Speaker 1: Welcome to another episode of Civic Csicher. I'm your host,
Speaker 1: Ramsey's job. I'm back with Ramses again. He calls me qwar.
Speaker 1: Stick around. We got another interesting show for you and
Speaker 1: a lot to let you know about. Of course, we
Speaker 1: are going to talk about a video that was recently
Speaker 1: released showing some more behind the scenes activities of the
Speaker 1: shooting in Vallde, Texas, and it's important for us to
Speaker 1: really talk about that. We've been I've certainly been wanting
Speaker 1: to talk about the role of police in society, and
Speaker 1: so we're gonna, you know, examine what the police did,
Speaker 1: at least in this one instance, and then kind of
Speaker 1: extrapolate and really derive some meaning from it. We of course,
Speaker 1: we all accept that was a failure on their part,
Speaker 1: but I think that a lot of times people overestimate
Speaker 1: the capability of police and assign police accolades that aren't
Speaker 1: always warranted. And so I'm not trying to take anything
Speaker 1: away from anybody, but I really think that it's obviously
Speaker 1: we need to be critical about who they are in
Speaker 1: the role they plan society and who they help.
Speaker 2: I think that I might assigned some of that to
Speaker 2: themselves that too public just blindly puts that on them.
Speaker 1: That's a jack that they choose to wear. And we're
Speaker 1: going to get to all of that. Also, we're going
Speaker 1: to talk about black on black crime, or rather the
Speaker 1: fact that black on black crime is not a thing.
Speaker 1: We've mentioned that on the show before, of course, but
Speaker 1: we'd love for you to stick around as we make
Speaker 1: the points so that you understand that it is, in
Speaker 1: fact a white racist supprime, racist, white supremacist conservative narrative.
Speaker 1: And then our way black history fact is the three
Speaker 1: fifths compromise. If you don't know what that is, be
Speaker 1: sure to stick around. We will let you know. But
Speaker 1: first and foremost, let's discuss some ebony excellence, shall we.
Speaker 1: I think we shall. Why don't you take this one too,
Speaker 1: because this is about some sports people and that's not
Speaker 1: my strong suit.
Speaker 2: Y'all know, Ramsys is the biggest sports fan in the world.
Speaker 2: He's undercover about it.
Speaker 1: I like the team with the with the winning touchdown ball.
Speaker 2: Wow, we'll talk about that later. Abny Excellence Today brought
Speaker 2: to you by Armadel Vodka via Sports Illustrated. Sandra Douglas
Speaker 2: Morgan makes history as Raiders team president. The Raiders announced
Speaker 2: the historic the historic hiring of Sandra Douglas Morgan to
Speaker 2: Service Team President on Thursday, making her the first black
Speaker 2: woman to assume this role in NFL history. A lot
Speaker 2: of people may not remember, but the Raiders as an
Speaker 2: organization are the first to do a lot with underrepresented
Speaker 2: groups and minorities. So shata the late great Al Davis
Speaker 2: and his son Mark for continuing to push that tradition forward.
Speaker 2: I'm always trying to make sure that we have seat
Speaker 2: at the table, Morgan said during her opening statement. In
Speaker 2: addition to her new job title, she both several professional
Speaker 2: ties with both the organization and the city. Over the
Speaker 2: last decade plus, Morgan has worked as director of External
Speaker 2: Affairs for AT and T, a city attorney for North
Speaker 2: Las Vegas, and litigation attorney for MGM International. Seeing a
Speaker 2: woman in this space is one thing, Singing a black
Speaker 2: woman in this space is something altogether bigger.
Speaker 1: Man. Black women are women winning right now as far
Speaker 1: as sports.
Speaker 2: And I think that women are starting to make it
Speaker 2: very very clear this is not them getting some type
Speaker 2: of favor done for them. These are capable, brilliant, good
Speaker 2: qualified women that are getting these jobs and really showing
Speaker 2: us that this should have never been a thing in
Speaker 2: the first place of it. So shout out to the
Speaker 2: Oakland Raiders and shout out again to Sondra Douglas Morgan
Speaker 2: from making history. Now, that was necessary. That pause was very,
Speaker 2: very necessary. Okay, I'm going to say something.
