January 28, 2023 • 24 mins
In the first half of today’s show, we look at some recent instances of police violence and try to identify how ‘reform’ never seems to work. One instance of an officer punching a Black woman in the face at a McDonalds, and another where 5 Black officers needlessly ended the life of a young Black man gives us a framework to ask this critically important question.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to another episode of Civic Cipher. I'm your host,
Rams's job.
Speaker 2 (00:04):
He is Rams this job, I am q War.
Speaker 3 (00:07):
Indeed, when we form volt Trump, when we come together.
Speaker 1 (00:13):
You know what I'm saying, Yes I do.
Speaker 4 (00:15):
At twelve fifteen, I don't even know what time may
knock it down, break it down as Civic Cipher.
Speaker 1 (00:21):
That is the truth. That a great show and story
for you. Be sure to stick around. We are going
to be talking about police reform. We talked about that
quite a bit. We're going to be asking the question today, however,
how do you reform this? I've been paying attention to
some stuff on social media. A lot of things been
(00:42):
taking place, a lot of things we haven't even been
able to touch.
Speaker 3 (00:44):
I can't wait to delve into this topic.
Speaker 4 (00:47):
Yeah, because I think that there's some people on east
side of it that think there's nothing wrong with it,
and others that think it can't be reformed.
Speaker 1 (00:55):
And I can't wait to let you loose on that
because that's exactly why we need to talk about it.
But yeah, stick around. Some of the stories I have
been able to cover on the Black Information Network Daily podcast.
Speaker 4 (01:07):
For the Black Information Network as a daily podcast, I'm
a subscriber.
Speaker 3 (01:11):
By the way, I appreciate that.
Speaker 4 (01:13):
On Ballpack podcast platform that means multiple and YouTube. Okay, okay,
So when you see that light count go up, no,
your brother is on there.
Speaker 3 (01:22):
I love that clicking the thumbs up.
Speaker 1 (01:24):
But some of these stories we cannot cover. However, we
are going to cover to today. We just can't cover
every single story but the two that we've chosen to
cover today that help us question what police reform could
look like should look like, we think you'll be interested
in a little Later in the show, we're going to
be talking about the Florida Department of Education's decision to
(01:51):
decline including ap African American studies and their reasoning and
how utterly insulting that is. But first and foremost, like
we always do with this time, let's talk about something happy,
something that makes us smile. We like to call it
abny excellence Q we shall. So today's any Excellence is
brought to you by Hip Hop Weekly Media and we
(02:14):
are going to shout out the one and only Anthony T. Browder.
I was fortunate enough to have a conversation with him on.
Speaker 4 (02:21):
But I was going to ask you, where did you
have that conversation never mind, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, of course,
of course it was on the Black Information Network Daily
podcast again A long conversation, a four part interview with
this man.
Speaker 1 (02:34):
But he is a man with a life well lived,
a man who's definitely inspired me. The conversation goes, he's
an Egyptologist. For those who don't know. In fact, I'll
read a bit about him. He's an author, publisher, cultural historian, artist,
and educational consultant. Graduate of Howard University's College of Fine
Arts and has lectured extensively around the world. He is
(02:55):
the founder and director of IKG Cultural Resources and has
devoted thirty years to researching ancient Egyptian history, science, philosophy,
and culture. And he's been to Egypt fifty four times,
I think it's higher than that, since nineteen eighty. And
he is the first African American to fund, coordinate, fund,
(03:16):
and coordinate an archaeological dig in Egypt. And he just
has tons of insight into the roots of civilization, advanced civilization,
and of course those roots being African roots, things that
we would not otherwise know about. You think of the Greeks,
you think of the Romans, but no civilizations that predated
(03:37):
those by thousands of years. We're in Africa. Our conversation,
we talk about the roots of all the Abrahamic religions
and how those come from Africa. And I am a
person who grew up in a Christian household as his Q.
So not trying to changing body's belief system. But the
facts are the facts, and just a wonderful conversation. I
employed to check it out once again on the Black
(03:57):
Information Network Daily podcast and again, Excellence, Anthony T. Browner,
you are him and we just appreciate you giving back
to us so that we can do our job. Yes, indeed,
moving on, all right, how do you reform this? This
is a question that was posed by Kassim Rashid. He
(04:21):
is a person on Instagram who is a potent speaker
and a very informed individual. I believe he might be
of Middle Eastern descent something like that, and he is
a person who's very passionate about the way people are treated.
(04:44):
I wouldn't profess to know his religious background, but he
is a brother to my people and so far as
I can tell, and a brother to all people. And
so I need you to understand that when he poses
this question, it really caused me to think, how do
you reform this? And so his standard practice is his
(05:06):
modus operandi is to tell a story on Instagram. He's
got the video and everything like that. So he's filming
himself and he's, you know, recalling a story that has
taken place in the media. An individual was going about
their business, they had an interaction with the police, they
ended up dead or beat up or whatever, blah blah blah.
