What should we do with all these homeless people?

This podcast edition of Kenny Webster's Pursuit of Happiness features author Austin Petersen and Houston Police Union Executive Director Ray Hunt. ( @KennethRWebster )

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Giganic government sucks. Suit of habbiness radio is deluxe. Liberty
and freedom will make you smile. A suit of habbiness
on your radio, toil justice, cheeseburgers, and a liberty rise
at food.

Speaker 2 (00:23):
Today is National Internet Day and World Stroke Day, and
my job here is done. Hi everybody, I'm Kenny Webster.
What you didn't like? Oh you didn't like that? Okay,
excuse me. I know you were so offended so easily.
It's good to be here with you. It is good
to be here. I'm grateful for you. Thank you for listening.
All jokes aside, I enjoy doing this very much for

(00:44):
a living. It's a lot of fun for me to
co host the greatest morning show in America and then
come and hang out with you guys every afternoon right
here where we talk about state and local politics. I
think that's a very cool thing. And as a matter
of fact, we'll have two heavy hitters this afternoon. Ray
Hunt is the executive director of the Houston Police Union.
We are are going to be talking about the crime
in this city and whether or not there's a serial
killer on the loose, and we're going to get to

(01:05):
the bottom of the top and the top of the
bottom and take a look. Homelessness will be a common
topic of discussion on today's show. We're going to talk
about that new homeless shelter. And on that note, Austin
Peterson from the Libertarian Republic will be stopping by. We're
going to go look at food stamp benefits and the
hubbub about that hubbub hubba bubbah bah ba bah No, no,

(01:26):
not her, not Elena Hubbaba. That was Donald Trump's lawyer.
We're going to be talking about homelessness and crime and
welfare and lots more. And on that note, let's begin
with this today. Brightbart dot com is reporting on some
data we have learned about homeless people a new study.
To the surprise of no one with half a brain,
a report just came out that shows the billions of

(01:48):
taxpayer dollars that are meant to end America's homelessness are
not being used to end homelessness. Shocking, right. There was
this study called Infiltrated, and it reveals how billions and
tax pay funds intended to lift people out of homelessness
have instead bankrolled radical activism and anti American political agendas. Now,

(02:10):
despite unprecedented resource resources. Homelessness in the United States now
stands at its highest level in American history. Say it
with me, now, guys, for a lot of people, homelessness
is a choice. No, no, I'm not saying for everyone,
but certainly for a lot of people. What began is
a movement rooted in compassion has turned into what can

(02:31):
only be described as a homelessness industrial complex, sprawling webs
of nonprofit groups, bureaucrats, and activists feeding off the very
crisis they claim to solve. One example, Oh, you want
to You want an example, I'm happy to give you one.
It involves a Supreme Court case where over seven hundred
nonprofit groups, collectively taking in two point nine billion dollars

(02:54):
in government grants, filed briefs defending public encampments. Defending public encampment.
An imposing enforcement of anti camping laws is being cruel
and unusual punishment. Now, think about that. The whole point
of giving this money to those nonprofit groups was to
get people off the streets, and they're using that money
to file lawsuits to keep people on the streets. This,

(03:17):
of course, keeps people on the streets, and it keeps
the taxpayer money flowing. Here's another example. Listen to this
major philanthropic giants Ford, Robert Wood, Johnson and Gates Foundations.
That's the thing that Bill Gates and Melinda started before
they got divorced, because he went to Epstein Island. They
poured billions into housing first that was the name of

(03:37):
the group and other equity initiatives, equity to promote ideology
under the guise of helping the homeless. What does equity
have to do with getting people shelter? Nothing. The result
of all the corruption is not only record homelessness, but
a seventy seven percent increase in the death rate among
the homeless. Yeah, here's the thing, kids, You don't have

(03:59):
to be elon musk to figure this out. It's not
rocket science anyway out there. I once knew a guy
who had a bill collector job that involved a two
inch thick computer print out on green bar paper. Do
you all remember that of overdue accounts owed to his employer,
His job was to collect what was due, resolve disputes,

(04:19):
and detail why something qualified as a legitimate right off.
This was almost forty years ago, so within a year
of him working, he had worked himself out of the job.
He resolved all the accounts. Thankfully, the company found another
position for him. But you get the point. He was

(04:40):
never guaranteed another job. He still took the job seriously.
He accepted it as a kind of challenge. He took
pride in resolving all those accounts. That was as an incentive. Now, sadly,
there's a lot of homeless advocates out there who only
take pride in ensuring people remain homeless. They're doing the
opposite of what this guy did. Why do you think
that is well? Who wants to work themselves out of

(05:01):
a job, especially a sweet ass government job and NNGO
non government organizations? Right, those aren't really jobs. Real jobs
require results that you can work on Juneteenth. But it's
not only that. To these left wing activists, the homeless
are pawns and their political advocacy and activism keep them

(05:24):
on the street, keep the money flowing, direct that money
into electing democrats. It's the same thing with the failed
urban public schools and all the green energy nonsense. Solving
the homeless problem is fairly easy. Start with this. You
institutionalize those who are incapable of taking care of themselves.

