Fifty years ago, the United States embarked on a path of mass incarceration that has led to a staggering increase in the prison population. Today, almost 2 million individuals—disproportionately Black Americans—are incarcerated in our nation’s prisons and jails. The prison population has grown 500% since 1973, the year America began to sharply increase its prison population. “The social, moral, and fiscal costs associated with the large-scale, decades-long investment in mass imprisonment,” The Sentencing Project notes, “cannot be justified by any evidence of its effectiveness. Misguided changes in sentencing law and policy—not crime—account for the majority of the increase in correctional supervision.” The Sentencing Project and a coalition of advocates, experts, and partners are launching a public education campaign, “50 Years and a Wake Up: Ending The Mass Incarceration Crisis In America,” to raise awareness about the dire state of the US criminal legal system and the devastating impact of incarceration on communities and families, and to propose more effective crime prevention strategies for our country. Liz Komar, a former Brooklyn assistant district attorney with the Sentencing Reform Counsel at The Sentencing Project, joins The Chris Hedges Report to discuss the monstrous realities of the US system of mass incarceration.
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Transcript
The following is a rushed transcript and may contain errors. A proofread version will be made available as soon as possible.
Chris Hedges:
(singing).
50 years ago, the United States embarked on a path of mass incarceration that has led to a staggering increase in the prison population. Today, almost 2 million individuals, disproportionately Black Americans are incarcerated in our nation’s prisons and jails. The prison population has grown 500% since 1973, the year America began to sharply increase its prison population.
“The social, moral, and physical costs associated with a large-scale, decades long investment in mass incarceration,” The Sentencing Project notes, “Cannot be justified by any evidence of its effectiveness. Misguided changes in sentencing law and policy, not crime, account for the majority of the increase in correctional supervision. Mass incarceration instigates poor, physical, psychological, and economic outcomes for the people who experience imprisonment for their families, as well as for the broader community. Imprisonment leads to declining prospects for employment and results in lower earnings in the longer term. Food insecurity, housing instability, and reliance on public assistance are also associated with prior imprisonment.”
The Sentencing Project and a coalition of advocates, experts, and partners are launching a public education campaign 50 Years and a Wake Up: Ending The Mass Incarceration Crisis In America. The campaign raises awareness about the dire state of the criminal legal system in the country, the devastating impact of incarceration on communities and families, and proposes more effective crime prevention strategies for our country.
The title for this campaign was borne out of a colloquial phrase that incarcerated people sometimes use to describe the life of their sentence, plus one day. I have 20 years and a wake up.
It also serves as a double entendre calling for our country to wake up to the harsh and dangerous realities of mass incarceration in the United States. Joining me to discuss our system of mass incarceration, where we hold nearly 25% of the world’s prison population, although we are less than 5% of the global population, is Liz Komar, a former assistant district attorney in Brooklyn, and the Sentencing Reform Counsel at The Sentencing Project.
So we do have a crisis, as I told you before we went on. I’ve taught in the prison system now for over a decade. And it exploded in particularly under a Democratic administration, the Clinton administration.
Let’s talk a little bit about how we got to where we are. And you as a former attorney, I wondered if you could also talk about plea deals, because almost everyone is coerced into accept. Very few people get jury trials, I think about 6% or something. So talk about the antecedents to this and what it’s created.
Liz Komar:
Sure, Chris. And first, thanks so much for having me and thanks so much to your listeners and viewers for their interest in this topic. Many factors have contributed to our path to mass incarceration. Changes in sentencing practices over the last 50 years have been a significant contributor, and that includes things like the increase of mandatory minimum sentences, our war on drugs, racially motivated sentencing policies. For instance, the way that we punish crack cocaine trafficking much more harshly than powder cocaine trafficking.
And then also, we can’t talk about how we came to have mass incarceration without talking about what it came from. And in many ways, replaced, which is slavery and the Jim Crow era, that there’s a direct through line between those. And mass incarceration is also the result of not having any other sort of social safety net in the United States. It is our social safety net.
And so we’ve created areas of concentrated poverty and disadvantage because of our history of racial injustice. And then we have closely policed and criminalized those same communities. And the result is a sprawling prison industrial complex, and also that the harm is concentrated on communities of color.
And I know you asked me to also address plea bargaining, and I think the rate at which people accept plea bargains varies by state. In the federal system, it’s particularly high, about 90%. And a lot of the reason behind that is the trial penalty, that people typically face a significantly higher sentence if they proceed to trial and are convicted. That’s a system that is fairly unique to the United States. And as you mentioned, highly coercive.
Chris Hedges:
Let’s talk about the explosion of the prison population, why and how that happened. It was largely a Democratic project.
Liz Komar:
The explosion of the prison system had many contributing factors. We wrote a report earlier this year called Counting Down: Paths to a 20-Year Maximum Prison Sentence, and it talks about ways that we could change criminal laws to begin to whittle away at the extreme sentences that have played a significant role in creating mass incarceration. And it addresses multiple things like America’s love for consecutive sentencing. So if someone commits two crimes, running those sentences back to back. It includes the rise of things like habitual offender laws, so laws which punish people more harshly for their second, third, fourth offense. The three strikes law would be the most severe example of that.
And then we also talk about the importance of ending life without parole and virtual life sentences, sentences that almost no one will survive. That’s death by incarceration. And our love for life imprisonment dramatically accelerated over the last 50 years. And so we have to unwind those specific sentencing structures to begin to unwind mass incarceration. And you’ll notice that I’m not talking about low level drug offenses. We shouldn’t criminalize those. They’re an important contributor to jail churn, which it’s bad if people are frequently coming into contact with the criminal legal system. But those don’t cause extreme sentences, and so it’s important that we think beyond them in our push for reform.
Chris Hedges:
In your report, you write one in seven people in prison in the country is serving a life sentence. Is that a life sentence, or then there are also more who are serving because the sentences are so long, life plus 50 years? Does that percentage, or the number of people who are serving life sentences increase because they have de facto life sentences?
Liz Komar:
I believe that number includes de facto life and de jure life. So people who are serving what we would call virtual life, a sentence you can’t survive, and then also life and life without the parole.
Chris Hedges:
You note in the report, first of all, life sentences are disproportionately served by people of color. More than half of life without parole, the most extreme category are Black. And then you go on that they are authorized for persons who were often not directly involved in the underlying crime, such as in the case of felony murder laws.
In these scenarios, an individual may not have even been present when a murder happened, but is held equally culpable because of their participation in an underlying felony. I find this in prison, that people who actually not pulled the trigger, not even had the weapon, nevertheless are serving for aggravated murder or whatever the charge is. So explain how that works.
Liz Komar:
Sure. So the concept of felony murder is that if you are arrested for committing a certain specified felony… It’s usually felonies that might in some cases have an element of violence. So burglary, robbery, certain sexual offenses, that if someone dies in the course of you committing that offense, even if it was your co-defendant who pulled the trigger and you had no idea they had a gun, you are liable for that death.
And it’s not uncommon to see people, as you mentioned, sentenced to life without parole for felony murder. I’ve been doing some recent work in Louisiana, and that is the mandatory sentence there for felony murder.
And the reality of felony murder convictions is that they disproportionately impact young men and women. And that’s because women may get wrapped up in an offense being committed by a significant other. They may be coerced into committing an offense with a significant other. And with young people, it’s because we know that young people commit crime in groups, because young people do many things in groups.
And then prosecutors like to use felony murder charges if they have a group of young people. They don’t know who pulled the trigger, but they want to get a murder penalty for someone. And so everyone gets charged with felony murder, and then probably everybody pleads so that they’re not going to trial and facing potentially a life without parole sentence.
And so that’s one of the challenges in getting rid of felony murder laws is that even though I think they strike almost everyone as deeply unfair once you look at the facts of how they’re actually used, they’re a very popular tool for prosecutors.
Chris Hedges:
I taught a student. He had just turned 18. He was sitting in a car listening to a 50 Cent song. Two older men in their twenties went into a bodega to rob it. They had a gun, the owner reached for a gun, they shot and killed the owner, they ran back to the car, and he ended up serving even though he didn’t even know what was going on. He served 18 years in prison.
Liz Komar:
I wish I could say that’s a rare story, but it’s certainly not.
Chris Hedges:
I want to talk about aging out. And statistically, we know in this report that you put out, you talk about imposing a 20-year mandatory sentence, no matter the crime. Which is by the way in most industrialized countries, what you would serve. But aging out, you said is evident across hundreds of empirical studies, reflects the fact that people are most at risk for committing crime in their late teenage years, their mid or late twenties. And after this age, the proclivity toward community committing more crime declines rapidly.
I remember being in the supermax prison in Trenton a few days before Christmas. It’s an image I’ll never forget coming out of a classroom, and I walked down a corridor, and it was elderly prisoners pushing wheelchairs of other elderly prisoners who couldn’t even walk.
Liz Komar:
Yeah, that’s an image that we need to erase from American prisons. We need to create more second chances, especially for elderly individuals behind bars. And so in terms of aging out, the research is abundantly clear. We know as you mentioned, that as people get older, they can naturally mature out of crime in most circumstances. And that’s because of what we call desistance factors.
So things like having a family, having a full-time job, having ties to the community, those are all things that make people naturally inclined to offend less. And also, people’s brains fully develop once they hit about 25, 26. We are neurologically capable of making better decisions. When people are teenagers or in their early twenties, which is neurologically pretty much the same as just being an old teenager, people are more susceptible to peer pressure. They have a harder time thinking about the future. They’re more likely to engage in a rash and impulsive decision. And that can mean that a disagreement in a bar turns into a murder conviction.
And so that’s why even the Supreme Court has recognized that at least with minors, we need to treat youth differently because their brains are different. And so we can carry through that same principle when we look at sentencing solutions to reduce our system of over-incarceration and say, hey, many people in prison have aged out of crime. We know that criminal careers are very short, four to 16 years. There’s lots of evidence that tells us it’s safe to give people a second chance and bring them home.
Chris Hedges:
So the raison d’etre behind this very draconian form of sentencing, which was embraced by Joe Biden, he was one of the architects of the omnibus crime bill, was that they were sending a message. And yet again, I think you punch holes in that as a fallacy explained.
Liz Komar:
Sure, absolutely. So we know that increases in already long prison sentences, say increasing it from 20 years to life, don’t have a material deterrent effect on crime. The hope of people who impose those significantly longer sentences is that when people are about to commit an offense, they’ll say, “Oh wait, last year it was 20 years I could have gone to prison for, but now I could go away to prison for life. I’m not going to do this impulsive violent thing.”
And I think you can hear the absurdity in that scenario as I say it, that that’s just not how people think about crime. That in reality, the thing that deters crime is the certainty of punishment rather than the severity. So that means the likelihood that you’ll be caught, not the likelihood that you’ll be facing an extremely severe punishment. And I don’t even know that human brains can comprehend how much harsher 20 years is from a life sentence in that moment before acting. And part of the political backstory behind that increase is the rise in truth in sentencing laws.
So we used to have a more robust parole system in many states in the United States. So if you had a life sentence, that might not mean that you get out when you’re 70, which is often what it can mean now. It would mean you would do closer to 20, 25 years, and then return to the community. And that was more closely aligned with the reality of research. And unfortunately, we’ve moved away from that for mostly political reasons.
Chris Hedges:
Well, you’re right that politicians, the parole system virtually shut down in essence. And the reason is politicians don’t want to have that rare case where somebody is released, and commits a crime, and they bear the political consequence.
It’s also a bizarre parole system. I teach in the prison system in New Jersey, and you go before a panel of two from the parole board who are appointed by the governor. I mean the last governor, Chris Christie appointed his driver. These people, they don’t have degrees in criminology. They’re certainly not criminal defense attorneys. And it’s completely opaque. You don’t know why you’re rejected for parole. You have to express remorse, even if you didn’t commit the crime.
Let’s talk a little bit about the parole system, because it’s seized up, even for people who become eligible for parole. And in your report, you feel that after a decade, everyone should be eligible for parole. And I agree, of course.
But let’s talk about the collapse of the parole system because… And the other point I’d like you to address I found in the prison is that people who are not well-educated, or perhaps have learning disabilities, or whatever, mentally challenged, they can’t navigate the parole board at all because it’s designed to trip them up. And so that, I find a kind of unacknowledged tragedy that if you’re articulate, and the students I teach go through the college program, they can get through that parole labyrinth or trap. But the uneducated or people who are mentally disabled, they can’t get through it.
Liz Komar:
Yeah. First I want to clarify one thing, which is that rather than everyone being parole eligible after 10 years, we also believe everyone should be eligible for a judicial second look after 10 years. So the opportunity to go before a judge and present the ways that you’ve changed, programs you’ve done, to have a discussion about the likelihood of how safe it would be to return to the community. And that’s more robust than parole, since parole is more of a rubber-stamping institution that doesn’t have the same necessarily due process protections as a sentencing hearing. So I wanted to add that. And to talk about the collapse of the parole system, I think it’s helpful to talk about an example at the federal level.
So the federal court system used to have parole prior to the creation of the federal sentencing guidelines. So for people who were convicted of offenses that occurred prior to 1987, they were under the jurisdiction of the U.S. Parole Commission if they were sentenced to a sentence that was parole eligible. Many were sentenced to life without parole.
And what happened there is that the U.S. Parole Commission became like a zombie agency that continues to exist. It’s reauthorized every year, because this population of folks who have now all been in prison for more than 30 years, who have a median age over 35, who were accidentally left out of the First Step Act, and they continue to rarely grant parole.
Meanwhile, this group of individuals who were convicted of crimes that occurred prior to the guidelines who generally refer to themselves as old law prisoners, the majority of them who remain in federal facilities were convicted of life without parole. And they don’t even have the option of going before the dysfunctional parole commission. They don’t have the option of compassionate release, because they were left out of the First Step Act, and many of them are serving sentences far longer than they would receive today. And so they’re just a shining example of the incredibly vulnerable, elderly, ill number of individuals who remain behind bars in the United States who need some sort of mechanism to return to the communities, but right now just don’t have a legal avenue.
Chris Hedges:
We also talk about how parole eligible life sentence in states Tennessee, they keep jacking up the number of years that you have to serve. It starts at 25, and the state extended the minimum time on life to 30. So they’ve kept pushing up the sentences. And this means they’re not going to necessarily even be released. They just can’t go before the parole board.
I had a student who was charged as an adult when he was 14 in Camden, New Jersey. Actually, both his parents were dead. He was homeless, living in an abandoned building, and he wasn’t eligible to go before the parole until he was 70 years old. And because of Miller and because he was sentenced as a juvenile, he did get a re-sentencing hearing because of the Supreme Court decision. But the sentences themselves have been pushed up.
Liz Komar:
Yeah, that’s absolutely true. It’s been a legislative trend over the past 50 years, especially during the ’80s and ’90s, that classic era of the war on drugs, tough on crime, truth in sentencing. That’s when we began to see parole eligibility dates get later and later. And it’s not rooted in any evidence. It’s rooted in electoral politics.
Chris Hedges:
Let’s talk about re-offending rates. And you from statistics point out that people who are released from prison after long periods of confinement, even for serious crimes such as murder, have quite low re-offending rates.
The likelihood of committing a second murder after imprisonment for a first is nearly zero. The likelihood of committing any violent crime after imprisonment for murder is also minimal.
And I just want to throw in there that prison education programs practically obliterate. I mean, we’ve had 189 students graduate from the New Jersey prison system with BAs from Rutgers. We’ve had one go back to prison. That’s less than 1%.
Liz Komar:
Yeah. There’s a group of people who kind of demonstrate this lesson very clearly. In 2012, there was a Maryland court case called Unger that allowed a group of about 200 people serving life sentences in Maryland to be released from prison because they got to bypass some roadblocks in the state’s parole process.
And so we have this group of 200 people who served life, who are released from prison that we can look to, for an indication of what would it look like to give second chances to folks with these kinds of serious records and convictions. And only five have returned to prison for a violation of parole rules, which is generally the more challenging thing, or a new crime. And that’s well below the state’s overall recidivism rate.
And if I had a picture to hold up, I would, and it would show you that they’re mostly men, they’re very elderly, and they’re almost all Black. And that’s the reality too, of many of the people who are elderly and serving extreme sentences in the U.S., that it’s a racial justice issue to talk about how can we give these folks an opportunity to potentially come home.
Chris Hedges:
One of the things you highlight is that it doesn’t matter often when you go before parole boards, what you’ve accomplished within prison in terms of education. It doesn’t matter that you have a virtually clean disciplinary record. You don’t have what they call a lot of charges. You write the original crime of conviction often overrides these factors, and that’s exactly right. But explain how that works.
Liz Komar:
Sure, absolutely. So it’s often a factor that is written into perhaps parole rules, or even in the context in resentencing into a statute is the nature of the offense, that the parole board or a judge, whoever’s making the decision, will look to that and just essentially say, “Crime was too bad,” whether on its face just because it was a homicide, or because of the specific facts involved.
And that really fails to account for often the 30, 40 years that have passed since that moment, and all the ways that that individual has changed. But also, it fails to account for everything that brought that person to that moment.
And I don’t ever want to minimize the seriousness of violent crime and the toll that it takes on survivors and their families. Survivors deserve more justice than they get, but we often fail to account for the fact that people who commit harm more often than not have experienced very serious harm themselves, and that should be taken into account in their sentencing.
Chris Hedges:
One of the things just before we get off parole is that the version of events about that particular crime may be false. You may not even have committed the crime. But if you attempt to rectify the official record of the crime, you are automatically denied parole. So I have had students go in, and they actually have to lie about their own crime because they have to stick to completely what they’ve been charged with, what the court record has said they did.
Liz Komar:
Sure. Yeah. This is a challenge that we face and we think about as we work with advocates in states that are exploring second look legislation. It’s really important as we think about how to put together these statutes that allow people to go before a judge, that ideally remorse shouldn’t be a factor that’s required.
Because it’s not consistent, as you’ve said, with cases in which someone was perhaps wrongfully convicted, or where perhaps the facts of what actually occurred are radically different from what’s in the court record. We should assess people where they are today for who they are today.
Chris Hedges:
Let’s talk about monetary sanctions. Most people, perhaps who haven’t been convicted of a serious crime, don’t realize that when you’re sentenced, you are given all sorts of fines. You earn in New Jersey, $28 a month. They will take one or $2 out. You can accrue fines while you’re in prison and charges. For instance, visiting a relative who’s dying or going to a funeral. You have to pay for the corrections officers over time, run hundreds of dollars. So you get large numbers of people coming out of prison who actually owe a lot of money, and this just cripples their ability to start again or reenter society. And you address that. Can you talk about it?
Liz Komar:
Sure, absolutely. So I want to preface this by saying that we should make victims and survivors of crime whole, but we shouldn’t do it necessarily in a way that imposes that burden on individuals who are facing the challenge of re-entering the community after a long sentence. And we also shouldn’t impose it on those individuals’ families, who had generally have already been through perhaps decades of paying very high costs to help their loved one behind bars survive, and to also address restitution.
So when someone reenters the community, if we were serious about safety, we would remove every barrier possible. We would make it so that they have the money to survive, to pay for housing, for it to be safe, secure, decent housing, to pay for the medical care they need, ideally provide more of that, provide them with case management, make sure they have the training that they need.
And instead, what we do is we leave people with a large amount of debt when they leave prison frequently. Oftentimes, they don’t have the vital documents they even need to get an ID. We have all sorts of barriers to reentry, like licensing restrictions, employers who rely too much on criminal records, all sorts of barriers to housing.
And so instead, when people come home from prison, instead of encountering a net of support that ensures they don’t go back, they encounter a razor’s edge that they have to walk down in order to stay in the community.
And it doesn’t make any sense. It doesn’t make sense for public safety, and it doesn’t make sense in terms of if we say that person has already served their sentence, why are we continuing to punish them?
Chris Hedges:
Well, they also get out. And if they’ve had traffic tickets or anything else that haven’t been paid when they went in perhaps a few decades ago, that has accrued interest, child support payments. And so they not only come out in debt, but they come out and they can’t move, because they have to make payments of thousands of dollars even to get a driver’s license. And these are the poorest of the poor, the most vulnerable. And they can’t get public housing, they can’t get public support. And if they can’t make those payments, then a warrant goes out for their arrest and they go back into prison.
Liz Komar:
Yeah, I would really refer folks to the Fines and Fees Justice Center who do incredible work on this topic. And particularly, the issue that you pointed to around driver’s licenses, it’s very easy if you don’t pay your fines that you may accrue, which are very easy to rack up often in a city, if you park wrong and things like that. Very quickly, your license can be suspended. And then driving on a suspended license very often results in criminal charges.
And so there’s been a move amongst some prosecutors who are thinking about how to not criminalize poverty as much to stop prosecuting those cases. But unfortunately, that’s still rare. As you mentioned, it’s so much harder when someone encounters a trap like that in reentry.
Chris Hedges:
I want to talk about prison labor. Most people don’t understand the extent to which prisoners, first of all, almost all work. They maintain the prison, they run… I pass the prisoners, the barber shop for the corrections officers with the prisoners in their smocks. They cook the food in the officer’s dining room. They cook the food for the rest of the prison population. Incarcerated workers produce more than $2 billion worth of goods each year, over $9 billion a year in services for the maintenance of the prison, the prisons where they are warehoused, and yet they are paid, in the case of New Jersey, I think it’s $0.22 an hour. If they work for a for-profit corporation companies like McDonald’s in prison, maybe they get 1 or $2 an hour. Nobody pays into their social security so they can work a 40-hour work week.
But that issue of… And then the commissaries have been privatized. So the average wage in the New Jersey prison system of $20 a month hasn’t gone up in decades, but the commissary prices have gone up by over 100%. And not only that, everything else. The phone service is privatized, the money transfer service is privatized, the commissary is now privatized, the medical is privatized, so they’re charged if they want to go down and get an aspirin. So talk about the financial aspect and the labor aspect.
Liz Komar:
So American prisons are really designed, or at least it certainly looks like they are to extract wealth from the families of people who are incarcerated. Because the reality you said of prison wages is that people may get cents from their labor. And then oftentimes, those few cents that they make go right back to paying a really high restitution charge that it’s been imposed along with their sentence.
And so in reality, it’s their families who are typically the ones providing them with the money to buy safe food, because oftentimes the conditions in commissaries may have rodents, there may be a history of food poisoning. It may just be inedible.
And so purchasing food from the commissary is a necessity, as is having the money to use the phone to speak with family, to have access to books to keep you sane, to access things like necessary warm clothing. Really everything in prison costs money.
And I had the opportunity a few years ago to visit a German prison, and it’s really striking the extent to which it’s almost the opposite there, because there’s much more logic around the fact that, “Well, we should want people to stay in touch with their families. That reduces recidivism.” So why would you charge an extremely large fee for it? “We should want people to have the ability to earn a living wage when they’re in prison. So why don’t we even allow them to go out, work real jobs, earn real wages during their incarceration, and just come back at night?”
Things like that, that are common sense, that could be replicated here are unfortunately still incredibly rare, and difficult to remove because of the vested interests of private entities that do make money off of prisons in the United States.
Chris Hedges:
Well, it’s a multi-billion dollar year business, and they’ve got the lobbyists in Washington to keep it that way. 1994, in a particularly cruel move by the Clinton administration, they launched a 30-year ban on Pell Grants. Explain what that did.
Liz Komar:
That ban on Pell Grants made it much harder for incarcerated people to access any kind of college education. And I think anyone who has entered the workforce in the last 15 years or supported a child or grandchild doing that knows that to get almost any job now, you need some sort of college education. So it makes it much harder if we preclude people who are in prison from accessing any sort of relief.
Thankfully, that has changed. It hasn’t been implemented yet. There’s still a complex process of rolling out Pell Grant access that I’m not an expert in. I understand that institutions themselves have to initiate the process. But there is hope now for people who are incarcerated that they will have more access to Pell Grants, and therefore to higher education, which is wonderful. It’s good for public safety, it’s good for families, it’s good for the workforce.
Chris Hedges:
I want to talk about housing. So if you’re released and you don’t have a place to go, you get shuttled into a homeless shelter. Or if you’re maybe lucky, you get a few weeks on somebody’s couch, and then you have to go to… But this is very disruptive. It’s the instability of housing, I found, my students who’ve gotten out. If they can’t find a stable place to live, they can’t find a job. They can’t go into public housing. So they may have a spouse in public housing, but they’re not allowed to move in. Or even in the case of one of my students, he moved in with his fiancee in a trailer park. They did a background check, and they threw him out for… He’d served his time for a crime he committed 30 years before. But I mean, employment is huge, but so is housing.
Liz Komar:
Right. And I think that’s why many countries around the world have explored housing first models. So the idea that people should be able to access housing without barriers. Those barriers can be things like not discriminating based on criminal records, but also not discriminating based on things like substance use.
And in the United States, it’s so hard to access housing supports, especially for people who are returning to the community. And the housing supports that do exist often involve living with other people who are re-entering. And that’s not always the stable environment that people need. And so making sure that people can access quality safe housing is important.
Chris Hedges:
Let’s close by talking about the impact of incarceration on families, and in particular children.
Liz Komar:
Sure. So unfortunately, still far too many children in the United States will experience the incarceration of a parent at some point during their life. And of course, that disproportionately impacts children of color. And that means, first of all, they’ve suffered trauma of that, of having a loved one behind bars, of only getting to see them after they’ve traveled for hours often, spending all of their holidays doing that to encounter a visiting room at best. They may be turned away if they’re not wearing the right thing at the gate that day.
And then celebrating Thanksgiving, every Thanksgiving, by eating something from a vending machine with a loved one in a prison waiting room. Or worse, not seeing their loved one for several years at all. And so the impact on families, emotional and then also economic really can’t be understated.
And so I encourage folks to check out the work of WE GOT US NOW, which is a nonprofit run by the children of incarcerated Parents for the children of incarcerated parents, because when people have an incarcerated parent, that means not only is there one less provider in the house, that the household is also usually spending a lot of money to support that incarcerated individual.
And so people encounter a lot of barriers, and it’s important that organizations like that exist to advocate for solutions and care for the children of incarcerated parents.
Chris Hedges:
Well, you write that 25% of black children, 10% of Latino children experience parental incarceration compared to 4% of white children. When you have disproportionately long sentences, and my students say it’s basically five years, suddenly the visits stop coming. People find new partners. My students will beg that even if they go on to another relationship, they at least bring the children to visit. They usually do not.
You have, of course, as you mentioned, the visitation process can be quite difficult, and many of my students will go to paralegals and write their own divorce papers for their spouses. They tell their mothers, “Don’t come. Think of me as dead.” In a short term, a few years, perhaps you can sustain it. But when you’re talking about decades, these families largely disintegrate. And these children often lose touch with their… And of course, the incarcerated mother, or worse for the mothers, because they don’t get the support that the male prisoners get usually. And I taught in the women’s prison in New Jersey. And at night up and down the tier, you hear the weeping because they’re talking to their children who have been turned over to foster families. It’s deeply destructive to families, as a consequence of being deeply destructive to the very fabric of the community itself.
Liz Komar:
Absolutely. When we remove the parents from the family, we’re removing an entire structure of support the children deserve. And I don’t also want to minimize the number of people who serve long sentences in prison and somehow manage to be fantastic parents from behind bars. I know many of them, and I don’t want to understate the incredible work that they did to make sure that that was possible, but it’s so challenging.
And we shouldn’t have a system of incarceration that inherently divides families. Because what we also know from research is that if really all we care about is public safety, then we should be doing our best to maintain family bonds, because that makes everyone safer, and also provides those children with more advantages later on.
Chris Hedges:
Well, we also know from behavioral studies that these children, because of that trauma, act out in school. There are emotional difficulties that come with having an incarcerated parent.
Liz Komar:
Absolutely.
Chris Hedges:
Great. That was Liz Komar, Sentencing Reform Counsel at The Sentencing Project. I want to thank The Real News Network and its production team, Cameron Granadino, Adam Coley, David Hebden, and Kayla Rivara. You can find me at chrishedges.substack.com.
Bellingham, WA resident, Andrew S., was surprised to experience a traffic stop while parked in his own driveway. The encounter with local police only became more bizarre as the officers changed their rationale for stopping and questioning Andrew multiple times. From claims that there were problems with his taillights to accusations that he had been doing donuts down the street, Bellingham police attempted multiple approaches to catch Andrew in a bind. Police Accountability Report goes through the cell phone video of the encounter provided by Andrew, which provides insight into how police can violate our civil rights under the mask of a pleasant demeanor and “innocent” questions.
Production: Taya Graham, Stephen Janis 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. This is Stephen Janice, and we are the Police Accountability Report, and we have breaking news for you today. Today we have an example of a police abuse of power that is so casual, such an everyday abuse of power we thought it was the perfect example to show you why police need to be held to their oath of protect and serve.
The video I’m showing you now shows a cop confronting Andrew S., a resident of Bellingham, Washington in his own driveway. The officer had pulled up behind him while he was on his way home. The officer then gets out of his car and begins to make accusations, but it’s what the police officer says on camera that is so alarming. Take a look.
Andrew S.:
I’ve no problem with… I don’t have no problem with ID myself. None of that. I just want to talk to a lieutenant or a sergeant. That’s it.
Speaker 3:
I’ve told you, you have to identify yourself as the driver.
Speaker 4:
That’s all he asks. All he asked was to-
Speaker 3:
Can I please talk to this gentleman?
Andrew S.:
Come on, come on. Calm down. Just calm down. Calm down. Just calm down. Oh my God, this is too much.
Speaker 3:
You have to identify yourself lawfully because you were driving this vehicle on public streets committing a traffic violation. The law says you have to identify yourself.
Andrew S.:
What is the traffic violation?
Speaker 3:
You’re failing to identify yourself, which is an additional violation. Is that something you want to subject yourself to?
Andrew S.:
What is the traffic violation?
Speaker 3:
You’re exhaust, it’s altered.
Andrew S.:
My exhaust. What did you pull me over for before that?
Speaker 3:
For reasonable suspicion of doing donuts and your exhaust. You went through the intersection and throttle and you hit your throttle a couple of times and the exhaust made a loud noise, which drew my attention to you.
Speaker 4:
Probably a lot of noise.
Andrew S.:
I’m going 20 miles per hour. This is crazy, bro.
Speaker 3:
Are you going to ID yourself?
Andrew S.:
Huh?
Speaker 3:
Are you going to ID yourself?
Andrew S.:
Yeah. Yeah. I’ll ID myself. I’m sitting here, bro, I’m just [inaudible 00:01:45]. Chill out. Now stay in the car. Stay in the car, bro.
Taya Graham:
Now, as the cop continues to press Andrew for his ID, he starts to make a series of allegations, alleging that a car like his was seen pulling donuts or that his exhaust pipe was altered. And I know, donuts, I promise I won’t make that joke. First, Stephen, as we replay the video, what’s your take on this possible abuse of police power? What do you see going on here?
Stephen Janis:
It’s interesting when charges evolve as an officer is engaging someone. I think it raises a lot of questions when they switch from one to the other, a modality of power there. And that raises a lot of concerns for me because I think an officer should be very definitive when he confronts someone with the possibility of criminal charges.
Taya Graham:
And I think that was one of Andrew’s concerns. As you’ll see later in the video, Andrew mentions that first it’s donuts, then it’s going to be my exhaust pipe. Then you’ll say it’s my taillight. And it’s obvious that Andrew has seen this kind of escalation before. Now, despite the fact that at the time that Andrew was approached, he was parked in his driveway, this encounter continues to escalate. Take a look.
Speaker 3:
You went through the intersection and you hit your throttle a couple of times, and the exhaust made a loud noise, which drew my attention to you.
Speaker 4:
Probably a lot of noise.
Andrew S.:
I’m going 20 miles per hour. This is crazy, bro.
Speaker 3:
Are you going to ID yourself?
Andrew S.:
Huh?
Speaker 3:
Are you going to ID yourself?
Andrew S.:
Yeah. Yeah. I’ll, ID myself. I’m sitting here like, bro, I’m just [inaudible 00:03:08]. Chill out. Now stay in the car. Stay in the car, bro.
Taya Graham:
Now, Stephen, I think it’s worth noting that Andrew denies doing any donuts and having an altered tailpipe. I mean, what do we even know about those rules and regulations around altering your exhaust pipe in Washington state?
Stephen Janis:
Well, Washington state has very explicit rules about tailpipe. You have to have a well-maintained tailpipe. I guess my reading of the statute would be that doesn’t make excessive noise. That if you have a car that really excessively makes noise when you read the engine, that would be considered not legal. But it doesn’t prescribe any sort of criminal punishment for that particular offense. I mean, it seems very sketchy to me. But there is a law that says you must maintain a good working tailpipe.
Taya Graham:
Now, at this point, Andrew does hand over his ID. Well, rather, shows that he is willing to. Take a look.
Andrew S.:
By law, I got to hand you this, right?
Speaker 3:
You sure do.
Andrew S.:
And what you’re pulling me over for, again?
Speaker 3:
For the altered exhaust.
Andrew S.:
Altered exhaust.
Speaker 3:
And reasonable suspicion.
Andrew S.:
What? Reasonable-
Speaker 3:
For the donuts. Reasonable sufficient for the donuts and the altered exhaust.
Andrew S.:
Reasonable suspicion for what donuts?
Speaker 3:
The donuts that were called into 911. I’m not arresting you on that. I’m [inaudible 00:04:16].
Andrew S.:
No, I’m just saying. No, I’m just trying to get it all on here for when I go.
Speaker 3:
That’s fair. That’s fair.
Andrew S.:
Okay. I can’t get no sergeant, no lieutenant.
Speaker 3:
No, not right now.
Speaker 4:
Why?
Andrew S.:
And why is that?
Speaker 3:
First you have to identify yourself.
Andrew S.:
Chill out. Chill out.
Speaker 3:
Can we do that before we deescalate?
Taya Graham:
You can also hear Andrew asking for a supervisor, which he is denied. Stephen, let us know. Do they have to provide a supervisor if they’re asked? Is that an obligation that the police have to fulfill?
Stephen Janis:
No, unfortunately. I mean, I think it’s a good thing to ask. I think it’s always good to ask. But no, there’s no law that I can see in any municipality or state that we’ve looked at that we research that says they have to provide an officer. It would be absurd to a certain extent. But I’ve seen cases that we covered where it has been quite helpful.
Taya Graham:
Just as a note, if it is a case of excessive force or if it’s a collision, most likely an ask for supervisor does have to be obeyed. And as Stephen said, we always think it is a good idea to ask for a supervisor, especially if you feel your rights are being violated. But remember, most police departments don’t have any statutes they have to obey that gives them the obligation to fulfill your request. Now as again, Andrew’s request for a supervisor is denied. One of his neighbors comes over to vouch for him. Just take a listen.
Andrew S.:
I’m chilling it down. I’m just trying to make sure I get everything.
Speaker 3:
Oh, sure.
Andrew S.:
I’m trying to make sure I get everything.
Speaker 3:
Do you mind just hanging out over there for us?
Speaker 6:
Yeah. He’s my neighbor. He’s a good guy.
Speaker 3:
Yeah, but [inaudible 00:05:39].
Andrew S.:
Yeah, man, they didn’t pull me over some bull. Now it’s a loud exhaust. Before that, they say 10 blocks away somebody’s doing donuts. My car was reported supposedly.
Speaker 6:
Yeah. I don’t think it was this guy.
Andrew S.:
Bro, it’s some bullshit. But I’m just trying to get him to call a sergeant or a lieutenant to talk to somebody head.
Speaker 6:
[inaudible 00:05:56].
Andrew S.:
Yeah, that’s it.
Speaker 6:
He’s a good guy.
Andrew S.:
And he’s saying, I can’t get no sergeant or lieutenant. That’s it. And I’m trying to make sure before I hand over my ID, you violated my rights. I want to make sure.
Speaker 6:
It’s all good. I’m just telling these guys-
Taya Graham:
Now, given the shifting set of charges, Andrew is understandably concerned about his rights being violated. Stephen, as we’re watching this, I mean, is it reminiscent to you of a fishing expedition? What do you think of the shifting of the goalpost here?
Stephen Janis:
Yeah, I mean, I think that’s very, very indicative of a cop looking for an excuse. When you change the charges around and you’re not very specific. And that’s what we talked about this at the beginning, being specific is a way of giving a person surety that these charges are actually legitimate. I think in this case, he’s just looking for a pretext to run his ID so he can look for something else, is what it seems to me just watching it from my perspective.
Taya Graham:
Here’s where the concerns about a fishing expedition are warranted because the officers suggests that Andrew might have warrants. Take a listen.
Speaker 6:
That sound easy for you, bro, because your rights not being violated.
Speaker 3:
I’m not violating your rights, man.
Speaker 4:
[inaudible 00:07:02] car.
Speaker 3:
I have no intention of violating your rights.
Speaker 4:
Assumed it’s this car. Assumed.
Andrew S.:
Bro, you just said you pulling me over for suspicion of doing donuts.
Speaker 4:
Assumed.
Speaker 3:
And the exhaust.
Andrew S.:
I ain’t… I mean I live right here, bro.
Speaker 3:
I’m going to get you.
Andrew S.:
I ain’t got no fucking-
Speaker 3:
I’m going to just jot your name down. I’m going to give you your ID back. I’m going to make sure you don’t have any warrants. Then I’m going to finish my [inaudible 00:07:18].
Andrew S.:
Just chill out, bro. Just chill.
Speaker 6:
Bro.
Andrew S.:
Just chill out.
Speaker 6:
You guys, seriously, have nothing better to do.
Andrew S.:
Chill out. Come on. Just chill out. Let me talk to him. We’re talking, bro. We come on.
Speaker 6:
Fuck.
Andrew S.:
Come on. Chill out. Just get a pen, bro, because I feel like y’all violating my rights, bro.
You have to identify yourself. I could arrest you. I’m trying not to arrest you, man.
Andrew S.:
But, bro, I feel like…
Speaker 3:
I’m trying to not arrest you.
Speaker 4:
[inaudible 00:07:46].
Andrew S.:
But I feel like you’re supposed to call a sergeant or something though.
Speaker 3:
I don’t have to do that.
Andrew S.:
Or lieutenant when you ask.
Speaker 3:
I don’t have to do that, man.
Andrew S.:
That’s the thing. That’s it. Look, I’m not resisting.
Speaker 3:
You’re not. You’re not.
Andrew S.:
Look, look, this is my ID right here. My shit is right here. I’m just trying to make sure my rights, bro. It’s all about your rights.
Speaker 3:
I understand that.
Andrew S.:
If you don’t use them, you lose them.
Speaker 3:
I totally agree with that.
Taya Graham:
At this point, I think it becomes clear that the officer isn’t really concerned about Andrew’s tailpipe. But I also think Andrew makes an interesting point. If you don’t use your rights, you lose them. Stephen, what do you think?
Stephen Janis:
Yeah, I mean that’s very important because no matter what happens in a police encounter, make sure to invoke your rights. Your right to remain silent. You might not to answer any questions. Even right to your personal effects without a warrant. Use these rights. These are wonderful rights…
Taya Graham:
Absolutely.
Stephen Janis:
That we have been granted hundreds of years ago, but they still, they’re very relevant today. I think he’s very right about that. Make sure to implement and use your rights because that’s the only way we can preserve them.
Taya Graham:
Absolutely. Now, understandably, Andrew starts really pushing back here because he is parked in his driveway. This has taken a great deal of time much longer than a traffic stop should. And understandably, he’s quite annoyed with this entire process. Just watch.
Andrew S.:
Yeah, bro.
Speaker 3:
I hear you, man.
Andrew S.:
I feel like it’s bullshit you picked my car out. I’m home.
Speaker 3:
Correct. You made it home.
Andrew S.:
I know. I am home. It probably say on my fucking ID right here.
Speaker 4:
Just fishing. How many other cars are out there?
Andrew S.:
Yes, it say it. I am home.
Speaker 3:
Correct. Can I please have your ID? You have to identify yourself.
Andrew S.:
Last time, you can’t call no sergeant?
Speaker 3:
I’m not going to do that.
Andrew S.:
No lieutenant.
Speaker 3:
No.
Andrew S.:
Nobody ahead of you.
Speaker 3:
No.
Andrew S.:
All right. Know you got his back, bro. I’m having a conversation with him. I ain’t going to talk to you no more, bro, because you whatever he do, bro.
Speaker 4:
They’re saying [inaudible 00:09:32].
Andrew S.:
But I didn’t got pulled over, bro, and I didn’t ask for a lieutenant or sergeant, bro, and they called. That’s all I’m saying.
Speaker 3:
Sure.
Andrew S.:
Okay. Look at my point of view.
Speaker 3:
I understand your point of view.
Andrew S.:
You’re saying you stopping me for donuts, supposedly. You ain’t seen me do no fucking donuts and now it’s exhaust. Let’s imagine, next it’s going to be a taillight.
Speaker 3:
No.
Andrew S.:
That’s how I feel. I’m just saying that’s how I feel.
Speaker 3:
I understand that you feel that way. Maybe it’s happened that way in the past. That’s not how it’s going to happen.
Andrew S.:
Definitely not. I’m saying.
Speaker 3:
I understand what you’re saying-
Taya Graham:
Now, since we’ve been watching this video, I just want to make sure that it is clear. If you are operating a motor vehicle, you do have to provide your ID. Of course that’s not the same for your passengers. However, Andrew was parked in his driveway, so you can understand why Andrew felt that this was somewhat unreasonable. Would you agree, Stephen?
Stephen Janis:
Yeah. I mean, we just want to be clear because sometimes people say, “I don’t have to give my ID.” If you’re operating a motor vehicle, yeah, you got to give your ID. If you’re parked in your driveway and you’re not operating it, I think that’s questionable. But if the officer observes you driving it, then it becomes a gray area. But of course, you just don’t want to adjudicate these things on a driveway. You want to make sure you’re as cautious as possible so that officer has no reason to handcuff you. That’s our main thing. We don’t want anyone to have to deal with handcuffs or go to prison or anything over something that might be a misinterpretation of the law. Just err on the side of safety for you.
Taya Graham:
Absolutely. I completely agree with Stephen. Err on the side of caution. We want you to go home not to jail. According to the court records, we found Andrew’s concerns weren’t unwarranted. As a matter of fact, he has gotten two charges. Stephen, what is he facing right now?
Stephen Janis:
Yeah, he’s charged with reckless driving and he’s also charged with a failure to obey a lawful order. Which of course, at least a failure to obey a lawful order could be a criminal charge. And that can sometimes result in serious problems for someone. I mean the reckless driving should be a citation. But these two charges are in the record in court. We confirm them. Obviously this officer decided to resolve this situation with some sort of arrest or some sort of ticket. It’s very disturbing. But it shows that I think Andrew’s concerns were warranted from the beginning.
Taya Graham:
We will continue to investigate this case and others because as we always say, the point of the show is to hold the system accountable that makes bad policing possible. And certainly, I think today we have a questionable use of police powers. And although this police officer was measured and even tempered throughout this experience, it’s still an example of over-policing and the casual violation of rights that we see on a daily basis.
And as we all know from our extensive reporting, the price of this type of overreach is paid by us. When cops failed to be judicious with their power, innocent people suffer. That’s why we take the time to parse videos like this and explore not just the legal questions, but the broader inquiry about what kind of policing we want, what kind is effective, and what we can do to preserve our most precious possessions, our rights.
And as always, if you have video evidence of police misconduct or brutality, please share it with us and we might be able to investigate for you. Reach out to us at par@therealnews.com and of course, you can always message me directly, @tayasbaltimore on Facebook or Twitter.
I’m Taya Graham. This is Stephen Janis. We are the Police Accountability Report. And as always, please be safe out there.
Police brutality and racial profiling are not uncommon in the city of Shawnee, Oklahoma—a place where multiple Indigenous nations were forcibly relocated to during the 19th century. Shawnee today has a high population of Indigenous and Latine residents, and one woman, Jeanine R., recently caught the outrageous behavior of local police on video in an encounter she had with them while walking along the road with her grandson. Despite no sidewalk being available, Shawnee cop Anthony Starkey threatened Mrs. Jeanine with arrest and assault for failing to walk on a sidewalk, and for not having her ID on her. This sort of aggressive behavior from law enforcement towards Indigenous and Latine people such as herself is not uncommon, Mrs. Jeanine asserts. Police Accountability Report investigates.
Studio: Stephen Janis Post-Production: Stephen Janis, Adam Coley
Transcript
Taya Graham: My name is Taya Graham. This is my co-host, Stephen Janis, and welcome to this breaking news edition of the Police Accountability Report. We are here to present you with some shocking video of an arrest in Shawnee, Oklahoma.
It depicts an encounter between a Shawnee, Oklahoma, police officer and a grandmother walking down a public road with her grandson and a dog. But what happens when the officer approaches her and what he says when he’s caught on the cell phone camera is what we’ll be unpacking for you today. It’s an arrest that shows, not tells us, that police power is both easy to abuse and destructive when it’s misapplied. And it also raises questions about if the police who enforce the law truly understand it themselves.
The story starts in October of 2023 when Janine R. was out walking with her grandson and her dog. They’re simply walking down a street enjoying their day when a police officer suddenly gets out of his car. Just watch.
[VIDEO CLIP BEGINS]
Police Officer: [Inaudible] Name and date of birth.
Janine: Am I under arrest?
Police Officer: You are being stopped for walking down the wrong side of the road when there’s a sidewalk available, just like I explained to you.
Janine: But we just got here.
Police Officer: What?
Janine: We just got here to the sidewalk.
Police Officer: I’m going to tell you one more time.
Janine: Sir –
Police Officer: Would you like to [crostalk] –
Janine: I know my rights, sir.
[VIDEO CLIP ENDS]
Taya Graham: Stephen, you can see from the very beginning, the officer raises the specter of an arrest. Can you tell me what we’re seeing here?
Stephen Janis: Well, it’s really hard to understand what we’re seeing here because she clearly is just walking along the street. She’s not doing anything. She’s no public threat. She hasn’t committed violence, anything. It’s very, very difficult to understand why the police officer starts out so aggressive.
Taya Graham: So the cop continues to threaten Janine and, understandably, she pushes back. Just watch.
[VIDEO CLIP BEGINS]
Janine: Sir.
Police Officer: Would you like to –
Janine: I know my rights, sir.
Police Officer: Sure.
Janine: I would like your supervisor, please.
Police Officer: Sure, you can after you give me your –
Janine: No, sir.
Police Officer: Okay, come here. Come here. Put your phone down.
Janine: Go get papa.
Police Officer: There you go.
[VIDEO CLIP ENDS]
Taya Graham: Stephen, I heard that the police officer said that she was committing a crime by not using a sidewalk in Oklahoma. What do you know about this law?
Stephen Janis: Well, that law is really just meant to prevent people from blocking traffic. Really a very simple jaywalking law, not something that’s supposed to be enforced in neighborhoods where clearly there’s no traffic, clearly there’s no way to obstruct traffic. So it seems a misapplication of that law.
Taya Graham: Next, the officer said something that I find really troubling. He threatened her with more than arrest. He threatened her with violence. Just listen.
[VIDEO CLIP BEGINS]
Police Officer: Hey, stop it.
Janine’s Grandson: Papa!
Police Officer: [Inaudible]
Janine: Sir.
Police Officer: If you do anything like that, I’m going to put you on your ass. You understand me?
Janine: Sir, I’ve already had this with the Shawnee cops and [handcuffs closing] –
Police Officer: Okay.
Janine: All right.
[VIDEO CLIP ENDS]
Taya Graham: Stephen, this is shocking to me. At least from the video, it seems like she’s minding her own business. Why is he being so aggressive?
Stephen Janis: Well, at this point in the video, there seems to be no justification for the officer ratcheting up this encounter or escalating this encounter. She hasn’t really done anything except question the officer’s right to arrest her or to question the officer for his probable cause and why he wants to arrest her. So really at this point, all of it is inexplicable.
Taya Graham: Stephen, first he mentions her not showing her ID, and then he mentions obstruction. Can you talk a little bit about that? Do you think this is obstruction in terms of a roadway or another form of obstruction?
Stephen Janis: Well, it’s weird, because at first it seems like it might be because of the roadway. But then when he talks about her not giving ID, oftentimes police will say If you don’t give ID when they’re investigating a crime, it’s obstruction. So to me it’s very confusing. And I think that’s a really bad thing when you’re having an encounter with police you’re worried about, to be confused about what type of law you’re applying. And it’s very unclear. And I think, maybe, in some sense, he’s confused.
Taya Graham: Stephen, to me, it seems pretty clear that you’re not supposed to be able to be arrested for not providing ID if you’re a pedestrian. Now, is Oklahoma a stop and ID state?
Stephen Janis: No, it is not. And like most states, it shouldn’t be. If you’re walking on a public road, you should not have to ID yourself. That’s unconstitutional. Obviously, if you’re a motor vehicle, that’s different. But in this case, there’s no underlying crime. I don’t think there’s anything to justify saying you have to give your ID. She’s in a public place. The Constitution protects that. So absolutely not.
Taya Graham: Now, even though the officer has completely changed his justification, he moves to take her phone away to take away her right to record.
[VIDEO CLIP BEGINS]
Police Officer: I’m going to tell you one more time.
Janine: Sir.
Police Officer: Would you like to –
Janine: I know my right, sir.
Police Officer: Sure.
Janine: I would like your supervisor, please.
Police Officer: Sure, you can after you give me your name –
Janine: No, sir.
Police Officer: Okay, come here. Come here. Put your phone down.
Janine: Go get papa.
Police Officer: There you go.
Janine’s Grandson: Papa!
Police Officer: [Inaudible]. Drop it.
Janine’s Grandson: Papa!
Police Officer: None of that has to [inaudible].
Janine: Sir.
Police Officer: If you do anything like that, I’m going to put you on your ass. You understand me?
Janine: Sir. Sir, I’ve already had this with the Shawnee cops.
Police Officer: Okay.
Janine: All right.
Police Officer: You’re going to get obstruction.
Janine: For walking down the road?
Police Officer: No, for not identifying yourself.
Janine: For what though? I wasn’t doing nothing wrong.
Police Officer: I told you what you was doing. Come here. Get in here.
Janine: He’s arresting me for walking.
Police Officer: Get in the car. No, you’re being arrested because –
Janine: Yes.
Police Officer: There you go.
Speaker 1: Why’s she being arrested?
Police Officer: Do what?
Speaker 1: Why’s she being arrested?
Police Officer: For obstruction.
Speaker 1: [Inaudible].
Police Officer: [Inaudible].
Speaker 1: [Inaudible].
[VIDEO CLIP ENDS]
Taya Graham: Stephen, when you are watching this, when you’re seeing this grandmother being threatened with obstruction, with failure to ID for not walking on a sidewalk, and then you see him interfere with her First Amendment right to record, what is going through your mind when you’re seeing this?
Stephen Janis: Well, as we’re watching it right now, I think what I’m seeing is an abuse of police power that should scare us all. This is something we’ve talked about continually on the show, that police power, when abused, is an incredibly intense and incredibly dramatic power that can really ruin someone’s life. And I see here a person who was walking along peacefully, not doing anything. Why is this police officer interfering in her life like this? It’s shocking.
Taya Graham: Stephen, I was just struck by how quickly all of this unfolds. What do you think when you’ve seen this kind of aggressive policing? It’s honestly shocking.
Stephen Janis: It’s something we in police reporting call rapid escalation where police seem to, for some reason, inexplicably either feel that their power is challenged or hegemony is challenged, and they have to rapidly escalate a situation that really doesn’t warrant it. So yeah, it seems to me a classic case of rapid escalation.
Taya Graham: I just find this so problematic because, as we said, this is a grandmother walking with her grandson and her dog. It seems that this aggressive policing was beyond unnecessary.
So we did reach out to Janine. Not only was she arrested, not only was she taken to jail and forced to pay bond, but now she has to hire a lawyer which, as you know, can cost thousands of dollars to represent her in court. And understandably, she is fearful of retaliation.
Now, I’m going to give you what we call the anatomy of a bad arrest to show you how every arrest is consequential and how it can wreak havoc in the lives of innocent people.
First, as you can see, we have a grandmother walking her dog with her grandson. Is she committing a crime, an act of violence? Is there any evidence that she is a danger to the community? Well, I think not. And now the officer approaches and is immediately confrontational. At first, accuses her of not using the sidewalk, and then not IDing herself, and then of obstruction. He also threatens to take her to the ground.
[VIDEO CLIP BEGINS]
Janine: Am I under arrest?
Police Officer: You are being stopped for walking down the wrong side of the road when there’s a sidewalk available, just like I explained to you.
Janine: But we just got here.
Police Officer: What?
Janine: We just got here to the sidewalk.
Police Officer: I’m going to tell you one more time.
Janine: Sir –
Police Officer: Would you like –
Janine: I know my rights, sir.
Police Officer: Sure.
Janine: I would like your supervisor, please.
Police Officer: Sure, you can after you give me your name –
Janine: No, sir.
Police Officer: Okay, come here. Come here. Put your phone down.
[VIDEO CLIP ENDS]
Taya Graham: And finally, he arrests her again for obstructing, although he uses the word “obstruction,” which could mean her refusal to ID. Either way, the consequences for Janine are devastating, not just money and trauma, but her mental health. And as she told me, she’s actually afraid to go outside. She mentioned to me that her grandson has been traumatized and will barely leave her side. And she also is afraid to file a complaint against the police department. She is, put simply, afraid to do anything.
And for me, this type of arrest typifies an issue that we’ve discussed frequently on the show, and that is bad policing is a means to diminishing the political efficacy, the sense of agency, and even the psychology of a person’s right to move about freely. Bad arrests like this don’t just diminish our rights – They diminish us as people. And I think to a certain extent that is purposeful. How else can you explain what we’re watching on the screen right now, and how else can anyone justify such a questionable use of power?
Now, Stephen, you’ve reached out to Shawnee Police. How have they justified this arrest?
Stephen Janis: Well, I called the number that they have for public information and they didn’t call me back. Well, at first they didn’t call me back, and there was no answering machine. But then I just got a call while we’re recording this, so I’m going to call them back when we’re done, and then we will update in a short or we’ll update during the livestream and let people know what’s going on. So they did call me back.
Taya Graham: Okay. Hopefully, we’re going to have an update.
We’re going to do our best to follow up on this case, and Stephen’s going to call the police department back. And of course, if we have any information for you, we’re going to update you in the live chat. My name is Taya Graham. This is Stephen Janis. We are the Police Accountability Report. And if you have evidence of police misconduct or brutality, please share it with us at par@therealnews.com, and we might be able to investigate for you. And of course, you can always reach out to me directly @tayasbaltimore on Twitter or Facebook. And as always, please be safe out there.
Maximillian Alvarez: 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 Bermudez family of Childress, TX, were spending the day enjoying music together at home when the sudden appearance of local police turned their day, and their lives, upside-down. Responding to a noise complaint, Childress police swiftly escalated the situation into a warrantless raid of the Bermudez household that ended with the arrest of the entire family. Texas cop watcher Manuel Mata joins Police Accountability Report for a breakdown on what occurred, the state of the Bermudez family after this harrowing experience, and how this all fits in with the behavior of police across the state.
Studio Production: Stephen Janis Post-Production: 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. It depicts an unwarranted and aggressive raid on a house over a noise complaint, but it is how police escalated the encounter and what they did when the occupants pushed back that we will be unpacking for you today, a clear example of how police power can be abused and the consequences when it is not put in check, 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 you can reach out to me at Facebook or Twitter on Taya’s Baltimore 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 also to show off what a great community we have. And we do have a Patreon called 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. All right, we’ve gotten that out of the way. Now, if there’s one trend we’ve reported on consistently on this show, it is the continued assault on our constitutional rights by the overreach of American police. In story after story and incident after incident, law enforcement constantly encroaches on the rights that are bestowed upon us for offenses both trivial and mundane, and in doing so, they have both diluted and in some cases eliminated many of the most important protections that were deemed essential 225 years ago, but not so much today.
And no encounter with police is more exemplary of this erosion of our rights than the video I am showing you right now. It depicts police entering a home based solely on a noise complaint and then using that pretext to assault the occupants. The troubling abuse of police power that we have learned was based upon shaky legal ground and has continued to have severe consequences for the people who experienced it. The story starts in Childress, Texas when a family was spending time in their home committing the horrifying crime of listening to music. Apparently though, Childress Police felt it was too loud, so they took time from more urgent crime fighting duties to take a visit. Just watch.
Speaker 2:
I just got here. What’s the problem? Go inside, now.
Somebody called and complained about loud music and I talked to…
It’s not 10 o’clock, so I mean…
It doesn’t matter, it’s disorderly conduct.
Yeah it does.
Oh, it does?
It does because…
You want to go to jail for it?
I can’t go to jail for that. I know the laws.
Yeah, you can. It’s disorderly conduct. You think I don’t know the law? 213, meet me over here. Turn around and put your hands behind your back.
You can’t arrest me on this[inaudible 00:02:59].
Yes, I can.
No, you can’t, sir.
Oh, yes I can.
You cannot…
Taya Graham:
And just a note, during the daytime, an officer would need to measure more than 65 decibels on an approved sound level meter at more than 50 feet away from the source. Did you hear any music? And you may have noticed that the resident actually knew the hours he was allowed to play the music and shared that with the officer and then simply chose to return indoors as he wasn’t under arrest and standing on private property. However, the officer took serious issue with his exercise of his rights. Take a look.
Speaker 2:
You cannot come in here.
Yes, I can.
No, you can’t.
We’ll turn it down.
No.
No.
You’re under arrest.
No, [inaudible 00:03:34] sir. You cannot step in my house.
No.
This is the first time…
Get in here.
You got to have a warrant to come in.
Hey, don’t push me.
You got to have a warrant to come in here.
Hey, you got to have a warrant.
She just had a fucking baby.
She just had a baby.
Taya Graham:
Now, it’s important to point out that yes, officers generally do need a warrant to enter a private residence. However, that requirement can be waived if someone is in immediate danger, evidence is being destroyed, or they’re chasing a suspect who has committed a crime, otherwise known as fresh pursuit. However, I think it’s questionable. You know what, scratch that, implausible that any of the actions by this family met that threshold, but I’ll let you decide as you watch, take another look.
Speaker 2:
She just had a baby.
I’m trying to give you…
… Up, but way.
You can’t come in.
… Get out of the way.
You can’t. That’s what…
He goes in custody.
You got to have a warrant to come in.
He goes in custody.
You got to have a warrant to come in.
No, you can’t arrest…
You have a camera. Fuck this shit.
You got to have a warrant.
Come here.
You got to have a warrant.
Hey, my baby’s right there.
Hey. [inaudible 00:04:36] The baby.
Taya Graham:
Now, what happens next is precisely what I highlighted in the beginning of this video. One of the occupants of the home did what any American has the right to do, that is petition the government, so to speak, to recognize his rights, and just because his particular representative has a badge and gun does not automatically diminish that, right, but unfortunately, this officer was having none of it. Just watch.
Speaker 2:
Look what you’re doing. You harming a baby.
Settle.
No, no.
Settle.
No. I know my laws, I’ve been to jail. I read the book and everything. You have nothing to go treat her… No, no.
Turn around.
I’m not going to turn around for what?
Because I’m putting you in custody.
For what?
Because I’m detaining you.
For what?
You hurt my baby.
I just told you.
For what? No, you don’t even got a search warrant to be in here. You need a search… Bring a search warrant. Until I see a search warrant.
209 Childress send us another unit.
Where’s the search warrant? You’re in the house. You’re in the house.
Taya Graham:
Finally, after literally failing to state probable cause for entering the home and pushing a recently pregnant mother of a newborn to the ground, the officer again escalates by deploying his taser. Take another look.
Speaker 2:
And you just went…
Get back.
I’ll get back. You’re in the house. You get back. Get back.
Send us another unit.
Get back. You’re over here. You’re making me scared. You’re taking a taser. You’re pointing a taser at me.
Because you were getting in my way of trying to detain…
You’re pointing a taser at me. You have to have a search warrant to be in the house.
Yes.
You have to have a search warrant to be in the house.
No, I don’t.
Yes you do. Where is the search warrant?
Get down.
Where is the search warrant? Why am I going to get down? You’re in the house. You came in…
Get down.
… Without no search warrant. Without no search warrant. You could go over there and taze me, but one thing, you’re being wrong. You’re being wrong right now. You’re in the house without a search warrant.
All I’m asking. All I’m asking.
I’m asking you to [inaudible 00:06:36].
Get down. Get down. Put your hands behind your back right now, or you’re going to get it again.
Taya Graham:
Now, the chaos you’ve just witnessed was just the beginning of the fallout for this family as police and prosecutors have continued to pursue them, a struggle we will be discussing with Texas cop watcher Manuel Mata shortly, but before we do, I want to go to my reporting partner, Steven Janis, who’s been reaching out to police for comment and looking into the case. Steven, thank you so much for joining me.
Stephen Janis:
Taya, thanks for having me. I appreciate it.
Taya Graham:
Now Steven, how are the Childress police justifying the raid? What are they saying?
Stephen Janis:
Well, Taya, we actually have some breaking news on that question because we found some more video that gives a different perspective on what went on inside the house, and we’re going to show it to you now. This shows what happens when police entered that room and started arresting the woman who had just recently given birth to a child. Take a look.
Speaker 2:
He didn’t do anything.
I’m in shit, because I’m playing my fucking music. Because I’m playing my music.
My baby is right there. Look.
You see my scars? I just had surgery for fucking [inaudible 00:07:33].
Hey, why did you push me like that?
Because you were getting in my way of trying to detain him.
So you pushed me?
Yes.
So you pushed me all the way to the ground?
You have to have a search warrant to be in the house.
Stephen Janis:
Now as you can see, the officers go beyond just arresting her for no reason, they then threatened to take her children away from her with child protective services. Take another look and watch it, and just, I want to look this sink in a little bit about what they were threatening her with.
Speaker 2:
Because you’re the police.
Turn around.
Best believe all this shit is going on fucking Facebook.
Turn around.
All we were doing was playing music.
Look, look, look, my baby’s right fucking here and this mother-fucker.
Hey, hey, calm down.
I’ve had surgery. I had surgery on my…
Get down. Put your hands behind your back right now or you’re going to get it again.
What the hell? Y’all can’t come in my house like this.
When I tried to arrest and detain him…
No, no.
… For disorderly conduct.
He didn’t do nothing. He didn’t do nothing. All they were doing was playing fucking music. He didn’t do nothing wrong.
Yes he did.
What did he do?
Disorderly conduct.
What did he do?
I told you.
What did he do? Explain it. Explain it. Hey, hey, hey.
Take them off me.
What?
Turn around.
My baby’s right there. I didn’t do nothing. What did I do?
No.
I did not.
Do you have anybody to call?
No, I don’t. I didn’t do anything. What did I do?
Notify CPS.
No, I’ll call my mom.
Stephen Janis:
So as you can see, the video does not lie. The video tells us that this arrest was just worse than you can even possibly imagine in the sense of being destructive for this poor family that had to deal with it. I am being a little biased here because I just don’t see how a noise complaint should lead to multiple arrests and separating someone from their children, regardless. So it’s very disturbing.
Taya Graham:
Steven, what does Texas law say and the Constitution say about entering someone’s home without a warrant? What does the law actually say?
Stephen Janis:
Taya, as you said in the opening of the show, there are very few reasons why you could actually storm into someone’s house. You have to have a warrant, generally speaking, unless someone has committed a violent crime or there’s a safety issue, I don’t think any of those laws apply to this situation. I mean, if it is exactly how it seems on the video that this was a noise complaint, I don’t see any reason that this is justified legally or constitutionally. It’s just not right.
Taya Graham:
So what do you think is problematic about this use of police force? What concerns does it raise for you because I know you’ve done a lot of reporting on tasers?
Stephen Janis:
Taya, what I see here is something I’ve seen in policing generally called rapid escalation, where police simply ratchet up the intensity of the situation when people don’t automatically comply. Remember, we have constitutional rights that allow us to push back, that give us certain rights when we’re in custody of police, and police here just rapidly escalate into use of force for no reason at all. There was no threat, no imminent public threat, nothing that would’ve justified this, so really to me, this is an absolute abuse of power and why we have to keep producing this show.
Taya Graham:
And now to discuss what has happened to this family since and how police are continuing to disrupt their lives and what the fallout has been because of this questionable raid. I’m joined by Texas Cop watcher Manuel Mata. Manuel, thank you so much for joining me.
Manuel Mata:
I’m glad to be here with you again, and glad this time it’s not really about something that happened to me that I’m able to bring something else that needs to be put out there. And also I’d like to thank you and appreciate the work that you and Steven do, and hopefully you let him inside more.
Taya Graham:
So you’ve spoken at length with Juan Bermudez, the gentleman in the shirt, in the video. Why did the police approach his home?
Manuel Mata:
They alleged that a neighbor had called a noise complaint. The officer responded to the noise complaint. If you notice, that’s really the officer’s frustrated because Lewis wasn’t like standing, he said, “Okay, fine, I’ll turn it down. Sorry.” So when Juan comes home, he doesn’t have time to talk to his brother and he has the time to get told him that, “Hey, the cops just came. They said to turn it down.” So he just puts his phone and turned it up like nothing happened. He just came back from the store and that’s when the cop wasn’t even that far. He said he was routed around the corner and pulls back up and it’s like going, now I’ve experienced one to a hundred, but this was like… I’ve never experienced to where they go snap like that quick.
Taya Graham:
I was also surprised by how quickly police escalated the situation.
Manuel Mata:
Well, whenever he walked, stepped back in, that’s when he was trying to explain to him what was the issue. The whole explanation was valid. There’s no, the actual noise complaint thing is after 10, and literally he had to use a decimal reader. So what this police officer does, he crosses their threshold and that’s when the girlfriend, the brother comes out and she doesn’t understand what’s happening. That’s why she says, “I’ll turn it down, okay, okay?”, like Tyna could snap the officer and try to deescalate, but the officer takes it as a form of aggression or interference, and it’s just like she’s trying to calm everyone down. And she doesn’t even get a chance to do that because as soon as she does that, he literally uses his arm to… First he’s trying to put distance and then she’s like, “Hey man, what are you doing?” So then you see him, what my problem was when his arm came back and that’s when it was like to get a grip and push her.
If there was a camera behind him, that’s what it would’ve showed, how he pulled his arm back, and when he went forward, he took it, I’m pretty sure he put his foot behind him to take that stance to push forward, and that’s when the sofa was right there and she was knocked off balance. There wasn’t no way she could have caught herself and he didn’t even, it’s like, here, push her out of the way, and then you see him focus on Luis. I had to watch this a couple times because it turns from he wants to arrest Juan, which is now inside of the room where the other officers are already trying to arrest him on the bed. So he’s focused on Luis in front of him, telling him he’s interfering. Why don’t he just turn around. Turn to the right and go in the room and arrest the brother like you’re saying.
Taya Graham:
So I heard Juan say in the video that he went into the other room to get something to record the encounter. Do you know what happened in that room?
Manuel Mata:
That’s when the other officer, I don’t remember his name off the top. That’s when the other officer that’s in there with him literally rushes him and completely pushes him through the door. And that’s when you see him try to turn around and explain, “Hey, my baby”, and he doesn’t get a chance to say baby, because that’s when he literally throws him on the bed and the officer didn’t even look to see if there was an actual baby, which it was, there was a sleeping baby on the bed, and his whole reason for resisting them isn’t because he is trying to get away from them, he’s trying to explain to him there’s a child right next to him. And all it was is he was going to get something to film. The good thinking of the girl. She grabbed her phone and started filming that interaction because I didn’t even know they made a video on Facebook that got a little bit of attention to, I didn’t even know that because what I found was the actual body camera footage.
Taya Graham:
So there was another young man, Juan’s brother, Luis, who was understandably upset by the way, the new mother, the mother of a newborn baby was pushed and he correctly said that the officer should not be in the house without a warrant or permission from the owner. Now, he was obviously upset, but he obeyed when the officer asked him to step back, what happened to him?
Manuel Mata:
The officer continued to… He never deescalated. If anything, he escalated even worse because exactly when you see him addressing him, he’s explained to him, “Hey, well there you go, turn your”, he’s even making sure he understands is it recording? That’s why he’s trying to get him to turn around and go in there if that’s his issue, but he’s focused on him, and then you hear him give him these unlawful and illegal orders of get down, comply. And it’s like his brain was functioning on this guy’s a threat, and to me, if someone’s standing with their hands behind their back, how is that a threat? And you’re the one that has your, and the whole time you’re shaking. That’s what got me nervous watching this because imagine if it wasn’t a taser and he had this in his hands like this and his hands like this, and he literally had to put his other hand over it to steady his aim.
That in itself is a problem because he was complying, he was trying to get you to deescalate and you chose not to. He was asking you, “Please get out of my house, show me a warrant”, which anybody which is inside of their home has the right to tell anybody that they do not want their out to get out. Right? And people are offended that this young man asserted his rights against tyrannical police officers. He’s literally telling them, his hand’s not even coming at him in a threatening manner. He’s saying, “I just need you to show me the effing…”, and then boom, he gets hit.
Taya Graham:
So what was Juan charged with?
Manuel Mata:
That day he was charged with interfering, disorderly conduct and resisting arrest.
Taya Graham:
And how is Juan fighting these charges?
Manuel Mata:
Well, he explained was that he literally had to come up with money to bond out, but he was working at the time, so he was able to. The only thing he had to raise money to get Lewis out, it was kind of crazy because he stated that they didn’t see a magistrate. They weren’t told how much a bond was, just somebody gave him a piece of paper and said, “This is how much you’re going to have to pay to get out.” And they paid that, and he hired an attorney. I’m not a hundred percent sure if he’s on probation right now or it’s already over. That’s how he explained to me, it was either a little bit of time, probation, community service and something else he agreed to, but he said he didn’t know.
And while he was telling me his story, the only frustrating part was, “I didn’t know how to fight back. I was young and I was scared what they were going to do to me and my brother. And it was just this whole thing and it was just like I didn’t know how to fight back and I didn’t know how to fight back for my brother.” And that was the whole thing. They took advantage of two brothers that didn’t understand the law or the criminal system.
Taya Graham:
So the young man, Luis, who was tasered, what was he charged with? I believe he was charged with resisting arrest and disorderly conduct. I think you said these charges were dropped, but he’s still in prison now?
Manuel Mata:
They were dismissed. They weren’t even on the paperwork that I’ve seen on the appeal. It was stated that those charges were dismissed. I tried to figure out how this could be possible and talking to Juan and I wanted to go talk to the actual person that they’re saying that he’s allegedly on the probation floor because he dropped it. I know there was no case between them, but looking on the paperwork, it clearly states a law enforcement officer claimed that Lewis aggravated assaulted him by cutting him, but they filed that a month after he was in jail. The lawyer that Lewis had, he sent him up the river thinking it was a good thing to sign this piece of paper without reading it. It was basically he got 18 years because he admitted to using drugs and drinking underage. That’s the extent of the evidence that they have to give this young man 18 years for violating that four year probation.
It all stems from this arrest. He would’ve never got in court. He would’ve never had to bond out if them officers would’ve never did what they did to him that day. They knew they were in the wrong with this disorderly conduct, resisting arrest and interfering in all this. So instead of admitting wrong, they convinced a young man to plead guilty to him using drugs and drinking. And in the little fine print it says, by the way, we’re charging you with this, this, this, this. And he didn’t pay attention to the little fine print. It was just the taking advantage of two kids that were in a small neighborhood because they don’t have their parents. They don’t, sad to say certain situation created where they don’t have both of their parents and them brothers, that’s all they had, each other.
Taya Graham:
Have you heard of other incidents of excessive force with this police department?
Manuel Mata:
There was a couple other cases too where Nancy, this is the thing because we’ve tried to screen record a lot of these hearings and I think when we started posting about Childress, Texas and all that, now the guy that does the YouTube, he’s taking all the videos off of YouTube and they won’t give the body cam footage to the people that are requesting it, and this is a confusing little town because that’s what I went to go do. And it was like, you can’t even find the police station. It’s literally attached to the back of city hall on the side, and if you don’t know exactly where it is, I literally passed it walking twice.
Taya Graham:
So how do you think they should have handled this alleged noise complaint?
Manuel Mata:
The officer first and foremost should have recognized that he was talking to two different people. Then he would’ve addressed it a different way because he would’ve known that, “Hey, I didn’t tell him, so let me go in and tell him too.” “Hey, by the way, hey, I just came here. I noticed you’re not the same person I talked to, but if you wouldn’t mind just turning the music down and everything will be fine.” And if the response would’ve been, “Hey, I don’t have to until 10 o’clock”, and then the officer could’ve been, “Yeah, you’re right”, or it would’ve been room for an open discussion to come to an understanding and there was not. He literally shut that door to where there was only… Well, look what happened. He wanted the young man to match his aggression because he didn’t like his response, and when the young man tried to retreat, he still didn’t like that. The thing that was frustrating the most is when he’s sitting here arguing and grabbing it. The music was off the whole time.
Taya Graham:
I know in your work as a cop watcher that one of your goals is to help protect people’s civil rights and help educate them on their rights. What do you hope will be the result of helping Juan and his family get their story out to the public?
Manuel Mata:
I hope it does two things. It gives the reunification of this, his family, because I think that that young man shouldn’t be in prison. If he did violate it, I think it should be accordingly, which is the four years that he agreed to be on probation for, not 18. And secondly, I hope this brings sort of a protection to people that are considered not part of people they should respect their rights. Well, you never know that, them cop watchers might come back. Now they know that they’re somewhere close. They’re somewhere around because they hide behind the fact that no one knows. So if they’re able to intimidate two brothers, because I understand the, “Hey man, this, this, this”, but when you’re sitting in a building in a cell in a room and there’s two people telling you this is what they’re going to do to you for the next 18 years of your life, it’s like you break down from the tough guy image and you’re like, “How did I get here?”
And I could never, I know what he’s feeling, sitting there thinking, “They just gave me 18 years, man. Wow.” And it’s like the whole time you’re screaming to the top of your lungs, “It’s wrong. It’s wrong.” And no one listens, no one’s hearing you. And it just makes me feel like doing this. “We hear you. I heard you.” Even if he got silenced and he’s in prison, I heard it. I saw it, and I want to give that hope to everybody, man, that not everything is always going to stay in the dark.
Taya Graham:
And finally, can you update us on any of the cases that you’re currently facing?
Manuel Mata:
Well, all of them are dismissed. All my cases got dismissed. I was facing seven. Those got dismissed. I pled guilty to a trespass because technically by the law, the only argument I would have is if I approved something in civil court and that’s irrelevant in criminal court. And when I understood that I had to be real with myself. So they gave me one day credit time served, and then the two cases that I have on appeal now is my lawyer. He’s a good dude. I actually talked to him. He’s pretty all right, my appeal lawyer, he says that he don’t understand how they were able to do that. So I’m pretty sure we’re going to win with these two other ones in the appeal. Then it starts suing them, man. And a lot of people have tried to criticize me about that, about that I did all this for the money, but they don’t understand, I’m only going to take money for a few of them.
The rest of them is going to be to force them to change their policies, the way they investigate crimes. What happens when you get arrested, when you go to jail? I want to change that way. That way everything’s fair across the board because the only ones that get special treatments are cops that break the law, and I don’t think that’s right. I think they should hold everybody to the same form of accountability treatment and the same degree of the law. I don’t think nobody should be above or under it. I think everybody should be at the same line and it’s all to leave something behind to show that even though that I started wrong, that I ended in the right way.
