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Speaker 1: Welcome to It could Happen Here. This is Robert Evans,

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Speaker 1: and It Could Happen Here is a podcast about things

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Speaker 1: falling apart and you know, sometimes about making them better. Today,

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Speaker 1: we're talking both about something that is implicated in a

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Speaker 1: number of you know, aspects of what we call the

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Speaker 1: crumbles here in the United States, which is the police.

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Speaker 1: And we're also talking about the the tremendous difficulty that

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Speaker 1: people encounter whenever they try to improve this particular aspect

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Speaker 1: of American society, the near impossibility of reform within the police.

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Speaker 1: And to talk with me about that, and to talk

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Speaker 1: with me about their incredible new book, The Writers Come

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Speaker 1: Out at Night is Ali Winston. Ali co wrote this

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Speaker 1: book with Darwin bond Gram and it covers particularly the

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Speaker 1: Oakland Police and a scandal that kind of happened at

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Speaker 1: around the same time as the rampart scandal in Los Angeles,

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Speaker 1: focused around a group of Oakland police officers called the

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Speaker 1: Writers who Well, I'm gonna let Ali tell you about that.

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Speaker 1: It's a it's a pretty pretty shocking and.

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Speaker 2: Bleak story though.

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Speaker 1: Ali, Welcome to the show.

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Speaker 2: Hither How are you doing?

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Speaker 1: I'm doing good? How are you today?

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Speaker 2: Lovely lovely Ali.

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Speaker 1: This is a great book. It's it's very deeply reported.

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Speaker 1: I want to talk a little bit about kind of

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Speaker 1: the the what sort of brought you into this story,

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Speaker 1: because this is something that kind of happened around the

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Speaker 1: turn of the last century, and it's kind of adjacent

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Speaker 1: to a lot of issues that are still very much

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Speaker 1: relevant in kind of the problems we have with policing,

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Speaker 1: both kind of the the thin blue line code of silence,

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Speaker 1: the way in which police departments act in a very

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Speaker 1: gang like fashion to protect bad actors, the way in

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Speaker 1: which kind of ill thought out form policies targeted at

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Speaker 1: kind of assuaging the fears of business owners lead to

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Speaker 1: policies of tremendous violence. A lot of things that are

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Speaker 1: still very much kind of at play all around the country.

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Speaker 1: It's fascinating to me.

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Speaker 2: So we came at this book both kind of independently.

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Speaker 3: We came out this as two reporters who'd worked kind

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Speaker 3: of handing glove together for about ten well since twenty twelve.

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Speaker 3: When we signed our contract, it was twenty twenty, but

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Speaker 3: I'd started reporting on the Oakland Police Department in two

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Speaker 3: thousand and eight when I moved to the Bay Area

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Speaker 3: for graduate school at cal Gobert's, and I'd kind of

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Speaker 3: dove right into the topic of police and police conduct

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Speaker 3: in Oakland because I'd wanted to. I've been messing around

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Speaker 3: with criminal justice reporting when I was back east in

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Speaker 3: New York and North New Jersey where I was working,

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Speaker 3: and there really was there were some really egregious shootings

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Speaker 3: at that point in time, in the early two thousands,

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Speaker 3: mid two thousands, late two thousands OPD about average, I

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Speaker 3: think eight to fourteen officer involved shootings police shootings a year.

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Speaker 3: Invariably there would be one or two or three or four,

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Speaker 3: depending on the years, maybe more that involves someone who's

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Speaker 3: unarmed fleeing it was an awful but lawful shoot, or

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Speaker 3: maybe just an awful shoot that the DA didn't charge

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Speaker 3: or didn't properly investigate. And at that time, it was

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Speaker 3: really tough to get information about police shootings in California

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Speaker 3: because of a combination of laws and Supreme Court California

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Speaker 3: Supreme Court decisions that intersected and kind of shut the

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Speaker 3: door on any sort of record you could get from

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Speaker 3: about police disciplinary action or their past histories. So you

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Speaker 3: kind of had to mine the civil courts and look

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Speaker 3: for back doors and through the DA's offices and just

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Speaker 3: kind of or source up really well to try and

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Speaker 3: report out these incidents. And Darwin and I met about

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Speaker 3: around twenty twelve. We started interrogating questions about power and

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Speaker 3: the political economy of law enforcement. We started to raise

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Speaker 3: questions about the percentage of budgetary allocation that OPD receives.

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Speaker 3: It's about forty percent of the city's billion dollar budget

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Speaker 3: give or takes, so we're talking three hundred and fifty

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Speaker 3: four hundred million dollars every year. The result, the net

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Speaker 3: result for public safety is questionable.

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Speaker 2: At best.

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Speaker 3: Doesn't really tie into increase in police funding, increase in menpower,

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Speaker 3: decreasing crime. Oakland is a very violent city, often ranks

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Speaker 3: in the top ten or top five nationally in per

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Speaker 3: capita crime per one hundred thousand residents.

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Speaker 2: And you know, it's.

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Speaker 3: Also been under this reform program forever, and this is

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Speaker 3: the backdrop to all our reporting. There was always this

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Speaker 3: backdrop of court ordered reforms. There's external oversight. The external

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Speaker 3: oversight is oftentimes how the public and the press became

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Speaker 3: aware of some very deep seated issues in the department

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Speaker 3: and how they would get addressed because the politicians here, Affeckless,

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Speaker 3: were inexperienced, or complicit.

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Speaker 2: Or all the above.

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Speaker 3: So we over the course of our reporting together kind

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Speaker 3: of yoked together. Around a decade eight years or so,

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Speaker 3: we kind of realized, Okay, we have a paragraph in

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Speaker 3: each one of our stories that explains the backdrop, or

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Speaker 3: maybe a little bit more, depending.

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Speaker 2: On how legalistic appease it was. We need to peel

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Speaker 2: all this back.

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Speaker 3: We need to explain to people because this is the

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Speaker 3: longest running oversight regime in the country, right two decades now,

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Speaker 3: over two decades since the consent degree, the negotiated settlement

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Speaker 3: agreement was signed, and we just needed to explain to

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Speaker 3: people why this city had gone so far, why it

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Speaker 3: was an edge case, why it was an outlier. And

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Speaker 3: in order to do that, we couldn't use five thousand words.

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Speaker 3: We needed one hundred and twenty thousand, hundred and six.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, this is a dense book in a way that's

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Speaker 1: still intensely readable, And I think part of what makes

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Speaker 1: it readable is it goes to a tremendous amount of

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Speaker 1: effort laying out things that people kind of know in

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Speaker 1: broad and a good example of this would be people

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Speaker 1: talk a lot about you know, the kind of concept

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Speaker 1: of you know, the bad apples that you know, there's

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Speaker 1: both on the side of people defending police departments that

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Speaker 1: it's a few bad apples, and then kind of and

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Speaker 1: you find this more on sort of people on the

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Speaker 1: left criticizing police as an institution, the idea that, like, well,

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Speaker 1: the fact that those bad apples are supported and defended

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Speaker 1: by the rest of the department kind of means that

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Speaker 1: they're all but bad. You get this these kind of

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Speaker 1: like broad you know, discussions about that phenomenon. What you

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Speaker 1: do in this in this book is kind of get

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Speaker 1: very granular with the way in which that actually functions

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Speaker 1: on the ground. I'm thinking about a specific point where

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Speaker 1: you've got one of the characters, you know, one of

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Speaker 1: the people that is a major source kind of for

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Speaker 1: this book and a major source for this scandal was

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Speaker 1: a police officer who effectively turned on his fellow officers

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Speaker 1: and reported all of this illegal violence being done by

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Speaker 1: this this gang. And there's a point where this guy,

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Speaker 1: after he's kind of become thoroughly horrified and disillusioned by what,

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Speaker 1: you know, he's the guys that he's writing with are doing,

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Speaker 1: goes to other people in the department who are like, yeah,

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Speaker 1: those guys are like messed up and it's it's bad,

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Speaker 1: and you just kind of have to you should just

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Speaker 1: kind of like, you know, try to try to move on,

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Speaker 1: but don't make waves about it, right, And it's this,

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Speaker 1: it's this, the kind of the fact, the degree to

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Speaker 1: which other people cannot just know in the department what's

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Speaker 1: happening but be disgusted by it, and still when I'm

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Speaker 1: kind of the shit hits the fan, fundamentally defend the

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Speaker 1: officers doing it, right, Like the fact that they're able

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Speaker 1: to warn other officers away from you know, being around

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Speaker 1: those guys doesn't mean that they won't like absolutely throw

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Speaker 1: down to defend them, which is, you know, something I

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Speaker 1: think people are kind of broadly aware of. But the

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Speaker 1: kind of going into the actual personal dynamics is I

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Speaker 1: think really valuable, and you do a very good job

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Speaker 1: of capturing that at the ground level.

