00;00;09;10 - 00;00;46;02
Rev. Will Mebane
Well, welcome to another episode of that conversation. A place where we attempt to tackle issues particularly related to race and racism in and around Falmouth. And in the society at large. I'm. Will Madden and I have the privilege of serving as co-host and co-producer of this series, along with the newly elected member of the former Selectboard. My friend, which is an honor to be in our presence.

00;00;46;05 - 00;00;52;29
Rev. Will Mebane
The Honorable Angela Scott Price and you're funny.

00;00;53;02 - 00;00;53;17
Onjale Scott Price
Thanks, Rob.

00;00;53;23 - 00;01;03;26
Rev. Will Mebane
It's so proud of you, Andy. And I know that you're going to do great work for the people in the town of Falmouth, and that just so delighted for you.

00;01;03;28 - 00;01;04;13
Onjale Scott Price
Thank you.

00;01;04;18 - 00;01;44;18
Rev. Will Mebane
Our show today is going to be on Justice. Specifically in looking at, what are the roots root causes of racism in our justice system. And then we'll talk about the tackled another question, which is, how do we eradicate racism in our justice system? We have a distinguished group of panelists who are going to join us. But first, we're going to hear from some prominent individuals in the Falmouth community on what they have to say about why there is racism.

00;01;44;20 - 00;01;55;19
Rev. Will Mebane
One of the root causes of racism, racism in our criminal justice system.

00;01;55;21 - 00;02;20;07
Robert Mascali
If you had asked me a year ago yesterday, I would have said that I didn't think there was racism in the criminal justice system. You know, I thought there were bigots. I thought there were sporadic miscreants, but, but nothing as, institutional as, as we've come to learn as a result of the murder of George Floyd.

00;02;20;08 - 00;02;35;24
Robert Mascali
The issues with Breonna Taylor and Eric Garner, kind of forced us to, put a mirror on ourselves and confront the history of, racial, injustice in this country.

00;02;35;27 - 00;02;48;20
Robert Mascali
So, I mean, it's the root causes. Go back, you know, 100, 200, and 300, 400 years. If you look at the 1619 project, that The New York Times is working on,

00;02;48;20 - 00;02;56;25
Brenda Nolan
I think the root causes in the justice system are the same causes that are in the popular nation or in our whole society.

00;02;56;27 - 00;03;23;09
Brenda Nolan
There's no difference that we live. We are born into a system of oppression, racism, and it goes beyond classism. All of that. We live in that. It's hard. We swim in it, so it's really hard to notice. But when I when I started opening my eyes, I started to realize, in Falmouth, we've become a more, segregated society than when I grew up here in the 50s.

00;03;23;11 - 00;03;34;20
Brenda Nolan
And we don't have the same opportunities to interact, with people of color. Indigenous people would just lifts up such segregated lives.

00;03;34;23 - 00;04;04;01
Nell Fields
It's the same root cause the people in power at the time wrote the laws, wrote the policies, wrote the procedures, wrote the regulations to benefit the majority, to benefit the men in power. And, as we all know, that's the root cause of racism.

00;04;04;03 - 00;04;17;02
Nell Fields
It's it's othering. It's othering. And it's been going on for a very, very, very long time. Nothing secret about that is.

00;04;17;04 - 00;04;56;09
Rev. Will Mebane
Well, welcome back to the conversation. We just heard from, three very prominent individuals in the town of Falmouth sharing their thoughts about the roots for racism, roots of racism in the justice system. We're joined now by two individuals as part of our panel. Soon we'll be able to be doing this, actually, in studio now, we're still having to do it via zoom because of the Covid 19 pandemic, but grateful for your presence with us today.

00;04;56;11 - 00;05;24;24
Rev. Will Mebane
So, let me ask you, Miranda, I'm going to start with you. Miranda is, co-founder of, Cape Cod. Voices of Voices of Cape Cod. And, as I understand, founded that with your sister Chandler. And, why don't you, first of all, tell us a little bit about, your organization and the sort of work in which you were involved.

00;05;24;27 - 00;05;46;23
Miranda Alves
Yeah. So Cape Cod Voices is a community organization dedicated to bringing black and brown voices to the center of the conversation of race, educate and combat issues of systemic and institutional racism, and advocate for students, a color in our schools here locally on Cape Cod. So a lot of the work we do right now does focus in schools.

00;05;46;25 - 00;05;54;25
Miranda Alves
We offer professional development for teachers. We also do, anti-racism consulting.

00;05;54;27 - 00;05;58;01
Rev. Will Mebane
So and how long has the organization existed?

00;05;58;04 - 00;06;06;10
Miranda Alves
So we are almost one years old. We started. Yeah, around mid-summer last year.

00;06;06;13 - 00;06;14;18
Rev. Will Mebane
We're. And was that in response to the activities of last summer? How did the idea come about to start the organization?

00;06;14;20 - 00;06;34;10
Miranda Alves
Yeah. So, it was in response, being here, we don't do a lot of work in our group at this point with, the criminal justice system, but it is a really important topic for us. Last year, my sister and I started doing local going to local protests around Cape Cod in the wake of the murder of George Floyd.

00;06;34;13 - 00;06;59;15
Miranda Alves
And we were at one in Hyannis where there was an overwhelming message that really, racism doesn't exist here on Cape Cod. And it was very infuriating for us as well, because this is we have a kind of like a personal side when it comes to that story. We were actually, like, around about a mile away where our own uncle, who had experienced police brutality, where he had experienced the police brutality.

00;06;59;17 - 00;07;11;27
Miranda Alves
So it was definitely something like, how could racism not exist on Cape Cod when I know it happened here? Kind of thing. Or, you know, and I think that being a person in general, you just know what happens here.

00;07;12;01 - 00;07;32;04
Rev. Will Mebane
You know where I know you. As I understand it, you live in Falmouth, right? And your sister has lived in Falmouth as well. Right. So based upon what you saw, in the responses from our people on the street. What's your what's your reaction to what they had to say? Do you agree with what they were saying?

00;07;32;05 - 00;07;39;07
Rev. Will Mebane
Do you disagree? What are your thoughts?

00;07;39;09 - 00;08;10;03
Miranda Alves
Yeah. I think there are some good points. But I think there was in general, what was missing was, I guess the when I think about the criminal justice system and its origins, the roots, I would go back to you. I feel like you can't talk about it without discussing America's legacy of slavery. You can't talk about it without thinking about the role that capitalism played as well.

00;08;10;06 - 00;08;44;16
Miranda Alves
Obviously we think about the 13th amendment, where, after slavery was ended, it said that there would be no servitude unless someone was held as a criminal. And I think that is. Slavery was a economic advantage for men and white men. Specifically, you owned plantations. And in order to encourage to maintain that economic advantage, that power, we had the 13th amendment, and it eventually, I guess, became what we know today as the criminal justice system in a lot of ways.

00;08;44;16 - 00;08;50;08
Miranda Alves
And I think that's something really important to be aware of and understand.

00;08;50;11 - 00;09;18;28
Rev. Will Mebane
Thank you for that. And, you know, you mentioning, slavery and the connection with, the justice system and slavery. Leads me to you. To you, Robert, I know you, served for many years as a deputy in the sheriff's office in Fairfax County, Virginia. And, when I think about just following up on what Miranda was saying, I think about the connection with slavery.

00;09;18;28 - 00;09;44;20
Rev. Will Mebane
I think about the, slave patrols that, preceded the formation of what we have today as, police officers, police departments. So glad to have you as part of the panel today as well, Robert. And give us your reaction to what you just heard from the people on the street.

00;09;44;23 - 00;10;14;09
Robert Cutts
Yes. Thank you for having me. Yeah, definitely. They had some good points about that. Miss ours. Definitely brought up some great points there. As we know it. And the bias has always been, you know, the cruel justice system, so many flaws, so many, so many problems. No. You poor person of color.