(05:27):
And he exposes the many ways that police abuse their power.
He exposes the many ways that human beings suffer at
the hands of police, and often enough explains why it's
(05:51):
unnecessary for there to be human citizen suffering, you know,
the people that are supposed to protect and ser often
hurting the citizens. And he points out things that are
certainly necessary, and then ask the question, how do you
(06:12):
reform this? And I think a lot of times his
point is, or rather what he's trying to suggest, is
that we need to really rethink it, not continue to
revise it. We can't train these things away. This isn't
this isn't an isolated incident or a few bad apples.
There's so many bad apples. Granted, there's so many more
police officers that I'm sure do you find work. But
(06:35):
there is a system that disproportionately affects certain groups in
this country and a system overall that is broken. And
it's really, if we're being honest, elites, wealthier white people
in this country who are able to live comfortably under
(06:56):
the current system because it almost never affects them in
a negative way. And so reform, in his opinion, based
on the videos that he makes, is something that is
not necessarily the best way to go about dealing with this.
(07:19):
Hence the question, how do you reform this? So we're
adopting that and we are opening the floor to discussion.
We would love for people to come to the table,
to this round glass table that we have in the
studio here for Civic Cipher and share with us ideas
(07:42):
on how we reform this, Ideas that have not been implemented,
Ideas that have not had their time, their day in
the sun, to be thoroughly tested and fleshed out. How
is it that in twenty twenty three, in late January
twenty twenty three, the things that we were pushing back
(08:04):
against in the sixties with the civil rights movement and
in the seventies with the Panthers, and in the eighties
when we were you know, getting behind Jesse Jackson and
was run for president, and we were trying to push back,
you know, as a community against the scourge of crack,
and you know, these these myths and these these these
(08:24):
lies and rumors about how we treated our our families
and that we abandoned our families as black men, or
that we were all gang bangers and all this sort
of stuff, and then on and on until now, you know,
with the Trayvon Martin's birthing, the Black Lives Matter movement,
all the way up to twenty twenty, with George Floyd
and Breonna Taylor, all the way up to now, these
things are still happening, and every single step of the
(08:46):
way there's always been reformed. There's always been oversight, there's
always all these things. We've already had these conversations, We've
already tried these things, and they've been again. They've had
their time in the sun for years. So now when
we tell these stories, our question is how do we
reform this? And I think that the idea here is
not to like radicalize anyone or anything like that. You know,
(09:08):
of course, we have our own beliefs. We do our
best not to try to impose them, but to just
highlight them, you know, shed light on our beliefs. We
do believe the system is broken. We do believe that
police reform is kind of a tall order, it doesn't work,
and that we need to rethink what it means to
(09:30):
be safe in a community, what that means and how
that looks. And does that mean that the police departments
need tanks or does that mean that we need to
invest that tank money into programs that again, prevent the
necessity of crime in the first place. If people have
enough money, then they're not stealing. If people have children
(09:50):
have after school programs or you know, programs to keep
them engaged and you know, to help them excel in school,
aren't they less likely to be caught up in juvenile
delinquency and so forth? These things that make sense, but
they never make it past these talking points where folks
who do choose to humor us by engaging in this
(10:14):
conversation say the same thing, We need police reform. Now
let's get to the first story. Sorry, thank you for
letting me paint that picture. But yeah, first things first,
this comes from our very own bionnews dot com. An
Ohio police sergeant has been placed on administrative leave after
(10:34):
he was caught on video punching a black woman following
a dispute over cheese at a local McDonald's. The incident
unfolded on Monday, which would have been January sixteenth at
the time, when Butler Township, Ohio police officers responded to
a report of a woman yelling at employees over an
(10:56):
order mistake at the fast food chain. She's mad a
thirty cent piece of cheese. A McDonald's employee called nine
one one dispatchers, per records obtained by Kiro seven News,
which is also the source of this content. Hero body
(11:17):
camera footage shows the woman, identified as Latinka Hancock, waiting
in her car when Sergeant Todd Stanley and Officer Tim
Zelders arrived at the scene. When Stanley directed her to
fill out a notice for trespassing, she refused. In the footage,
Hancock can be seen speaking with police before the encounter
(11:37):
became physical, as officers said she resisted arrest. Zeller's was
caught on body camera footage pointing his taser at Hancock,
and Stanley punched the woman in the face three times
before pressing her against a police cruiser and putting her
handcuffs on bystander. Video also captured the violent arrest, sparking
outrage among the community. Okay, so this is what is
(12:02):
in the news. This is what was written down. Now
we've seen the video. Unfortunately, and for those of you
who have not seen the video, it is a woman
talking to police, saying her piece, and she obviously felt
(12:22):
like she was right. And when the officer presented the
you know, the paperwork. Notice how it says a confrontation
or what is it? The encounter became physical, as officers said,
she resisted arresting, and that comes from uh the what
(12:43):
is k i R O seven news and then was
reported by b I in news. But this is the
way police often describe incidents. And then they released the
report to news news stations like kr R O seven
News and then they just copy paste. So the encounter
became physical implies that both parties were at fault. But
(13:08):
I'm here to tell you that there was only one
individual that made the encounter physical. Granted she didn't want
to sign the paperwork, that's fine. There are many people,
often white, they get pulled over and they say, hey, buddy,
I'm not going to sign that ticket. I did nothing wrong.
