WEBVTT - boston slide cop 0:00:01.720 --> 0:00:04.080 Cool Zone Media. 0:00:04.200 --> 0:00:06.440 If you don't know that the cops in Boston have 0:00:06.519 --> 0:00:10.600 a bad reputation, it's possible you just haven't seen many movies. 0:00:11.440 --> 0:00:17.880 There's The Town, the Boondock Scenes, Black Mass, Spotlight, Mystic Riva. 0:00:18.239 --> 0:00:21.439 I'm pretty sure even the cops in Ted and Ted 0:00:21.560 --> 0:00:25.640 Too are incompetent. As a rule of thumb, any movie 0:00:25.920 --> 0:00:30.280 where a grown man is shouting my daughter probably takes 0:00:30.320 --> 0:00:33.120 place in Boston and as a result of the war 0:00:33.200 --> 0:00:36.960 between the Boston cops and the white working poor. What 0:00:37.000 --> 0:00:39.760 I'm saying is, if you're not familiar with the police 0:00:39.760 --> 0:00:45.000 of Boston's reputation, that's a cinema problem. My name is 0:00:45.040 --> 0:00:48.280 Jamie Loftus and my neighbors who are always arguing just moved. 0:00:48.640 --> 0:00:51.599 And this is sixteenth minute the podcast where we take 0:00:51.640 --> 0:00:53.920 a closer look at the internet characters of the day 0:00:54.160 --> 0:00:57.959 and what that says about us and the Internet and 0:00:58.120 --> 0:01:02.120 us on the Internet. Play eighty's amazing theme song about. 0:01:01.880 --> 0:01:16.000 Its Us. 0:01:20.080 --> 0:01:53.080 Six six Today's subject hits close to home for me 0:01:53.280 --> 0:01:55.880 because it takes place within a twenty mile radius of 0:01:55.920 --> 0:01:58.440 my entire family, where all of the characters of the 0:01:58.480 --> 0:02:01.080 day that stick with us. It's a little unusual for 0:02:01.120 --> 0:02:03.920 the person we talk about and the place where they 0:02:03.960 --> 0:02:08.360 are as equally important. But this week's story takes that 0:02:08.480 --> 0:02:12.600 even further because we're cruising the entire spectrum of what 0:02:12.720 --> 0:02:17.320 a noun can mean. The person, the place, and the 0:02:17.360 --> 0:02:20.920 thing are all critical as to why this story made 0:02:20.919 --> 0:02:25.520 the splash, or, if I'm being unkind, the nearly lethal 0:02:25.639 --> 0:02:29.520 tumble that it did. The place, as you may have guessed, 0:02:30.040 --> 0:02:33.519 is Boston. I'm from that area. The fact that anyone 0:02:33.560 --> 0:02:36.960 from there is legally required to tell you within twenty seconds, 0:02:37.000 --> 0:02:39.360 and if you're really from there, you have to be 0:02:39.440 --> 0:02:41.520 more specific so people know that you're not from some 0:02:41.680 --> 0:02:45.240 hoity toity place like Duxbury or, as my mom calls it, 0:02:45.639 --> 0:02:51.480 de Luxebury. Ooh, No, I'm from Brockton, Massachusetts, which was 0:02:51.560 --> 0:02:54.000 ranked as one of the one hundred worst cities in 0:02:54.040 --> 0:02:57.160 America when I was in high school because that list 0:02:57.520 --> 0:03:01.919 was very racist. In fact, people are still giving Brockton shit. 0:03:02.160 --> 0:03:04.400 A radio station I used to work the overnight shift 0:03:04.400 --> 0:03:07.880 at published an article in twenty sixteen that said, you're 0:03:08.160 --> 0:03:12.880 ugly Brockton why it was voted the ugliest city in Massachusetts. 0:03:13.240 --> 0:03:16.399 And in that article they cite no reason for why 0:03:16.440 --> 0:03:19.800 it has that distinction, because people in Massachusetts are both 0:03:19.840 --> 0:03:23.880 perfect and evil. The point I'm talking around is that 0:03:23.919 --> 0:03:26.280 there is a media pattern of how people from the 0:03:26.280 --> 0:03:29.840 Boston area are shown, and because I'm from there, I 0:03:29.880 --> 0:03:32.639 am not allowed to shut up about it. I had 0:03:33.040 --> 0:03:33.840 the accent. 0:03:35.760 --> 0:03:38.960 I'm going to come out and completely changed veryon the 0:03:39.040 --> 0:03:43.320 documentary of my life jamielostis the true Hollywood story. 