October 20, 2022 • 25 mins
We’ve all heard the unfortunate stories of police and Black Americans in our country. From misconduct to miscommunication, we often hear about victims of police abuse through memorials and services. But Leon Ford lived to tell the tale. At the young age of 19, he was left paralyzed after being shot by police. But, instead of allowing resentment and anger drive him, he decided to take control of the narrative – and his healing – to mend the relationships between his community and the authorities.
In this two-part Season 2 opener, Leon explains how he’s been able to create content and spaces to humanize both sides through “The Hear Foundation”, an organization dedicated exclusively to collaborating with community leaders, Pittsburgh Police, residents and the City to create a safe, thriving community for all. Listen to how he found unlikely allies for his own healing – and the healing of the larger community.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:04):
Hi, y'all, welcome back. We're going to continue with this
powerful conversation with Leon Ford because his story, like so
many we share on the show, is the reality that
so many black and Latin X people face. If you
haven't listened to Part one, check it out now. It's
a must listen. But what makes Leon's story so different
(00:25):
and so powerful is that he has chosen a path
of redemption, one where he makes peace with his reality
and even uses his aggressors to help and look onward,
not just for his own well being, but for the
healing of his entire community. In Part one, we learned
about Leon's family, how they prepped him for a moment
just like this one. And he's not alone in this conversation.
(00:45):
I know many people that have had these talks. I've
had them too, But unlike most people that end up
as another statistic of police brutality, Leon survived after he
was shot five times after a botched traffic stop. Now
confined tool we chair. I was curious, how did he
gather the strength the courage to face the people that
hurt him, to move in the path of forgiveness and
(01:08):
helping others. I come from a very loving family, growing
up in abundance and abundance of love and abundance of resources.
I mean, any dream that I had, I was supported.
(01:29):
Any idea that I had, I was supported, even if
ali playing my piano for two weeks right when I
wanted to sell sneakers, my parents supported that. So it
was like growing up in love. That's the core of
who I am. And so despite going through this adversity,
(01:54):
I was able to hold onto that love. I was
able to hold onto that creativity. I was able to
hold onto that inner child that is adventurous, that doesn't
give up, that loves joy. And through holding on to
that inner child, yes I was. I was challenged. I
(02:19):
remember reading comments on the news sites about me and
my family. I mean some of the most racist comments
you can think of. And I never made my shooting racial.
I didn't have that language. It was the media that
gave me that language. I when I looked at the
first article is that black team shot by white officer?
(02:42):
That I read the comments with all these white folks
calling me monkeys and niggers and this and that. Right, oh,
and then I made it racial. For a good period
of time, I felt like I hated all white people,
And then you know, I had amazing versus and doctors.
So I said, I hate all white people with them, right,
(03:05):
I hate all white people but my sixth grade teacher
who really loved on me, but my German grandma and
my other grandma, And so I realized how complicated things were,
and I decided it was a choice, like what am
I going to feed? Am I going to feed its hatred?
(03:26):
Is anger, this resentment, this confusion? Or am I going
to lean into compassion, love, understanding, thoughtfulness, innovation, creativity, courage, curiosity.
(03:47):
And that's what I decided to do. Growing up, my
dad always said, oh, it's chest, not checkers, right, And
if the goal in life is to be happy, to
of a purposeful life, if that's what I believe to
be winning, well why would I choose to play checkers
(04:08):
and to just take somebody's pieces for the sake of
just taking them and not fully understanding the board? And
if I understand the board and I want a good
quality of life, it makes sense to lead with love.
One of my favorite movies is The Count of Monte
(04:28):
Cristo and uh Admundon tast is wronged and he gets
sent to prison for years and he breaks out of
prison and he finds his gold, and he goes back
and he gets revenge on everyone who set them up.
And then I figets all the revenge. He said, he
doesn't feel any different. You know, there's a quote in
(04:51):
a movie that says, God will give me justice. I
know people in my neighborhood who lost everything because they
had a huge, tragic moment, tragic laws in their lives,
and they decided to retaliate, and they wish they could
be out here with me right now, spending time with
(05:12):
their children, hugging their mom, hugging their father. And so
I think that another thing is back to chest me
understanding the impact of my decisions. Right, So if I
do this thing, what will happen to me? What will
(05:33):
happen to my family? What happens if I go out
and try to murder a police officer? Even if I succeed,
what happens to me? And if that happens to me,
what happens to my son? What happens to my mother?