You're gonna take that ticket and shut whatever. You know,
you get it right, I'm not picking on anybody. These
(13:29):
are things that I've seen in my own life. I'm
sure that you understand this, right. This woman is no different.
She feels like obviously it's not about thirty cents, It's
about the principle.
Speaker 3 (13:37):
You know.
Speaker 1 (13:38):
Maybe she feels like she paid and she was not.
Speaker 3 (13:41):
I mean, even if it was about thirty cent, that's
her money. If the thing that I bought costs thirty cent,
I'm gonna need.
Speaker 1 (13:46):
That right exactly. But you know, the officer became very
upset with this woman and punched her in the face
three times. The woman did not punch him. None of
these things happened. And then because of the bystander video,
the officer can't say some of the other things that
(14:07):
they often do say, which is some of.
Speaker 3 (14:09):
The things they probably did say in their report.
Speaker 1 (14:11):
Oh yeah, perhaps, yeah, but you know, I remember the
it wasn't Filando Castile. It was the death right before
his where there was an I forget his name. This
wasn't in New York. I want to say it was
summer south of New York. But there was a gentleman,
black gentleman who was at a gas station and uh,
(14:32):
I think he might have been I couldn't tell you. You know,
these stories are quite commonplace, sadly, but he was I
think he was handcuffed on the ground and the officers
were like punching and kicking him when he was handcuffed.
And because of the angle of the video, the officers
came out with the story saying, oh, well, the guy's
(14:54):
hands behind his back as he was handcuffed, the guy
grabbed my genitalia and then that gave me license to
like beat them up, right, which, of course, if you
watch the video you don't believe that's true. But because
that's out of view, you kind of have to take
the officer's word for it because this guy's dead.
Speaker 3 (15:13):
Right.
Speaker 1 (15:15):
So in this instance, because there's a bystander video, it's
not just their bodycam video, you can see that this woman,
again Latinka Hancock, did nothing to provoke anything physical. It
was just the officer who probably was well there was her.
Speaker 4 (15:32):
Not doing what he said when he said it, because
he said it, thank you, c right, Like, how dare you?
Speaker 1 (15:39):
Yeah?
Speaker 4 (15:39):
He's god right, Yeah, it's typically a problem you're not
doing what I said to do. Yeah, right, as we've seen,
I thought that was compelling justification.
Speaker 1 (15:50):
So so yeah, and you know, people often say things like, well,
you know, he's just he's you know, he's on administrative
leave paid. I'm sure you know, and you'll get transfer
whatever because of whatever. But I would like to posit
(16:13):
that perhaps he harbors anti black sentiments. And my basis
for that is I think that you'll agree that it
would be hard to imagine that same officer punching here
she goes, you're ready, cute, I'm going to say it,
twenty six year old blonde haired, white woman. Sure, I know.
(16:37):
But you know, for our listeners where they can't really
you know, seeing this, it's so commonplace. You know, if
we're going to compare apples to apples, we need to
kind of change the image in our listener's mind. So
it's a slow process, and I appreciate you giving me
the floor so that I can do that, But yeah,
it's hard to imagine this guy doing that too. Again,
the twenty six year old blonde haired, you know, white
(17:00):
woman right punching her in a phase three times. And
if that did happen, you can imagine the outrage, right,
But these things don't tend to happen, right. I'm not
trying to say that the police have never abused their
authority with that type of person, but it's not prevalent
to the degree that this is. And so this is
why this is my basis for saying that this is
perhaps anti black sentiment. And again, because this country has
(17:25):
given police power that is really beyond measure. Stand with
the police no matter what. It's kind of hard for
us to now think of reform as the way that
we deal with this. Right. That was an absolute, outright
(17:47):
abuse of power. Right, And we've seen this before. We've
seen this with the Rodney King verdict and how people
react to that. You know, We've seen what happens here.
And there will no longer be that stunning silence, not
as long as they give us microphones, you know. So
I asked the question, how do you reform this? Moving on?
(18:11):
This one is one that Q sent over and this
also comes from Kroro seven dot com. Five officers in
Memphis were fired following an investigation into the arrest and
death of a man. All Right, I'm going to read
this and then I want you to take a Q.
