Speaker 1: Keep on riding with it, says. We continue to broadcast
Speaker 1: the balance and defend the discourse from the Hip Hop
Speaker 1: Weekly Studios. Welcome back to Civic Cipher. I'm your host,
Speaker 1: Rams's job.
Speaker 2: He is Ramsey's job. I am q Ward. You are
Speaker 2: tuned into Civic Scipher and thank you for that. We
Speaker 2: have some more show in store for you, and we
Speaker 2: like you to stick around. We are going to be
Speaker 2: talking about.
Speaker 1: Another unfortunate police shooting event, this time coming out of
Speaker 1: Las Vegas. You may have seen the video online. Brandon
Speaker 1: Durham was shot to death by Las Vegas Metro Police
Speaker 1: Department after calling them to help him with an intruder
Speaker 1: in his home and the intruder was taken into custody
Speaker 1: alive and well. And we and many people online, of course,
Speaker 1: view that as problematic. So reverting to type, we will
Speaker 1: be discussing that and brace yourself because it is. This
Speaker 1: is the least fun part of the job. But we
Speaker 1: think you're in good hands before we get there, though,
Speaker 1: So it's time to discuss Baba becoming a better ally Bob.
Speaker 1: On today's Boba. Sponsored by Friends of the Movement, you
Speaker 1: can sign up for the free Voter Willer from fotmglobal
Speaker 1: dot com to support black businesses and allied businesses as
Speaker 1: well as make an impact with your spending. Again, that's
Speaker 1: Fotmglobal dot com. This comes from NARF dot org. The
Speaker 1: Native American Rights Fund NARF holds governments accountable. They fight
Speaker 1: to protect Native American rights, resources, and lifeways through litigation,
Speaker 1: legal advocacy, and expertise. NRF is a nonprofit organization governed
Speaker 1: by a board of directors composed of thirteen Native Americans
Speaker 1: from tribes throughout the country and with a variety of
Speaker 1: expertise in Native American matters. Early in NARF's existence, these
Speaker 1: directors identified five priority areas for the organization. Preserve tribal existence,
Speaker 1: protect tribal natural resources, promote Native American human rights, hold
Speaker 1: governments accountable to Native Americans, and develop Indian law and
Speaker 1: educate the public about Indian rights laws and issues. Since
Speaker 1: nineteen seventy, NARF has successfully asserted and defended some of
Speaker 1: the most important rights of Native Americans and tribes and
Speaker 1: hundreds of major cases in critical areas such as tribal sovereignty,
Speaker 1: treaty rights, natural resource protection, voting rights, and Indian education.
Speaker 1: NARF continues to engage in high impact legal actions and
Speaker 1: projects that move us toward a world where Native Americans
Speaker 1: thrive as their right as sorry as the thrive as
Speaker 1: their rights, resources and lifeways are intact and protected. Promises
Speaker 1: made to them are upheld, and they exercise their sovereign
Speaker 1: right to manage their own affairs, while tribes exercise their
Speaker 1: sovereign right to manage their own affairs as governments. Again,
Speaker 1: I want to share this website with you. It's na
Speaker 1: RF dot org and they're doing really great work. If
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Speaker 1: consider them, and if not, there's other ways that you
Speaker 1: can get behind what they're doing. Again, that's NARF dot org.
Speaker 1: All right. The police shooting death of Brandon Durham. I
Speaker 1: remember when I saw this video online and I sent
Speaker 1: it to you.
Speaker 3: Q, and.
Speaker 1: I wanted you to know about it and read sort
Speaker 1: of what happens so that you'd be familiar with it.
Speaker 1: But I told you don't watch it, and I have not,
Speaker 1: okay for those that don't know. In order to protect
Speaker 1: our own mental health and not be overwhelmed with harm
Speaker 1: done to black and brown bodies, we often take turns
Speaker 1: consuming traumatic videos and then we lean on the other
Speaker 1: to help us get through it. But we don't want
Speaker 1: to become overwhelmed. So this one was mine. I actually
Speaker 1: saw this video, a very quick video, and I'm going
Speaker 1: to share a little bit from the associated press and
Speaker 1: then share with you what I saw. So again from
Speaker 1: the AP, A Las Vegas man called for police help
Speaker 1: during a home invasion before an officer fatally shot him,
Speaker 1: according to authorities and nine one one calls, Brandon Durham
Speaker 1: called nine early November twelfth, saying he was hiding with
Speaker 1: his fifteen year old daughter after someone broke into his home.
Speaker 1: Assistant Sheriff Dorry Korn said Durham is heard pleading with
Speaker 1: the dispatcher to send someone asap and audio recordings obtained
Speaker 1: this week by k VVU TV in Las Vegas. Koran
Speaker 1: identified the officer who shot Durham as Alexander Bookman, twenty six.
