Robert Evans (2:42)

Welcome back to It Could Happen Here, a podcast where Robert Evans is slightly adjusting the levels on his microphone. Because I am in New Orleans traveling and with my friend and city resident and former guest of the podcast, Carl Cassarda. Carl, welcome to the show.

Carl Cassarda (3:00)

Thank you for having me, Robert. It's great to be back. I mean, we've done a few episodes in the past on different podcasts and it's always, I don't want to say a treat, but it's good to work with you because some of the topics, of course, are pretty rough.

Robert Evans (3:10)

Yeah. And you and I have have talked, I think primarily in our previous episodes about both like digital security and then guns. Like, we've talked about people getting into shooting. We've talked about like kind of what's responsible and irresponsible when it comes to training and firearms advice. And today we're kind of starting by talking about guns in a different context, which is the fact that specifically they are often used as an excuse by law enforcement, like the fear of the fear or the reality of someone being armed as an excuse for killing them. Right. We can talk about the killing of Philando Castile in July of 2016. He was a black man who was stopped by the police and a legal licensed concealed carry holder and was shot during that traffic stop because the officer panicked. But the case that's right now on people's minds is the case of Alex Preddy, who was killed by Border Patrol earlier this year, was wearing a gun during a confrontation, but he was just filming. They stripped him of his weapon and they shot and executed him in a case that has actually drawn criticism from gun rights organizations towards the Trump administration, which doesn't happen often. But I think the kind of point you brought up when you and I started talking about this was that what happened to Preddy. You know, not only can you go back to other cases where law enforcement have shot people legally concealed carrying, as we talked about with Castile, but this is not a thing that is the result of the escalation of the Trump administration's Use of Border Patrol and ice. This is a long standing behavior that Border Patrol agents have exercised and been exercising elsewhere for years. Like what happened to Preddy is novel because he was a white guy in the middle of Minneapolis, but it's not novel because Border Patrol shot and killed somebody and then justified it by saying he had a gun.

Carl Cassarda (4:52)

Yeah, it's Border Patrol and really by that extension of all law enforcement in the US because there's so many examples, it's almost hard to draw out just one or two. You can go for on forever for this. But there's some real prominent ones that make a lot of sense. In fact, even here in New Orleans right after Katrina, there were a family that were crossing a bridge, trying to just recover some water and supplies. And a bunch of law enforcement officers jumped into unmarked vehicles, ran over on a bridge, jumped out and with unauthorized guns, including AKs, unloaded on them. And it was called the Danziger Bridge shootings. I have a video on the channel about it. And this is where this gets relevant. They not only shot them, they chased them down from a moving vehicle and killed them in their back with a shotgun while he was running away. But they used the pretense of them being armed, even though they were not, by dropping drop guns and calling them ham sandwiches. So again, the pretext of there were guns, therefore we're allowed to kill them is just an example of that right there.

Robert Evans (5:43)

Yeah, and this is really interesting because first off, you get the gun rights people, or at least a chunk of the conservative gun rights people who will come out whenever someone actually is carrying a gun. But the fact that this happens so much more often where the police just kill someone and say because we thought they had a gun is also, I mean, it's a human rights issue, but it is a second Amendment issue. Right. You've got this weird dichotomy where on the right, the existence of the second. Because it's often said that, like, oh, the presence of a gun, even though you have the Second Amendment means the police can kill you. But the reality is that the existence of guns in the country means that the police have the ability to justify killing and Border Patrol has the ability to justify killing someone for no reason.

Carl Cassarda (6:24)

