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Speaker 1: Also media.

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Speaker 2: It's it's another Chicago episode. It's it could happen here,

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Speaker 2: the podcast where Things Fall Apart. I'm your host, Neil Wong.

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Speaker 2: This is this is another episode about Chicago police departments

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Speaker 2: who occupy a city groaning under its tyranny, and with

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Speaker 2: you to talk about some absolutely bad shit at Chicago

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Speaker 2: police stuff and also how Brandon Johnson our mayor is

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Speaker 2: also shit? Is Raven the Chicago journalist from Jing suppress.

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Speaker 3: Hi is our mayor? Ever not shit?

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Speaker 2: You know, No, it's always shit. It's never got bad.

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Speaker 3: It's never not bad, and it's always like, you know,

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Speaker 3: the progressive darling who ran on promises and then slowly

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Speaker 3: breaks them and you know, breaks every one of hearts

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Speaker 3: over time.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, I will. I will say Brandon Johnson wasted absolutely

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Speaker 2: no time on the heartbreaking part, like he really he

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Speaker 2: really just wanted to rush that shit out. So there's

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Speaker 2: a lot of there's a lot of Brandon Johnson stuff

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Speaker 2: that we could talk about and we will want eventually

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Speaker 2: we're gonna do the episode on the bigrant camp in

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Speaker 2: the fucking the migrant camp and the toxic waste dump.

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Speaker 2: But that that's gonna happen next year. Right now, we

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Speaker 2: want to talk about a different, utterly insane Chicago thing. Well,

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Speaker 2: this is actually a thing in other cities too. I

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Speaker 2: wanted to talk about shot Spotter, So I guess to

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Speaker 2: start with, can you explain what shot spotter is for

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Speaker 2: people who don't have it in their city or don't.

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Speaker 3: Know, Well, it's in i want to say, like one

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Speaker 3: hundred and thirty different cities across the country, so a

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Speaker 3: lot of people probably do have it. But it's a

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Speaker 3: gunshot detection system. So basically just you know, through a

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Speaker 3: bunch of fancy tech stuff which we won't get into

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Speaker 3: and I'm not even going to pretend to understand, you know,

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Speaker 3: that side of it. It's there are these audio sensors

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Speaker 3: that are installed all around the city, right and in

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Speaker 3: predominantly black and brown neighborhoods. You know, they're specifically in Chicago.

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Speaker 3: There's actually a lawsuit currently up and coming filed by

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Speaker 3: the MacArthur Justice Center over the fact that they are

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Speaker 3: primarily installed in black and brown neighborhoods and not on

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Speaker 3: like the North Side. And yeah, it's just a bunch

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Speaker 3: of fancy little stuff that detects noises that are supposed

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Speaker 3: to be gunshots, right, so any loud popping or bringing sound,

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Speaker 3: you know, could could potentially set them off.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, And unfortunately, as anyone who's ever been in a

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Speaker 2: city and had a car backfire knows, people are just

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Speaker 2: indescribably dogshit at telling what is a gunshot and what

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Speaker 2: is not a gunshot exactly exactly.

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Speaker 3: And I mean there's so much evidence too, like there

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Speaker 3: been I mean are here in Chicago, Like our Office

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Speaker 3: of the Inspector General wrote like a whole report about

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Speaker 3: all of shots ours failures. But there's a bunch of

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Speaker 3: other research out there across the country about how inaccurate

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Speaker 3: this is. And you know, it's generating tens of thousands

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Speaker 3: of also like unjustified CPD deployments, like because when the

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Speaker 3: alert goes off, the cops get deployed, and you know,

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Speaker 3: it doesn't tell you anything about uh, even if there

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Speaker 3: was a gunshot, like who fired a gun? You know,

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Speaker 3: all that's telling you is in this area, you know,

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Speaker 3: this was determined. So you can imagine like all of

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Speaker 3: these you know, police encounters happening in response to these alerts,

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Speaker 3: like all the shit that could go wrong.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, and it's CPD, right, like the police Department's motto

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Speaker 2: was shoot first, don't ask questions later. So this is

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Speaker 2: a this is an absolutely terrible idea. It's just sending

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Speaker 2: all of these cops on random, wild goose chases. Yeah.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, well, and it's what happened was I mean, most

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Speaker 3: people probably remember the Adam Toledo shooting. Those cops, you know,

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Speaker 3: were initially assigned to patrol that area because it was

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Speaker 3: designated as a violence box, you know, and.

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Speaker 2: ShotSpotter brought them to the.

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Speaker 3: Alley like where this thirteen year old kid was, you know,

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Speaker 3: shot and killed by police because another and older man

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Speaker 3: was with him and fired a gun and then handed

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Speaker 3: him the weapon.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, and that's another that's another one of the problems

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Speaker 2: with the technology, which is that even if it does

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Speaker 2: detect a gunshot, the thing that detecting a gunshot does

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Speaker 2: and send it to the police is send a bunch

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Speaker 2: of like absolutely unhinged murderers to a place and like

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Speaker 2: make them incredibly paranoid and then you know, have them

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Speaker 2: in like deal with the situation mode. And what Chicago

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Speaker 2: cops do when they're in deal with the situation mode

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Speaker 2: is they take out a gun, They shoot a thirteen

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Speaker 2: year old and kill them.

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Speaker 3: Yeah. Yeah, and the you know, the officer that shaw

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Speaker 3: him too, had had this one like rarely talked about

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Speaker 3: in the media. I think, I don't know, it just

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Speaker 3: wasn't something that came up much when that was all happening,

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Speaker 3: But like that officer had a weird incident that was

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Speaker 3: recorded on bodycam like a little bit before he shot

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Speaker 3: and killed out Toledo. I don't remember if it was

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Speaker 3: like months before, I don't know the timeline, but it

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Speaker 3: was fairly close to that or he like pulled someone

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Speaker 3: over at a traffic stop and was just acting really

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Speaker 3: jumpy and strange. Uh. And it was kind of investigated

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Speaker 3: as like, you know, an undosified traffic stop and and

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Speaker 3: and nothing happened with that. But it's just an example

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Speaker 3: of like how there were potentially warning signs because this

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Speaker 3: guy was also like a war veteran, you know, and

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Speaker 3: jumpy to begin with. And so yeah, you're sending these

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Speaker 3: guys into these areas who are already ready to go

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Speaker 3: off at a trigger.

