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INTERVIEW: Attorney Ben Crump On Mississippi Man Who Was Killed And Buried By Police · The Breakfast Club

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  Speaker 1: Wake that ass up in the morning. The Breakfast Club.
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  Speaker 2: Morning, everybody is stej Envy Charlomagne, the god.
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  Speaker 1: We are the Breakfast Club.
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  Speaker 2: We got our guest co host Lorla Rosa head and
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  Speaker 2: we got a special guest.
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  Speaker 1: On the line, Attorney Benjamin Crump.
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  Speaker 3: Good morning, Hey, good morning, Envy Charlemagne. Always good to
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  Speaker 3: see your kings. Lauren, good morning.
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  Speaker 4: Good morning, Attorney Crump.
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  Speaker 5: Attorney Ben Crump, he's here. You know. Ben Crump is
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  Speaker 5: always on the front lines. Man and man, there's this
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  Speaker 5: really sad story coming out of Jackson, Mississippi about Dexter Wade.
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  Speaker 5: You know, thirty seven year old Dexter Wade. He left
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  Speaker 5: his mom's house on March fifth, twenty twenty three, and
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  Speaker 5: didn't return home.
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  Speaker 1: And let him break it down. Let him break it down.
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  Speaker 1: What happens? I want to tell who the story? Ish
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  Speaker 1: he gonna tell him the fact so he knows the facts.
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  Speaker 5: I would get to that, but let me at least
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  Speaker 5: do the headline. His mother, Burden Bettterestine Wade, said she
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  Speaker 5: reported and missing on March fourteenth and didn't know he
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  Speaker 5: was deceased until August twenty fourth. What happened there with
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  Speaker 5: the Crump.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, you know, Charlemagne, You're exactly right. It's tragic. This
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  Speaker 3: brother goes missing, he gets hit, we now know by
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  Speaker 3: our police call from the Jackson, Mississippi Police, and his
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  Speaker 3: mother reports him missing about a week later, and they
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  Speaker 3: know because he has medication in his pocket. The coroner
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  Speaker 3: calls the police department and say his next of kin
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  Speaker 3: and his mother, and they do not contact her until
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  Speaker 3: a NBC reporter does an exhaustive investigative report, and almost
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  Speaker 3: seven months later, she's finally taken to a barrier ground
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  Speaker 3: for poor, unknown people in destitute who the city pays.
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  Speaker 3: So what it says to me, Charlemagne, in for out
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  Speaker 3: At best, it's gross mouth feasans. At worst, this was
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  Speaker 3: intentional because his mother absolutely believes the Jackson Police Department
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  Speaker 3: knew who her and her family were because two years later,
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  Speaker 3: I'm sorry, two years before they sued for her brother
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  Speaker 3: being killed by the Jackson Police Department.
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  Speaker 5: Her brother was killed by the police department as well.
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  Speaker 3: He was he was body slammed and died. The officers
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  Speaker 3: were charged right now there in the civil litigation. So
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  Speaker 3: his mother absolutely believed they knew who she were she was, so.
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  Speaker 5: Did they think this was some type of retaliation for
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  Speaker 5: her winning the lawsuit or revenge.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, well she thinks that it was a conspiracy Charlemagne,
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  Speaker 3: and that's why she's so broken hearted that her son
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  Speaker 3: was buried in the ground for seven months. And she's
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  Speaker 3: begging them because she's like, who else you call when
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  Speaker 3: your person, your loved one is missing, other than the police.
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  Speaker 3: And so even though she was suing them, I'm still
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  Speaker 3: a citizen of Jackson, Mississippi. You all still have to
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  Speaker 3: protect and serve us. But it's just tragic upon tragic.
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  Speaker 3: And as I was talking to tesslim figure out she
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  Speaker 3: was talking about a lot of people are saying that
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  Speaker 3: we should make sure he's exhumed and have a proper funeral.