Speaker 1: Because I feel like in the t's and the intro
Speaker 1: for the show, you know, there's some there's a point
Speaker 1: that needs to be made. And then Q is going
Speaker 1: to do a lot more talking this time than I am.
Speaker 1: But I want to say something. If you think about
Speaker 1: what is the purpose of police, you know, perhaps what
Speaker 1: comes to mind is to protect people? Right, not not
Speaker 1: crazy by saying that, right, most people would perhaps agree
Speaker 1: with some variation of that, to protect people. And then
Speaker 1: if you add, you know, dive a little deeper, ask
Speaker 1: more questions, Well, why do people need to be protected?
Speaker 1: I think you might find that the answer is so
Speaker 1: people feel safe. Right, Because for most of us, we
Speaker 1: don't live in a war torn country the United States
Speaker 1: of America, and most of us have some mobility, you know,
Speaker 1: we don't encounter criminal activity on a regular basis. Statistically,
Speaker 1: a very small amount of the population actually commits an
Speaker 1: enormous amount of the crime.
Speaker 2: But wouldn't Some people say that that's because of the
Speaker 2: presence of police officer perhaps perhaps so, I wouldn't.
Speaker 1: I wouldn't take that from anyone. But what I'm trying
Speaker 1: to establish is that people might deduce, you know, if
Speaker 1: you dig deep enough, that police exist to make us
Speaker 1: feel safe by and large right now. Granted, there's certainly
Speaker 1: a they do have to fight crime and catch the
Speaker 1: bad guys, taking to jail, that sort of stuff, But
Speaker 1: for the most part, police make us feel safe.
Speaker 2: I think people would deduce that. Or do you think
Speaker 2: it's the slogan on the side of their cars that
Speaker 2: give that impression.
Speaker 1: I'm just I'm asking for a friend. Listen, man, you're
Speaker 1: not wrong, but let me continue, go and continue. Right, So,
Speaker 1: here's a question that I think is really important before
Speaker 1: we get into this topic, that we really need to discuss.
Speaker 1: Who are the people that need to feel safe in
Speaker 1: order for this narrative to continue to bolster the reputation
Speaker 1: and indeed the institution of policing in this country. Who
Speaker 1: are these people that need to feel safe? Is that everyone?
Speaker 1: And if so, does everyone feel safe by the presence
Speaker 1: of police or is that some people and do only
Speaker 1: some people feel a protected, insulated because of the presence
Speaker 1: of police. Right. So I'm asking these questions not because
Speaker 1: I want to feed you the answer, but I want
Speaker 1: us to think critically about what it is that police
Speaker 1: are supposed to be doing to create this reality for
Speaker 1: the rest of us. Yes, now, if you think that,
Speaker 1: like me, that police are here to protect us or
Speaker 1: otherwise make us feel protected, then it stands to reason
Speaker 1: that the population, if the police are supposed to protect
Speaker 1: the population of citizens, that the citizens would feel that way,
Speaker 1: and it should be assigned to all the citizens fairly
Speaker 1: and equally. I think that, you know, deductive reasoning would
Speaker 1: suggest that not all citizens feel that way. Particularly the
Speaker 1: more melanated you are, the less safe you feel in
Speaker 1: interacting with police, and the more likely you are to
Speaker 1: feel afraid of the police. I know that's certainly true
Speaker 1: for me. I've never really interacted with police and felt
Speaker 1: better about it. With that said, I do have some
Speaker 1: friends who are police officers, and I met them as
Speaker 1: police officers and we got to be cool because I
Speaker 1: recognize there are human beings underneath those uniforms, and once
Speaker 1: you get past all that cops, it's like if somebody
Speaker 1: comes to you and they're like dressed like Satan, you
Speaker 1: know what I mean. It's a costume and it freaks
Speaker 1: me out a little bit, But eventually I guess I
Speaker 1: could see there's a human in there. That's a weird comparison,
Speaker 1: but you know not, it's not. It's you know, people
Speaker 1: fear for their lives when you're interacting with the police,
Speaker 1: so it's not too weird right now.
Speaker 2: Some are some would be less afraid of the person
Speaker 2: in the Satan costume, and those would be people that
Speaker 2: Satan does good work for. I'd argue there's some Christians
Speaker 2: God Fair that look like you and I that would
Speaker 2: feel less threatened by the person in the Satan costume
Speaker 2: and by police.
