Rodney King and The L.A. Riot

Join us as we embark on a nostalgic adventure, revisiting the tumultuous yet humorous moments of our teenage years. Heather kicks things off with a hilarious and painful story of breaking her leg right before high school, setting the stage for a conversation full of laughter and resilience. We'll reminisce about the carefree days of youth, contrasting them with the cautiousness that seems to accompany adulthood, all while sharing a laugh over Heather's newfound chocolate milk obsession during Dry January.

As our conversation shifts gears, we delve into the complexities of Rodney King's life and the systemic racial issues that marked his experiences. From King's challenging upbringing to the infamous 1991 police brutality incident, we'll explore the myths and stereotypes that fueled racial prejudices, shedding light on the broader societal implications that still resonate today. The role of media and public outcry in sparking change is discussed, alongside the resilience required to confront these deeply ingrained issues.

Finally, we'll take you through the chaos of the LA riots and their ripple effects across the country. Personal stories of navigating the city without the comforts of modern technology blend with reflections on police accountability and community relations. We round off this eventful episode with insights into the devastating impact of natural disasters on communities, the emotional toll they take, and a lighthearted farewell encouraging listeners to stay engaged. Don't miss our musings on social media's future and an invitation to share your own stories with us. #genx #90s

Transcript

Speaker 1 0:04

Two best friends. We're talking the past, from mistakes to arcades.

Speaker 2 0:08

We're having a blast Teenage dreams, neon screens, it was all rad and no one knew me Like you know. It's like whatever. Together forever, we're never gonna sever Laughing and sharing our stories. Clever, we'll take you back. It's like whatever.

Speaker 1 0:32

Welcome to Like Whatever a podcast for, by and about Gen X, I'm Nicole and this is my BFFF, heather.

Speaker 2 0:39

Hello.

Speaker 1 0:41

So how was your week?

Speaker 2 0:44

My week has been less eventful than last week, although I did fall taking the dog out. That's always fun, Tweaked my little back a little bit, but other than that it's been, you know.

Speaker 1 0:57

You can't fall when you get over 50 anyway, no, that's what I said.

Speaker 2 1:00

I was like great, I probably broke my hip and I'll be in the hospital forever Remember we could bounce up and act like we were okay. I don't think I ever could bounce back up.

Speaker 1 1:11

You'd get embarrassed and be like oh no, I'm fine, Jump back up, it's totally cool, I didn't just break my leg Didn't even hurt.

Speaker 2 1:18

No, actually, I did break my leg once at work and I didn't know it. Um, I was, oh, it was the summer, august, right before my freshman year of high school. Yeah, um, I fell, uh, carrying a can of applesauce over to the can opener, as I was doing the salad bar, and I slipped and fell and I went to try and get up and I felt like I could not stand up. So I was like, oh, I don't know what's going on. And I was yelling for help and no one could cared because there was nobody in the kitchen. We weren't busy at the time, everybody else was in the dining room. So I was like so I crawled out and I finally got them to to help and they were like, oh, they helped me into the booth and they were like oh, I'm sure you're fine. And I'm like I don't think I'm fine. So there's a, um, not an emergency room, but like a. This was, you know, way back in the day.

Speaker 2 2:22

So they weren't, they were it was a, it was an emergency room, like temporary, like for beach, you know anyway. So they walked me, my mom and one of the hostesses, and my mom is 5'5 and this hostess was six foot, she was very tall. So they they walked me two blocks down to the emergency room and they did an x-ray and then they said it's probably just sprained and we have a heart attack coming in. So you know, we're not going to be able to get to you at any point in the real new future, so you might want to just go ahead and go home. So my mom was like all right.

Speaker 1 3:10

I don't want to be here anyway.

Speaker 2 3:11

So they did put a splint on my leg and handed me crutches and then left and they didn't tell me how to use crutches. So I fell because I didn't know how to use crutches. And then I got home and my mom, you know, put just put ice on it, you'll be fine. And I got home and the next morning I woke up and it hurt like a lot and then the hospital called and said oh shit.

Speaker 1 3:40

Oops yeah.

Speaker 2 3:41

Hey, we finally looked at your x-rays and it's not good, so we're going to need you to come back. So my dad had to drive me to Lewis, to actual BB, because they actually drove, I guess, the x-rays up too, because there was no computers at the time.

Speaker 1 3:59

Right.

Speaker 2 3:59

I guess an actual doctor looked at them and was like, yeah, you did it. So I had to start my freshman year of high school with a cast on my leg and crutches. Good times.

Speaker 1 4:14

Is that the only bone you've ever broken?

Speaker 2 4:15

That's the only bone I've ever broken.

Speaker 1 4:16

I've never broken a bone.

Speaker 2 4:18

I broke a toe too, but I don't think that counts.

Speaker 1 4:20

I think I broke a toe.

Speaker 2 4:21

Yeah, I feel like everybody breaks a toe Pretty much yeah. So, yeah, fun fact about Heather, I have a broken, a fractured ankle, whatever it is. It was, and then it grew back really, really well when they honest, for reals, they x-rayed it again when they took the cast off and they were like, oh, it really healed. Well, we can't even see where it was, so maybe I didn't break it. It's hard to say. Maybe it was like a hairline fracture, I think it was a hairline fracture, and I drink a lot of milk.

Speaker 2 4:55

So, I don't know. If I just rebuilt my, I might be bionic. I'm not sure.

Speaker 1 5:00

I just see these little milkmen down there with, like, their little hammers and stuff fixing up the bone. I do as you're drinking milk.

Speaker 2 5:08

I have milk currently, it's not straight up. I like sometimes to just put a little bit of coffee in my milk and that's basically what I drink. I pretend it's coffee when it's mostly just coffee flavored milk.

Speaker 1 5:21

I've been on a big chocolate milk kick because I am still doing dry January and I have to share that it sucks this time around. So I did it for the first time last year but at that point I was drinking more than I wanted to be drinking and I had some bad habits that I wanted to break. So it was great, like I felt better, I was sleeping better, I was losing weight, like it was all great. But since then I only do like a glass of wine in the evening and it's very relaxing and I like to have it.

Speaker 2 5:56

They say it's good for you too.

Speaker 1 5:57

I know, and it takes me a couple hours to even sip through the wine Like I'm not drinking it, but that fast. But sip through the wine like I'm not drinking it, but that fast, but so that sucks because I miss it. But then I tell myself well, if you're feeling like this, this is why you need to be doing dry january, because it's called withdrawal yeah, it's always good to make sure that you can do it, but yeah, so I have needed something to like replace the wine Chocolate milk, it is yeah, whole milk, nesquik powder, chocolate.

Speaker 1 6:39

I mean, I make the real deal Now. You're talking my language.

Speaker 2 6:41

Yep, I bring the spoon with it so I can continually stir it as it settles to the bottom see when I make this is duncan, but when I make my own coffee which is out in the car. Still, um, I feel it like I put massive amounts of sugar in the bottom. Then I put my coffee I'm, I mix up instant coffee in a big two quart. Oh, I love instant. Because you can make it so strong yeah.

Speaker 1 7:08

Yeah, we have Nescafes on the weekend. I'll look at Jay and say, go make us Nescafes. And he put cinnamon and everything in it. They were so good I have.

Speaker 2 7:17

Starbucks as an instant coffee, and so I make like two quarts of it at a time and then I pour my coffee in, and then about half coffee, half and half I sometimes cream, but mostly it's half and half. And then I dump a lot of Hershey's syrup because the sugar just wasn't enough.

