10/21/16 10/21/1616 [captioning made possible by democracy now!] amy: from pacifica, this is democracy now! >> the most disenfranchised, marginalized population was essentially under a reign of terror by a group of officers. these officers uncovered it, undertook to investigate it undercover with the fbi and internal affairs, were outed within the department and they have become e the focus of hostility within the department. amy: two's chicago police officers who blew the was so --

whistle on fellow officers half-assed retaliation since they came forward. we will speak with one of the whistleblowers and with a reporter who documented their ordeal in a major investigation for the intercept called "the codede of silence." new york police have fatally shot a 66 euros african-american woman who suffered from schizophrenia. in her own home in the bronx after a neighbor called 911. mayor de blasio has condemned the shooting. >> 66 years old, known to the nypd as someone who srerereuffed from mental illness. in the shooting of deborah danner is tragic and it is unacceptable. amy: we will get reaction on this and a number of other issues from shaun king, a black

lives matter activist and senior justice writer for "the daily news." >> we always get a lot of talk about holies brutality. in this most recent shooting, the mayor and the police commissioner acknowledge it is wrong, even apologize. that is just talk. we need to get to the point where we have justice and accountability. amy: all that and more, coming up. welcome to democracy now, democracynow.org, the war and peace report. i'm amy goodman. republican presidential nominee donald trump campaigned in ohio thursday and announced that he will accept the results of the november's election under one conditition. mr. trurump: i i want to make ea major announcement today. i would d like to promise and pledge to all of my voters and suppororters a and to all of the people of the united states that

i will totally accept the results of this great and historic presidential election if i win. amy: donald trump's remarks come one day after the final presidential debate when he refused to say if you will accept the relate -- election results. president obama and other leaders have sharprply criticizd trump's remarks. pres. obama: that is dangerous. when you try to sow the seeds of doubt in people's minds about the legitimacy of election, that undermines our democracy. amy: on thursday night, trump and hillary clinton both spoke here in new york at the alfred e. smith memorial foundation dinner in new york to raise money for catholic charities. trump was repeatedly heckled and booed d during the evevent. pres. obamama: we have learned o much from wikikileaks.

for example, hihillary bebelievt is vital to dececeive the p peoe by having one public policies -- [boos]s] pres. . obama: andnd a total policy in private. that's ok.. i don't t of who they y are angy at. for example, here she is tonight in public pretending not to hate catholics -- [boos] amy: hillary clinton poked fun at trump's claim that he might not accept the result of the november election. mrs. clinton: you know, come to think of it, it is amazing i am up here after donald. i did not think he would be ok with a peaceful transition of power. amy: the two candidates sat at the same table during the dinner, separated only by cardinal timothy dolan, the ararchbishop of new york. in other campaign news, a 10th woman has come forward to say she was sexually assaulted by donald trump.

karena virginia said trump approached her in 1998 outside the u.s. open tennis tournament and grabbed her breast. virginia said after she initially flinched, trump remarked, "don't you u know whoi am?" virgrginia spoke out on thurursy with a message to the republblin nominee. >> your random moment of sexual pleaeasure came at my expense ad affected me greatly. mr.. trump revealed his true characacter in his o own words, which indicated he fefelt entitd to grab women by their private parts. amy: in news from iraq, at least 16 people have died after isis militants attacked a power station in the oil-rich city of kirkuk. this came as u.s.-backed forces continued their assault on mosul which fell to the islamic state , two years ago. the united nations has warned it

could force up to one million people to be displaced. on thursday the pentagon announced the first u.s. soldier had died in the attempt to retake mosul. the top united nations human rights official has said that the siege and bombing of eastern aleppo in syria has constituted crimes of historic proportions. zeid ra'ad al hussein spoke earlier today during a special session of the u.n. human rights council. >> armed opposition groups continue to fire mortars and projectiles into civilian neighborhoods of western aleppo, but indiscriminate airstrikes across the eastern part of the city by government forces and their allies are responsible for the overwhelming majority of civilian casualties. and these relations c constitute war crimes. and of knowingly committed as part of a widespread or systematic attack against civilians, they constitute crimes against humanity.y. y: south a africa has begun the formal process to withdraw from the international criminal court. the news comes just two days

after another african nation, burundi, became the first country to ever pull out of the court. over the years, the court has been accused of disproportionately targeting african leaders. human rights watch criticized south africa's move. the group said -- "south africa's proposed withdrawal from the international criminal court shows startling disregard for justice from a country long seen as a global leader on accountability for victims of the gravest crimes." in news from latin america, honduran security forces fired water cannons and tear gas at protesters thursday in the honduran capital of tegucigalpa. the protest was led by copinh, the civic council of popular and indigenous organizations of honduras. the leader of copinh, berta caceres, was assassinated in march. thursday's protest came just days after two honduran campesino leaders were also assassinated. tension is escalating between washington and manila afteter newly elected filipino president rodrigo duterte announced a separation from the united states and realignment with beijing.

and will realign myself maybe i will also [indiscernible] there are three of us against the world. [applause] only way. amy: the philippines is a former u.s. colony and longtime military ally. meanwhile, in other news from the philippines, dozens of protesters were injured during a demonstration wednesday outside the u.s. embassy in manila when a police van repeatedly rammed into the crowd. the protesters were calling for an end to the u.s. military presence in the philippines. for the first time in two decades a new nuclear reactor , has gone online in the united

states. the tennessee valley authority announced watts bar unit 2 began generating energy on wednesday. construction on the $4.7 billion reactor began in 1973. four other reactors are being constructed in georgia in rhode island, two activists from the fang collective were arrested thursday when they chained themselves to a concrete device inside a td bank in providence. they were protesting the banks financial support of ththe dakoa access pipeline. federal prosecutors have announced they plan to charge a former national security agency contractor with violating the espionage act in what's being described as the largest theft of classified government material ever. prosecutors accuse harold thomas martin, an employee of booz allen hamilton, of stealing classified material from the nsa over a 20-year period, but there is no evidence he shared the information. martin is scheduled to appear in court today.

