The Ivory Talisman | Episode 8

Reporter ​​Colleen Sanders takes us through the final moments before the trial verdict is revealed as she reports from outside Jayce 42. Michelle Hayes speaks on the responsibility of Nile’s death. Kate comes to a personal revelation in regards to this case and records a heartfelt message for Gerald.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:02):
This podcast is a dramatization of fictionalized events that contains
culturally insensitive language and violence. A stalemate has developed her
in Los Angeles between the police and a mob of
armed and protesters. This, of course, all happening in the

(00:24):
final moments of Gerald Hayes online trial. Any shot, let's
get it. We'll get right back at Colleen. From where
we're standing, we can see everything's getting dicey behind you there,
You and your team stay safe. Thank you. Yes, I

(00:48):
don't know exactly how to describe it, Kate. Colleen Sanders
recounts it was basically just a ring of armed protesters
surrounding everyone else in the middle. When you say everyone else,
you mean the police, the media, first responders, and even
some of the unarmed protesters. There was just absolutely nowhere

(01:08):
for us to go. Where the hell is Patterson far
geographically speaking, where were you situated when Ammon started frantically
calling out for you? I was code seven, bathroom break, Curtis,
Curtis you in there. We need Gerald back of the rowline. No, God,

(01:29):
damn it. So I hustle back into the trailer and
I'm calling into that barn like CRAS long range short
ring anything again to pick up that sound that you
just heard. Was the power coming back on. As we
see the lights inside Jason's forty to percolate back to
life and surveillance footage, we also noticed that Gerald and

(01:50):
Sergeant Place are still seated on the stage in the
dining room, exactly where they were before the field is
solved by swat. It's here that Gerald can be seen
casually you reaching into his pocket, where he then hands
his phone to Sergeant Place. Make it quick, don't do
nothing stupid, and keep it on the speaking Susie, It's me, Susie.

(02:22):
Listen to me. Don't have a lot of time. I
just I'm so sorry for all of it. You're not
You're not just something something I needs you to do.
Don't let me be remembered. Voic's on that team, you mean,
it's just it just gotta control. Tell Well, Tell Webb's wife.

(02:43):
I'm sorry to I just if they just went wrong.
I just wish you, I wish I would have stopped
it earlier. Kiss the baby's phone. I love you. I
love you. Yeah, Sergeant Place said his goodbyes. Commander Ammond's

(03:05):
was working on a last ditch effort to try and
end things peacefully. Listen, Gerald had been avoiding us on
the phones all night, so even though I ordered Patterson
to get him on the line, I wasn't all that
confident the other side would pick up. That's when I
decided to try calling someone else that could possibly help us.
I called the polycam Apps headquarters. What was the thing

(03:27):
behind that move? I felt I needed to control the
outcome of the trial. You wanted to rig the vote
being I had considered this tactic earlier in the evening,
but decided against it because I was worried it would
potentially provoke the HT into acting even more radically and
potentially raise a level of risk for Sergeant Place. But

(03:47):
once we were confronted by this armed militia, the risk
of metastasize of the entire perimeter and we were looking
at a potential mass casualty event. So my best bet,
I thought, would be to let this online trial thing
play out, but make sure that the verdict came in
not guilty. Did you get through to anyone at poly Chimp?
I talked to their CEO directly. You talked to Philipico

(04:11):
while the voting was in its final moments. I did
what did he say? He cited some First Amendment free
speech garbage and made some wise crack about how I
was reminding him that he needs to make a fat
donation of the A C l U. And get this,
he had the nerve to tell me it would be
unethical of him to tamper with the vote, which of

(04:31):
course is absolute cow done, because it's not like this
was a legal trial. The only reason I wanted him
to fudge the numbers in the first place was to
avoid people getting slaughtered. The guy I was a complete jackass. Ultimately,
the call was an absolute waste of time. Hang on,
we're getting some breaking news here. This just in. For
the first time this evening, the up votes for not

(04:52):
guilty have surpassed the guilty votes also known as the
down votes in Gerald Hayes's Vigilante Justice trial. We're gonna
go live to Colleen Sanders again, who has more on
the situation. Colleen, that is correct, Ryan. As tense and
dangerous as things are here on the ground, everyone seems
to be keenly aware of the boat online. I have

(05:13):
here next to me a man who has his gun
aimed at the police in one hand and in his
other hand. He has his cell phone out so he
can keep an eye on the tally. Sir, sir, excuse me, sir,
what brought you out tonight? Justice? We look up for justice.
What they did to that point ain't right. We ain't
gonna let them shut down on trial before it's done.