For every action, there's a reaction, We know that. You know.
I feel like I had the time to think through
(05:55):
all of these different possible outcomes, and the most so
realistic outcome for me in a way I saw my
life was choosing to heal, choosing to love, and choosing
to find innovative solutions that could prevent other people from
(06:17):
going through what I experienced. And healing is exactly what
Leon has done. We know from academia that when black
men are told they have viable, safe futures, they thrive.
He's taken this concept and completely run with his idea
of self love that we can heal others by first
(06:38):
healing ourselves. Some of Leon's work includes a book titled
Untold Testimony and Guide to Overcoming Adversity. He's also published
the Leon Self Care Handbook, which aims to support community
well being for those suffering from trauma. He's also the
co founder of the Here Foundation, which combines police and
community members together to create safe community is for everyone.
(07:01):
Leon has also been the subject of an award winning
documentary that he executive produced. It's been an amazing process,
especially going through it myself in many different ways. Right, So,
there was a season where writing was therapeutic for me,
or reading. There was a season where traveling with therapeutic.
(07:25):
But then there was a season where I was very
intentional about going through therapy to go back growing up.
And I know we spoke about our relationships with our
fathers and the many different lessons that we learned having
black fathers who are preparing us for the world. Well,
I never expected the world to be nice to me.
(07:49):
I never expected the world to be equitable. I never
expected the world to be just. I expected the world
to be I expected the world to be adverse. I
expected the world to be unjust because of how I
was raised, because of the experiences, you know, my parents
(08:13):
and grandparents had. And so it's interesting even now being
a person who's a wheelchair user, I go places where
people would enquire about how do you navigate the world,
And there's something mess step that this building doesn't have
steps in these curbs, and how does that make you feel?
And I'm like, it makes me feel. I always felt
(08:36):
like the world is my oyster, but it's not for me.
So I just gotta do the best I can to
make it work, to make it fit. I'm very hopeful,
I'm very faithful, but I'm also a realist. I see
things for what they are, but that's what hell me
(09:00):
to be innovative and find solutions right, Because if I'm
like in a dream world where I'm like, well, there's
no issues, it's like, how am I going to be innovative?
I'm like, oh, this is a real issue. Okay, what
leverage do I have? What people do I know? What
skills do we all have collectively? And then how do
(09:21):
we work together to solve this problem? What made you
want to get in the trenches with people who you
literally especially the moment you woke up and REALI you're alive,
you still believe we're going to kill you? Yeah, it's curiosity, creativity, courage, innovation.
I'm a problem solvereign, so who would know even more
(09:45):
about problems within police than police officers. Activists usually talk
to activists. Lawyers talk to lawyers, Politicians talk to politicians,
Educators talk to educators, so on and so forth. I
saw the value in me not only talking to, but
building relationships with every aspect of my community. I know
(10:11):
the teachers, I know the philanthropists, I know the people
who own the Chinese store, right, I know the Arabs,
Like I feelt real relationships to understand my community. I
think there's about almost eighteen thousand police departments in America
and they're all governed differently, and so I saw a
(10:33):
huge opportunity to leverage my platform, leverage my story to
not only build relationships with the police officers in Pittsburgh,
but also help change the way that they see community
and help community see them differently through relationships. This is
(10:54):
a lot of work. This is not a PR move right.
These are several hundred hours of meetings from lunch to
happy hours and dinners, and like meeting with officers who
are in uniforms and who aren't in uniform, or going
(11:17):
into the schools with officers, and I have real relationships
with these officers, and I get to learn some things
about their job that I wouldn't have learned and I
didn't learn when I had had more adverse relationship with them.
It's really heavy work, it's very time consuming. But I
(11:40):
was committed to the solution, and I was more committed
to the solution than I was to my anger and frustration.
And I wanted to learn, like what do y'all think?