Speaker 1 7:41

Yeah, yeah, it's been great. But I also have to say that this podcast is helping me to get through dry January, because I am big on accountability and integrity. So I would either have to tell you I broke it, which would suck, or lie about it, or just not bring it up. So now I have to just do it. So, which is fine I can, I'm just whining.

Speaker 2 8:06

I'm sure you can. I just want to have like 15 more days. It's like two weeks.

Speaker 1 8:17

No, I'm just kidding. I mean it's, it's not. It's not like I'm freaking out or anything, but I'm just saying it's funny that this time it was so much harder when I was drinking, so much less so well, it's the habit yeah, yeah, that is it I think that's what any of the, any of the vices really are.

Speaker 2 8:35

It's mostly the habits around it, and it's not so much the, the substance, as it is the yeah, the fun of it yeah, exactly, you, exactly, you know heroin and so many rituals around it.

Speaker 1 8:49

And another thing I had to do this week which my Gen Xers will be able to relate because we're at a certain age. I'm really good about taking my nighttime prescriptions. I have high cholesterol and I have allergies and I have arthritis, so I have a little muscle relaxer to help me go to sleep at night. But anyway, it's easy to remember to take those. You know like you're going to bed, but I like to take vitamins and supplements during the day because I think they keep me awake at night if I take them too late.

Speaker 1 9:29

I've just always kind of felt that way like what vitamins?

Speaker 2 9:33

yeah, I don't know if they've been food yeah, yeah, well, I have to take vitamins because I have macular degeneration yeah, so there's like a special vitamin I have to, I know, but like that's what I'm saying Like vitamins come in, are in food and that doesn't make you sleepy. Oh yeah, that's true, yeah.

Speaker 1 9:49

Good point. I don't know, it's probably just in my head, but it's my thing that, like I want to take them during the day but you can't take them until you've eaten because then they hurt my stomach.

Speaker 2 10:00

Yeah.

Speaker 1 10:01

And so I just never would take them because I have a very inconsistent breakfast schedule and every day looks, every morning looks different for me. You know my work I'm virtual and I'm in high schools and I'm in the office.

Speaker 2 10:15

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1 10:16

So like there's not a lot of structure in my mornings, so I took out a pill planner and I put my vitamins. I started taking biotin recently because I feel like my hair is thinning, so you know just. But I did, I did break that.

Speaker 2 10:34

I'm thinking about jumping on the magnesium train.

Speaker 1 10:37

I have magnesium too. I might've put that in there too. I think I did.

Speaker 2 10:42

I don't know anything about it, but it's supposed to help your happy pills, right?

Speaker 1 10:47

Yeah, and it's just all around kind of good for everything. It's good for your immune system, it's good for your hair bones.

Speaker 2 10:54

Well, so, speaking of hair, like you know, I've always had like the thickest hair on the planet. So, not fair, thickest hair on the planet. So not fair, like I have to shave three quarters of my head just to have a hair that looks like a normal people hair, and she doesn't even care about her hair, not even a little bit, I just cut it myself.

Speaker 2 11:14

I thought one side of it I just took scissors and went like and just went in at it and I haven't done the other side yet, um, I just so, but I have noticed that I feel like it is actually getting thinner. It's weird, and I used to have a lot of hair.

Speaker 1 11:33

Yeah, I never had a lot of hair. I've always I've not had thin hair, but I do not make a thick ponytail like ever. So, yeah, I can't afford to lose any not make a thick ponytail like ever.

Speaker 2 11:48

So, yeah, I can't afford to lose any. So my uh, my hairstylist. Every time I go to a new hairstylist, I'm like I have a lot of hair, especially if I get it dyed. I'm like I'm gonna warn you right now I have a lot. You're gonna need to make up like four more bowls of that and they're like you have your hairs to your shoulder, I'm like, and it's gonna take every bit of four bowls.

Speaker 2 12:01

There's a lot up here and they're like oh, I, I figure. And then they get into it and they're like wow, you really do have a lot. I've been living with it for 50 years. But I have a. I have a pill plan or two, I'm not gonna lie do you? For my happy pills. But mine says poison on it, so mine's cool yeah, no, mine's.

Speaker 1 12:22

Mine's one that my father-in-law left here when he passed.

Speaker 2 12:26

I didn't get the old people one. I got the cool.

Speaker 1 12:29

I'm full-blown old people.

Speaker 2 12:30

Mine's got a skeleton on it and it says poison. You can get it on Amazon. It's pretty cool.

Speaker 1 12:37

Well, we'll see if I keep the habit going and then, if I do, maybe I'll get myself a cooler one.

Speaker 2 12:48

I'm going to look into the magnesium.

Speaker 1 12:49

Yeah, yeah, definitely because my happy pills probably could use a boost. Yeah, mine too. So, uh, a little bit of a heavy topic this week yeah but, um, I, uh, I want to talk about it and I wanted to research it and kind of remember all of it.

Speaker 2 13:04

Um, I gotta admit I don't have a really big recollection of a lot.

Speaker 1 13:08

That's all right. That's all right. So you're going to learn a lot.

Speaker 2 13:10

I am going to learn a lot Yep.

Speaker 1 13:12

So but we're going to fuck around and find out today about Rodney King the Rodney King beatings, the riots and then I'll go over a little of little bit of reform. Yeah, I say that lightly, anyway. Anyway, I do love cops and I do appreciate the work that they do.

Speaker 2 13:39

I like to show cops. It's good.

Rodney King

Speaker 1 13:43

It's gonna do so. This week's content came from Historycom, grungecom, biographycom, the New York Times and ThinkProgressorg. So Rodney Glenn King was born April 2nd 1965, in Sacramento, california. He was the son of Ronald and Odessa King. Rodney King grew up mostly in Pasadena, where his family moved soon after his birth.

Speaker 1 14:14

In his memoir, the Riot Within, king recounts growing up with an alcoholic and abusive father and the struggles that produced. At a young age, his father worked two jobs and when King was eight years old, his dad decided that he would take his children along to his night custodial job. While his father would drink and listen to country music. King and his brother would buffer the floors until 2 am, barely having a chance to get some sleep before having to wake up for the school in the morning. As a result, king was frequently tired and unresponsive in class, which led to the school to place him in a disabled learning class. That's unfortunate. It is, and I can really. This hits me because I work with high schoolers and I work with students with disabilities, and some of those students have learning disabilities, emotional disabilities any disability.

Speaker 1 15:11

So some of what these kids are going through, man like it's crazy, Like this. I mean it's a wonder they are where they are, that they are as successful as they have been up to this point, because they're not getting support from whoo, and there's a lot of bad things going on in their lives sometimes.

Speaker 2 15:36

Yeah, that's why I had that issue with big brothers, big sisters. You know you, you see what these kids are going through and you think I thought I had and you think I thought I had it. You know, right, I thought I was just because you know, I got yelled at all the time.

Speaker 1 15:50

Yeah exactly.

Speaker 2 15:51

It's a very humbling experience.

Speaker 1 15:53

It definitely is. A lot of these kids don't know what love is.

Speaker 2 15:56

No.

Speaker 1 15:57

It's awful, anyway. So King attended John Muir High School and often talked about being inspired by his social studies teacher, robert E Jones. King's father died in 1984 at the age of 42. King had a daughter with his girlfriend, carmen Simpson. He later married Danetta Lyles, which was the cousin of hate crime victim James Byrd Jr and also cousin of rapper Mac 10. Oh, mm-hmm, and he had a daughter with her as well. King and Lyles eventually divorced. He later remarried and had a daughter with Crystal Waters. This marriage also ended in divorce. King was found dead in his swimming pool on June 17th 2012, in Rio Lato, california, at the age of 47. Oh, wow, yeah. So that's a little brief biography of Mr King. I'm getting thrown off because it's Martin Luther King's birthday too and it literally just hit me that Rodney King nevermind, don't mind me, I'm a little slow sometimes. So when I was saying King, I was like wait, no, oh, yeah, okay, don't mind me, she got herself confused.