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Speaker 2: Right Yeah, And you know, and there's like there's no

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Speaker 2: actual good outcome of this because like I guess, arguably

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Speaker 2: the best possible outcome is the cops show up there's

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Speaker 2: nobody there enters out to have been a false alarm.

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Speaker 2: But that means we're paying the cops an unbelievable amount

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Speaker 2: of money to do nothing, and that's the best outcome, right.

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Speaker 3: And the way the alerts work also too, is like

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Speaker 3: unless the police file a complaint that an alert was false,

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Speaker 3: like a false alarm, it's automatically flagged in the system

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Speaker 3: as like a positive because there's all this algorithmic stuff

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Speaker 3: that happens, like with the shot slutter detection, where like, yeah,

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Speaker 3: the system detects it, but then also it goes to

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Speaker 3: like their I don't know, their whole system like researchers

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Speaker 3: or whatever to kind of put it all together and

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Speaker 3: like package a report about what happened. And so unless

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Speaker 3: the police complain and are like, oh, you know, this

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Speaker 3: one was false, or this was a this one was wrong,

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Speaker 3: this was a firework, a car back firing, and of

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Speaker 3: course like CPD is not.

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Speaker 2: Doing that, yeah, because and I mean and I mean

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Speaker 2: this is one of the problems with the system just inherently,

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Speaker 2: even if you think that on some level of the

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Speaker 2: technology could work, is that both the company's shots spotter

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Speaker 2: and the police have an enormous inherent incentive to make like,

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Speaker 2: at very least pretend that every single one of these

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Speaker 2: detections is real, because if you're a police officer, right,

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Speaker 2: and you can point it, Oh, hey, look at how

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Speaker 2: many shots are being fired around the city all the time.

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Speaker 2: You know you need to give us more funding. This

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Speaker 2: is incredibly useful for them. If your ShotSpotter, you don't

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Speaker 2: want everyone to know that your system detects like a

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Speaker 2: bird dropping an acorn out of a tree next to

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Speaker 2: your sensor or whatever, Like, you don't actually want people

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Speaker 2: to know that your your system brings up false positives

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Speaker 2: all the time and it is actually basically completely useless, right, Yeah,

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Speaker 2: and so the incentive structure is just bad. It's just

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Speaker 2: it's only going to produce bad results.

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Speaker 3: Yeah. Well, and it's kind of like somebody, I don't

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Speaker 3: I forget where I read this, but somebody likened it

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Speaker 3: to if you had an informant working for you and

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Speaker 3: they were wrong nine times out of ten, would you

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Speaker 3: still use them?

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Speaker 2: Well, CPD would like to easy to.

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Speaker 3: Be fair, but like if you were a journalist and

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Speaker 3: you had a source that lied nine times out of ten,

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Speaker 3: you know, or was wrong nine times out of ten,

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Speaker 3: would would you call them back? Would you trust that source?

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Speaker 3: You know?

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Speaker 2: Well? And the other thing too is this isn't even

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Speaker 2: it's not even just like this is an informant, right

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Speaker 2: because you know shot spot is wrong and anomous percentage

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Speaker 2: of the time. But the thing is you don't have

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Speaker 2: to pay informants eight million dollars a year, which is

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Speaker 2: what we're paying for this dog shit shots fire system.

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Speaker 3: Wah. Well, and I mean the company itself also like

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Speaker 3: they're so embedded with what's going on, like with police departments.

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Speaker 3: You know, they're Shotsbater is leveraging their own money to

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Speaker 3: try to like win police contracts that include ShotSpotter. You know,

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Speaker 3: they advise different police departments on how to respond to

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Speaker 3: requests about ShotSpotter. So it's like it's not just like

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Speaker 3: this this I don't know, this mutual tool that's just

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Speaker 3: like out there that they're just using. It's like Shostswater

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Speaker 3: has a vested interest in, uh, strengthening the police and

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Speaker 3: vice versa.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, and then it gets into one of these very

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Speaker 2: very I mean it's a very common thing for the cops, right,

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Speaker 2: but one of these unbelievably messed up spirals where like yeah,

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Speaker 2: like everyone everyone involved has you know, the the cops

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Speaker 2: want want more power. These guys want more money, and

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Speaker 2: the more money you give them, the more money they

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Speaker 2: have to then turn around again and put back into

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Speaker 2: the political system. You can can you buy more power,

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Speaker 2: which they can again turn into more money every single

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Speaker 2: time another contract comes up, right right.

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Speaker 3: On, which they just they just did. Brandon Johnson just

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Speaker 3: gave them more money in their contract.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, and we should talk about this because Okay, so

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Speaker 2: Brandon Johnson ran a weird campaign in respect to the police,

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Speaker 2: in the sense that he didn't really run a he

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Speaker 2: didn't run an anti police campaign. I guess like his

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Speaker 2: campaign was pretty pro police, but it also originally had

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Speaker 2: things like taking cops out of schools, and very specifically,

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Speaker 2: he ran on canceling the ShotSpotter contract, which is the

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Speaker 2: thing that everyone in like people in Chicago who aren't

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Speaker 2: who don't live in like cop neighborhoods, basically like, it's

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Speaker 2: pretty popular to cancel this contract because it's it's millions

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Speaker 2: of dollars a year going to nonsense that just throws

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Speaker 2: cops everywhere. And then he got into office and his

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Speaker 2: budget still has the ShotSpotter shit in it, so uh,

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Speaker 2: electoralism win yay.

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Speaker 4: Yeah.

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Speaker 3: I mean it wasn't explicit. It was an explicit campaign promise.

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Speaker 3: Like it wasn't just like, oh, we were hoping that

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Speaker 3: he would do this because he's like our big movement guy.

