September 8, 2025 • 41 mins
Okay, with all this talk about deploying troops in our cities, especially DC, it's very clear to me that that “crime” is just a means to remove black, brown, poor and unhoused people from your city. Because if you really cared about crime, there are proven interventions that actually work to reduce crime… and it happens to be Black mayors puttin' in the work.
Sources:
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10567-025-00534-6#Sec9
https://genius.com/Freeway-what-we-do-lyrics
https://www.baltimorepolice.org/about/baltimore-police-crime-plan
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/aug/16/baltimore-violent-crime-trump
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
As media, what's up, Y'all's your favorite cousin again?
Speaker 2 (00:09):
Prop is in the building?
Speaker 1 (00:10):
Yeah, I'm saying, well in y earbuds or speakers, however
the hell you listen to this, your favorite cousin is here.
I am going to assume that that is the truth,
and since you can't answer me, we just gonna go
with that. It's been a while since I tapped in
with y'all ruined your music festivals and then told you
about your municipalities and your waters. Somebody reached out to us,
(00:35):
who you know, gestures wildly. We have not been able
to get back to her, but about how she was
a part of an effort to non privatize the water
inside of her neighborhood and district and they won.
Speaker 2 (00:47):
So shout out to you.
Speaker 1 (00:48):
We apologize if you've You know, our job has not
been boring.
Speaker 2 (00:53):
Since the start of twenty twenty five.
Speaker 1 (00:56):
But today I'm gonna bring you some blackness, some genuine blackness,
and then some This has to be a black conversation.
Speaker 2 (01:03):
Because you, matter of fact as are racist.
Speaker 1 (01:08):
I have to approach it like this because crime has
become a color mute term in the era of Trump.
It kind of always has been, but it's really obvious
now with the National Guard being unleashed onto the streets
(01:29):
of Washington, d C. There's this some sort of clearly
obvious conflation between the houseless population, poverty, crime black folks. Like,
it's all kind of like one thing with this food,
which is not rocket science for y'all, it's just you
know what he talking about. You know how I know
this how he thinks is because whenever he talks about
(01:51):
black people supporting him, he talks about criminal reform, because
apparently that's what all black.
Speaker 2 (01:57):
People care about.
Speaker 1 (01:58):
Only just like you know, when he's say immigration, he
mean Latino And the whole not feeling safe is just
because you know, the crime that the houseless population of
DC have is being ill. That's the crime, because they
No one has ever given me a legitimate reason as
to why not having a place to stay as a crime. Hell,
(02:18):
you know, Margaret Kill joined him have this whole joint
about loitering and loitering laws like truancies. Why I'm getting
ahead of myself. The point is the crime is that
you exist. So today I want to talk to y'all
about something that y'all already know.
Speaker 2 (02:37):
Which is it's never been about the crime. All right.
Speaker 1 (02:41):
Now, first of all, some stuff that don't matter. Y'all
still following Drake. I don't know if y'all like, Okay,
my crowd is following Drake. Let me stop making a
difference between us.
Speaker 2 (02:50):
But listen.
Speaker 1 (02:51):
So you know Drake suing UMG and his label over,
you know, not like us, and just proven that he's
not like us anyway. The new thing in this man's
lawsuit he is he's demanding UMG bring evidence over to
push the teeth thing.
Speaker 2 (03:07):
What do I mean by to push the teeth thing?
When Push the T came.
Speaker 1 (03:10):
At him, which we can all agree if you in
the rap, he won also shout out the clips. So
when you go back to the Push the Teeth time,
this is the back to back and I'm charged up
that time he was like, Yo, I'm gonna show y'all
the emails, and y'all bring in the emails from when
you guys were suppressing Push the T's stuff, when you
(03:31):
guys were like making sure that like it got copyright
claimed and stuff getting off the streamers and pulled down
all the say, man, you helped me suppress this man's music.
When Push the te came after me. Why y'all don't
do it with not like us.
Speaker 2 (03:47):
Which means your corny ass you just told on yourself.
Oh so push it was right.
Speaker 1 (03:55):
So what you're saying is and you trying to take
down Kendrick unsnitched on twenty eighteen, you right, okay, so
because you had to label interfere with this battle fam. Now,
if you want to hear some more like real just
rapping ass rappers, there's this great battle that was going
on between Joey Badass and Ray Vaughn and then somehow
(04:17):
it became a triple with this dude named Daylight and
this other brother named Reason. These were some really really
dope bars. Now Absol got into the middle of it.
But now Apsol, Rhapsody, and Joey are going on tour,
which sucks because I'm on the same management team as
all of them, and I ain't on that tour.
Speaker 2 (04:38):
I wish I was, though it'd.
Speaker 1 (04:39):
Be a rap and rapping tour, but I definitely don't
do the numbers they do anyway. Today, you know, in
light of like I said, the Feds in DC, Trump
keep claiming these emergency cases that gives him these powers
to do these different things. And as a side note,
remember when Jay six happened and he was like, well,
(05:00):
Nancy Pelosi should have called in the National Guard. Shan't
call in the passion of guard? What was President Trump's
supposed to do? Well, I would think what he's doing now,
because they used to say these same people that was
arguing that Trump ain't had a power to stop it,
meaning he didn't have the power to call in the
National Guard, are also praising him right now for using
(05:22):
his presidential power to call in the National Guard. Boy,
I tell you, racism make you dumb as hell. But
in light of this, despite all evidence showing that the
crime rate has dropped thirty percent in DC, this man
still keeps talking about the crime wave and the safety
(05:43):
or the lack of safety that people feel in DC. Now,
I'm gonna let Bridget do a full episode on really
what's going on in Chocolate City? My mama from DC.
You know, my whole mama side of the family still
out there. So I used to spend every other summer
in DC. Now, don't give me it wrong. Being down
thirty percent is absolutely positive, But DC ain't safe now.
(06:09):
It depends on what parts you in see, that's the
thing about crime statistics. But before I get into crime statistics,
I need to talk about the concept of crime.
Speaker 2 (06:16):
Period.
Speaker 1 (06:17):
This will be no surprise to y'all because you listen
to cool Zone media.
Speaker 2 (06:22):
Crime is made up.
Speaker 1 (06:24):
Now, criminal crime, I think it's very important to understand
that it is a social construct.
Speaker 2 (06:34):
Now what do I mean by that?
Speaker 1 (06:37):
What I mean is it's situational, right, How the same
act can mean two different things. Now, this is a
conceptual thing that obviously our felt experience is a little
more real.
Speaker 2 (06:50):
But let me give you an example.
Speaker 1 (06:52):
Let a disaster hit, a hurricane, an earthquake, a flood.
If I go into that grocery store and get some bread,
am I looting or scavenging? Am I stealing or surviving?
And the answer is depends on what color you are.
Crime is a social construct. Because if that's the case,
(07:12):
how is George Zimmerman still walking? Having said that, one
could take this argument and go super bonkers on it
and say the same thing about pedophilia, Like, who's to
say that what Epstein did is a crime? Because, like
you said, crime is a social construct. Here's my answer
to that. It's social because we live in a social
(07:33):
soci it t fam. Although borders are made up, so
is money, and so are driver's licenses. Of course, there's
no force field at the forty ninth parallel that separates
Canada from America. However, we have decided that before you
get behind the wheel of a car, you better have
(07:54):
passed some sort of examination for us to know that
you're safe enough to drive behind this You could physically
drive this car, but we live in a society that says, hey, homy,
I need you to make sure.
Speaker 2 (08:06):
We need to have some sort of due diligence.
Speaker 1 (08:11):
We have decided as a species that is self aware
that our children matter.
Speaker 2 (08:17):
Their safety is important to us.
Speaker 1 (08:19):
The person standing next to you has the right to exist.
Whether you like that person or not, they have the
right to exist. You cannot hold them against they will.
That's hey be as corpus, apparently unbeknownst to Christy Nole,
who clearly don't.
Speaker 2 (08:35):
Know what hate be as corpus means.
Speaker 1 (08:36):
As a whole other topic, what is criminal and what
is lawful is something that we've agreed upon in our
social contract. Now, we, however, live in a modern secular
democracy which says that we have a say in what
becomes laws or not so and got to just lay
down and let you just cause stuff a crime that
ain't a crime or that shouldn't be a crime. Now,
(08:58):
speaking of what is and is an crime, here's the
thing Black people have been telling you the answer for
a long time, specifically rappers. Okay, Now, I saw a
TikTok about this, and it's very irresponsible of me that
I can't remember love Hommy's name and I can't you know,
you get the suggested, you know, or yeah, just stuff
(09:20):
pop in like before you. I cannot find Brad Brushs
TikTok black Man, super brilliant, but he reminded me of
some lyrics that Freeway said that captures the point of
what we're trying to make. I love his dude's TikTok man, God,
I gotta find it. Hopefully, I'll hopefully I'll find it
and put it in the show notes. But Freeway's verse
(09:43):
with a song with jay Z says, we still hustle
to the sun come up, crack a forty when the
sun go down. It's a cold winter, y'all, niggas better
bundle up. I bet it's a hot summer. Grab an
onion just to rock it down, you hot, Now listen up,
follow me. You don't know the cops soul purposes to
lock us down. Throw away to key. But without this
(10:06):
drug shit, your kids ain't got no way to eat.
