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Live from the Southern Command in sunny South Florida, it's Open Line Friday.
Yes, my friends, we're back at it to wrap up another busy broadcast week here on the Excellence in Broadcasting Network.
Happy to have you with us.
Open Line Friday.
Whatever you want to talk about pretty much is the rule.
It's a think of it as a day to pretend that it's your show.
Pretend that you're the host.
And you can tell people what you think needs to be talked about, what needs to be said.
Just by dialing 800-282-2882.
If you want to send an email, we check those as well.
It's lrushbo at eibnet.com.
And we obviously start in Baltimore today with the Baltimore state attorney, Marilyn Mosby, a press conference a little over an hour ago announcing that six officers are going to be charged varying degrees of second-degree murder and manslaughter in the transportation death,
in the death of Freddie Gray.
Now, many people are wondering what is really going on here.
I would like to explain to you.
I would like for somebody else to explain to you in one soundbite what is going on here.
This is yesterday, and the National Action Network president, the Reverend Al Sharpton, speaking with reporters, this is really what you need to know.
We need the Justice Department to step in and take over policing in this country.
In the 20th century, they had to fight states' rights to get the right to vote, but we've got to fight states' rights in terms of closing down police cases.
Police must be held accountable.
We need a national takeover of policing in this country, and that is what is happening.
If you've heard the term social justice banded about, bandied about, over the course of your life and wondered what it really meant, aside from another way of expressing liberalism, the press conference today by Ms. Mosby, the state attorney, pretty much defines social justice as opposed to real justice.
We all have random thoughts on this, and it's very early.
There's some things here that are peculiar, contradicting.
All week we've been treated to stories in the media about a rough ride that Freddie Gray had in the van.
She didn't even reference that once.
And what we have here essentially, I mean, if you strip it all down, is the police officers who've been charged with second-degree murder and manslaughter basically are being charged with that crime for failing to strap Freddie Gray in a seatbelt in the back of the police van.
Now, the seatbelt law for prisoners in a van, the law requiring them to be secured in a police van, I've found out looking it up all day.
I mean, I've been feverishly trying to find things out this morning before the program began, is relatively new.
And I even had some people tell me that the police officers involved might not have even known about it.
It was so new.
And an interesting angle in all of this, well, first, let's listen to the, we've got some sound bites here.
This state's attorney is focused.
She is passionate.
She is no nonsense.
And if you didn't hear any of our press conference, we have three soundbites that will explain or give you an idea and set up what is next to come.
So here's the first of the three.
The findings of our comprehensive, thorough, and independent investigation, coupled with the medical examiner's determination that Mr. Gray's death was a homicide, which we received today, has led us to believe that we have probable cause to file criminal charges.
Now, you heard the cheering there, and it's important to note that.
It is important to note that the crowd gathered around cheered, and the city is cheering.
She gave the city of Baltimore, many of the people in the city of Baltimore, what they wanted to hear today.
And here's the next bite.
We'll just run these things by you and then have at it.
To the people of Baltimore and the demonstrators across America, I heard your call for no justice, no peace.
Your peace is sincerely needed as I work to deliver justice on behalf of this young man.
To those that are angry, hurt, or have their own experiences of injustice at the hands of police officers.
I urge you to channel the energy peacefully as we prosecute this case.
I have heard your calls for no justice, no peace.
However, your peace is sincerely needed.
Remember that bite.
We'll come back to it here in a couple of quick seconds, but here is the final sound bite that encapsulates this.
Last but certainly not least, to the youth of this city, I will seek justice on your behalf.
This is a moment.
This is your moment.
Let's ensure that we have peaceful and productive rallies that will develop structural and systemic changes for generations to come.
You're at the forefront of this cause.
And as young people, our time is now.
Now wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait.
I'm here just a second.
The cause?
She's a state's prosecuting attorney.
State attorney.
Some people call them district attorneys, but she's the state's attorney here.
And she's got a bunch of people working under her that'll actually try the case.
By the way, in case you're one, the reason we didn't play soundbites of her reciting the charges, it would take from now until the end of the half hour.
It would take an extreme.
She went through every possible charge for all six of these cops.
And it would take from here to 12.30.
It'd take me 15 minutes maybe to run through all that.
