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Descend into the Particular · Revisionist History

0:15
Speaker 1: Pushkin Quick heads Up. This episode contains depictions of violence
0:22
Speaker 1: that may be upsetting to some listeners. In a small,
0:29
Speaker 1: elegant apartment in Hollywood, a young man sits on his
0:33
Speaker 1: couch looking out the open window, remembering the saddest day
0:37
Speaker 1: of his life. His name is Felipe Navarro, thirty years old, short,
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Speaker 1: black hair, a beautiful, wide smile.
0:46
Speaker 2: Angel was my brother. He was my only sibling. We
0:49
Speaker 2: were born exactly like a year and two weeks apart.
0:52
Speaker 2: So my birthday is mid October and he was born
0:55
Speaker 2: the following year on Halloween.
0:57
Speaker 1: That was the beginning, and this was the end.
1:01
Speaker 2: He died Thursday May twenty sixth, twenty sixteen, and it
1:05
Speaker 2: was about to be Friday, Memorial Day weekend, and we
1:10
Speaker 2: were not notified until that Sunday morning, and they claimed
1:15
Speaker 2: that they couldn't find us, even though they had his wallet,
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Speaker 2: and he's an ID. So then come that Sunday, my
1:23
Speaker 2: parents had gone to breakfast and they came back and
1:26
Speaker 2: there's about four or five cop cars at their home.
1:30
Speaker 1: Angel had been in New Mexico visiting with a friend.
1:33
Speaker 1: Felippe and their parents were in California. Felippe doesn't know
1:37
Speaker 1: why it took so long for the New Mexico police
1:39
Speaker 1: to notify them three days, didn't his brother have his
1:43
Speaker 1: ID on him? And even after the police came, the
1:46
Speaker 1: Navarros didn't know what happened to Angel.
1:49
Speaker 2: I called the detective, and every time I spoke to her,
1:52
Speaker 2: they were like, unfortunately, like we can't give you any
1:55
Speaker 2: information because it's an investigation, and everything was always under investigation.
2:00
Speaker 2: And at first I didn't really think anything any sort
2:06
Speaker 2: of mount malice on the police department, because I don't
2:11
Speaker 2: even think I knew at that point that he had
2:12
Speaker 2: been killed by the police, and I certainly didn't even
2:15
Speaker 2: know the backstory of how he even got into that
2:17
Speaker 2: altercation with the police. I should say incident, not altercation.
2:22
Speaker 2: But I think all I was trying to figure out
2:25
Speaker 2: was what was what had happened.
2:28
Speaker 1: Angel Navarro was killed by the police on Interstate twenty
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Speaker 1: five in New Mexico outside Albuquerque on May twenty six,
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Speaker 1: twenty sixteen. The officers fired twenty seven times. They thought
2:42
Speaker 1: Navarro had a gun in his hand. He didn't. He
2:46
Speaker 1: had a cell phone. My name is Malcolm Gladwell. You're
2:53
Speaker 1: listening to Revisionist History, my podcast about things overlooked and misunderstood.
3:01
Speaker 1: This is the final episode in my three part mini
3:05
Speaker 1: series on thinking like a Jesuit. You now what I'm
3:10
Speaker 1: talking about in this episode is not for the feint
3:13
Speaker 1: of heart. I heard about the shooting of Angel Navarro
3:20
Speaker 1: because I went to see a forensic criminologist named Ron Martinelli.
3:25
Speaker 1: Martinelli works out of a white ranch house in Texas
3:27
Speaker 1: Hill Country, half an hour north of San Antonio. He's
3:31
Speaker 1: in his sixties, built like a prize fighter, bald, thick,
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Speaker 1: mustache pickup truck. Likes to be called Doctor Ron. I
3:39
Speaker 1: had been obsessed with a police guideline called the twenty
3:42
Speaker 1: one foot rule and thought Martinelli could help me, But
3:45
Speaker 1: then we got off on tangents and never returned.
3:49
Speaker 3: I was a tactical officer. I'm a firearms instructor. I'm
3:52
Speaker 3: a firearms expert. I've been involved in officer involved shootings.
3:56
Speaker 1: Martinelli is an investigator. An instant occurs. He gets called
4:00
Speaker 1: in to go over the evidence and figure out what happened, reconstruct,
4:04
Speaker 1: interpret was there a crime?
4:07
Speaker 3: And I sympathize on both sides with regards to officer
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Speaker 3: for I've handled officer involved shootings for the defense and
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Speaker 3: I've handled officer involved shootings for plaintiffs.
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Speaker 1: How many officer involved shooting cases have you done over
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Speaker 1: the course of hundreds? Hundreds?
4:22
Speaker 3: Yeah.
4:23
Speaker 1: Martinelli wrote a book a few years ago called The
4:26
Speaker 1: Truth Behind the Black Lives Matter Movement and the War
4:29
Speaker 1: on Police. It has chapters on Ferguson, Trayvon Martin, other
4:33
Speaker 1: cases in the news. You want to know about the
4:36
Speaker 1: Rodney King beating, maybe the most infamous example of police
4:39
Speaker 1: brutality in recent American history. Doctor Ron has a lot
4:43
Speaker 1: to say about it.
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Speaker 3: The baton, you wouldn't have used it. I wouldn't use
4:46
Speaker 3: the pepper spray. It wouldn't have worked. There's more dynamics,
4:51
Speaker 3: chemical dynamics involved with pepper spray. They wouldn't just here's
4:55
Speaker 3: the deal, it wouldn't have worked.