0:03:43.720 --> 0:03:46.920 Good for her, And the only reason I don't talk 0:03:46.960 --> 0:03:49.880 that way now is because I realized from a very 0:03:49.960 --> 0:03:53.880 young age that this accent would be mocked and quote 0:03:53.960 --> 0:03:58.960 unquote sounds poor. But when I say poor in that context, 0:03:59.200 --> 0:04:03.960 what I mean truly is poor, meaning undeserving of respect, 0:04:04.200 --> 0:04:06.400 and that's horseshit right. I wish I hadn't let the 0:04:06.440 --> 0:04:10.360 world convince me that the accent was unworthy of respect, 0:04:10.520 --> 0:04:13.560 but I do have these very specific memories of that 0:04:13.720 --> 0:04:16.800 idea calcifying in my mind to the point where it 0:04:16.880 --> 0:04:20.360 ended up coloring my perception of my own parents. I mean, 0:04:20.480 --> 0:04:23.880 the moms on TV sounded like they were from nowhere, 0:04:24.080 --> 0:04:26.400 and the only thing I thought was more chic than 0:04:26.520 --> 0:04:30.520 sounding like you were from nowhere was being from somewhere wealthy. 0:04:31.040 --> 0:04:34.080 I have so many strong memories of this. My dad 0:04:34.120 --> 0:04:37.440 would do this very soft class code switching when he 0:04:37.480 --> 0:04:39.520 got home from his job where he worked at a 0:04:39.560 --> 0:04:43.000 local newspaper. When he was around journalists from other states, 0:04:43.200 --> 0:04:48.400 he did his reporter voice hit the RS, no problem, Chuck. 0:04:48.800 --> 0:04:52.160 But when he came home, he'd dropped that, and he'd 0:04:52.200 --> 0:04:54.560 sound like the class and place he was from. And 0:04:54.600 --> 0:04:58.479 this was all mostly involuntary, but I internalized it, and 0:04:58.480 --> 0:05:00.440 by the time I moved to California when I was 0:05:00.440 --> 0:05:04.760 twenty two, the accent was fully gone. Because I wanted 0:05:04.760 --> 0:05:07.720 to be a performer. I wanted to sound like I 0:05:07.839 --> 0:05:11.000 was from nowhere at all. This is why I feel 0:05:11.040 --> 0:05:16.520 sure that cultural stereotypes around Bostonians are thoroughly ingrained and 0:05:16.600 --> 0:05:20.599 not completely without reason. There is some truth to it, 0:05:20.680 --> 0:05:25.080 as stereotypes can go, but these stereotypes lack context and 0:05:25.200 --> 0:05:28.840 don't take individuals into account. As far as pop culture 0:05:28.920 --> 0:05:32.880 is concerned. Stories in Boston either take place at Harvard. 0:05:33.400 --> 0:05:34.680 Don't hi. 0:05:35.839 --> 0:05:39.719 My name is el Woods, and from my admissions essay, I'm. 0:05:39.600 --> 0:05:42.200 Going to tell all of you at Harvard why I'm. 0:05:42.000 --> 0:05:44.200 Going to make an amazing lawyer. 0:05:44.560 --> 0:05:47.440 Or in like three square blocks of Southey, which is 0:05:47.560 --> 0:05:49.279 just one neighborhood in Boston. 0:05:49.600 --> 0:05:53.440 Megan Uncle Leos, Tommy Corstkin's another goof. He gets busted 0:05:53.480 --> 0:05:56.400 selling guns to federal offices, among many, many, many other 0:05:56.440 --> 0:05:58.680 depatas from a normative behavior. 0:05:58.720 --> 0:05:59.680 What's this got to do with me? 0:05:59.760 --> 0:05:59.960 Huh? 0:06:00.040 --> 0:06:01.640 Why you pretended to be a cop? 0:06:02.160 --> 0:06:04.359 Or bonus points if you want to win an oscar 0:06:05.080 --> 0:06:06.360 both You dropped one. 0:06:06.320 --> 0:06:08.120 Hundred and fifty grand on a fucking education. 0:06:08.160 --> 0:06:09.840 You could have gone for a dollar fifty and lay 0:06:09.960 --> 0:06:14.400 chadges at the public library. Yeah, but I will have 0:06:14.440 --> 0:06:17.960 a degree and you'll be serving my kids fries at 0:06:17.960 --> 0:06:20.000 a drive through on our way to a skiing trip. 0:06:21.440 --> 0:06:24.200 Yeah, maybe my boys awaited smile. 