Law & Order vs Nazi Fight Clubs

Gare and Molly discuss how modern media portrays political extremism.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
All media.

Speaker 2 (00:05):
Welcome to it could happen here. I'm Garrison Davis. On
this show, we try to apply political and cultural analysis
towards speculative futurity. What can we learn about the future
by looking at how our present relates to our past
and now? As we approach a whole decade of a
resurgent far right gaining cultural prominence, we're entering a moment

(00:26):
in time where pop culture and media is starting to
catch up to the current political zeitgeist. Our media landscape
is inundated with depictions of unreality, political extremism, collapse, and
rising civil tensions. Some of these succeed more than others,
but most are still deeply neoliberal in their depictions. The
Obama produced a Netflix movie from last year, Leave the

(00:47):
World Behind, was a speculative look at a collapse orchestrated
to jumpstart a second American Civil War. Alex Garland's voyeuristic
Civil War movie just released, which sort of gestures at
politics with offhand mentions of portlaind maoists and the Antifa massacre.
But as a movie it completely fails to understand the

(01:07):
moment we currently occupy, and I believe is even more
out of touch than the Obama Collapse movie, but we're
not talking about that today. For my thoughts on that,
you can look at my review on Letterboxed and refer
to the reviews I liked for a more robust critique
of Garland's deeply troubling depiction of quote unquote neutral war
journalism as uncritically virtuous. Instead, this episode will be turning

(01:30):
to a depiction of modern day extremism that I'm not
sure is better. It's still deeply neoliberal and honestly more
overtly copaganda, but one that I still find more interesting
and I believe does understand our political moment much better
than Alex Garland does, who comes off as less and
less intelligent in every single interview he does. Last month,

(01:53):
the television show Law and Order did an episode focusing
on Robert Rundo's far right fitness groups, the White Supremacist
to Active Clubs. To discuss, I am joined by longtime
far right researcher Molly Conger.

Speaker 3 (02:07):
Hello, Molly, Hey, thanks for having me on. And you
probably didn't know this about me. I am a secret
enjoyer of police procedurals, so I've actually watched a lot
of Law and Order.

Speaker 2 (02:17):
I have never seen a single episode of Law and
Order until this week, so I was really inundated. I
don't know. I watch a lot of kind of troubling media, though,
and media that tries to comment on current political extremism,
and often when I talk with my friends about my
interest in viewing things like this episode, I get confused

(02:39):
or even adversarial reactions, and I do truly understand their hesitations.
Pop culture media like this is often very sensational, turning
very real pain, trauma and death caused by the far
right into this form of kind of mindless entertainment, and
often reifying the role of like good government and good
cops to maintain order against racist insurgents, even though more

(03:03):
and more of their ilk begin to occupy public office
and become cops themselves. But politics and culture are hand
in hand. Lots of what became the al Right grew
out of gamergait, and I think there is a real
use in understanding how the political activities of fascists and
anti fascists are depicted in mass media. I believe there

(03:23):
is some value in knowing what NBC and the writers
of Law and Order think an active club is as
like a sort of cultural litmus test, and also to
see how well people like us are doing in trying
to educate about these types of groups. But I totally
understand that not everyone wants to suffer through a forty
minute Law and Order episode about cops beating the Nazis.

(03:45):
So instead I will watch it for you and talk
about exactly how they depicted this with Molly here today.
So I think the most efficient way for me to
do this is to kind of give a recap of
the episode, and as I start going through it, we
will discuss at certain points. I can't just summarize all
of it in like a short paragraph. I mean I could.
I just think that would miss out on a lot

(04:07):
of stuff. So instead we're gonna go through the episode
and comment as things happen. And this episode ends up
being about a lot more than just an active club.
It's actually pulling from a few other influences that we
will talk about probably towards the end.

Speaker 4 (04:23):
Anyway, that felt sloppy to me.

Speaker 3 (04:25):
I feel like they try to tackle several specific Like
I don't know how familiar are with with the Law
and Order franchise, but they call these episodes the ripped
from the headlines episodes right where they take a real life,
high profile case and write an episode about it. But
they tried to combine several elements that I felt didn't
blend well, and it deeped them more material to work

(04:46):
with than they were able to address, and so it
just felt it just felt unresolved to me.

Speaker 2 (04:52):
I mean, I assume lots of these police procedurals are
kind of undercooked, as like pieces of art.

Speaker 3 (04:58):
I mean, the Dick Wolf Exting universe is cheering out
so much content that, like, I don't know how they're
still doing it. I mean, Olivia Benson has been on
television since I was a child.

Speaker 2 (05:10):
So let's get into the actual episode. The cold open begins.
It's night in New York City. A nervous looking white
woman enters a subway station, and she's startled by a
sleeping homeless man. As the subway approaches, eerie music starts playing.
The anxious woman walks onto the subway and a black
man cat calls her as a group of other men

(05:31):
kind of join in. The woman quickly switches to a
more empty subway car, where she then bumps into another
black man whose eyes look kind of vacant and is
making weird grunting noises, and then the man appears to
lunge towards the woman. We cut to crime scene tape
stretched across the subway station. Two police detectives to enter
the subway car, where a dead body lies on the ground.

(05:54):
But it's not the scared white woman. It's the oddly
grunting black man who appears to have been strangled to
death with no apparent witnesses. He's identified as twenty four
year old Ellis Joyner, a stand up comedian who a
detective says, quote came from down South love to talk
about how much he loved New York. The other detective remarks,
great place to live, not such a great place to die.

(06:17):
Cut the title screen with music that I assume has
not been updated in like thirty years, because the actually
it's it sounds so so nineties.

Speaker 3 (06:29):
They can't change it now. There are thousands of episodes
of the show Garrison, It's history.

Speaker 2 (06:35):
So already with the cold open, we have like ooh,
the dangerous subway, scary homeless people, this poor white woman.
A lot of stuff's being thrown at.

Speaker 3 (06:43):
Us, right and obviously playing on the idea that like, oh,
the white woman is going to be under that that sheet,
like that's going to be her body.

Speaker 2 (06:50):
Totally, totally. So, as we returned to the episode, a
forensic pathologist says the man died after being put in
a quote unquote sleeper hold, which cut off oxygen to
his brain. His medical records reveal he also had severe
asthma and as hyperinflated lungs indicate he was currently suffering
an asthma attack when he was killed by the lethal
chokeold in the fifty minute window for a time of death,

(07:12):
the train passed through six subway stations, four of which
all had broken cameras.