In a news release, Memphis Police Department said on Friday,
(18:33):
following the death of Tyree Nichols and a review of
their circumstances surrounding the incident, the department desired to fire
five sorry. The department decided to fire five of its officers.
Memphis Police Department said that it was determined that the
officers had violated multiple policies that the department has, which
include excessive use of forest, duty to intervene, and duty
(18:54):
to render aid. Memphis Police Department said officers were fired
earlier in the day on Friday. They were identified as
to Darius Bean, Demetrius Haley, Emmett Martin the third, Desmond
Mills Junior, and Justin Smith. Smith and Martin were hired
in March twenty eighteen. Mills was hired in March twenty seventeen.
Bean and Haley were both hired in August twenty twenty.
According to the AP, all five officers were involved in
(19:16):
the arrest of Nichols twenty nine on January seventh. All
five officers who were fired and Nichols were all black.
The Memphis Police Department said, according to the AP, Nichols
was pulled over by officers for reckless driving, police said.
According to WHBQ, officers claimed that Nichols ran, leading to
(19:36):
multiple confrontations between the officers and Nichols. He was eventually
arrested and officers showed use of force. Following the confrontations,
Nichols reportedly complained of shortness of breath. Memphis Police Department said.
According to WHBQ, Nichols was taken to the hospital where
he died on January tenth. So quote, the Memphis Police
(19:58):
Department is committed to protecting and def the rights of
every citizen in our city. The egregious nature of this
incident is not a reflection of the good work that
our officers perform with integrity every day. That quote comes
from Memphis Police Department Chief Serlin C. J. Davis. And
then a civil rights investigation has been reportedly opened by
(20:18):
the United States Justice Department. According to the AP, the
Tennessee Bureau of Investigation is reportedly looking into the force
that was used during the arrest. WHBQ reported that any
criminal charges may or may not come as a result
of the incident between the officers and Nichols, and those
would be announced later on. No further information has been released,
and Q, let's get your two.
Speaker 3 (20:40):
Cents, may or may not.
Speaker 2 (20:47):
You know, our country and its institutions have done probably
the most masterful job in history of convincing its subjects,
its citizens people to fully emotionally invest in its institutions
like the military, like the police, and those institutions like
(21:11):
even it's government, beyond reproach, beyond criticism, beyond being held
to even the reasonable minimum accountability standards. Right, So, you
and I have had conversations long before civic slipher existed,
but just in general about the types of things that
(21:32):
would cause people on the right, or people that are racist,
or people who are not racist but just don't have
the same everyday encounters and struggles that we have. And
we used to say things like, man, if it ever
came to their door, it would change their minds. But
with the mass shootings like that we've witnessed, not even
(21:53):
that's true, even when the victims are young white children,
people still won't stand up against the gun lobby.
Speaker 3 (22:02):
That's not even the government. The government so bent on
maintaining things that they have been taught are righteous, that
even with evidence to the contrary, they won't change their minds, right,
(22:25):
So it's hard to think about reform rams just because
people often don't look to change things, but they don't
see anything wrong with them. And I remember, you know,
back during during our former president's time in office, they
interviewed this woman, and it's just about the type of
(22:46):
things that he said and the thing that he said
during his election, which there's no president I don't think
ever in history that could have had something like that
come out and then gone on to win the presidency
when he said about just grabbing women by their private parts.
And they asked this lady at a rally who was
a very very prominent supporter. She had every piece of
(23:08):
paraphernalia that was ever made on and she had her
two young daughters with her, and she'd rather rob her
daughters of their dignity than denounce her candidate than denounce
her president when asked about those things that he said
in a way that he viewed women, and she then
(23:31):
turned to her daughters and kind of suggested to them that,
you know, sometimes that's okay. And I was just blown away,
like the zealot like beliefs that a lot of people
in this country have cannot be changed by logic or
evidence or numbers or anything. So it'd be hard to
(23:52):
get wholesale buy in for any type of reform because
when people said defund the police, a lot of people
lost their mind.
Speaker 1 (24:00):
And that wasn't even that, Like, why would you.
Speaker 3 (24:03):
Say such a thing? And I think I said to you,
not jokingly, that being phrased that way is all the runway.
They need a lot of it. They can take that
phrase and make it sound so much worse than it
actually is, you know what I'm saying. So let me
add this to that too. So our issue on the
(24:23):
show oftentimes is with policing the institution, not with white
police officers, and I think this story illustrates that. Again,
all of these people involved were black, and black people
can be white supremacists too, you know. You know, black
people own slaves. We've seen what happened with you know,
Kanye West.
Speaker 1 (24:44):
You know what I'm saying. This is the thing. Black
people can buy into this narrative too, and police officers
certainly are no exceptions. So it's a system that oppresses
black and brown people.
