Speaker 1: Up next The Truth with Lisa both part of the game,
Speaker 1: which the notion that the police are out in the
Speaker 1: streets killing Black Americans disproportionately is a lie, a mirage,
Speaker 1: and optical illusion, not supported by any of the facts.
Speaker 1: And yet this narrative dominates our culture, driven by selective
Speaker 1: media coverage, politicians who want to divide for votes, and
Speaker 1: groups like the Black Lives Matter movement who stand to
Speaker 1: make a profit, but they don't care about black lives unless,
Speaker 1: of course, they're killed by white cops. Otherwise, or woke
Speaker 1: cultural elites couldn't give a damn. This is the Truth
Speaker 1: with Lisa Booth. Ye, welcome back to the Truth with
Speaker 1: Lisa Booth. The police are under siege in America today. Democrats,
Speaker 1: the media, and army of radical activists are out in
Speaker 1: the streets calling to defund the police, demonizing the people
Speaker 1: who serve to protect us, attacking officers just for doing
Speaker 1: their jobs. And what's the result of all that? Violent
Speaker 1: crime in America is skyrocketing in our cities, and no
Speaker 1: one is suffering more as a result than minorities. My
Speaker 1: guest today is the one who wrote the book on this.
Speaker 1: She wrote The New York Times bestseller The War on Cops,
Speaker 1: which is essential about the conversation we're having today. She's
Speaker 1: also a lawyer by training and a fellow at the
Speaker 1: Manhattan Institute. I could go on and on about Heather's resume,
Speaker 1: but I'm just going to sum it up with this,
Speaker 1: and two thousand eighteen, then Attorney General Jeff Sessions called
Speaker 1: Heather the greatest thinker in criminal justice in America today.
Speaker 1: So this is an issue that has been on my
Speaker 1: mind a lot. It's something when you look at the data,
Speaker 1: when you look at the facts, it doesn't match the
Speaker 1: public narrative. Yet that doesn't seem to matter to the
Speaker 1: media and to the left to continue to push this
Speaker 1: lie about the police and police shootings. I'm so thankful
Speaker 1: to have Heather McDonald on this podcast for this week's
Speaker 1: episode to get into all of this. Heather, thanks so
Speaker 1: much for taking the time. Lisa, thank you so much
Speaker 1: for having me on pleasure talking to you. We live
Speaker 1: in this post truth world where facts don't seem to matter.
Speaker 1: I mean, even looking at the Washington Post database, so
Speaker 1: one thousand people shot and killed by the police either
Speaker 1: had a knife or gun. Only five point three percent
Speaker 1: of those shot and killed were actually unarmed, and then
Speaker 1: when you look at those unarmed, it's twenty four white people,
Speaker 1: almost eighteen were black. Almost. But why do people keep
Speaker 1: pushing this narrative that simply isn't supported by the facts.
Speaker 1: It's astonishing. I mean every day I sort of rubbed
Speaker 1: my eyes and think I'm dreaming. It's amazing to me
Speaker 1: that we continue talking about the police when this country
Speaker 1: is living through a crime wave of unprecedented proportions where
Speaker 1: every single day you have dozens of blacks getting gunned
Speaker 1: down and drive by shootings to fatally to absolutely no
Speaker 1: acknowledgement by the mainstream media. That's more than all white
Speaker 1: and Hispanic homicide victims combined. Uh. And yet we're talking
Speaker 1: about phantom police racism and it's a it's it's an
Speaker 1: utter puzzle. Uh. The count returns its eyes away from
Speaker 1: the just grotesque and barbaric behavior that is leading to
Speaker 1: this loss of black life in inner city areas. We
Speaker 1: don't want to acknowledge it. Uh. I fear that elite
Speaker 1: whites feel that the behavior gap, the crime gap, is insoluble,
Speaker 1: and so they'd rather talk about something other than that.
Speaker 1: But it is a complete breakdown in public policy, and
Speaker 1: as you say, it's a truth gap. The perception that
Speaker 1: we're living through a epidemic of racially biased fatal police
Speaker 1: shootings of blacks is an optical illusion. It is created
Speaker 1: by selective media coverage. The public thinks that most of
Speaker 1: the people shot by the police are black. In fact,
Speaker 1: about of people fatally shot by the police each year
Speaker 1: black over fifty or white. Uh. There's been white victims
Speaker 1: in There was a man in Dallas, Tony Tempa, who
Speaker 1: was killed by the police in the situation that was
Speaker 1: eerily foreshadowing the George Floyd death. He was pinned under
Speaker 1: officers for thirteen minutes, unable to breathe. They were joking
Speaker 1: the whole time. Nobody knows Timpa's name because it does
Speaker 1: not fit the narrative. The only thing that the allegedly
Speaker 1: anti racist UH, left wing press, the only time they
Speaker 1: care about black lives is when they're taken by a cop. Uh.
