Scott Horton Show - Just the Interviews - 10/18/21 Scott Hechinger on the Murder Rate, Police Reform and Gun Control

Episode Date: October 24, 2021

Scott interviews attorney Scott Hechinger about a recent article he wrote for The Nation. They discuss the recent jump in the murder rate, its possible causes and the portrayal of the increase in the media. Hechinger explains that the universal nature of the increase hurts the argument that bail and police reform are causing crime surges. Scott and Hechinger also discuss racial disparities in the justice system. Both agree that the problem is in the over-policing of poor black communities rather than the lack of policing in affluent white neighborhoods. Lastly, they touch on the closing of Wallgreens in San Fransisco and the problems with the further criminalization of gun possession. Discussed on the show: “A Massive Fail on Crime Reporting by The New York Times, NPR” (The Nation)  Scott Hechinger is a civil rights attorney and the executive director of Zealous, a national coalition supporting local initiatives to harness media and storytelling for justice. Follow him on Twitter @ScottHech  This episode of the Scott Horton Show is sponsored by: The War State and Why The Vietnam War?, by Mike Swanson; Tom Woods’ Liberty Classroom; ExpandDesigns.com/Scott; EasyShip; Dröm; Free Range Feeder; Thc Hemp Spot; Green Mill Supercritical; Bug-A-Salt; Lorenzotti Coffee and Listen and Think Audio. Shop Libertarian Institute merch or donate to the show through Patreon, PayPal or Bitcoin: 1DZBZNJrxUhQhEzgDh7k8JXHXRjYu5tZiG. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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All right, y'all, welcome to the Scott Horton Show. I'm the director of the Libertarian Institute, editorial director of anti-war.com, author of the book, Fool's Aaron, time to end the war in Afghanistan, and the brand new, enough already, time to end the war on terrorism. And I've recorded more the 5,500 interviews since 2000. Almost all on foreign policy and all available for you at Scott Horton.4. You can sign up the podcast feed there, and the full interview archive is also available at YouTube.com slash Scott Horton's show. All right, you guys, introducing Scott Hakenger, and he is a defense lawyer, and he wrote this important thing for the nation, which now I can't find because I'm half-ass prepared here. But also, I'll have it by the end of the thing.

I'll punch it in at the beginning. It'll sound fine. And he also writes great Twitter threads all the time about especially specializing in media coverage of crime statistics and patterns and meanings and what all influence that has on policy and how, of course, it's all lies. And I think you guys will like taking a look at his perspective here. I've already learned a lot. Welcome to the show. How are you doing? Doing all right, Scott.

Could it be on? All right. So, first thing is murder rates are up. How far up and compared to what and how angry should I be in at who? All really good questions. And unfortunately, though, the question itself kind of derives from this kind of pattern of journalism that focuses on the most sensational headline. the scariest headline, whether it's data or an outlier horrific tragedy, and that drives people's opinions and views. FBI data, according to FBI, in 2020, the murder rate increased by 30%

over the year before. If you dug in a little bit further, which unfortunately journalists, I'm not saying you, but like journalists didn't do when the headline was spike in homicide, you'd learn that actually compared with the highs of the 80s and 90s, homicide rates are still at historic lows. You'd learn that all other major crimes across categories continued their 30-year decline. And you'd learn, I think, most importantly, that the homicide increase, that short-term increase, and that continuation of that long-term decrease in everything else, happened universally. It happened in states that had some modest reforms for bail and in states that didn't.

It happened in red states. It happened in blue states. It happened in states where there were protests and where there weren't, which in my mind made the most newsworthiness of the data be that it undermined years worth of efforts increasingly over the past couple years or the past year by police and prosecutors to tie things like bail reform or protests or anything that wasn't policing to a rise in crime. And what this data told us is, yeah, it didn't do that. The same patterns happened all over the place.

