Transcripts For ALJAZ The Stream 20240712

Daily cases and matching percentage increases in daily deaths the evolving situation in europe raises great concern daily numbers of cases or a hospital admissions or approach and cover it is now the 5th leading cause of deaths and the bar of 8000. 00 bits per day has no been reached. The warring sides in yemen have begun a swap of more than a 1000 prisoners its hoped the move could build trust between the movie rebels and the saudi Led Military Coalition the swap as part of a deal brokered by the United Nations in switzerland last month and it comes after the release of 2 americans by the movies on wednesday the International Committee of the red cross which is coordinating the swap says 700. 00 people have been moved with further flights on friday. Kurdistans Prime Minister has assumed the powers of the president after the countrys leader has resigned so dont buy you havent called had faced davey protests against his leadership since this months disputed parliamentary election side the area part of had been named Prime Minister just this week after his supporters freedom from jail the speaker of the countrys parliament also stood down. Meanwhile the speaker of the Cypriot Parliament has resigned in the wake of a cash for passport scandal exposed by aljazeera they meet to receive notice stood down after investigation found senior politicians were willing to sell citizenship to convicted criminals government has abolished the program those the top stories stay with us the stream is that still have more news for you in half an hour join me then ahead. It there are welcome to stream at home edition im josh rushing sitting in for me ok today if youre watching this on you tube i could really use your help see that box over there thats a live youtube chat and we actually have a stream producer a little producer who is in that box looking to get your questions and your comments to me so i can get them to our guests during the show so help me out one chip today were talking about something that i knew little about before it was pitched its called swatting its a kind of praying where someone calls in and says that theres like a hostage situation at the house that theyre not at so that the police will respond with swat to that house it started with gamers on sites like twitch and in fact check out this video you can watch one actually happen here. Not only the phantom. Pain but finally i did. Understand why we didnt just. Want to. Go in many ways a bomb. On something teeter adaptions or employer and lets please even walker walker. In that particular video that young man his father handcuffed outside the house while the police went through the house and what started as a fun and games actually turned deadly when a man in california called the police in kansas to say there was a hostage situation and when the Police Showed up they shot a 28 year old man dead on his front porch who had nothing to do with it wasnt even the right address for the gamer that they were trying to prank and in fact that person who made that call was sentenced to 20 years in jail last year in california now to talk about this today were joined by an exciting panel of guests who im actually going to ask to introduce themselves to you themselves so well begin with. Good morning thanks for having me my name is malina abdul a professor of pan African Studies at cal state l. A. Also cofounder of black lives matter well santa listen one of the original members of matter and i am a single mom of 3 kids who was recently swatted about a month ago and happy to talk more about that and what that meant for me and for my children. Thank you for being with us today millie now were going to get into your story in just a minute and what a story it is doing by alito from dallas hi im the lead to bucknor in this i am a professor of law and senior associate dean at s. M. U. Deadman school of law in dallas much of my research is in Critical Race Theory and most recently i have taken up the topic of swatting and also something thats been described as White Collar Crime that is to say where black people become the victims of false police calls who were joined by divied in seattle. Hey josh navy jim ali i me at are a large newsweek but im also a fellow for the Antidefamation League looking at swatting as well as the cochair of Seattle Police departments efforts to combat swatting and sadly enough i too am also a victim. Well swatting. So lets begin with myleene we have a video of the show when the Police Showed up to your house. To get any danger no i mean we got a call to this location theres a millionaire holding guys hostage if you will 3. 00 are going to go here within an hour. Oh my god now somebody that theres nobody in the house except my own Security Company that we just want to make sure that youre ok im fine my kids are petrified. But thats why were here they must have their mind set of. Lima could you walk us through what happened on that day sure so thats just the remainder of the video that was. Basically what happened 9 oclock in the morning on a weekday morning im getting ready to go to a press conference actually about some work that was happening at school and i travel with security anyway because of the work that i do with black lives matter and ongoing threats and my security personnel arrived at the hall at my home what were getting ready to eat and he notes that when he told us that the police had my house surrounded and i said oh well its not for me i didnt think it was for us because you know theres incidents that happen i live off a crenshaw in los angeles its a very active community sometimes things happen in my neighborhood. And i looked out the window and police come to the window theres police everywhere they come to the window and point assault rifles swards me through the window and then i realized it was for us and so i immediately tried to get my children in the safest place possible towards the back of the house i go live which is this is a cliff i think for my