MANSA MUSA:  Welcome to this edition of Rattling the Bars, I’m your host, Mansa Musa.

Today we are at the True Reformer Building talking to representatives from DC Justice Lab. I’m talking to Clinique Chapman, CEO, Bethany Young, the policy director. We’re here to discuss a roadmap for a safer and more equitable District of Columbia through the lens of the public safety policy agenda that DC Justice Lab has developed.

Welcome to Rattling the Bars.

CLINIQUE CHAPMAN:  Thank you. We’re happy to be here.

MANSA MUSA:  OK. Let’s start with transparency and technology. Clinique and Bethany, your agenda highlights surveillance oversight and the need for virtual testimony from the jail. Why are these two so critical for ensuring the justice system remains accountable to public safety and accessible to those inside? 

And when we talk about the virtual, for the benefit of our audience, DC Code offenders can vote. And because DC Code offenders can vote, they also should have the right — I think this is the attitude that we have in the city — They should have the right to be able to testify before City Hall around issues relative to whatever’s going on in the city and whatever’s going on with the jail. So, it’s that landscape that we’re talking about virtual testimony.

CLINIQUE CHAPMAN:  Thank you for having us. I think to start, I’d love to just introduce the 2026 DC Public Safety Policy Agenda, which was co-created by DC Justice Lab. We convened nearly 30 organizations to come and talk to us about what are the solutions that we want to see as we know that the landscape is shifting, a new mayor is coming, new city council members, new congressional representative. And so we knew that it was a very important time to really pull together all of those organizations who are working on the ground, in policy, different spaces to really put together what those solutions should look like and that roadmap for the next administration, whoever that is in the city.

And so that was the impetus to creating this document. And there are many priority areas for each organization, whether it be the youth orgs or our organization spanning different policing, punishment, prosecution, prevention. 

And so for us and your question related to the virtual testimony, that’s something that DC Justice Lab has been working on through the EASE Act. It is something that we recognize is a civic requirement, a civic necessity. Just because someone is incarcerated at the DC jail doesn’t remove their… We’ve already removed their liberty, right? So, the punishment is that they’re being held at the jail while they await sentencing or their case, but that doesn’t remove their responsibility as community members. They are still community members. They should still have the same rights as it relates to, as you mentioned, voting, as it relates to them being able to express and talk to their council members. Those are still their representatives. 

And so, we recognize that and have been in coalition with individuals and organizations to really push forward this act. And nearly 10 council members agree that it was something that should at least come to the table for conversation. And so, we have a hearing, we’ve held a hearing. And so now we’re really just waiting for them to pass that to move it forward. 

But would love Bethany to also chime in on that as well.

BETHANY YOUNG:  The specific recommendations you named around surveillance oversight and expanding advocacy opportunities to people in the DC jail are a part of one of the agenda’s primary focus areas, which is oversight and resident-led policymaking.

And so, surveillance oversight is one piece of work we’re doing around, first of all, we don’t even really know the expanse of the surveillance program in DC. We know it is expansive and growing. The mayor’s budget included additional money to further expand the use of surveillance in DC. 

What we also know is that that information gets shared with federal agencies. It gets shared with some private corporations. There is informal and formal surveillance. There’s a gangs database as one form of surveillance, and where we’ve heard from journalistic reports that infants have been listed on the gang database because of where they live or who their name is associated with in their household. We know that there are drones operating in DC, CCTV cameras, ShotSpotter. One of those, ShotSpotter, is one of the things that does not have a strong evidence base. In fact, in the last six to nine months, many cities have eliminated that program because of the issues that have been uncovered around its reliability and accuracy.

So, our push around surveillance is these residents deserve to know what’s being used, what of their information is being collected without their knowledge and who has access to it, and what are the implications of that. 

Another piece of that is an oversight piece. DC residents should be at the table, an integral part of the conversation to understand, first of all, the extent of the use of this technology and to weigh in on whether it is a viable use of taxpayer dollars and whether it is actually contributing to improving public safety. 

And so advocating from the DC jail is related to that in that it’s about people who are impacted by policies, being able to understand what the policies are, having the tools and access to do that, but also to offer their insight. The council often is dealing with issues related to what happens in the jail, so without having people in the room who are experiencing it, it’s a question how sound decision making can happen without the people who are most directly impacted being a part of the process. 

In recent examples, the use of solitary confinement in the DC jail has been not contested by anybody outside of government, but there have been years and years of denials from the DOC that it does not happen. It does not take place. They don’t use it. That conflicts with evidence from [the] DC government about the use of solitary confinement in the DC jail. But they continue, as recently as a few weeks ago, to say, we don’t do that. Easy way to get a good answer about that question: Ask somebody who’s in there who’s experienced it. We need a more meaningful tool to allow people to do that. 

So, all of it is about giving people who are impacted by the policies, the tools, the access, and requiring the decision makers who are charged with taking care of all of us to listen, to hear them out, and to engage with them about how their government is serving them.

MANSA MUSA:  And speaking of solitary confinement, your organization has been intentional in waging this campaign. So, where are y’all at with this? I know that we getting some leeway in it, but where are y’all at in terms of ending solitary confinement, in DC jail more specifically? And what is the transition from that in y’all policy? You have a controlled environment where the jail is saying we have a need for certain people to be confined in certain areas. What’s y’all policy? OK, eradication, but then what?

CLINIQUE CHAPMAN:  Well, I’d love to even expand on what you’re saying the jail said. The jail is saying it doesn’t exist, so we have to start there. They’re saying it doesn’t exist — Although they’re just being very simplistic with it in terms of saying solitary confinement doesn’t exist. They’re using that title versus there is restrictive housing, there’s segregated housing, you can go in protective custody, voluntary, you have safe cells. Safe cells are functioning as solitary confinement based on the definition. And so that is the issue right there with the jail, just even common language. We’re not even having shared language with the jail in terms of how they’re defining solitary confinement.

But yes, you are right. DC Justice Lab has been, honestly, one of the most vocal voices as it relates to the building the coalition around Unlock the Box in DC for years now as it relates to the ERASE Act. We have advocated, we’ve pushed for it with council. We spoke to the jail before over the years. We spoke to council before over the years. And the commonality between both is that they’re saying, well, the jail is saying it doesn’t exist. And so we really do need council to really take a more active approach and saying, well, they’re saying it doesn’t exist, let’s go in there and see it for ourselves. 

And so that is really, in my opinion, what the next step should be as it relates to what council should do. They should be doing two things: They should go to see it for themselves, and they should be holding a hearing so that those who are experiencing it, those who have experienced it, the family members who know when their loved ones are in solitary confinement and they can’t talk on the phone, they can’t visit, they know that it’s still happening. Let those folks come in and actually be able to testify for themselves.

And so, we haven’t even had an opportunity to have a hearing where people can share their experiences, their current experiences with solitary confinement in DC. And so that really is the next step of moving toward a hearing for ERASE. And so, once solitary confinement is erased, that is the goal. The ultimate goal is that solitary confinement in DC jail will no longer exist. We will move toward measures — I’m saying we’ll move toward, the goal will be for the jail. For the jail, for the government to see ways to implement. It’s happening across the country. There are many states who are doing this currently, and it’s working for them in terms of how you treat people when acts do happen, where harm has happened to someone. They’re using restorative justice in jails. They are using more preventative measures so that those issues that arose in the first place won’t even be necessary.

And so, I think there are various ways that the jail can put things in place to eliminate the use of solitary confinement and move toward a more humane way of holding people accountable when they think there are issues that need to be addressed. And currently that is not happening.

MANSA MUSA:  And I think from, like I said, full disclosure, I did four and a half years in what they call a supermax. And I think the problem that we see when you say solitary confinement, you have a misnomer that a person is in a cell getting bread and water, never nobody come and seeing them, open the door a year later, let them out. But the reality is that you’re being isolated for inordinate amount of times. You’re not allowed to… everything is regulated. You got an hour out. Within an hour, you got to take a shower. That’s your rec. The next day, you might get an hour out or you might not. 

So, I think that to y’all credit, it’s important that what y’all are doing in terms of educating people about understanding what isolation is. If you want to play word play, oh, we don’t have solitary confinement. But you got what they call 24 on one. I’m locked in 24 hours a day.

But let’s talk about y’all’s solutions. Y’all got when they deal with solutions. Y’all have on y’all agenda of record relief and earned compliance credits. Talk about what this is and how is this playing into the… Well, how do y’all look at this in terms of reentry? Wilhelmina Rolark, which would be one of the city council persons, they passed the Good Time Credit Act. And when they closed Lorton, that didn’t follow them. And so, they had to hassle and haggle with the VOP to get that. Now they’re getting the benefit of that in y’all policy agenda and then enforcement.

BETHANY YOUNG:  Reentry is one of the smartest investments a city can make into public safety. Prevent crime by giving people a path when they come home to not wind up back in jail or prison. So as a framing, reentry is a significant and meaningful and impactful investment in improving public safety.

The two policies you mentioned, earned compliance and record relief, earned compliance credits and record relief are policies that, if implemented, would improve people’s chances at successful reentry. So, earned compliance credits, you mentioned good time credits. It’s like a good time credit on supervision. So, for every 30 days of compliance with supervision requirements, someone could earn 30 days off their supervision sentence. Because what the evidence shows is that incentives work better than penalties. And if people have something to work towards, they’re going to be more likely to follow the rules that are part of someone’s supervision setup. 

We also know why this is important is that parole, probation, community supervision are also drivers of mass incarceration. And so, if you want to think about decarceration, people think about probation or parole as forms of decarceration, but it ends up being an expansion of incarceration because people can end up back in prison for violations that aren’t crimes on their own but that are violations of their supervision. So, things like being late for an appointment, missing a phone call, things like that. Things that someone may not really have any real control over, especially when you think about all the challenges someone is up against when they’re coming home. So, to ding them and potentially re-incarcerate them for traffic or missing a bus or not having a ride or hanging out with people that they’ve known since childhood who they may be prohibited from hanging out with because of the terms of their supervision. So, that’s earned compliance.

Record relief would allow people who, for certain crimes after certain waiting periods, depending on the crime, to have their record either sealed or expunged. And so, we know that employment is an important part of somebody returning home and being successful. We also know that a criminal record can have a devastating impact on someone’s employment opportunities. So, by removing that as a barrier pursuant to certain parameters that are in the Second Chance Amendment Act, which is a law DC passed to simplify and expand that process, those are all investments in public safety is making sure that people can live free, can not be on papers their whole life, can be free members of society, and that they have access and are not blocked from supporting themselves and their families.

MANSA MUSA:  I know from being in that space, being on parole and probation, if you give a person the incentive saying like, well, in five years, if you stay this course, your parole and probation is up in 20 years, but you stay this course, you’ll be off paper — That’s the terminology that we use — You’ll be off paper in five years because compliance with this and it’s being recognized. And don’t cost the city nothing. That’s the other part of it.

But let’s talk about y’all public safety policy agenda and the core principles in it, and briefly go over what those principles are and how y’all envision this taking shape. Because right now, y’all saying that to y’all credit, we have a solution, public safety solution. All right. So, how do we see this public safety agenda and the core principles playing out? So, a person, the lay person can say, oh, I can see it. That’s why I support that. I can see these principles because I see the conditions in my neighborhood, and I see that these principles are directly related to addressing the conditions in my neighborhood.

CLINIQUE CHAPMAN:  I think Bethany used the word “doable.” Was that you that used that word? It’s doable. It’s a doable set of recommendations that any elected official — And so we’ve moved this toward the new administration coming in, but any, even the current administration could pick up this document and use it as a tool to implement solutions that they know work. It’s rooted in evidence. It’s rooted in things that we know work, whether it be here or in other places. It’s rooted in things that we’ve seen work before and the investment be taken from. 

And so it’s nothing remarkable. I think what’s remarkable is that all of the organizations that came together saw now was the time to really put this forward. But it’s something that the average resident, the average, even the youth can pick up and say, hey, hey city councilman, hey ANC member, hey, anyone that matters to them that they’re trying to move and advocate for with something, they can pick this document up and say, this right here, this is the pathway forward. It gives you the steps. It gives you the resource inside. 

And so it’s really just rooted in evidence. It’s rooted in a community. Community voices were a part of building this document and the support is there for it. And so it is not something that a resident shouldn’t be able to get behind. If a resident in DC, whoever that may be, is ready for change, for a sustainable change, it is something that the city can definitely get behind in terms of investing in. 

Like we talked about before, all you have to do is move the money around and make sure that it reflects humanity, community, and not punishment and policing. If we put so much money in policing, where has that gotten us? We’ve put so much money into jail and in sending people to prison. Where has that gotten us? It’s just gotten us more people incarcerated, more people on paper. And so, why don’t we actually try something that we know works, try something that allows people to heal from harms? We have alternatives. We have a big section in there talking about prevention and youth before they ever even touch the system. How about focusing on those youth and focusing on investing in youth that just want somewhere to go every night? Instead of placing them inside of a YSC [Youth Services Center] or DYRS [Department of Youth Rehabilitation Services], why would we do that when we know that we can actually invest in the youth that are currently trying to do something positive?

BETHANY YOUNG:  So, we talk about prevention, investments in communities, behavioral health, and making sure that survivors and victim services organizations have what they need to really help people get from harm, being impacted by harm to being whole. We talked about it with reentry. I think it’s the same with victim services. People that find themselves victims of crime. It can be a bad, hard thing away from being a perpetrator of harm or being caught up with police or the criminal legal system in some form or fashion if they are not met with the services they need to get to a better position after harm has occurred. 

So, we have victim services, recommendations, behavioral health, things like we know DC has made the investment in alternative crisis response conducted by behavioral health professionals rather than police, but it’s not working. It’s not being used. It’s not been effective. And so, recommendations around a way to get that in order so that it’s working in the way that other cities have seen progress with alternative first response.

Clinique mentioned the youth investment. So, really upstream, making sure that kids are a part of the legislative process, that they have a voice before the council, a voice that carries some weight to it, giving them opportunities to be leaders in the city, but amongst their other peers. It also addresses what happens to kids once they are caught up in the system. How do we ensure that they are still treated as children even if they are in the system? That the facilities where they’re held have the resources and also oversight. We know that there are some major challenges happening in DYRS. There has been legislation passed that would create independent external oversight that has not been funded continuously. So, making sure that kids don’t get to the system, that we are doing things to prevent that from happening, but also if they wind up there, that we’re protecting them and that the adults that are charged with their care are being held accountable for their care.

We also talk about ways to limit our reliance, reduce our reliance on policing. Where police are not the best responders, what can we replace them with to minimize unnecessary contacts people are having with police, but also where contact does happen, where it does arise, making sure that we have accountability and oversight mechanisms in place to deal with that. 