Speaker 4 (24:53):
Police officers more so indoctrinated in the system that has
existed long before they did
Welcome to another episode of Civic Cipher. I'm your host,
Rams's job.
Speaker 2 (00:04):
He is Rams this job, I am q War.
Speaker 3 (00:07):
Indeed, when we form volt Trump, when we come together.
Speaker 1 (00:13):
You know what I'm saying, Yes I do.
Speaker 4 (00:15):
At twelve fifteen, I don't even know what time may
knock it down, break it down as Civic Cipher.
Speaker 1 (00:21):
That is the truth. That a great show and story
for you. Be sure to stick around. We are going
to be talking about police reform. We talked about that
quite a bit. We're going to be asking the question today, however,
how do you reform this? I've been paying attention to
some stuff on social media. A lot of things been
(00:42):
taking place, a lot of things we haven't even been
able to touch.
Speaker 3 (00:44):
I can't wait to delve into this topic.
Speaker 4 (00:47):
Yeah, because I think that there's some people on east
side of it that think there's nothing wrong with it,
and others that think it can't be reformed.
Speaker 1 (00:55):
And I can't wait to let you loose on that
because that's exactly why we need to talk about it.
But yeah, stick around. Some of the stories I have
been able to cover on the Black Information Network Daily podcast.
Speaker 4 (01:07):
For the Black Information Network as a daily podcast, I'm
a subscriber.
Speaker 3 (01:11):
By the way, I appreciate that.
Speaker 4 (01:13):
On Ballpack podcast platform that means multiple and YouTube. Okay, okay,
So when you see that light count go up, no,
your brother is on there.
Speaker 3 (01:22):
I love that clicking the thumbs up.
Speaker 1 (01:24):
But some of these stories we cannot cover. However, we
are going to cover to today. We just can't cover
every single story but the two that we've chosen to
cover today that help us question what police reform could
look like should look like, we think you'll be interested
in a little Later in the show, we're going to
be talking about the Florida Department of Education's decision to
(01:51):
decline including ap African American studies and their reasoning and
how utterly insulting that is. But first and foremost, like
we always do with this time, let's talk about something happy,
something that makes us smile. We like to call it
abny excellence Q we shall. So today's any Excellence is
brought to you by Hip Hop Weekly Media and we
(02:14):
are going to shout out the one and only Anthony T. Browder.
I was fortunate enough to have a conversation with him on.
Speaker 4 (02:21):
But I was going to ask you, where did you
have that conversation never mind, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, of course,
of course it was on the Black Information Network Daily
podcast again A long conversation, a four part interview with
this man.
Speaker 1 (02:34):
But he is a man with a life well lived,
a man who's definitely inspired me. The conversation goes, he's
an Egyptologist. For those who don't know. In fact, I'll
read a bit about him. He's an author, publisher, cultural historian, artist,
and educational consultant. Graduate of Howard University's College of Fine
Arts and has lectured extensively around the world. He is
(02:55):
the founder and director of IKG Cultural Resources and has
devoted thirty years to researching ancient Egyptian history, science, philosophy,
and culture. And he's been to Egypt fifty four times,
I think it's higher than that, since nineteen eighty. And
he is the first African American to fund, coordinate, fund,
(03:16):
and coordinate an archaeological dig in Egypt. And he just
has tons of insight into the roots of civilization, advanced civilization,
and of course those roots being African roots, things that
we would not otherwise know about. You think of the Greeks,
you think of the Romans, but no civilizations that predated
(03:37):
those by thousands of years. We're in Africa. Our conversation,
we talk about the roots of all the Abrahamic religions
and how those come from Africa. And I am a
person who grew up in a Christian household as his Q.
So not trying to changing body's belief system. But the
facts are the facts, and just a wonderful conversation. I
employed to check it out once again on the Black
(03:57):
Information Network Daily podcast and again, Excellence, Anthony T. Browner,
you are him and we just appreciate you giving back
to us so that we can do our job. Yes, indeed,
moving on, all right, how do you reform this? This
is a question that was posed by Kassim Rashid. He
(04:21):
is a person on Instagram who is a potent speaker
and a very informed individual. I believe he might be
of Middle Eastern descent something like that, and he is
a person who's very passionate about the way people are treated.
(04:44):
I wouldn't profess to know his religious background, but he
is a brother to my people and so far as
I can tell, and a brother to all people. And
so I need you to understand that when he poses
this question, it really caused me to think, how do
you reform this? And so his standard practice is his
(05:06):
modus operandi is to tell a story on Instagram. He's
got the video and everything like that. So he's filming
himself and he's, you know, recalling a story that has
taken place in the media. An individual was going about
their business, they had an interaction with the police, they
ended up dead or beat up or whatever, blah blah blah.
