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Speaker 1: Also media, welcome back to a podcast that you've been

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Speaker 1: listening to, and this is the second episode. So you're

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Speaker 1: not starting there, right, you know, because that would be crazy.

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Speaker 1: You're continuing here, you know. You know what show this is.

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Speaker 1: It's Behind the Bastards, a podcast about the worst people

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Speaker 1: in all of history. Now, Bridget, are you ready to

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Speaker 1: learn more about Daryl Gates?

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Speaker 2: You bet your ass? I am, Let's do it.

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Speaker 1: Do you want to tell people where they can find

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Speaker 1: you on the old internet? So far? Right now?

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Speaker 3: You can find me at my podcast. There are no

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Speaker 3: girls on the internet or on Instagram at Bridget Marie

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Speaker 3: in DC.

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Speaker 1: Hell yeah, We'll find Bridget on the internet and find

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Speaker 1: Darryl Gates in this podcast where you'll learn more about them.

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Speaker 1: Right now, right, let let's do it. Let's let's hear

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Speaker 1: from this motherfucking guy, you know. Oh okay. So when

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Speaker 1: we left off with the story of Darrel Gates, it

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Speaker 1: was nineteen sixty five and he had become one of

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Speaker 1: the youngest inspectors in Los Angeles police history. He's in

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Speaker 1: like his mid thirties at this point, and he's overseeing

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Speaker 1: all of the patrol officers and watts, right, and that

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Speaker 1: is nineteen sixty five, and Watts, you know, as I said,

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Speaker 1: should start the dune dune dune music in your head,

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Speaker 1: you know. And we're about to talk about why because

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Speaker 1: on the evening of Wednesday, August seventh, nineteen sixty five,

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Speaker 1: a twenty one year old black man named Marquette Fry

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Speaker 1: is driving home drunk with his stepbrother Arnold. Right, so

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Speaker 1: these are two guys driving a little bit buzzed, which

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Speaker 1: isn't great. But it's nineteen sixty five. The cops aren't

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Speaker 1: sober on the road. Nobody is. It's the sixties, right,

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Speaker 1: There's no seat belts, there's barely laws. Having a roade

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Speaker 1: soda is the most normal thing. I'm not saying it's good.

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Speaker 1: I'm just saying they are not outliars here. We just

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Speaker 1: talked about how the chief of Leaves couldn't drive himself

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Speaker 1: because he was too drunk at all times. Right, just

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Speaker 1: trying to really set up that this is not like

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Speaker 1: a weird thing. These guys are not like, you know,

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Speaker 1: bad dudes or whatever. They're They're doing the same thing

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Speaker 1: most you've watched mad Men. We all know what life

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Speaker 1: was like in this period of time.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, so the cops to pull you over, and you'd

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Speaker 2: be blind drunk, and they'd.

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Speaker 1: Be like, are you drunk, I'm drunk.

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Speaker 2: Okay, drive straight home. Well you drive.

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Speaker 1: I want to see that you can stay right in

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Speaker 1: the middle line. Get in that car. No, you're not

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Speaker 1: sober enough. Do a shot of snaps before you get

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Speaker 1: back in that car.

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Speaker 2: You gotta light your lighten your head up. Come on now.

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Speaker 1: So Marquette and Arnold is stepbrother. They're driving back home

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Speaker 1: and an LAPD motorcycle cop pulls them both over. Right,

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Speaker 1: Fry fails a field sobriety test that I'm sure the

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Speaker 1: cop would have failed to and the cop officer Minicus,

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Speaker 1: radioed for backup in a patrol car because he's gonna

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Speaker 1: book Marquette now. Friday, he says, is initially quiet and compliant.

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Speaker 1: He's like, ah fuck, Like, okay, I just gotta keep

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Speaker 1: quiet and you know whatever, I'll deal with The sixties

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Speaker 1: drug driving consequences aren't that bad at this point in time. Right,

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Speaker 1: They're gonna take my fucking license otherwise no one'll be

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Speaker 1: able to drive in Los Angeles. Things get worse, though,

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Speaker 1: because his stepbrother gets out of the car, and again

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Speaker 1: everything's different. The cops would just be like, oh, you're

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Speaker 1: just passenger. Yeah, you just walk home, buddy, you know,

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Speaker 1: like walk home drunk. I don't give a fuck yet, right,

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Speaker 1: And so his stepbrother walks home and gets their mom

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Speaker 1: and tells them what happened, and Marquette's mom is like,

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Speaker 1: the fuck is he doing? He's drinking, And so she

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Speaker 1: shows up and she starts yelling at her son. Now,

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Speaker 1: it's a hot August night, a seed isn't really a

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Speaker 1: thing from especially in Los Angeles for people. So everyone

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Speaker 1: hangs out outside anyway, right, and there's fuck all to

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Speaker 1: do because it's the mid sixties. So you see some

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Speaker 1: people get pulled over and you hear yelling. What happens?

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Speaker 4: Next?

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Speaker 1: Everyone shows up, right, and how drunk? Is everybody about

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Speaker 1: as drunk as Marquette and a stepbrother, right, and presumably

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Speaker 1: the cop and his mom. Right, Like everyone's everyone's I'm assuming,

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Speaker 1: at a roughly equivalent level of toasted.

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Speaker 3: You know.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, So across this crowd and across the PD, decision

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Speaker 1: making is going to be at about up like, let's

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Speaker 1: say a three out of ten for everyone involved in this, right,

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Speaker 1: No one is their best self on a hot August

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Speaker 1: night in nineteen sixty five, you.

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Speaker 3: Know, and when you hear a commotion that brings everybody

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Speaker 3: out to be like, oh, what's going on there?

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Speaker 2: Fuck it?

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Speaker 1: And the cops are the same way, like, hey man,

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Speaker 1: put down your.

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Speaker 2: Snops, let's go.

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Speaker 1: We gotta deal with these fucking crowds, right, grab a shotgun,

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Speaker 1: put whatever in it.

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Speaker 2: I don't care.

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Speaker 3: By the way, your old timey drunk cop impression ten.

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Speaker 1: Ten everyone drunk, everyone right. So a crowd gathers around

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Speaker 1: the arrest at this point, and again it you know,

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Speaker 1: the city situation gets out of control in the way

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Speaker 1: that things do, and the book El a Nooir describes

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Speaker 1: what happens next. By the time Marquette got angry, a

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Speaker 1: crowd of roughly one hundred bystanders had gathered. Some of

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Speaker 1: them started to murmur angrily. Minicus's partner slipped off and

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Speaker 1: radioed a code eleven ninety nine. Officer needs help. He

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Speaker 1: returned with a baton used for riot control. The officer

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Speaker 1: in the patrol car grabbed his shotgun. The crowd, now

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Speaker 1: numbering perhaps one hundred and fifty people, was starting to

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Speaker 1: turn hostile. Hit those blue eyed bastards, A voice yelled,

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Speaker 1: while one Highway patrol officer waved his shotgun at the crowd.

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Speaker 1: The two motorcycle police officers attempted to grab Marquette. A

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Speaker 1: scuffle broke out as California Highway Patrol reinforcements arrived at

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Speaker 1: the scene. Marquette was struck by a baton and collapsed

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Speaker 1: on the ground. Missus Fry jumped onto the back of

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Speaker 1: the arresting officers, screaming, you white Southern bastard. Little brother

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Speaker 1: Ronald got into the mix too. By seven twenty three pm,

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Speaker 1: all the Fries were under arrest. The crowd was now screaming.

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Speaker 1: And what do we see here? A crowd who are

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Speaker 1: not their best selves and a bunch of cop show

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Speaker 1: up with weapons and start hitting people, and everything gets

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Speaker 1: much worse because the cops showed up and started hitting people.

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Speaker 2: Right, Yeah, way to de escalate cops. Yeah sounds great.

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Speaker 1: Glad a guy with a shotgun and a baton came

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Speaker 1: into this situation that things down. The best thing to

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Speaker 1: have shown up right then would have been, like, I

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Speaker 1: don't know, the local pastor with a pot of coffee

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Speaker 1: and like, everyone, shut the hell up, drink some coffee,

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Speaker 1: and go the fuck back to your stoops. Come on,

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Speaker 1: what the fuck are you doing? Right, that's what the

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Speaker 1: situation needed.

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Speaker 2: You know.

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Speaker 1: Things just get worse from here on out Right, the

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Speaker 1: Fries get hauled off, and more cops starts showing up

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Speaker 1: because again everyone's drunk and everyone's fighting now, and the

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Speaker 1: cops start hitting everybody with night sticks. Fry is beaten

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Speaker 1: badly in the process of being taken away. This angers

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Speaker 1: the crowd even more is he's taken off, more officers

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Speaker 1: arrive and they just start beating members of the crowd

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Speaker 1: because someone thinks they get spit on. It may just

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Speaker 1: be everyone's yelling and kind of drunk in their spittleflow

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Speaker 1: because people are yelling at each other. He spit on me,

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Speaker 1: I spit on him, and then they just start beating

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Speaker 1: the fuck out of each other.

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Speaker 4: Right.

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Speaker 1: The cops pulled back at around seven forty pm, but

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Speaker 1: the crowd doesn't disperse and they start throwing rocks and

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Speaker 1: attacking white drivers that they see going through town. Right,

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Speaker 1: and one of these white people who's like showing up

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Speaker 1: in plane clothes is Daryl Gates. So Daryl's car gets

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Speaker 1: pelted with shit as he shows up because he's supposed

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Speaker 1: to be looking at the scene because he's thirty eight.

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Speaker 1: He's one of the youngest inspectors in LA history.

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Speaker 4: Right.

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Speaker 1: He had actually only been heading through Watts because he

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Speaker 1: was going to a labor strike nearby when he heard

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Speaker 1: over the radio that there was a civil disturbance, and

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Speaker 1: he recalls that by the time he arrived, quote, a

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Speaker 1: kind of crazed carnival atmosphere had broken out. There was

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Speaker 1: scattered violence, but there was no single mob, and things

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Speaker 1: were mostly limited to an eight block radius. So what

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Speaker 1: you have here is not a serious problem. Right. People

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Speaker 1: have gotten a little out of hand. The cops have

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Speaker 1: beaten up some people. People are throwing rocks at cars,

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Speaker 1: but it's kind of scattered, and there's it's not like

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Speaker 1: a motivating animus to what's happening. It's just a hot night,

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Speaker 1: and everybody's blood is up right, And the people who

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Speaker 1: know anything about the neighborhood again, like the local pastors

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Speaker 1: and like neighborhood organizers, the old grandmas and stuff, are like,

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Speaker 1: everyone needs to just calm the fuck down. If everyone

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Speaker 1: pulls back, folks will calm down and they'll sleep it off,

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Speaker 1: and they'll wake up the morning and it'll be okay. Right,

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Speaker 1: like anyone who knows anything is like, just give everyone

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Speaker 1: time to cool the fuck down, right, But this is

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Speaker 1: not what's going to happen, because Gates winds up the

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Speaker 1: man in charge on the ground that night, right, and

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Speaker 1: his first priority is to put a lid on the

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Speaker 1: situation and stop it from spreading. And he tries to

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Speaker 1: stop it from spreading by doing the same thing that

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Speaker 1: had made it to spread, right, And it had started

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Speaker 1: spreading because a bunch more cops showed up and started

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Speaker 1: hitting people, And so he's like, well, what we need

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Speaker 1: here is more cops, right, get all of our drunkest

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Speaker 1: officers at three in the morning out here with sticks.

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Speaker 1: You know, some of them gonna have shotguns, fuck it,

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Speaker 1: you know, make sure they got enough shnops to stay awake. Right.

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Speaker 1: So by three or four am, he's like, hey, everyone's

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Speaker 1: calmed down. This must be because all these cops made

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Speaker 1: the situation as posed to like, no, it's four in

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Speaker 1: the morning, everyone fall asleep, right. And again, if the

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Speaker 1: cops had left and not come back, people would have

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Speaker 1: woken up hungover and been like, well, last night was

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Speaker 1: kind of weird and like it would have been over probably, right,

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Speaker 1: m hm, And the very next day, you know, the

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Speaker 1: police or the media, you know, Parker has to give

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Speaker 1: a press conference in the LA Times is like, so,

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Speaker 1: what happens Is this a race riot because that was

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Speaker 1: happening around this period of time in the US, And

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Speaker 1: he's like, no, no, no, We're not having a race riot.

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Speaker 1: And he says it's not a race right because quote,

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Speaker 1: all the rioters are negroes. Right, can't be a race

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Speaker 1: riot if it's only one race. Like, just what, I

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Speaker 1: don't know, man, Okay, Like, I agree, it's not a

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Speaker 1: race riot, but your justification for why is really weird. Right, Yeah, it.

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Speaker 3: Seems like a theme with this guy is just I

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Speaker 3: can't follow I can't follow the logic.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, and it's true again, this is a race, right,

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Speaker 1: Yet people were angry one hot night and it's kind

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Speaker 1: of calmed down by the next day. The reason why

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Speaker 1: everyone's asking is this another race, right, is that nineteen

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Speaker 1: sixty four had seen several race riots in major cities, right,

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Speaker 1: and Parker had been warned by leaders in the community,

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Speaker 1: particularly leaders in Watts, that like that could happen here,

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Speaker 1: Like people are pissed, you know, everyone's blood is up

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Speaker 1: as a result of the civil rights movement as a

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Speaker 1: result of what you know, the cops beating the shit

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Speaker 1: out of protesters all around. This could happen here if

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Speaker 1: we're not safe, if we don't stop the police from

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Speaker 1: becoming from doing what they've been doing in places like Selma.

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Speaker 4: Right.

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Speaker 1: But Gates ignores the warnings.

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Speaker 4: Right.

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Speaker 1: He tells all these local leaders who say, hey, we

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Speaker 1: need to keep the cops out of Watts for a

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Speaker 1: while and get people a chance to cool down. He's like,

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Speaker 1: we don't need to do that. Los Angeles has never

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Speaker 1: seen quote an insurgency situation, and it never will if

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Speaker 1: we know. If I know one thing is Daryl Gates

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Speaker 1: about the city of Los Angeles, It's never going to

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Speaker 1: see an insurgency against the police. Los Angeles will forever

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Speaker 1: be known, is the calmest city.

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Speaker 2: Never any problems. Yeah.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, it's interesting to me that had he listened to

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Speaker 3: these local leaders. I almost wonder if the fact that

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Speaker 3: these local leaders, the old ladies.

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Speaker 2: And pastors and community leaders, but.

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Speaker 3: They were saying, what we don't need is police making

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Speaker 3: the situation worse and escalating, if that seemed kind of threatening, like, oh,

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Speaker 3: you won't tell.

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Speaker 2: Me where police can and can't go right.

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Speaker 1: And again, I'm not a big community policing will save

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Speaker 1: all of our problems thing. But if the cops and

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Speaker 1: Watts had been like mostly black officers from Watts, that

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Speaker 1: also might have called, because they probably would have been like,

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Speaker 1: hey man, no, we shouldn't have a bunch of guys

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Speaker 1: out because my mom just told me don't do that, right,

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Speaker 1: or like my pastor is like, hey man, we don't

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Speaker 1: need you guys here right now. Calm the fuck down, right,

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Speaker 1: But that's not the way the laped works either, right,

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Speaker 1: So that's just not happening. These are white officers who

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Speaker 1: don't live in Watts who are being told you're going

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Speaker 1: into a very dangerous situation. Keep your guard up because

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Speaker 1: these people are animals, right, that's what they're being told

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Speaker 1: right now. Part of why things are going to get

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Speaker 1: a lot worse is that, you know, Gates is the

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Speaker 1: man on the ground, but Parker is running the department.

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Speaker 1: And the year before, in sixty four, as all these

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Speaker 1: race rids are happening across the country, park had gone

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Speaker 1: on a right wing radio show to warn that he

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Speaker 1: thought a slow motion socialist revolution was occurring throughout the country.

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Speaker 1: So the guy in charge of everything is like, we

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Speaker 1: have to always be on guard and respond violently to

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Speaker 1: anything that smells like a protest because it could be

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Speaker 1: part of this USSR backed Kami revolution. Right, So that's

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Speaker 1: how the boss is thinking about things now. Again, the

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Speaker 1: day after things kick, the day after the Fries get arrested,

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Speaker 1: and there's that first night of it's not even really rioting,

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Speaker 1: but like some scattered you know, fighting, and you know whatnot,

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Speaker 1: it seems like things are going to sputter out.

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Speaker 2: Right.

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Speaker 1: There are a bunch of community meetings. Local leaders are

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Speaker 1: getting everyone together, trying to turn down the temperature and

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Speaker 1: all these again, as I said, they're being like, please

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Speaker 1: keep the cops out of town. We can handle. And

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Speaker 1: Parker ignores them, right, he actually says in a press

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Speaker 1: conference he calls them be so called leaders of the

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Speaker 1: black community, and he accuses them of trying to relieve

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Speaker 1: the Negro people of any responsibility for what had happened

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Speaker 1: that night. Right, Yeah, cool guy. To make a long

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Speaker 1: story short, he ignores the requests of these local leaders

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Speaker 1: to avoid sending cops back into Watts that night, and

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Speaker 1: Parker and Daryl Gates sit down and they work up

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Speaker 1: a plan where Gates is going to oversee the epulimit

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Speaker 1: of several hundred police officers into Watts that night to

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Speaker 1: deter the rioters. So things have calmed down. There's still

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Speaker 1: some angry people in the street, but there's no rioting,

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Speaker 1: and so they're like, well, in order to make sure

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Speaker 1: there continues to be in no rioting, let's get like

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Speaker 1: two or three hundred cops and Watts tonight, right, Let's

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Speaker 1: flood the zone with all of our armed, drunk guys.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, that'll calm things down.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly. So this does not work. This is a

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Speaker 1: dismal failure. And under Gates is direct leadership and Parker's

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Speaker 1: overall command. And I'm not trying to this is not

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Speaker 1: an episode about Parker. He does deserve a bastard's probably,

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Speaker 1: but I don't want to like. Gates is the guy

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Speaker 1: on the ground. Gates is like Patten, and Parker is

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Speaker 1: like Eisenhower. If we're making a World War two comparison

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Speaker 1: here to the Watts riots, you know, so under Gates's

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Speaker 1: direct leadership, in Parker's overall command, the LAPD re engages

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Speaker 1: in Watts and violence sparks off again. The next six

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Speaker 1: days would see more than six hundred buildings damaged and

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Speaker 1: destroyed and more than one thousand people injured. Thirty four

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Speaker 1: people are killed. Right, so this goes from some dudes

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Speaker 1: have thrown rocks one night to a huge chunk of

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Speaker 1: the city is on fire, dozens of people are dead

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Speaker 1: and more than a thousands are injured. Right, it is

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Speaker 1: a fucking calamity. And it becomes a fucking calamity because

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Speaker 1: they flood this neighborhood with cops. Well, everyone who knows

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Speaker 1: anything about Watts is like, keep them out of here. Right.

