#146 Jason Flom with Jamal Trulove - podcast episode cover

#146 Jason Flom with Jamal Trulove

Aug 05, 202044 minEp. 146
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Episode description

In the summer of 2007, Jamal Trulove was an aspiring rapper from San Francisco’s Sunnydale projects. He had hoped that scoring himself a role on a reality television show would help his music career. Instead, his appearance on television would help police pin a July 27 murder on him. Over 30 witnesses, including Jamal himself, would not snitch, but someone had to go down for it. His most momentous mention on television yet would occur during the 2020 Democratic Primary debate.

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Transcript

Speaker 1

On the night of July two thousand seven, Jamal Truelove was hanging out in a common area of San Francisco's Sunnydale Projects with his younger brother, Joshua. Jamal's friend, Sell Kuca, drove up intoxicated, ripping off the side view mirror from Joshua's car. Jamal got between Cell and his brother. Then gunfire in the air would send Cell into an alcohol fueled rage. In search of a gun himself, Jamal tried to come Sell again, who pushed him away and punched

another man. Frustrated and fed up, Jamal left the scene, only to turn in time to witness his friends Cell being gunned down in the street. Now, since snitching is a sure fire away to be sent to the same fate, Jamal kept his mouth shut. Cell's cousin, Priscilla Luallamaga, would go downtown to identify the shooters she claimed to see from her second story window, only to pass over Jamal's mug shot that was in plain sight. Police pressured her to name Jamal so they could coerce the identity of

the shooter. Either he would name the killer or he'd go down for the murder himself. Jamal would receive fifty years to life. The prosecutor's closing argument would point to Lalamaga's bravery in light of the supposed threat of jamal true love. This comment, unsupported by evidence and unobjected to by counsel, would ultimately lead to a new trial in which Jamal's new lawyers would be able to successfully argue that ballistic evidence at the autopsy report proved that the

shooter was out of Lollamaga's second story view. Jamal was finally set free in two thousand and fifteen. This is Wrongful Conviction with Jason Flom. Welcome back to Wrongful Conviction with Jason Flam. That's me. I'm your host, and today I'm very excited because this is a story I've wanted to tell from quite some time, and that's primarily because of the person who survived this an incredible ordeal, Jamal Truelove. He has the best name on top of everything else.

So Jamal, welcome, Hey, thanks for having me. Yeah. Man, Like I always say, I'm sorry you have to be here, but I'm really happy that you are here. So Jamal, this story touches me on a personal level because you were in the entertainment business before this horrible misidentification and all the other things that went wrong happened to you. Can you talk a little bit about that because you grew up in San Francisco, right, Yes, I grew up

in San Francisco, Sunnydale projects. Always wanted to get into entertainment within you know, music and acting, and the ball was starting to bounce your way, so to speak. Right because at the time of this incident, you had been recently featured on the reality TV show Popped, the show called I Love New York Too. Right, you were just a kid from the Project X with no connections, but

you were making it happen anyway. How did you do that? Well, initially I was recording music my friend out a studio which he would let me some time to get into actually record, And then I had an opportunity to audition for this character for this show called I Love New York Too. So I figured if I could get on the show and put a name to a face, then I will get the exposure that I need to shine onto my music and to ultimately get into film. And sure enough you had now gone and shot this show.

Which did you shoot in l A or yeah, it was based in l A and so this was like an exciting time for you. How old were you at the time, tomorrow, Well, I started recording music when I was sixteen years old. When I ended up landing on the show, I was freshly twenty one, so a kid with big dreams and aspirations and you know, the ability to really manifest those things. And I think people that meets you now still see that same spark. It makes

in a certain way, it makes this wrongful conviction more tragic. So, Jamal, your life took a terrible turn because of events that occurred around eleven pm on July twenty, two, thousand seven. And of course you know what I'm referring to, but it was that night that twenty eight year old Cell Kuca, was a resident in your housing project, was shot nine times. How did this happen? How did you find out about it?