Speaker 3 (07:18):
Which is supposed to remind the viewer that we really
need to fund the subway cops.

Speaker 2 (07:22):
Correct. A lot of this episode is about how subway
surveillance is under equipped to deal with crime. And we
could probably fix a lot of problems if there was
more security cameras in the subway.

Speaker 4 (07:34):
Or just one hundred cops. What if they put one
hundred cops on there.

Speaker 2 (07:37):
Sure, or more cops and like, to my surprise, the
subway in New York City historically has not had security
cameras inside the actual train cars, though they are expected
to by twenty twenty six. But like the light rail
and Portland the kind of like not not subway, but
like the public transit train in Atlanta, they all have

(07:57):
cameras inside the actual train cars. I was a prose
I said that the subway in New York did not.
I just never knew that anyway. Back to lawn Order, Ellis,
Joyner's credit card identified the station that he got on at,
which also had broken cameras, but police pulled streetcam footage
from a few blocks away, which shows Joyner getting into
a fight with another comedian where Joyner got punched. The

(08:20):
other man is recognized as Malcolm Paige, a stand up
who quote used to open for Chappelle back in the day.
Quote so already setting up something fantastic. The detectives interview
Page and show him social media footage of Joiners is
set from last night, making fun of Page for being
old and irrelevant. Page says that Joiner verbally attacked him

(08:42):
because Joiner quote got his panties in a twist unquote
over some of Page's jokes. Quote hit too close to
home for fancy boy unquote, And when Page says fancy boy,
he does this little shaky hand thing, which the detective
asks if that's supposed to apply that Joyner is gay,
which the older comedian says, yes.

Speaker 4 (09:04):
I mean I've seen this sort of like limpressed hand movie.

Speaker 2 (09:10):
Did It was just like a weird like.

Speaker 4 (09:12):
Shaking like hand like fancy you sort of.

Speaker 3 (09:15):
Shake your hand side to side when you mean like
kind of or maybe exactly exactly hand movie. It was
homophobic gestures, right, it was. It was really weird. I
found this whole interaction kind of bizarre and unnecessary, like
you write in this kind of red herring when you're
trying to fill time.

Speaker 4 (09:31):
But they had plenty, they had plenty of script. They
didn't need this.

Speaker 2 (09:35):
This episode's so focused on different forms of racism, so
much adding in this like weird gay subplot doesn't. It
doesn't end up going anywhere, and it's just kind of bizarre.
So anyway, this basically this older comedian was telling homophobic jokes.
Joiner then made fun of him on stage, and this
older comedian Page assaulted him outside. Page then left in
an uber, and Joyner ran off with his boyfriend, who,

(09:57):
according to Paige, weren't getting a long either. So there's
some kind of like like a new suspect arises exactly exactly.
So police look through joiners emails and texts in the
cloud quote unquote, and can't find any record of a boyfriend,
making detectives surmise that he must have been in the closet,

(10:19):
which is a baffling thing to surmise. Cops then contact
quote the Traveler app. That's that's Traveler spelled t r
a v l R.

Speaker 4 (10:30):
You have to cut out a vowel or it's not
an apple.

Speaker 2 (10:34):
So legally, not Grinder gives NYPD complete access to Joiner's account.

Speaker 3 (10:39):
And it's I'm sorry, Like, are gay male sex apps
usually like pink and purple. The color scheme is pink
and purple.

Speaker 2 (10:47):
Yeah, not my experience, but yeah, I think it's also
a referenced to like like travelers, like fellow Travelers right
right when it was obviously supposed to be Grinder. But
it's just it's just Grinder. It doesn't matter. But cop Legally,
not Grinder gives NYPD full access to Joiner's account, which
shows he's dating a guy named Michael Zain. And this

(11:08):
whole thing is, this whole thing's so wild because if
you're dating someone you should not be primarily communicating through Grinder.

Speaker 4 (11:15):
And he said later they've been dating for six six months.

Speaker 3 (11:18):
Six months, They've never texted, They're just using Grinder to chat.

Speaker 2 (11:22):
Whenever you go on Grinder, the goal is to get
off of Grinder as soon as possible. Why why would
privately texting each other instead out you as gay anymore
than having an identifiable Grinder profile.

Speaker 3 (11:36):
I feel like having Grinder up on your phone and
it has a very distinctive like text tone, like that's
way more likely to out you dog just text regular exactly.

Speaker 2 (11:43):
It makes no sense anyway. The Traveler messages between Joiner
and Michael Zaane indicate a sort of ongoing fight or argument.
Now Zain has a prior conviction for aggravated assault last year.

Speaker 3 (11:55):
They didn't actually, so I went back and I went
back and double check this because I have some beef.

Speaker 2 (12:00):
He doesn't have a corect.

Speaker 4 (12:00):
They said he was arrested for assault last year.

Speaker 2 (12:04):
He was just charged. He wasn't connected at my mistake, yes,
but also the episode does not make that very clear.

Speaker 3 (12:09):
No, because I have a reason, I went back and
checked because it makes no sense.

Speaker 2 (12:12):
So, yeah, his boyfriend was charged last year for aggravated
assault so the detectives pay him a visit because they
think he's like a suspect, right. Zain says that he
didn't kill Joyner, he loved him, and that their fight
on the night of the murder was about to Joiner's
own self hatred and Zayin believing that things would be
better if they could just live openly as a couple,
but Joyner was concerned that it would threaten his comedy career.

(12:34):
Zain maintained nothing ever got physical between each other, and
explained that his assault charge was from trying to break
up a bar fight, but when the cops arrived, they
targeted Zaane because he was black, to which the two
NYPD detectives nod solemnly.

Speaker 4 (12:50):
They're like, yeah, it does sound like something we would do.

Speaker 2 (12:53):
Yeah, other cops are racist, but not us. They're like okay.
Zain claims that Joyner wanted time, so he got off
the train a few stops before and went home, but
mentions that there was a white guy with short brown hair,
bright yellow sneakers and a hoodie with some kind of
symbol on the back who was looking weirdly at him

(13:13):
and Joiner. Security camera footage shows someone matching that description
exiting the train car one stop before Joiner's body was found,
and one of the detectives recognizes the symbol. We will
learn more about this mysterious hoodie, sneaker and symbol after
this ad break. So I first, I just want to

(13:45):
describe what this symbol is.

