Speaker 1: Welcome to another episode of Civic Cipher. I am your
Speaker 1: host rams this joh And.
Speaker 2: In case you didn't know, I can go by the
Speaker 2: name q War.
Speaker 1: Yes indeed, and be sure to stick around radios because
Speaker 1: we've got a lot to talk about this show. As
Speaker 1: you know, the show, we talk about issues that are
Speaker 1: important to the Black community as well as non black communities.
Speaker 1: We do our best to try to find a way
Speaker 1: to be better brothers and sisters to each other in
Speaker 1: this country. Sometimes, unfortunately, that means that we have to
Speaker 1: deal with some more challenging subjects, and today we are
Speaker 1: going to deal with a couple of those. One in
Speaker 1: particular has to do with a man named Patrick Leoya.
Speaker 1: We didn't cover his story last week because we wanted
Speaker 1: to give it a little bit of time for reasons
Speaker 1: we'll get into, but we will be discussing his execution
Speaker 1: style death in the state of Detroit and discussing where
Speaker 1: we go from here. A little later in the show,
Speaker 1: we're also going to talk about the criminal justice system
Speaker 1: and how it tends to mistreat black people and brown
Speaker 1: people in this country, and we have one such example,
Speaker 1: a man by the name of Daryl Howard. We're going
Speaker 1: to examine his situation a bit and just kind of
Speaker 1: give you some insight into what we know to be
Speaker 1: true but you may not. We're going to spend a
Speaker 1: little time talking about the first African American umpire in
Speaker 1: Major League Baseball, a man by the name of emmittt Ashford,
Speaker 1: for a way black history fact. And we're also going
Speaker 1: to discuss a movie that I was able to watch
Speaker 1: recently that I would love for you to watch. We'll
Speaker 1: tell you a little bit more about it in our
Speaker 1: bah Ba segment. That is Baba Become a Better Ally,
Speaker 1: So be sure to stick around for that as well,
Speaker 1: because it is definitely an insightful movie. It's called Who
Speaker 1: We Are, So a lot to stick around for today,
Speaker 1: so be sure to stay tuned. But first and foremost,
Speaker 1: like we always do it, this time, que with your permission,
Speaker 1: can we jump into some ebony excellence?
Speaker 2: Shall we Wishall?
Speaker 1: All right? So this is a weird one, but it
Speaker 1: was a story that I loved. Okay, it's not weird,
Speaker 1: it's just unusual for our ebony excellence, but I think
Speaker 1: it fits. I love this story. So this comes from
Speaker 1: fijisun dot com and a few other sources. Washington Post
Speaker 1: and so forth and so on. This is just the
Speaker 1: article I like the most. Meryl Pittman Cooper Age one
Speaker 1: hundred and one had a distinguished career as one of
Speaker 1: the first black trolley car drivers in Philadelphia and a
Speaker 1: powerful leader in the Union. But when he was a
Speaker 1: teenager during segregation in the nineteen thirties, his single mother
Speaker 1: was two poor to pay school tuition. Nineteen thirty eighty,
Speaker 1: just finished his junior year of high school at Stora College,
Speaker 1: a boarding school founded after the Civil War that initially
Speaker 1: educated formerly enslaved children. Mister Cooper said he realized his mother,
Speaker 1: who worked as a living housekeeper, couldn't afford to make
Speaker 1: the final tuition payment for a senior year. He took
Speaker 1: a job at the women's apparel store in Philadelphia to
Speaker 1: help pay bills, and then he was hired in nineteen
Speaker 1: forty five as a city trolley car operator, and he
Speaker 1: says it was tough when he first started. He remembers
Speaker 1: the racism he endured. He says, quote, I wouldn't want
Speaker 1: to repeat some of the things people said to me
Speaker 1: when they saw me operating the trolley. Right. He goes
Speaker 1: on to say, we had to have the National Guard
Speaker 1: on board to keep the peace. But he was proud
Speaker 1: of his career. However, there was always one thing that
Speaker 1: bothered him. He wished he had graduated from high school
Speaker 1: and received his diploma. Well eighty four years later, he
Speaker 1: has been finally able to realize his long held wish.
