Justice Didn’t Show Up, So I Did (Ft. Katrina Brownlee)

This weeks episode of TMI, Mysonne and Tamika D. Mallory discuss earthquakes, climate change, the effectiveness of the current administration, and political controversies surrounding Trump. They also have a particularly gripping is their interview with Katrina Brown Lee, a survivor of severe domestic violence who shares her harrowing story and her journey to becoming a first-grade detective in the NYPD. They also explore issues of parental responsibilities and the consequences of overindulgence in their TMI segment. Wrapping up, Tamika and Mysonne reflect on the heartbreaking realities faced by victims of domestic abuse and the systemic challenges in addressing such crises.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
I'm Tamika d Mallory and it.

Speaker 2 (00:01):
Shit boy, my song it general.

Speaker 1 (00:03):
We are your host of TMI.

Speaker 3 (00:05):
Tamika and my song's information, truth, motivation and inspiration.

Speaker 1 (00:09):
New name, new energy, but same. What's up my song?
Let now, how you doing today?

Speaker 3 (00:17):
I'm feeling good man. I got my TUPAC shirt on,
so you know it's me against the world.

Speaker 4 (00:21):
That's good, that's cool. Did you feel an earthquake? I
didn't feel it. I didn't even know what earthquake happened
until I started seeing people posting about it online.

Speaker 3 (00:29):
I did not feel the earthquake. I heard about it,
but I did not feel it. I've never felt the earthquake.

Speaker 1 (00:34):
Actually no, I felt the one the other time.

Speaker 2 (00:36):
I never felt none of them.

Speaker 3 (00:38):
Every time somebody said, I remember I was on the
highway and they said, it was just you know, in
the building. People in the building was like stuff that
fell off the walls and stuff. I never felt any
I have yet to feel it.

Speaker 4 (00:49):
I felt at the time that the last time there
was an earthquake, which, by the way, it seems to
be more frequent, which you know, that's a we have
to have. We need somebody on the show to talk
about why all of a sudden are there, you know,
earthquake situations popping off on a regular basis, not regular basis,
but more than before. Like maybe because we were younger.

(01:10):
I'm just more, you know, or less concerned about the news.
We didn't hear about it because we weren't paying attention.

Speaker 5 (01:19):
So I had my point.

Speaker 2 (01:19):
Earthquakes have always happened.

Speaker 4 (01:21):
But this frequent, That's what I'm saying, because there was
one like last year, I was staying in the kitchen
and the whole.

Speaker 2 (01:28):
How missed that one? I missed that one too.

Speaker 4 (01:31):
Yeah, that's what I'm saying. And now we're back to
another one. So I don't know. I'm not an earthquake
expert at all. All I'm not, and I know in
California and other places they have earthquakes on a regular basis,
So I guess, you know, it is it. I kind
of just think that climate change and all these things

(01:53):
is real, right, and like, I don't know, it feels
like we're just starting the twilight zone.

Speaker 1 (02:01):
That's how it feels like.

Speaker 4 (02:02):
I believe them people who said that sooner than later,
our entire planet is going to be like in serious trouble.
They talk about the heat and the heat and the cold,
like it being in the wrong places at the wrong time.

(02:23):
Like you know, I don't know all the proper ways
to speak on the issue, but I do know that
there's some changes. There are things that are just very different.
This is true, and I don't I don't know if
this administration cares about it. I'm gonna be honest with you,
so hopefully we are.

Speaker 2 (02:40):
This is not really even an administration. I really don't.

Speaker 1 (02:44):
Don't they have power.

Speaker 3 (02:45):
They haven't administered anything that's positive for anybody.

Speaker 1 (02:50):
They have power.

Speaker 2 (02:52):
It's really sad who we are.

Speaker 4 (02:53):
And you know, I don't know if administration is That's
a good conversation because I'm not sure administration mean doing
anything positive or not. Maybe it just means doing whatever
you believe should be the agenda. So that actually leads
me right into my thought of the day because as
I was listening to this report on the news, they

(03:17):
were talking about Trump ordering the firing of Erica mcintarfer.
I think is her name, miss Eric. I'm sorry if
I said your name wrong. Who is the commissioner of
the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Now, last week he said
that the numbers were rigged, and it is because she
is a Biden appointee, a Senate approved Biden appointee, by

(03:40):
the way, and she was approved by a bipartisan group
of people. So they were both Republicans and Democrats that
approved this woman to take this position.

Speaker 1 (03:49):
Her job is to count the numbers. It's all about data, right.

Speaker 4 (03:54):
And in the so he puts out a tweet where
he says that she is rigging the numbers because he's
trying to, you know, make his administration look bad. America's
doing great. He never puts out his own numbers. He
should have said it is not true because xyz thing.
But he doesn't say that. He just says this woman

(04:14):
is lying and he wants her fired. And so they
were talking about how he pretty much does not like
anybody to speak on facts about anything, even unless they
agree with him. They are not allowed to release information
or to talk about the realities of what's happening.

Speaker 1 (04:34):
So imagine when.

Speaker 4 (04:35):
We're talking about climate change, when we're talking about all
these issues that the Republicans for so long have been saying,
is you know, not as bad as it has been
made that it's all a trick by the Democrats to
create problems that don't exist. He did the same thing
with COVID. He did the same exact thing with COVID.

(04:56):
Wasn't that big of a deal. You know, go drink
some bleak, you'll be okay type of shit, and guess what,
people died. Now we know why people died. A lot
of it was because the hospitals were unprepared.

Speaker 5 (05:08):
For the level of.

Speaker 4 (05:12):
Disease and sickness that happened, and they killed a lot
of people.

Speaker 1 (05:15):
That's just the truth, right, we know that.

Speaker 4 (05:17):
But nonetheless, COVID in and of itself was so serious,
and if you had a president who from the beginning
when they knew about it before the American people became aware,
which we believe was somewhere back in December of the
year before, if they had done what was necessary, perhaps
the hospitals would have been more prepared because there was
a pandemic on its way and it wasn't addressed.

Speaker 5 (05:41):
So this just makes me hope and wonder whether.

Speaker 4 (05:44):
Or not, you know, earthquakes popping off here and they're like,
what are we doing?

Speaker 5 (05:48):
Are we okay? But we are not going to know.

Speaker 4 (05:50):
We're only going to know based upon having independent investigation
of everything and following and listening to and learning from
folk who's been studying this stuff, who are non biased,
but they're really trying to tell you what's happening in
the in the world.

Speaker 3 (06:08):
It's a fact, you know, the reality. Like I was
just saying to you a few minutes ago, there's no
more checks and balances, right, that's what Trump has eliminated.
He's it's really just straight up dictator ship. I was
listening to shout out to Charlemagne. You know, Charlemagne went
to Fox News and was did an interview with Lord Trump,
and he was so mad at Charlemagne and his perspective.

(06:28):
He called them all kinds of names, and you know,
and and it's so it's so crazy to me that
we have a president that this childish right. They don't
even have the temperament to be able to take either
constructive criticism or even be able to just come back
and say that's not right, or combat it with your
words instead of disrespect and just just dumb shit firing
people because you don't be like everything that you don't

(06:51):
agree with, you just gonna fire people every time you
go to isolated, getting rid of whole TV stations because
you getting rid of the top interviewers and people who
are doing their shows because they don't agree with you
or they say something.

Speaker 5 (07:05):
Well, but that's the thing.

Speaker 4 (07:06):
He's not getting rid of these people. You're talking about
commentators on nightly news shows and all of these folks
that are either losing their jobs.

Speaker 1 (07:15):
I mean, we know, we believe, we believe that Joy
and Reid.

Speaker 4 (07:19):
Was specifically targeted because of her commentary on Donald Trump
as well as Gaza and the Palestinian Liberation movement, you know,
and I do think that, yes, he has a role,
that he sends a signal that he doesn't like these people,
and next thing, you know, we start to see folks

(07:41):
being fired or contracts being negotiated out or you know
what do they call it restructuring and all of this stuff.

Speaker 1 (07:49):
Right, I think that's true.

Speaker 4 (07:51):
However, there has to be some onus, on the companies
and the institutions that are actually following the wink.

Speaker 1 (07:59):
He gets the wink and the nod and then they
do the thing.

Speaker 3 (08:02):
So, y'all, I was just watching something on TV that
came up. The mayor in Florida and Orange County. His
name is Jerry Demmings, black Man and he was talking
about how he reluctantly had to sign a deal with
ICE and he said, I didn't want to do it.
He was I've seen that he has been fighting against
it for a long time. But the reality is he
said that they will remove us from office. He said, literally,

(08:27):
me and my staff will be removed from office in
my constituents, in my county.

Speaker 2 (08:32):
They can't take that.

Speaker 3 (08:33):
We would lose way much way more than we would.
So literally, these people are being they're being black men.

Speaker 1 (08:40):
Bullied in blackmail.

Speaker 2 (08:42):
That's what's happening.

Speaker 3 (08:43):
So when I look at these TV said, like Stephen
Colbert is the number one night show and now he's
because he says something about Trump. Next day they talking
about he did not renewing his contract and it's over.
It's like, this is what's happening all the time, every issue.

Speaker 4 (08:57):
I agree, But what I will say is that I
hope that what you say.

Speaker 1 (09:01):
Is named mayor what Jerry demis Demings.

Speaker 4 (09:03):
Mayor Demings needs to understand that he believes he will
be removed if he does not do this thing, and
once he did that thing, he's already been removed, like
you've been neutered. At the point that you. You have
to roll over for what these folks are attempting to do.

Speaker 5 (09:20):
Now, I get it.

