#RolandMartinUnfiltered - 6.3 RMU: Black town wrecked by storms seeks help; @ava’s ‘When They See Us’; NC GOP fears Rev Barber

Episode Date: June 7, 2019

6.3.19 #RMU: Black town devastated by storms seeks help; Ava DuVernay's powerful drama series "When They See Us" reopens wounds in the Black community that may never heal; Why is the NC GOP so afraid of Rev. William Barber? A review of the Facebook accounts of thousands of police officers around the country found them endorsing violence against Muslims, women, and criminal defendants. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an iHeart Podcast. Hey, folks, today is Monday, June 3rd, 2019. Coming up on Roller Barton Unfiltered, When They See Us, the graphic story of the Central Park Five was released over the weekend on Netflix. We'll talk with Raymond Santana, one of those men, about what happened after his life was stolen by the NYPD, as well as Linda Fairstein. She is the, of course, the prosecutor who went after these men who refuses today to still apologize. A deep search of the Facebook accounts of police departments show racist, bigoted, and violent posts will tell you about that.

Also, the city of Trotwood, Ohio, needs help. This largely black city was the hardest hit by last week's estimated 13 tornadoes. Also, black voters are suing Mississippi over Jim Crow-era laws that are benefiting white candidates. Also, Reverend Dr. William Barber, he had a hearing today in North Carolina. They keep saying he's trespassing. Really? What's wrong with y'all? And a fond farewell to Leah Chase, the queen of Creole cuisine. And of course, she passed away over the weekend, as well as former Novo National President Police Chief Jimmy L. Wilson. Y'all, it's time to bring the funk on Roland Martin Unfiltered.

Let's go. He's got it. Whatever the mess, he's on it. Whatever it is, he's got the scoop, the fact, the fine. And when it breaks, he's right on time. And it's rolling. Best believe he's knowing. Putting it down from sports to news to politics.

With entertainment just for kicks He's rolling with Uncle Roro, y'all It's rolling, Martin Rolling with Roland now He's funky, he's fresh, he's real the best. You know he's rolling, Martin. Now. Martin.

Last week, a flurry of tornadoes hit the Midwest in this country, including Dayton and surrounding areas. Some 13 tornadoes touched down. One of those places hard hit is Trotwood, Ohio. It is about, has about 26,000 residents, most of them African-American. They haven't had the same kind of response that usually goes to white areas that have been hit. Joining me right now is Mary McDonald. She is the mayor of Trotwood and Michael Colbert, Montgomery County Administrator. Mayor, first and foremost, glad to have you. How are you doing? I'm happy to be here, Roland. Thanks for having me. Give us a sense of the damage that took place in Trotwood and what do you need? What we need and the kind of damage that happened in the city of Toronto, we damaged over 400, 450 structures throughout the city.

And what we're doing now is getting our community cleaned up, working with the state, county, and federal agencies in getting the needs of our citizens met. And when you talk about those structures being damaged and needs being met, first of all, is FEMA on the ground? What kind of assistance are you getting right now? Yes, FEMA is coming into the community here this week. They will be here on Wednesday and they should be here for about three days going through our community. But we've already had support from the state as well as our local and our county municipalities in terms of helping us. Have folks been displaced? Are people out of homes? Exactly what's those conditions? Absolutely. There are citizens that have been displaced.

A large area of damage was in apartment complexes and over 700 people were evicted in those particular areas. So we are making sure many of them are taken care of in housing. Many of them are with family and friends are being very well taken care of. Do you have any web page or anything set up if people want to be able to assist those in Trotwood, Ohio? We don't have those things in place just yet. I tell you, it's just one week today, and every effort that we've had has been in cleaning up our community and trying to get a sense of normality so we can access the damage and be able to move ourselves forward. All right, then. Well, Mary McDonald, I know you're busy there, and you have other things to

do. We certainly appreciate you joining with us. Is there any place, any phone number or site that you want to give out to our viewers where they can offer assistance? Anything you have like that? Absolutely. I'd like to say 937-854-7212 is the phone number you can reach. And I want you to know that everything is going well here. We're getting the assistance that we need. And we are excited about the new future that Toronto will have as a result of this. We're getting the assistance that we need, and we are excited about the new future that Toronto will have as a result of this. We're resilient and a strong community, and we expect the recovery to be an absolute success for our citizens. All right, Mayor McDonald, we appreciate it. Thank you so very much.

Thank you. All right, folks. On Friday, Netflix premiered the Ava DuVernay series called When They See Us. It is about the case of the Central Park Five. It is five young men, most who did not even know each other, who went to prison as a result for a rape they did not commit. It was one that, of course, dominated headlines in New York City and all across the country when it took place.

Here is a clip from the movie I know you've seen things. Maybe you had to defend yourself. But in the end, you have the same heart. You gotta carry that with you, are you okay? You're a convicted sexual predator. See, that's the law, not the truth. What those people stole from you, you can't buy back.

But you don't gotta be what they said you were. What is it like for you in here? I'm surviving. Go get your life back. Take it back. All right, folks, come back to me. We have some technical difficulties here, so there we go. Joining us right now, though, is one of Central Park Five, Raymond Santana.

He joins us via Skype. Raymond, first of all, welcome to Roller Martin Unfiltered. Thank you for having me, Roland. It's always a pleasure. Man, it was so it's a four-part series. I watched all four parts Friday night, and it was beyond stunning, shocking to actually see the details, to see what y'all went through, to see how the cops' course testimony, confessions, to see how prosecutors lied, how they withheld evidence, and how they refused to really investigate this and really damaged all five of you, years that you can't get back. For you, what was it like to actually see this, all four parts? We saw all four parts in la and i was there with the rest of the fellas

and and you know it it was it was very painful to take us back down memory lane to relive the you know the process of going into the interrogation rooms and being in there for 18 to 30 hours and all that pressure um and then there was things that we didn't really know about each other that we thought we did we thought that we had a hand do on the whole situation that we knew everything and then there was things that it just blew us away and and for the five of us it made us relive the situation it made us take a step back and reevaluate, you know, and try to bring us even closer together. Definitely. Definitely painful. Watching it, and I remember, of course, it taking place.

