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

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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.

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.

This post was originally published on The Real News Network.

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.

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Arkansas resident Shawn Chaperone was cut off by a reckless driver and was shocked that police chose to pull him over. However, it was the local police department’s turn to be surprised when they discovered how well Shawn knew his rights and local ordinances! Join us for this episode of the Police Accountability Report, which illustrates the importance of knowing your rights and the dangers of arbitrary police power.

Production: Stephen Janis, Taya Graham
Post-Production: Stephen Janis, Adam Coley

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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.

Taya Graham:

Hello, my name is Taya Graham and welcome to the Police Accountability Report. As I always make clear, this show has a single purpose: holding the politically powerful institution of policing accountable. And to do so, we don’t just focus on the bad behavior of individual cops. Instead, we examine the system that makes bad policing possible. And today, we will achieve that goal by showing you this video of a cop who tries to entrap a motorist with false accusations about a costly traffic violation. However, it’s how this driver fought back, and how police responded when he did, that shows how cops can bend the law when they’re caught misusing it.

But before we get started, I want you to know that if you have video evidence of police misconduct, please email it to us privately at par@therealnews.com, or reach out to me at Facebook or Twitter @TayasBaltimore, and we might be able to investigate for you. And also please like share and comment on our videos. It helps us get the word out and can even help our guests. And of course, I read your comments and appreciate them. You see those hearts down there. And we do have a Patreon, 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 we’ve reported on this show, there was no process more fraught with potential for both abuse and overreach than the American traffic stop. It is in some ways unique to our American version of law enforcement, simply because cops here think there is no better way to catch criminals than by randomly pulling over hundreds of people. How else can you explain the myriad of stops we have reported on for this show that have led to, let’s just say, bad outcomes, unnecessary and often futile efforts to entangle innocent Americans in our sprawling criminal justice system that often seems more motivated by greed, stupidity, or even just a hunger for power? And to prove my point, I’m going to show you this video of a traffic stop that explains all the preceding overreach and backwards rationalizations that American police use to justify their addiction to lighting up the roof and ensnaring often innocent motorists in the labyrinth system of tickets, fines, court fees, and more.

But this take on over policing also has a twist, which you’ll see leads to an even more revealing truism about law enforcement’s addiction to traffic stops than all the aforementioned incidents combined. Now, this story starts in Stuttgart, Arkansas. There, Sean Chaperone was driving home after a long day at work. He was traveling at the reasonable speed of 35 miles per hour, when suddenly a motorist jumped in front of his car, slowed to 20 miles per hour, slammed on their brakes, and cut him off. Now, Sean did what any driver would do when confronted with a reckless motorist, he switched into the next lane to avoid a collision and maintained his speed. But this seemingly reasonable reaction to a reckless motorist apparently caught the eye of the ever vigilant Stuttgart Police. This laser-like attention was not drawn to the driver who cut Sean off. No, these able practitioners of law enforcement where apparently focused on the fact he changed lanes to avoid an accident. Just watch.

Sean Chaperone:

So he’s behind me, but you couldn’t catch him, but you could catch me?

Speaker 3:

This is what I seen. I seen you slam on your brakes and come to a sliding stop in the middle of-

Sean Chaperone:

That is correct because he cut me off, sir.

Speaker 3:

Listen to me. Listen to me. Listen to me. First of all, I’m not going to roadside court. Second of all, your attitude, you should probably lose it right now. Do you understand?

Sean Chaperone:

Or what?

Speaker 3:

Do you understand?

Sean Chaperone:

Or what do you going to do, man?

Speaker 3:

It is a simple yes or no.

Sean Chaperone:

I don’t answer questions, man. You go do what you got to do.

Speaker 3:

All right.

Taya Graham:

Now, it’s interesting to note that this alleged traffic infraction caught the attention of not one, not two, but three Stuttgart cops, a veritable posse of law enforcement that descended on his car with a variety of allegations. Take a look.

Sean Chaperone:

Got a officer right here over here. Can I get your name and badge number? Are you going to be officer right here too?

Speaker 4:

Oh, the reason why I pulled you over, because I’m the one that actually pulled you over, is a high rate of speed.

Sean Chaperone:

Okay, well, I was cut off. Did you get my speed?

Speaker 4:

What I saw was a high rate of speed.

Sean Chaperone:

So this is-

Speaker 4:

I’m worried about people walking down the street.

Sean Chaperone:

Right. And I’m worried about someone cutting me off.

Speaker 4:

Okay. My issue is people walking down the street. I get it. At that point you should have called 911. “Hey, this is my issue.” We could have solved it then. But you speeding down the street, that’s-

Sean Chaperone:

Doing 35 in a 35?

Speaker 4:

Nu-uh.

Sean Chaperone:

Yes, ma’am. Absolutely.

Speaker 4:

Okay, so the reason why I pulled you over was a high rate of speed. We’re not going to play this game, okay?

Sean Chaperone:

Yeah. No, we’re not. We’re just going to go to court.

Taya Graham:

But even though Sean was now confronted by a full interrogation by these traffic enforcement vigilantes, he had an ace in the hole, so to speak. Because unbeknownst to the cadre of cops, Sean had a dash cam, which was running at the time of the near collision. And when he lets the cops know this, I think it’s curious how they respond to the fact that there is evidence that might challenge their capricious interpretation of the law. Take a look.

Sean Chaperone:

I ain’t got a problem with it. I got a dash cam. Y’all want to say that I’m speeding? Go for it. But the dash cam’s going to make y’all look really funny.

I mean, if she’s going to shine her light in my eyes, I can do the same back.

Speaker 4:

[inaudible 00:05:47], you mind coming up here please?

Sean Chaperone:

I’m going to need a supervisor. Can y’all give me a supervisor?

Speaker 4:

No problem. He just rolled up on here.

Sean Chaperone:

All right, perfect. Hey-

Corporal Williams:

How you doing, sir? Corporal Williams, Stuttgart Police Department.

Sean Chaperone:

All right.

Corporal Williams:

What’s going on, man?

Sean Chaperone:

Not much, [inaudible 00:06:01]. You don’t have to roll it all the way down. How’s it going?

Corporal Williams:

Pretty good. What’s going on?

Sean Chaperone:

Oh, not much. I had someone cut me off back there. They were on a traffic stop. They decided to pull me over. The guy that was behind me was the one that initially cut me off. They told me that they couldn’t catch him, that they decided to pull me over even though he was behind me.

Corporal Williams:

Okay. If he cut you off, how was he behind you?

Sean Chaperone:

Because I jumped around in front of him.

Corporal Williams:

All right.

Sean Chaperone:

He was doing about 25, getting ready to turn. I pulled back over in front of, got in the left-hand lane, passed him, got back over in the right-hand lane, took the right right back here at the stoplight.

Corporal Williams:

Okay. Well, according to the other officer, he said all he saw was you slam on your brakes, stop in the middle of Michigan-

Sean Chaperone:

I did. I slammed on my brakes because I had just gotten cut off and I slammed on the horn. That’s absolutely what I did.

Corporal Williams:

Okay.

Sean Chaperone:

He’s got that part right.

Corporal Williams:

All right. And the car cut you off?

Sean Chaperone:

That is correct. 110%.

Speaker 4:

Well the horn part-

Sean Chaperone:

Can you ask her to get her light out of my eyes, please?

Speaker 4:

[inaudible 00:07:02]-

Corporal Williams:

What’s that?

Sean Chaperone:

Can you ask her to get her light out of my eyes?

Corporal Williams:

Well, if he didn’t see what took place is what I’m saying. You understand that? If he didn’t see the car cut you off because he was on a traffic stop, obviously he’s paying attention to this traffic stop.

Taya Graham:

As I watch this video, I’m reminded of an idea that I think we sometimes forget: the notion that enforcing the law is often subjective and therefore arbitrary. But despite that truism, what happened to Sean here is a stark reminder that once the law is aimed at you, the subjective aspect of law enforcement is simply forgotten. Instead, we, and Sean, are subject to its exacting consequences, often solely because an officer, in their opinion, deem you guilty. And this exacting judgment persists even if the evidence presented challenges their assumptions. Just watch this idea play out as officers give Sean a ticket while simply ignoring his version of events.

Sean Chaperone:

Hey, it’s been well more than 15 minutes. Are we going to go or what? Are we being detained? We free to go? It’s been more than 15 minutes. Turned into an unlawful detainment three and a half minutes ago. We’ve been here 20 minutes, man.

Speaker 3:

Okay.

Sean Chaperone:

All right.

Speaker 3:

Go ahead and roll your window down for me.

Sean Chaperone:

It’s cracked. I can hear you just fine.

Speaker 3:

Okay. That’s cool. I need you to roll the window down.

Sean Chaperone:

I mean-

Speaker 3:

Roll the window open.

Sean Chaperone:

No, sir. I’m not going to. That is against my constitutional rights. I do not have to.

Speaker 3:

Okay. First of all, you need to learn your constitutional rights.

Sean Chaperone:

I do know my constitutional rights. Do…

Speaker 3:

So roll the window down.

Sean Chaperone:

… you know that your vehicle’s an extension of your house?

Speaker 3:

Yeah. Okay.

Sean Chaperone:

Okay.

Speaker 3:

So roll the window down so you can sign this citation.

Sean Chaperone:

I’ll sign the citation. All you got to do is just hand it to me right here.

Speaker 3:

No, I don’t hand my clipboard through the window. Roll your window down.

Sean Chaperone:

If you won’t hand it through your window, then how is rolling my window down going to help?

Speaker 3:

You’re going to lean toward me, you’re going to sign this citation, and we’re going to go about [inaudible 00:08:57], or-

Sean Chaperone:

I can step out and we can sign it. I can step out and we can sign it.

Speaker 3:

Or I’m going to take you to jail for obstruction. You understand?

Sean Chaperone:

Obstruction is a physical crime. You do realize that?

Speaker 3:

You are obstructing my justice.

Sean Chaperone:

Obstructing is a physical crime.

Corporal Williams:

You can go ahead. [inaudible 00:09:15] refused to sign, hand him his copy, and go [inaudible 00:09:17]. It doesn’t change it either way.

Speaker 3:

Are you going to sign my ticket?

Sean Chaperone:

I mean, did he just said… What did he just say?

Speaker 3:

[inaudible 00:09:27].

Sean Chaperone:

That’s why we have to have y’all’s supervisors here to keep y’all honest.

Taya Graham:

Now, the ticket was just the beginning of Sean’s ordeal, a series of events that have forced him to fight back in a way we will be discussing with him soon. But first, I’m joined by my reporting partner, Steven Janis, who’s been looking into the case. Steven, thank you so much for joining us.

Steven Janis:

Taya, thanks having me. I appreciate it.

Taya Graham:

So Steven, you’ve been reaching out to the Stuttgart Police. What are they saying?

Steven Janis:

Well, Taya, not a lot right now. I reached out to the Chief of Police of Stuttgart through his departmental email, asked him a couple questions, most notably, why the obstruction of justice charges? I thought that was kind of weird. I asked him if he actually thought that was a legitimate use of that charge in that situation. I also asked him why they didn’t take into account Mr. Chaperone’s version of events, why they didn’t look for the other driver. I’m waiting to hear back. If I hear something, I’ll mention it in the chat. I haven’t heard it back yet, but I will keep reporting on it.

Taya Graham:

Often when reporting on these types of questionable tickets, there are some underlying reasons rather than just public safety. You’ve been looking into the town itself. What have you learned?

Steven Janis:

Well, it’s really weird. I went to the Stuttgart town website to look through their financial information, budgets, et cetera. Nothing was posted. It was completely blank. I’m showing you on the screen right now. They do not share budget information with the public, which I think raises a lot of questions. They’ve also given police officers a raise, although they weren’t making a lot of money, like $11 an hour for a rookie, so maybe they need to raise money and write a lot of tickets. I get that feeling because they really don’t share information. Lack of transparency always leaves questions unanswered.

