Speaker 1: Welcome to another episode of Ciding Psycher. I am your
Speaker 1: host Ramses Josh today. My name is Quentin Ward. Yes, indeed, man,
Speaker 1: that was short and sweet. Yeah, I gotta get right
Speaker 1: to it. I am mad at you. All right, we'll
Speaker 1: stick around. I got a lot to talk about today,
Speaker 1: per usual, so a lot to stay tuned for. Today.
Speaker 1: We are going to be talking about whether or not
Speaker 1: more police officers actually makes people safer. And I know
Speaker 1: how this sounds. It sounds like, oh, Ramses is back
Speaker 1: on his you know bs again and he's gonna, you
Speaker 1: know whatever. No, I'm going to ask some questions. And
Speaker 1: you know, the term safer is it's a matter. It's
Speaker 1: a feeling, you know what I mean, kind of kind
Speaker 1: of you know, do you feel safer? But then does
Speaker 1: it prevent crime? Does it actually translate into safer environments? Right?
Speaker 1: So we're gonna re examine what safety means and whether
Speaker 1: or not the feeling is justified, right because a lot
Speaker 1: of people say, Okay, more police makes me feel safer,
Speaker 1: and then they assume that it actually does equal more safety.
Speaker 1: So we're going to examine that. We have a few
Speaker 1: examples to cite a little bit later on in the show,
Speaker 1: we're going to talk about how America views black children.
Speaker 1: There were a couple of videos that came our way,
Speaker 1: and now is the time. We hadn't been able to
Speaker 1: get to them beforehand, but we saw some police interact
Speaker 1: with children, you know, some my children's age, and you know,
Speaker 1: we asked the questions that we ask on this show
Speaker 1: and try to you know, put you in the shoes
Speaker 1: of the mothers and the fathers of those children and see,
Speaker 1: you know what we end up with at the end
Speaker 1: of the day. That and so much more to stick
Speaker 1: around for. So stay tuned. But first, like we always
Speaker 1: do at this time, let's discuss some ebony excellence, shall we?
Speaker 1: We shall? You want to take this one, you want
Speaker 1: to get it? Go for it, all right? This one
Speaker 1: comes from Black Enterprise dot com some ebony excellence. This week,
Speaker 1: doctor Jessica Watkins makes history as the first black woman
Speaker 1: to have an extended stay in outer space. That's a mouthful.
Speaker 1: Is she airbnbing out of spect man? Listen, I don't know.
Speaker 1: She might be paying rent, she might got a mortgage,
Speaker 1: who knows, man, But she's out there on an extended stay.
Speaker 1: And that's not the hotel. Neither so listen again from
Speaker 1: Black Enterprise. According to NASA, doctor astronaut doctor Jessica Watkins,
Speaker 1: age thirty three, serves as a mission specialist on the
Speaker 1: agency's SpaceX crew for mission, making history as the first
Speaker 1: black woman a journey in the space for an extended mission.
Speaker 1: This is the fourth crew rotation flight of the crew
Speaker 1: Dragon spacecraft to the International Space Station. Watkins has been
Speaker 1: training for the mission for five years, while she will
Speaker 1: live and work for an extended stay per NPR. She
Speaker 1: was taken to the ISS on Wednesday by way of
Speaker 1: a SpaceX capsule sent out as part of NASA's multi
Speaker 1: billion dollar Artemis program, aimed at returning humans to the
Speaker 1: Moon in twenty twenty five. As previously reported, quote, we've
Speaker 1: reached this milestone, this point in time, and the reason
Speaker 1: we're able to arrive at this time is because of
Speaker 1: the legacy of those who have come before to allow
Speaker 1: this moment, said Watkins in an interview with NBC News,
Speaker 1: also recognizing this is a step in the direction of
Speaker 1: a very exciting future, so to be a part of
Speaker 1: this is certainly an honor. She explained that the mission
Speaker 1: intel's multiple scientific procedures, including physical science, material and combustion,
Speaker 1: Earth and space science, cell tissue and plant growth technology demonstrations,
Speaker 1: as well as human research as in the effects of
Speaker 1: long duration spaceflight. And so it is our honor and
Speaker 1: our duty to shout her out as an example of
Speaker 1: the Ebony excellence doctor Jessica Watkins.
