Broadcasting from the Hip Hop Weekly Studios. I'd like to welcome you to another episode of Civic Cipher. I am your host, Ramsey's job, so.
Yeah, that is Ramsey's job. I'm still cute. But the energies, you know what I mean. My energy is real high today. Good. I know sometimes our show doesn't allow for that, but I don't know if you can hear it through the mic. I'm smiling while I'm speaking to you today, and I'm noticeably excited about the ability to smile while doing this show that we do well.
I hope that you are able to smile a little longer because you do have a crazy show. My best, you have a crazy show lined up for you today. First things first, we're going to be talking about Breonna Taylor. You might remember in twenty twenty a.
Lot of the protests, of course, are about George Floyd in that particular injustice, but another name that was just as big, an incident that was just as pivotal was the death of Breonna Taylor. Well, as it turns out, there is a lot more details about her death coming to light.
And acts that weren't aware of.
Right, and we're we're definitely going to need to talk about that. And we're also going to be spending some time talking about a video that we were sent of an older black woman getting attacked by a police officer outside of a grocery store. It's been shared lots of times on social media.
Definitely a viral thing.
Yeah yeah, and we couldn't get to it last week on the show, so we're doing our best to play catch up. And I promise we talk about viral videes all the time, but this one is kind of a little different. We're talking to older black women at a grocery store for something, and of course she didn't commit. So that and so much more to stay tuned for. But first and foremost, let's start off on a positive. How about some Abney excellence, shall we?
We shall?
Today's Ebony Excellence is brought to you by Major Threads for the finest in men'swear. Check majorthreads dot com. All right, we're talking about a guy named Nicholas Perkins. Graduate of both Howard University and Fayetteville State University. He's made history as the new owner of the international fud Ruckers restaurant brand.
He was formerly one of the company's largest franchisees, but now has full ownership of all ninety two of the company's restaurants in the United States, Canada, Panama, and Mexico. Perkins closed the deal for approximately eighteen point five million dollars through his affiliate Black Titan Franchise Systems, LLC. He told Essence magazine, quote, I always wanted to become a part of this iconic brand. I just didn't realize that
one day I'd end up owning it unquote. Perkins, who was born in Fayetteville, North Carolina, obtained his Bachelor of Science degree in business administration and management, has an honorary doctorate from Fayetteville State University in HBCU. He later went to Howard University, also in HBCU, where he earned his Master a Business Administration degree. So again, on this show, we do our best to celebrate any excellence. There's not a lot of places that you might encounter a story like this.
Nicholas Perkins.
You are a champion bro exactly exactly, and it is our pleasure to bring some attention to what it is that you've done, to shine some light on what it is that you're doing, and to highlight you as an example of any excellence, and of course we definitely applaud black ownership. We support black businesses here and we know that a lot of our listeners do as well. So where we can take the time to highlight someone who's
doing something amazing, we'll always try to do that. At present and looks like for the foreseeable future, fud Ruckers is now black owned, So do your best to support.
All.
Right now, we do have a video. It's on the desktop, so make should get that ready. But first, before we get to this video, I want to make sure that we paint a picture for those who may have forgotten or who maybe you never knew about Brianna Taylor. But the quick and dirty version of the story is that Brianna Taylor was killed in her apartment sleeping, or I believe it was her boyfriend's apartment. She was sleeping and the police just came and shot up the place and
she died. And the general attitude of the police was that it was very cavalier and it was just kind of like, you know, that's the cost of doing business. And then they tried to paint her as sort of a villain by her proximity to her boyfriend they tried to suggest that the boyfriend was somehow involved in some nefarious activities, and on and on, and then you know, later the stories came out that she was a first responder, that she I believe she was an EMT. Was yes,
So where do we have to use here? She was an EMT if I'm not mistaken, and just a normal, upstanding citizen and the police ended her life, and we as a people, alongside our allies, pushed back against the idea that this was just sort of collateral damage, this is just kind of the cost of police doing business,
that this is okay. You know, you got to break a few eggs to make an omelet that sort of attitude that was kind of being pushed by police and then bolstered by you know, right wing pundits, etc. That we're trying to again paint Breonna Taylor as somehow criminal or criminal adjacent by you know, her relationship to a
man who was not proven to be a criminal at all. Now, now that you're caught up to speed, I need to let you know that ever since that took place, since the police you shot at her house, there's been all kinds of crazy stories. Of course, the police start with their initial story, which suggests that Breonna Taylor's boyfriend was the first one to shoot, prompting them to want to shoot back.