0:06:24.960 --> 0:06:27.200 That's from Goodwill Hunting. It's a good movie, but you 0:06:27.200 --> 0:06:29.520 see where I'm going with this, And as many people 0:06:29.520 --> 0:06:32.200 from that area will tell you, even when these movies 0:06:32.279 --> 0:06:37.360 are good, they're not necessarily an accurate representation of the area. 0:06:37.520 --> 0:06:41.480 Most media about Boston suggests that the area is extremely racist, 0:06:41.640 --> 0:06:45.240 which is true, but it rarely shows any non white 0:06:45.360 --> 0:06:48.400 character that lives in that same city. And that's because 0:06:48.480 --> 0:06:52.239 most popular media about Boston is based on stories about 0:06:52.240 --> 0:06:56.320 a neighborhood of majority low income white people and often 0:06:56.800 --> 0:07:00.240 just all white mobsters. So for the record, yeah, yes, 0:07:00.560 --> 0:07:04.640 the Boston area has a history of Irish and Italian gangs. Yes, 0:07:05.000 --> 0:07:09.159 racism is still extremely persistent in Boston and Massachusetts on 0:07:09.160 --> 0:07:11.960 the whole. But no, not everyone who lives in Boston 0:07:12.040 --> 0:07:15.840 is white. In fact, that erases over half the population 0:07:15.960 --> 0:07:18.840 of the city today and that's fucking weird to me. 0:07:19.280 --> 0:07:21.920 But still to this day, the characters that come out 0:07:21.960 --> 0:07:25.680 of Boston tend to follow a very certain type. Today, 0:07:25.960 --> 0:07:29.240 we are talking about a recent legend in the Internet 0:07:29.400 --> 0:07:33.000 Character of the day pantheon, a person and an incident 0:07:33.440 --> 0:07:36.440 that makes me sad I cannot show you the video 0:07:36.560 --> 0:07:42.000 in question. This character exists at the intersection of many things, yes, 0:07:42.360 --> 0:07:45.920 stereotypes around Boston, one of which is rightfully that Boston 0:07:45.960 --> 0:07:51.760 cops are particularly racist and particularly incompetent, and just as importantly, 0:07:52.200 --> 0:07:55.120 the Internet's view of American policing at the time. The 0:07:55.120 --> 0:07:58.800 story went viral on an undetermined date in the summer 0:07:58.880 --> 0:08:02.640 of twenty twenty three, Return with me if you dare. 0:08:05.560 --> 0:08:09.520 Summer twenty twenty three, all over the world, global temperatures 0:08:09.520 --> 0:08:13.200 were being broken just one symptom of our rapidly dying planet, 0:08:13.560 --> 0:08:17.440 and we had recently weathered the phenomenon that was Barbenheimer, 0:08:17.840 --> 0:08:20.520 a symptom of the human need to feel good about something, 0:08:20.960 --> 0:08:23.640 even when half of that was a three hour movie 0:08:23.680 --> 0:08:28.080 about the atomic bomb. This character manages to scratch both 0:08:28.080 --> 0:08:32.080 of these edges, a flailing institution's attempt to convince the 0:08:32.120 --> 0:08:34.959 public that summer is a beach party and not an 0:08:34.960 --> 0:08:39.040 incinerator that failed so spectacularly that the good people of 0:08:39.080 --> 0:08:42.320 the Internet got a worthy adversary to laugh at for 0:08:42.520 --> 0:08:46.280 months to come, A character so baffling that I regret 0:08:46.360 --> 0:08:49.880 this as mere audio, because this viral video clip has 0:08:49.960 --> 0:09:01.440 to be seen to be believed. Austin's slide cop Your 0:09:01.559 --> 0:09:12.280 sixteenth minute of Fame starts right now. On August second, 0:09:12.480 --> 0:09:18.080 twenty twenty three, Twitter x whatever, Twitter user Ryan Whitney 0:09:18.120 --> 0:09:21.840 six posted a video filmed at a relatively new playground 0:09:21.880 --> 0:09:24.959 in front of Boston City Hall. The clip itself was 0:09:25.040 --> 0:09:28.240 quickly deleted. Ryan Whitney, who co hosts a podcast on 0:09:28.280 --> 0:09:32.079 Barstool Sports, had over four hundred thousand followers when the 0:09:32.120 --> 0:09:35.000 tweet was posted, though he followed up when people asked 0:09:35.040 --> 0:09:37.920 why it was deleted and said I just deleted what 0:09:38.000 --> 0:09:40.199 I think is one of the funniest videos of all time. 0:09:40.800 --> 0:09:44.800 I was begged to take it down. Sad who begged him? 0:09:45.200 --> 0:09:48.199 I don't know. He didn't answer my DMS. In any case, 0:09:48.480 --> 0:09:51.440 it was already too late. The video was already doing 0:09:51.559 --> 0:09:55.960 numbers over on TikTok, prompting comments like I'm crying, why 0:09:56.040 --> 0:09:59.920 did he fly out like a corpse? And Bro looked 0:10:00.000 --> 0:10:03.680 it's dead. The public had spoken, it was funny. The 0:10:03.720 --> 0:10:07.280 City Hall Plaza playground where the famous slide lives, opened 0:10:07.320 --> 0:10:11.120 in November twenty twenty two, and it's pretty impressive by 0:10:11.200 --> 0:10:14.880 far the flashiest part of a seventy million dollar renovation 0:10:15.080 --> 0:10:19.480 of City Hall Plaza by Boston based architecture firm Sasaki. 