Speaker 1 17:20

Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2 17:20

It happens a lot, A lot. You don't even know how much I'd have to edit out Like I don't even know, Just run on Like what Huh?

Speaker 1 17:36

Anyway, king started drinking at an early age and had various encounters with law enforcement before the notorious 1991 assault and it's no wonder I mean this kid. So in November 1989, he was arrested for assault and robbery and sentenced to two years in prison. After one year King was released on parole and found a part-time job as a construction worker at the LA Dodgers baseball stadium. That's a good job. Yeah, king was an African-American man who was a victim of police brutality. In the early hours of March 3rd 1991, king and two friends, pooh Allen and Freddie Helms, decided to go out after watching a basketball game. They'd all been drinking and King was behind the wheel when two California Highway Patrol officers, tim and Melanie Singer, spotted them speeding down the 210 freeway. Wait, are they? I don't know. I missed that when I was reading through this.

Speaker 1 18:40

Anyway, king reportedly led them on a high speed chase, running a red light and nearly causing an accident, before finally stopping near Hanson Dam Park. By the time King stopped officers Lawrence Powell, timothy Wind, theodore Brissino, rolando Solano and I don't even care that I'm pronouncing these people wrong because they're awful and sergeant stacy coon had all arrived at the scene. The police ordered everyone out of the car, but only alan and helms complied. King stayed in the vehicle until police yelled at him a second time to get out. According to Melanie Singer's testimony, when King did get out of the car, he displayed erratic behavior such as waving at the police helicopter and waving his butt at the officers yeah, real threatening. The officers would write in their report that, due to his behavior, they suspected King of being under the influence of PCP.

Speaker 2 19:46

That was one of those that they just literally said everyone was on PCP To justify yeah. Everybody was on PCP. It was like the most Yep.

Speaker 1 19:59

And I'll bet there was nary a drug test? No, don't carry a drug test, no. So PCP was believed wait, which was believed by the police to give people under its influence superhuman strength. Right, yeah, because pointing at a helicopter and shaking your butt is exceptional strength.

Speaker 2 20:18

Well, yes, it is.

Speaker 1 20:22

You have to really be doing PCP to do that? Yeah, exactly. This belief is actually a crude regurgitation of a myth started by Dr Hamilton Wright in 1910, which claimed that black people experienced superhuman strength under the influence of cocaine In the day King's toxology report was negative for PCP. Imagine that After finally catching Hold up.

Speaker 2 20:52

Okay, Sorry, Um so cocaine. But just black people got superhuman strength, not white people. Correct? Is that because it's a white drug?

Speaker 1 21:08

Oh, you know what I bet if cocaine was black powder yeah, Then like yeah. Yeah, because, oh yeah, I see what you're saying.

Speaker 2 21:19

Hmm, that's just. I mean of all of the drugs to make you superhuman strength, I can't imagine cocaine would be. I mean it makes you talk a lot, but Well, that was 1910.

Speaker 1 21:32

Oh 1910.

Speaker 2 21:34

But they literally put cocaine in everything in 1910.

Speaker 1 21:36

Exactly, everybody has superhuman strength in 1910. Maybe you know what.

Speaker 2 21:40

Everybody has a superhuman strength in 1910. Maybe you know what? Maybe it did make the appearance of black people having superhuman strength on cocaine because white people had built up a tolerance for cocaine because it was literally in the soda and in your medicine and you carried it in a little vial. Yes, yes. Someday I am going to go into a thrift store and look in the jewelry thing and it is going to be one of those little snifter things with the tiny little spoon and I'm going to be so happy yeah.

White Privilege and Systemic Racism

Speaker 1 22:12

That would be a really cool thing to find. Sorry, I diverted. After finally catching King's vehicle, police proceeded with the arrest. As King exited the vehicle, officer Kuhn claimed that he had felt threatened but felt enough confidence in his officers to take care of the situation. Police alleged that King resisted, lying on the ground, and after Kuhn yelled for officers to stand, stand back, he fired his taser twice at king. Coon claimed that king was unfazed by either taser strike and officer solano, further collaborating, that king proceeded to lunge at coon. In his report, officer powell wrote that king was only temporarily halted by the taser before appearing to attack again.

Speaker 2 23:07

I didn't realize they were using tasers then.

Speaker 1 23:12

Well, it was LA, so they probably had the fancy stuff. The police then proceeded to beat King with their batons, claiming that King continued to resist and struggle as the officers used swarm techniques to subdue him. The officers noted the use of force and batons in their reports, concluding that it had been justified given king's aggressive nature. Coon also wrote in his sergeant's log that king was oblivious to pain. Is that? Also I mean that probably is that comes from slavery.

Speaker 2 23:45

Well, well, that, and I mean cocaine probably helps that I know I didn't have any cocaine in there.

Speaker 1 23:50

But right, you know if you right, but that black people being oblivious to pain. I remember reading that that was something that they're not real yeah rumored. Yeah, uh, anyway, this notation also bears racist undertones, echoing the work of dr samuel cartwright, who in 1851 wrote of enslaved people being invisible to pain when subjected to punishment. Sorry, I didn't mean to laugh through that.

Speaker 2 24:16

I just again did an idiot move and I just the whole concept is just so difficult to wrap your mind around that simply because the outside of your skin is a different color, that you would be somehow different. Yes, it's just. But that is a lot of people believe that, oh, and still do, and it's unreal to me, like I just Well, you just showed me that video of the girl that didn't believe in dinosaurs.

Speaker 1 24:52

That's true.

Speaker 2 24:53

I mean I just, and if you're thinking that one skin color over another would be inferior, I mean, technically, white people would be the inferior, because we're not, and how we populated the globe is awesome, because we're colonizers, but we lack melanin. Yes, and that's what you know. That's why we have skin cancer, exactly, and we're you know, white people were built to stay in the north. Yeah, and we don't. No, white people were built to stay in the.

Speaker 1 25:26

North yeah, and we don't no, and that's unfortunate.

Speaker 2 25:27

We should go back to that, but it's just. We are obviously the lesser of the two.

Speaker 1 25:32

Right.

Speaker 2 25:32

Because we lack melanin.

Speaker 1 25:34

Yeah. After the beating, the police called an ambulance and King was taken to Pacifica Hospital, with officers riding along. Doctors gave King several stitches, noting in his medical records that he suffered a broken cheekbone and a broken right ankle. Afterward, king was moved to a jail ward at County USC Medical Center where he was booked for evading and resisting arrest. Now, mind you, when they pulled him over I don't even think there was a probable cause. Was he speeding?

Speaker 1 26:14

I don't know, I can't remember if I said that he was speeding, but I feel like I mean they can make up any, yeah, yeah. An uninvolved resident, george Holiday, saw and filmed the incident from his nearby balcony and sent the footage, which showed King on the ground being beaten after initially evading arrest, to local news station KTLA. The incident was covered by news media around the world and caused a public uproar. At a press conference, los Angeles Police Chief Daryl Gates announced that the four officers involved would be disciplined for use of excessive force and that three would face criminal charges. The LAPD initially charged King with felony evading but later dropped the charge, with his injuries evident a broken right leg in a cast, his face badly cut and swollen bruises on his body and a burn area to his chest where he had been jolted with a stun gun. King described how he had knelt, spread his hands out, then slowly tried to move so as not to make any stupid moves, before being hit across the face with a billy club and shocked with a stun gun.

