata:
I need your supervisor right now.
Officer Palomares:
So, he’s trying to interfere.
Manuel Mata:
No, I’m not.
Officer Palomares:
[inaudible 00:13:51].
Manuel Mata:
It’s not illegal to film you, dog.
Officer Palomares:
He’s going to keep yelling.
Manuel Mata:
And I need the ambulance.
Speaker 8:
I know [inaudible 00:13:55].
Officer Palomares:
I appreciate that.
Manuel Mata:
I need the ambulance.
Taya Graham:
And now, finally after all of these protracted efforts to get this man to consent to a search, including the threat of a possibly inaccurate drug-sniffing dog, arrest, criminal trespassing, unsustained accusations of drug dealing, and violence, the arrest of a cop watcher, and some would say violent use of force, after all of this, what are the results? What is the outcome of this extensive and protracted investigation? What finally happens? Well, simply put, nothing. Nothing at all. And you just take a listen if you don’t believe me.
Officer Palomares:
The front door Ring, they added that Ring. They added cameras all around, just this side doesn’t have one. I’m going to tell her to add one here.
Speaker 9:
It’s maybe a gram.
Officer Palomares:
Okay.
Speaker 9:
And that’s like personal use. I don’t think he’s… He might be splitting his personal use with somebody, but I doubt he’s dealing it out. What we’re probably going to do is we’re going to suspect case him, see if it’s going to work a little bit.
Officer Palomares:
Cool, yeah.
Speaker 9:
[inaudible 00:14:55] cut the warrant, he’ll get a possession case after that, but he probably has some good information about what’s going on. He just didn’t want talk in front of everybody.
Officer Palomares:
Whatever you all can do, I appreciate it, man.
Speaker 9:
So, what we do need to probably do is [inaudible 00:15:07] transporting him to jail, but take him over to the [inaudible 00:15:12] sector and we’ll try and do an interview with him out there.
Officer Palomares:
Okay, I appreciate you. Thank you.
Taya Graham:
That’s right, the alleged drug dealer does not have enough in his possession to actually deal. So, instead of charging him for being a drug dealer, the cops resort to taking him to the station as if he were under arrest to try to glean some more information from him about, you guessed it, drug dealing. In other words, convert him to a criminal informant. And for the record, creating a criminal informant is a very unregulated and opaque process, and becoming one is an incredibly dangerous occupation to be forced into. If you want to learn more, start by researching Rachel’s Law.
But there is so much more to this story than a failed attempt to turn a small-time drug user into a criminal informant, behind the scenes details that turn this case of bad policing into an example of law enforcement malfeasance. And for more on that, I will be talking to cop watcher Manuel Mata, who was arrested at the scene and has been fighting the case ever since, but first, I’m joined by my reporting partner, Stephen Janis, who’s been reaching out to police for comment and investigating the details of the case and the circumstances surrounding it. Stephen, thank you so much for joining me.
Stephen Janis:
Taya, thanks for having me. I appreciate it.
Taya Graham:
So, what are Fort Worth Police saying about the arrest of Mata and the detention of the man for suspicion of drug dealing?
Stephen Janis:
Well, they’re not saying much to us. We sent an email with a couple of questions. One being, how do they approach cop watchers? How do they approach major drug investigations? Although, we did overhear on the body camera that there’s a lot of talk about cop watchers. There’s audio that we did not put in this particular show about how they were aware of Mata, how they’re aware of other cop watchers, how they’re like, “I can deal with it,” and how they talked about in roll call of ways of suppressing cop watching. So, very disturbing that First Amendment activists are on police radar in such a significant way.
Taya Graham:
Now, this community shelter provides food and household items for people who are unhoused. What can you tell me about it and why were they hiring police officers?
Stephen Janis:
Well, this is exactly what we talk about in the show all the time, using police to solve complex social problems, which is a result of massive inequality. People there are unhoused, they have drug addiction problems, they have all the problems that come along with being impoverished in this country. And yet, what do they do? They hire a police officer. I think it’s an antithetical to the cause of helping people overcome these problems rather than arresting them. As we can see in this case, that’s exactly what occurred.
Taya Graham:
This prolonged investigation and subsequent arrest by police are symbolic of the concept, you have termed, blanket criminality. Can you talk about that idea and how it applies here?
Stephen Janis:
Well, as you see, this investigation took multiple officers, took an hour, they tried to call a drug-sniffing dog. They made every effort they could to criminalize the behavior of a single person and then spread it out through the community by involving other people in this. So, really it was like saying, “This whole place is a crime scene and we’re going to sit there and kind of work through it with our police. More police are going to show up, more cop cars. We’re going to arrest a cop watcher, we’re going to detain a man, then take him down to the station for no reason and try to get him to become a criminal informant.” What could be a better example of the criminalization of working class people? It’s why this country has the problems it has, and it’s why police are the worst answer or antidote to this kind of problem, Taya.
Taya Graham:
And now to talk about his arrest, the events leading up to it, and what he has learned since, I’m joined by Manuel Mata himself. Manuel, thank you so much for joining us again. We appreciate it.
Manuel Mata:
Thank you. I’m glad to be here again, to bring you another story of corrupt officials.
Taya Graham:
So, can you describe for us the officer’s interaction with him before you arrived? It seems like the man was detained for nearly 50 minutes. Can you describe a little bit of that interaction at the very beginning?
Manuel Mata:
Yeah, well, when I pulled up, I actually seen a police officer, to me it looked like harassing two people at a shelter. So when I pulled up, I didn’t know what was going on, and I didn’t ask them. I just wanted to film. So, it turns out that the guy in the blue shirt was the one that the cop decided was the drug dealer, which he wasn’t, and the debt wasn’t over drugs. He owed him 20 bucks, because he let him borrow it to buy cigarettes and food. So, that’s what he asked him for it. The actual drug dealer was right next to him. And as soon as the cop comes, he tells the drug dealer to leave. So, that’s what I walked up on and they were trying to search his stuff and I never got to see how it ended, only in body camera in trial.
Taya Graham:
So, although the man said he was getting his mail at the mission and just asking for the $20 owed him, Officer Palomares questioned him and insisted he was going to bring a K-9 to sniff him. And the man said, “You know there’s no probable cause. I haven’t done anything wrong.” And the officer said, “I don’t care. Someone told me you’re a drug dealer, sit down, and show me your pockets.” Now, I know you’re not a lawyer, but when you look at this interaction, what do you see? How do you see his rights being violated?
Manuel Mata:
Yeah, and being detained. And see, I didn’t know how long he was sitting there, because to me, I just saw it. I didn’t know the total extent until I got the actual body camera. He had him detained for like 40, 45 minutes, almost an hour before I even got there. So, to me it looked like he was being held against his will. That’s what it looked like to me. And he kept telling him, “Hey, sir, this, that.” And he kept telling him…
Because when I pulled up, he was telling him, “You can search me, but not my stuff.” And then that’s when it all went sideways, when I stood right there, because to me how it seems is like if you don’t want to pay someone, just call the cops, and they’ll take care of it for you. That’s what it looked like to me, because the actual drug dealer, he told him to leave. So, now you’re messing with a guy that the complainant states, “I did not buy drugs from him. I do not do drugs.” But then you hear the officer, “Oh, but you know he sells drugs.” And I’m like, “Wow, that’s all…” Everything looks so wrong the way the guy was looking and how the situation was, and I just tried to capture it on camera and I failed at that.
Taya Graham:
I think you’re being hard on yourself. I don’t think you failed, but one thing I noticed is that the officer says to the man, “You’re getting aggressive with me,” so I’m just going to play a little bit of the video where the officer’s talking to the man saying, “You’re being aggressive.”
Officer Palomares:
So, they dimed him out basically. So, I come in here and talk to him, “Hey, man, look, straight-up, I’m Officer Palomares, blah, blah, blah.” I said, “Why are you talking to me?” I said, “Have a seat.” He tried to get a little aggressive. I said, “Hey, look, I’m talking to you, because you’ve been identified as a guy that’s selling drugs. If you’re not, let me know who you are.” I said, “It’s not going to be tolerated.”
Taya Graham:
So, when I look at this video, and I want your opinion, does this look like aggressive behavior to you?
Manuel Mata:
How do you try to talk to one, “Hey, sir. Hey, sir,” and then just to resort to aggression, violence, and I have to control you. None of it made sense to me. I don’t understand how someone walking up… And then like the guy was, he was asserting his rights to be safe and secure in his property and papers, and it’s like the cop wasn’t trying to hear it, because in his mind, he caught a big drug dealer, and that’s all he cared about. He didn’t care about his rights or the process of criminal procedures. It just went out the window, because this officer had it in his mind that he created a good enough story, and I just totally disagreed.
Taya Graham:
Just to clarify, I want your thoughts on the accusation that this man was a drug dealer, considering that this information was provided by people in the mission who can be telling the truth, or they could have been trying to settle a personal score over owing money or they could have even been referring to a different person as a dealer. Does this concern you that someone could just point a finger at you and bring down the police on you without any evidence?
Manuel Mata:
Yes, but you know what was the most troubling to me when I saw it was the fact that them two people did not identify the man in the blue shirt as the drug dealer. The man said it was the other guy in the white shirt, same thing as the woman. She said, “It’s the other guy in the white shirt.” And even the officer afterwards, he kept trying to explain to the drug investigators, “He’s the drug dealer, and there’s another one right there with the white shirt.” So, I’m confused as to what your job and what you’re doing, because this man’s telling you, “I barely have $5 to my name. I’m on a bike.” He has a cooler and he has a BB gun for rats, because he lives outdoors. Not only that, he’s at a homeless shelter trying to get assistance. Now, that is not a drug dealer.
Taya Graham:
So, another thing that stood out to me is that the officers talk to the woman who’s running the mission, and he says to her that even if he doesn’t find drugs on him, and even if the K-9 doesn’t sniff anything, he’s still a dealer and should still be trespassed. Do you think it’s fair that this man who needs the services of a Christian mission should be denied them due to suspicion that hasn’t even been validated or adjudicated?
Manuel Mata:
No, because that’s not what those places are designed for. And then plus, this cop has no authority to trespass anyone. And what the problem is here is what was exposed in the 97-page report that was done on the Fort Worth Police Department where relationships: husband, wife, boyfriend and girlfriend. This is one of those scenarios where he is dating a woman that’s working there, and this is the constant harassment that these two do to innocent people, because all he has to say, “I don’t want him here.” The girlfriend said, “Okay, babe.” He trespassed me, and I wasn’t never on the property. I never set foot on the property. I was on the public sidewalk the whole time, and he convinced a lady to trespass me. So, this is the problem we’re facing. When you hurt someone’s feelings and you’re in a position of power, you should lose it, because you’re dealing with a people with emotions, not the law, not human decency. And basically above all, not Christian-like, because that place is funded through God’s money. So, for him not to even understand what it means to help others, not hurt them.
Taya Graham:
So, I was watching the video and about 50 minutes into this man’s detention, you arrive and you ask the officer to identify himself. He refuses and immediately says, “You’re interfering with the investigation,” and barely one minute into the conversation you were in cuffs. Were you surprised by this?
Manuel Mata:
Actually surprised, no. But kind of disappointed? Yes, because at that point I had thought I made it clear about what my intent were, because my intent is never to harass, interfere, disrupt, or impede anything. And the fact that they’re able to say that, because you’re recording and you take my attention away, which is not in the penal code, it doesn’t state, they took my attention away, and this is what is frustrating because all I’m doing is holding a camera.
Taya Graham:
So I was wondering, do you feel you were treated differently, because you’re a known cop watcher and activist, as opposed to someone else who might’ve been standing there filming? I witnessed how you were singled out at the trial of Aaron Dean while you were there supporting the family of Atatiana Jefferson. So, I’m wondering if you feel you were treated differently, and what rights of yours you feel were violated.
Manuel Mata:
Since I’ve been doing this, I know for a fact that automatically I’m going to be treated differently, looked at differently, and even it’s just a whole different vibe that I get from these officers, because during roll call, you hear them. Whenever I hear a cop say that he was mentioned at roll call, they always explain this, “He harasses and films us.” And then I’ll give you a quote from a Homeland Security report that was done on me by a South Division police officer sergeant, that they know that I film and that I go and film trying to get officers to violate my rights. So, if this is something you all are assuming, wouldn’t it be something that makes you all and not even participate in what you’re all witnessing on this video? But it doesn’t stop them, it encourages them, because they want to be the one that says, “I got him.”
Taya Graham:
So, it looks like the officer, when he’s putting his cuffs on you, it seems like you’re being thrown to the ground. I hear you saying, “Stop pulling all my hands.” And it looks like he was getting rough with you, but it’s kind of hard to see. Can you tell me what we were missing?
Manuel Mata:
See, what happened was he wanted me to sit down and I told him, “No, I’m not going to. We’re just going to stand here, whatever.” And he stated that I was getting aggressive with him by telling him, “No, we’re just going to stand right here.” I never pulled away from him, I never ran, I never did anything. And when he grabbed me by my shoulder, he yanked me down and he literally pulled me off of my feet and I landed butt first on the ground, and then that’s why I told him, I’m going to stand back up. See? And what made me mad is the officer that’s on duty turned around, so it wouldn’t be caught what he just did to me on his body camera. And if you look behind him, that’s what you’re going to see. He’s turned around to the guy in front of him the whole time.
Taya Graham:
I believe I hear you request medical, but I know you were taken to the jail instead. Can you tell me how you were treated and if you received any medical treatments?
Manuel Mata:
Yeah, because the whole thing was that whenever he threw me on the ground, he kept doing this. You know how the two cuffs are like this and it has them two little links right here? Well, he was grabbing it right there and doing this. And if you have noticed, my hands are already messed up. So, this whole thing was swollen after… And I told him, “I need medical.” And they were trying to put me in a car. I wasn’t resisting the transport, because they weren’t taking me nowhere. They had to wait for the ambulance to get there and check me. And then when he did, he said, “He’s cleared to go to jail.” When I get to jail, when they take the handcuffs off, my hand is so swollen that I tell the guard, “Look at my stuff.” And they’re like, “What?” So, they take pictures and they send me to the hospital. I go to the hospital, I get treated. They say something about break of skin. I don’t remember what it was, because I didn’t get it.
Taya Graham:
Now, I have to ask you this, but it’s because I know there are going to be some people who will say, you were provocative, you used foul language, and you raised your voice with the officer, and maybe they’ll say that they feel that you were being aggressive or that you were trying to provoke them. How would you respond to someone who would say that?
Manuel Mata:
It is not only our right, it is our obligation to check and balance when someone steps out of their box of control. Now, they used force, they used violence to gain control. I used my words and the tone of my voice to do the same and it’s protected. And second part, if they’re trained to deal with high stressful situations where guns are being pointed at them, a car is flying at them, you mean to tell me that you all passed that type of training where it doesn’t break a sweat to where you all can say me saying a bad word, vulgar, raw, loud is enough to make you all come out of you all skin?
Something’s not adding up right. So to me, why not? Why not cuss at them? Because to me, I’ve been in an environment where I couldn’t let these people disrespect me, because I wouldn’t be able to live in this environment. The way I do it now is like I’m punching them with words. I’m defending myself with the right to say this and that, and I remind them, Houston v. Hill, Glik v. Cummings, Turner v. Driver, all of these cases involve speech that is protected and the most protected speech isn’t favorable. It’s the one that makes people mad and upset. It creates tension.
Taya Graham:
So, I saw there was a conversation between two officers who had conflicting statements on the amount of illegal substances found on the man. One officer said he saw roughly over a gram, maybe just enough for personal use, and then the other officer speaks to the woman and said he had enough for over 100 hits on him? What are these conflicting statements? What am I even seeing here?
Manuel Mata:
See, what happened is the Palomares thinks he’s a drug investigator. So when the real ones get there, they’re not understanding why they were even called in the first place, because they know an addict, they know a buyer when they see one. So they’re left with, okay, this is their only choice, because he’s not a drug dealer. “Why don’t you go ahead and tell us who you bought the product from? Help us help you. You don’t have to just help us. Help you by telling us where you purchased your product from.” And that’s what the man agreed to, because he did not want to go to jail. It was easier for him to tell on someone than go to jail, and that’s exactly what happened, because when the real investigators show up, the real detectives, they seen that this was straight garbage.
Taya Graham:
But something I noticed and really wanted to pay attention to is I heard an officer not in uniform say, “Let’s just make it look like you’re arresting him, that he might get possession, and then we’re going to take him and see if we can get some information out of him.” So, it looks to me like they were trying to turn him into an informant and they were cutting him off from resources where he could get help at the same time, so basically cutting him off from resources and possibly his freedom. This seems to me like targeting a vulnerable person to become a CI. What do you think?
Manuel Mata:
That’s exactly what happened, because they knew that this guy was just a regular street person, and majority of those don’t want to be in jail, so it’s easier to manipulate and influence him to tell. And sad to say, that’s exactly what happened here. They put him in a car, they drove him down the street to where the police station was on Hempfield and Magnolia, and they let him out. And the cops, while they’re letting him out, they’re like, “You’re just going to go in here and talk to these detectives. You don’t have to tell them nothing, but to help yourself, just go ahead and tell them.”
Taya Graham:
So, what were your charges? From my understanding, just last week you were supposed to report for 180 days in jail. Can you tell me what you were charged with and what you’re facing and what happened?
Manuel Mata:
Well, I got charged with interfering with public duties and resisting arrest. Not only was I charged, I went to trial and I was found guilty on both of those cases, and I received 180 days and I appealed it. And yes, yesterday I was supposed to turn myself in and the strangest thing happened. I did not have a warrant to turn myself in. What happened is I was given a court date for another sentencing hearing. Now, I don’t know what’s going on, and I don’t know what’s going to happen, but all I do know is I don’t care because I know one thing, when I chose to believe in something stronger than myself, I don’t need to be afraid. I don’t need to be worried. I don’t need to understand evil people anymore, because I know two things. This too shall pass and lean not on my own under understanding. Those two things I keep to my heart, and I remember this is selfless, so I can’t lose. The only I’m doing is I’ve made the world notice Fort Worth Police Department and their awful, awful tactics and their culture of torture. That’s it.
Taya Graham:
Okay, let’s take a second to break down what we just saw and examine it through the prism of a concept that I think does not get the attention it deserves, namely the ever expansive and destructive growth of police power in the service of some nebulous notion that if we consent to it, we’ll all be safer. Well, I, for one, am skeptical, and there is plenty of evidence to prove that that skepticism is warranted. First, it’s important to note that many categories of crime have gone down this year, especially some of the most violent and serious crimes, which have fallen since they rose dramatically during the pandemic. In most major cities, that has meant roughly a 20% drop in murders. In my hometown Baltimore, the drop has been even more precipitous, with homicides roughly 30% below their peak, but all of this good news came with a bit of a confounding asterisk.
It happened amid a nationwide shortage of police officers. Numerous reports have accounted how difficult it’s been for police departments to maintain staffing levels. In our hometown of Baltimore, we’re short a record 678 positions. It’s been called a crisis by the mainstream media, a shortage of officers on the street that threatens public safety, and law and order, and the future of civilization, and yet that’s not what occurred at all. Instead, we experienced one of the steepest drops in violence in recent history, all of which occurred in the timeframe when there are simply less officers on the street and fewer cops making fewer arrests. But here’s a question, how on earth could that happen? More cops equals more safety, right? More law enforcement means more law and order, right? A gun and badge are the best way to ensure that chaos and crime are kept under control, right?
According to police partisans, this drop in crime could in no way be due to the lessening of social isolation and economic stressors at the end of the pandemic. Of course not, it couldn’t be due to the revival of in-person social programs that scientists say are the most effective form of violence reduction strategies, over and above aggressive policing, never. It couldn’t be in Baltimore due to the group violence reduction strategy that tries to intervene in the lives of people most likely to commit a murder with jobs and support, rather than handcuffs and bars. Absolutely no way. It just couldn’t be any of those programs that mitigate poverty, uplift communities, and generally work with people as if they’re human beings, not human chattel to be arrested, caged, and locked away until the end of time. It’s just not possible, right? There’s only one solution to violence.
There’s only one way to get results, right? Give cops more power, give them more guns, form more SWAT teams and specialized units, and discard those pesky constitutional rights that keep on getting in the way of effective crime fighting. That’s what we should do if we want to stay safe, correct? And of course, despite relinquishing our constitutional rights, police will treat us fairly, protect the innocent, and not steal from us, right? Oh, okay, that last statement might’ve gone a bit too far, but just consider a recent decision by our illustrious Supreme Court, which seems to relish in retracting our rights, not expanding them. The court was asked to consider the request of two people who have been victimized by overly aggressive civil asset forfeiture, or as this article in The Nation describes it, When Cops Steal Your Stuff. The plaintiffs had asked the court to rule on a seemingly modest request that when police confiscate property, they should have a prompt hearing on if the seizure was legal.
Now, first you have to remember that despite our Fourth Amendment protection from unwarranted searches or seizures, police in this country can pretty much take our property, even if we’re not criminally charged. And worse yet, if you want that property back, you have to file a civil suit and prove that it doesn’t belong to the police in the first place. That question came to a head before the highest court in the land when it was asked to consider the petition of two plaintiffs who had lost their automobiles to police, both had never been accused of a crime. Instead, a person who was caught with drugs in both cases had borrowed their cars, which police subsequently seized. To get their property back, the burden was on the plaintiffs. They had to file civil cases and argue the seizures were unwarranted. They wanted the courts to instead require police departments to have a preliminary hearing to justify the taking of property.
But in a 6-3 decision, the court said no. In her dissent, Justice Sotomayor noted that 80% of asset forfeiture cases are civil, meaning they are not directly tied to a criminal case. This means that most property seized by police is not linked to direct criminal behavior, but rather is simply proximate to a crime, like the aforementioned case I just recounted. What this means in real life is that if someone dumps a couple grams of weed on your property, in the right state, police can seize your car and other properties and make you fight to get it back. And what’s even more stunning is that it’s not even clear what connects all the seizures to the original idea used to justify it. Namely, seizing assets is supposed to deprive major criminals of the resources they need to commit more crimes. It’s an idea that was touted by police by pointing to the threat of major drug dealers.
But like most policies based on fear, it has turned into a cash machine for police departments. In the case before the Supreme Court, these kingpins had simply lent their cars to the wrong people. All the cops accomplished was depriving innocent people of using their cars for work, transporting kids, and generally taking care of themselves, and their family. But of course, the underlying premise is the same fallacy I cited at the beginning of this rant. The more power we give cops, the safer we will be. The more we relinquish our constitutional rights, the less crime will occur, or the more we diminish ourselves, the more cops will protect us. Well, let me ask you, is that what’s really happened? Are we safe because we gave up our rights? Are we more productive because police can seize our assets? Is our country happier and healthier because law enforcement has taken the Constitution and used it like old newspaper for puppy training?
Well, I don’t think so. Instead, we have a destructive, ultimately Faustian bargain that I think we all need to reconsider, because as you can see, once we give up our rights, the powers that be are determined to never give them back. And fighting to get those rights is surely history we don’t want to repeat. I want to thank Manuel Mata for speaking with us and keeping us updated on policing in Fort Worth, Texas. Thank you, Manuel. And of course, I have to thank intrepid investigative reporter Stephen Janis for his writing, research, and editing on this piece. Thank you, Stephen. And I want to thank mods of the show, Noli D and Lacey R. for their support. Thanks, Noli D.
And a very special thanks to our Accountability Report Patreons, we appreciate you, and I look forward to thanking each and every one of you personally in our next live stream, especially Patreon associate producers, Johnny R., David K., Louie P., Lucida Garcia, and super friends, Shane B., Kenneth K., Pineapple Girl Matter of Rights, and Chris R.
And I want you watching to know that if you have video evidence of police misconduct or brutality, please share it with us and we might be able to investigate for you. Please reach out to us. You can email us tips privately at par@therealnews.com, and share your evidence of police misconduct. You can also message us at Police Accountability Report on Facebook or Instagram, or at Eyes on Police on Twitter. And of course, you can always message me directly @tayasbaltimore on Twitter or Facebook, and please like and comment. You know I read the comments and appreciate them, and we do have the Patreon link pinned in the comments below for Accountability Reports. So if you feel inspired to donate, please do. We do not run ads or take corporate dollars, so anything you can spare is greatly appreciated. My name is Taya Graham and I’m your host of the Police Accountability Report. Please, be safe out there.
This story originally appeared in Jacobin on May 22, 2024. It is shared here with permission.
On Monday, May 20, 2024, the British High Court granted Julian Assange his first legal victory in four years. The court found that the WikiLeaks founder could appeal his extradition to the United States on the basis that he may be denied free expression rights and face discrimination if tried there. In the UK system, leave must be granted to appeal. Courts have previously refused to grant Assange leave to appeal on key issues.
Assange remains locked up in the notorious Belmarsh Prison. And while he’s been granted the right to appeal on two narrow grounds, it’s still possible the court could rule against him. Assange still could be extradited — and press freedom hangs in the balance.
Exposing War Crimes
The US war on WikiLeaks, its sources, and its founder is a long, sordid affair. It entered its current phase on April 11, 2019, when British police arrested Assange. The United States then unsealed a series of indictments against him and sought his extradition. Ultimately, Assange would be charged with seventeen counts under the Espionage Act and one count of conspiring to violate the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act. All of the charges stem from WikiLeaks’ receipt and publication of classified documents from whistleblower Chelsea Manning.
Assange’s attorneys argued that the United States was clearly seeking to extradite Assange for a political offense and that his extradition was barred under British law. In 2021, a British judge rejected these arguments. Nonetheless, the judge blocked Assange’s extradition to the United States due to the prison conditions he would likely face. The United States, represented by the UK government, appealed this decision. They also offered diplomatic assurances about Assange’s potential prison conditions. Amnesty International called the assurances “inherently unreliable.” But UK courts accepted the assurances, overturned the judge’s ruling, and denied Assange the right to appeal.
Assange’s attorneys then sought to appeal the parts of the original decision that were adverse to them. They presented nine separate grounds for appeal. At the heart of the defense’s legal arguments was the assertion that Assange was a journalist who published information about state criminality. Such actions were in the public interest. Prosecuting a journalist for his work exposing war crimes and abuses of power is a form of government retaliation that violates free expression rights.
At the heart of the defense’s legal arguments was the assertion that Assange was a journalist who published information about state criminality.
The High Court rejected the overwhelming majority of these grounds, ruling that the bulk of charges against Assange dealt with ordinary crimes with no relationship to free expression rights. For the limited number of charges the High Court found touched on free expression rights, the High Court ruled there was not a significant public interest in the publications to prohibit Assange’s prosecutions. Prosecuting Assange for exposing war crimes therefore did not violate Assange’s right to free expression under Article 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights, which the court found to be similar to the US First Amendment.
In a particularly disturbing part of the decision, the High Court ruled Assange’s lawyers could not introduce additional evidence about the CIA plot to kill the journalist — not because they found such a plot inconceivable but because the High Court believes if Assange were extradited to the United States, the CIA would no longer have reason to assassinate him.
The decision was not a total defeat for Assange. The United States failed to provide an assurance not to seek the death penalty. Although Assange was not charged with an offense that carried the death penalty, his lawyers argued he could be. The court found these concerns to be persuasive and granted leave to appeal on this point.
Additionally, one of the prosecutors in the case, Gordon Kromberg, stated the United States might argue that as a foreigner Assange had no First Amendment rights. The UK High Court found that if the US government succeeded in this argument, Assange would face discrimination because of his nationality and be deprived of his right to free expression, in violation of Article 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights. As a result, Assange could also appeal.
The High Court gave the United States an avenue to avoid the appeal. If the United States offered assurances that they would not seek the death penalty against Assange, that Assange would not face discrimination due to his nationality, and that Assange could rely on the First Amendment, Assange would lose his right to appeal. The High Court was taking the ominous and highly unusual step of telegraphing to the United States what to say to extradite Assange.
During past phases of Assange’s extradition proceedings, UK courts maintained that US assurances had to be taken at face value and that the defense could not challenge them. This time, the UK High Court announced it would accept both a written challenge to the assurances and hold a hearing on whether they were sufficient.
The United States waited until the April 16 deadline to submit its assurances. The first assurance was a standard death penalty assurance, a routine diplomatic matter given that most of the world does not share the United States’ belief in the death penalty. The second assurance read:
ASSANGE will not be prejudiced by reason of his nationality with respect to which defenses he may seek to raise at trial and at sentencing. Specifically, if extradited, ASSANGE will have the ability to raise and seek to rely upon at trial (which includes any sentencing hearing) the rights and protections given under the First Amendment of the Constitution of the United States. A decision as to the applicability of the First Amendment is exclusively within the purview of the U.S. Courts.
First Amendment Rights
Going into the May 20 hearing, a sense of pessimism pervaded for Assange’s team. Given the judge’s dismal assessment of Assange’s rights, I felt certain that this was likely to be the end of the road for Assange’s case in the UK legal system. Everyone I spoke to who had followed the case closely, either as journalists, activists, or human rights advocates, also believed Assange’s prospects were bleak.
At the outset of the hearing, Assange’s defense announced they fully accepted the US assurance on the death penalty, but the remaining assurance was insufficient. The High Court had asked for an assurance that Assange could rely on the First Amendment. The United States instead said Assange could “seek to rely” on the First Amendment. The defense also noted that diplomatic assurances in extradition typically include promises to refrain from doing something, such as declining to seek the death penalty or require bail. In its assurance, the United States made no promises that the Department of Justice would not argue Assange lacked First Amendment rights on the basis of his nationality. As the defense told the judges, “Mr Kromberg has caused the concern and done nothing to allay it.”
In its assurance, the US made no promises that the Department of Justice would not argue Assange lacked First Amendment rights on the basis of his nationality.
Relying on the expert opinion of Paul Grimm, a former US federal judge, lawyers for Assange argued that even if prosecutors did not argue Assange lacked First Amendment rights due to his nationality, a court could independently make this ruling. They also relied on Grimm to argue that the First Amendment protects more than just publishing, it protects newsgathering. This seemed meant to counter the High Court’s previous finding that only a handful of charges had any relationship to free expression rights.
UK lawyers, representing the United States, pedantically lectured the court on the distinction between citizenship and nationality. Any deprivation of Assange’s First Amendment rights would be due not to his nationality, but his citizenship (i.e., an Australian-born US citizen could not be deprived of First Amendment rights, but any noncitizen may be). One of the UK government lawyers representing the United States stated Assange would not be “prejudiced for reason of his nationality, but because as a matter of law he is a foreigner operating on foreign soil.”
After roughly an hour and half of arguments, Assange’s lawyers and UK prosecutors representing the US government concluded their arguments. The judges hearing the case, Victoria Sharp and Jeremy Johnson, began whispering to each other. Part of their comments could be heard on a hot mic, but the only word I could make out was “discriminatory.” Sharp then announced the court would adjourn for ten minutes, then the judges would let us know “where we are.”
In the overspill room where most of the press was, there was confusion. As we discussed among ourselves what this could possibly mean, one journalist quipped, “Where we’re at? We’re at the Royal Courts of Justice.” When the judges had been gone more than twenty minutes, it became clear they were making a decision.
It would be nearly a half hour before the judges returned. Sharp announced that Assange was granted a full appeal on whether he would face discrimination as a foreign national or be denied free expression rights. Sharp denied an appeal on the issue of the death penalty, however, all parties had already agreed the assurance was sufficient.
The High Court had essentially told the United States what to say in order to prevail. And yet the United States couldn’t even muster that. The court had also tied the hands of the defense. And in spite of the seemingly insurmountable odds, they prevailed.
Assange’s Victory
Supporters of Assange began gathering outside the Royal Courts of Justice a full two hours before the hearing. When news of what had happened inside the courtroom reached the hundreds of protesters outside, there was clear jubilation.
Assange’s victory should be celebrated by all those who value press freedom. Assange, however, is not out of danger. The two judges ruled Assange a right to appeal, they did not rule in favor of the arguments. And the arguments Assange’s lawyers can raise are still extremely narrow.
The Assange extradition has been filled with twists and turns, which makes it impossible to predict what will happen next, made all the more confounding by the High Court’s seeming indifference to many of the fundamental press freedom and human rights issues at stake. The March ruling read very much like the High Court judges wanted to rubber stamp the persecution of a journalist, but the United States and UK lawyers blundered so badly as to make that impossible. Now those same judges have issued a stunning rebuke to the United States. Could judges who believe prosecuting Assange for his journalism does not violate his free expression rights block US extradition, given that the United States may not allow him First Amendment rights as a foreign national?
Uncertainty aside, Assange’s supporters are right to celebrate a rare legal victory. Assange’s defense will have another chance to fight his extradition. Anyone who cares about press freedom should be rooting for them to prevail.
On April 24, activists from the around the country converged on Washington for the 10th anniversary march of the FreeHer campaign, a national movement against the prison industrial complex, focused on the release of incarcerated women and girls. Despite campaign promises to free 100 women in his first 100 days in office, the Biden administration’s record on clemency is among the worst in US history, granting clemency only 29 times in nearly four years—with 16 of these given on the day of the FreeHer march alone. Activists also called attention to the epidemic of sexual violence and abuse against prisoners by correctional staff. Rattling the Bars reports from the streets in DC, speaking directly with organizers and movement activists about their demands for Biden and their broader vision for liberation.
The following is a rushed transcript and may contain errors. A proofread version will be made available as soon as possible.
Speaker 1:
We vote clemency! We vote clemency! And we want it when?
Speaker 2:
Now.
Speaker 1:
We want it now. We want it when?
Speaker 2:
Now.
Speaker 1:
Send those messages to President Biden and say, don’t even look at us again until you’re willing to free these women. And we want everybody to please, when you leave here, take this message with you, hit your governor in the head with it. Hit the President in the head with it, that we vote clemency and we need you to get to work. Tenth anniversary March on Washington. Try to make President Biden understand that freedom must happen.
Pick up your pen. Commute the sentences of our mothers, our grandmothers, our sisters, our aunts and our wives. Enough is enough. Free Michelle West, 30 plus years in prison. Free Lazar Daz, 30 plus years in prison. Free our elders like Ms. Friend. Get these women out of these prisons. Now! We got rap with us releasing aging people in prison. We got legal services for prisoners with children. We got women, and men, and babies here from every single state around the country, and we are demanding enough is enough. President Biden, pick up that pen.
Speaker 2:
We’re building a family. This is a whole community that has been impacted by incarceration from different ways, whether we’ve been formerly incarcerated, or we had loved ones like our mothers incarcerated. And so it’s time that we come together in solidarity, and highlight the harm that the system has caused. And so we can’t do this alone, so we have to come together. And when we come together, that’s a movement.
Speaker 3:
One more time, we’re at Freedom Plaza in Washington D.C. At the Free Her March. I didn’t know what kind of impact it would have on me. We’ve got women that’s coming together to march to abolish the prison industrial complex as it relates to women. We’ve got families. We’ve got their children, we’ve got the grandparents. We’ve got the great-grandparents, generation upon generation. They want the end to the mass incarceration of women, but more importantly, they want to free her.
Speaker 4:
Mississippi, Mississippi, I need you to free her! Indiana, I need you to free her! Georgia, free her! D.C., free her! Alabama, free her!
Speaker 5:
We got Milwaukee in the building. Milwaukee in the building.
Speaker 6:
Milwaukee, Wisconsin.
Speaker 5:
Milwaukee, Wisconsin.
Speaker 3:
Where you from?
Speaker 7:
Washington D.C.
Speaker 3:
Okay. We are from Nation Capital. Why are you here?
Star:
I’m here to free Ms. West, Michelle West, and here to support the women that’s here.
Speaker 3:
Hi, what’s your name?
Star:
My name is Star. How you doing?
Speaker 3:
I’m good. Where you from?
Star:
The Bronx, New York.
Speaker 3:
Okay. We got the Bronx with us today. Why are you here today?
Star:
Because we’re here to petition the President, and everybody else on his team, to grant clemency to Michelle West, and all the other women who deserve it.
Speaker 8:
He told us when we was here four years ago that he was going to free a hundred women within the hundred days of him being in office. And he has not done any of what he said he was going to do. So we’re here today asking for him to free our women, and free them now.
Star:
We are tired of giving the Democrats what they want, and they don’t give us what we need.
Speaker 3:
So what do we want?
Star:
We want freedom for all women and girls. We want rehabilitation, and alternatives to incarceration.
Speaker 9:
We want Michelle West Free!
Miquelle West:
I’m Miquelle West, Michelle West’s daughter. My mom was incarcerated when I was ten years old for a drug conspiracy case. And she’s serving two life sentences and 15 years.
Speaker 9:
I represent the women that want to be free. Let our women be free. Let our women out of [inaudible 00:04:06].
Music:
Music
Group:
Cut it down!
Speaker 10:
[inaudible 00:04:36].
Group:
Cut it down!
Speaker 10:
[inaudible 00:04:39]
Speaker 11:
Stop criminalizing us for poverty, stop criminalizing us for how we cope from this trauma that has been put on us historically, and continues into this present day. Free my sisters.
Speaker 12:
The women get treated badly. The women get raped in jail. All kinds of things. I served federal time, and I know what it’s like to be in there. And I say free women today.
Speaker 13:
We told them to free those women, and they didn’t do it. They’re sending them to other prisons that, guess what? Also are raping our sisters inside of the federal system. So we’ve got a lot of work to do, people.
Speaker 14:
The response is to move all the women at once, all of a sudden to just throw them out into places all over the country with no preparation, no bathroom facilities. They’re being, as one of them said, the men who raped them, should, and are, going to prison. And the women are being punished now because they’re saying that the BOP, which can’t control their own staff, has to close the prison because they can’t manage it. And they take the women. I’ve been walking with different friends of mine who were in Dublin with me.
Speaker 3:
Right.
