Welcome back.
In almost every shooting,
we eventually see images on Instagram or Facebook
of those involved holding an arsenal of guns,
but what if, before these deadly shootings took place,
we were able to use those social media posts
to try and get those illegal firearms off the street?
That's the idea behind a bill
that state Senator Jason Pizzo proposed two years ago.
That legislation went nowhere
because of concerns expressed
by both the right and the left.
I recently spoke to Pizzo,
and we were joined by Ruban Roberts,
the head of the Miami Dade NAACP,
and Hilton Napoleon, a criminal defense attorney
who is also the legal advisor
to the nonprofit group, Parents of Murdered kids.
The bill would have allowed
for law enforcement to have contact with individuals
who are unlawfully possessing firearms.
And what does that contact look like?
What would that contact look like?
Well, preferably,
it would be contact away from the home,
and then specifically not at, you know,
4:00 AM, kicking down a door
because it wouldn't be an exception for an arrest warrant,
it'd be an exception, basically, for search.
And right now, kids know especially
that there's really nothing anyone can do about it.
I mean, if my son goes on Facebook right now
and says, "I'm gonna shoot up the school tomorrow,"
absolutely that qualifies for law enforcement
to come get them.
However, in some weird perversion of the law
or the lack thereof,
a kid can load and rack a firearm
and we can't do anything about it.
So you propose this, this is the intent,
and you get pushback from both the right and the left,
as I understand,
which is why your bill went nowhere.
You got pushback from the right, in what ways,
and pushback from the left in what ways?
Talk about that.
Most recently, there was,
and, I think, a legitimate concern,
that anything that would increase interactions
between law enforcement and, especially teenagers,
black and brown teenagers,
was not to be endorsed, supported, or advanced,
so we did well in the Senate advancing it,
but on the House side, there was immediate pushback.
So, you hear what he's trying to do.
When you listen to that, what is your concern?
You know, is it that issue of
whatever Jason and the law's intention may be?
Is it the concern about the implementation
you know, when that additional power is given to police,
that concerns you,
and where do you draw that line
in terms of the risk versus reward
of trying to get that gun out of that house?
So, Jim, yes.
I applaud Jason for trying to address
the gun violence issue.
However, whenever there are any laws on the books,
how those laws are implemented in certain communities,
particularly in a black community,
it looks a little bit different.
And so, what we've seen in our community
and we've had a whole year of protests
and still deaths after George Floyd
by the hand of law enforcement officers,
where everything looks like a nail to a hammer.
And so, you know, when they go in,
the enforcement, in our community, the black community,
we are enforced, the law is enforced,
and in others' communities, in Coral Gables
or another community, more affluent communities,
they are policed, and there's a difference
when you have enforcement versus policing,
'cause once they get to the act of battery,
the next charge is gonna be a gunshot.
How do we give them some sort of program
and treat those kids, in that, you know,
to prevent them from escalating to more violent offenses?
So, I'm with you on the part
where we talk about trying to get them early on
so they don't end up in the cycle.
I guess what I'm trying to address
is the more immediate issue
of those who have already crossed that rubicon,
who we've already failed as a society,
that kid now has a gun.
How do we get those guns out of their hands
and off the street?
That's the question,
and how much authority do we see to police to do that?
I agree that there needs to be more attention
to what's happening on social media,
but they are cliques.
These are not organized gangs,
so you don't have a hierarchy that you're dealing with.
Police officers can't go to the Bloods or the Crips
and say, to the leader, "Listen, you know,
we're concerned about what happened
over there in Highly or Miami Lakes."
You can't do that. You have cliques.
I don't know if we have the bandwidth or resources
to look at every social media, you know,
conflict that's happening
and judge whether or not this is gonna escalate
to something that is more violent,
so there has to be that prevention thing.
There has to be an outlet for parents.
Each one of those kids or young adults
that are involved in the shooting,
they go home to someone, they go home to a parent,
they go home to a loved one, or that sort of thing.
The concern of that parent or that loved one
is how that kid will be treated
if they were to interface with law enforcement.
Some of these parents wanna turn the kids in.
Some of the parents want to, you know,
try to get their kid off the street.
Some parents, even before it escalates
to the point to where the kid
is involved in a violent crime or murder,
have made several attempts
to engage the criminal justice system,
so it's still a preventative fashion.
It's not an intervention, it's still preventative,
you're still working on that.
Those kids are, you know,
at the point where they have weapons.
At the point of where they have weapons,
they already are gone,
but the first thing that I suggested is
then let's deal with them on that front end
to make sure that we can get them out of that stage,
and then, as far as now,
when they're in this place
where they're shooting over beefs
or they're shooting over financial issues,
or whatever the case may be,
we need the get the family and the community involved.
Every community that you see the shooting in,
community members knows who the shooters are,
and, of course, they know who the victims are,
but every community that you see that shooting in,
the community knows who that shooter is,
so what do you do to encourage that community
to share the information
about who that shooter is and get them off the street?
Listen, from my perspective,
from dealing with the families and the mothers particularly,
they want change, they want results.
One of the biggest problems and one of the biggest issues
is that the status quo is still there,
and nothing is happening.
I applaud Senator Pizzo for bringing his bill to light
because, as a person who has prosecuted cases
and a person who has defended cases,
when you see the tangible evidence,
a photograph of a person holding a firearm,
that is meaningful in court.
