October 14, 2024 • 35 mins
A Black man, who is deaf and has cerebral palsy is facing felony aggravated assault and resisting arrest charges after he was repeatedly punched and tasered by a pair of Phoenix police officers. Join us as we discuss one of the most violent and racist police departments in the country.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Podcasting from the Hip Hop Weekly Studios. I'd like to
welcome you to another episode of Civic Cipher, where our
mission is to foster allyship empathy and understanding. I am
your host, Ramses job is Ramsy's job.
Speaker 2 (00:12):
I am q Ward. You are listening to Civic Cipher
as you.
Speaker 1 (00:16):
Are, and this is a special episode. This is something
that has been a long time coming. We've wanted to
include stories that we can't get to on the radio
for a long time, and the past few weeks have
been crazy for us. We've been all over the country,
(00:39):
you know, doing our best to do good work, and
you know, we haven't really been able to be in
the studio as much as we like. But also because
of the election season, we have had a lot of
our airtime dedicated to interviews and and other things, and
(01:01):
so there are stories that historically we haven't been able
to get to and we just kind of chalked it up.
But now that we have this relationship with I Hearten
and the capacity to podcast as often as we like,
we are committing to leaving less on the cutting room floor.
(01:22):
So today we are going to talk about a story
that we've been wanting to get to for some time,
and we know we won't be able to get to.
On our next episode, we're going to talk about a
gentleman named Tyron MacAlpin. You may have seen his apprehension
and arrest on social media. The video has been circulating.
(01:46):
It is a violent and immediate arrest for those of
you who have a modicum of empathy for your fellow
human beings who likely will have been appalled and disgusted
by the video. But for those who have not seen it,
(02:07):
we are definitely going to tell you about it. Our
hope is that this gives you some insight into some
of the things that we are trying to say on
this show that might feel maybe unbelievable. I know that
(02:33):
if you listen to this show, you have a propensity
toward trying to learn, trying to believe things. But I
know that some things might still be beyond your grasp
or your reality. Our show deals a lot with data.
Our show deals a lot with journalistically, in journalistic integrity
(03:00):
and not simply our own opinions. However, data doesn't always
tell the story. I think that today's story will indeed
tell the story that the data is trying to tell.
(03:21):
I'm going to share a bit from ABC fifteen. The
writer of this article is Dave Biskobing. This comes again
from Phoenix, Arizona. A black man who is deaf and
has cerebral palsy is facing felony, aggravated assault, and resisting
arrest charges after he was repeatedly punched and tasered by
(03:43):
a pair of Phoenix police officers. The violent and rapid
arrest of Tyrone MacAlpin raises serious questions and could serve
as a test case for Phoenix and the Department of Justice,
as the two battle over whether the Phoenix Police Department
it's federal oversight. The violent arrests thems from a morning
(04:04):
call from Circle K employees who reported that a white
man was causing problems and wouldn't leave the store. Record
show while being trespassed, the white man claimed he was
assaulted by a black man and pointed across the street
at McAlpin. Officers Harris and Sue took the man's claims
at face value and left him to go after McAlpin.
(04:27):
The man's assault claim was later refuted by store employees
and surveillance video record show. I'm going to pause right
here just to bring up to speed in cases a
little hard to follow. A white man was being trespassed
from a circle K. It was causing problems in a
circle K. The employees wanted him gone. Police showed up.
(04:50):
They approached the white man. The white man says, hey,
I was having a problem with that black man over there,
and the police say, oh, really, and then they leave
him and then go to the black man. All right,
let's continue. After handcuffing MacAlpin, his girlfriend arrived at the
arrest and told the officers that he was deaf and
(05:11):
had cerebral palsy. According to body camera footage, none of
the officers at the scene included any information about MacAlpin's
disabilities in their reports. Body camera video shows officers unexpectedly
go after Macalpen, punch him in the head at least
ten times, taser him four times, and wrap their arms
around his neck. Phoenix police officials did not answer specific
(05:33):
questions about the arrest, but confirmed it is under internal investigation,
but Phoenix Police and Maricopa County prosecutors continued to pursue
a criminal case against Macalpen. During a recent preliminary hearing,
Maricopa County Superior Court Commissioner Nixconey found there was probable
cause for his August nineteen, twenty twenty four arrest. Macalpen
(05:55):
was arrested by officers Benjamin Harris and Kyle Sue, and
their police reports and court testimony, the two officers stated
Macwpen was going to run, took a fighting stance through
repeated punches, and wouldn't comply with commands. MacAlpin's attorney said
body camera video and surveillance footage showed the officer's claims
(06:18):
are false and said there's an obvious explanation for why
he couldn't comply. Quote. The answer is easy. He's deaf,
he couldn't understand what they were doing, and he had
done nothing wrong, Shoe Walter said. Goes on to say,
everything I see in that video is tyrone just trying
to avoid being harmed by these officers, and that only
(06:38):
makes them increase the escalation and the violence they're using.
The arrest happened two months after the Department of Justice
released a Historic and Severe report outlining a long list
of systemic failures within Phoenix Police and q's going to
have a little bit more on that a little bit later.
(06:59):
For those that do listen to the show. You may
recall us doing an episode where we were discussing some
insights into police departments around the country, Phoenix being one
of them. Uh, you know where we don't have to
provide opinions or build bridges mental bridges for you, our listener.
(07:21):
We don't, and this is one such instance where we
did that. It was a report from the Department of Justice.
We took the article from the Associated Press, and we
gave insight into the Phoenix Police's discriminatory policing practices, and
then this story happens. So before we get there, Q,
(07:50):
I want you to kind of talk us through what
you saw when you first saw the video, because you
know it reads differently than it feels. And I remember
when we first saw the video and we had a
conversation about it, just kind of when you talk me
through it, I was like, oh my god.