And we just don't have that kind of time.
You just have to understand.
They've had the book thrown at them, these six cops.
Second-degree murder, negligent homicide.
I mean, they've thrown everything at these guys.
And that is also an interesting point.
But before I go back to soundbite number two, Last but not least, to the youths of this city, I will seek justice on your behalf.
Remember, we're talking social justice here.
I think the legal system, what Reverend Sharpton meant here in the first soundbite, I'm going to go ahead and say this.
What Reverend Sharpton is talking about is looting the legal system.
When he talks about a national takeover of policing in this country, he's talking about looting the legal system.
That's what they're going to do.
They're sick and tired of what they think is this never-ending bias and prejudice and racism.
They're sick and tired of the way the cops treat them.
And in their minds, they've tried to work peacefully.
They've supported Democrats.
They've voted Democrats.
They're in a Democrat town, but damn it, nothing's working.
We're going to have to take over.
And that's what he's talking about.
So she's talking, he's talking about looting the legal system, national takeover of policing.
She comes along and starts talking about the cause.
One and one equals two.
This is a moment.
This is your moment.
What, the charging of six cops or the death of Freddie Good?
What is the moment?
Let's ensure that we have peaceful, productive rallies that will develop structural and systemic changes for generations to come.
You are at the forefront of this cause.
And as young people, our time is now.
Now, some may think that all she's doing is asking for calm and making that part of the moment, the justice equals calm.
And that could very well be.
But I think that there's a lot more going on here.
Now, back up to the previous soundbite.
To the people of Baltimore, to demonstrators across America, I heard your call for no justice, no peace.
Your peace sincerely needed.
To those that are angry, hurt, or have their own experience of injustice at the hands of police officers.
You see, this is a, it's an, it's a, it's a, it's an agreed to and a and a it's a thing.
It's an accepted presumption.
It it is an, accepted from the state's attorney.
In Baltimore we have the stated assumption that police departments are biased against African Americans totally unfair, including in cities that are run by elected Democrats.
Now, one of the interesting things I saw, they went to one of the networks it might have been CNN went to find men on the street men and women on the street after the state's attorney's press conference to ask them what they thought, and there was this old crusty African-american guy who wasn't buying it.
He didn't believe a word of this.
He said i'm paraphrasing, are you kidding me?
All of these charges?
They don't intend to pursue all of these charges.
They're never going to take all of these charges into court.
You can't fool me.
This is just charges.
This is just designed to stop the rioting.
This old codger thinks that what this whole thing today was was a giant attempt by local authorities to tell the rioters that they are going to bury these guys.
They're going to charge you with everything they can.
We got it handled.
Now stay home.
And this old krusty codger said, i'm not going to believe any of this till I see it in court.
And i'm not going to believe any of this until I see convictions.
I'm not buying into any of this yet.
He wasn't totally doubting.
He wasn't totally suspicious.
I mean, there were some things he liked about it, obviously, but I'm just highlighting his suspicions about what's really going on here.
And he does have a point.
I mean, they've thrown the kitchen sink at these guys.
I won't get into the specifics of it.
Like, second-degree murder.
What do we have here?
We have a guy that was caught doing something of a criminal nature with a long wrap sheet, and he's put in the back of a police wagon.
And at some point, says he can't breathe, and at some point is severely injured, and we don't know who, when, where, why.
And the paddy wagon did not take him immediately for medical attention, didn't take him to a hospital when he said he couldn't breathe and he was in pain.
They stopped two or three places to pick up more prisoners, do other things.
They didn't strap him in with a seatbelt.
And they finally got him to where he was going.
And from that, we got negligent homicide.
We have second-degree homicide.
I mean, that's barely scratching the surface of what these six cops have been charged with.
And no, the racial component of the cops was not announced or revealed.
I don't know how many of them are black, white, if any, are either or.
Don't have any idea.
They didn't announce that.
They said that the medical examiner has determined here that the death was a homicide.
Now, I wanted to find out what second-degree murder is in the state of Maryland.
And I found it at a website called PriceBenowitz.com, Maryland Homicide Lawyer MD.
Second degree murder, covered under Maryland Criminal Code 2-204, makes it illegal to commit any murder, even if it was not premeditated, willful, or deliberate.
