Serial S03 - Ep. 6: You in the Red Shirt
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Previously on cereal.

in your experience, a police officer, can you smell Brown juana in a bag inside someone's pocket?

I probably put more people on probation than any other judging this court. Us, yeah, because I can always put prison later.

right?

I don't want to be a rat. You want to rat on your guy. I think currently he has.

How can you help us do that?

我就是 阿克拉 有 标注 的。

From this american life and W B E Z chicago, it's cereal one course told week by week. I'm Sarah ic.

I was talking to this guy, Kevin, forty years old. He'd been busted for giving someone at his college a marijuana cookie. He'd Operated as a nice gesture, really just pay.

Have one. He thought the guy understood what IT was, wink, wink. But he didn't, and all went wrong.

Kevin ended up with a felony conviction. Well, another felony conviction. The case that absurd theyd been a trial over this cookie. That's funny, right?

I went to talk to Kevin, the cookie Baker, in the hallway outside the court room in the justice center, right after the verdict. Not funny. He was in what my mother would call a swift, cracking, angry jokes, but also desperately upset, half crying.

Kevin said he had been a drug dealer when he was Young, but he changed. He was in school, volunteering in his community, trying to start his own business, doing well. And now this what Kevin called for, oneac.

Childish, stupendous. They gotten kicked out of his college. And IT also triggered a problem violation on a case for a few years earlier.

Kevin had been just two months shy of completing that problem. He was almost done. I know this.

I'm sorry. I said, this is a rough day. He said, it's all right.

It's all right. It's all right. I'm starting to get used to IT.

Actually, I, T, I, like in IT, I got roots here. Just like a bad relationship. I can .

get out .

of mad juice is no.

So far in this series, we've talked a lot about the system aspect of the justice system, how the machinery of IT works or doesn't. Now for the rest of this series, we want to look at the criminal justice system a whole other way. We want to follow people who are like Kevin, people who feel like they have roots in the system.

We've been in IT for years and who've been shaped by its machinery. Probably nothing we've reported so far would be used to them. They know IT, I know it's pretentious to say this, but I keep seeing this russian word, choose to us.

IT means to feel something almost sensually to the point where you can taste IT, you know, IT in your bones. So now, now we're going to follow people out of the justice center, out into the world, into their Normal lives. The guy we're onna start with his name is Jessie nickson. Back in the summer of twenty sixteen, before we got to clever, and there have been a police scandal with a satisfying twist.

If i'm allowed to call IT that two officers had arrested this guy, Jessie nickson, and instead of taking him back to the station, they drove to a city park, took off justice, handcuff s and one of the officers guiding, denying dixon, six foot four former linebacker in the arena football league chAllenge Jessie to a fight. Justice squared off with dena index in for second, but then he took off, ran into the woods. The officers eventually found him, cut them. Jessie said they beat him. The officers said he heard himself the story made the news.

Absolutely sick. Absolutely shot sick.

That was the mayor talking to A T. V. reporter. This all happened in east cleveland.

Not to be confused with the each side of cleveland, east cleveland is its own small city bordering cleveland, seventeen thousand people. It's got its own city government in some police department. And IT seemed refreshingly as if those entities were taking responsibility for what happened.

And swiftly, no excuses. Both officers were fired within days. The police chief referred the case to state investigators.

The county prosecutors officers sought criminal and detection. One officer pleaded guilty to a couple mister miners, the other, the dixon, pleaded to a couple felonies. We went to the name dick in sentencing .

at the justice center is line of justice system. That's the public, see.

that's the prosecutor actually call bin.

When you have something is a public official, you're not only assaults a number of the community, but then tries to cover up, cover up by turning off the body.

Can a police officer convicted for bad behavior on the job, already unusual in this courthouse? And here ashly cobain was arguing forcefully for the harshness, possible punishment. He was pitching consecutive sentences, meaning the sense reach crime would run back to back the judge.

Nancy first invited office, or dice to speak. You have anything to say so. And he did, he apologized. He said, I understand I was put in a position of authority, and I was entrusted with the public trust to make a difference, to be part of the solution and not part of the problem. And then he said, I no intention of assaulting anyone.

It's difficult to hear. But he says.

IT was a tactic I had seen done before, you know, take a guide of cuff son, get him to stop running his mouth or whatever. Officer dickon's lawyer told the court that dickson had told him the same thing, quote, which is kinda disturbing. Other than that, no one reMarks on this kinda disturbing information.