I remember what happened. But there were so many other details that we did not know about. The fact that cops were interviewing young men without their parents present, how they were actually lying, subverting justice to get them out of the room, beating confessions as well. And then, of course, you see what Linda Fairstein and the other prosecutor, Elizabeth Lederer, what they were doing as well. These are people who are supposed to be about, when you go to the Supreme Court, it says equal justice under law. But the reality is that's not what y'all experienced. That's right. A hundred percent.

A hundred percent. It was the total opposite. It was these seasoned veteran detectives who, you know, they was the elite of the police force. And they was using these tactics on us that we never even heard of, that we didn't know. You know, there was no CSI law and order back in 1989, so we didn't know about the good cop, bad cop. You know, we didn't know that, you know, that Corby was going to be physically abused by the police in the precinct. So this stuff was all new to us, and it was just the great amount of pressure that they put us under that we couldn't handle as 14- and 15-year-old kids. When you talk about probably out of all five of you, it was just stunning seeing what took place.

But to look at what Corey went through, in full will, he only went to the precinct to offer support for his friend, that he served more time in prison than anybody else. He was beaten and almost killed. Episode four was just, I mean, my mouth was wide open watching it. Were y'all all aware of the hell that he went through? No, not at all. I mean, at the end of the day, everybody is going through, you know, everybody's going through their travels through the criminal justice system. And then when everybody gets out, you know, there's not really a conversation about it. And even when Corey gets out, we never really have a clue of the impact of how much he went through until we saw this series and so it was an eye-opener and and for us you know it was about embracing him he's our brother that's my

brother at the end of the day and it was stuff that i didn't know but um but you know it was it was heartbreaking to see that it definitely was the um what was also stunning is that the way this was presented as if all five of you were friends when the reality is only Corey and Yousef knew each other. That scene of the five of you in the room for the first time

introducing yourselves to each other. That's correct. That's correct. I mean, we didn't know each other. And, you know, at that point, it's like everybody understands in one accord what happened. Everybody in that room says, okay, we have been taken advantage of. And it's at that moment that we vow to fight against the system. Yeah. There's an assumption that young men get in trouble. They come from fatherless homes. But the reality is several of you had fathers involved in your lives. But you had police officers who also were taken into account, who were taken advantage of, also parents who didn't

know, who didn't know better, who didn't know what was going on. In your case, having your grandmother leave the room, coercing your dad into signing your confession. I mean, watching this, you're literally going, really? Then the next one, really? Then the next one, really? Yeah. Yeah. I mean, really? Yeah. Yeah.

I mean, we came from good homes. We came from good family homes. I mean, my parents, my dad didn't have a criminal record. Like, he never had dealings with the police. So he was just naive, just as naive as I was. And he was a grown man, you know, who was a hardworking man who went to work every day, you know, and he worked the same job for 44 years until he retired. And so the system also took advantage of our family members.

Yeah. I want to go back to Corey. Mm-hmm. And it's hard for some people to hear this, but when you hear that it was God's divine order, here's the guy who went to help a friend out. That's right. Gets caught up, serves the longest time.

He's moved around from prison to prison, unlike the rest of you. Mm-hmm. And he ends up being the one who comes into direct connection with the real rapist. I mean, I'm literally watching this and I'm going, first of all, Hollywood could literally not write. That's right. That's right. No, Hollywood, Hollywood, no one would, no one could actually write a story where the guy gets into a fight with the actual rapist. They get separated.

He goes to another prison and runs into the same guy who eventually is the one who confesses to being the real rapist. When you found out how all of that came about, what were you thinking? No, it blew my mind. At the end of the day, like you said, this is a story that if you sat somebody down and you told them the story, they will look at you like you're lying. They'll look at you like you're crazy, like you made this up. But it's all true it's all fact you know and at the end of the day all you can do is put it up to god he's the man he wrote this was written before before we were here and so he he's the one that guides everything and he's the one that shows who who who has a true and living power

but because if cory if cory not encounter this guy, that's right. You guys are still sitting in prison or you're still being, you still have a scarlet letter. You're still being trashed and, and dogged and slammed and not exonerated. There's no $41 million. I mean, I mean,

if that didn't happen and I'm just sitting there going nothing, but God could somehow make that thing come together. That's right. That's right. I mean, if that didn't happen, and I'm just sitting there going, nothing but God could somehow make that thing come together. That's right. That's right. I mean, even if Corey, because, you know, at the time, Corey, he refused to go to the parole board because they wouldn't listen to his truth. But if he had went to the parole board and he was granted parole, it would have been the same outcome. He would have never met Mattias Reyes. At the end of the day, Corey becomes the key.

He becomes the key that frees all of us. I need to deal with Linda Fairstein. Here's a woman who has gone on to become a successful crime author. And here's a woman to this day giving interviews saying y'all did it. She is ignoring all evidence, any culpability. And I said, I don't care. I said, the cops involved in y'all case, Linda Fairstein, Elizabeth Lederer, every person who put y'all in jail should go straight to hell. When they die, they should say, Satan, how you doing? We did your work on earth. That's right. And again, it's a test of God at the end of the day that he controls everything.

This is the woman who, who orchestrated, you know, the investigation, who was the lead investigator in this case, who was the head of the sex crimes unit and was given, you know, ultimate authority to do whatever she pleased with us. And she's also the woman who leaked several, you know, several quotes and much information to the media. She orchestrated this whole thing. And now that it's 30 years later, she's the only person that's still standing, basically taking the last stance, saying that we're still guilty.

She's basically the only one, the only voice. I am on Twitter right now. Henry, go to my iPad. I want to read this for you. You don't see it? Okay, guys, let's figure out why you can't see it. But this is from the Daily Beast. Ava DuVernay on reaching out to Central Park Fire Prosecutor Linda Fairstein for When They See Us. I don't know if I've told anyone this, but she tried to negotiate conditions for her to speak with me, including approvals over the script.

