S5, Chapter 7: A Few Bad Orchards

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Tapes from the Dark Side contains descriptions
of violence and sexuality. Listener discretion is

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advised. Now we often hear from
police advocates that in reality, the problem

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is just a few bad apples who
give the entire police force a bad name.

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And to be honest, this is
what I believed my entire adult life.

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When I was growing up, I
went through a phase of a few

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years where I thought I wanted to
become a cop. I've mostly respected and

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admired police officers. I think it's
admirable that they put their lives on the

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line to protect us, to keep
our society safe, and to those committed

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to integrity and accountability. I still
do admire them. But the few bad

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apples narrative I begun to believe is
flawed. Happens when the roots of an

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apple tree becomes so poisoned that the
fruit the tree is destined to bear is

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just as rotten. I think everyone
has a bit of a fascinat sheet of

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the Dark Side. By myself,
most love the dark Side as well.

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I think it's something that everyone secretly
longs for. WANs do what happened?

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What happen? You gotta be a
man man man up the dark side of

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the dark Dark. Mitch Brailsford continued
to enjoy his thirty thousand dollars per year

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tax free allotment for his so called
PTSD. Charles Langley enjoyed the beaches of

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the Philippines with his wife, but
Laney continued to struggle with not just surviving,

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but how to raise two daughters without
a dad. The trauma of losing

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a parent is undeniable. I've seen
grown men break down over the emotional toll

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of losing their mom or dad,
and I don't look forward to the day

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when my own parents die. T
will eventually come, and so I can

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only imagine it's exponentially more challenging for
a child to come to terms with the

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reality of death, especially at death
as unjustified as the death of Daniel Shaver.

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After the murder of George Floyd,
America was a markedly less friendly place

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towards the officers in blue, and
some cops took to TikTok and social media

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to express how hard it was for
them to exist in this digital age when

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so much of the online conversation was
filled with vitriol towards their chosen profession.

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Laney responded to one of these videos, and I want to play it for

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you, man. Want it time
to be a cop in America right now

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where you can literally do your job
textbook, save a young girl's life from

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being stabbed and still get shown for
it. Like I can't even get on

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Facebook right now because I see all
these news articles with the headlines please shoot

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and kill a sixteen year old girl. Like no, that police officer just

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saved a young girl's life from being
stabbed. Unreal. Hey, my name's

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Laney Sweet. I am the widow
of Daniel Shaver, who was executed by

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Philip Brelsford of Mesa Police Department in
twenty sixteen. I want you to put

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yourself in my children's shoes. They
are twelve and nine and they have absolutely

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no access to social media or smartphones
or anything of the sort, because I

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am deathly afraid that they are going
to accidentally stumble upon their dad's video of

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him being murdered. So it works
both ways, and later she recorded this

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message for police. If you're a
police officer, I want you to listen

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very closely to this video. Please. I am asking you, guys,

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I am begging you, guys,
to speak out against this. If you

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believe that Daniel shavers killing was unjustified, if you believe that their policies and

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their de escalation training was not that, if you believe that this was murder,

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if you believe that Brelsford walked away
when he should be in jail,

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if you believe that Daniel Shavers should
still be alive, I am asking you

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to speak out. I am still
out there trying to defend your profession,

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and yet where are you trying to
hold accountability for my husband's death. I

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have made it my mission to make
sure my kids don't distrust all of you,

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but it's really hard. Emery was
Laney's youngest daughter. She was nine

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years old and was going into fourth
grade. The shooting happened in twenty sixteen,

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when Emory was only four years old, So while she remembers her dad,

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she never really got to know him. How well can you actually know

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a person when you're four? In
your entire vocabulary is barely nine hundred words.

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All right, tell me a happy
memory with you and daddy. Okay,

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when we went to the beach.
That's a good memory. And they're

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too my namely a kid, do
what now pick another one, pick a

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new one. Okay, I have
other things. What do you miss about

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Daddy? Oh? When? When? Like when he was alive? Like,

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what did you like to do with
him? Um? I like to

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play with him, Make snowballs,
Make snowballs. What else did you like

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to do? Ah Plague play.
So Emory doesn't really have a ton of

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memories of Danny. A lot of
the memories I can tell our memories that

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I've shared with her through pictures or
videos, keeping his memory alive by keeping

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a photo album here in her room
in the living room, we have pictures

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all around the house of him.
Emory means home strength. She was born

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at home and was their little home
birth baby. There is actually a picture

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I'm in her room right now because
she's in my room of her the day

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she was born. It was because
of her birth and my empowering homebirth experience

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that I became a birthworker myself and
have been there to support hundreds of families

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doing that precious and honored, sacred
time. So she kind of changed the

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trajectory of my entire life. Thank
gosh. Well, Laney's oldest daughter,

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Natalie, was hit hardest by the
death in the beginning, Emory faced a

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different kind of tragic loss, a
more delayed morning, and she began to

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grieve memories that didn't exist and never
would see the thing. I knew Natalie

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struggled the hardest at first, but
she was really really close with him.