Speaker 2 (10:10):
Huh.
Speaker 1 (10:11):
We still trying to keep mom smiling because when her
teeth stops showing and her stomach start growling, then the
heat start flowing. If you from my hood, you know
you feel me keep going, the sneaks start leaning and
the heat stop working, then my heat start working, I'm
(10:32):
gonna rob me a person.
Speaker 2 (10:33):
Okay, now listen.
Speaker 1 (10:35):
These are the lyrics that Lil Bra quoted in his TikTok,
and the point he's making, which is the same point
I'm making, is that he's talking about the solutions to crime.
Like he said it right there, like I just want
my mom to smile. My kids don't have any other
(10:55):
way to eat. And then he says, when the heat
stop working, then my heat start working, I'm gonna rob
me a person.
Speaker 2 (11:03):
It is resources.
Speaker 1 (11:06):
But again, follow what this brood trying to tell you
is that you putting law enforcement in our neighborhoods doesn't
fix anything?
Speaker 2 (11:18):
Does you?
Speaker 1 (11:19):
Does what we're saying, He's like, no, you just want
to lock us up. That is not solving the problem.
The problem is I'm hungry, My mama's hungry, my kids
are hungry. My sneaks start leaning. What he's talking about
is his tennis shoes as sneakers, they're leaning. You know,
when you walk on your sneakers too much in the
back of your shoes in the back house start running
(11:40):
around the side. Then it starts thinning out, so it's
like the back of your shoe just looks uneven. That's
when your sneaks are leaning. This is what he's trying
to say. My stomach is rumbling. Had we had better
funded schools, had we had more opportunities, he was like,
I'm robbing this person because there is no other OPA. Now,
(12:01):
are there other options? Maybe, But if you're gonna do
the math, listen, this is simple economics. If you want
to make one thousand dollars tonight because the rents do tomorrow,
you go over to Spanish Jose's house. Spanish Jose say, hey, listen,
you ain't got to do nothing. Just put this bag
(12:21):
in your backseat and drive the park slope, drop it
off a comeback, or you can go.
Speaker 2 (12:27):
Work twenty dollars an hour at McDonald's.
Speaker 1 (12:30):
Ain't no uncles with endowments, and check this out exactly.
Let me push you even further, even if you are
smarty awt Now, even if you're a smart one. The
government just told Harvard that they can't recruit in my neighborhood,
even if I got the grades for it, because that's
woke shit.
Speaker 2 (12:47):
So what you want? What the fuck you want me
to do?
Speaker 1 (12:50):
Now here's the premise of what I'm talking about, which is,
we know the solutions. It's never been about crime, okay,
but let me talk about out some folks, some black
folks who do care about the solution, who do care
about crime. Because if we're talking about crime in our
urban areas, who the fuck do you think the crimes
(13:11):
are against? And see, that's the part that makes me
so mad. When I be talking to these people. You
think we don't care because who are these crimes getting
carried out against.
Speaker 2 (13:21):
You think we happy to see all them police.
Speaker 1 (13:23):
One would think, if it worked, we would be happy
to see all these police in our streets.
Speaker 2 (13:28):
But you know what, the shit don't help. Okay.
Speaker 1 (13:32):
What I'm gonna do in the rest of the show
is prove to y'all, based on decades of research, what
does reduce crime.
Speaker 2 (13:42):
We're gonna link all the things in the bio.
Speaker 1 (13:44):
I knew I had to come my a game if
I'm going on the cappen here, because these some of
the smartest people like y'all. Listen, the people on this show, y'all,
y'all is like real journalists. I'm just a rapper that
knows how to explain shit. So I needed to make
sure that i have my ducks in a row. So
I'm about to show y'all a trillion examples of where
(14:06):
if you really from these blocks, if you really do
care about the welfare of black people, then maybe you
should listen to black people see and let me bring
in my trans community here because they problem with you this.
To be honest with y'all, I'm gonna be transparent, which
this is part of what radicalized me whilst really started
to understand the trans experience is because the shit they
(14:30):
say about us is the shit they say about you.
Your crime is we just don't like you around. At
the end of the day, all these laws against trans
people is really just because you just think they gross
And so with us, it was just like you, like,
what is redlining, discriminatory practices in jobs? You just don't
(14:51):
want us around. What is white flight, you just don't
want us around. And your justification of this is this
made up ass word name crime and that you care
that crime at But Nikki, you don't. Okay, I'm getting
getting ahead of myself. Let's take a break. All right,
(15:17):
here we go. I've calmed down. So the first thing
you want to think about is how crime is reported,
right in the ways for which it's reported, and then
the geographical locations that we're talking about. So when you
say the crime in Washington, DC, it's not like the
crime happens in an evenly distributed thing, Like it's not
(15:40):
all of DC, if you will, there's northeast, Northwest, Southeast,
south southeast, and southwest. Now due to gentrification, southeast which
is where Anacostia is and was at one time the
sort of mecha of just like Black DC of chocolate Cy,
Chocola Cy. The whole city was chocolate forever. Like I said,
(16:02):
I noticed because I spent every other summer there and
my mama from there. But like Southeast DC is the
last non gentrified area. Now do you think it's thugs
sitting on the National Monument sipping forty ounces.
Speaker 2 (16:16):
No you out there with the tourists sipping macha.
Speaker 1 (16:20):
So in one sense is when you say crime has
dropped thirty percent, it's like thirty percent since when?
Speaker 2 (16:31):
Okay?
Speaker 1 (16:32):
And is it averaged across all of DC or are
you talking about in its areas where things like carjackings,
homicides and stuff like that happened right now? Remember what
I talked about a long time ago, at least on
my show. Hopefully y'all remember this that the crime rates
in America is always a weird situation because we don't
(16:56):
live in America. You live in your city, so maybe
is going crazy in your own local neighborhoods, so you
feel like, damn, this place is wild. Or maybe, like
I said, maybe you're in like Northwest Portland, you know
what I'm saying. Like you know, over there off Gleason,
you feel me in like it's nice, you know what
I mean? Like you don't never see a single But
if you live over there in Chinatown next to Voodoo Donuts, Dog,
(17:19):
you seem like you walking over zombies.
Speaker 2 (17:21):
I don't know.
Speaker 1 (17:22):
What I'm trying to say is sometimes the statistics can
be deceiving. Now Granny and them who you know, bought
their house a long time ago. They see the graffiti
on the wall and they think, you know, YadA YadA,
the boys like loitering outside. How do you fix it? Well,
allow me to introduce it to Philadelphia, which coincidentally is
(17:46):
where Freeway is from.
Speaker 2 (17:48):
So the data is pretty clear. You know.
Speaker 1 (17:50):
If you look at the Violent Crime Reduction Report, it's
literally it's at the Department of Justice.
Speaker 2 (17:57):
You can read it yourself.
Speaker 1 (17:59):
It tells you exactly what has worked to drop homicide,
violent crime, carjacking, theft. It tells you what has worked,
what has not worked. A simple google right, and the
intro of this is this is a violent crime reduction
between twenty twenty one and twenty twenty five, and it
(18:21):
says for the past three years, the Justice Department has
been executing comprehensive strategies to reduce violent crime rooted in
local communities, and we're seeing trends in the form of
crimes being prevented in live saved. According to available data
from twenty twenty three, murder, rape, robbery, and aggregated assault
(18:44):
is in a considerable decline and nearly ninety major cities
across the country. Violent crime has continued to drop during
the last six months of this year compared to the
same period last year, including a seventeen percent decrease in homicide.
Speaker 2 (19:00):
This is the Deputy.
Speaker 1 (19:01):
Attorney General Monkyo on September seventeenth, twenty twenty four. Now,
to keep it very real again, violent crime rates being
up and down are obviously relative. Now, one thing was, well,
we were in a pandemic, so there's that, right. Another
thing is it's almost like how everybody was complaining again
(19:25):
that crime was up.
Speaker 2 (19:26):
It's like y'all forgot the nineties existed.
Speaker 1 (19:29):
Like I lived it, and baby, this ain't nothing, you know,
the actual fear of pain and suffering.
Speaker 2 (19:42):
This pales in comparison.
Speaker 1 (19:43):
We live in a great place in relation to what
we went through in the eighties and nineties. Now again
we're talking national trends right again. In your local neighborhood,
it may be it may be a green light apvening.
Speaker 2 (19:59):
I don't know.
Speaker 1 (19:59):
I'm just saying for you to say that our country's
becoming a cess.
Speaker 2 (20:04):
Pool means you not reading the data.
Speaker 1 (20:07):
According to the Conversation, it's like independent journalist this author.
Speaker 2 (20:11):
Her name is Katerina g Roman.
Speaker 1 (20:14):
She's a professor of criminal justice at Temple University and
as a side note, at Temple University, Mahomie Timothy, he's
teaching a class on Kendrick.