0:10:19.920 --> 0:10:23.200 The renovation created what I feel was a much needed 0:10:23.240 --> 0:10:28.040 friendlier feel in a historically hostile vibes area surrounding City 0:10:28.080 --> 0:10:31.880 Hall's brutalist architecture. According to an article in Boston dot 0:10:31.880 --> 0:10:35.600 Com from twenty twenty three, city Hall is the fourth 0:10:35.840 --> 0:10:39.640 ugliest building in the world, which I think is maybe 0:10:39.679 --> 0:10:44.679 a little dramatic, but it's not beautiful regardless, this new 0:10:44.720 --> 0:10:47.400 playground was kind of the crown jewel of the renovation, 0:10:47.720 --> 0:10:50.600 at least far as the general public was concerned. I 0:10:50.640 --> 0:10:52.839 actually got my first taste of it in spring twenty 0:10:52.880 --> 0:10:56.000 twenty three when my friend Tory had two glasses of 0:10:56.000 --> 0:10:58.920 wine in the North End and then climbed up and 0:10:59.080 --> 0:11:05.640 ricocheted down a truly massive, steep covered steel slide sometime 0:11:05.679 --> 0:11:10.000 around midnight. And for the playgrounds many attractive qualities, it 0:11:10.200 --> 0:11:13.880 is this slide that is the star of this story. 0:11:14.440 --> 0:11:18.480 No Internet cinema, you should be able to log this 0:11:18.640 --> 0:11:23.800 on letterboxed because in it, a Boston police officer absolutely 0:11:23.880 --> 0:11:28.160 eats shit. I mean, like really eats shit. Take a 0:11:28.200 --> 0:11:38.559 listen to the video again. Okay, so let me attempt 0:11:38.600 --> 0:11:43.040 to walk you through what I just saw for easily 0:11:43.280 --> 0:11:46.800 the hundredth time. The slide is what I describe my 0:11:46.880 --> 0:11:49.840 friend taking this drunk trip down in the spring of 0:11:49.880 --> 0:11:54.000 twenty twenty three. It's steep, it's steel, it's in the 0:11:54.040 --> 0:11:58.079 middle of this very very public area. And then that loud, 0:11:58.360 --> 0:12:03.160 bizarre sound of like Nichols being shaken in a tin 0:12:03.320 --> 0:12:07.400 can is the cop who seems to be banging against 0:12:07.520 --> 0:12:11.679 every square inch of this fucking thing. And then finally 0:12:12.160 --> 0:12:17.640 he emerges from the tunnel of the slide somehow asks 0:12:17.760 --> 0:12:23.199 first backwards on his stomach, shooting out of the slide 0:12:23.280 --> 0:12:27.040 at Formula one speeds onto the pavement, and to make 0:12:27.160 --> 0:12:30.800 matters worse, a weapon seems to fly out of his 0:12:30.880 --> 0:12:33.439 belt as well. Because this is an American cop we're 0:12:33.480 --> 0:12:37.160 talking about, so of course he didn't go unarmed to 0:12:37.320 --> 0:12:42.120 a playground. And because some stereotypes are true, and this 0:12:42.280 --> 0:12:45.360 is an older white guy in Boston. You hear him 0:12:45.440 --> 0:12:52.720 say i'd talk, oh fuck like my uncle, stubbing his toe. Right, 0:12:53.360 --> 0:12:56.520 So the cop stands in a daze and quickly grabs 0:12:56.559 --> 0:12:59.720 his stuff and turns from the camera. But who is 0:12:59.720 --> 0:13:04.160 hohole the camera? Not Twitter user at Ryan Whitney six, 0:13:04.440 --> 0:13:07.720 who said that he was reposting the video, So that's 0:13:07.800 --> 0:13:10.560 still a mystery. So we get a quick look at 0:13:10.640 --> 0:13:13.720 slide CoP's face, but the quality of the video is 0:13:13.760 --> 0:13:16.439 pretty low, so you only really get a flash of 0:13:16.440 --> 0:13:21.040 what seems to be a pretty stereotypical Boston cop. He's white, 0:13:21.160 --> 0:13:23.680 he's older, he's got a crew cut, and he just 0:13:23.760 --> 0:13:28.080 did something massively