Just let you go. The judge sentenced in nam dick into two years in prison, and IT was over. The victim, Jesse nickerson, was not in the courtroom the day of the sentencing, but he had been in touched with the county prosecutors throughout the case. He told the manual that at one point they given him some advice, that he found kinds disturbing .

the prosecutor, and then they told me, they told me to stay out of ice cream.

Jessie said. They told him, remember denying dixon .

got friends?

You know, you know, have, you know, you have people still, are these clean? They, like, when I want to hear about you, something happened to that is cleaning.

Usually these cases of police brutality, the ones we hear about the government response, is constituted ted months, sometimes years of stop, start, internal investigations, equivalence, public officials, officers placed on desk d and then IT just Peters out. In just as his case, there was none of that the officers who abused him had been fired, convicted and sentenced.

Doesn't gotten all the things, the rare of things people say they want in cases like this, just had one. And yet here he was on high alert. This whole situation with the police.

IT was not over a manual. He lived in clever land for most the year. We were reporting there, and this is one of the cases. He began to look into manual, interviewed police and prosecutors, and interviewed Jesse neuron. And that interview turned into early year long adventure is too happy, awd. This adventure, I guess, a year watching Jesse negotiate the afterwards of his case, the push pull of one man's relationship with the police in his town. Here's a animal.

Justin neuron told me that he was sort of relieved. The officers who taken him to the park that night were black, but not White. He feels like if you've been White, he probably would have gotten a shot.

The first time we met, we went over the first tile park so he could walk me through what had happened. He showed me the spot, wait, hidden behind a tree. The place way says the officers choked him until he blacked out.

They beat me. Why here? And and look and look up for a way. Why here we make IT to the .

bottom of this big hill that he says the officer is thrown down when just he stop any points at something through the trees.

You see the police.

oh yeah, civil police, way, way off in the distance, justice spotted a cup car, a black ford explorer, with police in block letters down the side. Just had been calmly and casually exciting details of this alleged assault. But now it's uncomfortable.

The same truck I was in and the same truck I was in.

how do you know .

they won't get one of? It'd been almost a year.

And the police took him to the park. And in that year, Jessie had a persistent fear of retaliation because IT feels like everybody, especially the cops, know him as the guy who then officer denying dickson to prison. While after receive the police truck, Jessie turns to me and says, I got used to witness in case anything happens. But then when we make away to the top of the hill and get to the truck eaten lunch .

in your pool.

who was that.

you know? Yeah, I A good. That's the officer of that. They had TV dawn instagram stuff.

Yes, he doesn't know if this guy's real name. He says everyone calls him new, new a few months back, new, new or sort of these people been famous when he posted videos of himself sing around and singing his police cruiser. Yes, he tells me new new is all right.

Just relax a little. Jesse knows these people, police department, and they know him partly because he live in his life, partly because he's been arrested a lot. When we met, just he was twenty nine.

He's spent time in prison on drug gorgeous as well as for aggravated assault, robbery. All of that had happened when Jesse was in his late teens, and he said, more minor runnings with the police since van read possession traffic tickets. Nothing too serious.

Anyway, he's not worried about new new. He obviously he is on the look out for is a friend of the name dickon, an officer named wilbert navels. He told me a story about novels that was still stressing about IT happened about six months earlier at the time, the name was out on bond awaiting trial of the incident with Jessie in the park, and Jesse run into .

office levels on the street was on the carbon trees.

a big busy road. Jessie, his girlfriend, were heading back to their car after grabbing some food in each, leaving police car rolled up IT was office .

a navels my everything actually, he just opposed cry like he was, was going out you. He like, I let me. He like, follow me.

Nevels wanted Jessie to follow him down to acquired a part of the street. The zoom ably, as if they could talk in private, just had no idea what this was about. But his girlfriend actually didn't like the looks of IT. SHE was like hello, but just he told actually just a lot of people around that a so he wants so they drove down, poured into a law at the end of the street and parked window to window police one day with style levels got .

right to the point you to go on. A don't go to court.

On the day he meant the criminal case against the name for taking jey to the park, navels was telling Jesse to drop the whole thing. Don't share .

up for you see. Oh, my G, I know what car he asked me was my number. He caught up me later on the night. When him and deny this is unfiltered.

they say .

he was not. Go to court.