Taya Graham:

So I talked about the idea of an arbitrary nature of police power and how it can infect the process of law enforcement. I know you have some ideas on the topic. Can you talk about them?

Steven Janis:

Yeah, Taya. There’s nothing more anti-democratic than arbitrary power, especially police power, because the consequences of when it is imposed upon us are life altering. So, really, giving someone the ability to, say, write you a ticket when it’s not justified, or put you in a cage when there’s no real basis for criminal charges, all results in the same thing, a sort of roving sort of mobile fascism that really can entrap you in a system that’s unjust. And I think that’s why we have to keep our eye on, and always hold in check, indiscriminate and, what we say, arbitrary police power.

Taya Graham:

And now to discuss this confrontation with Stuttgart Police, why he challenged the officers, and how he’s fighting back against the ticket, I’m joined by Sean Chaperone. Sean, thank you for joining me.

Sean Chaperone:

Thank you for having me.

Taya Graham:

So first, tell me why you were pulled over. What are we seeing at the beginning of this video?

Sean Chaperone:

So initially, I had turned left onto the street that I was on. There was a vehicle that had cut me off and had their right turn signal on. After they cut me off, they turned their turn signal on signaling that they were going to turn into the motel. Well, when they had cut me off, I was doing approximately 35. They were doing about 20. They cut me off, I slammed on my brakes, slammed on the horn, and then got in the left-hand lane, went around them, and then got back in the right-hand lane. They never ended up turning into the motel and ended up coming up behind me. Well, I took a right at the stoplight, and that’s when the police got behind me and pulled me over and said that I was going at a high rate of speed.

Taya Graham:

I think it’s interesting that the officer said that he chose to stop you as opposed to the more reckless driver. How did they explain that?

Sean Chaperone:

Yeah, well, initially in that video, he says that he saw both vehicles. He saw me and the vehicle that had cut me off. And then in the video three times, he denies ever seeing the vehicle cut me off. So my question is, what did the officer really see? I think he just heard some things. He just heard me slamming on my brakes and blowing on my horn, and then decided that I was the aggressor even though I was driving defensively.

Taya Graham:

Sean, some people might say you were confrontational, and others might say you were standing on your rights. How did the cop respond to your pushback?

Sean Chaperone:

He initially walked up to the vehicle with an attitude, yelling at me. Personally, I mean, I was just acting defensively. Yet again, I was driving defensively, and then when he comes up acting aggressively, now I’m acting defensively. And I’ve seen people say that, “Well, this is a bad time for an audit.” Well, first of all, this wasn’t an audit. I’m just on my way home. So this is… Exactly, this is just me standing up for my rights. And unfortunately, he got a little upset about it.

Taya Graham:

You seem very knowledgeable about your rights and the rules surrounding traffic enforcement. How do you think that helped you in the situation? How do you think things would’ve turned out if you hadn’t?

Sean Chaperone:

Oh, it definitely helped me in the situation. I mean, towards the end of it, they’re threatening to arrest me. So, I mean, definitely know your rights and record the police. Even if you don’t know your rights, just record the police to hold them accountable because there’s so many times that their body cams come up missing when it comes to court, and the only thing that you have to stand on is your evidence.

Taya Graham:

How did you become so knowledgeable about your rights? What inspired you to learn so much?

Sean Chaperone:

Well, my father’s a retired police officer. He is a retired K9 officer, so that definitely helped. As well as him being a police officer, he has also gone over the last probably four or five years and really hammered to me, educating me on my rights, because he sees it as well. He sees the officers that are stripping people of their rights and he never was that way, but he sees it happening now and he sees that if we don’t stand up for it, we’re going to lose it.

Taya Graham:

Did you have any concern that the officer might violate your rights because of your pushback, because of the way you asserted yourself?

Sean Chaperone:

Absolutely not. If they’re going to violate my rights, if they want to arrest me, I guess that they have every right to do so. I’m not going to let them intimidate me or try and bully me in any way, shape, fashion, or form. Let’s say they would’ve arrested me. I mean, we’d be going to court right now on a counter suit for unlawful arrest. So, no. I mean, for me, personally, it doesn’t intimidate me.

Taya Graham:

So I noticed that you were counting down the time, that the officer only had 15 minutes to write you a ticket. What was your next move if he took over 15 minutes?

Sean Chaperone:

I mean, I wasn’t going to run. That’s for sure. It’s a state specific law. It’s Arkansas Criminal 3.1 that states that an officer only has 15 minutes to write you a citation. So it’s a very state specific thing. I wasn’t going to leave, but I was definitely going to get out of my vehicle, start asking questions, because now it’s starting to turn into an unlawful detainment. So that’s pretty much what I would’ve done.

Taya Graham:

So what exactly was the ticket for?

Sean Chaperone:

So the ticket ended up being for… I think it was reckless and prohibited driving. It’s $150 ticket and currently we are going to court. The court date is, I believe, August 3rd. So it’s going to trial and I will be representing myself and I look forward to seeing the officers on the stand.

Taya Graham:

Now, I think it’s important to expound a little bit on the idea Steven and I discussed, namely the arbitrary nature of police power. It’s important because I think it acknowledges that policing is just as much an idea as it is an institution, and for that reason, something worth examining beyond the usual critiques that views cops and badges as the inevitable result of our ongoing experiment with self-governance.

Let’s remember, as we’ve said before, modern policing was one of the last iterations of democratic governance to emerge, an institution that didn’t evolve until the form resembles today until the mid 19th century. Which is why we need to sometimes examine it in a way that doesn’t simply assume it should, or even inevitably, exist. Not so much to say we don’t need police, but rather a way to truly understand what the prevalence of policing in our country truly engenders. In other words, how does the existence and growth and proliferation of law enforcement actually affect the way we live? To answer that question, as I already mentioned, we need to explore the notion of the arbitrary nature of police power, meaning how the latitude to enforce the law, take our freedom, and sometimes even our lives, affects how we both move through the world and even view ourselves.

First, we need to focus on the idea of what it means to be subject to arbitrary power and how it affects us. I want to examine this idea through the prism of another refrain we hear over and over again from politicians and other elites. Namely, “No one is above the law.” Now, this idea has become an oft used talking point of the mainstream media and their elite group of proselytizing pundits. The concept that the law is an unbiased arbiter that applies to everyone is pretty much a mantra for elites to pat themselves on the back as objective arbiters of justice.

Well, fair enough. But it’s an intriguing invocation when you consider just how the law works, especially if you view it through the lens of the stories we have reported on for this show. Because as we’ve seen, in case after case, how the law is applied can be quite arbitrary. In other words, whether we’re talking about a Texas firefighter falsely accused of a DUI, a man whose car was searched while he was walking his dog, or this story about a quite subjective rendering of traffic laws, all of this means, in reality, is that the law is arbitrary for those of us who actually have to live with it. Which, of course, sits in stark contrast to those who don’t, namely the cops who enforce it. How do I know?

Well, consider the predicament of a dedicated New York City traffic cop, Matthew Bianchi. Bianchi was a veteran officer who actually liked enforcing traffic laws. That’s because, at a young age, Bianchi lost a friend in an accident to a reckless driver. Therefore, when he felt someone was being particularly over the top and driving poorly, he would write a ticket as the law requires. That is with one fairly broad exception. Turns out New York cops are given what are known as courtesy cards. What are courtesy cards? Well, basically a get out of jail free pass handed out by police unions, so officers can give them to friends, family, and anyone else they want to. So when an officer pulls someone over, regardless of the infraction, the informal rule is to let them go, provided they have a courtesy card.

Unfortunately, for Bianchi, this was a problem. He found himself often having to let people go who were endangering others. To prove his point, he cited an encounter when he pulled over a driver who was not just recklessly speeding but didn’t even have a license or insurance. That same motorist had a courtesy card, which he refused to honor and subsequently ticketed the driver. But this exercise of officer discretion did not go unnoticed. Soon he found himself the recipient of retaliation across the department. He was demoted and the union told him it would not protect him. He was sent to work in the borough of Staten Island, where he estimated half, that’s 50% of the people he pulled over, had courtesy cards.

To make matters worse, officers can buy them for a dollar a piece from the union, no word on who keeps the dollar by the way, and hand them out to anyone they want. Things came to a head when Bianchi refused to honor a card from a relative of the department’s highest ranking officer, a move that led to further demotion. Now, Bianchi is suing over what he says is unfair retaliation and abuse of his discretion. But I think this whole ordeal makes a more interesting and important point. And that is, of course some people are above the law. In fact, the people who are empowered to enforce it are not just above it, but can grant impunity to friends, family, and anyone else they please. And this so-called unqualified immunity is applied indiscriminately to anyone and everyone who happens to know a cop who happens to have a dollar.

But it also points out the impact arbitrary enforcement has on a democratic, supposedly free society. Because if the people who enforce the law are not subject to it, then the law itself truly has no meaning. If the cops who profess to be the bastion between uncivilized and civilized society can dole out pardons like confectionary treats, then what we have is not a nation of laws, but a Congress of tyranny. That’s right. I said it. I know it sounds a little discomfiting, but it’s true. And please let me explain why I used it.

Let me start with a question. Have you ever worked for a bad boss who made your life miserable? Who constantly changed your assignments, ignored your input, belittled you in front of others, called you at all hours and otherwise just treated you like a toy? Because if you have, then you know what it’s like to work for a tyrant. Someone who’s bounded by no rules, a person who implicitly works under the assumption that what applies to you does not apply to them. And by embracing that notion, they are then free to wreak havoc on your life any way they see fit. Well, that’s called tyranny, and I think you can see how this concept is applicable to the police. Because if cops in New York can enforce laws on others that don’t apply to themselves and their friends, then they’re basically above the law. And if they can retaliate against people who follow the law honorably, they can assure they are immune from it. That means they, in a sense, become the law itself, which literally allows them to engage in a form of individual tyranny towards the people they subject to it.

Think about it. How can the institution that professes to fairly enforce the law simply exclude themselves from it? How can a group of people called law enforcers use that same power to evade it? The point is that this idea of occupational immunization simply makes the law wholly subjective. That is, when the law enforcers can also be the lawbreakers, the whole process becomes subject to the whims of an individual, namely a tyrant. That is why we have to continue to hold cops accountable, because clearly it’s up to us, the people, to guard our freedoms and preserve our rights from the people who would otherwise abuse them.

I want to thank Sean for coming forward and helping educate us about our rights and sharing his experience. Thank you, Sean. And of course, I have to thank intrepid reporter, Steven Janis, for his writing, research and editing on this piece. Thank you, Steven.

Steven Janis:

Taya, thanks for having me. I really appreciate it.

Taya Graham:

And I want to thank friends of the show, Nolie D and Lacey R, for their support. We appreciate you. And a very special thanks to our Patreons. We appreciate you, and I look forward to thanking each and every one of you personally in our next live stream, especially Patreon associate producers, John E.R., David K., and Louis P., and Super Friends, Shane Busta, 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 @EyesonPolice on Twitter. And of course, you can always message me directly @TayasBaltimore on Twitter and Facebook. And please like and comment. You know I read your comments and appreciate them. And we do have a Patreon link pinned in the comments below for Accountability Reports. So if you feel inspired to donate, please do. We don’t run ads or take corporate dollars, so anything you can spare is truly appreciated. My name is Taya Graham and I am your host of the Police Accountability Report. Please, be safe out there.

This post was originally published on The Real News Network.