Here's a woman still trying to manipulate this story decades later. Yeah, she stuck to the same narrative, and she will not get off that narrative, and it's that pride. It's easier for them to stick to the narrative and ride it all the way out than just saying, you know what, we was wrong and we messed up. Talk about apologies in this, in the movie, of course, Ava DuVernay deals with Donald Trump. This is a man who wanted, wanted a full page, who don't know, who wanted y'all to get the death penalty, took a full page

ad out. He gave interviews as well. When he was asked during the campaign about this, he still said, you guys committed the crimes. And, you know, he's demanded apologies from a lot of people. And I've made it perfectly clear. I said, he can go to hell as far as I'm concerned, demanding apologies from anybody, because until he publicly apologizes to y'all in central park five and your families he should shut up asking anybody else to apologize for anything 100 truth i mean it's a start that's where he needs to start he needs to start with an apology to us and our families and then go down the line from there and apologize to all the people that he had ridiculed, made fun of, talked bad about. And, I mean, you know the clownish stuff that he does.

We don't have to go through it. Everybody, the whole country knows. But it's definitely a need for him to start with apologizing to the five of us and our families. Definitely. When we think about Colin Kaepernick, he has held these sessions with young boys across the country, know your rights. There's a video out of a young black man being arrested by a cop in Decatur, Georgia. The brother's handcuffed and the brother is saying,

no, no, I want your badge and I want your name. And the cop tells him, F you. The cop's upset with him. And the brother said, oh, I'm clean. Y'all can do anything to me. And it's a black cop standing right there. And you see this white supervisor cussing this young man out, completely having the wrong attitude. And we think about what you guys went through. There were black cops who were aware

of what the detectives were doing, and it was wrong. Yeah. And I had somebody who said, well, Roland, you can't blame them. I said, no, damn that. I said, you can. Because if you put that badge on, that uniform on, you are sworn to uphold and protect the law.

And the reality is, if there were any black cops or any white cops or Latino cops who were aware of what was happening then, they should have spoken up as opposed to what happened to 14 and 15 and 16-year-old young men. That's right. I mean, it's just an att test to show how strong their agency is, that that blue wall of silence is serious. I mean, when you had Mayor Bloomberg in office, I mean, he poured billions of dollars into their budgets. And he created a small army. He gave them the power to be what they are today.

And so at the end of the day, this agency has run rampant. And that wall of science has become very, that blue wall of science has become very strong. And it's very hard to battle against them when you have billion dollar budgets and you can get the best of the best. I mean, this is this is a shame. You know, we have to revamp that blue wall of silence. I mean, we even know that the quota was exposed. Stop and frisk was exposed. And they still they still are able to operate. They still are able to operate and move that the way they want to and treat our people like we're second-class citizens. Speaking of Mayor Bloomberg, Mayor Bloomberg, Commissioner Ray Kelly,

they fought this settlement. The only reason this settlement, this $41 million settlement took place, was because Bill de Blasio was elected mayor of New York. Michael Bloomberg did not want to apologize, did not want you guys exonerated, and did not want to have to pay for the crimes of the NYPD, the crimes of the district attorney's office. That's 100% correct.

I mean, at the end of the day, Commissioner Kelly was in a deposition. Commissioner Kelly is, I mean, when this deposition is released, if it ever is released to the public, you guys will get to see it yourself and read it yourself. And, I mean, in this deposition, you know, he says that Mateus Reyes, who's the actual perpetrator of this crime, is credible for the four rapes and the murder, but he's not credible for the Central Park jogger case. And so this is what we had to deal with

within those 13 years of Mayor Bloomberg in office. Also, I tweeted something earlier. Had they done their job, there was a woman who was raped and murdered after a Central Park jogger. Had they actually pursued the right justice, that woman could still be alive. Her death is on their hands because they chose not to pursue the right killer. Yeah, that's 100% correct. I mean, there were, in the Nancy Ryan report,

Mateus Reyes goes on to solve, I think, four unsolved cases that they didn't even know he did. And so this was how bad that they, you know, they fumbled this whole case, even his case at the end of the day, you know, because they knew that he committed a rape three days in Central Park before the Jagger case. So, you know, they was looking for him already. He was known as the East Side Slasher, the East Side Rapist. And like you said, Roland, if they would have did their job, this woman would have still been alive and those other four rapes wouldn't have occurred. Got some questions from our panelists here. I have Eugene Craig, CEO, Eugene Craig Organization, joining us via Skype. Dr. Avis Jones, the Weaver, a political analyst, Joseph Williams, senior editor, U.S. News and World Report.

I'll first start with you, Avis. Avis, Joseph, then Eugene. First of all, I just want to say thank you for being strong and surviving this. I am the mother of two sons. One is 15, maybe about the age that you were when this whole nightmare started. And I cannot imagine what it would have been like to see my child be caught up in this. So my question to you is, I've been seeing a lot of women in my network saying they don't want to watch this because they don't know that they can sit through it.

I sat there and I watched all of the four-part series this weekend, and though it was hurtful to me as the mother of black boys, I felt like I needed to see it for them and for you. What would you tell parents right now who are saying, I want to see this, I know I need to see this, but, you know, I don't know that I can take it emotionally. What advice would you give them? I mean, at the end of the day, parents need to see it,

because we are... parents are the first line of defense for their child, and you need to be equipped just in case something ever happens to that child. Um, I mean, I can get it. You know, episodes three and four, and four, especially Corey's episode, might be a little too harsh for kids, but they need to see one and two.

They need to understand the process of what happens in an interrogation room, what... whatation room, what the tactics that police use on us, and how long you can be questioned, and how they can lie to you. They need to know about the read technique. We have to be, it's all about awareness. We have to be equipped as much as possible. And it's a shame. It's a shame that we have to have these conversations with our kids, you know, at 13 and 14 years old, you know, instead of teaching them, you know, how to prepare to fill out a job application or how to how to work, how to help them with homework. Instead, we have to have these talks about how to conduct yourself when you see a police officer. But it's sad, but it's very necessary that kids watch at least episodes one and two.