Speaker 2 (20:23):
Lamar and his lyrics and hip hop and justice.
Speaker 1 (20:25):
I actually spoke at his class a couple of times,
so that was pretty dope to hear what he's doing.
Speaker 2 (20:29):
But now check this out.
Speaker 1 (20:31):
According to her writing, it says that the Pennsylvania spends
roughly two hundred thousand dollars a year for each juvenile
it incarcerates. According to the twenty twenty one report from
a bipartisan Pennsylvania Juvenile Justice Track Force, that's fifty times
the cost to deliver evidence based family therapy that would
(20:53):
prevent kids from going into the justice system in the
first place. I'm gonna tell you before I even read
the rest of this, because I lived it. We just
be bored. It ain't nothing to do. There are no opportunities.
When the heat stopped working, then my heat start working.
In Philadelphia, juvenile incarceration involves the confinement in city ran
(21:13):
Philadelphia Juvenile Services and other residential placements facilities young people
leave these facilities with lower chances of graduating high school,
freight mental health, and the higher likelihood of re arrest
or being shot. Can I again please speak from my
own experience. When you go into these juveniles cases, you
(21:34):
have to pick a location of people that you would
fo protection, even if you don't run with them, even
if you an'll know them niggas outside here, when y'all
get outside, y'all may never have talked again. But in here,
even if you went in there over some stupid like shoplift,
is some damn spray paint, whatever the case may be,
you now got to run with the people that got
your same skin tone and are from your part of town.
(21:56):
You have to kids. Don't go in being members of gangs.
You have to join one to stay alive. Now check
this out. When you get out. Part of the terms
of your probation is you can't be around certain criminal
festivities or activities or people.
Speaker 2 (22:16):
With criminal records. Where you're gonna go.
Speaker 1 (22:20):
If I just happen to live on sixtieth Street next
to my uncle, I just live here. You mess around,
go visit your granny house, and then it got a
report to your PO. You've been fragnized when known gang members.
You're probably going back. This shit don't work, y'all. But
what does now?
Speaker 2 (22:40):
Again?
Speaker 1 (22:40):
Back to this article, drawing from about thirty five years
of work in Philadelphia and other cities to understand what
makes neighborhoods safe for I believe the surest returns home
from prevention strategies aimed at young people who are not
yet immersed in robbery, shootings and gun activities. Right so
they give some examples of the things that they've done.
First of it is a school based case management in
(23:04):
Barthrom High now in southwest Philly, John Bartram High Schools
has a youth violence reduction initiative that launched in twenty
twenty three. It was designed by former school safety chief
in Philadelphia now Philadelphia Police Commissioner Kevin Bethel, School Safety
Offer Programs Manager Ken Rosa, and criminal justice researcher Brandy
(23:26):
Blasco and.
Speaker 2 (23:28):
This person that wrote the article.
Speaker 1 (23:30):
Students who have been involved in fights or show other
risk factors of violence and street gang.
Speaker 2 (23:36):
Involvements are referred to this program.
Speaker 1 (23:38):
The initiative's core idea is simple, earn students trust through consistent,
credible mentorship and step in when needed. Stepping in means
teaching conflict resolution skills, running engaging workshops, buying a meal,
intervening when a fight is brewing or a student is
on the verge of being expelled. Each week, a team
of administrators, counselors, school safety officers, and community outreach workers,
(24:02):
most of whom are based in the school, review the participants, progress,
the tracks, follow through referrals, and coordinate communication with family,
school and staff. This is a tightly managed, relationship driven
safety net that gives students quicker access to help make
(24:23):
school climates calmer and safer.
Speaker 2 (24:25):
This seems so obvious. You just need somebody you trust. Listen.
One of the things even in.
Speaker 1 (24:32):
My own house, my own life was I knew my neighbors,
and my neighbors knew me, and if they call me
outside standing with the wrong people, I knew they was
going to tell Mama. Sometimes, since they're teenagers, they don't
have conflict resolution skills. All they know is to pop off.
(24:52):
You ever been angry? You don't think kids be angry.
Your teacher in there asking you about your algebra homework,
your stomach rumbling. I ain't got shit to say to
her because I'm hungry. And sometimes it's just a meal.
Sometimes it's just knowing somebody cares. Sometimes it's just you
feel like I know. I've experienced it too. I feel
like it's not even they ain't even no reason to
(25:13):
explain my position to you, because you're.
Speaker 2 (25:15):
Not gonna believe me, or you just gonna call the police.
Speaker 1 (25:19):
I taught a kid, I've said this story so many
times who used to show up late in class. When
I used to teach, he show up late in class
maybe three to four times a week, always had his
homework in his hand. You've tarty that many times were
supposed to call a truancy officer. Ain't no way in
the world I'm calling a truancy officer because that means
they mama gonna have to pay a twenty five hundred
(25:39):
dollar fee.
Speaker 2 (25:40):
Number one and number two. Now he got a record.
Speaker 1 (25:43):
All I did, guys, I just asked him, why are
you late every day?
Speaker 2 (25:50):
He say, because he trusts me.
Speaker 1 (25:52):
My daddy'd be drinking too much at night, so he
can't get up and take us to school. So I
take my brother to school first and then come here.
Speaker 2 (26:03):
And this is just the time I get here.
Speaker 1 (26:06):
I never marked him thirty, since all you do is ask, right,
which leads me to the second thing, the power of
credible caring adults.
Speaker 2 (26:16):
It's real simple.
Speaker 1 (26:17):
You got people that care, you got food programs. All right,
let me nerd it up again now. According to the
Youth Justice Services, Relationships, Rehabilitation, and the Reality of Young
People Involved a metasynthesis of qualitative literature. This is a
scholarly literature reviewed results that says that just having an
(26:43):
adult who you know cares, just having one that cared,
changes significantly the chances of a student getting into a
life of crime.
Speaker 2 (26:57):
But just knowing somebody care.
Speaker 1 (27:00):
I'm going to link in it again into these show notes,
all of the data, all the stuff I've been looking at,
so you can check it out yourself. I know it
seems like a gross oversimplification by the way that I'm
just saying it right now. Usually you know what I'm saying.
If we was doing the it can happen here thing.
I got to be able to read this stuff out
to you, but I can read a part of it.
It says that that the themes that broke out after
(27:24):
interviewing one hundred and fifty kids is that young people
reported first being pessimistic about entering these services, and their
past experiences impacted their ability to trust and were initially
cautious of professionals.
Speaker 2 (27:38):
But watch this.
Speaker 1 (27:40):
These were the themes and sub themes they felt valued
and finding worth within their system. The reciprocal nature of
understanding and respect. These kids felt respected, the importance of
having one good person, creating a secure base for exploration
and development, and then showing a genuine care by going
above an beyond.
Speaker 2 (28:00):
So basically, just be kind.
Speaker 1 (28:04):
And it helps a student sixed.
Speaker 2 (28:13):
Ain't that crazy?
Speaker 1 (28:15):
But at the end of the day, homicides at Philadelphia
at the lowest level they've been in twenty five years.
Speaker 2 (28:21):
How it's long time and it takes effort.
Speaker 1 (28:26):
But next, I want to talk about whoa the city
of Baltimore or is new mayor up there cooking?
Speaker 2 (28:33):
All right? Next? All right, we bike now Baltimore.
Speaker 1 (28:48):
I don't know if you notice which I love about it,
and of course you probably don't know about it because.
Speaker 2 (28:54):
A black man did this.
Speaker 1 (28:56):
Baltimore's homicide rate has fallen forty percent. Baltimore, you understand,
this is where the wire took place. Don't get me
wrong about Baltimore. Baltimore active murder capitalal of a dog.
Oh listen, Baltimore was active now. According to the Guardian,
violent crime in America's big cities has been receiving since
(29:18):
the pandemic for about two years. But even in comparisons
baltimore improvement is breathtaking. Fewer people have been killed in
the city over the last seven months than any other
particular period for fifty years.
Speaker 2 (29:31):
Here's the funny part.
Speaker 1 (29:33):
Mississippi talking about sending a National Guard up to DC
to help with the crime in DC. Meanwhile, Jackson, Mississippi,
got a higher murder rate than DC. Right now, y'all, people,
is weird. It's never been about crime now, back to Guardian.
As of fifteen August, the running three hundred and sixty
(29:54):
five day total for murders in Baltimore stood at one
hundred and sixty five dead. Assuming the city remains that pace,
the murder rate will finish below thirty per ten thousand
residents for the first time.
Speaker 2 (30:07):
Since nineteen eighty six.
Speaker 1 (30:10):
If it remains on pace since the first of January,
it would have finished twenty twenty five at one hundred
and forty three murders, a rate of about twenty five
per one hundred thousand, the last scene in Baltimore since
nineteen seventy eight.
Speaker 2 (30:26):
Now check this out.
Speaker 1 (30:27):
Y'all may not remember this, but y'all remember Freddie Gray,
the boy that got killed in the back of the
police holding tank. See, that's what happens when you just
bring cops into a place. It ain't about the crime. Though,
back to the Guardian, since twenty fifteen, there has been
here in Baltimore, this acknowledgment that the equity needs to
(30:48):
be the priority.