The district passed the Comprehensive Policing and Justice Reform Amendment Act in 2022. Several of the measures in there related to accountability and oversight remain unfunded. Things like having a public database related to officers accused of misconduct, of giving the office of police complaints what they need to really thoroughly and meaningfully address bad actors in the department. 

And then the last section, we talk about what’s happening in the jails, what’s needed around reentry? How do we make sure that people who are incarcerated who are from DC have what they need while they’re away and when they come back and how to get them closer to home?

CLINIQUE CHAPMAN:  The policy agenda is something that starts off and is always rooted in community first, investing in the prevention and the community. And then if people get wrapped up in this terrible system that we have, making sure that the system doesn’t do more harm, making sure that the system still sees people as people and is people centered. 

So, I think for me, it’s both. It’s both and. Yes and yes, we want people to be home, not be contacted by the police, not interact with the jail, not go to court. But if they do, then what? Then how do we treat them while they’re there? And what should that system look like?

MANSA MUSA:  Thank y’all for enlightening us on this. Y’all taking a bold step. Y’all saying y’all got a DC public safety agenda that y’all offering as an alternative to what the city is offering, that y’all inserting y’allselves in this and y’all have a comprehensive program because y’all definitely rattled the bars today. 

And we want to make sure that everybody understand that when we talk about public safety, it’s all our responsibility. And we ask that you continue to look at these things, vet them, ask yourself, what would you do if you was given the responsibility to put a public safety agenda together? What would you do?

The following is a rushed transcript and may contain errors. It will be updated.

Mansa Musa:

We’re here in Washington DC, Massachusetts Avenue at Voices for a Second Chance. We’re talking about Congresses introducing certain bills to roll back progressive laws that impact District of Columbia residents. One such law is the Second Chance Act. The Second Chance Act has been very instrumental in allowing people to get out of prison after they demonstrate they have changed, but Congress want to change that. You’ll hear different testimonies today about how these things impact everyday citizens, people that want to do right. Stay tuned. Joining me today is Chelsea Canterbury. Chelsea Canterbury, welcome to Rattling the Bars. Hi,

Chelsea Canterbury:

Hi. Welcome. Thank you. All

Mansa Musa:

Right. So today we are in front of Voices for a Second Chance service organization in the District of Columbia. And full disclosure, I actually work here. Chelsea Canterbury is, and I’ll call her Chelsea from here on out. Chelsea is a case manager here at Voices for a Second Chance.

Chelsea Canterbury:

So I do connect one-on-one with clients. We’re client facing. The work we do here, we help individuals that have been involved within the justice system or are recently entering society from incarceration. We actually start connecting with clients prior to their release, and that’s part of our first responder services. So we are going into DOC. We’re connecting with individuals that have been released to the halfway houses from federal prison. So we’re actually connecting prior to release. And we offer wraparound services, making sure individuals have all their vital documentation. As you know, can’t get anything done without those documents. So that’s kind of where it all starts. We offer full case management services, employment services, housing, and any resource that we do not provide in-house, we do connect with our partners within the community.

Mansa Musa:

Okay. And I open up by making it known that Congress, they had centrality over the District of Columbia in terms of any bills or laws has passed. Congress has a finalacy on whether they’re going in effect or Congress has the authority to create laws. And recently it came out that they put 27 bills to impact some of the things that’s going on such as cash bail. How do you think changes in the law to make laws harsher in DC will impact the services that Voice for a Second Chance offer?

Chelsea Canterbury:

So yeah, definitely with certain bills being passed, it will in turn affect our community and also the resources that are available to individuals. It’s not reducing recidivism. It’s actually rising it. I don’t believe that’s the answer. I believe offering the proper resources for individuals while they’re still incarcerated prior to release and our youth.

Mansa Musa:

Our youth. And in terms of the youth, in the District of Columbia, they really got a target on the youth back. You hear a lot of negative reporting about the kids in District of Columbia, mainly in certain areas. What’s your views on, if you had the money and the authority to do something about what’s perceived as juvenile delinquency, what would you do? Well,

Chelsea Canterbury:

I definitely think it also starts in the home. So I think providing appropriate resources, I can’t say it enough, but as a community, we have to come together. We have to stand together. So even providing appropriate resources to not only the youth, but also the family. I think that will definitely help our community.

Mansa Musa:

And talk about how many people do y’all do Voices for a Circumchange service during the course of a week? What’s the caseload per week?

Chelsea Canterbury:

It definitely varies, but I mean, we can see up to 50 clients per week, but it definitely varies.

Mansa Musa:

So in terms of the 50 clients, and that’s on an average that you see 50 clients on a week, but in terms of the clients that you see, what are their major needs?

Chelsea Canterbury:

Definitely housing is a huge need. Housing employment is very scarce within our community and the district, providing more food resources.

Mansa Musa:

Right. And the general attitude about Congress interference in DC’s politics is the general consensus is they’re using the District of Columbia as a test case for how they can go throughout the nation and do these things. If you had the ability or the authority or you was able to talk to Congress about what you think should be done, what would you tell them?

Chelsea Canterbury:

I would definitely have a discussion on funding and just allocating that funding appropriately that will actually give back and assist in our community. For instance, we are, as you know, a nonprofit organization and we have seen the results of the services that we have provided to individuals. And if we had additional funding to do so, we could provide more, not only us, just throughout the district alone, more assistance to provide more food resources, shelter resources, employment resources. And in turn, that is what is going to reduce recidivism.

Mansa Musa:

I am talking to Lynwell Muse in front of Voice for a Second Chance. Mr. Muse, Congress is trying to pass a series of bills that’s going to have a devastating impact on the citizens of the District of Columbia. One such bill is to remove the second look at. Another one is what they call the Youth Act. And both of these bills they want to get rid of, both these bills lead to people upon being released under conditional term. The only way you can get access to them, you have to have certain behavior and certain attitude towards your change in life. What do you think if you had the authority or the ability to tell Congress, what do you think they should be doing? Well,

Lemuel Muse:

I don’t think that is a good idea because the Second Chance Act, people like me need that because I’m 67 years old and I’m just getting out of jail February the 20th.

Mansa Musa:

Okay, what wrong?

Lemuel Muse:

And I did 35 months and I was placed on the street the next day. So in my situation, I don’t know what they expect me to do. I’m out here, I’m homeless. All the shelters are full. They got hundreds and hundreds of Black men out on the street just homeless. You know what I mean? And I just don’t think that’s a good idea because people like me need the Second Chance Act.

Mansa Musa:

The money be best spent on doing what?

Lemuel Muse:

The money would be best spent on helping the people, the citizens that live here. I’ve been here all my life. I’ve been here all my life. And the resources that I need, they seem like they cut them and taking them away from us and just leaving us out here with nothing. You know what I mean? Go ahead. Right now I’m going to Voices for a Second Chance to receive some help. And I’ve been to Marca over on Good Hope Road.

Mansa Musa:

Mayor’s office on return to.

Lemuel Muse:

Right. And all I want is just a little bit of help just to help me because being in jail 35 months and being placed on the street the next day, it’s just difficult. It’s difficult when you don’t have help.

Mansa Musa:

So the crime is not really in people committing crime. The crime is in the misappropriation of funds.

Lemuel Muse:

I agree with you. I agree with you because I didn’t have a chance to work my way back in the community slow. I’m just back on the street.

Charlina Mcbride:

Right. My name is Charlena McBride. I was incarcerated for about a year. I’m a DC citizen.

Mansa Musa:

All right. So today we’re talking about Congress trying to roll back some of the progressive laws that the District of Columbia City Council has passed, such as they want to reduce the age of charging kids to making them adults from 16 to 14. They want to roll back mandatory minimum. Mandatory minimum is that they’re taking it out the hands of the judge to give a person a sentence that he think they should get based on whatever crime they committed. It’s a mandatory sentence they got to get. So a judge don’t have no discretion. They try to institute cash bail, making it difficult for people to get out of prison. But more importantly, they try and roll back what they call a Second Chance Act. If you had the authority to tell, or if you was in front of Congress and you wanted to tell them what you should think they should do with this money, what would you tell

Charlina Mcbride:

Them? I would tell them that I think they should create an alternative plan for the youth or for people that make mistakes in the society that get locked up because it’s a lot of stressful times out here. The economy is constantly rising. Housing is being unaffordable to people that’s not making enough money. When people get locked up, I think they should have some more facilities where they can be rehabilitated versus getting a lot of time because people can change and I don’t think they should give them more time and take away their choices or their right to be able to get out, being locked up with no bail. And I don’t think the youth should be charged as an adult because they have a mind of a youth.

Mansa Musa:

That’s right.

Charlina Mcbride:

So they should have more programs or more facilities where they can go to versus going to jail to an adult jail. Having more outreach programs, having more voices for second chance to provide for people, more counselors, more mental health sponsors and mentorship programs so that somebody can help guide the youth into the right direction. Because everybody needs somebody to guide them. And if they’re not getting guided when they step off the porch from at home, then there should be other big brother programs, big sister programs that’s reaching out to the community and the youth so they don’t have to go through taking from somebody else or involved in something that’s going to cause them to go to jail.

Mansa Musa:

I’m talking to Jerry Mack, a client at Voices for a Second Chance. Mr. Mack, tell us a little bit about yourself first.

Jerry Mack:

Well, born and raised in Washington DC. Been in the city my whole life. There’s a lot of things that’s changed in the city from pretty much my youth to now. And I think that us as pretty much the older generation can pretty much reach out to the adolescents and pretty much try to see what it is that we can do for them to pretty much get back on track and just pretty much enjoy theirself while they’re in the city instead of having Congress and everybody else try to intervene and pretty much take their youth and stuff away from them. All

Mansa Musa:

Right. And you formally incarcerated?

Jerry Mack:

Yes.

Mansa Musa:

How much time did you serve? If you don’t mind me asking.

Jerry Mack:

A year and a half.

Mansa Musa:

Okay. So you served a year and a half. Where was you at now? DC Jail?

Jerry Mack:

I started at DC Jail. They transferred me to Philly. I left Philly and went to New Jersey in Fort Dix.

Mansa Musa:

Okay. Now while you was in DC Jail, did you see a lot of young individuals in there?

Jerry Mack:

Yeah, it’s a lot. You know what I’m saying? I mean, it’s just basically, it feels like that’s what they trying to do to pretty much the youth. They’re not trying to let them enjoy theirselves, not realizing that they was once kids at

Charlina Mcbride:

That

Jerry Mack:

Point in time. So it’s just basically kids going to be kids, but they really don’t have too much for them to do nowadays. So it’s just kind of hard for them to actually really enjoy theirselves.

Mansa Musa:

So if you was able to tell Congress what your views are on what they should do in terms of helping the city become a more profitable city, a more productive city, a more humane city, what would you tell them?

Jerry Mack:

I mean, I would practically tell them that instead of just trying to lock them up and pretty much push them out or put them in prison or jail and stuff like that, sit down and talk to them. Find out what it is that they want and what they need. You know what I’m saying? Because like I said, it’s basically they just kids. They being kids. So basically you could take the money that you’re trying to put into all these other bills and cash bonds or whatever. Have the kids, you know what I’m saying, really not even into some of the foolishness or whatever. But it’s just basically they just out enjoying themselves and they just getting a bad rap.

Mansa Musa:

And as Mr. Mack said, invest in them as opposed to try to penalize

Eric Franklin:

Them. Yeah. My name is Derek Franklin. I’m the reentry navigator here at Voices for a Second Chance, and I’m a returning citizen and also a IRA recipient.

Mansa Musa:

Today we’re talking about Congress introducing a series of bills to roll back some of the progressive laws that the DC City Council passed. And one of the bills that they’ve introduced is they want to roll back the Second Chance Act, which is basically IRA. Talk about, because you’re in that space and dealing with IRA, you’re IRA recipient, as you say. And talk about that and what that means.

Eric Franklin:

So yeah, these new laws that’s been introduced by Congress, the rollback IRA and all these other laws that changed in sentences for young people, young adults to get more time at the age of 14 sentences as adults. These things doesn’t work. They’re going back to what mass incarceration, which they did back in the 90s, the 80s and the 90s that didn’t curve the crime. So it’s all about rehabilitating the people, the young people and giving them a second chance. Like me, I was sentenced to 40 years to life. And I mean, I changed my life way before I even knew IRA was in existence. You know what I’m saying? So this shows that the people will change, especially the youth as they do their time. So locking them up and throwing away the key is not the answer. It’s not the answer.

Mansa Musa:

And how old were you when you got out there?

Eric Franklin:

When I got out there, I was 22 years old. I came out, I was 47 years old. You know what I’m saying? So I spent most of my 20s, all my 30s, most of my 40s in prison. And like I say, I changed my ways and my way of thinking, I want to say probably 15 years ago before I came home. You know what I’m saying? So these things, locking the people up, these young people up and saying, okay, look, what they was calling them, predators or whatever like that. No, the sign says what? The frontal lobes don’t fully develop to the mid – 20s. So the decision making of these teenagers, they don’t fully develop. So give them a chance. I’m not saying that they shouldn’t be held accountable for their crimes, but locking them up and not giving them a chance to come out, this is, I want to say, inhumane.

You know what I’m saying? This is something that you don’t do to people or do to your residence in DC. I said far as the law, especially containing to the youth. More programs for the youth. Giving them something to do as far as education. It goes back to their family, helping their families out with jobs so they won’t be just running the streets and getting to things. You know what I’m saying? This will change. This will help the youth and not to be on the streets like that. And another thing, the law should be changed, not just for a certain age. Take away the age and just give everyone who gets incarcerated another chance to come home. Instead of just locking the people up and having them in prison, which doesn’t help at all. You know what I’m saying? So we got the age where now, before the age of 25, have no age for someone who can have a time reduction.

This will help and have more programs and housing for the people when they return. You

The following is a rushed transcript and may contain errors. It will be updated.

Taya Graham:

My name is Taya Graham and welcome to the Police Accountability Report livestream, the great American Copwatcher debate edition. Tonight, we are going to be exploring the controversy surrounding a popular Copwatcher, Long Island audit, specifically his encounter with Suffolk County Police Union officials that was the subject of our last episode. Now, a confrontation that started with Sean showing up at union headquarters to ask questions and then escalated when union officials stormed out of the building and put Sean Paul into handcuffs. Let’s just watch a few seconds of the encounter to set the scene.

Sean Paul Reyes (Long Island Audit):

Have you seen me leaving? I immediately began to leave. Lucivillo, would you like to come on? I am leaving. Would you like to come on the channel? I’m leaving. I am leaving. You seem to leave me? I am leaving. I’m leaving. I’m leaving. Lucivillo, you go on talk, you go, I’m leaving. I am leaving. Immediately begin to leave. That’s how the law works. Yes, I’m leaving. Get off the property. I am leaving. I’m getting off the property. You are trespassing. I am leaving. You will be placed. I am leaving. I am leaving. I’m going to place you under arrest. Do what you need to do. I’m identifying myself as a police officer. So do what you need to do. I am leaving. You need to leave. I am leaving. You’re such a tough guy. Do it then. Do it. Do it. I’m leaving. I’m leaving.