Speaker 2 (08:09):
I think it's important to always point out that a
crime being committed should not render you being assaulted by
law enforcement. And we know that's how they feel as well,
(08:30):
because we have seen multiple now white male mass shooters
not only safely apprehended with no violence at all, but
treated with dignity and respect and even care by law
enforcement officers after their arrest. Are you okay? Are you thirsty?
Are you hungry? Let's get you something to eat. So
(08:54):
what I saw in the video, with no context, not
having read anything, was a black man walking down the
street or through a parking lot it's hard to tell
from the angle of the camera, a police vehicle swerving
in front of him, him noticing, okay, a vehicle is
in front of me now, and trying to walk to
(09:15):
avoid walking into this vehicle that seemed to very intentionally
cut him off, and an officer exiting the vehicle to
beat him up. The vehicle's door opened, the officer jumps
out of the vehicle and attacks the man. There is
no in between the door opens, he attacks him, and
(09:39):
a man who looks like someone being attacked, trying to
prevent himself from being struck, trying to break his fall,
and then trying to stop his face from being smashed
into the pavement. Another officer arrives and joins in on
the fight. So you get to watch two officers beat
(10:04):
a man up, chase him, and beat him up some more.
That's what the video shows.
Speaker 1 (10:11):
Now, when we talk about videos like this, we don't
talk about them so that you can know every single
individual instance of police violence in the country. What we
do is we try to give you insight into what
police violence looks like and the and the implifica, the
(10:33):
implications and ramifications sorry of police violence and how it
shapes outcomes for black people in this country. But as
often as we can, we point this back to the data,
to the prevalence of how this disproportionately happens to black
and brown people and less so to white people. We
(10:57):
continue to make our case that we are dealing with
a different set of circumstances that affect us differently. I'm
not talking about ramses, I'm not talking about que I'm
talking about our people. And this interaction gives full insight
(11:23):
into what it must be like to be a black
person living in most every city with a police department.
This gives insight into why we have a deep seated
(11:47):
distrust borderline fear of police. This gives insight into why
the strained relationship between black communities and police departments is
(12:10):
hard to repair. And the truth is this just gives
insight into our reality. Now again, I'm not speaking as
an individual in this moment. I could I can tell
you my own stories of my own police interactions. I've
done it on this show many times. But imagine you're
(12:37):
walking as Q mentioned a police it was a police
truck for those that want to check out the video,
pulls in front of you into almost into a parking spot.
The ready assumption for me, Ramses would be, well, he's
pulling up here, he's obviously got to run into the circle. Ka.
That has nothing to do with me or into whatever story.
That original location was a circle, was not a circle car.
(13:01):
So he's but he's a parking lot, it looks like.
So he pulls in and nearly into a parking spot,
so clearly he's going in there to figure something out,
and he's in a rush. Let me not get in
his way. As soon as the door opens, you couldn't
count it two. As soon as the door opens, that
officer was barreling toward him. And what do you do
(13:25):
when someone is running towards you. You instinctively put your
hands up. Okay, this is an instinct. This isn't resisting arrest,
this isn't complying, This isn't you know he was trying
to fight me. This isn't anything like that, anything with
(13:45):
a nervous system will either fight or flight or prepare
to be overwhelmed. I mean, if a car is barreling
towards you, if someone is on a bike and they're
riding towards you, you're going to put your hands up
to kind of brace yourself. And this is almost what
(14:06):
Tyron was able to do. But we'll find out later
that the police are actually using that against him to
justify their assault of him. And that's what gives the
judge what the judge needs to say, Well, there's enough
here to prosecute Tyron. So the officer, as Q mentioned,
(14:31):
jumps out. Two seconds later, it's a full on beat down.
The officers are kneeling on him. Comply, stop resisting, put
your hands behind your back, and he can't. You know,
that nervous system will cause you to maybe cover your
face or whatever. This isn't what happening in the video,
but you understand what I'm trying to say. But also
(14:54):
he can't hear. And the officers didn't take a moment
to extend a modicum of grace to this human being
as he was walking down the street. He took they
took the word of a white guy that was lying
(15:15):
ran up and beat him up in a parking lot.
And now the judge says that the guy that got
beat up in the parking lot, they didn't do anything wrong.
There's there's enough evidence for the case to proceed that
he assaulted the officers and that he was guilty of
resisting arrest. Again he can't hear.
Speaker 2 (15:39):
And again was being arrested for something that did not happen.
Speaker 1 (15:44):
Yeah, so I think that we should take a moment
and talk numbers, talk findings, talk fact, talk journalism so
that this doesn't just feel like Qwan Rams' opinion on this.
(16:07):
So what we're going to do is share a little
bit from of our notes from an older episode, and
we employee to go check that out. I believe it
was maybe early August when we did this one, but
we do have our notes from that and this is
indeed about the same police department we're discussing today, the
(16:27):
Phoenix Police Department and the Department of Justice's findings. Go ahead.
Speaker 2 (16:30):
Q There's been noted that the Phoenix Police Department has
been under investigation by the United States Justice Department, essentially
under the suspicion of civil rights violations. This is no
longer a suspicion. This has been confirmed. This from the
Associated Press. Phoenix police discriminate against black, Hispanic and Native
(16:53):
American people, unlawfully detain homeless people, and use excessive force,
including justified deadly force, according to a sweeping federal civil
rights investigation of law enforcement in the nation's fifth largest city.
These are findings facts statements from the United States Justice Department.
