Speaker 1: Keep riding with us as we continue to broadcast the
Speaker 1: balance and defend the discourse from the Hip Hop Weekly Studios.
Speaker 1: This is civic side for Iron, your host Rams's job.
Speaker 1: Big shout out to my man c Ward who is
Speaker 1: out of town for this taping, but have no fear,
Speaker 1: Doctor Camilla Westenberg is here to hold down the co
Speaker 1: captain chair for the evening, afternoon morning. Whatever time day
Speaker 1: you are consuming this media, be sure to stick around
Speaker 1: because we have a lot more in store for you.
Speaker 1: We are going to be discussing a one Johnny Hallman
Speaker 1: who lost his life at the hands of police in
Speaker 1: a very violent and unnecessary way, and we need to
Speaker 1: give you some insight into this particular incident because this
Speaker 1: is not white cop, black suspect. This is a black
Speaker 1: officer and there are some implications there we need to discuss.
Speaker 1: But before we get there, let's discuss Baba becoming a
Speaker 1: better ally Baba. Today's Baba is sponsored by Friends of
Speaker 1: the Movement. You can sign up for the free voter
Speaker 1: wallet from fotmglobal dot com to support black businesses and
Speaker 1: allied businesses as well as make an impact with your spending. Again,
Speaker 1: that is Fotmglobal dot com so today reading that Megan
Speaker 1: Butten's family was considering moving if their Pennsylvania school district
Speaker 1: didn't change courses from NPR. By the way, she normally
Speaker 1: isn't politically active, she said, but felt compelled to volunteer
Speaker 1: when a slate of Democrats launched bids to take back
Speaker 1: their school board in Central Bucks school district, just north
Speaker 1: of Philadelphia. Central Bucks is well known both statewide and
Speaker 1: nationally for heated board meetings over masks and pride flags,
Speaker 1: policies manning certain books, and directives to not use students
Speaker 1: preferred names and pronouns. Accusations of discrimination against LGBTQ students
Speaker 1: have also led to an ongoing investigation by the US
Speaker 1: Department of Education. Quote. I couldn't have my kids in
Speaker 1: a school district where these kinds of things were happening,
Speaker 1: Buddon said. Standing in the Bucks County Democratic headquarters on
Speaker 1: election night, Button saab when the results rolled in Democrats
Speaker 1: took all five seats up for election, the room erupted
Speaker 1: in cheers, Friends, neighbors, and strangers hugged. Quote. It was
Speaker 1: very moving and very joyous feeling from everyone. Button recalled
Speaker 1: in a sense of relief, if there was a question
Speaker 1: about whether the conservative led school boards policies reflected the
Speaker 1: will of the local community, Tuesday's election may have provided
Speaker 1: an answer. And so you know, we often ask for
Speaker 1: you to use these examples to model your life after
Speaker 1: or to take action if there was a fund rating
Speaker 1: initiative or any fund raising initiative or anything like that.
Speaker 1: And the highest good I believe that any of us
Speaker 1: can do is whole elected office. And of course Meghan
Speaker 1: Button is an example of that, So shout out to her. Okay,
Speaker 1: So next topic, how are you feeling good? Okay, I'm good.
Speaker 1: I appreciate your getting here.
Speaker 2: Where was Bucks School in Where was it located? Again?
Speaker 1: That was Central Books in Philadelphia?
Speaker 2: Really okay.
Speaker 1: So I'm gonna tell you a little bit about a
Speaker 1: video that we are going to play a little bit later.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna read a little bit, but I want you
Speaker 1: to be be caught up to speed. Yeah, what we're
Speaker 1: going to witness is I'm going to play the audio.
Speaker 1: But the audio by itself is not very clear because
Speaker 1: the speaking voice and the cadence and the accent of
Speaker 1: mister Johnny Hallman, who is now deceased, is not He
Speaker 1: does not speak with what we in the radio industry
Speaker 1: called non regional viction. It's a very thick Southern accent,
Speaker 1: and he speaks very quickly, so you might not be
Speaker 1: able to make out what he's saying, but hopefully you'd
Speaker 1: be able to feel his energy when we get there.
