012823 How Do We Reform These Police? (Part 1)

how utterly insulting that is. But first and foremost, like we always do with this time, let's talk about something happy, something that makes us smile. We like to call it abny excellence Q we shall. So today's any Excellence is brought to you by Hip Hop Weekly Media and we are going to shout out the one and only Anthony T. Browder. I was fortunate enough to have a conversation with him on.

Arts and has lectured extensively around the world. He is the founder and director of IKG Cultural Resources and has devoted thirty years to researching ancient Egyptian history, science, philosophy, and culture. And he's been to Egypt fifty four times, I think it's higher than that, since nineteen eighty. And he is the first African American to fund, coordinate, fund,

and coordinate an archaeological dig in Egypt. And he just has tons of insight into the roots of civilization, advanced civilization, and of course those roots being African roots, things that we would not otherwise know about. You think of the Greeks, you think of the Romans, but no civilizations that predated those by thousands of years. We're in Africa. Our conversation, we talk about the roots of all the Abrahamic religions

and how those come from Africa. And I am a person who grew up in a Christian household as his Q. So not trying to changing body's belief system. But the facts are the facts, and just a wonderful conversation. I employed to check it out once again on the Black Information Network Daily podcast and again, Excellence, Anthony T. Browner, you are him and we just appreciate you giving back to us so that we can do our job. Yes, indeed, moving on, all right, how do you reform this? This

is a question that was posed by Kassim Rashid. He is a person on Instagram who is a potent speaker and a very informed individual. I believe he might be of Middle Eastern descent something like that, and he is a person who's very passionate about the way people are treated. I wouldn't profess to know his religious background, but he is a brother to my people and so far as

I can tell, and a brother to all people. And so I need you to understand that when he poses this question, it really caused me to think, how do you reform this? And so his standard practice is his modus operandi is to tell a story on Instagram. He's got the video and everything like that. So he's filming himself and he's, you know, recalling a story that has

taken place in the media. An individual was going about their business, they had an interaction with the police, they ended up dead or beat up or whatever, blah blah blah. And he exposes the many ways that police abuse their power. He exposes the many ways that human beings suffer at the hands of police, and often enough explains why it's unnecessary for there to be human citizen suffering, you know, the people that are supposed to protect and ser often

hurting the citizens. And he points out things that are certainly necessary, and then ask the question, how do you reform this? And I think a lot of times his point is, or rather what he's trying to suggest, is that we need to really rethink it, not continue to revise it. We can't train these things away. This isn't this isn't an isolated incident or a few bad apples. There's so many bad apples. Granted, there's so many more

police officers that I'm sure do you find work. But there is a system that disproportionately affects certain groups in this country and a system overall that is broken. And it's really, if we're being honest, elites, wealthier white people in this country who are able to live comfortably under the current system because it almost never affects them in

a negative way. And so reform, in his opinion, based on the videos that he makes, is something that is not necessarily the best way to go about dealing with this. Hence the question, how do you reform this? So we're adopting that and we are opening the floor to discussion.

We would love for people to come to the table, to this round glass table that we have in the studio here for Civic Cipher and share with us ideas on how we reform this, Ideas that have not been implemented, Ideas that have not had their time, their day in

the sun, to be thoroughly tested and fleshed out. How is it that in twenty twenty three, in late January twenty twenty three, the things that we were pushing back against in the sixties with the civil rights movement and in the seventies with the Panthers, and in the eighties when we were you know, getting behind Jesse Jackson and was run for president, and we were trying to push back, you know, as a community against the scourge of crack, and you know, these these myths and these these these

lies and rumors about how we treated our our families and that we abandoned our families as black men, or that we were all gang bangers and all this sort of stuff, and then on and on until now, you know, with the Trayvon Martin's birthing, the Black Lives Matter movement, all the way up to twenty twenty, with George Floyd and Breonna Taylor, all the way up to now, these things are still happening, and every single step of the

