← The Clay Travis and Buck Sexton Show
The Clay Travis and Buck Sexton Show
DC Crime Lies: Anna Giaritelli Exposes the Corruption Sweeping The City | Ep. 49
00:45:35
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Anna Ghirtelli
Ah, come on.
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Anna Ghirtelli
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- [02:44]
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- [03:46]
David Rutherford
Of the most profound problems that's taking place around the world is the assault on women. And this assault on women that's taking place is, is is completely preventable if certain municipalities, states or governments decide that they have a desire and a willingness to protect their female population. The problem is we're seeing politics in play to protect a certain class of people or certain group of people from having to face the reality of justice in order to amplify certain untruths about the conditions of their streets. Well, today I'm honored and privileged to welcome Anna Ghirtelli, who's a reporter with the D.C. examiner, who recently published an incredible piece about her own personal story with abuse and assault, as well as the ram of what's taking place within the negligence from the local municipalities in Washington, D.C. so without further ado, Anna, welcome to the show.
- [04:49]
Anna Ghirtelli
David, thank you so much for having me.
- [04:53]
David Rutherford
So if you could, could you just explain to our audience what the piece was about and what your intention was in telling this story?
- [05:03]
Anna Ghirtelli
Yeah, so it was my decision to come out and speak publicly as a sexual assault victim. Five years ago, I was assaulted in daylight in the street outside Union Station, which is a public transportation hub a couple blocks from the US Capitol. I'd been running to the post office when I was attacked randomly. And so this was my decision, in light of what President Trump was doing, to crack down on crime in D.C. he gave a speech two weeks ago, three weeks ago, that was very emotional for me to see as a victim and see someone for the first time taking crime in D.C. really seriously. And so I decided after that speech that this was the time for me to speak out. I've been writing a book for the last year, and the op ed explained that there's two things I experienced as a victim of crime in D.C. that I think need to be addressed by the administration. One, my attacker, who had a criminal record, was arrested several months after my attack. And then he went on to be released the following day, then arrested five additional. More times, additional times and released the following day after each arrest. So that was one issue. The other was, even though he ended up going to federal prison for what he did to me, he is not counted in D.C. police Department's crime stats. So you go online, you look at their public facing website under sex abuse, which is what he was charged with, because it was not a top tier sex crime. It was not a rape or attempted rape that we know of. It was, it is not counted in there. And so those two things I thought, how can you understand, you know, the scope of crime in D.C. if all victims, people, I mean, he went to federal prison, you know, this wasn't a slap on the wrist are not included in that. And so that's what led me to speak out and share what I've experienced, what others are experiencing as problems within the criminal justice system.
- [07:03]
David Rutherford
I commend you on your courage. There's nothing more difficult, one to expose yourself publicly in a way of the most traumatic events of your life. It's incredibly difficult to do that. Right. For a whole slew of reasons. Can you just describe a little bit of the frustration that you felt over the years watching, you know, the system fail you? Because my favorite part in the article, not my favorite, I'm sorry, I should. But, but, but the part that really, you know, just jumped out at me was that the dc, you know, justice system was so fixated on prosecuting January six offenders to the tune of what? And he was something. At one point, it was 1800 people that they didn't have time to prosecute, you know, and majority of those were misdemeanor offenses of, you know, entering a building or disrupting a government, whatever. But here you have a felony offense against you and they just, they couldn't do it. They couldn't get this guy off the street. And then the other one that was shocking to me is they actually told you we're doing it because our prison systems or our confinement systems are overcrowded. Can you just describe a little bit of that emotional battle you went through processing, the neglect that the Justice Department was supposed to give you?
- [08:40]
Anna Ghirtelli
Yeah, and I think part of the reason I didn't speak out for years was I didn't understand how bad what happened to me was not the physical crime, I grasped that, but the COVID up and the delay in justice and all these things. You just feel like you're not right in your mind after you've been through a trauma. And it's not the next day, it's not weeks, months. I mean, for me, it's taken years to really, I think, be over it in a very big way. But, but yeah, on the first thing. Will you remind me of the first one again?
- [09:16]
David Rutherford
Yeah, it was about the, the. Let's start with the fact that they told you that the, the, the jails were overcrowded. Let's start with that one.
