07/05/22 07/05/22 [captioning made possible by democracy now!] amy: from new york, this is democracy now! >> i am furious. i am furious that yet more innocent lives were taken by gun violence. while we celebrate the fourth of july just once a year, mass shootings have become our weekly, yes, weekly american tradition. amy: six people were killed and at least two dozen injured when a rooftop gunman armed with a

high-powered rifle attacked a fourth of july parade in the chicago suburb of highland park monday. we will get the latest. then we go to ohio to look at the fatal police shooting of jayland walker. police in akron shot the 25-year-old black man over 60 times after a traffic stop. >> they want to turn him into a masked monster with a gun -- and we knew that. but i want to thank the chief for one thing he said. at the time he was shot more than 90 or 60 or whatever the unbelievable number will be, he was unarmed. amy: the city of akron is under curfew. we will eak to the reverend ray greene as well as former

ohio state senator nina turner. plus, we will talk to sewell chan at the texas tribune about the twin tragedies in texas, uvalde school shooting that left 21 dead and the shocking death of 53 people seeking refuge in the united states found inside a sweltering tractor-trailer in san antonio. all that and more, coming up. welcome tdemocracy now!, democracynow.org, the war and peace report. i'm amy goodman. a warning to our viewers and listeners, our top stories include graphic details and images of gun violence. in illinois, six people were killed and at least two dozen injured when a rooftop gunman armed with a high-powered rifle attacked a fourth of july parade in the chicago suburb of highland park on monday. five of the shooting victims died on the street. a sixth died at the hospital.

victims ranged in age from 8 to 85. eyewitnesses described a scene of terror as parents scrambled to protect their children from the attack. following an eight hour manhunt, police arrested robert e cream of the third, known as bobby 22-year-old white resident of , a highland park. he was an aspiring musician who performed under the name awake the rapper. some of his videos depict mass murder and school shootings. crimo's father runs a business in highland and ran an unsuccessful mayoral campaign against the city's current mayor. illinois governor j.b. pritzker responded to the shooting on monday. >> i am furious because it does not have to be this way and yet we as a nation, well, we continue to allow this to happen. while we celebrate the fourth just once a year, mass shootings have become our weekly, yes,

weekly american tradition. amy: according to the gun violence archive, there have been 315 mass shootings in the united states so far this year. highland park has an assaul weapons ban but the latest news is that bobby crimo obtained his rifle legally. we will get the latest on highland park after headlines. in ohio, outrage over a police shooting in akron prompted mass protests over the week as people demanded justice for 25-year-old jayland walker, a black man shot dead by police after a traffic stop june 20 seventh. the protests erupted after police released multiple got bodycam video's from the shooting in response to earlier demands from the family and local activists. the video shows eight officers chasing walker after he got out of his car and ran away. the video ends with the police firing 90 rounds, hitting walker

60 times according to autopsy report. walker was unarmed when police shot him. lawyers for jayland walker say after police shot him, they handcuffed him before administering first aid. this is a lawyer for the family. >> jayland was shot more times than i can count, and that is beyond troubling. we are done dying like this. amy: the city of akron, ohio, canceled the fourth of july fireworks show monday and issued a downtown curfew head of the results state probe into the police killing of jayland walker. we will get the latest on his case later in the brocast. the food and drug administration says it will not require large-scale clinical trials for new formulations of covid-19 boosters. the fda made the announcement as

a panel of experts said drug makers should prepare vaccine boosters for the fall that are tailored to combat omicron variant sublineages that are currently dominant in the united states. nationwide, about 17% of coronavirus tests are coming back positive, the highest test positivity rate since a massive surge in covid-19 cases last winter. in texas, the state supreme court ruled friday a century-old law banning abortions can take effect following the u.s. supreme court's landmark decision striking down roe v. wade. the texas ruling means anyone providing an abortion could face lawsuits and financial penalties. whole women's health has since suspended abortion care at its clinics across texas. in ohio, a 10-year-old girl who became pregnant after surviving rape was forced to travel to indiana for an abortion after she was denied the procedure in her own state.

