May 3, 2025 • 36 mins
A massive nightclub raid in Colorado Springs has resulted in 105 people still separated from their families with minimal charges filed, raising serious questions about law enforcement tactics and due process. We examine the concerning case of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, who remains wrongfully deported to El Salvador despite court orders, and discuss active-duty military members caught in the nightclub raid.
• Kilmar Abrego Garcia remains in El Salvador 50 days after being wrongfully taken from his family
• Trump publicly admitted he could return Kilmar but refuses to do so
• 300 officers from 10 agencies raided a Colorado Springs nightclub with only 2 people charged with unrelated offenses
• 105 people remain unaccounted for with families afraid to ask about their whereabouts
• 17 active-duty military personnel were at the raid, some working as armed security
• The raid targeted one of Colorado Springs' most diverse communities, creating fear and mistrust
• May Day's origins in American labor history deserve more recognition as worker protections continue to erode
Join us for our May Day march supporting local unions at the post office and Penrose Library as we fight to preserve community resources and worker protections.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Hello everyone and welcome to another episode of
Left Face.
This is the Pike Peak Regionpodcast, where we cover veterans
issues and political topics,and we have a great episode for
you today.
I'm joined with Adam Gillard,hey.
Speaker 2 (00:17):
Dick, how you doing.
I love how we start off withjust like a real tough
alliteration.
Speaker 1 (00:20):
Yeah, we do.
Speaker 2 (00:21):
Just to like get that tongue rolling yeah yeah, yeah,
and we also.
Speaker 1 (00:25):
It's not like we're prepped or rehearsed or anything
, so it's.
It's like jumping in the deepend of the pool, you know, ice
plunge kind of style.
Yeah, and off the couch yeahyep, and I'm your.
I'm adam's co-host, dickwilkinson, and uh, thanks for
listening.
We're gonna kick it off withkilmar count, as we did for the
last couple of weeks.
Unfortunately, kilmar AbregoGarcia is still in El Salvador.
(00:49):
He's at 50 days since he wasdeported and of course, there
are that's 50 days since allthose people were deported, but
he is the person who was notsupposed to be deported to.
Speaker 2 (00:59):
El Salvador.
Well, 50 days since he wassnatched from his family, okay,
47 since he was deported, Sincehe left the country Gotcha.
Speaker 1 (01:05):
Okay.
Speaker 2 (01:06):
Yeah, which is kind of interesting that it took
three days for him to be gone.
And then you look at theincident that is going to be the
meat of our show here today andwe still don't have a lot of
answers on it.
Speaker 1 (01:19):
It's been more than three days.
Speaker 2 (01:20):
Exactly, and I'm talking about the ice raid down
at the nightclub in ColoradoSprings the most interesting
local story.
Speaker 1 (01:28):
we'll probably cover all year.
I hope it is because it's adoozy.
Speaker 2 (01:33):
Yeah, making national news isn't the highlight,
shouldn't be the highlight, you?
Speaker 1 (01:37):
want it to be.
No, or for this stuff nodefinitely not, and this is
twice Late.
Last year we had the guy whowent to Vegas and blew up the
Cybertruck was from here, right,so that was a big story too.
So being known for violence isnot a key.
That's not what I experiencedliving here, but we'll get to
that story.
Yeah, so Kilmar's still gone.
(01:59):
And the story.
You got to love Donald Trumpand the way he runs his
administration.
Right, because the lawyers thathe has they go represent the
DOJ and go and talk about thiscase in court they say we can't
get him back.
The president of El Salvador isthe person that has to send him
back.
X, y and Z would have to happenand it's just not up to us.
(02:21):
And they still are holding thatargument throughout all the
court movement that's going on.
Speaker 2 (02:28):
The same administration that bullies
every other country into signingmineral deals can't bully
another country into giving them.
No.
Yeah, we can't get them back.
Speaker 1 (02:39):
Go on administration.
Mr president, sat down with abcnot his most friendly network
he he's quite happy to.
Speaker 2 (02:48):
He did get into a literally like slap fight with
the interview guy, was this theone where he like tried to keep
talking about the ms-13 tattoos?
Speaker 1 (02:58):
yes and he's like no, say yes yeah, say yes and we'll
move on yeah exactly what thehell is that?
And he was like, I picked youbecause I had never heard your
name and you know, I figuredthis would be a great
opportunity for you.
So this is it.
This is the big time, yeah.
Speaker 2 (03:09):
So do a better job.
Speaker 1 (03:12):
Yeah, but he said there well, of course I could
get him back.
I'm the president of the UnitedStates.
I sent him there.
What?
Yes, he said that he's like,but I'm not going to because
he's a criminal.
Tell me he's not a bad guy.
Prove to me that he's not a badguy, and then maybe I'll get
him back.
But as far as I'm concerned,he's a bad guy.
No, it's the other way around.
(03:35):
Yeah, you have to prove that heis a bad guy because you
arrested him and for commentslike that to not even cause a
ripple in his followers.
Speaker 2 (03:45):
That's what's really terrifying.
Speaker 1 (03:46):
Nothing to it, yeah.
Speaker 2 (03:48):
They gloss over those things and say like oh why are
you guys?
You scream Nazi every time hespeaks.
Yeah, because we're listeningto his words.
Yeah, like we hear the wordscoming out of his mouth.
And the.
Speaker 1 (03:58):
Supreme Court said do this.
And he said nah.
And now he said I can do it,but I't want to, but I don't
want to yeah.
And so then I felt I heard andthis I mean as little sense as
it makes.
It makes sense, because moneymakes everything.
You know, stupid stuff makessense sometimes.
And so the president of elsalvador is getting paid to
(04:18):
house these prisoners, so he hasno interest in disrupting the
head count in his prison.
Yeah, even for one person.
Right?
He's like I don't care who yousend, we're going to put them in
these holes and then that's it.
You pay us to keep them in thehole.
Yeah, so he's got no incentiveto do anything about this, you
know.
And so that's why he said likeI can't send him back, you would
(04:40):
have to tell me to send himback.
And of course, donald, donaldtrump, says, you know, about two
weeks later on to the day, well, I could get him back, but I'm
just not going to right, Ibelieve that that tattoo is real
, I believe that he is a realgang member.
Speaker 2 (04:55):
All right you know, remind me to show you this after
we get done.
But I have somebody that sentme he's a former Intel person,
does like imaging, you know,targeting things like that.
But he sent me his analysis andit's on his sub stack on these
prisons being built in ElSalvador.
(05:15):
Okay, and how, like he thinksthey're mass graves.
Ah, okay, like he alreadythinks that like things are
happening and they're buildingin the infrastructure for these
things.
Yeah, he already thinks thatthings are happening and they're
building in the infrastructurefor these things, and he has
experience doing it for otherlocations around the world, so
he's got some credentials for it.
But, yeah, there's definitelysome shady things, because when
(05:35):
Trump said, oh, you're going toneed to build five more of these
prisons, yes, it's scary.
Speaker 1 (05:41):
Well, that part definitely happened.
And then, you know, in thatsame vein and under still under
the Kilmar topic here this week,the administration said they're
starting to work out dealswhere they're going to send
prison people from America,deport Excuse me, they're going
to deport people from America toRwanda and to Libya, that
(06:01):
they're going to build useprisons, their build prisons
there and that they're going tosend people to those places.
And you know, the politicalanalysis on that was like those
are just places that sound scaryand there's nothing about it,
like it's.
It's almost completelyunrealistic that you know he
granted this.
This person may do whatever hewants to do.
Logistically there's no reason.
(06:22):
There doesn't make sense tosend anybody that far away,
those.
That's not where any of thesepeople come from generally.
So you're going to be deportingpeople out to these places.
He's like the.
The analyst that I waslistening to said he didn't
think it would really happen.
Speaker 2 (06:35):
And then it's just a weird bloviation of the
administration trying to say oh,you think el salvador is bad,
wait till we send you to rwanda,you know so, like when I hear
that and you kind of couple thatin with trying to end, you know
, birthright citizenship, Iwould also an issue that came up
this week right, exactly, um, Iwould think that they would
start targeting our blackcommunities like I could see
(06:58):
that.
I could see them saying you knowthe whole dog whistle for the
white supremacy, you know, saidgo back where you came from, put
a footprint in Africa.
I can tell why that jumps offthe page.
Why would?
Speaker 1 (07:11):
we send people to Africa.
Oh wait, the South will riseagain.
Speaker 2 (07:15):
That's it, that's what I heard.
Speaker 1 (07:21):
Yeah, you can hear the stars and bars rolling out,
here come them old Duke boysagain.
Speaker 2 (07:25):
Which I mean when you look at how much our prison
system is going to be fundingour labor market, they might not
be shipping everybody off.
So, there'll be some jobopportunities in the prison
system too, job opportunities.
Speaker 1 (07:44):
They're hiring at all times.
Speaker 2 (07:45):
I mean, I just saw posters for field workers for
$15 an hour or whatever the costwas.
You guys aren't going to get it.
Man, this harvest season, oreven the planting season, is
going to be rough, because a lotof stuff should already be in
the ground.
Speaker 1 (08:01):
Yeah, that's true.
Speaker 2 (08:02):
It's going to be rough this harvest season.
One more issue in the economy,right yeah, Trump said earlier
today One more piece ofinflation, yeah he said you know
, instead of people having $30,maybe they'll only have two, and
those two will cost a littlebit more.