- [09:24]
Anna Ghirtelli
So that, so after the attack that day, he got away. The police arrived. I told them what he did to me. They brought in the sex crime department, brought in detective and a dog, and they couldn't catch him, but they did get my clothes and were able to get his DNA off my clothes. And so they determined two months later, it takes a while to get DNA evidence back, that he was a match. They had his DNA in the system. So he'd previously been arrested in D.C. and so it was about a month after that they let me know we've arrested him. He lives pretty close to your apartment building on second Street Northeast, and he's homeless, he lives in a tunnel. And the judge decided to let him go the following day. And so, yeah, that was. Like I said, you're not in your right mind. This is, this is a couple of months after the attack. So this. I was, I had moved out of state at that point temporarily. I'd gone to see my parents. I was trying to work. So when people see like, oh, but you were working a little bit. I was drugged up. I was drugged absolutely trying to stay normal. Also going through a global Crisis that in D.C. felt, it felt a little apocalyptic. Of course, I mean, I had so many friends from church who wanted to come around me and help, but people in D.C. would not come outside and see you. So despite what I've been through. So anyway, so I left and it just, you know, Hearing what. What happened with him being released, it just was like, well, I'm not going back to D.C. tomorrow or next week. They're not holding him. So it was just like, I'll stay here for a few months out of state, and then when I get strong enough, go back to D.C. and face that.
- [11:17]
David Rutherford
Can you. In the story, you talk about a construction worker that came to your aid. Can you talk a little bit about that guy and that experience and the effect? Are you still in contact with him? Are you just talk a little bit about him?
- [11:37]
Anna Ghirtelli
Yeah. So I actually haven't talked to him since the day after the attack. His name was Donnie. And during the attack, I was screaming at the top of my lungs. The man who attacked me was also screaming at the top of his lungs. I don't know why he was screaming. They're trying to kill me. So I think between the two of us, obviously, we got a lot of attention. People ran over and did respond. It took a little bit of time to sort of figure out what's happening here. But one of the first people who arrived was a construction worker. And the day after the attack, this attack happened a block from where I lived. The day after the attack, I walked that block to the construction site across the street where Donnie had run from. And I asked, there was a man working here yesterday, holding a sign. He looked like this. He came over and helped me when I was being attacked, and they brought him over, and I got to thank him for that. And I know he was called before the grand jury to testify, but I didn't get to see him that day, a year and a half later. But, I mean, it was other people who saved me. And I think of the situations you see where people try to help someone else getting attacked in public and they get prosecuted. And all the time, I thank God that this man. I mean, I. I would assume because I'm a woman. Someone sees a woman being attacked, clobbered by this massive guy, they may not even have seen me because this guy was so big and just taking me down. But people came to help. And in this day and age, that might have been the difference between a worser crime or maybe death.
- [13:19]
David Rutherford
That's right.
- [13:20]
Anna Ghirtelli
Yeah.
- [13:22]
David Rutherford
I think I always. After spending 15 years of carrying a gun for a living and all the trauma from that, and then the ramifications of all those experiences, not only with me, but my friends and processing their trauma, it's really, really just this. You know, you always try and find those little pieces that. That can bring the humanity back to the experience. Right. That you're like, okay, there is some goodness in the world and there is some people out there that do possess that. What is it, that righteousness to persevere in those. Those extreme situations. Unfortunately, the. You know, the. I mean, so many of the. You hear just thousands of accounts in these big cities where people just walk by and they don't even react. So thank God for. For him and the other people that reacted for you.
- [14:14]
Anna Ghirtelli
Yeah.
- [14:16]
David Rutherford
You know, but the other problem, I think where then it really kind of got out of control is. Is, you know, do you. Who was the judge that made that call and what was their rationale? What did the DA tell you? What did the judge say? That, you know, that this is why we have to do this.
- [14:33]
Anna Ghirtelli
Yeah. So in D.C. it's an interesting process because we don't have district attorneys or DAs. We have. If it's felony, the feds are prosecuting it. So that was a really empowering thing to know that the U.S. attorney's office was going to bring my case. It really gave me such a good feeling and still does to know that they did this. But the judge. I've actually, through this entire process, never once stepped in the courtroom. The only time I appeared in court was virtually before the grand jury. And then I guess it's sentencing as well. I read a statement, and so I actually don't know who the judge was. It was letters that I was getting in the mail from the U.S. attorney's office letting you know he's been arrested again. And then the attorney might call me the day after and say the judge chose to release him. And so, yeah, a lot of people on X have asked, who was the judge? People. People want. People are angry.