Absolutely. So hi, yeah, I'm Joe Williams, and thank you again for sharing your stories, really powerful and incredible. I wanna know two things that keep sticking in my mind. The first is, how has your adjustment been coming out, knowing that you spent, you know, decade in prison because of something that you didn't do,

and then coming out and hearing about Black Lives Matter and hearing about all these other things that are going on, that the problem is still there, number one. And number two, have you ever thought about suing Donald Trump for that ad and whether or not he is going to pay a price for defaming you guys in public? Well, for the number two question, I mean, you know, that's an attorney issue. I don't know if it's possible because when that ad was produced, the statute of limitations might have ran out on that because that was produced in, I believe, 89 or 90. So I don't know about that. And then your first question was, again? Well, my first question was, it seems like since you guys were incarcerated, everything has changed and nothing has changed.

Instead of having 14-year-old black boys going to jail for a crime they didn't commit, we have 14-year-old black boys getting killed in the streets by cops who have the very same attitudes of the police officers who are the ones who convict you. They assume, and the assumption is, you project criminality on black boys and black children, and you see a criminal and you're really you know the officers are willing to convince themselves that you've done something wrong even when you haven't and they're more likely to pull a gun this time rather than just try to railroad you guys for something that you didn't do that's the that's the everything that has changed is that now it seems like it's a lot more lethal and nothing has changed in that the attitudes are still pretty

much the same you assume criminality when you see a black male. My question to you is, how does that make you feel? What does that put in your mind, the fact that you guys did all this time and you got a huge settlement from the city, but we still have this problem? I mean, it's hurtful at the end of the day. Like, we became the poster child for the labels of wilding and urban terrorists and wolf pack. I mean, 41 states changed juvenile sentencing laws behind this case. And when we were found to be innocent and we were exonerated, nobody changed those laws back. They just pushed on like business as usual.

And at the end of the day, it's like we see there's progress, but there's not enough progress. You know, we have made some tremendous strides, you know, with Black Lives Matter and, you know, even with Colin Kaepernick stepping up. But there's still a lot of work to be done. And it's going to take a whole village to get this done. It isn't just one incident. It has to be several incidents. It has to be several nationalities. It can't just one incident. It has to be several incidents. It has to be several nationalities. It can't just be one or two. We have to band together. And it's going to take a whole village of us to solve this problem. And you also raise an interesting point about the fact that the laws didn't change back, number one.

And number two, everybody's got to get involved. It's true. Everybody has to. I mean, you look at Raise the Age campaign, whereas we know, you know, everybody's got to get involved. It's true. Everybody has to. I mean, you look at Raise the Age campaign, whereas we know, you know, it's proven. It's a fact that a male's, his mind isn't developed until the age of 24. But if he commits a crime, you give him the harshest sentences that you can give him and you destroy his life, you know. And now when he does come back on parole he doesn't know how to function for us you asked that question earlier and for me you know here was this seven year gap this this was the critical point in my life where my dad was supposed to teach me you know how to become a young man and how to become a man

eventually but in return in I mean, you know, what happened was that was taken out and this gap was replaced with prison life and how to adjust to prison and, and giving me this aggression that I didn't know that I didn't know exists until I was, till somebody pulled my coat to it. And, and, and how do you, you know, now you put me back on the street and I have these scars that cannot be healed. And how do you undo that?

Yeah, and how do we do that? Eugene? How do we do that? Eugene? First, brother, I appreciate you existing. You know, appreciate your story. I'm a believer that, you know, 45 owes y'all a huge check if you can actually afford it. My question to you is this. What do you think

should be the penalty for prosecutors and cops that engage in misconduct? Because that's what this is. You guys are victims of prosecutorial misconduct and police misconduct. What do you think? I think

it's great we're having a conversation on prevention, but until we can actually eradicate this crime, I think, you know, crime dissolves a responsibility and a sentence attached to it. And so my question to you as somebody that's been a victim of prosecutorial mismanagement and police misconduct, what do you think should be the penalty for prosecutors like Linda Feinstein, who's now selling millions of books off of you guys' lives? Yeah, I think, number one, we need to take away the immunity. Prosecutors have the immunity. We need to take that away. I think that we need to take away the read technique for police officers. And they need to be held accountable. If you commit a crime, then there's a sentence for it.

And they shouldn't be above the law. They break the law just like anybody else. Again, if these depositions are ever released from the police, you know, that several of these detectives made, you will see for yourself. I mean, there's detectives in there who were in undercover stings and found money and kept it. There were detectives who retired from the police force, went down to Florida and became hired muscle for the mob and wound up getting caught in conspiracy cases. I mean, you know, Mike Sheehan, you know, he was under investigation by the federal government. This guy drove drunk several times.

He hit a police horse. He was accused of stealing police time. Like, he would clock in at work, and he would go to his sister's bar, and he would stay there and drink all day. So these guys, you know, they have—they feel like they're above the law, and they can do whatever they want. And it's time for us to strip away those immunities and have them pay for their crimes. Raymond, you said a couple times already that if the depositions are released, have they been locked away? Well, you know what? It's up to the law department for the city to release them. Because last year, I i believe they released a

hundred thousand pages of documents and this was all stuff that we already knew and there were numerous articles written about how we were still guilty um but we told them we said don't release just the first half you know the 1989 and the trial really released the whole thing let the let the media let the public be able to see these depositions and view for them themselves. And I don't know. I don't know if it will ever be released. I have no idea. Well, we

certainly can make a lot of noise. And one of the things that I'll do when the show's over, I'll be sure to text Mayor Bill de Blasio and say, why don't you run for president? Why don't you release these depositions? Order the release. I got to ask you this. I just checked something. So apparently Linda Farristein has deleted her Twitter account since this came out. And also

Elizabeth Lederer is a law lecturer at Columbia University School of Law. Do you believe that the publisher of Linda Farris-Steens should drop her and Columbia should say there's no way in hell that the woman who prosecuted the Central Park 5K should be teaching anybody the law? Do you believe that Columbia should boot Elizabeth Lederer

and Farris-Steens should lose her book deal? A hundred percent. I mean, Elizabeth Lederer has been teaching at Columbia Law for a long time. And there was a petition that was issued. It had over 6,000 signatures to get rid of her, and Columbia Law has stood behind her. And all they have done was that they tweaked her bio, because on her bio, she noticed the Central Park Five case as like a badge of honor. And when this petition came out, they tweaked her bio and took it off.