Speaker 2 27:29

See, and this is my issue with people who say there's no such thing as white privilege, because you do not have to teach your son and daughters what you can, what you should and should not do when pulled over. All you have to tell them is don't argue too much and give them your license and registration.

Speaker 1 27:53

You know what's been driving me crazy? We've been watching. The ID channel has a show called Very Evil People and it's hosted by Donnie Wahlberg.

Speaker 2 28:07

Keep forgetting to watch.

Speaker 1 28:08

Yes, and it's cool because of course we have listened to all the serial killer stuff. We know all the stories, we know all the players. But this one actually, it does kind of give more information. It's got some bad reenacting in it a little bit they all do.

Speaker 2 28:25

That's the best part of it, yeah.

Speaker 1 28:27

But some of the survivors are on there, families of survivors, and I am getting more detailed information, some things like I didn't know from it. So it's pretty neat. But in so many of these cases these men are driving around with bodies in their trunk, blood all over them, guns laying on their front seat, cops are pulling them over and they're like, oh yeah, I just shot a bird. And they're like, oh okay, go ahead, and they just leave. And I look at Jay and I'm like it's so good to be a white male and I don't hate men and I don't want to do the whole man hater thing. It's not that, but just being a white male, yes makes life easier for you.

Speaker 2 29:11

The number one, the way you see it in in serial killer jeffrey dalmer. Yeah, they ran up to police and said he is with handcuffs on now. There was the added that they were all gay and you know that was a whole another. You know, oh, we can't now we really can't deal with the brown people, because he's brown and gay and that's two strikes yeah but they handed these kids, underage kids, back to jeffrey dahmer.

Speaker 1 29:39

Yep, yep, and just go on about your way you know, the one I was watching the other night was, um, let me see who was it. It was the guy who went on the dating game. Oh, rodney ocala. Yeah, um, his first victim was like an eight-year-old girl.

Speaker 2 29:59

Yes.

Speaker 1 30:00

And she didn't die because some guy saw her getting picked up on the street. Now why this guy didn't stop it when he saw it? Because he could have saved this girl a lot of trauma. It was the 70s or 60s or 70s.

Speaker 1 30:13

Yeah, but he did at least, and I will give him he did. He followed him home and then he went and called the cops and said hey, I just saw this, go check it out. So they show up at his house and you know, the little girl was almost dead. He had already raped her already. He was strangling her. She lived. She's on the show. Yeah, she doesn't remember any of it. She's completely blacked out. Every she remembers getting to his house and that's the last thing that she good, yeah, that's what I said but um, so they have him for this.

Speaker 1 30:42

And then I think she moved back to Mexico with family or something. They, the cops, went there, saw his face through the door. He ran and got away. They came in and made the decision to save the girl instead of chase him yeah, Thank God. And so they did. And so he just he runs off. So, but the girl can identify him. They walked in on it. But they went to the college he worked for and they were like no way, there's no way. And they were all like all right, and they just didn't do anything Like they saw him do it.

Speaker 2 31:21

He was naked when he answered the door if you listen to any of these, I mean they and they call them the less dead. That's exactly it's. It's it's sex workers and it's right. Um, especially is that there is a huge problem with indigenous women going missing yes, and no one seems to give a shit, and it's so unfortunate that it's big in the trans community as well.

Speaker 2 31:45

Yes, because they are, the less that's what it's they. They call them, the less dead because it's these people prey on people who are down on their luck or, you know, in tough circumstances or addiction and and so many things, and then no one comes looking for them.

Speaker 1 32:04

Oh, I remember what it was. Sorry, real quick before I forget. The family didn't want to put the little girl through the trauma of going to court and having to face him and say what happened and that's why they let the case go. Yeah, With all that evidence.

Speaker 2 32:18

It's just. I mean, if you don't think that white privilege is a thing, yes, you should maybe.

Speaker 1 32:25

Yeah, read some more yeah, I mean, we're not. We don't. We're not blaming anybody, we can't help how we were born, but but acknowledge acknowledge it exists, yes, and and.

Speaker 2 32:36

And I think what bugs me is when these people are like oh, I've had, you know, I've been down on my luck and I don't have any money and I live in a. Okay, but take that and add to it that you can't drive anywhere without the thought of you possibly getting killed by the police, like it's just yes, you are down on your luck and that's unfortunate, but you don't have the added yes.

Speaker 1 33:06

And then if you have children, you have to worry about them as well.

Speaker 2 33:10

Especially a young black male. I mean you have to just it's, just it's, it's horrible yeah.

Speaker 1 33:16

Yeah, it is. So this all led to the LA riots. At about 3.15 PM on Wednesday, April 29th, the jury released their verdict. All four officers were acquitted of charges in the King case, save for a mistrial on one charge against Powell of excessive force. The response was immediate as protesters took to the street. Hundreds of people gathered at the Los Angeles County Courthouse to protest the verdict. Hundreds of people gathered at the Los Angeles County Courthouse to protest the verdict by 530,. The unrest had grown violent near the intersection of Florence and Normandy Avenues in South LA, where locals attacked passing motorists and forced overwhelmed LAPD officers to retreat. A news helicopter captured footage of white truck driver Reginald Denny being pulled from his rig and beaten nearly to death, with no signs of police assistance. Do you remember that?

Speaker 2 34:09

video. I do remember that one.

Speaker 1 34:12

Minutes later, a Latino driver named Fidel Lopez endured a similar attack.

Speaker 2 34:17

And you know, and here's another issue with white privilege, because I feel like when you see anything about the LA riots, that's what you see.

Speaker 1 34:24

That is the video you see.

Speaker 2 34:25

That is the video that you see.

Speaker 1 34:27

You know what? There was a period of time where, you know, I just hadn't thought about it for a while, and when I did think about it, I was picturing Rodney King getting pulled out of a tractor trailer.

Speaker 2 34:39

But the video is the white man being pulled out of the tractor trailer, but that is the memory engraved in my brain when, any of it, it's exactly, and that is exactly the way it was done, because when you think of Rodney King, you think of Reginald Denning being pulled out of that tractor trailer and being beat, and that's Yep, it's.

Speaker 1 34:58

Yep, when that really had nothing to do. No.

LA Riots Impact on NYC

Speaker 1 35:24

Yep, when that really had nothing to do with it, the street where you can just video everything. All the time you were sold goods and that's what you remember. In a matter of hours, neighborhoods across South and Central Los Angeles were in flames as rioters firebombed thousands of buildings, smashed windows, looted stores and attacked the Parker Center Police Headquarters in downtown LA. By the end of the day, california Governor Pete Wilson had declared state of emergency and ordered the activation of Reserve National Guard soldiers. The citywide unrest showed little signs of abating on April 30th, prompting the suspicion of rapid transit mail service schools and professional sports games. Of rapid transit mail service schools and professional sports games. Suspension is the word I would use. Many businesses closed, leaving residents to wait in long lines for food and gas, while other store owners, like bands of armed Korean merchants, chose to engage the looters.

Speaker 2 36:26

And okay, look, it is unfortunate that they went after these neighborhoods. That should not have gone out and most of the neighborhoods were black-owned, korean-owned, minority-owned, and that is unfortunate. I mean, violent looting and violent rioting is never really the answer, but you have to understand the frustration that is built behind it.