incompetent in broad daylight. And just to 0:13:28.440 --> 0:13:37.880 can we listen to the clip one more time? Now? 0:13:37.920 --> 0:13:40.520 If you need to pause the podcast and watch this 0:13:40.679 --> 0:13:44.320 video yourself. I encourage you to do so because I'm 0:13:44.360 --> 0:13:48.920 finding it hard to explain exactly how wrong this man 0:13:49.040 --> 0:13:52.440 has gone down a slide. There is a weird amount 0:13:52.520 --> 0:13:55.920 of momentum, like he was pushed as first by a 0:13:55.960 --> 0:13:59.000 middle school bully. So if this happened to a twelve 0:13:59.080 --> 0:14:01.640 year old and not a middle aged man protected by 0:14:01.679 --> 0:14:05.280 the Commonwealth, it would be life ending. So what I'm 0:14:05.320 --> 0:14:08.880 trying to say is that this clip rocks. It's amazing, 0:14:09.160 --> 0:14:13.040 it's confusing, it's funny, and it's punging down from the 0:14:13.080 --> 0:14:18.320 perspective of both society and gravity. For a large corner 0:14:18.360 --> 0:14:20.840 of the Internet, of which I am a member, this 0:14:21.000 --> 0:14:24.480 is the marriage of two tried and true viral video genres, 0:14:24.840 --> 0:14:28.560 a hatred of cops and a love of people falling down. 0:14:29.280 --> 0:14:31.640 It would be patronizing of me to explain to you 0:14:31.720 --> 0:14:34.920 why the only thing funnier than a regular adult falling 0:14:34.960 --> 0:14:38.600 down a terrifying slide for children is a cop doing 0:14:38.680 --> 0:14:41.160 that same thing. Cop height has been around for as 0:14:41.240 --> 0:14:43.880 long as cops have in the US, and has become 0:14:43.920 --> 0:14:47.080 more and more common in the last few years following 0:14:47.120 --> 0:14:51.480 the murder of George Floyd cop height is just common sense. 0:14:52.520 --> 0:14:56.000 And here's where in a just world, I'd tell you 0:14:56.040 --> 0:14:59.280 whose slide cop is and the adorable press cycle that 0:14:59.360 --> 0:15:02.280 surrounded them. But that's one of the weirder elements of 0:15:02.320 --> 0:15:05.960 this story. For all of the clickbait that this clip generated, 0:15:06.640 --> 0:15:10.960 Boston copslide turns up on John Oliver how the playground 0:15:11.080 --> 0:15:14.520 slide defeated the Boston cop. I went down the Boston 0:15:14.560 --> 0:15:17.600 cop slide. It was so tame. I have no idea 0:15:17.680 --> 0:15:20.520 how he went flying. Okay, kind of not like other 0:15:20.560 --> 0:15:24.200 girls on that last one. The slide cop has still 0:15:24.240 --> 0:15:28.760 not been identified, and that's weird. This far into Internet 0:15:28.800 --> 0:15:32.640 sleuthing history, there are plenty of main characters that become 0:15:32.760 --> 0:15:36.920 so against their will, some regular person thinking they're tweeting 0:15:36.920 --> 0:15:40.400 to no one, or worse, someone who's filmed in public 0:15:40.480 --> 0:15:44.080 without their consent. But it rarely takes the Internet more 0:15:44.120 --> 0:15:46.760 than a few hours to find out who someone is, 0:15:46.880 --> 0:15:50.840 regardless of ethics, particularly if they work for a prominent 0:15:50.920 --> 0:15:55.920 institution like I don't know, the Boston Police. But that 0:15:56.000 --> 0:15:59.280 never happens. After the clip went viral, and while the 0:15:59.320 --> 0:16:03.000 original wheet was removed, it had already spread to TikTok. 0:16:03.440 --> 0:16:07.040 The media doesn't jump to the who, they jump to 0:16:07.160 --> 0:16:11.680 the why. One of the early examples of meaningful curiosity 0:16:11.800 --> 0:16:15.640 into slide CoP's identity was from Boston Fox twenty five 0:16:15.920 --> 0:16:19.400 in a piece from reporter Carry Kavanaugh. She got responses 0:16:19.440 --> 0:16:23.760 for comment from the police department and current Boston Mayor 0:16:23.800 --> 0:16:27.280 Michelle Wu. Here's a piece from that article. I don't 0:16:27.320 --> 0:16:30.520 know what the circumstances were or what happened, said Mayor Wu, 0:16:30.960 --> 0:16:33.240 but I will definitely check in and make sure the 0:16:33.320 --> 0:16:35.960 officer is okay. If it looks like there needs to 0:16:36.000 --> 0:16:39.120 be more assignage that this is for children or something, 0:16:39.320 --> 0:16:42.800 we can do that too. Boston twenty five also asked 0:16:42.800 --> 0:16:46.040 the Boston Police about this video. The department says the 0:16:46.080 --> 0:16:49.480 officer was hurt, used his personal insurance for care, and 0:16:49.520 --> 0:16:52.680 did not charge the city. BPD says the officer did 0:16:52.680 --> 0:16:56.240 not miss any time and he's not facing any disciplinary action. 