(05:44):
Then you pass laws that make it illegal to sleep
in public, make it illegal, and then enforce those laws
to a point that the homeless have no choice but
to accept shelter or get a job. Technically, that's how
it works in this city. To enforce the public intoxication laws.
We could decrease the cost of housing by building more

(06:05):
housing and deporting the twenty million illegal aliens competing for housing.
We need to stop judging teachers and the environment movement
and the homeless advocates on what they claim are their intentions.
We need to judge them on their results, which are
something beyond abysmal. So abysmal they do not care that
they damage and exploit those that they claim to be

(06:27):
trying to help. Leftists deliberately make everything worse. Three groups
of people, more often than not, who aren't really helping you,
even though we give them a lot of I guess
it's for teachers. A lot of teachers are great, but
some teachers are not. Many doctors are nice people, but
many of them are not. We just assume they're all
great because they're called doctors or teachers. We do the

(06:49):
same thing with generals and of course politicians. But one
group of people who we treat like heroes when we
should really be more suspicious of them. Are the folks
in charge of these NGOs? Free species? Right here on proceeds? Unhappy?
This this radio right here, We'll be right back, comrade. Oh

(07:14):
as are we playing? We're playing spooky music because it's Halloween?
Is that what that is? Snap benefits for low income
Americans will end on Saturday thanks to the government shutdown.
But apparently it wasn't wasn't it Jesus after all, who
once said, Hey, screw those poor people, right I kid, Hey, everybody, look,

(07:37):
we're thirty eight trillion dollars in debt. We have spent
a trillion dollars since August. A trillion dollars since August.
That's a lot of money, you guys. Think about that.
We took what did it take over one hundred years
to spend the first trillion to get the first trillion
in debt. Now fast forward in time, in a little
over a month, we spent a trillion dollars. That's terrifying.

(07:59):
And there's a lot of alarmism going on right now.
Here's a video I found online of an obese white
woman talking about how there's going to be a violent
revolution to overthrow the country if Trump doesn't pay people
their SNAP benefits, and.

Speaker 3 (08:11):
Next week when millions of people are going to have
through his work to possibly stealing in order to feed
themselves in their families, and the government complaints because they
will complain about the crime rate going up even though
they're the ones.

Speaker 2 (08:26):
Who did it.

Speaker 3 (08:27):
Make sure you point your anger at the system and
the people at the top, because they're the ones who.

Speaker 4 (08:34):
Took the food.

Speaker 2 (08:35):
It's a fat white girl with blue hair and a
septum piercing. But you knew that. You knew that the poor.

Speaker 3 (08:39):
People just want to eat. They just want to survive
like the rest of us. They just want to keep
living like the rest of us. So when you see
them stealing, because you will, because they're going to have
to make sure your anger is in directed at the individual.
This goes so much deeper because kind of flips some tables.

Speaker 2 (08:57):
It's time to flip some tables. It goes so much
deeper to doesn't sound that deep to me. Here's some
fun facts about SNAP benefits and EBT. Forty two million
people getting food stamps. Essentially seventy percent of them are
obese or overweight. Only four point two million, that'd be
ten percent or disabled. Of those, forty four percent of
those disabilities are due to obesity related illnesses. Three point

(09:19):
nine million SNAP recipients are the children of illegal aliens.
One point five million are refugees or assylees from other countries.
It's not sustainable. Guys here with his take on it, evil, hateful, garbage,
deplorable Nazi. Austin Peterson of the Libertarian Republic, How are you, Austin, Hey,
I'm a deplorable.

Speaker 5 (09:39):
We can find we can argue about the other stuff.
How's it going, Kenny, Hey, thanks so much for having
me on here today. I love talking to the good
people the Gulf Coast. This is a fascinating story. We're
finally going to see what happens when the federal government
runs out of other people's money. That states like Texas, Pennsylvania, Minnesota,
and a few others have already put out warnings saying

(10:00):
they can't issue November benefits without funding. So we're looking
at just a few more days until we get to
see if people really are going to make good on
their threats to steal what they aren't able to take
through the government. So no federal food aid issuance November
first on the USDA. Now keep in mind, kiddy, they've
got a five billion dollar contingency fund for that. If
they wanted to pull that contingency fund money, they could,

(10:23):
but they're saying they're not going to do it. One
in eight Americans are our neighbors, working families, seniors, disabled
people are on food stamps.

Speaker 6 (10:32):
There's a lot of fraud, absolutely.

Speaker 5 (10:33):
And I'm looking forward to going into a few of
these big cases of fraud in this one. But it's
it just goes to show that the dependency that we
have bred in this country has made people fragile, and
now this dependency has has created a vulnerability in our society.
But there's hope. There's there's some red pills in all
of this. There's some good news. There's some white pills.

