Former Baltimore Police Officer Michael O'Donnell joins Jemele to discuss his experience as a cop and how racism played a role in his decision to crack down on white suspects in the Baltimore Police Department. He also talks about how he was blind to racism in the job and how he handled racism on the job, and why he thinks cops should be able to do the same in order to be fair and impartial in dealing with racism. He also discusses how he became aware of racism in his work and how it affected his decision-making, as well as how he dealt with racism in other areas of his life, and how that affected his ability to be impartial and impartial when dealing with other people. And he talks about why he doesn't think cops should have the same rights as everyone else when it comes to their own civil rights and human rights. This is an [Expert] level episode, which means some parts of the conversation may not make sense unless you ve been in the field for a while, and some of the things he says might make sense to you. If you ve ever been in a situation where you feel like you or someone you know is not being treated fairly, or treated fairly or fairly, then this episode is for you. If you re a cop, or someone who has been treated fairly and fairly, this episode will make you think twice about what you should do. Thanks for listening and share this episode with your friends and family. Tweet me if you liked it! Timestamps: 1: 2:00 - 3:15 - What do you think about racism? 4:30 - What does it mean to you? 5: How do you feel about racism in policing? 6:40 - What are you think it's a good thing? 7:10 - How did you think racism is a problem? 8:00 9:20 - What would you like to see more? 11:30 12:10 What are your thoughts on the role of black people in the workplace? 13:40 15:15 16:00 -- How do I feel about race in the police force? 17: What do I think it looks like? 18: What is the role black people should be treated? 19:30 -- How many black people are black? 21:40 -- How much black people need to be treated fairly?
00:00:09.000For folks who don't know the story, Michael, as he prefers to be talked to as, directed as, referred to as, you were a cop in Baltimore, and you put a string of tweets that I read that was on Huffington Post.
00:00:32.000And that's when I got interested in this whole story.
00:00:34.000Because it's very rare that someone who's a cop comes out and tells about all the shit that they experience.
00:00:42.000I have friends that are cops, and I know there's a lot of good cops out there.
00:00:55.000And one of the things they were talking about, they were talking about People in power people that were our politicians that they there's a the whole spectrum You get great people people that are genuinely trying to do good and you also get psychopaths It seems like you ran into a lot of fucking psychopaths How long were you a cop for?
00:01:29.000My idea of what an officer should be Was to be more Robocop-ish, like where I took my emotions out of the job and handled it strictly as enforcing the law.
00:01:40.000So if I was spit on, I realized they weren't spitting at me.
00:02:21.000But I think that also made me blind, because if I was being blind to racism, then I was being blind to when we were doing it.
00:02:28.000Even if I wasn't doing it, I wasn't seeing it when it occurred either, because I was literally blinding myself to it.
00:02:35.000So you're saying that if you were blind to racism against you, then you were also blind to cops that were committing racism?
00:02:42.000So if I looked at it as whether I was talking to somebody of Latino descent, of black, whatever, male, female, I looked at them just as equally, regardless.
00:02:55.000So if you do that, then you don't see that you're disproportionately enforcing things against somebody, because I'm literally not trying to see that.
00:03:08.000So, by trying to treat everyone as equal, you weren't taking account of how many black people you were dealing with, how many Latinos you were dealing with, how many people of color, how many minorities?
00:03:38.000I wanted to see some kind of balance, so I was, like, aware that, hey, we're locking too many black people up, but I don't think I, it just didn't compute at the time.
00:04:12.000Pissing and shitting inside suspects homes during raids on their beds and clothes Jacking up and illegally searching thousands of people with no legal justification This is crazy man.
00:04:46.000You have no way of doing it unless you're getting a frisk where you can justify plain field doctoring, and then you can get into the pocket.
00:05:02.000Ohio was a case law that established, I could be slightly off in the particulars, but If somebody was displaying the characteristics of an armed person and you had suspicion or a hunch that criminal activity was afoot, you could stop that person and conduct a frisk of the outer garments.
00:05:22.000Right a jacket so if you had if like you thought there they had a weapon on their hip you could pull back the jacket and kind of pat it down But it seems as the laws written it would have to you'd have to even like squish it and it's just what you can touch from the outside So if you patted the outside of the jacket and felt a gun that was in his waist Then you could you could arrest him or take that gun,
00:05:44.000You're perfectly fine, but you can't dig in his pockets and look for crack Right.
00:05:47.000Well, you can if you have what that's plain field doctrine.
00:05:51.000So if through my expertise, I can tell that that is packaging that is consistent with narcotics that are distributed in the area, and I can justify that, then I can go and retrieve those narcotics.
00:06:02.000That's an extremely, I mean, if you can just think about that, how do I really know that that bag in your pocket is marijuana, not oregano?
00:06:12.000I'm not sure if that should be legally justified or not.
00:06:15.000So, that stop and frisk shit that they were doing in New York, they're not doing that anymore, right?
00:06:45.000I'm going to tell you that 99.9999% of them have nothing on them because they're not even usually documented.
00:06:52.000So in Baltimore, we'll do stop and frisk, and if you do a stop and frisk, you have to conduct an entire specific report called a stop and frisk report that justifies everything you did.
00:08:32.000I came back and I was going coded to a call with lights and sirens.
00:08:36.000Went to turn down a street and the shoulder popped out.
00:08:39.000So I went up onto the sidewalk because I had to grab it with the other hand and that's why I had to go back in and then they said I need another surgery.
00:08:51.000You need to go to Cain Velasquez's surgeon.
00:08:53.000Fixed that dude up pretty good, I guess.
00:08:56.000So you decided once you were out, once you knew you were out, you'd done the surgery, you couldn't be a police officer anymore because your shoulder blows out.
00:09:04.000What made you decide to go public with all this stuff?
00:09:07.000Well, I've actually talked about this for a long time.
00:09:10.000When I have, we had a lot of local media and local street reporters and stuff like that that I was friends with on Twitter, and we would talk about these things for the last couple years.
00:09:19.000We would just go back and forth talking about things.
00:09:21.000And I had no idea that anybody would pick up on this.
00:09:24.000I thought I was just going to be talking to the same reporters and the same local group of people that I've been talking to the whole time, so I came back and saw that somebody started paying attention.