Speaker 1: Officers, So I think that that needs to be established.
Speaker 1: The other thing is, again, if these police are heroes,
Speaker 1: they're they're supposed to come out and catch the bad guys.
Speaker 1: They're supposed to come out and save the day. They're
Speaker 1: supposed to make people feel safe, often displaying bravery, which
Speaker 1: to me by definition is setting aside my own uh security,
Speaker 1: uh and and safety to protect someone else. You know
Speaker 1: that that's bravery To me, it's it's not brave if
Speaker 1: I'm not going to you know, if I I'm not
Speaker 1: going to get harmed by doing someone a favor, that's
Speaker 1: called a favor. That's not bravery, you know what I mean.
Speaker 1: So bravery is like, you know, I'm not worried about
Speaker 1: my own wellbeing. I just needed to protect these folks.
Speaker 1: I need you to understand that this is kind of
Speaker 1: the narrative that we've given to police, and it's not
Speaker 1: always true, and that police are not always the good guys,
Speaker 1: as we've seen time and again. So I want to
Speaker 1: to describe a video or I guess we can read.
Speaker 1: We do have notes from USA today here, but you've
Speaker 1: seen this video. I have not seen the video. Our producer,
Speaker 1: Maggie b Noan has not seen the video. We have
Speaker 1: school aged children, and it wasn't really wasn't going to
Speaker 1: jump on that grenade. And you know, we do take
Speaker 1: turns with these videos, and Q went first and we
Speaker 1: decided to let him have that. So let's talk about
Speaker 1: this most recent video that showed the behind the scenes
Speaker 1: details of what happened in of All Day Texas.
Speaker 2: I'm going to read about the video, let's do it,
Speaker 2: and then I'm going to tell you how it made
Speaker 2: me feel for those who haven't watched it, for those
Speaker 2: who don't want to watch it because they're just.
Speaker 1: It's a lot to have these videos to watch so often.
Speaker 2: We've said multiple times on the air, it sucks to
Speaker 2: always have content for this type of show. Yeah, we've
Speaker 2: never showed up to the studio like, hey, what we're
Speaker 2: going to talk about today? You want to try to
Speaker 2: make something up? Or nothing in the world is great, man,
Speaker 2: it's rainbows and unicorn would be awesome. I wish. However,
Speaker 2: we have to pass up things because we don't have
Speaker 2: enough time or enough show to talk about all these
Speaker 2: types of instances. This comes from USA Today. The gunman
Speaker 2: walks into rob elementary school unimpeded. Moments after spraying bullets
Speaker 2: from his semi automatic rifle outside the school, and after
Speaker 2: desperate calls to nine one one from inside and outside
Speaker 2: of the school, he slows down to peek around the
Speaker 2: corner in a hallway and flips back his hair before
Speaker 2: proceeding towards classrooms one eleven and one twelve. Seconds later,
Speaker 2: a boy with neatly combed hair and glasses exits a
Speaker 2: bathroom to head back to his class. As he turns
Speaker 2: the corner, he notices the gunman standing by the classroom
Speaker 2: door and unloading a barrage. The boy turns and runs
Speaker 2: back into the bathroom. The gunman enters one of the classrooms,
Speaker 2: children scream, The gunfire continues, stops and then starts again,
Speaker 2: stops and then starts again, and again and again. It
Speaker 2: has almost three minutes before police officers arrive in the
Speaker 2: hallway and rush toward the classrooms, crouching down, then a
Speaker 2: burst of gunfire. One officer grabs the back of his head,
Speaker 2: then quickly retreats to the end of the hallway below
Speaker 2: a school surveillance camera. A seventy seven minute video recording
Speaker 2: captured from this vantage point, along with body camera footage
Speaker 2: from one of the responding officers, showed an excruciating detail
Speaker 2: what happened when dozens of local, state, and federal officers
Speaker 2: entered the school, heavily armed, clad in body armor, helmets,
Speaker 2: and protective shields. In the video, officers walk back and
Speaker 2: forth in the hallway, some leaving the frame then reappearing,
Speaker 2: others training their weapons toward the classroom, talking making phone calls,
Speaker 2: sending text messages, or looking at floor plans. No one
Speaker 2: enters or attempts to enter the classrooms, even after hearing
Speaker 2: at least four shots from classrooms. Forty five minutes after
Speaker 2: the police arrived and waited, they asked for keys for
Speaker 2: one of the classrooms. An investigators showed that this classroom
Speaker 2: was already unlocked, so they never even tried to enter.