And how did you get misidentified as a shooter. We were all kicking it in the projects in the area that were typically chill at and the incident had happened between Sale Kuca and my little brother Joshua. Sale was intoxicated driving up the street where he came real close to my brother's car that ripped off his side mirror, and you know, I've seen it, but I didn't think too much of it. And then somebody yelled down to me like there was some type of altercation between him

and my brother. So I come through to diffuse the situation. I've seen how my brother was contorted his face. Uh, Sales, one of my good friends. He's got some liquor in them, so you know, he's ramped up. He's not trying to take no blame, and they're getting closer to each other where it's gonna end up, you know, turning into the fight. So I intervened, you know, I told both of them

and chill relaxed. Sale was hyped up to start being kind of a crowd people looking on and next to you know, we're here some gunshots going off kind of like I guess in the air, and I think, you know, that field Sale that much more to feel some type of way, and he started heading down saying that he was gonna go get a gun. So me, I've remember some of my other friends used to you know, kind of contain his anger when he's in this type of state.

So me trying to prevent anything from escalating. I kind of followed them, and he was asking somebody, one of our other friends to give him a gun, and I'm telling them, no, like, bro, there ain't no reason for all of that. But he like, you know, ms out here shooting, and I'm like that ain't got nothing to do with us on this situation. And so I got like close up on him. I like held him like, you know, in a kind of bear hug, and he's

like way bigger than me. I'm probably like a hundred and fifty pounds soaking wet at that point, and he's like to twenty two thirty at least, and he's listening, but you could definitely tell that he's kind of trunk. And then he kind of bust out of my my bear hug and angry type of way, and at that point it felt like, you know, he wasn't trying to hear me are calm the altercation. So I ended up leaving across the street, which I had my car inside

the parking lot. I had a female friend inside the car. I bent down to let her know that we're about to get up out of here, and by time I stood up from the side of the car, I've seen sale skipping around the building right there from off of the street, and I've seen the perpetrator already holding the gun and the shooting position. Before I could say stop, gun shots had already rained off. So I just got

down until all the gun shots was overwood. And typically in situations like this in the project, regardless if you did something or if you didn't do it, you just htel up out of there. So that's what I ended up doing. So I'm gonna ask you point blank, did you know at the time who who the actually shooter was. Yes, I did, And there were a lot of witnesses. Thirty or more witnesses were there because as you described, it was a street team, a lot of people hanging out.

Of course, in a seemed like this, a lot of people are gonna be scared to come forward. Nobody wants to be labeled to snitch because I know what that actually means. Something happened to me my family. But one woman did come forward and she became a key part of this whole awful scenario, right. And this woman's name was Priscilla Lulla Maga, and she claimed to have seen the whole thing from her second story window already at my spidy sense and start tingling because it's eleven o'clock

at night, it's dark. It sounds like a pretty diocese scenario to think that she's going to identify somebody. But okay, so she told police that her distant relative, it was just the deceased sell Kuca, was chasing another man around a car who she identified as your brother, Joshua. And then she further claimed that while chasing Joshua, Kuka bumped into a knockdown another man who got up, chased him down the street and sloping downhill and open fire close range.

So this is important. She gets taken the police station and showing thirty four mug shots that were set up on a bulletin board, and she recognized many of the mug shots that spaces from her neighborhood understandably. But then in the two hours she was in that room with the bulletin board of mug shots, she didn't recognize your face, which was immediately above Joshua Bradley's monk shots. So that's even weirder, right, it was right there in front of

her face, and she still didn't recognize it. Okay, So two days later the cops come to her workplace and take us from there. Two days later the police came to her workplace, but the day before that is really interesting that they actually came to her house showing her a mug shot picture which we believe to have been me, and they denying that it was me. That it runs side by side to what you know ultimately end up coming out when it comes down to the lineup and

the mug shots. So they told her that if we were to bring a photo lineup with the person who did it inside the line up, would you be able to identify? So the next day they went to our job. They brought her a six pack line up with really me wearing an orange jumpsuit and everybody else and playing clothes. But she had already identified the other people, you know, not being the person and people that she already knows.