(10:54):
Even in all of this. To use a different term,
which is you know, happy pills, and that is that
the amount of spending that we have in voluntary charity
through food banks and nonprofits in this country dwarfs the
amount of money that is spent on EBT and SNAP.
So you know, this subsidized nutritional program. So it's not
as if there's not going to be any kind of

(11:16):
a backstop. There is now a lot of food banks
across the country. I've been reading about it this morning.
They're already stretched to the max. But I've seen, at
least anecdotally on my Facebook timeline, your family friends who
are saying things like, if anybody loses their EBT or
snap benefits, contact me. We'll be happy to support you
and do what we can. And they'll do it confidentially.

(11:38):
And Kenny, that's supposed that's how it's supposed to work.
Isn't that how it's supposed to work, Kenny, I.

Speaker 2 (11:42):
Mean, I would think so. Look, it's an amazing thing
about people on the right. Conservatives, according to most studies
i've seen, earn less money than liberals, actually give more
money to charity than liberals. Isn't that remarkable. But a
brilliant man once said, when you start paying people to
be poor, you wind up with an awful lot of
poor people. And of course that that person was Kanye West. No,

(12:05):
I'm just kidding. That was Milton Friedman. And is he wrong, No,
he's not wrong.

Speaker 5 (12:13):
I mean the problem, of course, is that the LATS
is going to point it as if for hating poor
people but I don't hate poor people. I want poor
people to be able to get the help that they need.
I just don't think that the government's the best way
to do that. And I've got like half a dozen
examples here of the waste, fraud and abuse in the system.
It's like five billion dollars is what the federal government

(12:36):
has in their fund. They're subsidized. There the fund ready
to hand out as an emergency. They say they're not
going to do it, but it's about nine billion dollars
that they need in order to run this program. But
there have been so many cases of fraud. If you
think about it, it's about a third of the money
that's spending these programs goes to administrative fees, you know,
VISA VI, the bureaucrats. And then there's the waste fraud

(13:00):
abuse that you know, we wish that Elon Musk was
still in the government pulling a doze for us to
get rid of. But you know, sad to see that
he's still on the outside. We need him back inside
because look at October twenty thirteen, there was the great
Walmart unlimited spree. Some of you guys would probably remember
this because it was actually in New Orleans, right, for example,

(13:20):
where they yeah, you guys remember that, you remember this Indiana.

Speaker 2 (13:23):
Vividly, of course. Yeah, people's EBT cards were not they
weren't maxing out. They could buy an unlimited amount of
whatever they wanted. And in the I don't know if
you remember the video from this Austin, but in the
middle of it, they fixed they fixed the bug. Right,
people were buying whatever they wanted with their EBT cards
with no limitations, and then suddenly, in the middle of it,
it fixed itself. So everybody standing around in the walmart

(13:46):
with shopping cards full of stuff just left their stuff
there and walked off. Now, don't you feel kind of
bad for the employees. It was a it was a
huge mess. It was like a ryot.

Speaker 5 (13:56):
Yeah that's yeah, it's feel bad for the people there
in Oralan. So I knew you would love that story
because I was like, oh God, that's a good local
angle there.

Speaker 6 (14:03):
But now, there was a.

Speaker 5 (14:06):
Case just this year that people probably don't know because
this was on the federal side. As a woman by
the name of Arlasa Davis, she was a USDA employee.
She was indicted for running one of the largest food
stamp frauds in US history. So what she would do is,
according to federal prosecutors, she sold confidential EBT authorization codes
to a network of scammers, enabling over thirty six million

(14:28):
dollars in fraudulent SNAP transactions. And her co conspirators installed
hundreds of these rogue EBT card terminals and then rang
up more than thirty million dollars in fake food purchases.
She would literally go around photographing lists of secret store
IDs and then gave them to the crooks in exchange
for bribes that were disguised as like birthday gifts and flowers. Right,

(14:52):
And this went on for years, tens of millions of.

Speaker 6 (14:54):
Dollars that's supposed to go to Hungary families.

Speaker 5 (14:57):
Instead going to a network of super welfare fraudsters that
were stealing tens of millions, thirty six million dollars in
fraudulent SNAP charges. It's the it's the probably the biggest
snap fraud, biggest food stamp fraud in US history. And
you're telling me that there isn't room to cut spinning
in these in these areas, Like, how was that going

(15:19):
unreported for years?

Speaker 6 (15:20):
Kenny? They're a sleep of the switch.

Speaker 2 (15:23):
Yeah, I mean, it's really there's something to be said
about that, and it's it's not getting better. There was
another scandal in Louisiana several years ago. I remember hearing
there was an adult novelty shop Austin, a place where
you could buy marital aids and massage ones, and they
were taking EVT there. I feel like it always. I
know it's probably not fair because it's nearby here and
we were very actively involved in the media there, but

(15:46):
it feels like Louisiana is ground zero for food stamp fraud.
Is that just anecdotal or is that real?