I’m leaving. Not resisting. I’m not resisting. Have you seen me leaving?

Taya Graham:

Okay. Now this video and our discussion with Sean set off a heated debate and it was so, let’s say lively that Steven and I decided that we needed to do a show to respond to your comments and discuss their implications. And luckily we were also able to get the man himself Long Island Audits to participate. But before we get to Sean, I want to give you a sense of the format of the show and how we’re going to handle the debate. And remember, this is very live, so please bear with any technical difficulties we might have. And I’m going to do my best to put on any comments from the live chat on the screen as we go through. So over the past week, Steven and I have been reviewing hundreds of comments on our YouTube channel and on Facebook and selecting what we hope is a representative sample of your thoughts.

Our goal is to select what best represents the framework of the discussion about Sean Paul’s work. And we’re going to show them on the screen. I’ll read them and then Sean, myself and Steven will discuss. But a big part of that is going to be what you think. And I mean the police accountability report community, in my personal opinion, is one of the most thouhtful and insightful collection of rebels. And yes, rebels I think is the right word on YouTube. Believe me, we feed off your ideas and your insights and tonight we need you to chime in. So Steven, first off, welcome to The Great Indoors.

Stephen Janis:

Thank you so much. Oh God, it’s some nice to be inside. Although yeah, it’s good to be back. It’s good to be back in the studio. Yo didn’t even have to coax me. I came in voluntarily.

Taya Graham:

Yes. Well, we gave you some coffee and left out some candy and he just followed them in.

Stephen Janis:

Free coffee. Though Max said it might come out of my paycheck, but that’s okay. It’s good coffee.

Taya Graham:

But look, before we introduce Sean, why don’t you explain a little bit why you felt like this debate needed to continue? What struck you as the critical question at the heart of it? So

Stephen Janis:

The critical question for me is the question of dissent, right? Democracy doesn’t function without free, fair dissent. And to me, journalism is the epitome of dissent because it’s saying the oligarchy truth is not the final truth. We can challenge that truth with a different reality. And when I see Sean entering the space of power and being challenged, just to ask a question, I think we have to ask critical questions about how do we preserve dissent and what this is really about. I mean, why would they just storm out at him and not allow him to ask a question? And to me, one of the defining points of this is we cover inequality in another show called the Inequality Watch. And I think as wealth becomes more and more concentrated in this country, I think the fight over the truth is going to become more important and therefore dissent is more important.

And to me, journalism is quintessential dissent. It’s organized, constructive and thoughtful dissent. And that’s what Sean was doing. I mean, he was just showing up to ask a question. That is our only army. He wasn’t ambushing them or doing anything. He just had a question. He did have a big truck. Yeah, I’ll admit that was kind of cool. We’ll talk about that. But it was just dissent. And to me, that’s what this is about. I mean, if they could take away our ability to show up at a building and ask a simple question about what they are doing with taxpayer money, then we’re done.

Taya Graham:

Then

Stephen Janis:

The oligarchs have won. So that’s why I though it’d be interesting. And I want to debate the people who somehow think that journalists are a pain in the ass. So hopefully we are. Yes. Anyway, that’s my though.

Taya Graham:

Thank you for asking. Technically, journalists are supposed to be a pain. We’re supposed to afflict the comfortable and comfort the afflicted. Exactly. And honestly, what you mentioned is something that is a classic part of journalism, which is to follow the money. And I believe that’s what Sean Paul was trying to do. He’s just trying to find out where taxpayer money was going. But before I bring him in, let me just first shout out some of the people that I see in the chat. I’m going to look down here. I see Noli D. Thank you so much for being here. Lacey R. Thank you so much for being here. I think Joe Cool’s here, which is amazing. Oh wow. Joe Cool. Amazing copwatcher. And there’s another copwatcher down there. I’m not sure if I should shout him out. Yes, you should. Should I shout out the name?

Yeah. Eric Brant. Wow. Eric Brant, the man is in the chat. So we definitely have some copwatchers here who I’m sure have a lot of strong and thoughtful and insightful opinions about the nature of cop watching and journalism. Oh, and let me also say hi, Katie Keyne. It’s really great to see you again. Okay. And you too, Prairie745. All right. Now, without further ado, I want to bring in the man himself, Long Island Audit, also known as Sean Paul Reyes. Sean Paul, thank you so much for joining us.

Sean Paul Reyes (Long Island Audit):

Thank you so much for having me. It’s great to be here. Thank you.

Taya Graham:

We are so happy to have you. So now first, before we completely dive in, there’s been an update with the arrest that occurred during your encounter with the leadership of the Suffolk County Police Union. Can you tell us a little bit about it?

Sean Paul Reyes (Long Island Audit):

So the update is that the criminal charge of trespassing in the third degree that I was originally arrested for has been dismissed by the district attorney’s office. That charge required that the property being closed in a manner to exclude intruders, i.e. An offense. It wasn’t the case for that property. So they dropped it down to a trespassing charge, which is a violation, not a crime, which requires unlawfully entering or remaining on a person’s property, on private property. So that’s where it stands. And I mean, we can get into more detail on the order of protection and ex parte hearings, but I’ll defer

Stephen Janis:

To you. I mean, I don’t really understand. You were exercising your First Amendment as a journalist. You have some privilege to be able to go to places and knock on doors where you’re not wanted, right?

Sean Paul Reyes (Long Island Audit):

Right. Yeah. So generally the Supreme Court case, I don’t really remember what it is right now, but there is a Supreme Court case that even with a no trespassing sign, the public and people say, “Well, you don’t get extra rights because you’re a journalist or a YouTuber or whatever they want to call me.” And that’s the topic of today’s discussion. But generally, anyone has a license or privilege to approach someone’s door and do a knock and talk. You can knock and ask questions the same way a law enforcement officer can knock on your door, same way the solar panel, Girl Scout cookies, whatever. People knock on people’s doors and ask them questions. Once that privilege, that license or privilege has been revoked by the private property owner, then you must vacate the property.

Stephen Janis:

Which is what you were doing. But anyway, not to digress, Saya, go ahead. Sorry.

Taya Graham:

Okay. And let me just give a shout out to HBO Matt. HBO Matt, great to see you there. Another cop watcher. Wow. 1A and 2A auditor who’s in the chat as well right now. We got to shout out all those people out there doing that work. Okay. So Sean, now here’s the tough part. We’re going to start going through the comments. Now we’ve tried to pick a representative sample. And though I will say in general, more people support you than not. Some of your critics are pretty adamant that your work doesn’t benefit the community. So let’s start there. Okay. Let me hit you with comment number one. Okay. A clout chasing provocateur whose approach is ambush journalism. Real journalists make an appointment. People at work don’t just drop everything because this YouTuber shows up. Wow. Okay. So Sean, let me start with you. What do you think?

Is this a valid critique?

Sean Paul Reyes (Long Island Audit):

I don’t think it’s. I think anybody’s opinion is valid. Everybody can have their own opinion on what I do and how I go about it. So I’m not going to say that their opinion is invalid, but I would push back on their opinion that it’s ambush journalism. I mean, I’m asking questions. I don’t have to make an appointment. I can just walk up and ask the question. And really, to the person who made that comment, do you think if I would have called and made an appointment, they would have let me in and give me an appointment? Let’s be real here.

Stephen Janis:

I’m just laughing. Sory. I’m

Taya Graham:

Sorry. I didn’t mean to interrupt you.

Stephen Janis:

But go ahead, go ahead, go ahead. Sorry.

Sean Paul Reyes (Long Island Audit):

Okay. No worries.

Taya Graham:

It just seems unlikely. Yes.

Sean Paul Reyes (Long Island Audit):

Yeah. More likely than not. They wouldn’t just, “Hey, yeah, we’ll pency in for 2:30,” right? Especially with the questions that I’m asking. I’m not asking, “How does it feel to save lives every day and put your life on the line, Mr. PBA president?” I’m asking why hundreds of millions of dollars of Suffolk County taxpayer money, hundreds of millions of dollars over the last 15 to 20 years have been put in the pockets of other people who have had their rights violated. So that’s my tax dollars. I’m a lifelong resident of Suffolk County. I’ve been investigating the police union and their power structure, and it comes from their donations to the legislators, to the county executive. There is more to the story than just showing up with my billboard truck. And again, I will say that most journalists don’t have a billboard truck. I do. And if you want to paint me out as it’s advocacy journalism, whatever word you want to put in front of journalism, it’s still objectively journalism, opinionated journalism, advocacy journalism.

It’s still journalism. Journalism is asking questions, doing investigations and disseminating that of matters of public interest to the public. Maybe it doesn’t interest you, but it interests me and it interests a lot of people out there, hundreds of thousands, if not millions of people across my social media platforms. So if you don’t like the topic, you can tune into your favorite journalist that you want. I highly recommend the police accountability report here. Well, thank

You. But at the end of the day, ambush, whatever adjective you want to describe how I operate, it still doesn’t make what happened to me any less unlawful and any less a violation of my First Amendment rights.

Taya Graham:

Steven, I’d love to hear your thoughts on this.

Stephen Janis:

Yeah. Well, I mean, I don’t like the word ambush because I don’t think asking a question. Ambush has militaristic overtones, but if we had to make an appointment with every person that we wanted to ask a question that they didn’t want to answer, we wouldn’t have a job. Now, we cover Capitol Hill, right? Reporters roam all around confronting people who don’t want to answer questions. The entire process is about people showing up when you don’t expect them. That’s the whole way it works. There’s no journalism without the so-called ambush. And so I don’t like that term because that’s not what you were doing. You were asking a question which is about as passive as you can get. But yeah, so that’s just BS because almost our entire work centers on the fact that we can just walk up to someone and put a mic in their face.

If we can’t do that, we can’t do our jobs.

Taya Graham:

Steven, I really do have to agree with you on that. I mean, we show up to all sorts of places without an appointment. I have to say, on occasion when I have asked for an appointment, there was a particular time in Trenton, New Jersey where I made an appointment with their press information officer, told her I was going to be there, and she ghosted me. Just a little TikTok about the fact that I had made the effort to travel there, confirmed everything with her. She wasn’t there. And perhaps she should have been at her desk and she wasn’t. But I can tell you within eight hours, my entire TikTok account was banned and taken down. We’re just posting – Questions are not

Stephen Janis:

Ambushed.

Taya Graham:

Questions

Stephen Janis:

Are.

Taya Graham:

So it can be difficult for a traditional journalist to get an appointment. And even just reporting on the fact I didn’t get the appointment, got my TikTok account banned, which I think was a little mean, to be perfectly frank. I agree. But before I go on to the next criticism, I want to shout out Ophelia Moonrose. I thought you had a great comment there. Big G audits, good making case precedent in your state. That’s awesome. So one of the criticisms that we’ve seen of auditors like Sean is that they’re all after clicks and views, but I thought this was an interesting take on that critique. So let’s put up comment number two. Okay.

And also, I apologize if I mispronounce names, please give me some grace there. I’ll do my best. Gerek Diffelton says, “Clicks and views, spreading awareness and capturing focus for issues you want the public to see is exactly the point of journalism. Sean uses outrageous reality to catch attention and the New York Post uses lies and misinformation.” Now, Sean Paul, I think you said something quite similar, right? And Steven, can a journalism org survive without clicks? No. I mean, if a tree falls in a forest and no one hears it, did the tree fall? I mean, if no one sees your journalism, does it even count? Yeah.

Sean Paul Reyes (Long Island Audit):

Yeah. I mean, my response to that is obviously all journalists want clicks and views. All media outlets want clicks and views. And I can give you just a recent story. CNN ran a story on First Amendment auditors just recently, and I’m actually going to do a video of this on my channel. They reached out to me and their question was, “How much money do you make? Can you provide us with your financials?” And I answered them back. Yeah. I answered them back politely and I said, “I would love to discuss with you the financial aspects of what I do in a video format, just like how we’re talking right now in a Zoom or a live stream.” And they said, “Oh, we’re going to move in a different way for our story. No problem.” And then they came out with a story and it was about how First Amendment auditors make money.

And they found two random individuals who have no idea who they are. They’re a couple. They curse a lot. They scream a lot. The video was just them cursing and screaming at members of the public and law enforcement and getting kicked out of this public building. And they went over and these two, I call them useful idiots, that’s what they were because they didn’t even shout out their channel or anything like that. So I have no idea who these people are. And most probably in our community don’t know who they are either. But they went and they showed them their YouTube studio. Yeah, I made $600 on this video. I made this and the CNN reporter’s there and they followed them around when they did these audits. And it’s crazy because the goal of the CNN story was to portray First Amendment auditors as only wanting clicks and views and being provocative and looking for negative interactions.

The ironic part of that is that’s exactly what CNN did in their story. They didn’t want me to come on their story and be a part of their story because I would talk about boring things about how I’ve been invited to train police departments, district attorney’s offices. I’ve done ride alongs with law enforcement. I’ve worked side by side with law enforcement. I investigated corrupt mayors. I’ve broken stories on mayors using federal funds for receiving federal funds that they voted on for their construction companies. So again, and I don’t curse or scream in my video, so it wouldn’t be as entertaining for people, but CNN selectively chose these two useful idiots so that way they can get what clicks and views on their video. So again – Right.

Stephen Janis:

Yeah, go ahead. Maybe CNN doesn’t like the competition from you

Sean Paul Reyes (Long Island Audit):

From people. I don’t think so. I think they see it as a threat. I think that’s a good valid point because even Newsday is our local newspaper here on Long Island. News 12 Long Island is the broadcast arm of that. And none of them have covered, the New York Post covered this arrest because Lucavila wanted them to, the police union president. But none of the local outlets have covered this story. And I would argue that it is the quintessential public interest story. Whether you want to hit me out as a YouTuber, a gadfly, an agitator, whatever you want to call me. I’m still a public figure. And Lucavilla was the police union president and there was a confrontation where I was arrested. That seems like news that would be interesting for the residents in Suffolk County or Long Island that they report to, but they choose not to.

They pick and choose their stories. They pick and choose the themes of their stories. And I do the same thing. And my themes are focusing on police accountability, exposing what’s happening inside our police departments. I’m telling everybody watching now, and I say this on my channel, the police unions, especially here in the Northeast and specifically Suffolk County, they receive. Again, I don’t just go up there with a camera. I was just working before looking up. It’s a 501C. I’m looking up their financials. They have $15 million, the police union in Suffolk County, $15 million in assets. They bring in $5 million a year in annual revenue. They get paid through the contracts, through the contracts from the county. They get paid canine time, canine a pay. They don’t have a canine. I want to make this clear. There is not one canine that works for the PBA, the police union.