Speaker 4 (09:20):
I could talk all that over here, and I'm not
the mayor of Orange County. I'm not any mayor at all,
so I understand that it is not easy. But then
you have somebody like Mayor Brandon Johnson in Chicago who's like,
I'm not negotiating with terrorists as they're threatening to pull
money from his city because of his status as a
sanctuary city. So it depends where you're going to fall

(09:44):
in this fight. And I think people are still believing
that to acquiesce or to work with them a little
bit is to move somehow closer to them being able
to maintain some level of civility when they don't understand
that it's ice today and tomorrow it's gonna be something different.
These folks are gonna continue to move their ball towards

(10:05):
Project twenty twenty five because that's where they are headed.

Speaker 1 (10:09):
That's it.

Speaker 4 (10:10):
So you know, fine, I'm not a mayor, so how
dare I get to speak? But I am a fighter,
and I do realize that every time you give a
bully ground, they just move in more and more and
more and more on you.

Speaker 1 (10:23):
And so that's where we are.

Speaker 2 (10:25):
We live in anarchy. It's really after school.

Speaker 3 (10:28):
It's gonna get It's gonna come a time like when
that's one thing. The minute it says it's gonna take
ten thousand fearless people, man and women all like, people
are gonna really have to be tested.

Speaker 5 (10:38):
Be ready to because yeah.

Speaker 3 (10:40):
It's so crazy to me, right, I just be walking
on we in the hood and we just don't know
what's going on. Say, we just really we are just
so far from what's going on. And I'll be sitting
there thinking to myself, damn, don't we just don't know?
And they say our people perish because of lack of nows.

Speaker 4 (10:58):
Well, our media is also not good at showing us
what's happening, even until Trump. It listen to how crazy
this is, Okay, And this is my thought of the
day today. It's all about this issue of jobs. I'm
back to a part two on the unemployment rate for
black folks and particularly black women. But it's now the

(11:18):
numbers are showing black men are also impacted, but it
is acute for black women. Until Trump tweeted that he
wanted to get rid of the miss Erica from the
Bureau of Labor Statistics. Until he did that, right, there

(11:38):
was really no conversation on seeingn in Mississippi c I
wasn't seeing it. I don't watch in MSNBC, so let
me not lie on them folks over there. They might
have been talking about it the whole time. But I
do watch CNN, and I did not, and I watched
Seeing In from the morning until the night.

Speaker 5 (11:54):
It's probably the only.

Speaker 4 (11:55):
Thing other than Law and Order that's on my TV
for the whole day in different cycles. Until I look
at a little bit of Fox News, I did not
even see a report conversations post social media.

Speaker 1 (12:07):
I follow CNN.

Speaker 4 (12:09):
I did not see them talking about the number of
black women who are out of the workforce since Trump
took office, right, I did not see them tying the
anti DEI movement to the job loss of black women.
I did not see that happening. But when he tweeted,
then the news shift. So even our media is controlled

(12:32):
by what he does and does not do. Instead of
them being there as an offense game that you know what,
we're going to inform people so that people will know
what's happening. When people get up every day, and they
get ready to go to work and they're doing whatever
they're doing.

Speaker 1 (12:47):
When you say.

Speaker 4 (12:47):
Donald Trump, most of the time, a lot of people
I know, they turn it off.

Speaker 1 (12:51):
They don't eve want to hand the shit no more.
They already know is terrible.

Speaker 5 (12:54):
We get it.

Speaker 4 (12:55):
But if you have a headline that says x amount
of hundreds of thousands of black women are out of
the workforce during you know, because of or due to
even whether you say it's Donald Trump's administration or not,
that is going to get more people to listen. So
part of the reason why what you're saying is that
our people are uninformedists because we don't even have an apparatus,

(13:16):
a media apparatus that's properly educating us. And too many
of us do not see the importance of following and
supporting people like us, right, people like Roland Martin and
others who are giving you information that you need.

Speaker 1 (13:31):
But now let me go to my thought of the day.

Speaker 4 (13:33):
Specifically, so the Grillo reported, and this is due to
the numbers that Trump doesn't like, so stick with me.
They reported that black unemployment is at the highest level
since the pandemic. And I think, yeah, I think it
was in twenty twenty one under Joe Biden during a pandemic,

(13:56):
the last time jobs were at such a low rate
or high rate on unemployment was at such a high rate,
jobs at such a low rate. By the time Joe
Biden left office, black unemployment was at its lowest. Right,
it was at its lowest in many years. So by
the time Donald Trump takes office until now, it the

(14:18):
reports from the Bureau of Labor Statistics say that it's
at the highest since twenty twenty one during a pandemic.

Speaker 5 (14:27):
That is absolutely terrible, surerible, right, But.

Speaker 4 (14:31):
There are people online trying to tell me that, oh,
these numbers are inaccurate. You actually see people that are
domin enough to say, I still have my job, So
this is not true. We're talking about three hundred thousand
black women. Maybe you still have your job. That's awesome,
but that does not mean that three hundred thousand other

(14:51):
black women have not either lost their jobs been pushed out,
whether it's these packages in the federal government. It does
not mean that every single person has been fired. It
means that people have left the workforce for one issue
or the other. And we know that the numbers are
undercounted because they are only counting people in the federal government,

(15:12):
of the corporate entities and institutions that report their data.
But you got people with contracts. And guess what, my son,
I know these people. They are either on my phone
telling me they lost their jobs or they're sharing in
my stories. I can see people taking my posts and
sharing it to their folks and they don't know me,
and I don't know them, and they're saying I'm in

(15:34):
the number.

Speaker 5 (15:35):
I'm one of those people.

Speaker 4 (15:36):
I've interviewed with two hundred people, three hundred people, and
I can't seem to find a job. Not two hundred,
that's an exaggeration, but I've been on thirty interviews and
I can't seem to find a job. And I would
love to see when the Latino reports come out, because
as we know right here in our studio, our producer
Janis have been looking for the job for I don't

(15:58):
know how long, and even her daughter and cannot find work.
So God forbid when we find out what's happening with that.
So I decided to let me go and look up
what are the reasons. So, first of all, tariffs is
obviously one of the main things, because when the president
starts talking about raising the tariffs on all of these
different nations.

Speaker 1 (16:18):
It makes the economy unstable.

Speaker 4 (16:21):
And people should go to Thegrio dot com and read
this story because the story gets into very specific reasons
by experts of why job loss starts, and one of
them says that when black people are the last to
get hired but the first to get fired. And so
if you think about that, that we're the last to

(16:41):
get hired and the first to get fired, that means
that the economy is going in a very very destabilized
direction because we're not even the first.

Speaker 1 (16:51):
In and the last out.

Speaker 4 (16:53):
That means that they are already starting to cut the
people who are already impacted. So we know that it
won't be long before or the entire system starts to
see some real serious crisis shit happening. But okay, let
me go back to my research. So it says that
tariff's is one of them. But the other thing that

(17:13):
nobody can leave this. I don't care who you are.
You could try your best. You could be a person
who's just like I don't care about DII. I don't
want to talk about DEI. But if you're being honest,
you got to bring it up as to why all
of these black women especially have been losing their jobs.
And of course, the report says that the anti diversity,

(17:34):
equity and inclusion campaign that is basically making it a
crime to hire people and ensure that your workforce is
diverse and equitable and inclusive, that that has a major
or is playing a major role, and why so many
people are being pushed out of the workforce. This man
has fired so many people from the federal government. They

(17:57):
let that damn Elon Musk going and closed down departments.
And guess who is over represented in the federal government
black people. Black people have an over index in terms
of federal jobs. The reason why that happened For the
people out there who'll be like, oh, well, why were
they all working there? Because we were not able we

(18:20):
get businesses, they burn it down, right, we try to
work in certain environments if they're not protection and.

Speaker 2 (18:28):
We was taught to get a government job.

Speaker 4 (18:29):
Well, but there was a reason why that happened, is
what I'm saying to you. When we attempted to build
our own that it was challenged, it was burned down.
If we could not get the funding that we needed
to start certain businesses, and then when we went into
the workforce, there were little to no protections for black

(18:51):
and brown people. And so when we went into the
federal government, it was the first place where you could
go and have a stable income. You could make a
good amount of money, to be able to buy your
home and to have some level of wealth within your family,
have benefits, and there were rules established to protect all workers,

(19:12):
not just black workers, but all workers. And so now
when they go in and just start firing people left
and right, don't think that they don't understand who is
going to be impacted by that the most. Now, so
I decided now that I know from my research that
tariffs and the anti DEI campaign are two of the

(19:34):
top reasons why you are beginning to see so many
black women and black people being pushed out of the workforce,
I said, let me go ask chat GPT a question, right.
And I didn't even know the best way to ask
the question because it was kind of like eh, But
I just said, let me go for it and just
ask it in my own novice way. So I said,

(19:56):
which part of Project twenty twenty five has something to
do with black people losing jobs? B? Basic question?

Speaker 5 (20:04):
Right?

Speaker 1 (20:04):
Wish I had a more.

Speaker 4 (20:06):
Fancily play to ask it, but I figured too that
was basic.

Speaker 1 (20:11):
It says Project twenty twenty five.

Speaker 4 (20:13):
It says it's a far right policy blueprint by the
Heritage Foundation and it's setting. Over one hundred conservative organizations
contributed to it. It says it doesn't explicitly say we
want black people to lose jobs. It doesn't say that,
but many of its proposals would disproportionately harm black communities,

(20:33):
particularly in employment and economic opportunity.

Speaker 5 (20:37):
Number one. The first thing.

Speaker 4 (20:39):
That chat cheapt because y'all be on the Internet with
all of these things about how chat cheapt is trying
to control us, and it lies and it wants and
it might be true. I'm not saying I don't know
what it does to other people. When I use it, it's
pretty much just to make sure I'm on point about
what I'm already thinking, and maybe a couple of IDs is.