Which it really brings up a really interesting question because, I mean, the Second Amendment is literally the second amendment of the Bill of Rights, which is a right enshrined directly in the Constitution. It's the first is freedom of speech, and the second one is the right to carry and bear arms. And so if that is a Constitutional right, even in instances where you see, like Alex Brady, who is a legally licensed CCW holder, still can be killed with essentially no justice being delivered for their actions. Raises a very interesting question about how is a right a right when they can kill you for the presence of a gun, even when it's legally possessed and not even being used in a offensive manner, like, even if it's just on you or they think there's one there, suddenly they can kill you and nothing comes of it. And that's the case with so many instances. I got a few more here if you want. Like Daniel Shaver. This is one in Mesa. This is not Border Patrol, but it's still law enforcement. It has the precedent of the problem. 2016, he was a Texas exterminator. He was traveling through Arizona, and he was up in his hotel room, and someone on the street saw him, or thought they saw him messing with a firearm. Turned out it was, like, a pellet gun or something. He used to shoot rats. But they rolled up, they called him out of his room, and in the very horrific video of screaming at him and giving very inconsistent commands, along with another gun that was illegally modified, at least not authorized to be modified, where the dust cover on the R15 said, you're fucked on it, they unloaded on him while he was crawling on his hands and knees, begging for his life, literally begging for his life in the video. And again, really nothing came of it. In fact, the officer that shot him landed up getting back on the force just long enough to give him essentially a life pension for the trauma he received for killing the man. So the presence or the perceived presence of a firearm justified them killing him while he was crawling on his hands and knees.

Robert Evans (8:01)

Yeah, we've talked about the warrior cop ethos and guys like Colonel Grossman who have help to inculcate this idea in law enforcement that you are in, like, dire threat of immediate death every second of every day as, like, a sworn law enforcement officer. And thus you have to react like this, right? Like, you have to. You have to react immediately with lethal force the instant someone, like, reaches into a pocket or. I can tell you how many times at protests, I can remember one really clear time from 2020 where I was with a group of people. They were promising to arrest all of us, and I was kind of talking to the police officer, basically being like, look, per the mayor's most recent orders, like, we are allowed to be out here. Yeah. Anyway, it was a whole thing. But one of the protesters who was just kind of standing behind Me very nervous, like, reached into his pocket. I don't know what it was to get a phone. And all of the officers tensed up, and I had to be like, don't fucking go. Like, keep your hands visible, man. Like, we're standing in front of a bunch of. And you shouldn't have to do that. Right. Putting your hands in your pocket shouldn't be a justification for a man pulling a gun and blowing you away with the authority of the state behind him. But the reality of this situation is that, like, whenever I am talking to police officers, I keep my hands in front of me and fucking visible. Yeah.

Carl Cassarda (9:12)

It produced a situation in which regular American citizens, or we'll get into this, too, the Tohono O', Odham reservation members, Indian members, members of the tribe. You have to be, as a civilian, trained how to interact with these very dangerous people who have been given a ideology of, like, killology. You mentioned Lt. Col. Grossman, who actually never shot anyone himself, but was one of the seed crystals of this training mentality in which he espoused, don't be afraid to shoot. I don't think that's going to happen, is you might get sued. But don't worry about getting sued. It just gives you a little break and some time off the force until you get it cleared. He's on video saying this stuff. And that mentality so imbued into all of the law enforcement agencies now presents a problem where the legal right of having a firearm is, I'd say, very questionable, that it's a right when they have all authorization to kill you for the thought or presence of a gun. And it shouldn't be civilians, just regular people that have to be trained how to deal with these dangerous agents of the state, because they're the ones that are indoctrinated into this fear mindset when we're afraid, too, at this point, because they can kill you and nothing seems to come of it.

Robert Evans (10:13)

I think the thing when we were chatting about this kind of behind the scenes that you brought up that was really interesting to me to emphasize was the degree to which this is not a training problem. Right. This is not a lack of training. Training problem. You hear a lot on the kind of more moderate Democrat side of things about how, like, we need to be retraining these agents and that, like the murder of Renee Good, the murder of Alex Preddy, is the result of, like, bad training on behalf of Border Patrol. And it's kind of part of this whole rogue agency thing you get with Border Patrol and ICE that, like, because of the Trump administration and how they flooded it with bad recruits and how they're. They're not getting properly trained. That's why things have been so deadly. And when you look at the history of how Border Patrol has worked on things like the Tohonomoto Reservation, what you see is a whole bunch of cases that sound a lot like what happened to Renee Good and Alex Preddy. They're just not happening to white people in Minneapolis. Right. Yeah.

