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June 30, 2020 - Freedomain Radio - Stefan Molyneux
01:19:21
POLICING IN AMERICA! MULDROW / DIAL / MOLYNEUX
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Hi, everybody. This is Stefan Molyneux from Free Domain.
So I'm joined with Nick and Eric, two veteran law enforcement personnel.
And we're going to talk a little bit about police brutality.
I don't think there's going to be actual demonstrations this evening, but you never know how it's going to play out.
But Nick, you, of course, are known to my listenership.
Eric, you're new. Welcome, of course.
And thanks for joining us tonight.
You just came from church where you gave a presentation, though, again, not a demonstration on police brutality.
Nick, if you could just introduce yourself and then pass it along to Eric to make himself known to the audience, I would appreciate that.
Alright, yeah, so those of you that don't know me, got my start in the private sector, have quite a bit of time on there, went into law enforcement, spent time as a deputy and a police officer, moved on from there, expanded my education, have a Bachelor of Science in Criminal Justice, Counterterrorism, Homeland Security, and I write various articles for publications such as lawenforcementtoday.com.
Over here is Eric.
He is Eric Muldrow.
Muldrow? I'm not massacring your name, am I? No, you're good.
Muldrow. Yeah, okay.
I figured as much. So this is Eric.
He's a friend of mine.
He has 21 years of law enforcement experience.
Thought it'd be good to bring him on here to have a panel discussion regarding the constant Accusations, rhetoric, defamatory language we hear in the media regarding police use of force with violence and the constant narrative that today is basically accepted as fact and I would argue it's really fiction but that's why we're here.
Well, thanks, Eric. What was your thoughts about...
It's crazy how compressed this time frame is because George Floyd was like a month ago.
And before that was Ahmaud Arbery.
And of course, we've had the more recent one in Atlanta.
What was your experience in seeing this stuff and then seeing the rhetoric begin to pile up, the defunding, the cancellation of the police and all of that?
How's that been for you? It's been pretty...
Well, being the fact that I'm somewhat removed from the field because I'm not currently employed, I'm retired as of 2014.
I wasn't as locked in as those who are currently working, but the mere fact that I did it for so long, it's a huge part of my life and a huge part of who I am.
And if I could do so, I have a YouTube channel called Code Red Conversations where I discuss these issues.
I pretty much break down law enforcement, uses of force, and situational awareness, and I try to help the average everyday citizen try to understand these events.
So even though I may not be working in the field as far as a boot on the ground, so to speak, I'm still very active in what goes on.
So when I saw all this Rhetoric taking place, it was shocking on one end, but then at the same time, it wasn't, because it seems like there's been a steady build over the last, since 2014 or so, especially with the Eric Garner case.
There's been a steady build in Black Lives Matter getting involved, where they've been pushing this narrative.
It wasn't so much accepted as a mainstream perspective, but nowadays...
It seems as if everybody's on board.
Well, it's got to be pretty rough for cops because I've sort of put myself in those tight shoes and sit to myself, oh no, it's an election year.
Oh no, please, heaven above, save us from the politics of the election year because it really does seem like regular as a bloody clockwork.
This kind of stuff happens every two years, particularly every presidential election.
That there is just this ginning up of hatred, obviously based to some degree on race, based to some degree on cop hatred and so on.
Do you think there's more to it?
I mean, we know that the sort of Marxist elements is heavy leftist elements in Black Lives Matter and so on.
That's not like they hate the police.
They just kind of hate the West, the market, freedoms, conservatism, you name it.
Right. But what's the perception of cops?
Do you guys brace for this election year stuff?
Or is it just hope for the best?
Or how does that play out? You want me to respond, Nick?
Sure, yeah, yeah. Yeah, I think that, I think most cops just go about their everyday lives.
They just do what they do.
And I don't know how many think, okay, well, we're coming up on an election cycle.
Let's prepare. But, because sometimes we just ain't that bright.
I mean, let's be real. I know.
Well, thank you very much.
But I think there are a lot of people, most of us just go about our everyday lives, and then once the rhetoric starts to come, we're more reactive, unfortunately.
And I think a lot of times we get that from our departments.
We're reactive. We're not proactive.
Instead of looking back and considering...
Okay, we're coming up on an election cycle, things about to heat up.
Let's prepare for it.
We wait till the crap is the fan and then we respond.
Yeah, we don't even think about it, honestly.
I mean, heck, even after retiring, you're sidetracked.
I don't even really think about that aspect.
Maybe more so, but when you're working patrol, You're so busy all the time.
I mean, you're already pulling typically 14 shift hours anyway.
You're lucky just to get time to spend with your family, so you don't really get caught up in that.
It's more or less, like Eric said, when it happens and it gets your attention, and then you get frustrated because you're like, great, you know?
Here it goes. Yeah, here it goes.
So, Eric, let's talk a little bit about something that the general public don't have much interaction with police.
At least I hope so. At least I hope this audience doesn't, right?
But, you know, the couple of times that I brushed up against the cats in blue, you know, they pull you over for speeding or whatever it is, right?
You know, you're polite.
You keep your hands on the steering wheel.
You understand that the officer doesn't know you, doesn't know your history, doesn't want any sudden moves, no surprises with the police is generally a good thing.
But I don't think people really understand this, the steps of the escalation of force.
Like what you are allowed to do, what you're trained to do to bring a suspect under control.
Because there isn't a walk away situation with the cops.
Like once you decide to arrest someone, You've got to bring that person in.
And the escalation of force is something I don't think people understand because most people don't fight cops.
They don't really understand that escalation of force.
This goes all the way back to Rodney King, which was a textbook example of the escalation of force with someone who I think was on PCP or something and taken on the cops and, you know, here's what you have to do.
So, Eric, do you mind to step us through the kind of training or the kind of escalation of force that cops are trying to use and how it plays into some of the stuff we've seen lately?
Yeah, well, overall, there are some standards that are pretty generic in general amongst law enforcement, but also things vary to some degree depending on the agency.
As a prime example, what happened with George Floyd, the knee on the neck, my department wouldn't have allowed that.
But in general, when we're talking about force, typically it goes kind of something like this.
If you have probable cause to make an arrest, you just communicate with the individual.
It's the old ask, tell, make.
And I'm really simplifying things on a very basic level.
If I have lawful reasons and I'm giving you lawful orders, I ask you to comply.
Then if you refuse to, then I tell you to comply.
And if you continue to resist or...
Be resistant or just refuse to cooperate, then I'll make you comply.
So it all depends.
Typically, the amount of force that an officer uses is primarily based on the response that they get from the suspect or citizen that they're coming in contact with.
Sorry, I'll get you in a second, Nick, but there's two kinds of resistance.
This sort of came out with the George Floyd case, right?
So there's the passive resistance, technically called rubber bones or something like that.
And then there's active resistance.
And what are the decision points for the officers regarding passive versus active resistance?
Nick, you want to jump on or...?
No, I'll ask you, Eric, and then I'll jump to Nick in a sec.
Okay, no problem. Well, if an officer is legally justified in taking that suspect into custody, then regardless, well, of course, the amount of force I may need to use if someone's actively resisting.
Now, actively resisting, there's a lot that can go into that whole term.
You could be just pulling away from me, snatching your arm away from me while I'm trying to secure you and put you in handcuffs, or you could be throwing those hands.
So we're basically forced to, kind of like as I said just a moment ago, you're basically forced to adjust and adapt the amount of force and bring the appropriate amount of force necessary to take that person into custody.
If that helps you.
Right, right. And if they go passive, if they just go rubber bones, you can pick them up, you can lift them, you can move them, as far as I understand it, right?
Absolutely. Yeah, because you'll get a lot of people who are like that, especially a lot of protesters, and particularly organized protesters, you'll get a lot of that.
They may not want to fight, but they just may want to be difficult.