00;10;14;12 - 00;10;41;07
Robert Cutts
It's been embedded psychologically in the minds of judges, prosecutors. Just different areas where people of color are always going to be on the short end. And when you come back to slavery, it's always been fear is always controlling us, the generations. And when you get in the justice system, the fear of staying in jail, losing your family, we we find that people of color will admit the things they didn't even do.

00;10;41;07 - 00;11;12;29
Robert Cutts
I, I was in the jail system for 30 years, and I watched individuals who would basically confess to things just to get out of jail, you know, because they didn't have the money for bail. They didn't have certain, you know, saying. So I know, but the, the, the street people that they were pretty much on point on my, you know, you know, what I thought and what I heard and Miss ALS definitely, hit the, I didn't even think about the slavery part, but it was a great point.

00;11;12;29 - 00;11;14;29
Robert Cutts
She brought up.

00;11;15;02 - 00;11;44;02
Rev. Will Mebane
But there's been a lot of discussion. Recently about bail. You brought that up, Robert. And how our bail system, criminalizes individuals before they even have a chance to be brought to court and to have their cases heard. And if you are a person, without means, if you live in poverty, the bail system is, can be very oppressive.

00;11;44;04 - 00;12;06;00
Rev. Will Mebane
And so you have to languish in, in jail and, you know, I could see how a person that's in that kind of situation would, decide that, you know, I want to get out of here. And so if they want me to, admit to something I didn't do, you know, I'm going to do it so I can get home and I can see my family and be right.

00;12;06;01 - 00;12;34;22
Rev. Will Mebane
Children and my my spouse, my partner, my, my friends and what have you. So, I've been learning recently how oppressive the bail system in this, in this country really is. So, Andrew, we're newly elected, member of the Select Board in form of the honorable one. And what are you thinking in response to what, the Miranda, Robert or Aurora people on the street?

00;12;34;22 - 00;12;38;26
Rev. Will Mebane
Brendan, Robert. And they all had to say.

00;12;38;29 - 00;12;58;29
Onjale Scott Price
Yeah, well, I think I'm going to point out that Miranda had a very, very good point about the history of our justice system. And we quite often talk about the just the now, and what's happening now, what's in front of us. But I think it's really important to talk about the history and how we got to where we are.

00;12;58;29 - 00;13;19;14
Onjale Scott Price
We can't talk about the justice system reform without understanding where it came from. Just like with with anything which we talk about quite a bit on the show, is understanding the history of where some of these issues come from, so we can understand how to move forward. So I think, that is an incredibly powerful concept for us to be thinking about the history of it.

00;13;19;16 - 00;13;39;10
Onjale Scott Price
And so, I do agree that with most of what was said on the street, but I think that's an important component if we are going to move forward in this discussion, thinking about, the context and the framing of, of our system and why it is the way it is, you know, why is our system so much different than other countries?

00;13;39;10 - 00;13;56;19
Onjale Scott Price
I think it was a Brenda who mentioned that we have 5% of the world's population, but 25% of those incarcerated. And you can't understand how we got to that without understanding the history of of the slavery and the capitalism, as Miranda mentioned. So I think that was incredibly spot on.

00;13;56;21 - 00;14;34;09
Rev. Will Mebane
Well, I also wanted to respond to what, I think was, Robert Misskelley said he was he was being honest, which I really appreciated. The about how he had not thought about there being racism in the, criminal justice system that he has operated under the understanding that there was no racism in the system. But and it wasn't until that summer, following, he mentioned, the murder of George Floyd, the, the killing of Breonna Taylor.

00;14;34;11 - 00;14;58;17
Rev. Will Mebane
And then he went back and talked about, I believe, the lynching, I would call it, of Eric Garner, that those things began to make him realize that, wait a minute. There's something there's something not right here. Something's wrong here. And, you know, Miranda, you said that that was, the sort of reckoning that was going on in the country almost a year ago.

00;14;58;17 - 00;15;26;24
Rev. Will Mebane
Here we are doing this show, just days after the country acknowledged the one year anniversary of the murder of George Floyd, that your sister and and you and others, were motivated to, do something as a result of the reckoning that was taking place. But, Robert, I want to ask you, because you had, many years as a deputy sheriff.

00;15;26;26 - 00;15;52;15
Rev. Will Mebane
And so you've been steeped in the justice system. Share with us, if you would, some of the experiences that you had, some of the things you witnessed as a, sworn peace officer, that sort of illustrate the existence of racism in our justice system.

00;15;52;17 - 00;16;16;01
Robert Cutts
Oh, wow. Joined the force in 1985, and Fairfax, Virginia just lost the battle of. Just taking a tour to courthouse alone. And they point out to you that the the cannons out in front of the courthouse are still pointed towards the north. And the road that runs through that's called Gallows Road, which is Fairfax Hospital, is on there.

00;16;16;03 - 00;16;56;22
Robert Cutts
And they were having black people there, but they made a point to let us know that this road, Gallows Road, where they hung black people. And even in my first days on the job, I'm watching, walk walking, driving in with Confederate flags on their trucks. I mean, I'm talking big flags, not small flags. And I'm. And, I realized that I was in pretty much a hostile environment, but this, you know, even speaking to the inmates and, you know, find out their deaths there for maybe stealing a pizza and they got, like a, a $5,000 bond, you know, for stealing a pizza.

00;16;56;23 - 00;17;23;14
Robert Cutts
And then you, you might see a white inmate who's in there for something else. His bonds, a thousand or somebody gets released on a PR and somebody who cared is staying in jail. So there was always there was always a sign of racism in there. Watching attorneys come in on Thursday night and somebody has caught Friday but hasn't seen that attorney for the whole month.

00;17;23;14 - 00;17;50;01
Robert Cutts
They've been in jail. But here he comes Thursday night to town to give him a plea deal. So, you know, he's getting he's making $125 on the case. He's not making much. So then you see the racism of Powell and all these inmates in there the last minute. And you really feel that getting the justice, representation from an attorney who's just telling him, you know, you're going to court tomorrow.

00;17;50;03 - 00;18;12;26
Robert Cutts
So I couldn't see you since you've been here for a month. But we need to get this over with tomorrow because he's already making, like, $125 per case, which, you know, a public defender does not, you know, in most cases is not going to fight for you. And the ones who can afford it have the attorney that come visit him every week or has him out.

00;18;12;28 - 00;18;33;11
Robert Cutts
So, you know, seen a lot of injustice in that way of how the system works only for certain people, especially when, you know, we're locking up these young kids and the parents don't have no means of giving them great representation of the attorney. So they end up with a public defender who's going to ask them to do a plea deal.

00;18;33;11 - 00;18;57;13
Robert Cutts
So now they have a felony on their record. They get out and then they can't get a job or the seven, you know, 19 years old and they already got a felony. So, you know, based on their representation of the attorney. But, you know, you I also take it in fact, you know, they they probably did the crime, but they didn't really get the rest of you.

00;18;57;14 - 00;19;19;12
Robert Cutts
They got like one hour representation really of here in a case. So and that was one of the things that bothered me a lot as I worked there was just to see that happen every week. This, inmate's not really giving her, you know, for that case the next day. So that was.

00;19;19;15 - 00;19;44;20
Rev. Will Mebane
The example you offer. That brings us back to the question of the issue of of economics. Right. And, Miranda, I think you raised the, the subject of capitalism and how that works against, individuals in the, justice system. And because if you got a public defender, you know, make it $150 per case, then, right? It becomes a numbers game for them.