Speaker 5 (15:53):
I that's that anecdotal from my experience with the stories
that I've been pulling this morning, A lot of them
are in the South, sadly, but this one, this federal kid,
there's a plenty of fraud on the federal side as well. Yeah,
there was this I'm trying to pull this up. I
had this interesting story from this one. Wasn't like the
thirty six million is obviously the biggest one that in history,

(16:17):
but there's this other there was this other story. Uh,
let me pull it is. Oh yeah, this was North
Carolina's listen to this. The Social services case worker Lakeisha McDougal.
Lakeisha pull a smaller scale insider scam. She would quietly
divert food stamp benefits to herself, altering the client records

(16:37):
and the computers, ordering EBT cards in their names and
had them sent to their address, and then she would
add like fake dependence to jack up the payments, and
then she would sell those EBT cards for her own
shopping sprace. She pocketed two hundred and thirty four thousand
dollars in snap fun and and that's that's just what
we know that's going on. That's just what we've uncovered. Kenny,

(16:59):
You and I know, well, have you ever seen a
Facebook marketplace ads? They will sometimes brazenly sell the EBT
cards for sixty cents on the dollar. You want a
dollar in food stamps, you give them sixty cents. They
want the cash. What do you think they're doing with it, Kenny.
They're snorting it up their nose, right, They're smoking crack,
That's what they're doing with it. But they do this
in the open. So think about that. If that's these

(17:22):
gigantic scams are what we've seen, think about how big
the black market must be in DCE. I think this
needs to be the catalyst for reform. So I don't
know what's going to happen here in a few days.

Speaker 6 (17:33):
But I'll tell you what.

Speaker 5 (17:35):
The rampant theft and the violations of property rights and
stand out of the store, stealing from people and stuff
like that. It's not going to last long in the South.
I mean, I don't know how they do it up north.
I know how they do it in California, but probably
not Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Georgia, Florida, states like that. They
don't put up with that kind of stuff for too long.

Speaker 2 (17:54):
Kenny, Well, I hope not. I'm sure Lakeisha's innocent, but
I'm sure all the other people are guilty. Food stamp
fraud is kind of like it's like a news story
about teachers having sex with kids on any given day.
If you don't see a news story about it and
you go looking for one, you always find one. You
cannot just go to Google news and type food stamp fraud,

(18:15):
EBT fraud, snap fraud. There's always a news story. Here's
one right here. Eleven arrested in foodstock fraud. A food
food stamp fraud targeting Seattle, CID a woman charged in
food stamp fraud case. That one was in where's this Minnesota.
They're just they happen all the time. Austin has always
fantastic work. My man. If people want to check out
your podcast or the work that you do, you're easy

(18:38):
to find it. You're on the internet. They don't even
need snap benefits, do they.

Speaker 1 (18:42):
No?

Speaker 5 (18:43):
But I'm ap for liberty pretty much everywhere everywhere on
the internet. But my recommendation is that people go to
your shop because we take care of your shop. We
cure at your shop. We're always putting great new products
in there. If they go to I LOVEWJ dot com,
the nice thing about that is they're gonna find your shop.

Speaker 6 (19:01):
They're gonna find all your incredible.

Speaker 5 (19:02):
Products, and there's a link even if they go to
the homepage to try and thought that if they want
to find my podcast, I've got my podcast linked over
there as well. So check out the I LOVEWJ dot
com website, check out your collection, buy some sweet merch.
Christmas is coming, the goose is getting fat, and for
those of us who do work for a living and
art on food stamps, we can get ourselves something nice

(19:24):
for the Walton and Johnson Store.

Speaker 6 (19:26):
We don't have to steal it.

Speaker 2 (19:27):
Oh I love that.

Speaker 6 (19:27):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (19:28):
All kinds of great stuff. Golf of America, hats we are,
Charlie Kirk, a lot of great MAGA products on their dog,
Helen Keller's memorial gun range. So much great stuff. You
can even buy EBT cards sixty cents on the dollar. Apparently.

Speaker 3 (19:41):
Wow.

Speaker 5 (19:42):
Live from Texas Broadcasting across the peoples.

Speaker 2 (19:45):
We want Think of America.

Speaker 5 (19:46):
This is proceeds of How It Is Radio with Ken
Webstern gdo Akay producer Kenny keep it here.