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  Speaker 3: So a lot of people, Revenew and Benny Thompson, the
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  Speaker 3: congressman there, all reaching out now saying what can we
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  Speaker 3: do to try to give this young man some dignity
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  Speaker 3: and respect? And what I'm saying is what can we
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  Speaker 3: do to make sure there's accountability and justice so they
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  Speaker 3: don't do this again?
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  Speaker 1: Now, what's the protocol? Usually?
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  Speaker 2: Now we're talking to Attorney Benjamin Crump. If you're just
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  Speaker 2: joining us, what's the proper protocol. Usually when somebody's hit
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  Speaker 2: and they're killed, they're take it to the coroner's office,
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  Speaker 2: so there is actual like there's paperwork to say where
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  Speaker 2: this body was. So this is an opening shutcase, right,
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  Speaker 2: because this is a lead, right.
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  Speaker 3: You know, I absolutely think it's an opening shut case. Envy,
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  Speaker 3: But when you're dealing with the police in America, y'all,
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  Speaker 3: and black people dying in highly suspicious, controversial manners, nothing.
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  Speaker 1: Is clear cut.
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  Speaker 3: We have to fight for justice at every point, every turn.
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  Speaker 3: And I am waiting Charlemagne to see what their story is.
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  Speaker 3: You know, they don't have an official response.
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  Speaker 4: Ship I was gonna ask you, what are they saying, Like,
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  Speaker 4: how are they explaining this?
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, the mayor said, obviously there was a great miscommunication there.
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  Speaker 3: But we have the Mississippi Bureau of Investigations. They said
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  Speaker 3: it's gonna do an investigation, but I don't really trust
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  Speaker 3: them as much. I think we're gonna have to do
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  Speaker 3: our own parallel investigation. We may have to get the
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  Speaker 3: fairs to come in because man, if this was your
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  Speaker 3: law born and you had a lawsuit against the city
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  Speaker 3: and they didn't tell you about they had a coccident
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  Speaker 3: with your son who was a pedestrian, and then they
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  Speaker 3: buried him in an unknown funeral cemetery and then say,
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  Speaker 3: just give us the benefit of the doubt. Who in
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  Speaker 3: America would say no, no, we're going to give you
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  Speaker 3: the benefit of the doubt. Because every day I go
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  Speaker 3: in courtrooms across America, I see black people who, if
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  Speaker 3: you take him at that word, made mistakes, but they
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  Speaker 3: never get the benefit of the dot. It's always no, no.
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  Speaker 3: We gotta make sure we amster justice and have accountability
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  Speaker 3: because we got to send the message. I think Jackson, Mississippi,
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  Speaker 3: there needs to be a message sent over Dexter Way
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  Speaker 3: for his family, his two little children, his mother, all
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  Speaker 3: these people for seven months. Can you imagine the agony
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  Speaker 3: of not knowing where your son is, where your father is.
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  Speaker 5: Yeah, we say nobody's above the law, but it always
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  Speaker 5: seems like the law is above the law. Because I
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  Speaker 5: don't understand how this is legal. I feel like this
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  Speaker 5: should be criminal off top.
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  Speaker 4: Just just the fact that she had to look for
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  Speaker 4: her son for all of that time and he knew
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  Speaker 4: exactly what was going on. I have a question for you, though,
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  Speaker 4: So if the body is exhumed, I know that they're
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  Speaker 4: talking about possibly doing that just for a proper funeral
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  Speaker 4: for the family. Is it too late to do and
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  Speaker 4: like you know, in your separate investigation, additional autopsy, like
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  Speaker 4: cause you know, the longer you wait, things get different.
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  Speaker 3: Now that's a great question, Lauren. In fact, Colin Kaepernick's
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  Speaker 3: group institute we've worked a lot on doing independent autopsies,
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  Speaker 3: and to his credit, he has done almost a dozen
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  Speaker 3: with my law firm where I remember the case in
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  Speaker 3: Georgia with a bed buck infestation kept the brother in
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  Speaker 3: the jail. Colin stepped up and offered to pay for
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  Speaker 3: that autopsy. And so I know his people are already
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  Speaker 3: talking about doing that here. But one of the things
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  Speaker 3: we gotta do, we got to go get a court
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  Speaker 3: petition to exhume the body, because you just can't go
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  Speaker 3: dig up about it without getting permission from the court.
