Speaking with terminated CPD officer Spencer Badger

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
It is not the critic who counts. It is not
the critic who counts, not the man who points out
how the strong man stumbles or where the doer of
deeds could have done better. The credit belongs to the
man who is actually in the arena, whose face is
marred with dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly,

(00:24):
who airs and comes up short again and again, because
there's no effort without air or shortcomings. But they know
the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, who spends himself for
a worthy cause, who at the best knows in the
end the triumph of high achievement, and who, at worst,

(00:44):
if he fails, at least he fails while daring greatly,
so that his place shall never be with those cold
and timid souls who knew neither victory nor defeat. Today
you'll hear an exclusive interview with someone who could have
done nothing. He could have put his head down, complained
like many of us did, and never challenged the viral

(01:07):
anti police rhetoric that seemed to permeate our city in
twenty twenty, and by many accounts still does to this day.
He could have sat back, done his job quietly, collected
his paycheck, but he didn't. Today we talked to recently
fired officer who pulled the curtain back and showed our
citizens how great, how professional our officers truly are in

(01:30):
our city, contrary to what the politicians may say. All
that and much much more up next on on Target.
Good afternoon, Welcome to on Target. We're broadcasting live from
the studios of LAPD Firearms Range and Training Facility that's
located at nine nine ninety Triple nine Bethel Road, and
if you've never been here, you should stop buy and

(01:52):
see it. We have a nice live studio audience today. Hey,
good morning, gentlemen. Hello Eric Ed that's you, right, that's me.
You know what, I'm a little bit tired today because
your son had me up till late last night, so.

Speaker 2 (02:09):
He made the old man work. Huh, Yeah, we had.

Speaker 1 (02:11):
We had a good time last night. Got an opportunity
to work with them actually twice this week. So aways
always good to see your son. Yeah, okay, to see you,
but great, really good. Disappreciate.

Speaker 2 (02:21):
I appreciate that tomorrow is his birthday. Oh I'm well
aware of that. I hope you got him a birthday
press and.

Speaker 1 (02:28):
I wished him a happy early birthday last night. Because
we are the owners of LAPD Firearms Range and Training
facility and our active in law enforcement, but for one
hour on Saturdays, we put together a group of firearm
experts to discuss new products in the market, training tips,
and oftentimes political topics surrounding our Second Amendment. Our commitment though,
has always been to bring you facts about our industry

(02:49):
and help listeners and customers with safe, responsible ownership of firearms.
Today on the show, first of all, I need to
say thank you to Glock and US Law Shield. What
an event last week. We had a great turnout, gave
away a glock JC. Yeah we won. Yes, general by
the name of Eric, I'm just saying, not me serious,

(03:09):
it's not me.

Speaker 3 (03:10):
Well, then what's up underneath the counter?

Speaker 1 (03:12):
When he got the call at the end of the day,
he was thrilled, So that was great. Thanks to those guys.
US Lostual provided the food. Really really a good event.
And I got to thank too our guest last week,
Steve and Bella for coming on. It was great to
hear from her thinking about purchasing her new gun. And
then of course a Secretary of State, Frank Larrose in
the door last week, So thank you to all of them,

(03:34):
and it was good to see them all. Today. Jac's
going to get to some news. We have a gun
of the week and Jac, all I can say is wow, wow, wow.
And I made the mistake of putting it close to you.

Speaker 3 (03:48):
That's unfortunate because I would just like to take all
of that walk out in the car. You can for
the right price, I can, I'd have to first have
to be to my divorce attorney, so I don't have one.

Speaker 1 (03:59):
But you see, those are all things you have to
weigh out. Yeah, I mean, that's all part of the
decision making process. So yeah, we'll talk about that coming
up here shortly at twelve thirty. You're not gonna win
to miss our exclusive interview with the recently fired CBD
officer Spencer Badger. He's here with us today. You may
have seen it in the local news, although I haven't
thought the coverage has been all that all that good.

(04:20):
I'm not sure about that, but he was. You'll hear
his whole story, and I think you're gonna I think
you're gonna see that it's not quite like it's portrayed
in the news. Go figure, right, Yeah, so we're coming
up at twelve thirty. Don't miss that. And what else? Hey,
we have we have the potential of a new person
on the Wall of Shame this week. Yes, yes, yes,

(04:43):
and details to follow. But I'm just for the thugs
that are listening to the thugs listen JC to us
or probably not, probably not. But if if you're still sleeping,
if you know of breaking in the car, tell him
to sign on the door that says if you come
in smelling like pod or alcohol, or if you have
to be a felon prohibited from owning firearms or aiming

(05:04):
isis store? Yeah it. The sign says your your visit
may not turn out his plan and we should change
that because it should be. Your visit will not turn
out as planned. So I'll tell more of that develops
and stuff. Yeah, but they still continue to come in,
so we just keep putting them on the wall. JC,
there you go, keep putting him on the wall. We

(05:26):
like to think our sponsors US lost held Jackson, Egress, windows,
black Wing, shooting, Center of River's Edge, cutlery, and of
course seeing us engraving all we make the show possible
each week. Joining me today, you hear the voice of j. C.
Jac is always good to see you.

Speaker 3 (05:38):
It's as I say, it's better to be seen than
to be viewed. And I'm here, so that's all a
good thing. Yeah, it's probably good to be back with
you guys. I've been on the air. It's great to
hear all the voices. And you guys sound great on
the radio. But yeah, even way up there, yep, I'm
going to be here for months and months and months months.
We sound good way up there. You guys sound great.
You guys sound great. I never listened to myself in

(06:01):
the radio, but you guys.

Speaker 1 (06:03):
And the voice of Big Edd to my right, Hello.