Okay?
So we can conclude from that that murder is illegal in Baltimore.
Maryland.
The distinction between second-degree murder and manslaughter is the intent.
Therefore, a second-degree murder must be intentional.
This is from the Maryland Criminal Code.
For example, accusations made by the state that a defendant murdered another person in a fit of unplanned rage would likely result in a second-degree murder charge.
Now, the Maryland Code doesn't spell these things out.
The consensus from several sites here.
But how can anybody claim that these officers were intentionally trying to kill Mr. Gray by not putting a seatbelt on him or not going immediately to the hospital or wherever?
I mean, it requires, best I've been able to find here, second-degree murder versus manslaughter.
Second-degree murder must be intentional.
And not all of the cops have been charged with it, but I think three or four were.
Anyway, just scratches the surface.
We've got much to do on today's program.
We get a whole show on Hillary today if we wanted to.
How about just four headlines?
GOP accused of quiet attack on Hillary's age.
Yes, isn't it a beautiful thing?
Magazine, she may not even survive the primary.
This is Daniel Halper at the Weekly Standard and basically a piece on how she's absolutely horrible at everything she does and yet she wins.
She's not qualified.
She's incompetent.
She can't speak publicly.
Her policies are indecipherable.
Can't literally do anything well, and yet she wins.
But his point is, she may not even survive the primary in this case.
And then there's another headline: socialists snapping at her heels.
That would be Bernie Sanders.
And numerous stories about the Clinton Crime Family Foundation rigging in millions in taxpayer dollars.
And further review indicates that it's not just 15% of money donated to the foundation that has been given to charity.
It's only 10%.
90% of what was donated went to salaries, expenses, condoms, hotels, you name it.
Yeah, yeah, I know.
A lot of people think that the overcharging here, and it is overcharging.
I mean, it's incredible.
The number of charges, I'm telling you, it takes her 15 minutes to recite.
That may have been a little long.
10 minutes to recite all the charges, all six cops.
Some people think this is not a prosecution.
This is a sacrifice.
And that's essentially what the old conjurer that I heard on CNN was essentially saying: hey, I don't believe any of this till I see it in court.
They just, all of this, all these charges, these charges, half of these charges aren't going to make it to court.
They're just doing this to keep us off the street, is what he was saying.
And that follows along with the idea that this might be a sacrifice, not a prosecution, that the city leaders are sitting in their closed boardrooms discussing what to do with it.
Because, folks, it was just yesterday we were told that this report would not be made public.
Remember that we were told that there was not going to be any information forthcoming.
There was going to be a report issued, but they weren't going to release any of it.
And that didn't sit well with the community.
People started asking questions in the media.
What do you mean you're going to issue the report, but you're not going to tell anybody what it is?
People started getting nervous.
Many people in authority said that the report was not going to be made public.
That was just yesterday.
We had a story on the front page of the Washington Post where a second prisoner in the van said they didn't see the cops do anything.
It just looks like Freddie was bouncing around in there.
Then that guy has asked for the record to be correct.
He's wait a minute, wait a minute.
Headline of this story is he fears for his life.
And he's recanting a bit now.
Hey, anybody says that I think Freddie was in there trying to kill himself?
What kind of sense would that miss?
He's walking that back.
But nevertheless, there's all kinds of stories just from yesterday that make what happened today curious.
Independent Journalism Review.
Baltimore Medical Examiner reveals a striking new detail about how Freddie Gray really died.
And from the Independent Journalism Review story, while many have suggested that Freddie Gray's death was due to police negligence, the medical examiner didn't find any proof backing that narrative.
That's yesterday.
The medical, independent journalism review reported by Channel 7 ABC News in Baltimore.
The medical examiner didn't find any proof backing that narrative.
Today we're told the medical examiner found evidence of homicide.
So something happened overnight.
And welcome back.
Welcome to Open Line Friday, hosted by me, El Rushbo, your guiding light through times of trouble, confusion, murkiness, tumult, chaos, looting, not just of stores, but of the legal system.
Isn't even the good times.
Since it's Open Line Friday, we'll get the calls in the first hour of the program.
And I try to do that anyway.
It rarely happens.
I mean, I go in with the best of intentions at the outset of every program.
