Speaker 1: 0:00

This is arrested with Mike Brooks and Atlanta criminal defense attorney Damn Conway with your host, Mike Brooks and criminal defense attorney Dan Kinda way. Well Dan, there is a, uh, ongoing investigation right now by the Metropolitan Police Department in Washington DC and they're investigating the incident outside Fox News host Tucker Carlson's home. And there was some damage done to his car. There was spray painting done to his driveway. The, a house his front door was basically bumped up against, with one of the protestors body and actually cracked the door. So, and now investigators with mpd, they are investigating what happened that night as a possible hate crime. And uh, they are saying that the hate crime was motivated by anti political

Speaker 2: 1:06

bias. Well, it's interesting too because I'm not only was the a and let me back up a little bit and kind of gives us some constitutional framework here. What we're talking about is the right to free speech. And by that I mean everyone's right to free speech, uh, both Tucker Carlson's and also, uh, the individuals involved in the protest and so forth and so forth. So the point of the first amendment is to allow free speech to as wide a group of people as possible, meaning to all Americans and two to make sure that their speech hasn't restricted. But let me, um, one, there are threats and screaming and hate crimes committed arguably that night too. And uh, the group behind it, which I believe it's called like smash racism or something like that. Racism DC. There was a tweet that came out and it said the following, if this was addressed to Tucker Carlson, every night you spread fear into our homes. Fear of the other fear of us and fear of them. Each night you tell us we are not safe tonight. Your meaning Tucker Carlson? Yeah. You're reminded that we have a voice so that we remind you, Tucker Carlson, that you are not safe either. Okay.

Speaker 1: 2:38

Those are that. That's threats. That's not free speech. No,

Speaker 2: 2:42

that's. And I am about as big of a free speech advocate as you will find.

Speaker 1: 2:46

And the minute the police in a statement, they came out and they said, we welcome those who come here to exercise their first amendment rights in a safe and peaceful manner. However, we prohibit from breaking the law.

Speaker 2: 3:01

Exactly. And this is really what's happening in our country now, is that, um, what, what everybody needs to understand is that speech can be something that you, the listener, considered hateful, right? That is protected speech. And you may not like it and you may feel that it's wrong. You may feel that it's racist, but the person has a right to speak at the same time, you have the right to speak. What you don't have the right to do is to intimidate, to assault, to do violence to the speaker. Your response to what you consider hate speech is more speech right from you. Yep. And for that to everyone's right to speak as a criminal defense lawyer, I will defend that to my dying breath. Absolutely. Because that's what we're about. Sure. But we're not about violence. We're not about threats. And this is a clear threat.

Speaker 1: 4:07

Absolutely. And I can tell you, having been involved in many demonstrations and you know, covering demonstrations when I was with the Metropolitan Police Department of Washington DC, you know, as one of the things we pride ourself in a, we as allowing groups of any size of any cause to come there and voice their first, their first amendment, freedom of speech, you know, and, but, but you're right. Because at the end, the other thing I thought was interesting when this happened, Tucker Carlson was actually at the Fox studios up in downtown on North Capital Street and his, he has some small children. They were somewhere, thank God that they didn't have to be subjected to this. And his wife was at home fixing dinner and she went and had to hide in the pantry when she's hurt, started hurting, you know, she heard the pounding on the door. And that's another thing if we look at, if we look at the charges here, number one, if you have someone that was pounding on the door with their body, with their, with their foot window, whatever was it cracked the door. Now as a former detective with DC police and knowing, knowing, decode fairly well, that to me would be, uh, an attempted burglary could charge because the house was occupied, burglary first degree, uh, which, which kit, which is a, which is the highest penalty possible for the, in the, in the statute dealing with burglary. They spray painted and anarchist sign in the driveway and it all, they also did damage to hit one of his vehicles that was also parked in a driveway. So you got criminal damage to property destruction of property right there.

Speaker 2: 6:04

Mike, let me just say this is about the symbol. Yeah, I'm the symbols really important because what it represents, uh, the anarchy symbol, if you look historically in the United States, has a long history of threats and intimidation. Anarchist, uh, uh, caused the haymarket bombing, uh, they murdered President Mckinley. And it's interesting because the inner kiss of 100 years ago, they were led by a guy named Bacara and I'm pronouncing that correctly. Uh, they were kind of the darlings of the left over a hundred years ago. Yeah. And they kind of went out of favor a as sort of common sense prevailed. Shelly's right. But to spray paint that symbol on the driveway is in itself, arguably a threat. Interesting. It's also, it's also destruction of property because you're spray painting the right by the driveway. Exactly right. But it's an implied threat. I think it can be argued because of what that symbol represents. It's similar to burning across in somebodies yard. It's similar to other types of, of intimidation. Like if someone went to a synagogue, a Jewish synagogue and spray sprayed him. Exactly. Yeah. One of the things that we need in this country is we need to have everyone understand and the law needs to protect speech on all sides, but he needs to protect fairly the speech so that neither side, neither right nor left, can go over the line and threaten and intimidate other people. So they are squashed into silence. Interesting.

Speaker 1: 7:54

Yeah. And end it. And now, I mean, we started seeing a, the anarchism groups again, they had kind of had a resurgence in Seattle and in Portland starting back in 1999 again. And uh, in fact, December of[inaudible] 99, they had the riots out there. They did a lot of destruction of property, a lot of police officers got hurt and then most recently we saw the group and Tif, uh, which supposed to be an antifascist but they act more like fascism cells, but we saw them on inaugural day going through the streets of Washington dc while the inaugural parade was going on. We saw them breaking windows and everything else and there were over 200 arrest just in the district of Columbia have Columbia and, and you've got a number of these other groups like smash racism that formed together with the Antifa group, if you will. And they seem to be showing up all over the country, you know, and it's. And the message

Speaker 2: 8:56

is clear. The message is, it's meant to shut people up. And that's the, that's where the line is really drawn, is you can call somebody's name. Sure, that's fine. Uh, you can speak in all different types of manners and protest and everything. But what you don't have a right to do is to intimidate others through verbal assault, physical assault, and these kinds of things, intimidation, tactics into not being able to exercise or being fearful of exercising their rights to free speech. Internet's the line. Now here I would argue is crossed. It's interesting too with your, um, with the DC statute, it appears to be broader than the federal statute. The federal statute arguably doesn't fit on the hate crimes on the hate crimes. Doesn't fit the situation. But you're saying the DC statute does. Yes. So please talk about that a little bit.

Speaker 1: 9:47

Yeah. We, uh, uh, I'll tell you what, we're going to talk about the hate, why this could possibly be a hate crime and, and, and much, much more on this. And, uh, we've got some other other topics to touch on where you're listening to arrested with your host, Mike Brooks and Dan conaway. And also we talk about arrested. If you haven't read the book arrested by Dan, caught away. You need to get that on Amazon. It's arrested badly. And America's criminal justice system. You're listening to arrested. Pick up the book, Mike Brooks and Dan cutaway on the new talk one. Oh, six, seven.