So you shouldn't be scared, right, about the crime data. What you should be concerned about and scared about, I'd even say, is the danger of continuing to fall prey to media sensationalism, police talking points that are kind of just spouted out by media, which gives us the impression that we're not safe and the impression that the only way to get us out of this mess is giving war billions and billions to police prosecutors in prisons when we know for sure that hasn't made us safer case and point

the fact that police are actually citing these statistics, despite their billions and saying we're in danger, well then why hasn't your billion dollars you know hundreds of billion dollars solution not worked all right i'm out well okay so i mean it seems like the most obvious question is who's murder and who here one either i guess i'm just making this up i'm an amateur type sociologist you understand but you have these massive lockdowns and record numbers of bankruptcies and people pushed out of jobs and deeper into poverty,

so maybe we're talking about armed robberies. Or maybe we're talking about people are locked in their homes with their wife that they can't stand, that they used to at least be out of the house half the day, but now they're stuck at home and they're drunk, and so they kill her. And maybe that's what it is.

Or, you know, some kind of mix of the two. Or tell me what the other obvious answer is. The Italian mob in North Jersey had a really big year this year. or just south-side Chicago had a really big year because something very important happened between two gangs I've never heard of. And in other words, somebody account for me, what is the damn difference? Obviously, whatever the cops, you know, whatever smoke, they're blowing.

It's just they want more money and more power. I know that part of it. And the media are their trumpets. But what is really happening instead of what they're saying? I hesitate to tell you, I think, or I's hesitated. to tell you what I'm going to tell you because I think I'm going to be disappointed you, but the reality is we don't know. And that's unfortunately the nature of short run statistics in general, but especially when it comes to crime policy. We know what it's not. We already went through

that. Could it be, I don't know, like the once in a century pandemic being, you know, the cause of a lot of the situations that you've brought up, maybe. I don't know, but here's where it comes to. There's kind of over time, there's increases, there's decreases, and there's no, if I understand the need or the desire, because I feel it too, like, I want to know why. Why do I want to know why? I want to know why because, like, I am a human being who cares about people not getting hurt. And beyond that, I also, like, have a six-year-old son, and I live in a city, and, like, if I had a crystal ball or minority report technology to be able to determine exactly why this particular type of crime increased slightly compared to years past or

slightly more than in years past, that would be amazing. But we need to resist, I'm just going to say, we need to resist the urge as media, journalists, as consumers, to know those answers, because especially when it comes to crime policy, as soon as you start speculating, as you start allowing people to speculate, it's going to be the police and prosecutors who are going to be heard the most. And even just something that's printed as speculation

or a possibility becomes truth. And that truth is- Wait, I mean, why aren't these statistics available, especially like between armed robberies or domestic abuse, which, by the way, I didn't mean to sound too sympathetic to the wife-beaters out there. I've stopped beating my wife.

Actually, that's not true. so can't why why don't we know well what what i'm saying is i mean like so when i guess the answer is okay so what's causing this like who's killing who is is is it's it's it's highly it's it's it's highly localized um uh and it's it's kind of all across the board i mean what i can say is what one thing that i can say is unfortunately um those who are being who are who are victims of and survivors of shooting incidents and victims of homicides tend disproportionately to be black and brown people living only in certain communities. And so folks would say, okay, well, that means we need to have greater, you know, greater criminalization and penalties for those who are being, who are,

who we're shooting. So gun possession. So I'm thinking about Chicago, for example, where there is a series and has long been before reform, be after reform, before COVID, high incidences of shootings and between people who know each other. And, but the answer is not more policing, more prosecution. We know that, A, because these are some of those over-policed and over-criminalized neighborhoods in the entire country, and it's not preventing,

or they're not preventing or solving crimes. We also know that policing and prisons, the way it is in our modern America, actually mirror or in their characterized by the same drivers of violence. And so that's isolation, shame, economic deprivation, and violence itself. Most of the people who are shooting have been victims of gun violence themselves. Those who just possess weapons are possessing out of reasonable fear.

And so I think that, like, yes, they're made, there are these, we can like look and point out, okay, in this particular case, it was a case of domestic violence. In this particular case, it was an isolated case of, you know, that this was an, it was an accident over here and it was like, and it was, you know, someone ran over someone with a car over there. But I think one of the biggest things that we need to be paying attention to is that the people who are getting, you know, predominantly most hurt are those that are the most over-policed and prosecuted or imprisoned, which says to me that I think we need to be looking at other solutions and there's a lot of them out there. all right well now so obviously there's a narrative that you know sounds rational on its face and especially to people who lean a little bit right and especially to people who are really repelled by all the riots that happen there were a hell of a lot of peaceful protests for very good reason and no matter what you think of the organizations a lot of people from the neighborhood all over this country saying that they're being treated unfairly and they want some accountability in this country. thing. But there are some really bad riots and lawlessness in some cities, too. Arson fires at night make for really great television and, you know, really great politics and really terrible kind of reactions. And then you have these slogans about defund the police, although I know from your tweets, no police ever got defunded or not beyond the slightest little thing in one or two