Yeah, and so, like he's back tomanual labor, yeah.
Speaker 1 (08:28):
You know, like, like, that's, that's our option there
.
Yes, that is.
Yeah, it is Um, the you know,the other, I guess, piece of
that is uh, as we said in aprevious episode, if you make
everything terrible and then youimprove it just a little bit,
you're the guy that saved theworld, right?
And so this sounds like a youknow a piece of that puzzle of
(08:51):
like.
Like you say, let's, let'sraise inflation, let's cause
these problems, let's, let'sforce people into financial
situations that they can'ttolerate, and then give them
just that little bit ofbreathing room right on time, if
you will.
Right, there's a right time todo that, Probably right around
the midterms.
Speaker 2 (09:05):
You give it to them and say hey, make sure those
people below you don't getanything, Otherwise your stuff
goes away too so so so, like youkeep feeding that too, you keep
feeding that division and thatyou know, just class warfare,
but somehow it's like themiddle-class fighting itself.
Speaker 1 (09:20):
Yes, yes, that is it.
Yeah, that's true.
Yeah, you can't you know, can'tafford to stay in the hotel
that you work at.
You can't afford to buy itemsat the store that you work in.
You know those kinds of things.
Right, it's like it's anunfortunate paradigm that exists
in almost every place you go toin America.
You know the people that workthere may not be able to afford
(09:40):
the things that you're buyingthere.
Speaker 2 (09:41):
You know from the sounds of it, this
administration's ready to tearthat whole piece of the economy
down, and you're just going tohave to figure out what you do
for food and rent, becauserent's also unsustainable.
Speaker 1 (09:53):
This is coming down from the man who doesn't
understand what groceries are.
Speaker 2 (09:58):
You've never done a day of shopping.
Speaker 1 (10:00):
So if you want to understand why he doesn't get it
, you know, it's like who caresif?
Eggs are $12?
.
Isn't that how much they owe Adollar an egg?
Speaker 2 (10:08):
That sounds totally reasonable to me Gallon of milk
$40, $45.
That sounds about right.
How much milk do you even drink, you?
Speaker 1 (10:14):
know right, That'll be the answer.
Speaker 2 (10:20):
Start drinking this expensive raw milk and then you
won't want very much milk.
It'll make you sick as hell.
His answer is going to be juststart drinking Coke.
It's like way cheaper.
Yeah, coke is way cheaper thanmilk.
Speaker 1 (10:27):
Yeah, it's got what plants crave.
Speaker 2 (10:31):
You know sprinting towards that.
Speaker 1 (10:33):
Wow, all right.
Well, sad news Kilmer still outfor 50 days now, no real
progress.
Well, actually I'd call itbackwards progress, because
Trump just flat out said he'snot, he's not gonna follow the
rule of law here.
Speaker 2 (10:46):
So yeah, so, and you know, that kind of is what leads
me to, you know, into this nextthing.
You're talking about thecolorado springs, yeah, and the
orders that people are followingnow.
Um, we, we saw, uh, so so firstlet's just talk about the
Colorado Springs.
Speaker 1 (11:03):
Yeah, what happened?
Speaker 2 (11:04):
I was going to say yeah so 300 officers, 10
agencies raided a nightclub with200 people over the weekend.
114 people were held.
Two people have gotten chargesso far from local police for
outstanding warrants, so itwasn't even stemming from that
(11:25):
event.
Yeah, they found recreationalcocaine there.
It was pink, so I think they'reusing that to tie it to.
Oh, yeah.
Speaker 1 (11:32):
So the pink cocaine is actually just a different
party drug altogether.
That's a hallucinogen calledand people are starting to write
it.
I knew this would happen when Istarted hearing people say this
.
They call it 2C, the number twoand the letter C, and that's
the chemical class that it's inand it's kind of similar to
(11:53):
ecstasy.
Speaker 2 (11:54):
It's a hallucinogen like ecstasy, it's a party drug.
Yeah, it's a party drug.
Yeah, it's a designer drugInteresting.
Speaker 1 (11:58):
Yeah, 2c, and then they're 2C, whatever all the
other letters are, but pinkcocaine is the street name for
it.
Because you sniff it, you gofor all you users out there
Breaking news, yeah.
Speaker 2 (12:14):
So they found recreational amounts of that.
Yeah, there's been no, you know, communication really at all
from the federal level.
Sure Coming down.
Speaker 1 (12:25):
And what you're saying there.
I want to clarify, because yousaid recreational cocaine.
I'm like all cocaine isrecreational, I'm pretty sure,
but you meant amounts.
Amounts meaning like personaluse.
Speaker 2 (12:37):
People had little bags on them right, you know, it
wasn't tony montana's coke,coke layer where it was just
stacks of yeah, bricks, yeah,and there wasn't even a guy
because it was a nightclub typeenvironment.
It wasn't a drug house right,but but there wasn't even
somebody caught slinging.
Speaker 1 (12:48):
Yeah, like you know, I got you, you know getting that
, because that would go throughthe da, or something like trunk
with a bunch of kilos in it orsomething in the parking lot.
Yeah, yeah, so no likedistribute distribution charges
uh, there was a prostitutionthere.
Speaker 2 (13:02):
Um, when the reports first came out, it was always
human trafficking.
Yeah, like there's a hugedifference between prostitution
and human trafficking.
Uh, you know, depending onagain, no charges have been
filed for this, they just saidit.
Yeah, but there's a bigdifference between you, know.
Speaker 1 (13:19):
Well, I get yeah penalty-wise.
Speaker 2 (13:19):
Yeah, is what you're saying.
No, from like the act.
Like if you're just like a sexworker, yeah.
Giving a handjob in the parkinglot yeah, like that's one thing
If you're being made to do that.
Speaker 1 (13:32):
And there's handlers involved Right.
Speaker 2 (13:34):
So like one, still no charge has been filed, but I'm
not going to condemn sex workers.
Speaker 1 (13:39):
One is organized crime and one is a petty crime.
Basically yeah.
Speaker 2 (13:44):
And me personally.
I don't condemn the sex workerseither, Gotcha.
Speaker 1 (13:48):
But yeah, I get you.
Speaker 2 (13:50):
No serious crimes.
No federal level crimes havecome out of this at all.
Yeah, and I was shocked tolearn that the lead DEA agent on
this one.
He did the same stuff up inAdams County and earlier in
February nothing was filed andthey stopped doing it after like
93 raids, zero charges, wow.
And now that's crazy, our mayor.
Speaker 1 (14:11):
What do you even do, like what?
Well, yeah, so talk about fraud, waste and abuse, like was
there something else you shouldbe working on so that people
will go to actual prison insteadof just like I don't know,
scaring people with, or what areyou doing, like I don't even
know what you're doing at that?
Speaker 2 (14:26):
point, with that track record, he's still allowed
to come down here by our policechiefs, our sheriff, city
council mayor, like this wasclearly an ICE raid disguised
under DEA, local law enforcement.
Yeah, yeah, I see theconnection there.
(14:46):
They had to have played alongwith this to allow that to
happen, because, like that's whythey're not getting any
traction up in Adams County,like they're waiting for real
evidence here.
Here they're not.
Speaker 1 (14:55):
And now 105 people are still not with their
families yeah, well and and uh,in adams county is up close to
denver, right, and I don't knowabout the setup of the
government or the situationthere, but of course we all
understand denver as a sanctuarycity or, you know, region.
Um, so I don't know if thatthat had anything to do with at
the adams county involvement orlack thereof, right, but this
(15:18):
area is basically the oppositeof that from a political tone
right, yeah, yeah, last year,like four migrant families
showed up and asked forresources at a church, yeah, and
the mayor made it a point tosay, hey, we're not a sanctuary
city.
Speaker 2 (15:30):
Yeah, and that was four people asking for help from
, like a church.
Got help, yeah, went away Likethe, the, the nonprofit did what
they were supposed to do, sure,and we made a political
statement Sure, we're not asanctuary city.
Speaker 1 (15:43):
Yeah, that makes sense.
Well, I hadn't even thoughtabout it.
As far as ice raid in disguise,um, and I mean I guess it
wouldn't matter if it was DEA orICE on the back of the jackets,
right.
As far as the federalenforcement piece, you know, I
guess my take on it is there wassome local complaints, I guess,
as far as, like, what tipped itoff to the activity was this it
(16:06):
was an illegally operated place, meaning that it was never in a
a license or zoned facility.
So the neighbors, the peoplewho either own businesses or had
houses in those areas, werereporting it to the police,
saying like, hey, every Saturdaya hundred people show up here
and start acting a fool and wedon't feel safe or we think
they're going to start breakinginto other properties around
here and doing, you know, justcommitting crime, and so that's,
(16:28):
that was what the local storyis.
Is that?
That's what tipped off thewhole investigation was that
this place was kind of beingpersistently moving from one
place to another.
But they knew it was the samegroup of people operating it.
So you know, I I guess my takeon it is like whether it was ICE
or DEA or even local if it's alaw enforcement raid with 300
(16:49):
officers.
I agree with you there should becharges.
There should be charges.
There should be charges quickly.
Um, it should be quite publicand and just like when they do
find big stacks of cocaine andthey all stand around and take
pictures, this should be thesame thing of like look at how
many charges came out of thisthing.