Speaker 1: And the only police shootings that the media cares about
Speaker 1: is against black See the one fatal police shooting in
Speaker 1: the January six riot. Whatever happened to Ashley Babbitt, You know,
Speaker 1: it's down the memory hole because she's white. That was
Speaker 1: a bad shooting. Nobody talks about it. It is it
Speaker 1: is just a completely surreal and dysfunctional situation. Well it
Speaker 1: it puts police officers in a an impossible situation when
Speaker 1: we saw that with the Macaya Bryant shooting, which is
Speaker 1: sad that it's her name that is remembered when she
Speaker 1: was the aggressor of not her potential victim. You have
Speaker 1: a white cop, I believe it was Columbus, Ohio. You've
Speaker 1: a white cop saved a young black woman's life from
Speaker 1: getting stabbed by Macaya Bryant. Yet he is still being
Speaker 1: painted as racist simply because of the color of her skin,
Speaker 1: even though he was trying to save a black life. Yes,
Speaker 1: it's just it's remarkable. Cops are it is the most disheartening,
Speaker 1: spirit killing, soul crushing profession at this point because they
Speaker 1: are the object of completely irrational hatred. They can never
Speaker 1: clear their name of being racist. Now, the cops that
Speaker 1: I speak to just keep close to their arts, the notion,
Speaker 1: the belief that the good people in the community support them,
Speaker 1: and by and large that's true. There is a well
Speaker 1: spring of unacknowledged support for proactive policing, especially among elderly
Speaker 1: blacks who are terrified by these feral youth that are
Speaker 1: spraying passers by with guns, that are killing one year old,
Speaker 1: six year old, nine year olds in their beds, again
Speaker 1: to no acknowledgement by the press. So the police officers
Speaker 1: try to hold onto that belief, but the loudest voices
Speaker 1: in the culture are telling them that they are the
Speaker 1: source of oppression. As we know that there is a
Speaker 1: huge exodus from from the police ranks. People are taking
Speaker 1: early retirements, They're telling their family members, their friends don't
Speaker 1: even think about being a police officer. When cops get
Speaker 1: out of their cars these days, they frequently find themselves
Speaker 1: surrounded by hostile during outs. We are playing with fire, Lisa,
Speaker 1: because Americans are naive. They they buy in large enjoy
Speaker 1: a stable society, uh the rule of law. We're naive
Speaker 1: about the the hatred and violence that links lurks beneath
Speaker 1: the service. We saw that with the riots, uh and
Speaker 1: and again we turned our eyes away. This summer is
Speaker 1: going to be even worse the violence. This year outpaces
Speaker 1: saw the largest increase in homicides on a percentage basis
Speaker 1: in this nation's history, and it is far worse this year.
Speaker 1: Uh So so by demonizing the cops, we are demonizing
Speaker 1: the very possibility of a civil society, which is respect
Speaker 1: for criminal justice and the foundation of law and order.
Speaker 1: When did this war on cops begin Well, I certainly
Speaker 1: became aware of it in the nineties with the driving
Speaker 1: well black conceit, which was another optical illusion. Lisa, if
Speaker 1: there's one thing that your listeners should take away from
Speaker 1: our conversation, it's this the problem of the benchmark. If
Speaker 1: they can understand the benchmark issue, they will be able
Speaker 1: to take on every Black Lives Matter activists. Here's here's
Speaker 1: what the left does to generate its phony idea of racism,
Speaker 1: and this bears on the driving while black issue. In
Speaker 1: car stops, they compare police data police activity data like
Speaker 1: police stops or arrests, to population ratios, and if the
Speaker 1: police rate of activity with any given racial group is
Speaker 1: larger than that group's percentage of the population, they declare racism. So,
Speaker 1: for example, in New York City, blacks are about twenty
Speaker 1: three percent of the city's population, but of all the
Speaker 1: pedestrian stops that the police make that is the stop,
Speaker 1: question and frisk. In legal terminology, it's they're known as
Speaker 1: terry stops. These are the discretionary stops that officers make
Speaker 1: to ask, as a suspect somebody engaging in suspicious behavior,
Speaker 1: what are you doing? You know, why are you here?
Speaker 1: Maybe frisking the the suspect of those stops. In New
Speaker 1: York City, blacks makeup about fifty three percent of all
Speaker 1: stop subjects, So that's twice as much as the black population.
Speaker 1: So the a c l U, the Black Lives Matter activists,
Speaker 1: the Patrice Colors, and Deroy mckesson's look at that and say, ah,
Speaker 1: the police are racially profiling. But population is not the
Speaker 1: relevant benchmark. It's what the left uses. It is not
Speaker 1: the right benchmark. Here's what you've got to compare police
Speaker 1: activity to crime. Policing today is data driven. Police go
Speaker 1: where people are most being victimized, and that's in minority neighborhoods.
Speaker 1: Here's the relevant benchmark for assessing pedestrian stops. Who's doing
Speaker 1: the shootings? And in New York according to the victims
Speaker 1: of and witnesses to those shootings, Blacks commit about seventy
Speaker 1: five percent of all shootings, though they're tent of the population.
Speaker 1: Whites commit about two to three percent of all shootings.
Speaker 1: Though they're thirty four percent of the population. So when
Speaker 1: you compare police stops to criminal activity, which is what
Speaker 1: drives those stops, they're not racially profiling. So to get
Speaker 1: back to your question of when did this begin. In
Speaker 1: the nineties, we saw the racial profiling idea, the driving
Speaker 1: well black idea, again based on a phony benchmark, uh
Speaker 1: the A C L. You would say, well, in this city,
Speaker 1: blacks are x percent of the population, but x percent
Speaker 1: of car stops are of blacks. Therefore there's racial profiling.
Speaker 1: What was rarely asked was who's breaking the traffic laws?
Speaker 1: And it turns out that blacks break traffic laws also disproportionately.
Speaker 1: This was there was a brief moment when it was
Speaker 1: allowable as an academic to study driving patterns, and one
Speaker 1: of the studies showed that black speed at twice the
Speaker 1: rate of whites on the New Jersey Turnpike in the
Speaker 1: Garden State Parkway in New Jersey. Another study in North
Speaker 1: Carolina found similar things. The Transportation Department has an entire
Speaker 1: program devoted to what it calls the Nexus of crashes
Speaker 1: and crime. It finds that d driving behavior, fatal car accidents,
Speaker 1: pedestrian accidents are worse in high crime communities because the
Speaker 1: same people engaged in the violence are also driving like maniacs.
Speaker 1: So this driving well black conceit is another optical illusion
Speaker 1: that is based on our unwillingness to look at the
Speaker 1: reality of behavior. So we got the nineties, you know,
Speaker 1: that was the big thing, driving well black. Then we
Speaker 1: had two thousand one, we had nine eleven, and for
Speaker 1: a brief moment, the cops were the good guys again,
Speaker 1: and they were being greeted, you know, and and uh,
Speaker 1: people were saying thank you, thank you. And this was
Speaker 1: a bittersweet moment for them because they overnight they've gone
Speaker 1: from being the dogs to the heroes. And they knew
Speaker 1: it wouldn't last. Nadda didn't. And and meanwhile, you know,
Speaker 1: the academic narrative got more and more left wing about
Speaker 1: systemic bias, and very quickly, uh me, once again, we're
Speaker 1: blaming the cops as a messenger in order not to
Speaker 1: talk about black crime. Let's take a quick commercial break
Speaker 1: back on the other side. One of the big moments
Speaker 1: that stands out to me is Ferguson And just as
Speaker 1: a case study about how easily false and narratives are
Speaker 1: told and pushed. I mean, you look at the shooting
Speaker 1: that took place in with Michael Brown and Officer Darren Wilson.