Why do y'all do this thing? Why don't you want
to live here in this community? And I get a
bunch of different answers, and through his constant conversations I
(12:05):
think Leon gets at the heart of a simple but
complicated question. Why can't we simply see each other as humans.
It's easy for me to be like, yeah, f y'all,
y'all are all bad and for them to say, well,
f you, that ship was just. But what happens when
(12:27):
they meet me, the person and not the story and
they have to say, wow, he is a human being,
he is a good person. Things shift, and so I
think a lot of times, even with police, I know,
you know, even black police officers who struggle people think
that they don't feel pain of like what is happening
(12:49):
to black and brown people in this country, and like
if they could, they would be out there protesting. I mean,
it's very complex. It's super complex. I think, you know,
the more we can have meaningful dialogue and it doesn't
happen on social media, I'm not talking about people commenting
(13:12):
and just saying some far out there things. I'm talking
about really breaking bread, sitting down, being curious, trying to
understand someone else's perspective. Because we we all have different
lived experiences that shape our perspective. We're all culturally conditioned
to see the world a very particular way based on
(13:35):
where we grew up and how we grew up, and
I think it's important for us to understand that cultural
conditioning so that we can find innovative ways to reprogram
ourselves not to be judgmental, to be unified, and through
that unification, through that humanity, through that love, through the curiosity, creativity, courage,
(14:02):
and innovation, we could really solve a lot of our
societal issues. But as profound and impactful as Leon's work is,
he still was faced with the complexity of his emotions,
what makes him human, the very thing that made him
react during the traffic stop, and when he heard that
(14:24):
the police officer that had shot him was still working
in the department, his human instinct kicked in. He wanted
to sit down and talk. He's still working as uh
Pittsburgh police officer, and you know, a few years ago
I just had this vision to meet with him. That
(14:46):
moment was liberating for me because I've done a lot
of self work and in their work, but you never
know if you've really done the work until you're put
in the position to where if something can trigger you.
My philosophy is like acknowledge the harm, work through the triggers,
and move forward. When people talk about forgiveness, I don't
(15:10):
have the traditional idea of forgiveness like turn the other cheek.
My forgiveness is more connected to quality of life. And
I always say, can you imagine the quality of my life?
And every time I saw a police car, I was triggered,
or if every time I thought about the officer that
shot me, I was triggered. I've been in situations where
(15:34):
I was around family and we were having a great time,
and I had one moment where I thought about police
and I completely shut down and couldn't enjoy that time
with my family. And so I didn't want these officers
to continue to take that away from me. And that
was one of the things that encouraged me to actually
(15:56):
go to therapy and work through this trauma. And so
I only had the platform to sit down with the
officer who shot me, and I didn't have any expectations.
I didn't need an apology or anything like that. I
just felt called to meet with him, and UH, we
(16:17):
sade and we talked, and uh, the way I describe
it is it felt like something out of a Bible story.
That may be the most powerful moment of my life,
where if you can imagine the night I was shot.
I felt completely powerless. I felt powerless in court when
(16:39):
we want to trial. But to sit across from him
and not be triggered, it was like undescribable for any
listeners out there. If you've ever experienced harm, someone who
have harmed you, and the thought of them can trigger you,
look it into their face, seeing a picture could trigger
(17:02):
you to actually sit in front of that person and
there's no trigger. You completely take your power back. All
of the dreams they're gone. It's like sitting in front
of what you thought was a boogeyman and saying, Wow,
this thing isn't as scary as I thought it was. Yeah,
(17:24):
I mean, this is an incredible moment. You have met
this man that you did not know at all until
this day when you were a nineteen who shot you,
got in your car, violated, you changed the complete trajector
of your life. You're now sitting in front of and
releasing him from your mind, releasing him from you know
that that weight he carrid on you and you must
(17:45):
have felt one really free. But I really want to know, like,
how do you think he felt in this moment, because
he had to have been thinking about this a lot too. Yeah,
I think he was confused. I think he was wondering, like,
what is your motive for this? I also think it
was liberating, you know, again for him to see me
(18:08):
as a human being, to hear my mission and to
film my humanity. I mean, this guy was he was
looking at me like I was like an angel or something.