Sometimes, I remember back in the day where we came in contact with a bunch of Environmentalists.
And all they wanted to do was just lay there and lock arms and they weren't fighting anybody.
So we just had to be creative with the ways we separate their hands without beating them down or anything like that.
We separate them and then we put them in cuffs and they're laying there and you have to pretty much pick them up and carry them.
The other way to deal with environmentalists is just switch a light on.
And leave it on, especially during the day, man, they'll just jump straight up.
Turn off the light, you're wasting power.
Right. So, Nick, just to turn to you, so let's talk about the situations, and again, I know it varies from region to region, but the general situations under which an officer is allowed to use or permitted to use deadly force.
Okay, so, well, yeah, so Deadly Force, what Eric was saying about use of force continuum, you going through the steps, really a good example of that is what we discussed the other day is the Brooks case.
If you watch that video, you are watching the officers go through the use of force continuum, pretty much textbook.
You know, they go to officer presence, verbal commands, soft hands, harsher commands.
They go hard hands as soon as he starts throwing punches.
Then they try to step up to less than lethal and then eventually lethal force.
I mean, you can watch it right down the line and have a textbook cracked open.
And that video is pretty much, I would argue, a real-world example and good training aid, really, of the definitions of that.
But when a suspect, if all bets are off and they're going hard, I mean, if they're doing blows with you, You're getting into lethal force territory.
If you're going to the ground and they're grabbing for stuff on your bat belt, so to speak, of things they can use against you, if they're trying to grab less than lethal weapons to use against you, if they're striking you as hard as they can, giving concussions, anything like that, you're getting into the territory where that officer's now going to step it up and You're asking for lethal force to get used against you.
I mean, the cop's not going to take any chances.
You know, he wants to go home at the end of the shift.
Is he supposed to get into a ground grappling match with you with the thought the whole time that, oh, well, maybe he doesn't really want to kill me?
No, they're not even going to mess around like that.
If you're in that frame of mind where you're ready to go toe-to-toe like that, then you're already pushing it.
And that's what you saw in the Brooks thing.
I can see Eric reaching for the narrative thread here.
I just want to add a little context to it.
Nick is totally on point.
Also, we have to take into account, sometimes physical differences play a role.
Oh, absolutely. I'm 6'2", around 230 pounds, and I pretty much kept myself in pretty good shape for the most part.
If you have a, let's say, a female officer who's five feet tall, 115 pounds, her perspective of what's considered deadly force will be completely, not completely, well, let's say no weapon is involved.
It could be completely different.
Based on the fact that if there's a guy my size who's coming at me, I'm less likely to escalate to deadly force, whereas she has to fight this guy and he's hell-bent on not being taken into custody.
Her going to deadly force, she's way more justified, or she should be justified quicker to escalate to that level of force than I would.
Because of her physical limitations.
I think you just violated an SJW commandment with that explanation.
Well, look, I mean, the data is on both of your perspective in that female police officers use deadly force.
They fire their guns more often than male police officers because there is that, you know, pick you up and spin you like a top situation that the criminals can get into and that physical intimidation size is pretty important.
Well, there's a famous video you may remember that came out years ago where there was this very large, I think six foot something, large built black male.
Had a warrant out, I believe. His daughter was with him, female officer, state troopers.
She had called for backup. She tried to hook him up.
Spun around and just clocked her right and just knocked her out cold and then proceeded to beat her really bad.
She was in the hospital for a long time and he turns to his daughter and says, sorry honey, daddy can't go back to jail.
That video circulated for a while if you don't recall it, but it was a pretty good example of what Eric's talking about.
There absolutely are differences depending on gender, size, all of that comes into play.
No question. There's an even more recent video where an officer, I think it's in California, Southern California somewhere, where a female officer's on the scene and she's getting it.
I guess it was a mentally ill suspect.
And you literally see someone recording him taking the camera, beating her up, the female officer, taking the camera out of her hand, her taking off running, and him firing the gun at her.
So as much as people may not like Dealing with the fact that there are physical differences between genders, generally speaking, it's a harsh reality.
Yeah, when you get out there in the real world, theory and all of that goes out the window.
You're just dealing with the harsh reality of things.
Well, and of course, what a lot of people don't understand is the degree to which cops are reactive, as you point out.
Like, you are reactive. If the guy complies, you're not going to start beating him up.
But if he starts becoming aggressive, as you say, you have to escalate to the point where you gain control of the suspect because that's not an option.
People are always like, well, just let the guy run.
And it's like, but that's not...
That's not how the police system works.
I mean, it's not like, oh, you really don't want to be arrested?
Okay, well, sorry. I thought you just kind of didn't want to be arrested.
Turns out you really don't want to be arrested.
Well, off you go then. And that's not how things play out.
Like, once you start those dominoes, it has to end up with the guy in the back of the car, right?
Yeah, and the world we're living in now is even more so because take the Rayshard Brooks case.
Everyone, or not everyone, there was a pretty sizable crowd of people saying, well, why didn't the cops, the officers, just let them go?
And I don't know if you, I didn't get the chance to watch the video yet, Nick, but There's a sizable crowd.
No, we can wait. We'll just wait.
Just call it up. Yeah, there's a big enough crowd that were saying, well, why didn't officers just let them go?
But if you watch the video early on, the officer did give him an option of pulling over and getting out of the driveway, out of the drive-through, and just slipping it off.
But he fell back asleep.
He fell asleep again.
But you have a big enough crowd that believe that.
But I think, I definitely know, we're in a time where cops can't do right at all, regardless of what they do.
Let's say they did let him go, and the guy takes off and runs, and he comes back later on, gets in his car, and then he ends up killing someone because he's drunk.
Well, then everybody would be crying.
Well, how come the cops didn't just arrest them?
So these guys can't win.
Or what if you took the tase and tried to carjack somebody with it?
Right. And now you're in a pursuit, and he wipes out a family on an interstate.
It would go back to the cops.
No one would blame him.
It would be the cops' fault.
Or, like, you know, the other day I brought up Rogan, but Joe Rogan actually said on this incident, to my surprise, he said...
He offered to call an Uber.
He told the cops he would call an Uber.
And I'm like, oh, is that how it works?
You get a DUI, you're just like, oh, call an Uber.
It's all good. Well, maybe if you're Joe Rogan, you're given that option, but maybe not anybody else.
Right. So, Eric, you worked in Vegas for quite some time, which, of course, you know, is where you go as a cop if you just want to have a relaxing time and not deal with too many difficult people.
And, you know, it's like Mayberry. You said the words right out of my mouth.
That's exactly what it was like.
When it comes to...
How things can go sideways really quickly and unexpectedly.
What has your experiences been about how something that starts off, because, you know, people are saying, hey, it was 30-40 minutes just chatting nicely with the cops, and then boom!
You know, he just goes all lunatic, Rachel Brooks on the cops.
What are some experiences that you've had where it just goes like from zero to 100 in a split second?
Man, oh man. How much time do you have?
We got some time, brother. We got some time.
I could go back. I could give you a...
The first one that popped into my head was an incident that happened when I was a corrections officer in the county jail here in Vegas.
So we're transporting this guy back from court.
He's being mouthy. He's mentally ill.
He's being a little mouthy in court, so the judge wants him gone.
So I'm getting ready to go and give myself some snacks.
Wasn't donuts, for the record.
But I'm about to go give myself some snacks.
And one of my buddies is like, hey, man, help me escort this guy back to his cell.
I'm like, ah, man, I don't want to.
He's like, come on, man. And then I'm sitting in the cell.
I'm sitting in the elevator talking to the guy.
And we're having a normal conversation.
And out of nowhere, this guy just hauls his head back and he slams it right into my face.
Out of nowhere!
Out of nowhere!
And that was the one time...
