Welcome to another episode of Civic Cipher. I'm your host, ramses Jah.
They call me q Ward, but typically because they just don't feel like pronouncing Quentin.
Yes, indeed, and we are back of ben you one more gain true to form to talk about the goings on in Black America. But today is a special episode because we have a special guest. He goes by the name of the honorable. Rarely we get to say that we have like the top dog in here, the Honorable Cody Williams. Now, now I want you to talk about yourself, and we're gonna spend a lot of time talking about you, but just so you know who we have in the
studio today. He's been a city council member. He started his first election one his first election in nineteen ninety three and has held an elected position ever since. At present, he is a court justice and for many years in the state of Arizona, he was the only black court justice, and now there are more, which I think is a testament to the fact that the world is changing for
the better for black and brown folks. You know, I tend to be more optimistic than some folks, but you know I'm not going to knock you c but until it was one of six City Council and Justice of the Peace elections, and so we're very honored to have you here today, So thank you for joining us. Yes, sir, but before we get to our conversations with you, I want to talk about Simone Biles.
So, Q, is it okay if we get to some ebony excellence? Absolutely all right. All I do is win, no matter what.
So I'm admittedly not a person who follows sports or anything like that. I'm a music I always have been. But you can't help but miss Simone Biles. You know, either you miss her because she's not performing or you know, she's not making the headlines that you would like, but she's making some other headlines. And over the past week, i'd say a lot of people have been very critical of her for not performing in the Olympics or you know,
sitting out certain events. Q. You could help me out a lot better with what these things are called or whatever. But as it turns out, she was prioritizing her mental health.
You know, we found that out.
And she had a condition called the twisties, which I believe is when you are disoriented when you're flipping in the air. She's a gymnast for those who don't know, and she does the like acrobatic maneuvers and that's how she places and wins all these gold medals. In addition to that, her aunt passed away. I want to say it was last week. And my opinion is that you know, black bodies are very often commodified, and.
You know it, it's up to us to draw the line.
It's up to us to prioritize ourselves because historically we've seen that folks, you know, don't often prioritize our health, our mental well being and so forth.
And she took a stand.
She did that and just like with Naomi, I want to say, Naomi Osaka, yes, correct it.
Okay, very good.
You know, she she stood up and we salute her and we commend her, and so we want to give her a shout out for our Ebony Excellence segment of the week.
So shout out to Simon Biles.
Congratulations to her on winning the bronze medal in the balance beam. You know, she took some time off to look after her own mental health, but she did decide after all to compete and she did metal and.
I think she said that that was her the most special one. It was like a very special medal overall, even though it wasn't cold.
She actually said that it was the one that she did for herself. Oh, because she's un understood that when you are the best in what you do, there's a certain kind of pressure that everyone else who does it just doesn't have. And that kind of pressure can get to you if you don't do this for yourself, If your only thought is to do it because I gotta do it, because I'm the only one that can do it, i gotta do it for the country, family, everybody else. At some point, that's a lot of pressure and it
may not even be fun anymore. But to be able to come back and say I'm doing this one for me and no matter what happens, I'm happy about it, that's the great message. That is a tremendous message to anyone else who may be going through this. So don't let the pressures of others down your program.
Absolutely. I love that. I love that.
So once again, some owe Biles Ebony excellence in its purest form, and we love to see it around here.
And the voice that you do heard.
Again was the Honorable Judge Cody Williams, and the reason that you're here today is because.
You're a great man.
You work in the criminal justice system, and you know, historically on the show, you know, as I mentioned before, we were before we were you know, on air broadcasting that you know, Q and I have historically been very critical of policing systems and the criminal justice system and its entirety. We feel, and it's generally understood that black people are disproportionately affected negatively by the criminal justice system.
A lot of outcomes tend to follow wealth and culpability sometimes does not really enter into the scenarios often as as frequently as we'd like, we'd that to be.
One hundred percent of the time.
When it does fall short, typically black and brown folks are at the.
Short get the short end of that stick.
And you're a person who stepped up in the early nineties and really started a political career and then now as a judge, have some degree of influence over those those outcomes. One of my first questions that I wanted to ask was what things have you seen.
Change in your.