You know. He didn't say a bunch of words. I mean,
I don't think he had the words, because you gotta
figure I've been on the therapy for years now, so
in therapy it's helped to provide me with the words
(18:31):
to express myself. Whereas, like I believe that he was
in the beginning of his healing journey. So yeah, very interesting. Yeah,
that's that's fascinating. And I guess the last question I
have for you today is, you know, having this interaction
and now doing the work that you do, how are
you feeling about the future of the relationships between you know,
(18:53):
black people and the police, especially as we enter the
mid terms and more election cycles where this will always
become a bit topic. But you know, you were one
of the few people I've ever met my life you
can say I'm the one that has survivor shooting. I
can tell you what I think police should do from
a very personal level. So how are you feeling about
the future we're looking at now, um, and this is
(19:14):
going to go more into what I do have in
common with my father and grandfather. I feel like black people.
It's important for us to acknowledge the harm, right, It's
important for us to work through those triggers, and it's
important for us to move forward with munity and strength.
(19:34):
We have to let go of the collective victim mentality.
We could talk about systemic oppression, the history, and that's
important to do those things, but it's equally important for
us to be prepared for what we know we are experiencing.
(19:59):
And so that mean it's like, yo, we can't opt
out of elections right locally or nationally. We have to
be involved. We have to work together, we have to
pour our resources together. We have to be innovative. We
have to respect one another. There's some people within our
(20:20):
community who absolutely would not and do not want to
understand police officers, and that's okay. We need those people too, right,
We need those people who are going to protest. We
are a community, and as a community, we have to
understand that many different barriers that we are all faced
(20:41):
with and find a way to collaborate despite our differences.
And if we can collaborate despite our differences, I believe
that people would treat us different generally. I recognize my
privilege even as a wheelchair user. As we're building communities,
(21:04):
we can leverage privilege, and so that's what I try
to do. I live in a bubble because of the
many different relationships that I have, and I know that
people in my neighborhood, they don't live in that bubble
if I'm not intentional about sharing the bubble right, so
we have to share. Sharing privilege is very important, and
(21:27):
it's not a social media thing. The world is complicated.
You have poor people, wealthy people, you have people in
the middle. Yeah, people with different religious views, different sexualities,
all these different views. But then there's relationships, and relationships
are complicated. You g have a very strong view, but
(21:49):
meet somebody who completely shift your perspective about a group
of people. It's very complicated. Then if we let of
the victim mentality and get into problem solving mode, and
some people would say we shouldn't have to do that.
I have friends who are like, it's not my job
to teach white people about what I experience. But then
it's like, Okay, well, who's going to teach them. I
(22:12):
think it's very important for individuals who are in the
deep right, who who are doing some really important work
that is heavy, to experience life and to find joy
(22:32):
that can accompany the work. The work that I do
is very heavy, um and I think in order for
me to continue doing this work in the way that
I do, I have to enjoy my life. And I
feel like a lot of activists get caught up in
(22:56):
the work right, and it's easy because it's purposeful. But
joy is important because that is what you know, gives
me the strength to containue. I think part of what
makes Leon's work so different is his approach. He's not
afraid to go straight to the source, acting almost as
(23:17):
a translator, looking for the right points of intersection and
humanity to better coexist. And it's through his body of work,
his content, his willingness to put himself out there with
the same institutions that hurt him and so many others
in his community, that he's been able to help so
many others avoid his same fate. And while Leon's approach
(23:38):
to working with the people that harmed him may differ
from so many activists across the country who are calling
to defund the police and take police down. In totality,
I find his work and his point of view so interesting,
invalid with an orchestra of ways in which we are
all trying to make sure that everyone feels safe in America.
Thanks Bro, thanks for sharing your plot for him, man.
(24:00):
I'm sure we'll have many more conversations. I hope so
Leon could be so angry today about what happened, but
instead of being angry, he set himself on a path
that his goal is to make amends and heal, which
is so powerful and so amendable. And it's that level
of self love and optimism that ultimately has given him
(24:21):
the tools to shine a light and help others move
forward on their own journeys. We are so excited for
you to be here for season two of In the
Deep Stories That Shape Us. Keep coming back every other
week and taking these powerful stories of Black and Latin
people as they take us on their own healing journeys.