ohio's trigger-law ban on abortions came into effect with the supreme court's historic dobbs v. jackson ruling june 24. it bans abortions after six weeks of pregnancy with no exceptions for children and victims of rape and incest. russian president vladir putin has declared victory in the eastern ukrainian region of luhansk after russian forces overran the city of lysychansk. ukraine's military says it organized a tactical retreat and will focus on preventing russia from pressing west from the occupied donbas region. on monday, ukrainian president volodymyr zelenskyy called for the creation of a $750 billion post-war recovery plan for ukraine, saying the rebuilding effort should be partially funded by russian reparations and asset freezes. wnba superstar brittney griner haappealed tpresident den r his helpecuring he

release om a russi jail after she apared in a moow-area urt friday for t firstime sin her arrt. griner was detained by russian customs officials on february 17 after they allegedly found cannabis oil in r lugga. in a hand-written letter delivered to the white house monday, griner writes --- "as i sit here in a russian prison, alone with my thoughts and without the protection of my wife, family, friends, olympic jersey, or any accomplishments, i'm terrified i might be here forever." the biden administration has unveiled a draft proposal to lease new oil and gas drilling rights in federal waters off the coasts of alaska and the gulf of mexico. the interior department unveiled the plan just ahead of the july 4 holiday weekend. it's the third time since november the biden administration has announced new oil and gas leasing plans on the friday before a holiday. the climate watchdog group oil change international blasted the announcement as "a stark

betrayal of president biden's climate promises and the communities who will suffer the brunt of this drilling. biden is choosing to stand with big oil and gas rather than the voters who elected him and who overwhelming want a swift transition to renewable energy." in australia, some 50,000 residents of new south wales have been ordered to evacuate their homes after torrential rains brought devastating flooding to areas around the capital sydney. australia's fourth round of severe flooding in less than a year-and-a-half came as some 8 inches of rain fell in just 24 hours. climate scientists say such extreme precipitation events are becoming more common as warming land and sea temperatures allow the atmosphere to hold more moisture. in northern italy, at least seven people were killed sunday as a glacier collapsed and skidded down a popular climbing route in the italian alps. rescue cws using helicopters and drones are searching for

more than a dozen others who remain missing. the glacier's collapse came as temperatures at its summit hit a record 50 degrees fahrenheit and as italy's government declared a state of emergency from a severe heat wave that's spawned drought across much of the nation and wildfires near rome. italian prime minister mario draghi on sunday blamed climate change for the glacie's collapse. >> the drama was certainly unpredictable but it definitely depended on the deterioration of the environment and the climate situation. today, leaps for those victims. amy: the biden administration says the bullet that killed palestinian-american journalist shireen abu akleh likely came from israeli military gunfire but stopped short of saying investigators had reached a definitive conclusion in her killing. she was shot in the head on may 11th as she reported for al jazeera on an israeli army raid

in the occupied west bank even as she wore a flak jacket and helmet clearly marked "press." palestinian groups and several media organizations, including cnn, "the new york times," and al jazeera, have determined abu akleh was killed by israel's military. so has the israel human rights group b'tselem, which accused the biden administration of whitewashing her killing. shireen abu akleh's niece lina abu akleh responded to the state department's inconclusive findings monday. >> we were expecting such an investigation was actually ruled the perpetrators accountable and would carry out the tansparent investigation that is free from any political pressure. however, that was not the case. we will continue to call for justice and call on the u.s. to carry out a transparent investigation by an independent body. in addition, we continue to call on the u.n. and icc to carry out

an investigation and hold israel accountable and put an end to this grotesque impunity that israel continues to endure. amy: president biden will be visiting the middle east in a few weeks. and chilean president gabriel boric has received a draft of a new constitution whose fate voters will decide in a mandatory referendum on september 4. >> as president, it is my duty to call upon a constitutional referendum as i received this proposal today. that is why we came. it will once have been -- once again be the people have the word on the destiny. amy: if approved, the new document will replace the constitution created under the dictatorship of augusto pinochet, who came to power in a 1973 coup supported by the united states. the new constitution enshrines human rights and social programs, including free universal access to healthcare, higher education, and reproductive rights, as well as more robust environmental