(05:35):
Are you aware that if the boat stands as is,
it appears Sergeant Place has enough votes to be pronounced innocent.
And if that indeed holds, will you support Gerald Hayes
releasing Sergeant Place. We'll cross that bridge when we get there. If,
as you can see, Ryan, this situation here remains extremely fluid. Colleen, Ryan,

(05:58):
go ahead, right, I just want it to illuminate your
point about how fluid this entire situation is. The vote
is again flipped back over to guilty. The down votes
again outnumber the up votes by a few thousand as
we reached the waning moments before the verdict is final. Now, look,
I have to reiterate this is not a legal trial,
but because of extraordinary circumstances in Los Angeles, the real

(06:21):
life ramifications of this social media vote may prove to
be every bit as real as if it were held
in a government court. Colleen, you want to add something, Yes,
It's just that normally in capital punishment cases you have
an appellate process that can take years, decades even before
someone actually gets executed. What makes this situation so extraordinary

(06:43):
is that this vote could lead to immediate, irreparable calling calling.
You're absolutely right about that. And for those of you
watching at home, the clock has just struck midnight. So
that's it. According to the parameters set on at gerald
OG's polycam user accoun the official tally is in. No
more votes will be counted. Let's listen in Sergeant Place,

(07:09):
you got anything else that you want to say? They
gotta be with us all, Jason, give me the numbers.
Four million, eight thousand votes and uh, four million, one thousand,

(07:30):
five h Now, Jesus, it's not guilty, And by a
narrow margin, it appears as though Sergeant Place has been
voted not guilty by the people. Not guilty. I repeat,
the question remains, will Gerald honor the verdict of the

(07:51):
people that he himself solicited and will he end the standoff? Colleen,
what's the response been like outside of ja Yes, Brianna.
Right after we heard the votes, Holly being spread back
to Gerald, presumably from Jason Shaw. You could hear spattered
cheers from the police, but for the most part, the
crowd here seems extremely dissatisfied with the verdict, as you

(08:13):
can clearly hear from the chance all around. Hold on
a second, collegen, hold on, Gerald Hayes is speaking again.
This is the moment. Let's hear what he has to
say through this voting. Once again, America has proven that
black love still don't matter for ship. Seconds after Gerald

(08:37):
ends his live feed, the throw line phone starts to
ring again. On the security cam, we see Gerald crossed
into the main bar area and answer the call. Hello, Hey,
it's Patterson. Detective Listen, Gee, there's still a lot of
guns pointing in all kinds of directions out here. What
do you say, I come on in there before something
stupid happens. Yeah, I'm calling in. I'm going in. In

(09:04):
news footage and in the surveillance video, we see Detective
Patterson bolt out of the command trailer and repeatedly call
out Gerald, letting me in, letting me go in. It's
all good about to stake. That was a big moment.
It needed to be big. I had to make a
show of it. You know, because I wanted everyone with
their gun drawn on our side and the other side

(09:26):
to know that I had permission to go into the
bar and that I was unarmed. So as I approached
the front door to Jason's forty two, I handed Captain
Flora as my service weapon. Then I lifted up my
pants leg and gave him my ankle holster as well.
Think it's me take about armor. Can you walk us
through what we're seeing in the surveillance video, because unlike

(09:48):
other people that went in that night, Gerald doesn't frisk
you or anything. But I think by then from this
point of view, was probably like, what's the point. Also,
as you can see in this footage, I'm doing my
best keep him at ease the whole time. I have
my hands in there, you know, showing that I post
no threat. But I was keeping an eye on the
handgun which he was holding loosely at his side, just

(10:10):
in case it looked like he was about to make
an erratic move. Okay, So right here, I go past
him at the entry and sort of mosey around the
bar to get a look around. Then you can see
as I walked towards the kitchen, I I sort of freeze,
because that's when I spotted Nile's body for the first time.

