Endless Thread - Tales of the Tailed

Episode Date: January 20, 2022

Heads up: This episode mentions the tragic death of a dog. Take care when listening, and hug your furry loved ones.  Amory, Ben, and producer Quincy explore three stories, in which a man's furry best friend is shot by a police officer, a person accuses Reese Witherspoon of stealing her horse, and cats are... ethnically stereotyped?

Support for endless thread comes from MathWorks, creator of MATLAB and Simulink Software, to design and develop engineered systems, accelerating the pace of discovery in engineering and science. Learn more at Mathworks.com. Support for WBUR comes from Is Business Broken, a podcast from the Mayrotra Institute at Boston University that explores questions like, why is innovation in healthcare so hard? Is ESG just greenwashing? of course, is business broken? Listen, wherever you get your podcasts. Produced by the I-Lap at WBUR, Boston. Amory Sherbertson. That's a new one. Have we done that one yet? Sherbertson? Yeah, Sherbertson. Do you like Sherbert? I'm more of a sorbet gal. It's the same thing. No, because Sherbert, for whatever reason, I hate that word. I don't like that word. I just got uncomfortable saying that word. What about moist sherbert? Sherbert isn't vegan. Did you know that? And Sorbet is. Really? Yeah. They sneak cream in there?

They sneak the blood of... Oh, God. Emory, we have someone to introduce today, I think, to the endless thread listening audience. We sure do. Quincy Walters. Tell the good people. who you are. Hello, everyone. I am a producer here, and I come to the role as a former news reporter. Love it. Love it.

Welcome. Welcome to the Endless Thread podcast Waves. Thank you. It's nice to surf them. We have some stories today about pets to share with you. And Quincy, you've got a story for us today. A story about a dog and a drone? So this is a story about a man named Brad and his mastiff dog named Moose who loved people.

And Brad says Moose had a bubbly personality that made him a magnet wherever he went. He had that mentality of the abominable snowman off of Looney Tones. Where did he go, George? Where did he go? Baloom, bum, bum. But that was that was Moose's mentality. You know, he was just such a goofy, laid-back chill dog. I like this guy already. And Brad sent us several videos where Moose is just laying down,

gently playing with and being antagonized by a cat about an eighth of his size. And that's one of the things Brad admired about Moose, because they met about four years ago under, kind of violent circumstances. I was on a trip in Alabama, and I saw somebody abusing him really bad. And I saw him literally kicked this dog off a porch. And, yeah, when I, so I pulled up in the driveway, and I told the, I told the man, I said, man, you, look, you can either tell the cops I'm stealing your dog or you can just give me that

dog because you're not going to treat a dog like that. And he ended up just saying, take him, he's yours. I don't want him. I said, okay. So I had brought him home and come to find out that he was kept in a cage for the first six months of his life. So he had a twisted spine. So he had a pretty rough life when I met him.

Wow. Sounds like this guy saved Moose's life. Yeah, and it might sound cheesy, but in a way, Brad kind of feels like Moose ended up saving his life because he too, eight months later, would find himself getting severely injured by a car hitting him while he was riding his motorcycle. I was run over by an SUV, and through my recovery stage, Moose was there. And just me also being there for him, knowing. that I'm helping him recover because he's being shown love.

He's being shown unconditional love. He's being shown what it means to be part of a family. So Brad and Moose did everything together. But a week before Thanksgiving, Moose and Brad were taking a walk in Inkster, Michigan, and then they stopped at a nearby gas station so Brad could get some cigarettes. And when I walked into the gas station, I had seen a gentleman being very aggressive and almost abusive towards a lady.

So I stepped in and I said, look, man, you know, you can't be doing this. Well, he called his buddy up. And when he called his buddy up, he came up and showed up with a gun. And he pointed the gun in my face. So I left the store. And I went across the street and I called the cops. So about 10 minutes later, the police officer shows up. No lights on, nothing, you know, just shows up.

And he gets out of the car. And so this is where the drone comes in. So what happens next is captured via a drone flown by a security guard at a nearby dispensary. And in the footage, in the center of the screen, you could see Brad talking to a cop who's standing next to the patrol. that's parked in the middle of a street and Moose is walking slowly about 20 yards away on the right side of the screen. And there's no audio, but Brad looks towards Moose

and Moose sits down on the sidewalk. And then a pedestrian comes from the left side of the screen and then Moose gets up and he walks towards the pedestrian to sniff him. he's wagging his tail and he's not on a leash. Moose on the loose. Uh-oh. And then he, my dog started walking towards me.