Time as an elected official for the better for black and brown folks, Because again, we've been critical, but we'd love to discuss some favorable things. I'm not talking about necessarily Obama, you know, those sorts of things, but things that you know are measurable or otherwise feel like it's a better reality.
Okay, Well, first of all, I have to caveat and just remind you that yesterday I was black, Today I'm black, and more than likely tomorrow I'll be black. And so I've always appreciated and approached the things that I do as a black man, as an African American man, and so my efforts have always been collective. I came from a generation, if you will, that marched together, that sacrifice
their individual things to create collective outcomes. And when you think about the fact that the population in the state of Arizona, City of Phoenix, Americopa County of African Americans is at three to five percent, to be able to say an African American can be elected in any position, says that you have to build bridges. You have to build bridges between various communities, various races, ethnicity, religion, sex, orientation,
all of those things matter. Because I can't run for an office and win just because black people vote for me. I could have every black person in state of Arizona vote for me in my small area, and I would not have enough to win against someone similarly positioned. So it's important that my message resonate, and it's important that as things have evolved and changed. The biggest change that I've seen more recently is that there are more folk willing to listen to the black person's message than in
the past. Because, let's say when I was on the city council, I was elected member of city council nineteen ninety three, the only African American owned city council. However, there had been a gentleman before me that had been there twenty two years. After my eight there was a gentleman African American who was there for twelve years, but once that he ended his term that twelve year period excuse me, twenty four year period, twenty two year period ended.
We haven't seen another African American on the Phoenix City Council because the numbers of Latino voters and Anglo voters that have populated the New Phoenix have not seen enough of us running for those offices. And the more that happens, the more you're going to see African Americans getting elected. It's not like being in Atlanta or some other place where the African American population is the majority, where you will see two or three or four African Americans in
an election. New York City's election showed that there are a number of very qualified minority candidates that can be elected. So what I see from a change perspective is that more communities in our twenty four city metropolitan area, more communities around the country are seeing individual African Americans choose to run for office knowing they don't have a minority population that exceeds the broader population, and many of them
are still being successful. And that is huge as it relates to our future because without elected individuals who come from those community, who produce their actions based on being African American and experiencing those issues that you and Q talk about on a regular basis. You know, I'm a black man and I've seen it. I've been in that car that has been pulled over and I wasn't the guy,
but I looked I fit the bill, all right. I raised my two black children knowing that you're going to be big and black and you have to humble yourselves in some situation to stay alive. I'd rather you stay alive so we can get in the game. But if your mouth gets you in a place where it creates an outcome where you die, then all I have the ability to do is hire the mortuary and sue somebody. And I would rather you be alive and let me get in there and fight with you, which sends that
broad a message we need to fight together. I can't have what we're doing now just be about young people in the streets. You got to have the middle age, you gotta have the seniors. You gotta let everybody who's ever cared about a black person be a part of caring about all of us.
Excellent, excellent man.
So there's something you said in it. You know, we talked about this the first time that we met. There's something to empowering generations to come. You know, this this plight of black people and brown people, and our Native brothers and sisters and so forth, all of our individual plights, which I believe are all kind of you know, there's yeah connected, We're all connected to each other's outcomes.
It's not.
It and we've seen it hasn't been solved in one generation. This isn't the first generation to take to the streets. This isn't the first generation, certainly not the first generation to run for office or to have a voice, or to you know, anything like that. How do we go about empowering ourselves or understanding that we can.
Hold elected office too?
Because when I look at you, I see somebody who's special, a brilliant mind, a very composed man.
But I'll be hopefully.
This doesn't sound like I'm feeling myself or anything, but I know that when people look at me and they're like, you're on the radio, I'm like, yeah, you know, they think that I have some special magic powers and that's not true.
I'm just a normal guy who happens to do this.
What is it that we can do to increase the number, that increase the representation, to ensure that there's you know.
A snowball effective of the things that you started?
Good question. I think there's it's a dual component. There's an ask aspect ask and there is an offer aspect I can offer to have you come into my court being in turn take tours. When I got elected as a city council person, I created something called the District Date Youth City Council.
I read about that, Yeah, and I brought.