Speaker 14:
It was not a low-security place at that point. And we’re all having flashbacks of what it was to be transferred in that way, where you’re treated like a sack of laundry, except that you’re chained up. You’re chained at the waist. You can’t use the bathroom for hours, you get no food. They sat on a bus for five hours in the parking lot of the prison. And then at the end of five hours, they were taken back into the prison. They said, “Oh, we don’t know where to take you.” So the way that they’re being treated and then their families… Some people have children and their families are in the Bay Area. So the children were able to visit their moms in the prison, and now the moms have been sent like across country.
Speaker 15:
All this is the remedy for their abusive behavior. The remedy for their abusive behavior become more abusive.
Speaker 14:
Exactly. It’s true abuse, only this time, it’s like it’s standard operating procedures as opposed to rape, which is standard operating procedures, but it’s not written in the book.
Speaker 15:
We have to bring our women home, our children need them. Our black young men lead them. Black men need the nurturing, need the comfort, the caring, and the support that they need for mothers to structure them in the right way, so that we won’t be enslavery into the system. So thank you for everybody. As you see, we’re all out here making the cards.
Speaker 16:
Turn around.
Speaker 17:
They’re here on behalf of their mother. Why you bring the two?
Speaker 16:
Because that’s their mother.
Speaker 17:
Okay.
Speaker 16:
That needs to be released.
Speaker 17:
Okay. How long has she been locked up?
Speaker 16:
She’s been locked up right now for two years.
Speaker 17:
And why haven’t they released her yet?
Speaker 16:
They haven’t released her because they say she’s an activist. She was an activist.
Speaker 17:
What’s her name?
Speaker 16:
Brittany Martin.
Speaker 17:
Brittany Martin. So we got Brittany Martin as an activist and be held-
Speaker 16:
In Illinois.
Speaker 17:
In Illinois State Prison?
Speaker 13:
Yes. Yes, sir.
Speaker 17:
FCI?
Speaker 13:
IDOC.
Speaker 17:
Okay. So what do you want her to know about what’s going on here today?
Speaker 13:
Man, listen, it’s powerful out here, man. There’s people from everywhere and every place, and she is known. Her injustice is known.
Speaker 17:
What do you want to happen for your mother?
Speaker 18:
Bring her home.
Speaker 17:
Bring her home? Bring your mother home?
Speaker 18:
Yeah!
Speaker 17:
What’s your mother’s name?
Speaker 18:
Pretty mama.
Speaker 17:
Okay. And what y’all want? What y’all want?
Speaker 18:
Bring her home!
Speaker 17:
Bring her home. I talked to a friend of mine that was here, the first one. She said it was only maybe a hundred women. This is the indication that we’re building and mobilizing. So how do you feel about that?
Speaker 21:
I think it’s great. I think it’s fantastic. It’s something that’s needed. Women who are getting triple life sentences for things that are… It’s not reasonable. So I like it.
Speaker 20:
I am here because I believe that every woman deserves her peace and her freedom.
Speaker 21:
Who are these people up here that you see?
Speaker 20:
These are women incarcerated in the Georgia Penal system.
Speaker 21:
And how long-
Speaker 20:
They are lifers.
Speaker 21:
They’ve been in prison for a long time.
Speaker 20:
Yes. They’ve been in prison for a long time, and constantly denied parole. So we are here speaking on their behalf.
Speaker 22:
There’s a lot of women that I myself was actually incarcerated with. I’m from Augusta, Georgia, served 12 years out of 20 years of [inaudible 00:09:41] . I was released in 2016. So now I’m advocating for myself and other women. So let’s free them, free her.
Speaker 3:
Briefly tell our audience what happened with your daughter.
Speaker 22:
In February of 2018, she, along with her husband, was indicted on a federal drug indictment along with several others that was named on that indictment. At the beginning of the… there was no… Spock was not mentioned in any of the discoveries or anything, but once they got her to trial, they went ahead with the indictment. Matter of fact, there was three superseding indictments that was made. She ended up being on pretrial release from 2018 to 2021. At which time in July the 26th of 2021, she actually went to trial and was found guilty by a jury. Partly because of the attorney that she had, did not present any of the evidence or anything. Did not put on any type of defense. He just came to court against the federal government with a notepad and a pen.
Speaker 3:
Okay. We already know about… I was locked up. I did 48 years in prison. So I understand. We know about the public pretender. That’s what we call him in the prison system. But how much time did your daughter get?
Speaker 22:
She got 15 years mandatory. She had a mandatory minimum of 15 years.
Speaker 3:
Okay. She got a mandatory minimum of 15 years. Was this her first offense?
Speaker 22:
First offense, Sparkle Hobbs Bryant is a mother of two children. She’s never been in trouble. She was an upstanding citizen before the indictment. She’s been an upstanding system in the jail system as well as in the prison system. And we just want her to come home. This is her daughter who was 14 months old when she left her, and we’re tired of taking her to the prison to see her mother.
Speaker 23:
And not to mention, she’s also been in the military. She served in the Navy.
Speaker 24:
The power of women. They come from all over the country. New York, Nevada, Montana, Kansas to free her. This is the 10th anniversary of women prisoners coming out, organizing to free women prisoners. This is a monumental occasion. This is an example of power to the people. Free her.
Karen Elsima:
I’m Karen Elsima from Alaska. I’m formerly incarcerated. I left three kids at home who also had to live with my felonies. Today, after 13 years out, I have a daughter who also had to sign a seven-year deal, and now is about to celebrate two years in recovery, about to have a baby. But if someone hadn’t invested in me, my children, the restoration would not have been there. We’re still working on it.
Speaker 24:
Right.
Speaker 16:
But it’s just such an example of how many moms and kids and families need to have that restoration be invested in as a people.
Speaker 24:
And that’s one of the things that the Free Her movement is talking about. Invest in people, not in the expansion of prisons that’s going to house people, and dehumanize, and destroy families. Thank you, sis.
Speaker 25:
I think people are going to be more educated. We’re going to continue to come out and rally as needed, and continue to educate others about the movement. But it’s going to be a fight for a while, but we’re going to keep at it.
Speaker 26:
We demand that President Biden and state governors free our mothers. Free them for Mother’s Day. Free her!
Music:
Alleluia Music
Speaker 27:
Oh, that is, you see us out here. We’re out here. We’re stronger in numbers. Like Sashi said. We come together in solidarity. We collectively come up with strategies to free each one of them one by one. We’re trying to tear down the criminal justice system brick by brick, piece by piece. And we know what that looks like, and that’s why we’re out here.
Speaker 3:
And I heard the speaker say collectively, her colleagues, former sisters that was locked up with her, if you did them collectively, they did a thousand years. And I did 48 years before I got out. And I was in the room one time and I asked, had some college students in there. I had like 10 people. I told all the dudes that added up their numbers. So when I told them, I said I launched how many numbers. It was over 500 years in the room of time we had did. So with terms like that, what do you think about the clemency?
Speaker 27:
I think that everyone should get a second chance. And I see that society lately is not giving people a chance. I don’t feel that no one should be locked up for the rest of their life. And who is one person to take somebody’s freedom away, rather it be a six-man, jury, it be a judge or whomever it be? No one has that right. And we’re going to free them all. And they are coming home.
Speaker 28:
And we also want to highlight re-imagining communities. You know, the only reason why we are here is because women have never had a first chance to begin with, and they’ve never had resources. Look at this. This is a crowd of black people. Instead of talking about 500, a thousand, a thousand years, 2000 years, these are years that our family has been stripped away from our loved ones. And that’s not acceptable. So we need to begin to shift and call on not only the President Biden, but all of the governors. Each state, state by state, needs to provide resources to the people so that way we’re not even ending up on a prison bunk to begin with. Not our babies, not our mothers, not us, not none of us. We have the resources, we just have to use them. So, yes to clemency, but also yes to resources immediately. So we don’t have to use tools like clemency.
On April 24, activists from the around the country converged on Washington for the 10th anniversary march of the FreeHer campaign, a national movement against the prison industrial complex, focused on the release of incarcerated women and girls. Despite campaign promises to free 100 women in his first 100 days in office, the Biden administration’s record on clemency is among the worst in US history, granting clemency only 29 times in nearly four years—with 16 of these given on the day of the FreeHer march alone. Activists also called attention to the epidemic of sexual violence and abuse against prisoners by correctional staff. Rattling the Bars reports from the streets in DC, speaking directly with organizers and movement activists about their demands for Biden and their broader vision for liberation.
The following is a rushed transcript and may contain errors. A proofread version will be made available as soon as possible.
Speaker 1:
We vote clemency! We vote clemency! And we want it when?
Speaker 2:
Now.
Speaker 1:
We want it now. We want it when?
Speaker 2:
Now.
Speaker 1:
Send those messages to President Biden and say, don’t even look at us again until you’re willing to free these women. And we want everybody to please, when you leave here, take this message with you, hit your governor in the head with it. Hit the President in the head with it, that we vote clemency and we need you to get to work. Tenth anniversary March on Washington. Try to make President Biden understand that freedom must happen.
Pick up your pen. Commute the sentences of our mothers, our grandmothers, our sisters, our aunts and our wives. Enough is enough. Free Michelle West, 30 plus years in prison. Free Lazar Daz, 30 plus years in prison. Free our elders like Ms. Friend. Get these women out of these prisons. Now! We got rap with us releasing aging people in prison. We got legal services for prisoners with children. We got women, and men, and babies here from every single state around the country, and we are demanding enough is enough. President Biden, pick up that pen.
Speaker 2:
We’re building a family. This is a whole community that has been impacted by incarceration from different ways, whether we’ve been formerly incarcerated, or we had loved ones like our mothers incarcerated. And so it’s time that we come together in solidarity, and highlight the harm that the system has caused. And so we can’t do this alone, so we have to come together. And when we come together, that’s a movement.
Speaker 3:
One more time, we’re at Freedom Plaza in Washington D.C. At the Free Her March. I didn’t know what kind of impact it would have on me. We’ve got women that’s coming together to march to abolish the prison industrial complex as it relates to women. We’ve got families. We’ve got their children, we’ve got the grandparents. We’ve got the great-grandparents, generation upon generation. They want the end to the mass incarceration of women, but more importantly, they want to free her.
Speaker 4:
Mississippi, Mississippi, I need you to free her! Indiana, I need you to free her! Georgia, free her! D.C., free her! Alabama, free her!
Speaker 5:
We got Milwaukee in the building. Milwaukee in the building.
Speaker 6:
Milwaukee, Wisconsin.
Speaker 5:
Milwaukee, Wisconsin.
Speaker 3:
Where you from?
Speaker 7:
Washington D.C.
Speaker 3:
Okay. We are from Nation Capital. Why are you here?
Star:
I’m here to free Ms. West, Michelle West, and here to support the women that’s here.
Speaker 3:
Hi, what’s your name?
Star:
My name is Star. How you doing?
Speaker 3:
I’m good. Where you from?
Star:
The Bronx, New York.
Speaker 3:
Okay. We got the Bronx with us today. Why are you here today?
Star:
Because we’re here to petition the President, and everybody else on his team, to grant clemency to Michelle West, and all the other women who deserve it.
Speaker 8:
He told us when we was here four years ago that he was going to free a hundred women within the hundred days of him being in office. And he has not done any of what he said he was going to do. So we’re here today asking for him to free our women, and free them now.
Star:
We are tired of giving the Democrats what they want, and they don’t give us what we need.
Speaker 3:
So what do we want?
Star:
We want freedom for all women and girls. We want rehabilitation, and alternatives to incarceration.
Speaker 9:
We want Michelle West Free!
Miquelle West:
I’m Miquelle West, Michelle West’s daughter. My mom was incarcerated when I was ten years old for a drug conspiracy case. And she’s serving two life sentences and 15 years.
Speaker 9:
I represent the women that want to be free. Let our women be free. Let our women out of [inaudible 00:04:06].
Music:
Music
Group:
Cut it down!
Speaker 10:
[inaudible 00:04:36].
Group:
Cut it down!
Speaker 10:
[inaudible 00:04:39]
Speaker 11:
Stop criminalizing us for poverty, stop criminalizing us for how we cope from this trauma that has been put on us historically, and continues into this present day. Free my sisters.
Speaker 12:
The women get treated badly. The women get raped in jail. All kinds of things. I served federal time, and I know what it’s like to be in there. And I say free women today.
Speaker 13:
We told them to free those women, and they didn’t do it. They’re sending them to other prisons that, guess what? Also are raping our sisters inside of the federal system. So we’ve got a lot of work to do, people.
Speaker 14:
The response is to move all the women at once, all of a sudden to just throw them out into places all over the country with no preparation, no bathroom facilities. They’re being, as one of them said, the men who raped them, should, and are, going to prison. And the women are being punished now because they’re saying that the BOP, which can’t control their own staff, has to close the prison because they can’t manage it. And they take the women. I’ve been walking with different friends of mine who were in Dublin with me.
Speaker 3:
Right.
Speaker 14:
It was not a low-security place at that point. And we’re all having flashbacks of what it was to be transferred in that way, where you’re treated like a sack of laundry, except that you’re chained up. You’re chained at the waist. You can’t use the bathroom for hours, you get no food. They sat on a bus for five hours in the parking lot of the prison. And then at the end of five hours, they were taken back into the prison. They said, “Oh, we don’t know where to take you.” So the way that they’re being treated and then their families… Some people have children and their families are in the Bay Area. So the children were able to visit their moms in the prison, and now the moms have been sent like across country.
Speaker 15:
All this is the remedy for their abusive behavior. The remedy for their abusive behavior become more abusive.
Speaker 14:
Exactly. It’s true abuse, only this time, it’s like it’s standard operating procedures as opposed to rape, which is standard operating procedures, but it’s not written in the book.
Speaker 15:
We have to bring our women home, our children need them. Our black young men lead them. Black men need the nurturing, need the comfort, the caring, and the support that they need for mothers to structure them in the right way, so that we won’t be enslavery into the system. So thank you for everybody. As you see, we’re all out here making the cards.
Speaker 16:
Turn around.
Speaker 17:
They’re here on behalf of their mother. Why you bring the two?
Speaker 16:
Because that’s their mother.
Speaker 17:
Okay.
Speaker 16:
That needs to be released.
Speaker 17:
Okay. How long has she been locked up?
Speaker 16:
She’s been locked up right now for two years.
Speaker 17:
And why haven’t they released her yet?
Speaker 16:
They haven’t released her because they say she’s an activist. She was an activist.
Speaker 17:
What’s her name?
Speaker 16:
Brittany Martin.
Speaker 17:
Brittany Martin. So we got Brittany Martin as an activist and be held-
Speaker 16:
In Illinois.
Speaker 17:
In Illinois State Prison?
Speaker 13:
Yes. Yes, sir.
Speaker 17:
FCI?
Speaker 13:
IDOC.
Speaker 17:
Okay. So what do you want her to know about what’s going on here today?
Speaker 13:
Man, listen, it’s powerful out here, man. There’s people from everywhere and every place, and she is known. Her injustice is known.
Speaker 17:
What do you want to happen for your mother?
Speaker 18:
Bring her home.
Speaker 17:
Bring her home? Bring your mother home?
Speaker 18:
Yeah!
Speaker 17:
What’s your mother’s name?
Speaker 18:
Pretty mama.
Speaker 17:
Okay. And what y’all want? What y’all want?
Speaker 18:
Bring her home!
Speaker 17:
Bring her home. I talked to a friend of mine that was here, the first one. She said it was only maybe a hundred women. This is the indication that we’re building and mobilizing. So how do you feel about that?
Speaker 21:
I think it’s great. I think it’s fantastic. It’s something that’s needed. Women who are getting triple life sentences for things that are… It’s not reasonable. So I like it.
Speaker 20:
I am here because I believe that every woman deserves her peace and her freedom.
Speaker 21:
Who are these people up here that you see?
Speaker 20:
These are women incarcerated in the Georgia Penal system.
Speaker 21:
And how long-
Speaker 20:
They are lifers.
Speaker 21:
They’ve been in prison for a long time.
Speaker 20:
Yes. They’ve been in prison for a long time, and constantly denied parole. So we are here speaking on their behalf.
Speaker 22:
There’s a lot of women that I myself was actually incarcerated with. I’m from Augusta, Georgia, served 12 years out of 20 years of [inaudible 00:09:41] . I was released in 2016. So now I’m advocating for myself and other women. So let’s free them, free her.
Speaker 3:
Briefly tell our audience what happened with your daughter.
Speaker 22:
In February of 2018, she, along with her husband, was indicted on a federal drug indictment along with several others that was named on that indictment. At the beginning of the… there was no… Spock was not mentioned in any of the discoveries or anything, but once they got her to trial, they went ahead with the indictment. Matter of fact, there was three superseding indictments that was made. She ended up being on pretrial release from 2018 to 2021. At which time in July the 26th of 2021, she actually went to trial and was found guilty by a jury. Partly because of the attorney that she had, did not present any of the evidence or anything. Did not put on any type of defense. He just came to court against the federal government with a notepad and a pen.
Speaker 3:
Okay. We already know about… I was locked up. I did 48 years in prison. So I understand. We know about the public pretender. That’s what we call him in the prison system. But how much time did your daughter get?
Speaker 22:
She got 15 years mandatory. She had a mandatory minimum of 15 years.
Speaker 3:
Okay. She got a mandatory minimum of 15 years. Was this her first offense?
Speaker 22:
First offense, Sparkle Hobbs Bryant is a mother of two children. She’s never been in trouble. She was an upstanding citizen before the indictment. She’s been an upstanding system in the jail system as well as in the prison system. And we just want her to come home. This is her daughter who was 14 months old when she left her, and we’re tired of taking her to the prison to see her mother.
Speaker 23:
And not to mention, she’s also been in the military. She served in the Navy.
Speaker 24:
The power of women. They come from all over the country. New York, Nevada, Montana, Kansas to free her. This is the 10th anniversary of women prisoners coming out, organizing to free women prisoners. This is a monumental occasion. This is an example of power to the people. Free her.
Karen Elsima:
I’m Karen Elsima from Alaska. I’m formerly incarcerated. I left three kids at home who also had to live with my felonies. Today, after 13 years out, I have a daughter who also had to sign a seven-year deal, and now is about to celebrate two years in recovery, about to have a baby. But if someone hadn’t invested in me, my children, the restoration would not have been there. We’re still working on it.
Speaker 24:
Right.
Speaker 16:
But it’s just such an example of how many moms and kids and families need to have that restoration be invested in as a people.
Speaker 24:
And that’s one of the things that the Free Her movement is talking about. Invest in people, not in the expansion of prisons that’s going to house people, and dehumanize, and destroy families. Thank you, sis.
Speaker 25:
I think people are going to be more educated. We’re going to continue to come out and rally as needed, and continue to educate others about the movement. But it’s going to be a fight for a while, but we’re going to keep at it.
Speaker 26:
We demand that President Biden and state governors free our mothers. Free them for Mother’s Day. Free her!
Music:
Alleluia Music
Speaker 27:
Oh, that is, you see us out here. We’re out here. We’re stronger in numbers. Like Sashi said. We come together in solidarity. We collectively come up with strategies to free each one of them one by one. We’re trying to tear down the criminal justice system brick by brick, piece by piece. And we know what that looks like, and that’s why we’re out here.
Speaker 3:
And I heard the speaker say collectively, her colleagues, former sisters that was locked up with her, if you did them collectively, they did a thousand years. And I did 48 years before I got out. And I was in the room one time and I asked, had some college students in there. I had like 10 people. I told all the dudes that added up their numbers. So when I told them, I said I launched how many numbers. It was over 500 years in the room of time we had did. So with terms like that, what do you think about the clemency?
Speaker 27:
I think that everyone should get a second chance. And I see that society lately is not giving people a chance. I don’t feel that no one should be locked up for the rest of their life. And who is one person to take somebody’s freedom away, rather it be a six-man, jury, it be a judge or whomever it be? No one has that right. And we’re going to free them all. And they are coming home.
Speaker 28:
And we also want to highlight re-imagining communities. You know, the only reason why we are here is because women have never had a first chance to begin with, and they’ve never had resources. Look at this. This is a crowd of black people. Instead of talking about 500, a thousand, a thousand years, 2000 years, these are years that our family has been stripped away from our loved ones. And that’s not acceptable. So we need to begin to shift and call on not only the President Biden, but all of the governors. Each state, state by state, needs to provide resources to the people so that way we’re not even ending up on a prison bunk to begin with. Not our babies, not our mothers, not us, not none of us. We have the resources, we just have to use them. So, yes to clemency, but also yes to resources immediately. So we don’t have to use tools like clemency.
Critics of the prison industrial complex have long noted the system’s failure to properly rehabilitate those who are locked away in its bowels. Christina Merryman and Ameena Deramous return to Rattling the Bars for the second part of a two-part interview on the reality facing prisoners in Maryland’s only women’s correctional facility.
Studio Production: David Hebden Post-Production: Cameron Granadino
Transcript
The following is a rushed transcript and may contain errors. A proofread version will be made available as soon as possible.
Mansa Musa:
Welcome to Rattling Bars here on The Real News Network. I’m your host, Mansa Musa. Last week, we published part one of our deep dive into the conditions for incarcerated women in the State of Maryland. I spoke with my guests, Christina Merryman and Ameena Deramous, both formerly incarcerated, about life on the inside for incarcerated women in the state.
Today, we’re going to look at part two of that conversation. I spoke with Christina and Ameena about what it is like for women who are returning home or trying to return home from prison. Here’s part two of that conversation.
Welcome back to Rattling the Bars, Christina and Ameena. We was talking about how do we maintain our sanity in the face of the most arduous conditions in prison? And y’all made the observation that in terms of how women’s [inaudible 00:01:11] being ran, it’s almost like it’s a whole nother colony. It’s outside of Maryland. It’s somewhere else in the Third World country, for lack of better description.
But what I want to talk about now is, okay, we recognize that in order to maintain our sanity under those types of conditions, we have to find a purpose. We have to find something to live for, and whatever that is, we have to find it, and we had to make a commitment to that. I was telling y’all I was litigious when I was in the Maryland prison system, and I got so bad with them that I shut down one time, me and another guy shut down the whole… We was up in Hagerstown, which is where they had a correctional facility. And we had found so many inmate grievances complaints that we shut down the whole 8:00 to 4:00 shift and the 4:00 to 12:00 shift because so many witnesses was coming in from them two shifts from doing abusive things towards prisoners. Needless to say that that didn’t sit well with the administration, and ultimately I found myself back in max eventually because of that.
But in terms of that whole experience, it was hard for me to stay focused because I knew… I said, “Well, any day they’re going to come and get me, take me in the hole and beat me,” because that’s how litigious I was, and I knew they were abusive.
But when y’all were describing some of the things that going on in the women’s cut and how the officers are, how did it impact? And y’all talk about how it impacted y’all and how y’all was able to, like you say Kristen, you was a social butterfly, so that was your way of maintaining your sanity to maintain your social skills. And I mean, you was saying in your situation, your thing was to be litigious, that if okay, you ain’t like it, you try to find a way to resolve it through the legal means. Well, not everybody like that. Talk about the impact that this has on the women in general, some of the problems that you see going on in that environment as a result of the way the women’s cut is being ran. We go with you first, Christina.
Christina Merryman:
So the problem starts with the administration. There is none.
Mansa Musa:
At Chippendale [inaudible 00:03:45]?
Christina Merryman:
Chippendale, I don’t believe is there anymore. I don’t even know who the warden is. When I left, I couldn’t tell you who the warden was. They went through four of them within a two-month time period, I believe.
Veronica (Ameena) Deramous:
Yes.
Christina Merryman:
There was no administration at one point. You couldn’t get anything done. I was a peer specialist. So, when I say I was a social butterfly, I helped and spoke with a lot of other sisters within the facility and mentored a bunch of people with education and issues that they were having. And no matter what we tried to accomplish, we hit a wall because we couldn’t go anywhere with it because there was nowhere to go because there’s no administration. There’s no one to help, and it’s impossible.
Mansa Musa:
Talk about that a minute. Talk about why is it that in this environment that we had this type of abuse that’s going on in the State of Maryland, and it seems like nobody’s talking about because… I know about because I’ve been in that space, but you don’t hear the drumbeat of women being abused, women being psychologically traumatized, women being forced into such a insane state that they substance abuse is high, mental illness is high. Talk about these things.
Veronica (Ameena) Deramous:
So what I would like for you to think about is the system. We think that the system is not working, but it’s working exactly that way they would like for it to work.
Mansa Musa:
Come on. Come on.
Veronica (Ameena) Deramous:
It’s supposed to be for rehabilitation, but there is none, right? You have to want that in yourself. Right? I’m grateful that I went in there from the service as an adult because those children or those ladies who have issues bigger than mine, more than mine, just like mine, who aren’t as strong, who don’t have as big of a support, they’re hurting.
Mansa Musa:
Mm-hmm. No chance.
Veronica (Ameena) Deramous:
As if we’re not coming back out here on the streets.
Mansa Musa:
Come on.
Veronica (Ameena) Deramous:
They’re treating us as if we’re not returning. At some point, everybody’s going to realize who’s in charge. We’re coming back out here.
Mansa Musa:
That’s right.
Veronica (Ameena) Deramous:
And we’re either going to be better or we’re going to be worse. And if we’re sitting down and that’s your opportunity to help us get better, help us to get better. Give us the classes. Give us the counseling. Give us what we need. Right? It’s not a… I’m saying it’s not a… It is a moneymaker.
Mansa Musa:
That’s right.
Veronica (Ameena) Deramous:
Right? If those women are in there getting high and none of us leave, how’s it coming in? It’s a moneymaker, right?
Mansa Musa:
Mm-hmm.
Veronica (Ameena) Deramous:
So, then you have someone who has an addiction. We don’t have any programs other than AA and NA. And I’m not saying that those are not good programs.
Mansa Musa:
No, I got you.
Veronica (Ameena) Deramous:
I’m saying we don’t have a program for people who have those issues. We have people that are bringing those things in. And then, when the ladies leave and they die because they’ve tried something real because they have that anti, their body is filled with Suboxone.
Mansa Musa:
Right. Right.
Veronica (Ameena) Deramous:
And then, when you get out there and you get a really good something, what’s going to happen? There are several women who don’t have their GEDs, but if the list is long but the classes are empty, that doesn’t make any sense. If you have to be pre-released to take a class, then you’re not helping everyone. They’re not giving us the help. And that’s intentional.
Mansa Musa:
Yeah.
Veronica (Ameena) Deramous:
That’s not by mistake. That’s intentional. Everything that’s done is intentional.
Mansa Musa:
And I want to beat that point right there because as you said, and I want our audience to understand this here. We’re talking about, and it is important to everybody that listen to this and look at this podcast, it’s important to understand this here. In the Maryland system, correction system, the Department of Public Safety and Correctional Service, you have what we talked about earlier, Code of Maryland regulations. And in the Code of Maryland regulations, it outlines the policies and procedures for how the institutions in the State of Maryland is going to be ran. Now, how the men’s institutions going to be ran versus how the women’s institutions. It’s uniformity associated with the policies and procedures on paper, in theory. It fluctuates, as well, in men’s prison. Only difference is you have different institutions, but it fluctuates, as well. They ignore rules and regulations.
But in this case, I want the audience to understand that as these women sit here, we have two women sitting here. Both of them was in the Maryland House of Corrections. One, both of them at some point in time because of their time supposed to been eligible for a security reduction. Both of them, according to their sentence, supposed to been able to get from medium, if they was medium security when they went in, they’ll go from medium security to minimum security to pre-release prior to being released. And the purpose of that is that to help them acclimate themselves back into society. If I’m in pre-release, and I’m working on the street, and I can save some money, I can get my social skills back up. I can deprogram myself. But in y’all cases, and I think you’ve spoken to this, Christina, and talk about this. You said that you was on work release and that not only was you not allowed with your family, but you had to pay rent.
Christina Merryman:
Yes.
Mansa Musa:
Talk about that.
Christina Merryman:
When I’m on work release, the only contact with any people that I had was the people that I worked with, which was still associated with… I worked for Maryland Correctional Enterprises, and during Maryland Correctional Enterprises during work, which was also, it was a great opportunity, but the officers would come and do their checks to make sure I was at work. They would come and search my desk, pat me down during work hours, which is very degrading, but I would have to pay room and board and transportation fees. I believe it was approximately… It was like 690 to $720 a month depending on how many trips they took me back and forth to work. I had no special privileges.
Mansa Musa:
And let’s start right there. How much money you say? 600? Now, you can go from here to New Orleans on a round-trip ticket for that much money and probably do to Mardi Gras at the same time.
Christina Merryman:
Mm-hmm.
Mansa Musa:
How far was you going?
Christina Merryman:
Three miles to and from.
Mansa Musa:
Six miles. 600 something. And that-
Christina Merryman:
That was also for my housing. I had to pay to live at the institution. No special room. Not guaranteed to have a room by myself. Yes.
Mansa Musa:
And we recognize this. I did an interview with some people from down in Alabama, and they doing outsourcing. They doing convict leasing. But the reality is, in that system, it’s so barbaric that I would prefer to go work in some inhumane conditions than be put in a section of the jail where it’s fight or flight. So, you understand what I’m saying? This is the alternative in your situation. The preference is you prefer to be able to get treated like everybody else, but under the circumstances you would take… And this is an example of the lesser of the [inaudible 00:12:42]. I mean talk about, you just got out.
Christina Merryman:
Mm-hmm.
Mansa Musa:
And talk about the fact that they didn’t give you the opportunity to prepare yourself and God willing, that you have been able to make the adjustment. But how would that have looked if they would’ve gave you the opportunity to get work release, make you some money, have access to your family, hug your mother, kiss your children? How would that, because remember, this ain’t something I’m making up. These are the things that men get.
Everything I just outlined, men get under the same policies and procedures. That’s why I’m so outraged at this. I’m so outraged at it because I’m sitting here looking at you and both of y’all and you have family. And why your children don’t deserve to be hugged and kissed? Why your children don’t deserve to give you the right to be able to have a weekend with your family when the rules and regulations say this, and the State of Maryland is ignoring it when it comes to y’all? Talk about that.
Veronica (Ameena) Deramous:
Intentional. Did I say that already?
Mansa Musa:
Yeah. You can say that a hundred times.
Veronica (Ameena) Deramous:
Intentional. If they don’t want you to do something, you’re not going to be able to do it. If they don’t want you to do it, they’re not following the rules and regulations. Everybody does what they want to do. There is no oversight and… I’m sorry. If the administration acknowledges all of the things that are going on within the institution, then that falls on the admin, right?
Mansa Musa:
Mm-hmm. That’s right.
Veronica (Ameena) Deramous:
So, then why would they admit to the staff members bringing in drugs? Why would they admit to the physical abuse of stuff of law, the young ladies who are transgendering, right? We have male officers that will beat those incarcerated individuals because, “You think you’re a man? You want to be a man? All right, I got something for you.”
Mansa Musa:
Yeah, that’s [inaudible 00:15:13].
Veronica (Ameena) Deramous:
Women get raped, too.
Mansa Musa:
Yeah. Yeah.
Veronica (Ameena) Deramous:
But if you check or if you ask, how many of those have been reported that have gotten outside of the institution, right? It’s intentional. They don’t want us to be that ready. And I am being honest when I tell you that I wasn’t prepared. I wasn’t prepared because I didn’t qualify for any of the classes. I wasn’t prepared because the classes that I could have gotten into, depending on which staff member was the person to put you in those classes, I didn’t get into those classes.
Some of the staff members didn’t like me to the point where I didn’t get my ID when I left. There are certain things that you’re supposed to leave the institution with. You’re supposed to leave the institution with your R card.
Mansa Musa:
Yeah. Yeah.
Veronica (Ameena) Deramous:
I went to go get my state ID. I’ve been covered my entire incarceration, even on my housing unit, I’m covered. I was told, take your [inaudible 00:16:16] off. You got to take that thing off is what I was told. And because I refused to do that and said I was going to talk to the warden, they told me, “Oh, it’s really like a two or three week process. You’re probably not going to be here, so just get yours on the outside.” “Okay, no problem.” When I left, I went to the MVA to get my state ID and they didn’t give me my R card.
So, you get this brown envelope with everything that you’re supposed to have.
Mansa Musa:
Yup. Your Social Security. Yup.
Veronica (Ameena) Deramous:
You get a brown envelope with everything that you are supposed to be given when you leave that institution. And I didn’t leave with everything that I was supposed to leave with.
Mansa Musa:
Intentionally?
Veronica (Ameena) Deramous:
Intentionally.
Mansa Musa:
Yeah.
Veronica (Ameena) Deramous:
Right? So, thank God, one of my friends that works at Prepare came to get me and was able to pull up my file off of her phone and show that I had been accepted into a place, and they were able to use that paperwork to show that I had an address. So, I was able to use paperwork from one of my friends that supported me, that came to get me. What about the people that don’t have support? When you wonder why people are going back, it’s because they’re not prepared when you put them out there.
Mansa Musa:
Right.
Veronica (Ameena) Deramous:
Right? We have a really good reentry person that’s on A East. We have a couple of really good phenomenal case managers, but they can’t do what they’re supposed to do. How is that?
Mansa Musa:
Yeah.
Veronica (Ameena) Deramous:
Why is that?
Mansa Musa:
Why is that? Why is that?
Veronica (Ameena) Deramous:
Why is that? Why are they limited?
Mansa Musa:
Right.
Veronica (Ameena) Deramous:
We have someone that is a reentry person in the facility, but I didn’t get to see her until a week or two before I went home. Why did they not give me access to her or her access to me because she’s there to give me what I needed before I left. But someone didn’t put my name on the list, and I didn’t have access. Did you set me up to succeed or to fail?
Mansa Musa:
Oh, it’s no doubt. It is no doubt in my mind that the fact that y’all here today is only by the grace of God. There’s no doubt in my mind because everything y’all say is designed for you to fail. It’s designed like you said, I think you said earlier, Christina, “Don’t let them rent space in your head.” Well, some people got a mansion being written in their head because they don’t have no other choice.
Christina Merryman:
Right.
Mansa Musa:
Some people, this system and the women’s cut, and it’s premeditated on the part of the State of Maryland, and you talking about the governor, Wes Moore, and then you put somebody in the secretary Department of Public Safety that’s responsible for overseeing a prison system. But yet this has been going on since, I think, since the women’s cut been in existence. It hasn’t gotten any better. And the problem, I think, that we really need to recognize is that it’s intentional, and it’s designed to make sure that the women that leave, they leave in a broken state, and they don’t have no choice but to revert back to behavior because like you say, they getting out. So, they don’t have no choice but to revert back to the same behavior and keep this system afloat.
Christina, talk about [inaudible 00:19:50] out and really your process of once you got out and how you started re acclimating yourself back into society. I know you say you’re doing work. Talk about some of the things that you’re doing.
Christina Merryman:
Yeah, so luckily, just to reiterate that a little bit back on what Ameena was saying, I was on work release, and you’d leave with a brown envelope. But when I was on work release, I did not qualify for the reentry classes because I was at work. And so, for me to be able to get my insurance and my ID card, I would have to miss work with a pass. And so, when they gave me a pass for me to get all my insurances and my cards to get all that stuff processed, I would miss work and stay back, and then they wouldn’t show. So, luckily I had documents at home. I was able to, when I got released, I had to go handle everything on my own because the institution didn’t help me get any documents, no insurance, no ID. So, when I was released, luckily enough, my family was able to run me around and take me to get all the documents and all the things I needed.
Mansa Musa:
We have women that don’t have-
Christina Merryman:
They don’t have that, and they don’t have the knowledge. Luckily, I was able to know where I had to go, what I had to do and the websites and the places that I had to visit to get the information I needed to get to accomplish what I need to accomplish. But if they’re not given that information, how do they know when they come home? We’re talking about some of the younger generation that are coming home. What do they do? But luckily, we have certain people that help, and they got support, and they can do it. But now, I work for a non-profit. It’s called Prepare. We help re-entry, and we help incarcerated individuals prepare for their parole and come home with re-entry services. We get them set up with their documents and re-entry facilities or housing places to go. So, I love my job. It’s fantastic.
Mansa Musa:
So, what you been eating? A lot of chicken?
Christina Merryman:
Everything. Everything but ham and turkey. I don’t need no turkey. Not no turkey based products.
Mansa Musa:
How about your transition? First, where are you staying? You got your own place?
Veronica (Ameena) Deramous:
No. So, fortunately I’m a veteran. So, I’m at McVets.
Mansa Musa:
Okay.
Veronica (Ameena) Deramous:
So, I’m not far from here, but I’m at a veteran’s transitional education and learning training place. That’s good. I’m not working. I’m a little over 30 days out. I have to take care of me.
Mansa Musa:
Oh, yeah.
Veronica (Ameena) Deramous:
Seriously. I thought that I was going to hit the ground running. Mm-mm. [inaudible 00:23:03] a little bit too fast, so I am in the process of getting counseling. I’m in the process of figuring me out outside of from behind those walls. I’m learning that I don’t have to fight as hard on the outside as I had to fight on the inside.
Mansa Musa:
Yeah.
Veronica (Ameena) Deramous:
Right? To be a Muslim, I had to fight to be a Muslim.
Mansa Musa:
I know. Believe me, I know.
Veronica (Ameena) Deramous:
I had to fight-
Mansa Musa:
Yeah.
Veronica (Ameena) Deramous:
To be a Muslim.
Mansa Musa:
Talk about… Like I told you earlier, I was in Islam when I was incarcerated, and it was Salam vs. Collins. Well, before Salam vs. Collins came out. But Salah versus Collins established the equity as far as Islamic coordinator because you had a Christian chaplain that was regulating all the affairs. So, we wound up getting Islamic coordinator, but before all that came about, like Ramadan, they didn’t have no break fast. No, get up in the morning and break fast. No start to fast. None of that. If the sun set later than the chow line, whatever you had, you had to hold back. And that’s how it was before. But since then, it changed. But how, in your situation because I know that they making it hard. Mainly if you litigious and then you say you have the audacity to say that, “Not only I’m litigious, but I’m also a Muslim woman, Black woman at that.” How was you able to deal with those things?
