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

Mansa Musa:

Welcome to this district rather than your host Mansa Musa. Today we are joined by Mopreme Shakur, the son of the late great political prison with Tulu Shakur and the older stepbrother of the legendary rapper Tupac Shakur. Mopreme has recently published a memoir titled This Thug Life: A Poet Narrative Spanning the Rise of the Black Liberation Movement, The Birth of Hip-Hop in New York, and its expansion to the West Coast. Mopreme, thank you for joining

Mopreme Shakur:

Us. What’s happened, Kevin?

Mansa Musa:

Appreciate you though. I know they got you on Hustle and Bustle, and this is a good thing. What compelled you to write this particular memoir?

Mopreme Shakur:

Well, I am Mopreme Shakur, Thug Life Outlaw, Immortal. I am the son of Dr. Matou Shakur, stepson of Afeni Shakur, brother of Tupac Shakur, nephew of Asada Shakur. That’s my fam, as well as my sister Setua. A lot of people are familiar with the struggles and the triumphs of our family and the movement. A lot of sacrifices made, but a lot of comments is made too. And that’s often overlooked because it’s hard to ignore the struggle. My father was a political prisoner, served 37 years in federal prison. We fought hard to bring him home, but we were able to finally bring him home, but he was ill with cancer, and he passed away in 2023.

Mansa Musa:

Now you say Motulu Shakur ancestor served an astronomical amount of time, a political prisoner. But we just hold Shakur. When you say Shakul, that claim in and of itself is political in and of itself. Panther 21, organizing New York chapter, heavily organizing around goals, the aspirations, and the vision of the Black Panther Party. So let’s talk about the process of bringing this book to life. When did you first begin writing it one? Did you speak to other family members and close friends to piece together the memoir, the memories rather, or were you just drawing strictly on your own experience in growing up?

Mopreme Shakur:

I didn’t ask too many people much first because it’s my story. It ain’t their story, it’s my story. And a lot of times a lot of other people weren’t even there. But the process began after we lost pot and had me reflecting on a lot of things you did. And along with the loss of my brother, I was thinking about our accomplishments. I was locked up for a skid bid. I was doing something stupid, sitting there thinking about myself. And I also though about the rest of the family, the accomplishments we all have made, sacrifices. We all have made border movement, border family.

And so that’s when the process started, got my first 80 pages, and then life be life ain’t. Stop, start, stop, start. Eventually got my co-writer, Talia Shakur, she and I finally got a poser together because we didn’t want to self-publish. We felt like the story was important and it needed to have a farther reach. And so I wanted a book deal. So you got to have certain things in order to get that book deal. So that’s what we did. And as time went on, it became more urgent for me to get this done because I was becoming one of the last ones left Between family and crew, family and crew. It’s been painful, a lot of sacrifices. We just had the homegoing ceremony for Auntie Astata up in Harlem a few weeks ago. Pops past 2023. Been 10 years since The Lost of Fainting. Akti Falani, Baba Balao, Baba Saku.

And it’s like once they’re gone, you can’t ask them no questions no more. And I was like, oh, I started panicking on the music side too. Shaq G just passed away. Young Noble just passed away. Along with Pac, Fatal, Big Psych. Come on, man. Yeah. Come

Mansa Musa:

On, man. And you know what? And as you unpacking that, how important, and this just came about this space right here, how important is it for you to be able to control that narrative about your legacy? It is.

Mopreme Shakur:

Because

Mansa Musa:

You just outlined, okay, we hear pop. We hear a lot of things associated with the Shakur clan. We hear a lot of things associated with the movement. But then when you get in a space where you hear somebody say something that you know is misinformation, or if you not in a position to refute it, then it takes on life. So how is it important? Why do you think it’s important for you to be able to refute for safe? Because you give auticity to the information, whether a person agree with it or disagree with it, whether they like it or don’t like it, it’s coming out the baby’s mouth. It ain’t coming secondhand.

Mopreme Shakur:

Once you become a public figure, anybody could write about you. And that’s what a lot of people don’t know. Pac and I are public figures, of course, because of entertainment game, but our actual relatives are public figures because they end up in the damn news. And you got to preserve your own stories. You know what I mean? Because as Black and brown people disenfranchised poor people, what we are is rich and experience. Maybe poor and finance is what we are rich in life and life experience and pain. There’s a value to that. You got to turn pain to profit. Turn your pain to profit. And we’ve been enduring the pain and while other people here make the profit on it. You dig. So I’m out there in LA, I’m in Hollywood and all that, so I’ve learned the game. And it’s the power of the parent.

We had to get this down because I felt like my story is important because it’s at the crossroads of Black history and Black music history. Okay.

Mansa Musa:

Yeah.

Mopreme Shakur:

Black history and Black music history. We touch on both sides. And we’re disappearing. So we as my generation, the Obafamis, the Sunni Alis, our family, our connected family and the struggle and the revolution, we have the kids of it because it’s our elders that did a whole bunch of the work and sacrifice. So oh, the best we could do is preserve it and tell the story to our people because these stories are important. Members of our family and other brothers and sisters in a struggle are heroes, folk heroes, icons. But if no one knows the stories, they won’t see it that way.

Mansa Musa:

Okay. And this mark is the 60th year anniversary of the Black Panther Party and they dub most of the children of party members club. Panther

Mopreme Shakur:

Clubs.

Mansa Musa:

Panther club. So as a Panther club, and actually witnessed the struggle and see firsthand the repression that was being inflicted, seeing firsthand the torment your father went through because of his political view, seeing the fact that your aunt was forced in the exile for no reason of political views. Talk about what does the legacy mean to you? The party, your family’s legacy, but more important, how do you feel that the party made a contribution to social justice? If you can speak on that.

Mopreme Shakur:

The party made a significant impact to social justice. My father, the Black Panthers, the Young Lords, Lincoln Detox, Detoxification Clinic – A Lagun. And the Bronx. That work that they did was established patients’ rights as a human right. For that incident up in the Bronx is the reason why this country has patients’ rights to this day. You know what I’m saying? But no one will know that story unless we tell it because we’ve already been suppressed to a great degree as it is. So they want to suppress our stories. As we see what’s going on in this administration right here, you know what I’m saying? They’re messing with Harriet Tubman. Jack, what the hell Harry Tubman did to you? Why y’all leave Jackie Robinson look? You know what I’m saying? I’m like, whoa. So it is very important and significant that we try to do our best we can to preserve our stories because we help make this motherfucker too.

I don’t know. Can I curse on almost Man, you can

Mansa Musa:

Do what you do.

Mopreme Shakur:

Oh, shit. Okay. All right. I ain’t want to be rude. You know what I’m saying?

Mansa Musa:

No, no. Like I told you before, we don’t give you a voice. We turn the volume up on your voice. However you want to express your voice, we turn the volume up. Let’s talk about, because you made mention of this, and this is something I think that you can unpack as much as you want.Because you made an observation that you’re dealing with the struggle and the music. And so you dealing with two things issue. And most people, when they think of Shakur, they think of Tupac. They think of you. But now we at a crossroad where what role do this music play, hip-hop music play in raising people’s consciousness, elevating people’s perspective about struggle. But more importantly, how do you see the landscape, man?

Mopreme Shakur:

We truly cared about the people. In the midst of the entertainment was a vehicle to be able to reach the people. But people know Pac fans know he really cared about the people. Keep your head up. Brenda’s Got a Baby. Pop a song. Dear Mama. We’re addressing issues in our communities. You know what I mean? And people be feeling, they tell me all the time. They tell me all the time, man, thank you for making this song. Thank you for making that song. And because we were trying to talk about something. Us being popular in the general market helped because we were able to reach with more and more people. Being a movie star helped. We were able to reach more and more people with some of the messages that we were trying to deliver. Thug life, you know what I’m saying? That was our shit.

That was our contribution because it was actually, a lot of people got the message, a lot of people didn’t. My pops helped us by creating a thug code so it wasn’t just some ignorant shit. The hate you gave little infants fucks everyone. Because if you don’t take care of them babies, they will go into the monsters you fear today. That

Mansa Musa:

Was the acronym.

Mopreme Shakur:

The hate you gave little infants, fuck everyone. All these jackets they’d be wanting to put on us, we taking them and flipping them. We was taking them and flipping Pac’s second album stripping for my nigga. People have an issue with the word nigga. We flipped it, put an A on it. Never ignorant getting goals accomplished. Yeah,

Mansa Musa:

Yeah, yeah. You

Mopreme Shakur:

Did?

Mansa Musa:

Yeah,

Mopreme Shakur:

Man.

Mansa Musa:

Jon, you don’t hear that though, right? No, you don’t. Keep on that. And it makes sense though. And when people say. And the reason why I’m asking this is why we got the opportunity for somebody to myth bust. You know what I’m saying? About your family and the myth bust about who y’all are and what y’all thinking. Because when you come out like Latulu Shaku is a giant and an ancestor and we praise him for his contribution. We honor his work. And we know that he. Ella Baker say, “We who believe in freedom must not rest.” They not rest. They not resting in power. They’re not resting in peace. They not

Mopreme Shakur:

Resting,

Mansa Musa:

Period. Exactly.

Mopreme Shakur:

So

Mansa Musa:

That’s why it’s

Mopreme Shakur:

Important to you. Pac,

Mansa Musa:

Why you acting like this? Why are you so angry?

Mopreme Shakur:

Because we are not at rest. As long as our people still struggling, the struggle continues.

Mansa Musa:

Yeah, exactly. You know what I

Mopreme Shakur:

Mean?

Mansa Musa:

The

Mopreme Shakur:

Struggle continues.

Mansa Musa:

Talk about the underground railroad and third. Okay, the artistic foundation clearly influenced your musical career.

Mopreme Shakur:

We came from community organizers. You know what I’m saying? And we were trying to present our version for our generation. We started with the underground railroad because Pac was already with Digital Underground. And it made sense. Our crew be the underground railroad. We come from the underground, and for so many reasons it made sense for our ideology, it made sense. And then that morphed into 50 niggas. One good nigga, 50 representing the states, one good nigga in every state. We could accomplish anything

Mansa Musa:

And

Mopreme Shakur:

Stick together. Yeah, right there.

Mansa Musa:

You

Mopreme Shakur:

Did. That’s what Pac had too. We was real about it. And that morphed into Thug Life.

Mansa Musa:

Okay. You know

Mopreme Shakur:

What I mean? So

Mansa Musa:

It really had a political undertone.

Mopreme Shakur:

Exactly. That’s why we pulled my father in with it. He was a part. He made Thug Cole, which is we were getting some help from a sister Erica Ford up in New York. We had brothers behind the wall, comrades behind the wall pushing it, trying to explain it. But some of the people got the message and some of the people did. But then you

Mansa Musa:

Had like, well dude, you got opposition because you got the state. Exactly. You got the government. The last thing the government want is somebody that has that kind of influence to be able to speak truth to power and be able to galvanize people, galvanize people around. Because everybody was into hip hop. So this is why you have, just my belief, this is why you have the push on corporate America to create an image of gangster rap. But the more important part of the image, the more important part of the image is that it’s the image.

Mopreme Shakur:

It’s that whoever’s a leader. Whoever’s a leader in whatever kind of way, because they did it to Martin. They did it to Malcolm. They weren’t rappers. You know what I’m saying? Whoever’s a leader. Oh, they did it to Fred. They were trying to take out all our leaders using COINTELPRO. CONTELPRO, you know what I’m saying? They was doing that. They didn’t necessarily get rid of those methods as time went on. They just refined them. They’re

Mansa Musa:

Fine. Yeah, I agree.

Mopreme Shakur:

Dr. Robin DG Kelly, a historian, told me that, “Man, your father is one of the top five civil rights leaders in the country. Top five. Put him in the top five.” And that important, they wanted stifled. They wanted stifled. They didn’t want him to have the impact, so they locked him up. We were pleased. Actually, oddly enough, we were pleased when he got captured because we was hearing that he was saying he wasn’t going to be taken alive. So when he was captured, at least he was alive.

Mansa Musa:

And

Mopreme Shakur:

We could communicate through them years at Lompoc, that’s where he helped us put the thug code together. You

Mansa Musa:

Write about specific songs you and Tupac performed at concerts, but never officially released. Can you tell us about that and how your music resonated with incarcerated people?

Mopreme Shakur:

One of them that did get out is Papa Song. We got to do Papa Song because that was really about Matul. It was all a lack of a father in the household. So that’s what that was about. But there was many others that were supposed to be on the Thug Life album. Thug Life Project was a project that Pac recorded, spent the most time on almost three years recording Thug Life album. But they wouldn’t let certain songs through. They thought it was too hard at the time. They was killing crooked cops, you know what I mean? And so it almost didn’t come out. I had to tamper down the album in order for it to even come out.

Mansa Musa:

And I guess that’s the price. If you ain’t independent, that’s the price you have. If you trying to get your information out and be conversated. And

Mopreme Shakur:

It was a time where censorship was a big thing because they were doing it to live cool. They were doing it to ice tea. They were doing it to things face, facing them, doing it to us.

Mansa Musa:

Engage the public.

Mopreme Shakur:

They didn’t want that reality because we was calling it reality rap. They call it gangst rap. We call it reality rap. We the niggas that lived around that shit for real. We know somebody that happened to if it didnt happen to you. So the truth hurts. But give me one more, Musa. It’s getting hot out here, baby. No,

Mansa Musa:

This is the last one right here. What you want to tell our audience about your project, about the book, and how they can become more involved with your work.

Mopreme Shakur:

Well, thank you for that one. I’m here in lovely DC at the lovely Vice Royal Hotel. I hope you dig it. I think you will. It also has photos in it. So never before seen pics of me, my brother, my father, the family, like 24 pics in it. I try not to cheat the people. It’s that Barnes & Nobles, Amazon, thisthuglife.com, audiobook, ebook. I’m grinding, man. I’m South Side Jamaica Queens. All the way to the west side. There

Mansa Musa:

You have it. We got Mo Pre.

Mopreme Shakur:

Best Mo you’ll ever know. Best

Mansa Musa:

Mo you’ll ever know out here in the hat, son. They’ve been stomping the ground, trying to get the word out on his book. We ask that you really look at this interview because as Mo Pree put it out there. We’re in a struggle for our life and it’s only through us telling our story. He made this quote. Might not have a lot of money, but we got a lot of story. We got a lot of experience. And here go an example of someone that’s taking that experience and using it for the goodness, the betterment of mankind and humans by educating people on the struggle. Thanks, Mopree. Appreciate you, big bro. You

Mopreme Shakur:

Too, man. Power to the people. All power. Free all political

Mansa Musa:

Free.

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.

Taya Graham:

Hello, my name is Taya Graham and welcome to the Inequality Watch Report, a show that examines government policy and action through the lens of extreme economic inequality, the existential issue of our time. Today, we’re going to discuss a technology which we’ve been told will transform our lives, an invention that has been touted as the ultimate arbiter of our collective futures, whether we like it or not. Of course, I’m talking about artificial intelligence, but with the promise also comes doubt and questions and most of all, a lack of clarity on how we’ll impact the working people of this country. AI leaders have casually warned us that their products could eliminate 40 to 50% of white collar jobs more than the losses in the Great Depression. They’ve promised that technology will be so disruptive that even staunch capitalists have discussed providing a UBI or universal basic income for Americans who will be left out.

They’ve borrowed money at such predigious rates to fund data centers that even Wall Street is beginning to just say no. And now some of the biggest names are saying it’s not working out as planned and an America’s already historic wealth imbalance and government hamstrung by the self-interested impulses of a single man. And you have a situation that could brew a toxic stew of making the already rich even richer and leaving the rest of us even further behind amid all the societal chaos and upheaval. And are the cracks just starting to show? Just this week, one of technology’s greatest apostles made accusations that AI has become a nemesis for his business and others. And capitalists who have gladly loaned billions to build data centers throughout the country are now starting to push back at the ever increasing demand for cash. Of course, the point of this show is to examine this topic through the lens of inequality and how it affects our political and social institutions and what it means for working people.

And to do so, we are about to be joined by an economist who has been thinking and writing about this very topic with insight and clarity, Dean Baker. But first, I want to check in with my co-host, Stephen.

Stephen Janis:

Oh, hey Taya, how you doing?

Taya Graham:

Steve and Janice, it’s great to have you. Thank

Stephen Janis:

You for having me on.

Taya Graham:

Now first, can you give us a broad overview of how inequality and AI are teaming up?

Stephen Janis:

I think in a way, this is the greatest American kind of ripoff in the sense that they’ve spent about the past four or five years mining all our data, taking everything we posted online, and they’re regurgitating it back to us and want to charge us for it in some way. And so to me, I think what is most missing for me besides the promise of huge economic disruption is what the value proposition is for the American people. I mean, they took everything that we wrote and now they want to repackage it and sell it as some sort of deity that we have to worship. And so I’m a little worried, a little worried, a lot worried that we’re all going to be casualties of a great wealth concentrator, which remember, OpenAI was supposed to be a nonprofit. Now it’s a for-profit company. All these huge IPOs, I’m afraid they’re just taking everything we’ve created, sell it back to us and become even richer, and there’ll be a greater concentrate of wealth and power.

So it’s just a bit concerning to me.

Taya Graham:

Actually, Steven, when you mentioned it turning into a deity, we already have some issues with AI psychosis. Maybe we should discuss that on our next show. Yeah,

Stephen Janis:

We’re just going to be praying to the AI deity and offering 19.95 a month to it. So yeah.

Taya Graham:

Actually, that’s about right. And now I want to introduce our guest, Dean Baker. Dean Baker is the co-founder and senior economist at the Center for Economic and Policy Research. For decades, he’s written about inequality, labor markets, financial bubbles, corporate power, and economic policy. He’s also written extensively about AI and how it’ll affect everyday workers and even journalists just like us. He wrote the book Rigged: How Globalization and the Rules of the Modern Economy were structured to make the rich richer, and its newest project is the AI Bubble Monitor. Dean Baker, thank you so much for joining us.

Dean Baker:

Thanks a lot for having me on.

Taya Graham:

Well, we’re glad to have you. Yeah, absolutely. And I have the honor of doing the first question. And so my first question for you is this. Artificial intelligence has been described as the biggest technological revolution since the internet, and yet you’ve argued that the economic data simply doesn’t support a lot of the claims being made. What are people missing here?

Dean Baker:

Yeah, so I think to a very large extent, we have people who are really good at hype. People like Sam Altman, of course, Elon Musk, absolute master of hype. These are the Donald Trumps of the business world. They’re selling this stuff and they’ve been very successful. I mean, Elon Musk just had his SpaceX initial public offering, which is primarily AI. I mean, that’s their own assessment. I’m not trying to attribute things to them. If you read their registration statement, they say 90% of their expected market is in AI. So SpaceX is an AI company. So they’re looking to get rich by this. And I don’t mean necessarily because they’re going to have huge profits. They have huge stock prices. So Elon Musk became a trillionaire, not because SpaceX has enormous profits. It actually loses money hand over fist. He became a trillionaire because the stock price is ridiculously high.

So step one, is it creating inequality? Absolutely. By a stock bubble, bloated bubble. Now, in terms of what it delivers, they’re saying this, is it going to have massive impact? I’m sure it will. And the model I look to is the internet. Had massive impact. Does that mean that it’s going to lead to mass unemployment? Well, a lot of people lost their jobs to the internet. I mean, Amazon put a lot of small sellers out of retailers out of business.

Taya Graham:

Absolutely.