0:16:56.800 --> 0:16:59.440 Everything has a chance to be viral these days, said 0:16:59.480 --> 0:17:03.200 Mayor Wu. Okay, I'll bite a couple questions. What would 0:17:03.200 --> 0:17:07.040 the officer have charged the city for? Would he have 0:17:07.200 --> 0:17:10.479 sued the maker of the slide, Would he have sued 0:17:11.160 --> 0:17:15.240 the slide and Furthermore, I'm confused about the use of 0:17:15.280 --> 0:17:19.960 the phrase personal insurance. I mean, presumably a CoP's health 0:17:19.960 --> 0:17:23.680 insurance would be through their job, but this quote implies 0:17:23.720 --> 0:17:26.840 that their health insurance came from somewhere else. All we 0:17:27.000 --> 0:17:30.240 really learned from this story is that the Boston Police 0:17:30.240 --> 0:17:35.600 Department did confirm that slide Cop was their employee, not 0:17:35.800 --> 0:17:40.680 some cosplaying internet stunt person or freaky AI, and that 0:17:40.720 --> 0:17:43.639 Mayor Michelle Weu is kind of funny for a mayor. 0:17:44.280 --> 0:17:48.480 Outside of that, only questions. And while I do find 0:17:48.520 --> 0:17:51.040 it weird that there didn't seem to be much public 0:17:51.119 --> 0:17:53.919 interest in the who, I can't blame the interest in 0:17:54.000 --> 0:17:57.359 the how. I mean I wanted to understand myself, and 0:17:57.520 --> 0:18:01.600 most reporting from the time elected to ask local physicists 0:18:01.920 --> 0:18:07.399 how eating shit this hard was even humanly possible. I 0:18:07.600 --> 0:18:11.960 cannot overstate how many minutes of my one human life 0:18:12.119 --> 0:18:16.679 I have spent watching physics YouTubers trying to unpack the 0:18:16.760 --> 0:18:21.639 slide Cops descent. I've seen equations, I've seen attempts to 0:18:21.760 --> 0:18:26.560 determine the length of the slide from Google Maps aerial shots. 0:18:26.920 --> 0:18:29.480 I've seen it all, and this is as close as 0:18:29.480 --> 0:18:32.840 someone has gotten to a Kojun theory. This is from 0:18:33.040 --> 0:18:36.640 YouTube channel dot Physics, which is run by the resident 0:18:36.720 --> 0:18:39.520 physicist for Wired, Rhett Elaine. 0:18:40.040 --> 0:18:43.359 Welcome back to that again. Data and I have this 0:18:43.480 --> 0:18:47.240 distance LX. That's l Y, and that's the total length 0:18:47.440 --> 0:18:51.600 L I know data. I know LX. That's where I measured, 0:18:51.680 --> 0:18:56.439 so I can find l Y. Tangent of data is 0:18:56.600 --> 0:18:59.359 opposite over hyppot news, so that would be l Y 0:18:59.680 --> 0:19:02.280 over l LX. If I solve that for l Y, 0:19:02.560 --> 0:19:05.119 I get l Y is so No. 0:19:05.560 --> 0:19:08.159 I don't really know what any of that meant, but 0:19:08.359 --> 0:19:11.399 clearly people have thought a lot about it. For my 0:19:11.520 --> 0:19:14.720 listeners who also got sees in high school physics. The 0:19:14.800 --> 0:19:18.200 reality kind of boils down to what red Elaine wrote 0:19:18.200 --> 0:19:21.680 for Wired back in twenty twenty two about the increased 0:19:21.720 --> 0:19:26.240 popularity and danger in these kinds of steep steel slides. 0:19:26.560 --> 0:19:29.560 He was inspired by one at bell Isle Park in Michigan, 0:19:29.920 --> 0:19:32.560 and not just because it was big, but because people 0:19:32.600 --> 0:19:35.920 moved so fast on it that they were completely airborne 0:19:36.119 --> 0:19:40.119 and the slide had to close temporarily, said one child 0:19:40.160 --> 0:19:44.800 to a local news affiliate. Gravity hurts too, true, child. 