Veronica (Ameena) Deramous:
What I’m going to say to you is I never tried to compare one religion to another religion, but I was able to show on way too many times the seven day a week studies for one group and one for this one. Right? Not do for me what you’re doing for them, but recognize the difference. And if you can accommodate, accommodate. Ramadan starts and ends whenever it wants to when you’re in prison.
Mansa Musa:
Oh yeah. I already know.
Veronica (Ameena) Deramous:
Right? So, I’m obligated as a Muslim to do Ramadan. So, I had better be prepared to start it when it starts and end it when it ends. Because several times start when they felt like it. We’re not ready today. Y’all aren’t real Muslims anyway. That’s one of the things, fake Muslims. That’s a super-duper word when you’re incarcerated, right? Sleeves. They took our jeans and T-shirts and all these other things and gave us uniforms. And up until the day that I left, they still never gave me long sleeves. So, I always had to wear thermals or long sleeve T-shirts under the short sleeve uniform that I was issued. So, in the summertime I was dressed in layers because they wouldn’t accommodate me. But if I went to work or if a program came in and they gave out a T-shirt, I’d be like, “Hey, can I get a long sleeved T-shirt?” “Absolutely.” But in the prison where I had to be, I couldn’t be accommodated. You’re allowed, according to Kohmar, one religious meal. We barely got that one. But there are other groups that got, before I left, five in one year.
Mansa Musa:
And you know what? And on that note right there, this is the problem that I’m having and that I think our audience need to understand is that taxpayers paying for that, it’s taxpayers’ money that’s keeping this thing that we call a prison industrial complex afloat. This ain’t about a person doing time. This ain’t about a person committing a crime. This is about whether or not you are obeying the law because this is about the law. This ain’t about Ameena. This ain’t about Christina. This ain’t about Man. This is about the law. Now, if you ain’t obeying the law, then you should be held accountable.
And if you taking and intentionally discriminating against people because of their religion, it say you shouldn’t be discriminating against religious or your gender or none of these things. But as you outline, if you transgender, if you accept that identity, if you accept that pronoun and you in the woman’s cut, then they’re going to say, “Well, okay. You a man in a woman’s prison. I can abuse you as such. I’m not recognizing.” But then you don’t have the outcry from the transgender community in society. You understand what I’m saying? Let somebody come up and say something on TV about something that they deem demeaning, and it’s an outcry, but when it come to prison-
Veronica (Ameena) Deramous:
They don’t want to hear it.
Mansa Musa:
“I’m transgender. I’m in prison. I’m being abused. Help me.” But if I’m on the street, I’m transgender, somebody say use a derogatory term towards me, oh, it’s all, “Yeah.” Or if I’m in society and somebody is Islamic-phobia, it become an outcry. But in the prison system, mainly within the women’s… But talk about this, and both of y’all can weigh on this individual. Talk about the young women because the population in changed. It’s lot more younger. Talk about where you see them at in terms of the impact this is having on them. When I left, we was doing things to try to get control over, but they clicked up blue, red, alphabets. You know what I’m saying? It was like a nightmare in terms of trying to get some things done. We was able to get some things done because we was able to press the issue. But talk about the young ladies.
Veronica (Ameena) Deramous:
So, let me say this. I got a couple of things I want to say because I said intentional. So, let me say two things before I say that. They pit the women against each other, and that’s why we don’t fight together. Right.
Mansa Musa:
Yes.
Veronica (Ameena) Deramous:
So, you have the transgender women, and then you have the women who are not transgender. If they do something to benefit the transgender women, then the women who are not transgender, I’m not saying jealous, but why should they be able to get supplements, and we can’t get supplements? So, we’re unable to come together. So, when I say intentional, they do things to put things in place to make us not be able to come together like that. If we were able to get rehabilitated, you’re never going to be able to do pre-release inside of a prison setting. You’re never going to get what you need.
Mansa Musa:
No.
Veronica (Ameena) Deramous:
Right. And if you don’t prepare them to do what they’re supposed to do, if you don’t find an alternative to just incarcerating people, those are our children that are in there. I’ve seen mothers and daughters and granddaughters [inaudible 00:30:51].
Mansa Musa:
Yeah. Three generations.
Veronica (Ameena) Deramous:
I’ve seen families in this place. I’ve seen communities in this place. You’re going to have to find an alternative to that, and you’re going to have to make your… People are paying, like you said, their money for nothing. No one wants to give away money. People complain about how much things cost, and yet you’re giving up money because nothing’s happening. We’re not being taken care of properly, and our children are coming in there because we’re in there. Who’s going to raise my children? Who raised my children? [inaudible 00:31:28]. My family raised my children. But what about someone else who didn’t have that support? There was a bunch of ladies in there with me who didn’t have that support, and their children came in ready for it, ready for whatever, and you can’t raise them then. It’s hard.
Mansa Musa:
Oh, I know.
Veronica (Ameena) Deramous:
These kids are coming in with their grandmothers and aunts and they’re, “I don’t know you because you’ve been in here just as long as… “
Mansa Musa:
Mm-hmm.
Christina Merryman:
Mm-hmm.
Veronica (Ameena) Deramous:
Right?
Mansa Musa:
Christine?
Christina Merryman:
It’s sad because I watched so many young kids come in, and they get younger and younger and younger, and it’s so hard to offer any advice because they don’t want to hear it. They know everything. And it’s hard to offer suggestions and directions when they can run wild because there’s no structure. You’re coming to a facility with no structure, no regulation, and you can pretty much run around and do what you want. You get in trouble, there’s really no punishment besides going to a lockup where you can go get what you want. You get more what you want. You just pay more for it. [inaudible 00:33:05]. And it’s sad. I’ve watched the facility run out of toilet paper. I’ve watched the officers throw cookout and barbecues for themselves, but yet we can’t get toilet paper, and they’re having cookouts.
Mansa Musa:
Yeah. Officer appreciation.
Christina Merryman:
Yeah.
Mansa Musa:
Once a month.
Christina Merryman:
It’s so backwards. It really needs help because there’s no way to rehabilitate us. There’s no substance abuse programs. There’s no…
Mansa Musa:
Cognitive.
Christina Merryman:
… cognitive programs. There’s no mental health. There’s no therapy. There’s no proper medication treatments. There’s nothing. I believe it’s in Komar to where when you go in and you get classified, you get put into a job bank or you get put into education.
Mansa Musa:
One of the two.
Christina Merryman:
These young kids are coming in with no GEDs, no high school diplomas. You get mandatory education. You have to go to school.
Veronica (Ameena) Deramous:
But there’s a waiting list.
Christina Merryman:
They’re not going to school. Schools are empty.
Mansa Musa:
As we close out, we’re going to start with you, Ameena.
Veronica (Ameena) Deramous:
Mm-hmm.
Mansa Musa:
As we close out, what’s your final thought? What do you want people to know about what we need to do or what you think they should be doing or what their outlook should be on? I mean, finish that out. You ain’t telling nobody, but if you had the ability to convey or tell somebody how to operate in this environment, and I’m talking about policy makers.
Veronica (Ameena) Deramous:
Oversight. Most recently an ombudsman bill was introduced. It needs to be taken seriously. They have to interact with the people that are incarcerated. Because if you only deal with the people, the admin or the staff, they’re not going to tell you what’s going on. But we’re out here, and we’re going to talk about these things. There are some of us out here now that are going to talk about these things, so they need to listen to us and take what we’re saying seriously. And even for people who have people incarcerated, when they tell you that something is wrong, something is wrong. Having a family member incarcerated is like having your child in school or your parent in a nursing home. You better check-
Mansa Musa:
That’s right.
Veronica (Ameena) Deramous:
… to make sure that… We’re broken. Right? We’re broken. Help us to be better.
Mansa Musa:
Help us to be better. Christina, you have the last thought.
Christina Merryman:
I wish that the officers within the institutions would really wake up and do their job. Just do your job and do it the right way, and treat us as we’re people, and help us rehabilitate ourselves. And I will absolutely piggyback on Ameena to check on us. Like I understand we broke the law. We did something wrong.
Veronica (Ameena) Deramous:
Yes.
Christina Merryman:
We made a bad choice, but we are still a person, and we are still within a facility that we are trying to get better because I will tell you that probably over 90% of us are actually trying to get better.
Mansa Musa:
There you have it. The Real News, Rattling the Bars. Sincerely, I appreciate y’all coming in and rattling the bars with me today. I want to make sure that our audience understand this, that we are talking about human beings. We’re talking about somebody’s mother. We’re talking about somebody’s daughter. We’re talking about somebody’s granddaughter. We’re talking about real live human beings, and all they asking to be treated like human beings. And more importantly, be treated like everybody else. What the rules and regulations say, if I violate them, you going to punch me, then let me get the benefit of those things that I’m supposed to get. And I’m telling you this, and I’m going to direct this to Governor Wes Moore, oversight.
Taya Graham and Stephen Janis commemorate five years of the Police Accountability Reportwith this special livestream panel featuring legendary cop watchers James Freeman, LackLuster, The Battousai, Tom Zebra, Laura Shark, and Otto The Watchdog. In this extended livestream, Graham and Janis host a timely discussion about the possibility of police reform, the importance and impact of cop watching, and why it’s vital that we all find ways to keep fighting for change.
Pre-Production: Stephen Janis, Taya Graham, David Hebden Studio Production: David Hebden, Cameron Granadino
Transcript
The following is a rushed transcript and may contain errors. A proofread version will be made available as soon as possible.
Taya:
Hello, this is Taya Graham, and welcome to the Police Accountability Report five-year anniversary live stream. That’s right, you heard me correctly. It’s been five years of reporting on police malfeasance across the country, and boy, do we have a lot to talk about. Not just about policing, but the community that has grown around the idea that holding police accountable is a serious task that requires all of us to participate. And honestly, that is one of the most important things I’ve learned in my five years of hosting the show, that there are people who care, not just about law enforcement, but how the government in general executes policies more than the mainstream media would have us believe. Meaning, the idea that there is a mass movement of indifference and apathy simply ignores the truth that I have witnessed firsthand because, over these past five years, I spoke to people all across the country who care about our rights and our communities. People who are willing to stand up, point a camera, risk an arrest, and come forward and talk to us.
It’s an amazing community of people who have something in common, the belief that we not only can control our destiny, but we can actually improve the lives of our fellow citizens by doing so. And to help me unpack these ideas, I’m joined by an all-star cast of copwatchers and First Amendment activists that have become literal legends in the world of holding police accountable and government accountable, a group whose passion and commitment to reporting on and documenting police malfeasance is unquestioned.
And so, just to give you an idea of what’s to come, let me give you a quick rundown of the people who will be joining us tonight. So first, we have the often comedic, but also serious copwatcher, James Freeman, whose onscreen antics have made him one of the most creative and formidable copwatchers on YouTube.
Next is another legend, a YouTuber known as Lackluster. Lackluster has built a YouTube channel with over 1.5 million subscribers with top-notch investigative reporting on police malfeasance across the country. And then, of course, one of our favorites, Otto The Watchdog, will join the discussion. Otto is another YouTuber who has used comedic and often unorthodox tactics to illuminate just how absurd policing can be in this country.
We will also be joined by the renowned copwatcher known as The Battousai, who has actually made case law when he was arrested for filming police in Texas. And finally, we’ll be speaking to two activists whose work can be best described as hardcore and unrelenting. I’m talking about Tom Zebra and Laura Shark, the incredible duo that has single-handedly hold the LA County Sheriff’s Office and Police Department accountable. And for the record, there were many other copwatchers we wanted to include, but unless we are going to do a ten-hour livestream, we’re just going to have to wait for them to join us next time.
And it’s quite a lineup, so I’m anxious to get started, but please remember, this is a live show. There may be some technical difficulties and I will also be looking down in the chat and trying to put your questions and comments on screen. And if possible, have some of our copwatchers respond to them as well. But please give me a little bit of grace because I’m trying to do quite a few things here at the same time.
But you know what, I have to find Stephen, I have to get him in here so I can start the show. Now, I know you’re thinking why isn’t Stephen here now? Doesn’t he know about the livestream? Don’t you guys plan for this? Well, to be fair, I’m going to ask our studio manager, Dave, to put Stephen’s Google calendar on the screen so people can see it. Notice how mostly his time is spent outside. The only event on his otherwise meager schedule is this livestream, which is clearly marked by me. So this constant absenteeism is not my fault. But wait, hold on, Dave. I think Dave has located Stephen. Hold on one second.
Stephen, Stephen, Stephen, Stephen. There’s a livestream. Stephen, there’s a livestream. That’s what’s going on.
Yes, Stephen. Stephen, please. Please. Stephen, you’re not some journalistic Keith Richards. Get in here. Seriously. That was not meant to be a compliment. Please get in here. Please just get in here. Please, please, Stephen, please just get in here. This is a livestream. You need to be here in live, in person to do it. Right now. Oh, jeez, please get inside.
Hi, pardon us. Much like that cat you saw behind him. He’s like a stray cat and he has to be encouraged to come indoors. So while I wait for Stephen to find his way in here, I want to delve a little deeper into the theme I discussed at the beginning of the show, namely community. It was something I’ve been thinking about quite a bit as I was preparing for this show. When I first started the Police Accountability Report with Stephen, I had no idea I would still be hosting it five years later. And in many ways the time has flown by and there are stories that I’m so proud of, and instances when we help people assert their lives.
But when I’ve cherished the most from the past five years are the relationships we’ve built with this unique community. And I’m not just talking about our guests, our incredible mods, Noli D and Lacy R. Hi, Noli D. I’m talking about all of you, the people who comment and offer a fresh perspective on our work and sometimes even pushback. And most importantly, the victims of police malfeasance and brutality, who contact us and have the courage to tell their stories to us.
And, of course, I include in this community, the people who gather for our live streams and join our premieres to discuss and learn from, and share it with all of us. I thank you for being here because it’s one of the aspects of independent YouTube journalism that I think our mainstream media counterparts and their pundits don’t understand. On YouTube, you don’t have an audience, you have a community. You have people who participate and people who expect you to do more than pose for the camera. They expect you to be active, respond, and be responsive beyond the confines of the story. And that is what’s so special about what I do. And seriously, it’s not just about me, it’s all of us. And I will say more about that later. But finally, one critical part of that community has finally decided to join us, Stephen, so kind of you to go out of your way to be here. We certainly appreciate it.
Stephen:
Taya, thank you so much. I was just wondering, did you like my song? Do you think… I thought it was pretty good, and I think maybe you have a new… I love the-
Taya:
Maybe you could save that for later and we could discuss it.
Stephen:
Okay.
Taya:
Maybe a little later.
Stephen:
You did call me Keith Richards and I was pretty pumped up about that.
Taya:
That’s not what I meant.
Stephen:
Okay. It wasn’t a compliment.
Taya:
That’s not what I meant.
Stephen:
Okay, well that’s fine. All right. I’m willing to accept that. But thank you for having me here. I’m glad to be here. I’m glad to be with this community and all these special people. And what a lineup, that’s an incredible lineup.
Taya:
I know. I’m so proud of the cast that we have.
Stephen:
That is Copwatcher All-Star Hall of Fame, whatever you want to call it.
Taya:
I completely agree.
Stephen:
I am totally pumped to hear what these people have to say about policing in America.
Taya:
Well, Stephen, before you arrived, we were talking about community. And one person who was part of this very interesting community is Colorado copwatcher, Eric Grant. And Eric is what one could fairly characterize as colorful. He has filed and won multiple lawsuits against various police departments, which has led to, among other things, First Amendment training and body cameras for those same departments. And he was also part of a landmark civil rights lawsuit that established the right to record police in the Tenth Federal Circuit. But Eric has also faced legal challenges. He pled guilty to threatening three federal judges and was sentenced to 12 years in prison in 2021. Now, lately, due to his good behavior, Eric was set up to be transferred to a halfway house, literally his last stop on his way to freedom, but then law enforcement stopped back. And for more on the rest of the story, I will turn to Stephen, who’s been looking into breaking developments regarding Eric. Stephen, can you share some of what you’ve learned with us?
Stephen:
Yeah, just recently over the summer, it’s interesting, a federal grand jury in Louisiana in the Southern District of Louisiana indicted Eric on account of harassment, interstate harassment. In other words, calling and harassing a law enforcement officer from Colorado to Louisiana. What was really questionable about this entire ordeal is the fact that he was indicted when he was pretty much ready to be released from his current situation in Colorado where he was going to be transferred to a halfway house. He’d already been put in a minimum security prison. And this indictment occurred over the summer, and then they just issued a writ of habeas corpus for it. They did not lay out what the charges were, like what particular incident.
There is a video we found where James Freeman was being harassed in a park when he had camped there with his children by a park ranger. And Eric had called and supposedly, allegedly, and we’ll say allegedly at this point, made some threats. But it really is a questionable and curious timing because of how Eric… He’d been serving out a twelve-year sentence for threatening three judges in Denver and had had such good behavior that he was on the precipice of having some freedom at that point.
And so it seems that some of the people he spoke to, like Abidy, Liberty Freak, feels like this was time to keep Eric in prison because the case, the incident date, goes back to 2019, in the summer of 2019, so this case is almost five years old. So the question is, why is this happening? It happened. They charge him right within the statute of limitations, the charges themselves, there’s one charge, there’s one count, can add another five years to Eric’s sentence. So, it really is a very difficult situation. And I think you’re going to talk a little bit about what happened when he finally ended up in prison down in Louisiana.
Taya:
Yes. Before I go on and share something from Eric, I wanted to say hello to Manuel Mata. He’s a copwatcher that we’re very fortunate to have with us. Manuel was going to turn himself in, but fortunately, they gave him time served, and maybe Manuel will be able to share a little bit more about what happened. We were very worried that he was going to be incarcerated for 180 days. So, we want to welcome Manuel Mata.
Stephen:
Yeah, welcome.
Taya:
Welcome back. And also of course to say hi to HBO Matt out there. Good to see you.
Stephen:
Oh, HBO Matt.
Taya:
Yeah, he’s out there.
Stephen:
Is he driving somewhere, or is he…
Taya:
Almost every time I’ve spoken to HBO Matt, he’s been in a car.
Stephen:
Every time you talk to that man, he’s driving.
Taya:
Seriously, he’s driving.
Stephen:
Pretty amazing.
Taya:
Yeah. So I’m going to share something now. I think it’s pretty obvious that in our prison happy society, we often forget how much of a toll incarceration can take on someone.
Stephen:
Absolutely.
Taya:
And this is particularly true for Eric, who as I said, through good behavior, had earned a degree of autonomy. And all of this was taken away when he was transferred to a state facility in Louisiana. So first, I want to read a letter from Eric describing the conditions in jail. And I want to thank, you Lacy R, for providing us this letter to share.
Stephen:
Yes, thank you Lacy.
Taya:
“In one word, this is horrid. I’m in my place now, it’s awful. There are 76 bunks stacked close in a big open room, just like Auschwitz concentration camp. The toilets are open along the wall, no privacy, showers the same. No curtain, no library, no books, no physical mail. It’s all scanned to the kiosk computer. In fact, the Monroe address is the right one. They scan it there. No law library. I’m literally the only white guy on my pod. For the first time in my life, I was deloused. It was mandatory. I guess that’s an issue here. They do not even provide underwear or socks. We have to buy them from the commissary. Can you believe that? Tablets suck, and cost is $1 per hour to use. Oh my God, Lacy, six months to two years, I am officially in hell. I might plead guilty just to get out of here. I’ll call you in a bit. Love from the Gulag. Vladimir Putin would be proud.”
Stephen:
Wow.
Taya:
That’s pretty powerful. Sounds terrible conditions. That’s St. Tammany Parish Jail I believe he was calling from. I mean writing from, excuse me.
Stephen:
Right. One of the things, we have this presumption of innocence, but when you’re put in basically a torture chamber, the presumption of innocence just literally evaporates. Because, as Eric said in his own letter, he’s like, “I’m going to plead guilty just to get out of here.” And I think that pretty much undermines the idea of justice, particularly in his case. And in many cases, he’s not the only person who suffers this way in prison. And I think prison is probably an important component of undermining the idea of presumption of innocence and the fact that you can fight back against the system of justice because if you are incarcerated like that already in what sounds like unbearable conditions…
Taya:
Absolutely.
Stephen:
… we see here why so many people plead guilty, and don’t really have the right to a trial. And the idea that you have a right to a trial is ephemeral when you’re sitting in jail like that. That is a very deserving-
Taya:
Something that I think is beyond anecdotal evidence is that prosecutors often stack charges in the hopes that you will plead guilty, prosecutors do want to win cases. And I’ve heard, and this is somewhat anecdotal evidence, but that people get punished if they try to take it to trial. If they fight for their innocence, then they’re doubly punished when it comes to sentencing if they dare do that.
Stephen:
This is my question, and this is an important question about this. Why five years later do they bring these charges? This is not a complicated case.
Taya:
Yes. This was a 2019 incident.
Stephen:
So if you’re investigating a murder or some sort of complex case with all sorts of trails of evidence, that’s not the case with this. This was a single phone call as far as we know. Now, we don’t know all the details of the case.
Taya:
We don’t know all of them.
Stephen:
But from what we know, it was one or two phone calls and some joking behavior by Eric because there’s that aspect of him. But why five years? Why did it take five years to investigate a phone call? And that’s what raises really troubling questions about this because Eric has spent a lot of time in prison. He has certainly done what everyone would want, someone who has to in some way make amends for his behavior if you judge it to be wrong. And he obviously, there’s a lot of discussion about that. But why, five years later, does Louisiana, does the federal system, suddenly indict this man, drag him out of Colorado down there, and put him in what would be abject conditions?
Taya:
Absolutely.
Stephen:
It does seem rather strange to me. It doesn’t seem like a case that would’ve taken five years to bring to trial.
Taya:
And in our conversations with Eric, because we’ve stayed in touch with him, he was working with some of the other inmates to create care packages and Thanksgiving for people. They were doing work for people outside of the prison. He started a men’s group. They were doing positive things.
Stephen:
I don’t want to necessarily have an opinion on this, but I think Eric has served his time at this point. If you agree that Eric’s behavior was wrong, he has served his time. To bring this up now, five years later, is to me, very questionable.
Taya:
Yes. And yes, Cajun Randy, he was in St. Tammany, and now he’s in Plaquemines. Yes.
Stephen:
Yeah, Plaquemines.
Taya:
We were also speaking to Eric from jail, as we mentioned earlier, and we asked him if there was anything he wanted to say to everyone. So, we’re going to play that clip now. Remember, we had been on the phone with him for 15 minutes, so we only had a few moments left, but I said, “Is there anything you want to say to people?” So maybe we can play that clip now.
So, Stephen, I think Eric is a perfect example of both the benefits and pitfalls of cop-watching. But he’s also a unique character too, someone who had his own style, someone one could say was unorthodox, but he was also ingenious in the way he approached the process of YouTube activism. And that’s another part of YouTube journalism that I have grown to understand and embrace. It is completely creative.
Stephen:
Absolutely.
Taya:
We make the rules, so to speak. And I understand this from my own experience. And Stephen, I know when we were developing the show, it was both an organic process, but also collaborative. We took so many suggestions and ideas from you folks out there, like you Noli D, and translated them into reality. Stephen, it was almost like inventing a new form of journalism, and not to give ourselves too much credit, but…
Stephen:
Here’s the thing. This is very important to remember. We talk a lot about David Graeber, the noted anthropologist, and he always said that a bureaucracy of violence causes a dead zone of imagination. So, how do you respond to that in journalism? With journalism, you have to be creative. And that means that you have to turn on the creative juices to make it work. You can’t hold police accountable through the normal standard practices of journalism. When we were creating the Police Accountability Report, we had to turn everything on its head and say, “Look, we can’t approach this. We’re talking about a huge, massive, indifferent bureaucracy that really in places where it takes root, places like our own city, we see how it affects the psychology of the community.” And in that case, we had to respond in kind.
We had to be where we create this so-called Dead Zone, as David Graeber said, we had to create a zone of creativity where we take a show and formulate it and say, “We’re not going to do the traditional journalism. I’m going to stand outside like a real…” Well, what am I going to say? I’m going to stand outside a lot, and I’m going to develop a persona around that. You are going to have your rants where you provide context, but also emotion because this is emotional for people. A lot of people love Eric. And it’s not just a simple thing we’re just reporting. We are engaged to the point where we feel the emotion, people. And I think one of my favorite things about the show is your rant at the end, which you’ll be doing today, which you have a great one coming up.
Taya:
Thank you.
Stephen:
Which no other person I ever know in journalists can do the way you do it, but you connect to the emotions of this problem. The people that we talk to, like Eric, their lives are turned upside down. And let’s remember that Eric started his protests against the mistreatment of homeless people in Denver.
Taya:
Yes.
Stephen:
So, we’ve responded in a way that I think we match. We want to be more creative than the people that are doing the bad deeds and the bad governance. Bad governance makes you less creative, but we’re going to be more creative. And that’s where this show came from, was like a fountain of creativity between me and you, and our audience, and Noli D and Lacy R, and Tom, and Laura, and people, all these people. Eric, Otto…
Taya:
And all the people that we met along the way, Otto, and Blind Justice, and so many others.
Stephen:
It’s a tradition in all movements of social justice to be more creative and to think of ways and new ways to fight power that is entrenched, and otherwise, it’s anti-creative. There’s nothing more anti-creative than policing in America the way it’s constituted. And in many ways, it seems to respond to complex social problems with simplified forms of bureaucratic violence. Well, we responded to that, and that’s where the Police Accountability Report came from.
Taya:
And I think that’s actually a perfect segue as I’m putting up some little comments up here.
Stephen:
Cool.
Taya:
A perfect segue to start rolling out our guests.
Stephen:
Please do.
Taya:
And I am so excited about this particular group because, as I said before, they are collection of independent YouTube activists, copwatchers, First Amendment activists, or whatever you want to call those who have simply made a difference, and not just a difference in my life or our show, but the people they have helped by telling their stories. Stephen, we often describe our show as the reverse cops.
Stephen:
Yes.
Taya:
And I’m sure you all know that that’s the infamous Fox show that tells of American law enforcement’s absolute fixation on the working class from the perspective of cops exclusively. And I would say we try to do the opposite. And I would say all our guests do the opposite. They center the victim, not turn people into victims like a show like COPS does.
But let’s get started with our first guest and just one more housekeeping note, our hope for this, our hope for our celebration of our fifth year, we’re going to thank all of our patrons at the end, patrons past, present, and future, we’re going to thank them all, and I hope you’ll bear with me, to hear me thank you personally at the end.
Now, we are going to stick to five questions per guest to make sure that they’re not trapped with us till one o’clock in the morning East Coast time. So we’re going to start, I hope you’re ready, and if you have questions, I will try to bring up one for the guest. I won’t be able to bring up a question for every single person in the chat, but I’ll at least try to get one for the guest. Okay. So first up is the most eclectic, an idiosyncratic YouTuber out there who has used humor as a tool and absurdity as a trope. His name is Otto The Watchdog and his battles with Royse Texas Police Department are truly epic. Take a look at this confrontation with Royse Texas Police.
Stephen:
You okay?
So, that’s a totally lapsed time, right? Okay…
PART 1 OF 5 ENDS [00:29:04]
Taya:
Okay. I’m not going to lie.
Stephen:
That is one of my favorite clips of a cop watcher.
Taya:
It’s a [inaudible 00:29:20] weird because I laugh every single time I watch that clip. I’m sorry.
Stephen:
It’s so understandable.
Taya:
Seriously, when he starts kowtowing to the police, it’s just that one police officer literally looks like he doesn’t know what to do, and he kind of like wanders away from Otto.
Stephen:
The thing about that clip to me that’s really interesting is Otto is really laying out the absurdity of police control over our space, how they try to police our geography. And he’s just showing them how literally absurd they are. And the funny thing is the way they reacted, they don’t know how to handle it. They don’t understand what’s being communicated. But I don’t want to go into that. I can talk about this for hours. Let’s get to Otto because-
Taya:
Right. So one of the reasons why we’re having him go first is that he also happens to be a good friend of Eric Brant. So we wanted to welcome Otto. Thank you so much for joining us.
Otto:
Hey, I’m happy to be here. Thank you.
Taya:
It’s great to see you. Now, I’m sorry to start on a somewhat sad note, but first we’d like to know your thoughts on Eric’s recent charges and whether or not the timing concerns you.
Otto:
Oh, the timing, yeah, that’s concerning. I think, like you said, the original phone call was like 2019, and here we are just now getting the charges, so they can file a charge and then just sit on it, so the statute of limitations doesn’t… Once they file it, the statute of limitations stops, and they can bring it up pretty much whenever they want to. And yeah, he was about to go in for a parole hearing and this guy is basically the mayor of the jail at this point.
Stephen:
Wow.
Otto:
So he had a really good chance of getting out. He was already in the process of relinquishing his authority within the inmate administration of the jail that he was in. So that’s pretty disheartening and it should be terrifying to everybody.
Stephen:
Yeah. Otto, I was wondering, I mean, Eric is resilient. I mean, we all know, he’s like one of the most resilient people I’ve ever met. But how do you think this is affecting him? Are you worried about him at all? I’m just wondering.
Otto:
Eric is pretty, he’s a tough guy and he’s been through a lot of stuff just like everybody else has, but everyone does have a breaking point. And if you don’t believe that you have one, just most people will get a speeding ticket and they will go and they’re like, “Oh, I’m going to fight it.” And then they find out that their court case was rescheduled and they end up just paying the ticket, because it’s too much of an inconvenience at that point. Okay? So if you’re willing to give up something that you know is wrong over a ticket, a small thing like that, eventually you will get beaten down. And that’s pretty much the goal. It’s not a bug of the system, it is in fact the goal of the system. That’s the whole point.
Taya:
Someone in the chat asked about you whether or not some of the cases that you had were resolved and if things had been resolved in relation to some of the difficulties the police had caused for you and your family. So maybe you could just give us an update on the status of your lawsuits against the police, who continued to pursue cases against you. Can you let us know if they’ve been dropped? Just give us an update.
Otto:
Yeah. If you were following my story, I was arrested a lot, a lot. I had a lot of charges. And for somebody who was arrested a lot and had a lot of charges, I have no convictions. Everything was dismissed. Of course, there’s always threats of imprisonment and plea deals and all of this and that. And like Eric said, he was thinking about pleading guilty just to make it stop. Well, that actually doesn’t work. You think it does, and then they slam you with something else, and that’s after, they can do enough things to you that you’ll want to plead guilty. And the hardest thing for an innocent person to do is to not take an easy way out and make a plea. Because they will make it sweet. But I have no convictions and all the lawsuits that I filed were successful, and we have settled out of court on all of my lawsuits against Rockwall, specifically. Some of my cases, the officers were entitled to qualified immunity, which we absolutely should overturn, because you and I would not be entitled to not knowing. You know what I mean?
Stephen:
Yeah. I mean that was in the fifth circuit and that they’re pretty pro-police. Well, let me ask you a question because what do you think the status of cop watching is now? Because you had to go through a lot of arrests and then you kind of turned to cop watching as a way to put it back on them. But where does that leave cop watching? I mean, we’ve reported on a lot of places where they are trying different types of arresting for ridiculous things like corners news, arresting for organized crime. Where does cop watching stand now in terms of what police are doing to fight against it?
Otto:
So they’re passing a lot of laws, trying to make active cop watching, following traffic stops as dangerous as possible without making it illegal. So now they’re putting distance requirements and things of that sort. So some of them are 10 feet as a guide and some of them are 10 feet as rule. And now Florida, I hear it once 25 feet, nobody’s carrying around a tape measure, so it’s all kind of subjective, right?
Stephen:
Right.
Otto:
And then it’s, “Hey, fight it in court.” And as we go back to my previous statement about getting a hundred dollars ticket, then it’s like, “Okay, well I’m just going to plead guilty to it because it’s easy enough to get out of this endless torment.” So they’re trying-
If you’ve watched even five minutes of any one of these people that you’re going to have on your show today’s channel, you’ll know that you can be the most dangerous thing that the police can find in your car is that you’re innocent. That’s guaranteeing that you’re going to get a ticket. You know what I mean? You’re going to jail, buddy.
Taya:
Very well said. Very well said. You know what, I have a question for you, but first I just have to shout out, we’ve got some great cop watchers down here showing some love and support for the other cop watchers. Guess who’s down there.
Stephen:
Who?
Taya:
Munkay 83.
Stephen:
Oh.
Taya:
Munkay 83. Somebody down there, I think they said, “[inaudible 00:36:20] is not the same without you.” I think we might even have Joe Cool down there.
Stephen:
Joe Cool is legendary.
Taya:
Legend. So just shouting out some of the great people down there. And I think I saw Lady Liberty Press as well.
Stephen:
Oh. Awesome.
Taya:
Just wanted to make sure to say hello to you kind folks. You see some cop watchers in there, you might want to find out more about what they do in the live chat. You might want to go follow them and click on their channel after we’re done. But before I go any further about some of the wonderful things in the chat, Otto, I have to ask you a question that may seem kind of serious, but I was kind of wondering, after all you’ve been through fighting back against police and it’s really they were nuisance charges, but they made your life miserable, making you drive all the way across country to go to court and just putting all the stress in your life and the cost of money. So I’m just asking, was it worth it? Was this fight to hold police accountable worth it?
Stephen:
That’s a great question.
Otto:
Oh, that’s a loaded question. Was it worth it? Was it worth it to me personally as an individual? No. Absolutely not. I would not recommend anybody to go through that intentionally on purpose for yourself. But I do think, and as ridiculous as this might sound, I do think it was worth it for you. And for my kids eventually one day, I think it’ll be worth it to them. We don’t lose our freedoms in one fell swoop. We lose them in tiny little increments.
Apparently we’re losing them about 10 feet at a time. And Florida just made it 15. So eventually it will be 50, and then it will be a hundred, and then it’ll be audio recordings are not allowed, and they’re going continue put restrictions on it. And I know that not because I’m Nostradamus or have a special book or a Magic 8-ball, because that’s what they do with every single thing else, we’re going to limit just a little bit. And then before you know it, you can literally, no shit, you can go to federal prison for the rest of your life over some things you bought on Amazon.
Taya:
That’s incredible.
Stephen:
[inaudible 00:38:37].
Otto:
Some things you buy on Amazon.
Stephen:
Otto, was Nostradamus, was he a cop watcher?
Taya:
16th century.
Otto:
Yes.
Stephen:
Oh, he was?
Otto:
Yeah. I mean, he-
Stephen:
I just wasn’t sure.
Otto:
He rubbed the government wrong. And that’s a common theme.
Stephen:
Nostradamus would’ve made a hell of a cop watcher. Just saying.
Taya:
Well, Otto-
Otto:
Well, generally, actually, we are kind lucky to be able to do what we’re doing-
Stephen:
True.
Otto:
… with as much as we’ve gone through individually and as a group, we are kind of lucky that at least we’re not actively being shot every day on the street, but a lot of men did get shot in the street so that we could do this. And if we don’t continue to stand up and push back against the encroachments, then we’re not going to have the ability at all.
Stephen:
I think that’s great.
Taya:
Otto, I think you’re absolutely right, and like you, I would never suggest to someone that they put their freedom on the line like that, especially if they have family that they’re concerned about. But I understand how important it is to stand up for your rights. And there’s a certain point where if we don’t make the individual decision to stand up, no one else is going to do it for us. So I’m really, it’s amazing that you led by example in that way.
Stephen:
Let me say this, Otto, we appreciate and we are grateful that we’ve been able to cover you and allow us to tell your story. So we want to thank you for that.
Taya:
Thank you. We do.
Stephen:
Because that is a wonderful thing that you’ve been willing to share all of this, so people can understand what’s at stake and why it’s important. And without your story and other people’s stories, we would not be able to tell that story. So I just want to say thank you as a reporter. I appreciate it.
Otto:
Hey, I want to say thank you guys for everything you do, for telling the stories, because if nobody tells the stories, then there was no story to have.
Taya:
They’re very true. And I think finally some of the folks in the mainstream media have realized that cop watchers exist. So that’s a nice change of pace. We were a little ahead of the curve, maybe by five years.
Stephen:
Five years.
Taya:
About five years, we were a little ahead of the curve.
Stephen:
That’s why we’re here. That’s what we’re here for.
Otto:
For sure.
Stephen:
[inaudible 00:40:53].
Otto:
In the [inaudible 00:40:55] of things, cop watchers won because now everybody, the first thing that happens is everybody pulls out their phone.
Stephen:
Very true.
Taya:
Absolutely. Absolutely.
Otto:
We won.
Stephen:
Without fear.
Taya:
Beautiful.
Otto:
Without fear, right. Everybody knows their IDs now. Y’all have to show you my ID. Everybody knows to record their traffic stops.
Taya:
Yes.
Otto:
Everybody knows what to do with it, and the cops do too, right? We’re going to record that shit and put it on TikTok or YouTube.
Taya:
Beautiful. And what a perfect and inspiring way to end your segment, Otto, I wish we could keep you on this whole time, but we have some other awesome people waiting in the wings, so I just want to thank you for joining us-
Stephen:
Thank you, Otto.
Taya:
… for our fifth year anniversary, and just we appreciate you so much, Otto.
Stephen:
Thank you. Thank you.
Otto:
You have a good one.
Stephen:
You too.
Taya:
Take care.
You know what, that was Otto. Fascinating and really insightful as always.
Stephen:
Yeah. As always. He’s great guest.
Taya:
Now our next guest truly needs no introduction. As I said before, he has built one of the largest cop watcher channels, reporting on police abuse across the country, and he has done it with his own distinct style and voice. And his videos get millions of views. You might recognize him. Take a look.
