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Speaker 1: Cool Zone Media.

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Speaker 2: If you don't know that the cops in Boston have

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Speaker 2: a bad reputation, it's possible you just haven't seen many movies.

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Speaker 2: There's The Town, the Boondock Scenes, Black Mass, Spotlight, Mystic Riva.

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Speaker 2: I'm pretty sure even the cops in Ted and Ted

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Speaker 2: Too are incompetent. As a rule of thumb, any movie

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Speaker 2: where a grown man is shouting my daughter probably takes

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Speaker 2: place in Boston and as a result of the war

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Speaker 2: between the Boston cops and the white working poor. What

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Speaker 2: I'm saying is, if you're not familiar with the police

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Speaker 2: of Boston's reputation, that's a cinema problem. My name is

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Speaker 2: Jamie Loftus and my neighbors who are always arguing just moved.

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Speaker 2: And this is sixteenth minute the podcast where we take

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Speaker 2: a closer look at the internet characters of the day

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Speaker 2: and what that says about us and the Internet and

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Speaker 2: us on the Internet. Play eighty's amazing theme song about.

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Speaker 1: Its Us.

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Speaker 2: Six six Today's subject hits close to home for me

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Speaker 2: because it takes place within a twenty mile radius of

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Speaker 2: my entire family, where all of the characters of the

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Speaker 2: day that stick with us. It's a little unusual for

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Speaker 2: the person we talk about and the place where they

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Speaker 2: are as equally important. But this week's story takes that

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Speaker 2: even further because we're cruising the entire spectrum of what

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Speaker 2: a noun can mean. The person, the place, and the

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Speaker 2: thing are all critical as to why this story made

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Speaker 2: the splash, or, if I'm being unkind, the nearly lethal

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Speaker 2: tumble that it did. The place, as you may have guessed,

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Speaker 2: is Boston. I'm from that area. The fact that anyone

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Speaker 2: from there is legally required to tell you within twenty seconds,

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Speaker 2: and if you're really from there, you have to be

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Speaker 2: more specific so people know that you're not from some

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Speaker 2: hoity toity place like Duxbury or, as my mom calls it,

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Speaker 2: de Luxebury. Ooh, No, I'm from Brockton, Massachusetts, which was

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Speaker 2: ranked as one of the one hundred worst cities in

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Speaker 2: America when I was in high school because that list

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Speaker 2: was very racist. In fact, people are still giving Brockton shit.

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Speaker 2: A radio station I used to work the overnight shift

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Speaker 2: at published an article in twenty sixteen that said, you're

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Speaker 2: ugly Brockton why it was voted the ugliest city in Massachusetts.

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Speaker 2: And in that article they cite no reason for why

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Speaker 2: it has that distinction, because people in Massachusetts are both

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Speaker 2: perfect and evil. The point I'm talking around is that

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Speaker 2: there is a media pattern of how people from the

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Speaker 2: Boston area are shown, and because I'm from there, I

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Speaker 2: am not allowed to shut up about it. I had

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Speaker 2: the accent.

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Speaker 3: I'm going to come out and completely changed veryon the

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Speaker 3: documentary of my life jamielostis the true Hollywood story.

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Speaker 2: Good for her, And the only reason I don't talk

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Speaker 2: that way now is because I realized from a very

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Speaker 2: young age that this accent would be mocked and quote

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Speaker 2: unquote sounds poor. But when I say poor in that context,

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Speaker 2: what I mean truly is poor, meaning undeserving of respect,

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Speaker 2: and that's horseshit right. I wish I hadn't let the

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Speaker 2: world convince me that the accent was unworthy of respect,

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Speaker 2: but I do have these very specific memories of that

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Speaker 2: idea calcifying in my mind to the point where it

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Speaker 2: ended up coloring my perception of my own parents. I mean,

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Speaker 2: the moms on TV sounded like they were from nowhere,

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Speaker 2: and the only thing I thought was more chic than

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Speaker 2: sounding like you were from nowhere was being from somewhere wealthy.

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Speaker 2: I have so many strong memories of this. My dad

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Speaker 2: would do this very soft class code switching when he

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Speaker 2: got home from his job where he worked at a

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Speaker 2: local newspaper. When he was around journalists from other states,

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Speaker 2: he did his reporter voice hit the RS, no problem, Chuck.

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Speaker 2: But when he came home, he'd dropped that, and he'd

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Speaker 2: sound like the class and place he was from. And

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Speaker 2: this was all mostly involuntary, but I internalized it, and

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Speaker 2: by the time I moved to California when I was

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Speaker 2: twenty two, the accent was fully gone. Because I wanted

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Speaker 2: to be a performer. I wanted to sound like I

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Speaker 2: was from nowhere at all. This is why I feel

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Speaker 2: sure that cultural stereotypes around Bostonians are thoroughly ingrained and

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Speaker 2: not completely without reason. There is some truth to it,

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Speaker 2: as stereotypes can go, but these stereotypes lack context and

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Speaker 2: don't take individuals into account. As far as pop culture

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Speaker 2: is concerned. Stories in Boston either take place at Harvard.

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Speaker 1: Don't hi.

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Speaker 4: My name is el Woods, and from my admissions essay, I'm.

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Speaker 3: Going to tell all of you at Harvard why I'm.

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Speaker 5: Going to make an amazing lawyer.

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Speaker 2: Or in like three square blocks of Southey, which is

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Speaker 2: just one neighborhood in Boston.

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Speaker 4: Megan Uncle Leos, Tommy Corstkin's another goof. He gets busted

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Speaker 4: selling guns to federal offices, among many, many, many other

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Speaker 4: depatas from a normative behavior.

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Speaker 3: What's this got to do with me?

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Speaker 6: Huh?

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Speaker 7: Why you pretended to be a cop?

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Speaker 2: Or bonus points if you want to win an oscar

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Speaker 2: both You dropped one.

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Speaker 3: Hundred and fifty grand on a fucking education.

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Speaker 2: You could have gone for a dollar fifty and lay

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Speaker 2: chadges at the public library. Yeah, but I will have

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Speaker 2: a degree and you'll be serving my kids fries at

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Speaker 2: a drive through on our way to a skiing trip.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, maybe my boys awaited smile.

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Speaker 2: That's from Goodwill Hunting. It's a good movie, but you

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Speaker 2: see where I'm going with this, And as many people

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Speaker 2: from that area will tell you, even when these movies

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Speaker 2: are good, they're not necessarily an accurate representation of the area.

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Speaker 2: Most media about Boston suggests that the area is extremely racist,

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Speaker 2: which is true, but it rarely shows any non white

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Speaker 2: character that lives in that same city. And that's because

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Speaker 2: most popular media about Boston is based on stories about

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Speaker 2: a neighborhood of majority low income white people and often

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Speaker 2: just all white mobsters. So for the record, yeah, yes,

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Speaker 2: the Boston area has a history of Irish and Italian gangs. Yes,

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Speaker 2: racism is still extremely persistent in Boston and Massachusetts on

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Speaker 2: the whole. But no, not everyone who lives in Boston

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Speaker 2: is white. In fact, that erases over half the population

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Speaker 2: of the city today and that's fucking weird to me.

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Speaker 2: But still to this day, the characters that come out

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Speaker 2: of Boston tend to follow a very certain type. Today,

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Speaker 2: we are talking about a recent legend in the Internet

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Speaker 2: Character of the day pantheon, a person and an incident

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Speaker 2: that makes me sad I cannot show you the video

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Speaker 2: in question. This character exists at the intersection of many things, yes,

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Speaker 2: stereotypes around Boston, one of which is rightfully that Boston

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Speaker 2: cops are particularly racist and particularly incompetent, and just as importantly,

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Speaker 2: the Internet's view of American policing at the time. The

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Speaker 2: story went viral on an undetermined date in the summer

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Speaker 2: of twenty twenty three, Return with me if you dare.

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Speaker 2: Summer twenty twenty three, all over the world, global temperatures

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Speaker 2: were being broken just one symptom of our rapidly dying planet,

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Speaker 2: and we had recently weathered the phenomenon that was Barbenheimer,

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Speaker 2: a symptom of the human need to feel good about something,

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Speaker 2: even when half of that was a three hour movie

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Speaker 2: about the atomic bomb. This character manages to scratch both

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Speaker 2: of these edges, a flailing institution's attempt to convince the

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Speaker 2: public that summer is a beach party and not an

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Speaker 2: incinerator that failed so spectacularly that the good people of

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Speaker 2: the Internet got a worthy adversary to laugh at for

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Speaker 2: months to come, A character so baffling that I regret

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Speaker 2: this as mere audio, because this viral video clip has

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Speaker 2: to be seen to be believed. Austin's slide cop Your

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Speaker 2: sixteenth minute of Fame starts right now. On August second,

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Speaker 2: twenty twenty three, Twitter x whatever, Twitter user Ryan Whitney

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Speaker 2: six posted a video filmed at a relatively new playground

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Speaker 2: in front of Boston City Hall. The clip itself was

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Speaker 2: quickly deleted. Ryan Whitney, who co hosts a podcast on

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Speaker 2: Barstool Sports, had over four hundred thousand followers when the

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Speaker 2: tweet was posted, though he followed up when people asked

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Speaker 2: why it was deleted and said I just deleted what

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Speaker 2: I think is one of the funniest videos of all time.

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Speaker 2: I was begged to take it down. Sad who begged him?

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Speaker 2: I don't know. He didn't answer my DMS. In any case,

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Speaker 2: it was already too late. The video was already doing

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Speaker 2: numbers over on TikTok, prompting comments like I'm crying, why

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Speaker 2: did he fly out like a corpse? And Bro looked

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Speaker 2: it's dead. The public had spoken, it was funny. The

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Speaker 2: City Hall Plaza playground where the famous slide lives, opened

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Speaker 2: in November twenty twenty two, and it's pretty impressive by

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Speaker 2: far the flashiest part of a seventy million dollar renovation

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Speaker 2: of City Hall Plaza by Boston based architecture firm Sasaki.

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Speaker 2: The renovation created what I feel was a much needed

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Speaker 2: friendlier feel in a historically hostile vibes area surrounding City

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Speaker 2: Hall's brutalist architecture. According to an article in Boston dot

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Speaker 2: Com from twenty twenty three, city Hall is the fourth

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Speaker 2: ugliest building in the world, which I think is maybe

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Speaker 2: a little dramatic, but it's not beautiful regardless, this new

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Speaker 2: playground was kind of the crown jewel of the renovation,

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Speaker 2: at least far as the general public was concerned. I

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Speaker 2: actually got my first taste of it in spring twenty

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Speaker 2: twenty three when my friend Tory had two glasses of

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Speaker 2: wine in the North End and then climbed up and

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Speaker 2: ricocheted down a truly massive, steep covered steel slide sometime

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Speaker 2: around midnight. And for the playgrounds many attractive qualities, it

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Speaker 2: is this slide that is the star of this story.

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Speaker 2: No Internet cinema, you should be able to log this

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Speaker 2: on letterboxed because in it, a Boston police officer absolutely

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Speaker 2: eats shit. I mean, like really eats shit. Take a

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Speaker 2: listen to the video again. Okay, so let me attempt

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Speaker 2: to walk you through what I just saw for easily

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Speaker 2: the hundredth time. The slide is what I describe my

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Speaker 2: friend taking this drunk trip down in the spring of

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Speaker 2: twenty twenty three. It's steep, it's steel, it's in the

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Speaker 2: middle of this very very public area. And then that loud,

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Speaker 2: bizarre sound of like Nichols being shaken in a tin

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Speaker 2: can is the cop who seems to be banging against

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Speaker 2: every square inch of this fucking thing. And then finally

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Speaker 2: he emerges from the tunnel of the slide somehow asks

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Speaker 2: first backwards on his stomach, shooting out of the slide

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Speaker 2: at Formula one speeds onto the pavement, and to make

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Speaker 2: matters worse, a weapon seems to fly out of his

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Speaker 2: belt as well. Because this is an American cop we're

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Speaker 2: talking about, so of course he didn't go unarmed to

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Speaker 2: a playground. And because some stereotypes are true, and this

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Speaker 2: is an older white guy in Boston. You hear him

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Speaker 2: say i'd talk, oh fuck like my uncle, stubbing his toe. Right,

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Speaker 2: So the cop stands in a daze and quickly grabs

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Speaker 2: his stuff and turns from the camera. But who is

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Speaker 2: hohole the camera? Not Twitter user at Ryan Whitney six,

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Speaker 2: who said that he was reposting the video, So that's

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Speaker 2: still a mystery. So we get a quick look at

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Speaker 2: slide CoP's face, but the quality of the video is

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Speaker 2: pretty low, so you only really get a flash of

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Speaker 2: what seems to be a pretty stereotypical Boston cop. He's white,

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Speaker 2: he's older, he's got a crew cut, and he just

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Speaker 2: did something massively incompetent in broad daylight. And just to

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Speaker 2: can we listen to the clip one more time? Now?

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Speaker 2: If you need to pause the podcast and watch this

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Speaker 2: video yourself. I encourage you to do so because I'm

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Speaker 2: finding it hard to explain exactly how wrong this man

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Speaker 2: has gone down a slide. There is a weird amount

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Speaker 2: of momentum, like he was pushed as first by a

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Speaker 2: middle school bully. So if this happened to a twelve

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Speaker 2: year old and not a middle aged man protected by

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Speaker 2: the Commonwealth, it would be life ending. So what I'm

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Speaker 2: trying to say is that this clip rocks. It's amazing,

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Speaker 2: it's confusing, it's funny, and it's punging down from the

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Speaker 2: perspective of both society and gravity. For a large corner

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Speaker 2: of the Internet, of which I am a member, this

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Speaker 2: is the marriage of two tried and true viral video genres,

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Speaker 2: a hatred of cops and a love of people falling down.

