Speaker 1: You know, police cost way more than you would have
Speaker 1: ever expected. Broadcasting from the Hip Hop Weekly Studios, I'd
Speaker 1: like to welcome you to another episode of Civic Cipher.
Speaker 1: I'm your host, Ramsey's job. He is Ramsey's job. I
Speaker 1: am about it bout it. We're listening to the Master
Speaker 1: Pier earlier so that people could know how I felt.
Speaker 2: Today, I'm also c Ward and you are listening to
Speaker 2: Civic Cipher.
Speaker 1: Indeed, and we got a lot for you to stick
Speaker 1: around for today, including that very subject. We're gonna be
Speaker 1: talking about exactly how much police cost cities, you know,
Speaker 1: especially the way that you know policing has done and
Speaker 1: regulated and policed. Dare I say at present, it's a
Speaker 1: lot more expensive than you may know. And often enough,
Speaker 1: actually one hundred percent of the time, it's you and me,
Speaker 1: the taxpayers that end up putting the bill when it
Speaker 1: comes to like police misconduct, police brutality, settling lawsuits, and
Speaker 1: even paying for police that are injured on the job.
Speaker 1: That all comes from us. And so we're going to
Speaker 1: talk about some of those things and how we ended
Speaker 1: up in the system in ways that we can kind
Speaker 1: of change how things work. Also, we're going to be
Speaker 1: talking about diversity, equity and inclusion DEI initiatives. You may
Speaker 1: or may not know, but recently DEI initiatives, a lot
Speaker 1: of which were started in twenty twenty during the you know,
Speaker 1: the mass protest over George Floyd. A lot of those
Speaker 1: initiatives have come under attack from the right, from conservatives,
Speaker 1: and there are a lot of people that say the
Speaker 1: DEI either doesn't work, or it is like reverse discrimination,
Speaker 1: or all these other narratives that people are trying to
Speaker 1: sew into the minds and the hearts of the American people.
Speaker 1: And so we figured we'd give you a little bit
Speaker 1: of substance and facts, because that's what we deal with
Speaker 1: on this show, so that you can push back if
Speaker 1: that ever makes its way, a conversation, ever wakes it
Speaker 1: makes its way to you. But first and foremost, we
Speaker 1: are going to start off, as always with some ebony excellence,
Speaker 1: shall we we shall So today's Ebony Excellence is sponsored
Speaker 1: by Major Threads for innovative fashionable sportswear. Check major threads
Speaker 1: dot com. And I'm going to be sharing from the Verge.
Speaker 1: Comedian and media mogul Byron Allen has reportedly made a
Speaker 1: ten billion dollar offer to acquire the ABC TV network,
Speaker 1: FX and national geographic cable channels and local stations from
Speaker 1: Walt Disney, according to a report from Bloomberg. The publication
Speaker 1: source claims that the offer is preliminary and could change,
Speaker 1: and that Allan would work with banks and private equity
Speaker 1: firms to finance the deal, which is standards. That's how
Speaker 1: these things tend to work. The offer for ABC isn't
Speaker 1: an unusual move for Allan. The comedian turn producer has
Speaker 1: invested one point three billion dollars over the last few
Speaker 1: years to add new assets to his media portfolio, including
Speaker 1: the Weather Channel and a string of local stations from
Speaker 1: Honolulu to Tucson. And the reason I wanted to talk
Speaker 1: about out Byron Allen and this maneuver as an example
Speaker 1: of EBNY excellence is because in my life, this sort
Speaker 1: of conversation even is something that is new. This is
Speaker 1: something that behind the scenes. There were a lot of
Speaker 1: people that worked toward in the eighties. You know some
Speaker 1: of the names, some of these people that fell from prominence.
Speaker 1: But we recognize on this show at least that anybody
Speaker 1: that's moving to create opportunities, that's trying to be a
Speaker 1: black voice in the room, someone that has some additional
Speaker 1: perspective and that has the corporate sophistication and the fiscal
Speaker 1: backing to make these things happen. It deserves a shout
Speaker 1: out from us. And so even though this hasn't happened,
Speaker 1: we applaud Byron Allen as an example of any excellence
Speaker 1: for at least getting this conversation started and get hope
Speaker 1: to all of us who would like to see that happen. Now,
Speaker 1: let's talk about how much the police cost. Okay, so
Speaker 1: let me give you a little bit of backstory. As
Speaker 1: you may or may not know, we share Q and
Speaker 1: I both share content all week long prior to recording
Speaker 1: the show. We share content, and then we have a
Speaker 1: meeting before we actually turn on the cameras and the
Speaker 1: lights and the microphones, and we decide what portion of
Speaker 1: the ninety percent that we're going to leave on the
Speaker 1: cutting room floor. There's a lot that we don't get
Speaker 1: to talk about. Yeah, yeah, sure, But recently this came
Speaker 1: from Q. He sent over a post from Sean King.