Speaker 2 (19:56):
The makers of Breast Milk ice cream unveiled a new
booger and nice try guys, still not as gross as whoppers. No, thanks, Hi, everybody,
welcome back. Good to be with you. Coming up in
a little bit, Ray Hunt will be here, the executive
director of the Houston Police Union, and we're going to
talk about, well, what's going on in Houston. But before
we do that, could we please talk about what is
going on in New York City? What is about to

(20:18):
happen in New York City? The Great experiment akin to
the Korean Peninsula. What happens when you take a thriving
community and you turn it into a Marxist utopia. I'm
I'm scared for New York City. Of course I don't
live there. I don't have to worry about it. John
Alty reporting today, I'm the fabuloust communist Islamist and the

(20:39):
man who will almost certainly become New York City's next mayor. Zorhan.
Mom Donnie has been caught lying about his aunt. We
talked about this on the Morning Show, but I just
want to remind everybody the overall context here. Mom Donnie
made this statement about how his aunt didn't feel safe
wearing a hit job on a train in New York
City after nine eleven. Yeah, I guess saw a lot

(21:02):
of people's aunts probably didn't feel safe in New York
City after nine to eleven because some of them got
incinerated so they couldn't feel anything. They were dead. But
he said, in an era of ever diminishing bipartisanship, it
seems that Islamophobia has emerged as one of the few
areas of agreement. That was an actual quote. The context
of what Mandami was defending against claims of anti Semitism

(21:24):
and jew haters and whatever, was saying that, well, you know,
it's even worse for the Muslims. I don't agree, but okay,
you know what he's doing here is pulling a trick
perfected by Barack Obama, where you declare any criticism, even
accurate and valid criticism, as being racist. Here's a problem
though he lied, guys. Turns out he didn't have an ant.

(21:45):
Turns out Mom Donnie has only one aunt, a woman
named Masuma. Mom Donni, who does not wear a head job,
does not live in New York or even in America.
During the September eleventh, two thousand and one terror attacks,
he got busted for a lie. He was talking about
his father's cousin, he claims, a woman who is not
his aunt, who cannot verify Mo'm Donnie's tail of the

(22:06):
post nine to eleven woe because she's dead. He said,
I was speaking about my aunt. We just it's my cousin,
but it's my aunt. Oh. Okay. New York City is
so screwed, guys. The foreign born population will be responsible
for voting this guy into power. The people electing him
generally tend to be young transplants to the city who

(22:30):
weren't there during nine to eleven. And it's pretty obvious.
This is how extreme the Democrat Party has become. They
were alright with this. They were alright with this guy
doing this, down playing nine to eleven, saying, whoa nine
to eleven was really hard for the Muslims. This is
how extreme the Democrat Party has become. They are alright

(22:51):
with this. They are alright with Nazi tattoos right their
Senate candidate in Maine. They're okay with talking about killing
your opponent's children. The attorneys general candidate in Virginia. In
their demented minds, anything's better than Trump. Trump is basically
a Bill Clinton style Democrat in terms of policies, but
that doesn't matter. I think one great difference between America

(23:11):
and the Lost continent of Europe is that we have
fifty mostly sovereign states. We have the First Amendment, we
have the Electoral College. We have two US Senators representing
every state, regardless of population size. Our founding fathers understood
history and they put together a brilliant system to hold
tight to our republic. It's not fool proof. Nothing is,

(23:33):
but for now, at least we can all watch New
York City burn from the comfort of Mega America, which
is already everything. Democrats claim they want America to be clean, safe,
and tolerant. I'm very curious to see what happens next
for New York City, and we're going to talk about it.
Coming up in just a little bit. Ray Hunt's going
to be here from the Houston Police Union. Stick around,
we'll be right back.

Speaker 6 (23:56):
The government.

Speaker 2 (23:57):
Listenlive, Listen now, proceed to Happiness Radio. It's kind of
Webster junior producer Kenny Chains and knives. That sounds bad.
A group of disgruntled use or chains and knives. That's
the theme song to one Adam twelve Adam twelve. I
think the show is a bit different time than back

(24:17):
in the day, the mid twentieth century police officer TV
theme shows, all the TV show theme songs. I always
thought one Adam twelve was a good one. You know,
I'd love to get someone else's opinion on this, because
I am not an expert. You know who is an
expert The executive director of the Houston Police Union, ray Hunt,
ray Hunt Adam twelve theme song, Yeah or nay oh?

Speaker 7 (24:38):
I love Adam twelve. One Adam twelve with two eleven
in progress with change and knives, all use of the
Sunday in One Am twelve handled that code one, loved it,
read malloy, all.

Speaker 2 (24:48):
Right, what about this one? Sammy Davis Junior was the
celebrity that.

Speaker 7 (24:51):
Did Sammy Davis Junior.

Speaker 2 (24:55):
Parrettas Parretta's theme. You remember Barretto, Oh, don't go to
bab with no press on your head? No, no, don't
do it. One thing that I think has changed a
lot between now and the twentieth century Ray is back
in the day, Man, the cop TV show themes were

(25:15):
so good that the TV theme songs for police shows
agree or disagree. This was just a better time for TV, I.

Speaker 6 (25:22):
Think, Man.

Speaker 7 (25:24):
I watched them all too, from Mannix to one twelve
to uh. I even did some fire with watching emergency
remember that one?

Speaker 6 (25:31):
Yeah?