Speaker 1 (13:47):
It is.

Speaker 2 (13:48):
It's this octagon with spiky corners and like two k's
facing like like like one facing backwards. Yeah, one one
facing forward with one facing backwards, but smushed together, and
the shared middle pillar is like an arrow pointing upwards.

Speaker 4 (14:05):
It looked like nothing to me.

Speaker 2 (14:07):
They tried to desire something that looked vaguely racist, but
it's just not. It just it just looks dumb.

Speaker 3 (14:14):
It looks like, I don't like a tech company logo
or something like. Yeah, it does not evoke anything for me.

Speaker 2 (14:19):
No, it's it's not good. They're trying to make it
scary with like lots of like different like angles, but
like it's it's it's not it's not scary anyway. The
detectives arrive at an MMA gym in Chelsea called the
Kovak Academy. It opened about a year ago and they've
been peppering the neighborhood with flyers.

Speaker 4 (14:35):
Well, that sounds familiar.

Speaker 2 (14:37):
Extremely accurate. The cops are graded by a jacked staff
member with a shaved head, and they asked to speak
with the owner, and this skinhead employee says that they
just missed them. But there's a picture on the wall
of the owner holding a trophy and he's wearing the
exact outfit in the subway security footage. The detectives are
told that he was getting a cab to the airport. Now,

(14:58):
I thought I thought this was going to be like
a clas Rundo move right, do some crimes flee the country,
But allegedly he was actually flying to Toronto, which actually
will kind of get explained later on. Cops are outside
to see if they can spot him before he leaves,
and they see a man in yellow sneakers and a
logo emblazoned hoodie walking towards a cab. They sprint tap
him on the shoulder. The MMA guy throws detectives against

(15:21):
the car, starts fighting, not realizing their NYPD because he
has like earbuds on. Cops pull their guns, then he surrenders.
The owner of the gym is named Domino. Domino. It's
a weird it's weird name.

Speaker 4 (15:33):
I think Dominall. It's like and I think it's an
Irish name.

Speaker 2 (15:36):
Dominall. Yeah, dominol Kovak. He has four previous convictions for assault,
all against black victims, with two charged as hate crimes.
A detective notes that Kovak has a tattoo on his
right arm of laced up combat boots with the number
eighty eight, which the detective calls a white nationalists symbol.

Speaker 4 (15:57):
Okay, okay, here, I looked. I looked hard.

Speaker 3 (16:03):
I looked hard through a lot of photographs of Nazi tattoos,
and the boot tattoo is not common and you only
see it in skinhead culture.

Speaker 2 (16:12):
And this guy's not a skinhead. The actual owner of
the gym does not appear to be a skinhead. He
has like a big beard. He has like long brown,
like longish brown, not long, but like medium shaggy brown hair.
But but yeah, he has this combat boot eighty eight tattoo.

Speaker 3 (16:27):
Like that's there are a lot of Nazi tattoos, and
that's not the one I would have picked for this character.

Speaker 2 (16:31):
No, it's obviously like some lawn order writer googled like
Nazi tattoo and just picked that.

Speaker 3 (16:36):
Like, but That's the thing is, if that's what they
had done, I don't think they would have picked that because,
like I said, I was looking through all of these
sort of like lists of different kinds of tattoos, yeah,
by different nonprofits. There is one one picture in all
of these databases of a tattoo that's even similar to this,
where it's a pair of boots with the number eight
on each boot. I found one.

Speaker 2 (16:58):
Yeah, I mean I think that that is the one used.
I think they did want to like bring in some
level of like the idea of dog whistling kind of
with eighty eight, which will come up later in the episode,
but it's it's not well done anyway. Kovac says that
he's never seen Ellis Joyner before and that the night
of the murder, he was running a late night intensive
training program called the Combat Academy based on the Navy

(17:23):
Seals training course. So many red flags are going off here.
It ended around midnight. Afterwards, Kovec said he walked to
his girlfriend's near by apartment. He was never on the subway,
but he explains that the gray hoodie and yellow sneakers
are part of the Combat Academy uniform that all members wear.

Speaker 4 (17:42):
It's so important to wear matching outfits with your boys,
And in one of the.

Speaker 2 (17:46):
More accurate moments of the episode, as soon as he's
in even a little trouble, he gives out all the
names of the members in his group.

Speaker 3 (17:55):
Did not even wait for a subpoena. He was like,
would you like their credit card numbers?

Speaker 2 (17:58):
It did not hesitate. He's like, no, oh, absolutely, I'll
I'll give a DNA, so I'll tell you. I'll tell
you the names all the guys. It wasn't me, I swear.
So the detectives locate they're recently divorced Brandon Arnaut outside
of the I like that they added the detail he
was recently divorced, but this never actually.

Speaker 4 (18:16):
Caught come up.

Speaker 3 (18:17):
Does not matter the second. The second they walk up
to him on the street, he was like, oh, my
wife left me.

Speaker 4 (18:22):
My wife left me last year.

Speaker 3 (18:24):
Me so I got really into grappling with the boys
because my wife left me.

Speaker 2 (18:28):
Yes, exactly. So they find him outside the elementary school
he teaches that and which.

Speaker 4 (18:34):
Also never comes up again.

Speaker 2 (18:36):
Nope, and after very very little questioning, very tame questioning,
he immediately admits to killing Joyner, saying it was an accident,
and that Joyner was attacking a woman on the subway
and Brandon here was trying to protect her. At the
police station, the police say that they can't find any
footage of the woman Brandon is talking about, But the

(18:57):
defense attorney asks if the cameras were even working at
every station, to which the cops roll their eyes if
like really sartiastical answer. They're like, oh my god, this
fucking guy asking if the cameras are broken. The cops
tell Brandon that they found Ellis Joiner's missing cell phone
in his gym locker. They searched his house, they didn't
find anything, but they got his They got a Warren

(19:18):
for his jim locker and found the cell phone and
they alleged that he stole it after he realized that
Joyner recorded a video of the fight that ended up
with Joiner being strangled to death.

Speaker 4 (19:30):
And that's something we call consciousness of guilt.

Speaker 2 (19:33):
The defense attorney ends the interview immediately as soon as
they bring this.

Speaker 3 (19:37):
Up, like, why wouldn't you tell your lawyer that tell
him that before you go in the search.