If we arrested 100 people, like70 of them should get some kind
of like real charge, even ifit's just possession of a
(17:13):
firearm or drugs that theyweren't allowed to have.
Like that's still a real thing.
That gets you engaged with thelegal system, right.
So that's what we should expectas taxpayers for this type.
Like months long organizedsearch and effort to go arrest
these people 10 months, youshould put them in jail.
Speaker 2 (17:30):
Yeah, 10 months.
10 months was the length ofthis investigation that they had
here.
Yeah, and so far, a week out,nothing, yeah, yeah, it's just
crazy that the way that they goabout these things and use the
local police force just as acover Bodies, yeah, bodies.
(17:52):
Well, they use them as the doorknockers.
Yeah, and then let them kind ofgo in and do those things.
Speaker 1 (17:56):
Yeah, they put them through the funnel first, right.
Speaker 2 (17:59):
And that's what I was going to kind of say is like
now that we have examples of youknow just wrong people being
deported yeah, just terrible.
You know separations infamilies, things like that.
We you know separations andfamilies, things like that.
(18:21):
We have these examples and nowhere in our local community we
have 105 people still gone.
Um hard to get off a list ofnames.
You know, even the senator'soffices are still trying to get
listed names for these things.
Speaker 1 (18:26):
Um, and that's, that's the the.
You know the 10 differentagencies get involved and you
get the whole finger pointingsituation like oh, those people
arrested him those peoplearrested him?
Those people arrested him?
Oh, I don't have any recordsfor those people.
Well, they're in their jail, sothey're the ones that should
answer that question.
And I've worked on that.
You know, I worked in thecourse and so I definitely
understand how messy it can getwhen if you arrest a hundred
people, because sometimes it'shard to track down one or two
(18:47):
people, Right.
Speaker 2 (18:48):
Yeah, and that's all part of the game.
Like you said before, you shaveeverybody's head.
They all look the same.
And like that's just the way.
That's what they're hoping forright now.
They're hoping to lose peopleand just disappear them.
But folks that are, you know,on law enforcement, like like
this is your, your red line here, man?
Like you're unlawfully takingpeople off the streets, like I
(19:11):
understand, and it's not so muchyou know, it's not the right on
the nightclub, right, yeah,like, do those things.
Those are good.
Like, do those things.
Yeah, but it's the follow-upand the lack of due process that
we have lost faith in thesystem now.
Yeah, like, if there's no dueprocess and these people just
disappear and go away, likethat's not just you know, yeah,
(19:34):
it's frightening.
That's not criminals, you know.
Possibly that's somebody's, youknow, brother, sister, husband,
father, like these are likeyour co-workers that's what I
was thinking these are gonnathat's the guy that's missing.
Speaker 1 (19:45):
You're missing his shift right now you're covering
his shift because he's yeahnobody knows where he's at you
know or you know why you'rebitching in the drive-thru,
because your food's taking toolong.
Speaker 2 (19:56):
Because the day shift all got arrested.
Speaker 1 (19:59):
They were all partying at night, on Saturday
night, they got off work andthey all went to the party and
then they all went to jail.
That's no good.
Well, we got to shift it overto the military piece of the
story, because we've beentalking about the kind of unjust
aspect of how the whole thingwent down and what's going to
(20:20):
happen to everybody now, yeah,but since we're the Veterans
Podcast, let's talk about ourbrothers in arms.
Literally, there were someknuckleheads.
I'll call them knuckleheads.
I mean, oh yeah, I think that'sa safe, that's not a derogatory
term in this context.
There were some knuckleheadsthere that were at this raid
Active duty.
Active duty, and the originalnumber I heard was 12.
(20:43):
And then over the last few daysit's gone up to 17.
And now the local news isstarting to run stories like how
does the army conduct criminalinvestigations?
I saw that as a local newsstory yesterday.
Oh, they got to.
Local news is starting to runstories like how does the Army
conduct criminal investigations?
I saw that as a local newsstory yesterday.
Speaker 2 (20:56):
Oh, they got to be excited about that, yeah there's
definitely some.
Speaker 1 (20:59):
It's kind of cool as far as they're concerned to get
some insight into this juicystory, right.
So, 17 people there was quite afew of them were working there.
Yeah, I think half of them,they said, were working that as
armed security, as armedsecurity guards, I'm going to, I
wish I'm always looking for anout.
I want to give a soldier an out.
(21:20):
I want to ask him did you,maybe you thought you were doing
this?
Eh, you know.
And they're like yeah, yeah,that's it, that's it.
And if that could make sense,like I'm not saying we're going
to lie about it, but I want tofind a way for you to explain
this Right?
Speaker 2 (21:36):
So you're saying your boss was licensed and bonded
insured right?
Speaker 1 (21:39):
Yeah, right.
Well, you know this nightclub.
Have you ever seen it duringthe daytime?
Have you ever seen any of thosepeople outside of the nightclub
.
You know so, but anyways thatis so one.
there's going to be some drugtests in their future, all of
them oh yeah, all the units too,that they're a part of Right,
(21:59):
and that already happened.
And there's, I guarantee you,because you know, monday morning
, Tuesday, by Tuesday morning,they had 100% going on in those
units Right, 100% urinalysis.
And here's how that goes downDudes, guys and gals that know
they're going to pop hot.
Sometimes they just disappearBecause I don't know what they
think they're going to do, butit's just like running from the
(22:20):
cops in a car, right?
You think if I get away fromthem I'll figure it out after
that right, I'll just hide forseven days and pee clean when I
get home.
Yeah, Nah, I've just known toomany people that pop hot,
disappear, go awol.
They track them down and thenyou know it.
All it's all.
It's come to roost by the time.
They track them down and getthem back to the unit and then
(22:40):
all the results are there andthen it's just time to out
process.
You know it's time to getthere's the ucmj happens fast
and so there's going to be someunits losing additional members,
promise you, promise youbecause there was other drug
activity going on.
Speaker 2 (22:55):
There was a murder solved in Germany.
They drug tested a whole floorin the dorms because there was a
lot of cocaine going on.
And yeah, just person afterperson just rolled on each other
.
Yeah, got back to this onemurder.
That happened the year beforeSomebody was getting jumped into
a gang and like, yeah, Iremember that I remember that
story oh do you?
Speaker 1 (23:15):
oh, I remember they jumped into the gang thing in
germany yeah, I was.
I was active duty when thathappened.
Speaker 2 (23:19):
Yeah, oh yeah so I was there too, yeah, and
actually talked to the kid thatwas going to leavenworth for it.
Oh yeah, um, because I wastrying to get his uh vaccines
done and he's like I'm not doingthat who the hell are you that?
Speaker 1 (23:30):
And?
Speaker 2 (23:30):
so I went to his boss and he's like, yeah, he's not
doing that.
And then he told me the story.
I was like oh, yeah, yeah he'snot.
Speaker 1 (23:38):
He's going to be in jail.
Speaker 2 (23:38):
He's like you know he'll take care of it in
processing, yeah.
Speaker 1 (23:44):
Well, the problem here, I guess, is what is this a
um indicator of?
Is it morale?
Is it discipline?
Is it unit readiness, is itpoor pay?
I think it's the pay, honestly,I mean, I'm not trying to say
soldiers know what they'resigning up for, but when you're
(24:04):
broke and your paycheck topaycheck every single time and
your bank is basically overdraftat all times, and somebody,
somebody says, hey, you can make$300 for you know, working four
hours at this place, you'relike hell, yeah, I'll do that,
just don't ask too manyquestions, man, we're going to
pay you cash and that's that.
You're a big dude, done anddone.
You're a bruiser.
Right, they're talking to these.
(24:24):
You know infantry dudes thatare all just jacked out of their
minds.
And so you know you pay them acouple hundred bucks, they're
going to do what Damn nearanything, right?
You know, so you know that's.
That's the situation and I meanthe the question I guess it
comes down to.
And here's the other thingWhenever somebody gets stationed
back near their hometown thisis, I think that's where a lot
(24:48):
of this stuff comes from is likewhoever you were doing
knucklehead stuff with backbefore you joined the military,
they're still around.
If you go back to your hometownand that person's like hey, I
know this cool nightclub, butyour military, if you were just
out at some other base in adifferent place in the United
States or in the world, youmight not ever end up in one of
those places because you don'tknow the local people in a way
(25:10):
where they're going to trust youand say, hey, you want to get
in on something.
Speaker 2 (25:14):
I've actually been turned away, like in Barcelona,
me and some friends were goinginto a club and they're like,
yeah, no, you guys are way tooAmerican?
Speaker 1 (25:23):
Yeah for sure.
So that's more likely to happen.
You're not going to wander intothe crack spot if you're not
from there.
But if you're from somewhere,it's real easy to wander into
the crack spot right.
And I feel like that's a part ofwhat happened here too is I
know for sure that there are alot of people at Carson that are
originally from Colorado.
I mean, I'm not mad at them,those people aren't out to do
crime, I'm just saying it.
(25:44):
When that happens, yourlikelihood of a crossover
between the military and thelocal criminal element there's.
That's where some of that comesfrom.
And again back to the wholeanalysis thing.
You see, your buddies that youknow you used to smoke weed with
back in grade, and then theyfind you, you know, two years
after you're in the army butyou're stationed back, you know,
at Fort Gordon, georgia, andthey're like hey, come smoke
with us.