Dean Baker:

But you still have a lot of retailers there and everyone didn’t lose their job. I think think of AI the similar way. It will change the economy in a lot of different ways, but that doesn’t mean everyone’s going to lose their job. And if we look at the data, we look at productivity, which is what that means. If people are losing jobs, that means we’re producing more in an hour of output. They’ve actually been very weak the last three quarters. Now it’s erratic. So I’ve followed the data for a long time. So I know you could have real weak quarter and next quarter could be really weak. And then we’ll come around the second half of 226 and who knows, be 5%. Very rapid productivity growth. Could happen. But the point is we’re not seeing it. And there have been a number of economists I’ve tried to look through this very carefully and look at sector by sector, look at retail, look at healthcare, look at the different sectors of the economy.

And invariably, they find relatively modest impact of the studies I’ve seen. And I’m sure we missed some, but these are credible studies. The highest number was a half percent a year increase, half a percentage point a year increase in annual productivity growth, which matters. I mean, that’s noticeable, but that’s not massive unemployment. And one of the leading economists in the world, Darin Asamiglu, Nobel Prize winner, he had it at just seven hundredths of 1%.

Taya Graham:

Wow.

Dean Baker:

These people could all be wrong, but they’ve tried to be very careful in it and they find very modest impacts. I shouldn’t say very modest. I mean, again, a half percentage point a year. If you had that, that would be a big deal. But the internet, when we had the internet in the ’90s, the internet boom is about one and a half percentage points a year. So we’ve seen this.

Stephen Janis:

Wow. Dean, that’s kind of. But these people are hyping valuations. They’re borrowing billions and billions of dollars, I think, based on a higher rate of return. I mean, is this like a house of cards? I mean, they’re hyping this over and over again saying it’s going to be transformative. But now you’re saying the impact so far has not been. Does that put at risk all these billions of dollars they’ve thrown at this problem?

Dean Baker:

Absolutely. And this is why I’m calling it a bubble. I’m old enough, I’ve been through two really big economy moving bubbles. In the ’90s, we had the tech bubble. And I was out there saying, “This is bad news. It’s going to burst. It’s going to burst.” And it did. It burst in 2001. The S&P 500 big stock index fell 50% from peak to trough. The NASDAQ where you had most of the tech stocks, that fell 80%. And it had a huge impact on the economy. I mean, for stock investors, I go, “You should know what you’re doing. Many don’t, but you should know what you’re doing. So I can’t cry too much.” But it had a big impact on the economy. We lost jobs into the 2000 recession. We didn’t get them back till 2005. That was the longest period with our positive job growth since the Great Depression.

We had a longer one after the Great Recession. But that was a big recession from the standpoint of the labor market. Also, real wage growth just stopped. We’d been seeing good real wage growth in the late ’90s, just stopped almost instantly. So that was a really bad story. And then we had the housing bubble. Again, same story. And that town in turn was more severe. We had close to 10 million people lose their home to foreclosure. The unemployment rate peaked at near 10% in 2009.

So bubbles can have very bad consequences. So that’s why I’m very worried about this one. They’re selling this and Elon Musk undoubtedly is stuffing his pockets. And Sam Altman and the others, they’re stuffing their pockets. But no, I don’t see that these stock prices make sense. And when does the music stop? I don’t know. Both those bubbles went way longer than I expected them to. But all I could say is the sooner it bursts, the better it will be for the country.

Taya Graham:

It was really interesting that you compared the AI investment boom to the dot-com bubble. Maybe you could just go into a little bit more depth about some of the similarities that really concern you. Yeah.

Dean Baker:

Well, there are two things there. One, from the standpoint of the firms, that you started to see companies that were just pushing nonsense in essence. I’m going back to the dot-com. So it became almost a joke. And I shouldn’t say almost a joke. It was a joke. And this was in the business press. So the Wall Street Journal used to highlight the most ridiculous initial public offerings. So people were coming up with crazy public offerings and they could still raise hundreds of millions, even billions of dollars in their first issue. There was one company even that took the cake. I wish I could remember the name. They said, “We don’t know how we can make a profit.” So you work from the assumption, okay, they’re not profitable today, but they have this great plan, software, whatever it is. And two years, three years, four years, they’re going to be a next Microsoft.

That’s what people were betting on. And of course they weren’t. But you had one literally said, “We don’t even know how we’ll make a profit.” So you had a huge amount of misdirected capital. And that was, of course, a huge voice for the economy. But the standpoint of the stock market, again, I was saying we want stock investors or we think they should be knowledgeable. They aren’t. And people were spending based on their stock wealth. So you had a lot of people that were saying, “Oh, I had money in the NASDAQ and just doubled,” which it might well have. A lot of people owned stocks in the NASDAQ and over two years they would’ve doubled. So they said, “Oh, I’m going to buy a new car, get a bigger house, go on a big vacation.” Well, when those prices plummeted, that consumption stopped. So it was a very, very big hit to the economy.

And I worry very. I should add one more thing on the craziness that companies discovered that if they added dot-com to their name, their stock price would go up five or 10%. We’re seeing that today. If you add AI to your name, and someone did that, I’m trying to remember what it was. I think it was- Was it like

Stephen Janis:

Diapers.com? I think, wasn’t there like diapers.com or something or something?

Dean Baker:

Yeah. And their stock price went up five or 10%, which tells you. I mean, it’s utterly nuts. You’re the same company. It doesn’t matter whether you call yourself. Com AI or anything. You’re the same company. It shouldn’t make any sense.

Stephen Janis:

Well, now speaking of a bubble, Palantir CEO, Alex Carp, had kind of a meltdown on CNBC. Let me play a little bit of it so you can watch it. And maybe you can explain what he saw. It sounded to me like he was panicking, but it was hard to figure out what he was talking about. David, if you could play that clip and we’ll just watch it and we come back, we’ll talk about it.

Alex Carp:

Everyone who uses LLMs on the battlefield runs on top of our ontology. And our clients are just, to say they’re unhappy with the Frontier Labs is to say I’m welcome at the Berkeley faculty. It’s like there’s just a level of discomfort and loss of trust that also made it really, really –

Stephen Janis:

Okay. Unpack that. What do you mean by that?

Alex Carp:

Well, you have, okay, so when you’re using large language models, at this point, everyone technical realizes they’re like a critical resource. To make them valuable in an enterprise like battlefield context or regulated context or manufacturing, you have to have what’s called an application layer. We have this thing called ontology that now everyone’s copying, but defacto, it takes a large language model. It makes it safe and useful and precise. So safe because it doesn’t touch your unlearning data, safe because it prevents the large language model from caching your data and replicating your business. Safe because it doesn’t transfer your IP of how to fight secret data, top secret data or in a clinical context. So the general way these things were sold, and again, these people are. Sam and Dario, there’s nothing more fun than debating Dario in private. So I’m not throwing shade at them,

Taya Graham:

But

Alex Carp:

Something has gone completely wrong. And the basic view among enterprises in this country is I’m going to chill lax and waste my time with tokens. I’m going to get no value and they’re going to get my IP.

Stephen Janis:

Okay, Dean, like I said, I haven’t heard the word ontology since my religious studies class in undergraduate, but it sounds to me like there’s buyers remorse or panicking among the top people, including Mr. Carp. What’s your take on what he’s saying? Does he sound like he’s panicking?

Dean Baker:

He sounds panicking. And just to be clear, I don’t know Alex Carp, never met him. But as best I could tell, he’s an odd guy. But as best I can tell, his complaints are first and foremost that you have companies spending a lot of money on AI and you had a lot of companies that were spending literally hundreds of millions a month. And they weren’t getting anything obvious for that. So they were actually encouraging their staff, their mid-level staff. So I was mentioning, I was talking about Amazon, where they literally had a leaderboard where people were posting how much AI they were using. And I don’t know if they got a bonus or whatever it was exactly, but the more AI, the better off you were. And just like to me, Amazon’s obviously a big business in any ways very successful, at least from their vantage point of profits.

Why would you ever encourage people to use AI for the sake of using AI? And the analogy I’ve

Taya Graham:

Made is

Dean Baker:

It’s like using paper. Oh, I used five reams of paper today. And you go, okay, great. What’d you do? I mean, that’s kind of nuts, but that’s what they were literally doing. So you’ve had companies looking to cut back hugely on the AI they use because they want to see that they’re actually getting something for it. And in many cases, their conclusion was that they weren’t. The other part of the story that he’s raising, Carp is raising, is they’re worried. They don’t know what’s happening with their data. So when you’re running your programs through Anthropic, through OpenAI and whoever else, they have your data. So using the example of Amazon, that data’s worth a huge amount. We know, we complain about that. Amazon, they know everything we’ve purchased, what we’ve looked at. They have an enormous amount of data on us. That’s a lot of money to them.

They don’t want to give that away for nothing to Anthropic, to OpenAI, whoever. And they don’t know whether they are or they aren’t. So that’s what he was talking about. He’s saying you need software that regulates the usage. And as it is, a lot of companies don’t have that. Again, I’m not going to advertise for your software. I have no idea what it does, but you probably don’t want to give these AI companies all your data.

Taya Graham:

Actually, Steven and I go and cover Capitol Hill, and we saw Senator Bernie Sanders arguing that if AI creates extraordinary wealth, then the public deserves a share of that wealth. And he announced an AI sovereign wealth fund proposal. And I think he’s talking about a 50% stake for Americans. Now at first glance, this sounds like a progressive idea, but I read your article. Why do you disagree?

Dean Baker:

Yeah, I’m a big Bernie Sanders fan, known him for years. I have enormous respect for him, but I really think this goes down the wrong path. To start with, just from the word go, if you’re giving the US government a large stake in the AI companies, you’re giving Donald Trump a large stake in AI companies. I know that’s not Bernie’s intention, but look at what the Supreme Court has been saying. I’ll guarantee you, this isn’t even a debatable point given the recent Supreme Court rulings. If we get the ability through an ownership stake to put people in top positions in Anthropic and OpenAI, whoever else we might buy a stake in or take a stake in, Donald Trump is going to pick those people. It doesn’t matter how they wrote in the law. That’s what the Supreme Court has said. The unitary executive, he decides, I can’t imagine in the current environment wanting to give more power to Donald Trump.

In general, I’m not sure I want the government to have a 50% stake, but certainly not Donald Trump. So that to my mind’s a no-brainer. Secondly, from the standpoint of regulation, we know there’s all sorts of ways we need to regulate AI. It’s not an option. They want to build data centers everywhere. Do you want a data center in your backyard? Should we be able to tear down Grand Canyon to put a data? That’s their dream. That’s what they want to do. We already are having massive battles on this. I don’t trust that with the government having a direct stake that we would get the right outcomes. I don’t trust we’d get the right outcomes anyhow. But I think we really tilt the playing field and just the environmental issues, that’s just one of them. When you’re talking about ownership of data, access to privacy, there’s a whole range of issues that come up with AI that are unavoidable.

I mean, it’s not a question, oh, we should leave it to the market. There is no market. We’re setting the rules. So I worry very much about that. The third point is just what I was saying before. A huge amount of this is hype. And unfortunately, I think Bernie’s feeding the hype. Oh, they’re going to have massive wealth. I don’t see that. I think there’ll be big profitable companies here, just like going back to the ’90s. You look at the providers of internet, Cisco and Verizon and Comcast, they’re big companies. They’re profitable. They aren’t earth shaking. They aren’t the biggest companies in the world. So why are we contributing to the hype? I don’t think that’s a productive thing to do.

Stephen Janis:

Yeah. Yeah, go ahead, Ed. No, go ahead.

Taya Graham:

I was going to say, when I was reading your article on your substack, Dean Baker, that your first objection wasn’t really economic, that was more political. And I was just wondering why you think having a government-owned AI investment fund would be particularly dangerous under the Trump administration? Or could you just not trust any administration with it?

Dean Baker:

I’d have problems with any administration, but let’s just focus on Donald Trump. Donald Trump has made it clear. He sees the government as his tool to enrich himself, to enrich his friends. So he will put his friends in top positions there. He will have his friends, people contribute to his campaign or give him kickbacks. They will be the ones that get contracts from these companies. He’s anti – DEI. Well, women in top positions, forget it. Blacks in top positions, forget it. He’s applied that through government as much as he could. You’re just giving them a whole new area to apply this in. And again, if AI, I don’t think it’ll be the massive thing, at least these companies will be the massive things that they’re hyping. But again, I don’t want to give Donald Trump yet more power.

Stephen Janis:

Wow. Well, listen, to your idea of Bubble Watch, which I think is kind of fascinating, well, also terrifying. So for example, in the private credit markets, people started to panic and private credit is lending a lot of money for these data centers. Last week, IBM lost 20.% of its value in one day because people were panicking about software. Where do you see this starting to unravel? I mean, we’re not economists, but we’re people that read. What should we be looking at? What should anyone be looking at actually to see where this bubble’s going to start to unravel if indeed it does?

Dean Baker:

Okay. Well, let me be as honest I can be on this. I didn’t know until this date, I can’t tell you what caused the collapse of the stock bubble or for that matter, the housing bubble. I mean, I could all point to all sorts of vulnerabilities, but when they collapsed and why? Both went on much longer than I ever thought they would. I’ll say that. So I’m saying that now what I have been looking to and will continue to look to is increasingly the companies, and these are big companies, these are Meta, Alphabet, the biggest companies in the world. They’re having to borrow. So even though they’re very profitable, they’re undertaking such massive investments that they’re having to borrow. And you’re seeing a very interesting story here that investors in bonds are starting to get worried. We actually saw this with SpaceX. It was really striking.

One of my AI bubble monitors was about this, that SpaceX bonds are being sold at a discount, meaning that bond buyers see a risk that it actually could default, that they might actually go bankrupt. So here on the one hand, you have stock investors going, “Oh, SpaceX is going to be the most profitable company in the history of the world.” You have bond investors going, “It might go bankrupt. It might not be able to pay its bills.” So I would look at the bond market and it seems to be. I recently saw some data showing that there’s much less interest in Alphabet, Meta, the hyperscalers are called, that are involved in building the data centers for AI. There’s much less interest in their bonds than for other investment grade debt. And that’s who I’d look to first, because if it ends up being the case that you can’t get the bond issues to finance it, then it’s going to fall apart.

We may be seeing the beginnings of that. I mean, it’s a little early, but we may be seeing the beginnings of that. So if they start to cut back their lending, this thing could collapse fairly quickly.

Taya Graham:

If we can, I just would like to pivot for a moment to affordability. I’m pretty sure I’m not the only one out there seeing their gas, their car insurance, their groceries going through the roof. There are so many Americans that are struggling with housing costs and healthcare costs and groceries and childcare and utility bills. And I was just wondering how much of today’s affordability crisis has to do with AI, will be impacted by AI, and how much stems from our much broader economic policy?

Dean Baker:

I would say most of it is broader economic problems, but I will say one that I can pin on AI, and that’s a housing market, particularly in areas like the Bay Area. So you actually saw this when you had the SpaceX, their initial public offering, you suddenly had all these people that were doing well, obviously, were highly paid engineers in positions at SpaceX, but they’re maybe getting hundreds of thousands a year. Maybe some are getting low millions. They suddenly have 10, 20, 30 million because there’s SpaceX stock, and that’s what the evaluation would be. They suddenly turn around and go, “Oh, I want a really big house.” Well, there’s only so many really big, really nice houses in the Bay Area. So those go through the roof. And there is a trickle down here. Trickle down not in a good way. So if you’re a lawyer, you’re doing well, you make three or 400,000 a year.

Well, suddenly the home that you were looking to buy, which would’ve been a million you might have been able to afford, now it’s two or three or four million. So you look at a middle-class house and you’re suddenly prepared to pay one and a half million for that. So then the person who’s a teacher or a firefighter that maybe, maybe, maybe could have scraped together enough to buy that for five or 600,000,

No way on earth they could pay one and a half million for that. So there is a direct impact on housing, not necessarily nationwide. I don’t know how much it affects things in Ames, Iowa, but certainly in tech centers like in the Bay Area, like Seattle, other places where there are likely a lot of people involved in the AI economy.

Stephen Janis:

Dean, when the Great Recession hit, even though it was caused by bankers’ greed, a lot of it really the working class suffered. Do you think AI could have the same impact if it does start to collapse, that it will hurt working people and that the bankers will catch a cold and will catch the flu or whatever? Do you see it trickling down again to people who had nothing to do with this, what I would call a mess at this point?

Dean Baker:

Yeah, because that’s the problem with bubbles when they start driving the economy, because our economy does not turn well. So what happened in the ’90s, we were being driven by the tech bubble. Tech bubble collapses. Nothing else to come in its place. In fact, what came in its place, it took a couple years to do it, a few years to do it, the housing bubble. And then that collapsed and well, that took a long time to recover from it. We really didn’t get back to a strong labor market, lower levels unemployment till 2016, 2017. So what I worry is that the AI bubble’s definitely driving the economy, both through investment in AI stuff, AI related stuff, and then also the consumption effect that people go, “Oh wow, I now have five million in the stock market,” which some of these people do. And then they go out and spend a lot of money, housing being one thing, they get cars.

So those stocks go through the floor. Suddenly nothing’s driving the economy and we start to see the unemployment rate rise. Wages don’t keep pace with prices. It’s a bad picture.

Taya Graham:

I actually just went to a doctor’s appointment to go to radiology, just getting exams, and they said to me, “Oh, would you like to get the AI version of this and pay an extra $40?” And I said, “Well, how’s it different than my normal exam?” And they said, “Well, actually, technology is pretty much the same.” So I’m wondering how much are they overselling how beneficial this technology actually is and how much of it is just pure hype?

Dean Baker:

They’re hugely overselling it. Again, I’m not down on the ground in all these businesses, but you hear accounts of this. So you have a lot of companies where software coding, where it’s probably at the biggest impact, where they do AI and it’s often very useful, but the problem is it makes mistakes. So you still need someone who really knows the coding to check it. And I think that’s a good story really everywhere. You could use the AI, it could be very helpful, but you still have to check it. I know my own usage, which is very limited. I had it do a reference section for me. I was writing a paper and I was going, I can type up. I’m sure there’s software that could do it too, but I was going, okay, if I type it up, it’s going to take me two or three hours and I’ll make mistakes because I’m a sloppy typist.

So I’ll have AI do it and did it for me in, I don’t know, 20 seconds or something. I still had to review it because it had some references that were improper, but it was certainly much, much faster than if I had to type it myself. So I think there’s going to be a learning process. We will be able to use AI, use it beneficially, and there will be a productivity gain, but nothing like what they’re telling us.

Stephen Janis:

Dean, why do, in your estimation, we’ve heard all the incredible stories about tax incentives for data centers. If these companies are going to be so profitable and so amazing and going to create all this value, why do they need whopping tax incentives to build out these data centers? I just don’t get it. I don’t understand. And I’m not asking you to explain for them, but what do you think is the operative motive here of having all these tax breaks?

Dean Baker:

Well, there’s a crude joke with the punchline I could use because they can.

But there is a logic that from the standpoint of a state or county, they’re saying, look, we have people lined up that want our data center and we’re taking bids from all of them. So you have to beat the others. And from the standpoint of the county or state, they’re going, “Well, this will create some number of jobs.” They lie about the number. And it’ll create some amount of tax revenue. And they might go, “Well, we’re better off even giving them an incentive. Give them 50 million off on their taxes.” And you can’t say that’s necessarily wrong because in some cases it probably is right. In many cases it will be wrong. And certainly if they end up going under, it almost certainly will be wrong because having a big data center sitting there that does nothing is not going to make your county or state more attractive for people to live in or for other businesses to come and invest in.

Taya Graham:

We’ve talked about a wealth fund and even a UBI. What do policymakers need to do to protect workers and make sure that if this actually really makes generational wealth, that working people can benefit? Or maybe I should just say, if you have a magic wand and you could design your own AI policy, what would you want it to look like? Or what do you want policymakers to do?