But she still works there. And so Columbia University is at fault for still giving this woman a job and letting her practice and teach law, knowing that she was involved in this case. And the same thing goes for fasting. There's no way in hell that this woman should be sitting there profiting millions of dollars off these books when we know that she was behind this whole case. Raymond Santana, man, it's always a pleasure seeing you and talking to you. I would certainly hope that people learn from this and understand the power of television. In 1982, CBS aired a made-for-television movie about Linnell Jeter, a brother who was framed, who was convicted of armed robbery, robbing a KFC, even though he was at work. His company stood by him. They fought the Dallas County District Attorney's Office. And I've said this to people, it was because since then and it shouldn't

be this way if you're black or if you're Latino but the reality is I tell people all the time why do I use my credit card wherever whenever I'm traveling because wherever I use my card that's tracking my movements that's right and and right. And it was from watching that movie, and I was 15. I was 14 or 15 when that movie came out. Watching that movie put that in my head, and I've always done that. And so people have to understand, people who watch these four episodes, there's a lot you can learn from it, but I would hope that any young black or Latino kid

or even a white kid watching this, know your rights so you are not railroaded by cops. And like any lawyer will tell you, the moment a cop asks you a question, your first response and only response should be,

I want to see my lawyer. I'm not answering anything unless I see my lawyer. That'm not answering anything unless I see my lawyer. That's right. Raymond Santana, I appreciate it, brother. Thanks a lot. Thank you so much, brother. It's always a pleasure.

Yes, sir. Cut our panel here. Again, this was a hard four episodes to watch. You can't help but be pissed off watching it there I've been looking on Twitter there been people who say after 20 minutes of it turn it off mm-hmm I mean you're watching it and you're just you getting even more pissed and more pissed I know somebody who was saying well why should

you watch you know you should watch it because it happened. Absolutely. It happened and it happens. OK, you know, I cannot operate under the illusion that similar things aren't still going on today. And so it's important, as you mentioned, for people to watch this show, not only to, first of all, just give credence to the brilliant work that Ava DuVernay did in putting this together, to educate us as a nation, but also so that you can know and your children can know their rights. Because I think what happens is, people are operating under the assumption that, you know, if I'm innocent, it's OK if I talk. If I'm innocent, I should just go along with what they want us to do.

But that's a lie. The police can lie and they do lie and they do it all the time. And they coerce people into getting themselves into deeper trouble. And that's exactly what happened to them. Joseph, when I talk about the pain, you watch this and Yusef Salaam, his mother storms in. And it wasn't until she threatened to call the New York Times that they allow her to see her son. And they literally looked at her and said, you're going to call the New York Times

as if you actually think you can call the New York Times. I'm saying that to the people out there who hate the media, who hate the press, and there were a bunch of people in the media who went right along with this despicable storyline. But the reality is in this nation, other than lawyers, no other institution exposes wrongdoing by cops and prosecutors than media. Absolutely right. And the black media will underscore that point that you have the black media that's telling the truth about these things. You have people who are invested in understanding that the fact that this happens all the time. And that's one of the things that struck me about what you were saying.

It was just like this is the only one we know about. Right. This is the only one that made headlines. And it was that threat because you had a black woman who said that she knew what her rights were to a degree, that she knew that she could get some action. And if nothing else, then at least get them to pay attention to her. So I think it's very important for people to understand the fact that, yes, media has had problems. And, yes, media had a role in this case where you had a lot of reporters getting fed some information that was really not true. But at the end of the day, if you have a story like this to this degree

where truth is going to be told and exposed, and it's easy to believe because we do know that this happens all the time, then this is one of the areas that can be kind of an ace in the hole if things get too dicey. Eugene, Saturday I was playing golf and one of the brothers who I played golf with, his daughter graduated from George Washington University Law School. And he said, he said, man, come on by the house for a plate. And you know, look, brother don't turn down a free plate, especially at a cookout. He was doing the fish. And it was pretty interesting.

I'm going to roll this video here. So this is a video of this sister, Krista, and a number of her law school graduates taking a shot of them for graduation. Go to my iPad. Check this out. First time, and that's it. Yes!

The Lawyers toast to that. Woo! Yes! Yes! Woo! One and done, crew baby. Now, I'm showing that because when I posted it on Instagram, she actually responded.

She says, thank you for coming out. Hashtag Black Lawyers Matter. This is also, I think, what's important. In this case, it was also Black Criminal Defense Attorneys Matter. Yousef's mother, only attorney who they knew, he was a divorce lawyer. One of the other folks was a public defender. And the thing is, this is why black folks in media matter. To Joseph's point, black lawyers matter because we understand how we have been systematically

railroaded in this country. Absolutely. It's a lot to unpack there uh media and the press uh play has played traditionally an important role in uncovering uh scandal after scandal the scandal the scandal the biggest scandals in our country have all been uncovered by reporters that just would not give up um you know the one thing that the even the beat police understood was that hey the bad press could definitely blow up what we have going on here um but to the notion of the black lawyers black lawyers absolutely do matter black criminal defense attorneys absolutely do matter um i'll

give you an example i i went to traffic court about a month ago and i stuck around for about an hour or so a little little bit maybe like two hours after, just to sit back and watch how things operate. You know, I work in criminal justice reform space, and, you know, you've got to have a full understanding of it. What I saw with some of the public defenders putting just horrible deals in front of people just because they didn't have their best interest to the client at heart and just trying to move the case along. And I'm talking, you know, hey, except six-month probation

