Latest / The Breakfast Club / Whistleblower Warns USPS System Could Derail Midterms, Haitian Student Dies After ICE Ankle Monitor & California's “Butt Sniffer” Arrested Again

Transcript

Whistleblower Warns USPS System Could Derail Midterms, Haitian Student Dies After ICE Ankle Monitor & California's “Butt Sniffer” Arrested Again · The Breakfast Club

• 0:05
  Speaker 1: A whistleblower says a new postal service system could cause
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: serious problems with mail-in ballots, just as the midterms are
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: about to get underway.
• 0:13
  Speaker 2: The Trump administration is going to try to suppress your vote,
• 0:16
  Speaker 2: put obstacles in front of you, find a way around it.
• 0:20
  Speaker 2: If you don't get a mail-in ballot, go vote in person.
• 0:23
  Speaker 2: Make sure you vote early. If you discover you're not
• 0:26
  Speaker 2: registered to vote, well, go register to vote.
• 0:28
  Speaker 1: And a 20-year-old Haitian college student is dead, and his
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: family says the pressure surrounding his immigration status played a
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: role it's time for.
• 0:36
  Speaker 3: People to wake up this has nothing to do about
• 0:40
  Speaker 3: immigration enforcement when you're dehumanizing people you're putting chains on people.
• 0:45
  Speaker 1: And a southern california man known for sniffing women's backsides
• 0:49
  Speaker 1: in public is behind bars again it's thursday september 3rd
• 0:54
  Speaker 1: from the black effect podcast network i'm mimi brown and
• 0:58
  Speaker 1: here are the day's biggest stories stay with me A
• 1:05
  Speaker 1: federal whistleblower is raising serious concerns about a new postal
• 1:09
  Speaker 1: service system being built to carry out President Trump's mail-in
• 1:13
  Speaker 1: voting plan, warning it was rushed, largely untested, and could
• 1:17
  Speaker 1: cause major problems during the midterm elections. The system is
• 1:21
  Speaker 1: called the Federal Ballot Mail Portal. Under Trump's plan, states
• 1:25
  Speaker 1: would provide voter information to the Postal Service, which would
• 1:29
  Speaker 1: then use the new system to verify voters before mail-in
• 1:32
  Speaker 1: ballots are sent out. But the whistleblower, an anonymous federal
• 1:36
  Speaker 1: official represented by Whistleblower Aid, says there are serious problems
• 1:40
  Speaker 1: with how this system could work.
• 1:42
  Speaker 4: So think about this. A state says, OK, we've sent
• 1:46
  Speaker 4: you our list of names. You've got all of them.
• 1:48
  Speaker 4: Now we actually want to send out ballots. So here
• 1:51
  Speaker 4: are 10,000 ballots we want to send out in this county.
• 1:54
  Speaker 4: And those get uploaded to the U.S.
• 1:57
  Speaker 3: Postal Service.
• 1:57
  Speaker 4: Let's say that one of the names in that 10,000
• 2:01
  Speaker 4: doesn't match. All 10,000 get rejected. All 10,000. Not just
• 2:04
  Speaker 4: that one. All 10,000. That's how it's designed to work.
• 2:07
  Speaker 4: This is not a bug. This is not a flaw.
• 2:09
  Speaker 4: This is not the, you know, we didn't have time.
• 2:11
  Speaker 4: This is literally a design by this administration on how
• 2:16
  Speaker 4: this system should work.
• 2:18
  Speaker 1: So one bad barcode could potentially hold up thousands of ballots.
• 2:22
  Speaker 1: And on a national scale, the whistleblower warns millions of
• 2:25
  Speaker 1: Americans could get their ballots late or not at all.