Speaker 1: Shawn King is an activist for those that don't know,
Speaker 1: who is very high profile activist, someone that we both
Speaker 1: look up to and who has supported us in our
Speaker 1: journey as well. But again someone who has he's he's
Speaker 1: worked in the activist space much longer than we have,
Speaker 1: and again someone that we look up to for a
Speaker 1: lot of what he a lot of his thinking and
Speaker 1: the way he processes information. So he put up a post,
Speaker 1: and his post said, over the past decade, these ten
Speaker 1: NYPD cops accounted for more than sixty eight million dollars
Speaker 1: in misconduct payouts. All of them are still on the
Speaker 1: public payroll. The post goes on to cite an article
Speaker 1: from The Gothamist and the article. The headline of the
Speaker 1: article reads, over a decade, ten NYPD officers accounted for
Speaker 1: sixty eight million dollars in police conduct payouts police misconduct payouts.
Speaker 1: I'm sorry report so first and foremost, I know that
Speaker 1: this is kind of illuminating specifically the New York Police Department,
Speaker 1: But the fact is that this is true largely around
Speaker 1: the country. It is very, very difficult for police to
Speaker 1: be held accountable for any sort of misconduct. It's very
Speaker 1: difficult to even bring about some sort of attention that
Speaker 1: gets a proper investigation. When it comes to police, they're
Speaker 1: very well fortified and insulated from consequences due to not
Speaker 1: just qualified immunity, which I do want to talk about
Speaker 1: a little bit more later on, but also police unions.
Speaker 1: I think at some point I think either we have
Speaker 1: the conversation or I read recently that the becoming a
Speaker 1: police officer is the safest job in the country. It's
Speaker 1: almost like impossible to get fired from it, and you
Speaker 1: probably have an easier time getting kicked out of the military.
Speaker 1: This allows for those bad apples. By the way, follow
Speaker 1: us on social media because we've been having a discourse
Speaker 1: about bad apples and good apples and what happens to
Speaker 1: the good apples. But this framework allows for those bad
Speaker 1: apples to not only cross the line and cost the
Speaker 1: taxpayers money, but also to become repeat offenders, as we'll
Speaker 1: shoot soon. As we'll soon see. So I know you
Speaker 1: wanted to share a couple of thoughts, So let's get
Speaker 1: let's get you away in here, and then we'll get
Speaker 1: back to the.
Speaker 2: The most difficult thing about uh, not just qualified immunity,
Speaker 2: but the very very strong union protection and insulation that
Speaker 2: officers have is the indoctrination of citizens. Right because the
Speaker 2: qualified immunity and protection from your unions typically keep them
Speaker 2: employed and keep them out of prison. But that implication
Speaker 2: of money that when they mess up, we pay for it,
Speaker 2: sesus don't even care. Like in any other space, we'd
Speaker 2: be outraged if our politicians, well our politicians do make
Speaker 2: mistakes that I know what you're trying to say, but
Speaker 2: it was presented the same way, especially the way the
Speaker 2: right would approach it. If a Democratic candidate or politician
Speaker 2: did something that cost taxpayers sixty eight million dollars, they
Speaker 2: destroy that that person with rousing support from their base.
Speaker 2: The indoctrination of the hero complex kind of that we've
Speaker 2: given to our law enforcement officers keeps us from even
Speaker 2: being upset by headlines like that, Like you think the
Speaker 2: people of New York would take to the streets as
Speaker 2: an angry mob to you know, protest and you know,
Speaker 2: storm the capitol quote unquote with regards to having to
Speaker 2: pick up the tab on the misconduct. But not only
Speaker 2: is no one outraged, not only are these ten officers
Speaker 2: so that part again, ten officers being responsible for sixty
Speaker 2: eight million, it's so much still employed, probably still in
Speaker 2: the same position. I'm guessing they probably didn't lose any rank,
Speaker 2: no salary decrease, slap on the wrist, get to say
Speaker 2: you're sorry, probably some type of paid leave, take take
Speaker 2: a couple of weeks off. Your checks will still be there,
Speaker 2: No no problem, just you know, collect yourself and we'll
Speaker 2: see you on the first.
Speaker 1: There's so many things built in.