Speaker 1: Bookman was one of the first officers to arrive and
Speaker 1: kicked in the front door. Koran said that the officer
Speaker 1: found Durham in a hallway struggling over a knife with
Speaker 1: the intruder, and a short clip of body camera video
Speaker 1: released by the police, the officer yells for them to
Speaker 1: drop the knife, then fires one round. Durham and the
Speaker 1: intruder both fall to the floor. Then the officer moves
Speaker 1: closer and fires five more rounds while standing over them.
Speaker 1: The video shows Durham, forty three, died in his home.
Speaker 1: Corn said Durham and the intruder knew each other. The
Speaker 1: intruder was arrested in charge with home invasion and assault.
Speaker 1: David Roger, general counsel for the union representing Las Vegas
Speaker 1: police officer, said Saturday in a statement that Bookman was
Speaker 1: not at fault. Quote. While mister Durham's death is tragic,
Speaker 1: Officer Bookman was doing his job and did not intend
Speaker 1: to commit a crime. The person responsible for mister Durham's
Speaker 1: death is in custody, he said. Durham's family once Bookman
Speaker 1: fired and charged in the shooting. Quote, Mister Durham was
Speaker 1: not threatening anyone. There is no justification for the use
Speaker 1: of force against mister Durham. Lee Merit, a civil rights
Speaker 1: attorney representing the family, said at a news conference. The
Speaker 1: Las Vegas Review Journal reported. Clark County District Attorney Steve
Speaker 1: Wilson said in a statement that it was too early
Speaker 1: in the investigation for him to comment on possible charges.
Speaker 1: Bookman is on paid leave while the Las Vegas Metropolitan
Speaker 1: Police Department investigates. Oh yeah, I saw the video and
Speaker 1: you know, as the article mentions, they're both standing in
Speaker 1: the hallway. Brandon Durham is shirtless and he's you know,
Speaker 1: holding the intruder in the hallway, and the officer comes
Speaker 1: in and maybe one second passes and Durham gets shot.
Speaker 1: The man with no shirt on. You know, it's his house.
Speaker 1: He's the one that called clearly. He gets shot, falls
Speaker 1: to the floor, the officer keeps shooting him, and he dies.
Speaker 3: He dies right there.
Speaker 1: The intruder, of course, as I mentioned, is taken into custody.
Speaker 1: And I try my best to look at these as
Speaker 1: on a case by case base, even though I know
Speaker 1: that this is systemic, just because I know what the
Speaker 1: opposition might say, I know what people who have critical
Speaker 1: minds might say. Okay, I also try to put myself
Speaker 1: in a position like that where I have to make
Speaker 1: a split second decision, like what is it Is it
Speaker 1: easy to get something like that wrong when your emotions
Speaker 1: are heightened, when you're afraid, Because I do imagine that
Speaker 1: police officers, even though they claim to be brave, are
Speaker 1: just as terrified, probably more terrified than the average person,
Speaker 1: because they're constantly met with all kinds of stuff. Okay,
Speaker 1: this is me trying to extend as much grace as
Speaker 1: I can, but even here, all of that breaks down
Speaker 1: for me. And the reason for that is because I've
Speaker 1: seen executions before. You know, when you shoot somebody and
Speaker 1: they drop and then you walk up on them and
Speaker 1: empty the clip into them. You know, I come from
Speaker 1: a very bad place where things like that happened, you know,
Speaker 1: and you know, one shot might have been an oops,
Speaker 1: you know, but the rest of these shots, they don't
Speaker 1: feel like an oops. When we're talking about you know,
Speaker 1: Sonya Massey is another person that called the police into
Speaker 1: her home, you know, and I made the case when
Speaker 1: we talked about her that, you know, to to the
Speaker 1: man with a hammer, all the world is a nail or.
Speaker 1: You know. Police culture kind of encourages this overly violent
Speaker 1: reaction oftentimes when black people are at the center of
Speaker 1: the storyline. And you know, now we have another example
Speaker 1: of a person and these aren't the only two we've
Speaker 1: covered that We've covered stuff like this for many years,
Speaker 1: but two recent enough examples where they check more or
Speaker 1: less the same boxes. A black person calls the police
Speaker 1: because there's an intruder at their home, The police show
Speaker 1: up and in their life, and you know, people wonder,
Speaker 1: why do black people not trust the police? Why do
Speaker 1: black people not want to cooperate or talk to the police.
Speaker 1: Why don't black people not want to be around the police.