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But I knew one day would hit
Emory, that it would be even harder

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in her own way because she doesn't
remember him. And that moment came last

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year on Danny's birthday. We were
in Palm Springs in a hot tub,

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and she started crying and was like, I don't even remember my dad at

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all, and so it's starting to
hit her. And I've dreaded this for

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years. Yeah, Brailsford and Langley
had permanently been removed to or left on

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their own accord from the Masa PD, but that didn't mean an end to

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the department's encounters with controversy. In
the years following the Daniel Shaver's shooting,

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more videos of Mesa police brutality began
to emerge. In June of twenty eighteen,

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disturbing body camera video showed Mesa police
repeatedly punching an unarmed, non violent

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man in the face. In the
video, we see Robert Johnson, a

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thirty five year old blackmail talking on
the phone while multiple officers approach him from

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behind and they search his pockets while
he continues with his phone call. Yeah,

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so what's going on? Almost it
came back to dropping teas off chaster

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piece. I grab my stuff and
my first form of sceptre were good.

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Moments later, they lose their temper. They escort Robert to a wall near

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an elevator, which is just a
few steps away, and they ask him

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to sit down. This is when
things escalate out of control. I've seen

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Robert sits kind of halfway down the
wall, but not all the way down,

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and he's still looking at his cell
phone, but it seems he has

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ended the phone call. Now,
remember at this point, he's been frisked

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and police know he's unarmed, dude, they told. Officer John day Jones

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grabs Robert by the back of the
neck and pulls him down to his knee,

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striking him in the stomach twice.
Another officer punches him in the face.

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His arms are being held down by
a few other police officers that have

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gathered around, and then Officer John
day Jones punches Robert full four six times

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in the face. What happens?
Do whatever? Get in there, get

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his arm back, got him hold
on watch ar okay, I'm on you,

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barrel. Robert did not strike back
single time during the entire interaction.

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Police handcuff Robert and tie his feet
together. As they are escorting him to

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the elevator, Robert tells the officers
quote, you didn't need to put all

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that force on me. And then
as the elevator doors about three fourths of

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the way open, Detective Robert Gambi
smashes Robert's face into the elevator door with

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such force that it prevents it from
opening all the way. The detective grabs

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Robert's head, pulls it back with
a little bit of momentum, and smashes

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his face into the elevator door a
couple more times. Robert had bruising and

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contusions to his right hand and left
chest wall and was diagnosed with a concussion

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and post concussion headaches. In Mesa, Arizona, disturbing surveillance video released yesterday

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shows six police officers involved in an
assault on a black man in a stairwell.

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You can see four officers approach the
man and exchange words before they start

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throwing punches. Then another two officers
come out of the elevator. Police say

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the man refused to follow instructions to
sit down. Three of the cops involved

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are now on paid lead and one
is on administrative lead. Now this is

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when things begin to get interesting.
Robert Johnson's lawyers went to the police records

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office and requested the background for Officer
John Day Jones, specifically citizen complaints against

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him, and they found files,
but not the kind that they were expecting.

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They found certificates of records destructions,
which is a document that's produced when

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a file is destroyed. According to
the City of Mesa's own guidelines, citizen

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complaints do not need to be retained
and can be requested to be destroyed by

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the own officer who they were against. Also, after three years, an

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officer's general records can be destroyed,
and after five years, any disciplinary reports

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can be destroyed. The only records
that Arizona law requires to be permanently retained

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are those resulting in termination, dismissal, or resignation. Everything else could be

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destroyed and in its place a simple
record of destruction. Officer John Day jones

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internal affairs records were permanently purged in
twenty twelve, and so any and all

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citizen complaints and use of force investigations
prior to that date are no longer accessible

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to anyone. Phoenix New Times reports
quote, under this policy, it seems

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that a police union member could shoot
someone, but as long as the shooting

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met department policy at the time that
had occurred, all record of that shooting

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would be removed from their departmental files. And it gets worse. A video

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obtained by twelve News shows the last
police chief, Frank Millstead, instructing officers

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to quote purge your files and quote
make sure the things you don't want in

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there aren't in there. That clip
became so infamous it actually made it to

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John Oliver's h investigative news show.
One reason it can be hard to spot

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problem officers is that in many jurisdictions, policies allow discipline records to be destroyed.