It's even worse than that, right, because of the fact that she said that you quote unquote looks like the guy who could have shot Kuka, right, So that's pretty damn weak. The six pack lineup and had to standout things.

It had me inside of an orange jumpsuit, and then it also had the dates that came off of the system when they brought up the mug shots where mind date was dated different than the other dates that came off of the system because they had me down as the shooter on day one, Why do you think the detectives had it out for you or they just like, whoever, we just got to close the case. It doesn't matter. I wasn't somebody that was out there. I was always

trying to do something positive. I was doing music, you know, I'll hang around of course, but with my name coming up on the day that it actually happened, whether they wanted questions from me or them saying oh it was the guy that Jamal was with, they was like, okay, this is how we're gonna get him. We're gonna pressure said either town on the person who did it, or we're gonna make sure that he goes down for this.

And then no weapon was recovered, but hl casings were found downhill from the body, in the trail leading up to the body, which means that what she said was false because she said the shooter was chasing Kuka downhill. So now we know and they should have known that she didn't know what the funk she was talking about, so to be honest, right, her representation of what actually happened. If anything, she could have only seen what was on the side of that building. She didn't see when the

person was actually shooting. She told police to sell. Kuka was chasing another man around the car, and then Kuka bumped into a knockdown another man who got up, chased him down the street and sloping down on the hill and open fire close range. It wasn't me who Sale had knocked down? What was her agenda here? Do you know?

Her whole thing? And the family which I was deeply connected to, felt like they weren't scared of me, they were scared of the person who actually did it, right, So by way of throwing me in there, they felt that I was gonna tell on the person who actually did it. So that's the big boom right there. And then things take another crazy turn, right because the TV show airs the show that you were in, which should

have been a cause for celebration. She happens to see the TV show, right, and then she comes back and says, oh, now I know it's definitely him. Yeah, So they were getting her closer and closer to that it was me one And then on top of her saying that she talked to her cousin and then on top of the detectives really trying to get somebody to go to jail for this. You know, that's what brewed up to what that ultimately ended up being. But even still that didn't

work well ultimately end up happening was I said. About fourteen months later, the police had did a traffic stop with this other woman named Letitia, who had a gun in her lap, had crack cocaine on her baby in the back, had her boyfriend who was on parole, and the passenger seat pulled over. She's going to jail, and she goes down and they basically say, well, if you could tell us X, Y, and Z about this case,

everybody basically goes free. She initially tells them that it was daylight and this altercation happened, and then she says she looked through the window and looked all the way down the block and seeing that this happened, and just threw my name in there. So there was a lot of things is wrong with that, right as if First, she says that she's seen it for fifty yards away on a slant hill in the daylight when it didn't

happen in the daytime. It happened at night. But what got the arrest warrant was the right up that detectives had wrote up. They were guiding her the whole way, making everything like it was a clear record, and then wrote at the bottom extremely credible. So now when they take that to the d A, now they feel they

have two witnesses saying the same exact thing. So this is a crazy timeline too, because the crime we know happens in two thousand seven, you don't get brought in and arrested until two thousand and eight, over a year later, and then the trial doesn't happen until two correct. So during that time were you in jail, did you bail out? How did how did that unfold? After you arrested? Well, after I was arrested, they wanted to question me. Obviously

there's two things you can do. You can give up information, but never mind that because in that situation, which you're taught in the streets, is you know it's not to stitch, not to give up information. Something happened to me my family, you know, So I balanced that we also knowing that it's not my duty to put somebody else into jail. That's for them to actually get it right. And that was my way of going at it. So it actually took me about a year and a half to go