00:09:44.000When we land in L.A., a guy asked if I was on TV talking about police, and it's like, I don't know, I'm used to being anonymous.
00:09:52.000So I'm used to just going and minding my own business and not bothering anybody, and then suddenly people know who you are.
00:09:58.000It's awkward, and especially for what they know who you are, because every time now a cop looks at me, I'm like, oh, come on.
00:10:06.000I'm the bad guy now, so I can't trust them as well.
00:10:11.000It makes it kind of stuck in a weird place.
00:10:14.000So when this most recent Baltimore incident took place, the Freddie Gray incident, the eruption of public attention on police brutality in Baltimore, and the marches, and all the news stories,
00:10:31.000then people started really paying attention to you.
00:10:59.000So it's not about Whether we're going to blame the cops that did it or whether we're going to go back and have retribution, we need to realize that this is what we do.
00:11:42.000But watching this this whole incident and seeing these people talk about how many times they've been arrested and how many times they've been fucked over by cops and how crazy it is there and how much crime there is there and how much violence there is there What it's like trying to grow up there and become a normal person and what a fucking uphill struggle that is Describe Baltimore to somebody like me.
00:12:02.000Okay, so Baltimore like anywhere else is largely good, but it has a microcosm of It's like the prototype for the prison cycle.
00:12:14.000So somebody comes up in a neighborhood and they just have no hope and they keep feeding that school to prison cycle over and over and over again.
00:12:22.000And it has a deep history in Baltimore.
00:12:46.000Baltimore, I can't even say how long ago, maybe 100 years ago, and you still have deeds now that say you can't sell the house to an African-American person.
00:12:55.000So even if you were a doctor there, if you were a black doctor, you couldn't buy a house in a nice white neighborhood 60 years ago.
00:13:02.000So you had to still go buy a house in that little area.
00:13:05.000If you're clustering everybody like that, it just pulls everybody down constantly, constantly, constantly.
00:13:32.000So if there's a white neighborhood today, there's a possibility that some black person who wants to move into this white neighborhood might encounter some resistance because of this.
00:13:41.000I don't know if they're gonna counter resistance, but they're gonna see it in the deed.
00:14:39.000What I'm telling you is they're participating in institutionalized racism, just like everybody in Britain was doing back in Kenya with the Mau Mau's, however long ago that was.
00:15:30.000We've had this conversation a hundred times in this podcast where I have always wondered why is it that we put so much emphasis in trying to repair damage that we've done in other countries, so much emphasis in nation building.
00:15:46.000So much emphasis in invading places because of whatever perceived threat or whatever natural resource we want to dominate and monopolize, but no emphasis whatsoever in fixing our own inner cities.
00:15:59.000No emphasis whatsoever in fixing the ghettos.
00:16:02.000And just constructing social centers, giving people places that are safe to go to, and somehow or another educating people and lifting them out one by one out of the fucking constant cycle that they're in.
00:16:17.000This never-ending cycle of poverty and crime.
00:16:30.000That's why people in some parts of the world do weird things because everyone around them does it like, you know, weird clothes that they wear, weird rituals, scarring of their face, you know, what have you.
00:16:43.000And when you're around a lot of fucking crime and you grow up around a lot of fucking crime and a lot of people with Records, criminal records, and it becomes normal.
00:17:35.000Until you complete the cycle and realize that you started doing that because of institutionalized racism in your organization.
00:17:44.000And so when you are jacking up those guys in the corner and you do find that dime bag, so you sent him to jail, now he can't go to work the next day, so he loses his job, and then he can't make it to court, so he gets his license suspended, and then he's driving, and then you are focusing...
00:18:28.000So I don't think we can change anything until we stop having politicians that are serving their donors versus serving the people.
00:18:39.000So somebody that's talking like me is never going to run a police agency as long as all their corporate donors are saying, no, no, no, you keep those animals in the cages, because that's what they do.
00:18:48.000I mean, that's like a joke in Baltimore that police are actually the zookeepers.
00:18:51.000You keep everything in and don't let it hit the county.
00:19:19.000We keep looking at everything, like we're hammer searching for nails, and we keep looking for what we're going to hit to stop it, instead of standing back and using science and figuring out what are we actually going to do to fix this problem.
00:19:33.000This is very rare to hear a cop talk like this.
00:19:36.000I'm really happy that you're coming forward and speaking like this, but how many people that were with you in the police force are upset about this?
00:19:49.000My closest friends, I think, understand me.
00:19:51.000I think the vast majority is upset with me.
00:19:54.000And they're going to be upset with me because what I'm really trying to do is take power away from them.
00:20:17.000Intentionally actually go out of my way to lift up a situation and de-escalate it and do better than to come in there and be like, you're going to jail, you're going to jail, shut up, let's go.
00:21:55.000I wasn't doing what I actually set out to do.
00:21:57.000I was actually exacerbating the situation.
00:22:00.000So you got caught up in the cycle yourself, the cycle of law enforcement and the way law enforcement behaves in Baltimore, and it just became habitual.
00:22:12.000So when I say that I have that suspect that I chased and the guy comes up and kicks him in the face, I think to myself, God, that guy's a fucking asshole.
00:22:43.000I can't explain it how you don't see it until you really just start to slowly step back and say, what are we doing here?
00:22:51.000We're starting to see more and more videotapes, police stories of police brutality.
00:23:01.000Do you think this is just a result of cell phones or is the violence escalating or has the violence always been there like this but people are finally finding out about it?
00:23:11.000I think it's actually de-escalating, the violence.
00:23:13.000Yeah, I think your cell phones are certainly scaring a lot of cops from doing things, but the only variable here is the proliferation of video cameras.
00:23:24.000So, as you get more and more cameras, you're seeing more and more, but imagine what it was like before the cameras.
00:24:13.000So that's the McKinney situation, where you have a guy assaulting a 14-year-old girl, and that chief still comes out, and still he has that blinder, that blue blinder, where he's saying, there's 11 good cops there.
00:24:49.000And we can kind of at least on a grassroots level kind of change what police think they're supposed to be versus what we are.
00:24:57.000We've talked about it on the podcast many times, and I think that it's one of the most difficult jobs that a person can do, and one of the jobs that has the least amount of respect.