Dc.

go to court. He was sent a noble formation on is .

cleveland cool and I don't .

cool levels was interviewed by the .

county prosecutors office, and he denied being on the line for that call. He denied every telling Jesse not to come the call. He said Jessie asked him about the name. He got justice number, gave his name, and that was in, but the name did call Jesse. And Jessie says he kept calling.

Check out. So so you cool anything? cool?

How often .

that I am once two week would tell, skip out of town type of stuff.

just he felt like theirs a front behind all of these calls, sort of when i'm spoken, or else when accounting prosecutors found out about the goals. We are like weight police officers are calling you and telling you to drop this all thing. Yeah, that does not sound good.

They made a plan. They had Jessie come into the justice center so they could record him calling the name. The prosecutors recorded two calls to the name, and all of these calls, the naming, encourage Jessie not to come the court to get out of town. You don't come, and they are.

These is a more family .

for the name dixon. In addition to the other charges for taking Jessie to the park, the name pleaded guilty to obstructing justice office. The novels, though the names friend who Jesse says first approached him about dropping the case, navels stayed on the falls. And so a year later, he's the focus of a lot of Jessie concern about accounts. Jessie was sure levels had IT out for him.

I still have to walk around, drive around out here. What does other officers feel like? I am told.

I know him, seeing everyday, he will we stay at me? He look at me like he look at me. He look at me with the look evil, like he wants to kill me.

How do you see my? Do you?

I seem everyday, like everywhere stores be fixing, fixing on a house. I rap like rather industry all day, every day like 那个 sing like I seem like in every time I seem like he gave me a look like I I over with IT.

I ask is given in police department phone interview of levels to ask where we still habit a garage against Jessie, but the department refused to make levels available. Part of me thought just he might be the last person. A constant method.

I mean, the the entire study of these clever land and a couple gonna pick on the guy who got two of a fire who has a lawyer and is probably an automatic news story of anything happens to why were the pkk on Jessie? But then after we've made away back down to a parking lot, another police car appeared, a black squad car IT turned towards us. World lays into a deserted, not moral standing. We both watch doesn't go closer.

Look.

that's levels. that's. I was suddenly aware of how alone, just in I, where he was the middle the afternoon, and nobody was around.

Officer naval didn't speed up. He just headed towards us, his face partially hidden behind the glass on the windshield. When he got to us, naval made a deliberate circle around us, growing, may be ten miles an hour.

Navels was a ball stocking black guy. He didn't return our stairs that motivate the non. I gave him looks raight ahead.

Even many drove away. Maybe IT was just a coincident. He showed up. Maybe not. I watch just his shift, his weight back, and for one, for to the other, build a fear in his head.

Sten, the other officers that I was White there, they both knew who I was. They call and tell him that moves down her.

But you told me that guy, one of those guys out there, he's like, a good call.

is a good guy. Yeah, yeah. I these these officers, good.

Who they working with, who who they are here in a field. That's what love is too. I say he was fry about to come down here.

He came, came right down here. OK right now, here. I'm ready, ready now, because I am thinking you like, is he he no mark? He no mark.

going to try and pull you over?

I don't, I don't know. I don't know what you can do IT IT IT scare is scared in this gears. Me are I do .

you want to go out here? Yeah, by that point, we were both ready to get out of there.

A quick word about the city of these clever, because everything that happened to Jessie happened in the city, but doesn't function like a Normal city. For example, when I first arted reporting about his leaving police department, I couldn't get any official information about property crimes of violent crimes, basic stuff I couldn't get. The homicides solved the number of homicides.

After asking a bunch of times, the city's law director told me flat out that the city is simply, quote, does not compile crime statistics. When I asked for disciplinary records for officers complaint, some reports I was initially told by city officials that the department could not supply those records because I had apparently destroyed them, direct violation of the city y's own record retention policy. After much badgering in a core complaint, the city cough up disciplinary records for just three of the eighty five officers that have worked in his clever land for last two years.

His Gavin could even give me record for officers who've been publicly disciplined, not for a company who sexually assaulted two women with a sex toy. He found a new car during a traffic stop, not for a time, is now a second command who pleaded to tax crimes after running in a legal city business, are not for the name. Dixon, who pleaded guilty to taking Jessie to a park, no disciplinary y records whatsoever.

IT felt like equivalent had given up on basic governance, and not just in administrative sense. I got the same feeling driving around the streets. Things are pretty bad there.

One day, a local took me down the street. Go terrace road. We passed a fourteen story apartment building, half a block long, completely gutted, no windows, like something out of I am legend debris everywhere. Then the guys we have told me.

watch this pay time right at this point.

