The Wrighter’s Block Episode 70 – Scotty Boman Gets Wrighter’s Block

DISCLOSURE

FULL TRANSCRIPT TEXT

i
am
i
[Music]
i don’t need
[Music]
cause if there’s room enough for one
there must be
[Music]
i’m
[Music]
[Music]
[Applause]
[Music]
[Applause]
[Music]
don’t bother swimming out to save
[Music]
don’t bother swimming out to save me i
will only drag you
[Music]
[Music]
i don’t need
[Music]
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matt wright your
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uh
yeah so
got a great guest tonight um i’m very
excited to have him on uh he is a
libertarian in detroit which is already
seemingly a weird statement just to
think about it uh because i didn’t think
anybody other than democrats lived in
detroit uh but not only that
he is uh he worked on the gary johnson
campaign in 2016 and he has decided to
run for police commissioner
which may sound like an oxymoron but we
are going to go into why it is not
so please welcome my 69th nice guest
everybody scotty
hey
how are you
all right out there in um
in cyberspace um hi i’m doing pretty
good how are you i’m doing well i’m
doing well the it i’m i live down here
in florida um and the heat has finally
seemed to have broken
um
you know we’re what is it october 28th
and uh i think tomorrow is going to be
the first day
since like february where the high is
not going to be 80 or higher so i’m very
excited about this upcoming weekend
yeah it’s getting pretty cold um over
here in detroit we had a decently warm
day today
which was good because we managed to um
visit a lot of households um it’s been
other days like tomorrow it’s probably
gonna be raining and there’s other
things i need to catch up on that have
been putting off because i’ve been
using literally every available moment
of daylight um at least in the afternoon
um through what was the evening and now
it’s it’s pretty much just becoming the
afternoon
um to go door-to-door and
talk to people about why they should
make me their police commissioner um and
now as far as detroit that you’re you
are correct that the vast majority of
voters i wouldn’t say all of them well
let’s say 85 percent of the voters in
detroit i think that’s an actual
statistic
um are democrats
and of that of the remaining 15 percent
they’re probably you know i don’t know
maybe 13 percent are independents that
vote democrat most of the time and then
you know there’s libertarians and
republicans and greens and whatever else
kind of they’re on the
left over yeah and scattered in that
last two percent that last two percent
of people in detroit are like
that that’s yeah every other french
party plus the republicans
right but here’s the other part of it
the municipal elections in detroit are a
hundred percent nonpartisan
okay
which i mean might as well be you’re not
going to have
to be like one party rule otherwise
um are nonpartisan but what that means
also is that the um problem we run up
against is a lot of times it may not
matter how good you sound as a candidate
to the voters if they um are straight
ticket voters they just and in michigan
we have straight ticket voting they just
mark their party of choice and figure
they’re done with the partisan section
and move on
well this way they’re actually voting
for candidates they’re voting for
individuals they’re not voting for
political parties
so that right there is already a major
equalizer that myself and my opponent
neither one is listed as part of a party
we’re both listed
um just by our names and under the
office we’re running for
and then beyond that people need to look
into us and find out about us or we can
tell them about us
um and what i’ve been doing then is you
know focusing on what i actually plan to
be doing
and a lot of my positions are very
popular among people who aren’t
necessarily libertarians um the board of
police commissioners and here’s one
thing
the oxymoron part i should go right over
to what is the board of police
commissioners right i was going um
that was actually where i was gonna lead
with the uh uh the board of police
commissioner so
and you should not feel
you should not feel bad
being over in florida
and not knowing what the board of police
commissioners is in detroit because most
of the people in detroit and i ran for
this four years ago well against the
same person
um
most of the people in detroit
at least then now maybe it’s getting a
little better
um
but i still say probably maybe a light
majority do not know what the board of
police commissioners are and even those
who do may not know as much about it as
they probably should when evaluating who
should be on it and so half of my job is
actually educating people about what the
board of police commissioners is and i i
didn’t just start that this season i’ve
been doing it for the past four years
right now i’ll tell you what it is okay
it’s not part of the police department
and i start with that always it is not
part of the police department i am not
running to be
the chief law enforcement officer in
detroit
chief law enforcement officer in detroit
is the chief of police
and that person is actually appointed
by the mayor from a list of people
provided to him by the board of police
commissioners so they do have something
to do with police
they are not officers
um
the other thing about the board of
police commissioners what what what do
they do
well
and you know you probably most people
let’s just be honest the one place where
90 of the people probably think of
what is a police commissioner and they
look for some source of information is
see look tell me what you think i’m
about to say
so uh
if i think of a if i think of a police
commissioner i think of somebody who
oversees
the different departments of the police
um where would you what would your
reference be what would be the one thing
you’d you something specific something
concrete that most people would
recognize if you said it
um
it’s like the president of the police
would be
right but i mean is there a source where
what do you hear about a police
commissioner
oh uh well i think like brooklyn 99 is
where most of my knowledge of what the
police commissioner does oh okay that’s
totally different
i was i was i just assumed you would say
batman
okay all right yeah yeah commercial yeah