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Speaker 1: In an article for The Metropole, Aaron Staghoff Belfort explains

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Speaker 1: how Parker and Gates interpreted and explained what had happened

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Speaker 1: this cataclysm that erupts from their decision making quote. The

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Speaker 1: National Guard were deployed, and public officials framed the events

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Speaker 1: not merely a civil unrest but as a new form

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Speaker 1: of urban governance crisis. Parker compared the rebellion to Viet

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Speaker 1: Cong insurgency, insisting a paramilitary response was necessary, while Governor

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Speaker 1: Pat Brown described the events as guerrillas fighting with gangsters.

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Speaker 1: For Gates, Watts crystallized the stakes of what he saw

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Speaker 1: as America's spiraling urban crisis, the specter of disorder, black insurgency,

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Speaker 1: and the perceived loss of police control over racialized city scapes.

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Speaker 1: And he's dead. These aren't cops getting killed by fucking

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Speaker 1: Punji stick traps. They're people getting killed mostly by the cops, right,

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Speaker 1: and the National Guard. This is not an insurgency. That's

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Speaker 1: not what it looks like. But this is if we're

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Speaker 1: looking at like what's happening right now, where people are

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Speaker 1: talking about fifty people in front of the Ice Building

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Speaker 1: in Portland, fucking third of them dressed as frogs, being

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Speaker 1: described as like a militant movement, as an army, as

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Speaker 1: a war zone. This is the start of that language

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Speaker 1: in response to urban unrest.

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Speaker 3: Right, This is so easy to see that through line

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Speaker 3: of what you're describing and what is happening today right

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Speaker 3: now in our cities. And it's wild to think how

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Speaker 3: this one person really is responsible for architecting a lot.

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Speaker 2: Of them today.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, Parker, and Parker too, you know his boss, but Gates,

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Speaker 1: you know, And as Gates wrote in Chief about the

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Speaker 1: Watts riots, we had no idea how to deal with this.

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Speaker 1: We were constantly ducking bottles, rocks, knives and molotov cocktails.

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Speaker 1: It was random chaos and small disparate patches. We did

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Speaker 1: not know how to handle guerrilla warfare. Rather than a

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Speaker 1: single mob, we had people attacking from all directions. The

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Speaker 1: streets of America's cities had become foreign territory. And like,

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Speaker 1: the one thing that's true there is that it is

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Speaker 1: foreign territory for your cops because they're not from there

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Speaker 1: and they don't know these people, and you're not listening

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Speaker 1: to them.

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Speaker 2: Wouldn't even be in this situation.

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Speaker 3: If you listen to the black auntie from around the way,

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Speaker 3: you might.

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Speaker 2: Even be in this situation.

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Speaker 1: It is like Vietnam, and that like, yeah, if you

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Speaker 1: guys just stayed out, it would have been okay, right,

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Speaker 1: This would have calmed down if you'd stayed the fuck away, right,

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Speaker 1: because then there's nothing for the angry people to get

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Speaker 1: drunk and angry about. And you're drunken angry cops aren't

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Speaker 1: going to be inciting more violence.

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Speaker 4: Right.

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Speaker 1: And again, just like first off, this fundamental misunderstanding is

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Speaker 1: part of the thinking here. And how they apply Vietnam

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Speaker 1: logic to Watts kind of shows you why we lost

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Speaker 1: in Vietnam, because he's describing this Gates is as like

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Speaker 1: a military insurgency, but he also describes it as random

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Speaker 1: chaos and small disparate patches. That's not what an insurgency is.

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Speaker 1: The Vietcong, the insurgents in Vietnam, we're not doing random, disparate,

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Speaker 1: small acts of violence. They were doing coordinated attacks working

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Speaker 1: with a functional like actual standardized military the NVA, as

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Speaker 1: part of a strategy of tension, which successfully defeated the

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Speaker 1: United States. And again, the fact that you don't know

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Speaker 1: this is part of why you're going to lose this

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Speaker 1: and why you're going to lose Vietnam, right, is that

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Speaker 1: we never understand what any of this is, right, because

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Speaker 1: these people are dumb, arrogant, angry assholes with guns.

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Speaker 3: And they have a real inability to look back and

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Speaker 3: take and sort of take away things, glean things, learn lessons.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, like the fact that this all goes as bad

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Speaker 1: as it could have gone, exactly as these community leaders predicted.

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Speaker 1: Is like, well, maybe I should change everything I think about,

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Speaker 1: like how policing should work. But that is not the

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Speaker 1: lesson that Darryl Gates is going to learn from the

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Speaker 1: Watts riots. You know, if he were an intelligent and

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Speaker 1: thoughtful man. He might have been like, well, shit, I

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Speaker 1: fucked up. Our response was clearly disaster. Maybe we need

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Speaker 1: to fundamentally rethink how the police respond. He does decide,

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Speaker 1: He does come to the conclusion that, like, we do

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Speaker 1: need to fundamentally rethink how police respond to civil unrest, right,

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Speaker 1: but he doesn't think maybe by having them de escalate

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Speaker 1: these situations rather than show Instead, he's going to be like, no, no, no,

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Speaker 1: we need as more cops with more that would have

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Speaker 1: calmed this ship down.

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Speaker 2: More guns, more schnops.

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Speaker 1: Right, more schnops, more guns. That's Darrel Gates' policy, right.

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Speaker 3: Which, if we're not talking about police, it actually doesn't

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Speaker 3: sound like a bad time.

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Speaker 1: No, no, no, people, you should in fact have more

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Speaker 1: schnops and more gun I'm always telling people this, right,

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Speaker 1: more and more guns. It makes everything better. Right, Speaking

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Speaker 1: of being heavily armed and drunk as hell, let's see

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Speaker 1: if any of our sponsors are relevant to that. And

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Speaker 1: we're back.

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Speaker 2: So I'm giving you.

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Speaker 4: I gave you a slow clap for that one.

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Speaker 1: Thank you, Sophie, thank you. I'm glad we turned down

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Speaker 1: the one gun manufacturer that ever offered to advertise on

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Speaker 1: this podcast. Sophie knows what that story is. I can't

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Speaker 1: say anymore, probably for legal reasons.

405
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Speaker 2: But oh boy, yeah, uh yeah.

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Speaker 1: So Darryl Gates, you know, well, He's decided what we

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Speaker 1: need in the LAPD is more armed men with bigger guns, right,

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Speaker 1: and the new tactics we need are making them get

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Speaker 1: more violent, more faster. You know, Gates would devote large

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Speaker 1: portions of the remainder of his life and career to

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Speaker 1: figuring out how to get the LAPD bigger guns and

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Speaker 1: more men so that they could respond to any given

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Speaker 1: situation with a team of goons who had more weapons

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Speaker 1: than the National Guard, you know, heavier hardware. And this

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Speaker 1: bridget is where SWAT teams come from, because Darryl Gates's

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Speaker 1: next big move is being the co creator of the

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Speaker 1: very first SWAT team.

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Speaker 4: Right.

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Speaker 1: This is before he's the chief of police. Immediately after Watts,

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Speaker 1: he starts sitting down with a couple of guys. And

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Speaker 1: he's not the only founder of SWAT or even necessarily

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Speaker 1: a guy. Cut Probably most responsible for the basic ideas

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Speaker 1: that becomes SWAT is another LAPD officer, John Nelson, who's

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Speaker 1: a Vietnam veteran and a former marine who joins the

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Speaker 1: LAPD and Nelson and the Gates are both united in

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Speaker 1: their opinion that the department had fucked up in response

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Speaker 1: to the Watts riots in sixty five, and that we

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Speaker 1: need a new unit with special weapons and tactics that

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Speaker 1: can crack down on urban insurgencies.

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Speaker 2: Right.

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Speaker 1: That's the birth of SWAT teams. Now, Watts isn't the

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Speaker 1: only reason why they decide they need this new team.

433
00:21:17,760 --> 00:21:20,440
Speaker 1: Within weeks of the Watts riots, large numbers of Mexican

434
00:21:20,440 --> 00:21:23,199
Speaker 1: and Filipino agricultural laborers had gone on strike in the

435
00:21:23,240 --> 00:21:26,639
Speaker 1: San Joaquin Valley. This became known as the Delano Grape Strike,

436
00:21:26,720 --> 00:21:29,240
Speaker 1: and it was a seminal moment in California's labor history,

437
00:21:29,400 --> 00:21:32,360
Speaker 1: per an article in the Metropol Quote, with the ariser

438
00:21:32,400 --> 00:21:35,080
Speaker 1: of Caesar Chavez and the formation of the United farm Workers,

439
00:21:35,080 --> 00:21:38,240
Speaker 1: the movement rapidly expanded in size and national visibility. Back

440
00:21:38,280 --> 00:21:41,600
Speaker 1: in Los Angeles, LAPD personnel watched with interest as television

441
00:21:41,640 --> 00:21:44,879
Speaker 1: reports highlighted the Delano Police Department's crowd control tactics and

442
00:21:44,920 --> 00:21:48,480
Speaker 1: surveillance strategies. Intrigued, they reached out to Delano officials to

443
00:21:48,520 --> 00:21:52,919
Speaker 1: observe the program firsthand and This combined with Watts and

444
00:21:52,960 --> 00:21:55,880
Speaker 1: some other high profile shootings that take place at the time,

445
00:21:56,600 --> 00:21:59,679
Speaker 1: are all kind of fuel for this idea that what

446
00:22:00,760 --> 00:22:04,800
Speaker 1: is its own special forces unit to take on gang crime? Right,

447
00:22:05,160 --> 00:22:06,480
Speaker 1: And that's part of what this big part of what's

448
00:22:06,480 --> 00:22:09,560
Speaker 1: happening here is we're seeing the use the first deployment

449
00:22:09,560 --> 00:22:13,600
Speaker 1: of special forces in a big way in Vietnam, and

450
00:22:13,640 --> 00:22:15,600
Speaker 1: a lot of these former military guys who get in

451
00:22:15,600 --> 00:22:18,159
Speaker 1: the lapd are like, you know, what's definitely going to

452
00:22:18,240 --> 00:22:22,159
Speaker 1: win the war in Vietnam special forces guys. We can

453
00:22:22,240 --> 00:22:25,639
Speaker 1: win the war on crime if we add special forces guys.

454
00:22:26,160 --> 00:22:27,919
Speaker 3: And I have a question for you. I don't know

455
00:22:27,920 --> 00:22:30,199
Speaker 3: if this is the question you can answer. But the

456
00:22:30,240 --> 00:22:33,119
Speaker 3: way that people today, the way that people you know,

457
00:22:33,240 --> 00:22:35,560
Speaker 3: conserve it's a conservative talking point that, oh, we're at

458
00:22:35,600 --> 00:22:38,240
Speaker 3: war with our own citizens, YadA, YadA, YadA. Do you

459
00:22:38,359 --> 00:22:41,440
Speaker 3: think that this was also the beginning of thinking about,

460
00:22:41,720 --> 00:22:45,000
Speaker 3: you know, black folks in LA or Watts as kind

461
00:22:45,040 --> 00:22:47,760
Speaker 3: of enemy combatants, like talking about them like you're talking

462
00:22:47,760 --> 00:22:50,920
Speaker 3: about a foreign enemy. Do you think this was also

463
00:22:51,000 --> 00:22:52,520
Speaker 3: coinciding with that kind of attitude.

464
00:22:52,840 --> 00:22:56,320
Speaker 1: Yes, And again it's never you can never with these

465
00:22:56,320 --> 00:22:58,359
Speaker 1: things say and this is the very first time, because

466
00:22:58,359 --> 00:23:00,840
Speaker 1: you can even find evidence of that around the turn

467
00:23:00,840 --> 00:23:02,480
Speaker 1: of the century, and like the twenties and thirties and

468
00:23:02,520 --> 00:23:05,280
Speaker 1: the gangster era, there's talk like that from law enforcement.

469
00:23:05,600 --> 00:23:07,800
Speaker 1: There's talk like that from law enforcement in response to

470
00:23:07,920 --> 00:23:10,919
Speaker 1: around the turn of the century when anarchist terrorism is

471
00:23:10,920 --> 00:23:12,880
Speaker 1: a really big deal in the US and elsewhere.

472
00:23:13,040 --> 00:23:13,159
Speaker 4: Right.

473
00:23:13,800 --> 00:23:16,840
Speaker 1: So all of these things they have earlier precursors, and

474
00:23:16,840 --> 00:23:19,040
Speaker 1: I'm not even saying that those are the very first examples,

475
00:23:19,520 --> 00:23:21,320
Speaker 1: but this is the first time that that's really happening

476
00:23:21,320 --> 00:23:23,840
Speaker 1: in a very modern way. And where they're saying the

477
00:23:23,880 --> 00:23:26,600
Speaker 1: response to this is we need to take this idea

478
00:23:26,720 --> 00:23:29,359
Speaker 1: that's new in the military, of these special forces units,

479
00:23:29,359 --> 00:23:33,000
Speaker 1: and we need specops units for American cities. Right. That

480
00:23:33,240 --> 00:23:36,680
Speaker 1: is very new and modern, and that does start exactly here, right,

481
00:23:37,000 --> 00:23:38,760
Speaker 1: And it is to a degree building on things. You

482
00:23:38,800 --> 00:23:41,879
Speaker 1: can draw a line again from the birth of SWAT

483
00:23:42,320 --> 00:23:45,119
Speaker 1: to back to the hunt for John Dillinger, and you

484
00:23:45,160 --> 00:23:47,720
Speaker 1: know these FBI units that are going after gangsters, right,

485
00:23:48,000 --> 00:23:52,240
Speaker 1: this is not entirely disconnected from that stuff in the past, right,

486
00:23:52,680 --> 00:23:55,719
Speaker 1: But it's Watts and the Delano grape strike that really

487
00:23:55,800 --> 00:23:59,200
Speaker 1: are the direct inciting influences for the birth of SWAT,

488
00:23:59,440 --> 00:24:02,200
Speaker 1: right for the birth of this idea that our cops

489
00:24:02,240 --> 00:24:05,080
Speaker 1: are at war in American cities and we need to

490
00:24:05,160 --> 00:24:08,680
Speaker 1: take the tactics that we're using in these colonial wars

491
00:24:08,720 --> 00:24:11,560
Speaker 1: overseas and bring them home. This is where, really when

492
00:24:11,560 --> 00:24:16,080
Speaker 1: that gets started in an organized way. Now, if you

493
00:24:16,160 --> 00:24:18,680
Speaker 1: know anything about SWAT units, you know the name stands

494
00:24:18,720 --> 00:24:20,800
Speaker 1: for Special Weapons and Tactics or did you know that,

495
00:24:20,840 --> 00:24:24,919
Speaker 1: bridget I did know that. Yeah, yeah, so that's like

496
00:24:25,720 --> 00:24:29,080
Speaker 1: what the actual like, that's the current acronym for, or

497
00:24:29,160 --> 00:24:31,920
Speaker 1: that's what it stands for. But initially SWAT was always

498
00:24:31,920 --> 00:24:34,720
Speaker 1: the acronym. But that's not what it stood for initially.

499
00:24:35,040 --> 00:24:36,919
Speaker 1: And to give that story, I'm going to quote from

500
00:24:36,960 --> 00:24:40,320
Speaker 1: Gates's book Chief. One day, with a big smile on

501
00:24:40,400 --> 00:24:42,440
Speaker 1: my face, I popped in to tell my deputy Chief

502
00:24:42,560 --> 00:24:44,560
Speaker 1: Ed Davis that I'd bought up a new acronym for

503
00:24:44,640 --> 00:24:47,960
Speaker 1: my special new unit. It's SWAT. I said, Oh, that's

504
00:24:47,960 --> 00:24:51,640
Speaker 1: pretty good. What's it stand for? Special Weapons Attack Teams?

505
00:24:51,960 --> 00:24:56,159
Speaker 1: Davis blinked, No, there was no way, he said, dismissively,

506
00:24:56,200 --> 00:24:58,400
Speaker 1: that he would ever use the word attack. I went

507
00:24:58,440 --> 00:25:01,119
Speaker 1: out crestfallen. But a moment later I was back special

508
00:25:01,200 --> 00:25:04,879
Speaker 1: weapons and tactics. I said, Okay, no problem, that's fine,

509
00:25:04,960 --> 00:25:07,280
Speaker 1: Davis said, And that's how SWAT was born.

510
00:25:08,200 --> 00:25:09,640
Speaker 2: I have an important question for you.

511
00:25:09,720 --> 00:25:13,040
Speaker 3: Have you ever seen the terrible movie Swat with Samuel L.

512
00:25:13,160 --> 00:25:14,400
Speaker 2: Jackson from two thousand and three?

513
00:25:14,760 --> 00:25:19,119
Speaker 1: I have, yes, and that is a god awful movie.