00;19;44;20 - 00;20;09;26
Rev. Will Mebane
They just want to push the cases through so they can get that $125 and get on to the next one and, and make it up in volume as, as we say. But, I think Brenda, in the opening, in response to the question about the the roots of racism in the criminal justice system, I think she said, you know, it has to do with, it's just a reflection of society.

00;20;09;26 - 00;20;39;03
Rev. Will Mebane
Right? So we have racism in society and, so why would we not think that racism also exists in the criminal justice system? And so I'm around I know you involved in, work combating racism all across the, all across the society. So what what what did you think of that response from from Brenda that it's just a reflection of society.

00;20;39;03 - 00;20;44;29
Rev. Will Mebane
Racism is in society. So of course it's going to be in the justice system.

00;20;45;02 - 00;21;11;25
Miranda Alves
Yes. Racism is definitely in society. But I also think when it comes to the criminal justice system, it was designed to be racist in a way, like it was very deliberate. I think in the beginning, again, when we talk about, you know, the 13th amendment, arresting black people for petty crimes, trying to get the work done still that, you know, wasn't being done after the slaves were freed.

00;21;11;25 - 00;21;33;27
Miranda Alves
I think really there's this deliberateness that I think is really important to acknowledge when it comes to the criminal justice system. And I do think, yeah, it's we live in a racist society, but and I think I once heard someone said to me, how did racism seep into our criminal justice system? And I was like, well, I mean, you know, it wasn't it was designed that way, didn't seep in.

00;21;33;29 - 00;22;08;04
Miranda Alves
But I do think that the racism that is, it was designed into our criminal justice system seeps out. And I do think that it affects other systems and then affects people. I was thinking a lot today about, generational trauma and the physical changes that stress can create. And the way that that can be passed down. And I think a lot of it is when you deliberately infuse or put racist, racist laws into practice, you're going to have that stretch out farther than you need, I think.

00;22;08;04 - 00;22;27;04
Miranda Alves
And and so I do think it's something that it is all around us. But I don't I don't think it's society happened. I think I think it seeps out from the criminal justice system. It does affect other avenues of our society. Yeah. Oh, sorry.

00;22;27;06 - 00;22;42;14
Onjale Scott Price
No, I was I said, that's a really good point. I'm thinking about what Robert just said about how you have in the, in this example, you have a young man who decides to plead to a crime that he didn't commit because he doesn't have the money to make bail, but it's a way for him to get out.

00;22;42;19 - 00;23;01;05
Onjale Scott Price
And now he has that on his record forever. And so now that's another way that he can be discriminated against in the future, without anyone ever understanding why he ever would have taken that plea in the first place. So I think the point of it seeps out. That is a perfect example of how that can happen and how it does happen.

00;23;01;05 - 00;23;02;24
Onjale Scott Price
We know it happens.

00;23;02;26 - 00;23;37;26
Robert Cutts
Yeah, I just believe it was just when they this is just my belief on that type of action was just to keep people of color down, then to to get you to, you know, the crime had that felony had that misdemeanor. It ruined your life. It can ruin your life forever. You know, and I think those, you know, way back time, slavery time till now is just a way to keep us down, oppressed and fear.

00;23;37;28 - 00;24;09;10
Robert Cutts
Because I always say fears control the world. You know, for millions of years, especially people of color with fear, I mean, and the police have always, I always considered the police, in some cases, organized crime. And and that's because of what I experienced myself in my job. And, and had to, you know, file $45 million suit, you know, against them in one.

00;24;09;12 - 00;24;28;10
Robert Cutts
But just the way they attacked me is just they can attack me. Just think what they can do to you, you know, and I work in the system, but the system was going after me daily, so I know how to go after. It was the civilian population.

00;24;28;13 - 00;24;51;21
Rev. Will Mebane
So I want to I want to hear more about the your reference of, the police's organized crime. I want to want to hear more about that. But I also and we want to talk about your, your your suit and, you know, one of the things that I've been saying now for, for years is that we don't have a criminal justice system.

00;24;51;24 - 00;25;22;02
Rev. Will Mebane
We have a criminal in justice system. Right. And and it does begin. It's like, I guess maybe this is what you were you were saying, Robert, what do you think about there's a there's that the racism that is in our criminal justice system is state sanctioned. It's state sponsored, isn't there? Because of the laws, the regulations, the rules that are then on the books.

00;25;22;02 - 00;25;32;20
Rev. Will Mebane
So so say more about, you are seeing, forces as, criminal, police forces as organized crime.

00;25;32;22 - 00;25;57;02
Robert Cutts
Look at always organized crime because of the blue line. You can see what's going on in Boston with the commissioner and what's going on there, and how people have been taught during the investigation that the new mayor couldn't get their investigation. They couldn't get anybody to talk. And that's, you know, being a rat, basically in law enforcement will ruin your career forever.

00;25;57;04 - 00;26;19;01
Robert Cutts
And you don't want to cross that line. And I always look at this organized crime. You're a rat. What do they do? They they take you out. I mean, I had that when we had death threats. We had different things going on, you know, messages on a phone, I mean, different things. And the system just ignored it, you know, politicians ignored it.

00;26;19;03 - 00;26;35;13
Robert Cutts
Different thing, different people. Even groups like the NAACP ignored and so and national law enforcement, black law enforcement, I mean, it was different organizations just stayed away from us during that time. But I just know that.

00;26;35;15 - 00;26;56;19
Robert Cutts
And when you're in law enforcement, you just don't cross the blue line. When you do, you're you're pretty much a rat, and no one wants to be with you. I work with 650 deputies. Fairfax is one of the largest sheriff's departments in Virginia. So you have 98%. People don't want you there. It can be very hard and it was very hard.

00;26;56;23 - 00;26;59;06
Robert Cutts
But.

00;26;59;08 - 00;27;30;27
Rev. Will Mebane
Yeah. You know that thin blue line, which we know about and, and you talk about officers not wanting to be a rat, you know, not wanting to, to use the street vernacular, to be a snitch. Right. It just struck me as I was listening. You, how is that in a different from, people in the community, who are witnesses to crimes, not wanting to snitch on, others who have committed the crime.

00;27;30;27 - 00;27;47;00
Rev. Will Mebane
So on the one hand, you've got law enforcement saying, oh, we need you to tell us. We need you to tell us. We need you to give us a truth. We need you to point the finger, you know, tell us where it was right? Yet when the shoes on the other foot. They don't want to. They don't want to tell.

00;27;47;02 - 00;27;56;10
Rev. Will Mebane
What? What's going on? What was wrong? I mean, that just struck me as you. As you were, as you, as you were talking. So tell us a bit more about about your, Well, go ahead. If you were.

00;27;56;10 - 00;28;26;09
Robert Cutts
It's it's it's in law forces us against them. And when it comes down to it, the same with the inmates. It's us against them. So same on the street, you know, people will call the police when they need them. But that was time to tell somebody. We don't like the police, you know, was when your family members being attacked or something, then you call 911, but then when they walk around they ask, you had did you see somebody shoot somebody or oh no, I don't see nothing.

00;28;26;09 - 00;28;47;15
Robert Cutts
I was asleep and I was and I hear that was like inmates will say was, did you see the guys fight? No, I was asleep. You know, I didn't see nothing. So the mentality of us against them, that's that's been for years. It's, we've always been told from the beginning it's us against them. And that's.

00;28;47;18 - 00;29;14;12
Rev. Will Mebane
And in both of those cases, I guess, that that grows out of fear. You mentioned fear earlier. So there's fear from the, police officers that if they snitch on a fellow officer that they're going to be ostracized, they're going to life is going to be difficult for them. They may not get responses. I've heard officers say they may not get back up if they need back up, to a to a, to a scene or something, because, they're being being ostracized.

00;29;15;13 - 00;29;24;18
Robert Cutts
The Serpico server goes like the number one. Anybody that's watched Serpico, that's that's what happened. Serpico, the movie.