• 2:29
  Speaker 1: The complaint also says the Postal Service didn't seriously begin
• 2:32
  Speaker 1: building the portal until June, giving workers less than three
• 2:35
  Speaker 1: months for a project that could normally take nine months
• 2:38
  Speaker 1: to a year. And the whistleblower claims work on the
• 2:42
  Speaker 1: system continued while court orders blocking parts of Trump's plan
• 2:46
  Speaker 1: were still in place. The Postal Service confirms it continued
• 2:49
  Speaker 1: developing the portal during the legal fight, but says it
• 2:53
  Speaker 1: has complied with the court orders because it is not
• 2:55
  Speaker 1: currently using parts of the system that could reject ballots.
• 2:59
  Speaker 1: The White House is now also pushing back, saying this
• 3:02
  Speaker 1: type of technology is not new or unusually complicated for
• 3:06
  Speaker 1: the Postal Service. Right now, a federal judge has temporarily
• 3:09
  Speaker 1: blocked the Postal Service from requiring states to use this
• 3:12
  Speaker 1: new system. including submitting voter information and getting ballot envelopes
• 3:17
  Speaker 1: approved before those ballots can be mailed. But another hearing
• 3:21
  Speaker 1: is expected today as the court considers whether to keep
• 3:24
  Speaker 1: those changes blocked for longer. And this is moving very
• 3:28
  Speaker 1: quickly because some states are already preparing to start sending
• 3:31
  Speaker 1: out mail-in ballots. The family of 20-year-old Pierre Damasbell is
• 3:41
  Speaker 1: speaking out and calling attention to what they say happened
• 3:43
  Speaker 1: to him in the weeks before his death. Pierre was
• 3:46
  Speaker 1: a Haitian immigrant and neuroscience student at Wright State University
• 3:49
  Speaker 1: in Ohio. His family says he was trying to do
• 3:52
  Speaker 1: everything right, going to school, working, and following the immigration process.
• 3:57
  Speaker 1: But on July 29th, ICE placed him on a GPS
• 4:00
  Speaker 1: ankle monitor while his immigration case continued. His family says
• 4:04
  Speaker 1: that's when they began to see a change. They say
• 4:07
  Speaker 1: Pierre was embarrassed by the monitor, bullied at school, and
• 4:10
  Speaker 1: struggled to play soccer because of it. And they say
• 4:13
  Speaker 1: he didn't just accept it. He reportedly traveled to the
• 4:16
  Speaker 1: immigration offices more than once, asking officials to take off
• 4:20
  Speaker 1: the monitor. They refused. Then Monday, Pierre called his father
• 4:24
  Speaker 1: and told him he wasn't feeling or thinking right. Later
• 4:27
  Speaker 1: that morning, authorities say Pierre walked onto Interstate 70 and
• 4:31
  Speaker 1: was struck and killed by an 18-wheeler. Now his family
• 4:35
  Speaker 1: and community leaders in Springfield are calling for an end
• 4:38
  Speaker 1: to GPS ankle monitoring for Haitian immigrants. Pierre's family attended
• 4:43
  Speaker 1: a news conference on Tuesday.
• 4:45
  Speaker 3: It was customary in his language to continuously over-explain, and
• 4:51
  Speaker 3: he didn't have to, that he was not a criminal.
• 4:55
  Speaker 3: At work, at school, on social media, on TikTok, on Instagram.
• 5:02
  Speaker 3: If you go... to his Instagram profile, it is evident
• 5:06
  Speaker 3: Pierre was a rising student at Wright University. He had
• 5:11
  Speaker 3: aspirations to major in neuroscience. He told me how much
• 5:14
  Speaker 3: education was important to him. The only way his little
• 5:18
  Speaker 3: brother that is 15 years old is surviving is because
• 5:22
  Speaker 3: of the words that was echoed by his brother to
• 5:25
  Speaker 3: pursue his education no matter what. The rhetoric that we're
• 5:29
  Speaker 3: deporting illegals, which is extremely dehumanizing. There's nothing illegal or
• 5:36
  Speaker 3: criminalizing about Pierre Damas' belt, not even a traffic ticket.