that that also makes sense in fairness i
was trying to remember i could not like
i was blanking on the name of the movie
with axel foley
that took place in detroit and i was
trying to think of that as hard as i
could and i was like it just was not
coming to me
uh yeah but most people i talk to that’s
automatically they somewhere in the back
of their mind they’re defining police
commissioner based upon the character
in batman
and
that person does seem awful like a lot
like a police chief and then like you
know also people watch daytime soaps on
general hospital the police commissioner
of port charles is a lot like a chief of
police but in detroit and it used to be
this way up until 1974 we also had one
commissioner and it probably wasn’t that
far off from that
right um we had a chief and a
commissioner and um i’m probably a lot
of other cities to do it that way
but in detroit what it is is an
oversight board
specifically it’s a civilian oversight
board
and the purpose is that people have some
place to take a complaint
about police
other than another officer
we have something called internal
affairs most police departments do and
that’s where police police the police
and if someone is a problem a police
officer they could go to internal
affairs and if it’s the kind of thing
that police would be against each other
on
um they might have some success
but a lot of people are not comfortable
going to police with complaints about
police
and the board of police commissioners
was created in 1974 specifically to do
that in detroit we had this unit called
stress
it was exceptionally abusive of citizens
especially poor people especially black
people
then under those circumstances a lot of
people were hesitant to go to any
officer with any complaint about
anything stress was doing for instance
and so the charter was amended which is
the you know overriding document the
constitution of the city back then so
that people would have this independent
board to oversee the police
and um and then coleman a young
detroit’s first black mayor who then
stayed in office for multiple terms
right he ended up appointing that board
and the first appointees i don’t believe
any of them were former police officers
and since then some have been some
haven’t been the guy i’m running against
his big claim to um why he should be
elected is after all he was served 30
years on the detroit police department
and to me that is a big disqualifier
because if you’re trying to evaluate
abusive behavior by police officers now
you some and there are some former cops
that rise above it are able to kind of
put that behind them and look at things
objectively this man can’t he he is
he is blue and i think you know he’s
blue all through he probably has blue
blood running through him and i don’t
mean royalty i mean
running through his whole thought this
man is as blue as they get and the thin
blue line he really is just a sticker on
it which department wants
yeah he is not
doing the oversight job and so when i
approach people in detroit and they find
out one what is the board of police
commissioners
two
what are you going to do
and then i talk to them
then i start getting somewhere and then
i become and my i’m actually quite
popular
once people have a chance to meet me and
once people have had a time to
understand what the board of police
commissioners is right
now
so you were elected uh in
2020 last year to uh detroit’s community
advisory council with 20
357 votes
um referring to my notes here um i might
be off but i doubt it because i know who
did these notes um
so what is the detroit’s community
advisory council
okay and what that is
is it’s a um it’s also part of the city
government that is
tasked with improving communication
between city council and residents and
helping residents navigate detroit’s
government
unlike any other part of detroit’s
government they do not receive any
taxpayer dollars
so some people might going and actually
i should add that we have seven
districts in detroit they’re split up
based upon population to even it out
every and they have to adjust it they’re
gonna redistrict because of the census
soon
um and
when i first the reason we even have a
community advisory council is because in
2019 it’s like here’s my summers 2019 i
spent creating community oh i didn’t in
single-handedly do it i single-handedly
petitioned to create the community
advisory council collecting thousands of
signatures to make that happen
and
um so i could really credit every signer
with helping create it
and
that a lot of people might think well a
libertarian adding to the government
that’s terrible what kind of libertarian
is that but they don’t get any taxpayer
dollars and so it’s not like we’re
taking anything from anybody it might
cost a little more ink to print the
ballots but that that’s about it
um and again it’s really just to amplify
the community’s voice to the city
council um so as far as you know my
views how does that affect um how why
people would have chosen me
and it’s because well
i’m all i’m doing is amplifying their
views to the city council i’m not making
legislation
i’m not really imposing any particular
agenda because that isn’t what the job
involves
and so
that’s where you know again it’s it’s
and it’s a nonpartisan ballot i actually
got more votes than my current opponent
earned when he ran against me
in um 2017
plus if i were to count the number of
votes our city council person in the
same district earned in 2017 and added
those together i still got more votes
than that in 2020 when i ran for a
community advisory council i spent that
summer campaigning
and in summer 2021 i’ve been campaigning
for this
um
but
that i got a lot of but it was also one
of the best attended elections ever and
there were five openings and i’m the
only person who got his name on the
ballot
um the other two
um where we had because why maybe i
guess people are in it for money we
don’t get paid the other two were um we
did have gregory creswell um who was
just out helping the campaign a few
minutes ago and um he is also in the
community advisory council because he
handed in the paper to be a writing
candidate and we had one other writing
candidate who was a democrat but of
course it’s not partisan ballot but
that’s what he’s run for office for as
before