00:25:09.000Cops, like, almost routinely are treated with disrespect, and also, no one thinks about PTSD for cops.
00:25:20.000People think about it all the time when it comes to soldiers.
00:25:23.000It's become much more in the public eye, but the amount of stress That's a part of being a police officer.
00:25:31.000When you're going into these bad neighborhoods and you're dealing with murder, when you're dealing with all sorts of different assaults and domestic violence and theft and robbery, what is that like to be a person who deals with that every day?
00:25:46.000And how much of a factor does that play in these people snapping on people?
00:25:52.000This is hard for me to say because I don't feel like I had that.
00:25:56.000I did not find the job stressful on the streets.
00:26:10.000The banter back and forth in that movie is very realistic of what cops act like.
00:26:14.000You think cops are all professional, but we're sitting in the car talking about the same things that anybody else talks about, and then you're, oh shit, something's going on.
00:27:24.000I think he had an old car accident or something like that, and the case had some kind of final disposition that was entered into the court records, but it was harkened back to something a long time ago.
00:27:33.000So, he died from being slammed up against the wall inside the back of a paddy wagon, right?
00:30:40.000Did it bug you that you were looking for drugs?
00:30:43.000Did that ever, like, go, what the fuck am I doing being some sort of a glorified revenue collector for the state, pulling people over for drugs?
00:31:11.000Think about if you're in a police car, and you have the lights and sirens, and you're going down, like, Coastal Highway, or you're going down your favorite 101, or whatever it is, and you're going through your side roads, and you're chasing this guy.
00:31:22.000There is no adrenaline rush that's ever compared to that.
00:32:13.000You don't do it, but there's a part of your brain, like, you have a rifle, you're looking through the crosshairs, squirrel doesn't even know you're there.
00:32:21.000You don't do it, but there's a part of you that wants to, and I'm like, why does that even exist?
00:32:27.000The same reason why you like going to the range and shooting at those steel targets.
00:32:32.000Like, why do you, because people like hitting things with guns, because you have a gun, like you said, when you have a hammer, everything looks like a nail.
00:32:39.000And when you're in your cop car, And someone takes off, whether or not it makes sense to chase them, it must feel like the right thing to do, right?
00:33:28.000I was trained from 17. I went to the Marine Corps at 17. I was handled a rifle in boot camp, and I went into special ops, and I was trained day in and day out to kill.
00:33:40.000And then I have to transition into bringing that skill set into the police department where, luckily, I was able to separate myself and it wasn't an issue for me.
00:33:49.000But I don't think that's where the shootings come from.
00:33:51.000I'm pretty convinced that your military members actually won't shoot.
00:33:55.000I'm convinced that the shootings come from fear.
00:33:59.000So the military members have more discipline, they've been through real war, and they understand shooting and death better.
00:34:08.000Yeah, I think you just understand the rules of engagement better.
00:34:11.000Whereas the people that come from civilian life and, you know, there's a fucking video of this guy who's this big fat slob who's a cop and he's trying to...
00:34:21.000Get a hold of this guy and the guy winds up beating his ass and there's like this chaos thing running around.
00:34:26.000But I'm looking at that guy and I'm like, this guy does not, there's no way this guy should be a fucking law enforcement officer.
00:34:37.000His body is just not serving him correctly, and he's involved in physical altercations with criminals.
00:34:45.000And to be a person that is in day-to-day contact with people that may or may not want to kill you, you have to have a certain amount of awareness, and you have to have a certain amount of physical ability.
00:34:58.000Yeah, and you have to trust those abilities.
00:35:00.000You have to realize that you're going to be able to handle that situation.
00:35:03.000I think it's easier in a city than it would be for a Pennsylvania State Trooper or something.
00:35:07.000I don't know what I would do in their shoes, and they're stuck out in the middle of nowhere by themselves.
00:35:11.000In a city, all you got to do is hold on for 30 seconds.
00:35:14.000But how they do it in those environments...
00:35:17.000Baffling to me, but they don't get into a lot of shootings as much as urban environments because I think it's that fear, but I think as a nation we fear the black man.
00:35:51.000Whether we want to face it or not as a nation, it's real.
00:35:54.000And we have to face it if we want to learn how to police properly and we actually want to get our nation back to where it is.
00:35:59.000And we tear down these borders, these things that we do, these social constructs, your flags, your Whether we have a line down at Mexico so that they can't come over here, and we don't help them, and we have our states, and we do all this, oh, there's so much dumb shit that we just make up to separate ourselves, but there's no difference.
00:36:23.000I agree with you on that, but the guy that shot the people in Colorado, that was one of the first things they said, is that he looked possessed.
00:37:17.000If someone is looking for a good job and they get out of the military, it's a logical progression.
00:37:22.000I would trust military members more than I would trust a civilian who's never seen any real gunfire or any real shit.
00:37:29.000You know, someone who has never experienced any sort of altercation like that and all of a sudden being thrust into it, you just gotta hope they can keep it together.
00:37:38.000I know some people can, but a lot of people can't.
00:37:42.000Someone who's been through the Marines, someone who's been through Anything, a Navy SEAL, someone who's been through war, that person, in my eyes, is a much more qualified candidate than the average person.
00:40:26.000I've never hurt anybody never never did anything fucked up never caused any crimes never hurt anybody never You know, I just don't think that Human I think human beings should be able to do whatever the fuck they want.
00:40:39.000I think when you when you violate Somehow or another you violate either other people's rights or other people's safety or other people's health and welfare, then it becomes a real issue and you should be prosecuted based on whatever transgressions you've committed.
00:40:54.000Right, so don't you agree then that the drug war distracts you from actually being a real police?
00:42:10.000So we would go up and we would go in covert and into the projects because the projects had heat and it was winter time so you could break into one of the doors and it had heat in it and then you could watch...
00:42:21.000What happened in the courtyard and people would sell and one of us would run down out of the room, circle around.
00:42:28.000So you would go and break into a room because it had heat in it?
00:43:43.000Because College kids that are going to University of Maryland think that they can just walk down the street into the bad neighborhood and everything will be fine They think they could drink and walk down the street and nothing's gonna happen to them The the and what does happen?
