Civic Cipher 050821 Ramses Ja and Q Ward

You know, we had some some comments via our Instagram page and I thought it was worth, you know, us talking about them. For those that we don't already, please follow our Instagram and our Facebook just search Civic Cipher and keep up with us during the week, and of course interact with us because we need to know your thoughts. This is all of our show. We're just the ones giving a voice to it. But the hope, of course is that it will benefit not only us in our future,

but you as well. And it doesn't matter what color you are, what your faith is, or any of that sort of stuff. We're all trying to create a better world for each other. But I digress. One such thing that came up this week is someone wanted to know where the outrage is when the police take aggressive action or otherwise shoot, slash kill someone who's white in the same manner that they do black folks. One to know

where's the reaction, Where are the people? Why is it that no one's coming to the defense of someone just because he's white and he's subject to the same system. And I thought that was a fair question, because obviously we don't want the show to constantly frame our position as though we are the only ones underneath the foot of a corrupt criminal justice system, although we do acknowledge that oftentimes we're the ones who get the worst of it.

So again, I thought that it was important to address that question and you know, provide some at least from where we sit, some context for how that looks and how that feels relative to seeing it happened to a black person, and you know, provide some context. And so I'll go first. I would love to hear your thoughts on it. So obviously, there's a long storied relationship with the police and black people in this country. You know, policing was literally born out or rather patrolling was literally

born out of slave patrols in this country. And so it's almost a symbiotic relationship. Unfortunately, that police need black bodies. And I know that's a weird way of looking at it, but you could make an argument if you so chose.

But I believe that the result of you know, politicians peddling fear for decades has resulted in a policing culture that has created an army of bullies, an army of people who have unlimited fiscal resources, zero accountability, and oftentimes are able to vent their frustrations in the line of duty. I read a statistic many times, and I don't know because I didn't conduct the research myself, but I've come across a statistic that I believe would be I believe

it to be true. So again, take this with a grain of salt. I don't want to misrepresent any police officers or anything like that. I don't want to have fair conversations. But my understanding is that there is an unusually large amount of police officers who are also wife beaters.

You know, these are people who abuse their wives at home, which to me suggests that these violent, aggressive behaviors are kind of part and parcel with the gig or otherwise, people that are prone to those violent outbursts tend to find themselves in that line of work. They seek out that line of work, right, And so if that's true, and I believe it to be true, so I'm going to continue. If that's true, then what you end up with is again an army of violent, overly violent folks

mostly who I mean. And I understand some folks want to do good, they want to be the good guys, they want to be the heroes and so forth. But if these statistics are are any indication of who the people are that actually man the lines, you have violent people again with who are able to operate with impunity, who have a culture of protecting themselves and you know, burying their sins and are able to kind of get their aggression out when they work. They just jump people

all the time. You know, if your show, if you show up somewhere and you got three of your guys with you, you know you're going to be able to do whatever it is that you want. Someone's talking back to you and you don't like it, instead of you know, arguing your way through it or just kind of understanding that you're a public servant and sometimes the public is

not as nice. Now you have three or four of your guys with that you're able to kind of get off a couple of punches and kicks and stop resisting to people that aren't resisting and so forth. And we know that to be true. That's standard procedure. You're on the ground with four people on you, and then they yell stop resisting when you literally can't stop trying to stop yourself from being harmed, right, stop it? And uh so, so how does this relate to the ah, how how

people deal with you know, black bodies versus white bodies? Right? My thoughts are that because we have such a long standing beef, if you will, with police and policing and how it's been done, we are as a as a people just more tired of it. We are the people, We as a people have more resources dedicated to it. We as a people understand that the numbers overwhelmingly favor black and brown bodies being abused by police relative to

to white folks. And and I think that once we take a step back from that, we can all agree that policing as an institution and as a culture is predatory. It's overfunded, there's no accountability, as I stated, and it's doing exactly what it's supposed to do. It was designed to address unfounded fears in the general population. And if these fears don't really exist, and you have a bunch of bullies with unlimited resources and impunity, then you end up with folks who might abuse a white guy or

two here and there. And another part of this is that a lot of times, I think the statistic is that some like sixty percent of police officers are white men something like that. It's a huge number. And there's a smaller percentage that are female, white women, and I think white women are ten percent something like that, and then the other twenty five percent of police are others, including black officers. Again I believe that to be true. I don't have the stats in front of me, but