514
00:25:19,840 --> 00:25:20,679
Speaker 2: Yeah.

515
00:25:20,720 --> 00:25:24,000
Speaker 1: And this is, by the way, the fact that there

516
00:25:24,000 --> 00:25:27,560
Speaker 1: are TV shows and movies about SWAT, as I'll talk about,

517
00:25:27,600 --> 00:25:30,800
Speaker 1: is a huge factor in the birth of copaganda that's

518
00:25:30,840 --> 00:25:32,880
Speaker 1: happening at the same time SWAT is being born. I'll

519
00:25:32,880 --> 00:25:35,159
Speaker 1: talk about that in a little bit later, right, And

520
00:25:35,240 --> 00:25:38,760
Speaker 1: quite frankly, I do like Gates as I wish we'd

521
00:25:38,840 --> 00:25:41,800
Speaker 1: use the original name for SWAT that Gates came up with,

522
00:25:42,080 --> 00:25:45,600
Speaker 1: because it's truer to what they do. They're teams with

523
00:25:45,680 --> 00:25:50,439
Speaker 1: special weapons who attack American citizens, Right, That's what SWAT is,

524
00:25:50,840 --> 00:25:54,479
Speaker 1: you know, crediting the guys who are best known today

525
00:25:54,600 --> 00:25:58,440
Speaker 1: for throwing flash bangs into children's cribs and lighting babies

526
00:25:58,480 --> 00:26:01,959
Speaker 1: on fire. Like I don't know if tactics is what

527
00:26:02,000 --> 00:26:04,080
Speaker 1: i'd call that. I guess you could say it's a

528
00:26:04,160 --> 00:26:08,960
Speaker 1: tactic you know, I like what Gates's original acronym is

529
00:26:08,960 --> 00:26:12,399
Speaker 1: at least honest, right, but it's bad optics. You know,

530
00:26:12,480 --> 00:26:16,000
Speaker 1: Davis is his coach deputy chief is probably right that, like,

531
00:26:16,080 --> 00:26:18,680
Speaker 1: now we don't want to attack in there, right, come on, bro,

532
00:26:18,880 --> 00:26:22,919
Speaker 1: Like that's kind of fucked up. Yeah. So the broader

533
00:26:23,000 --> 00:26:26,399
Speaker 1: strategic impulse behind the creation of the first SWAT team

534
00:26:26,840 --> 00:26:30,000
Speaker 1: is essentially cribbing from how the US military was handling Vietnam.

535
00:26:30,400 --> 00:26:33,400
Speaker 1: And this is coming to be in like the late

536
00:26:33,480 --> 00:26:36,280
Speaker 1: sixties early seventies, as it's become clear that we're losing

537
00:26:36,480 --> 00:26:39,800
Speaker 1: in Vietnam and that this this idea of well, yeah,

538
00:26:39,880 --> 00:26:42,080
Speaker 1: we have you have these small teams that are super

539
00:26:42,200 --> 00:26:45,920
Speaker 1: hyper trained for doing very specific acts of targeted violence,

540
00:26:46,280 --> 00:26:49,720
Speaker 1: and it's not working. We're not winning because just having

541
00:26:49,760 --> 00:26:53,000
Speaker 1: some guys who are good at killing, really good at killing,

542
00:26:53,520 --> 00:26:57,440
Speaker 1: doesn't win wars, because wars aren't mostly about how good

543
00:26:57,480 --> 00:27:00,160
Speaker 1: you can train a small number of dudes to kill.

544
00:27:00,320 --> 00:27:03,600
Speaker 1: They're about whether or not you have a plan for victory. Right.

545
00:27:04,240 --> 00:27:07,920
Speaker 1: We didn't win World War Two because our men Man

546
00:27:07,920 --> 00:27:13,800
Speaker 1: demand were the best killers. Mandman German soldiers were generally

547
00:27:13,920 --> 00:27:17,639
Speaker 1: better fighters than their counterparts in most theaters, not to

548
00:27:17,680 --> 00:27:20,560
Speaker 1: the extent that this is usually claimed, but generally this

549
00:27:20,720 --> 00:27:25,600
Speaker 1: is the case, right, And they lost badly because we

550
00:27:25,680 --> 00:27:29,800
Speaker 1: had all of the resources and the logistics, And that's

551
00:27:29,840 --> 00:27:35,879
Speaker 1: what wins wars. Having gasoline and steel wins wars. Knowing

552
00:27:35,960 --> 00:27:38,680
Speaker 1: where to move men and where not to waste their

553
00:27:38,800 --> 00:27:43,760
Speaker 1: lives wins wars. Individual dudes being really good at shooting

554
00:27:43,840 --> 00:27:48,679
Speaker 1: other individual dudes doesn't win wars. It just doesn't. It

555
00:27:48,760 --> 00:27:52,199
Speaker 1: never has and it never will. What wins wars is

556
00:27:52,320 --> 00:27:54,640
Speaker 1: having a plan for how to win that fucking war.

557
00:27:55,520 --> 00:27:57,960
Speaker 3: Also, let's say that it did. Why would you want

558
00:27:58,080 --> 00:27:59,920
Speaker 3: to take the tactics of a war that did it

559
00:28:00,240 --> 00:28:00,640
Speaker 3: go well?

560
00:28:00,800 --> 00:28:03,280
Speaker 1: That we get our at well, it's very obvious by

561
00:28:03,320 --> 00:28:06,040
Speaker 1: the late sixties, Oh shit, no, this has worked well. Right.

562
00:28:06,119 --> 00:28:08,560
Speaker 1: That's what's constantly amazing to me when everyone's like, what

563
00:28:08,560 --> 00:28:10,240
Speaker 1: we got to do is what we're doing in Vietnam?

564
00:28:10,760 --> 00:28:11,040
Speaker 4: Why?

565
00:28:11,560 --> 00:28:12,760
Speaker 2: Why?

566
00:28:14,200 --> 00:28:14,280
Speaker 3: So?

567
00:28:15,400 --> 00:28:19,840
Speaker 1: Gates, though, is reading obsessively from US military counterinsurgency manuals,

568
00:28:19,880 --> 00:28:23,760
Speaker 1: and he's learning about coin counterinsurgency strategies in the early

569
00:28:23,840 --> 00:28:26,000
Speaker 1: Vietnam War period, and the fact that those strategies had

570
00:28:26,080 --> 00:28:29,359
Speaker 1: failed was immaterial to him, as Aaron Staghoff Belford writes

571
00:28:29,840 --> 00:28:33,000
Speaker 1: he consulted with marines at the Naval Armory and Chavez Ravine.

572
00:28:33,040 --> 00:28:35,679
Speaker 1: It was out of a belief in counterinsurgency's ability to

573
00:28:35,720 --> 00:28:38,800
Speaker 1: discipline the metropolis where domestic unrest could be neutralized like

574
00:28:38,840 --> 00:28:44,640
Speaker 1: insurgencies abroad, that SWAT was born. Now, shockingly, the other

575
00:28:44,760 --> 00:28:48,680
Speaker 1: higher ups at the LAPD don't immediately embrace this idea.

576
00:28:48,760 --> 00:28:51,600
Speaker 1: So Gates and a couple other people have to work

577
00:28:51,640 --> 00:28:54,800
Speaker 1: in their own time, kind of clandestinely to set up

578
00:28:54,840 --> 00:28:57,400
Speaker 1: the SWAT team. They're initially doing this sort of unsanctioned

579
00:28:57,680 --> 00:29:00,840
Speaker 1: Staghoff bell Ford describes it as an unsann and experiment,

580
00:29:01,240 --> 00:29:04,440
Speaker 1: and they start by bringing in this part maybe apocryphal,

581
00:29:04,480 --> 00:29:07,000
Speaker 1: but the story is, they're like, who is best at

582
00:29:07,040 --> 00:29:09,280
Speaker 1: shooting in the whole department. Let's get the twenty best

583
00:29:09,320 --> 00:29:12,040
Speaker 1: sharp shooters we got and those will be our first

584
00:29:12,160 --> 00:29:15,400
Speaker 1: LAPD SWAT team. And they carry out these clandestine training

585
00:29:15,440 --> 00:29:19,200
Speaker 1: operations on farms in the valley. Eventually they graduate to

586
00:29:19,240 --> 00:29:22,720
Speaker 1: training with Marines at Camp Pendleton, which feels like a

587
00:29:22,800 --> 00:29:25,680
Speaker 1: violation of the spirit of possecombatatas if not the letter

588
00:29:25,760 --> 00:29:29,080
Speaker 1: of the law. Right Army's not supposed to engage in policing,

589
00:29:29,360 --> 00:29:33,240
Speaker 1: but we can train the cops, right, Why is that

590
00:29:33,280 --> 00:29:34,360
Speaker 1: a problem with anybody?

591
00:29:34,440 --> 00:29:34,600
Speaker 4: You know?

592
00:29:34,760 --> 00:29:37,560
Speaker 2: Found a little workaround, found a little workaround.

593
00:29:37,840 --> 00:29:41,200
Speaker 1: So ultimately they gain approval to execute their plan, and

594
00:29:41,240 --> 00:29:43,680
Speaker 1: the first SWAT team officially starts working near the end

595
00:29:43,720 --> 00:29:47,280
Speaker 1: of nineteen sixty nine, and its inaugural action is a

596
00:29:47,400 --> 00:29:50,880
Speaker 1: raid on the Black Panther Party headquarters in south central LA.

597
00:29:51,520 --> 00:29:55,960
Speaker 1: Officers show up with a warrant and they bring grenade launchers, dynamite,

598
00:29:56,040 --> 00:29:59,800
Speaker 1: and other heavy weapons with them. Shockingly, Bridget do you

599
00:29:59,840 --> 00:30:01,600
Speaker 1: think think this is going to de escalate tensions and

600
00:30:01,600 --> 00:30:04,480
Speaker 1: get the Black Panthers to turn themselves in peacefully?

601
00:30:05,200 --> 00:30:06,600
Speaker 2: I can't imagine it did.

602
00:30:07,320 --> 00:30:10,240
Speaker 1: No, when an army shows up at their door, they

603
00:30:10,320 --> 00:30:13,040
Speaker 1: respond as if an army has shown up at their door,

604
00:30:13,480 --> 00:30:16,440
Speaker 1: and the firefight that follows more than five thousand rounds

605
00:30:16,440 --> 00:30:19,920
Speaker 1: are exchanged. Now, despite all of their training and year,

606
00:30:20,240 --> 00:30:23,960
Speaker 1: the SWAT cops don't perform notably better than the Panthers.

607
00:30:24,440 --> 00:30:27,640
Speaker 1: Four police officers are injured and four Panthers are injured,

608
00:30:27,960 --> 00:30:30,479
Speaker 1: and again no one dies, which is wild for how

609
00:30:30,480 --> 00:30:33,600
Speaker 1: many bullets are flying in this fucking thing, right, part

610
00:30:33,600 --> 00:30:35,800
Speaker 1: of this is just that this is kind of a

611
00:30:35,840 --> 00:30:37,920
Speaker 1: thing that you learn if you study the history of

612
00:30:38,000 --> 00:30:41,120
Speaker 1: like gun training, people don't know how to shoot back

613
00:30:41,160 --> 00:30:45,000
Speaker 1: then by and large, like even experience, so don't are

614
00:30:45,040 --> 00:30:48,160
Speaker 1: not accurate with their guns. That's not what training is about.

615
00:30:48,240 --> 00:30:52,240
Speaker 1: It's about firing for effect, right, it's not about hitting

616
00:30:52,440 --> 00:30:56,320
Speaker 1: individual people. And by god, everyone sucks ass with guns

617
00:30:56,440 --> 00:30:58,040
Speaker 1: back in the day, not.

618
00:30:58,200 --> 00:31:00,479
Speaker 3: Firing for effect, Like, well, I did it hit him,

619
00:31:00,480 --> 00:31:02,000
Speaker 3: but looks pretty cool, But I.

620
00:31:01,960 --> 00:31:04,680
Speaker 1: Filled that whole area with fucking bullets, right, And then

621
00:31:04,800 --> 00:31:07,200
Speaker 1: is in war that is what you do in war,

622
00:31:07,560 --> 00:31:09,400
Speaker 1: very few bullets. I think in the Iraq War its

623
00:31:09,400 --> 00:31:12,200
Speaker 1: an average of like fifty thousand rounds fired by coalition

624
00:31:12,280 --> 00:31:15,880
Speaker 1: forces for every person killed, you know, because nearly every

625
00:31:15,880 --> 00:31:19,040
Speaker 1: bullet that's fired in war is for suppression. But you

626
00:31:19,080 --> 00:31:25,560
Speaker 1: shouldn't do that for policing, because bullets keep going, right, Like,

627
00:31:25,680 --> 00:31:29,000
Speaker 1: it's bad to do this in a neighborhood filled with people.

628
00:31:29,640 --> 00:31:33,880
Speaker 1: It's a miracle that no one dies during this gunfight, right,

629
00:31:33,920 --> 00:31:37,400
Speaker 1: it is a fucking miracle. And in the end there

630
00:31:37,440 --> 00:31:42,240
Speaker 1: is massively violent and insane use of force accomplishes nothing.

631
00:31:42,600 --> 00:31:46,080
Speaker 1: The cops don't even succeed by their own standards. They

632
00:31:46,200 --> 00:31:49,680
Speaker 1: arrest six Panthers who are acquitted on most of the

633
00:31:49,760 --> 00:31:54,080
Speaker 1: charges against them, because again, the cops don't do anything

634
00:31:54,160 --> 00:31:57,520
Speaker 1: by the law. They just show up and there's immediately

635
00:31:57,560 --> 00:32:00,560
Speaker 1: a gun battle in South central and and the fucking

636
00:32:00,680 --> 00:32:03,160
Speaker 1: courts are the judges, and our juries are.

637
00:32:03,000 --> 00:32:05,120
Speaker 2: Like, what the fuck? This is nuts?

638
00:32:05,400 --> 00:32:07,760
Speaker 1: Right, these guys are guilty of most of the things

639
00:32:07,760 --> 00:32:11,440
Speaker 1: that you accuse them of. Gates himself later admitted the

640
00:32:11,480 --> 00:32:16,120
Speaker 1: apartment was roundly criticized by its brutal activity, and he complains,

641
00:32:16,320 --> 00:32:19,360
Speaker 1: even though our injuries are worse than theirs, and again,

642
00:32:19,880 --> 00:32:22,040
Speaker 1: maybe that's evidence that your training doesn't work.

643
00:32:22,280 --> 00:32:24,240
Speaker 2: Yeah, maybe something's not going right.

644
00:32:24,600 --> 00:32:27,760
Speaker 1: Maybe this didn't work. Maybe this is a miserable failure.

645
00:32:28,200 --> 00:32:30,680
Speaker 1: You get send all this time and money training these

646
00:32:30,720 --> 00:32:33,960
Speaker 1: guys to be super soldiers, and some panthers in their

647
00:32:34,440 --> 00:32:37,760
Speaker 1: house fight them to a stand still damn near right,

648
00:32:38,080 --> 00:32:40,920
Speaker 1: and you don't even you don't even win in court

649
00:32:41,000 --> 00:32:44,440
Speaker 1: against them because you did this big, insane, violent thing.

650
00:32:45,760 --> 00:32:49,200
Speaker 1: And Gates complained later in his autobiography, nobody, not even

651
00:32:49,240 --> 00:32:51,920
Speaker 1: the media, ever learned the whole truth. And the whole

652
00:32:51,920 --> 00:32:54,840
Speaker 1: truth is that in a nondescript military vehicle parked in

653
00:32:54,840 --> 00:32:58,280
Speaker 1: a side street, sat one very frightening military grenade launcher,

654
00:32:58,560 --> 00:33:01,600
Speaker 1: primed and ready to blast the house to Kingdom. Calm right,

655
00:33:01,640 --> 00:33:04,080
Speaker 1: He's like, the press never knew that we had a

656
00:33:04,080 --> 00:33:06,400
Speaker 1: grenade launcher that we could have used to blow everything up,

657
00:33:06,400 --> 00:33:08,640
Speaker 1: and we didn't, And I'm like, do you see that?

658
00:33:08,640 --> 00:33:11,520
Speaker 1: That makes it worse? Yeah, should the lesson not have been?

659
00:33:11,720 --> 00:33:15,240
Speaker 1: My God, what a nightmare that we had this thing there, Jesus,

660
00:33:15,240 --> 00:33:17,840
Speaker 1: can you imagine this whole thing ended without anyone dying,

661
00:33:17,840 --> 00:33:19,720
Speaker 1: and we might have blown up half the neighborhood.

662
00:33:19,920 --> 00:33:23,520
Speaker 2: Fuck, no one's praising our restraint, though.