In the Deep Stories That Shape Us is executive produced
(24:42):
by myself, Zach Stafford and Ivan Chian and mastered by
James Foster and our writer is Yvette Lopez. A shout
out to our guest Leon Ford.
Hi, y'all, welcome back. We're going to continue with this
powerful conversation with Leon Ford because his story, like so
many we share on the show, is the reality that
so many black and Latin X people face. If you
haven't listened to Part one, check it out now. It's
a must listen. But what makes Leon's story so different
(00:25):
and so powerful is that he has chosen a path
of redemption, one where he makes peace with his reality
and even uses his aggressors to help and look onward,
not just for his own well being, but for the
healing of his entire community. In Part one, we learned
about Leon's family, how they prepped him for a moment
just like this one. And he's not alone in this conversation.
(00:45):
I know many people that have had these talks. I've
had them too, But unlike most people that end up
as another statistic of police brutality, Leon survived after he
was shot five times after a botched traffic stop. Now
confined tool we chair. I was curious, how did he
gather the strength the courage to face the people that
hurt him, to move in the path of forgiveness and
(01:08):
helping others. I come from a very loving family, growing
up in abundance and abundance of love and abundance of resources.
I mean, any dream that I had, I was supported.
(01:29):
Any idea that I had, I was supported, even if
ali playing my piano for two weeks right when I
wanted to sell sneakers, my parents supported that. So it
was like growing up in love. That's the core of
who I am. And so despite going through this adversity,
(01:54):
I was able to hold onto that love. I was
able to hold onto that creativity. I was able to
hold onto that inner child that is adventurous, that doesn't
give up, that loves joy. And through holding on to
that inner child, yes I was. I was challenged. I
(02:19):
remember reading comments on the news sites about me and
my family. I mean some of the most racist comments
you can think of. And I never made my shooting racial.
I didn't have that language. It was the media that
gave me that language. I when I looked at the
first article is that black team shot by white officer?
(02:42):
That I read the comments with all these white folks
calling me monkeys and niggers and this and that. Right, oh,
and then I made it racial. For a good period
of time, I felt like I hated all white people,
And then you know, I had amazing versus and doctors.
So I said, I hate all white people with them, right,
(03:05):
I hate all white people but my sixth grade teacher
who really loved on me, but my German grandma and
my other grandma, And so I realized how complicated things were,
and I decided it was a choice, like what am
I going to feed? Am I going to feed its hatred?
(03:26):
Is anger, this resentment, this confusion? Or am I going
to lean into compassion, love, understanding, thoughtfulness, innovation, creativity, courage, curiosity.
(03:47):
And that's what I decided to do. Growing up, my
dad always said, oh, it's chest, not checkers, right, And
if the goal in life is to be happy, to
of a purposeful life, if that's what I believe to
be winning, well why would I choose to play checkers
(04:08):
and to just take somebody's pieces for the sake of
just taking them and not fully understanding the board? And
if I understand the board and I want a good
quality of life, it makes sense to lead with love.
One of my favorite movies is The Count of Monte
(04:28):
Cristo and uh Admundon tast is wronged and he gets
sent to prison for years and he breaks out of
prison and he finds his gold, and he goes back
and he gets revenge on everyone who set them up.
And then I figets all the revenge. He said, he
doesn't feel any different. You know, there's a quote in
(04:51):
a movie that says, God will give me justice. I
know people in my neighborhood who lost everything because they
had a huge, tragic moment, tragic laws in their lives,
and they decided to retaliate, and they wish they could
be out here with me right now, spending time with
(05:12):
their children, hugging their mom, hugging their father. And so
I think that another thing is back to chest me
understanding the impact of my decisions. Right, So if I
do this thing, what will happen to me? What will
(05:33):
happen to my family? What happens if I go out
and try to murder a police officer? Even if I succeed,
what happens to me? And if that happens to me,
what happens to my son? What happens to my mother?
For every action, there's a reaction, We know that. You know.