Speaker 2 (06:05):
Hello, good afternoon, Good to be here.

Speaker 1 (06:07):
Yeah, you got the Facebook and YouTube up and ride.

Speaker 2 (06:09):
Do we have perfect people checking in? We got Florida,
We've got South Carolina. I saw another one on there.
It was from New York, perfect, perfect, perfectly.

Speaker 1 (06:21):
If you missed the show, you can always catch the
podcasts at six to ten to w TV in dot com.
It's on iHeartRadio, it's on speaker really anywhere that you
get your podcast. We are out there, of course, out
there on Facebook and YouTube as well. So it is
that time JC. Oops, I heard you have a lot
some news.

Speaker 3 (06:41):
Oh, yeah, we do have. There's that's unfortunate we have
such I just got a lot of important news. But
let's uh get rid of a quickie here first.

Speaker 1 (06:50):
Uh uh.

Speaker 3 (06:51):
And that is the NSSF, the Net Shooting Sports Foundation
keeps track of gun sales and it's not surprising, but
they're down nine percent. February was down nine percent over
February of the previous year in twenty four but we
still sold over one million, two hundred and twenty two
thousand firearms. That's a sixty seventh month in a row.

(07:13):
Over a million firearms have been sold. So but they
called the Trump slump, but we're still we're still.

Speaker 1 (07:19):
Pushing at that, so that's a good thing.

Speaker 3 (07:21):
Here's the big this is this is really big case
and we've I've been talking about it for actually months basically,
but this is the Smith and Wesson versus Mexico and
all it says Smith and Wesson. Uh that's because that
was the first one, but it also includes Barrett, barretta Glock, Ruger, Colt,
Cuchury Arms, and Inner Arms. All these are being sued

(07:45):
by the Mexico for ten billion dollars if they would
win the suit, which is now And that's the whole
story is they just had the oral arguments on on Tuesday.
So it's it's coincidental that they had the oral arguments
the same day that the tariff started. The chance of Mexico.

Speaker 1 (08:02):
That's unrelated.

Speaker 3 (08:03):
But uh, but so the court heard these and it's amazing.
I'm we're keeping our fingers crossed because honestly, this would
destroy the gun industry in the United States. But the
Supreme Court, they said, even the liberal justices seem suspicious
of Mexico's lawsuit. Uh that Uh, and this is challenging
our Protection of Lawful Commerce and Arms Act that's out there,

(08:25):
and Mexico saying, hey, these are the guns that are
being used by the cartels and killing the folks.

Speaker 1 (08:29):
Are therefore it's your fault. Uh.

Speaker 3 (08:31):
So the case the oral arguments, they haven't really heard
the full case yet, but the oral arguments look pretty
positive for us. But as even that justice, uh Catandy
Brown Jackson, she even said that, Gee, I'm just wondering
whether this Plaka statute itself is telling us that we
don't the court start shouldn't be the one who are

(08:52):
crafting arguments on regulating this industry. She goes, wasn't that
the point of the whole whole act? So even she
he was leaning towards, uh, towards saying, you know, why
are we doing this? But the case basically comes down
to the one who is representing the the gun industry says, Look,
they said, you're suing you know, these manufacturershet the manufacturers

(09:14):
just make the product. Then they are sold to licensed distributors,
and the distributors sell them to license retailers, and it's
the retailers who, uh, you know, the chain of command
here is such that these aren't they're not selling these
two cartels, they're selling them to other folks. And then
it was the Kavanaugh pointed out that it's funny that
not one charge was levied against dealers that were actually

(09:37):
selling the guns around the border, and they said, that
wasn't even mentioned. You're going right to manufacturers. So I
guess the good news would be that right now it
looks like it's leaning towards a victory for the gun manufacturers,
and they're going to uh uh hear the The case
is likely to have a ruling by the end of June,
but right now it's looking looking.

Speaker 1 (09:58):
I can't even believe it got to this. I mean,
it's it's crazy.

Speaker 3 (10:01):
I mean that's why Smith and West has said no,
we wanted to go to the Supreme Court because you know,
this is this is the way that you know it
has to be. Could it would destroy the Second Amendment.
Obviously there'd be no Second Amendment if there were no
guns to buy you you couldn't.

Speaker 1 (10:14):
What are Bloomberg's attorney is going to do once this
goes away?

Speaker 3 (10:17):
Well, these are all the ones from Brady, the guy
from Brady who was the chief chief architect, but someone
named uh, she was named Stetson. So all Americans they're
doing this. So they they're they registered as agents from Mexico.
But they're the ones who are trying to break the industry,
which uh is you know, listen, I'll jump right to

(10:37):
this one because this also, this is where the Democrats
are coming from their mindset. Even if they can't do
anything by God, so this is what they're going to try.
So here's a mindset. So gun control Senators and Democrats
from Congress introduced the Magazine Seizure Bill. The bill has

(10:57):
provisions and that's what it's called. They have visions and
this is not a state, this is our this is
our Congress. The bills also have a provision for law
enforcement agencies, including the FBI and the ATF, to seize
lawfully owned magazines for destruction. I mean, they're wasting putting
this bill out there. They would have no chance. I

(11:18):
mean there's almost like four hundred million magazines out there
that would probably fall into this category. Can you imagine
the Nazi Democrats marching in and having them seize your
magazines for destruction.

Speaker 2 (11:30):
So they can't get the guns going for the magazines now.

Speaker 3 (11:33):
But so in the Senate it's set a bill eight
oh three, and in the House it's a House Bill
seventeen forty seven. But of course it's the usual suspects
from Hawaii Democrat. Democrats from Hawaii, Connecticut, Nevada, Colorado, Illinois,
they're ones that are pushing this. But this is the mindset.