663
00:33:23,600 --> 00:33:25,800
Speaker 1: No one's praising that we didn't even we asked to

664
00:33:25,920 --> 00:33:28,360
Speaker 1: use it and the National Guard said no, we wanted

665
00:33:28,400 --> 00:33:30,360
Speaker 1: to use it, but they didn't let us, and no

666
00:33:30,440 --> 00:33:33,080
Speaker 1: one died, and that wound up being fine. God, can

667
00:33:33,120 --> 00:33:38,040
Speaker 1: you imagine, like again, never learns a lesson, this motherfucking guy,

668
00:33:40,040 --> 00:33:41,760
Speaker 1: And you know, the lesson from all of this should

669
00:33:41,760 --> 00:33:43,560
Speaker 1: have been, well, I guess we probably shouldn't give Daryl

670
00:33:43,600 --> 00:33:46,080
Speaker 1: Gates and his cops access to military grade weaponry and

671
00:33:46,400 --> 00:33:48,680
Speaker 1: tell them that they're members of a special elite unit

672
00:33:48,800 --> 00:33:52,000
Speaker 1: because that's like a drug. It's like giving cocaine to

673
00:33:52,040 --> 00:33:54,400
Speaker 1: a nine year old, Like, oh boy, this is gonna

674
00:33:54,400 --> 00:33:56,800
Speaker 1: just make everything about this kid more of a problem,

675
00:33:57,040 --> 00:34:01,360
Speaker 1: right Like. And the problem is that after this fucking

676
00:34:01,400 --> 00:34:04,960
Speaker 1: swat raid, SWAT teams spread like a drug across the

677
00:34:04,960 --> 00:34:08,200
Speaker 1: country because every other police department and all of the

678
00:34:08,360 --> 00:34:11,560
Speaker 1: you know, mostly white citizens watching this, they see how

679
00:34:11,560 --> 00:34:14,320
Speaker 1: cool these guys look, and they're like, we need swat

680
00:34:14,320 --> 00:34:17,560
Speaker 1: teams where we live. I feel like I'm not safe

681
00:34:17,600 --> 00:34:21,000
Speaker 1: without a SWAT team. Now, A big part of the

682
00:34:21,000 --> 00:34:23,719
Speaker 1: inciting reason why swat teams are going to have the

683
00:34:23,719 --> 00:34:25,600
Speaker 1: funding that they are is that in nineteen sixty eight,

684
00:34:25,600 --> 00:34:28,600
Speaker 1: President Lyndon Baines Johnson had signed an omnibus crime bill

685
00:34:28,640 --> 00:34:31,040
Speaker 1: into law, and among other things, this crime bill created

686
00:34:31,080 --> 00:34:37,320
Speaker 1: the LEEAA, or Law Enforcement Association Administration. When Nixon succeeded LBJ,

687
00:34:37,760 --> 00:34:41,719
Speaker 1: he appointed a guy named Donald Santarelli to head the agency. Now,

688
00:34:41,719 --> 00:34:44,359
Speaker 1: Donald's not going to be along around a terribly long time.

689
00:34:44,400 --> 00:34:46,920
Speaker 1: He has to resign in seventy four because he leaked,

690
00:34:47,120 --> 00:34:49,520
Speaker 1: like the news leaked reports that after the Watergate break in,

691
00:34:49,600 --> 00:34:53,160
Speaker 1: he said that Nixon should resign. But before he resigns.

692
00:34:53,480 --> 00:34:56,759
Speaker 1: He turns the newly minted LAAA into an organ for

693
00:34:56,840 --> 00:34:59,400
Speaker 1: funding and supporting the spread of the ideas that Gates

694
00:34:59,400 --> 00:35:01,640
Speaker 1: and his fellows had used to justify the creation of

695
00:35:01,640 --> 00:35:05,120
Speaker 1: the first swat team. The LAA used federal funds to

696
00:35:05,200 --> 00:35:08,279
Speaker 1: push more police departments to follow Los Angeles and to

697
00:35:08,320 --> 00:35:11,640
Speaker 1: start treating policing as not the maintenance of law and order,

698
00:35:11,920 --> 00:35:15,919
Speaker 1: but as counterinsurgency. From that article in the metropol Through

699
00:35:15,960 --> 00:35:19,720
Speaker 1: the LAA, federal funds and surplus military equipment were funneled

700
00:35:19,719 --> 00:35:23,080
Speaker 1: into police local police departments, facilitating the expansion of SWAT

701
00:35:23,080 --> 00:35:26,960
Speaker 1: programs nationwide. Public enthusiasm grew after the high profile in

702
00:35:27,000 --> 00:35:30,400
Speaker 1: nineteen seventy four standoff between the LAPDS swat Team and

703
00:35:30,440 --> 00:35:33,800
Speaker 1: the Symbionese Liberation Army during the Patty Hearst kidnapping case.

704
00:35:34,880 --> 00:35:37,640
Speaker 1: And have you heard much about the SLA and the

705
00:35:37,680 --> 00:35:38,800
Speaker 1: Patty Hearst's case.

706
00:35:39,520 --> 00:35:41,080
Speaker 2: I know a little bit about it, but I don't

707
00:35:41,080 --> 00:35:42,600
Speaker 2: know that I know the broad strokes.

708
00:35:42,880 --> 00:35:45,520
Speaker 1: Yeah. I probably learned about this from a fucking cartoon

709
00:35:45,800 --> 00:35:47,480
Speaker 1: that I watched in the early two thousands for the

710
00:35:47,520 --> 00:35:51,680
Speaker 1: first time. The SLA isn't super well known today. But

711
00:35:51,719 --> 00:35:53,920
Speaker 1: from nineteen seventy three to seventy five it was a

712
00:35:53,960 --> 00:35:57,800
Speaker 1: militant left wing terrorist organization. It's sometimes called the first

713
00:35:58,280 --> 00:36:02,160
Speaker 1: recognized by law enforcement left wing terrorist organization. I don't

714
00:36:02,160 --> 00:36:03,839
Speaker 1: know if that's entirely accurate if you want to look

715
00:36:03,840 --> 00:36:06,000
Speaker 1: at kind of the history of like anarchists, you know,

716
00:36:06,200 --> 00:36:09,399
Speaker 1: but they weren't necessarily always using the term terrorism back

717
00:36:09,400 --> 00:36:11,279
Speaker 1: in that time. We're talking of the turn of the century, right,

718
00:36:11,320 --> 00:36:14,360
Speaker 1: But like, our president is assassinated by an anarchist, and

719
00:36:14,400 --> 00:36:16,920
Speaker 1: there's the FBI gets a lot of its early power

720
00:36:16,960 --> 00:36:20,080
Speaker 1: cracking down on that. So, you know, you can kind

721
00:36:20,080 --> 00:36:22,719
Speaker 1: of argue that point. But that's one thing that the

722
00:36:22,760 --> 00:36:26,080
Speaker 1: SLA is sometimes called. And this group they rob banks,

723
00:36:26,120 --> 00:36:29,799
Speaker 1: they assassinate the superintendent of Oakland Public Schools. They're a

724
00:36:29,840 --> 00:36:33,480
Speaker 1: messy group of people, right. Their name is a reference

725
00:36:33,520 --> 00:36:36,760
Speaker 1: to the word symbiosis, and they are ostensibly a United

726
00:36:36,800 --> 00:36:40,120
Speaker 1: Front kind of left wing militant group. Probably the most

727
00:36:40,120 --> 00:36:42,480
Speaker 1: infamous thing about them is that they kidnapped Patty Hirst,

728
00:36:42,520 --> 00:36:45,360
Speaker 1: who is heir to the Hurst Publishing fortune. And depend

729
00:36:45,440 --> 00:36:47,319
Speaker 1: on who you depending on who you listen to, they

730
00:36:47,400 --> 00:36:50,840
Speaker 1: either brainwashed Patty or radicalized her into participating in a

731
00:36:50,880 --> 00:36:54,040
Speaker 1: bank robbery. In the late spring of seventy four, a

732
00:36:54,080 --> 00:36:57,120
Speaker 1: petty crime led LAPD investigators to a home in South

733
00:36:57,239 --> 00:37:00,719
Speaker 1: LA where the SLA had set up shop. Furled into

734
00:37:00,760 --> 00:37:03,279
Speaker 1: an attempted raid and then a siege, which became a

735
00:37:03,320 --> 00:37:06,799
Speaker 1: two hour long firefight in which six SLA militants died

736
00:37:06,800 --> 00:37:09,600
Speaker 1: at the hands of Gates. As SWAT officers, he had

737
00:37:09,640 --> 00:37:12,840
Speaker 1: field command during the entire incident, which is filmed and

738
00:37:12,920 --> 00:37:16,000
Speaker 1: broadcast live, and it acts as the coming out party

739
00:37:16,040 --> 00:37:20,279
Speaker 1: for these fancy new SWAT officers and the public's broader awareness. Right,

740
00:37:20,920 --> 00:37:24,719
Speaker 1: this is when most Americans become aware of the SWAT team.

741
00:37:24,880 --> 00:37:29,560
Speaker 1: Is this massive videotaped gunfight with automatic weapons and shit

742
00:37:29,719 --> 00:37:33,319
Speaker 1: against the Symbionese Liberation Army. Right, this group of communist

743
00:37:33,320 --> 00:37:36,960
Speaker 1: insurgents trying to overthrow the government. And the fact that

744
00:37:37,320 --> 00:37:40,000
Speaker 1: again the cop showing up with all these weapons turns

745
00:37:40,040 --> 00:37:42,560
Speaker 1: this into an even worse situation than it might have been.

746
00:37:42,600 --> 00:37:44,680
Speaker 1: The fact that the Symbionese Liberation Army had never been

747
00:37:44,719 --> 00:37:47,200
Speaker 1: a real threat to the government, none of that matters

748
00:37:47,280 --> 00:37:50,920
Speaker 1: as much as the footage that comes out of this.

749
00:37:51,360 --> 00:37:54,080
Speaker 3: Right, I'm sorry if you are living in a if

750
00:37:54,080 --> 00:37:56,600
Speaker 3: you're a white person living in a white suburb, or

751
00:37:56,680 --> 00:37:57,200
Speaker 3: this kind.

752
00:37:57,040 --> 00:38:00,360
Speaker 1: Of hre this kind of like these are mostly white attempts.

753
00:38:00,800 --> 00:38:03,040
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, Like I could see how you can watch

754
00:38:03,080 --> 00:38:05,719
Speaker 3: this stuff unfold and think we need to have that here.

755
00:38:06,840 --> 00:38:09,160
Speaker 2: We're watching this like with a fucking boner.

756
00:38:09,719 --> 00:38:13,200
Speaker 1: Absolutely. Absolutely. And in nineteen seventy five, right around the

757
00:38:13,200 --> 00:38:16,799
Speaker 1: same time, a police procedural show SWAT comes out for

758
00:38:16,840 --> 00:38:19,360
Speaker 1: the first time, right, and this is one of the

759
00:38:19,480 --> 00:38:22,840
Speaker 1: very first pieces of copaganda. It's not exactly the first,

760
00:38:22,840 --> 00:38:27,319
Speaker 1: but it is this heavily dramatized like image of the

761
00:38:27,400 --> 00:38:30,120
Speaker 1: SWAT team, right, and it's set in a fake city

762
00:38:30,160 --> 00:38:33,239
Speaker 1: in California that's clearly a stand in for Los Angeles.

763
00:38:33,760 --> 00:38:37,040
Speaker 1: The SWAT TV show's theme song reaches number one on

764
00:38:37,080 --> 00:38:40,480
Speaker 1: the Billboard Top one hundred in nineteen seventy six. A

765
00:38:40,480 --> 00:38:44,560
Speaker 1: former LAPD SWAT officer, Richard Kelbaugh, is the show's technical consultant.

766
00:38:45,000 --> 00:38:48,719
Speaker 1: And it has these these very nice looking navy blue uniforms,

767
00:38:48,760 --> 00:38:51,240
Speaker 1: and you know, they've got SWAT, you know, written across

768
00:38:51,280 --> 00:38:54,280
Speaker 1: there all of their gear and everything, and it helps

769
00:38:54,400 --> 00:39:00,239
Speaker 1: make SWAT into a a household name, right, you know.

770
00:39:00,560 --> 00:39:02,919
Speaker 1: And it's kind of a side effect. Later in his life,

771
00:39:02,960 --> 00:39:06,480
Speaker 1: after leaving the LAPD, Gates will consult on a series

772
00:39:06,520 --> 00:39:09,320
Speaker 1: of SWAT of video games called Darryl F. Gates Police

773
00:39:09,400 --> 00:39:12,520
Speaker 1: Squest Swat, where he's a character in the video games.

774
00:39:13,040 --> 00:39:15,480
Speaker 2: Yo, you have to find this game and play it.

775
00:39:15,520 --> 00:39:17,319
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, I really need to get a copy of

776
00:39:17,320 --> 00:39:20,000
Speaker 1: this motherfucker. And look at that sound of a bit, right, like,

777
00:39:20,320 --> 00:39:24,960
Speaker 1: oh my god, But this is huge, right, And this

778
00:39:25,120 --> 00:39:28,719
Speaker 1: is again coppaganda had existed. You could talk about the

779
00:39:28,760 --> 00:39:30,360
Speaker 1: show Dragnet, but this is the first time you have

780
00:39:30,440 --> 00:39:34,080
Speaker 1: both a new police unit with access to military weapons

781
00:39:34,160 --> 00:39:36,759
Speaker 1: that rolls out starting in LA and then you know

782
00:39:37,360 --> 00:39:40,080
Speaker 1: nationwide at the same time as this TV show that

783
00:39:40,120 --> 00:39:43,319
Speaker 1: really hypes up the supposed capabilities of the unit. Right,

784
00:39:43,960 --> 00:39:47,000
Speaker 1: And as a result, Darryl is swept into office as

785
00:39:47,040 --> 00:39:50,359
Speaker 1: the LAPD police chief himself in nineteen seventy eight. You know,

786
00:39:50,680 --> 00:39:54,880
Speaker 1: he has turned himself into a celebrity by co creating

787
00:39:54,960 --> 00:39:58,319
Speaker 1: SWAT and by making it not just at the same

788
00:39:58,360 --> 00:40:01,080
Speaker 1: time as it becomes an actual unit in police departments

789
00:40:01,080 --> 00:40:05,000
Speaker 1: across the country, it becomes an idea in American heads

790
00:40:05,000 --> 00:40:08,120
Speaker 1: through this TV show, and that's a very new concept. Right,

791
00:40:08,120 --> 00:40:12,960
Speaker 1: the same thing's going to happen with the special investigatory

792
00:40:13,040 --> 00:40:17,759
Speaker 1: units that use like science and fux oh CSI. Right,

793
00:40:17,760 --> 00:40:19,439
Speaker 1: The same thing happens with CSI in like the early

794
00:40:19,440 --> 00:40:21,839
Speaker 1: two thousands, I think, late nineties, early two thousands, right,

795
00:40:22,040 --> 00:40:24,680
Speaker 1: where right as CSI teams are becoming more of a

796
00:40:24,719 --> 00:40:27,359
Speaker 1: thing in law enforcement, there's this TV show that really

797
00:40:27,440 --> 00:40:30,839
Speaker 1: hypes up with all of this fancy new science can do. Right,

798
00:40:31,239 --> 00:40:34,040
Speaker 1: it's the same playbook that Gates is really writing in

799
00:40:34,080 --> 00:40:37,480
Speaker 1: this period of time, you know. And some individual pieces

800
00:40:37,520 --> 00:40:39,879
Speaker 1: of this it existed prior to Gates, but he puts

801
00:40:39,880 --> 00:40:43,960
Speaker 1: them together for the first time. Right Now, despite the

802
00:40:44,040 --> 00:40:46,880
Speaker 1: fact that you have all of this money coming into cops,

803
00:40:46,880 --> 00:40:49,560
Speaker 1: that cops are getting more guns and more funding than ever,

804
00:40:50,040 --> 00:40:53,560
Speaker 1: gun crime and gang violence only rises, right, and again,

805
00:40:54,000 --> 00:40:57,839
Speaker 1: thoughtful people responded to this should have by being like, oh,

806
00:40:57,840 --> 00:41:01,800
Speaker 1: this probably doesn't help, Like maybe doing all this is bad,

807
00:41:02,719 --> 00:41:04,880
Speaker 1: Maybe this is actually part of the problem. Right, But

808
00:41:04,960 --> 00:41:07,279
Speaker 1: the way it gets carried in the news and the

809
00:41:07,280 --> 00:41:09,960
Speaker 1: way Gates frames it is look at how crime keeps rising.

810
00:41:10,040 --> 00:41:12,280
Speaker 1: We got to have more cops and guns. Huh, crime

811
00:41:12,360 --> 00:41:15,160
Speaker 1: rose again, we need even more cops and guns right,

812
00:41:16,600 --> 00:41:20,319
Speaker 1: and Gates successfully positions himself as the public face of

813
00:41:20,440 --> 00:41:24,640
Speaker 1: militarized law enforcement. He is declaring war on the thugs

814
00:41:24,640 --> 00:41:27,520
Speaker 1: and radicals, in the eyes of conservative white America, were

815
00:41:27,560 --> 00:41:31,000
Speaker 1: responsible for everything that was going wrong in the country. Well,

816
00:41:31,000 --> 00:41:34,080
Speaker 1: it's not that these policies are bad or that adding

817
00:41:34,080 --> 00:41:36,360
Speaker 1: more men with guns to the situation isn't working. Is

818
00:41:36,360 --> 00:41:38,279
Speaker 1: that we don't have enough men with guns. Come on,

819
00:41:38,560 --> 00:41:40,719
Speaker 1: give us some more. We promise, just one more man,

820
00:41:40,880 --> 00:41:42,920
Speaker 1: just one more gun, just one more guy. You know,

821
00:41:43,280 --> 00:41:45,840
Speaker 1: it's the same thing you have like highways in major cities,

822
00:41:45,840 --> 00:41:47,640
Speaker 1: like one more lane, one more lane, It'll fix it,

823
00:41:47,640 --> 00:41:50,080
Speaker 1: It'll fix it. Never quite works that way.

824
00:41:50,520 --> 00:41:54,480
Speaker 3: It's such a frustrating conversation because people who continue to

825
00:41:54,520 --> 00:41:57,240
Speaker 3: beat the drum that we need more police, more cops,

826
00:41:57,360 --> 00:41:59,799
Speaker 3: more like the police need more money, we need more.

827
00:42:00,520 --> 00:42:02,600
Speaker 2: How much is enough to show it's not working?

828
00:42:02,840 --> 00:42:05,320
Speaker 1: When is it gonna work? Not yet? Huh?

829
00:42:05,360 --> 00:42:05,799
Speaker 2: All right?