00;29;24;18 - 00;29;30;07
Rev. Will Mebane
So you haven't seen that movie, and you know. Oh, you got to see that movie.

00;29;30;07 - 00;29;31;15
Robert Cutts
That's a true story.

00;29;31;17 - 00;29;38;13
Rev. Will Mebane
Yeah. Miranda, have you seen that? See, we all had guys we got. We got to educate the young ones here. Oh, Robert.

00;29;38;15 - 00;29;51;09
Robert Cutts
No. Al Pacino, al Pacino playing a police officer named, Serpico. Who would not take was not undertake. And they they they actually, you know, try to kill him.

00;29;51;11 - 00;29;53;29
Onjale Scott Price
All right. So movie night at Rob's house is what I'm hearing.

00;29;54;01 - 00;30;04;00
Rev. Will Mebane
There you go. Yeah, absolutely, absolutely. I haven't seen it in a while. So, yeah, the that it's worth dialing up again and you let me toss it to you, see what you're thinking about.

00;30;06;06 - 00;30;32;10
Onjale Scott Price
Oh, what am I thinking about? I've. I have heard other people refer to police departments and police in general as organized crime for, for all of those reasons, that, you know, you don't want to be ostracized and that if you are, you're not you're not going to be trusted anywhere afterwards. It's like if you, you know, quote, rat on the police or snitch on the police, like, you're not going to go work for the fire department or anywhere else.

00;30;32;10 - 00;30;43;08
Onjale Scott Price
No one's going to. No one's going to trust you after that. Yeah, I know I had some other thoughts, but I feel like I want to pass it to Miranda and hear her. Yeah.

00;30;43;09 - 00;30;49;19
Rev. Will Mebane
Miranda, what are you. You've been sitting there for a while hearing. That's what's, what's bubbling up for you?

00;30;49;21 - 00;31;12;00
Miranda Alves
Oh, I've just I've been thinking kind of how that type of, I guess close knit culture might transfer into the rest of the criminal justice system. I feel like there are times when maybe, you know, when we talk about police accountability or, immunity. How this really plays out, I guess on that larger scale, it's kind of what I've been thinking about.

00;31;12;03 - 00;31;15;26
Miranda Alves
So it's something that you noticed or

00;31;15;29 - 00;31;32;18
Onjale Scott Price
so I'll, I'll chime in real quick and say that, I've talked about my dad a little bit before. He was an ObGyn, but he was also a lawyer, and he went back to school after being a doctor to become a lawyer because he saw, a lot of malpractice suits and he wanted to be able to represent people.

00;31;32;21 - 00;31;46;27
Onjale Scott Price
And his favorite thing to do, in the time that I had was, was to watch Law and Order and I, when I was younger, I hated watching it with them because I'm like, but they they always get their cases. They always get the bad guy like you. It's so lame. You always know what's going to happen.

00;31;46;29 - 00;32;07;06
Onjale Scott Price
And but they I mean, they don't in the show. But he told me, you know, there was some truth in that show in the way that the prosecutors, you know, come to the police departments and talk through strategies and talk through how, you know, they're going to work things in the courtroom. And obviously, I know that that's fiction, that's television.

00;32;07;06 - 00;32;28;02
Onjale Scott Price
But I do imagine that some of that close knit people outside of the courtroom translates to inside the courtroom. Like my friend said, he had other lawyer friends who, you know, they might be he they might be prosecutors. And he was, you know, for defendant, but they were friends outside of the courtroom. And so they they would sometimes talk about things outside of court.

00;32;28;04 - 00;32;50;13
Onjale Scott Price
And so I imagine that if you had to bigoted, disrespectful people who were on both sides of that, they might, you know, work on something outside of the courts and bring it into court. And so we all know that people have their biases anyway. And if you've got people like public defenders or I don't I don't want to talk bad about public defenders, but, you know, using them as an example.

00;32;50;13 - 00;33;14;10
Onjale Scott Price
But, you know, if you have somebody as a public defender already not being paid a lot, coming in with their biases and their friends with the the lawyer, and they're coming in with their biases, like, you know, that could be a perfect storm for for a lot of injustices to happen. And it would be perceived as part of the justice system because of what you see in court, but not really understanding what's happening outside of court.

00;33;14;12 - 00;33;35;04
Miranda Alves
Right. Yeah I think I definitely, I think I always call it I guess like an implicit racism kind of like ambiguous racism. And I think that happens a lot where I think about my uncle's case. Right. So he is a black man, a victim of police brutality. And he took, the police officers that, attacked him to court and they were acquitted.

00;33;35;06 - 00;33;56;10
Miranda Alves
But I do think about the things that happened throughout his trial and how things, you know, the the biases that were introduced or, you know, you look at them specifically on this one scale in this one case, and there were these there's room for plausible deniability. But really, what it is, is when you take all those cases together in an aggregate, that's when you start realizing there is that discrepancy.

00;33;56;10 - 00;34;09;12
Miranda Alves
This might be something that's happening. It is something that we need to look at. And so it's I guess it's how do you connect that aggregate data set to what happens in real life? I think that's something that's really important to think about.

00;34;09;14 - 00;34;13;15
Onjale Scott Price
Yeah, yeah. And sorry I jump in one more time. Something that you just said run.

00;34;13;16 - 00;34;41;06
Onjale Scott Price
It made me think about, you know, how black people talk about black people specifically. Are treated during a trial. So I don't know what happened in your uncle's trial, but I think about, the George Chauvin trial recently and how so much was, brought up about George Floyd and his past and criminal past and whatever. And it was like, okay, but none of that had anything to do with that moment in time that we were, you know, supposed to be talking about.

00;34;41;08 - 00;35;18;23
Onjale Scott Price
And also that just adds to the bias of the people who are hearing about this trial. You know, none of none of that matters. And even if any of that was relevant, does that give the police permission to murder someone, like, do they get to be judge and jury because of somebody's past? But just the idea of bringing up all of those things from the past, you know, those those add to the biases of the jury and of the judge and, you know, if if we go back to what we were talking about earlier in the conversation about how somebody might have at some point pleaded guilty to a crime that they didn't actually

00;35;18;23 - 00;35;33;17
Onjale Scott Price
commit for the sake of because they don't have bail. And now you have the second trial later on, and somebody uses that without understanding, you know, that past it just compounds on itself and just increases the injustices.

00;35;33;19 - 00;35;55;15
Robert Cutts
Yeah. I just want to make a point if, when I talk about organized crime and this last week, I believe to family and Louisiana, the one that lost the police department to try to say a state trooper said that their son was killed in a car wreck. Yes, it is two years, two years ago, I just one of the.

00;35;55;17 - 00;36;16;19
Robert Cutts
So you have two they had body cams so you had to figure for two years how many people saw the body cam. And they kept it secret until now that the Department of Justice is now investigating these different departments. So somebody might have guys like I think I better go ahead and release this somehow because I know they're going to come here now next.

00;36;16;21 - 00;36;39;01
Robert Cutts
So I'm going to be the guy who's going to bring the girl and release the video camera. But you got your godfather up here. The chief had to know or to state, you know, there's a lot of people that knew that chain of command above those officers that this their their report didn't match up to what the video camera, the body camera did said.

00;36;39;03 - 00;36;42;10
Robert Cutts
Right. And they kept it secret.

00;36;42;13 - 00;36;50;00
Rev. Will Mebane
So you've been you've been as a as an officer. How many years did you serve as a, an officer.

00;36;50;02 - 00;36;55;12
Robert Cutts
Over 30 years. And, and I did six years in the army as a military police.

00;36;55;15 - 00;37;11;24
Rev. Will Mebane
All right. So you got a lot of experience, and, so what what goes on in the in the locker room and the, in the bars? You know, when the.