(10:31):
And uh, well you here, Gerald say to me, you
can put your hands down down detect is this way.
He walks ahead of me here, and now I'm following
him towards the dining room, and as I enter, I
see Jay sitting on a stool over to the right.

(10:53):
And then I turned my head to the opposite side
of the room and I see the sergeant Gerald walks
towards place and I see him slide his finger over
the trigger and the handgun. Now my mind is racing
because I'm thinking, am I gonna have to jump him
before he has a chance to shoot? But then Gerald,
always full of surprises, does his thing. Sergeant Place, your

(11:15):
body it is free to go. The way he phrased
that your body is free to go. He didn't really
register to me what Gerald was saying, probably because I
was so hopped up in that fight or flight state
of mind. But you can see it in the video
here that Sergeant place knew exactly what it meant, and
he sort of looks at me for confirmation, and that's
when he hit me. He just released a hostage. So

(11:39):
I give Place a reassuring no, like yeah, this is real,
and help him up from the chair and start walking
him out the door. And as soon as me in
Sergeant placed round the corner. At that entryway, I could
see Commander am And standing outside directly in front of us.
But as we start to take those final steps out
the bar felt like it took forever to get from

(12:00):
the door to the commander. Sergeant Place was really leaning
on me, so I was putting in work just to
keep us moving forward. But the main reason was I
could just feel every pair of eyes in the area
was locked on us. All that scrutiny made for what
felt like a very long walk. In reality, it couldn't

(12:21):
have been more than ten, maybe twelve paces. Did you
know what Amas was planning to do next? I had
no idea. I think the Commander was improvising, just like
I was. Sergeant Place. You have the right to remain silent.
Anything you say can and will be used against you
in a court of law. You have the right to
an attorney and having present, come on, Place. Come on.

(12:45):
The Commander personally cuffed Sergeant Place and then loaded them
into the back of an ambulance. But they were doing
that you could see me head right back into the restaurant.
Gerald was still armed, which meant he was still a
threat to others and a threat to himself. You thought
that he might try and hurt himself across my mind
for sure. I just knew we weren't out the woods yet,

(13:07):
and the commander knew it too. Without ever saying anything
to each other, it was clear. My job was a
deal with Gerald, and his job was to deal with
the mess outside. And right as I re entered the restaurant,
that's when I hear the Commander's voice raised up from outside.
Put that thing down, Hey, hey, stand down. The commander

(13:28):
is literally putting his hands on his officer's guns and
shoving them downward. Then you hear Captain Flora's calling out
behind Ammond's sort of backing him up, because you could
tell it was a bit of a reluctance from some
of the officers at first, because they didn't want to
stand down. Heck no, But once Flora has got involved,
they all fell in love. Stand down, stand down. You

(13:48):
heard the commander, weapons down. Nobody gets Hops, We're Sergeant Hops.
I was still in the trailer when I heard on
the radio that the commander is looking for me, So
I hustle on outside and the commander pulls me close.
And now who's the guy, which meant which one of
these guys has enough sway to do what he just did?
But on the other side, and who was that Big Age?

(14:10):
So I point him out in the crowd. The commander
walked straight over to him, whisper something in his ear,
and the next thing you see is Big Age following
Commander Ammonds into the trailer. When I saw Commander Ammonds
and Big Ages walking away from everyone, at first, I'm
thinking where are they going? But as I saw him
approaching the trailer, I caught on and sure enough, Patterson

(14:33):
Ammonds here, Commander, I have a big h here for
gerald Ge. This Big Age helloj the police commander got
his man stand down. He asked me to do the same,
but you know what I told him, No, no, man,

(14:57):
I just wanted to right. But now, well you didn't,
did it? Day? You know how we feel. We're riding
with you no matter what whatever you say. We were
all with it. You go whichever, but we don't made
a pointment. I feel you whatever you said behind me.