And you do.
Speaker 2 (26:06):
And that's.
This is the whole thing withrecruiting in general for all
the, all the services is, youknow, we recruit from the lower
income areas and lower incomeareas usually have higher
alcohol, drug use.
You know, dependency issues,things like that, just or just
other criminal activity going onthere.
Right, I mean it knowdependency issues, things like
that, just or just othercriminal activity going on there
(26:27):
.
Yeah, right, I mean it's justpoor communities, yeah, poor
things like that.
You know, um, and a lot oftimes when people get recruited
out of that, you know they'llsee that opportunity to escape
and they'll grasp on and they'lltake it, yeah, and then folks
will still do some stupid stuff.
Yeah, yeah, you know.
You know the, the 17 peoplethere that's out of, you know,
know, 60,000 shoulders we haveout there, or something like
that, you know.
So, like this isn't like a bigindicator.
Speaker 1 (26:47):
Yeah, it's not an indicator.
Speaker 2 (26:49):
Yeah, Now how many people get popped on this drug
test that's coming?
Yeah, that might be a bigindicator.
That'll be something, yeah.
But yeah, I think it's kind ofa standard operating procedure
that there's going to be somekids doing this out there,
making bad choices and doingthings, the fact that they got
rolled up.
If they got rolled up and theytest hot, yeah, start the
(27:13):
discharge.
But if they don't test hot andthey're just there partying
having a good time, make themclean some toilets and go call
it a day.
Speaker 1 (27:21):
I don't know, man, we're not.
This is something.
Well, I'll give you the Armylook at it here.
And these I'm sure they wereall Army people the when you're
not, when you're in garrison iswhat we call it.
So when you're not deployed andyou're not in a training
rotation, like getting ready todeploy, you're in garrison.
In garrison is like theminefield for commanders because
(27:43):
that's you know, soldiers areat rest.
Right, a soldier at rest is badyou know like little hands,
yeah, idle hands and money, andjust you know bad opportunities.
And then you know you go, youdouble down with that of your
unit's not super busy, so theyhave a lot of time off.
Because you know, if all thevehicles are in a row and all
the grass is flat, you know likethere's nothing to do.
(28:04):
And so you know again, soldiersget into trouble.
And so being in garrison andbeing in this um, non war
fighter kind of position for youknow months or years at a time
that they just the problemscreep in like mold, you know
they just do.
And so I feel bad for thecommander that's inheriting a
(28:25):
brigade.
That's two, three years sincethey've had any real deployment
or activity going on and they'vejust been in a nonstop training
cycle for three years.
You got some issues.
Speaker 2 (28:35):
I can't remember the last time that the fourth went
out the door.
I don't know.
That has been a few years.
Speaker 1 (28:41):
So that just breeds.
That's the playground fordisciplinary issues.
Speaker 2 (28:45):
So yeah.
Speaker 1 (28:46):
That's a good point.
Bad times for those folks.
Well, I do hope that somepeople go to jail, because
otherwise the nightclub willjust pop up again in you know a
month in some other part of town.
Speaker 2 (28:56):
They'll go to Pueblo instead of Colorado Springs or
whatever you know, and here'swhat kind of really frustrates
me is that so much of ourdiversity is in that area of
that nightclub.
Speaker 1 (29:09):
Probably like 70, 60, 70% of our city's diversity is
right there.
Okay, your physical location.
Speaker 2 (29:11):
You're saying, yeah, down like that southeast corner
by the airport Gotcha.
That's where our diversity lies, okay, and so they take these
300 officers, they come in thereand just scare the hell out of
that community, like peopledon't even want to come out and
say that their friends aremissing.
Yeah, because they're raisingtheir own hand for attention.
Yeah, so, like, if you know,when Senator Hickenlooper says,
(29:32):
hey, send me the names ofeverybody that's gone, nobody's
giving it to the federalgovernment.
Speaker 1 (29:36):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (29:37):
Nobody's raising their hand for that.
Speaker 1 (29:42):
Silence breeds more problems within the community.
Right if you scare people tosay when?
They need help that just allowsthose problems to fester, right
?
Yeah, so, like the good, thatlaw-abiding citizens will not do
what they need to do to keeptheir own community safe because
they feel like they're at riskof being arrested for no reason?
Speaker 2 (30:00):
yeah, so what?
All they've done is scare thatcommunity and create like a
facade of public safety for,like you know, good headlines
right.
For like the white folks upNorth, you know like hey we're
doing public safety here, butall they did is they removed
people from their families.
You know, coworkers like theseare the people that keep our
economy going.
(30:21):
Yeah.
And you know, everybody has ajob here and everybody's working
.
Uh, they were having fun andyou gotta buy those drugs with
some money.
Speaker 1 (30:34):
Right, drugs aren't free just because you join a
gang.
Yeah, if you join a gang youdon't get.
You know, it's just like I saidearlier if you work at the gang
, you don't make enough money tobuy the drugs that the gang
sells right, you know well, youthink I can afford pink cocaine.
What's wrong?
With you I just sell the stuff,man yeah.
Speaker 2 (30:51):
So, like you know this, this facade of public
safety is for the folks up northand it's just about public
compliance.
Sure, like they're just tryingto get that community down there
to comply, self--deport, getout.
They're just attacking thatcommunity and, as we say on the
show all the time.
Speaker 1 (31:07):
Headlines are the story, sometimes right, like
headlines is the point, and itsounds like that could be an
indicator with the agent that isleading these raids and not
charging anybody.
He's like well, headline, allright, I got the headline,
brother, it's done.
Plan the next one.
You know yeah, oh, plan thenext one, you know, yeah, oh
well, so what was our, what wasour last topic for today, adam,
(31:32):
we, oh May day.
Today is May day, so we weregoing to talk about what is May
day, just a little bit.
And it's it's roots in somelabor, you know movement that
maybe Americans aren't so awareof.
Speaker 2 (31:38):
Yeah, well, I mean yeah, just in general, like I
never really paid attention toMay day, just being in the
military, it's just notsomething, that it's not one of
our holidays, that we get off,because we do the Memorial Day
at the end of May and then LaborDay in September.
But for May Day, it started inIllinois.
I believe it was where somecops busted up a union in I
(32:03):
can't remember the city's nameright now.
I'll have to do a follow on onthat.
Yeah, but, but you know, thecops busted up the union and and
, uh, now this day is celebratedaround the world and kind of
ignored here, which is kind offunny that, like you know, our
ruling class said yeah, we'renot going to celebrate where we
actually literally oppressed youfairly recently.
(32:23):
Right, we'll give you Labor Dayat the end of summer, we'll
wrap up summer with that, right,right, yeah, so we get our
picnic then.
But these real events thathappen and then the rest of the
world recognizes and celebratesit, but we kind of ignore it.
But today we'll be having someprotests and so when this comes
out the protests would alreadyhave happened.
But we're going to have a marchwhere we get to go to the post
(32:45):
office and the Penrose Librarydown there, because they're both
local institutions here thathave unions that are fighting to
keep our resources here andkeep libraries open.
So we're going to be havingthis protest, hopefully get some
folks here.
We've had those internationaljournalists in town.
You said somebody from theNetherlands was here.
(33:07):
Yeah, from the Netherlands.
Julian Thomas are their names.
I can't remember what newsorganization they were with
either.
Speaker 1 (33:17):
It's in Dutch, so I just can't pronounce it.
Speaker 2 (33:21):
But they'll be giving us the link and I'll make sure
I forward it out to everybodyfor everybody to catch it.
But yeah, it should be a greatevent and actually draw
awareness to what unions do forus as a society.
You know, when we sit here andscream about, you know, letting
oligarchs into our system, it'sbecause it started with the
union-busting laws that startedafter the New Deal.
(33:42):
Yeah, you know, taft-hartley,andartley and things like that,
the Davis-Bacon, those types oflaws that keep busting the
unions and just handingpaychecks to the wealthy class.
The unions are what's going topull us out of this stuff.
Speaker 1 (34:02):
As we talked about this earlier, I've experienced
that overseas May Day is more ofa stuff.
So, and you know, as we talkedabout this earlier, I I've
experienced that that overseasMayday is more of a holiday.
It's actually observed as a dayoff and and maybe has more
activities associated with itthan it ever has in America.
Um, and I realized, as you weretalking just now, that there's
there's part of there's a reasonfor that Almost all the
countries where that is common,there's's not a two-party system
(34:24):
for elections.
Right, the political system hasmultiple parties and there's
always one that's identified asthe labor party.
Right, even if it's calledsomething else, there's one
that's just that's kind of likeconservative or liberal.
Right, there's always onecalled the labor party.
Right, um, and no matter whatcountry you're in, if they have
a multi-party system, there'llbe a labor party.
That's where that comes from.
(34:45):
It's because there's a wholepolitical group that says, hey,
we've got to champion thisholiday so that we keep our
relevance and remind people thatthis is what we do politically
within the community.
So that's why it's more popular.
Speaker 2 (34:57):
I would love if we had a labor party here.
I think I could definitely jivewith a lot more of that Sure,
sure.
Speaker 1 (35:04):
We are, I don't know.
Speaker 2 (35:05):
I'm a libertarian, so I don't want that, don't want
any more parties.
No, I don't want I want a lotmore parties, but not a labor
party you like that.