in exchange for not having to pay like a $300 fine when the judge knows that you're probably going to, you know, get caught up driving without a license again, it's a set up a failure. And it comes a matter of black criminal defense attorneys mattering. Black lawyers mattering. We need a pipeline of black lawyers. During the civil rights era, it was black lawyers that while folk were protesting, getting locked up, getting them out, getting them bonded and bailed out,

trying harsh laws in the federal courts. One thing I would love to see, and I'm having some conversational background with some folk, you know, the Supreme Court recently came in and applied the Eighth Amendment to things such as tickets that escalate dramatically, like we saw in Ferguson. That's something that really could be applied to a lot of things across the country. But I think it's going to take, you know, black lawyers, young black lawyers that are going to be aggressive

and taking on these activist roles and pursuing justice, real justice, correcting the law system. All right, folks, going to go to break right now. When we come back, we're going to go to break right now. We come back. We're going to talk about Reverend Dr. William Barber. Why are no Carolina Republicans

so scared of this brother? We'll tell you about him speaking to the media after there was a hearing for second-degree trespassing. Really, in the General Assembly, it's the legislature, the people's building.

We'll talk about that a lot more right here on Roland Martin Unfiltered. to our YouTube channel. That's youtube.com forward slash Roland S. Martin. And don't forget to turn on your notifications so when we go live, you'll know it. Martin! All right, folks, they're back. MarijuanaStock.org has another great investment opportunity. If you were lucky enough to invest

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I'm talking about industrial hemp CBD. Now, for those who don't know, the hemp plant is the cousin to marijuana with a much higher concentration of CBD, which means hemp CBD gives you all of the medical benefits of marijuana without getting you high. Until recently, hemp farming was practically illegal in the U.S. and heavily regulated by the DEA. However, the 2018 farm bill Congress passed making it legal to grow hemp CBD in the U.S. is creating one of the largest commodities worldwide. They need land to grow all of the plants. This makes for an incredible investment opportunity and that's where our good friends at 420 Real Estate come in. Their business model is very simple. They buy land that supports hemp CBD grow operations and lease it to licensed,

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IN THIS PARTICULAR INSTANCE, FIGHTING FOR 500,000 PEOPLE WHO NEEDED HEALTH CARE. THE LEGISLATURE THAT WE HAVE NOW HAS BEEN PROVEN TO BE UNCONSTITUTIONALLY CONSTITUTED. THEY ARE THE REAL VIOLATORS OF THE LAW. THEY'VE BEEN FOUND GUILTY FOR THE SUPPRESSION. that we have now has been proven to be unconstitutionally constituted. They are the real violators of the law. They've been found guilty of voter suppression. And we believe they're guilty of not allowing people in this state that have access to health care, 346,000 of which are white in this state. And so this was all basic hearing. We think the state is trying to prevent us from arguing the very thing that is the basis of our protest, and that is the Constitution.

The lawyers are doing well, and we intend to stand. This is so much bigger than any one person. This is about the people of North Carolina, and it's about whether or not we have full right to speak to justice, to have free speech, and to make sure that that building is not a place where legislators can hide from the people, but instead where they can be found so that we can do what the Constitution says, and that's instructive. We were there. Eugene, come back to me. So what happened was, in April,

a ban was lifted on Reverend Barber being allowed into the building because Republicans said, we don't want y'all protesting. North Carolina Republicans, that's how crazy they are. Literally went to court to say, ban him from bringing people into the state capitol to protest against bills. I mean, that's how crazy North Carolina Republicans are. I mean, this is the same party that, you know,

celebrated electing the first black chairman and couldn't wait to get rid of that first black chairman as soon as possible. You know, we know North Carolina Republicans are crazy as hell. We know North Carolina is, you know, politically headed to a hell in a handbasket. And, you know, it's indefensible. It's a violation of Reverend Barber's First Amendment rights. They would never do this to a two-way rally crowd.

They would never do this to the pro-life people that flood every single G.E.A. cycle when bills are put up. But they're targeting this gentleman who's fighting for the rights of black, brown and poor people. Well, Avis, this is funny. So literally this this took place. This is an article from June 16th, 2017. Here we go to my iPad. Reverend William Barber, the North Carolina NAACP president, has been banned from entering the North Carolina Legislative Building following his arrest during a protest on May 30th. The ban also applies to 31 other protesters arrested that day during a health care sit-in. They were protesting health care. Oh my God. Oh my God Oh, my God. Well, you know, as been said, I mean, I can't even imagine what I could be surprised by at this point by that particular legislator.

The Republicans in North Carolina have been off the chain for a while now. And it's very interesting to me, these very same people who want to talk Second Amendment, Second Amendment, Second Amendment. The Constitution. Oh, my God. We're original constructionists. Absolutely. All of a sudden, skip over the First Amendment when it applies to people that they don't want to hear from. So the hypocrisy is just astounding. But once again, they've done so many astounding things that it's really hard for them to do anything that surprises me at this point.

Joseph. You know, it's the one thing that worries me about this whole thing, right, is the fact that they have banned a guy and he's got to go to court. I mean, one person, Reverend Barber, who's trying to lead a movement, they've gone to court to try to get him to stop this. I mean, what's next, though? I mean, they've done a lot of stuff that we thought was was ludicrous and they could not get away with. But they're trying to legitimately silence somebody in a First Amendment uh context it's not going to work number one but number two they're packing courts so that further on down the line it might actually work and might actually have somebody who would rule in favor of the legislature now let's talk about

of course uh we always talked about the crazy racist cops on this show. Well, guess what? An organization decided to do an extensive look into what these cops are saying on Facebook. A review of the Facebook accounts of thousands of police officers around the country found them endorsing violence against Muslims, women, and criminal defendants. Here's one example. F these Muslim turd goat humpers.

Oh, but we must help them. You're right when it's okay to rape and murder in a religion. I ain't helping no one. That's, of course, the page there of that particular woman right there. Now, the review was done by the Plan View Project. It was launched by our guest, Philadelphia attorney, Emily Baker White. She joins us right now. So, Emily, glad to have you on the show.