That was the one time in my law enforcement career where I lost my cool.
I lost my cool.
Did you give him a stern talking to?
Is that what you mean? Exactly.
I put the finger out and I just said, don't you do that.
Don't you ever do that again, sir.
I'm putting you in the naughty corner.
You are grounded.
Harsh language. That's a low-scale example of how quickly things can erupt when it goes from zero to 100 miles an hour.
And I think this whole dialogue discussion when it comes to the average everyday citizen questioning police, and I'm not saying that citizens don't have a right to ask questions and ask tough and challenging questions and expect officers to be held to high standards.
I'm all for that 100%.
But oftentimes when I hear people making arguments or trying to be highly critical of officers, when you're involved in a situation that you have zero control over, because you can't completely control what someone else does with the decisions they make.
I just think they're so misguided.
Oh, I've got a great one to tell you.
Yeah. Well, yeah, we live in a society of ultra-crepidarianism, right, where now everyone pontificates about things they don't have any actual expertise in.
So even in situations where you think there's no threat, I'll give you a wild example.
So I had to go bring in a young girl, a young teenager.
She had... Psychological problems.
So we were waiting for social workers to come, experts to do an analysis.
She said she was hearing voices and whatnot.
So we had to put her on like a suicide watch.
With another officer into the cell to check on her.
And she's a young girl and she's nothing, no weapons, right?
You don't think there's going to be any problem.
And she starts flipping out, saying she wants out, and she's wearing a skirt.
And she reaches down and pulls out a tampon used...
And throws it at me.
And I'm doing the matrix, trying to avoid this thing, as it flies right by my head, hits the wall, and as I look down, like, what just happened, and thinking I got away scot-free, I'm wearing a short-sleeved uniform, she takes a goop and wipes it on my forearm, and I'm just, like, disgusted.
And... Yeah, so...
I've just wanted to mention, I've decided not to snack during this show anymore.
Like, that's it, man. In fact, I may never eat again.
I just wanted to let you all know that story.
It's like, that's it. I'm now going to be like 12 pounds the next time we meet.
So, you know, you think there's no threat?
Well, now you've got a biological weapon being chucked at you.
I wore long sleeve shirts all the time.
That was one of the reasons why I always wear, and I'm in the desert.
I'm in 7 degrees.
Yeah, here as well.
It's 110 degrees out.
No, no, so this is something, yeah, this is something that I've I don't think people understand how much The suspect or the person that you might be interacting with themselves could be a weapon.
They might have AIDS. They might have hepatitis.
They might have gum disease that they're going to implant into your arm with a bite.
I talked to some cops who was like, yeah, like one bite, and I'm sitting there for a week waiting for the test results to come back to see if I'm going to make it.
That's really, really scary stuff.
And the bioweapon called, you know, out of control humanity is something the cops also have to deal with that's, you know, not part of your everyday job.
Yeah, most people don't even consider something like that.
They don't even take that into consideration.
If you're an officer, whether you're in corrections or on the streets, that is an ever-present threat and a problem.
And oftentimes when we see a video, especially like a dash cam video or someone holding a cell phone camera from across the street, you don't hear the dialogue.
You don't hear what's being said.
And those...
That data can be absolutely vital as to why the officer responded the way that they did.
Yeah, the one thing I wanted to mention on the Floyd thing, because what makes that case so interesting and complicated, even though some people think it's straightforward, is a lot of people don't realize that excited delirium is real.
Even though it's not well understood, it's a real phenomenon.
And there's been plenty of videos since the Floyd thing come out showing suspects restrained in multiple different positions die while having these substances in their body.
And... With Floyd, the thing is, when they put him on the ground, you could say, well, why did they put him on the ground?
A lot of departments actually have a policy for excited delirium where you're supposed to restrain them and keep them from moving while EMS is on the way.
They did call EMS. They were on the way.
They were restraining them.
So all of that actually does parallel with what you would do if they thought that was an issue.
The report did say that they were talking about excited delirium as a potential concern.
And so another policy is if they have it available, you're supposed to administer a sedative, but you don't always have that.
They may have not had that. So when people say, well, why would he restrain him, especially with the knee on the neck?
Well, here's where it gets sticky.
If he's using a restraint that the policy in the manual says it's not deadly and they were trained it's not deadly, and you look up the scientific studies to support the policy that says you cannot asphyxiate somebody this way just because it looks like you can doesn't mean you can.
And so if he was trained that and he's going off of what he read and he goes, "Okay, well, I'm just going to keep him here like this because it says I can't kill him using this restraint." People yell at you all the time.
Just because someone's yelling at you, it doesn't mean you're just going to go, oh, okay, well, they're yelling at me, so I'm going to do whatever they want.
That's a pretty common theme.
So when people look at that and they go, oh, that's murder.
Not necessarily, because if he's sitting here going, I didn't know he was going to have a problem.
I was taught this wouldn't cause a problem.
But then the medical report later comes out and says, well, that's not what caused the issues.
The fact is he had methamphetamine in his system, fentanyl in his system, coronary artery disease, heart disease, and a potential excited delirium scenario.
Yeah, this gets way more complicated than people realize.
And I'm not sure that piling a sedative into a guy chock full of fentanyl is actually going to help the situation.
What do you think of that?
Because I remember when I first saw that video, I was like, oh man, there's just no way.
Like this is the worst thing I've ever seen in law enforcement.
But I do remember even when I tweeted about it at the time, it's like, it's hard to see how this could be justified or how this could be something that is according to policy.
But I'm not a cop, so I need to wait.
I don't want to rush to judgment, you know, and maybe they aren't guilty of something.
I don't know, right? But as I was talking about with Nick, it is a much more complicated situation than, you know, you see just from that, admittedly, absolutely horrible, horrible looking video.
Right, right. Now, I think that My background entails when I was in the Army, I was a medic.
And then I'm a jiu-jitsu guy when it comes down to Brazilian jiu-jitsu and martial arts guy.
We actually did have hand-to-hand combat to see who was going to be in the middle.
And obviously, Eric won.
That's pretty cool. Am I getting a goose egg?
Something like that. So when I see that, when I saw that tactic, I was just dumbfounded.
I didn't see how anyone could consider that that wouldn't be problematic.
That's just my perspective.
But at the same time, I do come into the situation with a little more knowledge than the average everyday officer.
Because a lot of officers... I was an EMT. I was a combat medic in the Army.
And there's certain things...
And I'm not saying that...
The knee on the neck was the sole reason that Floyd died.
And you do have conflicting information between the different medical examinations.
It's a little conflicting.
So it's still up in the air.
There'll probably end up being another one.
I don't know. I find it difficult in the day and age that we're living in how someone could think that holding someone in that position for almost nine minutes would be a good thing.
That's pretty much where I lie.
And granted, I haven't studied every aspect of every detail, I haven't read all of the facts, but I just have a lot of trouble believing how Common sense wouldn't kick in.
And then you had some of the other officers who were telling him to change positions.
There is such a thing as positional asphyxiation.
And he was cuffed.
You had multiple officers there.
For me, I would have sat him on the side, rolled him up on a shoulder.
And I would have held him up against the vehicle and kept him restrained.
That's what I would have done because I've done that on multiple occasions.
I've been in almost the exact same situation on countless occasions.
And I just have a lot of trouble believing that just holding someone down like that for that extended amount of time was a wise decision.
And I think it will end up catching up to him.
I mean, I agree with Eric in the fact I would have done the same thing Eric just said he would have done.
However, I have to concede that...
I'm looking at it from a biased point of view because I wasn't trained that way.
So if I was a Minneapolis officer and I was trained the way they were, I don't know.
Would I use that? I have no idea because if I had a DT instructor train me on it and they're like, you can use this and it won't result in death, then I don't know how I would look at it.