830
00:42:07,080 --> 00:42:09,600
Speaker 1: Now, there are some other reads of the situation. Right

831
00:42:09,600 --> 00:42:11,879
Speaker 1: as Darryl becomes police chief in seventy eight, a month

832
00:42:11,920 --> 00:42:14,480
Speaker 1: after he's sworn in, he speaks before a Latino civil

833
00:42:14,560 --> 00:42:17,720
Speaker 1: rights organization, and he notes that black officers in his opinion,

834
00:42:17,719 --> 00:42:21,080
Speaker 1: were more proactive and trying to get promoted than Latino officers.

835
00:42:21,400 --> 00:42:23,640
Speaker 1: He claimed to have talked with a Mexican American police

836
00:42:23,640 --> 00:42:26,279
Speaker 1: lieutenant who failed the captain's exam, and he tells this guy, well,

837
00:42:26,280 --> 00:42:29,160
Speaker 1: you didn't pass because you're lazy. And the news reports

838
00:42:29,200 --> 00:42:32,399
Speaker 1: this as like, oh, he's being racist against Latinos, which

839
00:42:32,440 --> 00:42:35,320
Speaker 1: is pretty accurate if you ask me. And this is

840
00:42:35,360 --> 00:42:37,360
Speaker 1: the first time there's calls for his resignation. It's this

841
00:42:37,719 --> 00:42:40,399
Speaker 1: thing that happens. He talks out of pocket right after

842
00:42:40,440 --> 00:42:42,080
Speaker 1: he becomes the chief, and people are like, this guy

843
00:42:42,120 --> 00:42:45,959
Speaker 1: should quit. He does not. Now. Around the same time

844
00:42:46,120 --> 00:42:49,520
Speaker 1: as he becomes chief, a white former cop starts showing

845
00:42:49,600 --> 00:42:52,480
Speaker 1: up on local TV news shows wearing a mask, right

846
00:42:52,560 --> 00:42:55,800
Speaker 1: and like talking about the LAPD. As an insider in

847
00:42:55,920 --> 00:42:58,680
Speaker 1: City of Courts, the Great Mike Davis describes how he

848
00:42:58,680 --> 00:43:02,400
Speaker 1: would quote luridly chronicle the racism and trigger happiness of

849
00:43:02,440 --> 00:43:06,120
Speaker 1: the Blue Knights towards ordinary blacks. Gates, the third Parker

850
00:43:06,160 --> 00:43:09,120
Speaker 1: protege in a Road to command, the laped ridiculed these

851
00:43:09,200 --> 00:43:12,279
Speaker 1: charges and the liberals who listened to them. Soon afterwards

852
00:43:12,280 --> 00:43:15,040
Speaker 1: came the police killing of Yulia Love, a thirty nine

853
00:43:15,080 --> 00:43:17,439
Speaker 1: year old black widow, in default of her gas bill.

854
00:43:17,719 --> 00:43:20,800
Speaker 1: Community outrage was so great that WATS Assembly member Maxine

855
00:43:20,800 --> 00:43:24,720
Speaker 1: Waters demanded Chief Gates, we want you out. Gates defended

856
00:43:24,719 --> 00:43:27,400
Speaker 1: the twelve thirty eight caliber holes in missus Love's body

857
00:43:27,440 --> 00:43:30,720
Speaker 1: before a Cowed police commission. Several hundred black clergy members

858
00:43:30,800 --> 00:43:33,959
Speaker 1: petitioned the Carter administration to intervene. They asked the Justice

859
00:43:33,960 --> 00:43:36,720
Speaker 1: Department to probe a pattern of systematic abuse of non whites,

860
00:43:36,920 --> 00:43:40,040
Speaker 1: including more than three hundred police shootings of minority citizens

861
00:43:40,040 --> 00:43:43,400
Speaker 1: in the last decade. Meanwhile, the Coalition Against Police Abuse

862
00:43:43,440 --> 00:43:46,120
Speaker 1: collected tens of thousands of signatures calling for the establishment

863
00:43:46,120 --> 00:43:49,799
Speaker 1: of a civilian police review board. So what you have

864
00:43:49,880 --> 00:43:53,160
Speaker 1: here isn't just the birth of militarized policing. It's the

865
00:43:53,200 --> 00:43:56,560
Speaker 1: start of this great clash between cops and their elected

866
00:43:56,640 --> 00:43:59,200
Speaker 1: allies who say we have to just let our heroes

867
00:43:59,239 --> 00:44:00,960
Speaker 1: do what they need to do to fight the bad guys,

868
00:44:01,320 --> 00:44:03,640
Speaker 1: and all the regular people being like, but they're just

869
00:44:03,680 --> 00:44:05,719
Speaker 1: saying whoever they hate is the bad guys. And a

870
00:44:05,719 --> 00:44:07,839
Speaker 1: lot of the times this like thirty nine year old

871
00:44:07,880 --> 00:44:10,319
Speaker 1: widow that they shot twelve times because she got angry

872
00:44:10,360 --> 00:44:12,360
Speaker 1: that her gas bill wasn't paid. Why did guys with

873
00:44:12,400 --> 00:44:14,560
Speaker 1: guns have to show up to that? Is that the

874
00:44:14,640 --> 00:44:16,799
Speaker 1: solution to a lady who's not paying her gas bill

875
00:44:16,800 --> 00:44:19,319
Speaker 1: and yells at the gas man, is that did that

876
00:44:19,360 --> 00:44:24,000
Speaker 1: make it better? Right? No, but that's not what these

877
00:44:24,040 --> 00:44:27,680
Speaker 1: people are thinking. And part of Gates's genius, unfortunately, is

878
00:44:27,719 --> 00:44:30,520
Speaker 1: that he is very good at politicking during this period

879
00:44:30,560 --> 00:44:33,320
Speaker 1: of time, and he manages to fight off these attempts

880
00:44:33,360 --> 00:44:36,120
Speaker 1: at oversight of the labed in large part two to

881
00:44:36,160 --> 00:44:39,000
Speaker 1: the fact that he makes this very intelligent, strategic alliance

882
00:44:39,040 --> 00:44:42,000
Speaker 1: with Mayor Bradley, who was eyeing a run for governor, and,

883
00:44:42,000 --> 00:44:45,080
Speaker 1: as Davis writes, quote, wanted to preclude any stance that

884
00:44:45,120 --> 00:44:48,520
Speaker 1: could be interpreted by white voters as anti police to

885
00:44:48,600 --> 00:44:52,279
Speaker 1: continue from city of courts. Thus insulated from police accountability,

886
00:44:52,400 --> 00:44:55,160
Speaker 1: Chief Gates was only emboldened to taunt the black community

887
00:44:55,239 --> 00:44:59,120
Speaker 1: with increasingly contemptuous or absurd excuses for police brutality. In

888
00:44:59,200 --> 00:45:01,880
Speaker 1: nineteen eighty two, for example, following a rash of lapd

889
00:45:02,000 --> 00:45:04,279
Speaker 1: choke hold killings of young black men in custody, he

890
00:45:04,320 --> 00:45:07,080
Speaker 1: advanced the extraordinary theory that the deaths were the fault

891
00:45:07,080 --> 00:45:11,120
Speaker 1: of the victim's racial anatomy, not excessive police force. We

892
00:45:11,160 --> 00:45:13,400
Speaker 1: may be finding that in some blacks when the Karatei

893
00:45:13,520 --> 00:45:15,799
Speaker 1: choke hold is applied to the veins or arteries, they

894
00:45:15,840 --> 00:45:18,320
Speaker 1: don't open up as fast as they do want normal people.

895
00:45:19,280 --> 00:45:21,480
Speaker 2: Oh my god, they normal that today.

896
00:45:21,960 --> 00:45:24,399
Speaker 1: Literally, Like, so I see is the birth of it?

897
00:45:24,800 --> 00:45:28,440
Speaker 3: Yeah, like, I have sickle cell trade. And they'll if

898
00:45:28,480 --> 00:45:30,279
Speaker 3: anything ever happens to me, I know, the first thing

899
00:45:30,280 --> 00:45:30,840
Speaker 3: they'll say.

900
00:45:30,719 --> 00:45:32,600
Speaker 2: As well, did have sickle cell trade?

901
00:45:32,640 --> 00:45:36,520
Speaker 1: Sickle cell anemia? Right, this is excited delirium, Right, this

902
00:45:36,680 --> 00:45:38,680
Speaker 1: is the first No, no, no, it's not the fault

903
00:45:38,680 --> 00:45:41,919
Speaker 1: of the cops joking. This guy, his body's wrong. It's

904
00:45:41,920 --> 00:45:44,920
Speaker 1: not normal. If it was normal, he'd still be alive.

905
00:45:46,000 --> 00:45:46,640
Speaker 4: So fucked.

906
00:45:47,120 --> 00:45:47,400
Speaker 1: Yeah.

907
00:45:47,440 --> 00:45:50,680
Speaker 3: And also so it's it's I see that they're they

908
00:45:50,680 --> 00:45:53,200
Speaker 3: don't want to say we kill them because they were black,

909
00:45:53,719 --> 00:45:57,600
Speaker 3: but they're the explanation. It's so, I mean almost they've

910
00:45:57,600 --> 00:46:00,440
Speaker 3: come up with something that sounds a little less. They

911
00:46:00,480 --> 00:46:01,760
Speaker 3: weren't normal.

912
00:46:01,560 --> 00:46:04,399
Speaker 2: You know what I'm saying. It's hardly even a dog

913
00:46:04,440 --> 00:46:04,799
Speaker 2: with ale.

914
00:46:05,160 --> 00:46:10,000
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's just a whistle, right, Yeah, it's just a whistle. Now,

915
00:46:10,440 --> 00:46:12,680
Speaker 1: this should have saying like this should have seen him

916
00:46:12,719 --> 00:46:15,520
Speaker 1: forced out, flung into the sun, I might say, but

917
00:46:15,640 --> 00:46:18,440
Speaker 1: unfortunately for all of us, his years in power coincide

918
00:46:18,800 --> 00:46:22,200
Speaker 1: with something that's going to supercharge his ability to get

919
00:46:22,400 --> 00:46:25,920
Speaker 1: not just white community leaders, but black community leaders on

920
00:46:25,960 --> 00:46:28,080
Speaker 1: his side, which is the crack epidemic.

921
00:46:28,520 --> 00:46:28,719
Speaker 4: Right.

922
00:46:29,560 --> 00:46:31,920
Speaker 1: And this the fact that this is so bad, that

923
00:46:32,239 --> 00:46:34,799
Speaker 1: the damage crack is doing to communities, you know, in

924
00:46:34,840 --> 00:46:38,000
Speaker 1: black neighborhoods is so severe. A lot of local black

925
00:46:38,000 --> 00:46:42,520
Speaker 1: community organizations are like, well, as bad as this guy is,

926
00:46:42,600 --> 00:46:45,719
Speaker 1: maybe we do need more cops. Maybe that's preferable to

927
00:46:45,760 --> 00:46:49,279
Speaker 1: continue letting the crime and drug situation spiral out of control. Right.

928
00:46:49,920 --> 00:46:53,200
Speaker 1: And Gates is smart enough that he knows I can't

929
00:46:53,480 --> 00:46:56,319
Speaker 1: just play the race card for the white folks, Right,

930
00:46:56,440 --> 00:46:59,600
Speaker 1: I do have to talk to these black community leaders

931
00:46:59,600 --> 00:47:03,080
Speaker 1: and be like, yeah, more cops will fix the crack epidemic. Right,

932
00:47:03,160 --> 00:47:07,920
Speaker 1: that will make your neighborhoods better, I promise, And he

933
00:47:08,000 --> 00:47:10,920
Speaker 1: realizes there's a future in playing his drive for increased

934
00:47:10,920 --> 00:47:12,840
Speaker 1: power and weapons to the police as part of a

935
00:47:12,880 --> 00:47:16,800
Speaker 1: broader anti gang effort. Right, you do the anti gang stuff,

936
00:47:16,960 --> 00:47:18,600
Speaker 1: and you talk about it one way to white people

937
00:47:18,680 --> 00:47:20,359
Speaker 1: to say I need more guns, and you talk about

938
00:47:20,400 --> 00:47:22,920
Speaker 1: it to black community leaders to say, well, these gangs

939
00:47:22,920 --> 00:47:25,000
Speaker 1: are doing so much damage, you need more cops in

940
00:47:25,000 --> 00:47:28,080
Speaker 1: your neighborhoods. Right, And he's able to do both of

941
00:47:28,120 --> 00:47:32,920
Speaker 1: these things very effectively throughout the nineteen eighties. And you

942
00:47:32,960 --> 00:47:35,920
Speaker 1: know another thing that kind of helps to charge his

943
00:47:36,000 --> 00:47:40,080
Speaker 1: power during this period. A situation he very effectively utilizes

944
00:47:40,160 --> 00:47:42,319
Speaker 1: is the nineteen eighty four Olympics, which are hosted in

945
00:47:42,400 --> 00:47:46,600
Speaker 1: Los Angeles. The LAPDS Olympics liaison is going to be

946
00:47:46,680 --> 00:47:48,839
Speaker 1: the guy who later leads the department's drug and gang

947
00:47:48,880 --> 00:47:52,120
Speaker 1: policing unit, and they use this massive security budget that

948
00:47:52,160 --> 00:47:55,840
Speaker 1: they get for the Olympics to get machine guns, infrared

949
00:47:56,040 --> 00:48:00,360
Speaker 1: like sighting devices, and V one hundred armored vehicles like

950
00:48:00,440 --> 00:48:03,480
Speaker 1: you know, basically tanks, and a lot of this equipment

951
00:48:03,480 --> 00:48:05,120
Speaker 1: winds up in the hands of the SWAT teams after

952
00:48:05,120 --> 00:48:07,799
Speaker 1: the Olympics, and it's never useful for the Olympics, right,

953
00:48:08,440 --> 00:48:11,120
Speaker 1: But the fact that the Olympics goes off without a

954
00:48:11,200 --> 00:48:14,760
Speaker 1: hitch that it's not violent is like, well, obviously, giving

955
00:48:14,760 --> 00:48:19,200
Speaker 1: these guys tanks is necessary, and they rebrand these Vietnam

956
00:48:19,239 --> 00:48:23,960
Speaker 1: era armored personnel carriers as the LAPD rescue vehicle, even

957
00:48:23,960 --> 00:48:26,600
Speaker 1: though it's equipped with this like fourteen foot battering ram.

958
00:48:26,800 --> 00:48:30,240
Speaker 1: You know, like there's a there's a very famous incident

959
00:48:30,320 --> 00:48:32,319
Speaker 1: right after the Olympics where they take one of these

960
00:48:32,360 --> 00:48:34,399
Speaker 1: tanks and they use it to smash down what they

961
00:48:34,400 --> 00:48:38,640
Speaker 1: call the rock house and Pacoima and the officers there

962
00:48:38,680 --> 00:48:41,680
Speaker 1: find two women and three kids with ice cream but

963
00:48:41,760 --> 00:48:44,360
Speaker 1: there's a little bit of marijuana. Now there's no guns,

964
00:48:44,600 --> 00:48:47,200
Speaker 1: there's no rock, there's no crack. There's a tiny bit

965
00:48:47,239 --> 00:48:49,880
Speaker 1: of pot. Two women and three kids, and they crush

966
00:48:49,960 --> 00:48:52,200
Speaker 1: this house with a tank, and Daryl Gates is like,

967
00:48:52,800 --> 00:48:55,600
Speaker 1: this is a great tactic. This is gonna make all

968
00:48:55,640 --> 00:48:58,560
Speaker 1: the rock houses shut down. The crack app it's gonna

969
00:48:58,560 --> 00:49:01,000
Speaker 1: go away because we have a tank now, right, And

970
00:49:01,080 --> 00:49:04,840
Speaker 1: unfortunately enough community leaders are like, well, maybe this is

971
00:49:04,880 --> 00:49:08,560
Speaker 1: what we need. That he's able to build, He's able

972
00:49:08,600 --> 00:49:11,080
Speaker 1: to keep enough of a coalition together to keep support

973
00:49:11,120 --> 00:49:14,719
Speaker 1: for this. Right. It's a very depressing story, but it

974
00:49:14,760 --> 00:49:15,319
Speaker 1: does work.

975
00:49:16,040 --> 00:49:18,799
Speaker 3: And I hate I mean, I keep I promise I'll

976
00:49:18,800 --> 00:49:21,200
Speaker 3: stop trying to draw parallels to today. But the way

977
00:49:21,239 --> 00:49:24,040
Speaker 3: that Trump talks about, particularly when it comes to black

978
00:49:24,080 --> 00:49:27,160
Speaker 3: women community leaders, and I think he's making this up

979
00:49:27,160 --> 00:49:30,960
Speaker 3: to be clear, but you know, exploiting the very real

980
00:49:31,239 --> 00:49:34,640
Speaker 3: harms in black communities and then turning that into oh,

981
00:49:34,680 --> 00:49:37,680
Speaker 3: we have beautiful black women in maga hats in Chicago

982
00:49:38,000 --> 00:49:40,680
Speaker 3: running out under the street saying bring the National Guard,

983
00:49:40,719 --> 00:49:42,600
Speaker 3: bring whoever you want, as long as you can fix

984
00:49:42,640 --> 00:49:45,759
Speaker 3: the crime. It Really, I can just draw such a

985
00:49:45,840 --> 00:49:49,240
Speaker 3: straight line from what you're describing to this what's happening now?

986
00:49:49,840 --> 00:49:52,239
Speaker 1: Yep, yep, it's and it's I mean, that's part of

987
00:49:52,239 --> 00:49:55,600
Speaker 1: why Gates is so relevant, right, is that he's writing

988
00:49:55,640 --> 00:49:57,400
Speaker 1: the playbook for everyone who's going to fall in. It

989
00:49:57,440 --> 00:50:02,560
Speaker 1: works really fucking well. Unfortunately, you know what else works well?