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Speaker 2: It would be patronizing of me to explain to you

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Speaker 2: why the only thing funnier than a regular adult falling

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Speaker 2: down a terrifying slide for children is a cop doing

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Speaker 2: that same thing. Cop height has been around for as

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Speaker 2: long as cops have in the US, and has become

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Speaker 2: more and more common in the last few years following

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Speaker 2: the murder of George Floyd cop height is just common sense.

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Speaker 2: And here's where in a just world, I'd tell you

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Speaker 2: whose slide cop is and the adorable press cycle that

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Speaker 2: surrounded them. But that's one of the weirder elements of

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Speaker 2: this story. For all of the clickbait that this clip generated,

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Speaker 2: Boston copslide turns up on John Oliver how the playground

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Speaker 2: slide defeated the Boston cop. I went down the Boston

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Speaker 2: cop slide. It was so tame. I have no idea

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Speaker 2: how he went flying. Okay, kind of not like other

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Speaker 2: girls on that last one. The slide cop has still

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Speaker 2: not been identified, and that's weird. This far into Internet

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Speaker 2: sleuthing history, there are plenty of main characters that become

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Speaker 2: so against their will, some regular person thinking they're tweeting

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Speaker 2: to no one, or worse, someone who's filmed in public

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Speaker 2: without their consent. But it rarely takes the Internet more

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Speaker 2: than a few hours to find out who someone is,

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Speaker 2: regardless of ethics, particularly if they work for a prominent

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Speaker 2: institution like I don't know, the Boston Police. But that

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Speaker 2: never happens. After the clip went viral, and while the

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Speaker 2: original wheet was removed, it had already spread to TikTok.

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Speaker 2: The media doesn't jump to the who, they jump to

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Speaker 2: the why. One of the early examples of meaningful curiosity

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Speaker 2: into slide CoP's identity was from Boston Fox twenty five

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Speaker 2: in a piece from reporter Carry Kavanaugh. She got responses

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Speaker 2: for comment from the police department and current Boston Mayor

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Speaker 2: Michelle Wu. Here's a piece from that article. I don't

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Speaker 2: know what the circumstances were or what happened, said Mayor Wu,

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Speaker 2: but I will definitely check in and make sure the

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Speaker 2: officer is okay. If it looks like there needs to

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Speaker 2: be more assignage that this is for children or something,

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Speaker 2: we can do that too. Boston twenty five also asked

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Speaker 2: the Boston Police about this video. The department says the

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Speaker 2: officer was hurt, used his personal insurance for care, and

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Speaker 2: did not charge the city. BPD says the officer did

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Speaker 2: not miss any time and he's not facing any disciplinary action.

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Speaker 2: Everything has a chance to be viral these days, said

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Speaker 2: Mayor Wu. Okay, I'll bite a couple questions. What would

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Speaker 2: the officer have charged the city for? Would he have

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Speaker 2: sued the maker of the slide, Would he have sued

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Speaker 2: the slide and Furthermore, I'm confused about the use of

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Speaker 2: the phrase personal insurance. I mean, presumably a CoP's health

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Speaker 2: insurance would be through their job, but this quote implies

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Speaker 2: that their health insurance came from somewhere else. All we

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Speaker 2: really learned from this story is that the Boston Police

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Speaker 2: Department did confirm that slide Cop was their employee, not

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Speaker 2: some cosplaying internet stunt person or freaky AI, and that

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Speaker 2: Mayor Michelle Weu is kind of funny for a mayor.

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Speaker 2: Outside of that, only questions. And while I do find

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Speaker 2: it weird that there didn't seem to be much public

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Speaker 2: interest in the who, I can't blame the interest in

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Speaker 2: the how. I mean I wanted to understand myself, and

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Speaker 2: most reporting from the time elected to ask local physicists

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Speaker 2: how eating shit this hard was even humanly possible. I

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Speaker 2: cannot overstate how many minutes of my one human life

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Speaker 2: I have spent watching physics YouTubers trying to unpack the

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Speaker 2: slide Cops descent. I've seen equations, I've seen attempts to

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Speaker 2: determine the length of the slide from Google Maps aerial shots.

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Speaker 2: I've seen it all, and this is as close as

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Speaker 2: someone has gotten to a Kojun theory. This is from

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Speaker 2: YouTube channel dot Physics, which is run by the resident

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Speaker 2: physicist for Wired, Rhett Elaine.

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Speaker 6: Welcome back to that again. Data and I have this

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Speaker 6: distance LX. That's l Y, and that's the total length

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Speaker 6: L I know data. I know LX. That's where I measured,

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Speaker 6: so I can find l Y. Tangent of data is

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Speaker 6: opposite over hyppot news, so that would be l Y

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Speaker 6: over l LX. If I solve that for l Y,

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Speaker 6: I get l Y is so No.

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Speaker 2: I don't really know what any of that meant, but

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Speaker 2: clearly people have thought a lot about it. For my

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Speaker 2: listeners who also got sees in high school physics. The

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Speaker 2: reality kind of boils down to what red Elaine wrote

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Speaker 2: for Wired back in twenty twenty two about the increased

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Speaker 2: popularity and danger in these kinds of steep steel slides.

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Speaker 2: He was inspired by one at bell Isle Park in Michigan,

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Speaker 2: and not just because it was big, but because people

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Speaker 2: moved so fast on it that they were completely airborne

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Speaker 2: and the slide had to close temporarily, said one child

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Speaker 2: to a local news affiliate. Gravity hurts too, true, child.

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Speaker 2: One of the many difficult realizations of child. Anyways, here's

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Speaker 2: what Professor Elaine had to say about why people often

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Speaker 2: move freakishly fast on these slides.

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Speaker 4: Friction depends on the two surfaces interacting. So if you

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Speaker 4: have a metal slide and it's in contact with skin

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Speaker 4: or cotton clothes, you have a certain coefficient of friction,

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Speaker 4: and if you change the material, maybe do something stiff,

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Speaker 4: it could make it a lot slipperier.

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Speaker 2: So the fact that the cop as an adult and

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Speaker 2: the slide is intended for children actually doesn't make that

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Speaker 2: much of a difference, even if it's really funny when

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Speaker 2: mirr Wu implies that it is think back to your

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Speaker 2: freshman year in high school. If there is no external

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Speaker 2: force acting on an egg and a bowling bowl, they

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Speaker 2: will propel forward at the same rate. So theoretically, if

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Speaker 2: slide cop wasn't pushed, he would have come careening down

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Speaker 2: the slide at the same rate as the two to

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Speaker 2: twelve year olds that the slide is actually intended for. Alternatively,

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Speaker 2: Elaine suggests that it's feasible that the uniform fabric might

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Speaker 2: be a contributing factor. Polyester interacts with steel very differently

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Speaker 2: than cotton does, but that really wouldn't account for someone

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Speaker 2: eating shit as hard as slide Cop does, which makes

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Speaker 2: me believe the slide cop had an external force acting

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Speaker 2: on him. So who the fuck is he? I was

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Speaker 2: beside myself trying to figure this out because it was

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Speaker 2: starting to look like I was going to have to

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Speaker 2: file a Foyer report and listen, I'm a dufus, I'm

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Speaker 2: a clown. I lack the discipline and the jargon type

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Speaker 2: knowledge to make such an attempt on my own. I

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Speaker 2: needed help. Unfortunately, I have producer Sophie Lichtman to point

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Speaker 2: out the obvious that we already know one of the

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Speaker 2: greatest FOYA for good minds of our age, and so

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Speaker 2: Sophie connected me to Molly Conger, a brilliant anti fascist journalist,

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Speaker 2: FOYA expert, and the mother of two beautiful dog sons,

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Speaker 2: and she guided me through how to approach this search.

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Speaker 5: I am Molly Conger. I am a local journalist here

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Speaker 5: in Charlottesville, Virginia, sort of a busybody about town, and

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Speaker 5: unlike Alex Jones, I actually do have the documents, right.

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Speaker 5: I'm a documents guy. I love my documents, and one

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Speaker 5: of the ways that you can get documents is with

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Speaker 5: a freedom of information Act Request, So when people say

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Speaker 5: they foid something, they're referring to the Freedom of Information Act.

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Speaker 5: That's the federal law governing public access to government records.

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Speaker 5: Every state has their own version of it. Sometimes it's

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Speaker 5: literally called FOYE as well. Sometimes it's called something else,

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Speaker 5: and Pennsylvania it's called right to Know. In Massachusetts, which

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Speaker 5: we're talking about today, I think it's called just the

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Speaker 5: massas Chusetts Public Record Law, and they very state to

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Speaker 5: state right the kinds of exemptions that exist, the statutory

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Speaker 5: time limits, very the kinds of things that they will

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Speaker 5: give you the run around on very so like, for instance,

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Speaker 5: in my state, Virginia, only Virginia residents can request public records,

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Speaker 5: which I think is it's one of only nine states

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Speaker 5: that has a residency requirement for a four year request.

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Speaker 2: Interesting, So do you have to like send pictures of

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Speaker 2: your mail to get record?

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Speaker 5: It depends on what kind of bug they have up

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Speaker 5: their butt. Like different jurisdictions are more uptight about it,

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Speaker 5: Like they'll ask you your address through US sometimes they

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Speaker 5: will ask you to prove it or if you're a

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Speaker 5: representative of news media, but the outlet has to have

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Speaker 5: demonstrable circulation within the Commonwealth of Virginia, and that's interpreted

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Speaker 5: in a variety of ways that can be pretty harmful

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Speaker 5: to independent journalists or online outlets. So, like, you know,

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Speaker 5: if you have a very popular blog, they're like, well,

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Speaker 5: can you prove that anyone in Virginia reads it?

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Speaker 2: Really? So wait, you have to, like it's like being

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Speaker 2: an Instagram model, Like you have to also prove that

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Speaker 2: people are looking at stuff.

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Speaker 5: That's that's crazy, very subjective, right, because the law was

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Speaker 5: originally written with newspapers in mind, So it's like, do

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Speaker 5: people in the state receive this physical newspaper? But that's

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Speaker 5: not really how we do news media anymore. So the

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Speaker 5: response times can vary. Like in Arkansas, by law, they

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Speaker 5: only have three days to respond, which is like one

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Speaker 5: of the tightest timelines in the country. Twelve states don't

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Speaker 5: have a statutory time limit, which means that like you

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Speaker 5: have no recourse and they just never respond to you.

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Speaker 5: So in Massachusetts, the law says they have to respond

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Speaker 5: to you within ten days, but they can get a

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Speaker 5: good cause extension. I think it's they can get twenty

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Speaker 5: days for agencies, thirty days for municipalities, and in Massachusetts

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Speaker 5: they can only ask for an extension once they can't

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Speaker 5: just keep saying ooh, actually thirty more days. Actually thirty

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Speaker 5: more days for the rest of your life. But because

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Speaker 5: you're looking for police records, I think in almost every

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Speaker 5: state there are huge carve outs for the cops because

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Speaker 5: they are not an institution that favors transparency. They like

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Speaker 5: to operate in the dark, they don't like to engage

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Speaker 5: with the public, and they're hiding. I mean, in this

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Speaker 5: case they're just hiding something funny, but a lot of

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Speaker 5: times they're hiding something bad. So there are massive carve

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Speaker 5: outs for the police. And so I think in Massachusetts specifically,

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Speaker 5: I think the Sogain I guess back to the idea

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Speaker 5: that every state has different sort of specifics to their

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Speaker 5: public records law, and so one of the things that

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Speaker 5: varies from state to state are the exemptions. So a

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Speaker 5: public records law should cover every document that the government creates,

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Speaker 5: right because those are our documents. The government works for us.

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Speaker 5: But there are carve outs for things that they don't

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Speaker 5: think you should have. Like I mean, some of it's

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Speaker 5: pretty obvious, like most states won't let you say, I'm

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Speaker 5: making a public records request for the home address of

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Speaker 5: every judge like, it's obvious that you can't do that.

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Speaker 5: That's a good idea. You can't say I would like

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Speaker 5: to foil the credit card number that the city clerk

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Speaker 5: uses to buy pizza for meetings. You can't have that.

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Speaker 5: That makes sense, you know, most.

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Speaker 2: You know that because you've tried. No.

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Speaker 5: I was actually reading the Virginia State Code and it's

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Speaker 5: specifically lists like you can't FOI a credit card numbers.

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Speaker 5: I mean, I'm glad you put that in there, but

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Speaker 5: I think what the exemption you're going to run up

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Speaker 5: against here is personnel, and that varies from state to state.

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Speaker 5: I know here in Virginia. Just last year, city attorneys

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Speaker 5: had to conduct new trainings with everyone because they were

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Speaker 5: using the personnel exemption. They were saying that, well, anything

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Speaker 5: that has an employee's name on it is personnel, and

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Speaker 5: that's not the case. It's about like private employee information

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Speaker 5: some certain disciplinary records. But they were just like not

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Speaker 5: turning over anything that had an employee's name on it,

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Speaker 5: which is not how that's.

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Speaker 3: Supposed to work.