to trial. It was hard trying to get the thirty people that I was out there to actually come in, you know, not say who did it, you know, but to say I didn't do it. I wasn't trying to put nobody in a situation where I was trying to have somebody else tell on the sail it because I wasn't gonna do anything like that. Then I have to go what hide for the rest of my life for something that's just not my job. That's up to the system to do so. And nobody would want to be

in that situation. But you were in it, and you're still just a young guy without you know, reach or citizen, so you you roll with it and you go to trial. Yeah, so we thought the case, that's an identity case. You know, I didn't testify, We didn't call nobody to testify or whatever. So it took three days and then it took five days of deliberation. Ultimately they came back with a murder one conviction. It was it was definitely tough. I stayed optimistic because I know I didn't do it at the

end of the day. And that's what ultimately, you know, kept the wills turning in my mind, or how do I figure this out? And you were convicted, of course, and you were sentenced to fifty years in prison. So I want you to understand this. Right before I get sentence the fifty the life I'm inside of my cell, I become we're doing a retrial motion right to ask for a retrial before sentencing. I'm coming back from church.

Com inside. It's a twelve man like tank in this kid by the name of Oliver barr sin Is comes up to me. Now I don't know who this kid is. He comes up too, man. He asked me, like, you know it's your last name, true Love, And I say yes. Uh. He said, did you go to jail like in oh seven? I'm like no, but that's where my case happened. He

said yes. I remember being in a police station at the time where some like some moree girl and some detectives came in and she was crying and they were pointing out a picture saying are you sure it ain't something something? True Love and I'm like, whoa, you know, and it blows my mind that it just so happens that I run into this guy and he had just been transported from Saying Bruno Jail to San Francisco County

on his way to prison. And he's seen in the newspaper when he was in Saying Bruno about my case, and he remembered the last name that was the first spark. And then when he ended up in a sail with me, her at the name again, that's where he actually approached

me and told me these things. So I called my attorney immediately and tell my attorney about him, and my attorney came up and, you know, talk to him, got his statement, and come to find out, he was at the police station at the exact same time that little Lamana had came into the police station. He was a sixteen year old kid come to the bench watching all

of this unfold. So what he ended up saying was big in my case because remind you that that photo, that photo and the six pack lineup that had the date that was different from everybody else's which we called in the question, made that much more sense because they had me down as the shooter on day one, And what made more sense from his testimony is why she never pointed at my picture on the wall, Because on day one she was saying it wasn't me. Even on

day two she was saying it wasn't me. Now, this is newly found evidence. There was no way that we could have knew that this kid was inside the police station. So there's no way we could have called him. Now, just in the heap of that time, what was going on in San Francisco. You got, you know, Kamala Harris, who's going to try to be Attorney General. You have another case which got overturned, and then you have a big drug scandal that's happening in San Francisco also at

the exact same time. So in the retrial motion hearing when we put him on the stand to testify, Linda Allen, the city's attorney, attacked Oh that he was a gang member and he's trying to do this for a favor for the blacks, like some prison politics type stuff. And neither one of us have ever been to president and

we just don't know each other at oh. So in this moment though that this is new discovered evidence, I feel like I was politicked out because if they were to grant me a retrial, that would have been to murder cases with convictions granted retrial before conviction. And plus the drug scandal that was national attention. So ultimately, even with Oliver Barson is they still denied my retrial motion.

That's when I got sentenced to fifty the life in prison. Yeah, I mean it's important to look at the role that politics played at this because there was a lot going on and and now things are really looking a lot better in San Francisco with the new da chas of Boudin, who is doing incredible, incredible things. Probably the most impactful six months of any new prosecutor in the history of this country, I would say, in terms of what he's been able to accomplish. But that's a separate issue. Ms.