And when Moose got right behind me, the officer had already had his gun pulled, pointing it at me and Moose. And by the time Moose had gotten to just, just to the left side of me, the officer had started pulling the trigger. and he unloaded the clip, but he shot him four times. He hit him twice in the chest, once in the head, and once in the arm, once in the leg. And as I was, I'm screaming to the officer, please stop, please stop, he's friendly, he's friendly, he's friendly. The officer just kept shooting, kept shooting.

Jeez. What? This is insane. Brad says he filed a Freedom of Information Act to get the body cam footage and the cop's dash cam footage. But he says he's been told by the Inkster Police Department that the body camera wasn't functioning and that the dash cam wasn't recording since the cop's sirens weren't on. And the Inkster Police Department released a statement saying something along the lines of the loss of any pet is saddening, but owners need to have their pets leached. And it's a law in Michigan. And he was not on a leash, which, yeah, I was wrong for not having him on a leash, but still doesn't justify what happened.

Okay, so wait, I have a question. There's no dash cam footage and the body cam wasn't turned on or something. something like that, right? Right. So the footage, the only footage that we have is because of this drone. So the significance of the drone is like the drone is proof that this happened. Exactly. Other than Brad, obviously, being there and witnessing this.

Oh, Moose. Yeah. So Brad says he feels like Moose approached the cop just to make sure that, you know, the cop wasn't a threat. just looking out for his buddy and maybe, you know, trying to get a pet on the head or something, too. But the day after the shooting, Brad visited the spot where Moose was shot, and then a man approached him. And it was the security guard with the drone. So local news stations reported that the nearby dispensary that employed this security guard told him that if he shared the video footage of the incident, he would be fired. And so with that knowledge, the security guard handed over the

footage to Brad, and subsequently, he lost his job. Wow. Yeah. That's like a very, it sounds like that's a very principled and difficult choice for the security guard. Right. And the security guard also has an interesting story. I think he was recently released from prison for either murder or manslaughter, but that was because his mom was being abused and he defended himself and his mom. And so a lot of people have been, you know, trying to reach out to this security guard, but Brad said he hasn't even been able to contact him again. But a few days later, after, you know, his best friend was shot and killed with the emotional wounds still fresh, Brad got a ticket in the mail.

And then he called the local courthouse to get an explanation for it. Actually, the clerk told me that it wasn't necessarily a ticket. It was actually a misdemeanor charge for malicious dog at large. Oh, my God. A dog not on a leash becomes malicious dog at large. You know, I will say that in my recent adult experience, some of the most contentious community issues in my world are pet related. And there's there are a lot of people out there who are easily triggered by a pet off its leash.

And as a person whose kid was recently headbutted by a boxer that was off its leash in the park, I understand that concern. And at the same time, this seems like clearly the officers. reaction was, you know, ridiculously over the top and awful. Ooh, sadness. It also, it also strikes me that, like, there's a lot of, one through line here is abuse, right? Like, abuse of the dog, abuse of power, abuse of, you know, somebody who, who went to jail

because of a situation that sounds like it arose from abuse. Like, man, abuse of people and. animals, power, all of these things just create more bad things. Right. And, you know, Brad doesn't want that to be the end of the story. Boy, Moose was so loving and caring and just happy, go lucky boy. So I want his story to touch as many hearts as possible. And in that aspect, it has already come true because I have people from all over the nation, sending me messages on Facebook. Hey, we heard your story. Hey, we heard your story. Hey, we heard you

and Moose's story. So to me, that shows me that my boy, my big boy, is, he's a star. Well, Quincy, it's a sad story, but thank you so much for bringing it to us. And we hope justice is served. No problem. And I hope so too. Rest in peace, Moose. All right. We're going to take a quick cry break. And then we have a couple more pet stories that I promise we'll turn those frowns upside down. Back in a minute. At Radio Lab, we love nothing more than nerding out about science, neuroscience, chemistry. But we do also like to get into other kinds of stories.

Stories about policing or politics. Country music. Hockey. Sex. Of bugs. Regardless of whether we're looking at science or not science, we bring a rigorous curiosity to get you the ambit. And hopefully make you see the world anew.

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Reach new audiences. whatever your goal we can help. Discover how the magic is made at WBUR.org slash creative studio. All right, Quincy, Amory, let's move away from a sad story and into a story about work-appropriate behavior. Okay.

Have you ever had work pets? No. There was one, take your dog to work day at WBUR. There was some howling outside of some studios. There was bodily fluids involved. It never happened again. Let's just say that. This was posted on the Am I the Asshole subreddit? Mm-hmm.