Speaker 2: Doctor Watkins, you are incredible.
Speaker 1: Indeed, Now, first order of business, this comes from the
Speaker 1: New York Post. And this is sort of what got
Speaker 1: us thinking. Us and our show producer, Maggie. Maggie Be knowing.
Speaker 1: Maggie Be knowing and do she do got us to
Speaker 1: thinking about what a safety mean? And do police make
Speaker 1: us safer? Safer? This is a question that we ask.
Speaker 1: I know that, of course your impulse is to say yes,
Speaker 1: of course police make us safer safer, And I'm not
Speaker 1: going to disagree with you. You know, there's there's a lot
Speaker 1: of instances where I would go along with that, sure,
Speaker 1: But for us to paint with broad strokes, I think
Speaker 1: that there are some other things that we might consider
Speaker 1: that might actually make us safer. Investing in community, investing
Speaker 1: in people, rather than investing in enforcing laws, right, we
Speaker 1: can invest in educating people about the laws. I believe
Speaker 1: in human nature right, and for us to have armies
Speaker 1: of police officers feels less than necessary if there are
Speaker 1: better options. Right. And then there's some people who believe
Speaker 1: that human beings are inherently bad, regardless of their circumstances,
Speaker 1: regardless of their environments, and regardless of their options and opportunities,
Speaker 1: and feel that police are the only way to exact
Speaker 1: control over a population. Right, two different philosophies. I'm not
Speaker 1: going to say which one is right or which one
Speaker 1: is wrong. I think you can do deduce on your
Speaker 1: own which one I prefer. But for the purposes of
Speaker 1: this conversation, we'll just establish that there are differing schools
Speaker 1: of thought with respect to this agree The New York
Speaker 1: Post article certainly makes a point that we will make
Speaker 1: further in this segment of the show. Year old man
Speaker 1: was fatally shot in the head in broad daylight in
Speaker 1: the Upper West Side Sunday. This is in New York,
Speaker 1: of course. Cops said the gunfire rang out during an
Speaker 1: argument around twelve to fifteen pm at one hundred and
Speaker 1: first Street and Amsterdam Avenue, one block from the NYPD's
Speaker 1: twenty fourth precinct. According to cops, the unidentified man was
Speaker 1: pronounced dead at the scene and the shooter fled. The
Speaker 1: violence comes as the NYPD is set to begin putting
Speaker 1: more cops on duty at night Monday to help stem
Speaker 1: shootings ahead of the summer months. Now, there are people
Speaker 1: that say, you know, as long as there's the police,
Speaker 1: if they're more police around, then you know that has
Speaker 1: a direct impact on crime. You know, people will not
Speaker 1: commit crimes where police are near. Right now, I'm a
Speaker 1: person who I work in nightlife, so I know for
Speaker 1: a fact that people absolutely engage in criminal activities directly
Speaker 1: in front of the police because where we live Q
Speaker 1: and I, the laws are written to where if you
Speaker 1: have a nightclub sort of establishment, you need off duty
Speaker 1: police officers there and typically they're uniformed and they're in
Speaker 1: their whole police get up. And people still fight, people
Speaker 1: still pull out guns, people still break the law. They
Speaker 1: what is it when they urinate in public? It's like
Speaker 1: a sex offense sort of thing in some places. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: so all these people break the law in full view
Speaker 1: of the police all the time. Right, But those laws
Speaker 1: exist to make people feel safer, and I'm not going
Speaker 1: to say that that does not have an impact on
Speaker 1: some knuckleheads who might want to they might second guess themselves.
Speaker 2: Right now, that's a random Please is there a danger
Speaker 2: in the perception of safety when it doesn't actually exist?
Speaker 1: Absolutely?