His worth off road, up over the curb, and started driving down the side. SHE is, yeah, wow. He did this .

to get .

around the port holes in the stream, dozens. Often I say pot holes, but really, we're talking about creators. Some almost four feet wide. Underneath us were schools of tire tracks from other drivers who done the same thing.

Because I don't want, I got to pay for this car if I gave, broke and drive on the street.

It's given, got to this point, partly because of decades of this management in corruption, but also largely because of straight up structural racism. It's clear and is a black city. It's ninety per ent black. And like many black neighborhoods ties, it's been a victim of blockbusting White flight job loss and a collapsing tax space. The power rate here is forty two percent is clever on is the poorest city in the state of ohio.

After vendor in the park, when the dixon channel Jesse to a fight, Jessie and got hurt, most of that whole thing became public. He wanted to sue the police department behind a lawyer named Scott razi. And Scott ramsey approach the city to talk about that and he was surprised to find that his clever um was very open to him he got a meaning with the man and the man apologized for happens to Jesse didn't try to soft pett said what the officers did was wrong but then scot ran cy says when he in the man go to the subject of a possible lawsuit .

there was an attitude that you can file suit if you want and you can get a judgment if you want. You may get a big judgment but is just going to go into the stack over here that aren't getting pay.

Being such a poor city has countless disadvantages, but he does have this one advantage. When a person shows, you can turn your pockets inside out and show there's nothing. Now you can't lose what you don't have, right? Got razi new wear's equipment and have insurance, didn't have much in assets.

He knew the manager wasn't there. He told me in a Normal city, this could get something like a hundred to two hundred fifty thousand dollars. But he didn't want Jessie to join the stack of these cleveland unpaid lawsuits.

And there is quite a stack judge's unpaid, others stuck in a labor of appeals. So Scott rand, zy and the city of these given skip all. So instead they made a deal, the city color check for jc, twenty five thousand dollars, and called IT a day. At least the lawyers called IT a day. The cops on other hand, well, you see more after the break.

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Before we get back to Jessie, i'm going to tell you about the case of Arnold black because it'll help you understand some of what's going to happen to Jessie. And also because the case of anal black is crazy, I don't want to reach for another descriptor. IT starts out crazy, and then IT gets more crazy.

First, a caveat on black suit is cleveland. I read the court transcript. I interviewed his attorney.

There was a trial, but east cleveland, the defendant did not defend itself. They did not offer evidence or witnesses. They did not cross anyone. So what i'm going to tell you is one sided, which doesn't make IT untrue.

Everything i'm telling you now was testified to under oath in the ki hogue account cortex on please, and again was not chAllenged by the city. Here's the story. This guy are no black.

He's forty four at the time. He's driving down nuclear avenue in the middle, his clever and slightly time. He's done a landscaping job near where his mother lived, and he had gone over to her house afterwards for dinner, and now he was having home. He's driving his truck, a Green chevy silverado.

He's got equipment in the back weed worker, leaf blower lad mar and the cops pull him over one uniformed officer in a cruise er the other officer is a detective in Normal clothes, driving his Normal car the uniformed officer john athan ellory tells annal to get out of the truck, pat them down cuffin they take our on black to the rear of his truck, sit him down on the ber. The cop on street close detective andi hix, aggressively, the truck rips out the inside door panels in court, aren't black, testified to the following. He said detective hicks started asking him about drugs and his cleveland, and he told him he did no, because I don't sell drugs, I don't do drugs and I don't live in his cleveland.

He said he was looking for a kilo of cocaine, and he said to me that I wasn't in the right truck. Evidently, detective hicks was looking for a drug dealer in a Green truck. But Arnold wasn't him that annoyed hicks.

He said, you mess my night up. Aren't of that. Detectives seemed off drunk. Probably he keeps asking Arnold about drugs.

Arnold the saying, why you keep asking me that then lam, detective hicks punches Arnold in the face. Arnal testified that he then starts to come a slide off the bumper. Officer or lary props him up.

Detective hicks hit him again in the head. These were hard hits, hard enough that three years later on, a black would need brain surgery to drain the fluid and blood from his skull. Even now, he can't remember things properly.

His speech is slowed. He has trouble controlling his anger. His mother and Fiona pe. Say his personality is changed.

The officers put him in the cruiser, taken back to the east, live in police department where the jail is, and they put him in a room that earned attorney calls. A storage locker is clever. Police called at a holding cell.