(17:14):
Report release says that investigators found stark racial disparities in
how officers in Phoenix enforce certain laws, including low level
drug and traffic offenses. Investigators found that Phoenix officers shoot
at people who do not pose an inherent threat, fire
their weapons after threats have been eliminated, and routinely delay
(17:39):
medical care for people injured in encounters with officers. I
think some people that listen to our show, I think
some people in general, and I don't. I'm saying I
think this like it's an opinion. No. I've heard people
say that black peace people have a victim mentality, that
(18:03):
we race bait, that we create this victim narrative where
we're somehow always under the boot. This is not something
that we have created. Again, these are statistics. And information
from the United States Justice Department, not the NAACP, not
RAMSI's JA, not any legacy civil rights organization that's sole
(18:23):
purposes to highlight wrongdoings done to black people. These are
findings that we now know are fact. I gave you
some statements. Let me give you some numbers. Black people
in the city of Phoenix are three and a half
times more likely than white people, for example, to be
cited or arrested for not signaling before turning Hispanic drivers
(18:48):
more than fifty percent more likely than white drivers to
be cited or arrested for speeding near school zones. Native
American people are forty four times and to drive that
home even further a still equivalent to four hundred percent
more likely than white people on a per capital basis
(19:10):
to be cited or arrested for possessing and consuming alcohol.
Officers investigating drug related offenses stated to twenty seven percent
more likely to release a white person within thirty minutes
(19:33):
or less. Native Americans accused of the same offenses were
detained longer. Native Americans were fourteen percent more likely to
be booked for trespass, while officers release white people accused
of the same offense. I truly wish that people would
(20:02):
adopt a position of ignorance or naivete instead of wrongfully assuming,
even asserting what they perceived to be instances of non compliance.
(20:23):
He would have just listened to the officers. Everything would
have been okay. These are not our opinions, This is
not how we feel. This is what is actually happening.
And police are so emboldened and get to operate with
such impunity that, while being investigated by the United States
(20:46):
and found guilty of civil rights violations without hesitation, these officers,
at the pointed finger of a guilty white man, pursued, assaulted,
beat up, arrested a deaf black man with cerebral palsy
who had done nothing except be in close proximity to
a white man who felt like accusing a black man
(21:09):
of something and new that he could weaponize the police
against that man, freeing himself of any wrongdoing that he
actually did do. Well, Sir, this is America, and this
is the city of Phoenix, Arizona, where we currently reside.
There's a reason why our hearts beat faster when encountering
(21:32):
police in regular, everyday traffic. Is not because we are
inherently dangerous or inherently criminal. Our genes and chromosomes, as
our former president has said recently, do not make us
more inept, more prone to, or more by the nature
(21:57):
of our ethnicity criminal. But they have found a way
to take black and brown skin and make that the
crime you've committed. So all it takes is not even
an afraid white person, a white person who's in trouble
(22:20):
for having done something to point to you black man,
who have done nothing at all, get you assaulted, taste
and arrested. And then the video showing all of this
goes before a judge in court, and that judge says, yes,
that was a rightful arrest and there is probable cause
to pursue an investigation into a criminal charge. Now for
(22:43):
the black victim of this crime, now, let's talk about
that because the police.
Speaker 1 (22:47):
Report, they lied on the police report, of course they did.
They said that he adopted a fighting stance and all
that stuff. And you know, please watch the video. You'll
see that there is no fighting stance. But the police,
we're on the stand making a case that he did.
The best that he did was you could see his
body sort of clench as though he was going to
(23:09):
be tackled because the officer was already running at him, parked,
the truck started running at him, didn't walk, didn't hey, man,
can I talk to you for none of that? Running
out of the door, the door flung open. The officer
said that he bit them, and they tried to show
(23:41):
a mark on the officer's arm, and the mark was
more consistent with as the officer was trying to put
him in the chokehold, he scraped his arm on Tyrone's teeth.
Speaker 2 (23:58):
Or maybe the ground, whether they were him on pavement.
Speaker 1 (24:02):
This man, this, this was not a fight. There was
no fight. Watch the video. It's not a fight at all.
And so and the officers are lying very very clearly, but.
Speaker 2 (24:16):
They get to lie straight faced while the video of
them assaulting him is playing in court in front of everyone,
and the judge says, yep.
Speaker 1 (24:24):
So when we black folks say, hey, this criminal justice
system is stacked against us. When we say hey, you know,
we can be innocent of anything, and the criminal justice
system in this country can ruin our life, and other
people say, well, I mean, just comply, just keep your
nose clean, and we don't literally don't have to do
(24:50):
anything and die it's dangerous, and even if it doesn't
affect us individually, it affects our community, affects our fathers,
our brothers, it affects our fiscal prospects. It affects so much.
There's a ripple effect to this. And this is not
the only battle we're fighting. But the toughest part is
(25:15):
being black and living your truth in the middle of
a country that blindly enthusiastically supports the police, even when
they know that they're lying. They give the police the
best possible optics all the time. The reason that there
(25:36):
is a modicum of plausible deniability is because they know
that the people will accept it. The people will take that,
but society at large, so watch this. Our feeling often
enough is that police consequences is an oxymoron. There's a
(26:00):
lot about police that is an oxymoron. Why is it
that we call the police brave when they're always scared
of nothing? Watch the testimony. The officer says, well, he
put his hands up, and I assumed that that was
a fighting stance, and I feared that he was going
(26:24):
to strike me, so I pummeled him into the ground.
Speaker 2 (26:29):
Yeah, I also often run toward things. I'm afraid of you.
See what I'm saying, I can express my bravery.