- [15:35]
David Rutherford
And how can you not be with what we're seeing right now?
- [15:38]
Anna Ghirtelli
Yeah, yeah.
- [15:39]
David Rutherford
I mean, it is.
- [15:41]
Anna Ghirtelli
And I honestly, I don't know. I know the name of the assailant. My name has been protected through this whole process because I'm a sex abuse victim. And I'm grateful that the system protects me from, you know, just. Just having my name out there. So me coming out is. It's a very scary thing because I'm not naming the man who attacked me. I don't want to give him any more reason. This was a random attack. Right. It wasn't intentional because of my reporting or anything, but I don't want to give him any reason to hate me more. Right, right. And he could put the pieces together and figure it out, probably. Oh, this happened then. This is what happened after but yeah, so much of it, which is what makes it so hard going through it. You just feel like the scene system doesn't care about you. And I used to say to my father during this process, I bet this judge has a daughter and I bet he would not be doing this if I was his daughter.
- [16:41]
David Rutherford
100%.
- [16:42]
Anna Ghirtelli
You just can't. Yeah. And their explanation why they didn't hold him in jail was the jail. The D.C. jail was full. It was during COVID which in D.C. was years long, not like the rest of the country, which was like few months, maybe a year. It was years. And so they didn't want to overfill the jail. And so I felt like that was putting me and every other woman, even every other man on the street in danger. Because what I didn't find out till sentencing was that before he attacked me, he was at large for having attacked an off duty female police officer. And so they knew, and they responded that day to my attack. The police on scene, they knew. This matches the description. This is the same exact area he went after a woman in a sex crime. And so they knew this looked like the same guy. And yet those things apparently weren't enough. And he had a record already to be held in jail.
- [17:41]
David Rutherford
David Rutherford, my best friend. Welcome to the show, John. Thank you for having me. It's an honor to be here. What's up, team? I recently had the incredible honor of joining my best friend Sean Ryan on his show. And as a token of my appreciation for him and his audience, I want to do something special for you. For 30 years, I've been helping individuals and teams to discover how to utilize pain and suffering to propel their performance. From the World Series champions, the Boston Red Sox to elite operators, top entrepreneurs and business owners, I want to offer the first three foundational Frog logic courses that I've been developing for the past decade. Embrace fear, Forging self confidence, and team life. These courses come straight from the painful stories and lessons learned I talked about on Sean's podcast. And they also emerged from the thousands of people I've instructed. Normally These courses are $200 each, but until September 15th, you can get all three for just $200. That's three courses for the price of one. Please go to davidrutherford.com or click the link in the description to get the bundle. Thank you very much, Ouya and Godspeed.
- [18:58]
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- [24:02]
David Rutherford
Did you ever have the opportunity to question the prosecutors to get answers from them? Well, why is this happening? How often has this Happened. You know, how many of these predators are released on a day? Like, did you ever? Because I know you are a very talented journalist as well, too. So after managing your own vulnerability and your trauma and that experience and then feeling like you could be hunted from that, I mean, just processing that alone is so significant. People can't fathom it unless you've been through it. Right. But on the other side, you know, you do have access to federal prosecutors who are carrying. Did you ever get the opportunity to inquiry on deeper level of what actually is going on and why?
- [24:50]
Anna Ghirtelli
You know, my conversations with the U.S. attorney, I had two that represented me, one for the first six months, and then they switched out. I had a different one. They said that January 6, they said that had no impact on my case. I put it in the op ed because I thought, we'll let people decide. But, you know, I never really thought that big. I think I was so focused on, I must be the only one. Why is this happening? You don't know that you're a tree for the forest. Right. You don't know that this is happening broadly and that so many people are being released. And, you know, I'd love to know. The only thing we really talked about along those lines was, yeah, we're frustrated too, or, you know, yeah, this. And sometimes I even felt. I can't pinpoint exactly why, but I felt like, would they even be bringing this case if I hadn't stayed on them and because of my work as a national reporter, I mean, this wasn't a rape. He got away that day. And so we don't have any proof that he had a weapon on him when. When he attacked me, although he was later arrested for carrying a machete near my apartment. So, you know, that would have been an additional charge. We don't know if this was going to be an attempted homicide, attempted rape. So those charges also are irrelevant. And, you know, you look at it and like you said at the beginning, it's, you weren't raped. It's just a sex crime. It's not, you know, the worst and in the world dies. It's, you know, you move on, you get over it. And I think sometimes even prosecutors and just the system can feel like, you know, people almost forget I was also assaulted. You know, this wasn't just a sexual assault. I was bound. I could not get away.
