Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
All right, we got five minutes with Paul Morrow right now.
Paul has been like the busiest dude on TV and
radio for the last twenty four hours because it's been
such a big couple of days, not only just generally
in law enforcement, but really in New York law enforcement.
Paul of course a former NYPD inspector and attorney as well.
Speaker 2 (00:19):
Hi, Paul, thanks for making time. I know you probably
all talked out. Not at all, not at all.
Speaker 3 (00:24):
I'm here to do it.
Speaker 2 (00:25):
Fire away, Okay, fire away.
Speaker 1 (00:27):
This is probably a less important question, but I'm going.
Speaker 2 (00:29):
To ask you as an attorney.
Speaker 1 (00:31):
When that BLM guy stood up there after Daniel Penny
was acquitted and said, you know, these other people have vigilantes,
We need our own black vigilantes.
Speaker 2 (00:41):
And he made some other comments. I think it was
him who.
Speaker 1 (00:43):
Said, like, it's a small world, man, like, is that
does that violate in any kind of prohibition against calling
for violence? Or is that still you think on the
right side of the First Amendment.
Speaker 3 (00:57):
No, I agree with you. I think that which him
in very dangerous territory. I can think of at least
two or three statutes that would apply, the most serious
of them being terroristic threat. Terroristic threat if you're doing
it for an ideological purpose and you're doing it to
influence a civilian population, which is no denying he's doing
that because he's been very public about calling for what
(01:20):
he's called for. And then it is specific because he
narrows it down to Daniel Penny. The imminence piece is
where you'd have a little bit of wiggle room. But
undeniably there are some harassment charges, talking charges, etc. That
exist in New York. The problem is that think about
who'd have to bring those charges. Alvin Bragg again, And
(01:40):
so there's your uphill battle.
Speaker 1 (01:42):
Right, Okay, I'm going to throw a theory out at
you and you tell me whether it's reasonable or likely
or moronic. So it was reasonable to think that since
there was a hung jury on the more serious charge,
that there would have been at least one person who
wanted to convict Daniel Penny on the less serious charge, right,
and instead we got a unanimous not guilty. My theory
(02:04):
is that there were only one or two people who
wanted to convict and they decided they were they wanted
to go home, and they weren't going to get anywhere.
And the guy wasn't going to get any jail time,
and just to go along, to get along and get
get out of dodge.
Speaker 2 (02:16):
They said, screw it, I'll go not guilty. What do
you think?
Speaker 3 (02:20):
Yeah, I think that's as good as any other theory.
Speaker 2 (02:23):
I really do.
Speaker 3 (02:24):
I think that very clearly they must have been close
to an acquittal on the top charge so for it
to go away and win. So I think that's perfectly reasonable. There's,
you know, some other possibilities about why that person may
have changed their minds. They may have had some discussions
over the weekend, they may have been exhausted by the
whole thing, as you say, They may have spoken to
somebody or is an outlier. But one of the things
(02:45):
that I've said, which is that person may have taken
the subway that weekend and just had it and they
didn't have to have a crazy encounter. It just may
have come home to them, as it has to me recently,
how tense and clostrophobic and scary that in that train
car must have been. And you know that would have
brought home to you that Wow, you know what if
(03:06):
Daniel Penny had to act for me right now in
this train car, I'd be awfully glad to have him here,
and maybe I'll go the other way on Monday.
Speaker 2 (03:12):
I couldn't agree with you more.
Speaker 1 (03:14):
All Right, I'm almost out of time, so I'm just
gonna ask you one one more question, based on your
sources and you are reading in public sources as well,
what is the most interesting thing that you believe you
understand about the guy who shot the United Healthcare CEO?
You know that you've learned in recent hours. Well, God, all.
Speaker 3 (03:36):
I would say is that he did track to what
many of us thought, which is that it's going to
be ideological. It's claiming not to be a member of
a group, and he's being vociferous about that. Among the first,
among the only statements he's made is I acted alone.
I'm suspicious of that. Why is he pushing that so hard?
Speaker 2 (03:52):
Could be true.
Speaker 3 (03:53):
He's depended a unibamber who was very much a loner.
Speaker 2 (03:56):
But that said, you.
Speaker 3 (03:57):
Know, he did a lot of recon he had this
money on him. He seemed to be on the phone
with somebody at five six in the morning on the
way to the event. He knew the target was going
to be there almost an hour and a half early.
It speaks to the idea that he might have had
an accomplice on the ground or maybe be part of
a small group that did some research, because you know,
it's just really very hard to see how he could
(04:17):
have gotten through all of this completely on his own.
But he certainly wasn't a professional, as many were saying,
and that we poured water on. And yeah, he'll be
coming back here to New York and once again it's
going to be Alvin Bragg who catches the case.
Speaker 1 (04:32):
Right, Yeah, all right, So I'll just last quick comment.
I'm I suspect he did act alone. We'll see. And
here's where I think this is going, Paul. Given his
age and given the early reporting that in recent months
he's become somewhat estranged from friends and family and distant
and so on, I think there's going to be a claim,
(04:53):
whether it's true or not, and maybe it will be
once he gets an attorney, that he suffered a psychotic break.
He's in the age range right, like late teens to
late twenties males. Ye, becomes distant from people and then
does something crazy.
Speaker 2 (05:07):
I think that's where this is going.
Speaker 1 (05:08):
You want to just give a quick response to that hypothetical.
Speaker 3 (05:11):
Yeah, couldn't agree more. I think he's going to get
a high priced lawyer, and you're going to start seeing
seeing a PR campaign relative to the idea that he's
got some as Burgers or something like that, and they're
going to start to seed the insanity defense because when
the DNA comes back, he's just going to have no
way to go.
Speaker 1 (05:27):
Paul Morrow's substack and website are called The Ops Desk,
The Opsdesk, fantastic sites, fantastic substack, well worth subscribing to.
Paul's an attorney and a retired NYPD inspector as well,
Thanks as always for making time.
Speaker 2 (05:43):
You got it ROAs all right,