Speaker 1: His family arranged his surprise graduation ceremony in his honor
Speaker 1: March nineteenth at a hotel in Jersey City. Mister Cooper's
Speaker 1: son in law, Rod Beckernick, is a retired social studies
Speaker 1: teacher who heard mister Cooper talk about the difficulty of
Speaker 1: getting an education as a black teen in the nineteen thirties.
Speaker 1: He decided it was long past time his father in
Speaker 1: law received the diploma he'd missed when he dropped out
Speaker 1: just before his senior year. So I just wanted to
Speaker 1: shout that story out as a heartwarming story. And we
Speaker 1: love those two every so often. I do believe that
Speaker 1: is an example of ebony excellence, even at one hundred
Speaker 1: and one years. Now, on to heavier things. And if
Speaker 1: you're listening, we really did put this off. So I'll
Speaker 1: ask you, have you been able to digest properly this
Speaker 1: Patrick Leoya story?
Speaker 2: I don't know that there's a such thing as a FAIRCT.
Speaker 2: I'm past the point of being able to reconcile things
Speaker 2: like this. There's no point where after either the video
Speaker 2: or the story, where enough time passes where I'm like okay,
Speaker 2: now I'm okay. There's like there's no moving on anymore.
Speaker 2: Just the frequency, the gravity, the impunity of it all.
Speaker 2: It's impossible to at the grievance. It's not a grievance period.
Speaker 2: It's almost constant now, you know what I mean. Like
Speaker 2: it's not like we heal and we move on, like no,
Speaker 2: You'll still be hurting and processing the last one. And then,
Speaker 2: as you know in our text thread, in our inbox,
Speaker 2: there's a story of five more, ten more, a dozen more.
Speaker 2: We can't fit them all in our shows. That's sad. Yeah,
Speaker 2: we don't have enough space to talk about the number
Speaker 2: of these types of stories that we have to try
Speaker 2: to digest. But I have indigestion with regards.
Speaker 1: To it now.
Speaker 2: I don't get to a point where it ever settles.
Speaker 1: Well, said man, that was visual, and as someone who
Speaker 1: has to processes say with you very much accurate. I
Speaker 1: do want to offer this though we stated this on
Speaker 1: the show before. We decided early on You and I.
Speaker 1: We decided when we were making this show in its
Speaker 1: early days, that we did not want to become desensitized
Speaker 1: to black trauma, to black death, to harm being done
Speaker 1: to black bodies. And so we instituted a rotation for
Speaker 1: stories where I'll read a story and I'll watch a video.
Speaker 1: These videos oftentimes the end in death of black people,
Speaker 1: and it's very, very heavy. I'm not going to speak
Speaker 1: for all black people. I'm just going to speak for Ramses.
Speaker 1: I am a human being with a beating heart, and
Speaker 1: I have feelings. So if you can relate to any
Speaker 1: of those, then you might have some insight into how
Speaker 1: this feels. Right. So for me to see anyone and
Speaker 1: be harmed, it's like, I don't celebrate that. I'm not
Speaker 1: the sort of person that goes hunting and in the
Speaker 1: lives of animals because you know, for no reason. You know,
Speaker 1: I get that some people got to eat that way
Speaker 1: or whatever, but it's not my thing. But it's a
Speaker 1: little bit heavier when the person is black, because then
Speaker 1: it feels a little bit more personal, it feels a
Speaker 1: little closer to our doorstep. And so we instituted this
Speaker 1: rotation so that we could deal with these stories without
Speaker 1: overwhelming ourselves and without you know, there's been this big
Speaker 1: push in recent years to protect your mental health, you know,
Speaker 1: and so this was one of the steps that we
Speaker 1: tried to implement in producing the show for you guys
Speaker 1: every week. So this one, I know for a fact,
Speaker 1: I put it off to the very last minute. I
Speaker 1: knew it was there. I just didn't want to watch
Speaker 1: the video. I just didn't. I just didn't want to
Speaker 1: see it. I heard that Patrick was shot in the
Speaker 1: back of his head and that felt different. And here
Speaker 1: we are, and now I have to talk about it,
Speaker 1: and so I respect and understand whatever whatever, however deeply
Speaker 1: you have dived into this because I recognize the gravity
Speaker 1: of it. But this one was my turn of of course,
Speaker 1: as you know you and so here we are now.