and um yeah we all got on there and
it um
came out you know pretty good we um we
got three of us it wasn’t quite a quorum
and so we had some fuss going on trying
to get other people appointed by our
council person and we now have um at
least six out of which should be seven
members
um
in that on that body and we have been
meeting every month and the charter only
requires us to meet four times a year
but there’s like a whole lot more going
on in the city than four times a year is
going to cover
and
one interesting twist is
detroit is a city council where some of
the council people are dedicated to the
whole city and other ones are committed
to certain regions to the districts
our district council person who’s the
main guy we’re supposed to interact with
well he ended up getting indicted on
bribery charges
and
he had to resign
so we never did get our youth
representative appointed that was the
one appointee he never got around to
but um well in which you know
it’s kind of sad but um
i guess the one thing is our community
advisory council has outlasted the
council person right yeah we were
supposed to interact with the council on
like i had i had to chuckle at that a
little bit because um i was absolutely
shocked just shocked
that a politician from detroit was
indicted on bribery charges i can’t
believe it
um so
why is it that
how it
why did you get so involved in lot like
in law enforcement and wanting to uh
oversee the police like how how did you
find yourself there
well um you know i really found out
about the um i think i stopped looking
at my own image i think
maybe that’s what reagan used to do
because he always used to tip his head
that way
um he was just looking at himself just
talk like
why he’s talking yeah but um
yeah one thing that got me interested in
it was back in um 2013
um i had a experience where i was
campaigning and um for a city clerk at
the time and there was an incident that
happened i don’t know really how far
there’s certain technical reasons why me
i can’t talk too heavily about it but
you can look it up where you can search
for like
or your viewers can listeners can you
know search for
scotty bowman police city clerk 2013.
and what they’ll find is a story about
an interaction between myself and a
campus police officer who is also
retired
detroit police officer
and my efforts to um
basically be a whistleblower on campaign
violations by the city clerk who at the
time was my opponent
and who’s still in office by the way
and um
my injuries i had after that interaction
and the fact that i really wasn’t
breaking any law but a um
rogue judge who is still in office
decided i was guilty anyway having a
bench trial and figuring what’s obvious
i didn’t break this law they tried me
trespassing in an area it was open to
the public where i also worked
so there was like absolutely no way i
wasn’t supposed to be there
but for somehow i got your trespassing
um
and so and convicted
but um in any case the um you know
there’s this whole interaction where um
there’s an injury um i went to something
called the crime victims compensation
board that we have here
in michigan to help people who are
victims of crimes and it’s a fund that
comes from
um
really people paying fines who commit
crimes it’s like a restitution fund
and i um
you know and i had to get a paper signed
by a police officer in the detroit
police department he wouldn’t sign it
we refused to sign the things like
nobody don’t want to do that and so i
ended up having i was like who do i go
to to make a police officer do something
and i found out then about the board of
police commissioners which actually had
found out around the same time that it
existed because it was an election and
it was the first year that the board of
police office commissioners which used
to be appointed became elected so we
were hearing about it also from the
candidates and that’s actually my
opponent got elected then and has been
it ever since
but i went then to the board of police
commissioners with my complaint and
that’s where i found out that oh they
have this office of the chief
investigator and that person can
investigate my complaint and as soon as
that person even began investigating
that complaint she just said call him up
again and ask him to sign it i called
him up again i brought him the form he
went ahead and signed it
so
that was how i first learned about it i
also learned in that whole experience
how ridiculously i mean not that i was
really um
that naive about the system to begin
with
but it’s one thing to hear about it from
a distance
and it’s another to actually be in it
you know right in the midst of
everything
and just to see how ridiculously stacked
the system is against
civilians and how it’s really just
completely takes the word of police no
matter how how much evidence you have to
the contrary
right so
you said that back in 2013 i know that
we can’t get into the incident um for
whatever reason people 2013 scotty
bowman police
city clerk uh google that people so you
can find out
more information
um you said that you were at the uh
you were at the campus which was a
public place that you worked at what so
what was your background what were
like you were writing
math and physics and still do
okay i was teaching a math class over
there but also the reason that
particular area was open to the general
public and the reason that anything to
do with the city clerk is they also have
early voting in detroit and the
community college is one of the early
voting locations
so i was in the area where they were
doing the early voting and where um our
clerk i can talk about this our city
clerk had a great big um
banner up with her name on it that was
less than 100 feet from the polling
location whereas other people couldn’t
do anything to campaign in less than 100
feet from the polling station and her
voting materials actually printed on
them if you took out your instructions
for your absentee ballot it said in
giant print among the much smaller print
instructions janice winfrey city clerk
and big giant letters
and so it was you know that was like
quite a promotion to have they’re right
next to the ballot no one else got to do
that
and ultimately by the way my complaint
did turn into something as far as that
goes the secretary of state