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Then Mesa, Arizona, when a
journalist started demanding records, a police

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chief actually made an internal video reminding
his officers that there was a way for

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them to clean up their past.
I don't want anybody to have to relive

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a problem that's already been adjudicated that
they've already been disciplined four that has already

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seen scrutiny in the public eye.
So perjure files according to policy, make

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sure that there's the things that you
don't want in there, aren't in there

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that seems wrong. You should not
be able to raise parts of your past

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that are damning. This is an
official police file, not a Volkswagen corporate

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history that somehow starts after World War
Two. Even though most of his files

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have been destroyed, John Tay Jones
still had plenty of history In the past

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five years. He was involved in
seventeen separate FOCE incidents between twenty twelve and

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twenty seventeen. These included bean bag
round strikes, baton strikes, taser firing,

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unspecified deadly force, control holds,
and deployment of a chemical agent.

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The documents don't indicate whether there were
any follow up investigations into these incidents.

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There was a citizen complaint alleging excessive
force and discourtesy filed against Jones in twenty

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thirteen, but Massa found the allegations
were not sustained. In addition to the

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Robert Johnson case and the Daniel Shaver
case, there was another video to emerge

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at this time showing the Masa police
assaulting a handcuffed fifteen year old new At

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Two officers placed on leave after a
video surface showing them treating a fifteen year

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old armed robbery suspect roughly. The
officers were caught on camera cursing at the

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boy, grabbing his shirt tightly around
his neck, and stepping on him while

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he's handcuffed on the Now some of
those responding officers are also part of the

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same squad scene in this video.
It shows officers beating up a man who

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wasn't even a suspect on this call. As you heard in that news clip,

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the fifteen year old was an armed
robbery suspect, and many of the

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suspects in these police incidents are suspected
of committing violent crimes, but that's far

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from the case for all of them, such as this eighty four year old

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grandmother who was brutalized by police when
they showed up at her home to do

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a wellness check. A new investigation
within the ranks of the Mason Police Department

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because of what an eighty four year
old grandmother has just told us. Traumatized,

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hurt, and sad. That's how
eighty four year old Virginia says she's

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feeling. I've talked police out out
in front of my house for thirty years,

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and there wasn't everybody that ever behaved
like this. Grabbed my wrist real

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hard and I didn't known anybody could
hold you so hard and hurt so bad.

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I said, oh, what are
you doing? What are you doing?

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And I guess the next thing I
was waking up on the asphalt next

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to the police car. In a
statement, Masa police Admitchie using force on

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Virginia, but say it happened because
she tried to go back inside and the

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officer was grabbing her to protect her
her family. It's calling for major accountabilities

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that shouldn't happen. There should never
be any reason for an eighty four year

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old grandmother who is she's had her
fourth stroke in December to be put on

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the ground. What's he doing to
other people that he that he misunderstands the

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situation? Before we continue, I
want to make a concession by no means

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do I think policing is an easy
job and each case is filled with ambiguities.

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And if we heard the comps perspective, I'm sure there would be a

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different take on the story. I'm
not here to say that all police are

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bad. The officers who have chosen
this profession risked their lives every day,

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and many of them are killed in
the line of duty. Over a hundred

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officers have already died in the line
of duty in the year twenty twenty two,

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whether that's been gunfire, vehicular assault, etc. Having said all that,

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it's hard to ignore that we have
a serious problem in America with our

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police, and cities like Mesa are
prime example. Originally, I wanted to

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briefly review each of the abuse of
force cases in the Masa PD in the

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last four to five years, and
while studying the Daniel Shaver case, I

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knew this type of abuse was happening
in Mesa specifically, but I thought it

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was probably a rare thing, maybe
a handful of abuse of force cases each

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year, maybe a dozen, maybe
two dozen in the past five years.

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How wrong that estimate turned out to
be. Arizona Central has done an excellent

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job of reporting a detailed analysis on
Mesa police abuse of force history. One

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of the most extensive breakdowns is of
the year twenty fourteen. There were one

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hundred and fifty eight abuse of force
investigations by the Masa PD into their own

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department that year. That doesn't even
account for any abuse of force cases that

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were not investigated. One hundred and
fifty eight in one year. That's almost

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an abuse of force occurrence every other
day. And what about the investigations.