- [26:49]
David Rutherford
So. Yeah, well, and you could. You could actually prosecute for kidnapping. Yeah, once. Once you're bound, that opens the door for that whole, you know, resist a restraint against your will. That goes into a kidnapping charge. So, you know, with a person that's dedicated towards, you know, getting predators off the streets, you make that case work no matter what. Now, you know, you do have to say, all right, they did get a conviction, but after how long? How long? The total time from when it started to where he was incarcerated.
- [27:25]
Anna Ghirtelli
It started. The crime occurred in April 2020. And then we were supposed to start moving toward trial at the end of 2020, in the fall, early winter. And they called me up and said, the U.S. attorney's office, we've been delayed six months, and he's still at large. Their plan was to have police arrest him when we were getting ready to go to trial, because they felt like they could find him. They knew where he lived on the street, which didn't do much for me. So then they alert, yeah, they said, we've been delayed until after, like, six months. So into, like, the spring of 2021. We know what happened in early 2021. January 6th. The feds nationwide, but especially the District of Columbia, chose to prosecute. You know, I think probably had the most cases as far as prosecutions. And so they got delayed until the end of 2021. And finally, that third start time, they said, okay, we're moving forward. We're going to take him into custody. He's being arrested five times during this period. He exposed himself, his genitals to A staff member at the Supreme Court, was arrested. He violated the restraining order outside my apartment. And I applaud police for the officers on the ground actually arresting him, because that's like, the least thing they need to be concerned about is violating a restraining order. Right, right. But. But five times, including the machete and two other offenses. And so they let him out every time. And we finally, they arrested him late 2021 and said, we're moving to trial. I went to D.C. in December 2021, testified before. I was living in Texas by then. I left D.C. and I flew into D.C. to testify for the grand jury. And I got there, and I'm envisioning this, you know, SVU grand jury, you know, this real process. And they said, because you came in from out of state, we can't let you appear in the same room as the grand jury and the judge because it's a health risk. And so they put me in a room directly next to the grand jury, and I spoke into a camera and looked at a. Actually, there was no screen. I just spoke into the camera, so I didn't even see anybody. And testified as to what happened to me. And then that day I went and flew home back to Texas. So the whole process, I don't feel like I've been through a legal process. It was a bizarre. And he ended up in January 2022. They said, okay, we're going to go for a plea deal. This is the U.S. attorney's office. And I felt like I didn't have a choice in that matter.
- [30:05]
David Rutherford
Now.
- [30:05]
Anna Ghirtelli
That was my decision to make, but I felt heavily pressured, like you don't want to go to trial. It's going to be unpleasant, it's going to take longer. We're just going to get him to sign a plea deal if we can. And it'll be a little short sentence, but we'll get this done quicker. And in my head, you don't want to fight a U.S. attorney. You're like, I don't know, you're telling me you know the process. I don't know what I'm doing here. And so that's something that still bothers me because he ended up getting, he got sentenced in March 22. He was deemed competent and stable to go to prison. They do a whole testing before someone is officially sentenced. And he got about two, two and a half years. This is when I found out the day of sentencing for what he did to me, what he did to this off duty female police officer and then the five other crimes which were lowered down to misdemeanors. So everything bundled up together nicely and he's since been released from prison back onto the street in D.C. so I don't know if he's been arrested again. I don't know where he is. I told the U.S. attorney's office, Please don't contact me again. I'm done. And, and yet it's, that's where we're at today. But that's one of the reasons I can't, you know, I'm not going to live my life based on him. But at the same time, I don't feel safe in D.C. not just because of him, but all the other thousand, thousand ways that someone could hurt you. Yeah, you just, you know the system now. So, you know, well, someone hurts me, they might not hold him and he could live a block from me and it doesn't matter. So.