And it says, am I the asshole for, quote, perpetuating ethnic stereotypes about Jorts? I didn't know there were ethnic stereotypes about Jorts. Jorts is capitalized. So we're talking about a name. So I'm going to lay it out for you. And I'm mostly just going to read this, but I think it'll work for you.

So we have two workplace cats in one area of our work site. They add value to the work site. We all love the cats, and the worksite cat presence is not the issue. One of the cats, Gene, is a tortoise shell cat. We have had for years. The other cat, Jorts, is a large orange cat and a recent addition. Jorts is just kind of a simple guy. For example, Jorz can't open the door even when it's a jar.

He shoves it, whether he is going in or out, so often he closes the door he is trying to go through. This means he's often trapped inside a place he was trying to exit and meows until he's rescued. My colleague Pam, not her real name, has been spending a lot of time trying to teach Jorts things. The door's thing is the main example. It is a real issue because the cats are fed in a closet and Jorts keeps pushing the door closed. so this seems easy to resolve. I put down a doorstop. Pam then said I was depriving Jorts of the, quote, chance to learn

and kept removing the doorstop. Are you guys with me so far here? Yeah. I think so. So you got two cats, Gene and Jorts. And a Pam. And Pam, a co-worker. And then the person who's telling the story.

And a doorstopper. Pam set up a series of special learning activities for Jorts and tried to put these tasks on the whiteboard of daily team tasks. Oh my God. Does Pam have an actual job at this establishment? It gets better. This person writes, in parentheses, I erased them. Oh, no. I love Jorts, but he's just dumb A.F. And we can't change that. Don't get me wrong, watching her try to teach Jorts how to walk through a door is hilarious. But Gene got locked in the closet twice last week.

Yesterday I installed a cat cutout thing in the door, and Pam started getting really huffy. I made a gentle joke about, quote, you can't expect Jean's tortoise shell smarts from orange cat jorts, which made Pam furious. She started crying and left the hallway, then sent an email to the group, including volunteers, and went home early. In her email, Pam said I was, quote, perpetuating ethnic stereotypes by saying orange cat are dumb and is demanding a racial sensitivity training before she will return. I don't think it's relevant, but just in case, Pam is a white person and a mostly minority staff.

And no, she is not ginger, does not have red hair. That's a parenthetical. TLDR, am I the asshole for, quote, enforcing an ethnic stereotype by joking that orange cats are often dumb. No. Quincey's just going to tell it like it is. He really is. Thank you, Quincy.

No problem. Pretty straightforward answer, right? I guess my concern is that if Pam wants there to be a racial sensitivity training based on the fur color of a cat, I feel like... Pam needs that training? Yeah. Like, I don't know if she, like, under... Yeah. Is she the cat? I don't know. Yeah. So I couldn't agree more, Quincy, and I think most of the responses were to that effect. So you guys ready for the update?

Ooh, yeah. Thank you for responding to my query, which had truly upset me. I worked to have a good relationship with my team and the situation had gotten weird so gradually that I lost perspective. I just met with HR and she had already met with Pam. HR was concerned about Pam's comparing ethnic stereotypes with giving a cat a doorstop, and they addressed that, which went well. HR also addressed Pam assigning other staff Jorts-related tutoring, as it is not appropriate for Pam to assign others' work. Pam got emotional about her perception that I favor Jean over Jorts and gave specific examples. Some of these things are fair. A. Jean has a nice cat bed with her name on it, while Jorz. Jorts has chosen an old boot tray in my office with a towel in it.

Recently, a visitor put wet boots in the boot tray, and Pam saw Jorts sleeping on the wet boots. I bought a bed for Jorts today, and a name tag has been ordered. B. I will apologize to Jorts and remove the sign saying, quote, days since Jorts has had a trash can mishap, zero. C. Gene's staff bio has a photo of Gene, while Jorz's bio has a photo of a sweet potato. I did not actually know either cat had a staff bio,

but we will use a photo of jorts instead of a sweet potato. So this person is giving concessions, which is good. HR also suggested changing Pam's duties, so she is, quote, in charge of the cats. This I refused. The cats are my staff, not Pams. I think Pam was well-intentioned, but actually not meeting the needs of either Jean or Jorts,

so they remain under my superfluorce. vision. Lastly, and this made us both laugh so hard, we can't deal with it in person and it will be said via email. Pam admits that she has been putting margarine on jorts in an attempt to teach him to groom himself better. This may explain the diarrhea problem, Gene developed, which required a vet visit. Pam is not to apply margarine to any of her coworkers.