Speaker 1: It's such an interesting place to be right now for
Speaker 1: me because where I try to extend some grace and
Speaker 1: have like a critical analysis of what happened and take
Speaker 1: this systemic approach and try to explain it on that
Speaker 1: level to appeal to you, know, you, our listener, I'm
Speaker 1: starting to have trouble because for me to say it,
Speaker 1: it's almost like I'm talking to a wall. You see
Speaker 1: the systemic issues right here. These human beings are losing
Speaker 1: their lives. These police get to go home and they
Speaker 1: get paid for it. And then the police unions or
Speaker 1: the police protection agencies will try to preemptively chronicle and
Speaker 1: narrative that suggest the officers are doing their job. There's
Speaker 1: no reverence for the fact that a human beings life
Speaker 1: was lost.
Speaker 3: They shift the.
Speaker 1: Blame instead of looking at hey, maybe our officers shouldn't
Speaker 1: have guns on the hip at all times. Maybe they
Speaker 1: should carry whatever things they have to do. Maybe we
Speaker 1: should have officers carry insurance so that if they make mistakes,
Speaker 1: they will be uninsurable and unemployable. That's something that's very
Speaker 1: easy and very sensible. Anything that changes that system they
Speaker 1: push back against, and they will do that and instead
Speaker 1: put in front of us. Here's who's really to blame.
Speaker 1: This guy shouldn't have broken into his house. Sure, I'll
Speaker 1: give you that. But people break into houses, people have disagreements,
Speaker 1: people have mental health lapses, people have problems. The one
Speaker 1: consistent thing is that the police always show up with
Speaker 1: the guns, and at least on this show, the one
Speaker 1: consistent thing is that the black people always end up dead.
Speaker 1: I know that I've kind of talked this around that,
Speaker 1: and I've seen you kind of WinCE a couple of times.
Speaker 3: Please, you know, share with me what's on your mind.
Speaker 2: You.
Speaker 1: I know, this one's tough.
Speaker 3: This was not more tough than the others.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and I saw it, but it's still, you know.
Speaker 3: Not more tough than the others. It's not more tough
Speaker 3: than Sandra Massi.
Speaker 2: It's not more tough than the thousands of stories that happened,
Speaker 2: the hundreds that we've covered. What the AP does not
Speaker 2: point out is that the person who was the suspect
Speaker 2: was described in nine won one call to the dispatcher,
Speaker 2: and the dispatcher described the suspect to the officers. When
Speaker 2: the police arrived, the suspect was wearing exactly what the
Speaker 2: suspect was said to be wearing, and the other person
Speaker 2: was not wearing anything similar to what the suspect is
Speaker 2: said to be wearing.
Speaker 1: It wasn't wearing anything.
Speaker 2: So once you've shot the wrong person once to you
Speaker 2: continue to shoot them and then to have your union
Speaker 2: show up and say you did nothing it's like you
Speaker 2: did nothing wrong, humanizing. Wait, your officer did nothing wrong.
Speaker 2: Someone's dead who wasn't the intruder, and you don't think
Speaker 2: your officer did anything wrong. You're not saying I don't
Speaker 2: think my officer deserves to spend the rest of their
Speaker 2: life in prison, because as a human being, I could
Speaker 2: understand you arguing that for somebody under your employ or
Speaker 2: somebody that maybe you care about, or somebody who is
Speaker 2: your job to defend. But to argue that your officer
Speaker 2: did nothing wrong, it's just genuous strips every piece of
Speaker 2: dignity away from the person and their family, and their friends,
Speaker 2: and their loved ones, and their coworkers, and their church
Speaker 2: family and their neighbors. It does not just affect that person,
Speaker 2: It affects everyone that knows and cares about them. And
Speaker 2: we have to consume this knowing that now, and I'm
Speaker 2: sorry that everything relates to him, but it does. We
Speaker 2: have a president elect who plans to extend blanket immunity
Speaker 2: to law enforcement. So those who make mistakes are okay,
Speaker 2: and those who are very, very intentional about taking our
Speaker 2: lives are also okay, And we have to pretend that
Speaker 2: we don't know that those officers exist as well. Some
Speaker 2: of these officers the grace I will extend have to
Speaker 2: be scared because they have to feel like every time
Speaker 2: they get called, their life is on the line. But
Speaker 2: you applied for, tested for, and trained for that job.
Speaker 2: You convince someone that you wanted it. I tried to
Speaker 2: be a police officer before. You have to go through
Speaker 2: a lot of steps to get there. So you left
Speaker 2: home one day an application, went to a job, and
Speaker 2: if you passed the physical plaster written tesk and had
Speaker 2: to pass an oral bar review and convince someone how
Speaker 2: badly you wanted to be an officer, only for you
Speaker 2: to become an officer and be so terrified that you
Speaker 2: shoot and kill the person who calls you for help.