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How often did MASA PD find wrongdoing
by their own officer three three times in

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one hundred and fifty eight cases.
That's not just hard to believe, it's

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in the realm of complete fantasy.
Less than two percent of those internal investigations

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resulted in any action taken, which
is why it's not just important to have

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an independent review board, but it's
an absolute necessity to preventing police corruption.

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Of the eighteen thousand police departments in
the United States currently only two hundred half

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review boards, which is barely one
percent. I'm not saying a review board

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is the only solution, but it's
a step in the right direction. Throughout

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all these incidents of violence, MESA
had no independent review board. As I

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said, it would be impossible to
take you through each one of the incidents

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in the last five years. As
we're looking at five six, seven hundred

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cases, but some that stuck out
to me. That all mention or Ivan

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Christick, an unarmed man who was
shot to death outside his house in twenty

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sixteen. In twenty eighteen, the
shooting of an unarmed African American man who

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was mentally challenged. In twenty seventeen, Scott Farnsworth, who was shot to

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death eleven times by three officers.
In that same year, they stomped on

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a man and laughed at him while
he was handcuffed on the ground and in

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a pool of his own blood.
Beli's bodycam footage tonight showing officers punching a

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guy and then mocking him. Today, the man you've seen in these videos

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is telling us his side of the
story. Yeah, Mesa Believe Department of

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Department once again under fire this evening
after more video surfaces of yet another violent

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and many would argue brutal arrest.
Twenty three year old Masa resident jose Condy

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today talking about this the night back
in January when he was a passenger in

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a friend's car, the car pulled
over, Condy taken into custody. This

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just released police bodycamp video showing some
of the violent arrest police Condy was resisting

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assaulting officers and had some cocaine stashed
in a sack. I was searched.

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I was thrown to the ground.
I was heaping into a wall. I

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was tased. I was punched over
and over by multiple cops. I was

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gouging the eye. The police bodycamp
video released to the media yesterday by jose

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Condy's defense attorney. Some of it
shot in the hospital where jose Condi lay

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on the floor after allegedly trying to
make a run for it. When officers

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act like this, it causes citizens
to question the integrity of other good officers.

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I had to have my ears zone
back on, I had to have

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my head stapled back together. And
what happens to these guys. Nothing,

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They don't get charged with anything.
They just go back to their jobs and

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they possibly do this to other people. And that's unacceptable. Oh, you

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gotta be a man. Man man
up. And then in twenty eighteen,

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there was the brutal beating of Cole
Spencer. The body camp footage of this

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assault is so disturbing that it rivals
the shooting of Daniel Shaver. It is

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00:21:49.279 --> 00:21:55.079
sadistic. Three officers hold down Cole
Spencer. They knee him in the head,

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smash his face repeatedly into the ground, wrapped their hands around his neck

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and choke him. Stun him with
a stunt gun seven different times, spray

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00:22:03.839 --> 00:22:07.880
him point blank in the eyes with
pepper spray, broke multiple bones in his

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face, rubbed half the skin on
his face off, put a knee on

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top of his neck, almost identical
to what we see in the George Floyd

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murder. Cole said many times,
I can't breathe, and after you watched

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the video, it's pretty amazing that
they didn't kill him. Cole Spencer spent

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three days in the hospital for his
injuries. The video we're about to show

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involves one of the most gruesome police
beatings I've seen in twenty years as a

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reporter. A warning it's not appropriate
for all viewers. It is at the

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center of a federal civil rights lawsuit
against the City of Mesa, the Maricopa

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County Sheriff's Office, and several officers, including Aaron Pew. This is Masa's

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squad officer Aaron Pew in March twenty
eighteen. He's one of three officers holding

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down Cole Spencer, face down in
the dirt, Pew rams his knee into

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Cole's head twice, then slams his
face into the ground twice. But it's

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about to get a lot worse,
and there's tasering. Cole stunned it seven

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times for a total of thirty six
seconds. It's still not over. Officer

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Pew grabs Cole's neck with both hands
and squeezes, hoping Cole would go unconscious

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so we could control him. He
said in his police report, you should

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know that Cole Spencer is far from
a model citizen. While he does not

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have a violent criminal history, he
does have a long rap sheet for burglaries.