Speaker 2 (19:41):
History, and Brandon's laptop shows him trying to figure out
how to unlock the phone to delete the video. Now
this part's a little bit odd. The cops debate even
though quote he admits to killing Joyner, I'm not sure
we have enough evidence to charge unquote, which is not true.
You have so much of it, you have a confession,
you have so much evidence to charge.

Speaker 3 (20:03):
This is so bizarre, Like, how often do you have
a recording of a murder happening and then the guy
admitting that.

Speaker 2 (20:09):
It admits, Yeah, it's ridiculous. They charge on far far less.

Speaker 3 (20:14):
They have that conversation in the room where they're like, well,
we can charge him or we can let him go.
He's like, I mean, I understand a conversation about like
is this murder too, is this manslaughter? Yeah, but it's
not a question of whether or not you charge him
with something. You're charging him with something.

Speaker 5 (20:27):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (20:27):
I mean, I think there's a reason actually why they
had this conversation, which I will get to at the
end of the episode if you remind me. I think
there's a reason why they discussed this option of letting
him go versus charging him. But at this point we
now switch to the law half of the episode after
we finished the order half. I don't know why these
are reversed because they do the police part first, then
the court part. But whatever, it should be called order

(20:50):
and law, which just I guess, I guess just doesn't
sound good. So a front page story in the legally
not New York Post is being passed around the DA's office.
It reads self defense or racist killing hero or zero.

Speaker 4 (21:06):
A recurring story in New York City.

Speaker 2 (21:08):
The prosecutor, who's played by Hugh Dancy I'm just gonna
call Hugh Dancy because they don't know his character's name,
states that half the city believes Brandon's self defense story
and the other half justic sees a white man killing
an unarmed black man. Quote, that is what happened. A
litmus test for what people want to believe, says the
main DA.

Speaker 3 (21:27):
I think at this point the writers in that room
are just tired. Oh yeah, so like you can only
do so much cocaine before it just like stops working.

Speaker 2 (21:37):
The DA's office says that Brandon held Joiner in a
choke hold for so long after he was unconscious that
even if it started as self defense, it escalated to homicide.
The debate between manslaughter and murder, saying the former would
be easier to win with a clear use of excessive force,
regardless of Brandon's story of trying to help the girl,
but based on the cell phone video, the DA decides
to pursue a murder case due to a quote depraved

(22:00):
indifference to human life unquote displayed by choking someone for
full three minutes after falling unconscious.

Speaker 4 (22:08):
I'm not sure if you mentioned them. So they found
the phone.

Speaker 3 (22:11):
So the victim had been recording the altercation and then
it got knocked out of his hand, and so it
was it was recording audio of the murder, but not video.

Speaker 2 (22:18):
I'm going to get to that once we get to
the court scene. Hugh Dancy is nervous about Brandon's literal
white night story and that he has no history of violence,
but the DA insists on second degree murder, saying, quote,
this is George Floyd all over again in what way?
And I'm sure as hell not going to end up
on the wrong side of it unquote, which does not

(22:40):
make the DA sound like a good guy, just makes
him sound like he doesn't want to have like a
bad press. It comes off as very slimy.

Speaker 3 (22:46):
I you know, I said, I watched a lat of
law and order, and so I have seen probably a
thousand hours of it, but I haven't watched it in
several years, so I don't know if maybe the tone
has evolved a little bit, But I got the impression that, like,
I don't know, maybe this is a guy who's consistently
worried about getting re elected, right because his job is
an elected position.

Speaker 2 (23:02):
Yeah, just doesn't want the press. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So
finally we cut to court, the prosecution plays the cell
phone video. Seconds after Joyner starts recording on his phone,
Brandon knocks it out of his hand, landing the camera
side down, Continuing to record only audio of the struggle.
We hear Brandon putting Joyner into a choke hold, Joyner
repeatedly saying he can't breathe before appearing to pass out,

(23:23):
followed by three minutes of silence up until Brandon releases
his arm from around Joyner's neck. He picks up the phone,
sees its recording, and turns it off. As the video
is playing, the prosecutor and the jury are all shaking
their heads so that we know that they don't agree
with it. Hugh Dancy questions the medical examiner, who explains
it after Joiner lost consciousness, he could no longer pose

(23:43):
an a lethal threat to the defendant, who continued to
talk Donor for three more minutes. The defense suggests that
a surge of adrenaline distorted time and awareness of his surroundings,
which in the panic of the moment, made Brandon not
realize Joyner lost consciousness for that long elis Joyner's secret
boyfriend test Next, he says the defendant was weirdly staring
at Joyner, at himself, and that Brandon moved aggressively to

(24:06):
step in Zaye's way when he was trying to exit
the train and said, quote unquote watch yourself in a
quote unquote racist tone. The defense brings up Zayne's past
to aggravated assault charge to cast doubt on his testimony.

Speaker 3 (24:20):
Okay, they can't do that, they can you cannot do that.
There is a very limited set of circumstances in which
you can bring up a witnesses criminal history, and this
isn't it.

Speaker 2 (24:31):
There is a lot of funky law decisions going on
in this episode.

Speaker 3 (24:35):
You can't do that.

Speaker 2 (24:37):
Speaking of funky law decisions, well, actually, speaking of speaking
of this ad break, we are back speaking of troubling

(24:59):
law decisions. The defense calls a surprise female witness, Rebecca Laski,
something you cannot do.

Speaker 4 (25:06):
I looked it up.

Speaker 3 (25:07):
The average time to take a felony to trial in
New York is a year. So from time of death
to this going to trial, best case scenario probably like
a fucking year. They had a year to find this
woman and she shows up on the last day of
the trial.

Speaker 2 (25:21):
It's definitely not the last day because.

Speaker 3 (25:23):
If this was you know, this is obviously sort of
mimicking the was his name, Daniel Penny.

Speaker 2 (25:28):
Yes, that's what it's always like.

Speaker 3 (25:30):
Making the Daniel Penny caase like this would have been
on the New York Post like every day leading up
to the trial.

Speaker 4 (25:35):
This woman would have been located. The murder happened in January.