So I have to recognize the fact that I have a bias built in that even though I wouldn't do it, and most cops wouldn't, Training varies, so that's where it gets hard because I don't know what I would do depending on how I was trained.
Because for us, for my department, we were told to avoid the neck.
Mm-hmm. From basically day one of defensive tactics training, you avoid the neck unless you were in a deadly force encounter.
Right. So, and it just seemed, but Nick, you know, I'll have to concede, I agree.
If someone who doesn't know anything about defensive tactics doesn't consider the possible medical ramifications, He doesn't know.
He's just an officer. He's just going with what he's taught.
I think ultimately the department is going to take the biggest hit.
But at the same time, we're in a day and age where Chauvin, I don't think he has any chance whatsoever of getting a fair trial.
That's my personal opinion. And he will be the fall guy, most likely.
Well, you know, we can get into the details perhaps another time, but with regards to the two coroner's reports, so the first coroner's report said no strangulation, no asphyxiation.
It was not the cause of death.
Now, the second guy hired by the family, he said, yeah, there's no indication of compression around the neck, but he also said that it would have vanished by the time he got a hold of the body because it kind of bounces back and all that kind of stuff.
My big concern is with this, that they're going to have a trial, and because I think they're overcharged, because they haven't released the body cam footage, that to me is pretty important.
If we're going to have this rush to judgment, let's at least have the facts.
And the fact that Keith Ellison is not releasing the body cam footage or the dash cam footage...
If they had a good case to make with that, they would be releasing that stuff like that, I think.
So I want to know what's there, and it's ridiculous to me.
The taxpayer-funded body cam footage, which has resulted, this whole incident has resulted in half a billion dollars' worth of damage to Minneapolis real estate and buildings and people, that you can't, as a taxpayer, get a hold of this footage to me is completely ridiculous.
My concern is that they've overcharged based upon the mob.
If the jury follows instructions, it's going to be L.A., Rodney King, all over again, because they overcharged, and you can't blame the cops for following legal trained procedures.
I think that, to me, is foundation.
You know, it's the old hate the game, not the player.
If that's how the cops are trained, and it was, for what it's worth, a black police chief who approved the neck restraint had been used over 200 times before, Well, the problem I have is, so, okay, with the Floyd case...
When you look at suspects dying in custody, because you can look at the case in Texas where the white man, that video came out, he died in police custody, had schizophrenia, cocaine in his system.
He was face down, no knee on the neck, but he still died.
Tampa, right? Tony Tampa?
There was a video with a black suspect committed an armed robbery.
He was running. He complained he couldn't breathe.
He was cuffed, put on his side.
He died as a result as well in custody.
Problem is, he had cocaine in his system.
And so when you start looking at these, there's...
Example after example where I see a correlation, not with the strength being used, but there's a correlation with pre-existing health problems and having some sort of intoxicant in the system, whether it be cocaine, methamphetamine, fentanyl.
A combination of all of them.
So there is a documented correlation between those things and in-custody death, not necessarily the restraint.
And the scientific studies do back that up, that vascular neck restraints are relatively safe.
In fact, when you look at the research, It's been shown that vascular neck restraint is more safe in the field than pepper spray and taser according to the data they've compiled.
So it's hard for me to...
Everyone loses focus on everything as a whole and they focus right on that restraint probably because of the optics of it.
It's easy to forget about all the other factors and just focus on that because, yeah, it looks bad.
But... I look at that as, well, let's say a woman went to sleep, right, with a child in her bed.
You wake up, child's dead.
You get an angry mob.
She should have known better. She was reckless.
She smothered that child in her sleep.
the medical report comes out oh child died of SIDS had nothing to do with being smothered but the optics don't look good is it right for her to get sacrificed up as a as a reckless mother who killed her child because of the optics and not what the facts play out so we have to be careful with this stuff well that's why we have innocent until proven guilty the That's why we have due process.
Because the mob is kind of retarded and dangerous.
And we don't like lynching in history.
We don't like lynching in the present.
And sometimes, you know, it's that old saying, who are you going to believe?
Me or your lying eyes, right?
And so when you see Chauvin kneeling on George Floyd's neck and George Floyd saying, I can't breathe, calling for his mother...
I mean, that's just about as wretched a sight as you could possibly see.
And I remember, I mean, as I said, I can't imagine how this, but you know, the world is kind of divided into people who've seen the movie Two Angry Men, or Twelve Angry Men, and the people who haven't seen that movie, because that's a movie about, it seems like cut and dried, the person's guilty, and some guy just keeps asking questions until things come out.
And that's why we have due process.
That's why we have the capacity to confront your accusers and the preponderance of evidence and we have physical evidence being entered into and we have lawyers.
I mean, you have to have that stuff because a lot of times what seems cut and dried is way more complicated.
So if you guys wanted to add more to that, that's great.
I did want to pivot to...
I was just going to say real quick before we change topics, I do have one criticism of the medical report, the second one that came out by Dr.
Baden, and that is, in that report, they listed, well, the drugs in the system is for information only.
It had no relevance to death.
I don't see how you can make that point.
That seems way preliminary to just say dangerous levels of fentanyl and meth aren't a factor with somebody with heart disease and coronary heart disease, number one.
Number two... There's a stark contrast between the two reports, and this is going to be problematic in my opinion, and that is the second report that came out.
They're claiming he was a young, healthy man with no pre-existing health conditions at all.
They're saying he didn't have heart disease and coronary artery disease.
So which one is it? Clearly, he either did or didn't have it.
If the first medical report saying he did have those problems, if that is true, Then that, to me, would call into question the validity of the second report entirely.
Because how do you make such a huge mistake where you don't even recognize easily identifiable health problems like that?
So it'll be interesting to find out what plays out on that one.
So let's just talk about the general issue of criminal history.
And a lot of people are saying, well, you know, these three people, Ahmaud Arbery and George Floyd, and so the fact that they had criminal histories, people say, well, that doesn't mean that they should die.
And of course it doesn't mean that they should die.
I mean, absolutely. But as cops, when you were cops, how much did, you know, you look up the license plate and you get that scrolling list of criminal history, you know, gun charges and home invasions and all of this kind of stuff.
How much does that affect how you approach a suspect and your level of wariness?
Well, if you're going to police with any level of proficiency, it better affect the way you approach the situation.
Now, just because someone has a history, and it could be a pretty extensive one or a violent one, doesn't automatically mean that he or she is currently violent today.
But it should cause some red flags to go up, and you should be a little more aware than you would if you stopped someone and you ran their plate, and it's someone with no criminal history whatsoever.
You'll naturally approach the encounter, you should naturally approach the encounter with a lot more caution, being a little more mindful of their actions, of what you're doing, of making sure you keep them in your sights, making sure you keep your eyes on their hands and on their movement.
It just helps keep you safe and helps keep you alive.
Because if someone has demonstrated already that they have a prior history of violence, only common sense can tell you that, yeah, there's a possibility that he or she may go there again.
In that common sense, one of the best predictors of someone's behavior is their past.
Absolutely. Yeah, and the other thing too has struck me as well is that if somebody's on probation or if it's like a third strike situation or if they go back in front of a judge, things could go really badly for them.
I mean, just trying to put myself in those shoes, like the amount of despair and rage and fear and frustration and I can't go back.
Like, what was that the guy said?
I'm not going back. Sorry, honey, I'm not going back to jail.
I think that level of...
It's not the moment. It's not the stop.
It's the whole domino process that may end up with them going back to jail for 20 years or 10 years or whatever it is, and especially when you're an older guy.
I think about George Floyd.
I mean, the guy who went to prison, I think, in his 20s.
I mean, I'm in my 50s now.
I mean, I can't do a lot of the things that I did when I was in my 20s, and the idea of a prison sentence in your 50s is probably quite different than when you're kind of young and Not really a big fear of consequences.