(15:19):
Seconds later, Big Age comes out of the command trailer,
and without saying a word, he simply holds his gun
in the air, calmly tucks it in his waistband. Then
every armed protester does the same, and just like that,
a single gesture ends the standoff outside the bar. That's

(15:40):
what I knew it was over for real, not just
because Big Age got everyone on his side and lower
their weapons. It was at that moment that I looked
at Gerald and for the first time I saw a
disabled man, a vulnerable man, a broken man, like someone
who desperately needed help. So I said to him, a gee,

(16:05):
I'm gonna need that. In the surveillance video, we see
Gerald give Detective Patterson his rifle and the pistol before
asking can I say good bottom, my boy? Now? Yeah, brother,
I think you should. That was mm hm hm hmm.

(16:32):
Just give me a second, of course. Um. I got
the feeling that, even though he had been in that
building with Niles for hours, it was like he wasn't
able to say goodbye as a father, to warn his

(16:56):
son properly until he laid his arms down, you know,
So he didn't just excuse me, Curtis, It's okay. Gerald

(17:17):
didn't just surrender his weapons to me. He also surrendered
any remaining guard he had up over his feelings, and
that wasn't easy to see. So Patterson calls me over
and hands me Gerald's weapons, then tells me that he
wants to make good on a promise he made to
Nile's mother. I didn't see any harm in it, so

(17:39):
I radioed Sergeant Homer and had him bring her over,
and then I had about six of my men enter
the building as well to essentially secure the surrender. As
more police began to enter the bar, Gerald can be
seen crossing into the kitchen, where he climbs onto the
table with Niles and curls into a fetal position, wrapping
his arms around his son. This is what we hear.

(18:02):
I'm so sorry I couldn't take you to the game.
I'm soul sorry, I'm sorry. You're good. I couldn't be
h I couldn't I couldn't make you proud to read.
I was so proud of you, run, I was so

(18:22):
fucking proud of you. Med As Gerald clutches his son,
Michelle enters the kitchen and stands over them. She kisses
Nile's head, then places her lips on Gerald's forehead as well,
you know, Kate, I had I had hours to prepare

(18:42):
myself with the reality that that the next time I
saw my son it would just be his body. But
what I discovered when I finally got a chance to
see Niles was that I was totally unprepared to witness
Gerald the way that he was. And how would you

(19:05):
describe what you saw? Unmanned? So I chose in that moment,
rather than the focus on the thing my goodbye to Niles,
I decided to turn into the living to Gerald. H

(19:28):
whatever you whispered to him that seemed to bring him back.
Do you remember what you said? Chun up, nose down,
rise together, And that's what he did. At the time

(19:49):
Gerald and Michelle exit the kitchen, the police have already
handcuffed Jase, but he's still in the bar with the
other arresting officers. Seeing this, Gerald crosses his hands in
for us up the last thing he was obligated to
surrender himself. Patterson recounts, I didn't have any cuffs on me,
but one of the officers nearby tossed me there's and

(20:13):
I hooked him. Usually at this point, I'm gone, A
job is done. Decision is like when to walk Gerald
and Jay's out, which exit, who was doing it? All?
That sort of thing normally isn't my call, but these
were extraordinary circumstances, and no one wanted to make a
bone head move and potentially inflame the situation again. So

(20:36):
when the commander calls me over to the cipher of
uniform cops having a little impromptu meeting, I figured that's
what he wanted to discuss the details of Gerald's p Curtis,
I was wondering, if do you think it would be
all right if I paid my respects, if the if
the men, if we the the man paid on spects, Detective, Yeah,

(21:05):
I think that would be a good idea, sir. In
the video, we see Commander Ammon straightened his collar, adjust
his pants at the waist, and take four regimented steps
across the room. M hm, Mr Hayes, Mrs Hayes, I'm
Commander Ammond's on behalf of the entire department. I'm sorry

(21:28):
for your loss, sir. Well. From there, the Commander can
be seen entering the kitchen, where he bows his head
respectfully and says a silent prayer. He then takes the
pin off of his shirt and leaves it on the
table next to Niles as the commander exits next to
enter the kitchen as Captain Flores, he too offers a

(21:52):
moment of silence and leaves his captain's hat on the
table next to the commander's pin. By then, we had
gotten word of the surrender had taken place, so we
were pretty much just waiting to cover Gerald's exit. Colleen
Sanders recounts me, my cameraman, and my producer hoped it
would all happen out the front door, because our camera

(22:13):
was set up in the perfect spot for that shot.
But then I started seeing all these cops forming a
long line that started inside the building and was stretching
down the block. And I'm thinking to myself, well, that's strange,
because surely they don't need that many officers to help
with the arrest. So now my spider senses are tingling,

(22:37):
and I'm looking more closely at these cops, and I
noticed that every minute or so, another one of them
was coming out from inside the bar, and they all
just had the oddest expressions. What do they look like? Softer?