• 5:41
  Speaker 3: And it shouldn't have to get to this point for
• 5:43
  Speaker 3: this administration to understand that there's blood on their hands.
• 5:48
  Speaker 3: There's nothing just about this current immigration policy. There's nothing
• 5:51
  Speaker 3: just about shackling people that have not ever committed a crime.
• 5:56
  Speaker 3: This was his continuous statement to me on the phone.
• 6:00
  Speaker 3: It's ridiculous. And our public elected officials in Ohio need
• 6:04
  Speaker 3: to do their jobs and stop reducing people to political
• 6:08
  Speaker 3: pawns and stories. This was a situation that could have
• 6:11
  Speaker 3: been prevented. Here was more patriotic than hateful Americans that's
• 6:19
  Speaker 3: pushing this harmful dehumanizing rhetoric. He was a JROTC student.
• 6:24
  Speaker 3: He showed respect. powerful leadership as a varsity soccer player.
• 6:31
  Speaker 3: It's time for people to wake up. This has nothing
• 6:34
  Speaker 3: to do about immigration enforcement. When you're dehumanizing people, you're
• 6:38
  Speaker 3: putting chains on people.
• 6:41
  Speaker 1: Ohio Governor Mike DeWine, a Republican who has criticized the
• 6:44
  Speaker 1: Trump administration's push to deport Haitians from Ohio, is also
• 6:49
  Speaker 1: weighing in. He called Pierre's death a horrible, horrible tragedy
• 6:54
  Speaker 1: and questions whether this is how the country should be
• 6:56
  Speaker 1: treating people like him. And this is now becoming a
• 7:00
  Speaker 1: bigger conversation in Springfield. Community leaders are calling on immigration
• 7:04
  Speaker 1: officials to stop using ankle monitors on Haitian immigrants, arguing
• 7:08
  Speaker 1: that people who are following the immigration process should not
• 7:11
  Speaker 1: be treated like criminals. The Ohio State Patrol is investigating
• 7:15
  Speaker 1: Pierre's death, And Ice says it will not speculate about
• 7:18
  Speaker 1: what led to his death while that investigation continues. And finally,
• 7:28
  Speaker 1: Southern California's so-called serial butt sniffer has been arrested again.
• 7:33
  Speaker 1: His name is Calise Crowder. He is 39 years old
• 7:36
  Speaker 1: and is a registered sex offender. Police say two Glendale
• 7:40
  Speaker 1: businesses called about him within the same hour last week.
• 7:44
  Speaker 1: The first caller reported a man crouching down in the
• 7:47
  Speaker 1: aisles and appearing to sniff women. Then police got another
• 7:50
  Speaker 1: call from a nearby marshals reporting similar behavior. Investigators checked
• 7:55
  Speaker 1: surveillance video, identified Crowder, and arrested him a short time
• 7:59
  Speaker 1: later for a parole violation. If this sounds familiar, there's
• 8:03
  Speaker 1: a reason. Crowder has been arrested multiple times for similar behavior.
• 8:08
  Speaker 1: Back in 2025, surveillance video from a Burbank Nordstrom rack
• 8:12
  Speaker 1: showed him following a female shopper, crouching down behind her
• 8:16
  Speaker 1: and appearing to sniff her butt. Police later found him
• 8:19
  Speaker 1: at a nearby Walmart where they said he was following
• 8:21
  Speaker 1: another woman. And many people first learned his name in
• 8:25
  Speaker 1: 2023 when a woman posted a viral TikTok showing a
• 8:28
  Speaker 1: man crouched down behind her inside a Burbank Barnes & Noble. Now,
• 8:32
  Speaker 1: three years later, Crowder is back in custody. He's being
• 8:35
  Speaker 1: held on a parole violation while the case moves forward.
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  Speaker 1: That's your front page. I'm Mimi Brown. This podcast was
• 8:45
  Speaker 1: brought to you by the Black Effect Podcast Network.