Please. This is America, right, the Second Amendment touting United States of America to have a gun in case there's intruders in your home so you can defend your family, America justifying that this man was murdered mm hm because he shot first when someone broke into his home and that's why he deserved to die. Yeah, okay, I just wanted to make sure we're talking about the same same qu You're saying people, same people making the same argument, contradicting the okay, never mind.
Right, and this and this is where the conversation started with should police be using no knock warrants? I've covered tons of stories about police using no knock warrants to bust into people's house, Black people's houses mostly, and black people sometimes they live in rough neighborhoods, whatever their whatever their situation is.
I'm sure the deltatistics on the on who they use no knock warrants.
You would be largely skewed toward black and brown people. Yeah, sure, sure, absolutely, Now for these folks that might live in a rougher neighborhood, they might have a gun, they might be very on edge about someone breaking into their house during a home but any like that. So imagine someone kicking in the door, even if they say it's the police, if you don't know for certain, all you know is there's a bunch of voices and movement in your.
House, especially when there's nothing that stops anyone from saying exactly that. Exactly exactly my point.
So, you know, there's been a lot of pushback against the use of no knock warrants, and this was one instance that kind of brought that to you know, public consciousness.
Add to that being at home with your lady sleep.
Yeah.
So that was the life of Breonna Taylor.
Unfortunately, like so many people on this show, we know her mostly for having died, not for the life that she lived. And that's just an unfortunate reality for a lot of families that their children are known for being killed.
I was.
I was talking to Emmett Till's cousin recently, and you know, she and I had a moment. For those that you know follow our work on Black Information Network Daily podcast, we had a moment where you know, basically I had to realize that emmittt Til was not the person who helped change uh and and add fuel to the civil rights movement. It was his mother that did that. But we associate mm Attil with the civil rights activist because
he's a large figure. But the only reason he's a large figure is because he died and that's what activated his mother.
And because he was murdered. More specify, he didn't become he was dragged and he didn't drown notorious and iconic because he died. He was murdered. Yeah, it was a manner in which he was murdered. And the lack of reason, the lack of actual justifiable reason, the obvious racist reasons as to why he was murdered, his age, when the why, the where are the reasons? Why know his name? Unfortunately not for what could have been a wonderful life lived.
Yeah, and you know, the one sobering thought that often pops into my head after we talk about these things is that these people lived the last moments of their life in horror and fear, maybe crying, screaming, afraid they don't know what's going on, you know, in pain, absolutely sure. And then it's their life is over, and so they never they died, their last moments were perhaps feeling like
this is a senseless, senseless death. They don't get to see what comes on the other side of it, which is, Okay, this galvanized a nation and a people and allies to change things. But anyway, I digress Rihanna Taylor. There's been kind of like rumors circulating since Rihanna Taylor's death that there was more to that story, and we were led to believe obviously the police told their version of the story. Again, it's suggesting that Breonna Taylor's boyfriend shot first and all
this sort of stuff. And since then, you know, there's been a trial and all this sort of stuff, and all these things are now coming out and we are starting to see how deep this goes. And you know, we entitled this segment was Rihanna Taylor's death a conspiracy? But I don't want that to in any way suggest that it's a conspiracy theory because the sources that we're
pulling from today are exceptionally credible sources. We're going from Yahoo to uh, what is this CNN to I think we have Washington posts, you know, some some credible sources here. But before we go any further, let's play the video just to kind of help bring you up to speed, and then we'll fill in the gaps.
So it took everyone two years to figure out that I was right.
Earlier today, I spoke with the family of Breonna Taylor morning. They were informed for the Justice Department's charge or Currant and former Louisville Metro Police Department officers federal crimes related to miss Taylor's death.
The mayor of Louisville, Kentucky, started at hit squad to harass people of color and poor neighborhoods. The house that Briana Taylor was renting from was sitting in the middle of a gentrification project that the mayor's developer buddies need to get rid of before they could start construction. Software. Cops arrested in an actual drug dealer ten miles and ten minutes after they faked a search warrant to god harassed berwon to Taylor.
Those alleged crimes include civil rights offenses, unlawful conspiracies, unconstitutional use of force, and obstructional offenses. We alleged that the defendants knew their actions and fols of buying the Epidavid could green a dangerous situation.