Bradley was finishing a walk with his dog along a nature trail near the rural town of Plattsmouth, Nebraska when local police suddenly pulled him over. When the officers immediately went for Bradley’s center console and produced a CBD pipe, he knew something was off. When he confronted the police, they admitted they’d searched his parked car while he was away—and then waited for him so they could pull him over while driving. Police Accountability Report examines this disturbing case, and what it says about the activities police departments devote their bloated budgets toward.

Production: Stephen Janis, Taya Graham
Post-Production: Stephen Janis, Adam Coley

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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.

Taya Graham:

Hello, my name is Taya Graham and welcome to the Police Accountability Report. As I always make clear, this show has a single purpose: holding the politically powerful institution of policing accountable. And to do so, we don’t just focus on the bad behavior of individual cops. Instead, we examine the system that makes bad policing possible. And today we will achieve that goal by showing you this video of a cop who tried to search a man’s car while it was parked and he was walking his dog. But it’s what happened when the officer confronted the motorist on the road that reveals just how destructive and unfettered police power really can be.

But before we get started, I want you watching to know that if you have video evidence of police misconduct, please email it to us privately at par@therealnews.com, or reach out to me on Facebook or Twitter @tayasbaltimore and we might be able to investigate for you. And please like, share, and comment on our videos. It does help 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 hearts down there. And we do have an Accountability Reports Patreon page, so if you feel inspired to donate, please do. Anything you can spare is truly appreciated. Okay, we’ve gotten that out of the way.

Now, if there is one refrain we hear from police unions and cop partisans and tough on crime politicians, it’s that there just aren’t enough cops. The complaint, no matter how much we fund them, is that law enforcement is simply stretched too thin to do their jobs. Of course, if that is true, I think the video I’m about to show you now will require some explaining from the elites who demand more dollars for cops and less power for us because the encounter with the cop on the screen now calls into question the entire, “We need more cops,” mantra, a sequence of events that paints an entirely different picture than the conjured crisis of a country chronically short on law enforcement.

Because if it’s true, why would the officer who I’m showing now on the video do what he did here? That is, searching for a parked car in rural Nebraska next to a nature trail with no evidence of a crime. If there are too few cops, then I am all ears as to why this particular act of law enforcement is worth the precious time of the dwindling number of officers on the job.

Now the story starts in Plattsmouth, Nebraska. There, Bradley Connolly was walking his dog on a nature trail after a hard day at work. At the time, Connolly was building a dollar store for the town, which is why he was taking a breather and enjoying nature with his beloved dog, Rosebud. Afterwards, Bradley and Rosebud hopped into his car and headed on their way. However, he was almost immediately pulled over for a traffic stop and was surprised that the officer reached straight into his car and headed for the center console and retrieved his CBD pipe. When Bradley confronted the officer and asked the officer how he knew where the pipe was, he made a shocking discovery. Just listen.

Sargeant Sommer:

I said I smelled marijuana coming from your vehicle, and that’s not marijuana, sir?

Bradley Connolly:

You went in my car… No, that’s CBD, but you went in my car when I was over there.

Sargeant Sommer:

So now you know you’re playing games with me.

Bradley Connolly:

I’m not playing games.

Sargeant Sommer:

Yeah, because you knew.

Bradley Connolly:

That you went in my car. You went right to it. Yeah. You shouldn’t have went in my car. Nobody gave you permission to go in my car.

Sargeant Sommer:

Yes. So let me explain how this works, okay? Your vehicle is a rental car. It’s parked in a place that it’s not supposed to be.

Bradley Connolly:

We’re on a trail.

Sargeant Sommer:

Let me me explain to you the situation. If you want to listen, I’m more than glad to explain to you, okay?

Bradley Connolly:

I’m listening. I’m listening.

Sargeant Sommer:

Like I said, you’re parked in an area where you’re not supposed to be parked. We just had a bunch of break-ins and cars stolen out here last week.

Bradley Connolly:

That’s not me, man. I just explained to you, I’m here-

Sargeant Sommer:

It doesn’t matters if it’s you. I’m explaining to you, your car is not registered to you. It’s a rental car and it’s parked in a place-

Bradley Connolly:

I’m here-

Sargeant Sommer:

I’m not going to continue to talk over you.

Bradley Connolly:

You’re being idolatry.

Sargeant Sommer:

You can stop and listen-

Bradley Connolly:

This should be a consensual conversation.

Sargeant Sommer:

It should be a, you listen to me because I’m explaining to you the reason why we are where we are right now. Okay?

Taya Graham:

This officer revealed that he had opened his parked rental car, carried out a search without his permission or presence, and then waited for him to drive away to pull him over.

Sargeant Sommer:

Okay? You’re parked in a place where you’re not supposed to be parked.

Bradley Connolly:

Not a crime.

Sargeant Sommer:

I’m sorry?

Bradley Connolly:

That’s not a crime.

Sargeant Sommer:

Blocking the road is. I could have towed your vehicle.

Bradley Connolly:

I was off to the side.

Sargeant Sommer:

Your tire’s in the roadway, okay?

Bradley Connolly:

I’m glad you didn’t. I’m glad you didn’t tow.

Sargeant Sommer:

Yeah, I’m glad I didn’t either. I was waiting because you know what? I’ll be honest with you. I’ve already run you. I know you have warrants in Illinois for burglary-

Bradley Connolly:

They’re unextraditable.

Sargeant Sommer:

… For burglary and drugs-

Bradley Connolly:

Out of Illinois.

Sargeant Sommer:

See? Exactly. You know, all this, and yet you want to play games with me.

Bradley Connolly:

I do. I’m not playing games.

Sargeant Sommer:

When I asked you for your ID, you could have simply given me your ID and we would’ve been done.

Bradley Connolly:

I didn’t want to.

Sargeant Sommer:

But you want to argue and you want to play games.

Bradley Connolly:

So you broke into my car…I’m not.

Sargeant Sommer:

I did break into your car. I have a right to determine if this car is stolen and who owns the vehicle.

Bradley Connolly:

You could have run the plates. All that other stuff is irrelevant.

Sargeant Sommer:

I did. You know what? Rental cars aren’t reported stolen until 30 days after.

Taya Graham:

Now, Bradley was of course disturbed by the officer’s actions. So he did whatever US citizen has the right to do and he asked the officer to legally justify the search. But how the officer responded is a troubling commentary on the state of our constitutional rights at this particular moment. Just watch.

Sargeant Sommer:

You can sit here and argue the law with me all day, but guess what? I’ve been a cop for over 20 years.

Bradley Connolly:

Okay.

Sargeant Sommer:

I know what the law is, okay? So all you have to do-

Bradley Connolly:

Then you know that warrants are unextraditable.

Sargeant Sommer:

Yeah, exactly.

Bradley Connolly:

Yeah, and so-

Sargeant Sommer:

All you had to do was provide me a driver’s license.

Bradley Connolly:

I shouldn’t have to, man.

Sargeant Sommer:

Yeah, you should.

Bradley Connolly:

This this isn’t Nazi Germany.

Sargeant Sommer:

If you’re in an area doing something illegal-

Bradley Connolly:

This isn’t Nazi Germany. I wasn’t doing anything illegal. I was walking my dog.

Sargeant Sommer:

I have reasonable suspicion that you have a vehicle that’s not registered to you.

Bradley Connolly:

Not so.

Sargeant Sommer:

It’s a rental car parked illegally in an area that had break-ins last week.

Bradley Connolly:

Not so.

Sargeant Sommer:

I have every right to do an investigation. That’s what I’m going to do.

Bradley Connolly:

Listen, I’ve been up here seven weeks building that store, man.

Sargeant Sommer:

Right.

Bradley Connolly:

No trouble. As a matter of fact, the police in Plattsmouth were very, very good.

Deputy Murphy:

[inaudible 00:05:39].

Bradley Connolly:

I can’t believe you went in my car.

Sargeant Sommer:

This is very simple.

Bradley Connolly:

No, it’s not simple. When you break into my car-

Sargeant Sommer:

It’s not breaking in, sir.

Bradley Connolly:

It is. You can’t-

Sargeant Sommer:

No, it’s not.

Bradley Connolly:

You can’t just go in the car.

Sargeant Sommer:

You left the vehicle unlocked.

Bradley Connolly:

It doesn’t matter.

Sargeant Sommer:

I have a right to go-

Bradley Connolly:

No, you don’t.

Sargeant Sommer:

… In your car and determine who owns it.

Bradley Connolly:

So anybody has the right to go-

Sargeant Sommer:

I have a right to-

Bradley Connolly:

Come on, man.

Sargeant Sommer:

I’m a law enforcement officer. It’s a difference.

Bradley Connolly:

Yeah, and I’m a citizen of the United States. Free.

Sargeant Sommer:

There’s a big difference.

Taya Graham:

Just a note. Searching a car that is on a public road requires two prongs, so to speak, for it to meet the threshold of conducting it lawfully. One, the officer must have probable cause to search, and that means reasonable, articulable suspicion that a crime has occurred. And two, there has to be exigent circumstances. That means the car has to have been on a public road where someone can move it.

So in this case, that means probable cause is critical to making this search lawful because the car is parked on the side street where, conceivably, it could drive off. Which is why I want you to listen again to the officer legally justifying the search. But also, take note of how once he realizes how his case is weak, he throws every theory against the wall, so to speak, to see if it sticks. Take a look.

Bradley Connolly:

And I’m a citizen of the United States. Free.

Sargeant Sommer:

There’s a big difference.

Bradley Connolly:

Free.

Sargeant Sommer:

Yeah, exactly.

Bradley Connolly:

Yeah, exactly what? You can’t just go-

Sargeant Sommer:

And you want to stop arguing. Yes, I can. By law, I can determine who owns this vehicle and where it’s supposed to be be, okay?

Bradley Connolly:

You don’t have a supervisor?

Sargeant Sommer:

I am the supervisor.

Bradley Connolly:

Man. You can’t go into go into somebody-

Sargeant Sommer:

You lied to me, first off. Okay?

Bradley Connolly:

I did not lie to you.

Sargeant Sommer:

I’ve explained this and I’m not going to continue to explain it.

Bradley Connolly:

I understand what you’re saying.

Sargeant Sommer:

You did lie to you. I did say I smelled marijuana in your car. You said, “There’s no marijuana.”

Bradley Connolly:

You went in my car and you found it, man. Without my permission.

Sargeant Sommer:

I smelled it before.

Bradley Connolly:

No you didn’t.

Sargeant Sommer:

Yeah.

Bradley Connolly:

Because I haven’t smoked it in two days.

Sargeant Sommer:

Guess what? It doesn’t matter. Marijuana has a distinct smell and I smelled it earlier. It’s on my body camera. When I was looking in your vehicle for a rental agreement to determine who owned the vehicle to make sure it wasn’t stolen.

Bradley Connolly:

Okay.

Sargeant Sommer:

All completely legal-

Bradley Connolly:

Was it stolen?

Sargeant Sommer:

Under the state law and under the constitution, okay?

Bradley Connolly:

Well, I’m not trying-

Sargeant Sommer:

Simple. Plain and simple. And so this is CBD, it’s not marijuana?

Bradley Connolly:

That’s correct.

Deputy Murphy:

[inaudible 00:07:47].

Bradley Connolly:

That’s correct.

Sargeant Sommer:

Okay. So when it gets tested, it’s not going to come back as marijuana.

Bradley Connolly:

That’s absolutely 100% true.

Taya Graham:

Oh really? You smelled marijuana, Officer? But wasn’t the car door closed? Isn’t that what you admitted on camera? So how did you smell this marijuana? I mean, had Bradley literally been smoking a bong two hours prior to your arrival so that the car reeked? Because your probable cause only works if you opened the door, and that is before you have met the legal threshold. So we’re going to have to give you a fail on our impromptu field constitutional policing test.