0:19:45.320 --> 0:19:50.480 One of the many difficult realizations of child. Anyways, here's 0:19:50.520 --> 0:19:53.800 what Professor Elaine had to say about why people often 0:19:53.880 --> 0:19:56.600 move freakishly fast on these slides. 0:19:57.160 --> 0:20:01.639 Friction depends on the two surfaces interacting. So if you 0:20:01.720 --> 0:20:04.560 have a metal slide and it's in contact with skin 0:20:04.760 --> 0:20:07.560 or cotton clothes, you have a certain coefficient of friction, 0:20:07.960 --> 0:20:11.120 and if you change the material, maybe do something stiff, 0:20:11.560 --> 0:20:13.440 it could make it a lot slipperier. 0:20:14.280 --> 0:20:17.359 So the fact that the cop as an adult and 0:20:17.400 --> 0:20:21.240 the slide is intended for children actually doesn't make that 0:20:21.359 --> 0:20:24.840 much of a difference, even if it's really funny when 0:20:24.960 --> 0:20:28.159 mirr Wu implies that it is think back to your 0:20:28.200 --> 0:20:31.440 freshman year in high school. If there is no external 0:20:31.480 --> 0:20:34.600 force acting on an egg and a bowling bowl, they 0:20:34.640 --> 0:20:38.840 will propel forward at the same rate. So theoretically, if 0:20:38.920 --> 0:20:42.720 slide cop wasn't pushed, he would have come careening down 0:20:42.720 --> 0:20:45.119 the slide at the same rate as the two to 0:20:45.200 --> 0:20:49.439 twelve year olds that the slide is actually intended for. Alternatively, 0:20:49.920 --> 0:20:53.720 Elaine suggests that it's feasible that the uniform fabric might 0:20:53.760 --> 0:20:57.760 be a contributing factor. Polyester interacts with steel very differently 0:20:57.800 --> 0:21:00.919 than cotton does, but that really wouldn't account for someone 0:21:01.000 --> 0:21:05.159 eating shit as hard as slide Cop does, which makes 0:21:05.200 --> 0:21:09.600 me believe the slide cop had an external force acting 0:21:09.640 --> 0:21:24.560 on him. So who the fuck is he? I was 0:21:24.600 --> 0:21:27.600 beside myself trying to figure this out because it was 0:21:27.640 --> 0:21:29.399 starting to look like I was going to have to 0:21:29.440 --> 0:21:33.640 file a Foyer report and listen, I'm a dufus, I'm 0:21:33.680 --> 0:21:37.600 a clown. I lack the discipline and the jargon type 0:21:37.640 --> 0:21:41.200 knowledge to make such an attempt on my own. I 0:21:41.320 --> 0:21:46.359 needed help. Unfortunately, I have producer Sophie Lichtman to point 0:21:46.400 --> 0:21:49.919 out the obvious that we already know one of the 0:21:49.960 --> 0:21:54.160 greatest FOYA for good minds of our age, and so 0:21:54.160 --> 0:21:58.760 Sophie connected me to Molly Conger, a brilliant anti fascist journalist, 0:21:59.040 --> 0:22:02.560 FOYA expert, and the mother of two beautiful dog sons, 0:22:02.760 --> 0:22:05.480 and she guided me through how to approach this search. 0:22:06.359 --> 0:22:10.000 I am Molly Conger. I am a local journalist here 0:22:10.040 --> 0:22:13.520 in Charlottesville, Virginia, sort of a busybody about town, and 0:22:14.600 --> 0:22:17.880 unlike Alex Jones, I actually do have the documents, right. 0:22:17.920 --> 0:22:20.760 I'm a documents guy. I love my documents, and one 0:22:20.800 --> 0:22:23.359 of the ways that you can get documents is with 0:22:23.400 --> 0:22:25.800 a freedom of information Act Request, So when people say 0:22:25.840 --> 0:22:29.040 they foid something, they're referring to the Freedom of Information Act. 0:22:29.760 --> 0:22:33.400 That's the federal law governing public access to government records. 0:22:33.800 --> 0:22:36.720 Every state has their own version of it. Sometimes it's 0:22:36.720 --> 0:22:39.080 literally called FOYE as well. Sometimes it's called something else, 0:22:39.119 --> 0:22:42.960 and Pennsylvania it's called right to Know. In Massachusetts, which 0:22:42.960 --> 0:22:45.000 we're talking about today, I think it's called just the 0:22:45.040 --> 0:22:48.560 massas Chusetts Public Record Law, and they very state to 0:22:48.600 --> 0:22:52.680 state right the kinds of exemptions that exist, the statutory 0:22:52.840 --> 0:22:55.440 time limits, very the kinds of things that they will 0:22:55.440 --> 0:22:58.560 give you the run around on very so like, for instance, 0:22:58.560 --> 0:23:02.399 in my state, Virginia, only Virginia residents can request public records, 0:23:02.440 --> 0:23:04.359 which I think is it's one of only nine states 0:23:04.400 --> 0:23:06.800 that has a residency requirement for a four year request. 