Broadcasting from the Hip Hop Weekly Studios. I'd like to welcome you to another episode of Civic Cipher, where our mission is to foster allyship empathy and understanding. I'm your host, Rams' job.
He is Rams' job. I am q Ward. You are tuned in to Civic Cipher.
Welcome back to you. We appreciate you checking us out and rocking with us every week. And uh, you know, a lot of times we'll sit down, we'll put the show together, we'll strategize, weile brainstorm, will come to a consensus, and then we will bring you the stories that we feel help support the data and make things real for you or support the experiences that we're saying that we
have as marginalized communities in this country. But today it is less a consensus and more some things that really stood out to Q. Q sent over a couple of things that he wanted to talk about, and I agreed that we should have these conversations, and so we would like for you to stick around because today's show is executive produced by q Ward. We're going to be talking about Daniel Penny being acquitted of the chokehold death of Jordan Neely in New York. That's been something that has
been discussed for many months now. But obviously the acquittal itself is indicative of a pattern of treatment or mistreatment, I should say, of black people in this country. And we're going to explain our take on that. Q obviously is going to be starting us off there, and then we're going to also discuss how it just came to light that Florida police actually made and sold crack to black people in the eighties and then convicted them of crimes for buying the crack, and so that is entrapment
of the highest order. So all that and so much more to stick around for. But before we get there, let's start off with some ebony excellence, shall we? I think we shall. I'll take this one go for today's ABNY Excellence is sponsored by Actively Black. There's greatness in our DNA. Visit actively black dot com. And this comes from the Grio. On Monday, December ninth, the Critics Choice Association gathered black stars across television and film to celebrate
black storytelling within entertainment. The Critics Choice Association seventh Annual Celebration of Black Cinema and Television Awards honored fourteen actors, producers, directors, and composers, including Cynthia Rebo, Regina King, Tyler Perry, au Janee.
Is that? Did I say that?
Right?
I think that is a Jane Yeah, Ellis Taylor or on Janey.
On Jeanney Ellis Taylor. Either way quote. We are proud to recognize this year's outstanding group of honorees, said Sean Edwards, executive producer and writer for the Celebration of Black Cinema and Television. As previously reported by The Grio, twenty twenty four was an exceptional year. There were so many great stories about the black experience, and this event is a celebration of the power of those stories which have shaped
and moved the entertainment industry. It's a true acknowledgment of the profound impact of black cinema and television on today's culture and society. During the evening, hosted by comedian Jay Ferrell, Tyler Perry received the Icon Award for his career accomplishments as a self made media mobile, Although the actor and filmmaker says he was honored to be recognized for his twenty four films, twenty stage plays, seventeen television shows and
the founding of Tyler Perry Studios in Atlanta. Perry admitted his struggle with the title icon, and so this was really a celebration of Tyler Perry. This is kind of how the article came down. And we are able to highlight black excellence once a week on this show. And I don't know that we've ever taken the time to really shout out Tyler Perry. So this is kind of one moment where we get to say, hey, you're doing something and something is not nothing, and hey, we applaud
you for that. So yeah, shout out to Tyler Perry.
Shout out to Tyler Perry.
Man. All right, So Daniel Penny, just for folks that are just coming to this story, for folks that didn't that missed it.
In the news, not everybody will just know that.
Yeah, yeah, there's a story that was widely covered. Of course we covered it here on this show. This was an incident in New York City. There was a homeless man, a homeless black man. He was a Michael Jackson impersonator. Was when he was alive. He was a Michael Jackson impersonator, and he was a street performer. And this is how he made, you know, money, He performed in Times Square. For those that have been to Times Square, you know
that it's a there's a lot of street performers. There's a lot of people in costumes and they work for tips. And also, I don't want homeless to make you think of like the worst possible circumstances. There are a lot of people who are temporarily homeless or a lot you know that there's a lot of prejudices I think that come with that.
Term I was once homeless. If that helps come that for you a little bit, that's that.
Yeah, So that's a good way to say it. But the fact is is that this is how you would remember the story. He was a homeless Michael Jackson impersonator. He was a very thin man. He had his very selt figure. Of course he was able to impersonate Michael Jackson. He was having a mental episode, which we will get
into in the article that we will share from. I think this was NBC News where we got this, and he was going through an episode on the train and this gentleman, Daniel Penny, decided to step in and restrain him as as Neely was having his breakdown, yelling at passengers on the train saying, you know, I don't care if I live or die. I think he was talking about him being hungry, you know, all this sort of stuff, right,
So he's having a mental breakdown on the train. The Daniel Penny gentleman steps in, decides to be the hero, takes some vigilante justice, restrains him in a chokehold for about six minutes, after which Jordan Neely succumbed. You know, he died because he was choked to death. And when we learned about.
This story, obviously this was very sad.
And you know, there are people who will say, you know, and they and did say, well, he was stepping in, he was being.
A true patriot.
He was protecting the public from this nuisance from any potential harm. I think the guy probably weighed one hundred pounds, one hundred and ten pounds something like that.
I don't know.