(05:27):
And he exposes the many ways that police abuse their power.
He exposes the many ways that human beings suffer at
the hands of police, and often enough explains why it's
(05:51):
unnecessary for there to be human citizen suffering, you know,
the people that are supposed to protect and ser often
hurting the citizens. And he points out things that are
certainly necessary, and then ask the question, how do you
(06:12):
reform this? And I think a lot of times his
point is, or rather what he's trying to suggest, is
that we need to really rethink it, not continue to
revise it. We can't train these things away. This isn't
this isn't an isolated incident or a few bad apples.
There's so many bad apples. Granted, there's so many more
police officers that I'm sure do you find work. But
(06:35):
there is a system that disproportionately affects certain groups in
this country and a system overall that is broken. And
it's really, if we're being honest, elites, wealthier white people
in this country who are able to live comfortably under
(06:56):
the current system because it almost never affects them in
a negative way. And so reform, in his opinion, based
on the videos that he makes, is something that is
not necessarily the best way to go about dealing with this.
(07:19):
Hence the question, how do you reform this? So we're
adopting that and we are opening the floor to discussion.
We would love for people to come to the table,
to this round glass table that we have in the
studio here for Civic Cipher and share with us ideas
(07:42):
on how we reform this, Ideas that have not been implemented,
Ideas that have not had their time, their day in
the sun, to be thoroughly tested and fleshed out. How
is it that in twenty twenty three, in late January
twenty twenty three, the things that we were pushing back
(08:04):
against in the sixties with the civil rights movement and
in the seventies with the Panthers, and in the eighties
when we were you know, getting behind Jesse Jackson and
was run for president, and we were trying to push back,
you know, as a community against the scourge of crack,
and you know, these these myths and these these these
(08:24):
lies and rumors about how we treated our our families
and that we abandoned our families as black men, or
that we were all gang bangers and all this sort
of stuff, and then on and on until now, you know,
with the Trayvon Martin's birthing, the Black Lives Matter movement,
all the way up to twenty twenty, with George Floyd
and Breonna Taylor, all the way up to now, these
things are still happening, and every single step of the
(08:46):
way there's always been reformed. There's always been oversight, there's
always all these things. We've already had these conversations, We've
already tried these things, and they've been again. They've had
their time in the sun for years. So now when
we tell these stories, our question is how do we
reform this? And I think that the idea here is
not to like radicalize anyone or anything like that. You know,
(09:08):
of course, we have our own beliefs. We do our
best not to try to impose them, but to just
highlight them, you know, shed light on our beliefs. We
do believe the system is broken. We do believe that
police reform is kind of a tall order, it doesn't work,
and that we need to rethink what it means to
(09:30):
be safe in a community, what that means and how
that looks. And does that mean that the police departments
need tanks or does that mean that we need to
invest that tank money into programs that again, prevent the
necessity of crime in the first place. If people have
enough money, then they're not stealing. If people have children
(09:50):
have after school programs or you know, programs to keep
them engaged and you know, to help them excel in school,
aren't they less likely to be caught up in juvenile
delinquency and so forth? These things that make sense, but
they never make it past these talking points where folks
who do choose to humor us by engaging in this
(10:14):
conversation say the same thing, We need police reform. Now
let's get to the first story. Sorry, thank you for
letting me paint that picture. But yeah, first things first,
this comes from our very own bionnews dot com. An
Ohio police sergeant has been placed on administrative leave after
(10:34):
he was caught on video punching a black woman following
a dispute over cheese at a local McDonald's. The incident
unfolded on Monday, which would have been January sixteenth at
the time, when Butler Township, Ohio police officers responded to
a report of a woman yelling at employees over an
(10:56):
order mistake at the fast food chain. She's mad a
thirty cent piece of cheese. A McDonald's employee called nine
one one dispatchers, per records obtained by Kiro seven News,
which is also the source of this content. Hero body
(11:17):
camera footage shows the woman, identified as Latinka Hancock, waiting
in her car when Sergeant Todd Stanley and Officer Tim
Zelders arrived at the scene. When Stanley directed her to
fill out a notice for trespassing, she refused. In the footage,
Hancock can be seen speaking with police before the encounter
(11:37):
became physical, as officers said she resisted arrest. Zeller's was
caught on body camera footage pointing his taser at Hancock,
and Stanley punched the woman in the face three times
before pressing her against a police cruiser and putting her
handcuffs on bystander. Video also captured the violent arrest, sparking
outrage among the community. Okay, so this is what is
(12:02):
in the news. This is what was written down. Now
we've seen the video. Unfortunately, and for those of you
who have not seen the video, it is a woman
talking to police, saying her piece, and she obviously felt
(12:22):
like she was right. And when the officer presented the
you know, the paperwork. Notice how it says a confrontation
or what is it? The encounter became physical, as officers said,
she resisted arresting, and that comes from uh the what
(12:43):
is k i R O seven news and then was
reported by b I in news. But this is the
way police often describe incidents. And then they released the
report to news news stations like kr R O seven
News and then they just copy paste. So the encounter
became physical implies that both parties were at fault. But
(13:08):
I'm here to tell you that there was only one
individual that made the encounter physical. Granted she didn't want
to sign the paperwork, that's fine. There are many people,
often white, they get pulled over and they say, hey, buddy,
I'm not going to sign that ticket. I did nothing wrong.