Tomato, tomato. No one can decide what this room is called, but whatever is IT is not a proper jail cell. No bed, no toilet, no window, no water.

It's got a bench, field lockers, the talking and some cleaning supplies, broom, mop, buckets like that. They lock Arnold in there. That's according to his testimony.

And now the timeline of all this is a little unclear. The police in county records say one thing, the trial transcript says another. But if we go by the records, at least this began on a friday night.

Arnel says he could hear people talking and hollering, walking around. He could hear keys. I knocked on the door and was screaming like I told them I had to use the bathroom.

And I said, anybody, anybody, no one comes, are no peace on a locker. Meanwhile, his girlfriend ara is getting worried. Where is he? He was supposed to hear from him.

She's calling around to friends SHE cause the hospital sunday comes, aral says an officer opens the door to the room and asks him, does anyone know you're in here? Aron says, no, the guys has been points to the ceiling. There's a microphone up there.

He says, step back they won't pick up whispers when he takes his own cell phone from his back pocket arnal gives the guard erica's number the guard dials a phone hands to Arnold that tells them to make a quick arnel tells era, the cops beat me up. I'm in east clever in jail. Come get me arnel tels.

A bit later, that same guy comes back and tosses in one of those little milk cartons, like from a school cafeteria. Era arrives, asks to see Arnold. Now this is, according to her testimony, the cops of the reception window kind of look at each other for a while.

Finally, someone says he's under investigation. You can't see him. He's under investigation. SHE feels like something's wrong, like they're lying to her. SHE calls arno's family arne's brother.

He took the standard trial to arno's brother says he goes to east cleveland and they tell them arles in cleveland jail so he drives over to cleveland where they tell them there's no 2， no black here and he's like, I was just they just told me to come here. They check, check again he goes back to east cleveland where they again say, we don't know what to tell you. The end here.

It's now monday day, three of the storage room. Arnal is a terrible pain from his head injuries. He can't sleep, really is hungry in court, and said that aside from that one little milk carton, they gave him nothing to eat or drink.

The pee in the knocker is stinking. He's intensely anxious, is where the cops are gona do something to eric because he called her, feels like the room is closing them on them. Finally, again, if i'm reading the records right on day five, he's put in a van and taken to the county jail at the justice center.

He's held there are a couple days until Erica comes to get him paces bond two hundred and fifty box. When he sees him walking out of the county jail, he says his head is so swan. He looks like he's ring a helmet.

SHE takes them home. Sometime later, arnal gets a letter in the male telling him he's been invited by a grand jury for possessing crack cocaine. I was, like, charge with cocaine.

Arnt said, I never had no cocaine. How can I get charged with that? In the police report, officer a. Li claim, ed, he found a baggie of crack under ordinance tongue, and also that he yet a baggie of marijuana.

I'll point out that the east clean and detective who testified about the crack before the grand jury, erg Jones, was at that time part of a couple of east clever cops who were shaking down drug dealers, stealing their money and falsifying evidence. He's now in federal prison, but I digress. In any case, the prosecutor could see the circumstances of arno's arrest or shady.

You've been told about the beating. This file was going to be trouble. They drop the church.

Arnold hire a civil rights lawyer Barbie to cello. He sees, he sees the city of cleveland. He sees the police chief ralf spots.

He sues officer Larry. He sees detective hix. He's asking for thirty five million dollars. Bob ty, cello seeks a settlement from the city on behalf of our black.

The chelle gets much the same pitch Scott ramsey got when he saw a settlement for Jessie. There's only so much we can afford to chillis response, though very different. Here's Bobby to chell.

We heard as the chief defense, why are you doing this? We don't have any money. Don't you see where poor? Don't you see where are poor cities? Streets are not very good.

Don't you see that were in a state was called financial or fiscal emergency, where the state of ohi was run our books and has to authorize every expenditure you can get paid? Here's what we can do. We can give you a fifty grand.

Would you be happy to fifty grand? Would that be good enough? And I would respond. Let me get this straight.

Uh, you guys beat up my client, put him in a locker storage locker made in p there. And by the way, feed him nothing of the court and milk for four days. And you think i'm here just for fifty grand.

really i'm going to ask you to bear with me a little longer here because this story gets Better slash worse. As they prepare for trial, the chill finds out there was dash camp footage of the arrest that shows detective hix speeding Arnold. And they also discover that that same raw video was later edited by the police, altered, so was not to show the beating and listen up here that the police chief and the mayor knew about IT.