800-282-2882.
So look, Baltimore Medical Examiner reveals a striking new detail about how Freddie Gray really died.
This last night, yesterday.
And ABC Eyeball News Baltimore, Channel 7, maybe in Walton, reported on how Gray was not injured during his arrest and the way he sustained his fatal injury.
This is the Independent Journalism Review yesterday.
While many have suggested that Gray's death was due to police negligence, the medical examiner didn't find any proof backing that narrative.
I mean, this is reported yesterday.
That's all we have to go on.
Today, the state attorney said that the medical examiner's determination was that the death was a homicide.
What happened between yesterday and this morning's press conference?
An investigation into the death of Freddie Gray has found no evidence that his fatal injuries were caused during the videotaped arrest and interaction with police officers, according to multiple law enforcement sources.
The sources spoke to ABC 7 News after being briefed on the findings of a police report turned over to prosecutors yesterday, as well as preliminary findings made by the medical examiner's office.
Sources said the medical examiner found Gray's catastrophic injury was caused when he slammed into the back of the police transport van, apparently breaking his neck.
A head injury he sustained matches a bolt in the back of the van.
That's yesterday.
Now, according to what Ms. Mosby said today, correct me if I'm wrong out there, you people, but I didn't hear her say that the cops got in the back of the van and started throwing Freddie Gray around.
They didn't even, she didn't even allude to the rough ride, which was all we were hearing about yesterday.
Well, now, this is a heck of a report here from yesterday.
Eyeballs ABC News in Baltimore, the Independent Journalism Review.
And then today, the state's attorney goes out there and tells a completely different story.
Now, don't misunderstand.
What she did today is the record.
I don't want to get caught in this trap where the exit polls mean more than the real polls, the real votes.
That's not what I'm doing here.
But I mean, somebody sourced this stuff yesterday.
These people in the media just didn't report this stuff out of the cloud.
Somebody gave them this information that they ran with and published yesterday.
Here in the Baltimore Sun, Gray suffered head injury in prison vans.
Sources familiar with investigations say.
Now, this version, again, this is yesterday, the Baltimore Sun does its best to preserve the rough ride angle and to downplay the he was trying to harm himself angle.
They have no curiosity about the position of the bolt in the van that the story we just read to you says a bolt in the van.
He had his head in the bolt.
They got evidence of that.
And that's what caused his death.
The Sun, they don't wonder why the second prisoner never mentioned the van ride being rough.
They still claim Gray was handled roughly during his arrest, despite the two videos to the contrary.
And like the rest of the drive-bys, the Baltimore Sun never reports the racial makeup of the six officers.
We still don't know that.
Well, somebody might, but it hasn't been officially reported.
Why is that?
I mean, that's, I mean, Ferguson, Missouri, that's all that mattered was the racial makeup of the cop in New York on the Eric Garner case.
That's all that mattered, right?
Was the racial makeup of the cops?
But they're not telling us the race or races or the sexual orientations or the sexual preferences or the party registrations of the six cops involved here.
So I'm just saying that it is an amazing flip to have all of this stuff reported yesterday and attributed to the medical examiner and sources high up in the police department to today.
So what happened overnight?
What happened here?
Let me share with you again audio soundbite number four.
This is what happened yesterday and overnight.
We need the Justice Department to step in and take over policing in this country.
In the 20th century, they had to fight states' rights to get the right to vote.
We had to fight states' rights in terms of closing down police cases.
Police must be held accountable.
Well, that's what happened.
A Justice Brothers showed up.
Reverend Sharpton showed up and started shepherding the mayor through her press conferences.
The Reverend Sharpton showed up and started shielding the mayor and advising the mayor on her press conferences.
And the Reverend Sharpton shows up and basically says, we're going to have to fight states' rights in terms of closing down these police cases.
The police must be held accountable.
Sharpton comes into town and basically says he starts talking about the need for a national takeover of policing in this country.
Looks like, I mean, if you just put two and two together here, looks like something happened along those lines.
Here is a brief list of charges announced by the state's attorney, Marilyn Mosby.
Officer Caesar B. Goodson Jr., charged with second-degree depraved murder, involuntary manslaughter, second-degree assault, two counts of manslaughter by vehicle and misconduct in office.