Speaker 1: I'm going to share a bit. This comes from NBC News.
Speaker 1: The daughter of Johnny Hallman said she became physically ill
Speaker 1: watching body camera footage of the sixty two year old
Speaker 1: church deacon screaming out for help and repeatedly saying he
Speaker 1: cannot breathe during a fatal encounter with an Atlanta police officer.
Speaker 1: Halman died on August tenth after former officer Kevin sorry
Speaker 1: Kieran Kimberrel used a stun gun on him and then
Speaker 1: handcuffed him following a minor traffic incident. Died after a
Speaker 1: minor traffic incident. And when we talk about police over
Speaker 1: and you know, this is a show that's very critical
Speaker 1: of the way that policing as an institution is done.
Speaker 1: I know individual officers, police officers kind people, good people,
Speaker 1: well intentioned, well meaning people who are part of a
Speaker 1: system that desperately needs reform. Okay, I want to make
Speaker 1: sure that I say that. Okay. So yeah, Kimber was
Speaker 1: fired by the Atlanta Police Department because he did not
Speaker 1: follow standard operating procedures, police said Tuesday.
Speaker 2: Okay.
Speaker 1: Arntra Fallen's, her family, and their attorney met with the
Speaker 1: city last month to view footage of the incident. Again,
Speaker 1: this is the daughter of the deceased Johnny Hallman quote.
Speaker 1: It was very heartbreaking, Follen said Wednesday. Her father had
Speaker 1: called her during the encounter. I'm not going to play
Speaker 1: the whole video, but there is a moment when he's
Speaker 1: trying to make a phone call. I think there was
Speaker 1: a couple of moments actually, but toward the end, the
Speaker 1: officers says, sign this ticket, and he's still he's older man.
Speaker 1: He's trying to work his phone, and the officer becomes impatient.
Speaker 1: Mister Hallman says, I'm going to sign the ticket, and
Speaker 1: the officer by then is very frustrated and starts to
Speaker 1: grab him to place him under arrest, and he says, wait,
Speaker 1: I said I'd sign the ticket, you know, And then
Speaker 1: by then the officer has escalated and obviously he lost
Speaker 1: his life. Okay, but he did call his daughter during
Speaker 1: the encounter. So you won't be able to see that
Speaker 1: if you're listening to this on the audio. Relatives said
Speaker 1: that Hallman was driving home from Bible study wow at
Speaker 1: a daughter's house and taking dinner to his wife when
Speaker 1: he was involved in a car accident. He called police
Speaker 1: to the scene, the family said. The Atlanta Police Department
Speaker 1: said in its initial statement that Hallman became quote agitated
Speaker 1: and uncooperative when the officer found him to be the
Speaker 1: at fault driver and issued him a citation. Authorities said
Speaker 1: he quote resisted as the officer attempted to take him
Speaker 1: into custody, and a struggle ensued. After several minutes of struggling,
Speaker 1: the officer used his stun gun and in place Hallman
Speaker 1: in handcuffs. According to the police, it was then that
Speaker 1: the officer realized that Hallmand was unresponsive and requested at ems.
Speaker 1: So again, I want you to know that the officer
Speaker 1: and this was black, and of course Johnny Hallman was
Speaker 1: black as well, so we're not Sometimes we get a
Speaker 1: chance to illustrate how the system is and there's a
Speaker 1: component of racism often in the system and in the
Speaker 1: officer as well. But even without that component of racism,
Speaker 1: a system will still compel you to engage in racist behaviors,
Speaker 1: to mistreat people. Remember once, once upon a time, slavery
Speaker 1: was legal in this country, and freed black people could
Speaker 1: own slaves too, and they did because that was the
Speaker 1: economic model. So what we're going to look at is
Speaker 1: something that is not dissimilar to that a black officer
Speaker 1: engaged in what we we believe to be a white
Speaker 1: supremacist institution. I believe that it's more than a belief,
Speaker 1: that is an objective fact. It was founded as slave patrol,
Speaker 1: so it is everyday life, right. So let's get to
Speaker 1: this video and then we will talk about it.