Not that part matter, It doesn't, but you know what I mean, Like this big marine guy steps in and his you know whatever. But there are people on the other side who feel like this was a justifiable act and it's just unfortunate that Jordan lost his life, but that this Daniel Penny guy was protecting the public. That is their perspective and opinion on it.
Even worse, their perspective and opinion is that he's a hero. Right. And I saw people praising God that he was not convicted, right. I think that they got chills and they were they felt that good that he got off. That he's a hero and a patriot.
And yeah, so here's what I want to do. Let me finish painting this picture for you so that it brings you all the way up to speed in terms of what happened, and then we're going to discuss it. So, Daniel Penny was acquitted Monday of criminally legit homicide in the chokehold death of Jordan Neely, a thirty year old homeless man with a history of mental illness whose final moments on a New York subway train were captured on bystander video that set off weeks of protest and drew
national attention. Before he encountered Penny, Neely, a former Michael Jackson impersonator, ranted about being hungry and thirsty and said he wanted to return to jail and didn't care if he lived or died. Witnesses testified Penny twenty six, a former marine and Long Island native, placed Neely in a chokehold that prosecutors said lasted almost six minutes. The decision on the fifth day of deliberations came after the jury deadlocked Friday on the more serious charge of manslaughter, leading
the judge to dismiss it. Penny faced up to four years in prison. During their trial, Penny's attorneys told jurors that he stepped in because he believed Neelie might attack other passengers, and he intended only to restrain him until police arrived, which Penny also told police. They also argued that Neely was not killed by the chokehold, and that it was impossible to measure how much pressure Penny had applied enough to kill somebody. I'm sure, but that's not
their position. I'll continue. A forensic pathologist hired by the defense testified that Neely died from a combination of his schizophrenia, synthetic marijuana, sickle cell trait, and the struggle from being in Penny's restraint. But the medical examiner who performed the autopsy on Neely, doctor Cynthia Harris, again, Yeah, you're right, let me go back, and I think that we should break this whole thing down here.
That part deserves some extra attention. Say that part slowly and all I got you.
A forensic pathologist hired by the defense testified that Neely died from a combination of his schizophrenia, synthetic marijuana, sickle cell trait, and the struggle from being in Pennies restraints.
So we're clear. Yeah, Daniel Penny's attorneys the defense I want. I don't want you guys to hear defense and think anything else. The attorneys for the guy accused of killing the gentleman that we watched him kill on video, his attorneys aren't arguing, and a pathologist that they hired supporting their argument that all of these other things, in combination with their client choking him for six minutes is why he's no longer with this.
This is insulting that it won't even like accept responsibility for it. I mean, I think it's in that space that that failure to take responsibility, to take accountability, in that space is where.
A pattern that we've called out on this show. My client did nothing wrong is always their position, not my client doesn't deserve the worst pot outcomes or the worst sentencing. No, my client didn't do anything. We know you have a video. We saw the video too. We saw the same video you saw he died from. And we still think it'sophrenia a sickle cell trait, not sickle cell a trait. The next thing you said move me even more though.
All right, so now I'm gonna continue. But the medical examiner who performed the autopsy on neily pause.
The medical examiner typically that works for the state that performed the autopsy, very important data, okay, not the pathologists that.
The defense hired. This is the person who examined the body after it was brought to them.
And determined the cause of death. That's typically what the medical examiner performing an autopsy does. That's typically the reason they do it.
And this is the and I'm glad you said that because I want you to hear this next part in her name. The medical examiner, doctor Cynthia Harris, told jurors it was in her it was her medical opinion quote that there are no alternative reasonable explanations for his death and that those proposed by the defense were so improbable that it stands shoulder to shoulder with impossibility.
Okay, And I keep saying, defense because that's how people are used to hearing that word with regards to criminal trials. Defense. When you say defense, people hear sports or they might think something else. But Rameses is saying that word properly is just typically in the context of a legal case or hearing you hear defense. Yeah, the attorneys for the person who committed the crime on the video that we all saw.
Yeah, And I think that it's in that space where we find the why. Why was the Black Lives Matter movement and born? Now, this is not me talking to people that understand our plight. This is me talking to either those people who need to have conversations at the dinner table with their racist uncles or you know, neighbors. So I'm trying to give you this game. Or if you happen to be one of those people that thinks that this show is just completely baseless and whatever, but
you happen to listen every week, we appreciate you. This is for you, just so you understand the why behind it. Okay, Q made a great point. You could say, hey, look, this was an accident. My client didn't intend for this to happen. We don't think that our client should be sentenced too harshly, and that would conform with the reality
that we all share. But oftentimes, when it's a white perpetrator and a black victim, white people get to fly above of even a shared reality, and it's insulting and hurtful because in this case you see it on full display. The defense said it was a combination of schizophrenia, synthetic marijuana, marijuana in the history of marijuana has never killed anybody, and a sickle cell trait.
Yeah, they're saying this young man is patient zero for death by marijuana right now.