00:43:56.000They're gonna get robbed They know it we know they didn't know it we know it was like hey, what are you doing?
00:44:01.000Don't do that The whites in the neighborhood, you would have a really hard time figuring out your reports because you were supposed to put in who the person's relationship was.
00:46:15.000My one sergeant had to defend me constantly, because I went to a post in that same district where I started bringing the crime numbers down, but I didn't have the arrests.
00:46:24.000And he had to defend me to his bosses, saying, like, look, he hasn't had a serious crime in a long time.
00:46:41.000But if we all had no crime, like I've often proposed this, like if we had a moratorium on crime, if the whole country got together and said, alright, no one for the next month, we can go 30 days without speeding, 30 days without illegal turns,
00:46:57.00030 days without any violent crime, 30 days without any theft, what would happen?
00:47:13.000So, like, my liberal idea of policing would be to empower that officer that's on the street.
00:47:19.000So even if there wasn't crime, then what he would really be doing is making sure that the alley was cleaned up, solving problems that are in the neighborhood.
00:47:27.000So whatever the problem could possibly be, you know, there's this guy that constantly parks on this corner and the street sweeper can't get it.
00:48:05.000I mean, maybe a district here or there might have one guy that kind of primarily does traffic, but it's just patrol officers are expected to handle traffic.
00:48:14.000And again, remember, I'm not being judged on that.
00:48:27.000And the guy has a warrant, driver has a warrant, then yeah, I'm gonna do that.
00:48:30.000So I'm not gonna do it unless I have a possibility of an arrest.
00:48:33.000I'm not gonna sit there and write bullcrap tickets.
00:48:36.000Did you arrest the same guys more than once?
00:48:39.000Yeah, yeah, plenty of times, especially when I was doing narcotics.
00:48:41.000So after I went from the Northern, I went to a unit called the Violent Crime Impact Division, and I was like playing clothes, got to have the tats out and be all tough and run around like you're, you know, they're called knockers in the city.
00:48:53.000And So from there, you're dealing with the same street-level dealers all the time.
00:48:58.000And one of those kids actually really struck me.
00:49:03.000So a great irony that I had in doing drug work is usually drug work sends you deeper into it.
00:49:11.000Because I would interview these guys in the little rooms, and this one guy, Daniel Taylor, is the one I'm specifically remembering, and he was just a marijuana dealer, and he had a kid, and he was struggling to have this kid.
00:49:24.000He was young, he was trying to help, but he had gotten locked up a lot when he was younger, so he was selling weed to just buy diapers for his kid, and he would tell me his stories, and we would be there, and he would be crying, and it was just like, fuck!
00:49:36.000There's no difference between this kid and me.
00:49:38.000The only difference between this kid and me Is that when I had a dime bag in my pocket, there wasn't a fucking chance in hell someone was going to look.
00:49:45.000But him, he was going to get caught eventually.
00:53:26.000And if I'm going to be ahead, I have to be the alpha dog, right?
00:53:30.000You know, I've never, obviously, never been a cop, but I worked as a security guard for a while at this concert place, and one of the things that I recognized really early on was that there was a us-versus-them mentality just from fucking security guards at a concert place.
00:53:44.000And I would imagine the us-versus-them between cops and the people on the street gets pretty fucking intense.
00:54:56.000Yeah, I didn't think about it like that at the time.
00:54:58.000Right, but now, being out of it, how long did it take before you realized how fucking crazy it was?
00:55:02.000It started when I was in but it started with like talking to that kid that was right and then I would also sit in covert and watch so you'll love this one time I was We were doing a long investigation and I had this vacant building that I would hide in a homeless dude was there and homeless dude would like leave magazines for me and then like I would come in during the day and he would come in at night It was the weirdest exchange.
00:55:23.000We never crossed paths though He would leave magazines for you?
00:55:55.000So I was actually standing behind him watching all the drug dealers on the investigation.
00:56:00.000But while I would watch all these investigations like that, you would see everything for what it was and not for your perceptions because you were there for so long.
00:56:10.000So I would see the dealer sitting there, but then I would see him take care of his kid.
00:56:15.000I would see him sit down and make food.
00:56:17.000I would hear the other people in the neighborhood talking about their lives and hearing the sounds, smelling the smells, and realizing that...
00:56:37.000So by being embedded in their community, you recognize that we really are, or you really were, an occupying force In just a community that's trying to get by, just a bunch of people that are just like you or I, but their circumstances were unfortunate.
00:56:54.000They were born into this situation where this cycle is perpetuated over and over and over again, and you've got a chance to see it.
00:57:59.000Did other officers share your, I want to say like, I don't want to say humanization, but your recognition of the fact that these folks are just like you?
00:58:12.000Did other officers have that same feeling?
00:58:18.000I mean, you don't discuss it while you're in, except for maybe a few people.
00:58:22.000When I was a sergeant, I had a pretty good sphere of influence.
00:58:26.000So our squad was a little more talkative about things like that and could be open and discuss those kind of things.
00:58:32.000I took an officer once and just put on plain clothes and kind of walked around the district just not being cops.
00:58:38.000And that shows you, like, how much different the neighborhood is than what you think.
00:58:42.000Because you go from 911 call to 911 call to 911 call seeing everybody at their worst.
00:58:47.000And when you're not seeing them at their worst, you're hunting for somebody that you can possibly pretend that they're doing at their worst.
00:58:54.000You know, whether they have drugs on them or whatever.
00:58:58.000You go through the city, it's not at all what you think it is.
00:59:02.000So even me, looking like a prototypical white kid looking to buy drugs in the hood, when I would go through, it's not like the dealers are pushers.
00:59:11.000I mean, they would come up like, yo, you want to party?
00:59:42.000Yeah, and you never really get a chance to experience it like a person who lives there.
00:59:47.000I mean, even if you don't really, if you don't live there, but I mean, just you get a better view of it walking around and not acting as a cop.
01:00:00.000What would you think about cops being forced to live in the places that they have to patrol?
01:00:03.000I think that's a real tough situation.
01:00:06.000It's a real tough argument and very nuanced.
01:00:10.000There's no way I would live in Baltimore City because I didn't make enough money for my daughter to go to a private school and I wasn't sending her to that school to prison cycle.