But don’t worry, I’m not going to ask you to touch your finger to your nose or stand on one foot. I would just suggest you take some time to review a few law books. You may find it enlightening. But I digress.

Now, Bradley’s obvious discomfort turns into a heated discussion about the law, which the officer declares he doesn’t have to explain. A curious assertion given his clear lack of understanding revealed by his haphazard and possibly illegal search. Just take a look.

Sargeant Sommer:

So then why were you so worried about it?

Bradley Connolly:

I’m not worried, man. This is my right.

Sargeant Sommer:

You’re making a complete issue out of it.

Bradley Connolly:

I’m trying not to.

Sargeant Sommer:

No, you absolutely are.

Bradley Connolly:

You should watch some of my videos, man. I highlight great officers all over the country.

Sargeant Sommer:

Right.

Bradley Connolly:

I do.

Sargeant Sommer:

Okay. And I appreciate that you-

Bradley Connolly:

Yeah, but you’re not. You’re acting like a tyrant right now.

Sargeant Sommer:

You know what? Here’s the situation. If your job is to drive around and try to all lure officers into doing something-

Bradley Connolly:

I don’t do that, bro.

Sargeant Sommer:

Because-

Bradley Connolly:

That’s not me.

Sargeant Sommer:

… Obviously you parked in a place that you shouldn’t have been.

Bradley Connolly:

No, it’s a golf course with a walk. I came back with my dog. The first thing you should have said is, “Oh, he just took his dog for a long walk.”

Sargeant Sommer:

Right.

Bradley Connolly:

Yeah.

Sargeant Sommer:

Right.

Bradley Connolly:

Do you think I’m going to take my dog to break into fricking houses? Come on.

Sargeant Sommer:

You know what, sir? All kinds of things happen, unfortunately.

Bradley Connolly:

Well-

Sargeant Sommer:

My job is to investigate those things. Again, like I said, last week, multiple cars were stolen… I’m sorry. Multiple vehicles were broken into-

Bradley Connolly:

That happens all over the country, man.

Sargeant Sommer:

… And a car was stolen.

Bradley Connolly:

I’m all over the country. I’ve seen it.

Sargeant Sommer:

And that’s fine. I’m glad that you’re all over the country and I’m glad that you’re doing your part to be a great citizen.

Bradley Connolly:

Can I have your name and badge number?

Sargeant Sommer:

Sergeant Summer. 92021.

Bradley Connolly:

S-O-M-M-E-R?

Sargeant Sommer:

That’s correct.

Bradley Connolly:

And you, sir?

Deputy Murphy:

Deputy Murphy.

Bradley Connolly:

Murphy? And your badge number?

Deputy Murphy:

[inaudible 00:09:58].

Bradley Connolly:

One more time?

Deputy Murphy:

92032.

Bradley Connolly:

Thank you.

Taya Graham:

You know, just watching the video and the officer’s justification that there have been car break-ins is intriguing. Is that why he had to then break into Bradley’s car? I mean, if, as officer says, he is investigating the crimes, how is going through someone’s car going to solve it? How is searching out parked cars for a supposed criminal who’s breaking into cars productive?

Finally, the officer decides that contrary to the evidence, he has to entangle Bradley in the legal system by issuing him a citation. But he also, without justification, confiscated Bradley’s wallet, which Bradley alleges had $2,000 in it. Money he has yet to get back. Just watch.

Sargeant Sommer:

All right. We’re going to get you a citation for the paraphernalia and the marijuana. If it comes back that it’s not marijuana, then most likely they’ll drop the charge. But I can’t field test it at this point right here. It smells like marijuana. It appears to be marijuana.

Bradley Connolly:

Same thing as CBD, you know?

Sargeant Sommer:

Okay. I don’t use marijuana, I don’t use CBD, so I can’t think of the difference.

Bradley Connolly:

Well maybe you should, because you’re a little high-strung.

Sargeant Sommer:

No.

Bradley Connolly:

Yes.

Sargeant Sommer:

Well unfortunately, that happens when people are uncooperative.

Bradley Connolly:

No.

Sargeant Sommer:

That’s what happens.

Bradley Connolly:

I’m not uncooperative.

Sargeant Sommer:

You were absolutely uncooperative.

Bradley Connolly:

You have no right to go through my vehicle. You have no-

Sargeant Sommer:

I’m not going to continue.

Bradley Connolly:

I don’t care if you want to continue or not.

Sargeant Sommer:

Why don’t you Google the constitution?

Bradley Connolly:

Why don’t you Google… Man-

Sargeant Sommer:

You’re good.

Bradley Connolly:

Tell me what the first amendment is in.

Deputy Murphy:

Right.

Sargeant Sommer:

I choose to-

Bradley Connolly:

Because you love to put people in cages.

Sargeant Sommer:

Sir, if you choose to be a criminal and be belligerent to officers-

Bradley Connolly:

I’m not a criminal.

Sargeant Sommer:

That’s your-

Bradley Connolly:

You’re a criminal.

Sargeant Sommer:

That’s your decision.

Bradley Connolly:

You went through my car while I was walking my dog.

Sargeant Sommer:

Legally check… If I leave-

Bradley Connolly:

He’s got my wallet. That’s the only money I have.

Sargeant Sommer:

Think that matters that he has your wallet?

Bradley Connolly:

Shut up.

Taya Graham:

But this encounter was just the beginning of the legal repercussions for Bradley, because the officer and department contacted his employer after he posted a video exposing the illegal search. And the consequences for Bradley were devastating.

And for more on that, we will be speaking to Bradley shortly. But before we do, I’m joined by my reporting partner Stephen Janis. Steven, thank you so much for joining me.

Stephen Janis:

Taya, thanks for having me. I really appreciate it.

Taya Graham:

So Steven, first I know you have some breaking news about the case we reported on last week involving a former Texas firefighter. Denton County sheriffs used a bogus DUI to destroy his career and run him out of the department. What’s your update?

Stephen Janis:

Well, what’s amazing to me is when I sent the case to prosecutors for comment, because I’m like, “Why did you prosecute this case?” They said they have no evidence of this case even existing. And I said, “Blood tests, whatever?” They’re like, “No, we have nothing. We never received this case.”

I think it’s really questionable. I mean this case was devastating for Thomas. He was basically run out of the fire department. It turned his life upside down, and yet this case ever made to prosecutors. Let’s remember, prosecutors are a check on police. They’re very, very, very important to make sure the police don’t file bogus charges. In this case prosecutors haven’t seen it, and I think it raises a lot of more questions about the Denton sheriff’s office.

Taya Graham:

Wow. Steven, that is really disturbing. Please continue to follow up on that and keep us updated.

Okay. So back to Bradley. You have been reaching out to the Nebraska Police Department. How are they explaining this case?

Stephen Janis:

Well, I reached out to the Plattsmouth prosecutor because I really wanted to see how this case was processed, and he sent me a very detailed email about what happened with the charges. First of all, the charges were dropped. He would not comment on the legality of the search, but he did say nothing was used against Mr. Connolly from that search, and he also said that he disputes, or at least was not able to reach a conclusion about the $2,000 that Bradley said was missing.

He says that he did an investigation, it’s still ongoing, but at this point he has no evidence either way. So that’s where this case stands. Certainly the prosecutor seemed to take it seriously and the prosecutor also said there were no charges brought against him. The case was dropped. So that’s pretty much where we are right now with this case.

Taya Graham:

So the officer seems to suggest that the smell of marijuana is probable cause, but using that as a pretext is facing some pushback. Can you talk about that?

Stephen Janis:

If there is one statement into probable cause that is really eroded our constitutional rights, it’s the smell of marijuana. It’s basically been used as a bogus pretext for decades and it’s wreaked a lot of havoc. In our own city, we had police officers chase two young men for the smell of marijuana at 100 miles per hour and cause a fatal accident that killed three innocent people.

So really, a lot of states and a lot of legal authorities are saying it is time to end this. This is not a statement of probable cause. It’s absolutely irrelevant in the particular case we’re talking about. Supposedly searching for cars that have been rifled through or stolen. What the hell does marijuana have to do with that? So it’s evidence not even pertaining. It is bogus and it really erodes our rights and a lot of states are saying, “Stop.”

Taya Graham:

And now to talk to the man who endured this invasive search and some of the lingering consequences for him. I’m joined by Bradley Connolly. Bradley, thank you so much for joining me.

Bradley Connolly:

Absolutely. Thank you. I’ve been watching you since the beginning. You and Steve, I love you guys.

Taya Graham:

So first, what are we seeing at the beginning of the video? I mean, at first I didn’t even realize it was a traffic stop.

Bradley Connolly:

If I may back up just a little bit. So for the past five years I’ve built Dollar Trees and Family Dollars around the country, and I built one in Plattsmouth, Nebraska, which is a small town. Her and I actually went through a tornado there during the build, but I had to come back to hang up a couple signs and do a couple things, and I’d rented a car. I drove 12 hours approximately with her. Of course we stopped along the way and stuff, but while I was up there building the store, we always went to this rural golf course and there was long paths and walks and it was not in golf season, so nobody golfed.

And we had got there maybe 20 minutes before dusk or so on this long drive and I said, like I always do for her, “Hey, do you want to go to the park or golf course? Do you want to go to the park?” And she gets really excited. So we pulled off there and I actually had pulled behind somebody, and like I say, there’s a few neighborhoods around, but cornfield surround the thing. I mean it’s out in the middle of nowhere. And we went on a walk and I came back and I got in my car and it was completely dark when we got back. And when I started the rental car, I noticed that some lights came on in the back of me. And me being an advocate, I was just like, “I hope that this isn’t a cop.” Of course I’m following all the speed limits and the laws and as I turn at the stop sign, I see the insignia. And he started the lights and I pulled over and he asked me for my license, and me being an advocate, I wanted to know what I did wrong.

Taya Graham:

So why were you initially pulled over by the officer?

Bradley Connolly:

When I asked him why he pulled me over, he said I was suspicious. And I asked him, of course, “A suspicion of misdemeanor or felony, and how am I being suspicious?” And then he went from that to, “It smells like marijuana in the car,” which it definitely didn’t. It was a rental car. And that’s when they pulled me out and went into the center console.

When he pulled me over, I rolled down the window. He wanted my ID and I said, “If I haven’t committed a crime, I’m not going to give you my ID.” And he called his back-up, and that was Deputy Murphy, came up and pulled the taser at my passenger side window and told me to get out. So I got out and I had no idea that they had went through my car. And I’m not the smartest person in the world, but I got out and the only thing I had in the car… It was a rental car. I don’t smoke marijuana in the car, CBD or anything, so I know that the car didn’t smell. It was in the center console, it was a pipe, and he went right to it and pulled it out. And like I say, I’m not the smartest person in the world, but I thought, “He’s been in my car.”

Taya Graham:

Were you surprised to discover through your conversation that the officer had admitted to searching your car before he pulled you over?

Bradley Connolly:

Honestly, I was mind baffled. I couldn’t believe that he had went into my car. I mean, if I would’ve broke into his car in his reasoning, which, again, mind baffled. It gives me chills. It makes me so upset. He said it was because I left the car door unlocked, and now that should tell everybody how rural the place is. My wallet was on the front seat with $2,000 on it. That’s how rural the place was.

I questioned him that way and sure enough, he said he had every right to go through my car and he’d been through my car. If you find a pipe in a car as an officer, you probably are going to want to search the trunk. He never looked in the trunk. You’re probably going to want to search under the seats. In my presence, he never looked under the seats. So anyway, from my point of view video, you can kind of see… And I stopped at one point and went live, and I think I’ve tried to air that, but it’s all bits and pieces. That’s kind of why I wanted the dash cam footage. And I’ve been trying head over heels. I’ve spoke with the prosecutor.