Speaker 2: They brought tear gas and gas mask and carried a sledgehammer,
Speaker 2: but still they waited. Officers rushed into the classroom and
Speaker 2: killed the gunman an hour and fourteen minutes after they
Speaker 2: arrived on the scene. Nineteen graders and their two teachers
Speaker 2: died in the massacre on May twenty fourth, days before
Speaker 2: the end of the school year. That's days before no
Speaker 2: one would have even been in this building. The video
Speaker 2: tells the brutal story of how heavily armed officers failed
Speaker 2: to launch a cohesive and aggressive response to stop a
Speaker 2: shooter and save more children if possible. It reinforces the
Speaker 2: trauma for those parents, friends, and bystanders who were outside
Speaker 2: the school and pleaded with the police to do something,
Speaker 2: and for those survivors who quietly called nine to one
Speaker 2: one from inside the classroom begging for help. I'm not
Speaker 2: sure the description can make you as sick as watching
Speaker 2: the video does, but I hope that it at least
Speaker 2: illustrates what had to feel like forever for those kids
Speaker 2: and for their teachers as their heroes sat and observed
Speaker 2: and listened and watched and cowered and ran and hid.
Speaker 2: I very intentionally used the word coward because, by the
Speaker 2: nature of signing up for that job, covering your own
Speaker 2: backside and running and hiding should not be an option.
Speaker 2: As you listen to children be murdered.
Speaker 1: You can hear them screaming. In the video.
Speaker 2: You can hear the children screaming, you can hear the gunshots.
Speaker 2: And there are several versions of these videos that exist
Speaker 2: where they had to digitally digitally remove the children screaming
Speaker 2: because it was too traumatic for some people to watch.
Speaker 2: These are our heroes. Ramses pose the question to serve
Speaker 2: and protect who? And to our incredible producer, Maggie, I'm
Speaker 2: going to have you do a favor for me whenever
Speaker 2: you get some time. Does not have to be today,
Speaker 2: but just look up a photograph of to serve and
Speaker 2: protect on the side of those cars and see if
Speaker 2: there's an ellipsis at the end of that, if there's
Speaker 2: a period in a quotation, Mark or an ellipses, as
Speaker 2: it's left to our imagination who they are there to
Speaker 2: serve and protect, because one might argue the affluent, but
Speaker 2: if the affluent look like Ramses, not so much. One
Speaker 2: might argue the helpless, the children, the women, But we
Speaker 2: have a seventy seven minute video that shows that's not
Speaker 2: the case either. It would be strange to argue that
Speaker 2: is to protect the shooters, who are somehow safely apprehended
Speaker 2: in most of these cases, except when left with absolutely
Speaker 2: no choice. It is incredible the amount of outrage that
Speaker 2: you are met with when you say something as radical
Speaker 2: as defund the police, even in the wake of our
Speaker 2: children being murdered and those that murder them getting to safely,
Speaker 2: securely and with the full stomach see their day in court.
Speaker 1: So here's the point that I thought we would end
Speaker 1: up making. Obviously, the institution of policing was it was
Speaker 1: designed to protect wealth, to protect you know, folks with
Speaker 1: means and with resources from folks without right.
Speaker 2: Can you can you be clear about the haves and
Speaker 2: the have nots, and that historically speaking.
Speaker 1: White people in this country and have not would have
Speaker 1: been non white people in this country prior to that.