4:58
Speaker 1: At one point we went outside in the garden behind
5:01
Speaker 1: his house and we acted out an arrest scenario. I
5:05
Speaker 1: was the cop. He was playing the bad guy. He
5:08
Speaker 1: gave me a handgun and took another for himself. The
5:11
Speaker 1: wind was howling. It was all a bit surreal. My
5:16
Speaker 1: job was to take him into custody. We ran to
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Speaker 1: the scenario three times. He shot me dead three times.
5:23
Speaker 1: I had the feeling I wasn't the first person shot
5:25
Speaker 1: dead in Doctor Ron's backyard. We went back inside.
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Speaker 3: Okay, so we're going to play a kid's game. So
5:31
Speaker 3: just hold your hand out just like that. Yeah, okay,
5:34
Speaker 3: and I'm going to hit your hand.
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Speaker 1: Yeah okay.
5:36
Speaker 3: So I've already told you I'm going to hit your hand,
5:38
Speaker 3: so your expectation is I'm going to hit your hand.
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Speaker 3: So it's really simple. My hand's right here, and you
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Speaker 3: just move it, say, don't get hit. Are you ready?
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Speaker 1: I was ready. His hand was about a foot above mine.
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Speaker 1: I knew he was going to slap me. I still
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Speaker 1: couldn't get my hand out of the way in time.
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Speaker 3: You're ready, Yeah, you see that. Okay, you get it. Okay,
6:00
Speaker 3: So let's talk about action, reaction, perception, lag time.
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Speaker 1: Every kid knows how that game plays out. Action is
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Speaker 1: always faster than reaction. The person who decides to initiate
6:14
Speaker 1: the slap can always get your hand before you can react.
6:18
Speaker 1: That was my problem out in the backyard, he said,
6:21
Speaker 1: I was afraid of being too aggressive. But if you
6:23
Speaker 1: wait for the other person to pull their gun, you'll
6:26
Speaker 1: end up dead.
6:28
Speaker 3: Okay, let me set this up for you.
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Speaker 1: Yeah, Martinelli pulled out his laptop. He had a YouTube
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Speaker 1: video he wanted to show me that proved his point
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Speaker 1: about action and reaction.
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Speaker 3: Swat team's got a warrant on a guy on weapons charges.
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Speaker 3: Because they bring a whole swap team with them. Everybody's armed,
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Speaker 3: heavily armed, already got car beans on them. Every guns
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Speaker 3: are being pointed at this guy. They do the knock,
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Speaker 3: the door opens. Here's the guy. He's standing about ten
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Speaker 3: feet away, maybe twelve feet away. He's in the living room.
7:01
Speaker 3: He's got a T shirt, he's wearing shorts. He's got
7:04
Speaker 3: a gun in his right hand, and the gun is
7:07
Speaker 3: down at his side. So the question is how long
7:11
Speaker 3: does it take someone with the gun at their side
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Speaker 3: to raise up and accurately fire before you can fire? Action, reaction,
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Speaker 3: perceptional lag time. It's human factors.
7:24
Speaker 1: Martinelli presses play.
7:30
Speaker 3: Their only problem is they talk to him too much.
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Speaker 3: Oh hi, lo, g hold up, move on, can't off
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Speaker 3: knocking boom out. There's the gun. You see the gun,
7:48
Speaker 3: drop the gun, drop the gun.
7:50
Speaker 4: The gun.
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Speaker 1: The video is from a camera carried by one of
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Speaker 1: the cops, so that's the perspective we're seeing. It's all
7:57
Speaker 1: jumping and confusing. We're looking over the shoulder of one
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Speaker 1: of the officers at the man in the T shirt.
8:02
Speaker 1: He looks like he just got out of bed. Then
8:05
Speaker 1: suddenly there are shots shouting. It all happens very quickly.
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Speaker 1: So what happened I totally wouldn't.
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Speaker 3: You weren't ready for it.
8:14
Speaker 1: He had. So the guy has a gun.
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Speaker 3: Jah raised that gun up in twenty five hundreds of
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Speaker 3: a second and shot two of them, and then they
8:22
Speaker 3: returned fire and they killed him. So these guys had
8:25
Speaker 3: their guns already pointed at him.
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Speaker 1: Already pointed at him, He has his gun hanging down
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Speaker 1: by his side, and he manages to get to shoot
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Speaker 1: two of them before they kill him. Right, and they're
8:37
Speaker 1: trained swat officers.
8:38
Speaker 5: Right, It's unbelievable.
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Speaker 1: Okay, My thought watching that video was that the cops
8:49
Speaker 1: seemed really aggressive with their body armor and automatic weapons,
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Speaker 1: shouting and breaking down someone's door. Martinelli's point was that
8:57
Speaker 1: they weren't aggressive enough. They got shot. They could have
9:01
Speaker 1: been killed. What was all this endless drop the gun
9:04
Speaker 1: dropped the gun, but they get shot because they don't
9:10
Speaker 1: want to shoot him.
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Speaker 3: Yeah, I'm not going to tell the guy eighteen times
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Speaker 3: to put the gun down.
9:16
Speaker 1: Okay, what would you done it?
9:19
Speaker 2: Shot him?
9:22
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, as soon as as soon as that end,
9:24
Speaker 3: As soon as I saw that end start to come up,
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Speaker 3: I want to let loose. Yeah, because I understand the
9:29
Speaker 3: human factors they don't understand.