They get canine pay. They get hazard pay. They get a midnight pay. It’s a nine to five

Stephen Janis:

Job. One thing, Sean, that you’re touching on, which I think is really important, is how lucrative policing is in terms of their relationship with the government. Because I remember in Baltimore, we had take home cars. All officers had take home cars and they could drive back to Pennsylvania and the city paid for the gas. And it was like $100,000 benefit, but the mainstream media doesn’t want to take it on because they want police officers to feed them crime stories, which is more of their fodder. But what you’re doing is amazing because you’re actually challenging their lack of good reporting, which probably embarrasses them. I mean, to hell with the truck.

Sean Paul Reyes (Long Island Audit):

And I completely agree with you when they want the murder scenes, they want the vehicle pile ups, they want to get that call. And if they’re adversarial, which you guys were talking about how a press should be adversarial. And I completely agree. I think that’s the foundation, an adversarial press towards the government. But they want those stories. And then it’s such a big story because they just got an 18% raise. Lucivillo, for example, gets paid $265,000 a year as the police union president. He keeps his full law enforcement officer capabilities, yet he doesn’t patrol, he doesn’t investigate crime. He sits in a desk defending officers who are accused of misconduct all day long and pushing his propaganda out to on. They own radio stations. They have podcasts. They’ve embraced social media in order to brainwash the people.

Stephen Janis:

Do you know where the $5 million revenue comes from? I mean, do they get it from donations or do they charge for services or something? Are they doing moonlighting or where’s it come from? Do you know?

Sean Paul Reyes (Long Island Audit):

Yeah. So I just started looking into it before I

Stephen Janis:

Came

Sean Paul Reyes (Long Island Audit):

On here. I was just looking at everything, all the documents –

Stephen Janis:

I’ll look into too. Yeah.

Sean Paul Reyes (Long Island Audit):

501 documents, but their revenue comes from union dues. And again, they’re in violation of election law. In New York State, you can’t force somebody to donate to a candidate. So what they’re doing is they’re collecting union dues. And whether the police officer is a Republican or a Democrat, sometimes that money goes to somebody who the police officer doesn’t want it to go to. And that’s in violation of election law. And a Suffolk County legislator, Rob Trota, a former detective for the Suffolk County Police Department, he blew the whistle on this. So I give him all the credit and the district attorney said, “You know what? I don’t have jurisdiction.” It’s funny how the district attorney didn’t have jurisdiction for a New York state crime, but the district attorney can receive $500,000 in campaign contributions from the PBA. The Suffolk County executive gets a million dollars.

These legislators think about this. How can anybody be okay with the system where Suffolk County Police Union can funnel money into the pockets of politicians and those same politicians get them elected? They go door to door for them. They mail out, they have mailers, the whole apparatus. And then they get elected and then they in turn vote on these 18% raise increases, hazard pay for police union. 20

Stephen Janis:

Year pensions. 20 year pensions. 20 year

Sean Paul Reyes (Long Island Audit):

Pensions.

Stephen Janis:

Yeah. I

Sean Paul Reyes (Long Island Audit):

Like that. They make these backroom deals where there was an officer that was accused of using the surveillance apparatus for his own personal gain. And he went on to have 14 years. They said, okay, admit to this misconduct. And in 14 years, 14 years, when you get your full funded pension, you have to leave. That’s not accountability.

Stephen Janis:

Oh, and we’ve had multiple officers who have been charged, committed, charged, convicted of crimes who are allowed to keep working. I mean, the basic thing is you pointed out, I think, in both your Brian Fahey case, which we’ll get to, is these pensions are golden parachutes. Absolutely. They are multimillion dollar bonuses for these people. So a lot of what happened in Baltimore is that even though you’ve been convicted of a crime, they keep you on the payroll so that you get your pension qualification, which is like that’s when you hit the jackpot of the library. So that’s great work you’re doing there. You want to get to the next one so we don’t –

Taya Graham:

Oh, absolutely. Yeah. So I have another comment here. I shouldn’t point that way. Give you some fair warning. Here is a proponent of police power urging you to obey a lawful order, which of course has some pretty broad implications. So this is Jim 0417 commenting on the Sean Paul Reyes arrest coverage. I agree there is free speech. However, don’t push your luck. Just leave. Then no problem. No arrests. I am a retired police detective. And if I’m told something by the police, I comply. It’s just that easy. Now, Steven, I think this refers back to some of your thoughts on police power. What do you think?

Stephen Janis:

Well, I mean, I think the idea that there is this police control over space that somehow, if they deem a space to be theirs is sort of an extension of some of the worst aspects of this country’s lessening democracy. So I mean, I didn’t say this in the beginning, but I think one thing that Sean Paul exposes by going into police space and pointing a camera at them is their absolute thought of control over space, which I think is a way of showing how latent authoritarianism in America kind of makes its way through policing. Because it’s really weird when you think about it. You show up with a camera, they could have ignored him. They could have just answered his question. They could have done a lot of things, but they decided to confront him with power, with power and command over that space. So I think disobeying orders from police about space is pretty much the most fundamental American kind of descent you can do.

So I’m all for Sean going and pointing cameras because what amazes me of what you see. I mean, someone points a camera at you and you start ordering around and say you’re going to arrest him. What does that mean? What is that telling you about this country? What is it telling you about authoritarianism? Sean, are you surprised sometimes when people freak out because you show up just by showing up, not even doing anything?

Sean Paul Reyes (Long Island Audit):

Yeah. I’ve been doing this five years now and it still surprises me to this day because it’s so nonsensical. You’re 100% right. The police union president could have. He was upstairs in his penthouse suite. He didn’t have to come down with five other officers from the

Police union. He could have stayed up there, told the receptionist, “Tell him he needs to leave. He’s not welcome here.” And I would have left and there would have been no incident. There would have been no clicks and views. There would have been no story for that particular video. I just would have left. I was leaving. And these people, like this former officer that commented that, and I see it, especially in my county. I want to use my billboard truck to bring awareness to this and my voice and my platform, especially I’m going to focus on my county moving forward because it’s important to me. When I was protesting, one of the neighbors of the district attorney told me, “You’re a liberal communist.” And they were so violent in calling me a communist. And these people don’t even know the definition of communists, but they just repeat what they hear.

They have no idea what a communist is, what communism is. They have no idea what these terms mean, but they’ve heard other elected officials call people communists because of they don’t like them. And they say, “Oh, you’re a communist. You want to hold the police accountable? Then you’re a communist.” And it makes no sense. So I still get shocked to this day. Lou should have done that. Lucivilla, the police union president should have just told someone else to tell me, but he was looking for the confrontation. He came out with handcuffs in hand. He was looking for that to happen. Oh, so Sean, he

Stephen Janis:

Had his handcuffs. Had his handcuffs in hand?

Sean Paul Reyes (Long Island Audit):

He had his hands. Remember, he’s not a real law enforcement officer. He doesn’t do law enforcement activity, yet he gets paid for law enforcement activity, but he doesn’t do law enforcement activity. He actually does the opposite. He shields officers in this county and they introduce legislation. They just introduced a bill into the New York State Senate where you have to be 15 feet away from a law enforcement officer. That came directly from him. He’s the one pulling the strings. And it doesn’t matter, Democrat or Republican, they all take PBA money. They all want to be seen as back the blue, especially in my county. And it’s just sad to me that people like that commenter, I don’t blame him. I think his ignorance comes from his lack of critical thinking skills, his lack of a variety of media consumption. And he just wants to blame somebody, just comply.

But the most ironic part is I was complying. I mean, how can you watch that video and not see that I was complying? Maybe I wasn’t complying in the way that you wanted me to. Maybe I wasn’t complying in the way Lucid Villa wanted me to, but legally I was complying.

Stephen Janis:

What was interesting is it was almost the opposite of when police use the stop resisting to do it. You were saying, “I’m leaving. I’m leaving. I’m leaving.” And basically making it clear that you were retreating and following and obeying the law and their requests. So it was just weird and ironic that they kept confronting you even when you said you were leaving, which I think has to do with this police preoccupation with space and dissent because you are showing them up for what they’re doing to the taxpayers of Suffolk County. And they don’t want that. And it’s interesting that it’s you that’s doing it and not the people, the mainstream media with all their money and power that are doing it. But it’s one guy with a truck and a YouTube channel that is actually doing this, which I think. Well, I mean, I think it’s really telling, right?

Because I’ve covered this kind of stuff in policing and you get so much pushback when you talk about their pensions or about the fact that they can work. The guys you’re talking about get some sort of dumb desk job where they sit and they file. They don’t do anything. I mean, we had the gun tray task force where they literally went on vacation in the Bahamas and got overtime. So what police are able to do with money and what they’re able to do with the resources of a community is confounding.

Yeah, they use that money.

Sean Paul Reyes (Long Island Audit):

Go ahead.

Taya Graham:

Oh no, I was just going to say, I think you explained that basically Suffolk County is the home of the million dollar pension, right? Yeah. So I actually did some calculating on how long it would take me to save that type of pension with a little bit of money I put aside each year. I would need to work 200 years to be able to have that be my pension. Yeah, it’s a Ponzi scheme. So that’s something to look forward to. It’s a

Stephen Janis:

Ponzi scheme.

Sean Paul Reyes (Long Island Audit):

It is a Ponzi. They’re extorting the police officers in Suffolk County through the police union are extorting the taxpayers. And they put out buzzwords like, “Oh, because we protect you. We keep you safe. We do this. We put our lives on the line.” All propaganda, that means nothing. They’re law enforcement officers. Even for body cameras, we had to pay them. We had to pay them more money every single year. I believe they got an extra $2,000 a year each just for them to put on body cameras. In what other profession does your boss tell you, you need to put this on your uniform? And then they’re like, “Well, I’m not going to do it unless you pay me.” It is a racket. It is a racket and the people need to know about it. And a lot of people know and they don’t care. They back the blue regardless of what.

And that’s why we call them bootlickers.

Stephen Janis:

You know what?

Taya Graham:

I’d like to go onto the next comment. I think it’s very appropriate because it’s apparently, Sean Paul, you’re just not nice enough to rich people. That’s what this comment’s saying. I thought it was a little odd, but I thought it was worth talking about. So this commenter, Alma Adams, 3631, wrote on a recent episode, “I was on this guy’s side until he brought up Bezos and Musk.” How are they the bad guys again? I mean, did this guy go to Comedy College? I mean, I guess they all are these days. Comedy College. Okay. I’ve seen –

Stephen Janis:

Just a public service announcement. So we are very welcoming of a Marxist here and communists at the Real News Network. And

Taya Graham:

Libertarians and libertarians. And libertarians. And any

Stephen Janis:

Ideological strike

Taya Graham:

Really. Okay. We welcome all political viewpoints to have all types of thinkers with all types of ideologies who support democracy and want to have an interesting conversation about it. So communists, come on in and have

Stephen Janis:

Conversations. Why would you critique him that way when he’s talking about police pensions? I think that’s an interesting connection, right? Symbolic, Sean?

Sean Paul Reyes (Long Island Audit):

Yeah. I mean, again, there goes the commi thing. These people are, they’re just brainwashed. And it really disheartens me as an American and somebody who loves this country that there’s so many people out there who have been brainwashed by people like Elon Musk. I’ll call them out again, Jeff Bezos. They’re an oligarchy. They’re no different than And the oligarchs in Russia, the only difference is that you love them. The people love

Taya Graham:

Them. Exactly.

Sean Paul Reyes (Long Island Audit):

You worship

Taya Graham:

Them. Well said.

Sean Paul Reyes (Long Island Audit):

They’re no different. They’re celebrities here. That’s the only difference. The oligarchs in Russia are just hiding behind their fortresses and that’s going to happen too. Listen, in another life, I would have been a history teacher. I love history. One of my favorite quotes is, “Those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it.” And you, we are on the track for the oligarch. Thank you. Look at the wealth separation in this country. It doesn’t make any sense. You could call me a communist or whatever you want. I’m telling you, these billionaires don’t have the everyday. You’re sitting here, that person, the sad part is that person is defending the oligarchy and yet they’re living paycheck to paycheck every week. And that’s the sad part to me.

Stephen Janis:

And I think that’s the point of police power to project the idea that you’re not worthy of an equal society with an equal sharing of wealth. I think part of the thing is that police make you feel that there’s some sort of chaos outside of this constructed oligarchy. And that if you challenge police, you’re challenging law and order. And then there will be this chaos of, like you said, like commies, like Long Island Olives knocking on your door. And I think that’s part of the point of why policing fuses with Bezos and Musk in that sense.

Sean Paul Reyes (Long Island Audit):

They’re meant to protect the oligarchy. That’s the whole point in

Stephen Janis:

Case

Sean Paul Reyes (Long Island Audit):

Things go south. They’re the defense against the oligarchy. That’s the part. They’re not here to protect you. They’re here to extort you through tickets and everything else. You get pulled over, you’re paying hundreds of dollars for tickets. I don’t understand. Can police officers be heroes individually? Sure they can. Sure, they can engage in heroic activity. And I will admit that, but to call law enforcement officers generally heroes is disgusting. To me, it’s like, it just doesn’t make sense.

Taya Graham:

You know what? I just have to jump in here because when I heard you talking about oligarchy, and I think in a past life, you were a history teacher. I have no doubt. But when I think about Jeff Bezos and his net worth, and when I think about Elon Musk, our newest trillionaire on the planet, that kind of money, that kind of money is more than some countries have. That kind of money, it absolutely influences our government. It influences public policy. So to say that we shouldn’t criticize these people, hold them accountable is absurd to me. These people don’t deserve some sort of unique protection because they manage to win out in the lottery of life. These people, if they have the power of a government because of their bank book, they deserve to have questions answered and we deserve transparency.

Stephen Janis:

Great.

Taya Graham:

So I’m sorry, that just gets me a little heated because we actually have a show called the Inequality Watch, which I think Steven would argue is the oligarchy accountability report. I mean, how would you answer that comment or really?

Stephen Janis:

And it’s interesting because the two fews, like Sean has pointed out, Sean Ray has pointed out policing and inequality and oligarchy all kind of come into one big problem for all of us working people in a sense. So you want to do the next one?

Sean Paul Reyes (Long Island Audit):

Yeah. The people are working against their. I’ll just end with this. People need to stop working against their own interests and

Stephen Janis:

Fighting

Sean Paul Reyes (Long Island Audit):

Against their own interests. I mean, you’re defending a man that has more money than he could ever spend in a million years and you can’t afford to pay your electric bill. It’s bizarre to me. It’s bizarre.