you know contacted
her deputy clerk and said you know what
you can’t do that
and you talked to her and next thing you
knew all this stuff that had her name on
it connected with the um voting process
had it removed
so i actually did change something even
though
you know i maybe had to
suffer a little it’s just right and
you know
with with uh
with every great uh achievement there’s
always going to be some suffering uh and
it’s great when you get to see that
happening so since you’re 4a into
wanting to serve on the community
advisory council and now running for the
for the commission
um
what do you believe the role of law
enforcement is in the taxpayers lives in
the citizens lives
well um i see it um
for some i’m a gradualist and not a
gradualist because i think there’s
anything necessarily virtuous about
hanging on to a little bit of aggression
as you move along because i don’t
but just as a practical matter
i don’t think you’re gonna get
anywhere
other than maybe you know it might get
some people to think about it but you’re
not going to if you’re actually trying
to create change this year or next year
in the near future you’re not going to
do it by taking the most extreme
position and saying we should do this
now
um
and so instead um let’s you know i see
minarchism kind of as a good stopping
point
along the um long journey toward the
complete removal of aggression which
ultimately i would like to see
um
so somewhere between here and there we
have um less aggression part of that
also means that people need to be free
enough to be able to challenge the
system without the system having all
kinds of different mechanisms in place
to keep people down
and so as a process
within the process we need to be able to
um have a means of the common citizen
the individual
being able to push back against excesses
of course i mean for libertarians almost
everything government does is in excess
but um excesses that almost anyone would
recognize is excessive against
individuals and um one way to do that is
to have um oversight boards like the
board of police commissioners which is
able to
deal with officers who
go beyond what the law allows them to do
aggressively
also allows one to have some recourse
when um offers officers have acted
exceptionally aggressively toward them
and also the board of police
commissioners has a role in setting
policy
so one can actually work in we’re not
legislative we can’t change the law
but we can have an effect on the way in
which the policy
of the police department is
brought to the police
and how they go about enforcing the law
so
in that way there’s a lot of policy room
that can help improve people’s liberty
and privacy to um
you know if there’s a decision on
whether or not to um support
and make as part of um the department’s
use certain surveillance technology that
invades people’s privacy
well that’s something as a police
commissioner could have a role in if
elected um in order to say no no we
don’t want to give up our privacy for um
a tiny bit of imagined um security and
often in fact um some of the
surveillance technology like facial
recognition technology isn’t even
reliable at that beyond the fact that if
it is reliable it could be quite
dangerous and in fact because china has
it fine-tuned a little better and is
using it like with their social credit
system right um which really treats
people differently based upon all kinds
of personal behavior that they have
um so there that’s one area and then
there’s the area of excessive force is
the area of when is it okay to do um
effectively a home invasion
um you know and call it serving a
warrant these are things that we can set
policy on and that we can place limits
on
so uh we’ve got a question from one of
the people watching right now john
morrissey owner of stitches and glitches
and
defythepower.com um
but uh
he said would you be able to fire or
recommend terminations in this office
like if you if there is an officer out
there with lots of excessive force
excellent question
and
the answer is
yes
if the charter which is the governing
document of our city is followed
and
know if an usurping judge decides
otherwise
and that is a problem we had most
recently
i’ll be specific about a case we had
here
where um a woman named shelby smith was
um she was in a and there was a series
of events leading up to it but
ultimately
she found herself um in a
emergency room at a hospital
with the office with a few police
officers present
i think there are at least three of them
and
one of those police officers took it
upon himself in fact yeah i know there
are at least three of them because one
of them was kind of um
holding this woman in place pretty much
and the other one was trying to pull
this one officer off her who was um
beating her up who was repeatedly
punching her using her like a punching
bag
um the reason this even came to light is
well guess what somebody had a phone and
a lobby that had a camera and video on
it and uploaded it to the internet and
it went viral and there you go
um in 2018 in august um that is when
this happened
all right so this man
he was a corporal at the time named
dwayne jones
he ended up um
being um a vet and once this got caught
to life the board of police
commissioners then um did have one
decision to make about him and um the
the police chief had actually
um
moved to uh requested that he be and
that’s chief craig who is our former
police chief now um had requested that
he be um suspended without pay
which is a pretty standard thing when
you know yeah it’s like that’s the go-to
that’s like when you’re taking a test
you circle c if you don’t know the
answer
okay yeah
and um but instead well i guess the um
instead the board of police
commissioners
um
voted to suspend him with pay which
comes out to him actually
getting um it’s a paid vacation a paid
vacation
and
turn it there we go i’m trying to get my
thing there i’m trying to get in the
middle of the picture
and um it’s backwards so when you’re
moving it it’s gonna it’s gonna go the
opposite direction so it looks like so
everything looks forward so people
actually read if they see my shirt right
but exactly yeah so um but what happened
was
the
my opponent was among those voting and
up until i rewatched the video the other
day it seemed like because it was really