9:32
Speaker 1: Martinelli played the video again. There were nuances he wanted
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Speaker 1: to show me, like how the officers were holding their
9:37
Speaker 1: body shields all wrong. This is what he does for
9:40
Speaker 1: a living. He watches people kill each other in order
9:44
Speaker 1: to figure out who did what and why, which requires
9:48
Speaker 1: him to go over and over things that in a
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Speaker 1: perfect world no one should have to see. Even once,
9:54
Speaker 1: he told me that he wakes up in the middle
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Speaker 1: of the night sometimes and finds himself rearranging bodies in
10:00
Speaker 1: his mind. It was then, since we were already on
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Speaker 1: the topic of police officers shooting people, that he brought
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Speaker 1: up a case he'd just finished working on one. That's
10:11
Speaker 1: when we return. In the two previous episodes, I talked
10:19
Speaker 1: about the method of moral reasoning called casuistry, the Jesuit
10:23
Speaker 1: way of thinking. The Jesuits believed in the importance of
10:28
Speaker 1: descending into the particular of setting aside principles and engaging
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Speaker 1: in the specifics of the case in question. One of
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Speaker 1: the Jesuits I consulted with was a priest named James Martin,
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Speaker 1: who spoke about one of the crucial teachings behind this idea,
10:42
Speaker 1: the Jesuit notion of disordered attachments.
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Speaker 6: The person who's discerning should be like the pointer in
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Speaker 6: a balance.
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Speaker 4: Should be here, shouldn't You shouldn't be here like you know,
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Speaker 4: someone's putting your finger in the balance. You should be ready,
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Speaker 4: right in the center. Yeah, and then you're ready to
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Speaker 4: listen to things. Which is a great insight.
10:59
Speaker 5: We'll say it. Why did matter?
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Speaker 7: So?
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Speaker 4: Basically, NASA says that if you're going to make a decision,
11:03
Speaker 4: you have to come without any preconceived notions. You have
11:06
Speaker 4: to be like the pointer on a balance, those old
11:08
Speaker 4: scales the supermarket for fruit.
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Speaker 6: You have to be at zero.
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Speaker 1: A disordered attachment is not a vice. It's just something
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Speaker 1: that gets in the way of us being open minded,
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Speaker 1: being free to really listen to what others are saying
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Speaker 1: and feeling.
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Speaker 4: You know, when I was a novice, a Jesuit novice,
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Speaker 4: my novice director, we would do ministries, different ministries in
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Speaker 4: addition to praying in the house and learning about the
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Speaker 4: Jesuits and that was a key part of our work,
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Speaker 4: and it was with the poor or the sick. And
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Speaker 4: he said, well, where do you want to go? And
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Speaker 4: I said, well, let me just say the last place
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Speaker 4: I want to work as an hospital because I just don't.
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Speaker 6: Like the sights and the smells and the sounds and
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Speaker 6: it just grosses me out. And he said, well, good,
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Speaker 6: you'll be working in a hospital. And it wasn't to
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Speaker 6: be mean. It was to free me of that disordered attachment.
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Speaker 1: Martin could not be truly capable of service to another
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Speaker 1: because he was too attached to his own fears. Let
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Speaker 1: me put this same issue of disordered attachments to you.
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Speaker 1: Remember what how In Ferguson, Missouri in late summer of
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Speaker 1: twenty fourteen.
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Speaker 8: There was growing outrage tonight after an unarmed African American
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Speaker 8: teenager was shot and killed by police in the Saint
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Speaker 8: Louis suburb of Ferguson, Missouri. But there are conflicting reports
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Speaker 8: about what led up to the shooting. NBC's John Yang
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Speaker 8: has the details.
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Speaker 1: A police officer named Darren Wilson. Here's a report that
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Speaker 1: a teenager has allegedly stolen something from a convenience store,
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Speaker 1: a box of cigars. He spots eighteen year old Michael
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Speaker 1: Brown walking down the middle of the street, thinks Brown
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Speaker 1: matches the description of the suspect and pulls over. Ninety
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Speaker 1: seconds later, Brown is dead. The black community in Ferguson
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Speaker 1: erupts in protest for weeks. The police counter with armored
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Speaker 1: cars and snipers and a small army of officers in combat.
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Speaker 1: Year people took sides according to whatever ideology they were
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Speaker 1: attached to. Either this was about law and order and
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Speaker 1: you were on Darren Wilson's side, or this was about
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Speaker 1: police brutality and you were on Michael Brown's side. So
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Speaker 1: what happened after Ferguson. Well, the following spring, the Civil
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Speaker 1: Rights Division of the Department of Justice issued two reports
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Speaker 1: on the case. The first said, we're not indicting officer
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Speaker 1: Darren Wilson. What he did doesn't meet the federal legal
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Speaker 1: standard for police misconduct. The second federal report came out
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Speaker 1: the same day. It was what's called a patterns and
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Speaker 1: practices investigation. It was a broader look at policing in Ferguson.
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Speaker 1: One of the principal authors of the second report was
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Speaker 1: a lawyer named Cherog Baines.
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Speaker 7: I mean What we found was something I hadn't seen
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Speaker 7: in other departments, but I've since learned exists in many
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Speaker 7: places in America, which is a police department and actually
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Speaker 7: an entire criminal justice architecture that existed and operated to
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Speaker 7: extract wealth from the community, and specifically from the black
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Speaker 7: community in Ferguson.
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Speaker 1: Baines and his team arrived in Ferguson two days after
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Speaker 1: Michael Brown was killed. They stayed there on and off
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Speaker 1: for five months. What they found was that Ferguson was
14:13
Speaker 1: using its police department to fund the city's budget, and.
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Speaker 7: That colored everything that they did know who they arrested,
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Speaker 7: who they stopped, who they issued citations to, who got leniency,
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Speaker 7: and who was met without any in the court, who
14:28
Speaker 7: was willing to cooperate with law enforcement. There are a
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Speaker 7: number of emails from the finance director to the police
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Speaker 7: chief asking him if you can raise revenues, often by
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Speaker 7: very specific numbers. There's one saying, can you increase what
14:42
Speaker 7: the last increase you were able to do was seven
14:43
Speaker 7: point five percent over last year's revenues. Can you bring
14:46
Speaker 7: that up to ten percent this year? Can we get
14:48
Speaker 7: over a million in revenues this year? And fines and fees.