Taya Graham:
Okay. Normally at this part of the show, I do a little rant about a troubling facet of American policing. In other words, I drilled down into a flawed part of our law enforcement process to facilitate a broader discussion about what needs to be changed and what needs to be entirely overhauled with the system, so to speak, that makes bad policing possible, but today, instead of focusing on one specific example, I want to ask perhaps a broader question by instead focusing on a state, namely Texas, and specifically why do we keep finding ourselves reporting on it? I mean, just over the past year, we have covered roughly half a dozen troubling stories from the Lone Star state. Briefly, we have recounted how Manuel Mata was arrested in Fort Worth in a courtroom for attending the trial of a cop convicted for murdering Tatiana Jefferson. We covered the ongoing legal fight of HBO Matt and Corner’s News who happened charged, again, with organized crime for simply videoing police in public.
We told you the story of Texas resident Rigoberto Barrientos whose leg was severed during a domestic dispute, which left him in a wheelchair even though he was neither violent nor uncooperative. We also investigated in detail the questionable DUI arrest of veteran first responder Thomas C, whose life altering encounter with three Denton Texas Sheriffs led to his firing from his job as a Dallas firefighter even though charges were dropped and prosecutors told us, “They have no evidence of the case.” Of course, I can’t leave out one of the recent reports that showed how Brittany Trevino was arrested by a New Braunfels police officer for, and I’m not kidding, for giving him the finger. Of course, we can’t forget Julie Clark and her husband Robert, who pulled over for failing to signal soon enough, 100 feet before a turn, and for that heinous crime, Robert was violently arrested and pulled out of his car.
All of these cases point to a very specific problem in a very specific state, a state that often professes its allegiance to law enforcement but doesn’t seem to hold the same affection for the citizens they have chosen to protect and serve. Well consider a special program in Texas that recently came to light in a small town that I think certainly explains in part why the state produces so many seemingly questionable arrests. It’s called the Step Program or Selective Active Enforcement Program to be specific, and thank you for the tip, Hamlin, Texas, you know who you are. It’s a grant-based funding plan that is based on a simple premise. The more cops pull people over, the safer we will be and to incentivize that it offers overtime to officers who do just that, pull people over mostly for minor traffic infractions. Now it’s interesting, if not perhaps coincidental, that almost all the questionable arrests we have reported on, involved, you guessed it, traffic stops except of course, for the horrible case of causing permanent injury to Mr. Barrientos, the rest of all the front encounters start with a traffic stop.
The consequences of this incentive to intervene came to a head, as I mentioned before, in a small town called Hamlin, Texas. So according to the coverage of the conflict over the policy there to meet the grant requirements and obtain funding for overtime, Hamlin officers had to stop roughly two cars per hour. That’s regardless if the motorist had broken the law or done anything wrong, cops had to pull someone over. The program led to a steep rise in traffic stops in the town. That increased prompted a local businessman to confront the city council. His complaint, officers kept pulling his employees over even if they hadn’t committed traffic offenses, disrupting his business. So the program has caused a deep division in the town, where residents have called for the town to withdraw from it.
But I think this type of incentivized policing is part of a broader problem. I think it’s indicative of a culture of law enforcement that is in part responsible for the Texas brand of chaotic policing we have witnessed on this show. I mean, think about it. Think about what it means when you tell a cop he or she can make money as long as they catch enough fish. Consider what happens when cops can use their extraordinary power to line their own pockets. Well, the first thing that happened is that the integrity of the entire system became not just questionable but laughable. If you turn policing into an opportunist and capitalist driven enterprise, then you might as well resign yourself to the dystopian world depicted in the 1987 movie, Robocop, where police work for corporations and the law is for sale.
But secondly, I think you turn all the justification that has been hammered into us by police partisans on its head. I mean, aren’t we always told that car stops are the most dangerous form of policing? Aren’t we constantly being browbeaten that cops can’t be held accountable because they’re constantly risking their lives on our behalf? Well, if that’s true, then why on earth would you pay them to pull more people over? Why would you give them an incentive to engage in deadly behavior? Why would you fatten their paychecks to take death-defying risks and the benefits seem at least negligible and the consequences potentially fatal.
And if you’re a cop on the other side of the equation, the officer who now indeed sees motorists as dollar signs, exactly how does this change your perspective on your profession? Your job ostensibly is to enforce the law, but now you’re trolling for minor infractions. You’re literally fishing for suspects. Your job has suddenly been transformed from an agent of the law to proactive enforcer of arbitrary rules in service of a dollar sign. It’s literally paying for play and it’s policing at its worst, but even with all those aforementioned pitfalls, it’s clear that driving for dollars has even more serious consequences. Consequences we can prove by recounting our previously mentioned reporting because while we don’t know for sure if step incentives cause these incidents, it’s certainly possible the mentality it engendered among Texas law enforcement could explain the veritable litany of overreach we have reported on regarding the state.
So let’s do a little inventory and accounting of the actual consequences for the people who serve as the means to fatten the paychecks of Texas police officers. In the case of Thomas C, the lifelong first responder was forced to retire, shunned by his fellow firefighters and abandoned by his union. Oh, and he almost missed his father’s funeral because bail restrictions imposed on him. And then there’s Robert Clark, who allegedly forgot to signal a hundred feet in advance of a turn. He was forced to pay $500 bail, missed two days of work, was denied medical treatment and all of this while living in his camper after struggling after a life altering eviction. And let’s not forget, Brittany Trevino, whose horrible crime of allegedly failing to signal a lane change led to a near arrest. All of this harassment was proceeded by another arrest two years prior for having a CBD pipe in her car, an encounter that caused her legal fees, bail, missed time at work, and also injuries that continue to cause her pain.
And finally, we cannot forget Rigoberto Barrientos whose arrest can’t be tied to overaggressive traffic enforcement, but certainly overaggressive policing in general. Police took him to the ground during a domestic dispute and literally severed his leg. The former construction worker is now permanently disabled. He has been forced to sue the police department simply to cover his medical expenses and his life has been irreparably altered for the worst. And the examples I’ve recounted are just the tip of the iceberg. I mean, I think for every case that finds its way into our inbox, there are hundreds if not thousands more that are just as bad, that we never see. And if that’s true, I want you to think about what that means for people who are subjected to it. The point is that there are undercurrents that drive policing that have nothing to do with safety, law, order or any of the other ubiquitous platitudes that define the debate over it. Imperatives that don’t get enough attention but need to be exposed so we can understand why the mayhem we witness is happening in the first place.
And to that point, it’s revealing that the step program, however it is constructed, has a basic idea underlying all of it. A driving conceptualization that shows, not tells us, how policing can sometimes go truly awry in America. Put simply the program is based on money, namely overtime, more importantly, making cops richer, and this is where bad policing and bad policy intersect. This is why a country addicted to punishment finds itself at odds with its own people because as my accounting of the previous consequences show, the idea to turn cops into cash cows ignores the other side of the ledger that turns people’s lives upside down in order to fatten their paychecks. What I mean is just like other types of government intervention, the other side of the coin is often ignored at the expense of the people. I mean, think about the personal devastation and lifelong disruption, those minor arrests will cause.
Think about the direct costs and the court imposed financial extractions that result from the law enforcement overreach we just recounted to you. It’s all just another down payment on the theme that we often return to on this show, that over-policing and aggressive law enforcement is an instrumental part of our country’s historic economic inequality equation. A major facet, so to speak, of the concerted effort to create a 1% so wealthy and so powerful that the rest of us simply become non-player characters in a game which is rigged to make sure we lose no matter how many times we play. This is why we have to keep delving into simple car stops, even if they seem inconsequential on the surface. That’s why we have to unpack ostensibly routine police encounters that as we have demonstrated, are not so routine for the people who experience them.
And I assure you, we will not stop doing so until every single innocent person in this country has been heard and that the elites responsible for this injustice, have listened. I want to thank my guest, Manuel Mata for coming forward and sharing the Bermuda as his family story as well as for his cop watching that he does for his community. Thank you, Manuel. And of course, I have to thank Intrepid reporter Steven Janis for his writing, research and editing on this piece. Thank you Steven.
Stephen Janis:
Taya, thanks for having me, I really appreciate it.
Taya Graham:
And I have to thank friend of the show, Noli D and Mod Lacey for their support. Thank you both. I appreciate you and for my patreons, I’m going to thank every single one of you personally in our next live stream, and thank you for staying to the end of this video. I want you to know that I appreciate you and 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. You can email us tips privately at PAR@therealnews.com, ensure 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 Taya’s Baltimore on Twitter or Facebook. And please like and comment, I read your comments and appreciate them. And we do have a Patreon link pinned in the comments below for accountability reports.
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Four Louisiana police officers in the city of Baton Rouge are facing charges in connection to the torture and sexual abuse of a detainee at a secret torture warehouse known as the ‘Brave Cave.’ Two lawsuits and the separate testimony of a third victim describe a pattern of abuse and torture perpetrated by the now-disbanded anti-street crime unit of the Baton Rouge police. Rev. Alexis Anderson of PREACH joins Rattling the Bars to discuss the long history of Baton Rouge police terror against the local community, and what efforts are being made to fight for justice.
Studio Production: David Hebden Post-Production: David Hedben
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. We often hear about police misconduct. We had the upheaval of George Floyd. Everybody got in the social justice space and all kinds of police reforms was taking place. But then we find ourselves in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, 2023. Now mind you, we talking about George Floyd not that long ago, but we’re in Baton Rouge, Louisiana in 2023, and we had police continuing to run amok.
Here to talk about the state of Baton Rouge Louisiana’s Police Department and some of the fascist behavior that’s taking place within that department is Reverend Alexis Anderson. Welcome, Reverend Alexis, to Rattling the Bars.
Reverend Alexis Anderson:
Thank you. Thank you for having me.
Mansa Musa:
Yes, ma’am. Tell our audience a little bit about yourself. We was talking earlier. You said you wear many hats so you can put them on and take them off as you go along.
Reverend Alexis Anderson:
Sure. So as I mentioned, I wear a lot of hats. Obviously, I’m an ordained minister. I am the executive director of a ministry called PREACH, which stands for Presenting Resources Effectively Applying Christlike Humbleness. I am also one of the founding members of the East Baton Rouge Parish Prison Reform Coalition. And so my work with this subject has been longstanding. But the coalition began essentially with the death of Lamar Johnson, who died in the East Baton Rouge Parish Prison. And since that day, we’ve looked at almost 70 people who have died, most of them pretrial in a pretrial facility, which is one of the deadliest in the country.
So in that work, we have obviously paid attention to everything that causes somebody to end up in that facility. And needless to say, because we have an abnormal number of policing agencies here, the Baton Rouge Police Department, the East Baton Rouge Sheriff’s Department, the LSU Police Department, the Southern University Police Department, the BRCC Police Department, and I can go on and on for at least 40 more places, all of those are part of why we have such a huge issue. And so the most recent thing obviously is our finding out about the Black sites. And these are not new. We have known on the streets that they existed for some time.
Mansa Musa:
In that regard, right, because this is how it broke out, it came to my attention when I seen the letter that y’all sent to… You and several other organizations collaborated on this letter. Y’all sent it to now US Attorney Garland, and y’all say, made a renewed request for pattern and practices investigation of Baton Rouge Police Department.
And in this request, y’all documented how y’all made this request to previous AGs. Y’all documented this from 2017 on out. Like you just said a minute ago, you have this myriad of police departments within Baton Rouge, and y’all made this request. Why do we find ourselves in 2023 on the heels of George Floyd that Baton Rouge just seems to be stuck in a time warp? They not moving. Why is Baton Rouge in such a state like this when we seen it, and as you well know and y’all participated in it, this social upheaval-
Reverend Alexis Anderson:
Yes, and you’re absolutely right.
Mansa Musa:
… why’re we right here, right now?
Reverend Alexis Anderson:
Because in some ways, nothing actually changed.
Mansa Musa:
Yes, ma’am.
Reverend Alexis Anderson:
And what I mean by that is that if you remember all the way back to Katrina in New Orleans, that other police departments in fact filed complaints against the Baton Rouge Police Department for many of the behaviors they had, that because it is one of the larger agencies, these bad practices and these bad players moved from agency to agency.
Mansa Musa:
Right.
Reverend Alexis Anderson:
And so we had an article not very long ago about the use of these canine units on children. And if you’ve ever seen a police dog and how they are trained, the trainers wear a bunch of gear to protect them.
Mansa Musa:
Right. That’s right. That’s right.
Reverend Alexis Anderson:
So imagine those same dogs being set on African-American children. And all that ends up happening is essentially a little slap in the wrist. We change some policy, but the players never go away. And so we had the issue of the narcotics scandal, and many of the same players that are part of this Brave Cave situation were players in. And so again, the same sort of what I call moving the chairs on the Titanic, on the deck of the Titanic, no real systemic change. No real holding accountable. And so we are not surprised because we have known whether it was the police chases with cars in the middle of metropolitan areas resulting in people dying-
Mansa Musa:
That’s right.
Reverend Alexis Anderson:
… whether it was the systemic attack of children-
Mansa Musa:
That’s right.
Reverend Alexis Anderson:
… whether it was the unlawful stops, that this has been ongoing. And so the drip, drip drip has never stopped. But one of the things that has happened, and it’s not just Baton Rouge, but it is so tragic that on the heels of an Alton Sterling, on the heels of a Raheem Howard, which you may remember that case, that was a young man-
Mansa Musa:
Right. That’s right.
Reverend Alexis Anderson:
… that a corrupt officer, yes, pretended that young man had taken a shot at him, and what people don’t remember about that case is had that farce continued, they would have asked for the death penalty on that young man. And so these Brave Caves and these Black sites, which are not just against the law, period, they are against international law-
Mansa Musa:
That’s right.
Reverend Alexis Anderson:
… were a result of, quite frankly, decades of policing that gave an okay to these types of systems. And keep in mind some of-
Mansa Musa:
And talk about that.
Reverend Alexis Anderson:
Yeah.
Mansa Musa:
Go ahead. No.
Reverend Alexis Anderson:
Well-
Mansa Musa:
Not to cut you off, but talk about… Look, talk, because that’s where I want our audience to get a picture of this here. Because we’re moving to say the highest police officer in the country, the Attorney General, “Can you come down here and intervene in this?” But what about on the local level, like the local government and then on the state level? Because they’re culpable in some shape, form or fashion. The monies for the police comes out of the state coffer or the local coffer. So who in that department is oversight, or where’s the oversight on the state and local level about these? Because like you say, this has been going on for-
Reverend Alexis Anderson:
It has been going on for decades.
Mansa Musa:
Yeah. So where’s the disconnect in that department, in that area, Reverend?
Reverend Alexis Anderson:
I think the disconnect becomes with the sheer fact that-
Reverend Alexis Anderson:
The disconnect becomes with the sheer fact that people believe that excessive policing is the same thing as public safety.
Mansa Musa:
Come on.
Reverend Alexis Anderson:
Nothing could be further from the truth.
Mansa Musa:
Come on.
Reverend Alexis Anderson:
The other piece is that, and let’s be honest about it. When you target poor areas, when you target primarily African American young men that are in low and no wealth communities, you count on people not necessarily caring. And so one of the things that has been so disheartening, if I can say that, has been the rallying around, as opposed to asking for accountability from either the mayor and our metro council and the people that are in charge of these agencies. There has not been the rallying around you would hope for. And again, what I always say to people is that until it shows up at your door-
Mansa Musa:
Come on.
Reverend Alexis Anderson:
… I like to tell people that in these stories that we’re talking about, these are people who look like my brother, like my cousins, like my sons, like my grandsons, like my great grandsons. And until we can get a community that will show up at the polls first and foremost, because how you get accountability is through a vote. When you allow people to spend, for instance, the bulk of the opera money on increasing police but never holding them accountable. We have one lawsuit after another lawsuit after another lawsuit-
Mansa Musa:
Yeah. I’ve seen it.
Reverend Alexis Anderson:
… in this parish. And yet the accountability is not there. The atrocities that have been named, which are many and specific, these aren’t antidotes, these are documented atrocities, that they are bigger than what was in Minnesota. They are bigger than what has been seen in some of the largest cities in our country. And yet I suspect it is because we are in a very red state where our votes don’t have the same power, that our request doesn’t land in the same way. But on the ground grassroots, we are demanding accountability every single day. And there are multitudes of groups. So it is not just the East Baton Rouge Parish Prison Reform Coalition. It is not just the Promise of Justice. It is not just the Southern Poverty Law Center. It is hundreds and thousands of families that have been victimized, and we know that. And I can’t stress enough, one of the things that is so powerfully inspiring to me is that the two lead attorneys in this case are public defenders. And oftentimes we denigrate public defenders at every level because they’re under-resourced, they’re understaffed.
Mansa Musa:
That’s right. That’s right.
Reverend Alexis Anderson:
But if it was public defenders that in for their private practices stood up and took all the heat and all the abuse that comes with this. And it is people like Professor Armstrong at Loyola University with the Incarceration Transparency project that are bringing lights to this. It is people like Professor Thomas Frampton who has worked on this project long before this became a very public event. So we are grateful for those voices, but until people vote as if this was their child, their family member, it doesn’t change. And the reality is it doesn’t change until that happens.
Mansa Musa:
And you know what, [inaudible 00:11:59], I want to talk about, because this is like outright terror. And we talk about terrorism. When we talk about terrorism and we got all this international outcry about terrorism. So we talk about terrorism. Let’s look at the terrorism that’s being inflicted on the Baton Rouge community because let’s look at the black site. Now I’m looking at some of the information that’s coming out there, how they denigrate women, how they take people to the black site, and pretty much whatever they feel like they want to do at that specific point in time, that’s what they do to them. But my question is, how are they able to get away with it at the level that they’re doing it because they didn’t took the position that we doing this with impunity.
Reverend Alexis Anderson:
Oh, of course. If you never ever punish the people who did things, and you never ever hold them accountable, whether it’s with a Brady list, whether it is putting them before a judge and holding them to those charges, because even the officer that has been most named in these, his charges are misdemeanors. I mean, it is one of the ironies of this work. And so even qualified immunity and all the other things that go along with protecting people in law enforcement from being held accountable for the decisions they make oftentimes. And again, many of these things are often co-signed by leadership.
And so whether it is, well, we’ll change a policy as opposed to a stand down and saying, “First of all, we’re going to hold the people who did the thing to account. But secondly, we are going to say systemically in all of our settings that we have to retrain our people because this is not the way we roll.” Instead, there’s normally a press conference, there’s a delay, delay, delay. There is subterfuge. In many cases there’s never ever anything other than the always infamous internal investigation. And I like to tell people, I don’t let my children investigate themselves. Why would I let somebody who already has a record, a track record of not ever be an accountant? And then on the parish side, we have lawyers that just write checks. You tell that to the family of that grandmother- [inaudible 00:14:45]
Mansa Musa:
Yeah, the kids that got people that got killed.
Reverend Alexis Anderson:
Yes.
Mansa Musa:
Or like you say, sexually assaulted.
Reverend Alexis Anderson:
And when people hear that, and I say to them, I want you to understand something. After the Alton Sterling protest, there were people who were locked up, who were protesters, and they were locked up sometimes for a day, sometimes for a few hours. Most of those people still can’t talk about what happened to them. [inaudible 00:15:12] abuse. The kind of torture that happened in those settings. And then add to that, that this was parish owned property. Somebody knew that people were being brought in and out of that place.
Mansa Musa:
Oh my God.
Reverend Alexis Anderson:
So the ideal that there’s a single person, there is not. There is a chain of custody, of corruption, of complicity, of denial and coverup.
Mansa Musa:
Go ahead.
Reverend Alexis Anderson:
Yeah. And until we get external eyes on these things. And again, keep in mind, this is Louisiana. So when you step outside of Baton Rouge and you look at which one of our agencies have a myriad of their-
Reverend Alexis Anderson:
You look at which one of our agencies have a myriad of their own problems, then you go to the state police, well, the state police have Ronald Green. We have to have external investigations to even bring a modicum of objectivity to these issues.
Mansa Musa:
Okay. In every regard, y’all reached out to the US Attorney General and we talking about an administration that speaks about and give lip service to social justice and justice reform and administration that always in this space of we on the side of right, we on the side of good versus evil, for lack of better terminology, but why they haven’t came to the aid of Baton Rouge community, and well-documented. This is a culture of police. This is a culture of police misconduct, police abuse, Gestapo type text. Why you think the United States of America, the President of the United States, his representative, why you think they haven’t responded with a sense of urgency that is evident is needed?
Reverend Alexis Anderson:
Because I believe that local officials have put their fingers on the scales, quite frankly, and said, oh no, no, nothing to see here. We got this. And nothing could be further from the truth. As I mentioned, we had teenage boys that were sexually assaulted after an unnecessary police chase in the middle of a municipal area, and that didn’t raise the eye. Raheem Howard didn’t send the alarms. Alton Sterling did not send the alarms. A man was shot in cold blood and in a Trader Joe’s parking lot. And the police literally allowed the person who did it to walk away because they felt that the person who was killed, his life did not have value. And over and over and over again. And the answer primarily from local officials, nothing to see. I believe because those officials are almost exclusively Democrats, they are not Republicans.
Mansa Musa:
Oh, we already know that. And the ethnicity is also our color.
Reverend Alexis Anderson:
And I think what has to happen, because I tell people all the time because somebody says, you did it didn’t make it suck. We have got to start responding to the fact that these agencies have not earned our trust. We have to investigate. We have to authenticate. We have to implicate the people that we know. There are lawyers from the most high level criminal justice lawyers to public defenders who have been told these stories for years. And yet these two wonderful, young, brilliant attorneys took it into their hearts to take the risk to try to end it. And what we’ve got to do is a community, and I’m talking about the larger community now, is step up and support that investigative work and say to President Biden and say to the Department of Justice that you don’t know what you don’t know yet. And the only way we get there is if you will bring the tools of the United States government to our own localized Abu grave, because that’s what we have here.
Mansa Musa:
Oh, that’s exactly what it is.
Reverend Alexis Anderson:
We don’t know how many of these black sites we have. We can only estimate, but we don’t know how many we have.
Mansa Musa:
And then the other part of the realm is this, the black side aside, but when you have a mentality that you can do whatever you want with impunity, you don’t need a black side. You can just like, I pull you over to the side, shoot you, I pull you over to the side, take whatever you got, threaten to kill you and keep it moving.
Reverend Alexis Anderson:
Yes.
Mansa Musa:
But going forward, what are y’all strategy going forward? If this request and this call for the AGs office to get involved is not going to give you the response that y’all need in order to start getting some control over these Gestapo police. Going forward, what is the strategy of y’all going forward?
Reverend Alexis Anderson:
Well, I will say at the grassroots level, we have what I think is a threefold strategy, and it doesn’t change based on the disaster. Can I just say that?
Mansa Musa:
Yes, ma’am.
Reverend Alexis Anderson:
You change tactics in a war. You do not change your strategy to win. And our strategy to win is first and foremost, we must amplify and we must get these stories out. And so we are doing that at every single level. We must also encourage our people. And it is frightening because what I tell people is law enforcement knows who they target. We don’t. So the victims are very real and they have a very real reason to be terrified.
But with that being said, we are constantly pushing in the courtroom, we are watching the courts to see what these affidavits of probable cause are looking like. We are pushing in as many legal circles as we can get to get those stories amplified and codified and lawsuits moving forward. And then third, we are asking our people to recognize the totality of these issues and start using their tools for voting. They have to. And while we don’t expect anything to be resolved in a day or two, because unfortunately, whether it was Katrina, whether it was an narcotic scandal, whether it was Raheem Howard, whether it was a gentleman that was killed at an on and on and on.
Mansa Musa:
That’s right.
Reverend Alexis Anderson:
What we know is that we have to stay in the fight and we have to believe that we are the solution we are looking for. I’ve got a brand new great-grandson just born a few days ago.
Mansa Musa:
Thank God.
Reverend Alexis Anderson:
I wouldn’t want him dead right now. That’s right. And so it’s my job to make Baton Rouge better. And how I do that is I’m going to reach out to every grand mama I know, every great grand mama I know
Mansa Musa:
That’s right.
Reverend Alexis Anderson:
Every young person I know, and I’m going to tell the story on street corners. I’m going to tell the story in the pulpit. I’m going to tell the story in the outhouse. I’m going to tell it wherever we need to tell it, but we are going to stay on point. There is a absolutely beautiful woman here. Her name is Linda Franks. Her 27-year-old son was killed in the jail. They can never be made whole. But what she never ever forgets is she never wants another family to know what she knows.
Mansa Musa:
That’s right.
Reverend Alexis Anderson:
I sit in the courtroom almost every single day and I tell people I sit there because God sent me there because I don’t want any other family to know the things that we know.
Reverend Alexis Anderson:
… there because I don’t want any other family to know the things that we know.
Mansa Musa:
That’s right.
Reverend Alexis Anderson:
I do not want to know that a grandmother my age can be stopped, stripped, sexually assaulted by people who are using my tax dollars for the privilege of doing it.
Mansa Musa:
Yeah, come on.
Reverend Alexis Anderson:
I do not want not another 13-year-old boy, because I got grandsons in that age bracket, I do not want any of them to wonder if they do some minor incident, can they end up in Angola? And so I have to fight. The families here have to fight. We have got to build an army, but we’ve also got to have the same way that people rise up for all the other causes around the world who have got to care about a place that they may have never been. Most people know New Orleans, they know Mardi Gras, they know Jazz Fest. But what they ought to know that Baton Rouge is one of the most over police with one of the highest death tolls in a pretrial facility with things that nobody would want done in their name. And so we need make a clearing call to all citizens-
Mansa Musa:
You had-
Reverend Alexis Anderson:
… that if you [inaudible 00:25:19] injustice, that you have got to speak to your government. And we need people to reach out. We need people to reach out to the Attorney General, to President Biden, to representatives in our legislature. And I understand our legislature right now is very red. That’s not my problem.
Mansa Musa:
That’s right.
Reverend Alexis Anderson:
That’s not my problem.
Mansa Musa:
And we’re talking about a human rights issue. We’re not talking about a red state or blue state. We’re talking about a human rights. And we want our ordinance to know that we’re not talking about 1965 Bull Connor. We’re not talking about 1960 Jim Crow. We’re not talking about an era where they bombed the church and killed little Black babies. We’re talking about 2023 in Baton Rouge, Louisiana where if you go to Baton Rouge, Louisiana, you’re subject to be pulled aside, take to a Black site, possibly sodomize, then release if they feel like they want to release you after they did terrorize you and dare you to say something.
Reverend, you got the last word on this. How can we get in touch with you? Or how can we stay focused, stay abreast of what’s going on, what y’all doing down there and how can our audience support you? We’re employing our audience to really support this effort.
Reverend Alexis Anderson:
First of all, thank you for this opportunity. You can reach out to our coalition at www.ebrpprc.org or you can go to our Facebook page by the same acronym, EBRPPRC, and keep up with everything that is going on. We have a running scroll of what is going on in police department. We have a running tab of what is going on in the parish as a whole. You can also go on our Facebook page and we livestream the issues around our police department. We are showing up in meetings. We are showing up at our metro council. We are showing up in the streets and we need people to show up in our government offices because at this point it is truly in the hands of the Attorney General.
And what I believe is that in many towns across the country, not just southern towns, many towns around the country that these same issues are occurring. And they are occurring because in many ways we gave the right to use a gun and use a tool that has become so dangerous to the least of them. And I remind people with all due respect, you may honestly think, “Well, I’m not Black, I’m not poor, I’m not a young male. This isn’t my story.”
Mansa Musa:
Come on.
Reverend Alexis Anderson:
So let me begin with this. Remember I told you that we had almost 70 people who have died in our pretrial facility since 2012. One of those people was a 73-year-old white male, navy veteran. They may not target you, but you might be collateral damage. And I remind people, if you have somebody in your family that struggles with behavioral health, that struggles with addiction, that finds themselves in Baton Rouge on the wrong side of Florida Boulevard, they might just be collateral damage. They might not have been the intended target, but that won’t make them any less sexually assaulted, any less sexually abused, any less beat up or any left left for dead.
Mansa Musa:
There you have it. The Real News, Rattling The Bars. We want our audience to be mindful of this here, that we’re talking about people in the United States of America. We’re not talking about people in another part of the world. We’re talking about people in the United States of America in a community that is being terrorized by the police on the hills of George Floyd. But we had a George Floyd outcry. But as the reverend, remind us that this is post George Floyd and pre George Floyd. This been going on forever. And we ask you to continue to support Rattling The Bars and The Real News and support this issue because it’s only because of people like Reverend Alexis, Alec, that we are getting this information. Thank you very much and we ask that you continue to support us.
Speaker 1:
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.
FMC Carswell is the only federal medical facility for incarcerated women in the US, and a dozen women currently or previously imprisoned there have come forward with allegations of rampant sexual abuse and cover-ups. Greater attention has come to the situation after the story of Chantel Dudley, a former inmate at Carswell, came to light. Texas-based reporter Kaley Johnson joins Rattling the Bars to discuss the ‘culture of sexual abuse’ at Carswell.
Studio Production: Cameron Granadino, David Hebden Post-Production: Cameron Granadino
Transcript
Mansa Musa: Welcome to this edition of Rattling the Bars. I’m your host, Mansa Musa. Chantel Dudley was at FMC Carswell, a federal medical prison for women in Fort Worth, Texas, when a case manager sexually assaulted her multiple times in 2016. What would you do if you were Chantel Dudley? Would you think you have the right to be protected against sexual assault? Or would you expect something like this to happen without any recourse? Here to talk about FMC Carswell is Kayley Johnson, a Texas freelance reporter. Welcome to Rattling the Bars.
Kaley Johnson: Hi. Thank you so much for having me.
Mansa Musa: Tell our audience a little bit about yourself.
Kaley Johnson: Yeah. I am a Texas-based reporter. Until recently, I was at the Fort Worth Star-Telegram for about five years reporting on criminal justice primarily. I spent the last two years looking into issues with federal prisons, specifically jails. Last week I officially left the Star-Telegram to transition into freelance reporting so that I can focus more on criminal justice stories and some of the issues going on in our federal prison system.
Mansa Musa: All right. And while you were with Fort Worth, you wrote a report on what was going on at FMC Carswell. Can you talk about that?
Kaley Johnson: Yeah, of course. I started talking with women at FMC Carswell around 2019 and FMC Carswell is located in Fort Worth. It’s a federal facility and it is a federal medical facility which means that women from across the country are sent to Carswell to receive medical care. It is the only federal medical facility for incarcerated women in the country. So a lot of women from across the states will go there. There are about 1200 people there. I started talking with people initially about the issues with COVID-19 in the facility in 2020. As I was talking to these women about some really scary conditions there with COVID, everyone kept mentioning as well, the allegations of sexual abuse at the facility. I talked with Chantel Dudley, as you mentioned, and she was sexually assaulted in 2016 by her case manager at FMC Carswell.
This was someone who was supposed to be helping her and with her mental health issues and with her transition into Carswell and instead ended up assaulting her. She was released and she really bravely talked with me about what happened to her along with a lot of other women in the facility. I ended up talking to 12 women who were incarcerated at or formerly incarcerated at Carswell about this culture of sexual abuse, and the coverups that they had seen at the facility. A lot of these women said that they experienced sexual abuse or they saw what they thought was abuse going on, and many of them said that it would be reported and nothing would really happen. So that’s what the investigation primarily was about.
Mansa Musa: Okay, so let’s unpack some of what you said. All right. You said that based on your interviews and your interaction with victims and potential victims or people who witnessed, they said this was a culture that had existed in FMC Carswell. How so? When they say it’s a culture, can you explain what they meant by that?
Kaley Johnson: Yeah. Yes. So first there’s data to talk about the pervasiveness of sexual abuse allegations. So FMC Carswell from 2014 to 2018 had 35 reports of women saying they were sexually abused by a staff member which is the most reports of abuse by a staff member of any federal women’s facility during that time period. So there’s a lot of reports going on. Of course, those are allegations but you obviously also have to keep in mind not everyone who goes through something like that in prison is even going to be able to report it. So the actual numbers are probably much higher. That’s the data.
But the culture according to women who were at the facility was that you would face retaliation if you reported abuse. These women are in a place where they don’t have control over almost any aspect of their lives. So a lot of them either felt like or were told – According to the women – That if they reported this abuse, if they told someone about it, they would be retaliated against, they would be put in solitary confinement, or they would have privileges taken away. And that’s a really scary environment to be in.
There was also a woman who worked at the facility as a staff member and she talked to me anonymously because she was still so afraid of retaliation. She said that she witnessed reports being covered up, that she would see something suspicious or see something going on that could constitute sexual assault or abuse, and she brought it to her superior’s attention and nothing would happen. Eventually, she says that she was pushed out of the facility and wrongfully terminated. So there’s something going on there where women feel like they can’t come forward, and then when they do come forward, nothing’s really happening. A lot of the people I’ve talked to even now say this officer is sexually abusing me and other women and we’ve told people about it, or people have been told about him, management, for years and nothing has happened. So that’s the culture of covering this up.
Mansa Musa: I’m listening to what you’re saying and I want our listeners and viewers to be really dialing on this here. One, we’re talking about a medical facility; So we’re talking about a facility where a person is sent there because they have some medical problem, be it physical or mental health. I’m assuming the mental health aspect. But at any rate, they’re vulnerable in that regard. They’re going there to get treatment for their medical conditions. And as a result of going there to be treated, they have in this environment… Now this is the ideal environment for predators, sexual deviants, rapists, people that sodomize people. Because this is what’s been happening to women.
So now you put these officers in this environment. These women, physically they’re vulnerable because they’ve got health issues and now they’re subjected to being sexually assaulted. And if they say something about it, they’re going to be retaliated against in multiple forms: deprived of their medication, deprived of the treatment, and deprived of their mental health. This here lies the culture. But in terms of your investigation and report, did you ever confront the administration with these allegations or try to get their views on the authority, the high-ups, the warden, system warden commissioners, or anybody in the BOP?
Kaley Johnson: For this investigation, I reached out to the Bureau of Prisons through their media liaison multiple times. They never agreed to do an interview with me directly or answer a lot of my specific questions. They sent a statement over email that referred to their policy of taking sexual abuse allegations very seriously and that they have a system in place to make sure those reports go up the ladder and something happens.
And there have been a number of officers, it’s usually higher-up officers or people in a unique position. There was a chaplain at the facility, there was a cook, and then several lieutenants who have been convicted based on sexually abusing someone at Carswell. So there are examples of this person being held accountable but some of the advocates and women I talked to, their criticism of that was that those people had reports being made against them for years. It took a long time for that investigation to happen and there was no broader policy change that was being made to keep it from happening again.
The BOP didn’t really speak to that to me directly, although Director Colette Peters, has talked publicly about how she plans to tackle this issue and she wants to make it a priority. But they never talked with me directly about it. No.
Mansa Musa: You know what? For the benefit of our audience, they have what they call the Prison Rate Reform Act, which is PREA. PREA came into existence because of the pervasiveness of rape in the prison system in the USA. It’s a federal mandate but also state prisons adopted it. And the concept of PREA is that whoever alleges being sexually assaulted or abused or feels like it, can call the PREA number. And once they make that known, the person that they’re alleging did something to them is immediately removed from the institution. The person making the allegation is removed from the institution to prevent retaliation and wants to be put in a safe space and the other one is suspended.
I don’t know, with or without pay, pending an investigation. That’s the idealism of PREA. But from what I’m gathering, PREA doesn’t apply to Carswell because if PREA applied to Carswell, then these women wouldn’t have had the fear of retaliation. But we’re looking at it a little bit deeper. From what you gathered in talking to the women, how did you assess them in terms of how they felt about this whole thing? I know ain’t no good feeling coming out but what were their views on how they looked at it and how they looked at why they were being subjected to this, if they gave you any perspective on that?
Kaley Johnson: Yeah, that’s a good question. And in the story, Chantel talks about this a lot. And a couple of other women I talked to. Wendy Panzo was abused at FCI Dublin, which she had mentioned. And the general feeling that they talked to me about was obviously they are traumatized and this never should have happened to them. Beyond being traumatized as any sexual abuse victim would be, they then had to continue to live in either the exact same facility where this happened or in a very similar facility where they’re still not in control of their lives. They sometimes are not. There’s a story about Carswell with this too, that a lot of them say they didn’t get the mental health resources that they needed after this happened.
That speaks to there’s lack of staffing and resources in general across the BOP. There’s trauma upon trauma for people who are abused in prison. I don’t even think you should need to point this out, but some of them will point out to you, that I did something to lead me to be incarcerated and I was sentenced to give up my time and my freedom. I was not sentenced to be abused and to be emotionally tortured.
Yet that is what happened to them. And the federal government is responsible for these people. A lot of advocates I talked to point out that it is then the federal government’s responsibility to make sure this does not happen and to take any measures necessary to make sure it doesn’t happen again when it does. It’s like Chantel Dudley talked to me about how this has been really hard for her to emotionally recover from because she also doesn’t feel like there was a lot of justice. The case manager in her case was convicted, but I apologize, I don’t remember his exact sentence, but it’s something like 12 months. And there was a woman who after my reporting came out, another man was convicted of sexual abuse at Carswell. His sentence for sexually abusing her was lower than the sentence that she was serving for drug possession. So there’s also a lack of sense of justice and that the federal government cares that this is happening.
Mansa Musa: A point I want to make is that under the sentencing mechanism and the criminal code, you have what you call crime and punishment. The crime, and then you got punishment. If the crime is the distribution of drugs the punishment is then the sentence that I’m given. The sentence that I’m given for the distribution of drugs might be 10 years. Okay. Now I got the crime which was distribution. I was found guilty and received 10 years. At that juncture right there, the punishment is meted out. The punishment is not when I go into the system; The system in turn in the sentencing process is to put me in a position to rehabilitate myself to change my thinking or be prepared for return back in society. So the system’s supposed to create a mechanism for me to engage in that.
Be it, I can go to college, be it, I can get a trade. If I have a substance abuse problem, I can get NA. If I had mental health issues, I could get mental health treatment while I’m there and then progress into society. Nowhere in the system, nowhere in the crime and punishment when the judge sentences anyone, mainly a female, says I’m sentencing you to 10 years to be raped, sodomized, abused, traumatized, and if you survive that, then it’s all good. But if not, so what? And I want to delve a little bit deeper into the response that you got from people in society. What was the response you got from your reporting of this information?
Kaley Johnson: Yeah. There’s a perception that society at large or the public doesn’t care about incarcerated people and what goes on behind bars and that wasn’t what I saw from the response. A lot of people reached out or commented on our Facebook or would talk about the story on Facebook about how unjust this was. That was the response and this should not be happening. Our editorial board ran a piece about how they felt it showed a failure in the federal government to have an appropriate system for people who are incarcerated.
There was also a congressman, Mark Veasey, who called for a federal investigation into FMC Carswell. I don’t think that actually happened but he raised awareness about it and it was something that did seem like a lot of people cared. There are so many advocates who have been working on this issue and specifically surrounding Carswell and people do care. It’s finding solutions and then holding those entities accountable for putting those solutions into place.
Mansa Musa: This is domestic violence for women. We create these ways to identify and educate the populace on things like domestic violence or whatever the case might be around social issues. It seems to me it’s a disconnect between when we talk about domestic violence and when we think domestic violence only applies to people in society. I don’t think society looks at domestic violence as domestic violence. When you take an abuse of the defenseless, that’s basically what you’re doing. When a person comes into the house and beats a woman half to death, that’s domestic violence. When a person is incarcerated and under the jurisdiction and authority of the federal government and goes to get a medical or physical checkup and finds themselves being sodomized, that’s domestic violence. It’s no different.
Do you think it’s a disconnect in that regard? Do you think that in society there is a disconnect between that and the prison when it comes to women and identifying women as being able to be domestically violent? Are women in prison being subjected to be domestically violated?
Kaley Johnson: Yeah. I do think, as you said, that there’s a line that society draws between people who are in society and people who are taken away from it. People who are incarcerated in prisons are not visible to everyone else. They have emailed certain people, and they can make certain phone calls for a certain amount of time, but it’s hard to know what is happening to them. And it’s not like they’re voiceless. They could be screaming that this is happening but it’s not always they’re able to get that out to the public at large.
So I definitely do think it’s something that is not paid enough attention to because people who are incarcerated have a hard time getting people to cure them. I definitely think that when we think of domestic violence, we should broaden our scope of it. And someone being abused in prison, they’re being abused in their home. They can’t… The scary part about domestic violence is it’s something that’s happening to you in your home, that you don’t have an escape from. And that is exactly what’s happening to these women who have cases where they’re being abused by someone who has power and control over them.
Mansa Musa: This is my soapbox and I’m saying this out front: If these women were in Paramount Studio, if these women worked for a major corporation, then the Me Too movement, the feminist movement, ambulance chasers, there’s legal careers that’s on the shelf. Now that they got an opportunity to chase an issue they would be up in arms about this. But when it comes to people who are incarcerated, because they committed a crime, the law says there’s no armed curtain between the Constitution and people who are incarcerated. The law says that a person has a right to be protected from cruel and unusual punishment. It might be usual – The domestic aspect of it – But it’s punishment nevertheless and it’s cruel. It might not be unusual in that regard but it’s cruel and it’s punishment and being meeked out on people that are defenseless.
I have issues with why in our society don’t we have a broader perspective on humanity. This is what this is about. This ain’t about a person who committed a crime and isn’t paying their debt to society. You’re paying your debt to society when you get convicted of the crime. The system worked in that regard. If you want to identify how the system worked, a person committed a crime, a person was convicted, and gave them a sentence; that’s the system worker.
But this is where the system breaks down in my mind; is where you are subjecting people to this abuse with impunity. And then we have these organizations in society that they’ll be up in arms about individuals. Oh, they raped this woman and they raped these women. And I’m not trying to minimize that by no stretch of my imagination. I’m saying that attitude is hypocritical in my mind. If you don’t see this as prevalent, it’s the culture of the society to be chauvinistic, sexist, and abusive towards women. Wherever they are, wherever they exist. And when we get up, raise our voices, we should be raising our voices about that. Not about where it happened and why we going to be vocal in this area but not vocal in that area. That’s my soapbox. You have the last word on this, Kaley.
Kaley Johnson: Yeah, yeah. And as you said, I haven’t reported on that specifically or talked to people about that specifically. But I did want to add, I didn’t touch on this earlier, that this is also a dangerous situation for a lot of staff members. The staff member I mentioned that essentially blew the whistle on what was happening with one officer at Carswell was then terminated and she said that she faced retaliation from coworkers. So it’s also a dangerous situation for well-meaning staff who are doing their job and caring for these inmates. Everyone I’ve talked to who’s incarcerated says there’s at least one person that they’re like so-and-so really does care. And to have people who are bad actors in a facility who are not held accountable makes the situation dangerous for everybody.
Mansa Musa: Right. If people want to get in touch with you or stay abreast of what you’re doing, how can they do that?
Kaley Johnson: Yeah, for sure. As I said, I am freelancing now and focusing on the criminal justice system and federal prison system. And you can reach out to me either on Twitter, for as long as it’s still around, @KaleyAJohnson or my email is kaleyalyssajohnson@gmail.com, which is also linked in my Twitter if you need the spelling.
Mansa Musa: Thank you, Kaley. You rattled the bars today on this issue. We want to remind our audiences that when we talk about domestic violence, when we talk about abuse, and we choose to identify the violence and abuse that’s taking place in prison, we’re not saying that the people that’s there are innocent; We’re saying that they’re not guilty of subjecting themselves to abuse. We’re saying that nobody that was found guilty of a crime signed up on a piece of paper saying, when I go into the prison system, I want to be sodomized, I want to be raped, I want to be traumatized. Nobody said that. When they went into the system, they went in there with the understanding that if I do certain things that the system asked me to do – That is not getting charged, not getting any infractions, participating in the program services – That ultimately I’ll be released and given the opportunity to return to society a normal human being. Not a traumatized individual.
We want everybody to recognize that. When you think about domestic violence, think about if this is one of your loved ones that we’re talking about. Think about if this was your mother who was found guilty of distribution of narcotics or drugs and was sentenced to prison. And when you talk to her again, she says that she was raped by the medical staff and that she can’t get anybody to believe her or that whenever she complained about it, if she chooses to complain about it, they’re going to further subject her to being punished. Think about that and then ask yourself, would you have a different attitude about supporting these men? These women that are in these federal prisons are being subjected to this cruel and usual punishment as it relates to the federal prison system?
And we ask that you continue to support Rattling the Bars and The Real News. We ask that you look at this report that we are given. We ask that you vet it for yourself and determine if there’s any truth to it. If the woman says she was sexually abused and raped, if she’s telling the truth, then take a stand in terms of making yourself known. Find out who you can complain to about your tax dollars going to women being raped and abused. Find out who you can complain to that you don’t want your money to go there anymore, that you want your money to go towards treating these people as human beings.
And we ask you to continue to support Rattling the Bars and The Real News because it’s only from the Rattling the Bars and The Real News that you get this report. Because guess what? We are actually the real news. Thank you, Kaley. Thank you for joining me and we appreciate the time that you’re taking to educate our audience on this important matter.
The murder of Baltimore entrepreneur Pava LaPere rocked the city. But the suspect eventually arrested for the brutal murder was not only well-known by police, but had actually committed another violent crime just a week before her murder. The Land of the Unsolved team Jayne MiIller, Taya Graham, and Stephen Janis break down the series of events that lead to her death, and investigate how Baltimore’s questionable approach of not working with the community to solve crime could have contributed to LaPere’s death.
Studio Production: David Hebden Post-Production: Stephen Janis
Transcript
The following is a rushed transcript and may contain errors. A proofread version will be made available as soon as possible.
Stephen Janis:
Anyone who watches crime dramas could reasonably conclude that when someone is murdered, barring bizarre and extenuating circumstances, the case is solved.
That is through high-tech forensics, moral resolve, or simply the near mythic competence of American law enforcement, killers are ultimately sent to jail.
But as an investigative reporter who has worked in one of the most violent cities in the country for nearly 15 years, I can tell you this is not true.
Taya Graham:
That is the point of this podcast, because unsolved killings represent more than just statistics.
It’s a psychic toll of stories untold that infects an entire community, the final violent moments of a victim’s life that remain shrouded in mystery.
Stephen Janis:
I’m Stephen Janis.
Taya Graham:
I’m Taya Graham.
Stephen Janis:
We are investigative reporters who live in Baltimore City.
Taya Graham:
Welcome to the Land of the Unsolved.
Hello, my name is Taya Graham, and welcome back to the Land of the Unsolved. The podcast that explores both the evidence and politics of unsolved murders in Baltimore and beyond. Today, we’re going to be talking about two cases, one that is at least partially solved and one that is not. But we’re going to do more than just recount the evidence.
We’ll be looking at the past case through the prism of what has just happened in the present. Breaking down how police investigated a recent murder and what their handling of it says about the growing tally of unsolved murders across the city. To do so, we will be reporting on breaking news about a horrifying act of violence that has rocked the city. The murder of 26-year-old Baltimore tech CEO, Pava LaPere.
Reporter:
Our top story tonight is out of Baltimore. We’re hearing from the family of a Baltimore tech CEO fatally attacked at her apartment complex.
Reporter 2:
Police confirmed to NBC News, the 26-year-old, who served as CEO of EcoMap Technologies and was featured on this year’s Forbes 30 Under 30 list, was found dead in her Baltimore apartment on September 25th with signs of blunt force trauma.
Taya Graham:
LaPere’s body was found in her apartment building last week after friends reported her missing. Police said she died of blunt force trauma.
Shortly after her body was found, police made a stunning announcement. There was indeed a suspect.
Police:
We’re here to announce that we have a warrant issued for the killing of Ms. LaPere. Today, in consultation with the state’s attorney’s office, 32-year-old Jason Dean Billingsley of Baltimore was wanted for first-degree murder, assault, reckless endangerment, as well as additional charges.
Our special investigation section and homicide unit have been working aggressively to identify the suspect responsible for this tragic incident.
Taya Graham:
However, the history of the suspect, what the police knew about him before the murder and how they chose to handle that information, is not just shocking, but worth examining in detail. To do so, I will be joined by my Land of the Unsolved colleagues, legendary investigative reporter, Jayne Miller, and my reporting partner, Stephen Janis. We will analyze how police handled LaPere’s murder, and discuss some key decisions they made that are raising serious questions about what more could have been done to prevent it.
Ultimately, we will consider how all this evidence bears on a case from the past that has haunted all of us for some time. In fact, the way police handled LaPere’s murder is so revealing, it speaks volumes about why this podcast exists at all. That is why we’ll be breaking it down in all of its appalling details. All of that coming up on the Land of the Unsolved. Hey, this is Taya Graham from the Land of the Unsolved.
If you enjoy our podcast and would like us to investigate even more cases, consider supporting our work by either subscribing on our anchor page, or you can also buy one of the books Stephen and I wrote that are available on Amazon and a variety of other websites. Why Do We Kill?: The Pathology of Murder in Baltimore, written with former homicide detective, Kelvin Sewell.
And You Can’t Stop Murder: Truths About Policing in Baltimore and Beyond, also in collaboration with a former detective and guest on our show, Stephen Tabeling. Or if you’re in the mood for a fictive take on how Baltimore’s struggle with violence and aggressive policing has affected the psyche of the city, I recommend you pick up This Dream Called Death. A book Stephen wrote while he was covering the city’s failed attempt to implement zero-tolerance policing.
How he reveals the truly corrosive power of that policy, by casting it into an alternate reality where the mind and our dreams become the new frontier for government surveillance. Welcome back to the Land of the Unsolved. As always, I’m joined by my colleagues, legendary reporter, Jayne Miller, and my colleague, Stephen Janis. Thank you both for joining me today.
Stephen Janis:
Thanks for having us here, Taya.
Taya Graham:
Just two weeks ago, the residents of Baltimore woke up to a tragedy, news that yet another life had just been snuffed out. Authorities revealed that a local tech entrepreneur named Pava LaPere had been found dead in her Mount Vernon apartment. Police found her after friends called to report her missing over the weekend. Authorities said she had died of blunt force trauma.
Shortly after police announced her death, the city began to mourn. LaPere was an up-and-coming tech CEO. A former Johns Hopkins graduate who had founded an ecomapping firm that had gained her national recognition. Recently, she had secured $8 million in venture capital financing for her company. Forbes Magazine had listed her as part of their 30 people under 30 to watch.
She was active in the local tech community. Put simply, her future was not just bright, it was blazing. Stephen, what did the people who knew her say about her and how did the city react?
Stephen Janis:
Well, Baltimore has a very tight-knit tech, entrepreneurial, VC capital community, and everyone who I listened to or what I read, or what they were saying, was basically that she was like this bright light that brought this community together. She had literally founded this company in her Hopkins dorm room, and had decided to stay in Baltimore. This was a person who had options to go pretty much anywhere, and decided to stay in Baltimore and build this firm.
She was a person that was able to move between different companies and bring people together on a larger purpose of not just tech, but tech in Baltimore. Had become, I guess, the public face of tech entrepreneurs in Baltimore and someone who was just critical to that community. There was a massive amount of grieving in terms of her loss, and certainly people said it would leave a hole in that community because people know each other.
It’s tight-knit and it’s not large like Silicon Valley. Everyone knows everyone, and I think people were feeling her loss in that way.
Jayne Miller:
It’s also what gave this case national attention. This was on the evening news a couple of different times because of her stature in the tech world, et cetera. It’s also the fact that she decided to remain in Baltimore was discussed at length, because Seattle, it’s not the West Coast.
It’s not New York, but she really decided to stay here and to grow this business. She was very committed also to equity issues, which the whole tech industry is short on diversity. She was very committed to that as well.
Stephen Janis:
Yeah. That was the whole basis of her company, the ecomapping maps ecosystem so people can understand where resources and assets are in a community.
Yes, and I think critical to that was her commitment to Baltimore, which people said was fierce. That added a note of extra sadness to this case.
Taya Graham:
Almost immediately, police had a suspect. A serial rapist who was well-known to law enforcement, Jason Billingsley. They released a mugshot and used social media to let the public know that this man was armed and dangerous.
But Jayne, they knew quite a bit about this man even before they announced his identity, because he was tied to a previous case. Can you tell us a little bit about it?
Jayne Miller:
On September 19th, three days before the murder of Pava LaPere, there was an incident in a West Baltimore apartment, in which Billingsley was accused of kicking down the door, tying up the man and woman, young couple that lived in the apartment. He allegedly raped the woman, cut her, cut her throat. Then before leaving, doused them with some kind of accelerant and set them on fire.
Both were hospitalized. Within hours, police developed him as a suspect, but they chose not to release his name or picture to the public at that time. This became a huge issue and lots of questions later when, in fact, what we learned obviously is that three days later, he now is accused of killing Pava LaPere in her apartment building in Mount Vernon.
Taya Graham:
That’s right. Billingsley had a long history of sexual assault, rape and violence. He had previously been sentenced to 30 years in prison in 2015, for forcing a woman at gunpoint to perform oral sex on him.
That victim he had also strangled, though she fortunately survived, but the sentence included a catch. All but 16 years were suspended, which meant Billingsley was released in fall of 2022 for good behavior. Jayne, can you walk us through how that release occurred?
Jayne Miller:
This is an interesting case that brings up this issue of suspended sentences, number one, and also the issue of what are called diminution credits, good time credits. This is not new, neither of these issues is new. They come up many times when we have cases like this of violent, repeat offenders that allegedly offend again. Then everybody looks back and sees this history and it’s like, “Oh, why wasn’t he in jail? Why was he out?”
This 2015 sentence was actually relates to a 2013 incident, in which he sexually assaulted a woman and it gets time for trial. It had gone to court a number of times, postponed, postponed, et cetera. Now we get to February of 2015 and he enters a guilty plea to first-degree sex assault, which is a very serious crime. One of the newspapers in town, actually went and pulled the transcript of the hearing, and shed light on exactly what had happened.
What happened was that they reached this agreement for a 30-year sentence, but suspend all but 14 years. The prosecutor said that the woman, the victim, was very satisfied with that deal, that she had been through enough. Let’s just stop right there. I’ve done many stories in my career about the way sex assault cases are handled in the courts. The way they have to be handled sometimes.
It is a terrible crime. It’s a frightening crime. The victim goes through the crime and then has to go through the trial. Sometimes going through a trial in testimony can be brutal, obviously. In this case, raises that specter is that she didn’t want to testify, clearly. The judge didn’t like the deal, but said because of the trauma to the victim, he accepted it.
He ended up with a 14-year sentence backdated to start date in 2013, because that was the date he had been locked up originally and for the incident. Then a combination of good time credits and what’s called mandatory release, so most offenders in Maryland serve about 66% of their sentence. When you add some good time credits in there, he ended up serving about nine years.
When he came out in October of 2022, he was under the supervision of probation, and he was on the sex offender registry as a Level 3 offender. That means that he has even more supervision and has to check in more, et cetera, et cetera. Apparently, no violations until the time of these most recent crimes.
Taya Graham:
Just out of curiosity, I noticed that Billingsley had several previous convictions. I think in 2009, there was a first-degree assault.
In 2011, a second-degree assault, 2015, a first-degree sex offense. Are you surprised by how he was able to get such a minimized sentence considering his record?
Stephen Janis:
Well, I don’t think the sentence was really that unusual based on what Jayne was saying. I looked at the crime, the assault case was he stole $10 from someone who he physically assaulted on the street. They were petty crimes in the parlance of Baltimore until the first-degree sex offense. The first-degree sex offense was a woman had been kicked out of her apartment by her boyfriend.
She had wandered down the street and sat next to an abandoned house. He said, “Do you want to spend?” She was approached by Billingsley, who convinced her to crawl in through the window of another house, and she could stay there for the night. Then he said, “I have a gun. You have to perform oral sex on me,” and strangled her to the point that she almost died. But up until that point, the stuff he was doing I looked at was pretty petty.
In the scope of a city that has 300 murders a year, I’m not surprised. But I don’t think in the parlance of sentencing that I’ve watched, that nine years is really a short sentence. Jayne, I don’t know how you feel?
Jayne Miller:
No, I agree. In covering these kinds of cases, first of all, suspended sentences are very common. Why do we have suspended sentences? It’s like the carrot and the sticks.
You have an offender and, “Okay, we’re going to give you a 30-year sentence, but we’re only going to make you serve 14 unless you screw up.”
Now you screw up, you’re going to come back and I’m going to put you in jail for the rest of it. It’s like that whole, it’s an incentive for people to try to reform themselves.
Taya Graham:
Right.
Stephen Janis:
Just like the good behavior, that’s supposed to incentivize good behavior in prison, to give you some reason to behave well and try to be productive, I guess.
Jayne Miller:
Yeah, that’s exactly right. I agree with Stephen, actually. If you look at the whole specter of sentences in cases that might involve these particular circumstances and this particular offender. Plus, you have the element that the victim may not want to testify, that it’s not a short sentence.
It looks like, “Well, holy cow, he only served half the sentence, or he was only sentenced to half,” but that’s exactly how suspended sentences work. I think the state’s attorney said it was a tad under the guideline, but you have to look at the circumstances. As he said, you have to look at the circumstances of the case.
Taya Graham:
Shortly after his arrest, police held a press conference, and Stephen, something really stood out.
Police revealed again that they made a fateful decision. Let’s listen and then we can talk about it after the break.
Police:
We delayed that press conference because we were within about 88 meters of capturing the suspect, but he was able to allude our capture.
We knew early on that the risk was when we went public, that the suspect would go underground, which is exactly what he did.
We are still processing all evidence to determine exactly what occurred. We do know that there was no forced entry into an apartment building, as this was a secured building.
Stephen Janis:
Well, Jayne and I were watching the press conference, and Jayne can weigh in after I do, but the Commissioner Worley [inaudible 00:17:03].
Jayne Miller:
Stephen was actually texting, “Are you watching this?”
Stephen Janis:
Yeah. He makes this admission because the question came up, “You had him as a suspect. He had already been charged.” He had been charged with this crime allegedly before he murdered LaPere, allegedly, excuse me, sorry.
The question came up in the press conference, “Why didn’t you tell the public, why didn’t you release this information?” Worley makes this offhand comment how it was, “a targeted attack.”
Jayne Miller:
Not random.
Stephen Janis:
Not random, that was one thing. Then he said, “I don’t want to speak badly about the victims.” Now, Jayne, I don’t know how you interpret that, but I was stunned when he said that.
Because he was saying one thing is that we just didn’t want to release this information because we didn’t feel that this guy was a danger to the public, is what they were saying in some ways.
That he had just picked out this couple but wasn’t going to do this again. Then he made this victim-blaming statement that also, I think, created a firestorm of criticism.
Jayne Miller:
Absolutely. Lots of criticism of this statement about victim blaming, in a case that involved absolutely horrific allegations.
Stephen Janis:
Horrific.
Jayne Miller:
Torturous allegations.
Stephen Janis:
Yeah.
Jayne Miller:
This idea that it wasn’t random. He knew the victims. He was the maintenance man in the apartment building. He may have had knowledge of these folks who lived in the building. I would not call that as… And this idea of, I don’t know, “Oh, it’s not random. Then we don’t have to worry people.”
When did that become some kind of standard for notifying the public? I’ve not been able to understand the thinking in this case, considering the Baltimore Police Department as many police departments do, they put out pictures and video all the time.
Stephen Janis:
All the time.
Jayne Miller:
About different incidents, whether or not they’re random, whether or not people know one another, et cetera. We just had this shooting on the campus of Morgan State University, and they put some video out of some folks. It’s a very common practice. For whatever reason, in this case on September 19th, when you have this really nasty incident that was covered in the media.
No, it got coverage that day. I do know that from talking to the reporters that covered it, that the police department was very tight-lipped. Wouldn’t give a lot of information the day it happened on September 19th. We haven’t talked about the first news conference, was when they identified Billingsley as the suspect in the LaPere murder. That was the first news coverage.
Stephen Janis:
Right. In fact, that was the one where I think the comment was made that once they identified him that he was a suspect in the other case. I think that’s when Worley actually made the disparaging comment.
Jayne Miller:
Well, the questions though that got raised, were the commissioner was asked at that news conference when Billingsley was identified as the LaPere suspect, “Is he a suspect in the other crimes?” I think they said yes, but there was no information. They did not say which incident, what happened, et cetera, et cetera.
When they had a warrant for him, it was like, “Why are you keeping this from the public? Why is this such a secret?” Then obviously, and it really emerges that it was that incident. That it had already gotten media coverage, and then just this flood of questions about the failure to warn the public.
Stephen Janis:
I think what we see here is how Baltimore manages crime and what sometimes the misplaced priorities of the police department is. Because people I’ve talked to have said, this is not uncommon for the police department to try to, if it can, I’m not going to use the word publicize, but make this information widely available. Because the fear is it will scare people, and they won’t want to come downtown and they won’t want to go to the Inner Harbor.
I think I’ve seen this over and over again. Years ago, I covered a serial killer case in Baltimore, and police were just adamant that they didn’t want to connect cases or call someone a serial killer. It was much more important, not the safety of the individuals, but much more important to make sure that there wasn’t a serial killer in Baltimore. That is why, I think, this got so much attention, because it illustrated the real risk of this kind of idea.
Because as Jayne pointed out, they had this guy’s identity. They could have released it to the public and made people aware and they did not. I think that’s where the criticism has come from.
Jayne Miller:
There’s this whole idea too of the use of the word targeted. This is like a code word. Police departments do this everywhere, “Oh no, it was a targeted killing. In other words, you don’t need to worry about this. It was a targeted killing.” Okay. Well, I don’t know what was targeted about that September 19th incident, except that it was maybe an opportunity presented itself.
What could have been targeted about the LaPere murder? It just seems that it is an excuse in some ways to, first of all, we don’t have to warn you about it. You shouldn’t be alarmed. That’s really what’s code for, “You shouldn’t be alarmed.” When in fact, you had every reason to be alarmed about Jason Billingsley, it now appears after that incident in West Baltimore.
Taya Graham:
Just to get a quick update, because this was such a vicious crime. It was a man, a woman, and a five-year-old child that were injured.
Jayne Miller:
There was a child present, right.
Taya Graham:
There was a child present? Do we have any update on the status, the health of the people involved?
Stephen Janis:
Well, they survived. We know that. But no, they have not released information. We do know that Billingsley forced the door open. Obviously, if this was targeted, the people didn’t want to let him in the apartment. So that he had forced his way in and then duct taped both the man and the woman, and then raped the woman.
Then, as Jayne said, poured an accelerant on them, but we do know they survived. One was still in the hospital and one had been released at the time of the last press conference, but they haven’t given any update on what kind of injuries that I have heard in terms of long-term prognosis, no.
Jayne Miller:
Billingsley is also accused of going to an acquaintance’s house in Baltimore County and stealing a gun. This was three days after they believe LaPere was killed.
Now he’s also accused of that. I think that’s where the idea of being armed came from, is that they had known that he had gone to that house in Baltimore County and stolen a gun.
Taya Graham:
This decision by police would seem even more misguided when they released the charging documents that outlined for the first time, the evidence against Jason Billingsley.
Jayne, what did the documents say and what did we learn about the last moments of LaPere’s life?
Jayne Miller:
It’s interesting. The charging documents indicate that there is video of the lobby of the apartment building, that shows on that Friday night, this would’ve been the 22nd of September. That you see her come in and sit down in the sofa in the lobby of the apartment building, which obviously indicates that she was waiting for somebody. Waiting for somebody she knew was coming behind her.
Then that the video shows this man that police have identified as Billingsley, and be charged that it is Billingsley, comes through the door. She lets him in, they talk for a moment in the lobby, and then they get on the elevator together. About 20 minutes later, although I got to tell you in that charging document, the times are all screwed up and hands scratched out and corrected.
But it appears that it was about 20 minutes later that this man, Billingsley, can be seen scrambling to get out of the building, wiping his hands on his shorts. This raises a number of questions. First of all, was there a relationship of some kind, either some knowledge, friendship, et cetera, between the two? Did they have some prior knowledge?
But to me, this all the more underlines the importance of why that picture should have been in the public. Because if that picture’s in the public and on social media, et cetera, maybe she doesn’t go to the door.
Taya Graham:
Stephen, I had read that one media organization suggested that he was standing at the door, as if he was signaling that he didn’t have his key.
That he needed help getting into the lobby. What did you think of that assertion?
Stephen Janis:
Okay. Well, that’s to me purely speculative because the charging documents at this point are all we have. But of course, that’s not unusual when you live in an apartment building and you don’t know everyone who lives there, and someone seems like they want to get in or they have somewhere to go, or they know somebody.
For all we know, she could come to the door and he said, “I know so-and-so and I just need to get up to their apartment.” The next thing he’s attacking her. That’s totally possible. Jayne, you had said you’d read some posts on Instagram that women in that neighborhood were familiar with him?
Jayne Miller:
They’d been hanging. Well, first of all, in the charging document related to the gun allegation, his address is a block away from LaPere’s apartment. If that’s his most recent address, then that would put him in the neighborhood. I don’t know. But there were posts on social media once he was identified as the murder suspect, that there were women that commented that they had seen him hanging around some of the apartments.
That he had approached some of the women, had given them stories that his mother had died, et cetera, which was not true. He was apparently known in the community, and that is very possible that she had met him at some point too and struck up a conversation with him or whatever. I don’t know that we’ll ever know this of what really transpired and what brought him to that apartment, why she let him in, et cetera, and got on the elevator with him.
She was found on a roof of the apartment building. There was a brick that apparently had been used in the crime, and she suffered from strangulation and blunt force trauma.
Taya Graham:
All of this, of course, raises the primary question at the heart of this podcast. How do the politics of crime affect and influence the occurrence of crime?
In this case, that question can be best answered by pointing to the defense Baltimore Police Commissioner Worley used to defend his decision not to release the information about Billingsley.
Stephen, he said he did not release the information about the arson and the rape because police believed it was targeted. What does that mean?
Stephen Janis:
Well, as we discussed before, and Jayne can weigh in on this too, I remember there was a famous quote by a former health commissioner, Peter Beilenson.
It was very controversial where he said, “Baltimore is safe as long as you’re not a drug dealer, because all these crimes are targeted.”
If you’re just a random white person, and I got to use the word, it’s got to be described as that a white person living in the L.
Taya Graham:
Or a good, law-abiding citizen.
Stephen Janis:
Or a good, law-abiding citizen, all this chaos and mayhem is never going to touch you. I think underlying that idea of targeted, is that idea of what Baltimore’s always tried to do. That is corral crime into low-income neighborhoods and make it seem like something that won’t touch the Inner Harbor, or won’t touch Homeland, or won’t touch even Mount Vernon.
That we don’t have to feel responsible or any way think about it. We can just go on with our business and be Baltimore City, and all the idea about crime and how crime hampers the city. It’s just unfounded because it only happens among poor African American people in poor African American neighborhoods. I think this case exemplifies how dangerous that idea is.
Not only from a social justice perspective, which is really to me incomprehensible, because you’re literally saying that the lives of the people in West Baltimore are not worth what the lives of the people are in Mount Vernon. But from just a practical sense, that you are literally making decisions about withholding information from the public based primarily on the fact that you don’t want to scare white people. Am I wrong on this, Jayne?
Jayne Miller:
Well, no, you’re making a decision based on your perception of that crime, whatever that is. God knows there are biased perceptions all over the place, but it gets back to this word targeted. It’s a code word to everybody that, “Don’t worry about it. You don’t have to worry about that. That has nothing to do with you. You’re not going to be a victim like this.” It is used all the time.
Police departments are loathed to use the word random, because random suggests the worst nightmare of a violent offender. But this case, look at what this case, the questions it has raised? You have a very vicious crime involving Black victims on September 19th. You don’t tell the public about it. You don’t tell the public you have a suspect.
You don’t tell the public here he is, you don’t look out for him, et cetera. Then you have a crime involving a well-known white tech entrepreneur, and now you have a news conference the next day to announce the suspect, et cetera, et cetera. It just raises that same specter of Black victims get treated this way and white victims get treated this way.
It’s most unfortunate, and it could have been avoided in many ways, if they had simply treated that case in West Baltimore with much more urgency. When I say urgency, I’m not saying, “Oh, you didn’t do anything about it.” I’m saying we used to have in Baltimore, Public Enemy No. 1. Now, I’m not saying that case on the 19th of September would’ve risen to that level.
But when you put a picture out and you put a video out, that means, “We need your help. We want to find this guy. We need your help.” They had a warrant for him. They had a lot of information about where you had lived, where you hung out, et cetera, et cetera. It does raise the question, “Well, what were you doing?” Et cetera.
Stephen Janis:
At the press conference, the commissioner made this weird comment about being within 88 meters of him at some point prior to the murder of LaPere.
He makes this comment and you just sat there scratching your head and saying, “Well, if you were that close, if you’d put out his picture, you probably could have easily caught him if he was hanging around Baltimore City.” It makes this even more frustrating in many ways.
Jayne Miller:
Well, and especially with those comments that I read on social media. They were making those comments after his name and photo had been put out after the murder.
But the question is if those folks had seen his picture after that, I think it would’ve gotten a lot of circulation because the incident, the September 19th incident got a lot of attention.
Taya Graham:
It was so vicious. We have social media, we have alerts that can be sent to our phone. There are just so many ways that the public could have been informed. Like you said, these women reached out afterwards and said, “I’ve seen this man. I know this man. He lives in my neighborhood.”
If they had received that information ahead of time, it might’ve saved LaPere’s life. Jayne, how does this calculus figure into how crime itself is handled in Baltimore? Why wouldn’t the commissioner want the public to have this information about a serial rapist?
Jayne Miller:
That’s the question that everybody has raised is what was it? We hear what he said. Now, of course, he has said since that it was a mistake not to put it out, and that now they’re going to have some internal procedure. He didn’t know that it hadn’t been put out or whatever. I think it gets to that whole conversation about we had this incident on July 2nd in Baltimore that again made national news.
Which was 30 people shot during a party in the Brooklyn Homes community in South Baltimore, and two people died and 28 people were injured in that incident. There was an internal report done, I guess, it was really by the police department about the failures to respond in time or beforehand. Or to try to respond beforehand when they were getting calls from people saying, “Hey, there are a lot of people here and they have guns. There’s fighting going on.”
This was earlier that night, it was on a Saturday night. There was a radio transmission of a police officer dismissing it, saying, “Maybe we just call the National Guard.” Those kinds of comments really convey an attitude. There is a finding in that report, that police indifference was a major factor in the lack of police response to those earlier calls in the evening, to the response when it happened, et cetera.
Not having police officers there when it was very evident that they had a big crowd of people. I think that is such an important word, because indifference means, “We don’t care.” Means, “So what?” It means, “You’re not important.” It means whatever. I think we saw that again in this incident involving this repeat, violent offender, Jason Billingsley. I hope that’s not true, but it feels like it’s the same thing.
That there was just an indifferent feeling to this very serious incident in West Baltimore, allegedly involving this man and the decision not to make that public. Are there politics involved in this? Sure, there are politics involved in it. That kind of crime it’s frightening, it’s scary. It’s been another reason for people to say, “Oh God, look at Baltimore again.” But I think that a police department has a long way to go if it has a culture of indifference.
Stephen Janis:
It also shows that some of the priorities for police are managing the perception of crime, rather than the reality of crime as we’ve spoken to it. It also, I think to a certain extent, represents the idea of Baltimore being a city of boundaries. A city that tries to instead of taking on certain things like poverty and economic inequity, head on through other types of programs, really just wants to isolate those problems.
We’re the warehouse of the state’s poorest residents, and our job in the city is to hem them in. That becomes really where a police department, like Jayne said, becomes indifferent, because the main primary task of the police department is to manage the perception of crime and the perception that we’re keeping people hemmed in. Not that we’re really going into communities and trying to come up with solutions.
Taya Graham:
Now, as we alluded to at the top of the show, the questions about how and when, and of course, why Baltimore Police release information brings us to another case we are currently investigating, that has some similarities to the one we just discussed. It involved a woman who had achieved prominence. Actually, that’s an understatement.
It was a woman who had pioneered the field, which she literally invented. A world-renowned scientist who had literally changed the way we think about and study space exploration. Her name was Molly Macauley, and her case was also marked by a sudden and unexpected burst of violence. On July 8th in 2016, police were called to Roland Park, a neighborhood just north of Johns Hopkins University.
There they found a woman who had been brutally stabbed. She was transported to the hospital, but soon died of her injuries. From the onset, the case was a complete mystery. I know police have released very few details about the case, but what do we know?
Jayne Miller:
Well, that’s a good question. What do we know? We know she was walking her dog, it was like 11 o’clock at night. It’s on a street, actually, it’s a street that would’ve been quiet at that hour, dark probably. The houses, these are not row houses in that particular neighborhood, so they’re a little separated.
You could easily walk on that street and not be seen at that hour of the night. It has been a mystery. They did some coverage of it a year later, I think, trying to drum up some leads in the case, et cetera, but nothing. This is now seven years and it’s just nothing on the case.
Stephen Janis:
Yeah. We know police are reluctant to release any information. We reached out to them. We actually called the homicide detective who was working the case, and he would not talk to us without permission from the police department. The police department obviously told us, well, they haven’t said anything really, Jayne, at this point.
The one thing that really strikes me about this case in some ways besides the lack of any suspects, is the fact that she was walking her dogs, and I think she had German Shepherds, someone told me. We’re working on those details, but really that someone could be attacked while walking their dogs.
Jayne has some very protective dogs, and I’m sure her dogs would intervene, but really, so it’s one of those cases in Baltimore that just where a person just basically disappears and then we hear nothing. We have been trying to get information from the police department, and we will continue to try, but we have gotten nothing.
Jayne Miller:
We have a request that’s been pending now for three months. We’re really pushing on trying it’s an unsolved case.
We have many unsolved cases in this city. There is no question about it.
Stephen Janis:
But I think the reason we wanted to explore her case, and the reason I wanted to bring it up in this particular podcast, in this particular episode, is because it was another life just snuffed out.
Then as Jayne talked about police indifference, there’s implicit indifference in this, in the sense that they won’t even work with us to try to bring attention to the case again, so that maybe something would happen.
I think we need to highlight that, and I think we need to reclaim these lives that are just snuffed out and then forgotten.
Jayne Miller:
Stephen, can you talk a little bit about the woman that Molly Macauley was? She has an amazing resume. It’s absolutely exceptional.
Stephen Janis:
Yeah. Her resume, would put anybody, make them feel that their lives, they’ve done very little. She was an economist. She got her PhD at Johns Hopkins in economics, but over time, she evolved into a person who would apply economics to space exploration in a way that people never really thought of. Just an example, I read one of her papers.
She had come up with a way, because there’s a big problem of detritus and space junk because so many satellites have been launched and people don’t really take care of their satellites. She had proposed an idea where you charge a tax to these satellites before they go up, and you rebate it if you take care of the subsequent fallout from the satellite.
This was entirely something that she had invented, and a way of approaching a problem that is really important, because we use satellites for everything, our cellphones, our geotracking. It could be a big problem if this space debris is not handled because it can literally destroy another satellite. She had come up with this really smart, very logical and seemingly effective solution.