01:02:28.000I remember a case we had where there was a group that was selling drugs, and we worked on it for about a week or two, took down the whole group, and two days later, there was a whole new crew running the exact same neighborhood, throwing the same product, and we were just like...
01:03:03.000I would feel like this is just set up to make sure that these people stay poor, that you keep arresting people, and you keep this cycle going.
01:03:13.000I don't think you're a conspiracy theorist.
01:03:42.000We're gonna fill it With the people we like the least as a society.
01:03:48.000The people that you feel like you can demonize the easiest.
01:03:50.000When that judge got arrested in Pennsylvania for sending kids to jail and juvenile just for money, we really got a view into this world I think a lot of people that opened their eyes, they went, whoa,
01:06:09.000Let's say this thing becomes bigger, and I think what you're doing today is very courageous, and you're speaking very eloquently and very articulate, and you're honest, and I really believe you, man.
01:06:26.000There's a possibility that people like you and all these activists that are making these giant protests happen and causing all these people to be aware of all this police brutality and this fucking horrible cycle that these people are thrust into.
01:06:45.000A guy like you could really change something.
01:06:50.000A guy like you, if you were in a position of power, there might be something that you could do.
01:06:58.000Would you consider doing something like that?
01:07:00.000I would consider it if we had the environment to do so, because it's going to be ugly at first, because I can't stop the drug war.
01:07:11.000Well, you shouldn't stop the drug war.
01:07:12.000What if, this is a big hypothetical, but what if we went into some sort of a situation in this country where drugs became decriminalized?
01:07:22.000Where the United States woke the fuck up and realized we've been doing the same shit that they did during the fucking 20s, During the Prohibition, We're doing the same shit.
01:07:33.000We're telling people what they can't do, they're not listening, and we're feeding organized crime.
01:07:38.000We're feeding crime that is filling a vacuum, just like it's going on in Mexico right now.
01:07:44.000Just like these poor fucking people that live in these border towns in Mexico.
01:07:48.000It's all being fueled by the fact that drugs are illegal and they're selling these drugs to America.
01:07:54.000If all of a sudden that changed, how much of an impact would that have on police?
01:09:01.000How much would that transform neighborhoods?
01:09:03.000How much would that transform this entire cycle of people going from communities that are just engulfed in crime and becoming a part of that themselves because they were unlucky enough to be born there?
01:09:17.000I think it's the biggest thing we could do as a nation.
01:09:20.000I only put Wolfpack and getting money out of politics ahead of it because I question that we can actually do that as money continues to fuel the politicians.
01:09:31.000And Wolfpack is what's set up by the Young Turks, right?
01:09:36.000There's another thing that my friend Steve Hilton put together called CrowdPak, where you could see exactly which politicians are being supported by what, where they're getting their donations from, and what they vote on.
01:09:49.000Get a real clear analysis of their position based on influence, based on the amount of money they're receiving and where it's coming from.
01:09:58.000It's all shocking shit, because I just would hope that as we move forward as a human race, as we move forward as civilization moves forward, and we embrace technology, and we understand that we have more access to information now than any human beings that have ever lived ever,
01:10:15.000to keep living the same way, even though we have all these...
01:10:20.000Obvious problems right in front of us is ridiculous I mean it's it's literally the definition of insanity doing the same thing over and over again hoping for a different result That is the definition of insanity right totally agree There's just there's no way around it that we're doing this wrong and that's why I'm saying the only reason I'm saying this is because We are doing it so wrong,
01:12:04.000That's what I'm, like, my main message is we have to lead with empathy.
01:12:07.000That's the starting point of everything.
01:12:09.000So if I'm going after that guy, I can immediately see that, whether there's a law or not, the idea that I'm going to take someone's freedom away.
01:12:20.000Like, they took his life away, but they were planning to take his freedom away for essentially nothing in stupid tax that's pennies.
01:13:28.000I mean, that money is going to go to their schools as well.
01:13:30.000That's going to make it safer for their kid to go to Fourth of July in the city.
01:13:34.000That's going to make it safer for all of us.
01:13:35.000The answer is blatantly obvious that we must end the war on drugs and we must get money out of politics.
01:13:41.000But we just sit here sitting on our hands.
01:13:44.000Well, I agree with you, but I think you having these kind of conversations live, online, in a...
01:13:50.000A forum like this where it's going to be distributed to millions of people you have the opportunity to influence people that might not see things your way because you have a genuine insight and a real perspective that very few people including me could ever hope to have.
01:14:07.000You saying this kind of stuff and you talking about this kind of stuff can shed some light in a way that other people can't.
01:14:20.000You're a guy who's been there, a guy who's served the country, been there as a cop, understands what the problems are, and has solutions, and has empathy, and really is saying all the right shit.
01:15:36.000I think human beings inherently have a problem with power.
01:15:39.000You know, that's why you see, I mean, you see it across the board.
01:15:44.000When people have power and influence over people, like, it seems to be a natural inclination to abuse it, and it takes someone of very strong character and insight and objectivity, like yourself, to not do that.
01:15:57.000Or at least to recognize that you have done that, and that it is wrong.
01:16:03.000It seems to me that, like, whether it's politicians or whether it's the military or whether it's someone like fucking Bill Cosby, you know?
01:16:20.000It might be a stretch, but the power to drug someone, the ability to do that.
01:16:26.000What is it about human beings that makes them exploit people that are below them instead of trying to raise those people up to their level?
01:16:39.000There's some fundamental lack of understanding about the brotherhood and sisterhood of the human race.
01:16:47.000It all gets fucked up when you have a job.
01:16:50.000And it seems to me that if you have a quota, and if you have a boss that's telling you you need to arrest more people, you need to lock up more people.
01:17:10.000They never would think, oh, this guy got lucky, and he created a good relationship with all these people, and we locked up all the bad guys, and all the people in the community that are left are all safe.
01:17:43.000So let's acknowledge that and put measures in place so that we don't exceed our power boundaries.
01:17:48.000Have some checks and balances in law enforcement because we have zero.
01:17:52.000We get away with everything we want to get away with until there's a camera.
01:17:56.000The only difference, all these other things that you've seen in the past, you've heard these stories of guys getting shot unarmed, but yet he was attacking my gun or he was taking my gun.