Speaker 1 36:44

Can you imagine that for decades you have been living this life and finally you have proof and evidence and, yes, things are going to change, things are going to get better. People are going to believe us and nothing happened. What did you expect them to do? Yeah, go home and just go about their day. Yeah, I mean. But yes, violence is not the answer and it is not fair to the other people involved, but that was just a volcano ready to erupt.

Speaker 2 37:11

It really was.

Speaker 1 37:14

Although some 2,000 National Guardsmen had reached the city by 8 o'clock that morning, a lack of proper communication and equipment prevented effective deployment until later in the afternoon. May 1st, the third day of continued riots, was marked by the televised appearance of King, who asked for the mayhem to stop quietly pleading. Can we all just get along? Can we all get along?

Speaker 2 37:38

I think we all remember it. As Can we all just get along? Yeah, I thought so, that's one of those Mandela effects they talk about all the time. Like Sinbad was in a movie. Yes, apparently he wasn't About a genie.

Speaker 1 37:54

That evening, President George HW Bush also took to the airwaves to denounce both the senseless deaths of the riots and the police brutality that inspired them, and to announce the dispatch of thousands of federal officers to Los Angeles.

Speaker 2 38:09

It's a great idea to put places under martial law.

Speaker 1 38:11

Yeah, it's always a great idea.

Speaker 1 38:15

By May 2nd, with 6,000 National Guardsmen, bolstered by the addition of another 4,000 federal troops and Marines, the disorder had largely quelled. An estimated 30,000 people marched at a peaceful rally for Korean merchants, and volunteers began cleaning up the streets. Meanwhile, arraignments began for some 6,000 alleged looters and arsonists. I'll bet they got charged or convicted. I'm sure they did. Highway exits reopened and police began recovering stolen merchandise the following day, the only significant trouble coming when National Guardsmen shot a driver who attempted to run them over. On May 4th, mayor Bradley lifted the citywide curfew and residents attempted to resume day-to-day activities, with schools, businesses and rapid transit resuming operations. Federal troops stood down on May 9th and the National Guard soon followed, though some soldiers remained until the end of the month. The final tally for the LA riots included 2,000 injuries, 12,000 arrests and 63 deaths attributed to the uprising. Upwards of 3,000 buildings were burned or destroyed and 3,000 businesses were affected as part of the $1 billion in damage sustained by the city, leaving an estimated 20,000 to 40,000 people out of work.

Speaker 2 39:46

And that's unfortunate because it's 20,000 to 40,000 people who really were probably living paycheck to paycheck.

Speaker 1 39:52

Right, exactly, and they couldn't really afford.

Speaker 2 39:54

The whole thing is unfortunate.

Speaker 1 39:56

So I also wanted to add to this story because I have personal stories to go along with this was the effects that this had in New York City. So new nonviolent protests against the Rodney King verdict unfolded in New York City and New Jersey Authorities in a half dozen communities across the metropolitan area, toted up a night of disorder by ugly crowds that smashed windows, hurled rocks and bottles and engaged in minor looting. But officials in New York and New Rochelle, where most of the trouble had occurred, noted that the level of violence was far lower than in other cities hit by tremors from riot-torn Los Angeles. And while police said there had been no deliberate policy of restraint, some witnesses said officers avoided confrontations where possible and that this may have eased tensions. Now see, that's some smart police work. Now see that's some smart police work, because that's one thing I learned in mental health that you have to diffuse the situation Right. If you both get angry, it's not going to go anywhere. No Good, right, exactly.

Speaker 1 41:15

And it's surprisingly easy to bring down the temperature with people really.

Speaker 2 41:25

Yeah, I would think so. I plus, you know they probably were on there binding their p's and q's, knowing that the anybody was watching.

Speaker 1 41:31

Yes, and they were also probably pretty terrified that they didn't want that to happen they didn't want to get killed.

Peaceful Protest After Rodney King Verdict

Speaker 1 41:37

Yeah, either, yeah, um. So merchants swept up glass and boarded up the gaping holes of broken windows in dozens of shops in Greenwich Village and New Rochelle, and there was no reoccurrence of the Friday night violence that led to 121 arrests and 41 minor injuries in New York, the vandalization and looting of 25 stores in New Rochelle, and disturbances in Newark, jersey City and Bridgeport, connecticut. On a summer-like day of azure skies and drifting vanilla clouds, it seemed more suited to picnics than protests. 500 to 1,000 demonstrators, led by the Reverend Al Sharpton, marched from police headquarters to Folly Square and City Hall Park for a noisy but peaceful rally. Violence is not the answer. Amid chance of no justice, no peace. And stop the violence, stop the hate.

Speaker 1 42:34

Mr Sharpton, who had brought busloads of people, told the crowd outside the federal courthouse of Foley Square that change, not violence, was the answer for those outraged by Rodney King's verdict. We are here to protest the violence. We are not the violent ones, he said. Don't color us the bad guys. We didn't get angry last night. We've been angry all along. I'm angry but I'm not mad. I'm angry enough to change things. Clad in black sweatshirts and embellished, I'm going to. I'm emblazoned Okay, I think that's the first word I haven't been able to say yet With yellow lettering.

Speaker 1 43:21

Senator Sharpton, the candidate for the Democratic Senate nomination, had repeatedly warned the marchers earlier that anyone who became violent would be turned into authorities. But he sounded familiar to thank you themes against the criminal justice system. I've been reading too long, my brain's getting tired. I am not a reader, by the way, like it's not my forte. I'm pretty sure I have a learning disability, but that was undiagnosed. But anyway, there has been the administration of injustice in New York City. He said Rodney King is not an isolated case. We know Rodney King is not an isolated case. We know Rodney King's story all too well. He named some blacks slain by the police in recent years, adding it is time for time that murderers pay the price, no matter who the murderers are. Amen to that. Yeah, so I wanted to tell that because so when those riots were happening, so the verdict had come out, I think Friday, that Saturday, friends of mine were going to the local community college and this was 1991. And or was it 92?

Speaker 2 44:40

Anyway, it was 91.

Speaker 1 44:41

91. That's what I thought. Oh yeah, it's right here. Um, anyway, so, uh, they were in an art, my two for three. No, it was three friends. Um, they were in an art class and we did everything together, but I was not in this class right and they were going on a bus trip to New York City.

Speaker 1 45:01

So we were going up to go to an art museum in New York City. The bus got us up there and then we were pretty much just set free in the city. Four 18 year olds just dropped in the middle of New York City. So the good old days From.

Speaker 2 45:17

Delaware From.

Speaker 1 45:18

Delaware, exactly so you can only get two people in a cab. So two of my friends went ahead in one cab and me and one of my friends were in the other cab and our cab driver, like literally did not speak any English and we weren't very worldly, so we had no skills Again from Delaware.

Speaker 1 45:38

We had absolutely no skills to try to figure out how to communicate with this man. So our friend's taxi takes off and we were heading for where we were supposed to meet the buses. I think we all had to meet up there like midday and then meet again at the end of the day, like kind of a check-in thing. So we were heading, so we were heading. So we now are alone in this cab with this guy and he doesn't know what we're saying, where we need to go.

Speaker 1 46:08

And we eventually just have to get out of the cab, like we don't know. So and I think our maybe we didn't know, I don't know what happened, but anyway, we're trying to find this place and we just are lost. We can't find it. So we spent the whole afternoon basically running through the streets of new york city like we were in chinatown. We were everywhere just just running, just I guess we thought eventually we would see our bus. I don't know what we were doing, but you know, eventually it'll turn up.