if that's not accurate, it's somewhere around that number. And so for us, a lot of times, the police, like if you close your eyes and imagine a police officer, the platonic ideal police officer, what the image that pops in your head is a white man? You know, I would guess right, you're not in your head, but white man with the hat shirt, the badge and the little mustache. You know, maybe or maybe not, depends on if he's younger. Younger, oh, fresh out of the academy, there's no facial hair. He's

the most eager to show how down he is. Yeah, he's worked his whole life. But I do want to say this that any unjust harm on any human being is, at least for us, something that we wouldn't stand for. You know, we don't want to see anybody get hurt. We certainly don't want to see anybody lose their life

at the hands of the police. And because it's less common in those with respect to white males, which is what the question is about, it doesn't happen with any regularity, and oftentimes, I believe the thing that really makes all the difference is that I still feel like that white man who's being abused and take advantage of it by the police, if he or his father, or his family or whatever wanted to seek justice, that they would at least be heard, they would have their day to plead

their case, and they would be given a fair trial, you know. And if you swap that out with a black person, I think that our expectation has for the most part, man, I think you mentioned a couple weeks ago that out of fifteen thousand police shootings of black men in this country, two of them resulted in actual convictions seven seven and fifteen thousand, that was the number. Okay, so, but that shows how there needs to be some change

with respect to police officers and black men. I think that our assumption is often or maybe maybe it's not an assumption, because I don't think our thoughts even go there, at least mine don't. But I think that the understanding is that black folks do not get a fair shot at justice if the police mishandle mismanage, whatever the cases, they abuse their power. And so those are my thoughts on why there's a different reaction when the victim is

black versus when the victim is white. There's a lot with regards to this topic and the question that's being posed, sots. Let's start with the very, very easy and explainable numbers. A black man is one hundred and fifty percent more likely to be killed by police in his lifetime than any other person in the United States. And this data is from the National Academy of Sciences of the United

States of America, not the Black Panther Party. Just so we're clear that we're not inventing this data or skewing it in favor of the argument being made that we're I see those stats in front of me that were more likely to be killed by police. So that's the first reason why there's not as much outrage, because it's one hundred and fifty percent more likely to happen to us. Another issue that some might argue I won't, but some might, is that white men being killed by police are not

being killed because they're white. And I think there is irrefutable evidence that in a lot of these cases, black men are being killed because their skin is the crime. Being black is what they're guilty of. It's why they were pulled over in the first place. They didn't just break the law. They were not brandishing a weapon. Sometimes they're sitting in their own homes and officers get to enter their homes and kill them and still not go

to prison for the rest of their lives. There's a bit of Stockholm syndrome with regards to non black, specifically white people in this country that are poor, that are victims of injustice, that are not treated fairly. That's not because they're white, which I bring up again because that's very,

very important. But the system in place has done a remarkable job of marketing itself to most of the people that it oppresses, because we are still what fourteen fifteen percent of the population, and that would be me being generous. There's a very large group of white Americans that live below at or very close to the poverty line, that vote and carry out the civil duties of completely different

people than who they are. The only thing they have in common is their lack of melanin exactly, So, when you can convince more than half of the population who you oppress, who you try to keep uneducated and poor so that the richest and most successful of you can continue to thrive, when you've convinced them that we're all on the same team and they will fight to uphold your best interest, then you won't have those same people taking to the streets in protest of the rights and

privileges and liberties that they're not being afforded. I think that's why there's such a huge amount of folks that shout things like blue lives matter, all lives matter, or that you know, I saw this is funny because this happened. My hand to God, this happened to day. I was driving and I saw what looked like a beat up old police car. It was weird because normally police cars

are keeping them pretty nice, pretty new. They got a you know, but it was a two door GMC jimmy with the yellow lights on the top of the car, not a red and a blue one, but they were yellow. But it had like a sticker around the car. The car had been in an accident, so the front of

it was kind of crumpled into the passenger compartment. The stickers didn't go together, but they were blue like like it was like someone had almost like someone painted on to a police car, but they put the stickers on it. And the stickers were crooked. The letters were crooked, but it said neighborhood Patrol and something like that. And then

there were two guys in this truck. This truck was who had son And there was two guys in the truck, and one of them had the American flag as a COVID mask on his face, and the other one had that flag with the blue line, which is an abomination and an affront to the actual American flag, and so is the other one. By the way, if you know anything about flag code. You're not supposed to wear the flag on anything, and you're not supposed to change the