Speaker 1: Even before having all the facts we had, the President
Speaker 1: of the United States goes out and makes a statement saying,
Speaker 1: we lost a young man, Michael Brown, and a heartbreaking
Speaker 1: and tragic circumstances. He was eight years eighteen years old.
Speaker 1: His family will never hold Michael in their arms again.
Speaker 1: He and he makes the statement as rioters are already
Speaker 1: out in the streets of Ferguson before having all the facts.
Speaker 1: He also mentioned Ferguson on the world stage at the
Speaker 1: UN General Assembly. You know how much responsibility, uh does
Speaker 1: in did former President Obama in pushing some of these
Speaker 1: false narratives about the police. Well, he definitely was part
Speaker 1: of the problem, uh, And and was not driven by
Speaker 1: the facts, as you say, Lisa, I don't know. I
Speaker 1: suppose if it had been uh, you know, President Trump
Speaker 1: during those years, who was a police supporter, we might
Speaker 1: not have been here today. That having been said, Uh,
Speaker 1: it was sort of overdetermined. You know, you had the
Speaker 1: rising left, You had the academic world pumping out every year,
Speaker 1: graduates who have been imbued in the idea of phony racism.
Speaker 1: Uh so it may have sort of happened anyway, but
Speaker 1: but certainly Biden had, I mean, rather, Obama created some
Speaker 1: tropes that have been enduring the idea that black parents
Speaker 1: are right to fear that every time their child steps outdoors, uh,
Speaker 1: he'll be killed by a cop, which he said at
Speaker 1: the few guneral for the five Dallas police officers who
Speaker 1: were assassinated in cold blood in and Joe Biden has
Speaker 1: picked up on that trope and uses it constantly himself. So, yes,
Speaker 1: that that was bad, but I think I think we
Speaker 1: would have been sort of here anyway, just given the
Speaker 1: left wing direction of our of our culture. Well and
Speaker 1: and and then even after the grand jury decided not
Speaker 1: to indict, you still had CNN personalities go on air
Speaker 1: with their hands up. You had St. Louis Rams players
Speaker 1: run onto the field gesturing hands up. Lawmakers going to
Speaker 1: the house floor pushing the lie, hands up, don't shoot.
Speaker 1: So you know, again, it's like these facts, the facts
Speaker 1: don't matter when there's a narrative to be pushed over.
Speaker 1: Four dozen black children killed last year in their beds,
Speaker 1: on their front porches, at birthday parties, in their parents cars,
Speaker 1: in parks, barbecues. Is if there were four dozen white
Speaker 1: children killed in these mindless drive by shootings, there being
Speaker 1: national revolution. And yet, as I say, we're talking about
Speaker 1: the police, none of those kids were shot by the police.
Speaker 1: Three children shot in the head in Minneapolis in May
Speaker 1: of this year alone, Two of them have died, one
Speaker 1: of the oldest of them a ten year old boy.
Speaker 1: There was a six year old girl who died almost immediately,
Speaker 1: a nine year old finally died after weeks of fighting.
Speaker 1: Ten year old boy is going to be a vegetable
Speaker 1: lot for life. Uh. You've had similar things in Chicago,
Speaker 1: more children killed this year than than ever before, and
Speaker 1: nobody wants to talk about it. The as I say, Lisa,
Speaker 1: the country turns its eyes away. They're embarrassed. We are
Speaker 1: supposed to believe that we're a white supremacist country. That
Speaker 1: is ridiculous. We make excuses, we find we find scapegoats
Speaker 1: for this crime. That's not the behavior of a white
Speaker 1: supremacist country. This is a country that is ready to
Speaker 1: be post racial. It is not racist. You have the
Speaker 1: press for since the nineties has refused to give the
Speaker 1: race of suspects because it shows that violent street crime
Speaker 1: today is the face of violent street crime in the
Speaker 1: US is black and brown, period. That's it. Drive by shootings.
Speaker 1: If you hear about a shooting at a house party,
Speaker 1: you you virtually know the race of the people involved.
Speaker 1: And that's because of family breakdown. It's because of a
Speaker 1: failure of socialization. There are solutions to that problem, but
Speaker 1: we don't want to and instead we are making cops
Speaker 1: the scapegoat for crimes. What are those solutions in your
Speaker 1: eyes that we should focus on. Revalerizing fathers, throwing off
Speaker 1: the yoke of feminism that tells us that strong women
Speaker 1: can do it all and that men are toxically masculine
Speaker 1: and a volunteering sort of optional appendage to raising a child.
Speaker 1: No children, on average, they need both parent. Both biological
Speaker 1: parents bring complementary predilections skills to raising children. If nothing else,
Speaker 1: you've got twice the kin resources, You've got twice the
Speaker 1: economic resources there are. Of course, I always have to
Speaker 1: put in this disclaimer. Of course, there are heroic single
Speaker 1: mothers that are doing a great job in raising children,
Speaker 1: but the odds are against them. And President Obama, when
Speaker 1: he was first running for president in two thousand and eight,
Speaker 1: gave a very good speech at the University of Chicago
Speaker 1: on Father's Day, actually giving the data of what we
Speaker 1: know about the likelihood of kids raised in single mother
Speaker 1: families becoming juvenile, delinquents, dropping out of school, ending up
Speaker 1: in prison, having mental health problems. He acknowed, knowledged it,
Speaker 1: and then he immediately segued to well, the solution is
Speaker 1: more government services. No, that's not the solution. We have
Speaker 1: spent trillions in this country trying to close the racial
Speaker 1: academic achievement gap, the behavior gap. At this point, what
Speaker 1: is needed is a value change and a cultural change.