That’s why she was revered by her colleagues as being a pioneer, but also a really excellent, critical thinker. Many people said she had mentored them as they got into this world of space economy. She worked for a think tank that focuses on the future and the use of resources. So many critical, elemental things about our world that it affects our lives.
Just like LaPere in a way, she was working on something very vital to the future of civilization. It’s really an extraordinary life, and we’re going to break it more down because we have reached out to her friends and we’re going to try to put together the story of her life, not just her case.
Taya Graham:
Jayne, I know you reached out to the police department for just basic information. What’s happened?
Jayne Miller:
Well, look, it’s an open case, and that makes it hard because they’re not going to release a lot of information in an open investigation. But generally, you can get the initial incident information, just the who, what, when and where. We are trying to access that information now. The case got a lot of attention when it happened.
It got some attention a year later when they actually put the detective forward, and were trying to generate some information about it. But it’s difficult when the folks who hold the information don’t want to share it, and really don’t want to say anything about it. It can be very difficult, so we are working on other people, et cetera, that might have some information.
Taya Graham:
Well, I would imagine there’s a difference between an open investigation and an active investigation.
Jayne Miller:
That’s a really good question, Taya. That is a really good question. Yeah, that’s why you have cold case squads.
You have cases that sit around and maybe something happens down the road that you get information about it, but for the most part, they’re pretty inactive.
Stephen Janis:
Yeah. When we were working on the Rey Rivera case, which is the young man who supposedly jumped off the Belvedere and became a big topic of the Netflix Unsolved Mysteries. When we finally got the homicide files, this case is technically open and none of the information is supposed to be released, but it was I think because of Netflix. You look through the case files, and they hadn’t done anything since June of 2006.
All that time they had been saying it’s an open investigation, ongoing investigation. Well, according to the homicide files then, I can’t say with complete certainty, but according to the homicide files, they hadn’t done a thing. There is, I think, a lack of balance between we have to keep it secret because it’s an open investigation, or we have to share information with the public. I think that balance needs to be rethought, in my opinion.
Taya Graham:
I think it’s interesting how Baltimore and its addiction to violence can simply swallow up victims, and seem so content to just let the case languish. For all we know, Molly’s killer could have killed again.
As we know, police have no incentive or legal obligation to release any information whatsoever. Jayne, in light of these recent cases, does that need to change?
Jayne Miller:
Well, I think that there’s some discussion about that going on because of what happened in the Pava LaPere case, and the lack of public warning about this individual. I think there’s some discussion going on about it. But I got to tell you, so the commissioner, Richard Worley, was confirmed by the Baltimore City Council.
He was confirmed without, he sailed through. There was one no vote happened to come from the city council representative that represents Brooklyn Homes where 30 people were shot on July 2nd. Only no vote, and there was very little discussion, frankly. There is a public safety committee on the Baltimore City Council.
This would certainly to me be something that a legislative committee like that might really take on is a real discussion of public information and when it should be public. How do you get it to the public, et cetera? I hope that happens because we do have a violent crime problem. There may be ways that you can really, and there’s also a problem of people don’t want to cooperate with police, et cetera.
All of those things weave together in terms of your communication with the public and your relationship with the public, in order to help reduce crime and to get to a better level of public safety. But the idea of informing the public, is certainly something that should get a lot of discussion.
Taya Graham:
So as Stephen said, in our next episode, we will be delving into Molly’s case, not just about her death but her life as well. All that will be coming up on the next episode of the Land of the Unsolved.
Jayne and Stephen, thank you so much for joining me. Thank you for joining us for this episode of the Land of the Unsolved. If you have any information or tips on our cases, please reach out to us at LandoftheUnsolved@gmail.com. Thank you for joining us.
A recent investigation into sexual abuse at a women’s federal prison in Dublin, California, brought down several guards and the prison’s former warden, Ray J. Garcia. But a new lawsuit from eight women now alleges that the investigation has not stopped the culture of sexual abuse. Erin Neff of the California Coalition for Women’s Prisoners joins Rattling the Bars to discuss the new lawsuit and the underlying culture of sexual abuse found throughout US prisons.
Studio: Cameron Granadino, 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 this edition of Rattling the Bars, I’m your host Mansa Musa. Do you know who Joan Little was? Joan Little was charged with the 1974 murder of Clarence Alligood, a White prison guard at Beaufort County Jail in Washington, North Carolina, who attempted to rape Little before she could escape. Little was the first woman in United States history to be acquitted using the defense that she used deadly force to resist sexual assault. Recently, eight female prisoners, dubbed the Rape Club by prisoners and correctional staff alike, found a lawsuit against the Federal Bureau of Prison arguing that sexual abuse and exploitation have not stopped in Dublin FCI, despite the prosecution of former warden and several former officers.
The lawsuit filed in Oakland by attorneys representing prison and the advocacy group California Coalition for Women Prisoners also named the current warden and 12 former and current guards. It alleged the Bureau of Prison and staff at Dublin Facility didn’t do enough to prevent sexual abuse going back to 1990. An Associated Press investigation last year found a culture of abuse and coverups that persisted for years at the prison. What does the #MeToo movement garnering public attention mean in terms of obtaining justice and relief for incarcerated women? Here to talk about the current state of Dublin FCI and related issues is Erin Neff, who is a legal advocate with California Coalition for Women Prisoners. Welcome to Rattling the Bars.
Erin Neff:
Thank you, Mansa, good to be here.
Mansa Musa:
Tell our audience a little bit about yourself.
Erin Neff:
My name’s Erin Neff, I work with California Coalition for Women Prisoners. We are a grassroots organization that has been active in the California prisons for the last 28 years. We began at Chowchilla with the CDCR giving support to a woman named Charisse Shumate, who was advocating for the lack of medical care. Since then, she actually did not survive her illness, but she began a movement with us, with people on the outside to create advocacy relationships. We have been working mostly with the CDCR system in the women’s prison system, and we are currently in the last few years working at FCI Dublin.
Mansa Musa:
Okay. Now recently, an article came out or information came out about the current state of Dublin Prison in Oakland, California, or in the Bay Area, as it relates to female prisoners being abused, sexually abused. We know that in the federal prison system they have what’s known as PREA, Prison Reform Enforcement Rape Act, I think that’s what it stands for, but the concept of PREA is that anyone under the custody of the Federal Bureau of Prison, anyone under any state or local facility that has an issue about being sexually abused or sexually assaulted by either inmates or staff, they have this mechanism where they can immediately contact someone, had a person allegedly done something to them removed from the institution and have the person that’s making the allegation removed from the institution, and then an investigation going on, and in the interim of that, until that is resolved, these people are never put in the place together.
But now, come to find out that in California, in Dublin in particular, in terms of this particular incident, it’s known that this is far more reaching than just in Dublin Prison, this is a … I think I read somewhere that say it’s the culture of the prison system. Talk about Dublin first, let’s talk about that and what’s going on as far as the lawsuit and how this came about, and if you can give historical context to it, if you have one.
Erin Neff:
Yeah. So PREA is the Prison Rape Elimination Act, and that should generally give a person who is experiencing sexual harassment or abuse a way to confidentially report this abuse, and that appropriate action and investigation will be taken against this person who is doing the abuse. In the case of Dublin, just to give it a historical context, 30 years ago there was a horrific incident of abuse on many people, and there was a big case and a big settlement, and it is heartbreaking to see that 30 years later the same thing is happening. What it exposes is a culture of turning a blind eye to this abuse, there’s cooperation, there’s coverup, there is very difficult to report, let alone confidentially report.
So in recent times, what you’re seeing are people being abused who are undocumented. So first of all, they are being targeted because the staff knows that they are people who are going to be deported. So there is an exposure there. They are threatened that if they say anything they’ll be deported, so these people are people who’ve been here maybe their entire lives, all of their family’s here. So the possibility that they will be deported, and I’m sure this staff lets them think that they have some sort of power as to whether they can stay or go, so there’s that. They’re being retaliated against by putting in isolation, they are getting strip searched, it goes on and on. They’re being deprived of medical care, of mental healthcare. These people have really suffered tremendous abuse, and on top of this abuse they’re being punished again by not getting the medication that they were once taking. That is a very common scenario where their medication that helped them survive in this place of incarceration, they’re not getting the medical care, they’re not getting counseling.
In some cases, reports where they’ll get minimal counseling, but it’s with a man who is part of the staff, they do not feel safe at all. Their commissary is getting limited, harassment in the middle of the night. It goes on and on and on. While this has been exposed, Warden Garcia was found guilty and sentenced to 70 months for his abuse, this ongoing abuse. There was a chaplain, multiple correctional officers, the counselors who were cooperating and giving information to those who were abusing and they’re giving people away to target people who are more vulnerable, those for example who were undocumented. So you’re seeing people transferred out of state if they do report, so they’re getting transferred away from their families and their communities. It goes on and on and on.
Mansa Musa:
We’re not talking about Orange is the New Black, we’re not talking about some HBO theoretical or theatrical rendition of what an ideal prison would look like in America. We’re actually talking about real live human beings. But talk about the lawsuit, so now we’ve reached critical mass to the point where we have a lawsuit, talk about the lawsuit and in talking about the lawsuit, has an injunction been leveled against the institution to cease and desist? How are you able to get coverage for these women? Because as I said earlier, as you outlined, that type of fear permeates the population.
When you’re in the prison, and I’ve been in prison myself, I did 48 years, when you’re in the prison environment and you don’t have no control whatsoever to begin with, but the isolation really makes you feel like you don’t have no rights, and whatever’s going to go on with you that day or that period in time, either you’re going to accept it or you’re going to die trying to defend yourself. But at any rate, you’re going to be subjected to some harsh, cruel, brutal treatment, or mistreatment. Talk about the lawsuit, if an injunction is in effect, and how do these women get coverage where they can get a sense of security?
Erin Neff:
Yeah. So CCWP is the organizational plaintiff for this case against the BOP, along with many individuals. Currently, where it stands is we are waiting for a response from the BOP, it’s currently a bit in what feels like stalling stage on their part, before the trial will be granted. So we are waiting on that. In the meantime, anyone who is part of this lawsuit is also currently incarcerated, some people have been released, but many are still incarcerated at Dublin or transferred. People that I am visiting are talking about being treated as less than human. Last week I sat across from someone who is being denied her medical care, her mental healthcare, she feels completely forgotten, she feels completely hopeless, she’s been subjected to isolation.
This is a real person with children, she speaks to her children and her children are so worried about her because of her feeling of hopelessness. She’s already paying for her debt to society, she’s doing her time, and on top of that she is being treated as less than human. This isn’t a TV show, these are real people. The effect on that individual, the effect on their families, their children, it’s not isolated to that one person. So the hopelessness is very hard to fight against. What we try to do is educate them and inform them of what we are doing on the outside, and that they are not forgotten. They did recently say that they saw us when we filed the lawsuit, and we had a demonstration out in front of the courthouse in Oakland, and that was extremely empowering for them to know that people are active and that we are fighting.
Mansa Musa:
Like you said, this is not no TV show, this is not no, “Wait, go back, act like you’re distraught. Wait, go back, put more emotion.” No, this is real life. Speaking on the outside, and this is just my perspective, and we’re talking about California and we’re talking about the Bay Area, but we’re also talking about a state where if these women were in Paramount Studio, if these women was in some major corporation, if these women was in anywhere in society being subjected to this, the #MeToo movement, the feminist movement, every ambulance-chasing lawyer would be outraged, would be in uproar, would be identifying the warden, the corporate leader and trying to get charges against him, trying to get him locked up, trying to get their money, a lien on their moneys. Do you feel like that it’s a disconnect between these movements and women that are incarcerated? If so, why? If you can talk about that.
Erin Neff:
Well, yes, there’s a huge disconnect, even in the Bay Area people are not aware that this is going on. Unfortunately, what you see in the prisons, everyone knows, is we see Brown people, Black people and poor people, people who are already vulnerable, people who have suffered a tremendous abuse, and a blind eye is turned to these people. This is a capitalist society where we value people who are seemingly of value, and it’s a very, very tragic view even in California, where we are the most liberal state. We see people turning away from this, it’s incredibly painful to see that truth. People don’t want to see that, they don’t want to know that is happening in California.
Yeah. If you see someone on the outside, not to minimize the tragedy of that recent expedition to go see the Titanic, these millionaires, billionaires spent a ton of money and very tragically they died in this accident. You see an outpouring of interest and focus on this. Why are these people who are incarcerated of less human value?
Mansa Musa:
Right. Let’s give a context to people that are incarcerated, because according to the judicial system and according to criminal law, we have what we call crime and punishment. A person’s charged with a crime, the punishment they get is the amount of time they are to serve, not how they serve their time, the amount of time. If I do robbery, if I rob somebody and robbery incurs 10 years, the crime is I committed a robbery, the punishment is the 10 years. The punishment is not, “I’m sentencing you to 10 years to go be raped, sodomized, brutalized, terrorized, and then released.” The punishment is that I’m going to be sent to an institution, the next phase in my sentencing process is and the narrative is that I’ll be sentenced to an institution that’s going to provide me with the means and the mechanism to make the adjustment for my ultimate return to society.
Not where I’ll be subjected to, as a female, more importantly than anything else, be subjected to coming into an institution and the way the prisons are, this is the prison culture in terms of how we look at people that’s incarcerated, we know the institutions they be going to, we know the way the institutions are ran, we know what goes on in these institutions, probably even get there. They say, “Oh, yeah. You’re going to Dublin.” The first thing I know is, “Okay, I know that this is the way …” There’s real abuse like this here, women are being … I’ve got to be on the lookout for this, I’ve got to be on the lookout for that. Automatically what happens is once I get into this environment, I’m automatically on the defense because I recognize that the abuse about the environment proceeded itself.
But talk about the women, and you talked about earlier about how some of the clients that you deal with are really being depressed, and rightly so. But talk about how we’re able to get them to hold on and have faith and be more spirited about the fact that, not only this too going to pass, but the people that’s responsible are going to be held accountable. That’s a fact. We know that based on y’all organization and y’all organizing. But talk about how you are able to get them to hold on and recognize that they’re not wrong for wanting to be human, they’re not wrong for expressing their desire for their humanity. The people that’s wrong is the people that’s abusing them, that’s being given the authority to abuse them.
Erin Neff:
That’s right, yes. It’s an excellent point. The punishment is the time you do, and your time in prison is supposed to include opportunities for rehabilitation. That is another thing that people are allowed to do programming, and this programming can include AA, NA, ways to improve yourself, codependency. This is another form of retaliation in that they deprive you of getting to take those classes and be in groups and in community. So you are being doubly punished. What we try to do, we have in-person visiting where we are trying to meet as many people as possible and let them know that we are here. We have a writing relationship with them, they have access to email where we start being in contact as much as possible. We use this as an opportunity to find out what is going on inside.
Now, no email or phone calls are confidential, so it’s not a guarantee that we can exchange real information. We have also a newsletter called the Fire Inside that CCWP has been publishing for 28 years. We have three issues a year. We’re send those to people in CDCR as well as the FCI Dublin, it’s in Spanish and in English. We solicit information and content and poetry and stories from them to get their stories out, so that they are heard. Last week in my visit I shared the newsletter with many people, and it was great because it’s also in Spanish, and I think it was-
Mansa Musa:
Right.
Erin Neff:
Tragically, they are so moved because they are not used to having people acknowledge their existence and their suffering.
Mansa Musa:
Yeah, go ahead. Go ahead.
Erin Neff:
So the fact that that is happening and we are giving them voice, we want to know what’s going on, we really want them to know that their stories are incredibly important and they are not suffering alone. Sometimes the only thing that we can do is write a letter and say, “We are here. How is your day going?” That can make a huge difference. But things like the lawsuit is incredibly important. A demonstration in front of the courthouse when the case gets filed, these things are incredibly important because it does get inside.
Mansa Musa:
We want people to recognize that we’re talking about human beings, first of all, we’re talking about people, human beings, but more importantly we’re talking about women. The fact that in this society we deal with chauvinists, sexists, racists, bigoted society, capitalist society, the fact that these things exist seems to overshadow what we’re talking about when we’re talking about people that were sentenced to serve time, the judge did not say when sentencing them, “I’m sentencing you to 10 years in Dublin Federal Correctional Institution to be raped, sodomized and brutalized, dehumanized, and hopefully by the time that you return to society you’ll be a shell of a woman.” No, the judge sentenced these people, sentenced these women to a term of imprisonment and to be rehabilitated.
But Erin, you’ve got the last word on this here, how do we get in touch with you? What do you want our viewers to take away from this here? More importantly, when you go back and talk to the sisters, tell them we send our solidarity out and big hugs.
Erin Neff:
Thank you so much. Thank you also doing the shout-out to women who are just a more vulnerable population. Most of the time women end up in prison, have been system impacted, or they have been abused or trafficked, and end up in these situations where they’re getting abused even more. If you would like to get in touch with California Coalition for Women Prisoners, we have an advocacy program where we join people on the outside who are interested in reaching this population and doing advocacy and learning from the ground up. We are a grassroots organization, you can look at WomenPrisoners.org and send us an email and we will get you connected. We have orientations and trainings, bimonthly meetings to support you in this work. It is a really big community of amazing, amazing organizers and people with tremendous heart to recognize that this problem, while isolated to what’s happening inside of a building, inside of a prison, is impacting all of our lives.
Our communities are being impacted, your neighbor is being impacted. Whether you feel it directly or not, it is. It’s welcome-everyone and please come and check us out. WomenPrisoners.org. The women at the FCI Dublin would love to be in touch with you.
Mansa Musa:
Thank you, Erin. There you have it, the Real News, Rattling the Bars. Are you rattling the bars today? We see an event where the person threw their hat up in the air, and when he threw his hat up in the air it was a moment where everybody came around and supported. This is that kind of time. This is a throw-your-hat-up-in-the-air moment for women incarcerated throughout the United States of America, more so importantly in Dublin. Nobody has the right, nobody has the right, nobody has the right to violate your body. Nobody has the right, because you’re serving a sentence, to come in and say, “Because you’re serving time, or because you’re considered an illegal alien, or because you’re a woman that I have a right to subject you to the most dehumanizing, inhumane treatment, only because I got the authority. I got the right to rape you. I got the right to sodomize you. I got the right to deny you your medication. I got the right to deny you food. I got the right.”
No, you do not have the right. You do not have the right. The right is not given to you. The right that you have is to ensure that I’m in a safe environment, and when you subject women to this cruel and unusual punishment, you’re going to be held accountable. We see this being taken place now by the work that Erin and the sisters and brothers in California are doing. We ask you to continue to support the Real News and Rattling the Bars. It’s only from the Real News and Rattling the Bars that you’re going to get this kind of information. You’re not going to get this information on ABC or CBS or NBC News. You’re not going to get this information from someone from the White House getting on a platform saying, “Yes, we find it’s problematic that women are being raped in prison and women are being sodomized in prison, and that we’re paying money for this to make sure that they do it with impunity.”
No, you’ll only get this information from the Real News and Rattling the Bars, and we ask that you look at this report. We ask that you investigate what’s going on in the prison system, and particularly in California. We ask that you take a stand. If you believe that raping people, sodomizing people and abusing people are a good thing to do because they was convicted of a crime, then weigh in on that. But understand this here, if they come for me in the morning, they’ll come for you at night. So you’re not immune to it, you will be subjected to the same harsh treatment when it goes unchecked. Thank you, thank you very much, Erin, and thank you for listening.
A 1995 robbery gone wrong in the town of Tulare, California, ended with the murder of five people. For years, the police were unable to pin the case on anyone—until they arrested Timothy James Young. The sole evidence in the case against Young was the word of Anthony Wolfe, a jailhouse informant who was not present at the scene of the crime. Nevertheless, Young was sentenced to death in 2001. 16 years later, the state of California is about to proceed with his execution. Allison Dean of the Free Tim Young Campaign joins Rattling the Bars to explain Young’s case and the flagrant racism of the criminal system and the death penalty which it exemplifies.
Studio: 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. When we think of the death penalty, when we think about executing people in the USA, we oftentimes come down on two different sides: pro and anti-death penalty. We oftentimes come down in this manner because we have feelings about what a person did versus what’s getting ready to be done to that person. At no time in this process do we think the person who’s getting ready to be executed is actually innocent, the person who’s being executed actually has not done anything, as they languish away on death row, waiting for someone to decide not to execute them or to execute them, and when they’re going inside the death room.
Here joining me today to talk about a case dealing with the death penalty and death row, is Allison Dean. She’s here to talk about Tim Young. Tim Young is an inmate or prisoner on death row in San Quentin. Tim Young has been on death row in San Quentin for a number of years and more importantly, Tim Young is claiming his innocence. All evidence creates a lot of doubt as to his guilt. In this country, you’re supposed to be found guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. If doubt exists, then you have to be found not guilty. So why is Tim Young still on death row when all this doubt exists? Thank you, Allison, for joining me today.
Allison Dean: Thank you.
Mansa Musa: Let’s start by telling our audience a little bit about yourself.
Allison Dean: I am the campaign chair for Tim Young for his freedom campaign that he has. It mostly involves social media presence, speaking with journalists, and helping to do outreach for him because when you’re incarcerated you need somebody on the outside. He doesn’t have any family support, so he does a lot of work with journalists. I found him through a college course that I did, so we’ve become friends after that and I have stuck with him because I really believe in him, I believe in his story, and I believe in his innocence.
Mansa Musa: Let’s talk about that as I open up. We have, in this country, people who are pro and anti-death penalty. And when you come into this space, it very rarely is in the space of innocence and guilt. It’s very rarely in the space of did the person commit the crime or did the person not commit the crime? It’s more about morals. Some people morally don’t think a person should be executed and some people think that they should be shot on the spot.
Now let’s talk about Tim’s case. All right. Unpack what he was charged with and what evidence they say existed to find him guilty, to your knowledge.
Allison Dean: Tim was convicted of multiple homicides in Tulare County, California, which is more in the Central Valley of California. It’s a very, very racist area. Tim is Black and he is a minority in that area. He was convicted by the statement of a jailhouse informant, someone who was coerced by the police to give information, and trained by police to give information because they couldn’t solve the case. They didn’t have proper evidence against him. The only physical DNA evidence they had to convict him was a mixture that was complicated and couldn’t be really determined as him. So they were definitely using this jailhouse informant, training him, interviewing with him, and working his story, because they needed a conviction.
Mansa Musa: So basically, the physical evidence was inconclusive?
Allison Dean: Yes.
Mansa Musa: All right. And because the physical evidence was inconclusive, they went and got a jailhouse informer to fabricate evidence against him. All right. To your knowledge, do y’all have a history on this person? Is this person known? Has this person been used before as a jailhouse informant? Has he been in cases before?
Allison Dean: The jailhouse informant that was used to incarcerate Tim was well known by police, and had a deal with police in the area. He was facing another charge himself and made this deal with his cop, his handler, in order to convict him. It was well-known in the area that he was an informant and he could be an ally to the police.
Mansa Musa: All right. So in terms of Tim’s initial attorneys who represented him at trial, it stands to reason that if this person has this background, then it’s obvious that he probably perjured himself or there would be enough information out there to impeach him. What about his initial attorney turns that tried? Did he get adequate representation?
Allison Dean: He did not have adequate representation. He did have a lawyer that he retained himself after he had started representing himself in court. But that lawyer really didn’t advocate for him, the legal team wasn’t advocating for him. It was really complicated because he was being tried with his brother. They were both being tried. They’re both incarcerated on death row at San Quentin, currently. There were issues because the brothers wanted the trials to be separated in order to actually have a fair trial, and the judge refused. There were a lot of issues within the actual process of the court proceedings that were completely unjust and unfair. It was not adequate representation from his legal team.
Mansa Musa: And how long has he been on death row?
Allison Dean: He has been on death row since 2005, I believe. Or 2000. No, 2005 was when he was on death row. He’s been incarcerated since 1999. He was being held in Tulare County for many years.
Mansa Musa: And so now he’s on death row at San Quentin?
Allison Dean: Yes, he’s at San Quentin.
Mansa Musa: Okay. Now how old is he?
Allison Dean: He’s 53.
Mansa Musa: So he’s 53 years old. And you said both he and his brother are on death row together?
Allison Dean: Yes.
Mansa Musa: All right. Now in terms of what’s going on with this case, because as I was reading some of the background information, to me, the information or the evidence that they relied on is shaky, at best, and it created a lot of doubt. What is he advocating as far as his innocence? What is he highlighting other than the fact that they went and got an informant to fabricate?
Allison Dean: So they have the informant to fabricate the story. A lot of it’s racially motivated, of course. He has a lot of evidence pointing to his day-to-day that he did… On the actual day of the crime, they’re trying to make these claims about where he was. But he has doctor’s notes, work notes, actual documented evidence of –
Mansa Musa: Physical evidence, yeah, right.
Allison Dean: – And there are also issues within the way that the proceedings went. The evidence was completely mishandled the entire time that they did the investigation. There are documents of the evidence room paperwork that have white-out; The dates have been changed, and the names have been changed. It’s entirely possible that evidence was being held by police at the same time it was also being tested for DNA and we have no idea. So cross-contamination is completely plausible. Tulare County, as I said, is majority white, majority Hispanic, with a very, very small African-American population. So a lot of what Tim is trying to focus on is the racial motivations of the case. He’s really interested in the Racial Justice Act and filing an appeal alongside that in order to get more outreach on his case and word on his case.
Mansa Musa: Did they live in this county or were they –
Allison Dean: Yes.
Mansa Musa: – Do the police know him and his family? Have they always had issues with them?
Allison Dean: He did have issues with the police. He and his brother weren’t an issue to police, but because you’re Black in Tulare County, you’re known.
Mansa Musa: Yeah, an obvious candidate. All right. Going forward, which appeals does he have in effect? Is he waiting on trying to develop an appeal process, to get some appeals? Where is he at in terms of his overall legality? Because I know at some juncture, they’re going to issue a death warrant if he doesn’t get any traction.
Allison Dean: So for him right now, really seeking pro bono representation for an appeal. He has a state-appointed attorney who is really dragging their feet in terms of this because that’s part of the process. They’re a representative of the state. Their interest is not in death row inmates, their interest is in whatever the state wants. So they’re really dragging their feet on that. She wants to wait 10-15 years to even file an appeal. So if he gets pro bono representation on this, then you can speed along that appeal process, and work in the Racial Justice Act process. That is really what he would need.
Mansa Musa: And in terms of him, how is his health?
Allison Dean: His health has actually been really declining. During the COVID pandemic, he was infected very early. COVID inside was way different than what it was out here for us. He has long COVID, he’s had a lot of health deterioration because of it. He recently had a lot of issues where he wasn’t receiving proper medical care and had to file a lot of appeals to see an outside practitioner. They’re actually doing a switch out of San Quentin. Death row inmates are being moved out of San Quentin to different prisons throughout the state of California, per Gavin Newsome’s new plan to do a rehabilitation at San Quentin.
And that sounds like maybe it’s a good thing but he’s still going to be incarcerated. He’s going to be in a different space with new people away from his community. Because his community’s here. I’m in San Francisco, a lot of his community’s in San Francisco, Santa Cruz, and the Bay. So without that, he’s really going to suffer. We don’t know what it’s going to look like in terms of his incarceration. But right now he is really suffering medically and not receiving adequate care, which is a big struggle.
Mansa Musa: All right and I’m going to go back and revisit something you said earlier. You said how you got involved was in a class project but then you said that you believe in his innocence. Why do you believe in this innocence? What is it about this case that makes you say that you believe in it? This is where people that I’ve known from interviewing and getting feedback, this is where the line is often drawn, in terms of people’s views on the death penalty. So why do you believe in his innocence?
Allison Dean: I believe in his innocence because I believe in the malfeasance of the judicial system and I believe in the issues of his case. If you look at it from a boilerplate point-of-view, there were issues with witnesses, there were issues with the jailhouse informant, the evidence tampering is questionable enough, and the timeline doesn’t add up. And I got to know Tim and I got to know him as a person. And there’s no way in my mind that he could do something like this. And I don’t think that you sit on death row at San Quentin for over 20 years and work every single day to make your story known and to make your innocence known, and not actually be innocent. That’s abhorrent. I don’t think anyone could actually do that. So I believe that innocence fluctuates. I don’t think that we should only allow those who are innocent to have the death penalty taken away.
That’s a criminal act in itself. I don’t think we should be using the death penalty on anyone, especially not innocent people. And our view of innocence needs to change a little bit. Even if there was someone who committed this crime and went through the process that he went through the courts, it would still be unfair. It’s an unjust trial and he at least deserved that. So if the crime was committed by someone, the way the trial went on was wrong. But I do believe that Tim is innocent. I do not believe that he committed this crime. It was a snowball effect of people using what they could because they needed a conviction. This was the biggest homicide case in the Central Valley ever, up until recently. So they needed a solution and Tim happened to be their choice.
Mansa Musa: And so from your point of view, he never received a fair trial. It’s common practice that they use jailhouse informants. I know, I was locked up 48 years prior to getting released three years ago. And I recall numerous cases where a person would be on the chair and write the state’s attorney and tell them that they got evidence that they heard the person say… And once the state’s attorney gets them and talks to them, they realize that they don’t have that. But it goes from what we have, to the opportunity, to what we can get. It goes from we got actual evidence, to opportunity, to manufacture evidence. And that sounds like what happened with Tim’s case. But at the rate that things are going, and as you said earlier that they’re going to move him to another place in one of the existing plantations in California, how would that impact his defense, to your knowledge?
Allison Dean: I don’t know if it would necessarily impact his defense. He would still have the same representative. She has visited him maybe twice since she’s been his lawyer and she’s technically been his lawyer for 10 years.
Mansa Musa: Oh my goodness.
Allison Dean: So I don’t think it’s going to impact his defense. It’s going to make things more complicated for him. It’s going to make communication more complicated with his support system, it’s going to isolate him, it’s going to be a different environment that he has to get used to. He spent 20-plus years now in this space. And when you’re on death row and you’re in the condemned unit, you spend 23 hours of your day in there, usually, sometimes 24. You’re spending the whole day in that cell. That’s all you get. So to have that and then completely switch up what his day-to-day is going to look like, I know it’s going to have an effect on him, I know it’s going to change how he’s able to function.
It’s very worrisome. So I’m really, really hoping that my work and the work of others can help him gain traction. He does a lot of writing. He is a poet, he publishes essays. He’s trying to get his name out there. He has a lot of projects in the works. We’re trying to do enough outreach that somebody sees what I see and what others see about him and the fact that he is innocent and should not be on death row. And should not be incarcerated at all, but should definitely not be on death row.
Mansa Musa: I was at a gathering with a guy, Hinton. He was on death row in Alabama and he wrote a book called The Sun Does Shine. And he was talking about that whole thing. He was innocent. And after being on death row for 35 years, as opposed to a retrial, when the fabricated evidence came up and they realized that the number one evidence they used against him was a gun that could never have been used to commit the crime, once he had finally got the court to rule that they have to test the gun, they decided to not try him so they wouldn’t have to pay him. And in Tim’s case, where’s the informant? What’s going on with the informant? Has he become a rebel informant? Are there other people on death row that he went and mysteriously found himself and their presence and told that? What’s going on with him? Do y’all have any knowledge of what’s up with him?
Allison Dean: Yeah, absolutely.
Mansa Musa: Because it might go a long way in terms of showing how the state does its business.
Allison Dean: Part of the class that I did was reinvestigating Tim’s case. We started from the beginning, we did the whole thing over again to see where malfeasance was. The jailhouse informant is out. He is out in the world. He did the five-ish years that it took from when he came to the police to when the trial ended. He was being held by Tulare County at that time. The judge decided that was punishment enough, that the Young brothers get life in prison, they get death, but he’s fine. And he’s a white man and he has served his sentence, he did his due diligence, he listened to the law, he can be free. He walked free.
Mansa Musa: And then in terms of the fabrication, what is it that he’s saying? How did he get the knowledge of this particular offense?
Allison Dean: He was arrested the night of the murders and was in the back of a cop car. We believe that he heard information being divulged on the radio between police officers and that’s how he gained information about this. He himself claims that he and the Young brothers committed these murders together. So he is an accomplice. He says that he was there and yet he is walking free. He’s not on death row.
Mansa Musa: And not only he ain’t on death row, he didn’t even get a significant penalty for his alleged involvement in these homicides as an accessory or being complicit in directly being involved. Going forward, what do you want our audience to know about Tim and how can they support his campaign?
Allison Dean: So we have a website, timothyjamesyoung.com. It’s his website. His Instagram is Free Tim Young. It’s about outreach at this point. We need people to know his story, reshare our content, and sign a petition to get his voice out there. This is all on our website and on our Instagram. He is an artist, he is a poet. He’s a wonderful poet. He writes wonderful essays as well. He speaks on abolition, he speaks on racial justice, he speaks on environmentalism as well. Actually, it’s a big part of him. So having people know that they can reach out to him and they can write to him.
He has a few letter campaigns with various museums. We’re working on a project with a different university. He is the solitary gardener at UCSC, which is a wonderful project by Jackie Semel, who is an abolitionist environmentalist. Getting to know him and knowing he’s a person and he’s a person who deserves better, is how I view it. He is somebody that you can talk to, he’s somebody that wants you to reach out, he’s somebody who wants to tell his story. And it’s up to us to help them share that.
Mansa Musa: Thank you. There you have it. The Real News and Rattling The Bars. Imagine if you found yourself waking up one morning and somebody said that you committed a heinous crime or murder. They lock you and your brother up, and unbeknownst to you, someone is trying to avoid coming to prison so they fabricate a story about you and you have no knowledge of this. But more importantly, you have knowledge of everywhere you’ve been at that time. Yet 20 years later, no one believes you in the system that’s supposed to protect you.
The same system that we’re supposed to get due process of the law, the same system that you’re supposed to get fairness, the same system that says that you can only be found guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. But all this doubt that exists in Tim’s case, as outlined by Allison, shows that they didn’t get it right. But imagine that you find yourself 25 years later, on death row. So your choices are to fight for your freedom or wait for the death warrant. Would you be inclined to support capital punishment? Would you be inclined to support executing people if you found yourself in that position or any number of your family members? Thank you, Allison, for helping us come and highlight this case and educating our audience on what is going on with Tim Young’s case.
Allison Dean: Of course. Thank you.
Mansa Musa: All right. And we ask that you continue to support The Real News and Rattling The Bars. It’s only on The Real News and Rattling The Bars that you’re going to get this information. Allison told you that she believes in this case, by virtue of being exposed to the case and looking at the information, the information got her convinced. It wasn’t anything else. Then as a result of being involved with this case, she came to see a human being. But it started with the information. And this is what we provide: We provide information to allow you to make an informed decision, to make the decision Allison is making now, to be able to support and help and educate the public about this travesty and this injustice. We ask that you continue to support The Real News and Rattling The Bars because guess what? We are really the news. Thank you.
Brittany Trevino of New Braunfels, Texas, was going through her family storage unit two years ago when she was suddenly accosted by police and arrested under questionable circumstances. Trevino’s possession of a small pipe used to smoke legal CBD hemp was used to charge her with drug paraphernalia, a crime for which she was ultimately convicted. Despite this injustice, Trevino tried to move on with her life—then, one day, she encountered the same officer who arrested her. Overcome with displeasure, Trevino made a rude gesture to the officer, who responded by walking away from a traffic stop he was conducting to pull Trevino over and arrest her for failing to signal a lane change. Police Accountability Report reviews the footage and evidence surrounding Trevino’s case, and speaks with Brittany personally to examine how much of a burden the system has placed on her life and family.
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 institutional 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 the arrest of a Texas woman that was prompted by simply letting her displeasure known about an overly aggressive cop. But it’s why the police decided to place handcuffs on her and what happened before the arrest occurred that we will be unpacking today. A prime example of how the extraordinary powers we grant police can be used to retaliate against us.
But before I 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 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 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 we do have a Patreon called 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. All right, we’ve gotten that out of the way.
Now, one of the biggest challenges to holding police accountable is fighting back against the unique set of powers that are vested in them and ability to retaliate using the law that is both treacherous and consequential when abused by the people who wield it. That’s because if a department or even a single cop doesn’t like what you have to say, they have an easy and extremely effective way to push back, namely the arrest. And the series of events depicted in the video I’m showing you now is a perfect example of that truism. It reveals exactly how police can literally cage a critic and as a result, throw an innocent life into chaos. The story starts in New Braunfels, Texas. Three years ago, that’s when police there decided to arrest Brittany Sams. Brittany had been visiting a family storage unit searching for an Instapot, but suddenly, and without warning police pounced, let’s watch.
Brittany Trevino:
[inaudible 00:02:15] this guy just beat me up. This guy just beat me up.
Speaker 3:
She’s resisting.
Speaker 4:
Relax.
Brittany Trevino:
I’m not resisting. I’m not resisting.
Speaker 4:
[inaudible 00:02:26].
Brittany Trevino:
[inaudible 00:02:26] a liar.
Speaker 3:
Stop resisting, damn it.
Brittany Trevino:
You are a liar. You are a liar and you beat me up. Please I’m not resisting.
Speaker 4:
Move your hand.
Brittany Trevino:
I’m not resisting. I just… Oh my God-
Speaker 3:
[inaudible 00:02:30].
Brittany Trevino:
… He just beat me up. He just for real beat me up.
Speaker 3:
Relax.
Taya Graham:
Now it’s worth noting the police had not an iota of evidence or probable cause to arrest Brittany. In fact, after searching her car and aggressively patting her down, the only charge that could conjure was, I’m not even kidding, drug paraphernalia due to a pipe they found in her car that she contends was filled with legal CBD or hemp. Just watch.
Speaker 3:
Listen.
Brittany Trevino:
[inaudible 00:03:00] beat me up. I’m serious.
Speaker 3:
Hey.
Brittany Trevino:
For no reason, he grabbed me. He started threatening me. He slammed me against the car because he was like, I going to slam you against the car. He said it so defiantly, so cocky.
Speaker 3:
What is your name? Have you ever been to [inaudible 00:03:12] Texas ID or driver’s license?
Brittany Trevino:
Yes, of course I have.
Speaker 3:
Okay.
Brittany Trevino:
Of course I have.
Speaker 3:
The reason it looks like there’s a lot of people here. We have some people in training. Okay, that’s all it is. So listen. Okay, I need you to level with me on one thing, other than the marijuana pipe. Is there anything, anything in your car?
Brittany Trevino:
I already told you the answer to that question. No, I’m not a [inaudible 00:03:34].
Speaker 3:
I don’t understand why they just don’t freaking comply.
Speaker 4:
That’s because you caught them doing something they weren’t supposed to be doing.
Speaker 3:
So right now all I’ve got is a class C, which I don’t know if they’re going to take but she was resisting. So I got that. Wire cutter in the glove box. Other than that, there’s nothing I can link her to unless she threw it back here.
Speaker 4:
[inaudible 00:04:00]. All right, I’m going to put you in handcuffs. Okay?
Speaker 3:
So this is what you’re going to be charged with. All over drug paraphernalia.
Taya Graham:
But that didn’t matter because Brittany was dragged into court over the charges, not just any court, but in municipal court, which generally speaking is designed solely to process fines and tickets issued by local cops, not adjudicate justice. But that ordeal was not the end of the turmoil for Brittany, not in the least. Because after having to defend herself in court on bogus charges and after being convicted of that same meaningless crime, Brittany was upset to say the least. The process had cost her time, money, and work. And that’s where the next chapter in the saga begins. The point where we show you, not tell you just how destructive the power of police can be when it is subject to the slightest pushback.
That’s because roughly a month ago, Brittany was driving when she spotted the same officer who arrested her. This time, he was conducting a traffic stop angry and still suffering from the fallout over her questionable arrest, Brittany did what every American has the right to do, express her displeasure with the government. Now she decided to make the statement in the most concise and admittedly creative way possible. Her act of defiance expressed in the raising of the middle finger, a legally protected act that succinctly expressed her sentiment regarding the officer in question. But that same officer decided that with regards to him, the first amendment was not applicable at all and that aiming a middle finger in his direction was in fact a criminal act. Because shortly after Brittany furnished her one star review of his job performance, that same officer left the scene of the car stop, raced after Brittany and proceeded to pull her over. Take a look.
Brittany Trevino:
Why? Because the cop that arrested me for resisting arrest now has pulled me over for flipping him off.
Speaker 3:
I’m going [inaudible 00:06:07].
Brittany Trevino:
I know who you are.
Speaker 3:
Okay.
Brittany Trevino:
I know who you are.
Speaker 3:
That’s fine.
Brittany Trevino:
You’re pulling me over for flipping you off.
Speaker 3:
Ma’am-
Brittany Trevino:
Yes you are. You are retaliating against me. You turned your sirens on and everything ran over here like a crazy person.
Speaker 3:
Okay. Well ma’am, the reason why you’re being contacted is you failed to a signal lane change when you flipped me off.
Brittany Trevino:
Okay.
Speaker 3:
Okay? So go ahead and step by the car.
Speaker 5:
[inaudible 00:06:30].
Brittany Trevino:
He’s hurt me before. Please don’t let him do anything to me. Please. Please. Please. Please don’t. I flipped him off because he’s been illegal to me.
Taya Graham:
And then without any warning, he declared Brittany under arrest for, and I’m not kidding, failing to signal before a lane change, just watch.
Speaker 3:
All right. [inaudible 00:06:53]. You’re under arrest for fail to signal a lane change.
Brittany Trevino:
I’m under arrest for failing to signal a lane change?
Speaker 3:
Yes, ma’am.
Brittany Trevino:
I’m under arrest for failing to signal a lane change?
Speaker 3:
Yes, ma’am.
Taya Graham:
Now, it’s worth noting that the Texas Transportation Code calls for up to a $200 fine for failing to signal a lane change. But nowhere in the law is there any mention of jail time for this infraction. Hence, cuffs and an arrest are not warranted. But just moments later, that same officer made an astonishing admission when he was questioned by a supervisor, the cop actually admitted, at least tacitly, that he had specifically targeted Brittany, a startling confession that reveals just how easy it is for officers to retaliate against their critics. Take a listen.
Speaker 6:
Did she not have a driver’s license or what? Why are we arresting her for a traffic infraction?
Speaker 3:
Well, she comes down the street, comes right towards me, as I’m walking back by the car to be doing nothing, she flips me off. And then as she does that, she gets in the lane and fails to single a lane change. You think it’s going to be an issue?
Speaker 6:
Given your history her.
Speaker 3:
Yeah.
Speaker 6:
Any other person you would write a ticket to, right?
Speaker 3:
Yeah.
Speaker 6:
So that’s how you have to treat every interaction.
Speaker 3:
Okay.
Taya Graham:
So I just want to take a second to make an important point here. Often during the encounters we report on people ask for a supervisor, and often police respond in ways that could generously be characterized as dismissive. However, as this case proves, that request is firmly founded in the fact that during a questionable arrest, another set of eyes or the presence of another cop can help. It’s not a perfect or guaranteed solution, but as this encounter demonstrates it can’t hurt. Just listen again as the supervisor questions the officer’s justification for the arrest.
Speaker 3:
You think it’s going to be an issue?
Speaker 6:
Given your history with her.
Speaker 3:
Yeah.
Speaker 6:
So any other person you would a ticket to, right?
Speaker 3:
Yeah.
Speaker 6:
So that’s how you have to treat every interaction.
Speaker 3:
Okay.
Taya Graham:
Unfortunately, in this case, the near arrest was not the end of the consequences for Brittany, an ongoing ordeal that we will be discussing with her shortly. But before we do, I’m joined by my reporting partner, Stephen Janis, who’s been reaching out to police and looking into this story. Stephen, thank you so much for joining me.
Stephen Janis:
Taya. Thanks thanks for having me, I appreciate it.
Taya Graham:
So first, Stephen, what are police saying about this arrest?
Stephen Janis:
Well, Taya, we reached out to everyone possible in this government. We reached out to the city manager, the assistant city manager, the liaison between the police department and the police chief asking them specific questions about this officer and other problems within the department. They have not got back to us yet, but we will keep following up with this because we are going to get answers about this cop, about this arrest and about this whole fiasco, I promise you that.
Taya Graham:
So what details do we have about the first arrest and the municipal courts? How do those types of courts differ and why are they so problematic?
Stephen Janis:
Municipal courts are basically profit centers for cities. They’re run by the city government. So hence you don’t have the separation of powers like you have with a real independent judiciary. They are basically cash registers for politicians to raise money off the backs of the people. Basically, we know in this situation, she couldn’t get a public defender, you can’t get a public defender. It’s very hard to appeal. There’s a study in the Harvard Law Review which shows that municipal courts are really, really, really isolated from the entire legal system. Not independent, don’t have many defense attorneys and basically run by the people who are enacting laws and trying to extract fines. It’s a mess and it’s not something I think that’s healthy for our democracy.
Taya Graham:
What concerns does this series of events raise for you? I mean, what have you found looking into the town and the police department itself?
Stephen Janis:
Well Taya, I looked at the town finances extremely revealing. Over 50% of the discretionary spending of the budget goes into policing law enforcement and public safety. Whereas only 13% to 12% goes into quality of life. And I think this is exemplar of what happens when you overinvest in policing because you have these bogus arrests, you have police who have nothing better to do. Why would a cop pursue something for giving them a finger? It makes no sense if there was other crime going on, and yet the city still spends half of its discretionary income or half its discretionary budget on policing. It’s absurd. This is really exemplar of the problem with over-policing and why we spend too much on arresting and punishing people and not taking care of them.
Taya Graham:
And now to learn about what happened to her before and after the arrest and how she’s fighting back, I’m joined by Brittany. Brittany, thank you so much for joining me.
Brittany Trevino:
Thank you for having me, Taya.
Taya Graham:
So why did the officer approach you in the incident that we’re seeing from last month?
Brittany Trevino:
Well, I gave him… He was blocking the lane I was in, so I had to switch lanes. And when I seen him, I flipped him off. He left his traffic stop and he came and pulled me over. He said I did not use my turn signal.
Taya Graham:
So did he say he was pulling you over for exercising your first amendment rights or did he have another pretext?
Brittany Trevino:
I think he had talked to the other officers on his way to pull me over because they had showed up behind him. He waited until they got out or started pulling up to get out of his car and then he came up to me quickly while they were pulling up and getting out of their vehicles. And he had that conversation with me in the window, told me to get out of the car and he told me to get out of the car right when the other officer, the least ranking officer that came up afterwards, he told him to put me in handcuffs. So I just turned around and he did put me in handcuffs. He was not aggressive or anything to me. He was fine to me. He was just doing whatever he was told. But he’s the one that put me in handcuffs and then Akers was going to have me transported by him to the jail. So
Taya Graham:
Talk to me a little bit about what you heard later in the recording. I mean, what did his supervisor tell him about the arrest he was trying to affect? Because we hear Officer Akers say he wanted to arrest you and put you in jail for not using a turn signal. I have that right.
Brittany Trevino:
So actually I didn’t even realize what had been caught on the livestream until the next day when people started commenting on it because I just closed it and was done with it. But after I reviewed it, I did hear him say that he was taking me to jail for failure to use a turn signal. And then the superior officer, the sergeant asked if he would do that to anybody else and he said he would give a ticket to anybody else that wasn’t me. And he said, so you got to give her a ticket too and let her go. And then he told them that they could let me go, and he went and sat in his car and waited for them to get his ticket for the turn signal signed and then they gave it back to him when he left.
Taya Graham:
This shows just how important it can be to have a supervisor on the scene. But it seemed that seeing Officer Akers, having your hands put behind your back and the cuffing itself was just very traumatizing. How did you feel in that moment? You seemed so scared and stressed. What were you thinking?
Brittany Trevino:
Oh, I am terrified to go to jail. Previously, why I flipped him off when I was driving by is that I had a really bad experience over the last two years with this certain officer. I mean, I wouldn’t just go around flipping off any cop. I would flip off Patrick Akers because of an arrest that he put me through in 2019 or the beginning of 2020 it was. And then that just concluded last month.
Taya Graham:
So you previously had a bad experience with him. Can you talk about that? Let me show some of the video and tell me what we’re seeing here.
Brittany Trevino:
I was really actually super glad when the other two officers ran around the corner to come save Akers because he had put in… He made a call on the radio for all officers in town to turn on their lights and sirens and speed there as quickly as possible. So every officer in town was on their way to save him from me during this interaction. But as soon as they turned the corner, I was just so happy that somebody else was there. I mean, I was in a dark alleyway alone with this man and he was saying things that did not make sense to me. It was almost immediate that he grabbed me and shoved his camera into my back and started screaming, stop resisting. He had me shoved into my vehicle. I could not move if I wanted to turn around, I couldn’t. And his reasoning for it, I could not, I literally couldn’t understand. I mean, I didn’t understand that night. I didn’t understand for probably I didn’t fully understand until I went to trial.
Taya Graham:
Can you tell me what you were charged for with this arrest and what the results of the case were?
Brittany Trevino:
Said I was under arrest for resisting arrest and then there was a pipe like a CBD that… Okay, in this town you can buy hemp flour and you can buy pipes to smoke just like tobacco. They’re glass pipes. And I had a glass pipe, multicolored glass pipe on my seat, I guess. And when he seen that, he whipped out his handcuffs. He had already been grabbing me and I was up against my car when he seen it. But you know the exact second when he sees it, because he sees it, he gets a sigh of relief. You can tell because he is like, oh, how am I going to explain this? And then it’s like he gets confident and he’s like, ah, you are doing all of this because you have a marijuana pipe.
And then they ripped apart my vehicle, so that’s more cost, by the way. I mean ripped. He took my Michael Kor’s wallet that I had just gotten for Christmas, tore the stitching, pulled out the venting from underneath my dash. I had to get it put back up in there, the vents. And then it looked like he had taken a knife or something and tried to peel up my airbags that are factory sealed. It’s like he was looking anywhere to find something and you can tell if you watch the interaction afterwards, you can tell that he is getting more and more upset that all he found in there was a pipe that they did not even test. They told me at my trial that was my… I could have had it tested, but I didn’t. I could have brought proof that I was innocent, but I did not do that.
Taya Graham:
So what were the consequences of that arrest? How did it impact you financially or even emotionally or even physically? I mean you were just recovering from an accident when this happened, right?
Brittany Trevino:
So I mean, I guess I’ll start with physically. I mean physically my wrist now, it clicks all the time and it’s ever since then. And then my shoulder, I can’t really put my hand behind my back anymore comfortably at all. So I definitely have damage that’s lasted at least two years physically. But also at the time of the first arrest, I had only been walking a couple weeks. I had not been walking since January of that year, and this happened in July, June or July, and I just started walking when he was doing that to me. It was just like, I mean, nobody wants to be approached in a dark alleyway alone, first of all. So there’s that.
Taya Graham:
And how did it impact your family and your finances?
Brittany Trevino:
Cost, first of all, I went to jail. So that was $1,500 cash to the court. It had to be paid. So my husband basically took all the money we didn’t have and got me out of jail, which is great. He’s amazing, but he’s also went through a lot because of this. It’s put a lot of strain on our family, especially for me to be so traumatized by it that it has affected my life. Just not wanting to leave the house, not wanting to… I get scared when I see him. And yeah, I flipped him off, but I flipped him off for the sake of America because I mean, this is not right. What he did to me was completely wrong to do. Financially $1,500 right away.
And then I have gone to court at least twice a month every month, including now. So right as my trial ended is when I flipped him off and got pulled over. So it has not stopped since June of 2020 that I’ve been going to court at least once a month, usually twice. I’ve had a couple trials. Those were five days, one of them was five days, one of them was one day. So the cost of just traveling to back and from is substantial. It’s at least $40 a month just to drive to these places. And then either my husband doesn’t go to work or my sister doesn’t go to work.
So I added it up and I think it was a total of 45 days in the last two years I have spent in a courtroom all day long. So I mean that’s over a month of income just in court dates. And then to top it off, I had to pay for my public defender, which was $1,500. I wasn’t allowed to have a public defender in the other one. And the costs just keep going. There’s court costs on top of it, which is about $350. For the trials, I have to pay overtime for the police, I was reading. It has overtime for them. So not only does he… It’s like he gets a bonus when he does things like this. Because now he gets to sit in court and not have to actually go do his job, and all he is got to do is sit there and lie and he gets paid overtime.
Taya Graham:
You mentioned an unusual detail about your arrest with Officer Akers, and it’s actually something I have never heard before, but you had confirmed by IA, internal investigations. What was it? I have never had anyone mention this to me before.
Brittany Trevino:
He handcuffed his self to me.
Speaker 3:
Just waiting for you guys to get here. I couldn’t get the cuffs off and I got my shit stuff up inside the cuff. So we were just tangled together for like until you guys got here.
Brittany Trevino:
That’s why I didn’t get slammed on the ground. They had to come help him, release himself from me and re-put other handcuffs on me after they de-handcuffed us from each other. I found out that only in the internal affairs meeting when I went to meet with the Internal Affairs, he said, “Well, I think Akers is just a little embarrassed about something.” And he goes, “Okay, right here. He had handcuffed himself to you. His radio and his shirt or something were caught in the handcuffs, so you guys were attached to each other until the other officers came and detached you.”
Taya Graham:
Thank you so much, Brittany. And now to get more background on this department and its fraught relationship with the community, I’m joined by Cop Watcher and First Amendment activist Corners News, who’s been following the story? Corners, thank you so much for joining me again.
Corners News:
Thank you, Taya, for having me again.
Taya Graham:
Now you were performing a cop watch and had an encounter with the New Braunfels, Texas Police Department. Let’s watch a little bit of the encounter.
Speaker 3:
Huh?
Corners News:
You know him?
Speaker 3:
No.
Corners News:
Do you know him?
Speaker 3:
What?
Corners News:
Do you know him?
Speaker 3:
What’s that?
Corners News:
Do you know him?
Speaker 3:
Yes, I do.
Corners News:
Okay.
Speaker 3:
You all know him? He staying here.
Corners News:
[inaudible 00:22:58] what?
Speaker 3:
Is he staying here?
Corners News:
Maybe.
Speaker 3:
Okay. Can I help you?
Corners News:
No, no, no. [inaudible 00:23:05].
Taya Graham:
Can you describe what you were recording?
Corners News:
I noticed police lights. So I decided to make a U-turn to go and record that interaction. When I got there, the interaction was over, but I noticed the units were speeding to another location without emergency lights. So they went into a motel and they stopped a person that was walking in the parking lot. He had a backpack and he seemed like he was probably going home or something. He didn’t appear to be homeless or anything like that, so they were questioning that person. So I decided to get down in my car and started recording.
Taya Graham:
So the officer asked you to step back while you were recording and you did. Let’s watch some of the video and then you tell me what happened next.
Corners News:
You can pat me down if you want, man.
Speaker 3:
I’m going to detain you until I’m done with my investigation. You can keep recording.
Corners News:
It’s right there on record.
Speaker 9:
We’ve asked you multiple times quit interfering and your interfering.
Corners News:
I need double… I have a injured rotator cuff.
Both officers Akers and I forgot the other officer’s name. They told me to move back because they might arrest me for interference or something like that. So I did move a little bit back. I want to say I was somewhere around 15 to 20 feet away from them. So I wasn’t speaking to them. I wasn’t interfering in any way. So the other officer decided to arrest… Well, they cuffed me because I wasn’t moving back. So they placed cuff cuffs on me and they placed them so tight. And so at that point they decided to release the guy and that’s when they released me.
Taya Graham:
So the officer said that you were put in cuffs because you weren’t listening and that you were walking in a threatening manner. Do you agree with their assessment?
Corners News:
That would be… I mean, how do you walk in a threatening manner? I don’t see anyone walking in a threatening manner unless you’re making threats or something of that sort. But when you’re silently walking towards them to record them, unless they consider a camera a threat, maybe, I would see that. But I don’t see how me walking and recording is threatening in any way.
Taya Graham:
So I noticed that on your video as well as Brittany’s video, there were comments that specifically referenced Officer Akers. Now usually commenters talk about police officers in general, not the police officer actually depicted in the video. What have you heard from the community about Officer Akers’s interaction with the public?
Corners News:
When I posted that video on my channel, I received, I want to say, three or four different comments from females in that area that had dealt with Patrick Akers and one of them was Brittany and I went into her… I think she posted a link on her page. So I clicked on that link and I saw body cam where Akers, without warning just walks up to her and starts grabbing her and detaining her for no crime. They hadn’t received… I believe they didn’t receive a complaint regarding her or anything, she was just there. They initiated a call and he started grabbing her and detaining her for whatever reason. And another comment that somebody posted is that Akers went into somebody’s house without a warrant and threatened with arrest, they was not allowed to go in or something like that.
Taya Graham:
Why do you think they’re reaching out to you instead of local media in the town? Why are they reaching out to you instead of the local newspaper or local TV station?
Corners News:
I know here in my area, local media doesn’t cover any sort of stories on police misconduct unless there’s a death or there’s something serious. But they usually don’t cover any misconduct.
Taya Graham:
Now, one of the most unsettling aspects of this story is not just the disturbing videos we watched. What I mean is the fact that a cop could put someone in handcuffs who had hurt his feelings. It’s not just symbolic of the overreach by law enforcement. Rather, the careless abuse of power we watched is an example of a deeper problem that bad policing is just a symptom of. So what do I mean?
Well, I want you to think about the near arrest of Britney, not as simply a bad act of a single cop. Instead, consider the behavior we just witnessed as symbolic of a deeper and more insidious problem. What I mean is that how that officer responded to a single expression of displeasure on behalf of a citizen is an embodiment of a broader antipathy towards we the people that continues to have serious implications for other facets of American society.
How do I know this? Well, consider recent article by the Washington Post that focused on America’s falling life expectancy, it was a startling piece that showed the number of years the average American is expected to live has fallen drastically over the past decade. Worse yet, this trend has continued even as similarly situated countries have continued to make steady progress increasing lifespans. One of the most troubling aspects of the findings is the seemingly uniquely American version of the problem. The decrease in life expectancy comes even as we spend the highest amount per capita on healthcare than any other country in the world. In other words, we spend the most to get the worst results. Seriously.
Now, the reason I bring up this entirely unrelated problem in a discussion about police is simple. First, I think there is no better barometer of societal failure than the shrinking lifespan of a nation’s residents. I mean, what could be more indicative of a failure of American’s institutions then its citizenry having less and less time on this earth.
Now, just a quick caveat. The reason behind this drop was complex. Some of the decrease was attributed to COVID-related deaths. Another stat that weighed heavily on the problem were the so-called deaths of despair, meaning ailments like cirrhosis of the liver from drinking or drug overdoses. And finally, a good portion was attributed to the increase in obesity among Americans, fueled primarily by subsidies of processed foods by the government that makes us more likely to have unhealthy diets. All of these factors add up to a recipe for bad outcomes. A really, really bad report card for the great American experiment. But what makes this heartbreaking story even more distressing is something that has nothing to do with statistics, death rates, or even the suffering it portends a reaction to this alarming report that says more about why it is related to this bogus arrest than any other fact I can conjure.
Put simply, despite the gravitas of this potent new American reality, despite the failure it represents, the story I have just recounted for you was met with total and confounding silence from our political establishment. It simply came and went with hardly a remark from the people we elect to represent us. I mean, it is really telling that the health and duration of the lives of Americans would hardly cause a blip on the radar of the political elite. It is profoundly revealing that this shocking deficit passed unacknowledged by both national and local leadership. Meanwhile, contrast that deafening silence with the constant calls for more police. And even more revealing, the never ending political brawl over crime and violence, which usually centers over whether you are for or against law enforcement to begin with.
I mean, think of the actions of the officer we just watched as a symbol of that mystifying lack of response. Ponder his speedy reaction as a stark contrast to the deafening silence that occurred when our collective health failures were revealed for the whole world to see. It’s troubling, isn’t it? How quickly an officer can punish someone who questions him. And even more troubling how quickly the elite are willing to defend police when they violate someone’s rights. But it’s all justice telling what little consternation was caused by the aforementioned catastrophe of human suffering. How little action has been taken to even debate the root causes of this defining failure of American policy. And now contrast that lack of initiative with the system’s massive capability to deploy a pair of handcuffs. Measure our mass incarceration project and arrest heavy approach to law enforcement against the background of a pricey, yet ineffective healthcare system.
It’s easy to see which is more efficient. When we rebel, when we push back, the reaction is swift. When we challenge and stand up to arbitrary government power, the consequences are merciless. When we die prematurely, crickets. Just like the cop who chased down Brittany to slap cuffs on her, just like the cops who arrested her while searching her family’s own storage locker, just like the system that fails to deliver the basic right to a longer life, the elites who control this country let their priorities be known to us every day. That our lives should be burdened by punishment, not bolstered with longevity. And when someone raises a voice in dissent to this deadly calculus or questions necessity or even justification for these types of destructive policies, the response is immediate, drastic and consequential.
I want you to think about what that means. Why it happens, and who is responsible, who decides the value of our lives and puts limitations on our freedom. And when you answer that question, I think you’ll understand who is truly responsible for this mess we live in. And when you do, I hope you’ll join us on that often quixotic quest to hold them accountable for all of this. I want to thank Brittany and Corners News for speaking with us today. Thank you both for stepping forward and sharing your experiences. 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 and Friends of the show, Noli D. and Lacey R. for their support. Thank you both and a very special thank you 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 livestream, especially Patreon associate producers, John E.R., David K., Louis P. and super friends Shane Bushtup, Pineapple Girl, Chris R., Amata Rarites 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 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 @eyesonpolice at 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 will 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 greatly appreciated. My name is Taya Graham and I am your host of the Police Accountability Report. Please be safe out there.
Thomas “Tahaka” Gaither was out on parole when then-Gov. Glendening of Maryland revoked parole for all persons convicted of a life sentence. Since the late 1990s, Gaither has remained incarcerated—despite once having been deemed fit for release. His story is not unusual for those who’ve experienced Maryland’s parole system. Since 2015, barely half of 523 parole-eligible prisoners serving life sentences have had their cases reviewed, and just 76 have been released. A new study from the Justice Policy Institute, Safe at Home: Improving Maryland’s Parole Release Decision-Making, identifies the problems with the system and attempts to map solutions. Tara Gaither, daughter of Thomas Gaither, and Shekhinah Braveheart, of the Justice Policy Institute, join Rattling the Bars to discuss Maryland’s parole system.
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.
Parole, also known as provisional release or supervised release, is a form of early release of a prisoner where the prisoner agrees to abide by certain behavioral codes of conduct, including checking in with their designated parole officer, or else they may be rearrested and return to prison. This is what parole is in theory but parole looks very different in practice, and I’m speaking from experience.
How does a prisoner get parole? What are some of the barriers? Here to talk about the Maryland parole system is Shekhinah Braveheart from the Justice Policy Institute, who recently published a study entitled “Safe at Home: Improving Maryland Parole Release Decision-Making.” The report examines the Maryland parole system and how it decides to release or deny prisoners parole.
Also joining me in the studio is Ms. Tara Gaither, whose father is currently serving a paroleable life sentence and has been in prison for over 55 years. Thank you for joining me. So let’s start with you, Tara. How are you doing today, first of all?
Tara Gaither: I’m great and happy to be here.
Mansa Musa: Alright. Thank you for coming here on such short notice.
Tara Gaither: You’re very welcome.
Mansa Musa: But let’s talk about your father. Give us a little bit of information about your father before we go into his current state as it relates to parole.
Tara Gaither: My father is Thomas Gaither. He has been incarcerated since he was 19 years old. At the time he was incarcerated, I was barely one year old. I am now 54 years old, so that’ll tell you how long he’s been incarcerated. While incarcerated he obtained his bachelor’s degree in social sciences from Coppin University. He’s had lots of programs where he’s helped inmates learn how to read. He helped inmates learn how to play musical instruments. He was a part of the Family Day Organization, helping incarcerated people be able to see their children at least once a year, not behind the glass or not with a desktop separating them. So he’s done a lot of good things and I’m really proud of my dad.
Mansa Musa: Okay. As you should be. Now let’s talk about his progression because you mentioned some of the programmatics that he’s been involved with. And full disclosure, me and Thomas Gaither were locked up together. He’s commonly referred to by us as Tahaka. So me and Tahaka were locked up together and did a significant amount of time together prior to me getting out. But let’s talk about, at one point, was your father in work release and pre-release and working on the street during the course of his incarceration?
Tara Gaither: Absolutely. My father made it all the way to pre-release, work release. He was at JPRU for a good amount of time but he also rode on a truck, I believe it was through state-use industries, where he delivered furniture to different state office buildings. He did that for a long time.
Mansa Musa: The reason why he was sent back, I think it was ’97 or ’95, then-governor Glenn Denning had sent everyone back to serving a life sentence after someone had killed –
Tara Gaither: His girlfriend.
Mansa Musa: – His girlfriend while he was on pre-release. So he was sent back under Denning. He wasn’t sent back because he had violated any of the conditions of being in a less secure institution.
Tara Gaither: Oh, no. He was sent back basically due to the fact that someone else did something that they shouldn’t have done.
Mansa Musa: Right now, what’s his status in terms of parole? Walk us through that, as much as you know about where he’s at and how long he’s been waiting. If you can.
Tara Gaither: Basically, two years ago he went up in front of the parole board and was told to come back in two years. Then recently, within the last, I’m going to say, six months, he went back up and they did grant him parole but they told him that he needed to have a psychological evaluation. As far as I can tell, it’s been taking about two years, maybe two and a half years to get a psychological evaluation.
Mansa Musa: Okay. And to Shekhinah Braveheart, you heard Tara outline her father’s situation and it is not uncommon. I went up for parole. I had postponed my parole hearing one day. When they sent everybody back from camp, I had postponed mine all the way up until from ’95 to 2015. When I went up in 2015, the only thing they could say to me at that time was, don’t get any more tickets and the last ticket I had prior to that was in ’97. For the audience, restate what the report is and the name of it.
Shekhinah Braveheart: Okay. The name of the report is – This is our new report – And it is “Safe at Home: Improving Maryland’s Parole Release Decision-Making” and it’s based on about five years. JPI researched and analyzed about five years’ worth of data about the Maryland Parole Commission. The data were collected, prepared, and shared by DPSCS. For those who don’t know, that’s the Maryland Department of Public Safety and Correctional Services.
Also, in developing the recommendations to address the findings, and the findings were not good by the way, we reviewed the latest research, we examined best parole practices in other states, and we talked to a lot of people like the young lady, the family members, individuals who have experienced Maryland parole firsthand, as well as attorneys who assist individuals applying for parole. So no, her story is not surprising and it is sadly common. It is pretty much the norm.
In theory, parole should function as a system of incentives to help incarcerated people prepare for returning to their families, and returning to the community, and it should be a key component to successful reentry. But the study finds that the system conditions people for hopelessness, for despair. People look to the system for guidance in preparing for parole and what they find is more confusion and these arbitrary decisions. She described all the things that her father accomplished. So instead of recognizing how people have changed – They earned a diploma, a degree, did programming, contributed to the wellbeing of all the people around them, all these positive things – A person will get to a parole hearing and all the commissioners want to focus on is the original offense.
Mansa Musa: Right, and let me –
Shekhinah Braveheart: Which, in some cases, was decades old or an out-of-date risk assessment. So instead of parole being the release mechanism that it’s meant to be, it actually clogs the exit and it’s a driver of mass incarceration, as opposed to a mechanism for release.
Mansa Musa: – Now, you said that y’all have been doing this study for five years. Okay, so let’s look at what –
Shekhinah Braveheart: No, it was based on five years worth of information.
Mansa Musa: – Right, five years worth of information. But okay, let’s look at what has taken place once the study came out and what should have remedied this problem in and of itself. Because prior to a couple of years ago, we had successfully, under Walter Lomax’s advocacy, got parole taken out of the hands of the governor.
Shekhinah Braveheart: That’s correct.
Mansa Musa: Ultimately, at some juncture such as in your father’s case, whenever they were recommended for parole, the recommendation would have to be if the parole board said yes, then it would have to go to the governor, and the governor would normally sit on it for like two or three years. Braveheart, let’s examine the study and juxtapose it against Thomas Gaither’s case. Because as his daughter said, he is waiting to go to Patuxent Institute for a psychological evaluation.
Now, in y’all study, how does this play out in terms of when you look at what they have been accomplishing since they’ve been locked up? How does this play out in that regard? Does this take precedence over all the accomplishments that the individuals had, or is this something that’s utilized to validate why they should or shouldn’t get parole?
Shekhinah Braveheart: Okay. By law, the MPC decisions are rendered based on specific criteria. This required criteria. So it’s a number of things. It’s like you said, the risk assessment, drug or alcohol evaluation, victim impact, compliance with a case plan, any progress they made while incarcerated, meeting those educational benchmarks, physical, mental, and moral qualifications. There’s a whole list of things that are in the law.
The problem is, that the law does not specify how MPC should weigh these factors. Keep in mind that most commissioners are former law enforcement officers, so it’s no surprise when they use their discretion on how to consider these factors, they’re going weigh more on the offense than anything, and there’s nothing in the law saying that they can’t do that. So, unfortunately, that is what’s happening.
I want to point this out too, now that you mentioned that her father has been incarcerated for a really long time, and you were incarcerated for a long time. Although that law was passed in 2021 that eliminated the need for the governor’s approval for paroling people with life sentences, many people who were approved by parole are still incarcerated due to the objections of past governors. So of 215 people with life sentences the MPC did consider for parole since 2015. And that’s out of 523 total parole-eligible lifers. Only 76 were granted parole. Then when you think about that 76, then there’s that risk assessment problem, where people are waiting 2-3 years because there’s only one or two clinicians for the entire state of Maryland, so it causes severe delays.
Mansa Musa: Tara, me and you were speaking off camera. You spoke about that, as far as this evaluation. Talk about what you later became aware of about the person who was down there doing the evaluation.
Tara Gaither: There was a person who was doing the evaluations. They actually saw my father twice and declined my father twice but then they ended up being dismissed by the state of Maryland because they found out that he was incompetent.
Mansa Musa: Right. And that goes back to your point, Braveheart, that most of the people involved in this process have a stake in maintaining the status quo. I want to highlight something that you mentioned earlier about the criteria. Now, at one point when we went up for parole when they gave you a decision, your decision was pretty much three lines. Denied parole, come back, get job training.
And at one junction it was a case of Terrence Johnson and Terrence Johnson had 25 years. He had a celebrity case out of Prince George’s County. They were keeping him locked up no matter what he did. But in the end, when his attorneys filed habeas corpus to have him released, as opposed to rule on the habeas corpus, they released him. What came out of that was a sheet that they used for criteria and this is the sheet that they use for when you go up for parole, what they give you.
Going back to your point, Braveheart, this sheet gives you everything: You should do a hearing recommendation, special conditions after release, sex offender treatment, or administrative refuse. But in every category, it gives a reason why to either give you parole or deny your parole. And that came out of the code of Maryland regulations where the parole regulations are stating that you should be given a hearing and then what the hearing should consist of.
I noticed that y’all were showing that in the report how a lot of times the hearings that were being given, all the mechanisms that are supposed to go into account to help a person get parole, y’all had seen where in most cases, it was a lot of arbitrary and capricious factors would be taken into account. Can you speak on those things?
Shekhinah Braveheart: Yes. There were a number of problems. People are not really being adequately prepared because they don’t receive the proper notifications, in cases where they do receive notifications, there’s still no opportunity to prepare outside of a handful of volunteer organizations that go inside prisons that help people prepare for that interview process.
Commissioners the parole hearing officers, come in with a file, and I’m sure you’re familiar with that. They have everything in front of them and they have some things in front of them sometimes that people who are candidates for parole don’t even know about. They can throw stuff at people. The attorneys who have helped them, the individual who is applying for parole, have no way to refute anything that’s erroneous, or at least be prepared to answer those questions because it’s not in the file. It’s not visible to the actual potential parolee or the attorney. That’s deeply problematic. So there’s that preparation issue.
Even back to this risk assessment, their concerns about amplifying racial and ethnic disparities because it’s based on fixed benchmarks like was there a parental presence in your household growing up? How old were they when they got their first criminal offense? Things that have nothing to do with the present and things that people cannot change. You can’t change the way you were brought up. You can’t change what happened when you were 14 years old and you stole that gum out of the store and got a record. You can’t do anything about that. The only thing you could do is deal with the present and be the best person you can now.
That’s why in our best practice recommendations, one of the first things that we talk about is the decision should be based solely on objective factors related to the person’s current state and their future risk to the community. It shouldn’t be about anything else.
Tara Gaither: That’s correct. Actually, in my father’s last risk assessment, the person concentrated on a suspension from school when he was 12 years old.
Shekhinah Braveheart: That’s outrageous.
Tara Gaither: An interaction between him and the school principal.
Mansa Musa: And not only is it outrageous but this is another part that they don’t do right. Now we have this study that’s come out of the Supreme Court about the state of mind of a youth. They’re already saying that a young person doesn’t have the mental capacity to understand decision-making at a certain age. As a result of that, the Supreme Court then came out and said that because the person doesn’t have that informed intent, they have to take that into account when they are sentencing them or when they are trying them.
Now we have an administrative system that says that as opposed to recognizing that Thomas Gaither, Tahaka, has a BA degree and graduated from college, worked on the street – Mind you, for a number of years – Was in society, working on the street, paying taxes, albeit conditional. As opposed to recognizing that Thomas Gaither, Tahaka, has been incarcerated for 55 years, that he’s an accomplished musician, can write, read music, conduct, and all that. As opposed to recognizing any of that, we’re going to say that at the age of 12, he did something that a child did, therefore we’re going to take that and let that supersede these factors. That was going to make the informed decision as far as the criteria are concerned. Is he a safe risk to society? Yes, because he been working in society. Does he have a social network? Yes, he has a family. Is he qualified to return to society? Yes.
Braveheart talk about your recommendations. Talk about some of the recommendations that address some of these draconian dispositions of the Maryland Parole Commission.
Shekhinah Braveheart: Yes. Okay. I’m going to go through some of these best practice recommendations, but first I want to highlight one of the things you talked about that we also found in the report. That is that those individuals who served the most time, they serve more of their sentence than most people and they are over the age of 60. And the research says that crime is a young person’s endeavor. At the age of 40, the likelihood of re-offending drops. 50, it drops. 60 is almost at 0%. No one would re-offend. So her father wouldn’t be a risk to society, to public safety.
But according to our report, those are the people who are denied the most; They have a 28% grant rate which is lower than young adults at 37%, middle-aged at 31-35 years old, that’s 43%, and once you get older it drops. That is the opposite of what the research tells us. The research tells us that those are the people that should be released and those are exactly the people that MPC does not release.
So among our best practice recommendations are, like I mentioned, making parole decisions based solely on objective factors, using a race-neutral structured decision-making tool that incorporates a validated risk needs assessment tool, adopting more transparent parole procedures, and documenting the reasons for denial. And they should be appealable. Really appealable. Now, they’ll claim that it’s appealable but it really is not.
And make it transparent. In that form that you showed, they write one sentence at the bottom of why they deny but it really doesn’t give a legitimate, clear reason why and something to back it up. Also, establishing inclusive standards for parole board member eligibility. As I said, currently most commissioners are former law enforcement or prosecutors.
Mansa Musa: And appointees.