Now you're older, you're a family man and so on.
Like, I think there is just that buildup of, I'm not going back.
And I think that's very volatile.
Right. And having worked in that environment, having worked in corrections extensively, the vast majority of my law enforcement career was in the capacity of a corrections officer.
Having worked in a maximum security prison, I know the mindset.
First of all, I know how bad it is.
And I know how violent and harsh of an environment it is.
And I can see why some people would be willing to go do whatever it takes not to go back there.
So when I saw Rayshard Brooks take off and run, I'm thinking that the officers probably ran his plate if that was indeed his vehicle.
I think he said something about it being a rental, if I'm not mistaken.
I'm not 100% sure.
But I'm sure at some point they had his ID and they ran his information and his criminal record came up.
So if they see that and they see the fact that He had some prior time.
He had prior felony offenses on his record.
That would cause an alert to go up.
And once again, it should impact the way an officer responds.
So let's talk a little, Eric, about police brutality.
I hate to say that's your air of specialty because it makes me sound pretty bad.
Yeah, I'm glad you brought that up.
I want to make sure we get into the numbers.
What are the common misconceptions that people have, unfortunately fanned by highly irresponsible media in general, but what are the things that you'd really most like to get across to this audience about that issue, which of course is pretty much first and foremost in people's minds at the moment?
Just the major things that you want to get across about pushing back against what people believe about the prevalence of police brutality and all of that.
What I like to do oftentimes, and that's one of the things I did today in my presentation that I spoke on earlier, is try to get people to view this entire discussion from a 50,000 foot view.
And I usually break down the numbers.
I tell them how it's estimated that there are anywhere between a half million to two million police officers in the United States conducting anywhere from 100,000 or 100 million and even on the high end.
I've heard recently Heather McDonald was quoted as saying that police officers make somewhere in the neighborhood of 375 million contacts with the public every single year.
So if we take the Washington Post as an example, because unfortunately, right now, that's probably the most extensive amount of data we have in the area of police shootings.
And we look at the numbers over the last few years, and we see that Over the last five years, I think the numbers started somewhere in the low 30s, maybe 32, all the way to last year, as of when I most recently looked, as of a couple of days ago, I think the number of shootings of unarmed Black men, in particularly, That took place by the police in 2019.
There were 13. I know the numbers fluctuated.
Some say nine.
I've heard exactly. So I try to get people to look at it from that perspective.
Up to 2 million cops making up to 375 million contacts with the public and you have Thirteen unarmed black men who were killed by the police.
The prevailing narrative is that it is open season on the black man, or they're trying to hunt us down.
That is absolute nonsense when you look at those numbers.
Well, they could just be really bad hunters.
Like, just terrible at it.
Like, all around.
Very bad. Very bad.
I constantly point to that.
I'm like, it just doesn't make any sense.
Go ahead, Nick. Well, I was just going to say, the Washington Post stats you're talking about, I just read an article the other day where CNN brought up this new study, and you can see where they're trying to force the stats to fit the narrative.
So, this one researcher, and it I would like to give the benefit of the doubt and say, well, maybe they just didn't do the research very well.
No, no. It's the media. Never give them the benefit of the doubt.
I won't allow that on this show.
It's not allowed. Well, this was a particular researcher, right?
This is a professor at a university.
So I was thinking, okay, did he do this research sloppy or is he just trying to get this narrative to fit?
Well, here's the problem. So he goes...
What he did is he separated armed suspects from unarmed suspects, and then he lumped the unarmed suspects into non-threat to police.
Well, sorry, that doesn't work.
Just because someone's unarmed doesn't mean they're not a threat.
We saw that with the Brooks case or Michael Brown.
He tried to forcefully take the officer's weapon away.
So that doesn't equate into non-threat just because they were unarmed.
And so what they tried to say was...
Even though more white people were killed by the police than blacks, blacks represented disproportionately a higher frequency of interaction for the population is what they tried to say.
So therefore, there's a discrepancy that must be blamed on a racial component.
The problem with that argument A, yeah, the problem with that argument is, A, just because they're unarmed doesn't mean they're not a threat, and B, when you've got, and they like to say 13%, I'll push back and say, no, it's more like 3% to 4%, because it's typically young black men between the ages of 15 and 25 that account for roughly half of homicides in the United States, and armed robberies and other crimes sprinkled in there.
You can't say that, Nick. You're a white guy.
You can't bring that up. All right, I'll let you take the ball from there.
You go ahead, Eric. Nick is a white guy, but he's voiced by a black actor.
So I think Simpsons Wild, that's totally fine.
Totally fine to say that.
Totally fine. Yeah, you know these numbers.
We're going to do racial disparities in crime.
Eric knows these numbers, so let him do it.
Let's solve it all today.
All solutions will be brought.
To the table. Because, look, that is a big question.
Because, of course, as Nick points out, there is a disproportionate amount of crime.
You know, East Asians are the very nice people like Japanese and Koreans.
They commit less crime than white people.
White people commit more crime than them and Hispanics more than whites and blacks more than Hispanics.
And there is, of course, the argument to say, well, the cops are unfairly targeting, but the problem is that the crime victimization surveys, which, well, Eric, you know this.
I don't want to lecture the cops about all this kind of stuff, but if you've read about this stuff, why don't you take us through that?
Yeah, Eric's real read up on these numbers.
No, I mean, you pretty much nailed it.
And Nick was already going there, so I'm just going to kind of piggyback off of what he said.
When we... One of the things that I always try to bring up is I just point people to the fact that if you want to have an honest discussion, and that's the key factor, if you want to have an honest discussion about all these issues, if you're really trying to come up with a possible solution,
I don't find you credible if you refuse to acknowledge the inordinate amount of crime that plagues a small aspect, a small percentage, and Nick broke it down really well, probably less than 3% of the population.
If you're not willing to address the The inordinate amount of criminality that plagues certain parts, a small percentage of the black community, then I don't think you're trying to be credible.
If all you want to do is just simply try to point out the fact that there's an ethnic bias that it's black or white, so therefore it must be racist, you're being crazy.
And I don't want to be repeating what Nick said.
I think he's talked about it.
When you're looking at 50% of the population, that blacks are responsible for over 50% of the homicides, 50% of the robberies, over 40% or around 40% of all the violent crime that takes place in the United States, and that has been consistent figures.
Over a series of years, it's not an anomaly that took place in 2018 or 2019.
This is a consistent issue.
And you have to step back and be willing to acknowledge that there are problems.
And not all cultures are created equal.
And just because someone says it's black and they've come through hard times...
We can acknowledge those difficulties.
We can talk about the fact that fatherless homes and the impact that that has on the upbringing of a child, but you have to look at these factors and stop taking the cowardly route and assuming everything to be racially motivated.
Well, think about this.
In 2019, right, it was between nine and, we said, 13 unarmed deaths, right?
There were over 7,000 homicides in the black community, one black killing another.
Did you know that the number one cause of death for a young black male between the ages of 15 to 25 is homicide?
Absolutely. The number one cause of death for a white young male the same age is car accidents, clumsiness, ATVing.
It's the third cause of death for white young males.
So think about that.
I mean, that should make your head spin.
And you can't look at those numbers and then just...
Be so dismissive, and anytime you see a disparity, go, oh, it's racism.
That doesn't compute.
Well, okay, and I just wanted to point out as well, so, you know, the argument which is put forward by some is that, well, you know, it's just that the cops are unfairly targeting young black men, and that's why they get arrested more, and that's why they get targeted more, and they stop and frisk, and all of that.
The challenge to that is that the Crime Victimization Survey, which is done in America every year, Yeah, I think.
The cops and who they arrest from a racial standpoint.
And so then it's a conspiracy of everyone.
Like then some woman gets raped by a guy.
It's a white guy. And she goes and reports it to the police.