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Speaker 3: It was like he explicitly made it. Part of his

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Speaker 3: platform was ending the contract of ShotSpotter, and now he

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Speaker 3: is not. And there's there's some time left before the

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Speaker 3: budget hearing. I think it's like, I don't know, like

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Speaker 3: fifty five days. I might be off by a few

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Speaker 3: days there, but there's only around, you know, two months left,

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Speaker 3: and since he's been elected, so like the other thing,

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Speaker 3: I mean, this is like the shady part too, is

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Speaker 3: like since he's been elected, he's been asked whether he'll

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Speaker 3: extend the contract and he's just like refused to answer.

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Speaker 2: Which is a really great politician stuff, Like you know,

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Speaker 2: you you know that your politicians being completely normal and

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Speaker 2: nothing everything is above board when they just straight up

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Speaker 2: refuse to answer questions, only good things ever result from that.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, and it's been There's been like a lot of

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Speaker 3: similar sort of just like I don't know, lack of

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Speaker 3: transparency kind of incidents with him over the last however,

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Speaker 3: longest been since he's been elected. God has been a

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Speaker 3: long year. It's kind of like there's this pattern now.

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Speaker 3: So yeah, I mean there were people who kind of look,

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Speaker 3: he was never like the abolitionist, like I'm going to

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Speaker 3: abolish the police, mayor, and like I get that. I

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Speaker 3: think a lot of people get that. But there's a

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Speaker 3: pretty big departure kind of between how he's approaching policing

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Speaker 3: and what. Yeah, a lot of movement people or leftists

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Speaker 3: or abolitionists want you know, every encounter with a cop

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Speaker 3: is a potential for violence, right, And he's coming at

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Speaker 3: it more from the side of like, well, we just

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Speaker 3: need to rebuild trust in the police, and the community

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Speaker 3: just needs to you know, like we're just going to

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Speaker 3: rebuild trust and we're going to get these bad cops out.

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Speaker 3: We're gonna have only good cops left and then everything.

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Speaker 3: I don't know what the logic there is personally, but

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Speaker 3: the you know, the logic is that we'll just have

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Speaker 3: good police encounters then. And it's just like this refusal

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Speaker 3: to acknowledge that like policing itself is a problem.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, we are on year fifty of the mayor says

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Speaker 2: we need to restore trust in the police. We'll get

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Speaker 2: rid of the bad cops and everything. Like year fifty,

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Speaker 2: we are on what number of torture scandals are we on?

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Speaker 2: Since people first started saying this, Like, I, it's just.

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Speaker 3: Right, we shouldn't be laughing at torture. But it's like, yeah,

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Speaker 3: it's like every I don't know, every month there is

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Speaker 3: a new Chicago police scandal. I really cannot keep track.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, and okay, so we're gonna we're gonna talk about

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Speaker 2: one of those scandals. But first, uh, we're gonna talk

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Speaker 2: about ads. I was gonna do like a you know

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Speaker 2: what else is a scandal, but I don't know. It's

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Speaker 2: really late. I've been up for an outrageous number of

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Speaker 2: hours and we are back. So okay, speaking of Chicago

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Speaker 2: police scandals, there's a lot. I mean, the CPD is

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Speaker 2: always having scandals because Chicago cops are just evil. But yeah,

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Speaker 2: do you want to talk about the specific shot spotter

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Speaker 2: one that we're having right now?

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Speaker 4: Yeah?

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Speaker 3: I mean, well, there are there are other Chicago police

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Speaker 3: shot spotter scandals, but no, the more this most recent

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Speaker 3: story you know that just came out. Uh. There's a

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Speaker 3: political journalism site, slash Blog. They're also our homies and

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Speaker 3: we've done a lot of work with them called people

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Speaker 3: Stabric and they wrote, you know, an analysis of some

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Speaker 3: videos that they obtained of what is like essentially a

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Speaker 3: CPD gang. I mean everybody's heard of, like the LAPD

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Speaker 3: gangs were not everybody, but I'm sure a lot of

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Speaker 3: listeners have followed the story out of out of la

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Speaker 3: with like the Sheriff's deputies gangs just roaming around and

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Speaker 3: committing horrible acts against people, and you know, in these

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Speaker 3: sort of like cruise of bad cops and and this

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Speaker 3: is definitely not the first instance of something like that

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Speaker 3: happening in Chicago, but you know, there were just a

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Speaker 3: there was a lot of video evidence against these guys.

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Speaker 3: One of them has been indicted. I don't know if

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Speaker 3: the other three have, but yeah, they were just driving

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Speaker 3: around basically terrorizing this community. You know a lot of

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Speaker 3: just unlawful stops, stopping people on the street, shaking them

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Speaker 3: down for cash, drugs, and a lot of guns. And

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Speaker 3: they were filing false reports about found guns, so like

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Speaker 3: they would stop somebody, take the gun and then log

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Speaker 3: it as like a gun that was found. And you know,

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Speaker 3: in one instance they said that they were a mile

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Speaker 3: away from where a shot spotter alert had gone off,

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Speaker 3: and claimed that they looked around and just happened to

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Speaker 3: find a gun on the ground. They had taken the

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Speaker 3: gun from a woman, you know it. They didn't find

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Speaker 3: it on the ground, but they were able to use

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Speaker 3: the fact that there was a shot spotter alert that

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Speaker 3: went off in that area as like a way to

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Speaker 3: cover their tracks.

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Speaker 2: Basically, Yeah, and this is something so we talked about

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Speaker 2: on the show, like, oh god, was that like two

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Speaker 2: years ago? Maybe it was a year ago. A while

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Speaker 2: back we talked about on this show. The Chicago's used

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Speaker 2: to have this police nic called Special Operations Session SOS,

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Speaker 2: which was disbanded after it was revealed they were doing

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Speaker 2: literally the same thing, which is they would go up

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Speaker 2: to people to rob them. And one of Chicago has

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Speaker 2: one of these scandals about once. It like once a

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Speaker 2: decade there's like a big one of these, and we're

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Speaker 2: kind of due for one. We haven't had a really

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Speaker 2: big one of these. Specifically, there's an entire section of

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Speaker 2: the CPD that's just a burglary or a drug ring.