I feel like I had the time to think through
(05:55):
all of these different possible outcomes, and the most so
realistic outcome for me in a way I saw my
life was choosing to heal, choosing to love, and choosing
to find innovative solutions that could prevent other people from
(06:17):
going through what I experienced. And healing is exactly what
Leon has done. We know from academia that when black
men are told they have viable, safe futures, they thrive.
He's taken this concept and completely run with his idea
of self love that we can heal others by first
(06:38):
healing ourselves. Some of Leon's work includes a book titled
Untold Testimony and Guide to Overcoming Adversity. He's also published
the Leon Self Care Handbook, which aims to support community
well being for those suffering from trauma. He's also the
co founder of the Here Foundation, which combines police and
community members together to create safe community is for everyone.
(07:01):
Leon has also been the subject of an award winning
documentary that he executive produced. It's been an amazing process,
especially going through it myself in many different ways. Right, So,
there was a season where writing was therapeutic for me,
or reading. There was a season where traveling with therapeutic.
(07:25):
But then there was a season where I was very
intentional about going through therapy to go back growing up.
And I know we spoke about our relationships with our
fathers and the many different lessons that we learned having
black fathers who are preparing us for the world. Well,
I never expected the world to be nice to me.
(07:49):
I never expected the world to be equitable. I never
expected the world to be just. I expected the world
to be I expected the world to be adverse. I
expected the world to be unjust because of how I
was raised, because of the experiences, you know, my parents
(08:13):
and grandparents had. And so it's interesting even now being
a person who's a wheelchair user, I go places where
people would enquire about how do you navigate the world,
And there's something mess step that this building doesn't have
steps in these curbs, and how does that make you feel?
And I'm like, it makes me feel. I always felt
(08:36):
like the world is my oyster, but it's not for me.
So I just gotta do the best I can to
make it work, to make it fit. I'm very hopeful,
I'm very faithful, but I'm also a realist. I see
things for what they are, but that's what hell me
(09:00):
to be innovative and find solutions right, Because if I'm
like in a dream world where I'm like, well, there's
no issues, it's like, how am I going to be innovative?
I'm like, oh, this is a real issue. Okay, what
leverage do I have? What people do I know? What
skills do we all have collectively? And then how do
(09:21):
we work together to solve this problem? What made you
want to get in the trenches with people who you
literally especially the moment you woke up and REALI you're alive,
you still believe we're going to kill you? Yeah, it's curiosity, creativity, courage, innovation.
I'm a problem solvereign, so who would know even more
(09:45):
about problems within police than police officers. Activists usually talk
to activists. Lawyers talk to lawyers, Politicians talk to politicians,
Educators talk to educators, so on and so forth. I
saw the value in me not only talking to, but
building relationships with every aspect of my community. I know
(10:11):
the teachers, I know the philanthropists, I know the people
who own the Chinese store, right, I know the Arabs,
Like I feelt real relationships to understand my community. I
think there's about almost eighteen thousand police departments in America
and they're all governed differently, and so I saw a
(10:33):
huge opportunity to leverage my platform, leverage my story to
not only build relationships with the police officers in Pittsburgh,
but also help change the way that they see community
and help community see them differently through relationships. This is
(10:54):
a lot of work. This is not a PR move right.
These are several hundred hours of meetings from lunch to
happy hours and dinners, and like meeting with officers who
are in uniforms and who aren't in uniform, or going
(11:17):
into the schools with officers, and I have real relationships
with these officers, and I get to learn some things
about their job that I wouldn't have learned and I
didn't learn when I had had more adverse relationship with them.
It's really heavy work, it's very time consuming. But I
(11:40):
was committed to the solution, and I was more committed
to the solution than I was to my anger and frustration.
And I wanted to learn, like what do y'all think?
Why do y'all do this thing? Why don't you want
to live here in this community? And I get a
bunch of different answers, and through his constant conversations I
(12:05):
think Leon gets at the heart of a simple but
complicated question. Why can't we simply see each other as humans.
