Episode Transcript
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The Michael Barry Show. I sawa story locally here in Houston about Houston
now leading the nation in road rageincidents, and it was about what you
would expect that, for whatever reason, in Houston, people are pulling out
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guns and shooting at each other onmostly on the highways, and it's generally
related to someone cutting someone else offin traffic. Now, I don't know
where you live if y'all are seeingthe same phenomenon, but road rage is
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to me in the category of Facebookspats, Twitter beefs, these sorts of
things, and I see, Isee a culmination of factors. One of
them is But let me play youthe story and then I'll speak to why
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I think this is happening and whatthis says about our culture. This is
from a station in Houston called KPRCTV. And fun fact, kp RC
is one hundred year old station inHouston and it was owned by Jesse Jones
one hundred years ago. No reasonthat would matter to you if you're outside
of Houston. He was a legendin Houston. But the PRC stood for
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the three pillars of his empire,port, rail, and ramon. Do
you know what the sea is?No? Not Kittiekats, cotton, port
rail and cotton. Houston was aport rail and cotton city. Now fascinating
history and I geek out on thisstuff. Houston is not on a major
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waterway, naturally. The great citiesof the world are all port cities.
New York, Miami, Baltimore,San Francisco, New Orleans, Galveston.
But Galveston had a terrible storm followedby a terrible fire in about the year
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nineteen hundred. And it's the tipof the spear to get the headwinds of
these horrible storms. By the way, if you have friends in the greater
Houston area wherever you are, reachout to them today and just make sure
they're doing okay. We've had terrible, terrible flooding, particularly north of Houston
today, and the damage will becomemore and more clear over the coming days.
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And if you're saying to yourself,well, Michael, if the flooding
was so bad, how come itdidn't make the national news. Because the
national news is focused on themselves,and that means New York and DC and
LA. They do not care whathappens in the heartland of this country,
the heartbeat of the economic engine ofthis country is places like Texas, Alabama,
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Louisiana, Mississippi, Georgia, Tennessee, Florida. But they don't want
to talk about that. They wantto talk about their little bubble of a
world where people are laying up againstthe side of the building and pooping everywhere.
Whatever. Anyway, here is thestory. Oh what else was I
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gonna tell you, Houston, Becauseyou had these guys in Houston at the
turn of the century, around nineteenhundred, who spent the next ten years
raising the million dollars it would taketo go to Washington, d c.
And seek another million dollars and comeback and dredge a deep water port fifty
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miles inland. It's never been donebefore, It'll never be done again.
They basically made Houston a port citywhen it's not on a major waterway.
It's unheard of. And it isthe kind of spirit that I fell in
love with when I first came toHouston in nineteen eighty nine. And it's
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the kind of spirit that you couldhave anywhere in the world. It's the
kind of spirit that takes a backwater, swamp infested mosquito pit and makes it
into one of the world's great cities, and we need to encourage more of
that. Anyway, here's the story. Houston has a problem and it appears
to be on our roadway. Somename is Paul Castro. I am the
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father of three and one of mychildren, David Castro, was murdered in
a roadway shooting. David was onlyseventeen at the time. He was killed
in July of twenty twenty one afterleaving an Astros game with his family,
Jarld Wayne Williams. The shooter pulledup next to us and started trying to
wedge in there was no space andhit my vehicle. Got upset that I
had a lot of man and chasedus for three miles, shot into my
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vehicle and hit my son in thehead and killed him. Castro's case part
of an alarming number of road rageincidents across the country. David is probably
one of the nicest people you couldever meet. He was super kind.
He volunteered all the time with seewould go to the food bank and volunteer
there. According to Trace, Houstonhas seen two hundred and fifteen total incidents
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from twenty fourteen to twenty twenty three, with two hundred and seven victims shot.
The second highest city with a similarsize population is Chicago. Next closest
is Philadelphia. Chicago has seventy fivetotal incidents and sixty seven victims shot.
Philly came in with fifty nine totalincidents and fifty victims shot. Because of
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numbers like that and similar tragedies,Castro says his focus is to get folks
that think twice before picking up agun. We need to get clearer on
what is self defense on the roadwayright now, if a person perceives that
they're in trouble, I can shootat you. Another big issue is we
don't track gun shootings on the roadways. It shouldn't take nonprofits coming through tons
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of data to determine what is andis not a roadway shooting. So you
know what, only a tiny percentageof people would pull out a gun as
they're driving along and shoot somebody,whether that be a drive by shooting of
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a rival gang member or a roadraid shooting because you don't like the way
someone drove, And I would tellyou it's the exact same demographic engaged in
both of them. That father inthat news story you heard whose son was
murdered, The story is brutal.He's been on our show. They were
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leaving the Astros game, the baseballteam in Houston. They were leaving the
Astros game, and the guy gotmad at them because you know, they
were both merging and he didn't feellike they should get to merge, so
he starts following them. He shootsinto this man's truck, hits the man's
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son in the back seat of thetruck. It's a super cab. The
son's dead in the back seat,but the dad doesn't know if he's dead
or not. He's going to tryto get him to the emergency room,
but first the guy is still shooting, so he's having to flee while his
son is laying the back dead ordying, and he has to flee for
a long while. The guy endsup finally abandoning the vehicle and setting it
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on fire. Young Black Man,criminal history, total punk. And the
fact is, I'll guarantee you theguy has committed a bunch of other crimes,
probably like this. And look atthe devastation he has reeked upon this
family that they'll never get back ever. And then you ask yourself, how
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many people in this country are walkingaround shooting places up shooting into homes,
robbing convenience stores. The George Floyds. George Floyd was in the middle of
committing yet another felony. He wouldhave never stopped a felonious use of prohibited
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drugs, which he'd just been inthe hospital for, almost dying in an
overdose. He was popping them inhis mouth when the cop came, because
he thought that might be one ofthe reasons he was in trouble. He
had just passed a counterfeit bill,which is a big no, no,
big crime, and he's a felon. Did I mention that we are going
to have to get comfortable with somefacts in this country or we're going to
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lose this country. We have tokeep our borders secure. I don't care
what the sympathetic argument is. Whenpeople set up a ten on a tent,
on a college campus, in astreet, or anywhere else, they
have to be cleared, even whenthey don't want to, by the use
of force. Eventually, like,these are things we're going to have to
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commit to as a society or wewon't be one bizarre of talk radio The
Michael Berry Show. If you likeThe Michael Berry Show and podcast, please
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God bless the memory of Rush Limbaugh. Long live Elvis, be a
simple man like Leonard Skinnard told you, and God bless America. Finally,
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if you know a veteran suffering fromPTSD, call Camp Hope at eight seven
seven seven one seven PTSD and acombat veteran will answer the phone to provide
a free counseling,