In at least two members of every elementary school, in high school and junior high school that has that was in my council district, and that might be forty to fifty sixty kids in city Hall. I toured them to the police station. I toured them to the fire station. I toured them to the court Phoenix Municipal Court. I toured them to the airport because I wanted them to
feel comfortable showing up at city Hall. Because a lot of times what we forget to remind our young people and people in general, is that if you pay taxes anywhere of any amount, you're paying for criminal justice. You're paying for the government structure. So if you commit a crime and you're paying for the salary of the officer who's arresting you, you're paying for the salary of the person who puts you in the holding cell, paying for
the judges, the prosecutors, and the defense attorney. And if you're convicted, you are paying for the person who puts you in jail and watches over you. Because you are paying taxes. And this is your community. It's not their community, it's our community. And so you've got to get out that box. And it was important for me to bring
kids to the court in the same way. So I do my South Mountain Justice Court teen Court, and we then are able to take juvenile juveniles who may be placed in that system and prevent recidivism by pulling them out and allowing their peers to actually hear their cases. As long as their parents are part of it. Then
they are judicated, questioned, and sentenced by their peers. And those sentences may include restitution by writing letters, going to paid over the graffiti that they did, going and fixing things that they may have broken, apologizing to their parents or to the adult, or through whoever the other child may be. But these have tried to keep folk out
of that system in the future. And once you become comfortable in the structure and say that I'm not afraid to go to city Hall and do some research for us it, I demystify it and I'm not afraid to go into the court because every time I've been there it's been a positive experience. As long as you're not that person who's in the orange jumpsuit, you've got control
over everything. And that's what I need to remind them, and that's what I hope to make sure when they go home and talk to their parents, they share their experiences, because many of the parents may not have positive input our experience in that system. And so hopefully there's just this continued invitation. So I'm asking an offering, but I also need those who want to if that's a twinkle in their eye about being an elected official. You have to ask all of us who are currently how it happened.
Come talk to us, call us on the phone, ask us if they get you know, we can have some coffee, Ask us if if there are some committees that I can appoint you to that start to give you access to the broader community. And that then is the ask part. So it's a two way street. I can't find you if I don't know you exist, But if you have a concept and idea and you won't share it with me, I can't help you with it.
Very good. I feel like.
On the show, we and we try not to, but I do recognize that a lot of times we tell
the same stories over and over again. We just swap out the name, swap out the location, you know, but there is very much an attitude or energy that underscores the show is that could be described as us versus them, right, And I try not to lean into that too much, because I do recognize that we all need to move forward together because short of an entire race of people disappearing off the planet, we're stuck on the same ball, and we have to share its resources and hopefully share
more happy exchanges with one another than you know, negative exchanges. I do believe that that's really what we can pursue. I do believe that's possible, but in this space, because the amount of stimulation it can be overwhelming that I do believe it is very easy to lose sight of the fact that we are participants the same as anyone else. It's not in us versus them. We have a responsibility and a right to fix our system.
You know, we may not.
Have created it or you know whatever, but if you're absolutely right, we pay taxes and we maintain it, then we own our fair share of it, and we are entitled to, you know, make our voices heard, either by by voting or by you know, holding an elected.
Position in our communities.
And so I appreciate that answer and that response because I think that for me you know, every so often I need to reset just to make sure that you know I'm not getting too far you know, left or right of what it is that I'm trying to do here. But with that said, you know, again on the show, you know Q and I have been you know, there's been tons of examples of us talking about just the way policing is done, especially with black and brown bodies.
And I can tell you all all day that you know, I do believe like we do the show, and we empower allies and we empower ourselves because we believe that by doing that, we can create a better space for all of us. And Q, I'll let Q say his position on that.
Well, I guess my position is not as optimistic as my brothers, and it really relates to what he just said. Doing this show, it is kind of our responsibility to digest this sometimes difficult story over and over again with different names, and it can be emotionally and mentally draining for me. But part of why we do this show is not just to encourage our allies, but to encourage
each other as well. We want to make sure that we realize that there is a possibility of a better world for us, for our posterity, for our family in our communities, and the world that they will grow up in. We have to make sure or at least try to feel that there is hope on the other side of this hill that we're climbing. I am not a eternal pessimist, but I have to be authentic and real about the things that we do have to digest and reconcile every week as we do this show.