Shekhinah Braveheart: And they’re appointed by the governor and supported by the legislature as well.
Mansa Musa: And Tara, answer this question. First of all, how’s your father’s health?
Tara Gaither: My father had… He’s over 70 years old.
Mansa Musa: Goodness, yeah.
Tara Gaither: He’s got high blood pressure and he’s had a couple of surgeries since he’s been incarcerated. He has the health of a –
Mansa Musa: Of a 70-year-old man that’s been locked up 50-some odd years.
Tara Gaither: – That’s right. He’s sharp as a tack.
Mansa Musa: Oh, we already know that.
Tara Gaither: Sharp as a tack. He loves his family and takes care of his family.
Mansa Musa: Let me ask you this, because you spoke on your age when he was locked up, and this is a part that the parole board doesn’t ever take into account: What role did your father play in your life since he’d been incarcerated?
Tara Gaither: My relationship with my father is solely… I give everything to my grandmother because at the time, if I didn’t have my grandmother willing to come pick me up every weekend and take me to the Maryland State Penitentiary to see my father, then I would not have been blessed as I am to know my father. My father and I have never not had a relationship.
But that is not common. That is not common. The one thing that the state of Maryland does not take into consideration when they do this over-incarceration is that a lot of these men have children. Then what happens to the children? The children end up incarcerated, too. If you are not going to examine the full picture, then you’re doing an injustice to the public. I don’t know what type of person I would have turned out to be, I would not be the successful person that I am without the input of my father, without the family days, without the functions, and without the visits on Sundays.
But there are a lot of people that are in the same situation that I am that were not lucky enough. And my dad has lost his mother. My grandmother is gone. But thank God for my grandmother. There are so many other people out here, women my age, that are incarcerated right now because their mother was incarcerated or their father was incarcerated and they did not have the opportunity to have that relationship. I thank God every day for my grandmother and for the fact that my mother wasn’t the type of mother who said you ain’t going to see him, he ain’t no good, blah, blah, blah. You know what I’m saying?
Mansa Musa: Let me ask you to say – And I’m going to get back to you, Braveheart – I know you would be biased otherwise but do you feel as though, based on what your father has been doing since he’d been incarcerated and based on the person that you know him to be, your father would be a good candidate to be released from prison and be an asset to society, as opposed to a detriment?
Tara Gaither: My father should have been released a long time ago. Even as an old man, he still has a lot to contribute. I have two grandsons who would love to have their grandfather be a part of their life. Even at 70 years old, he’s lived a lot longer than he has left, but we still want him home. We have a whole community. My father has friends that he left on the street who are looking forward to him coming home. My father has lost a lot of friends. He has lost a lot of relatives, brothers, and his mother.
Mansa Musa: I know.
Tara Gaither: When you are a person that is incarcerated, that takes a lot out of you. At the same time, he has strong family values, and we are right there with him, and we are going to fight. I’m not going to allow my father to die in prison.
Mansa Musa: We know that.
Tara Gaither: So with whatever I have to do, we have to fight. Somebody needs to take a bigger look at the full picture and know that when you incarcerate one person, let them be punished and let them do their time, and then let them come home because you’ve incarcerated a whole family. I have two brothers. I have one brother who unfortunately has been incarcerated and I know that if my father had been there a little bit sooner, things would be a whole lot different. I was a teenage mother. That wouldn’t have ever happened if my dad had been there.
Mansa Musa: Braveheart, when you looked at this study, did any of these social factors come into play that she outlined? Because this should be the genesis of everything.
Shekhinah Braveheart: Absolutely.
Mansa Musa: Was any of these things coming into play? They got the relationship with the community, and they got a list of criteria, but based on what Tara was saying, it’s self-evident that these things are not taken into account. Because right now Thomas Gaither is waiting on the part of the parole system that sends them somewhere to be evaluated, and that’s been going on forever. Then to have to wait another amount of time for that decision to come back before they say, oh yeah, instead of going straight home, go over here in this program and progress your way out. Were any of these things from y’all study, did y’all see any of these things taken into account prior to y’all highlighting the fact that they weren’t being looked at?
Shekhinah Braveheart: Yes, absolutely. Both things. We recognize that the destabilization of our communities, our Black communities, is due to mass incarceration. And the same public officials who would talk about all this “get tough on crime.” We only have a choice between mass incarceration and high crime where parole offers alternatives that they haven’t even considered.
They should prioritize comprehensive parole reform to help people who’ve paid their debt to society return home. They’re fully functioning members of society, they lead more effective lives. As she said, her father is a positive role model. I know, Mansa Musa, I know a lot of people. You probably know a lot of people. It increases public safety. We have higher levels of public safety because those same people come home as returning citizens and they dedicate their lives to being mentors and violence interrupters. So we need them.
So Tara, yes, you need your father but we need your father. Our communities need your father. And that’s not what these elected officials really think about when they say “tough on crime.” More than 95% of people who go to prison are going to return to the community, so we should be doing everything we can to help them succeed when they come home and not unnecessarily prolong the process because it’s not healthy for us and it’s at a great personal expense to the individual, to their families, and to taxpayers. It’s expensive, it’s a waste of money, and it’s to no public safety benefit whatsoever.
Before I forget, Tara, I want to say that there’s a medical geriatric parole bill for 2024. It’s called Compassionate Release, and that covers geriatric parole and medical parole, under the geriatric provision, people over 60 years of age would have a parole hearing automatically at 60, and it would be every three years. But it looks really promising this year.
Then of course there is the medical component, which thank God your father doesn’t need, but hence fourth, if this bill passes in 2024 and goes into effect in October of 2024, people like your dad won’t be sitting there languishing with nonsense parole decisions like come back in four years, five years, two years, whatever, or wait for this risk assessment. It’s based on their age and if they have served at least, I’m not sure if it’s 20 or 15 years inside.
It’s long overdue. The number of parole-eligible people over 60 has tripled since 2015. Tripled. So they make up 8% of the newly parole-eligible population.
Mansa Musa: Tara, as we close out, what do you want to tell us about your father? Like I said, full disclosure, me and your father served time together. Me and your father were involved with a lot of activity together. So to say I’m biased, yes I am, in regard to not only him but the men that I served time with and the women that I knew that are still incarcerated. But what do you want people to know about your father? How they can support your father’s effort to expedite his release so he can come home with his family and give you a big hug?
Tara Gaither: I want everybody to know, my dad, he’s a good person. He’s a good man. He’s strong, he’s capable. He can do a whole lot more out here than he can in there. He’s got a lot of support and he’s not a person that anybody would ever have to worry about re-offending or doing anything like that.
The thing is that there’s a big picture and I hope everybody will, especially people in the government, take time to look at the big picture because a lot of times people wonder what’s going on in the street. Why are all these kids in trouble? Why are they doing that, doing this? Find out how the percentage of those children, how many of their fathers are incarcerated, and how many of their mothers are incarcerated. That is a big part of the picture. If my dad couldn’t take care of me, I had somebody that was out there that could but all kids don’t.
We should concentrate on letting people out that need to come out. Some people maybe do need to be there but the big picture is that when you’re incarcerating this one person and you’re keeping them for 55 years and they have children and grandchildren and great-grandchildren and people out here that love them, it is a waste of money and it’s a waste of time. Ensure that it is time to think about what we’re doing as a whole and not only think halfway.
Mansa Musa: Okay. And Braveheart, what do you have to say? You’ve got the last word.
Shekhinah Braveheart: I’ll concur with her that it is a waste of time, it’s a waste of money, but most of all it’s a tragic waste of human capital, valuable lives that contribute greatly to society. People who have wisened over time who could contribute so much sitting there. I would encourage anybody who is listening to this, or watching this, to connect with either a grassroots advocacy organization or even a larger national advocacy organization like the Justice Policy Institute. Come to Annapolis and tell your stories before these people who are making the laws and who may not have the firsthand experience that you have. They don’t know.
And it’s one thing for me to go there, for my colleagues to go there with all of our numbers and all of our statistics, but it’s more impactful when you come and you marry that with the human experience, that this is what it looks like when you don’t pass these laws. This is how it affects a human being. This is how it affects a family. This is how it affects an entire community, and this is how it affects society at large. No one is immune. No one is unaffected by this.
Mansa Musa: There you go.
Shekhinah Braveheart: So please come and encourage. JusticePolicy.org.
Mansa Musa: There you have it, the real news. Y’all rattled them bars today. Now, we want to focus on what Tara said. We want to focus on the big picture. What is the big picture? We oftentimes hear about a lot of crime and a lot of things going on but what is the big picture?
This is the big picture. When the Unger case came out and I was released, this was the big picture. Prior to them releasing us, they said 250 murderers and rapists were going to have a plague on society. Since we’ve been released, only two people have returned to prison that came out with that Unger class. Two people. What is the big picture? The big picture is that Thomas Gaither, Tahaka, was working in society. Why is that not being taken into account if we’re looking at the big picture? If we look at the big picture, we have a system that’s broken.
Now, the study Justice Policy Institute showed us that it is safer at home, that the decision-making of the parole system is draconian and outdated, and we have to look at the big picture. What is the big picture? The big picture is Tara Gaither sitting here, asking us to support her father. Not only that but to support all men and women that are incarcerated.
And we ask you, as we close out, to continue to support Rattling the Bars and The Real News because it’s only from Rattling the Bars and The Real News that you’re going to get a real conversation, a report, and then humanize the report by having a person whose family member is actually suffering as a result of the draconian parole policies that exist. If not for the Justice Policy Institute, we would not know these things. But for Tara, we would not really be able to understand them in the human context. Thank y’all, and continue to support Rattling the Bars and The Real News.
After the death of his father, Andru Kulas just wanted to spend a night out with his friends. Things took a turn when a group of men suddenly approached his friend and pushed her to the ground. The attackers fled, and Andru and his friends climbed the roof of a nearby restaurant to search for them, prompting a local security guard to call the police. When police arrived on the scene, they accosted Andrew as he was eating a burrito, and then proceeded to pepper spray and arrest him. Police Accountability Report investigates.
Production: Taya Graham, Stephen Janis 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 Colorado police tracking down a man, assaulting him, and arresting him after he tried to find an assailant who had pushed his female friend to the ground.
But it’s how much effort cops put into tracking down the victim, not the suspect that raises more questions as to why police partisans keep arguing, we need more cops, not less, a question we will investigate in light of this shocking video. 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 you can 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 can even help our guests. And you know I read your comments and appreciate them. You see those little hearts I give out down there. Oh, and we also have a Patreon called 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.
Okay, now we’ve gotten that out of the way. Now, almost every time we publish a story about police doing something inexplicable, we invariably get someone who posts a surprisingly predictable response. Put simply, “If you don’t like the police, maybe don’t call them when you need them.” Fair enough. Even though I think holding police accountable is not a for or against proposition, I get the point. But I think the person in the video I’m showing now would probably be happy if cops had followed the advice of our critics.
Because the series of events I’m about to relay to you are so impossible to explain, so seemingly excessive, it’s hard for me to put them into a context where I can begin to understand them or even explain them to you. An unrelenting pursuit by police that would be laughable if it hadn’t ended in personal tragedy for the victim.
The story starts in Fort Collins, Colorado in August of 2021 when Andrew Kulis was spending a night out with friends. His father had recently passed and those same friends didn’t want him to be alone while he was grieving, but the evening soon took a turn for the worse, when three men decided to start trouble by shoving Andrew’s female friend to the ground. The trio fled, which prompted Andrew and his associate to try to track them down. To do so, the pair climbed to a rooftop area of the bar to see if they could spot the assailants. However, the efforts failed to yield results.
So all three soon left the establishment to buy some burritos at a nearby eatery. And that, they thought, was the end of that. But for some reason, the action of Kulis and his friends had caught the attention of a bouncer at the club. That person, let’s call him a security Karen, actually followed the group to the restaurant, and then, I’m not kidding, called the police. And that leads to what you’re watching now, when not one, but two, but three Fort Collins cops decided that these post bar revelers were worthy of a serious show of force. And they called dispatch for backup. Take a look.
Andrew:
What’s going on?
Speaker 2:
Can you just give us a second here?
Andrew:
Yeah, but he’s helping them.
Speaker 2:
Yep. All right, can you just give us a second here?
Andrew:
So can you help me?
Speaker 2:
I’ll help you as soon as we’re done. Okay?
Andrew:
What’s going on?
Speaker 2:
Please give us some space, all right? Back up.
Andrew:
I’ll give you as much space as [inaudible 00:03:37].
Speaker 2:
All right, thank you. Then just stand back over there. Okay?
Andrew:
What’s going on? That’s great, but my rights are to [inaudible 00:03:46].
Speaker 2:
You don’t have rights in this right now.
Andrew:
No, I don’t have rights at all.
Speaker 2:
So I just need you to step back.
Andrew:
No, because we don’t have rights these days.
Speaker 2:
Do you want me to give you a ticket too?
Andrew:
Dude, come on. Serious right now? Come on. I’m being respectful.
Speaker 2:
I just told you, I’ll talk with you as soon as we’re done here.
Andrew:
[inaudible 00:04:04] out.
Taya Graham:
Now it’s worth noting the cops didn’t ask about the possible assailants, and they didn’t even really probe into the reasons Andrew and his friends went to the roof. Frankly, it’s hard to determine exactly why they thought it was necessary to investigate a man calmly eating a burrito and write him a ticket. But apparently, that’s exactly what they did. Take a look.
Andrew:
Because you can’t talk to me man-to-man with a burrito in my hand. Come on. Are you serious right now? There’s fucking three guys that fucking ran away at the fucking thing and pushed her down on the fucking ground. Yeah, you don’t care. No, because she fucking got her head knocked down on the ground.
Speaker 2:
If you keep encroaching on his face, you’re going to get a ticket.
Andrew:
No, no, I’ll back away.
Speaker 2:
Thank you.
Andrew:
I’ll back away and I’ll talk my peace because that’s my right. Do you understand that? That’s my right.
Taya Graham:
Now, one can understand why Andrew might’ve been a bit annoyed with this intrusion. Remember again, he was mourning the death of his father, but even more importantly, his female friend had been the victim of an assault. But those facts didn’t seem to matter as cops escalated the encounter.
Andrew:
Go ahead, do your fucking shit. But you know what? Someone got hurt and it wasn’t right. There’s three other guys that fucking knocked her down and you guys don’t care.
Speaker 2:
Based on what the informant told us, you are getting a citation for third degree trespassing, okay?
Andrew:
For what, dude? You didn’t give me anything. For what?
Speaker 2:
[inaudible 00:05:45] trespassing.
Andrew:
Trespass… Are you [inaudible 00:05:48]?
Speaker 2:
So, I’ll explain this to you-
Andrew:
No, no. I’m not signing anything.
Speaker 2:
You don’t have to sign anything.
Andrew:
No, you can keep my fucking ID. I’ll get it next week. No, that’s bullshit, dude. No, I’m not taking it. No.
Speaker 5:
If you don’t take it, it’s still getting turned in and there’s going to be a warrant for your arrest when you don’t show up for that court date.
Andrew:
Yeah, that’s great. I’ll fucking show up because I have a client that is a fucking attorney and it’ll take your shit. Oh, yeah. No, no, no, no you don’t…
Speaker 5:
This is yours, okay?
Andrew:
Are you serious right now?
Taya Graham:
In fact, given the circumstances, this seems like the perfect moment to exercise what we call officer discretion, the idea that an officer can deem an incident not worth police intervention. It’s a concept that apparently the police in Fort Collins are not familiar with, because instead of just deciding to write the ticket and leave, they apparently had to take Andrew to the ground. Take a look.
Speaker 2:
Stop resisting.
Speaker 7:
Andrew, stop.
Andrew:
Dude. Ow, dude.
Speaker 2:
Stop resisting.
Andrew:
I’m not. I’m sorry, are you serious right now?
Speaker 2:
Stop resisting.
Andrew:
Are you serious?
Speaker 2:
Put your hand behind your back your back.
Andrew:
[inaudible 00:06:55].
Speaker 7:
Andrew, stop.
Speaker 2:
Stop resisting.
Andrew:
I’m sorry, are you serious right now?
Speaker 2:
Stop resisting.
Andrew:
Are you serious?
Speaker 2:
Put your hand behind your back.
Speaker 7:
Stop, stop. Andrew, Andrew, stop.
Speaker 2:
Stop resisting.
Speaker 7:
Andrew, stop. Andrew, stop.
Speaker 2:
Stop resisting.
Andrew:
Let’s go motherfuckers.
Speaker 2:
OC.
Speaker 7:
No, Andrew. Andrew, stop.
Speaker 2:
OC.
Speaker 7:
Andrew, stop.
Speaker 2:
Comply or force will be used against you.
Taya Graham:
And apparently undeterred by the absurdity of turning a nonviolent encounter into an ugly episode of police brutality, cops went even further. They decided that Andrew was so dangerous and such a threat to the safety of Fort Collins, they pepper sprayed him. But it wasn’t just your normal use of OC pepper spray, which is bad enough. The cops on the scene actually violated police procedure and sprayed just two inches away from his face.
A dangerous use of force that is all, but prohibited for simple reason. Spraying the weapon that close can lead to something called hydraulic needling, a misuse of which can permanently damage the eyes and cause serious injury. Take a look and just a warning, this might be upsetting. So if you don’t want to see what police did, just skip this portion of the body camera video.
Speaker 2:
OC.
Speaker 7:
Andrew, stop.
Speaker 2:
Comply or force will be used against you.
Andrew:
Please don’t.
Speaker 2:
Comply.
Speaker 5:
You’re going to get OC.
Speaker 2:
Turn over.
Speaker 7:
You, get away.
Speaker 5:
Go on your back.
Speaker 2:
Turn over.
Andrew:
Are you serious right now?
Speaker 2:
Yes.
Speaker 5:
[inaudible 00:08:22]. Sorry.
Speaker 2:
Stop resisting.
Taya Graham:
Now, the injuries Andrew suffered in the days he was functionally blind were just the beginning of the fallout over his arrest. And for more on what has happened since and what the investigation into that office uncovered, I will be joined by Sarah Schielke shortly. But before we do, I’m joined by my reporting partner, Stephen Janis, who has been looking into the police and looking into the facts about this case. Stephen, thank you so much for joining me.
Stephen Janis:
Taya, thanks for having me. I appreciate it.
Taya Graham:
So Stephen, first, the officer who maced Andrew, officer Parks, was there an investigation into his actions and what were the results?
Stephen Janis:
Well, Taya, this is a very interesting story, because first of all, internal affairs found out that the officer did not need to mace Mr. Kulis at all. In fact, they said they could have put the ticket down on the ground, they could have put the license down on the ground, or they could have confiscated it. They didn’t need to use force. No force was justified. So the internal investigation was extremely clear, this officer violated departmental policy.
Taya Graham:
So for the actions of Officer Kevin Parks, which we know violated police procedure by their own standards, what sort of discipline did he face or was he prosecuted?
Stephen Janis:
Well, Taya, this is where the story gets really interesting, because no, nothing was done to this officer. This officer was not punished. He was fully exonerated by internal affairs and the police chief. But on top of that, we got this picture of him giving him awards shortly after this determination. So really, you can see this is a typical case how policing and police are incapable of policing themselves.
Taya Graham:
So what else do we know about the Fort Collins Police Department?
Stephen Janis:
Well, we know a lot of things. Number one, we know there’s an officer who has been accused of writing 10 false DUIs, but we also know something just from watching this video, what did we learn? They sent five officers to a trespassing case. I can’t think of any more stark example of over-policing to send five officers to write a trespassing ticket. If you need that many officers to do that, you have too many officers. I think that’s a lesson we can take from this and it’s something important to keep in mind when we cover policing across this country.
Taya Graham:
And now to discuss what she’s uncovered about the officers, the department, and the general absurdity of this arrest, I’m joined by Andrew’s lawyer, Sarah Schielke. Sarah, thank you so much for joining me.
Sarah Schielke:
Thanks for having me, Taya.
Taya Graham:
So first, tell me why Andrew and his friend allegedly trespassed onto the roof of the bar. It’s something to do with the assault of their female friend, correct?
Sarah Schielke:
Yeah. They had been out that night. Andrew had with his two friends and there had apparently been some kind of scuffle in a bar that involved… Not involving them, but involving some other guy ultimately shoving their female friend as he ran out. And they went looking for him, they wanted to confront him and were trying to find the guy. And in their endeavoring to find him, they went up on this rooftop area of a bar. They didn’t realize it was closed. They just went up there to get a better vantage point, couldn’t find him. And so basically kind of gave up, figured he was long gone and went across the street to get burritos.
Taya Graham:
So Andrew and his friends had already peacefully moved on to a food stand and were enjoying a burrito when over three Fort Collins police officers approached them. Can you tell me what happened next?
Sarah Schielke:
Apparently a bouncer had noticed them go up in the rooftop and had called police, and then had followed Andrew and his two friends around. Waiting for the police to arrive, this is a very over-policed town and with not very much crime for the officers to keep themselves occupied with. So it looks to me at least like a good portion of the entire night shift showed up, and the bouncer pointed out Andrew and his friends over peaceably eating burritos to them.
And they went up to them, began questioning them about this alleged trespass and they openly admitted they went up there and that they were looking for the guy who had shoved their friend. And they implored these officers to help them with that. And were trying to provide more information to assist and they were not interested in investigating this assault, which their female friend also corroborated had happened to her. They were far more interested apparently in this third degree trespass, writing these tickets, which is a petty offense, the lowest level crime in the state of Colorado.
Taya Graham:
Can you tell me why so many Fort Collins police officers would come to a scene for such a minor and petty trespass offense?
Sarah Schielke:
Yep. Third degree trespass is a petty offense in Colorado. I have no idea. Someone may need to ask the Fort Collins police services about that. I mean, if you want to know my broader thoughts on that, it’s because this area, this state, frankly the whole country, but especially here locally, is extremely over-policed. We have too many officers with not enough things to do. So when that call came in and they’ve got everybody working that night shift, they sent them all because there’s not much crime happening here.
Taya Graham:
Now, Andrew refused physically taking the summons. That’s his legal right, correct? I mean, did Andrew actually violate the law at any time during his interaction with these police officers?
Sarah Schielke:
The second that that citation was completed and Andrew informed the officer he was showing up and he had a means for showing up, there’s really nothing left for them to do. Legally, rationally, constitutionally, there’s no justification to detain him. There’s no justification to jam the ticket in his pocket, and there’s certainly no justification to use any kind of force in that scenario. The fact that this officer, Officer Park did these things, I think it speaks to the fact that earlier, Andrew was very critical.
The fact that these guys were not investigating this assault on their friend, he used a very colorful language. He exercises First Amendment Right to criticize his government, which is in my opinion, the most important constitutional right we have. And unfortunately, when you have officers with ego involved, when you have departments that endorse and condone escalation, needless escalation of these encounters into violence, you will see more often than you would believe these type of scenarios unfold where the officer who’s aggrieved, whose ego is aggrieved, waits for the first opportunity upon which they can claim fill in the blank, resisting, obstructing, all of those fake type of justification offenses. And then they go wild on the person. They get very violent, they escalate and we see the type of stuff we saw in this video.
Taya Graham:
The police that were attempting to serve the citation suddenly became very aggressive and threw Andrew to the ground. What happened next?
Sarah Schielke:
In terms of what leads up to these events, a theme I’ve always seemed to notice is it’s not just something as simple as not wanting to take a citation. What usually precipitates these type of wild aggression events from police officers is that the person that they’re attacking was critical of their police work prior to them. That they were exercising their First Amendment Right to criticize their government, criticize the actions of their government, and a lot of the times, these people aren’t going to be using the nicest of words.
As you can see, Mr. Kulis does, but this is supposed to be part and parcel of the job as a police officer is that you are above responding with violence to these types of comments. It’s really the core of your job, but that obviously is not what happened here. Andrew expressed a lot of displeasure using some pretty colorful words about their failure to investigate the guy who had assaulted their friend. And when this officer got the first opportunity to retaliate and hurt him for that, we see him do it.
And it’s very obvious that this encounter should have been ended once that ticket was ripped off and handed to him. But instead, it escalates into what we see on the camera, which is inexplicable, horrific, outrageous. There aren’t enough words for it. As a member of this community, I can tell you that myself and basically every other person I know living here would not look at that situation and say, oh, this is some criminal activity. I hope that the police snuff out with force and violence. In fact, that’s the last thing that I would want as a community member.
And these police officers are supposed to know that, they’re supposed to be trained this way and yet we see as this unfolded not just with the events themselves, but the aftermath with internal affairs at this police department saying this was unjustified force. And then the chief taking it somewhere else to get people to exonerate his officer anyway. It’s question marks and exclamation points left and right. Where do we begin?
Taya Graham:
Now, there can be very serious consequences for pepper spraying someone so close to their face, especially just two or three inches away. Can you talk about how serious it is?
Sarah Schielke:
Yeah, so there’s not much scientific data on what happens when you spray somebody in their eyes from that close because nobody’s willing to do it on humans. It is extremely dangerous. The operator’s manuals, all of the training that any agency receives regarding this OC spray states that it’s supposed to be deployed from minimum of three feet away. And if deployed within three feet, the circumstances need to be that the officer’s life is in danger basically. Obviously not the case here.
I mean, they have five officers tackling on… Choking Andrew, doing the whole… They’ve got him down and they’re just yelling at him to roll over, which is a physical impossibility for him at that point. And then they spray him from two inches. That, as I watch it, looks nothing short of deliberately and knowingly retaliatory, knowingly a policy violation and a violation of training.
We can see in the police department’s heavily redacted IA investigation into it that they interviewed one of their own lieutenants who confirmed that their officers are trained not to deploy it from that close. And the risk is this what’s called hydraulic needling effect, which is where the particulate that is in the OC spray and combined with the volume at which it is sprayed out can cause the particulates to be permanently launched in the eyeball in a way that your eye could never heal, which unfortunately did happen with Andrew in this case. He has a little area in his left eye that has remained cloudy vision-wise ever since the incident.
Taya Graham:
So how long was Andrew in jail for and how serious were his injuries? I mean, he was in pain and functionally blind for nearly three days.
Sarah Schielke:
He was, and it took a really long time for him to get medical care on scene, for him to be seen to receive medical treatment at the jail. He had contacts in, which is an additionally endangering event that weren’t removed until after he was at the jail. So that was trapping more of that spray against his eye. I can’t imagine how painful it was and I also can’t imagine… I mean, Andrew lives by himself and his father had just passed away. It was the only family he had, and so he had to spend those next three days trying to take care of himself, functionally blind, worrying I’m sure the whole time of whether he was ever going to get full vision restored.
Taya Graham:
So what are the counts and allegations in your lawsuit? What type of case are you filing?
Sarah Schielke:
We filed a lawsuit in federal courts for violations of Andrew’s constitutional rights, both state and federal. The primary ones being the Fourth Amendment and the Colorado equivalent here, which is to be free from Unreasonable Search and Seizure. There’s also, we’ve filed what are called Monell Claims. Those are claims that target and go after the municipality itself, the chain of command, the people in charge, for their basically failing to train or failing to supervise.
Or permitting such a pattern or custom within their departments of permitting this behavior that that became a moving, driving cause of the event as well. I think that what is extremely compelling on that Monell Claim here for Mr. Culis’ lawsuit with respect to the chief and Fort Collins police services itself is the fact that they ratified the behavior afterwards.
Taya Graham:
How did the department justify their findings?
Sarah Schielke:
When confronted with a video, which is obviously an officer using force when he had no authorization to do so, then making that force increasingly excessive with this pinnacle of being sprayed in the eyes. But the spraying in the eyes is so crazy to think about that a lot of what I’ve noticed gets lost in the shuffles well is that when he throws him to the ground, that was not an accepted or trained takedown method.
The grabbing him from the back and swinging him down. And very unsurprisingly, you can actually hear Andrew’s head hit the concrete and he appears to have had his head shoved in that direction on his way down by Officer Park, which thank God he doesn’t have brain injuries from that. That has the potential to be even more seriously permanently damaging to a human being.
This case is super unusual and jaw dropping because we have these IA units. It’s yet another safeguard that we have installed to ensure that police are held accountable. And that when police officers abuse their power, that it’s one of our many… Along with body cams and the laws Colorado has been passing for that as well, it’s one of the safeguards we built in. And here we witnessed that safeguard actually appeared to be functioning appropriately in terms of doing a thorough investigation, looking at the policy, talking to who trains on the OC spray.
And then producing these findings saying that they shouldn’t have done this. Where things take this insane turn and what for me, I think makes the biggest and most concerning claim in this case come to light is what the chief and the chain of command did with those findings afterwards. Which was to redact them away and without explanation, without explanation to their community especially, but also without explanation of Mr. Culis who did make this complaint to initiate the investigation. To just exonerate this officer and that’s what we call in the lawsuit world, that’s ratification of conduct, which suggests that this officer likely engaged in it because he knew he wouldn’t get in trouble for it and potentially would be complimented for it.
Taya Graham:
Can you tell me if there are any issues with excessive force or police misconduct within the Fort Collins Police Department? I mean, this is an exceptionally aggressive incident over a minor offense. Are there issues with this department?
Sarah Schielke:
In my research for this lawsuit and from what I just know practicing in this area, there unfortunately is. Fort Collins Police Department has a long and recent history of using OC spray on people when they really should not have, and I’m tasing people when they shouldn’t have, either because they didn’t have justification to do so, or because they’re deploying it in a way that violates training in terms of being too dangerous.
Taya Graham:
What do you and Andrew hope will be the result of this lawsuit?
Sarah Schielke:
Obviously the first issue, and I feel like I’m a broken record on this sometimes is leadership. We need to have a change in leadership. The guy who’s in charge right now, I don’t know if you saw, on the day I released the video and filed the lawsuit in this case, there was so much backlash on him and his department that he went on to the Fort Collins Police YouTube and posted a video defending what they did. And basically telling everybody that they don’t have all the facts so they’re going to re-release the video, et cetera.
It doesn’t look like it went very well for him with this endeavor, but joking aside, that’s deeply concerning that a chief would want to do that given when he’s seeing what the community feedback is, which is why on earth would you guys have utilized force? Or even continued escalating this very garden-variety low level offense type of encounter? And for him to jump up and pretty boldly and proudly say that nothing wrong was done here, that’s a big concern.
I think there need to be leadership changes obviously when that’s the factual landscape we’re looking at. Another interesting wrinkle with this lawsuit that happened after we filed it was that the chief in his statement to the press, because there was a lot of local news coverage on it here, he informed everybody that the Citizen Review Board had reviewed this and exonerated this officer for the event.
And if you look at how he says this and pushes this narrative of the Citizen Review Board exonerating it, it really sounds like he is trying to shove all of the blame for the ratification onto this board of six citizens who typically are former police officers. And for whom he and other officers at the agency control what information they receive when they’re doing a review. I have a lot to say about that that we probably don’t have time for.
But I’ve always had the thought that in my experience, I’ve never seen a citizen review board actually do anything worthwhile. Ever take a stand or say anything that isn’t aligned with whatever predetermined outcome the agency wants. And for in this situation on such bad facts, on really incontrovertibly bad facts with a very bad video for this chief to jump out to the public and say, our Citizen Review Board exonerated this officer, that to me, is such an indictment of the Citizen Review Board.
Taya Graham:
Okay. I think my main takeaway from this story is something about policing that continues to play out over and over again, but could use some discussion so that we better understand it. And when I say understand it, I mean grasping the consequences of bad policy with the hopes of avoiding situations like the one we just showed you in the future. In this case, what I mean is how often we misapply the power of policing to tasks that could be otherwise dealt with without handcuffs, conflicts in tricky situations that for some unknown reason fall under the auspices of police, but would be better served if they didn’t.
Now, I think there’s a reason for this overuse of the badge that also explains my aforementioned concern about the misapplication of state power. An underlying imperative that drives police into spaces that would otherwise be better served, but is driven by perverse incentives that are forcing the square peg of policing into the round hole of social ills. Not just convenient, but beneficial to some. So what do I mean? Well, let me show you, not tell you.
I’m going to start with this unassuming piece of plastic that I believe is a perfect example of all the ridiculous bad policy choices I just described. This instrument, which dispenses a life-saving medicine, tells us all we need to know about the literally upside down world our addiction to policing has created. So this is what’s known as Narcan. It’s literally Lazarus in a bottle, a medicine that can bring people who have overdosed on opioids back to life with a single shot.
In fact, it’s so efficacious, that just recently the drug was made available to buy without a prescription so that anyone who needs it can theoretically get it. The move was made in response to the ever-growing opioid crisis, which continues to claim tens of thousands of lives per year. The hope is that if Narcan is easier to obtain, lives can be saved in the process. There’s a catch, because it turns out that the company which makes Narcan actually fought efforts to make it more available.
In fact, a recent Washington Post article found that executives lobbied Congress to delay the process to make it over-the-counter for nearly eight years. During that period, tens of thousands… Actually, hold that. Hundreds of thousands of people died and yet public officials were unable, afraid, or otherwise bought and paid for to the extent that they did not do a single thing to ensure that a lifesaving medication was available everywhere and for everyone, even as hundreds of thousands of people die.
Let me emphasize, people were allowed to die and officials did nothing. Instead, as I said before, they protected the profits of a single drug company, but it gets worse. Over that same period of time, the government was more than willing to fund another so-called solution to address the overdose crisis. An approach that has been used over and over again with increasingly dismal results. I’m talking about policing.
That’s right. While a life-saving drug was totally out the reach of the people who needed it the most, so executives could grab greater profits, the government was more than willing to throw millions of dollars at law enforcement to fix a health problem. While Wall Street gobbled up big bonuses and fat fees from big pharma, our own representative government couldn’t overcome their own greed to use a simple solution that was literally right at their fingertips.
Instead, they threw millions, actually, hundreds of millions at police to cure addiction. I mean, I want you to think about how sick that calculus really is. We know that opioid addiction is literally a physical dependence, meaning, once you’re hooked, you need medical treatment to cure it. We know that it was the pharmaceutical companies themselves that flooded the country with opioid pills to bolster profits, while evidence showed deaths from their abuse were climbing. And we know the war on drugs have been an utter and obvious failure even though billions of dollars have been spent to prosecute it.
And yet, still, still our government chose to empower people with guns and handcuffs to arrest and imprison people with a condition that could better be solved with that humble drug. They chose to use courts and cages and cops to fix a disease of the mind and body instead of choosing to demand. And I do mean demand, that a drug company put people over profits. I am serious. We need to think about how horrible this is. We need to comprehend how cruel this idea is, how much it says about the police state, how much it tells us about the type of law enforcement we see on this show and what it is really about.
We, meaning our country, could not forego profits to save lives and instead we used policing to address a medical crisis. We literally could not summon the courage or the power to stop people from dying while we easily shelled out more money for cops, more patrol cars, more jail cells, and ultimately, more human suffering. I want you to think about what this means, that greed trumped life, that it’s easier to fund arrest than it is to fund a medical marvel. And that ultimately, we chose profits over people and cops over care.
Nothing about this makes sense unless you’re willing to understand how much enforcing the law is really about unleashing the cruelty of a system that is not only irrational, but in my opinion, often barbaric. I want you for a moment to take stock of this idea, how inhumane it is, how utterly irrational it is, how completely ridiculous it is, and yet, how symbolic it is of the problem with a country that thrives on punishment for profit.
Simply put, it’s an absolutely absurd approach to an existential crisis, which once again, only seems to exacerbate it. This is exactly the reason people do not trust our government. This more so than social media or TikTok is why people are skeptical of power. The utter institutional stupidity and carelessness is why we don’t believe the people we send to Washington actually work for us. I have seen firsthand how the opioid crisis has affected my own city of Baltimore.
I have reported on a woman specifically who could not get proper treatment and died as a result. I have been a witness to the utter arrogance and dismissiveness of a system that would rather jail drug users than offer them life-saving medications. I have recounted in my reporting how that policy has torn our city asunder. And what I’ve learned is that all of the stupidity, arrogance, and yes, cruelty, stems from a simple yet destructive idea, that we don’t matter.
Well, let me say this, you matter to us. You matter to me, and we will continue to report on stories that matter to everyone as long as we’re able to, as long as you want us to. I’d like to thank my guest, civil rights attorney, Sarah Schielke, for her work to protect the civil liberties of the public and for taking the time to speak with us today. Thank you, Sarah. 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 friends of the show, Noli D and Lacey R for their support, thank you both very much. 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 livestream, especially Patreon associate producers, John ER, David K, and Louis P. Super fans, Shane [inaudible 00:35:24], 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 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 and Facebook.
And please like and comment. You know I really read your comments and appreciate them. And we do have the Patreon link pinned in the comments below for 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. 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.
Shocking video of Pennsylvania State Trooper Ronald K. Davis wrestling his girlfriend, Michelle Perfanov, to the ground has opened the lid on a case of clear domestic abuse buttressed by state power. Davis, who is married, allegedly lied to his fellow officers and personally arrested Perfanov in order to have her involuntarily committed to a psychiatric ward after Perfanov tried to end their four-month relationship. Davis has since been charged with false imprisonment, assault, strangulation and official oppression. Although he was warned by fellow officers to not take matters into his own hands Davis used carefully curated text messages to obtain the order, tracked Perfanov down, assaulted her, and placed her in custody. Police Accountability Report examines the case.
Production: Stephen Janis, Taya Graham Post-Production: Stephen Janis
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 thank you for joining me for this breaking news update from the Police Accountability Report. Shocking video has been released of a Pennsylvania state trooper named Ronald K. Davis, who has been charged with strangulation, false imprisonment, official misconduct in office, assault, and the forcible involuntary commitment of his girlfriend. Take a look at this video.
Speaker 1:
Absolutely not. What is wrong with you? Would you do this? Would you? I thought. Okay, please let me go. You just called the cops on me. You’re a cop. You’re a fucking pussy. What the fuck is wrong with you? I’ve lived all over the world and not one time has anyone ever come up, tackled me, attacked me, and called the cops on me for existing in the woods. But if you want to sit on me and you call the cops on me for what? For what? Oh, because I’m around a sociopath who says he can do whatever the he fucking want.
Women are objects he can fuck whatever he wants. You’re insane. You’re absolutely insane. You can’t just walk up to someone and attack them and then call the cops on them and say you’re going… That’s not okay. Get off of me. You’ve just called the cops on me for existing. You don’t give a shit about anything except yourself. And if this is caring, you have a very fucked up, delusional way of expressing it. Get off of me. I didn’t do anything. I didn’t do anything wrong except disagree with you. Let me go. You can’t just stop with me like that. Get off of me. I can’t breathe. I can’t.
Speaker 2:
Don’t bite me.
Speaker 1:
Please let me go.
Speaker 2:
No.
Speaker 1:
Please let me go.
Speaker 2:
No.
Speaker 1:
Please let me go. Can I just sit up?
Speaker 2:
No.
Speaker 1:
I can’t breathe. Why won’t you listen to that? Just please not let him put anything on my name or my record? I didn’t do anything. That’s all I have because I didn’t do anything.
Speaker 2:
I don’t think that’s the situation. I don’t think that’s the situation. Nobody’s here to hurt you at all.
Speaker 1:
Then why are you here? I didn’t do anything wrong.
Speaker 2:
Watch your antenna, dudes.
Speaker 1:
Please. Please. I didn’t do anything wrong. You can’t take me here.
Speaker 2:
Stop pinching me.
Speaker 1:
What did I do? Please stop. Get me a tree like a human being, please? Can you do that? Can I stand here and put my things together? You can watch me all you want. You can watch me all you want. That’s not fair. I didn’t do anything wrong to get away from you. I don’t understand.
Speaker 2:
Relax.
Speaker 1:
I can’t relax. You just called the cops on me for existing because I didn’t like your drew. Jesus, dude. Come on. What the fuck? Why are you treating me like I’m a criminal? I didn’t do anything. I just want to be able to stand back.
Speaker 2:
You call them back and find out where they are.
Speaker 1:
I just wouldn’t be able to stand. This isn’t fair. I didn’t do anything wrong. I didn’t do anything wrong. I didn’t do anything wrong. I just left. I don’t understand. I don’t understand. Please stop. Please stop so I can get the hair out of my face. That would be really nice. Please. Can I just get the hair out of my van? I can go anywhere. The cops are on their way anyway, but I don’t even know what I did. Please. Please. Please. Come on. What did I do? This is not fair. Can I stand up, please? I can’t breathe again. Can I stand here?
Speaker 2:
Yes.
Speaker 1:
Can I just stand and get my arms back?
Speaker 2:
Yep.
Speaker 1:
Well, what’s going to happen here? Well, what did you do? Just attack. What is going on? What is happening? Why? What the fuck? I didn’t do anything wrong. I didn’t do anything. I didn’t do anything. I didn’t do anything. I didn’t do anything. I didn’t do anything. Why are the cops coming for me?
Speaker 2:
To help you.
Speaker 1:
To help me with what? You?
Taya Graham:
Now, if you took note as I do, she sounds clearheaded and surprisingly reasonable during this encounter. Stephen, what did you note?
Stephen Janis:
Okay, so I read the affidavit, which outlined the charges, and it all started with a, I guess, this trooper was dating this young woman and she’s decided she was done with it. She wanted to leave. He locked her belongings and took away her trailer, which she was living in, and locked that up so she couldn’t get in. She was desperate. She wanted to leave the area of Pennsylvania he was in and move to another city, and he was looking to prevent it. That’s what precipitated this.
They got into an argument via text, and he used those texts to say that she was suicidal and swear out a false, let me say false affidavit for her involuntary commitment. He then executed that warrant, which we’re showing you right now that execution, and did it without any approval of the State Trooper barrack where he worked. It was a completely very scary misuse of police force. Let’s take another look at the video and watch carefully how brutal he is and ask yourself this question, why did he record this?
Taya Graham:
Now, this incident traces back to somewhat turbulent relationship that he had with the victim. Ronald K. Davis is a married man with a family, and he had his ex-girlfriend living on a piece of the property he had in the woods. Her camper was there. When she expressed her desire to no longer be in a relationship with him and move to the city, he locked her out of her camper, withheld her belongings, and even threatened to paint her as crazy. Take a look at these allegations. Stephen, talk us through some of these allegations.
Stephen Janis:
I mean, what happened was that she was involuntarily committed and then she went for an interview at the State Trooper barrack that he worked. She said, “Hey, I never wanted to kill myself.” There was no exigent circumstances here. The troopers looked at the text message and said, and also spoke to the people in the medical facility, said, “Yeah, she is not a person who wants to kill herself. This is all about his being upset with her ending the relationship.” They went through all the texts.
Actually after he swore out for the involuntary commitment against her, the state troopers there had said, “We will execute this. You should not be involved in this.” He said, “No, I’ll handle it.” Walked out. Then he enlisted a civilian, got into a car, and then for some reason had the civilian record this, which we’re showing you on the screen now. He really, I think, felt that he could use the criminal justice system to his advantage. Very scary in that sense because a young woman ended up spending 72 hours involuntarily committed.
I’m not sure why police investigated this, but they actually did a very thorough job. If you look at the allegations, it was a very clear investigation and really, really, really damning.
Taya Graham:
I do have to say that the investigation that was done was excellent. However, I think because of the incredibly damning video evidence, an investigation was absolutely necessary. Can you imagine, 72 hours locked up involuntarily knowing that a man with a badge and a gun is the one responsible for it? It is an incredible form of intimidation.
Something else I wanted to note is that the police officer warned her when she was trying to break up with him that he would “paint her as crazy” and he said F around and find out. He had the intention all along. This was a very premeditated act of using his badge to intimidate and control a young woman whose only crime was wanting to break up with him. Now, Steven, do you know where these charges stand right now?
Stephen Janis:
Well, right now they are in process. I mean, there has been no trial. There’s no trial date set that I can see in the system. Right now, these are just allegations. Charges were not against him. I don’t know the status of employment. Didn’t say in the media reports whether he had been fired. I would assume he’d be under some internal investigation, absolutely.
But for now, there are charges that will be adjudicated at a later date. I would hope, and I’m not saying this in any opinion, but that his gun and badge would be taken away at least at this point, given what he’s capable of.
Taya Graham:
Absolutely.
Stephen Janis:
I think any person would call for that kind of accountability in a case like this.
Taya Graham:
One of the reasons why it was so important for me to highlight this particular story is that it is not uncommon for there to be intimate partner violence or domestic violence within the law enforcement community. As a matter of fact, there’s statistics that show between 28% to as high as 40% of law enforcement officers have engaged in some form of intimate partner violence, which is three to four times higher than the general population. It makes me think back to the case of Jeffrey Wharton, a New Mexico Albuquerque police officer.
Back in 2020, he was caught on ring camera dragging his girlfriend. It resulted in gashes and a brain bleed, and yet his girlfriend said she did not want to press charges and refused to testify against him in court, which shows you how powerful the intimidation is of someone who has a badge and a gun when you want to end a relationship or when you say you want to leave. We’re going to give you updates on this story. Stephen, thank you so much for covering this with me.
I really appreciate it. We’re going to be back with another Police Accountability Report episode this Thursday, 9:00 PM Eastern Time. I hope to see you there. And as always, be safe out there.
Well-known cop watcher James Freeman was unfazed by the mainstream media’s recent coverage of a phenomenon he himself has participated in for the better part of five years.
A recent Washington Post story highlighted how Freeman and other “cop watchers” had altered the behavior of police officers with simple yet powerful tools: omnipresent cell phone cameras that turn encounters with cops into provocative YouTube videos. But for him, by the time the article was published, it was already outdated.
Freeman is one of hundreds who have reinvented the process of cop watching since the Black Panther Party started filming police in the 1960s. He thinks the battle between citizen journalists and law enforcement has evolved.
Partly, that battle has shifted from the streets to the courts—a change in venue that Freeman says has been a natural evolution, and one that he knows all too well since his cop-watching tactics have often ended up being adjudicated by a judge, not police on the street.
“You start to realize the judiciary is truly a branch of government accountable only to itself,” Freeman told Police Accountability Report. “It’s frustrating because they can endlessly drag you through the system.”
But cop watching itself has also changed, a practice that is part of a broader movement to redefine what it means for regular people to actively push back against an array of institutions, not just policing, that govern their lives. This ongoing struggle to hold power accountable may have started on the streets, but it has since moved on.
Freeman is one of hundreds who have reinvented the process of cop watching since the Black Panther Party started filming police in the 1960s. He thinks the battle between citizen journalists and law enforcement has evolved.
This idea crystallized for Freeman when he turned his attention to his local courthouse in rural New Mexico. The move led to one of Freeman’s most daunting skirmishes and, recently, one of his most implausible victories.
Officials had banned Freeman from the courthouse in New Mexico via an administrative order, arguing he was disruptive. But Freeman countered with a federal lawsuit alleging the order violated his right to due process and the First-Amendment-guaranteed freedom of the press. The defendants, a group of court officers, did not respond to the complaint, which led to a default judgment in Freeman’s favor. Now, his lawyers are in settlement talks.
“We’ll see what happens, but at least I can go back and report,” he said. “I’m going to keep fighting.”
Freeman is not the only cop watcher who has found the legal system a more fertile ground to press the argument that citizen journalists are an integral—and Constitutionally protected—part of holding police and government power accountable.
The Texas cop watcher Phillip Turner, known as The Battousai, who was featured in the Washington Post article, made case law during his battle with Corrigan, Texas, police. The YouTuber, who has over 251,000 subscribers, was arrested for the simple act of filming the police.
According to the lawsuit, Turner was cuffed and placed in the back of the police cruiser with the windows rolled up so “they could leave him there to sweat for a while.” The arrest led to a federal civil rights lawsuit establishing the right to film police officers, their vehicles, and stations in the notably conservative federal Fifth District.
But, as The Battousai has since learned, the process of turning a court ruling into a reality on the street is more complex. The decision, now codified in case law as Turner v. Driver, established the right to film police and allowed municipalities to set widely varying restrictions.
But that court order has led to another battle over the interpretation of the ruling, which The Battousai says the town has used to bend the appellate court decision by setting overly restrictive guidelines.
“None of the appellate courts ruled on distance. It is up to the town to come up with a reasonable time, place, and manner to record,” he told PAR.
The shift to the courtroom from the sidewalk reflects an uncomfortable reality that often goes hand in hand with the process of constantly watching cops: sometimes, the act itself can lead to an arrest. That fact was particularly true for one of cop watching’s most controversial practitioners, Denver activist Eric Brandt.
Brandt says he has been arrested almost 200 times, a result that some attribute to his confrontational and often colorful style when interacting with police, but others say it stems from law enforcement’s intolerance of pushback. Either way, Brandt and his unorthodox antics left their mark—not just on the sidewalk, but in the courtroom.
He was known for bicycling around Denver with a giant homemade middle finger inscribed with “F-ck Cops,” and for attending hearings dressed in unconventional attire, including wearing a spaghetti strainer on his head, which Brandt said he did as part of his religious observance as a “Pastafarian.”
Brandt is currently serving a 12-year sentence after pleading guilty to three felony counts of Retaliating against a Judge. The penalty has been decried as overly harsh by his supporters, and Brandt is now appealing it on the grounds that the judge’s rationale for the sentence expressed bias against him.
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.
But Brandt was, and still is, a prolific filer of lawsuits, writing his own briefs and representing himself in roughly a dozen civil rights and First Amendment cases.
Notably, 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 “F-ck Cops” motto.
Brandt’s pro se suit led to a $30,000 settlement, 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 PAR 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 another cop watcher, Abade Izzaray (known as Liberty Freak), filed the suit, which began with a straightforward cop watch of a DUI stop in Lakewood, Colorado, in 2020.
Abade and Brandt filed a suit pro se, arguing that the officer’s actions interfered with their right to record. But 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 it would be a test case to establish the right to film police.
The Electronic Frontier Foundation, the Cato Institute, and the US Department of Justice were among the organizations that filed amicus briefs on their behalf. Eventually, the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the officer should have known the right to record was established and remanded the case back to the district court for a trial.
The plaintiffs recently reached a settlement for $35,000. But, as Liberty Freak notes, he has effectively stopped actively cop watching while remaining entangled in various legal actions stemming from his previous work on the streets. For him, that is the next and most important battleground: creating case law that will make the process of cop watching less fraught.
“It’s so much more difficult than people think,” he told PAR. “I’ve been so lucky to have Eric Brandt, who has connected me to a lot of attorneys who have helped us,”
But he added that trying to steer a case through the courts without a law license is perhaps even more precarious than turning a camera on cops.
“Doing it on your own, I’ve discovered, there’s not a whole lot of help if you’re working pro se,” he said. “It’s like you have to be part of a special clan.’
For a group of Texas YouTubers, a recent set of indictments has led to the more troubling prospect that municipalities could criminalize the act of cop watching—an existential struggle that could lead to years in jail and a veritable shutdown for others who could fall under the same legal category.
Can Cop Watching Be Criminalized?
Not all cop watchers, however, are battling in civil courts over the right to film.
For a group of Texas YouTubers, a recent set of indictments has led to the more troubling prospect that municipalities could criminalize the act of cop watching—an existential struggle that could lead to years in jail and a veritable shutdown for others who could fall under the same legal category.
The charges result from what HBO Matt says was a routine cop watch. The indictment used a novel legal theory arguing that, since cop watchers create videos that are monetized on YouTube, their act of filming is a criminal conspiracy.
“They know that they don’t have a real criminal case against us, but they are dragging us through the courts… The process is the punishment,” he said.
But Texas is not alone in using the law to push back against—and, perhaps, criminalize—cop watching. It is a strategy taking root in several statehouses such as Arizona, Oklahoma, and Indiana.
In Arizona, multiple media organizations, including the ACLU and the Associated Press, joined forces to fight a law limiting how close people can get to police while recording them—a law that was declared unconstitutional in July by US District Judge John J. Tuchi.
In Indiana, state legislators also passed HEA 1186, a bill to limit cop watchers from filming within 25 feet of a police officer. The bill is being contested after a cop watcher named Donald Nicodemus, also known as Freedom2Film, was charged with violating the law after cops continued to order him to back up in 25-foot increments multiple times while he was documenting a police investigation into a shooting.
The lawsuit contends the law creates an onerous and subjective 25-foot buffer between the videographer and officers performing their duties. The ACLU asserts that HEA 1186’s wording permits officers to enforce this perimeter solely based on the act of recording, without evidence of interference with an officer’s duties.
The streets still matter
Of course, many who continue to cop watch still find work on the street to be a necessary and essential part of the process..
Tom Zebra, who has been filming cops with a VHS recorder in his trunk since the early aughts, and his partner Laura Shark, were recently reminded of this truism when they arrived on the scene of a car stop by the Los Angeles County Sheriff in June.
The LA sheriffs, notorious for their penchant for racially profiling motorists, had detained a driver for having tinted windows. But the encounter soon escalated when police accused the driver of being under the influence of marijuana. Officers proceeded to confiscate the phone of his passenger, who had been filming.
“They know that they don’t have a real criminal case against us, but they are dragging us through the courts… The process is the punishment.”
“HBO MATT,” COP WATCHER
Fortunately, Tom, Laura, and Jodie Kat Media arrived shortly after the police had handcuffed the driver. Their documentation of what happened next provided compelling first-hand reporting on an agency that the ACLU had accused of spending billions of dollars indiscriminately pulling over motorists of color.
As the trio continued to film, police escalated the stop by accusing the driver of smoking marijuana, citing his recent purchase at a nearby dispensary. However, he maintained his innocence, noting that the purchase was still in its container. The driver was arrested, and his passenger was abandoned on the side of the road; her phone was confiscated, and her house keys and wallet were impounded.
Still, Tom and Laura continued to film and provide a visual record of the anatomy of a questionable car stop, capturing on a granular level what the ACLU had accused the department of doing writ large.
Fortunately, the passenger could turn to the cop watchers for consolation, a ride, and $85 to retrieve her property.
A movement that is about more than cops
Perhaps the shift from the curb to courts is a simple recognition of what cop watching truly is about: a movement that goes beyond policing.
What these chaotic camera people lack in Twitter credibility or legacy media stature, they compensate for with anarchistic creativity. They invent new ways to report without internalizing or prescribing any particular presentation ethos other than defiance. In a sense, they have taken back the free press from the elites who profess to own its digital domains by putting their imagination first. The one commonality this disparate group shares is the belief they have the right to be heard.
It is imprecise, messy, and often provocative. But it’s also a grassroots movement about much more than cops—perhaps that’s the real story the mainstream media is missing.
After two years of resistance against the proposed “Atlanta Public Safety Training Center,” more commonly known as Cop City, more than 60 activists associated with the movement have been indicted on RICO charges. The push to build Cop City and the heavy-handed state response to local protests cannot be separated from the past decade of neoliberal crisis and anti-police protests rocking Atlanta and the country at large. Taya Graham and Stephen Janis of Police Accountability Report join Rattling the Bars for a special crossover episode on the movement to Stop Cop City.
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. Conrad George Jackson stated in one of his writings that, “The criminal justice system itself is the enemy of any type of resistance to fascism.” Throughout this country’s history, we see the use of the criminal injustice system to suppress any type of resistance to fascism. J. Edgar Hoover stated that the goal of the counterintelligence program COINTELPRO was to prevent the rise of a Black Messiah, who would be capable of organizing Black people and the defying fascism.
Given our history, it’s no surprise that in 2023, we’re talking about an attempt to build a military style complex for training police in Atlanta, also known as Cop City. Cop City itself will be a monument to our criminal injustice system. The fastest response to people protesting Cop City shows what this project is all about. As we speak, the state of Georgia is pursuing RICO charges for over 60 Cop City protestors. Before the crackdown on Cop City protestors, the LA Police Department criminal conspiracy section used agent provocateur to set up and kill members of the Black Panther Party.
The most noted agent provocateur was Louis Tackwood. Criminalizing civil disobedience was a goal of the LA criminal conspiracy section, and that’s just one of the countless examples of state fascist crackdown on descent, The Chicago Seven, The Panther 21, anti-war protestors in the ’60s, civil rights protestors, and now the Stop Cop City Movement. Joining me to talk about Cop City are my colleagues, Stephen Janis and Taya Graham. Welcome to Rattling The Bars.
Stephen Janis:
Thanks for having us.
Taya Graham:
Glad to be back.
Mansa Musa:
Yeah, I’m definitely glad to have you all back. Before we go into unpacking Cop City, let’s just give context to where we believe that this response is coming from. We had Rodney King.
Taya Graham:
Yes.
Mansa Musa:
We had Freddie Gray. We had George Floyd. We had multiple examples of people being killed by the police. And as a result of that, we had an outcry, a national outcry, worldwide outcry against police brutality and the taxes being used. And the cry, it came on a lot of level with police reform. I’ve got issues with reforming the police, but that’s what they came up with. We need to do something with divesting the police.
And as a result of that, we see now the fastest response is to say, “Okay, we hear you. So, we’re going to do something and we’re going to meet your demands by creating a training mechanism for the police. And the training mechanism we’re going to create, we’re going to create this state-of-the-art facility. We’re going to create this training facility that’s going to be so magnificent that when the police come out, they’re going to be like Robocop.
They’re going to be programmed to see the kitten in the tree, take it down. They’ll be programmed to see little kid girl crossing the street with the bicycles, stop the car. They’d be so sanitized that when people call for the police, they’re going to expect the police to come and do what they’re delegated to do.” That’s a myth.
Stephen Janis:
Yeah.
Mansa Musa:
All right, let me say this here. Both of you all went down there and visited Cop City. So, educate our audience on, starting with you Janis, educate our audience on what is Cop City.
Stephen Janis:
Well, before I talk about Cop City, I just want to say that we have this idea at the police accountability report that the idea that you can reform police so that police are no longer corrupt is an ill thought out idea. The idea that there’s this beautiful police, utopian police department that will do nothing but constitutionally enforce the law is looking at the problem in the wrong way because the police department only reflects the underlying values of community. And in this sense, in a sense we see in Baltimore made these cities, it reflects the massive wealth inequality and injustice that construct these communities.
So, the idea to say there’s some magic solution, and when you look to Baltimore, and I think Taya has talked about this extensively, our consent decree, which we had in 2016 with the federal government has led to tens of millions of dollars spent on the police department, but nothing into the community. So, why do you think that’s going to help anything? So, that should be the first thing we say before we approach this idea of Cop City.
Now in March, Taya and I traveled to Cop City. And we really were on the ground and looking at it. And I think Cop City, as you said, is an expression of this idea. And it’s sort of an extension of a lot of concepts that we’ll get into as we go on. But the main thing about it was that it was very interesting to see the synergy between corporate wealth, which is the Atlanta Police Foundation and the political might of the police. The two coincided in this lopsided neoliberal, I guess, you would call alliance, that wanted to further push the myth that you’re talking about.
That somehow investing more money in police will make a community better. And the biggest part of that is when you look at Cop City taking this beautiful sort of very, I think, limited amount of force and tearing it down is I think emblematic of how corrupt that idea is essentially.
Taya Graham:
And let me describe for you a little bit, since we did go there in person what the Weelaunee Forest is like. So, there’s over 300 acres of this forest and it’s considered one of the four lungs of Atlanta. That is how important this forest is. So, its preservation is absolutely necessary because if you knock down, like they’re planning to 85 acres of the forest, it can contribute to soil erosion, which means there’s going to be more flooding. If you take down these trees, then you’re going to be limiting the amount of air pollution that can be dealt with as these trees are beautiful, natural carbon captures. They produce oxygen.
And these trees are absolutely essential to keeping those neighborhoods as well as the city at of Atlanta cool and pleasant to be in. So, this is a beautiful forest that was originally deeded for the recreational use of the people that live in the unincorporated DeKalb County that surround it. And those are primarily Black working-class neighborhoods. It was supposed to be kept for their use, for their enjoyment, for their recreation.
And instead, 85 acres is going to be raised to build this complex. Now, they’ve scaled back the complex a little bit. The Atlanta Public Safety Foundation originally planned to have this complex have demolitions, but now they’re only going to have firing ranges. They’re not going to do the demolitions anymore.
Mansa Musa:
We ain’t blowing it up. We’re going to shoot stuff.
Taya Graham:
We’re just going to shoot things. They’re going to have a nightclub. They’re going to have an apartment building. They’re going to have mock city streets. So, it does seem, I think, the residents have a genuine concern as to what type of training they’re going to be receiving there.
Stephen Janis:
And when we visited the neighborhoods surrounding it, you would see housing that was just in disrepair. And also, in Atlanta, we would see $750,000 condos rising, but an extreme shortage of affordable housing. So, they’re building apartments, they’re building a mock village, but they’re not building affordable housing for people in the city or helping people to repair the housing that they have. I think that’s a perfect sort of analogy or a metaphor for what this is really about.
Mansa Musa:
And it resonates your point when the whole design of the police is supposed to be to make the community safer and it should be a cohesion between the two. But in this regard, we see that, one, you’re taking an ecological nightmare to stop, one, and that mean the quality of life in that community is going to get worser.
But more importantly, when you have a depressed environment, then it’s right for police brutality because now you can justify coming into the neighborhoods and saying, “Oh, well, if crime is running amuck,” yeah, you create such a depressed environment, where people don’t have no alternative and it’s not justification for criminal behavior, but it’s the reality of what you do to the poor and oppressed community.
But going forward, okay, let’s look at how did this come about? Because you, Taya, was talking about, and this is really the insanity part about this whole thing with Atlanta. Because we was talking about when you look at Atlanta, okay, you look at Dr. King, you look at the civil rights movement, you look at everything that went on in Atlanta to get Atlanta to become what they call the Black Mecca with more like a Black mistake. In reality because you have the middle class, the liberal elitist middle class that’s in Atlanta that controlled the most political machinery. They weighed and they sided with this.
So, where are you? So, how is the people being represented in this community?
Stephen Janis:
Go ahead.
Taya Graham:
Well, something I noticed is that there seems to be a divide between the old guard of Black civil rights activists who eventually moved into positions of leadership in Atlanta and the new younger generation of activists. The old Black civil rights folks, the NAACP, other activists, other leaders in positions of power, they’ve remained notably silent or have actually cosigned onto this project.
Whereas the younger generation of activists are pushing back and asking their elders, why aren’t they stepping forward? Why are they allowing this to happen? Ninety million dollars is going to be invested into this. And as Stephen rightly pointed out, there’s a need for affordable housing. How were they able to raise $90 million? Well, I can tell you.
Home Depot put their money in. Delta Airlines put their money in. Merrill Lynch put their money in. Inspire Brands, which is actually parent company for Dunkin’ Donuts. And I won’t make a joke about cops and donuts. But Coca-Cola, it’s like a who’s who of corporate America.
Mansa Musa:
Corporate America.
Taya Graham:
And I think it so clearly shows something that many people have discussed, which there is a line between what police do that they … Police are primarily protectors of private property and capital interests.
Mansa Musa:
That’s right.
Taya Graham:
And I think this is so clear that money is being poured into a project to further the police’s ability to protect private capital as opposed to genuinely public safety.
Stephen Janis:
Well, as we were talking about before, this is kind of the culmination of the neoliberal crisis that started years ago. And one of the ideas of neoliberalism that I think is often misunderstood with regards to the police is the fact that neoliberalism is supposed to be the idea that it’s disband government programs because the private market can solve the problems. But what it is in reality is that private capital ask government to actually ensure their profits.
Mansa Musa:
That’s right.
Stephen Janis:
And that’s different about it. Like in Baltimore here, we have developers who use the government to subsidize and ensure their profits. And so, what happens when you do that is a tremendous imbalance of wealth and a tremendously destructive political economy. And the only way that you can keep that and I think sort of tap down on the uprising about the unfairness is to use policing.
And the best way to mythologize policing is to invest in things symbolically like Cop City, where you’re saying, “Look what we’re doing. We’re building this beautiful.” And I think partly, it was interesting because people mentioned to us that this was called so-called the Atlanta way, where they kind of get together with the powers that be and the neoliberal, I don’t know what to call them, tools. And they conjure this vision that somehow investing in public safety is going to somehow improve the underlying condition just isn’t true.
Neoliberalism has caused an historic income inequality and building Cop City is not going to create safety. Building affordable housing might.
Mansa Musa:
Right. And that’s really what’s going-
Stephen Janis:
And it’s a mythology that continues. It continues to stay.
Mansa Musa:
Yeah. It definitely continues because the reality is that if you give people jobs, if you give people housing and you give people quality education-
Stephen Janis:
Without lead in it.
Mansa Musa:
Yeah, without lead in it, you get people holistic food, you invest in people, then you don’t need the police because people going to take care of themselves. But going back, looking at some of the things that’s going on in Atlanta, and really, I found just outrageous is we talking about a place where at one point in time, the police was literally, people were so fearful of the police and terrorized them that they wouldn’t even come out their house that night before because of Jim Crow.
And now we have a situation where you actually because of corporate America and corporate America lying in your pockets and corporate America investing in your campaign and corporate America ensuring that you stay in this seat of so-called power to continue to do the building of capitalists that now you turn a blind eye to the reality that you are encouraging a military industrial complex style police department to police your community because they’re not going to police the more affluent. They don’t have to police the more affluent. They’re going to be the barricade between the affluent community and the poor and oppressed community.
Taya Graham:
When you said that, that made me think of the reaction, because this is something that Atlanta residents pointed out to us. In 2020, when Rayshard Brooks was brutalized by the police, there was an uprising in Atlanta. And I think the people at the time, the politicians, the people in power, the corporations, Coca-Cola, Home Depot, Wells Fargo, all those folks who are funding this project, they got very scared. They very much wanted to protect their investment, their capital. And that’s one of the reasons why they’re turning to this public safety complex.
And I think one of the things that people don’t often mention is that in the area around Weelaunee Forest, that Black working-class area, that’s unincorporated DeKalb County. They have no representation on that city council that is voting for Cop City.
Stephen Janis:
That has voted continually.
Taya Graham:
So, they literally have no other choice than to go out in the street and protest and to hold signs. They have no other way of expressing their voice. They are literally disenfranchised when it comes to this project.
Mansa Musa:
And that was strategic because like you said, if they go in an area where it’s not incorporated, then they don’t have to worry about the pretense, the politicians don’t have to worry about the pretense of being concerned or coming forward and reading all the script. “Yeah, we’re going see about, we’re going to investigate.” They don’t have to come up with that. They can just say like, “Well, hey, it’s business as usual.”
But okay, let’s talk about the indictment of the 60 people under RICO. Now, this is here is probably the most ominous thing I’ve seen agree in terms of the utilization of the criminal justice system. And George Jackson say, “It’s the institution that’s the threat.” And he was specifically talking about the criminal justice system, where you take an act, RICK Act and primary responsible for where it’s really a catchall.
Stephen Janis:
It is.
Mansa Musa:
We could get charged with RICO right now.
Stephen Janis:
Yes, we could.
Mansa Musa:
And we say the wrong thing.
Stephen Janis:
Absolutely.
Mansa Musa:
And somebody say, “Oh, yeah, well, they was talking about blowing up something.” And we could get y’all with RICO and be find ourselves in front of federal grand jury trying to rationalize why our freedom of speech should be recognized. Okay, how did this come about?
Stephen Janis:
Yeah, I mean, I think as Taya was talking about, there was a tremendous fear in the neoliberal coalition that she discussed with corporations and police, especially because they actually mentioned Rayshard Brooks, who was a man who was killed by police after falling asleep in a drive-thru line in a restaurant. So, I think there was tremendous fear after that. And they kind of got together and they saw these groups, these grassroots groups rising up. What are we going to do about them? How are we going to completely, I think, destroy the ability to protest?
Because this indictment is one of the most scary things, and I’ve been covering the criminal justice for 20 years, that I’ve ever read. This thing is insane. I mean, they do stuff like say they had letter writing campaigns. They argued the First Amendment. They gave people numbers to call when they were in jail, things that are all supposed to be fundamentally protected. And they indicted people for it. They indicted people for it. And the preamble is like an introduction. I guess, they’d have a little waxing philosophic on anarchism.
Taya Graham:
Oh, my gosh. They had three pages describing anarchism. They talked about collectivism, mutual aid, sacrificing individual needs for the collective good. I’m reading this.
Stephen Janis:
All of it sounds really attractive to me.
Taya Graham:
I was going to say, they’re making anarchism sound pretty great. But if it wasn’t so tragic what they were doing, I would have to laugh. They talked about handing out flyers as part of the criminal conspiracy.
Stephen Janis:
They talked about zines, zines.
Taya Graham:
Making zines, the little-
Stephen Janis:
Pamphlets.
Taya Graham:
… photocopy. You put a staple in the middle that you hand out, maybe you give them out to 20 or 30 people. They’re talking about zines as being part of being a conspiracy. And just to also add to this, they’ve also used domestic terrorism charges and weaponized it against the protesters. And one of the most tragic things about the use of the domestic terrorism charges is that originally, the law changing the exact meaning of domestic terrorism charges was done in order to ensure that Dylann Roof, who massacred those people would be able to be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.
And at the time, an elected official went on record and said, “You know what? Broadening the definition of domestic terrorism may seem like a good thing right now, but this could be weaponized against activists. In particular, it could be weaponized against folks in the Black Lives Matter Movement.” And what do we see right now? It’s being weaponized against activists. It’s being weaponized against people who are using their freedom of speech and people who are involved in anti-racist and anti-police brutality movement.
Stephen Janis:
I mean, this is like, Instead of relying on a modicum of government structure, anarchy relies on human association instead of government to fulfill all human needs. I mean, is that supposed to be an indictment of something?
Mansa Musa:
What is that?
Stephen Janis:
The community is going to rely upon itself to have its own power? I mean, it’s basically saying that the power only lies with us and not with you.
Mansa Musa:
And to y’all point, when you’re taking the weaponize, now you’re weaponizing just civil disobedience.
Stephen Janis:
Exactly, the basics.
Mansa Musa:
But more importantly, you’re weaponizing, you’re saying that anybody that has a problem with an unpopular policy or procedure, depending on how they … Anything other than saying nothing.
Stephen Janis:
Yeah.
Taya Graham:
Right.
Mansa Musa:
Because if you say anything, if this get by, this watch, if this get by, then this becomes the template for all social disobedience. And to go back to your point, Janis, mainly when we look at Black Lives Matter, when we look at any type of protest, I’m going to give you a good example of how they could have used it and the kids at Sandy Hook. Because remember when 300,000 kids came to Washington, they said that because about the gun laws and it was 300 kids, juvenile, I mean young kids.
Stephen Janis:
Yes, it could have.
Mansa Musa:
But they could turn around and say, “Oh, no, this is anarchy. We’re going to indict them on the RICO for coming out talking about the NRA.” That’s how services-
Stephen Janis:
And I mean, even more absurd. We speak people from the Atlanta Bail Fund, who they also indicted for money laundering. The amount, total amount of question is $6,000.
Taya Graham:
Just $6,000. It was absolutely absurd. And can I just add?
Stephen Janis:
Yeah, go ahead.
Taya Graham:
Very specifically, this money laundering that they accused and we spoke to [inaudible 00:20:09].
Stephen Janis:
We spoke to it.
Taya Graham:
… of the Atlanta Bail Solidarity Foundation. So, what they do is that if you are exercising your right to free speech, you’re at a protest-
Stephen Janis:
And you get arrested.
Taya Graham:
… and you get arrested, you can call them and they will help raise money to get you out.
Stephen Janis:
And you write your number.
Taya Graham:
But they criminalized, they put this in the charges that if you wrote their number on your arm so that you could call them later to be bailed out, that was considered part of a criminal conspiracy. And that’s $6,000 that Stephen mentioned, that money that was part of the money laundering, that was money that was for gas, flyers, printing media, yard signs. That’s the money laundering they’re talking about. I have never seen charges so trumped up in my life.
Stephen Janis:
It’s insane.
Mansa Musa:
I’m going to give you one. I’m going to give you where the real money laundering is. The real money laundering is the fact that you’re spending all this money from the state’s [inaudible 00:20:59] to prosecute people on these bogus charges.
Stephen Janis:
Yeah.
Taya Graham:
Oh, thank you.
Mansa Musa:
Because all the money that you spent, all this money … I remember Susan McDougal, when Kenneth Starr went at her and all that money he spent on keeping her locked up, the amount of money that was spent on that, they could have built houses for everybody in the goddamn country. But it’s the same thing here. You spending all this money to justify this insanity that you call justice and that you could spend the same money on medical schools, safer communities in the sense of providing more housing, which would create a safer environment, people more investing it. Jobs.
You could spend this money on this, but instead you’re going to spend some money on saying you’re going to criminalize somebody for saying, “Oh, somebody going to bail me out. I can’t remember their number, so I’m going to write that number on my arm. Or I’m going to have that number in my pocket. Where have I had that number at? Or right here. Somebody call this number right here. So, all y’all in the conspiracy because y’all conspiring to do what? To get out?”
Taya Graham:
Exactly, exactly.
Stephen Janis:
The one thing we could say about this is that it must be what they have done, what the activists in Atlanta have done has put so much fear in the criminal justice system, in the neoliberal system that they must feel like they have to squash it out to nothing. Because honestly, they have put a mirror on the ugliness of what Cop City really is and the ugliness of the idea that underlines it. And we went down there. When we were down there, we actually saw quite tragically the aftermath of after police had a military organization gone in and just thrown people out. But it was just, like there was a campfire. There were signs.
Taya Graham:
And there were tents. There was a treehouse. And you could tell that this was a place that there were families had been there, that people-
Stephen Janis:
It was a community.
Taya Graham:
Yeah.
Stephen Janis:
It was a community of people with mutual concern.
Taya Graham:
The people had been enjoying the space and it had just been utterly destroyed. The only thing that was left was a memorial to Manny Teran, La Tortuguita.
Mansa Musa:
Okay, right, the one they killed.
Taya Graham:
Yeah. That was left to them. But it was really quite sad.
Stephen Janis:
But it was humble. Do you know what I mean? It was humble.
Mansa Musa:
I already know. And as I’m sitting back thinking about it, because what they did or what they’re doing, like you say, it’s no longer about Cop City. See the narrative shifting. It’s no longer about Cop City. It’s about these anarchists, these saboteurs, these agent provocateurs that’s coming down there to destroy the city. But me and you was talking about this earlier, Taya, when you look at the list of people that they indicted, it’s like the who’s who don’t live around in Georgia. It’s the who’s who, where you live at. I don’t live in Georgia.
You know what? And this is a classic southern tactic. And back during civil rights era, this was a classic southern tactic that they used the outsiders coming down here to start trouble and the bus boy, the buses coming down here to start trouble. So, this is they going back to that narrative like, “Oh, outsiders coming down here because the people of Atlanta don’t have no problem with this because it’s for the people of Atlanta. So, why would you have a problem if you’re not going to be down here? Y’all mad because we’re going to have a safe police place.”
Taya Graham:
I’m so glad you pointed that out because that is exactly the narrative that was fed to the mainstream media, especially when the first charges came out of the domestic terrorism charges, which happened at the Weelaunee Forest Music Festival. There were 33 people charged. Thirty-one of them were from outside of Georgia. And they highlighted every state. I think there was one that was actually from outside the United States. Every single state that they were from, and only two people from Georgia were actually charged with domestic terrorism.
And I was thinking to myself, that’s very purposeful because the people I spoke with said there were plenty of Georgia residents there. And it was very much to create a narrative that these are outside agitators, that our people here in the community are fine with this and these people are coming in and stirring our good folk up. That’s exactly what I got from that.