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He was high on drugs the day
of this meeting and he's now in

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prison. I stole something that wasn't
mind, Cole explained what happened before the

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beating. We can't see it because
MESA does not require SWAT team members like

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Pew to wear body cameras. The
only video came from MCSO deputy who arrived

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later. Cole was a passenger in
this car stopped for a minor traffic violation,

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and after Cole gave a false name, the officers moved to arrest him

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god under Arizona law. Pushing or
shoving an officer is a serious felony aggravated

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assault on an officer. The MESA
officers claimed Cole was fighting back with superhuman

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strength, so they cut off the
blood supply to his brain. Those police

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departments have either eliminated the karatet neck
restraint or they've elevated it to the point

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of, you know, it's a
it's a choice between that or possibly using

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their firearm a deadly, a deadly
forced situation. The legal standard is what

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would a reasonable officer do under the
circumstances. Why didn't you just put your

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hand on your back question? That's
a good question. I can answer that

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very, very easily. It's called
NMI. It's called neuromuscular incapacitation. Cole

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says the repeated taser deployments left him
unable to move. At other points,

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he says, he was unconscious to
kick me right in my face, the

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blood everywhere. I can't even hear
him. I didn't hear anything if he

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were killing me. I was just
seeing like a survival. But even after

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handcuffing, officers continue to use force. Right here, Officer Pu appears to

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put his knee on Cole's neck,
sadistically inflicted. All this is on me.

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I want him to be held accountable
like like I'm held accountable. And

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Officer Aaron Pugh was accused of excessive
force again this July. He shot bean

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bag rounds at Lorenzo Jones while serving
a warrant, even though Jones had his

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hands up and his small children nearby. There was no need for this under

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the law. He was complying.
He had his shirt off, no weapons

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on him, He wasn't a threat. Mesa Police found Pew's use of force

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was justified against Jones. A Masa
Police spokeswoman did say Pugh was in good

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standing and it is expected that an
officer who is actively working in the field

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will be the subject of complaints,
and she reiterated Cole Spencer's complaint about excessive

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force was not sustained. Police officers
play an important role in our society.

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They arrest suspected criminals and take them
into custody so that the judicial process may

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take its course. What the police
are not is judge or jury, but

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that is the role they have assumed
in the Mesa Police Department and in many

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other police departments throughout the country.
In Mesa specifically, they reached a potential

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turning point in the year twenty seventeen, a moment of possible redemption for their

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disgraced police department. A man stepped
forward to become the new chief of Mesa

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Police and that man was named Ramon
Bautista, and he faced a monumental task

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to clean up the culture of corruption
that seemed to have taken a stranglehold over

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the city's police force. If you
want to skip the ads and get access

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00:27:19.240 --> 00:27:25.440
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highest audio quality, join us on Patreon.

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00:27:25.839 --> 00:27:29.400
It takes a less than a minute
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00:27:29.400 --> 00:27:42.640
com. Slash Tapes from the Dark
Side. We'll be right back. In

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00:27:42.759 --> 00:27:49.160
July twenty seventeen, Ramon Bautista inherited
a police department in crisis. Ramon began

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his career thirty one years prior,
when he joined the police force in Tucson,

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Arizona, in nineteen eighty six.
In Tucsonon he served at nearly every

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position in the department, from patrol
supervisor to traffic division, training academy commander,

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public information office director, and even
the SWAT division commander. In twenty

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eleven, Ramone became captain and then
the assistant chief of the Investigative Division in

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twenty sixteen. That's where he oversaw
nearly every aspect of the department. Ramone

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seemed to be everything you'd want and
a police officer, and when he became

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the chief of Mesa Police, he
was dedicated to trying to find alternatives to

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imprisonment for low level violators, to
try to reduce recidivism and overall lower the

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high monetary and sociological cost of needless
incarceration. And he had his work cut

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out for him. With a budget
of one hundred and eighty eight million dollars,

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twelve hundred employees and seventy police officers. He had ambitious ideas right from

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the start. He wanted to embed
mental health workers in nine one one call

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centers, something that had never been
done before. He wanted to create a

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diversion program where all suicide nine one
one calls were directed to crisis counselors instead

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of police officers. He wanted to
focus on community relations between the police and

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00:29:15.519 --> 00:29:21.119
the citizens of Mesa, and he
wanted more diversity in his department and new

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00:29:21.279 --> 00:29:26.839
de escalation training that emphasized communication over
use of force. But to fully appreciate

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00:29:26.880 --> 00:29:32.440
the uphill battle that Ramone faced as
the new chief of police, I have

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00:29:32.519 --> 00:29:36.440
to give you an idea of how
rotten the roots of the department had become.