Carl Cassarda (11:05)

I think that's something that a lot of people who haven't had the experience of living near the border, because I also spend a lot of my life in Arizona, near Tucson, and therefore the Tohono O' Odham Reservation's right there, and therefore have some insight into the things that go on right there near the border. And this is not new. The. The thing that's new is that it's being extended across the country and now into internal spaces. But the policies and the way the Border Patrol and ICE have acted is by. By no means a new standard. For example, not only with firearms, but there are instances, at least two instances, if not more, in which there's verified video of Border Patrol agents intentionally swerving their vehicles to hit tribal members. Is. It's on footage, not only car footage, but footage of the cell phone being struck. One instance at least, they were killed. Another instance, they were hurt. And with that footage, even though it very clearly the car swerved to hit them, nothing came of it. So it's hard to not see that there's something going on here. I don't think this is a training. I don't think they're training them to run over people. But there's some cultural maliciousness that's imbued into some of this that's hard to ignore. Another example of that was in 2023. There was a ton of member Raymond Mattia. He was called for. Supposedly there was gunfire heard. And so Border Patrol shows up, and he's in front of his house, and he reached for his cell phone in his pocket, much like you just described. Again.

Robert Evans (12:20)

Wow.

Carl Cassarda (12:20)

There's a recurring theme here. And he was shot nine times, 38 rounds fired, killed. He had no gun on him. He was just a TO member, and therefore it didn't really make any press.

Robert Evans (12:31)

Again, you see, this is a qualified immunity problem. Right. And it does go back to that. And there's been some talk of, like, if you're going with the reforming ICE rather than the abolishing thing, which is, you know, certainly something a lot of Democrats talk about. Like, I have heard some discussion of like, well, maybe removing qualified immunity at least for border patrol and ice. And it's so much bigger of a problem than that. Like, I, I certainly, I will, I will accept any reductions in qualified immunity for law enforcement because that's where a lot of this starts. But even without that, if these go to court, if the officer in that specific shooting had gone to court for that specific shooting, I think there's a very good, if not overwhelmingly likely chance that he would have just been able to argue I was in fear of my life. Right? Everyone knows how dangerous police officers jobs are. Of course, you know, if you reach into a pocket around them, you're signing your own death warrant. And some of my problem with this is the degree to which Americans, and maybe this is starting to shift. But things are as bad as they are because for a very long time Americans were willing to go along with the idea that police officers lives were so dangerous and their jobs were so important that almost any violence they mete out is justified by the danger that they exist in. And I, I want to talk more about that with you. But first, here's some ads.

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Robert Evans (17:37)

And we're back. Carl, I'm going to hand back the mic to you and we're going to continue our discussion.

Carl Cassarda (17:41)

Well that's the challenge that I see with all these and these are just again a handful of examples of which there are so many you can't even enumerate them all. I mentioned the Danziger Bridge shootings in which two men were killed. And there was really no justice came for that. Although there was long trials and almost, almost someone got in trouble, but not really. They all eventually got out with very little justice. Daniel Shaver was killed in Mesa. That guy got pension. Philando Castile. Nothing really came of that. Paulo Reams, the guy hit by the Border Patrol suv, nothing came of that. Another example, while this was a protester, Tortuguita in 2023 protesting Cop City, was unloaded on in his tent where they said he had a firearm. Again, another similar example 14 times and was killed in the process. And there was a bunch of actual body cam footage that's never been released to the public. But at the same time, the autopsy of him showed that his hands were up in the position he was in when he got hit with those multiple 14 rounds. But we don't even get to see the body cam footage. And there was audio where the cops at least implied that one of the cops shot one of the other cops and that's what instigated the shooting.