(21:00):
But really I don't use it enough to say that
it's not doing something racist. I don't know, but I'm
just telling y'all when I put stuff in there, the
questions I ask, it gives me back, for the most
part what I'm looking for, So I asked this question,
and it says Number one, dismantling the DEI infrastructure. It

(21:22):
proposes to eliminate diversity, equity and inclusion across all federal agencies,
and it discourages them in the private sector.

Speaker 5 (21:30):
It says discourages.

Speaker 4 (21:31):
It does not say it makes it mandatory, so that's
another day's conversation target. But it says it has wiped
out so many federal jobs and contracts afield where many
black professionals have found employment or gained business opportunities. Number
two reclassifying and firing federal workers. Sort of like Number one,

(21:54):
but this talks about how many of our people are
in the or we're in the federal rule workforce and now,
and it compares the number of people in the workforce
to our population, right, and it shows how this has
a major impact when people start getting fired from federal jobs.
Then it says Number three cutting social safety net programs.

(22:19):
It talks about deep cuts to welfare programs including food stamps,
housing what is happening, and medicaid. That is all in
the big beautiful bill, you know, the big nasty, ugly lie.

Speaker 1 (22:31):
It's all in there.

Speaker 4 (22:32):
So when they say they're cutting all these programs and
they tell you, no, we're just trying to make sure
that people they're not supposed to be on it.

Speaker 5 (22:38):
No, it's in Project twenty twenty five.

Speaker 4 (22:41):
And even chat GPT that y'all say is racist, is
telling you that this is a part of how they
will destabilize our community. Number four, attacking labor rights. That's
why you got labor unions out here that are fighting
like hell, because they know that they the rights of
the labor community right that has been one of the

(23:02):
cornerstones of protections of black, brown and other workers. And
they're attacking that. They really want to take labor unions out.
And then it says erasing of civil rights protections. This
is mad serious, it says. Project twenty twenty five aims
to dismantle the Civil Rights Division of the Department of Justice,
to strip enforcement power from agencies like the EEOC and

(23:27):
eliminate anti discrimination protections that would make it harder to
sue for racial discrimination and hiring, firing, and pay. There
was people people who I actually tried to you know,
like I thought we were good. We were close, and
we understood that we might not always be on the
same side, but we both had good common sense that
told me Project twenty twenty five was not Donald Trump's platform.

(23:51):
He did not believe that was not what and I
thought these people were smart, so I gave them time
and I tried to build with them that we could
be on different sides and still come together. I don't
have any space in my life for anybody that made
excuses for this shit, because our people are going to

(24:12):
be impacted the most when it's all said and done.
As we have heard many times that when America gets
a cold, black people get.

Speaker 5 (24:19):
Pneumonia and we die.

Speaker 4 (24:21):
Well, we are in pandemic crisis right now, and it
is going to eliminate not just black wealth, but there
will be people in our community who have already been suffering,
who are going to suffer more than we have ever seen.
And you watch and see does this not happen in
the next year. So just so people know, because I'll
be back for a third time on this topic since

(24:42):
people want to try to tell me that what I
know is not true. And now the Grillo is a liar,
the Ebony magazine is a liar, Revote is a liar.
Everybody's a Let know who's a liar? Is Donald Trump?
He's the liar. We are losing jobs in our community
and everybody, and I'm on, this is me going on
too long, but I just want to say all of

(25:03):
this stuff about somebody at the nerve to write on
my page today that you should become an electrician and
get you a trace. So you're telling me that a
sixty year old woman who was close to retirement is
supposed to go learn how to be a damn electrician
now after she'd done worked all her life to work
in the Department of Education, the Department of Justice, or
some transportation or an or is a consultant who's been

(25:27):
working on projects or has a business that has been doing.

Speaker 5 (25:30):
Whatever security at the airports.

Speaker 4 (25:32):
I mean black people have real businesses, by the way,
just so people will know that there are real businesses.

Speaker 5 (25:39):
And you get a federal contract.

Speaker 4 (25:41):
To do security, to do transportation, to do to cleaning services.
And so you're telling me now that the fifty five
year old person, the forty five year old person needs
to go learn how to be a goddamn electrician. And
there's nothing wrong with being electrician, but that's not going
to happen today.

Speaker 3 (26:01):
It's really sad that we have to have this conversation,
and you know, for pretty much a year straight, I
just knew this was coming, and it's just like it's
really it's mind boggling. It's mind boggling to see people
that believe anything that Trump say, Like it's just it's
just weird to me. It's like the man just lies.

(26:21):
He's lies every time he talks. He's been fact checked
and just proving to be a liar about everything. And
it's still people that come from our communities with black
skin that that's going through the same struggle that try
to ignore it or try to justify it. And it's
just the weirdest shit ever. It's like it is the
most It's like a domestic violence person that just stays

(26:44):
with the person that they ignore the black eyes and
they try to convince you that it's not that bad,
and you're bugging, I just love them, and you're getting
a shit beat out you and you don't even care.
It's like there's a level it's it's you know, it's
Stockholm syndrome. And I don't know what to do with it.
I can't even I don't have the stomach for it.
I don't want to have a discussion about it. It's

(27:05):
just like if you're living in the time that we're
living in right now, if you're seeing the same shit
I'm seeing and you and you're enduring the same shit,
if you walking into these stores and if you're outside
just just feeling just the texture of what we in
this world and you don't realize it, it's nothing I can.

Speaker 2 (27:22):
Say to you.

Speaker 1 (27:22):
Yeah, I mean, it's it's let me just say that.

Speaker 4 (27:26):
You know, to your point, a lot of people want
to believe in something and therefore they make excuses. But
guess what, I've never ever sat and said to you, Oh, no,
Joe Biden was the best and Kamala Harris was the best. No,
we are at least able to identify that there was
some serious issues with the administration. There's serious issues with

(27:48):
the issues of Palestine and Gaza.

Speaker 1 (27:52):
We were very.

Speaker 5 (27:53):
Clear about that.

Speaker 4 (27:53):
People got mad and said, don't talk about it, it's
not the time, and we said, no, we're not going
to do that. We have to be standing in toes
down on what is writ and what's true. Y'all will
sit there and try to say that this man wasn't
involved in Project twenty twenty five, and they are steps
into implementing what project twenty twenty five look like.

Speaker 1 (28:11):
They wrote it in a nine hundred page document. You
can't even mad at the people.

Speaker 2 (28:15):
The problem for me is that their people is like,
what's so bad?

Speaker 4 (28:18):
Oh, people said, project twenty twenty five isn't scary. I
remember that Project twenty twenty five isn't scary. It sounds
so stupid, really, because everybody wants to be viral for
saying something that makes them sound like they got that
thing and they know more. No, Project twenty twenty five
is impacting our people, and we can be building, that's

(28:38):
for sure.

Speaker 5 (28:39):
It's so how we build.

Speaker 4 (28:40):
People should be able to have reason, to be able
to utilize their tax dollars for their families to survive.
So then, anyway, let's move on to the TMI because
I could talk about this for a whole show. Matter
of fact, next week I'll be back to talk about it.

Speaker 2 (28:57):
Shit, oh man, it's a lot, man.

Speaker 3 (29:00):
But for tam II, as we talk about work in
the workforce, you know, we talk about jobs in the workforce.
I was having a conversation with one of my friends yesterday. Actually,
we just had a good conversation and we was talking
about kids. You know, he was telling me about issues
he's having with his daughter, and I was talking about
me and my son, my son, and we were just
having conversations and we came to a conclusion. So we

(29:25):
want to know are we right? So for today's TMI,
you know, the question is this. We know we come
from poverty. You know, when we come from our communities,
we didn't have a lot, and as we were able to,
you know, acquire certain things, we wanted to make sure
that our kids didn't have the same path. We wanted
to make sure our kids were able to have the

(29:46):
good sneakers that they wanted to because I remember going
to school and not having the sneakers I wanted and
holds in my pants and make sure they ate whatever
they wanted to. They was able to go on every trip,
every video game they had, like, we wanted to make
sure we did that.

Speaker 1 (29:59):
And a solid educ I hope is one I exit educate.

Speaker 2 (30:02):
Oh that's that's mandatory. You got to go to school, right.

Speaker 4 (30:04):
Well, going to school is different from moving them into
a district or.

Speaker 2 (30:08):
Paying for Oh yeah, trying to go to the best school.

Speaker 1 (30:11):
Because when we were kids, you went around the corner.

Speaker 2 (30:14):
Yeah, exactly, so you know the best schools.

Speaker 1 (30:16):
You know, my parents did pay for me to exactly.

Speaker 3 (30:19):
I paid for my son to go to Catholic school.
I try to put them in the bed all things
is necessary. Wanted to provide the best things you could
for your children. The question is, and we had to
ask ourselves, did we do too much? Did we did
us trying to make sure that they didn't struggle or
go through you know, the turmoil and the plight that

(30:41):
we went through. Did it harm them?

Speaker 2 (30:43):
You know? And a lot of people have these questions.

Speaker 3 (30:45):
A lot of people say, yo, you should be able
to You're supposed to provide everything you can for your kids.
And I really think that it's not really the best idea.
I think what we've done, we've taken away this fire,
We're taken away We've created levels of entitlement. You know,
we've taken away the will or just the need to
have to work for something, because we never really made

(31:07):
them work for anything. You know, they feel like it's
supposed to come. Oh, you my father, you my mother.
You're supposed to do certain things or you're supposed to
do that, And they walk into the world with this
kind of mentality. Like I used to get up. I remember,
you know, I used to get up at six o'clock
in the morning. I was going to go to school.
Nobody had to wake me up.

Speaker 2 (31:27):
You know.

Speaker 3 (31:27):
I used to go to I wanted to play on
the basketball team. I got there at seven o'clock. They
had workouts at seven o'clock.