isolated cases. But what a silly slogan from a bunch of people who don't really have an answer of, well, who's going to be the security force, if not the police? You have to have an answer for that, and they don't. And it just sounds naive and childish. When the question is accountability for cops who brutalize people or kill people when they didn't have to. Justifiable homicide should only mean when you have no other choice, not you can, and you got away with it on the loophole or something like that, which is the way it is now. And that was always the question was accountability.

But so, anyway, I'm sorry I'm rant about that, but just to make it clear that, There are people who have very severe and justifiable grievances, and there are also people who have very understandable reason for thinking that actually the poor protesting people really are the problem. And, geez, if it wasn't for the police, I guess they would have burned the whole city down or something. I don't know. And so then the attitude is, well, no wonder there's a increase in murders because the cops are all essentially on a work slowdown, or the cops. have been defunded and scaled back, and their authority curtailed, and they're afraid that there's a video camera on them at all time, so they can't do their job right and all these things. And now, oh, and also the, because of the COVID releases and the bail reform,

and I'll get back to this question later on specifics, because I know I'm raising a lot of points here, but this is an important one of who's getting bail reform? Is it people who are in there for murder and attempt to murder and armed robbery, or is it people who really should have been bailed out for, you know, time served in the first place, kind of, you know, low-level stuff or what, but anyway, the larger point being that people think that these reforms essentially amount to lawlessness, and then, therefore, one, two, murder rate goes up. What do you think's going to happen? So I know I just put a lot on your plate there, but I think you can handle it. I'm going to go in reverse chronological order. Let's talk about bail reform first. First of all,

unfortunately, it isn't happening in enough places. And where it's happening, it's, It's modest and not as far as I think it should go. I don't like line drawing. I don't think people should be locked up pretrial on money they can't afford. I don't think that people presumed innocent should be locked up. I don't think it's good for public safety. Turns out that any amount of time someone is locked up actually increases the likelihood of recidivism and we know long term that releasing people over time decreases crime and has

no upward impact on it. Who is actually being the beneficiary, let's say, a bail reform? Well, take New York, for example. It's low-level offenses, so misdemeanors are not bail eligible, the vast majority of nonviolent felonies. And one crime that is considered violent, it's burglary in the second degree, which sounds like a home invasion, but really all it is is someone who's, I know this from experience working as a public defender for over 10 years, And I know from the data predominantly under the subdivision two, which is someone taking a package or a bicycle out of a lobby. No one's around. Now, again, not again, but as someone who has a bike and has property, I wouldn't want my stuff taken.

But is that a C-violent felony, mandatory minimum three and a half years, maximum 15 for someone who is suffering with substance use and in poverty? No. And so just to state the facts, the people who are benefiting, who are not. no longer eligible for bail are folks that are charged with the lowest level offenses and crimes that did not involve harm to other people. But even those folks who are getting out still or are paying bail or who are released without bail, even though the judge had discretion, who are charged with crimes of violence, gun possession, et cetera, it turns out that they are the least likely of any group to be re-arrested pending trial and even less likely to be re-arrested

for violent offenses. We're talking under 1%. We're talking near, like a near, verifiable like zero of people who get out, who are charged with violent offenses and are able to be with their families, are able to work with their attorneys, are able to keep their jobs in their housing while they, you know, go toward trial. They don't, or they're not causing blood to run through the streets. It's exactly the opposite. That's bail reform. It's not happening, many places where it's happening. It's limited. And the people who are in people who are being released are coming back to court and not getting re-arrested and not out there hurting people. Dermit Shea, the commissioner of NYPD, literally admitted this. He said,

bail reform is being or crime is going up. shootings are up because of bail reform. And a simple question by Latrice Walker, an assemblywoman was saying, how many arrests of people for the gun shootings that you're citing have been people who were out on bail? And he said, not many. Pressed further, he said basically none. That's all it took. Okay, so that's bail reform. Two, you mentioned the word riot. First of all, let me say, when we say tons of police, peaceful protests and there were some, you know, some folks that did some, some gnarly stuff. We, we tend to think about, you know, what winds up happening is the, you know, the, a fire over here or a, or a crime that happens during this over there.