Speaker 7 (25:31):
And they were all good shows.

Speaker 6 (25:33):
Do you remember?

Speaker 7 (25:34):
Really were?

Speaker 2 (25:34):
But do you remember swat? Of course? Oh my god?
I bailed out of the back of the van.

Speaker 6 (25:40):
Too.

Speaker 2 (25:41):
This is a cool.

Speaker 6 (25:42):
Song, Ray.

Speaker 2 (25:43):
When you're driving around, when you're doing police officers stuff,
do you ever put this music on and just get
you fired up to go to work in the morning.

Speaker 7 (25:49):
Well, I actually listened to the seventies on seven sometimes
and that's what song just played.

Speaker 2 (25:53):
A lot get out. Really, it really is. Yeah, I mean,
come on, this is a jam, dude. It was called
this was rhythm heritage.

Speaker 7 (26:02):
Yeah, that's back when they all rode together. Now they
all have their own suburbans.

Speaker 2 (26:06):
Ray, you're a good guy, and you know, I often
will joke that I'm an outlaw, but I support the law.
I support the law officers of our communities. A lot
of good guys here in Houston, Texas putting their lives
on the line, and so many different stories over the
years of police lives lost, people seriously disabled in the
line of duty, and every one of those guys a hero.
In my opinion, it's a shame once in a while

(26:28):
that the news media will cling to one story about
one bad cop somewhere in the country and that becomes
the norm then, Right, But at the same time, you
guys are understaffed, you're overworked, you're underpaid, and I mean,
I'm not telling you anything you or the radio listeners
don't know. I'm curious right now, how is the staffing
situation since wit Meyer took over. I did not think

(26:48):
I would like this mayor. As much as I do,
I feel like he's been very supportive of law enforcement.
He's dealt with the homeless situation. This guy cares about
getting the East scooters off the sidewalk. People complain about
those bike lanes because they can't get an ambulance through.
He's actually done with that pretty well. What are your
thoughts on wit Meyer right now?

Speaker 7 (27:06):
This guy has been a friend of police for fifty years.
He's an incredible mayor. He gets things done. I was
at a function yesterday with the Homeless Czar, who is
one of our former assistant chief, Larry Satterwhite, and he's like,
I get calls all the time from the mayor. Hey,
there's some way over here. I need to take care
of this right now. He's a very engaged man. He

(27:27):
goes out on patrol with the chief on a regular basis.
He sees stuff and he wants it done now. He
wants it corrected right now. The stuff on the Washington
Avenue that there were some people that were not Washington
Houston Avenue right at Washington. People were complaining about the
things that they did differently over there, and we had
problems with getting fire trucks down there and it was

(27:48):
just a mess and they had just redone it. We're like,
who did this? And he stepped up and immediately took
all that stuff out and corrected it right back to
where it was. I look out my window and I
can see it. There's no accidents like they claimed it
was going to be. They claimed that people are going
to get hit there. Well, if people are getting hit there,
it's because they're walking. Whenever the stop signs up that
says don't walk, it's not because of it's a dangerous

(28:09):
intersection or anything like that. But he gets things done,
and he gets things done quickly.

Speaker 2 (28:13):
I like that, And I wrote an article for him
about him in the Houston Chronicle opinion section yesterday that
was probably one of the most boring articles I'd ever written.
I talked about we have a mayor now who's controversial
because he's not controversial. He doesn't go out in protest
against ice. He doesn't go out and to you know,
the great you know, the LGBTQ march or is not

(28:34):
what he does. He's concerned about normal people, problems that
affect normal people. And then and somehow, for some reason,
the New York Times did a hit piece. I'm the
poor guy, but you know, it's just I guess that's
just the world we live in, isn't it.

Speaker 7 (28:46):
Yeah, it's because he doesn't he doesn't do things like
the crazy guy they're about to elect in New York
City and and so they're.

Speaker 6 (28:53):
Going to attack him.

Speaker 7 (28:54):
But the guy is a Democrat, but he's extremely conservative
when it comes to police issues, when it comes to
many types, and he's just a great guy. He's been
a public services servant his entire life. He's working one
hundred times more than he had to in the Senate
and loves every day. He really likes going to work.

Speaker 2 (29:11):
Well. On that note, crime is obviously always an issue,
and it's certainly something our listeners care about. And right now,
on today's the last day of early voting, if people
haven't gone out and voted yet, please go vote really
important on that bill on that ballot. In my opinion,
Prop three is all about bail reform and the need
for it. I voted yes, Saun that I'm proud to
say I did. I'm curious what your thoughts are on it.

Speaker 7 (29:34):
I just left the West Grave facility. I was in
and out of there in less than three minutes. Yes,
I voted yes on on Prop three. Denial on bail
on certain violent offenders. These judges keep on relying that
on the fact that we can't deny bill, we can't
deny bail. Well, this is going to make it very
clear to him. And Joan Huffman sponsored this in the Senate,
and she was a big supporter of this. She's a
former former prosecutor and judge, so she knows how important

(29:57):
this this Prop three was, And we'd in turn everyone,
if you care about the safety of this city, safety
of your kids, safety of you, you need to vote
yes on Prop.