Speaker 1 (35:17):
Liberty for all except those damn workers, right
.
Speaker 2 (35:22):
Get back in the factory Trying to get equality.
Get back in the factory Tryingto get equality.
Speaker 1 (35:26):
Remember that's sarcasm for all the folks that
can't read, you know textmessages lose sarcasm right,
that was sarcasm.
Well, thanks everybody forlistening.
Please join us again next weekas we talk about more veterans
issues here in Colorado.
Speaker 2 (35:42):
Thanks everyone.
Hello everyone and welcome to another episode of
Left Face.
This is the Pike Peak Regionpodcast, where we cover veterans
issues and political topics,and we have a great episode for
you today.
I'm joined with Adam Gillard,hey.
Speaker 2 (00:17):
Dick, how you doing.
I love how we start off withjust like a real tough
alliteration.
Speaker 1 (00:20):
Yeah, we do.
Speaker 2 (00:21):
Just to like get that tongue rolling yeah yeah, yeah,
and we also.
Speaker 1 (00:25):
It's not like we're prepped or rehearsed or anything
, so it's.
It's like jumping in the deepend of the pool, you know, ice
plunge kind of style.
Yeah, and off the couch yeahyep, and I'm your.
I'm adam's co-host, dickwilkinson, and uh, thanks for
listening.
We're gonna kick it off withkilmar count, as we did for the
last couple of weeks.
Unfortunately, kilmar AbregoGarcia is still in El Salvador.
(00:49):
He's at 50 days since he wasdeported and of course, there
are that's 50 days since allthose people were deported, but
he is the person who was notsupposed to be deported to.
Speaker 2 (00:59):
El Salvador.
Well, 50 days since he wassnatched from his family, okay,
47 since he was deported, Sincehe left the country Gotcha.
Speaker 1 (01:05):
Okay.
Speaker 2 (01:06):
Yeah, which is kind of interesting that it took
three days for him to be gone.
And then you look at theincident that is going to be the
meat of our show here today andwe still don't have a lot of
answers on it.
Speaker 1 (01:19):
It's been more than three days.
Speaker 2 (01:20):
Exactly, and I'm talking about the ice raid down
at the nightclub in ColoradoSprings the most interesting
local story.
Speaker 1 (01:28):
we'll probably cover all year.
I hope it is because it's adoozy.
Speaker 2 (01:33):
Yeah, making national news isn't the highlight,
shouldn't be the highlight, you?
Speaker 1 (01:37):
want it to be.
No, or for this stuff nodefinitely not, and this is
twice Late.
Last year we had the guy whowent to Vegas and blew up the
Cybertruck was from here, right,so that was a big story too.
So being known for violence isnot a key.
That's not what I experiencedliving here, but we'll get to
that story.
Yeah, so Kilmar's still gone.
(01:59):
And the story.
You got to love Donald Trumpand the way he runs his
administration.
Right, because the lawyers thathe has they go represent the
DOJ and go and talk about thiscase in court they say we can't
get him back.
The president of El Salvador isthe person that has to send him
back.
X, y and Z would have to happenand it's just not up to us.
(02:21):
And they still are holding thatargument throughout all the
court movement that's going on.
Speaker 2 (02:28):
The same administration that bullies
every other country into signingmineral deals can't bully
another country into giving them.
No.
Yeah, we can't get them back.
Speaker 1 (02:39):
Go on administration.
Mr president, sat down with abcnot his most friendly network
he he's quite happy to.
Speaker 2 (02:48):
He did get into a literally like slap fight with
the interview guy, was this theone where he like tried to keep
talking about the ms-13 tattoos?
Speaker 1 (02:58):
yes and he's like no, say yes yeah, say yes and we'll
move on yeah exactly what thehell is that?
And he was like, I picked youbecause I had never heard your
name and you know, I figuredthis would be a great
opportunity for you.
So this is it.
This is the big time, yeah.
Speaker 2 (03:09):
So do a better job.
Speaker 1 (03:12):
Yeah, but he said there well, of course I could
get him back.
I'm the president of the UnitedStates.
I sent him there.
What?
Yes, he said that he's like,but I'm not going to because
he's a criminal.
Tell me he's not a bad guy.
Prove to me that he's not a badguy, and then maybe I'll get
him back.
But as far as I'm concerned,he's a bad guy.
No, it's the other way around.
(03:35):
Yeah, you have to prove that heis a bad guy because you
arrested him and for commentslike that to not even cause a
ripple in his followers.
Speaker 2 (03:45):
That's what's really terrifying.
Speaker 1 (03:46):
Nothing to it, yeah.
Speaker 2 (03:48):
They gloss over those things and say like oh why are
you guys?
You scream Nazi every time hespeaks.
Yeah, because we're listeningto his words.
Yeah, like we hear the wordscoming out of his mouth.
And the.
Speaker 1 (03:58):
Supreme Court said do this.
And he said nah.
And now he said I can do it,but I't want to, but I don't
want to yeah.
And so then I felt I heard andthis I mean as little sense as
it makes.
It makes sense, because moneymakes everything.
You know, stupid stuff makessense sometimes.
And so the president of elsalvador is getting paid to
(04:18):
house these prisoners, so he hasno interest in disrupting the
head count in his prison.
Yeah, even for one person.
Right?
He's like I don't care who yousend, we're going to put them in
these holes and then that's it.
You pay us to keep them in thehole.
Yeah, so he's got no incentiveto do anything about this, you
know.
And so that's why he said likeI can't send him back, you would
(04:40):
have to tell me to send himback.
And of course, donald, donaldtrump, says, you know, about two
weeks later on to the day, well, I could get him back, but I'm
just not going to right, Ibelieve that that tattoo is real
, I believe that he is a realgang member.
Speaker 2 (04:55):
All right you know, remind me to show you this after
we get done.
But I have somebody that sentme he's a former Intel person,
does like imaging, you know,targeting things like that.
But he sent me his analysis andit's on his sub stack on these
prisons being built in ElSalvador.
(05:15):
Okay, and how, like he thinksthey're mass graves.
Ah, okay, like he alreadythinks that like things are
happening and they're buildingin the infrastructure for these
things.
Yeah, he already thinks thatthings are happening and they're
building in the infrastructurefor these things, and he has
experience doing it for otherlocations around the world, so
he's got some credentials for it.
But, yeah, there's definitelysome shady things, because when
(05:35):
Trump said, oh, you're going toneed to build five more of these
prisons, yes, it's scary.
Speaker 1 (05:41):
Well, that part definitely happened.
And then, you know, in thatsame vein and under still under
the Kilmar topic here this week,the administration said they're
starting to work out dealswhere they're going to send
prison people from America,deport Excuse me, they're going
to deport people from America toRwanda and to Libya, that
(06:01):
they're going to build useprisons, their build prisons
there and that they're going tosend people to those places.
And you know, the politicalanalysis on that was like those
are just places that sound scaryand there's nothing about it,
like it's.
It's almost completelyunrealistic that you know he
granted this.
This person may do whatever hewants to do.
Logistically there's no reason.
(06:22):
There doesn't make sense tosend anybody that far away,
those.
That's not where any of thesepeople come from generally.
So you're going to be deportingpeople out to these places.
He's like the.
The analyst that I waslistening to said he didn't
think it would really happen.
Speaker 2 (06:35):
And then it's just a weird bloviation of the
administration trying to say oh,you think el salvador is bad,
wait till we send you to rwanda,you know so, like when I hear
that and you kind of couple thatin with trying to end, you know
, birthright citizenship, Iwould also an issue that came up
this week right, exactly, um, Iwould think that they would
start targeting our blackcommunities like I could see
(06:58):
that.
I could see them saying you knowthe whole dog whistle for the
white supremacy, you know, saidgo back where you came from, put
a footprint in Africa.
I can tell why that jumps offthe page.
Why would?
Speaker 1 (07:11):
we send people to Africa.
Oh wait, the South will riseagain.
Speaker 2 (07:15):
That's it, that's what I heard.
Speaker 1 (07:21):
Yeah, you can hear the stars and bars rolling out,
here come them old Duke boysagain.
Speaker 2 (07:25):
Which I mean when you look at how much our prison
system is going to be fundingour labor market, they might not
be shipping everybody off.
So, there'll be some jobopportunities in the prison
system too, job opportunities.
Speaker 1 (07:44):
They're hiring at all times.
Speaker 2 (07:45):
I mean, I just saw posters for field workers for
$15 an hour or whatever the costwas.
You guys aren't going to get it.
Man, this harvest season, oreven the planting season, is
going to be rough, because a lotof stuff should already be in
the ground.
Speaker 1 (08:01):
Yeah, that's true.
Speaker 2 (08:02):
It's going to be rough this harvest season.
One more issue in the economy,right yeah, Trump said earlier
today One more piece ofinflation, yeah he said you know
, instead of people having $30,maybe they'll only have two, and
those two will cost a littlebit more.
Yeah, and so, like he's back tomanual labor, yeah.
Speaker 1 (08:28):
You know, like, like, that's, that's our option there
.
Yes, that is.
Yeah, it is Um, the you know,the other, I guess, piece of
that is uh, as we said in aprevious episode, if you make
everything terrible and then youimprove it just a little bit,
you're the guy that saved theworld, right?
And so this sounds like a youknow a piece of that puzzle of
(08:51):
like.