Stephen Janis:
I mean, unfortunately for them, the constitution applies no matter what state you’re in. Technically. I don’t even know why that’s an issue.
Taya Graham:
That’s right.
Mansa Musa:
Something else that’s problematic about this because we recognize that when we had protests and occupy Wall Street, Black Lives Matter, the war in Vietnam, when people protest, they came from all over the world to express solidarity with this issue. Now, you’re scaring people off by saying, “If you come down to Georgia, you cross the state. Now, we’re going to find some draconian law to say you transporting ill thoughts to bring into Georgia to create a problem for the Georgian citizens. Therefore, we’re going to charge you up under RICO or we’re going to charge you with conspiracy, or we’re going to charge you with everything but a homicide.”
Stephen Janis:
Yeah. I mean, I really think that the idea here is to really, it’s not just about crushing descent. It is affirming the idea that descent is somehow more destabilizing than the economic system they created, right?
Mansa Musa:
That’s right. That’s right.
Stephen Janis:
That, oh, my god, the real threat is about 20 kids sitting around a campfire, not Delta Airlines and Coca-Cola destroying the environment, destroying the world we live in. That’s not the threat. The threat is the kids that created little, like you said-
Taya Graham:
Little treehouse.
Stephen Janis:
… treehouses and sat inside a forest. That’s the real threat. And that’s the whole point of this is to somehow conjure this. It’s like the last gas with the neoliberal sort of violence that we see.
Taya Graham:
And I would just add to that, one of the things that I noticed in that incredibly lengthy indictment was how they kept on talking about solidarity and mutual aid as if it was some kind of evil. And like you were talking about, people from all over the world came to participate in our protests in this country during a variety of civil rights movements. So, why is it a crime to receive support, help brotherhood and aid from other people who, let’s say, don’t absolutely live in your city or aren’t directly impacted by the crisis that’s occurring in your community? Why is it a crime to receive support from others?
Stephen Janis:
Because neoliberal capitalism is inherently divisive. And any community that erupts as an abeyance to it becomes a threat.
Mansa Musa:
And that’s really the threat. Because if this was existed back during the times of the abolitionist slavery that everybody, that all abolitionists would’ve been charged with the RICO.
Taya Graham:
You’re so right.
Stephen Janis:
Oh, my god, yeah.
Mansa Musa:
This was everybody-
Taya Graham:
Everyone in the underground railroad.
Mansa Musa:
Everybody in the underground railroad would’ve been charged with conspiracy to disrupt capitalism. And at the end of the day, that’s what really, like you say, Janis, that’s the problem. The problem is not civil disobedience. The problem is that the capitalism and fascism and oppression, that creates an environment for police to run them up because they’re the occupying force in the community.
Stephen Janis:
Well, we’ve seen in Baltimore, the community was economically destabilized by deindustrialization and what do they do, but send in militarized policing to solve the problem. I mean, it’s really strange about it for me as a person who’s not necessarily a capitalist, capitalists supposed to be more efficient with money. Well, if we had just invested in the community, we wouldn’t need all these damn police. And I think that’s what they’re trying to say in Cop City is, “If you take that $90 million and put it into us, we will show you what we can do as a community.”
Mansa Musa:
Yup. And remember in this conversation about the police and getting them out of the community and just getting them away from us was to invest in the community, in the form of bringing social workers in, bringing mental health agencies, to bring people into the community to help the community get stronger as opposed to bringing the police and limited amount of police that you have. But now, they then shifted the narrative. It’s not even about the police no more now.
Stephen Janis:
No.
Mansa Musa:
And unless we can get back on the subject matter of what’s really going on down there, it’s going to be about these 60 people.
Stephen Janis:
Yeah.
Taya Graham:
Something that I think we really found in having this conversation is that it’s highlighted what a threat our solidarity is, what a threat that is to our government. And that’s actually really shameful that human beings coming together in mutual aid and support of each other is considered a threat.
And something that we tried to point out to people when we did our reporting on Cop City is you may think this is a problem in Atlanta and in Georgia, and you think this isn’t going to be a problem for you. Well, we know for a fact because this is part of their advertisement materials for the training facility that roughly 40% of the police officers that are going to be trained at Cop City are going to be from outside of Georgia. They’re planning on training police officers and sheriffs from all around the country.
Mansa Musa:
They can do that, but people can’t come down there in solidarity. And Angela Davis made that in her book if they come in the morning, say, “They come for me in the morning, they’ll come for you tonight.”
Taya Graham:
Absolutely.
Mansa Musa:
As we close out, how do people get access to the indictment and how do they get access to some more information on cops?
Stephen Janis:
Just Google Georgia Bureau of Investigation and press release for indictment or the Georgia State’s Attorney General website has it, posted a link to it. Honestly, I don’t usually tell people to read indictments. And there’s this idea of a speaking indictment versus just a very basic indictment. Well, this is a blueprint indictment where it’s like this is a blueprint to suppress all human descent. It’s anti-humanist in its essence. Because if we can’t have solidarity amongst ourselves, if we can’t have community coalesce around an idea that we don’t like, then it’s game over.
Mansa Musa:
Yeah, it’s game over.
Stephen Janis:
It’s game over.
Mansa Musa:
This is 1983 in its lowest form.
Stephen Janis:
Yeah.
Taya Graham:
And you know what? Stephen made an excellent suggestion for everyone to read this indictment-
Stephen Janis:
I strongly suggest it.
Taya Graham:
… because it’s a blueprint. Also, Cop City itself is a blueprint because we’re looking in our city, Baltimore, right now at our own Cop City being built at a historic Black university at Coppin State, we’re looking at possibly a $330 million police training center being built in my city. So, if you think Cop City can’t come to you…
Mansa Musa:
And as we close on this note, that really sickens me because you saying an HBCU, and the amount of money, they kick back to them, that’s automatically going like, “Oh, okay, well, we’re going to look that way.” As opposed to investing that money. You don’t need to really look farther when investing. You can ride up any street and see the abandonminiums in the city.
Taya Graham:
Yes.
Mansa Musa:
And so, if you want to stop on any block and say, “Well, I’m going to invest $100,000 in this block, or $200,000 in this block, $400,000 in this block,” the whole city be revitalized, unified, and you won’t need the police because people be invested in the community. Thank y’all for joining me on this conversation.
Stephen Janis:
Yeah. Thank you for having us.
Taya Graham:
Thank you for having us back.
Mansa Musa:
Yeah. And I like having y’all back because it’s important. One thing on the ground, y’all, all things about exposing police and corruption when it comes to that particular institution, and we need people really to recognize that we’re not talking about Cop City. We’re not talking about cop and state Cop City. We’re talking about a system of fascism and oppression that breeds conditions for people to be subjugated and dehumanized. And then, the response to that dehumanization, when they seek the self-determination, the response is to build a Cop City, to militarize the police. Thank you for joining me.
Stephen Janis:
Thanks so much.
Mansa Musa:
We continue to ask you to continue to support Rattling The Bars and The Real News. It’s only on Rattling The Bars and The Real News that you get this cutting edge journalism, this cutting edge investigation from both Janis and Taya. They’re always in the space, always exposing the injustice, always exposing those things that are problematic with this country.
And it’s only from Rattling The Bars and The Real News you’ll get this kind of information. You’re not going to get this type of information on main media. You’re not going to get this type of information on major networks. You’re only going to get it on Rattling The Bars. You’re only going to get it on The Real News because guess what? We are really the news. Thank you.
The cop watching movement has proliferated in the last decade as more and more video evidence of routine police abuse has surfaced online. Several states are making an attempt to fight back with new laws restricting the practice. In Indiana, the state legislature recently passed HEA 1186—a new bill that prevents cop watchers from filming within 25 feet of a police officer. Police have wasted no time in abusing the law to intimidate and repress cop watchers, as newly released footage from a crime scene in South Bend demonstrates. Police Accountability Report investigates the push by states and police departments to crack down on cop watchers and foil attempts to hold the police accountable.
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 that reveals just how easy it is to abuse the immense power we confer on police. That’s because, as you will see, cops not only stop two men for walking down a street without any probable cause. But after it was clear there was no evidence to sustain the stop, the police on the scene tried to put the blame for their overreach on the people they detained and harassed.
But before we get started, I want you watching to know that if you have evidence of police misconduct, please email it to us privately at par@therealnews.com. Or you can reach out to me directly at Taya’s Baltimore on Facebook or Twitter, and we might be able to investigate for you. And please like, share and comment on our videos. It does help 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 we also have a Patreon called 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. All right. We’ve gotten that out of the way.
Now, as I’ve discussed on this show before, police power is both extraordinary and unusual. Extraordinary in that it’s been allowed to erode our constitutional rights under the pretext of law and order for decades. Unusual because that erosion has led to an undemocratic pathos, and it’s crept into American society in ways that are often unnoticed and unacknowledged. And nothing exemplifies this dual threat to our rights than the video I am showing you right now. It depicts a random stop by police of two men walking peacefully on a public sidewalk. But it’s what happened once police realized they had been caught in a classic case of overreach that shows us, not tells us, how the law enforcement industrial complex has become comfortable with the idea that our rights don’t matter, especially if exercising your rights impedes their power and exposes how they abuse it.
The story starts in Nappanee, Indiana. There, Donald Nicodemus, otherwise and somewhat ironically known as Freedom2Film, was walking down a public street with a friend. Both, of course, were carrying cell phone cameras, but they were also apparently doing something else that was far more insidious. Let’s watch as a Nappanee officer confronts them.
Officer 1:
Hey, guys. Stop. Both of you, stop.
Speaker 3:
Is that a lawful order?
Freedom2Film:
Is that a lawful order?
Officer 1:
Huh?
Freedom2Film:
Is that a lawful order?
Speaker 3:
Is that a lawful order? Don’t blind my camera. Is that a lawful order?
Officer 1:
That’s fine. I just want to see what you guys are up to.
Speaker 3:
Well, what are you up to? What’s your name and badge number?
Freedom2Film:
What are you up to?
Officer 1:
I’m Officer [inaudible 00:03:03], 843 with the Nappanee Police Department.
Speaker 3:
Well, I don’t answer questions. Thank you very much. Have a nice day.
Freedom2Film:
Why’d you stop us?
Officer 1:
I saw you guys hanging out by the gas station.
Speaker 3:
Why would you stop somebody-
Freedom2Film:
Why’d you stop us?
Speaker 3:
… from moving about freely, unimpeded for no reason?
Officer 1:
Because it’s the middle of the night.
Freedom2Film:
So what?
Officer 1:
I saw you guys up under here.
Speaker 3:
So what?
Freedom2Film:
Are we suspected of doing something?
Officer 1:
Because I saw you guys with backpacks on. You were standing [inaudible 00:03:26]-
Freedom2Film:
Oh, because we had backpacks on?
Officer 1:
The business is closed. It’s private property.
Freedom2Film:
We’re walking down an easement.
Speaker 3:
This is an easement.
Officer 1:
You are now. I came back by. You guys were right here. I’m just seeing-
Freedom2Film:
This is still an easement.
Speaker 3:
It’s still an easement.
Freedom2Film:
You see those utility poles?
Officer 1:
I do.
Speaker 3:
Where’s your supervisor at?
Officer 1:
He’s actually working with me.
Speaker 3:
Get him down here.
Freedom2Film:
Get him down here.
Taya Graham:
Now, it’s worth noting that the sidewalk is practically the last vestige of our First Amendment rights. It’s like an oasis of freedom that has yet to be sullied by the government or otherwise fully encroached upon. That’s because American law enforcement has taken an increasingly aggressive posture towards filming them while performing their official duties. Meaning if you’re on the road or a street, you are blocking traffic. Or if you’re at a public office or facility, you’re prohibited from filming, regardless. So that leaves the sidewalk as the sole geography where filming anything is expressly protected and it’s in the freedom to film zone where officers continued to harass him. Take a look.
Officer 1:
He’s right here if you want to talk to him.
Freedom2Film:
Oh, absolutely.
Speaker 3:
Sure. Don’t impede traffic. Pull in so he can …
Officer 1:
This business is closed.
Freedom2Film:
We were on an easement.
Speaker 3:
Is the city closed?
Officer 1:
No, you said I was impeding traffic.
Speaker 3:
No, he’s impeding traffic.
Officer 1:
Oh.
Speaker 3:
You might want to turn your lights on.
Officer 1:
He’s got his emergency lights on.
Officer 2:
My lights are on.
Speaker 3:
What’s your name and badge number?
Officer 1:
These guys want to talk to my supervisor.
Officer 2:
What’s up?
Speaker 3:
What’s your name and badge number?
Freedom2Film:
We’re wondering the same thing.
Officer 2:
Officer Johnson, 840. Why? What’s up?
Freedom2Film:
We were ordered to stop when we were-
Speaker 3:
We were ordered to stop unlawfully.
Freedom2Film:
… freely traveling down the-
Officer 2:
What do you mean unlawfully?
Speaker 3:
Do you know what moving about freely unimpeded means?
Officer 2:
Are you walking on the sidewalk?
Speaker 3:
Reasonable [inaudible 00:05:02] suspicion.
Officer 2:
Where were you when this officer approached you?
Officer 1:
This is a [inaudible 00:05:05].
Freedom2Film:
We were on the sidewalk.
Speaker 3:
We were on a sidewalk.
Officer 2:
Then go.
Freedom2Film:
No, he told us to stop.
Officer 2:
So you’re not going now?
Speaker 3:
So are you the supervisor-
Freedom2Film:
Stop means-
Officer 2:
I am.
Speaker 3:
… or are you just his [inaudible 00:05:15] buddy?
Officer 2:
I’m the supervisor.
Speaker 3:
Okay. Well, he said that-
Officer 2:
So you’re free to go.
Freedom2Film:
Well, he said stop so …
Officer 1:
I said stop. I asked who you were.
Freedom2Film:
… if we were to keep going, we would probably be hemmed up for resisting.
Taya Graham:
But it turns out Freedom2Film was prepared to push back, which is exactly what he did as the officers continued to question him, queries that turned to accusations as the encounter unfolded. Take a look.
Officer 2:
Okay, are you guys … I’m assuming with all the cameras, you’re just out here trying to bait officers.
Freedom2Film:
No. No. We ain’t baiting nothing. We’re walking down the street.
Speaker 3:
Is that an inflammatory statement?
Officer 2:
No, it is not.
Speaker 3:
Baiting? By walking down the road?
Officer 2:
Okay, you guys can go.
Officer 1:
So here’s the thing-
Freedom2Film:
Well, we were going to go. I don’t have a problem with that.
Officer 1:
[inaudible 00:05:58] so you were standing-
Freedom2Film:
What’s your name, Johnson?
Officer 1:
… at the gas station.
Freedom2Film:
What’s your badge number, Johnson? What’s your badge number?
Officer 2:
Okay, you guys are free to go.
Freedom2Film:
What’s your badge number?
Officer 2:
Okay, if you’re going to [inaudible 00:06:11].
Freedom2Film:
No-
Officer 2:
This is [inaudible 00:06:12].
Freedom2Film:
I want to know your badge number.
Officer 2:
Now, it’s a lawful order for you guys to go.
Freedom2Film:
We don’t have to go nowhere. We’re on a public sidewalk.
Speaker 3:
We’re on a public sidewalk.
Officer 2:
Go.
Freedom2Film:
We don’t have to go.
Officer 2:
Okay. Do you know what provocation is?
Freedom2Film:
What’s that?
Officer 2:
Provocation is willingly and knowingly and intentionally coming out in a confrontational state to incite violence.
Freedom2Film:
I just asked for your badge number.
Officer 2:
Huh?
Officer 1:
I think your ignorance of the law is [inaudible 00:06:31].
Freedom2Film:
I asked for your badge number.
Officer 2:
Where’d you get your law degree? Where’d you get your law degree?
Speaker 3:
[inaudible 00:06:40].
Officer 2:
Where’d you get your law degree?
Speaker 3:
I don’t answer questions.
Officer 2:
Okay, then go.
Taya Graham:
And finally, faced with the absurdity of the intrusion on the rights of both men to walk unimpeded through their community, something unexpected but revealing happened. An admission by the officer that I think speaks to the reason every citizen should have the right to film them. Just watch.
Officer 1:
You guys are free to go.
Freedom2Film:
We’re on a public sidewalk.
Speaker 3:
You’re free to go too.
Officer 1:
I’m here all night. You don’t tell me what to do.
Officer 2:
I get paid the same whether I stand right here-
Freedom2Film:
Well, you told us what to do.
Officer 2:
I can stand here all night.
Speaker 3:
All right.
Officer 1:
Well, when you’re standing under that gas station-
Freedom2Film:
You said because we had backpacks on.
Officer 1:
I come back by and you’re walking away, it looks a little suspicious so I-
Freedom2Film:
Is suspicious a crime?
Officer 1:
And then when I said, “Hey, stop,” and you continued to walk?
Freedom2Film:
Because we didn’t feel like we had to stop.
Officer 1:
That makes me think something else.
Officer 2:
So you saw them walking behind the building?
Freedom2Film:
We were-
Officer 1:
No, they were-
Freedom2Film:
We got all this on camera, man.
Officer 1:
… standing up under the Speedway [inaudible 00:07:32] right here.
Officer 2:
I don’t care. Okay, you guys are free to go.
Freedom2Film:
We’re free to stay too. You’re not.
Officer 1:
You don’t tell us when to leave. You are free to go from this spot right here.
Freedom2Film:
Free to go. Free to stay.
Speaker 3:
We’re free to stay.
Officer 1:
Okay, whatever.
Freedom2Film:
We’re on a public sidewalk.
Officer 1:
I don’t know what you’re trying to prove here.
Freedom2Film:
Well, we’re trying to prove that people get harassed for doing no crimes in this country every day of the week-
Officer 2:
You guys watch way too much YouTube. That’s all I got to say. You guys watch way too much YouTube where I can assume all these videos are going to be found. So you’re free to go.
Freedom2Film:
So are you.
Officer 2:
I’m going to enjoy the rest of my night.
Speaker 3:
Okay. I’m doing my job. So you stay over there. This is a completely different incident.
Officer 1:
And remember the 25-foot wall.
Freedom2Film:
Yeah, remember the 25-foot wall. Remember that name too.
Officer 2:
Remember the name. Why?
Freedom2Film:
Remember that name.
Officer 2:
Why?
Freedom2Film:
Remember that name.
Officer 2:
Why?
Freedom2Film:
Remember it.
Officer 2:
Do you want to get an intimidation charge?
Freedom2Film:
No. You just brought up the 25-foot law. I’m saying remember that name.
Officer 2:
Do you know the 25-foot law?
Freedom2Film:
I do.
Officer 2:
What is it?
Freedom2Film:
Anybody that encroaches within 25 feet of an officer during a scene or something.
Officer 2:
Okay.
Freedom2Film:
Yeah. So I’m just saying remember that name. Remember it.
Officer 2:
Remember the name?
Freedom2Film:
Yep.
Officer 1:
If you know the 25-foot rule, I suggest you stay on your side of the road.
Freedom2Film:
All right. So he’s running my ID because I crossed the street.
Officer 1:
What’s that?
Freedom2Film:
He’s running my name because I crossed the street.
Officer 1:
Yeah, you didn’t use the crosswalk.
Freedom2Film:
Do you guys know what the statute is in Indiana?
Officer 1:
Do you know what the statute is?
Freedom2Film:
Yeah, I do. If you cross outside a crosswalk, you yield to the traffic. There was no traffic. I crossed the street.
Officer 2:
[inaudible 00:09:16] okay, his driver’s license, whatever it is.
Freedom2Film:
Oh, he’s giving me a ticket.
Officer 2:
I am giving you a ticket. Failure to use the sidewalk or crosswalk when available.
Taya Graham:
Now it turns out there is more behind Freedom2Film’s encounter with Indiana police than meets the eye. That’s because the state has recently passed a law to crack down on filming police, a move that he is fighting with his camera and in the courts. And for more on those efforts and what he’s doing, we will be speaking to him later.
But first I’m joined by my reporting partner, Stephen Janis, who’s been looking into the case and reaching out to the police. Stephen, thank you so much for joining me.
Stephen Janis:
Taya, thanks for having me. I appreciate it.
Taya Graham:
So, first, what are police saying about this encounter? How are they justifying it?
Stephen Janis:
I’ll tell you. I reached out to the Nappanee Indiana Police Department. I sent them a message through their Facebook page. I have not heard back but my main question was how do you explain what the officers were doing? Why were they interfering with someone’s right to peaceably assemble and move up and down a sidewalk? So far they haven’t responded but, if they do, I will put something in the chat and let people know what happened.
Taya Graham:
So can you explain this law in Indiana that’s supposed to limit cop watching? What is it intended to do and how is it actually being implemented?
Stephen Janis:
So, Taya, as you can see, this is absolutely ridiculous. This police officer could literally push him into a nearby state towards Chicago or something. I don’t know. It’s crazy. So that’s why the ACLU is challenging this because it’s arbitrary. And we know when police have access to arbitrary power, things go south quickly. So it’s an absurd law.
Taya Graham:
So what are your thoughts on this push to make cop watching basically illegal? What do you think is going on and what will be the long-term ramifications?
Stephen Janis:
Well, I think what we’re seeing here is a power dynamic between citizens and their rights and the police department’s ability to abuse them. And why I think it’s important is because they’re not going to enforce this kind of law against the mainstream media. Who they’re worried about are the regular citizens picking up their cameras and saying, “We’re going to hold you accountable in ways you never anticipated.” I think that’s what this is about because really in some ways it’s like asymmetrical warfare. When people just come out with cameras and their YouTube channels, they cover police in a different way, I think a much more accountable way. I think the mainstream media kind of works with police in many ways that cop watchers don’t. And this is about really I think pushing back against cop watchers, not about the rest of the mainstream media and the people who work for big media organizations with lots of money. This is about pushing back on fundamental freedoms of a citizen to go out and record. And really we need to fight back against it.
Taya Graham:
And now to delve deeper into the anti-cop watching law, his work as a First Amendment auditor and what he has learned from numerous encounters with police, I’m joined by Freedom2Film. Donald, thank you so much for joining me.
Freedom2Film:
Thank you for having me, Taya.
Taya Graham:
So you seem to have been cop watching earlier that evening and were walking with a friend down a public sidewalk and an officer approached you. What happened next?
Freedom2Film:
He told us to stop. He directed us to stop and we turned around and approached him and asked him if that was a lawful order.
Taya Graham:
So you asked for a supervisor, but his arrival only seemed to make the situation worse. How did he approach you and can you tell me what he said?
Freedom2Film:
He approached with kind of an attitude. Once he realized that we were recording, he then stated that he felt like we were baiting them, and my partner asked him if that was an inflammatory statement.
Taya Graham:
So it’s interesting that he mentioned the word inflammatory because you were accused of provocation by the supervisor. However, the first officer initiated the stop, but the second referenced your cameras as part of the provocation. What was he referring to here?
Freedom2Film:
I believe he meant because I had raised my voice to him. I was requesting his name and badge number and he didn’t answer me the first one or two times I asked. So I raised my voice and then he brought up the term of provocation and I asked him, “How is requesting your name and badge number provocation?” And then he started to define what provocation meant. And for just requesting someone’s information, it’s hard to believe that they could try to use that against you.
Taya Graham:
So the officer asked you or the gentleman with you, where did you get your law degree. Do you think he was hoping that you didn’t know your rights to the letter? I mean what do you think he meant by that statement?
Freedom2Film:
I believe he was just trying to poke fun at us because a lot of police make statements about YouTube law degrees or people that watch the videos and stuff. So it’s funny to them. I’ve never claimed to have a law degree. I just look things up and learn things to apply to whatever situation I’m facing filming police in the course of their duties.
Taya Graham:
So I thought it was interesting when the officer said you were free to go and you said you were free to stay and the officers seemed very displeased by that response, but your encounter didn’t end there. The officers went to confer and then immediately approached you again and it seemed they forced a situation where they could demand your ID. What happened next?
Freedom2Film:
First off, we were told that we were stopped originally when this encounter first began because we were seen walking through a private parking lot of a private business that was closed. Okay, so after the supervisor we requested came and we had our discussion with them, they left the scene and immediately went across the street to a private parking lot of a closed business. So you can see where this is going.
Taya Graham:
So the officer mentioned the 25-foot law and you laughed and told him to remember your name and he immediately accused you of intimidation, possibly trying to build a case against you. Tell me about Indiana’s 25-foot law and your unique connection to it.
Freedom2Film:
Yes. Indiana recently passed a law July 1st, the 25-foot law, which is basically in a nutshell that if you approach an officer during an investigation, if you are asked to step 25 feet back, you must do so or you can be arrested for, I believe, a Class C misdemeanor.
Taya Graham:
So you had an interaction where they used the 25-foot law in a questionable way. The officer asks you to move back 25 feet and then enforced another 25 feet back and then another. Can you describe the scenario?
Freedom2Film:
Okay, so that situation was a shots fired call. We arrived, another YouTuber and I, Famously Unfamous is his channel, we arrived and the police were on the other side of the street kind of catty corner to where we were and they were placing shot casing markers. And the side of the street that we were on, there was a disturbance next door to a business and there was no crime scene tape or any markers indicating where a boundary was. So we heard a disturbance between citizens and the police and we were moving towards that area so we could see what was happening. And as soon as we started to cross the street at Brookfield, we were ordered by Officer Stepp to stop. So we stopped and he said we couldn’t proceed any farther. So he paced out 25 feet or 25 steps, which probably wasn’t 25 feet. So we complied with that.
Then a short moment later, Officer Veal approached and asked Officer Stepp if it was okay because I told him … He said we were okay there and he asked Officer Stepp if that was okay and he said, “Disregard what I said,” because he was going to move us back farther. And then something was said or something, maybe someone said, “You’re dismissed or something.” And that made him very upset. So he said he was the crime scene tech, push back farther, 25 more feet from that point that we were already pushed. It just got very heated.
The thing of it is, and this example has been brought up by the ACLU, that one officer can push you back 25 feet, a different officer can come and push you back another 25 feet, a different officer, so on and so forth. You see where this is going, and pretty soon you’re hundreds of feet away. So this is a point here that they’re misusing the 25-foot law.
Taya Graham:
So you’ve filed a lawsuit and the ACLU is actually joining you. Can you tell me a little bit about it and what you hope the outcome will be? What do you hope it will change?
Freedom2Film:
Yes. I reached out to the ACLU very quickly after that incident and they replied and they definitely took my case. I’m glad I reached out to him because I don’t think anybody else would’ve been willing to take it.
Taya Graham:
So the officer seemed particularly concerned that you would film him and put him on YouTube. Were you concerned that when he ran your name that you would experience retaliation for being a cop watcher or being connected to this ACLU lawsuit?
Freedom2Film:
I mean I already felt that I was being retaliated against right on the spot just from the previous encounter. And then when they crossed the street and were sitting in the parking lot, I already felt that I was being retaliated against. They were just waiting to find something that they could pull out of their bag of tricks to get me on. So I don’t fear any retaliation on the ACLU lawsuit now that I’m sure they’re informed that I’m behind that lawsuit. But yeah, in the moment there, I already knew I was being-
Taya Graham:
So why did you become a cop watcher? What was the catalyst or what inspired you?
Freedom2Film:
I would say there’s a few things, but one of the first things that I encountered was one night I was coming home from work and I seen a lot of red and blue lights ahead of me. At first I thought it was an accident. With modern police cars, the LED lights are so overbearing. As I got closer, I didn’t even … Well, before I had gotten to the police cars, apparently they had a sign to indicate that it was a DUI checkpoint, which I didn’t catch until later after I reviewed the video. But as I got closer, I was being waved into a parking lot and then an officer come to my window and start asking me questions, if I’d been drinking. And the thing that bothered me the most about it was they needed to see my ID. I refused at first and then more officers, he requested the Sarge or something to come and he come and said if I do not provide my ID, I will go to jail for failure to ID.
That really bothered me that I was being inconvenienced and then being demanded to give ID for not doing anything against the law. I’m just coming home from work. There were some other things going on in South Bend that kind of sparked my interest, and I decided to pick up a camera and go film. I did start watching some other people. One of the first people that I started to watch on YouTube was Tom Zebra, his cop watches, and started to learn just what to do. It just kind of kicked off from there.
Taya Graham:
What’s the goal of your YouTube channel? What do you hope to accomplish?
Freedom2Film:
My goal has always been to bring awareness to what’s going on with the police and I hope that somebody gains from seeing what I do, how I interact with the police, how I’m using my rights. I just hope people will take away something out of it that will benefit them in the future.
Taya Graham:
I had asked you what inspired you to become a cop watcher, and you mentioned that you were nearly killed by a cop?
Freedom2Film:
Yeah, I would be. I would be dead or in a body cast because a buddy of mine was next to me and we were discussing something or talking and the light turned green and it was probably maybe almost three seconds and then I started to proceed. And I remember out of the corner of my eye, just as we started or I started to go, I seen a car but it was way down the road. And I started to go and, then the next thing you know, I see a light out of the corner of my eye. It flew by and I was like, “Holy” … I was stunned.
Not only did he run the red light, he was excessively speeding because that’s a 30 mile an hour zone on the street.
Taya Graham:
Now, there’s a question that we always ask as journalists when we are confronted with an institution or an agency that does not wish to answer to the people. It’s a query that is the first thought that crosses my mind when a branch of government is pushing back on the right to hold them accountable or pushing back against transparency. But simply what are they trying to hide?
I think it’s a reasonable question because, as we report it extensively, politicians are increasingly passing laws that make it harder if not in some cases illegal to record police. And even more troubling, prosecutors are subjecting cop watchers and First Amendment activists to bizarre charges like organized crime in an effort to thwart their right to record. Which brings me back to my point about hiding something because it’s hard to imagine why average citizens touting cell phones or GoPros would actually require a concerted government effort to stop them. What is it about a person with a cell phone that puts the fear of God in government officials that they will literally try to destroy the First Amendment to stop them?
Well, let me try to answer that question. To do so, I’m going to share some facts about the state of our country that might initially seem irrelevant but would perhaps explain the full-on push to keep cell phone cameras at bay. A statistic that is unique to our country and that is the unseen driver of many ills, and it might seem inexplicable, but can actually be easily understood if you consider the simple, straightforward statistical reality. And here it is.
The US has the highest level of wealth inequality of any similarly situated nation on earth. In other words, the rich here are richer and more awash in wealth than any other country that has a comparable economy. And the divide between the ultra rich and the rest of us is wider and more vast than any civilization that has preceded us or currently exists.
But of course you might be asking now, Taya, what does this have to do with police? What does the fact that we have the biggest collection of fat cats and robber barons in the history of the world have to do with law enforcement? How are the filthy rich and bad policing connected? Well, let me try to answer that question. It’s all explained by Matthew Desmond in his book, Poverty, by America. Or if you want to watch our 2015 documentary called How Poverty Works, I’ll put a link in the comments below.
So both explore a simple fact about the intersection of poverty and wealth inequality. Poverty is actually profitable and great wealth is extracted by exploiting it. Both pieces also explore another truism about poverty that is often overlooked as well. Not only is it profitable, but it’s actually designed to be so. And that creates a system that is both disruptive and destabilizing and that has to be managed because, as poverty becomes more and more profitable for the few, the basic living conditions of the many become more and more tenuous. And that’s where policing comes in because the reasons we see so much absurd, odd or even downright unnecessary policing is because it’s really not unnecessary at all. Meaning police play a critical role in maintaining this resource divide than is often acknowledged.
So let me try and explain how I think this works. The main thing to remember about extreme wealth is that it does not occur in a vacuum. Extreme wealth requires, among other things, the hoarding of communal resources. For example, not paying their fair share for infrastructure that makes their wealth possible but, more importantly, controlling the political system that reinforces it.
What exactly do I mean? Well, if you’re the beneficiary of extreme wealth earned off the backs of the working people of this country, how do you keep the rest of the world from noticing? What I mean is if you’re filthy rich at the expense of the poor, how do you keep anyone from figuring out or demanding accountability and even, ever more daunting, demanding fairness? Well, one way is to keep everyone off balance. And the best way to do that is to use an expansive and punitive criminal justice system to keep them occupied. What that means is that every useless arrest or bogus traffic ticket or overly harsh penalty that we report on are actually tools. In other words, over policing is not excessive at all. In the videos we see of cops using cuffs in situations that seem at best ridiculous are actually part of a broader effort to crush, dissent and corral the chaos that ensues when wealth is so unevenly skewed.
Consider this statistical correlation if you think I’m conjuring patterns that don’t exist. Since the 1970s, America has become the most rabid incarcerator in the history of the world. Since then, the number of people in prison per population in the US rose seven times. That’s sevenfold for anyone out there keeping score, meaning during that same period, our country’s income inequality also rose exponentially. The amount of people incarcerated increased exponentially too. We put more people behind bars than any country on earth.
Now I understand, as I’ve said before, that correlation is not always causation. And I understand that there are a myriad of factors that determine how many people end up ensnared in our criminal justice system. I certainly get that wealth inequality and building prisons is not a straightforward and easy relationship to delineate. But I will say this. There is one undeniable fact about wealth inequality that I think coincides quite nicely with the overly aggressive law enforcement we witness on a weekly basis. It is, to say the least, destabilizing and it is disruptive for the same reason over policing is destructive. It represents a gross imbalance of power. That is, the more unaccountable billionaires you have, the more the political system that’s supposed to represent all of us is bent to their will, the more resources are concentrated with just a handful of people, the more that power distorts all the checks and balances that are supposed to ensure that our government serves everyone.
I mean consider what happened to a proposal in Congress that was supposed to limit surprise medical bills. So surprise medical bills occur when a patient under distress receives care from a doctor out of the network covered by their insurance. That series of events of no fault to the patient can lead to huge bills that are one of the reasons medical debt has exploded in this country and more and more people are going bankrupt because of it. Several years ago, Congress decided enough was enough and began the process of approving legislation to stop the practice and end this unfair fleecing of Americans for good. But something funny happened on the way to passing this bill. A mysterious group started a $28 million dollar advertising blitz arguing the law would somehow be unfair to doctors. In other words, ensuring that patients were not overwhelmed with bankruptcy inducing bills through no fault of their own was bad for the business of medicine.
And the campaign worked and the bill was seriously watered down from an outright ban to a process of arbitration which, of course, favored the hospitals and doctors who benefited from this twisted process in the first place. And who was behind it? Who was making the case to put upon doctors to be able to drop a $40,000 dollar bill on an appendectomy patient? None other than investment bankers. Among them, the Blackstone Group, a collection of billionaires who apparently didn’t have enough money and thus were forced to rip off sick people in their most vulnerable moments.
The mega rich consortium of billionaires spent a trifling amount for them to ensure, no, actually guarantee that tens of thousands of people were stuck with hundreds of millions in debilitating debt, debt that will inevitably destroy people’s lives, drain their retirement accounts or their kids’ college funds, kick them out of their homes, ruin marriages and, finally, make them criminals. And that’s where law enforcement ultimately earns their keep. Because at the end of this ruinous trail of wealth lie the people who make it possible, the working folks, the ones that politicians pander to every four years but who aren’t afforded the decency of basic protections from fraudulent medical bills so someone can add another billion to their bank account.
My point is that, in order to continue this unhealthy wealth imbalance, the political system that’s supposed to represent the common good must be thwarted. And once it is, then the people who could use their power to change it, namely us, must be disenfranchised and we must be convinced that we are not worthy of the privilege. It’s a twisted self-reinforcing vicious cycle. Excessive wealth corrupts and breaks a political system and makes us all seem like the other is the problem, and the ensuing chaos it creates must be managed by an overbearing criminal justice system to diminish our political efficacy and, as I’ve said before, our civic imagination.
That’s why we see police power abused week after week after week and that’s why we will keep reporting on it week after week. Because even though the billionaires control the mainstream media, the independent press which Stephen and I represent, will not be silenced.
I want to thank Freedom2Film for joining us and I hope he will update us soon on the success of his lawsuit to protect the right to film police. And, of course, I have to thank intrepid reporter, Stephen Janis, for his research, writing and editing on this piece. Thank you, Stephen.
Stephen Janis:
Thanks for having me. I appreciate it.
Taya Graham:
And I want to thank friends and mods of the show, Noli D and Lacey 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 single one of you personally in our next livestream, especially patreon associate producers Johnny Yard, David K, Louis P and super friends Shane Buster, 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 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 Taya’s Baltimore on Twitter or Facebook. And please like and comment. You know I read your comments and appreciate them. And we do have our 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 greatly appreciated.
My name is Taya Graham and I am your host of the Police Accountability Report. Please be safe out there.
While the death penalty has been abolished in 23 states and Washington, DC, other states are doubling down on the barbaric practice of capital punishment. Idaho wants to bring back firing squads, and now the state of Alabama is pushing to become the first state to execute a death row inmate, Kenneth Smith, by forcing him to inhale pure nitrogen. Why are these states seeking such cruel execution methods? Alabama-based investigative journalist Lee Hedgepeth joins Rattling the Bars.
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.
Mansa Musa:
Okay. Thank you for joining me for this edition of Rattling the Bars. I’m your host Mansa Musa. Imagine witnessing someone being smothered to death with a pillow. The person being smothered has been convicted of a capital offense and a sentence of death. And this is the state’s form of execution. He’s being smothered to death after other forms of execution were unsuccessful. Even after he’s dead, they continue to smother him 15 more minutes. This will be the form of execution of Alabama death row prisoner, Kenneth Smith. But instead of a pillow, the state of Alabama will use nitrogen hypoxia gas. Would this be considered cruel? Would this be considered unusual? The Eighth Amendment of the United States Constitution protects criminal defenders from cruel and unusual punishment. Joining me to talk about the case of Kenneth Smith and Alabama’s execution method is investigative reporter, Lee Hedgepeth. Welcome to Rattling the Bars, Lee.
Lee Hedgepeth:
Thank you so much for having me.
Mansa Musa:
Lee, tell our audience a little bit about yourself before we unpack the case of Kenneth Smith.
Lee Hedgepeth:
Sure. So my name’s Lee Hedgepeth. I’m an investigative reporter. I write Tread, which is a newsletter of investigative journalism based here in Alabama. And I’ve covered issues around criminal justice and the death penalty for around a decade now. So I’ve been there at the prison Holman Correctional down toward Mobile County in the south part of the state, about eight times for different executions and have witnessed four executions. So death penalty is an issue that’s really important to me and something that I think journalists should be covering all across the country.
Mansa Musa:
Okay. And the case of Kenneth Smith really epitomized the insanity associated with the death penalty and you can correct me if I’m wrong, they attempted to execute Kenneth Smith before with lethal injection and it was unsuccessful. And then after that, because they couldn’t get the chemicals for lethal injection, the state of Alabama just put the death penalty on hold and now they come up with this new form of execution, which is some form of a gas. And you can explain that a little bit more. But the point that we want to unpack is how did this particular methodology come about?
Lee Hedgepeth:
Sure. So for years now, lethal injection has become more and more difficult for states to carry out for a variety of reasons. One of which you just pointed out, which is the difficulty in getting the drugs. So most of the lethal injection protocols that states use in these executions call for either one or multiple drugs that are made by usually European drug manufacturers. Well, no country in Europe has the death penalty and Europe has laws against such companies providing the chemicals. And so, a lot of these companies have said, “Look, we’re not going to provide these chemicals for execution.” So that’s become a challenge for states that continue to pursue the death penalty. We saw Mississippi, for example, the FDA rated Mississippi a few years ago and took some of the drugs they had and said, “You can’t use street drugs effectively to execute people.” So here in Alabama, we’ve kind of had the same types of difficulties. And we have three executions back to back, beginning with the execution of a man named Joe Nathan James that were botched.
And so, the first one, Joe Nathan James execution, they ended up performing what’s called a cutdown, which is a rudimentary procedure where if they can’t gain access to the inmates veins, they’ll cut and try to get to the inmates veins that way, like using a scalpel. So that was what was done in Joe Nathan James’s case. So Alabama for multiple executions has had difficulty in accessing people’s veins. So we don’t know the medical background of the people who are on the execution team. That’s one thing that I’ve been trying to get more information on. But the codes of ethics for nurses and for doctors require that they don’t participate in execution. So these folks that are trying to access the veins of inmates, they’re going against the code of ethics of their own profession by participating in this process. And so, Alabama’s had difficulty. So twice Alabama had to abandon their attempts to execute folks because they couldn’t access the veins. And one of those cases was the case of Kenny Smith.
Mansa Musa:
Come on.
Lee Hedgepeth:
So Kenny Smith was convicted of a murder that occurred in 1988. So he’s served decades now for this crime, already been punished in that way. And so, Alabama attempts to execute him via lethal injection, and that’s unsuccessful. They aren’t able to access his vein. They try for hours actually to access his vein. So if you can imagine the psychological torture of thinking that you’re going to be executed, at one point in a court filing, he describes the process of them strapping him down in the execution chamber of these members of the execution team, doing things like slapping his neck to try to gain access to things wherever they could. So you can imagine the torturous situation this is in.
And so, they were unsuccessful in that attempt. So eventually just before midnight when the execution warrants fires, they abandoned their attempt to execute him. And now we’re a few months later and Alabama has decided to move to this new method of execution called nitrogen hypoxia. So this method of execution’s never been tested before, never been used by government anywhere in the world. So effectively, the method is they will put a mask on the condemned individual and they will slowly take the oxygen out, leaving only nitrogen for the person to breathe. And so, effectively that’ll suffocate the person and lead to their death. So this hasn’t been tested anywhere, but Alabama says, “If we can’t successfully lethally inject people, this is the route that we’re going to take.”
Mansa Musa:
And when you mentioned the protocol, and here I was reading because they have redacted so much of the documentation relative to the methodology, to this particular form of execution, that it’s a lot of uncertainty as to the effect. And here, we are talking about cruel and unusual punishment because regardless of what we think should happen or we pro death penalty or not, it’s still a standard reason that the execution has to be, for lack of better word, humane in regards to the person that’s being executed. Have they been able to, or have you been able to glean from your investigation the problems associated with this particular form of execution as gas?
Lee Hedgepeth:
Yeah, so Alabama historically has not provided really any information publicly related to its execution protocols. So when they do release them, like you mentioned, they’re heavily redacted documents that don’t really provide a perfect picture of what they plan to happen. And we know, of course, Alabama’s plans don’t always come to fruition when it comes to these things. They have a checkered history. But what we do know is that nitrogen is a very dangerous gas. So viewers may think nitrogen is in the air we breathe already. So why is it a problem? Well, the type of nitrogen that’s used is compressed nitrogen, so it has to be put in a tank so that they can use it as they want to in these executions and those types of nitrogen that are in tanks, compressed nitrogen can easily fill up a room. It’s an odorless gas, you can’t smell it, you can’t see it, and it can quickly fill up a room. So there are hundreds and hundreds of cases around the country where there are workplaces where nitrogen-
Mansa Musa:
That’s right.
Lee Hedgepeth:
… is used frequently. So there are places like poultry plants and things like that. So there was a case in Georgia, I believe a few years back where there was a nitrogen leak. And these workers who worked in this poultry plant, a lot of Hispanic workers were working in the poultry plant, couldn’t see nitrogen, couldn’t smell the nitrogen, but there was a leak. They all start passing out while other folks don’t realize what’s happening, and they see folks passing out and the natural reaction is to go and help. So when they go and help, they begin to pass out too.
So this is a pattern that we see in these nitrogen workplace accidents is that when the rescuers come to help people, they also are susceptible to the same nitrogen that the folks who passed out were. So nitrogen is a very dangerous chemical. And what we haven’t been able to see from Alabama is what is the process that you’re using to protect, not just the individuals in the execution chamber, the members of the press who were there, the family members, both of the condemned inmate and of the victims’ family because present as well. But what about the whole population of the prison?
Mansa Musa:
Prison population, right?
Lee Hedgepeth:
Right. So all of these tanks have to be stored on site, right? So what if there is a puncture like there wasn’t the Georgia facility? What if there is some type of accident where this colorless, odorless gas is harming not just the people that Alabama is targeting, but everyone else do.
Mansa Musa:
And we already know that based on your previous observation, that when the lethal injection, the people that were administering the injection, they would just get their training off the back of a matchbook. Or if they are in the profession, they’re violating their oath to not be a part of the execution, but stand the reason that they’re not in the medical field because you can’t find a vein. But now we are looking at how do you train these people to administer this gas because like you say, they strap a mask on, who’s to say that the mass is not leaking, the mass is covering the entire face. And because we don’t know if we can’t smell it, we don’t have no way of detecting it. You go in there to execute one person under the pretense that he committed a crime, capital offense and wound up killing eight or nine other people or hospitalizing eight or nine people. What has the Supreme Court said about this particular methodology, this nitrogen gas?
Lee Hedgepeth:
So the Supreme Court hasn’t weighed in on this particular methodology before. So one of the things the Supreme Court has said is that if a person who’s on death row is challenging their method of execution, and this in itself seems cruel to me, but the Supreme Court has said you have to have an alternate method to propose. So you have to tell the court, “Look, I don’t want you to kill me this way. So here’s the way that I propose you do kill me.” Which seems in itself to be cruel to me. But that’s the Supreme Court precedent. The Supreme Court hasn’t weighed in on this methodology, but as we all know, with the six to three majority of the Supreme Court.
Mansa Musa:
Right. We already know how it’s going to go. And I thought in my mind was that once you have a failed attempt of execution, shouldn’t the person be exonerated? If you can’t kill me, should not be given the benefit? Or that’s just being idealistic?
Lee Hedgepeth:
Well, I think there’s a certain amount of idealism certainly there. But one of the things that I think is certainly the case here is there are very few execution survivors in America, if anywhere. So typically, when states try to execute someone, even if they have to try and try over and over again for hours, they’re eventually, quote, unquote, “successful” in killing the person. This is an extremely rare case in the sense that they weren’t able, they tried to execute him and they didn’t. So I think one of the strongest challenges that Mr. Smith may have when it comes to getting courts to side with him in an appeal would be challenging, trying to execute him for a second time as cruel and unusual. I can’t think of anything more unusual than trying to execute somebody for a second time, right?
Mansa Musa:
And when I was looking up the amendment, and I told you when they came out with the Furman case. The Furman case was a case that they used to really examine the death penalty, and they did a historical analysis of how they were utilizing execution, how they were beheading people, how they were putting bodies up on stakes, putting their heads. The cruel reality was something beyond personal imagination. But where are we at as far as Kenneth Smith? And in terms of the process, he’s waiting for what? He’s waiting for the court to decide whether or not to stay or to go forward?
Lee Hedgepeth:
So right now, the Attorney General’s office here in Alabama, the Alabama Attorney General is a very bloodthirsty when it comes to capital punishment and has challenged even the governor in the state to be more in favor of the death penalty. And so, at this point, they’ve announced that they will be asking for this execution date using nitrogen hypoxia. So that request has gone to the Alabama Supreme Court. And the Alabama Supreme Court, to my knowledge, has never rejected a request for an execution date. So that will likely happen in the coming days. And then once that happens, Alabama’s governor will decide the particular time and the timeframe of the execution.
Mansa Musa:
And I know, I think I read a book where one individual who was on death row, and I think he was in Alabama, called The Sun Never Shines. And he was saying that that’s when I think they had the electric chair and that he was on the tier. And the close proximity of the electric chair to the chair was such that whenever they execute somebody, you had the stench, you had the whole atmosphere changed in terms of a more bleak light type of atmosphere. Where’s Kenneth Smith housed at right now?
Lee Hedgepeth:
So Kenny Smith, along with all of the male folks who are on death row, are housed in a prison called Holman Correctional Facility, which is in Atmore, Alabama in the southern part of the state. So up until maybe the week of his execution, he’ll be housed in the same death row sale that he’s been in for his entire detention. So you mentioned the impact on other folks when a person’s executed, one of the things that has struck me in covering executions is when the journalists go into the prison, we can see all of the windows of folks who were on death row.
And they use the windows as a method of communication. So they’ll put signs up. So I was there for the execution of Joe Nathan James a few years ago, and the family of the victim in that case was opposed to his execution. So in a lot of these cases, Alabama’s officials and other state officials will say, “We’re doing this for the victim.” So in this case, the daughters of the victim and the brother of the victim said, “Please don’t execute this person. Don’t do it in our name.” So when I go to witness the execution, we’re going into the execution chamber and we can see these windows of death row. And in one of the windows there’s a sign that says, “The family is against it. This is a murder.”
And so, I think a lot of us obviously, and the most important thing is the cruelty to Kenneth Smith in this case of them trying to execute him again. But I think it’s also important to think about the impact that this type of trauma has, not just on him, but on all of the folks on death row when they see the state trying again and again to execute the same person in such a seemingly cruel and unusual manner in violation of the Constitution that protects all of us, not just those of us who aren’t on death row.
Mansa Musa:
And his co-defendant was executed already, right?
Lee Hedgepeth:
Correct. One of-
Mansa Musa:
Go ahead.
Lee Hedgepeth:
Sure. One of the things to note in this case though, so the murder was of a woman named Liz Sennett, and her husband was the person who contracted the murder. He was a pastor and he killed himself after the plot came to light. So the person who initially was responsible for all of this took his own life. So there’s no sense of closure or justice in that way. And all of these additional lives that are being impacted afterward is definitely something to think about.
Mansa Musa:
And they have a tendency to do that, to pour it on when they get an opportunity. But in terms of Kenneth Smith, have you been able to visit him or you’re not allowed?
Lee Hedgepeth:
So I haven’t been able to visit him in person. I haven’t been able to speak with him off and on. So I spoke with him just after the state tried to execute him. And one of the things that he said was, “The state is going to regret having let me out of that room.” So I think one of the things that’s important to Kenny is to make sure that any legal challenges or any legacy that he has is a legacy that helps those folks that are also on death row and a legacy that challenges Alabama’s willingness to execute people in cruel and unusual ways.
Mansa Musa:
In that regard, I noticed that most states have gotten away from the death penalty, but Alabama, like you say, is in transgender when it comes to this. And we have an attorney general down there that’s his political platform. I kill people without remorse, and I kill people with mythologies that is cruel and unusual, and Bob Berg, but killed on my will. Is that his mantra?
Lee Hedgepeth:
Yeah. It seems to me as though the attorney general here is angling for governor, and I think that will be the platform that he will run on.
Mansa Musa:
And as Kenneth, I heard what you say in terms of where your state of mind is as far as what do you want to come out of this. But after the failed attempts, I’m quite sure he’s been traumatized. And in this regard, how does the institution provide any type of mental health for him? Because I guess, in their mind they’re like, “Well, you going to get killed anyway, so…”
Lee Hedgepeth:
Yeah. So I’ve spoken to a lot of people about this and I certainly don’t think he’s receiving the type of therapy that he would need in the wake of such a traumatic event as the state trying to end your life. One of the things that I’ve talked to other folks about is that other folks that know him, who knew him before and know him now, who are on death row say he seems to be kind of in a trance. It’s kind of surreal surviving and execution.
And one of the things that I’ve asked the Alabama Department of Corrections about and haven’t heard back about is that the same individuals that were the ones who tried to execute him, the officials, the guards that were involved in that process, that were there in that room are still people that are around him every day. So for Kenny, you can imagine how traumatizing it is to see your executioner come to give you lunch every day or whatever the case may be. So I think that’s something that we should also think about as the impact, the retraumatization that’s happening when he sees these staff members that participated in the first attempted execution.
Mansa Musa:
And this is the very thing that the Eighth Amendment is supposed to protect against. This is the cruel reality that they talk about cruel and there was your point, that you attempted execution. But then not only that, but then have the very people be back in an environment where you’re being revisited by all the people who are involved in the process. You’re not getting no mental health because of your circumstances that you on death row, therefore you shouldn’t. Your mentality or your state of mind is of no importance in, because in the state of Alabama in particular, they already got that set up that, “Well, we are going to execute you. You are on death row.” And how long has he been on death row? Since the ’80s?
Lee Hedgepeth:
Yeah. So the murder occurred in ’88. I think he was convicted in the early ’90s. So he is been on death row for three decades or more at this point.
Mansa Musa:
Yeah, he’s been on death row for 30 or more years. And then even after all that, they failed to attempt to execute him, where’s the humanity and where’s the justification in that? And what about the victims, the family members of the deceased, where are they at?
Lee Hedgepeth:
So we haven’t heard from the family members. So that’s something that I try, I think is very important, is to see where they stand. And so, far, Elizabeth’s family hasn’t been willing to speak with the press.
Mansa Musa:
Right. And that’s kind of mind-boggling because like you say, the husband was the principal involved and he took his life. So that’s questionable as to why he did what he did in terms of the whole thing. But going forward, what do you want our audience to know about this process, this methodology?
Lee Hedgepeth:
Sure. So one of the things that I think is the most important for people to know is that this method of execution, which they call nitrogen hypoxia, but I call nitrogen suffocation because that’s what it is a method that has never been tested before. Not by Russia, not by North Korea, not by any communist government you’ve ever heard of.
Mansa Musa:
That’s right.
Lee Hedgepeth:
This is a method. This is completely untested. And I just ask folks, read the Eighth Amendment that bans cruel and unusual punishment in the United States, regardless of whether you’ve committed a crime or not, and think to yourself, is this method of execution taking away the oxygen that someone breathes? Do you find that to be cruel or unusual? So I just ask folks to ask themselves that question. And if they feel like maybe it is a cruel and unusual method, reach out to organizations like Project Hope to Abolish the Death Penalty here in Alabama, or nonprofit organizations, wherever you are that are involved with the death penalty and get involved on the issues, vote on issues like this. President Biden, we’re talking about state level death penalty cases here, but there’s a federal death row too.
Mansa Musa:
That’s right.
Lee Hedgepeth:
And President Biden has the power right now to today with a stroke of the pen to commute every single one of those death sentences and end the possibility that someone like Trump gets in office and does what he did at the end of his last term, which is execute people over and over again at the end of the term. So if you care about the death penalty, if you oppose to the death penalty, write to somebody like Biden and say, “Look, solve this problem today” because that’s something that’s within his power.
Mansa Musa:
And how can our audience get in touch with you all? Stay on top of what you’re doing?
Lee Hedgepeth:
Sure. So you can follow me on Twitter, my Twitter handle is @lee_hedgepeth. You can also just go to treadbylee.com. So that’s the newsletter I have, and that’s T-R-E-A-D, by, B-Y, L-E-E, lee.com.
Mansa Musa:
Okay. Thank you, Lee. And you really rattled the bars today, nitrogen suffocation, and this is exactly what it is. And we want our audience to really look at this because at the end of the day, it’s the taxpayers is paying for this. And so, you have to ask yourself as a taxpayer, am I putting my money into someone being suffocated to death? Take all the oxygen out of them and let them die. I’m suffocating. There’s no humanity associated with it, it’s torturous. There’s no way of looking at it other than that. And the only reason why we are doing it is because we’re in a state where we have an Attorney General that’s a blood sucker, and he’s got blood on his mind. He’s got blood on his hands, and Kenneth Smith is just a victim of this process. We thank you for enlightening our audience on this process, and we ask our audience to be mindful of this type of reporting that we do, because you’re only going to get this only news on The Real News Network.
You’re not going to get this news nowhere else, and we’re not telling you how you should weigh in on the death penalty or not the death. We asking you to weigh in on what is humane and what isn’t humane. We’re asking you to look at your humanity and see if your humanity can be measured up against what’s going on in Alabama with this nitrogen suffocation. That’s all it is. And we asking that you continue to support The Real News and Rattling the Bars, because the only way you’re going to get this information, it’s the only way you’re going to be educated about this process. Thank you very much, Lee. Thank you for joining us.
Lee Hedgepeth:
Thank you so much for talking about this important topic.
This story originally appeared in Common Dreams on Sep. 5, 2023. It is shared here with permission under a Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0) license.
Organizers with the Stop Cop City movement in Atlanta said Tuesday that new organized crime and racketeering charges against more than 60 campaigners were aimed at quashing all dissent against the construction of a $90 million police training facility in the city, as well as similar law enforcement projects.
Georgia’s Republican attorney general, Chris Carr, announced that a grand jury indicted 61 protesters under the state’s Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) Act, with some accused only of distributing fliers.
“These charges, like the previous repressive prosecutions by the State of Georgia, seek to intimidate protesters, legal observers, and bail funds alike, and send the chilling message that any dissent to Cop City will be punished with the full power and violence of the government,” organizers with the Cop City Vote Coalition (CCVC) toldThe Appeal. “The Cop City Vote Coalition strongly condemns these anti-democratic charges.”
The indictments are the latest escalation by the state against movement to “Stop Cop City,” as opponents have called the proposed 85-acre Public Safety Training Center planned in the Weelaunee Forest in DeKalb County.
Forest defender Manuel Esteban Paez Terán, known as Tortuguita, was shot and killed by police earlier this year while trying to stop the clearing of the area, and prosecutors in DeKalb County and Fulton County filed domestic terrorism charges against 42 people who have protested the training center. Many of those charged were also listed in Tuesday’s indictments.
As Common Dreams reported in May, the Georgia and Atlanta police also arrested three organizers of a bail fund supporting protesters, accusing them of money laundering and charity fraud. The organizers are also among those facing RICO charges.
The New Republic noted that the date listed on the indictments is May 25, 2020—the day George Floyd was murdered by a Minneapolis police officer, marking the beginning of a nationwide uprising against police violence. The date suggests “that the attorney general’s office plans to link the Stop Cop City movement with the larger protests that followed Floyd’s death,” wrote Edith Olmsted at the outlet.
The RICO indictment in Fulton County has been updated to include the Solidarity Fund organizers. They have also been charged with 15 counts of money laundering. pic.twitter.com/IkOUbx7bIJ
— Atlanta Community Press Collective (@atlanta_press) September 5, 2023
The RICO charges, said racial justice group Color of Change, represent “a blatant attempt to silence democratic protest—and a dangerous violation of the constitutional right to protest.”
After 52 years of incarceration, Edward Alan Poindexter is among the longest-serving political prisoners in US and world history. Originally part of the “Omaha Two,” Poindexter and Mondo we Langa, both leaders of the Omaha Black Panthers, were convicted of the murder of Omaha police officer Larry Minard in 1971. Poindexter and we Langa’s case has long been a subject of scrutiny, with Amnesty International recommending a retrial for both men in 1999. We Lenga passed away in 2016 after years of poor health, and now Poindexter’s family members fear he could face a similar fate unless he’s released on medical and compassionate grounds.
Studio Production: Cameron Granadino Post-Production: Cameron Granadino
Transcript
Mansa Musa: Welcome to this edition of Rattling the Bars. I’m your host, Mansa Musa. August 21 marks the 52nd anniversary of the assassination of Comrade George L. Jackson. This episode of Rattling the Bars is being taped on August 21, 2023.
When I came into The Real News office, the marquee read, “Free all political prisoners.” And nothing is more appropriate than our show today. Ed Poindexter and the late Mondo We Langa are two political prisoners, the Omaha Two, who were framed, convicted, and sentenced to life in prison in 1971 for the murder of Omaha police officer Larry Minard who died when a suitcase dynamite bomb exploded in a vacant house in north Omaha on August 17, 1970. Here to talk about the case of the Omaha Two are Tekla Ali Johnson, a supporter of political prisoners; Adrian Payne, Ed Poindexter’s sister; and Ericka “Rikki” Payne, Ed Poindexter’s niece. Welcome to Rattling the Bars.
Ericka “Rikki” Payne: Thank you.
Adrian Payne: Thank you.
Tekla Johnson: Thank you.
Mansa Musa: Yeah, thank you. Okay, Ms. Andrea.
Adrian Payne: It’s Adrian.
Mansa Musa: Oh, it’s Adrian. Ms. Adrian. All right. Let’s start with you. You are Ed Poindexter’s sister.
Adrian Payne: Yes.
Mansa Musa: Tell us a little bit about Ed, your brother, for the benefit of our audience.
Adrian Payne: He is a kind, wonderful brother. He was like my best friend. He always stood beside me and he was wonderful. You couldn’t say anything bad about him. As we were growing up, like I said, he was always there and we did things together. He would take me places with him. He never was like, oh, little sister, get back and all that. He was never like that.
Mansa Musa: Yeah. Can you recall if you can, the day that they arrested him? And if you can remember, what was that like?
Adrian Payne: Oh, it was terrible. They were standing behind the bushes and the house. They had the house surrounded. And I came out on the porch and I was with Rikki and I said don’t shoot my brother. He’s coming out. He’s not going to resist. He came on out. He came out without any recourse or anything and they took him on into the car. It was so sad.
Mansa Musa: And that was in the ’70s. And he’s been in prison ever since?
Adrian Payne: Yes.
Ericka “Rikki” Payne: Yeah, he’s been in prison for 53 years. I was six months old.
Mansa Musa: Yeah. And Rikki, right now you’re involved with the defense committee in terms of trying to get Ed released. By way of this conversation, Ed’s co-defendant has since passed away. Mondo We Langa has since then passed away. What is the state of your uncle’s health at this juncture right now?
Ericka “Rikki” Payne: Actually, his health isn’t very good. He has diabetes and they amputated his leg without telling anybody. I know when me and my mom visited, they made visitations super hard. You can only go on a Wednesday at 10:00AM. And when we did go to visit him he was very confused. He was in a wheelchair and I noticed that his legs were black. So I wasn’t surprised that they amputated one but it would’ve been nice if somebody would’ve let us know. We’re really curious as to how he got in that bad state. If you’re controlling all his food and you’re controlling everything how could he get to that point where his leg gets amputated?
Mansa Musa: I did 48 years and I’ve been out all of three years. But I know this to be a fact: When you’re dealing with mass incarceration in the prison industrial complex, the medical situation in all prisons is inadequate. I know when I got out, I got a physical. I got diagnosed, I had hepatitis C. I had gotten a knee replacement when I was locked up. When I got out they realized that they put it in there wrong and I had to get it taken out again and done over.
So in terms of your observation and your concern, it is appropriate because they’re misdiagnosing them. Or they’re not properly diagnosed to save money, this is what goes on. But in terms of what’s going on, in terms of mobilizing to get his release, where are we standing with that? What are some of the things going on around this case?
Ericka “Rikki” Payne: Actually, we have done several things. Tekla has helped Jericho with a call to action where they call the prison and demand certain things and are demanding his release. We did a walk with Preston Love Jr. And Senator Ernie Chambers spoke at that particular – Basically, we’ve been doing what we’ve been doing for over 50 years. Actually, it went dormant for a little while. We were told by my uncle because he was scared for us, that he wanted us to sit back and he was going to get out. Because my grandmother has been threatened we’re a part of the COINTELPRO program. I know that our landline was tapped. My grandmother had to agree to it but they said that as long as there was nothing said on the phone that had anything to do with my uncle, then they wouldn’t do anything. And me and my sister, when we were little, we used to pick the phone up and be like, the dead person’s in the basement. We wanted to see if the police were going to show up.
Mansa Musa: [Laughs] Yeah.
Ericka “Rikki” Payne: We were so bad. But yeah it’s terrible. He tried to be a part of our family the whole time. We used to go see him once a week. We watched the prison change how –
Mansa Musa: Yeah, I know how. I’m there.
Ericka “Rikki” Payne: Yeah. Yeah. My grandmother used to make him cookies. We got pictures from when we used to go see him once a week. He used to send me to really fancy summer programs. He used to pay for those. I did a dance class with this really popular dancer named Sandra McSwain at the Joplin Art Museum. I was in the newspaper because he sent me to that program one summer. So he tried to be a hands-on uncle, even from prison. I thought that was absolutely amazing.
Mansa Musa: Yeah. And we know from experience that that’s the whole thing. To try to destroy any type of family association. That’s why you said earlier that the visitation procedures are hard. But Maya Angelou said I still rise regardless of whatever goes on. And still, I rise. And this is the case with your Uncle Ed, regardless of what’s going on with him. And still, I rise. I can understand him wanting to take a position for your protection. At the same token, in terms of the information about this case, I’m reading where the case from day one has been consistently inconsistent testimonies, and fabricated evidence. Where do we stand in terms of trying to get some judicial relief for Ed?
Ericka “Rikki” Payne: My biggest issue with that is – Okay, okay, this is me from the heart – My biggest issue is they send us to school to learn law and justice. They make us do this Pledge of Allegiance and they promise us these rights and all these things but with my uncle, none of that has been followed. He’s basically been proven innocent because the person that they said made the 911 call wasn’t the person who made the 911 call. They made us get a voice analysis person and he said that wasn’t Duane Peak on the 911 call. The judge got red as a beet and didn’t say anything. But they had promised my grandma that they would give him a new trial if they proved that that was not Duane Peak on the 911 call.
Also, in that same trial, they said that he had explosive chemicals in his pocket. It’s the same thing that’s in laundry detergent. So we had a specialist say that whatever that chemical is, it’s also found in laundry detergent. Then at that same trial, this police officer leaned over my grandma and said, you will not get out over my dead body. I don’t care what these people say. I couldn’t believe it. I told the reporter, did you hear that? Did you write that down? Did you record that? Her name was Carol Schrader. She ignored me.
Mansa Musa: We know that from our experience and observation that J. Edgar Hoover and the COINTELPRO, counter-intelligence program, created this primarily for the purpose of completely destroying any political opposition. Anybody that had an independent thinking process. Anybody that was against the oppressive, abusive, nature of the government. They had a system where they had two ways they were going to approach them: either they’re going to kill them off or kill them by death by a thousand cuts. Death by a thousand cuts and use the criminal injustice system to lock ’em up.
Which brings me to you, Tekla. Now you’ve been involved with the case for longer than most people. Give us some background information on yourself, how you got involved with this case, and where you’re at now in terms of supporting Ed.
Tekla Johnson: Well, my name is Tekla Ali Johnson. I currently teach African-American studies and history. But most of my work or my life has been in community organizing. And what led me to it was a relationship with Ed’s co-defendant, Mondo We Langa. I would like to go through that and a few more things about the case. But before I forget I wanted to pull out a couple of things. You asked about current things that have happened in terms of the family’s involvement. And I don’t want to miss these two being said.
Mansa Musa: Come on now.
Tekla Johnson: In April, both Rikki and Adrian made a statement which was a very important statement. They made it in a submission to the United Nations International Independent Expert Mechanism to Advance Racial Justice. In other words, justices from a committee from the United Nations came to five cities around the country. And these two were able to speak to that. Efia Nwangaza helped to organize the one in Atlanta and they were able to make a presentation that was, I thought, very, very powerful about the defense. Maybe you got to see that.
But getting that to the United Nations has been so much effort to get it outside of the US: first to get it out of Nebraska, knowledge about the case. Ericka, I think you all would agree. And then to get the information national and then to get it to the United Nations. The other thing that they have been doing recently is working very hard to secure an attorney specifically to look at the medical release. They have acquired an attorney, and they’ll be meeting with him at the end of this week who has now agreed to do that.
Mansa Musa: Okay, good.
Tekla Johnson: So the family has been very active in this last year and in many multiple years. But you asked recently, where is it at right now? Right now, the emphasis is on securing this medical release through an additional attorney to come on board. As far as the case itself do you want me to go back through where that is?
Mansa Musa: Yeah, yeah. We want you to because we need our audience to understand exactly what’s going on with them. When we say political prisoners oftentimes we look at it from the perspective that they politicize the individual. But this is by design, like I said, COINTELPRO had two objectives: to stop the rise of what they call a Black Messiah or anybody that could lead people. And the way they were going to deal with them was by two means: either kill them off or death by a thousand cuts. Death by a thousand cuts is to put them in the criminal justice system and then ignore all evidence of innocence. So go, yes ma’am, please.
Tekla Johnson: So Ericka hit on some of the big major points. I’ll try to snake around there and get in a few additional details. The original situation in which Ed Poindexter and Mondo We Lango, who was then David Rice, came to join the Black Panther party was police killings in Omaha. There had already been three police killings in Omaha and they decided to join. Eddie Baldwin and some others had started a Black Panther Party chapter. It was functioning on a social level but not really meeting the service needs of the people. These brothers came in, they were serious.
They went to Des Moines, Iowa, and trained under Pete O’Neal. Pete told me that, I didn’t get that from Ed, that they came, they were very serious young brothers, and trained under him. Especially Ed would go and get the information and come and bring it back. In the course of them doing work, police patrols, a breakfast program, they had another killing. It was Vivian Strong. And I remember this. I was three. A 14-year-old girl was shot in the back of the head, in the projects, by the police. Then the brothers stepped it up and they started the Vivian Strong Liberation School. They actually did it for a time in the headquarters and for a time, they did it out of Mondo’s house.
They were pulled into a grand jury to ask them, what were you teaching in the Vivian Strong Liberation School? Which, of course, was African liberation and history. So they began to get on the radar of the FBI director and we’ve seen memos from the FBI director. Then as you know, there are other things going on around the country. There’s bombings and the white left, some of them have admitted doing some of the bombings. There’s a bombing and a police officer – There’s a 911 call that Rikki was talking about. There is a vacant house, a policeman went there and was killed in the bomb.
The call, I’ve heard the call. The call had an older man’s voice, a very, very deep voice. It was 911. That call was hidden – Speaking to your thousand cuts – And was not given to the defense at the time of the trial. It was said it was lost. So for years, all through the initial trial, you couldn’t hear this. They brought a young teenager, 15-year-old Duane Peak, to the courtroom. He said he didn’t do it. He said I don’t have anything to do with it. And they didn’t either at the preliminary hearing. Senator Chambers was there – And Ericka speaks to this – They pulled him out at a recess, brought him back, and he looked like he had been roughed up. The senator said he looked like he’d been crying. They put sunglasses on him and he said, yeah, I did it. And they told me to do it.
Ed had an alibi. Mondo had an alibi. They were both with women somewhere else. They weren’t at the scene. So the initial charge was conspiracy to commit murder. Then they said they blocked off all of Mondo’s house and they found dynamite in Mondo’s house. And Ed knew how to do it because Ed was a veteran, had been in the military. So Ed knew had to do it and was in Mondo’s house.
During the course of the trial, Mondo said, wait a minute. Where they’re showing that picture, there’s a coal bin there. He said, there’s no coal bin there. So the house burnt down during the trial. So it is one thing after another. Then, as Ericka said, in 1996 they came back and they found the young man. Senator Chambers went out there to Seattle, Washington, where he now lives. Duane Peak. They pushed him to witness protection and took him out to Seattle. Tom Owens did a voice expert analysis. And I have to credit Tamik El-Amin, one of the defense committee leaders at the time. Went out there and tested the voice, and said, this voice is not this 15-year-old boy. They tested against Duane’s voice. It’s not him. They took it back to court and they refused to hear it.
There was one break. There was a break in 1974. By the way, Ed had been eligible for parole after two years. It’s now 53 years later.
Mansa Musa: Right, right, right.
Tekla Johnson: So in 1974, the Federal District Court said the search of Mondo’s home was illegal. Mind you, the house was burnt down. The evidence was already gone. But they said it was illegal in the first place. 1975, the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals upheld it. The State of Nebraska, being as it is, appealed with the police union – as Ericka talked about – Pushing, pushing, pushing, and appealed the case to the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court refused to hear the case and sent the case back to state court, where it’s been ever since. They’ve tried everything from habeas corpus writ to everything.
Bob Bardle, one of the attorneys said, we’ve explored everything. We’ve tried to get it. Then in 1993, even before the voice analysis results came out, the Nebraska Parole Board, in 1993, voted to release Mondo, or to commute a sentence to time served, and to do the same with Ed in 1994. It has to then go to the Pardons Board on which the governor, the Secretary of State, and Attorney General for the state all sit. They said, no, we’re not going to do it.
So this has been a political case from start to finish. Both men have maintained their innocence. The problem with the men and the reason that they were targeted, was twofold, of course, because they were members of the Black Panther Party trying to secure freedom, trying to feed the people, trying to educate people, and, we have to remember, trying to stop police violence and murders against Black people. This whole Black Lives Matter … I even said it to Molina up there. Abdullah, this doesn’t mean anything if you can’t recognize those who first fought to try to free you Black people from these police killings. And that is those Black Panther Party members.
Mansa Musa: Right.
Tekla Johnson: Yeah, so –
Mansa Musa: And to echo that point, that’s why it’s so important that we have groups like Jericho. Because it’s a result of Jericho that we constantly are reminded and made aware of political prisoners, what’s going on with political prisoners. But more importantly, it is through Jericho that Ed’s case is constantly at the forefront of people’s minds. But I agree with you that when it comes down to a mass movement on political prisoners, then we fall short at times.
But talk about–- And any one of y’all can weigh in on this–- Where do we stand at in terms of the possibility of getting a medical release? What’s the success ratio in Nebraska there? Because I know in the State of Maryland, where I’m at, I’m in the District of Columbia but in the State of Maryland, this is what they do here, where we at the doctor has got to diagnose that you’re going to die shortly thereafter you released. So it’s not more so to let you go. It’s more about letting you go and die on the street, as opposed to letting you go and try to get treatment. What do we look at for us right now in terms of Ed getting a medical release?
Tekla Johnson: Well, I will say that he is suffering a diminishing quality of life that’s irreversible, which is the standard in Nebraska. That’s what I would say. He’s eligible, in our opinion and the opinion of the attorney that the family’s working with because he has a diminishing quality of life that’s irreversible. He is in a wheelchair. He’s been wheelchair-bound for years but he has now been amputated below the knee. He cannot turn over in bed very well. And he definitely can’t sit up for more than 10 seconds on his own. He can’t walk. He cannot go to the bathroom by himself.
Mansa Musa: Rikki, when was the last time you visited Ed?
Ericka “Rikki” Payne: It’s been about three months because of the difficult visitation hours. We live an hour away which is not a lot but if you got to be there at nine o’clock in the morning. But my mother’s doing better. She was in a wheelchair and stuff like that. Now she’s up on the walker, so we are going to make it down there sooner. But still, once a week on Wednesdays is hard if you have to work or anything.
Mansa Musa: Right. Adrian, what do you want our audience to know about your brother as we move toward closing? What do you want to tell our audience about Ed that they need to know and why they should become involved with Ed’s case?
Adrian Payne: Well, because like I said, he doesn’t deserve to be in there and he’s been proven innocent.
Mansa Musa: That’s right.
Adrian Payne: So he should be out. He’s a wonderful person.
Ericka “Rikki” Payne: And because he has created programs in the prison to help other prisoners; he’s gotten an education. He literally has helped them in the prison to control some of the prisoners. Come on with the programs on how to be a better person and things of that nature. Of course, I’m not technical but he has done multiple programs and things like that. When he was in Lino Lakes, he used to work for them. I have a picture of him in a COOGI sweater.
Mansa Musa: [Laughs]
Ericka “Rikki” Payne: It’s unreal. I felt like in Minnesota they were keeping him comfortable, trying to keep him quiet. But then, he came back home because of the promise of being able to have a new trial. Then he’s been treated badly in Lincoln, and now my grandmother has passed on. So this fight is for my grandma. My grandma knew that her child was going to make it out. So this fight is for my grandma who passed on in 2011 and my baby sister three months after my grandmother. We are losing people. And come on, make room for the real criminals is how I feel.