(11:54):
And here's what Rhode Island. This is pretty serious if
it would go through. Rhode Island has put forth an
MSR Modern Sporting Rifle ban, but it would probably close
every gun store in the state, as crazy as it seems,
but the plan was to ban the sale the most
commonly owned center fire rifles, which again there's over the

(12:18):
recent survey said there were over thirty million AR fifteens.
But it's not just aimed for that, it's aimed for
this laundry list of guns. And local gun store owners
are just warning them that this would be the death
dell to the businesses of gun sales. And this one
gun owner had the local media in and he said

(12:38):
depending legislation would require him to remove ninety percent of
the firearms in his inventory. He had a whole table
laid out. He told the media there's not one AR
on this table, but every one of these under their
rules would be banned, including a revolver, because anything that
weighs over fifty ounces is a handgun. How many people
are robbing stores with smith and wasn't fire five hundred

(13:00):
magnums or desert eagles, But it just it's that stupid.
But anyway, Rhode Island's really anti gun, so they don't
know what's going to happen. But and also the other
thing would require legislation that anyone who owns any of
the guns on this list registered them with the State
of Rhode Island, so gun registry and banning and closing

(13:22):
down all the guns are This is the whole entire state,
not a little community.

Speaker 1 (13:27):
Wow, this is crazy, crazy JC.

Speaker 3 (13:31):
Well, I've got one that is unusual because Colorado is
so anti gun and what's boarding them is Wyoming. And
this kind of surprised me. Wyoming just repealed the gun
freeze zones in the state. They did of Wyoming without
the governor's signature. The governor was against it, but he
said he said, look, I'm against it, but I can't

(13:52):
object to it. The bill will become law. So this
Gun Free Act really gets rid of everything. I'm even
kind of surprised at this. Persons may lawfully carry concealed
weapons at any meeting of a government entity, committee, or legislature.
And if you have a concealed Wyoming concealed carry permit,
you can lawfully carry concealed in any public school, in

(14:13):
any college, any university, any athletic event, on a public
property that doesn't sell alcoholic beverages. And they said, hey,
it's the constitution. The Wyoming Constitution states simply the right
of the citizens to bear arms and defenses themselves and
of the state shall not be denied. And this is
going to take to take effect on July first.

Speaker 1 (14:34):
So, yeah, the.

Speaker 3 (14:36):
Aucotomy of what's going on in our states.

Speaker 1 (14:38):
Wow, wow, guys, let's jump to a break. When we
come back, we're going to get to a few guns
of the week TC. I know I sprung these on you,
but I am sure you can look at them and
talk about them.

Speaker 3 (14:48):
I don't have to look at them at home, That's right,
you can't.

Speaker 1 (14:50):
You can't.

Speaker 3 (14:50):
And when I'm shooting them.

Speaker 1 (14:52):
At the range, we are on target broadcasting laugh in
the studios of LAPD Firearms and Range. We'll be back
right after the break.

Speaker 2 (14:57):
You know.

Speaker 1 (14:58):
Whenever I think of this song, do after nine to eleven?
They did that concert. All those artists got together and
they did it. I think acoustic versions of stuff. And
he's Tom Petty sat there on the stage, just him
and the guitar with this.

Speaker 3 (15:10):
I love Tom Bobby. I'm so sorry he left us
way too early.

Speaker 1 (15:13):
Yeah, welcome back on talking. I'm your hysteric joined today
in the LAPD studios. I have JC to my left,
Big EDG to my right. Our good friend Spencer is
going to be joining us here at twelve thirty. You're
not gonna want to miss that, guys. If you haven't
already signed up for the Wild Game Dinner? Ed? Is
this Friday? You're gonna be there?

Speaker 2 (15:30):
I'm not sure it's not looking like I will be
able to make it.

Speaker 1 (15:33):
But all right, all right, just so if you didn't
hear the menu and stuff, we're talking and this is
wild Game dinner. This isn't your chicken, chicken or beef dinner.

Speaker 3 (15:41):
This is and this is like really kind of a
once in a lifetime experience. So just to even saw
it happens every year.

Speaker 1 (15:47):
And ella, have you decided what we're bringing you a
is the doggie bag every year?

Speaker 3 (15:51):
Okay, that's how old you are.

Speaker 1 (15:54):
So I suppose if you died.

Speaker 3 (15:56):
If you died after you didn't see.

Speaker 1 (15:58):
Okay, so advertisers at appetizers, we start out with some
nice camel meatballs, goes right into the yak sausage, lollipops,
coyote in potatoes, and then the python lettuce raps. Was
kind kind of looking forward to that. Then when you
start against your main course, there's a nice walleye on
the table. You're gonna have a Cajun pheasant with bobcat chowder.

(16:21):
I mean that's good, yes, yes, yes, yes, Now what
else he rose to duck there alligator worth with beans
and rice? That would that would be my favorite? Yes
there was. I thought, uh, I thought I saw coyote
on here, but uh creos, Yeah there, there is a

(16:42):
lot of different Oh yeah, coyote right there on the top.
That's what I You know, Cardell is gonna gonna show
up at this event. Oh good. He has drawn the
line with coyote. Why I don't know. I don't know.
Won't eat coyote? Can we eat the python but not coyotes?

Speaker 3 (16:57):
So we'll think of a bad experience with something, eat
something go.

Speaker 1 (17:01):
That could be it. So JC Gun of the Week.
I'll tell you these uh these came in this week
and these are ones that are just gorgeous, and I'll
just tee it up. It is if you're if you're
not watching on Facebook, and I know you're not listening
on Facebook, but if you're, if you're watching out there,
you can see them. It is a western belt I
think Bianchi probably a two or three hundred dollars rig

(17:23):
if you will, with two holsters in it, and got
a crossrail too.