Taya Graham:

Yeah. I completely agree. I really don’t understand it. I try to understand the psychology of it, but it does allude me. But let me go to another comment here for you because I want you to see all of them. So this is someone who looks at Sean Paul’s work in kind of a broader context. And I’m wondering what you both think of it in terms of what at stake and whether we’re overlooking some of the broader implications of what auditors and First Amendment activists do. So let me read it and I’ll have Dave put up clip five. Okay. So democracy itself is at stake. Being ruled, terrorized, controlled, manipulated, dominated and lied to is not freedom. Okay. So to me, that’s very heavy, very powerful. So what do you think? Do you believe you’re fighting for democracy, Sean Paul?

Sean Paul Reyes (Long Island Audit):

I think I’m fighting for accountability and democracy. Anything that gives power back to the people. That’s why I wear my we the people hat everywhere I go. I want the people to have the power and I want people to act in their own interests when it comes to power because the people that are elected in our offices do not have our best interests at heart. It’s because you see the ads. Money controls politics between campaign spending. It all revolves around money. Look how much money Elon Musk put into the election. No one man should have all that power, right? Right. In the words of Kanye. But it’s crazy to me that people, even with flock cameras, the advent implementation of flock cameras, they’re here for your safety. Another favorite quote of mine is by Benjamin Franklin, “Those who give up their essential liberty to purchase temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.” And it’s so sad how quickly we’ve forgotten and have handed over all of our rights.

We’re going to have a surveillance state, police state, and all of these people in power that have all of this resources and money. And no one does anything about it. Most people don’t even go out and vote. Most people don’t make their voices heard because they’re too busy working. They have their own family drama, everything else, and they don’t pay attention or they only watch CNN or they only watch Fox News. They don’t broaden their horizons to try and really critically think and analyze what’s going on in our country. And I think that needs to change. So my platform is to try and bring accountability to those in power. And I can’t. I can’t do it by myself. All I can do is put it out there for people to see. And what they choose to do with it after that, I got to expose it.

I’m going to expose the police union here.

Stephen Janis:

Yeah. I mean, I think of all institutions, policing is the most anti-democratic. And like we said before, kind of the authoritarian impulses of society kind of course through it. And so your battle with them and the battle over space is pretty much to me the most so pro-democracy thing you can do as a reporter. I mean, in some ways the battle over democracy is incremental. When I worked for a TV station, when we go out to film, we had one space, which was a sidewalk because you couldn’t go on private property and you couldn’t go on the road because then they charge you with obstructing traffic. And yet even though the sidewalk was like the one place we could set up our camera and our tripod, police would still try to kick us off it. We constantly were battling. And it kind of was illuminating to me because here we have this one little space to do our jobs to expose X, Y, and Z, and we can’t even do this.

And so that’s why I think that sort of sense of taking all space over and sort of forcing people not to confront, not to ask questions, not to have a circulatory system to this democracy. I think that’s why it does make your work sort of pro-democracy because you’re fighting in some sense the most anti-democratic force. This doesn’t mean I’m anti-police or anything like that. I just think the institution itself, as you talked about before, is corrupted by the political economy that sustains it. So yeah, I think democracy is at stake in a sense, along with the broader issues that we covered on Capitol Hill, but this is an important component of it.

Taya Graham:

Steven, you were talking about how we’re covering Capitol Hill and it definitely seems like our democracy is under stress. I mean, what do you think about this idea in a broader context?

Stephen Janis:

Well, yeah, in the broader context, we just covered the federal government or the Republicans voting for a reconciliation bill that gets $70 billion. Let’s talk about real money. ICE has a hundred billion. Republicans get up and they give the ICE another 70 billion with absolutely no details or explanation of why. The point was just to fund ICE for an infinite length of time to fund ICE to do anything. So we’ve seen how ICE uses law enforcement tactics to disrupt democratic processes like in Minneapolis. And then of course killed two people that didn’t need to die. And so they give him $70 billion. And so I think here’s Sean fighting it on a local or a local level. In the national level, the same thing is going on. I mean, talk about giving unlimited money to law enforcement. I think there’s parallels there. Suffolk County has $5 million a year, 15 million here, extravagant pensions.

And then on Capitol Hill, $70 billion to an agency that doesn’t need it. They still had a hundred billion in the bank and they’re funded not year over year, but until 2029. So

Taya Graham:

The

Stephen Janis:

Unleashing of law enforcement through money, which we’ve seen in Suffolk County, we’ve written about this, is now playing out on a national level. And now you have a national federalized police force with unlimited funds.

Taya Graham:

You know what? Let me jump to our next comment because I want to make sure to get to as many of them as possible. Absolutely. And we’ve had some great comments that we’ve been putting on the screen from the live chat. I appreciate you. And don’t worry, I will ask about the tiger picture. Not now, but I will ask about the tiger pictures. There’s a person who’s obsessed with your painting, Sean. So before you go, you’re going to have to talk about it. Okay. Okay. Okay.

Stephen Janis:

I don’t know what you guys are talking about. Sorry.

Taya Graham:

It’s okay. I’ll

Stephen Janis:

Tell you. But I sure I’ll find out hopefully.

Taya Graham:

Back to police unions, one of our favorite topics. And full disclosure, I am a member of a union. I am a union steward. And I can let you know that the Communication Workers Association does not receive any taxpayer dollars. And I’m not receiving a million dollar pension. Like I said, I would need to work 200 years to earn that pension. Anyway, Sean, you explained on our show that you wanted the police union to answer questions about how they protect members who are accused of brutality and misconduct. One of the viewers weighed in on the power of police unions. Dave, if you don’t mind putting up comment six for me. Okay. Here we have Charles Harmon, 4159 says regarding the police union, “Police unions throughout the nation are the problem. Unlimited power and authority, the unions, qualified immunity, rampant racism and corruption. Nothing will be correct until we check this.” Wow.

I mean, Sean Paul, from your experience, how is bad policing a consequence of the power police unions?

Sean Paul Reyes (Long Island Audit):

So because they shield officers who engage in misconduct and brutality against accountability. They’ll tell you that. That’s what they do. They say buzzwords and things like, “Oh, we’re just making sure they get due process, that they need to have the same rights as everybody else and everything else.” But there is no due process when there’s no accountability at the end of that process. That’s like if people would be happy if they said, “Oh, we’re going to give due process to immigrants and then we’re going to let them stay here.” People would be upset with that. When you bring up ICE, that’s a hot button topic on when I talk about ICE on my channel.

I completely agree with what you’re talking about. And again, that’s by design, the division. We can’t say that the ICE is receiving too much money without accountability, without body cameras, without having to take off their masks, not violate people’s rights. I went to the location and flew out there to Minneapolis where Alex Pretty was murdered and I was at a eulogy there. And it really hit me that a man was murdered and executed by ICE. And people say, “Well, he kicked a car two weeks ago and broke the taillight.” And it’s like, come on, you need to understand something. That is not. Yes, Alex Pretty engaged in violent behavior two weeks before he was executed. Even if he was executed that same day, kicking a taillight is not a death sentence. We need to understand this. Wanting accountability for ICE is not pro-immigration or pro-illegal immigration.

These people, they have this in their mind where if you criticize ICE in any way, it’s now you’re pro-illegal immigration, you’re pro this. When I talked about judicial warrants, the differences between judicial warrants and administrative warrants. And I put this on my channel and people, I got so much blow back from my community about, oh, but Sean, you’re just trying to protect illegal immigrants. And no, I’m trying to protect you. I’m trying to protect me. I’m trying to protect our country. Because there’s a big difference. You cannot go into someone’s house on an administrative warrant because an administrative warrant is basically like a decree from the king. Then we’d be going back to the decree from the king where he says, oh, that’s the warrant. And then we’re going to go. A judicial warrant is necessary to have a third party look at the facts of the case.

I’m trying to protect everybody’s rights, including illegal immigrants’ rights because whether you like it or not, they do have rights and it was by design. And you don’t have to like it, but you have to accept reality for what it is. And police unions generally in this country, but specifically in the Northeast, specifically in the Northeast, they are so powerful, so well funded through tax money. And they shield officers from accountability every single day. It happens all the time. And I think police unions should be abolished across the country.

Stephen Janis:

Sean, Ray, one time I went to police union headquarters and they actually have a bar in there and they offered me a beer, which is kind of funny. But when I asked Congresswoman Mike Lawler about ICE funding about $70 billion, you know what he said to me? He said, “Do you want to abolish ICE?” That was his answer to my question. Of course. So what you’re talking about, this sort of. Well, it’s part of the culture of policing, right? You are for or against. When someone says you can either be for or against something, you know you’re in really treacherous territory. Tay and I always make this joke, do you have to be for and against the sanitation department

Taya Graham:

To

Stephen Janis:

Ask us? Well, if you ask a question about why we’re spending so much money on sanitation,

Taya Graham:

You’re against

Stephen Janis:

Sanitation.

Taya Graham:

Right. If you criticize that we don’t get Tuesday and Thursday pickup anymore, we only get Thursday pickup, then you’re anti-sanitation. You hate sanitation workers.

Stephen Janis:

And you’re somehow un-American.

Taya Graham:

There’s no other organization and agency. That we can’t just criticize.

Stephen Janis:

And part of that is the union themselves because as Sean Wright points out, they have five people that are getting paid by the taxpayers sit there and espouse the perspective of the union. And let me tell you something, union officials have great relationships with the media. They didn’t have it with me when I was covering them, but I got a lot of crap because the media was so intertwined with the union officials on police uni officials. They are so much more powerful, even more powerful than union officials for other aspects of government. There’s no comparison to the power of the police union with the power of other public services.

Sean Paul Reyes (Long Island Audit):

I mean, just as I’m sitting there chained to a desk within hours of my arrest before I’m released, before anything else, the New York Post has an article out. Do you think that the New York Post was just looking at. No, they made a call to somebody at the New York Post and even they got a title change. The New York Post reporter that spoke to me when he went to my court, when it went to my arraignment, I said, “Why did you change the title of your second article? It was very critical of the police union because he was talking about how the video doesn’t seem to. It raises questions.” He said it in a very nice way too. He said, “It raises questions as to what the police union president stated in his original comments to the post. They changed the title of that article to Police Union President Receives Death Threats.” And I said, “Why did you do that?” He said, “Well, my first title, the police union president called my boss and he made a big stink and we had to change the title.” You want law enforcement officers to have that much power – That’s incredible.

Over the media, over your politicians, over your money, everything. That’s incredible. All because they’re heroes and you want to idolize them.

Stephen Janis:

Is he like the editor of the New York Post? I mean, just so people know, when Sean Ray, after the encounter, the New York Post ran very, I would say, inflammatory articles about your encounter with them. Not mentioning the pension or any of the questions you were asking, but simply talking about how once your video aired, people called, which happens with any publication. When I worked for a newspaper and we published a story, people didn’t like. We get tons of calls in hate mail. That’s normal. That’s not like you doing something. They made it seem like you had somehow corralled everyone to call. Yeah.That was something that you had done like, “Hey, everyone, call the police union. No.” And that’s extraordinary though that they have that kind of power.

Taya Graham:

It really is. You know what? Let me jump forward to comment eight because there are a few more comments I want to get to. I really want to check in on this one because – Give me some hard ones.Come on Tara. Because I’m going to try. People are going to town about qualified immunity in the comment section in our live chat right now. Favorite topic.

I think this is a really great time to discuss it. Yes. Okay. I mean, any discussion would be remiss without mentioning qualified immunity. And you know what? Let me just give a little explainer. I think everyone in our live chat, our PAR community knows qualified immunity, but just for anyone who might stumble across us, basically qualified immunity is a legal loophole that makes it extremely difficult to sue the police. So qualified immunity was created as sort of a threshold to give public officials immunity from violating people’s rights. And that was a consequence of a law passed during Reconstruction. I think it’s a 1983 part of the Ku Klux Klan Act of 1871, which was actually passed during Reconstruction to give people the right to sue again for the violation of their rights. But the qualified immunity loophole basically says you can’t sue someone if the right hasn’t been established, which means it has to been put through some sort of adjudication before you can sue someone like a cop.

And it has to be a case that is incredibly specific to your situation, but if it hasn’t been adjudicated upon, it’s going to be really difficult to sue. And I think Liberty Freak in the comment section and Mr. Brandt know a little something about that. Okay. With all that said, here’s the comment about it. Now this is from American Patriot 3515 on qualified immunity. We the people are getting sick and tired of that document known as the Constitution being used as toilet paper by law enforcement all across this country. We need to ban qualified immunity. That would be a good start. Okay. Sean Paul, to you. How big of a problem is qualified immunity when it comes to holding police accountable?

Sean Paul Reyes (Long Island Audit):

I think it’s a huge problem. Again, but I don’t want to minimize. I think the number one problem is the police unions. That is the number one problem because as things qualified immunity is horrible, but a lot of people focus on qualified immunity. That’s probably the number one thing that people who want police to be held accountable are saying, abolish qualified immunity, get rid of qualified immunity. But even if you did, the police unions are going to run rampant. It’s not going to change anything. I mean, you might be able to sue them and get some additional funds and everything, but most of the rights have been clearly established. But what judges, some judges will do, not all, but some judges will find a wiggle room. And this is what makes qualified immunity dangerous is that they’ll take, “Oh, well, this fact doesn’t add up right.” Or any layperson would be like, “Well, you can film,” for example.

I’ll give you an example of probably what a judge could do, is that you were filming the right to record the police on a public sidewalk is clearly established. But if you recorded them from the public parking lot, that’s not clearly established. So therefore right next to the sidewalk, so therefore he’s going to get qualified immunity. So eventually they’re going to run out of little loopholes to try and get people because it is qualified immunity. It’s not what prosecutors have, which is absolute immunity. Judges have absolute immunity.

So eventually they’ll run out of the little work. And I think qualified with the workarounds, I think qualified immunity is very important, but I want to stress to everybody that the police unions and the way they operate within the political system is far more dangerous when it comes to the lack of accountability and police power.

Stephen Janis:

Yeah.

Taya Graham:

Steven, I think there’s a case that talks a lot about qualified immunity. It’s the Eric Brandt and Liberty Freak case in the 10th Circuit. Maybe you want to explain

Stephen Janis:

About that? Well yeah, in 2021 or no, I think they actually, it was in 2019 that Eric Brandt and Liberty Freak were filming a police officer. They were filming just a traffic stop. And then a police officer drove up and got in front of them and then her drove his car at Eric. And this is in the 10th circuit. And I think the case was adjudicated in 2021, 2022. The initial district court said that the officer had qualified immunity because the right to film police had not been established. Now they won that case. The ACLU joined in, even the Cato Institute joined in, Electronic Frontier joined in. So they won it, but it can show you, as Sean, as you’re pointing out, that sometimes things slip through the cracks. And at that point in the 10th circuit, the district court judge had said, “Oh, there’s no established right to film police.” And this is in 2021, 2022.