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Speaker 7: There's even an email where the finance director is suggesting
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Speaker 7: to the police chief a particular enforcement strategy, suggesting that
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Speaker 7: he deploy a certain number of overtime officers for traffic
15:00
Speaker 7: enforcement and a certain part of the city in order
15:02
Speaker 7: to and this is a quote, fill the revenue pipeline.
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Speaker 7: It's very bizarre for the finance director to be issuing
15:08
Speaker 7: any kind of instruction to the police chief on how
15:10
Speaker 7: to deploy patrol officers. But that's a window into what
15:15
Speaker 7: the priority was and what they decided to use their
15:17
Speaker 7: police force for.
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Speaker 1: Bains and his team found evidence that one time officials
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Speaker 1: in Ferguson wanted to get rid of an incompetent judge,
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Speaker 1: but the city manager said, we can't get rid of him.
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Speaker 1: He's too good at levying fines. Police officers were rewarded
15:32
Speaker 1: and promoted for their productivity, meaning how many tickets they issued,
15:37
Speaker 1: so of course they issued a lot of tickets. Any
15:39
Speaker 1: offense would do. Bains remembers one case of a man
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Speaker 1: who was sitting in his car at a playground cooling
15:45
Speaker 1: off after playing basketball. An officer drove up, blocked the
15:49
Speaker 1: man's car and demanded to see an ID.
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Speaker 7: I think he said something to the effect of like,
15:54
Speaker 7: there are kids here and you're at the park. What
15:56
Speaker 7: are You're a palot pedophile. I don't know the exact words,
15:58
Speaker 7: but that would it's my sense of what happened from
16:00
Speaker 7: talking to the gentleman, and the officer then orders him
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Speaker 7: out of the car, and the guy says, well, I'm
16:09
Speaker 7: not doing anything.
16:10
Speaker 5: I mean, I have constitutional rights.
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Speaker 7: I'm just sitting here, just playing ball, and the officer
16:14
Speaker 7: then actually pulls his gun on the guy and you know,
16:19
Speaker 7: threatening him and insisting that he got out of the car.
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Speaker 7: The way the incident ends is that the officer writes
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Speaker 7: him up for eight different tickets, including not having a
16:29
Speaker 7: seat belt on he was sitting in his car at
16:31
Speaker 7: the park, not having a license, and also having a
16:34
Speaker 7: suspended license. He managed to issue both.
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Speaker 1: Charges eight tickets. One of them was for using a
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Speaker 1: false name because the guy used his nickname like Tom
16:44
Speaker 1: instead of Thomas. If you read the two Department of
16:49
Speaker 1: Justice reports together, what you realize is that after Brown's death,
16:53
Speaker 1: both sides in the debate were wrong. One side said
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Speaker 1: Darren Wilson shot and killed an unarmed teenager in cold blood. Remember,
17:03
Speaker 1: there was a big to do about the fact that
17:05
Speaker 1: Michael Brown was supposed to have put his hands up
17:07
Speaker 1: and said, don't shoot.
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Speaker 7: The facts of this case, when you look at what
17:12
Speaker 7: we found on the criminal side with the justice partman
17:14
Speaker 7: found on the criminal side were that Michael Brown didn't
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Speaker 7: have his hands up and he wasn't surrendering when he
17:19
Speaker 7: was shot. But that's what people thought, and that's a
17:21
Speaker 7: narrative that quickly developed.
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Speaker 1: The DOJ concluded after reviewing forensic evidence that at one
17:27
Speaker 1: point Michael Brown reached into Wilson's open car window and
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Speaker 1: wrestled with him over his gun. For goodness sake, if
17:34
Speaker 1: you think this is a case about a rogue cop,
17:37
Speaker 1: you missed the point. The shooting of Michael Brown is
17:40
Speaker 1: not about a homicidal cop. It's about decades of predatory policing,
17:45
Speaker 1: about the consequences of having an entire law enforcement system
17:49
Speaker 1: organized around looting the black community. Meanwhile, the other side
17:54
Speaker 1: sees that Wilson is not facing federal charges and says, see,
17:59
Speaker 1: we were right. The police officer didn't do anything wrong.
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Speaker 1: This case is about a breakdown in respect for law
18:05
Speaker 1: and order. But that completely misses the point. Yes, Michael
18:11
Speaker 1: Brown was a kid who did not view police power
18:13
Speaker 1: as legitimate. But that's because he lived in a town
18:17
Speaker 1: where police power was not legitimate.
18:25
Speaker 7: And so for me, it's very important that people read
18:27
Speaker 7: both reports. I've spoken on this topic a number of times,
18:30
Speaker 7: and I'm often speaking to a group that's only read
18:34
Speaker 7: one report, or sometimes that has read both reports, or
18:37
Speaker 7: read some parts of both reports but only believes one.
18:40
Speaker 7: And I have to say, it was the same Justice
18:42
Speaker 7: department that did both reports. There wasn't an agenda here
18:46
Speaker 7: to bury the truth. It was a very thorough investigation
18:49
Speaker 7: on both sides. And it's rare to find people who
18:54
Speaker 7: read both and believe both and understand how they connect.
18:57
Speaker 1: It's rare to find people who read both and believe
19:01
Speaker 1: both and understand how they connect. It's rare to find
19:06
Speaker 1: people without disordered attachments when it comes to police shootings.