Like you say, let's, let'sraise inflation, let's cause
these problems, let's, let'sforce people into financial
situations that they can'ttolerate, and then give them
just that little bit ofbreathing room right on time, if
you will.
Right, there's a right time todo that, Probably right around
the midterms.
Speaker 2 (09:05):
You give it to them and say hey, make sure those
people below you don't getanything, Otherwise your stuff
goes away too so so so, like youkeep feeding that too, you keep
feeding that division and thatyou know, just class warfare,
but somehow it's like themiddle-class fighting itself.
Speaker 1 (09:20):
Yes, yes, that is it.
Yeah, that's true.
Yeah, you can't you know, can'tafford to stay in the hotel
that you work at.
You can't afford to buy itemsat the store that you work in.
You know those kinds of things.
Right, it's like it's anunfortunate paradigm that exists
in almost every place you go toin America.
You know the people that workthere may not be able to afford
(09:40):
the things that you're buyingthere.
Speaker 2 (09:41):
You know from the sounds of it, this
administration's ready to tearthat whole piece of the economy
down, and you're just going tohave to figure out what you do
for food and rent, becauserent's also unsustainable.
Speaker 1 (09:53):
This is coming down from the man who doesn't
understand what groceries are.
Speaker 2 (09:58):
You've never done a day of shopping.
Speaker 1 (10:00):
So if you want to understand why he doesn't get it
, you know, it's like who caresif?
Eggs are $12?
.
Isn't that how much they owe Adollar an egg?
Speaker 2 (10:08):
That sounds totally reasonable to me Gallon of milk
$40, $45.
That sounds about right.
How much milk do you even drink, you?
Speaker 1 (10:14):
know right, That'll be the answer.
Speaker 2 (10:20):
Start drinking this expensive raw milk and then you
won't want very much milk.
It'll make you sick as hell.
His answer is going to be juststart drinking Coke.
It's like way cheaper.
Yeah, coke is way cheaper thanmilk.
Speaker 1 (10:27):
Yeah, it's got what plants crave.
Speaker 2 (10:31):
You know sprinting towards that.
Speaker 1 (10:33):
Wow, all right.
Well, sad news Kilmer still outfor 50 days now, no real
progress.
Well, actually I'd call itbackwards progress, because
Trump just flat out said he'snot, he's not gonna follow the
rule of law here.
Speaker 2 (10:46):
So yeah, so, and you know, that kind of is what leads
me to, you know, into this nextthing.
You're talking about thecolorado springs, yeah, and the
orders that people are followingnow.
Um, we, we saw, uh, so so firstlet's just talk about the
Colorado Springs.
Speaker 1 (11:03):
Yeah, what happened?
Speaker 2 (11:04):
I was going to say yeah so 300 officers, 10
agencies raided a nightclub with200 people over the weekend.
114 people were held.
Two people have gotten chargesso far from local police for
outstanding warrants, so itwasn't even stemming from that
(11:25):
event.
Yeah, they found recreationalcocaine there.
It was pink, so I think they'reusing that to tie it to.
Oh, yeah.
Speaker 1 (11:32):
So the pink cocaine is actually just a different
party drug altogether.
That's a hallucinogen calledand people are starting to write
it.
I knew this would happen when Istarted hearing people say this
.
They call it 2C, the number twoand the letter C, and that's
the chemical class that it's inand it's kind of similar to
(11:53):
ecstasy.
Speaker 2 (11:54):
It's a hallucinogen like ecstasy, it's a party drug.
Yeah, it's a party drug.
Yeah, it's a designer drugInteresting.
Speaker 1 (11:58):
Yeah, 2c, and then they're 2C, whatever all the
other letters are, but pinkcocaine is the street name for
it.
Because you sniff it, you gofor all you users out there
Breaking news, yeah.
Speaker 2 (12:14):
So they found recreational amounts of that.
Yeah, there's been no, you know, communication really at all
from the federal level.
Sure Coming down.
Speaker 1 (12:25):
And what you're saying there.
I want to clarify, because yousaid recreational cocaine.
I'm like all cocaine isrecreational, I'm pretty sure,
but you meant amounts.
Amounts meaning like personaluse.
Speaker 2 (12:37):
People had little bags on them right, you know, it
wasn't tony montana's coke,coke layer where it was just
stacks of yeah, bricks, yeah,and there wasn't even a guy
because it was a nightclub typeenvironment.
It wasn't a drug house right,but but there wasn't even
somebody caught slinging.
Speaker 1 (12:48):
Yeah, like you know, I got you, you know getting that
, because that would go throughthe da, or something like trunk
with a bunch of kilos in it orsomething in the parking lot.
Yeah, yeah, so no likedistribute distribution charges
uh, there was a prostitutionthere.
Speaker 2 (13:02):
Um, when the reports first came out, it was always
human trafficking.
Yeah, like there's a hugedifference between prostitution
and human trafficking.
Uh, you know, depending onagain, no charges have been
filed for this, they just saidit.
Yeah, but there's a bigdifference between you, know.
Speaker 1 (13:19):
Well, I get yeah penalty-wise.
Speaker 2 (13:19):
Yeah, is what you're saying.
No, from like the act.
Like if you're just like a sexworker, yeah.
Giving a handjob in the parkinglot yeah, like that's one thing
If you're being made to do that.
Speaker 1 (13:32):
And there's handlers involved Right.
Speaker 2 (13:34):
So like one, still no charge has been filed, but I'm
not going to condemn sex workers.
Speaker 1 (13:39):
One is organized crime and one is a petty crime.
Basically yeah.
Speaker 2 (13:44):
And me personally.
I don't condemn the sex workerseither, Gotcha.
Speaker 1 (13:48):
But yeah, I get you.
Speaker 2 (13:50):
No serious crimes.
No federal level crimes havecome out of this at all.
Yeah, and I was shocked tolearn that the lead DEA agent on
this one.
He did the same stuff up inAdams County and earlier in
February nothing was filed andthey stopped doing it after like
93 raids, zero charges, wow.
And now that's crazy, our mayor.
Speaker 1 (14:11):
What do you even do, like what?
Well, yeah, so talk about fraud, waste and abuse, like was
there something else you shouldbe working on so that people
will go to actual prison insteadof just like I don't know,
scaring people with, or what areyou doing, like I don't even
know what you're doing at that?
Speaker 2 (14:26):
point, with that track record, he's still allowed
to come down here by our policechiefs, our sheriff, city
council mayor, like this wasclearly an ICE raid disguised
under DEA, local law enforcement.
Yeah, yeah, I see theconnection there.
(14:46):
They had to have played alongwith this to allow that to
happen, because, like that's whythey're not getting any
traction up in Adams County,like they're waiting for real
evidence here.
Here they're not.
Speaker 1 (14:55):
And now 105 people are still not with their
families yeah, well and and uh,in adams county is up close to
denver, right, and I don't knowabout the setup of the
government or the situationthere, but of course we all
understand denver as a sanctuarycity or, you know, region.
Um, so I don't know if thatthat had anything to do with at
the adams county involvement orlack thereof, right, but this
(15:18):
area is basically the oppositeof that from a political tone
right, yeah, yeah, last year,like four migrant families
showed up and asked forresources at a church, yeah, and
the mayor made it a point tosay, hey, we're not a sanctuary
city.
Speaker 2 (15:30):
Yeah, and that was four people asking for help from
, like a church.
Got help, yeah, went away Likethe, the, the nonprofit did what
they were supposed to do, sure,and we made a political
statement Sure, we're not asanctuary city.
Speaker 1 (15:43):
Yeah, that makes sense.
Well, I hadn't even thoughtabout it.
As far as ice raid in disguise,um, and I mean I guess it
wouldn't matter if it was DEA orICE on the back of the jackets,
right.
As far as the federalenforcement piece, you know, I
guess my take on it is there wassome local complaints, I guess,
as far as, like, what tipped itoff to the activity was this it
(16:06):
was an illegally operated place, meaning that it was never in a
a license or zoned facility.
So the neighbors, the peoplewho either own businesses or had
houses in those areas, werereporting it to the police,
saying like, hey, every Saturdaya hundred people show up here
and start acting a fool and wedon't feel safe or we think
they're going to start breakinginto other properties around
here and doing, you know, justcommitting crime, and so that's,
(16:28):
that was what the local storyis.
Is that?
That's what tipped off thewhole investigation was that
this place was kind of beingpersistently moving from one
place to another.
But they knew it was the samegroup of people operating it.
So you know, I I guess my takeon it is like whether it was ICE
or DEA or even local if it's alaw enforcement raid with 300
(16:49):
officers.
I agree with you there should becharges.
There should be charges.
There should be charges quickly.
Um, it should be quite publicand and just like when they do
find big stacks of cocaine andthey all stand around and take
pictures, this should be thesame thing of like look at how
many charges came out of thisthing.
If we arrested 100 people, like70 of them should get some kind
of like real charge, even ifit's just possession of a
(17:13):
firearm or drugs that theyweren't allowed to have.
Like that's still a real thing.
That gets you engaged with thelegal system, right.
So that's what we should expectas taxpayers for this type.
Like months long organizedsearch and effort to go arrest
these people 10 months, youshould put them in jail.
Speaker 2 (17:30):
Yeah, 10 months.
10 months was the length ofthis investigation that they had
here.