Speaker 2: Uh.
Speaker 1: And I feel compelled to mention that this comes from
Speaker 1: the Daily Mail. It has been sort of edited a bit,
Speaker 1: so you'll hear music and things like that. That's not
Speaker 1: my doing. But for the most part of all the videos,
Speaker 1: this one it seems to be the most intact and
Speaker 1: appropriate for today's Today's show. So here we go.
Speaker 3: All right, I did find you a fault.
Speaker 4: This started off as a simple conversation which ended up
Speaker 4: with tragic consequences.
Speaker 3: My life with Green. You cut your term short.
Speaker 1: No, No, I've done him.
Speaker 3: What you kept telling me at me it was my poe.
Speaker 2: Why are you at me?
Speaker 3: I'm gonna sna tell you it was not my fuck.
Speaker 4: He's praying into my trunk. You ain't right right here.
Speaker 4: Sixty two year old church deacon Johnny Hallman got into
Speaker 4: an altercation with a police officer in Atlanta after a
Speaker 4: vehicle went into his pickup truck.
Speaker 3: I told you once, bore your voice. You're not you
Speaker 3: understand what I'm telling you. Now, you're gonna sign this
Speaker 3: ticket and I'm gonna take you to jail. I suggested
Speaker 3: you signed the ticket, then you could talk to my
Speaker 3: sergeant or whoever you want to talk to, your frieze,
Speaker 3: your wife. I don't care, but you're gonna sign it
Speaker 3: right here.
Speaker 2: Here you go.
Speaker 4: When Harman refuses to sign a citation, the situation quickly escalates.
Speaker 3: So I'm gonna ask you one more time.
Speaker 4: Sign the ticket.
Speaker 3: Sign the ticket, Sign the ticket from I'm not I'm.
Speaker 1: Can crazy, I'm all right, all right. I know you
Speaker 1: can't see what's going on, but basically, he's telling the
Speaker 1: officer that he needs to know whether or not signing
Speaker 1: this is an admission of guilt. The officer seems to
Speaker 1: be frustrated. We can't see the officer, of course, and
Speaker 1: then uh, there's they're now struggling. He's saying that he's
Speaker 1: hurting the officers, hurting his arm. That's what we're witnessing
Speaker 1: right now.
Speaker 4: Sadly, Hallman was pronounced dead at the hospital after the incident,
Speaker 4: which took place on August tenth.
Speaker 1: Okay, so let's discuss. So one of the things that
Speaker 1: you may not have heard from the audio is him saying,
Speaker 1: I'm going to sign the ticket.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Another thing that he said was I'm an old man,
Speaker 1: and I believe that he said that in a way
Speaker 1: to kind of de escalate the situation. In other words,
Speaker 1: I mean you no harm. Another thing that he said. Again,
Speaker 1: I have captions here, so I can read what he's
Speaker 1: saying in the studio, but if you're just listening to
Speaker 1: the audio, you may not know. Part of the reason
Speaker 1: why he was hesitating when it came to signing the
Speaker 1: ticket is because he was worried that it might be
Speaker 1: an admission of guilt and it obviously felt like he
Speaker 1: wasn't at fault, and the officer did not respond to
Speaker 1: that inquiry. In other words, a lot of times you
Speaker 1: might receive a ticket and an officer will say, this
Speaker 1: is not an admission of guilt or innocence. This is
Speaker 1: simply a signing to say that you've received the ticket.
Speaker 1: You can plead whether or not you're a guilty or
Speaker 1: innocent at court. And so he was asking that question
Speaker 1: when the officer started to grab him. He was saying,
Speaker 1: I'm an old man, I'm hurting it, I can't breathe,
Speaker 1: all these things. Of course, he died there on the sidewalk.
Speaker 1: So I wanted to bring you up to speed. Of course,
Speaker 1: I'd like for you to jump in here your thoughts,
Speaker 1: Doctor Westenberg.