Speaker 2: No public outrage, no accountability, and no loss in money
Speaker 2: by the officers.
Speaker 1: Why be a good apple?
Speaker 2: Why would you even consider it when you're the type
Speaker 2: of you know, the type of person that applies for
Speaker 2: a job that allows you to actually do anything you
Speaker 2: want unless it's like gross, you know, unavoidable, unhideable misconduct.
Speaker 2: You're kind of straight. It's really really we're really up
Speaker 2: against it with regards to that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, and I'm glad you mentioned, you know, if
Speaker 1: it's something that you can't hide, because often on this show,
Speaker 1: the stories that we tell are stories of police cover ups.
Speaker 1: You know, they work together in concert to cover up
Speaker 1: the offenses or transgressions of their fellow officers, and not
Speaker 1: just officers, medical examiners, heroametics.
Speaker 2: Like we've read stories where medical examiners have said a
Speaker 2: person that was beat to death die from a heart condition,
Speaker 2: Like absolutely, it's intense, man.
Speaker 1: So the crazy part about that is that the stories
Speaker 1: that do make their way to us are stories that
Speaker 1: the cover up wasn't effective, and so that leads us
Speaker 1: to often question how many cover ups never make their
Speaker 1: way to us, how many cover ups by the police
Speaker 1: are successful, and the.
Speaker 3: Crazy I guess a very high pursua because the data
Speaker 3: would support that they're investigating their own mis conduct the
Speaker 3: police police the police yet exactly.
Speaker 1: That'd be like me stealing something or doing something I
Speaker 1: don't know, pick cries and then something and then I'm
Speaker 1: responsible atting you down to find the thing. You still
Speaker 1: ye say hey there, yeah exactly, And then I watched
Speaker 1: me pat myself right, yeah, nothing, sorry exactly, and and
Speaker 1: if the logic holds up, you realize that that's asinine.
Speaker 1: But again, whether this was taking me was that? And
Speaker 1: we talked about this on the show before. The police
Speaker 1: are not quite like other industries or enterprises or operations.
Speaker 1: The police, how about this. We talk about capitalism a
Speaker 1: lot on this show, and for better or worse, we
Speaker 1: live in a capitalistic society. We often deal with the
Speaker 1: worst facets and aspects of capitalism on this show, but
Speaker 1: that's that's the society that we live in, and capitalism
Speaker 1: to be fair has its benefits. It does drive innovation,
Speaker 1: it does drive you know, not not unlike other things.
Speaker 1: But you know, to those that would applaud capitalism.
Speaker 2: I'd argue, however, there are other that innovation, and yeah,
Speaker 2: that all of that would exist even exactly.
Speaker 1: That's the difference. That's what I'm trying to say. But
Speaker 1: I'm not sure this. I don't want to focus on
Speaker 1: capitalism as much as I do the capitalistic forces that
Speaker 1: are at play in the majority of our society. If
Speaker 1: someone builds a laptop and you buy the laptop and
Speaker 1: it breaks and it's cheap and it doesn't work, then
Speaker 1: the next time you're not going to buy that laptop.
Speaker 1: You're going to buy a better laptop, right, And that
Speaker 1: incentive of you know, someone building a bad laptop incentivizes
Speaker 1: competition to build a better laptop so that consumers have
Speaker 1: that as an option. Right, And so there's a better
Speaker 1: alternative out there in that scenario, underneath the capitalistic model
Speaker 1: and under other models. But again, we live under capitalism,
Speaker 1: police are not subjected to being any better. I'll take
Speaker 1: it a step further, something that maybe lies a little
Speaker 1: bit or maybe it's a little bit different, you know,
Speaker 1: it's it's not so capitalistic as this laptop model. Let's
Speaker 1: try a hospital. If I'm sick and I go to
Speaker 1: Hospital A, and they treat me very bad, and they
Speaker 1: you know, they're they're not really giving me the right medicine.