Dean Baker:

Well, I’d go into the old bag of tricks and just start using them and ramping them up. So one of the things we used to do shorten the work week. We haven’t done that. We had the Fair Labor Cancan Act 1937. It’s almost a hundred years now. We’re getting close. So we thought 40 hours was right then. How about making it 36, 32? That would be a great thing to do. Raising minimum wage, make it easier for workers to organize. We have it so stacked against workers organizing unions now it’s become near impossible because employers could. It’s illegal to fire people, but what’s the sanction? What’s the punishment? So someone’s organizing a union. Elon Musk says you’re out the door. You could file a National Labor Relations Board complaint. Good luck. Maybe they’ll rule for you two years later, you’ll get your job back.

Kind of moot at that point. So we have a basket of things. Also, again, finishing the welfare state. Every other country in the world has universal healthcare. We should have universal Medicare. So those are some good steps. Again, I’m not opposed to UBI, but I just think back to under President Biden, he wanted to have the expanded child tax card. He put it in as a pandemic measure. He wanted to extend it and he couldn’t get that. He had Democrats opposing him. So the idea, this is children. We’re talking about a relatively small sum of money for children. He couldn’t get that through. So can we get a UBI through? Yeah, maybe, but that looks like a real uphill battle for me. I’d rather stick to the old favorites that we know work. And there’s a Well, lot of political support for them.

Taya Graham:

Okay, Steven. Well, obviously I’m in the wrong line of work because it turns out that you can lose millions or even billions of dollars and somehow make money. Is this dystopian enough for you? I mean, what are your thoughts here? I’m obviously in the wrong line of work. Well,

Stephen Janis:

Like I was kind of alluding to before, I feel like we’re kind of participating in new theology. The value here is purely theocratic, that there’s some divine power that is being burked in a lab that we’re going to have to pay penance to, whether or not it makes our lives better or not, and whether it has any influence on anything we do. So I was really glad to hear Dean kind of cut through all that BS and give us sort of a pragmatic view of what’s actually going on. And one thing, I don’t want to refer to the Tower of Babel, but that was an awfully tall tower of cards. And when AI comes bursting down on all top of us, I think it’s going to be quite cataclysmic. So yeah, apocalyptic is probably in line there.

Taya Graham:

That’s a great point. I mean, everyone is so excited. They’re hoping for artificial general intelligence where they’re going to be curing cancer and saving the world. Which would be great. And all I just do is see people losing jobs.

Stephen Janis:

Yeah. I’m waiting for the cure for cancer. I

Taya Graham:

Would be so happy to see it. I would be so happy to have AI genuinely help people. Not just help students cheat on their home.

Stephen Janis:

Or not just create 100,000 songs on Spotify every day. I think it would be more useful for humanity. Just my opinion.

Taya Graham:

Steven, you know me, as always, whether it’s on our show, the Police Accountability Report or our coverage on Capitol Hill, my concern is the working people of this country. And just like with all the other tech upheavals, the elite who taught them, forget those who are going to be impacted by them. And this particular iteration could really be devastating. And that’s why we have to remain vigilant. If AI actually lives up to the hype, the concentrated power it would confer would be absolutely death to a democracy. I mean, that much wealth in so few hands is simply unsustainable. I mean, it will literally adulterate the process of governance with self-interest, and it’s going to warp accountability around the curvature of a technology that seems more and more singular in its appetite for resources. And I do mean a literal appetite for land and water. And that is why we’ll continue to report on it and have discussions with innovative thinkers like Dean Baker.

And that’s why we will continue to report to you from the nation’s capital, asking questions about how the government by and for the people will actually protect them from the ravages of AI Avaris. And that’s why independent journalists like Steven and I will continue to investigate and try to comprehend and share with you the truth because that’s all we have in the end, for better or worse. Thank you for joining us for our inequality watch report. And as always, we’re reporting for you.

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.

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

Maximillian Alvarez: I’m here in the Mexican American Council Building in Saginaw, Michigan, and I’m sitting with Dr. Abdul El-Sayed, who is running to represent Michigan in the United States Senate. Brother Abdul, great to see you again, man. Thanks for joining me. I really appreciate it.

Dr. Abdul El-Sayed: An honor.

Maximillian Alvarez: And we first met when you were running for governor here in Michigan in 2018.

Dr. Abdul El-Sayed: Feels like yesterday. It feels like 15 years ago.

Maximillian Alvarez: Exactly. Both a day ago and a lifetime ago. And I think the circumstances around each election can sort of trick us into feeling like they’re very similar moments. When you were running in 2018, the question was how are Democrats going to respond to Trump? But also, who’s going to inherit the Bernie Sanders mantle? AOC just won. And so you were part of that progressive cohort. And now we kind of have a similar situation. How are Democrats going to respond to Trump winning again? Zorn Mamdani just won in New York. Who’s going to inherit the progressive movement? But these are two very different moments and you’re a very different person than you were back then. I wanted to ask to start how you would characterize the differences between that campaign and this one.

Dr. Abdul El-Sayed: Let me break it down two ways. There’s where we are as a country, and then there’s the growth that you do as a person. I think where we are as a country, this is a moment where I think, to be honest, we had failed to learn the central lesson of Trumpism. I think a lot of folks felt like the record had skipped, that there was this mistake. And they didn’t see the fact that Donald Trump was exploiting a foundational pain in people. And I said this thing at the time, I think that was just, it was premature and most folks didn’t see it. Donald Trump himself is not the disease of our politics. He’s just the worst symptom of the disease of our politics. And the disease is the system that allows corporations and billionaires and would be oligarchs to buy and sell politicians to do their bidding.
You watch as they use their power to suppress our wages for the work that we have to do and to raise our prices for the things we have to buy. And I think this time around, people are recognizing that actually we dealt with the symptom, but we didn’t deal with the disease. And as a doctor, I’ll tell you, if you only deal with the symptom and you don’t deal with the disease, it comes back roaring worse. And that’s exactly what’s happened now. So I think folks are a lot more interested in authentic engagement with the structures of our system. Even now though, you got a lot of corporate folks out there who just want to deal with the symptoms. They’re like, oh, affordability? Okay. I’ll make one thing more affordable for you. It’d be great. And they’re like, no, there’s a structure underneath affordability. There’s a reason why everything accelerates in the wrong direction always.
And if you don’t deal with the foundational infrastructure, you’re not going to deal with the outcome. I’ve grown up a bit. I was 32, never run for office in my life. I had one and a half years of public service, two years of public service under my belt. Didn’t have any kids, lived in my in-law’s basement. I’m 41 now with two kids and a mortgage. And I’ll tell you, there’s something you learn about yourself when you have kids. And I think more than anything, it puts a patina on your soul in the sense that your kid walks into your bed, they piss your bed, and then you have to clean them and your bed while they’re pitching a tantrum in the middle of the night. Which is, to be fair, really unfair. But you’re like, “Hey, the baby, it’s okay. It’s all right. No worries.
It’s okay.” And it’s that ability, I think, to just have to metabolize more of life. That I think for me is probably the big difference.
I also, I think I learned a lot about life is short, but it’s also quite long. And one of the frustrations I think I have with some folks in our movement sometimes is that we want people to agree on the critique. And we always break apart on the critique. It’s not about the critique, it’s about the outcome. And I think the more you could focus on how you want the world to be like and get people to agree to that, even if they come at it with different perspectives, I think the better off we are. And I think that’s probably what I’ve learned over time.

Maximillian Alvarez: I’m thinking about what you were saying about having kids and the way it changes your worldview. And I wholeheartedly agree. There’s a foundational, existential humbling that comes with having kids and getting your ass beat once in your life. And you can tell the people in politics who have had neither of those

Dr. Abdul El-Sayed: Things. Well, I’d had the first one.
Delivered a couple myself, but I’ve had the first one. The second one, right? To be honest, having kids, to your point, that humbling nature of it, because it never ends. There’s always something. I give all the credit to my wife, Sarah. She’s a real MVP. And I’m just in awe of all that she has to do every day because of what I’m doing right now. But there is something about recognizing you’re trying to cherish something vulnerable for what it could be. And isn’t that what we’re trying to do here? And I think it also forces you to contend with pain quite a bit. And for me, I’ve trained as a doctor and that training’s been really useful for me because both doctors and politicians have to be really good at being able to sit with other people’s pain and to speak truth to pain. It’s true truth to power, but also truth to pain.
And I think having a kid has really brought that’s crystallized that in a certain way because you kind of understand the project. You know what I mean? Taking care of you because I love you. And I also love what you could be, even if I don’t love what you’re being right now. You know what I mean? And I think those are the moments that your kids test you the most. And you get tested like that enough times. You come out in political circumstances and you’re like, at least you’ve been pissed my bed.

Maximillian Alvarez: I agree with you, but by that definition, my mom would be a great politician because I test her a lot. And let’s talk about how you’ve grown as a person, but also as a politician –

Dr. Abdul El-Sayed: I’m waiting for the Mama Alvarez congressional.

Maximillian Alvarez: Oh man. Yeah. Mama Alvarez would take it, baby. But you’ve grown as a politician as well. Your career in public service and my career in journalism almost started around the same time. And again, you know this because I was the Cub reporter on your gubernatorial campaign bus being like, “What am I doing?” And

Dr. Abdul El-Sayed:: Wrote one of my favorite profiles then. So I was really grateful. A good journalist can see the thing beyond or the depth, the structure of the thing. And I appreciated that then.

Maximillian Alvarez: Thank you, man. I appreciate that. And I wanted to ask, how have you changed in those 10 years, especially let’s focus on the work that you did in Wayne County to prepare you to be qualified for US Senate?

Dr. Abdul El-Sayed: Yeah. There’s a couple pieces there. I had run a health department, but the Wayne County department was just a lot more complex. 550 FTEs across all the programs that you run, the contracts that you oversee, et cetera. And $172 million budget, all kinds of moving parts in a bureaucracy that can be really difficult to negotiate and manage. And you’re working with everything from federally funded programs to state funded programs to county programs. You’re managing constituencies. And more than anything else, you are responsible for a particular thing for a particular group of people. And I think negotiating all of those moving parts for me was really valuable in a space like the county. And also just deepening my relationships with the community in Wayne County. Wayne County is Michigan’s largest, most diverse county, about a fifth of the state’s population. You got all kinds of different communities.
Downriver community, predominantly working class, black or white. You’ve got Dearborn, you’ve got the city of Detroit, of course. And thinking through the ways that you have to build coalitions around the work that you can do to deliver for everybody. And then there’s the technical part of things. And as a public health director, you’re responsible for a very technical set of things. So to me, the space of public service I’ve always been most excited about is how do you bring the technical, the practical and the political together? And you think about where we are in the Senate right now, you think about what we lack. We lack the political will to actually take on Trump and also to articulate what we’re fighting for and not just what we’re against. We lack a lot of technical skills in terms of understanding some of the leading edge questions of our time, whether it’s AI or rebuilding a public health infrastructure that RFK Jr.
Is all but ruining right now. You think about what it means to take on the healthcare challenges we have. We’re fighting for subsidies, for health insurance for 25 million people when we should really be having the conversation about whether or not 350 million people should have to worry about premiums at all. But these are technical questions that are political and practical in their nature. And so I think for all of those reasons, going back to public service, being engaged on the ground will make me a better public servant. The last thing I’ll say is this. At the end of the day, these issues, the rubber hits the road in city and county government. We don’t have folks who’ve served in these rules in the Senate all too often where you actually have to look people in the eye and say, “Here’s how you get this thing done.
And here’s the service we can render to you.” And I hope I can bring that. So whether it’s the technical skill set when it comes to healthcare, we haven’t had a Democratic doctor in the Senate since 1969. Never had a public health official in the US Senate. Whether it is the practical part of it, understanding how is this legislation that we put together going to impact Ms. Sue’s life living in downriver. And then it’s the political work of bringing people together around building and moving, I think is a good preparation all around.

Maximillian Alvarez: Well, and kind of bringing that back into the climate that we’re in. I’m going to ask you basically a similar version to the same question that I asked Beto O’Rourke when I got the chance to. Because I imagine you would agree, but my sense from the coverage we’ve done is that the 2024 election was less of a referendum on how much people love Donald Trump than it was a referendum on how much people hate the Democrats. And the people’s faith in the Democratic Party is in the basement right now, especially on top of a year of doing what feels like virtually nothing to stop Trump. Caving on the longest government shutdown in our history while people are watching their SNAP benefits, their healthcare disappear before their eyes. So the question there is like, is why run as a Democrat? And how are you going to address that lack of faith and prove that this isn’t just the right message that you’re going to meet people’s needs?

Dr. Abdul El-Sayed: Yeah. I know what I’m about. And Democratic Party hasn’t always met my needs. I think a lot of people out there feel like they’re Democrats by hostage situation. You look at the other guys and you’re like, “That’s crazy.” And then you look at the Democrats and you’re like, “I don’t know what’s worse.” Being cruel and crazy or being feckless in the face of being cruel and crazy. Now, the party is so far away from its voters. The majority of Democrats out there, when I talk to them out at Democratic clubs or indivisible or you name the organization that I’m out, they are so far away from the party elders who hold all the power. And I think we have an opportunity as a party to molt. Out with the old, in with what the people underneath the party really want. And I’ve said this for a very long time.
The problem with Democrats is too often they’re taking money from the very same people who created the problem. So now you’re in this weird position of trying to articulate a solution to the problem that includes the people who created the problem. That makes sense. I don’t take over money. I never have. I never will. And I understood from the day I started in politics that that wasn’t the big issue. And so when folks look at me, they say, at least I know what he believes because he’s not bought. And I think the party could do the same thing. Say what you will about Donald Trump. He’s got a coherent narrative. You out of a job. Immigrant took your job. Out of a home. Immigrant took your home. Out of healthcare. Immigrant took your healthcare. That’s his narrative. Simple, easy to understand, dead wrong. We could have a narrative too.
Out of a job, corporation offshored or automated your job. Out of healthcare, corporation squeezed you out of healthcare. Out of a home, corporation speculated that you can’t afford a home. But when you’re taking money from corporations, guess what you’re not going to say? So you come with your little list of 10 point policy plans that’s going to deliver something for maybe somebody 10 years from now. It’s bullshit. So I think the party could be better and I’m running to make it better. So I’m a Democrat with lowercase D, and I hope someday we can win the fight for what the Democratic Party can be. And I’m not willing to let go of all that infrastructure because a few folks who can’t let go of power say that it’s theirs.

Maximillian Alvarez: Do you feel hopeful about other people running as Democrats that you’ll be among a cohort of people who believe that?

Dr. Abdul El-Sayed: I hope so. I hope so. I think there are some folks out there who see the issue, working to try and address it, and we’re going to have to build power. No one US Senator is going to solve all the problems. I mean, one out of 100 senators, 1% of the US Senate, always, that’s all you are. So you better figure out how to build the team. But I also think that we’ve given up on persuasion. Democrats do this thing where Donald Trump’s out there persuading people left, right, center all the time. And we’re out here trying to run a poll and figure out where people are and then speak right to the poll. So what happens is the public’s moving in one direction and we keep speaking to where that is. We can be like, “Well, immigration’s not a popular issue.” I was like, “Are you kidding me?
Shredding the damn constitution over it.” Popular issue. I don’t give a damn.This is the issue of our time and you don’t want to talk about it, but also talk about it in a way that’s complete. So you get a lot of people who talk about immigration as this esoteric abstract thing that sits on a mantle and we just admire it. I mean, democracy was broken the day corporations started to buy elections. That didn’t just happen. We’re at death’s door now, but we’ve been here. We’ve been sick. And so why don’t you talk about it in ways that are actually fully complete? Hey, every time a corporation comes in and buys off a politician, that kills your democracy a little bit. But most of these folks who want us to talk about democracy now didn’t feel it when that happened. And I think we got to talk about it completely.

Maximillian Alvarez: I want to talk about what that means for where we are sitting right now in Saginaw, Michigan. And I have a special attachment to this place. My wife grew up here. I have a lot of in-laws who live around here. My wife’s family had generations of men work in the old GM plant up the road. It is a cold, hard, but beautiful place with a lot of families, with a lot of deep roots. A lot of immigrant families going from back to Poland, Germany, Mexican and other Latino immigrants, a lot of black folks who came up during the Great Depression. People don’t give towns like Saginaw credit for how complex and beautiful they actually are. But in many ways, this is the archetypal rust belt

Dr. Abdul El-Sayed: Town.

Maximillian Alvarez: I mean, there is a lot of pride. There’s a lot of joy. There’s a lot of family here. There’s also a lot of boarded up windows. There’s a lot of blight. There’s a lot of pain. There’s a lot of poverty and economic devastation. So why is it important for you to come to a place like Saginaw? And again, moving past the sort of democratic messaging, I guess my question is not how do you hope to reach people who live in places like Saginaw, but what can you and other politicians do for places like Saginaw?

Dr. Abdul El-Sayed: Yeah. The simple question, how do you reach? You come. We’re here. You know what I mean? This is not my first time in Saginaw. It’s not going to be my last time in Saginaw. And then I think the way you reach folks is to be vulnerable with them. I can’t solve all the problems, but I can’t tell you why the problems exist. And I can tell you I’m going to try like hell to take it on. And then I think you need to go back to that point that I was making to be a really good listener to people’s pain and to try to forge that pain into purpose. I can’t solve it. Anybody walks in here is like, “I’m going to fix your problems.” No, you’re not. We can solve it. And if I can be a vessel that helps to create something that can organize us and can impose what it is that we’ve been asking for, for a very long time into power, then I think we can solve it.
We can’t solve it tomorrow, but we can solve it in due time. And I’ll tell you that the analogy here to medicine is clear. Somebody gets a cancer diagnosis. You want to tell them you’re going to be fine. It’s bullshit. If I tell you you’re going to be fine, it’s a lie. But what I can tell you is I’m really sorry that this happened to you. And I can tell you what we know. And I can tell you what we can do. And I can tell you I’m going to sit here and listen for as long as you need me to listen to you. And that I’m going to be your advocate for helping get the best outcome you want.
In this case, it’s not terminal. Places like Saginaw can heal, but not doing the same shit that we’ve been doing. And so in some respects, there is an honesty that you have to tell people. It’s not just always going to be okay or I’m going to solve all your problems. I’m not. I’m going to do my best to help you, to be honest with you about what the problem is, to sit down and think about what our approach moving forward can be, and to fight like hell for you against people who’ve created this problem. And if we can do that and you can trust me to do that, we can build things over time. But it starts there. And I just think there’s a humility and a vulnerability in that.

Maximillian Alvarez: And I know I got to let you go in a minute because you’re about to walk into the next room and participate in a round table with members of the Latino community out here. And I kind of wanted to end

Dr. Abdul El-Sayed: On – Well as a Latino myself.

Maximillian Alvarez: Well, that’s why I kind

Dr. Abdul El-Sayed: Of wanted – I’m not Latino, but I’ve been mistaken one

Maximillian Alvarez: For

Dr. Abdul El-Sayed: Enough times that I’m just like, I kind of get it.

Maximillian Alvarez: I was about to say, it was like you walk into a family party. People would think that you’re, hey, he’s Mexican. I walk into one of yours and be like, “Hey, he’s Egyptian.” Exactly. But that’s kind of where I wanted to go with it. We’re both brown men living in America in 2025. You’re running for office. Your last name is Elsayed. I don’t need to tell you that this is a dangerous exercise. But I wanted to sort of ask for yourself, your family, your children, why is it important to you to run when there are so many forces in America that are trying to keep people like you out of America?