19:11
Speaker 1: So Angel Navarro, the case Doctor Ron brought up unexpectedly,
19:17
Speaker 1: and that I have to admit left me shaken. Let's
19:20
Speaker 1: start with a clean slate. The shooting of Angel Navarro
19:26
Speaker 1: was captured by the dash cam video of one of
19:28
Speaker 1: the officers involved in the incident. You cannot find it
19:32
Speaker 1: on the internet. It was not released publicly for the
19:35
Speaker 1: longest time. The New Mexico police wouldn't even give it
19:38
Speaker 1: to the Navarro family, which made Felipe Navarro suspicious. He
19:43
Speaker 1: and his parents filed a lawsuit, hired two lawyers on contingency,
19:48
Speaker 1: Erica Anderson and Lauren Oliveros. My researcher, Camille Baptista, went
19:54
Speaker 1: to Los Angeles to talk to Felipe. They sat together
19:58
Speaker 1: for a couple of hours. He talked about how draining
20:01
Speaker 1: the case was, depositions, motions, the whole thing went on
20:04
Speaker 1: for two and a half years. His lawyers tried to
20:07
Speaker 1: warn him.
20:09
Speaker 2: Because it was recorded on video the incident, and because
20:15
Speaker 2: of a certain evidence that was, you know there. I
20:19
Speaker 2: thought it was sort of cut and dry as to
20:22
Speaker 2: what the tape showed and what they were arguing and
20:25
Speaker 2: what we were arguing. So in my mind that's where
20:29
Speaker 2: I said. I like then I was naive and thinking like, oh, well,
20:32
Speaker 2: like the tape's there, like this is evidence. It's like
20:35
Speaker 2: the camera doesn't lie, you know. But you know, I
20:40
Speaker 2: remember we would have talks about like like how lawsuits work.
20:46
Speaker 2: In my mind, I was like, I don't know how
20:48
Speaker 2: you could possibly justify three people shooting in an unarmed person,
20:55
Speaker 2: one person, twenty seven times. When did you first see
20:59
Speaker 2: the video? You described that you saw the video. We
21:02
Speaker 2: did not get the video for I think like six months.
21:07
Speaker 2: It was not an easy thing to get. You saw it,
21:09
Speaker 2: you had like strong feelings about what it showed. If
21:13
Speaker 2: I could, you know, put myself in their shoes and
21:16
Speaker 2: vice versa, because I did try to do that and
21:19
Speaker 2: sort of okay, let me, I know my brother, I
21:22
Speaker 2: know him, you know enough to know that what I
21:26
Speaker 2: saw on the video was kind of odd behavior from him.
21:29
Speaker 2: It seemed a little erratic.
21:35
Speaker 3: This was a challenging one.
21:37
Speaker 1: Ron Martinelli was retained as an expert witness by the
21:40
Speaker 1: new Mexico Attorney General on behalf of the state police.
21:44
Speaker 1: He watched the tape as well.
21:46
Speaker 3: What was the challenge for me as a criminologist using
21:49
Speaker 3: our audio videologist and breaking it down and showing the
21:53
Speaker 3: judge that, hey, this is what it was about. That
21:55
Speaker 3: judge had no idea.
21:59
Speaker 1: Martinelli had a phrase he kept saying to me, every
22:02
Speaker 1: case is different, which I began to realize was his
22:05
Speaker 1: operating principle, kind of like the injunction of the Jesuits
22:09
Speaker 1: to descend into the particular you have to assume that
22:12
Speaker 1: the specifics, the details of the case in question matter.
22:17
Speaker 1: His task was to work backwards from the shooting, reconstructing
22:20
Speaker 1: the hours before the New Mexico police confronted Angel Navarro
22:24
Speaker 1: until he had a complete narrative of that day.
22:28
Speaker 6: Emergency likes your reporter, sling harper you.
22:34
Speaker 1: This is what he believes Angel Navarro did.
22:38
Speaker 3: He drops his girlfriend off and he's in a parking
22:41
Speaker 3: lot and he gets out of the car and he confronts, uh,
22:48
Speaker 3: just some citizen on the street, and I'm giving you
22:51
Speaker 3: the synopsized version, and he slices him with a knife.
22:57
Speaker 3: With the knife, yes, he's got me in the hand
23:01
Speaker 3: with it, and then he leaves.
23:04
Speaker 7: He took off heading shouts on Sixth Street.
23:07
Speaker 1: It looks like Angel Navarro is still the man's.
23:09
Speaker 3: Car, and of course the man calls the police. They
23:14
Speaker 3: have a good description of the vehicle, they have a
23:16
Speaker 3: license plate. There is a BOLO put out a beyond
23:20
Speaker 3: the lookout for and they end up spotting this vehicle
23:25
Speaker 3: on State Highway and so unmarked units get behind him
23:31
Speaker 3: initially because they just happen to see him, and they
23:35
Speaker 3: start following him, and then a march unit comes up
23:39
Speaker 3: and they try to pull him over, and mister Navarro
23:42
Speaker 3: takes off, but he doesn't take off at a really
23:46
Speaker 3: really fast speed because the speed limit in New Mexico,
23:50
Speaker 3: I think on this highway went between seventy five and
23:52
Speaker 3: eighty and he was only going about eighty six miles
23:55
Speaker 3: an hour, So he's clearly not trying to elude the officers.
23:59
Speaker 3: He's just driving.
24:03
Speaker 8: Goal.
24:04
Speaker 3: He ends up stopping in the middle of the highway
24:07
Speaker 3: and they're waiting for him, and they're trying to give
24:09
Speaker 3: him some instructions to do what we refer to as
24:11
Speaker 3: a felony car stop, and that doesn't work, and he
24:16
Speaker 3: takes off again, but he's going slower and everybody's trying
24:19
Speaker 3: to figure out what is this guy going to do?
24:21
Speaker 6: What's he going to do?
24:23
Speaker 1: Navarro drives on for another twelve miles, then he stops
24:27
Speaker 1: in the middle of the highway a second time. The
24:30
Speaker 1: officers pull up behind him. He sits in his car
24:33
Speaker 1: for three minutes talking on the phone.