colors of the flag. So anybody talks about disrespecting the flag, he needs to read the actual flag code. And don't come at me without anything about that except those people don't care about so let me finish respecting the flag. So these people who are clearly not officers, were for all intents and purposes, impersonating officers. Clearly these guys have none of the massive police budget. Because that car, it looked like it had been in an accident. And and

dig this. Those GMC jimmies they stopped making those in the nineties. The car is so old, you know, it's leaning on the everlasting arms. Man. I don't know how that thing is still moving. But and these guys are just in their windows down. That means no AC And if you don't know, we live in Arizona and it is warm outside right now. So these guys are just out cruising around trying to fight crime alongside the cops. I guess that they really dressed that vehicle up to

look like it was a police car. This wasn't a private security company. There was two dudes in their car. So you're absolutely right. This system has marketed itself to people who, in my estimation, those guys had no money and really perhaps they didn't really have anything exciting to

live for other than America America, you know. And that's something that really surprises me, is that a lot of times people's whole identity is being American, which sometimes as a stand in for being white in America and the cot and see other folks take that same approach, the colloquialism that you just used, America positions itself as an

adversary to black people. Yeah, so again, you have an entire group of people that votes and performs several civic duties and direct conflict of their own best interest because at least they're not black. And you know who's that politician where you would be better off if not for these people, you poor white sir. It would be better off if not for all of the Mexicans that snuck into the country and stole your jobs, if not for all the criminal black people who are driving through a

neighborhood they don't belong in because they're black. You talk about those fears that shouldn't exist, but they do because those seed a completely unfounded, but those seeds have been as deeply planted as possible. Sure, and take it to our cinema and our pop culture. You know, the movies that we love that grows very high, that take you on a tour of our neighborhoods, show us as murderous gangster thugs. Not to mention our own music, but that brings me to the next thing. I want to talk

about music. So music, the music, the music, So listen. If you're listening to our voices, you're listening to a radio station that plays black music. You may or may not know the name I'm about to mention, but there's a rapper from Chicago's name is g Herbo pretty good, and I caught a clip of him sitting down with Charlemagne and he was talking and he tells a bit

of a story. I'll try to be brief, but the way the story goes is he says, you know, when I was sixteen seventeen growing up in Chicago, there were people who wanted to kill me because of who my older brother was. They could hurt my older brother if they could kill me. And I knew that because I would see him and then I'd be able to get away from them or whatever. And this is the result of living in these environments, which we've talked about how

these environments developed. This is not like if you go to Africa. It's not like that black people don't just it was ghettos. Yeah, this is government intervention and the strategic deployment of drugs to disrupt black and brown can unities. This is all researchable, so you end up with these environments we'll call them ghettos. You know. Gi Herbo is from one such place in Chicago, and he's telling a story about how he has to go to school and come home and he says, you know, in his interviews,

like you know, I love my mom. I'm not a horrible person. I wouldn't Why would I ever want to hurt anybody? You know, It's just like I'm a normal human being. I'm a normal creature on the planet, same as any any other creature on the planet. I'm not here to just just you know, why would I do that? But yeah, carried a gun for a good part of my life because I knew that there were people that

could hurt me. It's just a function of the culture and the environment you know that you live in when there's a lot in the way of scarcity, and you know, folks are over limited resources and so forth and so on. The story tells its the story rights itself and other countries across the world, of all peoples of all colors. But such his story is, you know, like I said, So he says, yeah, I had to carry a gun

with me to school every day. And you know what happens if the police pull up and they harass you. They don't want to hear none of that stuff, because as soon as they find out that you have a gun, that's the end of your life. But at least if you have a gun, like you know for a fact, you got to go to school that day, you don't know if you're going to run into the police. Right.

So he's telling this story and you realize that it's just a trap which is so funny because a lot of the music that we enjoy and hip hop, we call it trap music, you know, especially if you like really like real trap music. But you begin to see how the music does it just glorify these sorts of things for the sake of glorifying it. It's an accurate

reflection of society. Now, I'll grant that, you know, there's a degree of you know, machismo, and you know, I want to get all the girls, I want all the money, that sort of stuff, which is common for any young man in any culture around the world and in any industry. Sure, but hip hop just kind of gets a bad rap. And I think that's also because in this country, especially,

we're taught to be afraid of black people. Now, well, that said, hopefully that does answer that question and you know, address at least a little bit about the hip hop. But fortunately, so far on the show, we were able to discuss a question that came to us via our social media at Civic Cipher. If you're on Instagram, where a person asks, where is the outrage when you know police these white victims? And so we're able to talk