safeguards and policies to promote gender and racial equity. it also for the first time recognizes chile's indigenous peoples and offers restitution for historically indigenous lands. and those are some of the headlines. this is democracy now!, democracynow.org, the war and peace report. i'm amy goodman in new york, joined by democracy now! co-host juan gonzález in new brunswick, new jersey. hi, juan. juan: hi, amy. welcome to all of our listeners and viewers from around the country and around the world. amy: six people were killed and at least two dozen injured when a rooftop gunman armed with a high-power rifle attacked a fourth of july parade in the chicago suburb of highland park monday. the gunmen reportedly fired dozens of shots at parade goers shortly after 10:00 in the morning. five of the shooting victims died in the street, a sixth in the hospital. the chicago tribune reports the

victims ranged in age from eight to 85. i witnesses described the scene of terror as parents scrambled to protect their children from the attack. one father said he hid his son in a dumpster to protect him. >> we were sitting right in front of the stage where the parade announcers were announcing and there was probably about 20, 30 feet away. i thought it was the navy saluting the flag with rifles. but when i saw people running, i picked up my son and started running. i ran to a niche in one of the buildings, local shopping center and tried to break the glass to get in with my son and i could not break it. when the shots stopped again is when we started -- we decided to run so we started -- he started

shooting again and we ran by and the building and i put my son in the dumpster and he sat there with the dogs and i went back to look for the rest of my family. i left him there so i could go back and get my phone and find the rest of my family because they ran also. it was just horrible. i went back and there were two people shot on the ground. a little boy was in one of the police officer's arms and that was the worst experience ever because all i thought about was my son and i can only agine what that family is going through. amy: illinois governor jb pritzker condemned the mass shooting and called for an end to what he called a plague of gun violence. >> i am furious. i am furious that yet more innocent lives were taken by gun violence. i am furious that their loved ones are forever broken by what took place today. i am furious that children and their families have been

traumatized. i am furious that this is happening in communities all across illinois and america. i am furious because it does not have to be this way and yet we as a nation, well, we continue to allow this to happen. while we celebrate the fourth of july just once a year, mass shootings have become our weekly, yes, weekly american tradition. amy: about eight hours after the shooting, police arrested robert e crimo iii known as bobby, a 22-year-old white resident. he was detained after a short car chase. he has been described as an aspiring musician who performed under the name awake the rapper. he released videos depicting mass murder and school shootings. he also once posted an image on twitter draped in a donald trump

flag. this father runs a local deli called bob's unsuccessfully of mayor of highland park in 2019 against the city's current mayor. according to the gun violence archive, there have been 315 mass shootings in the united states so far this year. highland park has an assault weapons ban, unlike all of illinois, but apparently, bobby crimo purchased his gun legally. we begin our show with nina turner who served as the bernie sanders 2020 presidential campaign cochair. when we come back, we will talk about the shooting of jayland walker but we want to begin by looking at the mass shooting and highland park. nina, thank you so much for joining us again. highland park, just days ago,

were honoring the uvalde victims of the mass terror that have been there weeks ago and we will go to what happened -- go to texas later in the broadcast. but you have been tweeting nonstop about a highland park mass shooting can you comment on what took place yesterday on independence day? >> good morning amy and juan. we are a nation under siege. this is worse than the wild wild west because at least in the wild wild west, people were prepared. these type of mass shootings leave everybody vulnerable no matter their age from infant to the most seasoned person in this nation is left vulnerable. when you cannot take your family to a parade, you cannot go to the grocery store -- taking about buffalo -- babies are not safe in school and a uvalde and other incidents over the last past 20 years in this country, we have a problem.

and part of this problem is the gun obsession in the united states of america. fortunately, we have too many elected officials who are bought and paid for by the nra who do believe the second amendment is more absolute than any other amendment within the constitution. what happened to the ability to pursue life and liberty and happiness? part of that means people should be able to conduct everyday activities without fear that someone is going to have a weapon and shoot them. for folks to say this can happen anywhere, well, you know what? it is sad that it is primarily only happening in the united states of america when you compare our country, amy and juan, to other industrialized nations. they do not have the same level of mass shootings that we have in the united states of america. so it is time for elected officials to stop playing games and do something about it and to extend that, we need state,