Now, of course they won, but it just shows you sometimes these things can be a little more complicated. But I do agree with you that police unions are this source and locus of power when it comes to policing. It’s almost impossible to battle police unions.

Sean Paul Reyes (Long Island Audit):

Yeah. I mean, I’m taking it on now and I’m not going to stop. And I don’t see an end. I think this is going to be for the rest of my career because what I’ve seen is just horrible, especially in my own county. And I want to bring awareness to it. But the machine is just, it’s so big that it would take people really waking up and voting out these politicians who can end these contracts, who can make sure there’s accountability. But again, they have a propaganda arm. They have everything. They’re an S corp. They get paid a salary. They have expenses. They do this. It’s just such a machine.

Stephen Janis:

And a lot of times they fund. If a police officer gets into trouble, I don’t know what goes on in Suffolk County, but the police unions, like all the officers who were charged with the death of Freddie Gray, which for everyone who doesn’t know, Freddie Gray was a young man who died in police custody in 2015 and set off basically an uprising here in Baltimore. But all the police officers didn’t have to worry about hiring a lawyer because the police union pays for the lawyers for police officers who get in trouble in Maryland. I don’t know how it is in Suffolk County, but they have a lawyer on twenty four seven for them. If anything happens to them, they get free legal services from pretty well-paid law firms. Very well paid

Sean Paul Reyes (Long Island Audit):

First. Yeah. But that’s the secondary, that’s like the safety net. Most times in my experience, police officers get indemnified by the county or municipality. We’re going to get to

Stephen Janis:

That. And yes,

Sean Paul Reyes (Long Island Audit):

You are correct. They get taxpayer funded lawyers and they’re not getting the county attorneys, especially in Suffolk County or Nassau County, the neighboring county on Long Island. They hire $2,000 an hour attorneys, private attorneys. And I’m sure if I looked into that, I’m sure those attorneys probably donated those law firms. Oh

Stephen Janis:

Absolutely. We had the same thing going on in Baltimore. Absolutely.

Sean Paul Reyes (Long Island Audit):

It’s a whole racket. It’s a whole

Stephen Janis:

Racket.

Sean Paul Reyes (Long Island Audit):

It’s a whole big club and we’re not in it, just so people

Taya Graham:

Know. We are not in it.

Stephen Janis:

It’s a classic political economy. We had law firms were getting millions of dollars from Baltimore City to handle these lawsuits and basically –

Sean Paul Reyes (Long Island Audit):

Instead

Stephen Janis:

Of settling,

Sean Paul Reyes (Long Island Audit):

They couldn’t use that money to settle the case.

Stephen Janis:

Well, exactly.

Taya Graham:

Right. But

Stephen Janis:

That’s the

Sean Paul Reyes (Long Island Audit):

Thing. Fight it. It’s insane.

Stephen Janis:

They would spend millions. We have a municipal cap in Baltimore in Maryland. It’s 500,000 or 900,000. And they would spend more money defending than just, might as well just pay it out. They would spend five, six, seven million dollars just to defend a lawsuit. They’d eventually pay out. But instead of just paying it out, I think they wanted to run up the billable hours, which is to your point. You have the law firms getting involved, making millions and millions of dollars. The politicians getting donations. It’s a pretty nice business. Nice work if you get it. And the amazing thing about it that you point out, I think that people don’t understand, is if you mess up, the more mistakes you make, the more lucrative it is. In our city, after the Justice Department investigated our police department and found the Department of Justice found it practiced unconstitutional and racist policing for like a decade, the police department got $70 million to fix the issues.

Tons of consultants

Taya Graham:

Like you said tons of work. That was the first thing that happened. They were handed millions more dollars.

Stephen Janis:

70 million. And it just went to all sorts of extracurricular activities, which eventually ends up in the pockets of the union.

Taya Graham:

Yeah, absolutely. You know what? Let me grab comment nine because I think it’s an interesting one because it kind of is a dig at me and Steven. There’s someone who thinks we shouldn’t even be talking to you, Sean Paul. Dave, can you put up comment nine and I’ll read it. Sean Frey, excuse me, 7975 says, “You going to hitch your wagon to that mule. Lost all respect for you.” Wow. Yeah. Steven, I’m not sure exactly where that’s coming from, but I’m sure you have something to say about it. Well,

Stephen Janis:

First of all, I want to say I have tremendous respect for Sean Ray and all the work that he does. I don’t even care what they say about that. But also I think we should disabuse ourselves with this notion that interviewing someone means somehow you’re hitched to their wagon. Covering what Long Island does, Long Island Odds does, does not mean we endorse anything he does. It just means that we feel that he is newsworthy and that what he does is worth showing to our audience. That’s all it is. It’s not like we’re saying we’re endorsing everything Sean Ray does or we’re in. Sean Paul, sorry. Sean Paul Ray does. We’re not saying that at all. What we do as journalists, we interview all sorts of people. I mean, should we not interview Republican politicians who disagree with us or should we not interview people who we don’t think are perfectly suitable?

That’s not what we do. That’s not the kind of judgment we make. We judge things based on their newsworthiness. And Long Island Audits has made a lot of news for a good reason, for accountability reporting, and therefore we will cover him. And I don’t really care what people say about it, but I do have tremendous respect for your work. So

Taya Graham:

Either

Stephen Janis:

Way.

Taya Graham:

Steven, I agree with you. What we do is cover things that are newsworthy. For example, we have covered victims of crime and we have also interviewed people who have gone to prison for crimes. Does that mean I shouldn’t interview someone because they’ve gone to prison? Right. Does that mean I should only interview people that I like and never someone that I might have some fundamental differences in? Half the politicians

Stephen Janis:

In Maryland have gone to prison and we’ve interviewed all of them.

Taya Graham:

Oh my gosh. And they’re Democrats for the record.

Stephen Janis:

Yeah. So we interview

Taya Graham:

People all the time. They actually did go to prison. Our previous mayor did actually, and I had a lovely interview with her. So I should not interview people because they’re problematic. If they’re newsworthy, if interviewing them is going to reveal something important, then I should interview them for the benefit of the public. It’s not about liking people. It’s not about hitching your wagon to a star. It’s about giving the public information that they can find useful. Period. Case closed. Case closed. Now, Sean, I’m not going to force you to react to this unless you want to. I will.

Sean Paul Reyes (Long Island Audit):

I will. So first of all, to me, this is indicative of the tribalism and the death of nuance. And these people, they want to be closed-minded. They don’t want to have conversations. And this person probably, he says, if you asked him, you do support the First Amendment, do you support the free press? Do you support? And you probably say, yes, yes, yes. I love the Constitution. But the minute that someone engages with somebody that they don’t like or starts talking to them, again, just because I’m on your channel doesn’t mean that I am not. We do not endorse each other for everything that we do. If tomorrow you did something I didn’t like, I have full rights to talk about that as well. I don’t have a blind loyalty to people. I love the work that you guys do and I appreciate it. And I think what you guys do on Capitol Hill is great.

I watch you guys all the time. And you really speak truth to power. It’s great. I wish I could be up there on Capitol Hill agitating people and provoking people. I wish you could too. I

Taya Graham:

Was going to say,

Stephen Janis:

You

Taya Graham:

Can join

Stephen Janis:

Us. Can you bring your truck up to Capitol Hill one time at least once? I

Sean Paul Reyes (Long Island Audit):

Would love to bring the truck. Yeah, I

Stephen Janis:

Would love to. All right. We’ve got to do the truck one

Sean Paul Reyes (Long Island Audit):

Time. I would love to join you guys over there a Capitol Hill.But again –

Stephen Janis:

We’re doing that. That’s the date.That’s the date. I love it. I want that truck on Capitol Hill, man. Right on the triangle. It would be

Sean Paul Reyes (Long Island Audit):

Great. It’s crazy. And people are like, “Oh, journalists don’t have billboard trucks. That’s true. Most journalists don’t.” I wish we did. Right. I’m sure most journalists wish they did too. It’s a good way to spread your message around. And again, I’m not saying I’m not Caitlin Collins of CNN. I’m not – Neither

Taya Graham:

Am I.

Sean Paul Reyes (Long Island Audit):

Whoever from Fox News, I guess. I’m not those people. I’m Sean Paul Reyes. My platform is my platform. I objectively engage in journalistic activities. I objectively exercise my First Amendment right. And again, if you want to call it advocacy journalism, opinionated journalism, yeah, I have opinions. And I don’t hide that. I talk about things that interest me and interest my audience. And I think that me building platforms that have over two million subscribers and at this point, probably a billion views, 500 million, 600 million on YouTube alone. These are matters of public interest that people want to see. People are very passionate about it. I get death threats. I get people are passionate on the other side too. People threaten to kill me, threaten to kill my family. There’s a lot of things that go into this. And it’s sad to see that people can’t have conversations anymore.

Even if we were totally different, I would still come on your channel. I invited Lou, when the body camera footage comes out the Sunday on my channel, the Sunday morning at 10:00 AM, I invited him to come on the channel and he accepted. So Lou, if you’re watching this, you’re still welcome to. I think that he is a despicable thug with a badge, but I would bring him on my channel. Absolutely. Great point. So that way I can debate him. Absolutely. But he would never come. He says it on the body cam. “Yeah, I’ll come on your channel. Yeah, let’s do it. “While I’m sitting in handcuffs, while I’m standing there in handcuffs with a pinched nerve in my wrist because he put the handcuffs on so tight, he says,” I’ll come on. “I said,” Come on the channel. “Because I would have anybody on the channel if I thought it brought value to the greater conversation.

Absolutely. I think him speaking to me on my channel, I think it’s going to show you exactly what I’m talking about when it comes to the police union. They talk just generalities. Oh, they don’t get into any specifics about anything. It’s just you’re an agitator, how? You’re a provocateur, how? You hate the police, how? I’ve had police officers on my channel, I’ve gotten pushback from, if you want to talk about the other side of it, I’ve brought chief of polices, detectives, I’ve had law enforcement on my channel. I’ve done ride alongs, I’ve done trainings, I’ve done command staff meetings, district attorney’s offices, and some of the more anti-police who have just a bad taste in their mouth for police and don’t think that police should exist whatsoever, they’re like, “Why would you bring on a cop?” Because I want to have conversations with people who have different views than me.

I do so I can understand what it is I need to do and how I need to tackle a problem better. I would

Taya Graham:

Bring

Sean Paul Reyes (Long Island Audit):

On anyone. I would.

Taya Graham:

You know what? Steven, you know what this sounds like?

Stephen Janis:

What?

Taya Graham:

This sounds like a journalist.

Stephen Janis:

Yeah. Let me just make one public service announcement. I know, because I know he’s watching our editor, Maximolia Alvarez. We would like a truck. So just put that on our budget because I’m jealous of Sean. I want to show up at Capitol Hill with a truck.

Sean Paul Reyes (Long Island Audit):

You can use my truck. We will definitely collaborate

Stephen Janis:

And I will. Oh, you were coming out with that truck. Absolutely. We would love that. We have to do a collab. I would love to do

Sean Paul Reyes (Long Island Audit):

It. After how it works and everything. It’s

Taya Graham:

Great. And I just want to shout out some of the people in the comments. First off, hi Car Thief News. Thank you. And also, I want to say hello to Wrights Crispy. Hello, another wonderful cop watcher out there. We still have Joe Cool out there, hippie auditor out there. I think I even saw John Felix. I don’t know if I hallucinated it, but I’m almost positive I saw the John Felix out there. And I just

Sean Paul Reyes (Long Island Audit):

Want to –

Taya Graham:

I

Sean Paul Reyes (Long Island Audit):

Like Joe Cool.

Taya Graham:

I know. I know. As a matter of fact, Steven, do you have a DVD next to you?

Stephen Janis:

Oh yeah.

Taya Graham:

You know what? Why don’t you show that DVD?

Stephen Janis:

Okay.

Taya Graham:

If people are interested in learning a little bit more about Copwatchers, there is something you can watch. It’s called I Am But the Mirror. The

Stephen Janis:

Story of American Copwatching.

Taya Graham:

Story of American Copwatching. Lacey Arnold D, if you wouldn’t mind dropping the link in the comments. It’s on Fossum. It’s an amazing documentary where we followed Copwatchers and in particular a very controversial one for several years. And we share their story. We share the story of how we learned about Copwatchers, their lives. Just about some of the

Stephen Janis:

Topics we talked about tonight too.

Taya Graham:

A lot of the things we. No, no, it’s okay. A lot of the things that we touched on tonight, it’s a very personal and intimate look at the lives of Copwatcher and some of the very personal costs that happen when you put everything on the line because you believe in accountability and transparency. So if you’re interested in Copwatching, definitely recommend it. Okay. I just had to throw that out there for people who might be interested in continuing this conversation in another way. Okay. I’m going to go to the comment 10, and I have to admit this as a little bit of a personal peeve for me. Okay. This is the infamous democracy versus republic debate. I know there’s some historians in the comments, so you’re welcome to weigh in on this. This is from Edward Cominar 1493. I stopped watching when you called us a democracy.

We are not a democracy. And since you believe that, I will not sub to your channel. Bye. Okay. Well, all right. I hate to say it, but this is not an airport. You did not have to announce your departure. It’s okay. I love that. But secondly, I want to put this up because very often when I use the word democracy in the show, someone brings up that it’s formerly a constitutional republic as a point as if I didn’t know this or wasn’t aware. So please let me break it down so maybe I don’t have to go through this again. One is a legal framework or structure of governance, i.e. A constitutional republic. And one is a process for conferring power within that structure. Neither are mutually exclusive. One does not preclude the existence of another. We can live within the structure of a constitutional republic while simultaneously participating in a democracy.

I mean, Steven, am I wrong here?

Stephen Janis:

No, no, no, no, no. The two exist, coexist. I mean, the process itself of voting is democratic. So I just wanted to put that up there because people say this constantly when we have this discussion. And just remember, they’re not mutually exclusive. They really work well together. So when we say one, we’re not precluding the other is the point.

Taya Graham:

Right. Just

Stephen Janis:

Wanted to make that point quick.

Taya Graham:

Yes. Think of the republic is the building in which the democracy is housed. How about that? That sounds good. Okay. So we don’t have to argue about this, you guys. I promise. I promise. Okay. I won’t ask you to. Let’s get to 11 because we’re – Running out of time. We do have some time. Yeah. We do have to watch out for time. Last

Stephen Janis:

Comment.

Taya Graham:

Okay. Last comment that we saved from earlier from Facebook and YouTube. Okay. Who is footing the bill? Okay. So I think this comment makes a really good point, so we need to highlight it. Dave, thank you so much for putting it up. This is Sean Strauss’s point. Remember, everyone, cops never pay a single cent for lawsuits. Even in a successful lawsuit where qualified immunity is denied, individual LEOs are still literally always indemnified by the municipality. It’s the taxpayers who pay for the lawyer’s fees, court costs settlements, and even judgements issued against them. We the people currently have no meaningful legal recourse to hold our LEOs accountable, neither civilly nor criminally. So either one of you can take this. Well, let’s have Sean do it. Yeah. Is it true that police are indemnified by the taxpayers?