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Speaker 5: But then like in states like Pennsylvania, which actually this

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Speaker 5: happened to me earlier this year, I was trying to

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Speaker 5: get some police reports from Pennsylvania under their Right to

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Speaker 5: Know Act, and their exemptions around law enforcement records are

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Speaker 5: so complete that you can't get anything. A cop ever

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Speaker 5: wrote down basically like you just can't get police And

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Speaker 5: this was a twenty year old closed case, and they

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Speaker 5: were like, well, those are investigative records.

434
00:26:40,080 --> 00:26:41,800
Speaker 2: And I was like, wow, you're.

435
00:26:41,640 --> 00:26:43,560
Speaker 5: Not investigating it anymore. He's in jail.

436
00:26:44,880 --> 00:26:47,280
Speaker 2: We'll pick up with Molly in a bit. So, with

437
00:26:47,359 --> 00:26:49,879
Speaker 2: the fear that the FOYA god struck into my heart,

438
00:26:50,240 --> 00:26:52,879
Speaker 2: I made my request and while I waited for the

439
00:26:52,920 --> 00:26:57,520
Speaker 2: mandated ten business days, I kept investigating. And to be clear,

440
00:26:57,920 --> 00:27:00,000
Speaker 2: I was not the first person to file a FOYA

441
00:27:00,080 --> 00:27:04,080
Speaker 2: to try and crack slide CoP's identity. Someone had already

442
00:27:04,119 --> 00:27:07,320
Speaker 2: filed one trying to find out who he was. Almost

443
00:27:07,359 --> 00:27:11,920
Speaker 2: immediately after the video surfaced, four h four Media co

444
00:27:12,000 --> 00:27:15,880
Speaker 2: founder and former editor in chief of Motherboard Jason Koebler

445
00:27:16,240 --> 00:27:19,840
Speaker 2: hit the VPD with a FOYA more or less immediately

446
00:27:20,280 --> 00:27:23,720
Speaker 2: and published the reply on August twenty second, twenty twenty three.

447
00:27:24,240 --> 00:27:28,280
Speaker 2: His request had been for any and all records, bodycam footage,

448
00:27:28,480 --> 00:27:31,720
Speaker 2: or images of the incident, and he'd gotten the classic

449
00:27:31,800 --> 00:27:33,000
Speaker 2: police Department Square.

450
00:27:33,920 --> 00:27:37,280
Speaker 4: The VPD does not have any body camera footage, images,

451
00:27:37,400 --> 00:27:42,000
Speaker 4: audio recordings, or any other reportings or media of this incident. Therefore,

452
00:27:42,160 --> 00:27:46,479
Speaker 4: there are no responsive records. Attached is a redacted incident report.

453
00:27:46,640 --> 00:27:51,679
Speaker 2: He requested lies they're lying. I think they're lying, And

454
00:27:51,760 --> 00:27:54,720
Speaker 2: Koobler points out in his piece that this is probably

455
00:27:54,760 --> 00:27:57,560
Speaker 2: not true because if you look in the far right

456
00:27:57,720 --> 00:28:00,560
Speaker 2: of the slide cop clip, there is a second person

457
00:28:00,640 --> 00:28:04,159
Speaker 2: filming who and I can't confirm it, but others have

458
00:28:04,280 --> 00:28:08,760
Speaker 2: speculated who appears to be wearing a police uniform and

459
00:28:08,800 --> 00:28:12,920
Speaker 2: a fluorescent mesh best identical to the one that slide

460
00:28:12,920 --> 00:28:16,280
Speaker 2: Coop is seen wearing in the video. Still a lot

461
00:28:16,320 --> 00:28:20,320
Speaker 2: of questions, but we do get this one document released

462
00:28:20,440 --> 00:28:24,240
Speaker 2: from Koebler's FOYA, the incident report, and we learn a

463
00:28:24,280 --> 00:28:26,600
Speaker 2: few things from this. We learned that the name of

464
00:28:26,640 --> 00:28:30,160
Speaker 2: the reporting officer with Steven Canto, we learned the name

465
00:28:30,200 --> 00:28:34,040
Speaker 2: of the doctor who treated slide Cop, and critically, we

466
00:28:34,240 --> 00:28:38,280
Speaker 2: learn the date of the incident, because remember, the person

467
00:28:38,280 --> 00:28:42,440
Speaker 2: who uploaded the video to Twitter was reposting and couldn't

468
00:28:42,480 --> 00:28:45,400
Speaker 2: answer when the clip was taken in the first place,

469
00:28:45,520 --> 00:28:48,920
Speaker 2: and most media did not look into when it was,

470
00:28:49,400 --> 00:28:52,280
Speaker 2: but I care when it was. And so here is

471
00:28:52,320 --> 00:28:55,400
Speaker 2: what the incident report from that FOYA says.

472
00:28:55,720 --> 00:28:59,200
Speaker 4: On July twenty ninth, twenty twenty three, at about eighteen

473
00:28:59,280 --> 00:29:00,040
Speaker 4: thirty five.

474
00:29:00,560 --> 00:29:05,760
Speaker 8: And then the name of slide Cop, which is redacted.

475
00:29:06,160 --> 00:29:08,520
Speaker 8: I mean, of course it is redacted. They're not going

476
00:29:08,600 --> 00:29:11,160
Speaker 8: to make it this easy because my life has to

477
00:29:11,200 --> 00:29:13,800
Speaker 8: be difficult, even if I'm having a hard time.

478
00:29:14,080 --> 00:29:15,120
Speaker 2: So back to the report.

479
00:29:15,760 --> 00:29:19,240
Speaker 4: On July twenty ninth, twenty twenty three, at about eighteen

480
00:29:19,360 --> 00:29:23,440
Speaker 4: thirty five, officer reacted to work a special event at

481
00:29:23,440 --> 00:29:26,600
Speaker 4: City Hall Plaza when he struck his head and right arm.

482
00:29:26,880 --> 00:29:29,880
Speaker 4: The officer was brought back to District A one and

483
00:29:30,000 --> 00:29:34,960
Speaker 4: EMS was requested. The on duty supervisor, Sergeant Downey, was notified.

484
00:29:35,680 --> 00:29:40,560
Speaker 4: Boston EMS Ambulance three A zero eight responded to District

485
00:29:40,560 --> 00:29:44,120
Speaker 4: A one and transported the officer to Tuft's Medical Center

486
00:29:44,160 --> 00:29:47,240
Speaker 4: for treatment. The officer was treated by doctor Pam and

487
00:29:47,320 --> 00:29:48,280
Speaker 4: returned to duty.

488
00:29:49,680 --> 00:29:52,080
Speaker 2: You can say it, that's not a lot of information

489
00:29:52,600 --> 00:29:56,080
Speaker 2: except that slide Cop busted his ass so badly that

490
00:29:56,120 --> 00:29:58,240
Speaker 2: he had to be taken in an ambulance to the

491
00:29:58,280 --> 00:30:02,200
Speaker 2: nearest hospital. And well, slide Cops age is also blacked out.

492
00:30:02,640 --> 00:30:05,240
Speaker 2: He is confirmed to be the white male we saw

493
00:30:05,360 --> 00:30:07,880
Speaker 2: in the video, and we also have the name of

494
00:30:07,920 --> 00:30:11,440
Speaker 2: that reporting officer, Stephen Canto, who it only takes a

495
00:30:11,480 --> 00:30:14,360
Speaker 2: few clicks to learn, made about one hundred and eighty

496
00:30:14,400 --> 00:30:17,160
Speaker 2: four thousand dollars a year in twenty twenty one and

497
00:30:17,240 --> 00:30:20,040
Speaker 2: has been the subject of a sustained finding in both

498
00:30:20,160 --> 00:30:25,000
Speaker 2: an internal investigation and a citizen complaint. Not to mention,

499
00:30:25,480 --> 00:30:27,960
Speaker 2: he doesn't even live in Boston, which is still a

500
00:30:28,040 --> 00:30:32,880
Speaker 2: requirement for this department cops man. But let's take it

501
00:30:32,960 --> 00:30:37,480
Speaker 2: back to the date July twenty ninth, twenty twenty three.

502
00:30:37,800 --> 00:30:41,000
Speaker 2: This was a Saturday, around six point thirty in the evening,

503
00:30:41,440 --> 00:30:43,920
Speaker 2: and the event going on at City Hall Plaza at

504
00:30:43,960 --> 00:30:48,200
Speaker 2: that time would have been the Puerto Rican Festival of Massachusetts,

505
00:30:48,760 --> 00:30:51,280
Speaker 2: very cool annual event in the city that was set

506
00:30:51,320 --> 00:30:54,320
Speaker 2: to go on all weekend. Earlier in the day, there

507
00:30:54,360 --> 00:30:56,960
Speaker 2: was a parade in the downtown Boston area that went

508
00:30:56,960 --> 00:31:00,360
Speaker 2: from noon to ten at night both days, so perfect

509
00:31:00,400 --> 00:31:03,000
Speaker 2: event to send a pair of middle aged white Boston

510
00:31:03,080 --> 00:31:07,120
Speaker 2: cops to. The Puerto Rican Festival covered City Hall Plaza

511
00:31:07,320 --> 00:31:12,520
Speaker 2: with food stands, music, carnival, attractions, you name it. So

512
00:31:12,680 --> 00:31:16,280
Speaker 2: I looked into the moment to moment schedule of this event,

513
00:31:16,560 --> 00:31:20,040
Speaker 2: and at the time that the slide cop allegedly took

514
00:31:20,080 --> 00:31:24,640
Speaker 2: this tumble, musician Ashawnee was scheduled to be performing at

515
00:31:24,720 --> 00:31:27,960
Speaker 2: City Hall, right near the playground. But in spite of

516
00:31:28,000 --> 00:31:30,440
Speaker 2: the fact that this is a family event, the playground

517
00:31:30,440 --> 00:31:32,560
Speaker 2: doesn't seem to be very busy at all, and you

518
00:31:32,640 --> 00:31:37,360
Speaker 2: can't really hear indications that there's a festival going on nearby. Granted,

519
00:31:37,440 --> 00:31:39,840
Speaker 2: based on the videos I watched at the festival, it's

520
00:31:39,920 --> 00:31:43,840
Speaker 2: not super close to the playground, but from anecdotal evidence,

521
00:31:43,920 --> 00:31:46,360
Speaker 2: I do think you would be able to hear something.

522
00:31:46,720 --> 00:31:50,080
Speaker 2: But at this point I had more information than anyone

523
00:31:50,080 --> 00:31:52,880
Speaker 2: else I had seen. So I did what Molly said.

524
00:31:53,280 --> 00:31:56,960
Speaker 2: I foyed the FOYA, something I did not previously know

525
00:31:57,120 --> 00:31:59,400
Speaker 2: was the thing you could do. But, as she said,

526
00:32:00,280 --> 00:32:02,320
Speaker 2: a little bit of a wider net in hopes that

527
00:32:02,360 --> 00:32:05,920
Speaker 2: the Boston Police Department would not realize exactly what I

528
00:32:06,040 --> 00:32:09,760
Speaker 2: was looking for. So, trying to be slick, I foyed

529
00:32:09,880 --> 00:32:13,920
Speaker 2: for all records in the weeks before and after the incident,

530
00:32:14,280 --> 00:32:21,480
Speaker 2: and here's what I received in return. The wrong papers

531
00:32:21,720 --> 00:32:24,200
Speaker 2: They straight up did not send me what I asked for,

532
00:32:24,560 --> 00:32:27,720
Speaker 2: which was where cops were stationed with regards to events.

533
00:32:28,120 --> 00:32:33,560
Speaker 2: What I instead got back was promotions or office transfers. Basically,

534
00:32:33,600 --> 00:32:37,080
Speaker 2: I got the run around. And that's tremendously frustrating because

535
00:32:37,120 --> 00:32:39,720
Speaker 2: by the time I got this run around, the Boston

536
00:32:39,760 --> 00:32:42,560
Speaker 2: police and cops all over the country in the world

537
00:32:42,720 --> 00:32:47,440
Speaker 2: were brutalizing peacefully protesting college students holding it down for Palestine.

538
00:32:47,520 --> 00:32:50,440
Speaker 2: The police and citizen mob violence people were subjected to

539
00:32:50,600 --> 00:32:55,240
Speaker 2: for conducting teachings denouncing genocide and demanding divestment from Israel

540
00:32:55,560 --> 00:32:59,360
Speaker 2: were horrific, and in my tiny brain I couldn't help

541
00:32:59,400 --> 00:33:02,680
Speaker 2: but think slide Cop could very well be in that

542
00:33:02,840 --> 00:33:06,640
Speaker 2: stormtrooper line brutalizing young people. And I got the fucking

543
00:33:06,720 --> 00:33:10,520
Speaker 2: run around, and so, with my tail between my little legs,

544
00:33:10,840 --> 00:33:13,360
Speaker 2: I went back to Molly Conger to find out what

545
00:33:13,400 --> 00:33:18,320
Speaker 2: to do next besides file another Foyer request, which I did. God,

546
00:33:18,360 --> 00:33:20,640
Speaker 2: I don't know how people do it. I was reading

547
00:33:20,640 --> 00:33:24,640
Speaker 2: through the first round of You Know there was a

548
00:33:24,680 --> 00:33:28,960
Speaker 2: writer from four to four who immediately made a Foyer request,

549
00:33:29,400 --> 00:33:35,760
Speaker 2: and conveniently, this specific cops name was redacted and the

550
00:33:35,840 --> 00:33:38,080
Speaker 2: reason for that, I feel like is pretty clear. But

551
00:33:38,200 --> 00:33:42,320
Speaker 2: what is the excuse to redact someone like slide CoP's

552
00:33:42,440 --> 00:33:44,239
Speaker 2: name When the guy he was with and the guy

553
00:33:44,280 --> 00:33:48,000
Speaker 2: who reported it that CoP's name is available, and the

554
00:33:48,080 --> 00:33:51,000
Speaker 2: doctor who treated him his name is available. What about

555
00:33:51,200 --> 00:33:54,000
Speaker 2: slide Cop makes him redactable?