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Speaker 2: Well, what we wanted to do is explain how so.

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Speaker 3: It's not a bad apple theory I think is Yeah, honestly,

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Speaker 3: it's a distraction and frankly it's an excuse. What you're

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Speaker 3: dealing with is culture, right, and culture eats politics and policy.

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Speaker 3: For lunch, breakfast, lunch, dinner, and all the meals in between,

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Speaker 3: every single time.

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Speaker 2: You can't change culture unless you understand it.

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Speaker 3: So what we wanted to do, and we were able

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Speaker 3: to do this because we had very good sourcing, not

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Speaker 3: only inside and around the department, current former officers. We

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Speaker 3: had reams of records. I mean we sued for I

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Speaker 3: want to say, hundreds of thousands of pages of records, videos,

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Speaker 3: audio files, got old court trains, scripts, cassette tapes of

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Speaker 3: old internal affairs interviews backstop those by talking to the

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Speaker 3: people there and involved, and we were really able to

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Speaker 3: We were able to kind of reconstruct, not just the

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Speaker 3: initial scandal of the writers of which stemmed from this

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Speaker 3: young officer, Keith Batt, who is from a city from Sebastopol,

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Speaker 3: which is a bit north of Oakland, very different place, rural,

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Speaker 3: a bit crunchy, quite crunchy, not nearly the real rough

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Speaker 3: and tumble grit of Oakland around the turn.

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Speaker 2: Of the millennium. And Keith comes in.

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Speaker 3: He's a criminal justice major in college, really idealistic, wanted

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Speaker 3: to join an active police department, applied to dozens of apartments,

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Speaker 3: to several departments around the area, and the first one

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Speaker 3: that took him was Oakland, and Oakland had a good

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Speaker 3: reputation among police culture.

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Speaker 2: It was an active department.

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Speaker 3: The cops worked hard, they were well trained, they were

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Speaker 3: decently paid, and it wasn't a you know in the

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Speaker 3: Bay Area like the two departments that people look to

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Speaker 3: are like are the Oakland Police Department in SFPD, and

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Speaker 3: SFPD is a closed shot.

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Speaker 2: It is a legacy.

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Speaker 3: Department is run by an intense old boy network of

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Speaker 3: Italian and Irish folks, some Chinese, some Asian immigrants that

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Speaker 3: are kind of led into that now, but it is

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Speaker 3: just it's such an insular place. OPD is actually typically

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Speaker 3: more welcoming of recruits from outside, and they really like

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Speaker 3: people who are hard chargers, active, willing to learn. And

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Speaker 3: Keith finished the top of his near the top of

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Speaker 3: his academy, excellent shot, really sharp on the uptake. His

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Speaker 3: instructors liked him, and right when he was about to

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Speaker 3: go on the street, they one of his instructors pulled

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Speaker 3: him aside and said, hey, I hear you got aside

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Speaker 3: to chuck to Clarence Mabtang, who was his field training officer.

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Speaker 3: He said, okay, listen, you need to keep your mouth

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Speaker 3: shut and you need to keep your eyes open. You're

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Speaker 3: going to see some crazy shit. But just go along

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Speaker 3: to get along, you know, just keep your head down. Yeah,

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Speaker 3: And Keith was like, wait, what are you talking about?

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Speaker 3: Like that's that's some wild that's a wild shit, Like

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Speaker 3: that's not what I'm expecting.

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Speaker 2: It's a little bit odd. And these are older officers

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Speaker 2: who he respected.

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Speaker 3: He goes out and gets in the car with Chuck,

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Speaker 3: and Chuck is this little, you know, very very intense,

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Speaker 3: buzz cut Filipino dude. And he's like, all right, I'm

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Speaker 3: gonna teach you. I gonna take take you out and

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Speaker 3: toughen you up, like this is not the academy anymore.

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Speaker 3: I'm gonna teach you how to be in the streets.

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Speaker 3: We're gonna get a fight, and we're gonna get in

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Speaker 3: a fight tonight. This is beast, first jot night on

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Speaker 3: the job, first time stepping into a Crown of Victoria

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Speaker 3: patrol car with his FTO.

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Speaker 2: And he's like what.

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Speaker 3: And sure enough, Chuck gets in a confrontation that very

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Speaker 3: night with someone drunk in front of his own house,

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Speaker 3: just drunk in front of his own house, threatens to

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Speaker 3: shoot the guy's dog takes the guy in after beating

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Speaker 3: him up.

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Speaker 2: And Keith is like, wait, what you shoot dogs? And yeah,

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Speaker 2: they told him that.

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Speaker 3: You know, every now and then they would encounter somebody

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Speaker 3: with the dog and they would shoot the dog and

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Speaker 3: then cut the leash in order to make it seem

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Speaker 3: like the dog was going to attack them.

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Speaker 2: And that was just his introduction to it.

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Speaker 3: And over the two weeks that he worked with several

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Speaker 3: officers on shift, there were three other officers who kind

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Speaker 3: of made up this little click of of free wheeling

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Speaker 3: cops that they called themselves the Riders, and they were

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Speaker 3: Jude Siapno, Frank Vasquez, and Matt Hornung And those three

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Speaker 3: were kind of at the center of it, and they

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Speaker 3: would they basically took it on themselves.

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Speaker 2: They were not in a task force. They were just

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Speaker 2: patrol officers.

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Speaker 3: They would kind of roam around West Oakland going out

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Speaker 3: and looking for people to arrest, just jumping out on

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Speaker 3: random folks.

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Speaker 2: They were pro not reactive, they were proactive.

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Speaker 3: So they actually ended up kidnapping people, planning drugs on

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Speaker 3: them when they didn't find drugs, beating the tar out

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Speaker 3: of them, torturing them. Sap, Who's nickname was the foot

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Speaker 3: Doctor because he had a habit of taking his asss

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Speaker 3: retractable batime and beating detainees on the soles of their

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Speaker 3: feet till they couldn't walk.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, their bruises were so painful.

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Speaker 1: For some reference, that's that was called bastinado by the

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Speaker 1: Spanish inquisition, who loved to do the exact same thing.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, no, it's it's really it's grim. It's really really

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Speaker 3: grim shit. So Keith sees.

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Speaker 2: All this stuff.

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Speaker 3: It's just like two weeks of like training day that film,

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Speaker 3: it's two weeks of that, it's not just one week.

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Speaker 2: And he's like, I.

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Speaker 3: Can't do this. This can't be the way policing is.

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Speaker 3: And he keeps going, you know, kind of casting around

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Speaker 3: for help. And the cash twenty two that he's in

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Speaker 3: is that anybody who he tells about this behavior is

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Speaker 3: obligated by OPDS regulations to then report said misconduct, and

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Speaker 3: if they don't, then they're guilty of failing to report misconduct.