about that. We spend a little bit of time talking about, you know, hip hop and what it's like to just grow up in an impoverished community. And I want to say something before we move on. I don't even know how I forgot to say this already, where's the outrage? We've been screaming defund the police for a little bit now, except almost one hundred percent of the pushback and let me just take that down the eighties so I can

be generous comes from the subjects of that question. Where's all the outrage when all of these awful things happen to people that aren't black? The cry has never been defund police in black neighborhoods. Yeah, we're trying to change the whole system. It's very clear that the entire everyone in infrastructure, it's rotten. Everyone benefits from that. So so the injustice that we're looking to snuff out would benefit all victims of that injustice, not just black people. I

like that. So during the week. During the past week, we were able to share some content on social media, some videos, and you listening to our voices may have seen some of the videos, you may not have seen them. A lot of these videos come from Sean King because a lot of the high profile videos make their way to his page. So if you like check out Sean King, you can just google this guy. DL Hughgley is another one that we both follow, and you know a lot

of folks will send videos to them. Sometimes folks will send videos to us, even though we're not on that level with millions of followers, but I implore you to, you know, go back and research these videos. If you can't find them on our page, because sometimes they get deleted, they might still be hosted on those pages. But there's something that I really wanted to talk about. There was a video that I saw, and y'all know, I'll be

crying all the time. It comes with the job. He's emotional like Carl Thomas, you know, but it's because I mean, you imagine having to see what Q and I have to see every week. And we've shared this before. We take turns watching the videos so that we don't get overwhelmed with it. You know, there's so much discussion about mental health and making sure that we're pacing ourselves and you know, not allowing ourselves to become overwhelmed with death

and with violence. You know, I'm a happy person. I love love, I love happiness, I love being happy, and it just so happens to be the case that we found ourselves in this position where we have to deal

with these things. We have to watch these incidents, we have to feel them, the full weight of them, so that we can provide I had context to rally the troops in a manner of speaking to decide what's the right path forward, to call on the right folks to come and give them a platform so that they can share their expertise with us, because neither of us are professional civil rights activists. But I guess we kind of well, maybe we weren't. Yeah, I guess we kind of absolutely

are now. So this is but I've been very honest that I'm learning my way through this. I'm not any bigger or any smaller than anyone else. I'm just a human being with a feeling, beating heart. And so it's it's that person that watches these videos and feels and in that way, I think we all are professionals at civil rights. Sure, all of us that are have any sense of empathy, any sense of love, any sense of wanting things to be okay for everybody. It doesn't require,

you know, a doctrine of any sort. You know, just have a beating herd and just be a human being. You know, you should want for things to at minimum be okay. That's for everybody. That's I'm glad you said that. That's why this first video that caused me to be so emotional is worth discussing now. For those that haven't seen it, I'll kind of paint the picture a little bit. There's a woman elderly, she's probably knocking on seventy years old,

gray hair, black, brown skinned woman. For those that don't know, I'm sure most of you do know, But for those who don't know, that's a very precious creature around here culturally for us, an old black woman. And think about that when I say that, that is the kindest person. That is the person that will share with you. That person calls you baby, because that person calls everyone baby. And you don't call someone baby unless you intend to treat them like they are your baby. They're your child.

You know what I mean. Like, if I got to heaven at the end of my life and God looked me in the face and I saw God and God was an old black woman, I'd be like, yep, checks out, That's what I thought. So it's this woman who is driving down the highway. She's in a SUV, high up suv. I wanna say it was like a Toyota Sequoia. If you're familiar with vehicles but not a mid size of full size, think of expedition or a navigate or something

that size. Big truck. And where the video picks up is the police go to this to the door of the vehicle. She's already pulled off on the side of the highway. Why why she's there, and they yank her out of the car. Now you can see that hair, that hair turns white, you know, and you can see she's she's she's got like big Mama energy, Grandmama energy.