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Speaker 2: So I suspect we're gonna find out more about this

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Speaker 2: stuff because it's it's about time that another one of

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Speaker 2: these turns up. But yeah, I mean they were just

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Speaker 2: like just rolling up on people. It just go give

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Speaker 2: me your gun, and then driving away and saying don't

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Speaker 2: tell anyone, which is really.

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Speaker 3: Really Yeah. Well, I'm like also for seemingly no reason

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Speaker 3: in like some instances like there, I mean, we look,

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Speaker 3: we can't know all of their motivations for everything, and

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Speaker 3: a lot more is gonna come out, I'm sure, like

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Speaker 3: in the court proceedings, but it's like, were they trying

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Speaker 3: to have the gun retrieval statistics and or were they

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Speaker 3: trying to do something else? You know, they were like

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Speaker 3: a tactical team, so I presume. I mean, I think

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Speaker 3: it's the case that like there are certain gun retrieval

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Speaker 3: statistics that CPD wants to mate, but you know, the

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Speaker 3: other stuff like obviously taking cash from people, you know,

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Speaker 3: like there's other things they were doing, you know, and

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Speaker 3: they've always been look there, I'm not going to allege

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Speaker 3: anything that isn't proven in the specific instance, but I

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Speaker 3: will say that there have always been rumors about Chicago

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Speaker 3: police officers specifically taking things like guns to like sell back,

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Speaker 3: you know, to gangs basically, and same with drugs, right.

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Speaker 3: You know, these guys were logging some of them at least,

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Speaker 3: but what if there were ones that they weren't logging, Like,

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Speaker 3: we don't know. I mean, this is just what we

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Speaker 3: know happened and what was caught. And I mean they

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Speaker 3: were dumb enough to like have some of this caught

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Speaker 3: on their body. Campus like they were turning their cameras

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Speaker 3: off for like some parts of these stuffs, but like

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Speaker 3: not others, or like the camera would be on and

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Speaker 3: there's like you know, cash and drugs and then like oh,

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Speaker 3: the camera goes off, and it's like, well, any logical

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Speaker 3: person can deduce what may have happened here, like what

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Speaker 3: turning your camera off?

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Speaker 4: Right?

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Speaker 3: And so yeah, they've always been rumors about kind of

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Speaker 3: like what these crews driving around are like ultimately doing

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Speaker 3: with this kind of stuff, And I think it just

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Speaker 3: it varies on them. But I would also add, you know,

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Speaker 3: the what you mentioned the special operations section. You know,

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Speaker 3: we only recently learned through like a Sun Times investigation

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Speaker 3: into all the Chicago cops who were on the oast

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Speaker 3: Keepers membership role. Oh and a number of those guys

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Speaker 3: were in soos actually, So that's a fun little.

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Speaker 2: Fact also, yeah, that's another one of the another episode

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Speaker 2: in the Endless Parade of Chuhago Police Department scandals is like, yeah,

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Speaker 2: a bunch of these are in far right militias, which

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Speaker 2: is this is this really interesting? So we did an

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Speaker 2: episode pretty recently that I was talking about David Graber.

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Speaker 2: One of one of the one of the points that

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Speaker 2: he makes in this essay on Batman and the problem

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Speaker 2: of constituent power, which is a wild thing to be

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Speaker 2: citing in a police thing, but you know, one of

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Speaker 2: the points that he makes is one of the one

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Speaker 2: of the sort of key like fascist convergences. Is this

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Speaker 2: cooperation between the police, the far right, and organized crime

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Speaker 2: and the CPD. Is this incredible nexus of it, right,

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Speaker 2: I mean it's literally the same person is all three

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Speaker 2: of these things at the same time. It is a

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Speaker 2: cop who is in a far right militia who is

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Speaker 2: also like literally just doing organized crime at the same time.

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Speaker 2: It's really Yeah, you used to have to sort of

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Speaker 2: like make metaphors, and you no longer have to do that.

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Speaker 2: The metaphor just is real. You're just physically describing the event.

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Speaker 2: It's really something.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, when you really think about it, I

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Speaker 3: think policing in and of itself is just like a

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Speaker 3: cult like anything else. And it makes sense that like

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Speaker 3: the same people who would gravitate towards like militia groups

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Speaker 3: and like white suphremacist groups, any any like I don't

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Speaker 3: know group or people kind of have those like hardline

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Speaker 3: beliefs about the world. And then it's also just like

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Speaker 3: a lot of these guys are like especially the ones

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Speaker 3: on like taskal teams, They're all like fucking like traumatized

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Speaker 3: war veterans, you know, they all have kind of these

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Speaker 3: long backstories of like military service and just like to

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Speaker 3: get onto like special ops or like the tactical leading

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Speaker 3: you know, et cetera, they tend to look for people

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Speaker 3: with military experience, not always, but like frequently. And so

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Speaker 3: there's also that intersection there two of like militarism and

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Speaker 3: abroad and then like policing at home, right.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, and that's a really common thread. I mean just

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Speaker 2: in like across the entire world. This is a thing

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Speaker 2: where like the police office, like the police groups that

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Speaker 2: are the most likely to go completely rogue and either

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Speaker 2: just start murdering people randomly or turn into organized crime

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Speaker 2: things like are these special operations units. There was like

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Speaker 2: in twenty twenty, they were these huge protests, like anti

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Speaker 2: police protests in Nowigerior that were specifically about trying to

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Speaker 2: get one of these special operations like police special operation

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Speaker 2: things like abolish because Special Operations guys just kept shooting

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Speaker 2: everyone and this, you know, like every single like this

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Speaker 2: happens just everywhere in the world that these it is like,

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Speaker 2: you know, I mean, obviously normal cops also do crime,

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Speaker 2: and we talked also another episode about some kind of

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Speaker 2: normal cops. You did a cartel and like the the

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Speaker 2: twenty tens, but the special operations groups go off the

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Speaker 2: rails at a rate that is staggering, which you would

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Speaker 2: think you would think someone in government would look at this,

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Speaker 2: like even if you're a pro police person, you would

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Speaker 2: look at this and go, wait, maybe it's a bad

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Speaker 2: idea to have specifically formed these units that every single

401
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Speaker 2: time turned into a cartel. But no, no, thet ever

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Speaker 2: do this because the point of cops is not to

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Speaker 2: not form cartels.