Urban Chaos and Police Reforms

Speaker 1 46:42

So then night came, started coming on and, mind you, now it's still pay phones, there are no cell phones. But we don't want to call our parents because we both had very strict parents, Right, and we knew we were going to get murdered when we got home. So we really wanted to figure it out on our own before we had to involve anyone else, Because, you know, nobody's noticed. It's dark and we haven't come back yet. So we don't even realize what's going on in LA, because we're 18. And it's nighttime.

Speaker 1 47:17

We get down in the subway and there's one person on the subway and we were like wow, it's really not busy here. And the one person there says that's because of the riots in LA. And here we're like, oh, Again we're on the subway, but we don't even know where we're going. We're just literally. So we pop up in Central Park. And we come up out of the ground at Central Park and literal crackheads I mean skinny, scrawny white girls, just like zombies are coming up to us like asking for money and we're like screaming and running off Like it was insane.

Speaker 1 48:03

But, like the streets, there was nobody out. There weren't people out on the streets? There was nobody in the subway, like we didn't see any riots, but we were definitely not in a safe situation. So we decided the gig was up. It's probably like eight o'clock at night by now. So I remember when I called my mom she answered and I said hi, mom, and she screamed shut up, when are you what? And when I would go to answer, she was shut up. I feel awful. So I mean the bus had left us.

Speaker 1 48:43

Our friends were home, like yeah, like everybody was home, nobody knew. And he calls and he's just as dead as me, so somehow I don't even know how they got paid for, but we got train tickets out of the city into Wilmington and we took that and each my mom picked me up and his dad picked him up and yeah, Bet, that went well. Yeah, we're not going to talk about what happened after that, but yeah, I actually was right there, that's scary.

Speaker 1 49:19

Yeah, it is scary. And it's crazy just how it's just nuts. And it's funny because I look at my kids. You know they're adults now but you still worry about them. But as teenagers I'm like, oh my gosh, I hope they're not in this situation and this and that, and I'm like I survived New York City In the 90s.

Speaker 2 49:42

And it's not like.

Speaker 1 49:43

New York City in the 90s was what New York City now is. It was converting because, like in the 50s it was the gangsters, In the 70s it was the titty bars and the triple X things everywhere and it was just like it had not been dignified yet. Yes, yeah, and yeah, it had gotten away from that stuff, kind of.

Speaker 2 50:01

And it had. I mean I, because I went to New York City the first time and only time I've ever been, in the 90s, and I was like I was 18. My friend, from Oregon.

Speaker 1 50:15

We should go sometime. I love New York City Never mind.

Speaker 2 50:20

Yeah, I'm not a fan, but it had such a reputation and I know I mean just coming from. First of all, we're coming from delaware slower delaware at that, so it's like no crime happens here at all, ever for any reason I mean if something happens, it's like shakes the world.

Speaker 1 50:38

Yeah, and new york had such the reputation of you were going to get mugged all the time and you were going to get killed all the time and I think probably part of what made me think I'd be okay and I'd be able to figure this out is my dad grew up in North Jersey and Staten Island and New York City were his stomping ground Like that's where he went to play. So every summer we would go up to my grandma's in Jersey and we'd stay for like a week, but one of the days would always be a day trip up to New York City. So every summer of my life I had been there and he liked you know, some of the lesser desirable places. You know we had to go to his favorite pizza shop and that was cool, like we went in there. He was I don't know, I was maybe like 15 or 16.

Speaker 1 51:28

So he would have been in his forties and we walk in. He hasn't been in this place since he was a kid, right, and he was a greaser. He wore the white t-shirts and drove the fancy convertibles. I love your dad, I know. And running over Georgie just throws her arms around him like she was so excited she hadn't seen him in like 30 years. Yeah, but I think that's. I don't know, maybe that's why I thought I'd be able to make my way around philadelphia and the few the times that I've gotten so-called lost.

Speaker 2 52:12

I mean, philadelphia is not real hard to get unlost from, but I just from hearing you know my dad talking because my dad worked at domino sugar and which we need to go to that casino. Really bad, okay, just because that's where my dad worked, okay, um, doesn't anyway a terrible idea to let him work in a sugar factory yeah, but notice, you say we should go somewhere and I'm like okay, okay um, so yeah, I'm much more familiar with, with the ins and outs of philadelphia and that's why I feel like maybe I feel uncomfortable in New York because I feel like I know Philadelphia.

Speaker 2 52:57

I drive through Philadelphia all the time and especially after I graduated we would go to Philly for freaking lunch. I mean, be like you want cheesesteaks today.

Speaker 1 53:05

Yeah, where do you want to go?

Speaker 2 53:08

Gyms on South Street. Okay, so I think that's why I but it had such a reputation, and I don't think many other cities really had that reputation.

Speaker 1 53:19

Yeah, I think it started with the gangsters it started all that, and then the drugs.

Speaker 2 53:26

Yeah the drugs. It's much safer, I hear, now than it is. Yes, I haven the drugs. It's much safer, I hear, now than it is. Yes, I haven't been, it's lovely.

Speaker 1 53:34

So critics of the LAPD earned some vindication in 1993 when officers Kuhn and Powell were sentenced to 30 months of peace for violating King's civil rights. In April 1994, king was awarded $3.8 million in a civil lawsuit against the city. Although the LAPD demonstrated improvements with community-based programs, it resisted implementing most of the recommendations of the 1991 Christopher Commission. It wasn't until the Rampart scandal of the late 1990s, which exposed widespread corruption within the LAPD anti-gang unit, that serious change was enacted. Through it all. Rodney King was just a man trying to find his way in the world. Some would see him as a hero or a martyr, while others would maintain that he was a criminal and a villain. But the police's infringement on King's rights and dignity would become a lasting symbol of the reality of police brutality. King's assault and the subsequent trials of the officers would lay bare the racism and injustice that ran through Los Angeles and its police department, becoming a catalyst for demands of police accountability.

Speaker 2 54:48

I mean when you watch. I know that it was fresh on the minds of people in Los Angeles during the OJ trial. I know that a lot of things were swayed or influenced during that trial because really it was the LAPD versus OJ Simpson. I mean that's what it was, because it was Mark Furman and you know.

Speaker 1 55:21

And he was the lesser evil in the jurors' eyes.

Speaker 2 55:25

It's there was. I remember them when they brought the verdict down. I mean LA was bracing for another riot. I mean I remember that. And you know, I think, looking back on it now, some of the documentaries and stuff I've seen on, I mean I won't get into whether or not OJ did it. But, you don't write a book that says, if I did it, if you didn't do it, but I think that was a big part of everyone's minds at the time. And it really was an indictment on the LAPD versus OJ.

Speaker 1 56:05

Yeah, that makes sense. So not a lot has changed, but I did put in here a little bit about reform that has happened since then. It can feel like nothing has changed in the way we police the police. Many things haven't. Juries acquit police, cops get their jobs back and brutality happens again. Some things have gotten worse, like police militarization, but some things have gotten better or are still moving towards reform in the wake of a prominent brutality incident.

Speaker 1 56:45

A history of these incidents reveals that some major recent police reforms got their start after highly publicized episodes of police violence. But it was only after years or decades and dogged, persistent community building that some progress started to manifest. A videotape by a bystander captured five officers pummeling Rodney King with batons more than 50 times as he struggled on the ground outside his car. The recording immediately sparked outrage, but anger magnified when the officers who beat King were acquitted by a jury the following year. The acquittal triggered three days of violent riots during which at least 53 people died and created immense momentum for reform. The cops in that case were ultimately held accountable when federal prosecutors took up the case and secured convictions of four officers, and by some measures, the LAPD was transformed in the two decades that followed.