Officer William G. Porter, charged with involuntary manslaughter, second-degree assault, and misconduct in office.
Lieutenant Brian W. Rice, charged with involuntary manslaughter, two counts of second-degree assault, two counts of misconduct in office, and false imprisonment.
Officer Edward M. Nero, charged with two counts of second-degree assault, two counts of misconduct in office, and false imprisonment.
Officer Garrett Miller, charged with two counts of second-degree assault, two counts of misconduct in office, and false imprisonment.
And Sergeant Alicia White, involuntary manslaughter, second-degree assault, and misconduct in office.
Warrants were issued this morning around 9:30 or 10 o'clock for the arrest of the officers.
And it was at that point that Marilyn Mosby said to the people of Baltimore and the demonstrators across America, I heard your call for no justice, no peace.
Your peace is sincerely needed as I work to deliver justice on behalf of this young man.
No justice, no peace.
That's not her phrase.
No justice, no peace can be traced back to the Justice Brothers.
And I think actually the ownership of the phrase belongs to the Reverend Daxon and quickly appropriated by fellow Justice Brother, the Reverend Sharpton.
These officers could face up to 20 years in prison on the charges.
The Baltimore Police Fraternal Order of Police Number 3, the Cops Union, issued a letter to Marilyn Mosby this morning on behalf of the cops saying that this death was not the officer's fault, and they requested a special prosecutor citing conflicts of interest with Mosby's office.
The conflict of interest supposedly is that Marilyn Mosby herself is very, very closely linked with the lawyers and family of Freddie Gray.
The letter that she got from the police union says, each of the officers involved is sincerely saddened by Gray's passing.
They are all committed police officers who have dedicated their careers to the Baltimore City Police Department, and that has been lost in all the publicity.
All death is tragic, and death associated with interaction with police is both shocking and frightening to the public.
And I can't help but go back to this old codger on the street that CNN found who didn't believe any of this.
He thought, all these charges, these charges aren't going to end up in court.
You wait and see.
These charges are just to keep us quiet.
I'm paraphrasing what he said.
Let's take a break and we'll come back and get started on the phones.
EIB Network, back before you know it.
Okay, to the phones, we go to Lincoln, Nebraska.
This is Chris.
Great to have you, sir.
You're up first.
Welcome to the EIB Network.
Hello.
Hello.
How are you?
Very well, sir.
Thank you for calling.
Long time listener, first-time caller.
Anyway, what I was questioning or asked a question to you is: do you think the anti-gun left will come full circle to pro-gun after this Ferguson and Baltimore incidents?
I'm not saying that those are justifications for, you know, but the Second Amendment's there to protect against our own governor.
I have our own government.
Why would you think the left would all of a sudden become pro-gun after these two incidents?
I don't think they necessarily would.
I just wonder if they would see the light, though.
Look, that's a good question.
It's Open Line Friday.
I'm open to anything.
What you have to understand out there, Chris, when you hear the left go onto their anti-gun screed, they mean for you.
They're always going to be armed, Chris.
They don't need to see Ferguson.
I mean, Baltimore is a liberal city and the cops, and I guarantee you, there's all kinds of people there that you think are against Second Amendment or armed that have guns.
The liberals are an elite class system.
They make rules for everybody else that they exempt themselves from.
So whereby they might do their best to wipe out the Second Amendment, but they are important people and they are responsible people and they will have guns.
I'm not talking about the rank and file.
I'm not talking about a liberal citizen who lives on Main Street.
I'm talking about elite liberals, rich liberals, liberals in government, liberals in leadership, but they're always going to have their guns.
They're always going to be armed.
They don't want you to be.
There's no reason, their minds don't need to be made right on this.
There's nothing they can learn here that would result in them changing their minds.
And you know what the root of this question is?
And I've gotten this question for 25 years.
Rush, when is the media going to start being fair with us?
When is the media going to start telling the truth about never?
Try never.
The Democrat Party media never is.
That's why there is alternative media now.
They're never going to understand the truth.
There's nothing that could happen that could make them see the light, that the people they have been supporting all of their lives are wrong and dangerous.
And conversely, every conservative that they've hated and reviled is all of a sudden right.
And then here they come apologizing for all these years of getting it wrong about never going to happen.