Well, if you would allow, I feel your pain, because I feel very similar in the way that it keeps happening. And just remember that we didn't have the social media outlet, we didn't have camera phones growing up, but we always had situations where officers were abusing us. I have stories of officers driving you home or following you to your house instead of giving you a dui. You know. I've got stories of you know, when Powell had officers, they
would come out and play ball with you. You know, So every time it's an US versus them, that sort of
predicates that there should be a victor. You know, typically US versus them as a competition, and that versus part is what creates some of the pessimistic outcomes as well as the optimistic outcomes, because if you really put it in the context of African Americans on this country, on this land, far before it became a republic, before it became the United States, there were African Americans here who had been brought here for a lot of reasons, most
of them for slavery based. And when you think about Juneteenth as a great example, took a while before the emancipation to acclamation got to the West and the rest of slave were understood we were free, But that did not change the minds of people who were in there. You had some black folks who crave the protection of the plantation, and you had black folks who loathe the
concept of being slaves. And if you look at the evolution let's say technology, now, it used to be a point to where it takes ten years for something to change, five years for something to change, three years for something to change, eighteen months for something to change. New technology
is changing on a rapid basis. Well, if you think about where we started from and now where we're headed, we have achieved more in the way of openness, understanding, situational awareness to now be a much more organized and powerful voice. We just need to consolidate it. It has to start being something that's just not talked about or waived about. It has to be concluded with us working together, no matter what the age, no matter what the race, no matter what your socioeconomic situation.
And now watch pull my mic back. You're like that journalist. Journalists to we can strike.
Waters from head, borders behind him to be the border.
Well, if you're just tuning into Civic Cipher, I'm your host, Ramsy's John.
They call me q Wallas.
Indeed, uh, the Honorable Cody Williams, Judge Cody Williams joins us today and coming up later in the show, we are going to discuss a video that went viral.
This past week.
For those of you who have the tmz app, you've probably seen it three or four times now, but an officer on top of a little girl, pinning her to the ground.
So we're going to talk about that.
We also have our way Black History Fact coming up with DJ Swirl, and right now I would love to talk about how to become a better ally, so let's visit with Baba.
Now. I do recognize that despite what we.
Heard in the first half of the show, that we all need to get to where we're going together.
That a lot of folks really do feel like it's in us versus them.
It's the only way that people can make sense of the world. As a competition there on that side, we're on this side, and we need to win, right I recognize that. And I'm glad that you said what you said earlier in the show, because I want to echo
that right now. Came across an article that says, you know, and another officer from the Capitol Riots took his own life, right And then in some of the comments, you know, there's some folks that are saying horrible things, like you know, some things I don't even want to repeat, but basically very horrible things about this man because he was a police officer, that the world is a better place because
he took his own life. And I'm speaking to allies right now, folks that are very supportive of what's.
Happening in black and brown America right now.
I can't speak for everyone, but I will speak for myself and I will speak for the show Civic Cipher. Hopefully I can speak for Q as well and DJ Swirl when I say that we would never say anything like that. We don't believe that that is the right way to be. We recognize that whoever this officer was, I didn't get his name, and I should have because he deserves more than just that.
It deserves some dignity.
We recognize that he's a human being first, and that that antagonistic approach is not.
Really what we're going for here.
We really want there to be some commonality and so we don't want to celebrate the demise of anyone else, rather the accomplishments of our agenda. And in that way you can become a better ally. So don't let the most negative basic parts of yourself takeover. I just I wanted to say that, and I needed to use that segment to say it. So glad I got a chance to do it. Now back to police this time, we're going to Forny, Texas.
So Q have you?
I took this one this week, but I'm sure that it's come up a few times outside of our group chat.
Have you heard about it or read about it? I saw the video.
Yes, all of the above.
I heard about it, read about it.
And saw the video and just wanted to make a slight correction that the officer mounted a young lady, because I never wanted to come across like we're sensationalizing something to make the victim seem smaller or more fragile, or more weak when we say a baby or a child. So, yeah, I saw the video and I was just as enraged by it as you were, I'm sure.