Speaker 2 (30:49):
Right.
Speaker 1 (30:50):
Mayor Brown said the riots were as much about the
conditions of poverty as it was about Gray's death. I
hope you hearing that people losing their homes and foreclosures
to water bills, for example, as they were about police brutality.
But the heavy handed response to the cops of the
protests failed to hold the police accountable for misconduct, right,
(31:14):
eviscerating the relationship between the Baltimore police and the public.
Baltimore State Attorney Marion Moseley laid murder charges on the
officers involved, and Baltimore's police union closed ranks and response,
eviscerating the relationship between the police and politicians, and serious
scandals at the City Hall and the state's attorney offers
(31:36):
and the failure of Moseley's charges to result in convictions,
violence skyrocket. But here come this young brother, Brandon Scott,
young black man. Right, he's a former city council member. Right,
he's been a long observer of the violence, you know
what I'm saying. And before he became the mayor in
twenty twenty, then he implemented what he's calling a comprehensive
(32:02):
three pillar approach.
Speaker 2 (32:04):
Right. The first pillar is called public health approach to violence. Right.
Speaker 1 (32:09):
The second pillar is community engagement and interagency coordination.
Speaker 2 (32:13):
Right. The third pillar is evaluation and accountability. Right.
Speaker 1 (32:17):
So, like I said in the beginning, it starts with
the community, all right. So check this out again from
the Guardian. Against Baltimore's police budget topping a half a
billion dollars, the largest police budget per capital of any
large city in the USA. The political establishment gave its
new millennial mayor room to experiment with fifty million dollars
(32:38):
of Washington's money. So they took that budget that was
a half a billion, gave him fifty million.
Speaker 2 (32:45):
Right.
Speaker 1 (32:45):
And since trust was like solo, the first step was
to get everybody aboard. So he took that money the cops,
the hospitals, the jails, the school the social services, the
State Department, the Feds, and he appointed this dude named
Richard Worley, Oh who is the city police Commissioner in
June twenty twenty three. Wesley was a lifelong Baltimore officer,
picked in part to bring the rank and file in
(33:08):
line with Scott's anti violence program. Scott emphasizes partnerships as
an important.
Speaker 2 (33:14):
Part of the process.
Speaker 1 (33:15):
Now, he took other federal grants and he gave the
money to the people that actually do the services. He
ain't just keeping for them. Now here's the thing cuts
my mouth to say it. But if you are going
to stop violence in the situation that we live in,
the cops got to be involved. Because most of the
time the cops are the problem. It's always punishment in
(33:38):
prison with them. They only come with a stick when
something already happened. So you got to get them on
the table, and you got to get them at the
table with somebody that's going to be willing to be
held accountable.
Speaker 2 (33:50):
And remember that's pillar three.
Speaker 1 (33:51):
Now, Now, far being from me, because I don't live
in Baltimore, would I ever shield for no mayor like this.
I'm just telling you what the data say is and
I got family in Baltimore. Now, what Scott said is again,
we focus on the individuals and groups that are most
likely to be the victim or perpetuator of violence.
Speaker 2 (34:11):
We go to them. Listen, they knock on doors.
Speaker 1 (34:15):
There's a social worker that comes to the door with
a letter from the mayor that says, yo, you're trying
to be a part of this, and their only targeting
kids are families that they know got low poverty rates
and high chances of crime. You looking for the people
who are most likely going to fall a victim, to
(34:35):
perpetuating it or receiving it.
Speaker 2 (34:38):
Because remember how we started this whole thing.
Speaker 1 (34:40):
Before you think we don't care about crime, we're the
ones that it's happening too. So he says, quote Curtis Palomero,
who runs the youth violence prevention nonprofit RAKA in Baltimore,
it says, we're talking about young people with the elevated risk.
We're not talking about the young person that says FU
to his teacher or tells his mom and dad are
ground while he don't want to do XYZ. We're talking
(35:01):
about kids who have literally probably have two tracks jail
and death. He knocks on the door while the cop
is carrying met the mayor's letter, and as often as
not he has to knock on a dozen doors before
he gets a chance. Why cause niggas don't trust the cops, right,
Why would they? But since there's no single thing that
(35:23):
is preventative, trust must be built right moving on in
this article, there are two types of people that are
most vulnerable, nasays, the people in their early twenties who
are feuding over trivial matters someone looked at me wrong,
somebody bumped in as somebody right, or other people who
are in the drug game more around. The violence that
has to do with other criminal enterprises are so much
(35:45):
more calculated. Critically, it's not every young person with Instagram
beef and not every stand down neighborhood street dealer that
rises to their attention. The risk factors creates a reasonable, articulatable,
legally defensible basis for contact, which means you're not being
hunted by the cops.
Speaker 2 (36:06):
Do you understand the piece?
Speaker 1 (36:07):
I would have felt it I known that since I
wasn't involved in none of this shit, they may not
be coming up to me. You've already calmed my nervous
system down right. There's another story about a young man
who was recovering after a gunshot and in this Life
coach Nigga from a youth advocate program approached him and
Jalen said, this is This man said, he just han't
(36:29):
been in the wrong part of West Baltimore at the
wrong time. Now, most of us who grew up like this,
that's true. He wasn't especially receptive to this first life
coach at all.
Speaker 2 (36:39):
He said, I thought there was a catch.
Speaker 1 (36:40):
I thought I'd have to pay them back in the future,
because when the police do it to you, that's exactly
what it is.
Speaker 2 (36:46):
You got to pay them back later.
Speaker 1 (36:47):
But this person is funded by the city to just
be a life coach. I ain't asking you to snitch
on nobody. I ain't asking you to make yourself put
yourself in danger. Outside is somebody who under stands what
it's like to live out here. This life coach says,
it's about follow up. Today, they might say get the
fuck out of here. Tomorrow, they might be wanting some services.
(37:10):
It might be something tragic that happens and they need change.
Like I said, my mother's not smiling no more. I
need a way to pay my mama's life bill. Can
you help me with that? Here's what's crazy. Yes, I
can help you with that. We have services. Why because
I'm talking to the other departments. Right on the law side,
(37:30):
here's a prevention. They dismissed thirty four percent of non
violent charges. I was a non violet offender. It was graffiti.
Just make me pay the fine. Like it's fine. I
got pay the fine. I don't care. Right, you have
like a nickel bag of weed in your pocket. You're
(37:51):
looking at five years. The shit is not working. That's
over policing. But if the district attorney look at you
and say, nigga's some weed man, get the fuck out
of here, Go take care of your mama. Matter of fact,
I want you to talk to this brother over here.
You're gonna help get your plumber's license. Oh so there's
job placement. Right.
Speaker 2 (38:08):
There's all that, and then finally evaluation.
Speaker 1 (38:12):
Listen, you got a carrying adult, You got services available
to you. And you know if somebody in this program,
if any of these law enforcement, these city people act
the fuck up, there are consequences. That is Pillar three.
I'm gonna link all this stuff to you. There's a
four year evaluation, and you will get fucking fired. If
(38:33):
I know that if you treat me right, something gonna
happen to you, I might think a little different. Listen,
the heat stopped working, so my heat start working. But
if my stomach is full, and the bills are paid,
and there's after school programs that go to and I
know these old people around me aren't gonna trust me
when I tell them stuff when I'm dealing with situations
(38:56):
that may or may not be out of my control.
When I got big homei'es pressing me to do this,
and there's somebody I could trust that I could talk
to that's not gonna turn me into a snitch. Because
you ain't telling the cops just to get them to
give me information about a crime that happened over there.
That's not what's happening right now. You are trying to
prevent the violence. You're not trying to catch a criminal.
(39:16):
You're trying to prevent criminality, and it's at a fifty
year low. But sure, go ahea and send a national guard.
Speaker 2 (39:25):
Now.
Speaker 1 (39:25):
Listen, obviously this ain't the system. I won't but it's
the system we got.
Speaker 2 (39:31):
This is not ideal.
Speaker 1 (39:33):
You would never see me shill for no police department
or mayor, but cities like Philly in Baltimore are proven. Nigga,
If you just care and you spend money on trusted
sources and provide resources, the crime it drops itself.
Speaker 2 (39:56):
Seems so simple. But you know what do we know?
Speaker 1 (40:00):
We're just black people and all this tells me what
we already knew. It was never about crime, ever, because
there's research that shows what actually works in reducing crime.
What this about? You just think we're you and you're
a white supremacist. You just want a white world and
you think it's cool to have military in our streets.
Speaker 2 (40:21):
Don't get me wrong. You didn't invent that. You was
in Trump.
Speaker 1 (40:25):
You know how I know you ain't invent that because
there's an amendment in the Constitution that says that we
don't want to live in a world where the military
is on every corner.
Speaker 2 (40:38):
But apparently you do. It's clearly not about crime. It
could happen. Here is a production of cool Zone Media.