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Speaker 3: Well, I think also too, there's like a very uh,

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Speaker 3: I don't know, I guess neoliberal line of thinking about

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Speaker 3: like policing and how like we really really need like

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Speaker 3: the tactical high skill kind of units. Right, Like there's

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Speaker 3: always like we're giving the cop. We're always giving the

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Speaker 3: cops more money, and that's for training. Training is a

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Speaker 3: big justification for why we're always giving you the more money.

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Speaker 3: But so there's like you know, skills and sort of technology,

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Speaker 3: and like I think as we're dealing with i don't know,

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Speaker 3: like mass shootings and like all this really horrible stuff

414
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Speaker 3: just like going on around us at all times too. Now,

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Speaker 3: it's like it's a really I think easy way to

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Speaker 3: justify policing to people is like honor the guise of

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Speaker 3: these like tactical units or units with like a lot

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Speaker 3: of firepower to deal with like really really bad guys.

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Speaker 3: Quote right, Like you know, maybe those people might be like, oh,

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Speaker 3: we've like fewer copstrolling our neighborhoods. You know, we're kind

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Speaker 3: of we get like, you know, black lives matter or whatever,

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Speaker 3: but they're like, but we really need to you know,

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Speaker 3: have the big guns ready for when something that comes

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Speaker 3: to our neighborhood. And so I think that's also like

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Speaker 3: a sticking point for a lot of people on the

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Speaker 3: on the way to like actually thinking about abolishing the

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Speaker 3: police too, is like what would we do without these units,

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Speaker 3: the guys with like all these skills and all these

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Speaker 3: crazy weapons to like help us if if if a

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Speaker 3: bad guy comes. And of course the guys like the

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Speaker 3: bad guys are those guys like guys.

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Speaker 2: Well, and there's the moors cynical side of it too,

433
00:25:32,640 --> 00:25:35,000
Speaker 2: which is like, you know, if you're if you're the

434
00:25:35,080 --> 00:25:37,520
Speaker 2: mayor of Chicago, it's like, well, someone has to shoot

435
00:25:37,520 --> 00:25:40,040
Speaker 2: the black panthers, right, Like you need to have guys

436
00:25:40,320 --> 00:25:44,119
Speaker 2: whose job it is to like when when you know,

437
00:25:44,240 --> 00:25:46,199
Speaker 2: when like revolution stray move it's started up, you need

438
00:25:46,320 --> 00:25:52,760
Speaker 2: like someone has to start shooting those guys. So yeah,

439
00:25:52,800 --> 00:25:56,280
Speaker 2: so I want to go back to talk a bit

440
00:25:56,320 --> 00:26:01,399
Speaker 2: more about the like shot spot and the budget stuff

441
00:26:01,440 --> 00:26:10,679
Speaker 2: that's been happening, because so the current budget has what

442
00:26:10,760 --> 00:26:14,520
Speaker 2: is it, I think it like doubles the annual raises

443
00:26:14,760 --> 00:26:17,960
Speaker 2: of that that cops were getting. Is that the right number?

444
00:26:18,320 --> 00:26:20,480
Speaker 3: I don't know if it doubles, but I read that

445
00:26:20,560 --> 00:26:24,359
Speaker 3: it was actually wait, yeah, so it's it's five percent,

446
00:26:24,440 --> 00:26:26,760
Speaker 3: up from like two point five. Yeah, it's double. It's

447
00:26:26,800 --> 00:26:30,879
Speaker 3: also the largest package of raises for any city employee

448
00:26:31,000 --> 00:26:35,879
Speaker 3: union in modern history. I mean, I'm directly quoting a

449
00:26:35,920 --> 00:26:39,280
Speaker 3: better government analysis. But but but yeah, no, like literally

450
00:26:39,400 --> 00:26:42,080
Speaker 3: it is. It is an enormous It is an enormous race.

451
00:26:42,400 --> 00:26:45,320
Speaker 3: And here's the thing. The cops were thrilled with this contract.

452
00:26:46,160 --> 00:26:49,679
Speaker 3: Uh the hat of fop John Cavazzara, who is just

453
00:26:49,760 --> 00:26:54,240
Speaker 3: like a racist, misogynistic, horrible, just like garbage dump of

454
00:26:54,240 --> 00:26:58,320
Speaker 3: a person, you know, was thrilled with with this contract.

455
00:26:59,320 --> 00:27:01,320
Speaker 3: Was thrilled at this being passed, you know. And that's

456
00:27:01,359 --> 00:27:04,080
Speaker 3: like number one sign that your mayor sucks is when

457
00:27:04,119 --> 00:27:09,399
Speaker 3: like the cops are thrilled about something he did like this.

458
00:27:10,160 --> 00:27:12,800
Speaker 3: Uh so so yeah, I mean it's it's a huge

459
00:27:12,800 --> 00:27:15,359
Speaker 3: amount of money. There's there's a bunch of other stuff

460
00:27:15,359 --> 00:27:20,040
Speaker 3: in it, like you know, salary grade changes and like

461
00:27:20,160 --> 00:27:24,320
Speaker 3: stipends for stuff and bonuses and uh there's some changes

462
00:27:24,359 --> 00:27:27,560
Speaker 3: to like the bodyborn camera policy too, which are kind

463
00:27:27,560 --> 00:27:33,560
Speaker 3: of concerning. But but ultimately it's like, yeah, Brendon Johnson

464
00:27:33,800 --> 00:27:36,640
Speaker 3: is now the fund the police mayor, Like I don't

465
00:27:36,640 --> 00:27:38,520
Speaker 3: know how you can say that he's not when you

466
00:27:38,760 --> 00:27:42,480
Speaker 3: when you look at this, like this is just handing

467
00:27:42,520 --> 00:27:43,520
Speaker 3: the cops more money.