instagram allowed. But theres an announcement over the loudspeaker that the police have my house surrounded theres a helicopter overhead this is just a small number of the police that were around there were about 30 or 40 officers armed very heavily when ounce that everyone in the house needed to come out with our hands up of course i since i was Live Streaming i announced that i had my phone in my hand i kept thinking about quran gains and stiff on whove been murdered for having their phones in their hands while black and gratefully thankfully my neighbors are who protected me my neighbors refuse to allow me to walk towards the police without them and literally put their bodies on the lines for me on the line for me but it was a horrific. Incident and it was something that we are grateful to have survived and still deeply traumatized is my children. Get through with what we feel it would why did you imagine they were there. I didnt know why they were there you know i know that im a constant target im a pretty well known. Police. Abolitionist i work on Reimagining Public Safety i organize with black lives matter which is why i think that a piece around swatting also the political swatting of organizers is a lot different than you know swatting is a prank right that a caller who called on me had sounded like a white southerner male and was very clear about him targeting he was targeting black lives matter and i believe that the police are complicit when they think that something you know when they get calls like that its not that theyre going in blind they knew precisely who i was and they risk why this call was coming in and to move in that way i believe they were complicit in what couldve you know brought my death and the death of my children. Should the police of people down i think that theres its easy enough to you know get in touch with me they get theyve gotten in touch with me and many other instances it would have been easy enough for them to make a phone call it would have been easy enough they clearly didnt believe the call because if you look at the calmness once i was terrorized and asked to come out with my hands up once i had assault rifles pointed at me they did nothing more to ensure my safety or the safety of my children so they were complicit in this call in my view they could have if they were really concerned about my safety there were other ways to check on my safety and they didnt do that if it is a simpler to your experience. Well you actually had a chance to talk to chief more about molinas case when we did a panel i peep at look the point that i want to hit on here is both of you mentioned have described swatting as a hoax it is not a hoax it is in fact a crime as you heard from the lead actually beyond the legal realm that also has its an act of terror goal here is to terrorize its not just the physical act its to its you know spread fear and as molina say its not just a tool thats being targeted at gamers were seeing it use that disenfranchised you know were seeing black activists being targeted by this but were also seeing the c. E. O. s of c. E. O. Of instagram right so this is a tool that can be used by anyone really to go and reach out and try to get this kinetic thing so its not just a hoax and that someones calling it a threat the goal here is to play an inherent bias as leaders pointing out to try to elicit an incredibly strong Armed Police Response with the goal of inflicting violence so thats incredibly dangerous but heres the other part of this josh theres no consequence so people can do this and you know what seattle and what were working on is really to help Police Departments adana fi and tailor their response but when it comes to investigation let alone prosecutions it just doesnt happen and theres a lot of reasons for that so right now if you want to swat someone unfortunately the chances of you being arrested let alone prosecuted and convicted are damn near 0 so thats a chilling thing when you realize the damage and consequences it can have on individuals and groups. Well later we were joined by a lawyer a legal expert on this Little League white how could this be legal. Wow you know i absolutely agree with what ive just been said 1st of all this is not a hoax people who engage in swatting are very purposeful this is an act of terror one of the significant problems is that you know perhaps one of the most significant safety mechanisms that have been created in the u. S. Over the last few decades is the widespread access of the 911 system that is one of the tools that we use in order to keep ourselves safe and thats true whether or not we fear Violent Crime or whether we have for example a medical emergency it is shocking and regrettable that the 911 system is being deployed in this way but let me also just add its not just calls to 911 that are being used very often swatting also occurs via calls to Nonemergency Police numbers the reason that this can be so insidious and so difficult to control is that. Frankly you know outside of the sort of pure hoax calls where someone is calling up on a game or or where someone has a you know a beef with someone very often callers can make the claim the very much subjective ice claim that they were fear fearful or that they somehow thought this was going on it is very hard to challenge someone subjective or subjective ice to claim about something they thought whats going on its very difficult number one number 2 even though i would say in the vast majority of us youre stiction it is a violation its a criminal violation to make a false report many of those mechanisms for criminalizing that act they are low level they are misdemeanors they are not felonies you should look at the case in california where someone was just convicted and got 20 years in jail thats because someone ended up dead number one number 2 it was also possible to harness the power of statutes you know i think that was prosecuted as an Involuntary Manslaughter case. Those people who do criminal law recognize that. Its really difficult