Speaker 2 (31:34):
You know.

Speaker 3 (31:35):
I went there and worked up before I was even
on the team. I went there and I was.

Speaker 2 (31:39):
The clock guy.

Speaker 3 (31:42):
But there was levels of work and shit that I
knew that I had to do to acquire the things
that I wanted, Like I had to go pack bags,
you know, I wanted summer clothes. We didn't have money,
so I would get up, leave school like ten minutes early,
run home. There was a little supermarket down the block.
Sergio shout out to Sergio. They used to be there,
and I used to sit there and pack bags. Or
I would go to the supermarket right across the street

(32:06):
from my school and pack bags there. And I made
my own money. And I remember the first time I
brought all my summer clothes.

Speaker 2 (32:11):
I went.

Speaker 3 (32:11):
I had about one hundred two hundred dollars and I
went to the little store. I brought the little ten
dollars shorts.

Speaker 2 (32:16):
I had to.

Speaker 3 (32:17):
That's when they had the fly with shorts and all
that all you had needed was a little T shirt
and some shorts and you get you a pair of sneakers.
And I brought my summer clothes and I felt accomplished.
Nobody gave me nothing. And I had that mentality. And
I watched these kids now, and they don't really have
that work ethic mentality. They want to figure out the

(32:38):
best hustle, the best scheme, how you get it the
fast way. They don't want to grind, they don't really
want to work. And it's because I believe that we've
done too much to entitle.

Speaker 5 (32:49):
Well, I don't know. I mean, I would say this.

Speaker 4 (32:53):
Because even though it's a lot of things, because also
they got an opportunity. Your children are getting an opportunity
to see parents that work hard, right, And so maybe
you did still give too much, and maybe I did
the same. But I do think that it is in
them because they know what it looks like to be
a hustler. There are some children, and I imagine that

(33:16):
these are the types of kids you're talking about that
didn't have much off. They didn't have to do anything,
and they don't even really see all that much hard work.
They just see a lavish lifestyle of you know, you
want this, and you know you want to go here
and come here, and your friends come over and we
go on vacation and we do all these things. And

(33:38):
that's just kind of like the environment I guess that
they live in.

Speaker 1 (33:41):
And so they're.

Speaker 4 (33:42):
Rude, you know, they're lazy, they don't want to be bothered.
But I would say that with our children, and with
most of the children who have parents that are very
similar to us, like our friend group, those kids in
this moment, they might be a little like it, but
they're going to end up being hard worker. Is because

(34:03):
they were raised in environments where that's what they learned.

Speaker 3 (34:07):
I think that's that's part of the journey, right And
that's the conversation that we had and we were saying,
we set a foundation for them. Yeah, we did too much,
and so there's a level of entitlement right now you
have to do is take it back, like you have
to be intentional about Okay, look, I realized now you
got to figure the rest out on you. You got

(34:28):
to be intentional about that, because that's what's going it's
going because they have it inside them. You understand I'm saying,
they definitely have the things that we've taught them, and
you know the level of work ethic in it, because
they've seen us work hard, but they just didn't haven't
had to work. So now you have to make them
work that hard. They got to be able to call
you and you be like, I can't do it. You

(34:49):
got to figure this out on your own. We got
to make them figure things out of their own. And
I think the frustration comes is that it's late, late
in the age, like when you twenty By the time
I was twenty one, I was trying to figure out everything.
I had my own record deal. Nobody even knew I
was rapping. I was figuring it out. I was doing
the things necessary to be able to, you know, secure

(35:11):
my future, you know. And I think, so you expect
your kids to have it faster than you, but the
reality is we didn't set them up.

Speaker 1 (35:19):
For Yeah, no, that's true.

Speaker 5 (35:20):
It's true.

Speaker 2 (35:21):
We do.

Speaker 4 (35:24):
We do expect our children to be more advanced than
us because we feel like we're more advanced than our parents.
But really, quite frankly, we weren't right because our parents
endured things that we never ever had to deal with.
They just did, you know, they came through. I'm thinking

(35:44):
about my mom and dad coming from the South, you know,
especially my mother. At least my father came here with
me with his brothers, you know what I'm saying. So
they gonnas, they way through and figure it out. But
my mom came here as a woman who's coming from
the South already the discrimination. Even though the North was
supposed to be better, there was still a lot of discrimination.

(36:06):
She had to work in environments where she was mistreated,
but nonetheless, she just kept pushing her way through.

Speaker 2 (36:13):
Me.

Speaker 4 (36:13):
When I was in school, soon as somebody got on
my nerves, I was like, I don't want to go
back there. And then you know what they did. They
moved me because I didn't like that place. And in hindsight,
I probably should have stayed my ass right there and
figured it out.

Speaker 5 (36:26):
But yes and no, because in.

Speaker 4 (36:29):
Elementary school I couldn't say I want to leave, and
they allowed me to be in an environment where my
self esteem was chipped away at every single day by
people who wanted to keep me in my place, you know.
So it's there is no blueprint for what our children
should do and what they will become. But I will
say that I agree with you that hard work has

(36:51):
to be a part of what we are teaching our children.
We have to my granddaughter, I want her to take herself.
Go put it back, put it back. She puts it
down right there wherever she is, throw it down.

Speaker 5 (37:06):
She went.

Speaker 4 (37:07):
She took some French fries that she had in her
stroller out, and evidently she don't want the French fries
in her stroller because that's not where it's supposed to be.
But instead of taking it and putting it in the
trash can, she at my mama's house, which, by the way,
my mother probably and when I was young.

Speaker 1 (37:24):
Now they don't do this no more.

Speaker 4 (37:25):
It is nowadays my mother is like, oh that baby,
look at what she's doing.

Speaker 3 (37:30):
Ha ha ha.

Speaker 4 (37:31):
She would have broke my arm for taking the French
fries out the stroller and throwing them on the floor
right there in her living room.

Speaker 1 (37:38):
It would have never happened.

Speaker 4 (37:39):
Even at almost three years old. My mother would have
been like, you must be out your mind. It would
have been a whole thing. I probably would have had
to go take a nap. Okay at that age, get
you something, lay down since you don't know where the
garbage can.

Speaker 2 (37:52):
Is at the pop and the next.

Speaker 1 (37:54):
Time you will remember where the.

Speaker 3 (37:57):
Garbage can is that little pop because you put once
you they grabbed their hand and said pop top.

Speaker 2 (38:03):
They did a pop, and then they throw it in
the ground and said, now go to nap and you'll
be like they did a pop.

Speaker 4 (38:08):
They did a pop. They did a pop, but they
did that nap. That nap was like us.

Speaker 2 (38:15):
The thing is, that's why they popped you, because the
cry made you tie it. They knew it. It was
a strategy.

Speaker 3 (38:20):
They'll pop you real good and you hold it in,
especially when you're young and did the first time it happens.
You don't know what's going on, and they pop you
and you look at him and they be like no, no,
now go nap and you go and then you start
crying and then you laying down and you.

Speaker 1 (38:35):
And you remember that garbage didn't.

Speaker 2 (38:37):
Give you that look.

Speaker 1 (38:39):
But now, but you know that's on me.

Speaker 4 (38:41):
Instead of me going to her and just picking it up,
I went and got her and the French fries and
went to the garbage team.

Speaker 5 (38:50):
This is but that, but a lot.

Speaker 4 (38:52):
Of times that's not like, we just don't do that
as much anymore because I find myself just making sure
she's okay. I don't want her to feel uncomfort the
bull to cry a little bit. My grandmother used to
let you crashes to say, baby, your lungs all you
want to cry, you gotta change, Pampa, you or you
gotta change whatever you ate. You dry, you comfortable, You

(39:14):
can cry all you want to cry. She said that
all the time.

Speaker 1 (39:16):
Baby, I love to hear people crying. That means it's life, crown,
you know.

Speaker 2 (39:20):
What the reality is. They set us up for real life.

Speaker 5 (39:23):
They did.

Speaker 2 (39:24):
They let us understand that.

Speaker 3 (39:25):
People don't give a fuck if you crying like they
don't care like you, if you not doing what's right,
they don't give a fuck.

Speaker 2 (39:32):
And that's a.

Speaker 1 (39:32):
Conversation cruel and unusual.

Speaker 3 (39:34):
I have real conversations with kids and I'm be like, yo,
I'm me and your mother is the only people that
give a fuck about all of that outside of us.
In another like my son's eleven and fourteen, I'm like
another three or four years, nobody's gonna kire except us.
They gonna see you as an adult, They're gonna see
you as moving the potential that you have. If you

(39:55):
don't have not maximized on all that, you just become
part of people in the world and nobody gives a
fuck about your feelings.

Speaker 2 (40:03):
So I want you to get used to that.

Speaker 3 (40:05):
I don't want you to I don't want you to have,
you know, false expectations and realities that are outside of
this home where we nurture and care for you and
love you. That people care about what you're going through.

Speaker 1 (40:15):
They don't give they really don't. So now it is
something to think about.

Speaker 4 (40:19):
Are we doing too much as parents and grandparents and
how we are trying to make sure our kids don't
suffer some of the same things that we suffer, or
should we be protecting them at all costs because I
don't want my children and my granddaughter, my son or
my granddaughter to struggle. I don't want that. But perhaps

(40:40):
struggle is what makes you give you character.

Speaker 3 (40:43):
It does, they said, struggle has created more men of
honor than privilege ever.

Speaker 4 (40:50):
All right, so now we are about to get into
our guests. We have an interview today with sister whose
story is just so real and so raw that it's
pretty emotional. You know. I think that these types of
stories are often buried, especially when it comes to black women.

Speaker 1 (41:11):
We don't I don't know why, but the world really.