Dr. Abdul El-Sayed: Yeah. I spent a lot of my childhood summers in Egypt with my grandmother who’s the smartest person I ever met. And she never got to go to school. So I’ve spent a lot of time with really smart people. The smartest of them was the person whose story would never get told. You would never know she lived. People who got to live with her knew she lived. She was immense. And I saw the chasm and opportunity that I had versus my cousins. So I know what America did for me. And I also know what America fails to do for so many other kids. And so in some respects, I’ve gotten to live a really nice life relative to all my cousins. I’m kind of playing with house money. You know what I mean? So to me is when you’re playing with house money, you put it all back in the center of the table and say, “What can I do to create the America that other kids deserve?
The one that I got.” And at the end of the day, if that’s the value of a life is to create opportunity for other people, that’s the best I can do. And it means so much to me to get to do it because I don’t know what it’s like to be someone whose American identity has a bit of an asterisk on it. And so if my doing this gets to take a little bit more of that asterisk off, gets to erase some of that asterisk, that’s meaningful. More importantly, if there are kids out there who get to manifest and get to live the kind of life that I got to live because of the work that I did, I think that’s the kind of thing that would make my grandmother proud. And that to me is meaningful. How I judge my moral work is like, would my grandmother be proud of this?
So you can get all the titles and all the accolades and all the everything. And there’s a moral simplicity to being able to speak to the right side of right and wrong for someone whose sense of morals were never clouded by what an institution thought. And so I think it’s just put it all back in.

Maximillian Alvarez: And are you scared? And what do you say to people on the campaign trail who are very understandably, justifiably scared right now?

Dr. Abdul El-Sayed: Scared. That’s a complicated sort of thing. I think I am scared for where our country is headed. I’m scared I will not do what is my responsibility to do about it. But there is something about. I don’t believe in the term happiness as much as I believe that happiness is a whole bunch of consolation of different things. There is contentment. Eating ice cream, that’s contentment. There’s fulfillment. I got a good workout in. There’s joy, just the excitement of something that’s happy. And I would choose fulfillment over the others every day. And so I know I’m putting everything I can into trying to create opportunity for people who otherwise don’t have it, and that leaves me fulfilled. So in that respect, I think if all of us tried to chase, I did what I could with what I had where I was, I think we can get through this.
And the thing that to me frustrates me the most is that we know enough to be scared. There are a lot of folks out there who are so busy just trying to make life work that they can’t actually think about the broader existential questions at play. And I fear for those folks. See what I mean? Because most of the time those folks’ lives have been a function of circumstances they can’t control. And this all feels a lot worse. So I think that’s probably where my fear comes from.

Maximillian Alvarez: Well, I know we got to get going. All right. Yeah. And what’s, I guess, again, for folks who want to fight back, don’t want to go gently into the night, but are still afraid. They’re afraid of getting abducted by ICE. They’re afraid of getting surveilled online. They’re afraid of not being able to make their house payment. How do we respond to the politics of fear that Trump has risen on? What is the counter message

Dr. Abdul El-Sayed: To that? Tell you what I do.
So for a long time I’ve realized that anxiety is, it’s the fear of a future pain. And so what I try to do is just actually think that through. So what would happen? What would that actually feel like? And I process that and I seek to get myself comfortable with the worst possible outcome. And then I think about my life and what I have to lose versus the people I’m trying to fight for. See what I’m saying? And I don’t know. I try to think about what is courage in this moment because that’s what we’re all trying to summon. And I think courage is the ability to be comfortable with your loss of control and to metabolize the pain you might experience.
And pain comes in a lot of different ways. But you see what’s happened over time is that the people with the most power have folded the fastest. And I never want to be that guy. And so I just think that there’s like soul work you have to do to get comfortable losing it all. You know what I mean? And to be okay with the fact that if you’re willing to incur pain so that other people don’t have to, that I think is virtue. And I think it’s important for all of us to actually think through those things and do that exercise and to live in that moment of saying, okay, if this so-and-so were to happen, what would that mean for me? And also just, I’m a person of faith and I believe that there’s another side of the equal sign. That what happens here is not the end.
And so I’m comforted by the idea that if you do what is right here, if you are willing to take pain here for others for the right reasons, that in the end, God doesn’t forsake you. So however people think about that in their belief system, I think these are the moments where you actually have to really reflect on it. Do the spiritual work of asking what begets virtue for you? What begets courage for you?
Because we’re going to need it right now. And that’s the thing is we don’t know really where it’s going to go, but we’re watching the richest and most powerful fold the first. And what that tells you is that we have a certain spiritual failure. You know what I mean? You got the most to lose. What’s the point? I mean, it’s like, what’s the point of having F you money if you can’t say F you? You mean? And in a lot of ways, I’ve been so privileged in this world. All the advantages. What’s the point of having F you privilege if you can’t say F you? You know what I mean? Yeah. At the end of the day. So at some point, you look at Donald Trump and you’re just like, F you. We’re not going to back down.

Maximillian Alvarez: That was the perfect ending spot. So I will close it there. But brother Abdul al-Sayed, thank you so much, man. I really appreciate you. Appreciate it.

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

Crowd Chants:

We are we. We are we. We are we. We are we. We are we.

Gwendolyn Levi:

We need to be able to say that we in our community are willing to stand up. We’re standing up for our young people. We’re standing up for our seniors. We are standing up for our communities.

Queen Mother Victory Swift-Gye Nyame:

On July 7th of this year, 2026, a comrade in my brother was brutally beaten by six youth at this same said 7-Eleven, brutally beaten for over 10 minutes. He was able to get into his vehicle and only go a few blocks before he had to stop. He was in so much pain that he had to call the police and have them to take him to the emergency room at Sinai Hospital. A few days later, the video was exposed and it was something that you couldn’t believe you were seeing. When he got out of the vehicle, those brothers was laying right there.

There’s a stack of crates that they got from this 7-Eleven. Look at it. I want you to see it. That’s why we had it here. What they call ground zero. When he got out of his vehicle, they saw him. They weren’t laying for him. They were laying for somebody to come that way. They were willing and waiting for somebody to come down Towanda or Tioga, like my son did in 2017 when he left the 7-Eleven. So after walking 20 feet with my son, he put not one, not two, not three, not four, but five bullets into his body over a cell phone. Victorias fought for his life and it was stolen from him. It wasn’t taken because he fought back. It was stolen. On July 17th of this year, my comrades, this Black Panther veteran fought back.

Speaker 4:

Children today lost respect. You know what I’m saying? And I’m not saying all our children. I’m not saying that. But these little young men that came and jumped Bob and when I seen that, I said to myself, wow, they are chumps. They are cowards and they don’t have no dignity.

Speaker 5:

I don’t want it to be a blanket thing where like all our children are bad. I once was one of the little brothers out here running them up, but I’m telling you, we are misunderstood, uneducated, misguided, and easily let us stray. We need the community to gather around these young men. We don’t believe in throwing our peoples away.

Queen Mother Victory Swift-Gye Nyame:

I am commissioning the entire city. There’s a $50,000 reward. Here’s a QR code. Do not call yourself an organization or revolutionary or anybody else until you click this and donate so we can find those babies. We have to find them. No one else can find them. We have to find them. We will find them. But we’re not finding them so that they can be locked up and we throw away the key. I heard that. We’re not finding them so we can throw away a key. We’re finding them so that we can follow them, hold them, love them. We’re taking whatever these demons have for them off the table. They can’t have our children anymore. That’s over. They’re our children. As hard as that is to say with what we saw, they’re still ours. They are still we are we. We’re going to walk with them every step of the way.

Yes, we’re going to walk them to the police station. They have to be accountable for their behavior, but we will never let them go.

Gwendolyn Levi:

We need to teach our community the difference between snitching and protecting our community. There’s a difference. There is a difference. If your grandmother walks down the street, she can’t even go to the store. That’s not snitching. That’s saying, I want that community. I want my storefront cleaned off so my grandma can go to the store. That’s protecting your community. That’s protecting your loved ones. If you see something, say something. That’s not snitching. Snitching is when you and I go rob the 7-Eleven and not go tell on you. You need to know what snitching is. This is not snitching. This is happening ourselves.

Speaker 6:

You young. You haven’t lived enough life to understand anything. So when you hear elder up here talk about snitching and all this, I see your faces twisting up because you’re not intellectually understanding that these things that are being said are true in fact. But the arrogance in who you are as a person won’t allow you to listen to the truth until you’re old enough to have a child and somebody takes it from you. And now you want justice. Now you want peace. Now you want understanding. I used to be your age. You never been my age. My job or responsibility is to guide you.

Speaker 7:

Yo, people just need to be taught y’all. We’ve been there done that. Let’s not be so quick to forget. But one of the things I can say, I’m 63 years old. That’s something I’ve never done. Jump on it. Y’all, an older man. No, we ain’t do that. We ain’t do that. We guarded them to factor them even though we did our little stuff on the side, but we ain’t do that.

Queen Mother Victory Swift-Gye Nyame:

I watched that video over and over and over and over. Even though I kept watching it, when that baby pulled that sword out like he was a samurai, all I could think about was please don’t stab him. Even though I knew he was home, I knew he was safe. The pain is so real. The visual is so vile that even when you know they’re safe, you still fear for them. When I turned that off, I said to myself, if he can fight, we can fight. If he’s not afraid to fight, even if he dies, we can fight until we’re not afraid to die. I saw it. He proved it. You can say what should have or could have happened, but what happened is he fought back. They beat him. They kicked him. They knocked him. They tormented him for 10 minutes. Do you know what 10 minutes feel like when someone is attacking you?

All the time. It feels like forever, queen.

Speaker 8:

I was inspired when I looked at the fact that you just kept getting up. You just kept getting up! And if I take anything from that, here’s what we must continue to do as a people. We got to keep getting up. They talk about black people hate each other. Black people hate black people. And I often say to them, you can’t get this

Queen Mother Victory Swift-Gye Nyame:

If we hate each other. It’s time. One of the flyers say, if not us, then who? If not now, then when? We are going into that 7-Eleven and we’re telling those people, because I called them all week. I went in and got the phone number. I called them all week with no response. We tried. No response. We tried to no avail. Now we’re going full throttle. We’re not taking any prisoners. We’re not walking backwards. We’re going in there. We’re letting them know what they need to do to protect this community.

Ujimma Masani :

We want to walk over to this store. We want you to walk with us. We’re not going to tear up the store. We’re not going stealing anything. We just over there to let them know we ain’t playing. We write to you, not as adversaries, but as neighbors who share this corner with you every day. This location has witnessed a brutal assault of a 74 year old man, elder, an overnight break in and years of prior tragedy at the same address, including a loss of a young man’s life in March 2017. We believe you want this corner to be safe as much as we do. It is in that spirit, cordial but firm that we present the following list of demands. Number one, we are giving you a 72 hour notice to post your hours of operation in lettering large enough to be read clearly from the street.

Number two, cut down the overgrown bushes that create a hidden nook where perpetrators can wait and hide to attack unsuspected customers and install brighter lighting throughout the parking lot. Number three, we urge you to donate toward the community reward fund established to help apprehend the assailants and toward the medical costs of the 74 year old elder who was attacked. Number four, invest in stronger security measures, including roll down security grates when the store is closed to deter further break-ins. And number five, acquire off-duty police presence to enforce a no latering policy and help assure the safety of your customers and this community. This is not a request made lightly and it is not one we intend to let go unanswered. We ask for a response and a plan of action within a reasonable time and we will report back to the we. Until then, we will continue to stand on this corner in agreement until this community is safe.

Respectfully, the we community.

Ade Oba Tokunbo (Stephen King):

This gathering here is important because the community around us can see it. And they need to know that this is what needs to be done. These killings and these robberies and these auto thefts, we, I believe, can decrease it by teaching our people that hoodrats are not appreciated and should not be tolerated. I’m a veteran of the Black Panther Party. My paternal grandfather was a member of the UNIA. We are more than just a group of organizations. What I feel, because you have concern for me and care for me, this is my family.

Queen Mother Victory Swift-Gye Nyame:

When I realized who it was and where it was, it brought back the night that my son Victorius walked out of this same 7-Eleven, down those steps, down to Tioga Parkway and was approached by a young man who demanded his phone. A fight pursued. The young man took out his gun and he brutally murdered my son, victorious. He shot him five times, one in the stomach, then the kneecap. Then when he fell, he shot him in the head, shot him into his eardrum, which hit his jugular vein. And as he was falling over, he shot him again and that bullet grazed his back. He left him for dead. Someone who witnessed the entire event ran over to my son, held him and told him to hold on. He called the ambulance. They took him to the hospital. And he was pronounced dead at 3:43 AM on March 26th, 2017, four days after my birthday.

That was enough for me to say I’ve had enough. The next morning, Sister Ujimma called me and asked me how the Bible was doing when she had heard about it. We talked about what had happened. I shared with her what had happened to Victoria’s and telling her that that was the same location where Victorius came out of before he was murdered. Almost the same time of night, about three Victoria’s, I think it was like 3:15, 3:20, somewhere around that same time almost. And we said we have to do something. She called Mama Gwen. And once we came into what the Sister Queen always says, we have an agreement. That was it for us. We had decided that we were going to take no more, that we were going to do the same thing that Baba did, fight back. And that’s what we started doing. So we created the we organization mindset that we were going to communicate with every organization that we could in this city to let them know, to meet us here, where the assault happened and begin the process of changing how we think and how we look at the city and how to move forward as a collective, as a we, in agreeance, in agreement.

Ujimma Masani :

In agreement.

Queen Mother Victory Swift-Gye Nyame:

And that’s what we did.

Gwendolyn Levi:

Thank you. I think one of the most significant things about this gathering that we had today is that it was not retaliatory or negative. It was not we against them or – Pointing fingers. Pointing fingers. It was to say we are here. We didn’t point fingers at our young people because we know we got some good young people in the city. Many of them that were out here with us today. But we all got some troubled young people. Sister said it best when she said it early. Some are broken. Some are just bent. Hopefully we can get to the bent ones before they get broken. That’s what this cry is about. That’s what the querying cry was for all organizations to say, “Hey, we are here for our young people. We are here for our elders. We’re here for our neighbors in the community. We are here.

All you got to do is just look around your community. If you don’t see us in your community, call one of our older. We’ll come. We got brothers who can walk the streets with us. We got brothers who could go up in the alleys with us. We got sisters who know that our young sisters who are running up in stores and just grabbing stuff. No, no, no. You don’t have to do that. We know how to go get your nails done.

We can get your hair done. Come see us. Come see us. That’s what we’re saying to our young people. We are here for them. And yes, you must be held accountable for your actions. I did. I served 16 years of a sentence. Guess how many years I was supposed to serve? How many? 400 months. I’m going to let you all add it up. And the ones who can’t add it up, that’s why we need to change our board of education. That’s a whole nother source. But I’m not going to tell you how many that the 400 months is figured out. But I did 16 years over 400 months sentence. I was transformed. And if old as I was can transform, I know we can help these young people who have a whole life ahead of themselves. And that’s what we’re trying to do. Save our youngsters mainly before they get into the system.

But even the ones that get into the system, we’re here to help you so that when you come out of that system, you will come out and do what we’re doing. Do what the Tandea family, do what some of these other young or the cry organization, do what they’re doing. Help each other. Tell your story. Your story is impactful. Your story can help somebody.

You have a store, young man. You have a store young lady. And I know some of you might be mad, not mad at me. Look in the mirror. Tell yourself who you’re mad at and address that situation before you come out here and get into some trouble that you really don’t want to get into. We are here.

Queen Mother Victory Swift-Gye Nyame:

We are here.

Gwendolyn Levi:

For those six men who assaulted my brother, we are here.

Queen Mother Victory Swift-Gye Nyame:

We are here.

Gwendolyn Levi:

Call one of us. Yes, you have to be held accountable, but in that accountability, you will have support. You will have support so that you won’t become broken. We don’t need more broken kids in our community. This is a healing city. This is a city that can be healed. And we are here to say that the healing has begun by the we. Thank you.

Ujimma Masani :

That was beautiful. Thanks. So in our effort to address this, I guess, our trust that hangs over our city with youth being not accountable in what it is that needs to happen. We’re looking for our first step, which is to be a place where you deposit information. This is an information bank. We are a repository for every organization that’s out here helping families, youth, and elders. So if you have resources, if you have services or programs, this is the one stop shop that you come to. We are not saying at this moment that we are doing anything other than that. What we want to do is when we connect with families, elders, and youth, we could point them in a direction of where they may can go. We won’t select your program for them, but we’ll tell them where they can go to get that service.

And we’re going to aggregate all the information and make it user friendly. And you’ll be able to obtain it through our social media. We’re going to be able to obtain it through our website. And most of all, we’re going to be boots on the ground. The next event that we hope to kind of commandeer everyone together is that we’re going to be at the March on Washington on August 28th. There’s a free bus available by the National Action Network provided by the local chapters, community and city of NAN through the Reverend Al Sharpton. And we are going to take our voice across this country because I believe that other communities need the same kind of help. So we want to show that what it looks like, we’re not just the wire, we’re not just the corner. We’re not just the dancing, numbing and snowballs and the bikes.

We are more than that. And people need to see us as a whole. And we have to take this as an organic approach to what we need to be getting done. And that’s what we’re here to do. I’m a graduate from the Morgan State University School of Social Work, and I’m calling on all my social workers, all my counselors, everybody who’s doing that work in this city. This is not about the dime or the doubt. This is about remembering how to bring community together. And with that, we are a we. And when we are we, we are in agreement. With that, I say

Queen Mother Victory Swift-Gye Nyame:

Ashe. I think the most important aspect

Of what we are doing is to specifically reach out to families. We want the mothers and fathers of this city to know that their children are loved, that there is help available, there are resources available. Like mama said earlier, we’re not blaming anybody. There are no finger pointing. This is not anyone’s fault. If it is, it’s all of our faults. There’s no one person we can blame for this situation. I heard someone say we need to lock them up and throw away the key. I think, I hope, and I believe that we’ve had enough of that. There’s a system set up that eats, that sets up retirement funds, that sets up vacation time for our children being incarcerated. Being in a system where they’re abused, where they’re raped, where they’re tormented, where their lives literally stop. That has to stop. That has to stop. We can no longer accept our children being put into these systems and saying, lock them up and throw away the key.

Ujimma Masani :

I want to say one important thing. People say that things start in the home. Some people don’t have a home. We have so many people who are homeless, families that are living out here in these woods. People who have no resources whatsoever, no family in foster care. We have the largest number of foster care people in the system, youth in the system, but we’re only 13% of this whole national population. So if you keep saying that it begins at the home, did you check out whose home life you’re talking about? Because everybody don’t have a home. We

Queen Mother Victory Swift-Gye Nyame:

Don’t even know if these young men had a

Ujimma Masani :

Home. Right. We don’t know where they come from. And we don’t know that if their home is safe and protected and wholesome. How do we know if they’re not being abused or abandoned or – Neglected. Neglected or molested? We don’t know what that is. It’s in the body. It’s in the body. And so what we’re going to teach them is something called clean talk. We’re going to teach them about facts, feelings, judgments and outcomes. We’re going to change the dynamic of how we communicate with these people, with our babies. And that is where we’re going with this clarion call Baltimore.

Queen Mother Victory Swift-Gye Nyame:

Changing our journey to change their journey.

Crowd Chants:

We are we. We are we. We are we. We are we. We are we. We are we. We are we. We are we.

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

Mansa Musa: Welcome to this edition of Rattling the Bars. We’re here in the historical part of the District of Columbia, U Street, 14th and U, 13th and U, 11th and U, 12th and U, all historic. Lincoln Theater and Benz Chillibo. We’re here today to talk to two representatives from DC Justice Lab about current legislation that Congress is attempting to pass to minimize the DC City Council’s ability to pass laws to govern this District of Columbia. Stay tuned for this interview. The District of Columbia has become the testing ground for Congress in terms of reforming so-called reform of laws that the city council has passed. So let’s talk about cash bill, what’s going on with it and what this bill is trying to do. Because when we look at what’s going on in over DC jail and how overcrowded it is, what’s our position on HI5214?