01:18:05.000How much do you really believe those now?
01:18:07.000Well, we saw that one where the guy in South Carolina shot the guy in the back and then dropped the taser.
01:18:12.000He walked up to him and threw the taser down near his body.
01:18:57.000This guy, D-Ray, is a really noble activist, and I appreciate everything this guy's doing, and I appreciated him making Wolf Blitzer look like a fucking idiot on TV. But he had me blocked for some reason, but you got him to unblock me.
01:20:25.000He to me is a real activist as opposed to Al Sharpton who just makes my fucking blood curdle when I see that guy show up at any fucking event that has anything to do with black people.
01:20:36.000That guy has more harm than he does good just by his just greasy The past, his history, and there's so much about him that's just so wrong, and it's nice to see someone like DeRay come along.
01:20:50.000It's nice to see a real activist, someone who is intelligent, is articulate, is doing all the right things.
01:20:58.000And I think between a guy like that, between many people like him, I'm sure there's a lot more people like him that I'm not aware of, and then someone like you, who's shedding light on this from the inside, I think things are slowly but surely turning.
01:21:12.000I think the battleship is moving in a different direction.
01:21:16.000I really think the whole country is moving in a different direction, and I think that when we see the way people are approaching gay rights now, the way the world is just more sensitive about things.
01:22:29.000It's this massive oversensitivity by people.
01:22:33.000Where you can't even just, you know, say that's probably not a good thing to say.
01:22:37.000And he, you know, can kind of correct it and you can kind of smooth it out because you understand that people talk off the top of their head.
01:22:44.000This is not like a fucking story wrote for the New York Times where he had a clear position on women in science and it became a real issue because he criticized people that might have gotten into science and done some real good work.
01:23:16.000I blame the people running for that, that are so fucking sensitive that they, and so terrified that they're worried about any criticism whatsoever, that they reacted to it in this way.
01:23:25.000And him, he shouldn't have fucking backed down from it either.
01:23:28.000He should have talked about it and Explained or maybe even apologized.
01:23:31.000Maybe even said it was an off-color joke or it was just I just think that that Balance is is because we're moving in the right direction.
01:23:41.000I really do I think I even though I've been a victim of oversensitivity I shouldn't say victim.
01:23:47.000That's very grandiose It's it's it's affected me or it's impacted me or I've felt it I've seen it rather I think it's better.
01:23:55.000It's better to have all those fucking crazy people running around looking at things to be offended about, looking at, you know, examples of sexism or homophobia or racism.
01:24:05.000It's better to have people reaching too far than to not reach at all.
01:24:10.000And I think because we're seeing all this stuff, I think it's evidence That society as a whole and our culture in America is tipping towards being more aware.
01:24:25.000A lot of people think that I'm overly optimistic about the future of this country and the human beings in general.
01:24:32.000But I see plenty of evidence that people are aware and that they care and just all the people that are paying attention to your story and all these different protests and marches and all these different news stories whenever we see these examples of police brutality.
01:24:59.000And I think there's going to be an adjustment period.
01:25:02.000But I think ultimately, when we look back at this time, 10, 20 years from now, I think we're going to look at this as a shift, as a shift in our culture that we didn't see in the 60s.
01:25:15.000I think when the when Martin Luther King was around and when There was a shift then there was most certainly an awareness civil rights awareness But I think it's even bigger now.
01:25:28.000I think this is a great time to be a human being I really think that We have the real potential to make some real change inside our lifetime and change that can Give momentum to the future I think there's without question that you're completely right.
01:25:53.000We just have to be human and recognize all of our flaws and everything will be fine.
01:25:58.000With your doctor, if we could have some empathy for his position, Because empathy is a two-way street, then maybe you can work out a solution for understanding in that ballgame.
01:26:08.000And that's what we're doing now is we're working out the understanding, and it's going to have this ugly period in policing, for sure.
01:26:15.000But we'll get through it, and it's going to be better.
01:26:26.000I think someone like you is uniquely qualified to be a part of it.
01:26:29.000You know, the fact that you actually were there on the street arresting a dude who's wearing somebody else's pants.
01:26:35.000I think it just shows you're uniquely qualified to talk about this.
01:26:40.000And I think that there's a real potential with this kind of dialogue and with people just being more and more aware of it that a young kid that might be like 16, 17 years old right now that is about to go into the Marines and has the same idea that you had He has a leg up.
01:26:58.000Maybe he can learn from your experiences and maybe his comrades and maybe his peers can also learn from what you're saying and your experiences and maybe someone like you one day becomes a commissioner and maybe that time while that's happening That one commissioner starts listening to good politicians and gets influenced by good leaders and doesn't have to start arresting people just for drugs.
01:27:26.000Doesn't have to just perpetrate the same stupid fucking cycle that's been going on and on.
01:28:40.000Start opening up as humans and be nice and be empathetic then we're going to work all of this out regardless Bernie Sanders might even be a good example of that with his message right now absolutely huge following right yes and Like vote for this guy.
01:28:54.000Yeah, I mean we're going to make changes It's like if you're a progressive Then you want to make changes.
01:29:01.000If you're a conservative, you want to stay in the past.
01:29:06.000Who would want to be conservative and stuck in the past?
01:29:09.000The only person that's going to be stuck in the past is the one with the Confederate flag that's collecting money off the backs of somebody else.
01:29:15.000Well, just the definition of conservative, I think it's all fucked up now.
01:29:19.000Conservative should be someone who's fiscally conservative, someone who's prudent, someone who makes good financial choices.
01:29:49.000I mean, we live in a weird world right now, and I think society is being redefined right in front of our eyes.
01:29:57.000I think when we look back at this time, a hundred years from now, when people look back, when we're dead, they're gonna look back and go, God, it was a fucking crazy time to be alive.
01:30:05.000That internet just fucking threw a monkey wrench into the whole gears.
01:30:54.000That's why that guy's always going to be a hero to me.
01:30:56.000I don't give a fuck what he says about podcasting or Ari Shaffir or any of that crazy shit.
01:31:01.000If it wasn't for that guy, that guy fought the fight.
01:31:03.000And the powers that be that have set this stupid thing up, they didn't anticipate that a guy like you would be able to go on the Young Turks later this afternoon and say anything you want, man.