00;37;11;26 - 00;37;36;04
Robert Cutts
Everybody has everybody has something on someone, we know more about each other than people's wives and has to know about each other. So if if one of these officers get in trouble, they're coming to their supervisor. You know, when we went out drinking one night and you might have committed adultery or something, and now they want to try to fire me.

00;37;36;04 - 00;38;07;24
Robert Cutts
Think you can help me so your wife doesn't find out? Well, you know what I mean? So I mean, but it does happen. I mean, these these things, you know, they they hunt together, they drink together, they. I always say officers and alcoholics, the drug acts. I work with guys who are alcoholic and drug addicts and. But they always have something on somebody or they had family members who worked in higher places, so they were semi protected.

00;38;07;27 - 00;38;29;02
Robert Cutts
And once you suffer one on the carpet, the next person say, well, you did it for Joe. So now you got to do it for me. Well I'll tell on Joe. It's so it's just a, it's a domino effect when people get in trouble is just because every we all knew somebody did something criminal that could have been a felony.

00;38;29;04 - 00;38;54;25
Robert Cutts
And so now, you know, they want to keep it hush hush. So that's how that's how this works until, like, now the body cam comes out now. So now everybody's like, they're all running like, you know, trying to get this story straight, but, that's how it works. Is this somebody knows somebody about something about somebody, and they just keep it in their back pocket till they need it.

00;38;54;27 - 00;39;19;19
Rev. Will Mebane
So we know the laws are written. I think Ravanelli even said this in her, on the street comments. We know the laws are written by those who are in power, right? So those who are who are who are the ones in power, predominantly male, predominantly white. Right. So they get to write the rules. So it's sort of like the with that saying about war, those who, the victor gets to write, write the history.

00;39;19;19 - 00;39;52;26
Rev. Will Mebane
Right. So, that power, that is held by predominantly men and predominantly white men perpetuates the, the inequities, the injustices in the system. Right? So they're designed to protect one another. And I was thinking about that just a I don't know, a few days ago I was watching a report or reading a report about how it's there are so many differences in the various states that we have.

00;39;52;26 - 00;39;59;13
Rev. Will Mebane
And the counties all have their own, I guess, laws as well.

00;39;59;13 - 00;40;00;01
Robert Cutts
Right?

00;40;00;03 - 00;40;29;29
Rev. Will Mebane
But how you can't even begin to get to the truth because there are so many layers of protection with written into the laws. And you talk about the bodycam footage, right? This has been ridiculous. What's happening in North Carolina, in Elizabeth City, North Carolina, where they you can't even get the body camera footage released, that you got to go to a judge someplace to get it released.

00;40;29;29 - 00;40;57;14
Rev. Will Mebane
The the governor can't even get it released. The Da can't. That's the state attorney can't get it released because of a local ordinance. It says that only the local county prosecutor is the only one with the authority to say yes, release the video or not release the video. That's crazy. Yeah, in my opinion. Right?

00;40;57;17 - 00;40;59;20
Robert Cutts
Right. Yeah.

00;40;59;22 - 00;41;24;14
Onjale Scott Price
I just wanted to point out that Elizabeth City, North Carolina is where my husband is from and the the man who was shot when he was shot, a bullet ricocheted into my my husband's aunt's home. And thankfully, she was not home. And so I say that to say, you know, these things happen everywhere. And I feel like only some of them make the news.

00;41;24;17 - 00;41;31;22
Onjale Scott Price
But this one, this one, especially hit like the home. Yeah. Close to home.

00;41;31;24 - 00;41;32;20
Rev. Will Mebane
Yeah.

00;41;32;22 - 00;41;58;20
Onjale Scott Price
It really put in perspective. Elizabeth City is I joke and say that my husband's from the middle of nowhere. It's very, very small. And I'm honestly surprised it did make the news. But even if it hadn't, I would have known about it. And it makes me think how many times if something like this happened that I don't even know about because it happens in a small place or it's, you know, shoved under the rug, or it's, just not newsworthy because it's happening so often.

00;41;58;20 - 00;42;07;14
Onjale Scott Price
And how many people are affected that we don't even know, you know, so, yeah, I just wanted to point that out.

00;42;07;16 - 00;42;10;06
Rev. Will Mebane
Miranda. Sorry. You were going to say something.

00;42;10;08 - 00;42;41;28
Miranda Alves
Oh, I wasn't, but, Oh, you know, I think it does happen a lot more than people think. Even when we think about Cape Cod, I think people don't think about what happens here. Right? I mean, there are I've talked to a lot of different people, especially, as we were planning or listening to event and there were stories I have, you know, teenage boys or teenage girls talking to me, you know, teenagers of color saying the police, you know, treated me this way.

00;42;42;00 - 00;43;02;12
Miranda Alves
And, you know, I don't want to tell human story, but just like the way that these things happen in one of our, in our event as well, that we had last year, the mother of a young man, she spoke about, what happened to her son as well. I think people don't realize that that stuff does happen even in their own neighborhoods, because people don't talk about it.

00;43;02;15 - 00;43;24;21
Miranda Alves
I know recently in the news, there was, a woman in Hyannis, and they did a stop with, to arrest her teenage son who was in the car, and her four and five year old were in the back as well. And it was I think it's like that was one of the very first time I, I feel like in the news, you actually you're hearing about, these types of issues actually happening in our neighborhood.

00;43;24;24 - 00;43;38;22
Onjale Scott Price
Do you think, Miranda. That's why people when you talk to people, and they say things like, oh, racism has seeped into the criminal justice system. Do you think that's why people on Cape Cod don't think there's there's racism is because we don't we don't talk about it enough.

00;43;38;24 - 00;43;45;25
Miranda Alves
I think that's a big part of it. I think also obviously as a as Cape Cod is on average 92% white.

00;43;45;27 - 00;44;06;10
Miranda Alves
And they don't experience it. You know, they might say like, oh, I have a friend or, you know, and I think that it's hard when I think they don't care about it isn't enough. I don't think people of color are given platforms to talk about it enough as well. That's why one of our goals is to be able to give people those platforms that they need it.

00;44;06;13 - 00;44;08;22
Miranda Alves
I do think that's a big part of it.

00;44;08;25 - 00;44;10;01
Onjale Scott Price
Yeah. Thanks.

00;44;10;03 - 00;44;48;10
Robert Cutts
What is the, I just wanted to touch on the, policies and stuff like that. And I was watching the mayor from Boston saying that their domestic abuse policy was 15 years old. And you have to think like, why was it 15 years old? Because they don't want to update it because it'll help protect, you know, because the civilian has, what I try to do is for the community is I know the internal works, and I know the internal of departments and what they what questions you may want to ask your chief or your sheriff that they may feel uncomfortable about.

00;44;48;12 - 00;45;12;21
Robert Cutts
But basically, those policies you as a a citizen, you should be able to go to the police station, say, can I get a copy of your standard operating procedure so we can read it and see the dates on there when they've been updated? Because you may see something there from 1997, and here it is 2021 and things have changed.

00;45;12;27 - 00;45;38;21
Robert Cutts
But it's there to protect the officer is they're going to say he falls out. Procedure. Yeah. And you have to have an attorney look at the skin of somebody outside of Cape Cod as well. We got our attorney. We got somebody out of Fairfax in Richmond, a white attorney, to represent us in a civil rights case. And he's now representing Lieutenant Karen, the military officer who got sprayed in Windsor.

00;45;38;23 - 00;46;02;06
Robert Cutts
So he and our attorney is defending him now. But those are the little things that like I said, the community people here in Cape don't believe there's racism to exist here. I was talking to a lieutenant in Harris Police Department and he basically was I asked him about the gangs and he basically said, we don't have gangs on Cape Cod.