556
00:33:54,480 --> 00:33:58,040
Speaker 5: So I found this particular exemption in the Massachusetts law

557
00:33:58,080 --> 00:34:03,479
Speaker 5: about public records. This is Subclause C personnel and medical

558
00:34:03,480 --> 00:34:06,400
Speaker 5: files or information and any other materials or data relating

559
00:34:06,440 --> 00:34:09,719
Speaker 5: to a specifically named individual, the disclosure of which may

560
00:34:09,760 --> 00:34:14,319
Speaker 5: constitute an unwarranted invasion of personal privacy, provided, however, this

561
00:34:14,360 --> 00:34:16,800
Speaker 5: subclause shall not apply to records related to law enforcement

562
00:34:16,840 --> 00:34:21,560
Speaker 5: misconduct investigation. So had he been an investigated for misconduct

563
00:34:21,719 --> 00:34:26,040
Speaker 5: for inappropriately sliding, then you could get the records, right,

564
00:34:26,040 --> 00:34:28,319
Speaker 5: Like if this were a misconduct investigation because he was

565
00:34:28,360 --> 00:34:31,799
Speaker 5: behaving badly at the Puerto Rican Pride festival, then you

566
00:34:31,840 --> 00:34:33,880
Speaker 5: could get it. But in this case, it's just that

567
00:34:33,960 --> 00:34:38,120
Speaker 5: it's this is a personnel incident report, right that this was.

568
00:34:38,680 --> 00:34:40,799
Speaker 5: I wonder if they're claiming a medical exemption right because

569
00:34:40,800 --> 00:34:42,680
Speaker 5: he was injured on the job and sent to the hospital.

570
00:34:42,719 --> 00:34:45,840
Speaker 5: So there's a variety of ways they can pretend that

571
00:34:46,200 --> 00:34:48,279
Speaker 5: it's legal for them not to give this to you, right,

572
00:34:48,960 --> 00:34:51,640
Speaker 5: And that's kind of why when we talked about making

573
00:34:51,640 --> 00:34:54,439
Speaker 5: this request, it's like, don't make it clear what you're

574
00:34:54,480 --> 00:34:56,600
Speaker 5: looking for, right. If you say, like I want records

575
00:34:57,040 --> 00:35:00,680
Speaker 5: of outside cop, they'll just say no, or they'll find

576
00:35:00,680 --> 00:35:02,520
Speaker 5: a reason to say no. But if you don't let

577
00:35:02,520 --> 00:35:05,520
Speaker 5: them know what you're looking for, maybe they won't think

578
00:35:05,640 --> 00:35:07,840
Speaker 5: to abuse their discretion around exemptions.

579
00:35:08,440 --> 00:35:10,960
Speaker 2: It's interesting because I started working on this episode before

580
00:35:11,440 --> 00:35:17,040
Speaker 2: the student protests for Palestine began. Now we're talking several

581
00:35:17,080 --> 00:35:19,520
Speaker 2: weeks in, and I know that you've been covering them

582
00:35:19,560 --> 00:35:23,480
Speaker 2: as well, and the American cops are once again in

583
00:35:23,520 --> 00:35:26,480
Speaker 2: a bit of a PR crisis because they're arresting and

584
00:35:27,040 --> 00:35:32,759
Speaker 2: brutalizing students. So I guess my question around slide Cop,

585
00:35:32,800 --> 00:35:35,319
Speaker 2: and I think we talked about this, was why not

586
00:35:35,600 --> 00:35:40,160
Speaker 2: take advantage of what seems like kind of a PR

587
00:35:40,320 --> 00:35:43,880
Speaker 2: slam dunk a cop did something funny that everyone thought

588
00:35:43,960 --> 00:35:47,759
Speaker 2: was Like, I felt like there was a missed opportunity

589
00:35:47,800 --> 00:35:50,880
Speaker 2: for a spin here, and the cops usually seem to

590
00:35:50,920 --> 00:35:54,880
Speaker 2: take every opportunity for spin. Do you have any thoughts

591
00:35:54,920 --> 00:35:56,920
Speaker 2: on why they may not have taken advantage of it.

592
00:35:57,080 --> 00:35:58,959
Speaker 5: Yeah, I think it would have been like funny and cute,

593
00:35:59,040 --> 00:36:00,600
Speaker 5: right if you like, went on the New news. Was like,

594
00:36:00,640 --> 00:36:02,680
Speaker 5: you know, I was just enjoying our public I'm not

595
00:36:02,680 --> 00:36:04,160
Speaker 5: gonna do a Boston accent, right, but I was just

596
00:36:04,280 --> 00:36:06,920
Speaker 5: enjoying this public park. I just said, I wasn't going

597
00:36:07,080 --> 00:36:08,319
Speaker 5: you know what I mean, Like he could have gone

598
00:36:08,320 --> 00:36:09,799
Speaker 5: on the news and like been cute about it. But

599
00:36:10,480 --> 00:36:13,319
Speaker 5: I'm thinking, you know what Margaret Atwood said about men

600
00:36:13,400 --> 00:36:15,759
Speaker 5: and women, right, Like men are afraid women will laugh

601
00:36:15,800 --> 00:36:18,680
Speaker 5: at them. Women are afraid men will kill them. And

602
00:36:18,719 --> 00:36:21,279
Speaker 5: I think in this scenario, it's you know, cops in

603
00:36:21,320 --> 00:36:24,960
Speaker 5: the public like being laughed at is the worst thing

604
00:36:24,960 --> 00:36:26,640
Speaker 5: that can happen to them after getting a little bit

605
00:36:26,680 --> 00:36:28,160
Speaker 5: of a booboo. They also hate getting a little bit

606
00:36:28,160 --> 00:36:30,440
Speaker 5: of a booboo. And so he was getting laughed at,

607
00:36:30,480 --> 00:36:33,640
Speaker 5: he got a booboo, and that makes them lash out

608
00:36:33,680 --> 00:36:37,560
Speaker 5: like they're not capable of normal human experience. They can't

609
00:36:37,560 --> 00:36:39,440
Speaker 5: just laugh about it because it is funny. He should

610
00:36:39,440 --> 00:36:43,359
Speaker 5: have He should have gone on whatever garbage vaguely right

611
00:36:43,360 --> 00:36:45,600
Speaker 5: wing local news network you have in Boston and just

612
00:36:45,719 --> 00:36:48,080
Speaker 5: laughed and the Boston cops. I will say, in my

613
00:36:48,440 --> 00:36:51,279
Speaker 5: experience with cops in a variety of locations, I have

614
00:36:51,320 --> 00:36:54,200
Speaker 5: a special hatred for the Boston Police Department, and I

615
00:36:54,239 --> 00:36:56,000
Speaker 5: don't care if they hear this. I do hate you.

616
00:36:56,080 --> 00:36:59,080
Speaker 5: I do hate you, Captain John dani Lucky in particular.

617
00:37:00,520 --> 00:37:02,600
Speaker 2: Thank you so much to Molly Coonger, and you can

618
00:37:02,600 --> 00:37:06,839
Speaker 2: support her work over at patreon dot com slash socialist

619
00:37:06,920 --> 00:37:07,479
Speaker 2: dog bomb.

620
00:37:08,440 --> 00:37:08,920
Speaker 5: But in the.

621
00:37:08,920 --> 00:37:12,880
Speaker 2: Meantime, most Boston journalists I spoke with did not seem

622
00:37:12,920 --> 00:37:15,960
Speaker 2: to think that the main character was the slide cop.

623
00:37:16,400 --> 00:37:20,680
Speaker 2: They felt it was the slide. This was challenging for me.

624
00:37:21,200 --> 00:37:25,319
Speaker 2: Why the fuck did everyone care about the slide? I mean,

625
00:37:25,400 --> 00:37:29,120
Speaker 2: I'd seen the slide myself, too slippery, too steep. But

626
00:37:29,239 --> 00:37:33,840
Speaker 2: after the incident, Capital T Capital I, the slide became

627
00:37:33,920 --> 00:37:37,960
Speaker 2: the celebrity, not the slide cop. The week after the incident,

628
00:37:38,280 --> 00:37:40,920
Speaker 2: there was a forty five minute line around the new

629
00:37:40,920 --> 00:37:45,960
Speaker 2: playground consisting of all adults, according to Jezebel on August fourth.

630
00:37:46,160 --> 00:37:50,040
Speaker 2: By August eleventh, slide cop mania had reached such a

631
00:37:50,080 --> 00:37:54,000
Speaker 2: frenzy in downtown Boston and so many people were ready

632
00:37:54,000 --> 00:37:56,600
Speaker 2: to kill themselves for a bit that there was a

633
00:37:56,800 --> 00:37:59,720
Speaker 2: tiny little fence put around the slide by the city,

634
00:38:00,120 --> 00:38:05,600
Speaker 2: said Twitter user unpuppable. They arrested the fucking slide and

635
00:38:05,719 --> 00:38:10,080
Speaker 2: this didn't last long, But they arrested the slide, and

636
00:38:10,160 --> 00:38:13,320
Speaker 2: I can tell you with complete certainty that the lore

637
00:38:13,480 --> 00:38:18,600
Speaker 2: surrounding the slide endured for months and months afterward. That Halloween,

638
00:38:18,840 --> 00:38:21,880
Speaker 2: several locals went soft viral for dressing up like the

639
00:38:21,920 --> 00:38:26,040
Speaker 2: slide or even more cursed a couple's costume of the

640
00:38:26,080 --> 00:38:29,920
Speaker 2: slide and the slide cop. So, while the slide CoP's

641
00:38:29,960 --> 00:38:34,319
Speaker 2: identity remains a mystery for now, I'm adding this to

642
00:38:34,360 --> 00:38:37,840
Speaker 2: the open case files of sixteenth Minute were left with

643
00:38:37,960 --> 00:38:42,040
Speaker 2: the cop hitting slide itself. How does a steep slide

644
00:38:42,200 --> 00:38:44,839
Speaker 2: end up in front of a major city hall and

645
00:38:45,040 --> 00:38:47,759
Speaker 2: has it tried to kill anyone else? When the new

646
00:38:47,800 --> 00:38:51,120
Speaker 2: City Hall plaza was opened after the renovation in twenty

647
00:38:51,200 --> 00:38:54,320
Speaker 2: twenty two, the local news was all over it. CPS

648
00:38:54,320 --> 00:38:57,600
Speaker 2: Boston's Katrina Kincaid reported live from the top of the

649
00:38:57,680 --> 00:39:00,840
Speaker 2: slide you can see her from behind its freaky cage

650
00:39:01,080 --> 00:39:03,239
Speaker 2: on the day that it opened, and went down the

651
00:39:03,280 --> 00:39:06,160
Speaker 2: slide itself at the end of her broadcast and she

652
00:39:07,160 --> 00:39:11,040
Speaker 2: you guessed it completely ate shit. Here's the clip, and

653
00:39:11,120 --> 00:39:11,840
Speaker 2: this whole thing is.

654
00:39:11,840 --> 00:39:15,239
Speaker 5: Gonna open also, you know, including this playground, which if

655
00:39:15,239 --> 00:39:17,479
Speaker 5: you can see this big slide, I get to try

656
00:39:17,520 --> 00:39:18,480
Speaker 5: out the big slide.

657
00:39:18,680 --> 00:39:19,520
Speaker 2: Give me a moment.

658
00:39:19,960 --> 00:39:25,920
Speaker 5: Here we go, whoa, whoa.

659
00:39:29,080 --> 00:39:29,680
Speaker 7: Five to eight.

660
00:39:29,760 --> 00:39:33,040
Speaker 2: More celebrations continue. If you can't make it today, you

661
00:39:33,040 --> 00:39:35,640
Speaker 2: can join from tomorrow. There's gonna be even.

662
00:39:35,440 --> 00:39:36,279
Speaker 1: More stuff here.

663
00:39:36,360 --> 00:39:40,160
Speaker 2: Guys. Oh my gosh, that's definitely a workers comp claim

664
00:39:40,239 --> 00:39:46,760
Speaker 2: right there. An, I'm doing great again. The clunking noise.

665
00:39:47,200 --> 00:39:50,440
Speaker 2: A middle class professional cannot go down this slide without

666
00:39:50,480 --> 00:39:54,960
Speaker 2: the clunking noise. But it wasn't until an especially incompetent

667
00:39:55,040 --> 00:39:59,160
Speaker 2: public servant made use of it that things really went haywire.

668
00:39:59,480 --> 00:39:59,640
Speaker 6: Now.