So let me we won't spend a lot of time discussing the video, but rather what happened afterwards. So in short, for those who haven't seen the video, there's an officer. His name is Connor Martin, and he is laying on top of a young lady I guess it's probably the right way to say it, and pinning her into the ground, and she's crying and she's saying that she can't breathe, and there's a lot of commotion around her.
You get, you get the picture on painting.
The girl's name is Nikia Trigg and her mom is named Antonique, and Antonique was engaging with the officers, I guess, pleading with them to try to, you know, go easy on her little girl. Again, don't take this verbatim. If you want, you can watch the video or yourself. I'm trying to recall the details of it. Just so that we can talk about what comes next. Ultimately, the young lady Nikia and her mom Antonique are arrested, and you know, I do want to say what came from the officers
or the police department. So they said that they had gotten reports that Nikia was walking in front of cars and attempting to harm herself. Will say that the family refutes that, but that's what the officers stated. And so because I don't have any more context with respect to the video, I'm sure more details will come out later, but because I don't have that at present, that's really what I know. And the video just shows an officer on a little girl. She's saying she can't breathe, and
obviously we're here today to talk about that. But the thing that in the place where I want to start is the family said that they had received death threats from you know, the general population. They're in Texas, so you know it checks out. But also, sorry Texas if you're listening in Texas. But you know, we know that there's a lot of prejudice that exist in the in Texas and other parts of the South. But what was really surprising to me is that the family said that
they were getting death threats from police officers. Well, and that feels a little scary, and that's what forced them to move away from their house. They move the next day out of that house.
And so I guess I'll go first.
And you know, we talked a little bit earlier, Judge Williams and I about cognitive bias. This was before we started broadcasting. But you know, that checks out in my mind based on the stories that I've heard, you know, police running black people out of town. Granted it sounds like a story from the forties or the thirties or something, but still very much consistent with behavior that I've learned that police often, you know, do these are things that happened.
The police very much stick together. They protect themselves, and you know, if you're coming after one of them, you're coming after all of them. And there's this gang mentality that exists there. So this family gets run out of town. The reason why it's troubling is obviously, the police are supposed to protect and serve. That's what in theory, what they're supposed to do. And what we've seen in this video is they're responding to an incident. They didn't prevent
any crime or anything like that. They're responding to it, and I wasn't able to really see a lot of protection or serving and it's hard to write that into the story at this point based on limited information. I learned my lesson talking too soon about a video. But I want to get both of your thoughts on the video. If you've seen it, Jodge Williams, I'd love to hear
your thoughts as well. But you you said you've seen the video, and now that you know that the family had been run out of town, I'd love to hear your thoughts on it.
I'm really glad that we have Judge Williams here with us to talk about.
This topic because he is a parent. Cody Jr.
And Alan, I actually got a chance to meet Allan working alongside the Phoenix Suns over the years, and Rams and I have had a chance to admire your family because you guys, for years have set an amazing example for us, you and your wife, for us as fathers, you guys have made it so that as parents we can point to a realistic, achievable goal to our children.
So in this instance, I just can't imagine being there in the position of that mother watching her child struggle to breathe terrified, held down and mounted by an officer, and all she wanted to do was protect her child, and the harder she tried to help her, the harder that officer tried to hold her down. And several other officers arrived to the scene and did nothing to make.
The situation better.
And there were more than enough officers there for someone else to be able to intervene, even if it's helping the officer and the girl up from the ground, to restrain her, to put her in handcuffs. If the idea is she was trying to harm herself and we need to protect her. So what is the right thing to do if you're a parent in that position? Because you said something earlier, and it's a sentiment that I've had to echo. I adopted a teenage nephew recently, and I've
had to tell him, humble yourself. In a moment, you might have to lose some dignity and some self respect so that you can live and get back to me, and then we can figure out what to do moving forward. So, as a mother, as a father, a father specifically with that being charged number one to ourselves to protect our families, What is the best case scenario for a mother for a parent in that scenario.
