WEBVTT - State Created Danger 0:00:01.680 --> 0:00:02.880 Cool zone media. 0:00:06.240 --> 0:00:11.080 What happens when a Nazi rally comes to town. Maybe 0:00:11.080 --> 0:00:14.480 it's a little different from town to town, But as 0:00:14.520 --> 0:00:18.079 a resident of Charlottesville, Virginia, I've spent the last eight 0:00:18.160 --> 0:00:22.240 years trying to answer that question. In one very particular instance, 0:00:23.560 --> 0:00:26.520 they Unite the Right rally on August twelfth, twenty seventeen. 0:00:28.120 --> 0:00:31.240 It didn't take eight years to find the obvious answer 0:00:31.320 --> 0:00:34.960 to that question. It's violence. Before the day of the 0:00:35.040 --> 0:00:38.559 rally even dawned, there was violence. There was violence at 0:00:38.600 --> 0:00:41.120 rallies all over the country in the months leading up 0:00:41.159 --> 0:00:44.879 to August twelfth, violence encouraged by and at the hands 0:00:44.880 --> 0:00:48.159 of the men who were busy organizing the event that 0:00:48.240 --> 0:00:51.800 would cap off what they called the Summer of hate. 0:00:52.840 --> 0:00:55.960 And when the day finally came, the violence they'd been 0:00:55.960 --> 0:00:59.520 promising to deliver all summer left blood in our streets, 0:01:00.960 --> 0:01:04.760 but not a single speech was made that day. Fights 0:01:04.760 --> 0:01:07.479 broke out in the streets as rallygoers arrived at the park. 0:01:08.840 --> 0:01:13.440 Police watched and waited as neo Nazis who'd taken cross 0:01:13.440 --> 0:01:19.680 country flights looking for a fight, hunched, kicked, bludgeoned, and, 0:01:19.840 --> 0:01:23.600 in at least one instance, choked, counter protesters who stood 0:01:23.600 --> 0:01:28.960 in their way. The rally itself never even really happened. 0:01:30.000 --> 0:01:32.679 Police dispersed the crowd before it ever really got started, 0:01:33.680 --> 0:01:36.120 and it had already been over for hours when one 0:01:36.200 --> 0:01:39.160 man who'd hoped to attend it took his revenge on 0:01:39.200 --> 0:01:44.360 the counter demonstrators, murdering heather Hire and injuring dozens of others. 0:01:45.280 --> 0:01:48.200 And I'll tell you some of those stories one of 0:01:48.240 --> 0:01:52.600 these days. There were a handful of criminal prosecutions, and 0:01:52.680 --> 0:01:56.080 I spent years sitting quietly on a wooden bench, watching 0:01:56.120 --> 0:02:01.200 and dutifully taking notes. But those cases, for the most part, 0:02:01.840 --> 0:02:05.919 were pretty open and shut, and they were resolved fairly 0:02:06.000 --> 0:02:08.280 quickly by the standards of the court. 0:02:10.000 --> 0:02:11.280 The civil lawsuits took. 0:02:11.200 --> 0:02:16.960 Longer, years longer, and they often raised more questions than 0:02:16.960 --> 0:02:21.280 they answered, questions the court is perhaps not equipped to answer. 0:02:22.800 --> 0:02:25.560 But the Court has been quite clear on one question 0:02:25.639 --> 0:02:31.320 in particular, one raised by several different lawsuits. Do the 0:02:31.320 --> 0:02:38.680 police have an obligation to protect anyone? The answer is no. 0:02:41.919 --> 0:03:02.440 I'm Molly Conquer, and this is weird, Blue Guys. This 0:03:02.520 --> 0:03:05.120 wasn't the episode I meant to write this week. I 0:03:05.200 --> 0:03:08.240 was working on something else, entirely, something I'm still working on. 0:03:09.000 --> 0:03:11.279 When I realized it was a longer and more complicated 0:03:11.360 --> 0:03:13.040 narrative than I felt like I could get my arms 0:03:13.040 --> 0:03:16.160 around this week, so I set it aside and started 0:03:16.200 --> 0:03:18.239 scrambling at the eleventh hour for something I thought I 0:03:18.280 --> 0:03:21.160 could pull together quickly, something I already know a lot 0:03:21.160 --> 0:03:24.200 about and won't lose myself for days trying to do 0:03:24.200 --> 0:03:27.680 a lot of new research. But then I saw a 0:03:27.720 --> 0:03:34.400 blog post from an attorney, Glenn Keith. Allen is a 0:03:34.440 --> 0:03:37.000 man whose story should be told on its own, and 0:03:37.040 --> 0:03:39.880 I think I will eventually, So I won't tell you 0:03:39.920 --> 0:03:43.480 more than you need to know here. I'm very comfortable 0:03:43.520 --> 0:03:47.400 describing him as a neo Nazi lawyer. That's what the 0:03:47.440 --> 0:03:49.760 Southern Poverty Law Center called him in a headline of 0:03:49.800 --> 0:03:53.320 an article published in twenty sixteen, when they revealed that 0:03:53.360 --> 0:03:56.800 the attorney working for the Baltimore Police Department had been 0:03:56.800 --> 0:03:59.440 a dues paying member of the neo Nazi group National 0:03:59.440 --> 0:04:01.640 Alliance for decades. 