So, how did this thing originate? Where did the idea come from to say, hmm, let's dig a little deeper? Thank you for having me on the show. So, I first came across troubling content on Facebook posted by police officers when I was an attorney at the Federal Defender's Office in Philadelphia in the Capitol Habeas Unit. I was representing individuals on death row potential police brutality claim in that case, that there was a lot of police brutality in a given neighborhood that might have affected the outcome of the case. So in doing that, I came across several pages on Facebook that were

apparently maintained by police departments in that neighborhood and that had completely public facing posts on them. I think if there was one post that really spurred me to look deeper it was a meme that showed a police dog that was being restrained by an officer. The police dog was baring its teeth and the caption over the picture was, I hope you run he likes fast food. I was alarmed by this image and it was also it was a meme. The officer presumably hadn't made it himself, he got it from somewhere and what that made me say was how prevalent is this? How much of this is there on the Internet?

And that was the question that led me to create the Plainview Project. So how did you begin the research to begin to assemble all of this? And how many police officers did you eventually compiled data on so the first thing we did was identify our plan was to look at do a sort of deep dive into the departments into a few departments right you can't look at everybody you can't look at everything right right we looked at Facebook you could look at Twitter you could look at Instagram but we decided we were gonna look at Facebook we were gonna look at a few departments and decided we were going to look at Facebook, we were going to look at a few departments, and we were going to try to find as much information as we could in

those departments. So we picked eight jurisdictions across the United States, some big, some small. The largest was Philadelphia, where I lived at the time, but we also looked in Dallas and Phoenix and St. Louis, among other smaller jurisdictions. And we picked those cities. We obtained the public rosters of all the police officers in each of those places. That's a matter of public record. You can get the lists of police officers in each city. In fact, often it's posted on, we got the Philly ones from the Philly Inquirer. We got, I think, the Dallas ones from a newspaper down there. Um, so we got a list of all the officers in these jurisdictions. Then we went and tried to find Facebook pages that apparently matched those names. Now there

are a lot of people with every name on Facebook. It doesn't matter how uncommon your name is. There are a lot of people with that name on Facebook. So doesn't matter how uncommon your name is, there are a lot of people with that name on Facebook. So obviously we needed more. We needed something that showed that a person was a law enforcement officer in a certain jurisdiction. And so the most common way that we found that verification was that the person posted police officer

at Phoenix Police Department or at Dallas Police Department. And many people do list the police department as their employer. officer at Phoenix Police Department or at Dallas Police Department and many people do list the police department as their employer and that was the most common verification that we found but also there were a lot of people who posted pictures of themselves in uniform or we're having conversation and said you know I've been a you know Phoenix cop for five years and in my experience blah blah blah right so we had to get some affirmative ID from a person saying, I am a police officer in this jurisdiction.

We built a list of those people. And then we reviewed all of the public posts that each of those people had made. Well, what I love about this is, first of all, they can't lie and say it wasn't me. That's the one thing I love about it. And also what it does is exposes them in their own words. Now, you put this out there. What's the next step? Are you asking the departments to take action against them?

So departments are still responding to this information, but the responses that we've gotten from officials in Philadelphia so far have been really good. The Philadelphia Commissioner Ross, among other things, what part of his statement was the line, I don't understand why there's still so much hate in this country today. And that's coming from the Philly police chief looking at some of the words of his own officers. And when I hear him say that, I believe him. And I think he's taking this problem really seriously. Well, first of all, it is an amazing job y'all did. Are any plans, and you focused on eight jurisdictions, last question for you, are you planning on targeting more jurisdictions? Not at this moment, but I wouldn't rule anything out. All right, then we certainly

appreciate it. Thank you so very much. Where can people see your full report? Where can they go? Plainviewproject.org. Plainviewproject.org. All right, we appreciate it. Thanks a bunch. Thank you very much. Joseph, this is, first of all, it's an amazing thing that they did. And what it does is, for all the people who talk about the bad apples... It's like a whole barrel full of them. I mean, and the thing that kind of drives me crazy about this is, like, number one, this is only eight jurisdictions, I think she said? Like, a handful. Eight.

This is the tip of the iceberg, right? This is the tip of the iceberg. We don't know how many more cops are out there who are doing sorts of things. Secondly, it folds back into the first story, which is how these guys got convicted in the Central Park Five in the first place. There was groupthink. There were people who see people, who see black men, who see black boys as animals and suspects. This is where it comes from. This is where cops were so willing to believe that five guys, 14, 15, 13, who didn't even know each other, were guilty of a crime and why the prosecutors just pushed and pushed and pushed until they got a conviction.

It all ties in together, and it's something that's going to be incredibly hard to eradicate. And the thing, Avis, is that, again, these are individuals who are dumb enough to say it. Yeah. who are dumb enough to say it. Yeah, I mean, I think what to me is most telling about this is it shows how rotten this culture is to its core, that they would feel comfortable enough to just put this out there in public. Okay, just put it all out there. Anybody could see it.

And they saw no repercussions would come from it, and so they felt comfortable doing it. And I also am not as quite comforted by the Philadelphia police chief's words as the author of this report was, because quite frankly, he should have known. Well, words are one thing, but now what do you do next? Yeah. I mean, that's what's key. Absolutely. And you know the culture of your organization. And if you don't, that's a problem. But he knows. Come on now. He knows. Eugene? Well, actually, you know what? No, I would dare say, Eugene, folks may not know because they don't

properly monitor. And that's the problem I have. And I think what they've exposed is how in the hell are you not keeping tabs on your own cops? Again, you're sworn to protect and uphold the law as opposed to

beat people, to denigrate people and say, I'm not going to represent you? Yeah, I mean, I think there should be special scrutiny when it comes to police officers and law enforcement. I think the next step absolutely probably should be is that you take that eight, you gather the resource to cover 100, 200, 300, maybe 1,000, and then probably expand to the full 4,000 departments that we know about.