comes to define the movement. And like riot in of itself, and this is not on you, but it's a, it is a, it has become kind of a racially coded term. And we wind up demonizing people who, whether they were quote unquote peaceful or they expressed justifiable outrage at the fact that they continue to be killed without any accountability. I, I don't see them as riots. I see in a civil disobedience. But here's the other. Well, hang on now. I mean, I don't think we need to redefine terms here. There's clearly, when you have these protests, you have massive processes where people are just marching together and holding signs and demanding accountability and they're not doing anything aggressive in any way. Then you have people who are looting, who are taking advantage of the fact that the cops are afraid of looters, you know, a bunch of people stealing something at one time.

That could get out of control. So the cops would rather beat up peaceful protesters all day. But then when night falls, the looters come out, and they're just stealing things. And they may or may not have anything to do with the protest movement going on down the block whatsoever. And then you have people who are rioting, who are starting fires and smashing windows and breaking things. They're rioting. It's in the dictionary. And that's exactly what they're doing. And they might be mad as hell, and you can call it civil disobedience.

Seems like a lot of times they're burning down innocent people's businesses instead of the district attorney's house. or instead of, you know, the judge's house who keeps rubber stamping all of these injustices, or instead of, you know, the government buildings, the police, in some cases, they go after the police precincts, but mostly they're going after innocent people's businesses, burning them to the ground, and acting like lunatics. And, and look, I mean, the proof's in the pudding. People freak out and move to, you know, big time toward the police. In fact, the point's been made to me of a lot of times that last spring, when the lockdown excesses

were just so incredible you had a lot of kind of right-wing Trump voters, thin blue line flag waivers who are really starting to question the police and said, and many of them said because this is around the time of George Floyd when he was murdered, they said,

man, that was messed up. They were on George Floyd's side and they could see that maybe the ATF aren't the only bad cops in America. Maybe these poor black people have a point about what's happening to them and then the next thing you know, you got arson fires all over the country. I mean, come on, New York, D.C., and then all over on the West Coast and all these places.

And people went right back into the arms of the cops again in reaction to that. I mean, that's a real thing where that kind of lawlessness drives support for the very police that they're trying to limit. But here's the thing, Scott. Let's take, like, the most extreme examples. They weren't happening all over the country, and they weren't happening all over New York or DC, there were isolated cases of actual property damage, isolated cases that came to define the movement because media decided to focus on that, instead of forget going the opposite way, the quote-unquote peaceful protesters, instead of focusing on the fact that, talk about

writing, rioting, the police were, you know, mass attacking in New York City in Mott Haven, in Bronx, the NYPD planned, planned an attack, like literally purposefully cordoned off thousands or hundreds of people and held them there after curfew so they'd have a justification to shut them down. And the human rights frauds report found that it was a purposeful police tactic and hundreds of people wanted injured. So, yeah, that's totally right. I totally agree with that.

That is so important that when it comes to these riots, in many, cases, it's the cops that start the riot against the peaceful protesters. But then when the protesters start winning and night falls, it's just really bad PR for the protest movement. That's all. Look, I mean, but going back into that, like the whole, this whole idea of like when night falls and then fires and everything, like, like that's not what actually happened across the country. Isolated, like handful of isolated incidents came to define the movement because the media chose to report on this. But go back and go even to like the looters. I want to like dig into this a little bit, like the looting, right? The majority of folks who are prosecuted, being

prosecuted right now, still in Chicago. Not a single police officer has been prosecuted for anything. And I'm not, or like forget prosecuted, fired, held accountable at all. And right now there's over 300 people being prosecuted in Chicago for violent offenses, right? Looting, rioting. When you look at the actual facts of the majority of those cases, it's folks like, I'm drawing a blank on his name. You know what? I'm actually not even going to say it because it's a, I shouldn't say it. It's a colleagues of mine's case that's ongoing. But charged with taking things, like you said, petty larceny from the store, but because it is, you know, considered part of this, part of this movement, they consider it a violent, consider a violent offense in these