It's easy for me to be like, yeah, f y'all,
y'all are all bad and for them to say, well,
f you, that ship was just. But what happens when
(12:27):
they meet me, the person and not the story and
they have to say, wow, he is a human being,
he is a good person. Things shift, and so I
think a lot of times, even with police, I know,
you know, even black police officers who struggle people think
that they don't feel pain of like what is happening
(12:49):
to black and brown people in this country, and like
if they could, they would be out there protesting. I mean,
it's very complex. It's super complex. I think, you know,
the more we can have meaningful dialogue and it doesn't
happen on social media, I'm not talking about people commenting
(13:12):
and just saying some far out there things. I'm talking
about really breaking bread, sitting down, being curious, trying to
understand someone else's perspective. Because we we all have different
lived experiences that shape our perspective. We're all culturally conditioned
to see the world a very particular way based on
(13:35):
where we grew up and how we grew up, and
I think it's important for us to understand that cultural
conditioning so that we can find innovative ways to reprogram
ourselves not to be judgmental, to be unified, and through
that unification, through that humanity, through that love, through the curiosity, creativity, courage,
(14:02):
and innovation, we could really solve a lot of our
societal issues. But as profound and impactful as Leon's work is,
he still was faced with the complexity of his emotions,
what makes him human, the very thing that made him
react during the traffic stop, and when he heard that
(14:24):
the police officer that had shot him was still working
in the department, his human instinct kicked in. He wanted
to sit down and talk. He's still working as uh
Pittsburgh police officer, and you know, a few years ago
I just had this vision to meet with him. That
(14:46):
moment was liberating for me because I've done a lot
of self work and in their work, but you never
know if you've really done the work until you're put
in the position to where if something can trigger you.
My philosophy is like acknowledge the harm, work through the triggers,
and move forward. When people talk about forgiveness, I don't
(15:10):
have the traditional idea of forgiveness like turn the other cheek.
My forgiveness is more connected to quality of life. And
I always say, can you imagine the quality of my life?
And every time I saw a police car, I was triggered,
or if every time I thought about the officer that
shot me, I was triggered. I've been in situations where
(15:34):
I was around family and we were having a great time,
and I had one moment where I thought about police
and I completely shut down and couldn't enjoy that time
with my family. And so I didn't want these officers
to continue to take that away from me. And that
was one of the things that encouraged me to actually
(15:56):
go to therapy and work through this trauma. And so
I only had the platform to sit down with the
officer who shot me, and I didn't have any expectations.
I didn't need an apology or anything like that. I
just felt called to meet with him, and UH, we
(16:17):
sade and we talked, and uh, the way I describe
it is it felt like something out of a Bible story.
That may be the most powerful moment of my life,
where if you can imagine the night I was shot.
I felt completely powerless. I felt powerless in court when
(16:39):
we want to trial. But to sit across from him
and not be triggered, it was like undescribable for any
listeners out there. If you've ever experienced harm, someone who
have harmed you, and the thought of them can trigger you,
look it into their face, seeing a picture could trigger
(17:02):
you to actually sit in front of that person and
there's no trigger. You completely take your power back. All
of the dreams they're gone. It's like sitting in front
of what you thought was a boogeyman and saying, Wow,
this thing isn't as scary as I thought it was. Yeah,
(17:24):
I mean, this is an incredible moment. You have met
this man that you did not know at all until
this day when you were a nineteen who shot you,
got in your car, violated, you changed the complete trajector
of your life. You're now sitting in front of and
releasing him from your mind, releasing him from you know
that that weight he carrid on you and you must
(17:45):
have felt one really free. But I really want to know, like,
how do you think he felt in this moment, because
he had to have been thinking about this a lot too. Yeah,
I think he was confused. I think he was wondering, like,
what is your motive for this? I also think it
was liberating, you know, again for him to see me
(18:08):
as a human being, to hear my mission and to
film my humanity. I mean, this guy was he was
looking at me like I was like an angel or something.
