A new viral video reveals that police brutality against people of color in California continues
despite years of internal investigations into documented abuse. Several lawsuits now accuse
local cities of fostering a culture of violence among local law enforcement. RT's Brigida
Santos joins me now to talk about this. Brigida, you know, the first thing that comes to my
mind is that I've kind of thought these, these stories, I thought maybe, you know, after
all this rash of stories that we were doing literally every week that maybe this problem
had gone away, but your position is, no, it hadn't gone away. It's just the media doesn't
have enough sense to report it. Former Democrat presidential contenders, Kamala Harris and
Julián Castro, they, they brought national attention to a video capturing a white police
officer in Rancho, Rancho Cordova I think it was, is my memory. They were brutally assaulting
an underage African American male. Walk me through that. Walk me through that story.
I just have bits and pieces that that was, that actually did come out in the media.
Sure. The footage shows a Rancho Cordova deputy pinning down a 14 year old male child and
punching him repeatedly as he screams. Now in a statement, the police department seems
to be supporting the actions of this officer. They say the deputy saw what he believed to
be a hand to hand exchange between an adult and juvenile, that the deputy attempted to
detain the young man on reasonable suspicion that criminal activity was occurring. Now
the police department claims that the boy resisted arrest and was found to have gotten
a cigar from an adult, which is illegal. So they decided to respond with force. Now the
Rancho Cordova police department has now launched an excessive force investigation, but so far
it does seem like it's standing behind the actions of the officer based on multiple statements
that they've actually put out. Wait, let me get this right. They're stay,
they're standing behind the officer who do we know at this point that there was an exchange
of a cigar? Is, I mean, I really am wondering. Well, they say that that's what they believe
happened because they found a cigar on this kid afterwards and they believe that's what
was exchanged. That's all he had on him. And, you know, the, the response absolutely does
not match what the alleged crime was there. Yeah. Okay. Another lawsuit was filed at the
end of March, accusing Sacramento Sheriff's deputies of using excessive force. Again,
there was only bits and pieces. I mean, I follow this type of thing every day and still,
even with this, there were only bits and pieces of this story. Can you tell me about that
case? Sure. The Rancho Cordova police department
is part of the Sacramento County Sheriff's office, which also faces its own allegations
of deploying excessive force against civilians. Now, the March lawsuit was filed by an African
American professor named Dr. Thomas Williams. He says that Sacramento Sheriff's deputies
deployed excessive force against him and his brother after a white neighbor accused them
of breaking into their own home. The police officers who responded to the call reportedly
showed up, drew their guns, through the Williams brothers to the ground and proceeded to knee
and elbow them in the head and face. One of the brothers says he was also placed in a
chokehold. The deputies only realized that the men were actually telling the truth about
living at their own house after they beat them up. When they then checked the brother's
driver's licenses. You know, they could have started there, but of course they don't.
Well. Yeah. Beyond California, your position and you've been following these stories is
this is, this is really all over the country. We're seeing reports of the NYPD officers
using social distancing measures as a precursor to violence in this pandemic. How have we
seen enforcement of these kinds of problems during this pandemic? Has it, has it been,
you know, let's, let's engage with violence. Let's send a message. Let's make it clear
that rules can't be broken. What is your take. Not let, let's move from California. Let's
look nationally and say, overall, how has this worked itself out?
Well, it, police across the country, I don't think much has changed. The difference now
is that people are starting to ask themselves, you know, where is the line between protecting
public health and safety, civil liberties and an authoritarian government and police
force? You know, this week in NYPD police officer was recorded on video hitting a man
and brandishing a gun in an attempt to break up a group of people who were reportedly violating
social distancing rules. But the officer himself was also in violation of the New York city
rules that require everyone to wear face coverings in public. So now people are really starting
to see on a national scale what's happening to people of color also bleeding out into
other aspects of life. And unfortunately it's going to take an incident where somebody who
is white gets treated the way that a lot of these people of color get treated by police.
Well I, I think after the, the rash of stories that were virtually every week about this
type of violence, there were conclusions. The training's bad, the recruiting is bad,
the education level of the police officers is bad. The culture is promoted from the very
top. These are the people we're looking for. The old, you know, it's kind of like a Bruce
Willis kind of, you know, everybody wants to be Bruce Willis. They want to be the baddest
cat on the road. And rather than doing simple or the MMPI rather than a personality profile
of these folks before they get a gun and before they get a badge, there's ways to solve this
problem and it's, it doesn't sound solved to me, Brigida. And I, I hate think we're
gonna be covering more stories like this. Thank you for joining me. Okay.
Thanks Mike.