Sean Paul Reyes (Long Island Audit):

In most cases, yes. There was actually a case that I brought up. I’d covered this case where this man was walking down the street in New York City and officers hopped out like a gang. Literally a gang hopped out of a patrol vehicle and started going into his pants, checking him, searching him. He was just walking down the street, minding his own business, but apparently he must have looked a certain way or walked a certain way. Who knows what they were thinking? But they hopped out and they started searching him. They ended up grabbing his genitals and doing all types of craziness to him. And he got upset and I raid about it. He ended up filing a lawsuit. I covered this story probably three years ago. And then he had texted me, told me, “Hey, they ended up settling for $100,000.” And I bring this up because out of that $100,000, well, they had to hire their own attorneys, but as Steven indicated earlier, they hired their attorneys through the PBA, through their union.

They don’t call it a PBA, but their union, they hired them attorneys. And then they had to come out of pocket out of that $95,000 of that $100,000 settlement this gentleman got was taxpayer money. And the other 5,000 had to be split between the two officers who violated his rights. So at the end of the day, cops can be held accountable civilly, but nine times out of 10, 99% of the time they are indemnified by the municipality and the taxpayers end up funding the bill. I completely agree that there’s such a lack of accountability when it comes to government officials and our public servants, whether it’s locally, on the state level, federally. Federally is even worse. Federally, you can’t even. I didn’t know this until recently when I was unlawfully detained by border patrol and they went and cut open my suitcase, searched my vehicle, deleted the video from my phone.

Thankfully it was my recently deleted, put me in a jail cell.

You cannot sue the federal government under the 1983 civil rights lawsuit. You can’t. They’re not named as a. It’s for state actors, not federal actors. So you can file what’s called a tort claim, which that’s for actual damages. I could have filed a tort claim for the damage they did to my suitcase. It’s almost impossible to hold the federal government accountable. So it goes all the way. The lack of opportunities we have and the lack of avenues, I should say, that we have to hold state actors or federal actors accountable for their misconduct is basically nothing because they have unlimited money because it’s our money. It’s our money. They have unlimited money. They can just pay out lawsuits because it’s our money. Even if the federal government, they print the money. So they literally have unlimited money. And the state governments, they can’t print money, but they have a lot of it, especially places like New York, Maryland, where there’s high taxes.

They have a lot of money to be able to spare. They factor this in and they say, “Well, it is what it is.” It goes away. The person gets their money and they move on. And there’s never any accountability. If it came out of the law enforcement officer’s pockets.

Law enforcement is designed, is supposed to be, right? This is what they tell you to hold people accountable for their criminal actions, is to enforce the law. And the criminal justice system, again, I’m not co-signing their view, but they’re saying the criminal justice system is supposed to stop people from committing crimes. Not only the individual that’s being charged with a crime, but it’s supposed to serve as a deterrent to society as a whole to say, “Hey, you can’t do this because this will happen to you the same way it happened to this guy.” But in law enforcement, when there’s no accountability for the individual officer, that breeds a lack of accountability across the whole department and across the police as a whole. And because they know that, “Hey, I can do this.” Just recently, somebody was charged with a crime for using flock cameras to stalk their girlfriend.

And the investigator, the IA investigator who investigated him was arrested as well for doing the same thing after he did it. So it’s just the lack of accountability is astounding and it breeds more misconduct and more misconduct. And unfortunately, unless we change up, unless we get the right politicians in there, public servants to legislators, executives in the executive branch to hold them accountable, it’s not going to change.

Stephen Janis:

Yeah. I mean, it’s really interesting. I want to make this point before we wrap things up because one of the first times we started talking to Sean was when his encounter with Sergeant Fahey in Connecticut. Connecticut state trooper that seemed like his overtime was a little excessive for someone who worked at a desk and then retired with a pension. And I’ve been doing some digging on it. And it turns out that the couple thousand retired state troopers cost Connecticut taxpayers $110 million a year to fund their pensions. And we started looking at some of the last couple years, because the last couple years is what defines your salary. So what happens is that they start collecting a lot more overtime and therefore their final average pay goes up and therefore their final average pension becomes larger and more lucrative. And I think the point is in what you’re saying is that you are really attacking the crux of the matter in the sense that this is real dollars.

I mean, $110 million a year to fund the pensions for a couple thousand people is really an extreme use of resources in a country that purports not to be able to pay for healthcare for average working citizens. This is real money that keeps getting tossed around. When we looked at the budget for Suffolk County, it was like $1,400 a year for each household to fund police. I mean, think about that. So we are talking about hundreds of millions of billions of dollars being funneled into one organization that represents a very small number of people and hundreds of billions of dollars not going to pay for people’s healthcare or for childcare or for whatever, for education, you name it. So this is not a minor, this is a kind of a crux issue. And I think Sean, as you point out, these people are really the warriors on behalf of the oligarchy.

So yeah, I just want to make that point because that money struck me, $110 million. What could we do with that?

Sean Paul Reyes (Long Island Audit):

The Suffolk County Police Department has a billion dollar budget. It’s insane that the amount of money that goes into these six figure pensions for the rest of your life, for the rest of your life, but yet I might not even get my social security one day, but yet they get from. They’re going to get six figures for the rest of their life.

Stephen Janis:

For the rest of their lives. Yeah. I mean, it’s extraordinary. And Suffolk County’s like the hotbed of crime that I

Sean Paul Reyes (Long Island Audit):

Know of. No, it’s not. You know what they do? You know what they do, Steven? Again, I like the rank and file people of Suffolk County. I do. People, I’ll probably get chewed up for that. I like the rank and file officers because I think they’re pretty cool guys, but it’s the system, the police union, the administration. But what they do is they hide behind firehouses and just sit there all night long and just hang out. That’s what they do.

Stephen Janis:

Right. Right. Meanwhile, collecting $100,000 a year. Yeah. 200,

Sean Paul Reyes (Long Island Audit):

300, 400, $500,000 a year, that much.

Stephen Janis:

I mean, Suffolk County’s like Stony Brook University and a couple malls. I mean, seriously, a billion dollars, what? What’s going on there?

Sean Paul Reyes (Long Island Audit):

Keep us safe.

Taya Graham:

I wanted to say there have been some really great comments. And unfortunately, I didn’t get to ask some of the questions that were on the screen. So I just want to shout out a few people. I see Garden State Accountability, San Joaquin Valley Transparency. Otto, the watchdog is out there. Hey, Otto. It’s good to see you. How are you? One of our favorites. Leroy Truth. There’s a vigilance committee. Joe Kool is out there holding it down in the comment section. I love it. Big Nick South. Saw Rice Krispy. So I just want to make sure. I’m sorry if I didn’t get to mention everybody, but the comments are kind of flying by. I just want to thank all of you for participating. And I just want to ask, and there’s a great question on the screen of whether or not people. They want to know, do we think that this kind of cop watching, this kind of auditing, this kind of First Amendment activism, do you think it’s making a difference?

That was a question. It’s a good question. I’m so sorry. The name flew by too fast for. But I want you to know out there whoever’s in live chat, that was a great question. So Sean, I just wanted to ask you, do you think it’s making a difference?

Sean Paul Reyes (Long Island Audit):

I think it’s making a difference. I don’t think it’s making enough of a difference, but I do believe it’s making a difference. Even in the last five years, there’s a bunch of, you just named a bunch of people. There’s so many people that came before me. I’ve been doing this for five years. These people have been doing this for the last decade, 15 years. And I give them all the respect in the world for starting this. And I think it’s made a huge difference, but not enough of a difference. And I think law enforcement officers, they won’t just grab you and arrest you at a traffic stop anymore. No as much. I’ve noticed that when I walk into a public building now, most people, they’re like, oh, they know what you’re doing and everything else. And they treat you with respect and just the basics that should have been happening from day one.

But they don’t want to be famous online or infamous, I should say, online. So I think all of us together have really accomplished a lot. And I think my platform is really branching out into actually investigating in particular mayors, particular just like Lee Roy Truth or others out there who are focused then on one person or one organization. Because I feel like over the last five years, I’ve been stretched out and I feel like I’ve failed my county. Again, I’m proud one raised resident, Suffolk County, Long Island. And I feel like I failed my county by not taking this police union head on from the start. I’ve been all over the place from California and Hawaii, Florida and everywhere in between. And I think I need to focus my resources in one area and be able to really affect change, maybe even run for a legislator just to make them, even if it’s just to make them

Stephen Janis:

Spend money against me. Wait, wait, wait. So you’re going to run for office?

Taya Graham:

I’m

Sean Paul Reyes (Long Island Audit):

Thinking about running for legislator in Suffolk County.

Stephen Janis:

That’s news. Okay. Can we just break news? We just break news.

Sean Paul Reyes (Long Island Audit):

I mean, listen, my legislator, I looked it up. He won with 8,000 votes. Oh my

Stephen Janis:

God. I’ve got an audience of a million. You got

Sean Paul Reyes (Long Island Audit):

The senate. My district is like 75,000. So 8,000. Get out to vote people. Come on. Whoever supports the police unit support, vote the opposite. I don’t care if it’s a Democrat or a Republican. Whoever the police unit supports, vote for the opposite of that person. Whatever it is.

Taya Graham:

That’s solid platform. That’s a solid platform. We

Stephen Janis:

Are covering your campaign beginning to end. One thing I want to say –

Sean Paul Reyes (Long Island Audit):

Great campaign. I got the billboard truck already. It’s going to be great.

Taya Graham:

You’re

Stephen Janis:

Already

Taya Graham:

Halfway there.

Stephen Janis:

Taya’s from Long Island. My family’s from Long Island. Several of our other coworkers, we have a very strong Long Island.

Taya Graham:

We’re Long Island strong here at The Real News. So

Stephen Janis:

Just so you know, we’re in solidarity with you on Long Island.

Taya Graham:

Absolutely. Absolutely. I spent summers in Stony Brook in Suffolk County. And I spent summers in Stoney. I know how quiet it is. Okay. Last question. Last question, you guys, so we can wrap up. I just wanted to ask what you envision for the future of your work and perhaps kind of YouTube auditing in general. Do you think it’s going to evolve? Do you think the police are going to push back harder or where do you think we go from here? Because I think there’s going to be an auditor summit coming up. There are people who still want to get involved, become auditors, become First Amendment activists, become cop watchers, but there are some challenges there. So what do you see as its future?

Sean Paul Reyes (Long Island Audit):

Yeah. I’m familiar with the 1A auditor summit that’s supposed to be held next year. And I think it’s important. I kind of got into it already. I think it’s evolved to where. One of the things that frustrated me about First Amendment auditing is that there was never any follow up. And I think that’s what I would see somebody whose rights get violated and then I would never know what happened after that. I would never see them file a complaint. I would never see the results of the complaint. We all know that they’re going to investigate themselves and find out what we’re doing, but take that step because it’s important to show that’s part of the story. It’s important to show that you are filing a complaint with Internal Affairs who’s supposed to be an independent part of the police department, which they’re not. And it is important to show that they’re going to unsubstantiate it.

When your own eyes tell you exactly what happened, they will lie to you straight to your face. And I think it’s important for follow up. And I think more and more, I’m starting to investigate more into an investigative journalism kind of phase where I’m looking at the numbers, I’m looking at the papers. I’m talking to informants sources that are. I just got off the phone with a former law enforcement officer right before I almost was late because I was talking to a former law enforcement officer giving me all this information. And it’s important to evolve what you’re doing and to be passionate about it. And I think that moving forward, I think people like Leroy Truth, there are so many others out there that have really changed when it comes to actually focusing on particular issues and really digging into those issues because recording in public spaces is very important.

Recording law enforcement on a traffic stop is very important because it shows you what happens when power is challenged in any little way. These people with their ego, when you challenge their ego, I was arrested by Lucavillo because I said, “You’re such a tough guy, then do it. Let’s be real. Not because I broke the law. It’s because I went there asking questions about how his agencies are costing us hundreds of millions of dollars and I challenged his ego.” And he couldn’t control his emotions. Now imagine when you see those people, when you see these videos of these law enforcement officers who can’t control their emotions, if they’re doing it to me, if that man, Lucivillo, the police union president, is willing to do that to me, somebody with over two million subscribers across social media, hundreds of millions of views, what do you think he’s doing to John Smith down the street with no family, no money?

Stephen Janis:

Exactly.

Sean Paul Reyes (Long Island Audit):

They run them through the system. The process is the punishment. The difference is that what law enforcement hasn’t figured out yet is that the process isn’t the punishment when it comes to people like me because the process, you’re thinking of I’m being punished. I’m not because I have a bunch of supporters that help me out with legal bills. I have a bunch of supporters that will write letters. So the process isn’t the punishment for me, but they’re so ingrained in that kind of way of thinking that this might not hold up in court. It’s probably not going to hold up in court, but he gets to sit in jail for seven hours. He has to pay a lawyer. He’s going to end up taking a deal anyway. And at the end of the day, if it all goes to shit, it’s going to get paid by his money anyway, taxpayer money.

It’s not going to affect me in any way. I’m not going to be held accountable.

Taya Graham:

Steven, let me ask you, what do you see as the future? I mean, you worked on that documentary, I am But the Mirror. You should know a little bit about Copwatching by now.

Stephen Janis:

Well, first thing I want to say is my editor-in-chief Max is in my ear and he’s telling me that this truck is on order for our billboard truck. So yes, I’ve been informed. I wanted to break that news that we will have the Tay and Steven billboard truck in operation shortly. But I think Sean injects creativity into journalism. I mean, journalists, we have a little high priestess sort of priest sort of feeling about bureaucratic. We can be a little bureaucratic and a little full of ourselves. And people like Sean come in and say, “Well, I’ve got a whole new way of approaching this, billboard truck included.” And I think that creativity is what flows from copwatchers because they went out – Yeah, that’s a great way to describe it. And they’re evolving, right? Sean says, “Yeah, I used to first film cops. Now I’m investigating overtime and going through public records and making record requests and following up.” It’s like we’re watching a whole new sort of journalism emerge.

And I think what’s great about copwatchers is they challenge the orthodoxy of what we do, which has a lot of orthodoxy in it and a lot of assumptions we make about the aesthetics of it, how it should be done. And Sean says, “No, I’m going to do it this way.” And actually it’s really effective and kind of very similar to what we do, but it kind of gives us a new way of looking at it. I mean, I have learned a tremendous amount from the copwatching auditing community as a journalist myself who came from a very conventional background. I work for a newspaper. If anyone knows what that is, I’m not sure if people are familiar with them, but they used to be delivered in your mailbox. And so I myself have said, wow, that’s a really cool way of approaching this. Or wow, I never thought of that.