0:04:02.880 --> 0:04:03.040 Now. 0:04:03.040 --> 0:04:05.360 The SBLC has done a lot of great work over 0:04:05.360 --> 0:04:08.440 the years, But I don't mean to say that my 0:04:08.560 --> 0:04:14.760 ironclad certainty here comes only from repeating their claim. No, No, 0:04:14.880 --> 0:04:18.120 I'm very sure that I can say that Glenn Allen 0:04:18.279 --> 0:04:22.400 is a neo Nazi lawyer because he unsuccessfully sued the 0:04:22.480 --> 0:04:27.800 SPLC for defamation. In the memorandum dismissing his suit, the 0:04:27.880 --> 0:04:31.320 judge notes that not only had Allan failed to show 0:04:31.400 --> 0:04:34.040 there was any falsehood in the claims that had been 0:04:34.040 --> 0:04:37.880 made by the SBLC, he didn't even appear to be 0:04:38.000 --> 0:04:42.280 disputing the claim that he was in fact a neo Nazi. 0:04:43.839 --> 0:04:45.040 I mean, there's that, and. 0:04:45.200 --> 0:04:47.159 There is also the fact that he spent the last 0:04:47.160 --> 0:04:50.159 couple of years being the go to guy when neo 0:04:50.240 --> 0:04:54.799 Nazis need a lawyer. He's represented members of Patriot Front 0:04:54.839 --> 0:04:58.120 in lawsuits in Virginia and Washington State and in their 0:04:58.160 --> 0:05:01.880 criminal cases in Idaho. He currently represents members of the 0:05:01.920 --> 0:05:06.040 Goyam Defense League in a lawsuit in Georgia. He's represented 0:05:06.080 --> 0:05:10.600 white supremacist publications American Renaissance and v DARE. He was 0:05:10.680 --> 0:05:13.320 hired by Nathan Dimigo, the former leader of the neo 0:05:13.360 --> 0:05:16.960 Nazi group Identity Europa, in his ongoing effort to use 0:05:17.000 --> 0:05:20.000 a bankruptcy case to evade paying damages to the victims 0:05:20.000 --> 0:05:23.560 of the United's Right Rally. Allan has also filed petitions 0:05:23.600 --> 0:05:25.520 to the Supreme Court on behalf of members of the 0:05:25.560 --> 0:05:30.039 neo Nazi street fighting gang, the Rise Above movement. And 0:05:30.080 --> 0:05:35.200 then there's the case I'm talking about today. Last week, 0:05:35.839 --> 0:05:39.359 Glenn Allen posted an update to his website to share 0:05:39.400 --> 0:05:45.239 some sad news. He wrote, on April seventh, twenty twenty five, 0:05:45.880 --> 0:05:50.560 the Supreme Court denied our petition. The Court's decision, although 0:05:50.600 --> 0:05:55.039 not surprising, is regrettable. The Court missed an opportunity to 0:05:55.080 --> 0:05:58.600 advance the cause of First Amendment protection for unpopular speech 0:05:59.320 --> 0:06:02.239 and to admonishi the City of Charlottesville for taking sides 0:06:02.279 --> 0:06:08.160 against Warren and the other pro monument protesters. The cases 0:06:08.240 --> 0:06:11.480 talking about was originally filed by Gregory Conti and Warren 0:06:11.560 --> 0:06:16.080 Baylaw in twenty nineteen. Both men had attended the United 0:06:16.120 --> 0:06:19.240 Right rally in Charlesville, Virginia, on August twelfth, twenty seventeen, 0:06:20.080 --> 0:06:23.200 and felt their civil rights had been violated by various 0:06:23.200 --> 0:06:27.560 parties then named as defendants in their lawsuit, the Commonwealth 0:06:27.560 --> 0:06:31.120 of Virginia, the City of Charlesville, the Virginia State Police, 0:06:31.640 --> 0:06:35.279 then Governor of Virginia Terry mccauliffe, the Charlesville Police Department, 0:06:35.680 --> 0:06:39.000 several individual members of both police agencies and city staff, 0:06:39.760 --> 0:06:43.400 as well as the sort of random assortment of individual 0:06:43.440 --> 0:06:48.840 counter protesters. Now I realize as I'm writing this that 0:06:49.640 --> 0:06:53.400 as continuously