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Speaker 3: So he has to kind of hedge his words and

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Speaker 3: you know, talk around these issues. And his friends who

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Speaker 3: work in OPD, who work in CHP California and highway patrol,

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Speaker 3: and he tells about this stuff in this roundabout way.

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Speaker 3: Are all giving him the same advice? You know, I

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Speaker 3: don't know, like do you want to write out your career?

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Speaker 3: Like can you do this? Is there a way you

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Speaker 3: can switch out? Is there a way that you can

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Speaker 3: thread the needle? And it gets to be too much,

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Speaker 3: and so one day, after two weeks, he decides, I

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Speaker 3: can't do this anymore. I can't put more I can't

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Speaker 3: put in this in people in jail. I can't forge

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Speaker 3: paperwork for my supervisors. I can't forge their overtime. You know,

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Speaker 3: I can't help them steal money from the taxpayers like this.

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Speaker 3: So he goes into the you know, he confronts them

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Speaker 3: in a parking garage in front of a church in

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Speaker 3: right north of downtown Oakland. These guys called the light

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Speaker 3: Cave that they would hang out at, and he's telling Chuck, listen,

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Speaker 3: you know, I can't do this.

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Speaker 2: This isn't the right way. And Maven x as well,

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Speaker 2: you know you have a problem. No, No, I don't

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Speaker 2: think you're really getting this.

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Speaker 3: He's trying to like talking past it, and then Keith

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Speaker 3: keeps bringing up Frank Fasquez and Frank he'd seen Frank

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Speaker 3: choke people. He'd see Frank empty, can't pepper spray into

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Speaker 3: somebody's mouth, puts his fingers into their eyes like a

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Speaker 3: bowling ball.

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Speaker 2: He said, oh, well, if you have a problem with Frank,

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Speaker 2: you can talk to him.

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Speaker 3: Fasquez comes over and you know drives over there that

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Speaker 3: have a conversation about that.

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Speaker 2: And Keith at this point is so wired up and

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Speaker 2: so terrified.

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Speaker 3: He's looking at Mabadag and looking at Fasquez and thinking

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Speaker 3: to himself, Okay, can I get to my pistol before

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Speaker 3: they get to theirs if they want to hurt me?

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Speaker 3: And if we have a shootout, how's it going to

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Speaker 3: look if three Oakland cops are bucking led at each

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Speaker 3: other in uniform on shift right, He's running this calculus

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Speaker 3: in his head.

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Speaker 2: Doesn't come to that.

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Speaker 3: In the end, Mabini convinces him to go in and

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Speaker 3: sign a resignation letter, and when he does that at

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Speaker 3: OPD headquarters, one of his supervisors from the academy gets

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Speaker 3: hold of him, gets a hold of him, says, no, no, no,

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Speaker 3: this isn't what's happened. This is not you what's going on?

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Speaker 3: And they convinced him to go upstairs and talk to

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Speaker 3: internal affairs, and then he spills the beans on the

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Speaker 3: what he's seen the past two weeks, and that blows

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Speaker 3: the Lid office scandal.

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Speaker 1: There had been a number of people who had attempted

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Speaker 1: to kind of like victims of this particular gang of

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Speaker 1: guys who had that's like, attempted to complain, attempted to

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Speaker 1: come forward. But yeah, it's not really until this officer

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Speaker 1: on the inside, with a very good record is willing

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Speaker 1: to say something that anything starts to happen.

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Speaker 3: So you have to remember the context here. I'm sorry

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Speaker 3: for cutting in, but he I was remiss on this.

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Speaker 3: So the context of Oakland in late nineteen nineties early

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Speaker 3: two thousands is that it's in the middle of New

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Speaker 3: York style urban renewal. Jerry Brown, who later became governor

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Speaker 3: of California, was kind of on his way back up

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Speaker 3: the political rung, and Oakland was his first stop.

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Speaker 2: He was re elected mayor in nineteen ninety eight.

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Speaker 3: I believe on this kind of ecotopian platform where he

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Speaker 3: could he was going to turn Oakland into this socialist,

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Speaker 3: you know, environmental friendly metropolis. But he gets into office,

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Speaker 3: he starts going to community meetings and he realizes public

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Speaker 3: safety is the number one concerns. So he becomes Rudy

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Speaker 3: Giuliani West, as one of his former employees put it

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Speaker 3: to us, pushes a massive building program in downtown Oakland

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Speaker 3: for new residential market rate housing and enlists his police

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Speaker 3: department to go on a clean up the streets spree

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Speaker 3: by any means necessary, and he would go into the

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Speaker 3: lineup and cheer them on route them on, say listen,

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Speaker 3: you know, I got your back, all back your play,

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Speaker 3: you know, just take back those corners from these dealers.

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Speaker 2: That's what those officers, That's what.

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Speaker 3: Mabinang, Hornoggs, Siapno, and Vasquez were responding to. They were

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Speaker 3: responding to the instructions from their supervisor, from their chief,

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Speaker 3: from their mayor that came down the command chain to

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Speaker 3: clean up the streets and do this sort of stuff.

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Speaker 3: And they were actually, you know, Maminag and Vazquez in particular,

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Speaker 3: were very highly valued officers. They were proactive. They made

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Speaker 3: their supervisors look good. It was this kind of one

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Speaker 3: hand washes the other bit.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, and I one of the things that I found

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Speaker 1: particularly kind of impactful is the way in which you

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Speaker 1: describe both the kind the violence, the absolute like horrifying

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Speaker 1: cruelty of what these guys are getting up to and

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Speaker 1: how that intersects with Jerry Brown's political career, with the

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Speaker 1: kind of promises he's making to clean up the city

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Speaker 1: and the kind of metrics that are established, you know,

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Speaker 1: to provide basically evidence that this plan is succeeding.

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Speaker 2: You know.

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Speaker 1: It's it really like kind of gives on the ground

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Speaker 1: context to what this kind of broken windows style policing,

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Speaker 1: what it actually means in terms of a human cost,

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Speaker 1: and it's it's devastating. And equally devastating is the lawsuit

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Speaker 1: that kind of comes afterwards when this all gets exposed.

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Speaker 1: One of the things that was most shocking to me

360
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Speaker 1: because I was I was only kind of broadly aware

361
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Speaker 1: of this case at all, is when these guys, the

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Speaker 1: officers in this in this gang, get you know, go

363
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Speaker 1: on trial or sort of when that process starts, one

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Speaker 1: of them, this guy Vasquez, like goes on the run,

365
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Speaker 1: steals an AR fifteen from his department and fucking disappears

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Speaker 1: and he's still in the wind. No one's ever found

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Speaker 1: this guy.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, he was most likely in Mexico. He's from Mexico.

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Speaker 3: He's born down there and has family around media.

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Speaker 2: The theory is that he I mean, you know, he

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Speaker 2: was stopped by a cop.

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Speaker 3: That's when, Yeah, the people realized that he had been

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Speaker 3: that he'd stolen a gun from the department. But he

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Speaker 3: kind of badges his way out of this encounter with

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Speaker 3: a cop in so which is a Delta town near

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Speaker 3: where he lived and are near his house, and that

377
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Speaker 3: was the last anybody had seen of him, has seen

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Speaker 3: of him. The theory a theory that's rattled around quite often,

379
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Speaker 3: and there's more often than there's probably some hef to

380
00:20:16,080 --> 00:20:19,399
Speaker 3: it is that somebody from the either the department or

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Speaker 3: the police union helped him down to the border in

382
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Speaker 3: Chula Vista and he walked across. So the odds are

383
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Speaker 3: that he's in Mexico estensively. The FBI are still looking

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Speaker 3: for him. He's a fugitive, but he's never never been found.

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Speaker 1: No, and he when this happens, because his buddies and

386
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Speaker 1: the writers are all all do in fact, go on trial.