669
00:39:59,680 --> 00:40:02,040
Speaker 2: As or why the slide is here, it is to

670
00:40:02,120 --> 00:40:05,040
Speaker 2: attract people back to City Hall plaza, which has always

671
00:40:05,040 --> 00:40:08,480
Speaker 2: been challenging because it's ugly, or as one of my

672
00:40:08,520 --> 00:40:12,040
Speaker 2: best friends in WGBH reporter in Boston, Tory Bedford says,

673
00:40:12,560 --> 00:40:15,120
Speaker 2: city hall has a certain brutalism about it.

674
00:40:16,080 --> 00:40:19,879
Speaker 9: Sure, and then they constructed this city Hall in this

675
00:40:20,200 --> 00:40:22,200
Speaker 9: beautiful brutalist architecture.

676
00:40:22,600 --> 00:40:25,160
Speaker 2: That are you a fan? I don't know.

677
00:40:26,960 --> 00:40:29,640
Speaker 9: It's really like on the inside of the building too.

678
00:40:29,680 --> 00:40:33,120
Speaker 9: It's so echoey, and I don't know about a building

679
00:40:33,160 --> 00:40:37,160
Speaker 9: that looms over its residence to assert power.

680
00:40:38,239 --> 00:40:42,000
Speaker 2: Personally, I think it's ugly, and I know ugly. I'm

681
00:40:42,000 --> 00:40:46,840
Speaker 2: from Brockton. So does this story boil down to cops

682
00:40:46,880 --> 00:40:51,240
Speaker 2: eating shit? Is funny? Maybe? Because sure, But I wanted

683
00:40:51,280 --> 00:40:54,040
Speaker 2: to understand what was going on in Boston at the

684
00:40:54,080 --> 00:40:57,560
Speaker 2: moment this story took off that made this specific cop

685
00:40:57,920 --> 00:41:13,560
Speaker 2: uniquely hateable. As it turns out, the month that Slidecock

686
00:41:13,600 --> 00:41:16,320
Speaker 2: took his little tumble should have been a huge moment

687
00:41:16,400 --> 00:41:20,280
Speaker 2: for forward motion and transparency between the police and the public.

688
00:41:20,760 --> 00:41:23,759
Speaker 2: In late August twenty twenty three, a database full of

689
00:41:23,800 --> 00:41:28,360
Speaker 2: complaints made against Massachusetts police officers was released, over a

690
00:41:28,480 --> 00:41:31,560
Speaker 2: year after it was promised to the public, consisting of

691
00:41:31,600 --> 00:41:35,759
Speaker 2: around thirty four hundred disciplinary reports ranging across twenty one

692
00:41:35,840 --> 00:41:38,879
Speaker 2: hundred officers. Yes, feel free to do that math, it's

693
00:41:38,960 --> 00:41:42,160
Speaker 2: not great. The records were compiled and released by a

694
00:41:42,200 --> 00:41:46,200
Speaker 2: police oversight committee that came together in twenty twenty following

695
00:41:46,200 --> 00:41:49,760
Speaker 2: the murder of George Floyd. The oversight board is called

696
00:41:49,960 --> 00:41:53,719
Speaker 2: Post the Peace Officer's Standards and Training Commission. In a

697
00:41:53,880 --> 00:41:58,279
Speaker 2: WBUR report from Deborah Becker and Ali Jarmanning broke down

698
00:41:58,320 --> 00:42:02,960
Speaker 2: the results, or rather what was released of the promised results,

699
00:42:03,320 --> 00:42:06,719
Speaker 2: because a lot of complaints were excluded from this report.

700
00:42:06,960 --> 00:42:10,960
Speaker 2: Among the top offenders included were the Massachusetts State Police,

701
00:42:11,280 --> 00:42:15,080
Speaker 2: the Springfield Police, and the Boston Police. And these are

702
00:42:15,120 --> 00:42:20,880
Speaker 2: just disciplinary reports that were filed. Enrique Zunitta, Post's executive

703
00:42:20,920 --> 00:42:23,640
Speaker 2: director said this when the report was released.

704
00:42:24,440 --> 00:42:28,279
Speaker 3: There are approximately twenty thousand police officers in the Commonwealth.

705
00:42:28,360 --> 00:42:31,680
Speaker 3: In the database contains records for about twenty one hundred.

706
00:42:32,040 --> 00:42:34,319
Speaker 3: The majority of officers are doing their work in the

707
00:42:34,320 --> 00:42:36,560
Speaker 3: professional way that is expected of them.

708
00:42:37,040 --> 00:42:40,799
Speaker 2: But that's still more than one in ten police officers

709
00:42:40,840 --> 00:42:44,000
Speaker 2: with a disciplinary record in a field where many people

710
00:42:44,000 --> 00:42:47,680
Speaker 2: would not feel safe retaliating against officers in the first place.

711
00:42:48,200 --> 00:42:51,840
Speaker 2: One in ten is not a bad apple situation. So

712
00:42:51,920 --> 00:42:54,759
Speaker 2: it's no surprise that the people of Boston want to

713
00:42:54,800 --> 00:42:58,640
Speaker 2: see their cops eat shit. They're in active danger, and

714
00:42:58,719 --> 00:43:02,120
Speaker 2: many people feel that the year late Post report didn't

715
00:43:02,160 --> 00:43:05,560
Speaker 2: tell the half of it. Independent reporters like Jeff Raymond

716
00:43:05,800 --> 00:43:09,279
Speaker 2: runs the blog mass Transparency, say that the committee is

717
00:43:09,360 --> 00:43:11,680
Speaker 2: missing a lot of the truth and is working to

718
00:43:11,719 --> 00:43:14,600
Speaker 2: fill in the blanks himself. I caught up with him

719
00:43:14,680 --> 00:43:15,359
Speaker 2: to learn more.

720
00:43:15,840 --> 00:43:20,520
Speaker 10: My name is Jeff Raymond, A moonlight as an investigative journalist,

721
00:43:21,200 --> 00:43:24,239
Speaker 10: and mass Transparency is a public records project that I

722
00:43:24,320 --> 00:43:31,320
Speaker 10: launched last spring to do some public records journalism throughout

723
00:43:31,480 --> 00:43:32,760
Speaker 10: the state of Massachusetts.

724
00:43:33,480 --> 00:43:36,920
Speaker 2: Do you remember where you were when you saw the

725
00:43:37,000 --> 00:43:38,040
Speaker 2: slide cop video?

726
00:43:38,480 --> 00:43:40,480
Speaker 10: I mean, I mean, I think we were all on

727
00:43:40,520 --> 00:43:42,400
Speaker 10: the bird app at the same time at that point.

728
00:43:42,600 --> 00:43:45,160
Speaker 10: And it's funny because I'm pretty sure I saw the

729
00:43:45,239 --> 00:43:48,280
Speaker 10: means of slide cop before I saw a slide cop himself.

730
00:43:49,040 --> 00:43:51,359
Speaker 2: Wow, it was, in.

731
00:43:51,280 --> 00:43:53,440
Speaker 10: Fact, you know, I'm thinking about it now. I hadn't

732
00:43:53,440 --> 00:43:55,560
Speaker 10: even thought of when I first saw it. I believe

733
00:43:55,560 --> 00:43:58,520
Speaker 10: it was a video where it was essentially the cop

734
00:43:58,560 --> 00:44:00,239
Speaker 10: coming out of the thing and then a bunch of

735
00:44:00,280 --> 00:44:03,280
Speaker 10: other cops spelling out underneath him into.

736
00:44:03,040 --> 00:44:04,680
Speaker 7: A side cops.

737
00:44:05,280 --> 00:44:11,000
Speaker 10: Yeah, Austin needed a win, and perhaps more importantly, Boston

738
00:44:11,040 --> 00:44:13,719
Speaker 10: didn't have his own entry in the in the air

739
00:44:13,760 --> 00:44:14,840
Speaker 10: tonight drum break.

740
00:44:17,200 --> 00:44:19,520
Speaker 7: Yeah provided that to.

741
00:44:19,440 --> 00:44:22,200
Speaker 2: Us exactly, and we're richer for it.

742
00:44:22,600 --> 00:44:28,200
Speaker 10: This is community policing distilled into its personal essence. Yeah,

743
00:44:28,440 --> 00:44:30,759
Speaker 10: cops tries to get along with the common man, and

744
00:44:30,800 --> 00:44:33,520
Speaker 10: he's like, I'm going to go down this slide, and

745
00:44:33,560 --> 00:44:36,960
Speaker 10: the next thing you know, he's concustom There's records of

746
00:44:37,000 --> 00:44:39,480
Speaker 10: things and incident reports.

747
00:44:39,040 --> 00:44:44,000
Speaker 7: And physicists are being consulted. Like it's putting.

748
00:44:43,760 --> 00:44:46,279
Speaker 10: Barriers up around the slide at night and make sure

749
00:44:46,320 --> 00:44:48,680
Speaker 10: that nobody else goes down it, because you know, all

750
00:44:48,680 --> 00:44:50,800
Speaker 10: the kids who went down that slide for the last

751
00:44:51,360 --> 00:44:53,000
Speaker 10: X number of years were fine, but the minute of

752
00:44:53,040 --> 00:44:55,960
Speaker 10: police officer hits the side the wrong way, we have

753
00:44:56,040 --> 00:44:57,640
Speaker 10: to Yeah.

754
00:44:57,760 --> 00:44:59,759
Speaker 2: I was really excited to get to talk to you

755
00:44:59,760 --> 00:45:03,640
Speaker 2: because I wanted to contextualize just a general attitude towards

756
00:45:03,800 --> 00:45:06,319
Speaker 2: policing in Massachusetts right now, but also just in this

757
00:45:06,400 --> 00:45:09,680
Speaker 2: specific moment, because I feel like it was an eventful

758
00:45:09,719 --> 00:45:13,880
Speaker 2: and interesting summer in police oversight or the lack thereof.

759
00:45:14,239 --> 00:45:18,080
Speaker 2: What motivated you to start the mass Transparency Project? What

760
00:45:18,120 --> 00:45:20,120
Speaker 2: are its goals at present?

761
00:45:20,600 --> 00:45:24,560
Speaker 10: This started as an offshoot of a local news thing

762
00:45:24,560 --> 00:45:27,640
Speaker 10: that I was doing, because local news is being decimated

763
00:45:27,640 --> 00:45:30,640
Speaker 10: across the country. Massachusetts is no different in that regard.

764
00:45:30,920 --> 00:45:35,560
Speaker 10: Some IT company bought the paper along with like six

765
00:45:35,560 --> 00:45:37,600
Speaker 10: others in the region about a year and a half

766
00:45:37,640 --> 00:45:40,360
Speaker 10: two years ago, me and a friend tried and failed

767
00:45:40,360 --> 00:45:43,080
Speaker 10: to kick something off on the ground here, But I

768
00:45:43,200 --> 00:45:46,520
Speaker 10: wanted to focus a little broader because I enjoyed doing

769
00:45:46,520 --> 00:45:49,319
Speaker 10: public records or class because I'm a huge nerd, and

770
00:45:49,880 --> 00:45:53,920
Speaker 10: this was a perfect incident on it. Which is the

771
00:45:54,040 --> 00:45:58,400
Speaker 10: post Commission, the Massachusetts Peace Officer Standards and Training Commission,

772
00:45:58,719 --> 00:46:03,600
Speaker 10: that's a nice word jumble. They had launched shortly after

773
00:46:03,880 --> 00:46:07,520
Speaker 10: the George Floyd murder in Massachusetts as part of a

774
00:46:08,280 --> 00:46:13,759
Speaker 10: wholesale reform bill. So to give some very high level background.

775
00:46:14,440 --> 00:46:19,560
Speaker 10: After the murder, a very contentious reform package went through

776
00:46:19,560 --> 00:46:22,800
Speaker 10: the Massachusetts legislature and was signed by Governor Baker, Republican

777
00:46:22,840 --> 00:46:26,239
Speaker 10: at the time, right, and part of it was to

778
00:46:26,320 --> 00:46:30,040
Speaker 10: create a state level oversight committee for the police officer

779
00:46:30,160 --> 00:46:32,840
Speaker 10: in the state. The post Commission has a lot of

780
00:46:32,880 --> 00:46:35,560
Speaker 10: different avenues they have to go through, but one of

781
00:46:35,600 --> 00:46:41,319
Speaker 10: them is to keep a public database of disciplinary records.

782
00:46:42,239 --> 00:46:44,920
Speaker 10: So if an officer has a complaint lodged against him

783
00:46:45,000 --> 00:46:48,920
Speaker 10: or her, the complaint is already lodged at the local

784
00:46:48,960 --> 00:46:52,480
Speaker 10: police department or police vehicle, depending on what it is.

785
00:46:52,520 --> 00:46:54,680
Speaker 10: Because they can they handle the colleges and stuff too,

786
00:46:55,160 --> 00:46:59,960
Speaker 10: but those complaints were being compiled by the individual departments

787
00:47:00,080 --> 00:47:03,040
Speaker 10: and sent off the Post, and Post was supposed to

788
00:47:03,080 --> 00:47:07,040
Speaker 10: put the online. That database was supposed to happen. This

789
00:47:07,080 --> 00:47:08,359
Speaker 10: is how long this has been going on.

790
00:47:08,400 --> 00:47:08,640
Speaker 7: Now.

791
00:47:08,760 --> 00:47:11,920
Speaker 10: This database was supposed to launch in November of twenty

792
00:47:12,000 --> 00:47:12,560
Speaker 10: twenty two.

793
00:47:13,920 --> 00:47:14,640
Speaker 2: Wow, okay.