Speaker 4 (41:13):
Either they use it for a movie so that it
becomes like trauma porn, or it's not talked about in
the places that it needs to be. And I don't
really know all the reasons why, but I do know
that it's not easy for stories like Katrina Brown's to
be told. And that probably sounds a little crazy to

(41:35):
folks like, oh, yeah, I always hear about but you
might hear it on the chicken circuit, like on the
telephone with your mama and your grandmama and whatever. But
the national news, yeah, does not cover these types of
stories unless somebody is deceased.

Speaker 1 (41:51):
And she is not. She is alive.

Speaker 4 (41:53):
And well I meant to say Katrina Brown Lee, not
just Katrina Brown, but Katrina Brownlee. And again, she thriving
and she's here with us now. Katrina is a retired
first grade detective in the NYPD.

Speaker 1 (42:07):
And let me tell you something.

Speaker 4 (42:09):
I know police departments across the country, and I can
tell you that being a police officer in New York
is no joke, particularly as a woman. I've heard it
from a number of cops, and I know that it
is probably one of the most difficult police departments to

(42:29):
thrive within, and to become a first grade detective in
the NYPD, that is a substantial accomplishment. And so, but
her story is so deep of what took place in
her life, and I want to hear about it today.
But I just want folks to know that once you

(42:50):
finished listening to this powerful sister, get to the internet.
She will tell us how to purchase her book, because
she is now an author who was telling her story
through her book and then came The Blues, a new book,
a memoir.

Speaker 1 (43:06):
Thank you so much for joining the TMI.

Speaker 6 (43:08):
Show, Thank you for having me, thank you for the
opportunity to be here today.

Speaker 5 (43:14):
I want to you know, I just want to.

Speaker 6 (43:16):
Give a brief story of how everything unfolded, if I
may so. I was in a domestic violence relationship with
my ex fiance, who is my youngest daughter father, and
very early on the relationship became abuse. And what that

(43:36):
looked like was being in a relationship with him early on,
getting pregnant early on, and I expressed to him I
did not want to have a baby with him because
I didn't know him like that. And I didn't think
he would want to have a baby with me because
he didn't know me. But just being in that broken space,
I decided to, you know, have the baby, and I

(43:59):
told and I told him I wasn't going to have
the baby.

Speaker 5 (44:01):
That's when he the abuse began.

Speaker 6 (44:05):
And you don't realize that you're in an abusive relationship
with someone.

Speaker 5 (44:11):
A lot of times you don't. You don't know what
it looks like.

Speaker 6 (44:15):
And so at that particular time, because of all the generational,
transgenerational trauma that I had been through, I didn't realize
that that's what I was experiencing. What's some examples of
transgender trans.

Speaker 1 (44:33):
Of the domestic abuse that you were experiencing.

Speaker 4 (44:36):
Because it wasn't just like strike you in the face
at first, It started with.

Speaker 5 (44:39):
Other Actually that's how it started. Wow, Why that's what
I'm saying. It started that way.

Speaker 6 (44:44):
It you know, some people's story may be well, it
comes with the emotional part.

Speaker 5 (44:49):
That didn't. That wasn't my story.

Speaker 6 (44:51):
My story came with the smack in the face and
flipped over and I'm here from the projects and I'm like, oh,
you don't smack me. And I smacked them back and
we started fighting, you know, but he's a man and
much bigger than I was, so he.

Speaker 5 (45:05):
Of course he overpowers me.

Speaker 6 (45:07):
And I speak about that in the book, like what
you know how that all happened? And I unpacked that,
and so I begin this relationship with this man, and
I'm abused because I don't realize at the moment that
I'm abused. And well, I'm not saying I didn't realize it.
I'm abused, but I'm not realizing that this is not

(45:30):
normal for someone to be hitting me and putting their
hands on me and emotionally abusing me and talking down
to me. I didn't realize what that looked like at
that particular time. That makes sense, so him being in
the correction officer that he was at that time. It

(45:50):
was this particular time that I called the police department.
I called, now I'm on one. Police officers responded, and
when they responded, he identified to hisself that he was
a correction officer, and the police officer.

Speaker 5 (46:02):
Said, you guys got to work it out. I had
a black guy, like.

Speaker 6 (46:07):
It wasn't visible, so you saw, you saw that I
was abused, and he decided to walk away and leave
me in next state. So right there, my distrust for
the police that left, like I had no trust at
that point because you're here to protect and serve and

(46:29):
then you see me in this condition and then you say, okay,
well you know what, y'all gotta work that work that out.

Speaker 5 (46:36):
So that happened, and I called the cops again.

Speaker 6 (46:39):
I speak about that also in the book about when
I called the second time, and so after that it
was no more calling the cops because I'm realizing, like
at this point they're not going to help me, because
the second time when I called.

Speaker 5 (46:50):
They just actually walked away like he showed his bad.

Speaker 6 (46:53):
They didn't even say anything to me again, a visual
marks on my face, on my body. And which is
so interesting is when the story first was told about
four four years ago, someone called me anonymously and said

(47:15):
to me, I'm not sure if I was the police
officer that responded. I did work in the eight one
priests at that time. He said, but I want to
say that I know that you're not lying about us
walking away because I've done it before, so I'm not
sure if you're the person, but if you are, want

(47:35):
to say I'm sorry, I want to apologize to you.

Speaker 5 (47:38):
I won't give you my name.

Speaker 6 (47:40):
I retired as a captain, I believe, he said, or
an inspector. And he said, I live in Florida now,
and he hung up.

Speaker 4 (47:46):
The phone, acknowledging that they walked away. And look, this
is this is, this is now that you have been
in the worst situation.

Speaker 5 (47:57):
You almost died.

Speaker 4 (47:59):
Now people want to tell you they're so sorry because
they realized they could have saved your life by intervening
at the time when you were calling for help.

Speaker 5 (48:08):
Correct. And I was pregnant at the time.

Speaker 3 (48:11):
Jesus wow, So how did how did it get to
him actually shooting you?

Speaker 2 (48:18):
What? What was that situation?

Speaker 6 (48:22):
Well, I hadn't you know, Like I said, it was
years of abuse. At this point, I'm pregnant again, right,
so this is the third child.

Speaker 5 (48:29):
And I just was like, I can't. I got to
get out of this. So I left.

Speaker 6 (48:35):
I was away and in a hidden place of the
book speaks about where I was. I don't want to
give too much about that. So so this particular week,
I ran out of money because I didn't work. I
wasn't allowed to work. I called him on the phone
and I said to him, you know, I'm running out

(48:57):
of money, would we be able to, you know, meet
up where I can get the clothes for the girls.
And so we had a decent conversation. And so we
had that first conversation and then we begin to have
conversation for the rest of the week. And so he said, well,
you know what, I'm going to be off on the weekend.
You can come on the weekend and pick up things.

(49:18):
And I've accepted that you don't want me. I've accepted
you don't want to be with me. I just want
to be in my children's life. And I was like, absolutely,
I have no problem with us co parenting. I'm not
sure if I used that particular word or language at
that time, but that's what we were talking about. And
so I just you know, said to them, you know,

(49:39):
I just want.

Speaker 5 (49:40):
To be able to.

Speaker 6 (49:42):
Be in a place with you where we can be
able to get along and it not always be so
abusive and toxic. And he was like okay, not realizing
that I was being set up.

Speaker 5 (49:58):
And everybody, I believe gets.

Speaker 6 (50:01):
That that gut feeling like something is gonna happen or
something is wrong, just that whole like day the night before,
I kept just saying maybe you should just leave, you know,
leave this stuff or whatever.

Speaker 5 (50:18):
But I didn't have any money. I didn't have anything.

Speaker 6 (50:20):
So I needed I needed my clothes, and he was
he said that he would giving me five hundred dollars.

Speaker 5 (50:27):
I needed it.

Speaker 6 (50:27):
I was desperate, and so I go back to the
home that was shared and I go. I turn the
key to get into the door, and it was locked.
So I was like, okay, change the locks. Already, no problem.
So he opens the door and when he opened the door,
he had like this airy face like and I was like, okay,

(50:49):
what my plan was? Listen my baby. I had my
youngest daughter in my arms at the time, and she
was sleeping, and I went to place her down in
her room, and then I just proceeded to go. I
bet when it was to the left, to go and
retrieve my belongings. And when I did that and opened
the door drawer, there was nothing in there. So I
turned around and I'm like, where's my stuff? And he

(51:11):
looked at me and he was like, this is the
day you die, bitch, and he began to shoot me.
And so I talk about all of the how he
shot me. It wasn't like he shot me Bong Bong bong.

Speaker 5 (51:28):
It was torture.

Speaker 6 (51:29):
So I speak about all of that in the book,
how he tortured me through the process.

Speaker 5 (51:34):
And your baby daughter was there. My baby daughter was.

Speaker 6 (51:38):
In the room sleeping, and I don't know if he
even remembered that she was there because he was just
in his space in which he was in And I'm thinking, like,
maybe he would have killed her because you killed your
you killed your son.

Speaker 2 (51:52):
So music, guys.

Speaker 3 (51:55):
So during that process, I know that the process of
healing after that. You know, I'm just trying to figure
out what made you feel after you lost trust for
the police, you know what I'm sing. He was a
correctional officer. How did you transition into becoming an officer?
What was that process?

Speaker 2 (52:16):
Oh?

Speaker 6 (52:16):
God, that was That process was not easy by far,
because I had such a dislike for police officers any
type of law enforcement, whether it was police, it could
be a court officer.

Speaker 5 (52:28):
I just had to just dislike for them.

Speaker 6 (52:31):
But I again I speak about this is a something
happened to where I was able to get into the
police department, and I talk about that part in the
book as well. And so I decided to join the
police department because I wanted to be a good cop.