present as the events of summer twenty seventeen 0:06:53.800 --> 0:06:57.320 have felt here in Charlottesville, I was eight years ago. 0:06:58.560 --> 0:07:02.000 It was national news back then, but it's likely faded 0:07:02.200 --> 0:07:06.640 from the memories of people everywhere else. And if you're 0:07:06.680 --> 0:07:09.520 too young to have been watching the news eight years ago, 0:07:09.840 --> 0:07:14.360 you might never even have known enough to forget. The 0:07:14.440 --> 0:07:20.200 rally was, on its surface about Confederate statues. Back in 0:07:20.240 --> 0:07:23.960 twenty seventeen, that was a pretty hot issue. Granted, a 0:07:24.040 --> 0:07:26.640 lot of people had been voicing opposition to the presence 0:07:26.640 --> 0:07:30.720 of those monuments to racism for a century or so 0:07:30.840 --> 0:07:34.000 since they'd been put up, but it became a subject 0:07:34.000 --> 0:07:38.600 of national concern in twenty fifteen after the Charleston church shooting. 0:07:40.160 --> 0:07:42.559 Cities around the country were starting to talk about taking 0:07:42.600 --> 0:07:47.640 them down, and many did. But here in Virginia, a 0:07:47.680 --> 0:07:50.200 state law stood in the way of local decision making 0:07:50.200 --> 0:07:55.240 on the subject. Local governments needed state permission to take 0:07:55.280 --> 0:07:59.000 down a monument or a memorial to any war. The 0:07:59.080 --> 0:08:03.440 law even species hifically prohibited quote the placement of Union 0:08:03.520 --> 0:08:10.200 markings or monuments on previously designated Confederate memorials. But a 0:08:10.240 --> 0:08:13.720 court ruling in late twenty fifteen seemed to hint that 0:08:13.880 --> 0:08:17.320 perhaps the law could be interpreted to mean that it 0:08:17.400 --> 0:08:21.160 only applied to statues erected after that law was passed, 0:08:22.080 --> 0:08:27.320 which could mean it didn't apply to Charlottesville. That legal 0:08:27.360 --> 0:08:31.040 battle lasted years, and it probably isn't interesting to normal people, 0:08:31.120 --> 0:08:32.800 so I won't get into it. But what you need 0:08:32.840 --> 0:08:37.480 to know here is that in twenty sixteen, the city 0:08:37.480 --> 0:08:41.000 of Charlottesville was starting to take real steps toward trying 0:08:41.040 --> 0:08:43.520 to take down the statues of Robert E. Lee and 0:08:43.559 --> 0:08:50.240 Stonewall Jackson, and some people were very, very angry about it. 0:08:53.120 --> 0:08:56.640 At the end of May twenty seventeen, a local resident 0:08:56.760 --> 0:09:00.079 named Jason Kessler filed an application with the City of 0:09:00.160 --> 0:09:04.120 Charlesville for a special event permit. He wanted to hold 0:09:04.120 --> 0:09:07.280 an event on August twelfth, twenty seventeen, in the park 0:09:07.840 --> 0:09:11.839 where the Roberty Lee statue stood. He described the event 0:09:11.920 --> 0:09:15.000 as a free speech rally in support of the Lee monument, 0:09:16.120 --> 0:09:18.679 and on his application he estimated that about four hundred 0:09:18.679 --> 0:09:23.720 people would attend, but it wasn't about the statues, not 0:09:23.880 --> 0:09:29.600 really not. In the end, this statue was a focal point, 0:09:29.960 --> 0:09:34.840 a rallying cry, a lightning rod. Whatever it was, an excuse, 0:09:35.920 --> 0:09:39.319 it was a breaking point. The men who descended on 0:09:39.400 --> 0:09:42.800 this little college town were here to put black people 0:09:42.800 --> 0:09:46.520 in their place. They were here to fight the Jewish agenda. 0:09:46.559 --> 0:09:48.679 They were here to fist fight Antifa. They were here 0:09:48.720 --> 0:09:53.040 to kill communists. Sure a lot of them were proud 0:09:53.080 --> 0:09:56.760 of their Southern heritage, I guess, but that doesn't really 0:09:56.800 --> 0:10:00.800 help explain the swastika tattoos, does it. Where the months 0:10:00.800 --> 0:10:04.440 of messages exchanged, and a discord server where attendees gleefully 0:10:04.440 --> 0:10:07.800 discussed their fantasies about killing counter protesters. 0:10:09.679 --> 0:10:10.600 There were several. 