Speaker 1: It's the breakdown of the family is the most catastrophic
Speaker 1: problem facing the United States today. And it's not just
Speaker 1: a question of sort of the the deficit that any
Speaker 1: individual child faces in not having both of his parents there,
Speaker 1: but it's also the loss of an entire culture of marriage.
Speaker 1: When when young boys know that in order to have
Speaker 1: access to sexual favors over the long term, they need
Speaker 1: to develop bourgeois habits of self uh self control, deferred gratification,
Speaker 1: impulse control, future orientation that provides an incentive for them
Speaker 1: to rein in the sort of more uh barbaric aspects
Speaker 1: of male nous. I mean they are males are impulsive
Speaker 1: and aggressive. Marriage civilizes men and and and turns them
Speaker 1: into productive members of society. When that breaks down, when
Speaker 1: it's the norm in a community that everybody's just gonna
Speaker 1: serially impregnate each other and and boys have no responsibility
Speaker 1: for the children that they have created. Uh, that is
Speaker 1: a very unstable situation that is not at all conducive
Speaker 1: two lawful productive behavior. Now, I completely agree on the
Speaker 1: need for families and how you know, just focusing on
Speaker 1: the family is a solution to a lot of this
Speaker 1: and also just sets children up for for higher rate
Speaker 1: of success. M But you know, even at the Jacob
Speaker 1: Blaze Blake case, I think it's sort of telling in
Speaker 1: what some of these people and these activists actually want,
Speaker 1: which I think is to be able to act with
Speaker 1: impunity and to not have any repercussions or consequences. Because
Speaker 1: you have an individual who had a felony warrant out
Speaker 1: for sexual assault because he had showed up at his
Speaker 1: ex girlfriend's house and the mother of his children, sexually
Speaker 1: assaulted her, stole her debit card and her car, shows
Speaker 1: up at the house again, tries to steal his keys,
Speaker 1: cops know this. Cops know that he had a felony
Speaker 1: warrant out for his rest. He resists the police, he
Speaker 1: puts one at a headlock, resist being taste, has a
Speaker 1: knife in his hand, with children in the backseat, and
Speaker 1: then a shot. After all of this took place, Yet
Speaker 1: you still have candidates, or you still had then Joe
Speaker 1: Biden put out a statement claiming racism. You have the
Speaker 1: Governor of Wisconsin, Toni Evers, claiming racism, saying that Jacob
Speaker 1: Blake is not the first black man to have been shot, injured,
Speaker 1: or worselessly killed at the hands of law enforcement. You
Speaker 1: have Kamala Harris meeting with his family. How do we
Speaker 1: end up in a society where Jacob Blake is the
Speaker 1: victim and not the woman in that situation. Lisa, I
Speaker 1: just applaud you. Your absolutely right, Your your outrage and
Speaker 1: your your mystification are completely justified, and you are pointing
Speaker 1: out what is just a tragic facet of our world today,
Speaker 1: which is that our current civil rights heroes petically thugs
Speaker 1: because the way, the only the way to become a
Speaker 1: civil rights hero today is to be killed by a cop,
Speaker 1: and overwhelmingly you get killed by a cop by resisting arrest,
Speaker 1: and and likely you've been engaged in illegal behavior. And
Speaker 1: so you have this whitewashing of these thugs. I mean,
Speaker 1: George Floyd was a thug. There's a video that I
Speaker 1: saw recently, a porn video with him in it. It's
Speaker 1: utterly disgusting. And and we've you're right, there's Floyd with
Speaker 1: his abuse of women, you know, with pistol whip ing.
Speaker 1: There's been you know, cast out on whether the woman
Speaker 1: was pregnant or not. But in any case, this was
Speaker 1: a bunch of males praying on a female, stealing her money.
Speaker 1: It happens again and again, and yet we're glorifying these people.
Speaker 1: It is completely bizarre, and it I just keep bringing
Speaker 1: it back fact that we we cannot address, honestly the
Speaker 1: breakdown of civilizing norms in the black community, and and
Speaker 1: so instead are turning into role models. I mean, you know,
Speaker 1: you had you had Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton eulogizing.
Speaker 1: I think it was Blake saying he's the King of
Speaker 1: no This was Dante right saying he's the king of
Speaker 1: or the Prince of Minneapolis. Because I guess the singer
Speaker 1: prince came from a similar area. Uh and, and Dante
Speaker 1: righting In was was a criminal, he had he had
Speaker 1: a outstanding felony warrant on him. And yet these are
Speaker 1: the people that we are turning into into heroes and martyrs.
Speaker 1: And and the language around George Floyd has been astounding.
Speaker 1: You know, somebody said during the media, uh one year anniversary,
Speaker 1: you know he's going to be remembered for generations to come.
Speaker 1: I mean, you know, one can one can say that
Speaker 1: he should not have been held down that long. But
Speaker 1: there there's got to be other people within the black
Speaker 1: community that are worthy of reverence, that are are working hard,
Speaker 1: they're building institutions uh and and being a resisting arrest
Speaker 1: and and ending up the at the receiving end of
Speaker 1: force by the police be the main way that our
Speaker 1: culture honors black achievement. Well, and I know understand why
Speaker 1: we can't just have these conversations as we're having in
Speaker 1: in hodesty and point out the fact that you know,
Speaker 1: George Floyd was no hero. He should not have resisted arrest. Simultaneously,
Speaker 1: the police should not have acted in the manner in
Speaker 1: which they did. It's like, it's like, why all these
Speaker 1: things can be true at once, and we can have
Speaker 1: an honest conversation about the fact that, you know, we
Speaker 1: shouldn't be idolizing, you know, this man with this terrible
Speaker 1: behavior on the back or in his past, well simultaneously
Speaker 1: saying that, you know, cops did not take the appropriate
Speaker 1: actions in this case. Yeah, I don't know, Uh, I mean,
Speaker 1: I think people are Most people are in complete ignorance
Speaker 1: about what the crime rates are in the inner city
Speaker 1: because the press doesn't cover it. As I say, you know,
Speaker 1: I read the Chicago Tribue. In the Chicago Tribune does
Speaker 1: a very good, uh service, and it it pretty much
Speaker 1: does cover the daily shootings. But it's one of the
Speaker 1: few newspapers that do. And to read it every day
Speaker 1: is utterly mind boggling. What's going It's just every single
Speaker 1: day there are people being shot. It's just part of
Speaker 1: routine life there and and the public has no clue.