Speaker 3 (17:27):
Yeah yeah, it's a busk and arrow, but it also
has a cross drawing that again.

Speaker 1 (17:32):
And then in there are two cult single action armies.
I think they're considered the third generation. They were made
in the nineties. But here's the Kicker, Edward. Here's the
Kicker and their Nickel two. They're actually gorgeous. They have
the boxes with them consecutive serial numbers. A Kicker that
is a Kicker. If you are ever looking for, uh,

(17:54):
for the setup, this is it. It is really really neat.

Speaker 3 (17:58):
Traditional forty five cold. I mean, it's what a setup.
I don't know what's going on. And I was saying
we were live, but yeah, I mean this is this
is exceptional. This is really really nice.

Speaker 1 (18:11):
So that is here. It's actually out there listed an
auction house as well. But if you want to come
out and check it out, and if it's something you've
been looking for the other thing JC, I don't know
if you've seen this.

Speaker 3 (18:20):
No, that's what I want. I want actually, yeah, I
have things like this. That one I really like.

Speaker 1 (18:25):
And what is it? It's a Newmbarde.

Speaker 3 (18:27):
Yeah, the Ardie, which you know, it's Italian and they
make really really high quality firearms. And I didn't have
a chance to handle it, but it is about sharps Yeah,
it is a Sharps, probably in forty five seventy. It is,
it is, and I just I just love single shots.
I've got a bunch of them and they're.

Speaker 1 (18:48):
Just and this one comes in the box as well,
probably from the nineties. Also in this collection, and it's
not up here was eighteen seventy three Winchester.

Speaker 3 (19:00):
Berdi and yeah and Barty really mixed up. I've had
a few in Bardi. When I first got them years ago,
I didn't know anything about the company. But that turns
out that the Italians were making guns longer than anybody.
I mean, Bretto has been making them for over five
hundred years now, maybe six hundred years. Uh so uh
but really really high quality uh firearms. So I was

(19:21):
very very pleased with the one that I had. I
really liked it. They don't have a sharp site right there.

Speaker 1 (19:26):
Yeah. Wait, like somebody said in the crowd, you see
you can take it home today. It just may not
be your home.

Speaker 3 (19:32):
Yeah, the Buffalo gun, Yeah you're right about that. What
can I sell to get that?

Speaker 1 (19:37):
Might?

Speaker 3 (19:37):
I keep saying, saw the Corvette, sell the Corvette.

Speaker 1 (19:39):
But you might have to be a couple of things.

Speaker 2 (19:42):
So yeah, guys, before we starting to sound like your
ex wife.

Speaker 3 (19:45):
Yeah, yeah, I never thought about that. I hope maybe
maybe my bride is listening.

Speaker 1 (19:53):
I don't know, so we can't talk bad about.

Speaker 3 (19:56):
It out when I get home. Yeah, I have rolling
pinned down. You'll know that she was listening.

Speaker 1 (20:01):
She's the one who keeps John going. Is that what
it is?

Speaker 2 (20:04):
Yeah? I thought it was the guns.

Speaker 1 (20:07):
No, she's the one. She's the woman behind the man. Yeah. Guys.
Before we go into the break too, I should mention
am We've talked about it a couple of times, but
the prices have come down. We uh, and we actually
have another large shipment coming probably this week. But if
you've been in the market for some ammunition, it's it's
neat because we're finally, finally, finally starting to see the

(20:29):
prices drop a little good with that good, so hopefully
that continues or it doesn't go back up and there's
no craziness this summer that causes it to good the
other way. One concern though, we were talking about tariffs
and stuff. You know, we don't know if that's gonna
have some impact to it. It didn't for us this time, so.

Speaker 3 (20:46):
People a lot of people don't know that we did
stories on this years ago. But under the former administration,
under Obama, they shut down all of the smelters of
lead in the United States of America or six and
they said the EPA they didn't like what they're doing.
So now the lead that we mine is shipped to China,

(21:09):
and China pollutes the air by smelding it down and
then ships back. So we said the ore over there,
they meld it, then it's shipped back and then we
make it into bullets. So the tariffs, I mean, you know,
we don't it could be far reaching, but anyway, that's
the way that goes.

Speaker 1 (21:25):
And you know why AMORHO prices are high when you're
having to ship it all over the world like that.
So guys, let's jump to the bottom of the hour news.
When we come back, we're gonna talk to our good
friend Spencer with CPD for fourteen years and this week
was was terminated with the Department. We're going to hear
all about that story in much much more wrong on

(21:46):
Target Broadcasting Live from the studios of lpd Fiarms arranged.
We'll be back right after the news. That's welcome back
to on Target. I'm here's there joined today in the
LPD studios. I got JC right here live in person today.
Always get to see a JC and big ed to
my right. Guys, Our next guest has been an officer

(22:06):
with CPD Columbus Division of Police for fourteen years, working
really some of the toughest neighborhoods out there. We're not
talking about the easy cakewalk. We're talking about some of
the tough neighborhoods, dealing honestly with some of the toughest
citizens in our city, doing this on a nightly basis.
In twenty twenty, though, like many of us in law enforcement,
he saw the city turn into a war zone. That's

(22:29):
really what it was, a war zone as rioters burnt
down buildings, busted out every window from from downtown to campus,
literally every window busted out for that entire stretch. City officials,
though elected city officials, began to outwardly speak out against
men and women on the front lines protecting our cities,

(22:49):
and by many accounts, that anti police sediment still resides
with many of those elected officials today. Officer Badger knew many,
if not of those allegations against his fellow officers were false,
simply not true. We all saw it, and so he
set out to show the good citizens of our city

(23:09):
and our nation what truly happens on the streets of
Columbus and how truly professional officers were every day dealing
with some of the things they were dealing with. He
started a YouTube channel called Columbus Police Body Camera. Using
his First Amendment rights and submitting multiple public information requests.
He began posting videos showing that the elected officials and

(23:31):
activists were simply twisting the truth to further a political movement.
Great to have you here today, sir. I wish it
was under better circumstances, No kidding.