They discovered that the east living police did this all the time. In fact, they discovered that nothing that happened to our no black during the time he was secretly in east van's custody was unusual. Police, in these clever and routinely pulled people over and rough them up that had been the practice for decades, routinely held them in jail for no reason, routinely altered evidence.

The police chief routinely told officers to keep quiet about abuse to avoid lawsuits. The charlie had found out about almost all this stuff from a most unlikely source, detective Randy hicks, the guy who beat on on black hicks, had walked off the job within days of arnal arrest, he said. Soon as he realized his bosses are gonna blame everything on him.

He admit the department for about fifteen years, head of the neurologic unit for six, had earned recommendations. He wasn't a rogue cop. He said he was doing what they've been taught to do in he's cleveland.

We asked the city's law director to respond to the story. SHE didn't. Neither did officer a lary or detective hacks. The then mayor, gary norton, did respond. He said the characterization from the civil trial are one thousand percent false.

He said, I only know about the dash cam video was that, quote, there was a gap in the tape and, quote, a gap. And he said he didn't know about the holding cell slash stories locker at the jail, which was downstairs from his office. I just didn't know.

I really didn't. But then police chief for of spots also called this back. He said, dido, there was no such culture of aggression within the police apartment.

He said no pattern of altering evidence or of hiding abuse. Mister Scott said detective hix was just shifting blame for his own personal wrongdoing. The civil lawsuit drags on, years go by, but at no point disease lavan ever hand over discovery, not one piece of paper.

Never mind the dash camp video or personnel records or logs from the jail, the cello never even gets a police report. The city law director claim SHE doesn't know where anything is. They simply have nothing to hand over its agreeable enough this refusal to engage.

But the judge finally issues a ruling saying, OK is cleveland. You are now barred from introducing any evidence of trial. So are you going to have a trial? But you cannot defend d yourself.

You've foreface ted that, right? The city appeals this ruling appeal once, twice. They get denied in twenty sixteen, four years after anal speeding and arrest, they finally go to trial.

And the only person who shows up for the other side, the only person is former east cleveland detective. No city law director, no police chief, no mayor, just Randy hacks all by himself. And he admitted everything. There's this extraordinary part of the trial transcript in which to cell reads a long list of all the things officers and ice crean did and hicks confirms that all of IT to chell number four officer hicks was and his fellow officers were required by chief spots to follow a custom of using violence in the city, east cleveland, which had officers using force on civilians to compel statements from them to establish control to instead fear and submission and to show dominance during arrests and traffic stop.

The judge, is that true fix? Yes, you're honor a jury awarded, aren't black, twenty two million dollars in compensation and punitive damages, a twenty two million dollar judgment Victory, right? Not exactly because get this the morning of trial.

About an hour and a half before I started, the city's lawyer filed a notice of appeal with the ohio supreme court. That's a noticing. Hey, we're planning on filing something with you guys.

The city had assumed that the notice would stop the clock on the trial, and retroactively IT did. An appeals court later ruled that the trial should not have gone forward with that notice pending. So now, as I write this, in twenty eighteen, the verdict and arno black case has been overturned.

Now the cello is the one appealing. He's not sure if hl prevail, he might have to retry this case. Civil lawsuit s are supposed to lead to reform.

That's the hope that the city will fix the problems that are costing in a lot of money. We talk to eleven attorney is who do civil rights cases in kazoo county. One attn y said, yeah, bring IT.

I have no problem pulling the trigger against this clean. The other ten attorney is no way they said it's not worth that. Said one, i'm a business to said another, we heard there's no reward.

We heard it's a bitch. We heard I turned down any case that comes from east cleveland. Heart breaking, in other words, aren't black, is a cautionary tale which makes a chell nuts. He doesn't see IT that way. And he says our black doesn't either.

The city hasn't paid on a black edme, but he has gotten quite a bit of money as a result of lawsuit from a funding company that allows plenty tips, money based on likely verdicts as a whole financial industry, apparently. But more to the point, a chelle says there's now a public record of how east cleveland was running as police department. This case, this verdict, was national news because I went to trial.

I am talking about IT right now. I asked a cello, can you understand, though, how someone like Jessie nickson might not wanna spend six plus years fighting the city, especially if they live there? The chao said, yeah, but if a client did tell him that he'd push back with a speech that goes something like this.

we are the police of the police by constitutional Mandate. Thank god this is gonna be about. Do you understand what's happening? Do you understand what the lives are that at stake here? IT does impact this all.