Speaker 1: I do want to mention that some of my readings
Speaker 1: today come from the Detroit Free Press, that the Detroit
Speaker 1: Free Press is a black owned newspaper, like the Atlanta
Speaker 1: Black Star, like the Grio. Some of our sources we
Speaker 1: just pulled from black sources because this is the place
Speaker 1: for that, and a lot of times they'll tell the
Speaker 1: story in the way that we really need to hear
Speaker 1: it and to share it with the listener you, so
Speaker 1: I'll begin. A black man, faced down on the ground
Speaker 1: was fatally shot in the back of the head by
Speaker 1: a Grand Rapids police officer the violent climax of a
Speaker 1: traffic stop, refootchase, and struggle over a stun gun, according
Speaker 1: to videos of the April fourth incident released Wednesday. The
Speaker 1: release by Grand Rapids police spark renewed protests and calls
Speaker 1: for justice Wednesday, as state and state officials promised to
Speaker 1: full investigation. It comes in the wake of other police
Speaker 1: involved shootings in Grand Rapids. The video released Wednesday includes
Speaker 1: footage from the unnamed officer's body camera, which was deactivated
Speaker 1: shortly after the officer told the suspect, twenty six year
Speaker 1: old Congolese refugee Patrick Leoya, to quote let go of
Speaker 1: the taser. End quote. The video, collection of dash cam footage,
Speaker 1: bodycam footage, and a home security camera and a cell
Speaker 1: phone video, shows the unnamed officer pulling over Lioya and
Speaker 1: a passenger for a quote license plate that doesn't match
Speaker 1: the car Quoteleoya gets out of the car and the
Speaker 1: officer gets out and tells him to get back in
Speaker 1: the car. The officer asks for his driver's license and
Speaker 1: then asks whether Lioya speaks English. Elia then appears to
Speaker 1: run around the car. The officer chases and tackles him
Speaker 1: to the ground on the front lawn of a house.
Speaker 1: They struggle, and the officer can be heard yelling to
Speaker 1: Lioya stop and let go of the taser. After about
Speaker 1: ninety seconds, the officer is lying on top of Lioya,
Speaker 1: who's face down on the ground. The officer, still yelling
Speaker 1: for Lioya to let go of the taser, proceeds to
Speaker 1: shoot him. Leoya is shot in the head. Police Chief
Speaker 1: Eric Winstrom confirmed. Winstrom said the taser was deployed twice
Speaker 1: but did not make contact. Okay, now, I recognize that
Speaker 1: if you're hearing our voices today, and we do appreciate
Speaker 1: every listener, everybody that has a little bit of a
Speaker 1: moral compass in their heart and they want to do right,
Speaker 1: and they're taking the time out as you're doing right now,
Speaker 1: to listen to our voices and try to become a
Speaker 1: better person for your brothers and sisters. You know that
Speaker 1: you share this country with This is a this is
Speaker 1: a this one feels different to me, and I know
Speaker 1: that the police will always have an excuse, right, And
Speaker 1: I've said this many times on the show. But you know,
Speaker 1: for those of you who maybe you're on the fence,
Speaker 1: maybe you're in the gray area, or maybe you have
Speaker 1: to have really important conversations with people who I feel
Speaker 1: like the police are justified. You know, there are people
Speaker 1: who do their best to try to find the justification
Speaker 1: in the police's actions. There's no objection, there's no objectivity,
Speaker 1: if you will, right, They are trying to find out
Speaker 1: who did what wrong to justify what the police did. Well,
Speaker 1: he shouldn't have did this, he shouldn't have ran, he
Speaker 1: shouldn't you know whatever. So as I do, I'll break
Speaker 1: this down how I see these things happen. Okay, Now
Speaker 1: this is a refugee. So let's say he's not aware
Speaker 1: the extent of police violence in this country. Let's say
Speaker 1: he didn't grow up in a place like Detroit, you know,
Speaker 1: or a place like Compton, where I'm from. You know,
Speaker 1: cues from Detroit shout out to the mon So he
Speaker 1: hasn't been taught from a young age to fear the police.