Speaker 6 (30:06):
Three.

Speaker 2 (30:06):
There's this old talking point from law enforcement advocates. You've
probably heard this before. They and I don't know where
it originated from or even if it's entirely accurate, but
they say five percent of criminals commit ninety five percent
of the crimes. Would you say that anecdotally that that's
pretty close to accurate?

Speaker 7 (30:23):
Absolutely, that's true. I can't remember, except for a DWI,
I can't remember the last time an also arrested somebody
that was their first offense. These people that we arrest
are over and over and over the same. Oh frequent
flyers that are continuing to burgerize people's cars, continue to
assault people, continue to rob it's the same old people.
And I've always been a supporter of a strike a

(30:47):
certain number of strikes and you're out. You know, some
states did the three strikes, you're out, and the legislature
here in some legislators here in Texas said we don't
want to do that. I said, okay, just tell me
how many strikes? How about five? How about five strikes
of a felony conviction in you you're in prison for
the rest of your life. Well, we don't want to
do how about seven?

Speaker 2 (31:03):
How about ten?

Speaker 7 (31:03):
Because we arrest these people on a record basis who
have five, seven, ten, fifteen prior convictions and are still
walking the streets, those are the people that are committing
the crimes. They're not getting up and going to work
at Walmart, are going to work at stopping Go. These
are people who are going out there and committing crimes.
We arrested a guy not too long ago that we
walked out of Clebrand's restaurant and there was a car

(31:25):
that was broken into there of one of the people
who we were with. He was a civilian. We had
cameras right away there. The guy was still in the area.
We were able to arrest him quickly. This guy had
his entire car set up like an office, all of
his craft in there to burglarize vehicles. That's what he
does for a living. That person needs to go to
jail for a long time. And I want to say
that because of this new DA and moving cases faster

(31:47):
and faster. Within three weeks, he pled guilty to five
years TDC time. Why because he had thirteen prior convictions
for the same thing.

Speaker 2 (31:56):
Okay, and and then you answered that pretty clearly. I
tend to feel the same way we prop three. I mean,
it's so important that this thing passes right now. I
can't even believe that this is controversial. Ray On that note,
the other topic that has been getting a lot of
attention is this homeless shelter the mayor is building. I
guess they're they're converting an old facility into a homeless shelter.
There's been some discussion about the cost and some people thought,

(32:19):
I don't know, people always think these things cost too
much money. But there's a genuine need for this, isn't there.
I mean, we do have a homeless problem, even if
it is illegal to publicly camp. And on that note,
is it still illegal to publicly camp.

Speaker 7 (32:32):
It is, and we do have a homeless problem and
a facility like this. I know nobody won't say kind
of a facility around their area, but would you rather
have that? Are people just lying on the sidewalk taking
a crap ernal sidewalk or peen on the sidewalk exposing
the sales of people who are walking by. We've got
to do something about it. We've got to have a
place to where we have that person who says I
have no place to go. We've tried all the other options.

(32:54):
We got to have a place, even though it's only
a couple hundred bids to say we're taking you here.
If you don't go here, we're putting in jail for
illegal camping.

Speaker 2 (33:02):
The thing that people will often point out about the
homelessness and a big city like Houston or in an
advanced society like the United States, is that it's a
choice and that look, I'm for the facility, sixteen million
dollars whatever, but we do need to put them somewhere.

Speaker 4 (33:19):
Do some of these people they just won't go? Is
that what the problem is? Yep, they don't want to
follow rules. If they don't want to follow rules, and
I don't go in there there. Most of them, many
of your homeless people, have mental issues and they don't
want to do what we're asking them to do. Some
of them are just stranded here. Some of them are
down there. Look, they were down here on a job.
They lost their job, their car broke down, They can't

(33:40):
go back. They got family and other cities. We had
a guy that was camping out by our building the
other day, and myself and another ulcer went down there.
He said, you know, you're not going to be camping here,
and he's like, well, I mean, I have no other
place to go.

Speaker 7 (33:51):
What am I going to do? I said, what's your story?
He had family up in like Ohio. He's like, I
love to get back up there. He said, I got
family up there that would probably let me stay with them,
but I just don't have the funds to get there.
We took him down to the bus station. We paid
for a one way ticket for him. We watched him
get on that bus. He left. It's problem for us,
problem solve for him because now he's gonna have family

(34:11):
to care for him elsewhere.

Speaker 2 (34:12):
Wow, that's awesome. I mean, on that note, some people
might think it sounds insensitive to bust all the homeless
people away to a different city, but I mean to
their home.