Gene has shown she is willing to be in charge of helping Jorts stay clean. If this task becomes onerous for Jean, we can have a groomer help. I'm crying, laughing, typing this. Is this real? Is this a real thing? To the extent that people post truthful things on Reddit, yes. Oh, man. The top comment here says, I can't believe she fucking buttered Jorts. She margarined jorts, very different.

Spoken like a true vegan. Ben, I may or may not have just changed your staff photo to a sweet potato. All right, so we've had a dog. We've had a couple of cats. And now I have another pet-related story about a different species. And my story comes from Facebook via Twitter. So I saw this quote tweet. from Laura Mayer who makes podcasts for a company called Three Uncanny Four.

And the tweet read, I request a podcast on this topic. And the topic was a tweet from something called the Think 1994 Museum Twitter account. Do you guys know this one? No. No. It is like a museum is an apt term. They post a bunch of funny pictures with captions, often pictures of celebrities.

But in this case, it was a screenshot of a post made on Facebook. and this post was made by a woman named Tiana Harris. And it reads, Does anyone have a connection to Reese Witherspoon or her PR team? My horse was stolen in 2008, and someone just sent me this pick of her with my horse to exclamation points. Help! I'm sure she wasn't aware, but I'd love to find him.

So then, of course, there's this picture of Reese Witherspoon, kind of tenderly cradled up next to the horse's head. It's a beautiful horse. And it is kind of like a unique coloring for a horse, I would say. So I get that if your horse was stolen and you see a picture like this, you're like, oh my God, that is Reese Witherspoon with my horse. And so at first I'm thinking, okay, I'm going to reach out to Reese Witherspoon somehow and I'm going to blow her mind that she is in possession of this stolen horse. So my first step was to DM the Think 1994 Museum account, because I don't know where they got this picture. It's just a screenshot of a Facebook post. So I reach out to them and I'm like, what? Where did this come from? Do you know

Tiana Harris, this woman who claims Reese Whitherspoon stole her horse? They said, no, we just were making celebrity posts with horses and this came up in Google. And then they linked me to someone in the comments of the tweet, who they said probably has some connection. So that person on Twitter goes by Laura Lux. Do you guys know who Laura Lux is? No. I have no idea.

Okay. I didn't either. I feel a little less ancient not knowing who she is. She has like 700,000 Twitter followers. And I don't want to mischaracterize her profession. I think she is a model, but she heavily promotes an OnlyFans account. She's a content creator. Yes.

Have you looked at her OnlyFans account? I clicked on it. Yeah, I was like, I think I know what OnlyFans is. She's a content creator, very popular. So here's what she comments in the Twitter thread. She says, oh my God, I was in the Facebook group where this all went down, and it was insane LMAO. I wish I could remember the details, but it was so long ago. I know it wasn't her horse in the photo with Reese, and it turned out her horse had died years before,

but this girl refused to believe that Reese Witherspoon did not steal her horse. Oh, wow. Right. Wow. Right. So I reach out to Laura Lux, even though her Twitter bio says no DMs, I immediately DM her. I'm like, do you know who Tiana Harris is? Do you know anything more about what happened? What was this Facebook group? And so she writes me back and she says it was so long ago. It happened in a Facebook group called Girls Night Out, which I also can't tell what that is.

but she describes it as an LA-based networking group for women, but it turned kind of toxic, and I think she left the group. So she does a little digging on my behalf, and she goes back into the Girls' Night Out group, and she finds the original post by this woman, who now goes by Tiana Cooper, and there are two edits to the post. So the first one says,

this horse is in New Zealand or Hawaii, and is most likely not my horse. Thank you for investigating ladies. I'll keep looking. And when she says, thank you for investigating ladies, that refers to edit number two, which calls out one woman in particular who found the guy who had her actual horse. And the horse did pass away in 2010. And Tiana said that she was devastated, but glad to have some closure. So I'm still trying to find out exactly how these women found. the person who had her actual horse. If there are updates, you will be the first to know. This equestrian noir. I guess it would have been more delicious if Reese Witherspin was a horse thief, you know?

Well, who knows where that horse in New Zealand or wherever it was came from? Maybe she was curling up next to a stolen horse. It's just not this woman's stolen horse. So, Reese, we're on to you. Yeah. Somebody checked the VIN number. on those horses that Reese has.

All right. Quincy, Amory, good to talk pets with you guys and we'll talk soon. Yeah. And maybe post pictures of your pets living, please, in our subreddit. Endlessbred.reddit.com. Oh, I would love that. Some pet shots. Or if your pet has an only fans, that's fine. Send us a link to your pet's only fans. You know, whatever works.