0:10:10.280 --> 0:10:12.800 Conversations in the discord server about whether it was legal 0:10:13.320 --> 0:10:17.319 to run people over. Memes were posted about plowing through 0:10:17.320 --> 0:10:18.800 a crowd with heavy machinery. 0:10:19.520 --> 0:10:20.440 It was all just a joke. 0:10:21.640 --> 0:10:28.199 Everyone was laughing until someone actually did it. The rally 0:10:28.240 --> 0:10:32.480 was supposed to begin at Nune That's what the permit said. 0:10:32.880 --> 0:10:35.000 Attendees would gather in the park near the statue of 0:10:35.080 --> 0:10:37.880 Roberty Lee, and they would listen to speeches from far 0:10:37.960 --> 0:10:42.040 right micro celebrities like Richard Spencer, Baked Alaska, Christopher Cantwell, 0:10:42.080 --> 0:10:46.520 Augustus and Victus, Matthew Heinbach, and Mike Pinovich. But like 0:10:46.600 --> 0:10:51.199 I said, no one ever gave a speech. The streets 0:10:51.200 --> 0:10:55.520 downtown were packed with counter protesters. At the very last 0:10:55.600 --> 0:10:58.240 minute that morning, the event organizer, who'd been the group's 0:10:58.240 --> 0:11:01.560 police liaison, backed of the agreed upon plan to have 0:11:01.640 --> 0:11:04.680 the scheduled speakers shuttled into the park with a police escort, 0:11:05.880 --> 0:11:08.560 and within an hour of that decision, all hell had 0:11:08.600 --> 0:11:12.320 broken loose in the streets near the park. By eleven 0:11:12.440 --> 0:11:14.839 thirty am, the local police had declared the gathering and 0:11:14.960 --> 0:11:18.760 unlawful assembly. State police and riot years showed up a 0:11:18.760 --> 0:11:22.520 few minutes later to clear the park by force. One 0:11:22.559 --> 0:11:25.160 of the only funny pictures taken that day shows Richard 0:11:25.200 --> 0:11:29.080 Spencer's mid tantrum as he's being shoved out of the 0:11:29.120 --> 0:11:33.240 park by a line of riot cops. There's a lot 0:11:33.280 --> 0:11:35.480 to be said about the months leading up to that 0:11:35.559 --> 0:11:39.120 day in August. Much of it has already been said, 0:11:40.000 --> 0:11:42.240 and some of it I'm sure I'll write some other day, 0:11:43.480 --> 0:11:47.440 but today, just in case you don't remember, the summer 0:11:47.480 --> 0:11:52.720 of twenty seventeen. That'll do, because the facts at issue 0:11:52.760 --> 0:11:55.880 in that lawsuit are here at the entrance to the 0:11:55.920 --> 0:12:01.360 park between about nine thirty am in noon. The plaintiffs 0:12:01.360 --> 0:12:05.400 in this lawsuit, Gregory Kanti and Warren Baylaw, are Nazis. 0:12:07.160 --> 0:12:10.520 People throw that word around a lot, so I'll let 0:12:10.520 --> 0:12:13.720 you hear it from them. Here's Warren on his own 0:12:13.760 --> 0:12:17.520 podcast explaining to his wife that they have a responsibility 0:12:17.600 --> 0:12:18.880 to spread Hitler's message. 0:12:21.360 --> 0:12:24.640 The fact is, the fact is, and we all know it. 0:12:24.679 --> 0:12:26.959 I think everybody who watches the show knows it. Hitler 0:12:27.200 --> 0:12:30.439 was a true patriot. He was a complete idealist, a 0:12:30.800 --> 0:12:33.360 entirely selfless man. He was also a genius, and he 0:12:33.559 --> 0:12:37.000 was probably the greatest political leader that Europe has ever seen. 0:12:40.240 --> 0:12:43.640 And here's Greg in one of his many bizarre, straight 0:12:43.679 --> 0:12:48.160 to camera short video rants from his social media. 0:12:49.400 --> 0:12:54.520 The FBI is full of pedophiles, and our countries have. 0:12:54.559 --> 0:13:00.840 Been ruled by twos phraars. And you think that that 0:13:01.040 --> 0:13:03.959 flag is the problem. 0:13:04.760 --> 0:13:07.720 You're not practical, You're just pussy. 0:13:08.880 --> 0:13:14.920 Hitler is our only hope. 0:13:17.480 --> 0:13:19.679 It was hard to find one of Greg's videos that 0:13:19.720 --> 0:13:23.079 clearly expressed his point of view, but that didn't also 0:13:23.120 --> 0:13:26.840 contain so many slurs that it would become incomprehensible once 0:13:26.880 --> 0:13:31.880 I bleeped them out. But they're Nazis. These guys love Hitler. 0:13:33.000 --> 0:13:37.880 They're like really obsessed with Hitler. Honestly, the Hitler worship 0:13:37.960 --> 0:13:41.200 here is actually kind of weird, even in their own 0:13:41.280 --> 0:13:47.400 social circles. Warren Baylaw is actually a second generation National Socialist. 