(22:57):
More human? But them? I went in there, it was police, protesters, media,
Everyone was paying homage to knowledge. You know must have
seen over fifty or more items left behind by the
police alone, everything from the badges, hads, pins, you name.
It looked like a shrine up in there when you
experienced something like that, even for somebody like me who

(23:20):
was having a real hatred in my heart for the
police for pretty much my entire life, and gets you
to thank you or maybe something could come out of this.
And don't get me wrong, now's died over some bullshit.
But what happened that night, it was a moment. How
so ship we soldier up and got ready to throw down,

(23:42):
and I think it did something for the people. And
then the grand scheme of things was the significance of
that look im from the streets. So the significance of
that is everything. Whether it's a bully or a game
or even the police, you're gonna get trapped on over
and over again unless you stand up for yourself. And
to me, we stood up for real. That's what allowed

(24:02):
us to all go to overweight at night towards peace.
And I'm proud of that. Do you feel like you
might have to stand up like that again? I hope not,
because if we do, we're gonn have to do stand up.

(24:23):
Getting Gerald out of the building was our final hurdle.
This is the voice of Commander Emmonds. I was glad
that Gerald and Michelle got to see everyone paying respects
to their son, and the atmosphere around the building no
longer had that inevitable feeling of doom. And of course,
the last thing I wanted to do was reignite the
powder keg that had just been diffused. But it wasn't

(24:44):
until I saw a big Age in line to go
see Niles that I got the idea to ask him
if he would be willing to walk with me as
we marched Gerald and Jay's from the building to the
squad cars we had waiting outside. Why did you want
Big Age to accompany you? I thought it was important
for people to see Gerald in cuffs. To me, that
image signified a restoration of law and order. Having Big

(25:06):
Age make that walk with us was just a way
to ensure that everyone stayed cool. Bryan, after hours of
being holed up and stand off with police, Gerald Hayes,
father of the now deceased eighteen year old Niles Hayes,
who was brutally beaten to death by police earlier, today
is in handcuffs and is being marched out of the building.

(25:30):
And just listen to the enthusiasm of this crowd as
police lead Gerald Hayes toward a squad cart. Although he's
wearing restraints, Gerald Hayes just raised both in his hands
in the air to acknowledge the supporters chanting his Sun's
me looking back, Kate. It was just a historical night,

(25:58):
So I have a lot of big memories. But I
guess the thing that's seared into my brain more than
anything else is the look on Gerald's face as the
crowd cheered for him and cheered for Niles. What was
the look? Bitter sweet? And then Gerald nods ever so

(26:26):
slightly as if to say thank you, and he gets
in the police car. As the car carrying Gerald hay
slowly inched away from the scene, the crowd continued to
mobroke Niles is naw It would be hours before the
massively long line of Los Angelenos going in and out
of Jas's forty two would finally dissipate. By dawn, Jason's

(26:47):
forty two sports bar and Grill had been converted into
a virtual memorial site with floral arrangements, murals, candles and
other mementos that people left behind. I think it's also
fair to say, inasmuch as people were paying their respects
to Niles, on some level there was a sense of
relief to that the collective we chose peace and love

(27:08):
over mutual destruction, Which leads to this question. For all
that happened that day, the good and the bad, and
for all that has transpired in the year that has passed,
has anything really changed? And maybe just as important, is
something like this going to happen again? Listen to what
Commander Ammon said about this. Speaking for myself, I can

(27:31):
tell you how that day altered my perspective on things.
In order for police to do our job effectively, we
have to find a way to maintain or regain the
moral high ground. And if we keep seating our goodwill
to things like racism, misconduct, or cover ups, even we