Speaker 2 (25:39):
The trial starts, I believe in early March, and lasts
about two weeks according to the timeline of the TV show.
So that's not how it works anyway. Rebecca Laski, the female,
the surprise female witness. She detifies that she accidentally bumped
into join her who quote unquote appeared mentally disturbed and
was making aggressive grunting noises, aggressive grunting noises before lunging

(26:03):
at her. She then claims Joyner reached into his pocket
and she was scared he had a knife or something,
so she screamed. She screamed for help, and Brandon Arnau
saved her. She testified that mister Arnau grabbed Joyner away
from her and the two men started fighting. Laski calls
Brandon a hero, and the jury looks on inquisitively. After
the female witnesses quote unquote compelling testimony, the prosecutor talks

(26:24):
with the DA about offering a manslaughter plea, but the
DA is steadfast since the video clip of a man
begging for his life and being choked to death for
three minutes after falling unconscious has not actually changed. Hugh
Dancy remarks that new context for the video isn't really
in their favor, to which the DA just replies, just
because a white woman saw Joyner as a threat doesn't

(26:44):
make it true like okay, based in New York, DA
I guess. Back in court, the prosecution asks Rebecca Laski
if she was actually present when a quote, the defendant
choked the life out of a joiner unquote. She clarifies
that the train stopped as the men were still fighting,
Joyner was reaching into his pocket. She was scared that
he maybe had a knife again.

Speaker 4 (27:06):
He's probably reaching for his inhaler and.

Speaker 2 (27:08):
Hailer or his cell phone to record this fight. She
curiously mentions, though, that after Brandon grabbed Joyner's arm and
the fight started, Brandon kept yelling at Joyner. He was
yelling to quote, surrender and that he was bleeding, and
that he was dirty or fighting dirty. I don't really
remember the exact words. Unquote.

Speaker 4 (27:30):
This destroyed me. I almost turned it off.

Speaker 2 (27:32):
Everyone in the courtroom gets a really funny look when
she meant when she mentions the word dirty. So we
will get to this in a second. Under questioning last,
gaymits that she never saw any weapon of any kind,
let alone a knife, and Hugh Dancy suggests that after
being attacked by a fellow comedian and having an argument
with his boyfriend, Joyner was probably suffering from an asthma

(27:53):
attack triggered by high stress. He wasn't mentally ill, he
wasn't acting aggressive or grunting in a threatening manner. He
was stuck in a subway car having an asthma attack.
And he addresses Laski saying, quote, you saw a scary
black man making a noise. Objection sustained. So yeah, but
they didn't. But that's so they objected there.

Speaker 3 (28:14):
But then when he says, like, and isn't it true
that his behavior was consistent with an asthma attack, nobody
objected to that.

Speaker 4 (28:20):
She can't offer She can't offer a medical opinion.

Speaker 2 (28:23):
Rebecca Laski a ballet answer, not a medical professional. Cannot
offer an opinion on what his medical symptoms can be consistently.

Speaker 3 (28:32):
When she starts getting upset, saying like, oh my god,
this is all my fault, like this happened because of me.
Like at that point, no prosecutor would have allowed her
to continue speaking. He would have said, just answer the questions,
just answer the questions. He would not have let her
get emotional up there, And that's that's poison.

Speaker 2 (28:49):
Yeah, but it makes not very good.

Speaker 4 (28:52):
Television, thrilling television.

Speaker 2 (28:54):
So after court for the day, the prosecution wonders if
Brandon allegedly say something about blood and dirt could have
really been quote the Nazi slogan blood and soil.

Speaker 4 (29:06):
No no, no, gear, no no.

Speaker 2 (29:09):
The new battle cry of white nationalist groups unquote.

Speaker 4 (29:13):
See here's the thing.

Speaker 2 (29:15):
So this is where the episode goes fully, fully off
the rails.

Speaker 3 (29:18):
So like when I was watching her testimony, she was like,
he said something about like, you know, he was bleeding
and like he was dirty. At no point did my
mind no connect that too. And and I quite literally
just yesterday was watching videos of guys yelling blood and soil.

Speaker 4 (29:33):
This is something that's on my mind.

Speaker 2 (29:36):
It is a ridiculous jump. It's it's not there because yeah,
he's yelling something about about like bleeding because his lip
was bleeding. And sure a remark about being dirty could
be could be construed as as like a racist remark.
But the jump from bleeding and dirty to blood and

(29:57):
dirt to blood and soil is fucking baffling.

Speaker 4 (30:01):
It's just not even the same words. But not to
Nippick here, not to Nippick.

Speaker 3 (30:06):
I just don't know that blood and soil would have
been the chant he chose as he was doing the choking.

Speaker 2 (30:11):
It's bizarre he would have said a slur. Hugh Dancy
is also skeptical. None of the interviews with Brandon's family
or co workers indicated anything about racial extremism, but the
other prosecutor suggests that they look into his fitness gym
the Kovak Academy, as the owner quote has ties to
a few white nationalist organizations.

Speaker 4 (30:30):
Uh oh.

Speaker 2 (30:31):
The DA's office decides to investigate further. They arrive at
the gym as the buff Skinhead staff member from the
start of the episode is closing up for the day.
He claims to not know Brandon very well, and when
he's asked if he's ever heard Brandon say something that
could be interpreted as racist, he responds by saying, I'm sorry,
but I can't help you. The prosecutor makes a Snyder
remark and starts to leave, and the man quietly says, look,

(30:54):
I can't get into details, but let's just say you're
heading down the right path. But I can't help you
because it would be low my cover unquote.

Speaker 4 (31:02):
Whoa, oh my gosh, he's a.

Speaker 2 (31:05):
Cop infiltrating the Nazi fight club.

Speaker 4 (31:09):
I mean, there are some cops in there right. I
don't know if I would say they're infiltrating.

Speaker 5 (31:14):
Uh.

Speaker 2 (31:16):
The next scene is the funniest in the whole episode.
After stumbling onto the undercover operation, the head DA arrives
at the NYPD counter Terrorism Bureau as they have info
pertaining to the prosecution's murder case. But the counter Terrorism
Bureau explains their scope is much larger than this one case,
and they have quote had their eye on Kovac for

(31:37):
a while now. They explained to the DA that his
MMA gym is actually a quote active club, part of
an international network of a white supremacist sleeper cells that
all front as MMA style gyms unquote. So okay, okay, okay.
White nationalists have been using MMA gyms to front for

(31:59):
activities for decades.

Speaker 4 (32:01):
I just found a new one the other day.