Mansa Musa: And we know that right now, one of them got four different indictments coming out against him and he’s able to walk the streets. He can turn himself in and go right back out without fear of being locked up when the evidence is astronomical against him. Versus the evidence against Ed being astronomical against his innocence. We have more evidence of Ed’s innocence than we have of his guilt. But yet, like I said, the death of a thousand cuts.
Tekla Johnson: Can I say something about Jericho before we leave?
Mansa Musa: Yes ma’am.
Tekla Johnson: I wanted to express how closely the family has been working with Jericho. Ed’s brother and wife, who have power of attorney and power of medical, were able to take a trip up to Nebraska – Help being arranged by, of course, the family that’s already there – And Jericho was able to help provide resources to help them make that way recently. We work very closely with Jericho. I’m a former co-chair of Jericho, as well as a regional chair of Jericho when Baba Herman Ferguson had appointed me back in the late ’90s when they had the Jericho March. So we’ve been working with Jericho very closely the whole time.
Mansa Musa: Okay, closing out, how does our audience get in touch or learn more about Ed’s case? And how do they become involved in the latest initiative that’s taking place in trying to get a medical release?
Ericka “Rikki” Payne: If they want to get educated on the case there are several YouTube videos, some super-interesting ones, too. Even a cop that said, I think we did the right thing. What does he mean, he thinks he did the right thing.
Mansa Musa: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Ericka “Rikki” Payne: The YouTube videos, if nothing else, they’re super informative, super interesting, super frustrating. If they want to be caught up on the case and what went on they’ll also see all the things that didn’t match up and things like that. There’s a big rabbit hole, what they call a rabbit hole with that.
Tekla Johnson: There’s also a BBC documentary from back in 1993. You can contact me, you can contact – I’m going to let Ericka say for sure if you want her, too. But you can contact me. I’m working closely with the New York chapter of Jericho to get out information. In fact, that’s what we’re sending information through. There’s another local defense committee that the family has been working with but the family has decided to take leadership because – And I’ll be honest, some folks feel that Ed would be better off going to a retirement home or something like that, instead of the family.
And with Jericho, we always respected the position of the prisoner and always respected the position of the family. So what other people think, especially when they’re not from our community, does not bear on the way they do things, the way we do things. It’s two different things.
Mansa Musa: Okay, there you have it. The Real News, Rattling the Bars. We want Ed home. And as Rikki said, this is about finding solace for his mother. This is about reversing an injustice that’s been taking place for over 50 years when all the evidence says that Ed is innocent. But more importantly, Ed and his co-defendant need to be exonerated because this is about innocence. This is not about a technicality. This is about people who have done nothing other than stand up against police brutality, stood up against injustice, and because of this, they’ve suffered a death of a thousand cuts.
Thank y’all for joining us today. And we look forward to when Ed comes out, being able to hug his sister, being able to hug his niece, being able to hug all his supporters, and enjoying a nice meal with family. And all will be behind him.
The shocking arrest, prosecution, and imprisonment of Nebraska teen Celeste Burgess and her mother, Jessica Burgess, has now become one of the best-known cases of abortion criminalization in post-Roe America. But the Burgess case is just the tip of the iceberg. Some 1,700 people have been prosecuted under similar laws since the 2022 Supreme Court Dobbs decision. Emma Roth of Pregnancy Justice joins Rattling the Bars to discuss the Burgess case and the broader movement to criminalize abortion care.
Emma Roth is a staff attorney with Pregnancy Justice, a nonprofit advocacy group that defends the civil rights of women and pregnant people.
Pre-Production: Maximillian Alvarez 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. Even before the Supreme Court and its majority of far right-wing fundamentalist justices overturned Roe v. Wade last year, states around the country have found ways to criminalize people for having abortions. But things are getting worse and a recent case in Nebraska makes this clear.
Celeste Burgess, who’s 19 years old, was sentenced to 90 days in jail and two years probation after self-managing an abortion at 29 weeks. To talk about this, we are joined by Emma Roth, who’s a staff attorney with Pregnancy Justice, a non-profit advocacy group that defends the civil rights of women and pregnant people. Thank you for joining me, Emma Roth.
Emma Roth: Thank you for having me.
Mansa Musa: Tell us a little bit about yourself and the work that you do at Pregnancy Justice.
Emma Roth: Sure. I’m Emma Roth, I use she/her pronouns, and I’m a staff attorney at Pregnancy Justice. We are a national organization. We’re based in New York City but we take on cases all over the country and we provide direct legal representation as well as strategic legal advocacy in cases in which a pregnant person is facing criminalization or other punitive state action because of their pregnancy or their pregnancy outcome. Whether that is a miscarriage or a stillbirth or an abortion, or if the pregnant person carried their pregnancy to term and had a healthy baby yet they’re still stigmatized because of the perception that they did something to put their pregnancy at risk.
Mansa Musa: Okay. This is bizarre, beyond anybody’s imagination, that we’ll be having a conversation about the criminalization of a person’s decision or their right to choose what they want to do with their body. This has been a longstanding battle for a woman’s right to choose. We’ve been constantly going back and forth with this country trying to regulate morality but now we find ourselves in a situation where we have a female, a woman, Celeste Burgess, who ended up in jail for having an abortion. Give us the background on this and tell us a little bit about this case, please.
Emma Roth: Sure. Let me start by laying out a bit of the national landscape and the broader background leading up to this particular case. Even though the Supreme Court, one year ago in the Dobbs decision, reversed Roe versus Wade and 50 years of legal precedent protecting the legal right to abortion, the issue of pregnancy criminalization is not new at all. In fact, our organization has been working on these cases for over 20 years and since 1973, the year in which Roe was decided, up until the Dobbs decision in 2022, we’ve tracked over 1700 cases in which pregnant people are criminalized because of their pregnancies or their pregnancy outcomes.
In each of these cases, the pregnant person is facing a charge that they would not face but for the fact that they’re pregnant. We’re not talking about your average type of possession charge, if let’s say the allegation is the pregnant person used drugs, but rather a charge of murder or homicide or manslaughter if the pregnant person experienced a tragic pregnancy loss like a stillbirth or a miscarriage, or a charge like child neglect or child abuse or child endangerment if the pregnant person carried their baby to term.
These cases are certainly not anything new. What there’s now much greater concern about is the criminalization of abortion itself. But prosecutors are relying on the exact same playbook that they have been using for decades to criminalize pregnant people. The case that we’ve come together to talk about today of Celeste Burgess is a case out of Nebraska, where a teenager was criminalized, along with her mother, because they sought abortion medication because she was not ready to be a mother yet. She was 17 years old at the time of the incident in question and she and her mother knew that that was far too early for her to take on the enormous responsibilities of parenthood when she had her whole life ahead of her. So they sought abortion medication in order for her to terminate her pregnancy.
The catch is that self-managing your abortion through taking abortion medication is not illegal in the vast majority of states. There are only two states that criminalize self-managed abortion: that’s South Carolina and Nevada. Nebraska is not one of them. Rather than charge her with some offense that was directly linked to abortion, they tried to throw other charges at her in order to stigmatize and police what they viewed as immoral behavior of deciding to terminate her own pregnancy.
Mansa Musa: Now, okay. This is interesting because we here – And I’m in Washington DC and when Roe was reversed, I was going past the Supreme Court, so I saw everybody on both sides of the fence, pro, and con – But in this whole conversation I have never heard about how they systematically have been criminalizing a woman’s choice. Why this is not on the radar? Why is this not forefront? Because this is criminal in and of itself when say a person chooses to make a decision, then you say, well, we’re going to criminalize it by saying this is murder, or we’re going to criminalize it by saying this is an assault on life.
In other words, your criminalization of it is what really what I’m looking at, your criminalization is the same criminalization that you give a person that goes out and commits a felonious crime, like if I go out and murder somebody. You in essence are saying that, if I as a female or a woman, if I choose to have an abortion, you can charge me with murder. Why is this not at the forefront of this debate about abortion?
Emma Roth: It’s an excellent question. And the answer is that the mainstream anti-abortion groups know that it is incredibly politically unpopular to admit that their end goal is to criminalize the abortion seeker herself, so the actual person who is pregnant and seeks an abortion. And they know that there is broad public support for the right to bodily autonomy, the right to abortion, and the notion that anybody would be jailed for seeking to terminate their own pregnancy is very politically unpopular.
Instead, what this right-wing anti-abortion movement claims, is that they are only seeking to target the providers of abortion with these criminal statutes. They say, we’re going after the doctors, and they frame the doctors as these baby killers who are manipulating women into seeking abortions against their will. And they have this very paternalistic framing where they say that they’re opposed to abortion because they’re actually trying to protect women and protect them from this industry that is killing their babies. It would be contrary to that framework for them to admit that what they actually want to do, and what in many cases they’ve done all along, is to criminalize the pregnant person herself.
You may remember in the 2016 presidential debate between Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton, he actually said, there has to be some punishment for the woman. And it was as if he was saying the quiet part out loud because so many in the anti-abortion movement think that, but they won’t admit it because they know it’s politically unpopular. And then all of the mainstream anti-abortion groups were saying, no, no, no, that’s not what we believe. And he ended up walking those comments back.
It’s more and more the fringe elements of the anti-abortion movement who will say that part out loud and really own the fact that they want to criminalize the person seeking the abortion. But it’s gaining more and more credence and acceptance within the more mainstream anti-abortion movement. And we saw this in the past legislative session where there were some bills introduced, including one in North Carolina, where somebody who sought an abortion could face the death penalty for killing a quote-unquote person.
And the ideology that is behind this new wave of restrictions is the notion of fetal personhood: the notion that a fetus inside the womb has all of the same civil and constitutional rights as a living human being. And while in theory the pregnant person herself also has constitutional and civil rights, the reality is that this right-wing movement pits these two groups against each other, the fetus versus the mother, and is saying, well, if you terminate your pregnancy, you are a murderer and therefore you deserve to go to jail or prison.
Mansa Musa: I recognize that the anti-abortion right-wing elements have been systemic in dismantling Roe. And we really need to educate our listeners on this here. Why is it that the pro-choice seems like they’re being outflanked in a lot of regards? Why is it that they’re not able to reverse this perspective?
Emma Roth: The right-wing anti-abortion movement has been incredibly strategic, well-funded, and organized for decades. And this has been a top priority issue for conservatives, in particular the evangelical movement. And they’ve been particularly strategic about organizing around judicial nominations and focusing on the fact that the Supreme Court, and changing the composition of the Supreme Court such that there are a majority of anti-abortion justices, is the end goal. And that is something that Donald Trump campaigned on from day one.
To some extent, Democrats were asleep at the wheel, in part because we have won this issue in the court of public opinion. The majority of Americans have supported abortion rights for decades. And that hasn’t changed since Dobbs. In fact, when it’s up to the voters, when there are things like ballot initiatives, we frequently prevail in getting to pass pro-abortion measures or defeating anti-abortion measures. What we haven’t been as successful at is elevating those who are protective of abortion rights to high-up positions within the judiciary.
And to some degree, we’ve really been out-strategized by the right wing on that. And they’re also very willing to do cynical things and stretch the boundaries of the law and stretch the boundaries of convention in order to accomplish their goal of obliterating the fundamental right to abortion. And Democrats by and large are much more focused on tradition and norms. So one example of that is the failure to expand the court because Democrats don’t want to end the filibuster, which they would need to do in order to expand the court. And while we’re focused on these things like norms, we’re not playing the same game. The conservatives who are anti-abortion are playing by completely different rules than the pro-abortion rights side of our country.
Mansa Musa: So what is y’all’s strategy in terms of trying to get people to see the necessity on the state, local, and national level, the necessity to mobilize getting pro-choice measures, pro-choice legislators, pro-choice city council, et cetera so that the conversation will not be around if a person’s making a decision to do something that they feel as though it’s in their best interest health-wise, that they won’t be criminalized and charged with a myriad of charges you outlined earlier?
Emma Roth: We are a non-partisan 501(c)(3) organization, so we don’t do any campaigning for individual candidates. What we do is work affirmatively on promoting legislation that would be protective of the rights of pregnant people, regardless of whether they seek to carry to term or seek to terminate their pregnancies. And we also engage in legal advocacy.
A huge part of our strategy is exposing these cynical tactics that the anti-abortion and anti-birth justice link of the American justice system is relying on to criminalize pregnant people for their pregnancies or their pregnancy outcomes. Every day we are representing actual pregnant people who are facing these criminal charges and we are sharing their stories. The right wing has depended so much on the fact that they have been targeting some of the most marginalized members of the American community. They have been focused on targeting poor people, people of color, substance users, and young people, and hoping that the public won’t really notice or won’t really care because they’re focused on criminalizing such stigmatized populations.
And we are not only providing direct legal counsel but also sharing in the media, sharing our clients’ stories of the horrors that they’re facing and the complete injustices of the criminal legal charges that they’re facing. And hoping by elevating these stories, we’re letting people know that this is an issue that’s already happening. The right is already criminalizing pregnant people. This isn’t just a threat now that the Supreme Court decided Dobbs and Roe has been eliminated and the fundamental right to abortion has been eliminated. This isn’t just a threat that people will go to jail for their pregnancy outcomes. This has been happening for decades and we’ve been representing these people for decades. And it’s time to pay attention and listen.
Mansa Musa: Right. And how’s Celeste? What’s the status of her situation, her case, and how is that playing out?
Emma Roth: She was recently sentenced on a guilty plea. This is another interesting case, whereas I talked about earlier, the charge itself is very rarely going to be something that has abortion in the actual criminal code. Because getting your own abortion medication or doing what’s called self-managed abortion is not illegal in the vast majority of states. So instead of criminalizing her for that, they criminalized her with a count of concealing or abandoning a corpse.
And this is a charge that we often see when a defendant has done something that the prosecution views as immoral. They start throwing spaghetti at the wall and trying to bring any charge that will stick. They couldn’t charge her with the fact that she terminated her pregnancy because that wasn’t illegal under Nebraska law, so instead they charged her with the fact that she disposed of the fetus’s body in a way that they disapproved of.
And as a result, she was sentenced to 90 days in jail and two years of probation. And what we can’t forget here is that this is a teenager. This is somebody who had her entire life ahead of her and who made a very personal decision with her mother that she wasn’t ready to become a parent yet. And instead of providing her with compassion and resources, the state decided to lock her in jail and give her a felony that will follow her around for the rest of her life because of all of the collateral consequences of a conviction.
Mansa Musa: All right, so going forward, where are you at right now? Because I’m quite sure there are more Celeste cases out there; more people, women, and family members that are making a decision on the wellbeing of their family that’s going to be confronted with this. So where are y’all at right now in terms of educating people and also moving them in a direction where they can get a better understanding of how to go about advocating for themselves in this situation? Because this is, like I said, a stretch of anybody’s imagination that a family can sit down and say, this is what we’re going to do with our life, and then the government comes in and says, well, you all can do that, but …
Emma Roth: Yeah. It’s essential that people who are part of marginalized populations who are more likely to be targeted in these cases, as well as the stakeholders who are involved in these cases – Whether that be the medical providers who way too often report their pregnant patients to the police or law enforcement officers or prosecutors – That everyone who’s involved in the system understands these injustices and understands what they can do to prevent them. We’ve created resources, including something we call our Confronting Pregnancy Criminalization Guide that’s available on Pregnancy Justice’s website, that tells each actor involved in the system, concrete steps that they can take in order to interrupt the pathway of pregnancy criminalization and prevent cases like this from happening in the first instance.
It’s vital that people be aware of their rights but also that people speak out when they work in a field – Whether that be in the medical setting, if they work as a medical examiner conducting an autopsy, if they work as a criminal defense attorney, as a prosecutor, as police, as a judge – All of these actors need to understand that this problem is already huge and is only growing by the day and that there are concrete things that they can do to stop it.
Mansa Musa: Tell our audience and our viewers how they can stay in touch with y’all and if they want to support any of y’all initiatives, how they become involved.
Emma Roth: Sure. You can find us on our website at pregnancyjusticeus.org, and you can follow us on Twitter, on Instagram. And we welcome the involvement of the public, whether that’s through donations, whether that’s through sharing our materials, sharing our content, speaking out with friends and loved ones in their own community, and educating them about these injustices. As more people can get involved in securing the rights of pregnant people, the better. We’ll take all the help we can get. I’m so honored that you invited us here today and thank you to your listeners for their interest in this issue.
Mansa Musa: All right, there you have it. Rattling the Bars. Emma Roth, you really rattled the bars today because you let our audience know that this has been an ongoing practice of the right wing to criminalize a woman’s choice and a person’s right to decide what they want to do with themselves. And we ask our listeners and our viewers to continue to support Rattling the Bars. It’s only on The Real News and Rattling the Bars that you’re going to get this information where when you say Roe v. Wade, you don’t think of Roe v. Wade and somebody getting 90 days in prison. You don’t think of Roe v. Wade and somebody going to trial or the prospect of being tried for murder. When you say Roe v. Wade, you don’t think of Roe v. Wade and think that somebody can go to prison and can’t get a bond. You don’t think of Roe v. Wade in any criminalization of a person’s decision.
You only think of what the narratives are being painted by the right wing: that this is immoral, this is bad. But you don’t hear the conversation about no, what is immoral is people telling anybody if they make a decision to do with their life that they’re going to criminalize because they got the right. Thank you, Emma. We appreciate you, and your continued success.
Emma Roth: Thank you so much for having me.
Maximillian Alvarez: 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 Common Dreams on Aug. 4, 2023. It is shared here with permission under a Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0) license.
A U.S. federal appellate court on Friday ruled that a Jim Crow-era Mississippi law permanently disenfranchising people with certain felony convictions is unconstitutional.
In a decision that can be appealed to the full U.S. 5th Circuit Court of Appeals, a three-judge panel of the tribunal ruled 2-1 that Section 241 of Mississippi’s 1890 Constitution “violates the Eighth Amendment’s prohibition on cruel and unusual punishment and the 14th Amendment’s guarantee of equal protection under the law.”
Last August, the 5th Circuit affirmed Section 241, with dissenting Judge James E. Graves Jr., a Black Mississippian, lamenting that when his colleagues were “handed an opportunity to right a 130-year-old wrong, the majority instead upholds it.”
The U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear an appeal of the ruling, prompting a scathing dissent from liberal Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson.
“In the last 50 years, a national consensus has emerged among the state legislatures against permanently disenfranchising those who have satisfied their judicially imposed sentences and thus repaid their debts to society,” Friday’s ruling states. “Mississippi stands as an outlier among its sister states, bucking a clear national trend in our nation against permanent disenfranchisement.”
Today, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit held that Mississippi’s lifetime voting ban for people with disqualifying felony convictions who have completed their sentences is cruel and unusual punishment in violation of the Eighth Amendment. https://t.co/2IiuFbF4gCpic.twitter.com/6h48dI1PfN
— Southern Poverty Law Center (@splcenter) August 4, 2023
Friday’s ruling is the result of a 2018 lawsuit filed by the Southern Poverty Law Center and ACLU on behalf of plaintiffs including Dennis Hopkins, who has been disenfranchised since 1998 due to a grand larceny conviction.
“In school, they teach our kids that everybody’s vote counts, but no matter how I’ve lived for the past 20 years, I don’t count, not my values or my experience,” Hopkins said when the suit was filed. “I have paid Mississippi what I owe it in full, but I still can’t cast my vote for my children’s future.”
Section 241 “mandates permanent, lifetime disenfranchisement of a person convicted of a crime of any one of ‘murder, rape, bribery, theft, arson, obtaining money or goods under false pretense, perjury, forgery, embezzlement, or bigamy,’” according to the ruling.
As the NAACP Legal Defense Fund (LDF) notes, “Section 241 permanently disenfranchises people convicted of 10 specific crimes, eight of which were chosen by all-white delegates in 1890 and based on their belief that Black people were more likely than white people to be convicted of those crimes.”
Pretty good evidence that aggressively litigating voting rights cases is essential to democracy. https://t.co/ZXFhHQanVd
There are currently more than 20 crimes that disenfranchise Mississippians from voting. The state—which according to the Sentencing Project is one of only 12 with lifetime disenfranchisement—added 11 more offenses to the ban list in 2005.
While Black Mississippians are 36% of Mississippi’s voting-age population, they make up 59% of its disenfranchised people.
“Section 241 is Jim Crow law, which created a deliberate and invidious scheme to disenfranchise Black people,” said LDF assistant counsel Patricia Okonta.
“Today, Black Mississippians continue to be disproportionately harmed by this provision,” Okonta added. “While the state is home to the highest percentage of Black Americans of any state in the country, it has not elected a Black person to statewide office since 1890.”
This is HUGE!! Mississippi's felony disenfranchisement law violates the constitution.
According to the Felony Murder Elimination Project, a California-based advocacy group:
Over 215,000 people in Mississippi were disenfranchised as of 2019, representing almost 10% of the entire state population. Of this total, only 7% are incarcerated. The remaining 93% are living in the community either under probation or parole supervision, or have completed their criminal sentence. The number of African American residents disenfranchised in Mississippi numbered 127,130 in 2016 or nearly 16% of the Black electorate.
“No one disputes that Mississippi’s felon disenfranchisement law was enacted more than 100 years ago for the announced purpose of maintaining white supremacy and blocking Black citizens from voting,” ACLU national legal director David Cole said in a statement.
“Racially motivated laws don’t become valid over time,” Cole added. “It’s just as unconstitutional today as it was when it was enacted. That such a law remains on the books today is a stain on the state’s law books, and plainly unconstitutional.”
The revelations of widespread torture of detainees at the illegal US naval base in Guantanamo, Cuba, rattled the American conscience during the Bush Jr. administration. Two decades later, detainments at Guantanamo continue, but the public has largely moved on. Yet for many former detainees of Guantanamo, release from their former prison has just opened a new chapter of horrors. A recent report from Elise Swain of The Intercept reveals that instead of being sent home, some 30% of former Guantanamo detainees were deported to a third country such as Kazakhstan, the UAE, and others. Despite being released from Guantanamo, these former detainees continue to experience arbitrary detention under the Kazakh and Emirati governments while being prevented from reuniting with their families. Elise Swain joins Rattling the Bars to explain these new revelations.
Pre-Production: Maximillian Alvarez 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. The US military prison at Guantanamo Bay continues to be a stain on our humanity and what we call our civilization. A state-sanctioned black ops site where human rights functionally don’t exist, where torture is routine, Amnesty International called Guantanamo Bay, the Gulag of our time.
Now imagine if you had somehow survived the horrors of Guantanamo Bay as a political prisoner, only to find yourself dumped on the side of a road in a country you don’t know, with no identification papers, no passport, no money, no way to contact or see your family, no legal existence. In a recent report for The Intercept, where the photo editor journalist Elise Swain wrote, “Life behind Guantanamo Bay for some men is just another Guantanamo Bay. Those who cannot be repatriated are instead sent to a third country, like Kazakhstan, where former detainees have been met with more arbitrary detention.” To talk about this, we are joined today by Elise Swain. Welcome to Rattling the Bars, Elise.
Elise Swain: Thank you so much for having me.
Mansa Musa: So let’s start by making sure listeners know what’s happening to these prisoners at Guantanamo Bay being released into foreign countries.
Elise Swain: Right, so we have a situation at Guantanamo Bay for the last 20 years where 779 men came in and were either released, or the few remaining: 30, are still there today. And so, what happened with a lot of these men, hundreds of them were Yemeni: men from Yemen, and the political situation in Yemen had deteriorated. The government was nonexistent. The country was in a civil war.
When the US government couldn’t prosecute and had no evidence to charge and continue to detain these prisoners of law, the unconstitutionally held men, they had to release them. And so what ended up happening was, they were not able to return to places like Yemen because that was deemed too unstable and the US was worried about the security of the US and if these men were to reengage with terrorism and extremism.
What they ended up doing was creating these third-country resettlement deals and that is what I’m interested in my reporting that I’ve been doing lately for The Intercept. We’re talking specifically about countries where this has gone very wrong. There are many successful resettlement stories, where men have been able to essentially live normal lives; work, travel, get married, and obtain their documents. But what I’m interested in talking about today is the issues that we’re seeing play out in places like Kazakhstan, the United Arab Emirates, where these men are lacking fundamental, basic human rights.
Mansa Musa: Right.
Elise Swain: So let’s get into all of that.
Mansa Musa: You spent a lot of time reporting on the story of Sabri al-Qurashi. Tell us about Sabri and what’s it been like to talk to him directly.
Elise Swain: Sabri’s become a friend. Sabri’s an amazing person. I’m really lucky to call him a friend at this point. He’s one of the kindest, most caring, considerate, funny people that I’ve spoken to. His native language is Arabic. He was dumped in Kazakhstan nine years ago where they speak Kazakh and Russian, so he’s had to learn English and now Russian, and he’s caught between these three different languages. But as we spent months speaking, his English did get better and we did some reporting from Arabic to English and I was able to really understand and tell his story for the first time. Because a lot of these men, as I said there were 770 of them, a lot of these stories never got told.
Sabri spent 12 years at Guantanamo. He was not one of the black site prisoners. He was deemed low intelligence value because he was picked up in Pakistan, where he was working with merchandise. He was there for a perfume factory, buying wholesale things, trying to make money, trying to be a rich man and make his family proud. And he was young, and he happened to be there at this time when 9/11 had happened and they were dumping leaflets, offering bounty money up to $5,000, and warlords across Pakistan and in Afghanistan were selling people to the US government for money. This happened with up to 86% of the men that were at Guantanamo Bay.
And so, unable to return to Yemen after Guantanamo, Sabri was pretty enthusiastic and was looking forward to being offered a life in Kazakhstan. It’s a Muslim country. He was told that he would be living under some restrictions for the first two years but essentially he was going there as a free man; he would have all the same rights as Kazakh citizens. He was told he would be treated as a member of society. And for the last eight years, he has found himself without the most basic needs being met. He said to me, truly, my life now is as bad as it was when I was in Guantanamo, and in many aspects even worse. At least there, I knew I was in prison and that I would at least get out one day. So now he’s essentially living in an open-air prison where he’s being told that he’s free and he’s living in what I would consider the complete opposite of freedom.
His movements are monitored. People are actively discouraged from talking to him and being friends with him. They become monitored. He’s kept mostly in isolation because of this, because of the stigma of being branded a terrorist in Kazakhstan. He does not have an ID, he does not have asylum. He’s stateless living in this country. He is unable to receive money or mail. He can’t drive, he cannot travel, and the International Committee of the Red Cross is the one that pays for him to have an apartment and live there. He’s getting no support from the actual Kazakh government.
Mansa Musa: What does Sabri’s situation say about what other former Guantanamo Bay detainees are going through and why are they going to countries like Kazakhstan?
Elise Swain: These resettlement deals are run out of an office at the State Department. So we have a diplomatic branch of the government taking over and trying to clean up the mess made post-9/11 with Guantanamo Bay and the mess of the CIA and all of the torture that occurred there. So essentially now, with an office within the State Department first created under Obama, to transfer these men out of Guantanamo during the days when the Obama administration they wanted to close Guantanamo. That was a priority. Of course, then Trump came in and disbanded this office at the State Department, stopped any transfers out of Guantanamo Bay, and made men who were cleared for release sit there and wait for four more years until they were able to leave.
People like Sabri and Mohammed, the two remaining today in Kazakhstan, are ending up in places like that because they’re essentially pawns in a geopolitical game. What the State Department is doing is using diplomacy to try to police these men in countries that are unwilling hosts. So no one wants to be responsible for men that the US has said were the worst of the worst: terrorists, extremists, people who killed innocent civilian life and did war crimes. Of course, we have a very, very small percentage of men remaining in Guantanamo today they were able to bring evidence against that they were involved in a war crime against the US. Most of these men were un-chargeable but did the time for it anyway.
So no one wants to be responsible for them but some countries are accepting them in these deals with the State Department because it strengthens their relationship with the US; there’s a quid pro quo here, maybe it gets benefits for them in some ways later on the road, or they’re being paid to take them in. I have heard that, not in all cases, but in some cases, we are literally paying countries to take these men off of our hands. So it shows real neglect of the US to have any thoughtful policy in place for what to do with these men once they were able to be released. What has happened here with this resettlement situation, or even for the men that go back home to their native countries, there is no exoneration for them. They’re not leaving Guantanamo with a pat on the back and the handshake saying, we’re so sorry for what we did to you. Here are reparations. Here’s compensation. Here’s rehabilitation for what you went through for the arbitrary detention that amounts to torture.
For some of the men, they did go through the black site interrogation program. For the other men, there was military-run torture. We had two different parts of the government torturing. Interrogations that went beyond any reasonable what they call stress positions, enhanced interrogation. No, it’s torture. What the CIA did and what the US government did at Guantanamo and beyond was torture. And there has been no meaningful accountability for what was done to those men and there has been no prosecution for those who committed it.
And so for now, these men to be released from Guantanamo to be tied up in more decades of bureaucratic nonsense, where they’re left with no rights and the State Department says about the situation in Kazakhstan, listen, it’s not a priority right now. His life isn’t in danger, so he’s going to continue to live at the margins of society. And that’s what we have now. It is a diplomatic quagmire where these men have been tied up for decades in legal messes that the US itself created by handing them over to another country and not meaningfully following up, having no meaningful follow-up with the diplomacy deal that was done. What happens after the two years? The US couldn’t care less.
So unless these men advocate for themselves, unless they talk to the media, unless they write a book or go on social media and become activists, these men are remaining nameless victims of the war on terror, and they are living on the margins of society, and they are impoverished, willfully so, because they are not allowed to work, and they have not been exonerated, and they are broken.
Mansa Musa: You cited in your article about the UN investigation into Guantanamo Bay, and you basically said that it didn’t really reveal nothing that was not already known, and that in reality, it was a bit too late to help people like Sabri. And more importantly, unpack, in your investigation, did they conclude that reparations should be given to men like Sabri?
Elise Swain: This report from the Special Repertoire on Human Rights for the United Nations was significant in many ways. This was the first independent investigator from the UN to be able to have full access and full cooperation from the US to go into the actual prison. She was able to interview the men that were still held there. She talked to men who have been released. I know for a fact she spoke with Sabri and with Mansoor Adayfi and others who have been released for this investigation.
So really, this is a critical understanding and so much of this we’ve been missing because the media has not been allowed to do their jobs. We are not allowed to speak to these men. They are held incommunicado and they always will be because they were victims of CIA torture. And so, the more that they can control that narrative, the more that they can turn, the US public, make sure that we continue to turn a blind eye to the horrifying international human rights abuses that were committed in our name, the better. What this report to me meant was a reaffirmation that the core of the problem here is this arbitrariness. There’s this inexplicable, indefinite detention that is never-ending and because of lack of public interest, because of the media turning its spotlight onto the situation, we have allowed a situation where, as the UN Special Repertoire writes, life beyond Guantanamo for some men is another Guantanamo.
And it’s all of these reasons that I’ve mentioned that this is the case. If there was public interest, if the narrative had changed, oh my God, look at what we’ve done, these men were all largely not involved in 9/11 or in the USS Cole bombing. No, these men were not involved in active violent plots against the US. They were living their lives. Some of them, yes, of course, they were training with Al-Qaeda or the Taliban, but that’s part of the culture and we had no understanding of why they were really there. That wasn’t the crime. The crime was war crimes against the US. But the United States never admitted faults, never said all of these men were innocent in the way that our own criminal justice system would define innocence.
So what happens is that we now have a neglectful media that is not covering this in the same way and we have this report published 20 years too late.
Mansa Musa: Right, right. Yeah, exactly.
Elise Swain: What do we do about it now? All of this is already in progress. All of the bureaucratic issues and the CIA torture, it’s already happened. There’s no changing it unless we completely change the public narrative around how these issues are viewed and what our understanding of justice is. What is the US definition of innocence for these men? If we continue to call them terrorists over and over and over again, this is what living after Guantanamo means. It is another Guantanamo.
So what she points out specifically in this report that was of interest to me was highlighting Kazakhstan and the United Arab Emirates, where these abuses on detainees, she found to be egregious. Now, that’s a powerful word for a UN paper to use. I don’t think you can get much more serious than having an egregious concern.
And so she wrote, “In Kazakhstan, former detainees effectively remain under house arrest and are unable to live a normal and dignified life due to the secondary security measures put in place post transfer.” Now again, what do we do about this situation? The State Department is saying, well, it’s up to Kazakhstan to decide what the security measures are. Kazakhstan is responsible for them. And the Special Repertoire disagrees, essentially, with that.
She says, “There is a legal and moral obligation for the US to use all of its diplomatic and legal resources to facilitate re-transferring these men with meaningful assurance and support to the other countries.” What this means is that she is saying these men need to be taken out of Kazakhstan, out of the United Arab Emirates, because they are being essentially tortured, and held in arbitrary detention yet again, and it is morally imperative that the US steps in and is involved.
And in my reporting, I found that essentially the US government completely disagrees with this. From a legal standpoint, they say, no, no, we had a deal. The deal is over. Kazakhstan is in legal control of these men and we want nothing to do with it. Diplomatically, this would be the moral obligation part.
Mansa Musa: I got you.
Elise Swain: Morally, they also say, no, that’s not for us to decide the morality of what has happened with these men. I was told in a quote from the State Department, once security assurances have expired, and pending any specific renegotiation of assurances, it falls largely to the discretion of the host country to determine what security membership they continue to implement. They’re saying our hands are tied, we have no interest. This is oh, sure, on a personal level I can say this is terrible that this happened, but it’s really not for us here at the State Department to deal with.
And she says, no, absolutely there is a legal and moral obligation. And so, that’s critical. I really haven’t seen such a powerful call to action from the US. This slammed the US government. The UN really, really took us to task here for what has been done to these men at Guantanamo currently, and mostly in the countries where they have been arbitrarily detained.
She also found that this report was significant in finding a much larger study that had been done for the first time, that she looked into so many different cases of where these detainees have been sent. What I’m saying is that this is the first time that someone has looked into the enormity of the situation and interviewed so many former detainees that have been put out in the world because really there hasn’t, no one’s really keeping track of that.
And so, she found that the men released from Guantanamo in resettlement deals, in fact, had not been given proper legal status by their host countries in 30% of documented cases. And that’s only documented cases. She wasn’t able to interview all 700 people who were there. And sorry, not all 700, of course, are in resettlement host countries. However, hundreds are, and 30% is quite high; 30% is unacceptable.
Mansa Musa: And the problem with this whole report, in terms of how the problem for the US is this: okay, you created the problem. You rounded people up under the pretense that they represent a threat to the security of the US. You round them up, you take them to Guantanamo Bay. Then after you held them for up to 20 years or better, or less, then you say, oh, you’re no longer a threat. You’re no longer a problem. You’re no longer a security threat to the US but yet you don’t have the humanity, or you don’t feel the more obligation to say, oh, because of what we did to you now we’re going to send you back to your country and compensate you.
No. The way we’re going to do it, we’re going to pass the buck. We’re going to come to an agreement with the United Arab Emirates and Kazakhstan and say that you take them off our hands, they’re your responsibility. We’ll pay you but in terms of us having anything to do with them, we are no longer obligated and we’re not going to do anything with them.
But as we close out, I want to make one observation: When 9/11 happened, I was serving time in the Maryland prison system. I did 48 years prior to being released, but during that time, I was in the supermax when 9/11 happened. And I was on the walk and I was looking out my cell. I saw when the Twin Towers went down. I went to a person’s cell and I said, you know what? The Twin Towers went down. I said, the US is going to find somebody to blame and when they find somebody to blame, they going to make sure that they do everything humanly possible to eradicate them as a people or eradicate them as human beings. And this is what they have done to Sabri.
Going forward, what do you want our listeners to know and what should be the takeaway from this whole thing? How do you think the American people should respond to what’s going on with men like Sabri and others that are waiting, or others that are already in these situations?
Elise Swain: What needs to change in the thinking about Guantanamo is what we were speaking about before and something you mentioned here. Why were these men not given reparations? Why were these men not rehabilitated or given compensation? Because we do not want to acknowledge that they are victims of torture and that we were wrong.
There is a confirmation bias with these men that is persistent and is so uniformly understood as the truth. And what I mean by confirmation bias is that we cannot begin to admit that we got the wrong people, that these men were not responsible for 9/11. So Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and the accused for 9/11 are still at Guantanamo Bay. The trial has not even happened. We’ve been stuck in pretrial hearings. People in the US don’t know about this. They don’t know that there is a broken commission system where the military is the judge in these cases.
Guantanamo has been a story in the news for 23 years now and it’s a story that people think that they know and they’re tired of. The overwhelming narrative is, yeah, that’s where we sent the terrorists after 9/11. We got them. That’s where all the bad guys went. And in reality, the unbelievable fuck-up that was Guantanamo is really not understood. Mark Fallon, who was one of the heads of the Naval Criminal Investigation Services makes a great point of this in his book, Unjustifiable Means. Many leading people in the military have been able to say, we made a lot of mistakes. These men were not supposed to be there. They were nobodies. It was not Osama bin Laden at Guantanamo Bay. But that’s very rare. That’s rare for people in the government to admit, we got this so terribly wrong.
For Obama to have done what he did, where he did not prosecute torture. He said, let’s look forward, not backward. We lost a pivotal moment there in understanding what was done post-9/11. They swept the torture under the rug. They allowed this legal nightmare of over-classification and lack of justice for both the victims, the family members, the victims of 9/11 and other incidents, and the American public.
There’s been no justice done for us, for the victims of 9/11. There’s been no justice for the maybe one million innocent Iraqis who were slaughtered in the aftermath of 9/11, having had nothing to do with it. There’s been no justice for the bombing of Afghanistan, Libya, Somalia, the drone strikes in those countries, in Pakistan as well, and on and on and on. We have unleashed Pandora’s box–
Mansa Musa: Of terrorism.
Elise Swain: –Of terrorism on other countries that did not deserve the Islamophobic attacks and brutalization and murder outright of their people.
Mansa Musa: Elise, as we close out, tell our audience how they can get in touch with you or how they can review some of your writings or stay abreast as you report these things. Because as you said, the public is being desensitized by Guantanamo Bay because that’s the narrative that the fascists are pushing now.:Terrorists live there. If you got an attitude about that, then you support terrorism, so you should be happy that we got the terrorists isolated and taken care of, to stop another 9/11. How can our people, our viewers, and listeners, stay abreast of what’s going on?
Elise Swain: I just got back, actually, from Guantanamo Bay. I was there on a reporting trip, and I will have some stories coming out soon at TheIntercept.com. I have a staff page there. If you simply Google Elise Swain, The Intercept, you can see all of the reporting and writing that I’ve done right there on my staff page. I am on Twitter, I am on Instagram, and I would say check back in at the Intercept because I have some great stories coming up.
Mansa Musa: Okay, there you have it. Elise Swain, rattling the bars.
When we say close Guantanamo Bay, we always think about what we’re going to do with the people that are there, and that gives us consternation about closing. Because this is a narrative that’s being perpetuated by the government, the fascists: If we close it, then we have to do something with the terrorists, and therefore that’s why it’s not being closed.
No. When we say close Guantanamo Bay, we’re saying close it because, as Elise Swain put out, these are innocent people that are being held there that were rounded up, the same way they rounded up people and put them in Japanese internment camps, the same way they rounded people up and put them in Auschwitz and Bacuag and DACA, the same way they rounded up people in Africa and brought them over as slaves. This is a human tragedy. The human tragedy of Guantanamo Bay is that they’re terrorizing people, and they’re turning, as we saw, the terrorism on them. Then they send them to countries where they don’t have any rights and don’t have a way of re-socializing themselves.
We ask that you continue to support the Real News and Rattling the Bars because it’s the only way you going to get Elise Swain that’s going to tell you about Guantanamo Bay and give you the real news behind it. Because guess what? We are actually the real news. Thank you, Elise. We appreciate it and continue your good work.
Elise Swain: Thank you so much. Solidarity, my friend.
This story originally appeared in In These Times on July 13, 2023. It is shared here with permission.
The fight in Atlanta over Cop City, a massive police training facility, has turned into ground zero for overlapping crises facing our country: the climate emergency, vast political and economic inequality, ever-militarizing police forces and systemic racism.
If we want a democracy healthy enough to solve these crises, it’s worth paying attention to what is happening in the South River Forest.
On May 31, in a disturbing move shortly before Atlanta’s City Council approved more funding for the facility, Georgia law enforcement arrested three members of the Atlanta Solidarity Fund, which provides activists with legal support and bail money.
Organized bail support for activists is a longstanding tradition, exemplified by the historical precedent of churches and community groups raising funds to bail Martin Luther King, Jr. and other civil rights leaders out of jail. Now, however, the authorities are deeming such acts “money laundering” and “charity fraud.”
In reality, the fund was targeted for supporting the Stop Cop City movement, which opposes the police training facility.
Many in the community fear the Cop City facility will be used to train police in counterinsurgency, further militarizing an already armed and equipped force. In a city with wide wealth and income disparities, more militarized policing fits into what community activist Micah Herskind describes as “the state’s retreat from the provision of social welfare and the interrelated build-up of policing and imprisonment to manage inequality’s outcomes.”
The facility is largely funded by the corporate-backed Atlanta Police Foundation (APF), whose donors include Amazon, JP Morgan Chase, Home Depot and Wells Fargo. Militarized policing is a growing concern in the United States, and corporate-funded militarized policing raises further unease about law enforcement becoming directly beholden to corporate interests.
As local resident Brad Beadles put it, “When private corporate donors are able to fund militarized training facilities for the police, they are essentially buying off the police. They are making it clear who the police work for.”
Cop City also has adverse environmental justice effects. Building the facility will require cutting down part of an urban forest adjacent to a majority-Black, working class community.
Urban forests provide critical environmental benefits for nearby residents. They filter pollutants from the air, store carbon, and mitigate floods and the urban heat island effect. Destroying community access to nature and outdoor recreation also negatively impacts mental health, as individuals with less access to green spaces have higher prevalence of mental distress, anxiety and depression.
Cutting down forests anywhere in an age of climate crisis is a bad idea, but doing it next to a working-class Black community is particularly egregious when there are already nationwide racial disparities in urban heat island exposure and access to greenspaces. By 2050, summer high temperatures in the Atlanta metropolitan area are predicted to be 4.1 degrees Fahrenheit hotter than they are today, making preservation of Atlanta’s tree coverage all the more imperative.
Repressing the popular will
The arrests of the bail fund organizers are only one example of state repression against the Stop Cop City movement.
In a January raid on a protest encampment in the forest, police killed Manuel Esteban Paez Terán, an activist also known as Tortuguita. Police claim Tortuguita shot first, but have refused to provide proof. Results from two independent autopsies contradict the official story, raising the possibility that this was a cover-up of a “friendly fire” accident between police officers — or worse, an assassination.
Activists in the movement have also been arrested on “domestic terrorism” charges for having muddy shoes or having legal support numbers written on their arms — prosecutorial overreach with clear intent to intimidate.The state is using violence and terror to try to stamp out a movement opposing a facility meant to train law enforcement in violence and terror.
Environmental activists reoccupy the Atlanta Forest, a preserved forest Atlanta that is scheduled to be developed as a police training center, March 4, 2023 in Atlanta, Georgia. PHOTO BY ANDREW LICHTENSTEIN/CORBIS VIA GETTY IMAGES
Residents of Atlanta have spoken out against Cop City. A September 2021 City Council hearing on the subject received 17 hours of testimony, with about 70 percent against the project. The Council approved the project regardless.
In June 2023, the Council held a hearing on approving more public funding for Cop City. This time, they heard 13 hours of testimony, with the overwhelming majority in opposition. Once again, the Council approved the funding anyway.
Criminalizing protest
The criminalization of protest in Atlanta is part of a years-long trend.
Similar to the Cop City project in Atlanta, the communities impacted by the oil and gas projects we studied had high levels of economic insecurity and were overwhelmingly Black, Indigenous or poor white people. We examined pipeline resistance struggles in three different states — a Black environmental justice community in Louisiana with the highest rates of cancer in the country, an Indigenous nation fighting to protect their cultural resources in Minnesota and impoverished Appalachian communities in West Virginia.
Versions of “Critical Infrastructure Protection” legislation in Louisiana and West Virginia (which have the laws on the books), and Minnesota (where the legislature passed a bill that was subsequently vetoed by the governor), all included similar language that identified varying types of fossil fuel infrastructure as “critical infrastructure” and criminalized entering these sites with the threat of felony charges.
Many versions of the bill also held supposed “co-conspirators” of such activities liable. These types of charges criminalize participation in a group or social movement involved in protesting, which parallels many of the police repression tactics against Stop Cop City, also known as the Defend the Atlanta Forest movement.
Forest defenders who were arrested in Atlanta have often faced “domestic terrorism” enhancement charges in addition to “felony trespassing” due to their association with the “Defend the Atlanta Forest” movement, which prosecutors claim is a “criminal organization” under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO).
In Muzzling Dissent, we identified how the fossil fuel industry is weaponizing the term “critical infrastructure protection” — which is historically associated with safeguarding infrastructure that serves a vital function for communities, such as roads and bridges — to restrict the ability of communities to protect themselves against destructive oil and gas projects.
The State of Georgia and the City of Atlanta are now weaponizing RICO, a 1970s law to prosecute violent mafia activity, against an autonomous and decentralized environmental justice movement.
Similarly, the State of Georgia and the City of Atlanta are now weaponizing RICO, a 1970s law to prosecute violent mafia activity, against an autonomous and decentralized environmental justice movement.
Corporate capture
“Critical Infrastructure Protection” laws are most successful in states with the most concentrated fossil fuel industry power at a time when domestic oil and gas production is at a record high.
In all three of our case studies, the “Critical Infrastructure Protection” bills were led by state legislators who took large campaign donations from oil and gas companies. In fact, the original model text for the bills was drafted by the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) — a non-profit heavily funded by the fossil fuel industry and closely tied to many of the policy makers who passed the bills.
Muzzling Dissent was ultimately an illustration of how unfettered corporate power leads to the criminalization of community resistance against wealthy, private interests. Similarly, it’s no coincidence that Cop City is being built in a heavily corporatized city.
Atlanta has been dubbed the “Silicon Peach” because of its position as one of the fastest growing urban technology hubs in the United States. In addition to a booming technology sector, recent tax cuts for the film industry have made Atlanta a new hotspot for high-budget entertainment studios.
The unwillingness of the majority of elected-officials in Atlanta to acknowledge the widespread opposition to Cop City is a testament to the power of the corporate-backed APF.
Undermining democracy
The recent Congressional intervention to force construction of the Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP) is also consistent with the trend of powerful corporate interests promoting militarized state repression to protect their interests against the popular will.
Stop Mount Valley Pipeline rally held in front of the White House in Washington D.C. on June 08, 2023. PHOTO BY MOSTAFA BASSIM/ANADOLU AGENCY VIA GETTY IMAGES
Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV), the architect of the provision benefiting MVP in the debt ceiling bill, gets the most oil and gas industry money of any federal legislator. And Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY), who made the back-room deal with Manchin to force the pipeline’s approval, has received more than $300,000 from MVP developer NextEra Energy.
While the MVP deal does not directly criminalize dissent, it closes off regulatory and legal tools for project-impacted communities to fight back, making protest and direct action even more indispensable. It requires regulatory agencies to issue all permits for the project without going through the customary review process that projects usually have to go through, cutting communities out of intervening in permitting processes by filing comments in regulatory dockets. It also exempts permits issued to the MVP from judicial review, closing off the courts as another venue for communities to fight back.
When the so-called “proper channels” for communities to resist harmful corporate projects are made inaccessible, protest tactics are sometimes seen as the only choice left for those fighting to defend their communities. And as the crackdown in Atlanta shows, such protest tactics can lead to activists being locked up, creating a chilling effect for those engaging in dissent.
This trend is a serious threat to social movement organizing. The first step in fighting back is to develop a shared understanding of militarization of law enforcement, stigmatization of protest, and corporate capture of government — not as isolated evils, but as an intertwined strategy to undermine democracy.
In the meantime, Stop Cop City organizers are circulating a petition to put the issue before voters on the ballot for municipal elections on November 7. If the organizers collect enough signatures to put the decision on Cop City question on the ballot, voters will get to choose whether or not to lease the city-owned land for the project. Despite their opponents’ best efforts, Atlanta Forest Defenders have not given up on democracy. They are taking their case against Cop City directly to the people of Atlanta, asserting organized people power as the antidote to concentrated corporate power.
Mass incarceration as we know it today owes much of its existence to the political rationale created by the War on Drugs. Although proffered as a solution to the public health crisis of drug addiction, prisons actually provide little in the way of real care or rehabilitation for people struggling with substance abuse. In Alaska, True North Recovery, an addiction treatment and advocacy organization run by formerly incarcerated people, is working to expand care for incarcerated people suffering from addiction. Kara Nelson joins Rattling the Bars to discuss these efforts.
Kara Nelson is currently the chief operating officer at True North Recovery, and a Governor-appointed board member of the Alaska Advisory Board on Alcoholism and Drug Addiction. Since 2016, Kara has served as a chaplain for the Alaska Department of Corrections.
Studio: David Hebden, Cameron Granadino Post-Production: Cameron Granadino
Transcript
Mansa Musa: Welcome to this edition of Rattling the Bars. I’m Mansa Musa, your host. Kara Nelson is currently the chief operating officer at True North Recovery and a governor-appointed board member of the Alaska Advisory Board on Alcoholism and Drug Addiction. Since 2016, Kara has served as a chaplain for the Alaska Department of Corrections. Welcome to Rattling the Bars, Kara.
Kara Nelson: Thank you. It’s such an honor to be here.
Mansa Musa: I gave a brief overview of some of the things. Tell our audience a little bit about yourself.
Kara Nelson: Sure. Well, as you mentioned, I’m the chief operating officer here at True North Recovery, but I started out after 20 years of active addiction, in and out of prison. It was about 20 years there. My last release was in 2011. At that time I started a nonprofit, a home for women coming home after incarceration. And it was a launching pad for a lot of advocacy and people speaking out that one had a desire to live a recovery pathway, but also people that had been formerly incarcerated, family members, and a space that hadn’t been done before.
That has started me on this trek of how I got to where I’m at and I’ve been involved with True North from the beginning. One of my best friends is the CEO, and I say that because he also was incarcerated. We have lived experienced employees. I would say, about 95% of us have some lived experience as well as our professional experience, which gives us the unique ability for that innovative way of reimagining behavioral health, and how we do it.
Mansa Musa: All right. As I was talking to you earlier about Alaska. And for most people, unless you live in Alaska, visited, or had some type of tourist association with it, our general information comes from Discovery. And in that regard, we often think of Alaska as wilderness, we often think of Alaska as people that are more nature-driven. We don’t think of Alaska as a place where people will have a substance abuse problem. We don’t think of Alaska as a place where you have people going to prison, or what a prison would look like in Alaska; It’d be a stretch of our imagination. Talk about, in the face of what’s going on in society today, mainly with drug addiction.
I’m from the District of Columbia, I’m in this region, we have a fentanyl overdose and we have the legalization of marijuana. And at the same token, it’s been decriminalized in terms of your possession of it, but it’s not decriminalized in terms of, you do something with it in your system and caused something to happen, that you going to be charged appropriately. Talk about the recovery effort that you all are doing up there in Alaska. Talk about y’all program and some of the things that you all are doing, and why you think this is important work in Alaska.
Kara Nelson: Well, it’s incredibly impactful. One, Alaska is very different than anywhere else, and so a lot of the different programs and initiatives don’t work the same here because Alaska’s huge and people, we’re spread out all over the place. For instance, when we have substances brought into our state, they’re either brought in by plane or boat and so there are federal issues and charges that are associated with that. It’s hard to get the support you need, people live in very remote areas. We have 750,000 people that live in Alaska and almost 400,000 of those live in one city: in Anchorage, about 45 minutes from where I’m at right now. And so, it’s very difficult. We have the same issues as across the country and the challenges are heightened because of lack of access.
We’re usually pretty behind when it comes to being innovative or having those resources and changing the landscape of how we provide treatment. I’m very passionate about programs and getting inside the prisons, making sure that everyone has equal access to mental health and substance use treatment and rehabilitation. That’s also very unique because the prisons are a long way away from your home, so there isn’t that connectivity. Also, because it’s so dark here in the wintertime, the depression levels and suicide rates are extremely high. Last year we were first in the country, I’m not quite sure what the numbers are this year for suicide, as well as domestic violence, which of course all are in that continuum of getting into prison and utilizing substances to survive. And it’s what works and what doesn’t work.
Mansa Musa: Right, I got you. If you know, how many prisons exist in Alaska?
Kara Nelson: It’s a unified prison system. We have 12 prisons and then there are lots of holding facilities. We have these small communities and honestly, they call them holding facilities, but people could stay there for a very lengthy period of time. We have one woman’s prison, which is in Anchorage. And so, if you live anywhere in the state and you get sent to the woman’s prison, you’re so far away from your family. Also, we work hard with the DOC to have the programming inside for treatment, especially mental health and substance use disorders. But what happens is, they only have, in one institution, maybe five people who can fit into the boxes to check, and then it’s portrayed as it’s happening across the state. So that’s something that we work on to eliminate and have access to care.
Mansa Musa: In terms of the organization, True North Recovery, I was looking at some of the things that you all are doing on the webpage. But talk about how long you all have been in existence. And what are some of the things that you’re doing, both outside in society and if you all have any inroads in dealing with anything within the correction system?
Kara Nelson: True North Recovery was founded in 2016. But prior to that, it was two guys who were tired of seeing their friends die. And I was friends with them and I was also doing that in the nonprofit I mentioned earlier, the home for women and programming for women. And so, we took it upon ourselves because we were trying to make a change. Yet, with all the different treatment facilities and behavioral health systems, there were so many barriers, you couldn’t get an assessment to get in, for months out.
One of the many things that is part of our hearts is same-day access to services. It started out as a peer support network and different treatment centers would contract us to do peer support. And at the time, it wasn’t talked about like it is now. People didn’t want to talk about going to prison, people didn’t talk about their recovery. It started out there and they saw the impact of that lived experience with others in a way that they couldn’t hear it when we were trying to advocate for. But when they saw it working and the success stories and even if people didn’t live an abstinence-based life, their quality of life changed. Fiend 2 Clean was what it was called in the beginning. And the State of Alaska approached us and said, we want to fund you to start a nonprofit. And we called it True North, and that was in 2016. I’m pretty sure it’s the only time a state has freeloaded crazy kids who were trying to save lives at the time.
Since then, we started as an outpatient program with peer support across the board. We don’t add peer support into our programs, we are peers, and we add the clinical aspects and the other aspects into that. We started out as an outpatient. It grew tremendously because, of course, in the beginning, we were people that people could relate to. We would have so many messages coming in. And again, I didn’t technically work for True North, but we were in a tight little network across the state making this happen. We went from there to opening an inpatient treatment center and it’s a 10,000 square foot beautiful home. Everything we do is very personalized, it’s not an institution. If you walked into our treatment center, it’s very homelike, very comfortable.
Everyone that works inside that building does have lived experience: everyone from our master clinician to our intake people. And of course, that comes with working with the prison system, and trying to do bed-to-bed transfers, and building those relationships. Mind you, it’s a small state, we’ve all had interactions with the criminal justice system. So, developing all those relationships and recognizing that it’s not always policy that will change things. We want to get in, build relationships, and then change the culture. Change the culture within the probation system, change the culture within the prison system, judges, and prosecutors.
Now we’re opening another inpatient treatment facility up north in Fairbanks. We have a lot of very extensive reentry case management, we go inside before, and then, of course, during there are lots of bail hearings. We have a walk-in crisis center, we do a mobile crisis team, and again, all utilize people with lived experience. They’ll go on the streets with the mental health clinician up here, develop relationships with law enforcement so they don’t have to go to the ER, they don’t have to go to prison. They’re not going to get arrested when we can build that trust and have them call our mobile crisis team and go deescalate a situation.
Mansa Musa: Right, right, right. And from what I’m seeing, from what I’m gathering, you all are heavy on recognizing that when we talk about substance use disorder or alcohol use disorder, you all seem like you’ve got the model that most people are adopting. That in the country that’s learned, this is more about mental health than it is about criminal behavior. Is that a correct analysis?
Kara Nelson: Absolutely –
Mansa Musa: And in terms – Go ahead. Go ahead. Excuse me.
Kara Nelson: – We can’t incarcerate our way out of these complex social issues. It’s been a long process, but we’re at a great place now where we’re building foundations to do away with those old ideas. Mind you, as I said, we had to do it first to show this is evidence-based. When you support someone, when you surround them, and don’t punish them for acting on their illness. And let us do the work. You don’t have to, we’ll do it.
Mansa Musa: Yeah, yeah, yeah. That’s right. I heard you say you all had got funding for True North Recovery. In terms of your relationship with the Department of Correction or the court system, how are you all able to impact both to get them to recognize that it’s a mental health issue and that the way to deal with it is to be more treatment-orientated, as opposed to carceral? Have you all been able to make inroads in that regard?
Kara Nelson: We have, it’s person by person. Also, to make it clear, we don’t work for you, but we are going to have the minimal contact that we can. I’m talking about judges. Let’s say someone gets a bail hearing and a bed in our facility, we want to make sure they trust what we’re doing, but we’re also holding the line of that confidentiality and HIPAA. And a lot of times they don’t want to do that because in their mind they’re like, these are pre-sentence people. They’re probably going to go to prison, for years possibly. Why would we let them out for treatment?
And we’re good at explaining and educating that, even if they did end up doing some time, there’s a ton of drugs and situations and the culture inside the prison that we’re also working on, but we’re not there yet. And so, there are so many people that have died by overdose and suicide, especially in our Alaska prisons in the last two years. It’s tripled without having that treatment and rehabilitation inside.
Mansa Musa: I did an amount of time in prison, and I saw firsthand substance abuse in prison. I was instrumental in being a part of that organization in terms of the fellowship and trying to get other men within the prison population to deal with this disease of addiction, or to deal with whatever was going on with them that causes them to revert to substance use disorder. And I noticed that, as of late, the courts in this area have started accepting the model of its mental as opposed to criminal, and they have been inclined to send people to drug programs. Is your program being utilized by the court as a referral?
Kara Nelson: We are not specifically, but again, it’s a small state. There are certain treatment centers that have contracts with the DOC, and we do that in the place we started services. And we will. Because we’re such a young company and people are trying to check us out because we’ve grown so fast, we wait around for permission or funding. We know that the best thing is to get people either into treatment or at the right level of care, immediately. We do have drug courts here, again, they’re so different across the board.
In one city in Alaska, mind you, we have to fly, we don’t just drive from city to city. It’s what we do in the interior. And so, it’s an education piece on letting them know that we are available and we will take folks. And there are a lot of archaic mindsets still. Unless you’re in the main area, which is Anchorage, they’re pretty open about that.
Mansa Musa: People that have substance use disorder problems, can they walk into your organization if they don’t have any insurance? Or do they have to have some type of insurance in order to receive the treatment that you’re offering?
Kara Nelson: We’re on Medicaid, we take Medicaid. And if you don’t have Medicaid, we will help you get that. If you don’t qualify for Medicaid, we’re not going to turn anyone away. It’s different situations where we do a sliding scale fee, but also we have scholarships. It could mean many different things, even if someone has an income. Again, because we’ve all walked through it ourselves, I’ve been through every program you can imagine, years of active addiction in and out of prisons. And so, those are how the lens of our decision-making is made.
Obviously, we stay in the regulations for the state, yet also, we’re always challenging them and showing them, I know this is how you’ve always done it, but here’s what we’ve done, and it works, and people are getting well.
Mansa Musa: And in terms of the families, women that are suffering from substance use disorder, if they have children, have you all been confronted with them in situations? And how do you all navigate that? And I know that’s a hard situation because, for a person that’s a recovering addict like myself, I’ve made some bad decisions that ultimately led to some relationships. To the days that I’m having problems with parenting., how do you all deal with those types of situations?
Kara Nelson: Well, you can’t have children while you’re in our facility. But one of the many great things and why I work here is because we have so many extensive partnerships. So, we know we can’t do everything. Not partnerships like, oh, call this person. These are people we personally have a relationship with and we have a list of folks who we know. A lot of times, we’ll even do an MOU with them to have that partnership solidified even if it’s, hey, we’re going to partner with you. And anytime your case manager or peer or whoever calls, we’re going to make sure that it’s given the attention it needs in the appropriate timeframe. Like our walk-in services, we have people walk in all day long, we’re referring and helping them to other treatment centers, not just ours. We want them to get where they need.
But the family. Women and family – I have three kids. I’m very passionate about women, especially women incarcerated, the unique complexities of that, and the trauma I’ve experienced myself. It’s something that I’m very passionate about is women and children. My kids are adults now, we’re still walking through that restoration journey even after 20 years.
Mansa Musa: I noticed you’re a chaplain in the Department of Correction. In terms of your involvement in institutions, I’m quite sure you see a lot of things that go on in this environment. When you’ve been in this space, trust is hard to come by. But when people see you have a commonality, they tend to trust you more than they would not, if they know it’s a commonality and it’s a no-judgment zone. What impact are you having in terms of in prison? Is your organization involved in trying to do some things within the prisons to create support groups, networking, and peer-type of activities within the Alaskan prison system?
Kara Nelson: Our organization doesn’t necessarily do that, except for going in to share what our resources are and to give them that avenue to connect with someone. But they support me in all my craziness, so it’s very important for me to go in. Especially now, I moved up here a couple of years ago, and so I’m very close to our women’s prison now. It’s 30 minutes away from here and I’ve been in all the prisons. As someone who’s formally incarcerated, in the beginning, it was unheard of for someone like me to be able to go back in, still on felony probation, and do prison ministry.
I was able to do that, and now it’s opened up doors for others because it used to be you had to be off paper for five years. And so I had the state chaplain come to me like, how are you getting into my institutions? It was building relationships. And they saw, again, I would have correctional officers calling me like, hey, we’re having a ruckus in J dorm, and can you come down and talk to these ladies? It’s the power of having people’s lived experiences. As you said, even if I didn’t have the same experience as you, there’s an instant trust even coming on this show and talking to you because I know where you come from, to some degree, and it’s very impactful.
My dad is the chaplain at a prison here in Alaska. He didn’t want anything to do with me during my addiction or anything to do with me while I was in prison. I never had one visitor, they had my children. And his heart was changed to the point where now he would be in the prison all day long because there’s such an impact that can be made there to lift people into who they were created to be. And I utilize that time as well to speak into some of the justice parts, or people sharing their story, their testimony, how powerful that is. And bringing all that ugliness to light to make a change in a powerful way.
Mansa Musa: Right. Thank you. And you have the last word. What do you want to tell our audience about Alaska, and more importantly True North Recovery and some of the works that you are doing, going forward?
Kara Nelson: People with lived experience can see through a lens of professional regulations. It doesn’t have to be difficult, we opened a detox center. When you want to do something and there’s something that’s a need in your community, it’s not as complicated as you’re making it out to be. And having that lens is more powerful than you can imagine. We have all the degrees and all the professionalism, all of those things. But what makes us the most powerful and impactful change-makers is that we have a lens of walking through it ourselves and allowing for it to go forward. And not being afraid, or taking risks. Your story is powerful. You are powerful beyond belief, whether that’s in a personal or professional realm. To say I’m the CO of one of the largest treatment centers in the state of Alaska, it’s all because of the experience I went through.
Mansa Musa: That’s right. And how does our audience get in touch with you if they want to become more involved?
Kara Nelson: Sure. You can email me at kara@tnrak.org. And our website as well, which needs to be updated, but the basics are there.
Mansa Musa: All right. Thank you, Kara. And there you have it, The Real News and Rattling the Bars. True North Recovery. In Alaska? You might say. True North Recovery. Kara is well-spoken in understanding the disease of addiction. She’s well-versed in understanding how to help people navigate their way out of this. And we ask that you continue to support Rattling the Bars and The Real News because it’s only from this mechanism that you’re going to get information like True North Recovery as it relates to helping people rebuild their lives. People with lived experience are better situated to help other people with lived experience.
So we ask you to continue to support Rattling the Bars and The Real News. Thank you very much, Kara Nelson. Appreciate you taking this time to enlighten us and educate us on some of the work that you are doing in Alaska, and hope that you continue to make progress. And we look forward to seeing you back on our show in the near future.
This story originally appeared in Common Dreams on July 19, 2023. It is shared here with permission under a Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0) license.
A voting rights group on Wednesday sued Republican Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and other officials for what it called “illegal intimidation” of voters by intentionally making it difficult for former felons to determine their voting eligibility and using “election police” to “mount an aggressive campaign” against people who did not know they were ineligible to cast ballots.
The lawsuit—filed in Miami federal court by Free and Fair Litigation Group, Arnold & Porter, and Weil Gotshal & Manges working pro bono on behalf of the Florida Rights Restoration Committee (FRRC) and individual voters—alleges that state election officials “have created such a bureaucratic system around the implementation of Amendment 4 that it prevents Florida citizens from voting.”
“Florida’s failure to accept responsibility in determining voter eligibility hurts every Florida citizen.”
Amendment 4 is an FFRC-led 2018 referendum approved by nearly two-thirds of Florida voters reenfranchising 1.4 million people with past felony convictions. The stakes transcended Florida and criminal justice reform, as a botched state voter purge of purported former felons played what one federal civil rights commissioner called an “outcome determinative” role in the 2000 U.S. presidential election.
“Ever since the people of Florida passed a constitutional amendment to grant people with felony convictions a new right to vote, the governor and the state have done everything in their power to prevent those 1.4 million new voters from actually voting,” Carey Dunne of the Free and Fair Litigation Group said in a statement.
Florida officials have engaged in a yearslong campaign to intimidate and prevent people with convictions from voting, as alleged in the complaint.
— Free and Fair Litigation Group (@FreeFairTweets) July 19, 2023
Additionally, FFRC alleges that DeSantis’ deployment of statewide “election police” constitutes illegal voter intimidation under the federal Voting Rights Act.
DeSantis—who is seeking the 2024 GOP presidential nomination—has faced widespread criticism for using Florida’s Office of Election Crimes and Security to arrest 20 formerly incarcerated people who believed they were eligible to vote under Amendment 4 for alleged “voter fraud.” Most of those arrested were Black and almost all were Democrats.
The new lawsuit alleges that DeSantis and Florida election officials failed to uphold their legal responsibilities by:
Providing inaccurate, incomplete, or misleading information to potential voters who try to determine their voting eligibility;
Creating a byzantine process in which voter eligibility is determined by varying local practices depending on where the potential voter lives; and
Creating, publicizing, and deploying an “election police” unit designed to arrest people for having voted, including some people encouraged to register to vote and provided a voter ID by Florida election officials.
“Florida’s failure to accept responsibility in determining voter eligibility hurts every Florida citizen,” said FFRC executive director Desmond Meade.
“This is not a Black, white, Latino, Native American, Asian, or multiracial issue or a Republican or Democrat issue; this is an everybody issue,” Meade added. “If Floridians cannot rely on the state to determine voter eligibility, then who can we rely on?”
The fight for voting rights has been long and challenging. In the past few years, voting integrity in Florida has been undermined. That’s why FRRC has filed a lawsuit against the State for failing to do its job and fix our broken election system. #JustDoYourJobpic.twitter.com/atIzftNwjY
— Florida Rights Restoration Coalition (@FLRightsRestore) July 19, 2023
The plaintiffs in the suit are seeking a declaration that “Florida’s implementation of Amendment 4 is unconstitutional and illegal under the Voting Rights Act.”
FRRC also requests the creation of a statewide database for prospective voters in order to determine their eligibility under Amendment 4, as well as the appointment of a federal compliance monitor.
“From the governor on down, state of Florida and local officials at every level have failed to reintegrate returning citizens who have served their time back into our democracy,” Arnold & Porter pro bono counsel John A. Freedman said in a statement. “We are proud to stand with our clients and our co-counsel in this important fight.”
Jessup, Maryland is home to the state’s only women’s prison, the Maryland Correctional Institute for Women, commonly known as “The Cut”. For years, advocates fought for a women’s pre-release center, which would house prisoners eligible to go out on work release, receive an income, and take family leave. Despite passing a bill into law mandating the construction of a women’s pre-release center, the state has only pledged $2 million towards its construction. Monica Cooper, founder and Executive Director of the Maryland Justice Project, joins Rattling the Bars to break down the significance of the pre-release center, why the state government is dragging its feet, and the real impact official inaction is having on women in The Cut.
Studio Production: David Hebden, Cameron Granadino Post-Production: Cameron Granadino
Transcript
Mansa Musa: Thank you for joining me on this edition of Rattling the Bars. I’m your host, Mansa Musa. The state of Maryland has never really known what to do with its population of incarcerated women. Women have always been an afterthought, as far as the prison system is concerned. And it has led to a perpetual state of neglect and disinvestment in the facilities and programs that incarcerated men get, but women don’t.
The Maryland Correctional Institute for Women, commonly called “The Cut,” is one of the oldest prisons in Maryland. In the 19th century, women were first housed in the quarters reserved for them at the Maryland Penitentiary. They were later lodged in a section of the Maryland House of Corrections, The Cut, which opened in 1879. Not until 1941 did the state construct a separate prison for women.
The Women’s Cut in Jessup was established in 1941 as the Women’s Prison of the State of Maryland. It was renamed in 1945 as the Maryland State Reformatory for Women. In 1962, it became the Maryland Institute for Women. Its present name was adopted in 1964. It housed prisoners from various custody levels: from minimum, medium security, to death row. After a two-year struggle to secure funding, 82 years later, the legislature passed a capital budget measurement to funnel $2 million toward the planning and construction of a woman’s pre-release center.
Joining me today to talk about the impact of this is Monica Cooper. Welcome, Monica. Tell our audience a little bit about yourself.
Monica Cooper: Yes, yes sir. First, I want to thank you for allowing me to be here and to speak on this topic here at Rattling the Bars. My name’s Monica Cooper. I’m the executive director of the Maryland Justice Project. We’ve been around since 2013 and our main goal was to try to push legislation that would help women and girls that are formerly incarcerated to have a better life and be able to have access to jobs, education, homes, and things like that. We’ve since pushed the boundaries some.
Realizing that one of the main things that a person needs; particularly women because they tend to be the breadwinners in the household and they tend to be the ones responsible for the children – One of the things that we’re pushing the boundaries of is in terms of moving women and girls into solar energy, moving women and girls into the tech fields, into robotics. Into those jobs that (1) are going to be around for years to come, and (2) that are going to pay a good salary. It’s hard for a woman that’s got three children to work at McDonald’s and is still expected to be able to provide a decent life for her children. So we’re pushing the bars a little bit and trying to be a part of the climate change initiative, the greening of our spaces.
Mansa Musa: Okay. So basically y’all are involved in all aspects of –
Monica Cooper: We are.
Mansa Musa: – Ensuring that women develop the necessary skills so they can have a quality life. Speaking of quality life, we have a situation in the state of Maryland, where we know for a fact that there’s only one prison that houses women. It’s called the Maryland Correctional Institute, commonly called The Cut. We recognize that when it comes to women in any prison system anywhere in the US, there’s a disconnect between them and the treatment that they’re getting or the lack of treatment that they’re getting, and that of men.
I’m going to outline, then you can walk us back through the progression. Y’all had got the Maryland General Assembly Legislature to pass a bill that highlighted the necessity for women to have a pre-release center. ‘Cause Maryland doesn’t have a pre-release center for women. And in getting that done, y’all was able to get the state legislature to mandate that the governor allocate money towards this project. Initially, y’all asked for $125,000. Y’all have since then gone back and got $2 million towards the building of this project.
Walk our audience through what exactly is going on. Because $2 million is not going to build anything in terms of providing a lesser security environment for women and allowing women to have the opportunity to be able to (1) go out on work release, (2) get an income, and (3) be able to have family leave. So unless they have these things, unless they have this institution, the chances of them being able to have that in any shape or form will never exist. Walk us through what exactly is going on with this pre-release system and the history of it.
Monica Cooper: Okay, a brief history: in 2016, the Maryland Justice Project went to Annapolis, not knowing who would sponsor such a bill. We sought out several candidates, we went to then-Sen. Barbara Robinson. We were having meetings with her, asking her if she would sponsor this bill to help us to get a pre-release center back open. Well, Sen. Robinson didn’t come back during the next legislative cycle when we finally got the support that we needed so we asked then-Del. Mary Washington if she would sponsor the bill. It failed. We brought it back again. This time she was now Sen. Mary Washington.
And we thought that the fiery candidate from Montgomery County, Charlotte Crutchfield, would be a great person to push this bill. When it comes to legislation, you really have to choose those people who are going to work hard for the bill; that’s going to rally people around this bill, their constituents, while the advocates do the on-the-ground work. That’s what the partnership is about because you have some legislators that don’t work at all unless it’s something that really, really suits them. They’ll have a hundred bills, but none of them pass, none of them are successful because they don’t really do the work that’s required.
But in the interest of time, the bill was passed in 2020. Then-Gov. Larry Hogan vetoed the bill. We were able to come back the following legislative session in 2021 and get the override that we needed to make that thing law. So it became law in 2021. But what happened was, as I had mentioned earlier, one of my colleagues called it an economic veto. An economic veto is when the person in power doesn’t have the will to make this law become the law of the land. So what they’ll do is they will fail to put that money in the budget and that means you can’t do anything. It’s almost as if the veto was effective, so there’s an economic veto that stymies your efforts.
But what that previous governor didn’t know, is we are tenacious. We have had to set up meetings in the subcommittees, capital budget, public safety subcommittees, appropriations, wherever the money is. That’s where we had to go, which really caused me to learn something: when you really want to get something done, start where the money at.
Mansa Musa: That’s right. Show me the money.
Monica Cooper: Because all of it is going to end up in spaces where those people who are in control of the budget will have to vote on what we are actually going to spend this money on. So we all learned a great deal, and we were all excited to be in those spaces because those spaces are generally reserved for big-time lobbyists, those spaces are generally reserved for companies with a whole bunch of money, that get to have those back-door meetings and get to have the time of those people who sit on the finance committee. They are willing to give those people that time. But lowly advocates, very rarely do they see us and they are not even willing to give us their time in many cases.
We played good in the sandbox, we let them know that we want to be partners with them. So we had made some inroads where they don’t even hear from us. We would call and say, hey, can I meet with Senator So-and-So? Or, can we set up a meeting with Delegate So-and-So? Well, they’re busy. But if I called to say, I’m from the Xerox Company, if I called to say, I’m from Whiting-Turner, if I called to say, I’m from Potts & Callahan, Saputo – The big-time developers – They would set up meetings quick, fast, and in a hurry. So I was thrilled that they actually worked with us with some nudging.
We were able to get them. Because the legislation says that $2 million would’ve been allocated to do research or a study, what’s needed to go in this space. And it was another $150,000. Well, of course, we know and they know, that’s nowhere near the amount of money that we need to have this facility built. But in our mind, as long as it’s in the line item and it’s in the budget, the next logical step is to add more money to that budget line item. Because all the hard work had been done. But much to our surprise, we still were being stymied.
Mansa Musa: How so?
Monica Cooper: By folks who didn’t have the will to do so.
Mansa Musa: Okay. Okay.
Monica Cooper: The administrations have changed. So at this point, there’s really no reason why this project in this past session wasn’t fully funded. It should have been, we still have work to do. And we’re hoping that – Fully fund the project. It’s needed. It’s a Title IX issue. No lawyers are involved at this point. But you should not have to –
Mansa Musa: – and Title IX, for our audience, is?