0:13:47.720 --> 0:13:49.920 His father, Alan Baylaw, was a high ranking member with 0:13:49.960 --> 0:13:54.040 a National Alliance before Warren was even born. As for 0:13:54.160 --> 0:13:57.600 Greg Conti, he was coaching field hockey at a Catholic girls' 0:13:57.600 --> 0:13:59.800 school in Maryland before he was fired when the school 0:14:00.360 --> 0:14:05.000 he was Richard Spencer's lackey. In twenty twenty, both Allan 0:14:05.080 --> 0:14:08.400 and Warren Baylaw and Greg Conti were founding members of 0:14:08.400 --> 0:14:12.880 a now defunct neo Nazi organization called the National Justice Party. 0:14:13.520 --> 0:14:18.360 And in twenty seventeen, Warren Baylaw and Gregory Kanti were 0:14:18.400 --> 0:14:21.280 inside the park when the Virginia State Police showed up 0:14:21.280 --> 0:14:26.480 a riot year to enforce that dispersal order. Daniel Schular, 0:14:26.560 --> 0:14:29.320 a photojournalist taking pictures that day for the Tulsa World, 0:14:29.800 --> 0:14:33.040 captured an image that shows both men right up against 0:14:33.080 --> 0:14:33.760 the riot. 0:14:33.520 --> 0:14:37.040 Shields on August. 0:14:36.720 --> 0:14:39.800 Twelfth, twenty nineteen, the very last day of the two 0:14:39.880 --> 0:14:42.840 year statute of limitations to bring the claim under Virginia law, 0:14:43.840 --> 0:14:47.000 the pair filed a federal civil rights lawsuit claiming that 0:14:47.000 --> 0:14:51.920 the police, the city, and the counter protesters had conspired 0:14:52.640 --> 0:14:55.360 to deprive them of their right to hold that Nazi rally, 0:14:56.200 --> 0:14:59.120 that by clearing the park, and that by refusing to 0:14:59.160 --> 0:15:03.080 beat back the CA counter protesters on their behalf, the 0:15:03.120 --> 0:15:06.160 police had violated their First Amendment rights and denied them 0:15:06.200 --> 0:15:10.600 their Fourteenth Amendment right to equal protection. There are some 0:15:10.640 --> 0:15:15.320 other more bizarre claims involving wild allegations of a criminal 0:15:15.360 --> 0:15:20.840 conspiracy between Antifa and the government actors, but those rico 0:15:20.920 --> 0:15:24.200 allegations aren't really worth getting into. It's very silly stuff. 0:15:25.960 --> 0:15:31.520 The underlying idea, quoting from the suit, defendants intentionally encouraged 0:15:31.520 --> 0:15:35.320 and facilitated mob violence by counter protesters against lawful Unite 0:15:35.360 --> 0:15:39.360 the Right demonstrators, creating a civil disturbance as a pretext 0:15:39.560 --> 0:15:42.720 to disperse the demonstrators before the Unite the Right rally began. 0:15:45.160 --> 0:15:48.800 So they're saying that police didn't just let counter protesters 0:15:48.840 --> 0:15:52.560 interfere with the rally. They're saying they think police set 0:15:52.720 --> 0:15:56.040 that up so they'd have an excuse to then crack 0:15:56.080 --> 0:15:56.960 down on the Nazis. 0:15:58.360 --> 0:15:58.800 Quote. 0:15:59.160 --> 0:16:02.160 Rather than applying simple and proven techniques such as allowing 0:16:02.240 --> 0:16:05.520 Unite the Right demonstrators and counter protesters to use separate areas, 0:16:06.000 --> 0:16:09.880 the defendants forced them together into a restricted space, then 0:16:10.000 --> 0:16:13.240 deliberately communicated to counter protesters that attacks on Unite the 0:16:13.280 --> 0:16:18.200 Right demonstrators would go unpunished. Predictably, and as defendants intended, 0:16:18.640 --> 0:16:22.600 counter protesters attacked and assaulted United the Right demonstrators, and 0:16:22.640 --> 0:16:26.320 the defendants used those violent attacks against lawful demonstrators as 0:16:26.360 --> 0:16:32.520 a pretext to disperse the entire gathering. I mean, citation 0:16:32.720 --> 0:16:38.120 needed for most of that. But here's the thing. No 0:16:38.200 --> 0:16:42.800 one disputes that the police fucked up. The city admits it. 0:16:43.720 --> 0:16:48.760 The police kind of admitted it. The independent review flawed 0:16:48.800 --> 0:16:52.400 as it was found that to be the case. Protesters 0:16:52.440 --> 0:16:58.080 and counter protesters alike were dumbfounded by the complete and 0:16:58.320 --> 0:17:02.920 total inaction of the police who just stood there and 0:17:02.960 --> 0:17:07.920 watched as the violence unfolded. People with blood running down 0:17:07.960 --> 0:17:11.359 their faces were screaming at the police to do something, anything, 0:17:12.680 --> 0:17:19.760 and they really did just stand there. That's not in dispute. 