I hope that I'm painting the picture for you. I realize that a lot of people that listen to our voices and listen to the show every week might not know or be able to make a connection with that big Mama energy or that Grandmama energy. But I hope that that you kind of know what I'm saying. This is what you get from this woman the whole time. Yankor out of the car and throw her on the ground. Right, that's policing. Policing are doing. Police are doing exactly what

they're supposed to do. In this video, that system works great. There's been a frame and talk to you. They were doing exactly because at any point in time you could say, well, why did you handcuff this woman? She clearly poses a zero threat to all of these younger men around her. She's alone, she has no pressure, her purses in the car. They're asking her to get her person. She's handcuffed and she's complaining and crying because she says that she got

in a car crash and her shoulder. She messed up her shoulder. She says, I was on the way to the funeral. Why did you pull me over? I've done nothing wrong, And they say, we've been following you for ten miles with the lights on. You didn't pull over, And she's like, I didn't know you were following me. Why would I think you were following me. I didn't do anything wrong, you know. But there's this violent reaction by the police. And again when there's a bunch of

them together, they get real bold. I mean, you know, how dare you not comply? Is the energy they have once they get to her. Dig this, dig this. It's like gangsters. Right. So I'm from Compton, Okay, but you know this too. I'm sure everybody knows this story. Even if you're listening and you didn't grow up around a bunch of gang bangers, you know this story. When it's one person, they don't really talk that loud. They might try to get something off. You know, you know, if

you got you're confronting this one person. You know, they size you up, but they recognize where they are in the space that they hold. But when that one person is back by three four other people, you notice that person gets a lot louder, right, They a lot more aggressive, and they have a lot more to say, and they're moving around a little bit more embolden. There you go, And this is what you see with the police. They're all standing around this elderly woman who's on the side

of the road, just wailing. And you don't see any empathy. You don't see public servants. What you see is a bunch of bullies. And that's why I speak so much to the culture of policing, because I think that they believe in theory what they did is the right thing. They was it a speeding, but whatever it was, I think it was speeding. They said she was speeding. Kidn't have been crazy speeding because she's a million years old doing fifty six and a fifty more than likely, you

know what I mean. But when she gets pulled over, you know, these guys all got to show up and show out and to see that happening, and to know that it would not happen if this was any other type of person. Man, what seems to be the problem. Why did you have us follow you for so long? This is the video had to have been from the South, because I do remember that accent. I apologize I couldn't get the information of the state order. But these guys

were talking like those good old country boys. If this had been an older white woman or older white man or something, I just can't see them behaving the same way, you know, especially once you've determined there is no threat. Every single police officer in the world would say standard practice, or they would say it's for our protection, or they would say anything that is their standard argument when it comes to that sort of stuff. But I think that the video that I saw speaks more to the culture

of policing. And you mentioned defunding the police earlier, and I'm going to keep talking about it until it happens, because that's what I do. I talk and usually things happen. So here's hoping. But that further illustrates that defund call because one of the ideas when it comes to defunding the polices, well, traffic enforcement should not fall under policing.

Traffic enforcement is not you're not dealing with criminals, but what you have are officers who show up with murder weapons and treat people like their criminals as opposed to people who may have touched the the what's that lane called the noise lane I'm referring to For those that don't know, I'm referring to a story that Q and I have told a couple times on the show where we were in a car together and we ended up getting pulled over in Mississippi because we drifted for about

a second or less. Well, here's the thing, we didn't drift. The rumbo strips some people call them, but it's just perforated concrete that vibrates when you drive a tire over it. And it's just say to a person, Hey, if you've dozed off, wake up, or if you've drifted out of your lane, get back in it. Yeah, except in Mississippi, that's not on the side of the road. It's in the middle. Yeah. So it's on the white line, not outside of the white line like it is where we

live in Arizona. Yeah. So, anyway, what we ended up with on that night, in brief just to tell the story is we ended up stuck on the side of the road for forty five minutes while these people called sir dogs to check our car for drugs for a traffic violation. Of course we had no drugs. We're driving a brand new Porsche, you know, and we're two younger

presenting black mails. And so they have all the license in the world to do whatever it is that they want because they're bording on the side of the road. And so again one of the calls is to have traffic enforcement be its separate arm of policing where you don't need weapons, you don't, you just enforce traffic rules. Right.

But the latitude that these murderous police have with their murder weapons when it comes to stopping someone for a traffic violation is it's just they can do whatever they want and then they have it, what's that qualified immunity, And it's set up for them to escalate as well. Right, because they pull you over for speeding, Just write me a ticket for speeding and then give it to me. That's it, and then leave. But they accept I want to make sure you're not a criminal. Do you have

any drugs in the car? Do you have it you mind, step in out of the car. How about you put your hands on vehicles for my protection? Okay, if you don't want to consent to a search, what we're going to do is get a dog out here, and if for some reason they want I've seen, well, my belief is that I've seen police abuse this power when I was very young. You know, I saw it. Together. You don't even have to use your imagination from that law. Okay, you know I was talking about when I was young.