local, and regional elected officials -- you cannot even rent a car if you're 21 or 22 years old. we need to increa the age that someone can even purchase a weapon because their brains are not even develop properly yet. that is science. especially men, amy. juan: nina turner, i would ask you about the issue of age. so many of these shootings are perpetrated by young white men, 18, 19, 20, 21 years old. your sense of what is happening in our society among young men? >> this macho nature, this toxic masculinity that i have to have a gun, equating gun with manhood , period. that is happening. and all of tseacial animus is bubbling up to the surface. we as a nation have not with

racism and xenophobia, you know, anti-semitism, anti-blackness. we have not dealt with it as a country. and the chickens are coming home to roost. certainly, starting wi the election of donald trump but all of this was happening in the ited stas of america before that man was elected. so we cannot sit here and say it is just because he was elected. we have elected to deal with the violent past and the violen present in the united states of america, wrapped in white supremacy, wrapped in bigotry in all its forms, wrapped in sexism and certainly wrapped in anti-blackness. until we are willing and able to doith that, we are going to continue to have these problems. i'm sick and tired of current elected officials -- thoughts and prayers are good, but we need action, policy changes. i last point, trauma. people in this country are facing trauma. we need to have a way to help

people deal with the trauma they're facing. i'm not just talking the people who die, i'm talking about the heaviness of the trauma of this moment between the pandemic, between all of these mass shootings, inflation, people not able to afford to live. this problem calls for big policy pushes such as having medicare for all so people can get the services they need. juan: when you talk about doing something, that was the refrain people told president biden and yet here we are once again. something was done, but obviously, it was not sufficient to do with the sco othe problem of gun violence in america. . what was done? they haven't even passed the george floyd act, for god sake. democrats begged the voters of this country to put them in. my party told people we vote for us, things will be different.

maybe it is differe the wa they present, but in terms of material conditions, of lives being changed, the george floyd act has not passed. right now in this very moment. what needs to happen is past the george floyd act. number two, get rid of the filibuster, stop playing games so we can have more things accomplished in that senate. for folks talking about waiting until november, we need action right now. people are dying right now. people are in pain right now. it is not enough for elected officials that the power right now in this moment to put this off. they have to act now and act with a sense of urgency. reverend dr. martin luther king talked about the urgency of now. right now, right now, right now. use that power. amy: nina turner, online, this aspect bobby crimo, had a fast

presence. this is not like uvalde. he talked about suicide, talked about mass shootings, he lived on discord, twitter, youtube. he was into fascism music. ben collins of nbc news made an interesting point when talking about these loners he said, you cannot call them loners anymore. they have a total community online and they are egging each other on. he was very present there as a rapper rapping about mass killings. if you can talk about how he got his gun legally and the fact he was -- the local police not focusing on him and may well go

to the issue of the media was trying to decide whether to call this a terror attack, no, he clearly wasn't muslim, so they veered away from that. but this idea of this being a sell online? >> oklahoma city. that is this. this country has a race proem and white males are treated differently than every buddy else. -- everybody else. even though he was grown, i cannot understand that his parents did not see some of this, too. we have a problem that needs to be solved -- amy: even though -- >> it is wrapped with racism and bigotry and t me tell you this, he was arrested without incident. arrested without incident. compare that to jayland walker, which i know we're going into. amy: we are going to go to break

right now so we can talk about jayland walker. nina turner, stay with us, former ohio state candidate, former national cochair of the bernie sanders 2020 presidential campaign. next up, we go to ohio to look at the federal police shooting of jayland walker. stopped for traffic violation, shot by police over 60 times. stay with us. ♪♪ [music break]

amy: "conversations in the dark" by john legend. this is democracy now!, democracynow.org, the war and peace report. i'm amy goodman with juan gonzalez. a warning to our viewers and listeners, this segment continues to include graphic details, in this case, please violence. outrage over a police shooting in akron, ohio, prompted mass protests this weekend as people gathered outside the police department's headquarters and