Stephen:
Oh. Sorry, sorry. Thank you.
Taya:
Don’t forget to check that screen to make sure you’re not on it before you.
Stephen:
Yes. Okay.
How’s the chat?
Taya:
Looking good.
Stephen:
Do we call him Dale? Do we call him Dale?
Taya:
I’ll ask. So without further ado, we would like to welcome LackLuster to the channel. LackLuster, thank you for joining us. Should we call you Dale or should we call you LackLuster? How should we-
Dale:
Either way is fine.
Taya:
Either way is fine.
Stephen:
Wait, I just have to ask you, did you sample that body camera sound, the [inaudible 00:43:53]?
Dale:
Yeah. Actually it’s probably one of the worst samples I could have picked up.
Stephen:
That is brilliant.
Dale:
I know Stephen loves that.
Stephen:
As someone who’s watched a lot of body camera footage, when I heard it, I was like, I know that sound, that sound. I wonder-
Dale:
Every commercial has a little jingle or something like [inaudible 00:44:10] at the end, [inaudible 00:44:11] the body cam was pretty distinct.
Stephen:
Is that meant to tell cops that they’re on camera? Is it to remind them or why did the body camera have that? I don’t even know.
Dale:
As far as I know, I am not a hundred percent sure, but as far as I know, yes, it’s just a reminder in case they forget to leave it on, [inaudible 00:44:31] turn it off.
Taya:
I was going to say something a little saucy, but I’ll keep that to myself. So first I’m just curious from your perspective, are police changing their behavior or are you getting just as many calls for help as before? What are you seeing?
Dale:
Yeah, it is kind of difficult. I’ve personally seen a large shift in the behavior of various law enforcement agencies across the country. I’ve had insurance companies that represent those companies reach out to me for tips on how to keep their guys out of the litigation. Things like that are happening, but it’s one of those occupations where there’s a high rate of attrition, so people are always coming in, getting kicked out or just bouncing around to different departments. So I think we’re always going to see new people that don’t understand what’s really happening out there. And unfortunately, most of these new guys are 20-year-olds and nothing, no offense to any of the audience out there that’s still very young, but when you’re 20, you don’t know shit. Excuse me-
Stephen:
Good point.
Dale:
… and then you have all this responsibility and power, and that corrupts the best of [inaudible 00:46:01] and I know I certainly wasn’t at my best in my 20s, so.
Taya:
Neither side of [inaudible 00:46:08]-
Stephen:
I kind of wonder if you’re driving you pulled over and you say, “Well, if you do something wrong, you’re going to be on LackLuster channel.” Do you think cops are aware of it now, where they’re like, “Oh God, I don’t want to end up on LackLuster channel”? I mean, because you’ve gotten so big.
Taya:
Seriously.
Stephen:
Do you think there’s behavioral adjustments going on out in the field because of what you’re doing?
Taya:
I know, I hope there are.
Stephen:
I think so.
Dale:
Yeah. There’s a couple of videos on the channel where people have made mention of the channel like, “Hey, this is going to end up on LackLuster,” so that’s [inaudible 00:46:38]-
Taya:
That’s awesome.
Dale:
… fun for me, of course. But I don’t know if it’s going to affect any. It might even make them worse, might make them perform for the camera, if you will.
Stephen:
Well, you say people would shout “World Star” before they do a video, now-
Taya:
Oh, that’s right.
Stephen:
… like if a cop comes, I’m just going to shout, LackLuster.
Taya:
LackLuster.
Dale:
[inaudible 00:46:58].
Stephen:
Just a thought.
Taya:
Oh my Gosh.
Dale:
We also see too. I’ve never asked my audience to do anything with their time. Well, maybe to speak their mind or something like that, but never anything specific, never any direction on where to go with, where to speak their mind. But I do post Facebook links in the description of my videos and Twitter sometimes if they have it. And I’ll see often in those comment sections, they’ll say, “You got LackLuster,” because they’re just [inaudible 00:47:35].
Taya:
That’s excellent.
Stephen:
That’s cool.
Taya:
That’s so excellent. Something I wanted to ask you about that I saw is this project that you seem to be working on, I think it’s with Long Island Audit. It seems like you’re trying to give people a way to literally have a lawyer in their pocket. Do you want to talk a little bit about that?
Dale:
Yeah, sure. Attorney Shield, it’s up, it’s running. It’s on iOS and Android.
Taya:
That’s great.
Dale:
We kind of did a little soft rollout because apps are extremely difficult to build and we’re not using any APIs at all. We built all the software, I mean, I had nothing to do with building a software. I don’t know how to do any of that. But we’re making everything our own, so that when we need to do something, nobody can shut us down first off, that’s number one. Amazon can’t shut us down or whoever else. Nobody can shut us down. And anytime we want to build, we know the code inside and out. So that’s great. But with that, that makes it a lot harder to build.
So we did kind of like a quiet, soft launch. So the people watching right now obviously will know that it’s actually up and running. But we’re waiting. And we’ve had a few interactions. Some have gone very well, some have not. And not like they’ve gone bad for the person because they’re using the app or anything, but we’re working with some of them. Most of them want to remain anonymous because that’s most people don’t want to be on the internet. But hopefully we’ll be able to share some of those interactions pretty soon and show you guys how the app works, because it’s pretty awesome if you ask me.
Taya:
Oh, you know what, I just have one more question before, I know you want to jump in, but I have one more question for you, Dale. So this is something that we discussed prior to the show, but you were telling me that people are already using AI to duplicate your work. Can you just talk a little bit about that and what you’re doing to fight back? Because there’s so many different ways that AI is going to be affecting the future of people who are trying to put out content, whether you’re a cop watcher or any other type of content creator. But I think it’s especially dangerous for cop watcher.
And one of the things I’ve noticed is that there’ve been some body camera channels that have popped up, and I’ll say allegedly, or one could say that they look like they are fed directly by police departments as a form of propaganda to kind of counter the narrative that we’re seeing when people actually hold their cell phones up and have real life encounters with police. So it does seem like they might be somewhat cherry-picking these encounters. So I just want to know how you’re handling AI, how it makes you feel, what you’re trying to do to fight back, anything along those lines.
Dale:
Sure. Well, the biggest push I’ve seen so far, it isn’t necessarily AI all the way. I’m seeing a big push from foreign countries blasting out YouTube channels with police interactions. And a lot of times they’re just taking my video, my script. They’re transcribing my script and running it through an AI voice, and then running basically somebody else’s voice over my editing and blurring out my logos. So that’s all over the internet, and there’s very little I can do about it. I can copyright strike it, but I’m still a one-man team, I have no employees. I need an editor, but it would be a full-time job to try to track down all the people doing this. But my biggest concern with it isn’t really for me or the channel because the channel’s going to be fine.
Stephen:
Okay. Sorry.
Dale:
My biggest concern is that the channels that are doing this aren’t even from the United States. So they really have no stake in the game. They don’t care what happens to the victims. They don’t care what happens with the police forces. I mean, maybe they might in some relative way or something, but because they’re not living in America, they don’t care. It doesn’t affect them. They’re for money. It’s a pure grift, a hundred percent. And that’s kind of bothersome because I think my work has, I don’t know, terminated, suspended dozens and dozens of cops, raised hundreds of thousands of dollars through GoFundMe for victims, things like that. That’s something you’ll never see from the foreign agencies making these videos. So I don’t know. It’s interesting.
Stephen:
Speaking of that, and that is absolutely terrifying and distressing that foreign countries are using this to some sort of entertainment fodder to get YouTube revenue basically, I’m assuming. But where do you see cop watching now as a practice and art form, whatever, where do you see it headed at this point and what’s happening to it? Where do you see it now?
Dale:
I don’t know. It could be very interesting. We got Trump talking about pushing more qualified immunity and getting rid of… I think he said something about people filming the cops recently, and I can’t recall it.
Stephen:
Really, he specifically. Wow.
Dale:
I know he said something about qualified immunity and making it, increasing it.
Stephen:
That’s true. That’s true.
Dale:
Yeah. I think it’ll be very interesting. We live in unprecedented times. This is truly an amazing period that we get to live through. And I don’t know, I mean, AI could ruin everything we’ve worked for or it could-
Taya:
So true.
Dale:
… make it 10 times better depending on who’s working on it and [inaudible 00:53:41] working on it. So it’ll be very interesting to see.
Stephen:
It’s a weird thing to think about because 10 years ago, you probably couldn’t have done what you’ve done and had the impact and the influence that you had. That’s been a benefit of algorithm [inaudible 00:53:53] technology. But then on the other hand, AI is a really sort of treacherous path there, and it might not be the same thing. It’s weird to think about in that sense.
Taya:
Actually, I’ve been spending every other night working on this piece that I’ve been writing and writing and writing about my experience at this journalism conference when I said, “Oh, why don’t you try all these wonderful AI tools?” And so I’m looking at these AI tools and I’m like, well, some of them are interesting, but some of the ones that I was being given for free, I was like, wait a second. They just want to learn how my brain works. They just want to learn what I know so that they can replace me so that a newsroom that would normally have a hundred people in it now are only going to have 15 miserable souls running around in circles, prompting the AI and trying to find out whether or not the latest social media video is a deep fake or not. And it’s just going to be like a hamster wheel nightmare.
So my concern isn’t that AI couldn’t be used for good and couldn’t be used to benefit creators. But if I know anything about the current system that we’re in, those with immense wealth, these technocrats are going to grab ahold of it and they’re going to use it to extract even more wealth from us, even more wealth from our society. These technocrats already ignore legal norms. They already exploit the working class, and it’s actually going to diminish the power that we have as laborers to come together. I’m actually a union steward, so if you eliminate all the laborers, then we don’t have any power against these folks, against these corporations. And so what I’ve noticed is what they’re most likely going to do is use it to replace human beings and to make labor as cheap as possible. And there’s just going to be a wide swath of people that are losing their jobs all over the place. Because what I’ve noticed with AI is that it’s replacing the things we love to do. Stephen loves making music. No comment on his music. He loves making-
Stephen:
That was [inaudible 00:55:48].
Taya:
It was a great song.
Stephen:
Thank you.
Taya:
He loves making music.
Stephen:
[inaudible 00:55:51].
Taya:
He loves writing. I like writing. We like making videos. I love doing voiceover work. I love doing narration. That’s all stuff that’s being replaced by AI. People who do art, hand drawing things, come up with cool styles, that stuff, the computers are doing all the stuff we actually like doing. Even actors, the people who are doing the behind the… They’re the ones in the background. People who spend like 20 years like playing zombies in the background of the movie because they love doing it-
Stephen:
You’re worried about zombies now, you bring zombies in this.
Taya:
I’m worried about the zombie actors, Steven.
Stephen:
Okay. Ask him the question.
Taya:
I think I started ranting.
Stephen:
Yeah. This is not the rant part. This is the part where you ask our guest questions so they can-
Dale:
No, it’s [inaudible 00:56:32].
Taya:
I’m sorry. The question is, Dale, do you see a horrifying dystopian future where we’re all going to have to ask the-
Stephen:
It’s very loaded question. That is not an objective question.
Dale:
No, absolutely. I don’t know if you guys watch what Nvidia puts out. They make all the microchips and GPUs and all that fun stuff, but technology advances. They used to say anyway a thousand times per year, and now he’s saying the CEO of Nvidia saying with whatever they just created, that it’s going to be more like a million times per year.
Stephen:
Moore’s law. Moore’s Law used to be the capacity-
Taya:
Oh, yeah. That’s right.
Stephen:
… of a chip with double every two years. And now, yeah, can you be more exponential? I think it is more exponential, yeah.
Taya:
Yeah. It’s absolutely horrifying. Can you say one last thing about AI?
Stephen:
No.
Taya:
Please.
Dale:
Yeah.
Stephen:
Yeah. That’s Dale. He’s the guest. He’s gonna-
Taya:
Dale, may I say one last thing about AI please?
Dale:
Absolutely.
Taya:
Okay. So what I’m concerned about is my one hope was that this AI was going to be self-limiting because at a certain point, there’s just not going to be enough energy and not enough storage for all this AI to work. And that’s why it worries me that former CEO or current CEO Sam Altman is walking around hat in hand to all these petrol companies to make sure that there’s going to be an endless supply of energy for AI. So the one hope that it might be self-limiting, he’s absolutely trying to destroy, despite the fact that he had gone on record saying, “Gee, I’m kind of worried what we might’ve unleashed out of Pandora’s box.” And then he goes around and he’s like, “Let’s make sure it can never be turned off.”
PART 2 OF 5 ENDS [00:58:04]
Taya:
… Pandora’s box, and then he goes around and he’s like, “Let’s make sure it can never be turned off.” He’s trying to build Skynet, as far as I’m concerned. Okay. Last thing I’ll say about it>
Stephen:
Well, and we talked about this with my editor. Dale, do you think RoboCop is the next step on policing? Are one day we going to get pulled over by a robot, and you’re going to have to turn your channel into a RoboCop channel, I guess?
Dale:
Yeah, absolutely. LAPD is already working on some robot that deploys from a police cruiser, and comes to your window, and then connects through Bluetooth or Wi-Fi, or whatever. You don’t even go face to face with a human anymore. You’ll be a little R2D2 thing, and a screen.
Stephen:
That’s just-
Dale:
Probably, it’s supposed to be a human on the other side, but-
Taya:
Oh, my God.
Dale:
… how long that lasts.
Stephen:
Wow.
Taya:
I think in New York they were getting the robot AI dogs, and then they had something that looked like a little trash can.
Stephen:
Right. Dale, thank you
Taya:
Dale, I have been given the signal that I definitely should let some of our other guests come on, and I need to stop talking about AI.
Dale:
Yeah, sorry to the production team. I was clicking buttons, and I didn’t know what some of them did, and I think I-
Taya:
You popped up a two-cipher. It’s all good. We were happy to see you.
Stephen:
Yep.
Dale:
All right.
Stephen:
Dale, thank you so much-
Taya:
Thank you so much for joining us.
Stephen:
… and congratulations on all your amazing work and-
Taya:
We love it.
Stephen:
… the success of your channel. It’s inspiring, to say the least.
Taya:
Absolutely. Thank you for what you do to help educate people. Because you do a terrific job-
Stephen:
You do.
Taya:
… adding the law to it. A lot of people, myself included, don’t realize the legality, some of the finer points of these police stops. You’re really helping educated people, me included, so thank you.
Stephen:
Thank you, and thank you for coming on.
Dale:
[inaudible 00:59:37] time, I appreciate it.
Taya:
All right, you take care.
Stephen:
Take care.
Taya:
Wow. I’m so glad we got to talk to him. We’re about to have someone very special coming up.
Stephen:
Mm-hmm.
Taya:
We’re about to be joined by a true original, a man, whose blend of satire, critique, and sometimes even absurd antics, makes him an impossible act to imitate. Take a look. Whoops. I did not need to put that up there. This man is a committed, independent journalist, who’s recently focused on the courts, to expand his efforts to hold police accountable. I’m, of course, talking about the man, the myth, the legend, James Freeman. James, thank you so much for joining us.
Stephen:
Thank you, James.
James Freeman:
Oh, I had it muted. Sorry. Hey guys, thanks for having me on the show.
Stephen:
I mean, those are such fascinating videos you do-
Taya:
Yes.
Stephen:
… because it exposes the absurdity of how police control space. Every time I watch them, I learn something new about them.
Taya:
I love it.
Stephen:
Just because when you juxtapose those roles, it reveals how those rules really operate on us, in ways psychologically we don’t think about. Every time I watch them, I’m like, “Wow, this is really like… this should be… I once read a book about 20th century theory of police power. James has actually explained it in a better way than reading a 200-page book. I just should have watched your videos, instead of reading certain things.” It really, it’s pretty phenomenal.
Taya:
I completely agree.
James Freeman:
Thank you.
Stephen:
Yeah.
Taya:
James, first to start off on something a little less fun first, I wanted to get your reaction to Eric’s latest indictment. I know you know him well, you’re friends. If you don’t mind sharing with us what your reaction is.
James Freeman:
It’s sad, it’s disappointing. Honestly, I still continue to get shocked by these people. I continually say, “I think I’ve seen everything.” This is what we can expect from them though, they’re terrorists, and that’s what they do is they terrorize people. Especially people like Eric Grant, he is still a very strong voice, whether he’s outside of the cage, or inside of the cage. Like you guys talked about, he’s been very successful at continuing to help other people, while he’s in. Eric has never been a threat to anybody. The reason that he’s in jail is because he allegedly made threats, allegedly made threats of violence. Eric isn’t dangerous, because he would violently attack someone. Eric is dangerous to the government, because he tells the truth, and he shows the truth.
Taya:
Well said.
James Freeman:
There’s nothing more dangerous than that, to them.
Stephen:
You make a really good point, because allegedly Eric was in Colorado when he is making these threats. But again, I want to ask this question again, because this is a very important question. Does the timing of this indictment-
Taya:
Yes.
Stephen:
… raise any questions for you?
James Freeman:
It looks like they had it planned all along.
Taya:
Wow.
James Freeman:
I mean, he was about to get out, and they knew it. That’s, again, this is sadistic. This is plotted out. I guess we would call it premeditated even. I don’t see it as shock. I mean, they continue to shock me actually.
Stephen:
Wow.
James Freeman:
I don’t think it’s a coincidence at all. I think they had it all planned out and said, “You know what? Let’s get him to where he’s got a glimpse of hope, and then let’s crush him.”
Stephen:
That’s really-
Taya:
Absolutely. First, let me just say thank you to some of the new subscribers we see here, and some of the great live chat donations. We really appreciate those super chats.
Stephen:
Absolutely.
Taya:
Hi to Matter of Rights, who’s one of my Patreons. We appreciate our Patreons, so hi, Matter of Rights. Okay. I had to make sure to do that.
Stephen:
Okay.
Taya:
I have another question. I’m multitasking.
Stephen:
Okay, fair enough.
Taya:
I had another question about Eric’s style. Some people feel that Eric’s style, just as doing his protests. Some people would say they were performance art. Some people would say they’re very creative. Other people would say it’s overly aggressive, loud, intrusive. How would you characterize it, and how would you defend it, if you would choose to defend it?
James Freeman:
Oh, that’s an excellent question, because early on when I had started my channel, there were lots of people who commented both on my channel and on Eric’s, and said, “James would never work with Eric, because of the way he acts.” I made a special point to go out of my way to travel, to work with Eric, and told people, “Look, just because I don’t do things the exact way somebody else does, we need all different types. What Eric is doing is very important, and to be quite frank, I don’t want to do it.” I’m glad he was. He mentioned to me, when I went out there, he said, “I’ve done activism for so many years, and I never got any attention on anything that I was doing, until I started using that four letter word that starts with F, and all of a sudden everybody’s paying attention to my stuff.” I mean, he was effective at doing what he wanted to do.
Taya:
Well said.
Stephen:
I mean, it’s so fascinating, because we interviewed him about that, and he was talking about how many years he tried to break through the noise.
Taya:
Yes.
Stephen:
Then once he did, it’s a fascinating tale, because really he was calling attention to a grave injustice that homeless people were being abused, that the criminal justice system, that judges had serious problems, and conflicts of interest, and no one paid attention. Then when he finally got people to pay attention, suddenly they start indicting him. I will say that what he said in some cases, was offensive to me. But there are people that make threats like that all the time, and it’s not uncommon. It seems like, I think there’s a lot to what you say. Could you expand on that? Because really, was it the threats, or the threat of Eric’s truth that was the problem?
James Freeman:
I really don’t even think that what he said was a threat. I even articulated to people, I was quite disgusted by it too, but I don’t believe it was a threat. His wording specifically, I don’t think-
Stephen:
Thoughts and prayers, thoughts and prayers.
James Freeman:
Right, and if you know him, he’s atheist-
Stephen:
Right.
James Freeman:
… so prayers to who?
Stephen:
It’s really fascinating, because he would say thoughts and prayers, so in a way… because Eric’s uncannily brilliant on things. Look, we’re doing a documentary, a very long form piece.
Taya:
Yes.
Stephen:
I have gotten to know him, and when he was doing, he’s commenting on that idea of thoughts and prayers, when people get shot, and someone says, “My thoughts and prayers,” and I feel he’s at the same time satirizing, as he is criticizing.
Taya:
Yes.
Stephen:
Am I getting this right, you think?
James Freeman:
I think you’re right, and his genius is beyond what I think a lot of people comprehend. Yeah, I think you nailed it.
Stephen:
Yeah. I mean, look, he is complex as they come, and there are many different ways to look at him, but sometimes when I sit down, and I was listening to some of those, because I had listened to them reading the recording, and thoughts and prayers, I’m like, “Well, Eric’s also making a commentary within this, that is quite brilliant in many ways, because it’s an empty phrase.” Right?
Taya:
Absolutely.
James Freeman:
Yes.
Stephen:
It’s an empty phrase. We’re saying, “We’re not going to solve a problem. But we’re going to share our empty thoughts and prayers.”
Taya:
Absolutely.
Stephen:
Eric was couching in that, and I’m like,” “Wow. You’ve really got to be careful of making quick judgments about Eric’s behavior, or what he says, because there’s always layers to it.” I’m sure that you found that out too, James. But let me just move on to one thing, because the courts-
Taya:
Yes.
Stephen:
… you know, you have spent a lot of time holding courts accountable. Why is that important, and why do people ignore it, at their peril?
James Freeman:
I think the courts are far more out of control than the police. When I first started my channel, that was where I actually put a good amount of attention. Then I realized that it was such an uphill battle, that I was going to win absolutely nothing on, that I stepped away from it. I don’t think the people were ready for it. But I want cameras in every courtroom, the way that cameras should be on every police interaction. To be quite honest, I don’t really care how it gets done. There are courts now, like the Ninth Circuit of Appeals, for example, has their own YouTube channel. They live stream almost all, if not all of their hearings. These things are supposed to be public.
Stephen:
Agreed.
James Freeman:
They’ve always been supposed to be public. Back in the day, the whole point of a court recorder, the guy who sits there and writes, or types what’s going on is because nothing that’s going on in there is supposed to be a secret. It’s all supposed… and so basically to me, they’re just behind on the times. We have far more advanced technology than a freaking typewriter, to document what’s going on in the courts.
Stephen:
Are you sure?
Taya:
Well said.
Stephen:
Than a freaking typewriter.
Taya:
Right, right, or having a courtroom sketch artist.
Stephen:
Oh, God.
Taya:
I mean, something that absolutely drives me crazy in our Maryland courts is that we can’t record. I mean, it’s terrible.
Stephen:
You know what’s a perfect example of that? James, is that you were broadcasting Eric’s sentencing-
Taya:
Oh, that’s right.
Stephen:
… and that judge went down some passive illogic, that had just still astounds me to this day, when I listened to that. Had you not done that, it would not be out there-
Taya:
That’s right.
Stephen:
… accessible to people to hear the audacity and the absurdity of his logic, when it came to sentencing Eric. You know? I appreciate that.
James Freeman:
Yeah.
Taya:
Absolutely. It was really important, in particular, because that judge, Judge Hoffman, who also wrote a book called The Punisher’s Brain-
Stephen:
That was just bizarre.
Taya:
… who went into this entire speech about how there’s four different types of justice. There’s retributive justice, and all this, rehabilitative justice. Then he says, he’s talking about it, and he’s talking about how he doesn’t want to give retributive justice, and then he immediately gives vengeful retributive justice. It was astonishing to me.
Stephen:
Right, on top of that, the whole thing is on Zoom, and then he’s like, “But don’t publish it. Don’t let anyone hear it,” even though it’s already on freaking Zoom. Which to your point, James, is the lack of… the actual cognitive dissonance of the legal system and judges. Yeah, I’m on Zoom where anyone can join, but God forbid you put it on YouTube, so the general public can hear it? That makes no sense.
James Freeman:
I think what it is too, is it comes down to controlling the narrative.
Stephen:
Yes.
James Freeman:
I can publish it on my channel, but you can’t publish it on yours.
Stephen:
Right.
James Freeman:
It’s about controlling the narrative, I think.
Stephen:
It is so much about controlling the narrative. It is so much about self-justification, and I think Eric and James had brought up, we focus on police accountability. But my God, the judiciary operates, as you said, and you’ve already said this, so I’m repeating it, but I want to say, with emphasis, that I’ve witnessed so many things in courtrooms, that are far worse than a traffic stop. You know what I mean? I’ve seen judges put people in jail for absolutely nothing.
Taya:
You’ve seen drunk judges on the bench.
Stephen:
I’ve seen drunk…. all sorts of stuff. It’s shameful, because judges are just so empowered, and are so imperious when you’re in court. I think, James, you’re right, but it’s a much harder branch of government to fight, because they really have archaic methods. You can’t have a camera in a courtroom. I’ve literally been almost arrested for opening my cell phone, when I’m trying to report on a case.
Taya:
Right.
Stephen:
The judge is like, “What are you doing with that cell phone?” The bailiff comes over, and they’re all so pleased with themselves that they’re controlling you, to the point where you can’t really cover what they’re doing.
Taya:
Yeah.
James Freeman:
Yeah, and I think, I usually don’t… actually, I really never like looking at government for a solution to a problem. But I think the problem though is that the legislature has essentially granted the court’s power to make their own rules in their courtroom, but it’s gone too far. I think it’s going to need to come down to the legislature writing something, saying, “No, these are some things that you can’t restrict, in setting some boundaries.”
Stephen:
I agree.
James Freeman:
I mean, I thought that was the whole point of a system of checks and balances, that the different didn’t work together, but quite literally worked against each other, and said, “Wait a second. You’re wrong. We’re going to step in and kick you in the butt.”
Stephen:
I mean, I agree, because usually an administrative judge can say… as you know, in your fight with New Mexico courts, the administrative judge has all this power to do all sorts of crazy stuff, that without proper oversight, or checks and balances, can just get out of control.
Taya:
Yes. Absolutely. James, I had another question for you, and I know it’s somewhat broad, but I wanted to know what you’ve learned about American policing, over your years of covering it from your viewpoint, your unique viewpoint, what stands out to you? What are the lessons James Freeman learned from covering police, in the unique way that you have? I know it’s a big, a broad question. I’m sorry.
Stephen:
Yeah. Sorry.
Taya:
I’m sorry.
Stephen:
Sorry, we’re putting you on.
James Freeman:
No, no, no. That’s all right. I’m trying to think. I think that some of my best videos that have exposed, to other people as well as myself, how police really are, is that it seems that once a man is told that he has power or authority over other men, that he just does things that are completely unnatural. That video that you showed, for my intro, of me walking up to this guy, I don’t know who he is. I’ve never met him in my life. I’ve got no reason to interact with him, at all. If I do, as a normal human, I should just say, “Hey, hello, how’re you doing?” But to walk up to another man, and just start demanding things, and trying to take control over that person, it’s sick, it’s wrong. But these people have been told that… they’ve got it in their head, that they literally have a right. They have the authority to just arbitrarily control everyone around them.
The whole point of asking someone to disarm themselves, or trying to disarm someone, it’s all about gaining power, being the most powerful person in the room, and establishing that dominance over everybody, the moment you walk in. In doing it, honestly, it’s a character that I play, but man, I’ve gone back, after doing it going, “That is sick.” I was even disturbed by the fact that this cop let me do it. Most of the people in the comments are like, “Man, this is the nicest cop ever.” No human should tolerate that from another human. It’s wrong.
Stephen:
That is profound. That is truly profound. I think, I mean, because James, what you point out is we take police power for granted, and we pretty much have all been indoctrinated into accepting the fact that an individual can walk up to us and say, “Stand over here.”
Taya:
Absolutely.
Stephen:
“Tell me this. Give me your ID,” that kind of stuff. I think that’s why your videos are so important, and vital, in many ways, because you really do bring that… there’s not many people who have been able to so starkly illustrate the effect of police power, and especially police overreach. We appreciate you, and thank you for coming on.
James Freeman:
Thank you.
Taya:
Yeah, absolutely. I just wanted to make sure, James… do we have to go to our next guest?
Stephen:
We really do.
Taya:
We do. James, I hate letting you go, because I want to pick your brain, and especially you know me, I really want to have a follow-up conversation with you. When you say you don’t like to look to government for a solution, I really want to have a follow-up conversation with you about alternative solutions.
Stephen:
That would be for-
Taya:
We’re going to have to have that conversation sometime.
Stephen:
Yes, we will.
Taya:
Okay?
Stephen:
But we appreciate it. Thank you for coming on and celebrating our fifth anniversary with us.
Taya:
Yes, we appreciate it so much.
James Freeman:
Thank you guys, and congratulations, and thank you for everything you’ve done for this five years. I’m happy for your guys’ anniversary. Thanks.
Stephen:
Thanks.
Taya:
Thank you.
Stephen:
Thanks.
Taya:
We really appreciate that. Oh, that’s great. It’s always good to see.
Stephen:
Absolutely.
Taya:
Now our next epic cop watcher, our guests are continuing one, by one, by one.
Stephen:
This is amazing, that we’ve talked to, and we have still legends to come.
Taya:
I know. We have more to come, more legends to come, you guys.
Stephen:
We’ve talked to legends. It’s amazing to me, it really is.
Taya:
Now, our guests, honestly, they really don’t need an introduction. In a world where cop watching can sometimes become almost too over the top, the Battousai stands out for his measured, and almost understated approach, but is one that sure gets results. Let’s take a look. Okay. Hey, Philip, best known as the Battousai. Thank you so much for joining us.
Stephen:
Thanks for being here.
Otto:
Hi. Thank you for having me.
Taya:
We really appreciate it, and I know you’re always asked this question, but I just want to make sure, for the people who might not be familiar with you. One of the reasons why you are so well respected in this community, is because you have actually made case law to protect people’s right to record, to actually protect people’s First Amendment rights. It was a decision that’s known as Turner v Driver, I believe a cop arrested you. I think for maybe trying to film a police station. We know what the decision is, but can you just talk a little bit about it, and how you’ve had to keep fighting to protect that right?
Otto:
This all started when I was actually in college. I was in college, worked a part-time job, and I learned about my rights. They don’t teach you this stuff in high school, of course, they don’t want to teach you this in public systems. But I actually ended up learning this, because the State of Texas made it mandatory, that in order to get your degree, you needed to take US government, and Texas local state government. Over the summer when I took those classes, I learned how to pretty much stand up for your rights, exercise, those rights. One book, in particular, really pushed me over the edge, and it was called Convicting the Innocent. I had to do a book report on that for my US government class, and that really stood out to me.
I started digging, digging, digging on YouTube, and then that’s when I discovered the whole cop watching room. This is where I came across channels like Tom Zebra, Jeff Gray, PINAC News, like Sean Thomas. These are some of the guys that’s been doing it for a long time. I’ve been watching and just learning from these guys, and I’ve decided that, you know what? I want to do this same cop watching activity in my city. Before I knew it, things just took off.
Stephen:
Well, one of the things we had talked about, when we had you on the show before, was that even though you got this ruling, you still… police didn’t really seem to abide by it. Is that my understanding, that they created laws that didn’t totally go to the heart, or the letter of the decision that was made, that you won? I mean, is that right, in some way?
Otto:
Well, not in Texas. Texas, I think they’re being very careful here. They’re saying you can record, but you’ve got to do it from back over there. There’s some things that you can do to test the limits here. Most times they’ll tell you to stand back, but I guarantee you, if you put the camera there, and you take a step back, they’ll be like, “You can’t leave your camera there. It’s interfering.” It’s just those type of things that you have to think of on the fly, things to improvise the situation. For instance, even though Turner v Driver has established a right to report police officers in Texas, Louisiana, and Mississippi, I do believe that there are officers who are undermining that. They get away with things by shining the light in your camera, blocking your view by positioning themselves in front of your camera, and the action that’s going on, or playing copyrighted music, to try to see if they can get your videos taken down, so you can’t monetize it.
Stephen:
Oh, my gosh, so devious.
Otto:
There’s different steps that officers are doing, and if only they put this much effort into doing their job correctly, they wouldn’t have to worry about the camera, in the first place.
Stephen:
That’s a really good point. I mean, and that does make me question though, for example… one thing I wanted to ask you is, the Fifth Circuit has a reputation… which is Texas. The Fifth Circuit has a reputation for being very pro-cop. How did you even win that case? I’ve been meaning to ask you this question, because I’ve had people who we’ve reported on, they say, well, they go to a lawyer, and they say, “Well, you can’t win in the Fifth Circuit, so I can’t sue on your behalf.” How did you actually win, in the Fifth Circuit?
Otto:
This is what I try to tell a lot of people, and this is what makes me a little successful, is because you’ve got to study the game. Unfortunately, it’s just all one big game. Once you learn how to play the game, you can use the rules against them. That’s pretty much how I stepped into the scene, because once you realize what to do, and how to do it, there’s a lot you can do, going forward, to get things established, and get things set, right away. One of my philosophies is, “Give the officer the shovel, let them dig themselves a hole.” Ask the right questions, record it, and you never know how far that video’s going to go. I try to do it from a professional standpoint, but I love the different styles of cop watching out there. I think there’s a lot to learn from everyone. That’s what I enjoy watching a lot of people.
But unfortunately, when you’re dealing with the courts, you have to play the game, and then you have to beat them with their own rules. That’s something that I have to live with my life, even before cop watching, it’s just growing up. You’ve got to learn how to play within the rules, and then use the rules to get your way. You know what I mean?
Taya:
You know, Battousai, I just wanted you to know there was this great comment that said that you could survive a bear attack, cool as a cucumber. Michael Willis, hi Michael Willis, we appreciate you, said, “This guy’s awesome. He’s doing it the right way, to my taste, making case law in the process. You guys want change? This guy has the combination to unlock change.” Just to let you know, you are very much appreciated. The way that you have fought for our right to record, and our first amendment rights, is really appreciated.
But to go towards what Stephen was talking about, in relation to the Fifth Circuit, even here in Maryland, attorneys have shared with me that it’s very difficult to sue, because the judges are so pro-cop. There are people I’ve spoken to, across the country, who can’t even find a civil rights attorney who’s even willing to help them sue, because they know that they’re just going to get slapped down by the judge, or the attorney is worried about alienating themselves from the larger judicial community. I mean, have you found this to be the case? Have you found it, that attorneys have said that it’s difficult to sue, or that judges are particularly pro-cop?
Otto:
Yes. Yes. I remember this very well, even when I first started recording. Just trying to… I think I talked to at least maybe 10 to 15 attorneys to take my cases to begin with, and it was just an uphill battle. Most of the times, attorneys would not take my cases, because there was no damages. There was nothing there to make money off of. In fact, it was just more of, “If I can’t make a decent chunk of change out of this, then I’m not interested. It’s not worth my time.” I’ve heard that from many attorneys. Then that’s when I met Kervyn Altaffer and I met Kervyn Altaffer through Brett Sanders. When I spoke with Kervyn Altaffer, we talked for about two hours, the first time we met. From within those first two hours, I mean, we became really close. He took all my cases, and I think after that, I believe TML started putting me on their radar, because we were just suing, getting settlement checks.
Then as soon as our case went to the Fifth Circuit, those settlement checks were used to fund Turner v Driver. It wasn’t just a, “Oh, he’s settling to get money.” But keep in mind, when I was doing all this, I was in college, part-time. Where am I going to get 35K to fund an appeal? You know what I mean?
Stephen:
Yeah.
Otto:
From my settlements, I used that to fund that, and even though the officers got qualified immunity, the overall battle was lost, but the war was won, when we got Turner v Driver. Because a lot of people were able to use that case law to prove that it’s been established, so these officers don’t get qualified immunity. I think yes, it’s a win, but I think now you have to position yourself as in, “Okay, now you get to the point to where judges are super pro-police, and that pretty much any ruling, or any situation that gets presented in front of a judge, are going to side with the police.”
Well, whenever you think about it, you have to think that… you’ve got to try to make the officer look bad, and you just look like an angel. Just to put it in a nutshell, that’s just how it’s going to be.
Stephen:
That’s interesting.
Otto:
Unfortunately, it has to be like that, in order to get any movement in a court. Otherwise, even if you’re on the same level as a cop, if the cop’s being rude, and you’re being rude, they’re going to side with the cop, because he’s a cop. But if the cop’s being rude, and you’re just being as nice as a 76-year-old lady, who just came from a Sunday night service in the church, they’re probably going to side with the lady.
Stephen:
Okay.
Otto:
But it’s unfortunate that you have to go that far, to that link, just to get any movement with the courts, to be honest.
Stephen:
I thought it makes you a master of the cop-watching universe, that you thought, stylistically, how your style would translate into a court setting, into a higher court setting, into an entire process. That’s pretty freaking amazing, to think that far ahead-
Taya:
I know.
Stephen:
… and say, “Hey, I have to look sympathetic, if I’m going to win legal precedent-
PART 3 OF 5 ENDS [01:27:04]
Stephen:
Hey, I have to look sympathetic if I’m going to win legal precedent. I’m impressed.
Taya:
I mean, I have to ask. I mean, you’re noted for your deliberate style, how you do not allow yourself to get ruffled, how you don’t slip into profanity. Because you’re thinking long game, you’re playing chess. But are you still sticking with that formula? I have to wonder sometimes, don’t you just want to get loud? Don’t you just want to put that bird?
Otto:
You have no idea. Oh, man. You have no idea. There’s been so many times I have been test, I have been pushed to my limits. But I just like, “You know what? This is pretty much what they want.” And it’s like, I can’t do that. There’s a bigger picture here at play, and I have to stick to my convictions, and I have to keep pushing forward.
And there was one thing that I do want to say because this was part of the clip that you played with Corrigan, where they had the illegal signs posted on the side of the building? Well, we went to mediation for that. So, during the mediation we had a retired federal judge, and we can’t really talk about what happened during the mediation process, but what happened afterwards was something that really shocked me.