Speaker 2: Well, actually, I go back to the very beginning, to
Speaker 2: the reporting of the incident and the newscaster, if I
Speaker 2: heard it correctly, it says that Johnny Holdemann got into
Speaker 2: an altercation with the police officer. Now, or perhaps the
Speaker 2: police officer got into an altercation with him.
Speaker 1: That's what it seems like that.
Speaker 2: Okay, So I say, first, it's for me somewhat tainted
Speaker 2: because a decision has been made by the presentation of
Speaker 2: the story by the media to that audience. The other
Speaker 2: thing that I found really interesting is that I heard
Speaker 2: no inquiry about where you're coming from.
Speaker 1: What are you doing.
Speaker 2: Let's get this into perspective. What's the big picture? And
Speaker 2: he said, he hit me. And I didn't see any
Speaker 2: in that where attention was given to let's look at this.
Speaker 2: I don't know if he pointed to the back of
Speaker 2: his car or to the side of his car. I
Speaker 2: did not hear any verbiage that said anything about where
Speaker 2: that hitting, where the contact took place. Okay, well, and
Speaker 2: he did not give attention to what he said. He said,
Speaker 2: he hit me, so let's look at that situation, and
Speaker 2: where is the other let's walk over. I don't see
Speaker 2: any investigation of what actually occurred. And then he called
Speaker 2: his audience reasonable that someone would want to let a
Speaker 2: family member know what's taking place. That's that's just simply
Speaker 2: not unusual. And he said it was going to sign it.
Speaker 2: He said, I'm going to sign it. Give him a moment,
Speaker 2: just you are first, Evidently an incident has occurred between
Speaker 2: two cars that within itself was a little unst I
Speaker 2: should have been on both parts recognize that. Okay, you
Speaker 2: have to give a person time to settle down, come
Speaker 2: to grips with it, and not rush them through the process.
Speaker 2: This gentleman may not have ever been in a situation
Speaker 2: before with police. So look, he's a deacon, he was
Speaker 2: he had been to Bible study. Okay, you know, did
Speaker 2: the policeman where are you're coming from? Where have you been?
Speaker 1: You know?
Speaker 2: He just went bam right into the situation and started yeah,
Speaker 2: and and and here you have this person with a
Speaker 2: personality and a persona, and he knows who he is
Speaker 2: as an individual, and the policeman does not take any
Speaker 2: time in the dialogue to deal with that, or even
Speaker 2: when he said he hit me, to investigate that, you
Speaker 2: know what you were just talking about, explaining that it
Speaker 2: doesn't it doesn't indicate guilt or not to have said
Speaker 2: that would have been delightful to show him, to have
Speaker 2: shared that with him. Sir, I just want to let
Speaker 2: you know that this is just a process that we
Speaker 2: have to go through, Okay, but instead you're going and
Speaker 2: a stun gun That simply just does not make sense.
Speaker 1: You know, there's something else here When we're looking at
Speaker 1: this story, and indeed the story from the first part
Speaker 1: of the show, what we have are traumatic events that officers,
Speaker 1: if they're not trained to deal with them, they certainly
Speaker 1: there's a there's a prevalence of them because they are
Speaker 1: the ones that are responding to traumatic event, so would
Speaker 1: reasonably assume that they could deal with trauma better than
Speaker 1: the average person. Tense tense moments, I'll say in the
Speaker 1: first example from the first part of the show, where
Speaker 1: the woman was handcuff naked on her her in her
Speaker 1: living room as a result of a no knock warrant
Speaker 1: who lived alone, older black woman, she kept begging to
Speaker 1: call somebody since I feel uncomfortable, And of course then
Speaker 1: we see mister Johnny Hallman pull out his phone to
Speaker 1: make a call as well. And my guess is that
Speaker 1: if I was in a similar situation, I would want
Speaker 1: someone to know too. I'm sure that that sentiment is
Speaker 1: shares particularly among black people, because situations can get very
Speaker 1: dangerous very quickly. Tense situations, i would argue, are more
Speaker 1: tense if you are black with respect to police interactions. Right,
Speaker 1: And so, what we see when we talk about systemic elements,
Speaker 1: systemic oppression, systemic entities in our society. Systems have a
Speaker 1: tendency to treat things like one size fits all. No
Speaker 1: knock warrants get the bad guys completely ignoring the fact
Speaker 1: that we're gonna kill a ton of people that have
Speaker 1: nothing to do with their names out on the warran.