You're the guy you snaked out, you know, you ve got out of the way the bully for a few books could job did but did your community matter to you? And if if the response comes back, no IT doesn't. I don't want, then i'm do to be bound to listen to my client.

I get that but understand what's going to continue and we'll have that conversation. Won't we were responsible about IT like I work with my own brother or sister. Look, bro, I get IT.

You don't want to be in the fight, but here's what going to happen. The bully on the streets going to do this again and again and again. Can you live in .

that town if you settle for peanuts like Jessie did? Jo says you're not going to get real change, are going to get peanut s and now you're living in your same town along with the same people you're scared of, right? And that's where Jessie is. A man was gonna take IT from here.

About three weeks after we made up in the park. I wanted to check in with Jessie to see Harry. I was doing, see if he had any more runnings with his clever police.

And first I couldn't get a hold of them, but I got food to his girlfriend. Actually, SHE long into a whole thing, something that happened between Jessie and the police. And the full of july, the police had left up. As he said, Jessie wanted to tell me about IT. He had a new phone, so he gave me a number, which I dwt immediately .

as told me to me in crazy. He told me that I just, Peter, yeah, I did have on the four .

of july, just is street for a block party. Neighbors put out road, goes and close off the street. About seventy people came out.

This is as he was unusual. Kids playing basketball, people grilling fireworks just in his friends helps set IT up. This party went on all day and interview evening around midnight east, giving police showed up.

Setting off fireworks without a permit is illegal on I, O, and you can't just block off the street. So the police said IT was time to clear out. People started to head home. Jessie says he and his friends were driving their feet, messing around of a basketball, given the couple of matteo de. When quite a probe, a police officer, an older guy, yelled through a crowd in red shop, get a out of C.

r.

Jesse and some of his friends confronted the officer.

Couple of people we have to we the .

holiday forty, so we just. Like this and when you do that around the one .

officer with light, yeah set to but stepping up to in these police .

officer and talking like my 没关系。

Everybody came for lage from three different officers. A lot of IT is black and dark, but i've watched IT over and over, according to a police. Foobar Jesses back on an officer.

But you can't save that on the body camp. Instead, IT seems as if a police just honed in on Jessie as a crowd of people. But Jessie seems to be the one they want in the body camp footage.

You see Jessie in some of his friends talking back to the police officers just is in the real of the group. At one point, he started to back away, puts his hands in the air like, fine, forget this, i'm out of here and just went. One of the officers washes in, bypasses all the other guys standing in front of Jesse and grab them.

Another of the grab, just the two, they cut him dragon towards a police car, but police seem frantic. A cloud of people in the street is screaming at the officers, cursing them. The situation feels like a good boy over.

Once they get to the police car, it's okay out. You can't tell exactly what's happening, but there's a fun, which is maybe Jessie slammed into the car door when he starts screaming, my ARM, my ARM. His shoulder was injured.

Jesse's lying on the ground on his stomach, trusting away from his hurt shoulder, his head almost underneath the tile pipe. And I hope he seems to know Jessie, or at least jessy s name starts telling him to get up. now.

We wash for it's not .

clear whether the officers saying this because Jesse heard himself trying to screw away from the cops, and now the officers trying to make sure that fact gets recorded on the body. One of the police got rough trying to shop justice in the car, and now they're trying to cover for themselves. Ten minutes later, emt arrive.

They take just to the hospital, or he spends for night. The next morning, justice wake to find five mister mini tickets on the blanket of his hospital bed. Failure to disperse this only conduct existing arrest, assault and menacing. When I talk to justice on the phone, I could hear how once you wanted to fight back. But also I can here have honor ly film.

It's like every time I get the park, I got to be people for the 那是 俺家 没 在 的， 他家 都 不配 的， 他不配 的。 I know you are. Every time you and I said, yeah, I thought he was a world where, as you see, is is not. The social and I.

Well, well, you, you, you do what you mean. You you don't have done you. You think you are granting you yeah here. yeah.

Can you see what happened? Now i'm not doing shit, but i'm going, i'm going to rest for, I feel for me set them off to jil. So I regret IT. IT feels like you you don't see an end of IT you think this gna be even 是 this is， this is the begin. This is the begin.

Just he went to equivalence cohorts about a week later who is arrayment on the five charges for a fourth july. The court house is just one room, and these cleave in small city hall. We're almost every city department, including the police department, is packed into a squat, two and a half story building.