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Speaker 1: And you know, you might think the fact that one

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Speaker 1: of them like bounced and fled the country after stealing

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Speaker 1: a gun would have an impact on things, but no, no,

390
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Speaker 1: in court, they're not you know, the prosecutors aren't allowed

391
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Speaker 1: to tell the jury what happened with Fasquez because there

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Speaker 1: it's worried that it might prejudice them, which is wild

393
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Speaker 1: to me.

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Speaker 3: Well, in the first trial, so there were two trials.

395
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Speaker 3: Fast forward a little bit, all three cops in their

396
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Speaker 3: first trial. There's hung juries in them. I think there

397
00:21:10,040 --> 00:21:13,840
Speaker 3: were one or two holdouts maybe, And from the reporting

398
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Speaker 3: that we.

399
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Speaker 2: Did, the interview that we did with the.

400
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Speaker 3: ADA on the case, Dave Holliser, it seemed that these

401
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Speaker 3: were people who were convinced that these were good cops

402
00:21:22,200 --> 00:21:25,159
Speaker 3: and the ends justified the means or therefore, you know,

403
00:21:25,200 --> 00:21:30,640
Speaker 3: this kind of noble noble cause corruption actually has an

404
00:21:30,640 --> 00:21:33,239
Speaker 3: audience among some segments of the population around here.

405
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Speaker 2: I mean it.

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Speaker 3: I'm sure you see this across the Bay now in

407
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Speaker 3: San Francisco. There's all these people who were, you know,

408
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Speaker 3: kind of advocating the sort of vigilante violence that that

409
00:21:41,760 --> 00:21:45,520
Speaker 3: former fire commissioner was committed any and so against homeless folks, unhoused.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, for folks who aren't aware the fire commissioner of

411
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Speaker 1: San Francisco. This was a couple of months ago, right

412
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Speaker 1: around the time that there was a big wave of

413
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Speaker 1: San Francisco has collapsed into anarchy sort of stories.

414
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Speaker 2: Which happened every ten years, which yeah.

415
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Speaker 1: Yeah, and then you know, it happened at the same

416
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Speaker 1: time that that tech CEO was stabbed to death. Turns

417
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Speaker 1: out by another tech founder. But yeah, this story that

418
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Speaker 1: the fire commissioner had been attacked and there's this video

419
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Speaker 1: of him getting brutally beaten by a homeless man. It

420
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Speaker 1: turns out he had been going around at night and

421
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Speaker 1: macing homeless people at random.

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Speaker 3: One of the yeah, hairspring, it was crazy, it was

423
00:22:23,480 --> 00:22:26,679
Speaker 3: awful ship. Yeah, and then someone attacked him with the

424
00:22:26,680 --> 00:22:28,960
Speaker 3: homeless with a with a crowbar. But all that those

425
00:22:28,960 --> 00:22:31,760
Speaker 3: facts were emitted anyway. So the bottom line is with

426
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Speaker 3: the with Horning of Horning, Vasquez and Sap they're they're

427
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Speaker 3: hung on the first trial, and then the second trial

428
00:22:38,760 --> 00:22:42,080
Speaker 3: they're acquitted. Uh, they're Horning is acquitted of some charges

429
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Speaker 3: and there's hung juries in the rest of his charges

430
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Speaker 3: and those first Syap know and Mabinang. But in the

431
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Speaker 3: second trial. The first trial the defense was, well, they

432
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Speaker 3: didn't do with Keith, did Keith's bad as lying? The

433
00:22:52,119 --> 00:22:55,760
Speaker 3: second trial was well, the defense turned to a strategy

434
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Speaker 3: of well, actually Frank Ivasquez was the leader, So it's

435
00:22:58,680 --> 00:22:59,560
Speaker 3: all Frank's fault.

436
00:23:02,040 --> 00:23:03,800
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's easy to throw that guy under the bus

437
00:23:03,800 --> 00:23:04,720
Speaker 1: because he's gone.

438
00:23:04,880 --> 00:23:06,240
Speaker 2: Exactly, yeah, exactly.

439
00:23:06,320 --> 00:23:07,879
Speaker 3: And you know, to say he was the ringleader is

440
00:23:07,880 --> 00:23:12,280
Speaker 3: absurd because everyone knew in OPD and outside OPD that

441
00:23:12,320 --> 00:23:13,879
Speaker 3: Mabdang was the shot.

442
00:23:13,640 --> 00:23:14,840
Speaker 2: Caller in that little gang.

443
00:23:15,960 --> 00:23:19,280
Speaker 3: What's interesting is the lawsuit, So there's a little vegary

444
00:23:19,359 --> 00:23:24,439
Speaker 3: here about the criminal investigation into the Riders. The police

445
00:23:24,480 --> 00:23:28,119
Speaker 3: department and the police department's internal affairs investigators and the

446
00:23:28,119 --> 00:23:31,399
Speaker 3: police chief made a decision from day one from on

447
00:23:31,520 --> 00:23:33,919
Speaker 3: high that the investigation would only be limited to what

448
00:23:34,080 --> 00:23:37,600
Speaker 3: Keith Bat saw, that it would not expand out beyond

449
00:23:37,640 --> 00:23:39,879
Speaker 3: his two weeks on the job and the incidents that

450
00:23:39,920 --> 00:23:42,280
Speaker 3: he witnessed personally, and that they were able to corroborate

451
00:23:42,320 --> 00:23:45,080
Speaker 3: with other people. And there was another cop, Scott Huson,

452
00:23:45,200 --> 00:23:50,200
Speaker 3: who did corroborate some of this stuff. Once it came

453
00:23:50,200 --> 00:23:53,280
Speaker 3: out that he'd falsified some reports, he decided to save

454
00:23:53,359 --> 00:23:53,840
Speaker 3: his on skin.

455
00:23:54,680 --> 00:23:55,840
Speaker 2: So he also caught some of.

456
00:23:55,840 --> 00:23:58,040
Speaker 3: The flak that Bat did, but not nearly the same

457
00:23:58,080 --> 00:24:01,080
Speaker 3: sort of death threat type shit that Keith caught. So

458
00:24:01,920 --> 00:24:08,600
Speaker 3: with regard to the broader, the broader lay of the land,

459
00:24:08,640 --> 00:24:11,800
Speaker 3: the criminal the investigation didn't go into a broader pattern

460
00:24:11,840 --> 00:24:14,240
Speaker 3: of what else was happening on these shifts, what are

461
00:24:14,280 --> 00:24:16,800
Speaker 3: their cops were involved because the writers, you know, there's

462
00:24:16,840 --> 00:24:19,600
Speaker 3: a ball that they actually signed for each other, and

463
00:24:19,640 --> 00:24:20,960
Speaker 3: there's several names on that ball.

464
00:24:21,040 --> 00:24:22,760
Speaker 2: It's not just those four cops.

465
00:24:23,520 --> 00:24:26,359
Speaker 3: So the civil suit, there was a civil suit brought

466
00:24:26,359 --> 00:24:30,120
Speaker 3: by two civil rights two attorneys in the area, John

467
00:24:30,160 --> 00:24:32,359
Speaker 3: Burris and Jim Channon, who had been suing the department

468
00:24:32,400 --> 00:24:32,879
Speaker 3: for years.

469
00:24:33,280 --> 00:24:35,520
Speaker 2: They'd actually received walkins.