Speaker 1 57:39

Los Angeles was the original militarizer of police, even before the federal government started handing out leftover or used weapons and before the height of the war on drugs. The LAPD was the godfather of that kind of militaristic response. It is a very systematic problem in just about every community throughout the United States. Los Angeles was forced to scale back in some ways after the riots, partially as a result of the Christopher Commission created in response to the King beating to develop recommendations for reform, but initially few of the commissioner's recommendations were adopted by the city. Christopher Commission recommendations lay a foundation but weren't successful in bringing about reform.

Speaker 1 58:26

One of the most significant reforms that did come out of the commission was ending the policy of lifetime terms for police chiefs. The police chief who presided during that period and had overseen an error of increased militarization at the Los Angeles Police Department, daryl Gates, was forced to resign and therefore lifetime terms were over. That's good. Yeah, lifetime terms are never good. Never, I mean, I guess, for the pope. But yeah, he doesn't count. Yeah, exactly, um. In the intervening years, the city took advantage of its prerogative. It's my prerogative.

Speaker 2 59:09

Bobby Brown, it's my prerogative.

Speaker 1 59:16

The city took advantage of its prerogative to hire chiefs for five-year terms and then bring in some new in a series of chiefs who instituted some change but failed to alter the culture.

Speaker 1 59:30

That changed when Bill Bratton became chief more than 10 years later, in 2002, and instituted what is known as community policing. Underlying this approach is the idea that police can rarely solve public safety problems alone and require the input of various stakeholders to come up with solutions that might be resolved by social services or other measures. Instead of heavy police hand, bratton was hired as a reformer chief after a series of incidents of corruption emerged, known as the Rampart scandal. When Bratton arrived, the stage was set for real change because of a few other intervening developments. Five years after King's death, the city finally instituted a recommendation to create an independent inspector general to review the department. In 1994, congress passed provisions in the Crime Control Act meant to address police misconduct in a more systematic way. One provision gave the Department of Justice the power to bring civil suits against local police departments that exhibited a pattern and practice of excessive force and other constitutional violations, and the department used that power to enter into a settlement known as a consent decree with Los Angeles.

Speaker 2 1:00:55

As I'm listening, I am listening, I have to wonder why is LA like the worst, hmm, Hmm, that it happens? I understand that you know new york cops are probably not innocent of anything, um, but you have to wonder, like why is was the lapd allowed to run rampant like that and get away with it? And and you hear, and then you hear about all the.

Speaker 1 1:01:46

You know all of this and but you don't really hear that I wonder if it had to do with politics, because LA is a very rich and a very poor.

Speaker 2 1:01:58

I imagine that too. I also imagine, I think that they have a bigger gang problem.

Speaker 1 1:02:03

Yeah, I think so too.

Speaker 2 1:02:05

I mean New York was run by the mafia.

Speaker 1 1:02:09

But down there they have Mexican gangs that are coming up. There's a lot of different.

Speaker 2 1:02:13

yeah, a lot of different gangs and maybe that I don't know.

Speaker 1 1:02:18

I think a lot of drugs come through that way too, because it is close to the border.

Speaker 2 1:02:23

Oh yeah, that makes sense. Hmm, it'd be worth researching Well, and drugs probably has a lot to do with it, because I don't think the mafia really. They played a little in drugs but I don't think they were really. That wasn't their thing. Dealing drugs wasn't really their thing, and I think I'm pretty sure gangs eradicated the mafia in New York.

Speaker 1 1:02:43

Yeah, drive-bys.

Speaker 2 1:02:45

So I guess that's yeah. I guess that's why it just always seems that Los Angeles was so much worse with that. They just got away with everything and I don't know why.

Speaker 1 1:02:54

I don't know if that's just my own thinking or yeah, and it's unfortunate because the corruption just runs deep anywhere. Yes, and it's hard because a good cop coming in isn't going to want to be in that environment and you know the one person versus everybody else. So they move on to something else.

Speaker 2 1:03:22

And it's kind of like you know they can say they're diversifying and they're hiring in more you know ethnicities and stuff. But I mean also just it takes you to nazi germany, where they're they were using some jews to out other jews and it was a survival situation, like they had to do it. So you know, if you're a black cop in la, are you really gonna. What are your choices?

Speaker 1 1:03:47

there. You know exactly, you can't nobody is gonna care.

Speaker 2 1:03:51

First of all, if you're saying, hey, you know there's, this is happening and you're going to get just brushed off and right, I mean it's just yeah for sure um, so this provision is perhaps among the most far reaching remedies for holding entire police management structures accountable.

Speaker 1 1:04:17

Typically, justice Department investigations that find constitutional violations result in agreements, known as consent decrees, that avert litigation by agreeing to federal monitoring and reforms. Common reforms include changes to police training, stronger mechanisms for complaints against officers and improved supervision. A Vera Institute study of the first consent decree in Pittsburgh, pennsylvania, found that use of force incidents declined after the consent decree ended and that the city largely succeeded in meeting DOJ goals, but that citizens still perceive police as sometimes using excessive force, particularly against minority. It was in executing his city's consent decree that Bratton transformed the LAPD. It is like night and day. Jeff Schlanger, who was hired to monitor the LAPD in 2001, told NBC News, as in Ferguson, which was another incident, what was most lost after the Los Angeles riots is what is known as police legitimacy community trust in the police.

Speaker 2 1:05:30

That underlies all of their work, brett and I mean know that there was a lot of community trust at any point in the police.

Speaker 1 1:05:42

Yeah, honestly Not, even now.

Speaker 2 1:05:47

Yeah exactly, but the difference is is that I can have words with the police officer that pulls me over and for no fucking reason, at six o'clock in the morning on my way to work, or when I'm in my jeep and he wants to give me a hard time about the tires sticking over. I can sass him and did so, I just.

Speaker 1 1:06:09

I think well, that's another thing. Going back to um, when we were talking about um Can sass him and did so. I just I think Well that's another thing, going back to when we were talking about serial killers and prostitutes. I mean, these women are getting raped, yes, and they're going to the police.

Speaker 2 1:06:25

And the police are just like yeah, yeah, so like yeah, yeah, so like it's it just goes back to you know, your perspective on things and what you know and what you've been treated, how you've been, how your life has unfolded and what you've been treated to. And the whole system is really built to keep poor people poor.

Speaker 1 1:06:52

Oh yeah.

Speaker 2 1:06:53

And the problem just continues to snowball. Because that's the whole point of this. I mean why other countries don't use credit reports and why is that? You can't find a place to live if you don't have a good credit report and you can't. And then if you have bad credit, then your car insurance is higher and you have to pay more in rent.

Speaker 1 1:07:17

And you're the ones who can't afford it, exactly Because you know car loans and everything.

Speaker 2 1:07:22

everything is way more expensive and you're never going to get out of the hole.

Speaker 1 1:07:26

No, let's see when was I. Bratton instituted an error of community era.

Speaker 1 1:07:34

I feel like I'm saying error and it's I think that's just sussex county I know of communication and respect, interaction between individuals and police, creating an apartment that reflected the community and building relationships with community leaders. He even demonstrated some inclination for holding officers accountable. After a violent police response in 2007, immigration rallies in MacArthur Park, bratton announced immediate investigations and several officers were eventually demoted or fired, but many things remained unresolved. For one thing, the mechanisms for policing the police didn't improve much. A Human Rights Watch report noted that at-risk LAPD officers, who frequently use significant force, continue to act with impunity, and officers were not frequently punished for misbehavior, either internally or by the courts. For another, some tactics embraced by Bratton have created their own set of hostilities with minority communities as a result of policies that see targeting low-level offenses in high-crime areas as key to thwarting larger crime. When this policy is not implemented with consistent rigor, these police stops can also lead to unnecessary police violence and even death.