Yeah, and so far, a week out,nothing, yeah, yeah, it's just
crazy that the way that they goabout these things and use the
local police force just as acover Bodies, yeah, bodies.
(17:52):
Well, they use them as the doorknockers.
Yeah, and then let them kind ofgo in and do those things.
Speaker 1 (17:56):
Yeah, they put them through the funnel first, right.
Speaker 2 (17:59):
And that's what I was going to kind of say is like
now that we have examples of youknow just wrong people being
deported yeah, just terrible.
You know separations infamilies, things like that.
We you know separations andfamilies, things like that.
(18:21):
We have these examples and nowhere in our local community we
have 105 people still gone.
Um hard to get off a list ofnames.
You know, even the senator'soffices are still trying to get
listed names for these things.
Speaker 1 (18:26):
Um, and that's, that's the the.
You know the 10 differentagencies get involved and you
get the whole finger pointingsituation like oh, those people
arrested him those peoplearrested him?
Those people arrested him?
Oh, I don't have any recordsfor those people.
Well, they're in their jail, sothey're the ones that should
answer that question.
And I've worked on that.
You know, I worked in thecourse and so I definitely
understand how messy it can getwhen if you arrest a hundred
people, because sometimes it'shard to track down one or two
(18:47):
people, Right.
Speaker 2 (18:48):
Yeah, and that's all part of the game.
Like you said before, you shaveeverybody's head.
They all look the same.
And like that's just the way.
That's what they're hoping forright now.
They're hoping to lose peopleand just disappear them.
But folks that are, you know,on law enforcement, like like
this is your, your red line here, man?
Like you're unlawfully takingpeople off the streets, like I
(19:11):
understand, and it's not so muchyou know, it's not the right on
the nightclub, right, yeah,like, do those things.
Those are good.
Like, do those things.
Yeah, but it's the follow-upand the lack of due process that
we have lost faith in thesystem now.
Yeah, like, if there's no dueprocess and these people just
disappear and go away, likethat's not just you know, yeah,
(19:34):
it's frightening.
That's not criminals, you know.
Possibly that's somebody's, youknow, brother, sister, husband,
father, like these are likeyour co-workers that's what I
was thinking these are gonnathat's the guy that's missing.
Speaker 1 (19:45):
You're missing his shift right now you're covering
his shift because he's yeahnobody knows where he's at you
know or you know why you'rebitching in the drive-thru,
because your food's taking toolong.
Speaker 2 (19:56):
Because the day shift all got arrested.
Speaker 1 (19:59):
They were all partying at night, on Saturday
night, they got off work andthey all went to the party and
then they all went to jail.
That's no good.
Well, we got to shift it overto the military piece of the
story, because we've beentalking about the kind of unjust
aspect of how the whole thingwent down and what's going to
(20:20):
happen to everybody now, yeah,but since we're the Veterans
Podcast, let's talk about ourbrothers in arms.
Literally, there were someknuckleheads.
I'll call them knuckleheads.
I mean, oh yeah, I think that'sa safe, that's not a derogatory
term in this context.
There were some knuckleheadsthere that were at this raid
Active duty.
Active duty, and the originalnumber I heard was 12.
(20:43):
And then over the last few daysit's gone up to 17.
And now the local news isstarting to run stories like how
does the army conduct criminalinvestigations?
I saw that as a local newsstory yesterday.
Oh, they got to.
Local news is starting to runstories like how does the Army
conduct criminal investigations?
I saw that as a local newsstory yesterday.
Speaker 2 (20:56):
Oh, they got to be excited about that, yeah there's
definitely some.
Speaker 1 (20:59):
It's kind of cool as far as they're concerned to get
some insight into this juicystory, right.
So, 17 people there was quite afew of them were working there.
Yeah, I think half of them,they said, were working that as
armed security, as armedsecurity guards, I'm going to, I
wish I'm always looking for anout.
I want to give a soldier an out.
(21:20):
I want to ask him did you,maybe you thought you were doing
this?
Eh, you know.
And they're like yeah, yeah,that's it, that's it.
And if that could make sense,like I'm not saying we're going
to lie about it, but I want tofind a way for you to explain
this Right?
Speaker 2 (21:36):
So you're saying your boss was licensed and bonded
insured right?
Speaker 1 (21:39):
Yeah, right.
Well, you know this nightclub.
Have you ever seen it duringthe daytime?
Have you ever seen any of thosepeople outside of the nightclub
.
You know so, but anyways thatis so one.
there's going to be some drugtests in their future, all of
them oh yeah, all the units too,that they're a part of Right,
(21:59):
and that already happened.
And there's, I guarantee you,because you know, monday morning
, Tuesday, by Tuesday morning,they had 100% going on in those
units Right, 100% urinalysis.
And here's how that goes downDudes, guys and gals that know
they're going to pop hot.
Sometimes they just disappearBecause I don't know what they
think they're going to do, butit's just like running from the
(22:20):
cops in a car, right?
You think if I get away fromthem I'll figure it out after
that right, I'll just hide forseven days and pee clean when I
get home.
Yeah, Nah, I've just known toomany people that pop hot,
disappear, go awol.
They track them down and thenyou know it.
All it's all.
It's come to roost by the time.
They track them down and getthem back to the unit and then
(22:40):
all the results are there andthen it's just time to out
process.
You know it's time to getthere's the ucmj happens fast
and so there's going to be someunits losing additional members,
promise you, promise youbecause there was other drug
activity going on.
Speaker 2 (22:55):
There was a murder solved in Germany.
They drug tested a whole floorin the dorms because there was a
lot of cocaine going on.
And yeah, just person afterperson just rolled on each other
.
Yeah, got back to this onemurder.
That happened the year beforeSomebody was getting jumped into
a gang and like, yeah, Iremember that I remember that
story oh do you?
Speaker 1 (23:15):
oh, I remember they jumped into the gang thing in
germany yeah, I was.
I was active duty when thathappened.
Speaker 2 (23:19):
Yeah, oh yeah so I was there too, yeah, and
actually talked to the kid thatwas going to leavenworth for it.
Oh yeah, um, because I wastrying to get his uh vaccines
done and he's like I'm not doingthat who the hell are you that?
Speaker 1 (23:30):
And?
Speaker 2 (23:30):
so I went to his boss and he's like, yeah, he's not
doing that.
And then he told me the story.
I was like oh, yeah, yeah he'snot.
Speaker 1 (23:38):
He's going to be in jail.
Speaker 2 (23:38):
He's like you know he'll take care of it in
processing, yeah.
Speaker 1 (23:44):
Well, the problem here, I guess, is what is this a
um indicator of?
Is it morale?
Is it discipline?
Is it unit readiness, is itpoor pay?
I think it's the pay, honestly,I mean, I'm not trying to say
soldiers know what they'resigning up for, but when you're
(24:04):
broke and your paycheck topaycheck every single time and
your bank is basically overdraftat all times, and somebody,
somebody says, hey, you can make$300 for you know, working four
hours at this place, you'relike hell, yeah, I'll do that,
just don't ask too manyquestions, man, we're going to
pay you cash and that's that.
You're a big dude, done anddone.
You're a bruiser.
Right, they're talking to these.
(24:24):
You know infantry dudes thatare all just jacked out of their
minds.
And so you know you pay them acouple hundred bucks, they're
going to do what Damn nearanything, right?
You know, so you know that's.
That's the situation and I meanthe the question I guess it
comes down to.
And here's the other thingWhenever somebody gets stationed
back near their hometown thisis, I think that's where a lot
(24:48):
of this stuff comes from is likewhoever you were doing
knucklehead stuff with backbefore you joined the military,
they're still around.
If you go back to your hometownand that person's like hey, I
know this cool nightclub, butyour military, if you were just
out at some other base in adifferent place in the United
States or in the world, youmight not ever end up in one of
those places because you don'tknow the local people in a way
(25:10):
where they're going to trust youand say, hey, you want to get
in on something.
Speaker 2 (25:14):
I've actually been turned away, like in Barcelona,
me and some friends were goinginto a club and they're like,
yeah, no, you guys are way tooAmerican?
Speaker 1 (25:23):
Yeah for sure.
So that's more likely to happen.
You're not going to wander intothe crack spot if you're not
from there.
But if you're from somewhere,it's real easy to wander into
the crack spot right.
And I feel like that's a part ofwhat happened here too is I
know for sure that there are alot of people at Carson that are
originally from Colorado.
I mean, I'm not mad at them,those people aren't out to do
crime, I'm just saying it.
(25:44):
When that happens, yourlikelihood of a crossover
between the military and thelocal criminal element there's.
That's where some of that comesfrom.
And again back to the wholeanalysis thing.
You see, your buddies that youknow you used to smoke weed with
back in grade, and then theyfind you, you know, two years
after you're in the army butyou're stationed back, you know,
at Fort Gordon, georgia, andthey're like hey, come smoke
with us.
And you do.
Speaker 2 (26:06):
And that's.
This is the whole thing withrecruiting in general for all
the, all the services is, youknow, we recruit from the lower
income areas and lower incomeareas usually have higher
alcohol, drug use.
You know, dependency issues,things like that, just or just
other criminal activity going onthere.
Right, I mean it knowdependency issues, things like
that, just or just othercriminal activity going on there
(26:27):
.
Yeah, right, I mean it's justpoor communities, yeah, poor
things like that.