Well, from my perspective, first and foremost, the things that we have seen over the last five, seven, eighteen years are great examples of the lack of decision making context because many times we see examples of officers not a equipped to deal with situations that they are faced with. Where there's the gentleman who's taking his kids, he's not listening to the police, he's trying to leave, the mother's trying
to stop him. He's player in the car, and the officer, instead of tasing or putting down strips on the ground, he shoots him. Jacob Blake, you know. And again I wasn't going to start to mention names because there's too
many of them. But at the same time, there was a situation here in the city of Phoenix where an officer was called by the family of an older senior citizens who had lost her I mean, not taken her medication, and she had been very problematic for the family and they called the police to help them deal with her so she could get the help she needed and to
get her on her maids. She had a hammer in her hand, and the police arrived and nine police officers surrounding her, in one of them or more than one end up shooting her as the way to address the issue, when in reality, too many times the suggestion of calling the police means the police feel like they have to address it immediately, so instead of you know, I'm a firm believer that if you show up at the scene and you pull your gun, everybody who else shows up
is going to have their gun out. But if you're the person who shows up the scene first and your gun is holsted, and you look around to all of your comparatriots and say, this is a woman who's offer a meds, who has a hammer, we can be patient enough to allow us to resolve this. If she starts coming to you, back up, move away, she doesn't have
a gun, She's not going to shoot you. But the thought that you have to immediately address this issue and force that issue into some kind of outcome like lying on top of someone as opposed to getting off of that person and allowing the greater number to rein in
the situation, that becomes decision making. And I believe that across this country, one policing and training it has to have a continuous overhaul, because there are so many folks who are still part of agencies twenty thirty years later that still have in mindset that when we get called and we need to address this issue immediately, and so the desire to be patient to assess situations and allow them to evolve in a way that they can still can control it without losing the dignity or putting the
person who you've been called to help in harm's way. As a parent, I'm sitting there watching you on top of my child, just like the young girl who videoed the the happening. In minutes, I've lost my train of thought. But George Floyd, you know everybody in that George Floyd environment was saying get off. Think if you just thought, if you had the capacity to understand that time has passed, you may have lost track of time. But you've been
on this man's neck for way too long. And if we aren't bold enough as other officers and our training doesn't say you need to go check your boy, we're gonna transfer this, We're gonna hand this off. I need you to come over and I need you to place your hands or put him in handcuffs. Because if you're in handcuffs, what's the danger? All right? Then I gonna shoot you. You didn't have access to a gun. You know. The reality Tea is is what's she going to do.
She's on the ground, she's a young person and she's obviously having mental issues. If she's in the middle of the street and cars are dodging her, what you want to do is protect her. You want to protect those drivers, and you want to make sure you go home tonight as well. So, yes, parents have to equip their children.
This community has to continuously overhaul the decision making capacity and aspects of decision making and law enforcement because the risk of making the wrong decision in a heated moment could result in the loss of a life that should never have been taken, or the embarrassment or traumatization of a human being that should never have had to go through those things.
I want to ask you something, well, rather, I would like you to do me a favor because there's a lot of people. You're very popular person, and a lot of people would be very upset if we didn't discuss not just your professional relationship with the Phoenix Police Department, but you're rather more personal relationship with the Phoenix Police Department. And so would you be so kind as too.
I think you want me to say, I'm married to the chief of police. I am happily married for over thirty years to the first African American female and first female chief of police in the city of Phoenix, the fifth largest city in the United States. And she's been chief police in the city of oxen Ard for over a five year period before she came here. She's been
in law enforcement for thirty two years. And I'm very proud of the efforts that she's made because she's approached her job as a mother and the mother of black male children. And so I can't tell you how many times I've heard her make those statements to the community that hey, look, you are like my children. I do not want you harmed, and I will make sure that the organization that is the Phoenix Police Department will continuously evolve to a place where they respect your children too,
you know. And so they have a duplicitous job they have to address those situations because when somebody dials nine one one and you don't show up, you're gonna get complaints about the fact that nobody showed up, particularly if you need someone to help you or to save your life, because many times that's what the call is about. There are all those other situations that involve individuals who make decisions.
And I can assure you, even as a city council person, long before she was a chief of police, we were addressing the way law enforcement interacted with the community because so many times it looks like a mirror of this movie environment that we kind of currently see where you see somebody get thrown on the ground and they start cursing your eye, get your outfit add on the ground,
and blah blah blah. Well, when you start to see videos on somebody's phone where they're doing the very same thing that you saw in the movie last night, it's starting to say that I don't know if any law enforcement agency that's training their officers to curse people out and throw them and hurt them and throw them on the ground. Somewhere in there is a culture that has allowed that in some cases, but has perpetuated it in some individuals who are like a cancer and can't be removed.