That is probable cause to give the police officers
go into the home and search the home
and get the guns off the street,
and while I agree that
there needs to be preventative methods,
having that tool is a preventative method.
I can show you five, six, seven, eight mothers
who wish that somebody went into the individual's home
that killed their child,
because there were posts and things on social media
that could have been looked upon early on.
The biggest problem, however,
is that there's no trust in the community.
A lot of these people are treated
like they are criminals themselves.
I have people who are victims of crimes,
who are parents of victims of crimes,
and they're not treated
the way that you would expect them to.
I agree with Ruban.
The way that someone would be treated in Coral Gables
is different than the way that a parent would be treated
in Overtown,
so the problem is not just the tools,
the problem is the attitude that police have
in certain communities where people are not treated fairly,
and it's a trust issue.
If people in these communities
where these homicides are occurring trusted the police,
believed that the police were going to be there
to effectuate change and really make an effort
to catch a killer off the street,
they will be much more likely to cooperate
and support Senator Pizzo's bill,
but when police show up
and kick in doors at four o'clock in the morning,
that evades and that erodes
the trust that the community have in police officers,
and that's the biggest problem to me.
These kids are not gangs.
These is not, you know, criminal sophistication,
criminal enterprise,
they're loosely affiliated kids,
you know, gathered in areas that are low hanging fruit,
really, for a number of things that,
and I've said this on the Senate floor,
I've said this in a courtroom,
I've said this on the campaign trail,
and I said it at my dinner table.
You know, the Pizzo kids, if they're gonna smoke a joint,
it's probably gonna be in the back of someone's house
where the cops are not gonna arrest them, okay?
But if the Pizzo kids were living in certain neighborhoods,
they're on the street corner doing the same thing.
That's reality,
and what Ruban and I
also have spoken about before and I agree
is that that first introduction
to the criminal justice system,
on that small, sort of, misdemeanor diminutus charge,
creates the great divide between,
probably a kid from Overtown or Liberty City,
and one of my kids,
and that's like, you know, mom and dad have my kid,
you know, out of jail immediately,
whereas, opposed to a kid
who might not be able to come up with the bond money
takes a plea, CTS, raises his right hand
cause he's cold, tired, afraid, and in a jail cell
over at DCJ with 23 real criminals,
and he just wants to go home and doesn't realize that,
when he raises his right hand,
it's a plea of convenience that will result
in never getting a student loan or a home loan,
and, therefore, exacerbates a cycle.
We agree on that.
What we don't agree on
is when Ruban says that,
by the time you see a kid on social media with a gun,
he's gone.
I don't believe that.
And I'll tell you, I really don't.
And I think what we'll also agree on is the following,
is that each one of these kids,
and I say kids, and Jim, I think you would agree,
and Ruban would agree,
you know, we're in our forties and fifties,
so when we say kid, 21, 22, 23.
Right. And what I mean by that
is my kids know that a lot of people care about them,
place a tremendous premium
on the value of their life and safety,
and we have a large group of kids in our community
who don't know that,
who don't think that the government or the school system
or the neighborhood or community leaders
really value their life.
Ask Hilton the percentage of cases
of the mothers he represents and cares for
have had closure in their kids' case,
their son or daughter killed.
What percentage have actually had closure?
One. One percent. I have to jump in here
because I wanna make something clear for the record.
I never give up on any of my kids or adults.
Understand that for the record.
I don't care if he has 10 guns around him,
everybody's redeemable in my book,
and I want that to be understood.
Don't ever, ever misinterpret
when I'm saying that I give up on a black man, black child.
I didn't say give up, I'm just saying it.
I don't want that perception to be out there.
But Ruban, I listen to everything,
and when you said,
"By the time it gets to a kid on social media with a gun,
he's gone."
Yeah, that doesn't mean I gave up on that kid.
If I said that, and I have to play the tape back,
I don't mean that I'm giving up on the kid.
Understand what I'm saying,
by the time they have that gun in hand,
that means they're closer to using that gun,
so, just for the record,
whether they believe that or not.
If they got that gun in their hand,
one of the first things you learn on the street
is you never pull out a gun unless you're gonna use it.
That's one of the first things you learn
when you grow up in the inner city neighborhood,
so they got that gun in their hand,
they are more likely to use it than not,
so that's what I meant,
but I never give up on mine.
Let me be the interpreter for you,
and I know we talked about that beforehand.
Let me interpret that.
So, what he's basically saying
is that most kids in the inner city,
and the statistics will show this,
most of them make it out okay.
It's just the things that we see on TV,
and there is a big problem.
What Ruban is basically saying,
for a kid in the inner city to go and have a gun
and to post it on social media,
he's far, far away than the typical average kid
that's already there, so,
the ones who are out there posting this on social media,
they are down that path already.
They're not the ones who you see
doing other positive things in a community,
or trying to get their lives together,
they're down that path,
and they have a very, very narrow scope,
and it's almost like, have they gone too far already?
We need to catch 'em before they get to the point
where they're flashing guns.
To answer Senator Pizzo's specific question,
most of the mothers in our organization do not have closure.
I can talk for hours, probably days, about the reasons why,
but at the end of the day,
we want closure, they demand closure,
and it's not happening.