0:23:07.280 --> 0:23:09.639 Interesting, So do you have to like send pictures of 0:23:09.680 --> 0:23:12.600 your mail to get record? 0:23:12.720 --> 0:23:14.439 It depends on what kind of bug they have up 0:23:14.440 --> 0:23:16.840 their butt. Like different jurisdictions are more uptight about it, 0:23:16.840 --> 0:23:19.199 Like they'll ask you your address through US sometimes they 0:23:19.240 --> 0:23:21.199 will ask you to prove it or if you're a 0:23:21.280 --> 0:23:24.480 representative of news media, but the outlet has to have 0:23:24.960 --> 0:23:29.040 demonstrable circulation within the Commonwealth of Virginia, and that's interpreted 0:23:29.080 --> 0:23:31.600 in a variety of ways that can be pretty harmful 0:23:31.640 --> 0:23:34.960 to independent journalists or online outlets. So, like, you know, 0:23:35.040 --> 0:23:37.080 if you have a very popular blog, they're like, well, 0:23:37.080 --> 0:23:38.879 can you prove that anyone in Virginia reads it? 0:23:40.880 --> 0:23:43.800 Really? So wait, you have to, like it's like being 0:23:43.840 --> 0:23:46.639 an Instagram model, Like you have to also prove that 0:23:47.160 --> 0:23:49.000 people are looking at stuff. 0:23:49.040 --> 0:23:52.040 That's that's crazy, very subjective, right, because the law was 0:23:52.080 --> 0:23:54.600 originally written with newspapers in mind, So it's like, do 0:23:54.680 --> 0:23:57.640 people in the state receive this physical newspaper? But that's 0:23:57.680 --> 0:24:00.360 not really how we do news media anymore. So the 0:24:00.400 --> 0:24:03.080 response times can vary. Like in Arkansas, by law, they 0:24:03.080 --> 0:24:05.719 only have three days to respond, which is like one 0:24:05.720 --> 0:24:08.879 of the tightest timelines in the country. Twelve states don't 0:24:09.000 --> 0:24:11.679 have a statutory time limit, which means that like you 0:24:11.720 --> 0:24:14.080 have no recourse and they just never respond to you. 0:24:14.560 --> 0:24:17.240 So in Massachusetts, the law says they have to respond 0:24:17.240 --> 0:24:18.840 to you within ten days, but they can get a 0:24:18.840 --> 0:24:22.240 good cause extension. I think it's they can get twenty 0:24:22.320 --> 0:24:25.919 days for agencies, thirty days for municipalities, and in Massachusetts 0:24:25.920 --> 0:24:27.960 they can only ask for an extension once they can't 0:24:28.000 --> 0:24:30.760 just keep saying ooh, actually thirty more days. Actually thirty 0:24:30.760 --> 0:24:33.320 more days for the rest of your life. But because 0:24:33.320 --> 0:24:35.560 you're looking for police records, I think in almost every 0:24:35.560 --> 0:24:39.920 state there are huge carve outs for the cops because 0:24:39.920 --> 0:24:43.480 they are not an institution that favors transparency. They like 0:24:43.520 --> 0:24:45.719 to operate in the dark, they don't like to engage 0:24:45.720 --> 0:24:48.359 with the public, and they're hiding. I mean, in this 0:24:48.400 --> 0:24:50.000 case they're just hiding something funny, but a lot of 0:24:50.000 --> 0:24:52.880 times they're hiding something bad. So there are massive carve 0:24:52.920 --> 0:24:56.359 outs for the police. And so I think in Massachusetts specifically, 0:24:56.480 --> 0:24:59.920 I think the Sogain I guess back to the idea 0:25:00.040 --> 0:25:03.439 that every state has different sort of specifics to their 0:25:03.480 --> 0:25:05.280 public records law, and so one of the things that 0:25:05.359 --> 0:25:08.159 varies from state to state are the exemptions. So a 0:25:08.200 --> 0:25:11.840 public records law should cover every document that the government creates, 0:25:11.920 --> 0:25:14.440