01:31:15.000And that Young Turks thing will be seen by a fucking million people.
01:31:41.000Finding like-minded people or by saying things that resonate with people or by influencing people in a positive way where it actually helps their mindset and helps their life and they become thankful of that and then they spread the same kind of message and we help spread it to each other and I have a guy like you on and you change the way I think about certain things and you influence like I'm Genuinely honored to have you on the show.
01:32:02.000I'm genuinely I really admire what you've done and what you're saying and I think other people will as well and I think it spreads it's like a good virus like it gets out there and This this wasn't available before something like this wasn't available And I think that's part of why we all got locked into this us-versus-them mentality.
01:32:25.000We didn't have a voice that distinguishes or differentiates from the fucking same bullshit corporate voice that we keep hearing over and over and over again that doesn't differentiate.
01:32:35.000You don't hear any we are all brothers and sisters on Fox News.
01:32:55.000You know, no one's got a goddamn heart.
01:32:58.000No one recognizes the fact that this is a temporary existence.
01:33:02.000We're going through a temporary existence, and there are so many of us.
01:33:06.000And there's pockets that seem almost unmanageable, because they've been fucked over for hundreds of years, and there's just a swarming chaos in these areas.
01:33:15.000And they're riding on momentum, and they're riding on the momentum of decades and decades of poverty and crime and a cycle of despair.
01:33:25.000And it's going to be hard to fix that shit, but it's critical, and it's one of the most important aspects of our civilization.
01:33:32.000If we don't fix that, our civilization is nonsense.
01:33:35.000Our civilization is only as strong as the weakest links.
01:33:38.000And it just makes sense to me, and I've always said this, the best way to strengthen America.
01:33:43.000People want to talk about a strong America?
01:34:06.000Instead of 10,000 people in jail, you've got 10,000 people that are starting small businesses.
01:34:11.000You've got 10,000 people that are venturing out into the world and trying to do good and influencing other people to do the same and spreading a positive message and influencing people with inspiration.
01:34:22.000And then other people see, hey, this guy became this.
01:34:31.000Instead of being a fucking vampire and arresting people for crack and pulling people over and doing the same goddamn shit that everybody's been doing for the last hundred years.
01:34:41.000It's striking how much we do things similar.
01:34:44.000One of the things we found when we were messing around digging through files is we found an action plan.
01:34:50.000And these action plans, like, so a big crime happens and the shift commander will draw up an action plan and send it up, what he's going to do to address this problem.
01:34:57.000And this action plan was from the 1970s.
01:35:27.000It's unbelievable how we're doing this, and that's what these talks have to get us to do, is to do exactly what you're saying, communicate, lift up the country.
01:35:36.000It doesn't make any sense that we would treat a medical problem like it's a criminal problem and put those people into a jail cell.
01:36:43.000When you have an indictment, the old saying is, is you can indict a ham cheese sandwich.
01:36:47.000Because the prosecutor goes up there and his job, or her job, is to select the evidence that will get the charge.
01:36:56.000So the way that system actually is, is if there's four of us in the room right now, if three of us think he did it and one doesn't, we don't even listen to the one that does it.
01:37:08.000If you're not a reliable witness, you don't even come in for the indictment.
01:37:11.000But in that case, he brought in unreliable witnesses, brought in everybody to taint the whole thing, when all he should have brought in was the case that, okay, so this guy was shot, and he was found this way, and these witnesses say that he put his hands up.
01:39:18.000Just because a guy has a gun and we give him a badge and he has a GED and he went to eight months of training doesn't make him above the world.
01:39:27.000It doesn't make him a separate set of rules.
01:39:32.000You think that the Ferguson shooting was justified?
01:39:36.000I can't go as far as to say it's justified.
01:39:37.000I think the evidence would say that it would be ruled justified.
01:40:57.000There's not been a single thing I've ever watched that affected me.
01:41:01.000More than watching those fucking cops murder Tamir Rice and then stand over that boy, a 12-year-old boy, as he was bleeding out and choking.
01:41:53.000Something just happened in Philly just now before I walked in here.
01:41:56.000A video was released of Philly officers, 12 Philly officers beating on somebody that was unarmed for apparently riding a bike or something like that.
01:42:39.000It's the powerless, the voiceless, period.
01:42:42.000But I think that institutional racism that we have throughout our society, it wasn't that long ago that we're having slaves, and we're still arguing over the Confederate flag.
01:48:40.000If you can get oil from Saudi Arabia, buy millions and millions of gallons in tankers, and bring it across the goddamn ocean to America, you're telling me you can't take water from somewhere and bring it down here?
01:50:07.000But all it would take is one of those...
01:50:11.000The rock-style earthquakes from that new fucking movie, one real one, which has happened before.
01:50:17.000They've had some giant ones in spots all over the world that we know of, you know, that human beings don't have a record of, that have just been just unbelievably devastating.
01:58:37.000You're breaking the rules to do a high speed chase.
01:58:38.000In Baltimore, you can't do more than 10 miles an hour.
01:58:41.000In Maryland, you can't do more than 10 miles an hour over the speed limit according to the rules.
01:58:45.000So the law says you can do it, but the rules of the agency say you can only do 10 miles an hour over.
01:58:50.000So every cop that pulls you over and you're doing more than 10 miles per hour over the speed limit, he had to violate general orders to even pull you over.
02:02:35.000They're treating you how to breathe while you're shooting?
02:02:37.000They tell you all these things, but they don't have time.
02:02:42.000So the instructors, they know what they're doing, but they don't have time to take somebody that has no idea what the hell they're doing, or what's even worse is somebody that has bad habits, and break those habits so they can be a decent shooter.
02:02:55.000There's no time for it, and it's not going to happen.
02:05:41.000This is the kind of stuff they do, and they don't factor in the fact that their suspect is going to hook you in the face with that empty left hand.
02:06:23.000No, you're saying this now, but then there's gonna be some agency that does that and thought it was a good idea, and now it's all your fault.
02:07:18.000Well, I could, you know, I could give my opinions about some shit, but you should bring in legit striking coaches that teach people all the time, and then legit jiu-jitsu coaches.
02:07:27.000Well, I think jiu-jitsu would be your route, because it's more about control than hurting.