You're gonna take that ticket and shut whatever. You know,
you get it right, I'm not picking on anybody. These
(13:29):
are things that I've seen in my own life. I'm
sure that you understand this, right. This woman is no different.
She feels like obviously it's not about thirty cents, It's
about the principle.
Speaker 3 (13:37):
You know.
Speaker 1 (13:38):
Maybe she feels like she paid and she was not.
Speaker 3 (13:41):
I mean, even if it was about thirty cent, that's
her money. If the thing that I bought costs thirty cent,
I'm gonna need.
Speaker 1 (13:46):
That right exactly. But you know, the officer became very
upset with this woman and punched her in the face
three times. The woman did not punch him. None of
these things happened. And then because of the bystander video,
the officer can't say some of the other things that
(14:07):
they often do say, which is some of.
Speaker 3 (14:09):
The things they probably did say in their report.
Speaker 1 (14:11):
Oh yeah, perhaps, yeah, but you know, I remember the
it wasn't Filando Castile. It was the death right before
his where there was an I forget his name. This
wasn't in New York. I want to say it was
summer south of New York. But there was a gentleman,
black gentleman who was at a gas station and uh,
(14:32):
I think he might have been I couldn't tell you. You know,
these stories are quite commonplace, sadly, but he was I
think he was handcuffed on the ground and the officers
were like punching and kicking him when he was handcuffed.
And because of the angle of the video, the officers
came out with the story saying, oh, well, the guy's
(14:54):
hands behind his back as he was handcuffed, the guy
grabbed my genitalia and then that gave me license to
like beat them up, right, which, of course, if you
watch the video you don't believe that's true. But because
that's out of view, you kind of have to take
the officer's word for it because this guy's dead.
Speaker 3 (15:13):
Right.
Speaker 1 (15:15):
So in this instance, because there's a bystander video, it's
not just their bodycam video, you can see that this woman,
again Latinka Hancock, did nothing to provoke anything physical. It
was just the officer who probably was well there was her.
Speaker 4 (15:32):
Not doing what he said when he said it, because
he said it, thank you, c right, Like, how dare you?
Speaker 1 (15:39):
Yeah?
Speaker 4 (15:39):
He's god right, Yeah, it's typically a problem you're not
doing what I said to do. Yeah, right, as we've seen,
I thought that was compelling justification.
Speaker 1 (15:50):
So so yeah, and you know, people often say things like, well,
you know, he's just he's you know, he's on administrative
leave paid. I'm sure you know, and you'll get transfer
whatever because of whatever. But I would like to posit
(16:13):
that perhaps he harbors anti black sentiments. And my basis
for that is I think that you'll agree that it
would be hard to imagine that same officer punching here
she goes, you're ready, cute, I'm going to say it,
twenty six year old blonde haired, white woman. Sure, I know.
(16:37):
But you know, for our listeners where they can't really
you know, seeing this, it's so commonplace. You know, if
we're going to compare apples to apples, we need to
kind of change the image in our listener's mind. So
it's a slow process, and I appreciate you giving me
the floor so that I can do that, But yeah,
it's hard to imagine this guy doing that too. Again,
the twenty six year old blonde haired, you know, white
(17:00):
woman right punching her in a phase three times. And
if that did happen, you can imagine the outrage, right,
But these things don't tend to happen, right. I'm not
trying to say that the police have never abused their
authority with that type of person, but it's not prevalent
to the degree that this is. And so this is
why this is my basis for saying that this is
perhaps anti black sentiment. And again, because this country has
(17:25):
given police power that is really beyond measure. Stand with
the police no matter what. It's kind of hard for
us to now think of reform as the way that
we deal with this. Right. That was an absolute, outright
(17:47):
abuse of power. Right, And we've seen this before. We've
seen this with the Rodney King verdict and how people
react to that. You know, We've seen what happens here.
And there will no longer be that stunning silence, not
as long as they give us microphones, you know. So
I asked the question, how do you reform this? Moving on?
(18:11):
This one is one that Q sent over and this
also comes from Kroro seven dot com. Five officers in
Memphis were fired following an investigation into the arrest and
death of a man. All Right, I'm going to read
this and then I want you to take a Q.