Harris at the time does not come out. I mean, we can't sugarcoat it. I mean, she was one of the villains in this story and your story, and in too many other stories that took place around this time. Yeah. The thing about Kamala Harris as a senator, she talks a lot of things that employs towards the African American community, and you know, it is good like if I didn't go through the experience that I went through, then I would probably be on the side of what Kamala Harris

actually talks about. And that's if you know, I didn't find out about me. But when we talk about being a progressive prosecutor, I think of chase A Boudin Kamala Harris at the time she had opportunity to alleviate this case and dive into it, especially a murder charge. Any head d A is overlooking any murder charge that's happened inside of their city. But also just knowing politics at that time. I know four people who went to jail innocently from murders in every single asked, one of them

got convicted. They call it a street sweep. Once elections come up, they come through and they sweep any case that they had. They say, arrest them, arrest them, arrest them. They look. I went to jail right before elections and one of the detectives my dad had ran into before I went to trial, Kevin Noble, had told my dad. My dad was like, Yo, why are you got my son?

And he said, oh, you know how it is. And during election time, you know d a's they just come and sweep you know, everybody up, any case that they got and see if they could pressure people into taking deals. Because they offered me a deal, you know, before I went to try my first time, I was like, you know, you complete out and take voluntary man, So I didn't

take thirteen years under her watch. So my feeling up Kamala Harris been in that position, being African American coming from the Bay Area and being hard on crime the way that she was, and how many people that was going to jail for marijuana charges at one of the highest rates in the country, you know, played a big part of mass incarceration and also to gentrification in San Francisco. So I cannot unfeel that r c that are when

I'm getting sentenced, you know, are my conviction. She's in there and smiling and you know, proud of what this is, what this conviction is, and what it means to her career. And then right after I lose my case, she wins you know, Attorney General. So that all tells a story, you know, just within itself. Yeah, And what a sick thing to say to your father. I mean it's I mean, that's as cold as it gets, Like it's your father,

for fox sakes, So Kevin Noble. Before I went to trial and this was not turned over to us, Kevin Noble actually came in with a confidential formant saying that somebody else did it. So he was out there investigating and he found somebody saying that this person did it, and they took it and they tucked it under the rug. You know, they felt like they had their god that

they was actually sold on on doing it. Joan, if you could talk about for a minute, and we're gonna get to the to the retrial, of course your ex generation because you were fully exonerated. That being said, can you tell us when you were in prison, was there a best moment when I was waiting for the courts to give their opinion on if I was gonna get

a retrial or not. And they initially I came back and I'm on the phone at the same time with my appellate attorney, Mark Zilbersmith, and they did not well, they didn't deny. They changed the conviction from first degree murder to second degree murder, which I would have had from fifty years. I would have went down the forty years to life. And I'm like, WHOA, Like, you know what I mean, And my sailly at the time was like that's good. I mean, they're really looking at it now.

Mind you, I'm in prison for three years before I even get this opinion from the appellate courts. But I knew that until I get another descension, as you, I will be in prison for at least another two to three years because that's the time that it typically takes. So then my attorney put in a motion to review.

So with this strategy at the same time, I ended up getting two witnesses to sign FFI David's testifying to what happened that day without saying the person who did it, and we filed the Haby's corpus through the Pellet court so it could go across Judge climb them table at the exact same time as our review was and to say that there's two more witnesses saying that he didn't do it. So ninety days later we got the opinion back that the judges said, you know what, you're right,

and they granted a new retrial. It was a crying moment, you know, I cried like a baby, you know inside that self. Yeah, and I don't think anyone who's ever not been through that could possibly even imagine such a

transformative I mean, you get your life back. Well. The well, the crazy part about it is like in that moment, you feel excited, right, but come to find out once you get back to County Jim, you just know that you don't have the life sentence no more, but you still have a whole another fight, and that's a potentially going to trial or them coming to you and offering you a deal where you're almost close to want to take that deal just so you don't have to go

to trial and lose again, because at that point, you know you don't I don't believe in the system. You know, I just got convictive problem. I didn't do like you ask anybody who has a life sentence right now innocent? Are not innocent? If they had a deal on the table right now to take it and they get to come home in two years, they're taking it. So let's get to the good stuff, because we don't have a

ton of time left. But I do want to, of course, talk about how you manage to finally get some measure of justice, and by that I mean, of course the retrial and your egeneration. When I got back to county, it took me a year to go back to trial. I had two extraordinary lawyers, Kate chat Field and Alex Richman. The way that we fought the case, we asked for the original homicide file and the judge granted it to us. What helped us was that they were tampering with the evidence.