But yeah, I've seen it absolutely since. It's happened to me since then. But I you know, anyway, and they'll they'll make a criminal out of you if they so choose. You know, obviously, if they have a modicum of something to go on, then it makes their job a lot easier to make a criminal out of you. But if they choose to make a criminal out of you, they'll just say you're resisting arrest. They'll just say whatever and make up stuff which couldn't have happened unless you've already

tried to detain me. So how is resisting arrested in charge? Sir? Listen, I don't know, but it happens. We both know that it happens, happened in my family. It's happened to me. What was I being arrested for? So again with this, with this call for defunding the police, I just want to make sure that part of the strategy is to separate. You know, there's a common complaint among police officers. You know, we do too much. How are we supposed to do

all of these things? How are we supposed to you know, if we're responding to every single type of call from ladies that helped me their cat get out of a tree, to you know, someone's actively robbing a bank and you know there's an active shooter in the mall and that sort of stuff. You know, those are two different things, but the same person shows up. It's you know, and these people don't engage. They don't take this job to

get cats out of trees. You know, I don't think, but there could be a department that have you ever seen a swat team? That's a training video. You should have to be good enough to be on a swat team to carry the murder weapon that you spoke about. I like that that works for me, right, So everyone that carries a gun should be swat and swats should be called when there's imminent danger. Hey, there's someone here trying to kill people, or like you said, robbing a bank,

or they're beating someone up really bad. Can the people who stop criminals come? Yeah, Traffic and wellness, chetal and mental health things should be someone like a psychiatrist or a psychologist. And at best, at best, if you wanted to make an argument that they need protection, there are non lethal options, which they absolutely could abuse, So we don't want that idea used. A non lethal option. People are still not dead, and if there's cash, there's cameras,

and here's this. If I'm not dead, you might be held accountable. Boom, talk to h Q, say that Q, because we cannot pretend that these some of these deaths don't happen for that exact reason. So only one person has a side of the story to tell. So now we're starting to see that defund the police is not so scary as even though it sounds scary, It is really more a call to reallocate these resources, these fiscal resources.

Let's create departments that prevent crime from happening in the first place, that deal with social inequities and so forth. But also let's really rethink what policing means because a commuter and the example that I was given earlier in the show about the white man who lost his life because the police were trigger happy, that was a function

of the track fix stop. Man did nothing wrong. He was a little bit argumentative with the police because he didn't feel like you should have been pulled over and detained. And that's his right. You know, just because the police are talking to you doesn't mean that you should have to sacrifice your dignity. Lack folks often do because we want to live. But it's you and I always do it, yeah, always on time. Yeah, But but I you know, I

do understand that. You know, questioning an officer, and an officer doesn't want to give you an answer, you double down on the question, like, wait a minute, you got to tell me why I'm here. Otherwise I don't know if this is bogus or fugezy or what. Imagine the people you paid to protect you. I don't have to imagine this bullying. You really don't have to imagine that. No, I'm saying imagine it because in that position, we can't

view it that way. Of course, not we can't. You're thinking this person that I pay to protect me is out of line and stand your ground and no. But for those who have greater imaginations than myself and have never had the displeasure of the type of interactions with law enforcement that we have, Imagine the people that you literally pay to protect you harassing, beating, killing and killing you and being upset with you for being upset with them.

And then there's now nobility of course. So yeah, this is the world that we live in. But we're talking about it. And I think that that gives power to this, to this conversation, to this narrative, and to the thrust of this campaign. Speaking of wellness checks, and you know, we talked about there being different types of calls. Like nine one one will take a call and send it to upon a paramedic, send it to a police officer. There can be a whole other division. There can be