marched downtown to demand justice for 25-year-old jayland walker, a black man shot dead by police after a traffic stop on june 27. he was shot more than 60 times. at one point, protesters were confronted by police in riot gear who shot tear gas at them. the protests came after police released multiple body camera videos from the shooting in response to earlier demands from family and local activists. police say the videos show a gunshot being fired from the car driven by jayland walker before he tried to drive away after police pulled him over for a minor traffic violation. police say a gun was later recovered from his car. jayland walker was unarmed when police shot him. the newly released body camera video shows eight officers chasing walker after he got out of his car and was running away. the video ends with the police firing about 90 rounds and shooting walker about 60 times according to the autopsy. in this graphic video from the police footage, you can hear the

barrage of police gunfire. [gun ] amy: lawyers for the family of jayland walker say after police shot him 60 times, they handcuffed him before trying to provide first-aid. these are walker family attorneys bobby dicello and elizabeth paige white. >> jayland was shot more times than i can count, and that is beyond troling. we are done dying like this. >> they want to turn him into a

masked monster with a gun -- and we knethat. but i want to thank the chief for one thing he said, at the time he was shot more than 90 or 60 or whatever the unbelievable number will be, he was unarmed. amy: the city of akron canceled its fourth of july fireworks show monday and has issued a downtown curfew head of the results of the state probe into the police killing of jayland walker. at a protest sunday, demonstrators put their fists in the air to remember him with a moment of silence. for more, we go to speak to one of the people helping to lead protests calling for justice.

reverend ray greene, jr. is the executive director of the freedombloc. bloc stands for black led organizing collaborative based in akron. still with this in nearby cleveland, ohio, former ohio state senator nina turner who was recently candidate for ohio's 11th congressional seat. she was the national co-chair of the bernie sanders 2020 presidential campaign. reverend greene, let's begin with you. describe the chronology here of what you understood happened when jayland walker was killed and then what happened after video was released. >> good morning. the video shows that a black man was spotted driving at night in an area he probably should not have been spotted. he was then profiled, gunned down like he was a dog. any other american who is disgraced to what was seen the

video, what i just described, and it unarmed black man being chased and gunned down. that is the simple fact of the matter. juan: reverend greene, in terms of how the police chief has handled the situation since it happened, could you talk about that as well and the rapid release of the videos -- which is unusual and a lot of these cases, police try to hold back these videos first long as i can. >> first of all, in respect to the rapid release of the videos, the freedombloc along with the naacp and other community leaders ensu this press happen. wanted to ensure body camera footage was released. if not for that, it would not have been released. we wanted it quicker but because

of the fop, we have to wait seven days to get the footage. i don't put any of this on the chief. he has some blame to shoulder for this but this is about our publ safety director, our mayor, two men who been empowered to continue to let the culture of the police department the rain by the union as opposed to what the citizens of the community -- we have no control over the police department. our mayor has no control over the police department. the only one who has control over the police department is the union, the fop. that is the problem we see. we need new leadership, a new mayor and public safety director. that is the only way it is going to change. [indiscernible] homeland security doing a check on this department, thorough investigation on this department, the fbi has already

put out the report that [indiscernible] infiltrated by white supremacists. akron in 1920 at the second largest ku klux klan base with over 400,000 members. that is what we see in our police department today, a culture of racism and police not from here, that has very little interaction with black people. they chase us down and gun us down for aaillight violation that is you see on the video is not -- juan: speaking of that, could you talk about the police killing of jeffrey stevens back in july, i think 2008, eerily similar to this incident? >> a young man who was a pillar of his community, who was protecting his block, which we ask our citizens to do and police not being from here, no

context, gunned him down. gunned him down. there is no other way to describe murder. this is murder. our police are getting away with murder. [inaudible] refuse to put together legislation that will protect citizens. protecting buildings while we are being gunned down like taet practice for the lack of a tan light that is not even present in the video. amy: is that what they say the traffic violation was, that they were pulling him over for, taillights? >> yes, a broken taillight. amy: nina turner, if you could weigh in? this is the story you are all too familiar with. in fact, i nt with you -- you took us to the playground when the police had opened fire on -- w old was a little boy in the