So when we slipped at the original homicide file, we seen that the detectives was writing in pen pencil in marker, so the ballistics of the trajectory of the bullets, it didn't fit Lula La Manga's testimony of the bullets going from the left to the right. The trajectory of the bullets went from the right to the left, and that made more sense if the shooter was coming up from the bottom into the top of the hill. So what

they did was erased because they wrote in pencil. They erased everything that the autopsy lady has said about the trajectory of the bullet wounds, so they knew that that was an issue. Also, a gun shoots off the shawcases from the right, it'so in the rear percent of the time.

So if she saying that this murder happened coming from this way, then the showcases will be in the street and not in a straight line in the grass from where the showcases landed, And it made more sense that the shooter was coming from the bottom into the top. So it did not match well what Lulu la Manga had actually said. So you were able to undermine the police's theory of the crime because the autopsy and ballistics findings pointed to the gunman approaching Cell Kuka from downhill,

which was out of Lualamana's view. Now, what about the deliberation. Every day, within deliberation, you get to choose if you you want to stay downstairs inside the holding take, or you can stay upstairs until they come back with a verdict. I chose to stay downstairs because the deliberation rum was right next to the holding take and I'm I'm in there panic and I'm stressing, I'm pacing, you know, I'm thinking about what I'm gonna do if I win. I'm

thinking about what I'm gonna do if I lose. So five days later, they finally end up coming back what with a verdict? So I come downstairs. I didn't have no opportunity to call my family. Uh. They were living in the East Bay. Uh. So when I come downstairs for the verdict, the only people that are sitting on my side is my attorney's loved ones. And it's also

Chase A Boudin. Chase A Boudin. I don't know who Chase Budin is at that point, right, But on the other side the whole d a's office, So Gascon was the d A at that point, right. So they're all in there waiting for the verdict, and the clerk reads off in the case of Jamal true Love on first degree murder, not guilty, and I break out in tears of crying. I hugging my attorney and I'm just crying my eyes out. I can't believe I'm really breaking down. And then my attorney says, hold on, wait, you gotta

listen for second degree murder. I said what, I don't know, because I thought I wanted at that point, so oh man, it was I felt the sweat just coming down my face. And then they said, in the case of Jamal true Love on second degree murder, we find the defendant not guilty, and and I'm I'm literally feeling that right now. I'm trying not to get emotional, but when I looked over to the jury, that was the first time that they could actually show an expression on their faces. And you

see them over there crying. They're giving me prayer heads, they're sending the kisses at me, you know, and all of these things, and I'm, you know, and I'm just crying my eyes out. You know. I looked back. You see all the district attorneys just leaving, you know, upset, and I'm just crying out. I'm just crying my eyes out. And even going back up to the sixth for where I was being held and telling everybody on the line, which everybody knew I was innocent, and I told her everybody,

you know, I got found not guilty. The whole floor of the whole jail erupts, even some of the deputies that were you know, cool, and even the ones that was foul as funk because this hell of foul ship was trying to you know, clap their hands and stuff like that. So it was a good feeling. And I went home that day. I was able to surprise my mother and you know, my family, which they didn't know if I want or not, but I popped up on them and they you know, they see me. They couldn't

believe it. It was more tears ship and it was the most accilating feeling to know that, you know, I'm free again today. Um, you've been out for how long? I've been out? Five years? And I've seen you around and you know, I know you're making the most of every minute of it. Um, do you want to tell us a little bit about what you're working on now? And then we're gonna get to the closing of the show. I ended up suing, you know, the police. They try

to offer me, you know, some money to shut up. Ultimately, I held them accountable and I won my civil case. I was awarded two million dollars that ended up rounding out to be thirteen point one million, which obviously stut to get all the money. But from there on whatether So what's ironic is before I won my civil case, three days before that, I landed a role in this movie called The Last Black Man in San Francisco, which I got the opportunity by volunteering at a nonprofit called