Because as soon as we were leaving, the retired judge, she shook all of our hands. But then whenever she shook my hand, she’s like, “Hang on, Mr. Turner. I read a lot about you, and I’m very impressed, and I’m very proud of you.” And it’s like, “You have no idea how many people actually support some of the things you guys are doing.”
So that kind of just hit a light switch for me. It was like, “Yes, we are actually making a positive impact.” And even though that there are judges that are pro-police, there are judges who are pro-Constitution.
Taya:
That’s so good to hear.
Stephen:
That’s an amazing story.
Taya:
That’s so heartening.
Stephen:
Wow.
Taya:
That’s a beautiful story. That helps renew my hope. It really does.
Stephen:
Truthfully.
Otto:
Yeah. It’s going to be uphill battle. And I don’t know if you knew, but that Corrigan situation, I got them to sign the signs that they took down from the building. I got all the defendants to sign the back of it.
Taya:
Wait, you got the defendants to sign the back of it? Was that part of the-
Stephen:
Whoa, really?
Otto:
Yeah. It was part of the settlement.
Stephen:
That was part of the settlement. I love it.
Otto:
Yeah. So, we told them, “You know those signs that you had on the building? Can you take them down and have all the defendants sign it?” And then they agreed to it, and we were surprised that they agreed to it. So, I kind of got it up there on the back wall. I don’t know if you can see it.
Taya:
That’s diabolical. I love that for you.
Otto:
I’m going to [inaudible 01:29:33] with you real quick. Give me a second.
Taya:
I love that for you. Yes, please let us see it. I love that.
Stephen:
I mean, the thing that’s amazing, just talking to Battousai, James Freeman and… Think of all the change that these individuals, just working on their own, no newsrooms, no-
Otto:
So this is the sign here. I know if you can see it. Oh,
Taya:
That’s incredible.
Otto:
And they signed the back of it, so it was no joke. And then one thing I did find out later on, because I did some open records requests, I think whenever they wrote me the citation for filming when they dismissed it two days later, TML, which is like the insurance for the city, required the officers to take constitutional law.
Taya:
That’s wonderful.
Otto:
Yeah. So it was two days after, so they knew the lawsuit was coming.
Stephen:
Wow. Which begs the question is why they hadn’t done that before they became police officers or-
Taya:
That’s an excellent point-
Stephen:
Out in the streets.
Otto:
It was probably more just like a revisit.
Taya:
Maybe a refresher course.
Stephen:
Yeah, of course.
Taya:
Hopefully.
Stephen:
It’s always good to brush up.
Taya:
Except Steven, didn’t you have a particular experience on what you saw? You knew that was written in a police academy Blackboard, about the Fourth Amendment?
Stephen:
Yeah, the Fourth Amendment doesn’t apply to us. We got a picture from a group of cops called VICD, Violent Impact Crimes Division, and they were doing training retraining on the amendments the fourth, fifth, and sixth. And they wrote on the Blackboard, fourth Amendment does not apply to us. And of course a lot of those guys-
Taya:
In the academy, in the academy on the Blackboard.
Stephen:
Just to show you how important Battousai work is, a lot of those officers ended up being part of the Gun Trace Task Force, which was a group of 6, 7, 8 officers who robbed residents, stole over time and-
Taya:
And dealt drugs in our city.
Stephen:
Dealt drugs. Congrats to you because that’s great to hear because if we can at least teach police officers that their whole occupation relies upon the constitution and those rights are important, that’s a victory.
Taya:
Absolutely.
Otto:
I think if people found a real reason why the police are here, I think everybody would blow their lids. And people are like, “Oh no, that’s not true.” But police are here to serve their masters. That’s pretty much all it is. They’re there to serve the wealthy and the people in position of power. That’s their true purpose.
Taya:
Yes, well said.
Otto:
And we should not forget that.
Taya:
And we can never forget that.
Stephen:
It’s an important thing to remember.
Taya:
Absolutely. They are the front line to protect the interest of capital. Corporatists, those oligarchs who are corrupting our society and corrupting our government process. They’re corrupting our democracy. Crony capitalism, I believe it’s called.
Stephen:
Go ahead. You say it, thank you.
Taya:
Well, I just wanted to ask, are there any new ongoing fights with the police departments or is there anything that you want to share with us? Any new legal front that you’re ready to share? I know sometimes you can’t always share something that you’re working on, and if you can’t, I totally understand that. But is there anything else coming up?
Otto:
Oh, I’ll say, so I had a couple of people respond to, email me, saying, “Hey, we didn’t know you were the guy for Turner V Driver.” And I was like, “Yeah, I guess it’s been some time. I haven’t been really active.” And then I had a couple of people from, Martha [inaudible 01:32:52] was actually one of them. He said, “I think it’s time for you to return to Fort Worth.” And I said, “Why do you say that?” And they said, “Oh, the Turner V. Driver case. They’re pretty much saying that, oh, that means nothing. And yeah, that white guy is not going to come back here anymore.” And I said, “Wait a minute, white guy?”
“Oh yeah, yeah. I didn’t tell you? They think the guy from Turner V. Driver was white.” And I was like, “Really?” I said, “Okay, yeah, I guess I already got a good disguise, so I’m going to go back up there.”
Taya:
You can be totally undercover now. They’re going to be looking for the wrong guy. That’s some bad police work.
Stephen:
That’s some very bad detective work, absolutely.
Taya:
That’s pretty sloppy.
Stephen:
We really appreciate you coming on the show for our fifth anniversary. So kind of you to take the time to join us.
Taya:
I really, really, really wish I could keep you for longer, but I promised everyone I would do five questions to make sure that I don’t trap our friends in the studio here all night. But would you please agree to come back and spend some more time with us? I think we just need to give the Battousai his whole hour. I mean, I think that’s what has to happen. You just need your own hour. Would you be able to come back?
Otto:
Oh, I got a lot of fun stories for you. Yes, I’ll come back. But I got a lot of fun stories for you guys.
Taya:
Okay. All right. I’m looking forward to them. Thank you so much for joining us and there is a lot of love in the chat for you, as I’m sure you’ll see.
Otto:
Thank you for having me and happy anniversary.
Stephen:
Thank you, Battousai. We really appreciate it.
Taya:
Thank you so much. It’s so great to see him.
Stephen:
It’s amazing. I was just saying, you think about all the changes that have been effectuated by the people that we’ve had in our show who had done this all on their own initiative. It gives you hope.
Taya:
It really does.
Stephen:
It gives you hope in democracy.
Taya:
It really does.
Stephen:
I know the internet is fueled by cynicism, but this is not a place for it, because if there are individuals willing to go out there and risk their neck and get arrested or just confront cops or create videos or tell people’s stories just on their own with no prompting, I can’t be a cynic all the time.
Taya:
All the time.
Stephen:
All the time. This is nice. I feel it’s pretty nice.
Taya:
You feel warm and fuzzy, aren’t you?
Stephen:
It’s a great gift for our fifth anniversary to really talk to people who have made a difference. You can make a difference.
Taya:
Absolutely. Because I have to admit, when I first started working with Steven, and he was a bit cynical and understandably because he had been a lone voice.
Stephen:
Oh, I cynical?
Taya:
He was a lone voice pushing back against police misconduct that he saw, violations of civil rights of community members, deaths that were being under investigated and literally covered up. He saw this, he listened to the community and reported on it, and he received retaliation from the police department. He had people from the medical examiner’s office call to try to get him fired. As a matter of fact, they tried to get me fired too, which is sort of ironic because at the time we were doing a podcast that we weren’t getting paid for. But just all these different forms of retaliation that you experienced. So you were getting a little cynical. So to see people do this, I really think makes a difference to you.
Stephen:
After I got laid off from my newspaper, I worked for a couple years on my own website, and then I got a job at a TV station. The first thing that happened was a police spokesman sent an email to my boss saying, “Steven Janis is a jerk, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Fire him.” That man actually-
Taya:
And a cop hitter, and a cop-hater-
Stephen:
That man right now is actually the head spokesman for the Secret Service. So yeah, Anthony Guglielmi, I think his name is, yeah. And so he decided that the best thing to do was take a reporter who had lost his job when his newspaper closed, because he had provided honest coverage of the police department-
Taya:
Exactly, all of it is honest-
Stephen:
And try to take away his job and his health benefits, because I hadn’t seen a doctor in three and a half years. So really wonderful people. I really have a lot to say about their character.
Taya:
You have some not-friends in some very high places.
Stephen:
But think about it. Think about, this was in 2011. This is four years before Freddie Gray and five years before. So was I right? Or was I wrong?
Taya:
You were right.
Stephen:
I was right about the Baltimore Freaking Police Department.
Taya:
Yes, you were.
Stephen:
But they tried to take my freaking job.
Taya:
That is absolutely right.
Stephen:
I’m sorry.
Taya:
And that’s why I thought you should share that. So when he says it affects him and makes him feel hopeful, this man had all the reason in the world for cynicism. So it means something when he says that.
Stephen:
Well, I’m very thankful that there are people who are willing to go out there and do this difficult work and all on their own. And it just gives me a lot. It makes me feel good. But anyway, that’s what I’ll say, but we’ve got to get to the next guest.
Taya:
Okay. Yes. So I’m just, thank you for letting me have you share that. So, our last guests are actually kind of a duo, and they have been unrelenting in their coverage of some of the most vexing police departments in the country. They’re a special team that have been involved in high profile cases that have led to a major settlement with the Los Angeles County Sheriffs, all due to the footage caught on their cameras. They also include one of the, so-called OGs of Cop watching, Tom Zebra. Tom’s uncompromising coverage of cops in LA has made him a legend in the world of YouTube activists. Also, the fact, I think he’s been doing it for almost 20 years. I think some of his early cop watches are actually on VHS. That’s how long Tom Zebra has been doing this. And they also made one of my favorite clips ever where they did a bit of an imitation of a show that I’m kind of fond of. Maybe we could just take a little peek at it. A little peek.
Stephen:
Okay.
Taya:
Good to know.
Stephen:
Thank you.
Taya:
I’ll tell people that.
Stephen:
Okay. I got to say something. Oh, Taya, just let me say something, that is good reporting because knowing that the Coke price was low or a good price, that’s the kind of detail, that separates the regular reporter from the top-notch investigative reporter.
Taya:
That lets you know that reporter hit the streets. And that’s what we respect around here.
Stephen:
I mean, I’ve been doing Stand-ups for five years, but Tom just knocked me right out of the park.
Taya:
He did. He knocked you out of the box on that one.
Stephen:
I’ve never had that kind of detail in my reporting, mad respect.
Taya:
Also, his sweatshirt was cool.
Stephen:
Mad respect for that man.
Taya:
And I liked Laura’s Bookshelf. And before we get started, that sounds really familiar. I’m not sure why it sounds so familiar.
Stephen:
I told Laura she needed more books though.
Taya:
She needed more books on her shelf. She even had the glasses. It was so awesome. Okay, just for any folks that are here, they did a version of the show we do. And we thought it was basically the best thing that we’ve ever seen.
Stephen:
We did.
Taya:
So you should go check it out on our channel, because it’s kind of great. And it also has really good reporting in it. So, I have to welcome Tom Zebra and Laura Sharp.
Stephen:
Hello.
Taya:
Thank you so much for joining us.
Stephen:
Thank you for being here.
Laura Sharp:
Bye. That’s, [inaudible 01:40:20].
Taya:
We appreciate you.
Laura Sharp:
My four books. It was like one of those last things. I’m like, “Oh, I need books.”
Stephen:
Tay and I have plenty of books. If you need something, we can ship them out to you.
Taya:
That’s right, we can ship them out to you.
Laura Sharp:
No, actually I have a lot. And if you notice, I don’t know what the… I don’t know. It was so random. I was like, “Oh no.” I just grabbed Egyptian books or something. I do have books.
Taya:
We just wanted to also say that Thomas has been having a little bit of an issue with his video. So at some point we might have the technical difficulty of just having his audio instead of his visual. So just to let you know, we’re not doing it on purpose. It’s just one of those technicalities.
So, to both of you, first, I just wanted to give you guys both a chance to comment on Eric’s recent indictment. You were there when we were out in Colorado spending time with Eric, checking in-
Stephen:
Prior to sentencing-
Taya:
To what was happening. Excuse me, we were there prior to sentencing. So we certainly know that you Eric well. I just thought maybe you’d like to have a chance to comment on his recent indictment and any concerns that you might have about it. And either one of you can take this question first.
Tom Zebra:
I’ll go, hopefully you can hear me okay.
Stephen:
We can.
Tom Zebra:
Everything you guys said is true. It’s not surprising in the least bit that they’ve retaliated against him and they’re going to do everything they can to keep him in jail. And if you think about it, I think that’s probably why Eric Brandt is the person he is anyways. It’s because of how unfair they are and the fact that that’s what they do every chance they get. They retaliate against people they don’t like instead of doing their job. So it’s not surprising to me one bit, but hopefully that’s going to light a fire under his butt. And when he gets out here, hopefully he’ll go right back to cop watching.
Stephen:
I hope so too.
Taya:
I hope so too. But I have a feeling he may retire to a quiet life-
Laura Sharp:
He might be taking a break.
Stephen:
I think, yeah… I think Eric is ready to retire.
Laura Sharp:
For his own mental health.
Taya:
Laura, did you want to comment on Eric’s recent indictment?
Laura Sharp:
He definitely covered everything. We talked about it at length and I mean, honestly, it just breaks my heart. Just there’s a lot that you risk when you do what we do. I mean, especially him. I’m almost at loss of words, just how that turned out.
Taya:
No, understandably.
Tom Zebra:
If I can add, I’d like to say something about the Judge Morris Hoffman.
Taya:
Please do.
Tom Zebra:
I know a lot of people have criticism about him. But one of the interviews I watched, he was explaining how if you are in the shoes of the defendant, if anybody else would’ve done what they would’ve done, then that’s not a crime at all. And I don’t think very many of us have been in the shoes of Eric Brandt, where he spent so much time in jail as an innocent person. And I mean, he’s got how many laws are in his name? He set precedent repeatedly. So, in the overall scheme of things, he’s the one that is righteous. And the judge said elsewhere, if any other person would’ve done those things, like in Eric Brandt’s shoes, and I think anyone else would have, I can’t imagine being locked up for so long as an innocent person.
Stephen:
I mean, Eric-
Tom Zebra:
At the very least, under those circumstances, of course, you’re going to say something that isn’t nice about the judge.
Taya:
Yeah, absolutely.
Stephen:
Yeah, and it’s true. Eric had set precedent in the 10th Circuit for filming police.
Taya:
Yes. With Liberty Freak, Irizarry.
Stephen:
Liberty Freak Irizarry. So that is very true. Among other things that he’s done-
Taya:
Among other things-
Stephen:
There’s many other lawsuits he won.
Taya:
I just meant, right… Also, there was a lawsuit that he participated in that resulted in the Englewood Police Department receiving body cameras about 18 months before any of the other police departments as well as guaranteeing them, certain retraining as well, certain constitutional retraining, which is good for everybody. I even want constitutional training.
Stephen:
So Laura, let me ask you, what’s it like out on the streets now? How are cops behaving? Are they responding to your work? How are things going up? How’s cop watching?
Taya:
Are they like, “Oh no, it’s Laura Sharp.”
Laura Sharp:
They’re running. They run from the camera.
Stephen:
They run from the camera?
Laura Sharp:
We go out. Yeah, no, no… We go out quite a bit and as soon as we get out or walk up, it’s like suddenly it’s over. It’s like, wow.
Stephen:
Really?
Laura Sharp:
Yeah, no, it’s almost annoying. It’s like, “Come on guys, please.”
Stephen:
So they’re ruining your videos. You can’t even make a video.
Laura Sharp:
We’re having to chase them to the department, their little substation or the… Come on please.
Taya:
That’s so funny.
Laura Sharp:
I mean, they’re basically [inaudible 01:45:24].
Taya:
But honestly though, in a way that’s great because what you’re doing in that process is there’s someone who might’ve been harassed, who might’ve been having an unconstitutional arrest or having their rights violated, and the officers decide, you know what? It’s not worth it.
Laura Sharp:
They’re still doing it.
Taya:
They’re still doing it?
Laura Sharp:
They’re still doing it. It’s just a matter of… It’s just a matter of there’s a new crop. I kind of see it as they obviously… I mean, they have so many departments like Sheriff for instance, and they have new rookies coming in. And at certain points there’s, right now I feel like there’s a brand new one for the last year that we haven’t figured out their places yet. Their path, the way that they get to each location kind of a thing. We don’t got that down the way we had prior. We could find the same guys in the same places mostly, but not anymore. And a lot of them, they’ve made a name for themselves. Sabatine has had a whole thing because I think he threatened the rapper. He said he was going to put one in his chest just like a whole… And I miss them, I don’t know. It was a little entertaining. Now these guys literally just don’t say anything. I’m like, this is no good.
Taya:
Let me ask you something. Because there’s a case that you worked on that really stood out to me and was absolutely life-changing. And this was the case of Christopher Bailey. You recorded some of the… I mean, I’ve witnessed a lot of police brutality, but this was truly terrible. And you were there live on the scene. And can you just talk a little bit about how your video footage helped him and the lawsuit that followed, and maybe even some information about the officers or detectives who were involved, if you don’t mind?
Laura Sharp:
Okay. So I mean, to make a really long story short, I mean, we did show up in the aftermath. We were directly after it. I mean, they must have just done their last strike on him or something. And initially when we arrived, I didn’t see him. And we did hear a deputy involved in a fight. So I was aware, I’ve come to these scenes before and maybe they have, they’re a little roughed up and they’re getting in an ambulance or something. But when we first got there, we didn’t see him. We could kind of see where the deputies were around. And then we heard him and he said, “I want to live.” And it was like, “Wait a minute. Oh, they have him on the ground.” And it was just this whole, it was in slow motion after that where it was like, we recognize all these, most of the deputies, and at this point, we know them all now.
But it was almost like, I don’t know. I could say I was shocked. I was not expecting when they sat him up and the condition of his face, it was horrific. And it really just could not bother, just even the most critical person of what we do. It was horrific. And so for almost a year to the day, I did not know this man’s name. And I started to resolve to the fact that I probably never would, because a lot of the times we don’t see, I mean most of the time, sorry, we don’t see these individuals again after they have their contact with law enforcement.
So I had almost become like, I had to accept that. And his lawyer made a comment on the video. I mean, she quickly took it off. But just that contact, and I have to say what we saw was pretty bad. But hearing it in detail, to the extent that what they did to him, it was almost, I don’t want to say it was worse, but it was just as horrific to hear the details of how many times they struck him or hit him and kneed him. And I mean, his injuries were his eye socket or his eyeball was dislocated from his orbital bone. They fractured his orbital bone. I mean, what we saw was just what looked like, he didn’t even look human. It was just something that I kept saying in the video. And they played a news clip, and you can hear me say, “He doesn’t even look human.” I mean he didn’t. And I think they referred to me as a bystander with a cell phone or something. And I was probably offended.
But Daniel and I just, Daniel has, we both have our own way of responding to these situations. And he had currently had a situation with a deputy that he was kind of asking about. But everything that we thought in the moment was very true. Daniel was calling it, before we knew the facts. And it sucks to be right. And I mean, we met him over Zoom. He is still, to this day, afraid to set foot in California. He took off to Texas as soon as he was medically able, because he was hospitalized for quite a bit after that. He still was, he’s still getting surgeries because he’s, he’s basically blind in his left eye. There was a clip from Eric’s trial where the judge said, “Who in the world thinks that that’s okay?” And literally, I could not have put that perfectly in this instance. But that one, it didn’t feel, that wasn’t even with Eric, it didn’t fit, but with this, it’s like, who in the world thinks this is okay? It’s just not.
Stephen:
Well, thank you for sharing that.
Laura Sharp:
I don’t know, you want to add something?
Stephen:
And I wanted to ask Tom, not just about this situation, but Tom, you’ve been out on the streets for 20 years. How have things changed for you and with your relationship? Have police changed at all in the 20 years you’ve been doing this? I’m just kind of curious.
Taya:
Good question.
Tom Zebra:
I’m going to say since I started having more people helping me, like Laura joined me, Jody Kat joined me. There was a few of us in the same area that I was working regularly. And as far as how things changed, the police don’t even come out of the station anymore. Like the Lawndale sheriffs, any of the areas, those productive feeding grounds, if it was like fishing, those were the areas that I would go because there was plenty of police instances to record.
Well, now I could drive through these areas every night all night long, and you won’t find a cop unless they’re responding to a call. They stay inside the station, they respond to a call and they go straight back to the station.
I don’t know how many millions people spent to put these police on the street, but for free, I come back off the street and put them in the station with the help of my associates. And to be honest, if anything, the crime rate has probably gone down because it seems to me like the most serious crimes are committed by the police, at least the ones that I see.
Taya:
Wow.
Stephen:
Well, yeah, it’s true. The crime has gone down over the past year from the pandemic highs. And that has been amid a police officer shortage.
Taya:
Exactly… Exactly.
Stephen:
Difficult to explain when you say the police are the key to public safety. But currently right now we have a really record drop in violent crime and also record low employment in many police departments, including ours in Baltimore, where we’ve had a 20% drop in homicides and we’re pretty much record low staffing. So really difficult conundrum for police partisans who want to say…
Taya:
It’s interesting you should say that, Steven, because it’s almost as if you two are drawing the conclusion that policing doesn’t necessarily stop crime, that’s a cleanup crew. By any chance, are you familiar with a book called You Can’t Stop Murder? Are you familiar with that book?
Stephen:
Yes, I wrote that book. I wrote that book.
Taya:
Yes, that’s right. And you actually… It’s interesting…
Stephen:
That was the thesis of the book, that proactive policing does not reduce crime and it only causes more, as to Tom’s point, causes more problems than it solves. And that is, I think borne out in Baltimore and I think in Los Angeles too as well, because as Tom and Laura were covering it, there was that report by the ACLU about the Los Angeles County Sheriff, and it was insane what they concluded. You guys remember that report, right?
Taya:
Incredible.
Laura Sharp:
Yeah, there was actually the investigation that they had put out is what I sent my video of Christopher Bailey. I sent my video in with several others, and that’s what I think the lawyer said that the district attorney said that she, that’s how she found out or something for their investigation.
Taya:
Let me just respond to MSTAR Media.
Tom Zebra:
Oh, I think-
Taya:
Oh, I’m sorry, Tom, go ahead. I don’t want to interrupt you.
Tom Zebra:
I think if I’m correct, you guys were talking about the investigation where like 90% of their time is spent on traffic stops, right? Is that what you’re referring to?
Taya:
Yes.
Stephen:
Yes.
Tom Zebra:
And our videos not only prove exactly that, but probably 90% of those traffic stops are fake traffic stops. They’re profiling where the person did nothing wrong, and at the end of the search, the police can’t even come up with the reason why they made that stop in the first place. And if you take that all into consideration, we’re wasting $4 billion to be pulled over for no reason. And I’ll let you get back to what you were, I just want to make that point.
Taya:
No, Tom, I’m so glad you’re making that point.
Stephen:
No, it’s a good point. Thank you for making that point.
Taya:
It’s really important. No, I just wanted to mention to MSTAR Media, and I really appreciate you bringing it up. She said, what are we getting our stats from about crime going down? Just in my case-
Stephen:
Well, the New York Times, FBI UCR.
Taya:
Well, just very specifically, the Uniform Crime Report is where various police agencies send in their data. Unfortunately, not all the police agencies do, but that’s where they’re supposed to send in their data about whether homicide, murders, et cetera, carjackings, theft, all the different varieties of crime. Something that we saw in particular in our city, Baltimore, is that although carjackings are up quite a bit, one of the things that we’re most concerned about is homicide in our city and shootings. And very fortunately this year, we’ve seen a precipitous drop despite the fact that we’re, what, maybe like 600 police officers short?
Stephen:
Yeah, 600 or something.
Taya:
And so there are other cities that are also experiencing this. If you have a chance, you can, the data from the FBI’s Uniform Crime Report is actually accessible. You can also get it through-
Stephen:
Go online, just look it up.
Taya:
Get it through the Bureau of Justice Statistics. There are a couple of different ways to access it.
Stephen:
It’s all broken down by locale. By municipality.
Taya:
Right, so you can take a look. And so we are speaking from our personal experiences in the areas that we’re in, but-
PART 4 OF 5 ENDS [01:56:04]
Taya:
So we are speaking from our personal experiences in the areas that we’re in, but there have been journalists who’ve done really solid work to show that this is an overall national trend. So it may be in relation to specific crime that we’re very concerned about like homicide, and it may be like in our city, things like carjackings are high, so maybe you’re looking at a particular crime stat and we’re looking at another, so maybe that’s where the disconnect is happening.
Stephen:
Well, let’s ask one last question because we’re almost at two hours. So we have got to-
Taya:
Can I please ask about the cannabis.
Stephen:
Yes.
Taya:
Oh, okay.
Stephen:
Go ahead.
Taya:
All right, so-
Stephen:
Last question.
Taya:
Tom and Laura, I loved this piece that you did and because to me, in every aspect of it showed how important a cop watcher is. So Tom and Laura arrive on the scene, a young man and his girlfriend, his girlfriend’s a passenger,
Laura Sharp:
Darius Dandy.
Taya:
Say the name again, [inaudible 01:56:51].
Laura Sharp:
Darius Dandy.
Taya:
Darius. So Darius is driving, they’re pulled over, they’re harassed. I think it’s originally about window tint, and they see that they have some legally purchased marijuana. And so they start recording this and Laura can talk a little bit about what a strange DUI test they gave. But what really jumped out to me, which just touched my heart so much, is that the police, after taking away her boyfriend and taking away the car, just left the passenger standing on the road without her phone, without ID, without-
Laura Sharp:
No, they took her.
Taya:
They took her too. I thought they’d left her on the side of the road.
Laura Sharp:
So they took her too to the station. Essentially did. They took her phone, everything that she had in the car. When they towed the car, they took all her [inaudible 01:57:38]. And I was repeating to them like, “Are you going to let her get any of these things?” These are the obvious things that you’d need to be able to carry on with your evening while the car’s… Yeah. No, they took her back to the station. She actually refused to get out of the car.
Taya:
So you actually went to the station with them to help? Which is wonderful.
Laura Sharp:
Yeah, so we followed them to the station, and then they basically set her on her own. But luckily we were there and I offered to give her a ride to the impound lot. Mind you, mind you though. Sorry. The show that it was after that is just, it was raining. So technically if we weren’t there, she would’ve had to walk, what was it, Daniel? The miles to the tow.
Tom Zebra:
It would’ve been a couple hour walk to get to her stuff, but then without a release, they tried to send her without a release. She would’ve had to walk all the way back and then-
Laura Sharp:
And then it was after hours-
Tom Zebra:
… for her to have so. She would’ve had to walk for eight hours and she would’ve never accomplished getting her wallet, her keys, anything.
Laura Sharp:
Yeah, she had to pay, well, she didn’t even have the money because she didn’t have her wallet or anything. So I loaned her money so that she could pay the after hours cost to be able to get these most obvious items of her. Okay, so the worst part of this is that they did the, what was it, Daniel, that they, it was under the, what was it? It was like a DUI investigation, he claimed.
Tom Zebra:
Yes. The whole thing was just a charade because apparently we caught him too many times. They’re trying to not admit or let on when we catch him doing illegal searches. So they just were framing the guy for a marijuana DUI. And I think you know about marijuana DUIs, they’re bogus on their face.
Stephen:
Wow.
Taya:
Excellent.
Stephen:
Well, I think-
Taya:
Excellent.
Stephen:
We appreciate you guys. I think Tay, we are almost up to two hours.
Taya:
I don’t want to let them go. We barely even got the chance to really talk to them.
Stephen:
I know. But we’ll have them back. We’ll have them back.
Laura Sharp:
We love you congratulations.
Taya:
Can I at least-
Tom Zebra:
Let me just say, I want to congratulate you guys. I have a ton more things to talk about, but we’ll save that for another time. It was a great show. I enjoyed watching it and I hope to see you guys soon.
Stephen:
Absolutely.
Taya:
All right. I will defer to my partners. No, you’re right. I’m sorry. It’s so rare to have Tom and Laura at the same time, and between the two of them, they have amazing stories and just so much to share.
Stephen:
Could you guys keep making fake police accountability reports, oh please? Because we like to watch it.
Laura Sharp:
We’re actually working on another one I was telling you about earlier this week, but I didn’t have time to-
Taya:
I would love that.
Laura Sharp:
Oh yeah, for sure. For sure.
Taya:
At least by the 6th.
Stephen:
Yeah. No, they’re working on one now.
Laura Sharp:
No, no, no. For sure. I’m working on it now, so yeah.
Taya:
Okay. Awesome.
Laura Sharp:
I was hoping to have it ready.
Stephen:
Thank you so much.
Taya:
We appreciate you so much.
Tom Zebra:
Good night everybody.
Taya:
Thank you so much.
Laura Sharp:
Love you too.
Taya:
Bye Laura. Bye Tom Zebra.
Laura Sharp:
Bye.
Taya:
Hey, if you guys haven’t already subscribed to their channel, that’s Laura Shark CW, you’re seeing right there. That’s how you find her channel. You might not realize this, but the world of cop watchers, there aren’t a lot of females out there, so please make sure to support them like Laura Shark CW, and of course you’ve got to honor the OG Tom Zebra, so make sure to go check out his channel as well. And all the other wonderful cop watchers that we’ve had here tonight. I think most of them already knew [inaudible 02:01:03] streaming in like [inaudible 02:01:04] and out of the watch dog. But please make sure you go.
Laura Sharp:
It’s great to see.
Taya:
Sub to Laura’s channel for me.
Stephen:
Isn’t it amazing that the cops are afraid to come out because Tom’s out there.
Taya:
I know. I love that.
Stephen:
Just a guy with a cell phone and a-
Taya:
I know.
Stephen:
… camera on his head-
Taya:
… that they’ve done that to him. I have to ask. Okay, I won’t. Can I just have one little question of Laura? One little question.
Stephen:
One more question quickly.
Taya:
One more. Okay. Laura, while you’re still here because you’re not done yet, I have to ask. Okay. You guys have gotten a lot of attention on YouTube question. You’ve had a lot of impact. Do the police treat you differently? When you show up are they like, “Oh no, it’s Laura, oh no, it’s Tom Zebra.” Or do they just act like they don’t see you? What happens when the cops see you?
Laura Sharp:
I [inaudible 02:01:42] know Daniel, what do you think?
Tom Zebra:
Definitely. I think a lot of them are, they’re scared of Laura it seems like, or if she asked more serious questions. I’m more likely to put things off and just say hello and be social. She’s not as nice to them. So there’s a lot of them that try to-
Laura Sharp:
[inaudible 02:02:03]. I’m just factual. I’m just real. I have passion. And he says a lot more in his own, when he posts videos, he gets to the point in that [inaudible 02:02:13]. But me, I am quite like, “No, no, no, I know what you did.” Or, “Wait, wait, wait, come back.” No.
Taya:
That’s great.
Tom Zebra:
If I could add one last thing. I know we’re ending the show, but after working with these guys for so many years, it’s hard to not become friends with them. So despite the awful…
Stephen:
Oh, I think we just lost him.
Taya:
Oh, no.
Laura Sharp:
Oh, no, no, no. He says he’s friends with us. I don’t claim such just silly thing. That’s so ridiculous. Good night.
Stephen:
Good night. Good night.
Taya:
Good night.
Stephen:
Thank you so much.
Taya:
It was great to have you both. And we definitely want to see you again soon. Thank you so much.
Stephen:
Cool.
Taya:
Okay.
Stephen:
That was amazing.
Taya:
Absolutely amazing. I love the idea that they’re scared of her like she’s mean to the cops. I’ve met Laura in person, she’s not-
Stephen:
We met Laura in person. She’s the kindest person.
Taya:
She’s a petite person. She’s not intimidating in any way. So to imagine her being mean and standing up in that way is amazing.
Stephen:
Absolutely.
Taya:
And I just have to thank all of our guests, for just their insight, being willing to spend their time with us and just for your patience to stick with us and talk to us individually. And I want to thank all of you for the amazing work that you do. You each have your own styles, you have your own way. And what’s even better is that you always find a way to somehow support and help each other. You’ve created an amazing community and I’m so glad to be at least a small part of it. So Stephen, I have a question for you. As I was talking about the theme of the show, I mentioned a phrase that is very familiar to you, a community that has something in common, but it’s actually a play on words on a book by a philosopher, Alphonso Lingis who wrote a book called A Community with Nothing in Common. So you spoke to this philosopher, you wrote about him. Can you talk a little bit about that book in relation to cop watchers?
Stephen:
Well, and to be really quick, because we don’t have a lot of time, but you brought up something that really struck me. Really, it almost made me upset because I was reminded of things that happened to me when I started covering police 15 years ago. And we were in the midst of zero tolerance and things police were crazy and they were shooting people in the back and all these horrible things were happening and I was trying to cover it, report out and in truth. And they tried to destroy my life basically. They pulled me over like 40 times. They would always harass me. My editor said I was a cop hater. The things that would happen to me were really horrible. And there was other things they did wrote about me as if I was some sort of crazy freak.
But then in 2016, when the federal government comes in and says unconstitutional, racist policing and all this stuff, it was even more painful for me because in many ways the damage had been done. But it affected me deeply. It made me a paranoid person and a person who doesn’t trust people much and a person who feels isolated. But the whole wonderful thing about talking to these people, the whole amazing thing is all these people who I really have very little in common with on a regular basis, that I don’t even live in the same cities I do, make me feel like I’m not alone in this effort to hold power accountable. And as painful as it was for me, when I know the people like Otto have gone through so much, James Freeman, I know Eric Brandt is in prison right now. I know all these people have suffered.
And so I feel like I have some connection to something that in many ways makes it all worthwhile. Because truthfully, I’ll tell you this, you can write all these things about police and about how bad policing was in Baltimore, but when the Justice Department comes around and no one says, “Hey, you did a good job. We appreciate what you did. We understand you suffered.” People like Anthony Guglielmi, don’t apologize to you for calling you Jerk, or some of the other stuff they did to me. I could just go on and on, on what happened to me. Dragging me into a trial board and screaming at me and subpoenaed me all the time to go into court, all these really things when all I was doing was writing. I wasn’t dealing drugs, I was just writing the truth. And so I feel connected to the people that we report on because they have been through this too.
And I understand the impulse. The people who we talk to, but [inaudible 02:06:53], these people aren’t doing it. Even though people say, “Well, it’s all about YouTube clicks,” or something. They are doing it, because they believe in this process of holding power accountable. And so in that sense, we have nothing in common and everything in common. And it’s helping me a lot personally because I just feel angry sometimes when you bring that up. I just don’t understand it really. I don’t understand. But I think I read once about, I think it was a woman who was a reporter, I can’t remember her name, but she said, “You think when you cover the truth and you say the truth, that everyone’s going to come running and say, ‘It’s the truth.’ That’s not what happens.” And as one of our guests pointed out, police don’t really serve the public, so to speak. They do, they serve this great inequality machine. And that’s part of the reason. Anyway,
Taya:
Yes. No, well said.
Stephen:
Anyway, thank you.
Taya:
No, very well said.
Stephen:
I just wanted to say that.
Taya:
No, and you should say that. And what’s interesting, someone said, “Does Stephen know former Baltimore cop Michael Wood?” I remember him from-
Stephen:
Yes, I do.
Taya:
Yes. We both interviewed Michael Wood and he went on to do some-
Stephen:
What happened to him?
Taya:
He went on to do some interesting things like, like rob veterans of campaign, allegedly.
Stephen:
Allegedly.
Taya:
Allegedly mismanaged some donations.
Stephen:
Let’s put it this way. Initially, he was very revealing in talking a lot of truth but then he became muddled in controversy. But yes.
Taya:
I’m sorry.
Stephen:
We are aware of it.
Taya:
Allegedly.
Stephen:
Allegedly.
Taya:
Allegedly mismanaged these funds. Let me be clear. So just once again, I want to thank all of the wonderful cop watchers and activists who joined us tonight, both on the channel and in the live chat. I’ve seen you, I might not have been able to put up everyone’s comment, but I really did try to at least put up some of them and read them. And thank you. Thank you, Russell. You’re my favorite too. Thank you. That’s a very sweet comment. So I just wanted you to know I was looking at all these great comments. I’m going to be in the comment section. Excuse me, in the chat, I’m going to be in the comment section later.
As always, I do a PAR comment of the week and I try to pick out a comment. So I’ll be doing that later as well. So I just wanted to say thank you for everyone who is participating, and I just want you to know how lucky we feel to be able to cover this vibrant and eclectic and fascinating community. And it is a thought-provoking collection of people to say the least. And we are so grateful to have been able to tell their stories. Stephen, I’m about to give my 5th year anniversary rant.
Stephen:
Happy anniversary.
Taya:
Happy anniversary to you too.
Stephen:
Thank you.
Taya:
You were a member of the mainstream media and now you’re in a very different world.
Stephen:
Yes, I am. But I wouldn’t be anywhere else, then here next to you, as Jay-Z said, “You could have been anywhere else in the world but here.”
Taya:
Oh, that’s great.
Stephen:
Yeah.
Taya:
Nice quote with Jay-Z.
Stephen:
Yeah. Thank you.
Taya:
Well done. You’re in a different world. Is there anything you want to share about covering this phenomena or?
Stephen:
Well, as I said before, I feel kindred spirits here, and it’s been a great 5th anniversary gift for me to hear from people who have struggled with the same things I have. And it makes me feel good that we are together in some ways, a community though not together in the same space, but by the same ideals. And that feels good. So I’ll say that.
Taya:
That’s beautifully said.
Stephen:
Thank you.