Robert Evans (18:43)

It's the kind of thing that, like, we don't know what happened in the shooting of Tortuguita. Right? We simply don't know, in part because they haven't released a lot of the information. And right now the burden of proof is on Tortuguita in this case, or on people who think he was unjustly killed to prove that he didn't shoot the officer. As opposed to where I would argue the burden of proof should be, which is on the agents of the state who shot somebody. Right? Like if you were going to say this kid pulled a gun and fired on you, I want the proof and it's on you to give me the proof. And if you, the police, do not prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that you were in fear for your life and being attacked when you use deadly force, my assumption is going to be that you murdered a guy. And I think that's how everyone should feel. Right? Like that should be how we treat police violence in any society, not just the United States. I mean, if you're listening to this in the UK or Germany, and you're a reasonable person, I would think that your attitude should be yes, if a bobby, or whatever the Germans call their police kills somebody, he should have to prove that he or she should have to prove that they were in immediate fear of their life, which is not so different from anybody else. Right. I can think of. I can think of one police shooting that I saw a video of spreading on Twitter where like a guy was literally like sprinting around in traffic with a gun, like pointing it at people in traffic, and got shot and killed by an officer. And I was like, look, if I'd had a gun and felt like I could take the shot, I might have shot that guy too. Because he was carjacking people at gunpoint and pointing a firearm. And they're like, yeah, that's the case in which maybe you have to shoot a guy because like he could kill someone at any second. Right. And I'm not going to judge a police officer for shooting in that instance, but I wouldn't judge a civilian either. I don't have a different standard for them. If you are a cop or a civilian and somebody shoots at you, you have the right to defend yourself. Right. But you also should expect to prove that they were trying to hurt you.

Carl Cassarda (20:38)

This is the challenge I have with all this is like you said, in any instance, that's a self defense shooting. And in this, and in many instances, law enforcement are put in a situation where they're not necessarily even defending themselves, but defending the community or others, and therefore they have justification. I'm not here to say that every law enforcement shooting is not justified. Many of them are. But in the instances where there are questionable circumstances of which many we've just enumerated here, even instances in which they have body cams on which are supposed to be would validate their actions, but they won't release it to the public to see it, it draws a very significant question of the validity of these events and what they're doing and why they're. I would say no better way to say than covering something up. In fact, going back to Lt. Col. Grossman, there's video of him talking about law enforcement, which of course extends to ICE and border patrol as the samurai of the land. And you know, that reference isn't really a good one because when you know what the samurai are, that's a disturbing statement. But in his mind, he's making this point that they have these tools that are for life and death and the right to essentially kill and referring to them as samurai. And I think that mindset is sadly very much permeating the law enforcement agencies of this country.

Robert Evans (21:42)

Yeah, it's the myth of the warrior cop. And I think one of my frustrations here stems from just as someone like you, I carry a firearm regularly and I think a lot about what would happen if I had to use it. And I think about not just the practicality of like, okay, am I trained properly to use this thing? Competently, you know, but what would the order of operations need to be if somebody tries to kill me and I successfully kill or injure them with a firearm? Well, I'm going to need to call the police immediately. I'm going to need to contact a lawyer immediately. I'm going to hope that there are eyewitnesses there. I'm going to hope and seek to provide as much evidence that I possibly can that I had no other choice to do what I was going to do. Right. Any civilian carrying a firearm responsibly thinks about the same things about, like, if I am in a shooting, first off, there's the question if I need to defend myself, but then there is immediately the question if I need to defend myself in court. And police don't have that second part. Not really. Not in a way that matters.

Carl Cassarda (22:39)

And this, to me, is why the Alex Preddy situation, which was so visibly documented by multiple cameras, is such a concern. Because in this instance, we see two officers unload on the guy, one guy shoots him at least once or twice, and then another guy unloads on him again. And we have multiple video angles, yet the narrative from them is that this guy was attacking them, which is clearly not the case on the video. I mean, you can look at it from multiple angles whether or not you agree with his protest methods. He was not attacking anyone. He was standing between them getting pepper sprayed and being beaten with pepper spray can and then getting unloaded on. And at the same time, we now live in this situation where at least some parts of the firearms community or gun community, which isn't a community, owning a thing isn't a community, but we use that term gun community, like you said. Some of these rights groups have said something, but the response to this is still disturbing to me because there's a lot of people saying, well, don't show up to a protest with a gun. Don't be in public with a gun. You can't bring a gun. In fact, we saw parts of the Trump administration saying, don't show up with a gun. This man had a handgun and two magazines on him looking for trouble. Well, if he was, he didn't have the gun out. And by the way, carrying a handgun with an extra magazine is by no means abnormal. In fact, that's a normal procedure for most people, that concealed carry. If you and I were hanging out on the street and we decided that we got into a fight with some guy, you know, Sheila Booth comes out of the bar and starts swinging on us, and then. And then not Only did we punch him and knock him to the ground, you shoot him, and then I shoot him nine more times. And there's video evidence of that. We're going to jail forever. But we have footage of these guys doing this, and really nothing comes of it.