(27:52):
run the risk of altering the type of society we
presume to have and what type of society will we
end up with if we don't do this. A lot
of very good one all due respect to the Commander Kate,
but he's just one man, and one man's epiphany isn't
going to fix anything. But I will say this, things
have definitely changed in what way we've gotten worse. I mean,

(28:17):
look at me. I got run out of the force
because too many people felt that I was too sympathetic
to Gerald All that Coombay a ship you saw from
police officers leaving behind badges and shaking hands with gang bankers.
That last at about twenty four hours, and it was
right back to business as usual next thing you know,

(28:39):
I'm hearing that a lot of my former fellow officers
felt that I chose black over blue. If anybody chose
black over blue that day, I would argue that it
was Commander Ammond's. That's funny that he's been commended for
how he handled the situation and you got vilified. Funny
isn't the word I would use, But I agree seekers

(28:59):
That's exactly why I've enjoyed talking to you so much. Truly,
you are not afraid to just level with me. I
was never good at lying, and that's why you're the
perfect person to ask, how do we make sure that
this never happens again? But he's killing an unowned black
person with a brink of civil war both mm hmm prayer. Yeah,

(29:27):
but you're not religious, You've got a better idea thought,
So how can you get another beer? What one? So shall?
I want to start by thanking you for inviting me
to your home again, and just overall because you've been
so patient with me with my questions, and I know
it hasn't been easy. And I also want to say

(29:52):
I'm a bit nervous because there's something I've been wanting
to ask you. You want to know if I blame
Gerald for now this is passing? Wow? Am I that transparent?
Jase gave me a heads up, and I'm glad he
did because I like you, Kate, and I may have
felt some kind of way about it if you just
asked me that question the wrong way, that's completely fair.

(30:15):
Here's the thing. I know Gerald Tart and you couldn't
convince me in a thousand years that he for one
second wasn't doing what he thought was best for Niles.
But that doesn't mean that I haven't imagined every single
scenario where if maybe this happens, then now is is
still alive, or if that happens, then maybe he's just paralyzed,

(30:37):
but he's still here. But the truth is the thing
I obsessed about more than anything is why didn't not
I was just put his hands at ten and two
and say to those cops yes sir, no sir, or
I'm sorry sir. Why did he talk back? Why wasn't
he more clever or or more charming? And then I

(31:03):
hate myself but thinking these things, Kate, because wat should
my son have to be perfectly polite or perfectly likable
to survive a freaking traffic stop. And every once in

(31:26):
a while I think, Wow, my baby touched the entire world,
he and Gerald both And then for a minute or
so I'm at peace, but it never lasts. I'll never

(31:50):
really be a piece until I'm in my resting place. Mh.
I want to give you something, Kate, and I think
it will help you find something better than just answers
to your questions. What is it? Revelation? About five months ago,

(32:15):
I got a call from the police department and they
told me to come down to the station and pick
up now its belongings, which confused me at first because
I had already claimed all of this stuff from the hospital.
But these two things never made it with them to
the hospital. They were found at the scene here. Oh, Michell,

(32:40):
I don't I can't take these, Kate. You are telling
the story of both of my men, and it's important
that you get it right. I'm not giving these to
you as a gift. They are something I expect you
to bear and to honor. The first thing inside the

(33:01):
envelope was niles driver's license. Apparently Sergeant Place must have
dropped it on the street as the altercation began. The
other item was Niles is Moehler, the same tooth that
was bludgeoned out of his mouth by Officer Webb's knee.
So there I was sitting across from Michelle her Son's government,

(33:24):
I d and dental remains in the palm of my hand,
and all of a sudden I felt an unbearable shame
come over me. It became painfully obvious to me that
no amount of analytical thinking, information parsing, or interviewing would
ever get me to understand, because this isn't something you
can get by thinking. It's something you have to feel.