Speaker 1: They have no clue about what's going on. But it's
Speaker 1: that rate a violent crime which brings police to those
Speaker 1: communities and which increases in officer's use of force. Again,
Speaker 1: of all victims of police shootings are black, that's twice
Speaker 1: as much as their population. Now, remember the benchmark problem.
Speaker 1: That's why the Black Lives Matter movement says, well, there's
Speaker 1: twelve percent of the population in America is black black's
Speaker 1: makeup or so of fatal victim victims of fatal police shootings. Therefore,
Speaker 1: measured against that population benchmark, we have police racism. Again.
Speaker 1: Wrong benchmark. You've gotta men measured against I'm blacks commit
Speaker 1: about of murders and robberies in the large seventy five
Speaker 1: largest counties of the U. S which is where most
Speaker 1: of the population resides. So when you measure police activity
Speaker 1: against crime, it is not disproportionate. But the public doesn't
Speaker 1: know that because the press does not cover those shootings.
Speaker 1: Let there be one white kid shot fatally and it's
Speaker 1: a national story. You know that things are national stories.
Speaker 1: But there's a Newton, Connecticut, you know, every few months
Speaker 1: cumulatively in the black community. Nobody knows that. All they
Speaker 1: know are those handful of questionable police shootings. And some
Speaker 1: of them, as you say, Lisa, are not even questionable,
Speaker 1: like the the female knife attack. Uh. And yet you know,
Speaker 1: I've had some the left back down on that one,
Speaker 1: and I'm with view. I don't think they have I
Speaker 1: don't think that even when it became it was clear
Speaker 1: from the start that that was a She was the aggressor,
Speaker 1: she was about to commit murder, the cop was. I've
Speaker 1: had cops marvel at his marksmanship skills of being able to,
Speaker 1: you know, defuse that threat without killing the other people around.
Speaker 1: And yet that I think with you, that that incident
Speaker 1: has been put in the category of racist police violence
Speaker 1: along with everything else. It's just as I say, I
Speaker 1: I my mouth hangs open every single day at how
Speaker 1: large the gap is between, as you say, the truth
Speaker 1: and the narrative. I also think it's a sad reflection
Speaker 1: of our society that we've become so desensitized to so
Speaker 1: many people dying in so many inner cities across America.
Speaker 1: I mean, every life should matter. You're right, You're right.
Speaker 1: I mean, but I've said that someone times like black
Speaker 1: lives matter. I don't get it. Here's the numbers. You know,
Speaker 1: there's probably gonna be ten thousand blacks who were killed
Speaker 1: last year. At least, that will be more than all
Speaker 1: all white and Hispanic victims combined, much much more. Even
Speaker 1: though blacks or twelve percent of the population. Those unarmed
Speaker 1: black victims that you talked about from the Washington Post database.
Speaker 1: You know, Washing Post defines unarmed extremely liberally to include
Speaker 1: people that are trying to grab the officers gun, which
Speaker 1: is putting the officer unnoticed that that person intends to
Speaker 1: kill you, or escaping in a stolen car with a
Speaker 1: loaded handgun in the seat next to you. You know,
Speaker 1: people that are beating officers with their own equipment. Those
Speaker 1: counts unarmed. Those you know, maybe a dozen and a
Speaker 1: half every year. Uh, unarmed victims black victims make up
Speaker 1: about point one or point two are sent of all
Speaker 1: black homicide victims. Uh. And yet this phony narrative, and
Speaker 1: it is based on people as just assume, well that's
Speaker 1: kind of the way they act, and uh, it's and
Speaker 1: you know what I find also strange and frustrating, Lisa,
Speaker 1: is I think it's kind of hard to get the
Speaker 1: American public generally to pay attention to this crime increase
Speaker 1: that's going on. The numbers are beyond belief. Every single
Speaker 1: city is seeing nearly triple digit increases in shootings and homicides.
Speaker 1: And part of the reason why I think it's not
Speaker 1: getting the attention that it should is as as murky
Speaker 1: as the public is about the reality of inner city crime.
Speaker 1: They're making part of them. That sort of says, well,
Speaker 1: they kind of are dimly aware that, well, that's blacks
Speaker 1: that are killing each other. It's it's overwhelmingly black on
Speaker 1: black violence. Why should I here? And at some point
Speaker 1: that's a legitimate question. You know, if black politicians don't care,
Speaker 1: why should anybody else care? And and so this crime
Speaker 1: increase that we're living through now is only going to
Speaker 1: start getting attention when white kids start getting killed. If
Speaker 1: white kids start getting gunned down in these mindless drive
Speaker 1: by shootings, then we will see changes in attitude towards
Speaker 1: the police. What we're seeing happening is the carjackings are
Speaker 1: spreading really terrifying instances, people being dragged, you know, beaten
Speaker 1: killed by being dragged. With the carjackings, uh and and Washington,
Speaker 1: d C, Chicago, Philadelphia, it's it's spiraling out of control,
Speaker 1: that's going into suburban neighborhoods. You know, you have Chicago
Speaker 1: Alderman holding official times when you can fill your car
Speaker 1: at a gas station because there'll be a police presence there,
Speaker 1: because otherwise you don't know if somebody's going to come
Speaker 1: up and stick a gun to your head and drive
Speaker 1: off with your car. So that crime is spreading. But
Speaker 1: but for now, uh, people don't really seem to care,
Speaker 1: and and they may just be following the the the
Speaker 1: direction of the black activists who don't care either about
Speaker 1: black lives and talk about too. I mean, we've seen
Speaker 1: an exodus of police officers from places like Minneapolis, people
Speaker 1: either you know, walking off the job or you know
Speaker 1: various things. Can you talk a little bit about that
Speaker 1: exodus we're saying across the country. Yeah, it's it's massive.