Speaker 4 (23:42):
You've been at You've asked me to come a many
times over years, and I haven't had it the opportunity,
or I was restricted by my ability to speak publicly
about some things, so I had to turn you down.
But now obviously I don't have those restrictions.

Speaker 1 (23:53):
So here we are, just Suspencer. Talk about for those
who don't know you, why did you get into law enforcement?
It's kind of funny.

Speaker 4 (24:00):
I as a kid, I mean, I've always kind of
wanted to serve my country and serve my community. I
joined the military strate at high school. My plan was
to go directly into law enforcement. Oddly enough, a police
officer talked me out of that, which delayed me about
five years into becoming a police officer in the future.
But I just think it was something I was born
to do, meant to do.

Speaker 1 (24:19):
It's in your blood. I mean, no money of us
say that it's in your blood. What twenty twenty, the
riots of the city is just it's an utter chaos.
What was How were you feeling, Oh.

Speaker 4 (24:29):
It's horrible. We felt like prisoners in the city. You know,
we felt like we were just this is right on
the heels of all the COVID stuff that was happening,
just getting.

Speaker 1 (24:40):
Kicked in the groin daily.

Speaker 4 (24:43):
And then when those riots started, it was actually for
months that they lasted, and we had to go to
twelve hour shifts in order to keep people downtown.

Speaker 1 (24:52):
It was. It was awful and one of the things
that stands out for me. And of course I wasn't
in it nearly as much as you were. But the perception,
or were the outward voices from a lot of the politicians,
I mean that's what they were coming out against law enforcement.
I mean it was it was across the border. We
reported on it. I mean we did. We tried to
do our part to show that this that's not true.

(25:15):
You know, they talked so negatively about Columbus police, which
is so highly regarded across the country, and it was
sickening to hear that. Why did you decide to not
be quiet any longer and start this YouTube channel?

Speaker 4 (25:30):
You know, I've never been one to kind of sit
by quietly and let things happen around me. And during
the riots, you know, a lot of that stuff that
was happening, the uses of force that were occurrying people
were saying officers weren't justifying their uses of force and stuff,
and I wanted to show that. You know, they were
being hitting the head with frozen water bottles and an
attack from behind when they turned like the Tracy Shaw
video where she turned around and sprayed girls with mace,

(25:52):
she thought that she was about to be attacked by
some people, you know. So there was some viral incidents there,
and then out on the street, we had some instance
where we literally saved people's lives, and we asked for
those incidents to be shared with the public, and it
turned out that the mayor's office had taken over all,
the social media accounts for the Division of Police weren't
allowing them to post anything that made us look good,

(26:14):
no positive information. So we had saved this guy's life,
asked for her to be shared, we got turned down.
Said you know what, I'm going to do it.

Speaker 1 (26:23):
Myself, right, could you as a citizen, you can do
a public information request and obtain those videos. Yeah.

Speaker 4 (26:28):
So I started requesting all these things that they said
we couldn't do and said we were no good at
dealing with mentally ill people, with people with drug abuse issues,
you know, children, all this stuff. So I just started
requesting specifically those incidents to say, look, we don't need reform,
We're doing a very good job at this stuff. You're
putting efforts in the wrong place. And they weren't very
happy that.

Speaker 1 (26:49):
So how was that received, I mean, how was that
received with fellow officers with Did you hear anything from
those politicians? I mean, did you hear any grumblings on
the street. Once this got started.

Speaker 4 (27:00):
It took a while for the city to respond in
any kind of way, But I can tell you that
the officers and the leadership of the division, they absolutely
loved the fact that I was doing it. They especially
a lot of the deputy chiefs and the commanders and stuff.
They were afraid to speak out because their job was
literally align. I got a ton of support from all
the way up to deputy chiefs and some outgoing chiefs

(27:22):
you know, said hey, thank you for doing what you're doing.
We weren't allowed to say that stuff. What you're doing
is amazing.

Speaker 1 (27:27):
You were putting yourself out there. I mean, you didn't
have to do it. It would have been much easier
to show up for work, leave it behind with you
at the end. And I mean you're doing this obviously
on your own time. Talk about some of the big videos.
One of that comes to mind from me, and I
think you were the one and correct me if I'm
wrong that that discover this. But the Civilian Review Board,
I think had brought an officer up on charges for

(27:48):
bias based policing maybe and it was an incident where
an officer hadn't even stopped the individual was a juvenile.
In this case, it was simply talking to them. That's
what you do when you're in law enforcement and you're neighborhood.
You talked to him and they were going I think
to sustain a disciplinary action or something to this officer,
arguing that they he had engaged in bias base placing.

(28:12):
But you found otherwise from the civil and Review boards perspective.

Speaker 4 (28:15):
They did, and they said, this is obviously a case
of biaspace profiling. And when I heard about that, I
started asking around. I found the officer that was accused
of this, and I said, hey, tell me what's going on.
The first thing out of his mouth is, I don't
know where they came up with this kid being black, because.

Speaker 1 (28:29):
He was white. It was a white teenager.

Speaker 4 (28:31):
And the report they never talked to this kid's mom,
They never actually talked to the kid.

Speaker 1 (28:37):
They never looked at his mugshot.