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  Speaker 3: So my office is gonna have to jump through some hoops.
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  Speaker 3: But we do intend on getting an independent all tops
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  Speaker 3: and having a proper funeral for this young man so
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  Speaker 3: his children would know that his life mattered, and hopefully,
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  Speaker 3: you know, Jackson, Mississippi, would know that they can't sweep
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  Speaker 3: this under the rug because had that mother given up.
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  Speaker 3: Charlemagne Envy, it would have just been swept under the
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  Speaker 3: rug like it didn't matter. But that lady kept saying,
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  Speaker 3: somebody knows what happened to my child.
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  Speaker 2: Now, Tourny Benjamin Cruk, What about cameras? Right, We talked
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  Speaker 2: so much about cameras being on police officers, so they
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  Speaker 2: had to move the body. We talked so much about
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  Speaker 2: dashboard cameras on the police call, so that would have
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  Speaker 2: seen him actually got hit.
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  Speaker 1: Do we have any of that footage? Now? Was it
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  Speaker 1: erased or how does that look?
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  Speaker 3: You know, dj Envy, they're supposed to have dash cam
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  Speaker 3: videos on their car. I would suspect what they're going
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  Speaker 3: to try to defend or articulate is they didn't have
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  Speaker 3: their emergency cameras on their flashing lights since our range,
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  Speaker 3: so that the dash cam video would not have come on.
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  Speaker 3: But we're going to look at every aspect of it. Certainly,
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  Speaker 3: when they hit them somebody body cameras should have been
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  Speaker 3: put on or something. We should be able to see
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  Speaker 3: what happened to this brother. And we understand that he
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  Speaker 3: died from the injuries from the co accident. We are
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  Speaker 3: not even sure if they took him to the hospital.
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  Speaker 3: He may have been dead on a rival when the
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  Speaker 3: ambulance got there.
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  Speaker 5: Just a couple more questions, mister Cubo won really how
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  Speaker 5: often do independent autopsy's changed the course of cases?
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  Speaker 3: Oh, Charlamagne is so important. Anybody who can afford it.
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  Speaker 3: If there's a deaf and custody case, I implore you
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  Speaker 3: to please get an independent autopsy because you cannot trust
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  Speaker 3: the medica examiner or the coroner, the local coroner because
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  Speaker 3: they worked with the police every day. It's like the
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  Speaker 3: prosecutors work with the police every day, So there's an
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  Speaker 3: implicit bias in favor of trying to help craft the
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  Speaker 3: narrative that best and his most advantageous to the police narrative.
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  Speaker 3: What the police want to probably say here, Charlamagne, is
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  Speaker 3: that we didn't know it was uh, you know.
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  Speaker 1: We did everything we could.
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  Speaker 3: We just didn't know who the young man was and
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  Speaker 3: all this stuff, and then we didn't see need to
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  Speaker 3: get an autopsy or if we got an autopsy. They're
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  Speaker 3: gonna try to craft it where it helps the Jacksonville
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  Speaker 3: police not be charged with homicide. They're gonna try to
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  Speaker 3: make it some easier charge. If we get charges at all.
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  Speaker 1: Okay, a question for you. You know we could keep
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  Speaker 1: going on day Yeah, yeah, please when do the funeral?
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  Speaker 5: MV.
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  Speaker 3: Charlamagde think I'll always Lord and tell my sister Tessling
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  Speaker 3: figure I said, what's up.
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  Speaker 5: Absolutely definitely will all right with the history of Mississippi.
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  Speaker 5: It's no telling how many missing black people just buried
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  Speaker 5: somewhere in Mississippi, is.
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  Speaker 2: Right, Very sad, Lord, very sad. All right, when we
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  Speaker 2: come back, we got your room of reports.
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  Speaker 1: You don't move. It's the Breakfast Club. Good morning. Wake
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  Speaker 1: that ass up in the morning. The Breakfast Club