00;46;02;08 - 00;46;27;13
Robert Cutts
And I'm thinking about it all. It takes three people to be a gang with the same purpose, the same colors, the it doesn't you have. You want to be guys who want to be Crips and Bloods and Mr. 13, you got your you know, you had two real gang members and it's just it was it was funny to me that he was say, there's no gangs here, but as a tourist place, you don't want to fear scared away not to come here.

00;46;27;15 - 00;46;47;18
Robert Cutts
And that's that's the fear, saying, oh yeah, we do have gangs and like, well, who's going to come? I mean, they're still going to come, but it's like, is this part of saying no? Is everything is fine? Even after the George Floyd case, you didn't get too many comments from any of the the heads in these departments about what happened.

00;46;47;18 - 00;46;59;16
Robert Cutts
I mean, think about who came out and said, yeah, that was terrible. I didn't see too many, heads of, departments come out and say, that was terrible. What happened?

00;46;59;18 - 00;47;35;22
Rev. Will Mebane
Well, I want to give our a chief in Florida. In Florida? My goodness. Well, some credit them because and I think you probably said it publicly and, but I know he said it to me privately, when the, the when George Floyd was killed over a year ago, I remember Chief Dunn saying to me, that should never have happened, you know, and the women and men of the former police force, all are appalled, at what we witnessed.

00;47;35;28 - 00;47;59;10
Rev. Will Mebane
And then when the verdict came through and, former officer Chauvin was, was convicted on three counts, found guilty on three counts. The chief called me again and he said, I'm just checking in with you. You said, because I know, you know, this has been a rough a year for you. And I know this. I know these last couple of days have probably been rough for you.

00;47;59;12 - 00;48;09;13
Rev. Will Mebane
And so I just want to just check in and see how you're doing. So then I think there is at least a a head of a department on, on, but,

00;48;09;15 - 00;48;27;17
Robert Cutts
I want your viewers to know I back to blue and certain things. But I know inside his departments they know. We all know who you have 1 to 2% bad apples are, but they don't get rid of them. What they can't get rid of. All right. The unions protect.

00;48;27;19 - 00;48;29;16
Rev. Will Mebane
You. Yeah, right. Yeah. Well, now the.

00;48;29;16 - 00;48;52;02
Robert Cutts
Unions have come out and said that they're going to they've instructed all their members to intervene if they see one of their officers do something that came out last week, they got a it's going to be very hard to get a two year officer to tell a 25 year old officer, you're doing something wrong.

00;48;52;05 - 00;48;52;29
Rev. Will Mebane
Right?

00;48;53;02 - 00;49;18;02
Robert Cutts
Hey, now you become like who you and now you become a time because now you're going to tell me 25 years I'm doing something wrong, right? So that's going to be very hard. And I felt like the unions should be paying the losses, not the taxpayers. They should carry the distress policies when when the towns get sued, they they want to represent them.

00;49;18;02 - 00;49;23;14
Robert Cutts
That you pay, you pay the money. If they lose.

00;49;23;16 - 00;49;41;28
Onjale Scott Price
Right. I know we need to move on to the second, second question, but I wanted to quickly say when George Floyd was murdered last year, we were on a zoom, event with Chief Dunn, you, myself and some others. And he did publicly say, how he felt about about that. I'm sure he I think he mentioned that he called you as well.

00;49;41;28 - 00;49;50;04
Onjale Scott Price
But, I did want to say that he said that and I mistakenly referred to, Officer Chauvin as George Chauvin because that's where my mind was going.

00;49;50;06 - 00;49;51;09
Rev. Will Mebane
Yeah. Yeah.

00;49;51;11 - 00;49;52;25
Onjale Scott Price
Yeah. Anyway, so.

00;49;52;25 - 00;50;15;28
Rev. Will Mebane
Yeah. Yeah, yeah. So now I want to go to the, to the second question and then and that question is, you know, how do we eradicate. So we all agree and I presume most of our viewers, agree that racism does exist in the criminal justice system. And our justice system. So how do you eradicate it? How do you get rid of it?

00;50;16;00 - 00;50;28;27
Rev. Will Mebane
So let's take a listen to what our people on the street had to say. And we'll be back with our panel after that.

00;50;29;00 - 00;50;46;02
Brenda Nolan
Well, I mean, even look at the United States. We have 5% of the world's population and 25% of the world's prisoners right there. It shows something's, you know, something's wacky. It's not. It's not a good place. When we think about justice,

00;50;46;04 - 00;50;56;27
Nell Fields
I think the the the the way to start fixing it is, is not just one thing, but it's it's, you got to do maybe five things or six things.

00;50;57;00 - 00;51;17;28
Nell Fields
You got to take a look at the laws. You got to take a look at the policies and the procedures and say, what's broken here? What? How do these, laws how did these regulations, how did these codes benefit the white majority? How do they oppress, people of color? How do they oppress black people? How did they oppress, poor people?

00;51;17;28 - 00;51;46;17
Nell Fields
But where's the disadvantage? And it's you got to undo. You got to undo the laws. You got to look at what's broken, and you have to fix it. You have to look at how our current system benefits wealthy people or benefits this group of people. And you have to fix it. But that's not enough, because we also know that in the justice system, sometimes, especially in, trial courts, before a judge, there's still little discretion that's going on.

00;51;46;23 - 00;52;12;10
Nell Fields
On sentencing, for example, judges have still have, discretion on how much sentencing they give. That type of change is working on people's hearts. You know, we're we're educating people here in Falmouth. We're educating people, and and we're trying to get them to look at history. You know, we're hitting their heads. You got to look at people's hearts, and we got to change people's hearts.

00;52;12;12 - 00;52;41;20
Robert Mascali
I think a good start would probably be to get Congress to, to to adopt, the the House has already adopted the George Floyd Fairness in policing, act. That will, you know, hold the police more accountable. There will be some data collection, so that people can see in real facts and figures where, there may be instances of, of police misconduct.

00;52;41;22 - 00;53;24;22
Robert Mascali
I think looking at the issue of qualified immunity, which, you know, is a result of a Supreme Court case some years ago, gave police officers a certain level of immunity, in enforcing the law and not to suggest that police officers don't do a great job. And in some instances, you know, that qualified immunity is, is is necessary, but I think a relook at qualified immunity so that it's not used as a, as a sword for police officers or, rather than a shield to protect them, which was its original, original intent.

00;53;24;24 - 00;53;38;23
Robert Mascali
I think the key is, is is implementing, and continuing, these, efforts that have been made with, within the past year. And, I think that's a start to eradicating it. Anyway,

00;53;38;25 - 00;53;51;16
Nell Fields
in addition to the tactical changes, we have to work on the adaptive changes and changing how people see others and how they see themselves.

00;53;51;18 - 00;54;00;28
Nell Fields
And to start to realize that, when we have inclusion and diversity and equality for all people, it helps everyone.

00;54;01;00 - 00;54;25;25
Onjale Scott Price
So we just heard from our people on the street. But before we get into that commentary, I am just burning to know, Robert, you were military police. You said for six years. Thank you for your service. Thank you were, in the department for 30 years. Yes. And you've talked a lot about the things that you've saw. And you you sued the department at some point.

00;54;25;25 - 00;54;39;16
Onjale Scott Price
I I've got to know how and why did you stay in for so long? What drove you to do it and how did you manage?

00;54;39;19 - 00;55;08;19
Robert Cutts
I had a strong background. My Aunt Eugenia fourths. If you ever drove by Eugenia Force beach by the Kennedy compound, she raised me. My grandmother was strong. Cape versions. She was with me to the time she died, and encouraged me to, you know, you you're going to make it, do it. And, I just wasn't going to let them win.