playground? >> tamir rice was 12 years old. amy: the police shot him within seconds on the playground. >> that's right. i remember it like it was yesterday and it is because of what happened totamir rice and our governor -- we wer able to get together and the governor created a task force for community and police relations because at that murder of tamir rice. we wanted to make sure there were no incidences of violence that would erupt and we understood people needed their voices heard. that was in the latter part of 2014, amy, amy: as you remember. we traveled the entire state in 2015 and collected information from citizens all across t state about how they felt with relationship, or lack thereof, with law enforcement agencies in

the state of ohio. for the first time in ohio's history, there are standards -- the first standard was the use of deadly force. one of the questions i would have for them mayor of akron and the chief of akron is whether or not they are if hearing to the standard of the use of deadly force and the use of force. standards alone cannot do it. i agree with the reverend in that this is a cultural dynamic not just in akron police department, but police departments all over this country. it is very much coupled with the whole notion of treating lack bodies, black minds, black spirits as somehow less than everybody else. if you are a black man in america, you are indeed an endangered species and the laws that have been created in this country and the way they are implemented shows very clear there is no respect. that was a firing squad that happened to jayland. we have crimo who just kill people, injured folks come armed

-- he was taken unharmed. you know what? he will have his day in court. it would've been nice if jayland would have been able to have his day in court, too, but this is how a black man is treated. i'm not saying i want white young man or older men, white men treated the way black men are treated. what i do want is for black men and boys be treated like we treat white men and white boys. police officers are not here to be judge, jury, and executioner no matter what had happened. they should have brought him in. 60 bullets hitting this young man's body and then they handcuffed him and try to perform cpr, whatever the hell the said -- he is a man. he is not superhuman step he was a young man, but they treated him as though his life did not matter. the black movement, that is what it meant. black lives matter, too.

it is curious to me how these mass shootings among white men, they will be picked up and taken a burger king. they live to go to court. but for black men in particular, they don't. have a problem in this couny and we have to deal with it and stop playing around. juan: nina turner, in terms of the black lives matter movement, it seems to me -- and i have covered police and law enforcement for more than 40 years. i am very familiar with how police department's work. it seemed to me in the aftermath of the black lives matter movement, many of these police unions and police forces around the country almost entered into a slowdown, they no longer wanted to fight crime because in some ways the police unions egged their members on to say, ok, they want to restrict us, we will just let crime soar.

a lot of the soaring of the crime rate, assuming other people mentioned these days, i believe is a result of the deliberate actions by these police unions to change public opinion. i am wondering your sense of the power of these police unions across the country? >> they are all powerful. ju, i do agree with wha you're saying in ter of slowdowns. i know they're good law enforcement. i have law enforceme on my family. i get it. i try to see it from all sides. but there comes a situation where there is no gray. what happened to jayland, there is no gray. we need law enforcement agencies, good police officers need to be just as outraged as reverend greene and i are. they need to be just as outraged as a black elected officials of summit county horse standing up and taking a leadership pition

in this, calling on the department of justice to come in and do an investigation. one thing the city did that i agree with is asking the ohio real of investigations to step in. we need the ohio bureau of investigations but we also need the doj to step in as well. we have a cultural problem within law enforcement agencies in the united states of america and culture can be and must be changed and it must stop -- start at the top and there must be consequences for when that culture has not changed. another thing that needs to happen is more people of color need to be recruited to be in these law enforcement agencies and more women as well. not saying either of those groups are perfect, but when you look at a chain of violence at the hands of police, it is usually at the hands of white men. the cultural dynamics and what policing really means.

does really need to protect and serve? because in black and brown communities, it does not mean to protect and serve most of a means to lord over. that is a different mentality than what law enforcement has when they are in other types of communities. again, this is an american problem. police officers, law-enforcement agencies are just a microcosm of what is really happening in this country. you know what it is? black lives really do not matter. that is shown time and time again that white supremacy, the bigotry, and that anti-black racism is in full effect these united states of america and we need truth and reconciliation. what happens at the hands of law enforcement often just reminds us of the unfinished work in united states of america. amy: we just have 30 seconds. former ohio state senator nina turner. i want to ask you the 10-year-old girl in ohio became pregnant after surviving rape,