hard to tell they were voting it was
supposedly a roll call vote but they
didn’t really make it clear who was
voting how unless you’re really being
careful about it i finally figured out
what he did
is he
waited until everyone else had voted
and when he realized that
if he abstained
and if one other person who was still
trying to make up his mind wasn’t
allowed to vote then
jones would be suspended with pay
and what he so he simply didn’t vote at
all
and then he when one of the
commissioners who later told me he would
have voted to suspend without pay
just said okay i’m ready to vote now
i’ve made up my mind
um
my opponent was like no no it’s too late
we’re already done voting because he was
cheering the meeting oh and so i just
assumed that you know obviously he must
have voted to suspend without pay well
going looking back i’m suspended with
pay like he voted in favor of the guy
getting paid i looked back at it later
and realized no he just waited until he
didn’t have to vote at all
and it was a foregone conclusion so then
he had probable deniability and this
guy’s really good at probable
deniability
and so when later on he’s asked um well
is there any decision of the board and
this is like when he’s asked by like a
newspaper is there any decision of that
board that you regret he said oh yes i
should have lobbied my colleagues more
to vote to suspend the guy without pay
well maybe you should have voted
yourself to suspend the guy without pay
he didn’t even do that so
um
the man the man’s like great at kind of
mincing words make it sound like he’s
for one thing when he’s for something
else
um
so anyway i digressed i wanted to talk
about what actually happened in this
case that you brought up about can you
fire them right well
and so the next thing that happened
is he um
this uh this um officer ultimately was
convicted of assault in the court of law
as he should be and you think well okay
you got a cop convicted of assault maybe
he won’t have a job anymore oh but no
he still had a job
and he came up for a promotion
and they promoted him
so after he beats up a woman in a
hospital
and after he’s convicted of assault and
he’s convicted of assault in in a
by they promote a violent criminal right
they promoted him um
welcome to detroit well yeah um yeah so
they they um promoted a violent criminal
and um
and then later on apparently now it’s
like i technically i guess now pete you
could say well you can’t call me a
violent criminal now because i’m getting
a second trial of course he managed to
get some judge to grant the second trial
but okay at the time he had a second
trial so at the time he was a convicted
violent criminal right and um and you
might say well okay how did he get
promoted well our charter says the board
of police commissioners is the final
word on promotions
unanimously all of them including my my
opponent to his credit voted against the
promotion
but of course
some of them i think were quite
disingenuous in doing this because some
of them already knew
what was coming up next and what came up
next was that and this is really some
weird
legalistic gobbley gunk here i mean this
is the swamp
i actually shouldn’t even use that
metaphor because some people i don’t
like use
[Laughter]
i don’t talk about that the orange swamp
thing or whatever but anyway um
the
um what what they ended up doing was
they
the
the dpoa which is the trade-off police
officers association and i don’t really
blame them because unions are supposed
to do everything for their members no
matter what and okay so what they did
for their member being dwayne jones here
is they went to court and said well you
know what according to the labor
contract if you can check this box this
box in this box then you’re then you’re
up for a promotion
well never mind the exception
that he was convicted of
a violent crime
yeah convicted of
assault yeah and that he
but anyway
the contract didn’t say anything about
well whether or not he was convicted of
a violent crime so their arbitrate but
of course the charter should still be
above that because the charter is the
ruling document of the city and it says
that the board of police commissioners
is the final word of promotions well it
went to a court and some judge decided
to take away the board of police
commissioners powers well at least in
this case in this one case
um by simply saying well
you got to keep your contract and sorry
if the city has another policy they got
to keep the contract
well i mean he may have taken away for
this one case but at the same time the
precedence there so
no matter what so it’s a bad thing yeah
he’s taking it away from many cases in
the future
yep now what i’ve said since then as i
go okay they were able to pull that
because of the the language regarding
promotions why don’t you just fire the
guy then
no one i can’t get
no the the board has yet to actually
have a motion seconded
and voted on as to whether to fire the
guy
we should at least have enough
commissioners willing to do that right
um
and if they did i have a feeling it
wouldn’t pass and what happened is bell
keeps getting in there his chair half
the time when anyone makes a motion he
disagrees with
he just um goes ahead and says it’s out
of order or he ignores the motion
completely
and if any of the commissioners protest
he mutes them because hey now that
because of the um pandemic we can go
ahead and mute people um because we’re
having all our meetings in zoom instead
of in person
and so he’ll go ahead and mute people or
have one of the staff people mute the
person
so this is now this is like the bully
um tactics being used by someone
basically playing interference to true
civilian oversight of the police
and then what we have on top of that is
um we do have now occasionally the
charter does require that the
chairperson step down they they’re term
limited but they can come back after
this limits consecutive terms not total
terms right so he’s basically constantly
trading places with somebody who usually
does his bidding and then he comes right
back and he’ll sit there in meetings
when the other chair when we have
another chair like right now we have
another chair right now
he’ll sit there at the meetings and if
the chair is doing something that he
wouldn’t do himself
he’ll like interrupt the guy