Speaker 2: Right, Because when you see a police officer in full
Speaker 2: tactical gear with a shotgun and you're a patron that
Speaker 2: said nightclub, you feel safer, You actually do, I'm less
Speaker 2: likely to be harmed. Here, there's a sheriff right there,
Speaker 2: there's a police officer right there. Now your guard is Now,
Speaker 2: are you actually in more danger because you think you're
Speaker 2: safer when you actually are not? How about this.
Speaker 1: I remember a story where the old president was responding
Speaker 1: to a mass shooting event, right, and the shooting event
Speaker 1: took place on a campus, and I remember there was
Speaker 1: an officer on the campus and the officer fled from
Speaker 1: the active shooter with all the students did not run
Speaker 1: toward the active shooter. And the former president was kind
Speaker 1: of beating a chess saying, well, if I had been there,
Speaker 1: I would have engaged, you know, blah blah blah. Right,
Speaker 1: But what we see there as a trained officer who's
Speaker 1: hired to protect the children, and it's like, Nope, I'm
Speaker 1: out right, I'm not going to be able to do
Speaker 1: it talk to them now. I know that these are
Speaker 1: sort of one off examples, right, and there's probably innumerable
Speaker 1: examples of police actually running toward the uh the danger
Speaker 1: to put the fire out, so to speak, to handle
Speaker 1: the bad guys, that sort of thing, right, But we
Speaker 1: do need to ask these critical questions because I will
Speaker 1: say it again as often as I can if there's
Speaker 1: an audience and a microphone. I do believe that there
Speaker 1: is some merit two the movement and the ideas behind
Speaker 1: defunding the police rather defunding and reallocating the fiscal resources
Speaker 1: that we pump into police departments. I wish we had
Speaker 1: a cooler way to say it that then say defund
Speaker 1: the police or what I just said. But you know,
Speaker 1: there are proven that you know, one such program, you know, daycare,
Speaker 1: head start programs in schools. There's a direct correlation between
Speaker 1: retention rates in school graduation rates and crime. Believe it
Speaker 1: or not, helping single mothers with day care, food programs,
Speaker 1: housing programs, employment opportunities. You know, a lot of crimes
Speaker 1: are based off of inequity, societal inequity, economic inequity, right,
Speaker 1: and so addressing those issues with you know, some of
Speaker 1: the money from these really bloated police departments that no
Speaker 1: matter how much more money we pumped into them, they aren't.
Speaker 1: It's not translating dollar for dollar into more safety. That's
Speaker 1: something that's verifiable. That's not Rams's opinion. Will make the
Speaker 1: point a little later in the segment.
Speaker 2: I think we've proven that fiscally, there's no way to
Speaker 2: make police more effective, right, more money, no matter how much. Right,
Speaker 2: exactly if we came up with an extra trillion, it
Speaker 2: still would not make our police the way that they're
Speaker 2: structured now more effective.
Speaker 1: That's what I'm trying to say. And so, but there
Speaker 1: exists is sort of like zombie like myth that won't
Speaker 1: die that people, even important, educated, well intentioned black people,
Speaker 1: will say, well, listen, we need to just pay the
Speaker 1: officers better. We need to get them better training, we
Speaker 1: need to get them, you know, a bias training. We
Speaker 1: need to get them, you know, all these sorts of things.
Speaker 1: You know, this is what they think. And the fact
Speaker 1: is is that no one's dealing with the fundamental issues.
Speaker 1: One is that there's a psychologically basic human cycle, maybe
Speaker 1: not olympic, but a basic human psychological component to where
Speaker 1: if you give someone a gun and a badge and
Speaker 1: give them this perceived authority over you know, another human beings,
Speaker 1: body and agency and so forth. That it often not
Speaker 1: always creates a sort of God complex, and sometimes that
Speaker 1: gets away from from people, and we see people police
Speaker 1: officers abusing that and that causes great harm to society,
Speaker 1: especially black and brown neighborhoods around the country. We also
Speaker 1: see that, you know, there's this almost like a I
Speaker 1: don't want to call it a brotherhood, but like a
Speaker 1: it's like a fraternity or something where they keep each
Speaker 1: other's secrets and everything that they do that is wrong,
Speaker 1: they will somehow make it right, not only to us
Speaker 1: the public, you know, they'll tell us the story that
Speaker 1: we need because we want to eat it up, but
Speaker 1: they'll make it right in their own head, like I
Speaker 1: can't be the bad guy who wants to be the
Speaker 1: bad guy in their own story.