a new report from the environmental protection agency's inspector general has concluded ththe agency took sevn months l longer than necessary o warn residents of flint water -- flint, michigan, about lead contamination inin their water. the e report found the e epa had enenough informamation in june 5 to issue an emergency order under the safe drinking water act but the agency didn't act until january 2016. flint's lead poisoning began when an unelected emergency manager appointed by michigan governor rick snyder switched the source of the city's drinking water to the corrosive flint river in 2014. and britain has announced it will pardon up to 15,000 gay and bisexual men who were convicted under old laws that criminalized homosexuality. the pardons are being done under the so-called turing law, named after alan turing, whoho cracked nazi germany's big name of code,

but was prosecuted for being gay. he committed suicide in 1954 at the age of 41. and those are some of the headlines. this is democracy now, democracynow.org, the war and peace report. i'm amy goodman. juan: and i'm juan gonzalez. welcome to all of our listeners and viewers from around the country and around the world. we begin today's show with an explosive story of two chicagago police officers who blew the whistle on a gang of their colleagues after they discovered they were demanding bribes from drug dealers in the housing projects of chicago, arresting their rivals and blocking any internal investigations into their actions. the whistleblowers, shannon ,palding and danny echeverria spent five years working with the chicago police department and the a the i in their case only to be sidelined -- outted as informants, threatened, and eventually forced out of the police department. in contrast, the named senior officials and cops who helped cover for their fellow officers

were able to retire from the force with their pensions intact and faced no punishment for the role in the cover-up. spalding said she is even received death threats. she e and her partner both took stress-related medical leave and she is been diagnosed with post dramatic stress disorder. amy: their ordeal is chronicled in a four-part investigation published by the intercept called "the code of silence." part one is headlined -- "in the chicago police department, if the bosses say it didn't happen, it didn't happen."." it is s written by the awarard-winning chicago journalist, , jamie kalven, who has madede a career out of exposing p police misconduct inn the cicity. he spent threeee years interviewing spalding for the report. he is also knonown for uncoverig the autopsy report that showed laquan mcdonald was shot 16 times by chicago police in 2014 and was the first to report the existence of the video of the shooting, which was released 400 days after mcdonald was killed. thursday marked the second anniversary of the killing. kalven is now working with

spalding on a project called the invisible institute, which has set up an encrypted drop box for chicago police officers to anonymously upload evidence of corruption. they also offer r to link whistleblowing cops to mental-health and legal resources. for more we go to chicago where jamie kalven joins us to discuss investigatation. and we are joined by the whistleblower at the center of his story, shannon spalding. we welcome you both to democracy now! jamie, we begin with you. lay out the story. >> this is a server coast saga serpicotime -- saga of our time. this in thehe last decade. the scene of the crime has essentially disappeared. they make conscientious efforts to bring this criminal activity

to the attention of their superiors. they are blown off. ultimately, go to the fbi and provide information -- it is not conclusive information, but grounds for investigation. they then are detailed to work undercover with the fbi and pursue this investigation for a number of years. are at the point of breaking the case wide open when they are outted within the department and have since suffered constant retaliation. i think part of what is really important about this story is what it illustrates about the nature of the code of silence. i think the common understanding of the code of silence is it is a kind of peer-to-peer phenomena of the rank-and-file, we're in the foxhole together, you got my back, nobody likes a tattletale. there is that dimension with the police culture, but what is so striking about this story is the

retaliation against these officers is ordered by high-ranking supervisory officials within the department. so it is really a story in great detail of how the code o of silence operates at the center of the chicago police department. juan: jamie, about the issue of retaliation being ordered at high levels. how was that documented in the lawsuit? also, the city settled for $2 million before there was a trial. could you talk about the tactic of the city of settling the suit? >> right. so in the midst of this ordeal, the two officers, shannon and danny, brought a whistleblower lawsuit -- really, and employment suit, hoping above all to be protected from further retaliation. it only compounded and intensified the retaliation at that point. there are a number of allegations in the lawsuit. the intercept keys links to all

of the underlying legal documents. , the commander of narcotics, the chief of organized crime, made it clear they did not want these officers working in unit ththey controll. they went so far in one instance of really delivering a a threat, paradoxically, it was conveyed by the chief of internal affairs who is charged with investigating this sort of thing, a threat against the personal safety. theyieve the quote was, if call for backup, it is not coming. this was not just a matter of being ostracized were shunned within the department, although, it certainly was that. as shannon s says, at one pointn the article, i quoted her saying, we were officers without a department. they are left out on the streets in this really dangerous

investigation, investigating a team of officers who are thought twoave been implicated in murders. it has not been proven yet, but it scarcely has been investigated apart from shannon and denny's work. there left wholly exposed. -- they are left wholly exposed. this is coming from the top. this was not some are more in behavior, this is the machinery of how the chicago police department controls the narrative. thequoted the line about bosssses say didn't happen, didt happen. that is really at the center of this tour he. amy: let's go to shannon spalding, former chicago police officer. agrees to chicago settle a whistleblower lawsuit brought by spalding and her colleague daniel echeverria who allege they suffered retaliation for reporting and investigating criminal activity by fellow officers. shannon spalding, tell us, what

was it that you were investigating? when did it happen? when did the cover-up, you feel, and the retaliation against you start? >> my partner danny and i started investigating allegations that kept surfacing there was a sergeant, ronald watts, and members of his team who work directly underneath them that were imposing what they called on the streets a watch tax. he was receiving money from drug dealers that ran different drug presidentin a housing -- project in the surrounding area. in exchange for that money, they were g guarantee protection from prosecution an arrest. in addition to that, the allegations were that this crew of rogues officers under the command of ronald watts were also planting narcotics on

innocent individuals and falsifying police reports, falsely arresting them, putting them in prison for false allegations. ofre is also the allegations physical violence, of being beaten if they did not want to comply and pay this tax, as well as warrarantless seizures, kickg in doors, and going through people's apartments, stealing everything that wasn't nailed down. and the allegations kept being repeated over and over again from every individual we would do intelligence with along with our confidential informants. i think you said, when to the retaliation begin on this investigation? we began to investigate it and brought it to the fbi in 2006. we were not officially assigned with our department to work with

the fbi that time. we were doing this on our own time. 2007, we were assigned by the chicago police department to work with the fbi solely on what was dubbed operation brass tacks. brass meaning the top officials in the police department. brass refers to a boss. tax, because that is what they were and limiting. i believe it was 2010, august 2010, when i realized that our identity had been compromised and that we were now out. this was supposed to be a strictly confidential investigation. it was imperative our identities not be revealed because the targets of this investigation were officers and bosses, and we did not know how far up the chain it would go. which meant they had access to all of our personal information -- where we lived, our children,