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And for that will go back in
time thirty two years ago to Mesa,

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Arizona, July twenty seventh, nineteen
ninety. There are quite a few

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officers at the center of this story, but the one will focus on was

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known as Dick Elegant Richard g Elligot, whereas he was known to his friends

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00:30:03.559 --> 00:30:07.839
and colleagues. Dick came from a
police family. His father, Richard Senior,

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00:30:07.960 --> 00:30:11.359
had worked as a mess of Police
officer, and so did his brother

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00:30:11.480 --> 00:30:15.319
Tim, who was employed by the
agency at the time. Dick joined the

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00:30:15.400 --> 00:30:21.400
police force in nineteen seventy eight and
enjoyed a distinguished career for twelve years.

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00:30:21.880 --> 00:30:26.079
He was awarded the Medal of Valor
twice, the first time in eighty four

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00:30:26.240 --> 00:30:30.640
after he rescued a suicidal woman from
drowning in a canal. That was the

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00:30:30.759 --> 00:30:33.839
very first time in Masa's history any
officer had received the Medal of Valor,

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00:30:34.240 --> 00:30:41.839
and he later got his second in
another suicide rescue. Dick and his wife

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Laurie, both thirty seven years old, had four girls who were ages sixteen,

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thirteen, nine, and seven,
and by all accounts, this seemed

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00:30:51.799 --> 00:30:56.880
like your average yet happy American family. But under the surface, something demented

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had taken a stranglehold over Dick Eleigate, and on July twenty seventh of nineteen

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ninety, his entire world would be
turned upside down. On that fateful night,

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a sixteen year old girl called her
aunt and reported that she had been

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00:31:11.720 --> 00:31:17.160
the victim of abuse at the hands
of none other than Officer Dick Elligot and

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00:31:17.359 --> 00:31:21.960
his wife. The girl's aunt was
named Betty Joe, and even though she

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knew dick Elligot was a police officer, she went to the only place she

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knew to go, the Maso Police
department. Betty Joe helped her sixteen year

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old niece, who was named Stacy, filed the police report, which alleged

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four years of abuse at the hands
of Richard Elegant. These were not trivial

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accusations. She said Richard had touched
her inappropriately, groped her, stripped her

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nude, and given her sexual massages, and even photographed her naked a number

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00:31:49.720 --> 00:31:55.680
of times. Some of these nude
photograph sessions also included Richard's thirty seven year

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old wife. The very next morning, a warrant was issued and the police

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the Elligant house for possible evidence,
and what they found would change the Masa

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00:32:05.440 --> 00:32:10.519
Police Department forever. The pictures they
found verified everything that Stacy had said.

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There were X rated self produced child
pornographic photographs Richard had taken of the teenage

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00:32:17.200 --> 00:32:23.200
Stacy posing nude solo and masturbating,
and also her nude with his wife,

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and then the police found the diary. The so called diary was later reported

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to actually be a collection of note
cards which detailed the numerous sexual affairs of

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Richard's wife, Laurie Elligot. There
were thirty seven note cards with thirty seven

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00:32:40.079 --> 00:32:45.039
names, and twelve of those names
were officers who worked at the Mesa Police

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Department. Dick and Laurie Elligot were
actually out of town on vacation when Stacy

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made the phone call end the next
day when the warrant was executed. When

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the couple returned home, they were
arrested at the airport and taken into custody.

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The couple that the Elegants were vacationing
with were none other than Lieutenant Rick

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Heath and his wife. Rick Heath
just so happened to also be Dick's supervisor.

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Not only that, but he was
the one who had awarded Dick his

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medals of valor. We now know
that three years before the notebook's discovery,

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back in nineteen eighty seven, a
Mesa civilian filed a sexual harassment complaint against

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Dick. A high ranking mess officer
said Rick Heath took care of it.