facing, you know, years and years in prison. And going back to, I guess, the last kind of the, where you started, where you're talking about defunding, you know, defunding, you know, this horrible slogan and not coming up with alternative solutions. And the work slowdown kind of like feeding into the fact that, you know, crime might be up. Here's the reality, right? Like, petty larceny, stealing from stores, low level, like drug possession, even drug sale, because that is, there's significant overlap with addiction, stealing public transportation, jumping the turnstile, crimes of mental illness, poverty, housing. There are so much, including what people have termed looting, and I term crimes of desperation, that have been criminalized that are not in the slightest

bit prevented, solved, or solved by police, by arresting and prosecution. Everything that I just mentioned is actually everything that I just mentioned is exacerbated. Those underlying issues are exacerbated by dragging someone into the system, having them plead guilty or spend a couple years in prison, and spinning them back out, further marginalized with the criminal record, unable to get housing, unable to get employment, their mental health traumas made worse, et cetera. So, you know, first of all, a big alternative to policing is to decriminalize most of what is criminalized, which wasn't, by the way, a couple decades ago, and instead invest in community, poverty alleviation, affordable quality, affordable housing, mental health services, substance use

treatment. But here's the other thing about the kind of this, the work slowdown, the defund, the conversations are at defund. First of all, work slowdown being a cause of ongoing crime assumes that police are actually a crime prevention, safety, and public health mechanism. When we know from centuries of data, but especially over the last half century, that they're spectacularly bad at preventing or solving crime. And how do we know this?

Because we spend more than any other society in the history of the world on these carceral tools. And we are by far not the healthiest and safest society in the world. In terms of alternatives to police, okay, so what do you do? What do you do without police? First of all, just look over to a lot of white suburbs where police people. presence is non-existent. People deal with their problems through restorative justice processes and parents call their kids. But here's the other piece. What we're seeing,

there's actually examples of this around the country where they work, where these solutions and alternatives work better than police. We know, for example, that non-police response. Could you elaborate that last point a little bit what you were saying there about, you're just saying the kids' parents call each other and take care of it? Was that your point? Yes. Look, when I was, when I was practicing as a public defender, when you, let me, she asked you, When you think of robbery, what comes to your mind? I one time walked in on armed robbery of a quakey mart. And it was poor black guy with a two-by-four, essentially maybe a one-by-four or something in his hand,

cracking the skull of a nice old man that ran the place. And unfortunately, I was outnumbered, so I ran and called the cops. And the guy, they prosecuted him for it. Yep. And he damn near killed the guy. I mean, the guy's skull was split wide open. And it was a miracle. He was okay. Horrible tragic, horrible tragedy, a violent incident, armed robbery.

That's what most people think about. Other people think about, you know, strangers going past each other, you know, gun to the head, give me all your money. The vast majority of the robberies that I saw were young kids, stealing cell phones from other kids. And those other kids went to the same school and they were charged with see violent felony, even though no one was hurt, no guns were used, mandatory. minimum three and a half years, maximum 15.

People did that stuff. I am white. I am privileged. I grew up in a non-policed, literally non-policed, a neighborhood. And kids were using, kids were selling, kids were stealing other people's stuff, kids were getting into fights in, and parents would call each other, or they would get, you know, they would get, you know, reprimanded in school. and everything would be closed up without people ending up with, you know,

ending up arrested, caged, violent felonies on the record, etc. In Brownsville, Brooklyn, in East New York, Brooklyn, in Bedstuy, Brooklyn, and then you can name your places around the country. Everything I just said, a fight, that's gang assault. That's a C-violent felony, Max 15. Stealing something, Max 15. People are, these kids, you know, kids and adults are arrested and caged and end up burdened by criminal record.

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Just donate $100 to the Scott Horton show at Scotthorton.org slash donate. Look, I think that's such an important point. And listen, just to, you know, I'm a libertarian. And I like to try to, I really want to change people's minds here. And, you know, in a way to kind of attack the right from the writer, you know, kind of try to acknowledge the people who are skeptical of this kind of thing. That what you're describing, that's the way I grew up to. And I mean, I was a skateboarder, so I was a little bit more police than the rest, but not too much more.