Bethany Young: Yeah. Well, DC has had a pretrial system in place for the last 30 years or so that has worked well. People are kind of released or not based on kind of a demonstrated threat to public safety. It’s not necessarily about how much money they have or starting with the presumption that someone should be incarcerated. And that system has worked well. Most people come back without committing any other crime. Most people show up for their court date. So it’s not a system that’s broken. So this is kind of a solution in search of a problem, this congressional bill that you’re talking about.

Mansa Musa: Who profiting from? Because the intent is not to change, get safer streets because we already recognize that the streets are safe. So who profiting?

Darby Hickey: We haven’t had cash bail in over 30 years in DC. And you know what that means we haven’t had in this city? Our bail bondsmen or these companies that are very predatory to poor people that require these payments and that make money regardless of what the person does after they’ve been released. And they make billions of dollars a year and we haven’t had that exploitative system in DC during this time. And as we’ve all been discussing, we’ve been safer for it. So that’s who is going to profit off of this. So we know that this is not about safety. This is about harming poor people, exploiting them for money. And it’s also ideological because I think I’m glad you started with this one as an example of this rollback and of using DC as kind of a Petri dish of what they can force on places around the country.
Because you see them pushing also on the national level to roll back bail reforms. And it’s ideological. I call it dumb on crime approach rather than following the actual evidence that shows that reforming bail systems, getting rid of cash bail actually makes our community safer because we know even a short time in jail, that destabilizes your life and that leads to worse safety outcomes in the long run.

Mansa Musa: Let’s talk about another aspect of this is mandatory minimums. And DC has always been real equitable in terms of taking into account the social conditions, really with sentencing the way they’re supposed to make a determination before they sentence. It’s always been like that. Talk about this attack.

Darby Hickey: I do agree with you that many of our judges do a good job of taking into account the circumstances around an event when determining a sentence. We actually already have some of the worst mandatory minimum sentences on the books in the country. And under this new proposal in Congress, the minimum that someone will be sentenced that would be longer than what the maximum is in some other states for the same conduct. So it’s really singling out DC. And again, it’s furthering this ideological agenda of just lock people up. We know all the companies are going to make money off of that. And to disempower and harm our communities, including unfortunately disproportionately black communities in DC and across the country are disproportionately impacted by mandatory minimum sentences. Is

Bethany Young: That in DC, nine out of 10 people sentenced under mandatory minimums were black. And so kind of same kind of look at every statistic as it relates to the criminal legal system in DC, and you’re going to see mostly black people. I think it’s eight out of 10 arrests. Most of the people in the jail. Most of the kids that are detained are black, certainly most disproportionately impacting black people and poor people.

Darby Hickey: And then we got to look at, going back to your point earlier, that the interconnection between these different policies, you were speaking on the efforts to roll back voting rights. And how we know that some of the origins of some of these sentences and some of the restrictions on voting after being convicted came out of reconstruction, came out of the backlash to reconstruction and trying to disempower and disenfranchise black communities. And so we have to see this and connect this as part of that lineage as well.

Mansa Musa: And I think that when we look at the District of Columbia, how can you rule your house where somebody got the authority and ability to tell you what you can and cannot spend? Your own money, your own revenue that you generate. So in this regard, you’ve got Congress is interfering with the legislative process. The people that’s duly elected to determine what their constituents say they want, don’t have a voice. They can pretend like they do. They can vote on something. They can pass it. But if Congress don’t like it, the appropriation committee will just simply don’t fund it. And that’ll kill that, which brings me to, and this right here is one thing that I want y’all to dial down on heavily. This is about the youth because they got this push. They pushing this effort to criminalize the youth as young as 14. Talk about their attempt to push to make the laws change or create a law around dealing with our youth.

Bethany Young: A child, because we’re talking about children, could be charged as an adult. There are also some other laws that are for other young people, young adults would affect their ability to kind of have a second look at their sentences after they’ve served some time or that would impact their ability to have their records sealed after a certain amount of time and would affect the discretion that judges have in certain cases to sentence a young person in alignment with where they are developmentally. And what we know and what we’ve known for decades about laws like this is that they’re counterproductive. They’re as counterproductive as they are oxymoronic. If you think about treating a child as an adult, just because you say you’re an adult does not make a child an adult. And it actually ignores what science says about the developing brain. We know very well at this point that our brain, excuse me, as humans are developing well into our 20s, especially the part of the brain that deals with impulse control.
So there are certain things we take for granted with kids that they’re going to be impulsive, that they’re going to engage in risky behaviors. And we account for that. We know with the driving age, with drinking, with buying tobacco, with voting, with enlisting. We acknowledge in all of these different contexts that children are different and that we have to kind of help make decisions for them because their brains do not allow them to do this well. But in the context of crime and incarceration,
For some reason, we treat kids differently in that context and it doesn’t work. We know that for kids, contact with any part of the system. So even if they see someone getting pulled over by a police, they see their friends being encountered by police, that from that to being in a courtroom, to being arrested, to being incarcerated, that actually sets them back developmentally.

Mansa Musa: The fact that they’re saying in this cadence that youth are taking over the city and they’re using this as a pretext for getting tough on oil, as Bethany said.

Darby Hickey: What we’re seeing with these incidents with young people is, guess what? Young people are still recovering from the trauma of the COVID epidemic and of the shutdowns that happened and of the challenges with socialization they’ve had. We’re now learning so much more about the negative impacts of social media on them. And I’m a parent of a teen. Look, kids just want to get together. They want to not have to deal with adults. They want to be able to be with each other a little bit. And that’s what the vast majority of kids are doing in these situations. They’re just looking for a place to get together. And a lot of those places have disappeared. Yeah, we have our rec centers. Yeah, we have libraries. That’s really important. But think about the movie theaters, the malls. Union Station is largely blocked off to them at this
Point. So where else are they supposed to go is a question you keep hearing from them. I think it just goes back to a point that Bethany was making of like, these are children. Let’s give them the support that they need. Let’s invest in them. Let’s lift them up instead of continuing to tell them you are not welcome here. You can’t go there. This city and all the changing that has happened is not for you in these areas, which is putting a real distinct point on it, in my opinion, on top of the displacement and the gentrification that’s already happened in a city that has pushed so many people out of traditional neighborhoods like Southwest. You can even go back centuries, or decades rather, that was a very robust multi-ethnic community before it was destroyed by urban redevelopment back in the ’60s, I believe it was.
And then now has had this new wave happening as well. And you see it all over the city, unfortunately.

Mansa Musa: The attitude is we got to create a false narrative that in order for this place to be safe, we got to identify who’s making it unsafe, and that’s the youth. Which brings me to the point, the United States Attorney General for the District of Columbia recently said, “I know evil when I see it, no matter what their age.” How do y’all respond to that? They wearing hoodies. That’s evil. But he know evil respond to that.

Bethany Young: There is a really loud emotion that people respond to. And if you can make me afraid enough, I can support a lot of different things if you’re saying it’s in the name of safety. But what we know is that it’s not actually tied to safety, that the rest are down across the country, some of the trends that we’ve seen that we saw during COVID and immediately post, we’re turning the corner on those that the things that communities are doing to give young people other options to invest in them if given time are working.

Mansa Musa: When you create an environment where you have summer jobs, like me and my sister, we was first generation when they first started summer jobs and we did the projects in the District of Columbia. And when they created summer jobs, the whole city became vibrant because we had money. Young people had money and young people had Princeburg.

Darby Hickey: We know that giving people the right to determine their own future is what makes them great and what makes our democracy great.

Mansa Musa: So what’s y’all strategy now around what’s going on? Because when we went down to Congress, I was there. I forgot the congressman’s name out of Florida. They introduced the bill. His town don’t have problems. They reading articles that didn’t have nothing to do with the district. They reading the article from Arizona or New Mexico and just reading the facts of the article and making it seem like this is DC. Talk about where y’all at in terms of y’all advocacy and y’all strategy around changing this narrative or more importantly, mobilizing people to be effective in terms of advocating.

Bethany Young: So we’re continuing the work that we do locally on that in terms of shrinking policing, shrinking incarceration. We recently, along with about 30 other partners in the district, put together a 2026 public safety policy agenda that runs the gamut from community-based investments around non-police alternatives to safety like violence interrupters, credible messengers, investing and protecting in youth. So before a kid even gets into the system, what are the things that we can be doing to surround them to make sure that they’re thriving, that they have access to opportunities, that they’re building confidence and self-efficacy and skills all the way up until ways that our local officials can stand up and make a stronger statement

Mansa Musa: To the

Bethany Young: Federal government about the respect for DC laws. And we talked about this a little bit earlier. There’s only but so much they can do, but they can make their voices and their position known in a way that I don’t know that we’ve seen our elected officials locally do satisfactorily.

Mansa Musa: I like what you just said. Y’all got a document that y’all putting out. So this opened the doors up for insertion in terms of application, how to get people to stop. Okay. If we talking about incredible messages, fund that.

Darby Hickey: Although we do have these threats from the federal government right now, we also know, as we were just discussing with the curfew, that unfortunately our local elected officials are also making some bad choices around policies. And of course we want to defend their right to make that choice. We want to also convince them to make the right

Mansa Musa: Choice.

Darby Hickey: But that’s what this document lays out is this policy agenda is a number of recommendations that are not new, that we’ve been making, that people in the community have been making, that experts have studied and the evidence backs up. And so in addition to that, other things that we’re also doing are educating the council and staff, educating the mayor, educating the public about these proposals in Congress to roll back our laws or to impose bad nuance on us. The more of a united front and the more voice we have, the better chance we have of beating back these fundamentally undemocratic attacks that are trying to set us back years and years.

Mansa Musa: And we shouldn’t be handcuffed because someone is to your point, ideologically think that we should be back and change. So I want to commend y’all on y’all work.

Bethany Young: We can pick up a phone. We have resources that we can share around how to advocate in the legislative process, but keep learning about what’s happening. Make sure that you understand what it is because it can feel distant to some people. It can feel like that’s not happening to me. But rest assured that it’s going to get closer and closer. And before you know it, it’ll be. It’s kind of at all of our doorsteps at this moment. So continue to stay aware and engaged and ask people to do what they can to push back.

Mansa Musa: Okay.

Darby Hickey: Yeah, I think we see unfortunately this playbook being tried out here, but we know where it’s going next. We know it’s already been being used in other places. People saw the violence that happened in Minneapolis and Los Angeles and Chicago. That’s the same stuff that we’ve been dealing with. And actually we’ve still got the National Guard in

Mansa Musa: DC

Darby Hickey: And all the rest of the places they pulled back. So we are really struggling and we need help from everyone that’s willing to help. All our residents need to speak out. We all got to be in this together. And we need help from friends and family all over the country who actually have a vote in Congress and should be reaching out and doing what they can. We can’t be satisfied, like you said, with our colonial status right now. Home rule is a bare minimum. So we need statehood and we need people to support statehood for DC.

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

Speaker 1:

Michigan is shaping up to be one of the most closely watched Senate races of this entire cycle.

Speaker 2:

Democrats will choose between Congresswoman Haley Stevens and former director of the Department of Health, Human and Veterans Services, Wayne County, Dr. Abdul El-Sayed.

Dr. Abdul El-Sayed:

We pay more for the stuff we got to buy, get paid less for the work that we do and watch as our tax dollars get misappropriated abroad to drop bombs on other people’s kids instead of to invest in our own kids and their schools and their healthcare.

Speaker 4:

We’re done. Business as usual politics is over.

Dr. Abdul El-Sayed:

Most people don’t walk around thinking, where do I stand on the left right spectrum? Most people walk around thinking, how am I going to afford my groceries? How am I going to pay for my rent? Can I ever afford a home? What am I going to do if I get sick? The majority of Democrats out there, when I talk to them, they are so far away from the party elders who hold all the power. And I think we have an opportunity as a party to molt out with the old, in with what the people underneath the party really want.

Speaker 5:

Obviously politics are a very tumultuous time right now and the Democratic Party’s kind of in disarray. So I’m coming out to support Abdul.

Maximillian Alvarez:

He really knew and understood the people, that he was for the people.

Dr. Abdul El-Sayed:

So we’re running a campaign to do three very simple things. Number one, we’ve got to get money out of politics. We’ve got to take on the system that tells us that corporations are people and that their money is speech. So we’ve got to get money out of politics. Number two, we’ve got to put money back in people’s pockets. So what does that mean? It means empowering people to join or form a union in every sector of our lives. It means standing with small businesses like this one that really do create the backbone of our economy. And it means finally taxing billionaires some wealth.

Speaker 7:

And that is precisely why we need people like Abdul in the US Senate.

Speaker 8:

I worked third shift and I made sure to get my butt out here in support before I have to go into work because the message has always been amazing. Watch out. There’s a car right there. But yeah, the way he just speaks to the working class I feel like is really what we need. And also when I shook his hand, he dabbed me up like a homie.He felt like somebody I knew already and that’s somebody I want fighting for us in the Senate. So I’m really glad I came tonight.

Dr. Abdul El-Sayed:

The question for us is bigger than this seat. It is about what we want out of our democracy in the first place. So if everything is working just fine for you, I’m not your guy. Do not vote for me. But if you believe that you deserve healthcare, if you believe that your tax dollars ought to be spent on you, if you believe that corporations should not have a bigger say in our politics than you do, then maybe I am.

Maximillian Alvarez:

We first met when you were running for governor here in Michigan in 2018. The question was how are Democrats going to respond to Trump? But also who’s going to inherit the Bernie Sanders mantle? AOC just won. And so you were part of that progressive cohort. And now we kind of have a similar situation. How are Democrats going to respond to Trump winning again? Zorn Mamdani just won in New York. Who’s going to inherit the progressive movement? But these are two very different moments and you’re a very different person than you were back then. I wanted to ask to start how you would characterize the differences between that campaign and this one.

Dr. Abdul El-Sayed:

Let me break it down two ways. There’s where we are as a country and then there’s the growth that you do as a person. I think where we are as a country, this is a moment where I think to be honest, we had failed to learn the central lesson of Trumpism. I think a lot of folks felt like the record had skipped, that there was this mistake and they didn’t see the fact that Donald Trump was exploiting a foundational pain in people. And I said this thing at the time, I think that was just, it was premature. Most folks didn’t see it. Donald Trump himself is not the disease of our politics. He’s just the worst symptom of the disease of our politics. And the disease is the system that allows corporations and billionaires and would be oligarchs to buy and sell politicians to do their bidding.

You watch as they use their power to suppress our wages for the work that we have to do and to raise our prices for the things we have to buy. And I think this time around people are recognizing that actually we dealt with the symptom, but we didn’t deal with the disease. And as a doctor, I’ll tell you, if you only deal with the symptom and you don’t deal with the disease, it comes back roaring worse. And that’s exactly what’s happened now. So I think folks are a lot more interested in authentic engagement with the structures of our system. Even now though, you got a lot of corporate folks out there who just want to deal with the symptoms. They’re like, “Oh, affordability? Okay, I’ll make one thing more affordable for you. It’d be great.” And they’re like, “No, there’s a structure underneath affordability. There’s a reason why everything accelerates in the wrong direction always.

And if you don’t deal with the foundational infrastructure, you’re not going to deal with the outcome.” One of the frustrations I think I have with some folks in our movement sometimes is that we want people to agree on the critique and we always break apart on the critique. It’s not about the critique, it’s about the outcome.

And I think the more you could focus on how you want the world to be like and get people to agree to that, even if they come at it with different perspectives, I think the better off we are. And I think that’s probably what I’ve learned over time.

Speaker 4:

There’s a big battle brewing. A battle brewing against not only the corrupt fascist forces of the Republican Party, but also against do – nothing Democrats that would rather sit there and collect paycheck after paycheck and fundraise from corporate donors that put your interests second to the interests of those very same corporations.

Maximillian Alvarez:

The 2024 election was less of a referendum on how much people love Donald Trump than it was a referendum on how much people hate the Democrats.

Speaker 2:

Agree.

Maximillian Alvarez:

People’s faith in the Democratic Party is in the basement right now, especially on top of a year of doing what feels like virtually nothing to stop Trump, caving on the longest government shutdown in our history while people are watching their SNAP benefits, their healthcare disappear before their eyes. So the question there is like, is why run as a Democrat? And how are you going to address that lack of faith and prove that this isn’t just the right message that you’re going to meet people’s needs?

Dr. Abdul El-Sayed:

Yeah. I know what I’m about. And Democratic Party hasn’t always met my needs. I think a lot of people out there feel like they’re Democrats by hostage situation. You look at the other guys and you’re like, “That’s crazy.” And then you look at the Democrats and you’re like, “I don’t know what’s worse.” Being cruel and crazy or being feckless in the face of being cruel and crazy. Now the party is so far away from its voters. The majority of Democrats out there, when I talk to them out at Democratic clubs or indivisible or you name the organization that I’m out, they are so far away from the party elders who hold all the power. And I think we have an opportunity as a party to molt. Out with the old, in with what the people underneath the party really want. And I’ve said this for a very long time.

The problem with Democrats is too often they’re taking money from the very same people who created the problem. So now you’re in this weird position of trying to articulate a solution to the problem that includes the people who created the problem. That makes sense. I don’t take over money. I never have. I never will. And I understood from the day I started in politics that that wasn’t the big issue. And so when folks look at me, they say like, “At least I know what he believes because he’s not bought. And I think the party could do the same thing. Say what you will about Donald Trump. He’s got a coherent narrative. You out of a job. Immigrant took your job. Out of a home. Immigrant took your home. Out of healthcare. Immigrant took your healthcare. That’s his narrative. Simple, easy to understand, dead wrong. We could have a narrative too.

Out of a job, corporation offshore automated your job. Out of healthcare, corporation squeezed you out of healthcare. Out of a home, corporation speculated that you can’t afford a home. But when you’re taking money from corporations, guess what you’re not going to

Speaker 2:

Say?

Dr. Abdul El-Sayed:

So you come with your little list of 10 point policy plans that’s going to deliver something for maybe somebody 10 years from now. It’s bullshit. So I think the party could be better and I’m ready to make it better. So I’m a Democrat with lowercase D, and I hope someday we can win the fight for what the Democratic Party can be. And I’m not willing to let go of all that infrastructure because a few folks who can’t let go of power say that it’s theirs.

Speaker 7:

So what the hell is going on? Why are we living in a society where workers are producing more and more and virtually all of that income and wealth is going to the top 1%?

Dr. Abdul El-Sayed:

It’s the system that allows the richest, most powerful people, corporations, billionaires to buy and sell politicians in ways that leave them rigging the system against us. Corporations get bigger, more powerful. Our lives get harder.

Speaker 2:

I feel like I don’t ever see hardly any campaigning politicians come to Saginaw and it’s so underrepresented given how much we’ve been through. I mean, we’re very similar to Flint in a lot of ways and how we had a booming industry and then laws were passed that just discriminated against every single person one way or another that pushed us out of different areas for companies and contractors to come in and exploit us. And I think he touched on that in a way I haven’t seen a lot of politicians really focus on, at least for again, Saginaw.

Speaker 1:

I absolutely think Abdul is right on track of having the billionaires stop having power in politics and allowing us to have a voice and making sure that everybody is treated fairly. I do a lot of the organizing of the Latino community here in Saginaw, Michigan. So I’m trying to get them a voice because for too long there are too many Republicans and Democrats that have been voting to cause harm to the Latino population.

Speaker 5:

I think an unapologetic progressive populism that’s centered on delivering for working class people is how we win in the future. And that’s exactly what Abdul’s message is.