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He always took good care of Dickie. Rick Heath would retire shortly after the

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scandal broke. Here's what we know
about the so called diary. Dick Elligant

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had personally arranged for numerous affairs between
his wife and Mesa Copps. This included

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command level supervisors. Among the thirty
seven names on those note cards. The

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first card detailed the day Laurie lost
her virginity in age seventeen. The cards

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go on to list a number of
sexual affairs, most of them my first

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00:34:00.480 --> 00:34:04.920
name only, but some of the
names will never know as Masa Police redacted

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00:34:04.960 --> 00:34:09.400
them. I'll later describe how Masa
Police made the decision to investigate this case

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00:34:09.559 --> 00:34:15.119
themselves. Each of the cards had
a series of gold or silver stars to

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indicate whether Laurie was married at the
time of that specific encounter. Richard would

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00:34:20.320 --> 00:34:27.079
later say, quote it just for
my own personal reference for future things down

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the road to where I could refer
to them as far as reference. The

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00:34:30.760 --> 00:34:35.880
investigators asked Laurie why Richard kept these
note cards, and she just said,

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well, fantasy is down the road. But according to those closest to Dick,

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these note cards served a much more
sinister purpose. Dick's own sister in

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00:34:45.239 --> 00:34:49.960
law said they were quote insurance so
that certain people will not touch him.

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Now, how did MASA get their
hands on the diary? How were they

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00:34:53.280 --> 00:34:58.840
in a position to redact the names
of their own officers. Surely they wouldn't

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00:34:58.840 --> 00:35:04.360
be allowed to invest gate the case
themselves. Yet that's exactly what happened.

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The County Attorney's office permitted the mess
of Police Department to investigate the child molestation

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00:35:09.400 --> 00:35:15.639
case against Dick Elligott, even after
the sex diary was discovered and directly showed

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the department had been compromised. It
will come as no surprise that the original

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00:35:20.320 --> 00:35:24.800
supervisor in the case was MASA PD
Lieutenant Bill Hamilton, who was a personal

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00:35:24.840 --> 00:35:30.639
friend of the Elligots and according to
multiple sources, was also directly named in

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00:35:30.639 --> 00:35:34.880
the sex diary. Bill Hamilton was
taken off the case when his name came

403
00:35:35.000 --> 00:35:39.159
up on note card number twenty one. He said quote, I was relieved

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00:35:39.360 --> 00:35:43.239
because I knew since my name was
in the tyree, I wouldn't have to

405
00:35:43.280 --> 00:35:47.239
work on the case. He says
he had no idea why Richard Elligott would

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00:35:47.280 --> 00:35:52.079
falsely put his name in the diary. Yeah, okay, Bill. The

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00:35:52.119 --> 00:35:59.199
Mesa County prosecutors allowed the Mesa Police
officers to protect the sex ring by waiting

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00:35:59.199 --> 00:36:02.360
out the names in the three hundred
and seventy four page report before it was

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00:36:02.400 --> 00:36:07.639
released to the press. Yet,
curiously, they left the name of the

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00:36:07.719 --> 00:36:12.559
juvenile victims, which is a violation
of the victim's Bill of rights in Arizona.

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00:36:12.960 --> 00:36:16.559
One of the prosecutors, Jennings,
said he made the right call by

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00:36:16.599 --> 00:36:22.159
not insisting Masa Police removed themselves from
the investigation. He said he had full

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00:36:22.239 --> 00:36:30.159
confidence that the Masa PD could properly
investigate this case. Another disturbing note card

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00:36:30.239 --> 00:36:34.960
came towards the back of the pile. Among the more recent events on note

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00:36:34.960 --> 00:36:39.280
card number thirty three was the detailed
rape and molestation of a thirteen year old

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00:36:39.280 --> 00:36:45.360
boy who reportedly lived near the Elegates. This note card had no name,

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00:36:45.599 --> 00:36:49.880
but the detectives found the child listed
on the card and interviewed him. He

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00:36:50.000 --> 00:36:53.480
said he was brought into the elegates
living room, where Richard led the boy

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00:36:53.639 --> 00:36:58.840
to his blindfolded wife. He then
said, Dick put on some records,

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00:36:59.239 --> 00:37:05.239
told his wife to quote do her
thing. Laurie then undressed, reclined on

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00:37:05.280 --> 00:37:08.519
a coffee table, and the thirteen
year old boy was forced to perform oral

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00:37:08.639 --> 00:37:13.760
sex on the thirty plus year old
woman. And then they had full on

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00:37:13.880 --> 00:37:19.960
intercourse as Dick Elegant stood by and
watched. And yet this is not the

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00:37:20.000 --> 00:37:24.920
worst of it. There's one little
detail that for Richard we've so far conveniently

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00:37:25.039 --> 00:37:30.480
glossed over. Even the newspapers of
Mesa, Arizona did not report the true

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00:37:30.480 --> 00:37:36.719
identity of the sixteen year old girl
Richard had molested for four years. But