Speaker 2: Someone comes along, says you do nothing wrong, You get
Speaker 2: paid leave. In most cases, a district attorney who's friendly
Speaker 2: with the police and the police unions agree that nothing
Speaker 2: was wrong and there's nothing to see here, and we're
Speaker 2: not even going to press charges.
Speaker 3: We're not even going to pursue a case.
Speaker 2: And you either go back to work for that agency
Speaker 2: or another agency hires you, and you go all about
Speaker 2: your life.
Speaker 3: You get to make living.
Speaker 2: Your kids get to see you, or your wife gets
Speaker 2: to see your husband get to see you, your family
Speaker 2: gets to see you. Everybody that loves you gets to
Speaker 2: continue to have a life with you. The person you
Speaker 2: killed no longer exists, and everyone that cares about them
Speaker 2: has to deal with that.
Speaker 1: Now.
Speaker 2: Nothing changes about your life, nothing changes about the laws,
Speaker 2: nothing changes about the way that we do things. And
Speaker 2: then we have to get on the radio, yeah and
Speaker 2: try to pre that there's hope here, that there's going
Speaker 2: to be change at some point, that the next time
Speaker 2: you see a police officer in traffic or at a
Speaker 2: store or walking down the street, that you shouldn't be afraid,
Speaker 2: and that the people you should.
Speaker 3: Keep calling when you need help is the people who
Speaker 3: might show up and kill you.
Speaker 1: That's the toughest position of all to be in. I've
Speaker 1: been there, I've you know, you mentioned that you wanted
Speaker 1: to be a police officer, and you shared a little
Speaker 1: bit without me with me before. I didn't know that
Speaker 1: you had gone through all those steps, So that is Yeah,
Speaker 1: that shows really how far that went. But yeah, once
Speaker 1: upon a time I did something similar. I had a
Speaker 1: domestic issue and a woman that I was seeing at
Speaker 1: the time, she became upset and she threw something at
Speaker 1: me and hit me and I started bleeding, and I
Speaker 1: was like, you know, I probably should leave my house.
Speaker 1: I left, and I was bloodied and all that sort
Speaker 1: of stuff. But she had been screaming the whole time,
Speaker 1: so my neighbors had heard, and I'm like, okay, black
Speaker 1: man leaving. I was in a black range rover at
Speaker 1: the time. I'm like, let me make sure that I
Speaker 1: get out in front of this because this could in badly,
Speaker 1: like if I if the woman says something. Thank god,
Speaker 1: she told the truth. But if she says something that
Speaker 1: didn't happen, this looks really bad. So let me pull
Speaker 1: over at a circle K make a phone call and
Speaker 1: report this. And I remembered the steps that I went through.
Speaker 3: I called.
Speaker 1: I says, I need an officer to meet me. I'm
Speaker 1: at the corner of this street, in this street, at
Speaker 1: the corner store. It's a well lit area. I'm in
Speaker 1: a black SUV. I am, I'm the good guy. I'm
Speaker 1: wearing X, Y and Z. There are no weapons, no drugs,
Speaker 1: nothing like that in my car. I just need someone
Speaker 1: to come take pictures, just so that this is documented.
Speaker 1: And I could tell you more of the story because
Speaker 1: it sounds like kind of wild that I would be
Speaker 1: in that position, but I don't want to put anyone
Speaker 1: else's business out there. So you know, everything worked out.
Speaker 1: This person had was going through a mental thing and
Speaker 1: there was nothing I could do. I couldn't leave until
Speaker 1: I had to because I was bleeding. But yeah, anyway,
Speaker 1: I remember being afraid after being harmed to.
Speaker 3: Like I was in it.
Speaker 1: It was like a catch twenty two because if she
Speaker 1: does something, I'm in trouble. And if I do like
Speaker 1: if I call, if she calls them, I'm in trouble,
Speaker 1: and if I call them, I could potentially you might
Speaker 1: be in trouble. And so there was no getting away
Speaker 1: from that because the last thing I needed was to
Speaker 1: be on the news or you know, in handcuffs or
Speaker 1: something like that. You know, that's the radio personality arrested,
Speaker 1: you know, all that sort of stuff. I've never been arrested,
Speaker 1: by the way, but it just kind of, I think
Speaker 1: goes to show you that there's a couple of steps
Speaker 1: that mentally we go through before even making a phone call.