anything that they wanted -- which made us very vulnerable. to expose our identity is basically throwing us to the walllls. these targets could now know who we are, what we were investigating. you have to remember, these are police officers. they know what they did. and now they know that we know. and with that comes the implication of federal prison time, losing your job, losing your livelihood. and makes us targets it very dangerous for us to work. juan: i want to turn to janenet hanna, a 20 year veteran of the chicago police department. she says she witnessed the harassment of you, shannon, and your partner danny echeverria. on one occasion, hanna said she overheard a sergeant warning you about your own safety. this is hahanna telling nbc chicicago's s phil rogers s whae overhearard. >> she better where her bulletproof vest. she may go home in a c casket ad

he doesn't wawant have to call r daughter and tell her that she is gone. >> and that was because she would be in danger from bad guys anand they would n not protetecr from the bad guys come or she would be in danger from her fellow officers? >> both. juan: what about that? what kind of retaliation did you feel, one, you are -- when you were still working there? >> it was horrific. i actually felt so anxious walking into work every day filed thece i whistleblower lawsuit, i am now working for the defendant of my lawsuit. can you just imagine what that was like? i felt like a was walking into the lions do with a steak around my neck every single day. i recall the incident. it is burned in my memory. it was my direct supervisor at the time that was telling me that because we had investigated other officers, because they

basically -- we had broken the code of silence, we had gone thatst other sworn members the officers within that unit, the supervisors relate to me the officers on the team and in this unit will not back you up. you're on your own. you are in a lot of danger. say, you'rer as to going to end up in a box and i'm going to be telling your daughter you are coming home in a box. those were the type of threats that would happen on a regular basis. the retaliation was relentless and it was daily. juan: i want to also ask jamie kalven, you have been investigating both police abuse and now this entire police corruption scandal. for those of us who have been following crime stories and police departments now for decades, this is almost like deja vu all over again. thet wasn't serpico in

1960's in new york city and in the 1990's, similar type of scandal with a corrupt group of officers headed by michael dowd, again, a police officer within the department trying to ferret them out. but the dowd criminal group was only revealed when long island police arrested him on charges. it seems to me there has been a link between corruption and police department and abuse within police department. seems to be an upsurge in abuse at the same time there upsurge is an corruption. i am wondering your understanding what has been going on in chicago. >> i think that is well put. a huge part of that is the war on drugs and the way we have conducted it. i think we have found consistent -- consistently them will double scandals, it happens and specialized units, working in

supposedly combating the war on drugs. but again and again, that proves to be a sort of setting the in thefor corruption abuse. what shannon was describing was the sort of protection racket, hugely corrupt, the officers are really an integral part of the drug trade. at the same time, as part of that, they are daily, multiple times, violating the constitutional rights of citizens. false arrest, excessive force, the fabrication of evidence, on and on. so this all goes together. and i think -- we will continue to have occurring scandals of this nature until we can address until we can address this -- term "code of silence" within the department. and until officers like shannon and danny are held up as models

of good police officers and good schemework, until the shifts, right now for officers to break ranks and come forward and report really grievous abuse by fellow officers requires them to be her wrote almost to the point of self-sacrifice. that cannot work. amy: in federally former chicago 2015, police department superintendent garry mccarthy released a statement to nbc chicago saying -- "superintendent mccarthy and the cpd have zero tolerance for retaliation against whistleblowers. however, the city believes the claims of these particular plaintiffs are without merit. the city will continue to vigorously litigate this case." that was in february 2015. shannon, the day you're going to triaial, right, may 2016, they

settled with you and danny, your fellow police officer, for $2 million? >> that is correct. they waited until the last minute and then they decided to settle. i personally believe that is because they did not want me getting on the stand and telling howything that i know about the operation within the police department really works. and they did not want that on public record. so they would rather settle then have me expose all of their dirty laundry in a courtroom. amy: how much money were you talking about when it came to what these officers were doing? >> oh, you know, we will never have a final count. the range buried. we got information that some of the drug lines would pay a couple thousand dollars a week. with several sources say that one of the biggest joke lines that was run in the city of theygo was named obama and

would pay as much as $50,000. it depended on the drug dealer, the amount of money they were bringing end, the amount of protection they would need, how many locations they were running would vary. it was really a criminal enterprise, a complete business -- a criminal business. amy: has anyone been prosecuted? another playts and guilty and served sentences in federal prison. i believe it was 18 and 22 months. i believe ronald watts to 22 months. juan: jamie kalven, you' interviewing these officerers fr several years bebefore you were able -- before the intercept story came out. can you talk about the difficulties in getting this story out? >> this is a complicated story for journalist to figure out how

to bring to the public. edward snowden comes to us with a treasure trove of documents, we know what to do with that sort of whistleblower. when some of you like shannon and her partner danny come with a compelling story that they have -- they've taken great risk to tell, by the nature of the story, it cannot be fully corroborated. you cannot double source. other people who were in the room won't talk to you. it is fundamentally a story about the code of silence, which we should call it by its true name, which is official line. concerted, sustained lying by high officials. the question of how to tell that story in a way that is consistent with journalistic ethics and standards, you know, i struggled with that. and i found ultimately with the intercept, a great partner in

bringing this tory out, and where the story sort of ends. i urge people to go to the intercept site and read it. partly because of shannon's great storytelling ability, a reads like a novel, but it ends at a point where i want to leave the reader with a question. shannon and danny are telling the truth -- you make your own judgments about credibility -- if they are telling the truth, then a whole array of high officials are lying and lying in concert. so the story really ultimately hinges o on arriving at that question. and that question remains open for the city of chicago. the settlement of the case did not resolve the issue -- of shannon's case did not resolve the issues raised by the case. what we hope to do throuough the reporting an ongoing reporting about this is to keep those

issues very centrally in the public eye. amy: very quickly, late last her, chicago mayor rahm emanuel apologized for laquan mcdonald's death. in his speech to the city council, emanuel broke with the city's long history of denying the existence of the code of silence. >> as we move forward, i'm looking for a new leader of the chicago police department to address the problems at the very heart of the policing profession. the problem is sometimes referred to as the thin blue line. the problem is other times referred to as the code of silence. ignore, ittndency to is the tendency to deny, it is the tendency in some cases to cover up the bad actions of a colleague or colleagues.