Speaker 4 (28:39):
They said they looked at the body camera footage, but
clearly they didn't because you could clearly see he was
a white teenager in the video. And by the way,
the officer just drove up next to him on the
street and said, hey, can I get your name?

Speaker 1 (28:50):
Kid denied him.

Speaker 4 (28:51):
It was a ninety second conversation the officer drove away.
The person that wrote the report said that the officer
stopped an African American team for walking to the store
wearing a hoodie.

Speaker 1 (29:03):
So this is a civilian review board. These are people
put in place to judge the actions of the officers.
They should be all knowing, they should be investigating these
incidents to get to the root cause of what their
allegations are law enforcement going astray, And in this case,
they write this report up and I saw the report,
I think you shared it, and it says the officer

(29:25):
stopped a African American juvenile. But that wasn't the case.

Speaker 4 (29:29):
He never stopped him. The kid wasn't African American. He
didn't violate his rights. No Fourth Amendment, seizure, nothing whatsoever.
Is just a simple conversation. And it was one of
those cases where from the jump from the investigation all
the way through the IG signing on off it and
the Savionan review board, nobody was aware of this. I mean,
it's just showed such flaws in that system and a

(29:52):
system that cannot possibly go on if we're going to
have integrity in that investigator, right.

Speaker 3 (29:58):
Jase, just if I recall coruickly if I'm wrong, I
thought that he had recognized the kid, and it turns
out that the kid had a record that he had
he had had an encounter with him before and because
of that, because of his record and what he stopped
him for wrestling for it sometime when he saw him again,
and that was it. But that they used the term
racist in the report at all or was it just

(30:18):
bias based bias base? But I mean and his mother
is one, well you stop with my kid, yeah right. So, Uh,
in the Civilian Review Board, you said they judge the police,
They're just they judged against the place the anti police
people that they put on this Columbus Civilian Review.

Speaker 1 (30:33):
Absolutely, we're talking to Spencer Badger, recently terminated by Columbus
Police Department and talking a little bit about that spitch
on that case when you brought that to the light.
Did that get how did that what was the the
what was the response?

Speaker 4 (30:49):
I have to watch my language for the radio. Yeah,
but all hell broke clues. Yeah, you know, I worked
closely with the leadership of the union and stuff like that,
and uh, they were calling me saying, hey, I got
a call from this city council member, this city council member,
the safety director, the mayor, every time the Inspector general
was calling, want to know is this true? And they

(31:11):
wanted to know everything they could know about me. They
were very angry about the fact that I exposed this
incredible amount of competence because you told the truth absolutely right.

Speaker 1 (31:21):
I mean it was by all accounts. When you look
at that from an outsider, and I don't know nothing
about nothing, it looks like, you know, that's what would
fit their narrative, and so they're going to insert that,
damn the facts, and we're going to go forward with
that and attack the messenger. And attack the messenger of course.
So you know, as your YouTube channel grew, I mean

(31:41):
I think over three hundred thousand followers, almost seven hundred
videos and stuff. How at the peak, how much you're
making out of this, I mean, you've got to be
rolling in. I mean that's a lot of people. You know,
you're doing the will of the officers. You're making a
lot on this. The funny thing was the channel was
never monetized. I wasn't monetized. I wasn't making money off
of this. It was just something that I did.

Speaker 4 (32:03):
I started it as a hobby to get the information out.
Then it grew so large, so many people were depending
on it, and it was such a I viewed it
as an incredible service. I didn't think I could stop.
But I've talked to you about this before. I probably
spent twenty five thirty hours a week doing this. Took
time away from my kids. I missed soccer games, stuff

(32:27):
like that because I was home editing to get important
projects out. There was an officer involved shooting around Christmas time,
which happened a couple of times. Of the Koy shooting
was a big one. I had to stop wrapping presents
and stuff and go get this video out because I
didn't want just the short snippets that were going to
be portrayed in the media. I wanted the entire story
to be out. So yeah, I dedicated a lot of
my time for free to do this and spitch.

Speaker 1 (32:48):
I mean, we've all said and ed you and I've
talked about this. We're not here defending those officers who
are bad officers or who do something bad at me
and we don't want them within the ranks. By golly.
We got to tell the facts and the truth and
not let the media make the decision. And some of
these politicians you know, going forward, talk about how you

(33:10):
get the videos. It's a public information request. Any one
of us can do it. We've done it.

Speaker 4 (33:14):
Yeah, I just sent an email to the Public Records Office.
I say, hey, I like these incidents. I've kind of
communicated with them over the years. I request five incidents
per per request. If one of them is really large,
I'll only put one on that request. But they send
them to me using a like an online share service
where I just download them from a server. They're given

(33:35):
to me free of charge. I just send the email
I get them back.

Speaker 1 (33:39):
So how many videos, I mean, you have about six
seven hundred out there, so it is it's safe to
assume you've done that six or seven hundred times you
requested videos.

Speaker 4 (33:48):
Yeah, And the number of videos I've requested, I probably
request each YouTube video probably contains three.

Speaker 1 (33:54):
Or four different officers body capra.

Speaker 4 (33:56):
So I've requested two thousand plus.

Speaker 1 (34:00):
How how often you get denied a video? That's pretty rare, right.

Speaker 4 (34:04):
Part of that is because I know what to request,
so I don't request things that I know are going
to denied, like things that are domestic folence related.

Speaker 1 (34:11):
Chortes and related.

Speaker 4 (34:13):
But occasionally I do get denied, and I've actually had
to take them to court on four separate occasions, and
one each time that they've denied your records I've gotten.