- [31:47]
David Rutherford
That's right. And that, that's what's taken place. Now the other facet of, of your phenomenal article was the reality of the statistics and the COVID up of those statistics. So can you talk a little bit about how they hid this within their crime statistics? Reporting, yeah.
- [32:08]
Anna Ghirtelli
So I went back to work several weeks after the attack. Again, like I said, you know, bound to just get back to regular life. And I'm a Homeland Security reporter. I cover the department. Typically, I'm covering border patrol, customs, and ice. During COVID we pivoted a little bit more to crime and civil unrest, those things, which made my recovery a little more difficult. You're looking at how society feels like it's falling apart, and you have no human contact every day, and you live six floors up and hear sirens every day. So in May or June of 2020, shortly after the attack, I had. Actually, the backstory is I had moved from upper Georgetown in dc, Great safe area, to next to Union Station. It was better for work. And before I moved, I looked at DC's crime map. Because I'm used to working with the feds. I knew that the data would be there. And I based my move on. They used to have pins on the map for different crimes and said, okay, this apartment building is better than this one, two blocks away, than this one over here by Whole Foods, or this. And, like, chose this building because it was one of the best locations, just in a few blocks. And so I went back after the attack, and I was doing a story on a violent crime in D.C. had gone up that includes burglaries, robberies, homicides, assaults, sex abuse, carjackings, all that stuff. Carjackings? Yeah. And I'm looking at the map, and I thought, oh, I'm going to look at where the pin is for my attack, because they show just the month of April, 2020. And I zoomed in on that area. It was 2nd Street Northeast and between, like, F and G, and there's no pin. And I was like, oh, they didn't put the pen up yet. What's wrong with these people? You know? So I look at my home address across the street. Nothing there. I thought maybe they put it with my old home address in Georgetown. I'm looking over there. Nothing. I'm looking at all my previous addresses because, you know, in dc, you move around a little bit. And so I'm looking at my work address. Then I think in dc, there's four of them, pretty much every address, because there's four quadrants. So I'm checking the other quadrants. There's nothing. And I reached out to the police, and I asked them, I'm a victim, but I'm also a reporter. I'm writing a story, and I'm curious why my assault isn't on here. And they responded to me and said, we're only putting first degree crimes, first degree felonies on the map. And that set a tone for the next few years where I felt like what happened to me wasn't significant. Even though it brought me so much grief and changed my life. It was confusing to me why we were moving forward with pressing charges if this wasn't even going to be a pin on a map to say this happened. Really invalidating. And in a victim's recovery, I mean, the one thing you want to have is, is the police on your side acknowledgement.
- [35:16]
David Rutherford
Yeah, that's right. That, yes, you, your rights were violated. You were violated. We acknowledge that. And you know, and you know, we're sorry that it happened. You know, you know, that's, that's the, that's even the hardest one.
- [35:30]
Anna Ghirtelli
Right.
- [35:30]
David Rutherford
Because they're, they're so desensitized by the magnitude of how crime has taken over, you know, their city streets. And then, you know, the, the next nefarious nature of this is what are they getting told in their briefs every morning? Yeah, right. Oh, only respond to this, don't respond to this. I mean, there are certain areas in the country where they've flat out, Chicago, Memphis, other, Houston, we are not going to respond to your crime. Like you're going to get, your car's going to get broken into, your house, your home, you're going to have a break in. We're not coming to those crime because we have so many other crimes that we have to address. What's up, team? I've been writing for over 40 years. Finally, I've decided to bring to life a character that has been on my heart since my experiences of carrying a gun for a living. If you recently watched my episode with my best friend on his show, the Sean Ryan show, you heard some of my real world experiences that shaped this character and the story of the Poet Warrior. Can a poet's soul survive the crucible of war? The Poet Warrior follows Adam Ferguson, a reclusive teenage artist haunted by his father's early death as he transforms into a battle scarred Navy Seal. Through the chaos of combat in the shadow of 9 11, Adam grapples with the raw truth of mortality. His journey is a searing odyssey, that of heartbreak, failure, and the relentless search for identity amidst the ruins of lost loved ones. Set against the turbulent dawn of the global war on terror, this is a story of a young man torn between his poetic heart and the hardened warrior he's become. If this sounds like a story that might pull you in, please visit my website@davidrutherford.com or click the link in the description below and if you pre order now, your signed copy will be delivered before the holidays. Thank you very much and Godspeed.