no officer should be allowed to behave as if they are above the law just because they are responsible for upholding the law. permitting a protecting even the smallest acts of abuse by a tiny fraction of our officers leads to a culture where extreme acts of abuse are more likely. just like what happened to laquan mcdonald. amy: this comes as thursday marked the second anniversary of the death of laquan mcdonanald, fatally shot by chicago police officer jason van dyke. jamie kalven, you were the first report the existence of the video of the shooting, which was released 400 days after mcdonald was killed, released after mayor rahm emanuel was reelected.

as we wrap up, can you talk about the significance of here he is acknowledging the code of silence and what this case has meant for the city -- basically, laquan mcdonald shot 16 times. it is almost one bullet for every year of his life. he died at the age of 17. >> it is an extraordinary moment for the city. i have now compared the public narrative of laquan mcdonald to ill, a story emett t to soak limited to soak eliminated the underlying violence of the jim crow era. about laquanns mcdonald, notably the atrocity of his death, but the institutional response after, which is really a classic illustration of the code of silence as control of the narrative, you know, the suppression of evidence,

intimidation of witnesses, fabrication of reports. that now has become a sort of framing narrative in chicago and caused a political earthquake -- changed the landscape of the city. so we have amid all of the sort of bad news and all of the of wrongdoing and corruption within the department, i think it is important to emphasize as a consequence of the mcdonald tragedy, there is an historic opening in chicago for meaningful police reform. the language -- that was one of the mayor's better moments, acknowledging the existence of the code of silence. so there really is going forward, i believe, a kind of irresistible momentum toward reform. but it is a big challenge. it is going to be a long's long. only by addressing the culture within the department that we were for to as the code of silence will change really the allingful -- we can make

sorts of changes in institutions, tweak procedures, but culture will always trump. amy: jamie kalven, thank you for being with us. we will link to your series " code of silence" at democracynow.org. shannon spalding, thank you for your bravery and speakaking out. former chicago police officer, whistleblower featured in the series. she said she suffered retaliation for reporting and investing -- investigating crcriminal activity by fellow chicago officer. back, shaun king joins us to talk about many issues. stay with us. ♪ [music break]

amy: "human" by rag'n'bone man. the song is featured in ava duvernay's new documentary, "13th." catch it on netflix. this is democracy now!, democracynow.org, the war and peace report. i'm amy goodman with juan gonzalez.

juan: the election is just 18 days away and three presidential debates behind them now, hillary clinton and donald trump are campaigning. inlary clinton will be raleigh, north carolina, where she will be joined by the mothers of the movement -- women who lost their children to police-involved incidents and gun violence. among them, sybrina fulton, the mother of f trayvon martinin, gw carr, the mother of eric garner, and geneva reed-veal, the mother of sandra bland. amy: the event comes as residents in new york protest yet another fatal police shooting. 66-year-old african american deborah danner was killed by a new york police officer, a sergeant tuesday. , danner had mental health issues. police say she was shot and killed in her own home in the bronx after a neighbor called 911. when police arrived, they found danner naked in her bedroom holding a pair of scissors. authorities say sergeant hugh barry fatally shot her after she picked up a baseball bat. this is new york mayor bill de blasio.

old,borah danner, 66 years and known to the nypd as someone who suffered from mental illness. and 80 shooting of deborah danner is tragic -- and the shooting of deborah danner is tragic and it iss unacceptable. it never shoululd have happened. it is as simple as that. it never should have happened. amy: sergeant hugh barry has been sued twice in recent years for brutality. deborah danner has previously expressed concern about police violence against those living with mental illnesses. in a 2012 essay, danner wrote -- "we are all aware of the two frequent news stories about the mentally ill who come up against law enforcement instead of mental health professionals and end up dead." for more we are joined by shaun king, black lives matttter activist and senior justice writiter for "the new york daily nenews." it is great to have you with us. talk about this case.

>> i am disturbed. so many of us when we see deborah danner, think of our own mothers and grandmothers and the possibility that one time in this country, some of the facing mental illness and battling through it would be shot andd killed by police is disturbing. the truth is, this happens hundreds of times every year, year in and year out. she is just the latest. it should not have happened. that's right. i appreciate mayor de blasio and what he is saying. i think he has helped frame it as the problem that it is. but we have seen tough talk on police brutality in the city many times. what her family and what those of us who care about her and others want is justice. the officers should have been fired immediately. we hope that charges will be filed as well. that then we got the news the state's attorney general, eric schneiderman, has decided

not to intervene as a special prosecutor in the case because supposedly -- she's a list of most to investigate fatal police shootings where the citizens are unarmed. bat, she was holding a supposedly, that means she was armed? >> i was surprised by that. everybody is looking for an advocate. a lot of us thought he was an advocate in the situation that we could count on. when he made the decision, he was kind of taking his hands off of it. i was really surprised. he has left it now to the bronx da to file charges. what happened was not just wrong -- that is part of what bothers me about what the left mayor de blasio and the police commissioner has said. it wasn't just a mistake. a woman who desererd treatment and compassion was shot and killed. we're talking about a crime. at the very least, it was negligent homicide, manslaughter. it was completely avoidable. one of us could have found a way

to take her to the hospital. so a police officer who is trained, a sergeant, should have been able to. amy: what about his history of brutality and what has happened to him? >> right now even though he is off of active duty, people every ordered him many times -- there is even a video of him in another case of police brutality. what we see in new york is similar to chicago in cities all across the country that people on the streets are suffering this violence. they do their very best to report it. and police departments and the city governments are not doing what they can do to hold bad police accountable. juan: especially in a situation where so many times it is a family who called the police for help with the emotionally disturbed person. rather than either retreat from the situation or wait for specialized units to come in or even taser the individual, they pulled out a gun. >> and this officer had a taser.