Monica Cooper: – Title IX is an issue that says if you do it for the boys, you have to do it for the girls.
Mansa Musa: Okay. That’s what we need to have happen. That’s right.
Monica Cooper: If I can break that down for you. It’s against the law.
Mansa Musa: Right. To discriminate against women.
Monica Cooper: To discriminate against women. That’s in sports, that’s in every facet of our society. It all hinges on that Title IX issue.
Mansa Musa: And we know that the reason why it’s a Title IX and why we can invoke Title IX is because the men have pre-release. The men have family leave. The men have the ability to go out in the street and work, whereas the women, under the same Department of Corrections, under the same Public Safety and Correctional Service, under the same regulations and rules, don’t have these things. Okay, but tell me this, then: Why do you think it wasn’t fully funded in this past legislative session?
Monica Cooper: Well, the new historical-appointed Carolyn Scruggs, who made history being the first African American Secretary of Corrections – Hats off to the Moore administration, and hats off to our new secretary – Ms. Carolyn Scruggs has been in the business for about 27 or 28 years. In fact, I believe that her previous role was that of the re-entry person handling those things. She was a leftover. Well, I’ll say she was previously in the Hogan administration.
Mansa Musa: Under Green.
Monica Cooper: Under Rob Green. I don’t know what her personal decision might be, or her personal feeling about it. But I know that she didn’t budge, Green didn’t budge, and former Gov. Hogan didn’t budge when it came to this effort. And unfortunately, it feels that way still. It was said, well, that was an oversight. That they didn’t put it in there because if the annual budget comes out every year, then, the Department of Social Services, Department of Transportation, Department of Corrections, if they don’t make the request, then it’s not going to be put in there.
So it is my belief that the Department of Corrections didn’t even make the request. The Department of General Services as well played a role because they are the ones who are going to see this project through. And we believe that neither of them has been in a hurry to make this happen, even though it’s the law. They are breaking the law by not making that happen.
Mansa Musa: I did 48 years in the Maryland prison system and I was under the Department of Public Safety and Correctional Service. The Division of Corrections is the same system that the women are housed under. The same regulations exist: in order for men to get a reduction in security, they have what they call a point system. You accrue so many points and automatically, your security is reduced. When your security is reduced, you either move to another institution or are released. So when your security is reduced from medium security to minimum security, from minimum security to pre-release, all this is predicated on a number of factors.
But more importantly, the number one factor is the amount of time served. It automatically opens up the door for, whatever my sentence is, how much time I served on it. When I become parole-eligible, that means I serve at least one-fourth, and under new law, maybe one-half. But that automatically says that I’m entitled to a security reduction. How is this being done or exercised now, with The Women’s Cut being the only women’s prison and these different levels of security in these institutions? How are these women able to progress, or even have access to progress?
Monica Cooper: Well, unfortunately, what the Maryland Correctional Institution for Women has done under the Department of Corrections is, they had called themselves shutting down the one pre-release center that they had in the whole state for women. They shut it down and sent them all back to Jessup in 2009. When we were calling them on it, they decided that they would set up the pre-release inside the prison. That’s impossible.
Mansa Musa: Yes sir.
Monica Cooper: It’s impossible because it violates COMAR. There are regs, as they call them, there are regulations that say once a person reaches minimum pre-release and work release status, they are supposed to be housed in a specific manner. You’re not supposed to be housed behind wires, then a door, then another door, and another door. So the way that they are housed is against the law. But they call themselves having the pre-release center inside a facility that houses maximum, medium, and minimum. And they dug a hole for themselves because now that you have stymied the efforts to have a standalone facility, now you are forced to lie. Now you are forced to intentionally stagnate the progression of the women.
It’s women that are medium security that probably should be minimum or pre-release. But because they don’t have a facility to send them to, and they don’t want their numbers to rise, they stagnate them. So if you ask them, well, how many eligible folks do you have? They might say, we got 60. When in actuality, if you had classified them according to what COMAR says, you will probably have about 200. So what the Department of Corrections is, they continue to dig a hole for themselves. You know how when you tell one lie, then you got to tell another one? Then you got to remember that lie. Then you’re in this pickle, you’re in that pickle. That’s almost the situation that they are currently in now, honestly.
Mansa Musa: Okay. And as we close out, I want you to highlight where are y’all going next. Because as you outlined, women are being stagnated by virtue of this intransigent attitude toward putting money in there. And shovel, dirt, dig, build. Where do y’all go now? Y’all got $2 million, and y’all strategies seem to be working in holding their feet to the fire. Where do y’all go now? And when do you envision this entity or your work coming into fruition, in the form of a pre-release being, and coming into existence?
Monica Cooper: Well, our legislative sessions here in Maryland are usually from January 9 or 11, up until April 15. We have a 90-day session here. In those entire 90 days, we are constantly setting up meetings, trying to come into spaces to talk about our work, and trying to gain some support from the community at large. So one of our next steps is going to be to go back yet again, even more firmly, and ask that we be fully funded. But this time we are going back with even more supporters. And we’re going back with a little more statistics and a little more facts.
Because when you’re in these spaces, it’s not only for work release. It’s not only to be able to go home. This facility is the more concentrated effort on preparing you to go home. That’s why it’s called the pre-release. This is pre-exiting. So during your pre-exiting, you have to be strong enough to fight your urges to use drugs. You have to have a foundation of training so that you can get a job and maintain a job. We should never send anybody home from incarceration unemployed. Everybody that exits a facility should have a job before they come home so they’re already coming into the community being functional. They’re already coming into a community helping to build that tax base that we need for our schools, for our roads, those things that we need. So they’re doing a disservice by having a record number of overdoses at MCIW.
Mansa Musa: Yeah, I already know. That’s right.
Monica Cooper: They’re doing themselves a disservice by sending a woman home that hasn’t had a chance for training. She hasn’t had a chance to get a job. You’re sending her home in the same situation that she came in the prison with and it’s a disservice because if you had that facility, you would be able to concentrate on those things and produce and send home people who are less likely to re-offend. So we’re coming back with more facts and more statistics and stronger advocacy.
We have been staying away from using the court system in trying to work with the administration and everything. But it’s a sin and a shame that you would have to take somebody to court for something like this. This is obvious. There’s no way in the world that a logical-thinking person wouldn’t say, well we have all of these facilities for men, but we don’t have any for women. That’s small. There’s no way. You don’t have to have somebody prove to you why you need it. In fact, the Women’s Pre-Release Center came online in the ’70s. They were called Community Rehabilitative Centers.
Mansa Musa: Rehabilitation Centers. Right.
Monica Cooper: So because you took it away, put it back.
Mansa Musa: That’s all. That’s simple as that.
Monica Cooper: So we’re coming out strong, and we need a lot of support.
Mansa Musa: All right. Talk about that. Talk about how our audience can get in touch with you. What do you want our audience to do?
Monica Cooper: Info@marylandjusticeproject.org. And Maryland is written completely out. We’re going to need everybody. And I promise you that we can do this but we got to do it collectively, and we got to push back. And it doesn’t matter what party you belong to. This is not about a particular party.
Mansa Musa: It’s not about politics, it’s about humanity.
Monica Cooper: It’s not about a particular individual. It’s about people seeing that this is what we need, and getting it done. If you can spend $50 billion to study oysters, bluefish, and things like that; these things that I love. I love the Maryland blue crab. But if you take a look at the budget and see how some of that money is being spent on some of those studies, even on a federal level, you look at the budget, you say, doggone, man. They’re studying how plants open and close. They gave the National Institute of Health $40 million to study if the sun is going to wink at you. If you look at it, some of the stuff that they actually put monies towards, it’s like, come on. This is a simple kind of fix.
Mansa Musa: That’s right. Okay. So there you have it. The Real News, Rattling the Bars, Monica Cooper. As she outlined, this is a matter of humanity, this is not a matter of earmarking money for something that is not going to have a return. It’s a matter of giving women the same equal rights that you give everybody else. Monica, thank you for joining us today.
Monica Cooper: My pleasure. I look forward to coming back.
Mansa Musa: We appreciate you and we look forward to you coming back. We know that you have a hard schedule today, but we look forward to you coming back. And more importantly, coming back and telling us that the money has been allocated, and women will be given equal opportunity to return to society as they should be. Thank you very much.
Monica Cooper: Thank you.
Mansa Musa: And we ask you to continue to support Rattling the Bars and The Real News. It’s only on Rattling the Bars and The Real News that you get this information about what’s going on with women in the Maryland prison system. More importantly, how we can change this narrative. How we can get our families, our friends, and our loved ones to support the efforts that are being done to get a woman’s pre-release center built that will provide the opportunity for women to come out with jobs, come out with education, come out with the skills that they’ll be able to use to stay in society. And more importantly, to repair their lives and bring up their children. Thank you.
We are sending out condolences to the family members of Mutulu Shakur, an activist and member of the Black Liberation Army. He transitioned July 7. He was 72 years old, a political prisoner of war. Mutulu was incarcerated for 36 years before being granted parole in December of 2022, due to his declining health. He was denied parole nine times and diagnosed with terminal bone marrow cancer, with doctors giving him six months to live. Rest in Power, Dr. Mutulu Shakur.
Inequality lies at the heart of contemporary American politics—from the dizzying power of corporations and the billionaire class to the racialized and gendered dimensions of wealth and income disparities. Yet the question of economic justice, as well as the struggle to attain it, also has long historical roots. Mark Paul joins The Marc Steiner Show to discuss his new book, The Ends of Freedom: Reclaiming America’s Lost Promise of Economic Rights, an historical treatment of historical pursuits of economic equality in America spanning centuries.
Mark Paul is an Assistant Professor of Economics at the Edward J. Bloustein School of Planning and Public Policy Rutgers University. He is a political economist working in the areas of inequality and environmental policy.
Studio / Post-Production: David Hebden
Transcript
The following is a rushed transcript and may contain errors. A proofread version will be made available as soon as possible.
Marc Steiner:
Welcome to the Marc Steiner Show here on The Real News. I’m Marc Steiner. It’s great to have you all with us again. We’re going to talk about a book today. It’s called The Ends of Freedom. It’s a really fascinating book by Rutgers professor Mark Paul. Its subtitle is reclaiming America’s Lost Promise of Economic Rights. It takes us on a journey from the legacy of Thomas Paine and Alexander Hamilton to Lincoln and the Radical Republicans, FDR, A. Philip Randolph, Henry Wallace, Martin Luther King, and some of the folks we might not remember, like Harry Hopkins, all of them fighting and organizing for everything from the Freedom Budgets to the Bill of Economic Rights.
This is not just a journey through our past struggles. It looks at the struggles between negative and positive freedoms, the battles for the soul and future of our nation, and what all that says about where we are today. I said our guest is Mark Paul. He’s assistant professor at the Bloustein School of Planning and Public Policy at Rutgers. His work has appeared in numerous publications, New York Times, Economist, Washington Post, The Nation, Financial Times, covering the spectrum, and joins us now to talk about this book, the Ends of Freedom, Reclaiming America’s Lost Promise of Economic Rights. And Mark, welcome, good to have you with us.
Mark Paul:
It’s wonderful to be here with you.
Marc Steiner:
So this is a pretty expansive book. I mean…
Mark Paul:
I just did off a few things.
Marc Steiner:
Yeah, just a couple of things. Just a couple of things. So let’s take it from the beginning and talk a bit about your approach to this subject, what we face in the world today, but why you took us on this journey and what that journey was.
Mark Paul:
Look, I didn’t grow up wanting to be an economist. I don’t know about you.
Marc Steiner:
Who does?
Mark Paul:
Some people grow up wanting be a journalist, but I don’t know any six year old that wants to be an economist when they grow up. But from when I was 14, I really wanted to be a chef. And thanks to public broadcasting, Julia Child on PBS helped me learn how to cook. And I worked in restaurants since I was 14 and I loved it and I still love it here today. And the reason I start here is because this is what got me interested in economics. It was the real world. It was working on the line at high-end restaurants next to immigrants who had been showing up for work 60 hours a week every week. And they were making marginally above minimum wage, maybe $10 an hour, $12 an hour, but they were nowhere close to being able to make ends meet.
And none of us, with the exception of the head chef and sous chef, could actually afford to eat in the restaurant we’re cooking in. And this got me interested in inequality, and this notion of the American dream and work hard, you’ll get ahead. And I just kept realizing so many people around me are working so incredibly hard, yet the barriers of inequality are just blocking their road to success time and time again. And it’s at that point that I really started studying the economic system and started realizing that here in the United States we have 40 million people in poverty. We have another a hundred million people living just a paycheck away, a lost paycheck away from economic imprecarity. And there’s nothing natural about that. It really is a policy choice. And so I went to school for economics, but let me tell you, economists don’t really study history these days.
And it was later in my time as a graduate student studying economics that I decided to look back in American history and understand a little bit more about this promise of the American dream and this promise of freedom here in the United States. Jefferson’s proposed life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness. Because I realize that in order for those words to ring meaningful, to be held true, we not only need political rights, we not only need social rights, we not only need reproductive rights, all rights which are increasingly coming under attack, but we also need economic rights. We need food on the table, a roof over our head, healthcare when we’re sick and the like. So that set me on a course to study American history and better understand how we’ve been thinking about this notion of economic provisioning throughout American history because the story we tell today, which is a story of unfettered free markets coupled with limited government, delivers us to heaven essentially just isn’t working for the vast majority of people.
And I wanted to try to figure out a different story. And the main reason I focus on US history is precisely because today the right completely owns the US story. They completely own the American story. Freedom for instance, the most powerful word in our political discourse is completely associated with the Republican Party today. And I think that’s something that we need to understand and reconsider at a much deeper level because the Republican Party is not exactly delivering freedom for the American people through their policies. And so I wanted to take a look and think about what is a more meaningful robust notion of freedom that lets people actually live dignified lives and be and do what they themselves have reason to value.
Marc Steiner:
So as I was reading the book, one of the things that struck me was your discourses on freedom and how that has been a debate about what America is from the very beginning, and that there have been periods as you write about when your notions of freedom you can, let’s talk a bit about these kinds of ideas about freedom and how they interact and how they confront one another. But this has been the struggle in America from the beginning. That to me rang really true in this book.
Mark Paul:
So when we talk about freedom today, people often think of the Don’t Tread on Me flag. They think of Grover Norquist famous quip, you want to shrink government down to size where you can strangle it in the bathtub coupled with access to markets, which is really a notion of freedom. That is a radical notion of freedom itself. And I think part of what I wanted to do is challenge that. The common understanding we have of freedom today is not the common understanding throughout American history. It’s not the understanding of freedom for those who partook in the Freedom March or wrote the Freedom Budget during the civil rights era. They had a much more robust understanding of freedom, as did our founders. And what they realized was that yes, we need negative freedoms, which are so famously articulated in the Bill of Rights, freedom from government.
But let’s also remember when the founders wrote the Bill of Rights, we were not rebelling against a government of the people for the people by the people. The people were rebelling against a monarchy. So it’s a very different situation than we find ourselves in here today. But those negative freedoms, freedom from government, which are important, we need access to free speech, we need personal protections, but those aren’t sufficient. And that’s where positive freedom comes into play as well. And this idea was articulated clearly by Isaiah Berlin, an Oxford philosopher, but also by another wonderful Oxford philosopher that I wish were better known, T.H. Green, who really talked about to live a dignified and meaningful life, we need our basic economic rights met.
And what’s fascinating is when you look back at the American story, you realize that these were always central to it. Thomas Paine, who wrote the most incendiary pamphlet of the Revolutionary Era, Common Sense, talked at length about the notion how everybody, every single citizen deserved a piece of the collective economic pie, not as charity, not as welfare, but as their birthright. Because to be a citizen, it meant that everybody got not just those political rights, but also economic stability. And we actually see this play out through American history. The Homestead Act might be the most famous example of this, where Lincoln and the radical Republicans intentionally redistributed land larger than Texas today to try to provide economic security to new settlers.
Marc Steiner:
So a couple of things here, one is that when you look at the struggles in this country historically, before we get into your ideas about what these struggles tell us about where we could go and we can talk a bit about how we can get there, is that there’s always been this battle in America over the notion of freedom and what that means. And a lot of it was based that you touch on in portions of your book around race, around enslavement, around racism, segregation that also has hurt the struggle for freedom as well as advancing the struggle for freedom.
So I’m curious, having gone through all of this, when you look at Thomas Paine and even Hamilton, when you look at the struggles in the Civil War and the three acts that you focus on of the radical Republicans that they created, we can talk about, and then you look at how that was defeated and thrown back, and you look at then the New Deal that you spent a lot of time talking about and how that kind of changed America in profound ways. And again, the pushback that puts us in the place where we are today in struggling for what freedom and equality actually means and economic freedom. So talk about how you see that historic dynamic, why it has been played out the way it’s played out, and where you think that takes us.
Mark Paul:
Yeah, I think it’s a crucial point. Look, I just mentioned the Homestead Act a moment ago. And the Homestead Act, it’s important to note largely was available to white male settler. And in general, the vast majority of blacks were excluded from the Homestead Act. Now we did for a brief moment, have 40 acres and a mule, which unfortunately was essentially repealed following the assassination of Lincoln. But this country is founded on settler colonialism and we do need to reckon with that fact. And Aziz Rana’s work, The Two Faces of Freedom is just absolutely brilliant for folks who want to dig into that notion more. But when we come into the New Deal, for example, we see there too, the New Deal was essentially a Faustian bargain between Roosevelt and Southern segregationists where in many instances, women and black workers, particularly in the South, were excluded from sufficiently benefiting from New Deal programs. So there is a long racist history in this country.
Now the question arises then, does that mean that we should forget that history or does that mean that we need to reckon with that history and when developing legislation to correct it to actually consider how is it that we build the strongest policies moving forward so that we don’t have a real fracturing of the working class, which is what has been happened so many times throughout American history? And this is where the work of King, A. Philip Randolph and Bayard Rustin during the 1960s, I find so instructive. When King for instance, turned his attention to the Poor People’s campaign, he made it very clear that this was not a campaign for poor black Americans. This was a campaign for all of America because he understood that the only way to build meaningful and enduring freedom in this country is for all to be free.
And that meant, and we can get into the policy discussion a little later, but that meant that we have to develop universal policies that benefit everybody. Now the best example of this in our modern political era is when we look at Medicare versus Medicaid. Now Medicare is a high quality program because everybody over the age of 65 is benefiting from it. Medicaid on the other hand, is a substantially lower quality program and comes with much more stigma, particularly because it is a program designed for the poor. So as Wilbur Ross quipped, he’s said one of the chief architects of the New Deal and Great Society programs for the Poor Make Poor Programs. And I think that rings true.
And I think the same thing can be said for race specific programs. If we were to develop a lot of programs just targeted, for instance, towards Black Americans or towards Brown Americans, I think that we would not only create substantial political divides, but I also would not have faith in our ability to build strong and politically enduring programs through that approach. So what we call this, and we can chat about it more, is targeted universalism, programs that apply to all but disproportionately benefit the least well off in society.
Marc Steiner:
So it really screamed out at me from your pages, the different parts of history you talked about, whether it was period of Lincoln and the radical Republicans and the two acts, the Pacific Railroad Act and the Homestead Act, and also the Moral Act. But those first two, especially to me, of course they were, were built on the backs of colonialism and genocide against indigenous people even to be able to make those things happen in the first place.
Mark Paul:
Absolutely.
Marc Steiner:
But that what the radical Republicans tried to do with the freedmen in the South through the 1860s and 70s to what Roosevelt attempted to do and the contradictions of race that you just mentioned that happened there, and then with King and the movement around the Poor Peoples campaign, which I was lucky enough to be really part of. So my question is, what do you think from all the work you’ve been writing about with all of this, what is the dynamic that allows the New Deal to take that as an example, those policies that completely transform America kind of put restraints on capitalism in many ways to fail and give rise to neoliberalism? Do you know what I’m saying? There’s always these push forwards and it seems like there’s this huge pushback because we can’t have that. We can’t have black folks having freedom. You can’t attack the fundamentals of capitalism in America. So why do you think as an economist and a historian as well, why that constantly happens and where that places us now?
Mark Paul:
Yeah, it’s a great question. Often the way I talk about this is as if there’s a pendulum swinging. So prior to the New Deal, the pendulum had swung to the right. We had Hoover, which largely embraced this notion of laissez-faire kind of free markets. And in reaction to Hoover is what precisely gave rise to Roosevelt in the New Deal. And then fast-forward and in the 1960s and early 70s, the reaction to war Keynesianism is precisely what gave rise to modern neoliberalism, which many people start with Reagan. But I would contend actually that Jimmy Carter was our first neoliberal president, Democrat mind you who just hugely embraced the deregulatory state. I mean in his first State of the Union address, he talked about deregulation at great length and really fought to limit government’s capacity. And here today we’re still struggling with the repercussions of what he started.
Now the question arises why. I think that there’s lots of reasons. And the second chapter in my book, I really try to outline how did we get here, meaning the neoliberal state that we are struggling with today. And I think it’s a really challenging question. On one hand, I think that we did have a rise of a coherent theory through the works of folks like Milton Friedman and Frederick Hayek who really outlined what we today call neoliberalism very methodically and very much took this to the people. They did not sit there and exclusively write academic papers. Instead, they worked at length to bring this to the business community and the political community. Friedman famously created a multi-part PBS series to explain his ideas to general audiences. And so they really took these ideas to the street in ways that just had a profound impact.
I think it’s a complicated story though. A number of the other things that occurred was very much the war, Vietnam and kind of the downfall of LBJ. I mean Johnson’s Great Society in general passed multiple pieces of incredible legislation, but was also largely a domestic failure due to his international policies that in part fueled inflation, which kind of opened the door to cracking down on domestic spending programs. So I think in part it was a failure to integrate a domestic progressive agenda with a broader progressive international worldview and agenda.
The final thing I’ll say here is that I also think a substantial part of this was Democrats themselves moving away from the New Deal. I mean Gary Hart for instance, ran on a stump speech, actually entitled The Death of the New Deal. I mean Hart lambasted the New Deal as a Democrat. And so we had the Democrats themselves running away from this as party lines started shifting and the white working class of the South started moving away from the Democratic Party following the civil rights movement.
Marc Steiner:
Again in the book towards the end of the book, you really outlined it in a very profound ways, policies that could actually alter America and move it in the direction that both New Deal and radical reconstruction actually attempted to do and did to an extent. So I’m curious kind of reflecting on your book, let’s talk a bit about those proposals, but also how you think you get there. I mean, clearly the resistance to change has caused the control among Republicans earlier and Democrats now to move to the right and they really have. And now the rise to the right is a profound moment. We’re in that moment at this moment. We see a rise of the right across this country and it’s a pushback even when the idea that we talk about are not in sway and in control. So talk about politically how you see looking at history again, how that begins to change and how you take the ideas that you talk about the end of your book and actually make them both palatable and understood and part of a movement to change.
Mark Paul:
If I had a full answer to that question, I think we’d be in a much better situation than we found ourselves in today. But look, let me do my best here. I mean, one of the reasons I wrote this book, which is it’s meant for a broad audience. I didn’t write this for other economists, I wrote this for your average person who is interested in politics. So for all of those of you who watch the news regularly, I think you’ll found this quite digestible.
Marc Steiner:
And accessible. Very accessible.
Mark Paul:
Yeah. And I think that that’s part of it. Neoliberals did a very nice job making simple supply and demand curves very understandable and accessible to the people. One of the most common classes in college is Economics 101, which teach you basic things like rent control is terrible, minimum wages will implode the labor market, so on and so forth. And guess what? Modern economics, and this is not progressive economics, just modern empirical economics, debunks most of the central tenets of neoliberalism. And so what I try to do is try to arm people with economic literacy so they can understand and think about how many of these progressive ideals programs like college for all, Medicare for all and the like make economic sense. And I try to arm folks with those arguments. And I think that’s very important because we have seen the Democratic Party for decades either embrace neoliberalism or be on defense against neoliberalism.
But what’s really been missing is an affirmative vision about how we can and should structure the economy and why. And that’s precisely what I try to outline with my economic bill of rights. I try to provide us with a North star so people understand what’s the connective tissue between so many of these policy programs that leftists have been talking about certainly for about a century in many instances, but at least in our recent political discourse really since Sanders’s 2016 run. But I think even Sanders himself really struggled to tie this together for voters so that they could understand why is college for all connected to the Green New Deal connected to Medicare for all? What are you really trying to work for versus just having a laundry list? So I think having a coherent vision is really important. And I also think grounding this in the American tradition is crucial to build a broader net than the kind of current left has today.
Marc Steiner:
What does that mean? What do you mean by that, grounding it in the American tradition?
Mark Paul:
Yeah, so a lot of what I’m trying to do here is almost a Howard Zinn economics version where I’m trying to lift up all these stories here in the United States where we’ve struggled for so many of these ideas that get labeled as radical or lefty here today. When you go out and you talk to voters, and we actually did this, and you outline the ideas in an economic bill of rights, not only do we see a vast majority of Democrats supporting it, in fact 92% of Democrats under 45 embrace the notion, but the majority of independents and Republicans do as well. Why? Because freedom is an American idea. And everyday people understand in order to live a free life, you need food and housing and healthcare and the like. And so these ideas are wildly popular and in part they’re popular because they come out of our own American tradition here in the United States that we don’t need to say, hey, look what Finland does. Let’s import those policies. We should do that to a degree. We can learn a lot from our neighbors, don’t get me wrong.
But I also think providing an alternative history to just, we have capitalism, every man works for themselves type of narrative, which is what’s common in the Republican Party is really detrimental. And so people need to be proud while recognizing the struggles we’ve had in the US of this kind of decades and in many cases centuries long struggle for economic justice. In many cases this is what some of our founders really put front end center, not only Paine, but also Hamilton and Jefferson talked about these ideas at length.
Marc Steiner:
So that’s interesting what you just said here, and I was thinking about that I was also was reading in the book that the stories you tell around Thomas Paine, the stories that most people have not heard about ever. I mean like Mr. Hopkins, to most people he’s lost to history are happy because people don’t know who he is or who he was. The question becomes for me how you tell these stories and how you would tell these stories because you do it here. You tell the stories of these men, predominantly men in the book, but men who have pushed these ideas and really fostered change that people could really kind of support. If you look at the polls you talk about, they talk about people actually support these ideas that we call left, but they really become universalist ideas for people for Americans to have a better life. I just wanted to take your book and figure out how to translate that into stories in a broader sense to bring people in to say there can be a different way.
Mark Paul:
Yeah, yeah, that’s absolutely right. Well, let me focus on one of the women that I put front and center in the book-
Marc Steiner:
Go ahead. Yes, please.
Mark Paul:
… Who I absolutely adore is Frances Perkins. I mean she’s somebody that I wish every high school graduating senior had to read about her. She is first of all the longest serving Secretary of Labor in US history. And she was also the first female cabinet member in the United States government. She was Roosevelt’s Secretary of Labor. And when Roosevelt was building his cabinet, he called her in and wanted to ask her if she would serve. And she had long been a labor activist. And when asked this question, she, unlike most people, did not just say yes. Instead, she marched into his office and said, I have a list of demands. If you are willing to back my demands, which included disability insurance, unemployment insurance, modern day social security for retirees, universal health insurance, which is one of the main things she did not win.
In short, she put it to Roosevelt, and this was actually her phrase, “cradle to grave economic security,” which Roosevelt then embraced that idea moving forward. She was really one of the chief architects behind what we call the New Deal today. Yet she doesn’t get near enough love and attention. And I think lifting up these types of historic stories is really important to simply raising awareness of how we got to where we are here today.
Now how do we tell those stories? I think what I try to do, at least in the book, is kind of integrate three pieces to every story. One piece is the historic struggle. So let me give you an example of this. Here in the United States in 1910, we had roughly 12% of the US population graduating from high school and people didn’t want to make high school universal because disproportionately white wealthy people were going to high school. And why would broad-based taxation be applicable to serving the elites, was kind of the argument. The exact same argument mind you that we hear about college for all today. The high school movement, a grassroots movement was able to push forward broad based taxation across the country to publicly finance higher education. Within decades, just a couple of decades, we shot from just over 10% high school graduates to more than half of America graduating high school. It was a tremendous achievement in public education.
And the reason I bring this up is because the arguments levied against it were literally the exact same arguments levied against universal college, college for all here today. And so those stories are so powerful because when we have these debates, often it’s like it’s the first time we’ve had this debate, but in fact, two factoids are important to lift up. One is we’ve had this debate before as it applied to high school, and second, hey, guess what? That thing called the Moral Act that created land grant universities across the country, it was created with the intention of having free college in the first place. And so in fact, the foundation, the bedrock of our modern day higher education system had enshrined into it these notions that were fighting here still hundreds of years later, that education should be free and universal. And lifting those up I think helps people kind of connect the dots that where we are here today didn’t just happen, we legislated it, and that in fact we can choose a different path forward.
Marc Steiner:
I think that that’s a really good example to use. And the Moral Act I think we will look at it and think about, we’re talking about something that happened in 1862, is that right?
Mark Paul:
That’s right.
Marc Steiner:
1862, we’re talking about free education and people understand that as a legacy. And as you go through the book, you also really weigh in on what should be the rallying cries today and how that really does resonate with the American people. But with a neoliberal control of the Democratic Party, it’s almost impossible to get that out. Not impossible, but it makes it tougher. I’m curious if all the things you’ve written about what responses got from certain political leaders?
Mark Paul:
It’s a really great question and some of these ideas that I’ve laid out in the book already have quite a bit of traction. So the one that has the most traction of course is probably Medicare for All. It was a centerpiece of both the 2016 and 2020 Democratic primaries. And we see just tremendous support, including majority support across the nation. So that’s the idea that’s been fleshed out the most. But many of these ideas have been adopted by political leaders. Another one I talk about at length in the book is the idea of a job guarantee, ensuring everybody has access to a well-paying job. This is how overnight we eradicate unemployment and we also eradicate poverty level wages. And actually Senator Booker introduced a pilot program to Congress on this idea. Representative Ayanna Pressley also introduced a very extensive job guarantee resolution. And so many of these ideas have gotten substantial buy-in. I’m lucky enough to have worked with Representative Lee and Jayapal’s offices who just last week introduced a resolution calling for an economic bill of rights into Congress.
So these ideas are starting to gain steam. And my hope is that they continue to do so as we move forward. And I think progressives are excited about it, but I also think it’s time to hold center’s feet to the fire. I mean, Roosevelt’s portrait right now is in the Oval Office. Biden is the first president to hang up a portrait of Roosevelt rather than a portrait of Washington. And in fact, if Biden wants to actually carry the mantle of the New Deal as he says he does, he needs to realize and hopefully embrace what that actually means. And for Roosevelt, the cherry on top of the New Deal, the culmination of the New Deal was economic rights. And so I think that the struggle here needs to not just be for the left wing of the party to embrace these ideas, which they increasingly are, but to connect this to the long struggle for what the Democratic Party actually stands for or at least should stand for.
Marc Steiner:
And given that we are in a place in America now where people are so economically insecure, where people can lose their homes over nothing. And almost half of US families can’t even afford the basics of food and rent. I mean this is, we’re at that moment where it could go one way or the other. And what your book is doing here to me is outlining the real potential to look at the New Deal, to look at the radical Republican era, to look at some of the founding folks, fathers of this country to say, the kernel of that is there. And we have to expand that and understand it and explain it, put it out there, and the people will come.
Mark Paul:
That’s right. I think that by providing this message to people and by helping them understand what is a coherent alternative to neoliberalism, I think that it’s a really important unifying message and rallying cry. I mean, we all have a dozen books on our bookshelves that talk about how neoliberalism dead or almost dead, or it might be done soon. And what they all do is in the last chapter, they squish in, and this is what we should do now. And I flip that formula on its head, and the bulk of this book is really talking about what is the economy we want? How do we build it? And answering the important question, is it feasible? And not to give it all away, but the answer is yes, it is feasible.
We can do these things. We can afford to ensure that we eradicate unemployment and that we actually house each and every person here in this country, and that we actually educate those who want a college education. We can do these things. It’s not an economic problem, it’s a political will problem. And I think really pulling back those curtains is crucial to help the electorate wake up and demand more.
Marc Steiner:
And it is one of the ways to clearly fight the rise of the right and in the process, fight the racism that plagues this nation and build something different. And let me just say one of the things, Mark Paul, that really struck me about this book. I’ve been doing this for years and sometimes I’m loathed to pick up a book by an academic, even though many of my friends are academics because they can be so bloody ponderous. But your book is not ponderous at all. It’s really accessible and really well done and I appreciate it. The book is The Ends of Freedom, Reclaiming America’s Lost Promise of Economic Rights. And Mark Paul it’s been a great discussion. I look forward to actually having you rejoin us for different discussions as we look at this and parse it out and bring you into discussions with other kind of activists and political leaders to say, this is where we are and this is where we can go. So I deeply appreciate the work you did and for joining us here today on the Mark Steiner Show at The Real News.
Mark Paul:
It’s been a great pleasure.
Marc Steiner:
Thank you so much. I hope you enjoyed our conversation today with Mark Paul about his book, The Ends of Freedom, Reclaiming America’s Lost Promise of Economic Rights. It’s a really good read, it’s highly accessible. Check it out. And thank you all for joining us today. Please let me know what you thought about the conversation today, what you’d like us to cover. Just write to me at mss@therealnews.com and I’ll get right back to you. And by the way, while you’re there, stay there for a minute. Go to www.therealnews.com/support. Become a monthly donor, become part of the future with us. For David Hebden and Kayla Rivara and the crew here at The Real News, I’m Marc Steiner. Stay involved, keep listening, and take care.
Former President Donald Trump is facing 34 felony counts in New York State and an additional 37 felony federal charges. None of this prevents him from freely campaigning for President and appearing before the media. Yet the reality for most people targeted by the criminal justice system is far different. Take Rikers Island Jail—where more than 80 percent of inmates have not been convicted of a crime. Legal reform advocate Dyjuan Tatro joins Rattling the Bars to discuss Trump’s indictment and how it illustrates the two legal systems that exist side-by-side in the land of the free: one for the rich and white, and another for the poor that disproportionately targets Black and Brown people.
Dyjuan Tatro is a publicly recognized legal reform advocate and strategist who has worked to bridge the gap between policy and practice. As an alumnus of Bard Prison Initiative, he has leveraged his education and experience to shift public policy in favor of expanding and incentivizing college in prison.
Pre-Production: Maximillian Alvarez Studio Production: David Hebden Post-Production: Cameron Granadino
Transcript
Mansa Musa: Welcome to this edition of Rattling the Bars. I’m your host, Mansa Musa.
One of the foundations of democracy is equal representation under the law. In the modern world, supposedly no one is above the rule of law, not CEOs of wealthy corporations, not even current and former presidents. But of course, here in America, US, the realities of our so-called “criminal injustice system” are constantly reminding us that equality before the law is a dream that only exists on paper, not in practice. Look at what’s happening right now with the indictment of billionaire, former president Donald Trump, and compare that to the nightmare that poor Black and Brown people are living through every day in Rikers Island in New York.
Trump was already indicted by a Manhattan grand jury and is facing 34 felony charges in New York for alleged crimes committed during his 2016 presidential campaign. Now, Trump is also facing federal indictments for 37 felony counts related to mishandling classified documents, obstructing justice, and making false statements. All the while, Trump is campaigning for his 2024 election run. He’s fundraising, he’s enjoying his freedom, and he’s running his mouth on every media outlet that will give him a platform. At the same time, the majority of people being held captive in the notorious Rikers Island jail in New York, have had their freedom taken away, even though they haven’t been convicted of any crime.
In February of 2022, the Vera Institute of Justice reported that of the 5,548 people detained in New York City jails, including in Rikers Island and The Boat, 82%, or 4,487 people had not been convicted of a crime. Listen, equality before the law in America does not exist. And that’s what we are going to talk about today with our guest, Dyjuan Tatro. Dyjuan is a formerly-incarcerated legal reform advocate and strategist, who is now a Senior Advisor for Strategic Outreach on the Democrat Congressional Campaign Committee. Dyjuan, thank you for joining us today on Rattling the Bars.
Dyjuan Tatro: Really happy to be here. Thank you for having me.
Mansa Musa: And Dyjuan, as you saw in our outline, what we’re going to try to do is educate our audience on understanding how the system that we now look at when we talk about the criminal system – And what more notably is, when I look at it, I call it the criminal injustice system – We want to talk about how this system is not fair. We say that justice is blind but the reality is, justice is only blind when it comes to people that have money; justice has got 20/20 vision when it comes to poor and oppressed people.
Tell us a little bit about yourself before we get started. We gave a brief overview of who you are, but tell us a little bit more about yourself.
Dyjuan Tatro: Yeah, so that’s a very interesting question and I’m eager to dive in. But my name is Dyjuan Tatro, I’m an alumni of the Bard Prison Initiative in New York. Some people may not know what that is but it’s one of the foremost college and prison programs in the country. And our alum works all over the criminal justice space, not only in New York but nationally, doing amazing things: mostly working back in their communities to alleviate the conditions and circumstances that led to their incarceration in the first place. And so I spent 12 years in prison and spent the last six years working in politics at the nexus of criminal justice and narrative change.
Mansa Musa: Okay, now let’s talk about the elephant in the room: Donald Trump. Now, Donald Trump, former president of the US, has been indicted on a 37-count felony indictment. Now most felonies are punishable when you are convicted of them, 10 or more years or better. Or in some cases, the death penalty or life. Why do you think Donald Trump has been given the red-carpet treatment when it comes to this whole process? And for full disclosure, you, yourself have been incarcerated, so you can attest to some of the things that go on, in terms of when people are charged with felonies and how they’re treated, compared to how Donald Trump is treated.
Dyjuan Tatro: To refer back to your opening, 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: one for white people and one for everyone else, or one for rich people and one for everyone else. 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 as well as privileged white individuals. 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 6, also put Crystal Mason in prison for five years for mistakenly casting a provisional ballot as someone who had a felony conviction. And so it is one system operating exactly as we should expect it to be, which is deeply rooted in slavery. Policing in this country is deeply rooted in slave-catching. And so we shouldn’t be surprised about this differential justice, per se, or the type of treatment that someone like Donald Trump receives from the system.
Mansa Musa: And you know that hypocrisy. Speak on the felony aspect and in terms of educating our audience on, when we say felonies, what exactly does that mean in criminal justice?
Dyjuan Tatro: Yeah, so generally when we’re talking about a felony, we’re talking about what we could call a serious crime. That doesn’t mean a crime of a person, that doesn’t mean that somebody has necessarily been harmed. And that’s one of the common manipulations of the term. But we are talking about a serious crime that will lead to someone being sentenced to time in either state or federal prison.
Mansa Musa: And former president Donald Trump has a 37-count indictment and he’s charged with violation of the Espionage Act. The Espionage Act came into existence in the early 1900s, under Woodrow Wilson’s administration. And since the implementation of this act, they have executed people under the act. But Donald Trump is being charged with taking classified documents to his house, showing these classified documents to different people that he wanted to, and telling his aide to hide the documents from the federal government. Which is obstruction of justice.
And under these circumstances, do you think that he should have been given the red-carpet treatment? It’s evident because they got all the documents out of his house and everything that’s been outlined by the media is not falsification, it is a reality that exists. Do you think he should get the red-carpet treatment?
Dyjuan Tatro: Absolutely not. Donald Trump’s flagrant disregard for the law and national security has been egregious. Not only did he break the law, but he has also, at several points in the investigation, attempted to subvert that investigation and evade the FBI and the Department of Justice and their ability to recover those documents. And so his treatment goes to this fundamental piece of the conversation that we’re having is that you have this system that is set up to allow certain individuals like Donald Trump, the presumption of innocence, that allows them to walk out of a courtroom and remain at home with their family while they fight their case. They can meet with their lawyers every day, whereas the average Black or Brown person in this country, who is going through the criminal justice system, has a radically different experience.
They are put in handcuffs, they are put on buses, are trafficked around from jail to courthouse. They are trapped inside cages for 24, 72, 168 hours without running water, sleeping on the floor, and stacked on top of each other. The inability to make a phone call to anyone, let alone your family or your lawyer. Donald Trump is able to walk in one door in the courthouse and out of the other. And that’s not because his crimes lack seriousness.
Mansa Musa: That’s right. Correct.
Dyjuan Tatro: That is because he is being treated in a differential way for, one: political reasons, two: because of privilege, and three: most importantly because we have a system that is geared toward facilitating the easy overcoming of justice by people like him.
Mansa Musa: And I’d like for you to flush that out about the severity of his charges because this is where the disconnect comes with society when it comes to rich people. Both of us, we can be charged with the same crime. But based on the economics, their crime is not looked at as being as severe, albeit the same crime, because of them being rich. Why did you say that it’s not because it’s the severity of the crime? Flush that out a little bit.
Dyjuan Tatro: So I was saying if we look at someone like Donald Trump’s case, and not only with the DOJ, but his cases back in New York; he was someone who was found liable of sexual assault. Any person of color that had sexually assaulted a woman in a dressing room would be sitting in jail, but he walked free in New York at the same time when police and politicians across New York state are attacking bail reforms. I didn’t hear any of those organizations or people attack Donald Trump’s unconditional release from federal custody over very, very serious crimes that can compromise the integrity of our national security.
There are even reports that state the increase in the loss of covert agents throughout his presidency can be linked to his handling and mishandling of classified information and documents. So we are potentially talking about people having lost their lives in service to this country because of someone’s egotistic, irrational, and what may be self-serving, remains to be seen as the case develops, conduct. But he is out, he’s free. He’s in Florida comfortable with his family, while there are thousands of people charged with lesser crimes, let alone sexual assault, who are sitting on Rikers Island or in jails across this country. And so what we really, really see is that whether or not someone is remanded to jail is disconnected from what they have done.
Mansa Musa: I like that articulation because when we talk about the severity of the crime, we had Julius and Ethel Rosenberg in the ’50s. They were executed for the same crime that Donald Trump is charged with. Then we had Daniel Ellsberg, of the Pentagon Papers, who was vilified. Nixon had his office broken into to stop him from publishing documents relative to the US imperialist aggression in Vietnam. But Donald Trump gets the full pardoning of the law and benefits from his privilege.
People in Rikers Island, you briefly talked about this process where a person charged with a less severe crime or inability to pay the bail, what they have to go through being under the so-called same system, what they go through in terms of their process. Talk about that.
Dyjuan Tatro: I want to be clear. We’re not only talking about Donald Trump but people like him. Individuals like Congressman Matt Gaetz, who’s been accused of widespread inappropriate behavior with minors and prostitutes. We are talking about the CEOs of Fortune 500 companies, as well as the companies themselves, that regularly pollute our rivers, that burn trains, and burn toxic material that is carcinogenic. We are talking about the pollution of our air. Air pollution in this country harms and kills far more people than homicides every year. But we’re not having a conversation about that in relation to criminal justice. We are not prosecuting those companies. And so when we start having a conversation that focuses on harm rather than crime and criminality, it changes our lens and perspective, so I want to be clear.
Mansa Musa: Yeah, that’s a good observation.
Dyjuan Tatro: Donald Trump is a really, really egregious example of the differential treatment that the justice system in this country has for people of power and privilege, versus those who are trapped on Rikers Island. If you’re looking at someone who’s arrested in New York City, I was reading an article the other day about a young man, Emmanuel Morales, in Brownsville, who went to throw some trash in a trash can and missed the bin. Several police officers jumped out of an undercover car, confronted him, tackled him, bloodied him, and arrested him. He was put in jail for having made a mistake.
And so this is the type of casual brutality that happens at the level of policing in places like New York City and all over the country, in the senseless ways in which people of color land on Rikers Island and are incarcerated. But when we look at the severity of harm caused by major corporations, by people like Donald Trump; they often walk away with a fine. And again, we have one system of justice in this country that is really functioning to the benefit of those it has been meant to protect. We have a system of justice that is protecting a criminal like Donald Trump.
Mansa Musa: And I’d like to highlight this point about the observation you made about when we focus on the crime and not focus on –
Dyjuan Tatro: The harm.
Mansa Musa: – The person. The EPA came into existence as a result of what they called Love Canal, where there was toxic waste and they were polluting a particular part of this country. And it was killing the people that were drinking the water. Or we look at Flint, Michigan, where we have the pollution of the water and poor people are being highly affected by it. But yet the corporation that’s responsible and the corporate figures that’s responsible for it, they’re not indicted. Such as in the case of Donald Trump. You made the observation, which was very astute, that because of his behavior, citizens of the US have been killed.
You can trace a lot of the collateral damage to Donald Trump’s sheer disregard for national security. But yet at the same token, he had someone locked up for having a felony and voting. What was the severity of that crime? Exercising your right as a citizen? And they say, well, one vote might not make a difference, but in the landscape of things, the probability of that one vote changing the political landscape at that point in time was slim to none.
Dyjuan Tatro: Think about the optics of that. You can incite a riot on Capitol Hill and try to overturn an election; a free and fair election. I really want to emphasize that point. But you can’t mistakenly cast a ballot as a Black person in this country who has a felony. That is a systemic problem. The fact that there are over a million people in this country that have been felony disenfranchised is not a mistake. It is a mechanism of voter suppression. The prosecution of Crystal Mason was an instrument of voter suppression. But people like Donald Trump and those who collaborated with him could, on live TV, on CNN, and on MSNBC, incite a riot, and cause great harm. Several people were killed on Capitol Hill that day.
Mansa Musa: Exactly.
Dyjuan Tatro: Walked away with their hands clean. And so justice is not blind in this country. It is not fair. I don’t know if it ever will be. And I have no hope that if Donald Trump is convicted, that that somehow vindicates the system because it doesn’t. The evidence against the system is damning. The system should be on trial alongside Donald Trump.
Mansa Musa: When they had this thing happen at the Capitol, I was thinking about the Puerto Rican nationalists, Lolita LeBron and them, back in the ‘60s. They went into the Capitol and shot a gun up in the air. And their whole thing was they wanted independence for Puerto Rico, they wanted Puerto Rico to stop being a colony of the US. That’s the only crime they committed, and they were given life. Donald Trump incited a riot and they changed the narrative. And this is another part of this draconian system that we call justice. He incited a riot, they go down there, it’s an insurrection. They’re trying to overthrow the government. They changed the whole language: it’s not a riot, it’s not an insurrection, it’s a protest. They’re exercising their rights to protest.
To go back to your point, we find that it is the number one system and it’s the system that’s there primarily for the benefit of corporate America, capitalism, imperialism, and fascism. When it comes to poor and oppressed people, we’re always going to find ourselves in Rikers Island. I can’t pay 10% of $1,000. I’m in Rikers Island because I threw trash out and missed the trash can. And because you beat me half to death, now you have to arrest me and justify this brutality you’ve given me. So now, you give me a bunch of fabricated charges and at the end of the process, when I come to court, I’m already in a whirlpool of other people that’s coming to court. One public defender got 200 to 300 people on their case, so they are speed-balling it when it comes down to the process.
But talk about what we have to do to get people to understand this narrative that we outlined: that it’s only one justice system. And that’s a system that represents the have and it’s a system against the have-nots.
Dyjuan Tatro: We have to become more sophisticated in our analysis, at the base. We have to understand that we have a legal system in this country that is not concerned with public safety, that is not concerned with crime prevention, that is not concerned with reducing harm, but it is geared toward reinforcing the status quo. And the status quo is Black and Brown bodies brutalized by police, imprisoned, and warehoused by the system. Sometimes, and in some states, to create jobs in failing farm communities for white people. I think a lot of us hear or have heard about coal towns or factory towns. In the US, we have prison towns. That is absurd.
All prisons are for profit. And, with respect to our analysis becoming more sophisticated, we need to make an important distinction between crime and illegality. So there are a lot of things that are illegal that all types of people do in this society. Only certain segments of the population are criminalized for those things, and these individuals are overwhelmingly Black and white. And when we step back and start looking at the data and start understanding how the system is functioning, it behooves us to start taking on and confronting those popular narratives.
What happened on January 6, is the system communicating to all Americans, that it is okay for some people to be violent, that is okay for some people to try to overthrow and subvert an election, but it’s not okay for others. The elephant in the room is race, because we know in the summer of 2020 when we had Black Lives Matter marches through DC, they wheeled out the Army and the National Guard. And the Capitol steps looked like the US was invading a foreign country. Those troops were nowhere to be found on January 6 and that was not by happenstance.
We not only have to become more sophisticated in our analysis, we have to become more sophisticated in countering disinformation and calling out the bigotry and hypocrisy, but also mobilizing our communities around this type of rabid injustice. We really, really got to get people voting along the lines of their sense of morality and justice and not only whether or not they’re going to have a job tomorrow, whether or not they’re going to have healthcare. Because all of these things, especially in Black and Brown communities, are inextricably bound to social and racial justice.
Mansa Musa: That’s right. And I like that observation because when we look at the political landscape as it exists now, and we know now that Donald Trump is running again, and he has this mannerism of political discourse that borderlines on insanity, but yet everybody that’s in that arena is scared or reluctant to challenge him or call him out on it. And then when they do call him out, they become more insane in their counter. And the public and people of color are in the middle. Because at the end of the process, it doesn’t make a difference – Malcolm X said this clearly – If it’s a Democrat or a Republican in there; they’re both the same. We’re talking about Hunter Biden in one regard and we’re talking about Donald Trump in another regard. And it shows that the scales of justice, as they weigh out, Hunter Biden right here, Donald Trump right here, the scale is balanced. You take Hunter Biden off and you put a poor, Black, and oppressed person on the scale, and the scale is becoming imbalanced.
Tell us, how can our listeners and viewers get in touch with you or stay in touch with what you’re doing?
Dyjuan Tatro: The best way to find me and follow what I’m up to and the things that I care about is on Twitter. And so that’s my first name, last name on Twitter. I’m pretty easy to find. So D-Y-J-U-A-N T-A-T-R-O on Twitter.
Mansa Musa: All right, thank you, Dyjuan. There you have it, The Real News, Rattling the Bars. Dyjuan, you rattled the bars today. We definitely created the climate for people to start looking at the political landscape and the criminal injustice system. Here at The Real News and Rattling the Bars, you only get this kind of information. You’re not going to get this kind of discourse on main media. Hunter Biden is pleading guilty to a serious offense, Donald Trump has been charged with a serious offense, and no one is talking about why they’re still walking around. But yet you go on Rikers Island and you have people over there dying day in and day out, and no one is talking about that either. You only hear about these things on Rattling the Bars.
We ask you to continue to support Rattling the Bars and The Real News. Because at the end of the day, we are actually the real news. Thank you very much. Continue to support us.
At two Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention centers in California’s Central Valley, a cycle of resistance and retaliation has been intensifying over the past three years. Detainees at the facilities, which are operated by for-profit prison company GEO Group, have organized against abysmal conditions, prompting detention center authorities to respond with increasing levels of punitive action.
A motion was filed with the Eastern District Court of California on May 18 as part of an ongoing class-action lawsuit against GEO pertaining to the facilities. The filing marked a major escalation in a multipronged campaign being waged by current and former detainees, and outside advocates, to hold ICE and GEO accountable for their mistreatment. It reaffirmed a key demand that detainees in the Mesa Verde ICE Processing Center in Bakersfield and the Golden State Annex in McFarland put forward when they launched a labor strike last year: pay for detained workers commensurate with the prevailing minimum wage in California.
The consequences detainees appear to face for failure to participate in the purportedly voluntary work regime can render it akin to forced labor.
The motion entreated a federal judge to issue a ruling that affirmed the plaintiffs’ contention that the $1-per-day pay detainees receive for labor within GEO’s “Voluntary Work Program” inside Mesa Verde and the GSA violates California’s minimum wage law. The state’s minimum wage stands at $15.50 an hour as of January 2023.
According to the new report “One Dollar A Day: Labor Conditions Within California Immigrant Detention Centers” from the UCLA Luskin Institute on Inequality and Democracy, detained individuals scrub toilets, mop bathrooms, and sweep and perform other maintenance tasks as part of the VWP. The report includes testimony from current and former detainees as well as data and research on commissary expenses, grievances, and information about the working conditions from within the detention centers. “They didn’t have supplies to actually clean,” said one person interviewed for the report. “Whether it was to mop or disinfect the phones or the tables… they just weren’t there… People had to clean the showers a lot of times in their shoes… [Y]our shoes get wet, and we only get one pair of shoes, so that’s unsanitary.”
The same interviewee mentioned the shortage of gloves needed for the work. “Who wants to be scrubbing a toilet with no gloves on? Or clean the showers when you’re dealing with these chemicals,” the individual told the authors of the report. Detainees inside the GSA and Mesa Verde facilities labor under difficult conditions for only a dollar per day, which saves GEO the extra expenses of hiring outside professionals—and increases the corporation’s already bloated bottom line. “GEO is benefiting, because if we don’t do it, they have to pay somebody to do it,” a UCLA report interviewee explained. “And they had to pay somebody good money to come in here and do those jobs.”
While the class-action lawsuit plays out in the Fresno Division of California’s Eastern District Court, individuals confined inside the Bakersfield and McFarland facilities continue to withhold their labor and coordinate with attorneys and immigrant rights’ advocates. They do so despite the retaliation GEO and ICE have repeatedly meted out in response to their refusal to accept the treatment and conditions inside the Central Valley detention centers.
“GEO is benefiting, because if we don’t do it, they have to pay somebody to do it,” a UCLA report interviewee explained. “And they had to pay somebody good money to come in here and do those jobs.”
One person interviewed by the UCLA researchers mentioned that staff get angry when detainees raise issues with detention center staff. “And then they want us to get mad and interact with them, just so they have a reason to get us in trouble, because whenever we get a petty ass write-up, it sticks, and we get denied commissary, and you get all these other violations that are put against us. When we write to them we will see no benefits at all,” the detainee said.
The cycle of resistance and retaliation escalated in early 2020, just as the COVID-19 pandemic was beginning to rage across the United States. Dozens of men in Mesa Verde went on multiple hunger strikes in response to the dangerous conditions inside the facility. According to a class-action lawsuit filed in February 2023 by the American Civil Liberties Union of Northern California, hunger strikers called on authorities to release medically vulnerable persons, to stop bringing new people into an already-crowded detention center, and to provide adequate cleaning supplies. In response, the legal complaint alleges, the GEO Group “retaliated against hunger strikers” by withholding sanitation services, commissary access, medically necessary items (including prescription medication and walking canes), contact with attorneys and loved ones, and recreation time.
Two years later, dozens of individuals went on strike against the prison’s $1-a-day labor compensation scheme. ICE’s Performance-Based National Detention Standards set the minimum pay within the Voluntary Work Program at $1 per day. As explained in the “One Dollar a Day” report, in the “70 years since its inception, a provision under an appropriations bill that the 95th United States Congress passed has allowed immigrant workers in detention centers to earn just $1 a day.” According to a 2017 report by Seth H. Garfinkel, the 1978 Appropriations Act passed by Congress codified the remuneration rate, which enables companies like GEO to “compensate workers at $0.13 an hour for as many as eight working hours a day,” while the VWP helps detention centers save about $40 million in labor costs each year. The UCLA report notes that $1 in 1978 is now worth $4.61, and the reimbursement rate has not been adjusted for inflation.
“Detained people are forced to submit to GEO’s $1 per day scheme, the so-called ‘Voluntary’ Activities Program (‘Work Program’), to buy the basic necessities—including food, water and hygiene products—that GEO systematically deprives them of,” states a July 13, 2022, lawsuit filed by two advocacy groups and a Bay Area law firm in the California Eastern District Court.
Mohamed Mousa, an immigrant from Egypt, said that detention center meals typically consist of unappetizing, unsalted beans or unpalatable soy-based meat substitutes. At the time of the interview, he was still detained in the Mesa Verde facility. “It tastes just like newspapers,” Mousa said. “It’s just terrible.”
Detainees in both the GSA and Mesa Verde told the authors of the UCLA report that they found cockroaches in their food. Even when not on hunger strike, people inside won’t touch what the detention centers serve. “Inadequate or inedible food provided by GEO led many detainees to rely on the commissary to supplement some or all of their meals,” the authors of the UCLA report wrote. “Interviewees we spoke to expressed that the commissary was also vital to supplement basic care products that the facility failed to provide, creating additional economic hardship for them.” To afford necessities, detainees thus feel compelled to participate in the VWP, making it less than voluntary.
Likewise, the consequences detainees appear to face for failure to participate in the purportedly voluntary work regime can render it akin to forced labor. For example, participating in the work stoppage almost got one person confined in the Bakersfield immigrant jail transferred, if not for the swift actions of those advocating on behalf of detainee rights.
In August 2022, ICE officials in the San Francisco field office prepared to transfer a striker from solitary to a facility outside of California. “The Facility Administrator stated in a written message to this individual that his efforts to ‘stand up for [his] rights’ would “not be tolerated,’” according to the lawsuit filed in February. ACLU attorneys responded by sending a letter to the field office stating a retaliatory transfer would constitute a violation of the detained person’s First Amendment Rights. ICE returned the man to Mesa Verde shortly thereafter.
The [UCLA report] authors noted their team “felt it necessary to physically go onsite to Mesa Verde in order to collect the grievances and write-up forms” referenced in the report because of the real fear of repercussion for interviewees.
The lawsuit from last July alleges other forms of retaliation perpetrated by GEO against detainees on labor strike. Per the suit, GEO stopped allowing entire dormitories outdoor exercise time when individuals inside refused to work, and staff placed strikers in “administrative segregation”—a form of solitary confinement.
According to a September 2022 complaint the ACLU and other organizations sent to the Department of Homeland Security Office of Civil Rights and Civil Liberties, Mousa spent two months in solitary confinement for allegedly posing a risk to the Mesa Verde facility. Rigoberto Hernandez Martinez—a Mesa Verde detainee who joined the strike—was also confined in solitary for over a month due to an alleged security risk after being initially moved there for medical reasons; he was later told he remained in solitary because he participated in the collective action, according to the February lawsuit. “The GEO Group [is] using security as an alibi,” Mousa said.
“Regarding the strike, many described the retaliation by GEO employees, resulting in additional write-ups and denying access to the commissary,” the “One Dollar a Day” report states. Indeed, the authors noted their team “felt it necessary to physically go onsite to Mesa Verde in order to collect the grievances and write-up forms” referenced in the report because of the real fear of repercussion for interviewees.
Retaliation for failure to participate in the VWP also illustrates the not-so-voluntary nature of the labor regime inside the detention centers. The UCLA report states that the filing of grievances significantly increased after the labor strike started, “which detainees described as a response to increased retaliation from GEO officers.” Interviewed individuals said GEO staff used disciplinary write-ups to punish people for participating in the labor strike.
“Write-ups have two impacts on you,” one person explained. “The first is the psychological taste of injustice. So, when you get a write-up for something that is definitely clearly you committed no error, nothing wrong, you didn’t violate anything, you didn’t commit a crime… The mental agony of this is bullshit…. The other aspect is… You can’t even order commissary. You’re gonna have to be starving because they know that you don’t eat their food that they offer.”
The labor strike that began in April 2022 continues, with at least 59 people participating, per sources. Previously, it drew the attention of members of Congress. In September 2022, 16 members of the House and Senate called on ICE to investigate reports of unacceptable conditions and retaliatory behavior directed at detainees in the two California facilities. They also called on DHS to terminate the federal contracts with GEO if the allegations against the facilities could be confirmed.
According to a press release from the ACLU, on March 7, ICE and GEO employees in full riot gear and wielding batons and pepper spray entered Mesa Verde’s Dorm C to confront weak and depleted hunger strikers.
In an effort to increase the pressure on ICE and GEO, more than 70 detainees at the GSA and Mesa Verde facilities participated in a hunger strike between February 17 and March 24, 2023, demanding their immediate release and the closure of both immigrant jails. A hunger strike support committee made up of advocacy groups including the ACLU, the Asian Law Caucus with Asian Americans Advancing Justice, and the California Collaborative for Immigrant Justice, published a press release in which the men inside described the living conditions as “soul-crushing.”
Milton Mendez, who spent 11 months inside Mesa Verde, said GEO not only failed to provide basic necessities and urgently needed medical care, but the company also maintained intolerable living conditions within the jail. “The bathroom, in the shower, there is mold all over,” Mendez said in a March 17 interview.
In the class-action lawsuit filed this February, attorneys for the plaintiffs rebuked ICE and GEO for violating the First Amendment rights of detained individuals on hunger strike. As a result of the pressure, the detention center relented. “ICE officials and GEO officials [came] to the dorms and referenced the pending litigation,” said Minju Cho, a lawyer with the ACLU, adding that afterwards detention facility staff “ameliorated some of the conditions, including offering the strikers Ensure nutritional shakes to allow them to maintain their strike but not experience death—and allowing them to receive medical care inside the dorm, which would have been a big point of contention. They also restored arts and crafts, law library, barber shop and yard time, all of which had been taken away.”
In response to the hunger strike, GEO deployed retaliatory measures more violent than previously used. According to a press release from the ACLU, on March 7, ICE and GEO employees in full riot gear and wielding batons and pepper spray entered Mesa Verde’s Dorm C to confront weak and depleted hunger strikers. They forcefully removed four strikers from the dorm, handcuffing some and shoving others to the ground. At one point, as Mousa described, “ICE people in camouflage … grabbed [a detainee as if he were] a fucking animal … and they threw him on his face on the ground.”
Aseem Mehta, a legal fellow with AAAJ, said that after several hours, the attorneys for the four individuals who’d been removed from Dorm C received word that their clients were transferred to El Paso, Texas, supposedly for medical care. “Those individuals [had] never before requested medical care [and] showed no signs of acute medical distress,” Mehta said, adding that no explanation was provided as to “why whatever medical care that they purportedly needed could only be accessed in El Paso, Texas,” and not in California. He suspects GEO and ICE might have initiated the transfer to intimidate and punish hunger strikers.
“We hope that, in exposing the futility of the grievance system, this project will show that immigration detention is not a system that can be reformed; it must be dismantled.”
Sana Singh, Immigrants’ Rights Fellow at ACLU of Northern California
A week after the Mesa Verde raid, ICE and GEO also raided GSA dorms. During that raid, an officer also kneeled on one detainee’s head, injuring his face, according to a March 29 ACLU press release. One hunger striker had to be hospitalized several times as a result of the raid, and GEO transferred three individuals to a Texas facility under medical pretexts, per the press release.
Detainees have learned criticizing the agency and its detention practices can also result in retributive relocation. In February, advocacy groups filed a complaint with the DHS Office of Civil Rights and Civil Liberties that documented ICE’s transfer of an individual in November 2022 after that person and a fellow detainee from another facility authored an op-ed for the San Diego Union-Tribune criticizing conditions of confinement and the agency’s “brutal and excessive use of retaliation.”
In response to the March raids, lawyers from ACLU and other groups filed another emergency motion in federal district court seeking a temporary restraining order to prevent ICE and the GEO Group from retaliating against those on hunger strike. Days after the motion was filed, the seven people transferred to Texas were returned to California.
The anti-carceral group Freedom for Immigrants released a report early this year titled “Trafficked & Toured: Mapping ICE Transfers,” which shows how the transport of human beings functions within “a larger system of punishment of detained individuals for organizing for their rights.”
When reached for comment via email, an ICE spokesperson said that the agency “does not comment on ongoing or pending litigation,” while a GEO spokesperson said via email that the company “has a zero-tolerance policy with respect to staff misconduct.”
“We take our role as a service provider to the federal government with the utmost seriousness and strive to treat all those entrusted to our care with dignity and respect,” the GEO spokesperson said.
The campaign for freedom and abolition continues
Most detainees who participated in the recent hunger strike—including Mousa—resumed eating food by mid-March, but with help from outside advocates, they are continuing a campaign to break the cycle of violence. Lawsuits by allies at the ACLU, CCIJ, AAAJ, Immigrant Defense Advocates, and others have helped defend the rights of those in custody, stem retaliation, and put pressure on ICE and GEO.
On June 23, the ACLU of Northern California filed another suit, this one against ICE for failing to respond to Freedom of Information Act requests for grievance logs kept at the six agency-affiliated immigrant detention centers in the state.
The ACLU also just launched the “California Immigration Detention Database” to track grievances submitted in the state’s immigrant jails. One individual who contributed to the database, Jose Ruben Hernandez Gomez, a former Mesa Verde detainee who was transferred to El Paso after participating in the hunger strike, filed grievances without success while incarcerated in the Central Valley facility, as detailed in an ACLU NorCal report published on June 26. “I’m participating in this project because I want people to know that detention centers are not safe to house human beings,” he told the ACLU.
In 2021, a district court in Washington ordered GEO to give more than 10,000 current and former detainees $17.3 million in backpay for labor they earned $1 to perform each day inside the Northwest ICE Processing Center in Tacoma.
Of the nearly 250 complaints already in the database, many come from Mesa Verde and date back to the 2023 hunger strike, an ACLU press release explains. “We are committed to working alongside people in detention to expose the cruelty of the immigration detention system—even as ICE fails to come clean about its oversight of facilities marred by systemic neglect and abuse,” said Sana Singh, an ACLU NorCal immigrants’ rights fellow, per the press release. “We hope that, in exposing the futility of the grievance system, this project will show that immigration detention is not a system that can be reformed; it must be dismantled.”
Further augmenting the campaign against ICE, GEO, and their detention regime, recent precedent suggests the lawsuit alleging GEO’s dollar-a-day VWP compensation rate violates the minimum wage requirement in California could prove successful. In 2021, a district court in Washington ordered GEO to give more than 10,000 current and former detainees $17.3 million in backpay for labor they earned $1 to perform each day inside the Northwest ICE Processing Center in Tacoma. Judge Robert Bryan also issued an injunction requiring the company, which pulled in $2.2 billion in revenue that year and receives a quarter million dollars from ICE annually for every detention facility it operates for the agency, to pay detainees participating in the VWP at the Tacoma facility Washington’s minimum wage, now $15.74 an hour.
In addition to using their support networks to exert legal pressure from the outside, those in the GSA and Mesa Verde have inspired and drawn inspiration from detainees elsewhere. Mousa said that hunger strikers in California heard about similar actions in the Tacoma detention center, and in the ICE-affiliated Aurora, Colorado, facility. “We live in [the] same conditions they’re facing all over the place,” he said. “So we’re all supporting each other.” Actions and support for those inside the GSA and MV seemed to have inspired some 300 detainees inside the also GEO-run South Louisiana ICE Processing Center in Basile, Louisiana, to launch their own hunger strike in March.
Organizers and advocates have reason for cautious optimism regarding the possibility of ending for-profit detention for good. In 2019, California Gov. Gavin Newsom signed a bill to phase out private prisons, immigrant detention centers included, but last year an appellate court ruled that the law might be unconstitutional. President Joe Biden voiced support for ending for-profit immigrant detention, but under his administration the Justice Department joined GEO in the suit challenging the law the California legislature passed and Newsom endorsed. A final judgment on the unconstitutionality of the ban was handed down in May 2023, effectively repealing the ban.
Despite these setbacks, current and former detainees and their advocates remain undaunted in their efforts. From inside the GSA in mid-March, Gustavo Flores, a man in his early thirties, said immigration detention “is like waking up in a nightmare.” He hopes to see both ICE and GEO abolished and he and his fellow detainees released. “We’re gonna keep pushing,” Flores said. “If I were to get out [and] win my case… I’m gonna continue advocating.… This is gonna be an ongoing effort that’s going to continue on until our goals are met.”
Too often, the rule of law just means the rule of police—but knowing your rights can still be an important way to protect yourself from police injustice. Here on Police Accountability Report, we often document how frequently the police conduct unjust and illegal stops, searches, seizures, and even arrests. But the significance of being educated on your rights isn’t just important because of rampant police abuse; there’s also a lot of misinformation out there. And when it comes to keeping yourself safe from capricious cops, disinformation is just as bad, if not worse, than no information. Legendary cop watchers James Madison and James Freeman join PAR for a special “Know Your Rights’ Livestream about how you can protect yourself and exercise your rights to fight back against police injustice.
James Freeman is a copwatcher who runs his own YouTube channel.
James Madison Audits is a former police officer whose own personal experiences at the hands of cops turned him into a copwatcher and activist. He runs his own YouTube channel.
Production: Stephen Janis, Taya Graham Studio Production: David Hebden
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, this is Taya Graham and welcome to the Police Accountability Report. Know Your Rights, protect Your Rights Livestream, a show where we will talk to people who know how to do both, to give you the tools and the perspective.
Taya Graham:
Sorry. I’m having a little issue,
Dave. I’m having a little technical issue. Yeah, sorry. Sorry, you guys. This is a show where we’ll talk to people who know how to do both, to give you the tools and the perspective to ensure that when and if police challenge you are prepared. But we’re also going to delve deeper into why American law enforcement can seem so interested in entangling people in the legal system rather than improving public safety. And what we can do, not to just fight back, but think back, meaning how we can collectively think of ways to create a community where police aren’t in charge, but we are, and that law enforcement serves us and not the other way around. And to make this happen, I am so excited to share this with you. We have two guests who have a tremendous amount of experience and expertise, both dealing with cops and in one case actually being a cop.
The latter is a former cop turn cop watcher, James Madison, who’s known for his unique insider’s perspective on how police use their law often to their advantage, or they sometimes choose to ignore the law entirely and what you can do to counter it when they do. Also, he has an exceptional investigation he is working on, and you all will be some of the first people to see parts of it here on our channel. Then we’ll be talking to the legendary James Freeman, who’s actually fighting the entire justice system to protect his right, to hold them accountable. It is an absolutely epic battle between transparency and power to keep the inner workings of government secret, which we will be unpacking for you in all its ugly details. And at the end of the show, there will be a special shout out to all my Patreon patrons for their kind support.
It’s just one small way I try to show the people that help this show and make it possible show. Just show them how much I appreciate them. And during the show, I will try to get your comments on the screen and answer some of your questions for our guests. But please remember, this is live. As you may have noticed, this is very, very live. So please try to be patient with any technical glitches we might have. But before we get to that, I want to turn to my reporting partner, Steven Janis. Steven. Hey, Dave. Could do you think you could find Steven on the live stream?
Stephen Janis:
Yeah. Stephen,
Taya Graham:
Stephen. Stephen. We have a live stream tonight. Have so many could
Stephen Janis:
Nuts tonight.
Taya Graham:
Seriously.
Stephen Janis:
Taya, what do you We have a lot. What do you We have a lie. What do you want,
Taya Graham:
Stephen? We have a live stream.
Stephen Janis:
We have a live stream tonight. Are you kidding me? Look, I’m doing, I’m fine, Tay. Thanks at me, but no thanks tonight and
Taya Graham:
Stephen. Good, didn’t
Stephen Janis:
You right now? All right. Okay. Okay. I’m raised my hands. Seriously. Drop the, you see my hands. Jesus. I’m coming in. Would you
Taya Graham:
Drop the nuts? Dropping the nuts. Thank you.
Stephen Janis:
I’m coming inside.
Taya Graham:
Thank you. Don’t
Stephen Janis:
Worry.
Speaker 4:
Here it comes.
Taya Graham:
I seriously can’t believe this. You know what? It’s technical difficulty after technical difficulty tonight. Honestly, I think Steven’s getting a little too uncomfortable outside. But while we’re waiting for him to get inside the studio, let me share with you our audience, how we intend to break down these stories for you and why they’re essential and why, as we always say, you have the right to be informed. I think the idea for this show started with our investigative report on Texas firefighter Thomas C As you remember, Thomas was pulled over by the Denton County Sheriff’s Department in April of 2021 for what they say was speeding. Although Thomas denies this after he was pulled over. However, police had a different agenda. That’s because they immediately started to accuse Thomas of being drunk. Now, first, it’s worth noting that Thomas has not had a drink for 30 years, and he does not use illegal drugs of any kind, but that didn’t stop police from charging him with a D U I. Let’s just watch a little bit of what transpired.
Speaker 4:
Hello? Hello. I’m Deputy Brant with the Danton County Sheriff’s Office. I didn’t catch you earlier. Where were you coming from today?
Speaker 5:
From,
Speaker 6:
Yeah, my left. Yeah, you’re right.
Speaker 4:
What happened to your eye again? I only call part of
Speaker 5:
That. I had a detached retina, and then the subsequent surgeries have led to it. It’s kind of got a blue haze right now. Okay. Yeah. And so it’s just hard to see through this eye, but okay. Sometimes it gets kind of irritated. It turns red and yeah, I don’t know if it is now, but looks
Speaker 4:
Liquidated right now. Yeah.
Speaker 5:
Is it really? Looks, is this one is? That’s clear. Clear? Okay. Yeah. So, okay.
Speaker 4:
Once the last time you said you took any medications today,
Speaker 5:
Like three,
Speaker 4:
Two, about three o’clock today. Two o’clock
Speaker 5:
Or something. Okay.
Speaker 4:
One o’clock. At this point, I just want to Sure, you’re safe to operate a vehicle. Just giving kind of everything I’ve seen so far. I just want to make sure you’re safe to operate your truck. Oh. So we’re going to bring you through just a few standardized field tests and we’ll kind of go from there. Okay? All right. Have you ever had traumatic brain injury? Never. Okay. Nothing like that. Other than detached retina, any other medical issues?
Speaker 5:
No.
Speaker 4:
Okay. Nothing like that? No. Diabetes, hypertension?
Speaker 5:
Well, I’ve had hypertension. Okay. I’ve taken medicine. Was taking medicine.
Speaker 4:
Okay. Other than Adderall, are we taking anything else right now? Just Adderall. And what’s the Adderall for?
Speaker 5:
Attention deficit.
Speaker 4:
A adhd? Yeah. Okay. Or a D. D. Okay. You can set ’em up.
Speaker 6:
Okay. Just stand right here on the flat ground together like this, your arms down this.
Speaker 4:
And so I asked him like, well, what else besides your eye hurt? Anything else? No, just my, I mean, I gave him every opportunity to explain to me like, legs aren’t working right, arms aren’t working Right. It came out the truck looking good, like walking pretty decent. Little heavy footed, but he wasn’t stumbling out. Do you believe he’s intoxicated?
Speaker 7:
I believe he’s unable to drive from whatever he has. I
Speaker 4:
Dunno about alcohol. Is that a medical emergency or we talking about intoxicated on something, but I don’t think alcohol. Do you think they have a medical emergency here? No. Okay. So if it’s not a medical emergency, is he normal or would you believe possibly he’s intoxicated under something? Yeah, I think he’s intoxicated on something. We’re probably going to go that route. We’re probably going to try to do a Dre we.
Taya Graham:
Well, thank you for gracing the studio with your presence.
Stephen Janis:
Steven, you could’ve told me we had a live stream.
Taya Graham:
I
Stephen Janis:
Think I did. I was outside. I was outside. I was comfortable. I was there for the night. Yes, I know. I had my freaking coordinates. I know,
Taya Graham:
I know. But you have other obligations. I think you’re getting a little too comfortable.
Stephen Janis:
Do I use this mic or this one?
Taya Graham:
I think you use the This one,
Stephen Janis:
The bigger one. Sorry. All right. Yeah. Well, I mean, it’s nice out there. I’m learning a lot. There’s a lot of things that happen. Bringing me inside, just kind of messes up my vibe as a reporter. I am breaking stories constantly out there reporting and you’re like, oh, come on in for a live stream. But what do I get out of it?