Speaker 2: And that's not specific to police though, right a lot
Speaker 2: of these problems we ignore basic human elements with regards
Speaker 2: to police, as if they's somehow of a higher enlightenment.
Speaker 2: We don't know the intentions of regular people. So you
Speaker 2: spoke about giving someone a badging a gun, you often
Speaker 2: don't know how ill or well intentioned that person is
Speaker 2: until after they've already done something heinous, right, And even
Speaker 2: people with good intentions could be put into a high pressure,
Speaker 2: high stakes position and make a fatal mistake. Sure mistakes
Speaker 2: are made, but how about people who actually have ill
Speaker 2: intent the whole reason that they want to be a
Speaker 2: police officer so that they can abuse that power. Again,
Speaker 2: these things are not unique to police officers. Protecting our
Speaker 2: own is not unique to police officers. No one wants
Speaker 2: the group they're a part of to be pointed out
Speaker 2: in a bad way. Of course, that's not again unique
Speaker 2: to police. So I think a lot of people who
Speaker 2: were up in arms you said the old with the
Speaker 2: old president. How and why that was so divisive is
Speaker 2: because some of those people, when you accused or attacked him,
Speaker 2: saw themselves sure and had to stand and very very
Speaker 2: vehemently defend their own position, right, but made it appear
Speaker 2: like they were just defending the person that they voted for,
Speaker 2: where he can't be all of those things because I
Speaker 2: share some of his ideology and that would mean I'm
Speaker 2: that and I'm not that, right, So that's not unique
Speaker 2: to police. You know, keeping each other's secrets and defending
Speaker 2: each other because the idea that there's no such thing
Speaker 2: as a good cop is false. But every cop that
Speaker 2: a lot of cops might hear this show and hear
Speaker 2: us talking about the quote unquote bad cops and feel
Speaker 2: the need to defend it or to feel offended by it,
Speaker 2: because this is a collective that I'm a part of,
Speaker 2: and I don't like it being spoken about in that way. However,
Speaker 2: we live in a society where punitive is also good
Speaker 2: for the corporations at large, or the singular corporation at large,
Speaker 2: our company, you know, one of the most thriving capitalist
Speaker 2: societies in the history of Earth, the United States of America. Right,
Speaker 2: So when punitive also helps pay the bills, Now you're
Speaker 2: talking about incentivizing the idea of enforcing these laws that
Speaker 2: sometimes we don't even know are being broken or that
Speaker 2: exists without that education. There's profit in that education not existing.
Speaker 2: There's profit in allowing people to break laws they don't
Speaker 2: know about. So there is no incentive for the system
Speaker 2: to be better. Sadly, I hate to be the dark
Speaker 2: cloud all the time, but there is no incentive for
Speaker 2: these things to improve.
Speaker 1: So let's jump in right here. The people that continue
Speaker 1: to bolster the system, with their votes, with their ideas,
Speaker 1: with their counter protests in recent years, are people that
Speaker 1: you know, maybe these people never change their mind, you know,
Speaker 1: And that's okay, because you know, we all need to
Speaker 1: hold each other's ideas over each other's heads. You know,
Speaker 1: we all have different ways of experiencing reality, and each
Speaker 1: one is valid in my opinion, right, and together we
Speaker 1: should find the thing that works the best for the
Speaker 1: most people. I think that's the best that anyone could ask, right.