See, the root of the question is, okay, you got these anti-gun libs.
Yeah.
Now they get hold of the police departments and they find out they can't control the bad guys without guns.
They're going to see the light.
They already know that.
They're going to have their guns, Chris.
It's you they want to take them away from.
There's nothing they need to learn.
There's nothing they can learn.
They don't think they're wrong about anything.
And there's no event, particularly in an event like Ferguson or Baldwin.
There's nothing in these stories that could happen that would make your average ordinary liberal go, oh my God, I've had it wrong all my life.
Never going to happen.
If you're waiting for that to happen, missing the point.
These people are, in the political sense now, to be defeated.
That's why I say it's a mistake, and it's being demonstrated more and more than ever before now.
It's a mistake to go on drive-by media as a conservative to try to get them to understand.
They don't want to understand.
They don't think they're wrong.
There's nothing a Republican presidential candidate could say to George Stephanopoulos or Charlie Rose or any of them to make them change their mind.
Nothing.
It isn't going to happen.
That's not why they invite them there.
They don't invite Republicans on these shows because they really care what they think.
They invite them on these shows to expose them.
Can I give you an example?
Let me jump forward here, find the sound bites.
Ted Cruz went on Mark Halperin's show on that, whatever it's called.
I don't know what these numbers are.
Waste all this time looking for it.
I still can't find it, and I just thought it.
Let's see, what is it?
Oh, yeah, the page is stuck together.
Let me just give you an example here.
I'm not going to have time to get through all these.
Bloomberg TV, all due respect.
Mark Halperin, John Heilman, liberal co-host.
There's Ted Cruz talking about his background.
They are assaulting Cruz on whether he's an authentic Hispanic.
Now, listen to this.
People are really interested in you and your identity.
So I just want to ask you as a historical matter.
When you filled out your application to Princeton, to Harvard Law School, did you list yourself as an Hispanic?
Oh, sure.
I've listed myself as Cuban-American.
That's my heritage and my background.
Right, okay.
Here's the next one.
Listen to this.
Talk a little bit more about your Cuban heritage and ask you in the following categories whether you have an affinity for or a connection to anything part of your Cuban past.
You got a favorite Cuban food, Cuban dish?
Oh, I grew up eating Cuban food all the time.
My grandparents.
You know, picadillo, I grew up eating all the time.
We had plantains.
We had beans and rice.
For Christmas, we would roast a whole pig a lot of years for Christmas Eve.
And so my grandparents, my Huela Anauela, they didn't speak English.
See what this is?
He's not an authentic Hispanic.
He's a conservative.
He's a fake.
He's a phony.
What is your favorite Cuban dish?
This is what this is.
It's pointless here.
This is insulting.
This is demeaning.
It's racist and it's disgusting.
And here's the last one.
Do you have a favorite Cuban singer?
You know, I have to admit, in that, I'm much more of a Texan.
I tend to listen to country music more than Cuban music.
Finally, I wanted to give you the opportunity to directly welcome your colleague, Senator Sanders, to the race, and I'd like you to do it if you would on Español.
I'm going to stick to English, but I appreciate the invitation, Senor.
So you can't even speak English, eh?
You can't even speak Spanish, right?
You called yourself an Hispanic?
The whole point of this was to expose Ted Cruz as a fraud.
That he's not a Hispanic.
The whole point of this interview was to say to liberals and Hispanics, don't buy this Cruz guy as one of you.
He can't even speak your language.
What is this?
He doesn't have a favorite Cuban singer.
He can't even answer these questions about basic life in Cuba.
That's what this is all about.
They didn't care what Ted Cruz really thinks about issues.
They don't give a rat's rear end about Ted Cruz and his policy.
The whole reason Ted Cruz was invited there was to expose him or present him as an unqualified fraud and faker.
So the idea that the libs are going to get their minds right on gun control or conservatism ain't going to happen, folks.
Back after this, sit with us.
You might have heard Michael Moore, and I hate quoting Michael Moore.
I just, I just, I even hate referencing Michael Moore, but he's out there demanding that we do away with police.
Let's get away with get rid of police.
We got enough guns.
Get rid of the police so we can hire some decent ones.
And then maybe think about giving the new cops guns, but maybe not either.