And then from there, this database has to be searchable. It has to be accessible for your common defense attorney who has a client that's been brutally abused by the police to be able to run those officers' names and say, boom, here we go. These people have the bias, and they put it on display um you know one of the former uh baltimore city central committee chairman and and here uh he was a lawyer defense attorney and he kept the list of corrupt cops and bad cops in his office and when he would get a client he would just go back and see

who was the arresting officer and match that to that list. And if he matched that to that list, it is the open-shut case for him. And I think that's what you'll probably start seeing if we were to turn this into an actionable, searchable database. All right, folks. Real quickly, you can't get hired for a job unless somebody checks your social media, right? My company has a social media policy.

You should not be able to get hired as a police officer unless they check your social media and find out that it's all on the square kind of basic simple kind of basic cost nothing all right folks uh we've lost a major law enforcement figure the national organization of black law enforcement executives is one of the laws of one of its own today jimmy wilson served as Noble's national president in 2002. He passed away this weekend. He was a chief of police in Petersburg, Virginia, and a Washington, D.C. police officer from 1968 to 1986. Rising through the ranks in the city's sixth police precinct and reorganizing the department's homicide investigations unit, Wilson headed investigations into the 1981 attempted assassination of President Ronald Reagan and was also responsible for the arrest of shooter John Hinckley.

He led investigations into the 1982 Potemac River airline crash that killed 79 people. He also led the investigations of terrorist activities. We certainly appreciate all that Officer Wilson, Chief Wilson, has done and we certainly send our best to his families and those who loved him. Also, folks, on Saturday night, we lost a living legend. Of course, Leah Chase. She, of course, the queen of Creole cuisine. She passed away Saturday at the age of 96. If you've ever been to New Orleans, chances are you've had a meal at Dookie Chase's restaurant named after her husband, who she was married to for 70 years, who passed away just a couple of years ago.

She was known not only for cooking some of the best food you ever taste, but making her customers feel like they were eating at her home. She fed multiple presidents, entertainers, freedom riders, Dr. King, Aretha Franklin, so many others, and hosted NAACP meetings in the restaurant. Aaliyah Chase will be sadly missed by everyone who passed through the doors of Dookie Chase's restaurant, and certainly, I loved her dearly. Anytime I went to New Orleans, I would certainly stop by her restaurant, go into her

kitchen. She always said, you bringing those cameras in my kitchen? I bet she always gave me a hug and a kiss anyway. And so, tomorrow, we're going to show you a 45-minute interview I did with her. It's an amazing interview. I shared some excerpts this morning on the Tom Journal Morning Show. A great interview with her. We

talked about all kinds of stuff, what makes a marriage last 70 years. She talked about there was a time in New Orleans where, guess what, gumbo and jambalaya was not what folks served there. And we also talked about, of course, her support of those Freedom Riders. And also, how is it that she had a love affair with General George Patton? She actually had all of his books. And you'll hear from her explain why she was a General Patton in the kitchen. Trust me, it's an interview you do not want to miss.

And so we didn't want to rush it. We're going to have it for you tomorrow. And so what we'll do is we'll have our show tomorrow. And then as soon as the show is over, we'll have our second live stream. We'll do a full dedication to Leah Chase. And in fact, I think what I'm also do is try to reach out to Marcus Samuelson and some of the other black chefs out there to get their thoughts, because she certainly, y'all, the woman was only about this tall. She's only about this tall but she was a giant uh when it came to cooking and oh y'all do not want to miss her talking about when a brock obama had the nerve to come to dukey chases and put some hot sauce on her gumbo before he even tasted it let's just say things did not go GUMBO BEFORE HE EVEN TASTED IT. LET'S JUST SAY THINGS DID NOT GO

SO WELL WITH THE FIRST BLACK PRESIDENT, BUT MISS CHASE'S GUMBO AND WAIT UNTIL YOU ALL HEAR THE KIND WORDS THAT SHE HAD FOR PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH. IT'S AN INTERVIEW YOU DON'T WANT TO MISS, I'M TELLING YOU RIGHT NOW, AND SO WE'RE LOOKING

FORWARD TO PAYING PROPER TRIBUTE TO LEAH CHASE. ALL RIGHT, FOLKS, I WANT TO THANK ALL OUR PANEL BEING WITH US TODAY, ROBERT, EXCUSE ME, We're looking forward to paying proper tribute to Leah Chase. All right, folks. I want to thank all our panel being with us today. Robert, excuse me, Eugene, Joseph, as well as Avis. Thank you so very much. And also, folks, don't forget, we want you to support Roller Martin Unfiltered by joining our Bring the Funk fan club.

Every dollar you give goes to support this show to make this possible for us to be able to pay tribute to folks like Officer Wilson and also to Leah Chase, because let's just be honest, they're not going to get there just due other places. Well, this is why we have to have our own institutions to do so. And in fact, she also had some great words. And while it's important for black media for us to keep telling the truth, even when others don't like it. And so I want you to go to RolandMartinUnfiltered.com, join our Brain to Funk fan club. You can give via Cash App, PayPal, or even Square as well.

You can give monthly. You can give a one-time donation. It doesn't matter. We've had folks who've given as little as one buck, all the way up to folks who've given us $1,000 every single month to keep this show going. And if you also join the fan club, you get a special code for a discount for items on RolandSMartin.com. And so my Barack Obama interview, my wife's book, Wedded Bliss,

a devotional guide for married couples, as well as my faith-based book, Listening to the Spirit Within, and her book, Fulfill the Art and Joy of Balanced Living. And so anybody can get copies of those books. If you order through RolandSMartin.com, all those books are personally autographed by the two of us. Now, if y'all go to Amazon, ain't getting an autograph. So I'm just telling you right now, you want to go to rollinglessmartin.com. Again, if you're a member of the fan club,

be sure to get your code. A lot of you who gave me a cash app, you did not include your email when you signed up. That's why you haven't gotten your code. So shoot me an email at rollinglessmartin.com, and then we'll send you the discount code to you as well. All right, folks, I got to go. I shall see you tomorrow. Howl! This is an iHeart Podcast.