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- [39:38]
Anna Ghirtelli
Happy.
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- [42:39]
David Rutherford
And, and you know, when, when you get to that place in society, what we have a couple options, right? You either, you know, you know, you say, all right, enough is enough. You ramp up your, your police recruitment, you give them, you know, greater breadth of, of, of what to be able to wrap them up for arrest, right? A broader spectrum. And then you, you guarantee, hey, we're going to prosecute these people, we're going to put them away. But the opposite was happening. It's almost like there is something somewhere, someone has come in and said, no, we're not going to do this. We're not going to prosecute crime. It's, you know, we're violating their lights, their rights. And that's what I think the majority of people like, very. Not a majority, but a profound amount of people in America are feeling, is that the criminals are the ones who are being taken care of. Is that what you felt when you're, as you further go into investigating crimes?
- [43:41]
Anna Ghirtelli
Yeah, that's exactly what I felt. And the month after my attack was when George Floyd's death occurred. And that spurred riots, you know, in different cities, including D.C. in particular. That lasted a while. And so I'm then living through, you know, defund the police. And I'm like, I, I didn't have like a conscious reaction to it. It's almost looking back, you're thinking, well, that was confusing to live through. And I didn't come out, I didn't come out with my story. I came out a couple years ago on Twitter. Actually, it was a year ago on Twitter. And I just said, today marks four years since I was attacked. No one knows this happened. I'm going to write a book. That was it. And this, you know, this couple weeks ago is really the first time I've said, hey, I'm going to talk about more about this. But, but last, when I was writing this op ed, I contacted D.C. police again and said, are you showing all degrees of all felonies on your website on this crime page? It's also now it's called Crime Cards page. So they renamed it. And I noticed when I looked at it, they don't show pins anymore. They have like squares over certain, you know, a couple blocks within each square. And they're color coded to show the crime. Crime level there. And they said, we've been back and forth, and I could not get a straight answer. So I said, fine, let's just talk about sex abuse. There used to be 4 degrees of sex abuse you could be charged with in D.C. are those all in the, in the, listed here? And they said, what's listed is first degree for rape and then certain second degree, which is attempted rape. And, you know, to this day, I don't know where my crime was going. I don't know if the detectives didn't get an answer from the guy who assaulted me when they arrested him three months later or, or what. But for me, it means it's not going to be on the crime map. And it makes me wonder how many other victims have no idea they're not included in those stats. And just think, you know, it's a weird thing that matters to you. It matters for how we as society view crime. Like, I want an honest look of how safe the city is, right. Where crimes occur, but also as a victim. We already spoke about this, but it says you mattered. What happened to you mattered, because why should the attorney's office prosecute it? And it's not on a. Yeah.
- [46:21]
David Rutherford
So I, I, I am completely convinced that this is, you know, part of a, of a much larger focused effort to, you know, reduce the necessity to target a specific area where crime originates. Right. And I think, you know, once you look at a crime map of a particular city and, you know, I've had friends at the Bureau, friends at the Agency, I worked at the agencies, I know how you target areas and why and how you identify criminal rings and criminal enterprises. I got all that. But it's like they know where this stuff is taking place because the beat cop on the street is filing a report every single day. That report goes up to whoever that watch commander is, and then that watch commander puts it into the system, but they're not making it into the system, and there's a reason for that. And I think what we're seeing from this backlash of Trump finally federalizing the protection of citizens in D.C. i mean, the perfect example in my mind is that DC Went the first time, and I'm not quite sure. Maybe you could help me with how long that they didn't have a homicide in a week in D.C. i think.
- [47:38]
Anna Ghirtelli
It was like 12 or 13 days.
- [47:41]
David Rutherford
So think about that. Think. I mean, that's, that's an insane reality to the state of things. And then you look at, you look at, you know, for me, the one I was in Philadelphia Crime statistics last spring, I think it was, I looked at and there was, I don't know, it was something like 1800 carjackings. Right. And the average age of the carjacker was 13 to 15 years old. And we saw the one in D.C. the two girls carjacked the car and then ended up, you know, dying from the carjack or killed the guy.