470
00:24:35,000 --> 00:24:38,600
Speaker 3: The victims that you'd mentioned earlier over the years, alleging

471
00:24:38,920 --> 00:24:43,480
Speaker 3: that they'd been arrested, beaten up, framed up, tortured by

472
00:24:43,720 --> 00:24:48,679
Speaker 3: these cops in West Oakland. And when the news of

473
00:24:48,800 --> 00:24:52,520
Speaker 3: Keith Batt blowing the whistle on the writers hit the newspapers,

474
00:24:52,560 --> 00:24:55,360
Speaker 3: it clicked for them and they realized they'd been seeing

475
00:24:55,960 --> 00:24:58,199
Speaker 3: this pattern. So they opened up their own pattern and

476
00:24:58,240 --> 00:25:04,240
Speaker 3: practice investigation and did their own investigation of complaints and

477
00:25:04,960 --> 00:25:09,679
Speaker 3: canvassed neighborhoods and got names from people who'd filed complaints

478
00:25:09,720 --> 00:25:15,000
Speaker 3: and alleged similar patterns of misconduct, and came up with

479
00:25:15,040 --> 00:25:19,199
Speaker 3: one hundred and nineteen plaintiffs who who laid out a

480
00:25:19,240 --> 00:25:23,520
Speaker 3: pattern of abuses that spanned much more of the city,

481
00:25:23,560 --> 00:25:25,960
Speaker 3: the downtown area, other parts of West Oakland, even as

482
00:25:26,000 --> 00:25:28,399
Speaker 3: far as East Oakland, and a much broader time frame

483
00:25:28,800 --> 00:25:32,359
Speaker 3: stretching back almost basically to nineteen ninety five, five years prior.

484
00:25:33,600 --> 00:25:33,719
Speaker 2: So.

485
00:25:34,920 --> 00:25:40,560
Speaker 3: The reality of opd's abuses and their kind of deep

486
00:25:40,680 --> 00:25:43,480
Speaker 3: corruption in that period of time was far larger than

487
00:25:43,800 --> 00:25:46,439
Speaker 3: the criminal case against those four riders would have it.

488
00:25:47,280 --> 00:25:51,400
Speaker 3: And I should say that these civil attorneys took up

489
00:25:51,760 --> 00:25:58,040
Speaker 3: the challenge where both the state Attorney general and the

490
00:25:58,080 --> 00:26:02,400
Speaker 3: federal authorities both you a United States attorney and federal

491
00:26:02,840 --> 00:26:06,239
Speaker 3: and civil rights in main justice dropped the ball. They

492
00:26:06,280 --> 00:26:10,000
Speaker 3: did not open pattern and practice investigations into OPD. And

493
00:26:10,160 --> 00:26:13,440
Speaker 3: we have it from the ADA himself, who's in the

494
00:26:13,520 --> 00:26:17,040
Speaker 3: room when he presented their case, because they were cross

495
00:26:17,080 --> 00:26:21,200
Speaker 3: designated as as their cross editor as designated as US

496
00:26:21,240 --> 00:26:26,120
Speaker 3: attorneys during their whole investigation, and vice versa. He presented

497
00:26:26,160 --> 00:26:29,200
Speaker 3: the case to the city United States Attorney at the time,

498
00:26:29,440 --> 00:26:33,520
Speaker 3: one Robert Mueller, who should be familiar to your listeners

499
00:26:33,520 --> 00:26:34,600
Speaker 3: as the former head of the.

500
00:26:34,520 --> 00:26:37,760
Speaker 1: FBI twice over swinging Bob Miller, that's right.

501
00:26:38,560 --> 00:26:42,359
Speaker 3: And you know, Miller flipped through the pages and was looking,

502
00:26:42,400 --> 00:26:45,120
Speaker 3: you know, trying to see if any connections to Russia and.

503
00:26:45,119 --> 00:26:46,280
Speaker 2: Alpha Bank and so on.

504
00:26:47,440 --> 00:26:49,320
Speaker 3: But no, actually, I mean he's flipping through and he

505
00:26:49,480 --> 00:26:51,600
Speaker 3: pulls out these files and he looks at the long

506
00:26:51,800 --> 00:26:53,959
Speaker 3: rap sheet of some of these witnesses, and these were

507
00:26:53,960 --> 00:26:55,520
Speaker 3: people in the street. These were people who had been

508
00:26:55,600 --> 00:26:58,640
Speaker 3: arrested before, had been involved in narcotic sales, petty assaults,

509
00:26:58,720 --> 00:27:02,480
Speaker 3: that robbery's, burglaries, what have you like. They were people

510
00:27:02,520 --> 00:27:06,000
Speaker 3: who were not They were not kids, they were not

511
00:27:06,119 --> 00:27:10,120
Speaker 3: clean sheets. And he handed the file back to Hollister,

512
00:27:10,280 --> 00:27:12,160
Speaker 3: to the ADA and said, I wish you the best

513
00:27:12,160 --> 00:27:14,439
Speaker 3: of luck. It's important to note that this was a

514
00:27:14,480 --> 00:27:17,800
Speaker 3: different era. A CoP's word was very, very very hard

515
00:27:17,800 --> 00:27:20,360
Speaker 3: to impeach on the stand. There was no body camera video.

516
00:27:20,400 --> 00:27:24,080
Speaker 3: There were no cell phoned videos at the time. You

517
00:27:24,080 --> 00:27:27,000
Speaker 3: would maybe have a rough camcorder every now and then

518
00:27:27,040 --> 00:27:29,200
Speaker 3: if somebody shooting like a little video on the street,

519
00:27:30,160 --> 00:27:32,399
Speaker 3: kind of grainy digital cameras, and they were The sound

520
00:27:32,480 --> 00:27:38,360
Speaker 3: wasn't great, but there wasn't much beyond eyewitness testimony. And

521
00:27:38,400 --> 00:27:41,359
Speaker 3: that's why Keith's words were so important. Why his testimony

522
00:27:41,400 --> 00:27:44,760
Speaker 3: was so critical is that you had a cop coming

523
00:27:44,800 --> 00:27:47,439
Speaker 3: out and blowing the whistle on his department and saying, no,

524
00:27:47,640 --> 00:27:48,360
Speaker 3: this is not right.

525
00:27:48,440 --> 00:27:51,080
Speaker 2: This is what they're doing. They should be punished for it.

526
00:28:01,320 --> 00:28:04,399
Speaker 1: You know, I can't help it thinking about the story

527
00:28:04,400 --> 00:28:06,600
Speaker 1: that's kind of blown up right now about there's a

528
00:28:06,640 --> 00:28:10,639
Speaker 1: man on the subway recently in New York City who was,

529
00:28:11,119 --> 00:28:13,560
Speaker 1: you know, acting kind of erradically yelling and stuff, but

530
00:28:13,960 --> 00:28:17,440
Speaker 1: had not done any violence to anyone, and a bystander

531
00:28:17,560 --> 00:28:21,520
Speaker 1: straphanger restrained him, put him in a headlock for fifteen minutes,

532
00:28:21,520 --> 00:28:24,480
Speaker 1: and he died. And kind of the response that I'm

533
00:28:24,480 --> 00:28:26,920
Speaker 1: seeing from guys like Matt Walsh, the Daily Wire crew,

534
00:28:27,119 --> 00:28:29,520
Speaker 1: you know, particularly in right wing media, is well, this

535
00:28:29,560 --> 00:28:31,560
Speaker 1: guy had been arrested, you know, forty times or whatever.

536
00:28:31,600 --> 00:28:34,919
Speaker 1: It's like, well, that's not germane to anything that's happening.

537
00:28:35,280 --> 00:28:36,760
Speaker 2: Doesn't give you the right to lynch someone.

538
00:28:36,960 --> 00:28:40,719
Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly like that, Like, the penalty for having been

539
00:28:40,800 --> 00:28:43,480
Speaker 1: arrested in the past is not getting strangled to death.

540
00:28:43,520 --> 00:28:45,360
Speaker 1: That's not the way the system is. That's not the

541
00:28:45,360 --> 00:28:47,800
Speaker 1: way any of this is supposed to work. And it's

542
00:28:47,840 --> 00:28:51,760
Speaker 1: it's interesting. There's a degree to which I guess it

543
00:28:51,800 --> 00:28:54,520
Speaker 1: hasn't changed, and there's a degree to which I'm kind

544
00:28:54,560 --> 00:28:58,360
Speaker 1: of worried that the sort of nature of social media

545
00:28:58,440 --> 00:29:00,680
Speaker 1: means that we're a lot more open about the kind

546
00:29:00,720 --> 00:29:02,320
Speaker 1: of violence we're willing to accept.