Dr. Abdul El-Sayed:

I mean, democracy was broken the day corporations started to buy elections. That didn’t just happen. We’re at death’s door now, but we’ve been here. We’ve been sick. And so why don’t you talk about it in ways that are actually fully complete? Hey, every time a corporation comes in and buys off a politician, that kills your democracy a little bit. But most of these folks who want us to talk about democracy now didn’t feel it when that happened. And I think we got to talk about it completely. I

Maximillian Alvarez:

Want to talk about what that means for where we are sitting right now in Saginaw, Michigan. And I have a special attachment to this place. My wife grew up here. I have a lot of in – laws who live around here. My wife’s family had generations of men work in the old GM plant up the road. It is a cold, hard, but beautiful place with a lot of families with a lot of deep roots. A lot of igrant families going from back to Poland, Germany, Mexican and other Latino immigrants, a lot of black folks who came up during the Great Depression. People don’t give towns like Saginaw credit for how complex and beautiful they actually are. But in many ways, this is the archetypal rust belt

Speaker 2:

Town.

Maximillian Alvarez:

I mean there is a lot of pride. There’s a lot of joy. There’s a lot of family here. There’s also a lot of boarded up windows. There’s a lot of blight. There’s a lot of pain. There’s a lot of poverty and economic devastation. So why is it important for you to come to a place like Saginaw? And again, moving past the sort of democratic messaging, I guess my question is not how do you hope to reach people who live in places like Saginaw, but what can you and other politicians do for places like Saginaw?

Dr. Abdul El-Sayed:

Yeah. The simple question, how do you reach? You come. We’re here. You know what I mean? This is not my first time in Saginaw. It’s not going to be my last time in Saginaw. For me, I’ve trained as a doctor and that training’s been really useful for me because both doctors and politicians have to be really good at being able to sit with other people’s pain and to speak truth to pain. It’s truth to power, but also truth to pain. And then I think the way you reach folks is to be vulnerable with them. I can’t solve all the problems, but I can’t tell you why the problems exist. And I can tell you I’m going to try like hell to take it on. And then I think you need to go back to that point that I was making to be a really good listener to people’s pain and to try to forge that pain into purpose.

I can’t solve it. Anybody walks in here is like, “I’m going to fix your problems.” No, you’re not. We can solve it. And if I can be a vessel that helps to create something that can organize us and can impose what it is that we’ve been asking for, for a very long time into power, then I think we can solve it. We can’t solve it tomorrow, but we can solve it in due time. And I’ll tell you that the analogy here to medicine is clear. Somebody gets a cancer diagnosis. You want to tell them you’re going to be fine. It’s bullshit. And if I tell you you’re going to be fine, it’s a lie. But what I can tell you is I’m really sorry that this happened to you. And I can tell you what we know and I can tell you what we can do.

And I can tell you I’m going to sit here and listen for as long as you need me to listen to you and that I’m going to be your advocate for helping get the best outcome you want. In this case, it’s not terminal. Places like Saginaw can heal, but not doing the same shit that we’ve been doing. And so in some respects there is an honesty that you have to tell people. It’s not just always going to be okay or I’m going to solve all your problems. I’m not. I’m going to do my best to help you, to be honest with you about what the problem is, to sit down and think about what our approach moving forward can be and to fight like hell for you against people who’ve created this problem. And if we can do that and you can trust me to do that, we can build things over time, but it starts there.

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

Mansa Musa:

Welcome to this edition of Rattling the Bars. I’m your host, Mansa Musa. Prior to being released from prison, I served 48 years and days and months. When I first went in prison, we ain’t had no telephone system. So everything was letters. Then they put a telephone system in. And when they put the telephone system in, this created a whole new attitude in the prison population. People was able to get on the phones to talk to their families. They had organized a phone system where you can get designated time so you ain’t have to worry about staying in line. It was like something unusual. And when they first started talking about it, most of us were skeptic. Oh, they ain’t going to put no telephone. But now this is a major feature in every prison in the United States of America and county jails and detention centers as well.

Joining me today to talk about the groundbreaking new report on this crisis is Peter Mayer. Peter is the co-author of Critical Connections: The Power of Free Phone Calls in Prisons and Jails and a Director of Research and Data Innovation at Worth Rises, the organization working to dismantle prison Prophet 10 as root. Welcome, Peter.

Peter Mayer:

Thanks. Thanks for having me.

Mansa Musa:

Tell our audience a little bit about yourself.

Peter Mayer:

So I am the director of research and data innovation at Worth Rises. As you said, we are an organization that works to dismantle the prison industry and most famously in the sector of telecommunications. I come to this work through being an impacted person myself, spent some time in different county jails. I’m a person in recovery and so this stuff means a lot to me. And yeah, we have just recently released this report that you mentioned. The point of it is that it shows the impact of what free phone calls have done in several states and several dozen counties, which is sort of a new policy, a wave that’s sort of happening across the country as we are trying to make phone calls free for people in prisons and jails.

Mansa Musa:

Okay. So let’s start with the FCC vote on October 25th, the rollback rates. Instead of 86% cap, provides can charge 11 cent in prison and 18 cent in jail. What does this rollback mean for families right now?

Peter Mayer:

Yeah, so to give the background just a little bit, in 2024, the FCC set caps on how much the telecommunications corporations can charge incarcerated people and their families per minute for phone calls. And those caps were meant to be six cents in prisons, like you mentioned, and 12 cents in very small jails. Now those caps were never completely implemented and enforced as there was change in administration and the caps themselves were delayed. And then more recently in October 2025, as you mentioned, the caps were increased to 11 cents per minute in prisons and 19 cents per minute in what they call extremely small jails.

Mansa Musa:

Now

Peter Mayer:

Those caps just finally went into effect in April of this year and now are actually have the force of law. But the difference being, I mean it means that families are exposed to these inflated costs for just connecting with their loved one. I mean, what we’re talking about is real basic human connection, being able to get on the phone.

I know you know well, being able to get on the phone and talk to that family member is a basic human need. And the thing is when we talk about these things and we talk about the difference between six cents and 11 cents, that may not sound like that much to some people, but when you consider the fact that these are calls that are being made every week, every month, every year it stacks and it stacks and it stacks and stacks. And we think about us on the outside who we talk to when we talk to our friends, our family members, our siblings, things like that. I mean, I might be on the phone for an hour and a half with

Mansa Musa:

My

Peter Mayer:

Sibling or something, my brother or something like that. That stacks up really quickly. And so what the rollback, the increase of those caps means is that families continue to pay for these inflated costs that are really just trying to offhand the cost of surveillance to families.

Mansa Musa:

Okay. And in your report, you look at the history of the industry. How did we get from standard phone rates under the old AT&T monopoly to the high rate that we see now?

Peter Mayer:

Yeah. So it used to be that prison and jail phone calls were run by the same corporations that we are. AT&T had a monopoly on everything. And then in the ’80s when the AT&T monopoly was broken up,

All these smaller surveillance firms started to enter the market and they were having a hard time getting contracts with prisons and jails to surveil all calls because they were like, “We don’t really want to pay for all that for those monitoring tools.” So what they did is they created a new model where they would share a percentage of the revenue with a prison or jail. So what they would do is they’d go to that agency and they’d say, “Okay, we’re going to charge, let’s say 15 cents a minute and you’re going to get seven cents of that and we’re going to take the other eight cents.” And because of that model, prisons and jails who were at the time, populations were starting to explode as we

Mansa Musa:

All

Peter Mayer:

Know, and were having a really hard time sustaining financially. They were like, “Oh great, here’s a new revenue stream.” And so by doing that split model, which we call commissions or kickbacks, those companies were able to start cornering the market like crazy. And they created this incentive not to make the price as low as possible, but to actually for the agencies to pick whichever company was going to give them the largest amount, right?

Mansa Musa:

The large share

Peter Mayer:

In the kickback.

Mansa Musa:

Just three private corporations have control over the phone system in the United States. There’s Aventa, BuyerPath and ICS controls 90% of this market. So what’s the resistance y’all getting back from them? Because you’re telling me that you want to come in and break my monopoly, financial monopoly up by saying, “Well, I know you getting $2 a minute. I’m trying to really get it down to one penny a minute or just free altogether.” What’s their response? Or what’s been their response? Or have y’all been able to gauge it?

Peter Mayer:

Yeah. So just to be clear, that history that I just talked about, what happened is that private equity started consolidating these businesses buying up. And so now we have, like you said, we have Aventive, which is also known as Securus, most people known as Securus, BioPath, also known as GTL and IC Solutions, and they control nearly 90% of the market. And what we have seen is that they push back through things like pushing back on the FCC instituting rate caps, lobbying against our policies for free communication. Another thing that they’re seeing as their revenue stream is really being squeezed in the

Mansa Musa:

Phone

Peter Mayer:

Market because of these new caps and these states and counties going to free communication, what we’re seeing is that they’re moving into other revenue streams and also trying to rebrand their image a little bit. And so they’re moving into content on tablets, like

Mansa Musa:

Educational

Peter Mayer:

Training content, that kind of thing. And in doing that, because their image has become so toxic, they’re also trying to rebrand as a helpful corporation for people who are incarcerated when we

Mansa Musa:

Really

Peter Mayer:

Make that the whole name of the industry is exploitation. It’s the name of the game. It has been for a long time. So we try to not let them get away with that sort of rebranding into something else. One other just small point I’d make is that yes, we have the FCC rate caps that are the ceiling of how high they can charge, and that is a good enforcement mechanism.

Mansa Musa:

What we

Peter Mayer:

Really are trying to do is to get states and counties to move to completely free models for incarcerated people, meaning that that becomes a part of the agency’s budget. And when they do that, they renegotiate new rates. So when maybe

Mansa Musa:

Before

Peter Mayer:

Families were paying, let’s say six cents a minute, something like that, when that corrections department decides to go to a free, they renegotiate with the corporation. They get it down to one and a half, maybe two cents a minute.

Mansa Musa:

And it

Peter Mayer:

Shows that what that original cost was completely inflated. Because

Mansa Musa:

Now they’re

Peter Mayer:

Saying, “We can. Sure, we can do it for two cents.”

Mansa Musa:

And to your point, when the calls are free, it create a whole different mindset in the environment. But more importantly, y’all are able to show that whoever paying the bill, if the state paying the bill, they’re going to get the best deal possible. But when we paying the bill and they getting the kickback from us paying the bill, then they don’t care if it’s like $5. I told you in one place I was in Cumberland, Maryland, it was $5 a minute. And when I call, best thing I can say, this is where I’m at, I write y’all. But talk about, because in your report, you talk about the impact these exorbitant phone call prices have on families. Talk about that and talk about how much money they going in debt and how much are these families actually spending per phone call without any regulation.

Peter Mayer:

Yeah, sure. So I mean, it ranges quite a bit depending on the rates that are charged like we talked about. I mean, depending on where you’re at, it can be a huge difference. A couple points we talk about that were done by other researchers in the report is that we know that one in three families with an incarcerated loved one goes into debt trying to stay connected. That’s from a previous report by the Ella Baker Center. And also on a report done by Forward US that I was also a co-author on that families pay nearly $4,200 a year costs to visit, support with commissary, all the different

Mansa Musa:

Associated

Peter Mayer:

Lost income, those kinds of things. Now, when it comes to just phone calls on the states that went and counties that went free that we did an analysis of for this report, what we found is that families were saving between $172 to $1,800 a year after the calls went free. So that’s the amount that they would’ve been spending before. Now on top of that, these families are also getting another $244 to almost $3,000 in extra call time. So the way to think about that is not only are they no longer spending that hundreds of dollars on what they did just to stay connected a little bit before, but they’re also now getting to talk that much more and

Mansa Musa:

Getting

Peter Mayer:

Accrued value and extra money too. And so what that all looked like in the total in the aggregate is we see $622 million saved to date by families thanks to these jurisdictions going free. And most of that is flowing to lack and brown communities who have disproportionately borne this

Mansa Musa:

Cause. And I know for a fact that when we find family members had to pay, I remember guys have to wait the first of the month for their family to get checks. They want them to call all the family member wants you to call all the time. Family members have more than one child in prison. So I’m in one prison. Somebody in the county jail, somebody in another prison, all of us making calls at home to get to a point. I know one family member got to a point where mama just said, look, I can’t accept the calls no more. So if you can’t write a letter, and it created a whole different attitude in the environment, black market, a lot of drama, a lot of violence. Talk about you shared some personal stories like the woman Lorraine who said her husband can finally hear just information or sensory.

But talk about that because I know from experience and I know I interviewed somebody whose father got his children on the phone every day and did their homework with them. And 20 years, 30 years later, the child that I interviewed, a son that didn’t graduate from college with honors, but it was his father’s ability to talk to him on the phone or have that communication with him to have him do something. Talk about some of them things that y’all was able to get information about and the impact that it has on people in general.

Peter Mayer:

Yeah, absolutely. So as part of this report, a big part of it was we carried out qualitative interviews and a number of those interviews were with incarcerated people and their families. And then we did some with staff as well. And we heard so many powerful stories. I mean, just the value of these free calls is immeasurable in the amount of moments that people will then get to share with each other. Because the difference was that you’re talking about when a call is really expensive, all people can afford a lot of times is a quick check-in.

Mansa Musa:

I’m doing

Peter Mayer:

Okay, or

Mansa Musa:

I’m

Peter Mayer:

Not doing okay, what’s going on? That kind of thing. In some relationships they completely wither because it’s like, I can’t afford to talk to that person. After calls go free, now we’re seeing people have regular engagement and presence in their family lives. And because of that, they are feeling better. They’re having more of a reason to go on and to

Work on their rehabilitation to think about what’s going to be happening after this. I mean, like you were talking about, we hear from parents who said that after calls went free, they would call their kid every morning before school and talk to them every night after. They’d help them with their homework. They get to hear about that sports game, what the updates were right after. We heard from people who said, one of our favorite quotes in this is an incarcerated man who said, “The difference is that you can hear the smile on a call.” I

Mansa Musa:

Think

Peter Mayer:

We all kind of know what that means. When you’re on the phone with somebody and you can kind of tell that they’re smiling. And so that’s the difference is that people are having real everyday presence and it makes such a big difference both for the communities on the outside and for the incarcerated person on the inside. And that’s not just one, it is an incredibly valuable story I think in terms of just human connection and everything else. It’s also a really important policy point because these are all things that will strengthen public safety. These are all

Mansa Musa:

Things that will

Peter Mayer:

Strengthen communities. These are all things that will make what we purport the system to be able to supposedly be doing. This will actually do that. And that’s why these personal stories in the aggregate really show us that free calls is a policy that works.

Mansa Musa:

Yeah, and it makes sense. The whole concept of crime and punishment is I commit a crime. The sentence that I get is the punishment. The sentence that I get don’t say that I’m sentencing you to 20 years in solitary confinement. I’m sentencing you to scrub the floor with a toothbrush. They say, “I’m sentencing you to this time.” That’s your punishment to sentence. Nowhere in any criminal code do it say, “I’m sentencing you to pay astronomical prices to communicate with your family. I’m sentencing you to pay astronomical commissary prices to eat. I’m sentencing you to pay for your own clothing or your own room and board.” That’s just not deposit. That’s just something that it’s the profit. In prison, when they say crime don’t pay, crime does pay. It pay corporations. It pay corporations in form of like what we’re talking about now with phone. I remember when they had a commission of corrections in Maryland and everything that came across his desk, he had to prove it.

So one of the things he seen while he was in office was that everybody wanted clothing packages. So tennis shoes and stuff like that. When he left that agency, he went and got contracted with a clothing agency and was selling clothes to the prisons because he recognized the profit margin. But talk about finally your report outline four major policy recommendations. How do we successfully reform government contracts to build a phone system that focuses on human connection rather than corporate profit?

Peter Mayer:

Yeah, I mean so our policy recommendations are for all states and counties to transition to this free system. And in that we talk about a few different things. We talk about the actual policy that you design. In most states that’s been legislation that says phone calls are going to be free now. In a few places, New York is an exception. New York State where they passed it as a budget measure where they just add it into the budget, this is how much the DOC is going to have this in their budget to pay for this. And so there’s the legislation piece and then there is the procurement and the implementation piece. So on the procurement side, we also have how the corrections agency actually contracts out this work. And then

Mansa Musa:

We have

Peter Mayer:

The implementation of how this actually all goes through. And what we really are trying to emphasize in here without getting too much into the technical weeds is that this is not only very doable, it’s actually advantageous for states and corrections departments because it’s a good public safety investment and it will pay off in the end. And how they need to be able to do this is to one, design policies that will guarantee access. So that means tablets. We need tablet access for people inside so that everybody can actually get ahold on the phones and you no longer have any security issues around scarcity because phones can become a flashpoint when there’s only a few phones and everybody wants that time. So tablets make that not so much of an issue. And we saw corrections department officials that we interviewed, they love that because people are in their cells

Mansa Musa:

On wallets.

Peter Mayer:

They’re engaged. They’re engaged and they’re not congregating in the common areas with idle time where there’s more time for things to go wrong. People aren’t fighting over the wall phones, they’re on their tablets. So that’s one big piece. Another piece that we talk about is that the pricing is transparent and that agencies renegotiate their costs with

Mansa Musa:

Their

Peter Mayer:

Corporations. So like I touched on briefly before, when a state decides to go free, then that Department of Corrections needs to go back to the company that they’re going to contract with and say, we want a lower price because we know you can give us a lower price. And when we saw California as a price around 1.5 cents a minute, that’s one of the best prices we’ve seen in the

Country. So we want these agencies to go and say, if you can do this for California, we see some lower… Sorry, to be clear, we see some lower costs for other states that haven’t gone free yet, but that was the lowest implementation cost for free calls was California’s. So we want states and counties to say, we see that this can be this cheap. We need to get these lower costs. Other things we want is we want to make sure that things like video calls are not going to be used to replace visitation because that can happen sometimes. We don’t call it video visits because they’re not visits. Visit when somebody actually comes in, it’s a video call. So don’t try to replace it.

Other pieces have to do with we would like to see agencies start to unbundle these things. So part of the power of the monopoly is that when an agency gets a contract, they put all of it together in one thing for that company. So that means where they’re getting the tablets, the surveillance and security infrastructure in addition to the actual telecommunication infrastructure. We would like to see them start debundling this and having a competitive bidding process for the tablets themselves, a competitive bidding process for just the telecommunication service, and then pay for whatever security they want on top of and separate from that so that it doesn’t all get lumped together into

Mansa Musa:

One. Right. Which is being used to not allow the service. But what do you see on the landscape when you look at it down the road? Do you think we’ll ever get to a place in this country where taking all things into account how profitable this stuff is, that we’ll get to a place where the phone services will be free for people that’s incarcerated? Or will we always be negotiating penny here, penny there, which is not bad versus no money?

Peter Mayer:

I mean, if I didn’t believe we would get to a place where it could be free for everybody, I’m not sure we’d all be doing this work. I mean, that’s the thing about Worth Rises is that we really imagine when this organization was started by our executive director back in 2018, this was like an impossible dream. Now we have multiple full state corrections agencies doing free calls and a number of counties, and it’s moving in other places too. I absolutely think we’re going to get to a place. I think we’re going to get to a place someday where we look back on this and say, how could it ever have been that way?

I think we’re already moving pretty quickly towards it. We just need to continue the momentum on the policy front of corrections agencies and counties making this free and then also start to reform the actual industry so that it’s not these monopolistic corporations taking advantage, but we make it more like it is for any other state agency. If they were setting up their phone calls or setting up tablet acquisition or things like that, they wouldn’t do it all through one company. They’d be doing each little piece in different procurement pieces. Like you or I, we pay per line for our phone. We don’t pay per minute. You know what I mean? This should reflect more accurately the actual industry instead of being the way that it is. This model is outdated. It was built to exploit and it is going to go away eventually. I

A transcript will be provided when ready

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

Taya Graham:

Hello, my name is Taya Graham and welcome to the Police Accountability Report. As I always make clear, this show has a single purpose holding the politically powerful institutional policing accountable. And to do so, we don’t just focus on the bad behavior of individual cops. Instead, we examine the system that makes bad policing possible. And today we will achieve that goal by talking to one of the most popular cop watchers and independent journalists on YouTube about his recent arrest, which we are showing you right now. It occurred at the police headquarters of a powerful law enforcement union. It’s an encounter that left him injured, but also drew the attention of the mainstream media. It’s a controversy that has thrust his tactics and unique approach into police accountability into the national spotlight and raised questions on how he approaches pushing back against law enforcement and power in general.