For more podcasts from cool Zone Media, visit our website
coolzonemedia dot com, or check us out on the iHeartRadio app,
Apple podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts. Find sources
(41:00):
for it could happen here, listed directly in episode descriptions.
Thanks for listening,
As media, what's up, Y'all's your favorite cousin again?
Speaker 2 (00:09):
Prop is in the building?
Speaker 1 (00:10):
Yeah, I'm saying, well in y earbuds or speakers, however
the hell you listen to this, your favorite cousin is here.
I am going to assume that that is the truth,
and since you can't answer me, we just gonna go
with that. It's been a while since I tapped in
with y'all ruined your music festivals and then told you
about your municipalities and your waters. Somebody reached out to us,
(00:35):
who you know, gestures wildly. We have not been able
to get back to her, but about how she was
a part of an effort to non privatize the water
inside of her neighborhood and district and they won.
Speaker 2 (00:47):
So shout out to you.
Speaker 1 (00:48):
We apologize if you've You know, our job has not
been boring.
Speaker 2 (00:53):
Since the start of twenty twenty five.
Speaker 1 (00:56):
But today I'm gonna bring you some blackness, some genuine blackness,
and then some This has to be a black conversation.
Speaker 2 (01:03):
Because you, matter of fact as are racist.
Speaker 1 (01:08):
I have to approach it like this because crime has
become a color mute term in the era of Trump.
It kind of always has been, but it's really obvious
now with the National Guard being unleashed onto the streets
(01:29):
of Washington, d C. There's this some sort of clearly
obvious conflation between the houseless population, poverty, crime black folks. Like,
it's all kind of like one thing with this food,
which is not rocket science for y'all, it's just you
know what he talking about. You know how I know
this how he thinks is because whenever he talks about
(01:51):
black people supporting him, he talks about criminal reform, because
apparently that's what all black.
Speaker 2 (01:57):
People care about.
Speaker 1 (01:58):
Only just like you know, when he's say immigration, he
mean Latino And the whole not feeling safe is just
because you know, the crime that the houseless population of
DC have is being ill. That's the crime, because they
No one has ever given me a legitimate reason as
to why not having a place to stay as a crime. Hell,
(02:18):
you know, Margaret Kill joined him have this whole joint
about loitering and loitering laws like truancies. Why I'm getting
ahead of myself. The point is the crime is that
you exist. So today I want to talk to y'all
about something that y'all already know.
Speaker 2 (02:37):
Which is it's never been about the crime. All right.
Speaker 1 (02:41):
Now, first of all, some stuff that don't matter. Y'all
still following Drake. I don't know if y'all like, Okay,
my crowd is following Drake. Let me stop making a
difference between us.
Speaker 2 (02:50):
But listen.
Speaker 1 (02:51):
So you know Drake suing UMG and his label over,
you know, not like us, and just proven that he's
not like us anyway. The new thing in this man's
lawsuit he is he's demanding UMG bring evidence over to
push the teeth thing.
Speaker 2 (03:07):
What do I mean by to push the teeth thing?
When Push the T came.
Speaker 1 (03:10):
At him, which we can all agree if you in
the rap, he won also shout out the clips. So
when you go back to the Push the Teeth time,
this is the back to back and I'm charged up
that time he was like, Yo, I'm gonna show y'all
the emails, and y'all bring in the emails from when
you guys were suppressing Push the T's stuff, when you
(03:31):
guys were like making sure that like it got copyright
claimed and stuff getting off the streamers and pulled down
all the say, man, you helped me suppress this man's music.
When Push the te came after me. Why y'all don't
do it with not like us.
Speaker 2 (03:47):
Which means your corny ass you just told on yourself.
Oh so push it was right.
Speaker 1 (03:55):
So what you're saying is and you trying to take
down Kendrick unsnitched on twenty eighteen, you right, okay, so
because you had to label interfere with this battle fam. Now,
if you want to hear some more like real just
rapping ass rappers, there's this great battle that was going
on between Joey Badass and Ray Vaughn and then somehow
(04:17):
it became a triple with this dude named Daylight and
this other brother named Reason. These were some really really
dope bars. Now Absol got into the middle of it.
But now Apsol, Rhapsody, and Joey are going on tour,
which sucks because I'm on the same management team as
all of them, and I ain't on that tour.
Speaker 2 (04:38):
I wish I was, though it'd.
Speaker 1 (04:39):
Be a rap and rapping tour, but I definitely don't
do the numbers they do anyway. Today, you know, in
light of like I said, the Feds in DC, Trump
keep claiming these emergency cases that gives him these powers
to do these different things. And as a side note,
remember when Jay six happened and he was like, well,
(05:00):
Nancy Pelosi should have called in the National Guard. Shan't
call in the passion of guard? What was President Trump's
supposed to do? Well, I would think what he's doing now,
because they used to say these same people that was
arguing that Trump ain't had a power to stop it,
meaning he didn't have the power to call in the
National Guard, are also praising him right now for using
(05:22):
his presidential power to call in the National Guard. Boy,
I tell you, racism make you dumb as hell. But
in light of this, despite all evidence showing that the
crime rate has dropped thirty percent in DC, this man
still keeps talking about the crime wave and the safety
(05:43):
or the lack of safety that people feel in DC. Now,
I'm gonna let Bridget do a full episode on really
what's going on in Chocolate City? My mama from DC.
You know, my whole mama side of the family still
out there. So I used to spend every other summer
in DC. Now, don't give me it wrong. Being down
thirty percent is absolutely positive, But DC ain't safe now.
(06:09):
It depends on what parts you in see, that's the
thing about crime statistics. But before I get into crime statistics,
I need to talk about the concept of crime.
Speaker 2 (06:16):
Period.
Speaker 1 (06:17):
This will be no surprise to y'all because you listen
to cool Zone media.
Speaker 2 (06:22):
Crime is made up.
Speaker 1 (06:24):
Now, criminal crime, I think it's very important to understand
that it is a social construct.
Speaker 2 (06:34):
Now what do I mean by that?
Speaker 1 (06:37):
What I mean is it's situational, right, How the same
act can mean two different things. Now, this is a
conceptual thing that obviously our felt experience is a little
more real.
Speaker 2 (06:50):
But let me give you an example.
Speaker 1 (06:52):
Let a disaster hit, a hurricane, an earthquake, a flood.
If I go into that grocery store and get some bread,
am I looting or scavenging? Am I stealing or surviving?
And the answer is depends on what color you are.
Crime is a social construct. Because if that's the case,
(07:12):
how is George Zimmerman still walking? Having said that, one
could take this argument and go super bonkers on it
and say the same thing about pedophilia, Like, who's to
say that what Epstein did is a crime? Because, like
you said, crime is a social construct. Here's my answer
to that. It's social because we live in a social
(07:33):
soci it t fam. Although borders are made up, so
is money, and so are driver's licenses. Of course, there's
no force field at the forty ninth parallel that separates
Canada from America. However, we have decided that before you
get behind the wheel of a car, you better have
(07:54):
passed some sort of examination for us to know that
you're safe enough to drive behind this You could physically
drive this car, but we live in a society that says, hey, homy,
I need you to make sure.
Speaker 2 (08:06):
We need to have some sort of due diligence.
Speaker 1 (08:11):
We have decided as a species that is self aware
that our children matter.
Speaker 2 (08:17):
Their safety is important to us.
Speaker 1 (08:19):
The person standing next to you has the right to exist.
Whether you like that person or not, they have the
right to exist. You cannot hold them against they will.
That's hey be as corpus, apparently unbeknownst to Christy Nole,
who clearly don't.
Speaker 2 (08:35):
Know what hate be as corpus means.
Speaker 1 (08:36):
As a whole other topic, what is criminal and what
is lawful is something that we've agreed upon in our
social contract. Now, we, however, live in a modern secular
democracy which says that we have a say in what
becomes laws or not so and got to just lay
down and let you just cause stuff a crime that
ain't a crime or that shouldn't be a crime. Now,
(08:58):
speaking of what is and is an crime, here's the
thing Black people have been telling you the answer for
a long time, specifically rappers. Okay, Now, I saw a
TikTok about this, and it's very irresponsible of me that
I can't remember love Hommy's name and I can't you know,
you get the suggested, you know, or yeah, just stuff
(09:20):
pop in like before you. I cannot find Brad Brushs
TikTok black Man, super brilliant, but he reminded me of
some lyrics that Freeway said that captures the point of
what we're trying to make. I love his dude's TikTok man, God,
I gotta find it. Hopefully, I'll hopefully I'll find it
and put it in the show notes. But Freeway's verse
(09:43):
with a song with jay Z says, we still hustle
to the sun come up, crack a forty when the
sun go down. It's a cold winter, y'all, niggas better
bundle up. I bet it's a hot summer. Grab an
onion just to rock it down, you hot, Now listen up,
follow me. You don't know the cops soul purposes to
lock us down. Throw away to key. But without this
(10:06):
drug shit, your kids ain't got no way to eat.
Speaker 2 (10:10):
Huh.