00;55;08;21 - 00;55;34;25
Robert Cutts
I just wasn't going to let them win and run me out just because I'm black. And that was basically what it was. My friend, was a muslim. And those are the two things when you see, a lawsuit, Mr. Shabazz, which I can't say much because he's still working there right now. So I got to talk about myself, basically.

00;55;34;28 - 00;56;01;03
Robert Cutts
But that was my main day. You know, when I first got there, sorry. Retirement at 25 years. And I was going to get there, and I'm staying 30 just to make 85% more. But mentally it was very tough. I lived 52 miles away from work one way so I wouldn't be around them. I drove 110 miles round trip to go to work.

00;56;01;06 - 00;56;03;18
Robert Cutts
Wow, wow. Oh yeah.

00;56;03;22 - 00;56;05;02
Rev. Will Mebane
I'm always right.

00;56;05;04 - 00;56;28;22
Robert Cutts
I lived in Frederick, Maryland, which was way out there, and it was a trip. And then I moved a little closer, but I, I just didn't want to be around it as I, when you go to work and you trust the inmates more than you trust the deputies, you know that, you know, but, I was going to make it because of my strong background being raised here.

00;56;28;22 - 00;56;46;15
Robert Cutts
And my aunt was very tough woman. And until she died, she would call me daily when I was going through things and just reassure me that God was on my side. And, my spiritual belief got stronger and, I just knew we were going to prevail.

00;56;46;18 - 00;56;47;07
Onjale Scott Price
And. Wow.

00;56;47;14 - 00;57;14;00
Robert Cutts
And we did. And, but my the target never left my back till the day I left it because there were still people there that did stuff to us now able to keep their jobs because we were civil service, not union. So it's very hard to get rid of somebody after the, you know, they're vested, you know, it's very hard to get rid of people.

00;57;14;00 - 00;57;40;23
Robert Cutts
So but that was my main thing. My, it was just my upbringing and my being in the civil rights movement all the years. Her sitting on that beach and a white person there, called the police and won her off in 1939, where she sat there till it got dark and wouldn't move. And she always daily tell me stories about.

00;57;40;25 - 00;57;53;21
Robert Cutts
She used to call Cape Cod the Upper South, and that's what she. Yeah. So that was basically, my anchor right there was her.

00;57;53;23 - 00;57;55;16
Onjale Scott Price
Wow. Well, thank you for sharing that with us.

00;57;55;22 - 00;57;56;10
Robert Cutts
Yes.

00;57;56;12 - 00;58;01;20
Miranda Alves
Yeah. That's amazing. I think Eugenia Fort is a name every Cape Cod or should know.

00;58;01;22 - 00;58;23;02
Robert Cutts
Thank you. Yeah, yeah. She's, just a wonderful woman, as she, she. She didn't care if you a black white she if you were to the right, she was going to help you, you know. So. And she had no children and me and my sister were her children. So that was, you know, but now that they ask your question, there was praise.

00;58;23;02 - 00;58;24;11
Robert Cutts
She was my answer.

00;58;24;13 - 00;58;25;28
Onjale Scott Price
Yeah. Yeah. Well thank you.

00;58;26;01 - 00;58;27;11
Robert Cutts
Now we get.

00;58;27;14 - 00;58;30;27
Rev. Will Mebane
Miranda. How did you know the name Eugenia for it?

00;58;30;29 - 00;58;49;22
Miranda Alves
Well, she's a, very prominent, racial justice advocate. From, historically speaking, here in Cape Cod. I'm listening to, she has tapes and videos, talking about what it was like when she was growing up here and living here. And, I know she believes she was the founder of Cape Cod NAACP chapter as well. Yeah.

00;58;49;27 - 00;59;06;27
Miranda Alves
I just something I've been familiar with, and I, I think if you really want to know what it was, what historically what's happened here on Cape Cod, what Cape Cod relationship with is listening to her stories is really important. And she offers really incredible insight.

00;59;06;29 - 00;59;11;08
Rev. Will Mebane
So you both have, educated me. Thank you. Thank you for that. Wow.

00;59;11;08 - 00;59;14;10
Robert Cutts
I just go to the Zion Museum, see Mr. Reed.

00;59;14;13 - 00;59;15;05
Rev. Will Mebane
Yes. Yes.

00;59;15;05 - 00;59;19;13
Robert Cutts
Yeah. You're rocking chair, rocking chairs in there. There's a rocking chair at the top.

00;59;19;14 - 00;59;20;18
Robert Mascali
Oh, I.

00;59;20;18 - 00;59;26;15
Onjale Scott Price
Have seen that. Oh, yeah. Okay, now it's now it's in context for me. Okay. Thank you.

00;59;26;18 - 00;59;41;12
Robert Cutts
Yeah. Yeah. They got a rocking chair to sit up front, and she always did tell me he goes, I had to watch those rich people up there because they always want to get over on the poor people. So I was right up front watching her, and they knew I was watching the back. So.

00;59;41;15 - 01;00;03;17
Rev. Will Mebane
So let's we're going to spend the remaining time we have to talk a little bit about our, Second question, which is how do you eradicate, racism in the justice system? Maybe one of the ways you eradicated it. You saw, like, Robert did and, you know, and won the case. It was a $45 million lawsuit, as I recall.

01;00;03;17 - 01;00;13;05
Rev. Will Mebane
Right? Yeah. And, your co-defendants are co-plaintiffs, and you were able to, to, be successful in that effort, so.

01;00;13;08 - 01;00;14;07
Robert Cutts
Right.

01;00;14;09 - 01;00;15;25
Rev. Will Mebane
But what do you think it was?

01;00;15;25 - 01;00;29;01
Robert Cutts
It was cut. Dried. We never had to testify there. So the first day in court in Alexandria and, it was this, you know, they they admit everything that we wrote on to happen, but we.

01;00;29;06 - 01;00;41;01
Rev. Will Mebane
Didn't. But did it, did it change anything? As have your colleagues with whom you work there? Mr. Shabazz and others, did they feel like it made a difference?

01;00;41;03 - 01;00;47;18
Robert Cutts
Well, he's a major now, so that helped. He was the first black major they ever had.

01;00;47;20 - 01;00;52;03
Rev. Will Mebane
And he had been he had been fired, right. That. Yeah, we were in this position.

01;00;52;06 - 01;01;18;16
Robert Cutts
We were both fired for ten months. The county attorney actually told the sheriff, don't do it. They have First Amendment rights. But an elected official always says, I'll let the taxpayers vote me out and vote me in. I'm going to do this. Compared to a police chief who's appointed, he can be removed daily. But a sheriff who's elected is going to wait to four years and say, I'm going to do all those crazy stuff.

01;01;18;16 - 01;01;31;05
Robert Cutts
I'm going to do, and hopefully that the taxpayers are still going in. But he lost. He lost the election. Right after that.

01;01;31;07 - 01;02;13;13
Rev. Will Mebane
But you said something earlier that, I think also came up in our persons on the street response to the question, the Obama he talked about, qualified immunity, qualified immunity, subject that I've been learning again, trying to learn more and more about in the last year or so. And as I understand it, Robert, you can correct me if I if I'm incorrect about this, that the officers are given some protections, to keep them from being, personally responsible or personally liable for, conduct.

01;02;13;15 - 01;02;36;22
Rev. Will Mebane
In which they have been engaged. In the line of duty. So if an officer does something, that is, improper or illegal, that qualified immunity protects them from being sued and held accountable or brought up on charges for that in my in my.

01;02;36;25 - 01;02;53;18
Robert Cutts
Write about that. Yes. Yeah. Basically they, Yeah. The protection, like I said, between immunity and the unions and this other things. But yeah, you're you're definitely correct on what you just said, Reverend, that's,

01;02;53;20 - 01;03;00;18
Rev. Will Mebane
So that's something that, perpetuates the racism that exists. Right? Okay. Right.