Yeah, the dangerous situation was getting brion and Taylor's shot so the city could buy her house for a dollar? What you thought I made that number of a.
Lawful objective justifying the use of deadly force. Defendant Henkerson traveled away from miss Taylor's doorway to the side of the building and fired ten shots into Breonna Taylor's apartment through a bedroom window in a sliding lads store that were both covered with lions and curtains.
Yeah.
Remember all those Blue Lives Matter people talking about. Oh, Breonna Taylor's boyfriend shot one round first, and then all the cops were returning fire.
That's not what happened.
One cop went to the side of the house and emptied a mag into a window. Yeah, your clowns are trying to be like, oh the cops are scared for their lives, trying to give them qualified immunity when one dude literally went to.
The side of the house to do a hit job.
Okay, so obviously there's a lot there.
Okay, Now you couldn't see that.
The gentleman that was speaking there, he has all his sources. So that was a video that we got from TikTok and it just kind of condenses everything that we're talking about today, but it critically has all of the sources in the video. Now we have the video up on our social media. It's at Civic Cipher if you want to check that out, and then of course you can
check each of those sources themselves. This is one I kind of wanted to make sure that we covered our bases as much as we could because this is starting to get into conspiracy, which is indeed what he was talking about. This is what the charges are for the police officers involved, and it goes even higher up than that.
There's developers, there's you know, elected officials, et cetera.
And the loss of life of Breonna Taylor's is just kind of I don't think that they expected that They expected it to just kind of be something that they were able to do more or less quietly and didn't go from there.
So well that that assumption is based on the status quo, right right, say this unassuming black person creates some suspicion around their character, criminalize them, it's a no story, and it goes away. They just had really, really bad timing. Yeah, they decide to do this at a moment where most of the world cared way more than they usually would have.
Sure, and then at the end of the day, them buying that house for a dollar was kind of the nail in the coffin. It's what sort of sealed the deal.
Right. So this, this.
Whole plan was in motion, and there are people that look at this and be like, oh, there's no way that that's true. Allow me to further paint this picture. So first thing, let me start. I'm going to go back to July twenty twenty. You remember I said that there's been these sorts of whispers surrounding Breonna Taylor's death going all the way back to her death. So this is July twenty twenty, So this was three years ago, almost to the day. All right, this comes from CNN
dot Com. The headline reads, warrant in fatal encounter between Breonna Taylor and police was linked to gentrification plan, families lawyers claim, okay claim, So this is what they thought at the time. They couldn't prove. They were still waiting to prove this, all right. The police raid of Breonna Taylor's home that ended with police killing her was connected to a political plan to clear a Louisville, Kentucky street
for a real estate development. According to an amended lawsuit filed by Taylor's mother, I want to make a correction here. I'm seeing that this is Breonna Taylor's house, and I thought this was her boyfriend's house.
There's been a lot of stuff about this.
Case, and it's been some time, but I want to make sure I was clear about that, all right. The amended lawsuit, filed Sunday in Jefferson's Circuit Court and obtained by CNN, said her death was quote the culmination of radical political and police conduct. Police were used in an effort to vacate homes on Elliott Avenue for a quote high dollar real estate development including new homes, a cafe,
and an amphitheater. A cafe and an amphitheater. According to the lawsuit, one of the primary roadblocks to this unit and the real estate development project was an ex boyfriend of Breonna Taylor, who rented a home on Elliott Avenue. The lawsuit of leedgis okay, so I take it back. I guess it was her boyfriend's home again. There's lots of stuff here, But I wanted to bring that up because it illustrates how far back this goes. I believe that she was killed in that might have been March
of twenty twenty. If I'm not mistaken. Why am I thinking March in any case, Yeah, he's looking that up for me, So I want to make sure I got the red. But these rumors started to come out in July. This article I just read from it is from July of twenty twenty, so that's not nothing, and it can't be based on nothing. March perfect, Okay, all right, now I want to move on. So this is from August of twenty twenty two, So again, this was almost a year ago, and this comes.
From Yahoo News slash Blavity.