Speaker 5 (52:49):
I wanted to be protect and serve.

Speaker 6 (52:51):
I wanted to be able to help and just be
a difference.

Speaker 4 (52:57):
So before you went back to work, I mean, obviously
you almost died, and I know you're, you know, making
sure people actually get the book and read it. But
I would love to hear about the healing process. Like
you were shot in multiple locations, but you lived. So
what is it that he didn't hit that allowed you

(53:19):
to live? You know, because anybody that gets shot ten
times you would think that they would die.

Speaker 1 (53:24):
But there was something that protected you from that. Can
you tell me or.

Speaker 6 (53:28):
Tell us what that was. I to be honest with you,
it had to be God, because he hit me. And
the only place I didn't get I get hit was
shot in my face. I was hitting my face with something,
but I was not shot in my face. But I
was hitting, just hitting all my organs, like I was hit.

Speaker 1 (53:50):
I was hit. And they say, how did they know
that you were?

Speaker 4 (53:54):
They like shot? Like how did you get help? I
got to I have to reveal that in the book,
Like I tell that that part is so powerful.

Speaker 6 (54:04):
Wow, Well and I still have six bullets to me
and they was not able to get there was only
able to remove forward the bullet. So I lived with
six bullets to this day. Like I can die tomorrow,
you have.

Speaker 1 (54:17):
Your bullets moved around.

Speaker 5 (54:19):
Oh absolutely, I'm going through something right now.

Speaker 2 (54:22):
Wow.

Speaker 4 (54:23):
Wow, I mean, it's just and I think the story
here is that there were signs, there were physical signs
of abuse beforehand. But to your point, growing up in
the communities we come from the stories we have, we
deal with abuse sometimes and just accept it as being

(54:45):
somewhat normal because it's just, you know, what we're used to.

Speaker 1 (54:48):
You don't leave your home.

Speaker 4 (54:50):
Especially when I saw you say in another interview, you know,
he had a job, he had a job, a good job.
He you know, had a weapon, you know, and he
was the protector. He was supposed to be your guy.
And to know that he would turn around and do
something like this because he no longer had control over you.

(55:11):
It seemed to me that he decided that if he
wasn't going to control you and be able to beat
you and treat you however he wanted to, he was
not going to let you go off into the world.
And that is so troubling because we hear that all
the time, and you know a lot of people in
the recent months, you know, through the different trials and

(55:33):
everything that we have watched unfold. When we talk about
the issue of domestic violence, there are so many people
that say, well, why didn't she leave? You know, why
didn't she just walk away? But deprivation meaning not having money,
not having clothes, not having those things, you could get
so far as to be hidden in a location and

(55:56):
then have to double back to a terrible situation in
order to be able to take care of yourself, because
how are you supposed to survive? And people create those
conditions when they know that they want to have something
to be able to control you. So I know that
that must be a part of what you're talking about
in your book.

Speaker 6 (56:16):
Absolutely I speak about that, and I want to also
stress that people are quick to tell people, oh, just leave,
Why didn't they leave? It's not that easy to just leave,
you know, and especially if you're in a place where
you don't have money, you don't have resources, you don't

(56:36):
have family, you don't have community, The police won't help you,
Nobody not helping you. Where you're going there's no safe haven.
Where are you going? And it's still happening today. And
here when you pull the cop share, they got to
do the report.

Speaker 5 (56:52):
But where you're going, You.

Speaker 6 (56:56):
Know, I did a speaking engagement and this isn't And
I want to be real clear, this is not a
gender thing, This ain't a race thing.

Speaker 5 (57:03):
This is this is.

Speaker 6 (57:04):
A crisis damn and people, and this is this is
what's happening. But see, my thing is this, I've come
to the realization that domestic violence is not going away.
So what I'm advocating for is for people to get
healed and made whole. And what that looks like is
nothing missing, nothing broken, and nothing damaged being made whole

(57:29):
so that you don't get into these relationships with people
that are already broken and want to take their misdirect
anger on you, because when you're.

Speaker 4 (57:41):
Healed, you spot that mess a mal away. So so
where is he now? I don't know where he is.
But I don't know.

Speaker 6 (57:50):
I don't know where he is. I don't have no
contact with him. I have no communication with him.

Speaker 2 (57:54):
So was he convicted for shooting you?

Speaker 5 (57:57):
He was convicted of shooting me, but he the day
of the trial he played the guilty.

Speaker 2 (58:03):
And what was he sentenced to?

Speaker 5 (58:05):
Five to fifteen?

Speaker 4 (58:08):
Five to fifteen years for almost killing you and murdering
your son and murdering you in many ways, like there's
parts of you that will never ever be the same.
And he did that and he got five to fifteen years,
which means he's already been released and he's off about

(58:30):
his business in the world.

Speaker 1 (58:31):
I mean, this is just crazy.

Speaker 6 (58:34):
It's just outrageous, and just to think about it, and
then people are so awful and even in the comments
and the things that these police officers are attacking me,
and I'm just saying, like, at the end of the day,
this is not about a selling note book. This is
about a crisis. People are dying, it is.

Speaker 3 (58:59):
And I heard you know that that you didn't even
when you became part of the police force, that you
didn't even disclose that this had happened to you.

Speaker 5 (59:09):
I could not because I know that they did not
want the stigma. They wouldn't have hired me I could tell.

Speaker 2 (59:17):
So you had to live with that inside for order.

Speaker 6 (59:20):
Could you imagine living and working for twenty years scared
to death every day you go to work that somebody
gonna find out who you are.

Speaker 4 (59:30):
And it's not that they would yeah yeah, yeah, yeah, like.

Speaker 3 (59:35):
You can't even be the victim of a crime. Nah,
you have to. It's crazy. You have to hide that
somebody did something to hurt you in order for your own.

Speaker 4 (59:44):
Survival, right because you weren't. It's not that they that
they wouldn't have hired you. They probably still would have
hired you, but they would never allowed you to grow
all the way to first grade detective.

Speaker 1 (59:56):
It's no way you would have never sed.

Speaker 5 (59:58):
I'm telling you they would not. I'm telling you that
they're not.

Speaker 6 (01:00:03):
They're not hiring no domestic violence victim, especially at that level.

Speaker 5 (01:00:11):
Damn, they're not. Wow, no way, and I stand doing it.

Speaker 4 (01:00:18):
They wouldn't have even hired you because to have you
there is to have somebody with a story that makes
them not a robot, because that's what they want.

Speaker 6 (01:00:28):
It's robot, because they would have to be exactly because
if you hired me right under these circumstances, and then
now I got to tell the whole story on the
paper that y'all responded, but you didn't help me.

Speaker 5 (01:00:41):
How do you want how do you want to hire me?
How do you want to hire me? Think about it.

Speaker 2 (01:00:47):
They don't want you. They know you you're a grenade.
They don't. They don't want decide, of course not.

Speaker 6 (01:00:55):
And and let me tell you something. I don't have
the police department. I have my pros, and I have
my corns right, and I have the experience of being mistreated,
and then I have the experience of being on this
sting and working for the same organization that did an
injustice for me two minutes, I should say, yeah, I

(01:01:16):
was able to go in there, and I was able
to go in there with integrity. I was able to
go in there and protect and serve and do my job.
No CCRBS, no suspensions, no scan dus underneath, nothing, nothing.

Speaker 3 (01:01:31):
That's I mean, you know, sometimes the best revenge is success.

Speaker 5 (01:01:36):
That's right.

Speaker 2 (01:01:39):
Talk to us about your foundation that you started.

Speaker 5 (01:01:43):
I started that.

Speaker 6 (01:01:44):
I started the foundation in twenty twelve when I was
in community affairs, and I started it because I wanted to.
I just didn't want young women, young ladies to be
able to have to experience what I had experienced. Everybody
doesn't come from a great household. Everybody doesn't come from
a place where if someone gets to mentor to them

(01:02:04):
or be a life coach to them. And I had
said to myself, you know what, the best place for
me to start this program is within the NYPD to
it's a bridge, a gap with the police department and
with the community. And so that's how I started it
and it became very effective. I offer workshops. I'm about

(01:02:26):
self esteem, self awareness, etiquette, law, one on one here,
makeup day, just so many workshops that I offer. It's
a sixteen week program. After each girl finishes the program,
I give them a formal commissiment and I speak life
into them because they a lot of them go right

(01:02:48):
back to the same environment. But if I can give
them a tool, if I can give them some sort
of love and just give them a voice and some hope,
maybe I can save them.

Speaker 5 (01:03:00):
Because that wasn't never offered to me.

Speaker 2 (01:03:03):
And what's the name of your organization again.

Speaker 5 (01:03:05):
Young ladies of our future?

Speaker 4 (01:03:09):
Tell us about your your your upbringing like you know?
And and also are you still in touch with any
of the members of your abuser's family, like, because I
know you have children with him, So does he do
those children get to see anybody in the family?

Speaker 1 (01:03:25):
Did they know what was happening and they ignored it?

Speaker 6 (01:03:28):
Everybody that was around me at that particular time saw
what's happening.

Speaker 5 (01:03:33):
When you have black guys and busted lips.

Speaker 4 (01:03:35):
Everybody see wow, so that's your own family as well.

Speaker 1 (01:03:38):
They knew what was happening. Yeah, everybody.

Speaker 4 (01:03:41):
That's that's a real thing, Like a real thing is
you could go home to your own family and they'll
be like, oh baby, you know, don't don't make him
upset or try to work it out. And right there
with a whole black guy that's a real name. Yeah,
it's a real thing. It's real, and we normalized it.

Speaker 2 (01:04:03):
Are the kids dealing with any level of trauma from.

Speaker 5 (01:04:08):
Of course? Of course?