24:36
Speaker 6: They lost He's on the phone with who with the police?
24:39
Speaker 3: Oh, I see, he calls a dispatcher. He's on the
24:41
Speaker 3: phone with the police, right, and I'm armed and I'm
24:46
Speaker 3: a bad guy. And so when he finally they tell
24:51
Speaker 3: him to get out of the car, he gets out
24:53
Speaker 3: of the car and then he faces them and they're
24:57
Speaker 3: giving him instructions to step away from the vehicle, keep
25:00
Speaker 3: your hands up, do this. He turned sideways, he goes
25:03
Speaker 3: into his pocket. They're screaming at him, don't do that,
25:06
Speaker 3: don't do that.
25:07
Speaker 1: The whole thing is weird, Starting right back with Navarro's
25:10
Speaker 1: attack on a stranger in the parking lot.
25:13
Speaker 3: Why commit that crime? Why just pick an individual and
25:16
Speaker 3: slice him for no reason at all. He hadn't done
25:19
Speaker 3: anything to you. That was to get that person to
25:24
Speaker 3: call the police with a crime of violence.
25:28
Speaker 1: Okay, he's committed two felonies at that point, but he
25:32
Speaker 1: seems to want the police around him, so.
25:34
Speaker 3: He gets on the phone and tells him, Okay, listen,
25:37
Speaker 3: I'm armed and not only have a knife, but I
25:39
Speaker 3: have a gun, and i'm this and i'm that. So
25:42
Speaker 3: the question would be, why would you do that? Because
25:47
Speaker 3: he is choreographing an eventual death act.
25:52
Speaker 1: If you talk to enough people in law enforcement, you'll
25:55
Speaker 1: hear stories like this. Joni Johnston, a forensic psychologist who
26:00
Speaker 1: works with Martinelli, told me about a case outside San Diego,
26:03
Speaker 1: where a fifteen year old boy called nine one one
26:05
Speaker 1: from a school parking lot. He pointed what turned out
26:08
Speaker 1: to be a bb gun at police. When the police
26:11
Speaker 1: told him to drop the weapon, he just kept walking
26:14
Speaker 1: towards them until they had no choice but to shoot.
26:18
Speaker 1: They later found a suicide note on him. Martinelli thinks
26:22
Speaker 1: Angel Navarro's case follows the same pattern, like when he
26:25
Speaker 1: stops on the highway.
26:27
Speaker 3: He's trying to see how many police officers are there.
26:30
Speaker 3: That's not enough police officers, so he leaves again, OK
26:34
Speaker 3: I need more police officers, and this is referred to
26:38
Speaker 3: as guaranteeing the certainty of lothality. More police officers bring
26:46
Speaker 3: more guns. More guns mean more bullets and more opportunities
26:51
Speaker 3: to shoot at him where he would be killed instead
26:55
Speaker 3: of wounded. But the police don't have the context. And
27:00
Speaker 3: then when they first encounter mister Navarro, it's a classic Okay, well,
27:04
Speaker 3: we're just after a guy that stabs somebody.
27:06
Speaker 6: That's all they think this is.
27:07
Speaker 3: We're just gonna go get this guy. He's a guy
27:10
Speaker 3: that committed assault with a deadly weapon and another guy.
27:13
Speaker 3: And then all of a sudden, he's stopping and they're
27:16
Speaker 3: trying to figure out why is this guy stopping?
27:18
Speaker 1: You know, Angel Navarro wanted the police to kill him.
27:31
Speaker 3: Okay, And I'm going to break it down for you frantically.
27:35
Speaker 5: Okay.
27:37
Speaker 1: Ron Martin Ellie is sitting at his desk. I'm next
27:40
Speaker 1: to him. He asked me if I wanted to see
27:42
Speaker 1: the tape. I said yes. I didn't ask him how
27:46
Speaker 1: many times he's watched it frame by frame. Maybe you
27:49
Speaker 1: get numb to it after a while. The doors open.
28:14
Speaker 5: He's a mood hawan, Okay.
28:16
Speaker 3: So the collective knowledge of the officers is he's already
28:19
Speaker 3: been involved in one crime of violence, and he's got
28:22
Speaker 3: a gun. And officers are trained that eighty five percent
28:25
Speaker 3: of all the weapons that are found on an individual
28:28
Speaker 3: concealed are found on the waistband okay, or in the pockets.
28:32
Speaker 3: So they've told him to put his hands up and
28:35
Speaker 3: face the other way. He's not doing that. He's looking
28:37
Speaker 3: directly at them. He's trying to see, Okay, where is everybody?
28:40
Speaker 3: Have they got their guns out? Look? You got to
28:43
Speaker 3: watch his right hand. Okay. His right hand is already
28:47
Speaker 3: in his pocket.
28:49
Speaker 1: Just getting out of the car, right hand in his pocket.
28:53
Speaker 3: He turns a bladed side away from the officer, so
28:56
Speaker 3: they can't see his right hand. He's exposed to the
29:00
Speaker 3: left side of his body. He's not putting his hands up.
29:07
Speaker 3: He's moving to the waistband where officers are trained that
29:13
Speaker 3: people have concealed weapons.
29:16
Speaker 1: The police keep shouting for Navarre to put his hands
29:18
Speaker 1: in the air, but he doesn't. He turns sideways and
29:22
Speaker 1: he reaches his hand into the pocket that's hidden from
29:24
Speaker 1: the police officers.