forced to travel to indiana for an abortion after she was denied the procedure in ohio because ohio's trigger law ban on abortions came into effect ter the supremcourt struck down roe v. wade. your response? >> amy, i fought with us republicans when i was in the legislature. she was a little over six weeks, a 10-year-old baby, who was just in kindergarten a few years ago. ohio -- child abuse. no other way you can call this. absolute child abuse. it is a stain on the state of ohio. as far as i'm concerned, we are the worst state in the union after what happened to a 10-year-old baby and her having to go to indiana. they wanted to forsake -- 18-year-old should not be having a baby. it is too much. it is too much and we have to use our rage and outrage to push for change. amy: nina turner, thank you for being with us, as well as

reverend ray greene, jr. the executive director of the freedombloc. bloc stands for black led organizing collaborative based in akron, ohio. coming up, we go to texas where uvalde's school district police chief has resigned from his new position on uvalde city council. we will talk about what we don't know about why there was so little action to save those 21 people, 19 of them fourth-graders in uvalde. stay with us. ♪♪ [music break]

amy: "when the night is over" by lord huron. this is democracy now!, democracynow.org, the war and peace report. i'm amy goodman with juan gonzalez. we end today's show in texas where uvalde police chief pete arredondo has resigned from his new position on the city council of uvalde before ever sitting in a meeting. he said he made the decision to "minimize further distractions." yes based to schism overhang links last month massacre when an 18-year-old gunman shot dead 19 fourth-graders and their two teachers. state authorities say redondo

was the incident commander who ordered officers to wait in the schools however over an hour instead of confronting the gunman. texas department of public safety director stephen broadus right the local police handling of the shooting as an abject failure. to talk more, we're joined by sewell chan, editor-in-chief of the texas tribune. thank you so much for being with us. it is unbelievable to think how much media has been in that town and how little information has been released. from uvalde to the texas legislature to the rangers -- department of homeland security, local police were all in that school as 1910-year-olds and two

of their teachers were shot dead. they waited for an hour even though they, too, had automatic weapons and shields we have learned and the doors were open to the classroom. tell us what you know, sewell chan. >> you really captured the devastating portrait that has been pretrade by state officials here in texas. in addition to the question of who was in charge of the incident, the crucial discrepancy, arredondo told us he did not think he was the incident commander but the radio transmissions and other broadcast we reviewed suggest people did consider him in arge. there's also the discrepancy whether in fact the doors were locked. the chief told us he thought the doors were locked. and the reason for the delay they were waiting for a master key to arrive. now there is a lot of suggestions that the doors were

unlocked all along. there are also other discrepancies. there was the talk of the transmissions of a tool that firefighters used into classrooms. why was that never used? finally, the question of the radios. the chief said he was responding to the scene and dished his radio and felt he did not need them but that cost them crucial committee case and. juan: help me with this. when you have multiple law enforcement agencies come to the scene of the crime, how to those in charge say of the uvalde police department or state police cede their control to basically a chief of three or four men school police departments? >> that is our question. uvalde has a city police department and also the school police unit, a six officer unit that was created four years ago.

one of the questions we are asking, why didn't the federal or state authorities on the scene take charge? juan: and in terms of the refusal of anyone apparently to get chief arredondo to testify in one way or another about what he saw or what happened? >> there are very much efforts to get him to testify. even that has been a source of confusion because the chief says he already give testimony at least two times and he wished to get a transcript of that initial testimony before talking to the department -- texas department of public safety a third time. it is not yet clear whether that transcript has been provided. amy: would you say there's a major cover-up going on, sewell chan, that goes right up to the state? we're talking about an area along the border, they have poured millions into the police

and you had every level of authority in the state and feds, right, the department of homeland security. you know, every time i hear relying on this one man, as juan describing, the lowest level of the police, the schools police police chief, have to raise questions about this lone star fund that has militarized the border. i mean, if those were a document of people inside, can only imagine how quickly the police would be or the feds would be moving in. these children in the local community -- what happened? >> amy come as a journalist, i tend to avoid the word "cover-up" unless there is a demonstrated conspiracy of some kind or definitely demonstrable -- i believe with you the heavy