Speaker 1: I have to go back a ton of times. And
Speaker 1: then a year later I get sick again, I go
Speaker 1: to Hospital B and they do much better, and I
Speaker 1: get to choose Hospital B into the future, well into
Speaker 1: the future, if I'm ever sick, if my children get sick,
Speaker 1: my family gets sick. Hospital A doesn't get as many patients,
Speaker 1: they don't get as much income coming in, and eventually
Speaker 1: they go the way of the Dodo right. Police again,
Speaker 1: are not subject to those type of forces. There's only
Speaker 1: one number you can call, and one to partment that
Speaker 1: will respond, provided that it's in a certain jurisdiction. And
Speaker 1: so again there's no incentive, there's no competition, there's nothing
Speaker 1: driving police to be any better. And because we've all
Speaker 1: been influenced, we meaning ramses included rams. This is the
Speaker 1: voice that you're hearing right now. Me I've been subjected
Speaker 1: to these forces too, in particular copaganda and for those
Speaker 1: that don't know, copaganda is the subtle influence of police
Speaker 1: stories over the years through entertainment, movies and media and
Speaker 1: so forth. The police are always the good guys, and
Speaker 1: unless it's Denzel for some reason, I don't want to
Speaker 1: make any connections there, but I'll leave you to do
Speaker 1: it for yourself. I'm talking about the movie Training Day.
Speaker 1: But for the most part, police are always the good
Speaker 1: guys and are always catching the bad guys, and so
Speaker 1: we've learned to trust the police. Well, that is something
Speaker 1: that was curated for the public, and it started with
Speaker 1: a show called Dragnet in Los Ange And in order
Speaker 1: to get those real police stories, the producers work with
Speaker 1: the police on the episodes, and the police wanted to
Speaker 1: make sure I think it was the Police Union or
Speaker 1: the Police Community Affairs off at, whatever it was, they
Speaker 1: worked with the producers of the show to make sure
Speaker 1: that the police were always presented in a positive light.
Speaker 1: So you never got stories of police cover ups, you
Speaker 1: never got stories of corruption, you never got that sort
Speaker 1: of stuff. You only got one side of it. So
Speaker 1: over decades, the public, myself included, became indoctrinated to assume
Speaker 1: that the police were always the good guy. And I
Speaker 1: don't want to be too harsh on police because I
Speaker 1: don't realize that for the most part, police are who
Speaker 1: you call, and for the most part, you know they
Speaker 1: do the job of police, I guess, but the error
Speaker 1: rate is enormous and disproportionately affects poor people, brown people,
Speaker 1: and black people. Hence this entire show that we do
Speaker 1: every single week now for years plural.
Speaker 2: The interesting thing is that even in you know, cases
Speaker 2: of media, television and film where there is a bad
Speaker 2: officer portrayed that in Doctor Nation kicks in, where we
Speaker 2: see that person as an outlier, we don't look at like, man,
Speaker 2: look how corrupt the police are. It's very, very unique
Speaker 2: to the individual that we're pointing to Ie Denzel and
Speaker 2: Training Day, and of course there have been other examples,
Speaker 2: but it's the bad actor or bad faith actors in
Speaker 2: those settings. The movie doesn't have to explain to us
Speaker 2: that's that that's unusual. Our minds automatically assume so, because
Speaker 2: as you said, the police are the good guys.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and you know there's something else here too. When
Speaker 1: we're talking about who's establishing sort of the the bar
Speaker 1: or police, often there is no governing body that has
Speaker 1: a bar that is sufficient and I say often because
Speaker 1: I'm trying to use loose language, but the truth is
Speaker 1: there is no governing body that establishes a bar that
Speaker 1: is sufficient for all people, like the FAA, for instance.
Speaker 1: If for the Federal Aviation Administration, if an airplane crashes,
Speaker 1: you know what, if a person dies while in the
Speaker 1: care of an airline, it's a five alarm fire, and
Speaker 1: they will push to ensure best they can that that
Speaker 1: never ever happens again. Okay, And there's no commission or
Speaker 1: oversight or investigative body like that for police in the
Speaker 1: United States because it's you know, based on jurisdiction and
Speaker 1: that sort of thing. There's no real federal oversight when
Speaker 1: it comes to this sort of stuff, no meaningful federal oversight,
Speaker 1: I should say. And so they're like, imagine if for
Speaker 1: every one hundred flights that took off, one flight crashed,
Speaker 1: that would be unacceptable and at some point at that rate,
Speaker 1: people would stop flying. Sure, that's way to look. You know,
Speaker 1: let's go for every thousand flights, ten thousand flights that
Speaker 1: took off, one would crash. How about every hundred thousand
Speaker 1: flights one would crash? Are we starting to border on
Speaker 1: police numbers? Or have we already surpassed it. I suspect
Speaker 1: we've surpassed it, you know, in terms of police misconduct
Speaker 1: where people are killed unnecessarily. Okay, now let's dial it back.