990
00:50:03,440 --> 00:50:16,440
Speaker 1: The Products and Services Sponsor podcast and we're back. So

991
00:50:16,960 --> 00:50:20,040
Speaker 1: On Good Friday nineteen eighty seven, Darryl Gates gave a

992
00:50:20,080 --> 00:50:23,120
Speaker 1: press conference celebrating the success of his program at ending

993
00:50:23,200 --> 00:50:25,480
Speaker 1: street crime. Right, the fact that we're doing all these

994
00:50:25,520 --> 00:50:28,920
Speaker 1: mass arrests. Right, they've launched this in the you know,

995
00:50:28,960 --> 00:50:33,440
Speaker 1: after the Olympics, they start launching these these huge like raids,

996
00:50:33,520 --> 00:50:35,640
Speaker 1: these mass police rates. Will they send two or three

997
00:50:35,719 --> 00:50:38,640
Speaker 1: hundred officers into a neighborhood as part of an anti

998
00:50:38,760 --> 00:50:43,000
Speaker 1: gang sweep, right, and these big sweeps, these are evolutions

999
00:50:43,080 --> 00:50:45,600
Speaker 1: of the sweeps against homeless encampments that the LAPD had

1000
00:50:45,600 --> 00:50:47,239
Speaker 1: been de using for years. They were like, let's take

1001
00:50:47,239 --> 00:50:49,080
Speaker 1: this same thing we've already been doing on homeless people

1002
00:50:49,160 --> 00:50:52,360
Speaker 1: and do it in black neighborhoods right under the aegis

1003
00:50:52,440 --> 00:50:55,919
Speaker 1: of the gang related active trafficker Suppression system. So called

1004
00:50:56,000 --> 00:50:58,680
Speaker 1: drug neighborhoods would be raided by groups of two hundred

1005
00:50:58,760 --> 00:51:01,240
Speaker 1: or more heavily armed officers who are told to stop

1006
00:51:01,239 --> 00:51:04,320
Speaker 1: and interrogate anyone they suspect it of being in a gang.

1007
00:51:04,640 --> 00:51:07,440
Speaker 1: Such suspicions could be justified by something as simple as

1008
00:51:07,480 --> 00:51:10,719
Speaker 1: the use of gang hand signals, which is like did

1009
00:51:10,719 --> 00:51:13,120
Speaker 1: a guy use his hands? Did he do anything with

1010
00:51:13,160 --> 00:51:16,080
Speaker 1: his hands? It's a hand signal. Does he have red shoelaces?

1011
00:51:16,280 --> 00:51:20,440
Speaker 1: Only gangmers have red shoelaces, Pick them up, search him,

1012
00:51:20,520 --> 00:51:23,400
Speaker 1: beat him up if you gotta right. And you know

1013
00:51:23,560 --> 00:51:25,560
Speaker 1: it's the start of this. We're seeing this now with

1014
00:51:25,600 --> 00:51:28,160
Speaker 1: the trendy Aragua right where they're like, oh, yeah, these

1015
00:51:28,160 --> 00:51:31,600
Speaker 1: are gang tattoos. This autism speaks or whatever tattoo is

1016
00:51:31,600 --> 00:51:34,680
Speaker 1: a gang sign. You know that all the gangs of

1017
00:51:34,680 --> 00:51:39,000
Speaker 1: these Venezuelan gangs love these tattoos. Like this is again

1018
00:51:39,080 --> 00:51:41,680
Speaker 1: a lot of this whole playbook. None of it's new

1019
00:51:41,880 --> 00:51:44,000
Speaker 1: that we're seeing right now. It's all come. A lot

1020
00:51:44,040 --> 00:51:47,600
Speaker 1: of it starts with Dearrol Gates. So he after they

1021
00:51:47,600 --> 00:51:49,520
Speaker 1: start doing all these huge sweeps, you know, if this

1022
00:51:49,560 --> 00:51:51,000
Speaker 1: has been going on for a little while, he gives

1023
00:51:51,000 --> 00:51:53,319
Speaker 1: this big press conference on Good Friday eighty seven where

1024
00:51:53,360 --> 00:51:57,040
Speaker 1: he's like, we've eradicated street crime with our mass sweeps

1025
00:51:57,120 --> 00:52:01,160
Speaker 1: of drug neighborhoods. The same night that he makes this brag,

1026
00:52:01,640 --> 00:52:03,880
Speaker 1: there's a drive by by the crips that kills a

1027
00:52:03,960 --> 00:52:07,239
Speaker 1: nineteen year old woman, right, so he declares he does

1028
00:52:07,280 --> 00:52:10,400
Speaker 1: a mission accomplished moment like George W. Bush. And then

1029
00:52:10,400 --> 00:52:12,480
Speaker 1: there's a massive gang drive by that gets a lot,

1030
00:52:12,560 --> 00:52:14,560
Speaker 1: that kills a young woman and gets a ton of publicity,

1031
00:52:14,600 --> 00:52:17,840
Speaker 1: and everyone's like, it kind of seems like you're not

1032
00:52:18,440 --> 00:52:23,280
Speaker 1: stopping these guys. They just shot up a neighborhood. Hey, Darryl, Darryl,

1033
00:52:24,120 --> 00:52:26,160
Speaker 1: is this maybe not working like we said?

1034
00:52:26,200 --> 00:52:28,440
Speaker 2: Mission accomplished, Mission accomplished. Fuck you.

1035
00:52:29,000 --> 00:52:31,319
Speaker 1: So the fact that his heavy handed tactics had done

1036
00:52:31,400 --> 00:52:34,520
Speaker 1: nothing to actually reduce violence. Weren't seen as evidence that

1037
00:52:34,640 --> 00:52:38,200
Speaker 1: Daryl had been wrong. Gates successfully spun his failures into

1038
00:52:38,200 --> 00:52:41,160
Speaker 1: proof that the police needed. You want to guess what

1039
00:52:41,200 --> 00:52:44,920
Speaker 1: they need More guns than tanks, more guns and tanks

1040
00:52:44,920 --> 00:52:45,960
Speaker 1: and less accountability.

1041
00:52:46,000 --> 00:52:46,320
Speaker 4: Baby.

1042
00:52:46,920 --> 00:52:50,520
Speaker 1: So, because he declares victory and then there's this shooting,

1043
00:52:50,719 --> 00:52:54,440
Speaker 1: he announces a super sweep, the biggest sweep ever operation

1044
00:52:54,760 --> 00:52:58,800
Speaker 1: all caps hammer. Now, this is just a PR stunt.

1045
00:52:59,040 --> 00:53:01,759
Speaker 1: They don't know, not going into a neighborhood because it's

1046
00:53:01,800 --> 00:53:03,880
Speaker 1: the head of where the crips are, because there's a

1047
00:53:03,880 --> 00:53:07,920
Speaker 1: particular nexus of gang houses. They pick basically a random

1048
00:53:07,920 --> 00:53:10,919
Speaker 1: spot and fill it with cops and guns and tanks. Right,

1049
00:53:11,280 --> 00:53:14,600
Speaker 1: and Gates describes it as the lapds D Day. You know,

1050
00:53:15,200 --> 00:53:18,719
Speaker 1: this is our Normandy Landings in this random neighborhood that

1051
00:53:18,760 --> 00:53:22,000
Speaker 1: we picked. Unfortunately, a lot of local black elected leaders

1052
00:53:22,040 --> 00:53:26,000
Speaker 1: support the chief senator. State Senator Diane Watson's press secretary

1053
00:53:26,000 --> 00:53:28,960
Speaker 1: told reporters that quote in a state of war, civil

1054
00:53:29,040 --> 00:53:33,360
Speaker 1: rights are suspended for the duration of the CONFLICTI thank you, Diane.

1055
00:53:34,239 --> 00:53:35,759
Speaker 1: That's the right thing to say.

1056
00:53:36,680 --> 00:53:40,600
Speaker 3: Great, I mean, I do think we have to contend

1057
00:53:40,760 --> 00:53:44,440
Speaker 3: with the ways that a lot of our black community leaders,

1058
00:53:44,440 --> 00:53:47,720
Speaker 3: black elders did sort of support some of this tough

1059
00:53:47,760 --> 00:53:49,200
Speaker 3: on crime policing.

1060
00:53:49,800 --> 00:53:52,439
Speaker 2: And yeah, it's just a reality. It's it's not one

1061
00:53:52,440 --> 00:53:54,840
Speaker 2: that I likes.

1062
00:53:53,920 --> 00:53:56,160
Speaker 1: The truth, it's it's just a reality of the situation.

1063
00:53:56,320 --> 00:54:00,120
Speaker 1: And it's you know, it's crack, is scary, and a

1064
00:54:00,120 --> 00:54:02,440
Speaker 1: lot of what's known now about the involvement of the

1065
00:54:02,440 --> 00:54:05,000
Speaker 1: federal government and some of that is not known fully

1066
00:54:05,040 --> 00:54:06,920
Speaker 1: at the time. Right, That does take a while to

1067
00:54:06,960 --> 00:54:10,960
Speaker 1: really percolate out. But so there's I can extend, I

1068
00:54:11,000 --> 00:54:13,600
Speaker 1: can understand who a degree why this is a scary

1069
00:54:13,840 --> 00:54:16,319
Speaker 1: you do have to understand, which I don't say to

1070
00:54:16,360 --> 00:54:19,120
Speaker 1: absolve any of these local leaders of accountability. But there's

1071
00:54:19,120 --> 00:54:22,399
Speaker 1: a fog of war, right. I hate I'm now adding

1072
00:54:22,440 --> 00:54:24,120
Speaker 1: to the problem by describing this war. But people don't

1073
00:54:24,120 --> 00:54:26,239
Speaker 1: have perfect information about what's going on, right, I know

1074
00:54:26,239 --> 00:54:28,640
Speaker 1: what you mean. People are making the decisions they have

1075
00:54:28,719 --> 00:54:32,480
Speaker 1: based on incomplete data, as they always are, right, and

1076
00:54:32,600 --> 00:54:35,919
Speaker 1: Daryl is taking advantage of that very effectively. While most

1077
00:54:35,960 --> 00:54:38,719
Speaker 1: of his political work and work efforts are focused on

1078
00:54:38,760 --> 00:54:41,520
Speaker 1: getting more guns, more power, and less accountability, he always

1079
00:54:41,560 --> 00:54:44,440
Speaker 1: maintained a high degree of skill at manipulating public perception,

1080
00:54:44,600 --> 00:54:47,600
Speaker 1: and perhaps his most lasting success in this arena came

1081
00:54:47,640 --> 00:54:49,759
Speaker 1: with his creation of an organization and I'm going to

1082
00:54:49,800 --> 00:54:54,759
Speaker 1: guess impacted the education of basically everyone listening to this show, DARE. Right,

1083
00:54:55,239 --> 00:54:59,719
Speaker 1: let's talk about where DARE comes from. In nineteen eighty three,

1084
00:55:00,040 --> 00:55:02,720
Speaker 1: Gates sat down with LA school district officials to sketch

1085
00:55:02,760 --> 00:55:05,920
Speaker 1: out the dimensions of a hybrid police public school program

1086
00:55:06,200 --> 00:55:09,839
Speaker 1: drug abuse resistance education. For the few people listening who

1087
00:55:09,840 --> 00:55:13,200
Speaker 1: didn't undergo DARE classes. They involved uniformed cops coming into

1088
00:55:13,239 --> 00:55:15,920
Speaker 1: classrooms and lecturing kids about the dangers of drugs, both

1089
00:55:15,920 --> 00:55:19,480
Speaker 1: the supposed deadly realities of different substances and liberal use

1090
00:55:19,520 --> 00:55:22,160
Speaker 1: of hard nosed life on the street. Anecdotes from these

1091
00:55:22,200 --> 00:55:25,239
Speaker 1: cops as supposed backgrounds. Right, I was in a crack

1092
00:55:25,320 --> 00:55:27,600
Speaker 1: house and saw crack babies and yeah, yeah, this is

1093
00:55:27,920 --> 00:55:30,480
Speaker 1: how scary these drugs are. And everyone was smoking the

1094
00:55:30,520 --> 00:55:34,399
Speaker 1: marijuana and that's why their babies came out wrong or whatever. Right,

1095
00:55:34,880 --> 00:55:37,439
Speaker 1: we heard some shit, you know. To make a long

1096
00:55:37,480 --> 00:55:40,360
Speaker 1: story short, DARE was a massive success, and it spread

1097
00:55:40,400 --> 00:55:43,919
Speaker 1: to school districts nationwide and soon corporate sponsors. Because Darryl

1098
00:55:44,040 --> 00:55:47,360
Speaker 1: is like, you know, police departments shouldn't pay for this,

1099
00:55:47,560 --> 00:55:49,520
Speaker 1: and the schools don't have money to pay for this.

1100
00:55:50,120 --> 00:55:55,319
Speaker 1: Let's have corporations sponsored DARE, and that way corporations can

1101
00:55:55,360 --> 00:55:59,680
Speaker 1: pay for police officers to be doing police work in schools.

1102
00:56:00,560 --> 00:56:02,440
Speaker 2: The scam within the scam.

1103
00:56:02,480 --> 00:56:06,080
Speaker 1: Right, right, And again this is the start of law

1104
00:56:06,160 --> 00:56:09,239
Speaker 1: enforcements funded and supported by business interests. You know, this

1105
00:56:09,280 --> 00:56:11,399
Speaker 1: is where that becomes it. Not that it had never

1106
00:56:11,480 --> 00:56:16,360
Speaker 1: happened before, but this really institutionalizes it in a major way. Now,

1107
00:56:16,920 --> 00:56:19,120
Speaker 1: there's a lot of data that shows DARE did not

1108
00:56:19,200 --> 00:56:22,719
Speaker 1: work at its intended goal. A significant amount of information

1109
00:56:22,760 --> 00:56:27,239
Speaker 1: suggests that among teens who attended DARE programs, drug use

1110
00:56:27,320 --> 00:56:29,880
Speaker 1: increased during the period of time that that DARE was

1111
00:56:29,880 --> 00:56:32,759
Speaker 1: in effect. Right, and some evidence even suggests that a

1112
00:56:32,840 --> 00:56:35,320
Speaker 1: number of students were more likely to experiment with drugs

1113
00:56:35,360 --> 00:56:38,879
Speaker 1: if they had attended DARE programs. Right, And perhaps your

1114
00:56:38,920 --> 00:56:44,360
Speaker 1: host is one of those students, you know, maybe maybe

1115
00:56:44,440 --> 00:56:48,239
Speaker 1: who's to say, certainly not my DARE officer.

1116
00:56:48,760 --> 00:56:51,240
Speaker 2: I remember my DARE officer very well.

1117
00:56:51,719 --> 00:56:54,440
Speaker 3: He I mean, I do have to wonder because I

1118
00:56:54,920 --> 00:56:56,680
Speaker 3: was like a pretty sheltered kid at this point, and

1119
00:56:57,200 --> 00:56:59,799
Speaker 3: I was hearing about drugs for the first time from

1120
00:57:00,040 --> 00:57:03,440
Speaker 3: IDA officer, and he didn't make them sound.

1121
00:57:03,560 --> 00:57:06,200
Speaker 2: Boring, oh man, make them. He didn't make them sound

1122
00:57:06,280 --> 00:57:07,600
Speaker 2: like something I really want to sing.

1123
00:57:09,560 --> 00:57:11,920
Speaker 1: You say it feels so good. People ruin their lives

1124
00:57:11,920 --> 00:57:14,040
Speaker 1: over it. Well, I might want to feel that good.

1125
00:57:14,840 --> 00:57:16,360
Speaker 2: I want to see what all the fuss is about.

1126
00:57:16,720 --> 00:57:22,280
Speaker 1: Yeah, these drugs sound interesting. Now, this fact, I will say,

1127
00:57:22,360 --> 00:57:24,880
Speaker 1: one of the errors people make when they criticized there

1128
00:57:25,040 --> 00:57:26,760
Speaker 1: is they just read the fact that, like, well, students

1129
00:57:26,800 --> 00:57:29,280
Speaker 1: who attended DARE may have been more likely to use drugs,

1130
00:57:29,280 --> 00:57:31,680
Speaker 1: and guy say may have because none of these studies

1131
00:57:31,800 --> 00:57:34,280
Speaker 1: is suggestive as they are of that fact. None of

1132
00:57:34,280 --> 00:57:35,520
Speaker 1: this is like proof of that.

1133
00:57:35,680 --> 00:57:35,840
Speaker 4: Right.

1134
00:57:35,920 --> 00:57:38,560
Speaker 1: Studies could be flawed in a number of ways. Drug

1135
00:57:38,640 --> 00:57:41,400
Speaker 1: use could have just been increasing unrelated to DARE. But

1136
00:57:41,400 --> 00:57:44,400
Speaker 1: there's no evidence that DARED decreased drug use, right, And

1137
00:57:44,440 --> 00:57:47,160
Speaker 1: there's evidence suggestive that it did increase drug use.

1138
00:57:47,240 --> 00:57:47,400
Speaker 4: Right.

1139
00:57:47,760 --> 00:57:50,040
Speaker 1: And unfortunately that fact leads a lot of people to

1140
00:57:50,120 --> 00:57:52,040
Speaker 1: just dismiss DARE as a failure, as oh, what a

1141
00:57:52,080 --> 00:57:54,400
Speaker 1: waste of time and money, This was a bad idea. Right,

1142
00:57:55,160 --> 00:57:57,120
Speaker 1: That is not I do say it's a failure. If

1143
00:57:57,160 --> 00:57:59,720
Speaker 1: you're talking about it from a standpoint of decreasing drug use.

1144
00:58:00,240 --> 00:58:03,640
Speaker 1: That's not primarily why Daryl Gates likes the DARE program,

1145
00:58:03,920 --> 00:58:07,680
Speaker 1: and it succeeds from his point of view in its goal.