0:17:19.880 --> 0:17:23.199 The legal question here is not did they do that? 0:17:24.600 --> 0:17:29.680 But can they do that? And the answer is unequivocally yes, 0:17:30.600 --> 0:17:33.560 yes they can. There isn't a law on the books 0:17:33.680 --> 0:17:35.640 or a decision in the case law that says they 0:17:35.720 --> 0:17:40.239 have to do a goddamn thing to help you. There 0:17:40.320 --> 0:17:44.640 are a disturbing number of cases bearing this out. There 0:17:44.640 --> 0:17:49.280 are cases in state courts like Loziito versus New York City. 0:17:49.359 --> 0:17:51.879 In February of twenty eleven, the NYPD was on a 0:17:51.880 --> 0:17:55.520 manhunt for a man on a stabbing spree. He'd already 0:17:55.560 --> 0:17:57.720 stabbed several people to death when he bore the train 0:17:57.760 --> 0:18:02.320 that morning, Acting on a tip that the serial stabber 0:18:02.359 --> 0:18:05.840 had been spotted on the subway platform, boarded the same train. 0:18:07.480 --> 0:18:12.080 They saw the man they were looking for and recognized him, 0:18:12.480 --> 0:18:14.879 but they would later say they thought he had a gun. 0:18:15.720 --> 0:18:18.280 Now again, he'd been on a stabbing spree for twenty 0:18:18.280 --> 0:18:19.960 four hours. Do you think if he had a gun, 0:18:20.000 --> 0:18:23.560 he might have I don't know, shot anyone prior to 0:18:23.600 --> 0:18:25.879 this moment rather than stabbing them all to death. But 0:18:25.960 --> 0:18:29.119 they say they thought he had a gun. So they 0:18:29.200 --> 0:18:32.920 locked themselves in the conductor's car and just watched through 0:18:32.920 --> 0:18:36.720 the window as their suspect brutally stabbed a man on 0:18:36.720 --> 0:18:39.720 the train repeatedly in the head, just a few feet 0:18:39.720 --> 0:18:44.160 away from where they were standing, but the victim fought back. 0:18:45.119 --> 0:18:48.080 Joseph Lozito managed to pin his assailant to the ground 0:18:48.240 --> 0:18:52.040 before losing consciousness from blood loss, and it was only 0:18:52.080 --> 0:18:56.359 after Lozito had disarmed and subdued his own attacker that 0:18:56.440 --> 0:18:59.200 the police felt safe enough to come out and make 0:18:59.240 --> 0:19:05.840 the arrest. But his lawsuit was dismissed. The judge acknowledged 0:19:05.880 --> 0:19:10.800 that the attack was shocking and horrific, but quote, the 0:19:10.880 --> 0:19:15.080 law is abundantly clear that no liability flows from negligence 0:19:15.080 --> 0:19:17.119 and the performance of a police function unless there is 0:19:17.160 --> 0:19:23.080 a special relationship. If you're not in their custody, you 0:19:23.160 --> 0:19:28.280 aren't their problem. That example lives large in my mind 0:19:28.320 --> 0:19:32.000 because it's just so immediate and clear cut, Like I 0:19:32.000 --> 0:19:34.520 can imagine them with their little faces pressed up against 0:19:34.520 --> 0:19:38.960 the train window, just watching this happen because they're afraid. 0:19:40.359 --> 0:19:42.320 But that's a New York State court case, so it's 0:19:42.320 --> 0:19:46.160 not really binding here. But here are some that are. 0:19:48.800 --> 0:19:52.040 This is case number zero four two seventy eight Town 0:19:52.080 --> 0:19:56.080 of Castle Rock versus Gonzales I thought the Castle Rock 0:19:56.240 --> 0:20:00.600 was a nineteen twenties dance, but it's also a town 0:20:00.680 --> 0:20:05.320 in Colorado. The cases here on rid of Cerchiarii to 0:20:05.320 --> 0:20:08.880 the Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit. The facts 0:20:08.960 --> 0:20:10.040 are truly horrible. 