there were so many other ways this could have been handled. it is at a point now where there is a movement of families of the mentally ill across the country saying, i think we should no longer call 911. that 911 are such a danger for them and there are another -- there are now hundreds of examples were people called thinking they'rere going to o gt medical help only for their loved one to be shot and killed or brutalized in some way. and go you wrote -- amy: you wrote a 25 part series outlining ways to reduce police brutality. >> it could have been a 100 part series. what causes least brutality is complex. there are a series of issues we have to address. one of them is relevant for this , when people call 911 for medical help, they get a one-size-fits-all solution that ultimately ends with an armed officer arriving at the scene. so one of the solutions is, when

you called 911, we need a much more nuanced complicated system that route a mental health call to a mental health team that shows maybe it has support from an officer. i liken it to this -- imagine every time someone called 911 for a fire, they brought a bulldozer and said, we're going to bulldoze this house. it is a danger to the neighborhood. although it may solve the situation in total, it would be ridiculously destructive. that is what mentally ill families often deal with. they need a careful, crafted solulution. instead, they get someone with their guns drawn. it is a terrible thing. juan: in terms of the overall situation now with the black lives matter movement, the enormous impact it has had on the public conversation over police brutality, yet the lack of substantive reform to address the problem?

>> yeah, i think that is accurate. for the past two years -- a lot of people asked me, what has the black lives matter movement achieved? i think in the past two years, injusticeareness of in america. not just here, but people all around the world are aware of it. it is easy to underestimate how difficult that was to achieve. even though we're having this conversation, even at the piece we just talked about in the intercept that was released, that was difficult to achieve. we are pivoting from, what does it take now that we are all fully aware of this problem, what does it take to make this hard change possible? some of it is typical means that we have used like the federal government providing some type of sweeping legislation. i really don't think that will work. police brutality is highly local , with local police department's, local city governments, local laws. there are 20,000 police

departments in our country. what we're really talking about is 20,000 battles, 20,000 different series of reforms that have to happen. it is incredibly difficult. amy: i want to talk about athletes but we're going to go to break first. we will talk about colin kaepernick. our guest is shaun king, black lives matter activist and the senior justice writer for "the new york daily news." stay with us. ♪ [music break]

amy: this is democracy now!, demomocracynow.org, the war and peace report. i'm amy goodman with juan gonzalez. we are talking to shaun king, black lives matter activist and the senior justice writer for "the new york daily news." let's turn to a story that you have been covering for quite some time. that is the nfl or to back colin kaepernick who started his first game of the of the san francisco 4949ers this past sunday. before the game, he continued his protest against racial

oppression and police brutality by kneeling on one knee during the pre game national anthem. after sunday's game kaepernick defended his actions, which have sparked similar protests across the cocountry. >> i i don't understatand what s un-american about t fighting for liberty anand justice for everybody, for the equality thtt this country says it stands for. you know, to me, , i see it is vevery patatriotic andnd ameriro up hold the united statetes to e standards it says it lives by. that is something that needs to be addressed. amy: that is nfl order back colin kaepernick. , you have written so much about this. >> i respect him a great deal and it takes enormous amount of courage to do what he has done to be able to protest police brutality and racial violence on an nfl field with millions of people watching. i think some of us have underestimated the courage that it takes with so many eyeballs

on you to make that statement. but colin is just tried to do what we are all trying to do, to try to keep these problems in the limelight so we can get closer to having these solutions . he is a brilliant guy. i think when people think of nfl athletes, they forget that they are citizens of this country, that they are bothered by the problems that we all face. so colin is enormously courageous and he sparked a movement, in essence, in a lot of ways is a youth movement that is not being talked about. kids in 38 states have taken a knee a football fields i in high schools all l across the cououn. highgh school volleyeyball team, basketball teams. amy: 11 and d 12-yeaear-old in beaumont, texas. >> young boys on a youth football league have done that. enonormous price. at first her coach was suspended. their coach was a father figure

to them. he was suspended for the entire year. and then their season was disbanded by the league. we are finding a lot of people paying a huge price for taking a knee. people continue to miss the point of why they're doing it. orhas nothing to do with war military. it has everything to do with them saying, we want to use this moment that we have while eyeballs are on his to say how frustrated we are about injustice. juan: speaking of the moment that we have, we'e're in the fil days of the presidential race. you have also written .xtensively about the camampaign initially, you were a big supporter of bernie sanders and now you are faced or all of us are faced with the choice between donald trump and hillary clinton and the other independent party figures. what is your take now as we're heading into the final days of the election? >> it has been a frustrating

experience. i'm still brokenhearted that bernie did not win. i did not think it would sting as much is a bit. not just because i love bernie, but i respected his ideas and values. a don't really see those so much in either major party candidate. i joined bernie and this idea that it was essential for us to stop donald trump. and i believe that. i believe, as many others do, that he was as great a danger as we say he is. i don't believe he will win, but i believe all of us will have to go out and vote and do what we have to do to stop him for sure. amy: i have always wondered, if donald trump, if bernie sanders had gotten anything like the television attention and media attention of donald trump, i mean, the studies that showed back in 2015 and what trump was 28 times. you still have bernie sanders getting these massive crowds

with no amplifying of his view, very little in the corporate media, until the very end, what that would have meant as now the media decries whoever created donald trump -- which, of course, was them. >> i think we learned a lot of lessons. one, bernie still won 21 states without that. i think what a lot of us are taking is there is a progressive movement in this country that came very close to having bernie sanders elected without the media m machine behind him. we learned a lot of tough lessons. we learned a lot of things that we will have to adjust if we go back to the table again. but none of us are really pleased, at least no true progresses are pleased with hillary clinton's platform or commitment -- even on issues of lease brutality. i have grown to believe she does care in part because she has been a lot of time with families affected by police brutality. so even those of us who are

deeply skeptical of her equipment -- commitment, i think she has he balked. we will have to wait and see if she is elected what that evolution means. amy: is a very major difference between president obama getting elected and if hillary clinton were elected? president obama, racist backlash, arthur -- birther movement. so many issues that people cared about from peace to guantanamo to racial justice, all of these issues. people felt the movements were not carried forward because they stepped back. but now there is such skepticism about hillary clinton that they are ready to go at the gate, that november 9 might be a mobilization as opposed to stepping back. >> i think it should be. i think we would all be making a huge mistake if we did step back. i think it is time for all of us to push forward, to hold whoever is elected -- i believe she will

be elected -- to hold her accountable. i think we put so much faith in the election of prpresident oba, that when we stepped back, we missed an opportunity. i'm disappointed with a lot of things he has been hands-off on. again, those are the hard lessons that we have learned about what it means to hold elected leaders that we respect and maybe even admire, to hold them accountable on the things that matter to us. juan: speaking of president obama, in the last debate, i think one ofof the m most tellig moments was toward the end of the debate when trump says, and if you want four more years of obama, elect her. it was almost as if his people are still fighting to remove obama from the american conscience. rd which is a wei strategy, because the matter what we think of him, he is at his most popular. it seems that trump does not have a a strategy to win.