In a news release, Memphis Police Department said on Friday,
(18:33):
following the death of Tyree Nichols and a review of
their circumstances surrounding the incident, the department desired to fire
five sorry. The department decided to fire five of its officers.
Memphis Police Department said that it was determined that the
officers had violated multiple policies that the department has, which
include excessive use of forest, duty to intervene, and duty
(18:54):
to render aid. Memphis Police Department said officers were fired
earlier in the day on Friday. They were identified as
to Darius Bean, Demetrius Haley, Emmett Martin the third, Desmond
Mills Junior, and Justin Smith. Smith and Martin were hired
in March twenty eighteen. Mills was hired in March twenty seventeen.
Bean and Haley were both hired in August twenty twenty.
According to the AP, all five officers were involved in
(19:16):
the arrest of Nichols twenty nine on January seventh. All
five officers who were fired and Nichols were all black.
The Memphis Police Department said, according to the AP, Nichols
was pulled over by officers for reckless driving, police said.
According to WHBQ, officers claimed that Nichols ran, leading to
(19:36):
multiple confrontations between the officers and Nichols. He was eventually
arrested and officers showed use of force. Following the confrontations,
Nichols reportedly complained of shortness of breath. Memphis Police Department said.
According to WHBQ, Nichols was taken to the hospital where
he died on January tenth. So quote, the Memphis Police
(19:58):
Department is committed to protecting and def the rights of
every citizen in our city. The egregious nature of this
incident is not a reflection of the good work that
our officers perform with integrity every day. That quote comes
from Memphis Police Department Chief Serlin C. J. Davis. And
then a civil rights investigation has been reportedly opened by
(20:18):
the United States Justice Department. According to the AP, the
Tennessee Bureau of Investigation is reportedly looking into the force
that was used during the arrest. WHBQ reported that any
criminal charges may or may not come as a result
of the incident between the officers and Nichols, and those
would be announced later on. No further information has been released,
and Q, let's get your two.
Speaker 3 (20:40):
Cents, may or may not.
Speaker 2 (20:47):
You know, our country and its institutions have done probably
the most masterful job in history of convincing its subjects,
its citizens people to fully emotionally invest in its institutions
like the military, like the police, and those institutions like
(21:11):
even it's government, beyond reproach, beyond criticism, beyond being held
to even the reasonable minimum accountability standards. Right, So, you
and I have had conversations long before civic slipher existed,
but just in general about the types of things that
(21:32):
would cause people on the right, or people that are racist,
or people who are not racist but just don't have
the same everyday encounters and struggles that we have. And
we used to say things like, man, if it ever
came to their door, it would change their minds. But
with the mass shootings like that we've witnessed, not even
(21:53):
that's true, even when the victims are young white children,
people still won't stand up against the gun lobby.
Speaker 3 (22:02):
That's not even the government. The government so bent on
maintaining things that they have been taught are righteous, that
even with evidence to the contrary, they won't change their minds, right,
(22:25):
So it's hard to think about reform rams just because
people often don't look to change things, but they don't
see anything wrong with them. And I remember, you know,
back during during our former president's time in office, they
interviewed this woman, and it's just about the type of
(22:46):
things that he said and the thing that he said
during his election, which there's no president I don't think
ever in history that could have had something like that
come out and then gone on to win the presidency
when he said about just grabbing women by their private parts.
And they asked this lady at a rally who was
a very very prominent supporter. She had every piece of
(23:08):
paraphernalia that was ever made on and she had her
two young daughters with her, and she'd rather rob her
daughters of their dignity than denounce her candidate than denounce
her president when asked about those things that he said
in a way that he viewed women, and she then
(23:31):
turned to her daughters and kind of suggested to them that,
you know, sometimes that's okay. And I was just blown away,
like the zealot like beliefs that a lot of people
in this country have cannot be changed by logic or
evidence or numbers or anything. So it'd be hard to
(23:52):
get wholesale buy in for any type of reform because
when people said defund the police, a lot of people
lost their mind.
Speaker 1 (24:00):
And that wasn't even that, Like, why would you.
Speaker 3 (24:03):
Say such a thing? And I think I said to you,
not jokingly, that being phrased that way is all the runway.
They need a lot of it. They can take that
phrase and make it sound so much worse than it
actually is, you know what I'm saying. So let me
add this to that too. So our issue on the
(24:23):
show oftentimes is with policing the institution, not with white
police officers, and I think this story illustrates that. Again,
all of these people involved were black, and black people
can be white supremacists too, you know. You know, black
people own slaves. We've seen what happened with you know,
Kanye West.
Speaker 1 (24:44):
You know what I'm saying. This is the thing. Black
people can buy into this narrative too, and police officers
certainly are no exceptions. So it's a system that oppresses
black and brown people.
Speaker 4 (24:53):
Police officers more so indoctrinated in the system that has
existed long before they did
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