But the black kids were, and that was even in our nice white neighborhood, you know. But I'm certain that the black kids on the other side of town were absolutely treated that much more harshly by the cops, arrested the first time, no warning, prosecuted all the way through, just like you're saying. And the thing is, is I think people get upset about the whole thing about privilege, privilege, because it makes it sound like you don't have the right. to just go about your day and, yeah, even make mistakes. In fact, what you're talking about is not white privilege. You're talking about white people, like living a normal life. And you're talking about black people having, what's the opposite of privilege? Where they're just screwed.

That's what it is. It's black screwedness, not white privilege that you're talking about. Where if they get pulled over with a bag of weed in their pocket, it's everything. Whereas, you know, I got away. I got to say I got pulled over. my buddy had an ounce of shake in his shirt pocket and we were both tripping on LSD I don't know if I ever told that one on the radio before and he let us go he let us go because you know what it's possible that I know somebody with some juice or something right it's too much trouble and and and why ruin my life over you know it's probably just a little bit of acid which it was right um but then but I knew even then that was when I was a kid in the 1990s I knew then if we'd been poor black kids in the car pulled over in the exact same circumstance Boy, would they have been making an example out of us? And I think that that's the part of it.

Without shaming white people who aren't really responsible for this, it's the cops and the state who are responsible for this, without making it seem like white people are unfairly being treated fairly, the point is black people are being treated unfairly, and the poorer you are and the wronger part of town you're from, the worse it is, of course. It's not all just a purely black and white thing. But that's something that I think anyone ought to be able to,

understand no matter who you are that that much is true you you know that's how it is that because it's and it isn't racism except in the most in the technical sense in the state power sense it's not racial prejudice and hard feelings it's that black people are lower hanging fruit they're poorer and so they're easier to pick on and there's less chance that they know somebody with some juice that's going to get the cop in trouble for getting them in trouble so they're the easiest ones to process through. And so that's how it is, right? It's like flipping burgers to them.

So a job. So a couple things. One, I want to win over some of your listeners. So I won't, you know, I will state it and then move on that I actually do think that the state and that the systems are set up to actually oppress and have been carrying out their exact purpose. Well, I'm not denying that. I'm not denying that.

But I'm just saying that's different than every cop or every white guy who sort of like cops being a racially prejudiced mean person right it's a system it's it's but but what you just said about about the about the privilege piece it's not about this is not about that like that's what I try to to talk about a lot I talk about not let I'm never I'm never arguing with leniency I'm never arguing with um less policing I'm never arguing with like that person didn't get prosecuted or like or or or indicted right I'm arguing when it comes to cops around you know other forms of, like, they're not even fired and they're still had to have guns after shooting someone. But I'm always talking about leveling up. So, like, I get heat as, you know, from

folks on my side when I talk about, like, I'm not mad when, you know, Manafort got, um, released pretrial. Like, I just wish the people who I represented, um, charged with far less than he's accused of had the same opportunity, right? Like, I wasn't mad. Um, yeah, I, I, you know, anyway, you get the point. Like, I want, I want more rights. I want more rights. I want more hands off. And you're just to put it, put it like this, like for people to imagine, right? Like, like, you talk about freedom. You talk about the ability just to walk down the street and not worry. You also mentioned, like, if they pulled this over, you know, most white people aren't pulled over pretextually, right? Like, you might be pulled over actually for, you know,

speeding occasionally, but you're not going to be pulled over for no reason and light on about it. But I know people, so many people who expressed in one way or another, feeling trapped and imprisoned in their own neighborhood. I knew a 19-year-old young man who was scared to young man. He was a kid. I mean, he, like 19, some people might consider that man. He was a kid. Sweet kid was scared to walk a block to his area of bodega on the corner to get a sandwich because he was terrified of being stopped and frisk. And not because he was carrying anything on him, believe me, people know better, you know, living in these communities where it's just like this intense police presence to be doing anything like that. But to be stopped and frisk, just the trauma

of being invaded like that. And so he spent his days, not playing with friends, not being outside, but inside his house playing video games because that was the only place where he felt safe. And that kind of trauma, there was kind of like invisible cages. We think about mass incarceration

in terms of literal incarceration, right? Like in behind bars. But people are living every day in extreme isolation, trauma, terror, fear of these people who are supposed to be protecting them. And what is that, what are those conditions caused beyond the fact that all that money is going toward state violence instead of actual things to, you know, basic things to help human beings, make people healthier and

safer. But it winds up, it winds up literally leading to people hurting each other. And so I think about violence as a public health issue. I'm sorry, I'm sorry to interrupt you here, everybody, but there's a little problem with your microphone right now. Are you bump them? I'm sorry. Go ahead. No, I'm like, you know, bang in my hands over here. It's the problem.