794
00:47:14,880 --> 00:47:18,399
Speaker 10: I started my project in March of twenty twenty three

795
00:47:18,960 --> 00:47:22,720
Speaker 10: because A the database still hadn't happened, and B Post

796
00:47:22,920 --> 00:47:25,080
Speaker 10: was putting out feelers that said they weren't going to

797
00:47:25,160 --> 00:47:26,120
Speaker 10: publish it at all.

798
00:47:27,040 --> 00:47:29,560
Speaker 2: And was was there a reasoning given for that?

799
00:47:30,200 --> 00:47:33,160
Speaker 10: The official reason they gave was that it was data

800
00:47:33,200 --> 00:47:39,680
Speaker 10: fidelity issues, which essentially is a BS term for we

801
00:47:39,760 --> 00:47:42,719
Speaker 10: don't like what we're getting and we're just going to

802
00:47:43,840 --> 00:47:46,920
Speaker 10: push it aside. Again, I am a nerd with a

803
00:47:46,920 --> 00:47:49,239
Speaker 10: lot of free time on his hands, and I know

804
00:47:49,320 --> 00:47:52,879
Speaker 10: how to craft a good public record request, so I

805
00:47:52,920 --> 00:47:55,839
Speaker 10: decided to do the insane thing and write all three

806
00:47:55,880 --> 00:47:59,880
Speaker 10: hundred and fifty one local police departments in Massachusetts to

807
00:48:00,080 --> 00:48:01,480
Speaker 10: get the records they sent the Post.

808
00:48:01,920 --> 00:48:07,360
Speaker 2: Wow, oh my god. Foyer nerds are are our bravest soldiers,

809
00:48:07,480 --> 00:48:08,600
Speaker 2: Our bravest soldiers.

810
00:48:08,719 --> 00:48:09,760
Speaker 7: Randred fifty requests.

811
00:48:09,800 --> 00:48:11,759
Speaker 2: Yeah, what was the response rate?

812
00:48:11,960 --> 00:48:14,080
Speaker 10: Oh, they hate me. There were towns that I felt

813
00:48:14,120 --> 00:48:16,279
Speaker 10: like I could not drive in for a while. There

814
00:48:16,280 --> 00:48:19,319
Speaker 10: were some very contentious conversations with chiefs of police and

815
00:48:19,760 --> 00:48:23,920
Speaker 10: town clerks and stuff. I got the ire of the

816
00:48:23,960 --> 00:48:27,880
Speaker 10: Massachusetts Chiefs of Police Association, which is sort of like

817
00:48:27,960 --> 00:48:31,000
Speaker 10: the lobbying body for the different chiefs in the state.

818
00:48:31,320 --> 00:48:36,080
Speaker 10: They tried to coordinate over email a way to give

819
00:48:36,120 --> 00:48:39,440
Speaker 10: a blanket denial of my request, which was a lot

820
00:48:39,480 --> 00:48:43,279
Speaker 10: of fun. But their lawyer put a typo in so

821
00:48:43,360 --> 00:48:45,920
Speaker 10: I was able to find out really quickly who was

822
00:48:46,040 --> 00:48:49,440
Speaker 10: using this thing, and I was able to you know,

823
00:48:49,640 --> 00:48:52,680
Speaker 10: I was putting appeals into the state. The State Public

824
00:48:52,719 --> 00:48:55,719
Speaker 10: Records Division knows me by name. Now, like you know,

825
00:48:55,800 --> 00:48:57,560
Speaker 10: one of the women there is you know, she and

826
00:48:57,560 --> 00:49:00,839
Speaker 10: I are tight. It's it became a whole thing. I

827
00:49:00,880 --> 00:49:03,600
Speaker 10: think at the end of the day, with this project

828
00:49:03,719 --> 00:49:07,000
Speaker 10: for policing in particular, like you said, three hundred and

829
00:49:07,040 --> 00:49:11,600
Speaker 10: fifty individual towns got requests from me, I've had to

830
00:49:11,760 --> 00:49:15,520
Speaker 10: issue an additional I believe I'm up to three hundred

831
00:49:15,520 --> 00:49:19,759
Speaker 10: and eighty five appeals because these departments are trying not

832
00:49:19,800 --> 00:49:23,480
Speaker 10: to release this information, and there are still some departments

833
00:49:23,520 --> 00:49:27,040
Speaker 10: out there, about thirty of them now that are still resisting,

834
00:49:27,239 --> 00:49:30,000
Speaker 10: and we're a year out now. They will have to soon.

835
00:49:30,040 --> 00:49:32,839
Speaker 10: We're waiting on a Supreme Court decision that I'm not

836
00:49:32,920 --> 00:49:35,680
Speaker 10: related to but is being used to deny the records.

837
00:49:35,960 --> 00:49:39,000
Speaker 10: But it has been what I thought was going to

838
00:49:39,040 --> 00:49:44,040
Speaker 10: be a fun quote unquote fun project over like Easter

839
00:49:44,160 --> 00:49:46,840
Speaker 10: break while I didn't have a lot going on, became

840
00:49:46,960 --> 00:49:49,440
Speaker 10: this like year long crusade where I've become like the

841
00:49:49,560 --> 00:49:53,040
Speaker 10: poster boy for police transparency in central Massachusetts.

842
00:49:53,120 --> 00:49:57,400
Speaker 2: So wow, I learned of your coverage doing a general

843
00:49:57,480 --> 00:49:59,879
Speaker 2: look at what was going on in from a wb

844
00:50:00,200 --> 00:50:04,920
Speaker 2: R piece about initial launch, which is the same week

845
00:50:05,480 --> 00:50:08,200
Speaker 2: as slide cop did walk me through this. The database

846
00:50:08,280 --> 00:50:10,279
Speaker 2: is kind of released it.

847
00:50:10,000 --> 00:50:11,160
Speaker 7: What happened.

848
00:50:11,640 --> 00:50:14,279
Speaker 10: What happened was is that all these departments, now that

849
00:50:14,360 --> 00:50:17,640
Speaker 10: I have all the documents, I can see the transition

850
00:50:17,760 --> 00:50:20,920
Speaker 10: and the trajectory of where this went. All the departments

851
00:50:21,040 --> 00:50:25,280
Speaker 10: were tasked by the Post Commission to compile this evidence

852
00:50:25,320 --> 00:50:29,080
Speaker 10: on their own. Essentially, instead of the Post Commission going

853
00:50:29,120 --> 00:50:33,080
Speaker 10: directly to the chiefs, they were saying, chiefs, use this form.

854
00:50:33,800 --> 00:50:37,680
Speaker 10: Fell out the information send it back to us. These

855
00:50:37,760 --> 00:50:40,279
Speaker 10: chiefs don't know how to use technology. They don't know

856
00:50:40,320 --> 00:50:46,359
Speaker 10: how to craft a coherent Excel spreadsheet. None of them

857
00:50:46,400 --> 00:50:47,920
Speaker 10: were exporting them the same way.

858
00:50:48,320 --> 00:50:48,839
Speaker 7: None of them.

859
00:50:48,960 --> 00:50:50,920
Speaker 10: Some of them would pdf it. And you know, if

860
00:50:50,920 --> 00:50:53,799
Speaker 10: you try to pdf a Excel spreadsheet, it doesn't work.

861
00:50:54,000 --> 00:50:55,520
Speaker 7: The disastera diaster.

862
00:50:55,840 --> 00:50:58,520
Speaker 10: So it's like, I understand now what they meant by

863
00:50:58,600 --> 00:51:03,080
Speaker 10: data fidelity, because the Post Commission doesn't have the resources

864
00:51:03,120 --> 00:51:05,480
Speaker 10: to actually go through these things line by line and

865
00:51:05,520 --> 00:51:08,120
Speaker 10: do the copy paste. And you know, I'm sure they

866
00:51:08,120 --> 00:51:10,000
Speaker 10: don't have a coder who use our or something like

867
00:51:10,040 --> 00:51:13,239
Speaker 10: that to create a script. I mean like they're they're

868
00:51:13,320 --> 00:51:17,440
Speaker 10: under resourced for what they need to do, and they're

869
00:51:17,520 --> 00:51:21,040
Speaker 10: coming up against fierce resistance from the chiefs, the police

870
00:51:21,320 --> 00:51:24,120
Speaker 10: who don't want to put their guys in the in

871
00:51:24,160 --> 00:51:28,839
Speaker 10: the way, the labor unions for the police, who are

872
00:51:28,880 --> 00:51:32,680
Speaker 10: problems for any sort of accountability, and you know, a

873
00:51:32,760 --> 00:51:35,880
Speaker 10: public that thinks that the police, you know, one of

874
00:51:36,320 --> 00:51:39,320
Speaker 10: Massachusetts is considered a very progressive state in the grand

875
00:51:39,320 --> 00:51:42,720
Speaker 10: scheme of things. We are pro police to a fault

876
00:51:42,760 --> 00:51:45,239
Speaker 10: here in a lot of ways. You know, it's it's

877
00:51:45,400 --> 00:51:49,280
Speaker 10: very interesting the blind spot we have for policing compared

878
00:51:49,320 --> 00:51:53,040
Speaker 10: to other places that you would think would have our

879
00:51:53,080 --> 00:51:56,840
Speaker 10: sort of blind spot. So when you have the public

880
00:51:57,160 --> 00:52:01,399
Speaker 10: not behind you, and the unions not behind you, and

881
00:52:01,480 --> 00:52:03,919
Speaker 10: the chiefs not behind you, you're up against a lot

882
00:52:03,920 --> 00:52:07,880
Speaker 10: of a lot of stuff. And the Post Commission, you know,

883
00:52:07,920 --> 00:52:09,239
Speaker 10: I feel like they're operating.

884
00:52:08,920 --> 00:52:09,480
Speaker 7: A good faith.

885
00:52:09,560 --> 00:52:12,640
Speaker 10: They're doing the best they can. But they watered down

886
00:52:12,800 --> 00:52:15,879
Speaker 10: the database they put out there. They didn't put all

887
00:52:15,920 --> 00:52:19,360
Speaker 10: of the stuff that's been recorded in there. They only

888
00:52:19,440 --> 00:52:23,880
Speaker 10: wanted to publicize the things that were sustained and the

889
00:52:23,880 --> 00:52:29,560
Speaker 10: definition of a sustained complaint that differs from department to department. Okay,

890
00:52:29,640 --> 00:52:33,080
Speaker 10: And they promised me I actually had an interview with

891
00:52:33,120 --> 00:52:35,839
Speaker 10: the director of the Post Commission that they would have

892
00:52:36,080 --> 00:52:38,640
Speaker 10: aggregate data for us, and that was six months ago

893
00:52:38,640 --> 00:52:39,440
Speaker 10: and they see nothing.

894
00:52:40,080 --> 00:52:43,520
Speaker 7: So it's very frustrating.

895
00:52:43,239 --> 00:52:47,680
Speaker 2: In your view. What needs to happen in order for

896
00:52:48,239 --> 00:52:49,879
Speaker 2: POST to work effectively?

897
00:52:50,520 --> 00:52:56,840
Speaker 10: Post needs more money. We don't have it in the state.

898
00:52:57,160 --> 00:52:59,040
Speaker 10: We've already had to do a bunch of cuts for

899
00:52:59,120 --> 00:53:01,719
Speaker 10: services because tax revenues are not where they need to be,

900
00:53:02,719 --> 00:53:05,960
Speaker 10: and we do not have a population that is willing

901
00:53:06,040 --> 00:53:09,080
Speaker 10: to put any cuts into the police departments of this area.

902
00:53:09,600 --> 00:53:13,160
Speaker 10: It's just not happening. Because the police departments feel like

903
00:53:13,160 --> 00:53:19,000
Speaker 10: they're underfunded. They're not going to then allow for money

904
00:53:19,080 --> 00:53:22,120
Speaker 10: to go to the thing that's overseeing them without a fight.

905
00:53:24,040 --> 00:53:27,239
Speaker 10: And a lot of people in the state House and

906
00:53:27,280 --> 00:53:31,040
Speaker 10: the legislature staked a lot of their political capital on

907
00:53:31,080 --> 00:53:34,480
Speaker 10: getting this first reform through and they've had their bite

908
00:53:34,480 --> 00:53:36,560
Speaker 10: at the apple and they've moved on. They're looking at

909
00:53:36,600 --> 00:53:41,839
Speaker 10: different things now. And you know the nature of legislation

910
00:53:42,320 --> 00:53:46,320
Speaker 10: in twenty twenty four is we flit from one shiny

911
00:53:46,360 --> 00:53:50,160
Speaker 10: object to the next, and history ends a month before

912
00:53:50,360 --> 00:53:53,319
Speaker 10: you're talking about it, right, that's my optimism.

913
00:53:53,840 --> 00:53:56,320
Speaker 7: Yeah, no, I mean I think that that's beautiful.

914
00:53:56,560 --> 00:53:59,800
Speaker 2: But how do we bring this back to slide cop

915
00:54:00,760 --> 00:54:03,440
Speaker 2: is the real question in.