1146
00:58:08,240 --> 00:58:11,120
Speaker 1: And to describe how that is the case, I went

1147
00:58:11,160 --> 00:58:13,440
Speaker 1: to quote now from a study in the Cambridge University

1148
00:58:13,440 --> 00:58:18,240
Speaker 1: Press by Max Felker cantor quote the DARE officer helped

1149
00:58:18,280 --> 00:58:21,200
Speaker 1: normalize and legitimize the police as a feature of the

1150
00:58:21,320 --> 00:58:25,080
Speaker 1: school environment, and alongside the just say no message, helped

1151
00:58:25,080 --> 00:58:28,439
Speaker 1: embed schools into the carcerral state. As a police led

1152
00:58:28,480 --> 00:58:33,240
Speaker 1: drug education program, DARE developed broad based appeal among policymakers, educators,

1153
00:58:33,240 --> 00:58:36,120
Speaker 1: and law enforcement, driving home the message that solving youth

1154
00:58:36,200 --> 00:58:38,880
Speaker 1: drug use was best left to law enforcement rather than

1155
00:58:38,880 --> 00:58:42,120
Speaker 1: social services or public health. DARE was promoted as a

1156
00:58:42,160 --> 00:58:45,280
Speaker 1: non punitive and preventative program to help students resist drugs

1157
00:58:45,280 --> 00:58:48,040
Speaker 1: by learning how to say no, recognizing the consequences of

1158
00:58:48,040 --> 00:58:51,560
Speaker 1: their choices, and agreeing to the importance of personal responsibility

1159
00:58:51,560 --> 00:58:54,040
Speaker 1: and the moral values of right and wrong. But employing

1160
00:58:54,080 --> 00:58:56,880
Speaker 1: cops as teachers and promoting a zero tolerance message tried

1161
00:58:56,920 --> 00:59:00,800
Speaker 1: drug education to a carceril frame. Indeed, dear officials and

1162
00:59:00,840 --> 00:59:03,480
Speaker 1: policy makers. Use of the term drug abuse to describe

1163
00:59:03,520 --> 00:59:07,480
Speaker 1: any substance use whatsoever, constituted a rejection of all alternative

1164
00:59:07,520 --> 00:59:11,280
Speaker 1: approaches to drug education, such as responsible use, and constituted

1165
00:59:11,320 --> 00:59:13,720
Speaker 1: a key part of the effort of drug warriors, ranging

1166
00:59:13,760 --> 00:59:16,640
Speaker 1: from law enforcement officials to Secretary of State William Bennett

1167
00:59:16,640 --> 00:59:19,400
Speaker 1: to President Ronald Reagan, to insist that the only correct

1168
00:59:19,400 --> 00:59:22,720
Speaker 1: decision was to avoid drugs or face the consequences.

1169
00:59:23,880 --> 00:59:25,280
Speaker 2: So mission accomplished.

1170
00:59:25,440 --> 00:59:29,640
Speaker 1: Kind of yeah, it gets cops in schools and makes

1171
00:59:29,680 --> 00:59:33,439
Speaker 1: that normal. It makes people think drugs and kids using

1172
00:59:33,480 --> 00:59:36,960
Speaker 1: them is a law enforcement problem. Right, It's not an

1173
00:59:37,080 --> 00:59:39,919
Speaker 1: education problem. It's not something social services solve. A cop

1174
00:59:39,960 --> 00:59:43,000
Speaker 1: with a gun needs to solve kids using drugs. Right,

1175
00:59:43,520 --> 00:59:46,760
Speaker 1: And the data shows that there are drug education programs

1176
00:59:46,760 --> 00:59:49,640
Speaker 1: that reduce drug abuse. And the kind of drug abuse

1177
00:59:49,680 --> 00:59:51,240
Speaker 1: that's a problem because you know, it's not a problem.

1178
00:59:51,640 --> 00:59:53,760
Speaker 1: Is a kid trying pot once, It's not even that

1179
00:59:53,800 --> 00:59:56,480
Speaker 1: bit of a problem. If a kid tries coke or

1180
00:59:56,520 --> 00:59:59,920
Speaker 1: a fucking oxy once. What's a problem is number one,

1181
01:00:00,160 --> 01:00:02,560
Speaker 1: people getting stuff that's tainted and can kill them and

1182
01:00:02,600 --> 01:00:04,840
Speaker 1: not knowing what to do if a friend od's And

1183
01:00:04,920 --> 01:00:07,200
Speaker 1: the other problem is people not feeling like there's any

1184
01:00:07,240 --> 01:00:09,600
Speaker 1: resources if they do start to have a problem, and

1185
01:00:09,680 --> 01:00:12,920
Speaker 1: if you do, start a drug education by saying this

1186
01:00:12,920 --> 01:00:16,080
Speaker 1: stuff is best avoided, certainly while you're young, but you

1187
01:00:16,120 --> 01:00:18,800
Speaker 1: also include and if you have a friend using and

1188
01:00:18,880 --> 01:00:21,160
Speaker 1: it looks like they're not breathing, right, here's where you

1189
01:00:21,200 --> 01:00:23,720
Speaker 1: get narcan or if you call nine one one and

1190
01:00:23,720 --> 01:00:27,360
Speaker 1: get an ambulance, they will not arrest you. Right, Like,

1191
01:00:27,440 --> 01:00:29,280
Speaker 1: these are the kinds of things I'm not saying that

1192
01:00:29,480 --> 01:00:32,480
Speaker 1: I'm not giving. This is not a comprehensive look, but

1193
01:00:32,520 --> 01:00:34,560
Speaker 1: this is the kind of stuff that works. And it

1194
01:00:34,600 --> 01:00:36,800
Speaker 1: doesn't work because it stops everyone from using every drug.

1195
01:00:36,840 --> 01:00:39,240
Speaker 1: It works by understanding that some people will use drugs

1196
01:00:39,480 --> 01:00:41,680
Speaker 1: and in addition to trying to tell them that they should,

1197
01:00:41,800 --> 01:00:44,200
Speaker 1: you know, avoid that stuff, especially when they're young, you

1198
01:00:44,200 --> 01:00:46,840
Speaker 1: should tell them what to do if people do, and

1199
01:00:46,880 --> 01:00:49,400
Speaker 1: if something goes wrong and that stops them from dying.

1200
01:00:49,680 --> 01:00:52,280
Speaker 1: That can make a mistake go from something that ends

1201
01:00:52,280 --> 01:00:55,000
Speaker 1: a life from something that's just a mistake that someone

1202
01:00:55,000 --> 01:00:55,479
Speaker 1: gets over.

1203
01:00:55,920 --> 01:00:56,120
Speaker 4: Right.

1204
01:00:57,160 --> 01:00:59,960
Speaker 3: But I can see how in this dare program dynamic

1205
01:01:00,280 --> 01:01:06,160
Speaker 3: the only resource in scare quotes is carcorle is police

1206
01:01:06,560 --> 01:01:08,600
Speaker 3: is you know, your friend getting locked up. That's the

1207
01:01:08,600 --> 01:01:09,960
Speaker 3: only thing they're offering.

1208
01:01:10,320 --> 01:01:13,880
Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly, exactly, and that just doesn't I will say,

1209
01:01:14,000 --> 01:01:15,880
Speaker 1: you know, in Texas, where I grew up in Plano,

1210
01:01:16,000 --> 01:01:17,720
Speaker 1: for a big chunk of my childhood, we had something

1211
01:01:17,760 --> 01:01:20,080
Speaker 1: called the Texas Heroin massacre, which is what the Rolling

1212
01:01:20,080 --> 01:01:21,640
Speaker 1: Stone called it, which is when I think six kids

1213
01:01:21,680 --> 01:01:24,320
Speaker 1: odd in one night because an extra strong batch of

1214
01:01:24,360 --> 01:01:27,880
Speaker 1: horse got into the supply and Plano, you know, parts

1215
01:01:27,920 --> 01:01:30,280
Speaker 1: of Plano at least, are more affluent, so kids had money,

1216
01:01:30,280 --> 01:01:32,200
Speaker 1: and so they were able to afford to do heroin.

1217
01:01:32,640 --> 01:01:34,480
Speaker 1: And that's why you had a bunch of these kids

1218
01:01:34,520 --> 01:01:37,160
Speaker 1: odeing in this you know, boring suburban area where there

1219
01:01:37,160 --> 01:01:38,960
Speaker 1: wasn't a lot to do besides drugs, and kids had

1220
01:01:39,000 --> 01:01:41,680
Speaker 1: pocket money. And one of my teachers, Miss Gross, my

1221
01:01:41,720 --> 01:01:43,800
Speaker 1: health teacher, when I was in high school. Her son

1222
01:01:43,840 --> 01:01:45,880
Speaker 1: hadn't died, but two of his friends had and he

1223
01:01:46,000 --> 01:01:49,320
Speaker 1: had had permanent brain damage when he oweded. She was

1224
01:01:49,360 --> 01:01:52,680
Speaker 1: the only good anti drug speech I ever had, cause

1225
01:01:52,720 --> 01:01:56,600
Speaker 1: she was like, you will experiment as young adults, almost

1226
01:01:56,640 --> 01:01:59,280
Speaker 1: certainly most kids do, and I'm not going to tell

1227
01:01:59,280 --> 01:02:01,320
Speaker 1: you what to do, and I'm not going to lecture you.

1228
01:02:01,600 --> 01:02:03,280
Speaker 1: What I will say is, for the love of God,

1229
01:02:03,400 --> 01:02:10,560
Speaker 1: don't inject anything. And I never did you know, Gross, Yeah,

1230
01:02:10,600 --> 01:02:14,280
Speaker 1: thank you missus. Gross. Yes, don't shoot up stuff kids,

1231
01:02:14,960 --> 01:02:17,040
Speaker 1: and you know fentanyls and the shit. Now that make

1232
01:02:17,120 --> 01:02:18,959
Speaker 1: the test your shit. If you're gonna do stuff kids

1233
01:02:19,040 --> 01:02:20,800
Speaker 1: or whatever. I'm not telling you to do drugs, but

1234
01:02:21,360 --> 01:02:23,880
Speaker 1: some people are going to learn how testing kids work.

1235
01:02:23,920 --> 01:02:25,680
Speaker 1: Getting arcade from Dance.

1236
01:02:26,280 --> 01:02:28,320
Speaker 2: It's an organization that gives you test kits.

1237
01:02:28,400 --> 01:02:32,480
Speaker 1: Yeah, Project Dance Safe and yeah, avoid injecting. You're not

1238
01:02:32,560 --> 01:02:36,200
Speaker 1: a nurse. Don't shoot stuff into your body kids, right, Like,

1239
01:02:37,200 --> 01:02:40,440
Speaker 1: test your stuff, stick to snortables or whatever, you know,

1240
01:02:40,560 --> 01:02:43,960
Speaker 1: smoke whatever. Don't shoot things into your body kids. Please.

1241
01:02:44,960 --> 01:02:46,760
Speaker 1: Maybe if we keep it to that, we can stop

1242
01:02:46,800 --> 01:02:47,160
Speaker 1: some of this.

1243
01:02:48,120 --> 01:02:48,360
Speaker 3: Right.

1244
01:02:49,800 --> 01:02:52,080
Speaker 1: So, there is some mixed evidence as to whether or

1245
01:02:52,120 --> 01:02:55,000
Speaker 1: not DARE programs made kids more or less trusting of police.

1246
01:02:55,080 --> 01:02:57,560
Speaker 1: Some of the studies I've seen suggests that white kids

1247
01:02:57,600 --> 01:03:00,320
Speaker 1: trusted police more because of DARE, and black kids trusted

1248
01:03:00,360 --> 01:03:03,480
Speaker 1: them meet less. But this is an entirely consistent you know,

1249
01:03:03,520 --> 01:03:07,280
Speaker 1: we don't have perfect data on this. What DARE does

1250
01:03:07,360 --> 01:03:09,360
Speaker 1: do is it keeps Gates's name in the news, and

1251
01:03:09,400 --> 01:03:12,360
Speaker 1: it ensures him regular invitations to high society and government

1252
01:03:12,400 --> 01:03:15,400
Speaker 1: events in DC and elsewhere. As crime escalated, so did

1253
01:03:15,440 --> 01:03:18,720
Speaker 1: incidents of horrific police violence, generally against non white people.

1254
01:03:18,960 --> 01:03:21,160
Speaker 1: Per an article in the La Times, there came a

1255
01:03:21,280 --> 01:03:24,040
Speaker 1: rash of LAPD scandals, and WISH officers were accused of

1256
01:03:24,040 --> 01:03:27,919
Speaker 1: cavorting sexually with teenage Explorer scouts, getting drunk in police

1257
01:03:27,960 --> 01:03:31,320
Speaker 1: station parking lots, sorting with prostitutes, and stopping motorists to

1258
01:03:31,400 --> 01:03:33,920
Speaker 1: rob them of their wallets. Two members of a special

1259
01:03:34,040 --> 01:03:37,520
Speaker 1: LAPD burglary unit pleaded guilty to stealing electronic equipment from

1260
01:03:37,560 --> 01:03:38,640
Speaker 1: a shop in Hollywood.

1261
01:03:40,240 --> 01:03:43,240
Speaker 3: Fratinizing with teens wasn't just a prank of some sort?

1262
01:03:44,080 --> 01:03:46,120
Speaker 1: Rank, Yeah, maybe there were fake Maybe there's some more

1263
01:03:46,160 --> 01:03:49,480
Speaker 1: of those joke rape complaints, right, that Darryl is such

1264
01:03:49,480 --> 01:03:53,320
Speaker 1: a fan of Gates got much of the blame from

1265
01:03:53,360 --> 01:03:56,960
Speaker 1: the media, citizens and politicians, including Mayor Bradley. Several high

1266
01:03:57,040 --> 01:03:59,919
Speaker 1: ranking officers even suggested privately that Gates should step down.

1267
01:04:00,200 --> 01:04:02,560
Speaker 1: Said he Hall trimmed his budget request and required him

1268
01:04:02,560 --> 01:04:05,600
Speaker 1: to hire more women, minorities, and civilians. He struggled to

1269
01:04:05,600 --> 01:04:07,800
Speaker 1: police the nation's second largest city with a force that

1270
01:04:07,840 --> 01:04:10,240
Speaker 1: was too small for its size compared to other major cities.

1271
01:04:10,440 --> 01:04:12,720
Speaker 1: At the end of his tenure, Gates said Los Angeles

1272
01:04:12,800 --> 01:04:15,520
Speaker 1: had two officers per thousand residents, in contrast with New

1273
01:04:15,600 --> 01:04:20,560
Speaker 1: York and Chicago's four per thousand. So, you know, things

1274
01:04:20,600 --> 01:04:23,160
Speaker 1: are as the eighties turned into the nineties. They're not working.

1275
01:04:23,160 --> 01:04:24,919
Speaker 1: The shit that used to work don't work no more.

1276
01:04:25,160 --> 01:04:27,600
Speaker 1: For Darryl Right, he's starting to have more and more

1277
01:04:27,640 --> 01:04:30,320
Speaker 1: problems because it's become impossible to hide that what he's

1278
01:04:30,320 --> 01:04:34,320
Speaker 1: doing isn't helping, you know. And the other thing that's

1279
01:04:34,320 --> 01:04:37,680
Speaker 1: happening is that as this decade transitions, Daryl's ability to

1280
01:04:37,720 --> 01:04:41,400
Speaker 1: manipulate local leaders and organizations is on the Wayne right.

1281
01:04:41,480 --> 01:04:45,160
Speaker 1: Society is waking up more and more to systemic racial injustices,

1282
01:04:45,200 --> 01:04:48,960
Speaker 1: and Daryl, who's racist as hell, has failed miserably at

1283
01:04:49,000 --> 01:04:52,600
Speaker 1: adapting to the times. He's also maintained this very hardline

1284
01:04:52,640 --> 01:04:56,440
Speaker 1: McCarthy esque attitude on left wing political organizing, pushing for

1285
01:04:56,480 --> 01:05:00,320
Speaker 1: the creation of the LAPD's Public Disorder Intelligence Division, which

1286
01:05:00,360 --> 01:05:04,480
Speaker 1: surveilled subversives who were entirely left wing and primarily or

1287
01:05:04,640 --> 01:05:09,080
Speaker 1: labor organizers. Chicano civil rights lawyers and journalists and the ACLU.

1288
01:05:09,600 --> 01:05:12,760
Speaker 1: This is all so fucking illegal that it is eventually

1289
01:05:12,760 --> 01:05:18,160
Speaker 1: forced to disband right now again. Gates remains popular in

1290
01:05:18,200 --> 01:05:20,520
Speaker 1: many circles with conservatives and even to the end of

1291
01:05:20,560 --> 01:05:23,360
Speaker 1: his life with rank and file officers. But his tendency

1292
01:05:23,400 --> 01:05:26,440
Speaker 1: to like shoot from you know, he's this he talks.

1293
01:05:26,560 --> 01:05:28,520
Speaker 1: We've talked a lot about how he like says shit

1294
01:05:28,760 --> 01:05:31,520
Speaker 1: you know that he shouldn't be saying. Probably the most

1295
01:05:31,520 --> 01:05:34,840
Speaker 1: famous example of this is in nineteen ninety Gates testifies

1296
01:05:34,880 --> 01:05:38,320
Speaker 1: before the US Senate Judiciary Committee and claims casual drug

1297
01:05:38,400 --> 01:05:41,800
Speaker 1: users ought to be taken out and shot. And you

1298
01:05:41,840 --> 01:05:44,040
Speaker 1: know who related to him is a casual drug user.