Speaker 1 (34:20):
Them, so and then when you're asking for these and
stuff you when you get them sometimes they are redacted.
So sometimes I mean we realize, I mean, you're gonna
have stuff that that's redacted in and that's okay. That
protects the general public and sometimes the officers and so forth.
So so this week things changed, well actually it started
before this week, but this week is what really changed.

(34:42):
And you were criminated this week from the Columbus Division
of Police in part for for some of the things
that went on. Admittedly, so a couple of screw ups. Yeah,
tell us what started this all rolling here?

Speaker 4 (34:58):
Well, there were two two major policy violations that they're
hanging me with. One is downloading information.

Speaker 1 (35:04):
To a personal device.

Speaker 4 (35:05):
The other is publishing information that didn't come through the
puff record's office.

Speaker 1 (35:09):
The downloading stuff was a simple error on my part.

Speaker 4 (35:13):
We're allowed to log into the body camera system from home.

Speaker 1 (35:16):
We all do this.

Speaker 4 (35:17):
There's a button on there that you can download the videos.
I didn't know that you could download the videos. I
thought you could download a log seeing what was on
the videos. But I hit that one time and found
out that I could download the videos. That's how I
found out Hey, I can just download these at home.
So at the times that my internet wasn't working very
great to stream the stuff, I would just hit download, come.

Speaker 1 (35:37):
Back and watch it because it would downloaded. You wouldn't
have to rely on internet for the PEG show.

Speaker 4 (35:42):
When my internet wasn't working well, I got in the
habit of doing that. It turns out there were seventeen
videos I downloaded.

Speaker 1 (35:48):
Those weren't videos that got posted or anything, right, those
are just ones you're using in the normal course of
your work or whatever it be.

Speaker 4 (35:54):
The very first one was an interview with the suspect
where I was trying to get information on where they're
coming in their crimes, who they're committing their crimes with,
stuff like that.

Speaker 1 (36:02):
So nothing really to do with the channel on. Nothing.
I mean, this is in the course of your Yeah,
there AUMs a work.

Speaker 4 (36:07):
One of my buddies told me to go, hey, look
at this video with Jazzy being interviewed.

Speaker 1 (36:10):
Yep. So the two in question that were downloaded in
this fashion that ultimately got posted. Tell us about those two. Uh.

Speaker 4 (36:20):
The one was I sent a records request for an
incident and I had transposed a six and a nine. Uh,
so I got an email back said, hey, there's no
video associated with this this incident, and that's it. There's
no there's no video. So I looked it up on
the system. I realized my error. I found the video.
I looked at it and I said, you know what,

(36:40):
this is a public record. There's there's no newty on here,
no children, no social.

Speaker 1 (36:44):
Securities, nothing to be a redact. I mean, you've down,
you've you've had these requests thousands of times before. You
have a good sense what's going to get redacted.

Speaker 4 (36:51):
And I just thought, you know what, I'm not going
to waste their time making them process this video. I'm
just going to download it for him, saving the time. Uh,
that was a.

Speaker 1 (37:00):
Critical error judgment. I'm a part of the time, but
I was doing it the best contime. You walked on
could have got it. I mean, if you did the request,
you would have got the video. I would have got it.

Speaker 2 (37:09):
For first, I'm a little confused. If you're able to
go on there and download this information yourself without going
through public records, and they allow you to do this,
as you found out, why would that be a policy
infraction If you're able to do this from home, off duty.

Speaker 1 (37:29):
Yeah, it's it was.

Speaker 4 (37:31):
The downloading part is actually kind of a technicality in
the policy. They when all this went came to light,
they went to a prosecutor tried to criminally charge me
for this. The prosecutor actually said, you know, he has
the ability to watch these videos from home on a
personal device. He has the authority to possess these videos.
If he had downloaded them to a computer at work,

(37:53):
transferred them to a hard drive, and taken them home,
this would have been there would have been no violation.

Speaker 1 (37:58):
So it's just it's so that's kind of a technicality.

Speaker 2 (38:02):
I mean, that is you know, again, my question here
is how can there be a violation of something that
they're allowing you to do. If you're allowed to do
this at home, there's no violation.

Speaker 1 (38:13):
It's the actual the download button right at home.

Speaker 2 (38:16):
So does it say on there you cannot do this
if you're at home, not on the program. It's written
in the directive.

Speaker 1 (38:23):
So, but the two that that automate got posted. So
one you would have got anyways, I mean you would
have got it anyways, Okay, mistake doing it. The second
one was out of an incident where you had already
got video correct from multiple officers and cruiser video and
everything else determine. Hey, look there's another officer. I didn't

(38:43):
catch that one, and you that's the one you pulled.

Speaker 4 (38:47):
Yeah, yeah, I pulled it because I wanted to use
about sixteen seconds of video and I don't want to
waste their time with sixteen seconds of you know, because
that sixteen second is going to cost them a half hour, right,
and it's like, you.

Speaker 1 (38:58):
Know what, I'm just gonna save them some time and
do it. And you had the incident from multiple angles. Anyways,
this is just one other perspective. Oh yeah, yeah, absolutely. Okay, guys,
let's jump to a quick break. We're gonna come back.
We're gonna talk to our good friend Spencer Badger and
find out what else transpired this week. We're talking broadcasting
a lot from the studios of LPD Firearms Arrange'll be
back right up to the break. Welcome back to on Target.

(39:19):
I'm here's Derek joined to in the LPD studios. I
got Big Get to my right, JC to my left,
and our good friend Spencer Badger sitting between us talking
about what transpired this week with him and the City
of Columbus s Spencer we went into break. We were
talking about the two videos. That's what they're they're giving
you grief about what was said by supervision. What did

(39:39):
I mean? Is this something that they can traditionally let
someone go for? Uh, you know, we had the investigation.