0:20:13.600 --> 0:20:17.640 That is antonin Scalia making a little joke before announcing 0:20:17.640 --> 0:20:21.160 a decision. That should make you question what the courts 0:20:21.200 --> 0:20:25.400 think the police are even for. In two thousand and five, 0:20:25.480 --> 0:20:28.320 the Supreme Court ruled in Castle Rock ve. Gonzales that 0:20:28.400 --> 0:20:32.280 the police in Castle Rock, Colorado, had no affirmative duty 0:20:32.880 --> 0:20:35.320 to enforce a restraining order, and that their refusal to 0:20:35.359 --> 0:20:38.840 do so had not violated Jessica Gonzalez's Fourteenth Amendment right 0:20:38.880 --> 0:20:43.720 to equal protection. Jessica Gonzalez had a restraining order against 0:20:43.760 --> 0:20:47.879 her estranged husband. He was not allowed near her or 0:20:47.920 --> 0:20:51.240 her home, and he was only allowed limited contact with 0:20:51.320 --> 0:20:56.439 their daughters. But one afternoon in nineteen ninety nine, he 0:20:56.560 --> 0:21:03.080 kidnapped their three daughters. Jessica called the police. The officers 0:21:03.080 --> 0:21:05.800 who responded to her call told her there was nothing 0:21:05.800 --> 0:21:09.440 they could do about the restraining order, and they suggested 0:21:09.480 --> 0:21:12.280 that her husband would probably bring the girls home later 0:21:12.280 --> 0:21:15.600 in the evening. And she should just wait and if 0:21:15.640 --> 0:21:18.280 the girls weren't back by ten pm, she could call 0:21:18.320 --> 0:21:22.080 them again. Around eight thirty, she managed to get a 0:21:22.080 --> 0:21:24.720 hold of her husband on the phone, and he told 0:21:24.720 --> 0:21:26.480 her he had the girls at an amusement park in 0:21:26.520 --> 0:21:30.520 a neighboring city. So she called the police again and 0:21:30.600 --> 0:21:32.960 told them where he was and asked them to put 0:21:32.960 --> 0:21:35.480 out an all points bulletin for the area with his 0:21:35.520 --> 0:21:39.800 license plate number. They refused, and they told her again, 0:21:40.800 --> 0:21:45.040 just wait till ten pm. They'll be home. She called 0:21:45.080 --> 0:21:47.200 again at ten pm and they told her this time 0:21:47.280 --> 0:21:50.679 to wait until midnight, So she went to her husband's 0:21:50.720 --> 0:21:54.679 apartment on her own and found nothing. She called the 0:21:54.680 --> 0:21:57.760 police again at midnight. Finally she went to the police 0:21:57.800 --> 0:22:00.000 station herself to try to talk to somebody in person, 0:22:00.280 --> 0:22:04.679 and nobody cared. They just weren't interested in trying to 0:22:04.720 --> 0:22:11.639 find her children or their father. But he found them. 0:22:11.800 --> 0:22:15.639 At three am, Jessica Gonzalez's a strange husband showed up 0:22:15.640 --> 0:22:19.280 at the police station with a gun. He'd purchased that 0:22:19.359 --> 0:22:24.200 gun earlier that same evening, sometime after he abducted his daughters, 0:22:24.240 --> 0:22:29.560 and certainly before he used it to murder them. After 0:22:29.600 --> 0:22:32.359 police shot him dead inside the police station. They found 0:22:32.359 --> 0:22:34.200 the girl's bodies outside in his truck. 0:22:36.840 --> 0:22:39.800 We conclude that Colorado law did not give responded an 0:22:39.960 --> 0:22:42.040 entitlement to enforcement of the restraining order. 0:22:45.200 --> 0:22:47.159 The Supreme Court ruled that there was nothing in the 0:22:47.240 --> 0:22:50.920 law that required the police to enforce the restraining order, 0:22:52.240 --> 0:22:55.560 and even if there were such a mandate, that wouldn't 0:22:55.560 --> 0:22:58.760 give her the right to have it enforced. And even 0:22:58.760 --> 0:23:01.200 if she did have the hypethetical right to have that 0:23:01.320 --> 0:23:06.200 hypothetical mandate enforced, that right would have no monetary value. 