29:29
Speaker 3: See what he's doing here, He's getting them all jacked up, right,
29:33
Speaker 3: He's already got that cell phone out he was in
29:35
Speaker 3: his pocket. Now he's put it up into his waistband
29:38
Speaker 3: underneath his shirt. Okay, so here we go. So watch
29:45
Speaker 3: this goes down super quick. See how he goes with
29:55
Speaker 3: both hands. Do you see he's got both hands?
29:59
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, And he starts to bring it up, bring
30:01
Speaker 1: his cell phone up.
30:02
Speaker 3: We don't know that, what do we think?
30:04
Speaker 1: And he's turning towards the officers and starting to run
30:07
Speaker 1: towards them.
30:07
Speaker 3: That's exactly right fast, by the way. Okay, so and
30:11
Speaker 3: then you'll hear that first shot. Okay, so he's already
30:14
Speaker 3: hit and he's hit abdominally.
30:21
Speaker 1: So now he's on the ground. In Martinelli's analysis, virtually
30:29
Speaker 1: everything Navarro did was premeditated, like he had a master plan.
30:33
Speaker 1: He slashes the person in the parking lot to alert
30:36
Speaker 1: the police. Then he stops on the highway to make
30:38
Speaker 1: sure there were enough police there to kill him. Martinelli
30:42
Speaker 1: put himself inside Navarro's head. It was hard to believe
30:46
Speaker 1: both that Martinelli could read the mind of someone he
30:48
Speaker 1: had never met, and that Navarro could have planned out
30:51
Speaker 1: this elaborate deception, that he could have been so systematic
30:56
Speaker 1: and logical about his own death. I can understand why.
31:00
Speaker 1: To the Navarro's the whole thing must have seemed so
31:03
Speaker 1: baffling and horrifying. But then there's the tape, the part
31:08
Speaker 1: where Angel Navarro gets out of the car. There are
31:12
Speaker 1: police officers pointing their guns at him, and what does
31:15
Speaker 1: he do. You can see him. He pretends like his
31:19
Speaker 1: cell phone is a gun. That's the part you can't
31:22
Speaker 1: tell from just listening. He's acting it out. Then he
31:25
Speaker 1: runs at the police officers, right at them. They have
31:29
Speaker 1: their guns drawn. He violates every human instinct.
31:34
Speaker 3: Okay, watch what he does.
31:35
Speaker 1: Now he's on the ground. He's been shot.
31:38
Speaker 3: He's been shot. He actually was only shot in the
31:41
Speaker 3: arm and shot in the stomach. Okay, he says, no
31:44
Speaker 3: mortal wounds, and he knows he's not dead, but he
31:49
Speaker 3: wants to be dead. See what he does. Look how
31:53
Speaker 3: quickly he gets up, and where's his hand back down
31:56
Speaker 3: to the waistband. Okay, so he is going to You'll
32:01
Speaker 3: see him start to push that thing out again and
32:04
Speaker 3: they're going, oh shit.
32:06
Speaker 1: So he's still on the ground, but he's he is lifted.
32:11
Speaker 3: Up his head very quick Well, he's lift up his body,
32:13
Speaker 3: his body very quickly. But look at where his hand is.
32:16
Speaker 3: He's not in a bracing position to stand up. He's
32:20
Speaker 3: into the waistband.
32:22
Speaker 1: He doesn't stay down, he doesn't lie still, he doesn't
32:26
Speaker 1: put his hand out to lift himself up to say
32:28
Speaker 1: something or surrender. He moves his hand to his waistband
32:33
Speaker 1: as if he's reaching for a gun again.
32:36
Speaker 3: To them, it's re emphasizing holy crime, Andy, no, and
32:48
Speaker 3: now he's dead, and now he's dead.
32:55
Speaker 1: The term of art in law enforcement circles for what
32:58
Speaker 1: happened to Angel Navarro is suicide by cop SPC. Ten percent,
33:05
Speaker 1: maybe more of police shootings are SPC. People don't like
33:09
Speaker 1: to talk about suicide by cop Part of that is
33:12
Speaker 1: because we don't like to talk about suicide period, and
33:15
Speaker 1: part is that this particular variant of suicide doesn't fit
33:19
Speaker 1: into our existing categories of police shootings. The Navarros sued
33:24
Speaker 1: the state of New Mexico for excessive force because they
33:28
Speaker 1: didn't know what happened. Then they found out after two
33:32
Speaker 1: and a half years the case was dismissed, perhaps not surprisingly,
33:37
Speaker 1: but that doesn't make it easier, does it.
33:43
Speaker 2: After we got the tape and saw what happened, it
33:49
Speaker 2: was kind of like we knew, you know, it was like, well,
33:54
Speaker 2: we know they're not going to get in trouble for it,
33:56
Speaker 2: and we know that he's dead and nothing's going to
34:01
Speaker 2: bring him back. So the only option we have for
34:06
Speaker 2: any sort of justice or yeah, like justice to have
34:10
Speaker 2: that sense of like, okay, at least they were like
34:13
Speaker 2: suffered consequences in some way, was to sue them financially
34:16
Speaker 2: and sue them for a lot of money.
34:20
Speaker 1: A death in the family is always hard, but this
34:24
Speaker 1: Felippe now had to square the picture of his brother
34:26
Speaker 1: being painted by the other side with the angel he knew.
34:30
Speaker 2: He wasn't scared to go on the monkey bars and
34:31
Speaker 2: fall and break his arm or you know, go and
34:34
Speaker 2: run and play and get dirty in the mud. And so,
34:37
Speaker 2: you know, there were things, you know that I admired
34:40
Speaker 2: in my brother, as far as his sort of ability
34:43
Speaker 2: to be to not care so much about what people thought,
34:47
Speaker 2: and to be who he was and be okay with
34:51
Speaker 2: who he was, and be outgoing and be funny and
34:55
Speaker 2: and you know, make jokes or like, wasn't afraid to
34:59
Speaker 2: look stupid or embarrass himself or things that, like I
35:02
Speaker 2: just never was like that. I was always quite the opposite.
