Phoenix, Arizona.
When people think of Phoenix, what do they think of?
Well, no one actually thinks of Phoenix,
but if they were forced to, what would they think of?
It would probably be the extreme heat
or a college you can graduate from in three weeks
or the fact that the city's basketball team
has the world's most random mascot.
Yeah. Seriously, how do you pick a gorilla
when you're the Phoenix Suns, all right?
You could have been a phoenix, or you could have been a sun.
A gorilla makes no sense.
Even Gritty makes more sense
because that's how you look
if you spend your whole life in Philly
eating cheesesteaks, all right?
But the gorilla makes no sense.
But Phoenix has also started to become notorious
for how bad its police force is
with a record 44 police shootings last year.
Yeah, more than any other large city in America.
And now, thanks to cell phone video,
we get to see it for ourselves.
NEWSWOMAN: Growing outrage tonight
after an extreme reaction from Phoenix police
to a little girl swiping a doll.
NEWSMAN: Cops in Phoenix threaten Aisha Harper,
a 24-year-old pregnant woman
with her two young children by her side.
The video starts after the family
pulls up at their babysitter's
and are approached by police with guns drawn.
NEWSMAN 2: Phoenix police officers
at times sounded like hit men.
Sweet Jesus.
"I'm gonna put a (bleep) cap in your head."
That's what the cop said.
What happened to protect and serve?
Like, I'm sorry. Everything about that video is wrong.
All right, not only is the cop screaming
like the woman is the one pointing a gun at him,
but he's talking about busting caps
like he's a lost member of N.W.A.?
There's no... there's no excuse for this.
Like, there's no excuse.
Unless maybe the cop says he arrests people
in the way that he thinks that they speak.
You know, maybe he's like, "Hey, yo, black man,
"get your ass on the ground.
"And as for you, esé,
"you better stop acting like a pendejo.
"And you, Belgian guy...
"I-I don't how you speak.
Waffles. Waffles, waffles."
(laughter)
Now, what makes this whole thing worse
is that this family wasn't robbing a bank
or holding people hostage.
No, this was the cops responding to a call
about a four-year-old who took a Barbie doll
out of a dollar store without paying for it. Yeah.
And, like, I'm sorry, guys.
You don't need to show up like a SWAT team
to rescue a Barbie from a little girl.
If anything, you should be rescuing
the little girl from the Barbie.
Should be getting there like, "Little girl, watch out!
"That Barbie can give you a warped sense
"of what a woman's body is supposed to be!
"Barbie!
"Barbie, please!
"Don't do it, Barbie!
"Think about Ken and your Dreamhouse
and that new job you just got as a scientist!"
(laughter)
And as traumatic as this experience was,
thankfully, thankfully, no one was shot.
And, honestly, I don't think it's because of the officers.
I think it's because of the well-trained civilians
who happened to be on the scene.
NEWSMAN: The woman behind this cell phone video
asking to take the kids.
NEWSWOMAN: Even the bystanders, you can hear them
saying, "Calm down" to the police.
I'm sorry, guys, but this is ridiculous.
How do civilians know how to act like the police
better than police know how to act like the police?
-(applause) -How?
Because...
Because this guy... this guy's next to the car,
holding his phone, but instead of panicking,
he's trying to calm things down.
I mean, he's even using the language
cops are supposed to be thinking about.
"Guys, let's defuse the situation."
That's how you know shit has gone wrong,
because back in the day,
the guys holding the phone used to be like,
"Oh, man, he about to bust a cap in his ass!
WorldStar!"
But now the cop sounds like that.
"Bust a cap in your ass!"
The people filming the thing sounding like trained police.
You know? "All right, de-escalate the situation.
Come on. Remember to read him his Miranda rights, come on."
And you would think...
you would think cops cursing at civilians
and pointing guns at a four-year-old child
would be as bad as this story could get,
but what makes it even worse
is that if we didn't have these videos,
those cops would have been able
to paint a very different picture
of how this all went down.
NEWSMAN: Major differences emerge
in between the police report
and the video captured by witnesses.
NEWSMAN 2: Nowhere in the report does he mention yelling,
"You're going to get effing shot"
or "I'm going to put an effing cap
right in your effing head."
NEWSMAN 3: In the video, Officer Meyer
clearly kicks the leg of the handcuffed father.
In the report, though, he writes...
(reading):
You know, what's most troubling about this
is that it makes you wonder how many people
have been arrested and put in jail
because everyone assumes the police version of the event
is always the truth.
(applause)
Like...
Time and time again, time and time again,
cell phone videos contradict the official report.
'Cause you saw the video. He kicks his leg.
Guy's not doing anything. He kicks his leg.
But in the report, he says, "I made him spread his feet."
Cop's report makes it sound like a peaceful yoga instructor.
It's like, "And then I moved him into downward mother(bleep) dog.
Namaste."
And, you know, what's sad about this whole story
is that as harrowing as it was,
this family is one of the lucky ones
because none of them were shot
and calm bystanders recorded the entire thing
to back them up.
And now their lawyer is helping them
sue that police department for $10 million.
(cheering and applause)
Which...
Which won't help erase what happened to them,
but it will help that little girl
buy a shitload of those dolls.