he continues to double down to appeal to his base -- which is dangerous. trump's base is fueled by white supremacy and bigotry. he continues to do everything he can to appeal to them and do nothing to run the base. amy: it is the 50th anniversary of the black panthers. this week the british website publish an article in which going brown, former chair of the black panther party, said -- "black lives matter has a plantation mentality. the next wave of young people running out here who are , complaining and protesting about the murders of young black men and women by the police all over the country, they will protest but they will not rise up in an organized fashion, with an agenda, to create revolutionary change. we advocated community self-defense organizations to be foformed, so that we would not e assaulted by the police, so that we would bear arms and assume our human rights." your response to her critique? and then the true directory from

black panthers to black lives matter? >> i love the black panther party. i spent some time over the past few weeks with robbie seale, the cofounder of the bck panther party. he loves the black lives matter movement and has been immensely supportive and encouraging not only to me but to many activists. i was disappointed in what elaine said. i know elaine. i have talked with her many times. when elaine got involved with the black panther party, it was about two years old. that is where we are in the black lives matter mook as well. matter movement as well. she evaluated the totality of the black panther party, all that it accomplished in 10 years and compared it to where we are right now in year two. it is an unfair comparison to say where we are in year two compared with the black panther party was year two. two years in, it literally only have 4000, 5000 people that were committed to it, to its practices.

it was still trying to determine where it went and what it would do. so i think if you look at where we are now versus where the black panther party was at the same time, i think we are doing well. i understand her criticism saying, you know, what are they doing compared to what they accomplished. but even some of us look at the dangers ofof what happened d to black panther leaders from targeted assassinations to go intel pro, and some of the lessons that we learned from them has caused us to change our methods. the black lives matter movement is not a carbon copy of what the black panther party did. how we do what we did will be uniquely different. our time is different. i respect her, revere her, and it i her, but i was disappointed to read what some of she said. juan: the black had their party was in organization and the black lives matter is a movement, which has come up in a thetaneous faction whereas black panther started in one

place as a discipline organization. it is a different form of attempting to achieve social change. >> what i found with, with many of our elders, they are unaware that the black lives matter movement does have a comprehensive platform. there are hundreds of organizations that see themselves as a part of this movement in all 50 states all across the country. and they have the own policy platforms. it is difficult for one person, her or anybodydy else, to wrap their mind around the specific fights and battles that we are fighting. so a lot of people just are not informed dow organized this movement really is. amy: shaun king, injustice boycott initiative. explain what it is. >> on december 5, hundreds of thousands of us are coming together to boycott injustice in this country. what we mean is, we believe there are not only cities and states which continue to underwrite the cost of

injustice, that continue to back it and support it, be it police brutality or racial violence, but also corporations that are behind it and either say nothing or do nothing or even worse than that, are specifically backing whichlice departments continue to be brutal all over this country. we're launching a targeted boycott on december 5, not for a day or two days, but for our -- our motto is the big armory bus boycott that lasted 381 dadays until theyey saw change. amy: do you have corporations targeted? >> we do. we're holding our cards close to our chest until december 5. shaun king, thank you for being with us, black lives matter activist, senior justice writer for "the new york daily news." we will link to your columns at democracynow.org. democracy now! is looking for feedback from people who appreciate the closed captioning. e-mail your comments to outreach@democracynow.org or mail them to democracy now! p.o. box 693 new york, new york 10013. [captioning made possible by democracy now!]

captioning sponsored by annenberg/cpb narrator: some geographers use the terms "core" and "periphery" to describe the spatial relationships

between the "have" and the "have-not" areas in a nation or region. others prefer "heartland" and "hinterland." whatever the terms, andalucía is a remote region in spain, which itself is far from the center of europe. in this case study we will examine: the relative location of a european hinterland; the historical geography of a region at the crossroads of civilizations; the economic geography of a region wishing to grow from agriculture to industry; and the development of transportation infrastructure to overcome the disadvantage of distance. the expo "cartuja '92" commemorated the 500th anniversary of the discovery of america, which began from here in andalucía, spain.

celebrating the frontiers of science and technology, promoters hoped the building complex would attract hi-tech firms after the expo ended. ( speaking spanish ) translator: the expo helped us, but now it's over. what we're going through now, is a post-expo recession. ( interviewer speaking spanish ) translator: what do you think of the expo? translator: very nice, but now it's over and right now things have never been worse in andalucía. translator: what are you going to do? translator: the same as i've ever done-- wait. wouldn't it be possible to get work elsewhere? with my parents to look after? where could i go? ( interviewer speaking spanish ) translator: has there been more work at other times? translator: yes, of course there has been more work, but it wasn't the same; we worked hard and we had almost nothing to eat. now we don't work anymore at all, so its makes me wonder, what are we going to eat? ( people chuckling )

narration: now one of the poorest regions in western europe, rich in bellicose bulls, and idle workers obliged to emigrate to survive, andalucía is known for its tourism, folklore and tradition. but situated 500 years ago at the meeting point of the muslim, jewish and christian worlds, andalucía was a center of western culture. one thing you have to understand about andalucía is that it is this historically quite special place in terms of being the part of western europe that was, for longest, under muslim rule; from 711 through to 1492, parts of andalucía were under the arab berber kingdoms. at one point it was administered from syria. yeah? from damascus. now, historically,

that sense of connection with the world beyond europe, with that arab, berber, islamic world, remains an important residue within andalucía and andalucían sense of identity and sense of difference. narration: then, in the 17th century, it became of the center of trade between europe and the new world. seville, the capital, still boasts the monumental architecture and flamboyance of a period that saw the riches of the americas pass through its gates. and then, the europe of the conquistadors gave way to that of the industrialists, and here spain did not advance. now the industrial heartland runs from manchester, england, to milan, italy. thus, after the industrial revolution, spain became more marginal in europe,

andalucía, more marginal in spain. kattalin gabriel is conducting a geopolitical study of different regions in today's spain. what makes andalucía so distinctive is that after trying for many years, this region finally obtained relative autonomy in the late 1970s. ( man speaking spanish ) translator: yes, the 1978 constitution introduced the possibility of autonomous regions in spain. since that time, we have campaigned so that andalucía itself could also benefit from this type of regional power. now we can see the results. at the start of autonomy, there were 82 kilometers of toll-paying motorways in this region. now there are 1,500 kilometers, and they are toll-free.