Speaker 4 (01:04:09):
Could you imagine knowing that your dad shot your mom.
It's a horrible story. Yeah, that's that's tough. Well, I
pray for you, sis, and I you know, I as
I listened to you, I just know your story. I
don't know people that were shot ten times and survived.
So you are God efitently wants you to do something,

(01:04:35):
for sure. But I know so many people that everybody
knew they were being abused.

Speaker 1 (01:04:42):
Everybody knew.

Speaker 4 (01:04:43):
Everybody watched their own mothers, other family members watched it happen.
And because the man had a good job, and you know,
he was maybe attractive and had a little money or whatever.

Speaker 5 (01:04:58):
People just pat they let it.

Speaker 4 (01:04:59):
They just like kind of pooh, pull it away, and
watch women suffer and be abused. And I know some
people will say, well, it happens to men also, it does.
But a man walking into his family's house for Thanksgiving
or whatever with two black eyes and a busted lip
is not. Really, that's not a normal occurrence. It happened

(01:05:20):
to women often, and the whole community will sit by.
You'll hear it happening next door and say nothing. You'll
see it in the family and do nothing, and the
abuser's family will know that it's happening and never step
in to say enough is enough.

Speaker 1 (01:05:38):
This has to stop. And that's not okay.

Speaker 5 (01:05:41):
Yeah, it's not okay. And let me tell you something.
To a lot of women right, women are dying from
this and it's business as usual.

Speaker 6 (01:05:59):
You hear about it, and a lot of them, I'm
telling you, you don't hear about it. And this is
not just a black thing. This is a white thing.
This is a religion thing. People from all over the
world have reached out to me and from different religion.

(01:06:21):
Muslim women, Indian women, Spanish women, white women, black women,
a transgender women have reached out to me, wow about
and what the what hurts me the most is when
they ask for help and I can't give them help.

Speaker 1 (01:06:42):
Where do you send them?

Speaker 5 (01:06:43):
Where do I send them?

Speaker 4 (01:06:46):
That's how I feel about. You know, my story is addiction.
You know, I got addicted to pain pills. And when
people come to me and they're like, what do I do?

Speaker 1 (01:06:57):
What do I do?

Speaker 4 (01:06:58):
And like, as you said, this this is not just
one group of people. Although what I realize is that
the disparities for black women getting the treatment that we.

Speaker 1 (01:07:08):
Need is very, very far and few between.

Speaker 5 (01:07:13):
So limited.

Speaker 4 (01:07:14):
Yeah, it's very limited. The disparities are very high. In
other words, and so I don't I try to think
to myself, what is the action plan for somebody who's
coming to me with their story? And every day I
wrestle with I know a little bit of what to
say to them, but I don't have a full laid

(01:07:36):
out action plan. And now I'm working on that, similar
to your story, because I want to be able to
tell people step one, this is what you're gonna do,
step two, step three, step four and help them to
get the services that they need. But it's not available everywhere,
and certainly we can't pay for it. The program that
I was in was eighty thousand dollars for treatment. Eighty

(01:07:59):
thousand dollars. Someone sent me there without me paying, right,
because I would have never been able to do it.

Speaker 1 (01:08:06):
But eighty thousand dollars it took to help me. These
young who do.

Speaker 5 (01:08:12):
You have eighty thousand dollars to get it? You can't
have it. You got to take closer what I'm saying.
Eighty thousand dollars.

Speaker 1 (01:08:22):
This is what I'm saying.

Speaker 5 (01:08:24):
And that's the thing.

Speaker 6 (01:08:25):
Like my dream, my dream, My goal is to have
multiple safe haven oalysis because if I can be able
to get you out of here and pour into you.
You take the torch, get somebody, bring them, pour into them.

Speaker 5 (01:08:45):
We can have a This can be a movement.

Speaker 1 (01:08:47):
That's right, that's right, It is, it is.

Speaker 4 (01:08:49):
You remind me so much of my sister Stephanie McGrath
of warm.

Speaker 1 (01:08:54):
You know in New York.

Speaker 4 (01:08:56):
I'm sure you probably know a little bit about Stephanie
and her domestic violence work that she's everywhere.

Speaker 1 (01:09:01):
Yes, so I see the movement. I see it.

Speaker 2 (01:09:04):
You know.

Speaker 4 (01:09:04):
I I knew about what Stephanie did from AFAR, but
when I walked into her office and spent a couple
of days in there, watching families come in and out,
seeing that she has.

Speaker 5 (01:09:16):
She has.

Speaker 4 (01:09:16):
It's not just sit down and let's let's fill out
some paperwork and let's think. No, she's bringing you in
a back She putting clothes on your back, food and
your your shopping car, putting money in your hand, making
sure that you when you leave that home where you're
being abused, that you have real resources to survive. And
imagine somebody, if there was a warm there to catch

(01:09:39):
Katrina Brown at the time when you didn't when you
needed it, so you didn't have to make that call
to go back that last time.

Speaker 5 (01:09:47):
If I only had if I only had that m right.

Speaker 6 (01:09:54):
And that's why I want the police department to connect
and with these safe haven so that when they respond,
you can take this woman or man out of the
situation and put them in some place safe. I went
to Stephanie's place before a couple of times, and I'm

(01:10:14):
telling you she doing the real work.

Speaker 5 (01:10:16):
But she can't do this alone.

Speaker 4 (01:10:17):
No, no, no, there needs to be five hundred more
of those types of programs. Yes, and more than that,
and every state, imagine unit state state, every state multiple, multiple,
so that we can so that we can save more lives.

Speaker 5 (01:10:32):
People are dying because they don't have nowhere to go.

Speaker 4 (01:10:37):
Well, I tell you, I hope that everybody who's listening
in who's learned your story. Again, let's not just use
this as trauma porn. Oh you know, let me let
me read it like a good old school book. No,
let's think about what we can do. Are we supporting
organizations that are doing this work, and let's buy Katrina's

(01:10:59):
book to support her so that her story can move
as far and as wide as possible, because there is
absolutely a young girl who's at the beginning stages of
abuse today that doesn't know it and she needs somebody
to tell her no when he grabs you by the arm,
that is. And by the way, let's just be clear

(01:11:22):
these relationships or same gender relationships, I see it. I
have family members and friends who are gay who are
seeing you know, other women, particularly they fight. I mean,
what in the world they are fighting, stabbing each other
these crazy things. But you think it's cool when we

(01:11:42):
just you push me, I push you. No. People should
not be physically touching and harming other people. And we've
all had to learn that over time. But what you
said is so true as the rise in mental health issues,
we see it. We know that in some places like
New Jersey, domestic violence is one of the main issues

(01:12:04):
that they're dealing with. Right So it's it's spreading and
it's it's really a pan It's an epidemic.

Speaker 1 (01:12:10):
It's an epidemic.

Speaker 6 (01:12:11):
I say it all the time. It's definitely an epidemic.
And we need we need policy, we need change. Like
it's not about we're just telling it with somebody else
or helping somebody.

Speaker 5 (01:12:23):
If we can get some change.

Speaker 2 (01:12:26):
It has to be.

Speaker 5 (01:12:27):
It has to be changed. Let's fight for change. Let's
fight for some policy.

Speaker 6 (01:12:32):
Let's fight for the government to change the lords when
it comes to domestic violence, and let's get some funding
so that we can have a place for people to go.

Speaker 3 (01:12:44):
I just want us to change the way we view it.
As a man, you know, I know, like you said,
those police officers came to the house and they say,
y'all need to work that out. And I don't want
us to say that. I don't want us to look
at a woman with a black eye and say that's
their relationship and let them deal with it. I want
us to normalize saying that it's not okay that any
man hits and puts his hand on a woman, and

(01:13:06):
I have to do something to intervene with that. I
have to utilize whatever power that I have to make
sure that that woman is safe.

Speaker 6 (01:13:13):
Absolutely here, we gotta unpack it. We got to unpack it. Well,
it's a lot to be unpacked.

Speaker 4 (01:13:19):
You have interviews and things to do to promote your
book the first week that your book is out, and
I wish you nothing but success. I'm going right now
to purchase a copy, and we are going to make
sure that you come back on the show to talk
more about the details because clearly you can't tell us
everything today because the book is not out yet. But

(01:13:40):
in a couple of weeks, when the book is out
and the people know all the things, will have you
back because we want to hear from your your words
about your experience. And again, since I wish you nothing
but success, God saved your life for a reason, and
we believe, we absolutely one hundred.

Speaker 1 (01:14:00):
Believe that it is for the good of our people.

Speaker 4 (01:14:03):
I know you said it's not just black white, that's right,
it's everybody, but there are there is definitely a need
for more black women who have survived to help save
our young black girls.

Speaker 6 (01:14:14):
Absolutely, I definitely agree with you on that, SYS, and
I thank you guys for giving me a platform to
be able to speak today and to be able to
talk and tell some of my story. And I really
pray to God that people will go out and bother
the book so that they can be inspired, be empowered,
be educated, just be able to understand that there's still

(01:14:38):
hope no matter.

Speaker 5 (01:14:39):
How dark your life is, no matter where you come from,
that you can be able to turn that thing around
and be able to be everything that you want to be.
It's still hope.

Speaker 4 (01:14:53):
Am Well, God, bless you. I'm so happy you still
here with us. Take care, Katrina Brown. Thank you so much,
Katrina Brown. Loo Lee, that's right, get it right, keep.

Speaker 6 (01:15:04):
Being great, Glean, thank you, Thank you so much, and
I appreciate you guys, and I look forward to coming
back on this well.

Speaker 4 (01:15:11):
I mean, you know, you can tell that it's not
easy for her to talk about all the details of
what happened, not just the part about, you know, keeping
some things under wraps until the book comes out, but
just in general trying to express what she's gone through. Like,
I don't know, and I don't know when she'll ever

(01:15:32):
I just don't know. I can't imagine, like how you'll
ever be able to say, Okay, I'm back to normal.