But she lies and says it's a black guy.
And she goes through the whole process and the lineup and this.
That is really – and this happens millions of times across America.
That to me really starts to stretch credibility.
And just what's so frustrating is that there are incredibly powerful and important conversations to have about the source of criminality and alienation from mainstream culture and rap culture and single mother households and all of that.
There are really, really important considerations to talk about this for people who actually want to solve problems and reduce the amount of violence in America, in black communities.
Because, you know, as you know better than I, Eric, I mean, it's the black communities.
And Nick, it's the black communities who suffer the most.
From this kind of violence, held hostage in their own communities by this kind of violence, and just jumping straight to, ooh, it's white racism.
It's like, you're not solving problems, and these problems really need to be solved.
Okay, I'll shut up, Mac. No, no, I was just gonna say what Eric pointed out, though, we're mainly reactive, right?
Think about that. We're reactive.
Where are the police gonna spend most of their time?
Well, if you've got that disproportionate amount of crime taking place in those communities, it should come as no surprise That the police a majority amount of time are there.
Because you always hear this stat thrown around that, well, whites use drugs at the same rate as blacks using drugs.
Yeah, but if you've got whites in a quiet suburban neighborhood with their doors shut using drugs...
where there's a drive-by going on or whatever, and there's police constantly around, you're not apples to apples there.
They're totally different universes.
100%.
And, yeah, you need to get into the culture aspect of it.
I watched a TED Talk where there was this preacher talking about, you know, why is it that the black community is the only community in the United States where you turn on the radio and you've got mainstream music celebrating, glorifying, selling drugs, killing each other, killing cops, pimping out prostitutes, killing each other, killing cops, pimping out prostitutes, They glorify that and put it on a pedestal and you've got lyrics like, you're a killer, you're a killer, I'm a murderer.
You've got these lyrics that are celebrating a type of lifestyle that perpetuates this type of behavior and yet...
No one wants to address that as if it's not an issue.
I'm sorry, but it's a problem.
I think it's because it's easier to place the blame on someone else than it is for you to look for us.
And all of us are guilty of this to varying degrees.
But for us, as opposed to us looking in the mirror and saying, hey, you know what, I'm the problem.
And I need to do something about it.
Because going back to what, Nick, what you were saying when we talked about the homicide rate, According to the FBI Uniform Crime Report, over the last, since 2014, there have been, 2014 there were 6,095, and these are the, this is the black homicide rate, 6,095 Homicide victims.
In 2015, it was 7,039.
2016, 7,881.
2017, 7,851.
2018, which is the most recent one that was completed, 7,407.
So those numbers were annually?
Yes, every year.
Think about that. You're talking about an annual number in the black community.
You're talking about deaths that rival over 10 years of fighting in the Middle East.
Let that sink in.
Over 10 years of fighting in the Middle East, Afghanistan and Iraq, one year eclipses the numbers that the military saw.
That should make everybody stop and go, okay, stop the finger pointing, let's get to the root of this, because clearly the narrative is not anywhere near accurate.
And if you look at the rate of police killing, some of the numbers that I mentioned, I think I mentioned earlier, maybe I'm getting confused with my presentation earlier.
The numbers, 2015, I think there were somewhere around 32.
2016, there were 19.
2017, there were 21.
2018, there were 17.
2019, 13.
I was going to say the unarmed, right?
Unarmed, yes. And this is where we spend all of our time.
We don't even discuss the nuances, the details of those shootings.
We focus on the fact.
And once again, I'm not trying to minimize these deaths.
It's tragic, all of them.
But you're talking about Black death in the thousands on one hand, where we commit on each other 90% of the time, but yet we're going to focus on a handful of shootings that could be questionable,
that may not even be an act of racism or may not even be where the police officer was guilty, but this is where you're told to spend all your time, and you dare not bring up the fact that Bring up the point of all the deaths, the black-on-black crime.
People hate that, but you better not bring that up.
It is absolutely insane, and we've been indoctrinated to believe this nonsense, and we marched lock, step, and barrel behind these talking points That other people are telling us to believe.
I don't mean to interrupt, but clearly I'm going to need to explain to Eric what the black experience in America has been.
You know, it's really, really important that I try and get this knowledge across to you.
You know, the argument is that...
Listen, I can see some value in this argument.
You know, I mean, the one, two, three, right?
You got slavery, you got segregation, you got Jim Crow, you know, poverty, single mother households, all of this is a legacy of the brutality of the black experience in America, and there's anger and so on, and And that's the causality behind it.
And what do we do with that argument?
I mean, again, I can see some value to it.
Hold on one second, Nick.
Hold on one second, Nick. Let me jump in real quick.
I'll put a pin in it. No, real quick.
Now, that argument would hold water if you're talking about what took place closer to post-slavery.
Because once we start looking at the data and the information, and you start seeing how the crime rate was nowhere near where it is now.
Nowhere near where it was now, if you look at post-slavery up until the 60s.
It wasn't until the welfare state came in where you started seeing the crime rate and the fatherless home rate become an issue.
Because you saw Black people climbing out of poverty, working hard, families intact.
Once again, if we want to honestly address these issues, we have to look at the state of the Black population prior to the welfare state and the state of the Black population since then.
And you'll see the numbers, the crime rate, the fatherless home rate, you will see dramatic differences.
Dramatic. Go ahead, man.
I was just going to say that you brought that up.
How much of this contempt and anger and hatred and all these emotions that get...
I like to say it's an opiate for the masses that we're seeing today, this contempt and hatred and everything else.
How much of that is just socially engineered, so to speak?
Remember when we were talking on the phone and I brought up Roots?
And you told me as a young boy, when you saw Roots, it really made you angry.
It made you angry.
You said you were really mad when you saw Roots.
Oh, I was pissed. I was eight years old and I was pissed at white people.
Period. Now, let me qualify that a little bit.
I did deal with a lot of racism growing up.
No question. Growing up in the 70s, I was born and raised in New Jersey.
I dealt with racism on a pretty consistent level.
It wasn't uncommon for me to be walking down the street and for someone to yell, nigger, go home!
It wasn't uncommon for me to hear that.
It wasn't uncommon for a police officer to stop me being the only black family in this country.
Vastly, predominantly white neighborhood for a cop to stop me and ask me, what am I doing in this town?
And I need to get my blanking A out of here and go back to where I came from.
So that wasn't uncommon at all.
I'm not justifying my anger, but when you see...
That was the 70s, you said?
The 70s. This is 77, 78, all the way up to 81, when I really was dealing with racism on a pretty routine basis.
Now that's enough to get angry about it, my humble opinion.
Right, right. Absolutely. I got no problem with that.
So when Roots comes out and you see them talking about these, and I'm a kid, I don't know any difference.
I wasn't doing any critical thinking whatsoever.
I was reading, the most critical thinking I was doing was, can Iron Man beat Thor in a fight?
That was about as critical as the thinking that was going on in my head.
Which Thor would clearly kick his butt.
I know that.
Anyway, but you see this story.
So you assume, especially as a young man, that why would they put out something that wasn't factual?
But then as time goes on, you start realizing that Alex Haley's account was basically, and he admitted it, that it was really just something, almost like a mythology for black people.
But at that time, with everything that I was dealing with, not far removed from the Civil Rights Movement, when you really look at it, number of years, 14 years, 15, 20 years tops, removed from the Civil Rights Movement, when I saw that, I had something, I latched onto it, and it coupled that with all the crap that I was dealing with at the time.
So I can understand that, but the big picture, and I think this is where you're kind of going, Nick, It was the fact that this information was put out there, and they knew that there was going to be a reaction.
It's just it was false information, you know?
Exactly. What's the goal here, right?
It didn't unify people.
Agitating. Agitating, man.
And there's a purpose behind it.