Oh, okay. I understand. Were you hearing, like... Yeah, there's like some noise, but go ahead. Yeah, no, I was just going to say, I view violence as the public health issue. Yeah, I speak with my hands too. It's all right. I'm like terminated.

I'm like speaking with my hands and I'm banging on the table. I got to chill out. I hear you. No, that's good. And I really appreciate your attitude, too, about... you know, always leveling up the way you put that. I like that. Um, let me bring up a couple of things here real quick, because we're almost out of time. Um, but, uh, I know I'm 99% certain I saw that you were retweeting Adam Johnson, my old friend, uh, used to be at fairness and accuracy in reporting.

And he's been specializing in this story that all the shoplifting is causing the Walgreens to close in San Francisco. And if you could just give us like a quick minute on that. Could you talk about that? Yeah, sure. So, uh, it's it's part of this broader pattern of of kind of propaganda and copaganda that's going on but in in san francisco like a few other places they elected a forward-thinking prosecutor i don't like using the more progressive prosecutor because they're all there's nothing progressive about prosecution but um and there's this whole movement that's really funded by tech billionaires um and far right folks that are trying to basically take take this new district attorney

chase to Budin out. In the meantime, try to kind of roll back a bunch of criminal justice reforms that have happened over time in California. And the most recent kind of tool or weapon that this, that the folks are using is the closure of five Walgreens. Walgreens has said it's because of kind of just intense theft that's happening in certain neighborhoods in San Francisco, so which the tech billionaires and their supporters are attributing to reform, attributing to Chesa Budin and his form of prosecution. Here's the thing. If you ask a few other questions, like, well, are Walgreens closing anywhere else?

You find out, actually, that they had plans to close 200 stores, including these five, two years ago. So this is part of that. you find out that Walgreens or that CVS are expanding. So similar stores in the same area are actually building or not losing any or not decreasing number of stores at all in San Francisco. And you start getting this picture that, wait a second, Walgreens are closing and they're actually in the process.

I mean, I can't say this is exactly true, but it seems to be, while they're in the process of losing a lot of people's jobs and getting rid of jobs, they're using this moment of kind of this anger about the state of, of, of the state of justice, let's say, in San Francisco as a way to kind of cover up or hide that they're, you know, doing, they're trying to cut corners and cut costs and in the process, getting people out of jobs. The biggest problem, though, is that folks like, the outlets like the New York Times and Washington Post, these like kind of liberal bastions, forget even if they're liberal bastians, they're supposed to be at least. bottom line fact checking are printing Walgreens talking points and press releases like their gospel and spreading these lives. So anyway, that's that's the longer than one minute scoop. Sorry. No, that's okay. And I mean, it's a it's a whole other question of whether it's smart to legalize shoplifting up to $1,000 or I think is what it is. But that still doesn't mean that

either way, that doesn't mean that the rhetoric about Walgreens is necessarily right. And then, not to mention the fact that it's also, it's not, it's not, it's not legalized. It's, it's, whatever, but we've been talked about it. Well, I get, well, what did they do? They just reduced the penalty to. Well, I mean, there's a couple things. You know, Jay Zabin is not is, is, is, is, has a decline to prosecute list, but the recognition that that these again, like these are crimes of poverty and what's going to happen. Uh, if you arrest the person and then they plea and then they get out, are they going to be less likely? or more likely to need to steal to survive again. Here's the thing. You've got to have patience for change. I'm not saying you in particular, I'm using the Royal Youth. You need patience for change.

It's not going to happen overnight. And we're not going to see a change once we hopefully stop relying on our mass incarceration systems. So you can take some time to see how the changes and hopefully investments and better things actually work out. The problem is people, right now do not have that kind of patience and the media is not helping.