Robert Evans (24:10)

Part of, like, what I really want to get across to people is how bog standard this behavior is. The agents that shot Preddy were experienced veterans. They were not newbies, they were not proud boys who just gotten inducted into the force, you know, and tasked with doing vigilante justice. They were sworn law enforcement officers with decorated careers. And they were acting the way the average cop expects people to act in a lot of situations. Or at least, at least a significant chunk of the law enforcement community expects police officers to be able to act. Right? Like, I don't know that. I think most police officers are going to shoot a man who has been disarmed when he's in the middle of a pile of guys who have their hands on him. But most police officers will defend their colleagues who do the same, right? That's almost more of the issue. It's not that the average police officer is looking for an excuse to shoot somebody. It's that there's enough of those guys on the force and all of their friends support them when they do it. Right? And that doesn't exist on the civilian side of things. Right. I think about, like, in Portland, we had a mass shooting that was stopped by a protester who was then, like, gave himself up to the police and was taken into custody and was initially charged with murder. And if there was the knowledge as a police officer that if I shoot someone, whether or not it's totally justified, the next few months of my life are fucked completely. I'm not getting time off to chill. I am having to defend myself and have some of the worst stress of my life. Maybe we'd have fewer police shootings, right? If they knew it was going to be a miserable situation whenever they drew their gun and fired on somebody. And I think you have to have that be the understanding. And I know, like, the, the counterpoint that at least police defenders will come up with is like, well, that might make them less likely to defend themselves. And like, well, then why are you calling them heroes if you're not expecting them to risk their lives for the good of the body politics. Right? We'll talk more about this, but first, ads.

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Carl Cassarda (29:47)

What's really interesting about this, and I would think, I mean, I'm sure you have a really large amount of cops in the audience here. But. But here's the thing, really, everyone should be concerned about this. Even cops, even border patrol, even ice. Law enforcement in general should be concerned about this. Because as this activity becomes, frankly more common and more accepted in their ranks, that thin blue line being not one about solidarity but one of silence and lack of justice, that puts them at danger too. Because if a person or people are so afraid of the reality of the fact that they can be just executed in the street with no repercussions of it, it sort of gives civilians, well, it takes away our trust in the system. There's no due process. You can just die for nothing for having a cell phone in your pocket. It'll make some people more reckless in their actions when dealing with law enforcement. Because they're like, what do I have to lose? I'm going to die anyway.

Robert Evans (30:35)

It's the same logical problem as if you're like, well, armed robbery should have the same consequences as killing a guy. Or they should be very similar. Your life should be over either way. Well then what's the reason not to shoot someone and kill them in a robbery? Leaving them alive just increases the odds they identify you. If you're looking at the difference between 30 years in prison or 50 years in prison for robbery and murder, why not just commit the murder, right? Like it's this calculus that's being forced on people. If, you know, anytime the police take you into custody or start to move to put hands on you, you feel like there's a very good chance they're just going to murder you then people are going to start making very different choices when they're physically in contact with the police. And that makes life a lot more dangerous for everybody. And that's part of why this is. What we're seeing is just so fucking irresponsible.

Carl Cassarda (31:23)

And historically there's realities for this too. Depending on what part of the community or who you know, your demographic, if you want to go back to the past, whether or not you agree or disagree with, like the politics or actions of, for example, the Black Panthers, the reality is because black men were just shot by cops with no justice being delivered ever, they started taking on strategies and policies that reflected that fear and concern. But now that's being extended to people well beyond that. When we see middle class VA nurses with a license being killed the same way, well, this is what's been going on in those communities for decades and decades. Well before the Civil War, let's be realistic. And so I'm not saying that was right or wrong, but I'm saying it is a logical conclusion. When you fear that the agents of the state can kill you and there's no justice to ever be had, well, what do you have to lose?