916
00:54:03,400 --> 00:54:05,920
Speaker 10: All seriouss like I've been thinking about this at the

917
00:54:06,120 --> 00:54:11,560
Speaker 10: slide cop incident also distills the lack of transparency in

918
00:54:11,560 --> 00:54:16,840
Speaker 10: this whole charade. One of the arguments that the district

919
00:54:16,920 --> 00:54:20,000
Speaker 10: attorneys are making in terms of disclosure for these post

920
00:54:20,040 --> 00:54:24,440
Speaker 10: reports is that they don't want their officers mocked on

921
00:54:24,480 --> 00:54:29,400
Speaker 10: social media. They specifically call out video on Facebook, TikTok

922
00:54:29,840 --> 00:54:33,399
Speaker 10: Instagram reels as they don't want this information that could

923
00:54:33,440 --> 00:54:36,719
Speaker 10: include interviews that are taped or audio that goes out

924
00:54:36,760 --> 00:54:40,000
Speaker 10: there to be put online, to be remixed, to be

925
00:54:40,760 --> 00:54:46,640
Speaker 10: put upon, mocked, all this stuff. They hate disclosure. And

926
00:54:47,080 --> 00:54:50,160
Speaker 10: you just see them if you read the articles from

927
00:54:50,760 --> 00:54:56,280
Speaker 10: the slide cop era. All these departments circled the wagons

928
00:54:56,280 --> 00:54:59,440
Speaker 10: about keeping this guy's name a secret, and it's like,

929
00:55:00,000 --> 00:55:02,960
Speaker 10: you know, I'm going to be honest with you, that

930
00:55:03,120 --> 00:55:08,000
Speaker 10: was the most humanizing police encounter I've seen online in years.

931
00:55:08,640 --> 00:55:11,120
Speaker 7: And you think that this guy, let him.

932
00:55:11,000 --> 00:55:14,040
Speaker 10: Have his fifteen minutes, let him have his whole thing. Yeah,

933
00:55:14,080 --> 00:55:16,840
Speaker 10: I'm the guy who went down the slide Oops. You know,

934
00:55:17,880 --> 00:55:20,160
Speaker 10: Boston Police had a million ways to go about this.

935
00:55:20,440 --> 00:55:22,120
Speaker 10: They could have leaned into a little bit, had a

936
00:55:22,160 --> 00:55:24,759
Speaker 10: little fun with it, taken to five minutes, and then

937
00:55:24,800 --> 00:55:27,719
Speaker 10: the internet would have moved on. Instead, we still don't

938
00:55:27,760 --> 00:55:30,120
Speaker 10: know this guy is two years later. It's impossible to

939
00:55:30,120 --> 00:55:32,400
Speaker 10: find me any information on it. You're doing a podcast

940
00:55:32,400 --> 00:55:34,919
Speaker 10: about it years after the fact because it's still there

941
00:55:34,960 --> 00:55:36,960
Speaker 10: because they won't tell us anything about it.

942
00:55:38,160 --> 00:55:40,399
Speaker 2: Yeah, I sort of felt the same way, where it's

943
00:55:40,400 --> 00:55:42,400
Speaker 2: like I think there's a very cynical way that this

944
00:55:42,480 --> 00:55:45,919
Speaker 2: story goes, where you know, slide CP becomes a pro

945
00:55:45,960 --> 00:55:48,799
Speaker 2: policing mascot. But it feels like there is this like

946
00:55:49,360 --> 00:55:52,879
Speaker 2: really you know, jingoistic masculine pride in the police force wards,

947
00:55:52,920 --> 00:55:56,399
Speaker 2: Like we refuse to look silly, even if it would

948
00:55:56,480 --> 00:55:58,799
Speaker 2: behoove us, we refuse to look silly.

949
00:55:59,480 --> 00:56:02,520
Speaker 10: Like to tell me they couldn't get Macgruff the crime

950
00:56:02,560 --> 00:56:05,560
Speaker 10: dog to like stand the thing with the cop and

951
00:56:05,640 --> 00:56:10,239
Speaker 10: talk about playground safety, Like you could have leaned this

952
00:56:10,360 --> 00:56:13,719
Speaker 10: into a community benefit. You know, if they were trying

953
00:56:13,760 --> 00:56:16,520
Speaker 10: to be transparent, it stops being a story. Nobody cares

954
00:56:16,560 --> 00:56:20,000
Speaker 10: because everybody's there every moment that you keep something a secret,

955
00:56:20,080 --> 00:56:22,000
Speaker 10: And you know, there's a part of me that it's

956
00:56:22,080 --> 00:56:26,120
Speaker 10: like they're keeping this guy's name a secret because he

957
00:56:26,239 --> 00:56:29,160
Speaker 10: has a rap sheet and they don't want it to

958
00:56:29,160 --> 00:56:30,960
Speaker 10: come out there. And that's the first thing I think

959
00:56:31,000 --> 00:56:34,360
Speaker 10: of now, because I've seen the post reports that they

960
00:56:34,440 --> 00:56:37,799
Speaker 10: didn't want public, and I've seen how some officers get

961
00:56:37,840 --> 00:56:40,680
Speaker 10: away with, well, let's be honest here, I get away.

962
00:56:40,480 --> 00:56:42,160
Speaker 7: With a little literal murder sometimes.

963
00:56:42,680 --> 00:56:44,680
Speaker 10: And you know, I am not saying that slide Cop

964
00:56:44,760 --> 00:56:46,440
Speaker 10: is a murderer. I'm not even saying that he might

965
00:56:46,480 --> 00:56:49,760
Speaker 10: be a bad cop, but you know what, I'm thinking

966
00:56:49,760 --> 00:56:51,760
Speaker 10: it now because they don't want to tell.

967
00:56:51,680 --> 00:56:52,560
Speaker 5: Us who he is.

968
00:56:54,040 --> 00:56:56,560
Speaker 2: Thank you so much to Jeff, and you can follow

969
00:56:56,600 --> 00:57:01,920
Speaker 2: his ongoing efforts at mass Transparency DOT. I have to

970
00:57:01,920 --> 00:57:04,560
Speaker 2: be honest, I'm pissed off that I was not able

971
00:57:04,560 --> 00:57:07,680
Speaker 2: to figure out whose slide Cop was. I'd made every effort,

972
00:57:07,880 --> 00:57:13,120
Speaker 2: from interviewing reporters to enlisting hackers to contacting the police myself,

973
00:57:13,560 --> 00:57:17,320
Speaker 2: and I failed. And then a few days after Jeff

974
00:57:17,360 --> 00:57:21,000
Speaker 2: Raymond and I spoke, he sent me a convoluted government

975
00:57:21,080 --> 00:57:24,880
Speaker 2: document that offered an answer as to why this search

976
00:57:25,080 --> 00:57:28,880
Speaker 2: has been so challenging. The document is from an appellate

977
00:57:28,920 --> 00:57:32,840
Speaker 2: court on August eleventh, twenty twenty three, just a week

978
00:57:32,920 --> 00:57:36,560
Speaker 2: after the Boston slide Cop delighted people all over the world.

979
00:57:37,080 --> 00:57:39,440
Speaker 2: The question at the center of the case was this,

980
00:57:39,840 --> 00:57:40,200
Speaker 2: and I.

981
00:57:40,240 --> 00:57:43,960
Speaker 3: Quote whether the legislator's grant of authority to the Post

982
00:57:43,960 --> 00:57:47,880
Speaker 3: Commission implies that the Commission has the exclusive authority to

983
00:57:47,920 --> 00:57:52,480
Speaker 3: release the names of police officers whose conduct has been investigated.

984
00:57:52,400 --> 00:57:55,720
Speaker 2: Or trade officers with complaints filed against them. In the

985
00:57:55,760 --> 00:58:00,240
Speaker 2: post report be named. Pretty deep into this document, it's

986
00:58:00,360 --> 00:58:05,160
Speaker 2: explicitly suggested why most props exert their right to refuse

987
00:58:05,240 --> 00:58:07,400
Speaker 2: to be reported. Here's what it says.

988
00:58:08,120 --> 00:58:11,560
Speaker 3: Once deemed to be public records, recordings can be used

989
00:58:11,600 --> 00:58:15,040
Speaker 3: in whatever way the public wishes. The public, however, can

990
00:58:15,080 --> 00:58:19,640
Speaker 3: be cruel and harassing, increasing opportunities to harass and instill

991
00:58:19,680 --> 00:58:22,720
Speaker 3: fear through social media. It is easy to foresee the

992
00:58:22,760 --> 00:58:26,920
Speaker 3: refusal of any public employee to submit to being recorded.

993
00:58:27,200 --> 00:58:29,640
Speaker 3: Ever again, if the public release of the recorded interview

994
00:58:29,680 --> 00:58:32,680
Speaker 3: can be expected to be uploaded to the Internet, modified

995
00:58:32,680 --> 00:58:37,040
Speaker 3: for TikTok, submitted to Facebook reels, Instagram reels, or any

996
00:58:37,280 --> 00:58:42,400
Speaker 3: individual podcast for the purpose of ridiculing or vilifying the interviewees,

997
00:58:42,880 --> 00:58:46,640
Speaker 3: the public disclosure of such interviews likewise could lead to

998
00:58:46,680 --> 00:58:50,400
Speaker 3: retaliation against public employees, creating a danger to them and

999
00:58:50,480 --> 00:58:51,120
Speaker 3: their families.

1000
00:58:52,320 --> 00:58:55,479
Speaker 2: Now I'm not saying that the slide cop has an

1001
00:58:55,520 --> 00:58:59,919
Speaker 2: on record disciplinary report filed against him, but lowbull asked

1002
00:59:00,560 --> 00:59:04,720
Speaker 2: from the poorly resourced post commission do indicate that this

1003
00:59:04,880 --> 00:59:08,760
Speaker 2: is very possible. And what this appellate court document tells

1004
00:59:08,800 --> 00:59:11,240
Speaker 2: me is that in the summer of twenty twenty three,

1005
00:59:11,760 --> 00:59:15,000
Speaker 2: the company line for the Boston Police was do not,

1006
00:59:15,720 --> 00:59:21,160
Speaker 2: under any circumstances become the Internet's main character, because if

1007
00:59:21,200 --> 00:59:25,400
Speaker 2: you do, some little bitch is going to vilify you

1008
00:59:25,880 --> 00:59:30,760
Speaker 2: on a podcast. A few days before this episode was

1009
00:59:30,800 --> 00:59:33,720
Speaker 2: scheduled to drop, Jeff Raymond called me back with some

1010
00:59:33,840 --> 00:59:37,360
Speaker 2: new information that a decision had been made that public

1011
00:59:37,400 --> 00:59:40,479
Speaker 2: records would be made more accessible in theory at least,

1012
00:59:40,560 --> 00:59:43,040
Speaker 2: but that that probably wouldn't apply to Slide Cop still

1013
00:59:43,080 --> 00:59:45,760
Speaker 2: because no one was really wronged in the incident except

1014
00:59:45,800 --> 00:59:48,680
Speaker 2: the cop himself. That it was classified as a medical thing.

1015
00:59:49,040 --> 00:59:53,440
Speaker 2: But Jeff had a lead for me. Okay, Hi, Jeff,

1016
00:59:53,520 --> 00:59:56,120
Speaker 2: it is what it's like, almost two months after we

1017
00:59:56,160 --> 00:59:56,760
Speaker 2: first spoke.

1018
00:59:57,520 --> 00:59:59,919
Speaker 10: I feel like it's been a whirlwind. When we last

1019
01:00:00,320 --> 01:00:03,760
Speaker 10: we were waiting on the Supreme Judicial Court of the State

1020
01:00:03,760 --> 01:00:10,200
Speaker 10: of Massachusetts to bring down a transparency ruling regarding an

1021
01:00:10,240 --> 01:00:14,600
Speaker 10: officer involves shooting in Fall River that came down roughly

1022
01:00:15,360 --> 01:00:17,120
Speaker 10: a month ago, I want to say, April twenty six.

1023
01:00:17,160 --> 01:00:19,680
Speaker 10: Don't quote me on that, Mac versus a District Attorney

1024
01:00:19,720 --> 01:00:24,400
Speaker 10: of Bristol County and of that of note, for what

1025
01:00:24,440 --> 01:00:28,200
Speaker 10: I've been working on and to a certain extent, the

1026
01:00:28,240 --> 01:00:31,640
Speaker 10: slide cop saga. They came down with two ideas. One

1027
01:00:31,800 --> 01:00:33,919
Speaker 10: is that the exemption that the police have been using

1028
01:00:33,960 --> 01:00:38,480
Speaker 10: to hide all this information about disciplinary records quote unambiguously

1029
01:00:38,560 --> 01:00:42,040
Speaker 10: states that the privacy exemption does not apply to investigation

1030
01:00:42,080 --> 01:00:45,720
Speaker 10: of law enforcement and misconduct. To require the investigation to

1031
01:00:45,800 --> 01:00:48,520
Speaker 10: end with the finding of a police conduct places the

1032
01:00:48,560 --> 01:00:51,160
Speaker 10: cart before the horse and runs counter to the goals

1033
01:00:51,200 --> 01:00:54,480
Speaker 10: of police account to be ability and transparency. So here's

1034
01:00:54,520 --> 01:00:57,120
Speaker 10: the bad news, because I was really, really really hoping

1035
01:00:57,120 --> 01:01:00,480
Speaker 10: that this would open up the open up the slide gates,

1036
01:01:00,480 --> 01:01:03,200
Speaker 10: I guess for life of a better term. But what

1037
01:01:03,280 --> 01:01:05,479
Speaker 10: I found interesting is I was digging in a little more.