Speaker 2 (32:02):
This does happen. This does not mean they are active clubs,
nor do active clubs have to be MMA gyms. These
are these things are venn diagrams that can sometimes overlap,
but not always. The version of active clubs we see
in this episode now starts getting pretty fictitious.

Speaker 1 (32:21):
It.

Speaker 3 (32:21):
Immediately first I was like, ah, that's like a fairly
reasonable like yeah, like we do have active clubs at
MMA gyms, that's the thing. They were like, And they're
stockpiling weapons to do a January sixth Yeah, so what what?

Speaker 2 (32:34):
So they say they've identified over thirty active clubs across
nine states and several provinces of Canada. So nine states
far too low. There's active clubs in way more states
than that. There's also not necessarily like if you have
thirty active clubs across nine states, that's a bizarre ratio.
That means there's a lot of active clubs in like

(32:55):
a few states, which generally isn't how it kind of
ends up being there's maybe like one or two, maybe
three like per state. We don't fully know, but I
will give them points for adding in the Canadian chapters,
which most people kind of overlook.

Speaker 3 (33:08):
But also like, why is the NYPD investigating something happening
in nine states?

Speaker 4 (33:12):
That's Feds To be fair, that is fully accurate.

Speaker 2 (33:15):
The NYPD counter Terrorism Bureau investigates things all over the world.

Speaker 4 (33:20):
But it's like just let if it's interstate, let the
FEDS handle it.

Speaker 2 (33:23):
Their jurisdiction is fucking bonkers. They're like the third biggest
that counter terrorism like law enforcement group in the entire world.

Speaker 4 (33:29):
It's like one of the world's largest standing armies.

Speaker 2 (33:31):
Yeah, no, it is. It is absurd, they say. Quote
the clubs operate as recruitment centers. They lure in a
young white men under the guise of getting fit while
indoctrinating them in racist ideology and training them in military
combat unquote. Now, the training that people receive in active
clubs very often does not equal military combat training. In fact,

(33:55):
they often have very poor fitness regiments and really bad
advice on how to get fit.

Speaker 3 (34:00):
I mean, if getting hooked on gear and rolling around
on the floor shirtless with the boys is military combat training,
then absolutely.

Speaker 2 (34:08):
If if you look at the there's a pretty sensive
docks of some of the active club members of the
State of Georgia last year, and they were their fitness
information was not up to stuff. They were mostly seventeen
year olds who were arguing about different ways to like
lift better. Anyway, lawn Order says that these active clubs
are quote trying to build an army. It's the new

(34:32):
face of hate unquote, a very kind of retro slogan.
We don't really use that anymore, but if you look
like ten years ago or like, yeah, around ten years ago,
you would see a lot of like liberal articles talking
about the new face of hate. Quote no more white
sheets or burning crosses. They've adapted and created a facade
to mask their racist beliefs unquote. So the DA wants

(34:57):
their undercover guy to testify to secure the conviction against
one of the Active Club members, but the count Terrorism
Bureau doesn't want to blow their nine month undercover operation
even for a murder conviction, as they've quote recently received
credible intel that Kovak is now stock pile leg of
firearms and explosive materials unquote, so.

Speaker 4 (35:17):
They should probably go ahead and arrest him for that.
Huh yeah, yeah, right, it's time to move.

Speaker 2 (35:22):
I guess now they're combining like active club stuff with
some like Adam Woffin and militious stuff just like throat,
just just smushing together all these different groups into one
like mega boogeeyman. I guess quote these men are terrorists.
They're capable of significant violence unquote. So the Count Terrorists
in Bureau suggests that the DA takes a quote big

(35:43):
picture of view of the situation unquote. So the DA
breaks the news to the prosecution team that the undercover
will be unable to testify because the active Club is
quote planning a coordinated attack along the lines of the
January sixth insurrection unquote.

Speaker 3 (36:00):
So you should probably like the undercover operation is over,
Like if you have credible intel that there's an imminent.

Speaker 5 (36:05):
Attack, like the operation is over. So also like this
is just not what active clubs do. Like this is
like they don't care about J six. That's like a
proud boy thing and some militia dudes, like most active
club members would be like no, all of the JA
six people are like fucking like conservative like Trump Trump,
brain brain dead losers. They're like it takes really that thing.

Speaker 3 (36:26):
A couple of years ago where those members of the
base were arrested right before they were going to try
to kick off the Civil War by inciting.

Speaker 4 (36:33):
They were going to shoot into the crowd at.

Speaker 3 (36:34):
The gun rally in Richmond at the Virginia and then
the plan was that everyone would start shooting each other,
you know. And it's like so they had a pretty
large stockpile of weapons that one of the guys was Canadians,
so like.

Speaker 4 (36:43):
Maybe they got mixed up with that in the base.

Speaker 2 (36:47):
Yeah, Like they're combining elements of the base, Adam Offfen,
active clubs, proud boys into like this like mega boogeyman, right,
just a villain. The DA says that this new attack
will quote only be more violent and without advance warning
this time.

Speaker 4 (37:03):
And what do you mean without advanced warning?

Speaker 2 (37:06):
He just says, are right, right, let this happen.

Speaker 4 (37:13):
The greater good is for us to allow this to occur.

Speaker 2 (37:15):
The undercover investigation cannot be justitized in any way. But
as this looks more and more like a racially targeted
murder according to the DA, the DA's office is to
find a different way to show that Brandon is racist.
Quote it's for the greater good a phrase, a phrase
that Hugh Dancy says helps justify a lot of otherwise
unjustifiable positions. And true, they start getting into this kind

(37:36):
of debate around like the ethics of like doing a
long term infiltration operation versus seeing like a like like
an active like like seeing an active threat, or like
seeing a way to like currently clamp down on a
like arm of an organization even if they can't get
the whole thing yet, And they have this debate like
is it is it better to like do like a

(37:57):
long term strategy or to like just like chop off
as many limbs as we can. As we go on
and again, it doesn't make sense because if they have
all this credible intel, why not just like get them
right now?

Speaker 4 (38:07):
But like what I wrap it up?

Speaker 2 (38:11):
So back in court, mister Kovak is on the stand.
Hugh Dancy asks if he and the defendant have ever
discussed quote racial ideology, to which Kovac says, I don't
know what that means. Believable, the prosible, I mean, yeah,
that is the correct answer for this situation. The prosecutor
elaborates racial purity into racial marriage, what role black people

(38:33):
should or shouldn't have in society, and Kovak once again
feigns ignorance. Hugh Dancy asks about Kovac's eighty eight tattoo
being a Nazi symbol, and Kovak just says, I don't know,
I just like the number eighty eight, and.