468
00:27:44,119 --> 00:27:48,800
Speaker 2: Yeah, and Chicago cops are already just unbelievably dog shit

469
00:27:48,880 --> 00:27:54,040
Speaker 2: overpaid chiggle. Teachers are unbelievably underpaid. Yeah, so you know,

470
00:27:54,240 --> 00:27:56,560
Speaker 2: I mean we are. We are once again paying a

471
00:27:56,600 --> 00:27:59,840
Speaker 2: bunch of people to rob us. It's truly, it's it's good.

472
00:28:01,040 --> 00:28:03,720
Speaker 3: Yeah. And and they they get a lot of time

473
00:28:03,800 --> 00:28:05,639
Speaker 3: off too. I mean, look, they have they have a

474
00:28:05,720 --> 00:28:07,600
Speaker 3: ton of benefits. There's a ton of things, you know,

475
00:28:08,359 --> 00:28:13,600
Speaker 3: privileges and things that that the cops get. But it's

476
00:28:13,680 --> 00:28:17,800
Speaker 3: kind of like he he could have given them slightly

477
00:28:18,080 --> 00:28:22,520
Speaker 3: less money, Like it was almost this contract almost feels

478
00:28:22,600 --> 00:28:26,560
Speaker 3: like the way I've seen some people describe it is

479
00:28:26,640 --> 00:28:29,439
Speaker 3: it almost feels like an act of like goodwill towards

480
00:28:29,480 --> 00:28:32,240
Speaker 3: the cops, like and almost like I was like, I'm

481
00:28:32,359 --> 00:28:34,840
Speaker 3: giving you this thing that you really want in the

482
00:28:35,240 --> 00:28:36,960
Speaker 3: in the hopes of like I don't know, I don't

483
00:28:37,000 --> 00:28:38,440
Speaker 3: know what he's trying to get out of it. I mean,

484
00:28:38,480 --> 00:28:41,360
Speaker 3: I don't know what what the motivation is. But it's like,

485
00:28:41,920 --> 00:28:45,120
Speaker 3: you could have done you could have done less, and

486
00:28:45,240 --> 00:28:49,040
Speaker 3: you're going for like a lot, So what's what's the

487
00:28:49,200 --> 00:28:53,720
Speaker 3: deal there? And you know, the new superintendent too, is

488
00:28:53,840 --> 00:28:58,120
Speaker 3: like hugely concerning. He picked a guy who's uh like

489
00:28:58,240 --> 00:29:01,280
Speaker 3: an expert in surveilling. To me, cities ahead of like

490
00:29:01,840 --> 00:29:06,760
Speaker 3: the DNC coming next summer, the former head of the

491
00:29:06,840 --> 00:29:11,920
Speaker 3: counter Terrorism Bureau. You know, Like, it's just it's a

492
00:29:12,080 --> 00:29:18,360
Speaker 3: lot of really disappointing moves, and I think a lot

493
00:29:18,480 --> 00:29:23,000
Speaker 3: of people were really hoping to see I guess a

494
00:29:23,120 --> 00:29:26,920
Speaker 3: more abolitionist kind of streak. But the ultimately he's like

495
00:29:26,960 --> 00:29:29,000
Speaker 3: he ran as a liberal, Like we knew this was coming,

496
00:29:29,280 --> 00:29:33,400
Speaker 3: but there was like almost like taking advantage I guess

497
00:29:33,480 --> 00:29:37,160
Speaker 3: of like movement groups to sort of get get the

498
00:29:37,240 --> 00:29:41,120
Speaker 3: power behind him during the campaign. But look, our alternative

499
00:29:41,280 --> 00:29:46,760
Speaker 3: was also like an evil, like lying, maniacal Paul Vallas.

500
00:29:48,120 --> 00:29:52,120
Speaker 3: So it's just like a shit sandwich. It's like bad

501
00:29:52,240 --> 00:29:53,520
Speaker 3: choices all around, right.

502
00:29:53,920 --> 00:29:55,920
Speaker 2: Yeah, and I mean not just is Chicago, I mean

503
00:29:56,040 --> 00:30:00,600
Speaker 2: it's Illinois. Electoral politics in general is a choice between

504
00:30:00,640 --> 00:30:02,160
Speaker 2: the guy he gives the police more money and the

505
00:30:02,240 --> 00:30:05,080
Speaker 2: other guy who gives the place more money. So yeah,

506
00:30:05,680 --> 00:30:11,200
Speaker 2: it's not good exactly. Again, it really seems like we're

507
00:30:11,280 --> 00:30:14,600
Speaker 2: going to get more shot spotter of this technology that

508
00:30:14,760 --> 00:30:18,880
Speaker 2: is wrong over ninety percent of the time. So it's great,

509
00:30:19,160 --> 00:30:21,960
Speaker 2: it's really well, it was a few months left.

510
00:30:22,080 --> 00:30:27,680
Speaker 3: I mean hopefully, look, hopefully this is I don't know,

511
00:30:27,760 --> 00:30:30,360
Speaker 3: there's arguments to be made for and against harm reduction,

512
00:30:30,680 --> 00:30:33,200
Speaker 3: I guess, and whether it's like a worthwhile goal, but

513
00:30:34,800 --> 00:30:37,240
Speaker 3: maybe there's still like a shot at like at least

514
00:30:37,280 --> 00:30:40,040
Speaker 3: getting this part scratched out. I mean, there is, like

515
00:30:40,160 --> 00:30:45,040
Speaker 3: I said, like this big lawsuit and if nothing else,

516
00:30:45,320 --> 00:30:49,280
Speaker 3: you know, perhaps he and his administration could be concerned

517
00:30:49,320 --> 00:30:52,440
Speaker 3: about just like you know, the bad press around it

518
00:30:53,320 --> 00:30:56,480
Speaker 3: if it's included and so many people are opposing it.