And so the goal of at least my knowledge is to try to weed and seed. You're trying to weed out the bad and plant new officers in. We need more African American young people, We need more Hispanic law enforcement offs. We need more minorities to join law enforcement to change some of those ways of thought.
I want to ask you a question.
Let me preface it by saying some things that I have heard have not confirmed myself. On the show, We've had many of the young women from Black Lives Matter, and I've heard the statistic that Phoenix is that has the deadliest police department in the country.
I've heard that, perhaps from more than one source. Right now. I love what you said about.
Weeding, weeding and seating, you know, weeding out the bad officers and so forth. Those folks have a rather different philosophy, and that philosophy is to defund the police. Now, because this is a shared forum, if they say that, I would love to ask what your thoughts on on that are.
Well. Let me first by saying, there have there was a period of time about three four years ago where the statement of being the deadliest force was very true, and UH, the City of Phoenix police chief, the City Council UH brought in outside third party people to do studies on where these what what how these broke down. How many of these happened where no one pulled a gun and the officer shot that person or was responsible
for their death. Others where the officers were responding to someone and someone was shooting at them and the death occurred. And so there was this clear understanding of what this were, what this was. And so over the last three years that number has fallen substantially. And that's positive. I mean, that's information, that's public information that if you want to have access to it, there's a study, and there is
clear measurement of those kinds of things. And what I also know is that whenever there is a shooting that occurs with Lafoenis police officers, they release the body worn camera to the public as soon as they possibly can, long before the investigation is over, so that they can see and hear the situation as it occurred. They give you the caveat saying, hey, look, we have not concluded
an investigation. This is just hard, unedited information that you get to make your own assessment, and then as we go through that process, we will make sure we let you know. So these are some of those changes that have occurred as a result of that The reality of it is, if you, as a community member, imagine that
when one officer does something stupid, bad, dumb. However the case is that that's the way all of the offices are, then you guys have a bad situation and you got to work on that, all right, And so we just need to make sure that there's always sharing of the information. Report those individuals in each of those interactions. Force law enforcement in any city in this valley, any city in this country, to investigate your individual situations. Make supervisors aware
of how their employees are acting. And those are the things that sort of get us to those hopefully positive resolutions.
Very good, Very good.
Well, normally I jump right into the way black history fact. But I feel like you didn't quite get a chance to answer or respond to your thoughts on that defund the police if you like, Yes, I would love to hear your thoughts.
And I appreciate you asking the question because I think the most important thing that I can say about it is that how is defund the police defined? I've heard at least a half dozen to a dozen different definitions, and that comes by community. So does defund the police mean that you want to take monies? That are currently budgeted to them and use them elsewhere. Does that mean that you want to reduce the number of law enforcement
officers that currently exist and cut positions? Does that mean that you want to defund the global context of police and then use whatever monies that you are able to capture and place that in social services programs or alternative programs that have to be determined if they have a similar outcome or value. And so I can certainly appreciate that there are areas of fluff in probably every police department,
but they're probably most involved. I mean, excuse me. Most police officers and police organizations would tell you that they are operating on a bare minimum set of budget criteria. And you have to manage defunding the police in whatever definition you choose with do you still want your law enforcement organization to respond to your calls? What role in your community do you want the police department to play?
And if you can't define that, then defunding the police doesn't change the underlying issue you have with the police. If you have an issue with how they approach you, then you need to talk about using resources to educate law enforcement and training programs, both the new ones coming in and the existing ones, you have to make sure that they are responding to your citizenry the way you feel comfortable with.
Can I ask you this then? So there is a school of thought that police, a greater police presence on the ground will lead to less in the way of criminal activities.
But what.
I don't want to say, what is often the case is police will can at best respond once a crime has been committed. A crime has to happen in order for the police to come investigate, hopefully catch the bad guy. And then you know, the bad guy comes and sees you in court. And so by defunding the police department and putting it into those social services as you mentioned earlier, you're able to actually put together programs that prevent the
crime from happening in the first place. And then their studies about what is the source.