Taya:
Okay, now it’s my turn. As I’ve discussed at the beginning of the show, all of our work on the police accountability report is driven by a community, people who care enough to watch and share and comment, and even film cops. It’s driven by something we would call an audience, but I would characterize it more accurately as a collective of people focused on a single idea. Self-governance requires participation and good governance requires even more active involvement. And what I mean is that what I see is I report on the variety of people who watch or simply watch us, is a movement tied to more than an ideology. That is, it’s a group of people acting within their individual capacities to facilitate something more important than their own needs. A collective good, a common good. Think about it, when a person appears on our show to discuss an encounter with police, it’s more than simply an opportunity to tell their story. It’s an affirmation that standing up and pushing back and participating is more than what philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre would call a useless passion.
It is, at its core, an acknowledgement that democracy freedom and our essential rights require work to maintain them. Meaning if we don’t fight each and every day for self-governance, we will lose it. And that’s what this show, my show, Stephen’s show, your show has taught me. It has forced me to look beyond the past implications of a dystopian future where our personal agency has been rendered impotent. And it has inspired me to comprehend the real meaning of a single individual coming forward and standing up for themselves when police and the mainstream media would brand them as criminals. And it tells me that despite the cynicism that pervades social media and the apathy of the internet, there are people who believe that fighting back really matters.
Is there anything really as profound as an average citizen whose rights have been trampled by police bravely coming forward on a Zoom call to tell their story? Is there anything more inspiring than the premise of a single person story, a story that can be painful, and even embarrassing to tell can actually change all of our lives. But this is exactly what I’ve witnessed, and I’ve literally watched it unfold in real time. This community and the people who are part of it, you are changing the world for the better. And you who are watching the live stream who are in this live chat right now are part of it too. How do I know? Well, let me count the ways, so to speak. Let me tell you now and show you what I mean. Let me just go back five years to one of our early guest, Michelle Lucas.
Michelle had been forced to plead guilty to a crime she didn’t commit, namely passing a counterfeit bill. The fake money was given to her by a fellow employee to purchase liquor at the store, but the police didn’t believe her. And while she was awaiting sentencing, she told her story to us. After our story was published, which exposed the flaws of the case, the head public defender stepped in and withdrew her plea and dropped the charges. And I want you to know it is nearly unheard of for someone to have pled guilty and then have the public defender’s office step in to have it overturned. And then there’s a story of an Ohio car driver named Lufty Salim. Mr. Salim was parked outside of a pharmacy during the pandemic when an off-duty cop approached him, told him to move. And when Mr. Salim tried to explain that he was waiting for a patient, he started to drag Lufty out of the car and then tasered him multiple times. After telling his story, Lufty sued and a court tossed his suit due to, you guessed it, qualified immunity.
But Mr. Salim persisted. And just recently a circuit court panel overturned the decision, giving him another chance to fight to hold police accountable. Or I could talk about Caleb Dial. Caleb was charged with resisting arrest and felony escape by Milton police. They posted his mugshot on Facebook and hinted that he had been involved in domestic violence, all of which was untrue. After telling his story and showing the ring camera video that proved the officer was lying, Caleb obtained a lawyer, sued and won a major settlement from the Milton West Virginia Police Department. Or I could tell the story of one of our very first guests, Erica Hamlett, whose sixteen-year-old son was confronted by an off-duty Baltimore cop who pointed a gun at the teenager while he was waiting for a bus. The officer was never charged, but Hamlett fought both the department and the city to hold them accountable.
And just a few weeks ago, a jury awarded the family $250.000. These are just a few of the stories that we have been told over the past five years. Tales of malfeasance that all started with a simple idea you, meaning you, the people will not tolerate the diminishment of our rights or government that feels free to violate them. And this is what it’s really about. It’s not just police, or law enforcement, or laws, or legal precedents. What this battle really amounts to is to fight to preserve the most precious right we have, the right to self-governance. What we’re really witnessing when we report on these stories is a collective act of faith. That these rights not only matter, but are worth fighting to maintain that the phrase, “We the people,” means something tangible. And that to live in a free nation governed by equality and respect for the voice of the citizenry, means we have to speak up.
And speaking up comes with risks, and speaking out is often met with retaliation. Just consider how much jail time Eric Brandt is serving for doing so, even though what he said was offensive. His goals, his objective are not only worth considering, but debating so we can understand the limits of free speech and the price of imposing constraints upon it. So I guess what the show has taught me is that courage lies with the people who take the risk to stand up. Why else would Eric, and Abidy, and Monkey 83 stage protests around Denver over the rights of the homeless, get arrested for it, and then win settlement after settlement with the city of Denver? Why else would James Freeman turn his attention to the court system of New Mexico? And what other motivation could Otto have in mind to continue to fight the system that tried to force him to plead guilty and denied him the right to see his children?
It’s all an act premised on the idea that our world can be made better, that our rights are worth protecting, and that our freedom is non-negotiable. Believe me there days when I despair, moments when even I have doubts. But what always inspire me to double down and keep moving forward is you, the people who care. The people who not only want better, but demand better. The community that uplifts us all and the community that I’m so proud to be a part of. And it’s a community that most definitely has something in common, and it’s our humanity and our love of our constitutional rights. So I would like to thank all of you again, and I want to make sure-
Stephen:
[inaudible 02:17:19] applaud your 5th anniversary. You need applause for that. Was quite [inaudible 02:17:23]. That was-
Taya:
I don’t know if I deserve applause.
Stephen:
Sorry, I didn’t mean to interject there, but I was stunned. I was moved.
Taya:
Oh, well thank you Stephen. I hope other folks, oh, someone said, this is not the comment of the week. I just want to make sure to thank the amazing folks who helped make the show special. First, my dear friend and my very first moderator, Noli D. Hi, Noli D. and my second moderator, but no less appreciated, the kind-hearted Lacey Ard. And I have to thank the gentlemen behind the scenes who helped make the show possible tonight. Cameron Grandino and David Hebden. Thank you, gentlemen.
Stephen:
Thank you so much you guys.
Taya:
And hats off to our editor in chief who’s a great supporter of our work. Max, thank you.
Stephen:
Thank you Max.
Taya:
And I have to thank each and every one of you who shows up to our live streams. We appreciate you and I hope that you know it because we did this crazy live stream for you. That’s why we did it so we could interact with you and you guys when we don’t have the Thursday night live chat. I really do miss you. I honestly do. I hope you miss me too. Okay, so just to let everyone know, this is the time when I think my amazing patrons. Okay. I saw a Matter Of Rights down here. Okay, so this is when I thank them. So please make sure to listen up for your name. Please forgive me if I stumble or mispronounce something. And I just want to say thank you so much for your support. Are you ready for the Patreons?
Stephen:
Yes.
Taya:
Patron Patreons?
Stephen:
Yes.
Taya:
Okay. So first, for our PR patrons, first coming up, our amazing, loyal, and exceptionally intelligent associate producers, Lucida Garcia, David Keeley, John ER, Louis P, and then of course our wonderful PR super friends who are so generous and help us fight for justice with their donations and their moral support Matter Of Rights, Chris R, Kenneth Lawrence K, Pineapple Girl, Shane B and Angela True. And of course, people with wonderful and great taste in YouTube videos are official patrons. And I’m only saying the first letter of the last name because I don’t accidentally want to reveal too much information about someone. So Gary H, Michael W. Joseph P Dur Devil, Nope. Patty, Kemi, XXXX, Libit, Dante, Kipi S, John M, Joe Six. Six Estate AZ, Kyle R, Calvin M, Stephen D, Rod B, Celeste Dupy S, PT, Just M 2 Cents. Talia B, Tamara A, John K, True Tube Live.
Liz S, Gary T, and last but not least, are loyal, kind, and most certainly good-looking friends of PAR. Are you ready?
Stephen:
Mm-hmm.
Taya:
Okay. Ryan Pantilla, Sean B, Ronald H, Hugo F, Social Nationalist, Marcia E, Tim R, Justin P, Conrad B, Wingate B, Bill Ding, Ninding N, David W, Regina O, Jodes, Frank FK, Mary M, Mike D, Linda Or, and Linda, I got your card. I love that picture of Alaska you sent me. That was so sweet. You’re an absolute sweetheart. I’ve saved your letter. You’re awesome. Chris M, Dean C, Shannon P, Cameron J, Farmer Jane USA. Marbin G, Kimmy Cat P, Kurt A, Daniel W, William TG, DBMC, John K, Pot Shot, Stephen B, Cindy. K, Seskel S, Keith Bernard M, John M, Janet K, Mark William L, Noli D, Guy B, Ron F, Alan J, Trey P, Julius Geyser, Omar O, Umesh H, John P, Ryan, Lacey R, Douglas P, Andrea JO, Siggy Young, Stephen J, Michael Stephen L, Default Urine, Peter J, Joel A.
Larry L, Artemis LA. Jimmy Touchdown. He was our very first patron. Kenny G, David B, [inaudible 02:21:24], I’m A Lot To Unpack, Marlin, Cool Raul 07, Soulja, the Self-Care Maven Cat, Negrita, Gary B, Dan F, Eric G, Lorelai, W, Luis, S, Thomas C, Arvin N, Steve MC, Carson W, Twila M, Brad W, Cynthia Corrine, D, Mike K, Loretta S, Marciana, Brian M, Glen R, Mike K, I Is Circle of the Quantum Note, Philonius Punk, Betty R, Byron M, Graham Brigg W, Zira M, and RBMH. That’s it. Those are our beautiful Patreons. Those are our beautiful patrons. And I want to thank everyone that spent time with us in the live chat tonight. Like I said, I’m going to be in the comments for a little while later so you can say hi to me, share what you thought of the show.
And of course, I’m going to be looking for my PAR comment of the week. So if that’s something that you’re interested in, I’ll be taking little snapshots and putting some aside so I can have some nice comments of the week for this week and next. We’re not going to be back for two weeks, but we are working on one heck of a report for you, and it’s going to have in it a cop watcher that you know well. You might’ve seen him in the comment section today. He was fortunate to not be incarcerated this week. His name is Manuel Mata, and he’s going to help elucidate some of the larger problems with policing in this country. So I want to thank everyone. And of course, if you have any tips that you want to share with us, please reach out to us at PAR at therealnews.com. And of course, you can always reach out to me directly @TayasBaltimore on Facebook and Twitter. Stephen, is there anything I should allow you to say before I go?
Stephen:
Happy anniversary.
Taya:
All right, happy anniversary to you too.
Stephen:
Take us with your…
Taya:
Okay, and happy anniversary to my awesome mods, Noli D and Lacey R, and to anyone who I didn’t get to say goodbye to, I’m sorry, but I’ll try to make it up to you everyone. Thanks for joining me, and please be safe out there.
For decades, prisoners’ rights advocates have called on the State of Maryland to address its flagrant discrimination against prisoners housed in the state’s sole women’s prison. As The Real News has previously reported, conditions in the Maryland Correctional Institute for Women are akin to “torture,” and the lack of resources and services dedicated to incarcerated women amounts to state-sanctioned, gender-based discrimination. Christina Merryman and Ameena Deramous, both former inmates in the MCIW—or the “Women’s Cut”—join Rattling the Bars, explaining the conditions faced by incarcerated women in Maryland, and what advocates inside and outside the prison walls are doing to fight for justice, in the first half of this two-part panel.
Studio Production: David Hebden Post-Production: Cameron Granadino
Transcript
The following is a rushed transcript and may contain errors. A proofread version will be made available as soon as possible.
Mansa Musa:
Welcome to Rattling the Bars here on The Real News Network. I’m your host, Mansa Musa.
In the 19th century, women prisoners were first housed in a quarter reserved for them at the Maryland Penitentiary. They were later lodged in a section of the Maryland House of Correction, which opened in 1879. Overall, there are 854 women in the state correction system today, including women in Baltimore City Detention Center for Women, the Patuxent Institution, and intensive care treatment facilities that include male and female inmates, and the Central Home Detention unit which monitors women in their home.
The Maryland House of Correction, commonly known as the Women’s Cut, is the only institution for women in the state. This is a major problem. There’s a stark difference between how incarcerated men and women are treated in Maryland and what resources are made available to them. The procedures governing parole, security reduction, family leave, and work release are different for women in the system. I sat down to talk about the Women’s Cut with Christina Merryman and Ameena Deramous, both formerly incarcerated. Here’s part one of our conversation.
Okay. Welcome to this edition of Rattling the Bars, Ameena and Christina. Ameena, tell us a little bit about yourself.
Veronica (Ameena) Deramous:
My name is Ameena. I was just released from the Maryland Correctional Institution for Women, MCIW, in Jessup, Maryland, on January 31st.
Mansa Musa:
Welcome home.
Veronica (Ameena) Deramous:
Thank you, thank you. I have four children. I’m one of four daughters from my parents, and I was incarcerated for first-degree assault and false imprisonment. I did not know, prior to my incarceration, how broken I was or the meaning of being triggered, but once I was incarcerated I was able to, sitting down, get myself together, seek help spiritually, mentally. There were several things that could have helped me a lot quicker, but a lot of things aren’t available.
Mansa Musa:
Right. We’re going to talk about that and like I said, welcome home.
Veronica (Ameena) Deramous:
Thank you.
Mansa Musa:
[foreign language 00:02:43]. Ameena’s fasting. Today is the first day of Ramadan.
Veronica (Ameena) Deramous:
[foreign language 00:02:47].
Mansa Musa:
We’re thankful to have her here and to be able to share her experience and her stories with us. Christina, tell us a little bit about yourself.
Christina Merryman:
Hello, my name is Christina. I am a mother of two beautiful children. I am a very busy person. I work two jobs. I was released from MCIW on May 4th of this year. I came home. I got right involved with the PREPARE organization. I’m a parole advocate. I help incarcerated persons prepare for parole and go to their hearings and reenter society. I also work as an electrician. I got into the electrical trade. I am very involved with my family. I have a wonderful family, a great support network, that has stuck by my side through everything I have been through. I was away for almost six and a half years, and I got to know who I was. I got to humble myself and become a very grateful individual throughout that stay at MCIW.
Mansa Musa:
And, like I told y’all earlier, I was incarcerated in the Maryland system. I did 48. Years much like yourselves, at some point in the course of my incarceration, I had an epiphany about what I needed to do in order to maintain my sanity, because that’s one of the most important things for me at that juncture was, if I could stay sane, I could possibly survive. If I lose my sanity, I know I’m not going to survive. I commend both of y’all.
And this being International Women’s Month, I wanted to get in this space primarily to educate our audience on the prison industrial complex. We talk about it and how massive it is, but I wanted to really get into the impact that it has on women. And Angela Davis and them, they wrote a book called They Come in the Morning, they come for us at night, but in that book, it was a lot of the authors, the writers of the articles, was women and most of the women was locked up during that time, but they was locked up for their political views and that’s why they put this document out.
But when we look at the Women’s Cut, and I call it the Women’s Cut’s, it’s commonly referred to as the Women’s Cut, and it’s because of the Men’s Cut, which is now … they demolished it because of the debaucherie and the humanity that was going on in it. Ultimately, it came to a point where they just leveled it to the ground. But when you think of the Men’s Cut and some of the things that went on in there, I remember, back in the ’70s, networking with some of the sisters in the Women’s Cut when we was doing some organizing around trying to get certain things changed, and it was some real aggressive sisters. Some them was Moorish Americans, some them was Muslim, some them was just advocates that was trying to get some things done to change the way the conditions were down there.
And you said, Ameena, that you just got out. How much time did you do prior to getting out?
Veronica (Ameena) Deramous:
14 years.
Mansa Musa:
All right, so you did 14 years. When you went into the Women’s Cut, you was classified as maximum security initially?
Veronica (Ameena) Deramous:
I was.
Mansa Musa:
All right. And, during the course of your incarceration in there, did your security level ever drop?
Veronica (Ameena) Deramous:
It dropped down to medium, and when I went up for parole, I got an immediate release. It never had the opportunity to drop down any further than that and I never had the opportunity to have access to pre-release groups or classes that would’ve prepared me for my releases.
Mansa Musa:
And the tragedy in that is, I was telling Christina off mic, when we go … the men’s system … and by no stretch of the imagination do I claim to be a model prisoner. Matter of fact, I was a real live irritant to the system, and I had multiple situations. I’ve been in every jail, super-max. That’s let you know my background. But I went from max to medium, then back to max, because my behavior, from max to medium again, back to max, then to super-max. But, in each case, I had available to me, and men have available to them, the ability to go from max, medium, minimum and pre-release. In each one of these situations they’re given, they’re put in another institution, they’re given more privileges, and they’re given the ability to acclimate themselves back into society.
How does that play out with the women, Christina?
Christina Merryman:
MCIW keeps everyone housed together. I did have the ability to drop my security levels. I entered at maximum, I reduced to medium, I reduced to minimum, I reduced to pre-release, and then I reduced to work-release. I actually left the facility every day, went to an outside facility to work, and was transported back to the facility. And I had to pay rent, I had to pay fees, I had to pay room and board, transportation fees out of my check to the institution. I believe it was 25% of my overall pay that they took out of my check for me to live at the institution.
However, I was still housed with everyone, of all security levels. They do not offer a separate housing facility for any of the inmates that are, or I’m sorry, incarcerated persons, they are now referred as, for any of the different security levels. They did, right before I left, put a pre-release housing level unit as a separate section within the facility, but still housed people of all levels on that housing unit
Mansa Musa:
Okay. Now, in terms of that right there, so everybody’s in the same environment at the same time. How do they determine what you get in comparison to what other security levels get? Like I said, if I’m in a man’s facility … I left from JCI, I left from right down in that region, and they had medium, minimum, they had minimum, then they had work-release, and the men in work-release was going out working at Golden Corral and all these different places and coming back, and they was getting family leave. I just didn’t get that because I had a mandatory out, which is I made my mandatory as far as my parole. That’s the only reason why. But in terms of … did y’all get family leave?
Christina Merryman:
No.
Veronica (Ameena) Deramous:
Absolutely not.
Christina Merryman:
Denied.
Mansa Musa:
Did y’all-
Christina Merryman:
All requests denied.
Mansa Musa:
In terms of work release?
Christina Merryman:
Denied, all requests denied, for any special privileges, any special requests, any special anything, denied
Mansa Musa:
And what was the reason, in any case?
Christina Merryman:
The biggest reason they always referred to towards the end of my stay was COVID. Even though COVID was over with for two years, it was still COVID. That was their biggest go-to, any request that I ever made for the family leave, because I always brought it up when I was on work-release with the COMAR codes and everything was, “I’m entitled to this, I’m entitled to that.” No, COVID, denied.
Mansa Musa:
And when you refer to COMAR, that’s Code of Maryland Regulations and that’s the regulatory. They regulate the policies and procedures around the state of Maryland and different agencies, the Department of Public Safety and Corrections is one of the many. And then the Department of Public Safety and Correction, when they do a COMAR, COMAR has parole regulations in there. COMAR has work-release regulations in there. COMAR have family leave regulations in there. COMAR have pre-release regulations in there. COMAR even have the ability where you can go out, as we was talking, in the Maryland system, you don’t have to go to work-release, you can go to school, you can ask, “I want to go to Coppin State College, I’m pre-release, I want go to Coppin State College and come back.” And according to the Maryland regulations, this ability exist. Did y’all see that?
Veronica (Ameena) Deramous:
I had just left in January. Those rules don’t exist. They exist on paper only. They don’t exist. They’re not being applied, and it’s really, really hard to fight them. The three jobs that the women are allowed to have at MCIW is Panera Bread, Hardee’s, and the Maryland correctional Enterprises. We are being told that we can’t work anywhere where there are men. The ladies that are in the work-release program, they’re double-bunked, and they’re paying over $700 a month and they’re double-bunked. We have what looks like a pre-release unit, but it’s just another housing unit. Those ladies will never be able to have pre-release opportunities inside of a correctional facility. It’s not possible. We’re all there together. When you were on work-release, I was there, and I wasn’t pre-release or minimum. I was either medium or maximum, but I saw you.
Christina Merryman:
Yep. Every day.
Veronica (Ameena) Deramous:
Right? Things existed in writing, on paper, but not in reality.
Mansa Musa:
And I recall … because we did this, we interviewed a sister that was advocating for, in the Women’s Cut, and trying to get some policies, more importantly, trying to get the State Assembly and the governor to build separate facilities for women or create a mechanism where they can get out and have access to the same things that men … and it became apparent that, for whatever reason, y’all not relevant, and for whatever reason. Why do you think that? Why do you think that the men … and mind you now, I told you, I’ve been to all the institutions, it’s not no cakewalk on that side.
Veronica (Ameena) Deramous:
It’s not.
Mansa Musa:
It’s not no cakewalk with men, but in terms of the availability, why you think that y’all being … and this is what I want the audience to understand, we talking about the same rules and regulations. If I get caught with money in prison or a knife in prison, they going to find a rule, contraband category one, lock me on behind the door.
You get caught with a knife, money, in a prison, category one, you going behind the door. I go up for parole, they can say, “Okay, go get the work-release before you come back up.” I can come back up for parole, and this is what I want the audience to understand, I can come back up for parole and be in a work-release environment, be working in Golden Corral, been working there for the last six months, and when I go back up for parole, say, “This is where I’ve been at.” They can tell you the same thing, say, no, they ain’t going to tell you that, because they tell you that mean that they got to have you do something that the institution’s saying I do. Isn’t that a problem in terms of parole?
Christina Merryman:
Yes, because parole puts stipulations and regulations that they want the incarcerated person to accomplish. MCIW makes it virtually impossible for us to accomplish those things. First off, you can’t get into classes when you’re not on a certain level. The administration chooses who they want to choose and place in those classes. There is no proper procedure. The people in the administration, and the certain officers that handle the way they choose the incarcerated persons to participate, have their favorites. Honestly, it’s like you are in a high school all over again. There is no proper structure, there is no proper help, and you can’t go to a certain officer to have help because, when you do, it gets back to the entire population. It’s horrible.
Mansa Musa:
And you say you did 13 or 14 of your …
Veronica (Ameena) Deramous:
Yes.
Mansa Musa:
How much time did you have? What was your overall sentence?
Veronica (Ameena) Deramous:
I had life suspend all but 25.
Mansa Musa:
Right. You did did 15-
Veronica (Ameena) Deramous:
14-
Mansa Musa:
14-
Veronica (Ameena) Deramous:
… off of my life suspend-
Mansa Musa:
So you mandatoried out?
Veronica (Ameena) Deramous:
No, I didn’t mandatory out, but I definitely did-
Mansa Musa:
You went out with days?
Veronica (Ameena) Deramous:
Yeah.
Mansa Musa:
You made parole with days?
Veronica (Ameena) Deramous:
Well, I just made parole. I was granted parole, and if I had not made parole I would still be there because of the system. Let me reiterate some of the things-
Mansa Musa:
Come on.
Veronica (Ameena) Deramous:
… that she said. Again, we have a list of groups and classes and programs on paper, but we don’t have those groups and programs active.
Christina Merryman:
True.
Veronica (Ameena) Deramous:
We have groups and classes and programs that you can be certified in and you can take those classes if they pick you. And, once you’re done with that class, the testing part isn’t there.
You have a certification class that’s being given without the certification. Then do you have a certification class?
Mansa Musa:
No, you just do a class.
Veronica (Ameena) Deramous:
Okay. And we may have three or four of them, and then we lose the instructors, and so then we don’t have those. Hospitality, certification class, I was in that class when the instructor left for whatever reason and didn’t finish it. They said they were going to do cosmetology, but they did a barbering course in the women’s prison. And the ladies have taken … before I left, they were on their second group going through, and the first group, they still hadn’t figured out how they were going to test. The staff, I was in the military, I was in the United States Army, I never would have imagined going into a state facility not having any discipline or structure at all. The officer in the building, the officer on the grounds, every time there’s a different officer, there’s a different set of rules.
Mansa Musa:
There’s a different set of rules, that’s right.
Veronica (Ameena) Deramous:
Coming from the military, there’s one set of rules and everyone follows that set of rules.
Mansa Musa:
Yeah. Ain’t no consistency, ain’t no consistency.
Veronica (Ameena) Deramous:
None. And then, if you take officers who have no rank at all and put them in positions of power, you take an officer and make that officer the VAC coordinator who’s over all the programming, if she doesn’t like you, you won’t be-
Christina Merryman:
You don’t [inaudible 00:19:41].
Veronica (Ameena) Deramous:
… participating in those classes.
Mansa Musa:
Your volunteer activity coordinator.
Veronica (Ameena) Deramous:
Correct. You take another officer and you make them a case manager, and they don’t like you, but your case managers play a very large part in you being incarcerated. You take another staff member, off the ground, and make them the ARP coordinator. That’s a big problem.
Mansa Musa:
Yeah, yeah, administrative procedure.
Veronica (Ameena) Deramous:
Ho I going to complain about you, or any of your friends, and you’re handling the paperwork?
Mansa Musa:
And you know what? And, as you outline that for the benefit of our audience, this is important that we understand that what we’re talking about here is equity and equality, because we’re not complaining about, okay, you have this narrative crime, crying, time, if you did the crime, do the time and stop crying, but this ain’t about none of that. This is about, if the Code of Maryland Regulation says … it doesn’t say, “This is what the Code of Maryland Regulation say.” Code of Maryland Regulation don’t say, “In women’s prison, women get three meals. In the men’s prison, men get four meals.” It don’t say, in the Code of Maryland Regulation, say, “In women’s prison, women get one hour of rec and men get all-day rec.” It’s a uniformity, to go back to your point, it’s a uniformity from Department of Public Safety and Corrections all the way down.
It’s a uniformity, but it’s only a uniformity when it comes to men’s prison. And so I want y’all to flush out this as we go forward. I want y’all flush this idea out, what impact does that have on your ability to maintain your sanity and get out? Because both of y’all got out. I’m not going to claim that I wasn’t damaged. First thing I got, when I got out, was mental health, because I understood that I needed to understand a lot that was going on, and I got good support in that work. But I understood this here that wasn’t nobody did four and a half years in that super-max. I did that on that, [inaudible 00:22:01] part around 12 people, and I knew it impacted me. I knew I had to get some type of help.
Let’s start with you, Christina, how did that impact you in terms of your ability to function and survive to the point where you was able to get out?
Christina Merryman:
I am a people person. I am a social butterfly. I was all over that compound. I love people. But I found myself, when I was away, I isolated a lot, because the surroundings around me, mostly officers, if I didn’t, they will try to pull you out of your character to see you fail, and knowing that I had to isolate more of who I was and shut down. Coming home, it was a little bit of a struggle because … first thing I did was mental health. I see a therapist. I’ve never done that before in my life, and my mom doesn’t understand it. She’s like, “You don’t need that.” I’m like, “But I do,” because it’s such a change now that I’m home and I’m able to be this social butterfly again and not have that worry of who’s there, is somebody there, that person in that black uniform going to try to get me out of my character? It is a little bit of a struggle, when I first came home, of being able to be my true self and not have that tension, and it shouldn’t be that way.
Mansa Musa:
No. And I’ve been in that space. I was in Islam. I did a whole murder, different thing, and I recognized that we had to, in order to get food during the Ramadan, in order to get the opportunity to fast and be able to break fast, it was a whole lot going with that. Matter of fact, Salaam versus Collins, a case that came out, Salaam versus Collins, where the Muslims sued to get a Islamic coordinator in the environment.
Black woman, Muslim and incarcerated, and like you say, I got your military background, so you got a certain discipline, but how was you able to maintain in being in that … and you also said, off camera, that you was a litigant, you was litigious, so you was a [inaudible 00:24:56] for the powers that be, which was a good thing. How was you able to maintain and be able to get out without finding yourself with an adjustment record that supersedes the amount of years you done?
Veronica (Ameena) Deramous:
Retaliation is real, believe that. I got one ticket, I got caught with a cellphone, because I was an advocate. So many things happened there that I tried to write up that could never get anywhere, that when they were passing a cellphone around, I got it. And when I had it, I was taking pictures of the maggots in the shower. I was taking pictures of all the goose poop that’s on the ground that we, as incarcerated individuals now, we know that outside people are coming because the grounds smell grapey. They have something to get rid of them when the time is necessary. Even if you do complain about something, before someone can come in, they will have fixed that, in addition to they’re not going to take you to the place exactly that we were speaking of. The staff members, some of the staff members, they clique up like the residents clique up. A couple of times, we were trying to figure out if they were members of specific groups.
Mansa Musa:
I understand.
Veronica (Ameena) Deramous:
When you’re trying to get better, when you’re trying to do better, but you’re being agitated, it’s hard. I’m not saying … and please, I don’t want you to think for two seconds that I feel like I did the right thing or that I didn’t deserve to do time, but I didn’t deserve to do time like that.
Christina Merryman:
Yeah, I agree.
Veronica (Ameena) Deramous:
I didn’t deserve that. I’m not exactly sure how things go, but I almost felt like MCIW had some type of protective shield because we couldn’t get the word out. My mail didn’t go out. My mail didn’t go out. I would get my mail back two months later, opened. You can’t get the information out. Even to hear you say that you complain about things and you’re able to make a change, we weren’t, are not, able to make those changes because we can’t get to anyone.
Mansa Musa:
Let me ask you this here. Going forward, what do you want to tell the women that are back … they’re still in the Women’s Cut. What do y’all want to tell them as we wrap this segment up about what it is y’all want them to leave them with in terms of motivating them in the spirit and get them to maintain? Christina?
Christina Merryman:
To try to do what I did, get involved in everything you can possibly get involved in. Stay busy. Stay connected with as many outside connections, support members, that you have. Stay positive. Keep a smile on your face, and kill every officer with as much kindness of spirit as you have. And do not, no matter what, let them rent the space in your head to take you out of your character, because they’re not worth it, and it will get better because there’s a date, you will have your date, your time will come, and it will get better. And you’ve got girls like us. You’ve got your advocates.
Veronica (Ameena) Deramous:
Absolutely. For me, I want everybody to know that I love you guys.
Christina Merryman:
Yes.
Veronica (Ameena) Deramous:
I was excited and sad to leave at the same time. I left my family, my children, my parents, my sisters, for 14 years. But when I left MCIW, I left a different family. I had a lot of support and I’m grateful for that. I want you ladies to know that there are a group of us that have been released and we are fighting on your behalf and we’re going to get the word out. They let out the right ones. [foreign language 00:29:41].
Mansa Musa:
That’s right, that’s right.
Veronica (Ameena) Deramous:
They let out the right group of ladies. We got you.
Mansa Musa:
Yeah. Okay. We Rattling the Bars. We got Ameena and Christina, recently released from the Women’s Cut, as we refer to it, and as we recognize from this conversation that it is in fact a notorious environment. But, like the phoenix, both of these young ladies, both of these ladies, has risen, and we are here to advocate on behalf of our sisters. We don’t leave nobody behind. There you have it. The Real News, Rattling the Bars.
Speaker 4:
Thank you so much for watching The Real News Network, where we lift up the voices, stories, and struggles that you care about most, and we need your help to keep doing this work. Please tap your screen now, subscribe, and donate to The Real News Network. Solidarity Forever.
When Erica Hamlett’s 16-year-old son Jawone Nicholson called her from a Howard County cul de sac while waiting for a bus, she assumed it was a routine check-in to let her know he was en route to an after-school program.
Instead, he told her a man he didn’t know had pulled out a gun and pointed it at him. Terrified, Hamlett sprang into action.
She rushed to the site of the confrontation. Soon, she learned the man, dressed in jeans and a sweatshirt, was an off-duty Baltimore cop. Jawone told her the man had pulled the gun after confronting the teen over why he was lingering in the neighborhood. The yet-to-be-identified man had flashed a badge and was still standing menacingly nearby.
Hamlett called Howard County police. An officer quickly disarmed the Baltimore cop, Damond Durant. But Hamlett was so shaken she also started to shoot video from her phone as she confronted him.
That footage became part of a series of TRNN investigations chronicling this fraught 2017 encounter and Hamlett’s subsequent push to hold Durant accountable—efforts that came to fruition last week when a federal jury awarded $250,000 to Hamlett’s son.
“The verdict in support of Mr. Nicholson is a clear message that members of the community will not stand for unwarranted violence against its members.”
The judgment was the result of a federal lawsuit filed by Baltimore attorney Carey J. Hansel. The filing describes how the troubling encounter caused Nicholson mental duress, including insomnia, panic attacks, and the need for months of therapy.
Hansel tried the case with his associate, Tiana Boardman. She said the jury’s decision was a clear statement that the community would not tolerate casual threats from officers.
“The verdict in support of Mr. Nicholson is a clear message that members of the community will not stand for unwarranted violence against its members.”
The impact of Officer Durant’s actions was first recounted to TRNN in 2018 in a series of interviews in which Nicholson recalled the tense moment when Durant confronted him.
“He pulled the gun and then we put our hands up and started walking away, and he followed us,” Nicholson told TRNN in an interview shortly after the encounter.
“He came up and he never identified himself as an officer. He asked us why we were over there, asked us a few questions, and then he pulled his gun.”
For Hamlett, the encounter was frighteningly similar to many often-deadly interactions between American police and young Black men.
“He can be doing everything right, everything right, and that man had every opportunity to kill my son,” Hamlett told TRNN.
“And from the lies that he’s told since the incident, he would have had no reason not to tell a lie to make it seem like my son provoked him to do what he did to him.”
The settlement has received widespread coverage in Baltimore. However, Hamlett’s nearly seven-year odyssey has received less attention.
Initially, she tried to file an internal affairs complaint against Durant over her concern that Durant’s reckless use of a gun could occur again.
“This particular police officer broke somebody’s jaw a few years ago. The city paid out a large settlement to the suspect. And then, here is this incident that occurred with my son. So, to me, it makes the officer feel like “I can do what I want with no accountability,” she said shortly after she filed the complaint.
The city did initially accuse Durant of violating departmental regulations by filing administrative charges. But a judge tossed the case after ruling that the city filed after the statute of limitations had expired.
Hamlett also tried to obtain a restraining order against Durant, representing herself pro se in a Howard County court. The judge ruled in her favor. For her, the ordeal has been a lesson in the obstacles to holding police accountable.
Hamlett said to TRNN, “We are relieved that after seven long, difficult, even fearful, years, we finally received some form of justice. Holding police accountable for their actions isn’t a clear nor easy path. The officer is still a Baltimore City police officer and my son still has the fight of collecting his award, but we can finally celebrate a win… but without you and those 1 million-plus comments I’m sure our story wouldn’t have gotten the attention it deserved.”
Previously, Hansel’s firm was the lead litigant in a landmark civil rights case against the Baltimore Housing Authority. The suit alleged maintenance workers traded sex for repairs at the public housing complex Gilmor Homes. The city settled for $8 million in 2016.
Hansel Law Firm has become an important facet of government accountability for Baltimore residents, as they have reached out to assist victims in litigation after our investigative series in Gilmore Homes, Perkins Homes, and now Erica Hamlett’s family.
Hamlett told TRNN, “No one else really listened before you… We just hope that others will gain the strength to fight for justice as well.”
In 1977, American Indian Movement member Leonard Peltier was convicted of the murder of two FBI agents, and has remained a political prisoner of the US ever since. Peltier’s conviction has long been contested by activists and legal experts. Despite the recantation of three key witnesses, his case has never been brought back to trial. Peltier has been eligible for parole since 1992, and the federal government has ignored calls to free him for more than 30 years. Rachel Dionne Thunder joins Rattling the Bars to discuss Peltier’s case and the radical vision of the American Indian Movement which the federal government has sought to repress through Peltier’s incarceration.
Studio Production: David Hebden Post-Production: Cameron Granadino
Transcript
The following is a rushed transcript and may contain errors. A proofread version will be made available as soon as possible.
Mansa Musa:
Rachel Thunder, her name speaks for itself, was reared in the spirit of the American Indian Movement and active in freeing Leonard Peltier, the longest held political prisoner. Welcome to Rattling the Bars, Rachel.
Rachel Dionne Thunder:
Hi. Thanks for having me.
Mansa Musa:
Tell our audience a little bit about yourself, Rachel.
Rachel Dionne Thunder:
So my name is Rachel Dionne Thunder. I currently live in Minneapolis, Minnesota. I come from an AIM family, that’s the American Indian Movement, which is a Civil Rights movement for American Indian people that started here in Minneapolis in 1968. I’m also one of the co-founders and board members of our organization here called the Indigenous Protector Movement.
And so, growing up as a girl, as a little girl in AIM, I always heard stories of Leonard Peltier and those founding members of the American Indian Movement, and the injustices that they fought during the Civil Rights era in the late ’60s and early ’70s. And so, our work today is carrying that on, but also not forgetting our now elder, Leonard Peltier, who is the longest-held indigenous political prisoner. He’s been held for nearly five decades at this point.
Mansa Musa:
We’re talking about people whose nation, these are nations that’s asking for… The thing with Leonard Peltier is because of, like you said earlier, the Civil Rights. But it’s more about the human rights of a people who are claiming nationhood and the right to self-determination and the right to govern themselves. And it’s because of this that we find a situation with Lewis Peltier. But not only with him, but other indigenous people that have came and gone. And so, let’s talk about, as you spoke earlier, about AIM. Now, we recognize that, and it came out, I think the birth is in the Minneapolis, if I’m not mistaken.
Rachel Dionne Thunder:
Yeah. In 1968.
Mansa Musa:
1968. We know that during that period, a series of events took place that led up to AIM being organized into an entity. We had all the tribes, various tribes come to Washington during the Nixon administration to try to get treaties that was signed, giving back properties, getting out the way of indigenous people from having their own nation. That they came to Washington with the sole and purpose of educating the populace about what was going on on the reservations, and then the different parts of the country where indigenous people was populated.
As a result of that, that put them on the radar, because they took over the Bureau of Prisons… Not the Bureau of prisons, but it took over the Bureau of Indian Affairs because they came to Washington with the understanding that they was going to be, that this was an opportunity for the federal government to acknowledge what they doing, and to pave the way for the various nations to come together and get their own autonomy.
Rachel Dionne Thunder:
Right, and you’re speaking on what was the Trail of Broken Treaties.