519
00:30:57,720 --> 00:31:02,440
Speaker 3: But this is also an administration that like didn't care

520
00:31:02,480 --> 00:31:04,800
Speaker 3: about the bad press that came with like saying, we're

521
00:31:04,840 --> 00:31:07,680
Speaker 3: building a detention camp on polluted land.

522
00:31:09,720 --> 00:31:12,920
Speaker 2: Yeah, well look look like this is this is this

523
00:31:13,080 --> 00:31:15,680
Speaker 2: is the thing that that the fight over the police

524
00:31:15,720 --> 00:31:18,240
Speaker 2: budget is distracting from, which is that we defined a

525
00:31:18,360 --> 00:31:21,360
Speaker 2: second toxic waste dump to build the migrant concentration cap on.

526
00:31:22,000 --> 00:31:26,280
Speaker 2: So you know, progressive, progressive values are getting are happening

527
00:31:26,360 --> 00:31:26,800
Speaker 2: either way.

528
00:31:39,160 --> 00:31:45,560
Speaker 3: Look, I frequently said all mayors are bastards, corny, but

529
00:31:46,160 --> 00:31:51,640
Speaker 3: I think you just it's fine, Look, it's fine to vote.

530
00:31:51,800 --> 00:31:54,960
Speaker 3: I guess if that is your staying, just don't convince

531
00:31:55,040 --> 00:31:59,200
Speaker 3: yourself that once you leave the voting booths that like

532
00:31:59,320 --> 00:32:04,360
Speaker 3: the struggle is over because whatever happens, like this person,

533
00:32:05,760 --> 00:32:09,760
Speaker 3: this authority figure in charge, is your enemy. Like it

534
00:32:09,800 --> 00:32:11,760
Speaker 3: doesn't matter how nice he is, it doesn't matter how

535
00:32:11,800 --> 00:32:15,840
Speaker 3: many jokes he cracks, like whatever you're trying to like

536
00:32:16,600 --> 00:32:19,240
Speaker 3: resist or like liberate, Like this person is going to

537
00:32:19,280 --> 00:32:22,440
Speaker 3: stand in your way just by virtue of being the mayor.

538
00:32:24,320 --> 00:32:28,320
Speaker 3: Like it's baked into like what that is. So I

539
00:32:28,360 --> 00:32:31,440
Speaker 3: think it's just a matter of being like clear eyed

540
00:32:31,520 --> 00:32:34,800
Speaker 3: about that rather than like convincing yourself that you can

541
00:32:34,880 --> 00:32:38,800
Speaker 3: somehow like co run the city like with the government.

542
00:32:39,480 --> 00:32:41,520
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean I'm gonna, okay, I'm gonna take a

543
00:32:41,960 --> 00:32:44,120
Speaker 2: shot at a city on the other side of the world.

544
00:32:44,760 --> 00:32:47,400
Speaker 2: But fuck it, I'm still mad about this. Okay. So

545
00:32:48,640 --> 00:32:52,320
Speaker 2: the the the nominal best case scenario for this inside

546
00:32:52,320 --> 00:32:56,240
Speaker 2: an electoral framework was when Barcelona and Camu, which is

547
00:32:56,400 --> 00:33:00,160
Speaker 2: this sort of left wing platform in Barcelona and I

548
00:33:00,200 --> 00:33:03,280
Speaker 2: made of a bunch of ex anarchists, I like managed

549
00:33:03,320 --> 00:33:06,880
Speaker 2: to get managed to get a sort of a semisable

550
00:33:07,000 --> 00:33:08,640
Speaker 2: majority of the city council and then the first time

551
00:33:08,680 --> 00:33:11,080
Speaker 2: they got their mayor elected, the first thing that that

552
00:33:11,200 --> 00:33:13,960
Speaker 2: fucking mayor did, like a week indo office was she

553
00:33:14,080 --> 00:33:17,080
Speaker 2: knew where all the squats were in Barcelona, and the

554
00:33:17,160 --> 00:33:19,600
Speaker 2: first thing she fucking did was she knew which immigrant

555
00:33:19,640 --> 00:33:22,840
Speaker 2: squat didn't have enough community support behind them to stop

556
00:33:22,920 --> 00:33:25,440
Speaker 2: them from getting evicted, and she had them evicted. So

557
00:33:25,760 --> 00:33:27,560
Speaker 2: you know, this is what happens when you put activists

558
00:33:27,600 --> 00:33:31,240
Speaker 2: in charge. They they do a more efficient job of

559
00:33:32,560 --> 00:33:36,480
Speaker 2: being the kind of insurgency. So oh my god, yeah,

560
00:33:36,560 --> 00:33:38,200
Speaker 2: this is this is this is what you're getting into.

561
00:33:38,800 --> 00:33:40,760
Speaker 3: Oh my god. Well yeah, and I mean then it

562
00:33:40,840 --> 00:33:45,520
Speaker 3: also becomes like its own smoke screen, you know, like

563
00:33:47,280 --> 00:33:50,440
Speaker 3: just using the fact that like, oh I was elected

564
00:33:50,560 --> 00:33:53,240
Speaker 3: by activists, or like I was elected by movement people,

565
00:33:53,440 --> 00:33:57,400
Speaker 3: so like you know, I'm on your side, and just

566
00:33:57,720 --> 00:34:00,520
Speaker 3: using it as like a shield against like remove and

567
00:34:00,640 --> 00:34:02,240
Speaker 3: being like, well, I know this looks bad, but like

568
00:34:02,320 --> 00:34:04,800
Speaker 3: you guys know, like I'm I'm your guy, Like I'm

569
00:34:04,840 --> 00:34:08,960
Speaker 3: one of you, like like just trust me, Like we're

570
00:34:09,040 --> 00:34:10,920
Speaker 3: doing this for the for the right reasons. It might

571
00:34:11,000 --> 00:34:14,839
Speaker 3: look bad, but because I'm your guy, you know, it's okay.