and just say oh no you can do this you
should do it this way
even though um so he’s you know he’s not
even chair right now but right but he’s
like wielding that kind of power behind
the scenes and if we could get this one
guy out
i think the entire police commission
would improve
because
yeah he is really the the most powerful
person on the board of police commission
and the most obstructionist person on
the board police commissioners to true
police accountability and real civilian
oversight
so
switching gears a little bit um because
we’re running out of time and i want to
get to a couple other things but uh you
founded the detroit residents advancing
civilian oversight
which is a group dedicated to educating
detroiters on the role of the police
commissioners
um
so they can uh so they may use the
resource to protect liberties and safety
of themselves and their neighbors
uh
has this
has this oversight committee the
draco draco draco uh has draco ended up
um
has it been catching people
like has it been like wait first
real quick how much time do we have left
uh about 10 15 minutes
okay because there are some things i
wanted to kind of make a pitch for in
there but maybe you already know um
before i got some notes here
okay yeah um detroit residents advancing
feeling oversight i created this group
specifically
because of my experience in 2017 of
finding out that most people had no idea
what a police commissioner was
and so
in between i just you know and i
realized that i mean there was partially
the long-term aspect of well if i run
again i’m gonna have the same problem
unless people know what a police
commissioner is
the other part of it though is in
general people should know about their
government and should know what it is
and regardless of whether it’s me or
somebody else they should be electing a
commissioner who’s going to do civilian
oversight and not somebody who they’re
imagining should be the top cop
um and so based upon that
i um formed the group and now i always
pronounced it draco and when i was
growing up d-r-a-c-o
was always pronounced draco and then now
i’m noticing and i don’t know when the
language turns but in the past maybe
five years or so i’ve noticed more and
more people saying draco so it’s some
kind of linguistic turnaround
wasn’t that the villain in rocky iv
oh that was that was drago
i’m thinking of apollo krieg and
he he was the russian guy in rocky four
okay i’m thinking i must break you
it may have been and um but yeah now i
hardly ever hear anybody say draco
anymore but if you watch me old movie or
something you’ll realize that people
used to say draco and now suddenly
people say draco so i’m not quite sure
when it changed but it just did it’s
kind of like you know
um
all my life is some carbonated beverage
was called pop and then people started
calling it soda
um
so in any case yeah that’s i call it
dracula you can call it draco i guess i
don’t care um but yeah the whole point
was to educate people about the board of
police commissioners and i even
at some point um the group took on a
bigger mission because we um had a vote
in first of all was to get a charter
revision on the ballot there was one
vote and if the chart if the charter i
mean if the charter of got revision got
voted for that would open up the entire
document to change being distrustful of
politicians and politics and the fact
that this got zero publicity before the
election it was in
i thought that it would be a bad thing
and so to protect against this the first
mission um we had dracco doing was going
around and getting literature out to
people advising them why they shouldn’t
vote for this because it might endanger
civilian oversight in detroit
well what ended up happening is it
passed
most people if they know nothing in
detroit usually will vote yes instead of
no on something i found it’s more likely
for a proposal to pass than to fail if
there’s no information about it out
publicly people think it’s probably good
if they put it on the ballot
um anyway we had so we got a charter
commission well i wanted to stay on this
because i wanted to make sure that there
wasn’t going to be um a destruction of
civilian oversight we ended up have we
ended up being part of the whole vetting
process
and um it you know passed out literature
and stuff about answers candidates for
the charter commission
gave regarding civilian oversight and
then once they got elected and actually
we had a slight majority of the people
we liked down there eventually they all
kind of came around
um we actually then um formed we got
chosen by one of the um charter
commissioners to organize a focus group
or focus and we i became the chairperson
and eventually i had a co-chair of a
focus group
on civilian oversight and the police
department we were actually going to
write the rules for how the board of
police commissioners was going to be
different than it is now actually be
even stronger
well like a long story short the charter
revision was completed
and was put to a vote by the people and
it lost um big powerful businesses like
the ones that are now funding my
opponent or whatever these groups like
the with these mysterious names with
unseen contributors and lots of money
ended up doing a huge ad campaign with
great big billboards
just saying p is a problem that was the
letter it had and people voted it down
the major newspaper that endorsed my
opponent called the free press they
actually wrote a lie they just outright
made things up that weren’t in the
charter and said they were in there in
the revision to get people to vote
against it so um
that’s kind of you know brings us back
to where we are now right
um
so i know that you also chaired the
civilian oversight citizens focus group
you guys have a lot of oversight groups
going on in detroit um
but uh they advised the detroit charter
revision commission
charter language pertaining to civilian
oversight in detroit police department
and a member
and you are a member of the fifth
precinct police community relations
council so
you’re basically
inundated within the
police community with within the law
enforcement community um
obviously it sounds like you should be
uh
on the police commission you should be
one of the commissioners on the police
committee am i saying that right because