01;03;00;21 - 01;03;27;28
Robert Cutts
You feel you get away with stuff when you look at Chauvin's face, when he's sitting on Floyd, did he have any fear? Did you see any fear in his eye? He's going to lose his job. I mean, I mean, it's so sad to see I mean, just to watch that. But I'm looking at this guys. I've worked with people like him and I've seen things and I did things myself that probably, you know, ask God to forgive me every day.

01;03;28;05 - 01;03;44;01
Robert Cutts
Certain things that I had to do to survive in there, because police officers always believe I'd rather be tried by 12 and buried by six and but shot. And he's just looking there like, hey. And not because he's done it before and nothing ever happened.

01;03;44;04 - 01;03;50;16
Rev. Will Mebane
And now that's a sermon. But my reaction that this, this is not new. This is just what I do, you know, this is I don't this is how I.

01;03;50;19 - 01;04;33;13
Robert Cutts
How I police and you have to look at he's 20 something years on. He was probably trained by somebody. He was out of Vietnam back in Vietnam when they came out of Vietnam, people couldn't get jobs. Most of the time they got law enforcement jobs. So you've been in war. All you know is killing and surviving. So he was probably trained by somebody that believed in that, that fellas, you know, like, do you need to beat down or you if you already have the prejudice in you on top of it and you already have mental issues on top of it, or a drinking or alcohol problem on top of it.

01;04;33;15 - 01;04;42;19
Robert Cutts
Is this more fuel for the fire for somebody like Sharon? But his face was like, I do this every day.

01;04;42;23 - 01;04;44;20
Rev. Will Mebane
So I and I guess.

01;04;44;23 - 01;04;46;11
Robert Cutts
I just know it.

01;04;46;13 - 01;05;05;16
Rev. Will Mebane
Well, I guess and it's come out since the verdicts that yes, he has done that over the years. So Miranda, we've got only a couple of minutes left, but I want to give you a chance to respond to the question of how do you think we can eradicate racism in our in justice system?

01;05;05;19 - 01;05;28;26
Miranda Alves
Yeah, I think that's a really hard question. I mean, talking about, you know, policing. Right. As Robert said, there's a pattern of police officers getting away with this type of stuff. I think the issue for me there too, I guess, but one of them is about bias and the way that, again, we have designed the system. So there are multiple levels to the justice system.

01;05;29;01 - 01;05;52;02
Miranda Alves
You have, police officers, then you have the courts, you have juries, you have judges. And at each moment we ask people to make decisions, to make judgments, and oftentimes they're not allowed to, you know, they're not able to always make them consciously or they're making them with an unconscious bias. So I think it's how do you eradicate racism is really how do you eradicate bias?

01;05;52;05 - 01;06;19;28
Miranda Alves
You can you take it out systemically? Well, then you're totally reforming the entire system. I mean, you have to take that choice away from people, I guess, in that way. And that's the whole system is predicated on giving people the choice to choose what happens to other people. So it's it's a very complicated, question. I think in general, and I think as we also, you know, I mentioned this seeping out of racism from the justice system.

01;06;19;28 - 01;06;43;09
Miranda Alves
I don't think you can fully eradicate the racism within the justice system without dealing with that as well. I think we really need to make sure that people have mental health benefits and resources that can help build them off after what they go through, through going through the justice system. Yeah. I think the key there is rebuilding the system because.

01;06;43;09 - 01;07;04;13
Onjale Scott Price
Yeah, yeah. How do you how do you fix so many, so many broken pipes, so many broken? How do you fix so much that's broken? And along the way and where every level is based on the level before it, it's. You wouldn't do that with a house. You wouldn't say like, oh, we'll fix the pipes in the house, but not fix also the roof and fix the walls.

01;07;04;13 - 01;07;13;15
Onjale Scott Price
It's all got to work. You got to do it all together. And in that case, you just build a new house, push it over and build a new one. And maybe what we need to do with our system.

01;07;13;17 - 01;07;34;24
Robert Cutts
Is go take a great political will to do it. But as you see all over the country right now, even at the Capitol Police after the insertion, I think it's over 200 officers are left already. Seattle's had over 172 officers. We've the chief was a black female. She's one of the few in the whole country. They want her to take a 20% pay cut.

01;07;34;24 - 01;08;05;22
Robert Cutts
She left. So what happens is now you lose all these officers and now these departments. And the overtime problem, they're going to go into the pile of applicants they would not hire in the first place. But now they have to go in that pile and hopefully pull out some of these individuals they didn't want to hire because the overtime the county say you're spending too much on departments to spend like $8 million a year just in overtime.

01;08;05;25 - 01;08;30;03
Robert Cutts
And then they finally told me, you got to start hiring people. And they started hiring people they didn't want to hire, and hopefully they didn't do anything bad. So now these are the bad apples. Get in, because now they're in that pile and they get a waiver and they get in the department. They might have had a felony, they might ask different things, and they waived it because the pressure of the political thing is saying, we can't spend any more money, you know, you guys.

01;08;30;03 - 01;08;44;05
Robert Cutts
But you have to look around the country and they say, oh, these are see all these officers that are leaving, retiring. And and it's going to really you think you have bad apples now wait do the ones I really high.

01;08;44;08 - 01;08;45;12
Rev. Will Mebane
Back to very.

01;08;45;15 - 01;08;47;13
Rev. Will Mebane
Very rich.

01;08;47;15 - 01;09;00;21
Onjale Scott Price
Oh yeah. And so that goes back to Miranda's point very early on about how capitalism is also built into this. It's not talking about the money, but I, I know we got to wrap it up. I can keep going. I will pass it back to wrap.

01;09;00;24 - 01;09;06;01
Rev. Will Mebane
Right. What do you say? Follow the money. Follow the money. The root of all evil.

01;09;06;04 - 01;09;09;10
Robert Cutts
Jerry Maguire, show me the money.

01;09;09;13 - 01;09;29;18
Rev. Will Mebane
Somebody, made a song about that. Money, money, money. Well, let me. I'll close with just echoing what, Reverend Nell said in her response to, you know, how do we eradicate it? And if I'm remembering correctly, she said, but it's not just one thing. It's 5 or 6 things that have to be done, right. It's what I.

01;09;29;19 - 01;09;49;11
Rev. Will Mebane
What you were saying. You can't just fix the plumbing. You got to fix the wall, John. Fix the roof. You know, all all the components of the house. And maybe you got a bulldozer thing and just start over. But the other thing she said is that, there has to be a transformation of, what's one people's heart?

01;09;49;13 - 01;10;12;03
Rev. Will Mebane
And, for me, as a personal faith, you know, that's that's what I'm going to be preaching, and that's what I'm, I would be teaching is that we've got to get people to, change what's on their hearts. And if we can do that, then, all things are possible. So let me thank, Miranda Alves for, you for being with us today.

01;10;12;03 - 01;10;32;04
Rev. Will Mebane
And I wish you only the best with, Cape Cod voices. Stay strong in the struggle and the work in which your sister and you and others are involved. Engage Robert Cutts. You are a person to be, celebrated and, acknowledged. And, you feel grateful for your having spent time with us this afternoon as well?

01;10;32;07 - 01;10;59;16
Rev. Will Mebane
Thank you. Of course, of course. Always delight to be with, the co-hosts with the Mostess, something like that. The honorable Angela Scott Price. Thank you for being the co-host. And thanks to, Dad and Alan behind the scenes at FCTV for all you do to bring this, important conversation to, to the people of Falmouth and beyond.

01;10;59;19 - 01;11;05;02
Rev. Will Mebane
So that's it. Until the next time, be safe.