Taya Graham:

Do you think your knowledge of the law helped protect you from the situation becoming worse?

Bradley Connolly:

To answer your question, I think it could have went both ways and I’ll tell you why. Because if I wouldn’t have known my rights, I probably would’ve handed over my ID and I knew I had warrants for theft of my dog right here. Long story, but ex, easy. It’s nothing. But I knew they were non-extraditable. I could have just handed him my ID and been on the way, maybe. He probably would’ve escalated it, the way he is.

Now, the other aspect of that is I was really angry that he went into my car. All I wanted to do a after a 12-hour drive was get to the store, finish up what I had to do, get some rest, and go back. He stole my wallet that night. I ended up having to sleep in my car because I didn’t have any way to pay for anything. That being said, I don’t like bullies and the way I reacted isn’t typically how I talk to people. I try to treat everybody with kindness and respect, and I have so much mad love for people and things. I really do. And I try to portray that, but with auditing cops who seem to be untouchable and above the law, something in me just gets so mad because I see them treat people… And I’ve been in areas where I’ve seen what they do because they can. And just because you can doesn’t mean it’s right.

Taya Graham:

Why do you think the officer was so fixated on it being a rental car?

Bradley Connolly:

I have no idea. That’s a good question. I’ve never really thought of it before, so I don’t have an answer that I know to be the truth. All I can say is that all the police in Plattsmouth, they would stop by and see me building the store. I built it with one other guy, and I got to know them. They were okay. They watched my tools and my equipment. So it was really, really odd to me. I don’t know why.

Had he just been doing his job… And I have no problem with him running. He sees a car, they’re running the plates, see if it’s stolen or whatnot. But when he broke into it and then ran my license and all that good stuff, that really irritated me. There’s no burglary tools. There’s a dog and a leash and a guy coming back on a trail. I mean, use your common sense. If somebody didn’t call in that there was a burglary, why are you bothering me?

Taya Graham:

I have to admit, this does seem a bit like what some people call a fishing expedition.

Bradley Connolly:

I know exactly what you mean. Even in the video, if you watch the entire video, I told them that’s all the money I had on me. I had $2,000 in it. Well, when they released me, I took off, obviously, and then I realized that they never gave me my wallet or my money back. So it was two miles up the road and I called dispatch, the sheriff’s office, and I told them, “Hey, they never gave me my wallet back.”

And they told me… Mind you, two miles, two minutes. It’s 15 minutes to the police station. They told me it was in the property, I could get it tomorrow. And that’s when I went in live and they told me that the property officer wasn’t there. So a month later they sent me back my wallet without my money in it. So they stole my $2,000. And that’s all on video, too.

Taya Graham:

How has posting this encounter impacted you? I mean, it did cost you your job.

Bradley Connolly:

Well, it’s affected many nights of sleep. I have made countless calls to the prosecutor’s office, countless calls to the police department and he called my work, Southwestern Services, who gets the contracts from Dollar Tree. I don’t know what he said. It was never told to me what he said. I tried to FOIA request that phone call and apparently there wasn’t one, but they told me that I could no longer work for them because of the video.

And my response was, “I did nothing wrong.” I didn’t commit any kind of crime. I actually highlighted Dollar Tree and Family Dollar, and I put my blood, sweat, and tears into it for five years. I’ve built maybe 60 by myself, ground up. I hired a few people to help me along the way, but I know them backwards and forwards. I practically don’t even need the plans. So anyways, to answer your question, they told me that I could no longer work for him.

Taya Graham:

Okay, so the officer referred to a warrant. What was the warrant for?

Bradley Connolly:

So the warrants are… There’s two. I was building a store in Iowa and I had a passenger and he had four grams of marijuana on my center console. We actually worked so long that we slept all day. And I’m not saying that I’m a perfect person and I’m not saying that I smoke or don’t smoke marijuana, but I’ve never done another drug in my entire life. So it’s not like I’m out there committing crimes for drugs. Actually, I was in the parking lot that I was building, resting, taking a nap with one of my workers that I hired. And he came up on us and I’m not one to tell on anybody, and they were asking us, so they did a walkthrough, four grams, a walkthrough in jail, and I told them I’d never be back in Iowa. Forget it, right? What’s in Iowa? Beans?

So anyways, the other one is my dog that I’ve had since a baby, supposedly, allegedly was taken. And it’s a long story, but to make a long story short, my ex of three and a half years tried to take my dog from me and it’s the love of my life. So that didn’t happen. So I have two warrants, felony warrants with a $75,000 bond, but they’re unextraditable as of present, and as they were, out of Illinois, I’m not saying I was a perfect child, but I haven’t had a conviction on my record for… Oh, no, this is going to date me. Since 2000.

Taya Graham:

What would you like to see change about policing or how do you hope posting on your auditing channel will help?

Bradley Connolly:

That’s an amazing question. I just want police… Because we’re all human. We are all going to make mistakes. We do some pretty idiotic and dumb things at some certain times. A couple months training is not enough for an officer. I want them to treat everybody, whether they’re drug-induced, mental health. You see these videos where the police kill these mentally ill people. I mean, I could have got them out of the car with maybe a butter knife and they shoot them in the head. It just doesn’t make any sense.

And don’t get me wrong. I want to make it very clear, I do not hate police. I actually have a lot of police friends on my Facebook and officers. And not all officers are bad, but I think that being in a negative environment along with the… And I would almost… Man, I’ve just seen it too much to not say that to become an officer, you have a certain personality. And that personality needs to, or persona, it needs kindness, love, respect. There is going to be times when evil is there and you got to do what you got to do. I get that. But if you see somebody’s hurting, if you see somebody that is maybe able to talk down, negotiation skills, deescalation skills and realizing that that’s another human on this planet.

Taya Graham:

Now I want to address something that I’m sure police partisans are soon going to squawk about in the comment section after they watch the show. It’s the off-sighted, but nevertheless unchallenged assertion that the right to search a car is simply a legal question. And so long as police can conjure, and notice I’m using a very specific word here, a reasonable, articulable suspicion, they should be able to search when and wherever they please.

What usually companies that argument is this addendum.”Why should you have a problem with a search if you have nothing to hide? What’s the big issue with cops doing their job? I mean, aren’t you always calling them out for not solving cases? I mean, why are you making such a big deal about constitutional rights when you should be more concerned about crime?” Well, besides the fact that we’ve had several cops here in my hometown, Baltimore, caught on their own body camera planting drugs, I think we need to consider for a moment just how the system, so to speak, only amplifies bad policing. Not just by abusing search powers, but turning those illegal searches into the life-altering stigma of criminality that happens all too often. How the system created to ensure cops don’t overstep and the innocent aren’t unjustly charged has been warped by our culture of indiscriminate guilt. So what do I mean?

Well consider this recent ruling by the Massachusetts Supreme Court regarding the misuse and withholding of evidence by the state police over a faulty breathalyzer test, a case that could lead to the possible dismissal of over 27,000 convictions. That’s right. Convictions. The case focuses on the fact that a common breathalyzer machine, the Dräger Alcotest 9510 breathalyzer, which the state police crime lab determined could produce false positives when not calibrated correctly, was still used despite the evidence. In fact, in 2017, a representative of the company that made the machines said that of the 400 they tested in the state, none were correctly calibrated and thus capable of flagging false positives.

Fair enough, no machine is perfect and certainly if the lab quickly and appropriately revealed the problem, the state could have fixed the problem and perhaps procured a different device. But that’s not what happened. Not hardly. The state continued to use the machines despite the fact that the concerns had been raised publicly and were found to be factual. Instead, thousands of people had to live with convictions for a serious crime despite the real potential of tainted evidence. That is until the recent state Supreme Court decision giving everyone, every single person convicted, the right to ask for a new trial.

This is an unusually sweeping case, but it didn’t happen because the state who had imposed harsh sentences on innocent drivers asked for it. No, this all occurred because one of the victims of a false conviction sued, and that case was finally decided last month. In that decision, the court called the state’s actions egregious government misconduct, which is why the court made the sweeping decision to allow anyone, meaning 27,000 people, to ask for the new chance to prove their innocence.

Now I want you to think about that number in relation to Bradley’s case or to the case we just updated of Thomas the Texas firefighter falsely charged with a DUI. How sweeping and consequential the impact of a decision to ignore the flaws in the machines was for the people who were victimized by it. How many lives were turned upside down or thrown into chaos and otherwise destroyed by this inexplicable decision to ignore the facts? How many licenses were revoked, jobs lost, and opportunities cast aside because the state, the state, simply chose to ignore evidence?

It’s kind of an interestingly cavalier attitude towards the consequences of our massive law enforcement industrial complex, a defiance to the truth, which I think can only be countenanced by people who are simply immune to it, meaning only the elites cosseted from the law could simply stand by while thousands of people suffered. And that’s kind of what you have to conclude when you attempt to understand the cruel indifference of the people who made the decision to allow innocent people to go to jail.

That’s right, and it was not elected officials or anyone in power who felt compelled to act in defense of the innocent. It was not a governor or a state legislator, or anyone with the ability to intervene who defended people unjustly accused. It was solely up to a victim of their malfeasance to take up the defense of the people wrongly accused, someone who had to hire lawyers and battle the case all the way up to the state’s highest court.

That’s why I think it’s important to remember that when we see videos like Bradley’s to put them into the proper context, that we remember the larger and broader injustices when we analyze how these same forces bear down on smaller but no less insignificant cases like the one we reported on today. Because I think the same sense of entitlement and immunity that prompted that Nebraska cop to illegally search Bradley’s car and confiscate his wallet is similar to the callous indifference of the Massachusetts State Police. I think the sense of careless impunity exhibited by that individual cop is really part of a larger process that allows an entire state to put innocent people in handcuffs.

It’s all about that intangible but potent power of unconstitutional entitlement. The idea that I, meaning the cop, I am the law, not representing it. That I, the cop with the gun in a badge, I am the sole arbiter of your rights, and that the power conferred upon me is not a privilege to be exercised with prudence, but a legally prescribed intoxicants that allows me to confiscate your rights, put them in handcuffs, and then discard them on the roadside like an abandoned vehicle.

This impudence, both in one case and in thousands, is the result of the culture of our version of an untouchable elite. Those elites who don’t pay taxes, have amassed ill-gotten fortunes, and who simply aren’t worried about the law. It’s their power, conferred upon cops, that we witnessed on that video. And also what spurred Massachusetts police to act without conscience. It’s also why the institution of policing must be watched as ardently as they like to watch us. Their utter disregard for our rights must be matched with the vigilance of our cameras. Their casual and consequential indifference must be overwhelmed by our passion for the rights that we must refuse to relinquish. What they treat as unimportant, we must make paramount. What they think is just the cost of doing business, illegal searches, unjust DUI convictions, we must define as unambiguously wrong.

The plethora of fake charges and false criminal records that they cast upon us like a blanket unconstitutional conviction, we must throw back at them with the indignity of a people who know our lives and our rights should not, cannot, and will not be torn asunder. That’s what we do on this show and that’s why we will continue to grow our community of constitutional activists, of defenders of rights and believers in the proposition that all of us, and I do mean all of us, are entitled to the rights to often ignored, but I believe will endure if we are willing to fight for them.

I’d like to thank Bradley Connolly for joining us and for sharing his experience. Thank you, Bradley. And of course I have to thank intrepid reporter Stephen Janis for his writing, research and editing on this piece. Thank you, Stephen.

Stephen Janis:

Taya, Thanks for having me. I really appreciate it.

Taya Graham:

And I have to thank friends of the show, Nolie D. and Lacey R. or their support. You know I appreciate you. And I want to thank every single Patreon that supports us. In our next live stream, make sure to listen for your name. I want to thank you too.