Donald Trump invented the Space Force. There can be a division of people that respond and do wellness checks or traffic enforcement or whatever. That actually happened. That's just a real time, but it shows you that it's possible. These people we want all of us. I'm going to conclude myself in there we've all developed a very narrow view of what policing looks like and what public safety looks like. But if we expand it just a bit, and we recognize that it is possible to expand it just a bit,

then we can address some of these things. And one such thing was another video that we saw. My understand you sent me this video cue. My understanding is that you don't really see much in the video. It's dark, but you do hear the audio. An officer pulls up, gets out, weapon clearly drawn right based on what I'm hearing and what I'm seeing in terms of his arms being outstretched, and the video lasts a minute or less. I believe it was a matter of seconds, so I

couldn't have been a minute, but you know, who knows. Anyway, officer gets out screaming immediately, put your hands up, put your hands up, you know. And then he says, uh, don't put the gun to your head. And then he's like screaming like, don't walk toward me, don't walk toward me, and then bang bang bang bang bang, and then he starts getting on radio. Shots fired, suspect down, blah blah blah, this that and the third funny how suspects down something like that. You know, I invite you to watch a

video it's either on Sean Kings or doo Hubs. People. I'm just saying that that's the term they use, even if you're not actually suspected of anything. So tell me what you know about this video and why you sent it to me. I sent it to you because I couldn't watch another one. I couldn't. That was that was video six, video six of the week or something like that. And I heard I didn't even get to the gunshot.

I heard what you heard how it starts. Yeah, and from that tone, I knew the direction that it was going. It was being escalated that way, almost with intent. Yeah, it sounded like that stop resisting stuff. Yeah. The idea that I'm going to murder you so you don't murder you was ridiculous. Wasn't a gun by the way, people, But even if that's what you thought it was, why are you murdering the man holding the gun to his

own head to protect you? Or because now that you think you see anything in his hand, what did he happen to murder him? And justify it? This strange technology called the cell phone that guy had a cell phone in his hand, and the officer said, and I guess that's how you can pretend that he has a gun

to his head because he has the phone. Here. For those of you that can't see me, just imagine holding your phone to your ear, and imagine, while holding that phone to your ear, being told by a person with a gun pointed at you and screaming at you to put the gun down. There's a moment where you understand I'm about to die. I know I don't have a gun,

and so does this officer most likely. But now that he's said out loud, just like the officer who yelled out taser after already having pulled out an aim a pistol, now that he's yelling out gun, he's going to give himself some deniability, some cause, and some justification for murdering me. And with the exception of collapsing on the ground, which might be a sudden movement which might also cause him

to shoot me. There's no version of this where I survive, because this officer determined before he got out of his car how this was going to play out. Well, that's very sad to know that it was a phone, but I want to say something. I do understand the desire to have someone in that moment with you when the police pull up, because you know, to add to the story that we told earlier about us being in Mississippi

with the lane lines or whatever. First thing I did was put my phone on the dashboard and turn on Facebook Live so that I wouldn't be alone, because once they took you out of the car, they asked you to step out of the vehicle and walk back to the police car. So I'm like, Okay, whatever's happening in the cues about to happen to me. So I do get that, and I understand that, and that's just an unfortunate part of how we need to interact with the police.

But it's sort of like a catch twenty two because we need someone else to witness what we're going through or what we're about to go through, and the police are insistent that we do exactly what they say or else they're terrified they're going to execute us. And so I guess this is the world that we live in, and it's very sad, but real quick and if you're just tuning in to civic side from your host, Rams's

job they call me q Ward. Okay, you were going to say something, was that we were speaking about the idea or the need to have someone with us or hopefully someone around when we interact with law enforcement. Sure. And the really interesting thing that I've noticed over the last year, and I say that period of time very specifically because of the very heightened sense of accountability and the increase and people scrutinizing and paying attention to law

enforcement since George Floyd was murdered. There are a lot of people paying attention and when the most eyes are on them and camera phones in their own body cams, not only has it not slowed down or ceased, but I'm seeing more of these videos than I ever have at any point in my life. It's almost like, oh, you guys are gonna challenge us. Let us show you how we really get down. And they're so used to operating with impunity, they're so bold about it that they'll murder,

what are you on video? And then say blue lives man? Then say blue Lives Matter? Are you going to say that already? Man? I could read your thoughts. For those who don't know, we're talking about the video of what's her name? She was fourteen. I think her name was Mackayah yeah, McKay Bryant. Yeah, so yeah. Shout out to our producer, DJ Swirrel was feeding us the info we need. And one more thing I wanted to talk about. There

was another video that we saw. You might have sent it to me, or maybe Swirrel sent it to me, but it was a video of an officer engaging with what turned out to be a teenager with autism, an autistic teenager. Unfortunately I sent you that too, And you know, that reminds me of there's so many names. I really need to do better. I'm terrible with names in real life. But there's a young man in Colorado and the police choked him in the cold, and he was a kind man.