- [48:14]
Anna Ghirtelli
And then that happened a block from where I moved to after this attack in dc.
- [48:19]
David Rutherford
Oh my God.
- [48:20]
Anna Ghirtelli
And the Uber driver was killed. It was.
- [48:23]
David Rutherford
That's right.
- [48:24]
Anna Ghirtelli
Yeah. It was so close. It was right outside NAT Stadium and it was like, you just can't get away from crazy stuff always happening. Yeah, well.
- [48:34]
David Rutherford
Well, that's the reality, I think when you look at the social fabric, I think of the country has shifted profoundly. And it's shifted because people feel unsafe and they feel unsafe from the magnitude, I think, of corruption that our government has displayed over the last X amount. I mean, depending upon where you like to originate the corruption level, whether it's John F. Kennedy's assassination or it's even in the modern era of the Iraq war and afterwards, whether, you know, it's corruption at a federal level, it's a state level, whatever, it seems like it's out of control. And the thing that is automatically affected by those levels of corruption is, is, is the civilian population because crime just goes unchecked in those moments. And, you know, I think it's, it's. This is indicative of a much larger thing that's going on around the world. I mean, if you look at the sexual assault statistics, rape statistics over in Europe, I just read a post on X that showed, you know, what was like five years, 19, 20, 19. It was something like, you know, I think almost 8,000 rapes in England and then it's like 68,000 sexual assaults now, or it's some astronomical advancement. And the reality is it seems like governments and municipalities are pulling back on the protection of its citizens. Do you feel the same thing as you, obviously, with your, you know, your level of your investigated mind, you're try. I would imagine you're trying to discover is this a construct of, you know, the degradation of our civil society? Is it a degradation of, you know, policing or what is it? So what are your thoughts on why is crime going unchecked as a whole, in particular against women?
- [50:35]
Anna Ghirtelli
Yeah, at the top of my head, I think it's twofold. I think women just still aren't. And maybe some of it's unconscious bias just aren't seen as enough as ex Crime. I'm trying to think of myself as a man in my head who it thinks, well, she probably enjoyed was terrible. You know, like, I'm trying to think because I. Because I don't know. I mean, like, I don't know when I was screaming, no, don't touch me. It means, don't touch me anywhere. So I think part of it is just women just aren't viewed the same as men. And the sex crime is like a bizarre. It's almost unfortunate. We have to say it's a sex crime. It's an assault, period.
- [51:29]
David Rutherford
That's right.
- [51:29]
Anna Ghirtelli
It's an assault on a certain part of your body in a certain way, but you're being assaulted. And that was part of coming out. I was deciding whether to say sexual assault or assault because I've seen the comments on X, what people say I shouldn't. Shouldn't have been wearing or doing. I was in sweats with my hair in a bun, so I couldn't have looked worse that day. But I was targeted. And I think women and children are always going to be at the lower end, unfortunately, of the totem pole. I work on the border. I've been to the border on 60 occasions, particularly during the Biden administration, when people were just flooding across. And what you can't know looking at someone coming across is, is this person being trafficked against their will. And so many people who pay to be smuggled are. They're under the impression, okay, I don't have this money, but I'll give you some of it. And then when I get to the final destination, I'll send you money every month. They never make it to their aunt in Chicago. They get taken to New Orleans and they're working in God only knows what type of work. It could be a restaurant, a bodega, which that's the best case circumstance, or it could be sex work or forced labor in another way, and they pay off that debt and then some and pay for all their living expenses. They don't go to the police because you don't. You're coming from a country that has terrible relations with police, typically. And so, you know, even that. I think the right is very concerned about that, certainly more than the left is. And it's almost like it hasn't made it mainstream. We know rape is bad. We know women shouldn't be victims of these crimes. But, you know, it's like we almost accept it as well. It's always going to happen, you know, because there's a power dynamic, you know, as far as why it's happening more so in the world. It, it's, it's hard to, to put the nail, nail on the head and say why? And.
- [53:45]
David Rutherford
Well, I think a component of his cultural. I think there's, there's an aspect, yeah.