Robert Evans (32:08)

When we were talking about this earlier, you brought up something the Attorney General of Arizona had said recently on the subject of ICE agents who are not identifiable as law enforcement coming to your door with guns.

Carl Cassarda (32:21)

I don't have the direct quote, but I'm paraphrasing here. But it was along the lines of if people are at your doors that are unidentified with masks in Arizona, the Castle doctrine essentially provides you the right to use force against them. And that is a very interesting statement to be made by someone as high in power of government of a state level at that point. But I mean, there's some truth to that. And the reality is when people aren't identifiable, it is very easy to show up. And I mean, we've already seen examples of people pretending to be ICE because it's very easy to put on some body armor, some camouflage and a mask and look like these guys that are not identifiable. And therefore, when that is the case, how do you know what's there? And what you're facing is even law enforcement in the first place.

Robert Evans (33:02)

Yeah, yeah. And this is, this is Chris Mays, Chris Witha Hay, who's a Democrat, and the Arizona Attorney General. And as you said, the way that it was framed in this conversation was basically, this is a disaster because if you have law enforcement agents that you can't identify, people absolutely have a right to just Start blasting in Arizona based on Castle Doctrine. And in fact, the interviewer in that, Brom Resnik asked, like, are you giving people permission to shoot federal agents? And Mays said, like the law does, right? Like, that's the issue. You know, how do you know if some guy's just in a mask at your door with a gun? How do you know? And the fact that you're expecting Americans, a jumpy country of paranoid conspiracy theorists with 400 million guns, to see masked men at their doors and show discretion, it seems like a bad bet to me.

Carl Cassarda (33:55)

You know, this comes back to the point I was making. I don't think the attorney General was there, like saying, just go shoot federal agents. I don't think that was the point. The point was simply what I mentioned earlier, which is when you can't identify or you don't know what is going on, or you're in a situation in which these people are not acting in a reasonable manner, you don't know what you're dealing with. It's the same thing I mentioned earlier, in which if you're that concerned or you don't believe that due process or justice is going to be served, your decision making logic might very well change. And like you said, in a country where many people are armed, I think this is something that every side of this issue should be concerned about, including the law enforcement agents, because they are at risk, too. As this continues, the risk to them increases, which will then be used to justify more force against civilians because it's a vicious circle.

Robert Evans (34:39)

Well, that's a fun note to end on, Carl. I want to direct people towards inrange tv. You mentioned that you have a video about one of the shootings that we talked about. So I want to let you kind of plug that at the end.

Carl Cassarda (34:49)

Yeah, thanks, Robert. I appreciate that a lot. So In Range TV is my video project. It's about 10 years old now. You can just find it at InRange TV, which is my website, or you can just Google InRange TV on YouTube and you'll find it immediately. The algorithm won't give it to you, but the search engines might. And the video that I'm referencing there, and there's a lot of them on there in regards to topics like this, historically speaking, but the specific one about Danziger Bridge is right there. So if you go to inrangetv and type in Danziger Bridge, D A, N, Z, I, N, G, R, you will find that 2005 shooting, which is just an example of so many of these that happened and I do have some discussions on there about recent events about Alex Brady and such as well. So Robert, thank you for having me back on the show. I always appreciate it and I appreciate our collaborations and hopefully somehow this stuff makes a difference.

Robert Evans (35:32)

Yeah, I hope so too. But at least I think it gives people something to like expect right? Like to look at. This is kind of the cycle we're going to continue to see unless they pull back, unless ICE and Border Patrol start using a great deal more discretion. Like I think we've given people an idea of like where the future is trending, you know, and I yeah, unfortunately I'm not super optimistic about it right now. But you know, tomorrow's unwritten It Could Happen Here is a production of Cool Zone Media. For more podcasts from Cool Zone Media,

Carl Cassarda (36:07)

Visit our website CoolZone Media or check

Robert Evans (36:10)

us out on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen to podcasts. You can now find sources for It Could Happen here listed directly in Episode Descriptions. Thanks for listening.

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