And of course, 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 @eyesonpolice on Twitter. And of course, you can always message me directly @tayasbaltimore on Twitter and Facebook.

And please like and comment. You know I read your comments and appreciate them, and even if I don’t get to answer every single one, you know I read them. And we do have a Patreon link pinned in the comments below for Accountability Report, so if you feel inspired to donate, please do. We do not run ads or take corporate dollars, so anything you can spare is greatly appreciated.

My name is Taya Graham and I am your host of the Police Accountability Report. Please be safe out there.

This post was originally published on The Real News Network.

Thomas, a Texas firefighter, was driving in Denton County when he was suddenly pulled over by local sheriffs. Despite being completely sober, he quickly found himself railroaded into a DUI charge by police, who claimed he appeared “slow” and “heavy footed.” Body camera footage has since revealed that the arresting officers even commented during the arrest that they did not believe Thomas was drunk. So why was Thomas arrested, and what does this reveal about the capricious nature of police power? Police Accountability Report examines the evidence.

Production: Stephen Janis, Taya Graham
Post-Production: Stephen Janis, Adam Coley

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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.

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. To do so, we don’t just focus on the bad behavior of individual cops. Instead, we examine the system that makes bad policing possible. Today, we will achieve that goal by showing you this video of yet another questionable DUI arrest, a video that catches officers in shocking unguarded moments, making admissions about the whole process of DUI arrests that raises troubling questions about what aspect of public safety they’re actually intended to address.

But before we get started, I want you watching to know that if you have video evidence of police misconduct or brutality, please share it with us and we might be able to investigate for you. You can email us tips privately at PAR@TheRealNews.com and share your evidence. You can also message us at Police Accountability Report on Facebook or Instagram, or @EyesonPolice on Twitter. Of course, you can always message me directly @TayasBaltimore on Twitter and Facebook. Please share, like, and comment. It really can help our guests, and it helps us get the word out. And as you know, I really do read your comments and appreciate them. We have a Patreon to donate for Accountability Reports. So, if this type of work is important to you, please help us keep doing it.

Okay, now we’ve gotten all that out of the way. We all know that drunk driving or driving while impaired is a serious and consequential crime. In 2021, roughly 13,000 people died as a result of motorists operating under the influence. As a result of this tragic toll, authorities have passed laws that have profound consequences for people who are charged with it. They’ve also rolled out federal grants to incentivize catching DUIs that encourages officers to rack up arrests and thwart people who insist on driving under the influence. All of this is allocable, and certainly no one disagrees with the underlying goal, public safety. Just like any power conferred upon the government, it also requires vigilance to make sure it is not abused. The DUI arrest we will show you today reveals just how important that task is.

The story starts in Lakewood Village in Denton County, Texas in April 2021. There, a lifelong firefighter, Thomas, he does not want us to use his last name, was driving home from work. That’s when police started following him and eventually pulled him over. From the outset, even though he had not exhibited any conceivable type of erratic driving. The officer began questioning him about being impaired for reasons, that at that moment remained unclear. Let’s watch.

Male Officer:

How much you had to drink today? What have you taken today? You taken prescription, narcotics, or anything like that? No? Okay. Are you prescribed anything?

Thomas:

Actually, I’m prescribed Adderall with medication.

Male Officer:

Okay. What time you took that?

Thomas:

I think it was today earlier [inaudible 00:03:18].

Male Officer:

[inaudible 00:03:18] at work? What time did you work today?

Thomas:

From 7:00 to 3:00.

Male Officer:

Okay. 7:00 to 3:00? Where at?

Thomas:

Downtown Dallas. I work for the fire department. Right now, I’m on light duty.

Male Officer:

Okay. Okay.

Thomas:

For my eye, I had a detached retina a few years ago, and then I had five surgeries since then. It’s now starting to plow down [inaudible 00:03:47].

Male Officer:

Okay.

Thomas:

Anyway, they won’t let me work in the field.

Male Officer:

I gotcha.

That’s a better excuse for his eye. He’s still acting kind of odd. You think he’s normal, or do you think he’s just-

Female Officer:

He’s lethargic.

Male Officer:

Lethargic, mm-hmm.

Female Officer:

Slow-moving. Slow-talking.

Male Officer:

Very. Do you think he possibly could be intoxicated?

Female Officer:

Maybe.

Male Officer:

You want to run him through FSFTs?

Female Officer:

I can.

Male Officer:

Even if he has only good eye, we can in theory still do HGN on him.

Female Officer:

Tell him to cover up his bad eye?

Male Officer:

We’re going to let him run with it open-

Female Officer:

Okay.

Male Officer:

… because even to do HGN, you work the good eye out, you’re still going to see signs of that.

Female Officer:

Okay.

Male Officer:

He mentioned Adderall. Adderall’s a stimulant. So, we may not see HGN on a stimulant. We should see a lot of other stuff.

Female Officer:

He’s acting so lethargic. You think it’s…

Male Officer:

From the indications of a stimulant? He’s very rigid.

Female Officer:

Yeah.

Male Officer:

Like very weird. A lot of body movement, almost like he sort of moved everything out of his wallet and just kind of maneuver in general. Go ahead and pull him out. We’ll just talk to him outside of the car for a little bit. He told us he’s on light duty because of his eye. Everything else should be fine. We’ll see what comes of that.

Female Officer:

Okay.

Male Officer:

Go get him then.

Taya Graham:

Now, in the sworn affidavit, the officer said Thomas had been speeding, which Thomas denies. But he also made a somewhat curious claim about Thomas’s behavior, which is odd to say the least. He wrote that Thomas appeared “slow” when he handed over his ID. He also noted that he made exaggerated movements while he responded to the officer’s demand. It’s a somewhat puzzling take on Thomas’s behavior because the video tells a different story. Take a look and decide for yourself.

Thomas:

No, my right eye. It’s your left.

Female Officer:

Yeah, my left. Yeah, your right.

Male Officer:

What happened to your eye again? I only caught part of that.

Thomas:

I had a detached retina, and then the subsequent surgeries have led to… Its kind of got a blue haze around there. And so, it’s just hard to see through this eye. Sometimes it gets kind of irritated and it turns red. I don’t know if it is now, but-

Male Officer:

It looks a little tender right now.

Female Officer:

Yeah.

Thomas:

Is it really? This one is-

Male Officer:

It’s clear.

Thomas:

… clear, okay. Yeah, so.

Male Officer:

Well, when’s the last time you said you took your medication today?

Thomas:

Like 3:00, 2:00-

Male Officer:

About 3:00 today?

Thomas:

2:00 or something, 1:00.

Male Officer:

I just wanted to ensure you’re safe to operate a vehicle, just giving kind of the [inaudible 00:06:29] so far. I just want to make sure you’re safe to operate your truck. We’re run you through just a few standardized field tests, and we’ll kind of go from there.

Taya Graham:

This, at the very least, questionable rendering of Thomas’s actions led to what’s known as a field sobriety test. This test was to say the least a bit surreal, a series of instructions that seemed at once contradictory, and at the same time hard to understand what exactly they were intended to prove. Just a note before we watch, Texas has several tests as part of the field sobriety assessment that you will see during this video. They are as follows, a leg turn test where the person has to walk in a straight line, heel-to-toe, turn, and walk back. The one leg stand test, where you raise one foot and stand in place for 30 seconds. And, the modified Rhomberg balance test, which requires the subject to bend their neck, close their eyes, and count to 30. Finally, the finger-to-nose test, which is self-explanatory. Take a look.

Female Officer:

All right, look at the tip of the pen. Don’t move your head. You’re just going to look at the pen. The next test, stand over here in the grass real quick. Imagine there is an inch-long line right here in front of you. One foot on the line. You put your right foot right in front of your left foot, with her heels touching your toes. Your arms down by your side. You’re going to take nine heel-to-toe steps forward.

Thomas:

I did.

Female Officer:

All right, look down.

Thomas:

It’s sloppy isn’t it?

Female Officer:

You said your legs feel weak?

Thomas:

Yeah.

Female Officer:

Okay, we probably got one more test for you okay? Arms down by your side. You’re going to keep your arms just like that. In excess, you’re going to raise one foot, either one, approximately six inches above the ground with your foot parallel to the ground.

Thomas:

Okay. One thousand one. One thousand two. One thousand three. One thousand four. One thousand 15, 16.

Female Officer:

Okay, you’re good.

Male Officer:

I just have maybe one or two more I’d like you to run through real quick.

Thomas:

Are you going to tell me when 30 seconds are-

Male Officer:

No, you’re going to tell me when 30 seconds is up.

Thomas:

Okay.

Male Officer:

To the best of your knowledge. Do you understand that? Okay. How long was that?

Thomas:

30 seconds or so.

Male Officer:

36. Pretty close. When I tell you, I’m going to pick a hand. I’m going to say, “Right.” You’re going to bring your right finger up and touch the tip of your finger to the tip of your nose. Right. Left. Right. Left. Left. And right. Go on and have a seat for me right there on the bed of your truck for a second.

Taya Graham:

Now I want you to think about what you just witnessed. Not just how Thomas performed, but how bizarre and counterintuitive the test was. Even more important, the conclusions the officers reached based upon Thomas responded. I’ll read them as you watch what unfolds on the screen. “Thomas was heavy-footed as he walked,” the officer wrote. “During the walk-and-turn, Thomas’s actions were exaggerated and he forgot instructions. During the hand-to-nose, Thomas used the pad of his finger.” And so, as you can see, this process led to officers being able to charge Thomas with a DUI, but not before having a very revealing conversation captured on body camera that calls the entire series of events we’ve just witnessed into question, an admission that these officers probably never thought would see the light of day. But we are going to show you now. Just watch.

Female Officer:

Miscounting steps. Turned wrong. Stopped on walking. Used arms.

Male Officer:

He stepped out of position briefly during the [inaudible 00:10:07] phase. On the Rhomberg, I was to estimate 30 seconds to kind of see where the clock’s at. He came in at 36 seconds, which is right on the edge of the window of error. The error is 25 to 35. I told him to close his eyes, watching it. His eyes were flooding like crazy, and his body’s super rigid. He does have a messed up eye. He’s been on light duty. He has a detached retina. I asked him, I’m like, “What else besides your eye hurts? Anything else?” “No, just fine.” I gave him every opportunity to explain to me legs not working right, arms not working right. He came out of the truck looking good, walking pretty decent. A little heavy-footed, but he wasn’t stumbling out. Do you believe he’s intoxicated?

Female Officer:

I believe he’s unable to drive from whatever he has. I don’t know the alcohol-

Male Officer:

That a medical emergency? Or are we talking about intoxication?

Female Officer:

Intoxicated on something, but I don’t think alcohol.

Male Officer:

Do you think we have a medical emergency here?

Female Officer:

No.

Male Officer:

No, so this is not a medical emergency. Is he normal or do you believe he’s possibly intoxicated under something?

Female Officer:

Yeah, I think he’s intoxicated on something.

Male Officer:

Okay, we’ll try to get [inaudible 00:11:02]. I don’t think it’s alcohol. I don’t see any signs of alcohol. I see some signs of a narcotic that he admitted to. So, we’re going to go that route. There’s also the dog in the car. We’re going to have to [inaudible 00:11:12].

Female Officer:

[inaudible 00:11:12] or just go?

Male Officer:

We’ll cross that bridge [inaudible 00:11:17]. Let’s first get him taken care of, and then we’ll address everything else.

Taya Graham:

That’s right, even though the officers wrote a statement of probable cause that Thomas was guilty of driving under the influence, they admitted on camera, on camera no less, that he was not drunk. The only substance in his system they suspected was a legally prescribed non-narcotic adult deficit attention disorder medication known as Adderall. For that, without an apparently legally sufficient justification, Thomas was arrested.