Speaker 1 (10:11):
We still trying to keep mom smiling because when her
teeth stops showing and her stomach start growling, then the
heat start flowing. If you from my hood, you know
you feel me keep going, the sneaks start leaning and
the heat stop working, then my heat start working, I'm
(10:32):
gonna rob me a person.
Speaker 2 (10:33):
Okay, now listen.
Speaker 1 (10:35):
These are the lyrics that Lil Bra quoted in his TikTok,
and the point he's making, which is the same point
I'm making, is that he's talking about the solutions to crime.
Like he said it right there, like I just want
my mom to smile. My kids don't have any other
(10:55):
way to eat. And then he says, when the heat
stop working, then my heat start working, I'm gonna rob
me a person.
Speaker 2 (11:03):
It is resources.
Speaker 1 (11:06):
But again, follow what this brood trying to tell you
is that you putting law enforcement in our neighborhoods doesn't
fix anything?
Speaker 2 (11:18):
Does you?
Speaker 1 (11:19):
Does what we're saying, He's like, no, you just want
to lock us up. That is not solving the problem.
The problem is I'm hungry, My mama's hungry, my kids
are hungry. My sneaks start leaning. What he's talking about
is his tennis shoes as sneakers, they're leaning. You know,
when you walk on your sneakers too much in the
back of your shoes in the back house start running
(11:40):
around the side. Then it starts thinning out, so it's
like the back of your shoe just looks uneven. That's
when your sneaks are leaning. This is what he's trying
to say. My stomach is rumbling. Had we had better
funded schools, had we had more opportunities, he was like,
I'm robbing this person because there is no other OPA. Now,
(12:01):
are there other options? Maybe, But if you're gonna do
the math, listen, this is simple economics. If you want
to make one thousand dollars tonight because the rents do tomorrow,
you go over to Spanish Jose's house. Spanish Jose say, hey, listen,
you ain't got to do nothing. Just put this bag
(12:21):
in your backseat and drive the park slope, drop it
off a comeback, or you can go.
Speaker 2 (12:27):
Work twenty dollars an hour at McDonald's.
Speaker 1 (12:30):
Ain't no uncles with endowments, and check this out exactly.
Let me push you even further, even if you are
smarty awt Now, even if you're a smart one. The
government just told Harvard that they can't recruit in my neighborhood,
even if I got the grades for it, because that's
woke shit.
Speaker 2 (12:47):
So what you want? What the fuck you want me
to do?
Speaker 1 (12:50):
Now here's the premise of what I'm talking about, which is,
we know the solutions. It's never been about crime, okay,
but let me talk about out some folks, some black
folks who do care about the solution, who do care
about crime. Because if we're talking about crime in our
urban areas, who the fuck do you think the crimes
(13:11):
are against? And see, that's the part that makes me
so mad. When I be talking to these people. You
think we don't care because who are these crimes getting
carried out against.
Speaker 2 (13:21):
You think we happy to see all them police.
Speaker 1 (13:23):
One would think, if it worked, we would be happy
to see all these police in our streets.
Speaker 2 (13:28):
But you know what, the shit don't help. Okay.
Speaker 1 (13:32):
What I'm gonna do in the rest of the show
is prove to y'all, based on decades of research, what
does reduce crime.
Speaker 2 (13:42):
We're gonna link all the things in the bio.
Speaker 1 (13:44):
I knew I had to come my a game if
I'm going on the cappen here, because these some of
the smartest people like y'all. Listen, the people on this show, y'all,
y'all is like real journalists. I'm just a rapper that
knows how to explain shit. So I needed to make
sure that i have my ducks in a row. So
I'm about to show y'all a trillion examples of where
(14:06):
if you really from these blocks, if you really do
care about the welfare of black people, then maybe you
should listen to black people see and let me bring
in my trans community here because they problem with you this.
To be honest with y'all, I'm gonna be transparent, which
this is part of what radicalized me whilst really started
to understand the trans experience is because the shit they
(14:30):
say about us is the shit they say about you.
Your crime is we just don't like you around. At
the end of the day, all these laws against trans
people is really just because you just think they gross
And so with us, it was just like you, like,
what is redlining, discriminatory practices in jobs? You just don't
(14:51):
want us around. What is white flight, you just don't
want us around. And your justification of this is this
made up ass word name crime and that you care
that crime at But Nikki, you don't. Okay, I'm getting
getting ahead of myself. Let's take a break. All right,
(15:17):
here we go. I've calmed down. So the first thing
you want to think about is how crime is reported,
right in the ways for which it's reported, and then
the geographical locations that we're talking about. So when you
say the crime in Washington, DC, it's not like the
crime happens in an evenly distributed thing, Like it's not
(15:40):
all of DC, if you will, there's northeast, Northwest, Southeast,
south southeast, and southwest. Now due to gentrification, southeast which
is where Anacostia is and was at one time the
sort of mecha of just like Black DC of chocolate Cy,
Chocola Cy. The whole city was chocolate forever. Like I said,
(16:02):
I noticed because I spent every other summer there and
my mama from there. But like Southeast DC is the
last non gentrified area. Now do you think it's thugs
sitting on the National Monument sipping forty ounces.
Speaker 2 (16:16):
No you out there with the tourists sipping macha.
Speaker 1 (16:20):
So in one sense is when you say crime has
dropped thirty percent, it's like thirty percent since when?
Speaker 2 (16:31):
Okay?
Speaker 1 (16:32):
And is it averaged across all of DC or are
you talking about in its areas where things like carjackings,
homicides and stuff like that happened right now? Remember what
I talked about a long time ago, at least on
my show. Hopefully y'all remember this that the crime rates
in America is always a weird situation because we don't
(16:56):
live in America. You live in your city, so maybe
is going crazy in your own local neighborhoods, so you
feel like, damn, this place is wild. Or maybe, like
I said, maybe you're in like Northwest Portland, you know
what I'm saying. Like you know, over there off Gleason,
you feel me in like it's nice, you know what
I mean? Like you don't never see a single But
if you live over there in Chinatown next to Voodoo Donuts, Dog,
(17:19):
you seem like you walking over zombies.
Speaker 2 (17:21):
I don't know.
Speaker 1 (17:22):
What I'm trying to say is sometimes the statistics can
be deceiving. Now Granny and them who you know, bought
their house a long time ago. They see the graffiti
on the wall and they think, you know, YadA YadA,
the boys like loitering outside. How do you fix it? Well,
allow me to introduce it to Philadelphia, which coincidentally is
(17:46):
where Freeway is from.
Speaker 2 (17:48):
So the data is pretty clear. You know.
Speaker 1 (17:50):
If you look at the Violent Crime Reduction Report, it's
literally it's at the Department of Justice.
Speaker 2 (17:57):
You can read it yourself.
Speaker 1 (17:59):
It tells you exactly what has worked to drop homicide,
violent crime, carjacking, theft. It tells you what has worked,
what has not worked. A simple google right, and the
intro of this is this is a violent crime reduction
between twenty twenty one and twenty twenty five, and it
(18:21):
says for the past three years, the Justice Department has
been executing comprehensive strategies to reduce violent crime rooted in
local communities, and we're seeing trends in the form of
crimes being prevented in live saved. According to available data
from twenty twenty three, murder, rape, robbery, and aggregated assault
(18:44):
is in a considerable decline and nearly ninety major cities
across the country. Violent crime has continued to drop during
the last six months of this year compared to the
same period last year, including a seventeen percent decrease in homicide.
Speaker 2 (19:00):
This is the Deputy.
Speaker 1 (19:01):
Attorney General Monkyo on September seventeenth, twenty twenty four. Now,
to keep it very real again, violent crime rates being
up and down are obviously relative. Now, one thing was, well,
we were in a pandemic, so there's that, right. Another
thing is it's almost like how everybody was complaining again
(19:25):
that crime was up.
Speaker 2 (19:26):
It's like y'all forgot the nineties existed.
Speaker 1 (19:29):
Like I lived it, and baby, this ain't nothing, you know,
the actual fear of pain and suffering.
Speaker 2 (19:42):
This pales in comparison.
Speaker 1 (19:43):
We live in a great place in relation to what
we went through in the eighties and nineties. Now again
we're talking national trends right again. In your local neighborhood,
it may be it may be a green light apvening.
Speaker 2 (19:59):
I don't know.
Speaker 1 (19:59):
I'm just saying for you to say that our country's
becoming a cess.
Speaker 2 (20:04):
Pool means you not reading the data.
Speaker 1 (20:07):
According to the Conversation, it's like independent journalist this author.
Speaker 2 (20:11):
Her name is Katerina g Roman.
Speaker 1 (20:14):
She's a professor of criminal justice at Temple University and
as a side note, at Temple University, Mahomie Timothy, he's
teaching a class on Kendrick.
Speaker 2 (20:23):
Lamar and his lyrics and hip hop and justice.
Speaker 1 (20:25):
I actually spoke at his class a couple of times,
so that was pretty dope to hear what he's doing.
Speaker 2 (20:29):
But now check this out.