Speaker 1: The recruiting is over. You cannot recruit now. Uh, nobody's
Speaker 1: coming into this job. So the defunding movement is kind
Speaker 1: of besides the point because even if departments wanted to
Speaker 1: bulk up, there's nobody applying. Understandably because as I mentioned earlier,
Speaker 1: police officers are telling their family the feeder sources, don't
Speaker 1: do it, it's not worth it. And people are taking
Speaker 1: early retirement, that going out on disability. And so you
Speaker 1: have departments now as we face the summer, uh, that
Speaker 1: are strapped. They don't have the officers. So it's gonna
Speaker 1: be a very bad summer. And what I you know,
Speaker 1: we've been talking a lot about paradox is today Lisa
Speaker 1: and and phony narratives and bait and switches on the
Speaker 1: part of the the media. One of my favorites is
Speaker 1: that to the extent of the media has acknowledged the
Speaker 1: crime increase of and into Their favorite explanation was, well,
Speaker 1: it's the pandemic. It's the lockdowns, uh, and the lockdowns
Speaker 1: are just making people so economically straightened that they're forced
Speaker 1: to go out and kill each other, you know, um,
Speaker 1: which is completely phony. These kids that are killing each other,
Speaker 1: it's not as if they were hard workers at McDonald's
Speaker 1: and now they've been thrown out of a job, and
Speaker 1: so because they've been thrown out of a job and
Speaker 1: they're struggling for subsistence, they're going out and shooting each
Speaker 1: other on corners. No, these are kids that are simply
Speaker 1: not socialized. The police have backed off. They know they're
Speaker 1: not going to get stopped with the gun, and so
Speaker 1: it's the wild West out there. Why did the Why
Speaker 1: is the press embraced the pandemic narrative instead of the
Speaker 1: real one, which is deep policing. It's because the press
Speaker 1: refuses to acknowledge that police make a difference and that
Speaker 1: law enforcement the threat of the threat of being arrested.
Speaker 1: The threat of being imprisoned actually does change behavior. And
Speaker 1: when you when you when you pull back on policing,
Speaker 1: you release the worst in human beings. So we've been
Speaker 1: hearing for the last year that, oh, the pandemic is
Speaker 1: leading to this crime increase. We knew that was fake
Speaker 1: from beginning because the only place where crime increased during
Speaker 1: the lockdowns was in the United States. In other industrialized countries,
Speaker 1: crime went down, and here it only started going up
Speaker 1: after the George Floyd riots, and only with regards to
Speaker 1: drive by shootings and homicides. So every other country provides
Speaker 1: a counter uh refutation for that narrative. But now what
Speaker 1: the press is saying is that, well, yeah, maybe crime
Speaker 1: is going to get bad this summer because the lockdowns
Speaker 1: are over. So the lockdowns create crime, and then when
Speaker 1: you let the lockdowns, they create crime um both ways,
Speaker 1: and and it is going to be very bad. With
Speaker 1: the lack of recruiting, the the demoralization, cops not getting
Speaker 1: out of their cars. They've gone completely passive, which is
Speaker 1: their prerogative. You know, the only thing that cops are
Speaker 1: obligated to do is to respond to nine one one calls.
Speaker 1: They don't have to make those discretionary stops. They don't
Speaker 1: have to get out of their car at two am
Speaker 1: and question somebody out on a known drug corner hitching
Speaker 1: up his waistband as if he has a gun. They
Speaker 1: can drive on by and wait for that guy to
Speaker 1: actually shoot somebody and then respond when the radio call
Speaker 1: comes from nine one one that somebody's been shot. And
Speaker 1: that's what they're doing because they're saying, why should I
Speaker 1: risk a a cell phone video going I rolled that
Speaker 1: shows me using force against a resisting suspect. I'm not
Speaker 1: going to do do as little as possible. And and
Speaker 1: they've gotten the political message that they should because they're
Speaker 1: told that it's racist to engage in proactive policing and
Speaker 1: minority communities, well, they're responding that message appropriately. So this
Speaker 1: is going to be very bad. And and I don't
Speaker 1: think that the crime is going to stay within the
Speaker 1: inner city. People are leaving UH cities. There's white flight
Speaker 1: going on, the black middle class that can leave or
Speaker 1: leaving UH and and unless we turn this around, it's
Speaker 1: going to be very bad for the country. When we're
Speaker 1: saying that come to a head in places like Atlanta
Speaker 1: with the Buckhead community, you know, even wanting to separate
Speaker 1: themselves from the City of Atlanta and wanting their own
Speaker 1: police force. And you know, a movement going on there
Speaker 1: as well right now. But has it has it gotten
Speaker 1: so bad to the point that even the left is
Speaker 1: waking up? Because what I find interesting is if you
Speaker 1: look at the New York City mayoral ray us on
Speaker 1: the left, you have some of the top contenders openly admitting,
Speaker 1: you know, the the uh crime problem that the City
Speaker 1: of New York is having. And I believe it was
Speaker 1: Andrew Yang even calling for, you know, expanding the NYPD
Speaker 1: if my memory serves me correct, at one of the
Speaker 1: more recent debates. So has it gotten so bad that
Speaker 1: even the left have to admit the problem that we're
Speaker 1: facing as a society. Uh? Somewhat not really. Yeah, you
Speaker 1: have Eric Adams, who's a former police officer. I'm not
Speaker 1: a big fan of him, is sort of the front runner. Uh.
Speaker 1: He was a real racial rabble rouser as a police officer.
Speaker 1: He gave false testimony against police Commissioner Ray Kelly, who
Speaker 1: was Michael Bloomberg's police commissioner. Uh. And it's got a
Speaker 1: very bad history of racial demagoguery. Nevertheless, he's the closest
Speaker 1: thing the city has to a law and order candidate
Speaker 1: in New York right now, and a lot of conservative
Speaker 1: institutions like The New York Post have you know, very
Speaker 1: vigorously endorsed him. And Andrew Yang, as you say, Lisa
Speaker 1: also has spoken about the need for stronger policing, but
Speaker 1: the rest of the candidates not very much. Um. And
Speaker 1: I don't really see it happening in other cities. I mean,
Speaker 1: you have had reverse about faces with regards to defunding.