You agitate enough, you keep black people angry enough, and then you motivate us and you keep telling us that.
I often like to joke and say that when you're born in the black community, you're given a birth certificate and you're also given your Democratic Voters card.
That's just how it goes.
By Joe Biden, personally.
Right, because if you don't vote for him, we all know that we ain't black.
We know that. Well, I was actually...
You're indoctrinated to believe that.
I was black until about three days ago when I rejected Joe Biden.
And it just... Not only...
I got the blue eyes. I got the whole thing, man.
It's... I can't go outside anymore when it's sunny.
It's just horrifying. Right.
And this is the thing, too, that's really, really frustrated me.
The lack of care and concern, like genuine care and concern for the black community in America, as Jesse Lee Peterson points out, like the black community is like the canary in the coal mine.
Like what they did to the black community, they're now doing to the white community, they'll do to the East Asian community, and they'll just mow through, rip up the families, make everyone dependent on the state, vote for bigger and bigger government, more and more socialism and so on.
You know, I think if people had looked at what the welfare state in particular was doing to the black community and had said, oof, you know, we've really got to have some tough conversations about this because this is really going badly, as you know.
Like, the welfare state literally pays women to have children and not have a father around.
Like, if there's a father in the household, you don't get the welfare.
And it really is a trap.
Like, I was reading this... Data, you've got to make like $70,000 or more a year if you're a single woman with two kids just to break even with what you get for the welfare state.
So you're paying women to have children with the least responsible men.
Who then can't be in the household.
And you say, oh, well, maybe the black kids are sort of more susceptible to father absence.
But then you look at how that tracks in the white community and other communities.
It's like it's just boys need dads.
Boys need dads. It shouldn't need to be said after 100,000 years of evolution or whatever.
But boys need dads. And if we cared more about the black community and had said, you know, this is really going badly.
Let's see what we can do to change things.
Then we wouldn't have had this now, what is it, 60, 70 years of a snowball effect where you've got two or three or four generations of people.
They haven't ever seen anyone have a job.
They don't have... I mean, just think about it, right?
I mean, you want to go for a job.
When I first went for my job, like 12 years old or whatever, and I got a job in a bookstore, you know, I go to my mom and say, hey, you know, how do you apply for a job?
You know, and what do I do if there's problems at work?
And you get all this advice. If that's all gone from the family...
Then you can't, it's really, really hard to enter into regular old straight working class society if you've been outside of three generations and you've got that whole changing culture.
And I just think if people had stepped up and said, this is really toxic for the black community.
And like, I mean, it's like winning the lottery.
So I mean, welfare is like winning the lottery throughout history.
I mean, and we know what happens to people who win the lottery.
It's really terrible for them as a whole, right?
If we'd stepped in, then we could have helped.
But I think it's the old problem.
It's a lack of love. It's a lack of love for your fellow man.
It's a lack of love to say, this is really destructive.
Let's have a constructive conversation about changing things for the better.
But instead, we're just like, oh, well, you know, there's just all these problems and violence.
And I guess they just don't like having families together.
And then the tidal wave grows.
And now it looks like it could even take down the republic.
Sorry, long speech. I've talked with Eric about these policies like affirmative action.
I've told Eric, I think affirmative action destroys the human soul because you have to be able to feel good about yourself and have pride and know that I earned it.
I earned this. I worked hard.
But with affirmative action, they plant that seed of doubt back in the mind.
Did I really earn this?
Did I really get this because I put in the effort?
And if somebody can't honestly look in the mirror and know that they earned it...
I think that just eats away at somebody.
And these policies are destructive.
I joked with Eric on the phone the other day.
I said, you know, it's funny because I feel like if you were to take like a Klan's member and sit him down and say, we need you to come up with social policies for the black community, this is what they would design.
They go, okay, well, obviously the...
Obviously, the black community, they're not going to be able to test as high on their SAT, so we'll give them 20 extra points.
They're not going to be able to get into colleges, so we'll slot them in, and we'll force these companies to hire them because we all know that they're not desirable, right?
So we're going to mandate it.
And, I mean, go down the list of these policies that everyone thinks are great, and they're not.
They're completely destructive and insulting to what I think...
I mean, obviously, this would be Eric's territory, but if I was on that receiving end of it, I would perceive that as to be absolutely a slap in the face.
I think a lot of that depends on your perspective, because...
I'm not a fan of affirmative action, but I know there are a lot of people, a lot of Black folks, clearly, that believe that we haven't come far enough away from the legacy of slavery, as Stefan was mentioning earlier, to point to where we get a fair shake in the Black community.
So their argument will be that we're still at a point where we need to be offered a boost because of institutional racism and implicit bias and all these other terms that they left thrown out.
But let me back up a little bit on this issue.
Because I remember seeing a documentary.
I recently saw a documentary that was actually from the 80s.
I think it was 81 or 82.
And it was talking about the welfare state in, I think it was like in New York, New Jersey or somewhere around New York.
And they showed these young black single moms, teenagers, early 20s, who were on welfare and their mom had been on welfare.
And you see these generations that Stefan was mentioning just a few minutes ago.
But I remember distinctly, one of the young ladies said...
I almost hate the fact that I get this because it makes me lazy.
That's what she said. And this is dang near 40 years ago when she made this statement.
Because she understood that she knows that she's getting this check every month.
But at the same time, it keeps her from wanting to move up and move ahead and do better for herself.
Because when it's all said and done, all she has to do is go down and pick up her check at the end of the month or the first of the month.
So I think that there's some people who actually meant well when it came down to welfare.
I think there's some. But I also think that nowadays, I think there's a little more...
Some of the plots and plans might be a little more sinister.
They want to keep people down.
I think there's some people, and I don't know what the percentage is, but I think there's some that understand that this will keep people down.
And then on top of it, they know that it looks good to a lot of people.
Oh, they're helping out underprivileged people, not just black people, but people are struggling.
It helps them out. And I think welfare is good and helpful.
There was a time in my life where me and my family, where we were on it when we were struggling.
There was a time in my life where I had to get help.
It was helpful. I had too much pride to go down there.
I sent my wife at the time, I sent her down there to go get it.
I was like, I'm not going to go down there and get it.
I had too much of an ego.
But I knew it was helpful to people.
When I first had to leave the police force because I got Crohn's disease and I was really sick, I was the breadwinner.
I made the money. We were in a bad position.
Boy, when we went in there, everyone looked at me like, what are you doing here?
Hey, you do what you got to do, but it got us on our feet.
I think that people do care about the unfortunate, of course, or the people who are down on the luck.
We know that because people like welfare and they vote for it and so on.
You know, Eric, you were at a church today.
I think churches do fantastic.
When it comes to welfare, I think private charities do fantastically when it comes to welfare because, man, you guys know this as cops.
Helping people is really, really, really complicated because sometimes you give them that leg up and they're like, hey man, great, I'm getting on with my life.
Other times, they just start manipulating you and taking stuff and you weaken them.
You need that one-on-one time.
You need that personal connection.
You know, a check from a government office can never differentiate between people who are actively using it to get on with their lives and people who were just sinking into it because of whatever manipulative dysfunction is going on in their brain.
Charities care about that stuff and they'll sit down with people as opposed to just firing checks to get votes.
Let me give you, for instance, when I was on patrol, I was fresh out of Field training, or I was finishing up field training, I was on a call.
Walking down one of the main streets in Las Vegas was this huge black lady, and she had basically a newspaper wrapped around her, pushing the shopping cart, butt hanging all out, breasts hanging all out.
She's walking down the street.
So we're getting calls for service, people saying there's a half-naked black lady walking down the street.
So my luck, I get assigned to that call.
So I'm assigned to the call.
I got my former field training officer with me.
We're talking to her.
She's down on her luck.
She tells us everything that's been happening to her.
So what do we do?