United Players. Rudy Corpetz that's my mentor, and you know the mantras, it takes the hood to save the Hood. So they were coming there to get some kids for the rock throwing scene. Here comes that opportunity. I say, look, I know how to act. I'm acting all my life, you know, trying to fit in the city where I stand out in And I think that was the line that got me the opportunity to read. Joe Talbot Jimmy Fails called me back two times after I got it.

Three days later, I went my civil case and from there on I took on what I believe my life was meant to be. And before all of that, I went to school for Psychology Africana Studies at State and after one semester identified that much more of what my life was supposed to be. So when you were saying manifestation, you know, I run my life on you know, manifesto desto.

If you can manifest it and you can see the steps that you gotta take to actually get there, then you take what's it a tangible right in front of you, and you make sense of it on how you ultimately get to that next plat for him. I also landed the role on this upcoming animation film called Pierre the Pigeonhawk, which has whoop and go Word, Keenan Thompson, how He Mandel, and of course myself and a slew of other names.

I'm producing this film called Black and White, it's about the USC seventy two football team, and working on other projects. I launched my production company with one of my good friends and business partners, said Twili Holger called True Narrative. Also launching a record label at my son and a few other artists that's coming up that I plan on putting out there with their music. And I do a

lot of you know, activism. I used my platform to to speak on you know, social issues and to bring the enlightenment to my community about you know, what we need to be doing with the voting and letting our voices be heard behind you know, specific racism behind all these police involved shootings. Know, I can't paign for Chase A Bouded now. Before I would have never in my life be a campaigning for a d A because the

DA has looked at as basically the police. But once I got the understanding that there's gonna be a d A regardless, and don't you want it to be the right one. So that's what I start pressing onto my people to understand that there's gonna be a d A regardless, and we have to say so and who the d A actually is, So get out and vote. So that's everything in a nutshell. That's a pretty damn good nutshell. And you know, I gotta say I was a big supporter of Chase A. Boudin's campaign as well, and I'm

super proud of everything he's been doing. You know, the truth is, we need to clone that guy and put the clones of him in d A offices all over the country. And while we're on the subject of dismantling systemic racism and all the other things that we've managed to talk about in this brief time we've had together, we can't leave out the young man who testified for you about what he's in the police station, right, And that was the guy who talked about the police coercing

Lou Alamaga. His name, of course, was Oliver bar Senez and he was actually shot in the back by the police, right, Oliver Barsene is the story is really that much like we we will have to have two hours because the police shot him after he testified against me the first time, San Francisco Police Department, right when he went to prison, came home within sixty days. They shot him in the back while he was running. He had a gun on him. Right he goes to jail, he does three years, come

home around the same time I come home. And then he stays home three years, get all probation, We go to trial. We actually use him to testify in my civil case. He testifies in my civil case, and within two months again SFPD again shoots him in the back while he's running. It tries to literally kill him, which he doesn't die. They had it on camera, and he actually just two weeks ago settled for less than five hundred thousand dollars in a civil suit. And the media

has not connected these at all, both cases. But what I when I know what they ended up doing. Because we know this ship is crooked, they gave a belief like a dolphine or somebody. It's called a chipped gun, so a drop a drop gun to make sure that this guns gets in this person's hands so they could go ahead and trail them ultimately to go to take them down. And when they're going to take them down, there's only two things they could do. So if they