Speaker 2 1:09:03

And that just goes to show you the ridiculousness of To target lower crimes. Yeah, that seems smart, that just seems like that's the answer to go after shoplifters, you know.

Speaker 1 1:09:18

Yeah, or somebody smoking a joint yeah, people spending their life in jail Over something that is now legal in the majority of the states.

Speaker 2 1:09:27

They first of all should let all of those people out, because this is just ridiculous. It is. And anybody who says that weed, I'm going to, where is my soapbox? So here it's coming. Anybody that says weed is a gateway drug is extremely not misinformed. But I don't care. Ignorant, ignorant, ignorant, because we all know that, first of of all, alcohol is your gateway drug, because, I'm sorry, but if you're a gen x, you had beer or whiskey or something before, before the age of 10.

Speaker 2 1:10:02

You had yeah you had some form of alcohol, oh yeah, and then it was. Then you were told you can't have it, and then it builds up, and it builds up. So every single person drinks before weed or any of that. So the whole weed thing is just bullshit.

Speaker 1 1:10:22

Yeah, yeah. That and the fact that alcohol is legal and weed is not is insane. Like nobody ever got in a bar fight because they smoked too much weed.

Speaker 2 1:10:33

I'm not trying to tattletale on my parents again, but I was raised by you, know, and it's just. It's my dad. Nobody, nobody works harder than my dad. That is a fact. Nobody is more active than the man is pushing 75 years old and is going skiing this weekend I don't know where I think Vermont he is.

Speaker 2 1:11:05

No one is more active than my father, literally there is no one more active than my dad and I just is more active than my father. Like literally, there is no one more active than my dad and I don't, I just well.

Speaker 1 1:11:14

The only thing that was ever in any danger when your dad was high was m&ms and potato chips.

Speaker 2 1:11:20

He likes his potato chips and m&ms. Yep, yeah, I just it's just that whole thing. Just yeah, the weed thing just bugs the shit out of me.

Speaker 1 1:11:30

Yeah.

Speaker 2 1:11:31

I hate it when people say it's a gateway drug. It's not, it's not, no.

Speaker 1 1:11:35

So yeah, so sorry for the heavy topic, but I thought it was something that was important. Plus, today is Dr Martin Luther King's birthday. We are recording on Wednesday this week Heather's messing up the schedule again, I know, but um, but it's all good.

Speaker 2 1:11:56

So I'm gonna mess it up next week too, because I'm off monday oh, you're coming monday.

Speaker 1 1:12:01

I was hoping you were oh, I can.

Speaker 2 1:12:03

I wasn't going to, but I can't come tuesday. Oh, I'm off monday. Maybe I will come monday. Yeah, I don't know why we're having this discussion. We can do that later.

Speaker 1 1:12:13

We digress so yeah, sorry for the heavy topic, but I hope that you got something out of the information. It was very good, good job.

Speaker 2 1:12:23

Thank you.

Speaker 1 1:12:25

I learned some stuff, yeah, and he deserves to still be talked about, so yes, Don't want us to forget about it.

Loss and Devastation in LA

Speaker 2 1:12:35

I do want to take a second Also In in the LA fires right now. It's very sad. It is very sad, and not to do a complete one, 80. Cause, you know, I think a lot of people are seeing it being handled wrong and are blaming a lot of people for the fact that planes didn't go up in 100 mile an hour winds um, it wasn't to save a fish and uh, also, salt water is very corrosive to the things that they use to dump water and that's why they don't like to use it, but they are using it.

Speaker 2 1:13:12

Anyway, also, you know, I know it's pretty popular and not feel bad for celebrities, because they are celebrities and have a lot of money and can replace all the things. But I think we all know that there are things in these homes that you cannot replace. Even if you're a celebrity, there are photos of when you were a child or you know anything in your own home that is sentimental to you that you cannot replace. They also they're people too, and just because they have the money to be able to rebuild, you know, doesn't mean that it's not devastating and emotional for them.

Speaker 1 1:13:51

Yeah, the trauma for this is just unimaginable. I mean, it's not just that you lost your house, you lost your whole entire community, exactly. The stores, you shop at the restaurants, you eat at the schools, your kids go to the church, you attend your neighbors everything, you've lost everything. And there are children there, there are teenagers there, there's, you know your pets.

Speaker 2 1:14:16

Everything like everything. It's just gone.

Speaker 1 1:14:18

Yeah, it's, it's absolutely horrifying and I can't even imagine and you're right, yes, they can afford to replace it, but the mental toll that this is taking on anybody anybody.

Speaker 2 1:14:29

I mean anybody, mean anybody. Yeah, you can. They can put themselves up in hotels and and or they have you know four other houses elsewhere okay, but you know, think about if you have any of anything else like it. It's, it's your stuff, it's your, it's your home exactly you know, I think probably a lot of these people, people that are losing their stuff are based in LA, so that is it's not just a condo somewhere where they have.

Speaker 1 1:14:55

Right, the top tier celebrities have multiple homes, right, but most of these people that are. They just live there.

Speaker 2 1:15:03

It's just very and it's very sad to see it. And I know that living anywhere has its. You know, living here we could get hit by a hurricane at any point. It's, I mean, it's a fact of life. I know California has to deal with fires all the time and then they, you know earthquakes and all that. It's just. It's just very, it's. It's very sad to see it, is I?

Speaker 1 1:15:29

heard on NPR yesterday that one third of malibu is gone, gone, just gone, and there's iconic hotels and the history, and that's another thing.

Speaker 2 1:15:39

It's the history you don't, you know. Normally you just don't give a shit about la. I mean, I'm sure some people that live in california give a shit about la, but I think as typically as East coasters.

Speaker 2 1:15:48

we just don't really think about our like it's New York city I mean, like you, when you think about LA probably doesn't come into mind that much, you think more of New York. But if you think about like the history of film, I mean how much of that history is now gone that these celebrities did have in their homes that they bought or that they took with them off of sets or or there was a actual in use elementary school, but there were so many tv shows and movies that were filmed at that school you know, and you have to think it's okay.

Speaker 2 1:16:25

Sure, it's probably frivolous to to be worried about movie sets and stuff, but this is all part of our history. You know american history. We don't have a whole lot to cling on to exactly, you know, because it comes from everywhere else, but la was, you know. It's just, it's unfortunate and it's gut-wrenching to watch it's so hard to watch, so yeah, yeah, Sorry LA.

Downbeat Farewell and Social Media Farewell

Speaker 1 1:16:50

Sorry, we're thinking of you. Yeah, yeah, yeah so we hope that you all are really good and depressed now. Yeah, let's really bring it down we just really, really wanted to nail this one with a good ending.

Speaker 2 1:17:07

So now we're going to go. She's going to break dry January Because I'm so depressed now Anyway thanks for listening, thanks for being brought down. Go listen to something more upbeat after this.

Speaker 1 1:17:21

Yeah, like.

Speaker 2 1:17:22

Morrissey or something, if you liked, being depressed like share rate review that helps us out and moves us up. You can find us everywhere you listen to podcasts, you can follow us on all the socials at like whatever pod we were on TikTok and the TikTok ban, I think, is going to happen. So we got to figure something else out. And what the hell am I going to do with my life? Because that's all I do is watch the tickety-tock.

Speaker 2 1:17:56

I'm so lost Anyway. So you can send us an email and tell us all about how sad you are now at like whatever pod at Gmail, or don't Like whatever.

Speaker 1 1:18:08

Whatever, bye. Bye gmail, or don't like whatever, whatever bye.