Taya Graham:
Well, you know what Stephen, the problem is, is that everyone
Stephen Janis:
Know poor nuts are not enough for a man
Taya Graham:
To survive.
Stephen Janis:
I need more than that.
Taya Graham:
Listen, everyone expects you to be a hard-nosed investigative reporter. Yes. You got to give the people what they want. That means you got to be out there beating the streets. Okay. Putting in that work. Okay,
Stephen Janis:
Let me just put it this way. I’m willing to do a documentary about what it’s like to be outside. I’m willing to the documentary tell the secrets. A lot of people ask me about our esteemed editor, max, the famous Maximilian Alvarez. I’m willing to give you guys the inside scoop, but I need one thing. We need to raise a little money. So we have
Taya Graham:
Super chats tonight, I think.
Stephen Janis:
Yeah, we have Super Chats chat. That’s right. We
Taya Graham:
Actually chat, have Super chats for their first time tonight. So I’m really excited.
Stephen Janis:
So I’m just saying to people out here, if you want to know what I was actually doing before Taya interrupted me, I guess wasn’t, and what really goes on outside. Yeah, we need to raise some money, but not a lot. A couple hundred dollars would be nice. So I can hire a director, cinematographer, some of the things I need to execute my vision.
Taya Graham:
You’re just trying to get more coffee and corns,
Stephen Janis:
Hey, these things are really expensive and they’re hard to find. But nevertheless, I am inside now. So I’m here. I’m ready to participate. And I’m looking forward to hearing more about Thomas’s case. Well,
Taya Graham:
Actually, as I was saying, Steven, go ahead. You will see the cops basically charged Thomas due to a highly subjective and easy to fail field sobriety test, which Steven, you’ve learned has literally almost no scientific basis. What’s
Stephen Janis:
Really interesting about this hay is I did some research because I thought there was so much subjectivity when we looked at the documents. Yes, having your clothes being ruffled or
Taya Graham:
Disheveled or the way that was his attitude. Was it apologetic? Was it irritable? Just so many subtleties that are so subjective when it comes to a cop’s determination. And
Stephen Janis:
We talk about the law enforcement industrial complex. This is the forensic industrial complex where they create things. This was created out of a wholecloth by a couple of psychology professors. Nothing scientific about it. And also really, so the entirety of this idea of a field sobriety tests, and it varies from state to state. There’s nothing scientific. It fails every time to really learn if a person is drunk or not. And it’s highly, highly, highly just made up out of whole cloth. And so I’m not going to go through all the actual research, but I can say this very specifically, there is no scientific basis for a field sobriety test. And yet in this particular case, in Thomas’s case, it was the sole justification for arresting. And that’s the problem. I don’t think any of us have a problem with a police officer using some subjective diagnostic tools or even subjective judgment when they’re looking in, when they’re investigating some of, but to ruin a man’s life over your impression that he was talking slowly or he was a little heavy footed or some of the other subjective ways, they now analyze it.
I think especially in light that we have breathalyzers and that we have blood tests, I just think is highly problematic. And I think what this particular type of law enforcement diagnostic tool shows is that there’s this sheen of absolute certainty that rubs off on these things over time. Cause over time, they just become recirculated and recirculated. We had an example out in Colorado where people are inex using ketamine during arrest to subdue people and people died and they’re like, how did this happen? And no one really knew. When I dug into it, it was almost impossible to figure out. So in this case, I think we need to call into question this way. None of us support drunk driving and almost think it’s serious, but we should not have a system that is completely dependent upon the subjective. And I think the bias, I mean, I think that the most interesting thing about Thomas’s case is I think they’d already made up their minds. They just needed to stat. I mean, we’re still looking into it and we’ll get to that. But yes, these tests are completely subject to the officer’s whim, and that’s very scary and very dangerous considering the consequences for either getting it wrong or getting it right.
Taya Graham:
Steven, you actually have an update. You did not let go of this story. I know that you were very moved by what happened to Thomas, the ending of his career and the loss of his firefighting family. But you kept on pressing and asking questions. Tell maybe you can share some
Stephen Janis:
Of the cover. Well, so here’s the biggest thing. Now everyone knows in a misdemeanor case or any sort of criminal case there, there’s supposed to be a judge and a prosecutor’s a check on the police. Police can charge anything they want, and it goes into a court and a judge, a prosecutor looks at and says, well, this evidence is weak. Or judge. Well, it turns out Thomas’s case never made it to the prosecutor’s. I asked the Denton County Prosecutor’s office, do you have this case in your system? Why are you prosecuting? I didn’t even really ask them that. I said, why are you prosecuting this case given the evidence is so flimsy? And she wrote me back and said, there is no record of this case. This case never existed. So think about that. The profound consequences for Thomas Thomas is fired from his job. They do an internal investigation, and yet there’s no case in the system.
He has to hire a lawyer, pay thousands of dollars. There’s no case in the system. So I went back to the Denton County Sheriff’s Office and I said, well, this case isn’t in the system. Where is it? And well, you actually sent the email to their spokesperson. And a couple days later they got back and said, oh yeah, we tried to submit the evidence after the statute of limitations had expired. So it’s literally insane how they tortured this poor man, how they extended this case for two years. He didn’t even know it was in the system, and technically it was not an active case. They said, we tried to put it in the system after the statute of limitations, limitations expired, and the system rejected it. Well, you’re law enforcement, you don’t pay attention to the statute of limitations. It’s a misdemeanor in Texas, so it’s only two years.
You got to get your case. And they blamed the crime lab, but they’d already had a negative test on the alcohol. So they had zero on that. So they didn’t have a narcotics test. They weren’t going to get anything anyway. They just made this man miserable. And then when I said, could you release the blood test on the narcotics because we’d like to know what you found. And they said, no, we can’t release it because of the public shield laws that don’t allow you to release information on cases that had been dropped. So they basically were able to cover up their own tracks on this case after they had literally destroyed this man’s life. So it’s really, I think, a very, very troubling use of the power of law enforcement. And unfortunate for Thomas too.
Taya Graham:
You know what? What’s interesting, some of the comments here, and I’ve been doing my best to throw some of them up on the screen, someone said, I think it’s Alan Killian. Field sobriety tests are all about collecting evidence against you. And I think earlier it might have been catman, and I apologize if this is incorrect, but they said the field sobriety test is about as accurate as the canine test. So we’ve seen, right, right. We’ve seen some terrible ways. Can nine have been used as an excuse to be able to access someone’s
Stephen Janis:
Field? The thing ISS alarming is there’s an entire industry of dui, aggressive d UI traffic enforcement that is built upon the field sobriety test. So it’s quite alarming how subjective and unscientific this is. And it’s used to such an extent that really it can put someone in jail, you can lose your license, you all sorts of horrible repercussions. And also I think maybe there’s a lot of drunk people that could pass it to be even worse. So I don’t know what the answer is to this question, but I do think we need to stop walking around and thinking, or at least as mainstream media rep, not main as reporters. We need to stop this idea that somehow there’s some scientific certainty in this process of field sobriety tests.
Taya Graham:
And we, we’ve got some great comments in here, and some of them I wish I could put on the screen, but I can’t put all of them on the screen. But some of them are very funny, John Eagle. So as we move on, given the consequences for Thomas and the very flimsy evidence, we decided to spend some time not just on how to protect your rights, but also trying to understand why cops do what they do. Meaning why do we keep seeing this type of abuse of power over and over and over and over and again with very little actual reform? Why do cops continue to make bad arrests and why when they’re clearly presented with evidence, do they continue to try to entrap people when it would just be so much easier to just let them go and allow them to move on? I think this aspect of law enforcement has become more fascinating.
And at the same time, more inexplicable for me mean. And bear in mind, I watch a lot of videos of police encounters. In fact, I’ve spent the past five years just knee deep in body camera and cell phone videos of police behaving badly. And many times when I do, so, I find myself asking the same question, why can’t the cop just walk away? Why do they so often escalate? And what can I do to help people overcome bad policing? And I’m hoping that I have at least part of the answer, because often we don’t know our rights, and even more importantly, how to apply them given the circumstances. And I have watched many routine encounter with a cop go wrong. And I’m struck by just how subjective it can be and how much dissembling police often do, how often they simply ignore the law or in the worst cases, just make up their own rule book entirely. And that’s why we’re going to address this. So let’s call it the law enforcement knowledge gap. And we’re going to do so by having a series of discussions to share that information, to help you and help close that knowledge gap. Because I literally watched three Deputy Sheriffs destroy Thomas’s life. And I honestly thought I need to do something, not just as a reporter, but as a human being. I mean, not that those two things are mutually exclusive, but meaning
Stephen Janis:
Sometimes they’re
Taya Graham:
Meaning we need to do something. We need to talk about, not just why, but how these types of cases continue to happen. And we need to discuss what we can do to fight back. And this is conversation that involves more than just talking about the law and your rights and other important aspects of our legal system. It’s also discussion about the underlying imperative that drives all the ills mentioned earlier, a system that trains them to embrace a psychology. The idea of that their job is not to police for us, but against us to use the law as a barrier, not a common set of rules for everyone. I think we have to try to understand what and who these cops are really working for and why often they seem to have other priorities besides keeping us safe. I mean, Steven, I think we’ve probably had this conversation a million times before about the underlying imperative that drives policing. But why is this important? Why even talk about it? Why aren’t we just showing videos of bad
Stephen Janis:
Cops? Well, I think it’s very important when we look at a case like Thomas’s and other cases we’ve covered that there’s this sense when you report on that this is an example of law enforcement gone wrong. But I think what we need to do in our conversation is flip that around. This is actually, in some sense, if you examine the system, what we call the system that allows bad police, makes bad police impossible. This is an example of actually, I think from the perspective of the way law enforcement has been construed in this country of law enforcement succeeding. And when I say that, you’re like, what are you talking about? Why is that success It? It’s because law enforcement is not construed in many ways for public safety. As many of our cop watchers point out. It has a million other agendas. I think there’s this famous saying, the arc of justice, the arc of the universe bend towards justice.
Well, the arc of the law enforcement universe bends towards inequality and bends towards enforcing laws that are about monetizing processes, monetizing poverty, many monetizing many social ills so that when you see a case like Thomas, you’re not saying law enforcement has gone bad, which is the way we report it. And of course, that’s kind of the way it’s perceived. It’s also, we have to think about it. Maybe this is the way law enforcement is intended to work. In many of these cases. It wouldn’t exist if didn’t, the powers that be didn’t want law enforcement to make these kind of so-called mistakes. They wouldn’t happen. And that’s why we have to acknowledge it and think about it in kind of a different way. We have to sort of say, wait, this is law enforcement working as it’s intended to work. And when we look at it that way, I think we have a better chance way of saying, pointing out what’s wrong with it on a systemic level, not just on the individual cases.
I mean, you and I have watched enough body camera, oh gosh, to know things go bad quite often, but we have to be able to look at it in a larger picture and say, well, what’s working here? Why isn’t it working? And it’s not working because it’s not intended to work for the people, for the working class of this country. That’s not how law enforcement is constructed. And that’s not how we see it work. And so when we report on it, we kind of have to flip the, it’s like narrative inversion, right? We’re trying to come up with a way to tell this story in a different way so we understand, okay. It’s sort of the idea I’ve had about, I’ve talked about police corruption. There’s no such thing as a corrupt police department. There’s a corrupt society that creates and begets a corrupt police department.
That’s a good, the corruption and police department simply reflects the power structure, the elites and the society. It really serves not the people. So we have to kind of dismiss this notion that there is corrupt. And then over here, there’s this great utopian police department that comes out and serves the people. And that can sound a little harsh, but I think sometimes when you see the things that happen and we see people’s lives, it’s destroyed and everyone, no, I mean, everyone I called, no one wanted to talk about Thomas. No, wanted to talk on behalf, right? This guy served his community for 30 years as a first responder and they throw him out. So you think that you’re, say the system’s not that indifferent. Oh, yes. We know how indifferent. It’s because every time we call on people’s behalf, whose lives have been literally torn as thunder, no one responds.
People will be like, I’m not going to talk about it. We’re not going to talk the department of public safety number. We’re not going to talk about it. We can’t talk about this, blah, blah, blah. But you sure can charge him. You can fire him. Absolutely. You can put him in jail. You can make him hire a lawyer. You can do all that. But what you can’t do is talk about it. You can’t explain why you ruined this man’s life. And that’s what I’m trying to say. Like law enforcement is not constructed around serving the working class and the people. It’s constructed around. Well, an elite sort of way of parsing us and saying, you’re here. You’re bad. You’re good. We’re the heroes. So anyway, sorry. Didn’t very true.
Taya Graham:
No, I’m sorry. Look, you get fired up sometimes. Well, yeah. And just got to let you,
Stephen Janis:
I think I got a little upset when you called me inside.
Taya Graham:
Maybe
Stephen Janis:
That’s, I’m telling. I’m so happy out there. And Max gives me one bag of CORs every night, max, I know you’re watching. He says, Stephen, you can
Taya Graham:
Have this
Stephen Janis:
Whole
Taya Graham:
Bag. You know what? You will get a suit eventually with these coronets. Oh God, you’re right. You know,
Stephen Janis:
He gives me a bag every night. It’s pretty cool. Not many employees have those kind of benefits union power. Anyway,
Taya Graham:
So I just want to let you know for some of the people who have put in questions, I’m going to, I’m putting them aside for later, so if there are any questions or comments, I’m going to make sure to put them aside, and I’m going to throw ’em up on the screen later for when James Freeman and James Madison join us. And back to moving forward, I think when we talk about our rights, we have to remember, based upon our experience reporting across the country, we have learned that quite often our rights are conditional. Meaning they’ve either been watered down by the courts or in the name of the drug war, or simply ignored in the service of racking up stats for fines, as we’ve seen in a variety of cities and small towns as well. But that idea also applies to something that is important to acknowledge about the law itself, which it is often subject to interpretation.
And unfortunately at the moment, the interpretation of the cop is what we would call in legal terms, controlling. In other words, an argument over the law that involves an encounter with a cop is usually hashed out after you’ve been subjected to it. So it’s something to keep in mind when you cite the law, because an officer can simply ignore it while you suffer the consequences. And only after you’ve been jailed, ticketed, arrested, can you go to court and try to right the wrong. And that is why part of the Know Your Rights Show tonight will be focused on getting a better understanding of police, why they do what they do, and of course, how they think. And I can think of no guest better than a man who used to be a cop and is now a cop watcher. His name is James Madison, and he’s a former law enforcement officer who has used his talents as a content creator to share valuable insights into policing your rights and how to defend yourself.
But he has also applied his investigative skills to the benefit of the public, as evidenced in his most recent work about the breaking the story about a police lieutenant in Daytona Beach who brought his three and a half year old son to the station and put him in jail. And excuse me for saying this, but for going to the bathroom in his pants, that same cop also admitted that he put previously put another one of his children in jail for a similarly unusual crime. So thanks to James, this story has just started to receive national attention. Let’s run a clip of his work.
Speaker 8:
He’s not here right now. And that’s, what’s his name? He’s new, right? Yeah, Bob Michael Fowler. Fallon. That’s it. And let me ask you, I guess there’s an IA going on. That’s why you said this is a big deal. I would hope. I dunno. I dunno about that. Okay. Oh, excuse me. Hey. Hey, what’s going on, mark? Oh man, not much. I heard you in a meeting, but hey, I just got a tip or something like that. I dunno if you want to make a comment on it, but two police officers that were put their kid in a jail cell. Yep. I got no comment now. But is an ia, you go upstairs and get that is an IA active there? I Well, I couldn’t comment if there was, you can. The state statute allows you the details of the I. There’s not one. No. Oh my gosh. All right. You do a request for you to see her calendar.
Speaker 9:
I don’t have her calendar.
Speaker 8:
Who does? Do you know
Speaker 9:
Sherry Schwab? Schwab would have all public
Speaker 8:
Documents. Do you know what time she left or when she left?
Speaker 10:
She
Speaker 9:
Left at 10 o’clock.
Speaker 8:
10 o’clock. All right. Sounds good. I appreciate it.
Speaker 11:
Okay. And I think you’re probably saying the same thing. This is a big runaround, right? And heard that background noise, right? She did not want me going into these elevators. This is a community center and upstairs is the public information office. Now, this request to her was done in March, five months after the initial request
Speaker 12:
Here to stand by for them to do a thing. And then, we’ll, right here, Mike, bro, thanks Smith, man. Devin ld, Mike Scho. Hello. Hi, Kathy with DCF Pleasure. Mike. Sean, bro, nice to meet you. Nice to meet you. Let me gate back. I hear the hear puppies. I hear doggies too. There are, hang on a second. I walk your time. No.
Taya Graham:
So I just wanted to let you know that for the follow up report that James has on his channel, Nolie D in the live chat is going to be dropping a link so that later you can follow up and take a look at these incredibly disturbing allegations. He actually has the officer on record saying exactly what he did to his young child. And now I’m going to introduce James Madison. James, thank you so much for joining us tonight. I know, oh, you are actually on mute right now, unfortunately. So if you can just,
Speaker 11:
No mute,
Taya Graham:
Now you’re back.
Speaker 12:
We’re good. We’re good. You’re
Taya Graham:
Good. All
Speaker 11:
Right. I hope I didn’t miss it. Yeah, good evening too. Thank you. It’s been a while. So last time was about two years ago, so yeah.
Taya Graham:
Thanks. Well, we’re fi glad to finally have you back. It is absolutely our pleasure. But before we talk about your investigation, I just want to get your feedback just to get your opinion on the D U I video that we watched together. What is your assessment of the police tactics? I mean, what could a driver and who ended up being the victim of this false d u ire arrest, what could he done to protect himself? What could he have done differently from your perspective?
Speaker 11:
Well, the least that you talk to law enforcement is always the better it is. Everything you say yes can and will be used against you, whether it’s Mirandized or not. And in this situation here, I was watching that video and unfortunately, the cops were asking things that my doctor would ask me. And I’m not going to be answering questions like that to law enforcement, depending on the state by state. You’re not required to do field sobriety exercises in Florida. That’s specific here. Some of the other states you might be able to or be required to. But at that point, when I know that I haven’t been doing anything and I haven’t been drinking, I’m going to say, Hey, listen, you need to do what you need to do. I don’t want to answer those questions. They kind of violate my HIPAA rights. I don’t want to have my public information out there or private information out there. And that’s where I would’ve stopped at that one and just said, Hey, listen, if you have something, let me know. But when you get stopped by the police, I’ve stopped people several times. It is nerve wracking you. You’re nervous as it is. I mean, that’s it. It’s nerve wracking. So you might talk a little bit more. And that’s what people do sometimes when they get nervous.
Taya Graham:
Well, I think that is absolutely excellent, and that fifth Amendment in our wonderful constitution, it’s the right not to incriminate yourself. Please make sure to avail yourself of that. But Steven, I know I’ve been doing a lot of talking. Let me give you an opportunity.
Stephen Janis:
Well, first of all, James, congratulations on your investigation. But first, just tell us, so how did you get ahold of this story? I mean, I’m fascinated, just so everyone knows. As Teo was saying, a police lieutenant put his son in jail because he pooped in his pants. Excuse me. But how did you get wind of this? I mean, this is a fascinating process. This is some really outstanding investigative reporting, I guess. So tell me how first you came across this story, who tipped you off? Well, you don’t have to give me your sources, but how did you learn about it?
Speaker 11:
Yeah, so just like law enforcement, you, they’re going to be reliant on sources. And so am I, because I can’t dig in every little spot and find out. And that’s it. If someone wouldn’t have came to me and told me about this, this would’ve been buried and dead and nothing would’ve happened of it. But instead, we learned that they were on their ia. They were charged with allegations of committing a felony. So that’s pretty serious when you have law enforcement doing that. When general citizens run around, if we commit a felony clink time, you’re going to be arrested. And so you have to rely on sources there. And thankfully, there are a few good cops that are still out there. However, those few good cops, they don’t go and punish though.
Stephen Janis:
So explain to me how a police lieutenant believes he has the use of the facilities, a jail facility, to bring his child in there, how that even becomes a reality in any way, shape, or form. I mean, I can’t even really kind of wrap my mind around who would ever do that to their own child. But how does he get the idea that he can go ahead and do this?
Speaker 11:
Well, I don’t know, and I can’t speak for him, but if I were in his position and it was 20 years down the road, or 15 how many ever years he’s been there, there’s probably come some complacency. And there’s probably some idea that, Hey, I’ve worked here so long, I can do what I want. And I’m not speaking that that’s what he did. But if I was in a job for that period of long time, that’s my maybe how I feel. I don’t know. Yeah. I’m not in his shoes. So
Stephen Janis:
Now, one of the things you were talking about before the show is the coverup is worse of the crime. So when you got this tip, you’ve, you’ve this crazy tip, which I’m sure when you first heard it, you’re probably like, what? But you get this tip, you’re going to be, how are people pushing back and what are they saying when you first kind of say, Hey, I know this information. I know it’s true. What kind of pushback and what were people saying to you when you were trying to uncover this?
Speaker 11:
Well, it was that very, you felt the resistance almost immediately. You asked for something. Oh yeah, you either get a delay or you get excessive charge. So when I first asked about it, the first time that I was able to speak to someone, was there the elevator, I have had some really good luck. One of the participants or one of the subjects in the investigation, I was able to somehow get in the same presence of her at a restaurant and obviously no comment, but was able to ask her a question, Hey, let me tell you about the child. Same thing with the chief. I went to the PD there, and somehow or another, that chief is coming down that elevator or that coming out that elevator as soon as I’m coming in there. And it’s just been a luck, luck of the draw there
Stephen Janis:
With that. Wait, wait, wait. Hold on. That’s really interesting. So when you first confronted them, were you saying the way they responded, you said, because this is pretty smart, you’re like, oh, I know this is true. Just by the way they responded to you. I’m kind of fascinated by that because that that’s really some gumshoe kind of reporting.
Speaker 11:
I mean, we all know body language. If you’re married, if you’re not your kids, when someone’s lying to you, you feel it. Right? It’s just one of those things. And when I asked him that question there, and he was reaching to knock on the door to get away from me as soon as possible, I was like, yeah, there’s something going on. And at the time that I asked him that there was no ia, which it was true, there wasn’t one. But the situation did occur, and it was something like 22 days after the incident. So there should have been an IA already started. If we learn later that you’re being alleged that you’re charged with violating policy that says you committed a felony.
Stephen Janis:
So do you think your question started the IA investigation, or did they then they knew you were snooping around. They knew someone knew about this, so they kind of tried to cover their backsides, in other words, and just try to quickly assemble an investigation.
Speaker 11:
Yeah, it’s possible. That’s what happened. I don’t know. I don’t have those details in there. But many times that is what happens in law enforcement. It’s all swept under the rug until someone finds about, oh, we got to do something about it. I got to either, I got to smack you with a day off or two, but you’re going to have to deal with this now because now the public knows. So, I mean, there is a lot of cover up in different departments. They don’t want you get it out.
Stephen Janis:
Well, congratulations you for bringing this to public, but explain that to people who don’t understand it. So you’re a cop. You see someone lieutenant, bring his kid and lock him in jail, and you’re like, wow, that’s really messed up, but I’m just going to keep this under the rug. We’re just all going to look the other way. And even though a great injustice occurred, or you see it in arrests and beatings and all, explain that psychology to people who aren’t cops who don’t understand it. Cause it’s kind of fascinating.
Speaker 11:
Yeah. Someone told me one time that the thin blue line is not a brotherhood of law enforcement. It’s actually whoever you’re loyal to that’s in the head of the department. Because if you cross that line, you’re out of there. And that lieutenant said that there was people that seen this happening and what was going on, and a few of ’em came out and said something. They were interviewed by F D L E, but from what I was told by the source is that they were ultimately punished somehow or some way. So that’s it. If you’re in that psychology there, you see something like this, even though police tell us citizens see something, say something, right? And they make our information public. But when a police officer can see something, right, they generally don’t say something because they’re afraid that if they cross that thin blue line of whoever’s their chief or their supervisor, they’re not going to have a job. And if you dig into shores and look at it, there’s been several resignations, a nine year veteran, I think it was put on probation mysteriously. And there’s no record of why.
Stephen Janis:
So you’re saying that if you see something really messed up, you’re more at risk of getting in trouble for saying something about, than not saying something about it in the sense that if this person is connected or higher up, he’s a lieutenant, he’ll quickly file a complaint against you and put you in this system. Is that, that’s kind of what you’re saying,
Speaker 11:
Right? Yeah. You’re a rat.
Stephen Janis:
Yeah.
Speaker 11:
I mean, that’s the term. Don’t be a rat,
Stephen Janis:
But that’s, that’s a criminal term. Okay. Yeah. That’s what mafiosos call people rats, right? Criminals, not cops, but you, there are things such as things as, I’m not naive, but there are rats in cop land. Is that what you’re saying?
Speaker 11:
I mean, that’s what it is. You’ll hear that term when you’re working there is like, oh man. For instance, when I was working, something occurred with a juvenile and he had a little small amount of cannabis on him, and none of us wanted to do a report. We didn’t want to do a report because it took so much paperwork to get this. We took the stuff, threw it down a storm drain. I didn’t, someone else did, but took it down the storm drain, which is fine. I would’ve done it too. Took it. And then the one person that saw it was like, Hey, I saw that we can’t be doing that. And the other guy said, what are you going to be a rat?
Stephen Janis:
Wow.
Speaker 11:
And it favored the juvenile. It was in the cusp of when cannabis was coming to legalization, but it was, you know, hear that. And that’s what the scary part is. You’ll be called that, and then you are pretty much blackballed as a police officer, and no one will trust you.
Stephen Janis:
I mean, that just seems so inimical to the idea of having a just system where if you say one wrong thing, your career is, if you say one, if you expose anything that’s wrong, it just seems to me that the system will ultimately be corrupted. By that, I mean, there’s no way around it that it won’t be corrupted. People can’t say, Hey, you made a mistake or you did something wrong. But if I say anything, it’s the end of my career. I just don’t see how that system functions.
Speaker 11:
Well, let me break it down in syllables, it’s justice system, right? Okay. Just us. That’s generally what it is. I mean, you think about it, right? Yeah. And that happens in every agency. I did another story where a captain of a police department was taking money from a disabled adult. Everybody knew about it, but they turned a blind eye to it and, and that’s just the way it is in this law
Stephen Janis:
Enforcement. Yeah. So what was the turning point for you where you said, I can’t take this anymore. And I know you told this story to before, it’s still fascinating, but where you said, I’ve just got to not be a part of this system. What was for you? Was there a moment or was it just a long progression where you said, okay, I’m done. Yeah, I’m going to be a civilian.
Speaker 11:
Well, leaving the law enforcement, I was making 35 to 45,000 a year, and I was getting a girlfriend, my wife and I just couldn’t afford to live like that. I mean, it was a low paying job. I was making 11 eight. And then when I was on motors riding the motorcycle, it turned into $16 an hour, and that’s after eight years of work. And then at Wow, I said, you know what? I’m done. I’m going to go pursue a career with a father, with a construction company. And that was it that,
Stephen Janis:
Do you have any regrets or are you happy with the choice you
Speaker 11:
Made? Oh my gosh, it’s so freedom. There’s so much freedom when you work for yourself. And ultimately, I started a little small businesses that kept us afloat during the 2008, 2009 crash. But those blossomed into shipping businesses, and I love it. It’s working from home. It’s freedom. And after I left law enforcement, I actually watched the guy that is in here in the standby room, James Freeman. I was watching him afterwards. And what happened is I was building a house and the neighbors were upset. He called code enforcement a bunch of times. Turns out he was married to one of the people at the city, and they just ultimately were after us for building this house calling code enforcement violations. And that was the turning point. I said, what is going on here? They came and searched my backyard, tried to write me up on code violations, and then the police came, wouldn’t let me sign stalking charges against the neighbor. And I said, if they’re doing this to me, are they doing it to someone else? I turned on YouTube, and I found, I’m telling you, I found James Freeman
Stephen Janis:
And the couple other people I think of, think James Freeman said a lot of people on the cop watching path. Oh, yes. But yeah, just let me ask you a question, and this is for me personally, so think’s better being a journalist or being a cop, what do you enjoy more?
Speaker 11:
Oh, being doing what I do now. I love this. I mean, it’s intriguing. There’s some elements of the surprise when you find something, when you open up an email and you look through the email string and you find some detrimental stuff in there, it is perfect. You get excited for that. You find it. And also you help people all the time helping people get some satisfaction with law enforcement and some resolution with them too.
Stephen Janis:
Well, I think the public owes you a huge debt for breaking that story.
Taya Graham:
Oh, absolutely.
Stephen Janis:
That poor child. I mean, I can’t even imagine. I know. Talk
Taya Graham:
About, I know. And the thing was is that I had been listening to some of the video evidence that James had gotten, and I was listening to the police officer describe what he did with the child saying, oh, I only put the child in handcuffs and in the jail cell for 13 minutes, and I knew the jail cell’s really dirty, so I made sure to put them in the part of the jail cell that was the least problematic. And he did what I expected him to. He started to cry. That was the response I expected. And he had mentioned that previously his wife had done the same thing, and he brought the child back because it hadn’t worked. Now, interestingly enough, someone in the comments said, it’s his child. He can do what he wants. Well, that’s an interesting response. First amendment. First amendment.
Stephen Janis:
I mean, look, we want to have a robust discussion, right? Absolutely. I don’t necessarily agree with that idea, but I think the more important point in James’s story is that people should know about it. If you’re going to use a public facility to discipline your child in a very sadistic way, I think the public has a right to know, because James, I mean, in a lot of ways, some of these cops become chronic in some sense, where they do one crazy thing and they get away with it, and they do another crazy thing. I mean, it’s not just always an isolated incident.
Speaker 11:
And listen, there in our area, there was two teachers that were teaching the E ESC students exceptionally education. I don’t know the acronym, but they were teaching those students and they were having some issue. They stuck ’em in a bathroom and locked the door. They were arrested for false imprisonment. And yes, that’s different from what the viewer was saying about we should be able to parent parental discipline, our child, but the trauma that a child receives when they are utilized as they are in something like this, if I don’t have dogs, but if I have a dog crate in my house, and I stuck my child in there, because guess what? My dog doesn’t poop in the crate. It always waits to go outside. I would be arrested for false imprisonment. I mean,
Stephen Janis:
Good point.
Speaker 11:
Exactly. It there would be in there. But then you add the element of handcuffs. That’s just not that My child is five years old. He has some potty training issues. Sometimes he has that every once in a while he has an accident. We don’t go off into some tangent and do that to our child. And I agree that I have a cat in the background.
Stephen Janis:
Well, James, can’t you just write him a citation?
Speaker 11:
Well, I mean, you should be able to do something like maybe conducting a thorough investigation instead of just throwing it under a bus. Right. But yeah, I would never absolutely put my child in No. Any cell. I never threatened my children with, oh, there’s a cop over there. If you do something bad, they’re going to get you. Because I want my children to be able to go to a police officer if they need help. Very rare that they would, because they’ll be with us and that. But along the lines of you don’t want them afraid of people because No,
Stephen Janis:
Just
Speaker 11:
That’s what you condition your children for.
Stephen Janis:
Yeah. Now, you said before we went on air that you were going to work on a skit. What if a police officer is in retail? Is that actually something that your viewers can look forward to seeing?
Speaker 11:
Yes. So we’ve got three people that are involved in it, and it’s going to be banter back and forth. If you walk up to a a counter and you say, Hey, real quick, I just need to ask you something out there. It will be the responses of the law enforcement, how they would treat you on the street, but it will be in a retail setting. Yeah, right.
Stephen Janis:
Oh, we can’t wait to see
Taya Graham:
That. I cannot wait to see that. Now, look, I just wanted to make sure there are one or two questions we have here. I’m hoping you’ll stick around. There’s one question I had to make sure to ask you because of your level of expertise, James? Yes. And what would be, now this is of course, you’re non legally binding. You are not a lawyer advice, but what would your advice be when someone is stopped by police while they are in the process of recording, what would your advice
Speaker 11:
Be? So if I’m out there holding the camera where you, you’re filming and you’re approached and confronted by the cops, the first thing you want to say, sir, am I being detained? And if he Yes. Then you say, well, I don’t have anything to say to you. I’m just going to stand here quietly if you have any questions. I want to direct him towards my attorney. I don’t want to have him here during questioning at all times. And that’s it. And then it should be over. They shouldn’t ask any questions. They may ask you for that driver’s license id. And if you can always ask them. I mean, if you ask more questions than they do, it puts ’em on the offensive, am I being detained? Well, yeah, you are. Well, can you just tell me what I’m being detained for? So I know what I’m expecting here?
What did I do? How do you recognize me as the person that you need to detain? I’m standing here filming, doing a legal and lawful activity, and if they continue on, you may have to provide id. A lot of people say, take the arrest. And that’s just one of the things that you never want to do. You can be violated without being arrested, because that starts the criminal justice program. And as you said earlier, two years on this case, right? They will stretch out these criminal cases so that you have nothing for a civil case later on.
Taya Graham:
Wow. That’s good point. That’s an excellent
Stephen Janis:
Point. Run out the statute of limitations on the federal.
Taya Graham:
That really is an excellent point. And James brought up something really important, which is initially there can be a stop that’s consensual, and then there’s a stop. That’s a detention, right? Yeah. So you need to find out, am I being detained? If you’re not, my advice is get out of there unless you absolutely feel obligated. Point to continue to recording’s A, because I personally don’t want to see anyone have to interact more with the criminal justice system than necessary. I have seen it destroy too many lives, and I don’t want to see anyone else go through
Stephen Janis:
That. And if you say, even
Taya Graham:
For the best of reasons, James,
Stephen Janis:
Can you say, if they say yes, you’re being detained, could you say, what’s your probable cause? Or what’s your reasonable articulate suspicion? Can you go that far? Or is it better just not to say anything more?
Speaker 11:
Well, the reasonable, articulate suspicion is for the charging affidavit. They don’t have any obligation to tell you that. But if you can peacefully and get that out of them, well, I think you’re suspicious. You set yourself up for an easy dismissal for a case if they do arrest you, not legal advice, but Right. What could happen if they’re saying, well, you’re just out here and you’re walking around with a camera, that’s kind of weird. I need your id. That’s not reasonable. Articulate su suspicion of a crime. You putting some opinion on something that you’re trying to make it illegal for me to be here filming. Oh, and now you’re going to set me up for resisting or failure to id.
Stephen Janis:
And that’s really smart, because you’re kind of turning, when you say anything can be used against you, you’re making the cop explicitly state why they’re detaining you, and thus you can use that against them. Yes. I guess if you have it, especially if you’re recording. Yes. Which is why you want to record,
Speaker 11:
Right? Yeah. Cause if you’re not recording, then it’s hearsay. You could submit the video as evidence, and if they don’t have body cameras, that’s a cue to get out of there quicker than anything else. Right.
Stephen Janis:
All right. Well, Jim,
Taya Graham:
This has been great. That’s great. You know what the thing is, there are so many questions I would love to ask you just to get more details, because I think even I learn something about the law every day. I mean, the crim, the criminal code, that Section eight team, or all the criminal codes, you could literally spend lifetimes going through it and still not across every criminal code. And unfortunately, yeah, unlike police officers, ignorance of the law is not an excuse for us. No. So there’s no qualified immunity for the law, no qualified immunity for us citizenry. Right. So I just think, I guess, which should we bring in James? Yeah. Should we bring in the other James? It’s so funny. There are people in the comments who are saying, it’s ginger night. Definitely.
Speaker 13:
Ginger night.
Taya Graham:
Whoa. Okay. Oh my gosh. So let’s bring in James night. Well, let me, oh, you know what? Let me give Ja the other. James got an intro, so this James deserves his intro too. Okay. Okay. So let me give it to him. Now, our next guest is one of the most popular, and I would say humorous cop watchers out there. His approach to watching cops has always been creative and innovative, and I think it goes a long way towards revealing the psychology of law enforcement that we have talked about today. Because James Freeman has a way of teasing out the truth from cops who really aren’t prepared for his approach to covering them. In other words, his tactics often create a power reversal that surprises them to the extent that they tell on themselves. For those out there who don’t know James Freeman, let’s run James Freeman confronting a cup
Speaker 14:
Says, sheriff, I don’t know what county though. Criminal interdiction unit. State of Texas Sheriff’s Office. Sorry. License plate. Hey, what’s up? Yeah, how about you? What department are you with? I work for Collin County Sheriff’s Office. Collin County? Yes, sir. You got ID on you? Yes, sir. I do. Can I see it please? You want to see my, yeah, please. I need to see your id. Yeah, yeah, no problem. You licensed to carry that firearm for real. Okay. Can you do me a favor and, sorry, hold on. That’s kind of loud. That’s you. Do me a favor. While I’m dealing with you, can we go ahead and put your firearm up for my safety? Absolutely.
Taya Graham:
So you might notice here that James is putting a little spin on the way cops ask us questions. Instead, he’s asking cops the questions they have a tendency to ask us. But the reason we’re talking to him tonight is because now he’s fighting for something that I think is incredibly important to almost anyone who believes that power needs to be held to account. And namely, that’s transparency. The ability of citizen journalists to cover and report on elected officials, cops, and what they do in their official capacity. It turns out that the Torrance, New Mexico Circuit Court administrators don’t want him covering them. It seems that some of James’s reporting exposed how the internal workings of the court were often incompetent and even downright absurd. But James’s effort to shed light on this has prompted this very public institution to fight back by banning him and just to show James’ work to hold him accountable. We have one more clip for you. Let’s take a look.
Speaker 15:
A New Mexico YouTuber and journalist with nearly half a million subscribers is now suing the Seventh Judicial District Court.
Speaker 16:
He says they’re not letting him do his job. News thirteens, Alexis Kki has that story.
Speaker 17:
Will you be able to give me all of the details?
Speaker 18:
His followers know him as James Freeman, a YouTuber who calls himself a government watchdog documenting the actions of local leaders in law enforcement. But behind the scenes,
Speaker 17:
I started trying to point out government corruption because in my daily life running a business, I was constantly dealing with issues with this little stuff with the state where they were constantly breathing down my neck. For
Speaker 18:
The past six years, he’s been in and out of the courtroom covering cases, but lately he’s not allowed because
Speaker 17:
There are some very specific ones that people have asked me to at least view and show the public what’s going on. And they denied me at every corner. Not only that, but they started calling the police on me and tried to have me arrested.
Speaker 18:
He says, it all started back in January when he sat in at a court hearing in as Stasia Springer says, he was just observing when a hearing officer yelled at him to leave the courtroom, he later requested the court audio and published a story about what he heard.
Speaker 17:
He had allegedly told both of the individuals on both sides that it was illegal to cuffs, cuffs at each other in a text message, and that they could be thrown in jail for a year for doing it.
Speaker 18:
As part of that story, he confronted the hearing officer,
Speaker 19:
I just asked you to leave my courtroom, and if not,
Speaker 17:
Well, I was told by quite a few people back there that you had demanded that they arrest me and bring me back into the courtroom for a contempt hearing
Speaker 16:
That you were told very
Speaker 18:
Wrong. And that’s when Springer says the order came down.
Speaker 17:
After I ran that story, they made an administrative order saying that I can’t come to the courthouse anymore.
Speaker 18:
Court documents say Springer was harassing staff, but he denies that he’s now filed a lawsuit going after the Seventh Judicial District Court, two judges, a court clerk and a court administrator who he says are violating his civil rights. The goal he says, is to bring transparency back to the court system.
Speaker 17:
They’re not always doing it right, but they’re, they’re not always doing it wrong, but transparency is needed.
Speaker 18:
Alexis Eski Care, QE News 13.
Speaker 16:
We reached out to the Seventh Judicial District Court. They said in a statement they do not comment on pending litigation.
Taya Graham:
So as you can see, James has applied his uniquely deliberate reporting style to the wheels of justice in New Mexico. And the people and institutions he has put under his own unique microscope just don’t like the attention. So to talk about his fight and the lawsuit, why his coverage is critical in the state of government and cop watching in general, I am joined by Mr. Freeman himself. James, thank you for joining us.
Speaker 17:
Hey, thank you so much for having me on again. It’s always a pleasure to be with you guys. Oh,
Taya Graham:
It’s so great to see you. First off, I have to ask you, are you still asking cops the same stupid questions they ask us?
Speaker 17:
It doesn’t work as well as it used to because I’ve gained such a reputation for it that they already know that it’s coming. I approached a Farmington, New Mexico police officer just yesterday and was going to try and get that going, and right off the bat he goes, oh, Mr. Freeman, your reputation proceeds you.
Stephen Janis:
So
Speaker 17:
It doesn’t work as well when they know it’s coming.
Taya Graham:
Oh, that’s great. I mean, I’m disappointed, but I’m glad that your reputation proceeds you. No, I think that’s just terrific. And I’m also just, I was so glad to see that the mainstream media actually acknowledged A, that cop watcher existed, and B, that they can actually do something useful for the community. How is that process interacting with the msm, with your local news?
Speaker 17:
I wasn’t entirely shocked myself because what I’m dealing with this court, the mainstream media is also dealing with, we are all constantly trying to get the truth of all kinds of stories out there and government. It’s not just us cop watchers and independent journalists. They try to stop everyone from doing it. And so I think that the mainstream media realized if they’re going to do this to me, they’re going to do it to as well. And so a precedent needs to be set here that this is unacceptable and that it’s not going to be allowed. So
Stephen Janis:
Is this a federal lawsuit you filed and is this a municipal, is it a circuit court, or what kind of court is this a state court that this is occurring in? Just to understand some of the details.
Speaker 17:
This is a district court and New Mexico. It’s kind of a rural area. So it actually covers, I think four or five different counties. And we did file the lawsuit in federal court simply because we don’t believe we were going to be able to get justice anywhere in any of the New Mexico courts because we believe that they’re getting their orders from the Supreme Court of New Mexico.
Stephen Janis:
So is this a First Amendment case or what’s your basic argument? And I’m fascinated by this because we have the same problem here in Maryland. So is this a First Amendment case or what are you arguing in your suit?
Speaker 17:
Yeah, so what they did is after I ran that story, they made it an administrative order saying that I can’t come to the courthouse at all unless I have official business. But they don’t recognize reporting on their corruption as official business. They don’t, of course not
Stephen Janis:
Recognize that.
Speaker 17:
And so essentially what it did is there was no due process either. There was no hearing, there was no trial. It was just boom, your first amendment rights are gone and there’s no due process. I continued to go to the court and I continued to report anyways for about three months, and then finally the judge said, all right, you violated the order. We were already getting ready to file a lawsuit simply because of the order itself. And then one day the judge said, you know what? You violated the order by continuing to report on us. We are going to have you come in for a hearing and we’re going to try to throw you in jail for contempt of court. Oh God, for disobeying the order, violating your first amendment.
Stephen Janis:
Well, now James, this is very disturbing because there’s nothing more public than court, nothing where there’s more laws about what should be public. A court hearing evidence, what basis did they use to order you out of a courtroom? What was their I don’t even see where they’d have a legal basis.
Speaker 17:
So no, they definitely don’t have a legal basis, but the state of New Mexico, the court system, there’s a reason they don’t want me in there. And it’s because they don’t use the law in their courts. They use whatever they feel like at the moment. What they put on the actual administrative order was that after I ran the story, there were people who viewed the story and called the courthouse to redress grievances and to let them know, Hey, we’re upset with what you guys are doing here, and we want you to get your act together. And so they specifically are articulated in the order, you cannot come to the courthouse due to the fact that other people have contacted us and they claim that it was on my behalf. I mean, obviously you can’t conceal all that. I didn’t.
Stephen Janis:
Right?
Speaker 17:
Yeah. And so they didn’t even ban me for anything that I did. They banned me for things that other people did when they saw the corruption that I published.
Stephen Janis:
I mean, this is so ridiculously first amendment fraught wrong that it’s hard for me to understand. It just sounds like they’re just, like you said, making up the laws as they go along. So then they have a hearing. You said, what happened in the hearing? Was there actually really a hearing? I mean, was there evidence presented and arguments made or what actually happened?
Speaker 17:
So once they decided to schedule that hearing, my lawyers fast tracked it and said, that’s it. We’re filing the lawsuit today. There were a few other things we were waiting on some open records request to, because once you file the lawsuit, they’re going to clam up on everything and not give us anything. And so we were trying to wait until we had some more evidence of the things that they were doing. Once they said, Hey, let’s bring him into court and throw ’em in jail. We immediately filed the lawsuit that day and the judge had to recuse herself. We asked for injunctive relief from the federal court, which they haven’t even given us yet. And so this, they’ve continued to retaliate against me since we filed the suit.
Stephen Janis:
How are they
Speaker 17:
Retaliating? So yeah, there was no hearing.
Stephen Janis:
How are they retaliating? What are they doing?
Speaker 17:
So there’s this, one of the stories that I was covering in that courthouse, there was another hearing just today for him, and he had asked me to be there to record documents so that I could report on the final leg of his story with that court system. The chief judge, Mercedes Murphy, refused to allow me into the courtroom, and it was just a remote hearing through Google, whatever the
Stephen Janis:
Right
Speaker 17:
Zoom or whatever. But she refused to let me into the hearing. And
Stephen Janis:
Wow. It’s interesting because you have sat in a courtroom, I’ve sat a lot in a courtroom, and we know both Eric Brat had had, who’s another cop watcher called a lot of attention to the court process. Just talk about why you see a lot of things go on in a courtroom that just don’t really make any sense and don’t seem to be following the law. Can you talk about why it’s so important to have eyes in the courtroom like yourself, why it would be important for people to see stuff or know what’s going on?
Speaker 17:
As a matter of fact, in the very first story that I broke on the Seventh Judicial District Court in Torrance County, they had said, well, you know what? This is a court of record. We record everything ourselves. Now, previously, a lot of courts weren’t even recording audio or video. They just had somebody typing what they could catch. And there were a lot of problems with that. If you go in and actually record, you’ll find that the record does not match what you record.
Stephen Janis:
Absolutely.
Speaker 17:
And I showed that in the very first story that I ran on them, that even though they were recording, they went off the record and then the hearing officer did and said some things that he later denied He did and said, and the only reason we had evidence that the hearing officer Gordon Bennett lied was because there happened to be a deputy in the courtroom with his body camera on him during that time that he was off. Supposedly off the record, that it,
Stephen Janis:
It’s, wow,
Speaker 17:
These hearings are public.
Stephen Janis:
Go ahead. No, but I was going to say, I mean, one of the things I’ve learned as a reporter being in the courtroom is like, wow, you think there’s this idea of the law and everyone’s following the law, but you realize it’s really, really up to whatever the whims of a judge and can be very capricious. Can you talk a little bit about that? Because sometimes when I go leave a courtroom, I’m like, I’m pretty scared because if I ever ended up there, I don’t think I’d get a fair shake.
Speaker 17:
Y Yeah. I’m no lawyer, I’m no attorney. I work with attorneys, and so they kind of show me the process and have specifically shown me while I’m watching court hearings and on hearings that I’ve reviewed or recorded, been able to go back and watch ’em with lawyers and they say meant that this judge isn’t even following the legal process. Right. And even I’ve got one of my lawyers that’s representing me that has a recording of him telling a judge, Hey, you’re not following the legal process, and he wants to read it into the record, and the judge is yelling at him. No, no. You can’t read the legal process into the record because she just blatantly doesn’t want to obey the law. And so she doesn’t want it on the record that she’s aware of what the law is.
Stephen Janis:
Do you think, I mean, I know we both know Eric Brant, he’s now in prison for threatening judges, and it’s a very interesting case allegedly, but allegedly exactly correct. Thank you for that. But he would always say judiciary does not get enough attention. Yeah. Is that something you agree with?
Speaker 17:
Absolutely. Absolutely. Yeah. And I mean, you talk about qualified immunity for police officers, judges, prosecutors have, it seems to be absolute immunity. Please correct me if I’m wrong. No, but it seems to be absolute immunity untouchable. Yeah,
Stephen Janis:
Yeah. No, and it’s a little scary because really when you think about it, classic, traditionally prosecutors, or at least judges are supposed to be a check on police and other types of law enforcement. But often, I mean, what I’ve seen is that judges pretty much are in cahoots with police in so many cases. And I, we’ve had many corrupt cops who have run through courts forever lying, just blatantly lying and cops and judges doing nothing about it. And I guess that’s what you’re trying to watch out for in this court system. Right.
Speaker 17:
And I’ve been trying to show people too, look, this whole system of three branches of government and checks and balances, that exists for a purpose. These branches aren’t supposed to be working together. They are supposed to be butting heads. They are supposed to be challenging each other. I totally agree. They are supposed to be refusing to cooperate with each other. And I’ll tell you what, with this case, over the last three months, I have seen something that I never thought that I would see in my lifetime. The local law enforcement in this area have refused to enforce the judge’s orders. I have been ordered to be arrested multiple times by hearing officers and judges and the Torrance County deputies and the local police department next door. They have tried to call in every police department possible because none of them will touch me. Wow. And it’s because they know that what the judges are doing is wrong.
Stephen Janis:
So wait, a judge literally issued what? A bench warrant for you, or just an order to arrest you for no reason?
Speaker 17:
Yeah, just an order to arrest. Said, Hey, you know what? He came to the courthouse. He wasn’t supposed to come to the courthouse to report on us. It was a hearing officer just a couple weeks ago, ordered me to be arrested. And I haven’t even uploaded the footage yet. And the two deputies are saying, well, he’s not doing anything illegal. We can’t arrest
Stephen Janis:
Him. I mean, this is an administrative order. You didn’t break a law. Okay, right. So how on earth can this judge justify an arrest? I mean, what? I think the deputies are behaving correctly because they’re following the law, right? It you’re exercising your First Amendment rights and you violate administrative order. It should be an administrative sanction, not an arrest. What’s wrong with this judge?
Speaker 17:
Well, besides that, the administrative order shouldn’t exist in the first place either. True. It violated due process. Right.
Stephen Janis:
But I don’t understand how you jump you to arrest from an administrative order. I don’t get it.
Speaker 17:
I really don’t know. You’d have to ask the judges and the hearing officers why they think that. Actually, one of the hearing officers, when he ran out of excuses and realized, we really can’t get him on violating this order because even the order says he’s got to have a police escort. And I had two deputies with me the whole time. He said, well, I’ll have you arrested for disorderly conduct. Then I said, where did you get your law degree? Do you even know what disorderly conduct is?
Stephen Janis:
It’s like this just is the go-to pickup line for cops. I mean, that this is just really, really, really concerning. And so have the deputies at all or anyone said, Hey, James, we know this is illegal and we’re not going to enforce it. Or is it just kind of implicit? Do they actually tell you, or do they say what they’re thinking is here?
Speaker 17:
I don’t necessarily want to say like we were talking about with James Madison earlier, and that’s been really, really, really tough about this case. For me, people have asked me before, Hey, why don’t you talk about good cops on your channel? Said, because I don’t want put a target on their back. Get control. That’s why, right? And it’s been tough. No. Cause some of these deputies have outwardly, you can request the body cam footage. They have outwardly made it perfectly clear, no, they are not going to follow an unlawful order. And a lot of them, it’s been really tough because the sheriff at the top, David Frazey, is a nut job who would love to see me arrested, but he won’t do it himself, and his own deputies won’t do it for him. So I mean, some of these deputies have really, really stuck their necks out. And I’ve been so conflicted with this incident going, all right, do,
Stephen Janis:
Yeah, that really,
Speaker 17:
Do I published this and praise them or,
Stephen Janis:
Well, I think you’re wise to let them be in the sense that I think as we’ve seen, like you said, we just talked to James Madison, there’s a retaliatory structure there, and if this comes out, they’ll probably be in trouble. And I think probably just be grateful. But that is a really interesting dilemma for you because you’re technically a person who holds cops accountable. And in this particular case, the police are actually, the cops are actually, deputy sheriffs are doing the right thing. But that this is just an amazing case. Mean really to me, this is a premier First Amendment case that the media should be covering all over the country, that you’re doing this, you’re having this battle. Because they could do this to any reporter. And one of, there’s another thing I have to talk about court covering as a reporter, the arrogance of the people in a courtroom, you know, have your phone open because you need to get a story out.
And they’re like, they’ll confiscate your phone. They’ll kick you out of the courtroom if they think you’re, I don’t know what, I’ve encountered so many jerk judges as a reporter who have harassed me. And just for sit in the back of the courtroom, move over here, don’t do that. Or I go to and try to talk to maybe a suspect’s family and say, can I talk to anybody? Why are you talking in my courtroom? And it’s not that I don’t understand, you have to have an order, the courtroom, but the arrogance of the people in the court system is insane. They think that we are, we’re there because they’re letting us be there. Not because the Constitution has the first amendment, and not because we’re doing a job that is protected, but they make it seem like, oh, we’ll let you come in here, you know, can come, but you don’t really have any right to be here. And your perfect example of that case where they’re saying, just because of our whims, we can get rid of you. We don’t like what you say, we can get rid of you. That, I mean, there’s a lot of arrogance, these courthouses, right?
Speaker 17:
Yeah. And I think that’s why they are going to fight this really hard. We believe that the Attorney General of the state of New Mexico is about to weigh in on a very heavy way because they, they’ve been completely out of control for a very long time and gotten away with everything. And it’s wrong it, and they know it, and they know that if we set precedent in this case, it’s going to change a lot of things across this country.
Stephen Janis:
I hope so.
Speaker 17:
It’s just going to be the beginning. And I think they know that.
Taya Graham:
So you know what, we have a bunch of questions both for you and James Madison, but I have one or two questions for you first that I want to hit you with, if that’s okay. James Freeman. Is that all right? Yes. Yes. Okay. All right. Just want to make sure. Okay. So the first question is, has flipping the script on a cop ever gone wrong?
Speaker 17:
Gone wrong? I don’t think I’ve ever gotten arrested doing it. I’ve done it a lot of times and I don’t always get the results that I want. The result that I want is for the roles to literally be flipped to where I’m the dominant one who’s a total jerk. And the cop becomes the submissive one who’s like, oh my gosh, do I do you start stumbling over his words? We do often when we’re confronted by police and we get nervous. I wouldn’t say it necessarily went wrong though.
Taya Graham:
You know what? Now this question is kind of tough, but I did promise that if someone asks, I would throw the questions up there. How do I find an attorney to file a federal lawsuit in Texas? That can be kind of tough. Texas.
Stephen Janis:
You’re the fifth circuit. You’re screwed in Texas. Well,
Speaker 17:
Sorry. No, no, I got you there. That’s, that’s going to be Brandon Grable, Grable and Grimshaw.
Taya Graham:
Oh,
Speaker 17:
Great. He represented us on the Leon Valley case. He’s representing quite a few other people. Actually, one of the cases that you guys covered a family who was recording police, I can’t
Stephen Janis:
Remember where it was. Oh yes. Oh,
Taya Graham:
That’s
Stephen Janis:
Hoagland. Yes.
Taya Graham:
Oh, yes. And really appreciate, and she really appreciate your help in helping connect her know
Stephen Janis:
We have to
Taya Graham:
Useful
Stephen Janis:
Lawyer. We have to connect Thomas with this lawyer because the firefighter who was forced out out of his job.
Taya Graham:
That’s a
Stephen Janis:
Great idea. Not that it’s our job to, but we should at least connect them, right. And do them that. Yes. At
Taya Graham:
Least.
Stephen Janis:
Well, thank you, James. That’s a great recommendation. Absolutely. But I mean, just can’t say enough about this case that James, this case is for all the journalists all over the country. We have to go into courtrooms and beg forgiveness for reporting on what people are doing, how people are exercising, government or power against them. I really, James, I am so impressed and supportive in whatever we can do to help you. And if you could send us a lawsuit, I would like to write a story about it for the real news, because this could be critical. I mean, I don’t know how it works, how the interchange interplay between federal and circuit courts, but it’d be great to set some precedent that they can’t just make things up as they go along. I mean, ultimately hope that’s what’s going to happen. I hope. I mean, hope you’ll win that. Right.
Taya Graham:
By the way, we have someone rather insistent in the chat, wants to know their question is, can I be Freeman’s intern from Matt R in the chat? So do you have interns? Do you have interns? Do you have an internship program? I wasn’t aware you did, but I don’t want to assume
Speaker 17:
I’m a one man show.
Taya Graham:
Okay. A one man band. Okay, got
Speaker 17:
It. Sorry.
Taya Graham:
Sorry about that. Met
Speaker 17:
R I’m paranoid. I’m paranoid. So every, everybody’s a the Fed. Understandable.
Taya Graham:
Oh my gosh, I didn’t even think of that. Yeah. Oh, that’s a good point. You’ve got to be really careful. Yeah. I’m sorry to deliver disappointing news met R, but I did ask for you. So you know what? This is so great. You know what I was just thinking You saw, I have to ask you just to get your perspective. You saw Thomas’s interaction earlier, the firefighter who was put through that field sobriety test. One of the things that really stood out to me is the officers, they take him to all these tests and they’re judging him so harshly. One of the things they did was they did a Romberg test where he has to stand there with his arms at his side and his head back and count to 30. And when he believes he counts to 30, he says, done. And so the officer stands there and does a timer.
And if you have between 25 seconds and 35 seconds, when you say stop, then it’s considered a pass. But the firefighter said, stop at 36 seconds. So they considered that a fail of the test. So that field sobriety test was, it was just cruelty. I thought of so many reasons why it would be difficult for someone to pass a field sobriety test effectively if you’d had a long day at work and you were just a little bit shaky. Yeah, this gentleman literally had a tumor pass it in his ear. I couldn’t, as a matter of fact, I made Steven try to do the field sobriety test and I walked him through it. And I think honestly, a lot of guys who’ve been athletic have tight hamstrings or don’t do yoga, won’t do well at it. I’m being honest. I’m being honest, believe it
Speaker 17:
Or not.
Taya Graham:
No, you don’t do yoga as far as I know. But I just wanted to know what, what’s your advice would be if someone is stopped for, allegedly for an investigation to see whether or not they have been drinking or driving. What sort of advice you would give or what would you say to Thomas, Hey, this is what I would’ve done in your situation.
Speaker 17:
Are you asking Freeman or you Oh, you Madison. Okay.
Taya Graham:
You, sorry.
Speaker 17:
Okay, you
Taya Graham:
Freeman,
Speaker 17:
I, that is a really tough question because it seems to me as a non-attorney that you’re damned if you do and you’re damned if you don’t. You don’t take the test, they’re taking you to jail. I really don’t know. I would almost rather the blood draw though. And yeah. And besides that though, there’s so many other elements to this particular case that are just bizarre.
Taya Graham:
I agree wholeheartedly. Yeah. I mean, in all honesty, the reason why, even though the alcohol test came back completely negative, allegedly there was a backlog. So the drug blood test didn’t come back in a timely fashion. He was dismissed simply for having the arrest charges. Not because he was convicted, but because he simply had been arrested. And so he lost his job as a driver engineer, a career he’d loved for 30 years. He said the fire department was his family. It was absolutely heartbreaking. Absolutely heartbreaking.
Speaker 17:
And that doesn’t happen to police when they get pulled over for dwi. Oh, absolutely. As they’re put on paid administrative leave quite often and innocent until proven guilty. And really, that is the way it should be, even though I’m not a fan of police. That should be the same across the board, that we’re all innocent until proven guilty.
Taya Graham:
Very well said.
Stephen Janis:
Well, as we report on that show, there’s a thing that New York police officers get called courtesy cards that they give out to their relatives and friends. Yes. And speaking to what we’re talking about, James, we were talking about good cops getting in trouble. We reported on this police officer who got sick of these courtesy cards because he’s pulling people over for reckless driving and all sorts of stuff. And they’d give him this card and he was supposed to let them go and he wouldn’t do it. And so guess what happens? He suffers retaliation, his career is destroyed. He sent to Staten Island, has to work the 12 to midnight shift or whatever. So there are two sets, sets of laws in this sense. And I think James, you see that probably every day, or I’m not asking you to agree, but that is something that is Oh,
Taya Graham:
That’s right. Which James,
Stephen Janis:
Oh my God. Whoa.
Taya Graham:
Yes. I know Mr.
Speaker 17:
Freeman. We we’re bringing James Madison back in.
Stephen Janis:
No, Mr. Freeman. Mr. Freeman.
Speaker 17:
Yeah, absolutely. There are definitely two sets of laws. And really more than anything else, that is what I’m trying to show on my channel through every single video that I do, every single, it’s, Hey, we’ve created these rules and laws so that we can have a civilized society. And we all kind of agree, look, these are the rules we’re going to obey. These are the rules we’re going to follow so that we can all get along and be civilized. And you and I do it. And then there’s this class of people that we call government that don’t and that are not accountable to it.
Stephen Janis:
And I mean, the only way that we’re ever going to be able to win that battle and have accountability is if people like you can go into a courtroom and make people uncomfortable. They’re not supposed to be comfortable around reporters. I mean, we’re not trying to make people uncomfortable. We’re not like cops are not harassing people, but they’re not supposed to be comfortable with everything we report. That’s not how the First Amendment works. It doesn’t mean that we’re rude, but it means that we tell the truth and the truth makes them uncomfortable. And I’m just really, we want to follow your lawsuit all the way because I, I’m just hoping that a federal court, which circuit is that the sixth or what
Speaker 17:
Circuit? 10th.
Stephen Janis:
10th. Oh, 10th, okay. Yep.
Speaker 17:
Same one where we just got the case law out of of Colorado from Azaria and
Stephen Janis:
Yeah, the one where the Eric was filming the traffic. Stop that one,
Speaker 17:
Right? Yep.
Stephen Janis:
Yes. Yep. So the 10th circuit that you have some hope there. I mean, when we were talking to Thomas, his lawyer was saying The fifth Circuit is really difficult when you’re suing cost. So we need to get into the details of that. But James, we support you. I as a fellow reporter, and we will cover this story. And we wish you the best of luck with this. Cause if you win, maybe I can go in the courtroom and actually do my job without getting harassed by a deputy sheriff who doesn’t like the fact that I have a cell phone. Right. Exactly. As if that’s really important. But anyway, so I think,
Taya Graham:
Oh my gosh, at first, I just have to thank every single James that Yes.
Stephen Janis:
Joined us. Oh, all
Taya Graham:
James, I realized we are going a little over
Stephen Janis:
On our
Taya Graham:
Time and we have one or two more things to do, and I really wanted to make sure to highlight people’s comments. So I’m down here in the chat trying to throw comments on the screen, but we might need to move forward a little bit. Okay. Because
Stephen Janis:
Yeah, it’s past everyone’s bedtime. It it’ll
Taya Graham:
Be past everyone’s bedtime. Yeah.
Stephen Janis:
Soon you, so let’s get to the let’s
Taya Graham:
We should move forward. Yeah. And I’ll just say talking to James about what he’s dealing with brings to mind how important essentially citizen journalism is to the health our of our democracy. I mean, the hardest hit facet of the news business is local journalism. There’s just not a business model that can sustain it. And Steven, actually, we were talking about this the other day, how YouTubers and some cases have stepped into fill the void. Yeah. Can you talk, I don’t know, maybe a little bit
Stephen Janis:
About local journalism you did that? Well, you see with James there, the mainstream media, which I came from, you’re taught to sort of operate a certain way. But the chaos that’s created by lack of accountability and power has to be met with a very creative type of journalism. And that’s the type of journalism that James can do that we do at the Real News. We’re much more creative. We follow the case of Thomas to the Bitter End. Yes, most mainstream media would’ve moved on, but we don’t move on. That’s fair. And I think that’s what James, James is going to all sorts of court hearings and would get no coverage whatsoever. The only way to respond to the chaos that lack of accountability creates is with creative journalism. And that’s why cop watchers and independent journalists are great.
Taya Graham:
Steven, that’s such an excellent point. And I think there’s an underlying question that informs a lot of this discussion, and that’s why is any of this important? Why is local journalism important? Why is knowing your rights important? Why is it important for Steven and I to sit here and talk to you all about this? And even more critically, why are you the people who watch us and talk to us and comment on our work so important to this, our entire question of preserving our right, I guess these are what we would call existential questions, which means in part, they’re about constructing or perhaps in what Steven was talking about, defining the type of world we want to live in. For me, I see in the work of James Madison and James Freeman, a struggle to reconcile worldviews that although not explicitly explained, are at the core of who we are, how we think about ourselves, and how a subtle change in the balance of power can forever alter our lives in ways that I think can be hard to live with.
I have a sort of simple way to boil this down into two words that are critical to understanding what I’m talking about. One is consent, and the other is dissent. One cannot exist without the other. And both are critical to maintaining and expanding our rights to live our lives as we choose with a government that serves us not the other way around. Okay. What do I mean? Let me try and explain. I think the whole notion of holding power, cops, politicians, the government in general accountable, starts with the idea of consent, the foundation, the assumption underlying the whole concept of governance by and for the people, there lies a simple notion that wielding power cannot occur without the consent of the people. And I think the idea is self-evident in what it means, but still important to reexamine consent means that there is an implicit agreement in every government action that we have consented to the use of power for some sort of common good.
That means, essentially, if police are empowered to write traffic tickets for speeding or reckless driving, we the people have consented to this because we believe this use of power is for the good of all of us. And that so-called common good outweighs the intrusion on our personal liberty in order to benefit everyone. So when you see police writing tickets for quotas or to fund their own salaries or to accrue accolades, or simply make an arrest just because they feel like it, that implicit consent is being erased. When you examine tools like the field sobriety test or these fake forensic techniques that are used to incriminate innocent people, they are offensive to us, to all of us, because that’s not what we consented to. We didn’t consent to erode the Fourth Amendment. So law enforcement, industrial complex could continue to fight the ill conceived war on drugs.
And we didn’t also consent to have our property confiscated without due process so the police could profit from the spoils of the aforementioned war on drugs. Nor do we consent that America’s well-oiled punishments machine could wear us down with fines and fees to fund the same apparatus that continues to grind us into the ground. These things seem intrinsically wrong because none of us consented to them. And that’s where the other word dissent comes in. Because the way we fight back when the political system ignores our consent is by dissenting. And the best way to do that is by using the process of accountability. For example, affirming our First Amendment rights, filing freedom of information Act requests to let those people in power know we don’t agree to your terms of service. This is why people like James Freeman and James Madison and other cop watchers. And you know what?
I’m going to list a few. Okay. Yeah. I’m going to list a few. Go ahead. Cop watchers like David Barn and Monkey 83, and out of the Watchdog and Liberty freak in the Batusi and Lackluster and San Joaquin Par Transparency and Chuck Bronson in Blind Justice. And I think I saw Mrs. Justice earlier, Laura Shark, Tom Zebra, Joe Cool. Writes Krispy Irate Productions, H B O, Matt Corners News, Amanda Acura, long Island Audits News Now, Johnny Five Oh, so many others are so important. It’s also why independent journalists like the Real News or Truth Out or our partners in these times are important as well. And even our mainstream media counterparts who we do give a hard time on occasion are vitally important to the process of descent because it takes all of us to take on the messiness of descent. Wouldn’t you agree, Steven?
Stephen Janis:
I totally agree.
Taya Graham:
Well, yeah, me, you described descent as messy, and I think I’d like to give, do you want to talk about
Stephen Janis:
That or should I Well, yeah, I mean, think that’s the thing. The whole thing with the Thomas story we unpacked tonight was messy. It was messy, yes. It wasn’t something you could organize in a big investigative piece. You had to go piece by piece and confront different aspects of governance that were really not answering. And the only way you can really do it is by being messy yourself in some ways. So yeah, it can, dissent is not always a clean, and that’s why cop watchers and other types of creative forms of dissenting need to exist because it can’t always be copacetic and clean. Sometimes it just has to seem as messy as a system it’s trying to address. And
Taya Graham:
You know what, Steven, I’m glad you talked about the messiness of dissent. And I’m also glad you talked about how important transparency is and how important it’s to have journalists and citizen journalists and cop watchers participate in this. And let me give you an example. It starts with a story of a group of state police officers in Connecticut facing a dilemma. They wanted to write lots of tickets to garner the approval of their superiors and special rewards and promotions, but there was just one little problem getting in the way. People aren’t violating the law enough to meet their goals. So you know what, Dave, if you could just put a few clips on the screen so people can see this amazing reporting that was done, but these ingenious heroic, oh, you don’t have, that’s okay. But these ingenious heroic cops decided they wouldn’t be deterred by the people complying with the law.
No. They devised a plan to bend the system and the law to their benefit. What did the cops I mentioned do? Okay, this is what they did. They entered hundreds if not thousands of bogus tickets into the system. They simply made up violations out of whole cloth. Now, an investigators say it doesn’t seem like these tickets were issued against anyone specifically, which of course raises a whole bunch of other questions about what happened. A preliminary investigation found that over 25,000 fake or inaccurate tickets were submitted, and now almost a quarter of the entire police force participated in some form or fashion. There were a few officers who wrote over 600 bogus tickets each, and they also found that part of the motive was to juice the stats to show troopers have written tickets to more white motorists in an attempt to dodge an accusation of racial bias.
I’m not even going to touch that, but here’s the part where both the consent and dissent work together and why both concepts are equally important. That’s because none of this, and I mean none of it would’ve come to light if a local newspaper had not unearthed the investigation into the fake tickets and reported it to the public. This whole manipulation of the criminal justice system to the advantage of a bunch of rogue officers was kept secret, so secret that until it was reported by journalists protected by the First Amendment, these officers literally had no consequences. That’s right. After falsely swearing out thousands of bogus tickets, the officers received only mild internal discipline, a veritable slap on the riffs for committing professional perjury on a massive scale. And these same professional liars were allowed to go out into the community and continue to write tickets, make arrests, testify in court, and earn their lucrative pensions all at our expense.
And let me repeat, it was only after a report by a Hurst owned newspaper, only after the dissenters made us all aware of the issue that the state government promised to undertake a criminal investigation into those troopers. And now even the governor himself has been forced to call for a criminal probe of the professional fraudsters who are still armed with guns and wearing badges. Now, who in their right mind would consent to that? Rogue ticket writers and congenital liars emerging unscathed. But my point here goes beyond the bad apples apparently living happily in the rotten barrel known as the Connecticut State Police, what’s more important here is how easily, and apparently without conscience, the whole system of law enforcement can be used to facilitate widespread abuse of the power for some at the expense of the many. And how little the officers who are supposed to represent us care about that overreach.
That is why we have to dissent consistency and continually, that’s why we need local reporters, cop watchers, activists, auditors, citizen journalists, TV journalists, and of course even us independent journalists here at the Real News, even us to provide this continuum of dissent that ensures that the government by consent remains intact. That’s why we need people to use their cell phones to film police, and we need YouTube and citizen journalists like James Friedman and Madison to have access to courtrooms regardless if it makes someone uncomfortable. What I’m saying is that we need all of us, every single one of us to contribute, participate, and otherwise join the fight to preserve and expand our rights. No single person can do it alone, but together. I know we can. Right Steven?
Stephen Janis:
I’m willing to stay outside as long as it takes.
Taya Graham:
Oh, that’s beautiful.
Stephen Janis:
Yep. I’ll go right back out there after the show and I’ll be standing out there where you saw me at the beginning of the show doing journalism.
Taya Graham:
That is actually kind of beautiful. Yeah.
Stephen Janis:
Well
Taya Graham:
Commit commitment. That is beautiful. Commit commitment. You know what? I think that’s actually a great way to end this show. Absolutely. With your renewed commitment to journalism, the great outdoors and corn nuts.
Stephen Janis:
Right. Corn nuts.
Taya Graham:
So you know what, before we go, I just have to make sure to thank James Madison and James Freeman for taking the time to be here with us to share their insights, to share the incredible work they’re doing. If you haven’t already gone to their channels, you should definitely check them out. And I know you folks in the live chat had noticed there’s some amazing cop watchers in there too. Maybe you want to go check out their channels. And I want to thank the mods of the show. Noli d and Lacey are thank you both for your support. Thank you for sticking by me for showing up every Thursday and just being an incredible help to me. Yes. And also a very special thanks to our Patreons. We appreciate you so much. And in one second, I’m going to thank each and every one of you personally, especially my associate producers, John R. David k, Louis P, and my p a r Super Friends like Pineapple Girl.
I saw you in the chat. Hi, pineapple girl, Shane Busta, Chris R Matter of Rights. But I want everyone watching to know that if you have video evidence of police misconduct or brutality, you can reach out to us. You can email us directly@therealnews.com. If you follow me on social media at Taya Baltimore on Facebook or Twitter, you can also reach out to me there. We have a police accountability report, Facebook page. We have a police accountability report, Instagram, we have a police accountability report, Facebook. So if you want to contact us that way, please do so. We’re actually going to be taking about a week or so off just to go through the tips we’ve gotten. We have some shows in the works that we’re working on. We’re doing an extra big show coming up. I think we’re going to be dipping back down into Texas.
And it’s going to be an in-depth show. We’re working on it now. It’s going to take us, at least, we’ve been working on it for the past two weeks. So that means it’s going to take us three weeks to complete this show. So I really hope you’ll stick with us to see it. And of course, we want to be able to reach out and help the people. We can. Like I’ve mentioned before, there are a lot of conversations I have with people interactions via email or messages where there’s never a show produced. I, I just try to connect someone to Legal Aid, legal help. I try to help someone fill out a Freedom of Information Act request, or just try to give them some general advice and guidance just to help them. And there’s never a show that comes from it, but it takes a lot of time to go through all those tips and emails and comments.
And I want to do what I can to help support people. So just so you know, I’m going to shout out all my Patreons and I want to thank each and every one of you that showed up here tonight to participate in this conversation. I love the live chat. I wish I could have put even more of your comments up and now for the great reading of thanks to the rest of my Patreons. And I apologize if I don’t get a name. First thank you to Matter of Rights. Shannon p Cameron. J. Farmer, Jane, U s A, Joseph P Marvin, g Kimmy, cat, p Dur Devil, Nope. Curt A Patty. Angela Tru T, social Nationalist, David, B Marcia, E, Daniel, W zero M, Louis William, D B M. Shant. Chemi. John, K X, X, X, X, potshot. Kenneth Lawrence, K Stephen, B Blitz. Cindy, K Dante.
John Keith. B M Joe, six, six, estate A, Z, John Miller, Gary, T, Janet, K, Ryan, mark, William, L, Noli, D, Kyle, R, guy B, Calvin, M, Stephen, D Ron, F, Allen, J, Trey, P, Julius, geezer, Omar, John, Ryan, Lacey, rod, B Douglas, Andre, H, Siggy, young. Stephen. J Michael, S L default Urine. Celeste, D, S, P, T, just my 2 cents. Talia, B, Peter, J, Sean, B, k, a, Joel, a Tim, R Larry, l Ronald h Tamara, a Artemis, LA John, K Jimmy, touchdown, true tube Live. Kenny, g A is Circle of the quantum Note. Brian, m Byron, m, felonious, punk, Loretta S, Mike K, Mike K. And to the new patrons, Michael Willis, Joice, Frank K, Mary M, we appreciate you, your support and to help make our work possible. And remember, 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 email us the tips privately at pa the real news.com. Thank you so much for everyone who was here tonight. I hope you enjoyed the conversation. I know it was live. I know it was glitchy, but we did it with love and we appreciate you so much. Please be safe out there.
Speaker 20:
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