Speaker 1: You know, many of you listening might think, well, no,
Speaker 1: the police are the good guys. You know, why would
Speaker 1: anybody fear the police? You know, there are parts of
Speaker 1: the country where the police don't really behave like across
Speaker 1: the board in a way that makes you feel like
Speaker 1: they're there to protect you. At least. That was a
Speaker 1: lot of my interactions with the police in my nearly
Speaker 1: forty years of living. In that time, I've learned that police.
Speaker 1: I've seen police rob people. I've seen police beat people up,
Speaker 1: not even take them to jail, just beat them up
Speaker 1: and leave them there. I saw that happen. These eyes
Speaker 1: saw it happen. I've learned, obviously doing this type of
Speaker 1: show and just kind of being a conscious black man
Speaker 1: with black children to raise black sons, specifically, that it
Speaker 1: is possible and legal for police to lie to you
Speaker 1: when they interrogate you. So the police can say to you, hey,
Speaker 1: you know what, we have your DNA at the scene.
Speaker 1: So if you confess to the crime that you may
Speaker 1: or may not have committed. But let's say in this example,
Speaker 1: you didn't committed but if you if you confess, I
Speaker 1: can make it easier on you. It's legal for them
Speaker 1: to lie to you and say things like that, oh,
Speaker 1: we can you know, do whatever, and make it, make
Speaker 1: it easier on you. But then what happens is you
Speaker 1: confess to a crime that you didn't commit and it's
Speaker 1: all because the police officers did that. So rather than
Speaker 1: committing being committed to finding the truth, this is a
Speaker 1: legal thing that happens all too often. You know, if
Speaker 1: you don't believe my words here, please look up and
Speaker 1: follow the Equal Justice Initiative. A man named Brian Stevenson.
Speaker 1: He's a person that I look up to very much,
Speaker 1: h And he's a person that fights to overturn wrongful
Speaker 1: convictions using DNA evidence or whatever you mean, legal means
Speaker 1: that he can and obviously a success rate is very high,
Speaker 1: which is how he's known for doing this. And overwhelmingly
Speaker 1: the people that are beneficiaries of his services and those
Speaker 1: of the Equal Justice Initiative are black or brown and
Speaker 1: overwhelmingly poor. And so what we're looking at is a
Speaker 1: problem with policing, with confessions and so forth. But more
Speaker 1: times than I've seen the police be the good guys,
Speaker 1: I've seen them be the bad guys in my actual
Speaker 1: lived life. I'm not talking about in TV. I'm not
Speaker 1: talking about in videos, you know, because I do respect
Speaker 1: the fact that lots of police do lots of good work.
Speaker 1: I have to say that, as many people as might
Speaker 1: get mad at me for saying that there are lots
Speaker 1: of police officers do lots of good work, I'll see
Speaker 1: that entirely. But I don't understand, and I don't know
Speaker 1: that I ever will how the police get to be
Speaker 1: the heroes and they always fear for their life? Right?
Speaker 1: Are you that brave? Or are you not that braid?