(33:47):
And just like Michelle intended, like a revelation, this is
what came to me as I sat there, dumbfounded. In
all this time, I hadn't taken less loss as if
he was my own. And I think Michelle knew that,
and I think Jason knew that too. The fact of
the matter is Niles and Gerald, until that very moment,

(34:11):
where a story to me. But a lot of the
people who supported Gerald's child didn't look at Niles and
Gerald as a story. They didn't see themselves as something
apart from their own lives. They were watching their people,
they were watching family, they were watching themselves. Holding the

(34:33):
last solid remnant of what was once Niles is vibrant
life in the palm of my hand. Put me in
a place that previously I just wasn't able to get to.
And the best way I can describe that feeling is
that it was overwhelming. It was sorrowful, angry, and I
just had an impulse to scream. Somebody has to do something,
somebody has to keep this type of thing from ever

(34:55):
happening again. That's exactly what Gerrold did. He did something,
and a lot of people needed that, And I understand
that now. And look, there was no version of me
that would ever have voted in the trial. Call me

(35:17):
old fashioned, naive, or even privileged, but I still believe
in the rule of law. So when I left Michelle's place,
I knew I needed to examine myself just as hard
as I spent the last year looking at Gerald Hayes.
And Originally I had planned for my interview with Michelle
to be the last one for this project, but I
realized that I needed one more sit down to fix

(35:40):
a wrong that I committed along the way, Because even
though Jason I had established a really good rapport after
getting off to a rocky start, I now see that
some of my questions around guilt and culpability may have
been justifiable from an investigative standpoint, but it no longer
sat well with me from a human point of view,

(36:04):
and I needed to correct that. This time, our meet
up was at a restaurant that I suggested in Santa Monica,
one that overlooks the peer. Jason was well enough to
leave a sober living apartment again, so I figured we'd
give it a try. As I waited for him to arrive,
I thought about all the people whose lives were intimately
touched by the day Niles was killed. I thought about

(36:25):
the people that subsequently then let me into their homes, there, workplaces,
and in varying degrees, into their hearts and minds. Then
I thought about Sergeant Place, who as of today, is
still waiting on the grand jury to decide whether or
not he will be charged for niles His death, and
has repeatedly refused to interview for this project, citing pending

(36:48):
the litigation. I also thought about Officer Webb and how
his last act on this planet, before being shot by
his own partner, was beating an innocent man to death
for no reason at all, and how that same no
reason at all justified the killing of Philando Castile to
mere Rice, Eric Gardner, Michael Brown, Lacwon McDonald, Freddie Gray

(37:10):
Trayvon Martin, George Floyd, Sandra Bland, and so many more.
But mostly as I sat there, I thought about Gerald
Gerald Hayes, the man who I had spent the better
part of a year either trying to understand or empathize with,
and all too often prosecute. And regardless of how many

(37:32):
times I tried to get him to take a visit
from me while he waits in the County jail for
his trial, in which he has been indicted on fourteen counts,
including kidnapping and the murder of his own son, Gerald's
attorney always relays the same message my client has said
all that he wishes to say on the matter. Still

(37:55):
deep in thought, I pondered these things when I hear
my name, Okay, you are right, and I look up,
almost as if coming out of a deep slumber, and
before me I see a very healthy looking Jay Shaw
standing across the table. As I take him in, I
wonder if Jace looks better than ever because he's winning
his battle with addiction, or is it because he's lost

(38:17):
a few pounds, Or maybe it's because he recently found
out that the d A has dropped all charges against him.
I see you got your recording right. You must got
a lot of questions to think, because you usually don't
break it out of the We've already smoked questions today. Actually,
this time it's it's here to record my voice, if

(38:38):
you're up for it. I just want you to give
Gerald a message for me. But before I do that,
I want to apologize to you. Jas. I guess in
all of my poking and plotting and looking for someone
to blame and all of this, I let you blame
yourself and I did worse than that. I push you

(39:02):
to blame yourself. Hi, for what it's worth. I just
I hope if I am ever, in a real bind.
I have the type of friend who was stand up
for me like you did for Gerald. That day, Jase
gives me a big bear hug that I wasn't quite expecting,
but it was one that I think we both very
much needed, and for the next few minutes we both

(39:23):
cried in the middle of the restaurant. I think the
waiter came over twice to ask us if we needed anything,
but really she was suggesting that we stopped disturbing the
other customers. And I wish I could tell you exactly
what made me so emotional, One because and not much
of a crier, and two because I wasn't crying about

(39:46):
anything in particular. My guess is that it was just
an all out emotional purge that needed to happen as
I concluded this year long journey where I had basically
been groundhog s daying Niles is death over and over.
Here's the message I recorded for Gerald. Okay, here goes