Female Officer:

[inaudible 00:11:48].

Male Officer:

Our decision’s made.

Female Officer:

So go up and tell him, “More tests. Put your hands behind your back?”

Male Officer:

Go that route if you’d like to. Or you can tell him point-blank… I’ve done it both ways depending on whether they’re engaging. If they’re [inaudible 00:11:56] compliant, I’ll tell them “Hey, be advised that you’re placed under arrested [inaudible 00:11:59].” If I don’t believe that’s going to work, I’ll play the tricker. I’ll be “One more test. Turn around for me,” and that’s what I’ll do. I gave the guy that wanted to do that. I think we can go that direction with him.

Female Officer:

Sir, we are putting you under arrest for driving while intoxicated. We believe that you’re unsafe to drive. Stand up. Put your hands behind your back.

Male Officer:

Turn around.

Female Officer:

Turn around.

Male Officer:

Do you have anybody at home who could come up here and pick up your dog and possibly your truck?

Thomas:

No.

Male Officer:

No one at home?

Thomas:

Nope.

Male Officer:

Okay.

Female Officer:

Do you have a friend that could get your dog?

Thomas:

I don’t know.

Female Officer:

Can’t think of anybody?

Thomas:

No, I’d have to make some phone calls.

Male Officer:

All right, like I said, if you’re willing to give me somebody to call, a person I can call myself, if not, I’m going to have to call my Animal Control officer and they’re going to pick up your dog, and they’re going to put him in our shelter for the night. I’m trying to avoid that option.

Thomas:

I haven’t had a drink in over 30 years.

Male Officer:

I didn’t say you were drinking, sir.

Thomas:

I haven’t had a drug in over 30 years. Where’s the Animal Control?

Male Officer:

He works for my agency. I’ll have to call him to come over with me.

Thomas:

Where is he?

Male Officer:

It’s just in Denton. About five minutes from our jail.

Taya Graham:

But even this highly questionable arrest was not the end of Thomas’s ordeal. That’s because the police, after admitting he was not drunk, filed a complaint against him at his job, which I’m showing on the screen now. That complaint led to an Internal Affairs investigation which then prompted his employer, a local fire department, to let him go. That’s not all the problems with this arrest, because we have been investigating and digging deeper into both the department and the county where it occurred. What we have uncovered is that there was more behind-the-scenes driving police to make this arrest than is readily apparent. That evidence shows just how far astray American policing can be from it’s overarching goal to keep us safe.

So soon, we will be talking to Thomas about what he has endured since his arrest and how it has changed his life. But first, I’m joined by my reporting partner, Stephen Janis, whose been reaching out to police and as already mentioned, investigating the motive that may have been driving police to charge Thomas. Stephen, thank you so much for joining me.

Stephen Janis:

Taya, thanks for having me. I appreciate it.

Taya Graham:

Stephen, before we get into the behind-the-scenes maneuvering regarding this case, I want to do something kind of different. I want to administer a field sobriety test to you, just to make a point of how tricky these tests actually are, and show that even in less stressful circumstances they can be difficult to pass.

Stephen Janis:

What? No.

Taya Graham:

Okay, you have two choices. Do the test, or stay outside.

Stephen Janis:

You know what, Taya, I haven’t had anything to drink, but still, I don’t want to do a test.

Taya Graham:

All night.

Stephen Janis:

Fair enough.

Taya Graham:

But first, have you had anything to drink?

Stephen Janis:

No. No, I haven’t anything to drink. No. Taya, nope I have drank a freaking thing.

Taya Graham:

Now first, I want you to walk in a straight line by pacing one foot in front of the other, heel-to-toe, then turn around and walk back with your hands at your sides.

Okay, not too good. Let’s try balancing on one foot for 30 seconds and don’t use your hands.

Not too good, Stephen. Last chance. Touch your hand to your nose with your eyes close, left then right, then right then left.

All right, that’s not bad. One out of three. Unfortunately, despite your claims to the contrary, I’m going to have to refer you to the nearest law enforcement agency for reporting while intoxicated.

Stephen Janis:

You know what, I spend so much time outside, I don’t care. Refer me to anyone who will give me a place to sleep for the night. So, fine.

Taya Graham:

But we’ll put that on hold for a moment. So, you’ve been looking into the Denton Sheriff’s Department and their DUI program. What have you found?

Stephen Janis:

As you can see what I’m showing you on the screen now, Denton incentivizes DUI. They have this whole program. One of the major parts of it that we found was that they actually incentivize officers to make arrests. They have a small section where they say they want to give them awards. So clearly, Denton has some incentivization of DUI arrests that’s in black and white, and you can see it right there.

Taya Graham:

Did the Denton Sheriff have any comment about this arrest, and why Thomas was charged? What was it that you dug up in Denton County that might explain why police were so aggressive?

Stephen Janis:

I sent an email to the prosecutor, because that was my main concern, why did they even continue with this case when there was no sign of alcohol and the officers admitted on body camera they should have dropped it right away? What I did find is very interesting. Number one, Denton takes in about $2 million in fines from traffic arrests, traffic enforcement. One thing I found in their budget that’s really interesting, they said “Fines are a very important source of revenue.” So, just do the math. You have one thing in their sort of police procedure book that says, “Hey, we need to incentivize arrests.” You have something in the budget that says, “We need fines.” Put two and two together, you add it up, you get really crazy enforcement like I think we saw in this body camera footage. That perhaps explains why they did what they did.

Taya Graham:

And now, I’m joined by the man who was the subject of the unrelenting scrutiny of the Denton County Sheriffs to discuss how the arrest has impacted his life, and the status of the case going forward. Thomas, thank you so much for joining me.

Thomas:

Thank you, Taya. I love your program.

Taya Graham:

Thank you, Thomas. I really appreciate that. First, you mentioned something to me that could not be seen on the dash camera footage. How did the officers initially follow and approach you?

Thomas:

I’m coming up over a bridge and once I kind of reached the top and come over the top, I noticed there’s a car sticking in the lane. The front of this vehicle is sitting in the lane. When I work as a fireman, once you see that you assume it’s a wreck. We look for wrecks all the time. You get called out and you see cars all turned around, facing the wrong way on the freeway. That’s what it reminded me of. And so I just kind of tapped my brakes and slowed down, but I continued on and that’s when I noticed ah, it’s a police car. They just sat there. They didn’t move.

As soon as I passed them, I could see them real aggressively spin around, because they were facing me where I passed them. They do a U-turn and come right up on on me real close. And so I thought wow, they’re going to pull me over. Well, he didn’t pull me over. He was just following me. When he hits his lights, I pull over. I’m ready to be pulled over because they’re still behind me. Now he’s not right up on me like he was at the beginning, but it almost felt like he was trying to get me to do something, or scare me, or something.

Taya Graham:

When the officers pulled you over, what did they say was the reason?

Thomas:

All they said was, they asked me for my identification, driver’s license, and my insurance or whatever. While I’m getting that she said, “Do you know fast you were going?” Or she said, “Do you know the speed limit?” I said, “I think it’s 50. Is that right?” She goes, “Yeah, it’s 50.” I said, “Well how fast was I going?” She goes, “You were going a little faster than that.” I’m thinking okay, a little faster than that. I’m thinking, well are they going to give me a ticket for going a little faster than that? What is happening? Five miles an hour over the speed limit or something like that? Now, what I was thinking at the time was a little over the speed limit. That’s it. How this would turn into an arrest, I’m just thinking this is… Blew me away.

Taya Graham:

Okay, so the officers asked you to pull over to a second location, and you were polite and compliant while the officers asked you very personal questions. Did you have any idea of what was going to happen next?

Thomas:

When he said that I look really lethargic and sunked, and all that, just from when I handed him my driver’s license, that was only about 30 seconds, maybe a minute. That’s how it was started. Then when the second time they told me, he starts asking about medications and medical history, and all this stuff. I’m thinking, I know the HIPAA laws for privacy. At the same time, I’m thinking, well I understand they’re police officers. If someone’s a diabetic or something, they’re going into a coma, and I’ve seen this happen where they’re on the freeway and literally one time a car turned around on the freeway going the opposite way. I get it.

This was a diabetic who was going through that, and had lost their consciousness more or less, but was able to still drive the car. Ended up crashing and we got her out of the car or whatever. But, I get it. I just went ahead and answered those personal medical questions, but before that even happened I was offering to them, because of my eye, I had this issue where it’s blue now. I don’t know if you can see it, but there’s a blue haze over it. If you ever looked at my mugshot, you can see that that is significant enough that you can’t even see my pupil very well. You would have to look real hard. You’d at least have to a pen light and shine it in there to see my pupil. If you were looking for a reaction.

Well, they never did check my pupils. They checked my gaze. They’re looking for the horizontal gaze. That’s not checking pupils. Pupils, you’re going to check for a reaction. Kind of why I said more than I should have, because looking back now I shouldn’t even have opened my mouth. I should have just told them “I don’t talk to police.”

Taya Graham:

Now, I apologize for having to bring this up, but you have two health conditions that could affect your responses on the DUI test. You’re hard of hearing in one ear, and you have a detached retina in one eye. How do you think that impacted your reactions to the field sobriety tests? And how do you think this impacted the officers’ response to you?

Thomas:

He brings it up that I talk extremely slow. He said it quite a few times in the body cam footage. I’m thinking, I can’t even understand this guy. I checked just one small clip, he said seven words in one second. They were all like [inaudible 00:23:37]. As I was watching on the replay, I’m thinking yeah, I don’t talk that fast, but I’m not sure I talk that slowly either. But he kept bringing that up. The thing is about me hearing them, that affected it too.

It also, because it’s a neuroma, it’s a tumor actually, so it affects your balance as well. I haven’t had really issues with it, but watching the replay on the video… That’s why I was so surprised. I can’t do this because I was flopping around trying to balance on one leg. Now, I did it, but I was having to balance like I’m on a high wire or something. Anyway, the point is, is that yes, my hearing affected me understanding him, and he’s picking up every little detail. He’s looking for anything. If I asked him or repeat something, he turned that into kind of like “There’s something wrong with him.” Be that as it may, it’s clear to me. They wanted a DWI from the word go.

Taya Graham:

So you complied with the field sobriety test. Were you surprised to discover how stringently they were judging you? Were you surprised by their comments?

Thomas:

I wasn’t surprised what she said because she’s doing this for the first time. But if she saw a drunk person doing these tests, she might have a different viewpoint of the whole thing. I am stone-cold sober, and I’m actually very agile. So, I don’t know if my hearing or my ear was better… I had that tumor treated, and I don’t think it’s gotten worse, but my balance was off. Yeah, I can pick out stuff, but he had her looking every little thing. It was just sudden. I was not prepared for it. In your mind, you think this easy, but when you’re doing it, it’s a little different. I probably should practice my DWI field sobriety tests every time I leave the house because if that’s what determines if I’m intoxicated or not, if they send my blood to Austin, Texas and it takes over 10 years to get back the results, then they’re going to charge me and convict me if they want. The fact that he keeps calling this… The medication he keeps calling it, a prescription narcotic, it is not a narcotic.

Taya Graham:

How long were you in jail, and what was your experience like? What were the exact charges?

Thomas:

I was charged with DWI. I got to the jail probably… I think the video started about 6:00 PM. I got to the jail about 7:00 PM. I was there until 3:30 in the afternoon the next day. I had to go to an arraignment and make my plea. I had no access to a lawyer. I had no access to a phone. I couldn’t call anyone. Which surprised me. Not only that, but I was on my way home to get something to eat when this started, and so I was already hungry. Then we get this little sandwich thing, two pieces of white bread and a piece of bologna at about 11:00. So, I hadn’t eaten since 7:00 in the morning or something. And then we got another one at about 4:00 in the morning, the same thing, two pieces of white bread and a piece of bologna. They’re already punishing you for nothing. They made up their mind before they pull you over, or the initial stop that they’re going to take you in. Don’t you need more evidence than just somebody looks lethargic?