Speaker 2 (01:15:38):
Yeah, what is normal? What is that? Right? And when
you talk about it.

Speaker 3 (01:15:41):
That's why I asked her about the kids in the
trauma with the kids, like what is normal for them?
I know that they're probably that's probably something in the
book that you know, they probably have therapy, it's probably
a lot of things. If you're a young child and
you realize you was in the other room as your
father shot and almost killed, killed your little brother in
the womb and almost killed, I know that that has

(01:16:01):
to be trun And he's.

Speaker 4 (01:16:03):
Just out here living in the world, even with five
with five to fifteen, Let's just say he did five years, right,
I don't you know. We'll look it up just to
see for ourselves, but let's just say he did five years.
That's not enough time for him to not do it
to somebody else. In my mind, maybe it is because

(01:16:24):
I don't know that anytime in prison actually changes people, right,
Like the that's the conflict that we often talk about.
We believe that he definitely if you shoot a woman,
or you rape a child, or you shoot a man,
you know whatever, we believe in that particular.

Speaker 5 (01:16:43):
Space.

Speaker 4 (01:16:44):
Until we have the mechanisms to hold people accountable directly
in our communities, there has to be something that happens
to you. Absolutely. But you know, when you go to
prison and you beat up shot a woman, I don't
know that people just look at you like you're the

(01:17:04):
worst person in the world.

Speaker 1 (01:17:05):
I just don't know.

Speaker 4 (01:17:06):
Because remember, he's a correction officer going into that space,
so you already know that the other correction officers are
going to treat him different just because you know his
story is woe is me?

Speaker 5 (01:17:17):
Oh she was doing whatever.

Speaker 4 (01:17:18):
You know how they do they tell you a whole
thing about how the person was the one that made
you do these things, sir. So you know, f you, dude,
like whatever his name is, f.

Speaker 5 (01:17:29):
You, Yeah, for real, fuck him.

Speaker 4 (01:17:32):
So let me just give you this stat also because
I want people to understand what she says, that this
is a crisis. Right when she said that it is real,
it is a crisis. And Janis just sent this to me.
In twenty twenty four, nearly one in two women and
more than two in five men in the United States

(01:17:54):
have experienced intimate partner violence, which is basically domestic violent. Okay,
you hear that in twenty twenty four, nearly one in two.
That means every other woman you see, so one of
us in here has this experienced some type of domestic violence,
and then two in five men, So that means that

(01:18:19):
domestic violence is not just an issue impacting women, but
men are also dealing with, as they say, intimate partner violence,
the fighting, the stabbing, the cutting, the biting, the slamming
into the wall, punching in the face, stuff that we

(01:18:40):
really have normalized in our communities. We really do normalize
some of this behavior. And as Katrina Brownlee has stated,
it is a crisis and it's an epidemic because people
are absolutely dying.

Speaker 2 (01:18:57):
Too.

Speaker 3 (01:18:57):
So for my I don't get it. Posted something on
my page and there was a father who was tested
FYE against his son in a murder trial, and it
really hurt me, you know, just listening to his testimony
and the way he stated that it was about self

(01:19:19):
preservation for him. As he was being you know, his
son's lawyer was questioning him, asking him, do you care
about your children? And he said yeah, but you know,
it's about me. It's the lord the world, it's about me.
And that was so crazy to me. I would never
be able to think that my children actually come before me.

(01:19:39):
I would sacrifice my life for my children, you know.
But that's not even the worst of it. The worst
of it is that the father had introduced his children
into the street life. You know, they were the allegedly
they were doing a retaliation because someone shot the father,
and he supposedly allegedly helped them get away and testify

(01:20:03):
to all these things because he wanted a shorter sentence,
and that was just like I really.

Speaker 2 (01:20:10):
Didn't understand that.

Speaker 3 (01:20:11):
For me, it was like, what kind of father would
testify against his children to send them to jail for
life so that their sentence could be lower when they're
engaged in the same activity.

Speaker 1 (01:20:24):
So what if they weren't.

Speaker 4 (01:20:26):
Would you agree that if you are a civilian who
was following the law, because you know, I try to
live by the law, and then your child is it
murders someone, do you believe that at that point the
parent should or can testify against the child.

Speaker 3 (01:20:48):
Well, once again, I've already said if you're a civilian
and you make a decision to do that I can't
meet personally. I'm not testifying against my child.

Speaker 2 (01:20:59):
I'm not going to be.

Speaker 3 (01:21:00):
I'm personally not gonna sit on the stand knowing that
my son or child is going to go to jail
forever and be the person to sen it, not.

Speaker 1 (01:21:08):
Even if the person was killed all died.

Speaker 2 (01:21:12):
I don't have it in me. You know.

Speaker 3 (01:21:14):
I can understand if if the law sees fit and
they have the evidence to do it, But me utilizing
my voice to send my son to jail for the
rest of his life, I don't have that in me.
My paternal instinct is not going to allow me to
do it, you know. So that's why for me it
was crazy just to hear him have but knowing that
your son was doing what you taught him to do

(01:21:36):
and you were such a coward that you didn't want
to spend no more time in jail, that you testified
him on him and his brother so that you didn't
have to, you know, have a stiff sentence, was just
crazy to me.

Speaker 5 (01:21:50):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (01:21:50):
I mean, I don't see any scenario where I would
testify against my child or my grandchild. I would definitely
tell them they're wrong. Yeah, And I wouldn't try to
like hide them or protect them from the system if
they did something wrong. But I don't think that I
could ever go before a jury and actually testify against

(01:22:16):
my child. You know, I don't think I could ever
do that, But I would say that I agree with you.
To know, I I don't know this story, so I
have to read more about it. But to know that,
I think there's a deeper conversation that needs to be
happy because guess what, we don't often talk about how
parents do play a role sometimes and what their children

(01:22:41):
are engaged in. I know, when I was growing up
in the projects in Harlem, I saw a lot of
young kids that was, you know, tricking and selling dope
and doing a whole bunch of things because their parents
introduced them to it. That's a real thing that happened,
and it's not and I can't see and tell you
it was one child, it was It was multiple for sure,

(01:23:05):
some of them. You know, I never forget how in
Manhattanville there used to be a little boy who was
responsible for like dealing the drugs down in at the flagpole.

Speaker 1 (01:23:15):
Like he used to be down there, dressed up, you know.

Speaker 4 (01:23:18):
Treated very well, but he was pretty much being pimped,
and not for sex, but for drug dealing. And he
was probably nine years old, ten years old, and that's
what he did.

Speaker 5 (01:23:29):
So parents are in that, you know, and they're and.

Speaker 4 (01:23:33):
And unfortunately or fortunately or whatever, accountability needs to be strong,
Like for those you shouldn't even be allowed to testify
against your kids so that you can get a lower sentence.
That shouldn't even be allowed.

Speaker 2 (01:23:48):
But that's what I'm saying.

Speaker 1 (01:23:49):
It should just be that everybody.

Speaker 2 (01:23:52):
I say that all the time. If if we eliminate
a SSI and.

Speaker 3 (01:23:56):
People like, oh you you you're talking about you on
in chrome or what are you for the people?

Speaker 2 (01:24:00):
Or you for justice? Or you you talking about snitches?

Speaker 1 (01:24:03):
Like the lack of nuance is really because.

Speaker 3 (01:24:06):
People don't want to deal with the reality. The thing is,
if you stop snitching, right, if you cut the people
off from snitching so that they can commit crimes and
get away with the crimes after they tell on somebody
else so they can do their time, then you actually
start eliminating because once the snitch snitch on somebody's snitch
goes home, the snitch goes free, they get they get

(01:24:27):
a get out of jail free they not being held accountable.

Speaker 2 (01:24:29):
So once you make.

Speaker 3 (01:24:30):
It understood that I can be the weak person and
I can commit the crime and not be held accountable,
then you make crime easier for people because all they
gotta do is, oh, I'm just gonna tell on such
and such and I'm just keep doing because that's what
they do. They breathe more stages, they come, they do
the crime, they tell on such and such, they get
away with it. Now they doing deals, so the crime

(01:24:52):
is still happening. You're not eliminating crime by justifying and
glorified snitches. It doesn't work. It's a weak. If everybody
just had to be held, we don't care. You going
to jail, and he going to jail, everybody say, you
know what, I ain't got.

Speaker 2 (01:25:06):
No get out of here.

Speaker 4 (01:25:07):
And it would be very difficult for them to close
these cases because they would have to actually do real
detective work and have real evidence, and they wouldn't be
able to lock people up just based upon what somebody
else says, but it would really be based upon what
they know to be truth and to be factual.

Speaker 2 (01:25:29):
And that the thing is, you realize that.

Speaker 3 (01:25:35):
I'm gonna do fifty years no matter what If I
get caught in this, don't.

Speaker 1 (01:25:40):
Matter who I tell, they not do it at all.

Speaker 3 (01:25:43):
This is what I'm saying that, and that's what it
should be. That's what people need to understand. They understand
that there are severe consequences and it's no get out
of jail free card.

Speaker 2 (01:25:52):
Nigga say you know I'm gonna stay on the South.

Speaker 4 (01:25:54):
I hear you, well, I guess nobody can argue.

Speaker 3 (01:25:59):
That, and that's what I always say, man. But that
brings us to the end of another episode of TMI.
We appreciate you. Make sure you follow us at TMI
Underscore Show on Instagram and at TMI Show PC on YouTube.

Speaker 2 (01:26:12):
I'm not gonna always be right, Tamika D. Mavers and
I can

Speaker 3 (01:26:15):
Always be wrong, but we'll both always and I mean always,
be authentic.