(40:12):
mm hmm. Hello Gerald. My name is Kate Bell, and
I've spent the last twelve months of my professional life
trying to come to terms with one thing, how I
should view you, and in all of my reporting and
logical thinking, I hope to come up with the clear

(40:33):
picture of Gerald Hayes the man. Is he a hero
or a villain? To blame or not to blame? But
the deeper I stepped into your world, the foggy are
the lines between right and wrong? God for me, and
really it's it's more than that, because it also became

(40:56):
harder for me to separate the line between Kate Bell
the journalist and Kate the person. At the start of
this project, my instinct was telling me that beyond Officer
Webb and Sergeant Places attack on your son, there was
a third accomplice responsible for niles of death. And for
a long time I pegged you there's even evidence to

(41:20):
support that claim, But I want you to know that
in the court of Kate Bell, I deemed that evidence
to be inadmissible. Your son was murdered by the very
people who are supposed to be our protectors, and getting
on the other side of that emotional singularity is something
that I'm just ashamed to say has taken me too

(41:43):
long to arrive at. Thankfully, Michelle helped me understand that
that's all I really needed to know in the first place.
But my instinct was right, there was a third accomplice,
one that has been hiding in plain sight all along.
But it's it's not one person, it's all of us.

(42:09):
It's me, and it's countless others who have been camouflaging
ourselves with silence, who have been unable or unwilling to
understand that throughout this despicable legacy of cases where we
see unarmed black men and boys and women suffer the

(42:30):
same fate at the hands of police, how that not
only destroys lives, but it also destroys every bit of
moral authority that the police have in this country. And
even more, it's eroding the soul of our nation. Our
silence and our ignorance has been and continues to be

(42:51):
our complicity. Our silence and our ignorance is our culpability,
and we're guilty. To me, that's what your trial was about,
exposing us as that third assailant. And as long as

(43:12):
the savage ritual of contempt for black lives at the
hands of police is allowed to find safe harbor in
precincts and prosecutors offices and court rooms, then every one
of us is at risk because the next time we
may not be so lucky. We may not be able
to pull back from the brink of mutual destruction, and

(43:35):
you showed us that. But as grim as that may be,
I also don't despair because we are not doomed to
repeat this cycle over and over. And the reason I
know that is because I found my hero and all

(43:56):
of this. Eles Gerald, Your son was so unbelievably precious,
and because of you, the world will never forget him
or what he stood for. And for that, I thank you,

(44:18):
and I salute you, and I pray that we can
live up to his memory and his words. Chin Up,
Noise Down, Rise Together, Hashtag Matter, starring Amen Joseph as

(45:02):
Gerald Hayes, Jennifer Christopher as Kate Bell, Steve Harris as
Jace Shaw Hayley, Joel Osmond as Sergeant Place, Pooch Hall
as Martin Simms, and Snoop Dogg as Big H. Additional
performances by Nile Bullock as Nile's Hayes, Serina Pouncy as
Michelle Hayes, Alfonso Faustino as Sergeant Hobbs, John Lacy as

(45:25):
Commander Emmonds, Alex Kihano as Captain Flores, Monte Russell as
Detective Patterson, and Stephen Robert Wallenberg as Detective Halmer, with
appearances by Mercy Malick, Ryan Smith, Amir Tali, Alex Vaughan,
Colin Ward, and Orvald Williams. Hashtag Matter was written and

(45:46):
directed by Dylan C. Brown. Our executive producers are Sandy Bailey,
Lauren Holman, Dylan Brown, Winnie Kemp, and Amen Joseph. Audio
designed by Wolf at the Door, Sound design and mix
by Josh Falcon, music by Jonathan Sanford, edited by Narin

(46:07):
Polling and our sound director in Alexander Kemp. Produced by
Toby Lawless and Lucy Jones. Casting by Lawless Casting. Hashtag
Matter is a production of Shonda land Audio in partnership
with I Heart Radio and an association with Wolf at
the Door. From more podcasts from shot Land Audio, visit
the I Heart Radio, Apple Apple podcast, or wherever you

(46:29):
listen to your favorite shows,