Of different types of crime.
Obviously there's some folks who are just sick, but there's usually a lot of economic reasons for criminal activity. And if those reasons are economic based and we are not addressing them, then we're not addressing the root cause of crime.
We end up with a inflated.
Police staff, several officers that are basically policing the citizenry and then we end up in it with a police state more or less.
So what do you think about that? Well, the first thing I would and I can only speak to Phoenix, and then the Metropolitanian city of Phoenix has about one point three one point four million people in its population. It's approximately four hundred and fifty square miles. Yeah, okay, there are somewhere between twenty five hundred to three thousand sworn officers in the City of Phoenix, twenty five hundred
two for one point three five. Then you take that twenty five hundred and you break them up into investigations, you break them up into a small percentage into swat patrol officers and the various different things that they are responsible for. So you really only have about a nucleus of maybe one thousand to fifteen hundred maybe two that are actually.
Engaged to include sheriffs.
No, that's just the City of Phoenix's police department. It is the largest police department police organization in the state of Arizona. The county has its own officials that typically deal with cities, smaller cities that don't have the resources to have their own police departments. And in rural areas within the metropolitan So you'll see them in certain areas where you think your city you got a Tempe police by there at least fifteen different police or more departments.
Mesa has one, TIMP has when Glendale has one. Peoria has its own police department, And so each of them has a responsibility to their specific defined area and their population. So to suggest that two thousand officers have the ability to create a police state when there's one point three million people that they are responsible for, I kind of think that that's a little bit traumatic. That's a huge reality.
But I do agree that when you start to look at the whole economic issue of where crime curves, then that forces other departments other you know, the city's economic development department, the services department, the Streets and Transportation department. All of those departments deal with that very same population that the police end up responding to as opposed to
having the ability to help prevent. And so if someone says we want to take money from the police department to do these programs, why not say I want to take money from all of these departments who have some kind of impact. Again, going back to the fact that we pay our taxes, you pay property taxes, you pay sales tax when you get buy something. There are all kinds of taxes that help create the moneies that fund
all of these departments. And yes, there is a presence with the police department that is visible because they're driving along the streets every day. But in reality, there's pots of money that are all over various cities budgets and counties budgets that could also be utilized to do the very same thing. I don't know if that answers your question more than answers more than answers it.
You know, there's a.
We've done the show, Q and I have done the show for some time, and rarely do we have anyone who is an elected official. Rarely do we have anyone who works in criminal justice. And today we have a judge whose wife is the chief of police, you know. And so these questions are very important. I appreciate you taking the time to answer them, because again, this show was created so that black people could have a space in radio, specifically where black culture was being celebrated and consumed.
But far be it from me to say that I know what's right for all black people, and so having context and having different perspectives really does mean a lot. It matters more to me than I could ever say, And so I app shape your responses and I appreciate your time just coming up and hanging out, and hopefully, hopefully we'll have you back again because there's so many more things that we can talk about, and you know, Q knows there's so many things that we don't get to talk about on the show.
In fact, today.
We didn't even get to do our way Black History fact and you know, uh sorry.
But you know that you saw where it was going on.
So so yeah.
Well let me just can I thank you and Q for allowing you know, this og to have an opportunity to participate, because I see it from both the ends. You know, I believe in that reality that you are engaged in, but I also see it from a variety of angles. And there is no perfection to how we live in society, but there is reflection in how we
address and deal with folks. So every time you get mad at one issue, if you think that's it, then you're losing the opportunity to address the reality that we don't know what, we don't know where it is, and we need to make sure we spend the time to educate ourselves and to be stronger in the way we approach these things.
I'll take it once again. Thank you so much.
The Honorable Judge Cody Williams joining us today on Civic Cipher once again. I'm your host, rams is Jah. They call me q Ward and we appreciate you listening every week. Please check the website to download this in any previous episodes. Civiccipher dot com. Follow us on social media at Civic Cipher. Can also make a donation through our website. It really helps to show grow and we are growing because of your support.
I think that'll do it. Show produced by DJ Swall until next week, y'all peace. Y'all know we had the
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