Taya Graham:

Despite the difficulty in being arrested, separated from your pet, and having them taken to Animal Control, there were other consequences. You almost missed your father’s funeral because of this. And it cost you your job, and impacted your finances, right?

Thomas:

I had already been on light duty because of my eye. I would need a cornea transplant to get my eye fixed. The fire department only gives you so long to be on light duty before they turn you loose and no more pay. If they have another job, I believe they’re obligated to you offer you another job. So, they sent me to go work in Communications as a dispatcher. I was in training to become a dispatcher at the time. Because of the DWI, I was no longer allowed on the floor of the dispatch center. Because I was no longer allowed on the floor of the dispatch center, they ended up giving me a letter “You can retire now or go work in another department in the city,” or by then I already knew that once I’d been charged, I go to tell someone, “You wouldn’t believe what happened. I got charged with a DWI. I don’t even drink. I haven’t in 33 years.” I never heard of someone getting a DWI that doesn’t even drink.

Taya Graham:

You mentioned something to me that stood out, because it’s an impact that isn’t measured. That is, people often aren’t believed when they say that they are innocent, and that being charged and arrested can be very isolating. Can you talk about that?

Thomas:

People start distancing themselves from you a little bit. I’ve got friends that didn’t care, but at the same time, that was my family. The whole fire department, it’s a big department and it’s a good department. We’ve got some incredible people working there, and I had some really close friends that were like family. So, leaving was, although I had 30 years already, leaving was going to be difficult. I knew it. But leaving like that was kind of… It wasn’t really what I had hoped for.

Taya Graham:

Because of the legal entanglement, you almost missed saying goodbye to your father before he died.

Thomas:

The issue with my father was, when he passed away, just before he passed away, I had to call my bail bonds people. If you leave the county you’re supposed to call them. I called them and they seemed kind of resistant to me leaving. I had to just tell them, “I’m going anyway.” You could hear them on the phone, kind of in the background going “Whoa.” You know, they could have theoretically arrested me for doing that without their permission. This is happening before he died. My sister called me up and said, “Dad’s passing away. He might not make it until tomorrow.” So I’m trying to throw everything together and go, and I had to call the bail bonds people, and they’re going to resist? Come on. I hadn’t done anything, but I haven’t been convicted either. So it’s like you’re already convicting me. You’re treating me like I’m a criminal already.

Taya Graham:

You told me you were worried about your dog. In the video, you can even hear the dog whimpering as police take you away. How much did this ordeal cost you? It cost you your job, but there were out-of-pocket costs, right?

Thomas:

First of all, the bail. Check this out, they say “Well, we need to get to your credit card to pay the bail.” There’s a phone on the wall and there’s a list of bail bond agencies, and the phone only goes to them. You couldn’t call anyone else except collect. Sign a release, and they take my credit. Well, they took the cash out of my wallet. I had $80.00 in my wallet. They gave me a debit card. Come to find out, there’s no money on it at all. Instead of giving me the $80.00 cash back, they gave me the debit card. There’s no money on it. It has no value. I had no access to a phone.

The next morning, I wanted to call my employer. The employer at their jail should have access to right there through a main line of some kind called a dispatch center in Dallas and tell them, “Hey Tom’s up in jail in Denton,” just to let them know. Because I’m supposed to be at work now. I pay bail for $1,000.00. They took it off my credit card. That was the first one. Then I went to get a lawyer. I asked random, “What do you do when this happens?” And the lawyer cost me $3,300.00. Then to get my truck back the next day, to get my truck it cost $470.00. For one night overnight. Then I had to get my dog, which cost me… He had to stay in the pound for two nights because I couldn’t get him out in time. I had heard horror stories in the past, so I’m thinking they’re going to see him, he looks ferocious, and they’re going to strangle him with one of those ropes or something.

The way that deputy was acting, there’s no telling… To me, I’m thinking there’s no telling this guy has no conscious, because he’s just deliberately ruining my life. For nothing.

Taya Graham:

I have quite a bit to say about the arrest of Thomas, little of it having to do with the usual complaints about law enforcement that seem to, in my opinion, limit the debate over the broader structural issues that prompts the type of arrests we have witnessed in this story. As I’ve said before, our fixation on the particulars of law enforcement, i.e. bad cops and bad arrests, often limits our ability to critique the justifications that empower them. What do I mean? Well, let’s drill down into the details. Not of the arrest itself, but the actual paperwork used to facilitate it. What I mean is, let’s take a look at some of the details of how cops are enabled to make these kinds of arrests that at least on the surface seem hard to justify.

As we do, I want you to hold a question in your head that hopefully when I’m done you’ll be able to answer. That question is simply, why are cops empowered with making arrests by just using adjectives? In other words, since when did we bestow the right to put us in a cage solely based on their subjective interpretation of our behavior? I mean, how many times have we had police apologists say, when confronted with police brutality that, “Cops aren’t social workers, and police aren’t worried about your feelings. They enforce the law.” It said simple, “You either broke it or you didn’t.” Well, apparently based on the form used to turn Thomas into a criminal, cops are actually very perceptive clinical psychologists. I wish I were kidding, but I am not. Just take a look at the form given to Denton Police to assess a DUI that I am showing you on the screen now. It lists, and I’m not kidding, a series of adjectival descriptions to justify charging a motorist with a DUI.

I just want you to ponder this for a second. The flexibility this list provides cops who want to make an arrest and contrast it with the harsh consequences is apparently literary description can impose. Let’s start with clothing. Is it torn, stained, or disorderly? You’re drunk. Or how about your attitude? Yes, your attitude. Are you cocky, indifferent, or apologetic? You clearly shouldn’t be driving. Or is your speech thick-tongued? I’m not even going to touch that one. Or slow? Again, are charges justified? Just remember, never drive with droopy or watery eyes because that’s apparently a crime too. My point is these descriptors are not meant to evaluate a person’s condition. They are so utterly subjective. They’re more like a tool to justify an officer’s desire to make an arrest. I mean, if you look at the document it looks more like a fictive or ChatGPT writing prompt than an objective assessment of someone’s ability to drive. It’s a random list of enforcement adjectives, for lack of a better phrase, intended to give cops the illusory pretext for racking up arrests and earning those rewards Stephen was talking about earlier.

Now, this criteria is even more suspect given the technical tools police have at their disposal to determine if someone is drunk. I mean, don’t we have blood tests and breathalyzers to figure out if someone is drunk? Can’t we find a way to utilize this same technology to more objectively assess a person’s ability to drive, especially considering the consequences if they’re charged? Well, I think what we have here is a manifestation of the cultural power conferred to policing that in some ways is much more insidious than the already-consequential ability to arrest and imprison us. An excessive amount of social capital bestowed upon cops makes a questionable form we showed you before not only possible, but in some ways inevitable.

So, what do I mean? Well there’s actually a cultural theory that explains this phenomena. It generally applies to advantages of being rich and powerful. I think it merits application to this question as well. It’s called the “Hierarchy of Credibility”. It was a concept proffered by sociologist, Howard Becker, in an attempt to explain a thorny question, who gets to set the narrative or define the truth about the present conditions in which we live? Whose interpretation of current events is used to set the agenda for policy decisions that affect millions of lives? Becker said that the richer and more powerful person, the more likely their interpretation of current events would be believed and accepted. This process, he argued, led to the perpetuation of the injustice and inequality we see today, where a working class person can toil their entire lives, pay taxes, follow the law, and still end up broke, bankrupt, and homeless just because they got sick.

I think it also applies to policing because how can you justify destroying a man’s life over a baseless allegation, other than by acknowledging that the Hierarchy of Credibility applies to police as well? How can you use such scant evidence to force a man into a cage, out of a job, and into a world where he cannot be hired and will forever be branded a criminal, unless you’ve been bestowed the immeasurable power of cops to brand us unworthy of fairness and justice? I can prove to you just how potent the police version of the Hierarchy of Credibility is. I have the receipts, so to speak, to show you just how this works. To do so, I want to share with you a piece about a very sketchy fundraising scheme that was the subject of a New York Times investigation. You might even be familiar with it because it’s primarily facilitated by robocalls.

These calls are made to millions of people every day. During the call, a person whose actually a pre-recorded voice solicits funds from groups with names like The American Police Officers Alliance. The voice asks a person who answered to consider donating to support law enforcement. The pitch is, support cops because they deserve it. Now, the New York Times investigation found that these robocalls raised roughly $89 million over a seven-year period. They also found that the organizations that ran them spent almost nothing on funding the politicians who support policing over the years the fundraisers were the most active. In fact, almost all the money raised was spent on, you guessed it, more fundraising. Oh, and by the way, the Times investigation also found that the organizations that purported to support cops paid hefty fees to political consultants, totalling millions of dollars.

So, we have a fictitious charity making questionable claims able to raise tens or millions of dollars, all while doing nothing to support it’s purported cause, a scheme that led thousands of people to donate multiple times without a single iota of proof that the organization had done anything to work on behalf of law enforcement itself. Which brings us back to the concept of this so-called Hierarchy of Credibility, because let’s remember, the ruse used to extract money from the unsuspecting donors was simply to invoke the name “police”. All they had to do was say the word “cop”, and people parted with their money apparently no questions asked, which shows how police fit into the pyramid of credibility because there are few institutions that can prompt you or I to simply turn over cash without explanation. There are even fewer professions so to speak that can literally open your wallet without having to provide anything tangible in exchange.

I think what this example points out is the crucial role police play in reinforcing the Hierarchy of Credibility for the powers that be, and why disseminating copaganda in our media and culture is a vital part of that process, and that by making arrests like what we just witnessed, the police become enforcers who impose essentially a sociology of silence on the working class. That is, through fake arrests, false charges, extortion-level fees and fines, and other impediments police make our stories theirs. They construct a narrative so to speak where our police for justice for equity are sullied by false charges and bogus arrests. It’s really an insidious calculus, a method to the madness that enables our system of growing income and wealth inequality to flourish unchecked. It’s essentially the scaffolding of our structural divide between the ultra-rich and the rest of us buttress by bad policing.

In a way, police in this capacity amplify the voices of the most powerful, and they do so by telling a tale of us, the people who act indifferent, whose clothes are stained, and whose eyes are watery. If that is the basis to convict us and take our freedom, and sully our future, then we must battle the system that makes it possible. Certainly, on this show, we will continue the fight to do so. I’d like to thank my guest Thomas for joining us, and for sharing his experience with us. Thank you, Thomas. Of course, I have to thank Intrepid Reporter, Stephen Janis, for his writing, research, and editing on this piece. Thank you, Stephen.

Stephen Janis:

Taya, thanks for having me. I really appreciate it.

Taya Graham:

And I want to thank friend of the show, Nole Dee and Modley CR for their support. Thank you both so much. A very special thanks to our Patreons. We appreciate you. I look forward to thanking each and every one of you personally in our next livestream, especially Patreon Associate Producers John ER, David K, Louie P, and super friends, Shane Bushtup, Pineapple Girl, Chris R Matter Writes, and Angela True. 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 @EyesonPolice on Twitter. Of course, you can always message me directly at @TayasBaltimore on Twitter and Facebook. Please like and comment. You know I read your comments, and that I appreciate them. We do have a Patreon link pinned in the comments below for Accountability Reports, so if you feel inspired to donate, please do. We don’t run ads or take corporate dollars, so anything you can spare is truly appreciated. My name is Taya Graham, and I am your host of the Police Accountability Report. Please, be safe out there.

This post was originally published on The Real News Network.