Speaker 1 (26:35):
So how is it that again, oxymon? How are you
brave and scared at the same time? Like, I don't
get it. But you know the only reason that they
can keep that brave thing going perpetually is because we
have this obsession with violence, and the police feed that
(26:57):
obsession using black and bodies often enough. But let's talk
about police consequences because that's the oxymoron I wanted to
talk to. I'm gonna get back to this article. Both
Harris and Sue were called to testify during a preliminary
hearing on October first, twenty twenty four. Harris testified that
(27:18):
he immediately went heads on with macalpen within a second.
Thought it was two seconds. There's only one second because
he believed he was going to run and was going
to fight.
Speaker 2 (27:28):
Was he going to run or was he going to fight?
You believed he was going to do both.
Speaker 1 (27:34):
I read it. I read it the same as you.
That's what it says, Quote, he raised his hands in
a manner that he was going to strike me. Unquote,
Harris said during cross examination. Quote what that communicated to
me is that I was about to get assaulted and
that someone was giving up, not sorry, not that someone
(27:57):
was giving up unquote. Harris also testified he didn't know
if it was possible that Macalpen raised his hands to
protect himself from Harris's sudden punches. In response to a
question from the prosecution, Harris said everything could have been
avoided if Macalpen had just indicated he was deaf. Let
me go back up. How many seconds was that? Cue?
Speaker 2 (28:18):
One second?
Speaker 1 (28:19):
Okay, let me go back down here, So the officer says,
everything could have been avoided if Macalpen just indicated he
was deaf within one second. Okay, there we go, all right. Quote,
I would have had him sit down, made motions with
my hand to have him sit down, and then I
(28:40):
would have gotten a pin. Harris testified. As for Officer Sue,
he also testified that he saw Macalpen throw punches and
claimed that he was bitten on the wrist during the arrest.
Officer Sue's body cam fell off at the beginning of
the arrest and only shows the ground convenient when asked
to pinpoint the moment on Officer Harris's body camera footage
(29:03):
when the bite occurred, Sue stopped when the camera was
pointed upward and Macalpen was not in frame. How convenient
we call this lying, and this is the plausible deniability.
Defense attorneys asked Sue if it was possible he scraped
his wrist on the ground or MacAlpin's open mouth as
(29:25):
they punched, choked, and tasered him, but Sue said no
and denied using a choke called on MacAlpin. In a
bizarre moment, to refute the defense's claim about this the
cause of the scrape on Sue's wrist, the prosecution asked
him to stick his hand in his mouth and rub
it on his teeth. When Commissioner Secone ruled he had
found probable cause for the felony charges to move forward,
(29:49):
he did not give an explanation. So we can talk
around this all we want, but what we really want
you to do, if you haven't done so yet, is
watch this video. Whatever it is you need to do
to put yourself in that position, but not just what
(30:11):
you're seeing in the video. Imagine the fallout of that,
and again imagine how it can shape outcomes. Tyron. And
now in this thought experiment, you just walking minding your
own business. Someone else blames you, weaponizes the police against you,
(30:39):
and you're already a target, and you've lived your life
like this. This sort of thing can happen at any
point in time and can just affect the trajectory of
your life, so you live in a perpetual state of
I don't want to call it fear, but concern, especially
(31:01):
when it comes to the police. Actively avoid the police.
But the police pull up. From your perspective, they're clearly
not there for you because you've done nothing wrong, and
you keep walking. You don't hear their commands because you're deaf,
(31:21):
but it doesn't really matter all that much because you're
still walking away, and within one second, as we've established,
they jump out of the car, rush towards you, and
start attacking you. Watch the video, of course, read what
the officers wrote, look at their testimony, but watch the
(31:44):
video for yourself. You can see that they're lining how
they're exploiting the only gaps that they can find to
make their version of the story slightly plausible. They're using
every single thing that they can possibly use against this
(32:04):
man against him, and he's done nothing wrong, and the
judge is on the side of the police. Imagine living
in that world, Imagine having to pay fines. Imagine if
he gets convicted. And of course that may not happen
here because of the high profile that this story has.
(32:26):
But these are things that happen every day, and I
don't need to convince you of that, because again this
is a data driven show. Imagine what it's like to
miss work because something happened to you and you didn't
do anything wrong, and now you've missed out on employment.
(32:51):
So now you're looking for a job again, maybe even
with a record. Now, imagine getting into the the carceral
system and you need to come up with bail money
to get out, to fight your case from a position
of power, from a position of strength, And if you
(33:12):
don't have that money, your chances are diminished. And if
you do have that money, it goes somewhere where you
never anticipated. You are just living your life. And if
you have a family and your income is compromised and
your presence is compromised, what happens to your family? And
(33:34):
then if your family in turn is compromised, what happens
to your community? And if your community is compromised, and
society at large looks at you and points the finger
and says, what's wrong with those people without looking at themselves,
without looking at the system that benefits and protects them
and actively harms the rest of us. Then I think
(33:56):
you'll start to understand a lot of what we talk
talk about on this show. Sit with it, watch the video.
I think you're going to come to the same conclusions
that we come to. And if not, again, Google is free.
The data is all there. You don't have to take
(34:17):
Rams's word for it, norques. You can check out the FBI,
the Department of Justice, you know, any government agency that
you deem appropriate and look at the data. And now
that you have another story to explain the data, the
(34:37):
real world implications of the data, how it really affects
real human beings, and I think you're a little bit
further along on the journey, so we'll leave this one
right here. Thank you as always for checking us out.
Once again, I am your host, Ramsey's job. Big shout
(34:57):
out to qboard and do us a find us on
all social media at Civic Cipher. Of course, you can
hit the website civiccipher dot com and download all of
our previous episodes if you're new to the show, and
you can also interact with us, let us know if
you have any questions, any topics you want us to cover.