Speaker 1: So I'm not saying that anyone's wrong, but I do
Speaker 1: believe that it's appropriate for people to think, well, does
Speaker 1: more police make things safer? Right? Because again you would think, well,
Speaker 1: I moved, you know, right next to the police precinct,
Speaker 1: so we're good over here. You know. I used to
Speaker 1: when I was in college, I had a work study program.
Speaker 1: I would be the person that would patrol the parking
Speaker 1: lots right from my little clipboard and my little radio.
Speaker 1: And that's how I got work study money so I
Speaker 1: could go to school, right, and we would have police
Speaker 1: cars on the campus. This is a college campus, so
Speaker 1: you know, the college campuses do have police, at least
Speaker 1: where we live in Arizona. So yeah, police would be
Speaker 1: there all the time, all the time. There were cars
Speaker 1: in the parking lot, there would be police in the
Speaker 1: parking lot. Not just police cars, but police. Right, cars
Speaker 1: got stolen out of that lot all the time, all
Speaker 1: the time. With cameras and police, the visible cameras. People
Speaker 1: would just what we would see the tapes. Well, this
Speaker 1: is the guy walking in yep, Now he's in the car. Oh,
Speaker 1: there goes the car. He's gone, you know, And as
Speaker 1: far as I remember, never recovered any of those cars,
Speaker 1: you know, at least not in a timely manner. You know,
Speaker 1: it's not like all the police were on the campus
Speaker 1: so they could respond immediately. And now everybody's better because
Speaker 1: we had police there. No man, A lot of times
Speaker 1: police didn't even know, right, if someone's gonna steal a car,
Speaker 1: if their intention when they wake up is to steal
Speaker 1: a car, they are going to steal that car, right,
Speaker 1: So putting more police, you could put a million police officers.
Speaker 1: If someone is dead set on stealing car, guess what
Speaker 1: they're gonna do. Steal a car, right, But if you
Speaker 1: can't prevent the crime from happening that way, by putting
Speaker 1: a million police officers, which would cost a lot of money.
Speaker 1: Maybe you could put a couple of programs. Maybe you
Speaker 1: could put some more job opportunities. Maybe you can prevent
Speaker 1: the necessity of someone getting so desperate that they wake
Speaker 1: up in the morning and they say, listen, the only
Speaker 1: way I can make whatever happen to get from point
Speaker 1: A to point B, or make some money or whatever
Speaker 1: is steal a car. The only way to really approach that,
Speaker 1: even if it's kids just wanting to go for a
Speaker 1: joy ride, put in some act school programs, put in
Speaker 1: you know, whatever, whatever it is in the community. Right,
Speaker 1: maybe that might be more effective and cheaper. And if
Speaker 1: you're like, well, how are we going to pay for
Speaker 1: after school programs, and how are we gonna you know,
Speaker 1: we'll take some of that money from the million cops,
Speaker 1: put it into the neighborhood. Maybe the car thefts go down, right,
Speaker 1: So this is what I want us to think about. Again,
Speaker 1: Ramses is not right. I don't mean MS does have
Speaker 1: to ask these questions.
Speaker 2: I don't even want to talk about the word we
Speaker 2: get the money from apart because our environment shows us
Speaker 2: as often as it feels like the money exists all.
Speaker 1: The time for the things they want to get. It
Speaker 1: like that it's ready to go in the billions. Not
Speaker 1: a couple of dollars, man, I'm knowing. Okay. Now, another
Speaker 1: reason that the story came up is because Q sent
Speaker 1: me something on Instagram.
Speaker 2: You want to talk about it, I do, but I
Speaker 2: want to be accurate with the agency that we cite here, Okay,
Speaker 2: with regards to that story, because I was just really
Speaker 2: blown away by what I thought was comical, something that
Speaker 2: these officers were celebrating in a way and so proudly.
Speaker 2: I initially thought it must have been a joke.
Speaker 1: The New York.
Speaker 2: Police Department sixtieth Precinct, we are citing them as our source.