Mansa Musa:
The Trail of Broken Treaties, right. Go ahead, talk about that.
Rachel Dionne Thunder:
Which, that was a caravan that took place, where thousands of individuals went to Washington D.C. with 21 points to honor, what you were saying, our sovereign indigenous rights as sovereign nations existing here in what we call Turtle Island, which is effectively the United States and Canada. And so, as a sovereign nation, we exist separate from the United States government and the Canadian government. We are effectively our own countries, our own nations, and there are treaties that were signed with the United States government and with the Crown, actually, it’s not the Canadian government. And every single one of those treaties that were signed, which is over 570 in the United States alone, have been broken.
And in those treaties, you can find things all the way from land ownership, to hunting and fishing rights, to the rights to be able to supply our own food, our healthcare, our education. And so, all of these points in these treaties were broken, and so that was the point of the Trail of Broken Treaties was to raise awareness to that effect and to bring that issue to Washington.
And once they arrived, they found that they were not going to be hosted the way that they were originally planned to be.
Mansa Musa:
[inaudible 00:05:26]
Rachel Dionne Thunder:
Yep. And so, that was when the occupation of the Bureau of Indian Affairs occurred in Washington D.C.
Mansa Musa:
And we want to acknowledge that when things was articulated about what that actually happened, actually the distortion was that it didn’t have nothing to do with all the aforementioned things. It had something to do with savages coming to District of Columbia, taking over the Bureau of Indian Affairs. But the recognition is that no, this was an organized activity designed around and not getting an acknowledgement of certain treaties that was around it.
But as we move forward, out of this came what we know as the American Indian Movement, because that’s when it became, the organization structure started to take shape. And it’s at this juncture, and I remember it distinctly because I was incarcerated, and I was involved with a collective that was the Black Panthers, and the black Panther papers always keep us abreast of what was going on with different movements during that period. And this was one that was being highlighted, because not only did they do that, they had took over… It was a series of events that took place. They took over the island where the prison was at.
Rachel Dionne Thunder:
Alcatraz.
Mansa Musa:
They took over Alcatraz, and they started policing. They started providing security for the various reservations where the Bureau of Indian Affairs and their proxies was terrorizing the community. Talk about, like you say, you are a child of AIM. Talk about your views on those things as you know them to be today.
Rachel Dionne Thunder:
So the way that I was told is that the American Indian Movement was born in the prison system. Our people are incarcerated at some of the highest statistical numbers. And so what we saw during that time and what we were told is that there was a renewal, a rebirth of our traditional spiritual practices in the prison system. Our men were able to return to the sweat lodge, they were able to return to the drum, and once they had received that traditional healing in the prison system, they came back out on the streets and they brought that back to the people.
And so, Clyde Belcourt, Eddie Benton-Benet, Russell Means, Dennis Banks. These are all co-founders of the American Indian Movement. And here in Minneapolis, police brutality against our people was at a high. And so when they came out of the prisons, they enacted AIM Patrol, which was protecting our people from the Minneapolis Police Department. And that hasn’t gotten too much better today, but that’s a different podcast.
Mansa Musa:
Right, right.
Rachel Dionne Thunder:
But specifically in South Dakota, to kind of flip things towards Leonard Peltier, Wounded Knee, the occupation of Wounded Knee happened in 1973. And so, that was led by the American Indian Movement in an attempt to bring attention and awareness to protect the traditional people of the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation that were being attacked, that were being assaulted, that were being murdered by the FBI and non-traditional natives and a corrupt tribal council that had been effectively bought out by the FBI.
So, the occupation of Wounded Knee began a period of time known as the Reign of Terror. So in 1973, it was a three-year period of time known as the Reign of Terror that was led by corrupt tribal chairman, Dick Wilson, the Goon Squad, which is the guardians of the Oglala Nation, and the FBI. And so, what you had during this three-year period of time was intensive local surveillance, repeated arrests, harassments, 64 local murders of natives there on the reservation, and over 350 serious assaults during that time. So you have to understand that context, that atmosphere of violence at that time.
Mansa Musa:
That’s right.
Rachel Dionne Thunder:
That the traditional people were experiencing. And so, what happened was they called AIM. They called AIM here in Minneapolis, and they asked for help. They asked for protection. And so, responding to that call were warriors that went there to the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation to protect their traditional people, so that they wouldn’t be murdered, so they wouldn’t be assaulted.
And so, one of those individuals that responded to that call was Leonard Peltier, that went there to the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation to protect the people. And ultimately, almost three years later, after the occupation of Wounded Knee, we have what’s known as the Incident, the shootout at the Jumping Bull Camp, which happened in June of 1975.
And so in June of 1975, there was a camp set up of AIM members and traditional people, mostly women and children at the Jumping Bull Residence on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation, and some of the AIM members who were there setting up camp as well. And on June 26th, two unmarked cars, which were later found to be two FBI agents in civilian clothes, but two unmarked cars followed a van into the complex, and what ensued afterwards was a shootout. And you have to remember the violence that was happening there on the reservation.
Mansa Musa:
Right, right. [inaudible 00:11:58]
Rachel Dionne Thunder:
Yep. So a shootout happened, and at the end of that shootout, both agents, later to find out agents, were dead. And one Native American man, Joe Stuntz, whose death has never been investigated, and no one has ever been charged with his murder. But two FBI agents, Ronald Williams and Jack Coler, were both dead at the end of the shootout.
What ensued after that was a manhunt to seek justice for these two FBI agents that have been shot, and for the FBI to make an example out of native people, saying that if you resist, if you stand up, if you don’t go along with this strong arm of the United States government, if you stand on your traditional values and your traditional ways, this is what will happen to you.
Mansa Musa:
Right. And Rachel, we recognize that the Reign of Terror, but right there, they had the lackeys that was from the Bureau of Prison, the lackeys that were responsible for suppressing anybody on the reservation, anybody, any indigenous person, to suppress or repress their, any desire they had to have any type of self-determination. That they was primarily there, when they was trying to get him out, when they was trying to get the Bureau of Indian Affairs, the representative is trying to get him out. This whole thing, FBI, the military came to prop him up, or to solidify their reign, in terms of terrorizing people. But talk about how they wind up identifying Leonard Peltier as being involved in these agents being killed.
Rachel Dionne Thunder:
So what ended up happening, so these two agents were originally going in, apparently, to serve a warrant for a pair of stolen cowboy boots.
Mansa Musa:
Two agents for a pair of cowboy boots?
Rachel Dionne Thunder:
Yeah, two FBI agents.
Mansa Musa:
Two FBI agents. Right. Okay.
Rachel Dionne Thunder:
For a pair of stolen cowboy boots. They were serving a warrant for a man named Jimmy Eagle, and they were following a van in that reportedly had been known to be Jimmy Eagle’s van.
But what ended up happening was, there were arrests made at the end. And so there were three arrests made. There were Bob Robideau, Dino Butler, and Leonard Peltier. But Leonard Peltier was not arrested until later. First it was Bob Robideau and Dino Butler were both arrested, and they were tried in Cedar Rapids, and they were both found not guilty and acquitted on the grounds of self-defense. And then later, Leonard Peltier was arrested in Canada.
But the way that Leonard Peltier was linked to this case is that, on the Kansas Turnpike outside of Wichita, in Wichita Kansas, there was a van that exploded on the turnpike, and magically in this van that exploded… This is a separate date later on, there was an AR-15 found in the van, there was Agent Coler’s .308 rifle found in the van, and some homemade explosives.
And from this van that magically appeared in Wichita, Kansas on the turnpike, they determined that the AR, that specific AR-15 was Leonard Peltier’s AR-15, and that AR-15 was the one used to kill the agents, even though there were multiple AR-15 there at the shootout that day, and to say whose was whose…
Mansa Musa:
Right. Exactly.
Rachel Dionne Thunder:
And so…
Mansa Musa:
Go ahead. Go ahead.
Rachel Dionne Thunder:
Part of the belief that Leonard Peltier was specifically targeted was because of his leadership in the movement, in the American Indian Movement. Because during that time, even outside of Pine Ridge, outside of Wounded Knee, when you look at all of these strategic calls to justice that the movement was doing at the time. You mentioned them, the BIA takeover, the takeover of Alcatraz, standing up against the system. There was a nationwide manhunt for leaders in the American Indian Movement and heavy, heavy COINTELPRO happening in the movement too, to cause division. And so anytime there was an opportunity to place any of the leadership in a situation that could be used against them, it would be used. And so, in this instance, that was the case for Leonard.
Mansa Musa:
And I wanted to bring that point home about COINTELPRO, this is just my philosophy, right? If COINTELPRO is involved in your case, then you ain’t get a fair trial, because their whole design is, this is what their design is, to manufacture evidence, to coerce witnesses, to outright lie, to isolate the individuals, to attack their support base, and at the end, to get a conviction, which is not going to be hard to get under those circumstances. Because like in Peltier’s case, they claim that someone that was supposed to have knowledge of the incident was around when it happened. Later we can say, well, they was coerced. And then when we can say they was coerced, the state and the system say, oh, well, they suffer from some type of mental illness.
Rachel Dionne Thunder:
You’re speaking about Myrtle Bear.
Mansa Musa:
If your word can’t be taken on your recantation, how can your… Because of your mental state, if I recant, you’re saying I can’t be trustworthy on my recant because of my mental health, but yet my initial statement has validity? That in and of itself is suspect. But talk about why you think, and you hit on a little bit, why you think they’re so adamant about holding Leonard Peltier, even in the face of overwhelming evidence and information that he was set up by the FBI because of his political involvement with AIM.
Rachel Dionne Thunder:
I wanted to touch a little bit on what you just said too, because Myrtle Poor Bear signed, there was two affidavits that were based off of Myrtle Poor Bear’s testimony that was used to extradite Peltier from Canada to begin with. So he should have never even left Canada after he was arrested, to even be brought to the United States to have a trial. He should have stayed in Canada, because the affidavits were based off, of course, testimonies.
But in the big picture of what you’re speaking on, because our people, as indigenous people of Turtle Island, let’s just go ahead and throw South America into indigenous people of North and South America. We have been resisting and fighting colonization and the colonial governments of the United States and Canada and South America for over 530 years, since they first stepped foot here on these lands. And in that genocidal war that we have been in for over 530 years, their genocidal tactics have only shifted faces. Hundreds of years ago… Well, actually less than a hundred years ago, in some instances, they could just outright massacre our people.
And today, because of political environment, they can’t just outright massacre our people, but they can massacre us in other ways. They can massacre us through the justice system. They can massacre our people by not fighting the drugs and alcohol that are plaguing our communities. They can massacre our people by making sure that we don’t have access to healthcare or to education.
There’s different tactics that genocide follows over years. And Leonard Peltier is a piece of that. They’re saying, if you resist our colonial government systems, if you resist colonizing your traditional ways, and you want to stay traditional, and you want to continue to fight the system, this is what will happen to you. And it doesn’t matter if you did it or if you didn’t do it, we’re going to make it look like you did it.
Mansa Musa:
Right. And that’s where I wanted really to emphasize the point, because I said earlier, reparations, if you were saying that you was interned as a Japanese during World War II and you want to be compensated for that, that’s a behavior and an act that was inflicted on you as a citizen of this country. That was an act that was inflicted on you when you was brought to this country as a slave.
But the issue, and I really want to emphasize this issue for our audience, the issue of indigenous people is, this is our land. You on our property. You signed treaties to say that we have the right to sovereignty, to autonomy. And when we seek to exercise that, because now you find out that where we are at is on mineral-rich soil, or where we are at is more important for corporate America or capitalism and imperialism. Now you going to say that, well, we don’t want to give you independence. We want to acclimate you and become an American, and through that process, ignore your rights to have your own autonomy.
And this is why I think that I was asking about why Peltier, because it stands to reason, to be held that long under the most dubious circumstance. Even like Geronimo Pratt. It was obvious he was innocent. It was obvious that they spent all that time to hold onto that fabrication. But at some point, it unraveled. But with Peltier’s case, even in the face of the evidence saying that he’s innocent, even in the face of the evidence saying that he’s being held captive because of his stance on his right to be treated, have a right to self-determination, that that right there seemed like to be, like for the United States of America, a line in the sand. It ain’t even asking him, like to renounce status. They saying, we just going to let you die a dead of a thousand cuts. Do you get that same impression?
Rachel Dionne Thunder:
Yeah, no, I do. I was just sitting here listening to what you were saying, and it made me think about just how unfair his trial was. I don’t think we’ve really touched on his trial.
Mansa Musa:
Come on, talk about it.
Rachel Dionne Thunder:
Because Bob Robideau and Dino Butler were both tried in Cedar Rapids, right? So we touched on that Leonard was extradited from Canada. So he had a separate trial in a separate location. He was brought to Fargo, North Dakota, so he was not tried in the same location as Bob Robideau and Dino Butler, where they were found not guilty on self-defense.
So he was in Fargo, North Dakota. He was with a different judge. All of the evidence and testimonies from Dino and Bob’s trial were not allowed to be in Leonard’s trial. It was found inadmissible. There were coerced testimonies. There was evidence tampering, with the whole AR-Fifteen and the van that exploded in Wichita, Kansas. At the end of his trial, the jury only deliberated for six hours, and at the end of his trial, he was found guilty and sentenced to two consecutive life sentences. And so, what he was found guilty of was murder at that time.
Later on… Later, we’re talking decades later, in the year 2000, with the Freedom of Information Act, a lot of information came out about the injustices in his trial. It was proven. And so, through that, his sentencing or his charges actually changed to… They changed it. They changed it to aiding and abetting the murder of Ronald Williams and Jack Coler. But that’s an interesting point in itself, because Bob Robideau and Dino Butler were both acquitted and found not guilty. So who is he aiding and abetting? Himself? Can you aid and abet yourself?
Mansa Musa:
Yeah, aid and abetting. I’m aiding and abetting you in self-defense. You are defending yourself, so I’m aiding and abetting, I’m helping you defend yourself. I’m helping you defend yourself. I’m not doing nothing to the person that’s trying to do something to you. I’m aiding and abetting you in defending. That’s the illogic of this whole thing.
But talk about where we at right now in terms of, because I told you earlier when we came on, how important it is for Real News and Rattling the Bar, how important it is for us to be able to get this information out there and beat this drum constantly about Leonard Peltier there. We don’t want to be in a position where we’re eulogizing our freedom fighters, we’re eulogizing our comrades, because now we holding them up in high esteem because of what they stood for. We want to be able to say that we fought the fight to the end, and no matter what, that’s our position. He’s innocent. He should be let home. So talk about where we at right now with his case and if you have knowledge of it.
Rachel Dionne Thunder:
Yeah, I actually, I just talked to Kevin Sharp yesterday. So Kevin Sharp is Leonard Peltier’s lawyer that’s in charge of overseeing his parole hearing that’s coming up, passionate release and clemency petitions. So those are the three paths that Leonard Peltier currently has to being released. And so, I can kind of touch a little bit on each one of those.
Peltier first came eligible for parole in 1993, and so he’s eligible, but on all of those hearings, he was denied parole, obviously. But he is eligible for parole now again this year. So there is that avenue. There is the compassionate release avenue, which there has been three compassionate release petitions filed for Leonard Peltier over the years. There’s a fourth currently being pushed through the system. And then the third opportunity for freedom, it would be clemency through the Biden administration. So those are the three possibilities right now.
And then, in reality, we have to be very real about the situation. Leonard Peltier is 79 years old. He’s going to be 80 years old in September. He has type two diabetes. He has an abdominal aortic aneurysm that is fatal if it ruptures. He’s lost 80% of vision in one of his eyes from a stroke. And what Kevin was telling me yesterday is that he has lost most of his vision now, at this point, and that’s a mixture between cataracts, glaucoma, and his diabetes affecting his eyesight. So if one of these three avenues, the clemency, the parole or the compassionate release, don’t happen, and they don’t happen soon, we will be in a situation where it’s too late and Leonard Peltier will have died in prison.
And in recent years, there has been a really strong push for Peltier. In 2022, myself, I led, along with other members in the American Indian Movement, we led a walk, where we walked from Minneapolis to Washington D.C. It took two and a half months. It was 1,103 miles, and we had rallies along the way. We had rallies in Madison and Chicago and Cleveland, Toledo, Pittsburgh. And we had a rally in D.C. where we met with senators and representatives there to advocate for the release of Peltier.
Just this previous year, there was a caravan from South Dakota to Washington D.C., where it ended in a large rally in front of the White House, where several arrests were made. Several of our people were arrested there, protesting in front of the White House. And we have a lot of support through the National Congress of American Indians, through the Senate, through the House of Reps for clemency, for compassionate release for Leonard.
And so, all of this energy and culmination of history and sacrifice of people and work of people over the decades for Peltier is really coming to this head point now, that if something doesn’t happen now, it won’t happen. And there’s, in several speeches and several times during the walks, during the caravans, during the meetings with representatives, we have made it very clear that they don’t want Leonard Peltier to die in prison. If they want to keep relations with indigenous people and native people in our communities somewhat positive, then they need to let Leonard Peltier go.
Mansa Musa:
Right. And as we close out, tell us about your organization, how we can get in touch with you, and how people can stay abreast of what’s going on now with your organization, with upcoming events around Leonard Peltier.
Rachel Dionne Thunder:
I would say that there are two organizations to follow. One would be our organization, the Indigenous Protector Movement, and we are on all social media handles, and NDN Collective, and that’s the letters N, D and N Collective. They’re based out of South Dakota. They work a lot with Kevin Sharp, working towards the freedom of Leonard Peltier. And so, both of our organizations are heavily involved. We’ll share updates.
And I would say that the biggest ask that anybody could do would be to call your senator, call your local representative, and say that you support the release of Leonard Peltier and that you want their elected official to do the same. Because a lot of this is a political game at this point.
And I’ll just kind of wrap up by saying that, through these stories that I’ve heard growing up of Leonard, of carrying on this fight for Leonard in my life and seeing it come to this point, that by holding Leonard, they’re holding a piece of all of us as indigenous people. That until Leonard is free, none of us are free. And if they can do it to him, they can do it to any of us. And I don’t mean only native people, anybody that resists the long hand of the United States government.
Mansa Musa:
Right. Turtle Island. And thank you, Rachel, for coming in and rattling the bars. You definitely rattle the bars in the spirit of indigenous people, like you say, warriors fighting for the rights that they not asking for. I’m not asking you to acknowledge my rights. I’m asking you to get out of my way while I exercise my right to my freedoms. I’m not asking you to give me nothing. I’m asking you to get out of my way as I go forward and live my life as my ancestors lived their lives. I’m not asking you for no monies. I’m asking you to get off my land so I can cultivate the land and produce the necessary minerals and resources to feed my people and strengthen my people.
And I agree with you. Peltier is all of us, or Angela Davis say, they come for you in the morning, they’ll come for us at night. Well, as long as Peltier remains captive, all of us is captive, and we need to really step forward and let people know. And we encouraging our listeners and our viewers to really look at what Rachel Thunder is saying about indigenous people, and really listen to what she’s saying about Leonard Peltier and the fact that according to this country, you have a freedom of speech and a freedom of thought, but it’s only if you not indigenous or a person of color, do these rights get acknowledged. Thank you for coming in, Rachel. Thank you for rattling the bars with me today.
A Wisconsin man making Doordash deliveries in the vicinity of Lake Superior had his world suddenly turned upside-down by a traffic stop gone terribly wrong. Body camera footage of the stop shows police officers barking contradictory orders at the driver, who does his best to comply, before mercilessly using a taser on him. The man, who was later charged with resisting arrest and driving the wrong way up a one-way street, says he was not informed about the reason for the stop before police brutalized him. Police Accountability Report examines the facts and unpacks what this case reveals about law enforcement’s broad powers to deploy force against civilians.
Production: Stephen Janis, Taya Graham Post-Production, Stephen Janis, Adam Coley
Transcript
The following is a rushed transcript and may contain errors. A proofread version will be made available as soon as possible.
Taya Graham:
Hello, my name is Taya Graham, and welcome to the Police Accountability Report. As we always make clear, this show has a single purpose, holding the politically powerful institution of policing accountable. And to do so, we don’t just focus on the bad behavior of individual cops. Instead, we examine the system that makes bad policing possible. And today, we’ll achieve that goal by showing you this video. It depicts police using violent force against a DoorDash driver for turning onto a one-way street. But when you watch how this car stop unfolded and how dangerous the situation became, you’ll understand why we need to drill down into all the details and how and why this harrowing car stop happened. But before we get started, I want you watching to know that, if you have video evidence of police misconduct, please email it to us privately at P-A-R @therealnews.com or reach out to me on Facebook or X at tayasbaltimore. And we might be able to investigate for you.
And please like, share, and comment on our videos. It helps us get the word out, and it can even help our guests. And you know I read your comments and appreciate them. You see those hearts down there. And I’ve even started doing a Comment of the Week to show you how much I appreciate your thoughts and to show what a great community we have. And we have a Patreon called Accountability Reports. So if you feel inspired to donate, please do. We do not run ads or take corporate dollars, so anything you can spare is truly appreciated. All right, we’ve gotten that out of the way. Now, one of the most precarious powers we confer upon police is the discretion to use deadly force. It’s a truly terrifying idea to contemplate and something that can lead to irrevocable injury and suffering to the people subject to it. One of the problems with the ability of police to use violent force is how often it is deployed for what could best be described as questionable justifications.
This is why, today, we will be reviewing the video I am showing you now, and it’s an example of how little impetus police need to use it and how easy it is in a situation where force is deployed to completely spiral out of control. The story starts in Lake Superior, Wisconsin. There, a DoorDash driver named Ian Cuyper was en route to make a delivery. He was a bit confused, because he was navigating an unfamiliar neighborhood. And Ian took a wrong turn down a one-way street. Realizing his mistake, he immediately stopped his car, but before he could turn around and right his error, the police pounced. And inexplicably, without even speaking to Ian, they began to order him out of the vehicle. Take a look.
Police:
[inaudible 00:02:43] door. Do it now. With your left hand, grab the door handle, open the door, do it now.
Ian Cuypers:
Come on.
Police:
Unlock it. Keep your hands up. Slowly step out of the vehicle and face away from us.
Ian Cuypers:
What?
Police:
Face away.
Ian Cuypers:
[inaudible 00:03:08] happening.
Police:
Keep your hands up, face away from us. Right now.
Ian Cuypers:
[inaudible 00:03:16].
Police:
All right, put your hands behind your head and interlace your fingers.
Taya Graham:
Now, you’re probably wondering why police were so aggressive from the onset. So were we. So we obtained the officer’s report after the incident occurred. In it, the officer cited furtive movements as the reason for taking such extreme actions, seriously. I just want you to watch as the officers continue to bark orders at Ian and see if his movements are indeed furtive.
Police:
Just listen to his instructions. Move slowly backwards to sound of my voice. You understand? Start moving. Slow down. Keep forward. Keep on walking.
Taya Graham:
The officers continue to escalate, and as you can see, Ian becomes confused. First, I think the instructions are somewhat contradictory and difficult to interpret. And second, there are no less than four officers on the scene making this situation even more chaotic and stressful. Just watch.
Ian Cuypers:
I feel like I’m being assaulted.
Police:
Put your hands on top of your head. Put your hands on the top of your head [inaudible 00:04:25].
Ian Cuypers:
I feel like I’m being kind of…
Police:
Stop moving. Hold up. Let me take over for a second. Keep looking forward. Don’t do anything other than keep your hands on top of your head. That’s it. Put your hands on top of your head. Stop moving.
Ian Cuypers:
Guys, you have guns on me. I really do not feel like I’m being…
Police:
Follow our instructions.
Ian Cuypers:
What are these lasers?
Police:
I want you to get down on your left knee. Get down on your left knee.
Taya Graham:
Still, Ian tries to comply. He’s obviously terrified, but still trying to follow this police-conjured game of Twister. Unfortunately, one of the officers decides he’s not complying enough. Take a look.
Ian Cuypers:
Can I please get an explanation?
Police:
Do it now or you’re going to get tased. Get down on your left knee.
Ian Cuypers:
No.
Police:
Don’t move or you’re going to get tased again. [inaudible 00:05:31] Keep watching the vehicle. Yeah, get this guy dried back. Let’s get this vehicle out of here.
Taya Graham:
Here’s the question this video raises, what happened prior to deploying the taser, which necessitated using it? I asked this question, because as I said at the beginning of the show, the use of deadly force is a power that police have both the freedom to use and abuse. And it’s up to us to make sure the latter doesn’t happen. Still, as you can see, officers continue to use a taser to send thousands of bolts of electricity through Ian’s body.
Ian Cuypers:
I can’t feel my legs.
Police:
Okay. Do you need medical attention?
Ian Cuypers:
Do I? Fuck, is that going to cost me money?
Police:
Do you need medical attention?
Ian Cuypers:
What does that entail?
Police:
It entails an ambulance coming to look at you to make sure that you are medically okay.
Ian Cuypers:
Can I get some time to collect my thoughts?
Police:
We’re going to need you to stand up now or we are going to stand you up. You either do it yourself or we do it for you. Hands up.
Ian Cuypers:
You can stand me up. There’s one in the…
Police:
Who else is in the vehicle? How many people?
Ian Cuypers:
There’s no one in there. There’s no one else in the car.
Police:
Okay.
Ian Cuypers:
I have shirts in the back seat covering the windows, because I banged in there one time.
Police:
[Inaudible 00:06:49] hands off.
Ian Cuypers:
Look, there’s no one in there.
Police:
So we’re going to sit you up. Take your knees and bring them forward.
Ian Cuypers:
I didn’t think to use…
Police:
We’re trying to get him up and moving. Bring your knees to your chest. One, two, three.
Ian Cuypers:
I give you consent to just put me however you want.
Police:
Ready? One, two.
Ian Cuypers:
Thanks. Yeah.
Police:
Walk him back this way. You okay? We’ll get it. Just walking him back.
Taya Graham:
Now, usually, I would end the video review here. There’s no reason to show more than once the pain and suffering experienced by Ian. However, in this case, there is critical evidence that unfolds as the police effectuate the arrest. First, Ian asks why he was stopped, tasered, and what his charges are. Take a listen. Okay,
Ian Cuypers:
Is my car suspicious or something? I just really would like to know what’s happening.
Police:
Okay, we’ll explain what’s happening in a second. My partner pulled you over and called for more squads, and here we are. And then, we’re in this position, because you were not following our commands.
Ian Cuypers:
Well, I pulled over right away, and then, a bunch more cops showed up.
Police:
You were not following our commands. That is why we are in the position we are in.
Ian Cuypers:
I followed all your commands.
Police:
You sure didn’t.
Ian Cuypers:
What didn’t I do?
Police:
You sure did not follow…
Ian Cuypers:
What did I not do?
Police:
We can discuss that in a little bit.
Ian Cuypers:
Okay.
Taya Graham:
Okay. So nothing from the police that we hear appears to justify the use of force, but now, before I get to more of the evidence about this flimsy justification, I want you to watch something that is rarely witnessed by the public, the painful consequences of a taser, beyond the literal paralysis of your nervous system. I’m talking about removing the barbs that pierce the skin and create the current that electrocute your body. They have to be removed. Normally, that’s left up to a doctor or EMT or at least a medic to ensure less bleeding and that the puncture site is properly sterilized, but the cops in Superior decide they’re superior enough to do it themselves. Take a look.
Police:
[inaudible 00:08:44] the light. Yeah, hold the light. [inaudible 00:08:51] Lift your hands up for me, up. Like that.
Ian Cuypers:
It’s like a lot of commands [inaudible 00:09:02]
Police:
So I’m going to have to get this. I got them. Sorry. We’re just going to have to…
Ian Cuypers:
So am I under arrest?
Police:
At this point, you are not free to leave. You can talk with my partner more about that in a second. You want me to cut one of… Yeah, I want you to cut the wires. Hey, stay leaning against the vehicle. Otherwise, Jason, I know you have shears too. [inaudible 00:09:37] I know. I just don’t want you to fall over or move or any of that kind of stuff. Take a breath. Figure out what you got to do next.
Ian Cuypers:
Yeah.
Police:
[inaudible 00:09:53] Yeah.
Taya Graham:
And now, finally, more evidence of how questionable this use of force was. Unguarded moments captured on body camera. Just listen as the officers try to figure out what to charge Ian with.
Police:
Oh, I was under it. Oh, I don’t think… Do you want ask him if he wants his whole wallet or do you just want [inaudible 00:10:24]? He wants that too. So that’s why I was like, “Hey, need another squad.” We were doing our drug court. That’s what I figured. He was diving across the side of vehicle. I was like, “That’s super weird,” because he was like, [inaudible 00:10:39]. Because I pulled off at 28 from Tower and got behind him, because I was way behind him. But his tag light was out, so I started trying to catch up with him. He turns on 23rd, goes up Ogden, turns here, stops, and rolls the roadway. Cars go.
Then he eventually, a car is behind between us. [inaudible 00:10:58] makes a full stop and then he pulls up from here, and I lit him up. Well, he’s going the wrong way on a one way, first of all. Well, I know, but I was really going to… But all the other stuff too is a little bit weird. No, you made a good call. Then I’ll cite him for… Did you search his vehicle at all? Or are we leaving it? I think he wants us to just lock it up and leave it probably maybe try to gain his consent to turn it [inaudible 00:11:18] You can ask. Or is it okay to just leave it? I just don’t want to get towed.
Taya Graham:
So that’s it. End of story. The only other debate they had was whether they could deliver the DoorDash order he couldn’t complete.
Police:
Dang. Really? Yeah. Should we deliver their food for them? Is that what he was doing? DoorDashing. I’m down for doing that. He said he locks the food to just them just get refunded. Otherwise, we could leave it here, and that’s where I was going with that. He said, “I just want it to just get refunded.” So lock up the car and let it be where it is. Yeah. And I don’t think it’s blocking the alley, probably facing the wrong way, but I’m not actually that extremely worried about that. No, we know we’re not going to tow it, and you can put it in your report that you left it facing that way.
Taya Graham:
It’s really just troubling to hear how thoughtless and cavalier the officers are about what they just did, how little they question their own actions, and how casually they try to come up with some sort of charge for a young man who was, simply put, unjustly harmed. But there is much more about how this happened and the consequences which Ian will share with us later. Ian will discuss behind the scenes information about how the legal system is treating him, shortly. But first, I’m joined by my reporting partner, Stephen Janis, who’s been digging into the case and reaching out to police. Stephen, thank you so much for joining me.
Stephen Janis:
Taya, thanks for having me. I appreciate it.
Taya Graham:
So what does the statement of probable cause say? How did the officers justify the arrest and their use of force?
Stephen Janis:
Taya, this is really kind of sketchy, because there’s not much information there. They talk about the furtive movements that you already mentioned. They talk about him driving down a one-way street, but they don’t talk about any other suspicious activity or anything else that would really, I think, justify the use of force. It’s really weird. I’ve seen police sort of not say anything in a statement of probable cause, but given what police did, given that they used a taser, there’s just not justification. There’s nothing in there that says the breaking and entering that you talk about, later on, when you ask about it. Nothing about that is in there. It’s really just he drove down a one-way street and then, very little explanation as to why this happened.
Taya Graham:
So you’ve reached out to the Superior Wisconsin Police Department. What are they saying about how the officers acted?
Stephen Janis:
Well, Taya, apparently, they’re too superior to get back to us, because we haven’t heard from them. But we asked them a lot of extensive questions about use of force, because I feel a lot of smaller rural departments or small town departments do not have the right guidelines. And in this case, we said, “Do you have a use of force report? What is your policy about use of force?” We heard nothing, but we’re going to keep on them. Because I think this is a really important oversight and lapse that needs to be addressed. Also, we got in touch with the public defender’s office in that county to ask them what their criteria is for offering services to people who are indigent or poor. Again, we have not heard back, but that’s another thing we’re going to pursue. Because it seems like this young man certainly qualified. We’re going to follow up on that. We’ll let you know what happened.
Taya Graham:
So tasers are technically known as less than lethal weapons, but you’ve reported on them extensively. What do you think?
Stephen Janis:
Well, Taya, from my reporting, they’re decidedly not less than lethal. I have reported on them being lethal in many situations. At least half a dozen cases during my reporting career in Baltimore, I have investigated and also written about, but one of the things that really stunned me about tasers was how the primary cause of death is ruled when a taser is used. You see, medical examiners are reluctant to rule a taser as being the primary cause of death, because, I was told, they will get sued by the manufacturer. And the manufacturer has made it very clear to the medical examiners across the country, “You make taser the primary cause of death, you will get sued.” Now, when you talk about something that shocks the electrical system and the body, it seems like there are a lot of things that can go wrong. And I have medical examiners tell me off the record, “Stephen, these are deadly weapons, and they should be classified as thus.” But again, in this country, corporate power and corporate money rule. And so, tasers are dangerous, but do we really know, because information is being concealed?
Taya Graham:
Okay. And now to learn about the events leading up to his arrest and how the police justified it to him and what the legal system has done to him since. I’m joined by Ian. Ian, thank you so much for joining me.
Ian Cuypers:
Oh yeah, thank you for giving me the opportunity to talk.
Taya Graham:
The incident that we witnessed on camera shows a great deal of force being used on you. Can you tell us how this began? This was a traffic stop, right?
Ian Cuypers:
Yeah, so what was happening is I was delivering for DoorDash. I’ve been up here in Minnesota for a couple of months and I’ve been mostly making money through DoorDash. I had to take a delivery from Duluth over to Superior, just right across the bridge. It was a Taco Bell delivery, and it was actually two orders. And it was just nighttime. I was sort of confused about where I was, because Superior was a new area. And there was a one-way street. It was dark. So I turned onto it, and right when I turned on, I saw that there was a one-way sign. So I was about to make a U-turn. And there was an officer behind me, I guess. He turned on his lights, and then, I pulled over pretty much right away.
And then, I was just looking for my insurance. And by the time I had my ID and everything ready, there were officers like a bunch of, I don’t know, two more squad cars pulled up, and there were a bunch of officers shouting at me to put my hands up. So I put my hands and my face out of my window to greet them and try to show them that I wasn’t a threat. And then, they told me that I had to open the door from the outside with my left hand, which was immediately just kind of distressing, because that’s a lot to take in all at once. And so, I was trying to open the door, and it was locked. And yeah, that’s how it started.
Taya Graham:
Did you follow the officer’s instructions during the traffic stop? The officer says to use your left hand, open the door, and leave the vehicle, which you did. They said to move backwards with your hands behind your head, which is difficult, but you did it. And you stopped when you were told, and then, the officer shouts for you to get down on your left knee. And you were still complying and only took a moment to ask a question, and in under a minute, you were tasered. Do you have any idea why the officers chose to use force, even though you have been compliant the entire time?
Ian Cuypers:
Well, no, I have no idea. I have no idea why they, in the first place, even told me to get out of my car. I especially was surprised when they tasered me. Even before that, I was really shocked when I just saw that there were laser sights everywhere. It was just mind-blowing to me.
Taya Graham:
I guess another thing I’m trying to understand is why so many officers were called to the scene. At no point in the video did I see you offer any resistance. Why do you think there were so many officers there?
Ian Cuypers:
No, because I pulled over right away. And so, the only reasonable situation that I can imagine is like, “Oh, if this guy is dangerous, maybe I should have someone here with me to see what’s going on.” But then, six people showed up, and they just immediately assumed I was armed and dangerous and started treating me like a criminal, which didn’t seem rational to me.
Taya Graham:
Well, I think it was because they suspected you of another crime, possibly a B&E. I listened to the dash camera footage very closely, and the initial conversation with dispatch mentioned a B&E, which might explain why he called for backup. And I think at least some criminal history could have been shown with your tags. It seems like they could have realized that you weren’t a real threat, but at the time, weren’t you actually working?
Ian Cuypers:
Yeah, I don’t want to override the conversation or anything, but it did seem to me, while it was happening, about halfway through, it was very surreal. But I do remember thinking to myself, “This really seems like, are they conducting an exercise on me or something? It seems like they’re just sort of ignoring the situation that’s actually at hand and just sort of doing something that they wanted to.”
Taya Graham:
So when did the officer decide to use force? Do you have any idea why she decided to use it? She gives you a brief warning, and then, in less than a minute, she’s tasering you. Do you have any idea why she thought this was necessary or why another officer had a gun trained on you?
Ian Cuypers:
See, like you were saying, I thought also to myself briefly that maybe they think maybe my car looks like the car of someone who’s recently done something terrible. And at that point, I was like, “Oh, okay, that sort of would explain what’s happening,” but I think they would tell me you’re under arrest or something like that. And so, the way they were treating me, it was confusing, because they were just giving me orders, and I didn’t know that I was under arrest until after they tased me. And I think I asked them a couple of times, and they didn’t give me a clear answer at first. And then, they did. But yeah, it was confusing.
Taya Graham:
It seems, from what you’ve described, they were quite relentless with the use of the taser. What kind of pain or injury did you suffer from it? Did they have to pull the barbs out of your skin? It sounded incredibly painful. Can you describe what it was like?
Ian Cuypers:
Just in case you think the officer that pulled me over is the one that tased me, he did not. It was one of the people who called for backup is the one that tased me. He was holding a gun, not a taser. I can explain how it felt by saying, I’ve explained this before, it’s like my body sort of turned into a vapor. It felt very painful, as though I exploded into a mist. That’s how it felt when I was electrocuted. And then, after that, I was just in shock and in so much pain. I think I was still being electrocuted when I hit the ground. But anyways, when I did hit the ground, my head hit pretty hard and I couldn’t even feel that, because of how much pain the rest of my body was in.
So I had some bruising on my chin. It was a pretty nasty bruise. I took a picture. And yeah, it hurt really bad. Also, I think it was six barbs went into my skin. And I don’t know if this is important right now, but they didn’t take pictures of the ones on my legs, even after I asked them to. They brought me into the station, I think, mostly for that reason. And then, when I asked, “Can we take the pictures for insurance purposes?” He was like, “No, we don’t have to do that.”