Be sure to follow us on YouTube if you're not
(35:17):
doing that already, And until next time, y'all peace,
Podcasting from the Hip Hop Weekly Studios. I'd like to
welcome you to another episode of Civic Cipher, where our
mission is to foster allyship empathy and understanding. I am
your host, Ramses job is Ramsy's job.
Speaker 2 (00:12):
I am q Ward. You are listening to Civic Cipher
as you.
Speaker 1 (00:16):
Are, and this is a special episode. This is something
that has been a long time coming. We've wanted to
include stories that we can't get to on the radio
for a long time, and the past few weeks have
been crazy for us. We've been all over the country,
(00:39):
you know, doing our best to do good work, and
you know, we haven't really been able to be in
the studio as much as we like. But also because
of the election season, we have had a lot of
our airtime dedicated to interviews and and other things, and
(01:01):
so there are stories that historically we haven't been able
to get to and we just kind of chalked it up.
But now that we have this relationship with I Hearten
and the capacity to podcast as often as we like,
we are committing to leaving less on the cutting room floor.
(01:22):
So today we are going to talk about a story
that we've been wanting to get to for some time,
and we know we won't be able to get to.
On our next episode, we're going to talk about a
gentleman named Tyron MacAlpin. You may have seen his apprehension
and arrest on social media. The video has been circulating.
(01:46):
It is a violent and immediate arrest for those of
you who have a modicum of empathy for your fellow
human beings who likely will have been appalled and disgusted
by the video. But for those who have not seen it,
(02:07):
we are definitely going to tell you about it. Our
hope is that this gives you some insight into some
of the things that we are trying to say on
this show that might feel maybe unbelievable. I know that
(02:33):
if you listen to this show, you have a propensity
toward trying to learn, trying to believe things. But I
know that some things might still be beyond your grasp
or your reality. Our show deals a lot with data.
Our show deals a lot with journalistically, in journalistic integrity
(03:00):
and not simply our own opinions. However, data doesn't always
tell the story. I think that today's story will indeed
tell the story that the data is trying to tell.
(03:21):
I'm going to share a bit from ABC fifteen. The
writer of this article is Dave Biskobing. This comes again
from Phoenix, Arizona. A black man who is deaf and
has cerebral palsy is facing felony, aggravated assault, and resisting
arrest charges after he was repeatedly punched and tasered by
(03:43):
a pair of Phoenix police officers. The violent and rapid
arrest of Tyrone MacAlpin raises serious questions and could serve
as a test case for Phoenix and the Department of Justice,
as the two battle over whether the Phoenix Police Department
it's federal oversight. The violent arrests thems from a morning
(04:04):
call from Circle K employees who reported that a white
man was causing problems and wouldn't leave the store. Record
show while being trespassed, the white man claimed he was
assaulted by a black man and pointed across the street
at McAlpin. Officers Harris and Sue took the man's claims
at face value and left him to go after McAlpin.
(04:27):
The man's assault claim was later refuted by store employees
and surveillance video record show. I'm going to pause right
here just to bring up to speed in cases a
little hard to follow. A white man was being trespassed
from a circle K. It was causing problems in a
circle K. The employees wanted him gone. Police showed up.
(04:50):
They approached the white man. The white man says, hey,
I was having a problem with that black man over there,
and the police say, oh, really, and then they leave
him and then go to the black man. All right,
let's continue. After handcuffing MacAlpin, his girlfriend arrived at the
arrest and told the officers that he was deaf and
(05:11):
had cerebral palsy. According to body camera footage, none of
the officers at the scene included any information about MacAlpin's
disabilities in their reports. Body camera video shows officers unexpectedly
go after Macalpen, punch him in the head at least
ten times, taser him four times, and wrap their arms
around his neck. Phoenix police officials did not answer specific
(05:33):
questions about the arrest, but confirmed it is under internal investigation,
but Phoenix Police and Maricopa County prosecutors continued to pursue
a criminal case against Macalpen. During a recent preliminary hearing,
Maricopa County Superior Court Commissioner Nixconey found there was probable
cause for his August nineteen, twenty twenty four arrest. Macalpen
(05:55):
was arrested by officers Benjamin Harris and Kyle Sue, and
their police reports and court testimony, the two officers stated
Macwpen was going to run, took a fighting stance through
repeated punches, and wouldn't comply with commands. MacAlpin's attorney said
body camera video and surveillance footage showed the officer's claims
(06:18):
are false and said there's an obvious explanation for why
he couldn't comply. Quote. The answer is easy. He's deaf,
he couldn't understand what they were doing, and he had
done nothing wrong, Shoe Walter said. Goes on to say,
everything I see in that video is tyrone just trying
to avoid being harmed by these officers, and that only
(06:38):
makes them increase the escalation and the violence they're using.
The arrest happened two months after the Department of Justice
released a Historic and Severe report outlining a long list
of systemic failures within Phoenix Police and q's going to
have a little bit more on that a little bit later.
(06:59):
For those that do listen to the show. You may
recall us doing an episode where we were discussing some
insights into police departments around the country, Phoenix being one
of them. Uh, you know where we don't have to
provide opinions or build bridges mental bridges for you, our listener.
(07:21):
We don't, and this is one such instance where we
did that. It was a report from the Department of Justice.
We took the article from the Associated Press, and we
gave insight into the Phoenix Police's discriminatory policing practices, and
then this story happens. So before we get there, Q,
(07:50):
I want you to kind of talk us through what
you saw when you first saw the video, because you
know it reads differently than it feels. And I remember
when we first saw the video and we had a
conversation about it, just kind of when you talk me
through it, I was like, oh my god.