Speaker 1: Let's make it live in a more meaningful context for you,
Speaker 1: our listener. If that's unaccepted the ball, then we need
Speaker 1: to question why we are so comfortable accepting the reality
Speaker 1: when it comes to police officers, because they also deal
Speaker 1: in life and death situations, they are the ones often
Speaker 1: introducing the dangerous element to the equation. Then get scared
Speaker 1: when they are well protected, they have the weapon they have,
Speaker 1: you know, then say that they're scared. Yeah, and someone's
Speaker 1: running away. Going back and forth on this for years,
Speaker 1: they say they're scared, They're not really scared. I do
Speaker 1: not believe that these things are happening because these people
Speaker 1: are afraid or fear for their lives. You showed up
Speaker 1: and you drew your gun, and you shot someone who
Speaker 1: was running away.
Speaker 2: I'm very, very curious as to how you're the one
Speaker 2: that was afraid for your life in that scenario.
Speaker 1: I always think of a gentleman I believe his name was.
Speaker 1: I believe it was like Ray Schard, Brooks. I posted
Speaker 1: on Instagram it was smeears back but before we started
Speaker 1: doing the show. But I was still kind of very
Speaker 1: vocal about these sort of incidents where he was at
Speaker 1: a fast food restaurant in the middle of the night.
Speaker 1: He'd been drinking, pulled his car over to go to
Speaker 1: sleep in the parking lot. Police showed up, tried to
Speaker 1: investigate whatever. He was being cooperative. Then he's you know,
Speaker 1: the tables turned. They're like, oh, we're going to arrest you,
Speaker 1: and he starts freaking out. So he starts trying to
Speaker 1: run away. Again. Black people, as a rule, the police
Speaker 1: haven't been very kind to us as the people over
Speaker 1: the years. And you can look back, look at the
Speaker 1: police how they handled doctor King, look at how they
Speaker 1: sick the dogs on the protesters, the fire hoses and
Speaker 1: all that stuff. That that was when they started filming it.
Speaker 1: It's been that way ever since. The slave patrols. Okay, historically,
Speaker 1: we don't rock with the police because they have never
Speaker 1: treated us all that good. So Rayshard tries to run
Speaker 1: from the police. He's drunk, can't run, can't none of
Speaker 1: this sort of stuff. They shot him in his back
Speaker 1: on Boom Boom boom bom, as he's running away and
Speaker 1: he died. Okay, officers can say they were scared. They
Speaker 1: could say anything anything. They were scared for the people
Speaker 1: that were across the street. As if Rishard, a drunk
Speaker 1: man was sleep in his car is going to run
Speaker 1: across the street and attack someone else or whatever, you
Speaker 1: know what I mean. They always come up with some
Speaker 1: version of the story that paints them as the victim,
Speaker 1: and you know, the black man unarmed in a lot
Speaker 1: of instances as the aggressor. And then the lawsuits come
Speaker 1: and you end up paying for it. And so instead
Speaker 1: of the also just to keep their job, and that
Speaker 1: too and now being investigated, go on paid administratively. And
Speaker 1: so let me add to that. So Sean King for
Speaker 1: his article, he added this, He says, this is what
Speaker 1: we are up against. One cop had forty eight cases
Speaker 1: settled against him. That's in New York and is still
Speaker 1: on the force. One cop beat a child until he
Speaker 1: was paralyzed and it cost the city twelve million, and
Speaker 1: he kept his job. No job in the country is
Speaker 1: more secure than this one. And what other profession could
Speaker 1: any of this happen and you still keep your job.
Speaker 1: My own organization would fire me if I behaved like this.
Speaker 1: So let me just mention a couple of things that
Speaker 1: show how taxpayer resources are squandered with police. And then
Speaker 1: often you know, the police are shaping outcomes, life and
Speaker 1: death outcomes for people that, as we see, don't always
Speaker 1: deserve that. Task forces that don't produce results. We've talked
Speaker 1: about that sort of stuff, drug task force and they
Speaker 1: only get one gun off the street or one bag
Speaker 1: of drugs or whatever and then pose for a picture
Speaker 1: with it, right, increase police presence. That doesn't reduce crime rates.
Speaker 1: It does not do that. We've talked about that many
Speaker 1: times on the show. Spending money wisely for the community,
Speaker 1: for the benit of the community that impacts crime rates.
Speaker 1: Some of the solutions to consider though, is that police
Speaker 1: should carry insurance like doctors. If they become uninsurable because
Speaker 1: of lawsuits, they won't be on the force anymore. And
Speaker 1: ending qualified immunity that's a big one. And also just
Speaker 1: defunding the police because that will reallocating police resources branded others.
Speaker 1: Be Defunding the police will impact crime rates better than
Speaker 1: police will