Speaker 1: You know, there were no police, there wasn't policing. There's
Speaker 1: like a constable or a share for you know, something
Speaker 1: like that, and then oftentimes that that person also was
Speaker 1: the judge and the jailer and you know, all this
Speaker 1: sort of stuff. But obviously we know that the term
Speaker 1: patrol comes from slave patrols, where they would you know,
Speaker 1: patrol slaves, and then the evolution of police and kind
Speaker 1: of stems from that. But I think that there's an
Speaker 1: argument that I had never considered before. Like I know that,
Speaker 1: let's just be real, a lot of times it's white
Speaker 1: folks of means that tend to get very chummy with
Speaker 1: police officers, and that's okay, that's how it was designed
Speaker 1: to be. So I'm not mad at I'm not mad
Speaker 1: at anybody. I'm saying doesn't work for everybody. Right. What
Speaker 1: I'm seeing now is that police, if we're asking who
Speaker 1: do they serve and protect, I'm starting to see a
Speaker 1: case being made for them serving and protecting themselves. Here's
Speaker 1: your other. Here's what I mean, Here's what I mean
Speaker 1: when I say that, and I'm telling you this, I
Speaker 1: get it. Man. It sounds like I beat up on
Speaker 1: the police, and it makes me sick to my stomach
Speaker 1: to keep having this conversation. We have to have the conversation.
Speaker 1: We have to be critical of these institutions so that
Speaker 1: they get better. You have to be critical of this
Speaker 1: institution of me and Q and Maggie so that we
Speaker 1: get better. We get it. We're still sharp and steal here,
Speaker 1: but we're doing our jobs. The reason I say that
Speaker 1: is because I feel if police and policing was as
Speaker 1: noble and as community oriented and as publicly serving as
Speaker 1: it postures itself as it prefers its narrative to be
Speaker 1: chronicled in these cities and in this country overall, if
Speaker 1: in fact this institution was as honorable as it purports
Speaker 1: itself to be, it would own its mistakes head high.
Speaker 1: This is a mistake that we've made. This is what
Speaker 1: we are going to do to do better, to do right.
Speaker 1: We want to be better. We are the noble, brave, strong,
Speaker 1: you know, we are the heroes. Right. You can look
Speaker 1: at another officer doing wrong, overstepping, you know, being you know,
Speaker 1: brutalizing someone, or you know, whatever, whatever the case, you
Speaker 1: can learn from officers elsewhere and decide I will not
Speaker 1: allow that to happen in my city on my watch, right,
Speaker 1: But what do we see is they just go to
Speaker 1: defend each other. And I'll be honest, I've seen a
Speaker 1: lot of police officers be very critical of this response
Speaker 1: in Valde, Texas. But I haven't seen as many police
Speaker 1: officers be critical of Jalen Ohio, Jalen Walker Walker, Jalen
Speaker 1: Walker right, shot sixty times, shot at ninety times, something
Speaker 1: like that, and he was unarmed at the time when
Speaker 1: he was shot. I haven't seen any of these folks
Speaker 1: take a step back to say, Okay, what are the
Speaker 1: social conditions that create the fear that we experience as
Speaker 1: officers against black and brown people? What have we been
Speaker 1: taught that makes us assume the worst? What might we
Speaker 1: be dealing with in terms of you know, people wouldn't
Speaker 1: call their own ailment to God complex, But you know,
Speaker 1: what is my place in society? Am I really here
Speaker 1: to help? Or am I really here to bully people around?
Speaker 1: Do I get mad when people don't want to do
Speaker 1: what I say when I say it? You know, like
Speaker 1: those like really be critical of themselves. And you know,
Speaker 1: when you start asking these really important nuts and bolts questions,
Speaker 1: I think you start to get to the essence of
Speaker 1: why a lot of us are very critical with police,
Speaker 1: saying why we can look at this failure, abject failure
Speaker 1: in Texas and say, listen, man, we didn't expect much,
Speaker 1: but y'all really, well, who's calling these people heroes?
Speaker 2: I think when he said fear, he meant hate. I
Speaker 2: think when he said fear of black and brown people,
Speaker 2: I think he meant hate for black and brown people.
Speaker 2: Sometimes I just mishear things.
Speaker 1: I know you might not be wrong. I recognize that
Speaker 1: there's a lot of white supremacists who you know, function
Speaker 1: in that capacity, in the police officer capacity, but there's
Speaker 1: also some people who just they don't they haven't come
Speaker 1: to terms with the fact that they're afraid, and so
Speaker 1: I try to be as generous as I can, but
Speaker 1: we're just going to have to leave that one right there.