Speaker 2: They said this not a newspaper. The NYPD sixtieth Precinct
Speaker 2: verified Twitter page NYPD Brooklyn South. Great job by your
Speaker 2: sixty Precinct public safety team in regards I'm sorry that
Speaker 2: I'm laughing, but this is so upsetting that it's funny.
Speaker 2: In regards to last night's rest of one individual and
Speaker 2: the recovery of ah ah a one. Whatever you wanted
Speaker 2: to use in place of a very singlegular firearm is
Speaker 2: now off your streets. This is not a joke, people,
Speaker 2: This is a proud post by this precinct. Picture are one, two, three, four, five, six,
Speaker 2: seven officers grouped around a table with a single gun
Speaker 2: sitting on it, oh and two bullets.
Speaker 1: All right. So we've talked many times on the show
Speaker 1: about police department blunders where they get a lot of money,
Speaker 1: they spend a lot of money and it doesn't make
Speaker 1: any real change, and we don't bring it up to
Speaker 1: laugh in the face of the police officers. We recognize
Speaker 1: and respect that everybody's got a job to do right,
Speaker 1: but it is our responsibility to remain ever critical of
Speaker 1: what we believe to be institutions that can improve right.
Speaker 1: We happen to know that policing has its roots in
Speaker 1: white supremacy, and so if we call it a white
Speaker 1: supremacist institution, we don't believe that we're wrong with that. Said,
Speaker 1: our only agenda here is to make sure that we
Speaker 1: charge everyone with doing the best that they can do,
Speaker 1: and no one rests on their laurels. And you know what,
Speaker 1: you're listening to our voices, it is your responsibility to
Speaker 1: ensure that we do the best that we can do.
Speaker 1: We give you all of our information at the end
Speaker 1: of the show, Pure gold Fere's no fire. If we
Speaker 1: get something wrong, we will admit it, we will own it,
Speaker 1: we will eat that crow. We've done it many times
Speaker 1: on the show. We've got something well, not many times,
Speaker 1: but you know, whenever we got it wrong and it
Speaker 1: was pointed out to us, you know we're not above
Speaker 1: that right. And so for us to hold police policing
Speaker 1: accountable is on with what we do. Now. I want
Speaker 1: to add something else here. Regardless of how you feel
Speaker 1: about Sean King, he gets us some information and sometimes
Speaker 1: we'll use it on this show. So this came from
Speaker 1: a post of his that just kind of helps make
Speaker 1: this point a little bit further. You feel free to
Speaker 1: look him up. Sean King, I think this was from
Speaker 1: his Instagram says. Yesterday it was revealed that tax player
Speaker 1: taxpayers in Los Angeles are paying three hundred and fifty
Speaker 1: eight thousand dollars per officer for sixty cops to patrol
Speaker 1: West Hollywood. They said crime exploded. Turns out it was
Speaker 1: two hundred and forty nine cell phones lost it clubs.
Speaker 1: They found two of them. Okay, so I mean sixty
Speaker 1: police officers each are costing the city three hundred and
Speaker 1: fifty eight thousand dollars. That's not just salaries or contracts
Speaker 1: or whatever that's gear, that's you know, whatever or whatever
Speaker 1: it takes to you know, benefit all that sort of stuff.
Speaker 1: Three hundred and fifty one thousand dollars per cops, sixty
Speaker 1: of them so that they can recover two of the
Speaker 1: lost two and forty nine cell phones. They're responding to
Speaker 1: a crime wave that didn't exist, and they only I mean,
Speaker 1: this is like a less than one percent dent that
Speaker 1: they've made in this and said crime wave, just like
Speaker 1: the story you mentioned where the officers were all standing
Speaker 1: around getting one gun off the streets and posing as
Speaker 1: though now the world is a safer place, or even
Speaker 1: their Brooklyn is a safer place. You know how many
Speaker 1: people live in Brooklyn. And so again we need to
Speaker 1: really rethink what makes us safer. Do more cops make
Speaker 1: us safer? Do more intelligent policies and philosophies and approaches
Speaker 1: to dealing with each other make us safer