Speaker 1: You know? Are you afraid? I remember reading a story,
Speaker 1: and this was some time ago, so my details a
Speaker 1: little hazy, but it was a person was shot and
Speaker 1: killed by an officer, and the officer had shot the
Speaker 1: person's hands right or or hand or something like this,
Speaker 1: and I remember it and when, uh, the officer had
Speaker 1: to like explain what had happened. Actually, I'm not even
Speaker 1: sure that the person died, but either way, the officer
Speaker 1: shot to him, okay, and it shot the person's hand
Speaker 1: through the hand. The officer was able to suggest that, well,
Speaker 1: I shot through the hand because the person was trying
Speaker 1: to grab for my gun, right, And if that's the
Speaker 1: end of the story, that makes perfect sense. Off you're
Speaker 1: trying to grab the officer's gun. The officer needs to
Speaker 1: take action, discharge the weapon. Boom, problem solved, right, protect
Speaker 1: the officer's life at all costs, right, This is kind
Speaker 1: of the way that works. That's kind of one of
Speaker 1: the protections you're afforded if you sign up to become
Speaker 1: a police officer, that your life matters more than everyone else's.
Speaker 1: But the person who was shot, it was either that
Speaker 1: person or their family. I don't remember the details exactly,
Speaker 1: but that person or their family was saying, like, your
Speaker 1: instinct is to try to keep the weapon from being
Speaker 1: pointed directly at you, because you know that once that
Speaker 1: reapon is raised raised, rather that it spells the end
Speaker 1: of your life. You know what I mean, I'm going
Speaker 1: to get shot, So you will reach out your hands
Speaker 1: and try to keep the weapon from going all the
Speaker 1: way up, you know, try to block it. This is
Speaker 1: kind of an instinctive thing, right, And so they were
Speaker 1: trying to say no, this person wasn't trying to grab
Speaker 1: the gun, take it away from the officer, turn it around,
Speaker 1: grip the gun, and then discharge the weapon in the
Speaker 1: officer's direction. This person was simply trying to save his
Speaker 1: own life, which anything with a nervous system does and
Speaker 1: in theory should be allowed to do. Right. So this taser,
Speaker 1: you know, I don't know all the details yet. I
Speaker 1: did wait to try to wait for more things to
Speaker 1: come out, but this one might take a while. A
Speaker 1: lot of these do. But that taser. When they say, like,
Speaker 1: you know, the officer said he was grabbing for his taser,
Speaker 1: the way that story hits the public is like, well,
Speaker 1: this Congolese refugee who was running away from the officer
Speaker 1: decided that he was going to get the taser tase
Speaker 1: the officer, and therefore the officer was in danger. So
Speaker 1: the officer had every right to shoot the man in
Speaker 1: the back of the head, right. I want to add
Speaker 1: to that. Tasers are supposed to be non lethal. So
Speaker 1: if someone does get your taser, officer, you know, we
Speaker 1: don't know the officer's name here, but if someone does
Speaker 1: get your taser, again, a non lethal weapon. This is
Speaker 1: why you have it as an alternative to your gun.
Speaker 1: Someone does get your taser, the understanding there is that
Speaker 1: that device is not going to end a life, right,
Speaker 1: So fearing for your life doesn't really make sense to me,
Speaker 1: you know, based on you know those details. Right. Furthermore,
Speaker 1: if this man has the taser. The taser went off twice.
Speaker 1: No one was electrocuted. And you're wrestling with this person.
Speaker 1: He's face down, You're on top of his body, and you're,
Speaker 1: I guess tired of wrestling with him because it's been
Speaker 1: a while. Shooting someone in the back of the head.
Speaker 1: That sounds very gruesome, and you know the video, it's
Speaker 1: very sad because you see these two forms moving back
Speaker 1: and forth, struggling. Looks like a life and death struggle.