I need to find his name. I'm going to say his name before the show's over. But the story kind of reminds me of his interaction with the police where the officer shows up and in the video, at least, the officer shows up asks the kid to sit down or something like that, and the kid reluctantly complies. But you know, as you can imagine, this kid is pretty confused, and you know, the officer's position is the officer does not know that this person is autistic, right, doesn't know

this person this teenager's level of comprehension. So the officer has to do what the officer has to do. And again, and I think that speaks to the culture of policing. If you're going to be a police officer because you get protected first, then I think that you're coming to the table with a degree of fear that doesn't lend itself to you performing your job the way that it's supposed to be performed. You're supposed to be a public servant.

If you come into every situation like, well, I'm scared of what might happen to me, then you're going to end up causing more harm to society than good. What if that's why you signed up? And so this is this is why we need to restructure it, you know. And while I got it. His name is Elijah McClain as the young man from Colorado who lost his life because the police choked him in the in the cold

last year. And I don't know if it was autism, but there was something about him, something like that that where he wasn't he was a very special young man. That's the best way I can describe him anyway. So this teenager from last week again had a similar interaction with the police where the officer said something scared the kid. The kid gets up to try to run away, which again is a natural human impulse if you fear for your life, I don't care if it's a lion, I

don't care if it's a police officer. I don't care if it's a bug. I've seen human beings run away from bugs, you understand. So a police officer with a murder weapon will scare you enough to run away. It's the only thing that you know how to do. You either fight or you flight. It's an innate thing that's built into us. If you get someone scared enough, their heart starts pumping adrenaline and they need to figure out

how to survive. It's limbic. You cannot change that. It is built into every single creature that is endowed with consciousness self preservation. And so this child responded accordingly and tries to run away. The officer catches him and then starts punching him. And when you recognize that this is an adult police officer punching a teenager with autism in the face, you have on full display in front of

the whole world the culture of policing. And I already know what the officer would say, say something about suspect was non compliant, suspect was resisting life, I need, you know, all these sorts of things. And then you end up with another police officer admitting to his own cowardice. But the result is still the same, that he's not held accountable, there's no charges filed, and this child is beaten and forever,

you know, changed as a result of that. I heard a story the other day about someone who went through a similar interaction with the police, and he says, you know, I've never called the police in my life, never called the police in my life. I've needed the police, I've needed some sort of service. But I know the last time I interacted with the police that they it's like a phobia. Okay, I'll tell you something real quick that I understand. I'll take it's not even accurate when it's justified,

but yeah, yeah, thank you. But I'm gonna tell you something. So I live in America, right, people love dogs. Everybody loves dogs. You know, does not love dogs. Ramses not love dogs, does not love dogs, not even a little bit. I have grown even if they belong to me Nope, or his sister Nope. But I've grown to tolerate dogs, right. But that's because I worked really hard at it. The reason that Ramses doesn't love dogs is not because I wish harm on dogs, because I think the dogs are

terrible creatures or whatever. I got bit by a dog when I was three years old. I had a three year old arm, baby sized arm. Dog bit into my arm. I have a tattoo of a heart over this car sunk his teeth into my arm and then took his tooth out of my arm. And I saw a deep purple socket on my arm from a dog that I knew that I was petting at the time. I wasn't petting it hard. I'm not that person. I don't have that energy. Was just hanging out with the dog bit

my arm. Plug a deep purple socket into my baby fat arm, you know, nice and squishy arm man, and I looked at it and I thought, man, that's pretty cold. That's foul. So then I started wailing. My dad comes out and makes a big scene out of it, takes me and gets me all bandaged up, and the rest is history. But the next eleven years, until I was fourteen, I was absolutely terrified of every dog. I could be around cats, I could be around mountain lions, wouldn't make

a difference, you know. But if you had a dog, it could be a chill, It could be the smallest, it could be a baby. I want nothing to do with it, because it was just now a part of it at that point, right, and I just and it was embarrassing, and it was all this sort of thing. So I understood when this man was telling me a story about the police, you know, uh, traumatizing him in that way. And so I can relate. And maybe you got a story or two you can relate to as well.

But that's all the time that we have for Civic Cipher this week. Once again, I'm your host rams this job. They called me q Ward and that just so happens to be my name. Indeed, Please hit the website civiccipher dot com for all your questions, submit any topics you want us to discuss. Of course you can donate. Your donations are appreciated and help the show grow. And again be sure to follow all our social media at Civic Cipher And until next week y'all peace, peace,