572
00:34:14,840 --> 00:34:18,400
Speaker 3: I mean, it's the same thing with like uh Biden

573
00:34:18,600 --> 00:34:20,040
Speaker 3: and the and the border wall.

574
00:34:20,120 --> 00:34:23,440
Speaker 2: Now I think ironically our episode on that is going

575
00:34:23,520 --> 00:34:25,759
Speaker 2: to be the episode that comes out right before this,

576
00:34:26,520 --> 00:34:30,000
Speaker 2: so oh wait, sorry, sorry, two episodes. Sorry, there'll be

577
00:34:30,080 --> 00:34:32,480
Speaker 2: two episodes before. Yeah. Oh and and the two episodes

578
00:34:32,560 --> 00:34:34,719
Speaker 2: after well is also going to be border wall shit.

579
00:34:34,800 --> 00:34:38,359
Speaker 2: So yeah, border wall bad. Fuck Biden for border wall.

580
00:34:39,280 --> 00:34:42,319
Speaker 3: But it's like it's Brighten's border Wall. He's doing all

581
00:34:42,360 --> 00:34:46,440
Speaker 3: this shit. And then you know, it's just if it

582
00:34:46,600 --> 00:34:49,960
Speaker 3: was Trump, we know what the response would be from

583
00:34:50,520 --> 00:34:52,000
Speaker 3: supposed progressive.

584
00:34:52,880 --> 00:34:55,680
Speaker 2: Yeah, don't don't let people like put a code of

585
00:34:55,760 --> 00:34:57,719
Speaker 2: paint on a turd and hand it to you and

586
00:34:57,880 --> 00:34:58,879
Speaker 2: be like, no, it's good.

587
00:34:59,000 --> 00:35:03,640
Speaker 4: Actually we don't have to do this, right, But I mean,

588
00:35:03,760 --> 00:35:08,360
Speaker 4: also the border Wall, God, do you remember there was

589
00:35:08,400 --> 00:35:10,200
Speaker 4: a brief flash of time.

590
00:35:10,160 --> 00:35:14,200
Speaker 3: In October when when Brandon Johnson and his team announced

591
00:35:14,200 --> 00:35:17,759
Speaker 3: they were going to visit the border wall and then

592
00:35:20,000 --> 00:35:22,920
Speaker 3: it only lasted like twenty four hours, seventy two hours.

593
00:35:22,960 --> 00:35:25,000
Speaker 3: I don't know when, but at some point then they

594
00:35:25,120 --> 00:35:29,000
Speaker 3: like very quickly reversed the decision when they realized like

595
00:35:29,360 --> 00:35:34,320
Speaker 3: how bad that would look as we have like like

596
00:35:34,440 --> 00:35:38,800
Speaker 3: at that time, there were thousands of people in police

597
00:35:39,120 --> 00:35:42,200
Speaker 3: like thousands of migrants to it who had traveled here

598
00:35:43,040 --> 00:35:46,840
Speaker 3: and staying on police station flours and there was like

599
00:35:47,000 --> 00:35:48,719
Speaker 3: they were gonna have this publicity stone want I went

600
00:35:48,719 --> 00:35:50,799
Speaker 3: to visit the border wall and then they changed their

601
00:35:50,800 --> 00:35:52,400
Speaker 3: minds about it, and we're like, oh, yeah this is

602
00:35:52,400 --> 00:35:56,000
Speaker 3: probably a bad idea. But it's become this this like

603
00:35:56,160 --> 00:35:59,080
Speaker 3: Pilgrimage site. I mean, like I know, AOC went there.

604
00:35:59,120 --> 00:36:01,560
Speaker 3: It's like liberal diferent like go there to be like,

605
00:36:01,680 --> 00:36:05,000
Speaker 3: oh this is so terrible and then they like, you know,

606
00:36:05,440 --> 00:36:07,759
Speaker 3: just kind of let Biden make it worse.

607
00:36:08,560 --> 00:36:12,480
Speaker 2: Yeah, so this this has been that this has turned

608
00:36:12,560 --> 00:36:16,640
Speaker 2: into the liberal groups elected on big promises make your

609
00:36:16,680 --> 00:36:18,560
Speaker 2: life worse episode.

610
00:36:20,200 --> 00:36:20,920
Speaker 3: Well this has been.

611
00:36:20,960 --> 00:36:23,640
Speaker 2: It can happen here. You could find us in the

612
00:36:23,760 --> 00:36:26,360
Speaker 2: places where can people find you?

613
00:36:27,320 --> 00:36:30,040
Speaker 3: Uh, just you know on the Hell site, which I

614
00:36:30,160 --> 00:36:32,000
Speaker 3: know you're back on now.

615
00:36:33,440 --> 00:36:35,880
Speaker 2: Unfortunately unfortunately.

616
00:36:36,400 --> 00:36:39,040
Speaker 3: Yeah, you know, we have drinks Press dot org per

617
00:36:39,120 --> 00:36:42,440
Speaker 3: site and then yeah, Twitter, Instagram, all that stuff.

618
00:36:43,000 --> 00:36:45,640
Speaker 2: Yeah, so go check out the Drinks Press people. They do,

619
00:36:45,760 --> 00:36:50,760
Speaker 2: they do great work. And yeah, cops, bad cops, bad.

620
00:36:50,760 --> 00:36:53,080
Speaker 3: Cops, always bad cops, keep being bad.

621
00:36:57,920 --> 00:36:59,799
Speaker 1: It could happen here as a production of cool Zone.

622
00:37:00,480 --> 00:37:03,160
Speaker 1: For more podcasts from cool Zone Media, visit our website

623
00:37:03,200 --> 00:37:06,319
Speaker 1: Coolzonemedia dot com or check us out on the iHeartRadio app,

624
00:37:06,320 --> 00:37:09,680
Speaker 1: Apple podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts, you can

625
00:37:09,719 --> 00:37:12,400
Speaker 1: find sources for It could happen here, Updated monthly at

626
00:37:12,440 --> 00:37:15,640
Speaker 1: coolzonemedia dot com slash sources. Thanks for listening.