to make out many manslaughter cases i mean you need a certain amount of intentionality and that was present that case and you still end up not with murder but with i believe a manslaughter charge so that case is actually exemplary of what of how even in the worst Case Scenarios it becomes difficult to prosecute or if it is possible to prosecute its difficult to get a film the prosecution and if you can get a family prosecution its often difficult to get the highest level of penalty there are understand some jurisdictions that are trying to put in place some explicit statutory responses to this but thats been slow going so far and i would guess and my. Yes can jump in here i would guess thats because we dont want to have a Chilling Effect on peoples ability to call 911 how do you balance that with the very real fact that people are using this as a weapon against others you know. If its passed i think though we also need to think about that the police are not neutral and all of these cases so this is used when we talk about the targeting of black activists and organizers you know this is used i think as. An excuse for them to come in and terrorize its not that the you know the police cant if you even watch just that short clip of the video in my case you know the police cant claim he claimed he didnt know who i was now no Police Officer and all of l. A. P. D. Doesnt know who i am and doesnt know who black lives matter is we are the largest and most active chapter in black lives matter and this is happening at the time when black lives matter is now the Largest Movement in global history come on now you dont come in and come to my house and not know what it was and so its really important that we you know one absolutely say that its more than a hoax so the caller absolutely has some responsibility but Police Departments who are using it as an excuse to further terrorize harass and really place in jeopardy but lives of activists you know also bear some responsibility and i think that we need to remember that Law Enforcement units are not neutral they have their own agendas that theyre trying to advance the reviewers i would hate to. I was going to say so to that point look clearly i listen to many many swatting calls and you know again people who are calling in a swat team they want to get a Police Response so theyre going to play inherent bias and clearly race is part of that but you know you cant ignore the fact that like i said the c. E. O. Of instagram has been swatted in my case it was actually the former head of v. H. S. That was actually swatted and thats what actually brought a federal beef but heres the larger point you know you go to Police Department and you ask them they dont know what the hell swatting means they dont even but most Police Officers dont know thats the thing so thats one problem and then you know to my cohost point about the legal part of this you know the molina she was terrorized this was awful its clearly had an impact on her in a lot of ways but you know you go to police a popular you say how do you record this that weve got a crime to record this at because theres no physical damage theres no loss of life so in many cases theyll just recorded as a false no one call which at best is not even its not a felony its a misdemeanor so theres no investigative purposes im sure the f. B. I. Has not been in contact with molina and im sure you know i can tell you from from experience that these people who are swatting someone like her are doing this prolifically theyre not just targeting her theyre target all sorts of people but the biggest challenge here is getting the feds to investigate it because what we found from squatters is not only are they out of state as as as again which point out theyre calling the nonemergency line which you cant call 91 in austin unless youre in austin for example theyre not only out of state in some cases theyre out of the country so we need federal involvement to investigate and prosecute but on the Law Enforcement side really is absolutely right like police should know that this is a thing they should know that there are people who are actively trying to plan their inherent biases right so they know if they say its a black man with a gun its more likely going to get a stronger response and theyre playing on that theres no doubt about it but again i just want to make clear that this is not just just like i would say its not a tool to use in the game or community its not just a tool used against activists although that is a that is a part of it its also used. Like Trump Administration officials and you know c. E. O. s of Large Companies and thats why unfortunately thats why its finally getting some attention heck i mean i didnt point spoken to the departing defense about this and weve talked about nation states using this as a tool to disrupt a military base which you could absolute do so this has a broader concern if you had an emerging threat and again thats the absolutely frightening thing here is no matter which way you look at whether its someone you have to molina or someone who went after the former head of v. H. S. In many cases theres euro consequences and so you know whats to discourage people to do this they know they can do it without with impunity and they only have to be right once and you know thats it youve ruined his life it is not even the last lecture to a course or is that risking that horrible is the trauma for evermore a pretty one here call it terror thats the whole point of terrorism right yes and so it just happened to a black College Student stephen f. Austin down in texas and it could put this video into Christian Christian evidence the police stormed into her room at 3 am in the morning and heres the trauma from this happening. I feel safe here i dont even know how to. Sleep at night because of this. It has made me really paranoid that im always taking my room in vegas and everything is over. Or i go to sleep. I was looking forward to making friends and having a good time of this year it seems but since