But before I get started, 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 tips privately at par@therealnews.com and share your evidence of police misconduct. You can also message us at Police AccountabilityReport on Facebook or Instagram or at Eyesonpolice on Twitter. And of course, you can always message me directly at TAS Baltimore on Twitter or Facebook. And please like and comment. You know I read your comments and appreciate them. I give out all those little hearts down there and liking and sharing and hyping can also help our guests and get their stories seen. So please take a moment if you can. All right, we’ve gotten that out of the way. Now, as we have reported consistently on this show, police power is far reaching and in some cases insidious, but often its implications aren’t fully understood.

Meaning the way police power infiltrates our system of government can often be hidden and not fully obvious. Well, the man we are going to speak to today is trying to expose the excesses of law enforcement by confronting its power head on. And it’s that work and the consequences for him that we will be unpacking for you today. His name is Long Island Audits and his videos of police encounters have literally been seen by tens of millions of people. But most importantly, he’s not just a random cameraman filming a car stop. He has continually confronted police over a topic that rarely gets the attention it deserves, law enforcement spending. And that’s where our story begins today because recently Sean Paul ventured into a pinnacle of police power, namely the headquarters of a police union. Now this bastion of law enforcement was located in Suffolk County, a jurisdiction that spends hundreds of millions of dollars per year on cops.

And Sean had some questions about that as you’ll see that the police simply didn’t want to answer. Now to help me unpack and share his perspective on what happened, I’m joined by the man himself, Sean Paul Reyes, also known as Long Island Audit. Sean, we are so glad to have you. So let’s get right into it. Now first, to set the scene, you arrive in the parking lot with your billboard truck. What prompted you to take your truck and show up at basically the summit of Police Power in Suffolk County? Let’s watch a little bit of the video and then we can discuss. All

Sean Paul Reyes:

Right. So the reason why I went there is because there’ve been multiple reports in my local newspaper Newsday about police misconduct lawsuits, settlements and there was recently a story that was just published regarding law enforcement officers in Suffolk County who agreed to general misconduct who have been found and plead to misconduct, who get to stay on the job for an X amount of time in order for them to collect their full funded taxpayer pension. And I thought this was very concerning these backroom deals happening between the police union and the Suffolk County government. In one instance, there was an officer who had used the surveillance tools improperly and he was given 14 years. In 2031, he will separate from the Suffolk County Police Department with his full taxpayer funded pension. And I believe that if you engage in misconduct, you should be immediately separated, not given some sort of deal where you can collect a full funded taxpayer pension.

Taya Graham:

Okay. So you go to the front door and there’s something interesting you discover. Let’s watch. And as we do, can you talk about what you’re seeing?

Sean Paul Reyes:

This is an interesting sign here. It’s a thin blue line gang flag of course with the text, “No body-worn cameras in building. Please leave your body-worn camera in the lockers at the security desk.” Yeah, so it probably is the body camera signage that’s posted on the front door. I thought it was very interesting that they have to remind officers to turn off their body cameras inside the police union headquarters. I would assume so that way their dealings inside remain private. The police union is a private entity that receives taxpayer dollars. So the lack of transparency there is already, they’re already not subject to any open records requests or anything like that. So I assume that they’re just trying to keep their dealings private. That’s why they have to remind their officers to turn off their body cameras, which again, I’m for transparency, not secrecy.

Taya Graham:

So you mentioned in the video you wanted to speak to Louis Cevello, the president of the Police Benevolent Association, the union. So you go to the lobby and ask to speak to him just like any journalist would. Let’s watch what happened and talk about it after.

Sean Paul Reyes:

So we’re trying to get ahold of somebody here. It doesn’t seem like anybody’s coming to the door. We just wanted to speak again to the president of the PBA, Lou Cevello. Two people working in the front desk at the PBA here or the PMA. Again, there’s nothing benevolent about the police union.

Taya Graham:

Just to just let me in. I have a

Speaker 3:

Lot to do with it. I know. Seems weird. Hello. Lou Savello, how are you? Sure, no problem. How are you? Have you seen me leaving? I immediately began to leave. Lou Savello, would you like to come –

Taya Graham:

Okay, so he appears and is immediately hostile and threatening arrest. He doesn’t really give you a chance to ask a question. So why is he so hostile about something reporters do all the time?

Speaker 3:

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?

Sean Paul Reyes:

Yeah. So I really can’t speak to why he was immediately hostile with me, but I can speculate. And as far as you’re right, that’s what reporters do. They ask for comment, they show up to places. And I even had my reporter Mike with me to try and look a little bit more mainstream and legitimate, I guess. But I went there. His hostility probably stems from the… I’ve never had any previous interaction with the police union president, Lucivillo, but I have covered misconduct and lawsuit settlements by the Suffolk County Police Department and the Suffolk County government. I’ve covered Internal Affairs coverups. So I’ve been very critical of the Suffolk County Police Department.

Taya Graham:

Okay. So you exit the building and yet the threat of arrest continues. Let’s watch and I’ll ask you a question on the other side. I’ve

Speaker 3:

Seen your podcast. What do you think I’m doing? What do you think I’m doing? I’m leaving. So would you like to talk about the hundreds of millions of dollars withNo, I’m not? Would you like to talk about the hundreds of millions of dollars that the Suffolk County law enforcement agencies have?

Taya Graham:

Okay. So first you said you’re leaving. So why does he keep confronting you? It’s not like you weren’t obeying his order, but you were also asking questions that he ignored. What were those and why did you think they deserved answers? Well,

Sean Paul Reyes:

I think the Suffolk County residents here deserve the right to know how their tax dollars are being spent, and especially to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars at this point in misconduct settlements. They have the right to know about these backroom deals regarding the pension. And that’s what I was asking him. Did he have any comment on the hundreds of millions of dollars in misconduct that is flown out of our tax dollars to victims of police misconducts and constitutional violations? I also in that time asked him to come on my show to talk about it, invited him there. But you’re right, immediately after he said this is private property, because I knew full and well that it was private property. Again, they received tax dollars. It’s a gray area, but it is private property and I knew that going in. I did my research, but it’s publicly accessible private property that I have every right to knock on a door and ask questions.

And when I was told to leave, he said, “This is private property, you need to leave.” My exact words were, “Sure, no problem.” And then I began to back away towards the door.

Speaker 3:

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.”

Sean Paul Reyes:

And I continuously backed away continuously saying that I’m leaving. He continuously said, “You need to leave or you’re going to be arrested as I’m leaving.” So why it escalated that quickly and without any cause because I was leaving, I don’t know. I think it could only be his ego because at the end, I guess we’ll get to it, but at the end, before he puts the handcuffs on me, I told him, “You think you’re such a tough guy,” because he was bullying me. I think anybody who watches the video can see he was bullying me. He was trying to exert his authority. Pulled out his badge, identified himself as a Suffolk County police officer, which by the way, he’s not fighting crime or anything. He is a full-time police union president. He’s just a law enforcement officer per their contract. I believe there’s five different law enforcement officers that work.

Their detail is specifically the Suffolk County PBA headquarters. So it’s not like he’s investigating crime or doing or protecting the citizens. He’s just collecting a six-figure taxpayer paycheck to cover up misconduct. In my opinion, that’s what they seem to always do. So I mean, that’s why he became very aggressive. He wasn’t used to it and he wasn’t used to somebody asking him questions.

Taya Graham:

Okay. Now at this point, it seems clear he’s not going to answer your questions, but then he escalates and starts talking about arrests. Let’s watch and discuss.

Speaker 3:

I’m leaving. Get off the property. I’m 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 such a tough guy. Do it then. Do it. Do it. I’ leaving. Okay. I’m leaving. I’m leaving. No resisting. I’m not resisting. I’m not resisting.

Taya Graham:

Okay. It seems to me like you were retreating and yet he handcuffs you. What does the law say and what are your thoughts about the arrest itself? I mean, it seems to a certain extent he takes the bait. Let’s watch and discuss.

Speaker 3:

To do, I am leaving. You need to leave. I am leaving. You such a tough guy. You’re not going to do it then. Do it. Well,

Sean Paul Reyes:

It’s a completely retaliatory arrest. It lacks probable cause, a violation of my Fourth Amendment right. It’s pretty clear. The actual charge I’m being prosecuted on is criminal trespass in the third degree. And on the desk appearance ticket that I received seven hours later, it specifically says enclosed or fenced in and designed in a manner to exclude intruders. That’s the way the criminal trespass in the third degree statute is written here in New York State. That property is neither enclosed designed in a manner to exclude intruders or enclosed and fenced in any way. So the statute itself is just baseless and it won’t apply.

I guess shouldn’t have charged me with anything, but if there was any charge, it would be the charge of a simple trespass, which again, it doesn’t meet the statutory requirements because I have to remain and leaving while albeit slowly, and I will admit that I was leaving slowly, but I was continuously leaving slowly and backing up for a purpose. The purpose is that I knew I was dealing with bullies and thugs with badges and that wanted to do me harm. So the best way to keep myself safe is to make sure that they could see my hands at all times. If I turn around and leave, they can’t see what I’m doing with my hands in front of my waistband. Obviously I would never hurt a law enforcement officer or anyone, but they want to hurt me it seems.

Taya Graham:

You make a really good point about moving slowly and not turning around. If it was Baltimore City, if you turned around, a classic thing police would say is it’s a furtive movement, which has led to violence against suspects or arrestees.

Sean Paul Reyes:

Catch 22, right? Because either you’re moving too slowly, which appears to be the case I wasn’t moving at the speed that he liked or I moved too quickly and he had to take my life because he didn’t know what I was doing. So you can’t win either way, but I’m hopeful that I’ll win this in court.

Taya Graham:

As we’re watching this, I have to ask a bit more of a personal question. But what is the effect of being arrested? I mean, I’m not trying to trivialize it, but are you used to it? I mean, does it impact you beyond what we see on YouTube? Has it, I guess, taken a personal toll on you?

Sean Paul Reyes:

My family does not like to hear that I’ve been unlawfully arrested. I definitely don’t like it. I was chained to a desk for nearly seven hours. My back was killing me. And when he put on the handcuffs, he put them on… I’ve been unfortunately arrested a lot of times since I’ve started auditing. I think this is my 13th time. Zero criminal convictions in that time. But he put the handcuffs on so tight that I’ve never felt it that way before. And it was that way until uniformed officers came in about 10 to 15 minutes later and actually loosened them. I was in excruciating pain. I felt tingling in my right hand and I went to go get checked out two days later and it turns out that one of my nerves has been damaged. I have a pinched nerve and the back of my thumb, I can’t feel it.

I have pain when it changes temperature, just a bunch of pain associated with change in temperature, taking a shower, going in the pool, things of that nature. It’s just been very annoying and it reminds me every time I feel it of what a tyrant Lucivillo is and what he did to me. But yeah, it definitely affects me. No one wants to lose their freedom. I tell people who want to follow my footsteps and audit and film the law enforcement, I tell them their number one job is to not be arrested. And I thought I was doing that job. I thought I was complying. I know I was. I saw the video and I was there. So I was complying with his directives. I did everything I was supposed to do from a legal standpoint, but yet you still get arrested. And it’s because the process is the punishment.

They towed my 14-foot LED billboard truck. I had to pay a thousand dollars to get that out of tow out of impound. And I have to hire a lawyer to go back and forth. He hurt my wrist, pinched a nerve there. So the process, seven hours being hunched over, tied to a table, chained to a table where I can’t move. And it was definitely a horrible experience. It is unfortunately part of the job that I do. I’m not naive. I know that when I go out and record law enforcement and ask questions about their corruption and misconduct and these settlements, especially at a police union, there’s always a chance for retaliation. First amendment retaliation is a count you can sue for, for a reason. It happens not just to me. It happens to people all the time who record the police and are critical of the police.

I am blessed enough to have a big platform to share it with the world. But again, I’m not used to it. I don’t think I’ll ever be used to it. It definitely affects me. It affects my family the most. And it’s unfortunate, but it is part of the job and I have to accept that it is unfortunately part of the job. Hopefully one day it won’t be.

Taya Graham:

So was it just retaliatory? I mean, what does the law require you to do and do you think you were complying with the law? Yeah,

Sean Paul Reyes:

So the law requires you to immediately leave the property, but you have to have time to leave the property. You can’t teleport off of the property as much as he probably wanted me to teleport in that.

Taya Graham:

That’s very true. I didn’t think teleportation was an option.

Sean Paul Reyes:

This was escalatory by Lucivillo and the rest of the PBA from the moment they came down. They did not need to come down. There was a receptionist there who could have told me over the intercom, “You’re not welcome here. You need to leave.” And I would’ve left without backing up because I wouldn’t have to worry about armed me on my back. So I would’ve just left probably a lot quicker. But Lucavillo had the President of Police Union wanted to come down personally because of his ego. I do trainings with law enforcement all the time, and one of the big things I talk about is ego. His ego, he knew who I was. He wanted to come down and he wanted to tell me personally and he wanted to do harm to me. That’s clear from the video. So the legal standard is you have to leave from a place that you weren’t licensed or privileged to be at.

So everybody has a license or privilege to walk on any property that’s not restricted and ask questions. And just like solar panels, girl scouts, you have a right to just go up and ask questions or just knock on the door, a knock and talk. Law enforcement does it to us all the time.

Taya Graham:

Now, since this encounter, the right-wing Rupert Murdoch owned New York Post wrote a story claiming that your video has led to death threats against the union president. However, it didn’t really explore your allegations. First, what is your impression of the fairness of the story? And did they actually ask you for comment? So

Sean Paul Reyes:

Neither story that was printed by the New York Post didn’t reach out for comment to me for either one after, and hopefully on this next article that they say that they’re writing, that they will include my comment on there. But apparently it looks like to me that Lucivillo, the police union president, has contacts with the New York Post. Within hours of my arrest, it was on the New York Post saying that I did a billboard truck stunt and that I threatened the law enforcement officers, that I wouldn’t leave the property when told to leave. And I will say to the New York Post credit, to this particular writer’s credit, that once the video came out, he did call into question. He said the video calls into question some of the statements made by the police union president Lucivillo. But again, he wasn’t able to reach me for comment.

He said that he reached out via Instagram. I wouldn’t check Instagram. I’m better off emailing me. But either way, I’ve been in contact with him since and I’ve sent him the medical report for my pinched nerve. I gave him my version of events, which my version of events, lawyers always tell you not to talk to the press or to anyone and make any public statements, but anything I’m going to say is already in 4K, 60 frames per second online for the world to see. So I’m not really worried about… I’ll talk to the prosecutor right now. I don’t have no problem. It’s not a big deal. It is what it is. They’re the ones that try and distort reality and to fit their narrative and their crime and the statutes or whatever else. But I think the New York Post obviously could do a better job with the reporting to make the highlight of it that he’s receiving death threats without any proof of any death threats.

I didn’t see that included in the article. There wasn’t any proof. Just again, the word of a liar who is a proven a liar at this point since the video came out doesn’t hold any weight, but yet I have to provide medical documentation for my pinched nerve. But I have no problem doing it. I supplied the district attorney, the Internal Affairs and the New York Post with the unedited video. There is nothing I have to hide. The video speaks for itself. And I just hope in their third article, they keep asking me when I’m going to file a lawsuit. I think they want to see that. They want the headline, Long Island audit files lawsuit against the… Maybe I’ll put a number on this one so they can have a headline, but I think that’s what they’re waiting for. But we’ll see how their reporting involves.

And I think that for the Year Post, the second article was a lot better. Again, the title just trying to drag in clicks and views. So with the death threats against the police union president, again, none made by me. I can’t control what other people do. If somebody sees his actions and wants to commit a crime and send him death threats, I advocate for peaceful petitions of grievances to governments, not violence whatsoever. I’ve never even cursed in a video, but I would say I feel bad for him, but I don’t. When you take away my freedom and you put me in a predicament where my family’s worried about me and I’m suffering and all because you don’t like what I have to say and you want to disrespect the oath that you took to uphold our constitution, which I hold sacredly, obviously Lucy Miller doesn’t.

So we’ll see what the New York Post continues with, but at the end of the day, I’m not going to hold my breath for anything really groundbreaking there.

Taya Graham:

So just to directly adress the basic thrust of the story, it seems they’re imitating other critics who say your work is just about clicks and views. How do you respond to those critics who dismiss what you do? Well,

Sean Paul Reyes:

As I stated earlier, they put the headline police union president is receiving death threats for clicks and views. Let’s be real, that’s not the story here. The story is that the police union president unlawfully clearly from the video evidence arrested a journalist for his First Amendment protected rights. That’s what happened here because the ego couldn’t control his ego. So the framing of everything and the way sometimes people frame what I do for clicks and views, clicks and views are important to get your story out there to be seen by as many people as possible, especially for somebody like me who’s independent. I don’t have million dollar backers or anything like that. So I require or I hope for my audience to hit the like button and sharing it so that way it could be seen by as many people as possible because I think tyranny and I think misconduct and corruption needs to be seen by the American people, especially here in Suffolk County when it directly affects you and your tax dollars.

But most of the critics, it’s actually quite ironic that my biggest critics are I support them. I support their rights to be my critics. The police union and the police department do not support our rights to criticize them, but yet I support the rights of the police union and anyone else. They called me a thug in their posts. They called me an agitator, a thug, every name in the book trying to discredit me and paint me in a bad light when I’ve been nothing but polite to everybody I’ve ever come encounter with. I do police trainings. I’m not anti-law enforcement. I work with law enforcement. I’ve done ride-alongs. I’ve covered stories where law enforcement officers did the right thing during my audits. I don’t hide those videos. So it’s very unfortunate that some people want to see bad in what I do. I think what I do is a service for the community and I hope that people will see that you can respect the police and respect law and order as I do and at the same time hold the police to account.

And even with security of lock cameras and everything else. And it’s important. One of my favorite Benjamin Franklin quotes is those who give up their essential liberty to purchase temporary security deserve neither liberty nor security or safety, whatever the quote is, but it’s one of my favorite quotes. I might not always get it right, but the theme is don’t give up your liberties for this security of law enforcement officers. It’s very important. And I hope that people who are critics of me can see the other side and see that this is not about hating law enforcement. There are people who just hate law enforcement and there are people who just hate law enforcement that watch my channel, sure. I

Taya Graham:

Love that quote too. Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety. It’s simply brilliant. Finally, after all of these encounters and the pushback you’ve received for what you have called accountability reporting, what scares you about police power in America? I mean, how formidable is it and can it truly be held accountable given what you have witnessed while covering law

Sean Paul Reyes:

Enforcement? Yeah. Well, I think the only way it could truly be held accountable is with public servants. County executives, mayors, administrative rules holds them accountable. They need to make policies and procedures that hold them accountable. They need to make the union less powerful because they’re very powerful. I don’t think that unions should exist in law enforcement whatsoever. I think unions are great when you’re trying to take on Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk’s of the world and all the rich, powerful elite. I think they’re great for that. I think when you are a public servant like a law enforcement, especially a law enforcement officer, you shouldn’t have a union because it leads to corruption like we see today. PBA endorsed candidates donating to support specific candidates that are going to make law enforcement less transparent, less accountable. So another way is to evoke people in that are going to hold law enforcement accountable.