Speaker 2 (08:09):
I think it's important to always point out that a
crime being committed should not render you being assaulted by
law enforcement. And we know that's how they feel as well,
(08:30):
because we have seen multiple now white male mass shooters
not only safely apprehended with no violence at all, but
treated with dignity and respect and even care by law
enforcement officers after their arrest. Are you okay? Are you thirsty?
Are you hungry? Let's get you something to eat. So
(08:54):
what I saw in the video, with no context, not
having read anything, was a black man walking down the
street or through a parking lot it's hard to tell
from the angle of the camera, a police vehicle swerving
in front of him, him noticing, okay, a vehicle is
in front of me now, and trying to walk to
(09:15):
avoid walking into this vehicle that seemed to very intentionally
cut him off, and an officer exiting the vehicle to
beat him up. The vehicle's door opened, the officer jumps
out of the vehicle and attacks the man. There is
no in between the door opens, he attacks him, and
(09:39):
a man who looks like someone being attacked, trying to
prevent himself from being struck, trying to break his fall,
and then trying to stop his face from being smashed
into the pavement. Another officer arrives and joins in on
the fight. So you get to watch two officers beat
(10:04):
a man up, chase him, and beat him up some more.
That's what the video shows.
Speaker 1 (10:11):
Now, when we talk about videos like this, we don't
talk about them so that you can know every single
individual instance of police violence in the country. What we
do is we try to give you insight into what
police violence looks like and the and the implifica, the
(10:33):
implications and ramifications sorry of police violence and how it
shapes outcomes for black people in this country. But as
often as we can, we point this back to the data,
to the prevalence of how this disproportionately happens to black
and brown people and less so to white people. We
(10:57):
continue to make our case that we are dealing with
a different set of circumstances that affect us differently. I'm
not talking about ramses, I'm not talking about que I'm
talking about our people. And this interaction gives full insight
(11:23):
into what it must be like to be a black
person living in most every city with a police department.
This gives insight into why we have a deep seated
(11:47):
distrust borderline fear of police. This gives insight into why
the strained relationship between black communities and police departments is
(12:10):
hard to repair. And the truth is this just gives
insight into our reality. Now again, I'm not speaking as
an individual in this moment. I could I can tell
you my own stories of my own police interactions. I've
done it on this show many times. But imagine you're
(12:37):
walking as Q mentioned a police it was a police
truck for those that want to check out the video,
pulls in front of you into almost into a parking spot.
The ready assumption for me, Ramses would be, well, he's
pulling up here, he's obviously got to run into the circle. Ka.
That has nothing to do with me or into whatever story.
That original location was a circle, was not a circle car.
(13:01):
So he's but he's a parking lot, it looks like.
So he pulls in and nearly into a parking spot,
so clearly he's going in there to figure something out,
and he's in a rush. Let me not get in
his way. As soon as the door opens, you couldn't
count it two. As soon as the door opens, that
officer was barreling toward him. And what do you do
(13:25):
when someone is running towards you. You instinctively put your
hands up. Okay, this is an instinct. This isn't resisting arrest,
this isn't complying, This isn't you know he was trying
to fight me. This isn't anything like that, anything with
(13:45):
a nervous system will either fight or flight or prepare
to be overwhelmed. I mean, if a car is barreling
towards you, if someone is on a bike and they're
riding towards you, you're going to put your hands up
to kind of brace yourself. And this is almost what
(14:06):
Tyron was able to do. But we'll find out later
that the police are actually using that against him to
justify their assault of him. And that's what gives the
judge what the judge needs to say, Well, there's enough
here to prosecute Tyron. So the officer, as Q mentioned,
(14:31):
jumps out. Two seconds later, it's a full on beat down.
The officers are kneeling on him. Comply, stop resisting, put
your hands behind your back, and he can't. You know,
that nervous system will cause you to maybe cover your
face or whatever. This isn't what happening in the video,
but you understand what I'm trying to say. But also
(14:54):
he can't hear. And the officers didn't take a moment
to extend a modicum of grace to this human being
as he was walking down the street. He took they
took the word of a white guy that was lying
(15:15):
ran up and beat him up in a parking lot.
And now the judge says that the guy that got
beat up in the parking lot, they didn't do anything wrong.
There's there's enough evidence for the case to proceed that
he assaulted the officers and that he was guilty of
resisting arrest. Again he can't hear.
Speaker 2 (15:39):
And again was being arrested for something that did not happen.
Speaker 1 (15:44):
Yeah, so I think that we should take a moment
and talk numbers, talk findings, talk fact, talk journalism so
that this doesn't just feel like Qwan Rams' opinion on this.
(16:07):
So what we're going to do is share a little
bit from of our notes from an older episode, and
we employee to go check that out. I believe it
was maybe early August when we did this one, but
we do have our notes from that and this is
indeed about the same police department we're discussing today, the
(16:27):
Phoenix Police Department and the Department of Justice's findings. Go ahead.
Speaker 2 (16:30):
Q There's been noted that the Phoenix Police Department has
been under investigation by the United States Justice Department, essentially
under the suspicion of civil rights violations. This is no
longer a suspicion. This has been confirmed. This from the
Associated Press. Phoenix police discriminate against black, Hispanic and Native
(16:53):
American people, unlawfully detain homeless people, and use excessive force,
including justified deadly force, according to a sweeping federal civil
rights investigation of law enforcement in the nation's fifth largest city.
These are findings facts statements from the United States Justice Department.