Speaker 4 (38:48):
Then he doesn't.

Speaker 3 (38:48):
The prosecutor doesn't explain to the jury, no does mean
Kyle Hitler.

Speaker 2 (38:53):
He just he just he just moves on. Never once
in the episode is it explained that the eighty eight
symbol me is a reference to high Hitler.

Speaker 4 (39:01):
Never ever actually say it, never say it.

Speaker 2 (39:03):
Yeah. Dancy does bring up mister Kovak's four prior convictions
for assaulting black men, two of which were charged as
hate crimes, and Covec just says, that was a long
time ago.

Speaker 3 (39:13):
And now see, I do want to say, because you
made such a big deal about it earlier, about how
you can't ask about prior convictions. I think in this
case it is an allowable exception because it goes to
direct impeachment, like if he said, like, yeah, you know,
he made a statement himself about how he's not racist,
and you say, well, you have a hate crime conviction, and.

Speaker 2 (39:31):
Later in the court room he says that he of
course obviously doesn't have any problems with black people. When
being a questioned by the defense attorney, but Hugh Dancy
pulls up Kovac's social media accounts, all of which contained
the phrase blood and soil in his bio objection relevance.
The prosecution then argues that Rebecculaski's testimony of hearing something

(39:53):
about blood and dirt may have been a vague recollection
of hearing blood and soil. No Dancy describes blood and
soil as a Nazi reference to a racially uniform society.

Speaker 3 (40:04):
The jury would not have been allowed to hear this.
This happened outside the presence of the jury.

Speaker 2 (40:09):
Covect just says the phrase means that you're proud of
who you are and where you come from. Kovac taught
the defendant how to fight, how to do a choke hold.
So to end the questioning, Hugh Dancy asks if he
also taught the defendant to hate black people. Objection, objection,
all right, So, The defense's closing argument frames the subway

(40:30):
as a dangerous, lawless zone and Brandon as a peaceful
elementary school teacher who has never gotten as much as
a speeding.

Speaker 4 (40:38):
Ticket, probably because he doesn't drive.

Speaker 2 (40:40):
Yeah, because you live in New York. U who saw
someone in danger and bravely decided to step up and
do something. The prosecution's closing argument frames Brandon Arnaut as
a closeted racist who saw an opportunity to put his
white supremacist ideology into practice in a situation where he
thought he could get away with it. Quote. People like
mister Arno their bigotry buttoned up. They only discussed it

(41:01):
as people who share their hateful worldview. They rely on
plausible deniability because if the racism isn't overt, many good
people are all too happy to assume it isn't there.
But every once in a while, in moments of panic
or anger, the mask will slip. Unquote. Hugh Dancy closes
by saying that Elis Joyner was an innocent, unarmed black
man suffering a medical emergency, and the two white people

(41:23):
on the train assumed he was a violent threat and
they attacked him. And even if there was no intention
to kill at the start quote, at some point the
defendant's focus shifted and his racial hate began to manifest unquote,
yelling blood and soil at Joiner quote a declaration of
hatred for all people of color unquote, as Brandon choked

(41:44):
him to death.

Speaker 4 (41:46):
Okay, here's the thing. Here's the thing, this whole situation
with the.

Speaker 3 (41:51):
Undercover of the counter terrorism I have to believe that
they're trying to set up a longer plot arc that
that's going to come back in a later episode or so.

Speaker 4 (42:00):
They have a new spin off called.

Speaker 3 (42:01):
Law and Order Organized Crime with Christopher Maloney Elliot Stabler
from SVU. So I wonder if they're going to cross
it over to organized crime, because it makes no sense.

Speaker 2 (42:12):
That's what I assume. I think this White Nationals group
is going to come back and be even a bigger
plat point in a future episode. It didn't need to
be in here otherwise, the inclusion in this in this
piece is really bizarre.

Speaker 4 (42:23):
So but no, So, but what.

Speaker 3 (42:25):
I was going to say, is they did not need
that undercovers testimony because the only testimony they wanted to
elicit from him was like as a character witness to
say like, oh, yeah, I've met him and he's racist.
That wouldn't really even be admissible in most like like
even if the even if the judge allowed the jury
to hear that, Like, this isn't a hate crime case.

Speaker 4 (42:48):
It doesn't matter. What matters is.

Speaker 3 (42:50):
Whether or not he used excessive like more force than
was necessary for a self defense argument.

Speaker 2 (42:56):
Right, the entire legal strategy they shift to halfway through
the corpora cet is so obviously a dead end that
doesn't actually relate.

Speaker 4 (43:03):
To and wouldn't have been allowed.

Speaker 2 (43:05):
Yeah, it's so it's so bizarre.

Speaker 3 (43:08):
And if they wanted to and if they wanted to
get information about like his views that maybe his family
didn't know about, that people at work didn't know about,
why did they not get warrants for his phone and computer?

Speaker 2 (43:19):
I mean I think they did because they mentioned in
searching through his phone and computer multiple times through the.

Speaker 3 (43:24):
Episode, found that he had searched for like how to
delete from cloud or whatever from the guy's phone.

Speaker 2 (43:30):
But like, again I think that's mostly just like undercooked.

Speaker 3 (43:33):
He didn't open like his telegram account to see what exactly.

Speaker 2 (43:36):
You didn't see the active club chat season. You didn't
see like you didn't talk to any other members of
the Combat Academy, no other members of the gym really anyway,
So the jury finds the defendant not guilty because yeah, okay.
Outside the courtroom, the head DA says, quote, we did
the best that we could.

Speaker 3 (43:58):
Here's another problem or another problem. So not all states
allow this, but in New York, the court can submit
to the jury what are called lesser included charges. So
if you're charged with murder two I think was what
they charged him with his case, you know, the jury
can deliberate on the actual charge murder too, but they
can also consider what are called lesser included charges, so

(44:19):
something like manslaughter. So the jury can say, well, we're
not going to convict on murder, tube we do think
it was manslaughter, so we're going to convict on that,
even though that wasn't the charge in the indictment. So
I can't imagine that this DA would not have pushed
for lesser included charges.

Speaker 2 (44:33):
Well, Hugh Dancy may agree. He says, quote no, we
could have done better. We just chose not to for
the greater good.