Speaker 1: And I think that this story of Brandon Durham illustrates
Speaker 1: the why because in my story, you know, I've shared
Speaker 1: on the show before, but my earliest memories were the
Speaker 1: LAPD and the LAPD For those that are fans of history,
Speaker 1: are those old enough to remember, that's the same police
Speaker 1: department responsible for the Rodney King beating and the subsequent riots.
Speaker 1: People didn't riot because Rodney King got beat up. People
Speaker 1: rioted because the police were doing that everywhere, and then
Speaker 1: there was no accountability for it. Now that it's on
Speaker 1: video capture. There was a long standing story and before
Speaker 1: Rodney King happened, I Ramses saw with my own eyes
Speaker 1: how the police treated.
Speaker 2: People, and it was in Rodney King's case, no one's
Speaker 2: guilty of anything. Yeah, like, that's the frustration, you guys.
Speaker 2: No one's guilty of anything. We watched to beat this
Speaker 2: man and within an inch of his life on video.
Speaker 2: No one did anything wrong, is what you guys are saying.
Speaker 3: Yeah, this is okay.
Speaker 2: We can get if you're arguing our officers don't deserve
Speaker 2: to spend their life in prison. I'm going to keep
Speaker 2: using that example because I'm trying to use this the
Speaker 2: good one. I'm trying to use the most extreme example, right,
Speaker 2: the most extreme accountability. I can get you as an attorney,
Speaker 2: as their union, as the people who are paid to
Speaker 2: protect them, I can get you taking a stance that, hey,
Speaker 2: they don't deserve to spend the rest of their lives
Speaker 2: in prison. But continuing to take the position that they
Speaker 2: did nothing wrong over and over again, and then our
Speaker 2: justice system agreeing with you is insanity. No one did
Speaker 2: anything wrong here, that's the argument that's being made. You
Speaker 2: might remember there was a parody movie called Naked Gun.
Speaker 2: We were very young, but the generation and above us
Speaker 2: might know that movie was a parody of lawlessness within
Speaker 2: the LAPD and the lack of accountability. Yeah, Like there's
Speaker 2: a line in the movie where a guy even says
Speaker 2: something about, like, how many people does an officer of
Speaker 2: this department have to unlive to get in trouble? He
Speaker 2: asked that out loud because it was so ridiculous that
Speaker 2: this movie is now thirty something years old.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's been like that.
Speaker 1: If it came out today, it wouldn't have to change.
Speaker 3: It would have to change.
Speaker 1: Yeah, no, you're not wrong, And the truth is is that,
Speaker 1: you know, it's unfortunate that we're having, as you mentioned,
Speaker 1: you another story to share about, you know, another black
Speaker 1: man losing his life at the hands of police. And
Speaker 1: at this point, you know, I understand that everything can
Speaker 1: get appealed up to the Supreme Court, but the truth
Speaker 1: is that the Supreme Court can't hear everything, and there
Speaker 1: are also.
Speaker 3: Put a time that would have mattered it doesn't anymore.
Speaker 1: Yeah, well that's fair. But you know, I think that
Speaker 1: we do this show because there is the capacity at
Speaker 1: least to appeal to you, our listener, and a common
Speaker 1: sense of humanity and a common sense of decency where
Speaker 1: changes can be made, where fights can be waged, you know,
Speaker 1: we still want you to do that. We've committed to
Speaker 1: doing that, even though this is a frustrating chapter in
Speaker 1: our lives. This is not our forever, nor should it
Speaker 1: be yours. And you know, there are still people that
Speaker 1: are doing meaningful things. And you know, like I said,
Speaker 1: now's the time to batten down the hatches, and whether
Speaker 1: the storm, we still strategize, we still move forward, and
Speaker 1: we do so so that people like Brandon Durham, they
Speaker 1: don't just die in vain and their energy dissipate into
Speaker 1: the ether and the infiniteness of the universe. That this
Speaker 1: death counts for something. So with that in mind, we'll
Speaker 1: leave it right there. As always, I'd like to thank
Speaker 1: you for tuning into this episode of Civic Cipher. I've
Speaker 1: been your host rams.
Speaker 3: This job, and I have been q Ward.
Speaker 1: Do us a favor, follow us on all social media.
Speaker 1: We are at Civic Cipher c I v I C
Speaker 1: C I p h E R, and be sure to
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Speaker 1: and as well as any previous episodes. You can also
Speaker 1: submit us any questions or topics you want us to cover.
Speaker 1: You can also make a donation. The show is growing
Speaker 1: with your support and you know, any last words, N.
Speaker 3: I'm tired of this story. Yeah, I'm tired of it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, me too. Well hope, hopefully next week we'll have
Speaker 1: a different story. So y'all stick around and until then, peace, Peace,