Speaker 7 (34:20):
You're busting them home to where people care about them
and will help them out. That's what you're doing. There's
nothing wrong with that. If you're sending someone to where
someone is going to care for them and help them out,
let them stay in their garage, apartment, whatever that may be,
because they have family living there. There's nothing wrong with that.
If you're a business around here and you got a
person and you communicate with him and all he needs

(34:40):
is to get somewhere, don't give him the money to
go get a bus ticket. You take him to the
bus station, you pay for his bus ticket, and once
you get on there and go. He's not going to
be homeless in another city. He's going back to where
someone is going to care for him. He just can't
afford it because he's lost his job here as car
broke down and has no means of transportation.

Speaker 2 (34:56):
All right, Well, that's a pretty good answer, I think,
and it certainly said despise me. All right, Ray, I
saved this question for last because I think it's the
most important. There's been a lot of discussion. We've been
getting a lot of emails. I've been reading a lot
of fiery, spicy tweets about a serial killer putting dead
bodies in the Bayou. Tell us what you know, Ray.

Speaker 7 (35:21):
Oh my goodness, Well, I can tell you that if
we had a serial killer that we knew about, we'd
be telling you that there's a serial killer out there
and to make sure that you're staying off the streets,
et cetera, et cetera. We have no serial killer that
I'm aware of. The Persons who are in the by you,
that's not an astronomical number of people for as money
byus as we have. Many of them are homeless. Many
of them have diseases and stuff that they end up dying,

(35:44):
and they end up either being pushed into BYU by
the other homeless people at the encampment, or they're baiting
in the BYEU and they pass away. But I can
tell you that if we have a homeless problem there,
I mean a serial killer in Houston, we must have
also one in the Harris County jail, because they have
hundreds of people who are who die in the jail
on a on you know, two or three year basis.

(36:05):
So there's not a serial killer out there. If there was,
we would be sounding the alarm. And there's a serial
killer out there, So you're telling those of the people
have not even been identified that we've recovered from them
because they're so decomposed. We can't even tell the race
on some people who we've recovered. But we found no
one in the Bayou with that I know of, with

(36:26):
gunshots in the head, with a rope around their neck
or anything like that that's going to lead us to
believe that we have a serial killer in Houston. The
mayor has tried to debunk this, but everybody wants to
keep bringing it up. And I guess it's really going
to be brought up now since Halloween is Friday.

Speaker 2 (36:41):
But Ray, isn't that exactly what a serial killer would say?

Speaker 7 (36:48):
Are you trying to sound'm a serial killer?

Speaker 5 (36:49):
No?

Speaker 2 (36:50):
No, No, I would never. I would never suggest that, Hey, Ray,
you guys are good guys. You're you're all good people
down there. I look, I think ninety nine point nine
nine percent of time when I read a news story
about the Houston police officers and what they're up to,
generally I approve of you guys. I'm grateful for the
hard work you guys do. If people want to support
you or the police union, what can they do.

Speaker 7 (37:13):
Well, there's only two groups that we ask you to support,
and it's the Assistant the Ulicer Foundation, which one hundred
percent of the funds go to injured officers. There's also
the Police three I should say now, there's also the
Houston Police Foundation and the one hundred Club. None of
those three groups will ever contact you. If you ever
get called from a police agency, from a police union,

(37:33):
or anybody else soliciting funds from you, hang up. They're
not cops. It's a big scam. Ninety seven percent of
that money is going to the person calling you, in
three percents going to the agency that's doing it. We
do not do phone solicitation. We do not encourage you
to give to anybody who does phone solicitation for police matters.
Police officers will not call you. Don't do it, don't give.

Speaker 2 (37:52):
Is that a pretty common thing people call around?

Speaker 7 (37:54):
I didn't even not absolutely. Almost all the police major
unions will call because listen to this. They look at
it like this. If I'm getting three percent of five
hundred thousand dollars that's brought in, that's money that I
wouldn't be getting otherwise, so why not go ahead and
take it. We don't take it because it's sleazy. We
used to do that way back when we would get
these these ladies coming in here with a you know,

(38:16):
a five dollars bill wanting to give it to us.
We don't want funds like that. We operate one hundred
percent by our members does so any police group that
calls you and it's not a cop, they may claim
their cop. But any police group that calls you so
listen to funds, hang up the phone. Don't give them
any money.

Speaker 2 (38:31):
My brother Ray Ray Hunt, the executive director of the
Houston Police Union, I thank you for your time today,
My man hey today ken to the rest of you
out there. Please be safe, drive safe. We need you
back here brain early tomorrow morning. For more of what
you bought a radio for, don't forget. You can get
holiday gifts at I LOVEWJ dot com. Check out our website,
download the smartphone app. Have a great afternoon, y'all. You

(38:55):
are listening to the Pursuit of Happiness radio.

Speaker 5 (39:04):
You are listening to the Pursuit of Happiness radio.

Speaker 2 (39:09):
Tell the government to kiss your ass when you listen
to the show,