run and they got the gun on them. Then all they gotta do is kill them, and then they're gonna say, oh, well he had a gun on him. I seen the gun and bla blas the thing with Oliver, he didn't die both times. Okay, wait, wait what a chipped gun like with GPS or something. Yes, exactly what they do, right. So you know how when they do like set up cars, they'll put a car right there with the keys in and stuff like that, kind of like lure you. But

they already got it all set up. Same thing with a gun, and they was doing this in the nineties, right, That's how I know about. It's called a drop gun. So they'll chip the gun, right, and they'll get this dolfine or something like that that I'll go up to a specific person or if not a person, a crowd and be like, we're gonna give you this. Go sell this gun for a hundred dollars. If you go to any projects in any hood with a dolfine with a gun saying that he's selling it for a hundred dollars,

somebody's gonna buy it. And Oliver case, that's what I believe they did because the same scenario happened twice in the second time. It just so happened that they have footage on the day the Warriors won the championship. They first championship, they pull out on a group of five Latinos with one can of beer talking about, oh, what do you guys doing here? And they're like, Warriors, just one We're just chilling. It's like, oh, well, you gotta

open canna beer. And as like now, at that moment, you see Oliver kind of like testy a little bit, and then actually no, he takes off running. As soon as he takes off running, the officer already pulled out his gun and start running with the gun. Before the officer could see even if he had a gun on him or not, the officer already starts shooting blah blah blah blah, drops him with three of them, and then shoot an extra three of them while he on the floor,

saying get down, get down, and he still lives. This is the thing, though, right that same officer killed the fourteen year old boy in South San Francisco just three years prior. Wow, you're right, and we would need at least a few more hours and I'm leaving sure that'd be enough to cover all of this stuff that's coming out now. But you know, at this point, let's go to our closing argument. This is the part of the show where uh, everyone think. I think that's a part

of the show everybody looks forward to. Um, I know, I do. We call it closing arguments. This is where I get to, first of all, thank you for for being here sharing your incredible story, um and uh and doing it so beautifully, and and then I get to turn my microphone off and just kick back in my chair, leave my headphones on and listen to you for any closing thoughts that you have about anything you want to

talk about. My philosophy that I've got out of all of this that I that I've been through is that I don't stand for nothing because I find understanding and everything and what that is it just find a mediation. You can have an opinion, You can have an opinion on how you look at things, but also knowing that there's somebody else's opinion and you have to look at it from their lenses and identify why they're looking at

it like that causing mediation. Mediation is peaceful. So if people can always look at what they're going through or their ideology of how they see things and compare it to somebody else's and find understanding in that within if it's a negative or a positive, then you'll be able to come to a common ground to understand why you're going through what you're going through and why the opposite person looks at something the way that they look at it.

And that leads me to knowing that there will not be a positive for you are in this life without a negative. You have to accept every negative. Then you'll understand that me being in this positive situation right now, there's no way I get here. I could predict that I get anywhere else in life without going through the most horrific thing that somebody can actually go through, and that's being put in jail and given a death sentence that you have to live the rest of your life

until you actually die on. And that leads me to the end, and that's knowing your past could better predict your future than plan it for If you know the decisions that you've made that led to a positive and the ones that led to a negative, then you will

better identify where your future is actually going towards. Knowing that we all have to plan for sure, but not putting a plan so far ahead are so heavy onto your shoulders, so when you fail, you don't find understanding of why you fail, but then you'll understand it that much more by knowing why you failed before. Don't forget to give us a fantastic review wherever you get your podcasts,

it really helps. And I'm a proud donor to the Innocence Project and I really hope you'll join me in supporting this very important cause and helping to prevent future wrong for convictions. Go to Innocence Project dot org to learn how to donate and get involved. I'd like to thank our production team, Connor Hall and Kevin Wardis. The music on the show is by three time OSCAR nominated

composer Jay Ralph. Be sure to follow us on Instagram at Bronful Conviction and on Facebook at Wrongful Conviction Podcast. Wrongful Conviction with Jason Flam is a production of Lava for Good Podcasts and association with Signal Company Number one

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