Speaker 1 (20:31):
According to her writing, it says that the Pennsylvania spends
roughly two hundred thousand dollars a year for each juvenile
it incarcerates. According to the twenty twenty one report from
a bipartisan Pennsylvania Juvenile Justice Track Force, that's fifty times
the cost to deliver evidence based family therapy that would
(20:53):
prevent kids from going into the justice system in the
first place. I'm gonna tell you before I even read
the rest of this, because I lived it. We just
be bored. It ain't nothing to do. There are no opportunities.
When the heat stopped working, then my heat start working.
In Philadelphia, juvenile incarceration involves the confinement in city ran
(21:13):
Philadelphia Juvenile Services and other residential placements facilities young people
leave these facilities with lower chances of graduating high school,
freight mental health, and the higher likelihood of re arrest
or being shot. Can I again please speak from my
own experience. When you go into these juveniles cases, you
(21:34):
have to pick a location of people that you would
fo protection, even if you don't run with them, even
if you an'll know them niggas outside here, when y'all
get outside, y'all may never have talked again. But in here,
even if you went in there over some stupid like shoplift,
is some damn spray paint, whatever the case may be,
you now got to run with the people that got
your same skin tone and are from your part of town.
(21:56):
You have to kids. Don't go in being members of gangs.
You have to join one to stay alive. Now check
this out. When you get out. Part of the terms
of your probation is you can't be around certain criminal
festivities or activities or people.
Speaker 2 (22:16):
With criminal records. Where you're gonna go.
Speaker 1 (22:20):
If I just happen to live on sixtieth Street next
to my uncle, I just live here. You mess around,
go visit your granny house, and then it got a
report to your PO. You've been fragnized when known gang members.
You're probably going back. This shit don't work, y'all. But
what does now?
Speaker 2 (22:40):
Again?
Speaker 1 (22:40):
Back to this article, drawing from about thirty five years
of work in Philadelphia and other cities to understand what
makes neighborhoods safe for I believe the surest returns home
from prevention strategies aimed at young people who are not
yet immersed in robbery, shootings and gun activities. Right so
they give some examples of the things that they've done.
First of it is a school based case management in
(23:04):
Barthrom High now in southwest Philly, John Bartram High Schools
has a youth violence reduction initiative that launched in twenty
twenty three. It was designed by former school safety chief
in Philadelphia now Philadelphia Police Commissioner Kevin Bethel, School Safety
Offer Programs Manager Ken Rosa, and criminal justice researcher Brandy
(23:26):
Blasco and.
Speaker 2 (23:28):
This person that wrote the article.
Speaker 1 (23:30):
Students who have been involved in fights or show other
risk factors of violence and street gang.
Speaker 2 (23:36):
Involvements are referred to this program.
Speaker 1 (23:38):
The initiative's core idea is simple, earn students trust through consistent,
credible mentorship and step in when needed. Stepping in means
teaching conflict resolution skills, running engaging workshops, buying a meal,
intervening when a fight is brewing or a student is
on the verge of being expelled. Each week, a team
of administrators, counselors, school safety officers, and community outreach workers,
(24:02):
most of whom are based in the school, review the participants, progress,
the tracks, follow through referrals, and coordinate communication with family,
school and staff. This is a tightly managed, relationship driven
safety net that gives students quicker access to help make
(24:23):
school climates calmer and safer.
Speaker 2 (24:25):
This seems so obvious. You just need somebody you trust. Listen.
One of the things even in.
Speaker 1 (24:32):
My own house, my own life was I knew my neighbors,
and my neighbors knew me, and if they call me
outside standing with the wrong people, I knew they was
going to tell Mama. Sometimes, since they're teenagers, they don't
have conflict resolution skills. All they know is to pop off.
(24:52):
You ever been angry? You don't think kids be angry.
Your teacher in there asking you about your algebra homework,
your stomach rumbling. I ain't got shit to say to
her because I'm hungry. And sometimes it's just a meal.
Sometimes it's just knowing somebody cares. Sometimes it's just you
feel like I know. I've experienced it too. I feel
like it's not even they ain't even no reason to
(25:13):
explain my position to you, because you're.
Speaker 2 (25:15):
Not gonna believe me, or you just gonna call the police.
Speaker 1 (25:19):
I taught a kid, I've said this story so many
times who used to show up late in class. When
I used to teach, he show up late in class
maybe three to four times a week, always had his
homework in his hand. You've tarty that many times were
supposed to call a truancy officer. Ain't no way in
the world I'm calling a truancy officer because that means
they mama gonna have to pay a twenty five hundred
(25:39):
dollar fee.
Speaker 2 (25:40):
Number one and number two. Now he got a record.
Speaker 1 (25:43):
All I did, guys, I just asked him, why are
you late every day?
Speaker 2 (25:50):
He say, because he trusts me.
Speaker 1 (25:52):
My daddy'd be drinking too much at night, so he
can't get up and take us to school. So I
take my brother to school first and then come here.
Speaker 2 (26:03):
And this is just the time I get here.
Speaker 1 (26:06):
I never marked him thirty, since all you do is ask, right,
which leads me to the second thing, the power of
credible caring adults.
Speaker 2 (26:16):
It's real simple.
Speaker 1 (26:17):
You got people that care, you got food programs. All right,
let me nerd it up again now. According to the
Youth Justice Services, Relationships, Rehabilitation, and the Reality of Young
People Involved a metasynthesis of qualitative literature. This is a
scholarly literature reviewed results that says that just having an
(26:43):
adult who you know cares, just having one that cared,
changes significantly the chances of a student getting into a
life of crime.
Speaker 2 (26:57):
But just knowing somebody care.
Speaker 1 (27:00):
I'm going to link in it again into these show notes,
all of the data, all the stuff I've been looking at,
so you can check it out yourself. I know it
seems like a gross oversimplification by the way that I'm
just saying it right now. Usually you know what I'm saying.
If we was doing the it can happen here thing.
I got to be able to read this stuff out
to you, but I can read a part of it.
It says that that the themes that broke out after
(27:24):
interviewing one hundred and fifty kids is that young people
reported first being pessimistic about entering these services, and their
past experiences impacted their ability to trust and were initially
cautious of professionals.
Speaker 2 (27:38):
But watch this.
Speaker 1 (27:40):
These were the themes and sub themes they felt valued
and finding worth within their system. The reciprocal nature of
understanding and respect. These kids felt respected, the importance of
having one good person, creating a secure base for exploration
and development, and then showing a genuine care by going
above an beyond.
Speaker 2 (28:00):
So basically, just be kind.
Speaker 1 (28:04):
And it helps a student sixed.
Speaker 2 (28:13):
Ain't that crazy?
Speaker 1 (28:15):
But at the end of the day, homicides at Philadelphia
at the lowest level they've been in twenty five years.
Speaker 2 (28:21):
How it's long time and it takes effort.
Speaker 1 (28:26):
But next, I want to talk about whoa the city
of Baltimore or is new mayor up there cooking?
Speaker 2 (28:33):
All right? Next? All right, we bike now Baltimore.
Speaker 1 (28:48):
I don't know if you notice which I love about it,
and of course you probably don't know about it because.
Speaker 2 (28:54):
A black man did this.
Speaker 1 (28:56):
Baltimore's homicide rate has fallen forty percent. Baltimore, you understand,
this is where the wire took place. Don't get me
wrong about Baltimore. Baltimore active murder capitalal of a dog.
Oh listen, Baltimore was active now. According to the Guardian,
violent crime in America's big cities has been receiving since
(29:18):
the pandemic for about two years. But even in comparisons
baltimore improvement is breathtaking. Fewer people have been killed in
the city over the last seven months than any other
particular period for fifty years.
Speaker 2 (29:31):
Here's the funny part.
Speaker 1 (29:33):
Mississippi talking about sending a National Guard up to DC
to help with the crime in DC. Meanwhile, Jackson, Mississippi,
got a higher murder rate than DC. Right now, y'all, people,
is weird. It's never been about crime now, back to Guardian.
As of fifteen August, the running three hundred and sixty
(29:54):
five day total for murders in Baltimore stood at one
hundred and sixty five dead. Assuming the city remains that pace,
the murder rate will finish below thirty per ten thousand
residents for the first time.
Speaker 2 (30:07):
Since nineteen eighty six.
Speaker 1 (30:10):
If it remains on pace since the first of January,
it would have finished twenty twenty five at one hundred
and forty three murders, a rate of about twenty five
per one hundred thousand, the last scene in Baltimore since
nineteen seventy eight.
Speaker 2 (30:26):
Now check this out.
Speaker 1 (30:27):
Y'all may not remember this, but y'all remember Freddie Gray,
the boy that got killed in the back of the
police holding tank. See, that's what happens when you just
bring cops into a place. It ain't about the crime. Though,
back to the Guardian, since twenty fifteen, there has been
here in Baltimore, this acknowledgment that the equity needs to
(30:48):
be the priority.
Speaker 2 (30:49):
Right.