547
00:29:02,480 --> 00:29:04,840
Speaker 2: For I agree with it, Yeah, I agree with that entirely.

548
00:29:04,880 --> 00:29:10,200
Speaker 3: I mean, that's unfortunately the backlash to a lot of

549
00:29:10,560 --> 00:29:14,000
Speaker 3: to both Black Lives Matter cycles in twenty fourteen, fifteen,

550
00:29:14,080 --> 00:29:19,720
Speaker 3: and the current cycle is a lot more virulent then

551
00:29:19,760 --> 00:29:21,880
Speaker 3: you'd have it if you just watched kind of the

552
00:29:21,920 --> 00:29:25,520
Speaker 3: soft focus PBS frontline documentary versions of it. There's a

553
00:29:25,560 --> 00:29:31,920
Speaker 3: lot of really naked justification and support for.

554
00:29:33,280 --> 00:29:34,480
Speaker 2: Extra legal violence.

555
00:29:34,640 --> 00:29:38,960
Speaker 3: And that is part of the issue with you know,

556
00:29:39,080 --> 00:29:43,120
Speaker 3: law enforcement and holding them accountable. There is always going

557
00:29:43,200 --> 00:29:48,040
Speaker 3: to be a segment, small, sometimes vocal, sometimes not, of

558
00:29:48,080 --> 00:29:52,720
Speaker 3: the society that supports violence beyond the extent of the law,

559
00:29:52,800 --> 00:29:58,480
Speaker 3: beyond the constraints of our system. And that's why oversight,

560
00:29:58,720 --> 00:30:02,280
Speaker 3: why running the rule over law enforcement and making sure

561
00:30:02,320 --> 00:30:05,680
Speaker 3: that they behave according to the laws and that they

562
00:30:05,840 --> 00:30:09,840
Speaker 3: are operating within the baluands of their limits. In so

563
00:30:09,960 --> 00:30:12,240
Speaker 3: far as we have set them out for them and

564
00:30:12,800 --> 00:30:14,840
Speaker 3: in so far as like it. Look, this book is

565
00:30:14,840 --> 00:30:17,280
Speaker 3: not a book questioning whether or not police should exist.

566
00:30:17,320 --> 00:30:18,000
Speaker 2: It's a history.

567
00:30:18,240 --> 00:30:20,479
Speaker 3: They do exist, They have existed. This is what it

568
00:30:20,560 --> 00:30:24,440
Speaker 3: has looked like to date. Right If other people want

569
00:30:24,440 --> 00:30:28,480
Speaker 3: to make those cases and look at you know, hypotheticals

570
00:30:28,560 --> 00:30:31,880
Speaker 3: or envisioned a different future, that's totally fine. What we're

571
00:30:31,880 --> 00:30:34,120
Speaker 3: trying to do is lay out the ways in which

572
00:30:34,240 --> 00:30:37,160
Speaker 3: people have pushed back on one of the most egregious

573
00:30:37,200 --> 00:30:41,640
Speaker 3: departments in the country consistently for over a century and

574
00:30:42,680 --> 00:30:46,560
Speaker 3: actually had some sort of lasting impact on it. And

575
00:30:46,600 --> 00:30:51,000
Speaker 3: there have been some impacts that have really changed because

576
00:30:51,200 --> 00:30:55,479
Speaker 3: of Look, they don't there a there's no more public

577
00:30:55,480 --> 00:30:58,160
Speaker 3: strip searching of people in the streets that happen in

578
00:30:58,200 --> 00:31:00,000
Speaker 3: Oakland on the regular every day.

579
00:31:00,480 --> 00:31:01,480
Speaker 2: As late as.

580
00:31:01,360 --> 00:31:05,040
Speaker 3: Twenty nine and ten, it was common that the cops

581
00:31:05,040 --> 00:31:07,120
Speaker 3: would say, look, I'm going in your ass for rocks.

582
00:31:07,160 --> 00:31:10,040
Speaker 3: You'd better not have anything there, right in the middle

583
00:31:10,120 --> 00:31:12,960
Speaker 3: of the morning, on a crowded street, in front of

584
00:31:12,960 --> 00:31:15,280
Speaker 3: people driving by on the way to work. That sort

585
00:31:15,280 --> 00:31:17,920
Speaker 3: of civil rights violation would happen all the time. The

586
00:31:18,080 --> 00:31:21,440
Speaker 3: department no longer shoots shoots, maybe about three or four

587
00:31:21,440 --> 00:31:25,040
Speaker 3: people a year. That's way down from fourteen to fifteen

588
00:31:25,080 --> 00:31:27,960
Speaker 3: a year a decade twelve years ago. That's because they've

589
00:31:28,040 --> 00:31:31,160
Speaker 3: changed their chase policy, their pursuit policy. They used to

590
00:31:31,240 --> 00:31:33,720
Speaker 3: pursue people with an intent to catch them at all costs.

591
00:31:33,760 --> 00:31:37,000
Speaker 3: That ended up resulting in cops chasing people down blind

592
00:31:37,040 --> 00:31:39,360
Speaker 3: alleys or ending up way too close to a suspect

593
00:31:39,840 --> 00:31:42,800
Speaker 3: and pulling out their weapon and opening up fire, regardless

594
00:31:42,800 --> 00:31:45,440
Speaker 3: of whether or not they actually had the suspect had

595
00:31:45,480 --> 00:31:48,080
Speaker 3: a firearm or another weapon, or whether the cops were

596
00:31:48,160 --> 00:31:51,840
Speaker 3: under threat. The change in the pursuit policy has led

597
00:31:51,880 --> 00:31:55,240
Speaker 3: to more of the instruction now is to contain, don't

598
00:31:55,240 --> 00:32:00,160
Speaker 3: pursue close call for backup, set a perimeter, preserve life.

599
00:32:00,640 --> 00:32:04,040
Speaker 3: That's not been that change was not something in department

600
00:32:04,120 --> 00:32:07,959
Speaker 3: submitted to voluntarily. They are brought, they are kicking and screaming.

601
00:32:08,440 --> 00:32:11,400
Speaker 3: But because there has been this outside imposition of court

602
00:32:11,440 --> 00:32:15,080
Speaker 3: oversight for so long, because it hasn't gone away, because

603
00:32:15,120 --> 00:32:18,640
Speaker 3: it's not overseen by the Justice Department or the state

604
00:32:18,680 --> 00:32:22,440
Speaker 3: Attorney General. So you know, some of the political figure

605
00:32:22,480 --> 00:32:24,920
Speaker 3: can't like they can't there can't be a deal cut

606
00:32:25,000 --> 00:32:28,160
Speaker 3: in the back room between a senator's staffer and the

607
00:32:28,200 --> 00:32:32,280
Speaker 3: federal Department of Justice, or the mayor and the state attorney.

608
00:32:31,880 --> 00:32:34,040
Speaker 2: General and their wife or whatever like.