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00:37:36.840 --> 00:37:53.559
now we know her name, Stacy
Elegant zoned daughter coming up. In the

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00:37:53.599 --> 00:37:59.159
final episode of season five of Tapes
from the Dark Side, the Mesa Police

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00:37:59.199 --> 00:38:04.559
Department is investigating two former officers,
both Caughts, stalking out the area and

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00:38:04.639 --> 00:38:22.400
your chief from own Batista's House.
If you want to support Tapes from the

431
00:38:22.480 --> 00:38:28.239
dark Side and help us continue to
make independent, investigative true crime content,

432
00:38:28.519 --> 00:38:34.280
then consider supporting us on Patreon.
Support the show at Patreon dot com slash

433
00:38:34.440 --> 00:38:42.920
Tapes from the dark Side. We're
also making Justice for Daniel Shaver t shirts.

434
00:38:42.920 --> 00:38:47.239
Everyone at the Patreon producer tier will
automatically get one, and for everyone

435
00:38:47.239 --> 00:38:52.320
else they'll be thirty dollars. We're
having them custom made for limited release,

436
00:38:52.679 --> 00:38:59.000
so check out the design on Instagram
and Facebook. Instagram at the dark Side

437
00:38:59.000 --> 00:39:07.039
Pod and Facebook dot com Slash the
Darkside Pod. Thank you so much to

438
00:39:07.239 --> 00:39:12.159
our producers who support us at the
very generous rate of fifteen dollars per month.

439
00:39:12.480 --> 00:39:15.760
Greg B. Christy Ramsher, J
C. Leavy, Erica Walters,

440
00:39:16.079 --> 00:39:23.719
Joel Simonson, Sherry Sly, Angela
m f and Alexis Kathleen. Thank you

441
00:39:23.800 --> 00:39:28.880
to twenty six hundred who allowed us
to adapt his song for our main theme.

442
00:39:29.280 --> 00:39:32.960
Thank you to Augusta Trevororum, and
also to Emmanuel wits Doom. All

443
00:39:32.960 --> 00:39:39.960
the music that you heard today can
be found in our show notes. Today,

444
00:39:40.000 --> 00:39:45.639
I want to tell you about a
podcast aptly named our True Crime Podcast

445
00:39:45.960 --> 00:39:50.559
It's another one of those that focuses
on bizarre and lesser known cases, just

446
00:39:50.679 --> 00:39:54.880
like us, and it's hosted by
two women, Jen and Cam who respectfully

447
00:39:54.960 --> 00:40:00.719
yet thoroughly present true crime in a
captivating way. An episode I'd recommend is

448
00:40:00.880 --> 00:40:06.719
number one eighty seven, The Stranger
in My Home, Carolina Killer. It's

449
00:40:06.760 --> 00:40:09.840
one that I listened to recently and
it got my blood pumping. Since I'm

450
00:40:09.880 --> 00:40:14.400
from North Carolina, this one hit
close to home. I'll put a link

451
00:40:14.440 --> 00:40:19.320
to that episode in the show notes. Please go and subscribe today to our

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00:40:19.639 --> 00:40:28.760
true crime podcast. Last year,
there were nearly twenty two thousand murders in

453
00:40:28.760 --> 00:40:34.440
the US. Not surprisingly, more
than two hundred true crime podcasts launch every

454
00:40:34.519 --> 00:40:38.119
year in the US alone. There's
no shortage of crimes and no shortage of

455
00:40:38.239 --> 00:40:43.719
crime podcasts to cover them. But
none of those shows have the heart of

456
00:40:43.760 --> 00:40:47.599
our true crime podcasts. Thank goodness. Well home, they didn't even have

457
00:40:47.639 --> 00:40:51.719
seatbelt laws back then. They ain't
never worse the bet, Yeah, it's

458
00:40:51.760 --> 00:40:57.679
fine. He could not remember exactly
what happened and thought that he had blacked

459
00:40:57.679 --> 00:41:02.559
out. That was about it.
That's all you could tell officers. He

460
00:41:02.719 --> 00:41:07.800
was drawing things, saying that the
thoughts won't stop. I want to see

461
00:41:07.800 --> 00:41:14.760
how this plays out. It's heartbreaking. Isn't it time you made our true

462
00:41:14.760 --> 00:41:21.719
crime podcast your true crime podcast.
Our true crime podcast available on all your

463
00:41:21.760 --> 00:41:22.239
favorite podcasting apps.