1038
01:01:06,120 --> 01:01:10,840
Speaker 10: The incident report for a slide cop makes it a

1039
01:01:10,920 --> 01:01:15,640
Speaker 10: medical situation with the officer, which is still not subject

1040
01:01:15,680 --> 01:01:19,040
Speaker 10: to disclosure, which means that I don't know if they

1041
01:01:19,080 --> 01:01:21,080
Speaker 10: did it display on purpose or it just has to

1042
01:01:21,160 --> 01:01:25,560
Speaker 10: be a happy coincidence on their part, but they don't

1043
01:01:25,640 --> 01:01:28,640
Speaker 10: need to disclose that person's name or really the fact

1044
01:01:28,680 --> 01:01:30,440
Speaker 10: that anything leaked out of it at all is kind

1045
01:01:30,440 --> 01:01:34,520
Speaker 10: of surprising, giving that it's a health situation. Now, with

1046
01:01:34,680 --> 01:01:37,480
Speaker 10: that said, you know, if there are any police officers

1047
01:01:37,480 --> 01:01:40,360
Speaker 10: who are possibly listening to this who might have access

1048
01:01:40,360 --> 01:01:44,440
Speaker 10: to clearview AI and might want to, you know, drop

1049
01:01:44,440 --> 01:01:46,240
Speaker 10: in a video or two and see if it matches

1050
01:01:46,240 --> 01:01:50,040
Speaker 10: anybody in your databases. I wouldn't complain. You know, that's

1051
01:01:50,080 --> 01:01:52,320
Speaker 10: going to be a dead end until we can get

1052
01:01:52,360 --> 01:01:55,560
Speaker 10: a better picture of who is in there. The good

1053
01:01:55,600 --> 01:01:58,280
Speaker 10: news I'll call the good news is that we can

1054
01:01:58,360 --> 01:02:02,240
Speaker 10: narrow down the exec precinct that this officer works out of. Wow,

1055
01:02:02,880 --> 01:02:05,320
Speaker 10: we know exactly where he works out of what he

1056
01:02:06,080 --> 01:02:10,720
Speaker 10: does they do not make immediately public, like you know

1057
01:02:11,120 --> 01:02:14,240
Speaker 10: when they worked, they're hours, things like that. But with

1058
01:02:14,360 --> 01:02:17,480
Speaker 10: a lot more digging and a lot more research and

1059
01:02:17,600 --> 01:02:19,840
Speaker 10: possibly somebody who can do it, who has a who

1060
01:02:19,880 --> 01:02:21,840
Speaker 10: doesn't have a full time job and a mortgage, you know,

1061
01:02:21,920 --> 01:02:24,160
Speaker 10: you can narrow down who's in the who's in the

1062
01:02:24,200 --> 01:02:27,080
Speaker 10: district that area, and you know, at least get down

1063
01:02:27,120 --> 01:02:29,360
Speaker 10: to it. But there are tens of thousands of cops

1064
01:02:29,440 --> 01:02:34,000
Speaker 10: in Boston and only you know, you're down to hundreds

1065
01:02:34,000 --> 01:02:34,960
Speaker 10: in his precinct.

1066
01:02:35,120 --> 01:02:37,760
Speaker 2: If I have the precinct number, I have the name

1067
01:02:37,800 --> 01:02:39,160
Speaker 2: of this this guy he was with.

1068
01:02:39,240 --> 01:02:41,600
Speaker 10: If you can get down to these are one hundred

1069
01:02:41,600 --> 01:02:43,440
Speaker 10: and fifty people who are in this precinct.

1070
01:02:43,680 --> 01:02:47,360
Speaker 7: It's possible. It's doable with the information that we have.

1071
01:02:47,560 --> 01:02:50,680
Speaker 10: It's a question of the time and effort and ability

1072
01:02:50,760 --> 01:02:54,000
Speaker 10: of somebody who's able to take that work and do it.

1073
01:02:54,360 --> 01:02:56,000
Speaker 7: And we're closer than we think.

1074
01:02:56,360 --> 01:03:01,680
Speaker 2: I like those odds. It's it's seven thirty in the morning.

1075
01:03:01,720 --> 01:03:04,280
Speaker 2: I just had my first cup of coffee. I'll have

1076
01:03:04,320 --> 01:03:06,920
Speaker 2: two hundred more. I don't give a shit well of

1077
01:03:06,960 --> 01:03:10,880
Speaker 2: basic Thank you so much. So this was last Thursday morning,

1078
01:03:11,040 --> 01:03:14,400
Speaker 2: and I did, in fact drop everything to see if

1079
01:03:14,440 --> 01:03:18,440
Speaker 2: I could find this motherfucker. Jeff's careful record collection allowed

1080
01:03:18,440 --> 01:03:20,960
Speaker 2: me to narrow down the list of working cops to

1081
01:03:21,080 --> 01:03:24,160
Speaker 2: the A one precinct, about one hundred and sixty names.

1082
01:03:24,480 --> 01:03:27,200
Speaker 2: Then I narrowed it down by gender, and then for

1083
01:03:27,320 --> 01:03:30,640
Speaker 2: two days I looked into who these men were and

1084
01:03:30,680 --> 01:03:33,640
Speaker 2: what they did. And I have to say looking at

1085
01:03:33,640 --> 01:03:37,360
Speaker 2: pictures of cops for two days bad for my mental health.

1086
01:03:37,720 --> 01:03:39,440
Speaker 2: But I was able to narrow down the list by

1087
01:03:39,480 --> 01:03:41,680
Speaker 2: a lot. Although you may not be surprised to hear

1088
01:03:41,800 --> 01:03:45,200
Speaker 2: after this whole saga that finding pictures of certain cops

1089
01:03:45,400 --> 01:03:48,880
Speaker 2: can be extremely difficult, and when you're digging like this

1090
01:03:48,920 --> 01:03:52,479
Speaker 2: to find someone through public records, through news archives, through

1091
01:03:52,480 --> 01:03:56,920
Speaker 2: social media, the character of these cops comes into sharp focus,

1092
01:03:57,040 --> 01:03:59,760
Speaker 2: and to no one's surprise, the BBD is comprised of

1093
01:03:59,800 --> 01:04:01,880
Speaker 2: some of the most tremendous pieces of shit to ever

1094
01:04:01,920 --> 01:04:05,720
Speaker 2: take breath, but the specifics are brutal. On my journey

1095
01:04:05,800 --> 01:04:08,800
Speaker 2: to find mister Slide, I came across a bunch of

1096
01:04:08,800 --> 01:04:13,600
Speaker 2: wrong answers with terrible records. There was Zachary Crossin, the

1097
01:04:13,640 --> 01:04:16,080
Speaker 2: cop who signed off on the incident report after Stephen

1098
01:04:16,160 --> 01:04:19,360
Speaker 2: Canto reported it. He went viral back in twenty eighteen

1099
01:04:19,680 --> 01:04:22,040
Speaker 2: for stopping a black man on the street for no reason,

1100
01:04:22,320 --> 01:04:25,200
Speaker 2: and the harassment story ended up on Deesus and Marrow.

1101
01:04:25,640 --> 01:04:29,600
Speaker 2: I found out about James Carnell, who frequently published editorials

1102
01:04:29,640 --> 01:04:32,720
Speaker 2: in the Boston Herald and other periodicals and called black

1103
01:04:32,760 --> 01:04:38,040
Speaker 2: teenagers scumbags and intellectually bereft doults. I saw so many

1104
01:04:38,120 --> 01:04:41,480
Speaker 2: cops kissing their adult daughters on the mouth in their

1105
01:04:41,480 --> 01:04:45,120
Speaker 2: Facebook profile pictures. I found out about Kirk Merrick's, a

1106
01:04:45,160 --> 01:04:49,360
Speaker 2: former cop hiding military great explosives in his estranged wive's house.

1107
01:04:49,840 --> 01:04:52,400
Speaker 2: I learned about Carl Dugal, who's been ruled against for

1108
01:04:52,480 --> 01:04:55,200
Speaker 2: false imprisonment and is currently a side character in an

1109
01:04:55,240 --> 01:04:59,240
Speaker 2: ongoing local televised court case revolving around a woman named Karen.

1110
01:04:59,320 --> 01:05:02,120
Speaker 2: Reid learned about Thomas Mee, who was charged in an

1111
01:05:02,160 --> 01:05:05,680
Speaker 2: overtime fraud scheme. I learned about Brian Lundy, a cop

1112
01:05:05,680 --> 01:05:07,800
Speaker 2: who thought he was buying his son a PS four

1113
01:05:07,800 --> 01:05:10,120
Speaker 2: for Christmas, but when his son opened the box, it

1114
01:05:10,200 --> 01:05:13,280
Speaker 2: instead contained a wooden block with writing that said, from

1115
01:05:13,360 --> 01:05:16,880
Speaker 2: cock and balls with love. I hate Boston cops. I

1116
01:05:16,920 --> 01:05:20,200
Speaker 2: hate those bitches so much. Of the one hundred and

1117
01:05:20,200 --> 01:05:23,600
Speaker 2: sixty four names I looked into, I couldn't find reliable

1118
01:05:23,640 --> 01:05:26,840
Speaker 2: images for thirty four cops. Seven of them looked like

1119
01:05:26,920 --> 01:05:30,440
Speaker 2: they could potentially be slide cop, and two looked like

1120
01:05:30,600 --> 01:05:33,800
Speaker 2: they could likely be slide cop. But try to remember

1121
01:05:34,160 --> 01:05:36,560
Speaker 2: finding a white cop in his forties with a gray

1122
01:05:36,640 --> 01:05:39,480
Speaker 2: crew cut who's bad at his job is the ultimate

1123
01:05:39,560 --> 01:05:44,040
Speaker 2: needle in the ultimate haystack. But two likely options. That's

1124
01:05:44,080 --> 01:05:46,800
Speaker 2: not bad. I've got some foyas to file. Reach out.

1125
01:05:46,840 --> 01:05:49,760
Speaker 2: If you're good with the stuff, let's talk Boston slide Cop.

1126
01:05:50,000 --> 01:05:56,760
Speaker 2: Your sixteenth minute ends when I say it ends. Show yourself, Okay,

1127
01:05:56,800 --> 01:05:59,320
Speaker 2: So here's your moment of fun. I was home recently,

1128
01:05:59,480 --> 01:06:02,080
Speaker 2: and as a I did my due diligence and I

1129
01:06:02,120 --> 01:06:05,880
Speaker 2: got on the fucking slide. And not to be a cop,

1130
01:06:06,440 --> 01:06:11,760
Speaker 2: but it was very scary. Okay, this is Jamie. I

1131
01:06:11,800 --> 01:06:15,840
Speaker 2: am headed to the slide. It is very steep. It

1132
01:06:15,840 --> 01:06:21,440
Speaker 2: does seem like it could potentially kill you. There's like

1133
01:06:21,480 --> 01:06:24,760
Speaker 2: a blue block, an orange block, a scary little tube,

1134
01:06:25,480 --> 01:06:28,560
Speaker 2: and then the aluminum slide, very steep, a lot of children.

1135
01:06:29,720 --> 01:06:32,880
Speaker 2: It's still pretty cold. I'm gonna look like a sicko.

1136
01:06:33,840 --> 01:06:39,360
Speaker 2: But I've made it this far. Okay. So I did

1137
01:06:39,400 --> 01:06:44,680
Speaker 2: get too scared and turned off my recorder right as

1138
01:06:44,720 --> 01:06:46,280
Speaker 2: I was about to go down the first time. So

1139
01:06:46,360 --> 01:06:52,240
Speaker 2: now I can tell you with knowledge, with lived experience,

1140
01:06:52,600 --> 01:06:57,720
Speaker 2: that this slide, well, folks, it's pretty fast. It's not slow.

1141
01:06:58,960 --> 01:07:02,160
Speaker 2: And because Bostonia cannot help but be foolish in public,

1142
01:07:02,560 --> 01:07:09,680
Speaker 2: I did end up inspiring my fellow adults. So unfortunately

1143
01:07:09,720 --> 01:07:14,360
Speaker 2: I appear to I've inspired other adults to do the same.

1144
01:07:16,240 --> 01:07:17,680
Speaker 2: But you know, I'll tell you what. There's a kid

1145
01:07:17,680 --> 01:07:19,439
Speaker 2: going up there right now, and it is in fact

1146
01:07:19,520 --> 01:07:23,680
Speaker 2: built for them and not us. Looking at these adults

1147
01:07:24,960 --> 01:07:29,560
Speaker 2: getting onto the slide, it really makes you think how

1148
01:07:31,120 --> 01:07:36,600
Speaker 2: much we were making this about us. Sixteenth Minute is

1149
01:07:36,600 --> 01:07:41,040
Speaker 2: a production of fool Zone Media and iHeartRadio. It is written, posted,

1150
01:07:41,080 --> 01:07:44,680
Speaker 2: and produced by me Jamie Loftus. Our executive producers are

1151
01:07:44,720 --> 01:07:48,680
Speaker 2: Sophie Lichtman and Robert Evans, and our supervising producer and

1152
01:07:48,840 --> 01:07:52,040
Speaker 2: editor is Ian Johnson. Our theme song is by Sadie d.

1153
01:07:52,120 --> 01:07:54,440
Speaker 2: Queek and I would like to thank my kat's Lee

1154
01:07:54,480 --> 01:07:59,000
Speaker 2: and Casper Podcasting leading Queen Dog Anderson and my pet

1155
01:07:59,120 --> 01:08:02,960
Speaker 2: Rockbert will outlive us all. Goodbye,