609
00:32:34,120 --> 00:32:37,480
Speaker 3: That sort of thing doesn't really happen when the plaintiff's

610
00:32:37,480 --> 00:32:41,280
Speaker 3: attorneys aren't hoholding to anybody other than themselves, and when

611
00:32:41,320 --> 00:32:45,840
Speaker 3: the federal district court judge kind of lets the situation

612
00:32:45,960 --> 00:32:50,200
Speaker 3: play out as it will and whole and both judges

613
00:32:50,240 --> 00:32:52,280
Speaker 3: on this case have actually been very by the book

614
00:32:52,280 --> 00:32:56,600
Speaker 3: and very stringent on how the oversight has gone. So

615
00:32:56,600 --> 00:32:58,040
Speaker 3: that's why it's gone on for twenty years, and it

616
00:32:58,080 --> 00:33:00,800
Speaker 3: actually has resulted in good changes. There are a lot

617
00:33:00,840 --> 00:33:03,240
Speaker 3: of people who bitch about it, who cry that, oh, well,

618
00:33:03,280 --> 00:33:04,840
Speaker 3: we need to be out from there. To this oversight,

619
00:33:04,920 --> 00:33:07,080
Speaker 3: it's hammering the police. They can't do their job as

620
00:33:07,080 --> 00:33:09,000
Speaker 3: they will. Well, do you want to go back to

621
00:33:09,040 --> 00:33:12,120
Speaker 3: twenty years ago? Do you really want that? Do you

622
00:33:12,160 --> 00:33:13,200
Speaker 3: want that sort of abuse?

623
00:33:14,160 --> 00:33:14,280
Speaker 2: No?

624
00:33:14,640 --> 00:33:16,920
Speaker 3: And that's why there is a constituency in Oakland that

625
00:33:16,960 --> 00:33:18,840
Speaker 3: did manage to change a lot of things around. There's

626
00:33:18,840 --> 00:33:22,840
Speaker 3: a police commission here that now oversees the department. It's

627
00:33:22,840 --> 00:33:25,920
Speaker 3: not perfect, it's very much in the infancy, but that's

628
00:33:25,960 --> 00:33:28,360
Speaker 3: a body that existed to take control away from the

629
00:33:28,360 --> 00:33:32,560
Speaker 3: mayor and move it more towards civilian control of a

630
00:33:32,560 --> 00:33:36,720
Speaker 3: police department. And this is Yeah, it's a long arc,

631
00:33:37,600 --> 00:33:40,239
Speaker 3: but the bottom line is that it's not about a

632
00:33:40,240 --> 00:33:41,000
Speaker 3: one or a zero.

633
00:33:41,040 --> 00:33:42,480
Speaker 2: There's no linear progress here.

634
00:33:42,560 --> 00:33:44,800
Speaker 3: It's kind of goes in ways, but there has been progress,

635
00:33:44,800 --> 00:33:46,400
Speaker 3: which is a crazy thing to say when.

636
00:33:46,200 --> 00:33:48,520
Speaker 2: You look at the the shit that's in the book.

637
00:33:48,960 --> 00:33:53,400
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, but it is, like, it's important both, you know,

638
00:33:53,480 --> 00:33:57,440
Speaker 1: I think our our audience is definitely much more of

639
00:33:57,960 --> 00:34:00,440
Speaker 1: our audiences in the constituency of you know, get rid

640
00:34:00,440 --> 00:34:03,480
Speaker 1: of the police entirely, even if you're coming at it

641
00:34:03,520 --> 00:34:05,440
Speaker 1: from that, I mean, especially if you're coming at from

642
00:34:05,440 --> 00:34:07,400
Speaker 1: that standpoint. Actually, I think kind of one of the

643
00:34:07,440 --> 00:34:09,759
Speaker 1: mistakes that a lot of people who are are on

644
00:34:09,840 --> 00:34:12,239
Speaker 1: that side of things, which is generally where I find myself,

645
00:34:12,360 --> 00:34:15,680
Speaker 1: is using that as an excuse to not actually understand

646
00:34:15,800 --> 00:34:18,360
Speaker 1: how the police function, using their sort of distaste for

647
00:34:18,400 --> 00:34:22,000
Speaker 1: the institution as an excuse to not understand how the

648
00:34:22,000 --> 00:34:26,880
Speaker 1: institution works, why it's resilient, and the ways in which

649
00:34:27,160 --> 00:34:30,759
Speaker 1: you know, both harms can to an extent be mitigated,

650
00:34:30,800 --> 00:34:33,880
Speaker 1: but also kind of just on a strategic level, how

651
00:34:33,960 --> 00:34:36,440
Speaker 1: it functions to defend itself, and I think that this

652
00:34:36,600 --> 00:34:40,480
Speaker 1: book does an exceptional job of going through that in

653
00:34:40,520 --> 00:34:45,480
Speaker 1: a way that's nuanced and detailed, but also compelling and readable,

654
00:34:45,520 --> 00:34:48,520
Speaker 1: like you're not going to have to I do really

655
00:34:48,560 --> 00:34:50,640
Speaker 1: recommend your book. People are not going to have like

656
00:34:50,760 --> 00:34:54,200
Speaker 1: trouble getting into it, Like I was drawn in from

657
00:34:54,280 --> 00:34:56,600
Speaker 1: the first page. So I really do think this is

658
00:34:56,640 --> 00:34:59,960
Speaker 1: something folks should look into. No matter where you live

659
00:35:00,120 --> 00:35:02,440
Speaker 1: in the United States, even if you've never been to Oakland,

660
00:35:02,600 --> 00:35:04,359
Speaker 1: you will. You will get a lot out of this.

661
00:35:05,760 --> 00:35:08,480
Speaker 3: I would say that we didn't make an explicit attempt

662
00:35:08,680 --> 00:35:12,040
Speaker 3: to make the city the main character, so to draw

663
00:35:12,080 --> 00:35:14,279
Speaker 3: people into Oakland and kind of cast it in the

664
00:35:14,320 --> 00:35:16,640
Speaker 3: same way that Mike Davis cast Los Angeles in the

665
00:35:16,680 --> 00:35:19,680
Speaker 3: City of Courts. May he rest in peace. It was

666
00:35:19,719 --> 00:35:23,160
Speaker 3: a great inspiration for us. But more than anything else,

667
00:35:23,200 --> 00:35:26,000
Speaker 3: there are tons of parallels in Oakland to other places.

668
00:35:26,040 --> 00:35:27,719
Speaker 3: It's not a unique plate. I mean, it is a

669
00:35:27,760 --> 00:35:31,440
Speaker 3: unique place, but it's also very typical for an American

670
00:35:31,440 --> 00:35:34,000
Speaker 3: city like Los Angeles and New York and Chicago are

671
00:35:34,719 --> 00:35:39,759
Speaker 3: completely atypical. They're huge, they don't most American cities are

672
00:35:39,800 --> 00:35:43,920
Speaker 3: like four hundred to six hundred thousand people large. Oakland's

673
00:35:43,960 --> 00:35:48,640
Speaker 3: racial balance is almost thirty thirty thirty white, Latino, Black,

674
00:35:48,840 --> 00:35:51,920
Speaker 3: ten percent Asian, and roughly eight to ten percent Asian.

675
00:35:52,000 --> 00:35:53,400
Speaker 2: Then everyone else thrown in there.

676
00:35:55,239 --> 00:35:59,680
Speaker 3: It's really balanced out and in some ways it's very representative,

677
00:36:00,040 --> 00:36:03,000
Speaker 3: and it's also you know, rust belt city in certain respects,

678
00:36:03,040 --> 00:36:05,040
Speaker 3: although that's changed a lot with the tech boom.

679
00:36:05,160 --> 00:36:06,480
Speaker 2: We could be going back the other way.

680
00:36:06,840 --> 00:36:11,279
Speaker 3: Yeah, but it really there are echoes in stuff that's

681
00:36:11,320 --> 00:36:14,600
Speaker 3: happened in New York and Los Angeles, in Cleveland, in

682
00:36:14,640 --> 00:36:18,799
Speaker 3: New Orleans, in Portland and Seattle. It's the experience that

683
00:36:18,800 --> 00:36:23,000
Speaker 3: we've had here, particularly with police oversight and reform. I

684
00:36:23,000 --> 00:36:25,400
Speaker 3: mean Portland and Seattle are two other cities that have

685
00:36:25,440 --> 00:36:28,560
Speaker 3: actually undergone very similar programs with departments that.