way there's always been reformed. There's always been oversight, there's always all these things. We've already had these conversations, We've already tried these things, and they've been again. They've had their time in the sun for years. So now when we tell these stories, our question is how do we reform this? And I think that the idea here is not to like radicalize anyone or anything like that. You know, of course, we have our own beliefs. We do our best not to try to impose them, but to just

highlight them, you know, shed light on our beliefs. We do believe the system is broken. We do believe that police reform is kind of a tall order, it doesn't work, and that we need to rethink what it means to be safe in a community, what that means and how that looks. And does that mean that the police departments need tanks or does that mean that we need to invest that tank money into programs that again, prevent the necessity of crime in the first place. If people have

enough money, then they're not stealing. If people have children have after school programs or you know, programs to keep them engaged and you know, to help them excel in school, aren't they less likely to be caught up in juvenile delinquency and so forth? These things that make sense, but they never make it past these talking points where folks who do choose to humor us by engaging in this conversation say the same thing, We need police reform. Now

let's get to the first story. Sorry, thank you for letting me paint that picture. But yeah, first things first, this comes from our very own bionnews dot com. An Ohio police sergeant has been placed on administrative leave after he was caught on video punching a black woman following

a dispute over cheese at a local McDonald's. The incident unfolded on Monday, which would have been January sixteenth at the time, when Butler Township, Ohio police officers responded to a report of a woman yelling at employees over an order mistake at the fast food chain. She's mad a thirty cent piece of cheese. A McDonald's employee called nine one one dispatchers, per records obtained by Kiro seven News,

which is also the source of this content. Hero body camera footage shows the woman, identified as Latinka Hancock, waiting in her car when Sergeant Todd Stanley and Officer Tim Zelders arrived at the scene. When Stanley directed her to fill out a notice for trespassing, she refused. In the footage, Hancock can be seen speaking with police before the encounter

became physical, as officers said she resisted arrest. Zeller's was caught on body camera footage pointing his taser at Hancock, and Stanley punched the woman in the face three times before pressing her against a police cruiser and putting her handcuffs on bystander. Video also captured the violent arrest, sparking outrage among the community. Okay, so this is what is in the news. This is what was written down. Now

we've seen the video. Unfortunately, and for those of you who have not seen the video, it is a woman talking to police, saying her piece, and she obviously felt like she was right. And when the officer presented the you know, the paperwork. Notice how it says a confrontation or what is it? The encounter became physical, as officers said, she resisted arresting, and that comes from uh the what is k i R O seven news and then was reported by b I in news. But this is the

way police often describe incidents. And then they released the report to news news stations like kr R O seven News and then they just copy paste. So the encounter became physical implies that both parties were at fault. But I'm here to tell you that there was only one individual that made the encounter physical. Granted she didn't want to sign the paperwork, that's fine. There are many people, often white, they get pulled over and they say, hey, buddy,

I'm not going to sign that ticket. I did nothing wrong. You're gonna take that ticket and shut whatever. You know, you get it right, I'm not picking on anybody. These are things that I've seen in my own life. I'm sure that you understand this, right. This woman is no different. She feels like obviously it's not about thirty cents, It's about the principle.

I think he might have been I couldn't tell you. You know, these stories are quite commonplace, sadly, but he was I think he was handcuffed on the ground and the officers were like punching and kicking him when he was handcuffed. And because of the angle of the video, the officers came out with the story saying, oh, well, the guy's hands behind his back as he was handcuffed, the guy grabbed my genitalia and then that gave me license to like beat them up, right, which, of course, if you

watch the video you don't believe that's true. But because that's out of view, you kind of have to take the officer's word for it because this guy's dead.