0:23:06.680 --> 0:23:09.040 So there's really no due process claim at issue here. 0:23:11.119 --> 0:23:14.639 And then there's Toshaney the Winnebago decided by the Supreme 0:23:14.680 --> 0:23:18.760 Court in nineteen eighty nine. This one doesn't actually involve 0:23:18.800 --> 0:23:22.600 the police specifically, but it cited repeatedly in the lawsuits 0:23:22.600 --> 0:23:25.520 we're talking about because it held that a government agency, 0:23:25.960 --> 0:23:28.520 any government agency, although in this case it's the Department 0:23:28.560 --> 0:23:34.320 of Social Services, has no affirmative duty to protect anyone 0:23:34.520 --> 0:23:38.000 from any kind of harm that the government itself had 0:23:38.040 --> 0:23:42.520 not created. Joshua D. Shaney was a four year old 0:23:42.520 --> 0:23:45.400 boy whose father beat him so badly he was left 0:23:45.440 --> 0:23:49.760 in a coma. And this was after Social services had 0:23:49.800 --> 0:23:55.120 ignored reports of abuse for a year. When Joshua's stepmother 0:23:55.200 --> 0:23:57.680 went to the police to report seeing the boy's father 0:23:57.800 --> 0:24:01.159 hit him, they brushed her off and referred her to 0:24:01.200 --> 0:24:05.400 social services, and so she made the report to Social services. 0:24:07.119 --> 0:24:10.760 Neighbors seeing and hearing the toddler being beaten, and the 0:24:10.800 --> 0:24:14.960 police sent them to social services. The boy was seen 0:24:15.000 --> 0:24:18.960 in the emergency room three separate times, and doctors reported 0:24:19.040 --> 0:24:22.080 seeing the signs of abuse to Social services all three times. 0:24:23.440 --> 0:24:26.119 After the first hospital visit, the boy was briefly removed 0:24:26.119 --> 0:24:29.600 from the home, but the state agency quickly returned him 0:24:29.600 --> 0:24:33.520 to the custody of his abuser. A caseworker visited the 0:24:33.520 --> 0:24:37.600 home at least twenty times, and her notes show that 0:24:37.640 --> 0:24:42.600 she saw and documented signs of abuse, but no one 0:24:42.880 --> 0:24:48.400 did anything. After Joshua was put into a coma by 0:24:48.400 --> 0:24:53.160 his father's abuse, that social worker said, I just knew 0:24:53.200 --> 0:24:58.000 the phone would ring some day and Joshua would be dead, 0:24:58.160 --> 0:25:14.480 but she didn't do anything. The court ruled that only 0:25:14.560 --> 0:25:17.480 Joshua's father could be held liable for the abuse, that 0:25:17.520 --> 0:25:20.399 there was no liability for the state agency that repeatedly 0:25:20.440 --> 0:25:23.760 returned the child to the custody of his abuser. Further, 0:25:23.880 --> 0:25:27.320 the opinion says the state's failure to protect an individual 0:25:27.359 --> 0:25:31.639 against private violence simply does not constitute a violation of 0:25:31.640 --> 0:25:35.720 the due process claus The The Shainey case is cited 0:25:35.800 --> 0:25:39.280 again and again in cases attempting to hold the police 0:25:39.520 --> 0:25:45.159 or any government agency accountable or standing by and letting 0:25:45.200 --> 0:25:49.679 people get hurt. Because the state is not required to 0:25:49.760 --> 0:25:52.959 help you, they can't be held liable for anything that 0:25:53.000 --> 0:25:58.840 happens to you simply because they actively chose not to intervene. 0:25:59.000 --> 0:26:01.240 The only real exception to that rule are if you 0:26:01.280 --> 0:26:05.639 are in state custody or if the dangerous situation was 0:26:05.760 --> 0:26:12.280 created by that state actor. There are a nauseating number 0:26:12.280 --> 0:26:15.600 of cases establishing the parameters here, but I'll just give 0:26:15.640 --> 0:26:19.480 you one more. Kantie and Baila filed their suit in Virginia, 0:26:20.440 --> 0:26:22.840 so when it was dismissed, they appealed it to the 0:26:22.840 --> 0:26:26.560 Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals, And there is a Fourth 0:26:26.560 --> 0:26:30.360 Circuit Court of Appeals case that flushes out their interpretation 0:26:30.480 --> 0:26:34.200 of Toshaney. A nineteen ninety five opinion in the case 0:26:34.240 --> 0:26:41.040 of Carol Pinder the officer Donald Johnson. In nineteen eighty nine, 0:26:41.200 --> 0:26:45.200 Carol Pinder called the police. Her abusive ex boyfriend, Don 0:26:45.200 --> 0:26:47.560 Pittman had broken into her home and he was punching 0:26:47.600 --> 0:26:50.480 her and breaking things and threatening to kill her and 0:26:50.560 --> 0:26:54.760 her children. The officer who responded to her call took 0:26:54.760 --> 0:26:58.400 Pittman into custody and assured Carol Pinder that he would 0:26:58.400 --> 0:27:01.440 be locked up overnight until he could be brought before 0:27:01.440 --> 0:27:06.240