You know. He didn't say a bunch of words. I mean,
I don't think he had the words, because you gotta
figure I've been on the therapy for years now, so
in therapy it's helped to provide me with the words
(18:31):
to express myself. Whereas, like I believe that he was
in the beginning of his healing journey. So yeah, very interesting. Yeah,
that's that's fascinating. And I guess the last question I
have for you today is, you know, having this interaction
and now doing the work that you do, how are
you feeling about the future of the relationships between you know,
(18:53):
black people and the police, especially as we enter the
mid terms and more election cycles where this will always
become a bit topic. But you know, you were one
of the few people I've ever met my life you
can say I'm the one that has survivor shooting. I
can tell you what I think police should do from
a very personal level. So how are you feeling about
the future we're looking at now, um, and this is
(19:14):
going to go more into what I do have in
common with my father and grandfather. I feel like black people.
It's important for us to acknowledge the harm, right, It's
important for us to work through those triggers, and it's
important for us to move forward with munity and strength.
(19:34):
We have to let go of the collective victim mentality.
We could talk about systemic oppression, the history, and that's
important to do those things, but it's equally important for
us to be prepared for what we know we are experiencing.
(19:59):
And so that mean it's like, yo, we can't opt
out of elections right locally or nationally. We have to
be involved. We have to work together, we have to
pour our resources together. We have to be innovative. We
have to respect one another. There's some people within our
(20:20):
community who absolutely would not and do not want to
understand police officers, and that's okay. We need those people too, right,
We need those people who are going to protest. We
are a community, and as a community, we have to
understand that many different barriers that we are all faced
(20:41):
with and find a way to collaborate despite our differences.
And if we can collaborate despite our differences, I believe
that people would treat us different generally. I recognize my
privilege even as a wheelchair user. As we're building communities,
(21:04):
we can leverage privilege, and so that's what I try
to do. I live in a bubble because of the
many different relationships that I have, and I know that
people in my neighborhood, they don't live in that bubble
if I'm not intentional about sharing the bubble right, so
we have to share. Sharing privilege is very important, and
(21:27):
it's not a social media thing. The world is complicated.
You have poor people, wealthy people, you have people in
the middle. Yeah, people with different religious views, different sexualities,
all these different views. But then there's relationships, and relationships
are complicated. You g have a very strong view, but
(21:49):
meet somebody who completely shift your perspective about a group
of people. It's very complicated. Then if we let of
the victim mentality and get into problem solving mode, and
some people would say we shouldn't have to do that.
I have friends who are like, it's not my job
to teach white people about what I experience. But then
it's like, Okay, well, who's going to teach them. I
(22:12):
think it's very important for individuals who are in the
deep right, who who are doing some really important work
that is heavy, to experience life and to find joy
(22:32):
that can accompany the work. The work that I do
is very heavy, um and I think in order for
me to continue doing this work in the way that
I do, I have to enjoy my life. And I
feel like a lot of activists get caught up in
(22:56):
the work right, and it's easy because it's purposeful. But
joy is important because that is what you know, gives
me the strength to containue. I think part of what
makes Leon's work so different is his approach. He's not
afraid to go straight to the source, acting almost as
(23:17):
a translator, looking for the right points of intersection and
humanity to better coexist. And it's through his body of work,
his content, his willingness to put himself out there with
the same institutions that hurt him and so many others
in his community, that he's been able to help so
many others avoid his same fate. And while Leon's approach
(23:38):
to working with the people that harmed him may differ
from so many activists across the country who are calling
to defund the police and take police down. In totality,
I find his work and his point of view so interesting,
invalid with an orchestra of ways in which we are
all trying to make sure that everyone feels safe in America.
Thanks Bro, thanks for sharing your plot for him, man.
(24:00):
I'm sure we'll have many more conversations. I hope so
Leon could be so angry today about what happened, but
instead of being angry, he set himself on a path
that his goal is to make amends and heal, which
is so powerful and so amendable. And it's that level
of self love and optimism that ultimately has given him
(24:21):
the tools to shine a light and help others move
forward on their own journeys. We are so excited for
you to be here for season two of In the
Deep Stories That Shape Us. Keep coming back every other
week and taking these powerful stories of Black and Latin
people as they take us on their own healing journeys.
In the Deep Stories That Shape Us is executive produced
(24:42):
by myself, Zach Stafford and Ivan Chian and mastered by
James Foster and our writer is Yvette Lopez. A shout
out to our guest Leon Ford.
Host
Zach Stafford
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