All right. The headline reads, A cop is accused of falsifying search warrant used in raid of Breonna Taylor's home. Now her death is being connected to a housing development project. In the years since the police killing of Breonna Taylor, the twenty six year old woman who was fatally shot after a raid on her Louisville, Kentucky home, questions about
the origin of the search warrant have dominated conversations. Now the community is learning that it wasn't how the warrant was carried out, but why it was issued in the first place. Three new officers, Kelly Hannah Goodlett, Joshua James, and Kyle Meaney, have been charged with federal crimes and connection to the killing of Taylor, including unlawful conspiracies, obstruction offenses,
use of excessive force, and federal civil rights offenses. As the Department of Justice previously confirm, Now again, I want you to for anybody that's skeptical, anybody that thinks that I'm making this stuff up, check our social media at Civic Cipher on Instagram. Okay, the videos there, all the sources are cited. Okay, and you can look this up yourself. We're not imagining this unfair treatment of our people. We
don't make this stuff up. We don't want to just keep complaining about the way things are, but we have to speak up for ourselves because we deserve better than this. This shows the cavalier attitude not just of police, but of developers in big business and even elected officials to just cast aside black, brown, marginalized, poor, LGBTQIA, plus you name it, individuals often enough for more profit and for people that prioritize profit over the gift, the beauty, the sanctity that is human life.
Before you move on, I don't want people to think that that's a small number of people. It's a lot of people. There are so many people right that prioritize profit. Yeah, and the American dream of capitalists, of capitalists superiority over basic human life, basic human dignity. Their profit and ability to make money is more important than your life. And enough people agree with them that they can do things like this, and mostly there'd be no repercussions for it.
So watch this Q. Okay, you're listening to me, and you have this conversation right now. I want you as you listen and ask yourself a question. Okay, I want you to ask yourself if this is okay? Like morally, I want you to ask yourself, is it okay to be upset with black people for speaking up? I want you to ask yourself if this is the story that you're hearing about, how many stories are you not hearing about?
You can look at data and statistics and so forth, but oftentimes those don't show the real story like this this woman is our life is over black lives matter. It is the minimum. We didn't say black money matters. We didn't say black parties matter, we.
Didn't say black happiness, we didn't say black freedom, we didn't say black rights. Oh man lives yeah, Man, isn't that crazy?
And you know when we push back and we have examples like this and we say, hey, listen, you know, look, there's a lot of stuff going on. There's a lot of moving pieces here. There is this immense machine that takes all these different components to work, and every single component is entirely apathetic about the well being and indeed the lives of black, brown, marginalized LGBTQI plus you name it people. And in particular, I mean we do civic cipher.
We talk about black people because often enough we're at the very bottom, with one hundred percent of the weight right on our necks. And so again, this isn't something where it's we like to complain. And when we show the proof and we cite the sources, people say, oh, that's a one off. No, this is this is how you can peer into the data that you have access to, the government data dot gov.
Okay, that shows uh.
Outcomes with respect to sentencing with respect to police misconduct, with respect to police brutality, police killings, and every other thing in society. You're talking about how much people get paid, healthcare outcomes, environmental racism, like all sorts of things, com all the battlefronts.
Okay, now I want to read a little bit more here before we move on.
All right, Goodlett, James and Meinie falsified information to get the warrant, alleging that Taylor was receiving illegal packages at the residents, despite allegedly knowing that information was false. The Washington Post reports they are also being accused of covering up their activity, along with the police department being connected to the Elliott Avenue Project. According to WLKY, the Elliott
Avenue project is a development project. A document describing the project alleges that the neighborhood's social and urban fabric has deteriorated over recent decades due to high levels of disinvestment in crime. It also states that the Department of I
think this is Development Louisville. Louisville's Office of Community Development, the city's entity behind the project, in partnership with Keeping it Real, Inc. A local nonprofit partner, are intervening in an effort to stabilize and reinvigorate this residential community within West Louisville. All right, now here's where it gets funny.
Since the start of the project, the City of Louisville has acquired and gained control of several properties in the area, including twenty four to twenty four Elliott Avenue, which was once the home of Taylor and her ex boyfriend JaMarcus Glover. After Taylor's death, the city was quick to secure Glover's rented home and got quite the deal for it too. According to Wave, the city bought the home for one dollar.
The estimated home value was more than seventeen thousand dollars. Okay, so here we are, three years after Rihanna Taylor's death. We were out there protesting just because we didn't agree with how it was done. You shouldn't kill somebody in their sleep, in their home when they haven't done anything wrong.
But now we see it exactly what it was about. Even if she'd done stiffed things wrong. She doesn't deserve to die in her home, in her sleep, even if she was a criminal, even if she had done whatever she was being accused of. Whatever they got this no knock warrant for, even if she'd done it, to be executed in her sleep was not the outcome that anybody should have been okay with.