I called up with justice before court started right outside the courtroom, Jessie's lawyers got rand's y couldn't be there that day, but he told Jessie, no big deal to plead not guilty. Don't talk too much. Nothing seriously gona happen today.

Jessie wasn't good spirits, laughing and joking. He took IT in stride. One of the bail live told him for rip jesus. He had on those weren't gonna over to, well, in the court room I got.

I went home to change. Men .

came back. We got seats in court, got started. The judge began to spin through the cases, most of very small traffic .

tickets and stuff after about .

thirty minutes. So Jessie gone up now something to me, and walked out of the courtroom. It's very of ebulis. So I fired left to make a call.

Timon is went by any, having come back then twenty, thirty court finished still no, jessy, even stranger, his case has never been called and try his phone. But IT went right to voice, spell god is girl. And actually no answer.

I was such, such, the whole building hall, ways for bathrooms, the parking lot. Jessie was nowhere. But why? I mean, Jessie, with his grimly history, had to know, but not showing up for court, might get him in a restaurant.

So why would you show up, take the time to go home and changed clothes, come back and then leave again? I asked around, was anyone I thought I know was going on? And the j he'd like gold. He had like red sneakers. Finally, a bave told me he's seen Jessie walk out of the court room.

He came on the court in the hallway two or two to his, when they were to, and then after the hack, at time down stays. And what charge they, charge them. And White. So this is a boat. What I know.

Okay, jeff have been arrested now. I needed to find out why I went to a police station, a stern woman at a window with you to tell me what had been arrested for. It's a violation of his privacy, he said, which by away I checked, it's not.

Then he told me you would have to talk to achieve the police. Was he in? No, he said a little later, I had a different person at the same window.

A Young police officer, I thought might be more helpful. nope. He said he wasn't allowed to tell me what the charges were, even though I was a reporter.

Department policy, again, I jacked. It's not. I'm not in the judges the door, and maybe they could help, but everyone was gone for the .

day they left.

对， yes yes.

那 中文。

就是 一口。

okay, all do you respect? There was three o'clock in the afternoon.

I made a bunch .

of calls, the city before next day soon, basin music of me, cooling as I was of asking, did his rayman happen already?

A going to the house.

just like bond, get information .

out there is there should be .

public information.

right, sir, we don't get information.

okay. Can I just ask why not? After a while, I got really happens on the phone. This is is law director SHE didn't hang up on me or ignore my arguments about things being in public record.

SHE was nice, lots of polite, and well, I didn't wanna be recorded, but he did answer my questions. SHE told me Jessie been arrested in charge with mister me for a completely different case. But if we go there, Jesse yelled that and intimated an officer.

Instead of arresting Jesse van, the police have put a warn out for his arrest after we've been talking a couple minutes, we are asked if I could hold. You must have something about there being some other details. As I had a rougher foot papers, willer said that after the arrest, just he hit his head on the ground on the wait of a jail, but he deliberately peed himself in his cell. But Jessie been taken to the hospital for a psychological evaluation.

You went.

Before I heard from Jesse again, I wanted to ask him about the arrests, about what we will told me, but just he coming off. He said he didn't have time to get into that. He's something more .

important to tell. Me, listen n today, nothing blockers and no bathroom. So i'm in room. I'm in this room for two days when I have to be one force of White my eyes like like who? I had a midday taste and SHE in a logger you could to p in one. I had a piece and ship in a locked room.

Jesse was telling me that the police had put him in the very same room, but army black have been locked in for days. The question was, would anyone care next time on cereal?

Serials produced Julie snider, a manual joky bank ho in me, with additional reporting by italy's coskata editing on this episode from ion glass when any danger field is our digital editor research, in fact, checking by benn, fAiling sound design and mixed by still Nelson. Additional production from cabinski music clearance by Anthony roman settling is our director of Operations.

The central staff includes Emily contain, Julie whitaker, casey holy Francis swan and maternity. Our music is by adam dorn how will know with additional music from mamma I fits mires nick thurber n and westwards our theme song is by nickerson n and reMarks by adam dorn. Special thanks this episode to milla Georgeous at little erik bur, William vodrey, Nancy Jameson, mallie morphy, chis link at the acu and calling cotter at legalize society of clever.

Thanks also to pan dora for airing the show. The art on our website was made by Martina's eb. He created the mirror for this episode and mod studio did the animation.

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