this is happened its made it really really really hurt. So im just like as im taking it what. Milena can you touch on the Emotional Trauma that last long after the actual event show or i mean. What should. I. Is that my 3 children were home. And after asking the sergeants if i was free to go i walked back to my home and watched as my 13 year old daughter just shook in terror she as i walked out the house when i was you know they called for everyone to walk out the house with their hands up you know i was trying to draw the police away from the house so my children what they have to face guns pointed at them actually and you know thankfully the police trained their guns on me and not on my children because they were kind of barricaded in a back room and i was able to draw them away from the house. But thinking about what it meant for my children to watch as these assault rifles and this is dozens of officers surrounding their mother with assault rifles you know this is. Something thats going to live with them and with me for the rest of our lives and you know definitely you know there is therapy thats in place as a result there are theres a lot of anxiety you know and black folks always already have to live with anxiety when we see police but the way in which we were threatened causes additional anxiety i watch how my children behave when the police are around and its almost unavoidable these days its not like i can keep them safe from police but its its definitely taking an emotional toll on us would be to. Use in our communities and this is video comic quickly that request. In the most recent example of swatting or Campus Police raided the dorm room of a black cheerleader at stephen f. Austin university the police chief made the assurance that the incident was not racially motivated even if it may not have been in that instance there is a long history where race plays a major factor in false calls that the police a lot of times callers know that the police will more likely respond and respond urgently when they include race in a false report any cooper knew this when she called the police claiming that a black man was threatening her life and a little known fact about a more famous case or its 1st texas it all started with a false report about a black man going crazy with a firearm in an apartment in the lawrence case this led to a bad arrest based off of about law but this is not always the case and an encounter with the police can easily turn out deadly as in the cases of tanner rice and Briana Taylor this happens more than a 1000 times a year at this place in the u. S. Right now a lot of people are used to community are asking what should be done about it what can we do about it lida from a legal perspective do we need to move laws here we absolutely need some new laws here as i mentioned a few moments ago right now in most jurisdictions very its very little on the law books in state statutes that would directly respond to this except for those very statutes that criminalize false report reports to the police or to 911 but i think beyond law i think we have to come at it from a couple of angles and this goes back to something that molina said i think that even if we had a law on the book there could still be people who lets say somehow. Honestly but incorrectly believe that someone at her home is holding them hostage lets say that that were true and lets say that it was just completely wrong one of the big issues is the heavily militarized response of a number of our Law Enforcement. Members we probably along with creating some laws that would criminalize false reports we also need to create mechanism so that our Law Enforcement Community Responds to these sorts of potential peril without going in as if they are going to war i mean it is not for nothing that this has been called swatting that refers to the swat special weapons and tactics those of us who have read about a member of the eightys recall that this was the era of big militarized policing and thats often the kind of response that we get so yes i do think we need some more laws on the book we need local laws that is to say at the at the city level we need state level laws that could be widely used in criminal courts of jurisdictions but also i think mention this this should be also federalized very often these callers are contacting people or contacting the police will cross state lines. Im going to have to wrap it up there heres what we need to leave viewers with this is not a hopes this is terrorism this is dangerous in a sounds like we need new laws to catch up with it but i think all my guests for joining me today thats it for me this week next time youll see demi ok back in her chair thanks for joining us we call this raymond shes a. Business leaders just want to buy no bra spa. Business leaders just want to buy no bra spa. At keams never convicted and yet in costume 18 fiends. Confined in a zombie increasing weakness fun is the jenny of them and. After losing his freedom and his marriage is left to mend it with concern. Over the future of his daughter. The remanding. Guinea is getting ready to vote out for conde to 5 months of violent protests to change the constitution now he has defined his critics to seek a. Candidate by that opposition come together for a moment of to stop him give me a lection 2020 on aljazeera. Out of the sample ballot on the love that we are the world traveling the extra mile where all the media dont go we go there and we give them a chance to tell their story. Hello london these are the top stories on ill just erupt the head of the World Health Organization in europe has issued a stark warning about a 2nd wave of corona virus infections hence clue west said the total number of deaths could be up to 5 times that seen earlier in the year if significant action is not taken new restrictions are coming into force across the continent with london moving into the 2nd highest english alert level on saturday. Before winter search the new own fault in europe with exponential increases in daily