02:07:36.000The idea of only defending yourself by grappling, I think mixed martial arts is the best way to learn self-defense.
02:07:46.000I'm essentially a mixed martial artist.
02:07:48.000I started out as a striker, and then when I got older, when I got into the UFC, that's when I really learned grappling.
02:07:54.000But I think if I had to choose one martial art that I would teach someone to defend themselves, it would definitely be jujitsu.
02:08:01.000But as far as what I would teach police officers, you've got to understand striking.
02:08:05.000Because if you don't understand striking and a guy can keep you off him and punch him in the face and you don't know how to deal with it, You gotta understand the way he's moving.
02:08:12.000Like, if a guy is gonna jab you, there's a certain stance.
02:08:15.000If a guy's gonna throw a right hand, there's tells.
02:08:18.000If you don't know those tells, you're just gonna get mollywhopped.
02:09:03.000The getaway, you might actually be onto something there.
02:09:06.000That's something we probably should be doing, because what we do is we fear things.
02:09:09.000So remember, we fear that that guy can hit us.
02:09:12.000We fear that we should have an understanding of whether he or she would actually be capable at that range or capable in this particular situation.
02:09:20.000Judo is good for cops too because people most of the time are wearing clothes and like if you ever fought Ronda Rousey and you were wearing a fucking like a winter coat, that bitch would fuck you up.
02:09:58.000If someone slams you in the concrete, they're literally hitting you with the earth.
02:10:03.000I think if a judo person gets a hold of you, some Jimmy Pedro character, gets a hold of you and you have a winter jacket on, you're a fucksville.
02:10:11.000I think judo would be a very important thing to learn.
02:10:15.000Wrestling, very important to learn too, because if you could hold someone down, you keep someone down, you can control someone.
02:10:20.000Because I've seen situations where cops get flipped.
02:10:23.000They're holding someone down in some sort of a rest video, and they just have no idea how to control someone's body.
02:10:29.000They have no idea where to place their weight.
02:10:31.000They have no idea how a person would move.
02:10:34.000A good jiu-jitsu guy gets a hold of you and puts you inside control.
02:10:38.000You don't have any jiu-jitsu training, you're not getting up.
02:11:02.000He got him because he understands the technique and he understands how to grapple.
02:11:05.000I think that for one, if you only had one, I would say Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu.
02:11:10.000But if I was going to teach something to cops, I would definitely teach them striking.
02:11:12.000The last thing you want to do is be someone who doesn't know how to strike and you get punched in the face and you're seeing stars, your eyes are watery, your legs are buckled and you don't know what the fuck to do because you've never been there before.
02:11:23.000Someone who knows what to do, someone who's been there before, has been popped in the face before, you gotta go, uh-oh, alright, gotta keep my hands up, gotta move, gotta move, gotta move, you know, you'll instinctively have, like, a path that you'll go to to preserve yourself.
02:11:35.000The scariest thing in the world is watching someone in a street fight, and you know they don't know how to fight, and their neck is up in the air, and they're flailing fists, and you know it's coming, you know, you know it's coming.
02:12:12.000They don't have to have, uh, they don't have to at least be able to, like, lift their body weight up or something or do a chin-up or something like that?
02:12:18.000No, you get through the academy and you're finished.
02:12:19.000What do you have to do to get through the academy?
02:12:21.000Whatever it is, it's pathetic and easy.
02:12:27.000In Baltimore they had an issue with a fire cadet who ended up dying in training because they just didn't maintain the physical standards they needed to make.
02:16:54.000I think if a girl doesn't want to have sex with you or doesn't want to date you because you have a fanny pack, you don't want her in your life!
02:19:59.000Because a hero is the person that goes up to Tamir Rice and approaches and tries to figure it out, risks getting shot, because he wants to make sure he's doing the right thing when you take away a life or take away somebody's freedom.
02:20:11.000Well, you don't even have to go up to him.
02:20:12.000How about you just say from the comfort of your car, put down the gun.
02:20:18.000But we go and we treat black lives like they don't matter.
02:20:23.000And when you are putting that, oh yeah, all lives matter shirt on, or oh yeah, police lives matter on, you're proving that black lives aren't mattering as much to you.
02:20:32.000Otherwise, you would just fucking say yes, they do.
02:20:36.000Right, so they're not saying that white lives don't matter.
02:20:53.000When I say that I want to team up with DeRay, so if I took a police commissioner job, the first thing I would do is say, DeRay, please come join me.
02:21:06.000The idea that we don't integrate people like him into our system is ridiculousness.
02:21:11.000He is a leader of the black community.
02:21:14.000I need him if I'm going to run a police agency.
02:21:17.000And we should not be turning those kind of people away and making like they're some kind of instigators from out of town is what they would call DeRay.
02:21:55.000I went down to where Freddie Gray was, the incident happened, and where the uprising was the very next day.
02:22:02.000You couldn't have told me that there was a difference between that day and two weeks ago.
02:22:06.000The problem is that no one gave a shit about Gilmore Homes two weeks ago.
02:22:10.000But when it went on the news and you saw the CVS burning and they cycled it over and over and over again, it was one goddamn building that was burning.
02:22:17.000You just kept seeing it over and over after the fire department had already put it out.
02:23:17.000has food deserts that doesn't have good schools where the kids ride MTA buses to go to school where life is and their parents get their father gets locked up because he has that dime bag and he perpetuates the cycle but yet society keeps telling them well pick yourself up by your bootstraps they don't fucking have bootstraps Because you took them away.
02:23:36.000That pick yourself up by your bootstraps is such a shitty argument.
02:23:39.000It's not like everybody starts in the same spot.
02:23:41.000You know, it's not like we're all playing Monopoly and we all start from the same spot.
02:24:03.000Well, the last thing I wanted to say, too, is that conservatives and right-wing people are the ones that are going to argue with me the most.
02:24:14.000If we don't do what I'm saying, then they're going to lose their guns and their argument that they want to have.
02:24:20.000Because if we can't reel in police and they're always afraid that everyone has a gun and we have to do this war...
02:24:26.000Then that means we can't live in a society that's armed, and we can't police it properly.
02:24:31.000When you just said that, a bunch of people just...