um yes
but so
what is the bit like what’s the big why
why are you why are you running for this
position what what is your end goal
my end goal is to um really transform
policing in detroit to be something that
is much more um friendly
to the residents where the um there’s um
a stronger
um
barrier against um abuse of power
where there where more people feel safe
i mean they call it public safety and
part of that is being safe from violent
crime of course and um criminals that
are outside the government
but the other part of it is um we you
know we also need to be safe from the
police themselves sometimes um in last
summer you know 2020 really shined a big
you know a big giant spotlight on that
with the death of george floyd but it
wasn’t like he was the first person to
die at the hands of police we’ve had you
know um incidents here in detroit and i
mentioned one where the woman lived but
the point is there this is not something
that just a singular event it just got
people it was like a last straw that
broke the camel’s back if you will
and we need to realize that there is a
you know obviously um government is you
know as jefferson said you know a
fearsome master
um but we have to um we need to um
remove some of the dangers that we face
as a result of the enforcement powers of
government
um
and that part of that means that if the
enforcers themselves at least if we can
keep them in check at least keep them
limited to what the of the civilian
authority is telling them to do and not
to go beyond
um that level of aggression that we’ve
at least scaled it back somewhat that
people can be a little safer that
hopefully we don’t have innocent people
being shot
when they’re walking away from a crime
or being strangled or choked
when they’re being held or
women being beaten in hospitals when
they need medical attention
these are things that um at least we can
do to get things moving in the right
direction and so that’s one thing i also
want to get rid of a lot of the
corruption in detroit um we’ve had
issues with people the bribery case that
involved my councilman has involved oh i
got a phone going off let me shut this
off there you go um have also um
involved um other acts of um there’s
been other cases there’s been police
implicated in the scandal and my
opponent accepted 500
from a towing um company owner and so um
you know i don’t know if it’s gonna
unfortunately i guess for as far as what
i’m doing right now um he hasn’t been
indicted on that yet but um the point is
we got a corruption problem we got a
violence by police problem
um we got misconduct problems and i want
to make want to clean that up i want to
have a responsive board of police
commissioner that actually hears
complaints they’re blocking complaints
we have a backlog of hundreds of
complaints there’s in fact there was one
case where a murder investigation
someone was making a complaint about
them doing a shoddy investigation of a
murder and they was involving a lady
named kenisha coleman
and they turn around and change the
cause of death or the somehow they got
the coroner maybe to change it from a
homicide to a suicide and it’s like oh
no see there’s no homicide to
investigate anymore so you have nothing
to complain about
um and then when the person a relative
that i know of this woman goes and tries
to push the matter he gets the run
around
that’s the kind of thing we need to stop
we need to have
oversight that is not obstructionist
that is responsible for the citizens
that we need to have people in office to
understand their public servants that
they are not public masters
i’d say
so i
before uh before i ask you to like just
pitch everything that you’ve got going
on i just want to say
it it’s amazing to me that um the city
of detroit
took a math and physics professor
um at the at the college
and while he’s running for city clerk
and
the city took this
this math and physics professor running
for city clerk and then
got him to the point where he was like
you know what
i’m going to fix the entire police
department i’m going to fix everything
about the police here in detroit because
of how you guys treated me
um
i and i find it like it that’s inspiring
uh on its own level uh because you are
going out and you are
you are making a difference in detroit
uh with your different oversight
committees and um there are different
oversight committees and the fact that
you’re continually trying to fight
against the uh corruption that’s going
on there uh so
kudos like i
good on you you you are walking the walk
and talking the talk
um so before i let you go i know that
you got some stuff that you said you
wanted to pitch uh
what what do you got for it what do you
got for the people who are watching or
listening
well this is probably one of the best
funded campaigns i’ve been involved with
um however as i said earlier my opponent
has um a group of people that while
they’re not donating to his his um
campaign directly what they’re doing is
they’re advertising for him they got a
campaign to get him reelected and this
is the same outfit that defeated a
proposal just by inundating the public
with tons of advertising right they’ve
stepped up a level where i where i’ve
managed to step up my campaign they’ve
stepped it up and it keeps going like
that i expect them to keep it going and
the one way to push back is i need to
have take this all the way through
election day the last election day i
call it because we have voting going all
the time
and um have a strong campaign all the
way up to 8 p.m
on tuesday and to do that i need paid
poll workers unfortunately it’s just
hard to get people to volunteer to hang
out there from 7 am to 8 pm
all day long rain or shine
and promote a candidate and so
um the going rates typically a hundred
dollars a day i think i probably got
500
covered for the first five polling
places so really i need to raise more
money at least another five hundred
dollars a minimum to get those other
poll workers in there if i cover the top
ten polls
um then i think we can get this and i
also in anything else i happen to get
over um i would use to for electronic
advertising um and
that kind of thing as well but the main
thing is i do need poll workers at the
polls and i need to have paid poll
workers and so my website is detroit