Speaker 1: You know, Minneapolis never did it, and and uh, the
Speaker 1: the wretched Jacob Fry there is is trying to get
Speaker 1: more money sort of kind of for marginal police activity. Um.
Speaker 1: But I don't think the country is ready for a
Speaker 1: true acknowledgement of how how dangerous this false narrative has been.
Speaker 1: Because the left the real engine of of leftist ideology,
Speaker 1: which is the university's Uh, they are unbowed, and uh
Speaker 1: they continue to brainwash their students, who then go out
Speaker 1: into the world and populate the New York Times and
Speaker 1: and uh, you know, the Washington Post and CNN and
Speaker 1: MSNBC and corporations uh that are now committed to the
Speaker 1: idea that the only allowable explanation for ongoing socio economic
Speaker 1: disparities is white racism. You're not allowed to talk about
Speaker 1: behavior or the academic skills gap. How much culpability does
Speaker 1: the Black Lives Matter movement having all of this huge Uh?
Speaker 1: You know, as I said, this was happening before the
Speaker 1: official Black Lives Matter movement you had in the nineties. Uh.
Speaker 1: And you know, anti police kneed your reaction has been
Speaker 1: an aspect of the left for a very long time. Uh.
Speaker 1: But you're right that the Michael Brown shooting in Ferguson,
Speaker 1: Missouri was the real uh explosion that that started this
Speaker 1: thing going based on a falsehood, as you say, one
Speaker 1: that was a falsehood disproven by even the Obama Justice Department,
Speaker 1: that had no effect on the endurance of that hands up,
Speaker 1: don't shoot myth. I mean literally, that was literally a lie,
Speaker 1: and yet people are still are still chanting it. And
Speaker 1: so obviously Black Lives Matter has been effective to that
Speaker 1: extent of making this idea that we're living through an
Speaker 1: epidemic of racially biased police violence be just received wisdom
Speaker 1: that one may not challenge more with Heather McDonald after
Speaker 1: this we talked about George Floyd a little bit um
Speaker 1: and you know you've previously said in an opinion piece
Speaker 1: that you know, Minneapolis officers who arrested George Floyd must
Speaker 1: be held accountable. He did end up being found guilty
Speaker 1: of second degree third degree. Uh, you know, he ended
Speaker 1: up being found guilty. Do you think the charges he
Speaker 1: received were fair? Well, it's the charges are questionable. The
Speaker 1: real problem is the process of the trial. As I
Speaker 1: understand it, the third degree charge was was somewhat of
Speaker 1: a bootstrap affair. It's traditionally kind of used for felony
Speaker 1: murder with group participation. Um, that wouldn't have applied really
Speaker 1: to Derek Chauvin, but they got him on second degree anyway.
Speaker 1: What I was most troubled by was the refusal to
Speaker 1: change the venue, the city's awarding of the twenty seven
Speaker 1: million settlement to the Floyd family right as the trial started.
Speaker 1: The refusal to sequester them. Now that's a that's a
Speaker 1: tough call for a judge, you know, after the um
Speaker 1: Dante right case in in Brooklyn Heights outside of Minneapolis.
Speaker 1: It's a tough call because sequestration is very tough on
Speaker 1: a jury. But there's no question that they were that.
Speaker 1: I'm sure that jury was being pounded with the idea
Speaker 1: that we're living through in in continuing riots, and then
Speaker 1: the threat of riots was just huge. You know, there's
Speaker 1: a writer, Fred Siegel, who wrote a book that um
Speaker 1: called The Future Once Happened Here, and he talks about
Speaker 1: the right ideology, and that's the idea that you know,
Speaker 1: black rage is kind of a legitimate reason to arson
Speaker 1: and loot and and and tear down cities. And the
Speaker 1: threat of black rage is always there. And that jury
Speaker 1: having lived through a year of Minneapolis Star Tribune coverage
Speaker 1: which just wanted a Pulitzer for its completely deceptive coverage
Speaker 1: of policing in Minneapolis. Uh, it would be very hard
Speaker 1: for that jury two not fear that if they acquitted
Speaker 1: on any of those counts, that the firestorm that would
Speaker 1: have hit every single American city was not on their hands.
Speaker 1: I mean, that is the threat. Let's be honest. Any
Speaker 1: time now a police officer is on trial for uh,
Speaker 1: any kind of lethal interaction with a black man, we
Speaker 1: all know that if that officers acquitted, America burns to
Speaker 1: the ground. So how you have a fair trona maybe
Speaker 1: you know this was the right result, but we don't.
Speaker 1: We don't know because it happened in a very very
Speaker 1: difficult situation, and every officer is terrified at this point
Speaker 1: that if he's compelled to use lethal force, he has
Speaker 1: no hope of a fair trial because he will be convicted,
Speaker 1: and as I say, the threat of black violence will
Speaker 1: hang over that trial and over that jury. And just
Speaker 1: for the sake of clarity, I just want to make
Speaker 1: sure I get this right for the audience. Derek Chauvin
Speaker 1: was convicted of second degree murder, third degree murder, and
Speaker 1: second degree manslaughter, just to make sure you know, I
Speaker 1: have it clear for folks. And you also had President
Speaker 1: Biden weighing and the mayor of Minneapolis weighing. And that's
Speaker 1: where I was disturbed by all this, because I think
Speaker 1: you can watch the video and you can say, Okay,
Speaker 1: you know, it looks like there's wrongdoing that took place.
Speaker 1: But also, we live in a society where officer Derek Chauvin,
Speaker 1: even if he was wrong, deserves a fair trial and
Speaker 1: also deserves to be fairly charged as well. And I
Speaker 1: think it sort of taints that perspective when you have
Speaker 1: the President of the United States weighing, And when you
Speaker 1: have the mayor weighing, and we have all this public
Speaker 1: pressure added to the jury, I find that a little
Speaker 1: bit disturbing. No, you're absolutely rightly, so, absolutely. I mean,
Speaker 1: the most precious thing that any civilization has is the
Speaker 1: possibility of a neutral, impartial tribunal and fact finder. We
Speaker 1: all yearn for the to be confident that if we
Speaker 1: come before a tribunal of justice, we will be able
Speaker 1: to have our facts evaluated with impartiality. And when you
Speaker 1: lose that, when you fear that you can't get a
Speaker 1: fair here, and you can't get a fair trial, there
Speaker 1: is nothing you can turn to. You are then at
Speaker 1: the mercy of tyranny. Uh. And as far as the charges,
Speaker 1: you know, the issue always is is intent uh And
Speaker 1: and with the second degree, as I understand it, the
Speaker 1: intent element gets to committing assault, not necessarily murder. UM.