Speaker 1: They don't have anything to do with it. We're gonna
Speaker 1: make mistakes or whatever. The collateral damage is just collateral damage.
Speaker 1: And because officers are often empowered by communities that do
Speaker 1: not feel that additional tension, they're they're blindly supported the
Speaker 1: blue flag, that flag, that abomination of the American flag
Speaker 1: where it's black and white and then there's a blue strip.
Speaker 1: There are people out there that just thinks that police
Speaker 1: can do no wrong. And you know, we talk about
Speaker 1: it on social media time and again that systems and
Speaker 1: indeed individual actors create trauma that ripples through the black community.
Speaker 1: I feel like you want to jump in police.
Speaker 2: Well, you know, I would just say it's human Well,
Speaker 2: I won't say it's human nature, but it often occurs
Speaker 2: that whenever a person it's fortunate enough to have a
Speaker 2: superior role over other individuals oftentimes goes to the head.
Speaker 2: This is outside of being in the policeman are in
Speaker 2: that field and that particular area is that the hierarchy
Speaker 2: of it. I mean, whether it's on the job, wherever
Speaker 2: you might be, if someone an organization, a committee, in
Speaker 2: any of those instances where you are over sometimes you
Speaker 2: have the capacity to assume that role in an exaggerated fashion.
Speaker 1: Sure, exactly, that's it.
Speaker 2: Well, a police officer, that is the ultimate. You are
Speaker 2: given the car, the lights to stop you, and everything right,
Speaker 2: and that's something that has to be realized, which means
Speaker 2: means that a concerted effort should be made. I mean,
Speaker 2: just think you're driving down the road and you see
Speaker 2: a light coming behind you. The heart starts pounding, start
Speaker 2: looking doing everything? Am I doing everything right?
Speaker 4: You know?
Speaker 1: What have I done?
Speaker 2: And it passes you.
Speaker 1: And go and you go yeah. And I want for
Speaker 1: our listeners real quick, I want to say for our listeners,
Speaker 1: I know that everybody experiences this, but again, imagine how
Speaker 1: much more intense that feels when you're black. Again, briefly,
Speaker 1: before we close, I want to share this. I come
Speaker 1: from Compton, California. My first years were in a place
Speaker 1: in the eighties, of course, where there was drugs and
Speaker 1: all kind of stuff, right, a very scary place. The
Speaker 1: scariest of all was the police. The scariest of all,
Speaker 1: and that has been trap. I've seen police hurt people
Speaker 1: like unnecessarily so remember of people were talking about how
Speaker 1: bad the lapd were that's a real thing. I saw
Speaker 1: it had with these eyes as a child, and so
Speaker 1: that trauma, that fear of police and the police being
Speaker 1: empowered to do whatever they want without having to deal
Speaker 1: with that kind of contributes to this weird predicament that
Speaker 1: we find ourselves in. But let's leave it right there.
Speaker 1: As always, we never have enough time with this show,
Speaker 1: but please do us a favor. Check our social media
Speaker 1: at Civic Cipher. What you'll find is both of these
Speaker 1: videos so you can see for yourself. Cib I c
Speaker 1: c I P H E R. I of course would
Speaker 1: like to thank you doctor Westernberg for coming, as always.
Speaker 2: In It's a wonderful, wonderful show.
Speaker 1: Sure, sure, and I appreciate you having these conversations with
Speaker 1: me and having these conversations with me since I was
Speaker 1: nineteen years old in college.
Speaker 3: I am.
Speaker 1: Glad to have been raised by you in this tradition.
Speaker 1: Do us a favor. Please hit the website Civiccipher dot
Speaker 1: com download this in any previous episodes. Again, as I mentioned,
Speaker 1: follow us on social media. You can hit me at
Speaker 1: Ramsey's jock qs I am qboard. He will be next
Speaker 1: back next week and until then, peace,