livesmatter.org and it’s dot org i know
someone way back had misspelled it as
the as a dot-com and they didn’t get to
it but detroit lives matter dot org
detroit and um you can also put scotty
bowman.org
there’s still a dot org
and it’ll redirect to that so either way
you’ll get it either scottybowman.org
or
detroitlivesmatter.org a lot of people
misspell my last name i think i actually
own
scottybowman.org also and it redirects
um so either one will get you there but
i need contributions um at this point
really the digi unless you live in
southeast michigan in which case i will
drive out and get the check from you
um you need to really do it um digitally
and they’ve got a paypal link there you
don’t have to have paypal to use the
paypal link you can scroll down pay as
guest and use a debit or a visa or
mastercard
excellent well so thank you so much for
taking time out like you have an
election coming up on tuesday
um and i appreciate you taking the time
to sit and talk with me because
anybody watching the show right now
like i said at the beginning has a lot
they have a lot of choices for a
thursday evening it’s
a lot of drink specials going on across
the country tonight so i appreciate that
they choose to spend it here watching me
uh but you have an election going on and
you’re in the final five days of it so i
i am definitely appreciative that you
are here
uh spending time with me to talk to
about it so
i put
detroitlivesmatter.org and
scottybowman.org into the comments
across platforms so people should be
able to uh
people should be able to find it uh i
i wish you the best of luck i hope to
god you get so
one last question in 2020 you got 20 357
votes
how many votes do you think you’re going
to need to win
well the thing is i wasn’t opposed on
that one okay and so and we had record
voting so yeah i got more 97 point
percent whatever um what i’ll need to
win because we’re probably gonna have
much lower voter turnout it might only
be like and i’m just gonna throw some
numbers out here it might only be like i
might only need 5 000 votes to win just
because low voter turnout our clerk is
predicting yeah
elections
yeah and she was she actually is blaming
it on the quality of the candidates
which i somewhat agree with because she
is running in this election um
and she is responsible for encouraging
voter turnout so yeah okay the quality
of one of the candidates at least maybe
the reason but um
yeah in any case um yeah we have um and
by you know i’ve gone all over this
district knocking on almost every door
um i know i keep my nose itches but i’m
knocking on every door all over the
district um i’ve actually visited every
household at least once in the past few
years because of my work on the
community advisory council with draco
and so on so i’ve been all over the
place and by the way if you’re
interested in dracula’s draco dot life a
lot of people may not know what the
suffix would be on that
um
yeah so
this is a serious campaign
um i’ve definitely been out as far as my
own efforts way out doing my opponent
who has probably done very little as far
as you know direct
um community interaction but again if
you got this group there that’s willing
to spend unlimited funds i mean i guess
everything’s a limit but lots of funds
um then i gotta step it up and they’re
stepping it up and i gotta keep ahead of
them no absolutely well again thank you
so much i wish you the best of luck uh
spike and i have a show on tuesday and
we will uh definitely be covering
uh what is happening in your election
along with some of the other ones that
are going on across the nation that day
uh so keep us informed let us know what
happens uh and we we here at muddy
waters are definitely rooting for you
thank you very very much yeah definitely
well thank you so much um
uh if you want to hang out for a little
bit afterwards be my guest i got to
close this thing out but uh i will talk
to you again very soon either way
okay thank you
two everybody else thank you so much for
tuning in uh i definitely appreciate
each and every one of you
now if you are one of those people who
uh
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coming up tomorrow
we have cajun and eskimo from bayous to
igloos at 9 30 eastern
i think this week we’re going to find
out tomorrow it might be at 10 o’clock
with cajun going oops again uh but from
9 30 eastern tomorrow um
9 30 eastern tomorrow cajun and eskimo
then this weekend uh
spike is somewhere i don’t remember
where he is but you can probably find
more content from him this weekend then
on monday on mr america the bearded
truth jason lyon
has
sean greg alva i should have asked him
how to say that today sean grijalva uh
and they are going to be talking about
veterans and their affairs and then on
tuesday you can join me and spike cohen
right here
eight o’clock-ish eastern on muddied
waters of freedom where spike cohen and
i will parse through the week’s events
like the sweet
autumn
angels that we are
then i’m not sure if spike has a show
next week his calendar
doesn’t have it so i don’t think he has
a show next week but if he does you’re
not going to believe who his guest is or
what his topic is depending on which way
he’s going with it and then next
thursday
on an all-new episode of the writer’s
block i have jenny cadell who is running
for state house in iowa uh jenny if i
pronounced your name wrong i apologize
uh but
she will be on uh next thursday eight
o’clock right here muddied waters media
tune in you get five fantastic nights a
week of muddied wires media and then
next week you might even get some you
might get some bonus content from us as
well
um fun fact of the week
the seven holes that you see in every
ritz cracker
they are called
docking holes
[Music]
take that for what you will for episode
69.
have a great week everybody i will see
you all again very soon um
yeah enjoy your weekend
and for the writer’s block i am matt
wright and you
are perfect
the way you are
[Music]
i don’t need anybody’s help yeah i am
waving while
[Music]
cause if there’s room enough for one
there must be
[Music]
water so my liver
[Music]
when my hiding place is
[Music]
[Applause]
[Music]
[Applause]
[Music]
i will only drag you down
[Music]
[Music]
i don’t need anybody’s head
[Music]
[ __ ]
[Music]