Speaker 1: But you know, did did Chauvin really intend to assault,
Speaker 1: uh assault Floyd in that way? Or was he acting
Speaker 1: in misguided good faith? I don't know. UM. I have
Speaker 1: not focused on the legal minut shy of this, uh,
Speaker 1: but it is true you know that by and large,
Speaker 1: the difference between officer behavior and criminal behavior. His officers
Speaker 1: are not setting out to kill somebody, whereas criminals are.
Speaker 1: Uh So coming up with an intent element can be
Speaker 1: kind of difficult, But I just think it's much healthier
Speaker 1: as a society to look at each of these cases
Speaker 1: on an individual basis and really examine the facts. And
Speaker 1: unfortunately we see this distortion, this effort by the meeting
Speaker 1: and Left, as we've discussed throughout the show. Uh this
Speaker 1: desire to prove a narrative instead of look at the facts.
Speaker 1: And you know, it's it's obviously all very disturbing. But
Speaker 1: you know, before I let you go, right now, Congress,
Speaker 1: you know they're having conversations about police reform. I'm hesitant
Speaker 1: about it because I just think a lot of these
Speaker 1: conversations or be based off of a false narrative in
Speaker 1: the country that simply isn't true, that has been disproven
Speaker 1: throughout the entirety of this conversation. But what do you
Speaker 1: make of Congress's efforts right now as they look at
Speaker 1: you know, quote unquote police reform. Well, you're right, that
Speaker 1: is exactly my objection to is that we're the whole
Speaker 1: exercise is premised on the idea that the police are
Speaker 1: the problem in this country. They're not the problem. Crime
Speaker 1: is the problem. We have a crime problem. Our crime
Speaker 1: problem is unlike anything else in the West. Our rates
Speaker 1: of gun violence are forty times higher in certain age
Speaker 1: brackets than in Western countries, Japan, Germany. I mean, it's
Speaker 1: just it's off the church. There's nothing like it in
Speaker 1: the civilized world today. Uh. And police are response to that.
Speaker 1: If you want, if you want less police in your community,
Speaker 1: here's what you gotta do. Guys, commit less crime. You
Speaker 1: know that, that's why they're there. And and and unless
Speaker 1: you want to just deal with it yourself, which is
Speaker 1: what Black Lives Matter claims they want to in my
Speaker 1: view as the police should say, fine, you know you
Speaker 1: want to take care of emotionally just a person calls
Speaker 1: or homeless calls or whatever, be my guest. You know,
Speaker 1: we're out of here. I'm amazed that they sort of
Speaker 1: want to hold onto those responsibilities. But if you think
Speaker 1: you can do this better, let's have a try, you know,
Speaker 1: Al Sharpton, how about you try and deal with Central
Speaker 1: and East Harlem. Let's let's show us how you do
Speaker 1: it better than the police. So the the police reformed
Speaker 1: thing in Congress is based on a complete misrepresentation. It
Speaker 1: seems to be sort of UH losing steam. Everybody was
Speaker 1: all united on the idea that white supremacy was the
Speaker 1: defining feature of the United States after George Floyd uh
Speaker 1: and and now there's people that are sort of quietly
Speaker 1: creeping away from that idea. UM So, as far as
Speaker 1: the details of it qualified immunity, it's a complicated issue,
Speaker 1: but arguably it is a valid UH doctrine because it
Speaker 1: says that the police should not be held responsible for
Speaker 1: areas of the law that are murky or truly good
Speaker 1: faith mistakes. UM. But I'm I'm more concerned as you
Speaker 1: sort of imply, Lisa, it's not so much the details
Speaker 1: of of the law, because frankly, policing is local, and
Speaker 1: I think that most actions go on and and policies
Speaker 1: go on a local basis. The real problem is just
Speaker 1: the narrative, UH in the name of which the reform
Speaker 1: movement is going on. And that's that's the thing that
Speaker 1: is really impeding policing. It's not this or that ban
Speaker 1: on choke holds or not. It's the it's the idea
Speaker 1: that the police are racist for going where crime is.
Speaker 1: And I've been saying on TV it's one of the
Speaker 1: most deadly lies that have ever been told, and it's
Speaker 1: having real world consequences on the very people that groups
Speaker 1: like the Black Lives Matter purport to care about. So
Speaker 1: obviously they don't. And it's disturbing and it's sad, and
Speaker 1: we should care about lives in America, and it's unfortunate
Speaker 1: we've become so desensitized to it. I think that's a disgrace.
Speaker 1: Heather McDonald, this has been absolutely fascinating. I I so
Speaker 1: appreciate the time you've taken on my podcast, and thank
Speaker 1: you so much for being with me. Thank you so
Speaker 1: much for having me on. It's a great conversation, great questions.
Speaker 1: I want to thank Heather McDonald again for an incredible
Speaker 1: interview in getting the bottom of an issue that I
Speaker 1: think is one of the most deadliest lies that's being
Speaker 1: told in America today. And I want to thank you
Speaker 1: all at home for listening. If you enjoyed today's show,
Speaker 1: please leave us review and rate us five stars and
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Speaker 1: so please do that. I would greatly appreciate it. You
Speaker 1: can also find me on Twitter and Instagram and at
Speaker 1: least some rebooth let me know there too. Are you
Speaker 1: enjoying the show? What can we do different? And I
Speaker 1: just want to thank our team or producer John Cassio,
Speaker 1: writer Aaron Kleegman, researcher Margaret Smith, and our executive producers
Speaker 1: Debbie Myers and speaker New Gingridge. We're all part of
Speaker 1: the Gingridge three sixty network and team