Speaker 1 (30:50):
Mayor Brown said the riots were as much about the
conditions of poverty as it was about Gray's death. I
hope you hearing that people losing their homes and foreclosures
to water bills, for example, as they were about police brutality.
But the heavy handed response to the cops of the
protests failed to hold the police accountable for misconduct, right,
(31:14):
eviscerating the relationship between the Baltimore police and the public.
Baltimore State Attorney Marion Moseley laid murder charges on the
officers involved, and Baltimore's police union closed ranks and response,
eviscerating the relationship between the police and politicians, and serious
scandals at the City Hall and the state's attorney offers
(31:36):
and the failure of Moseley's charges to result in convictions,
violence skyrocket. But here come this young brother, Brandon Scott,
young black man. Right, he's a former city council member. Right,
he's been a long observer of the violence, you know
what I'm saying. And before he became the mayor in
twenty twenty, then he implemented what he's calling a comprehensive
(32:02):
three pillar approach.
Speaker 2 (32:04):
Right. The first pillar is called public health approach to violence. Right.
Speaker 1 (32:09):
The second pillar is community engagement and interagency coordination.
Speaker 2 (32:13):
Right. The third pillar is evaluation and accountability. Right.
Speaker 1 (32:17):
So, like I said in the beginning, it starts with
the community, all right. So check this out again from
the Guardian. Against Baltimore's police budget topping a half a
billion dollars, the largest police budget per capital of any
large city in the USA. The political establishment gave its
new millennial mayor room to experiment with fifty million dollars
(32:38):
of Washington's money. So they took that budget that was
a half a billion, gave him fifty million.
Speaker 2 (32:45):
Right.
Speaker 1 (32:45):
And since trust was like solo, the first step was
to get everybody aboard. So he took that money the cops,
the hospitals, the jails, the school the social services, the
State Department, the Feds, and he appointed this dude named
Richard Worley, Oh who is the city police Commissioner in
June twenty twenty three. Wesley was a lifelong Baltimore officer,
picked in part to bring the rank and file in
(33:08):
line with Scott's anti violence program. Scott emphasizes partnerships as
an important.
Speaker 2 (33:14):
Part of the process.
Speaker 1 (33:15):
Now, he took other federal grants and he gave the
money to the people that actually do the services. He
ain't just keeping for them. Now here's the thing cuts
my mouth to say it. But if you are going
to stop violence in the situation that we live in,
the cops got to be involved. Because most of the
time the cops are the problem. It's always punishment in
(33:38):
prison with them. They only come with a stick when
something already happened. So you got to get them on
the table, and you got to get them at the
table with somebody that's going to be willing to be
held accountable.
Speaker 2 (33:50):
And remember that's pillar three.
Speaker 1 (33:51):
Now, Now, far being from me, because I don't live
in Baltimore, would I ever shield for no mayor like this.
I'm just telling you what the data say is and
I got family in Baltimore. Now, what Scott said is again,
we focus on the individuals and groups that are most
likely to be the victim or perpetuator of violence.
Speaker 2 (34:11):
We go to them. Listen, they knock on doors.
Speaker 1 (34:15):
There's a social worker that comes to the door with
a letter from the mayor that says, yo, you're trying
to be a part of this, and their only targeting
kids are families that they know got low poverty rates
and high chances of crime. You looking for the people
who are most likely going to fall a victim, to
(34:35):
perpetuating it or receiving it.
Speaker 2 (34:38):
Because remember how we started this whole thing.
Speaker 1 (34:40):
Before you think we don't care about crime, we're the
ones that it's happening too. So he says, quote Curtis Palomero,
who runs the youth violence prevention nonprofit RAKA in Baltimore,
it says, we're talking about young people with the elevated risk.
We're not talking about the young person that says FU
to his teacher or tells his mom and dad are
ground while he don't want to do XYZ. We're talking
(35:01):
about kids who have literally probably have two tracks jail
and death. He knocks on the door while the cop
is carrying met the mayor's letter, and as often as
not he has to knock on a dozen doors before
he gets a chance. Why cause niggas don't trust the cops, right,
Why would they? But since there's no single thing that
(35:23):
is preventative, trust must be built right moving on in
this article, there are two types of people that are
most vulnerable, nasays, the people in their early twenties who
are feuding over trivial matters someone looked at me wrong,
somebody bumped in as somebody right, or other people who
are in the drug game more around. The violence that
has to do with other criminal enterprises are so much
(35:45):
more calculated. Critically, it's not every young person with Instagram
beef and not every stand down neighborhood street dealer that
rises to their attention. The risk factors creates a reasonable, articulatable,
legally defensible basis for contact, which means you're not being
hunted by the cops.
Speaker 2 (36:06):
Do you understand the piece?
Speaker 1 (36:07):
I would have felt it I known that since I
wasn't involved in none of this shit, they may not
be coming up to me. You've already calmed my nervous
system down right. There's another story about a young man
who was recovering after a gunshot and in this Life
coach Nigga from a youth advocate program approached him and
Jalen said, this is This man said, he just han't
(36:29):
been in the wrong part of West Baltimore at the
wrong time. Now, most of us who grew up like this,
that's true. He wasn't especially receptive to this first life
coach at all.
Speaker 2 (36:39):
He said, I thought there was a catch.
Speaker 1 (36:40):
I thought I'd have to pay them back in the future,
because when the police do it to you, that's exactly
what it is.
Speaker 2 (36:46):
You got to pay them back later.
Speaker 1 (36:47):
But this person is funded by the city to just
be a life coach. I ain't asking you to snitch
on nobody. I ain't asking you to make yourself put
yourself in danger. Outside is somebody who under stands what
it's like to live out here. This life coach says,
it's about follow up. Today, they might say get the
fuck out of here. Tomorrow, they might be wanting some services.
(37:10):
It might be something tragic that happens and they need change.
Like I said, my mother's not smiling no more. I
need a way to pay my mama's life bill. Can
you help me with that? Here's what's crazy. Yes, I
can help you with that. We have services. Why because
I'm talking to the other departments. Right on the law side,
(37:30):
here's a prevention. They dismissed thirty four percent of non
violent charges. I was a non violet offender. It was graffiti.
Just make me pay the fine. Like it's fine. I
got pay the fine. I don't care. Right, you have
like a nickel bag of weed in your pocket. You're
(37:51):
looking at five years. The shit is not working. That's
over policing. But if the district attorney look at you
and say, nigga's some weed man, get the fuck out
of here, Go take care of your mama. Matter of fact,
I want you to talk to this brother over here.
You're gonna help get your plumber's license. Oh so there's
job placement. Right.
Speaker 2 (38:08):
There's all that, and then finally evaluation.
Speaker 1 (38:12):
Listen, you got a carrying adult, You got services available
to you. And you know if somebody in this program,
if any of these law enforcement, these city people act
the fuck up, there are consequences. That is Pillar three.
I'm gonna link all this stuff to you. There's a
four year evaluation, and you will get fucking fired. If
(38:33):
I know that if you treat me right, something gonna
happen to you, I might think a little different. Listen,
the heat stopped working, so my heat start working. But
if my stomach is full, and the bills are paid,
and there's after school programs that go to and I
know these old people around me aren't gonna trust me
when I tell them stuff when I'm dealing with situations
(38:56):
that may or may not be out of my control.
When I got big homei'es pressing me to do this,
and there's somebody I could trust that I could talk
to that's not gonna turn me into a snitch. Because
you ain't telling the cops just to get them to
give me information about a crime that happened over there.
That's not what's happening right now. You are trying to
prevent the violence. You're not trying to catch a criminal.
(39:16):
You're trying to prevent criminality, and it's at a fifty
year low. But sure, go ahea and send a national guard.
Speaker 2 (39:25):
Now.
Speaker 1 (39:25):
Listen, obviously this ain't the system. I won't but it's
the system we got.
Speaker 2 (39:31):
This is not ideal.
Speaker 1 (39:33):
You would never see me shill for no police department
or mayor, but cities like Philly in Baltimore are proven. Nigga,
If you just care and you spend money on trusted
sources and provide resources, the crime it drops itself.
Speaker 2 (39:56):
Seems so simple. But you know what do we know?
Speaker 1 (40:00):
We're just black people and all this tells me what
we already knew. It was never about crime, ever, because
there's research that shows what actually works in reducing crime.
What this about? You just think we're you and you're
a white supremacist. You just want a white world and
you think it's cool to have military in our streets.
Speaker 2 (40:21):
Don't get me wrong. You didn't invent that. You was
in Trump.
Speaker 1 (40:25):
You know how I know you ain't invent that because
there's an amendment in the Constitution that says that we
don't want to live in a world where the military
is on every corner.
Speaker 2 (40:38):
But apparently you do. It's clearly not about crime. It
could happen. Here is a production of cool Zone Media.
For more podcasts from cool Zone Media, visit our website
coolzonemedia dot com, or check us out on the iHeartRadio app,
Apple podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts. Find sources
(41:00):
for it could happen here, listed directly in episode descriptions.
Thanks for listening,
It Could Happen Here News
Hosts And Creators
Robert Evans
Garrison Davis
James Stout
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