twenty six year old blonde haired, white woman. Sure, I know. But you know, for our listeners where they can't really you know, seeing this, it's so commonplace. You know, if we're going to compare apples to apples, we need to kind of change the image in our listener's mind. So it's a slow process, and I appreciate you giving me the floor so that I can do that, But yeah, it's hard to imagine this guy doing that too. Again, the twenty six year old blonde haired, you know, white

woman right punching her in a phase three times. And if that did happen, you can imagine the outrage, right, But these things don't tend to happen, right. I'm not trying to say that the police have never abused their authority with that type of person, but it's not prevalent to the degree that this is. And so this is why this is my basis for saying that this is perhaps anti black sentiment. And again, because this country has given police power that is really beyond measure. Stand with

the police no matter what. It's kind of hard for us to now think of reform as the way that we deal with this. Right. That was an absolute, outright abuse of power. Right, And we've seen this before. We've seen this with the Rodney King verdict and how people react to that. You know, We've seen what happens here. And there will no longer be that stunning silence, not as long as they give us microphones, you know. So I asked the question, how do you reform this? Moving on?

This one is one that Q sent over and this also comes from Kroro seven dot com. Five officers in Memphis were fired following an investigation into the arrest and death of a man. All Right, I'm going to read this and then I want you to take a Q. In a news release, Memphis Police Department said on Friday, following the death of Tyree Nichols and a review of their circumstances surrounding the incident, the department desired to fire five sorry. The department decided to fire five of its officers.

Memphis Police Department said that it was determined that the officers had violated multiple policies that the department has, which include excessive use of forest, duty to intervene, and duty to render aid. Memphis Police Department said officers were fired earlier in the day on Friday. They were identified as to Darius Bean, Demetrius Haley, Emmett Martin the third, Desmond Mills Junior, and Justin Smith. Smith and Martin were hired

in March twenty eighteen. Mills was hired in March twenty seventeen. Bean and Haley were both hired in August twenty twenty. According to the AP, all five officers were involved in the arrest of Nichols twenty nine on January seventh. All five officers who were fired and Nichols were all black. The Memphis Police Department said, according to the AP, Nichols was pulled over by officers for reckless driving, police said. According to WHBQ, officers claimed that Nichols ran, leading to

multiple confrontations between the officers and Nichols. He was eventually arrested and officers showed use of force. Following the confrontations, Nichols reportedly complained of shortness of breath. Memphis Police Department said. According to WHBQ, Nichols was taken to the hospital where he died on January tenth. So quote, the Memphis Police Department is committed to protecting and def the rights of

every citizen in our city. The egregious nature of this incident is not a reflection of the good work that our officers perform with integrity every day. That quote comes from Memphis Police Department Chief Serlin C. J. Davis. And then a civil rights investigation has been reportedly opened by the United States Justice Department. According to the AP, the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation is reportedly looking into the force

that was used during the arrest. WHBQ reported that any criminal charges may or may not come as a result of the incident between the officers and Nichols, and those would be announced later on. No further information has been released, and Q, let's get your two.

to even the reasonable minimum accountability standards. Right, So, you and I have had conversations long before civic slipher existed, but just in general about the types of things that would cause people on the right, or people that are racist, or people who are not racist but just don't have the same everyday encounters and struggles that we have. And we used to say things like, man, if it ever

came to their door, it would change their minds. But with the mass shootings like that we've witnessed, not even that's true, even when the victims are young white children, people still won't stand up against the gun lobby.

see anything wrong with them. And I remember, you know, back during during our former president's time in office, they interviewed this woman, and it's just about the type of things that he said and the thing that he said during his election, which there's no president I don't think ever in history that could have had something like that come out and then gone on to win the presidency when he said about just grabbing women by their private parts. And they asked this lady at a rally who was

a very very prominent supporter. She had every piece of paraphernalia that was ever made on and she had her two young daughters with her, and she'd rather rob her daughters of their dignity than denounce her candidate than denounce her president when asked about those things that he said in a way that he viewed women, and she then turned to her daughters and kind of suggested to them that,

you know, sometimes that's okay. And I was just blown away, like the zealot like beliefs that a lot of people in this country have cannot be changed by logic or evidence or numbers or anything. So it'd be hard to get wholesale buy in for any type of reform because when people said defund the police, a lot of people lost their mind.

can be white supremacists too, you know. You know, black people own slaves. We've seen what happened with you know, Kanye West.