Or just exposing things like now that I’m looking into the Connecticut State Pension System, thanks primarily to Sean and his encounter and what happened with Sergeant Hayes. So I think it’s a great way, a catalyst for journalism to change and evolve and adopt to an audience where audiences are, which is on YouTube and Instagram and places where Sean is quite popular. So yeah, it’s a good thing for all of us. And I’m looking forward to driving that truck

Taya Graham:

To Capital. Steven, that’s such a great point. I mean, in a way, you’re kind of making me think that it’s not as much about the future of copwatchers, but are journalists going to become more like cop watchers? Are we going to become more independent, more creative, more untethered from institutions, which can be controlling? We’re very fortunate as independent journalists that work for a nonprofit org to let you know, if we get five views on this or five million views on this, we don’t get a single nickel more. We’re a nonprofit org. We don’t run any ads on our channel. So literally we can report on what we want. So we are so lucky to be independent in that way. And I think copwatchers and the power that they show that basically a regular person who cares, who cares about transparency, excuse me, transparency, accountabilities, got a camera, willing to follow the money and do the work can actually make a difference in their community and help protect people and make change.

So I think if anything, if journalists are smart, they’re going to become a little bit more like copwatchers.That’s

Stephen Janis:

What I’ll say. Maybe should all become copwatchers. I’m an auditor. Sean, do you think I qualify to be an auditor or a copwatcher?

Sean Paul Reyes (Long Island Audit):

I’ve seen the work that you’ve done in Baltimore, both of you, and you guys do great work and I think you’d be perfect copwatcher. Thank you. And listen, I got to say that part of it’s waking up the public. The public is asleep. And sometimes you need a billboard truck, a flashy billboard truck to wake them up. I totally agree what you said, Steven. The institutions of journalism and everything else allegedly. I hate it when journalists say, allegedly, when I just watched the guy get punched in the face and allegedly he was punched in the face. And it’s too cutesy, too wanting. Instead of trying not to take a side because you don’t want to be part of the story and you don’t want to be in journalism. I’m going to tell this objectively. Sometimes there is no two sides to the story. Sometimes the police unions are just corrupt and you got to call them corrupt.

Stephen Janis:

Anything we say in journalism is like, it’s either raining or it’s sunny, but it’s not like there’s two sides to that, right? So yeah, good point.

Taya Graham:

You know what? I just have to say some of the folks, for example, Liberty Freak says that the police are going to push back harder. And you have a good point. I mean, I was just thinking about how there’s somewhere between 80,000 to 120,000 flop cameras across the country. The surveillance state is increasing. At the same time where there’s laws being made to say, stay further back while you’re recording, stay further back while you’re recording for us regular folks. Sure. Yeah. So it’s going to be interesting. Police like to

Stephen Janis:

Turn the cameras on up. As Sean has pointed out, they don’t like to have the cameras turned

Taya Graham:

On up. Exactly. Exactly. So Sean, we want to thank you so much for your time. And before you go, people want to know about the tiger painting. I’m sorry. I think

Sean Paul Reyes (Long Island Audit):

We’re going to get to that. So I’ll show it. This is not my portrait. I am in a hotel in Louisiana right now, so I have no idea what this is. And I was interested when I first saw it in my hotel room too. Okay.

Taya Graham:

So it’s not a family heirloom. Okay.

Stephen Janis:

No. So people are asking about a painting in

Taya Graham:

This

Stephen Janis:

Hotel

Taya Graham:

Room. Well, because Steven can’t see it. So there’s a tiger and this pretty woman wearing a dress with kind of like a boostier and petting a giant tiger. I’ll show you a screenshot of it later. It’s quite a shot. That’s pretty cool. Sean Paul, we have to thank you so much for your time. We took up more of it than we should have. I apologize for that. Thank you so much. We really appreciate you so much, your work, your willingness to speak about it, and your very singular insights into government accountability. And we look forward to speaking to you again soon and going to Washington DC with you.

Sean Paul Reyes (Long Island Audit):

Love it. Can’t wait.

Taya Graham:

Thank you for

Sean Paul Reyes (Long Island Audit):

Having me and keep up the group work. Thank you

Taya Graham:

So much. Oh, thank you. You as well. Take care. Thank you. Okay. Steven, how was that for a conversation? I am so amazed about the things we learned from folks about talking about police power. And of course, one of my favorite topics, cop watchers. I got to do it. I got to say it again. Anyone who’s interested in the subject, check out the documentary, I’m But the Mirror. Steven, hold it up. Oh, okay. Sorry. Yeah. The story of American Copwatching and either Lacey R. Noli D. That’s me right there. If one of you put a link in the chat, I would very much appreciate it. And I just want to thankry a goofball. Everyone who was in the comments. And I really do apologize if I didn’t get to everyone’s comments. I tried to, with Max’s help, to put as many comments on the screen as I could.

And I just want to thank every single one of you that took the time to show up at this live. I appreciate it so much. And I’m going to make a point later on tonight to go through the comments that you guys leave underneath, give out some hearts, give some of my own personal responses. And I’m also going to go back to doing a comment of the week. So your comment might end up being highlighted on our channel if you take the time to make one. So if you can take a moment to leave a comment, maybe give us a little thumbs up, we really do appreciate it so much. So Steven, I’ve got to give you a chance before we sign off. Well, okay. And before I say thank you to all of our patreons, before I sign off, do you have any thoughts about tonight’s

Stephen Janis:

Discussion? Yeah, no. I mean, it was really interesting. And I think we’ve created a vicious cycle of comedy on comments, the comment on comments.

Taya Graham:

It’s very meta.

Stephen Janis:

It’s totally meta, so I’m pretty happy. But this is really cool to have this kind of debate and have the opportunity to hear what people think, because that really informs everything we do. If you don’t give feedback, you don’t think we read comments because sometimes you get like eight or hundred or thousand. I read a big majority of them and this time we really went through them. And what emerged was a really interesting dynamic debate that should be had every day about democracy, about journalism, about what we do, about how we should do it. That’s a great point. About how government kind of hoards resources and then uses them to attack us. And then how people on Long Island Audits are being creative and approaching it in their own way. I wish they had these debates when we go to conferences on journalism. I’d be much more interested to hear what people had to

Taya Graham:

Say

Stephen Janis:

If they were this vital.

Taya Graham:

So all

Stephen Janis:

Credits to the people on YouTube and to Long Island Audits for the way they bring out people and to talk about this. You don’t hear people debating democracy other than on CNN with a bunch of highly paid hairstylists. This is great because this is the people talking.

Taya Graham:

Yes.

Stephen Janis:

And more I hear, the better I feel about democracy.

Taya Graham:

Oh, Steven, that’s actually really beautiful. Yeah. It’s really beautiful. And I’m so glad – And the truck. And the truck. And the truck.

Stephen Janis:

And

Taya Graham:

That’s why I’m really so glad that we had this discussion and this debate to let people know we really do pay attention to your comments. And these spaces on social media, I think in particular YouTube, are places where we can really show that our democracy is so vital, that our First Amendment is still incredibly important. And that there’s real lifeblood in us that wants to have a healthy, equitable society where there’s not government overreach that is harmful. I agree. I agree. Honestly, Steven, our civic life in a lot of ways is becoming more and more precarious. And I think the right to disagree and to dissent is the most important part of it. Agreed. I mean, it’s the mechanism that keeps our democracy healthy. I would say this, this will be my little rant.

Stephen Janis:

Okay.

Taya Graham:

The right to dissent is a critical ingredient of our democracy, or if you’d like to call it constitutional republic. If you think about it, the right to vote is a form of dissent. It’s a right to express your disagreement with the people in power by voting to remove them. It’s actually the most potent form of communal dissent, actually. Our ability to collectively express dissatisfaction with political leaders and effectuate change is fundamental to who we are. But as Steven pointed out, it’s a facet of our system that can be easily manipulated or eliminated altogether. And it’s fragile and often challenging to preserve. Otherwise, I think copwatchers like Sean Paul wouldn’t continue to be arrested if the right to dissent was not in some sense provisional. So keeping dissent healthy and vibrant requires work. And that work can often lead to uncomfortable truths. So one of those truisms is that dissent, which makes us uncomfortable, is just as important to protect as that which we agree.

So what do I mean? So let me give a little bit of an analogy to explain. So imagine our collective discourse is a spectrum, a broad range of frequencies and colors intertwined, but separate. And in many ways, a spectrum of light is nature’s representation of the great Variety of colors and frequencies, all separate but equal, just like all of us in our different voices and ideas. And we need all of it because all of it is us. But acknowledging the existence of the spectrum requires acknowledging its full intensity. Let me give you an example. When noted cop watcher Eric Brandt, let’s say some people would say he provoked cops and waves, and please excuse my language, he waved a flag that said F cops. Well, a lot of people were made uncomfortable. And when Sean Paul shows up at a police union spontaneously, some people think his tactics are aggressive or even rude, but dissent does not always conform to our expectations of politeness or comportment.

It doesn’t always work when it complies with our expectations. Not every disagreement can be settled by a stoic debate or a polite exchange or even nuanced, reasonable discourse, even though sometimes I wish it could. No, I think sometimes these extremes are necessary to help keep the entire concept healthy. Sometimes more vibrant or discordant colors are necessary. Sometimes a more extreme approach is critical to making our entire project of finding ways to hold power accountable through public pushback, relevance. Sometimes dissent is just going to be ugly whether we like it or not. But my point is here that ultimately dissent must be created to survive. It must evolve to exceed the limits, as Steven pointed out, of the authoritarian impulses that exist within every government. It must be something that can accommodate citizen journalists with cell phones just as much as it protects reporters for the New York Times or Washington Post.

It has to be flexible, adaptable, and sometimes even confrontational. But the key is it’s up to us to define it. That is we, the people. It’s up to us to judge and debate what works and what doesn’t. It’s up to us to decide what we support and what we don’t. And that’s why we had this debate tonight and that’s why we ask for your comments. That’s why we do what we do. It’s an essential part of who we are. Proponents of free speech and protectors of the right of others to criticize our government and even us. Key to preserving it is discussions like this. And cop watchers are part of that recipe and so are you. So please help us fight for it together and argue like true Americans with courage and conviction and freedom to speak the truth even loudly to each other. And in the end, that’s all we have.

And I hope it’s all we’ll need. Once again –

Stephen Janis:

Very well done.

Taya Graham:

That’s my rant.

Stephen Janis:

It was a great

Taya Graham:

Rant. I had to do it.

Stephen Janis:

I agree with it entirely.

Taya Graham:

Well, Steven, I want to thank you for all the work you did to make this livestream possible today. Thank you so much. It was a very robust conversation. It

Stephen Janis:

Was. And we can disagree too. We disagree a lot of times. So just so people know.

Taya Graham:

Yeah.

Stephen Janis:

It’s not all perfect

Taya Graham:

Here. No, we actually agree pretty often. Except when we just disagreed now.

Stephen Janis:

Yeah, we just disagreed that we didn’t agree. Oh my God. Irony.

Taya Graham:

Okay. And I also want to thank Long Island Auditor’s time today and all the amazing folks that showed up in the live chat. Thank all of you. And I have to give a very special thanks to moderators Noli D and Lacey R for their support. Thank you both. Hi, Noeli D and hi to Ryan. Can I just

Stephen Janis:

Say quickly how good

Taya Graham:

Long

Stephen Janis:

Island Audits is? How good he is and how interesting? You’re

Taya Graham:

Going to blow your objective journalism cover here if you do that.

Stephen Janis:

Okay.

Taya Graham:

Right. I take that back. It’s not supposed to be about interviewing people we like or don’t like. It’s about to do the world. No, I’m just saying that

Stephen Janis:

His interview

Taya Graham:

Was

Stephen Janis:

Really good. He brings up a lot of points that surprise me. And yeah, so go ahead. I’m sorry. I just wanted to say that.

Taya Graham:

No, you absolutely have the right to say that. I just don’t want people to think that you were biased. Okay.

Stephen Janis:

Good point.

Taya Graham:

But you’re right. He was a terrific interview and that is fair to say. But we have to thank our very special helpers who might be unseen. Maxime Alvarez. Oh yes. Thank you, Max. Who’s getting the truck apparently. Jocelyn, Brian and Corey for moral support. And like I said, at the very end, I’m going to thank every individual Patreon. So I’m just letting you know because I love my patrons. I do. And I’ve got to say it, I want you watching to know that if you have video evidence of police misconduct or brutality, please share it with us and we might be able to investigate for you. Please reach out to us. You can email us tipsprivately at par@therealnews.com and share your evidence of police misconduct. You can also message us at Police Accountability Point on Facebook or Instagram or at Eyesonpolice on Twitter. And of course you can always message me directly at TeasBaltimore on Twitter or Facebook or Tea Graham on Facebook or Instagram.

And please like and comment. You know I read your comments and appreciate them. I think we proved that we read your comments. And we’re probably going to have a Patreon link pinned in the comments and maybe even the live chat below for accountability reports. So if you feel inspired to donate, please do. You know we don’t run ads or take corporate dollars, so anything could spare is greatly appreciated. And as you see, I do shout out my patreons. My name is Tea Graham. I’m your host of Police Accountability Report. And for all of you, please be safe out there.

And now we’re my patrons. Real quick, I got to run through. I got to thank these good people. Are you ready, Steven? Hang on. Yes. I’m going to try to do this. Okay. Matter of rights, Tamara Anderson, XXX, Chris Robinson, David Keeley, Ronald Hensley, Gary T, David Bach, BD Gates, Calvin Mack, True Too Blive, Martin G. Nope. Talia B. Louie, Artemis LA, Lacey R. Steven J, John P. Alan J, Kyle R. Keith Bernard, M. Marcia E. Don T. Kipke, Cameron J. Joe Six, Donald, sorry, Daniel W, Frank FK, Mary M. John K. Kurt A, Steven B, John M. Conrad B, Siggy Young, Joel A, Patty Blibbets, Sescal Samian, Jimmy Touchdown, who is my very first patron. Thank you. Bill D, Rhym P. John K. Dean C. Umish H. Graham Graham, B. Joseph P. Durdevil, William T. G. Kemmy, Steven D. Just my two cents, Peter J, Sean Best, Julius Geezer, Linda Orr.

Hi, Linda Orr. Cindy K. Social Naturalist. Douglas P. Tim R. Laurie. L. D.B.M. Hugo Flores Noli D. Chris M. Shussant. Kimmy Kat P. Janet K. Omar O. Potshot and Ron Fried. Thank you. You guys are great. We appreciate you, and I hope you all have a great night. Take care. Take care. We appreciate you. Say goodbye, Steven.

Stephen Janis:

Bye.

Taya Graham:

Be safe out there, folks. Be safe.