Speaker 3 (44:41):
No, but they they could.

Speaker 2 (44:45):
I think I think he said that kind of sarcastically.
The DA affirms that one day soon they will take
down the whole racist organization. But behind the two days
here Brandon walks out of the courtroom and celebrates with
the other members of the Active Club. End of episode.

Speaker 3 (45:02):
Okay, so, but when they put Kovac on the stand
and they were saying, like, oh, like, did you teach
him about racism? The better line of questioning at that
moment would have been, Okay, you're his grappling coach, did
you teach him how dangerous choke holts are?

Speaker 2 (45:18):
Right?

Speaker 3 (45:18):
Because, like, I don't know anything about a choke holds,
So if I accidentally killed someone with one, maybe I
didn't know that would happen. If you are taking five
hours a week of private hand to hand combat lessons,
you probably do know, and that would go to you know, foreknowledge,
and like, didn't why didn't they ask that?

Speaker 2 (45:36):
Again? I started this episode because I thought it would
be about active clubs, and it turns out by the
end it's really not.

Speaker 4 (45:44):
It's really about Daniel Penny it's really.

Speaker 2 (45:45):
About the killing of Jordan Neely. So this is the
actual rip from the headlines piece that they're doing, which
I did not really realize until the episode was over.
So this is this is kind of riffing on the
incident that happened on my first twenty twenty Jordan Neely
was a thirty year old black man. He was Michael
Jackson impersonator at the time. He was homeless. He was

(46:06):
running the subway in Manhattan and appeared emotionally distressed. He
was yelling about needing food and water. No one was
helping him. He was yelling that he didn't care about
going to jail. He was ready to die, and this
was reportedly frightening other writers. Daniel Penny, a twenty four
year old former marine, approached Neely and placed him in
a lethal chocold that lasted anywhere from five to seven minutes,

(46:27):
depending on if you ask the prosecution or the defense.
Penny was repeatedly told by other writers that Neely appeared
to be dying. By the time first aid was being administered,
he was already dead. Daniel Penny was let go after
being questioned by police, and only arrested eleven days later.
I think this is the part where they're like, do
we want to let him go or charge him? Now?

(46:49):
I think that's kind of what they're doing here. On
June fourteenth, twenty twenty three, he was indicted on a
charge of second degree manslaughter. The trials scheduled to start
on October eighth, twenty twenty four. So this episode also,
I think it fails in a lot of ways. And
this depiction of active clubs, it uses certain terms like
the term active clubs, which I was surprised they just

(47:09):
I'm surprised they use because that's kind of more of
like a niche term, but they just made it to
be this like MMA elite Nazi squad. And I think
them trying to include this bit does an incredible disservice
to trying to depict the killing of Jordan Neely, which,
first of all, like there's already problematic aspects right of
turning this like this like really fucked up thing into

(47:29):
a piece of entertainment. That's kind of why I started
this episode with that monologue. But I think by cramming
so many other elements in here, like this like like
this homophobia angle, this this this active club angle, it
does a real disservice to the actual incident that they're
trying to comment on, where there was a man in
a very crowded subway who very publicly was basically lynched

(47:53):
because a few writers were not super comfortable when riding
the subway because this man was yelling for food and water.
So it's not it's not great, But after watching Leave
the World Behind Civil War on this, I think this
is the best depiction of our current political moment out

(48:14):
of all of those three things, which is a pretty
fucked up bar. I guess, Molly, do you have any
other thoughts on how they depict Nazi stuff in this?
I mean not.

Speaker 3 (48:24):
Well, not well, bitch, uh no. The I was just
gonna say, I was looking on Reddit and seeing people's
people's takes on it on the Law and Order Reddit,
and I found this fantastic comment. They did take the
Daniel Penny case but changed the whole story to make
Penny look guilty, probably to make the real Penny look
like a bad guy in real life.

Speaker 2 (48:49):
Object objection, objection.

Speaker 4 (48:51):
Objection in your Honor object mods mods.

Speaker 2 (48:55):
Not yeah, not great because also yeah, it also like
for people who are like looking at this as a
Herald to Jordanai like, oh, why did they change so
many details to make them look even more guilty, and like, no,
that's not what's happening at all.

Speaker 3 (49:06):
Like, I think they did a disservice to that story
by changing so many elements. I mean, like you said,
there's there's a conversation to be had about the ethics
of depicting the story as entertainment, period. But if they're
going to do it, and they've been doing it for
thirty years, right, that's just what law and Order does.
If they're going to do it, I think they have
a responsibility to not do this, to not do this.

Speaker 2 (49:29):
Yeah, well, again, they have bigger fish to fry, since
there's that upcoming worse than January sixth attack head led
by these MMA guys who are stockpiling explosives, So watch
out for that, I guess.

Speaker 3 (49:42):
Yeah, I guess I'll have to watch the rest of
the season to see if the MMA gym blows up
New York.

Speaker 2 (49:47):
Yeah, I will not be until they release a direct
follow up, So I think that doesn't for us today.
This is already way too.

Speaker 4 (49:54):
This episode's already long. On the episode, it's.

Speaker 2 (49:57):
Already longer through the Law and Order episode. So that
does it for us today. Thank you for listening. If
you want to check out my review of Civil War,
It's very short, but it's kind of to the point.
I'm on letterboxed at Hungry bow Tie, and then the
reviews that I liked, which are underneath my own review,
go into more depth about kind of the problems with
that film in my opinion and other people's opinion. Anyway,

(50:19):
Where can people find you online? Molly?

Speaker 3 (50:22):
Oh, I am on Twitter at Socialist dog Mom and
my newsletter The Devil's Advocates on ghost and I guess
that's it for me. Oh, I'm podcasting sometimes now.

Speaker 2 (50:33):
No objections from me.

Speaker 3 (50:36):
Yeah, I guess By the time you're listening to this,
you can listen to my latest episode of this show yesterday.

Speaker 2 (50:43):
All right. See on the other side.

Speaker 4 (50:51):
It could Happen here as a production of cool Zone Media.

Speaker 1 (50:53):
For more podcasts from cool Zone Media, visit our website
cool zonemedia dot com, or check us out on the
iHeartRadio app podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts. You
can find sources for It could Happen Here, updated monthly
at coolzonemedia dot com. Slash sources. Thanks for listening,