(17:14):
Report release says that investigators found stark racial disparities in
how officers in Phoenix enforce certain laws, including low level
drug and traffic offenses. Investigators found that Phoenix officers shoot
at people who do not pose an inherent threat, fire
their weapons after threats have been eliminated, and routinely delay
(17:39):
medical care for people injured in encounters with officers. I
think some people that listen to our show, I think
some people in general, and I don't. I'm saying I
think this like it's an opinion. No. I've heard people
say that black peace people have a victim mentality, that
(18:03):
we race bait, that we create this victim narrative where
we're somehow always under the boot. This is not something
that we have created. Again, these are statistics. And information
from the United States Justice Department, not the NAACP, not
RAMSI's JA, not any legacy civil rights organization that's sole
(18:23):
purposes to highlight wrongdoings done to black people. These are
findings that we now know are fact. I gave you
some statements. Let me give you some numbers. Black people
in the city of Phoenix are three and a half
times more likely than white people, for example, to be
cited or arrested for not signaling before turning Hispanic drivers
(18:48):
more than fifty percent more likely than white drivers to
be cited or arrested for speeding near school zones. Native
American people are forty four times and to drive that
home even further a still equivalent to four hundred percent
more likely than white people on a per capital basis
(19:10):
to be cited or arrested for possessing and consuming alcohol.
Officers investigating drug related offenses stated to twenty seven percent
more likely to release a white person within thirty minutes
(19:33):
or less. Native Americans accused of the same offenses were
detained longer. Native Americans were fourteen percent more likely to
be booked for trespass, while officers release white people accused
of the same offense. I truly wish that people would
(20:02):
adopt a position of ignorance or naivete instead of wrongfully assuming,
even asserting what they perceived to be instances of non compliance.
(20:23):
He would have just listened to the officers. Everything would
have been okay. These are not our opinions, This is
not how we feel. This is what is actually happening.
And police are so emboldened and get to operate with
such impunity that, while being investigated by the United States
(20:46):
and found guilty of civil rights violations without hesitation, these officers,
at the pointed finger of a guilty white man, pursued, assaulted,
beat up, arrested a deaf black man with cerebral palsy
who had done nothing except be in close proximity to
a white man who felt like accusing a black man
(21:09):
of something and new that he could weaponize the police
against that man, freeing himself of any wrongdoing that he
actually did do. Well, Sir, this is America, and this
is the city of Phoenix, Arizona, where we currently reside.
There's a reason why our hearts beat faster when encountering
(21:32):
police in regular, everyday traffic. Is not because we are
inherently dangerous or inherently criminal. Our genes and chromosomes, as
our former president has said recently, do not make us
more inept, more prone to, or more by the nature
(21:57):
of our ethnicity criminal. But they have found a way
to take black and brown skin and make that the
crime you've committed. So all it takes is not even
an afraid white person, a white person who's in trouble
(22:20):
for having done something to point to you black man,
who have done nothing at all, get you assaulted, taste
and arrested. And then the video showing all of this
goes before a judge in court, and that judge says, yes,
that was a rightful arrest and there is probable cause
to pursue an investigation into a criminal charge. Now for
(22:43):
the black victim of this crime, now, let's talk about
that because the police.
Speaker 1 (22:47):
Report, they lied on the police report, of course they did.
They said that he adopted a fighting stance and all
that stuff. And you know, please watch the video. You'll
see that there is no fighting stance. But the police,
we're on the stand making a case that he did.
The best that he did was you could see his
body sort of clench as though he was going to
(23:09):
be tackled because the officer was already running at him, parked,
the truck started running at him, didn't walk, didn't hey, man,
can I talk to you for none of that? Running
out of the door, the door flung open. The officer
said that he bit them, and they tried to show
(23:41):
a mark on the officer's arm, and the mark was
more consistent with as the officer was trying to put
him in the chokehold, he scraped his arm on Tyrone's teeth.
Speaker 2 (23:58):
Or maybe the ground, whether they were him on pavement.
Speaker 1 (24:02):
This man, this, this was not a fight. There was
no fight. Watch the video. It's not a fight at all.
And so and the officers are lying very very clearly, but.
Speaker 2 (24:16):
They get to lie straight faced while the video of
them assaulting him is playing in court in front of everyone,
and the judge says, yep.
Speaker 1 (24:24):
So when we black folks say, hey, this criminal justice
system is stacked against us. When we say hey, you know,
we can be innocent of anything, and the criminal justice
system in this country can ruin our life, and other
people say, well, I mean, just comply, just keep your
nose clean, and we don't literally don't have to do
(24:50):
anything and die it's dangerous, and even if it doesn't
affect us individually, it affects our community, affects our fathers,
our brothers, it affects our fiscal prospects. It affects so much.
There's a ripple effect to this. And this is not
the only battle we're fighting. But the toughest part is
(25:15):
being black and living your truth in the middle of
a country that blindly enthusiastically supports the police, even when
they know that they're lying. They give the police the
best possible optics all the time. The reason that there
(25:36):
is a modicum of plausible deniability is because they know
that the people will accept it. The people will take that,
but society at large, so watch this. Our feeling often
enough is that police consequences is an oxymoron. There's a
(26:00):
lot about police that is an oxymoron. Why is it
that we call the police brave when they're always scared
of nothing? Watch the testimony. The officer says, well, he
put his hands up, and I assumed that that was
a fighting stance, and I feared that he was going
(26:24):
to strike me, so I pummeled him into the ground.
Speaker 2 (26:29):
Yeah, I also often run toward things. I'm afraid of you.
See what I'm saying, I can express my bravery.