1299
01:05:44,080 --> 01:05:48,600
Speaker 1: He gets arrested repeatedly for possession of drugs. His kid,

1300
01:05:49,080 --> 01:05:57,480
Speaker 1: Oh cool guy, sweet dad of the ear. Yeah. Now,

1301
01:05:58,440 --> 01:06:01,400
Speaker 1: this all comes to a head in nineteen ninety one

1302
01:06:01,920 --> 01:06:04,680
Speaker 1: when a fella named Rodney King is pulled over after

1303
01:06:04,720 --> 01:06:06,680
Speaker 1: a high speed chase that ends in a place called

1304
01:06:06,760 --> 01:06:11,080
Speaker 1: lake View Terrace. And there's a video filmed and a

1305
01:06:11,160 --> 01:06:14,800
Speaker 1: lot of people don't know this. If you've seen Terminator two,

1306
01:06:16,040 --> 01:06:18,960
Speaker 1: the villain is an LAPD officer. I mean it's a

1307
01:06:19,040 --> 01:06:21,280
Speaker 1: robot wearing the skin of an LAPD officer. But it's

1308
01:06:21,320 --> 01:06:24,320
Speaker 1: not an accident that this movie made after the LA

1309
01:06:24,520 --> 01:06:27,720
Speaker 1: riots or made like durret sorry during because the first

1310
01:06:27,800 --> 01:06:31,160
Speaker 1: Terminator is filmed before the LA Riots, and the guy

1311
01:06:31,160 --> 01:06:33,360
Speaker 1: who films the Rodney King video is out with a

1312
01:06:33,440 --> 01:06:37,120
Speaker 1: video camera to film Terminator being filmed, like he's taking

1313
01:06:37,120 --> 01:06:39,520
Speaker 1: footage of that, and as he's coming home, he sees

1314
01:06:39,560 --> 01:06:42,760
Speaker 1: the cops beating the absolute shit out of this guy

1315
01:06:43,000 --> 01:06:47,280
Speaker 1: and he films that. And so the Terminator movies are

1316
01:06:47,320 --> 01:06:51,080
Speaker 1: just kind of intimately tied to the police violence in

1317
01:06:51,160 --> 01:06:53,320
Speaker 1: Los Angeles, which is fascinating to me.

1318
01:06:53,400 --> 01:06:53,880
Speaker 2: Oh my gosh.

1319
01:06:54,000 --> 01:06:56,480
Speaker 3: The end of the Terminator A Terminator two when the

1320
01:06:56,560 --> 01:06:58,600
Speaker 3: cops Fimare is like, hey have you seen this kid?

1321
01:06:58,640 --> 01:07:01,520
Speaker 3: And his friend's like, no, I don't know. Now that

1322
01:07:01,640 --> 01:07:03,000
Speaker 3: is embedded in my brain.

1323
01:07:03,080 --> 01:07:06,000
Speaker 1: And with this kid saves humanity by instinctively lying to

1324
01:07:06,000 --> 01:07:06,680
Speaker 1: the LAPD.

1325
01:07:07,120 --> 01:07:09,480
Speaker 2: Yeah, lie to a cop. Saved humanity.

1326
01:07:09,720 --> 01:07:14,800
Speaker 1: Yeah, beautiful stuff. So Bridney King doesn't get charged with

1327
01:07:14,840 --> 01:07:17,240
Speaker 1: anything because the police beat him nearly to death. Right,

1328
01:07:17,280 --> 01:07:20,000
Speaker 1: he has a fractured skull, he's broken leg. In his

1329
01:07:20,040 --> 01:07:22,760
Speaker 1: own autobiography, Gates is like, oh, I was horrified when

1330
01:07:22,760 --> 01:07:25,800
Speaker 1: I saw the video. He calls the incident an aberration,

1331
01:07:26,200 --> 01:07:29,000
Speaker 1: and he sought sort of apologizes to King, but then

1332
01:07:29,040 --> 01:07:31,600
Speaker 1: he's like, but also, this guy has a long arrest record.

1333
01:07:31,800 --> 01:07:36,040
Speaker 1: Right now, this doesn't help anything, and it kind of

1334
01:07:36,040 --> 01:07:40,240
Speaker 1: inflames tensions. There are calls immediately for him to resign,

1335
01:07:40,640 --> 01:07:45,360
Speaker 1: right and Gates refuses, and so there's like this increasing fight.

1336
01:07:45,480 --> 01:07:48,160
Speaker 1: After the video comes out, the Police Commission puts him

1337
01:07:48,200 --> 01:07:50,600
Speaker 1: on paid leave for a while, but he's reinstated a

1338
01:07:50,600 --> 01:07:54,520
Speaker 1: little bit later. On July tenth, nineteen ninety one, there's

1339
01:07:54,520 --> 01:07:58,200
Speaker 1: an investigative panel headed by Warren Christopher, who becomes the

1340
01:07:58,240 --> 01:08:01,040
Speaker 1: Secretary of State later that issues this report on the

1341
01:08:01,160 --> 01:08:03,440
Speaker 1: LAPD and says that it has quote too many patrol

1342
01:08:03,480 --> 01:08:06,640
Speaker 1: officers who view citizens with resentment and hostility, and who

1343
01:08:06,680 --> 01:08:10,160
Speaker 1: treat the public with rudeness and disrespect. The problem of

1344
01:08:10,200 --> 01:08:13,720
Speaker 1: excessive force in the LAPD is fundamentally a problem of supervision,

1345
01:08:13,800 --> 01:08:17,400
Speaker 1: management and leadership, the commission concludes, and it calls for

1346
01:08:17,479 --> 01:08:21,200
Speaker 1: fundamental change with laped values and a new chief. The

1347
01:08:21,360 --> 01:08:23,439
Speaker 1: la Times also calls for a new chief, and for

1348
01:08:23,479 --> 01:08:26,280
Speaker 1: like the next year, Gates is fighting for his life

1349
01:08:26,400 --> 01:08:30,720
Speaker 1: right right as this trial for these officers who beat

1350
01:08:30,760 --> 01:08:33,760
Speaker 1: Rodney King is churning up, so Gates is kind of

1351
01:08:33,800 --> 01:08:36,840
Speaker 1: fighting to maintain his position as everyone in LA is

1352
01:08:37,000 --> 01:08:39,560
Speaker 1: holding their breath to be like, are these cops? Is

1353
01:08:39,600 --> 01:08:40,840
Speaker 1: anything going to happen to them?

1354
01:08:41,240 --> 01:08:41,479
Speaker 4: You know?

1355
01:08:42,400 --> 01:08:46,200
Speaker 1: And so because he's so unpopular with Mayor Bradley, they're

1356
01:08:46,240 --> 01:08:49,720
Speaker 1: not talking. On April twenty ninth, nineteen ninety two, when

1357
01:08:49,760 --> 01:08:52,400
Speaker 1: four laped officers, the guys indicted and the King beating

1358
01:08:52,439 --> 01:08:56,360
Speaker 1: are acquitted by a jury in Ventura County, And almost

1359
01:08:56,360 --> 01:08:58,479
Speaker 1: as soon as this happens, people take to the streets.

1360
01:08:58,640 --> 01:09:02,400
Speaker 1: Right there are fires, there's looting, there's attacks, there's I mean,

1361
01:09:02,439 --> 01:09:06,400
Speaker 1: people flip the fuck out for very understandable reasons, right

1362
01:09:06,439 --> 01:09:09,400
Speaker 1: because they've seen this hideous video and these cops got

1363
01:09:09,400 --> 01:09:13,400
Speaker 1: off scot free, and fucking Gates isn't even initially in

1364
01:09:13,479 --> 01:09:16,200
Speaker 1: the state, right like, he flies back right as this

1365
01:09:16,320 --> 01:09:19,040
Speaker 1: starts to happen, and he like skips an event in DC.

1366
01:09:20,360 --> 01:09:23,560
Speaker 1: But even while the rioting starts in Florence and Normandy Avenue,

1367
01:09:23,640 --> 01:09:26,160
Speaker 1: he's at a place. He's in Brentwood and like a

1368
01:09:26,240 --> 01:09:29,759
Speaker 1: rich neighborhood at like a fundraiser to oppose a police

1369
01:09:29,800 --> 01:09:33,280
Speaker 1: reform ballot measure, and he doesn't show up for hours

1370
01:09:33,640 --> 01:09:36,479
Speaker 1: after the riots start, you know, and by the time

1371
01:09:36,520 --> 01:09:41,200
Speaker 1: he gets there, the LAPD has lost control of huge

1372
01:09:41,320 --> 01:09:44,400
Speaker 1: chunks of the city. Right, the National Guard has to

1373
01:09:44,400 --> 01:09:47,040
Speaker 1: be called in. It takes two days for anything that

1374
01:09:47,080 --> 01:09:49,719
Speaker 1: resembles order to be established, and like fifty three fifty

1375
01:09:49,720 --> 01:09:54,360
Speaker 1: five people are killed. I think there's these slightly differing numbers. Now,

1376
01:09:54,920 --> 01:09:57,599
Speaker 1: Gates isn't there for the start of it. He's sure,

1377
01:09:57,680 --> 01:10:00,320
Speaker 1: he's more focused on defeeding this ballot reform measure than

1378
01:10:00,479 --> 01:10:02,719
Speaker 1: dealing with the start of the riots. He just fucks

1379
01:10:02,760 --> 01:10:05,120
Speaker 1: up at every stage of this, and he tries to

1380
01:10:05,120 --> 01:10:07,679
Speaker 1: throw the blame onto like some of his like lower

1381
01:10:07,760 --> 01:10:09,840
Speaker 1: ranking guys. He was like, no, it's these dudes, you

1382
01:10:09,960 --> 01:10:13,040
Speaker 1: fucked up. But there's this panel led by former FBI

1383
01:10:13,080 --> 01:10:16,519
Speaker 1: and CIA director William Webster that blames Gates and says

1384
01:10:16,520 --> 01:10:19,200
Speaker 1: that he didn't have any kind of plan or training

1385
01:10:19,560 --> 01:10:21,559
Speaker 1: for his officers to control the disorder. He had no

1386
01:10:21,600 --> 01:10:23,080
Speaker 1: idea what to do. There was no way they were

1387
01:10:23,120 --> 01:10:26,280
Speaker 1: ever going to stop this, right, and this all culminates

1388
01:10:26,360 --> 01:10:29,080
Speaker 1: on June twenty eighth, nineteen ninety two, when Gates steps

1389
01:10:29,120 --> 01:10:32,840
Speaker 1: down as the chief of police, right, he insists that

1390
01:10:32,880 --> 01:10:34,880
Speaker 1: this was his choice he made on his own, although

1391
01:10:34,880 --> 01:10:37,120
Speaker 1: the city council president, John Ferraro is the guy that

1392
01:10:37,200 --> 01:10:39,439
Speaker 1: is like, you, really, you have to do this right.

1393
01:10:39,760 --> 01:10:42,160
Speaker 1: This city is going to keep burning until you're off

1394
01:10:42,160 --> 01:10:42,880
Speaker 1: the fucking job.

1395
01:10:42,960 --> 01:10:43,120
Speaker 4: Man.

1396
01:10:43,200 --> 01:10:45,320
Speaker 1: You fucked up right, you got to get out of here.

1397
01:10:47,160 --> 01:10:51,880
Speaker 1: And yeah, that's basically the story of Darryl Gates. You know,

1398
01:10:52,160 --> 01:10:54,639
Speaker 1: the four officers who beat Rodney King and were acquitted

1399
01:10:54,680 --> 01:10:58,040
Speaker 1: in seem Valley are retried in federal court for violating

1400
01:10:58,120 --> 01:11:00,479
Speaker 1: Kings of civil rights too, are convicted and go to prison,

1401
01:11:00,640 --> 01:11:03,760
Speaker 1: So there's some justice. King gets a three point eight

1402
01:11:03,760 --> 01:11:07,320
Speaker 1: million dollars settlement from the city eventually, and Darryl Gates

1403
01:11:07,720 --> 01:11:11,360
Speaker 1: he does alright. In his retirement, he spends like a

1404
01:11:11,439 --> 01:11:13,799
Speaker 1: year as a talk show host on a local AM

1405
01:11:13,920 --> 01:11:18,519
Speaker 1: radio network, and he's a security consultant. He's in some

1406
01:11:18,640 --> 01:11:21,280
Speaker 1: video games, he has, he shows up in films, he

1407
01:11:21,320 --> 01:11:24,120
Speaker 1: has some cameos and movies at the time, because if

1408
01:11:24,120 --> 01:11:27,160
Speaker 1: you've watched movies like Demolition Man that come out right

1409
01:11:27,160 --> 01:11:29,760
Speaker 1: after the LA riots, the city has just depicted as

1410
01:11:29,800 --> 01:11:33,840
Speaker 1: a war zone, right, James Cameron's Own Strange Days, which

1411
01:11:33,880 --> 01:11:35,880
Speaker 1: he writes just in the background of this movie set

1412
01:11:35,880 --> 01:11:38,400
Speaker 1: in ninety nine, La is a perpetual riot. It's not

1413
01:11:38,439 --> 01:11:40,840
Speaker 1: even like a plot point. There's just a National Guard,

1414
01:11:40,840 --> 01:11:45,080
Speaker 1: got cops and rioters fighting in the backgred of every scene.

1415
01:11:45,200 --> 01:11:48,639
Speaker 1: It's pretty funny. But yeah, and this is part of why,

1416
01:11:48,720 --> 01:11:52,400
Speaker 1: you know, so he never winds up. He kind of tries,

1417
01:11:53,280 --> 01:11:55,880
Speaker 1: he toys with the idea of trying to become chief

1418
01:11:55,880 --> 01:11:58,559
Speaker 1: again or trying to like become, you know, get another

1419
01:11:58,600 --> 01:12:02,360
Speaker 1: political position, but it never works out for him. Ultimately,

1420
01:12:03,040 --> 01:12:06,240
Speaker 1: he passes on in twenty ten at his home in

1421
01:12:06,320 --> 01:12:10,360
Speaker 1: Dana Point with his family by his side, of bladder cancer.

1422
01:12:11,000 --> 01:12:11,200
Speaker 4: You know.

1423
01:12:11,840 --> 01:12:14,600
Speaker 1: And that's the story of Darryl Gates.

1424
01:12:14,880 --> 01:12:17,360
Speaker 2: I'm sure he said some pretty wild shit on that

1425
01:12:17,520 --> 01:12:20,559
Speaker 2: radio show. Oh boy, I could only imagine that shit

1426
01:12:20,640 --> 01:12:21,240
Speaker 2: he was saying.

1427
01:12:22,120 --> 01:12:25,680
Speaker 1: People say he was surprisingly like quiet and kind of reserved,

1428
01:12:25,760 --> 01:12:27,560
Speaker 1: which I think is a general thing about him, is

1429
01:12:27,600 --> 01:12:29,400
Speaker 1: that he was like not as like loud a blow

1430
01:12:29,439 --> 01:12:31,240
Speaker 1: hard as you might have guessed, I think, which is

1431
01:12:31,240 --> 01:12:32,920
Speaker 1: probably ways only on there for fifteen months. He's not

1432
01:12:32,920 --> 01:12:39,400
Speaker 1: a very good radio host, right, But that's nice cool stuff. Well,

1433
01:12:40,280 --> 01:12:42,200
Speaker 1: that's the story.

1434
01:12:42,280 --> 01:12:44,240
Speaker 2: We still don't know why he changed the spelling of

1435
01:12:44,280 --> 01:12:44,719
Speaker 2: his name.

1436
01:12:44,960 --> 01:12:46,800
Speaker 1: Still don't know. That's the great mystery of the Darryl

1437
01:12:46,840 --> 01:12:47,599
Speaker 1: Gates story.

1438
01:12:48,120 --> 01:12:52,960
Speaker 2: That's his citizen Kane. Yeah, fled thing like well what.

1439
01:12:54,280 --> 01:12:58,439
Speaker 1: Dare Well? Yeah, if only he hadn't changed his name.

1440
01:12:58,920 --> 01:12:59,479
Speaker 4: So funny.

1441
01:13:00,360 --> 01:13:04,360
Speaker 1: Well, Bridget, where can people find you on the internet?

1442
01:13:04,840 --> 01:13:08,040
Speaker 3: You can find me at Instagram on Bridget Murray and DC.

1443
01:13:08,240 --> 01:13:10,200
Speaker 3: You can find my podcast There are No Girls on

1444
01:13:10,200 --> 01:13:12,080
Speaker 3: the Internet. You can find me on YouTube. Also at

1445
01:13:12,080 --> 01:13:13,240
Speaker 3: there Are No Girls on the Internet.

1446
01:13:14,200 --> 01:13:16,479
Speaker 1: Cool You can find Bridget there. We can listen to

1447
01:13:16,520 --> 01:13:20,280
Speaker 1: season two of sad Oligarch by Jacamrahan, which just came up.

1448
01:13:20,880 --> 01:13:25,200
Speaker 1: And yeah, here we are everybody. We're done. You know,

1449
01:13:25,600 --> 01:13:29,760
Speaker 1: have fun with the podcasts that you listen to. You next,

1450
01:13:29,800 --> 01:13:31,880
Speaker 1: which I hope are ours, just be listened to this one.

1451
01:13:31,920 --> 01:13:34,320
Speaker 1: You know, memorize, memorize every word of it.

1452
01:13:35,760 --> 01:13:41,960
Speaker 4: Bye. Behind the Bastards is a production of cool Zone Media.

1453
01:13:42,320 --> 01:13:45,600
Speaker 4: For more from cool Zone Media, visit our website Coolzonemedia

1454
01:13:45,760 --> 01:13:48,960
Speaker 4: dot com, or check us out on the iHeartRadio app,

1455
01:13:49,040 --> 01:13:52,200
Speaker 4: Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Behind the

1456
01:13:52,240 --> 01:13:56,280
Speaker 4: Bastards is now available on YouTube, new episodes every Wednesday

1457
01:13:56,400 --> 01:14:00,000
Speaker 4: and Friday. Subscribe to our channel YouTube dot com slash

1458
01:14:00,240 --> 01:14:03,840
Speaker 4: At Behind the Bastards