Speaker 4 (39:46):
I did all my interviews, which I owned up to
my mistake for the minute that I went up there.
The funny thing was my sergeant my lieutenant both recommended DCCs,
which from my organization, it's documented constructive criticism, I believe,
or counseling. It's such in your file for like ninety
days and then it goes away. It says, hey, you
screwed up. It's the first level of disciper. My commander
recommended a written reprimand, which is the next level up.

(40:09):
If you have that in your file, it's there for
two years. If you screw up again, you know, you're suspended.
That recommendation went up to the chief. They decided, this
is critical misconduct. We're I have a hearing about it.
So I had to have a hearing with the chief.
And you know, do you want to get into what
the charges were?

Speaker 1 (40:28):
So? Oh well, well, I think it's important to note
that leads so I mean kind of taking the side
step here. LEADS is the system we use to pull
up people's personal information. If you have a LEADS violation,
if you're running somebody that you're not actually you know,
looking at from a law enforcement standpoint, that is a
critical violation. That is something that is covered in the

(40:50):
o RC. You can be criminally charged for that. This
is nothing that rises to that occasion.

Speaker 4 (40:57):
And the funny thing about it is that was the
closest comparison and that we could come up with, you know,
downloading information from a law enforcement database, and we said,
you know, the closest proximity of this is a LEADS violation.
Although LEADS is a criminal act, this is not a
criminal act. So we just used LEADS violations as comps.
We don't typically fire people that if they screw up.

(41:18):
You know, there's a long list of officers that have
driven by their ex wife's house, run every license played
in the driveway because they want to know who the
wife is dating. Now those officers get either suspensions or
written reprimands something like that.

Speaker 1 (41:30):
By far much more egregious. Yeah, yeah, that's a violation
of all one percent and so and so in this
you you fully expected to get one of the recommendations. Yeah.

Speaker 4 (41:41):
As a matter of fact, you know, they brought me
my charges and on there it'll tell you say if
they're considering termination. Didn't say anything about termination on my paperwork.
It you know, we're we're preparing for some kind of
suspension or something. And went before the chief had our
hearing and then just had to wait.

Speaker 1 (41:56):
For her answer. Would you when that came down this way?

Speaker 4 (42:00):
Yeah, Well it came back a couple weeks ago and
I had to go see the safety director afterwards. But
I just out of the blue, the chief said no termination.
I served them on paperwork. We went from three to
five days suspension to you no longer have a job,
and I figure how you're going to keep your mortgage
paid and food on the table for your kids.

Speaker 1 (42:19):
It's incredible. I mean, it tortually is Jacy.

Speaker 3 (42:21):
Well, just you know, for the folks out there, you've
had fourteen years, it had nothing, no discipline at all
in your jacket for fourteen years. And how many accommodations
have you had during that time?

Speaker 1 (42:34):
Six or seven?

Speaker 3 (42:35):
Six or seven accommodations And this is what this administration
is doing. It's just I just remember the last chief
left and she said, whoever the new chief is, they
better know that she's not running the department. It's the mayor.
And she said that on her going away speech. She
happened to be my neighbor, so it was I liked her.

Speaker 1 (42:54):
But it's truly it's it's truly sickening. It is what
they're what they're putting you through. Do you have any
regrets doing the channel? No, not for creating the channel.

Speaker 4 (43:04):
It's honestly, it's one of the one of the coolest
things I think I've ever done in my life. I'm
very proud of it. I'm very proud that I've stood up.
You know, I have taken a risk. Obviously this risk
has has paid off in a negative way for me
at this point in time. But I think that ultimately
we're going to show that, h this was worth it,
and they're I'm kind of proving who they are by

(43:26):
the way they've responded.

Speaker 1 (43:27):
What's what's been your support like this week?

Speaker 4 (43:29):
It's been really incredible, to be honest, a lot of
guys from the department reaching out, a lot of people
from the community.

Speaker 1 (43:35):
The Sport's been great. I know I am blow away.
Do you you haven't done any interviews with local media,
have you?

Speaker 4 (43:42):
No?

Speaker 1 (43:43):
Have? They asked, Okay, good? It was I was curious
because we had reached out because oftentimes they'll come and
they'll film up and during the show, and we reached
out to all three and all of them turned it down.
I don't know if that is if they didn't think
it was newsworthy. I don't know if they thought we
don't want to step on the stoves the toes of
the politicians. I don't know, but it was kind of

(44:04):
I was kind of surprised that none of the three
showed up today, So I don't know. Maybe that's just
maybe I'm reading too much into that, but yeah.

Speaker 4 (44:12):
We all know that if you speak against the city,
you lose your ability to interview them in the future.

Speaker 1 (44:17):
Access right, Yeah. Yeah, they're kind of afraid to stop it.
So brother, we we really really really appreciate you coming
in politically motivated. Just like everything itsutely it seems that way,
you know.

Speaker 2 (44:27):
I mean, it goes from the little guy on the
street to the top of the.

Speaker 3 (44:31):
Guyred thousands of dollars they spent trying to convict what
four officers from the riots, and all of them got
thrown out, of course, but they were They want to
hang police.

Speaker 2 (44:39):
Officers saying bad about the administration as well.

Speaker 1 (44:42):
Thank you on behalf of all the officers out there
who you fought for. You didn't have to do this,
and we we said you didn't. It's not like it's
a money making venture. Thank you so much for standing
up and fighting and if we can do anything to
help you along the way, and let us go, so guy,
thanks you for spending the last hour with us. Stop
in and see us. We're here all week and certainly

(45:04):
we'll be back next week as well. And if you
need anything, come see us. Let's be careful out there, guys,