Taya Graham:
I’m pretty certain a medic is supposed to take those barbs out with sterile tools. That really doesn’t sound right, Ian. So you didn’t have access to your personal property. Did you consent to let them go and search your car or trunk? I believe you consented to them turning off the lights in your car, is that correct?
Ian Cuypers:
No.
Taya Graham:
So what happened next? Were you given medical treatment? Were you taken to a hospital? Or were you taken to jail? What happened?
Ian Cuypers:
Well, they asked me if I needed an ambulance, but I have heard things about ambulances and I didn’t have insurance at the time, so I said no to the ambulance. Because I didn’t want to get stuck with two grand of medical bills, that I have no way of figuring out how to pay. But then, yeah, after that, they didn’t really give me any time to think. I did ask them if I could just have a minute to breathe, which they didn’t give me a second to gather my thoughts or anything. They just said I had to get right up, and then, they ripped the probes out of my back.
Taya Graham:
That’s terrible.
Ian Cuypers:
She just yoinked them out, like she was starting a lawnmower or something, through my jeans.
Taya Graham:
So one aspect of this assault, an unjust arrest you endured, that really bothers me, is that, on camera, you can hear the officers realize that you were driving food delivery, and they laugh, joking that maybe they should finish the delivery for you. How does it make you feel when you hear that?
Ian Cuypers:
So when I got the USB drive with the footage and I was able to watch everything, it was, yeah, it really was a little bit gut wrenching to see the transition from they’re willing to annihilate someone to they’re chuckling about that same person who they’re about to do some things that they don’t even know how they’re affecting that person. The fines that they charged me with are more than I could imagine being able to afford with a month of what I do for work. And it’s probably not even that much money to them. I don’t know. Yeah, it’s just sad to me.
Taya Graham:
I can only imagine what was going through your mind. One moment you’re working, providing for yourself and maybe your loved ones, and then, you’re engaged in a simple traffic stop for going the wrong way, and the next, you’re being shouted out on the ground, surrounded by officers, being repeatedly tasered. How are you coping with that? Because honestly, this really does seem traumatizing. How has this impacted you physically, emotionally, or even financially?
Ian Cuypers:
I definitely don’t feel comfortable driving around the police anymore or for DoorDash. I’ve been getting, I don’t know if it’s tremors, but I’ve been getting shaky whenever I think about it. And my blood pressure, I went to the urgent care clinic four or five days after I got tasered, and they took some diagnostics, anyways, my blood pressure has been high. And they sent me to the emergency room right away after I told them that I got tased a couple of days earlier. They said that I should go to the emergency room, where it turned out my body is functioning properly, just under a lot of stress. But anyways, yeah, it’s been very distracting. I think about it during the day and at night, and I just think about if I could… At first, I was thinking a lot about if I could have done anything differently, because sure, if I would’ve just shut up and done everything they asked me to do, I don’t know.
In my head, I was thinking, “If I make a wrong move, I’m going to end up with bullets inside me.” So my fight or flight instinct kicked in, and I decided that the best thing to do would be to figure out what was actually happening and not just get myself ready to be shot. Because that’s what I felt like was about to happen. Yeah, that’s, I guess, it is pretty traumatizing. It’s difficult to talk about, because I haven’t been able to get a therapist or anything yet. So I guess, if this isn’t a very good explanation, I guess it is just still difficult to talk about, for sure, as far as explaining it properly.
Taya Graham:
Another thing that gets me is that, on the car ride, they try to justify your treatment. The officer says, “I pulled you over for going the wrong way up a one way.” And then, he says he called the other officers and gave you commands because you made furtive movements, which you explained to me you were just trying to get your insurance ready for them. Furtive movements have been used to excuse a great many tragedies of police violence. Does it make any sense to you that they responded with such aggression and force for a traffic stop like that?
Ian Cuypers:
It doesn’t. No. Even if I was armed or even if I was dangerous in some way, I don’t think that the way that they treated it was reasonable at all. I think, before you escalate to an immediately deadly situation, you need to have someone there to negotiate terms like, “Is this person about to do something dangerous? We’re here. You’re here. What’s about to happen?” before, “We’re telling you what’s going to happen, based on little to no evidence.”
Taya Graham:
So what was the end result of this interaction with police? What were you charged with? And what are your next steps? And what sort of financial costs are you looking at?
Ian Cuypers:
So I was charged with resisting arrest.
Taya Graham:
I can’t believe you were charged with resisting arrest.
Ian Cuypers:
With going the wrong way down a one way, which that one is fair, if he wants to be really picky. I just made the turn, and the street is designed in such a way, there’s a little passageway in between the two one-way streets, just in case somebody does make that wrong turn, I’m sure, is why that’s there. It’s immediately there, and I was about to correct myself. And I’m sure people do that all the time. But yeah, that’s a fair charge. I did turn the wrong way. Anyways, as far as costs for that, those fines were, it was $350 for resisting arrest. Or no, it was more than 350, it was $375 or something like that. And then, it was 170 something for going the wrong way down a one way. Altogether, it’s around $800, there’s 700 something dollars.
I don’t make that much in a month with what I do lately. And as far as other costs, I did have to go to the emergency room, but I got insurance recently. So I don’t know how much that’s going to be able to cover. And then, I’m going to, of course, have to try to hire a lawyer, because they won’t provide me one, which I thought they were supposed to. But they will not. I will have to buy a lawyer or figure that out somehow. And lawyers are expensive, but if I want to get a good civil lawyer, I have a GoFundMe that I just set up actually. And if I want to get a good civil lawyer, I don’t know, it’s probably like a couple thousand dollars at least.
Taya Graham:
Has this changed the way you perceive law enforcement? Or perhaps I should ask, how has this experience changed you?
Ian Cuypers:
So it’s actually a really interesting phenomenon, I guess. On the bridge on the way over to Wisconsin, I was thinking to myself, “Wisconsin cops are probably nice.” I thought to myself that while I was on my way there that night, and I proved myself wrong. I was like, “Small town areas, people know each other. Should be a friendly basis with the local law enforcement,” but it was not a friendly basis. So yeah, my worldview sort of did change a lot after that happened. I’d always heard about this sort of stuff happening and I knew that there were issues in the system that need to be looked at, at the very least, but yeah, definitely having it happen somewhere where I just assumed that it was safe and now, I know that it’s not safe. And looking into it, the Superior Police Department, I guess nobody likes them. They’re not friendly, I guess, and I didn’t know that.
Taya Graham:
Last thing, something that really disturbed me was the reaction to your compliance. They even blamed you, saying that your movements were furtive, that you searching for your insurance was a furtive movement, and therefore, somehow, the force was warranted and deserved. I recently reported that people who have an impairment or disability, like being hard of hearing or an intellectual or mental health challenge or being on the spectrum, are much more likely to experience police brutality, because of their stress response or inability to follow commands perfectly. And it really scares me, because I have family members with these issues. And I’m really fearful for them to have an encounter with police.
Ian Cuypers:
I tell you what, this is something else that went through my mind, and I do believe perhaps I was profiled a bit, because my car, I can’t afford a car wash. It’s covered in dirt. It looks dirty. Who’s to say maybe drug dealers drive dirty cars is what people think, but regardless, I can’t afford a car wash. So my car is dirty, even when I go to work. I work with disabled adults, and I drive them places. So if that scenario happened and I had one of my low functioning people with me, that went through my head, that that would’ve been absolutely, like they wouldn’t have taken a second to think about that.
Taya Graham:
I have to say that this really hits home with me, because the hidden minority that is most often the victim of police violence is a person with a disability. The estimates range from 33% to 50% of people killed by police have at least one disability. That’s just one of the reasons why these judgments of furtive movements can be so dangerous. Okay. Usually, during this part of the show, I focus on a broader theme that I connect to the incident we covered earlier in the program, something that links bad policing back to bad policy, so that we can ponder how both can be addressed. But today, I’m going to narrow it down a bit. In fact, I’m going to literally boil down my entire rant to the import of one single word, namely “furtive.” Okay. Now, before you start saying, “Taya, what is this some sort of PAR word game? How can you even boil down a rant on American law enforcement into a single term or phrase? How can you discuss the extremely pervasive overreach of law enforcement by playing YouTube Scrabble? Are you even serious, Taya?”
Again, I’m talking about furtive. Furtive, adjective, attempting to avoid notice or attention or being secretive. You know the term thrown about by cops and statements of probable cause used to characterize almost any movement or action by a supposed suspect, the word that sounds vaguely menacing and overly judgmental, that can be used to justify almost any action by police? In my hometown, it was the word used to excuse the killing of Edward Lamont Hunt. In 2008, Hunt was shot three times in the back after he walked away from an officer who had patted him down at least twice. The officer said he had the right to shoot the young man in the back, because he made so-called furtive movements. Mr. Hunt died. The officer was charged with murder, but was acquitted at trial.
And likewise here in Ian’s case, the police again used the completely vague idea of a furtive movement to justify the deployment of a taser and one I would note was used long after he had exited the vehicle and was clearly not a threat to anyone. But of course, the charging document used this highly charged word to justify a range of behavior that is as hard to understand as it is to rationalize. But that brings me back to the word itself. What does it mean? Why is it so potent when it comes to policing? Well, to understand it, I think perhaps we need to use a little bit of literary theory to unpack how this word became shorthand to describe behavior, to justify almost anything. So first, let’s just go back to the meaning of furtive.
It’s a technical definition, according to the Cambridge Dictionary, and it’s behaving secretly or dishonestly. But of course, that definition leaves much of the work to the beholder. In other words, it’s a purely subjective characterization, and I think that’s the point. Because the word imbues the person who uses it with the power to define the actions of the others in the most deleterious way possible. In other words, subjectively speaking, a furtive movement can be almost anything and in the end, almost always bad. Let me show you. If I lower my glasses, is this furtive? If I hold my hands together, is this furtive? If I look into the camera and then, quickly glance away, was that furtive? Well, how can you really know? And that’s my point. The word itself defines something normal as threatening. How can you really know what my intentions are?
How can you know, when I reach down to my pocket like this, that, somehow, this discreet movement actually portends something harmful? This shows, in an indirect way, the real, but less tangible, power of law enforcement. Literally, a cop can define reality with a simple word, that has a purely subjective meaning. And not only can an officer use this nebulous descriptor to imply criminality in the most innocuous behavior, but as we saw in the video we just watched, use it to justify deadly force. I want you to think about that, how utterly it is that we have constructed a law enforcement industrial complex that can take our lives by invoking a word with a definition that is as subjective as it is ill-defined, meaning the entirety of our existence can often sit upon the threshold of an officer’s personal and really non-objective assessment of behaviors that could be just as innocent as they could be menacing.
It’s really, in a way, frightening to contemplate that such a flimsy justification can be used literally to administer street justice. And I think it should give us all pause, because like police describing a motorist as nervous to justify dragging them out of a car or bystander’s actions being suspicious to initiate an arrest, how we treat this word has massive real world implications. I liken it to another less obvious word that our legal system uses regularly, but also deserves scrutiny. It’s so common we hardly think about it, yet it has equally devastating consequences when misapplied. “Crime,” that’s right, the most serious and commonly used word that describes an almost incomprehensibly wide variety of human behavior, a term that serves as an umbrella for so many different actions. It’s probably one of the most broadly defined terms in the English language. Think about it, what we define as a so-called crime has huge implications.
Some things that seem minor, like using a drug or failing to feed a parking meter, are crimes. Not mowing your lawn or rolling stop on red are technically crimes. But I want to focus on where it seems to come up short, activities that should be crimes that aren’t and how this speaks volumes about how our country uses and misuses law enforcement. I’m going to start with a story that should have been big news, but really didn’t get much attention. It starts with an obscure government body, that rarely makes headlines, the Medicare Payment Advisory Commission or MEDPAC. Now, just to give a little bit of background, MEDPAC is a body authorized by Congress in 1997 to advise Congress on how to make Medicare, the program that provides healthcare to senior citizens, more efficient. Last week, that body released a report that got hardly any notice, but has huge implications.
In an extensive study, it found that Americans enrolled in private insurance companies through Medicare Advantage cost $83 billion a year more to the government, compared to the people directly enrolled in Medicare. So translated into percentages, each person who was covered by private insurance was 22% more expensive than a person who simply had Medicare directly. To put it simply, private insurers were charging significantly more for the same service and getting away with it. And this was no minor expense. $83 billion is just 20 billion shy of what the government spends on food assistance for poor families. And it’s roughly 30 times the budget of our entire national park system. But of course, has there been any mention of this by the mainstream media, which nightly recounts all the chaos and mayhem and fear generated by crime? Has the constant drumbeat of bad news, that’s supposed to make us feel unsafe in our homes and unsure of our future, been interrupted by news of an $83 billion overcharge for healthcare?
Now, I’m not downplaying the adverse effect of crime in my community or others. I’m not saying that theft or dealing drugs or even carjackings are something to be ignored, but there do seem to be actions that I would consider crimes, that are rarely reported on on the nightly news. What I’m pointing out is how our choice of words to describe actions does not always equate to the harm being described, meaning too often, the word does not fit the misdeed. Think about it, overcharging seniors for vital healthcare really isn’t a crime. It’s an accounting problem. Ripping off the taxpayers of this country does not make a company or a person a criminal. It makes you a savvy business person. It’s so interesting to me how these contrasting behaviors are characterized by words. Moving your hands when a cop has pulled you over is reaching for something. Literally absconding with $83 billion in government money is overcharging. Acting confused when a cop is pointing a gun at you can be described as furtive. Knowingly ripping off the federal government is simply good business.
The rights in the Constitution are malleable, debatable, a statement of probable cause, solid, true, and always accurate. You get my point. While we often think of the justice system as some sort of immutable paragon of reason, it is often defined by subjective interpretations of words and laws that can be bent, warped, twisted by those who control its meaning. Essentially, we are often subject to the whims of language constructed by the people who wield the power to define it. It’s a phenomena that I don’t think we acknowledge enough or really understand its potentially devastating implications, but it’s also at the root cause of much of the unequal treatment under the law that is so often the topic of this show. It’s why it’s important that you see the videos that we showed you today. It’s why it’s important that every encounter with police and every incident is viewed with the proper context, why every decision by police to use force needs to be scrutinized, and why every word police use to describe our behavior must be accounted for and must be fully examined and must be fully understood by all.
That’s why we do this show, why we painstakingly review every video, every charging doc, and every law to give the most accurate and most transparent rendering of the truth. That’s a promise I make to you each and every show. I want to thank my guest, Ian Cuyper, for coming forward to speak with us, and we hope that, by sharing his experience, he can help prevent this type of excessive force from happening again. Thank you, Ian. And of course, I have to thank intrepid reporter, Stephen Janis, for his writing, research, and editing on this piece. Thank you, Stephen.
Stephen Janis:
Taya, thanks for having me. I really appreciate it.
Taya Graham:
And I want to thank mods of the show, Noli D and Laci R for their support. Thank you both and a very special thanks to our accountability report Patreons. We appreciate you, and I look forward to thanking each and every one of you personally in our next live stream, especially Patreon Associate Producers Johnny R, David K, Louis P, and super friends, Shane B, Pineapple Girl, Chris R, Matter of Rights, and Angela True. And I want you watching to know that, if you have video evidence of police misconduct or brutality, please share it with us, and we might be able to investigate for you. Please reach out to us. You can email us tips privately at P-A-R @therealnews.com and share your evidence of police misconduct.
You can also message us at Police Accountability Report on Facebook or Instagram or at Eyes on Police on Twitter. And of course, you can always message me directly at tayasbaltimore on X or Facebook. And please like and comment. You know I read your comments and appreciate them. And we do have a Patreon link pinned in the comments below for accountability reports. So if you feel inspired to donate, please do. Like I said, we don’t run ads or take corporate dollars, so anything you can spare is greatly appreciated. My name is Taya Graham, and I am your host of the Police Accountability Report. Please be safe out there.
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A controversial copwatcher—whose unorthodox tactics have garnered him a loyal following on YouTube, but have also embroiled him in legal troubles that eventually landed him in jail—has been indicted on new federal charges for making interstate threats.
Eric Brandt, a prolific filer of lawsuits and First Amendment rights advocate, as well as a former Navy submarine technician, has been charged by a federal grand jury in Louisiana with violating a federal law that prohibits interstate threats. A copy of the indictment, obtained by TRNN, lists the date of the offense as December 2019 but does not provide any additional details.
Abade Irizarry, a fellow cop watcher known as Liberty Freak, said Brandt was moved to Delta due to his good behavior.
“Delta Correctional Facility is just before halfway house,” Irizarry told TRNN. “He said he has been treated with dignity and respect, they respect him there.”
Irizarry added that Brandt was on the verge of being released—a fact, he said, that is raising suspicions among Brandt’s supporters that the indictment was timed to keep him in jail.
Irizarry added that Brandt was on the verge of being released—a fact, he said, that is raising suspicions among Brandt’s supporters that the indictment was timed to keep him in jail.
“He was two weeks away from a halfway house,” Irizarry said.
While authorities were not forthcoming with details about the incident that precipitated the charges, Irizarry said Brandt posted a video in December of 2019 in which he recounted calling St. Charles Parish, Louisiana, police and telling a person who answered the phone to shoot an officer.
Brandt’s calls to St. Charles Parish police were in response to a livestream posted by fellow copwatcher James Freeman.
Freeman was camping at a federal park when a ranger ordered him to move. The popular copwatcher said he would comply while filming the encounter. Police were called and Freeman was arrested.
Authorities would not confirm if the video was related to the indictment.
Brandt is a Navy veteran who became a YouTube personality by chronicling his often freewheeling and confrontational brand of activism.
Brandt told TRNN he began challenging police after he voluntarily left his home to show solidarity with unhoused people who were being harassed by police. The first videos Brandt posted on YouTube, which prompted his ascent as a critical voice in the copwatching movement, depicted him confronting Denver cops for intentionally honking their horns to wake up people sleeping on the street.
Brandt said the mistreatment of the unhoused by police prompted him to adopt more confrontational tactics. That included the use of what he called the “eight magic letters” or “fuck cops”), which he often displayed on colorful signs he touted on street corners or in front of city hall.
The first videos Brandt posted on YouTube, which prompted his ascent as a critical voice in the copwatching movement, depicted him confronting Denver cops for intentionally honking their horns to wake up people sleeping on the street.
Brandt has been characterized by the mainstream media as an abrasive oddity whose rant-filled videos warranted criminal charges and jail time. But his supporters say his activism is more nuanced than these caricaturistic portrayals suggest, and for all the controversy his tactics have sparked, his efforts have led to substantive reforms.
For instance, Brandt has been successful in forcing change within law enforcement.
In 2018, he sued the Englewood police department after they arrested him for a tattoo that displayed a middle finger on his forearm, emblazoned with his signature “Fuck Cops” motto.
Brandt’s pro se suit led to a $30,000 settlement for Brandt and First Amendment training for the Englewood police department and the early institution of body-worn cameras.
“I call this my $30,000 tattoo,” Brandt told Police Accountability Report in an interview in 2021.
Last November, Denver City Council agreed to pay Brandt $65,000 to settle a lawsuit over his 2018 arrest for shouting “No Justice? No Peace! Fuck the Denver police!” on the 16th Street Mall.
He was also part of a groundbreaking lawsuit that established the right to film police in the federal 10th Circuit. Brandt and Irizarry filed the suit, which began with a straightforward cop watch of a DUI stop in Lakewood, Colorado, in 2020.
Irizarry and Brandt filed a suit pro se, arguing that the officer’s actions interfered with their right to record.
After a federal district court ruled the officer could not be held accountable due to qualified immunity, several advocacy groups joined the suit with the hope that it would be a test case to establish the right to film police.
[Brandt] was also part of a groundbreaking lawsuit that established the right to film police in the federal 10th Circuit.
The plaintiffs recently settled for $35,000.
The current federal charges against Brandt require him to appear before a federal magistrate by April 15, 2024. Brandt has since been placed on lockdown and is awaiting transport to Louisiana. According to the writ of habeas corpus reviewed by TRNN, Brandt will remain in federal custody until the case is resolved.
Despite the setback for Brandt, Irizarry told TRNN he is confident the colorful activist and fellow copwatcher will prevail.
“He is tough,” Irizarry said, “he never negs out. He’s the one who boosts our spirits, and he’s in prison.”
The prevalence of sexual violence in the US prison system is so widespread and accepted that it’s often made the butt of jokes in popular culture. Yet the reality is that countless survivors of the prison system carry the scars and traumas of sexual abuse—and for many, the perpetrators of these crimes were the very prison staff charged with their protection. Juvenile victims of the prison system are no exception. In Maryland, several adult survivors of sexual abuse as juveniles in state custody have filed a class action lawsuit demanding justice. Lawyer and former DC Council Member LaRuby May joins Rattling the Bars to discuss the class action suit, and the systematic nature of sexual violence in prisons as a form of racial oppression.
Studio Production: David Hebden Post-Production: Cameron Granadino
Transcript
The following is a rushed transcript and may contain errors. A proofread version will be made available as soon as possible.
Mansa Musa:
LaRuby May has been a vessel for change for over 30 years. The inspirational lawyer, entrepreneur, developer, teacher, and strategist found May Jung Law Firm alongside long-time friend and business partner Je Yon Jung. May Jung’s mission is to unapologetically advocate for people of color and empower them to be whole and active participants in the civil justice system. Prior to practicing law, LaRuby served as the council member representing Ward 8 in the District of Columbia. Her latest fight is around survivors of sexual abuse in Maryland, more specifically juveniles. Welcome to Rattling the Bars.
LaRuby May:
Thank you, thank you. Thank you for having me, Mansa. I appreciate being here.
Mansa Musa:
Okay. Let me give my audience some context: In 2023, the governor of the State of Maryland, Wes Moore, signed into law the Child Protection Act — You can unpack wherever I’m off track when you get on — Under this he eliminated the statute of limitation of being able to bring a civil suit against anyone that was an employee or contractor within the state of Maryland to bring a litigation against them for sexual abuse. This came on the heels of a report that this attorney general for the state of Maryland put out indicting the archdiocese of sexual abuse of children.
Prior to that, the advocacy was always around trying to get something done about child sexual abuse and trying to be able to get some compensation. But more importantly, try to make people aware that this was an ongoing thing and that people were harmed and damaged by this. It was only after the signing of this law that it became apparent that it wasn’t only the archdiocese but other institutions that were responsible and involved in abusing children; One institution was Juvenile Services, in particular. May, why did you choose to get in this space in particular? Because this space is fraught with problems on a lot of levels. Why did you choose to get in this space?
LaRuby May:
Thank you for that question. My law firm, May Jung, our motto is “Justice for our people is personal.” Having folks who’ve been touched by and part of the juvenile justice system, the Department of Corrections, that’s all very personal to me. You know what I mean? Whether or not it’s from family members, immediate family members, or other family members. The opportunity that we have as a law firm to be able to go and hold people accountable for harm — Specifically harm that’s happening disproportionately to Black and Brown folks, to Black and Brown children — Is the privilege that I have. So how dare I not get involved in being able to protect children? Specifically individuals who have been harmed while they were in the custody of the Department of Corrections, the Department of Juvenile Services, or the state of Maryland.
We have a lawyer in our firm named Jessica who’s already done some work around child abuse in the state of Maryland. As you mentioned, once Governor Wes Moore signed the Maryland Child Victims Act into law in 2023 — And we’re based here in Washington D.C., man, that’s our backyard — We knew that the opportunity to get into this space as a Black and Brown woman-owned law firm, to fight for Black and Brown children, is something that it wasn’t optional for me, Mansa. I don’t get the opportunity, I don’t have the privilege to not fight when I see injustice. The privilege of being a lawyer gives me the right to say you know what? When our people have been harmed, let’s go and fight this fight. When this law went into place, what happened is now our brothers and sisters who are returning from home or who were in juvenile facilities, they now have the opportunity to file civil lawsuits related to child sexual abuse.
The talk about this was around the Catholic, the archdiocese, and children in the custody of their care; We weren’t looking at the overwhelmingly number of Black and Brown children that were in juvenile facilities who were also sexually abused by staff members and contractors. Quite frankly, some of these institutions knew that this was happening and they did nothing to protect our children.
Mansa Musa:
Let’s unpack this. We’re talking about a situation where, if you’ve got something that’s current, then you can be up on… This calls for identifying plaintiffs, and getting somebody to come forward and feel comfortable enough to get around the stigma attached to the victimization like when a person is raped. And this is a cliche but this is a reality when it comes to poor and oppressed people: As opposed to being victimized, you take the victim and say like, oh, had you not went this way, you would’ve never had this happen to you. It’s because you went down the wrong street that somebody came out and brutalized you in this system.
How do you go about identifying plaintiffs? What’s your methodology? And how do you help them understand the trauma and get them to understand that it’s their right to come forth and get the accuser? If it is more about I’m letting you know now, it might have happened 20 years ago but I’m now in your face to let you know that it was wrong, I had a problem with it, and — If I’m going to get compensated, so be it — I want people to know of what you did. How do you get people to come forward?
LaRuby May:
It’s hard. That’s why we’re grateful for folks like you who are in the space that are allowing us an opportunity to talk to folks in the space because identifying folks … We have folks that were abused as children and they have some of that shame and some of that victim mentality so they haven’t told folks. We have folks that have been abused when they were 13 and 14 years old and now they’re 40 years old and they’ve never told anyone because of the shame. That makes it difficult for them to say I was one of them — especially in Black men.
It’s a catch-22. If they were assaulted or molested by a woman, it makes it a little bit different; It’s almost like they’re not necessarily ashamed of that. But if they were abused, molested, or raped by a male, there’s definitely some stigma that comes around that for them and there’s shame to go and talk to folks about it. We continue to go out there, talk, and touch as many people as we can. And touch people that already have relationships with our brothers and sisters who were a part of the system and potentially violated by individuals in the system.
We’re going to continue to talk, we’re going to continue to empower people, and say this was not your faultl; You were a victim, you were a child. The state of Maryland was in charge of your care, they were responsible for making sure that you were rehabilitated, and we know what the systems are like, the rehabilitation of the system, and how it works and how it doesn’t work. But your family members, your mothers, the court system entrusted your care to the Department of Juvenile Services while you were there, while you were vulnerable. Many times, I’ve talked to some of our clients — Especially their first time going in — Who were scared.
Mansa Musa:
Right. Oh, that’s a reality.
LaRuby May:
Yeah, yeah. I’m scared and now I got these people who I’m supposed to be able to trust, these people who are supposed to help me are now violating me and taking advantage of that and it’s a large hurdle to overcome but that’s why we’re here.
Mansa Musa:
We’re talking about anyone that was employed in the state of Maryland — Anyone be it contractual or 1099, W2, anybody that was getting any money from the state of Maryland — That violated a kid or juvenile while they were under the care of Juvenile Services. But how do we look at the agency? Do we look at the Juvenile Services agent as being a defendant in it and we looking at Bobby Smith ETA or Department of Juvenile Services, Bobby Smith and all those involved or are we saying that we looking at just Bobby Smith?
LaRuby May:
We’re looking at everybody that’s involved because Bobby Smith was a bad person if he was the offender but many times the culture at the facility allowed for this to happen. The department was entrusted with the care. These individuals, they had obligations to train folks, monitor folks, and to make sure that they were putting non-offenders around our children, especially when they were in such vulnerable positions. So we want to hold everyone accountable: We want to hold the state accountable, we want to hold each facility accountable, and we want to hold all of the individuals accountable that did the harm. But ultimately, this is a systemic problem.
This isn’t us saying that this happened to one person a year or one person in the past 20 years — Thousands, literally thousands, of individuals who were in these 13 different facilities were molested, raped, and violated as children. It’s important to understand — Especially for the audience — You are a child, you were not an adult. No one deserves to be violated. Even if you’re an adult, you don’t deserve to be violated. But as a child especially, to be violated by any adult that was entrusted with your care.
Mansa, we’re not going to know; These young brothers and sisters, they’re not going to know whether or not you were an employee, 1099, worked for the state, or worked for the contractor. What they’re going to know is you were an adult that was supposed to be a counselor, admissions person, teacher, or kitchen staff. All they’re going to know is that you were an adult that took advantage of them, abused them, and most of the time they felt helpless and powerless to be able to fight against you and then to go and tell somebody. But we have clients who did go and tell. Do you know what happened when they told? Nothing.
The systemic issues within the facilities was such a part of the culture that it still went … We talked to folks that, when they told that someone abused them, that someone violated them, the child was transferred to a different facility and the individual was not held responsible. That’s what we’re very thankful to do right now. There are multiple firms that have filed litigation but we are very thankful to be the first firm and the only firm to have filed this as a class-action lawsuit because we want our individuals to get remedy, we want to hold folks accountable for the harm that they did to our young people, but, Mansa, we also want systemic change. We can’t accept it.
One of the great things in the leadership of Governor Wes Moore and Attorney General Brown in looking at removing the statute of limitations, that means this could have happened to you last week, last year, 10 years ago, 20 years ago, or 50 years ago and because there are no statute of limitations, you can now bring those claims. But that’s not enough. We still have children that are getting abused as recently as —
Mansa Musa:
As we speak, yeah.
LaRuby May:
— Yeah, as we speak. We have to have changes in the system that are focused on protecting our children.
Mansa Musa:
This is a point that needs to be emphasized. We’re seeing this history around crime and we got this Herod mentality: Find the savior that’s supposed to come and kill all the firstborn. We got this firstborn mentality of lock all our kids up and throw away the key. It’s in that environment that this type of behavior festers because now you have a situation where you have children being locked up in astronomical numbers and being put into an environment where there’s not a lot of control in terms of what goes on. So in order to get that control, you become more abusive and that becomes your way of getting control. Locking kids in solitary confinement. And if you isolate them enough, get to the point where they’re mentally incapable of dealing with it and that opens the door for this type of behavior.
In this litigation, how do you all articulate that? You said it’s systemic, how do you all articulate that in your facts? How do you all make people aware that this is not isolated, that this is not whack, this is not Charles, this is not Hickey, this is not Boy’s Village, this is not this institution, this is a general mentality like the archdiocese. When they came out and indicted them, it became apparent throughout the country that this was a behavior that was going on, but you can juxtapose what’s going on with Black and Brown children in these juvenile facilities with the same thing. How do you all get people to understand that?
LaRuby May:
When it comes to the lawsuit — As we talk about all 13 facilities and whether or not these facilities have been closed or these facilities are still open — We recognize that it is not just one facility. It’s saying, we’ve got to look at all of the facilities that were ran by the department and look at all of the practices and all of the people in these facilities. If it were one isolated center then you’d be like, maybe it’s not systemic; But when we look across all of the systems, all of the facilities that were under the control or under the jurisdiction of the department, we see the theme is that it’s happening at every facility, that it’s happening to all of our children: It’s happening to boys, it’s happening to girls, and, unfortunately, the disproportionate number of Black and Brown children that are being incarcerated means that there’s going to be a disproportionate number of children that are violated who are also going to be Black and Brown children.
One of the things that we’ve failed our children on many times in these facilities is we’re locking them up and whatever the reason is that they got locked up, we’re not helping them deal and cope with the trauma. On top of that, while they’re in there, they’re being even more traumatized. Post-traumatic syndrome, it’s real. Trauma is real and what we see in some cases. There are individuals who were victims and traumatized while they were in juvenile facilities and they’ve been able to go on and live productive lives and still be able to maybe suppress the trauma that they’re in. But in other situations what we see is individuals have continued to repeat behaviors because the trauma has never been addressed. Then —
Mansa Musa:
Yeah.
LaRuby May:
— Go ahead. I’m sorry.
Mansa Musa:
No, go ahead, go ahead. You finish that thought.
LaRuby May:
We wonder why a brother that’s incarcerated at the age of 45 started getting incarcerated when he was younger — It’s because when you arrested him when he was 13 you didn’t do anything to help him or help his family. Other than, like you said, lock him up and put him in solitary confinement. You never helped him deal with the trauma. We see that trauma sometimes can lead to continued behavior that allows for them to, not only have been incarcerated as juveniles, but now to be incarcerated as an adult. And we look at him and he’s this or she’s that without the full context of the system helped to make them.
Mansa Musa:
Right, right. Created that, yeah.
LaRuby May:
Yeah, the system created that. That’s a part of the accountability that we want to hold for the system, that you not only allowed for these babies to be violated when they were children but then you allowed for this behavior to continue and that’s why we see some of our brothers and sisters still currently incarcerated.
Mansa Musa:
Okay. I want you to address two things.
LaRuby May:
Mm-hmm.
Mansa Musa:
Early in the system, they had the Department of Juvenile Services outsourced. So they might outsource foster care and they would have children in, in lieu of sending them to an institution, they would say, I’m going to send you here but you’re under the jurisdiction of the Department of Juveniles. Have you all identified that mechanism? And two, talk about why people should understand this issue, in terms of the importance of it. As you were talking, in my mind I’m saying, if we indicted the archdiocese so everybody can be like yeah… A lot of the folks that were violated, ethnicity is such that they got a little bit more prominence in that regard, and if you’re talking about poor people.
Talk about that why this issue should be given the same attention and get the same results as when people come out and talk about being victimized by the archdiocese. Talk about those two things if you can.
LaRuby May:
Okay. Say the first question first again.
Mansa Musa:
The first question deals with the Juvenile Department.
LaRuby May:
Oh, the facility.
Mansa Musa:
So, they had a situation where people got in that space said, we’ll become a foster parent, you can send them to us; Whatever the condition is, you send them to us and we’re getting paid for supervising them. Children have been abused in that system. And the other one is the archdiocese and how we look at it.
LaRuby May:
Okay, yeah. We haven’t specifically looked at individuals who were violated or abused while they were in foster care or while they were in the custody of the state of Maryland through Child Family Services or other services. I would believe if there was an individual who was… Many times, you are a ward of the state, you are in the custody of the state. If there was an employee or an adult that was affiliated with the state who violated a young person while they were in their care, we want to talk to that person as well, we want to talk to those people as well. But this lawsuit specifically focuses on individuals that were in the custody of a juvenile facility, of one of the 13 facilities that we’ve named in our complaint.
The other part about it is we understand money and we understand economy. We know people tend to care about people that other people care about, and people don’t care about Black folk and people don’t care about poor folk as much as they care about our white counterparts or our more affluent counterparts. But for us, that doesn’t mean that you don’t deserve justice. In fact, for us that means that we need to fight even harder for you. Lots of attention, lots of resources around… Especially young boys who were altar boys in the Catholic Church, we saw a prevalence of white folk that were in that litigation.
But our Black and Brown brothers and sisters who were in juvenile facilities, guess what? Their mothers love them as much as those altar boys, their daddies love them as much as… We love our children as much as anybody else loves their children, so how dare a system not be sensitive and not consider a child just because you had an interface with the law. I’ve interacted with folks that, yup, he stole, yes, he went to juvenile but he was stealing because he was hungry.
Mansa Musa:
Right, right, right. It’s a social connection.
LaRuby May:
Yeah.
Mansa Musa:
It’s a social connection. Yeah, it is.
LaRuby May:
So, now he or she gets treated differently because he didn’t go to a church, because of his skin color, or because of where he lived in the neighborhood. For me, my law firm, and this litigation, that doesn’t work because that’s my niece, that’s my nephew, that’s my little cousin. To make sure that we’re fighting for justice for individuals who have formerly been incarcerated or may be currently incarcerated, to us, they deserve no less justice than anyone else. And we’re going to continue to fight for that justice and are looking for the opportunity to talk to more folks who were in the facilities.
Mansa, it’s important for me to let you and let your audience know that we do not use your name. Even in our lawsuit it’s listed as a John Doe or a Jane Doe because this is about holding accountability, this isn’t about trying to put people on blast. We recognize that folks are still going through trauma. We work to try to make sure clients get connected to mental health services to be able to deal with the trauma. Not only the trauma of the past, but when I ask you to talk about what happened to you 20 years ago, that’s going to trigger trauma again. To be able to make sure that we can provide or help you get connected to resources is an important part of the work that we do.
Mansa Musa:
All right. As we close out, tell our audience how they can get in touch with you if they a family member that knows somebody, or if they’re interested in trying to help you advocate, or get a copy of the litigation.
LaRuby May:
Oh, absolutely. If you want information as it relates to this, if you, a family member were violated or abused while you were in one of the juvenile facilities in the state of Maryland, you can give us a call. Our phone number is 1-833 May, M-A-Y-J-U-N-G, the name of our firm, May Jung, which is 1-833-629-5864. Again, that’s 1-833-629-5864. If you are a victim, if you know of a victim… And everything is held with us in complete confidentiality in terms of your talking to us and letting us know what happened to you. I work with many providers who are doing housing with our brothers and sisters who are returning citizens.
So if you’re an advocate or an activist working in the field, we want to talk and connect to you. Because the other thing that we realize is that we want to connect to people who are already connected to the folks that have been victims so that we can continue to leverage those trusting relationships. Again, 1-833-629-5864 is how you can get connected. My name is LaRuby and you can also email me; My email address is LaRuby, L-A-R-U-B-Y@M-A-Y-J-U-N-G.com, laruby@mayjung.com. Feel free to email me or to give us a call.
Mansa Musa:
Yeah. Thank you, LaRuby, for coming on Rattling the Bars. You definitely rattled the bar today. We want to emphasize this to our audience: We’re talking about our children. We’re talking about children. No matter what they look like today, 50 years old, they were a child when this happened to them and nobody has the right to abuse a child. Nobody has the right to take advantage of a child because they have the ability to. More importantly, when our children are taken into custody of Juvenile Services or any services, our children should be protected. We want to encourage everyone to reach out to LaRuby and the firm and educate yourself on this issue. But more importantly, we want you to continue to rattle the bars and continue to support real news. Thank you, LaRuby.