And honestly on both sides, it really doesn’t matter who you choose. They seem to all want to be buddy-buddy with the police officers because at the end of the day, law enforcement is what separates the politicians from the people. I’ve seen it all over this country. They’re locking down every single county building, every single city hall, you’re making key card access and everything else. And I say to my viewers all the time, the reason why they want to keep you out is because they know that they’re not serving your best interests and they don’t want you anywhere near them. Why would they want you access to them? They’re scared of you. If they’re scared of you, there’s a problem. Why would they be scared of the people that they’re supposed to represent?

Taya Graham:

Long Island Audits, thank you so much for joining us. We are absolutely dedicated to covering your work on police accountability, and we look forward to speaking with you again in the future. And now I want to turn to my reporting partner, Steven Janis, who has his own perspective on the intersection of money and police power and how it alters our system of governance. Stephen, thank you so much for joining me.

Stephen Janis:

Tay, thanks Army. I appreciate it.

Taya Graham:

Now first, Steven, what are your thoughts on what you just watched? Why do you think the police union responded to his questions the way they did?

Stephen Janis:

Well, usually I say in journalism, people will answer questions if they have nothing to hide. However, I think this is a perfect example of overreach by police who are just accustomed to not being questioned too intensely by the media. Generally speaking, media relies upon police for sourcing, for crime stories, for whatever. And police also have a lot of rhetorical power in the sense that you’re either for or against us. And I think in this case, they just didn’t like being put under the microscope.

Taya Graham:

Now, Steven, as a member of the media and a person who’s covered policing for over two decades, what do you think about how the New York Post covered Sean’s encounter with the union?

Stephen Janis:

Well, I think there’s a couple issues going on here. Number one, there’s this intense pressure to cover social media, YouTube as a phenomena that doesn’t really make it easy to apply the same standards we do to regular journalism. But I think they should have gotten Sean’s side of the story and looked at the video too before. It was a very short story. It didn’t have a lot of details and didn’t really give Sean’s perspective. So I have to criticize him for that. But to that end, we did contact the Police Benevolence Association in Suffolk County through their Facebook account, through their email and through a submittal form on their website. So we have reached out to them for comment to ask them what they have to say about what Sean has said. In other words, he was retreating, he was trying to leave. He couldn’t teleport and why they arrested him.

So we have reached out and tried to do our due diligence. Hopefully the Post will do more to correct some of the things in the story.

Taya Graham:

Okay, last question. You’ve worked on plenty of stories involving police pensions and spending. What are some of the critical takeaways from Sean reporting on Suffolk County and police spending in general?

Stephen Janis:

Well, Suffolk County has some of the most generous police spending in terms of salaries and benefits I think I’ve ever seen as a reporter. I mean, it’s always very treacherous when you approach police on the thing that matters to the most in many cases, which is money. I mean, we published all the overtime earnings for police about 20 years ago and we almost got sent to jail. Well, my editor did get arrested. So they get very touchy about it because they really have better benefits than almost all of us. I mean, as we’ll see later on when you’re talking about in the show, they get very generous pensions. They can retire very early and that’s like a lightning rod for them because I don’t think they want people knowing how much better they’re doing than we are. So I think this is a typical standard case of follow the money.

And I think Sean did the right thing in asking these questions and expecting answers.

Taya Graham:

Thank you, Steven. I really think you bring a unique perspective to the topic of police spending. It’s a focus that your past reporting reveals is something we as journalists cannot take our eyes off of, especially if we truly want to hold police accountable. Now, one of the oldest adages in journalism is a fairly simple demand that often requires more than just a cursory glance at the numbers on a website. A requirement that we dig deeper to not just report on how much the government spends, but why. And that adage is a simple one. Follow the money. It’s a process every reporter knows is essential, but often doesn’t have the time to pursue with enough vigor. It’s a key factor at the heart of almost every political scandal in our country and also the ingredients that inform every bad public policy we witness in governance today.

Now the reason I’m talking about following the money is I want to do a little though experiment with you. I want to compare what the taxpayer of Suffolk County commit to funding the police department and by extension their union and the willingness of police officials to answer questions about how they use that money because that’s really what’s at the heart of the conflict we just witnessed. Not are you for or against the police or not that you back the blue until something happens to you or even whether or not you agree with the media coverage this incident has elicited? No, this is entirely unlike the typical American ideological rift that seems impossible to repair. This is simply a story of how much of our precious tax dollars we give police and how they treat us when we ask for accountability in return. So here’s a little rundown on what the hardworking taxpayers of Suffolk County fund to keep the police department running and their subsequent retirees happy.

Now all this information is courtesy of the Suffolk County budget documents or other media outlets. And just as a note, I have to say as a reporter who’s read a lot of budget overviews, we What they provide is not exactly easy to navigate, but let’s share a few facts we’ve gleaned from their own reporting. According to a section of the budget documents posted online, the burden of funding police is steep, roughly $1,400 per household. That’s $1,400 per household just to keep police on the street. It should be noted that the biggest line item in the documents other than the general operating fund, which costs taxpayers a meager $80 per homeowner. It also should be noted that police spending accounts for the largest net increase in the budget for that year according to those same documents. Now, next on the list is something that, again, often slips below the radar, but is worth noting employee pensions.

Now first, Suffolk County has some very generous police pensions. A study by the Empire Center for Public Policy found that officers who recently retired from Suffolk and nearby Nassau County qualify for a pension in excess of $100,000 per year. And that’s especially lucrative and costly for taxpayers because Suffolk County officers can retire after just 20 years in service. I mean, even my hometown of Baltimore with one of the largest police forces per capita in the country and a very powerful police union requires 25 years of service to retire. But I’m not done because I haven’t even mentioned one of the biggest contributors to police salaries, namely overtime. That’s right. The great amplifier police paychecks that can cost taxpayers tens of millions of dollars in extra spending. Now it was hard to obtain exact figures, but in 2025, overtime spending cost taxpayers an additional $74 million according to Newsday.

Almost 130 employees earned more than $100,000 in overtime pay, most of them police officers. So that’s quite a hefty amount of money taxpayers are being asked to fork over to keep Suffolk County Police working. And that doesn’t include all the multimillion dollar settlements Sean was talking about in the video we just watched. So how do these exceptionally well-paid people with extremely lucrative pension benefits treat a taxpayer when he arrives to ask questions about spending? How do they respond to very basic accountability questions when someone who pays their salary shows up? Well, let’s watch again and you can judge how they behave.

Speaker 3:

So would you like to talk about the hundreds of millions of dollars? No, I’m not. Would like to talk about the hundreds of millions of dollars that the Suffolk County law enforcement agencies have on pasta? Leave. Do it. I’m leaving. Okay. I’m leaving. I am leaving. No resisting. I’m not resisting. I’m not resisting. I’m not resisting.You were won multiple times. I’m leaving.

Taya Graham:

That’s right. The people who benefit from the generosity of Suffolk County taxpayers actually arrest a Suffolk County taxpayer for, wait for it, asking questions. And then a newspaper writes a sympathetic article to the police union officials who arrested him for asking questions. Now call me crazy, but why on earth is it a threat to ask a question of a public official whose salary you pay? Why is it so controversial for a resident of a county to query the people who work for the county they fund? Why is it so wrong for Sean to want to know where his tax dollars are going and expect the people who are spending them to explain how they spend? Let’s remember a simple principle. Government officials are spending other people’s money. Although the law requires people to pay taxes, it’s still not their money. It’s ours. And in this case, Sean’s, which gives him, in my humble opinion, the right to ask as many questions as he wants.

Just think about it. The union chief is paid by taxpayers, not to patrol the streets or assault crimes, but just to represent the union. That’s right. Taxpayer dollars to pay a salary, to run an entity that won’t answer questions. It’s really hard to fathom how that is even remotely fair, but I think this is also a cautionary tale about funding people with guns and badges wherever they are. Law enforcement has unique power granted them by us, the citizenry. They can take our freedom and even our lives. Now couple that with the ability to spend taxpayer dollars without accountability and you have a dangerous mix that I don’t think any healthy democracy can abide. The ability to rest and the ability to tax should never be one and the same, which is why the work of Sean and other copwatchers is so important. Why his showing up at police union headquarters, which has been depicted as a stunt or worse yet harassment should be viewed through a different lens.

I mean, what if the officials just calmly answered his questions? What if they just took the time to explain their side of the story instead of brandishing handcuffs? The point is that what Sean is doing is an essential task to preserving our freedom, asking the questions nobody in power wants to answer. That’s why both Sean and I and Steven will continue to ask them because I believe democracy itself is at stake. I want to thank our guests, Sean Paul Reyes, also known as Long Island Audits for his time, his insights, and his patience with my technical issues. Thank you so much, Sean. And I have to thank Intrepid reporter Steven Janis for his writing, research and editing for this report. Thank you so much, Steven.

Stephen Janis:

Tay, thanks for having me. I really appreciate it.

Taya Graham:

And I want to thank friends of the show, Noli D and Lacey R. For their support. Thank you both. Thanks Noli D. And a very special thanks to our accountability report, Patreons. We appreciate you and I look forward to thanking each and every one of you personally in our next live stream. And I especially want to thank you for your patience with us. And I have to thank Patreon Associate Producers Johnny R, David Kay, Louis P, Lucia Garcia, and our super friends, Shane B, Kenneth K, Pineapple Girl, Matter of Rights, and of course Chris R. And 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 tips privately at par@therealnews.com and share your evidence of police misconduct.

You can also message us at Police Accountability Report on Facebook or Instagram or at yesonpolice on Twitter, or of course you can message me directly at TeasBaltimore or Twitter or Facebook. And please like and comment. I do read the comments and appreciate them. And we do have a Patreon link pinned in the comments below for accountability reports. So if you do feel inspired to donate, please do. We don’t run ads or take corporate dollars so anything you can spare is truly appreciated. My name is Taya Graham and I’m your host of the Police Accountability Report. And as always, please be safe out there.

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

Maximillian Alvarez:

Time is running out to save the life of Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya, the director of Gaza’s Kamal Adwan Hospital who was abducted by Israel’s military and has been held for over 18 months in Israeli detention without charge and was last seen showing visible signs of extreme torture and medical neglect. His family has issued this plea to people of conscience around the world. Take a listen.

Speaker 2:

My father was unable to breathe. My father was unable to speak. His face was disfigured from the marks of torture and pain, especially after the last court session held in Jerusalem at the Supreme Court. We still call out plead and appeal and beg to all the free people of the world and to everyone with an atom of humanity in their heart to save my father’s life before it’s too late.

Maximillian Alvarez:

The rogue state of Israel has repeatedly ignored the demands and desperate pleas from around the world to free Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya. And with us today to tell you what you need to know and what you can do. I’m grateful to be joined today by Dr. Nidal Jboor and Dr. Karameh Kuemmerle, co-founders of the group Doctors Against Genocide. Thank you both so much for joining us today. I really appreciate it. Can you please start by telling our audience what we know and what we don’t know about the current state of Dr. Abu Safiya and the other doctors and medical workers who are also being held captive by Israel right now?

Dr. Nidal Jboor:

Yeah, I thank you for the opportunity. Thank you for helping us speak about this important topic. And yes, Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya is one of the greatest human beings that we knew. We consider him a friend. He used to come on our webinars every week to report on the situation in his hospital and on the children that he was treating and trying to protect and save their lives in the hospital. So we consider him one of our own. We know this guy, we can vouch for him. He’s not just a number, he’s not an abstract. He is part of us, part of the medical community and a close friend for us. And he appealed to us and to the whole world to come and save him, save the children, save the other doctors, save the patients in the hospital many times before he got abducted. And we tried our best to share his voice, his appeal.

One of his appeals was even to President Trump just after he got elected before he assumed presidency. But unfortunately we all failed him. We failed the children, we failed the other doctors and they were raided, they were invaded. He was abducted along with many other doctors and nurses and healthcare workers. Many of them got shot. One of them got murdered during that raid. Many of the patients got killed. The others were forced to flee. They also abducted many patients. And since then for more than 560 days now, he’s been enduring the most horrific conditions you can imagine. He lost more than half of his weight. He’s being tortured, he’s been held in solitary confinements for long periods of time. And we have been speaking to everyone trying to help him. But what made this call even more urgent is almost a week ago and after long delays, his lawyer managed to see him and he could not recognize him at all.

He didn’t know that this is the person that we know. He witnessed, and that’s the lawyer testimony, severe signs of torture all over him. And his head, neck, behind his ears, all over his body with fresh bruises, active bleeding. He was not able to sit in the chair to finish the interview. His consciousness was on and off. He reported to the lawyer that they have been beaten him with batons, with hammers, with metal objects, and they are intent on killing him. He’s been there for solitary confinements for more than a few weeks since the Supreme Court of Israel refused to take his case. And the last thing he shared with the lawyer is that I don’t think you’ll see me next time. I don’t think I’ll survive this. They’re killing me. And we sit here as doctors, healthcare workers, human beings all over the world.

Watch a human being being tortured in front of all of our eyes. We failed him once. We don’t want to fail him again. This is not acceptable for any doctor, for any healthcare worker, for any human being. There are all types of absolute prohibition of torture under all international laws, international humanitarian laws, Geneva conventions. And even here in the United States as a medical community, we have all our major organizations, the American Medical Organization, the American Psychiatric Organization, the American Psychological Organization. All of them have resolutions and codes of ethics that absolutely prohibit torture under any circumstances for anyone anywhere, regardless of their chart, regardless of their crime, regardless who they are. And these resolutions have been enacted and passed in the last decade. So in light of this, we will not sit down and watch him being killed. We don’t think any human being deserves to be tortured regardless of who they are, especially someone that we know personally.

We know he’s innocent. We know he did not commit any crime other than refusing to abandon the children he was taking care of. And we are calling upon our major medical organization who are unfortunately until now completely silent on this. They’re betraying their own ethics, their own ethics and codes of conduct that they are imposing on us. And we are demanding that at least to live up and asking them to live up to their own codes of ethics, not anyone else, and to speak up and to issue a statement and to reach out to the Israeli Medical Association. And they do have power, they do have leverage, and we know that if they move, we can save at least the life of Dr. Hassem along with his other colleagues. Yes,

Dr. Karameh Kuemmerle:

This is pretty much where we stand. As doctors again, genocide, our mission is to mobilize the medical community and to speak up against war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide. We have many members, have thousands of members all over the world. And we have heard the call from Rasda, the physician syndicate in Raza called for a standout for acts of solidarity with them and with their colleagues who have been detained by Israel in torture camps and torture prisons. So the medical syndicate in Raza is calling on the colleagues, the medical community, the medical community in the rest of Palestine, in the West Bank, in Jordan, all over the world. We are calling on our members to take a stand. We have dedicated an hour of our day today to make all the people with conscious to take action. The action could be calling the elected officials.

We have placed thousands of phone calls to the Senate, to the Congress, to the Parliament in Canada, to different politicians all over the world. We have been calling our medical associations. We have been taking stances with protests and standouts and visuals and all our actions are coming through with social media and our members’ communications. And our goal from that is to mobilize, to raise awareness, not to be silent. We understand that silence in situations of torture and abuse is complicity. It is against our medical oath. It is against what we stand for as humans and as doctors, as healthcare workers. So we invite all our colleagues to not choose comfort and not choose security over doing the right thing. Doing the right thing means that we stand for each other, especially when one of us or many of us are being tortured just for taking care of patients within the context of a genocide.

Maximillian Alvarez:

Well, thank you both so much for that. I really appreciate it. And I wanted to ask if we could also tell viewers and listeners right now where things stand with the current efforts from within Israel and from around the world to free Dr. Abu Safiya, because obviously time is of the essence here.

Dr. Karameh Kuemmerle:

We are optimistic. We have been seeing a positive response from our elected officials here in the US where we live and all over the world. We have seen a tremendous amount of mobilization. Everyone knows the story now. Every phone call to elected officials, they have heard it before one of us calls. We are hopeful that this coordinated pressure will bear fruits and we will see our colleagues released and we will see their health restored to them, their dignity restored to them. All they want is to be able to take care of their patients and to see their family members and to have human dignity. What we have experienced is the removal of human rights and human dignity from people who deserve the best.

Dr. Nidal Jboor:

And his lawyer sent another urgent appeal to the court to allow independent medical evaluation of Dr. Hussam because we think he might be suffering from an intracranial bleed after all these beatings. That’s why he was not able to sit. That’s why his consciousness was variable during the interview. Unfortunately, they did not respond yet. We’re waiting on that. And actually his appeal includes that one of the judges, one of the Supreme Court judges go there and verify for themselves the situation of Dr. Hussam. We are also working closely with a group called Physician for Human Rights Israel. They’re already appearing on behalf of Dr. Hussam and another 16 doctors who continue to be held unlawfully in Israel and all of them are being tortured. There is a total of more than eight healthcare workers who continue to be enduring these conditions there and a total of more than 9,500 Palestinian hostages.

All of them are being detained illegally with no charges, with no protections. Even the International Center for International Red Cross appealed the Supreme Court and the Supreme Court of Israel ordered the state to allow the Red Cross to visit and verify the situation and the treatment of the prisoners and the state is refusing their own Supreme Court order. Can you imagine this? Even the International Red Cross is not able to go in there and check on them, at least make sure they’re being treated in human conditions and not enduring torture. And we cannot emphasize enough the absolute prohibition on torture under all international laws, Geneva conventions and here in the United States. There was something called the Hoffman Report. The Hoffman Report is a report that was made on behalf of the American Psychological Association, I think in 2005 or 10, because some psychologists at that time were complicit with the Bush administration in torturing those that they took from Iraq and from Afghanistan.

They were treating them badly at detention centers Guantanamo Bay. And that was a very lengthy report, detailed report, almost 500 pages that showed some complicity of some psychologists and medical employees in the torture of those detainees. And the recommendation with the report and the resolution that the American Psychological Association took after that is there is absolute prohibition of torture for anyone anywhere under any circumstances, even if they’re terrorists, even if they’re guilty. If you have someone charged with a crime, even if they are criminal, you’re not allowed to torture them. There is absolute prohibition torture. And this is a code of ethics that we as a medical community cherish and we insist to live up to and we cannot stay silent while one of our own or any human being undergoes these conditions. So we are really appealing to everyone. So far we have few elected officials, few Congress people and senators did speak up on behalf of Dr. Hassem, but there are too many.

We are hoping we are appealing that many more of our politicians appeal on his behalf to save him. And we do know that they do have the leverage on Israel. This is the country that the US supports with billions of dollars in weapons and impunity. So our Congress stricted officials, they do have a say. They can save one life if they use their leverage with the state department, with our embassy in Israel, with the Israeli ambassador here. Our medical and mental healthcare organizations, they do have leverage if they speak up. Again, this is regardless of your politics, regardless of where you stand, this is a humanitarian call to save human life that is being taken away in front of our eyes and we should not have any controversy about it. Regardless of our positions, this should not be controversial. This is a humanitarian call, a universal call, and it’s a very, very urgent call.

We don’t think he will survive until the end of the week. So the call should be immediate and urgent. We urgently appeal. Every human being, wherever you are, do everything in your power. Reach out, call, use every leverage you have to try to step in and do something to save the life of our colleague, Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya and his other colleagues too.

Dr. Karameh Kuemmerle:

I appeal to all my colleagues, especially pediatricians. Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya is a pediatrician just like all of us. His fault was that he stayed in the pediatric hospital in the north of Gaza to take care of the children who are sick in Razda and he could not bring himself to leave them without medical care. For that he was punished by being taken hostage. I appeal to every doctor, every nurse, every pediatrician, especially to the American Academy of Pediatrics. Take a stand. Do not stay silent while one of us is being tortured. And to all our colleagues, follow us on Doctors Again Genocide. We have a lot of information that you can use to become more active in advocacy against what is happening to our colleagues, advocacy against torture and advocacy to be a more responsible medical community. And thank you so much for hosting us.