35:07
Speaker 1: Philippe Navarro was sitting on his couch with a throw
35:11
Speaker 1: pillow across his lap, picking at a seam, not angry, thoughtful.
35:18
Speaker 2: A big thing I had to reconcile with after he
35:20
Speaker 2: passed was like and finding out everything I did find
35:24
Speaker 2: out as far as like his mental health and sort
35:28
Speaker 2: of his therapy sessions, because they bring out all the information,
35:31
Speaker 2: like documents and stuff like that, and and you know,
35:35
Speaker 2: seeing that he had told his therapist that he was
35:37
Speaker 2: suicidal at points, or he felt that he couldn't talk
35:41
Speaker 2: to his family, or he felt alone, or he felt depressed,
35:45
Speaker 2: or you know, he was drinking. I think he said
35:48
Speaker 2: a fifth of whiskey or something a day, you know,
35:50
Speaker 2: things that he told that none of us knew. And
35:56
Speaker 2: he when I saw him, he seemed normal, you know,
35:58
Speaker 2: he didn't nothing struck me as like, oh, I should
36:02
Speaker 2: you know, make sure that he's doing okay, or oh
36:05
Speaker 2: something seems off.
36:08
Speaker 1: That's a lot to discover after your brother gets shot.
36:17
Speaker 1: Ron Martinelli kept the video running. There was something else
36:21
Speaker 1: he wanted to show me, proof of what he meant
36:24
Speaker 1: when he said that every case was different.
36:26
Speaker 3: And they need to clear the trunk. I was going
36:29
Speaker 3: to clear him.
36:32
Speaker 1: The officers run towards the stolen suv. They need to
36:35
Speaker 1: find out if there's something else in there, someone who's
36:38
Speaker 1: another threat or need of help. Then they go to
36:46
Speaker 1: Navarro's body on the ground and see just a cell phone,
36:50
Speaker 1: not a gun. Everything has slowed down now. The tape
36:56
Speaker 1: keeps running and running until you see the officer who
36:59
Speaker 1: discovered the cell phone start to walk in and out
37:03
Speaker 1: of the camera frame aimlessly.
37:07
Speaker 5: I think this was the guy that he looks shaken,
37:09
Speaker 5: but does it?
37:10
Speaker 3: He's like, why me?
37:15
Speaker 1: Why me?
37:18
Speaker 5: Look at leaning up against the car, said down.
37:22
Speaker 3: That's what people don't see. Yeah, not moving, you know,
37:30
Speaker 3: he's sitting there crying is what he's doing. You know,
37:36
Speaker 3: people don't see that. See I see that, you.
37:38
Speaker 5: Know, takes up his hat. H that's moving.
37:55
Speaker 2: M H.
38:02
Speaker 1: I began this three part series on the Jesuits in
38:05
Speaker 1: Rome at the Church of the Jesuit learning about the
38:08
Speaker 1: tea the founder of the Jesuit Order, Saint Ignatius of Loyola.
38:13
Speaker 1: Saint Ignatius faced a version of the same world we
38:16
Speaker 1: face today, filled with novel problems and intractable conflict, and
38:22
Speaker 1: he gave his followers a set of moral instructions to
38:26
Speaker 1: set aside principle, to descend into the particular, to listen closely.
38:33
Speaker 1: Why Because only then can you fulfill one of the
38:36
Speaker 1: most important human obligations, to offer consolation to those who
38:41
Speaker 1: are suffering. The Navarro family went through a brutal two
38:49
Speaker 1: year lawsuit to win a financial settlement, but they really
38:53
Speaker 1: weren't after money. Angel Navarro did everything he could to
38:57
Speaker 1: kill himself, but that's not what he wanted and the
39:00
Speaker 1: police officer by the side of the road. Do you
39:03
Speaker 1: think he was fine the minute the legal cloud over
39:06
Speaker 1: his conduct was lifted. The reason to watch the tape
39:11
Speaker 1: is to understand Felipe Navarro and the special pain that
39:14
Speaker 1: comes from seeing someone you love turn into someone you
39:17
Speaker 1: don't recognize, and to understand Angel Navarro and the kind
39:22
Speaker 1: of devastating illness that would lead someone to orchestrate his
39:25
Speaker 1: own death. And then you have to watch the tape
39:33
Speaker 1: to the end, to the very end, to see a
39:37
Speaker 1: police officer slumped against his squad car, shaking with tears,
39:45
Speaker 1: one shooting, three victims, all worthy of our consolation. Revisionist
40:10
Speaker 1: History is produced by Mia Label and Jacob Smith with
40:14
Speaker 1: Camille Baptista. Our editor is Julia Barton. Flawan Williams is
40:20
Speaker 1: our engineer. Fact checking by Beth Johnson. Original music by
40:24
Speaker 1: Luis Skiera. Special thanks to Carl mcgliori, Heather Fein, Maggie Taylor,
40:30
Speaker 1: Maya Kanig, and Jacob Weisberg. Revisionist History is brought to
40:37
Speaker 1: you by Pushkin Industries. I'm Malcolm Gladwell. Suicide is a
40:52
Speaker 1: difficult topic. It can be hard for people to talk
40:55
Speaker 1: about suicide or get help if they're in danger, but
40:58
Speaker 1: there are resources available people want to help. The National
41:02
Speaker 1: Suicide Prevention Hotline is one excellent resource. It's free, confidential,
41:08
Speaker 1: and available twenty four hours a day. The number in
41:11
Speaker 1: the US is one eight hundred two seven three eight
41:14
Speaker 1: two five five one eight hundred two seven three talk