And then there's one more thing that you said that I thought was really important, but you were saying a lot of things at the time and I want to stop you at least at that part. Sorry, I do interrupt a lot. But you were saying that people who commit murders almost always have been involved as a victim of gun crime or somehow been involved in gun crime before they actually go that far of this kind. On the other hand, I think you were saying, you know, comma or semicolon, people who are arrested just for having a gun, they really are not on their way to murder somebody or rob anything.

They just have a gun to protect themselves and don't use it, but they get got. And it's funny because I think right-wingers are afraid that the National Guard one day is going to come for their rifles and this kind of thing. And I think that liberals who support gun control a lot of times think, yeah, wouldn't that be great if the National Guard went and took all the rifles away from those right wing rednecks when actually what gun control really means is poor black

people going to jail or even prison maybe more like prison just for possessing a gun and not actually doing anything with it at all but just being presumed guilty of somehow being in progress of another felony or because they already were convicted for some other BS felony probably having some pot in their pocket or something and now they're banned for life from having a gun but they really feel like they need one because staying alive is important, you know. And so talk about that and how unfair gun control is when it's, gun control is one of these issues where you would think right wingers would support it

and left wingers would be against it if you look at who are the victims of it and the way it's enforced. So first of all, just, you know, I was saying that most people who harm other people, whether it's through guns or whether it's another way or commit acts of violence, I found this is also just, there's data to back it up, have been survivors of violence themselves. So it's not just, you know, murders, killing, you know, but it's violence drives violence, it was the initial point. But yes, gun possession. So people tend to think about gun control and criminalization of gun possession as kind of, you know, one in the same.

And it has to be that way. I'm actually really proud my grandfather, who was the first chairman of the D.C. City Council, in Washington, D.C., where he grew up, there was a debate early on, and it was around sentencing in criminalization of gun possession at D.C. back of the 60s. And he was a staunch gun control advocate. But what he saw back then is what we see right now is that if you pass a law that is going to criminalize, that is going to potentially cage, it is going to be enforced disproportionately against the most marginalized, to be disproportionately enforced against black and brown people. He voted against it, unfortunately, he lost. And so what we see today in cities large and small

is that while, you know, white folks in suburbs have a right, have a Second Amendment right to possess guns, black people in the, for example, the south side of Chicago, that right doesn't apply to them. And beyond that, they are warehoused. And what's even kind of more outrageous about it, is that arguably of anyone, if we're making the argument that it is, that guns are necessary to, you know, to protect their homes and protect their bodily integrity, folks who have seen their loved ones shots, people who hear gunshots at night, people who have witnessed, you know, shootings, they are the ones who have the most reason to want to carry. Now, I believe I believe that there are, I'm in favor of gun control, but I'm favor of non-carsarial gun control.

And what's interesting right now, there's a case, the biggest gun case coming before the Supreme Court since Heller, the big decision on D.C. gun laws. And it's challenging. It's the NRA challenging the New York's criminalization of gun possession. And what's interesting, not surprising for me is that a lot of public defenders, so Bronx defenders and defenders from all over the country are supporting not the NRA's position, because they're not talking about racism and equal protection, but supporting the NRA side and filed amicus briefs on behalf of that side stating that gun control in its current form in cities like, or in states like New York, states like Illinois are unconstitutional because it winds up leading to disproportionately

and predominantly black people being arrested, charged in a prison. And yes, prison is fair their help. Well, there's also, you know, there was this argument in a great. Scott, Scott, the NRA handled that part of the argument quite vociferously. We had to, the public defenders had to, you know, didn't have to do it, have to do anything, but they handled the actual justice arguments, um, far better. All right. Hey, man.

I'm sorry. I got to go, but thank you so much for the great interview. And I'm sorry we didn't get a chance to talk about the media angle, but that's okay because that's just a reason for people to, well, we did a little at the beginning, but you know what I mean? Yeah, we did. We started off with that. And read this great article at the nation,

the massive fail on crime reporting by the New York Times and NPR by Scott Heckenger. Thank you so much for your time, dude. Thanks, Scott. The Scott Horton show, an anti-war radio, can be heard on KPFK, 90.7 FM in L.A. APSRadio.com, anti-war.com, scothorton.org, and libertarian institute.org.