militarization raises questions about how the police and law enforcement response was so lacking. i do want to draw attention to the gun safety aspects of this. the gunman was armed with an ar-15 and we all know what kinds of those assault rifles can do. if you watch the video carefully as we have done, part of the hesitancy of the officers going in was genuinely confronting a military-style weapons environment. there is profound questions about the kinds of arms people have that they are allowed to have an hesitation of law enforcement to confront that. amy: sewell chan, we want to go back in time. your paper, the texas tribune, did an amazing video and it is about activism, not from today -- clearly, the local residents are getting very active and angry, but it goes back to robb elementary school, not the first

time police were involved -- this is a video produced by the texas tribune about how uvalde used to be known for a 1970 hispanic student walkout featuring two people, walkout organizer and a retired spanish teacher who took part in the boycott. we want to play the whole thing. it is just about five minutes. i will read what is written on the screen. >> i was in the walkout. i was a junior ihigh school. it was april 1970. i was in my english class. we were already kind of waiting for the sign to walk out.

i remember he opened the door and kind of nodded. and we knew. we knew it was time. amy: in 1970over 600 mexican-american studentsn uvalde walked out to protest, one of the large. >> this incident in robb is not going to be the first time public schools have been in the spotlight of controversy. i was 17 years old. we would play in at night, review what happened during the day. we started at the high school at 10:00 and people started getting up. you could see all of the people moving. people got up and join us. we put together a list of 14 demands.

we wanted a more mexican american teachers, we wanted more books having to do with mexican-americans in the library, things like that. >> we had no hispanic teachers. we had all white teachers. we had all white school board. the cafeteria workers, custodians. i remember my second grade teacr who walked up to me and t me by my ear and just pulled and pulled and pulled. i remember crying and crying. blood was coming down my cheek right here. i remember the beatings on their hands for speaking spanish. that would never happen to the other kids, ever. in a way, we felt inferior because we thought we were inferior until he got closer to eighth grade. and then as kids started talking to each other. >> the walkout started with high

school students and then we got students out of the junior high school and then students from the elementary schools. >> they tried really hard to kind of demoralize us. i remember helicopters flying kind of low becse i remember the noise. their favorite word to use, and it sounds really bad, it was "dirty mexicans." one of the ladies came out and through soap bars at us. and i remember the guns. theyad guns. at one point, i saw a gun pointed at us and that was very scary. i think we all were scared. >> the school district wa forwarding names from students were in the walkout to the local draft board. i went down to the draft board office and we confronted the lady at the draft board. she looked at some listed -- i

told her, i'm no even 18. her last words were, "you just wait until you turned 18. i'm going to get you." so i left during the fifth week of the walkout. amy: after six weeks, the star of summer ended the walk at the uvalde schloard ignor the students demands. the protest sparked a decades long discrimination lawsuit against the schl district that led to a desegregation order. >> uvalde was known for the walkout and one of the biggest in american history. it was a positive thing. now i can imagine that people will say around the world, oh, yeah, that is where the shooting happened. but the effect will remain forever -- the fact will remain forever that we were known for the walkout. >> some people consider the walkout in uvalde to be

something that is a hurt and they don't nt to bring it up, but it is [speaking spanish] just like this massacre, it is a black mark, but people prefer to have -- version. matthew mcconnaughhay. [speaking spanish] amy: that report by the texas tribune. juan? juan: i would like to ask sewell chan what he decided to break this story or go back into history at this time terms of uvalde? honestly, there were walkout throughout south texas in those years, and a california in 1968. why you decided this was important to tell now? >> we felt it was very important

to talk about the aivism in this community. the fact that a half-century ago during the chicano movement, mexican american political movement, there was a surge of activism. i question has been, what has happened since then? this is an overwhelmingly working-class come hispanic community. amy pointed out earlier, heavily militarized, relatively close to the border. a lot of families have folks in law enforcement working homeland security or border patrol or even ice, which is one rean why self texas has become more politically contested. we felt it was important to connect that history of activism to the story of what is going on today where the power structure remains prettyverwhelmgly anglo. what happened in that moment a relative hope and relative political energy i half-century

ago. amy: sewell chan, thank you for being with us editor-in-chief of , the texas tribune. we want to talk to about san antonio, the 53 migrant deaths. we will post it online at democracynow.org. [captioning made possible by democracy now!] ñcñcñcñcooooooo7ú oñoñoñoñoñoñoñ

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