- [53:51]
Anna Ghirtelli
And we're seeing migration right now. And I want to be really careful, right, because we're not saying people from somewhere or somewhere are, are, are inherently bad or targeting women because of that. But when you look at cultures, some have no value for women or only see women valued in a certain way. So inevitably, if a lot of people from one culture are going into a culture that doesn't see women in that way and respects women, and you're going to have big changes like that and massive. And you can't change. It's not like you can pass a law and say, no, we don't treat, we already have a law. We don't treat women like this. Or this is something we don't do. You know, so many of the people that ICE is targeting within the country and arresting, I see it every single day, are legitimate pedophiles and people accused of sex, convicted of sex crimes. I mean, overwhelmingly, I see so many targeting of people under 18, 12, 13, even younger. It's not the exception, it's the norm. And so that makes me think, what about it? Typically from certain countries in Latin America, why does it seem like this is a very popular crime we're seeing in the US And I don't know the answer to that question. Maybe it's just that they think they can get away with it because they're younger or women have less inherent value and are, you know, in certain cultures in Latin America.
- [55:27]
David Rutherford
But, you know, I agree on all those assets. I think they're all relevant questions to ask because there's relevant data that supports it. Right. And if we could get the appropriate data, the real data. Right. With not only the specificity of every level of salt where it took place, but, but who committed the crime. And, you know, I think the overwhelming majority is repeat offenders that have had a life of crime and in particular, sexual assault or assault or pedophilic criminals.
- [56:03]
Anna Ghirtelli
Right.
- [56:04]
David Rutherford
And I think, you know, those people, you're right. There's this idea that, you know, how do we protect when there's so many going on right now there, I think you have, you know, the cop on the street is inundated with so much crime and then being told, well, that's not a real crime, this is a real crime. We can only handle this or we only want to do. So everybody's confused across the whole level. Like, all right, well, this is something. This is a fat women in the protection of women and children should be a cornerstone for what American justice looks like. I mean, and that. That's. You would hope, but. But inevitably, what. It just continues and continues and continues. So I just thank you for your courage of being able to come out and share this, but also the work you're doing with investigating this and telling the truth of the crime and where it's at and what's going on. I hope with the recent, you know, effort to, you know, federalize a lot of these very dangerous cities around the country, you. You might give some semblance of, like, maybe it's changing a little bit and get some hope going in you. Because otherwise, I. I know it just might be so difficult. I mean, I. As I said when we. Before we came on, you know, I have four teenage daughters. The scariest thing that I possibly could feel is, is them leaving my house and my protection. And even where I live in South Florid, my oldest says, I want to go down to Miami, which is one of the top human trafficking hubs of the world. And I'm like, who you going with? Are you. You know, she's not old enough to carry a concealed weapon yet, so it's like, well, how do we get her there? Here, Do I give you mace? Do I. Here's a blade. Here's how you strike a blade. Here's how, you know, here. You know, but again, she's a child. And so being able to, you know, live with that level of situational awareness and also try and be a child and have fun, man, it's like you're caught in this conundrum of this social degradation that continues to happen. So thank you so much. Anna, where can people follow your work? When's the book gonna come out, you think? And just how can people just really start paying attention, getting behind what you're doing?
- [58:31]
Anna Ghirtelli
Yeah, I'm talking with several publishers right now. Since this story went viral on X, it's been fortunately brought a lot of attention and people want to share that story. So we're TBD on when that's going to come out. It could be a few months to a year. And the best way to find me is on X and on Instagram, it's Anna Underscore Giratelli.
- [58:54]
David Rutherford
Anna, once again, just thank you so much for your courage. I'm sorry this happened to you, man. If I had been there that day, that dude would not have been going to jail. I promise you that. But I just, I hope you keep, you know, inspiring not only women, but everybody and bring awareness to what's going on.
- [59:14]
Anna Ghirtelli
Thank you so much, David, for having me on and for amplifying the story and this issue.
- [59:20]
David Rutherford
You're welcome. Thank you. God bless you kid.
- [59:26]
Anna Ghirtelli
Ah, come on.
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Whoa, this thing moves.
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David Rutherford
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Anna Ghirtelli
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Anna Ghirtelli
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