686
00:36:30,040 --> 00:36:32,040
Speaker 2: Are more alike to OPD than not.

687
00:36:32,960 --> 00:36:36,520
Speaker 1: Yeah, well, Allie, is there anything else you wanted to

688
00:36:36,800 --> 00:36:41,280
Speaker 1: make sure to get into in this conversation or Yeah.

689
00:36:41,120 --> 00:36:44,120
Speaker 3: I think your point about I just wanted to touch

690
00:36:44,120 --> 00:36:46,560
Speaker 3: on your point about where people come out for the institution.

691
00:36:46,600 --> 00:36:49,000
Speaker 3: I think it's really important, even regardless of what you

692
00:36:49,080 --> 00:36:52,360
Speaker 3: believe about where we should and shouldn't be with law enforcement.

693
00:36:52,800 --> 00:36:53,839
Speaker 2: You've got to understand it.

694
00:36:54,080 --> 00:36:57,800
Speaker 3: Yeah, because it's such a huge institution in our society.

695
00:36:57,880 --> 00:37:01,440
Speaker 3: It is basically the main point of contact most people

696
00:37:01,480 --> 00:37:04,600
Speaker 3: have with the state now in many American cities, because

697
00:37:04,600 --> 00:37:07,000
Speaker 3: we've stripped down so many other aspects of our societies.

698
00:37:07,680 --> 00:37:11,560
Speaker 3: Mental hospitals are gone, our schools are failing, public housing

699
00:37:11,600 --> 00:37:17,960
Speaker 3: barely exists, our healthcare system is decimated, and cops essentially

700
00:37:18,040 --> 00:37:21,160
Speaker 3: catch a lot of the end product of those problems.

701
00:37:21,200 --> 00:37:22,799
Speaker 2: It's one of the reasons why I started.

702
00:37:22,520 --> 00:37:24,960
Speaker 3: Reporting our criminal justice because you can look at so

703
00:37:25,000 --> 00:37:29,160
Speaker 3: many other issues of American society through that system. And

704
00:37:29,239 --> 00:37:33,120
Speaker 3: also you can see ways in which like political agendas,

705
00:37:33,440 --> 00:37:36,480
Speaker 3: the way that police departments lobby, and the messaging that

706
00:37:36,480 --> 00:37:39,120
Speaker 3: they push out. They don't do it in isolated fashion.

707
00:37:39,239 --> 00:37:42,440
Speaker 3: It's coordinated, like there are these big swings that happen

708
00:37:42,640 --> 00:37:47,279
Speaker 3: on the national political stage, if you will. We were

709
00:37:47,320 --> 00:37:50,160
Speaker 3: at one moment with police reform and abolishing the police,

710
00:37:50,200 --> 00:37:53,319
Speaker 3: defunding them with Black Lives matters. The immediate pushback within

711
00:37:53,840 --> 00:37:56,160
Speaker 3: six months was there's a crime wave.

712
00:37:56,719 --> 00:37:59,440
Speaker 2: There's a crime wave. There's a crime wave we need

713
00:37:59,480 --> 00:37:59,880
Speaker 2: to support.

714
00:38:00,480 --> 00:38:02,840
Speaker 3: And now we're at the point where people are taking

715
00:38:02,920 --> 00:38:07,160
Speaker 3: act or basically committing acts of vigilante violence because they

716
00:38:07,160 --> 00:38:09,200
Speaker 3: have it in their head that things are so out

717
00:38:09,200 --> 00:38:12,040
Speaker 3: of control. In New York, homeless man's choked to death

718
00:38:12,080 --> 00:38:14,919
Speaker 3: because he's he's having an episode on the train.

719
00:38:15,719 --> 00:38:16,440
Speaker 2: San Francisco.

720
00:38:16,520 --> 00:38:19,080
Speaker 3: This fire commissioner is going around bare spring people who

721
00:38:19,120 --> 00:38:22,080
Speaker 3: are camping out on in the streets. This is the

722
00:38:22,120 --> 00:38:27,400
Speaker 3: sort of back and forth swing that oftentimes starts with

723
00:38:27,560 --> 00:38:30,600
Speaker 3: people who are trying to protect their budget line, who

724
00:38:30,640 --> 00:38:34,000
Speaker 3: are trying to protect their political power, and it ends

725
00:38:34,080 --> 00:38:37,040
Speaker 3: up with consequences like that where people take it to

726
00:38:37,200 --> 00:38:40,680
Speaker 3: that level. And I think that looking at law enforcement

727
00:38:40,680 --> 00:38:45,439
Speaker 3: as a political actor is really important for understanding how

728
00:38:45,440 --> 00:38:47,520
Speaker 3: we are where we are in this society and also

729
00:38:47,600 --> 00:38:50,279
Speaker 3: understanding the ways in which you can try and rain

730
00:38:50,360 --> 00:38:52,319
Speaker 3: them back in and keep your boot on their neck,

731
00:38:52,560 --> 00:38:57,280
Speaker 3: because realistically they will if you let if there's no oversight,

732
00:38:57,320 --> 00:39:00,759
Speaker 3: if oversight is pulled back. There's a reactionary at the

733
00:39:00,760 --> 00:39:03,200
Speaker 3: heart of American law enforcement. It's always been there. We

734
00:39:03,280 --> 00:39:05,960
Speaker 3: document it back basically to the turn of the century

735
00:39:05,960 --> 00:39:08,040
Speaker 3: in Oakland in Justice one City, which is a newer

736
00:39:08,080 --> 00:39:12,400
Speaker 3: city in the States. And if you don't if you

737
00:39:12,520 --> 00:39:15,520
Speaker 3: let that go that core will rise up and basically

738
00:39:15,520 --> 00:39:17,720
Speaker 3: take over the department. That's what happened with the writers,

739
00:39:17,960 --> 00:39:20,400
Speaker 3: That's what they were. They were a representation of a

740
00:39:20,400 --> 00:39:24,080
Speaker 3: hard core that had existed in Oakland for decades. And

741
00:39:24,120 --> 00:39:26,680
Speaker 3: I think that that's really a really I think that's

742
00:39:26,719 --> 00:39:28,720
Speaker 3: a critical takeaway for readers from this book.

743
00:39:29,000 --> 00:39:33,680
Speaker 1: Yeah, I would absolutely agree. Well, folks, the book is

744
00:39:33,800 --> 00:39:37,000
Speaker 1: called The Writers Come Out at Night, Brutality, Corruption and

745
00:39:37,120 --> 00:39:40,319
Speaker 1: cover Up in Oakland. It's by Ali Winston, who you've

746
00:39:40,360 --> 00:39:44,160
Speaker 1: just been listening to, and Darwin Bond Graham. I can't

747
00:39:44,200 --> 00:39:47,319
Speaker 1: recommend it enough. Ali, thank you so much for being

748
00:39:47,360 --> 00:39:47,840
Speaker 1: on the show.

749
00:39:48,120 --> 00:39:54,400
Speaker 2: Thank you so much, Robert. It could Happen here as

750
00:39:54,440 --> 00:39:57,160
Speaker 2: a production of cool Zone Media. For more podcasts from

751
00:39:57,160 --> 00:39:59,920
Speaker 2: cool Zone Media, visit our website cool zonemedia dot com,

752
00:40:00,239 --> 00:40:02,880
Speaker 2: or check us out on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,

753
00:40:02,960 --> 00:40:04,560
Speaker 2: or wherever you listen to podcasts.

754
00:40:05,080 --> 00:40:07,240
Speaker 1: You can find sources for It Could Happen Here, updated

755
00:40:07,280 --> 00:40:10,480
Speaker 1: monthly at Coolzonemedia dot com slash sources.

756
00:40:10,520 --> 00:40:11,280
Speaker 2: Thanks for listening,