the first joint state-region urbanist project happened here. in short, the fact is that politics always manifests itself in a modification of the landscape. narration: this landscape in motril was drastically modified two decades ago. before that, this coastal plain was sand, palm trees and tourist homes. today, thousands of migrants from spain's interior have colonized this ancient desert and make a living beneath a sea of plastic. ( speaking spanish ) translator: could you explain to me the principle of this type of farming? ( man speaking spanish )

translator: well, it's simple: there is 20 to 25 centimeters of sand, which we bring from the beach or from the quarry. then we mix that with manure, and that's all, that's how it works. ( gabriel speaking spanish ) ( man speaking spanish ) narrator: although irrigation and climate control make growing here highly productive, such food factories only strengthen andalucía's agricultural economy. produce is loaded on trucks like this bound for the great consuming markets of the european heartland. they travel on improved highways in spain and link to the larger system in the rest of the region. it's part of spain's evolution, according to sidaway. sidaway: in andalucía and in spain, there's a century-long project of becoming european.

that what spain has been seeking to do for... ever since it's lost its colonies, there's been a sense of becoming european, that the solution to spain's problems, spspain's decadence, spain's poverty, spain's sense of backwardness, is to become european. yeah? and that sense, and that vision is still very evident both in spain as a whole and in a marginal region like andalucía. so you see this in the continued drive for fast-transport infrastructure-- the sense of connection. the fast train line that has been built between madrid and seville-- one can travel between them in just a couple of hours-- is symbolic of this will to connect. narration: constructed in 1992 for the columbus expo, the high-speed madrid-seville train is a symbol of andalucía's desire to link with europe.

the larger goal was to become part of the heartland instead of remaining an orchard for the rest of europe. could the sunshine and the quality of life attract hi-tech industry? that was the idea. ( man speaking spanish ) translator: andalucía wants to get rid of this exclusive rural vocation which the world economy has assigned to it. while remaining, of course, a tourist pole for western europe, and keeping certain sectors of food industry which are its own, andalucía wants to get in touch with industry, technology and services. ( speaking spanish ) translator: so our priority is production economy, small- and middle-sized firms, new technologies; for we believe that such is the path to our growth. ( speaking spanish )

translator: in giving an image of a certain modernity, the impact of the expo on the spanish population was favorable. but the efforts made by public institutions concerning the reuse of all those buildings after the expo, have been more dubious. in theory, some of the buildings were to home state-of-the-art research facilities; but this idea was founded more on illusion than on reality, because it's not so easy to reproduce on command the experience of silicon valley, or of other places where technological development goes hand-in-hand with a good quality of life. quite simply, andalucía has the climate of california and some other points in common with california,

but it's not california. narrator: a decade later, says geographer sidaway, the expo results are in. the attraction of new industry hasn't happened. it's too marginal. the industry goes elsewhere in spain, nearer to the european core, the area around barcelona, valencia. substantial industrial investment has not come into andalucía through the 1990s. the dreams of some in the early 1990s, when seville was developed and the expo happened, just haven't really taken off in terms of large-scale inward investment and industrial development. it's still very much a marginal, peripheral, part of europe. its main industry has remained agriculture, tourism, rather than manufacturing.

narrator: manufacturers like gillette were leaving instead of coming. translator: why did the gillette factory leave andalucía? it left for the opposite reasons to those for which it came here. why? down through the years, as a result of their own efforts, the gillette workers obtained, little-by-little, some social advantages. and now, this multinational company prefers to leave andalucía in favor of other countries, such as turkey, poland or russia, where the salaries are very low, and where it can make profits comparable to those it made during its 27-year stay in andalucía. narration: in other words, the expansion of the european union has created new hinterlands-- some even closer to the european heartland, with even cheaper labor. they are competition for remote regions like andalucía, despite the huge investments in infrastructure like the train.

if the high-speed rail from madrid to seville symbolized the hopes for andalucía, the lack of high-speed connections to the rest of europe may symbolize the region's lack of progress. sidaway: for much of the population, the process of integration and the dreams of connection, and europe, haven't amounted to much in material terms, haven't amounted to a significant increase in their standard of living. there's very high unemployment in andalucía, both in the countryside and in the cities. and it's still a region where people feel that they have to migrate from. narrator: although new transportation infrastructure has helped, it may not be enough to overcome the disadvantage of distance. andalucía's economic geography may not transform from agricultural to industrial, as they had hoped. perhaps a positive future for this european hinterland

will emerge from its relative location and its historical geography at the crossroads of civilizations. part of the sub-region geographers call northern europe, the tiny island-nation of iceland is not just far from the region's heartland, but separated by hundreds of miles of ocean. iceland is a country on the edge of europe, both politically and geologically. its physical geography also puts it on the edge of the habitable world. but its location creates great bounty, and the culture of iceland has benefited greatly from its human-environmental interaction. the question is, will they deplete their greatest resource, fish stocks, or will quotas sustain the harvest? changes in their fishing fleet just reinforce an ongoing population change,

rural-to-urban migration. ( seagulls cawing ) ( squawking ) narrator: catching puffins to eat may seem cruel to many people; but on the island of heimaey off the coast of iceland, seabirds have been part of the diet for a thousand years. ( conversing quietly ) although they no longer rely on puffins, the islanders still depend on the finite gifts of a hostile environment to survive. and there is one gift above all others on which this tiny country must rely.