Speaker 1: I'd imagine that for Patrick Leoya, he probably thought that
Speaker 1: it was, which is probably why he ran and all
Speaker 1: of a sudden, the gun goes off and then he
Speaker 1: stops moving and the life is extinguished. And around here
Speaker 1: we think life is precious. We feel like we have
Speaker 1: to say specifically that black life is precious, because there
Speaker 1: are lots of things in the world to teach us
Speaker 1: that black life is not precious. You know, a lot
Speaker 1: of what we talk about on this show is ways
Speaker 1: that this country at least shows us that black life
Speaker 1: is not precious. And so we use this forum to
Speaker 1: affirm that for ourselves and for our tribe, and we
Speaker 1: use this forum to bolster our relationships with the other tribes.
Speaker 1: If you will with our less melanated brothers and sisters.
Speaker 1: We recognize that we were the first men. We recognize that,
Speaker 1: as a result, all men are our children, and as
Speaker 1: a result of that, we recognize that we love them
Speaker 1: even when they're wrong. So if you're listening to this
Speaker 1: show and you might not be black, we love you,
Speaker 1: and there's forgiveness built into the narrative, at least on
Speaker 1: civic cipher, because you know it's okay to be wrong
Speaker 1: provided that you're moving in the right direction. I've talked
Speaker 1: at length about why people run. You know, people run
Speaker 1: because they're scared. So even if this guy didn't grow
Speaker 1: up in the United States, just ran because the police
Speaker 1: officer was maybe asking questions, he didn't understand, he didn't
Speaker 1: know what was up, didn't know what to expect. You know,
Speaker 1: you pick any animal in nature, pick any animal in
Speaker 1: nature scared, and if it doesn't fight you, it'll run. Right.
Speaker 1: That should never be a death sentence because we're dealing
Speaker 1: with human beings. We can figure stuff out later, and
Speaker 1: nothing is ever that important. Now, I got about a minute,
Speaker 1: and I do want to get your thoughts too, So
Speaker 1: jump in right here and let me know how this
Speaker 1: feels to you.
Speaker 2: Have you ever seen a gun pointed at an animal?
Speaker 1: I believe I have.
Speaker 2: Yeah, So there's no you can't tell a dog or
Speaker 2: a lion or whatever, hey.
Speaker 1: This is a gun. Yeah, they don't get it.
Speaker 2: But if you point one at an animal, they understand
Speaker 2: to be afraid. They understand that something's up.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: I remember the first time I saw this happened. My
Speaker 2: neighbor had a pit bull, and he didn't go to
Speaker 2: the lengths that he needed to to make sure that
Speaker 2: the dog didn't get out in a place where it
Speaker 2: could harm people. So very often, his very vicious pit bull.
Speaker 2: Because it's not just the fact that it was a
Speaker 2: pit bull, this dog was trained to be aggressive. It
Speaker 2: would get out and people would have to call the
Speaker 2: cops to keep their kids from being killed by this dog.
Speaker 2: You know, this man loved this dog very much, so
Speaker 2: it did not behave to him the way that it
Speaker 2: would to a potential intruder or any stranger that didn't
Speaker 2: live at his house. I remember when I was a kid,
Speaker 2: the cops came and they drew their guns, and this
Speaker 2: very aggressive, very vicious dog became very docile and very
Speaker 2: passive and very scared because even as a dog, it
Speaker 2: understood that thing that that man has, that it's pointing
Speaker 2: at me, could kill me. So imagine a person that
Speaker 2: absolutely knows better. Of course, it's not even fight or
Speaker 2: flight at that point. In most cases, it's just flight.
Speaker 1: Well, you know what, I think that that's what we
Speaker 1: saw when we saw that video, and I get the
Speaker 1: feeling we might end up talking about this one a
Speaker 1: little bit more, but we did have to broach the subject.
Speaker 1: Forgive us for taking an extra week, but hopefully now
Speaker 1: you understand why