We go to the local Target, buy her some clothes, big enough clothes to fit her.
Come back. We actually get her some groceries.
Bring it back. And then she's all happy.
I'm like, you know what? We did a good thing.
Fast forward a few years later.
That's all she does.
She goes around town And I had one-on-one conversations with her.
She hates white people.
Can't stand them. This is her and I talking one-on-one.
She really let me know what she felt.
But then when she's around white cops who are willing to reach in their pocket and buy her stuff...
Oh, baby. Hey, sweetheart.
Thank you. All this kind of stuff.
And I said, you know what?
I started telling everybody, man, don't let that woman play you.
She's manipulating everyone.
She's a prime example of what we were just talking about is someone who manipulates the system and she uses it to her advantage.
She has no desire to improve her situation because she knows that there are people who are willing to reach in their pocket and to help her out.
I just wanted to mention, Eric, sorry Nick, that's the least satisfying story I've ever heard about a woman taking off her clothes for months.
It's really tragic for me.
Oh, trust me, I got a few more, I can tell you.
Well, it's Vegas, right?
It's Vegas. Sorry Nick, you wanted to say?
You can find all kinds of investigative reports, right, where they've followed the panhandlers and they get in a brand new car.
There's people mad, like, I pass you every day, coming back from work and giving you money.
It's very common, but didn't Finland just have a failed experiment with universal basics?
No, that's a whole other topic.
No, I remember once being out front of my McDonald's.
This woman was being harassed by...
She was in a wheelchair. She was being harassed by this big guy.
And I kind of chased him off and bought her some McDonald's and all that.
And then she just started catching me for money.
Just like, hey, can you get me more?
Can you get me more? And it's like, you know, I did just buy you dinner, saved you from this guy who was harassing you.
But then it just turned into this kind of emotionally manipulative shakedown for cash.
And it's like, it's tough.
Helping people is really, really...
It's like morphine. Yeah, it's great when you really need it, but a lot of people get addicted and charities kind of like that.
And the government just, it's too big, it's too bulky, it's too impersonal to actually help people.
Because, you know, a lot of times, yeah, people need a little bit of money, but they need some love.
They need some support.
They need some compassion. They need someone to listen to them.
They might need some mental health services and all of that.
I want a charity that...
I want to see them competing with other charities about the best way to help people as opposed to just, you know, hey man, here's the cash.
Can I get a vote? And that is really terrible.
Okay, let's make sure that we get across everything that, because, you know, the conversation is great, but it's like whitewater laughing at this point, right?
We're all over the place. Yeah, look, I mean, of course there are bad cops.
There's bad everyone. And it is tough to fire cops, and that can be a problem.
But what is it that you want to get across to people that the media is just not, you know, you guys should be on CNN. You should be making these cases in an even bigger venue than this, right?
So what is it that you want to get across to people that is not part of their thinking at the moment about I want to tell people, if I can implore people out there, regardless of your race, but if I had to pinpoint it down as far as ethnicity, Black folks, do not run from the police.
All the research I've been doing, I've been going through 2020, 2019, I can't give you the exact percentage because I haven't figured that out yet, but time and time again, you see Black men resisting the police and ending up dead.
Am I saying that the resisting means you should die?
No. But let's go do a little quick rewind back in history.
Freddie Gray, Stephen Clark, Eric Garner, Michael Brown, Who do I leave out?
Even George Floyd, Rayshard Brooks, they all resisted.
When you resist, you increase the likelihood that anything can happen.
You increase the likelihood that that officer may fear for his or her safety, and it may escalate to the point to where they feel justified or they feel the need to use deadly force.
First of all, stop committing a crime.
But if you choose to commit a crime and you get caught, suck it up.
Be a man about it. Because if you take off running, you're putting your life in someone else's hands.
That is the biggest takeaway, the biggest thing that I'd like to leave in this entire conversation.
Stop running, stop resisting.
And if you think you're being treated unfairly, take it to court.
Yeah, street lawyering never ends well.
Never. Internal affairs, as a lot of people don't think that internal affairs means anything.
But no cop wants to go to internal affairs.
None. And I've seen cops get terminated.
I've seen cops go to jail.
I've seen cops end up in prison for doing wrong.
It happens. We just don't hear about it.
Yeah, there's this perception out there that That police aren't held accountable.
No, there's an entire department dedicated to doing nothing but researching police, police misconduct, corruption, complaints against police.
So it goes somewhere.
And like Eric said, no officer likes it when you find out, oh, hey, there's been an IA investigation opened on you.
You're like, oh, great. Here we go again.
But... We've all been there.
I guess my takeaway would be do your research.
The data is there.
The numbers are there.
Don't listen to what somebody tells you.
Read the source material.
Right. All right?
Don't listen to someone's interpretation.
Look at the source material.
Because there's been multiple university studies come out that says, actually, the police don't have an inherent bias in shootings.
The police aren't doing this, aren't doing that.
And every time that happens, out come the activists and the media fighting back going, we don't like what that study says because it doesn't take account of the disparaging numbers between this and that.
But yet they themselves are leaving a complete...
Like, all of the data, they're emitting all of the supporting data as far as what Eric pointed out with rates of crime, demographics, victim comparison with the crime, the victim reports, all that matters.
So I would just say, you guys need, if you really care about this, then what matters?
Is it the narrative? Or do you care about the truth?
If you really honestly care about the truth, Then it's there.
Read the data and push the truth.
The narrative, at the end of the day, that's not going to save you.
And it's mindset and perception, right?
Because when I was coming up, it used to be if an old guy drove this nice car down the road, it would be something where my dad or a mentor, they'd say, hey, you see that?
Mr. Jones there, he's got a real nice car, huh?
Yeah, if you work hard, Like he did.
You too can have nice things like him.
You can have a nice car. But now we're living in this over, like, more prevalent society mentality of that person must have screwed somebody over.
He didn't work hard to get what he got.
You are suffering because he took away opportunities from you and everyone else, and he's benefited from it.
So that mentality really needs to be put on ice.
But... And be good to your kids and keep them away from toxic influences.
And if you're a dad out there and you haven't seen your kids for a while, you know, like, don't be like George Floyd who died and his first round of kids didn't even recognize him on TV because they didn't know who he was.
Like, don't be that guy.
Call your kids. Stay in touch with your kids.
It can do a lot to help.
So, Eric, you'd mentioned that you've got places people can find you on the Internet.
Let's make sure that people get a hold of you.
I'll put the links below. But for those just listening, how can people find what you do on the Internet?
I appreciate that, Stefan.
The main place where I do most of my work where I deal with these issues head-on is my YouTube channel, Code Red, Code Red Conversations.
Code Red Conversations.
You can find me on YouTube, Facebook, Instagram.
Those are the primary places where I hang out and I engage people on these topics.
And Nick, you're at DialN911 on Twitter.
Anything else? Yeah, you can find me on YouTube.
There is a channel up. I don't have content uploaded yet.
It's in the works, but you can find me and subscribe to there.
Oh, and you know what? I just want to point this out because I think it's important.
Eric would probably agree. To all the parents out there, stop using police as a scare tactic.
Don't tell us we're going to show up and arrest you if they take something or if they don't listen to you.
I've had too many calls where parents told their kids, if you don't listen to what I say, the police are going to come and arrest you and take you to jail.
Don't do that. That's a mom tactic, right?
I don't imagine dads do that a whole lot, but that's a bit of a mom tactic.
Yeah, definitely. No, cops are not bungee dads.
They don't just come in and make up for the fact that there's been no dad around for 15 years.
Don't use them as social workers and so on.
Absolutely. Guys, really, really appreciate the chat today.
Let's do what we can to bring some balance to this conversation.
I really, really do appreciate your time today and I'll make sure that people check out your links below.
I hope we can do it again and thanks again so much.
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