fish, primarily cod, are to iceland what oil is to saudi arabia. they make up 70% of iceland's exports, bringing wealth to many and fueling iceland's strong service economy. more than half of the island's 260,000 inhabitants live in reykjavík, the most northerly national capital in the world. iceland is politically, economically and culturally attached to europe. yet they have resisted membership in the european union-- mostly to avoid opening their rich fishing grounds to continental boats. they are trying to protect one of the highest standards of living in the world, all thanks to the productivity of their fishery. so why is it so good? it's a matter of geography.

the gulf stream brings warmer water and air from the south, moderating iceland's climate. in the shallower water surrounding iceland, shown in light blue, the warm water mixes with colder, arctic currents from the north. where they meet, vortices form that pull nutrients up from the bottom. tiny microscopic plankton flourish in the long summer days, fueling a feeding frenzy for fish and providing a foundation for iceland's economy. but the mixing of arctic and tropical water also make these seas treacherous for fishermen. frequent storms constantly threaten the lives of fishermen like oskar thorinsson. ( speaking icelandic ) translator: the seas around iceland are very dangerous. in my little town of 5,000 inhabitants,

500 people have lost their lives to fishing since 1860. this is ten percent of our population, so that's what we're talking about. this is war. ( conversing in icelandic ) narrator: "war and peace" could describe the most important human- environmental interactions in iceland. glaciers cover over 11% of iceland's mainland. melting water from ice caps creates rivers that are tapped for hydroelectric power. electricity here is so cheap that australia ships aluminum oxide halfway around the world to iceland for smelting.

icelanders also harness the enormous power lurking below the earth's surface. water from magma-heated hot springs creates geothermal power, which heats 85% of iceland's homes. here, too, the source of this power emanates from iceland's unique location. iceland sits not just on the cultural, but on the geological edge of europe where the eurasian and north american tectonic plates continue to separate. where they part, molten lava erupting from the seabed has created iceland. nowhere are the mixed blessings of iceland's physical geography more dramatic than on the tiny island of heimaey. here, flowing lava created one of the country's finest natural harbors,

providing shelter in the midst of iceland's most productive and most dangerous waters. but in 1973, the forces of creation turned to destruction. that winter, the volcano opened without warning, pouring molten lava down on the people and the harbor. miraculously, a storm the previous day had docked the island's entire fishing fleet allowing most residents to sail away to safety, wondering if their houses, and perhaps more importantly, their harbor, would survive. the eruption roared for months submerging the island in a sea of black ash. lava flowed into the sea, threatening to choke off the harbor mouth. desperate to save their port, a geologist offered a far-out idea: what if they sprayed cold sea water on the spreading lava?

could they freeze some of it and control the direction of flow? fire trucks and boats mounted a last-ditch effort. their harbor was saved. a decade later, heimaey fishermen like oskar thorinsson face a new threat. in fact, all of iceland is endangered by a drop of nearly 70% in the cod population. i think it is quite clear that the cod stock is of such vital importance to iceland and the icelandic nation that without it we cannot expect that there would be any civilized life in iceland today. narrator: the essential reason for this shortage is manmade: iceland's enormous and technologically advanced fishing fleet has enough power to vacuum clean the ocean floor.

to allow cod stocks to replenish, the government imposed strict quotas, setting the total allowable catch at 25% of the estimated cod biomass, or weight of the whole adult population. like fishermen who face dwindling stocks off massachusetts and maine, elmar svenson is angry with his government. ( svenson speaking icelandic ) translator: there is enough bounty to be caught, plenty of fish. and, how shall i put this, they're making the country go bankrupt with these quotas. as a case in point, the boat is docked today. i cannot afford to pay the mortgage for the house. man: i've often told the fishermen, if they would go back to the boats they had in the 1920s with the same equipment as they had in the 1920s

we wouldn't need any quotas. narrator: but since the 1990s, fishermen now begrudgingly agree: the quotas have stabilized cod stocks and maintained iceland's major source of income. in fact, the quotas have turned into very lucrative properties. in 1991, oskar thorinsson and all fishermen who already owned boats were granted a fixed share, or percentage, of the total iceland catch, based on their past catches. all of oskar's fish are weighed, and when he reaches his yearly quota, he must stop fishing. but he is also protected. the number of permits is fixed, and without one, competitors can't enter the fleet. critics see this as an exclusive franchise to harvest a rich national resource. and the permit, or quota, is transferable.

oskar could sell his at a handsome profit since he didn't really have to buy it. the net effect of these transferable quotas is just accelerating a major geographical trend in iceland. gudrun olafsdottir is a cultural geographer at the university of iceland, studying migration patterns. she is heading for the small island of flatey on iceland's west coast. but when she arrives, olafsdottir finds a virtual ghost town. ( bird chattering raucously ) olafsdottir: what's so interesting about the islands is that they had so many resources to draw from. narrator: in addition to seabirds and their eggs, the early islanders hunted seals for meat and skins, and they fished.

these fish are being dried by some of the two dozen summer residents of flatey. 100 families once lived here year-round, but today only five remain. the geographer has been documenting a central fact of icelandic life due to factors much larger than fishing quotas: more and more people have been leaving small towns for the cities, especially reykjavík. olofsdottir: island communities that were dependent on a subsistence economy, they have disappeared. the others that were able to produce for an international market, they have survived. narrator: although flatey was never a major producer of anything, many small fishing ports could also fade away due to the sale of fishing quotas. in those places without the geographic benefits of access, infrastructure or economies of scale,

boat owners would rather sell their permits than compete at a disadvantage. so they cash in, take large gains and retire to a warm climate. most all permits go to larger operators in bigger ports leaving many smaller towns with only the sounds of their original inhabitants. ( tern squawking ) american fisheries also suffer from significant declines. perhaps we can learn much from iceland's experience. as boats like this are withdrawn from service, iceland's regulated fish stocks can sustain a more efficient but smaller fleet. perhaps we can follow their example and still avoid some of the high social costs. at the edge of the habitable world, icelanders have benefited greatly from interactions with the natural environment.

it seems for now they have restored depleted cod stocks and achieved sustainable harvests. the larger pattern of rural- to-urban migration continues, reinforced by changes in the ownership of the fishing fleet.

captioned by media access group at wgbh access.wgbh.org

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to information and assistance. [ cell door closes ] justice isn't served until crime victims are. annenberg media ♪ by: narrador: bienvenidos a otro episodio de destinos: an introduction to spanish.