Again, that flies above indeed, the shared reality that we saw on video. To Q's point of him getting choked to death, Okay, all the things were true prior to him getting choked to death, and then when he gets choked to death, then they want to point at all these other things like, Okay, well he smoked legal the synthetic marijuana or whatever. You know. He may as well said, hey, he he had a cigarette when he was at sixteen with his friends, or he crossed the street funny or whatever,
you know what I mean. And it's that part that's so insulting and hurtful because we can see that you don't even need to have a defense based in reality in order to get off right. And so the idea of black lives matter for folks that don't agree with the premise of this show, For people that throw Chicago, why do you care about police violence? Why do you care about systemic oppression? Why don't you care about Chicago?
In Chicago, if a black person kills another black person, there is at least the potential that somebody will be held accountable, that there might be coming.
If in Chicago, a black man kills a black man on camera is then apprehended and arrested safely and not gunned down, it's going to jail. That's the whole story.
Boom And when the police do it, or when apparently this guy Dan Annual Penny does it, or when or Scores was the kid's name, Kyle ritten the house? Yeah, all that, all that.
When they look like that and they go out and kill people for whatever their mental crusade is, and the reason that they hold up their fists and tell the public they were there to protect. They get to go home, some of them get to go them tours and sign autographs and take pictures.
There it is, and so you can appreciate how this is very hurtful. And the thing is you might think that, you know, for folks that disagree, you might think we're cherry picking these stories. These are sensational headlines that we're picking, blah blah blah whatever. But again, this is a data driven program, and the data supports the outcomes that we choose to share with you on the show. These outcomes,
these stories give you insight into the data. This makes the data real for long time listeners to the show that know that to be true about this program. So now you begin to understand and the push behind the whole Black Lives Matter movement in twenty It started in twenty twelve, be honest with you, but in twenty twenty when it became more visible that certain people can harm black and brown bodies and get away with it. And
it's like they're playing in our faces. Like you said, we know you saw the video, but what you saw you didn't see. Now here's why we there's this movement that says black lives matter. Q doesn't like when I do this, I'm going to be very careful how I say this. Change. Jordan Neely, the person who was choked to death on that subway. Change Jordan Neely to a white person. I could go into more detail to help
you picture it, but pick your favorite white person. Change Jordan Neely to that person, same story as a mental breakdown. Is hungry saying he's hungry, having a you know, he's fed up, having a moment whatever, and he gets choked to death. Does this story happen the same way? Does this person Daniel Penny get off Scott free? Does the defense get to plan our face saying, well, it was a combination of a sickle cell trait and an other thing, and well, you know, he didn't actually kill him. This
guy was already you know. Does that happen? Or does the story not happen? And the mental breakdown continues to happen for another forty seconds until the train gets to
the next stop. The white person gets to get off the train and go on about their lives until their mental episode is over, until they get something to eat, find a place to sit down, relax and recalibrate, and then nothing to see here, which is more likely because I can tell you what the data supports, So now you have some insight into, at least for me, why this is such a hurtful thing. I know that you had a lot more to contribute, but I just wanted to bring folks up to speak.
I try to not allow my emotions to completely take over when we're doing the show, because it would make me a more calloused, more cold, less empathetic person. Because we're too informed, We have too much in the way of information. We see too many stories, we know too many outcomes, and we have the data to support. So
how I feel is completely justified. But what I try to do is I try really hard to try to see things from someone else's perspective, those who might care about this person, those who might not want their brother or their son, or their dad or their husband to go to jail forever for protecting the public right. And in that case, I can see how a family member or somebody that knows this person personally, that can see him through a different LANs. Because we don't know what's
his name, Daniel Pinny, We don't know him. He might be an awesome guy. This might be the worst thing he's ever done. And you and I often speak about not holding someone to the worst thing that they've ever done. Right, So I'm trying to go as extremely far the other way as possible for the nature of this conversation, and simply ask, how come we're always the worst thing we've ever done. Yeah, they wouldn't have put marijuana. We will
never get that benefit of the doubt. How come even when we're the victim, we're painted in the worst possible way. How come this guy who murdered someone on camera gets to be a hero and a patriot who only sought out to protect, and the person he killed, who did nothing to him or anyone else, gets to be the mentally sick, drug addict, homeless transient. Yeah, even in this story, even giving him the Okay, let's not make Daniel Penny
the worst person ever. Let's make it so he gets to make this horrible mistake, but go home to his family. Even in death. We have to insult the black victim of this murder. There is a perpetual benefit of the doubt for white people in this country, for white men in this country, for those who victimize black people, even if they're not white, as long as they're not also black, Because if they're also black, we got dated to support our black on black crime fight, our black on black
crime argument. But if they're George Zimmerman. He can follow a young man, stalk him, catch him, and kill him, and then stand on his right to defend himself and stand his ground, and then go on an autograph tour and sign skittles to add insult to injury, because that's the candy that the kid that he murdered was buying.
Kyle Rittenhouse gets to take his rifle drive to a town he doesn't live in, take that rifle out, kill people and get off because he's there to protect, and then go on a tour and sign autographs and take pictures. And then this guy gets to get celebrated by social media as a hero after we watched him murder another unarmed black man who wasn't actually causing anyone any harm. And we have to just accept it because that's just
the way it is. And when we leave the house every day, we know our possible outcomes and how the world might remember us after