Speaker 1 (26:35):
So how is it that again, oxymon? How are you
brave and scared at the same time? Like, I don't
get it. But you know the only reason that they
can keep that brave thing going perpetually is because we
have this obsession with violence, and the police feed that
(26:57):
obsession using black and bodies often enough. But let's talk
about police consequences because that's the oxymoron I wanted to
talk to. I'm gonna get back to this article. Both
Harris and Sue were called to testify during a preliminary
hearing on October first, twenty twenty four. Harris testified that
(27:18):
he immediately went heads on with macalpen within a second.
Thought it was two seconds. There's only one second because
he believed he was going to run and was going
to fight.
Speaker 2 (27:28):
Was he going to run or was he going to fight?
You believed he was going to do both.
Speaker 1 (27:34):
I read it. I read it the same as you.
That's what it says, Quote, he raised his hands in
a manner that he was going to strike me. Unquote,
Harris said during cross examination. Quote what that communicated to
me is that I was about to get assaulted and
that someone was giving up, not sorry, not that someone
(27:57):
was giving up unquote. Harris also testified he didn't know
if it was possible that Macalpen raised his hands to
protect himself from Harris's sudden punches. In response to a
question from the prosecution, Harris said everything could have been
avoided if Macalpen had just indicated he was deaf. Let
me go back up. How many seconds was that? Cue?
Speaker 2 (28:18):
One second?
Speaker 1 (28:19):
Okay, let me go back down here, So the officer says,
everything could have been avoided if Macalpen just indicated he
was deaf within one second. Okay, there we go, all right. Quote,
I would have had him sit down, made motions with
my hand to have him sit down, and then I
(28:40):
would have gotten a pin. Harris testified. As for Officer Sue,
he also testified that he saw Macalpen throw punches and
claimed that he was bitten on the wrist during the arrest.
Officer Sue's body cam fell off at the beginning of
the arrest and only shows the ground convenient when asked
to pinpoint the moment on Officer Harris's body camera footage
(29:03):
when the bite occurred, Sue stopped when the camera was
pointed upward and Macalpen was not in frame. How convenient
we call this lying, and this is the plausible deniability.
Defense attorneys asked Sue if it was possible he scraped
his wrist on the ground or MacAlpin's open mouth as
(29:25):
they punched, choked, and tasered him, but Sue said no
and denied using a choke called on MacAlpin. In a
bizarre moment, to refute the defense's claim about this the
cause of the scrape on Sue's wrist, the prosecution asked
him to stick his hand in his mouth and rub
it on his teeth. When Commissioner Secone ruled he had
found probable cause for the felony charges to move forward,
(29:49):
he did not give an explanation. So we can talk
around this all we want, but what we really want
you to do, if you haven't done so yet, is
watch this video. Whatever it is you need to do
to put yourself in that position, but not just what
(30:11):
you're seeing in the video. Imagine the fallout of that,
and again imagine how it can shape outcomes. Tyron. And
now in this thought experiment, you just walking minding your
own business. Someone else blames you, weaponizes the police against you,
(30:39):
and you're already a target, and you've lived your life
like this. This sort of thing can happen at any
point in time and can just affect the trajectory of
your life, so you live in a perpetual state of
I don't want to call it fear, but concern, especially
(31:01):
when it comes to the police. Actively avoid the police.
But the police pull up. From your perspective, they're clearly
not there for you because you've done nothing wrong, and
you keep walking. You don't hear their commands because you're deaf,
(31:21):
but it doesn't really matter all that much because you're
still walking away, and within one second, as we've established,
they jump out of the car, rush towards you, and
start attacking you. Watch the video, of course, read what
the officers wrote, look at their testimony, but watch the
(31:44):
video for yourself. You can see that they're lining how
they're exploiting the only gaps that they can find to
make their version of the story slightly plausible. They're using
every single thing that they can possibly use against this
(32:04):
man against him, and he's done nothing wrong, and the
judge is on the side of the police. Imagine living
in that world, Imagine having to pay fines. Imagine if
he gets convicted. And of course that may not happen
here because of the high profile that this story has.
(32:26):
But these are things that happen every day, and I
don't need to convince you of that, because again this
is a data driven show. Imagine what it's like to
miss work because something happened to you and you didn't
do anything wrong, and now you've missed out on employment.
(32:51):
So now you're looking for a job again, maybe even
with a record. Now, imagine getting into the the carceral
system and you need to come up with bail money
to get out, to fight your case from a position
of power, from a position of strength, And if you
(33:12):
don't have that money, your chances are diminished. And if
you do have that money, it goes somewhere where you
never anticipated. You are just living your life. And if
you have a family and your income is compromised and
your presence is compromised, what happens to your family? And
(33:34):
then if your family in turn is compromised, what happens
to your community? And if your community is compromised, and
society at large looks at you and points the finger
and says, what's wrong with those people without looking at themselves,
without looking at the system that benefits and protects them
and actively harms the rest of us. Then I think
(33:56):
you'll start to understand a lot of what we talk
talk about on this show. Sit with it, watch the video.
I think you're going to come to the same conclusions
that we come to. And if not, again, Google is free.
The data is all there. You don't have to take
(34:17):
Rams's word for it, norques. You can check out the FBI,
the Department of Justice, you know, any government agency that
you deem appropriate and look at the data. And now
that you have another story to explain the data, the
(34:37):
real world implications of the data, how it really affects
real human beings, and I think you're a little bit
further along on the journey, so we'll leave this one
right here. Thank you as always for checking us out.
Once again, I am your host, Ramsey's job. Big shout
(34:57):
out to qboard and do us a find us on
all social media at Civic Cipher. Of course, you can
hit the website civiccipher dot com and download all of
our previous episodes if you're new to the show, and
you can also interact with us, let us know if
you have any questions, any topics you want us to cover.
Be sure to follow us on YouTube if you're not
(35:17):
doing that already, And until next time, y'all peace,
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