You know, um, and a lot oftimes when people get recruited
out of that, you know they'llsee that opportunity to escape
and they'll grasp on and they'lltake it, yeah, and then folks
will still do some stupid stuff.
Yeah, yeah, you know.
You know the, the 17 peoplethere that's out of, you know,
know, 60,000 shoulders we haveout there, or something like
that, you know.
So, like this isn't like a bigindicator.
Speaker 1 (26:47):
Yeah, it's not an indicator.
Speaker 2 (26:49):
Yeah, Now how many people get popped on this drug
test that's coming?
Yeah, that might be a bigindicator.
That'll be something, yeah.
But yeah, I think it's kind ofa standard operating procedure
that there's going to be somekids doing this out there,
making bad choices and doingthings, the fact that they got
rolled up.
If they got rolled up and theytest hot, yeah, start the
(27:13):
discharge.
But if they don't test hot andthey're just there partying
having a good time, make themclean some toilets and go call
it a day.
Speaker 1 (27:21):
I don't know, man, we're not.
This is something.
Well, I'll give you the Armylook at it here.
And these I'm sure they wereall Army people the when you're
not, when you're in garrison iswhat we call it.
So when you're not deployed andyou're not in a training
rotation, like getting ready todeploy, you're in garrison.
In garrison is like theminefield for commanders because
(27:43):
that's you know, soldiers areat rest.
Right, a soldier at rest is badyou know like little hands,
yeah, idle hands and money, andjust you know bad opportunities.
And then you know you go, youdouble down with that of your
unit's not super busy, so theyhave a lot of time off.
Because you know, if all thevehicles are in a row and all
the grass is flat, you know likethere's nothing to do.
(28:04):
And so you know again, soldiersget into trouble.
And so being in garrison andbeing in this um, non war
fighter kind of position for youknow months or years at a time
that they just the problemscreep in like mold, you know
they just do.
And so I feel bad for thecommander that's inheriting a
(28:25):
brigade.
That's two, three years sincethey've had any real deployment
or activity going on and they'vejust been in a nonstop training
cycle for three years.
You got some issues.
Speaker 2 (28:35):
I can't remember the last time that the fourth went
out the door.
I don't know.
That has been a few years.
Speaker 1 (28:41):
So that just breeds.
That's the playground fordisciplinary issues.
Speaker 2 (28:45):
So yeah.
Speaker 1 (28:46):
That's a good point.
Bad times for those folks.
Well, I do hope that somepeople go to jail, because
otherwise the nightclub willjust pop up again in you know a
month in some other part of town.
Speaker 2 (28:56):
They'll go to Pueblo instead of Colorado Springs or
whatever you know, and here'swhat kind of really frustrates
me is that so much of ourdiversity is in that area of
that nightclub.
Speaker 1 (29:09):
Probably like 70, 60, 70% of our city's diversity is
right there.
Okay, your physical location.
Speaker 2 (29:11):
You're saying, yeah, down like that southeast corner
by the airport Gotcha.
That's where our diversity lies, okay, and so they take these
300 officers, they come in thereand just scare the hell out of
that community, like peopledon't even want to come out and
say that their friends aremissing.
Yeah, because they're raisingtheir own hand for attention.
Yeah, so, like, if you know,when Senator Hickenlooper says,
(29:32):
hey, send me the names ofeverybody that's gone, nobody's
giving it to the federalgovernment.
Speaker 1 (29:36):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (29:37):
Nobody's raising their hand for that.
Speaker 1 (29:42):
Silence breeds more problems within the community.
Right if you scare people tosay when?
They need help that just allowsthose problems to fester, right
?
Yeah, so, like the good, thatlaw-abiding citizens will not do
what they need to do to keeptheir own community safe because
they feel like they're at riskof being arrested for no reason?
Speaker 2 (30:00):
yeah, so what?
All they've done is scare thatcommunity and create like a
facade of public safety for,like you know, good headlines
right.
For like the white folks upNorth, you know like hey we're
doing public safety here, butall they did is they removed
people from their families.
You know, coworkers like theseare the people that keep our
economy going.
(30:21):
Yeah.
And you know, everybody has ajob here and everybody's working
.
Uh, they were having fun andyou gotta buy those drugs with
some money.
Speaker 1 (30:34):
Right, drugs aren't free just because you join a
gang.
Yeah, if you join a gang youdon't get.
You know, it's just like I saidearlier if you work at the gang
, you don't make enough money tobuy the drugs that the gang
sells right, you know well, youthink I can afford pink cocaine.
What's wrong?
With you I just sell the stuff,man yeah.
Speaker 2 (30:51):
So, like you know this, this facade of public
safety is for the folks up northand it's just about public
compliance.
Sure, like they're just tryingto get that community down there
to comply, self--deport, getout.
They're just attacking thatcommunity and, as we say on the
show all the time.
Speaker 1 (31:07):
Headlines are the story, sometimes right, like
headlines is the point, and itsounds like that could be an
indicator with the agent that isleading these raids and not
charging anybody.
He's like well, headline, allright, I got the headline,
brother, it's done.
Plan the next one.
You know yeah, oh, plan thenext one, you know, yeah, oh
well, so what was our, what wasour last topic for today, adam,
(31:32):
we, oh May day.
Today is May day, so we weregoing to talk about what is May
day, just a little bit.
And it's it's roots in somelabor, you know movement that
maybe Americans aren't so awareof.
Speaker 2 (31:38):
Yeah, well, I mean yeah, just in general, like I
never really paid attention toMay day, just being in the
military, it's just notsomething, that it's not one of
our holidays, that we get off,because we do the Memorial Day
at the end of May and then LaborDay in September.
But for May Day, it started inIllinois.
I believe it was where somecops busted up a union in I
(32:03):
can't remember the city's nameright now.
I'll have to do a follow on onthat.
Yeah, but, but you know, thecops busted up the union and and
, uh, now this day is celebratedaround the world and kind of
ignored here, which is kind offunny that, like you know, our
ruling class said yeah, we'renot going to celebrate where we
actually literally oppressed youfairly recently.
(32:23):
Right, we'll give you Labor Dayat the end of summer, we'll
wrap up summer with that, right,right, yeah, so we get our
picnic then.
But these real events thathappen and then the rest of the
world recognizes and celebratesit, but we kind of ignore it.
But today we'll be having someprotests and so when this comes
out the protests would alreadyhave happened.
But we're going to have a marchwhere we get to go to the post
(32:45):
office and the Penrose Librarydown there, because they're both
local institutions here thathave unions that are fighting to
keep our resources here andkeep libraries open.
So we're going to be havingthis protest, hopefully get some
folks here.
We've had those internationaljournalists in town.
You said somebody from theNetherlands was here.
(33:07):
Yeah, from the Netherlands.
Julian Thomas are their names.
I can't remember what newsorganization they were with
either.
Speaker 1 (33:17):
It's in Dutch, so I just can't pronounce it.
Speaker 2 (33:21):
But they'll be giving us the link and I'll make sure
I forward it out to everybodyfor everybody to catch it.
But yeah, it should be a greatevent and actually draw
awareness to what unions do forus as a society.
You know, when we sit here andscream about, you know, letting
oligarchs into our system, it'sbecause it started with the
union-busting laws that startedafter the New Deal.
(33:42):
Yeah, you know, taft-hartley,andartley and things like that,
the Davis-Bacon, those types oflaws that keep busting the
unions and just handingpaychecks to the wealthy class.
The unions are what's going topull us out of this stuff.
Speaker 1 (34:02):
As we talked about this earlier, I've experienced
that overseas May Day is more ofa stuff.
So, and you know, as we talkedabout this earlier, I I've
experienced that that overseasMayday is more of a holiday.
It's actually observed as a dayoff and and maybe has more
activities associated with itthan it ever has in America.
Um, and I realized, as you weretalking just now, that there's
there's part of there's a reasonfor that Almost all the
countries where that is common,there's's not a two-party system
(34:24):
for elections.
Right, the political system hasmultiple parties and there's
always one that's identified asthe labor party.
Right, even if it's calledsomething else, there's one
that's just that's kind of likeconservative or liberal.
Right, there's always onecalled the labor party.
Right, um, and no matter whatcountry you're in, if they have
a multi-party system, there'llbe a labor party.
That's where that comes from.
(34:45):
It's because there's a wholepolitical group that says, hey,
we've got to champion thisholiday so that we keep our
relevance and remind people thatthis is what we do politically
within the community.
So that's why it's more popular.
Speaker 2 (34:57):
I would love if we had a labor party here.
I think I could definitely jivewith a lot more of that Sure,
sure.
Speaker 1 (35:04):
We are, I don't know.
Speaker 2 (35:05):
I'm a libertarian, so I don't want that, don't want
any more parties.
No, I don't want I want a lotmore parties, but not a labor
party you like that.
Speaker 1 (35:17):
Liberty for all except those damn workers, right
.
Speaker 2 (35:22):
Get back in the factory Trying to get equality.
Get back in the factory Tryingto get equality.
Speaker 1 (35:26):
Remember that's sarcasm for all the folks that
can't read, you know textmessages lose sarcasm right,
that was sarcasm.
Well, thanks everybody forlistening.
Please join us again next weekas we talk about more veterans
issues here in Colorado.
Speaker 2 (35:42):
Thanks everyone.
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